Thunder & Lightning

by Christopher Nuttall

  Ellsworth glowered at him, but sipped it anyway, wondering just what went into it. It tasted surprisingly good for its colour; he finished it and ordered a beer, before leaving the bar and heading into the brothel. There was a short wait before he could meet one of the girls, but once the formalities were out of the way, he was able to spend an hour with her. She told him her story as they were getting undressed, an attempt to convince him to pay her extra; she had come out to become a Rockrat without knowing just what it entailed and had been forced into prostitution to support herself. Ellsworth’s sympathy was limited; she was earning more lying on her back with her legs open than he was mining every day.

  Afterwards, he entered the main communal hall and found a seat.

  The Rockrat Association had been formed to give the Rockrats some collective bargaining capability, something that had seemed more important at the time than it did now, several years after several industries had been established in the belt. The Association, rather like the IAU, was charged with enforcing fair play; composed of Rockrats who spent a year on Freeport One and paid a small salary from the dues Rockrats paid, it was very responsive to the needs of the members. Board members were nominated by their peers and elected by popular vote; coordinating it each year was the final duty of the Chairman.

  Kyle Short was midway through his term as Chairman, a tall muscular man with a formidable reputation and a scarred face. He claimed seven Rockrats in his direct line of descent; unlike most other Rockrats, he had married another Rockrat, one of the rare female Rockrats. Ellsworth privately wondered how they’d been close enough to conceive a child; both of them had continued their careers out in the belt.

  “This meeting is hereby called to attention,” Short said, glancing around. There were nearly seventy Rockrats in the room, the largest group assembled in one place since the Chinese refugees – including Hong – had come to Freeport One. “The secretary will now read the minutes of the last meeting…”

  “Mr Chairman, I move that we skip the reading of the minutes,” a Rockrat called.

  There was a general roar of assent. Any Rockrat who cared could have read the minutes on the internet. “I need a show of hands,” Short said. “All those in favour?” Almost every hand, including Ellsworth’s, went up. “The motion is passed.”

  Short paused long enough for the chatter to die down. “The aliens are coming to Earth,” he said. Ellsworth smiled; he’d checked the internet for the briefing notes, along with every other Rockrat who could be arsed coming to the meeting. None of the Rockrats would make any allowances for Rockrats who hadn’t bothered to read their notes. “This may be good news for us as they don’t seem to be heading anywhere near Freeport One, although they could change course quite radically unless they have limitations we don’t know about. Our attempts to signal the aliens have received no response; to the best of our knowledge, none of the Great Powers nor the IAU have succeeded in gaining any response from the aliens.”

  He paused. “The question remains; what do we do about it?”

  There was a long pause. “What about the corporate rats?” someone shouted finally. There were some mutters; the corporate employees were not regarded highly by the Rockrats. “What about the dirty ones on Earth?”

  Short tapped the table meaningfully; ‘dirty ones’ was a common Rockrat insult for people who lived on Earth. “They’re preparing their defences around Earth and sending some additional infrastructure out here and to the moon,” he said. “It is unlikely that they will be willing to waste time on defending us; we are not as important as the mines orbiting Jupiter, or the moon, or even Mars. We may have to look to our own defence.”

  The debate raged on, but it was surprisingly orderly to Ellsworth’s ears; the Rockrats knew that everyone who had proven his right to stand among them had a right to be heard. Not everyone had something to say, but everyone who did had to have a chance to be heard; the stewards kept order long enough to make sure that everyone said their piece. The debate raged from the increased prices for mining to the increased prices for fuel, something dear to the Rockrat heart; if the price of fuel went too high, some of them would go out of business and have to mortgage their future on a final desperate gamble. The other main question was that of defence; if the governments were unwilling to defend the Rockrats, could they defend themselves?

  “We have started a small program of establishing a black colony,” Short said. Ellsworth smiled with the others; there were dozens of black and grey colonies out there in the belt. Some of there were religious colonies, from Mormons to strange cults that worshipped one god or another, others were popularly supposed to be pirate colonies, although space piracy had never really caught on. The handful of people who had attempted pirate attacks had been spaced by outraged Rockrats. “Hiding from the aliens should be possible, unless the aliens have some technology we have never heard of.”

  Ellsworth shook his head. He had read enough news articles from Earth to laugh at what some people on the planet below thought was possible; the Rockrats, who lived and breathed space, knew the aliens might be advanced, but they had shown nothing magical or hyper-advanced. They might have some advanced technology, but nothing that would provide a decisive advantage.

  “The second program involves defence,” Short continued. “We can use our own infrastructure to produce weapons to mount on our ships, perhaps using them to fight the aliens…or the strengthened governments and the IAU. The main problem is that if they expand their own defences, they will have the capability to come after us, whatever the aliens do. This may pose a threat to our very existence.”

  Ellsworth scowled. “Can we arm enough ships to make a difference?” he called, before anyone else could speak. He was considering the issue, but he had to know if it was worth the effort before he committed himself one way or the other. There was always a place for a skilled Rockrat on the outskirts of the solar system. “What about payment for the use of the ships?”

