Lieutenant (An Ell Donsaii story #3) (20 page)

“Yes sir, of course sir.”

“I’m not sure sir; let’s ask my AI to find out. Allan, please determine how many USB type PGR chips have been manufactured so far?”

“Yes sir, I’m sure the company would be willing to put all current inventories at the country’s disposal.”

“Yes sir, I’ll ask them to deliver to a location of the Secretary’s choosing.”

The El Tee moved to the back of the room speaking to her AI rapid fire as if arranging something. When she came back up she addressed the non-coms, “See anything interesting?”

Sykes looked up at her, “It looks to me like they’re moving supplies out into these bulk carriers. Who were you talking to?”

“Uh… the President. Have you seen them loading any identifiable weapons systems?”

“They were putting a tank on one as we overflew. President of what?”

“Of the United States. Could you identify the model of the tank? Was it their new Lǎo hǔ?”

“The President?! Holy cripes Ma’am! What did he call you for?”

The El Tee grinned down at him. “He’d heard that I’d been assigned some especially inquisitive NCOs and wanted to know what I was going to do about it.”

Sykes and Tarrant stared up at Ell wide eyed. Sykes swallowed, “No, really Ma’am. What did he call you about?”

“Actually he heard a sergeant Sykes liked my zero latency chips and said that, ‘if they’re good enough for Sykes, we should install them everywhere.’”

“The President called to talk about your chips?” Sykes almost whispered in an awed tone.

“Seriously guys, I’m sorry you heard parts of that conversation. It has a bearing on this China kerfuffle and you should consider it to be Top Secret, OK? Don’t tell anyone outside this room anything about it until it’s common knowledge.”

Still wide eyed they chorused, “Yes Ma’am.”

Ten minutes later Lieutenant Sasson stepped into the room and said, “Donsaii, I’ve been sent to relieve you on this UAV flight. You are to get your ready travel kit and report to travel operations for a flight to somewhere. Apparently, you’re supposed to brief somebody on something?” He raised his eyebrows indicating the question.

Ell tilted her head, “No one told me, but I suspect I know what it’s about,” she looked meaningfully at Sykes and Tarrant. “I think it is on a ‘need to know’ basis at present. I’ll turn these miscreants over to you. So far the flight is routine except it appears that the PRC is loading weapon systems onto those bulk carriers off Quanzhou.”

Ell contacted travel ops about when she was expected to report for her flight and was told, “the sooner the better.”

She had Mary from the ready team meet her just off base with her travel kit, a box of PGR USB chips that she had in her apartment and her flight suit. “I’m not sure where they’re sending me or how long I’ll be staying, but I may want the team to follow me there. I’ll let you guys know as soon as I figure it out.” Mary nodded and resisted the impulse, instilled by her own years in the service, to salute the young officer.

Ell walked into travel ops with her ready bag in hand and a Captain accosted her, “Are you Donsaii?”

“Yes sir.”

“We’ve been waiting! Come on!” he started off at a fast trot, out of the building and over to the flight line.

Ell looked around for a transport or cargo plane but the Captain took her directly to a two-seater F-35 variant with a ladder leaning up against it. They handed her a helmet which, to her surprise, fit very well. They must have looked her up on the database. They hustled her up the ladder and into the rear seat. The ground crewman leaned in to buckle her in, jack the helmet into the plane’s systems and point out the barf bag. To her astonishment, within ten minutes the plane was rolling down the runway and up into the air like a rocket. Once they were in level flight, there was a click on the intercom and a familiar sounding voice said, “Donsaii?”

“Yes Ma’am?”

“Lieutenant Andrews here. When I was yelling at you in basic training back at the Academy I never dreamed I’d be ferrying your ass across the country like some kind of ‘hot shot.’ Congratulations!”

“Um, thank you Ma’am.”

“Hah! I should thank you. I was proud to have known you when I heard you won the Medal and I have a feeling I’ll be prouder yet if I ever figure out what
this
is all about. Who are they shipping you over to talk to?

“Um, I’m afraid I haven’t been told. I don’t even know where we’re flying?”

