Don't Mess With Earth (15 page)

“General, you seem to have some vaguely
intelligent people who work here, why not ask them?”

“Ostoro, stop with the sarcasm. Unlike
Yeager, I will not tolerate it. I want answers and I want them
now.” Bridger ordered, who was on the verge of losing his
temper.

“Please think about the kind of technology
my people have created. This is one thing I will not help with,
revealing everything about my home star system. Figure it out on
your own, General.” responded Ostoro.

Bridger was fuming, his face was beet red,
and if his ears could steam, they’d be steaming like a teapot.
Before Bridger could say anything that he might regret, Travis
spoke up, “I think I know what’s going on, General,”

“
Well?” asked Bridger, crossing his
arms across his chest, began tapping one of his shoes, and waited
for Travis to continue.

“Uh, right. I think the Ragnor star system
is cloaked, like their starships. If true, then maybe that’s why we
can’t see their star. The cloak has a frequency to it that can
reveal everything being cloaked if the frequency is targeted at
whatever is invisible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, we have
nothing in space or on Earth that can direct a powerful enough
signal through space to bounce back at us so we can see the star
system. So, for now, the Ragnor are hidden, even though we are
fairly certain where they are located in the galaxy.”

“We do have the Very Large Array in New
Mexico, Dr. Travis. Why won’t that work?”

“The VLA won’t work because they’re not
powerful enough for what we need and would take nearly a century
before the signal returned back to Earth. I would suggest that
since we know the frequency of the cloaking field, we should wait
until we have a working starship that can visit the Ragnor and then
we can de-cloak their system. Until then, we’re just going to have
to work on the technology we need, General.” remarked Travis.

“Since we’re close to having some of the
advanced technology that the Ragnor have, I want a starship capable
of traveling that far with all the advanced technology available to
us through Ostoros’ ship to be worked on faster. Get to work,
people.” ordered Bridger.

Meanwhile, NASA, the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, and other science labs were working on advanced space
probes to land on and then study Mars, its atmosphere, the weather,
and even possibly landing other robot probes near the poles to
study whether or not the planet had water similar to water on
Earth. The
Mars
Pathfinder
probe was launched on December 4,
1996, and it had a rover on board that would conduct experiments on
Martian soil, it was called
Sojourner.
The probe landed seven
months later on July 4, 1997, in Ares Vallis. It was the first to
use airbags for a soft touchdown and automated obstacle avoidance
for the rover.
Soujourner
conducted chemical analysis of soil and rocks and
studied the prevailing winds. NASA came to the conclusion that Mars
was wet and warm at one time in its past, having had liquid water
and a thicker atmosphere.
Soujourner
lasted longer than predicted
and contact with it was lost on September 27 of the same year,
mainly because its batteries had a hard time recharging in the cold
weather. Or so NASA thought.

Prevailing orders for the Terrans on
Mars were that probes from Earth were to meet with what appeared to
be catastrophic failures. The
Pathfinder
was allowed to drop its
cargo on Mars, while other probes before it had been targeted by
computer viruses directed from the Mars Base that would cause the
probes to fail, thus having a complete mission failure.
Unfortunately, the Earth humans kept on being relentless about
sending their probes, while the Terrans could never figure out what
was so special about a dusty, desert planet that had horrible dust
storms and dust that clogged up everything with machinery in its
wake, even with a dome covering the base. The Terrans finally let
the next two robot rovers,
Spirit
and
Opportunity
, proceed with their
missions; even though the Terrans tried to shut down
Spirit
as it was
on Mars.

The Deep Space Network on Earth
received a communication from
Spirit
that was transmitted with no
data, and JPL thought a thunderstorm over Australia was at fault.
Then,
Spirit
missed a communications session with the
Mars Global Surveyor
, which
was orbiting Mars. The next day, JPL received a beep from the rover
giving a message saying it was in fault mode. The Earth scientists
went to work trying to fix the software malfunctions, but,
unbeknownst to them, the Terrans had hacked into the rovers’
computer to try to derail its mission. In the Mars control center,
Commander Lomanco who, for once was overseeing this attempt at
sabotage, asked, “Is there any way to prevent the rover from
receiving any updates from Earth without appearing that its signal
is being jammed from an external source?”

“No, there isn’t, Commander. If we continue
to hack into this robot rover’s systems and prevent more data from
being sent, whoever is trying to fix the software problems will
eventually find our computer signature, and then try to hack into
our own systems, which would probably turn into an even bigger
problem for us and our systems. Everything on our base is networked
to one mainframe, life support, weapons, communications; pretty
much all of our technology. I can install firewalls, which will
prevent our computers from being hacked into, but that may delay
the inevitable, sir.”

“Go ahead and install firewalls, Mr.
Traynor. Make sure you leave no trace of our interference in that
rovers’ computer. I think from now on, we should leave the Earth
space programs alone, because it’s beginning to get harder
concealing our presence here on Mars. I’m returning to my office,
if you need me, I’ll be there.” Lomanco then walked out of the
control center.

Traynor installed firewalls for the
Mars Base network, just in case the humans on Earth became advanced
enough to hack into the computer and install a nasty computer
virus, even though he really didn’t think it was all that
necessary. On Earth, JPL fixed the software problems on
Spirit
, but the
rover wasn’t able to conduct any kind of scientific activities for
a week and a half. They discovered part of the problem was with the
Flash memory subsystem, which can be easily erased and
re-programmed. JPL wrote a patch for the software and upgraded the
software so the subsystem wouldn’t be so vunerable to crashing.
Both
Opportunity
and
Spirit
worked beyond their planned
lifespans, giving scientists on Earth plenty of valuable data about
Mars to pore through.

