Alien Affairs

The director left to deal with her responsibilities. Not wanting to be alone, Carrie stayed in the bullpen with her team. It was approaching midnight when her phone chirped and the display announced the Very Large Array. Carrie listened to the brief broadcast. “Deshler is back in orbit,” she told her people.

“How long now?” Jan asked.

Carrie said, “Let’s hope he needs a good night’s sleep after his smelly ordeal.”

Eventually Carrie closed the door to her office, pulled off her heels and reclined on the couch. Sometime in the depth of the night she drifted to sleep. Hooting from beyond the door woke her just as the sky was brightening in the east—it was raining with no trace of sunrise, only a general rising of the light. She slipped into her shoes, which felt too tight now, and returned to the bullpen.

“What’s up?”

Paul beamed. “We’ve been working all night to install this NASA software that tracks what’s in orbit. We finally got it working and can see the aliens in real time.”

“So now we can see our doom approaching,” Carrie said.

“Yeah, and it could come quick, too. They’re well inside the geosynchronous orbit, not much above the space station.”

“So SpaceX can reach them.”

“If they ever launch,” Eddy added.

That was when Director Turnbull stormed into the bullpen ahead of Admiral Alexander and General Matranga. She announced, “This is where it’s all happening. SpaceX is ready to launch.” She took the remote from Eddy and switched the input to the flat screen. A feed from Vandenberg appeared. The Falcon Heavy sat on a launch pad with the bulbous cowling around the Dragon orbiter at the top.

“Is there just one rocket?” Paul asked.

“Yep, we put all our eggs in one basket,” Turnbull said.

“How do we plan to deal with them being 120 degrees apart?”

The admiral said, “The plan is to put the Dragon in the same orbit as the aliens, approach them one at a time and release a missile. Depending on where over the planet that happens, an Aegis Missile Cruiser will take control of the SM-3 and guide it to the target. Then we go after the next one.”

“How close do we have to get to the target?” Carrie asked.

“We’re basically going to detonate on impact,” Alexander said.

“Too bad we won’t get to see that on video,” Eddy said drawing one of the director’s signature scowls.

“We might get lucky,” Matranga said. “We had cameras installed in the orbiter, but with limited ability to track them, there’s no guarantee we’ll see anything. It was a pretty Rube Goldberg set-up.”

“It’ll be cool to see Carrie’s pal get nuked,” Eddy said.

“Yes, indeed,” said the general. “It’s a beautiful weapon but only point oh-one kiloton.”

“When is the launch due?” Carrie asked trying to divert the niggling remorse she felt about Deshler.

Turnbull replied, “Any minute. Their instructions are to launch ASAP.”

“They’ve got ignition,” Matranga said pointing at the screen and all eyes turned to watch the rocket slowly climb from the launch pad.

Carrie had long since come to take rocket launches for granted, but seeing the Falcon rise filled her with anxiety and sadness over not having seen such a sight rising from an American launch pad for so many years.

When the feed from Vandenberg went to static, Eddy set the video input back to the satellite tracker. The alien ship icons were blinking. Admiral Alexander said, “It won’t take long to approach the first target. That is unless they see us coming and run for it.”

“Well, you know they will see us coming,” Carrie said. “But will they run or stand and fight?”

“You’re the expert,” Turnbull said. “What’s your guess?”

“I think they’ll take a defensive position.”

The director’s phone rang. After listening for a moment, she disconnected and said, “There is video streaming from the Dragon. It’s on our closed circuit channel one.”

Eddy switched to it. There were four images—three showing empty space and one was a view of the earth. There was no perceptible motion and time seemed to stretch on forever. After what felt like a lifetime in the silent office, a silver circle appeared on one quadrant of the screen. It was perpendicular to the trajectory of the Dragon and looked at first like a coin. As the two craft closed it swelled to resemble the full moon. The image shuddered suddenly. Everyone jumped.

“That’s the explosive bolts releasing a missile,” said Matranga. The rocket engine fired and the missile darted across the field of view and vanished. Seconds later it reappeared in transit of the disc of the alien ship. It was tiny against the huge diameter and momentarily detonated. Carrie saw the dome of energy expanding against the side of the craft, and in the time it took to blink, it collapsed and was gone, leaving no trace of the atomic blast or apparent damage.

“God damn,” the general said, “they reversed a nuclear explosion.”

Director Turnbull said, “Shit! What do we do now?”

The Twilight Zone music came from Carrie’s pocket. She swiped the touch screen and said, “Come.”

“Come, Carrie Player, I told you so.”

“That was a tiny warhead, Deshler. If you enter the atmosphere we will not treat you so gently.”

“It would be best for all if you simply accepted your fate.”

“You know that we are not equipped to do that.”

“It is true that you are an obstinate species.”

“You have not seen obstinate yet. I am warning you as a friend, do not enter the atmosphere.”

“But, Carrie Player, esteemed one, I recently did enter the atmosphere with impunity.”

“How did you know that would be a safe place to land?”

“It was not difficult to find the darkest area on the night side of the planet.”

Carrie felt foolish. “All right, Deshler, but you will not get away a second time. We are watching you and will know where you descend next time. Going.”

“Going.”

The admiral and the general were arguing about what they saw, as to whether the fission reaction was reversed or contained. They stopped when Turnbull said, “What did it say?”

“‘I told you so.’”

“He told you what?” asked Matranga.

Carrie said, “We’ve argued about whether or not they are invulnerable to our weapons. He insists they are.”

“It might be right,” Admiral Alexander said.

“Horseshit,” Matranga said, “that was a popgun compared to what we can deliver once they’re in the atmosphere.”

“If we can find them,” Carrie said. “He reminded me that he just managed to land and discharge the space station crew—and hookers—without being caught, and all he had to do was pick a dark spot on the globe.”

Matranga said, “We’ll catch the little gray bastards.”

“Let’s not wait that long,” Alexander said. “We’ve got eleven SM-3’s left. Let’s hit them with three at once. If we score a kill, there’s four and four for the other two.”

“Logical enough,” Turnbull said and dialed NASA.

While the director was talking Jan answered a call. She put it on hold and waited for her boss to disconnect from NASA. “Director, it’s the president.”

“What the hell does he want,” Turnbull said taking the receiver. The call became rather heated. It ended with Georgia Turnbull shouting, “Absolutely not,” and slamming the receiver onto the cradle. She turned to the room and said, “The pussy doesn’t want us to shoot at the aliens.”

Matranga asked, “Are you going to tell NASA to stand down?”

“Fuck no!”

The feed from the Dragon shuddered again. Eddy said, “They’re off.”

The inertia of the explosive bolts made the Dragon yaw causing the camera to lose the saucer from its field of view. The room reverberated with collective profanity. After seconds the image tracked across the silver disc just as the three shock waves blossomed against the hull, and again they contracted to nothing in milliseconds.

Matranga said, “I think that’s a reversal of the blast. How the hell do they do that?”

“Whether they reverse it or contain it, we just shot our wad,” Alexander said.

“We’ve still got NORAD,” Turnbull said, “after they enter the atmosphere.”

Carrie said, “NORAD can’t cover the whole globe and once they’re in the air we’re sunk.”

“We have to get every country on the planet with air defenses on alert,” the director said. “Carrie, get your people to start calling embassies. At least we can stop them from planting the second dose.”

“Madam Director,” Matranga said, “the Admiral and I have a problem. If the Commander in Chief tells us to stand down, we have to obey.”

“Then you better avoid the bastard like the plague.”