Connection (29 page)

“Mister Kobe. Would you be willing to tell us how you ‘happened’ to find out before anyone else on Earth and what you did to alert us?” the captain proffered.

“I didn’t discover it. My ship, Cssandra, alerted me to the change. She scans everything she can sense. She is quite intelligent. Did I mention that – Twlise and I were kidnapped and interrogated by mercenaries hired by certain large corporations on Earth? Twlise and I escaped. I let NASA know about the asteroid – at least, I thought I had and got no response. I then alerted Generals in the US Air Force, Navy, and Army. I got no response. I alerted the Chinese and Russians. They all acted like I was the one holding them back. I offered to give my bias drive to a combined volunteer force from the Earth, Mars, and Titan. I started building a larger ship to move the asteroid myself. I arranged to buy heavier lasers through General Hernandez to redirect the asteroid. I was warned that rogue mercenaries pretending to be the US Army would try to capture the my ship if I went to get the lasers – they did but I got away.”

“These communiqués were interesting reading. Your quantum doee works well according to my communications officer. My navigation officer believes in the threat. I believe we cannot relocate to the asteroid in the time needed. What did you have in mind Kobe?”

“Sir. My large ship only carries Twlise and me but has room for three of your smaller ships in the docking bay. I can move them to a parallel trajectory with the asteroid in an hour I think. They deploy. I move three more. I move two more. I would need a crew from the Prometheus to man the lasers on the Nemesis. You combine all your lasers and you direct mine. We redirect that asteroid. You command it sir. I will do my best for you or die trying. Then we can deal with people on Earth who want to control everything. I bet you swore an oath to defend the US from enemies both foreign AND domestic. An order that puts Earth in jeopardy for the personal gain of a few seems like an illegal order to me.”

“Why should I trust you?” the Captain said. “All my orders and information from Earth says you are the menace and we should take your ships by force.”

“The ship I offered to the volunteer space force was built with my own money. The one I designed to defend the Earth and Mars. Did you check the funds transfers for those individuals on Earth who are ordering you to confiscate my ships? My ships could have easily destroyed you but we need to work together to defend the Earth.”

“You admit you killed people on Earth?” the captain said.

“My robots did what they had to do to protect the lasers we need to redirect the asteroid…yes.”

“You admit you built ships that could destroy ships from Earth?”

“Damn right I did.”

“All right Mister Kobe. You are not what I was led to believe. We will redirect that asteroid and then figure out what to do with you. You realize that I will have troops and a nuclear weapon aboard your ship.”

“Yes sir. If we can figure out how to use that nuke to move that asteroid – I am all for it.”

“I could use that ship and troops to destroy you and your ship now, couldn’t I.”

“Yes Captain,” Robert said and let out a long sigh. “Kill me – destroy my ship. That way I will be able to stop worrying about saving Earth. I’ve been kidnapped, tortured, assaulted, and threatened with death because I am smart and control something not controlled by the military on Earth. That is terrifying to those greedy old, bastards. You need to make up your fucking mind whether you are going to let mankind die because some old fucks on Earth want to steal as much as they can get.”

Captain Beasley started to say something but thought better of it. He considered saying something else and thought better of it. He looked at the communiqués and handed them to Commander Dillingham. “Frank. You need to look at these. They set up Kobe so he would kill all our ships here and then they’d use the publicity to do an all-out war against anyone related with him. They would steal his ship designs and use the technology to control the system and even that planet he discovered – LesMa. These intercepts are similar to when the Pope Alexander VI divided the world in half – some of our bosses are dividing up the solar system between themselves and many large corporations. There is too much real information in here that I am aware of… just as it states. There are ship ‘shells’ built to house the new drives Kobe designed...I’ve seen them. I was told he would have superior weapons. We are the sacrificial lambs. They think they’ll move the asteroid with their new ships. Okay Kobe… How do we do this the quickest?”

