Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  The Raptors swooped down towards Andrews. The base had clearly been hit badly, yet it was still operative. Flames rose from a dozen fires and several hangars had been smashed by alien wreckage. It looked as if hundreds of jets had been caught on the ground and he silently cursed the base CO, before realising that they’d been dummy aircraft intended to absorb alien firepower. It had been a waste of effort, he saw. The alien weapons seemed to have unlimited firepower. Their weapons might not be that accurate, or perhaps even destructive, but it didn’t matter. A solid bombardment would hammer any human target into submission. He checked in with the emergency tower – the base’s primary command station had been taken out in the first attack – and received permission to land on the one usable runaway. It was against any number of safety precautions, but as soon as he landed he taxied towards the ground crew, who were already rolling out the weapons pallets.

  “Hurry up,” he snapped at them, and instantly regretted it. They weren't ground crew in the old pre-alien world, where American bases were never attacked apart from a handful of terrorists, but ground crew whose base had been savagely attacked. He didn’t want to fly back to Langley if their home base had come under a heavier attack. The base might have been completely disabled.

  He looked down at the HUD, barely watching the ground crew as they rearmed his aircraft. He felt tired and worn, as if he'd been flying and fighting for days, rather than the hours it had been. The reports weren't good. At least a dozen bases had come under attack and the aliens had inflicted heavy losses. They’d lost at least thirty craft of their own, but no one knew how big an impact it had had. How many craft did the aliens have to dispose of? What would they consider acceptable losses? There was no way to know.

  “We’re refuelling you now,” one of the ground crew said. Will barely heard him. “Try not to blow up when we start pumping you up, sir.”

  Will snorted. Opening the canopy had been a mistake. He could smell the smoke in the air – smoke, and the unmistakable smell of burnt human flesh. The wind was blowing the smoke out towards the protesters at the fence – he was amused to discover that Andrews had its own mob of protesters as well – and he hoped that they were enjoying the smell. It would remind them of the human price of war. He continued to glance though the data and winced. A carrier had been sunk and two more were under heavy attack. The United States military had lost more in a few hours than it had in over forty years.

  He relaxed slightly as the ground crew released the aircraft and allowed him to taxi back towards the runway. Whatever else happened, he’d meet the aliens in the air. Perhaps there would be a chance to even the score. He glanced over as the Raptor turned onto the runway and caught sight of a burned American flag, still flapping in the breeze. He hoped it wasn't an omen.

  ***

  “Sir,” Lieutenant Rogers said, “they’re launching a second wave of attacks.”

  Colonel Thomas Mandell nodded, unsurprised. The aliens had scored significant hits on the defending forces and it stood to reason they’d want to capitalise on their success. The air defence forces were in disarray and the controllers were struggling to patch them back together into a unified force. The loss of the carriers had hurt them badly. It was, by all accounts, worse on the other coast.

  “I see,” he said, finally. “Where are they targeting?”

  Rogers looked up at him. His face was very pale.

  “They’re going all the way, sir,” he said. The display showed no room for error. The alien target was unmistakable. “They’re headed directly for Washington, DC.”

  “Alert the President,” Mandell ordered. The President had announced that he would be remaining in the White House. It had been intended to reassure the country that the President was sharing their peril, but it might have been a deadly mistake. “Tell him to get his ass out of there.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 38

  “Mr President, radar has detected enemy craft advancing on Washington,” Pepper said, as she burst through the door. “You have to get to the bunker now!”

  The President didn’t argue. He’d chosen to stay in Washington – over the objections of the Secret Service, who’d wanted the President in one of the less well known bunkers – knowing that it might make him a target. The public had to know that the President was sharing the same risks, even though the President had a responsibility to remain alive and in control. The Vice President was well out of sight, buried away in one of the secure locations, ready to take over if necessary, yet he knew that there would be some command confusion if he were killed.

  He followed Pepper to the door in the rear of the office, a door that had only been opened on exercises. She opened it to reveal a shaft leading down into the bunker and the President jumped down it. The experience, he’d been told, had nearly defeated at least two prior serving Presidents, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Jump School. The shaft somehow cut his speed and allowed him to fall into the bunker safely – and very quickly. A Secret Service Agent at the bottom helped him out before Pepper followed him, bringing up the rear. The remainder of the White House would be evacuated by more conventional means.

  The existence of bunkers under Washington was an open secret, but few outside the Federal Government really appreciated just how extensive the entire network actually was. The President had been taken on a tour after his election and had been astonished to discover just how far the tunnels actually stretched. It was a network of secret complexes, bomb shelters and storage compartments that could have housed most of Washington’s population when it had been built, although now it might not have been able to protect much of the city. The President or his chosen representatives could have walked from the White House to Langley or Fort Meade without anyone on the surface being any the wiser. A handful of secret diplomatic meetings had taken place in the catacombs, yet no one in public knew that they had even been considered.

