"How bad?” Washington winced.
"Josh and I figured you'd ask that,” Shelton said. “Here's some video one of the surviving scientists got of the initial attack."
The image of Shelton faded, replaced by a lovely pastoral scene. Humans fanned out through the meadow in front of the ship, and began taking samples of soil, flora, and other, less identifiable items. A few just held hands and strolled. Rolling hills faded into the distance, and a stream lined with something that closely approximated Earth trees ran off to one side.
Abruptly two large hovercraft zoomed over the hills and landed at the edge of the field. They opened and disgorged hordes of Snapper infantry, which immediately began firing on the civilians with laser weaponry, obviously with intent to kill—at which they were decidedly successful. The hovercraft themselves turned into armored vehicles similar to large tanks, equipped with heavy laser cannons, adding to the mayhem. Many humans went down screaming, until the remainder could organize themselves and begin to fall back. The scene rapidly turned into hellacious, gory carnage.
Over the shoulder of the cameraman, a large laser beam suddenly lanced forward, attacking the armored vehicles, and the popcorn sound of small arms fire could be heard. Moments later the camera view swung wildly, taking in a view of the Earth ship before diving down. A jiggling view of the ground, then of the metal ramp, followed, and the audience realized the cameraman was running for his life to get inside the ship while he still could.
"We pretty much had to take out the sons of bitches to the last man—er, being,” Shelton said, as a view of his face returned. “We lost an entire platoon of marines, but we couldn't take off until we'd cut down the attack sufficiently to do so safely, and they wouldn't stop until there weren't enough left to mount an attack. Even then, the few survivors were still firing on us as we took off.” He shook his head. “These are some real mothe—"
Caleb Washington cut him off quickly. “We believe you, Bill,” he said hurriedly. “What else?"
"Here's some footage of the Snappers’ interaction at Cresperia,” Shelton added.
Again his face was replaced by video, this time of the standoff exchange between the Indian ship and the Snappers, followed by the destruction of the small Snapper runabout. Then it cut to a montage of Snapper raids on the Crispies’ automated supply ships, followed by a scene of a Snapper runabout's attack on a Cresperian underground city, using split screen to depict orbital and ground based scenes. The lovely garden on the surface vanished, but the laser cannon stopped short of reaching the rock carved buildings beneath. Suddenly a bright flash erupted from the city and the Snapper runabout... vanished. Shelton's face came back.
"Completely unprovoked attacks on Cresperia, I might add,” he said. “No communication between them and the Cresperians, and the Cresperians made no move to harm them."
"Could they have thought the Indian ship was Cresperian?” General Washington wondered, and waited while Shelton considered the matter.
"It's possible, I suppose,” Shelton finally said, “but unlikely. Their ship and ours didn't look enough alike for the Snappers to be certain they were built by the same people. And I fully expect the Snappers could resolve the planetary surface sufficiently to see that our tenders were positioned... opposite each other, let's just say."
Caleb nodded. “Okay. Bring it on in and let's get started on the technology. What is it, by the way?"
"Defensive shields and offensive beams, and the brains to go with them,” Shelton said, mildly cryptic. “We'll be on the ground in half an hour."
"Are you still convinced they're peaceful, Sandra?” President Waterman asked his Secretary of State as the transmission ended.
"Absolutely,” Fellowes declared. “Obviously the second outpost had had communications about the evil invading humans from the first outpost. No wonder they followed them to Cresperia."
"But they attacked the Cresperians!” CIA director Jess Ravenshoe protested, incredulous.
"You heard the general say they mistook the Indian and American ships for Cresperian ships,” Fellowes shrugged.
"You only hear what you want to, Sandra,” General Salter remarked, voice dripping with disgust. “He SAID he SUPPOSED they MIGHT, but that it was IMPROBABLE."
"You military types are all alike, aren't you?” Fellowes snapped. “It's never YOUR fault."
"Considering every video we have yet seen, and every testimony from STATE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL, have corroborated that conclusion, yes,” Salter averred.
"Just give me half a chance,” Fellowes declared confidently. “I'll show you what real diplomacy can do with intelligent beings."
