Talosian Chronicles 6: Armageddon (8 page)

The President was surprised by the question. "Not presently, no. However, there has always been some very limited trade going on. There are several patents held by the corporation the was formed by the now-Terran people that are still legal and those goods, which are actually technology based, are for sale over the Internet world-wide. Beyond that, we just haven't gotten to that level of diplomatic relations yet. Perhaps, now that the ice has been broken so to speak, some agreements can be reached without violating your people's technology restrictions."

The President pointed out another reporter. "Mister Green."

The man stood. "Silas Green, Associated Press. Sir, does this mean that the United States will officially recognize the Terrans as a sovereign nation?"

"That is still being discussed and no decision has yet been reached. Other than to tell you that we are still discussing it, I can't really comment further," the President replied.

The next reporter stood and asked her question; "Sir, have you been able to speak directly with the Terran Defense leaders or are they still insisting on using the United Nations as a go-between?"

"No, they are using the United Nations as a point of contact because to do otherwise would violate their neutral position in regards to this world. Yes, it's somewhat frustrating, but also necessary to maintain their neutrality. They are very careful to not show favoritism to any single nation no matter how large or influential they may be. Considering their mission here, that is very important to maintain the level of trust they need to do their jobs. I don't like it, but I can well understand it," The President replied.

Ian muted the monitor again. "Well, that was better than I expected. At least the President of the United States isn't painting us as the villain here."

"No, but I better get in touch with Janet Laskar so she can get her people working on the presentation the President was talking about. I would imagine the people are going to want to see it as soon as they can," Alex replied.

Site NY4

Central Park

New York City, Earth

Sol Sector

Late the next day, near the center of central park, Lt. Colonel Adam Wells was about to sit down to dinner when one of his troops requested entry into his tent. “Sir, the… uh, visitor… Sir, one of the visitors is asking to speak with you!”

“I told you that no reporters are allowed! Send them away!” Adam almost yelled at the man.

“Sir, it’s not a reporter. It’s one of The Terrans!” The private said excitedly.

Adam sat there staring at the private for a few minutes. “If this is some kinda of prank, private…”

“No, sir! It’s no prank! She is waiting for you at the gate,” the man said throwing a thumb over his left shoulder to indicate the big weapon emplacement.

'The gate' was a gate in the chain-link fence the drones had put up to keep curious people from accidentally walking into the force shield. Adam quickly put his gear back on and followed the private to where a very attractive black woman in Terran Marine Uniform waited. She wore an arm band that had the rank of a master sergeant and the insignia of air-defense artillery. As he approached, she came to attention and saluted.

The woman spoke, “Sir, my apologies for disturbing you this late in the day. However, a potential problem has been identified by my superiors. I have been instructed to brief you. I am Master Sergeant Tonya Miles, Terran Marine Corps.”

Adam returned her salute. “Lieutenant Colonel Adam Wells, U.S. Army. What’s the problem, Sergeant?”

She put her hand to her ear and spoke, “Control? Raise cannon two; maintenance mode please.” She turned as large doors opened and a rumbling was felt through the ground. A huge weapons platform rose into the evening light; looking like a large headless statue. Each of the ‘arms’ were short and ended in what looked like two forward pointing ‘fingers’. “Sir, the problem comes from this, our anti-aircraft defense cannon. Those finger looking appendages are actually high-velocity; high-speed cannons not dissimilar from your Vulcan, air defense gun. This one, however, fires rounds at a very high speed, that is not only does that thing fire at about a thousand rounds a second; the rounds themselves have a hyper-sonic muzzle velocity.”

“Hyper-sonic?” Adam asked, amazed at the weapon displayed before him.

“Yes, sir. Between twenty and forty times the speed of sound.”

“Holy shit! So what’s the problem?”

“Well sir, I don’t know how much you know about physics, but do you know what a sonic shockwave could do to anyone near this when we fire it?”

When he shook his head no, she put her hand to her ear again. “Control, Test fire procedure on cannon two-bravo; One round, ice, Confirm safe trajectory of zero, nine-zero, at five percent power.”

Everyone froze as the huge gun spun effortlessly in place and pointed straight up into the sky. As it started to move, the barrels on the inside left cannon started to spin very rapidly and a soft whine could be heard.

Suddenly, Adam felt like the air had been sucked out of his lungs, and the whole world moved in his vision followed by a series of sharp, rapid, multiple booms that sounded like thunder on speed. It staggered him, but didn’t knock him down. His ears were ringing and his heart was racing. “Mother of God!”

Tonya snickered, but agreed with him. She put her hand back to her ear piece. “Thank you, control. Proceed with ground clutter and contour mapping before retracting the gun.” She turned back to the Colonel. “Now do you begin to see the problem, sir? If I have a couple of fighters coming in, say over Central Park east, and I need to fire, I’d take out the whole east side of the park.”

“I see. Have you figured out a way to keep that from happening?” Adam asked.

“Yes, sir. Our engineers have developed a sort of dampener to be installed on the surrounding buildings. That will be happening shortly. Now, I've received orders that we are to fit you and your men with armor and weapons; the armor will protect you from the shockwaves, but any civilians in the area are going to get the full brunt.

The bright boys up on the moon have figured out a way to generate a dampening field that will help the structures, but the human ear is too sensitive to be protected. So, we've also been authorized to make hundreds of pairs of special hearing protectors. They are to be handed out to as many people as will take them. I'm sure several will be taken to be checked out, but that's okay, we can make more. I've been asked to ask you and your men to begin handing them out to all civilians. If you need more, just let us know.

