Greenflies

by Darling, Andrew Leete

  “You’ve already started,” said Caufield, stating the obvious.

  “Some time ago,” replied Lassiter. “We’ve streamlined the process to enable maximum training rate. The gamma scalpel is in the medical facility adjoining all three recovery barracks. The candidates enter through the front door, receive the augmentation, and then exit three months later ready to begin training. Training facilities are being constructed in several allied nations. We anticipate producing one thousand augmented soldiers per year.”

  “Good God,” said Hu.

  “You’ll never get clearance for this,” said Caufield. “Even now, you’ve probably hanged yourself. What you’re doing to these men…”

  “…Is no different in premise than the way soldiers have been trained for millennia,” Lassiter finished for her. “The muscle and reflex enhancing drugs are nothing compared to the fundamental personality shift provided by the operation. Military training is about dehumanizing people. Garrette just found a way to make the process more efficient.”

  “A soldier can still lead a normal life; Gammas can’t,” argued Caufield.

  “Have you ever considered that there are people out there whom society would prefer this way? If a fraction of those on death row volunteered for this duty, these beds would be full. If a fraction of those who are clinically depressed or bipolar or obsessive volunteer for this duty, these beds would be full. It doesn’t matter what we start with; the procedure fundamentally rewrites the personality.”

  “What personality?!” yelled Caufield. “You may not be killing them, but you are ending their lives. Haven’t you reviewed the records of the first Gammas? The interviews? They have no hopes or dreams beyond their next injection.”

  “Then they are casualties, acceptable casualties, in this war and the wars of the near future.”

  “No, this ends now,” said Caufield.

  “Ah, planning to report what you have seen here, today?” asked Lassiter, “To Senator Groden, Representative Doyle, perhaps? Maybe directly to the Secretary of Defense? Your backup plan should you not return from this base. Yes, they told me all about it. They are three among many who have directly supported this operation.”

  Another region of the map went dark.

  “SATCOM, what the hell is happening? We’ve got two more satellite malfunctions in the last minute. Have we lost contact with a network?” the Flight Officer asked into his microphone. Before he could get a response, several red lights began flashing to life on many of the terminals.

  “Multiple simultaneous neutrino detections!” said Sensors.

  “A week early,” muttered Flight before concentrating on the new tasks at hand. “Where? I don’t see them. The regions with the down satellites?”

  Four more regions of the map went dark in sequence.

  “In orbit, sir.”

  “This is why they agreed to the program.”

  Lassiter and his aid had taken them to one of the large warehouse-like structures. From the aide’s appearance, both Hu and Caufield had determined he was a Gamma, so they had made no effort to resist. At this moment, Lassiter held all the cards, so if he wished to continue the tour, for whatever reason, the tour would be continued. He wanted something; that much was clear, but neither one had any idea what. Once again, they had been brought to a set of catwalks so that they could see the overall workings of the building.

  The interior of the building was a bird's nest of cranes and cables. Within them were entwined a trio of steel spheres along the length of the building. Each of the spheres was 50 meters across, and each one had several workers welding plates to the exterior or manipulating electronics through an open panel. The spheres were white and black, with a similar coloring motif to the space shuttle. They also boasted small windows across their surface that looked reinforced, as if prepared to deal with great differences in pressure. There was also liberal use of the American flag on their surfaces.

  “Spacecraft,” said Hu.

  “Yes,” replied Lassiter. “They are based on the remains of a Greenfly base or vessel found in Montana. At the center of the hull will be placed an alien teleportation bomb with an apparatus to sustain it and instruct it. The rest of the ship holds laser cannon, a chemical rocket so that it is not dependent upon teleportation alone, and repulsor technology in the corridors that will simulate gravity if a suit is worn. The purpose of the vessel is exploration of neighboring star systems, including the closest habitable world described by the alien captive.

  “If we accept the alien captive’s statement that their vessels are capable of instantaneous communication, then defeat of the ship in this system will only have bought us time. When they return, they will most likely act to destroy life on Earth. We must spend the time we have fortifying the entire solar system and spreading to neighboring systems so that we can’t be eliminated in a single hammer blow.”

  Caufield said, “You don’t want soldiers; you want crew.”

  “Don’t be naïve,” chided Lassiter, “We want both. As soldiers, they’ll be able to achieve the unquestioned dominance we need to fully occupy the system. That won’t be possible with a repeat of the petty international squabbling we saw when Greenfly technology was raining from heaven. There will be global motivation to protect humanity, but not unity. Unity only comes with force.

  “As crew, they’re valuable because they can tolerate the time dilation that normal humans would not willingly subject themselves to. Inside the solar system, it’s a non-issue, but the nearest habitable world is 30 light years away. A round trip means a crew-member would return to a world with most of their family dead, their children old and senile, and perhaps their homeworld destroyed. An augmented crew-member wouldn’t give a damn, and they’d do their job faster and more effectively than the alternative. As far as other applications of the augmented soldiers, you and Garrette hardly scratched the surface. Doctors, technicians, and engineers that work hundred-hour weeks and still find time to read up on every technical advance. Removal of the emotional center of the brain and subsequent addiction and conditioning can grant anyone motivation, focus and expertise.”