Waterman sighed. “Be patient, Sandra. You never know. You just might get it."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 9
As soon as the Galactic landed, technicians and engineers were waiting to meet it, study the new technology, and begin replicating it for the some eight other ships of the fleet that were currently in various stages of construction. Becker and his crew stayed with the ship, but Shelton and the Leversons led the civilians, both Crispy and human, off the starship and toward waiting transport.
Soon they were on their covert way to the Enclave.
A spur of the moment cocktail party took place the evening after arrival, in the Leversons’ quarters. Every Crispy in the Enclave, new and old, as well as their friends and significant others and several officials such as Caleb Washington and Bill Shelton and his wife, were there. All in all, the apartment, large though it was, was jammed; there were nearly thirty Crispies, with associated humans.
"We did it, guys!” Kyle exclaimed enthusiastically, popping the cork on a magnum sized bottle of champagne. “We not only found Cresperia, we're now an interstellar species!"
"We did,” his wife Jeri grinned. “Or rather, you did. We were already an interstellar species, I guess."
By this time, all of the Crispies had converted successfully to human, and were happily participating in the food and drink. “And we are very glad you did,” one of the ‘imports’ from Cresperia, who'd taken the name Margie Jones, declared. “This is a delightful exploration of a new culture."
"Not without loss, though,” Shelton said quietly, and the group sobered.
"Listen, everyone,” Caleb Washington injected into the sudden silence, “not meaning to mix business with pleasure, but since everyone who needs to discuss this is already here, I've got some propositions to put to you..."
"We are already doing this, those of us who have been here,” Piki averred, standing beside Bang. “We have been grateful for our rescues and, considering the news the first starship returned with, decided it was appropriate."
"I suggest a vote,” Jeri remarked. “All in favor, raise your right hand."
Every Crispy in the room raised a hand.
"I think you have your answer, generals,” Jeri grinned broadly. “We're willing. Do we need to start now?"
"No, no,” Washington protested. “Most of you have barely even gotten moved in. And you certainly deserve this ‘splashdown party.’ Those that can, please report to Sira Whitman's office tomorrow morning. Those that can't, do so when you get the chance."
"Consider it done, sir,” Margie declared, and everyone returned to the celebration.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, John Salter, had called a classified meeting. Attending were his aide, Lieutenant Gerald Bannerman, functioning as secretary; Secretary of Defense Martin Singletary; CIA Director Jess Ravenshoe; FBI Director Jose Torres; Chief of Crispy Operations, Research and Development, Lieutenant General Caleb Washington; his predecessor in that post, General William Shelton, back from space for a scant week; and Space Fleet Commander In Chief Wayne Terhune.
"So the Crispies’ defensive shields have a limited area, huh, Caleb?” Salter asked.
"Yeah,” Washington responded. “Stands to reason. Can't say I fully understand this ‘unreality physics’ myself, but if nothing else, you have power s
upplies and fluxes and inverse square laws and all kinds of shit like that. Same goes for the disintegrator cannons."
"So what's the effective range?” Singletary wondered.
"One maximum scale shield will safely cover roughly ten thousand square miles,” Washington noted.
"And according to our observations,” Shelton added, “the cannon will go through atmosphere up to low orbit—say about three hundred klicks or so. Probably farther in space, five or six hundred, MAYBE as much as a thousand, without atmospheric attenuation, I'd estimate, before inverse square laws render it ineffective. But we didn't have occasion to find out, thank God."
Salter, Singletary, and Torres drew deep breaths. “That's nowhere near large enough to cover our bigger cities, let alone the biggest,” Torres pointed out.
"Yeah, but we're working on a way to ‘daisy chain’ the shields,” Washington informed them. “Seems Bill brought back a shitload of reinforcements to our Crispy contingent. We've got about four times as many as we had awhile ago. And every one of ‘em busy helping us get ready. Those guys multitask like an octopus on speed."
"That sounds better,” Singletary decided. “So for a city the size of New York, we'd just..."
