Skywave

by K Patrick Donoghue

  He went on to explain the rest of his quest. He commandeered a hotel shuttle van and drove to the address Mark had given him, but found the house deserted and Amato’s rental car nowhere in sight. He said he tried reaching Amato by phone again but discovered he had no cell signal.

  “I started to get real worried. Thought maybe you got into an accident or something. So, I backtracked along the main road, going slow, looking in ditches, down side roads. Then, I saw a car that looked like yours in the parking lot here. Boy, am I glad I found you!”

  As the former Navy pilot recounted his odyssey, Amato’s thoughts turned to Mark’s urgency to speak with him. While there might have been many reasons Mark wanted to get him on the phone, there were few that would necessitate dispatching Helms in the middle of the night to hunt him down. Something must have happened at Mayaguana. Something to do with the CUBEs.

  “Did Mark say what he needed to talk to me about?” Amato asked.

  “No, sir. Mark just told me to find you and get you to call Mayaguana, ASAP. But, on the drive up here, I heard plenty on the radio,” Helms said.

  In clipped fashion, Helms briefed Amato on the media’s version of events. Some of Amato’s probes had exploded in orbit, taking out other satellites in the process. Some of the probes didn’t explode and left orbit. “The guy on the news said they’re headed for Jupiter. Some nutjob he interviewed said they’re being followed by a UFO.”

  When Helms mentioned the UFO, Morgan darted a look at Amato and retrieved the remote control for the restaurant’s television. After activating the set, Morgan switched channels to a national news channel and toggled up the volume.

  Amato turned to see a reporter outside the West Wing of the White House. Below the image, a red banner with white letters scrolled across the screen, “…over one hundred million households worldwide now without phone or Internet service…Pentagon declares leaked satellite tracker image a hoax…still no statement from A3rospace Industries or chief executive Augustus Amato…”

  Diverting his attention to the reporter, Amato listened to her exchange with the anchor.

  “No, Mitch. No statement from the White House yet. We’ve been told the president is currently meeting with his national security team. I anticipate we’ll hear something from the press secretary Talifero shortly after the meeting breaks up.”

  “What about the Pentagon’s UFO hoax claim? Any confirmation from the White House?”

  “On and off the record, administration officials have refused to comment on anything related to the satellite image or the Pentagon’s statement.”

  Amato turned away from the television and asked Morgan, “Do you have a landline here? Is it working?”

  When Mark saw the Hanalei, Kauai, caller ID on his cell phone, he rose from his desk and dashed out of Amato’s office suite, headed for Dante’s office. On the way, he activated the call. “Hello, Mr. Amato?”

  “Yes, Mark, it’s me.”

  “Oh, thank goodness! Something terrible has—”

  “Yes, I know. J.J. is here. We’ve got the TV on.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Amato. I tried to get hold of you as I—”

  “Don’t apologize, just put Dante on the line. Quickly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Mark ran down the hallway at full speed, he pulled the phone from his ear and waved it above his head. “Dante, I’ve got Mr. Amato!”

  Dante emerged from his office just as the sprinting Mark pivoted to enter. They collided and fell to the floor. Mark lost his grip on the phone and it bounced away down the hall. In between curses that would have made a sailor proud, he crawled on all fours and snatched the phone. Out of breath, he turned and held out the phone to Dante.

  The flight director, who’d regained his feet, helped Mark up as he spoke into the phone. “Hello? Mr. Amato? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Dante, I’m still here. What’s going on? I heard a commotion.”

  “Nothing, I, uh, dropped the phone,” Dante said. He cupped his hand over the phone’s microphone and mouthed to Mark, “Get Kiera.” Returning to the line, he said to Amato, “Listen, we’ve got a pretty bad situation on our hands.”

  “I’m aware, I’ve got the news on,” Amato said. “What happened?”

  Over the course of the next few minutes, Dante detailed the UMO attack and the aftermath. When he finished, Amato said, “We have six CUBEs left, you say?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “The media seems to think they’re headed to Jupiter. Is that true?”

