Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (23 page)

Three weeks after the Lake Victoria debacle, Fleet Admiral Brooks and Secretary Miller sat before the Council of Eight after wrapping up a complete factual presentation of the entire alien encounter, from the discovery of the inbound interstellar ship to the final exit of the three alien vessels back toward the “mother” ship. Those three were already passing through Mars orbit on the way back to Jupiter.

“We have again gone completely silent with all of our facilities in the asteroid belt as those three ships pass through on their way back to Jupiter,” Brooks concluded. “We don’t want to let them know we have a presence beyond the immediate Earth-moon environment. Our team on the
Discovery
, led by Captain Julian Vasquez, has almost reached the Jovian system, and they are going to need instructions from this council on how to proceed in light of what happened on Earth. As far as what to expect next,” he shrugged, “I can only speculate.”

“Well,” President Travers replied, “your speculations so far have been very prophetic. I, for one, would like to hear what you think might be coming next. Do I hear any objections from the Council?”

When no one spoke up, Travers nodded to Brooks. “Please continue.”

“I tried to put myself in their place, as if I was coming into this system for the first time looking for room to expand. I make the ‘expansion’ assumption purely on the basis of their taking water samples from all over the planet’s surface. So, assuming they want to expand into our territory, they’ll want to change Earth’s environment to suit their needs. It would be similar to our trying to change the Martian environment to suit our needs by adding oxygen to the atmosphere and trying to warm the climate to lower our costs for keeping our shelters warm enough to live comfortably.”

“We have no clue, however, about what those changes would entail, but you can bet this could prove to be an extinction-level event. Earth has reached a delicate balance between the plant and animal life forms, and anything that disrupts that balance is bound to be traumatic for all forms of life.”

Travers nodded. “Thank you, Admiral. That was very informative, and quite troubling. Can you make yourself available for follow-up questions over the next several days? I’m sure, based upon your report, we will have much to discuss and will have many questions for you and your staff.”

“Certainly, sir. I will be working on contingency planning with Secretary Miller over the next week and will be at your disposal the entire time.”

With that, both Brooks and Miller rose from their seats and headed back to USpN headquarters. Brooks was perfectly serious about the contingency planning. The entire naval intelligence division was already hard at work drawing up dozens of scenarios for what might be coming. Unfortunately, based upon the aliens’ response at Lake Victoria, he had little hope they would be able to come up with plans to stop whatever they had in store.

The new species of bipeds needed competition. They were controlling enough of their environment to push into the colder climate of the planet’s northern hemisphere. Life was not easy for them, but they were learning to adapt. It was time to create an offshoot species adapted specifically to this colder climate. With two bipedal species competing for the same resources, only the most brutal would survive during the coming ice ages.

Instead of altering the genetic code directly, as they had done in the past, the Nu took a slower, more controlled breeding approach. They monitored the offspring of each generation closely and selected individuals with minor variations that met their criteria for better adaptation to the cold.

The first trait chosen for survival assistance was the size and density of the bone structure to accommodate stronger muscles. Speed of motion was not as important as strength when hunting the larger animals on the northern plains. The second trait chosen for survival assistance was the ability to work in teams for hunting. Strong but mobile societies were needed to hunt down the larger animals required for food storage over the cold winters.

To foster societal changes, the Nu lent a piece of themselves to the leaders of the various groups to guide the groups appropriately. After a few successful generations, this was no longer necessary, as the species adapted to the learned behaviors that helped them survive. Direct intervention was only necessary to cull out dominant individuals that tended to lead the tribes in inappropriate directions. In this brutal cold environment, deaths were easy to manufacture.

The four remaining Deltas from AMC had arrived as a group while Sted was running the final trials in the re-christened
USpN Mantis
. The actual test firing of the missiles took place at the same time as the jump of the other four craft from the mining platform. The alien mother ship was on the other side of Jupiter, and the three alien vessels were in-system, flitting around Earth and the moon.

To be ultra-sure the missiles would not be detected, Sted only fired when 16 Psyche was between
Mantis
and Jupiter. Also, all of the warheads in the missiles were weighted the same as live missiles but contained mini nose cameras to record their approach to the paper-thin targets covering foam-filled mineral shipping containers. Each missile that hit its target was retrieved and refurbished. The missiles that missed (too many for Sted’s liking) crashed directly into 16 Psyche. With this approach, there were no stray missiles on ballistic trajectories in the belt.

When Sted and his crew returned from the trials, Sted went directly to Rear Admiral Cunningham to discuss reworking the missile-targeting console.

“Everything worked fine from a reasonable distance,” he said, “but with close-in fighting, less than five kilometers, there was no time for the weapons officer to follow a missile’s flight path and make corrections as needed. Heat and motion-seeking systems built into the missile worked just fine if the target was active and detectable. That might not always be the case with these aliens.”

“What would you suggest, Captain?”

“What we need is to provide for better human guidance of the missiles through laser painting of the targets with feedback to the missiles. I know laser guidance is old, Earth-bound technology, but I think it can be easily adapted for our close-in fighting mode.”

