by Peter Damon
“With the marvels of new technology, I imagine they’re thinner and last longer than before, cost thousands to manufacture, and are referred to only by their acronym,” Allan answered, laughing with him.
“Let them approach,” Michael said, entering the control-room with little Wendy-Claire perched on his arm. She looked about her with round eyed curiosity while gripping her father’s shirt. “Just make sure they can’t get in,” he chuckled, looking towards the image of the earth on the wall monitors. “Ah, but I missed that,” he murmured. “Look Wez; earth,” he told her, using the fast growing pet name for her. Wendy-Claire spent a moment looking, then turned back to look about the control-room once more.
Oliver finished sending the last of his current batch of videos and turned to smile. “Robert says hi,” he told them. Allan snorted and shook his head.
“Is there anything to be wary of?” Michael asked.
Eyes turned towards Sally. She shook her head, her fingers continuing to slide items forward and back on the table, tapping occasionally to bring an image onto the wall in front of them. “None that we’re not already aware of,” she shook her head.
“Ok. Mickey can take me down,” Michael confirmed.
“What about us?” Glen asked, stepping into the control-room to look towards the large monitor. The Russian heartland was a magical mix of browns and greens, half shielded from view by cloud-filled weather systems that suggested they were turning, but appeared still.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Allan told him. “We have six taxis in this taxi rank,” he explained with a grin.
“Well, I doubt we’ll ever be ready,” Glen sighed. Pat wanted Diane to wear her good pants and fancy coloured tunic. Diane wanted to wear her spacesuit, and she didn’t care if anyone looked at her, it was hers by right, and she would never, ever, be embarrassed wearing it. Thankfully, he and Pat had won the one to stop Diane from shaving her hair to have the distinctive tattoos inked onto her crown, but he had the feeling they were going to lose out on this one.
“Yeah, I’ll leave that one to you,” Michael chuckled, making his way out.
“Just you wait!” Glen called after him. “You’ll be there soon brother, sooner than you think!”
“We’re ready when you are, Glen,” Allan said, hiding his broad smile.
+++++++++++++
Robert sat in his cell and tried to look calm and uncaring. He felt doubly naked, bereft, without his tablet, and he wondered if modern man found this type of incarceration harder than his forebears, now that communication with family and friends was so easy, irrespective of distance. When was anyone out of touch of family and friends in this modern age?
The thought urged him to write a story and he kept himself busy by writing it in his head while, outside in the passage, a drunk tried arguing with the Custody Sergeant as he was led to his own little 1.8 by 2.4 metre cell.
The door opened, the unlocking of the door having gone un-noticed, and Stanley Charway stepped in, a cup of tea and a pad of paper in his hands.
“No thanks,” Robert told him. “I’ve tried the tea in here,” he reminded Stan.
“It’s not for you, it’s for me,” Stanley told him, smiling as he sat down facing his prisoner.
“I guess you get used to anything; swimming around in it long enough,” Robert shrugged.
Stan smiled. He’d heard it all before, and from better than this young colt. “What’s their plan?” he asked instead.
“Search me,” Robert shrugged and sighed. “Come on now Mr Charway; you really think they’d let anyone on earth know their plans?” he asked seriously.
“Ah, but they’ve been using you to sow seeds. So what seeds are you going to sow next? What articles are you about to write, Fuller?”
Robert began explaining about how he believed imprisonment away from a tablet or cell-phone could be construed as an infringement of human rights, at best. Torture at worst. How the modern man was so reliant upon such things, that their removal could cause anxiety fits, perhaps even panic attacks. He’d have to do some research of course, but not a lot. It was too good a story to let factual details get in the way.
+++++++++++++
Professor Lovell had Cheryl help him. He was consolidating some of his purchases, buying one of their companies with another, often at a fraction of what it had originally cost. He provided the details, and Cheryl and Gary then acted on behalf of each side of the transaction, acquiring any legal resource they needed in order to complete the transaction.
The move left the seller financially insolvent and open to take-over or bankruptcy. The professor didn’t mind which. Each of the failing companies had either taken loans from the national bank in which they were domiciled in order to ‘tide them over’, or were part-owned by others, none of whom held sufficient stock to influence his actions, but enough to hurt financially.
Under normal circumstances such companies would never have obtained loans or any amount of share income, but the upheavals in the financial markets had opened the doors to greedy men, and greedy men often over-extend themselves.
His actions wouldn’t cause many, if any, companies to collapse, but it would weaken them and make their owners cautious. Their excessive cautiousness would make the professor’s job much easier.
+++++++++++++
The alarm bells on Freedom One were strident and loud, sounding in every area of the spaceship. The crew listened for a moment, then moved quickly towards their quarters to retrieve their spacesuits. Those already in suits moved to their assigned stations to wait apprehensively for news and direction.
Allan had insisted on irregular tests of the alarm and practically all of them had been on board the ARC, that fateful night when their air had been attacked. They knew the importance of moving promptly but cautiously, of getting into their suits and then making their way to their station.
