The Black Ships (8 page)

Mountain View, California

February 10
^th
, 2026

C
huck watched out the boardroom window as the small group walked
towards the building from the Gulfstream on the corner of the tarmac. From what
he had learned so far, the big guy leading the pack had been building cruise
ships until a month ago.
Cruise ships!
Chuck thought angrily.
I’ve
been putting people and equipment into space my whole working life and now he’s
going to sort me out?
The group had stopped to talk to one of the
contractors working on a frenzied extension to the facilities. The man pointed
towards Chuck, indicating the building that they sought. He turned back to the
room. Ed McAdam from Red Flag and Tim Harrison from Chimera were both sitting
at the table, working at their laptops. Both men had been quiet since their
arrival a half hour earlier.

The NASA administrator remained standing as
the group filed in. Somehow, it felt like a less subservient position. He
walked over and extended a hand. “Mr. Bender?” he asked.

“Frank,” the big man answered. “And this is
Kim Davidoff, our chief designer.” He continued with the group.
“
Captain
Ted Murray from DARPA, Tony Caldeira from Modular Marine and the man with all
the weapons,” he said as he indicated a tall man in black fatigues, “is Herman
Brecker, our new friend from the UN.”

Brecker was unsettling to say the least. He
had a Glock on a hip holster and wore a load-bearing vest that carried a series
of canisters. A deadly-looking little submachine gun rested in a quick-release
holster on his chest. His eyes ran over Chuck, dismissing him as a threat.
After a quick scan of the room, he moved over to the edge of the window, where
he could keep an eye on the aircraft as well as the entrance to the room.

“Evidently, our deaths could potentially
set our work back so the UN assigned Herm here to keep us in one piece,” Frank
explained with a slightly embarrassed grin. “He insists on entering a room
first but it kind of starts meetings off on  the wrong foot, don’t you
think?”

“It’s different, I’ll give you that,” Chuck
said, as he realized he hadn’t fulfilled his side of the introductions.
Pull
it together, Chuck.
He nodded towards Ed. “This is Ed McAdams, the CEO of
Red Flag Minerals and Tim Harrison, a design engineer from Chimera.” Both men
shook hands with the group before sitting back down.

Chuck watched from the head of the table
for a few seconds as Frank pulled out a laptop and Kim began setting up a small
projector. “Perhaps we should start with a brief on where we’re at with the
current airships?”

Frank stopped with the power adapter in his
right hand and thought for a moment while his eyes drifted to Tim. “Uh, yeah
sure Chuck. Good idea. Why don’t you boys take us through it while we finish
setting up.”

Is this guy on drugs? He doesn’t even
seem to care!
“Tim, you want to take us through
it?” Chuck handed over to the engineer and started to stroll over to the
window, changing his mind when he realized the bodyguard was still there.
Trying to make it look natural, he headed over to the end of the table again.

 “The first two airships should lift
off in two weeks, the third will follow a month after that.” Tim read the facts
off his screen. “Number four has run into problems due to that windstorm.” Ed
chuckled and shook his head as Tim continued. “It picked up a sheet of plywood
and put it right through the shed wall, taking out two supports under the
starboard side; we were still checking the frame for fractures until
yesterday.”

Yesterday?
Chuck was surprised. The engineer had said he needed at least another week to
finish.
How did he get it done so fast?

Frank nodded as a square of light appeared
on Chuck’s chest. “The windstorm was a bit of good luck,” he said. “Tim, let’s
get some cranes in here and start lifting the remains of number four out of
there. The sooner we can reconfigure that hangar for the sub-orbital airships
the better.”

This is spiraling out of control,
Chuck thought with alarm. Not two minutes into the meeting and
Cruise-ship-Boy was already giving out orders. “Hold on, folks,” he said,
working to keep calm. “With another week of inspections, we can get number four
back on track.” He looked around the room but didn’t see any overt support for
his contribution. He pushed on. “We already have four months invested in that
airframe; it would be a waste to abandon it now.” He could see surprise on the
faces of his visitors.
Good, I’ve gotten through!
The feeling didn’t last.

