DDX Admiral George Dewey
"It's the most accurate telemetry you could ask for." John Straker sat comfortably cross legged on the bridge's command chair while he spoke.
Straker explained the workings of the newly orbiting Space Intruder Detector to Captain Pete Townsend. Straker hadn't bothered to ask if Dewey's skipper had gotten any ribbings over his name. The answer to that was plain to Johnny. Townsend was amazed at what SID could do. Frankly, so was Straker, especially when the idea for SID had come from the alien hard drive, based on their notion of SID and its capabilities. According to Marisol laser refraction computing was yet another breakthrough that Victor Bergman had discarded in this timeline. Knowledge that his theory was more than that had allowed Bergman to create SID's artificial intelligence, the world's first functioning AI.
"So that thing can make intuitive leaps?" Straker nodded in reply to Townsend's question. "The laser tracking system was quite an upgrade as is. I'm concerned though that SID isn't looking at China or the Mideast sir."
"SHADO is a multinational force Pete," Straker told him. "How is the crew coming?" Straker understood Townsend's concern. The Dewey's captain had been briefed on the aliens yet he had never seen one, while he had spent a lifetime being told that Islamics and lately the Chinese were the enemies.
"The command team and all of the senior NCO's are SHADO now. A few of the seamen have made it through the security clearance and blood screenings." Townsend nodded at the three enlisted men on Dewey's bridge. "These sailors of course," he added. "Johnny," Townsend started. The two had been Annapolis classmates. "Aren't we giving away the store? I mean Prometheus launched from Diego Garcia? Christ, Ed that is China's backyard."
"They are giving us permission to dock at Chinese ports. The world situation is touchy. Foster called me this morning and told me that the official percentage is now seven." Straker meant the estimated number of people carrying the alien virus. "Want to tell that to a population that is functionally paranoid?"
That news and question quieted his old friend. Straker looked through the bridge's windows at the azure Indian Ocean. The day was blisteringly sunny, making the ocean sparkle. Wave height was low so that Straker could see the horizon. That was saying much for the low profile destroyer. The DDX's bridge looked much like those on the aircraft carriers on which he had served: a conventional wheel and thruster quadrant, a large chart table, radios and phones within easy reach of the crew. Straker sipped on a bottle of water while the destroyer cut through the water. The bridge phone beeped, the direct connection to the destroyer's combat Information Center. Townsend picked it up while Straker listened over the bridge speaker.
"I'll never get used to that!" Townsend slammed the phone back into its cradle. "SID just informed me that four UFO's are entering the atmosphere, estimated trajectory has them headed for Diego. I'm going below to fight my ship sir."
"I'll stay up here. I have wanted to see the rail guns in action. I guess the aliens' timing is impeccable." Straker got up, walked to the forward windows and looked at the DDX's main weapon. Two turrets bearing two cannons each. Their 500 pound depleted uranium tipped projectiles would seek their targets leaving the rails at 6,000 meters a second.
"Very well sir," Townsend replied, all business. He went below. Straker felt the DDX surge ahead. It was Pete's vessel, not his and he knew that his presence in the destroyer's Combat Information Center would create doubt among Pete's crew in Townsend's abilities.
"Pipe the action over the speakers sailor," Straker ordered. The enlisted man manning the chart table turned some switches. Straker surveyed the sky while knowing that all of what was about to happen would take place outside of visual range. Human nature he knew, curiosity to see the hairy mammoth about to run him down.
"U-FO's on final descent," The artificial intelligence behind the Space Intruder Detector's voice was decidedly British, a manifestation of its programming thought Straker. The Dewey's main weapon swung into action on the deck beneath Straker.
"SID has control," Townsend's voice announced over the bridge speakers. "Coils energized, slugs are loaded, targets locked—standby."
Straker grabbed a railing. The sound was more like an enormous sizzle than a gun shot. The DDX didn't shudder; instead it continued to cut its way over the blue waves. The slugs superheated and left plumes as they made for their targets. SID announced that the UFO's were attempting to maneuver. Speculation was that their ships did not have artificial gravity and were about as maneuverable as the old space shuttle had been. That was to say, not much capability at all. That gave SHADO, this SHADO a fighting chance. It had given the alternate SHADO a chance.
It had been hard to believe. But after Victor Bergman's breakthroughs on the alien database it had changed things. His father had been unable to discover the identity of the first UFO's crew. But that was because he was looking past into his time. The man with the Cyrillic lettering on him was named Uri Petrov. Records had shown that Petrov had been deeply involved in Russian organized crime. He had met his demise after being implicated in the murder of a prostitute. He had apparently fallen off of a roof while in the custody of the Moscow police in 1993. The female occupant had been harder to identify. Yet she lived today, her name synonymous with the fudge that her small airport kiosks carried.
