Humble Beginnings

by KA Hopkins

  Mother proceeded to give Marc a more detailed synopsis on the various alien races I had mentioned in his kitchen; and how many of the Earth’s Global Elite had bought into their message of, “We come in peace and are here to help you on your journey to become galactic citizens,” believing they were helping mankind advance, all the while becoming exorbitantly wealthy on alien technology, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives lost to alien experimentation.

  As I listened to Mother’s overview, it occurred to me that the Global Elite were ignoring Earth’s history. Many times in Earth’s past, when primitive and modern cultures first encountered each other, it did not work out well for either side. Modern cultures often took advantage of primitive ones, trading trinkets for land and precious metals. At the same time they carried with them diseases to which the native people had no immunity. But it was a two way street; some tribes native to New Guinea practiced cannibalism and thought the white devils invading their land should be killed in horrible ways, the more painful the better, to ensure their evil spirits never returned.

  Marc was not overwhelmed by any of this; he kept a small grin on his face as he listened to what Mother had to say. He had no illusions about the depths mankind would sink to in pursuit of wealth. War after all is primarily concerned with economics or power. While many people might believe religion is the biggest cause of human conflict, it’s simpler than that: man’s overwhelming need for resources has always been the driving force behind bloody conquest. It’s not a question of if there will be a clash between aliens and mankind, just a matter of when. A fight between mankind and aliens is assured when humans try to take what they feel is their rightful place among the stars and aliens object to letting humans into their neighborhood.

  Marc asked Mother to describe the alien weapons on board. Mother explained, “Scout ships of this class don’t have much offensive capability due to energy generation constraints. The few weapons onboard are optimized for defense. In terms of capability, I have short range missiles, limited to 10,000 miles; particle beam generators above and below the hull that can punch a hole three feet across in a target fifteen miles away; an EM pulse cannon that can destroy all electronics across several square miles; and limited defensive shielding that will stop any Earth weapon, but is not much good against alien weapons. None of my weapons are powerful enough to destroy ground targets from orbit.”

  I showed Marc the portable energy beam weapon I had taken from the alien snatch team. Marc queried Mother on the number of pulses, duration and range.

  Marc commented, “The beam weapon looks handy in a close up fight, but has little accuracy past seventy-five yards. Having to fire it using an alien hand to defeat the trigger safety is a problem. Could the weapon be re-keyed to our DNA?” Mother did not see any problem with that. Mother assured me that in an emergency I could still use what was left of the Gray’s hand, as only a small sample of DNA was used in the trigger safety. Re-keying was more practical, since what was left of the alien hand was starting to stink.

  Marc reviewed the list of Mother’s weapons. “Is this all of them?”

  “Yes, for this class of ship. Interstellar ships have all of my weapon capability; plus planetary standoff weapons capable of bombardment from space, with direct energy weapons, kinetic projectile weapons or planet busters. The three weapon classes can be used individually or together, depending on how much damage is required. The direct fire energy weapons have a destruction radius of several acres per shot. The kinetic weapons, while not explosive, are very effective as there is no defense against them. It is impossible to stop several thousand tons of mainly iron ore going at 30,000 mph. At that speed, physics does the damage. Dependent upon the weight of the projectile, the impact releases on the order of ten to fifty megatons of TNT - enough to wipe out a city the size of New York, all without the hassle of nuclear fallout. The planet buster essentially splits the planet crust to the molten core, turning the planet into cinder.”

  Marc said, “There are not many alien ships we can fight and hope to beat with Mother’s armament, so I strongly suggest we run away any time we get into a ship-on-ship fight. I think the odds are much better if we fight the aliens one on one - Mano a Mano. The hand beam energy weapons can be used like Earth pistols as the effective range is similar. For longer ranges, I would suggest we use something human designed. I’m thinking a short barrel 7.62mm M14 with a suppressor. With armor piercing rounds and a high rate of fire it will ruin any target’s day, out to five hundred yards, regardless of the class of armor worn.”

