But all that could wait. Rick needed to sleep.
And he slept like a baby.
As he woke up, the curtains in his bedroom began to automatically rise. His television and coffee maker turned on.
For the first time in months, Rick wasn’t hungover. He felt good. Maybe he should drink less.
On Rick’s dresser was a picture of him and his father, Captain Blake Frost. He looked at the photo. He remembered the day it was taken. It was cold. Rick had just finished his cadet training in the SpaceForce Outer Earth fighter jet program. A brand new arm of SpaceForce. The Outer Earth fighter jet program was to be short lived however. After Olympus Mons. After his father’s death.
His father was a military man through and through. Rick hated that about him. During his teens, Rick would rebel. His father, a staunch authoritarian would try everything to contain his wild son. Nothing seemed to work. Rick hated authority and everything it represented.
His father originally was a member of the AirForce, but when the SpaceForce was created, he jumped at the chance to develop the Outer Earth fighter jet program. If it took him years he didn’t care. This was the future of American defense. Or so he thought.
The morning the picture was taken, Rick’s father was telling him about the Olympus Mons mission. About how it was going to be the mission that would legitimize SpaceForce and all of its programs. About how it would be the program that would give him the ability to fully invest in the jet program.
The Olympus Mons mission was a joint mission. A partnership between NASA, SpaceForce and a private company, BlueStar. It was as much a research mission as it was a military mission.
Captain Blake Frost would have been one of the first men to set foot on another planet. He would have been remembered for centuries, maybe even millennia. Remembered like Christopher Columbus or Neil Armstrong.
But that’s not what happened.
Rick was supposed to join his father on the mission, but his father had put in a request to have Rick’s name struck from the crew just days before launch.
A week earlier, Rick and some of the crew went for dinner at a local diner near Cape Canaveral, where the Olympus Mons Mission rocket would depart from. All fifteen Olympus Mons crew members were anxious and the dinner was meant to help establish camaraderie before the launch. After all, these people would be living with each other in close quarters for the next several years and not many of them knew each other, seeing as there were members of SpaceForce, NASA and BlueStar. They all had to like each other.
During the dinner, Rick was in good spirits. For the first time in his life, he was in his dad’s good graces. He could see it in his dad’s eyes. His dad was proud of him.
Maybe that was why he let his guard down and let himself get drunk. Maybe it was his own subconscious self-sabotaging his life every time he got the chance and things started to go his way. He should have been more prepared for what happened after dinner.
Both the BlueStar and NASA astronauts looked down on the SpaceForce crew. They’d make offhand remarks about them being space cowboys or that they were just coming along just for the ride. Rick made sure it never got under his skin. He didn’t really care what a bunch of number crunching Space junkies thought about the SpaceForce or the Olympus Mons mission. The mission didn’t matter to Rick.
While walking back to his truck, Rick overheard one of the NASA astronauts, Keith Connor, mock his father. Apparently, they didn’t like the fact that the first manned mission to mars was labelled as a SpaceForce mission first. Rick, not completely drunk but getting there, called out to the NASA astronaut who mocked his father. “Hey, shit head,” he said. “You think you’d have the guts to say that to my face?”
Before getting into his car, Keith turned around and said, “Move along, buddy. I wasn’t talking to you.”
Rick was tired of their shit. He wasn’t going to let this go. “Sure, asshole!” He gave Keith the finger.
Rick must have hit a nerve. Keith got out of his car and walked toward him. “You think you’re some big shot now, buddy? You and your father are just the same. Just a bunch of loud, arrogant military men. Your first instinct is to blow shit up. We want to study it. You’re a goddamn jo…”
Before Keith could finish, Rick’s fist landed square in his face.
Keith fell to the ground, his nose bleeding.
By the time Rick had realized what he’d done, the rest of the Olympus Mons crew was helping Keith up and pulling Rick back.
The look on his father’s face said it all. He’d fucked up. Once again, he was a failure in his father’s eyes.
The next day, his father struck his name from the crew.
Rick confronted his father about it. Challenged him. Told him why he punched Keith in his face. But it didn’t matter. Blake Frost couldn’t let his hot headed son onboard the ship.
After that day, they didn’t speak again.
The day the Olympus Mons mission departed for Mars, Rick resigned from SpaceForce. His only news about the mission came from the daily news reports he would sometimes watch.
The seven month trip to Mars was fraught with adversity. Captain Frost’s ship faced a host of challenges. Whether it be system malfunction or communication error, it seemed doomed right from the get go.
NASA and SpaceForce command knew the mission wasn’t going the way they had planned. They asked Frost to turn around.
Rick was in a bar when he saw the news report about his father’s refusal to follow orders. It was so unlike him. It didn’t make sense.
The media implied that Captain Frost and the crew had gone crazy. The blamed it on cabin fever.
Despite pleas to return from NASA and SpaceForce, the Olympus Mons mission pushed on.
The events leading up to the ships oxygen tanks exploding were all redacted from SpaceForce’s post-mortem on the mission.