"Two down!" Townsend announced. "Misses on the other two, coils still charging, capacitors have enough power for one more volley!"
The rail gun had been successful, marginally so, thought Straker. Able to fire two volleys' the guns massive capacitors had to be recharged, that took three minutes. SID's voice announced that the UFO's had descended to below 60,000 feet. The rail guns fired again. This time it was SID's voice that announced that only one of the intruders had been hit. Straker walked over to the bridge's air radar monitor. It was snow until he switched it over to laser tracking. The UFO was inbound to them. He grabbed a hold as Dewey turned sharply while accelerating. The rail guns were new technology. The destroyer's Gatling guns were not. Unfortunately the UFO's particle weapon had a far greater range. It didn't look good for them.
Commander Lin Chao hated this part. Flying his people's most advanced and unique aircraft should be an honor. Yet he remembered German officers from their last great conflict referring to their submarines as iron coffins. So it was that Tsang lu was his composite, hybrid alloy and aluminum coffin. He was pushed back in his seat as his aircraft was ejected from its submarine launch bay. Rocketing out of the sea on external breakaway thrusters, the aircraft, someone had wanted to call it Skydiver, broke through to the surface. Heron was a better name for the ship that came out of the sea. Compressed air blew demineralized water through much of the hot surfaces and then blew away the residual water. Chao was on the start switches in an instant, beating the automation.
Tsang lu's one fatal limitation was that in transitioning from rockets to the aircraft's main engines that changeover wasn't always smooth. Pilots had been killed in fatal stalls under altitudes where they couldn't safely eject. He watched while his airspeed peeked and then started to drop away. Heron's engines were spinning and had ignited but they were not yet at idle. His ship was 300 meters over the ocean's surface. Chao's hand applied pressure on the ejection lever. This was his third launch, having flown two surveillance flights near America's west coast. He had a family and didn't want them to receive the letter explaining his glorious service and death. The engines' temperature climbed.
A new alloy that mimicked the heat resistant qualities of ceramics, the engines' exhaust section soon burned at 4000 degrees centigrade. Chao pushed up the throttles. The airspeed came back. He was shoved down into the seat again as Heron passed twice the speed of sound. He glanced at his heads-up-display, conventional radar was gone. He switched to the Europeans' laser tracking system. The picture and his target became clear. He guided the manta ray shaped aircraft towards the target. Taught to fight the Americans Chao was dubious about this new enemy. His superiors had told him about the aliens and SHADO but he had his doubts. Yet he was a man of duty.
He targeted the remaining alien ship and fired. Chao turned away; the g forces on him were agonizing. That was the only way to launch a missile, the flare from the Russian missile would blind him as well as breaking up the graceful looking craft he flew. The laser tracking system showed the missile, now flying at ten times the speed of sound heading directly at its target. These aliens were advanced, of that Chao had no doubt. But they couldn't defeat conventional physics. The UFO disappeared from his scanner. He throttled back while thinking of his landing. That too was fraught with danger. He slowed the aircraft while looking at the ocean below.
His submarine carrier, receiving data from SHADO's orbiting tracker, sent him a signal. Chao responded and started the spiral down to the calm sea below. That was another pitfall, landing a craft that was launched underwater but tended to capsize in rough seas was another risk in flying Heron. Chao concentrated on the task at hand.
"That's something you don't see every day," Townsend remarked while he and Straker watched Skydiver being pulled back into the sea. He knew the Chinese's name for their remarkable aircraft but he preferred the alternate timeline's name.
"Why did China build that thing Johnny?" his old Annapolis friend asked.
"Politics isn't my business Pete. It never was. And while you wear that uniform it shouldn't be your business. I'm just glad that the Chinese had come up with that. With our new destroyers guarding Diego and Skydiver as a linebacker then we have a fighting chance."
Townsend seemed to relent. Finally he smiled. "Speaking of business, when can I become a movie producer?"
Straker winced when reminded of his new job. "SHADO is to be a secret. Imagine, if anyone finds out, telling about how there is a secret organization with its headquarters at a movie studio. It's good cover."
"Can I look at the house Steve?" Joshua Freeman was an imposing man at an inch over six feet and broad, having inherited his father's build. Even his friend, New York State Policeman Steve Butler backed up somewhat from Freeman.
Butler shook his head. "There are feds all over this. Look, you've helped us out Josh but I'm only warning you. If you slide by me then you might find yourself in the federal lockup at Rome." Butler smiled ruefully.