  The President’s bunker had a barren, almost Spartan look. It hadn’t been designed as anything other than a short-term hole if Washington suffered a major terrorist attack – the possibility of direct invasion had been an illusion ever since 1815 – and was short of luxuries, although the President didn’t care. There was a stockpile of MRE packs in the catacombs that would keep Official Washington fed if necessary – the President privately considered that most of the bureaucrats would probably prefer to starve than eat them – and a simple cot bed. He didn’t need anything else.

  “Mr President,” the duty officer said. Ever since the alien craft had crashed, the bunker had been fully manned by its duty crew. It had links into the command network and could draw data from thousands of sources. It was a miniature NORAD in its own right. “Enemy craft are approaching Washington. Emergency signals are being transmitted now.”

  The President nodded. The Emergency Broadcast System was being utilised, along with Federal links into the main commercial broadcasting systems. The population of Washington would be warned to remain in their homes and seek shelter if possible, those who remained in the city. A large number of civilians had headed out into the countryside to escape the alien attack they feared, but countless others lacked the resources to do anything of the sort. They’d be hopelessly exposed if the aliens started bombing the cities.

  “Show me,” he ordered. He’d seen images from the battles over the East Coast in the White House – he never wanted to see any of those images ever again – yet he had no idea of the overall tactical situation. What were the aliens doing? Did NORAD have a handle on how they thought and acted yet? “Where are they?”

  “Racing up the Potomac,” the duty officer said. A swarm of red and green icons were moving steadily towards the centre of Washington. The red were alien craft, the green were American air defence aircraft…and many of them had been lost. Washington was defended by a formidable number of fighter jets, as well as ground-based systems, yet the aliens had inflicted heavy losses. “They’re going to fly over
the White House.”

  The President forced himself to sit down in his chair. There was no point in issuing orders, not any longer. The air defence controllers would have issued whatever orders were necessary, yet the battle was moving so swiftly that their orders might be outdated before the pilots even heard them. All he could do was watch, and wait. His city, his country, his planet was under attack…and he could do nothing.

  ***

  Karen ignored the protests of her official bodyguard – a surprisingly hip young man from the Secret Service – and ran for the stairs, ignoring the warnings blaring out of the television. The population of Washington was being warned to remain calm and avoid panic, yet somehow Karen suspected that it wouldn’t be enough. She and her family – along with SETI itself – had received death threats from various people who blamed them for discovering the alien ship, even though the alien signal had been powerful enough to be detected by conventional civilian equipment. It hadn’t even been SETI’s fault. It wasn't SETI that had found a crashed alien spacecraft and chosen to conceal it from all and sundry. Karen wouldn’t have cared about her demotion from first person to make contact with alien life, except the death threats were still coming in. Someone had torched her home back in California and they had little choice but to stay in Washington. If the President hadn’t been picking up the bill…

  It still seemed incredible that the aliens were moving to attack the city, but the news broadcasts had made it far too clear. Fox, CNN and WNN had been warned not to broadcast anything the aliens could use against America, and so there had been a terrifying vagueness about the reports, but the overall theme was clear. American forces were taking a pounding every time they encountered the alien craft. America had a long history of taking a pounding in the opening rounds of any war – Pearl Harbour had smashed an entire American fleet – but this would be different. Karen had had time to think about the implications and knew that whatever happened, the world would be a very different place afterwards. The aliens wouldn’t just go away, even if the mothership were to be blown up. There would always be new threats out there beyond the stars.

  She passed Daisy on the stairs, heading down to the hotel’s bunker, and barely waved. Daisy had been an interesting companion, but she’d been depressed after the aliens had turned out to be hostile, knowing that SETI would pick up the blame. California had provided heavy police protection to SETI’s complexes and personnel, yet it hadn’t been enough to save a pair of astronomers, one of whom had had nothing to do with SETI. She’d actually been on the record as opposing SETI and considering it a vast waste of time and effort that could be better spent on studying supernovas, nebulas and other objects in space. Her death had been bitterly ironic.

  “Come on,” she muttered. She was surprised that her bodyguard hadn’t come after her, but perhaps there were limits to how far he was prepared to go to protect her from herself. The trickle of guests heading downstairs had become a torrent and she had to push her way through to reach the roof. No one seemed to want to join the crazy girl on her mad quest to see the alien attack in person. “Get out of my way!”

  Daisy had taken Karen and her family out one night to a restaurant in Washington, one recommended by the President himself. She’d speculated aloud that the President might have been sending them a subtle message, for the restaurant had an odd role in American history. Donald Rumsfield, on the day that he left office, had taken his family there to eat, where one of the waitresses had refused to serve him on the grounds he was a war criminal. Daisy might have been a Democrat – she’d admitted as much when she met the President – but she’d been indignant at the waitress. If she hadn’t wanted to serve people, whoever they were, she shouldn’t have taken on the job. Her employer would have been quite within his rights to sack her on the spot.