At the end of it all, they blamed Captain Frost.
Rick watched the events unfold in disbelief. The media followed him for a few months. Reporters always asked him why his father had struck his name from the crew ledger days before launch. Rick didn’t want to tell them the truth, so he stayed quiet. He didn’t want to bring anymore shame to his family.
Looking at the picture on his dresser brought back too many memories. Rick turned away from it. He got up from his bed, scratched Domino’s head and made his way to the kitchen. He flipped on the TV.
On every channel there was news of a massive satellite disruption. Rick listened to the news intently as he grabbed a piece of toast and sat down with his coffee. He opened his laptop. Every news site across the web was covering the satellite disruption. Fuck. He knew it was too good to be true. His big pay day was over. He’d report the metal orb in his barn to the authorities. It would be a crime if he didn’t.
He was about to call one of his old friends from SpaceForce when he heard a loud explosion. Domino barked. His whole house rattled. Rick got up and looked out the window. What the fuck?
His barn door had blown clear off.
Rick ran to the barn with the half-eaten toast sticking out of his mouth. Domino followed. The dog was always at his side.
As he approached the barn, he saw a yellow glow coming from the barn along with pieces of his truck. “Holy shit! Dom, get back, boy!”
Domino stayed outside as Rick stepped into the barn. His truck was in pieces. The orb, was still intact and was now on the ground, in a crater that had once been his truck. “Piece of shit,” he said to himself.
He noticed a faint yellow glow flicker from the front of the orb. Tiny, vibrating pieces of metal moved up and down. It reminded him of thin strands of LED light. He also noticed the partially melted SpaceForce drill attachment, stuck inside the orb’s glowing face.
The yellow light flickered, the orb started to shake and make a beeping noise. The beeping was rapid, like the sound of an old autodial on a phone.
Rick pulled out his phone. It was time to call SpaceForce. He scrolled through the
names in his phone, looking for his contact at SpaceForce. Then the orb started to levitate from the ground. “Mother of god,” he said.
Seeing it in the daylight made him realize just how bizarre the object was. What had he been thinking, taking it home like it was an old refrigerator someone had thrown out?
It suddenly didn’t feel so safe in his barn.
The object rose about three feet before falling back down, landing with a crash in the crater.
Rick was now outside the barn, looking through the open door. He wanted to call SpaceForce, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the orb. It started to shake again. Its beeping grew louder and longer.
The faint yellow glow now turned into a faint red glow.
Whatever the beeping was, it couldn’t be good.
The pitch of the beeping increased, building toward something. Instinctively, he knew the thing was going to blow.
Rick ran, diving for cover behind a tree, Domino right behind him.
Peaking around the tree he saw the device continue to shake, then a large flash of light.
Then an explosion that destroyed the orb and the entire barn.
11 John Slate
Sept. 23, 2051, NASA Space Center, Houston, Texas
“What the fuck do you mean they’re heading this way? Inanimate objects don’t just unnaturally slow down and fly through space in our direction.”
John was in Chris’s office, trying to explain what he’d discovered. He didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want to be saying what he had to say. He ran the numbers countless times. He was correct.
“Those things…”
“Things?” Chris interrupted.
“Things,” said John. “Things. I have no idea what they are, but I can tell you for certain they’re not asteroids, comets, or some other natural phenomena we know about. No. This is something new, Chris. These things are moving unnaturally. The satellite data was correct. But worse, they’re on a direct course for Earth. They’re coming for us.”
John understood why Chris was being argumentative. Chris didn’t want to believe what the scientists already knew. He wanted this to be explained by human error. He didn’t want to think about what these “things” could be or what they meant.
“So what do we do now?”
John’s face said it all. It was the same expression as the NASA employees from earlier. “I have no idea,” John said.
Chris Dellon’s mouth was left wide open. His day had been overwhelmed with calls and panic relating to the satellite disruptions, but this was too much. He looked at his desk and took off his glasses. “Do you know when they’re going to arrive?” he asked.
“They’re going to be here in twenty-four hours.”
“Jesus.”
John walked to a white board in Chris’s office and grabbed a marker. He began to sketch an outline of our solar system. He drew a small circle in the middle and labelled it ‘Sun.’ “You see,” he said. “We spotted these objects here.” He pointed to a line. “That’s the Oort Cloud. That’s ninety-three million miles from our sun. One and a half light years.”
He then drew another line. “The Kuiper belt. This is where your guys spotted it next. They didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. In light year terms, they were about five hours away.”
“Five hours? But how?”
“If I had any idea, I’d let you know, trust me,” said John. He sat down, opposite Chris’s desk.
From a bottom drawer, Chris pulled out a small bottle of rye. “I think we’re going to need this.”
John smiled. “Is that all you have?”
Chris let out a small laugh. “I definitely don’t have enough.” He poured John a drink inside a coffee cup and handed it to him.
“I have a few theories,” said John, taking the drink and knocking it back.
“Go on,” said Chris.
