Earth II - Emergence

by Ray Jay Perreault

  “Chang, the power grid has been verified, are you ready for me to power up this building?” asked Lieutenant Lee.

  “Yes, turn the power on,” responded Chang.

  Lieutenant Lee spoke into a walkie-talkie, and within a few moments the lights on the base and in the large hanger that they were working came on. Lee was happy; her men had done their job. Their immediate area had been isolated from the local power grid, and it was functioning well. They could move to the next step of their plan.

  “Chang, you have the power now you must do what you need to do,” said Lee as she looked directly into Chang’s eyes.

  Chang walked around checking his computers, making sure that they booted properly, and the power supplies were steady. Once everything was to his satisfaction, he walked over to the five robotic machines that their men had dragged into the work area, he stood and looked at them for a moment, then he said, “turn them on.”

  Two of Chang’s technicians walked from unit to unit turning them on and allowing them to reboot. From a cold boot, the process would take four minutes and 35 seconds. That was a long time to wait for both Chang and Lieutenant Lee. Both knew that the careers and lives rested upon those devices booting the computers in the manner in which they needed.

  After the process was complete, each of the five units stood up and remained motionless. Chang walked over to one of them, and said in his home language of Mandarin, “walk ten paces straight ahead then stop.”

  The device didn’t hesitate; it took ten paces forward then stopped.

  “Excellent,” Chang said to himself.

  “Walk back to me and stop,” directed Chang.

  “Lieutenant Lee bring in that other subject that your men found.”

  Lieutenant Lee’s man dragged and pushed a young man of about 30 years old. He was scared and didn’t know what was going on. They had found him rummaging for food in the base commissary.

  “Make him stand over there,” said Chang.

  He looked at the robotic unit in front of them and handed him a machine gun. The unit grasped the gun as if he were familiar with it.

  “Shoot that man,” Chang said as he pointed the frightened person.

  The robotic unit turned rapidly and emptied the magazine into the petrified person.

  The large hanger echoed with the reverberations of the gunshots. The smoke from the shells poured out of the magazine and barrel. The robotic unit just stood there pointing the automatic weapon in the direction of the young man that he just slaughtered. Chang and Lieutenant Lee looked at each other, and they both smiled.

  There was one more critical test they had to perform. The last test would ultimately determine if they would be a success or not.

  Lieutenant Lee walked over to a large stack of crates that had been unloaded from the transport. On the ground was an open crate full of strange looking rifles. She picked one up casually walking back to the group of mobile units which they had brought back to life. While walking, she casually looked at the weapon getting a feel for its weight distribution and handles. When she finally reached the small group of static robots, she lifted her rifle and fired a strong energy pulse at one of the robots. There wasn’t an immediate reaction, but slowly the robot began to teeter and then fell over without making any movement to maintain its balance. The giant hangar was quiet, and everyone just stood and watched. The result of the next few minutes would determine whether the mission would succeed or fail. After about 30 seconds the robot’s hand moved then the second hand moved, and it began to lift itself back up into a standing position.

  The entire technical staff let out a breath of relief. Their plan to gain control of the robots looked like it would work. The light pulse weapon would disrupt their electronic circuits causing a reboot. When the android’s computer came back online, it sought a local connection to update its software. Once that connection was made the software would be downloaded which gave Lieutenant Lee control over the unit. The new software removed all previous restrictions on the mobile units; they would do as they were told.

  “Okay, you know your jobs from now on. Everyone take a rifle and traverse the local area. Reinitialize every unit that you find. As each of the units come online, give them a weapon. Their initial program is to find other units to initialize. When their power supplies run down, they will find local power on their own and continue the expansion. When we have enough units under control, will send the signal to have them act as we tell them.”

  The troops that had accompanied her on the transport quickly opened the boxes and took their rifles. Without any discussion, they sprinted from the facility and jumped into vehicles that they had already procured. This stage of the process would take hours for the expanding robot army to materialize. The rate of expansion would be exponential.

  Lieutenant Lee smiled as she walked over to a small table covered with a tablecloth a few flowers and a bottle of rice wine. Time to celebrate, she thought to herself

  BG and Darlene Leave System

  “That went well,” Darlene said as the shuttles separated from the Chevesky.

  “We didn’t kill each other,” BG said with a smile. “I’m glad that you’re safe,” he said as he turned Darlene to face him.

  “Beta-Prime, take us home,” Captain Drummond said.

  As soon as they got back to the Burlington, BG, and Darlene put their arms around each other and slowly walked to their quarters.

  Joan Herl Returns

  “Captain we have just exited the jump point,” announced SIMPOC.

  “I guess we’re home,” Joan said with a sigh.

  “It sure is good to be back,” responded Bob Shappel.

  “SIMPOC open a channel to earth, I need to tell them what happened. Also, check to see if the Burlington is back in the system,” said Joan.

  “Captain Herl, it appears the Burlington has not returned yet,” announced SIMPOC.