Allan looked immediately at his screen to grunt as he saw that the outer wall of the spaceship, immediately above the observation room at the top of Freedom One, had been breached and was now open to space. The door to the observation room had automatically sealed when a loss of air was detected. Something had struck them and breached the hull.
“We’re getting out of here,” Allan told the room, his finger stabbing his main monitor the three times it took to invoke a change of course from their orbit.
Oliver contacted the surgery and reached Paul. “Any injuries?” he asked.
From his desk, Paul could bring up the status of all personnel from details broadcast by their RFID Chip. Sighing with relief, he confirmed that there had been no injuries, then finished climbing into his own suit.
“Where’s Michael when you need him?” Allan asked, just as Maddy came into the control-room. Heather was immediately behind her, Wendy-Claire enshrouded in the rubber cocoon that Peter had designed as a baby-spacesuit.
“He’s left. We’ve got him and the Schroder family in transit to the earth. Do you want them recalled?” Maddy asked. Leanne rushed in behind them and slid nimbly into her desk to look about it, assessing their communications.
Allan shook his head. “It may have just been a meteor,” he explained. “A risk of having chosen 400 kilometres as our orbiting altitude,” he reflected.
“Whatever it was,” Sally broke in, “I’ve got movement on the east coast of Russia; Chabarovsk,” she told them sharply, and put a feed onto the far wall.
Maddy licked her lips as she stared at the clear images of three missiles heading up from their launch vehicles. “Can we move any quicker?” she asked.
“Keep an eye on those three, Sally. I’ll want to know where they go,” Allan told her as he worked on his board.
Maddy stared at the screen, watching the three missiles continue to rise. For a moment it appeared as if the three weren’t pointing to them at all, and then she remembered that the images were coming from Sally’s satellites, and not Freedom One.
“Matt; tell the Americans to get out of the way,”
Allan said, ice sliding down his back.
Matt shook himself from the trance the image of the rising missiles had brought and keyed a channel to the Americans to begin warning them of what was coming.
“How long have we got?” Heather asked, cocooning her child to her breast as she stared in horror at the screen.
“We’re fine Heather. Really,” he told her. “It’s not us I’m worried about,” he told her.
“Well, how long have they got?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“Three more minutes,” Leanne told them from across the room, her face pale.
“Matt!” Allan all but barked.
Matt waved his arms in the air. “They can’t go anywhere quickly!” he cried.
Allan already knew the answer and was working his table. The images on the far wall, taken from feeds on their hull, jerked and swivelled as Allan moved Freedom One directly in front of the American spaceship, and opened the rear doors.
“Get in, and quickly!” he barked.
The missiles had reached Sally’s low orbital position and were streaking past at 7 kilometres per second while, at their higher orbit, those inside the control-room watched the American spaceship move with agonising slowness towards them.
“Fuck this!” Allan stormed, and moved Freedom One backwards, scooping the American craft into their hold.
“The noses of the missiles are opening!” Sally cried.
“They’re carrying multiple and independent warheads,” Matt called.
Allan swore again and pushed his thumb down hard on his app.
“Jesus!” Oliver cried, while around him, everyone gasped.
In the space of two seconds, Freedom One had travelled over 5,000 kilometres. Sally’s satellite survived a further second, before the multiple warheads from the three satellites ignited, and the cameras automatically closed their receptors, protecting them from the white light that momentarily lit the area.
“Someone tell me how we respond?” Allan asked, his voice tightly controlled while his eyes continued to stare at the monitors.
“We’ve still got a meteor hole in the hull,” Matt reminded him.
“I need a team to go out and look at the damage from the outside,” Allan told Maddy, and glanced towards the twins as they hurried in, nodding towards them to put them at ease.
“Right away,” Maddy agreed, and turned to move towards the docking bay, already appearing to talk to herself as she prepared a couple of others to join her.
Allan opened a channel to everyone on the ship and, turning off the alarm, brought them up to date with what had happened. “We have the situation in control and limited it to the observation room and the corridor leading to it. However, please remain in your suits and ready to evacuate if need be.”
“Anything we can do?” Heather asked on behalf of herself and the twins.
Allan shook his head. “Well, actually,” he re-considered. “Why don’t you go join the others in the lounge? Give Wez to the women for a few minutes,” he suggested.
Heather grinned and went off to do as he asked, knowing that Wendy-Claire was probably the only thing that would stop many of the gypsy women from worrying about the spaceship and their men.
+++++++++++++
The phone buzzed and Joanna picked it up and held it to her ear. “There’s movement,” said a voice originating from the lower basement of the White House.
“On my way,” she told the caller, already up and moving towards the door to her office.
The situation room was designed to be quickly accessed by the president. Joanna’s office was only a little bit further away and yet she reached the room as quickly as the president would have.
“What?” she asked, standing beside her chair and looking towards the far monitor where an image from the nearing US spaceship showed one of the SUV’s moving across the camera’s field of vision as it headed towards earth.
“Where is it heading?” she called. “Find out!” she cried, frustrated by the shaking heads and shrugs of those about the table.