                                                                    ****

Stella moved through the swarm of news crews wondering how many news crews were there in Hawaii. After the news broke about the asteroid, she suspected they were all here. Damn. Someone finally recognized her from an earlier little story she had done. They rushed over to her.

“Doctor Pinchenti. When did you discover the asteroid was on an orbital path that would intersect with Earth? Everyone wants to know the date and time. We have a rough estimate of March 30
th
. Is that correct doctor?” said the young blond reporter.

“We discovered the orbital path of the asteroid about twenty-four hours ago. We confirmed the path through our Chinese colleagues at Xuyi Observation Station. We have since alerted everyone we could and other observatories have refined the date. If nothing changes – it will strike the Earth March 30
th
, at 0122 Greenwich Mean Time. We are working to see how it can be diverted – please let me through.”

William stopped Stella as she struggled to shut the door after her. The dumb reporters would have followed her all the way in – if she’d let them.

“You look better,” William said. “Did you get a little sleep? I saw you creep out of here about eight hours ago.”

“You look like hell William. My brain was fried – I had to go to sleep in my bunk.”

“I can sleep in my office but I only caught a few winks here – it’s been crazy. Oh. Your little friend has dinged you with three priority messages,” William said indicating the encrypted messages flashing on her screen.

Stella opened it, read it. She stopped dead still and looked at the wall. She then opened the next text and finally the last.

“That’s impossible!” she said aloud.

William turned to her. “You okay doc? What’d she say that got you all wound up?”

“She has the current heading, speed of the asteroid, and mass. She also sends readings of composition and shape of the asteroid.”

“There are published images and mass estimates on the web. We think we know what it’s made of already. So what?” William said.

“No…no…don’t you get it. She measured the mass. She knows the exact heading and speed. She tells me exactly the composition of the asteroid. She describes the surface in detail”

“How can she do that?” William asked.

“She can’t. Of hell – here’s another one.”
How many arc seconds do we have to move the asteroid to totally move it out of any future orbital path of Earth?

“Send her that data we put together on deflections at differents point in the orbital path – the one NASA wanted so badly.”

“Okay,” Stella said and sent the file.

There was almost an immediate response text.
Thanks
.

Two minutes later, there was another text. Stella clicked on it and William slid his chair over to see.

Where the best place to push on this thing to get it moving?

Stella responded saying that she could only speculate without knowing the shape, rotation, and surface topography of the asteroid. Five minutes later, a message showed up with a large attachment.

Stella opened the one word message. All it said was
current
. She sucked in her breath as she opened the huge file. It was video – high-resolution video of the asteroid. It was in perfect detail. This was the real deal.

She texted Chin back.
Chin darling. Where are you? There’s no time delay so you can’t be further in space than the moon.

This time it was ten minutes before the reply. The attachment was huge. All the text in it was…
Had to get permission from Captain Beasley – right here honey.
There was a little trepidation this time as Stella opened the video because Chin was the only person who had ever called her honey.

The video opened to show Lieutenant Chin looking at the camera and then the view panned out around the room. “Oh my God!’ Stella exclaimed. The view panned around the room and it was obviously a space ship. There were men at controls and the ship was weird – really modern but kind of like the old Star Trek series layout.

Chin’s voice came on narrating a bit. “That’s Captain Beasley – he’s in command after Admiral DeAngelo had a stroke. The guy in the form-fitting pressure suit next to him is Robert Kobe. The girl – that’s Twlise – the alien. You can tell that suit fits her. I’ve met her and she’s cool. I’ll switch to an outside view.” The narration ended and the view of black space swung toward the huge asteroid. “The outside view has light amplification but you can see the eight normal Earth ships, and the Cassandra – that’s the ship on the left of the screen. The boxy ship is the
Skip
– a shuttle named after Skip Mullins who died during the first interstellar expedition. The large ship is the one I’m on – the Nemesis. I’ll show you a view from another of our ships.”  The view changed to the Nemesis that was huge compared to the other tiny ships. We’re going to work together to move this asteroid. More video to follow – oh… Robert Kobe invented a quantum entanglement communications system that let’s us connect instantaneously but the other units he gave the military were destroyed when they tried to duplicate them.”

