The E Utopia Project (35 page)

“They have stationed aircraft
carriers in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic.”

“Do they plan to attack these
ships?” Sara asked with horror.

“I don’t know. They didn’t
tell me what they plan to do. Some of the spaceships were carrying missiles.
Most of the ships were massive and the Pentagon thinks they’re bombers. The
Pentagon thinks the ships are simulating an attack on Earth. We’re on the brink
of war.”

“We’re already in the middle
of a war, Tim,” Sara said somberly. “They started the war a long time ago when
they began stealing our oxygen. So what’s going to happen to the people who
have been covering up for these spaceships?”

“I don’t know. Remember this
is all classified.”

“Don’t worry, Tim. I won’t do
anything to jeopardize the operation.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear
anything.”

“Thanks for the heads up,
Tim.”

“Sara, what’s happening?”
George asked.

“They discovered spaceships
circling in the atmosphere right in the zones that the space agencies and satellite
picture companies are blocking from public view.”

“
Shit!
You were right
about aliens.”

“I wish I was wrong. We don’t
know what technology those people or aliens have. Maybe they’re powerful enough
to wipe out the entire human race.” She put her hands on her tummy. “Maybe
they’ll turn us into slaves.”

George clenched his fists. “I
won’t let them do that to us. We’ll fight for our freedom and for the freedom
of our children.” He held Sara’s hand. “It will be okay, Sah. We, humans, will
find a way out. We’re not cut out for extinction.”

* * *

Jennifer’s phone rang. A look
at the screen told her that the call was from Planet House security.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ma’am, there’s a lady at the
gate. Her name’s Teresa and she says you’re expecting her.”

“Let her in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jennifer looked at the CCTV
and saw Teresa being escorted to the door by an armed soldier. When Teresa and
the soldier reached the front door, Jennifer pressed a button and the door
opened.

Teresa hesitantly entered the
house. Her feet echoed as she walked in the expansive reception room.

“Welcome, ma’am,” a maid said
to her. “Please sit down. The First Lady will see you in a moment.”

“Thank you.”

Teresa sat on one of the many
seats in the room.

“Teresa!”

“Jennifer!”

The two women embraced. In
spite of herself, Jennifer could not hide her joy at seeing her best friend. It
was more than two months since she had last spoken to Teresa.

“Jennifer, the guards frisked
me and scanned me for bugs,” Teresa said. “Three months ago, if somebody told
me that one day I’d have to be frisked to see my own best friend, I’d have told
them that they had lost their marbles.”

“Frisking you wasn’t my idea,
Teresa. It’s a routine security procedure.”

“I know.”

Jennifer looked in Teresa’s
eyes. “Mom said we should talk and I think she’s right.”

“Yeah, she’s right. I’m
sorry, Jennifer. I don’t know what got into me. I had no right to insult you. The
first time I saw your parents on this planet, I freaked out. I hated you for
saving your parents and leaving mine on doomed Earth. I said things I shouldn’t
have said. My parents told me everything that happened. Please forgive me,
Jennifer.”

“Teresa, you’re like my own
sister. That’s behind us now. I’m glad your parents finally made it to E
Utopia.”

Teresa sobbed. “But Don
refused to come. He couldn’t leave his parents.”

“You should have included his
parents on your list.”

“I did. I included his
parents and his young brother. But his father refused to come because he
couldn’t leave his parents. The invitations had already been sent out and I
couldn’t make a place for Don’s grandparents. In the end all of his family
refused to come.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I can’t imagine a life without
Don. He was my everything. Without him I’m lost.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jennifer
said. “Don is a good guy. It’s not your fault. You tried your best to bring him
here.”

“I wish I could return to
Earth to save him.”

“Don’t lose hope. Maybe
you’ll see him again. Two of my chosen ones refused to come. I wasn’t very
close to them but they were family. The space force is carrying out the last of
the evacuations. I’ll arrange for Don’s grandparents to fill the two unoccupied
places on my list of chosen ones.”

“Will you do that for me?”

“Teresa, you’re like a sister
to me. I’ll do anything for you. Let me look for a video camera and together we
can make a new invitation video for Don.”

Teresa hugged Jennifer.
“Thank you so much, Jennifer. Don likes you a lot. I’m sure he’ll be swayed if
he sees both of us in the invitation video.”

Chapter Twelve

Rear Admiral Sopoaga felt
nervous. He had been jittery since the arming of his fleet. When the E Utopia
Project began, the Oxygen Harvesters could fill their tanks after milking the Earth’s
atmosphere for less than fifteen minutes. With the current oxygen content in
the atmosphere, they now needed at least thirty-five minutes to fill their
tanks, which increased the risk of detection by the Earth’s powers. The last
thing Sopoaga wanted was an all-out war with Earth.