  “Yes and no.” Dante described his initial rationale for diverting the probes toward Callisto, but explained he’d changed course once he learned the CUBEs were being tracked. “We split the fleet in two, fed them new course headings and turned off their X-band transponders.”

  “You did what?”

  “Just for twenty-four hours. Just to shake the tracking. By the time they turn their comms back on, they’ll be so far from where they’d been, it’ll take NASA quite a while to find ’em,” Dante said.

  “Where are they headed now?”

  “Well, one of the groups is still headed for Callisto, but on a serpentine course and we instructed the CUBEs to kick up engine output to seventy-five percent.”

  “But won’t the higher speed attract more of the UMOs,” Amato said.

  “I don’t think so,” Dante said. “We haven’t seen any since we turned on the fleet radiation shield.”

  “The shield’s still active?”

  “On that group, yes.”

  “But not the other one?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t think it was advisable, given group two’s heading.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Mars,” Dante said.

  As he began to describe the slingshot idea to Amato, Kiera came into the office. Mark stood in the doorway and used hand signals to ask Dante whether he should stay or go. He motioned him to close the door and take the chair next to Kiera, interrupting his description to inform Amato of the new arrivals. “I’ve got Kiera and Mark here with me now. Is it okay if I put you on speaker?”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Amato said.

  Dante activated the setting and laid the phone on the desktop. Amato’s voice came forth from the speaker. “Hold on one moment. I’m going to see if it’s possible to put you on speaker, too. I have someone here I want to join the conversation.”

  They heard muffled conversation in the background and then a click. Amato’s voice, sounding farther away, asked, “Are you there, Dante?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re all here.”

  “Good. Good,” Amato said. “I’ve got J.J. here with me…and Colonel Paul Morgan.”

  Dante and Kiera shared surprised looks.

  Over the speakerphone, Dante’s contingent heard a new voice. “Retired Colonel.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. Colonel Paul Morgan, Retired. Satisfied?” Amato asked.

  “Better,” Morgan said.

  “Good. Dante, do you know who Paul is?” Amato asked.

  “I do,” Dante said. “Anyone who’s worked at NASA knows who Skywalker is.”

  “Yes, well, Paul’s agreed to help us find out what’s on Callisto,” Amato said. “Please run through everything again, Dante, from the UMO attack all the way up to splitting the fleet. I want Paul to hear it all firsthand.”

  After describing the attack, Dante said, “We’re still researching what stimulated the UMOs to swarm. The CUBEs’ main engines were off, we were holding in orbit using only our autopilot thrusters, so the UMOs weren’t attracted by our VLF engine output like they were before.”

  Morgan interrupted. “Did you have any high-frequency spectrometers on board any of the CUBEs? X-ray, gamma ray?”

  Dante turned to Kiera. She nodded and leaned over the desk to get closer to the speakerphone. “Yes, two of the three CUBEs that were attacked had spectrometers on board. UV, X-ray and gamma. They were on
and taking readings when the attack occurred.”

  “There’s your answer,” Morgan said.

  “Kiera,” Amato said, “I don’t understand. Why were the spectrometers turned on if the fleet was in hold mode?”

  “Well, we assumed we’d test the fleet program, including the VLF radiation shield, once we heard back from you,” Kiera said. “So, I thought it would be a good idea to gather data on radiation levels around the CUBEs prior to activating the shield so we would have a baseline to compare against to know whether the shield was effective.”

  An extended pause in the conversation ensued. Over the speaker, Dante and the others could hear a muffled conversation between Amato and Morgan. When Amato returned to the line, he asked, “You said another of the CUBEs was attacked. One without spectrometers. Which one was it?”

  “CUBE-9,” Kiera said.

  “Ah,” Amato said. “One of our spare parts drones.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “It had our reserve of lithium-ion battery packs aboard.”

  “Why would they have attacked CUBE-9?” Amato asked in a soft tone.

