The Fermi Paradox

by Mark Harrison

  She looked down at the bear. It growled once more, this time with a ferocity that she could feel inside her organs. She brought the crossbow up toward her eyes and looked down its sight. Click. The dart flew from the crossbow and sailed right into the bear’s eye, lodging itself deep inside. It screamed in rage.

  After firing, Sandra fell backwards. She quickly looked into her backpack and pulled out another dart. She was being pushed by pure instinct. There was no time to think.

  With another dart loaded, she crawled to the edge to check on the bear. It stumbled back and forth, trying to get its bearing. The dart hung from its eye, blood oozing out.

  The bear let out one more howl then collapsed to the ground.

  Sandra was on her stomach, her crossbow in her hand. She fired one more shot into the bear. She had to be sure it wouldn’t get up again. The bear’s body didn’t budge when the dart struck. It was dead. Sandra could breathe again.

  The national park rangers would understand why she killed it. It was either her or the bear.

  She slowly got up. She looked at her leg, it was bleeding badly.

  At least she was alive. That’s all that mattered. She stumbled her way back toward her children.

  13 Oleksii Borachev

  Sept 24, 2051, SpaceForce Command, Las Vegas, Nevada

  “We are defenseless general! Our pants are down. If an enemy chooses to attack, we’ll have no idea which direction they’ll be coming from!”

  Oleksii watched. The President was giving Tarkin a scolding via video conference and he was there to witness it. It was all so surreal.

  “Mr. President, sir,” General Tarkin replied. “Our pants may be down, but we are working to pull them back up, sir. We know that whatever disrupted our satellites was physical. We believe that if we get a satellite operating, we can perhaps get a look at what caused this.”

  The President leered at the general. You could tell he didn’t believe a word. “Oh, really,” he said. “Tell me how, General?”

  Tarkin turned to Oleksii. “We have the only man in the world who has broken into a SpaceForce satellite.”

  Oleksii looked at Tarkin. He knew the general didn’t like him. The general didn’t like any Russian. Old feelings from an old war. Oleksii sat up in his chair and looked around the room. He sat at a big conference table, full of Space Force’s top men. It was dark, save for the glow from the screen projecting the President.

  Tarkin said nothing. He pointed to Oleksii, prompting Oleksii to speak. Oleksii had not been briefed. He didn’t know he was going to be addressing the President.

  He looked around the room once more. The only person he recognized, besides the President, was Douglas, the man who slept the whole flight to Vegas.

  “Are you there, son?” the President said.

  Oleksii fumbled for the right words. “Uh, yes, Captain President, sir. I am here. Sorry. I just, uh, don’t know what, or how, I can help.”

  Tarkin shot a look at Oleksii that made his skin crawl. “You goddamn better know, son,” the general said. “You were expensive. We gave up a valuable asset to get your ass over here. We need an eye in the sky. We need to see what else is up there.”

  “Shut up, General,” the President said. He turned to Oleksii, “You have any ideas, boy?”

  The plane ride had been long and it had given Oleksii plenty of time to think. General Tarkin was right, Oleksii was the only hacker in the world who had broken into a SpaceForce satellite. That was why they wanted him. That said, the reason satellites orbiting the Earth fell from the sky was not due to some software hack. It was something else, like each satellite had been put into a microwave or something. He had no idea what to say.

  “I think we’re barking up the wrong tree here, General,” Oleksii said. “If our satellite fleet collapsed because of a simple hack, I might be able to fix one or two of them. But this is no hack. Whatever fucked up our satellites, well, it’s… it’s something I can’t help you with.”

  “I don’t want you to tell us what happened, son” the general said. “I want you to see if you can get into a couple of the satellites that are online and still in orbit. There are reports from a few private companies that their satellites are operational. We’ve asked for access, but they’ve been locked out. We need to get back in.”

  Oleksii was confused. So that’s why they brought him to SpaceForce. They wanted to see if he could hack into a satellite that was still operating.

  The President spoke up: “General, are you saying that the only way we can actually see what’s going on up there is if we hack into someone else’s satellite?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” the general said. You could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

  Oleksii was feeling less anxious about the meeting. He spoke up. “Do we know which companies still have operating satellites?”

  The general turned toward him. “From the intel we’ve gathered, there are six BlueStar satellites orbiting that are still functioning. They are civilian. Somehow, they managed to avoid the calamity. Why? We have no idea. We need you to hack into them. Oh, and they’re nano satellites. They were sent up there to perform basic Earth-imaging. That’s it. If you can make them do anything else, that would be a bonus.”

  “General,” said the President. “I leave this up to you. SpaceForce as we know it depends on it.”

  The President’s call ended. Oleksii was stuck in his own head. Trying to figure out how he was going to approach this problem. BlueStar was the world’s biggest company. They’d have plenty of preventative measures in place. If they couldn’t access their own satellites, it meant every security failsafe must have been engaged. This was going to be hard.

  14 Rick Frost

  Sept 24, 2051, Interstate Highway

  Rick could still taste the metal and the blood.