“That is an interesting thought,” Cunningham replied. “If we’re going to be treating these Deltas like jet fighters taking off from an aircraft carrier on Earth, we should adopt whatever makes sense from that mode of battle and apply it in space. Give me a couple of days to research everything that might be applicable. Then we can sit down and review how to adapt each possibility to these little fighters.”

Sted nodded. “I had another thought about the skin configuration for the Epsilon’s under construction on Luna. Based on the deadliness of the alien vessel in the Lake Victoria clash, I think AMC needs to determine the wavelength used by the alien laser system and then design and construct a polished mirror outer skin for close-in fighting. That way, anything but a direct 90-degree hit on the hull with their lasers would be deflected by the skin. Even a direct hit would take time to penetrate a mirrored outer skin, if we can reflect a high enough percentage of the incoming beam. I know they might change laser frequency after the first encounter, but maybe they don’t have that capability this far from their home base.”

“Let me get AMC working on that approach,” Cunningham said. “Also, do you think the crew could handle the Delta rotating slowly about its axis to present a fresh mirrored surface to an incoming laser? That way it would not get a chance to burn through the mirrored surface.”

“I can’t say how that would affect the individual crewmembers on the first try, but I’m sure we could all adapt with some practice. Let’s build that scenario into our trials for the four Deltas when they come off the line. That way we can feed the results back to AMC and perhaps find ways to mitigate the disorientation caused by the rotation. If we design all of the monitoring systems to give video feedback as if the ship is not rotating and we build in counter motion into the firing lasers so they stay on target while the ship is rotating, there might not be any disorientation.”

Cunningham took a moment to process the plan. “Okay. Why don’t you take a couple of days off after that long trial and get reacquainted with Jessica? You’ve given me quite a lot of food for thought, and I need time to think it over.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Sted replied as he headed for the showers. He didn’t want to see Jessica in his current condition. The cramped quarters of the
Mantis
did not lend itself to great bodily hygiene. Maybe he should have thought of that before barging in on Rear Admiral Cunningham.

The master chronicler had been accumulating as much information as possible on the locals in this system for its report back to the current forward operating base. It knew that as soon as the scout ships arrived back from the inner system with the captured communication satellite and the water and air samples, a return ship had to be dispatched to the other masters with the satellite and half of each sample.

Timelines needed to be drawn up for the shipment of a fully functioning crèche to this system. The distances were great enough that even with the speed of their interstellar ships, the round trip would take a significant amount of time. Based upon current information gathered by the sampling mission, this lead team should be able to have the new system prepared for colonization by the time a return trip could be organized.

The automated equipment on the scout ships had accomplished the initial analysis of the water and air samples, and that information had been beamed back as soon as it was available. Based upon that analysis, the master chronicler had directed the master environmental engineer to begin configuring the planetary re-engineering modules for phase one, reduction of the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. The majority of that oxygen seemed to be generated by small life forms in the oceans that covered most of the planet. They had to find out how to disrupt that process in the most efficient way possible once the water samples were returned.

Since these oceans had a significant concentration of sodium chloride, they were not ideal for supporting crèche development. This meant the oceans had to be altered as quickly as possible to kill off the life forms generating the oxygen. The larger lakes, on the other hand, seemed ideal as crèche development sites. Greater care had to be taken with these bodies of water. The approach for handling the freshwater lakes would be part of phase two and would be based upon detailed analysis from the ground.

Meanwhile, with every orbit around the gas giant, the master chronicler was receiving updates on the ocean currents from the Esss satellite feed from the target planet. Soon, there would soon be enough information to choose the six initial locations for the planetary re-engineering modules.

Captain Vasquez was more than a little troubled. News of the encounter at Lake Victoria had spread to the crew of all four ships in their small flotilla, and tensions had been ratcheting up the closer they got to Jupiter.

They were only days away from making Jupiter orbit and the plan was to establish an orbit within hailing distance of the alien mother ship. The list of orders from the Council of Eight was specific but not particularly appealing.

1. Continue attempts to establish communication with the “visitors.”
   
2. Assume an orbit far enough away from the visitor ship to be outside effective laser range but close enough to observe any activity.
   
3. Gather as much intelligence about the aliens as possible and report back regularly with whatever information is gathered.
   
4. Stay on station in Jupiter orbit at least until after the return of the three ships that have been in-system.
   
5. Avoid interaction with the three inbound ships.
   
6. Refuel
   Discovery
   and the two escorts prior to orbital insertion around Jupiter, and dispatch the refueling ship and one of the escorts back to the lunar base. All unnecessary personnel should return to the lunar base on these two ships.
   
7. All ships are to refrain from communicating with our facilities in the asteroid belt, and that includes the returning fuel tanker and its escort.
   
8. If you need to stay beyond your current supply limitations, prepare a list of necessary supplies that can be started in your direction to be picked up on your return trip.
   

Vasquez knew they were easy targets should the aliens want to eliminate them. The key to his command was to boost the spirits of all crewmembers by providing meaningful goals and tasks to carry out these new orders. He would lay out the mission to his senior staff and let them decide who should stay for intelligence gathering and who should return. They would bridge no arguments from the civilian experts, because this had now become a military mission.