Sopoaga knew that the rate at
which earthlings were making oxygen from their oxygenation plants was increasing.
Soon the amount of oxygen that earthlings made would equal the amount of oxygen
that E Utopians took from the Earth’s atmosphere. It was now difficult to substantially
reduce the level of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and it would take a long
time to achieve the admiralty’s goal of wiping out earthlings by El Monstruo.

If it was up to him, the E
Utopians would stop the oxygen harvesting operation and accept that they had failed
to wipe out Earth’s polluters. The families of the pioneers had been safely
evacuated to E Utopia, and it was better for E Utopians to forget about Earth
and concentrate instead on their new planet. E Utopia’s atmosphere now needed
little oxygen to become ideal for human survival, and they could get that oxygen
safer and faster from Venus’ carbon dioxide.

Although he was incensed at
the decision to continue extracting oxygen from Earth’s atmosphere, Sopoaga
remained fiercely loyal to his superiors. They had delivered on their promise
to evacuate his loved ones from Earth and he would be forever grateful for
that. As a senior officer of the space force, his superiors had promised him a
hundred hectare farm on E Utopia. When the oxygen havesting was over, he was
going to spend the rest of his life farming in peace without having to worry
whether the next king tide would cover his home with sea water.

Sopoaga gave his charges
routine last minute instructions before they entered Earth orbit. The ships slowed
down when they entered orbit and the Earth’s gravity pulled them toward the
ground. The fleet split into two when it reached an altitude of forty-three
thousand feet above the Earth’s sea level. The two halves of the fleet circled
the air, extracting its scanty oxygen.

*

“The aerospaceships are in
position, sir,” Captain Brad Burns of the US Navy said, looking at the images
coming from one of the large displays in the operations room of the USS Ronald
Reagan supercarrier. “They’re roughly at an altitude of forty thousand feet.”

Rear Admiral Pat Griffin looked
at the display for seconds before he barked, “Get me the pilots on the double.”

“Yes, sir,” Captain Burns
said.

“On the double” turned out to
be two minutes.

“The spaceships are in this position,”
the rear admiral said to the two pilots, pointing at the display. “The ships
are at an altitude of about forty thousand feet. With the oxygen content in the
air, you can only fly to about twenty thousand feet. Fly towards them. When
your birds begin to stall, release the drones and return.”

“Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Wish you good luck, captain.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Captain Huggins and Second Lt
Holloway saluted and scooted to the deck.

Two fighter jets were already
in position on two of the aircraft carrier’s four catapults, attached to
shuttle slots. Each jet had a small space drone attached to its belly. The two
pilots jumped into the planes and prepared themselves for takeoff. The flight deck
crew attached the holdbacks and raised the jet blast defectors behind the
planes. When they were satisfied that everything was in order, the catapult
officer activated the catapults from the catapult control system above the
flight deck. Steam valves opened, filling the catapult cylinders with high-pressure
steam from the aircraft carrier’s reactors. When the pressure of the steam had
reached the level required for producing the optimum weight to thrust ratio,
the pilots blasted the engines of the jets. The catapult officer released the
pistons, forcing the holdbacks to release. Steam pressure catapulted the planes
forward and within two seconds, the planes accelerated from zero to two hundred
and sixty-six meters per second.

“I hope this isn’t going to
be mankind’s first contact with some green aliens,” Captain Huggins said with a
chuckle. His heart was pounding hard but as the senior officer, he had to conceal
his fears.

“I hope the same, sir,”
Second Lt. Holloway said.

In fifteen seconds the jets
had reached an altitude of fourteen thousand feet. When the atmosphere still
contained twenty-one percent oxygen by volume, the jets could reach an altitude
of sixty thousand feet. They began to stall as they approached nineteen
thousand feet.

“Let’s release the small
birds,” Captain Huggins said.

“Yes, sir,” said Second Lt.
Holloways.

Huggins was the first to
release his drone. It fell a few meters before its rocket engines went into
action and propelled it up. Holloways released his drone three seconds later.
Both drones were equipped with heat-seeking forward-looking infrared cameras.
The FLIR cameras picked the infrared light emissions from the rocket engines of
the spaceships and directed the drones toward the ships.

When the drones were just
over a kilometer away from the nearest spaceship, drones operators in the
aircraft carrier overrode the infrared-homing system and began to direct the
drones manually.

“Sir,” Captain Burns said to Rear
Admiral Griffin. “The ships have transmitted some radio signals but they’re
encrypted. I think it’s now time for us to raise the spaceships before they
undertake any hostile action.”

The rear admiral nodded and
cleared his throat.

*

“We’re being followed, sir!”
shouted Lieutenant Commander
Karariki
Bakaane, the Kiribatian astrogator of OH13, looking at the TCAS display.