  “For ambushes, it appears the aliens don’t have anything like grenades or anti-personnel mines and of course plain old det cord along with C4 is an old favorite for creating excitement. In my experience, there are few problems that cannot be solved with ten pounds of C4.”

  “Where can we pick all this stuff up? With all of the new gun control rules it will be nearly impossible to obtain what you want.” I said.

  Marc smiled, “Dude, this is America; we’ll get it the American way. We’ll steal it from the US government like everyone else. Mother, how long can you remain hidden on the ground?”

  “With the landing hatch closed, indefinitely, as long as no one runs into a landing leg. A better strategy is for me to hover at five hundred feet. The ship is completely invisible against the sky at that height and the chance of anything other than a bird running into me is slim. If you need me, I can land in thirty seconds.”

  “How do you plan to get us on the ground?” I asked.

  “I can drop you off or let you down with a gravity beam.” Mother explained that both landing and the gravity beam would take anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds to complete.

  Marc said, “Both options take too long, increasing our chances of being detected exponentially. How about a static line parachute jump - a low level jump will put us on the ground in half the time?”

  “What do you mean by low level jump?”

  “No higher than five hundred feet,” Marc said.

  “That’s not very high if something goes wrong.” It came out more like a squeak than a statement.

  “Look at it this way: at five hundred feet if something goes wrong, it’s all over in six seconds. You’re military jump qualified, what’s the big deal?” Marc said.

  “Sure,” I thought to myself, “Military jump school was thirty pounds and twenty years ago and if memory serves me right it wasn’t a whole lot of fun then either.”

  Marc proceeded to outline a basic plan of attack. “Mother will saturate the area with a weak EM pulse to disable any surveillance cameras, alarms and communication equipment. This will limit the ability of the quick reaction force (QRF) to respond. We jump under the cover of darkness from no higher than 500 feet, force entry into the armory, grab what we need and have Mother pick us and the stolen kit up with the gravity beam. If someone sees us on the way out there is little they can do in the brief window needed to get back on board Mother. The key is to keep it simple; get in and get out quickly. With our beam weapons we can easily neutralize any guards without causing serious injury. Mother has security overwatch to prevent reinforcements from showing up and the exfiltrate (exfil) transportation. Anyone seeing us will have a hard time getting the authorities to believe their story without proof.”

  “What depot do you want to hit?” I asked.

  “There’s a Special forces reserve unit just outside of McCord Air Force base at Fort Lewis. They have all the stuff we need. More importantly, because of continual Special Operations training and operations, weapon storage doctrine is different from the regular army. While it’s still extremely secure, there are fewer personnel involved and pretty much everything is stored in one or two places. It makes sense if you have to deploy on an operation. Central storage means you don’t have to go chasing to all different types of munitions bunkers to find what you need - it’s like one-stop shopping.”

  In order for us to jump, Mother had to fabricate model T10D parachutes, wh
ich are designed for static line parachute operations. The chutes are thirty-two feet across, with a large three foot hole in the top for stability. In reality the hole just makes you fall faster. If you weigh 175 pounds, the standard rate of descent is 22 ft/s. If you weigh closer to 240 pounds - like I do - you tend to fall much faster. When I was on my military jump course many years ago, my fat ass and full jump load tipped the scales at 400 pounds. I calculated the landing force, with a fifteen mile crosswind, to be equivalent to jumping backwards off a six foot high tractor trailer truck at thirty miles per hour. Do it six times and see if you get hurt; if not, welcome to the airborne son!

  So, while I liked the image of being a lean, mean, fighting machine, in reality jumping out of airplanes hurt like hell and scared the shit out of me. With all of the not-so-fun memories of military jump school still running through my mind, Mother gave us the two minute warning and opened the bottom hatch. Marc stood up, looked out the door and went through the routine every airborne soldier has drilled into their head and will remember till the day they die. Marc yelled out, “Look at me, stand up, hook up, check you equipment, sound off!” Even though I was scared out of my mind, the familiar routine of the pre-jump checks calmed me down.

