Nebula (21 page)

An update from the AFO on the alien reconnaissance mission came only an hour after the three fighters had settled in for the wait. It reported the launch of the smaller alien ship plus two robot ships and
gave details of their tactical plan. They were going to do a close inspection, with one of the robot ships entering Earth’s atmosphere, attempting to avoid detection by flying an erratic course similar to the way that Nebula ships flew when within range of the military and civilian radars. The message traveled from Mars to Earth at the speed of light, a bit faster than the alien ships would travel, and it was sent just as the alien ships were starting to lift off. So Haverford had about a minute to decide what to do.

He contacted Billingsley to inform him of his decision and to get Billingsley’s comments or suggestions. “B, I’m going to let them do the close in flight, and then I’m going to destroy all three of the ships as the robot exits to rejoin the other two. It’ll be fast. I want to surprise them and hit them before they can react, but I want them to know that we detected them and were able to destroy them. Then I want to send the three fighters out to about the orbit of Saturn so the alien sensors can pick them up and see that we have ships very much like theirs. The fighters will take a course that avoids the kill zone of that big gun that they put on Mars, but Brad’s team is going to have to do something about it at some point. I don’t want to have to be constrained like that for the full duration of this war.”

Billingsley replied that he concurred with the plan and would inform Seduro. He also informed Haverford that Seduro had his teleconference with the Board, and they approved the plan and were taking measures to contact the heads of state of the major powers. The rest of the world would know of Nebula and the alien invaders by tomorrow, so by the time the alien fleet had replied to their team on Mars, Nebula would be able to respond without worrying about any adverse reactions by the governments or their military forces.

Within seconds of the end of discussion between Haverford and Billingsley, the three alien ships arrived. Nebula’s fighters were ready for them. They stationed themselves several hundred miles above the Moon, using it as a shield to keep from being seen. They tracked the three alien ships through messages relayed from Nebula’s tiny sensors and coordinated among themselves on which target each one would take.

One of the robot ships detached from the other two and proceeded into Earth’s atmosphere. Nebula’s sensors had no problem seeing it as it flew erratically around the world, collecting its sensor data and sending it back to the base on Mars. None of the normal radar tracking systems could lock onto the ship, so there were no reactions from the civilian or military authorities. The ship made several circles of the world, covering most of the populated land masses with its sensors, and then it exited the atmosphere and began to return to the other two at sub-relativistic speed.

The kills were made seconds after the robot ship was beyond geosynchronous altitude. The three Nebula fighters flew side by side from their hidden position, and as they came into line of sight of the three alien ships, one of them veered off at near-relativistic speed to engage the robot ship and the other two charged at the two ships that were waiting for it to rejoin them.

The aliens had no time to react. Everything happened too fast. One burst from the fighter’s plasma cannon vaporized the robot ship instantly. The other two were dispatched almost as quickly, but the fighters used their x-ray machineguns for those two. That was an important part of Haverford’s plan. He wanted the aliens on that ship to have time to send a message back to the fleet before they were killed. He wanted the fleet to know that the planet’s defenses were much stronger than they initially thought. This was one way to dissuade them from a direct attack and to vector them toward the biological option.

*

“Well, that looks like round one for the good guys,” Harry said. He and Yuri detected the drop-out of the robots on the reconnaissance ships eight minutes after their destruction. It took that long for the link to drop out since they were eight light minutes distan
ce from the action. The brief distress message from the alien ship came a couple seconds later and was cut off before completing. Now the aliens knew that they would have a fight on their hands. But they didn’t know how much of a fight.

The remaining six aliens stood next to their fighter and monitored the action through a small communications device that one of them held. They appeared to be in a state of shock when they received the interrupted message that told them that the reconnaissance ships were destroyed. Then the three Nebula fighters appeared on their long range sensors as they flew out toward Saturn at near light speed. The aliens’ shock turned into near panic at that point. This was totally unexpected, and they still didn’t have any orders from the fleet. They apparently didn’t know what to do, and they disappeared into their operations center and closed the airlock doors. It looked like they were going to wait there for instructions.

The only alien presence left outside on the surface of Mars were the fighter and the two robot ships plus the robots that were either busy at their assigned tasks or just standing and waiting for orders. Three worker robots were still installing the world crippler weapon on the fighter. They seemed to be almost finished with the mechanical work and were doing something that involved work both inside and outside the ship, probably something to do with the control mechanisms that the aliens in the ship would use. Two sentry-soldiers and three workers plus Robby, Igor, and Nebula’s three worker robots just stood silently, but Harry and Yuri could sense that their brains and communications equipment were very active, waiting for the next messages.

“What next?” Doug asked.