“Well, well! The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? I’m so surprised. I do believe, however that you have ‘need to know’ where you’re going, so I’ll reveal to you that we’re using accessory tanks to fly supersonic to Andrews AFB in DC where I’m to taxi you directly to a helicopter, so someone
very important
wants you somewhere in the DC area in a
big
hurry.”

Ell identified the Pentagon in the dimming light outside the windows of the helicopter as it swung in to land. As it settled onto the pad she saw a first lieutenant, holding his hat and making waving motions as if he wanted her to hurry. In a couple of minutes he had her and her bag loaded onto a golf cart and heading in to the building. She asked, “Do you know who I’m here to meet or what this is about?”

“Nope.” He grinned at her, “that’s
way
above my pay grade.”

“Can we stop off at a bathroom?”

He raised his eyebrows, still grinning, “Are you trying to get me court martialed? What have I ever done to you?”

The golf cart pulled up at a conference room where a Major said, “Is this her?” He looked at Ell’s nametag and said, “Good! Have her wait inside.” The Major looked up as he spoke to his AI.

The Lieutenant opened the door to the empty conference room. Ell looked at him in desperation. He shifted his eyes to the bathroom signage across the hall. Ell took the situation in hand and stepped across the hall.

When Ell came out she heard the Major saying, “Where is she?!”

She stepped quickly across the hall and into the conference room, “Sir, I’m here.”

The Major had just begun to glare when the door opened and a blue dress uniform with four stars entered. Ell recognized General Ellis, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. She remained at attention. As she was indoors she resisted the impulse to salute. Ellis turned to the Major and said, “This her?”

“Yes sir.”

The door opened and an Army general in green and a Naval admiral in black entered. Ell suddenly realized this was a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff! She wondered if she should have tried to change into her dress uniform while she was in the bathroom?

The door opened again and more high level officers poured in, the brass were all shaking each other’s hands and sitting down. One of the admirals, whose nametag read “Immenstall,” said, “OK, who’s running this briefing? Let’s get a move on, it’s late.”

To Ell’s dismay, the Major pointed at her, “Lieutenant Donsaii, sir.”

Wide eyed, Ell didn’t even get a chance to clear her throat. An Admiral, sitting behind the nameplate for USPACOM, or Pacific Command, barked, “A 2nd lieutenant? In a flight suit? We’ve got a PRC crisis in PACOM and someone sends a lieutenant to brief us on communications?! I don’t have time for this! I need to get back to my Command!” He started to stand.

The door had just opened and a man in a suit had entered. “Sit down Joe. You need to hear from Lieutenant Donsaii more than any of the rest of us.” Ell still standing at attention on the side of the room, recognized the Secretary of Defense! Secretary Amundsen walked to the front of the room and surveyed its occupants who had all risen to their feet, including Admiral Joseph Larsson of PACOM who’d just been told to sit. “Gentlemen, you are all aware that the PRC has been increasing force levels in Fujian province near Taiwan for weeks now. You may have heard that they have begun placing weapon systems onto shipping as of this morning. What you may not be informed about, is the recent assessment that the loss of our Asian geosynchronous observation satellite likely was not due to micrometeorites but due to enemy action. It is the assessment of the CIA and NSA that the Chinese have recently put up enough ‘killer satellites’ to take out
all
our observational and comm satellites over the western Pacific and eastern Asia.” There had been a chorus of indrawn breaths. “Our current intelligence expectation is that they will likely take down all those satellites within the week and invade Taiwan immediately after that.” Everyone in the room blanched. He turned to Larsson, “Joe, I assume that I don’t have to tell you what a mess that will make of all your current crisis response plans?”

Larsson swallowed, “My God! How did this happen without anyone making me aware?! In any case, that’s all the more reason I need to get back to my command and try to develop a response!”

The Secretary smiled grimly, “Yes, but, I’ll guarantee that you won’t want to leave until after you’ve heard what the Lieutenant has prepared for us.” He turned and waved Ell toward him, “Lieutenant, show us what you’ve got.”

Ell had come forward when he waved her up. Now she grimaced and said, “Sir, I’m afraid I was ordered to get on a plane and then flown here without knowing my destination or my assignment. I do not have anything prepared and, though I can guess, I am not certain of the expected contents of any briefing I am to deliver?” Ell could feel Larsson rolling his eyes, but she kept her attention focused on Secretary Amundsen.