“Four months? For a keel and six lower rib
sections?” Tony blurted in genuine surprise before turning to Bender. “Frank,
if I need to halt the process on the first modules, you need to tell me now. I
can have the first sections rolling off the line in six weeks but my yard can’t
hold many modules. Real estate is too expensive at the dockyards.”

Frank made a subtle hand gesture to the
contractor, asking him for a moment as he turned to Chuck. “As you just heard,
we will have modules for the first escort ready to go into space in,” he
stopped for a moment and shot Tony a shrewd look before continuing, “two
months.” He kept talking before Caldeira’s protest could gain momentum. “In all
likelihood, Tony, the design will need a bit more tweaking before you can fire
up the cutters.” He looked over to Davidoff who nodded.

“There’s a bit more work to do on pipe
junctions and bulkhead placement,” Davidoff stated.  “Ted’s team wasn’t
really thinking about modular construction methods when they came up with these
designs, but I think we can turn Tony loose in about four weeks; Ted?”

The Air Force captain nodded thoughtfully.
“Four weeks is a dependable number.” He looked over at Frank. “I might be
tempted to say three but four is a safer target for the first escort.” He
shrugged. “Better than aiming for three and missing the date; we’d end up
having to change everyone’s targets.”

“So we’re just going to abandon the fourth
airship?” Chuck hated to waste the effort and materials. “You could be using them
to move materials around and you’re going to be able to start moving the
segments into orbit pretty quickly once we get the system up and running.”

Frank looked up at him for a few moments
before answering. “My dad spent a lifetime in the navy and if there’s one thing
he taught me it was:
never reinforce failure
.” He pointed past the
window to where the airship hangars stood. “Those first ships can’t reach the
transfer station which, by the way, is nearly ready for pre-fabrication thanks
largely to our partnership with the new alliance of telecommunication
companies.”

Frank stood and walked over to the window,
Herman showing obvious disapproval of his exposure. He looked out towards the
hangars. “We can use the first three to move materials but we already have
trains committed to that task.” He turned slowly, frowning at a new thought.
“Tony, what sort of weight are we looking at per module?”

The dark-haired man pulled out his smart
phone and raised an eyebrow at Kim as he nodded to the projector. Kim tapped
the control pad a few times and a warbling tone followed from Tony’s phone.
“Chuck, you wanna get out of the way, buddy?” The contractor grinned as Chuck
looked down at the projection on his abdomen and scuttled out of the way.

A file showed up on the far wall presenting
a column of module renderings with text summaries to the right of each. After a
few pokes at his phone’s screen the list sorted itself by mass. “Sixty-five
tons for the heaviest module.” he said, squinting up at the screen.

“So we could use the first three
terrestrial
airships to move segments from your yard to a transfer station outside of
town where the first stage airships can land and pick them up.” Frank strolled
back over to the table where he leaned on his chair, lost in thought for a
moment. “We pave a huge lot, put up some large Quonset huts and run rails
inside all of them that lead out to a sunken landing pad.” He took a couple of
steps closer to where Kim and the DARPA officer sat. “What do you think, guys?”
He was sounding excited now. “We use a roller system just like we put on the
Leviathan class, kind of like what they use to handle baggage containers at
airports,” he explained for the benefit of the room.

Kim nodded thoughtfully. “Tim, you could
incorporate heavy duty rollers into the deck of each class of airship? If you
can, it would be a no-brainer for us to put together a transfer yard; a couple
hundred acres of asphalt and some rail, and we’re ready to go.”

Tim beamed around the room. “You know, I’ve
done so many crazy design projects; I never expected that anything would come
of them and yet here we are - making the craziest one of all come to life.” He
turned to Kim. “I was the lead designer on the orbital airship program and I
can have the rollers integrated by the end of the week.”

“Ed, you haven’t said much.” Chuck was
hoping the taciturn mining executive who was bankrolling the airship project
would help to put the brakes on. “You might be supporting the orbital program
for obvious reasons of your own, but this essentially kills the terrestrial
program.”