“We wait and see what they do next,” Brad replied. “I expect that they’ll send a message to their fleet to let them know what the situation is. That would be what I’d do. The message that the reconnaissance ship tried to send was cut off and may not have been received at the fleet. Our friends here will want to make sure that the fleet knows what happened. It’s going to be at least another two days before they get any updates to their orders, so we’ll just have to wait.”

“We can put the systems on automatic,” Ludmila suggested. “It doesn’t look like there’s any need for real time monitoring or for Yuri and Harry to keep the headsets on at this point.”

Harry had a different suggestion. “I think that Yuri and I should still take turns linking with the robots. There’s a lot that they’re doing, and they may get updated instructions from the guys waiting in the bunker. We should keep up on things, and we can take turns for a couple of hours each. What do you think, Yuri?”

“I agree,” he replied. “I’m used to being plugged in, so it’s not too tiring. I’ll take the first shift.”

“OK,” Brad agreed. “You two can take turns, and if you get tired, let me know. Your backups can take a few turns too. In fact, this might be a good time for them to get used to being linked in with all the robots. Yuri, I’m going to ask Nigel and Gladys to take turns with you and Harry. Gladys, why don’t you start? Harry, let Gladys have the headset, and you take a break.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry said as he handed his headset to Gladys and helped her get it adjusted. “Does it seem OK?” he asked as he tweaked one of the dials and read the meters on the interface device. “It should be adjusted.”

“Yeah,” was the reply. “I can sense the whole network of those buggers. Wow, it’s a lot different than just dealing with one or two.”

“You’ll get used to it pretty soon,” Yuri said. “Harry and I had the same problem for the first couple of minutes, but you get to where you can tune out most of them and concentrate on the one or two of most interest. If you have any problems, let me know.”

So, two of them would keep monitoring the robots, a pretty low intensity task at this point, and the others would rest until the next crisis erupted. The computers in the operations center were set on automatic and would sound alarms if they needed attention, so no one except for Yuri and Gladys needed to remain there.

The seven who now had nothing to do retired to the large common room where they could relax, have a bite to eat, and do whatever interested them on the computers that were provided for both work and pleasure. They felt remarkably at ease, given the situation in which they were essentially marooned on Mars, only a few hundred meters from aliens that were intent on exterminating all humans and claiming Earth as their new home world.

Harry chose a computer situated in front of a chair that looked very comfortable. Then he browsed through the menu of available entertainment and found a book that he had wanted to read for quite some time but never got around to it. He selected the book, and started to read but soon dozed off. The chair definitely was comfortable, and he was more tired than he realized after the stressful day with the headset.

The others chose their own ways to relax, a couple deciding on having something to eat and others choosing various movies or books. Brad gave each one an assigned time to stand watch during the night, and those not on duty eventually wandered off to their bunks to try to get some sleep before the next day’s action.

It’s common wisdom that combat consists of many hours of boredom, punctuated by a few minutes of absolute terror. For the AFO team, the hours of boredom had arrived, but they all knew that the minutes of terror weren’t too far away.

“Message coming in from the alien fleet,” Gladys announced. “We’re getting the update in the robot memories. Someone needs to get onto one of the computers so we have a record that we can send to Nebula.”

“I’m on it,” Doug replied. He had become the AFO team’s alien communications expert, and he was now very competent working with the translator and moving translated files into the queue for transmission to Nebula Prime.

The message was brief and responded to the initial message that the aliens on Mars had sent, advising of the plan to send the reconnaissance mission and requesting approval of a subsequent probing attack. It approved the attack, contingent on the results of the reconnaissance, which they had not learned about at the time that they sent this reply. Brad and the others knew that the next reply from the fleet would probably negate this one and order a different course of action now that they were aware of Earth’s ability to defend itself.

The aliens in their underground ops center were also aware that they would need to wait for the next message before doing anything. They waited just as the AFO team waited to see what that message would say.

It wasn’t a very long wait. The next message arrived and responded to the report on the destruction of the reconnaissance ships. Doug had it translated and ready for retransmission to Nebula Prime almost in real time.

“It looks like Haverford’s guys did the job too well,” Doug said. “Here’s the situation now. The aliens have accepted that the biological attack is their best bet, but now they’re concerned that Earth’s defenses are too good for the delivery vehicles to make it into the atmosphere and dispense their pathogens. They want to soften the defenses up before sending any robotic vehicles in.”

He then projected the translated message onto one of the large screen displays so that everyone could read it. Details of the new plan were spelled out in detail and included orders for the team on Mars.

The alien plan was to divide their military force into three battle groups organized around three battleships, keeping the fourth one in reserve.

