Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (35 page)

Stoddard lifted a hand, “The Russians have a nuclear torpedo.”

Eyes turned toward him. President Miles said, “I assume you’re thinking that even if it went off at the beach, it would still destroy the alien ship?”

“Yes ma’am. It’s supposed to be able to destroy coastal cities. Thermal effects from such a weapon should also sterilize the area in case the aliens really are building some super virus.” His eyes flicked over at Tiona, reluctantly acknowledging her father’s contention.

President Miles turned to the Secretary of State, “Can you talk to our friends in Russia and see if they can get one of their submarines into position?”

The secretary looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “They’re going to make a big deal out of our having to ask them.”

Miles grimaced, “It’s going to be a lot bigger deal if we can’t stuff this genie back in the bottle.”

The science fiction guy said, “Couldn’t GSI drop one of their asteroids on that island? The aliens couldn’t deflect something that big and we’d get the same thermal effect without all the radiation.”

All eyes turned to Tiona, she said, “The asteroids we bring back are purposefully chosen to be small enough that they wouldn’t survive transit through the atmosphere.” She shrugged, “Keeps everyone safer…” She paused and got a distant look in her eyes, “Though we did recently start bringing a big one this way.” Her eyes turned to the president, “it’s not here yet. I’ll have to check and see where it is and whether we could… I mean, how long it would take us to bring it down on that island. It would definitely do the job.”

The President’s eyes narrowed, “What if you miss?”

“There’s lot of ocean around that little island, so a miss wouldn’t wipe out a city or something terrible like that. But we’ve only got one arrow for that bow at present. I guess if we missed we
would
have to send in the nuclear torpedo.” She tilted her head, “Or, if our nuclear weapons are waterproof, one of GSI’s discs could drag an A-bomb to the island underwater and you could set it off just like you would a torpedo… if the Russians aren’t cooperative.”

The president looked thoughtful. She glanced around the table, “Okay, it sounds like we’ve got a reasonable plan A, B, and C.” She looked at the NSA guy, “Get on that translation
now
. I don’t want to give up on diplomacy when there’s still some chance we can talk to them.” Next she rounded on the military people who were responsible for obtaining situational awareness. “It sounds like flying discs to Tabuaeran underwater might work, but I want you guys brainstorming other ways for finding out what’s happening on that island! If there’s a bunch of the Gilbertese people left there, we need to make our best effort to get them off before we fire off any A-bombs.” She tilted her head, “Actually we need to make our best effort to get them off before the aliens round up any more of them. I didn’t like the way that looked at all.”

***

Balan could feel a slight tremble in her muzzle. The aliens on the small island where they’d brought the lander down seemed to be as backward technologically as Levon had predicted they would be. A few aircraft had come from elsewhere and passed overhead but they’d proven to be fully susceptible to the meteorite deflection system just like the spacecraft which had approached the lander before they’d arrived. One of the aircraft had crashed into the sea and the other two had turned and fled after being hit by the beam. A number of small objects had flown in just above the water after that. However, the beam weapon had easily dealt with them as well.

However, the damned aliens themselves were violently aggressive! It wasn’t bad enough that they were revolting in appearance; wingless, thick legged, big armed, muzzle-less and having an ugly growth of fine black fibers erupting from the tops of their heads. They made astonishing amounts of noise when the team went out to capture specimens and after a few examples had been rounded up, they’d proven to be extremely strong when they’d physically attacked the team and killed three of Balan’s rendas! In response, Balan’s team had shot about half the specimens they’d captured on the theory that the aliens didn’t
need
to be alive to harvest DNA from them.

Now the genegineers were telling Balan they were having trouble with the aliens’ cellular biology. Apparently, the aliens lacked a cellular organelle that rendas had. In fact, every alien species the rendas had encountered before had some version of this organelle. The organelle constantly corrected errors in nuclear DNA using highly redundant backup copies maintained in the organelle’s special interior. Something about the chemistry in the reservoir within that organelle reduced oxidative and other chemical injuries to the strands, as well as diminishing radiation damage and allowing rapid repair of any damage that did occur.

At first the genegineers couldn’t actually believe that the aliens living on this planet could survive with such poor DNA error correction. Then they’d realized that the radiation levels on the planet were extremely low—because, according to the physics specialists, the planet had an extremely powerful magnetosphere—which would make their poor error correction survivable. They suspected that these beings had originally come from a line of DNA that did form the organelles, but evolution had discarded the organelle because it wasn’t needed in their extremely benign environment.

Nonetheless, it was a problem for the genegineers because the usual strategy for modification of an organism was to insert new genes into the correction organelle. By the very nature of the organelle’s function, genes found in it would get copied into the active nuclear DNA and thus modify the cell. Many of the viral strategies used by the rendas to modify or destroy other species depended on this highly conserved organelle. These viruses penetrated the cell membrane and attached themselves to the organelle, injecting their DNA within it.

“And so,” concluded Genegineer First, “destroying this alien species is going to be very difficult.”

Balan drew back, trying to look menacing rather than dismayed. “Are you saying that
you
can’t deal with these… beings?!”

“No! No,” said the genegineer, looking flustered, “we’ll be
able
to do it, but we’ll have to study
their
viruses first. It would be better if we were near a population center. The alien specimens we’ve obtained here so far are… well, they’re not healthy, but they aren’t carrying many transmissible diseases.”

“We’re
not
moving!” Balan growled. If the few natives they’d encountered here had been difficult to deal with, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be like dealing with tens of thousands of them in some population center.

