by S. T. Boston
Taulass occupied the front seat, for the past hour his face had been locked in a stern expression of concentration and Adam was almost bursting to get him talking about the idea he'd mentioned back in London. Finally as Adam caught up with the next small block of flowing traffic and backed the speed off a little, Taulass glanced at him and said, “Okay, hear me out on this, it's very rough around the edges but I believe the old human adage says that three heads are better than one.”
“It's actually two heads are better than one,” Adam corrected, mildly amused at his misuse of the term. “But as you can probably count me out, I'd say you were half way correct.”
Taulass nodded, the humour completely lost on him, he edged round in his seat so he could see Oriyanna as well. Satisfied that he had both of their attentions he began, “Now, as I said, we can't call the craft back and fly over there, because as soon as we move that ship from the dark side of the moon they will know we are coming. They will be tracking us.” He paused but no one offered anything further, so he continued. “We need to find a way of getting to that ship without having to take our craft to it.”
“The transportation hub?” Oriyanna questioned, leaning forward slightly as she realised where he was going.
“I'm lost already,” Adam said in frustration.
“Each Arkkadian vessel, Adam, is fitted with a transportation hub, much like the ones you both saw and used whilst on Arkkadia,” Taulass explained. “They are designed for short space transportation of personnel between craft in a fleet,” He watched Adam nod his head very unconvincingly. “It's cheaper and less labour intensive than having to move crew around via shuttle craft. They also use them to move ground crew from Arkkadia to craft in orbit, once again to save us having to use expensive shuttle craft, and it's also much safer.”
“I get it,” Adam defended, and this time Taulass was sure he actually did understand. “So we can use the hub on your craft to move us directly to Arkus 2 by in effect dialling up its hub?”
“Yes, kind of, but there is one problem.”
“I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that.” Adam groaned.
“The hubs,” Oriyanna chipped in, leaning forward in her tiny seat, “are only designed for very short journeys, no more than a thousand miles. That is plenty to move between craft in fleet or from the planet's surface to a ship in orbit.”
“But Peru must be over five thousand miles away,” Adam said, not quite sure why they were wasting time on a plan that obviously had no hope of succeeding from the off. “Two questions,” he added. “One, why can they only be used for a trip of that distance? And two, why don't we just get in range, we can still separate the two craft by a thousand miles?”
“Both good questions,” Taulass said as they flew past a large truck, its massive tyres throwing a barrage of spray over the wipers. “As you know, to create a bend in space needs a massive amount of power, and the larger the bend, the larger the amount of power needed.”
“Yeah, I remember that one,” Adam cut in, pleased he could at least grasp the concept in layman's terms. “Hence why The Tabut used the Earth's power and took two hours to charge.”
“Exactly,” Taulass agreed enthusiastically. “Now, the originating hub, that will be the one on our ship, will take its power from the anti-matter engines that power the whole craft. Unfortunately, if we push the hub to a greater distance than a thousand miles we won't have enough power to generate the first wormhole on our return home.” He glanced at Adam who was, once again, looking confused. “It takes a tremendous amount of power to generate that first hole, but as we pass through it also expels a tremendous amount of power. The ship's hull is made from Taribium, just like the hub and The Tabut. As that energy is expelled it's re-harnessed by the hull and used to create the anti-matter for the next wormhole. It's a perpetual cycle of fuel expenditure and creation. But if we can't produce that first jump….”
“Then you can't refill the engines for the next,” Adam completed, grasping the idea.
“Exactly, only the power generated by a jump can be captured by the hull and used to refill the engines. Even if we could jump the six and a half thousand miles to Peru using the on-board hub the ship would be useless, heck, it can't even jump us halfway.”
“Then we fly within range,” Adam protested, sure he was about to be shot down in flames by some bizarre reason that his underdeveloped brain could not figure out.
“No!” Taulass said promptly. “If we do that then we may as well fly the whole way there. They will be tracking us, they will see us land and guess our move. As we pass through the hub they will be waiting. We may as well just walk up to Arkus 2 waving white flags.”
“Then really there is no plan, is there.” It was a despairing statement more than a question. Adam squinted through the spray as he approached another truck, this one was a fuel tanker. He backed off the speed a little, with the ludicrously high oil prices more than a few tankers had been hijacked in a Mad Max style display of thievery. Now they often came with a police or army escort in an effort to ward off would-be highway pirates. This particular tanker was obviously empty and on her way back to one of the refineries on the South Coast as it was alone. Satisfied that the vehicle was Fuzz free Adam got them up to speed and watched it shrink in his rear view mirror.
“We need to find a way,” Oriyanna interrupted, “to get enough power into that hub to span the six and a half thousand miles, whilst not draining too much power from the ship's engine.”
“Exactly,” Taulass agreed, nodding his head. He looked at Adam and said, “The hubs on Arkkadia all use the planet's energy grid, just as The Tabut did. It's a very powerful and completely clean energy and it has more than enough kick to do the job.”