The first group would lead the initial attack on Earth to soften the defenses and make way for delivery of the pathogens by robotic ships. It consisted of one battleship, one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, ten fighters, and ten robot ships and would be augmented by the fighter and two robot ships already on Mars.

The second group would detach from the fleet and move to a point about six light hours from Earth. It consisted of one battleship, three heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, twenty fighters, and sixty robot ships. Its mission was to prepare to conduct either defensive or offensive operations, depending on the results of the initial group’s strike on the Earth forces. It would also deploy a defensive minefield consisting of thermonuclear devices between itself and the fleet, with destructive ranges sufficient to block almost any attempt by Earth ships to penetrate to the fleet if it wasn’t able to stop them in a direct engagement. The aliens were obviously very concerned that Earth’s forces might be a match or overmatch for their own, and they were preparing for any eventuality.

The remainder of the aliens’ military force would remain docked to the fleet to provide close-in defense if that was required. It was also the reserve force if offensive operations proceeded and would provide a rear guard to delay any attackers if the entire fleet had to retreat. Preparations for an immediate retreat were already underway. Every ship was ready to decouple and move out at near light speed at a moment’s notice.

But, as worried as they were, they were not about to give up on Earth just yet. They were willing to risk a good part of their military force if necessary. This planet was too good to pass up without a fight. The alien team on Mars was ordered to take the following actions:

1. Load the pathogens onto one of the robot ships and send it to the fleet immediately. In addition to the robot pilots, two workers were to accompany the shipment and assist in unloading and moving the cargo to four biological facilities that were being prepared to receive them. The message gave precise instructions on where the robots were to dock with the fleet.

2. Prepare the fighter to support arrival of battle group number one and to join it for the attack. The fighter was ordered to position itself ten light seconds from Mars, in the direction of the fleet but offset one kilometer to allow room for the battle group to arrive and form up for battle. It would be given further instructions once the battle group commander had a chance to see the situation first hand.

3. Move the remaining robot ship into position where it could detect and take action against any Earth ships that were approaching Mars.

4. Leave one of the weapons control officers from the fighter’s crew behind to operate the plasma cannon. Leave one sentry and two workers behind to assist with that. The battle group would arrive and organize for combat within the field of view of the cannon so it could provide long range cover for them if ships from Earth closed for battle.

The message also specified the time that the battle group would arrive. At the time of transmission, they were five hours from launching at near light speed, so they would arrive slightly more than five hours from reception of the message. Once they arrived, they would coordinate on the tactical plans and launch the attack approximately two hours later.

“OK, so we now know what we’re going to be faced with,” Brad said. “We have about five hours before that battle group arrives, and we need to have everything prepared to make sure that they can’t organize for an attack on Earth. If they do that, they would probably overpower Haverford’s fighters, especially if that battleship and that heavy cruiser have the kinds of weapons that we think they must have. Let’s all sit down at the conference table and develop our plan. Yuri and Gladys can stay connected with the robots for now, but I want the rest of you in on this.”

So the seven of them gathered around the table and began to develop a course of action to meet the coming threat.

“First thing,” Brad said, “is to eliminate the aliens over there in their bunker. We can’t let them get onto the fighter. We’ll need to take control of it and also the plasma cannon. Those two will have to be our main ways to attack the battle group. We’ll also have to destroy or disable all the robots except the ones that we modified. I’m even concerned about Igor and that new model worker, but we’ll have to take our chances with them. We’ll need all the help that we can get.”

“They should be reliable,” Ludmila said. “I’m confident that we have supervisory override control with them, so if they decide to revert to alien direction, we can stop that immediately. We can either recapture control or cause them to go completely off-line.”

“OK,” Brad replied. “You’re the expert. I trust your judgment. So we’ll use them. First step is to eliminate the six aliens and prevent the robots from interfering. Any suggestions?”

“We’ll have to go outside and kill the aliens when they come out,” Nigel said. “It will take at least two or three of us to do it. We could use the machineguns that we have in the arms locker. I could probably pick off all six of them myself if they came out in a pretty tight group, but we can’t count on that.”

“I agree, but why not use the x-ray weapons?” Brad questioned.

“Look,” Nigel replied, “if I’m going out there, I prefer a weapon that I know and trust. I’m pretty good with our ballistic weapons.”

At that point, Gladys joined the crowd at the table. “I’ll go with Nigel. I’m pretty good with a machinegun myself. Both of us did a lot of recreational target practice with all the weapons at Ops, and I agree with Nigel. A couple of us could take them all down if we ambush them as they come out.”

