Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Their demands are telling as well. They’re not demanding unconditional surrender, but merely the return of their craft and the dismantling of our strategic weapons systems, as puny as they are. It doesn’t even seem unreasonable to most eyes, yet it does tell us what they find important. The only reason to demand that we disarm those systems is to prevent them becoming a threat to the alien mothership, which means that they have to be a threat in the first place!

  “We could stand down those systems, we could allow the mothership to enter orbit, we could…but that would mean placing our fate completely in their hands. They could just keep making demands until they stumbled upon something we literally could not give them. When that happens, they will go to war and we will not be in such a strong position to fight them. If they want war, they will have war, regardless of what we want. It only takes one side to have a war. If they want peace…we can refuse to give in to their demands and attempt to negotiate. Let them fire the first shot.”

  He took a breath. “The use of force is always a political decision,” he said, finally. “I believe, however, that our only hope of survival as a species, the only hope of remaining in control of our own destiny, is standing up to the aliens now and telling them that we will not surrender our planet and if they want to share it, they can do it on our terms. The world will still change, but at least we will have a say in how it changes.”

  The President listened as, one by one; each member of the Inner Cabinet offered their opinions. Some agreed with General Wachter that the aliens had to be fought, or stated that they believed that the aliens were bluffing and they were weaker than they seemed. Others felt that the risk was too high to justify standing up to the aliens and risking complete destruction at their hands. The President said nothing of his own feelings, preferring to allow the others to talk, but Wachter was right. The aliens might have been telling the truth when he’d spoken to Ethos in person – he believed that Ethos had been telling the truth – and their motives were hardly friendly. Any alliance with them would be on their terms. The President knew enough to know that wasn't a guarantee of safety for American interests, let alone American freedom and liberty. There would be no guarantee that the aliens wouldn’t turn on them in the end.

  “Congress is split on the issue,” Senator Hamlin said finally. The President might not always have liked him, but he respected him, even though he was resolutely independent of the Cabinet. “Some believe that we should fight; others that we should return the craft and offer to negotiate on the other issues. It’s not going to end well.”

  The President nodded, silently thanking God that he’d had the foresight to ensure that most Senators and Congressmen had been fully briefed well before SETI picked up the alien signal. It had averted a political catfight and prevented his immediate impeachment when the aliens had declared that their ship had been shot down, but it had also torn Congress apart. A handful of politicians hadn’t been briefed – they had a long history of leaking classified information to the media – and they were screaming about how they’d been kept in the dark. The protests and the disruptions they’d caused hadn’t helped.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. He wanted to take a vote, but there was no time. Perhaps, if things went really badly, he could be impeached and made to carry the blame, a scapegoat for alien outrage. “We have little choice, it seems. It’s fight now or fight later.”

  He looked over at his Press Secretary. “Please inform the networks that I will address the country in one hour,” he ordered. It wouldn’t be hard. The White House had been bombarded with requests for information ever since New York. “We tell the aliens that we must refuse their demands until we get a full accounting of their true motives. And if we have to fight, we will.”

  ***

  Abigail caught herself rubbing her wrists where the plastic tie had dug into her skin. The police had been surprisingly gentle compared to police in some countries, but it hadn’t been a very pleasant experience, even after they’d been dumped into a commandeered gym and made to wait for attention. They’d been searched, the ties had been removed, and warned to behave themselves, or else. A handful had shouted abuse at the cops and had ended up being cuffed to the railings, the remainder had just waited, all the fight beaten out of them, until the cops finally compiled a list of who they’d caught. They’d released Abigail five hours after taking her into custody with a warning that she might be recalled and rearrested at any time; Shelia, who had played a slight role in inciting the riot, had been transferred to another holding facility. WNN had sent a legal team to argue the point, but Abigail privately suspected that it wouldn’t get them very far. The mood in the country wasn't very sympathetic to the protesters.

  The call from the White House had been a surprise, even though procedures were firmly in place for addressing such a situation. The call had merely said that the President intended to address the station and the various news companies were invited to attend to broadcast the statement to the nation. The airwaves were already being covered with messages informing the nation that the President would be speaking in an hour and normal coverage would be paused to allow the President to speak. There had been riots in places where the President had spoken over a ball game or something like that, but Abigail doubted that many people would not be watching the President. The country needed reassurance and it had received precious little of that in the last few days. There were people walking around glancing nervously at the skies.

  It hadn’t helped that thousands of people had come forward claiming to have seen where the alien craft was shot down. There were so many people from so many different places that Abigail was certain that most of them were lying, or simply mistaken. If they were all telling the truth, it looked as if most of the country had been bombarded with wrecked alien ships, or as if the USAF had successfully repelled an alien invasion. The map of America in her office was studded with red pins marking each of the so-called crash sites, but the researchers hadn’t managed to make even one of them seem realistic. There were only a handful of reports that might just be accurate, yet all of them were in very isolated areas. None of them could be confirmed and anyone who might have been in the know wasn't telling.