Calls were made and handsets held to ears, waiting for updates, even as the dark SUV dropped from sight. Joanna tapped the back of her chair with an extended finger, her mind returning to some of the items she’d left on her desk, in order not to dwell upon things outside her control, and about which she knew next to nothing.
“Beijing, China, Ma’am,” said a voice in the room.
Joanna stared at the monitor and her finger stopped against the fabric of the chair as her mind went into hyper-drive. The appearance of a second SUV broke her train of thoughts and she watched this one head towards earth too, but in a different direction. She pointed and there were more hurried conversations. Once more they waited in a silence charged with frustration and anxiety. One of the faces turned towards her, his eyes wide and his mouth working.
“Washington DC, Ma’am,” he told her.
+++++++++++++
Joanna reached the lawn to find armed servicemen in their dress uniforms already crouched with their rifles raised, their eyes fixed on the overcast sky. More servicemen arrived, together with plain clothes agents whose hands were under their jackets, ready to bring out their firearm, but only when absolutely necessary.
There were people at the railings in front of the White House, pointing and gesturing, their eyes turning upwards to follow the direction of the servicemen’s weapons.
“Stay inside please,” one of the officers was saying to the staff of the White House who had joined Joanna in coming out into the miserably cold day. “Please stay inside,” he continued to beg, politely but firmly.
“Don’t you dare,” Joanna told him as he moved to guide her back inside the building.
“Ma’am, it’s not safe out here. We can’t guarantee your safety,” he told her sharply, not intimidated by her, or the badge hanging from the ribbon around her neck.
“These people have brought an asteroid to the earth. You think they’re going to try and land and assassinate us?” she asked.
“Ma’am,” he continued, “I don’t mean the SUV. Three missiles have been launched from Russian mainland,” he told her, stopping as the crowd at the railings cried out excitedly.
She looked up and saw the underside of a large SUV descending, already practically on top of them.
“Do not fire your weapons!” she cried frantically, staring about her. “Do not, I repeat, do not fire your weapons!”
“Ma’am, we need to get you into the basement,” the secret-service man was telling her, taking her arm while the other held his ear-piece more firmly to his ear.
The SUV was coming down to land on the lawn, mid-way between the building and the railings. Joanne winced at its rate of descent and the suddenness with which it stopped, only then recalling details about there being no inertia within the vehicles.
The soldiers were lowering their rifles she was glad to see, and the plain-clothed agents were talking softly into their small phones while, in front of them, the doors to the front and back of the black vehicle opened, and four people got out, one tall man in a spacesuit helping the other two passengers jump from the high cabin, one small enough to be a child, for all that she too wore a spacesuit.
“Glen Schroder,” she heard someone murmur to their neighbour, and Joanna nodded, recognising him now, and his wife and daughter. He had changed, she thought. His face was leaner, his features stronger, but he seemed taller too. She pushed the protective arm of the agent aside and strode onto the lawn, a hand extended to shake his hand and welcome him back.
She wanted to talk to the spaceman too, but he was already climbing into the front of the vehicle, and Glen was keeping a hold of her hand and pulling her along with him, away from the vehicle.
“I wanted to talk to them,” she accused as the SUV climbed into the air and Glen finally released her.
“You and everyone on earth,” he smiled soothingly. “Come on. Let’s go a get me debriefed,” he offered.
Joanna look
ed towards the young girl, the tight spacesuit suggesting a teenager in the latter years of adolescence. “Yes, I’ll explain that too,” Glen promised, leading her back into her own office, the others following.
“We’re going into the basement,” she told them, running in front of the others as the agents made a corridor for them.
“What’s happening?” Glen asked, frowning worriedly at the idea that he and the SUV had caused this amount of turmoil.
“The Russians have launched three missiles. That’s all I know,” she explained hurriedly, while the elevator plunged them into the lower levels of the White House.
“Oh, dear God, no,” Pat gasped, encircling her daughter in her arms.
Joanna wanted to assure her everything was going to be alright, and found her tongue glued to the bottom of her mouth. “Let’s get you all into the bunker,” she told them instead, the doors opening on a concrete-walled passage.
Another agent led her into the main meeting room, and there she found the president seated in her command chair, being briefed by the most senior man at hand while aides bent over telephones and rapidly typed into tablets and laptops.
The president looked up as she entered and smiled grimly, her glasses perched low on her nose. “They’re heading towards Freedom One and MX55,” she said.
“MX55?” Glen wondered aloud.
“Our spaceship,” Joanna quickly explained.
“Freedom One appears to be urging MX55 into their hold,” an aide spoke up. “They’re asking for permission to proceed.”
“Jeez, don’t they know three missiles are about to meet with them?” Glen asked.
“Proceed,” the president told the aide.
“We’ve lost communication,” the aide told them.
+++++++++++++
“This looks far too clean an edge to have been a meteor,” Maddy said over the radio link. She focused a camera on the small hole, allowing Allan and the others in the control-room to see the cleanly cut circular hole that had, with surgical precision, removed a plug of rubber and steel from the outer hull of the old ferry.
“That’s laser cut,” Leanne gasped.
“You sure?” Allan asked, an eyebrow raised.