by Trevor Wyatt
“We’ve been attacked, sir,” he says.
“What?” I say. “By who? The Outers?”
The Minister of Defense glances around at the secret service agents and then at the open corridor.
“Go on, talk to me,” I say.
“Sir, this information is highly classified,” the Minister for Earth says. “It’s better we talk somewhere private.”
“Look, guys, whatever you want to tell me, you can tell me here,” I reply. “Who attacked us?”
The Minister of Defense heaves a deep sigh, a grim look casting a shadow on his face. “Sir, we now have irrefutable evidence that suggests that we are no longer alone in this galaxy. Unfortunately, we were attacked by aliens, sir.”
I can see the faces of the security agents change from passiveness to expressed fear. I am impressed with myself that I remain passive…at least I think so.
I refrain from speaking for a while. Two reasons. If I speak, I will betray my fear. Two, maybe if I don’t answer they’ll scream ‘April Fools!’ and then go bog someone else.
No one speaks.
The three Captains are all expressionless behind the Ministers. They probably already knew about the attack. Were they involved?
“Sir?” says the Minister of Defense.
“How sure are you of this?” I say, working through the lump in my throat.
The Minister of Defense motions for the only female among them, who is carrying a large screened tablet, to show me a video.
She approaches me and is stopped by the security agents.
“Let her through,” I say.
She comes to my side and raises her tablet for me to see.
“This log was sent by Captain Jeryl Montgomery after which contact was lost. It could be due to the distance that his ship was that we have yet to receive another transmission, but it was escalated as soon as we received it,” she says. Then she taps the play button and the dreadful clip begins to play before me. It’s a TUS named The Seeker. Then, there is another ship that’s many times larger than The Seeker. Seeing the vessel chills my heart, and I almost believe my heart has stopped beating.
The video switches to the CNC and then to the view screen, where I see a horrifying blue skinned creature sitting on what looks like another CNC. He’s visage is unfavorable and he or it looks enraged.
Terror stabs at my heart.
The video ends. The woman returns to her place beside the other two captains. I look up and look between the two Ministers’ faces.
“What happened?”
“We’ve prepared a full briefing, sir,” the Minister for Earth says, “I think we need to assemble the War Council for a joint briefing.”
I can feel my heart running out of my control again.
“I want everyone assembled within the hour,” I command.
The Minister of Defense and the three captains snap off a salute. The Minister for Earth, who is not a soldier, only gives me a curt nod. They all leave.
“Curtis,” I say, “Get ready. I’m leaving for the Terran Armada Headquarters in Vancouver.”
“Copy that, sir,” he says and begins to issue instructions via his comm. I return into my bedroom, which is dark and cool and pleasant. The door to the porch is open, cool breeze sweeping into the room and casing the diaphanous curtains to wrap and wriggle in the doorway.
I check on my wife. She’s fast asleep. I kiss her again.
I walk out into the porch, it’s a private porch and only accessible from my bedroom. Before me is a lowly-cut garden that spreads for a long area before it’s cut short by a forest. From this far, I can see Marines patrolling the forest with attack dogs and hovering sentinel drones.
I look up at the night sky. The moon is full and bright with vigor and power. There is a splatter of stars and around one of those stars are our enemy.
I heave a deep sigh. I am having a multiplicity of emotions. I can’t really tell which is which. I am happy that I am the president that gets to usher the human race into that consciousness that we know we are no longer alone in the galaxy.
But then I’m also afraid that I will be remembered as that president that led the Terran Union to war with aliens. More so, I am terrified that I may very well be the one who led to the extinction of the human trace.
There’s no way we can defeat that ship I saw The Seeker face. I wonder if Captain Montgomery made it back alive. I never got the chance to ask Josef.
I begin to feel a migraine headache develop in my frontal lobe. I knead my temples hoping it’ll abate. It doesn’t.
I look up to the skies and say, “Couldn’t you just wait one more year? One more year is all I have before I’m out of this office and then it’ll be someone else’s trouble?”
The skies remain silent, so I look away from it.
When I go back to my bedroom, a knock comes on my door. My wife stirs with a soft grunt.
I tiptoe quickly to the door to prevent Curtis from waking up my wife. I open the door and peer out into the lobby.
“Your car is ready, sir,” he says. “Also, I’ve been told that the War Council is already assembled.”
“Already?” I ask.
He nods grimly. I understand why. The thought that we may be staring down the barrel of an alien invasion of Terran Union—especially aliens with ships that outclass us and outsize us—is well able to pull out even the most groggy councilmen or Minister out of their sleep and get them to the Bowl in Vancouver.
“I’ll be with you in ten minutes,” I say and shut the door.
I change into a black three-piece suit. I grab my personal tablet from my bedside table. I am about to leave when I remember Sara. I go to her side of the bed and kiss her on the lips. She smiles, but doesn’t open her eyes. I stare at her calming smile for a moment. A flower of hope blossoms in my heat momentarily, before it is quashed by the impending problems of a First Contact gone wrong.