  Someone on Earth would have questioned the Rockrats patriotism, but the Rockrats understood basic self-interested economics. Their ships were the basis of their wealth, both actual and future earnings prospects; if they were converted into space fighters, as ludicrous as that seemed, it would damage their ability to earn future credit. The concept of calling a spade a fork, something that seemed to be practiced on Earth quite frequently, meant nothing to the Rockrats; Rockrats who didn’t keep a tight grip on reality tended to end up dead.

  “We have constructed a proposal to use credits from the Association’s store to cover the costs and compensate ship owners for the loss of future earnings,” Short said. He looked nervous and well he might; Rockrats didn’t like the concept of becoming dependent on something as hazy as interplanetary financial dealings. They preferred solid results to the shadowy money of wheeler-dealers; the prospect of losing control over their own finances would worry many. “It would not cut that much into earnings; it will take a month to assemble standard weapons packages and equip them onto volunteer ships, and then, one month before the aliens arrive at a point where they can make a high-speed transit towards one of the Freeport outposts, we will call in the ships and prepare for a possible engagement.”

  The discussion became heated as the argument raged, but what clinched it for many was the thought of what might happen if defence of the belt was left to the various governments, under the uncertain supervision of the IAU. If any of the Great Powers achieved a preponderance of power in the belt, that Great Power would have the muscle to take on the Rockrats and force them to come to heel; it was important to avoid any excuse for military action. Not every Rockrat was keen on the idea of becoming a military ship; several wanted to find a quiet asteroid, set up a habitation tent, and wait for it to all blow over. Others wanted to head out with Message Bearer; Conrad Hamilton had already informed them that he was looking for more recruits for the interstellar voyage. There would be no room to take along refugee women for their breeding potential, as had been d
one years ago for Freeport One; everyone who went on the ship would have to be a useful pair of hands.

  “The preliminary motion has been passed,” Short said, after the vote had been taken. Two-thirds had voted in favour of the motion, although that meant less than it would seem; Rockrats who had been out in their ships would have to have a chance to register their vote, which would take upwards of a week as transmissions of the meeting and the issues at hand were beamed out to the ships, then the vote would have to be registered and filed. “However, under the circumstances, we are asking now for volunteers to serve as the first line of defence.”

  There was a long pause.

  Jake Ellsworth was the first to hold up his hand.

  Chapter Nine: The Welcome Fleet, Take Two

  Geostationary orbit, above Earth

  There were few spacecraft, Samra had decided years ago, that really lived up to the promise of endless science-fiction movies. The iron limitations of physics and science, to say nothing of the need to interchange components as much as possible, dictated that most spacecraft would have as much sex appeal as a slug. The concept of graceful lines and the sense of sheer power manifested by such timeline classics as the Starship Enterprise or the Star Destroyer had floundered upon such laws; most spacecraft that lacked the ability to land on Earth had the appearance of semi-random construction by an unimaginative committee.

  The Neil Armstrong defied most of those conventions. Five kilometres long, constructed of lunar rock that had been launched into orbit and then processed by the first industrial stations to be established in LEO, the spacecraft had never been designed to land on a planet. Instead, it gave the appearance of a travelling ring-class space habitat, endlessly spinning to produce a gravity field tuned to the level of the destination world. In the three months since the ship had arrived at Orbit One, the spacecraft had been renovated completely, improving both its living quarters and scientific equipment, converting it into a travelling scientific base. The ship wasn’t armed heavily – Samra had heard that Captain Buckley had been privately furious about it – but it was important not to give the impression that humanity was a bunch of savages.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Spencer O'Dowd said as he appeared behind her, holding two drinks. Orbit One was the oldest facility in space still active and looked it; the original International Space Station had been decommissioned and turned into a museum piece long ago. The older facilities from before then, Skylab and Mir, had been destroyed; the scientist in Samra detested the men who had made those decisions a century before she was born. “I hear that we are actually getting good cabins on that beauty.”

  Samra smiled to herself. It had all paid off, from courting the press to making the bargain with O'Dowd. The reporter knew where a lot of skeletons were buried; some of them he had unearthed to gain an advantage, others he had merely threatened to unearth…just to ensure that he received the position of official reporter. The IAU had wanted to keep reporters off the flight…until the demands for press coverage had started to come in, and grow louder, and louder, until the bureaucrats had given in.

  “I’d be happy with a broom closet,” she said. “We just have to ensure that we get to talk with one message.”

  She scowled; she hadn’t understood, really, just how many human factions would want to risk everything to ensure that they were the only ones to talk to the aliens. The aliens had been bombarded with message after message from different factions, from the Zionist colony on Titan to the Rockrats and the Great Powers on Earth; if they had been interested in playing divide and rule, they would have found it easy. The IAU had finally managed to get agreement on a joint mission as part of the welcome fleet, with diplomats from the United Nations taking the lead, but no one had any illusions. There would be attempts to make private deals with the aliens; the only reason why no one had broken ranks already was that the welcome fleet seemed to be the only means left to approach the aliens.

