The Black Ships (25 page)

Low Earth Orbit

December 11
^th
, 2027

“
O
K, hold it right there.”
Mike took an awkward step to the right. He lifted his video camera, putting on
his best fake newscaster voice. “I’m standing here with Mickey Willsen, the
genius whose idea led to the creation of mankind’s first space-faring electronic-warfare
squadron.” He panned the camera and zoomed out to show the frigate looming
behind her in the massive hangar deck. There had been just enough room to bring
the command ship of the small, three-frigate force in through the port-side
hangar doors of the
UNS Ares
. It had come in on its side and there was
five feet of clearance at the most.

For this occasion, the regulation requiring
EVA suits on the hangar deck had been waived and they both stood in front of
the blunt bow of the frigate in formal attire, except for the magnetic soles
strapped to their feet. Mickey’s hair had looked perfect when they boarded the
shuttle on Earth, but she hadn’t counted on the lack of gravity in the orbiting
carrier.

“Tell us how it feels to be here for the
official christening of the
Danube,
” he prompted her.

“Well, Mike, it’s quite a thrill to be an
astronaut for a day, and getting a ride in one of the new orbital landers was a
real mind-blower.” She quickly combed her hair into a loose pony tail, securing
it with an elastic from her purse. “Meeting the Secretary General will be
pretty neat…” She stopped talking, her smile melting into confusion as she
stared beyond her cousin. “Oh my God,” she said in a small voice.

Mike couldn’t suppress a grin as he panned
the camera around to show the small group that was rooted to a hangar elevator
by magnetic soles. They rose slowly through a square opening in the deck like a
troop of gladiators in an ancient Roman amphitheater. Standing there, along
with Secretary General Sisulu, her staff and a collection of military officers,
were Mickey’s parents.

The elevator came to a halt and Sisulu led
the group in a jerky procession to where Mickey was standing. “Aren’t you glad
you didn’t wear heels for this?” she asked the stunned young woman in a loud
stage whisper. She reached out a hand, thoroughly enjoying the look on Mickey’s
face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Michelle.” She gestured toward the bow of
the new frigate which floated above the deck. “Shall we?” Jess turned to
receive a bottle of champagne from an aide. Someone at the back of the group
sneezed.

Mike got a close-up of Uncle Harold as he
and Aunt Jen flanked their daughter, taking her hands. The old man cuffed at
his cheek as he looked up at the huge tarp that was draped across the dorsal
end of the bow. Mike had failed to get them cleared for the trip but he had
managed to broker a deal where they would go into quarantine until the battle
had finished. The existence of the electronic warfare squadron was a
closely-guarded secret and Mike had moved Heaven and Earth to find a way for
Mickey’s parents to learn what she had done.

“Though the frigates of the fleet are named
for rivers,” Jess began, “it was deemed fitting that the frigates of the
electronic warfare squadron be named for leaders in the field of
communications. Two of these vessels will be known as the
Bell
and the
Morse,
but the command vessel will be named after a visionary who is not only
still living but, also, the reason for its very existence.”

Jess turned to the crowd now, gesturing to
Mickey. Mike was able to get a close shot of his confused cousin who, until
this moment, had thought the command ship would be named the
Danube
. At
a second gesture, she lurched into motion, oblivious to the surprised reactions
of her parents.

Jess handed her the bottle. She leaned in
and whispered in Mickey’s ear. Receiving a vague nod in return, she turned back
to the assembled dignitaries. “It is my great honor to christen thee the
UNS
Willsen
.”

Jess gave Mickey a slight nudge and Mike’s
cousin took one last stunned look at the Secretary General before hurling the
bottle at the new ship. It spun quickly toward the bow and shattered against
the tarp which quickly pulled away from the hull by its four corners,
containing the loose liquid and revealing the Willsen family name on the bow in
raised metal letters.

Mike swung the camera back from the ship to
focus first on Mickey and then on her parents, who were staring in shock at
their name, specifically their daughter’s name, on the hull of a ship that
might just save the species.

He finally shut the camera off and walked
over to the Willsens. He shook Harold’s hand and was surprised to see a barbell
shaped tear break free from the old man’s eyelids. It spun for a second, the
two ends almost separating before surface tension forced it into a perfect,
tiny sphere. He handed over the camera. “You’ll need this video someday when
you’re telling your grandkids about it.”

To spare his taciturn uncle the embarrassment,
Mike turned to hug Aunt Jen. Out of the corner of his eye, and through Jen’s
medusa-like mess of hair, he could see his uncle wrapping Mickey in a fierce
hug. In the thirty-five years Mike had known the man, he hadn’t even seen him
hold hands with his own wife.

V-22-Anasazi Variant

December 15
^th
, 2027

C
al woke as the
landing gear touched the ground. The ride had sown doubts in his mind. If the
aliens were a lie, where had the engines come from for this vehicle? The ride
was smooth and almost entirely silent. He could almost believe he’d spent the
last five hours sitting on the tarmac at JFK.

