Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (26 page)

“Knowing scientists, engineers, and techs as I do, I know you all have your little secret project, the one you keep hidden away from prying eyes. So, by just a show of hands, how many of you have one?” Only one or two hands went up at first, then more. After a minute, eighty percent of the men in the auditorium had their hands up.

“Thank you for your honesty. Now to the question of why you were brought here.” Scott paused a moment until he had their complete attention. “You all know about the alien abductions, so I won’t belabor that fact. Suffice to say, we, that is my troops and I, have been given the task of stopping them first, and defeating them second. The trouble is, we’re fighting with one hand tied behind our backs, because we don’t have access to your work.”

“But … but we know nothing about, um … weapons, or even how to go about making one.” This was echoed by several others.

“We don’t want you to build weapons for us, or even take part in any aspect of the fighting. What we need you to do is use your considerable brainpower to develop a scientific base from which our people can draw. We have questions about many things, such as how do we make a more powerful and smaller dense-pack battery, or, can we shrink the size of the current fusion reactor?”

Scott looked down to see the older man nodding in understanding. “You have a question, sir?” he asked.

The older man stood. “My name is Harold Ingram e … well, never mind all the other names, they’re meaningless. Please call me Sar Ingram as most of my friends do.”

“Okay, Sar Ingram. You have a question?”

“Rather an answer. As old as I am,” he stopped and looked around the room for a moment, “and not as young as the others here, I asked to come so I might see for myself the men, and I understand females, who are fighting this war for us and our children. I have lost several of my grandchildren to these monsters from beyond the stars, and I’d like to contribute what I can to helping you defeat them.” There were a few mutters of “traitor” from around the room, but mostly his statement was met with nods of approval, or startled looks.

“Thank you, Sar Ingram. I think you of all people understand that the only way we can beat these aliens is to have better, more powerful weapons than they do.”

“Of course. And as you say, your scientific base is three hundred years out of date. I also understand your need for cutting-edge research, that on face value, has nothing to do with weapons directly.”

“True. Who knows what one of you might come up with that can be put to good use in this fight.”

“I for one won’t be associated with these degenerate people. Women walking about barefaced, actually hitting men and indulging in all kinds of violence. It’s … it’s unnatural, and against the strict edicts of the Koran.…” By the amount of catcalls and rude noises, the majority didn’t agree with the bearded, dark-haired man who’d shot to his feet in protest.

“You can be assured that you will have a reserved seat on the next shuttle flight back to wherever you came from,” Scott snapped. “That goes for any of you who don’t want to participate in this endeavor.” That brought a lot of foot shuffling. “For those who stay, we have set up a nice housing and research complex away from this base. There you will be able to do research, unlimited and unrestricted, into whatever your specialty is.”

“Unrestricted?” someone shouted.

“Yes. We rule here. There are no State Security people here, no one looking over your shoulder or telling you that you can’t work on this or that.”

“What about us technical people?” a young man at the back of the hall called.

“Oh, we have a lot of work for you to do.”

“Such as?” he challenged.

“For one, take that alien emotional jammer, or whatever it is, and find a way to counter it.”

“Allah be praised. We get to look at some alien tech?”

“You can look and play with all the alien tech you can handle. We have to understand how every bit of it works, and if possible, turn it to our use.” That started another round of chatter.

“I might add, we now have an imam here who is willing to administer to the needs of the faithful.”

“Shit, another spy, I’d wager,” someone called.

“Not so we have noticed so far,” Scott said. “He is a very open-minded man, who even counsels the new female soldiers in our forces. And he doesn’t require them to dress up like a mummy to talk to him either.”

“And what about the females here? Are they all um … well … undressed … barefaced?”

“They are. Some still like to wear a scarf over their hair when off duty.” Scott suspected what they were thinking, and nipped it in the bud: “Sexual harassment of
any
kind is strictly forbidden under the penalty of punishment, and even death if necessary. None of my people will even put up with verbal harassment, so be warned.

“Now we have gotten past that. All those who wish to stay, please exit to the rear. All those who want to go home, please stay in your seats.” This was the moment Scott dreaded. How many would stay, and how many would go?

People stood to make way for those who were staying, and for a while, it was difficult to see the count. At last, the tail end of the group exited the hall and Scott breathed heavily in relief. There were only ten men left, all with angry looks on their faces. That meant he now had two hundred and fifty-odd scientists, engineers, and technicians working for him.

“For those of you who don’t wish to work with us, a shuttle is waiting to take you back to where ever you came from,” he said to those leaving. “Please return your borrowed wristcomps to the man at the door. Be warned, he will check each one, so don’t try to hide it.” With that, he walked off the stage.