  A little more information had come in as the aliens grew closer. Half of the alien craft were massive, each fully a hundred kilometres long; the others were smaller, but still larger than the Neil Armstrong. The alien fleet was starting to look more and more like a colonisation fleet, something that had started more debate, from selling the aliens Helium-3 to allow them to reach another star, to inviting them to settle on Mars or Venus along with the human race. Samra favoured the latter; the aliens had been out in interstellar space, well away from any radio noise; who knew what they had heard and recorded? Talking to the aliens could become very profitable for the advancement of science…

  Her terminal buzzed. “Director Hussein, your presence is requested in the main lounge,” it said. “Do you require escort?”

  “No, thank you,” Samra said, and broke the connection. “Coming?”

  Orbit One had begun life as the first real space habitat in Earth orbit, a standard Stanford torus-design that showed very clear links to the Neil Armstrong’s design. It had first served as a dormitory for space workers, and had then become the solar system’s first space hotel and collection point for lunar colonists. There were larger habitats now, some of them built from asteroids that had been moved into Earth orbit, but Orbit One was history. Where else could the welcome fleet depart from?

  The main lounge, like everywhere else along the wheel, was set at standard Earth-gravity, allowing the delegates who had come up from Earth to avoid zero-gee as much as possible. Even with gene treatments and supplements, there were still people who had real problems coping with a lack of gravity; back when Orbit One had become a hotel, it had kept an entire team of doctors and lawyers on call to handle emergencies. Lawyers had never gotten much further out into space than the moon; the Rockrats detested them and the corporations had managed to avoid most of their liability. Samra approved; the last thing she wanted was someone looking over her shoulder – and probably down her shirt – while she made First Contact.

  “Welcome to Orbit One,” Rick Davenport said. The IAU Board Member shook her hand with the practiced ease of a professional politician; Samra was privately convinced that he detested her for daring to follow orders and transmit the news that the alien fleet had been detected. “You’re quite popular at the moment; some of the newshounds would be delighted to interview you.”

  “Thank you,” Samra said, as she glanced around the main lounge. The crew of the Neil Armstrong had been reduced to the bare minimum; while hundreds of people had wanted to join the welcoming party, only thirty-seven had been accepted. She had met with all of them, from the official United Nations Ambassador - Rudolph Giacometti, of Switzerland – to the scientists who had been excitedly discussing the prospects of analysing the first real starships at close range. “When are we going to board?”

  “Once all the speeches have finished,” Davenport assured her. He pressed her hand again and left the pair of them alone as one of the representatives from China began yet another speech, most of the room ignoring him. The politicians were also being largely ignored; the men and women of the welcome fleet had been selected and – now – there was no going back. Samra had approved most of them personally; only a handful had been slipped through the net and arrived without being examined first.

  “Cheeky bastard,” O'Dowd said. “What on Earth do you think he wants?”

  Samra shrugged. “I think he’s a politician,” she said. “I think…”

  O'Dowd elbowed her. “Heads up, here comes our lord and master,” he said, taking a pair of glasses from a robotic maid and passing her one. Samra looked up to see Captain Buckley and one of his crewmen, heading over towards her. “Remember to salute properly and genuflect at the right moments.”

  “Shut up,” Samra muttered back, as she took a sip of the orange juice. She’d met Captain Buckley, but there hadn’t been any real time for a proper session; he’d been occupied with the Neil Armstrong and she’d been preparing the contact team. She raised her voice as Buckley approached. “Captain; thank you for coming.”

>   Buckley’s expression reassembled, just for a moment, a man approaching the hangman’s noose. Samra sympathised; she hadn’t been happy during her first press conference, and even though she had grown used to them, she still disliked them. She had organised the final departure party on Orbit One just to avoid having to give any speeches herself; there were too many politicians who thought that they should have a chance to say their piece to allow the woman who had only discovered the aliens to have a word.

  “I would be happier were we already underway,” Buckley said. “Departure is in five hours and counting.”

  “Good,” Samra said. She pulled him away from the main group and into a corner; O'Dowd followed her like a mother hen. “Captain, is everything prepared for the flight?”

  “The ship is ready, if that is what you mean,” Buckley said. His lips twitched. “You had a chance to tour it before you moved the equipment on board, so I hope that you are satisfied.”

  Samra nodded. “I would be happier with more space, but short of moving Message Bearer over to intercept the aliens, that would be impossible,” she said. “Captain, do you have any particular concerns you wish to raise in private?”

  “Maybe a few, but not at present,” Buckley said. He nodded to his assistant. “This is Commander Roberts; I believe you have met?”

  Samra smiled briefly at Roberts, a big dark man with surprisingly nimble fingers. “He showed us around the ship,” she said. It had been a quick tour; civilians, including herself, were not permitted to enter the central tube of the ship, regardless of the reason. If worse came to worst, she had been briefed; the habitat-area would be freed from the main body of the spacecraft through explosive bolts, although she found it hard to imagine an emergency that would allow them to do that, rather than destroying the spacecraft outright. “It was a remarkable tour.”

  “Quite,” Buckley said. On the podium, Ambassador Giacometti had just begun to speak. “I would appreciate a chance to have a few words with you once we are on board the spacecraft and boosting out on our course.”