Just then the maintenance access hatch opened to allow the construction drones to leave. They rose into the air turned toward different directions and seemingly disappeared.

“What? Where are they going? How did they…” Adam asked.

“Those are the construction drones going out to install those dampeners I mentioned. We are cloaking them so as not to cause panic if anyone were to see them away from here. The devices they are installing will also be invisible. We don’t want any of them to be removed since that would most likely mean destruction for the building it was supposed to protect,” Tonya explained.

“Well, I guess that explains how come we haven’t seen you get resupplied. I was going to ask you about that.”

“I’m sorry, Colonel. There are some things we are not allowed to tell you, but we haven’t been resupplied, we don’t need to be. Every installation is completely self-sufficient. I can’t tell you how. I have also been authorized to give you visual identification cards for all our craft as well as what we know of enemy craft.”

As they where talking, a lone construction drone had been moving boxes to the gate. Tonya asked the drone for one pair of the ear guards and one stack of the ID cards.

The drone beeped and a panel slid open revealing her requests. She took them and the big drone moved off to finish its task.

“What is that thing, exactly?” Adam asked.

“Special-purpose, intelligent robot, basically. We call them drones because they are mostly controlled by a remote computer system. Now, here is the hearing protector. As you can see, they look just like normal the ear protectorion worn by construction workers. They have been tested, and will eliminate ninety-nine percent of the damaging noise, while still allowing the wearer to hear. The electronics inside them are all standard Earth technology so we’re not letting anything slip by giving them to you. Each case has several of the batteries that they need to work, but if the battery fails they will still protect the wearer, they just won’t be able to hear anything else until they take them off. All of the other installations will be, or are doing the same thing we are. So there should be no shortage of supplies. We will allow your troops on the site to remove the boxes. I am told to instruct you that we are also monitoring your radio frequencies in case of emergency. So if you need anything, we will answer to 'missile command' or 'missile control'.”

Adam nodded as he issued orders for troops to collect the boxes. “Sergeant, we've heard so many different things about you folks; everything from you being human, to kidnapped humans that that are controlled by aliens. I don't mean to be rude, but what are you folks, exactly?”

She chuckled, “Colonel, I grew up on the lower-east side. When my husband was killed by the gangs, I skipped paying rent for a month, took my welfare check and moved. I didn’t want to lose any of our children the way I lost their father. I ended up in Reno, Nevada, finished high school then went to college all on a special program they had there. I got a job as a correctional officer at a prison and worked there until I was recruited by these people.

"It was the best choice I ever made. No discrimination, no gangs, no drugs and my kids! They are out-of-this-world happy! My oldest is planning on becoming a fighter pilot after he finishes a Master's Degree degree in astrophysics. The twins are about to graduate high school but haven’t decided what they want to do yet.”

“You can’t have children that old! What are you? Twenty-four?” Actually he though she was younger, but the level of competence and maturity she had shown had to come from a more mature person.

“You think I’m twenty-four? Try thirty-three. My oldest is seventeen and the twins are fifteen,” Tonya answered him.

“They’re graduating from high school at fifteen! That’s unheard of! When will your oldest get his degree?” Adam asked.

“He still has a semester and a half to finish his graduate degree. But lately he has been making noises about going all the way to PhD. We have an excellent school program set up; where the kids pretty much learn at their own pace. Mine got a later start than some so they are older than the average for graduation. The hardest part for them was making the move in the first place. It took some getting used to, adjusting to living on the moon, then another planet.”

“It sounds too good to be true. There has got to be a fly in the ointment somewhere,” Adam said.

“Other than the fact that we are at war, I don’t know what it would be. We do have a completely different culture than what would be allowed here on Earth. Personal freedoms have much more value. Religion has no political power at all, but it is protected as a personal freedom. It’s pretty much a different world than the one we left behind. I imagine a lot of people might have a problem with that, but the system is just, fair and makes sense.”

“Damn, where do I sign up?” He chuckled. “My daughter needs that kind of environment. She’s starting to get into the drugs and is hanging out with some real trouble-makers at school.”

Tonya chuckled. “No offense, sir, but you wouldn’t be accepted until your commitment to the army down here is completed. One of the customs is honoring oaths. It’s a tradition that is so old and carries so much weight that it has the force of law. Even verbal oaths are honored. If one of us ever uses the words; ‘I swear to you…’ you can count on it happening. There are no crooked politicians, if someone makes a campaign promise, they can be dismissed from office for not fulfilling it.”

“Wow, that sounds even better. I bet the kids had a hard time adjusting to that! It seems every time I turn around my daughter is saying the words ‘I promise’ about something or another. Wait, I didn't think you guys have been up there all that long. How can you have traditions?” Adam asked. 

“When they started it, the Admiral and the rest based our society on the race that built our first starship; Star Dancer. That's where we get most of our laws and customs. As for kids and the whole 'I promise' thing; unless emancipated, only such oaths made to parents are binding until the child reaches their majority or have lived among us long enough to know better. New people have to wear a special bracelet until they have acclimated to our culture and customs. That way if they mess up, no one really holds them accountable for it; instead, they are simply informed of the transgression. Of course there is the common sense stuff like you don’t open an airlock with out a suit, you don’t kill, rape or steal. Anything else can be taken to an adjudicator,” Tonya explained.

“No drugs or gangs?” Adam asked.

“Some drugs are legal to use in off duty hours, such as alcohol and marijuana and a few others, but surprisingly enough, no one seems to use them all that much. We have other things to distract us. For example, you can attend college, for free, at anytime you wish. You want to learn to play the guitar? Sign up for a class. Video games, movies, music; anything you want to do is usually available anytime you want to do it.”