Thunder & Lightning

by Christopher Nuttall

  He had taken a few precautions; like almost every American, he owned a gun and had bought additional bullets and supplies before the shops had sold out. He was also grimly aware that the weapon would be useless against the aliens; Americans might be able to own anything short of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons since the terrorist attacks that had been beaten off by armed citizens, but none of them could reach orbit. The mere thought was ridiculous. Some parts of the city had descended into anarchy – typically, the richer folks had deserted at once, before the police sealed the cities – and he knew that he might need the weapon, but once the aliens arrived, who knew what would happen?

  “We have to do something,” Carola said. She too owned a weapon, but she hadn’t bought any additional supplies; the skyscraper residents, those who had remained in the building, had tried to convince everyone to club together, just in case. The panic buying had emptied most of the shops and food supplies into the city were becoming scarcer. He remembered some of the scenes caused by panic following nuclear threats; drivers and suppliers had refused to enter the city and supplies had had to be taken over by the army, who hadn’t been that enthusiastic about the task. “What the hell can we do?”

  “Nothing,” Wilhelm said. He watched as Carola flounced off to their bedroom, slamming the door behind her, and sighed. His father’s only advice, when he had told him that he intended to get married to Carola, had been simple; never win an argument, or she’ll never forgive you…

  He turned back to the telescope programming, altering the kernel so it would draw signals from satellites…as long as they lasted. He wanted to watch the battle in orbit that everyone now knew was coming; he’d spent a day in shock before realising that, somehow, he’d been wrong. They’d all been wrong. For some insane reason, the aliens had indeed come a very long way to start a fight.

  The entertainment console bleeped, a note that an important piece of news was about to be broadcast, something of vital importance. Wilhelm called for Carola at once, turning up the volume; she came in and sat down as far from him as she could without leaning against the wall. Wilhelm focused on the console; no media producer would risk using the emergency system for anything other than a real emergency. The lawsuits alone would bankrupt them…after they had spent a few years in jail for alarming the entire country.

  The face that appeared in front of them was computer-generated, a girl with unrealistic proportions and a face that was eternally smiling, except when it wasn’t. She wasn’t smiling now; her face, inhumanly beautiful, was far too grim.

  “A signal has been detected, coming from the alien craft,” she said. Her face twitched into what might have been intended as a more serious expression, but was more like a parody of a pout. Computers had come a long way, but they couldn’t duplicate a real person’s mannerisms, not yet. “Scientists in several different institutes have confirmed that the broadcast is indeed emitting from the alien ships and is in English. The signal is repeating now…just a minute.”

  A new voice appeared. Wilhelm knew who it was without having to wait for identification; he’d heard that voice often enough while he was watching the media coverage of the alien ships and the welcome fleet. The woman sounded as if she had been pushed right to the limits of her endurance; the bitterness and shame in her voice was almost palpable. Carola looked at him, looked back at the blank screen – the aliens hadn’t sent a visual– and held out her hand. Wilhelm took it without comment.

  “My name is Samra Hussein and I am broadcasting directly from the alien craft Seeker for Truth, which is heading towards Earth,” the woman said. Wilhelm almost flinched at the tone. “With me is Gavin Reynolds; as far as I know, we are the only survivors of the welcome fleet. The aliens rescued us and took us on board one of their ships; they have also recovered a number of bodies from the wreck of the Neil Armstrong. Nothing was recovered from any of the other ships. We are both in good health, apart from damage caused by brief exposure to vacuum.”

  She paused. “I have been asked by the Oghaldzon” – her voice stumbled badly over the pronunciation of the alien word – “commander to speak directly to the peoples of Earth. The Oghaldzon have intercepted thousands upon thousands of transmissions from Earth – we have seen images recorded back during the 1960s – and have concluded that humans are uniquely dangerous; humans act in ways that the Oghaldzon consider more than just barbaric, but actively dangerous to the very fabric of human society.” Her voice sounded a little livelier at that point; Wilhelm wondered if it was a sign of something. “The Oghaldzon hope to have peaceful relations with the human race, but they cannot permit us to spread poisonous ideas throughout the universe, particularly not to the point where they could threaten the Oghaldzon themselves. The Oghaldzon society, as far as we can gather, is based on ideas; the human race seems to actively work to suppress ideas. The Oghaldzon regard this as an abomination.

  “The Oghaldzon do not intend to exterminate humanity, but they do insist on trying to show humanity a better way to live,” she continued. “The alien commander has ordered me to ask for Earth’s surrender; when their fleet enters Earth orbit, they want to take control of the orbital defences and work to reform the human race. The alien commander has promised trade and prosperity, but they do insist on treating with us on their terms.” Her voice darkened. “For the Oghaldzon, this is a matter of life and death; they will not imperil their own culture regardless of their desire to reform and incorporate the human race.”

  There was a long pause. “The alien commander warns that resistance is futile,” she concluded. Wilhelm could have sworn he heard laughter echoing through the skyscraper; the aliens would never have understood, but a human with a reasonable grounding in science-fiction classics would have understood. “They do possess the firepower to destroy the orbital defences and take possession of Earth by force. Such an outcome would result in massive loss of human life and the Oghaldzon would prefer to avoid it. They are a practical species, however, and if that is the only way to accomplish their tasks and safeguard their world, then they will do it.”