Ed nodded calmly. “I don’t mind paying for
orbital ships,” he drawled. “Once the fleet is built, I’ll be talking with Tony
here about putting my own freighters in space.” He finally looked up from his
keyboard to meet Chuck’s gaze. “Some day, I’ll get my airships back, and I’ll
be able to start bringing rare elements down here from the moon.” He gave Chuck
his own particular version of a smile. “There’s already enough helium isotope
in our recently registered claims to cover the cost.”

Why am I the only person in the room who
seems surprised by what’s happening here?
Chuck
remembered how Ed and Tim had been quiet since their arrival that morning. He
also remembered that the president had mentioned Ed carping about lunar mineral
rights.
Sonofabitch!
He darted an involuntary glance at Bender.
He
made this deal already. I’m the only one who didn’t know.
He looked over at
the young captain who had been in the war room when Chuck was sparring with
Admiral Kelly.
Bender thinks I won’t play nice, so he made sure I couldn’t
get in the way.

Chuck suppressed a sigh. He had to admit,
he really wasn’t making this any easier. The path had already been chosen and
there was nothing left to do except get to work. He had to stop clinging to the
old, bureaucratic way of doing things.
Maybe I should stop trying to pick a
fight.
“I can have cranes in here by eight tomorrow morning,” he offered.
“What can we do to start getting ready for the first-phase airships?”

Bender raised an eyebrow in surprise,
taking a moment to respond. “I see you have contractors working on enlarging
the infrastructure. We need you to get someone in here to raise the roof on
Hangar Four and add a hundred feet to its length.” He nodded over at Caldeira.
“There’s a reason I brought this lazy bastard along today,” he said with a
grin. Tony smiled back, silently mouthing his favorite obscenity before turning
to Chuck.

“Fabricating the world’s largest ship in
fourteen months is our current claim to fame,” the contractor began. “But we
had to do exactly the same modifications to our shops that you need to make on
your hangars.” He gave a Gallic shrug as he continued. “I hate paying someone
else to come and do work that I can do myself so I came up with a simple hydraulic
lifter that lets us cut the columns and raise a roof in a matter of hours. We
have to fabricate a few more units, but we can have them here in a week.”

“Tony will get the first hangar raised,”
Frank added, “and then he’ll stick around for a couple of weeks and see if he
can help you to speed up construction on the first airship. He has a knack for
weeding out the dead wood.”

Is that a warning?
“We’d be glad to have the help,” Chuck said, hoping it would be
true.

Washington, D.C.

February 11
^th
, 2026

“S
o he sure as hell did an end run on poor Chuck!” The president said
to Sam as the staff filed out the hall door at the end of the briefing.

“Tom Kelly probably had his DARPA boys warn
him,” Sam replied as he leaned against one of the chairs in front of the
president’s desk. “It must have worked or we would have heard from him by now.”

“So how do we make sure Red Flag keeps
their mineral rights?”

Sam considered for a moment. “The UN is
obviously behind it, seeing as the Secretary General proposed it to you.” He
paused again as he thought it through. “They’ll likely find a way to get
equipment up there in the very near future so it
will
be occupied. If we
can get him to carry some scientific staff for us, we can put in a territorial claim
that covers his area of exploration.” He nodded to himself, finishing the
thought. “It would be a lot like the claims on Antarctica,” he explained. “Our
federally funded scientific teams would lend some credibility, so Ed should be
willing to carry them there for us.”

“I like it,” Parnell said decisively.
That’s
one problem neatly dealt with.
“I knew I kept you around for more than your
looks!” It was an old joke between the two friends. While Parnell was pursuing
his fledgling legal career, Sam had joined the navy.

He’d been leading a boarding party in the
Gulf when a jittery freighter crewman had fired a burst from an AK-47 at him.
Amazingly, the only round to strike Sam had passed between his upper and lower
jaw, punching out through the soft tissue of his cheek before burying itself in
a crate to his side. Had he not been shouting at the time, he probably would
have died.

Despite the best medical help, Sam would
always carry an impressive scar. It was, in fact, his looks that had helped to
persuade the voters who had been told ad nauseum that Parnell had no military
background. One had only to look at the man who would serve as Chief of Staff
to see that the administration would not be entirely without military
experience.

