The Black Ships (2 page)
South East England
January 3rd, 2026
J
an Colbert waited impatiently while a technician pounded away at the
keys. An entire room of students sat chattering, reading or simply looking
bored as they sat in the tiered rows of the lecture room.
This was more than a simple question of her
room usage statistics – the technical issue would offset that – their scheduled
communication slot with the ISS facility on Mars would likely be lost if they
didn’t manage to connect. The team in tech support had rolled their eyes at her
yesterday when she requested a dry run. It was obvious now that her request
would have saved a great deal of trouble.
Even worse, Edward sat there in the front
row, along with several other faculty members, smiling with condescension as
the highlight of the winter semester slowly slipped through her fingers. She
had been surprised to see him in the tiers when she walked into the hall but
she could hardly ban him; she had extended an open invitation to all her
colleagues. Even a self-absorbed professor from the English Literature
department could claim a seat and smirk to his heart’s content. Jan steadfastly
told herself she was ignoring his presence as she stalked the stage.
Perhaps
he sabotaged the equipment,
she mused to herself as she paced.
The technician’s shoulders relaxed as he
finished a flourish of keystrokes. An image of a control room came up on the
projection screen behind Jan but no astronauts were in sight.
At least we
have the connection,
she thought. This was the high point of the
semester; a video discussion between the first Mars settlers and her fourth-year
exobiology class. She had wanted to do it on the 2
nd
, the third
anniversary of their departure from Earth, but there was no room on the
communication link. Today was the best she could get.
Her relief was interrupted when she
realized that the technician was explaining to her, in great detail, what he
had done to fix the problem. He was in the midst of a bizarre discourse on IP’s
and security certificates.
“Not now,” she said quietly as she turned
him, none too gently, towards the door. “This wouldn’t be such a dog’s
breakfast if you’d done a dry run yesterday.”
Do I really need to listen to
this fool when I have another planet on hold?
She walked over to the little cross of
masking tape on the floor and turned to face the camera. “Hello Vinland Station,
this is Dr. Jan Colbert. Is anyone home?” The students finally settled down as
they watched an image from an alien world. The backdrop transmitting from Mars
was a workbench beneath a whiteboard. The board was splattered with hydraulic
fluid and the bench littered with tools and binders.
You’d think they would
clean up for this.
“We’ll have to wait four minutes for them
to hear that,” she said, turning to face the class, “and another four before
they can answer – unless they went out for dinner!” She was rewarded with a few
chuckles from the class. The lamest of jokes can get results if you don’t act
like you’re making a joke.
Getting a good laugh always helped to
relieve the stress. Jan was just about to remind her Q&A panel to have
their questions ready when the stress came back. The half of the class still
looking at the screen gave a variety of small involuntary twitches or warding
arm movements; a preliminary fight-or-flight reaction. One of the students in
the third row let out a scream as Jan was still turning to see what had
happened on screen.
A figure looked out at them. It was perhaps
half the average size of a human and its charcoal grey suit looked to be made
of interlocking plates of some hard material. It had unusual red glyphs
adorning the front of one of the shoulder plates that sat closest to its neck.
The iridescent face visor was spattered with the same hydraulic fluid as the
bench and whiteboard.
Is that hydraulic fluid, or blood?
Jan cut the microphone. It was still three
minutes before the creature would hear her greeting. Whoever that was, he
didn’t have a friendly feeling about him and she shuddered to think it would
soon be hearing her voice. She stood there, rooted to her mark on the floor for
a moment of indecision before she pulled out her cell phone and dialed the
chancellor of the university.
Washington, D.C.
January 4
th
, 2026
"O
kay Sam, are we done?” President Parnell
took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. It had been a long night - another
drone attack inside Pakistani territory. He had been roused at three in the
morning to authorize it and he would be needed again very soon to mollify an
outraged Pakistani diplomat because of it.
The Spartans had the right idea,
he
thought.
Two kings instead of just one, I could be in bed right now while
some other jerk picks up the slack.
“Just one more item, Mr. President.” The
chief of staff nodded over at the Director from the
Office of Science and
Technology Policy,
who had been standing with the rest of the staff during
the morning brief.
“Oh hell!” Parnell surprised even himself
by the outburst, but he was too tired to hold back. “Mary, if this is about
weapons of mass destruction, you can save it for the next president.” He stared
at her as though regarding a live grenade.
Director Perdue smiled and shook her head.
“Nothing like that, sir. We’ve lost all contact with the Vinland Station. No
contact with the colonists since the day before yesterday. Even the beacon is
down.” She shrugged. “The comms gear was provided by the Japanese Space Agency
so NASA won’t get any egg on their faces. Our exposure looks minimal for now.”
Parnell’s shoulders relaxed as Mary
outlined the issue. “Administrative exposure is somewhat limited,” he amended
her assessment, using the calm, lyrical, reassuring voice that had won over so
many voters. “There are eight Americans at that station, Mary. Eight families
here on Earth are wondering why they can’t reach their loved ones. Considering
how far from help our eight colonists are, imaginations will spin this out of
control before you can say
one term president
.”
He nodded to Jack Kitzhaber. “Jack, sit
down with Mary and put together a release. Reassure the public that this is a
minor glitch and NASA is offering JAXA whatever they might need by way of
assistance.” He turned back to Mary. “Mary, ensure Gray knows what he’s
volunteering before the release goes out.” He put his glasses back on. “Thank
you, everyone.”
Sam Worthington remained as his staff filed
out. “Sir, the meeting with the Pakistani ambassador is at nine.”
“I know.”
“He’s gonna be pissed.”
“So what do you suggest, we let him bomb an
American village of his choosing?” The president was tired and he was short on
polite conversation at the moment.
