The Icarian Legacy Collected Edition: Brave Souls - First Strike (Volume 3) (16 page)

The admiral smiled.

“Thank you Mr. Koenig. I hope that the tests prove successful. Having shields when the time comes will be extremely useful.”

The next hour after that passed in several discussions about the other technologies that might be reversed. And when the officers departed the scientists returned to their jobs. They all knew that on their research and the things that they might discover, that those discoveries might decide about the future of their world.

And that was the greatest motivation of all.

21 December 2017 Pentagon. 19:00 hours

Simonson poured scotch in six glasses, one for itch of the men that were gathered this evening in this office. He handed them their glasses and then finally he took his own and sat down on one of the chairs. As he looked at the others he smiled. He was the youngest man in the room. And not just that, but he was also junior in rank compared to everyone else.

As he watched them he crossed eyes with Admiral Johnson.

Johnson nodded and turned toward the man who gathered them here.

General Taylor was reading the report about the progress of the research of the alien ship in Norfolk. The same report was in the hands of the British admiral Sir William Levin.

Levin was his new commander in chief. With the decision to form the EDF (Earth Defense Force) which incorporated every army force of every country in the world and that included the ground forces, the navy and the air force new commanders were chosen. The top positions went to General Jack S. Taylor the CJCS of the US army forces and Sir William Levin. Taylor was responsible for the massive army formations that incorporated the soldiers from every army in the world, or better said he was the commander in chief of EFA (Earth Federation Army).

The former commander of the British Royal Navy Sir William Levin became the new Fleet Admiral who commanded the EFN (Earth Federation Navy) which incorporated the navy fleets. It was planned to form two branches of the EFN one for the sea fleet, the EFSN (Earth Federation Sea Navy), and one new for the planned space fleet EFSF (Earth Federation Space Fleet).

The other two men were General Carl M. Peters the new commander of EMC (Earth Marine Corps) and one civilian Charles Bentley the chief administrator of NASA. He smiled at the thought. Although Bentley wasn’t wearing a uniform his held the rank of General in the United States Air Force.

When the treaty for forming a federation was signed everyone feared that the integrating of the militaries will be the most difficult task. As it turned out, that opinion proved groundless. The first thing that both Taylor and Levin did was to copy the NATO statute. The former military organization became the backbone for the newly formed EDF.

The years of mutual cooperation, exercises and joined missions made the transition and the integration much easier. There was still much work to be done but the first real steps were already taken. It was the same thing for the Federation and its government. The United Nations Organizations practically became the first government of the newly formed Earth Federation. The presidency went to the men who first proposed the unification.

Unary Samba became the first president of the Earth Federation. The political situation and unification was a lot more difficult than the military and from the way it looked it seemed that it will take couple of years for the Federation to really start to function. But no one had any doubts that that day will come. The only fear was that they might fail to stop the invasion. That was the only thing that they could not let happen. And in the next years everything else would come second when compared to that and to the needs of the military and especially the fleet.

Simonson never looked at the report that the others were reading. He had no need because it was a report he wrote.

After couple of minutes Taylor raised his head and looked at the others.

“I think that now we can start the meeting. It was an excellent report Eliot.”

Simonson smiled.

“Thank you general. It was a pleasure to write it.”

The comment made everyone chuckle.

“Well that is first, an admiral that likes his homework. I never thought that I’d see the day.”

The comment came from Levin. His British accent made the joke even funnier.

“Well they are younger so who knows.”

“Yes.”

The laughing relaxed the atmosphere and the tension. Taylor looked at them and smiled. It was good to start the talk like this. They all needed a little relaxation.

“Charles i trust that the technology that will come from Norfolk made everyone happy down there.”

The NASA administrator smiled.

“I think that they were more than happy, first the RCS thrusters and then the shields. It will sure make things a lot easier.

“Do you have an estimate about the time when the ship will be finished?”

“I believe that it will be finished by the end of January. The mission should be launched in March. The team of scientists is already chosen. And I believe that you have the team of marines that will go on the mission as well.”

“Yes we do. There is one change in that regard. The mission will have several more members. The Macedonians requested before giving us access to the ship on their territory for their members to be included.

Several scientists and linguists from those territories will come and one of them will be Fillip Stefanovski from Macedonia.

He will go as a representative of the Federal Government, but he is still a member of their military so we can assume his role in this. The request came from the president. And from what I know of the man I think that he made a good choice.”

“Isn’t that the soldier that…”

Taylor looked at Peters. The marine general smiled as he noticed both Admiral Johnson and Simonson nodding with their heads.

“Yes he is the soldier that delivered us the data and killed the alien soldiers. He won’t hold his rank instead he will be an addition to the science team. “

“How can he be an addition to the science team?”

“He can because he has degrees in mathematics and physics, and because he speaks several languages, especially old languages. And if the aliens are any indication we might need one more linguist in the team.”

Levin turned to Charles. The British admiral was silent till that moment.

“Mr. Bentley is the Deadalus going to be able to make the additional trip to the coordinates that we have.”

“Yes it will be. With the reactors it should be able to operate without any problems. The trip will be slower and it will extend the mission but we already planned for that. The food and water supplies will be doubled. And with the thrusters from the alien ship we don’t need to bring additional fuel. We were extremely lucky in that regard. Everyone knows how important it is to find out why they chose those coordinates. We hoped to find out more with our telescopes but they showed nothing but empty space. And when I say empty I mean totally empty. There is nothing there.”