As he was ruminating on his own lack of
military experience, Parnell spotted Admiral Kelly standing at the open hall
door with a puzzled frown and waved the officer in. “It’s Kitzhaber,” Parnell
explained the open door. “He always assumes Sam is following him out the door
so it never gets closed when Sam stays behind after a staff meeting.”

“So put a buzzer in his office that links
to the door,” the Admiral suggested mildly. “Or better yet, some electrodes in
his chair.”

“I checked it out with legal,” Parnell
breezed, glad of some light conversation. “They tell me you can’t electrocute
your employees.” He nodded to the file in the Admiral’s hand. “Those the stills
you wanted to show me?”

The Admiral nodded and laid them out on the
desk as Parnell put his glasses on. “Sir, it’s pretty cut and dried; someone is
still alive out there.” He pointed to the first image as Sam moved around to
Kelly’s right to get a better view. “This was taken the morning of the attack.”
The image showed a steep cliff-face with a large shadow roughly centered in the
page.

“What exactly are we seeing here, Tom?”
Parnell looked up at the Admiral.

“Sir, this shows the emergency site,” Kelly
explained. “It was blasted out of the cliff-side shortly after the main habitat
was operational. It was intended to shelter the colony in the event of a
natural disaster that wiped out the main site.” He pulled an engineer’s drawing
from the folder and spread it on the desk, revealing an isometric drawing of an
inflatable habitat. “Mr. President, once the cavern is roughly to the right
size and shape, this habitat is laid inside and a series of catalyst vials are
cracked open. That starts a reaction, expanding a foam between the inner and
outer layers of the structure.”

“The foam hardens?” Sam asked, looking down
at the text beside the drawing.

Kelly nodded. “In an hour, it forms a solid
structure that can stand up to most cave-ins.” He stabbed a finger at the
image. “This one was built to house the entire colony for up to a year while
they wait for rescue from Earth. Mary tells me it could even have taken in the
miners from the Red Flag site as long as they were careful about their
resources.”

Parnell pulled the second image from under
the drawing, looking at it as Kelly folded the large sheet and laid it aside.
“So there’s tracks here,” he mused as he set it back on the desk. “When was
this taken?”

“Within an hour of the attack,” the Admiral
replied. “Only one set of tire tracks and a scattering of footprints just
outside the cave entrance. Looks like they drove the one missing rover into the
mouth of the cave and someone came out for a quick last look before going
inside.”

“How many people?” Parnell took his glasses
off and looked up at Kelly.

“With one rover?” Kelly shrugged. “Mary
figures six at the most. The rest are either dead or captured.”

“What about,” Parnell paused while he
checked a list on his desk, “Jennifer Grayson?” Her particular story was known
only to a handful of people on Earth.

Kelly shook his head. “All we know is that
a maximum of six colonists survived. Considering that we started out with
almost thirty people, the chances are roughly twenty percent for any given
individual.” He sighed. “The odds are against her.”

Parnell sat back and looked at the images absently
for a few moments. He looked up at the two men in front of him. “So, there’s no
question that we need to use this information to light a fire under the
nay-sayers. Now we just have to decide on when.”

“There’s something else to consider, sir,”
Kelly added. “Our current plans don’t allow for landing troops on the planet
surface. We were planning on the bombardment of alien sites once we achieve
orbital superiority.” He gestured towards the photographs on the desk. “There
can be no doubt about the need to land forces and pick up our people.”

“Admiral Kelly’s right.” Sam’s tone brooked
no disagreement. “We need to set up a meeting with the UN, the DARPA designers
and the major military contributors. We need landing craft as well as air
cover, not to mention troops for a planetary insertion.”

“Space Marines?” Parnell raised an eyebrow.

Both men on the other side of the desk
rolled their eyes in horror. It was Sam who responded. “I swear to God, Nate,
if you ever use that term in public, Bob Cochrane will be in here within the
week, measuring for new curtains.”

Parnell was properly abashed; Sam almost
never called him by his first name anymore. Especially not in front of others.
“Okay, you guys come up with a name.” He focused now on Sam. “Get the major stakeholders
lined up for a meeting at  the UN and make sure my schedule is cleared.”

Both men nodded and left, Sam closing the
door behind him.