The genegineer looked a little alarmed, “I… I don’t think we can do it in the time window we have.” He looked back at Genegineer Second who’d come to the meeting as backup. Then the primary genegineer returned his gaze to Balan, “We’ll have to take specimens with us and return to Naust. There, with a much bigger team, we’ll be able to devise a number of possible solutions that can be dropped onto this planet when the second mission returns.”

Balan restrained an impulse to attack the genegineer. “Okay,” she growled, “we
will
gather more specimens. But,
you and your team
will
continue to work as hard as you can to devise a bioweapon we can leave behind. Something that will at least
weaken
these aliens. They’re much more dangerous than any other species we rendas have previously encountered.”

Apprehensively, Balan prepared to contact Levon and give her the news. When the video image opened, Balan was shocked at the transformation in Levon’s appearance.
She’s forced her dominance!
Levon looked almost as large and muscular as Balan remembered the Prenaust looking when they’d been leaving Naust. Being alone in an isolated situation as the dominant renda always resulted in some increased bulk and muscularity, but when one expected to return to their original environment in proximity to an even more dominant renda, the changes were usually mild. Concentrated thoughts about dominance, in the absence of a more dominant female, could produce the kind of changes Balan was seeing on the screen, but if Levon returned to Naust in such a physical condition the Prenaust would kill her.

Unless Levon killed the Prenaust…

Balan forced her mind back to the issues. She began to explain to Levon that the genegineers did not expect to be able to produce a universally lethal virus quickly enough. “So, we’re planning to harvest a lot of specimens and bring them back to Naust with us so that a disease can be designed there. Then when we return to this system…”

Levon had begun shaking her head. Now she interrupted, “There’s
no
reason for you to come with us if you haven’t finished your job there. Just stay and wipe out the aliens so the planet will be ready when the next mission arrives.”

Startled, Balan said, “But…” She’d been about to say, “these aliens are aggressive and violent and startlingly capable,” but Levon had disconnected,
again
.

Balan thought,
We probably won’t
survive
until the next mission arrives!

***

President Miles called her daily alien team meeting to order by clearing her throat. She nodded to Arvin Parque, one of her staff who’d been put in charge of assembling everyone’s information into a single coherent presentation.

Parque indicated the big screen and began, “GSI’s discs were successful in traveling underwater to deliver observational assets to Tabuaeran. After the first one arrived successfully, we delivered forty more which gives us excellent ability to monitor the area directly around the aliens’ landing site and let us put some monitors on the rest of the island.” He nodded at the screen a second time, “This first part’s pretty distressing.” On the screen they watched in growing horror as the aliens—looking a little bit like short-muzzled pterodactyls, except they had arms; bigger, longer legs; and completely inadequate little wings—moved around the island. As they did so they brutally killed or captured people, dogs, cats, seagulls, reptiles… essentially anything that moved. They harvested specimens of various plants as well.

When the video stopped, President Miles grimly said, “Well, we can’t let that go on.”

Parque had paused at her comment, but she nodded for him to go on.

Parque turned back to the screen and said, “In addition to audio and video monitoring, we delivered a couple of infrared laser imaging systems which produced these precision 3-D images of the aliens’ craft.” A rotating image appeared on the screen. “If there’s any need, we can now determine the dimensions of their ship with great accuracy.” He glanced around the room, but no one looked like they felt they had a need for the measurements. Continuing, he said, “We also delivered some radiation sensing instruments. To our astonishment, the aliens’ vessel is quite radioactive. Our NASA team believes that the aliens are using a nuclear thermal rocket engine to produce high accelerations such as they will need to take off again. Presumably they use their plasma engine for sustained thrusts when it’s out in space. For those of you not familiar, a nuclear thermal rocket uses a reactor to heat a working fluid to extremely high temperatures, exhausting it through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. This is significantly more efficient than a chemical rocket, producing specific impulses nearly twice as high. As you’ll see in this image, there’s a hose extending from their ship into the ocean. We believe they’re using it to fill their propellant tanks with seawater.” He shrugged, “They may be using electrolysis to break the water and capturing only the hydrogen since liquid hydrogen makes a more efficient propellant.” He tilted his head in reaction to someone’s gesture, “Yes?”

“Just how radioactive is this thing? I mean, are we talking about dangerous levels?”

“Oh yes. They must have some shielding scheme that protects them while they’re inside the craft, but you really wouldn’t want to spend much time in its vicinity. It’d only take a few hours to accumulate a lethal dose.”

Murmurs broke out around the table. Tiona heard the man who’d asked the question mutter, “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!”

The president was frowning, “In the video clip you showed us of the hose you think they’re filling the ship with, wasn’t one of the aliens standing near the rocket engines?”

Parque grimaced, “Yeah, they’re surprisingly cavalier about hanging around them.”

Some disbelieving exclamations broke out this time. The president said, “So you’re telling me these aliens are smart enough to travel here from another star, but they don’t know about radiation?!”

“They’ve
got
to know about radiation, since they presumably built the reactor. It’s hard to believe that they don’t understand the dangers, but we don’t really know.”

“What else
do
we know?”

Parque said, “The NSA has evaluated Dr. Gettnor’s translation of some of the aliens’ transmissions. Using it as a Rosetta Stone, they
have
been able to perform further translations that make sense. This suggests that Dr. Gettnor’s translation system is in fact accurate. Although General Cooper apparently chose the file to be translated at random, it’s been disquieting to learn that the aliens discussed extermination of the ‘intelligent species’ in our solar system in three different sections of that single file. They do apparently plan to do this with bio weapons.”