  She rubbed her wrists again as the President appeared from a side door and walked to the podium. Normally, the reporters would have been shouting questions, but this time they were silent. They were humans too and they were scared. It wasn't something any of them were proud of, but they wanted the President to tell them that it would be all right and that there was nothing to fear, apart from fear itself. They wanted comforting words from a man many of them bitterly opposed on political grounds.

  “My Fellow Americans,” the President said. He looked older than usual, although it took Abigail a moment to realise why. The President hadn’t put on any make-up or other preparations to go on television. “I speak to you now on a matter so grave that it affects the entire world. The fate of the entire planet is at stake.

  “The aliens told you that the USAF shot down one of their craft. The aliens are lying. The craft in question crashed somewhere near a USAF military base and was recovered by a team from the base, who discovered that it was not of human origin. The craft was moved to a secure location and studied, yet before we could make any public statements, the aliens contacted the government and invited me to board their mothership and talk to them. I accepted their offer and travelled on a similar craft to the alien ship.

  “They told me that they were colonists, travelling to Earth unaware that humanity existed. They offered me a deal; America would assist them in subduing the remainder of the world and, in exchange, we would maintain our political independence. They gave me data to prove their capabilities - data that proved that they have been kidnapping humans from Earth for years - and then returned me to Earth. I refused their offer and they transmitted the signal that SETI picked up. They came to New York and the entire world knows what happened then. We will release the footage of th
e contact to prove what really happened.

  “The aliens have lied to us,” he concluded. “Their scout ship was studying some of the most highly-classified and sensitive defence installations in America. Their behaviour is far from friendly. They could have levelled with us and offered partnership on equal terms. Instead, they sought conquest and now they have launched an offensive intended to force us to stand down our defences and tamely accept their domination for the foreseeable future. We dare not lower the defences until we know what they really want.

  “I speak now to the alien leaders. We cannot surrender our entire planet to you. We can work with you to ensure that both races benefit from sharing technology and information. We are prepared to discuss working with you and settling you on this planet, but we will not surrender and place our fate entirely in your hands. We must reject your demands. If you wish peace, work with us. We extend the hand of friendship to you. Between us, we can build a world we can both be proud of.

  “My Fellow Americans, we face the greatest challenge in our nation’s long history. Let us face it together, as a united people. We will not tamely surrender to alien domination. If we are to fight alone, then we will fight for what we believe, our freedom, our liberty…and our country.”

  Chapter Thirty

  McMurdo Station, Antarctica

  Day 38

  “They should have sent us in at once,” Sergeant Bruce Barns muttered, in the common room. Almost the entire team had gathered in the chamber to watch the President’s broadcast. “As it is, we’re sitting out here freezing our butts off, for what?”

  “The Force Recon dudes are freezing their butts off,” a Marine Lieutenant put in. “We’re sitting in here nice and warm.”

  “And don’t forget we’re a sitting target as well,” a SEAL added. “They can probably pick us up from orbit on infrared and they have this place marked with a big circle entitled hit this.”

  Nicolas scowled. He tended to agree that the attack on the alien base should have been launched at once, but the orders had been very specific. Once McMurdo Station had been secured, the assault team was to probe the area for the location of the alien base and wait. The orders for the assault would be issued directly from Washington. A five-man team of Force Recon Marines were already probing towards the alien base, hunting for it in the strange Antarctic weather, but the remainder of the force was waiting. The Teams were trained to take the initiative at all times, yet no one would thank them for launching an assault without orders.

  The scientists at the base had been first terrified, then outraged when the assault force had arrived and rapidly severed all communications between McMurdo Station and the outside world. McMurdo Station wasn't the only base on the icy continent, but the confused legal situation and the weather ensured that few would come to visit, if anyone did. The crew running the base had been more sedate, even though they’d been horrified to discover that they were on the front line of a war. They’d cooperated, at least. The scientists had spent most of their time composing elaborate complaints they intended to send to the President personally and one of them had almost managed to get a message out, despite supervision. Nicolas had ordered him held in a single room under armed guard and the rest had got the message, even though they looked at the soldiers as if they were monsters from another planet.

  One of them had briefed Nicolas on the exact legalities of the situation, leaving him more confused than ever. The continent was divided between claims made by over a dozen nations, some dating back to before the First World War, and studded with bases of various types. America had jurisdiction over McMurdo Station and the other American bases, but America hadn’t laid claim to more territory, even the location containing the alien base. The aliens could have claimed squatters rights if they had declared the existence of the base; it wasn’t as if they’d built it in Nevada or Siberia or somewhere that unquestionably belonged to a single country. The legal issues wouldn’t matter if it came down to a shooting war, Nicolas had decided, even though his briefer had warned him that they were committing a war crime just by being there. That, Nicolas had decided, was definitely nonsense.