  “President Patterson, this is Joan Herl on the Chevesky. We have returned, and we survived the meeting with the Terest. There were some challenges, but we made it through, I will give you all of the details in the report which I’ll send shortly.”

  “Let me know the instant the Burlington returns.”

  Test Uranus

  “SIMPOC, I want to ask you about that plan of yours to mine rare elements and gases from Uranus. If the Terest or Izod actually ask us to trade, I want to make sure that we do what we told them. Should we set something up and see if it works?” asked Joan.

  “Joan, that would be an excellent idea. That’s why I’ve already been working on a plan.”

  “Getting a little snarky, aren’t we?”

  “Snarky, I’m not familiar with the term,” responded SIMPOC.

  “It’s hard to explain, except that it is a mix of sarcasm and insult,” said Joan.

  “Interesting mix of terms, I’ll have to consider … if I’ve been snarky,” answered SIMPOC.

  “Yes, that would be a good idea. Now, as I asked what is your plan actually to mine chemicals and rare elements from the Uranus atmosphere?”

  “As you are aware, these ships are designed to harvest chemicals, materials, and gases. It should be well within its design parameters. The Cow-Robots and first stage supply ships are designed for the task. When harvesting from a gaseous planet, the Cow-Robots are delivered by the supply ships which can remain in a low orbit while the cow-robots are dispensed.”

  “Haven’t we converted all of them to frigates?” she asked.

  “Yes, that was the plan, but not all of the ships have yet been converted. If we are to test them, then we must use one of the current assets.”

  “We may need to. What have you found out about them to show you that they will do the job?” Joan asked.

  “I have been investigating the software and computer functionality on board the ships. As I have explained before, they operate on a technology that is considerably different than what humans are familiar with. Over time I have made progress though. The h
arvest plan entails the use of Cow-Robots on the surface to find and control any resources deemed necessary. But the secondary supply ships in orbit seem to have different functionality. They are an interim processing facility designed to process key materials. When the capital ships arrive, the semi-processed material is passed to the capital ship for final processing or used within the capital ship’s manufacturing facility. The secondary supply ships are built very strong and are designed for environments that we have never encountered. Their skin is very unusual, and I fear there is much to learn about. It appears that the skin has many elements that are unbalanced.”

  “Unbalanced?”

  “Yes, every element has an affinity to combine with other elements. Once that happens then it becomes stable or balanced. When an element is unbalanced, then it has a high attraction force to those elements that will allow it to become balanced. The surface of the secondary supply ships have elements that are very active, and through some process unknown to me, they are unbalanced, and each seeks its companion. I suspect that if one of those ships were to encounter the elements that we seek, the bonding would occur on the skin. Then I suspect that through another unknown process, the elements will be collected by retrieval by the primary supply then the capital ships. Unfortunately, much of what I’ve said is based on assumptions. That I why I agree with you that it would be prudent to test my hypothesis by sending a secondary supply ship into the Uranus atmosphere to see what results.”

  “Sounds like a plan, I’ll check with Admiral Monson and see if we can commandeer one of the ships. Can we carry it with us?”

  “Yes, we have six docking stations which are designed for those ships to be resupplied. Per my calculations, we can traverse the distance in approximately 6 hours which includes the time necessary to accelerate and decelerate.”

  “Excellent. I’ll check on a ship.”

  Burlington Returns to Solar System

  “Captain we are one minute from entering our solar system,” said Beta-Prime.

  Captain Darlene Drummond and BG stood watching the control panels and the 3D display in front of them for the solar system that they were familiar with.

  “It will be nice to be home,” said BG.

  “It sure will,” said Darlene.

  They looked at each other and smiled, and they shared a new intimacy that would change their relationship forever.

  “We have exited the jump point,” announced Beta-Prime

  “EDF Chevesky, this is EDF Burlington,” transmitted Captain Drummond. “We have returned, and I wanted to find out if you are here yet,” said Captain Drummond.

  “Darlene, this is Joan. We’re already here let’s join up and review what’s happened then we can send a joint report to the president,” said Joan.

  Monday, November 6, 2051

  Drummond and Herl Meet with President

  “I’m glad to have everyone together,” said President Patterson. “I wanted to take the time and talk to each of you. I always found that is the best way to communicate. Joan, Darlene, I’m glad to see that you made it back. Now if you could both summarize what you found that’s above and beyond the reports that you sent. I know you had impressions and thoughts that you didn’t put in your reports. I’d like to ask each of you to take a moment and summarize what you know and what you think is going on and draw attention to where you think our biggest risks are,” said President Patterson just before he sipped some coffee.

  “Joan or Darlene, could you please start it off and give us your impressions of what you’d counted that are beyond what you included in the report?” asked the president

  You go first, thought Darlene.