The Secretary grimaced, then turned to the brass and said, “I believe your term for this state of affairs is SNAFU?” He turned back to Ell, “We flew you here to explain your new communication ‘chips’ to us and help us to quickly understand how they might be integrated into solving this crisis? Just give us a brief synopsis of what we should know about them and then you can answer questions.

Before Ell could say anything Larsson barked, “Lieutenant? Who the
Hell
is your senior officer—the officer who
should
be briefing us on this?”

The Secretary’s eyes glinted and then tracked back to Larsson. “Admiral, do I have to give you a
direct order
to ‘shut up and listen?’” He paused, then indicated Ell with a wave, “This is Lieutenant Ell Donsaii, whom you might remember was the winner of four Olympic gold medals in gymnastics two summers ago? You may also recall that she received the Medal of Honor for her role in stopping the terrorists at that Olympics? I believe that she deserves more respect than your usual second lieutenant and a great deal more than you’re giving her?” Eyes had widened among the officers in the audience at the Secretary’s recitation. “Finally, Joe,
she
is presenting, rather than any ‘senior officer,’ because
she
invented the technology in question.” He turned to Ell, “Lieutenant, please do your best to fill us in on the nature and capability of your chips and accept our apologies for the failure of communication that left you unable to prepare.”

Ell had been breathing slowly and deeply to keep herself out of the zone the confrontational atmosphere threatened to put her into. She felt fairly calm but stepped slowly to her bag and pulled out a pair of PGR chips. “A little more than a year ago, while still a Cadet at the Air Force Academy, I published a paper on a new math I had developed which seems to fit well with observed quantum effects such as ‘entanglement’ in which particles seem to be ‘joined’ somehow, even though they are separated by distance. It was my postulate that the particles were joined by a connection through a “fifth dimension” which we are unable to perceive. Therefore communications from one entangled molecule in our universe, to the molecule it is entangled with, by passing through that fifth dimension appear to be instantaneous to us because the distance in that dimension is microscopic. After graduating last summer, I was temporarily detached from active duty to pursue graduate studies in experimental physics. During that time I endeavored to develop a means to use the predictions made in my paper to produce useful communication devices.” She stepped forward and handed the pair of chips to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “This pair of entangled chips can transfer data from one chip to the other at the same rate as can be achieved over the very best fiber optic connections. At present about 20,000 pairs of chips are available and can be distributed to US forces, but they all use USB 5.0 jacks and so fitting them to devices that do not have USB sockets may be problematic. I also made up a hundred paired mil spec chips that fit the BXA ports on the comm boards in our UAVs. Although I don’t know how common BXA ports are on the rest of our military comm boards, during my flight here, suspecting this need I asked the manufacturer to rush production on 10,000 more pairs with BXA jacks. The company is small but should be able to turn out about a thousand a day. Making chips with other jacks will take longer, due to the need to design those interfaces before we can begin production. Therefore, I hope that BXA jacks are as common on military comm boards as I have been led to believe.”

This time it was the Chairman who interrupted with a frown, “Who approved an order of 10,000 chips? And how did you order them during your flight?! You aren’t supposed to use our aircraft’s comm systems to access the net!”

Ell took another deep breath to calm herself. “No sir. My AI is hooked to the net via PGR chips so it was not necessary to use the aircraft comm. I authorized the expenditure as…”

The Chairman interrupted again, “You authorized! A lieutenant doesn’t have authority for such expenditures!”

Quietly Ell said, “I spent my own money.” She took another calming breath.

He frowned, “How much are these chips?”

“In a low production run like this the mil spec versions are about $100 a pair.”

“That’d be… a million dollars for 10,000 of them, where did you get that kind of money?!”

Quietly, “Sir, the royalties on this invention are quite generous.”

The Secretary of Defense raised his eyebrows, “Might she get on with the presentation now?”

Admiral Larsson had his hand up but without being recognized, interrupted to say, “What do these chips have to do with the fact that we won’t have any satellite observation?!”