"We'd daisy chain about half a dozen shields in the right conformation to cover all the boroughs,” Shelton confirmed. “There are a couple of drawbacks, though."
"The rural areas,” Salter noted.
"Yep,” Torres sighed. “Saw that one comin.’”
"That's one,” Terhune agreed. “But, assuming we don't get nuked by the Chinese in the grain belt or something, we plan on sending out garrisons of troops armed with disintegrator weapons as soon as any hint of Snappers in the area comes down the pipeline."
"What kind of pipeline we got?” Ravenshoe queried in surprise. “I never heard about any pipeline."
"Wups—major oversight there, Jess,” Terhune apologized. “Sorry about that. I thought I got everyone's name on the memo, but things have been moving so fast, I forget my own name half the time. Bill, since you guys first ginned it up, you wanna fill him in?"
Shelton shook his head. “It's not half bad,” he admitted. “Before we split up, the joint scientific crews of the Zeng Wu and the Galactic pooled their resources and developed a satellite we could drop in quantity throughout the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system. They'd be indistiguishable from the comets and other Oort objects, but would detect any incoming objects matching ships of known conformation, then send a signal to Earth. For that matter, they'll notify us of ANYthing incoming, just not with known identity. Then each ship's engineering team built as many as they had material for, and when we passed through on the way home, we dropped ‘em off, sending them into specific orbits. Zeng Wu had the receiver. Since the Galactic got home, we've made and popped about five dozen more into the area without anyone the wiser. We've got a full detection constellation of around a hundred and fifty, two hundred satellites. Now they're working on a second, inner layer, being deployed around the distance to the asteroid belt, only spherical."
"And did they—” Torres began.
"Yeah, they caught the Galactic on return,” Salter filled in. “I got the notification of that, right off. But it's been under wraps until we considered the constellation was good to go and full up."
"Okay, so we've got advance warning,” Singletary mused. “Excellent. And we mobilize troops and activate shields immediately we get a warning."
"Right,” Terhune agreed.
"But you said there were a couple of issues,” Ravenshoe recalled. “'Rural areas’ is only one issue."
"Yeah—the power to run all this hotshot equipment is the second,” Washington pointed out. “Eventually we're going to have a separate infrastructure constructed for powering all this shit. Hardened designs are in development already for that. But the only way we have to do it RIGHT NOW, is to cut power to the cities and divert it to offensive and defensive equipment."
"That means,” Shelton continued, “that the population has to be prepared for blackouts, and essential services like hospitals have to be ready to switch immediately to generator power for an indefinite time. Not to mention stockpiles of things like food and water."
Salter drew a deep breath. “Well, it's doable,” he decided. “If Martin and I get Tom to declare martial law during the attack, and we wait until they're in range before activating shit, it oughta work."
"I always hate declaring martial law, even for things like post-hurricane mop-ups,” Singletary muttered. “But yeah, if we're under attack and possibly invasion, absolutely."
"What about our allies—other countries?” Ravenshoe considered.
"They're having essentially the same meeting we are,” Salter informed them. “Getting the procedures in place, and making sure everyone knows what's possible."
"How much is all of this costing?” Torres asked.
"A lot,” Singletary said. “But at least for the time being, all of the research and development from the Department of Defense has been thrown in with us, and so has NASA—including their budgets."
"You're kidding,” Torres said, eyes wide.
"Nope,” Salter verified. “This Cresperian stuff is the top defense R&D going. Beats anything the regular guys were doing by a couple orders of magnitude, easy. And the NASA Administrator pointed out that they do nobody any good if the planet gets wiped out or taken over. Besides, we're already going where they want to go. And we figured their scientists could probably help fill out our manpower. And brainpower."
"It's in work right now, in fact,” Washington noted. “Has been for a couple weeks now."
"Next question: How long will it take to implement all this?” Torres worried. “If either of our starships got followed..."
"Did we mention the Crispies have replication equipment?” Washington wondered innocently.
"Rep...” Torres broke off, as a wide smile spread slowly across his olive face. “How many cities are already protected?"
