Don't Mess With Earth (18 page)

“Has anyone actually tried to fly this ship
since it crashed?” asked the President.

“
It’s unflyable, sir. General Yeager
and some other pilots once tried, but the ship just would not fly.
We think it has something to do with damaged stabilizers, but,
we’re not entirely sure since some of the technology is relatively
new to us, and Ostoro made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t tell
us what was wrong with his ship. Some of the engineers thought
about gutting it and replacing everything with our own versions of
the technology, but, it was thought building a whole new ship would
be more cost effective.” remarked Bridger.

“I see. Where is this Ostoro character
now?”

“
He is helping to update the
Reprisals’
software, something about being able to hack into any computer
system with ease, and the operator not knowing a hacker had been in
the system. The
Reprisal
is this way, sir.”

They walked to where the
Reprisal
was
being worked on; it was surrounded by cables and a mobile computer
workstation, where Ostoro was working with Engineer O’Rourke to
update the software for the ship. They stopped what they were
doing, while the President walked around the ship and admired what
he saw. Once he was done, he walked over to O’Rourke and Ostoro and
said, “Good job with the ship, very impressive. Ostoro, I am
President of the United States Brad O’Bana, I just want to thank
you on behalf of all the people of the United States for the help
you have given us over the years,”

“Don’t thank me, because it’s really kind
of meaningless to me. I’m in a situation where I had to help
willingly or be tortured to reveal the Ragnor secrets. I have a
pretty good idea what you humans might do to my species, because if
the situation were reversed, we’d do the same thing. I was
wondering though, if you were planning to do anything about the
Terrans?”

“Of course we are, but I’m not privy to the
specifics and I really don’t want to know. All you need to know is
they’ll get what’s coming to them in the end,” then turning to
Bridger, General, I need to speak to you and the Secretary of
Defense alone for a few minutes.”

Bridger led them to his office, where the
three sat down, and Bridger asked, “What’s wrong, sir?”

“What do you plan on doing with Ostoro once
you take care of our problem with his people?”

“
I don’t know, I don’t think anyone
has ever really thought about it, one of those problems we just
kind of want to ignore and hope it goes away. Is there something
you want specifically done with or to him?” asked
Bridger.

“I think once I let everyone know the
truth, I think Ostoro might become a major problem, especially if
the media tries to request permission to speak to him. I don’t want
to know the details, but, make sure he disappears by the time the
mission ends. Understand, General?”

“Yes, Mr. President.” answered Bridger,
grudgingly.

“
Houston, once this goes public, I
need you to monitor the threat levels coming from some of our
enemies, and do whatever you have to do to get them to calm down if
the need arises. I don’t want or need more wars on my watch as
President. As far as the mission planned by Area 51, I give you
full authorization for whatever is necessary for you to accomplish
the goals. Once the
Reprisal
is away from Earth, I do want
the mission details, since I’m probably going to have to explain
what’s going on to everyone on Earth. I definitely don’t look
forward to it, but, I have to do what I have to do.”

“Yes, Mr. President. Is there anything
else?” asked Bridger.

“Not right now, General. I’m satisfied with
the direction this is going, so I will return to Washington. Let’s
go, Mr. Secretary.” the President and Secretary of Defense then
left Area 51.

Bridger returned to where the
Reprisal
was and
took Engineer O’Rourke aside and said, “The President has
authorized us to go ahead with the plans. I want all the WMD’s
loaded on board, make sure all of it works properly, and make sure
those computer viruses do what they’re supposed to do. I’m going to
inform everyone else and the
Reprisal
will leave in two days. Get to
work, O’Rourke.”

The General then walked over to the guards
who always kept a watchful eye on Ostoro, and asked, “Do either of
you have a problem with getting rid of our guest?”

The two looked at each other, and they both
shrugged their shoulders, then the senior of the two guards spoke,
“Not at all, sir. Do you have any preferences for how you would
like for us to get rid of him?”

“I don’t really give a flip how you get rid
of him, the President ordered it, and I want it done as soon as
possible. Got it?”

“
We understand, sir. You can count on
us, because getting rid of the creep will be a pleasure, sir.
Anything else we can do, General, sir?”

“No, that’s it. Carry on gentlemen.”
Bridger walked away.

“How do you want to do this, Matt?” asked
John, the senior guard.

“
I can think of any number of ways to
get rid of Ostoro. Get one of the doctors here to do a live autopsy
on him, load him up on the
Reprisal
and shove him out the airlock,
shoot him in the head, send him to Guantanamo and let the Al Qaeda
prisoners have at the ultimate infidel, strap him to an electric
chair, or drop him off in the middle of Death Valley,”

“
Wow! You’ve really thought about it.
I think since the
Reprisal
is about to leave anyway, we
just take him aboard, shove him out the airlock somewhere, and that
way it would be impossible to find his body in the vastness of
space,”

“
It appears to me that we have a
solid plan. Let’s go talk to Captain Kell and get her permission
for us to go with them.” remarked Matt.

Two days later, the
Reprisal
was
prepared for the next phase in its mission. The guards received
permission to bring Ostoro aboard the starship, who was entirely
confused on why he was going along on the mission. Once everything
and everyone was prepared to launch, Captain Kell contacted Area 51
Control, “This is the
Reprisal
. We are ready when you are,
Control,”

“
Reprisal
, this is General Bridger. I
want to wish all of you good luck and Godspeed on your journey. You
have the go ahead to depart,
Reprisal
.”