  “I’m not sure,” Kiera said, “but we were charging a couple of the reserve packs when the attack happened. If you recall, we were going to test our battery swap-out protocol during the fleet flight test.”

  “What happened with the other CUBEs?” Morgan asked. “Were UMOs gathered around them, too?”

  “Yes,” Dante said, “they weren’t swarming like they did with CUBE-3 and CUBE-5, the two with spectrometers, but they were around all of the CUBEs. Which, again, is strange because the engines were off. There weren’t any active instruments on the other CUBEs to attract them.”

  “Not necessarily,” Morgan said. “You’re using X band for comms?”

  “Yes,” Dante said. “X band is our primary. UHF band is our backup. A couple of the probes also have S band.”

  “And the CUBEs communicate with one another on X band too?” Morgan asked.

  “They can communicate on either, but, yes, at the time of the attack, they were operating on X band,” Dante said. “Why?”

  “Isn’t X band overkill for ship-to-ship?” Morgan asked.

  “For stand-alone CUBEs? Yes. But, as a fleet, we need a high data transfer rate flowing between the command probe and the rest of the fleet to make sure they act in a coordinated fashion,” Dante said.

  During Dante’s explanation, Mark’s phone began to vibrate. On the screen, a notification badge appeared displaying the name of the caller, Dr. Dennis Pritchard. All three of the occupants in Dante’s office saw the notification. Mark leaned toward Kiera and whispered, “It’s the fifth time he’s called in the last hour.”

  Kiera nodded and as Morgan began to ask another question, she interrupted. “I’m sorry to cut you off, Colonel, but we need to switch gears for a bit. Mr. Amato?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mark just received another call from Dr. Pritchard at NASA. He told me it’s the fifth time he’s called in the last hour,” Kiera said.

  “That’s right,” Mark said. “He’s left three messages.” Another notification popped up on the screen, signaling a new voicemail from Pritchard. “Uh, make that four. He’s understandably upset, wants to talk with you.”

  “Yes, I imagine he does…along with the rest of the world,” Amato said. “Very well, Mark. Go ahead and return his call. Let’s set a time to talk, say 10:30 a.m. Eastern. That’s what, a little more than forty minutes from now. I need to understand a little more of what’s gone on before the call.”

  Mark left to call Pritchard from the privacy of Amato’s office while the others continued their conversation, focusing on the status of the two subfleets, the Mars slingshot and next steps.

  As the conversation progressed, Morgan took on a more active role, making suggestions and providing the group insight on what was likely happening within NASA. By the end of the call, Amato assented to Dante’s strategy for the Mars slingshot. Morgan lent his support for the strategy, provided the Mars fleet’s comms band was switched to UHF until the slingshot was accomplished and they were beyond Mars’ orbit. He also forcefully argued to keep all remaining spectrometers dormant. The latter condition was easy for Dante and the team to agree with given the only spectrometer-laden probe left in the fleet was in the van of other CUBEs headed toward Callisto.

  “All right, Dante, let’s reconnect in two hours,” Amato said. “As soon as I finish the call with Pritchard, we’re heading back to the airport. I’ll call you from the plane.”

  With the call to Mayaguana finished, Amato instructed J.J. to leave for the hotel in Lihue to retrieve their belongings and then prep the plane for takeoff. He and Morgan would follow in Amato’s rental car after the call with Pritchard. After J.J. departed, Amato looked at his watch and then at Morgan. “Okay, I’ve got five minutes before calling Pritchard. You have any words of wisdom to offer?”

  “Yeah, actually, I do,” Morgan said. “When he gets all high and mighty, tell him it’s his fault.”

  “I’m sure that will go over well,” Amato said.

  “I’m not kidding. Your fleet got attacked because of NASA’s UMO training program.”

  Amato’s thoughts turned immediately to Anlon Cully’s mention of training the UMOs like honeybees. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, NASA’s got a classified training program for our little friends. They use X-band radio waves to attract them to ion pods where NASA feeds them.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To keep them away from high-value assets in orbit. It was a compromise brokered with the Pentagon after Cetus Prime to keep Space Command from lighting up the atmo with EMPs.