“First, whatever these things are, they are small. I can only say that they are tiny. But there are a lot of them. Second, they must have used some sort of warp hole to get here.”
“Wait a minute,” said Chris. “Warp hole?”
“This is just a theory, but I think, maybe…” John’s voice trailed off. Was he really thinking this was a possibility? It had to be. There was no other explanation. “Yes, Chris, yes. I think the only way those things got to where they are is by a warp hole. We know it’s impossible to travel faster than light. It would break every rule we know about physics. But if they travelled via warp hole… that may explain it.”
Chris poured himself a large glass of rye. “Are you listening to yourself, John?”
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“So, what… these things are floating through space and just happen to stumble into a warp hole? A warp hole that brings them close to the center of our solar system.”
“And after they went through the warp hole, they slowed down and directed themselves toward Earth,” John said. He turned away from Chris, whose office rested high above all the other NASA scientists, like a foreman in a factory. John watched the engineers and technicians scuttle back and forth. They were all trying to solve the satellite problem. A small problem in his mind. The things travelling toward Earth seemed like a much bigger issue. A problem without a solution. Maybe it was best to just focus on the satellites. Be ignorant of the real threat.
“So what, we’ve got, what did you say? 24 hours before these things get here?”
“That’s what the math says. But then again, until we get the satellite issue resolved, we are relying on old data.”
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll get SpaceForce on the phone”
“SpaceForce?” said John. “What are those assholes going to do about this?”
Chris looked at John with a serious expression. “John, this is exactly what they were created for.”
12 Sandra Connor
Sept 23, 2051, The Smokey Mountains, North Carolina
The bear charged toward Sandra.
“Mom!” Bobby and Claire both yelled, fearing that they were about to witness their mother getting mauled to death.
Sandra hid behind a large pine tree. The bear’s sight must have been poor because it slammed into the tree. The animal was living off of scent and instinct alone. Sandra admired its unrelenting ferocity. Her only hope now was that the tranquilizer would start to take effect.
Before their hunting adventure started, she made sure there was enough tranquilizer in the dart to put a deer to sleep for a few minutes. A bear this size would need to be hit by more than one dart.
After the bear hit the tree, it stumbled backward, disoriented. Sandra used that momentary break as a chance to run away from the cabins.
She ran toward the creek, yelling, “Stay in the cabin” loud enough that her two frightened children could hear.
The bear’s momentary confusion quickly passed. When it regained its focus, it ran after Sandra, who was about fifty yards away.
Sandra could see the creek. She didn’t really have a plan for how to take care of the bear once she got there. But she’d think of something. She had to.
While running, she pulled out another dart and loaded it in her crossbow. She wouldn’t have too many opportunities to shoot this thing. She needed to be precise.
She didn’t want to turn around and look to see where the bear was. What was the point of that?
She thought about Keith. About his rough face. How he never shaved. And how she loved it. She could almost hear him now, telling her to not give up, to keep going.
When she heard about Keith’s death, she knew it must have been horrible. He was aboard the doomed Olympus Mons shuttle. Had he gone mad like the rest of the crew? Were his final days spent in agony? Or was his death quick?
She remembered her last chat with him. It was before SpaceForce shut down all civilian communication with the ship. Before Captain Frost had gone mad. Before the rest of the crew followed him toward madness. Keith seemed so hopeful. So optimistic that the mission
would be a success. He was eager to set up his research station, to discover more about the tiny microbial life NASA had discovered on Mars almost a quarter century ago.
The final thing he said to her that day was, “Remember to teach the kids how to survive without me. A trip to Mars might be a one-way ticket. We can’t deny that.”
Sandra touched the monitor, hating the way he was talking. The way it sounded, like a goodbye. “You’ll teach them when you get back,” she said, believing it to be true.
Sandra remembered the way Keith smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
That conversation played back in Sandra’s memory daily after the disaster. After she got the letter from SpaceForce informing her that Keith was dead.
She shook her head. She couldn’t let her kids grow up without her. She wasn’t going to let this bear win. She continued to run, but the bear was gaining on her.
That’s when she spotted a rock edge, just off the north side of the creek. It was maybe six or seven feet high. Far too high for the bear to climb. It would have to walk around to climb up. That would maybe buy Sandra twenty to thirty seconds to get a shot off.
The rock edge was about ten yards away when she heard the bear growl. Sandra ran a few more yards, then, with every ounce of energy and strength she had, she leaped into the air.
She flew over the creek, which was about three feet wide at that point, and landed firm on a steep, but slightly angled side of the ledge. Her feet had enough balance for her to push herself upward and jump once more. The bear hurled itself through the creek. If Sandra missed the ledge, she would be dead.
Her fingers extended wide into the air and came down onto the ledge. She pulled herself up, but not before the bear grabbed hold of her leg. She could feel its claw dig deep into her calf. She screamed.
With her other leg, she kicked at the bear’s head. The bear must have been stunned by the determination of its prey because it retreated from the ledge. It let out an ominous roar as Sandra pulled herself up.
The Fermi Paradox Page 5