“Yuri and I can handle the robots,” Harry added. “We can get Igor and Robby to take out the sentries while we jam all the others with multiple, conflicting commands. Yuri even worked out a sequence that would drive them into a chaotic state. Once they’re in that state they’ll be totally defenseless. Igor and Robby can deal with them one at a time. Then we can have our robots take control of the two robot ships. I don’t want them taking off under some prearranged failure plan.”

“OK, that’s a start,” Brad agreed. “So, Nigel and Gladys are going to take down the aliens when they come back out. Do we need a third to help them?”

“That would be good insurance,” Doug added. “I’m pretty good with the weapons too. I’ll go out there with them.”

“Fine,” Brad said. “Once we secure the area, we’ll need to figure out how to operate the fighter and the plasma cannon. I don’t trust letting the robots handle the cannon, and we need a couple of us to fly the fighter. Judith, you seem to know a lot about that weapon that they’re putting on the fighter. Can you take a look at it once we get rid of the aliens and their robots?”

“Sure, I’ll see if I can figure it out. But we still need to know if we’ll be able to fly the fighter at all.”

“What I plan to do is get Milo here as soon as we can. If anyone can figure out how to fly it, he can. He’s been through the original Roswell ship that we rebuilt, so he has a good head start unless the fighter is a lot different.”

“I’ve been through that ship too,” Nigel added. “I’d like to have a crack at it with Milo.”

“Me too,” Gladys chimed in. “Besides, Nigel and I will already be suited up and working outside. Once we get rid of the aliens and robots, we can start right in with the fighter. Judith can join us. Then we might be able to have things figured out even before Milo gets here.”

“OK,” Brad agreed. “But I still want Milo as the pilot on the fighter. Next, what about the plasma cannon?”

“That looked pretty easy when the alien fired it,” Mikio said. “All the alien controls so far have looked pretty intuitive. I bet that a few of us can figure out how to aim and fire it if we have a couple of hours.”

Harry added, “It may actually be easier than you think. The sentry-soldier robots know how to use most of the alien weapons. We may find that we can get a complete user’s manual in Igor’s stored records.”

“Excellent,” Brad said as he completed making notes on all that was being said. “So, here’s the plan. Phase one will neutralize alien presence on Mars. Nigel, Gladys, and Doug will suit up and hide in ambush for the aliens. We need to synchronize this with the attack on all the robots except our five. Harry and Yuri will do that the instant our ambushers open fire. It’s important not to do that any sooner, or it could tip our hand. We also don’t want to be too late, or the robots might react against us, and they could send a message to warn the battle group before they get into our kill zone. We can’t take that chance.

“Phase two
will take control of the fighter and plasma cannon. Once they finish with the aliens, Nigel and Gladys will go into the fighter, and Judith will join them. I’ll get a message to Nebula Ops to tell Milo that it’s safe for him to get back here. Then he can see what he can do with the fighter.

“Harry and Yuri will probe Igor’s records for the plasma cannon users’ manual. I want Mikio to go outside and join Doug to work with them to figure out how to use it. Mikio and Doug will be our artillerymen. OK?”

“What about my assignment?” Ludmila asked. She appeared to be the only one not assigned to anything.

“I need you here to deal with the robots if anything goes wrong,” Brad replied. “The big question mark in my mind is whether we can keep control of things, and you are the only one who understands how all that computing works. Yuri and Harry know what it’s supposed to do, but you wrote the code and debugged all the problems so far. You, Yuri, and Harry are staying inside with me. We may also get some help from Haverford when Mi
lo gets here. I expect that he’ll want to send a few of his soldiers to plus us up.”

“What about the robot ships?” Ludmila asked. “When we disable the aliens’ robots, we’ll have only Igor, Robby, and the other three left. How will we be able to operate those two ships? One of them needs to deliver the pathogens. That has to happen as soon as possible once we take control.”

“Good question. I forgot about that,” Brad agreed. “We need to send one sentry and two workers with the pathogens or the aliens at the fleet might become suspicious when they see that the orders weren’t followed. I don’t trust any of them except Robby and the two older models.”

“That should work,” Ludmila said. “We can give Robby and the other two specific instructions to obey all alien commands once they leave here until they get an override message from us. It should look perfectly normal to the aliens, and I don’t think that they’ll be able to detect any of our modifications before it’s too late for it to matter.”

“OK,” Brad replied. “Now we need to figure out how to operate the other robot ship. Can a worker fly it?”

Ludmila shook her head. “No, workers can operate the weapons but not fly the ships. That takes a sentry-class robot. We could use Igor, but that would leave us without any here on Mars, and it might not look right when the battle force sends their request for final approach to their assembly area. They’d be coming pretty close to Mars itself, so they would probably do that to avoid any defensive action when the sentry detected them, and they’d expect an answer. They know how many sentries should still be on Mars, so we need to make it look like one of them responded.”