  The signal ended so rapidly that even the computer-generated presenter looked surprised. “Ah, the message is repeating,” she said. “So far, there has been no word from any governments on the issue of the response to the alien message…”

  Carola hit the console hard enough to hurt her hand. “This is another fine mess you’ve got us into,” she said.

  Wilhelm didn’t smile. “You heard them,” he said. “They don’t mean us any harm…”

  “If there is one thing I have learnt from working in insurance, it is that no one ever means any harm,” Carola said. “Unless, of course, the policy doesn’t cover criminal damage and they want to prove that whatever happened wasn’t criminal damage. The aliens may be sweetness and light incarnate and…”

  She sagged suddenly. “Markus, I’m scared,” she said. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  Wilhelm stroked her hair. “I don’t know, love,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

  Lunar City, Lunar Surface

  Tony Jones, Deputy Director of the Selene Observatory – and Director in the absence of Samra Hussein – had spent a few days in Lunar City before, enjoying the nightlife. Unlike his boss, Jones had actually enjoyed his visit; Lunar City had a freewheeling attitude to life that was lacking in many other colonies on the moon, even the other independent city-states. Lunar City’s lack of any real debts and ownership of several mass drivers and Helium-3 mines made it the richest independent state on the moon…and the natural leader of the independence front.

  Jones had once seen Bova explaining it to the faithful, and the people who might one day join the Lunar Independence Front. “The only real investment in developing a lunar colony lies in the early days, all of which is recovered once the mines run for a year or two, but we remain under their thumbs. We are their slaves, we are their battleground; how many of us remember the days when Lawton or Li Han led rebellions against tyrannic
al authority? They cared nothing for us, only for our work; they have turned the moon into their playing field! Why should we not seek independence as a united Lunar nation?”

  Many agreed; Jones was one of them. The summons to Lunar City had been unexpected, but with an alien fleet bearing down on the Earth-Moon system, it wasn’t exactly surprising. What was surprising was the four men in the conference room; Bova himself, Chen Yucheng, the director of one of the Chinese colonies, Adam Faulkner, the closest thing the independent states had to a military commander, and Harriet Wenham, Bova’s media commissioner. The Chinese director was the real surprise; he might have been a long-term lunar resident, but the Chinese government – which had engaged in the harshest crackdowns on the independence movement in their territories – would have shot him if they had suspected that he was involved with Bova. Jones reminded himself to be careful as he took his seat; there was more going on than met the eye.

  “Thank you for coming,” Bova said. In private, he tended to be much less bombastic. “We have an interesting window of opportunity provided by the recent alien transmission. Director Jones, do you have any observations to make about the transmission?”

  “She read most of it from a prepared script,” Jones said. He had some difficulty imagining Samra held at gunpoint, but perhaps that was what had happened. “There is actually very little we can use there; all we now know that we didn’t know before was why the aliens are here. They consider us…dangerous.”

  “The governments of Earth have decided to fight the aliens,” Chen said. “I have been in contact with my Commissioner” – the Chinese government appointed a commissioner to each of its lunar bases, someone who would always toe the party line and never spend enough time on the moon to go native – “and the decision has been made by the entire United Nations Special Security Council. They believe they can defeat the aliens.”

  Jones leaned forwards. “Can they defeat the aliens?”

  “Perhaps,” Adam Faulkner said, breaking an uncomfortable silence. The former USSF officer smiled thinly. “Too much of space warfare has remained purely in the theoretical region until four days ago; the aliens may have been practicing it for years and years, gaining actual experience. I hate to admit it, but any military unit without experience is almost certain to lose against a unit with experience, even if the experience is very limited. And, of course, the aliens could be lying to Director Hussein, or perhaps she’s lying to us, or…”

  He shrugged. “The mass power of the defences of Earth would be hard to bet against, assuming that the claim that all of the great Powers and the minor powers have linked their defences together is actually accurate, but we know so little about them. They might intend merely to destroy the defences from long range, or perhaps they will close in and attempt to take them intact, which would be almost impossible under normal circumstances, but who knows if the aliens have any more tricks?”

  Bova tapped the table. “The question is simple; do we take advantage of this situation, or do we continue to act as if we are willing to be part of the current economic system, which discriminates against lunar citizens?”

  Jones knew the correct answer…and he also knew that it wasn’t necessarily the correct answer. “We only know what Samra has told us about the aliens,” he said, carefully. “For all we know, their real intentions include genocide, and if we try anything stupid, it may only result in the complete extermination of the human race.”

  “The point does remain that we do have an opportunity,” Bova said. “If we were to see Earth blockaded by the aliens, exactly who do we sell Helium-3 to, just to keep the money flowing in? Do we need the money flowing in?”