  When Mother told us to go, go, go over the intercom, I was out the hatch without a second thought, just like twenty years ago in jump school. As I was free falling I went into a jab position, with my feet and knees together, my body bent ninety degrees at the waist and my hands holding on to my sides where the reserve chute would normally be. Although it was kinda pointless during such a low jump, I started counting to three as drilled into me. It’s a lot harder than you think. We had guys fail the second phase of jump school because they couldn’t manage to count to three under the stress of jumping out of the training tower. The tower is forty feet tall, just high enough to get your attention; this jump was much higher than that and it had my full attention. I did not get to three before the reassuring tug on my shoulder and crotch straps told me my chute had deployed. I looked up to see the most beautiful sight in the world to all paratroopers, a fully open canopy overhead.

  I had only a few seconds to get ready to hit the ground. I dropped my pack from between my legs on its eighteen foot tether cord, glanced to the horizon and hit the ground hard. Because of the high impact upon landing, military paratroopers are taught the “parachute landing fall,” or PLF for short. If you do it right, the PLF will distribute the force of the landing over your whole body, so while it still hurts, you seldom break much unless you land on something hard and inflexible like a building or fence pole. Since my last jump had been nearly twenty years ago, my PLF form was rusty and turned into a HAH (Heels, Ass and Head) landing. Instead of distributing the force of the landing over my entire body, I landed on my heels, pivoted on my butt and ended up smashing my head into the ground with great force. I hit so hard I was seeing nothing but stars and wanted to vomit. As I rolled around in pain Marc ran up and said, “Quit fooling around, time is a-wastin.” I struggled to release my parachute carabiners and get out of the harness. While trying to get my balance, two sentries ran out onto the sports field with their weapons at the ready. Before they could say anything, Marc shot them both with his alien beam weapon. While I was still stunned from the parachute jump and paralyzed with fear at being confronted by armed soldiers, Marc reacted spontaneously. “This is only going to work if we shoot first and forget about asking questions,” he commented.

  “Roger!” I said with some difficultly, as my eyes still would not focus.

  We ditched the parachutes and the unconscious guards under a row of trees running down one side of the sports field. We did not bother to hide either very well as the entire plan depended on speed and shock action. Success depended upon getting in and out before too many people saw us. We ran over to the Special Forces staging building. Marc did not even try opening the door - without breaking stride, he fired three rapid shots from the beam weapon and blew a four foot hole through the center. He dove through the hole, hit the floor, did a summersault and shot the duty officer and guard as they tried to stand up and grab their side-arms. With the security detail neutralized, Marc checked the sign-in register to see if any Special Force team members were around; we were in luck - no one was home other than the guards.

  We found the Special Forces operator team room and shot the locks off the supply cages. Everything we needed was there: M14 7.62mm automatic rifles with suppressors; M4A3s 5.56mm carbines with suppressors; 10,000 rounds of ammo for both; M26 frag and M33 HE grenades; anti-personnel M18 claymores; the new XM 25 advanced grenade launcher; and for when you really need to reach out and touch someone a mile away, an AS50 fifty caliber sniper rifle. As an added bonus we found an explosives locker full of C4 and det-cord with remote triggers. Thank you Uncle Sam.

  I grabbed a flatbed trolley to help carry the load and quickly piled the munitions on it. We pushed the trolley to the loading dock, leaving behind a trail of ammo boxes and grenades. Once on the dock, we opened the loading dock doors and pushed the trolley out into the parking lot. In the distance we could hear the sirens of the base QRF - it was definitely time to go. I called out over the comm link, “Scotty, beam us up!”

  “Who is Scotty?” asked Mother.

  I was about to explain the original series Star Trek reference but resorted to, “Never mind, beam us aboard please.” Mother, hovering fifty feet above us, enveloped us in a blue-greenish light and we and our ill-gotten kit were lifted into the lower hold in seconds.

  “Mother, I have a question. If you have this lift beam, why did you have me jump into the freezing ocean the other night?”