Until the rear ramp opened.

Hot, humid air hammered it’s way inside and the palms
surrounding the landing strip were bent almost double from the force of the
tropical wind.

He stood, flanked by four military policemen, and shuffled
down the ramp, the familiar clinking of his leg irons drowned out by the storm.
A green Humvee sat just outside the yellow landing circle, and a civilian
stepped out as they approached.

Guilderson?
Cal halted in surprise, then stumbled
forward as one of his guards gave him a shove.
The security guard from
Moffat field? What agency is she really with?
This put things into a new
perspective. Her apparent incompetence as a security guard must have been part
of a larger plan. Had they been on to him from the very start?

As they reached the vehicle, she opened the back door and
Cal was bundled in by the army cops, one hand on his head expertly guiding his
forehead directly into the door frame with an alarming thud.

He dropped into the rear seat on the passenger side and
Guilderson leaned in to belt him in place. His hands were still cuffed behind
his back, but he knew better than to ask. Nobody cared if he was losing his
circulation. 

He realized the MP’s were heading back to the aircraft and
he knew no paperwork had been handed over. Prisoners weren’t just passed around
like cigarettes, they always came with paper. What was happening here?

Guilderson got into the seat behind the driver. “Let’s get
back before the storm cuts the road, Eddie.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The army specialist threw the vehicle into
gear and they lurched away, swinging around to head for an opening in the
trees.

“Wondering why you’re here?” Guilderson was looking out at
the storm.

“Yeah,” Cal answered simply. If she was bringing it up, she
obviously planned on telling him.

“Well, thanks to President Parnell, we’ve clean run out of
states that still have the death penalty, which is why we put
you
in
front of a military tribunal.” She turned to give him a look that made him feel
like something on the bottom of her shoe.

“Your death penalty has been put on hold for the time being,
just in case more attacks occur on American soil.” She grinned. “Even if it has
nothing to do with you, I’ll be pulling your fingernails out and shoving them
under your eyelids, just to see if you have anything to add to your existing
testimony.”

“So, I’ll be chained inside some hut until the government
decides to kill me?” This was exactly the brand of big government that he
hated.

“Officially?” A shrug. “You were executed three days ago by
firing squad. Drummers, blindfold, the whole thing. You were cremated and
scattered because no cemetery in the world wants you drawing vandals and protesters.

She shook her head. “No, you don’t get to sit around in a
hut all day. You’re a carpenter, so you’re gonna work sixteen-hour days
building this facility.”

They came out of the trees and started descending into the
shelter of a deep valley that faced out onto a beach.  A village was
springing up on the valley floor. Swarms of heavy equipment were driving the
lush tropical growth back while workers filled the open space with attractive,
craftsman-style homes. A small commercial district was taking shape nearer to
the waterfront, as evidenced by the industrial air conditioning and
refrigeration units on their roofs.

It looked like a nice place.
Looked
. He had the
feeling this was just a nice prison for more slaves – maybe not slaves in
chains like Cal, but slaves all the same. “And if I don’t work?”

She shrugged. “You’ll get hungry. You’ll get thirsty. You’ll
end up strapped to a cot on life support until we need to talk to you. Frankly,
I’m hoping you decide
not
to work. I’d like to sit outside your bars and
eat my lunch while you drool.”

A sigh. He nodded over his shoulder. “If I work, I’ll need
these shackles off.”

“Won’t be a problem.” She grinned at his surprise. “It’s not
a very big place. There’s no way off this island for you, unless it’s me
tossing a bag of ashes out the back of an Osprey. If you try to run, we can
have a search craft in the air in five minutes and they’ll find your  heat
signature inside of three minutes. Hell, they’ll even know your heart rate.

“And we’ll be hiding an implant on your body that broadcasts
your location twenty-four seven. It also carries enough charge to shut your
nervous system down, so yeah, we’ll take the shackles off and work you like a
rented mule.”

She leaned back and looked out at the piles of overturned
palms, waiting to be cut up and hauled away. “Welcome to Petite Tortue Island.”

Low Earth Orbit

UNS
Hannibal

January 15
^th
, 2028

T
he ships lay in an arrowhead formation, like migrating geese. The
massive
Ares
sat in the middle of the formation, flanked by nine
frigates and six cruisers. A thousand meters ‘above’ the
Ares
sat the
smaller electronic warfare squadron consisting of the
Bell
, the
Morse
and the command ship, the
Willsen
.

It was a much smaller force than the two
fleets that the plan had originally called for, but they had to launch now if
Humanity was to have any hope of survival. The data stream that had been
intercepted in March had made it perfectly clear that the enemy would be coming
very soon, and so this smaller fleet would launch now in a desperate gamble to
stop them.

