CHAPTER TEN
The "Situation Room"
The White House
Washington, D.C.
21:32 UTC 03 September 2093
"Are you absolutely certain, Colonel? Over." President Eleanor McReavis knew she should have taken the opportunity to ask more than a one-sentence question as soon as she said it. It was now going to be ten minutes or more until the transmission made the round trip from Earth, to the Christa McAuliff, and back to her.
She turned back to the table of military officers and civilian advisors behind her. With her was National Security Advisor Aaron Evans, Chief of Aerospace Forces Warren Blakely, and Secretary of Defense Caroll Young. On the wall monitors were General Jim Stevens and Doctor Kim Li Park, both on the moon. It was 4:30pm on Thursday in Washington, and she was glad she'd been able to catch some of her senior chief advisors before they could get on the road for the long weekend, although she knew Stevens and Park weren't going anywhere.
"Gentlemen…Doctor Park…if I understood Colonel Hastings correctly, this derelict is larger than any six of our supercarriers put together, yet potentially has a drive system on it that can send it between stars in…in the blink of an eye?"
It was Admiral Blakely that replied rather matter-of-factly. "Yes Madam President. We have reviewed the video that the AI's on the surface sent back, and the engineering plant for the main drive appears to be hundred's-of-times times larger than those found on the smaller craft found near Greece in 2032. The machinery for this drive takes up three football fields, and that's just the main part of the drive. That doesn't include power, navigation, controls, and who knows what else we can't see or understand. The ship…" he fumbled with some papers in front of him for a moment "…called Galactica, appears to be over a kilometer in length and may be between a quarter to a third of that a-beam at these pods."
The Admiral pulled an oversized photo from the pile in front of him. The picture was grainy, and only showed the ship from a low angle, well beyond the bow of the great ship looking aft along its midline. The rise of debris at the bow obscured almost half the length of the ship at that angle, but the width of the two smaller pods was apparent even though the front end of both of those were likewise buried in rubble.
"I guess it's a good thing this monster didn't land in Manhattan, eh?" Admiral Blakely said to no one in particular.
Colonel Hastings' voice suddenly interrupted the ongoing conversation. "Yes Madam President. Both CARIE's have performed a thorough search of the engineering spaces. There were four main sublight engines on the ship, similar to those found on the smaller ships found on Earth, but immense in their own right. This thing is huge. It easily takes up the aft fourth of the ship. Unfortunately there's no way to operate any of the systems since there's no power available. I've instructed the AI's to either locate a central computer bank and its core, or a central library, or both. If there's any way that we can harvest data from her, we'll find it."
The President sat back in her chair and turned to the monitor on the wall. "Doctor Park, are we as certain about the danger of the approaching daylight on Mercury? I mean, do we know for certain what the conditions on the surface are going to be?"
"Yes, Madam President. The daylight surface temperatures will be almost one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The CARIE's are built to withstand temperatures only to about five hundred degrees, and only for a brief time. If we leave them in place, not knowing if that ship can adequately protect them, they will certainly fail within an hour of exposure to daylight conditions…without question."
The President sat back in her high-topped seat and turned to the officers behind her. "So folks…where do we go from here? Admiral Blakely, how much longer can we leave the CARIE's on the surface and still extract them safely?"
The Admiral leaned forward to look through some papers in front of him, only to have Dr. Park beat him to the punch. "Only eleven hours, Madam President. After that, it's doubtful they could get back to the drop ship, re-board and launch in time."
Doctor Kim's voice was still echoing through the room when Colonel Hastings' voice broke through the speakers once again. "You're kidding me…?!" Her voice was both excited and disbelieving. There was a small pause as the Lunar and Earthside members of the three-way conversation were suddenly silenced by the outburst from the usually stoic Colonel.
"Madam President, The AI's are sending us flash traffic! Stand-by one!"
Suddenly there was a pin-drop silence in both the White House Situation Room and the conference room at USLI-Sheppard.
Everyone sat transfixed as the video from the inside of the McAuliff re-focused from Colonel Hastings to Major Arrelano. The major appeared very animated and excited. He rose slightly from his seat, moving forward to get a closer look at the screen in front of him. He then stood abruptly, clenched his right fist as if grabbing a fistful of gold, then brought his elbow to his waist in a gleeful, abrupt, boyish taunt. "YES! That's it! We hit the damn Lottery!" he exclaimed.
Just then Colonel Hastings, as almost equally gleeful, remembered who they were in a three-way conference call with, and whispered words of temperament to the excited Marine.
Just as abruptly as he had stood, the Major re-took his seat and turned to face the camera. The occasionally fluttering picture sometimes made it difficult to appreciate some facial features, but even from fifty million miles away, all of the correspondents could see the young major blushing. "I beg your pardon, Madam President, but you are not going to believe this, Ma'am! The AI's have found the central library core! And it's intact!"
The President turned back to the table behind her. "OK, Mr. Evans. Pretend that I'm a career politician without a clue as to what this means. English, please…!"
Aaron Evans turned more directly towards the President from his own monitor screen, a smile on his face that a jack-hammer couldn't chisel off. "What it means, Madam President…" he said taking a deep breath, "…is that we may very well have the key to unlocking the secrets of their star drive, not to mention any one of hundreds, if not thousands of other revelations about their culture…where they came from, how they got here, and perhaps most importantly, what happened to them and that ship!"
