Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  Alexander gaped at the hologram as it faded to black. “They want us to start a war!” He pounded the bar with his fists, rattling their glasses. He shook his head incredulously and turned to McAdams. “The last time I was in the Navy, I was ordered to start a war. Now, no sooner am I back and they want me to start another one! I won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of The Last War, but here we go again. Do you have any idea how ironic that is?”

  McAdams nodded soberly. “Irony is still a bitch, sir.”

  “A two-timing bitch!”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  Alexander blew out a breath. What could he do? He could disobey orders. He’d gotten lucky with that the last time, but would he get away with it again?

  Doubtful. After what had happened on Earth, people wanted a target—the Solarians were a logical fit, even he had to admit that, and if he refused to be the instrument of the Alliance’s retribution, it would look like cowardice not prudence.

  But what was it really? He was almost positive the Solarians were responsible for the attacks, so why didn’t he want to fire back? Maybe I’m a pacifist. Forcing the Solarians to go from covert to overt tactics would only result in even more people dead. What would happen when Earth and the Solarians started trading relativistic blows?

  “Sir?”

  Alexander sent a mental command to clear his buzzing head of all the virtual alcohol. He needed to think clearly now.

  “If we do what they’re asking, we could start a relativistic war that could end up making the entire human race extinct.”

  “I disagree, sir. Just because we can annihilate ourselves doesn’t mean that we will—whether there’s open war or not. If the Solarians are attacking us, then they’re obviously not trying to completely destroy the Earth. If we can prove that the Solarians were responsible for the attacks, then hopefully our leaders will be smart enough to avoid a relativistic war.”

  Alexander nodded. “I hope you’re right, Commander.”

  “History agrees with me, Admiral. Even The Last War fell far short of global annihilation. I disagree with our orders, but I’m not convinced that they’ll result in open war.

  “Besides, Fleet Command made no mention of the fact that we’re in an aging dauntless-class battleship going up against a modern Solarian dreadnought. That ship is twice the size of ours and far better equipped. It could defeat two Adamantines and still limp into battle with a third. Either Fleet Command thinks very highly of your abilities, sir, or they’re bluffing.”

  “Or they’re so desperate for blood that they don’t mind shedding some of ours to get it,” Alexander replied.

  “Let’s hope it’s a bluff, sir.”

  Alexander grimaced. “If it isn’t, we’re about to learn the truth about Simulism the hard way.”

  Chapter 11

  Catalina was surprised when her audience with the president brought her to a bunker below the presidential palace. The president’s last public address had shown him above ground, sitting in his office as he reassured the entire world that the missile that hit them was a fluke, and people had nothing to fear. There was something hypocritical about telling people not to be afraid when you were hiding out in a bunker fifty floors below ground.

  “Miss Day Lee-on? The president is ready to see you now,” his secretary announced, mangling Catalina’s surname with her accent.

  Catalina turned to regard the president’s secretary—a woman with bright violet eyes and striking black hair that shimmered a matching violet wherever the light hit. “Its Mrs. De Leon, and thank you,” she said, rising from the chair where she’d spent the past twenty minutes staring at the bare concrete walls of the bunker. She graciously decided not to add to the woman’s gaff by mentioning that she should be addressed as Senator, not Miss or Mrs.

  Catalina turned and walked up to a pair of matte black bodyguard drones flanking the entrance of the president’s office. One of them held out a hand. “Halt. Please wait while you are scanned for weapons and explosive devices.”

  Catalina took a breath and held it, enduring the indignity of the body scan as a fan of blue light flickered out from one of the bot’s chests. She’d already been scanned twice prior—once at the entrance of the Presidential Palace, and again at the entrance of the bunker. At least bots took no interest in how she looked underneath her clothes, which was more than she could say for the human guards at the entrance of the palace. She wondered if everyone was submitted to as much suspicion, or just League party members.

  A pleasant tone sounded and the bot who’d scanned her said, “You may proceed, Senator de Leon.”

  The doors swished open, revealing an exact replica of the president’s above-ground oval office. Catalina walked in to find the president sitting on one of the couches, watching a 3D hologram rising from the coffee table in front of him. The president was so focused on the news that he didn’t appear to notice her come in. The holofeed was from the Alliance News Network (ANN). At the moment it showed a pair of talking heads, one of them a news anchor, the other Former Navy Admiral Lars Becker—or so read the caption below his side of the transmission. The man looked to be at least seventy years old, with thinning gray hair, gaunt, wrinkled cheeks, and hollow, watery blue eyes. Catalina studied that face curiously as she approached. There was no way that man had voluntarily chosen to have such a frail appearance. That meant he had to have been born before scientists had found a way to shackle the hands of time—or least before they had done so for everyone, rich and poor alike.

  Catalina stopped beside the president’s couch. “Hello, Mr. President…” she began.

  He glanced her way and nodded. “Please take a seat, Senator.”

  She looked from Wallace to the holofeed and back again before sitting in one of the armchairs. “What is this?”

  He flung out a hand, as if to slap the hologram. “Another disaster!”

  Puzzled, Catalina fixed her attention on the newsfeed.