There was a voice in the back, Lieutenant Chin turned away from the camera, and you could hear her say, Yes sir. She turned back. “Captain Beasley wants me to explain that this task force was sent to attack Robert Kobe and the military leaders on Earth knew about the asteroid already. They were ordered to confiscate his ships just like there was a kidnapping of Robert Kobe and Twlise a month ago were they were questioned and tortured by mercenaries. Several large corporations had tried to steal ownership of Kobe Industries and had hired those mercenaries. The next message contains copies of those intercepts and messages with explanatory notes for identities of the persons and organizations involved. We will try to move the asteroid within the next twenty-four hours.”

Another message came. Stella opened it. It was a video showing Aicheo Chin. “Stella honey. I still care. I just wasn’t ready to settle down. I like guys too. I wanted to do something with my life – I’m doing it – here. I won’t be here forever. I’m going to give Earth a future. I will send this to what used to be WikiLeaks but you get it first…my gift to you. Make a name honey.”

Stella was crying but took the data drive out and started walking out to the surrounding reporters.

Stella came out of the observatory building and the reporters came to life around her. The waited ‘til they were still – a momentus moment in any event. “You need to get this data altogether. It is an exclusive. Our military, in collusion with other foreign governments, knew about this asteroid threat long before we discovered it. They wanted to use it as a way to make themselves rich. It is all documented here. I have just now sent it to the stations represented here – if blocked – it will be sent around the planet. There is a team of brave people paralleling that asteroid this very second. They are going to try to divert it. It is the crew of the Prometheus commanded by a Captain Beasley. It is Robert Kobe and Twlise who are risking their lives to divert this calamity within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Please look at this data. I have just now uploaded videos and data of covert communications by the highest ranks of the US, Chinese, and Russian military, and their intelligence counterparts. Several large corporations have also hired mercenaries to kidnap and torture citizens to steal information. I have uploaded all the data. These people put all our lives at risk for their own profit.”

Generals Tofler and Williamson were angry at being blind-sided from so many directions. The SR52 asteroid on a trajectory to Earth was news to them. The completed ship hulls at Boeing and Lockheed were news to them. They were to be mounted with the Kobe Bias Drive – the fact that plans were in place to torture or steal the plans was news to them. The damn task force sent to capture Kobe on Mars was news too. The kidnapping news of Kobe and his alien girlfriend from their home in California had only come to them through Entertainment News over the Net. What really ticked them off was the fact that the President and the Director of the Department of Defense demanded to know what was going on and they hadn’t a clue. Then they find out General Hernandez had set up Robert Kobe to be the fall guy. They knew what they were going to do though…

“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded the chairman of the Joint Chiefs – Frank DeSelva as combat-armed soldiers entered the room.

“Sorry General. We have orders from the President and the Secretary of Defense to arrest General’s Hernandez and Peters. Here are the orders, sir. We were ordered to use whatever force was necessary. We are taking them directly to Levenworth for trial,” said the Special Forces major in charge of the arrest team.

“This says they are charged with treason!” said General DeSelva.

“I was told, directly by the President – and I quote, “I inform you that this investigation is not over. If Earth survives this asteroid and the collusion with many foreign governments – I expect many high ranking officers will be executed…make sure you are not one of them,” the major had read from a typed card that he put back in his pocket.

“You two!” the General said pointing at Hernandez and Peters. “Go with them. Give them any communications devices you are carrying. Disable any implanted communications. This room is shielded major but you can place calls in the long corridors.

The SF major nodded and had four of his people moved forward – two to each prisoner. They were searched and handcuffed. The second man with each then held a small device to the side of the prisoner’s necks and a pop was heard.

“Uses a directed EMF pulse to burn out the circuitry in implanted devices. It wouldn’t affect anyone else. General,” the major said and they were gone as quickly as they entered.