“So if we can get the hub on our craft to use the Earth's energy….” Oriyanna began.
“Then you can make the connection,” Adam completed, suddenly seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the very long tunnel.
Taulass saw the spark in Adam's eyes and nodded, “Indeed,” he said, feeling confident that between them, well more between himself and Oriyanna, they could work the problem. “The ship's hull is made of Taribium, as I said, so I would need to re-calculate the way she takes power in through her hull to feed from the Earth, then re-program the computer to allow it to happen. It's complicated but possible.”
“As you have no planetary grid established here,” Oriyanna said, “then we will need a small amount of power from the ship's engine, but as long as we don't leave the window open too long, or open it too many times, we should be fine.”
“If we can find a natural energy point, a place where the Earth's energy is naturally high then we can minimalize the amount of power we need to take from the ship.”
“Are you saying we have to go back to Egypt?” Adam groaned, if he never visited the Pyramids again it would be too soon.
“No, we can't move the craft from the point it's recalled to, then we need to work fast or they will know what we are doing,” Taulass said thoughtfully. “I can run the calculations on paper before we bring it back, that way I will just need to run the completed calculations through the ship's computer when we board, it will save hours.”
“Hours,” Adam groaned. “I'm not sure we have that long.”
“We don't have a choice,” Taulass defended. “It is what it is, I will work as fast as I can but it's a complicated process. First we need to reach a point naturally rich in Earth's energy, as I mentioned.”
“That won't be a problem,” Oriyanna cut in. “There is such a place within a half hour's drive of Adam's cottage.”
Adam glanced into the mirror, “Stonehenge?” he asked, feeling sure he must be right.
“Not just a pretty face,” Oriyanna smiled. “Yes, Stonehenge.”
“I'm guessing you can shed a little light on that particular mystery then?” he asked hopefully.
“It's not as fantastical as you might think,” she replied, a sly grin on her face. “Back
before the war, when we were studying this planet and the various cultures that had sprung up in the many thousands of years we'd been absent for, we used a number of the naturally rich energy points to build hubs. You see we need some hubs set in areas of higher power, this helps to feed the entire grid, creating a kind of circuit. Stonehenge was the site of one such hub, it was a much smaller version of the system we have on Arkkadia, hence why we could only position hubs in locations such as Stonehenge, there just weren't enough of them to create a fully powered grid. The more hubs you have, the more stable the grid. The Neolithic Agrarians built the stones as a monument to the hub, they believed it to be a portal to the heavens, where their gods came down to Earth.”
“I always thought the Druids built it,” Adam said.
“It was build a good thousand years before the Druids came on the scene,” she answered. “This isn't a time for another lesson in your misinterpreted history,” she gave him a wink as she caught his eye in the mirror.
“Just how long will it take you to work the calculations?” asked Adam as the radio, which had been playing Chic's Le Freak to itself in the background, went silent for a second, drawing his attention from the conversation. Leaning forward in his seat, Adam fiddled with the volume button, as if keen to hear the rest of the 70s disco classic that he'd not really been paying any attention to. The BBC radio news jingle blasted though the cab on the Mazda's Bose sound system, making them all jump. Adam glanced at the clock on panic, it wasn't the top of the hour, or even half way through the hour, which meant something big had happened somewhere.
A very sombre sounding news reader followed the jingle, “We interrupt this scheduled show to take you to a live broadcast by the British Prime Minister, Richard Cole, live from ten Downing Street.” There was a slight crackle as the engineers in the studio switched feeds, this followed another unrehearsed silence, which almost had Adam adjusting the volume again. As he went for the knob Prime Minister Cole's voice blasted thought the car.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Prime Minister began, his midlands accent laced with tension. “It is with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that at ten past twelve GMT the nation of North Korea launched a nuclear attack on the Empire of Japan. The blast, which early indications tell us was a twenty five megaton warhead, detonated over the Chiyoda region of Tokyo.”
“Dear god,” Adam said in a hollow voice. He felt an icy hand run its bony fingers down his spine, before clenching hold of his gut and twisting.
“We are not yet in a position to talk about death toll, but it is my belief that we would be naive not to think that it will be in the millions. Myself, President Hill, as well as other NATO and European Alliance leaders have condemned the attack as a barbaric act of war and one that will not go unpunished.” There was a pause and the sound of Prime Minister Cole taking a sip from a glass, the microphone picked up the clink as it caught on his teeth and the sound of him swallowing before he continued. “As you know this world is in a fragile position. Our sheer dependence on oil and fossil fuels began this new and now deadly race back to a nuclear era that we had a chance of leaving behind. It would seem that North Korea wished to make the most of being the new world's first nuclear power, and like cowards they struck out before the rest of the world could answer. I can assure you that the rest of the world will make them answer for what they have done.”