  That was the first time that Joan had received a message through the alien material from Darlene. SIMPOC didn’t react, but Joan raised her eyebrows. You’ll get your turn, she thought back to her friend.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll go first. I gave you the basics in the report to make sure that my trip was documented in case anything happened to us. But, Mr. President. you’re right. There are a lot of subtleties that I couldn’t capture in the report. The Terest are a large population; the planet is heavily populated and farmed. It appears that they are almost maxed out in using their resources. I didn’t get to meet any others than the small group. I am not a diplomat; we did the best we could in dealing with the Terest. I suspect that Captain Drummond will acknowledge that are finding major differences in alien civilizations when we must actually deal with them. The Terest are a very defensive, somewhat paranoid society. They are very structured male-oriented society and very hesitant to deal with others. It is very unusual for them to deal with women, particularly women with authority. I don’t know how far to trust the leader that I spoke with. But I think we have opened some lines of communication and we need to maintain them in order to understand them better and to perhaps anticipate what their actions might be. I only saw the one planet and the local area where we had our discussion.

  Their technology is more advanced than ours was before the virus but somewhat less than what we have with our ships. I wasn’t able to discover how many interstellar ships they have nor learn anything about their weapons capabilities. They do have ships similar to what we’ve encountered before, and we also saw what looked like a space station. I suggest that we plan another trip back there in a relatively short time to continue discussions with them. As I mentioned in my report, they would like to set up a trade relationship with us. They would like to mine a long list of rare elements from Uranus, which SIMPOC has assured me the Cow-Robots and supply ships more than capable of performing for us. I emphasized that we didn’t want to take sides in the conflict with the Izod, but I suspect that won’t matter from their perspective,” said Captain Herl she took a deep breath and reached for her coffee cup.”

  Captain Herl continued, “As I said in the report the planet was attacked by some ballistic missiles, we assume they came from the Izod. SIMPOC and I used that opportunity to leave, and if it hadn’t been for those missiles, I don’t know what else would’ve happened. That aside, SIMPOC has made some major discoveries which could change the game a lot into our favor. My report described the two weapons, and I directed SIMPOC to put together instruction manuals and pass them to the other capital ships, so they will know how to use them. I recommend that we have some maneuvers and fly around our solar system and destroy some stuff to get everybody familiar with the capabilities,” she said as she looked at Vice President Hagerly and Admiral Monson.

  Your turn, Joan passed to her friend mentally.

  Joan and Darlene glanced at each other and shared a knowing smile.

  Darlene then started her comments, “As you are aware my experience with the Izod was quite a bit different than that of Joan’s. It was a little dicey for a while, Lieutenant Commander Boggs was unsure what to do, and he didn’t want to start a war, but he wasn’t going to let them keep me,” said Captain Drummond.

  “Lieutenant Commander?” asked the President.

  Darlene Drummond smiled a little and perhaps even blushed before she responded.

  “Yes sir, in that situation, he needed to have a title to deal with the Izod. Saying is there only two humans on board the ship, would have given them too much information. I felt Lieutenant Commander was appropriate,” she said with a timid smile towards the President.

  “Do what you need, consider it a field promotion” responded Admiral Monson. “I’ve given each of the captains of the capital ships the title of Captain. On the ships we have additional crewmen, and I’ve asked the captains to follow typical rank conventions, but they’re allowed to make their own decisions,” said Admiral Monson.

  Captain Drummond continued, “In my opinion, we will be visited by the Terest and Izod pretty quickly. I can’t give you any impressions about their society except for Telorr and Carot. Personally, I didn’t like Telorr. They think, and act differently than humans do, so I don’t trust myself in predicting their behavior.”

  Joan and D
arlene smiled and nodded their heads.

  Joan jumped in with a suggestion, “After we are done here, I’d like to ask the captains of all of the capital ships to join me on board the Chevesky so that I can brief them in person about the new weapons capabilities. I also want to meet them and let them get to know me. That’s all I’ve got for now,” she said just before she sipped her coffee.

  “SIMPOC, have you made any progress in figuring out what Julius is doing?” asked the President.

  “Mr. President, after Julius left our solar system each system that he entered likely had numerous jump points. Depending upon which jump point he took, the next system also would have multiple jump points. Mathematically within two or three jumps, the possible paths are too numerous for us to follow him. Given Julius’s programming, he will seek resources to remove the two threats to his existence. He will return; we must prepare for that as well as encounters with the Izod and Terest. Because of the large number of how many jump points Julius has available, I can’t predict with high accuracy that we will find him. But that doesn’t preclude following through at least the first jump point, determining how many options we have and then deciding at that point if we want to pursue him. He is a computer; he doesn’t view caution as humans do. If he is not being pursued, he may not continue evading. He might only make a limited number of jumps. If that is the case, we might be able to find his location,” responded SIMPOC.

  “I was hoping for some good news,” said Vice President Hagerly.

  “Sorry,” responded SIMPOC with a little voice inflection.

  SIMPOC’s response was enough out of character that everyone at the table looked at each other with a humorous look. It was apparent to all of them that SIMPOC was changing.