  “And it only costs them their soul,” said Caufield.

  “Yes, Maria, no soul. They’re only machines at that point,” Lassiter said angrily. “Which means that they shouldn’t be held responsible for little things like killing an entire squad of my men to maintain a secret, a secret that should have been shared with me, their commanding officer, in the first place. They are not to blame, and your men shall find a home here, training the new recruits. They’ve earned the lighter duty. You, on the other hand, are responsible for those murders, and I’m going to hold you accountable.”

  “You’re going to bring me up on charges?” asked Caufield incredulously, “You? With a hundred healthy men being lobotomized a couple hundred yards away at your command?”

  “The world has changed. People have seen too much, and they feel too small and defenseless. Gamma augmentation now seems like a good idea. It’s already received funding out to four years, and your precious secret is out,” said Lassiter, “As for you, I’m willing to give you a way out, so as not to embarrass a number of people important to the program. I offer you exile. An augmented crew will still need a normal human for supervision, and you are experienced in how to discipline them. The doctors here tell me it is more an art than a science.”

  The reasoning was probably not so simple as Lassiter was making it out to be, but in all likelihood he was not lying about his level of support, and what he could do to her. There would be embarrassment to him, if it came to a trial, and that was most likely what he was trying to avoid. If she refused his offer of exile, the secret would come out in both a military court and the court of public opinion. Insulated from direct contact with the sociopathy that came with the Gamma augmentation, the populace at large might support the use of the procedure. Anything in time of war. There was also the very real danger that Lassiter would find another way to silence Ca
ufield if she refused his offer.

  “What’s your decision, Maria? Prison or space? Either way, you’re out of my hair for sixty years,” said Lassiter.

  Her answer was interrupted by a great sound of thunder just east of the building, immediately followed by the sound of the metal walls of the building stretching and bulging outward. The workmen below stopped in their tracks and stared at the east wall, which had evidently stopped just short of buckling. Caufield had read sufficient field reports to know the side effects of an alien teleportation bomb. She took a firm hold of the catwalk railing in case another bomb tore off the wall. She had no idea what that amount of wind might feel like, but she knew there would be no chance of maintaining her footing.

  Lassiter whipped out a small walkie talkie, “Operations, what the hell is going on?!”

  The reception over the little device was very staticky, possibly an indication that a number of Greenfly teleportations had occurred. The associated radiation was hard on radio communication.

  “There’s a huge crater in the runways, sir,” came the reply over the talkie. “We’re starting to get reports over the landlines. All satellite communication went out over the planet in just a few minutes. Now the Greenflies are attacking aircraft and runways… across the entire world. There’s no Window anymore, sir.”

  “They’ve learned, General!” shouted Caufield. “You’ve been planning for your little post-war dominion, it never occurred to you that your current enemy might be smarter than you’ve given them credit for. They know we can’t fight them without satellites to find their landing sites, and we can’t reach them in time without aircraft.”

  “Sucks to be on the losing side of air superiority, doesn’t it, General?” asked Hu.

  Lassiter barely gave them a glance. He stormed towards the descending catwalk, barking orders into the talkie. His augmented aide paused briefly, evidently trying to decide if he was supposed to shoot the guests as must have been his contingency orders. Alien attack must not have been one of the contingencies as the aide turned and quickly caught up to his master.

  “Back to the helicopter, ma’am?” asked Hu. “I can put it down somewhere with no runways until this blows over.”

  Caufield removed her shoes, and handed one to Hu. From the inside, he could see there was a small apparatus in the sole. It looked like a small pump attached to a transparent tube of what appeared to be blood. The heel of the shoe had a small hole, through which the blood could drip when the right sort of pressure was applied.

  “We have to move quickly,” said Caufield. “I’ve been marking this place as a priority target for the Greenflies since we got here.”

  Hu looked at her incredulously.

  “I thought we had a week…”

  There was a brief blue flash, and suddenly the walls of the warehouse burst outwards, as if popping like a balloon. The air screamed by Caufield, and she could sense Hu being pulled away from her, toward the rupturing wall. The wind was only momentary, however. When it passed, there was no air, no gravity, and not even any walls. Caufield hung by one arm from the catwalk, other debris and personnel from inside the warehouse hovering around her. The people Caufield saw were thrashing in much the same way she was sure she was.

  With the walls blown away, several planetariums' worth of stars shown down on her, without the twinkling that might have marred them when viewed from Earth. About the size of the moon as seen from Earth, mighty Jupiter hung in the sky, it’s great red eye staring unsympathetically upon the Greenfly quarantine point.

  Across the globe, arrowhead-shaped fighters appeared without warning, stayed for just long enough to drop a bomb, and teleported to their next targets. The Greenflies had had three months to map every landing strip on the globe. They would have been an obvious feature from orbit to any tool-using species. The Whaleship might have had an idea what they were, but it refused to look closely at Earth itself, instead preferring the safety of its cluster of asteroids in the trailing Trojans, Troy itself providing a great deal of protection. So, the Greenflies had needed to be told. They were told about satellites, aircraft, guns, cities, and the places on Earth that were probably military bases, as judged by their informant. He also suggested that they work from the top down.