One of the computer engineers did
find a strange fault by accident in some of the lines of code, it
wasn’t written in any of Earths’ computer programming languages,
and it appeared that someone had tried to delete most of it. He
made a note of it, passed it along the necessary channels, which
was intercepted by an Area 51 computer programmer, who had his team
begin work on figuring out the entire sequence of the Terran
computer language. Which they hoped would lead them to crash not
only the computer network on Mars through viruses, but those
viruses would unknowingly be transmitted to the computers on Terra,
causing the planet itself to be defenseless without the computers
controlling the planetary defenses. Unfortunately, they had no idea
when they’d be able to crack the Terran codes.

Five years later, the engineers at
Area 51 finished the prototype starship that General Bridger had
wanted fast-tracked. It was equipped with the latest technology
patterned off of the Ragnor, but it was uniquely American made
technology and everything was built by American workers. Bridger
needed astronauts to test the new starship, which was housed in a
cloaked hangar on the base, since too many satellites passed
overhead, and far too many people had access to maps provided
online by Nanotech and Infinity, the online search engine. He had
to inform the Secretary of Defense about the completion of the
starship and the need for qualified astronauts, so Bridger called
the Secretarys’ office directly at the Pentagon, “This is Secretary
of Defense Chris Carson, can I help you?”

“
Mr. Secretary, this is General James
Bridger at Area 51. I want to inform you that Project
Ares
has been
completed. I now need qualified people to test the ship,
sir.”

“Good job, Bridger, to you and your team.
My predecessors had been highly skeptical we’d ever get this far,
and the Pentagon had to make sure Congress didn’t notice all of the
money diverted to this whole project since 1947. I will inform the
Air Force Chief of Staff of your need for qualified personnel to
fly your ship. We will also have to equip the ship with weapons,
Marines, and supplies, which I will take care of. When we’re ready,
I’ll inform the President and he’ll make the ultimate decision
regarding what to do next.”

The next day, Carson called the Air
Force Chief of Staff Frank Pike to his office. When the Air Force
Chief was comfortably seated in his chair, Carson began, “Frank, I
called you in here because I need to reveal to you a secret that
not even the President of the United States yet knows, even though
I would say that most everyone in the United States probably
already knows about this,” Carson handed the Chief of Staff a
folder stamped with a big, red “Classified” stamped on it that
appeared to be a few hundred pages thick, then said, “take your
time, it can be a bit overwhelming to take in all at
once.”

Pike opened the folder, his eyebrows shot
up when he read the subject of what the folder contained, and then
he began reading the documents for the next fifteen minutes, until
he decided he had the general idea what was going on. He asked,
“Mr. Secretary, this is amazing. Where, may I ask, do I fit into
this scheme?”

“I need detailed reports of qualified
astronauts or Air Force personnel who can be counted on to keep
this a secret for the time being and those who have the ability to
be in space for extended periods of times. They’ll be transferred
to Area 51 for extensive training, not only for space travel, but
in the new technologies we’ve gained from the Ragnor ship that
crashed in Roswell. Please have your recommendations on my desk
within the next two weeks. Once we have the crew trained, Marines
on board, and the ship supplied, I will inform the President. Get
to work, Frank.” ordered the Secretary.

Two weeks later, after he and his staff
pored through personnel records and psychological profiles, Pike
sent Carson the files of who he thought should be transferred to
Area 51. The Secretary of Defense, after reading through the
recommendations, sent out orders for all those who were to be
involved in this, to report to Nellis Air Force Base within
seventy-two hours. He himself would travel across the country to
speak with the officers, astronauts, Marines, and Airmen to give
them the clearance to know this secret and tell them of their
specific orders and why they were all there. Carson also ordered
General Bridger to show up at Nellis with buses to transport
everyone to Area 51, that way everything was done in a nice,
orderly fashion.

Three days later, the Secretary of
Defense arrived at Nellis, where he and a couple of his staff
promptly made their way to the hangar where Carson would meet the
recruits and inform them of their mission. There were two black
Yellow Bird buses with absolutely no insignia of any kind parked
outside the hangar, with four equally painted black, unmarked
Humvees armed to the teeth. Carson assumed they were from Area 51,
since that installations’ personnel were all about maximum
security; although, he thought it brought them more attention, what
with a couple of movies and television shows referencing Area 51
and all. He stepped inside the hangar, where all the personnel were
seated, with a podium in front of them with the insignia of the
Secretary of Defense on it, and various high ranking military
officers sitting in chairs facing the crowd. He noticed that in the
darker corners of the hangar, and in the rafters, there were
heavily armed men in black military garb. He knew he didn’t request
security of this magnitude, nor had the commander of Nellis as far
as he knew, so this must be part of the paranoid culture of Area 51
that he had heard so much about, which had served them very well
since President Truman and the Majestic-12 had created the cloak of
secrecy for Area 51.

Carson walked over to the high
ranking officers and shook their hands, then walked up to the
podium, and began, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nellis Air
Force Base. I’m sure you are all wondering why you were transferred
here. All of you should be getting the folders my staff is
distributing as we speak. What I’m about to tell you is the highest
state security secret the United States currently has, and all of
you were considered trustworthy and reliable enough not to ever let
this information get out until the government decides to let the
rest of the world know,” the staffers let Carson know all the
folders were distributed, “now, if all of you will please open your
folders, we will begin the briefing.”

Two hours later, Carson finished up
the history of Area 51 and what the new assignment was for all of
the personnel who were currently in the hangar. He looked over the
room full or recruits and noticed that some of them looked shocked,
and for some others, shocked would be considered an understatment.
Carson then said, “I know all of you probably have many questions,
but there will be no answers at this time. General Bridger here
will escort all of you to Area 51, where I’m sure you’ll find most
of the answers you seek. Good luck with your training.” with that,
Carson and his staff left the hangar and headed for their
plane.