  He was still groggy from the explosion. He was in the back of a SpaceForce car on his way to Las Vegas. On his way back to the place he said he’d never return to. He didn’t have a choice. Domino was in the back with him.

  After the explosion, he called his friend, Sam Matters, at SpaceForce. Sam was high up in SpaceForce, he would know what to do.

  Bleeding and still in shock from the explosion, Rick waited for Sam to pick up the phone.

  “How the fuck did I know it was going to be you?” Sam said. “On today of all days.”

  “Hey Sam, glad to hear you’re still the same dickhead I remember from the academy,” Rick said, taking a few seconds between each word to catch his breath.

  “You alright, Rick.”

  “No. I’m lying on the ground outside what used to be my barn. I’m covered in blood. But that’s not why I’m calling you.”

  Rick told Sam about the orb.

  Within minutes Sam had arranged a car to pick Rick up, along with any fragments of the orb that they could find. They’d all be taken to SpaceForce Command in Las Vegas. It was the last thing he wanted to hear, but Rick knew he got himself into this mess. He also knew SpaceForce would want to hear his side of the story.

  If there was a bit of good news about the blast, it was that Domino avoided any injury. The lucky bastard.

  He looked out the window of the car. They were speeding along an interstate, somewhere between South Dakota and Las Vegas. He wasn’t quite sure where. Whatever the fuck that little metal orb was, it destroyed everything. His truck. His barn. Anything that he tried to create in South Dakota. It was gone.

  He would have to start over. Again.

  He needed a drink.

  One of the SpaceForce officials, the guy in the passenger seat, turned around to talk to Rick. His name was Billy.

  “You all right back there, big guy? How’s the pooch?”

  Rick looked at him. He was young. Too young. Is this who SpaceForce was hiring these days? “The dog’s good. I’m feeling alright,” he said. “But it wouldn’t hurt if we stopped for a drink.”

  Billy laughed and turned back around and looked out the front window.<
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  15 John Slate

  Sept 24, 2051, NASA Space Center, Houston, Texas

  “He did what?” John asked.

  Chris Dellon turned to him and said it again, “He broke into six BlueStar satellites. They were Earth-imaging satellites, but at NASA’s request, we got SpaceForce to flip them around. We told SpaceForce about the objects. When they flipped the satellites around, we got another look at them. We’ve got an eye in the sky, John. And what they saw… what they saw… is…” Chris couldn’t continue.

  “It’s what, Chris?”

  “It’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. John, those things, those objects… well, I think it’s pretty fucking clear they’re the reason our satellites are down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “John, you were right.” Chris handed John a document from SpaceForce.

  John opened it up and looked inside. He read what was inside. The objects arrived precisely when he predicted they would. They were about the moon’s distance from Earth now. Hours away.

  Worse. He could now see what they were. The images were pixelated, but they had enough detail that he could discern the truth. The awful truth. The objects were ships. Large ships. Metal. Cube-like. Thousands of them.

  “My god,” John said.

  “Exactly,” Chris responded.

  “I don’t believe it.” John looked at Chris. “In all my days as an astrophysicist, I… I never thought this was possible.”

  “Advanced life on other planets? It’s not that hard to believe, John.”

  “No, not that. Life on other planets isn’t a stretch. Even intelligent life. I just never thought we would be visited by life from other planets. I’m a mathematician first and foremost, Chris. You know that. I think in rational terms. The probability of an event like this is incredibly low.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” said John. “The physicist Enrico Fermi and astrophysicist Michael H. Hart both made convincing arguments that if we hadn’t run into aliens by now, we likely weren’t going to. Ever. They argued that civilizations capable of reaching different star systems, most likely do not exist, or, more precisely, are not capable of existing. They call it the Fermi Paradox. Fermi felt that due to the fact that there are billions of stars in our galaxy, there more than likely had to be millions and millions of Earth-like planets. We know this to be true now. For every star we find in the Milky Way, we find an Earth-like planet—planets in the goldilocks zone from their respective star. Rocky planets that aren’t too hot, not too cold.”

  “I know what the Goldilocks zone is, John” Chris smirked. “I work at goddamn NASA.”

  “Of course,” John said. “Anyway, it would be absurd to think that humans are the only or, at the very least, the first intelligent species to inhabit our galaxy. After all, the Milky Way galaxy is roughly thirteen billion years old. The modern human has only been around for the last two hundred thousand years. A fraction of the age of the Milky Way. You’d think another species, another creature—perhaps one of similar or more advanced intelligence—would have existed somewhere else, perhaps billions of years before us. And more likely than not, they would have had a civilization like ours. A civilization capable of exiting its planet’s orbit.”

  “Well,” Chris interrupted. “Maybe that’s what those things are. A more advanced, ancient alien civilization.”

  “But that’s the point of the Fermi Paradox. If they existed. We’d have run into them by now. Even with billions of stars, it would probably take an advanced civilization anywhere between fifty to one hundred million years to populate the entire galaxy. Not that long in the grand scheme of things. Our galaxy has been around for thirteen billion years. In essence, Enrico Fermi asked the question, where are they? We should have met them by now?”

