The fire immediately returned to Captain Deutch’s eyes, although he forced his voice to remain temperate. “Yes sir, I was trying to track down the idiot that denied the requisition to fix our vertical launch system.”
The CNO smiled. “You found him,” he said. “I am the one that killed that requisition.”
Captain Deutch’s face reddened in anger, but he knew that the CNO was an aviator, not a ship driver, so he pressed on. “Could you please tell me why, sir?” he asked. Despite his best effort, sarcasm tinged his voice. “It will be awfully hard to defend the battle group without my missile system.”
“I’m well aware of that, Captain,” replied the CNO. “The answer is simple; this ship isn’t going on cruise.”
“What?” exploded Captain Deutch. “This is the ship’s last cruise, and both she and the crew deserve it! If it’s something I’ve done, relieve me and at least let the crew go!”
“Calm down,” said the CNO. “You haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, it is because you run such a good crew that you were selected for something even more important.” He smiled. “You have been selected to go to space.”
“What does that mean?” asked Captain Deutch confused at the abrupt change in topic. “How exactly would we ‘go to space?’”
“As difficult as it may be to believe, the United States has been contacted by extraterrestrials that need help manning their spaceship. Your crew is going to help get them back home.”
“I’m going to what?” asked Captain Deutch incredulously. “Extraterrestrials? And we’re going to do what with them? Even if there were extraterrestrials, none of us know the first thing about crewing starships. How are we supposed to do that?” asked Captain Deutch. “Wait a minute,” he continued. “Is this some sort of hidden camera show? If so, I’ll bet my reaction will be great on TV.”
The CNO sighed. “No, this isn’t a hidden camera show,” he said. “Your crew has really been selected to fly a spaceship. Don’t ask me how you’re going to do that, because we don’t know yet. Just know that when you leave to go on cruise, you’re not going to the Mediterranean. You’re going to outer space. We will hide the ship here, and no one will be the wiser. All of this is classified at the highest level; the president even invented a new clearance level for this information.”
The CNO pulled out a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to Captain Deutch. “The code word for this information is ‘Olympos’ and, at this point, only a handful of people know what is really going on. You are not authorized to bring anyone else into the program without my approval. That consent needs to come directly from me; most of my staff doesn’t know anything about this.”
“I’m sorry sir, but you’re going about it all wrong, then,” said Captain Deutch, finally starting to believe that something else was going on. “If you want to keep everything secret, you have to approve all of our requisitions. That way, no one will be the wiser. Everyone will continue to believe that we are going on cruise, as scheduled. If you keep disapproving our requisitions, people are going to start to talk, and then rumors will start flying. Eventually, they’ll even get out to the media. If everything just goes like normal, though, there will be no media buzz. We’re just another ship going on cruise, the same as the navy has done for almost 250 years.”
“That makes good sense,” said the CNO. “Resubmit the requisitions, and I’ll make sure they get approved.”
“Aye aye, sir,” answered Captain Deutch.
“One last thing,” said the CNO, “Your families are going to hate it, but the communications system is going to stay broken so they can’t reach you on cruise. Get ready for some serious complaining.”
Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, WA, October 29, 2018
“I thought the war killed my love life,” said Calvin to the senior officers and enlisted of both of his units. “The only thing worse than the war is this peace, and it keeps getting worse. I think I’ve got ten different bosses now, and that only counts the ones here in the United States. I just got a phone call from the head of the freakin’ CIA, for crying out loud! I’ve never even been a squadron department head, and I’m expected to be a commanding officer for both a squadron and a mixed platoon of soldiers. My entire resume of leadership experience is the two days of the war.”
He sighed. “The bottom line is that I need your help. I can’t run both of these organizations the way things are going now. I haven’t had time to fly in the last week, and I’m the one that is supposed to be integrating our mini-squadron’s tactics. I need everyone here to step up and take on everything that they can. Any suggestions that you have for making things easier would also be greatly appreciated.” He looked around the room to see if there were any ideas.
Finally, his platoon XO, First Lieutenant Paul ‘Night’ Train, spoke up. “Well sir, I’ve been in a lot of commands, and I have to say that this one is the most bizarre I’ve ever seen. One CO and two separate organizations, complete with full logistics tails for both the aviation and the ground force units. There are too many people trying to do too many things. Instead of having two separate units, why don’t we just merge the commands into one?”
“Well, that would reduce the number of people giving me reports every day,” said Calvin, “which would be wonderfully helpful, but which one of you would be the XO? I need both of you.”
“Why do you have to cut either one of us?” asked Major Robert ‘Bullseye’ Pierce. “We’ll keep both XOs. I’ll take care of the aviation side, including all of our maintenance folks, and Night can take care of the platoon side. The rest of the staff will support both sides. They’ll be busy, especially the supply guys who will have to requisition both aviation and ground force gear, but we can augment them when we merge, and we can make it work. There’s no need for two intelligence or operations sections, and both of the units are already handling their own planning and training. We’re already writing our own rules here; we might as well write them the way we like ‘em.”