  “…so you’re saying this is definitely not a Solarian attack?” the news anchor asked.

  Admiral Becker spread his hands. “What do the Solarians stand to gain from attacking us? If we go to war, they’ll lose. The attacks didn’t cripple us; they just made us angry.”

  “So how does that play into your alien invasion theory? Why would these Watchers of yours hit us with warning shots rather than a full-scale invasion?”

  Becker shrugged. “Maybe they are testing their aim. And I doubt it’s their goal to wipe us out. They want to weaken us for conquest—or in this case, for infestation.”

  “I see. You mentioned to our viewers that you have proof.”

  “I do.”

  “And this proof is in the form of…”

  “Classified transmissions from the Intrepid dating back more than fifty years ago. Compare those transmissions to the ones we received from the Looking Glass before the lunar attack, and you’ll see the similarities are extraordinary.”

  The news anchor nodded sagely, as if he were already convinced. “I understand that you’ve shown these transmissions before, and that is what earned you a dishonorable discharge from the Navy.”

  A muscle twitched in Becker’s cheek and he nodded stiffly. “Yes. I thought the public had a right to know what we found. The government disagreed. There was an extensive cover-up, and I was made to look like a fool.” The man blew out a deep breath. His deflated lungs left him looking shriveled. He appeared to be drowning in his old Navy uniform, nothing but a skeleton underneath. Catalina stifled a gasp, feeling a twinge of revulsion and pity for the man.

  The news anchor nodded once more. “For those of us who might not remember, could you explain what the Intrepid’s mission was about, Admiral?”

  “Of course. It was a mission to explore and colonize another star system. Our nearest star with Earth-type planets was considered to be Wolf 1061, an M class red dwarf 13.8 light years away, located in the Ophiuchus Constellation. We determined that Wolf 1061C
and 1061D would be good candidates for colonization. What most people didn’t give much weight to at the time was that if these planets were so habitable, then there was also a chance that they could already be inhabited.”

  “What happened to the Intrepid, Admiral?”

  “That depends upon who you ask.”

  “We’re asking you.”

  Becker nodded and smiled, his watery blue eyes suddenly bright and intense. “They encountered intelligent life, but it turned out to be hostile.”

  “Chilling words. We’ll be back with you in a minute, Admiral, while we show our viewers what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course. I’ll be waiting.”

  Catalina watched with a furrowed brow as the talking heads faded to black and a bar of text appeared.

  Classified Transmission from W.A.S. Intrepid - November 18, 2774.

  The text faded, and a new face appeared. The caption below read: Captain White of the W.A.S. Intrepid. He was a Caucasian man with straight brown hair and a nest of laugh lines around two eyes that were the purest black Catalina had ever seen, as if two matching holes had been bored into his skull.

  “Hello wretched creatures,” the captain said, his voice flat and emotionless, his posture rigid. Catalina felt a chill run down her spine. He sounded like a bot and looked like a human. League Party warnings about a bot revolution came to mind… “Your species sickens us. The time of your judgment is at hand.” The camera panned and zoomed out to show an assembled group of Alliance officers and enlisted personnel, all of them with matching black eyes and rigid postures. “Death you sow, and death you reap,” the captain said.

  The rest of the crew repeated that line in unison, all in exactly the same toneless voices. Then the camera panned back to show just the captain’s face once more. “We are coming.”

  The transmission faded to black, and another line of text appeared.

  End of data stream.

  Back were the talking heads from before.

  “And you say these people were infested by an alien intelligence—some kind of parasite,” the news anchor said.

  Becker nodded grimly. “Yes.”

  “I’m already noticing a few similarities to the Moon transmissions,” the anchor said, but we’re going to play those now so everyone can see. One moment, Admiral.”

  The screen faded to black once more, and another line of text popped up.

  Unidentified Transmission from the Looking Glass - November 18, 2824.

  As the text faded, a woman of Chinese descent appeared wearing a torn and stained Confederate uniform. Her eyes were the same empty black holes that Captain White’s had been. The transmission froze, and the previous one returned for a side-by-side comparison of their expressionless faces and soulless eyes. Then both transmissions began to play, and Catalina heard Captain White and the Confederate woman say exactly the same thing in the exact same toneless voice:

  “Hello wretched creatures.”

  Catalina shivered. “What the hell?” she asked, looking to Wallace for answers. He just shook his head, and went on staring at the screen. Catalina looked back in time to see the talking heads return.

  “Well, Admiral, it would seem that after all these years you may have been right.”

  “Indeed, though I can’t say I’m happy. I’d rather be a lunatic than have the Watchers come to Earth.”

  Wallace waved the screen off with a growl.

  Catalina regarded him. Her mouth felt dry; her mind spun with questions.

  “We should have executed that bastard when we had the chance,” Wallace said.

  Catalina’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t understand… He was right.”

  “No, he was wrong, and he’s been duped into helping the Solarians to keep us jumping at shadows. The fact that he managed to convince you tells me just how serious this is. We need to act fast.”