  First, they had wiped out the satellite network around Earth. They had no idea which were important and which weren’t, so they destroyed every object larger than a quarter meter in diameter. For a race that was built to mine asteroids and now had the capability to teleport wherever they needed, it was extremely simple. A single transport could destroy seven satellites a minute, and there were over a hundred transports assigned to the operation.

  Next were the aircraft. There were many over the globe, and they were clearly visible from space by their contrails, contrails all the more visible to Greenflies who weren’t dependent on the human visual spectrum. The arrowheads were dispersed to destroy their airfields, and Greenflies themselves were sent to deal with the aircraft. There was a domesticated animal they rarely used, because it required the sinking of a mine into a gas giant in much the same way that plasma cannon required a mine within a living sun. This animal, like the aquatic tails the Greenflies sometimes wore, was intended for transportation.

  Transports appeared in mid-air, and promptly began to fall, their repulsors not intended for true flight. Their doors opened, and Greenflies leaped into the atmosphere, their bodies covered densely in armor bugs, and a stubby wing over their middle torso section. As they cleared the transport, the tips of the wings emitted a stream of yellow, propelling them as fast as any jet. Inside those stubby wings there resided an active teleportation portal, drawing in liquid, metallic hydrogen from the lower levels of Jupiter. When it emerged into the low pressure of Earth’s atmosphere, it expanded. The pressure difference led to enormous thrust. Tiny fins along the wing, built of an organic material stronger than steel, directed the thrust and passage of air.

  Invisible to radar, able to detect contrails from a tenth the way around the globe, and, with the armor bugs, able to resist oxidation by Earth’s thin upper atmosphere for nearly five hours, these Greenflies began hunting aircraft one-by-one. Truth be told, the Greenflies couldn’t tell the difference between them, so they shot down passenger liners and jet fighters alike. A thousand such troopers spread across the skies, occasionally being extracted with teleportation bombs and redeployed with transports. As so far there had been no teleportations to the ground, angular velocity meant very little. There wasn’t even much danger of teleporting into matter so high in the atmosphere. The Window, actually a safety consideration for Greenflies teleporting to the surface, was meaningless.

  All the while, arrowheads were dropping bombs on runways, and the occasional target of interest in the immediate vicinity. The informant was adamant that air and space superiority be achieved before the invasion of the military bases. He was certain they held the bulk of the human resistance as well as biological samples of value. The cities would merely be destroyed, and the scavenger insects and newly prepared scavenger fish and arthropods would be used to pick through their wreckage.

  Chapter 23: The Fall of Utah Base

  The lowest level of Utah Base was a tomb, but it was not a silent one. The room was both refrigerated and pressurized with argon, preventing its contents from degrading until it was time to examine them. In addition to the hum of air-circulating equipment and the rush of unbreathable air, there were occasional banging noises from far above. It was as if there were a thunderstorm out on the surface but that was not the case. Like everywhere else with a runway, Utah Base was being attacked. Unlike the other places, though, Utah Base was known by the Greenflies to be a center for human resistance. They hadn’t been able to figure it out themselves, but it had come easily with a little help. Like other centers for human resistance across the globe, Utah Base was in need of special attention. Bombardment would not be enough against the burrowing humans. They had to be rooted out.

  It was here
in the storage vault that the attack began. Unlike most morgues, the dead in this room were not stored in a wall, but rather on individual autopsy tables. Every one of the Greenflies on the tables had already been under the knife once, and there was precious little fluid left in any of them. It had been the better part of a year since most of these specimens had arrived. Still, there were a couple that had yet to be completely dissected. One of these corpses still had a heart, a teleportation organ that would function if it were given the appropriate signal. Little did the humans know that these hearts could transmit something other than blood.

  One of the Greenfly corpses began to twitch. It was not moving its limbs, but rather there appeared to be something within its center torso segment that was trying to get out. Eventually, the creature within the Greenfly corpse found its way to the stitched hole that the human doctors had left after the autopsy. Tendrils of orange material delicately snipped the sutures, and a Harvester emerged into the soft light of the refrigerated vault.

  Only about a foot of Harvester poked out of the wound. The rest of its mass was spread throughout the Greenfly. Small tendrils stitched tissue back together, closed bullet holes, and coaxed dormant regenerative cells to produce more cellular material for the Harvester to work with. It was a remarkably rapid process, the Harvester being one of the oldest of its kind and very experienced at patching together these old asteroid miners.

  The Greenflies were built from scratch, and they could be repaired the same way, even from a lifeless state. If the skeleton was more-or-less intact, there was precious little on a Greenfly that a Harvester could not repair. In this case, the bullets had merely punched a number of holes through the brain. There would be a great deal of personal memory loss in this Greenfly, but it would still possess its racial programming once the Harvester patched the damage.