  “It wasn’t appropriate to use the lift beam that night.”

  Her answer made no sense to me, but I was too tired to question the matter further.

  “Since Mother disabled all electronics with the EM pulse, there won’t be many clues as to what actually happened. I would love to see the Military Police report and the investigative team findings. Losing sensitive kit, especially guns, ammo and explosives in a war zone is one thing. Losing it in peace time in good old US-of-A is a different story…someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do.” Marc said.

  With the operation behind me, I suddenly felt completely drained; it was all I could do to tell Mother, “Take us to the previous hiding spot,” and then passed out cold, face down on the deck. Some hero, some tough guy…couple of nights without much sleep, couple of fights, a bit of fun in the surf and a run on the beach and I’m out like a light. I don’t know how long Marc left me on the floor, but eventually the background noises aboard Mother changed enough that my brain registered it was time to wake up. I awoke with a start. To my surprise, I was in a bunk with blankets covering me. Marc was sitting in a chair across from me with his feet up on the bunk, talking with Mother.

  “Welcome back to the living! You’re funny - when you go down it’s like a light bulb working, then boom, burnt out. I don’t think I have seen anyone sleep as deep for thirty straight hours. You didn’t even stir when I moved you from the deck to the bunk. How do you feel?”

  “My mouth tastes like wool and the rest of me feels like a bowl of Rice Krispies…the snap, crackle and pop part. This is way worse than anything I’ve experienced before. Given the pain I’m in, I’m obviously not dead, although I kind of wish I was. Every cell in my body feels like it’s on fire.”

  “Pain is good; it's a reminder that you’re still alive. Remember, the only easy day is yesterday; try not to think in terms of getting through the day, think of getting through the next task. Sounds dumb but it really does work. If you are up for it, we should figure out how to get Mother into the Moon dry dock, and where we can hide while her upgrades are being completed. Mother what can you tell us about the Moon?”

  Chapter 13 - What’s really on the Moon

  Mother suggested, “Why don’t you grab something to eat and drink; this will take a while, even the abridged version. What you have be
en told about the Moon through the main stream media is far from the truth. The Moon is not the cold lifeless place it has been made out to be. In some places, where there are deep ravines, there is actually an atmosphere comparable to what is found on Earth. This is possible because the Moon is not a satellite planet - it is actually an artificial construct.

  The proof lies in the craters. Moon craters are too shallow in relation to their diameter. The reason is, the outer covering of the Moon is a dense metallic shell, covered with less than a hundred feet of four billion year old dust and rocks for camouflage. This is why a large crater such as Gagarin, which is roughly 185 miles across, is only four to five miles deep; this gives it a diameter/depth ratio of 37 to 1. A similar crater, like the Barringer Meteorite Crater outside of Flagstaff Arizona, has a ratio of 5.7 to 1.

  The dark side of the Moon is a misnomer: the far side of the Moon is not dark, it just never faces the Earth because it is in synchronous rotation. Many of the craters on the dark side had artificially created domes that were destroyed during a Galactic Great War that lasted nearly 50,000 years. These craters were used as domed cities and space craft hangars, capable of housing hundreds of spacecraft, some up to several miles in size.

  The surface bases consisted of nine major domed cities, capable of housing roughly ten thousand beings in each. The surface bases were like vacation towns, allowing personnel stationed on the Moon to relax and enjoy the view of the stars. There were even small lakes surrounding some of them. If you examine some of the old NASA photos that were not retouched very thoroughly, you can actually see a rainbow caused by the light hitting the water vapor in the Moon’s atmosphere.

  The remains of these domed structures were discovered by the National Security Agency’s (NSA) astronauts, Russian cosmonauts, and even the NASA Apollo astronauts. Still operational alien facilities that survived the Galactic Great War are located deep underground, where they were protected from orbital bombardment. The entrances to the bases which are all connected underground, can be found at the Moon’s south and north poles, the Taurus Mountains and the Jules Verne crater.