  “Well, his theory was wrong,” Chris said. “We know that now.”

  John looked at the images again. Studied the ships. “Do you think they’re friendly?”

  Chris looked at John and pulled out the bottle of rye. “The Earth’s entire communication network was mysteriously disrupted before these things arrived. They didn’t want us to see them coming. What do you think?”

  John felt like someone had just punched him in the gut. If these things were friendly, they wouldn’t have knocked out Earth’s ability to see them.

  “Well, I guess we know they’re ships. We know they’re ships capable of warp jumping. Jesus, Chris. The things we could learn from them.”

  Chris turned to John and spoke in a grave tone. “I don’t think we will be learning anything. I’m heading to SpaceForce command. I want you to come with me. We’re going to try and establish communication with the ships. We’ve gotta try something. Anything.”

  16 THE DAY OF INVASION

  Sept. 25, 2051

  Sandra Connor

  Atlanta, Georgia

  It was early morning and a light fog had settled over the campground.

  Sandra and the kids were back at their campsite. The national park drone’s still weren’t working, but they managed to make it back thanks to the park rangers. One of the ranger crews found them at the cabins. The crew bandaged up Sandra’s leg and treated every cut and bruise they had received during their ordeal. Now they were back at their campsite.

  The kids packed up their things. It was time to go home.

  Claire explained to her mother that when she got to the valley where the deer were supposed to be, the bear appeared. It was just bad luck that the national park drones stopped working at that instant. When she saw the bear, she was startled and dropped her phone. She told her mother that she didn’t have time to think. She found the creek and followed it until she found the cabin.

  Sandra was impressed by her daughter’s ability to survive under such difficult circumstances. The bear was ferocious and determined. Claire never gave up. It made Sandra smile.

  On the drive back home, weird cloud formations appeared in the sky. It was like a massive storm had formed, almost out of thin air. Bolts of lightning flickered within the clouds.

  Sandra and the kids watched as the clouds began to clear. They were stuck in heavy traffic on the interstate. They were almost home. The Atlanta skyline could be seen in the distance.

  As the clouds cleared, they gasped in horror.

  Massive ships, shaped like elongated boxes appeared in the sky. The light of the sun glimmered off their metallic frames. The ships hovered over the horizon.

  As the ships settled over the city, smaller ships shot out from them, heading toward the city below.

  Bobby cried out in terror. Claire stared at them in awe. Sandra got out of the car to get a better look. Other people stuck in the highway traffic did the same.

  She looked back at her two young kids. Whatever these things were, it wasn’t good. They wouldn’t be going home. They’d have to return to the woods.

  —

  Oleksii Borachev

  SpaceForce Command Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

  They had settled over every major city in the world. Thousands upon thousands of them.

  After they settled above the city, they let out a long, low, awful howl, like a fog horn, but made terrifying by its ability to get inside your bones, to make your skin crawl.

  One of the few cities to escape was Las Vegas. But SpaceForce Command was positive that it was only a matter of time before they appeared there too. There were still some ships in orbit. They knew that thanks to Oleksii. Thanks to his ability to commandeer the six BlueStar nano-satellites.

  Oleksii watched the news reports come in on his computer. People were scared. He was scared. For the first time in years, he thought about calling his mother in Russia. He wanted her to be safe.

  The machines hadn’t attacked, but the way they positioned themselves suggested that it was only a matter of time. They moved with mechanical precision.

  Oleksii was the first person in the world to see the ships. When he turned the BlueStar satellites around, he d
idn’t know what he’d be looking at. It was at NASA’s request they performed the maneuver. It was unusual.

  The NASA scientists who asked Oleksii to turn the satellites around were on their way to SpaceForce command. Until they got there, General Tarkin ordered everyone to be on standby. No one knew what to do.

  All the general said in his email to SpaceForce staff was that if those things wanted a fight, he would bring it to them.

  Oleksii’s job now was to keep the BlueStar satellites in SpaceForce’s control. He was also told to see if he could find any other satellites orbiting the Earth that may still be operational.

  He closed his web browser. He didn’t want to see any more news about the invasion. Invasion. That’s what the media was calling it.

  Oleksii needed to focus. Earth depended on it.

  —

  John Slate

  SpaceForce Command Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

  John and Chris arrived at SpaceForce command via a military jet from Houston.

  During the flight, they saw the large metallic ships crash through the Earth’s atmosphere. It was biblical in scale.

  Each ship that entered the atmosphere arrived with a thunderous explosion. The clouds created were full of flame and electromagnetic lightning bursts, as if the hand of some ancient god was crashing down from the heavens.

  John had never been a religious man, but when he saw those ships, he felt, if only for a brief moment, a desire to pray. None of this seemed rational. It was terrifying.

  The pilot of the military jet suggested they land when they saw the ships on the horizon, but John and Chris urged him to push on. Luckily, they made it to Las Vegas.

  It was time to get to work.

  Inside SpaceForce command, Chris and John met with General Tarkin. John didn’t like the general. He was a military man first and foremost. Arrogant. Cocky. It made John uncomfortable.