Adrenaline was pumped into Captain
Lebia Nuate’s veins when she looked at the multi-function display. She pressed
the push-to-talk button of the short-range radio communication system that the
ship used to communicate with its sister ships when the fleet was in stealth
mode. “Rear admiral Sopoaga, can you hear me!” she said with a heavy Nigerian
accent. Her accent became more pronounced when she was angry or worried. “Rear
Admiral Sopoaga, do you copy!” she echoed.

“Roger that captain.”

“We’re being followed. We’ve
spotted two vehicles approaching us.”

“Vehicles or missiles?” Rear
Admiral Sopoaga said as calmly as he could.

“No missile lock, sir.”

Sopoaga’s heart skipped a bit
when he looked at the multi-function display system. Although none of his ships
had reported a missile lock, he knew that there was a big chance that the two objects
trailing them were missiles. He pressed the PTT button and addressed his
charges.

“Rear Admiral Sopoaga to all
ships. We’ve got two visitors. You must defend yourselves in case of any
hostile action. We have no missile lock but that doesn’t rule out the possibility
that the two objects are missiles. They could be heat-seeking missiles or
passive radar missiles. My guess is that they’re surveillance aircraft. Do you
copy? Defend yourselves and make evasive maneuvers if necessary. Get all your
gunners ready.”

All captains acknowledged
receiving the vice admiral’s message

“With due respect, sir,” Commander
Jantunen said, looking at the TCAS display. “I don’t think they’re aircraft.
There’s too little oxygen in the air for aircraft to reach this altitude.”

“You’re right commander,” Sopoaga
admitted. “They’re not airplanes but they’re too slow to be missiles. All
gunners get ready!”

*

Rear Admiral Griffin pressed
the PTT button and cleared his throat. “This is Vice Admiral Griffin of the US
Navy. Respond if you can hear me from your spaceships.”

The aircraft carrier’s comm
system sent an encrypted radio signal to the drones. Drone One decrypted the
signal and broadcasted it in the form of an unencrypted signal with five-kilometer
range.

“This is Rear Admiral Griffin
of the US Navy,” the rear admiral repeated. “We have spotted your spaceships.
Can you please respond and identify yourselves?”

The drones received another
burst of encrypted signals from the ships and they relayed the signals to the
aircraft carrier.

“Do you think they’re trying
to communicate with us?” Rear Admiral Griffin asked Captain Burns.

“It’s hard to tell, sir. Maybe
the signals coming from them are encrypted. There is also a big chance that the
signals are not encrypted. They could be trying to communicate with us in some
alien mumbo jumbo. Perhaps it’s not even a voice transmission.”

“You’re right, Burns. It
might even be data transmission.”

*

Rear Admiral Sopoaga froze
when he heard the voice of his US Navy opposite number.

“Attention to the crew of the
spaceships flying above the Indian Ocean,” the voice boomed from the speakers
of the comm system. “This is the US Navy. Identify yourselves.”

Fuck you, US Navy,
Sopoaga thought.
We’re not in US airspace.
We’re
in international airspace, far away from the United States.
He switched on
the PTT button and breathed deeply. The admiralty had ordered him to avoid having
a ship captured and the best way to do that was to avoid confrontation.
“Attention all ships. Let’s get out of here and head back to Base.”

All captains acknowledged
receiving the order. The ships fought the Earth’s gravity as they travelled
toward outer space.

Half of Sopoaga was glad that
the Earth’s powers had found out about the oxygen harvesting operation. Now the
admiralty had no choice but to order the E Utopian space force to get oxygen
from Venus’ carbon dioxide. He sighed with relief when all his ships left orbit
without incident.

* * *

“The ships are leaving, sir!”
Captain Burns said. “Should we send the drones after them, sir?”

Rear Admiral Griffin shook
his head. “No. Bring the drones home. They don’t have the fuel to follow the
spaceships into deep space. That woman from GEMA was right. We must create a
space force to defend ourselves from these alien invaders.”

The drones were brought back
to the USS Ronald Reagan in the aircraft carrier’s first ever arrested landing
of a rocket-propelled drone.

“I’m getting out of here,
Burns,” the rear admiral said. “All the Pentagon’s top brass are waiting to
debrief me. I’ve a feeling that the President himself will be present during my
debriefing.”

Captain Burns accompanied the
rear admiral out of the operations room, to the deck. A
V-22 Osprey
airplane
was ready and waiting on the deck.

“Have a safe journey, sir,”
Captain Burns said with a salute.

The rear admiral returned the
salute. “See you, Burns,” he said before he entered the V-22.

“Let’s get going, gentlemen,”
he shouted as soon as his butt touched the seat nearest the cockpit.

“Yes, sir,” the crew chorused
before they started the plane’s engines.