by Ira Tabankin
“You know the answer to that. Before you decide, let’s look at the third row.”
Kalteck and Rhett slowly looked around the inside of the dome while they moved to the third row of humans. These appeared to be sleeping, and they appeared to be untouched; however, when Rhett got closer, one of the women opened her eyes. However, they weren’t human eyes, they were small cameras.
Rhett thought, what else did they change?
Kalteck responded, “My sensors are telling me most of their organs have been replaced by nanite created and 3D printed organs. Their skin is real, but everything inside of them has been changed. In my society, we’d call them androids. They look human but are really more computer than biological.”
“In your society, you have androids?”
“We once did. We passed laws stopping the production of them. We learned too late they can quickly move from being a servant to an enemy. We fought a war against an army of androids. I think they were building these with the intent to return them to Earth, where they would be given special missions, usually what you’d call terror missions. I could see them using the androids to attack and kill your leaders. Their new organs and bodies could absorb a lot of punishment before they stop working. They could be building a small army to prepare the Earth for when the enemy arrives.”
“Holy shit, an army of robots.”
“Not robots, androids. The difference is robots don’t have biological bodies. If they wore contacts, they would pass as completely human. They would make perfect assassins. They could go anywhere. We need to check who the passengers are and if any were diplomats. I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Rhett looked at the line of human androids. “Did they feel anything when they were converted?”
“Most likely, they felt everything. The maggots don’t understand how the human brain operates. Even if they did, they most likely wanted to collect the fear emotions and pain they felt.”
Kalteck paused a moment, “I think the best thing we can do is to destroy this dome and everyone inside. We have the recordings we can share with Mr. Trump.”
“I’m still not sure he will keep the secret. Before we destroy the dome, there is one last area I want to see…”
“NO! Do not, let me repeat my order, do NOT look at the area in the dark. Please, as your friend, listen to me. Do not go over there. I will take care of it, so you don’t have to see and experience what’s happened to them.”
“I want to; I have to see if for myself.”
“Rhett, please, I’m begging you. Please don’t.”
Rhett slowly walked towards a row of cages that lined the dark back wall of the dome. He heard strange cries and growled coming from the cages. He stopped fifteen feet from the first few cages. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His stomach turned, he turned away. He thought to himself, Implant, did you record what I saw?
“Yes. We have recorded every image, even the ones you don’t remember seeing. Do you want to forget what you saw? I can ask the nanites to erase your memories.”
“No, I want to remember. I want to remember, so when we track these assholes to their home, I want to remember it when we nuke their planet to its mantle. I can’t believe what they did. It is unholy. It is something from the New Testament’s description of Hell. They made demons.”
Kalteck responded, “These aren’t demons. The maggots somehow merged humans with animals. Some are part dog, part human, part cat, part human. One is part cow and part human. Another I can’t describe. It’s a combination of various animals and a single human who according to the look in their eyes is in shock. Rhett, these are your people what do you want to do with them?”
“Can they be reversed?”
“Even if they could, their minds are gone. Can you imagine the suffering the panic and the pain they felt? They saw and heard what the aliens were doing to others. They knew the aliens were going to come for them next. Imagine how you would have felt. You knew it, but you couldn’t run. You tried to hide inside your own head until their machines took you. You screamed and begged to no avail. You felt their laser cutting you. You felt them merging your brain with parts of animals. You felt them turning you into something unholy, something even the Creator of All wouldn’t recognize. What do you want to do? They are your people. You have to decide.”
Rhett fell to his knees, he crossed himself and began praying. “Kalteck, I never thought I’d say this. Terminate them all. I am begging you to make it painless. These poor people have suffered enough. Please make it quick.”
“Return to the ship. I will join you there in a moment. Don’t touch anything on the way back. I will have my AI dump all of their data from their systems.”
“Kalteck, I want to burn their home planet. Promise me we’ll burn them to the ground.”
“I promise you we will make them pay.”
“Thank you.”
An hour after leaving Titan, a small antimatter bomb exploded in the middle of the dome. The flash could be seen from Earth where astronomers thought they’d seen a large meteor strike on Titan. Rhett looked at the monitor, “Thank you. I can’t believe what they were doing to my people.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m not. I want my people to know what they’re going to be fighting for. Look at what you unleashed on 9/11. Think about how the entire planet is going to respond when they see these pictures.”
“We can’t release them. I want your government to release them, but only after your people are better prepared for what’s coming.”
“Better prepared? What could better prepare them then what we just saw?”