He then had another meeting with the people who’d elected to stay, and asked how many wanted their wives and children to come to New Zealand. The construction bots were hard at work building the new facilities and housing, so they had a place to call home. Scott also asked Sar Ingram if he would act as the designated leader of the group, and he accepted. He’d have to put someone in charge of the group at “Los Alamos,” as they decided to call the camp, and try to get these people marching in the same direction at the same time. Now it was just a question of how much help those two hundred and fifty or so would be, and how soon. Scott knew they’d be under mounting pressure to come up with some game-changing weapon or tactic before the next incursion, so Sar Ingram’s task was enormous. Even something as simple as better air-recycling systems for the ships, so they could stay in combat longer, would be of help. The current technology limited the hours any ship could remain out there without recharging and purging the CO
2
. The scrubbers helped, but for long patrols or going out of the system, they needed something new.

Many of the items he needed work on were mundane, not important for short intersystem flights, but long flights were a different matter. Like long-term sanitary systems to handle all the waste and water recycling, since unlike subs that could desalinate seawater, or pump the waste overboard, space ships didn’t have that luxury. It was a headache he needed to pass on to someone else to handle, but he wasn’t the only one with problems.

* * * * * *

The Supreme Ayatollah, Mohammad Kazem Shariatmad, looked around the small private council chamber at the members of the inner executive committee. The dark expression on his hook-nosed face spoke volumes. Shariatmad was the sixth Supreme Ayatollah of his family line, stretching back to the beginning, three hundred years ago, and he wasn’t a happy man. Unlike some of his forbearers, he had no illusions about religion, understanding that it was all about power and control. In public, he presented the face of the pious religious leader the masses expected, looking upon their devotion to Islam with cynical eyes. His dark, bearded face and boring eyes projected the look of fervent belief during those times. In private, he didn’t give a damn, and concentrated on maintaining his authority by any means necessary. Like his grandfather, he wasn’t above culling the members of the inner community if he felt they were wavering in their devotion, or plotting against him. With his own private security detail, all members of a select group who answered only to him, he could make people vanish at a mere look or soft-spoken word.

His detail was composed of the elite of the elite, selected for their loyalty to him and willing to obey any orders he gave. They were the most feared, even by the inner council, un-bribable by anything the members could offer. He made sure they could have anything they wanted, from money, to women, boys, or anything they wanted to do. Most were sadists and murderers, with little or no moral conscience whatsoever. Killing someone’s entire family, men, women, and children was no different to them from stepping on a cockroach.

“It would appear that you underestimated these deviants.” Shariatmad didn’t raise his voice, shout, or show any outward signs of anger. That was for lesser people. His deep baritone carried across the room, even though he spoke softly. He saw sweat sheen on more than one face in the cool, air-conditioned room.

“You have to admit, Kazem, we don’t exactly have a lot of experience when it comes to deviants like this,” Randolph Roberts pointed out.

That Randolph used his middle name didn’t go unnoticed by the others, but the Supreme Ayatollah had known Randolph from boyhood, and on more than one occasion Randolph provided evidence that other members on the upper and lower committees were plotting against him. That it had advanced his gaining the CEO position of the most powerful energy corporation on Earth went without saying. Theirs was definitely a “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” arrangement, and mutually beneficial to them.

“I agree with Randolph. These … animals do things none of us could anticipate,” Imam Mohammad Al Sheara, a hatchet-faced old man, put in.

“And therein you fail to grasp the essential fact that they are not, as you put it, animals, no more than we are. They are highly intelligent men, and … women,” Shariatmad added. The old man looked as if he wanted to spit, but refrained from doing so in the Ayatollah’s presence.

“Deviants they may be,” Shariatmad continued, “and due to the meddling of Skinner and that despicable little man, Kessler, they are very strong and highly resistant to our usual methods of control.” He could see that this didn’t sit well with the old imam, not that it bothered him. The oldster wasn’t long for this world anyway, being in his nineties, and his usefulness as a rabble-rouser was waning.

“We do now have several examples of their hand weapons,” Colin Bolt, from the central European district put in. “At least this gives us something to work with.”

“Yes,” Shariatmad nodded, “not that you have managed to get either one of the only complete weapons to work yet.”

The man had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “It’s the biometric lock that has us puzzled. We have attempted to bypass the lock, but that fried the electronic circuits and rendered the weapon useless.”

“What success have you had assembling the other parts, or duplicating them?”

“We have assembled three so far, but none of them work as they should. As to duplicating them, that’s easy, but not the programming on the control chip.” Bolt deliberately didn’t mention the fatality of one tester when he tried to fire the new weapon. The twin rotary bolts spun up as reported, but kept spinning faster and faster until the breech exploded and killed him. After that, no one wanted to touch any of the others.

The Ayatollah nodded, listening, then continued. “And the latest report, that not only did your agents fail to eliminate this Scott Drake and his whore in the shuttle, but they have now uncovered the identity of several others working with us.”

“Yes, and the agents that sabotaged the shuttle,” Randolph said. “All seven died, either by execution, or by their own hand, but so far we have been unable to find out.”

“So, we lost our eyes and ears on that ship, the
New Zealand
.”

Randolph nodded. “And, we are gradually losing our spy devices, with no way to replace them.”

“Deliberate destruction, or just wearing out?” Shariatmad asked.

Randolph looked pensive for a moment before he spoke. “I’d have to say a little of both, but I don’t have any evidence from the conversations we’ve overheard that they know they are there, or where they are.”