After this no one said anything for the next couple of minutes. They all drank their drinks and were just looking at each other. Johnson was the first to break the silence.

“Are there any plans for how will we use this information.”

“What do you mean Jack?”

The admiral inhaled and looked at his superior officer.

“We all know that if want to have any chance of repelling the invasion and destroying their fleet our best chance will be to catch them there when they, as our science fiction movies and writers say, exit from hyperspace. We know that the best weapon we have against them is our nuclear arsenal. And that it will take several really strong nuclear devices, possibly even hundreds to destroy that fleet. We all know what will happen if we have to fight them here on Earth. That many nuclear bombs… the fallout will be disastrous. We will sign our own death warrant.”

“There are already plans for ships. And we know that we have conventional weapons that can damage them.”

Johnson smiled at the last comment.

“I’m sorry general. Yes I know that the rail guns and the main guns from the battleships managed to cause significant damage on the ships we faced here. But those ships were small and the largest one was heavily damaged before we engaged it. And our losses were enormous. It took a lot of shots to break through its hull. And it didn’t have any shields. If it had…”

He left the last sentence hang in the air for couple of seconds.

“No Jack. We all know that our best, no our only chance of stopping them is at that point in space. If they come here it’s all over. Even if we win that battle our losses will be so high… Yes we should make contingency plans in case they make it to Earth, but we have to try to stop them there. That is the place where we should draw the line.”

“He is right sirs. We should try to make our stand there.”

Taylor looked at both admirals. He knew that they were right. And that they spoke from experience. They both were the only people in the room who faced the aliens. And they had firsthand experience about their abilities. And he read the report from the science teams that were researching the wrecks. He read the paragraph that warned and mentioned the power of the shields that the cruiser had, and of its weapons. The power of that ship was breathtaking. And that was only one ship that was being stripped from everything. And the fleet will have more ships like it, maybe even some more powerful from it.

“I know that you are right Eliot. Plans are already in motion to create an opportunity that will make it possible to make that stand. And who knows maybe the expedition will uncover something we can use. There is hope that we might be able to use those ships.”

“Well we will know in couple of months.”

After this they went in to discussion about the possibility of using some more technologies from the alien ship. The meeting carried on for several more hours.

And while they discussed, high above them large teams of technicians worked on the ship. With the reactors in place the construction was nearing the finish. The engine was slowly being put in place. And in the distance lonely ships were waiting the final return of their creators…

                                     
CHAPTER SEVEN

23 March 2018 11:00 hours

International Space Station Freedom

The largest object that man ever managed to build looked tiny compared to the beautiful world it orbited.

The ISSF was the biggest and most expensive project that humanity created. It was placed in the L4 Lagrange point and orbited the planet in a stabile orbit. Its creation and building started three years before with a joint effort by more than a hundred countries. The biggest investors normally were the USA, Russia, China, Japan and the EU who had the most developed space programs. There were plenty private investors as well as more and more private companies took the business of carrying satellites and people in space.

The station incorporated in itself the previous ISS and was build around it. It had a circular form with a massive central structure. To an outside observer it would have looked like a wheel. Even today the station was still being upgraded and new modules were arriving from Earth. And it was easily visible from the planet below with its size of eight square kilometers.

The plans for it dated back to the seventies of the previous century, back to the golden years of the space program. Nobody imagined its creation until three and a half years when the private companies that took the brute of space exploration and developed successful space tourism. With the announcement of the plans for discarding the ISS in twelve years because of money issues, and with the increasing need of the private companies for a space station they delivered their proposal to NASA and the governments that operated and sponsored the ISS. After several months of negotiations the plans for the building of Freedom were finally given green light.

And forty two months later the station was operating and as it proved represented the greatest hope of its creators. Its value was proven by the object that orbited several thousand miles away.

Compared to the station the Deadalus looked small. But the first human ship that was supposed to carry a human crew to the outskirts of the Solar system was never going to be built in the short time it was without the station that housed the crews that build it for the last year. It incorporated many of the parts that were planned for the Long Shot. It had a triangular shape and with the attached ARES rockets that were supposed to give it its first boost it looked even bigger than it really was.

It was two hundred and twenty meters long, thirty seven wide, with four decks from top to bottom. Two shuttles were attached on its sides, as well as several escape pods in the form of the modules that were used for the Apollo missions. A large hangar bay lay on its bottom that housed a third smaller space shuttle that could take off and land like an airplane. The shuttle was a donation to the program by the private companies.

Seventy people at the moment were on it. Eight more, than it was planned.  The crew trained and exercised for almost two months. A small test flight was performed to test the ship and its crew several weeks before.

The crew had twenty two soldiers, twenty astronauts and engineers who were the real ship’s crew. And twenty eight were scientists and engineers who had a mission to study the strange fleet.

Connors looked at the ship. He knew every part of it like the back of his hand and today as he was looking at it he felt deep, great pride. And he knew that everyone else felt that too. He knew that million telescopes down on the planet are pointed at the moment at the small point several thousand miles away, at the ship that he and his colleagues worked tirelessly for the past year to build.

“Any minute now…”

The comment came from Samuel. His French accent made Connors laugh.

The big Frenchmen came on the station at the beginning of the project and he was involved in the whole process. Somewhere along the way he and Connors became great friends.

“Yes any minute now.”