“Hmmm,” said Calvin as he pondered the idea, “that’s so crazy it just might work. Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense and cuts down a bunch on the amount of space we’ll need onboard the spaceship, too. I’ll talk to the brass in D.C. and tell them that’s what we need.”
“Which boss is that, sir?” prodded Bullseye. “The CNO? Army Chief of Staff? Air Force? CIA? One of the other countries?” he smiled. “I think that is the other big problem. You need the senior brass to figure out who is your boss and then only work through him or her. That would cut down a lot on all of the bullshit briefings that you currently have to do.”
“You’re right, Bullseye,” said Calvin. “I’ll work on that one too…once I figure out which one of my bosses to suggest it to.”
KIRO-TV, Channel 7, Seattle, WA, November 3, 2018
“In national news this evening, the National Science Foundation has announced the award of a $20 million grant to the University of Washington to coordinate 85 institutions in 45 states working on new ways of finding black holes,” read KIRO’s anchorwoman, Anna St. Cloud. “University of Washington Professor Larry Riccardi announced the award earlier today.”
The camera cut to Dr. Larry Riccardi at a podium bearing the university’s seal. “This grant will allow us to further our research into new ways to locate and evaluate the nature of black holes,” he said. “We are excited to be able to bring together some of the greatest minds and facilities in the United States. In particular, MIT’s Haystack Observatory has made great progress in designing an event horizon telescope that will allow direct observation of the immediate environments of black holes with an angular resolution comparable to the event horizon. We are excited to be able to expand on their research. We will also be working with some of the world leaders in black hole research, like the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, whose scientists have already determined the correlation between the mass of black holes and their rotation.”
The camera returned to Ann
a St. Cloud. “UW will receive $10.6 million of the $20 million grant for the project and will administer the rest for the other participants. This money includes funding for both the research scientists at the university’s Physics Astronomy Building, as well as its Physics and Astronomy Computing Services Group, which will provide the project’s information technology solutions. The university was chosen due to the close relationship of the physics and astronomy programs at the university, which the National Science Foundation said would be integral to the success of the project.”
The camera shifted to co-anchor Bob Brant. “In other news…
Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, WA, November 4, 2018
“OK,” said Calvin, looking at Steropes, “it is time for a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting. Are you familiar with that expression?”
“I have heard it used,” answered Steropes. “It means that it is time to bring everything into the light, correct?”
“That’s right,” replied Calvin. “If we’re going to go somewhere and do something, neither of which we know right now, we need to at least know what equipment we’re going to have. You’ve already told us that you have some sort of laser rifles, and we have seen your force field generators in action; it’s past time that you started the technology transfer to us. The soldiers need to know what kind of weapons they are going to have so that we can devise tactics to use them effectively. The squadron needs to start learning how to fly the space fighters, which we still haven’t even seen yet! You either need to start giving us these things, or I’m going to go join my squadron on cruise.” Everyone knew that was an idle threat, including Calvin. As long as the possibility existed to fly a space fighter, Calvin wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re right, of course,” agreed Steropes. “We should have had this conversation before. Just a second; Arges needs to get out of a meeting with the president.” Brontes appeared immediately after he stopped speaking.
“See?” asked Calvin. “That is one of the things that I want to know. How do you get places? Sometimes, I know you’re there but invisible, and other times you just seem to pop in. Do you have some sort of matter transmitter?”
“It is obvious that we do,” said Brontes with a smile, “if Arges is going to instantly join us from Washington, D.C.” As she finished speaking Arges appeared next to her.
“Salutations,” said Arges. “I understand that the time has come to initiate technology transfer? Where would you like to begin?”
Calvin looked at Ryan. “Master Chief, I think you’ve been very patient. Would you like to start?”
“Yes sir, I would,” he replied. “I’d really, really like to know what kind of weapons and defensive systems we’re going to get.”
“Give us a moment,” said Arges, and all three Cyclopes disappeared.
“Maybe you should have asked for something smaller to start with,” said Calvin with a smile.
“Maybe I should have,” said Ryan, “but I’m getting awfully tired of the ‘mushroom treatment.’”
“What is the mushroom treatment?” asked Bullseye.
“It’s where you’re kept in the dark,” said Calvin, “and fed shit all the time.”
“Do you suppose they’re actually going to tell us anything this time?” asked Ryan.
“If they don’t, I’m quitting this whole thing and going on cruise,” said Calvin, with a wistful tone in his voice. “I’d get to fly and have no responsibilities…”
The Psiclopes reappeared, each holding an object.
Brontes stepped forward, holding a trident. The staff of the trident was about five inches in diameter, larger than any trident Calvin had ever seen “This is an antimatter projector. In the Theogony, I was called ‘the Thunderer;’ this is why.”
Master Chief O’Leary took the trident, and looked at it critically. “What does it…what does it do?”
“In function, it performs generally like one of your grenade launchers,” explained Arges. “It launches a round of antimatter within a magnetic containment field. The magnetic field extinguishes when it hits something, and the antimatter detonates explosively with whatever it hits.”