  She reached the landing and stepped out onto the roof. The hotel maintained a penthouse on the very top that cost more dollars for a single night than Karen earned in a month. It looked deserted now – the actor and his latest mistress who’d been using it had headed off to somewhere a little less likely to be a target – and she was able to look out over Washington without interference. She’d been impressed with the view before, when they’d first arrived at the hotel, but now it was different. Great pillars of smoke were rising up in the distance and the sound of aircraft engines echoed over the city, matched by the wail of countless alarms and panicking humans. The entire city seemed to be coming apart. Cars were crashing; people were fleeing – fleeing what? There didn’t seem to be anything driving them onwards to an unknown destination. They might not even have a destination in mind!

  A streak of light caught her eye and she saw a missile launched from somewhere near the Pentagon. She followed it with her eyes and saw an ominous black craft racing over Washington, twisting to avoid the missile. It didn’t move fast enough and the missile struck home, sending the craft into a tailspin that ended when it came down smack in the middle of Washington. There was a flash of light and then a massive fireball, rising up into the sky. The explosion echoed over the city. Karen had been a baby when 9/11 had taken place and had only seen the videos, but this was nothing like a single terrorist attack. The aliens were tearing the city apart.

  She ducked instinctively as a set of black shapes roared overhead, firing down at targets on the ground. For a moment, she thought that they were F-117s before realising that they were alien craft, firing odd bursts of light as they moved. She couldn’t see precisely what they were targeting, but they didn’t seem deterred by fire from the ground, or the handful of fighter jets chasing their tails. Karen wondered why the jets weren't trying to engage the alien craft before remembering that at least one alien craft had crashed in Washington and killed a lot of people. A second set of crashes might be worse than a precision strike against the centre of government.

  Another sonic boom rocked the building as newer air defence aircraft raced into battle, firing missiles towards the alien craft. If they’d been worried about bringing craft down over a city, they’d lost their concern now. The cynical side of Karen’s mind wondered if that was because the Pentagon and the White House were under attack, but whatever they were doing, it seemed to work. The alien craft twisted and broke off the attack, leaving flames and smoke rising up from their targets. One craft was unlucky and was struck by a missile, exploding in midair with staggering force. Karen flinched, covering her eyes against the glare, just before the sound of the explosion struck her. It had to have shattered windows all over the city.

  The remaining alien craft seemed to have vanished, followed rapidly by the air defence aircraft. Karen hoped – prayed – that the fighters would catch up with their targets over the ocean and bring them down before they could reach orbit and escape, but she had admit that was unlikely. The alien craft seemed to be capable of reaching orbit at will and that implied staggering speed capabilities. She didn’t know much about the USAF fighter jets, but she was fairly sure that none of them could reach orbit.

  My fault, she thought, remembering the naive child she’d been only two weeks ago. She’d thought of the alien contact as being her ticket to fame and fortune, and humanity’s ticket to a golden age. Even her suspicions and her meeting with the President hadn't been enough to deter her. The fires raging over Washington showed her how foolish she’d been. Daisy had encouraged her not to think of the aliens as anything other than a meal ticket and neglected to consider that they might have plans and ideas of their own. SETI had gone looking for alien life without ever really considering the consequences of success, yet what other choice had they had? The aliens had to have been travelling for centuries, long before the human race started broadcasting radio transmissions into space. No level of precaution, no ban on transmissions, not even a nuclear war reducing humanity to the Stone Age…nothing would have prevented the aliens from finding Earth. Karen had been the lucky one to discover their signal – and then decipher it – yet she had merely been in the right place at the righ
t time. It would have happened without her. It would just have happened to someone else.

  She looked down towards the burning buildings as Washington’s fire department sprang into action, sending fire engines racing through the streets towards the fires. It wasn't an easy trip. Countless cars had been abandoned by their owners, forcing the firemen to knock them out of the way or find alternate routes. She flinched as she saw new aircraft high overhead, before realising that they were human aircraft. If there were alien craft as well, they weren't showing themselves. Her guests, the aliens she had discovered – and yet, hadn’t discovered – seemed to have pulled back. What were they thinking?

  She looked over towards the fence preventing a person from jumping off the roof and knew that it would be easy to climb over. She could jump…and what good would it do? It hadn’t been her fault, no matter what various idiots thought, and it would all have happened without her. It was no consolation.

  “Don’t jump,” a quiet voice said from behind her. Karen nearly jumped out of her skin. “It would be very irritating to have to clear you up afterwards.”

  She spun around to see her bodyguard sitting there. “How long have you been there?”

  “Around twenty minutes,” the bodyguard said. He winked at her. “You were rather distracted.”

  Karen flushed. She’d prided herself on maintaining situational awareness at all times – it had been drummed into her head at school, warning her to watch for men who might have bad intentions and who were merely waiting for a sign of weakness – and yet she’d allowed him to sneak up on her.

  “Sorry,” she said, finally. “I didn’t want you watching me all the time.”