That meant that he wanted Freeman to do some snooping around probably because the statie had been rebuffed by the US government's law enforcement people. Freeman had, in his capacity as a reporter for the Montreal Defender leaked out information about weapons and narcotics' trafficking between the US and Canada. In return Butler and others, Freeman's information network, told him things that were useful. That was a great help as Freeman was reminded daily by his editor, Morton Gilroy, that the Defender needed big headlines to attract big ad dollars.
"Thanks Steve, I'll keep that in mind." He purposely walked away from the mansion's drive while eyeing possible places that he could stumble into the manor itself.
The police and federal officials were calling this a narco-terrorism home invasion. It was news for Montreal being that the quiet, affluent town of Wilson Park, New York was not far from the US's northern neighbor's border. He strolled nonchalantly around the property, typical of Wilson Park's info-TV rich. Most estates here were owned by cooking and home improvement show hosts. Freeman ducked under the yellow crime scene ribbon after passing between two tall shrubs, a line of which curved around the red brick mansion's southern side.
Josh recognized the smell. He had experienced it in another life in Afghanistan: a burning oil, gasoline, rubber and metal smell, a vehicle that had burned. Further up the drive lay the remains of a Wilson Park Constabulary car. Having seen the carnage from hidden explosive devices it instantly caught his attention that this was different. The back corner of the Ford was completely burned away. The blast looked clean, more as if it had been cut. The damaged car was so oddly intriguing to Freeman that he almost stepped into worse carnage.
Given the painted nails and long blonde hair it had probably been a woman. Nothing remained of her below her midriff. Josh looked for her legs. He had seen soldiers lose limbs that the battlefield medics hadn't been able to find. But this woman had not been blown apart, Freeman could see that. Where were her legs? More disturbing, given that she had been cut in two, where were her organs? Freeman snapped some pictures with his digital camera. A man wearing a dark windbreaker with FBI stenciled on the back turned and saw him, he waved. Freeman breathed a sigh of relief, waved back but also quickly entered the home. It was convenient that his windbreaker was the same color as those worn by American federal agents.
The house was spacious. Marble topped stands and tables held beautiful arrangements of flowers. The pop art pieces and paintings smelled like money. Freeman wished he could really smell currency instead of the odor of this ghoulish butcher shop. Bodies and their parts were everywhere. Camera snapping Freeman recorded as much of the scene as he could. He moved carefully, moving away from the sounds of investigating agents. He entered a long thickly carpeted hallway. A portrait hung at the end of the hall. A gang sign was spray painted over a portrait of a young man riding a horse. Josh remembered the sign and found it strangely out of place. He strode carefully past rooms on either side of him until he stood before the artwork. He snapped a photo.
"Who are you?" The voice was female, had a British accent and carried authority. He turned, his sleeve brushing the vandalized canvas as he did so.
The woman was beautiful, chestnut brown hair covering a pert face and pale brown eyes, and a near perfect figure. That woman also had a cannon pointed at Josh. He raised his hands and informed her—them, she was joined by a lean grizzled man who also had a gun drawn and pointed at Freeman. He told them who he was and where his identification was. The woman asked him to take out his wallet and press cards. Freeman did so slowly and then handed them to the male half of the team. She instructed him to kneel with his hands behind his head while the man accessed his tablet computer, inputting Freeman's information into it no doubt.
"Look, you can cuff me, hands behind my back, you know. It's much more comfortable." Freeman was no stranger to being detained by police. Besides poking his nose too deep as a reporter he had also been arrested on a driving under the influence charge.
The two agents remained impassive. After several minutes Freeman heard the man say that Josh was clean. That struck Freeman as odd because surely his drunken driving conviction was accessible to the agents. They put their weapons away, ordered him to stand and then removed the handcuffs. The woman gave him the obligatory lecture on the seriousness of disturbing a crime scene and his luck that they were going to let him off with just a warning. Freeman decided to see just how far his current good fortune would run.
"I'll be more careful in the future." Careful to not be caught thought Josh. "What happened here agents?"
The man was handling Freeman's camera. "I'll delete them Agent Foster," meaning Josh's photos.
"No need Martin, no doubt they were transmitted via phone to some hard drive." Freeman smiled in a manner that suggested that the woman's scenario is exactly what happened. In fact, the Defender did not pay for such services and on the salary Freeman got he could barely afford his cheap pay-as-you-go phone.
"Just what it looks like Mister Freeman, rich buggers playing with things that got them burned, gangs coming up from the city." She sounded so assured. Move along, nothing to see here was what he heard. He asked them how long ago the murders had occurred as the duo escorted him out of the manor. "A few hours anyway Freeman," she answered. "There you go, pop off now." Freeman was careful to conceal the red paint that had rubbed off onto his sleeve, a few hours indeed. He ducked under the tape while leaving the odd pair behind.