  “Unfortunately, your CUBEs inadvertently attracted them with their comms…only they had no food to offer when the UMOs arrived. And then when the UMOs detected the spectrometers, well, then it was on like Donkey Kong.”

  Morgan retreated to the kitchen to brew coffee as Amato initiated the landline call. The time on the restaurant clock read 4:30 a.m. While waiting for the line to connect, Amato yawned and looked down at his disheveled appearance. His bare feet were caked with red clay from the parking lot dash to retrieve his laptop, and the Benny merchandise that replaced his wet clothes were wrinkled and tight-fitting against his potbelly. Raising a hand to his head, he tried to bring some semblance of order to the frizzy horseshoe of white hair surrounding his bald pate.

  Yawning again, Amato reflected on the situation. If anyone had told him he would face the biggest crisis of his career on six hours of sleep over the preceding forty-eight hours, he would have believed them. If they’d said he’d confront that controversy in unfamiliar surroundings, far from home, he could have pictured dozens of possible scenarios. If told he would be at a disadvantage to gain a foothold in the crisis due to lack of information and poor communications, Amato would have said, “Part of the deal in the big leagues.”

  To confront all these hardships at the same time was a first for him, but looking over his shoulder at Morgan, knowing the extent of the crisis he and the crew of Cetus Prime had faced twenty-three years ago, Amato suddenly felt small, as if his woes amounted to no more than a stubbed toe beneath the red clay coating his feet.

  “Hello? Augie?” said Dennis Pritchard through the phone.

  Amato shook his head to clear the cobwebs, pressed the phone to his ear and replied, “Hello, Dennis.”

  “You’re in Hawaii? What in the devil are you doing there?” Pritchard demanded to know.

  “Visiting an old friend,” Amato said.

  “Well, you picked a hell of a time to go on walkabout,” Pritchard said.

  “So it seems.”

  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Pritchard asked.

  “Dennis, you may choose not to believe me, but I just learned of everything that’s happened less than two hours ago,” Amato said.

  “What? How’s that possible?” Pritchard scoffed.

  “A long story which I’m sur
e you aren’t interested in,” Amato said. He nodded thanks to Morgan, who handed him a steaming cup of black coffee. The former astronaut sat down beside him, his own cup in hand, and patted Amato on the shoulder.

  “Well, listen to me, Augie. Right now, the only thing standing between SEAL Team Six and a brigade of armed Hellcats and your entire empire is me. Do you understand? I need some goddamned answers and I need them fast. No more bullshit riddles like HERTS,” Pritchard said.

  “I appreciate the gravity of the circumstances, Dennis, and I have many of my own questions,” Amato said, clicking on the speaker phone for Morgan’s benefit.

  “Why did you do it? Why’d you launch the rest of your CUBEs right in the middle of trying to defuse the first CUBE fiasco?”

  “I made no promise to keep them grounded, Dennis,” Amato said, “and I surely didn’t expect to—”

  “Bullshit, Augie. You know better than that. You launched a bunch of probes into orbit without notifying NASA. Without even making a courtesy call to me? After the fire drill we went through on CUBE-1? From where I sit, that looks like a big ass middle-finger salute, my friend,” Pritchard said.

  Amato sipped coffee during Pritchard’s tirade. When the NASA chief finished, Amato said in a calm, tempered tone, “Dennis, did you not watch CUBE-1’s launch from Mayaguana? Did I not invite you and Helen Brock to observe? Did I not brief you both afterward? Did I not agree to suppress the facts of what happened with CUBE-1 at your request?”

  There was no response from Pritchard. Amato continued, “Could I have given you the precise time and order of our launches? I suppose I could have, but as I’ve seen on television, you’re tracking us anyway, so I fail to understand how the launches surprised you.”

  “Do you have any idea of the shit your recklessness has caused?” Pritchard finally responded.

  Amato laughed.

  “Oh, you think it’s funny? I doubt you’ll think so when—”