Frank was on the observation deck of the
Hannibal
.
The cruiser was almost completed and it served as the viewing platform for today’s
launch. He was still slightly awed at meeting so many heads of state and even
more bemused by their own reactions.

He had no hope of keeping track of who ran
which country but they all seemed to know who he was without introduction. The
Prime Minister of Britain had cornered him on the wet tarmac as they were
boarding a modified Osprey for the short trip up to the
Hannibal
. In
full view of the media, he had pressed a vigorous handshake on the startled
project manager before slapping him on the back and walking up the boarding
ramp with him.

Even here on the observation deck, the
media presence ensured that Frank had a steady stream of ‘grip-and-grin’ photo
ops. Though he had been hugely gratified at first, he soon tired of it and
simply wanted a little privacy so he could watch the launch in peace. He
floated over to the main window where a man gazed out at the largest project in
history.

The man turned at the approach and Frank
realized that it was his own President (though Frank had voted for the Republican…).
I would look like a jerk if I turned away now,
he realized.
I can
hardly talk to the leader of every country while ignoring my own, and he does
seem decent enough.

“It seems like such a small force,” Parnell
remarked, nodding at Frank, “when you consider how much hangs in the balance.”
He looked back out the window.

“Hopefully, the even smaller force up
there,” Frank replied, pointing upwards to the tiny electronic warfare
squadron, “will manage to give us a critical edge.”

“Hopefully,” Parnell agreed fervently. “Ms.
Willsen’s contribution may be viewed by history as the turning point in this
crisis -- the idea that made victory a possibility. One of her ancestors was
captured by pirates in the 17
^th
century.” He said this last in a
wondering tone.

“Sir?” Frank was confused by the seeming
non sequitur.

“Captured in Reykjavik by North African
pirates and dragged off to Algeria,” the president explained. “If Christian IV
of Denmark hadn’t ransomed the poor man a decade later, Ms. Willsen wouldn’t have
been around to save us.” He looked over at Frank. “History is always teetering
on the head of a pin, Mr. Bender. It’s not a comforting revelation but it’s
true, nonetheless.”

“Speaking of pinheads,” Frank replied, “I
hear you finally got your hands on McKinnon?”

Parnell chuckled. “Another turning point
that almost went the wrong way for us, but yes. He’s safely out of our hair.”
He grew solemn. “It’s a shame about Chuck, he should have been here to see this
moment…”

Both men turned their heads to the window
as a collective gasp rippled through the assembled dignitaries. The fleet’s
engines were coming online.

The fission fragmentation engines,
developed for the ships by a Polish physicist named Stanislaw Grocholski, came
to glowing life. The bright blue exhaust created short plumes as the fission
fragments were magnetically channeled away from the reaction at incredibly high
temperatures.

A section of the window suddenly came to
life, presenting an image of Admiral Towers directly between Frank and the American
President. The two men abandoned their conversation and moved out of the way,
giving the rest of the room a better view.

“Madam Secretary, ladies and gentlemen,”
the admiral began. “We stand ready for full burn.”

“Godspeed, Admiral,” Jess responded, “and
good hunting.” The exchange had been agreed upon beforehand. No flowery
speeches, no allusions to an implacable foe, just a casual reference to
victory. The crews of the fleet as well as the citizens of Earth needed to hear
such confidence.

The engines, coordinated for this event by
the systems on the
Ares,
simultaneously came to full power and nineteen
ships began their ponderous acceleration for Mars.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” the President murmured
quietly. From his cadence, it sounded like a quote, but Bender couldn’t place
it.

Frank felt an unexpected catch in his
throat as the ships began to move against the backdrop of stars.
I built
those ships,
 he thought.
No matter what is built next year or even
ten years from now, I built the fleet that will bring us either victory or
defeat.
He realized, if only from his sudden sense of relief, just how much
pressure he had been working under. He had buried himself in the job with
meetings, paperwork and travel, but the pressure had been there, all along.

He might even sleep the whole night through
tonight, rather than waking in the wee hours to obsess over some technical
issue or cost overrun.

But there was still pressure.

This launch was far ahead of schedule and,
rather than sending two carrier groups, each with ten escorts, they were
sending one augmented carrier group with one extra cruiser and four extra
frigates.

The only consolation was the presence of
the electronic warfare squadron. Hopefully, they would survive long enough to
send their vital signal and, hopefully, that signal would throw the enemy into
confusion.

Hopefully – because Earth was now left with
no defensive force. Knowing that the enemy would launch their own attack within
months, it had been decided that a fight around Mars with an augmented carrier
group was preferable to a fight in Earth orbit where the enemy could land
ground troops. Even a defeat at Mars should buy Humanity enough time to scrape
together a defensive force for Earth.

Frank would be very busy in the months to
come building that defensive force. He could feel the weight settling back onto
his soul again.