The ship departed the hangar and
cloaked, even though it was still dark outside, they didn’t want to
take any chances of anyone seeing the ship. Less than five minutes
later, they left Earths’ atmosphere,
flew
past the
International Space
Station
, and then they passed the moon. Two
and a half hours later, the
Reprisal
was in position to orbit Mars,
still cloaked. Kell asked, “Have the Terrans detected our
arrival?”

“
It appears that they haven’t, sir.
Everything looks quiet,” said
Lieutenant
Woods at the helm.

“Very good, lieutenant. Can you gain access
to their network?”

“
I’m attempting
to now, sir. They have firewall protection, but I can get
around those in no time at all. It helps that someone forgot to
completely erase their programming language from the
Spirit
;
otherwise, their system might take a couple of weeks to hack,” five
minutes later, “I’m in, and beginning the download of the Trojan
Horse virus as we speak, sir.”

“
How long will it
be before the virus takes effect?” asked Kell.

“
It really depends on the size of
their network, anywhere from say fifteen minutes to two hours. The
first system the virus is set to target is their communications, so
they won’t be able to contact anyone if they begin to have a major
problem. I’ll keep track of when their power goes down, and then we
can land and do what we’re going to do.”

“
What about the two parked starships
down there
, they would have independent
systems from the base, which typically ours usually do.”

“
The computer engineers back on Earth
were very thorough with this virus. Before the communications
system goes down completely, the computer will automatically
contact the ships that are assigned to their base, and upload the
virus to their systems. After a few minutes, both the ships and the
base should be completely defenseless and then ripe for the Marines
to storm the place.” responded Woods.

“I have one last question, Lieutenant.
Since the base is surrounded by a dome, will the virus target their
life support or will that stay up?” asked Kell.

“Life support will continue to work, sir,
they made sure of that.”

“Good, we will continue to wait for your
signal on when we can continue, Lieutenant.”

Meanwhile
, on
Mars, the Terran computers were beginning to fail. It began with
annoying little glitches as some Terrans were trying to monitor
Earth orbital traffic; the software began showing in numerical
computer code instead of actual data, giving them the problem of
trying to figure out orbital paths of various human spacecraft in
orbit. Another was working on a report, without saving anything for
the twenty minutes the Terran had been working on it, when the
screen suddenly went green and the computer was saying there was a
fatal error. The Green Screen of Horrors was meant to be a mean
little joke the software engineers at Area 51 wanted to inflict on
the Terrans, which proved quite effective when a few other Terrans
couldn’t even get their computers to reboot. They also quickly
discovered internal and external communications were affected by
whatever was wrong with their computers, because Commander Lomanco
came storming into the Control Center with a very irritated look on
his face, “What on terra is going on here?”

Dr. Traynor, who was trying
desperately to reboot his workstation, looked over
at the Commander, and said, “Sir, I have no idea. Our computers
were working fine a few minutes ago, and then they began acting as
if a virus was affecting them. Seeing as how I installed firewalls,
I don’t see how it’s possible our systems have been hit with a
virus,” then the lights shut off, bringing up the emergency lights,
but nothing else, “although, it does appear as if someone has
installed a virus in our system. Whomever did this, appears to have
done a thorough job,”

“
Traynor, I need a non-networked
computer that has no virus on it, so we can get everything else
working again. I do not want to be defenseless in case this is an
all out attack against this base, think you can handle that?” asked
Lomanco.

“I will certainly try, sir, but I will get
to work on it right away.”

As Lomanco gave the order to
Traynor
to find a non-networked computer,
the cloaked
Reprisal
landed near the two small Terran ships. Ten squads,
consisting of ten United States Marines each, quietly left the ship
in their specially made military equipped spacesuits, and made
their way into the Terran base. The blueprint of the base that
Lieutenant Woods took from the Terran computers was helpful to the
Marines who were ordered to go and secure the vital parts of the
base, while the rest were to round up the very few people who
actually were stationed here. Apparently, this base was manned
mostly by a dozen scientists, a dozen engineers, twenty military
personnel, the whole operation overseen by a military commander,
and most of the inner workings of the base relied heavily on the
computer network. Secretary of Defense Houston had wanted to use
overwhelming force to subdue the base, so two hundred Marines were
on board the
Reprisal
, but half of that were to be
used in the initial operation since learning of the lack of
personnel that the Terran base had. As the Marines found base
personnel, they were sent to the cargo bay where they would all be
held.

Dr. Traynor was frantically searching
for a non-networked computer, he wasn’t sure where one was, and
turned the corner of a hallway, only to walk right into a squad of
Marines, who were heavily armed and wearing night vision goggles,
scaring the Doctor
out of his wits who
wasn’t even suspecting the base had been invaded. He threw up his
hands, and said, “I surrender. I’m the Chief Scientist here and I
don’t want to be harmed!”

“
You are Dr. Galen Traynor?” asked
the staff sergeant in charge.

“Yeah, who are you?”

“We are United States Marines and we’re
taking this base.”

“
Do you mean United States as in the
United States of America on Earth? You’ve got to be joking, you
guys can’t be this advanced, at least not according to the last
intelligence reports we’ve received. Every manned spacecraft you
have is only an orbiter, so how did you get here? Are you
responsible for our computer problems?” Traynor asked.

“We do mean that United States from Earth;
as for everything else, it’s on a need to know basis, and right
now, you don’t need to know. Where’s your commander?” asked the
sergeant.

“Well, uh, I last saw him in the Control
Center, trying to figure out what was wrong with the computers.
Apparently, I found out what’s wrong with our computers,”