“I’m ready,” I say, shutting my bedroom door behind me. We are in the residential wing of the State House, which retains the shape and size of the White House of the United States of America, one of the principal founders of The Terran Union after the events that led to the Third World War.
Of course, the White House was destroyed and most of continental United States was leveled. And now…who knows what will happen to us?
I am led to the West exit, where a series of heavily armored, hovering aircars await me. Above in the air, several Marine craft armed to the teeth with lasers and missiles scan for trouble and await my lift off. There are also tens of black suited, black shaded agents getting into aircars as I get into mine.
I strap in, while Curtis gets into the front sit.
“Let’s go,” I say.
We lift off and after everyone gets into position, an activity that takes a few minutes, we begin the ten-minute journey to the Terran Armada Headquarters in Vancouver.
I wonder what awaits me there.
We land in the main concourse of the scale defying structure from where the entire instrument of war of the Terran Union is commanded. A small retinue of secret service agents comingled with Marines await the landing area. We land without incident. Curtis opens the door for me as I get down.
The agents all alight from their vehicles. I can smell the salty breeze from the river that traverses the side of the complex. I can even faintly hear the overlapping waves. I am tempted to turn to gaze at the calming sight of a stretch of water, but I don’t. For I know that it would not bring solace to my trouble heart.
I am led into the main entrance, where the Minister of Defense and the Minister for Earth both meet me. I acknowledge them with a nod.
“Everyone is waiting, sir,” the Minister of Defense says in a whisper. “The main entrance is jammed, sir. We’ll have to get you in through the secret escape.”
“Everyone turned up, eh?” I ask.
Josef doesn’t smile. He gives me a grim nod. He turns to lead us away from the main entrance along the side of the compl
ex to a secret door. There’s an armed soldier there, who opens the door for us to go through. We come into a narrow corridor, whose walls are made with polished wood. The corridor descends about three floors into the earth.
There’s a soft incandesce in the corridor, which gets brighter as we get to the other end.
There’s an open doorway that leads into the Bowl.
The Bowl is a small coliseum built underneath the Terran Armada Complex. It was used by the leaders of the Terran Union throughout the Schism, the ultimate war between the old generation and the new generation, when some of the new generation humans felt there was no need to send relief materials to rebuild earth.
They sought independence, we refused. We went to war and they succeeded in taking more than a hundred worlds from the Terran Union. We now call them the Outer Colonies—the pariahs of the human vision, traitors to the cause of Earth.
As I walk into the brightly lit subterranean coliseum, silence descends upon the gathering. The door opens at the top, so I have to walk past a lot of the members of the council down to my seat at the front.
At the small center is a raised dais and a lectern. It’s empty at the moment. However, when the presentations begin the stage would be used by the presenter.
I take my seat, my agents spreading out through the gathering. I look around the coliseum at the faces all staring at me. I look among their ranks up to the last topmost level. They are all looking at me, wondering about the decision I will make.
I am sitting directly facing the lectern. This is how the coliseum is designed. Since I’m the one making the decision at the end of the day, the most important person here is me. Half of the Admirals are present, while the others are present via slipstream. Their holographic projections occupy physical sots in the coliseum.
Roughly three fourths of the members of the Terran Council are present. Many Corporate Council members are also present, especially members of the different committees that have to do with war, the Armada and galactic security. A lot of senior captains in the Armada are also present, some of whom are present via slipstream.
I look around for the Captain Montgomery and find his holo-projection all the way at the back. He’s observing me with keen interest.
He will forever be remembered as the man who made first contact. If I screw this up, I will be remembered as the man who destroyed the Terran Union because I’ve already concluded in my mind that we can’t fight them.
The Speaker of the Terran Council is also around. He’s a short Asian man with a fierce look and does not particularly have love for me and my policies. He and I are always at odds and never see eye to eye on any issue. He’s making a move for the Presidency next year and so has been putting all his effort into undermining my presidency and trying to prevent me from going for a second term.
I nod at him and he nods back, looking at me briefly over the thickly rimmed glasses that sits on the bridge of his nose. He’s several yards to my right on the front row as well—only his chair is not as magnificent and prominent as mine, even though he’s chair is more prominent that the others in the room.
“Let us begin,” I say. The computer in the room automatically amplifies my voice so everyone can hear me.
Josef Ivanovich is completely dressed in his full military regalia, so is every commissioned officer in the room. He mounts the lectern with a tablet.
“Less than three hours ago,” he starts, “Captain Jeryl Montgomery and the crew of The Seeker were on a fact finding mission to discover what had gone wrong with a science vessel The Mariner, which the Armada had dispatched to the Beta Hydra III quadrant of space a few light years away from the Edoris Space Station.
“Instead, they found this,” he ends, then presses a button on his tablet.
The clip lasts a full thirty minutes and spans the entire duration of the contact, right from when the ship sees the alien vessel through when they decode their language through a series of mathematical hullabaloo till when they are able to hail them and speak.
I can see the reaction of the people around when they first saw the massive ship and how The Seeker, which I’m told is one of the exploratory frigates in the Armada, is tiny compared to the alien vessel. I can also see the fear that sweeps through the room when the blue-skinned, slit-eyed monster appears on the screen.