General DeSelva looked around the table. “You people better get some information quickly. I’ve just had my aides looking at those communiqués. Most of them are confirmed as authentic. Some are questionable. Find out about those alleged money transfers. If any of you are involved…an overdose or a barrel pointed at the back of throat will be preferable to what I will have done to you. We meet back here at 1800 hours – I will send troops to find you and your families if you do not show up on time. Dismissed.”

Several sitting around the table looked angry – a few looked shell-shocked and the customary few looked clueless but they all shut up and left.

GRU headquarters building - Khoroshevskiy Highway – Khodynke, Russia

A similar scene to the one at the Pentagon was happening in the conference room of the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU) – the Russian Military Intelligence service that survived the upheavals in the 90’s.

General Petrov was unceremoniously ushered out but for a slightly different reason…he had been singled out instead of other conspirators. The trail of monies in his account and intercepted messages to foreign intelligence services were damning…for him.

The Guojia Anquan Bu – China’s equivalent to the CIA was located near the Summer Palace in Beijing. It was a fairly drab day after the hard winter…smog was still a problem. General Xu gathered the few items of memorabilia in his office. He didn’t want to forego the photo of his daughter and wife who had died. He touched a combination of keys on his screen and watched his computer wipe all the data. He tossed all his data modules into the microwave and fried them as the door burst open.

“General Xu. Face…” the voice said as General Xu turned around with his QSZ-92 handgun leveled. The guards shot him twice in the chest and once in the head.

One of the guards came forward and removed the dead general’s handgun. The guard checked it. “The chamber is empty. He wanted us to kill him.”

“What a sad waste…” said the officer by the door?

[Robert. Disturbing transmissions to your location or near it… Hernandez and Chen has just been arrested and shot respectively. Petrov was able to send a message to colluding corporations and they sent a self-destruct to your location. Those ships with you and the Prometheus will self-destruct when it gets to you. Will fill you in on happenings from Earth if you survive this – the self-destruct will set off that nuke also.]

Why? It seems retarded to send a self-destruct to all the Earth ships when it won’t touch the Nemesis or the Cassandra or shuttle.

[Not the time to quibble. Data sent to you to disarm those – you have a bit more than an hour. They want to destroy those ships and force you to give up the secret of the bias drive so the ship shells on Earth can save everyone. This is a corporate attempt to recover.]

Robert turned to Captain Beasley. “We need to stop the redirection of the asteroid. The corporations on Earth have sent your ships a self-destruct that will reach here in another hour. It will also detonate your nuke. Cassandra informed me before you ask. She is the one that intercepted most of those communiqués.”

“You know this how?” he asked.

“Cassandra, Nemesis, and Skip can communicate with me through my subcutaneous transceiver. We don’t have much time. I have the data to disarm your ships and will send it to them with your permission,” Robert stated.

Captain Beasley absorbed the information and paused just a moment before he nodded. “You will tell me why, afterward, I presume?”

“During, sir. After we send out the information – I want to live on Earth in the future too.”

“All ships. This is Captain Beasley. A self-destruct signal has been sent from Earth. Disable all external communications to your self-destruct packages. Information has been sent to you where they are hidden. You have about forty-five minutes to locate and disarm them. Prepare to evacuate if you are not directly working on disarming the devices. Our nuke is included with that – Prepare to move that out in space if you cannot disarm it. It is only dangerous due to radiation and blast if confined within your hull and the new shield. Acknowledge and let me know progress.”

[They can all evacuate to the Nemesis but then we would singly have to move the asteroid and they would know we redirected it in the first place.]

Captain Beasley turned to Robert. “They could all move here in a pinch. You have enough water and fusion power to produce oxygen but food and waste disposal would be stressed for any long periods. Let’s hope they can disarm their ships. Do we know where the signal originated?”

[Canberra Space Center. Triggered by General Petrov in Russia through a GRU hack – initiated after he heard of the other arrests]

“Looks like from Canberra Space Center through a hack by the GRU. General Petrov sent the order before he was arrested.”