  “People are not always stupid, but they are self-interested,” Harriet Wenham said. She was forty and looked thirty under lunar gravity. “If the aliens blockade Earth, the only way we are going to get Heilum-3 there is through shooting it at Earth and hoping that it gets through the atmosphere intact…”

  “To say nothing of the aliens simply shooting down any load we fire at Earth,” Faulkner said. “Regardless of the exact situation, the exact outcome, we must assume that the ties that hold us to Earth will be cut.”

  “Then we have an opportunity to act in our own best interests,” Bova said. He glared around the room. “We have been planning this for years. Could we move, now, and declare independence?”

  There was a long pause. Jones got up to leave – the discussion was well above his head – but Bova nodded at him, waving for him to stay. “We would have to somehow handle the troops that have been moved into the national colonies,” Faulkner said. He nodded to Chen. “How do your people feel about that?”

  “They don’t like them,” Chen said shortly. The Chinese system was different from the American or European system; any troops who were sent to the moon kept themselves to themselves, draining resources and food, but giving nothing back, not even real security. “Actually stopping them from doing real harm will be tricky, unless we are willing to kill them all.” He smiled thinly at Adam Faulkner. “Are you prepared to fire on American soldiers?”

  “It won’t come to that,” Bova said. He leaned forward confidently. Jones was reminded of some of the older footage of fanatics before their plans had fallen down around their heads. “They’re not going to start a war where they would be rather unpopular, outgunned, and distracting everyone from fighting the aliens.”

  “The military units can be cut off if we have to,” Faulkner said. The confidence in his voice surprised Jones, although he knew little about the military; was it really possible to force them to surrender without major loss of life? “The one issue remains the alien reaction; do you intend to make a deal with them, or what?”

  “That depends on what the public wants,” Bova said. Jones wondered just what he was playing at; there was something definitely bubbling under the surface. “The point is simple; we are faced with the only opportunity in years to form a provisional government and dictate terms to Earth, terms that will establish the moon as an independent nation. We will represent ourselves in the United Nations. We will control our own resources. We will control our own military. We will control everything that is rightfully ours.”

  Jones smiled to himself. Bova already had an assembly of the free states on the lunar surface; it was what gave him his political power. When the aliens arrived, when they cut Earth off from the moon, it would give him an opportunity to add the national and corporate states to the assembly, the more so because there had been unrest bubbling away in almost all of the colonies for years. The corporate colonies, in particular, would be quite happy to sign up in exchange for better rights; the corporations considered the colonies little better than slaves.

  He could only hope that the old joke about an independent moon’s first action being a major civil war over what the new nation would be called was indeed a joke; with the aliens around, it wasn’t funny anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen: The Battle of Earth, Round One

  Earth Orbit

  “Nothing to report, Captain,” the helmsman said.

  Captain Kang Seung Jae examined the display forming ahead of him in what he liked to think of as his command console. Like almost all spacecraft designed for combat, it resembled a confused electronics cave rather than the neat and shiny bridges of science-fiction starships. The Shokaku was only forty metres long; most of that length belonged to the fusion tube, with the crew stationed across a handful of small modules surrounding the tube.

  “Inform Defence One,” Kang said. “Inform them that we have nothing to report.”

  He scowled. He had been made aware that the Co-Prosperity Sphere – only outsiders called it the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere and never twice near a Korean – had asked for the honour of point position along the edges of the Earth defence zone. The Shokaku – and two other tiny frigates – were following a course right along the edge of the defence zone, maintaining radio silence and keeping their drives offline until they were needed. The ali
en fleet was decelerating, spreading out until it could come at Earth from several directions at once, racing to catch up with the planet and enter orbit. Before then, however, they would have to punch through the defences…and that would be tricky indeed…

  Or so Kang hoped. He was feeling rather exposed out on the flank, even though he was used to spending weeks at a time cooped up in conditions that would have made a submarine crew start a mutiny. No one, not even the Captain, had any real private space; the nine men of the crew practically lived inside one another’s shoes. The aliens could be sneaking up on them, if they had a clear idea where the Shokaku was, or even a vague idea from when they had boosted out into higher orbit, and then into their own course. The big radars around Earth were supposed to be watching for alien contact, but that worried Kang; it would be irony indeed if a human radar pulse bounced off the Shokaku and found an alien radar sensor. In fact…

  “Captain, I think I have something,” the sensor officer said. Kang glanced over at him; they were all either sealed in their chairs or trying to sleep within sleeping tubes that would, in theory, protect them from very high acceleration. They couldn’t risk being caught out of safe positions if they had to boost out of danger…if they had a chance to boost. An injured crewman wouldn’t be half as bad as losing the entire ship. “It got a reflection from one of the Earth-based radars…”

  “Show me,” Kang ordered. He glanced down at his own console when the data flowed through. There was something out there, not radiating anything, but plunging towards Earth at very high speed. He felt a flicker of alarm; moments before the alarm screamed, something had just lit off its drive and was coming right at them!

  “Incoming missile,” the tactical officer snapped. The noise of the alarm was growing worse; Kang shut it off with an irritated swipe at his console. The crewmen who were meant to be sleeping would be awakened; he could only hope they could remember their training and remain where they were. “No, four incoming missiles, closing in on us.”