Sam stood before the desk, just to the left
where a door led to his own office. “We tell him the same old thing, There just
wasn’t time to confer with them. Our target was high value and he was only
stopping there for a quick meeting.
It all happened too quickly.”
Parnell pushed back his chair and stood.
“Which takes some of the oxygen away from the fire,” he shrugged into his
jacket, “but the fire is still burning.”
“Mr. President?”
Parnell came around the desk, stopping to
face his Chief of Staff, his oldest friend. “Sam, how many bombs have been
dropped remotely by some twenty-year-old kid sitting in an Air Force base
somewhere in California? How many times have we cited the War on Terror when we
send military force into someone’s sovereign space to kill a couple of people?”
His personal assistant opened a door and
poked his head in, “Mr. President, the Secretary of Defense is here.”
“Good, we’ll want to talk to him but he can
cool his heels until we’ve met the ambassador. This mess is his doing, after
all. Put him in the mural room for now. I don’t want the ambassador running
into him in the outer office; angry words might ensue.” He turned back to Sam.
“Do you feel any safer?”
“Safer, sir?
“Yeah, you know – not as afraid. We killed
two guys last night and God only knows how many civilians. Are we any safer?”
They moved to the elegant armchairs opposite the desk. “I don’t feel any more
secure this morning than I did yesterday – to tell the truth, I think we only
made things worse.” He dropped into the chair, Sam sitting opposite him. “We
may have gotten a couple of bad guys, but we also created a ton of grieving
relatives and, if they had no reason to hate us before, they do now.”
‘Those civilians
were
sheltering the
guy…”
Parnel cut him off. “I know. If we let them
operate without consequence they just get bolder. My problem is I can’t tell if
were conducting a war or a criminal investigation. We just wrote off collateral
deaths by saying they were ‘aiding and abetting’ but when have you ever seen
that listed as a war crime?”
“Do you have something in mind, Mr.
President?”
“Not for the life of me, but we need to
come up with a better plan. Remember that kid who used to beat the crap out of
us in high school?
“I remember you torched his car in our
senior year.” Sam’s tone was light but slightly guarded.
“I seem to recall a future White House
Chief of Staff being present with his dad’s gas can.” The president chuckled
and shook his head. “If forensics had been a little better back then, the only
meetings we’d be having would be parole hearings.”
“We had no way of knowing the whole parking
lot would go up like that.”
“No, but it illustrates my point. If we
keep hammering away at every little target that presents itself, sooner or
later we’re gonna get our cars torched.”
The door opened, the aide again. “Mr.
President, the Pakistani ambassador is on his way up the hall.”
Both men stood. “Thank you Thomas. Please
show him straight in.” Parnell straightened his coat, doing up the top button.
“All right Sam, let’s see if the same old tired bullshit will get us through
one more uncomfortable meeting.”
Mountain View, California
January 4
th
, 2026
C
harles Gray sat at the conference table, not quite sure he heard
correctly. “Mr. McAdam, it’s a little late to ask for that kind of payload
increase.” He reached for his coffee, needing time to think.
Without the
capital from Red Flag Minerals we’ll be left with four half-built airships and
a public relations nightmare.
“The first four will have to lift off the
graving docks with five-hundred ton capacity. We can start work on larger
models right away, but the units in construction now probably can’t be changed.
Tim?” He looked over at the team leader, an engineer from Chimera.
The engineer frowned, shaking his head.
“Administrator Gray is right. We would likely end up with an airframe that
collapsed in the first heavy wind.” He launched into an explanation of the
structure of the massive adaptive buoyancy aircraft as an assistant approached
Charles.
“Sir,” the assistant whispered, “we have a
call for you from the White House press office.” He backed up to give Charles
room to stand, then led him to a side room where the call could be taken while
still seeing what was happening in the boardroom.
Charles sat down at the small table, taking
a deep breath before reaching for the phone.
Surprise calls from the White
House are rarely a good thing,
he thought as he picked up the receiver.
“This is Charles Gray.”
“Hi Chuck. It’s Mary. We’re about to
announce NASA’s enthusiastic offer of help to JAXA in sorting out the comms
glitch and we figured we should let you know about it before you get ambushed
by some reporter.” She sounded apologetic, no doubt fully aware that it was all
just window dressing.
“Hey, Mary. Thanks for the heads-up. We’re
already in discussion with JAXA but beyond prepping a hybrid rocket for an
extra backup unit, there isn’t really all that much we can do for them.” Out in
the boardroom, Ed McAdam was holding up a hand to cut Tim off, pulling out his
cell phone with the other hand and putting it to his ear.
“That’s all I need to hear, Chuck.” There
was a pause. “Actually, Jack and I will put that into the release. The
president doesn’t want it to look like we’re asleep at the switch so we have to
go through the motions. Can you spare a minute to go over the wording
with us?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s fine by me.” Charles
realized that Ed had started heading for the door of Charles’ temporary call
room, his face a riot of emotion.
Oh God, if he’s coming in here to tell me
he‘s pulling out over a last minute payload change, I’ll be lucky to save my
job, let alone NASA’s future.
“Hang on a second, Mary. I may have a fire to
put out here first.” He hit the mute button as Ed stormed into the room.
Ed was holding his phone in his left hand.
He stabbed at it with his right index finger, releasing a soft layer of ambient
noise as the speaker activated. “Mr. Gray, I have one of our scientists from
Mauna Kea on the line. You’re going to want to hear this.” His voice level rose
as he spoke to the phone, his voice laced with strain. “Dr. Willsen, I have the
Administrator of NASA in the room with me; please repeat everything you just
told me.”