“Where do you get this information?” Beasley asked.

“Cassandra monitors particular Earth communications with Nemesis help now,” Robert said.

“Why don’t you need larger computers like the NSA?”

“My computers are large but can evaluate messages using real-time decryption. They also don’t try to store every email, text, photograph, and video that travels across the Internet. They also use quantum tunneling to speed processing. They use other computers’ cloud storage for a lot of the base information. There is a lot of storage facilities across the Earth that unknowingly store and process information for Cassandra…they are the slowest part of her information retrieval.”

“Surely they are aware of her use of their facilities,” Beasley said.

“They can’t detect the quantum tunneling access so her presence doesn’t exist for them.”

“Did Cassandra invent the bias drive and the quantum tunneling then?” Beasley asked.

Robert laughed. “No. That was my work but there was a cascade effect when one technology affected others. The LesMa research, for example, allowed me to blend Earth knowledge and create that hull material your people tested earlier on this ship.”

Beasley looked uncomfortable. “Sorry about that…glad now that it worked. DeAngelo was…I won’t say anything bad about the man…he was a good man.”

“Yeah,” Robert said. “If you think trying to kill for your personal profit is fine – oh and threatening the entire planet with extinction so you can steal someone’s ideas…”

[Quit overplaying your hand Robert. You’re the one that threatened the Earth. It’s our ploy and Beasley is sharp. Less is more…]

Sorry Cassandra. How long ‘til the message reaches us?

[Forty-three minutes.]

“Sorry Captain. I want your people to be okay. I want to start a Sol Security Fleet and I’d like your people to consider it. We have forty-three minutes.”

“You…an individual... starting a security force. Don’t you mean a country or group of countries?” Beasley asked.

“Oh…like the US, Russia, and China working together. I don’t trust that idea for some reason,” Robert said sarcastically.

“We did get a little twisted around, didn’t we?” Beasley said. “I know most of my men wouldn’t give up their families. We don’t have the funding. I know you’re wealthy but no one is that wealthy.”

“Cassandra did a little checking with your personnel manifests and most of your crews don’t have much to go back to…most are divorced or are estranged from spouses. You might be surprised. We would have the money. We would have to carefully manipulate opinion for us. I do not trust any single nation’s motives – we need representatives that care about the Earth…and the other planets in the system. We’d need the ‘donation’ of those hulls they built and we’d need buy-in from most nations. I have no illusion that we’d get unanimous support. If we gave out money – some would complain we weren’t giving out wallets too.”

“That sounds interesting. I wouldn’t have thought so a day ago but now it is intriguing.”

“Thanks Captain. That means a lot to me.”

[You want me to ‘redistribute’ the wealth of the oligarchy that controls the politicians behind the scenes, don’t you?] [5%%^&***$#]

Are you laughing? That’s it…you are laughing.

[Yes. That was very unexpected and funny. I could confiscate their liquid wealth from all their hidden investments. They would still have influence but they would be immediately crippled. The electronic banking system is so complex that they would never understand how it had been accomplished. We would have to expose much of their handiwork over the last few decades.]

“Captain. We could fund it. We would have a lot to work out but Nemesis and Cassandra could pull together what we need. The legal structure, organization, training, weaponry could all be pulled together from existing literature.”

“That’s crazy. There isn’t documentation that covers space navies.”

Robert laughed. “Sure there is. Haven’t you ever read Heinlein? There are tons of examples that have real validity. Lots of inventive minds have been thinking about this for over a century: Heinlein, Asimov, Norton, Nuttall, Williamson, Kratman, Buckman, Larson, Currie – tons of authors. Nemesis and Cassandra could distill the best ideas, the practical ideas to give us a viable basis to build a protective Earth fleet.”

Beasley tilted his head to the side. He was considering it. “You’re just trying to distract me – aren’t you?”

Robert looked at his feet and then looked up. “I guess a bit but I have been considering it.”