There was another pause and from the audience a male voice shouted, “Are you planning to retaliate with nuclear force, Mr. Prime Minister?”
“I was elected on the back of honesty and integrity, and a hell-bent will to get this nation back on its feet,” The Prime Minister fired back, his voice tainted with a little annoyance at the question. “And I will keep those values when I answer your question. I believe that the human race has suffered enough over the last two and a half years, and it is my hope that we can resolve this matter without the further use of nuclear weapons. As you know, at this time nuclear weapons are not an option for us, but we are continuing, along with the United States and nuclear European Alliance members to develop our launch and defence systems, a system that we all hope will be online in the next twenty four hours.” He paused again, his voice then took on another octave of dread as he said, “We know very little of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, we do not know who they have targeted, or if indeed their weapons can reach our shores, but we have to be prepared for the worst. At the moment Great Britain is completely defenceless against an attack.” There was a worried murmur that spread across the room, it reached out across the air and broke like a wave in the Mazda. “If you are currently not in one of the country's major cities I would urge you to stay clear. If you are in one of our cities then please, at this time, do not try to evacuate, we have no direct intelligence to suggest we will be a target and I have no desire to needlessly clog the arterial routes in and out of London, or any other city as the result of panic.” Another pause, it was clear that the last part of the broadcast had been improvised, it had sent a mixed message and Adam had a feeling that very soon London would be at gridlock for the first time since The Reaper. “That is all I have for you, ladies and gentlemen. Please stay tuned to your local news channel for the latest news. As a result of events in Japan and the need for the public to know what is going on there will be no power cut tonight. The curfew, however, will stay in place.”
The radio cut back to the BBC news room, Adam had heard enough, he cranked the volume down, turned to Taulass and said, “I have a horrible feeling that however long it is going to take you to do those calculations is going to be too long.”
“It will take me a number of hours to work the calculations,” Taulass said, matter-of-factly. “Then around half an hour to reprogram the ship to those calculations. It's a complicated process, I have to make the ship do something it was not designed to do.”
“This is a test,” Oriyanna said, her voice flat. “They are testing Enola, and it looks like she works. We have until the other systems come online to stop this thing, if that is still a day away we might just have time. I suspect the other nations will up their game now, so – I just don't know.”
“And say we can use the hub to jump us to Peru, say we get aboard Arkus 2, what the hell do we do then?” Adam felt a sweat forming on his brow and down his back.
“I don't know,” Taulass said, sounding a little helpless. “I hadn't got that far.”
Now not worried about the possibility of passing a police car or army patrol Adam slammed the accelerator pedal into the floor, he needed to get them back to Wiltshire and fast. He glanced in the wing mirror, half expecting to see a mushroom cloud hanging in the distant sky.
Chapter 30
Just over three and a half thousand miles away, deep below the White House in the PEOC, (Presidential Emergency Operations Centre), President Hill sat at a large oval mahogany table and cradled his head in his hands. Looking up he surveyed the eclectic mixture of personnel who had accompanied him into the bunker that had been built on the command of President Franklin Roosevelt during the dark days of World War Two. The bunker was designed to withstand all but a direct nuclear surface impact, and there were those who wagered it could even survive one of those if the yield of the nuke wasn't too high. With developments in the East, President Hill had a growing uneasy feeling that the bunker's durability might well be tested in the next few hours, and the thought made him feel sick. The White House had stood pretty much undamaged and un-attacked since President James Monroe had moved in back in 1817, after the repairs had been completed following a fire set by the British, and he was damned if the universally recognised monument was going down on his watch.
Whilst maintained and kept up to date with the latest technology the bunker had only been seriously used twice in the last few decades. On September the 11th 2001, a day that had changed the world forever, and not for the better. The Vice President of the day, Dick Cheney, and a number of other important members of the presidential staff had utilised it
s safety, whilst President Bush, who had been visiting a school when the first plane had hit the North Tower, had taken to the skies in Air Force One, the government running a country in crisis from both above and below.
The last time the operations centre had been needed was almost thirty months ago, when The Reaper had raged across the surface of the globe. On that occasion the newly sworn in president, Marshall Baines, who until the death of John Remy in Malaysia had been Vice President, had taken shelter with his staff for the full seven days, only daring to go topside after the strange deluge that had seemingly halted the virus had stopped falling, leaving Washington's streets flooded and in tatters. The deluge had been so fierce and had hammered down for so long that even parts of the White House roof had started to leak.
A year after that week, a week that just like the events of 2001 had changed the world, just on a far greater scale, the American people had elected Hill to power. There had been civil unrest at Marshall Baines' non-existent ability to pull the country back together, and in the end he'd called an emergency election, stepping down from power. Many Americans knew that whoever followed John Remy would have a tough presidency, but trying to fill those shoes, along with running a nation on the brink of collapse and with many cities in outright anarchy, it had been an almost impossible task.