Their badges identified them as American Drug Enforcement Agency wonks but their demeanors were anything but that. It hadn't escaped Freeman that for all the carnage there was a noticeable lack of blood. He passed a Wilson Park policeman arguing with the driver of the flatbed upon which the blasted police car had been loaded. He noted that not only was the car loaded, it had been covered with a tarp.
"Earl, you have a prior for weed. You don't want to add obstructing an officer to that? You won't have this job anymore if that happens." The cop was a bully. Freeman knew that all too many of them were.
"Look…officer," the wrecker driver was trying to be patient in the face of a threat to his job. "That agent, the one with the accent, told me to load up the car and take it to Fort Drum. I'll drive it to the state garage but I don't want some federal charge. Could you talk to that lady for me?"
Interesting, Freeman thought. He was glad to see the driver rebuff the cop. There was no need for that behavior from someone carrying arms. Joshua's dad had retired from the Mounties and had endlessly preached compassion to young Joshua. Joshua remembered how Alec Freeman's police career had been marked by a string of arrests using solid investigation instead of bullying. Why would they take the car to the army base? Freeman supposed that had it really been gang activity then perhaps the bad guys had used a shoulder fired rocket on the police car. That would warrant the US Army's involvement.
A large throng was gathered around the van belonging to the local TV news affiliate. Freeman had done an exposé on that very gang whose paint had rubbed off of their alleged sign onto his sleeve. They had, like many criminal organizations, gone legitimate—mostly. Their leaders, men that wore $2000 suits, wouldn't tolerate something like this massacre. This was something else. Freeman wondered about Islamic terrorists. But that made no sense. He had did his research and the celebrity chef that owned the mansion was a drinker and womanizer, but hardly political. He recognized the network's roving reporter.
"Well if it isn't Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter," she chided him. "Did you remember to bring flashbulbs for your camera?"
"Hello Cammy how's the amateur porn—I mean TV news treating you?"
"Funny you should ask: Paul and I just rented a lovely apartment in midtown." It was a double dig at Freeman. He had worked for this very network as well as sharing a bed with Cammy Edwards. That was when he discovered the unwritten rule of twenty-first century journalism: never ask a politician where the tax money will come from and never ask an environmental group just where their funding was from. "Has the Defender given you your annual bonus of a refrigerator box to live in or cut back to a microwave box?"
"We can spar like this all day long." He smiled. The two had parted on somewhat good terms. Edwards was a climber. Josh wouldn't be surprised to see her on one of the major networks one day. Freeman wanted success but not at the expense of the truth. "Or we can share. I suppose that you never made it into the house?"
"I really believe that the yellow police tape means do not enter. I know that is a quaint notion but not every crime scene is a major cover up Josh." She was right. Freeman knew he tended to be a romantic, odd at just 29 years of age but damnit, someone had to be reliable. Between his parents and the military doing a good job, a good work ethic, was part of who he was. "Did you get in?" she added slyly.
He nodded and told her what he had seen, making sure to delete his speculations. She nodded while her cameraman, Gaucho Hernandez, joined them. Once upon a time it was he and Hernandez doing these kinds of shoots. Of course Josh had actually tried investigating events rather than acting as a spokesman for the police or whomever the story's subject was. Josh guessed that Gaucho missed those days as much as did he.
"My producer will love that! Inner city gangs murdering upscale rich people, it'll nail tonight's ratings!" Cammy was excited. Gilroy would be similarly enthused.
Freeman understood it, but it was not journalism. In all likelihood the Defender's speculation along with Cammy's network would create an atmosphere of distrust and hostility between the folks in these small New York towns and any minorities in their communities. He chatted awhile longer with them. Cammy had nothing and he believed that she wasn't concealing anything. She and Gaucho had spoken to an elderly neighbor. His ex-girlfriend pointed the lady out among the small gathering of curiosity seekers. Freeman traded a few departing jibes with his old companions and then sought out the neighbor.
Her silver hair was from her age but her style of dress belonged in the 80's. She opened up to Freeman especially after finding out that he was from the print media. It was nice to know that newspapers still had a few fans although the woman voiced her preference for what she called New York City's avant-garde papers. Freeman was fine with that. He just wanted to see if there was anything she could add to this mystery.
"We don't watch television so we really didn't know who he was Mr. Freeman." Mrs. Noughle explained. She sounded like a female Franklin Roosevelt. "There were always cars going by and noise coming from over there." She explained that their property lay behind the tree line, pointing in the general direction. Freeman could barely make out a structure behind those trees. He guessed about a thousand yards away. He wondered how the old couple, for Noughle explained that it was just her and her sick husband, could hear even a gun battle from that distance. Well, living in the quiet country Freeman guessed that noise was a relative term.