Chapter 7
True to the candidate’s promise, which surprised Kalteck since he knew not to trust any politician, Trump quickly increased the Department of Defense’s budget. He funneled funds to dark projects and agreed to fund a new very secret bomber, the B-21 Stealth Bomber.
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Watching for strange airplanes that took off and landed at Area 51 became a hobby for some. On the night Kalteck and Rhett returned from Titan, they were caught by a lightning flash that lit up the sky. It was one of those once in a million events. The flash was bright enough to allow two men hiding on a hill overlooking the secret base to see the saucer hover over and enter Hangar 18.
The two men realized they’d seen proof that the alien crash at Roswell in 1947 was real and aliens visited and maybe even lived in Area 51. They snuck back to their trucks and began placing posts on social media sites they’d seen a real UFO landing at Area 51. They urged people to storm the base to demand answers and to show the world we weren’t alone. Of course, these initial posts and the swell of excitement they created was lost on Rhett, who didn’t follow social media.
Ten days after the initial posts were made, and over 50,000 people had signed up to “storm Area 51.” Colonel Brix smiled as he sat in front of Rhett. “Do you realize someone saw you arrive for a week or so ago?”
“Impossible, you know we only take off or land during a storm or a very dark night. How did someone see us?”
“There was a freak flash of lightning when you hovered over Hangar 18. Someone up on the overlooking hills saw you in that flash. He’s posted we’re not alone. He’s gathering people to storm the base and demand we turn over the aliens we’re holding hostage.”
“We’re not holding anyone hostage! Kalteck’s here as a friend.”
“Doesn’t matter, as of early this morning, over 50,000 people have signed up and the list is growing like a forest fire burning through the dry California brush. I estimate by the time they want to storm us; they’ll have over two hundred thousand signed up.”
“What? The local area can’t support those numbers, and neither can our small security force. I can’t move most of the X planes out of here, which would create even more security problems. Even if I told them we’re not holding any alien here, they wouldn’t believe me. We better figure something out because if a large number
of people broke into the base and took pictures of what’s here, we’d have the largest security breach in the country’s history.”
Colonel Brix looked at Rhett, “What are your orders?”
“Begin moving the most sensitive UAVs and the new small stealth fighter underground. Hangar 18 is only a shell for Kalteck’s landings. As you know, everything really happens underground. Police the hangar anyway to make sure there’s nothing there which anyone could suspect aliens. Make sure the seals to our underground facilities are all tight and hidden and call up some additional support. You’re in charge of security for the project. What am I forgetting?”
“I want to strengthen the barbwire fencing,”
“Approved.”
“I want to triple the number of our security troops.”
“Approved.”
“I want to get some trucks with water cannons.”
“Approved.”
“I want a couple of Apaches.”
“You want armed attack helicopters?”
“Just in case things turn really ugly.”
“Approved. While you’re at it, order a ton of tear gas and riot patrol equipment for your troops. Put up some minefield signs, maybe that will scare people off and make sure the Deadly Force Authorized signs are up and clearly visible. Also, order in a lot of water. If they do come and end up sitting outside of our fences, they’re going to need water because it gets damn hot out here. I better call the Pentagon. What a mess I don’t need today.”
The base prepared to be swarmed by protesters looking for aliens. The media caught on and they began filming outside of the barbwire, which upset Rhett and Brix. Rhett agreed to be interviewed where he said they weren’t holding any alien’s hostage and the base was secret due to the top-secret planes and tactics practiced in the area. When asked if he could provide the media a tour of the highly secret base, Rhett had to decline based on all of the classified equipment on the base. One reporter asked him if that included flying saucers to which Rhett laughed and responded, “To the best of my knowledge there’s no such thing as flying saucers. We don’t have any here,” which was true since Kalteck was back on Mars.
Behind the scenes, Rhett and the Pentagon pressured the social media sites to drop the pages and to announce the entire thing was a hoax, and that no one should go to the base as the local area couldn’t support them. The entire event soon ended with only a handful of people showing up at the front gates, where they were met by armed security troops who turned them away.
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Kalteck was incredibly pleased with the new President. Over a case of beer, he told Rhett, “I like this President, but I don’t like his constant messages. I wish he would calm down and govern without the screaming on your internet. I am afraid one day he is going to get too excited and leak our existence before your people are ready.”
“When will we be ready?”
“Very soon. Did you see the new announcement?”
“I’ve seen many announcements, which one?”