Ryan looked at the holes at the end of the tines. “Umm, it doesn’t look like the rounds will be very big,” he said. “What is the size of the antimatter round that it shoots?”
“I’m not a warrior,” Brontes said, “but it may be written on it.” She took the trident back, looked at the writing on it for a second and then handed it back, pointing to a dial and button that the American hadn’t noticed previously. “It looks like it goes from five nanograms to one gram of antimatter.”
“How much is a nanogram?” asked Ryan. “That must be a lot, right?”
“No,” said Steropes, “a nanogram is the equivalent of one billionth of a gram. It’s very, very small.”
“So…it goes from itty bitty up to one gram? That’s it?” asked Ryan. “A gram is like the weight of a paper clip, right?” Everyone’s heads nodded. “That’s not very much,” he continued. “How are we going to kill anything with that?”
“Quite handily,” responded Arges. “That should meet all of your explosive needs, although using the one gram setting in anything other than space is suboptimal.”
“Suboptimal? What is suboptimal about it?” asked Ryan, looking confused.
“One gram of antimatter contacting one gram of matter has the same explosive power as twice that of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. That bomb had the equivalent of about 20 kilotons of TNT; one gram of antimatter detonates with the force of 42 kilotons. If you use that setting within the atmosphere, it is likely that you will destroy yourself as well as the target.”
“Hoooooly shit!” said Ryan, suddenly handling the trident with much more respect. “What does that nanny gram setting do?”
Steropes smiled, “The five nanogram setting has a yield of about 226 grams of TNT, or about the same as one of your hand grenades.”
Ryan looked at Calvin and moaned, “Oh, sir, I want about 20 of these.”
“I’m sorry,” said Brontes, taking the trident back, “but we can’t repli-…we only have ten of them.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Steropes stepped forward with a helmet. “Sara referred to this as Zeus’ helmet of invisibility, but it is actually a part of the Mark XXXVII Mod 4 combat armor system. When the full suit is worn, it generates a force field that gives the wearer certain abilities. One of these is that the suit can bend the light around the wearer. When the soldier is motionless, he is almost invisible in most circumstances. The faster he moves, the more likely he is to be seen.
Ryan took the helmet, and a look of surprise crossed his face. “This can’t be combat armor,” he said. “It’s far too light to be effective.”
“I think you will be pleasantly surprised,” replied Arges. “The helmet, as well as the rest of the armor, is a composite fiber that is much stronger than anything you have ever seen. It will easily stop a round from one of your combat rifles.”
“That’s great if we were fighting the Chinese,” Night growled in his deep voice, “but I’ll bet that the frogs have something better than the Chinese QBZ-95 assault rifle.”
Arges’ face fell. “While the veracity of that statement cannot be ascertained, it is quite likely. They have, after all, had 3,000 years to work out an armament solution to defeat this particular level of technology.”
“What does the armor system weigh as a whole?” asked Ryan.
“The combat armor system weighs about 100 pounds,” replied Steropes. “The majority of the weight is the antimatter power generation system.”
“Wow, that’s going to make combat…difficult,” said Top, picturing having to carry 75 pounds of gear plus another 100 pounds of armor. He frowned at Calvin. “Sir, I don’t think we’ll be able to wear it. Their combat troops must have been monsters.”
“Actually,” interjected Steropes, “you should be fine with it. One of its other c
apabilities is limited anti-gravity.”
“That is correct,” added Arges. “You can carry a total of about 250 pounds before you start to experience performance degradation.”
“What does that mean?” asked Ryan.
“It means,” explained Steropes, “that in addition to the 100 pounds that the suit weighs, an average soldier can carry 150 pounds and feel as if he were completely unencumbered. If he had a 200 pound pack, it would only feel like he was carrying about 50 pounds.”
“What is an average soldier?” asked Top.
“When functional, the suit can counteract a total load of about 450 pounds,” said Steropes. “If a soldier weighs 200 pounds, the suit can counteract his weight, plus 150 pounds of gear and the 100 pound weight of the suit. The soldier will feel like he isn’t carrying anything. If the soldier weighs more, he will not be able to carry as much before he starts to feel it. Alternately, a smaller trooper will be able to pack more.”
Initially crestfallen when they heard the weight of the suit, smiles began to light up the faces of the soldiers as they thought about the extra equipment they would be able to carry and the additional capability that it would give them.
“150 pounds…” muttered Ryan. “Hmmm…” Calvin could almost see the wheels inside Ryan’s head turning as he did the mental calculations.
“Of course, if you need to carry more,” said Brontes suddenly, looking at Ryan, “there are always the mechs.” Both of the male Psiclopes suddenly looked annoyed.
“You were not supposed to mention the mechs,” said Arges to the other Psiclopes, unheard by the Terrans.
“Do you want to watch them face the Drakuls in nothing but combat armor? The Drakuls will rip them apart. I still remember Atlantis, even if you don’t,” replied Brontes, visibly shuddering.
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