"We got home late last night. Gary, my husband, was upbeat after his treatment. Alzheimer's you know," she explained pointing at her head. "It takes the best part of a person." Her eyes watered a little. "It was nice to drive down state, eat at a fine restaurant and enjoy time in the car, just like it was ten years ago."
"Did you hear or see anything last night?" he asked. He flipped open a small paper pad. That seemed to please the woman. He had already turned on the small voice recorder in his pocket.
She nodded. "That man was doing some kind of excavation! There was a whining and some lights!" Freeman did his best to calm her. "There were strange lights last night; no doubt the party was moved outdoors," she continued in a calmer voice. "He wanted some obscenely sized pool and earlier this year applied for a permit. Well, the neighborhood association soon put a stop to that! But besides the party I believe he brought in earth moving equipment. There was a whining noise. Then we saw the hole where there was digging last night."
Freeman had seen earthmovers on his drive to the crime scene. The country road that led here crossed over a hill that looked down onto these houses. It seemed absurd that someone would try to conceal the construction of a pool from neighbors, especially when the result would probably be years of litigation. Now, that would be in keeping with the flamboyant celebrity chef's persona, thought Freeman. But it still seemed improbable, what a neighborhood watch group committing mass murder to keep a pool from being built?
"Did you hear the equipment being brought in ma'am?" he asked, nodding toward the mansion.
"That came out here this morning," she answered. "I think the federal investigators requested them. No, there was a hole out there when we got up this morning."
"When did the…whining and lights end?" he asked.
She visibly wilted. "Gary and William—Willy is our Fox Terrier, they were terrified; to tell you truth so was I. We went to other side of our home. Gary had a cottage built for his parents to live in close to the end. We locked ourselves in it. The police car went by, we heard that and then…there was, well, a zing, the whining got louder and then faded away."
Freeman finished writing sensing that Noughle had told him everything that she knew. That and Gary Noughle was walking down the road toward them. The woman cringed. Freeman saw a large wet spot on crotch of the man's pajamas. His heart went out to her. Gary Noughle was babbling and pointing up at the sky. Finally Joshua made out the words "they'll be back" being said over and over. Mrs. Noughle refused his offer of assistance. Seeing that he was done then he made for his car. Freeman got his cell out and called Morty Gilroy, filling his editor in on the story's specifics.
"You should be crossing the border around 2?" Gilroy asked him.
"If the traffic is light, why?" he asked. He knew that another assignment was in the works. The trouble was that Defender paid him a day's low wages whether he did two or twenty stories.
"I want you to stop at Crown World. Do a profile piece on the park's head, some yank named Stracker." Crown World was being billed as Canada's response to the famous American park in Florida. Josh remembered that it not only was a park with rides but also had a movie studio on its land.
"Essy is the entertainment reporter Mort!" Esmeralda Sanchez was a portly young lady who had an incredible talent for getting people to talk. Josh had asked her several times to switch over to hard journalism to no avail.
"She was but I couldn't pay her what the world's foremost Hollywood rag just offered her. By the way you missed a great cake for her going away party." Freeman couldn't argue with that. Everyone on the Defender's staff knew that Sanchez had applied with that magazine.
"Knowing you Mort, you probably rocked a pack of Twinkies out of the snack machine." Josh leaned against his car while the cop that had questioned the wrecker driver drove past. Freeman guessed that the officer would try to make an issue of him merely being seated behind the wheel with his cell phone. "Can't we just call this fellow; have one of the copy people do it?"
Gilroy sighed. "Sonny," he began while Freeman wondered why he used that word when Gilroy was just a mere twelve years older than Josh. "The people pages sell add space. No one wants to hear the truth anymore. They just want to be entertained."
One final protest on Josh's part: "I can't write with Essy's style." That was true.
"Journalism 101 Joshua," Gilroy retorted. Freeman unlocked his car and sat down. "Look, this Stracker is part of America's Hollywood crowd. Maybe he's gay. Bend over a lot and see if he tells you some gem, like an upcoming movie or some kind of ride at the park. The point is: just tell a story that makes some working mom believe that there's more out there than long hours and dirty diapers."
Freeman agreed. He had no choice. Some warehouses were hiring where he could make more money but journalism was his passion. Unfortunately at this stage of his career it paid very little. Gilroy gave him details on where to report. Josh put his car in gear and made for the interstate while wondering what vacuous questions he could ask this executive.