  “Or perhaps we should all go out there for the exact moment when they start hitting home,” another soldier said. It would have surprised civilians to know how informal most of the Teams could be. The American Special Forces soldiers spent most of their time in tiny units, or melding together with other units to form elite detachments used for a single mission, then disbanded. There was no question of chain of command or legal authority, but outside fighting, it was sometimes hard to know who was in charge. “The President told them that we wouldn’t bend over and spread our legs for them, so they have to attack us or back down, right?”

  “Or perhaps they’re plotting something really clever,” a Raven said. The Air Force Special Operations soldier leaned forward, taking another can of soda. “For all we know, that base could be incubating an entire army and that mothership is a hologram generated by advanced hand-waving technology. Everyone stares at the mothership, while they miss the real threat buried under the ice.”

  “Bullshit,” a SEAL said. “They’ve been bouncing radar pulses off the mothership, so it can’t be a hologram.”

  “It could be a solid-light hologram,” the Raven countered. “It might even appear solid because of the hand-waving, but instead we’re about to crash right into the alien army.”

  “It’s not a good place to store an army,” Barns pointed out. “Sure, they can knock out all of the bases on this continent and make a few thousand people miserable, but so what? They’d still have to get their army to Argentina or wherever they wanted to invade. We’d have problems doing that and we have the biggest navy in the world. That carrier trying to sneak over here has more aircraft than most of the air forces in the entire world.”

  “Most powerful navy,” a pendant said. “If we count ship numbers…”

  Nicolas rolled his eyes and left the room, barely aware of raised voices as the argument carried on, growing more and more elaborate. The sergeant wouldn’t let it break down into a fight, although all of the men had more discipline than that. It was almost amusing how their conversation tended to revolve around the mission, or the aliens, or women. The standard joke in the Special Forces was that women were an illusion and anyone who claimed to have seen one was a lying bastard. It didn’t help that many of the married soldiers had problems keeping their relationships working when they couldn’t always tell their wives what they were doing. It was easy to be suspicious when a partner said nothing and few relationships could survive such doubts.

  His daughter was seven years old now and he hadn’t seen her in months. It was ironic, but his divorce had been surprisingly painless. It helped that he and his ex-wife had both been reasonable people and had put their daughter first. Little Nancy had been their priority and they’d both ensured that she saw her father as much as possible. The new husband had been happy to oblige – he was a decent person, even though Nicolas had wanted to hate him – and after his ex-wife had died, had continued to take care of her daughter. It had had its amusing side. Nicolas had been suspected of being homosexual after his superiors had discovered that the daughter he went to see had two fathers and no mother.

  He lit a cigarette as he looked out over McMurdo Station. It was something of a disappointment to a man who had expected a lunar colony-style settlement. Dark buildings studded the landscape, marring the perfect white snow and ice, while brightly-coloured vehicles were strewn around as if the drivers had just abandoned them in the middle of their tasks. It wasn't too far from the truth. A set of long-range transports were being repainted to make it harder to see them against the snow and ice, but the others would be left at the station until the end of the mission. The Antarctic region was beautiful, but only outside the human settlements. The environmentalists might have had a point about humans despoiling the environment.

  The Sergeant found him there an hour later. “No update, s
ir,” he said, without preamble. “Nothing from Washington and nothing from the advance patrol.”

  Nicolas tossed away the remains of his cigarette. He hadn’t expected anything from the patrol, but President Chalk had a reputation for making his mind up quickly. “We’ll just have to wait,” he said, shortly. It seemed that he’d spent half of his career since graduating from the SEAL training course – a hellishly sadistic course intended to weed out everyone who just couldn’t hack it – waiting for orders to attack. “Keep monitoring the situation.”

  International Space Station, Earth Orbit

  Day 38

  “So what do you make of it?”

  Captain Philip Carlson was not very impressed with Colonel Irving Harrows, the commanding officer of the International Space Station, but he did his best to avoid showing it. Normally, Atlantis wouldn’t have remained attached to the ISS for long once she had been unloaded and picked up the crewmen who were going back down to Earth, but now his shuttle seemed to be permanently attached to the station. Hurry up and wait had always been a part of his military career, but it seemed that NASA had even more of it than any military service, ironic for an organisation that claimed to be completely civilian.

  “I think we’re going to be at war within the day,” Philip said, finally. The alien spacecraft had continued their close approaches to the ISS, mocking them with the sheer perfection of their design. A single alien craft might have been barely larger than the shuttle, but it flew like a science-fiction nightmare come to life. Philip had seen American and Russian plans for space fighters and all of them had really been nothing more than miniature shuttles. They obeyed the laws of physics and flew predicable flight paths. He’d even become interested in becoming an astronaut after reading a hard science-fiction book involving fighters that couldn’t have passed for aircraft, let alone flown in the atmosphere. X-Wings and Tie Fighters were about as realistic as a flying aircraft carrier, at least using humanity’s technology. The aliens could probably design and build real X-Wings with their technology.