Monster may be too harsh of a word, but I can’t help making comparisons to the creatures that appeared in my dreams. Maybe God is trying to warn me of these aliens by showing me that dream.
The exchange is very incendiary and ends with a brash threat to us. Captain Jeryl makes a wise decision to leave the system, but then the question still remains. Did these guys destroy our ship, The Mariner? The evidence is overwhelming that they did. If they did, then they have to pay for it. They have to be punished.
However, from the defiance in the eyes of Ghosal, that alien ship captain or legate or whatever rank he held suggested that they didn’t think it anything to brazenly open fire on a Terran Union Ship and reduce it to a pile of debris.
“Captain Montgomery?” Admiral Josef calls.
Captain Jeryl’s holographic projection flickers, vanishes, and then appears on the lectern. He’s talking the moment he is on the stage, the computer amplifying his voice in the room.
“They call themselves the Sonali,” he says. “They are brash, proud and heavily armed. They are also well advanced…more advanced than we are. However, from the evidence and their threats, I believe they are responsible for the destruction of The Mariner. I think they need to admit this and make reparations. Or at least, explain to us why they did it. Whatever the case, we need to respond to this strongly and not show weakness.”
Before I speak, the room erupts into arguments. I allow the argument go on to at least know the different sides of the issue. Many of the Council members are suing for a diplomatic solution, while virtually all the Admirals and Ministers—the executive staff—are suing for a military approach.
I notice that the Speaker is quiet as well. In my periphery vision, I can see he’s watching me.
“What are our options?” I ask, immediately causing the entire room to fall into silence. “Captain?”
I know I should ask the Admirals. However, at times like this I want to talk with the man on the scene, the one who faced off the alien so brilliantly.
“Sir, these Sonali probably gunned down a vessel with more than twenty Terran Armada officers,” Jeryl says, his voice thick with anger. “We cannot allow that to go unpunished. If we do, we are telling this race that we’re weak. What if they don’t stop there?”
I’m quiet as he continues. “The Mariner had no offensive capabilities. By destroying a harmless exploratory ship, they have demonstrated a capacity for unprovoked cruelty. If we don’t put our foot down on this and do so with force, then we will be inviting by inaction a subjugation that will spread through our space.”
“I disagree!” shouts a Councilwoman. “These are just mere assumptions. Perhaps if you had been less brash, the alien would have invited you to their home world for a diplomatic parlay.”
And the argument starts again.
Jeryl Montgomery remains silent, watching me. I am looking right back at him.
“Order,” the Speaker says. The room slowly comes to a silence.
“Mr. President,” the Speaker says. “It will be a brash decision to send our military forces to the Sonali people demanding for reparations for a crime we are not sure they committed.
“We have to be smart about this. The Sonali aliens have advanced weaponry…”
“We don’t know that for a fact,” the Minister of Defense interjects.
The Speaker waves his comment away, saying, “They have larger ships. We are forgetting that this is a historic moment for the human history. Let us not forget that we have just learned that we are not alone in the universe. Don’t let the destruction of one ship taint our image of a species we are yet to understand…”
I zone out of th
e Speaker’s pacifist speech. Anger burns on the faces of the some, including on that of the Commander of the Edoris Space Station, Admiral Flynn.
After the Speaker’s speech and suggestion to send a diplomatic envoy to the Sonali to negotiate with them, the arguments begin again. This time it’s heated as tension, anger and fear spread across the room.
“Silence!” I yell finally.
The room goes quiet.
“Admiral Flynn,” I say, calling the man’s attention to me. He’s on the second row of chairs on the opposite side of the room where most of the Admirals are seated.
“Yes, sir,” he says, rising to his feet.
“You are the one in command of that region of space,” I say. “It was you who sanctioned The Mariner’s exploration. It was you who sent The Seeker. What do you recommend?”
Admiral Flynn thinks about my question for a full minute. Then he says, “I agree with Captain Montgomery that we cannot sit idly by and let our ships be destroyed without provocation by this alien force, neither can we sit down and do nothing about The Mariner’s destruction. We owe it to the officers of The Mariner to avenge their deaths.
“I also agree with the Council Chairman that we cannot rush into Sonali space guns blazing. We have still yet to understand them. Perhaps, until they admit to killing The Mariner, we really don’t know.”
“So, what are you saying?” I ask.
“I suggest we meet halfway,” he says. “I suggest we send more ships to the nebula to gather more intel. I suggest we go well prepared to fight, but also with the mission of opening a dialog with the Sonali. I suggest we go with a retinue of diplomats, so if we are asked to come to their home world for talks, we will be ready.”
There is a silence.
I think about it, poking holes at it from all angles. It stands my mental appraisal.
“How long can your fastest ships get there?”
“The Maverick, The Aurora and The Celestia are all ready to go sir,” he replies. “I can move eleven more ships to accompany then. All we need is a detachment of diplomats from New Washington. We can have a full flotilla of 14 starships ready in three days, sir.”