“The one about construction beginning for a large telescopic array dedicated to detecting natural and artificial sources of optical and infrared light. I understand your people are going to call it PANOSETI, which stands for Pulsed All-Sky Near-Infrared Optical SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). It will be capable of scanning the entire sky, significantly boosting your chances of detecting alien laser signals. This will most likely pick up our laser communication signals and then your people will begin backtracking the signals. They are going to collect and attempt to analyze some of the alien signals. I hope they remember the signals they collect are old. Depending on how far the systems the lasers originated from are, some could be from over a thousand years in your past.
“Once they have spent a little time analyzing the signals, and they realize they are not random signals, I’ll allow your military to capture some incredibly good images of my ship. Then we can prepare them for what you’ve seen.”
“How long do you think this will take? How have other people on other planets reacted?”
“No more than a few years. When your people realize you’re not alone, your entire society is going to change. You’re going to have to live through riots and religious wars when your religious leaders have to come to grips with you’re not alone and the god they’ve prayed to all this time didn’t create you, humans, in his image, but rather that the Creator of All created all of us. Every species of life was created by the one all-powerful Creator. You have access to enormous amounts of data; your people are going to need you to get through the darkness which is coming. It has been the same on every planet when their people have to realize they are not the only beings in the universe.”
“I will do everything I can to help my people.”
“I know you will. Let’s review where your planet’s technology stands and what our next steps will be. I believe you’re ready to ‘discover’ fusion, which will create cheap energy, the energy you’re going to require to power your next leaps and what is required before you build your first matter/antimatter reactor which is what powers my ship and what will power your ships.”
“Should I leak the designs?”
“Not yet, wait until it is close to the end of Trump’s first term, so your first reactor will be ready in the middle of his second. Your people need time to adjust to the many changes he will bring. I feel sorry for so many of your people, they are going to receive a shock so powerful they won’t be able to accept it. Every part of your government will attempt to remove him because he’s not a member of their little club and they won’t understand him, but that’s your problem, not mine…”Kalteck’s voice flattened out and it’s volume softened to a near whisper which was very unusual for him.
“Kalteck, what’s bothering you? You’ve been distant since you returned from the dome.”
“I’m still overly concerned about the Neanderthals and how they fit into the big picture and what information the little silent maggots sent to them. I’m worried the Neanderthals gave the maggots the technology to make the androids. My fear is there are hundreds of human androids working their way into positions of power in your government. They may have even replaced some of the existing members of your government with androids.”
“Could they do that? Copy people?”
“Facial and body surgery isn’t difficult, anyone can be copied. Replacing them with androids is rather easy, that is what is concerning me. I don’t understand their plan and what part of it the androids will play in it.”
“Isn’t there a way we can pick the androids out at a distance?”
“I’ll check with my ship’s AI, who has been studying the question. You have enough to do while I’m gone for a while.”
“Whoa, where are you going this time? When will you return?”
“I’m going to build as many of the antimatter pumped X-ray mines as my ship can manufacture and place them along the path the Neanderthal ships flew through your system before. I want to see if I can damage one of their ships and keep it here long enough for my AI to get into their cores.”
“That’s crazy. I’ve seen the images of their ships and how powerful they are. You said your ship couldn’t go toe to toe against them. We can’t afford to lose you when we’re getting so close. I don’t want you to commit suicide.”
“I need to get information on them. We, not just me, you need to know why they’re flying through your system and what they want here. I’m concerned they’re working with my old enemy. If they are, you are going to lose the war. It would be hard enough to fight my enemy, but my enemy allied with the maggots and the Neanderthals will be an overpowering force your planet won’t be able to defeat.”
“Huh? I thought you told me that if we advanced our technology quickly enough and advanced our military into space, we could hold them off long enough for your main fleet to arrive. Look at how far we’ve come in 71 years. Propeller driven fighters to Mach 5 hypersonic planes and missiles.
Lasers, advanced radars, LIDAR, a prototype space fighter, the X 37. You’re seeding our system with thousands of mines. In another few years, thanks to you, we’ll have fusion reactors and then antimatter one. Don’t forget we’re also going to have thousands of real space fighters. Look, Trump started us down the right path. He established the Space Force, our first military branch specialized to fight in space. We’re getting there. We have crude AI, but it’s a start, you said so yourself. We’ve discovered nanites, and we understand how to create carbon buckyballs and new types of ceramics. You told me, once we know we’re not alone and we can prove the enemy is a threat to all of humanity which the images from the dome on Titan will prove, we’ll unite and then we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”
“My friend, you could be, IF your people stay on the right path. As I said, I’m very concerned the maggots have seeded your society with spies. Fighting one enemy would be hard enough, fighting three, almost impossible. I need to send what I’ve learned home to see if they can speed up the fleet, you’re going to need all the help we can give you.”