  Catalina shook her head, not getting it, and Wallace regarded her with a look of strained patience. “What do you think is more likely, Senator, that some sort of parasitic aliens are invading us, or that someone is trying to make us think that? Someone who saw the transmissions Becker leaked all those years ago decided to copy them now. If we were being attacked by real aliens, why send us a warning at all? Unless they were planning to make some sort of demand, which they didn’t. Why tell someone that you’re going to shoot them just before you pull the trigger?”

  “What about the transmissions from the Intrepid? Those were real, weren’t they?”

  “Yes, but what you saw had nothing to do with aliens. The captain of the Intrepid went insane.”

  “And his crew? They were all singing the same tune.”

  “A tune he no doubt had them rehearse while he stood ready to execute the ship’s self-destruct sequence. It was coercion, Senator. Those videos have been analyzed a thousand times. Captain White forced everyone else to go along with his delusion.”

  “What about their eyes?”

  Catalina watched as President Wallace’s green eyes became two empty black pits. “Now I’m an alien,” he said, speaking in a mock toneless voice.

  Catalina was taken aback. For a split second she believed it, and she was about to make a run for the door. Then she realized what he’d done. Most people wore augmented reality lenses, including her. Besides enabling people to browse the net, take pictures, and watch holofeeds, those lenses also enabled them to change the natural color of their eyes as easily as they changed their socks.

  “So it was the Solarians that attacked us.”

  Warmth and color seeped back into President Wallace’s eyes, and he nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Becker said it best—they would lose in a straight fight with us. That means they need plausible deniability, a way to pretend it wasn’t them. That also explains why they didn’t make a more concerted attack. They don’t want to utterly destroy the Earth because they want to take it for themselves.”

  “Do we have any evidence to implicate them?”

  Wallace nodded, his eyes unblinking, never leaving hers. “We have a whole ship full of evidence.”

  “I don’t understand. What ship?”

  “A Solarian ship, recently detected over a billion kilometers from Earth—in the same direction that those missiles came from.”

  Catalina gaped at the president.

  Wallace nodded slowly. “I have a battleship moving to intercept and capture them as we speak. We’re officially at war, Senator, and it’s time people knew it, before these ridiculous stories of an alien invasion get out of hand.”

  Chapter 12

  —Two Days Later—

  “Admiral, we are twenty minutes from ELR with the Crimson Warrior,” Frost announced from sensors.

  “Carry on, Lieutenant.” Alexander rapped his fingers on the armrest of his acceleration couch. In twenty minutes he and Captain Vrokovich could stop trading empty threats and start trading deadly blows instead. Neither of them was eager to start a war or else they would have already begun firing missiles and hypervelocity rounds.

  Alexander shook his head. The problem with waiting to reach laser range was that lasers would make short work of both ships. Missiles could be intercepted and hypervelocity rounds could be evaded, but lasers were sure to hit. Once they reached effective laser range (ELR), the engagement would be over in minutes.

  “We should have fired on them long ago,” McAdams said.

  “That would have given them the upper-hand, Commander. They have more guns, more fighters, more missiles—but lasers? It doesn’t matter how many they have, because both our ships have more than enough to obliterate each other.”

  “So your plan is to trade the Adamantine for the Crimson Warrior?”

  “Not exactly. Bishop, come about for reverse thrust at ten Gs.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We’re leaving?” McAdams asked.

  “Hayes, get me Captain Vrokovich on the comms,” Alexander said.

  “Yes,
sir.”

  “I thought you two were done talking.”

  “We were. It’s time to apologize for our bluff.”

  “Apologize for our…” McAdams shook her head. “Fleet Command hasn’t changed our orders.”

  “No, they haven’t, Commander.”

  “Then you’re going rogue. You’ll be court-martialed.”

  “The Crimson Warrior is responding to our hail,” Hayes interrupted.

  “On screen,” Alexander replied. Turning to his XO, he smiled and said, “If I were scared of being court-martialed for backing down, I never would have won a Nobel Peace Prize.”

  Alexander heard someone clear his throat, and McAdams gestured to the main display with chin and eyes.

  “Admiral Alexander, I see you are turning your ship around.”

  Alexander looked to the fore to see Captain Vrokovich’s by now familiar face—bony features, ghostly white skin, straight black hair, and startling red eyes. Alexander nodded. “If you were guilty, you would have fired on us by now.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’ve come to your senses. A bluff is only as good as the possible consequences of it being true—in this case, your ship and mine coming into direct conflict. The Crimson Warrior would survive such a confrontation, but the Adamantine would not. Your threats were, therefore, obviously empty, Admiral. Desperate and empty. I am sorry your government sent you on such a fool’s errand. Perhaps it would have gotten results if I was the fool you were looking for.”

  “We were just following orders, Captain,” Alexander said with a tight smile, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  “Then let us be thankful that your orders were only to threaten war and not to make it.”

  Alexander nodded, and Captain Vrokovich returned his smile. “Goodbye, Admiral.”

  The holo display faded back to space. Stars sprinkled the void in dense clusters.

  “Bishop, what’s the combined approach velocity between us and the Crimson Warrior?”

  “One thousand and fifteen klicks per second at the moment, sir, but we’re still firing the mains in full reverse.”