"Entire East Coast metroplex,” Salter grinned, “major cities on the West Coast, Colorado Springs, Saint Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Fort Knox, Atlanta, Houston, Huntsville Alabama, and still going. The Enclave, of course. The spaceports. Oh, we've been busy, all right. Our intent is to get every major city and critical center in the country under shielding."
"How long until completion of that goal?” Singletary demanded.
"At the current rate, another two to three weeks,” Washington declared. “The biggest time consumer is actually installation at this point."
"Go ye forth and continue, then,” Singletary declared, extremely pleased. “I'll see the President is informed."
Salter, Singletary, Washington, Shelton, and Terhune stayed behind. “So, guys, how's the classified project progressing?” Salter asked.
"The enhancement? Fast,” Terhune replied, “but not too fast."
"Meaning?” Singletary wondered.
"An instantaneous change is painful and can cause damage rather than enhancements,” Washington explained. “That's how Piki Burroughs fought back against that son of a bitch excuse for a Prime Minister when she was held in Scotland. She just made his... er, ‘family jewels’ disappear. From what she told me, he had about enough left to piss, and that was it."
No one said anything, but every man in the room stiffened, blanching somewhat. Singletary crossed his legs.
"So the Crispies take it slower for this kind of work,” Terhune filled in. “They've got the process fine tuned, too. It takes only about three or four days per person right now, and with Jeri Leverson back, they're continuing to find ways to speed it up. Seems converting humans holds a lot less danger than converting Crispies, as long as we do psych evals first to see who's liable to get off on a psycho ego kick about it. Which is pretty easy with the Crispies using their perceptive senses along with the shrinks. And now that Caleb has so many Crispies, we're turning out a couple of platoons a week."
Salter's eyebrow rose. “And how long b
efore you're complete?
Terhune grinned. “US SPAMCOM,” his grin grew into a smirk despite himself at the acronym, “is still small yet, but we estimate complete enhancement of all psychologically cleared personnel in six months maximum. We're already a quarter of the way there."
"So enough are ready to be the first line if something happens sooner,” Salter noted.
"Yes, sir. That includes all platoons involved in Operation Cavalry, too, sir. The one who risked his life to rescue Piki Burroughs was, in fact, the test subject. Per his own request."
"Excellent. Cream of the crop."
"You know,” Martin Singletary murmured, thinking, “has anyone thought to notify Cresperia of the danger from the Snappers?"
"It's my understanding,” Shelton said, “from talking with Jeri Leverson and some of the other Crispies we brought back, that they feel Cresperia is safe. They already demonstrated their ability to protect themselves against the Snappers, and indicated they intended to do the same thing we're doing, protecting major cities. Now, I'll grant that they don't have nearly as many cities as we do, being more spread out and rural. But they seemed to feel confident about it. Besides, we left a pretty big outpost. And I'm sure by now every one of the humans in it is enhanced, knowing the Crispies."
"Okay,” Singletary nodded. “Just didn't want to leave out our first interstellar allies."
"No, sir,” Shelton averred. “We wouldn't do that."
"Good,” Salter said. “Any more questions? Hop to it, then. Dismissed."
Piki and Bang were strolling back toward Piki's quarters after their latest movie date. This has been pretty nice, Bang realized, shooting a sidelong glance at his companion. I've got a blonde bombshell beside me, with brains like a supercomputer, and gentle and understanding, to boot. I think maybe having a Crispy girlfriend isn't a bad thing at all.
Just then, Piki asked, “Bang-bang? How is the ship building coming? Do you know?"
"Oh, yeah,” Bang replied, jerked from his musings. “We got a briefing about that yesterday.” He glanced around and saw no one in their section of corridor, so he dared continue. “Counting the Zeng Wu and the Galactic—both of which have made some quick, minimum crew contingent trips to the edge of the solar system since returning—we now have about a dozen starships, with more being built. But they're working on a new one now,” he lowered his voice. “It's a stealth scout ship, and it's a prototype. Seems Dalunith and a couple of the NASA guys put their heads together and came up with some techniques to combine Crispy and Earth technology for it. If it works, they're gonna build at least four more."
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