The President turned back to the monitor screens behind her. She could see Doctor Park on the Moon leaning in towards her own monitor, a look of both astonishment and gleeful passion on her face. On board the McAuliff, both Major Arrelano and Colonel Hastings were glued to their own monitors, each excitedly bouncing their feet and giving each other a "high five".
The President watched with careful consideration for a moment, realizing that this unorthodox breech of decorum while in a three-way teleconference with the President of the United States was tempered by the knowledge that this was probably the scientific find of the century…Hell, for the millennium! And as she sat there, she glanced to the digital clocks over the monitors. There were a dozen of them on the wall, each for a major city around the world, plus the Greenwich Mean Time clock. She watched as the digital seconds counted up…fifty-five…fifty-six…fifty-seven…fifty-eight…fifty-nine…and then zeros as the clock rolled over to the next full minute. Suddenly she was painfully aware that time was moving on, and with each passing second, there was less of it to use.
"Doctor Park, Colonel Hastings…I'm suddenly reminded that one of the reasons we met here today was to discuss harvesting this ship's technology, but I am also reminded that we now only have ten hours and…" she looked back to the notes on the pad in front of her "…twenty-five minutes until we lose our window of opportunity to return the AI's safely. Isn't that correct?"
The mood in the Situation Room suddenly sobered as did the video coming from the Moon, only three light seconds away. Doctor Park then turned to face her camera directly, still smiling, but also more cognizant of with whom she was speaking. "Yes, Madam President. You're quite correct. But with this discovery, I fear we have a bigger problem."
"And that is, Doctor?" the President asked.
"Well, Ma'am. The CARIEs are a tight fit on the drop ship as it is. If that core is anything like our supercomputers or similar systems, it's a fairly large piece of hardware." The doctor paused for a moment. "A really big piece of hardware, Ma'am…" she said, hoping that her stressing of the word big hit home.
The President leaned forward, he look more earnest now. "And what is the point we're getting to, Doctor Park?"
Kim Li Park thought to answer the president immediately, but then stopped. She then leaned across her console and flipped a switch. Suddenly the three-way conference call was now just between Washington and USLI-Sheppard. "Madam President, I'm doing this on the fly, so please forgive me…" The return to situational sobriety was a sudden and painful one.
"We've got a problem, Ma'am…Actually, a couple. First of all, time. We can't stop the clock so we're stuck with what we've got. Secondly, we can't formulate a complete plan until the AI's send us the mechanical specifications of that core anyway. I assume they are sending that information to Colonel Hastings on the McAuliff now."
"I'm not a scientist, but I understand that much already, Doctor" the President interrupted. "Please tell me something I don't know…"
"Yes Ma'am. My point is, that if we want to get that core off the Mercurian surface before this sunrise, and assuming it will fit in the drop ship at all, we may have to leave one or both of the AI's on the surface."
There was a longer-than-usual pause before the President answered. "OK, Doctor…So we have to leave them behind. The problem with that is…?"
The doctor was quick to reply this time. "The problem is that while they may be artificial intelligence entities, they are, nonetheless, intelligent! We will, in essence, be asking them to commit suicide. Or at the very least submit to six months of blistering hot solitude. Remember…they're "awake" 24/7. They don't sleep."
The President's tone became a bit-more stern. "But they are machines, are they not, Doctor? They are programmed by humans to do what we bid of them…or did I miss something along the way?"
Dr. Park leaned into the monitor slightly. "Madam President, they are aware of what we would be directing them to do. Call it suicide…call it 'termination of function', or whatever you care to call it. The result is the same!"
Just as Dr. Park's words passed, Colonel Hastings' voice came through the speakers in both the Situation Room and at USLI-Sheppard. "Madam President, CARIE Gold informs me that they believe the core can be isolated and removed from the ship. There's one catch. One of them will have to remain behind, but they believe they have a plan. Stand by for further, Ma'am…"
The President looked over her shoulder at SecDef Caroll Young with a quizzical look. "Caroll…can these things actually anticipate and plan?" He then turned to one of the Naval attaché's for an answer.
President McReavis took a few seconds to size up her Secretary of Defense. Caroll Young wasn't a career politician like she was. Only two months before taking his present job, he had been General Caroll Young, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps.
It was during her first term as President that then General Young had been on a "press the flesh" tour of the 55th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Libya. The dictatorship of old Libya had been long-ago deposed by moderates and had re-established diplomatic relationships with the United States. However the pro-western government of Tripoli still had to defend itself against the ever-present Islamic hardliners that continued to harass every pro-democracy government in Asia and Africa for the last century. During a blustery sandstorm at the MEU's base near the old Wheelus Air Force base, insurgents attacked the Americans and their new Libyan counterparts. General Young not only took personal command of the ground force, he manned the forward command post.
During that attack, then General Young grabbed a grenade that had landed between him and the young Lance Corporal next to him and flung it back towards the attackers. In the process, the General also threw himself over the same Marine, protecting the junior warrior from shrapnel from the close-detonating weapon, taking a considerable amount of the blast himself. After the firefight, they found four dead insurgents less than five meters away from the CP, killed by the same grenade that they themselves lobbed only seconds before. The General's actions stopped the attacks, saved the younger trooper's life, and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor…and the admiration of a president that was desperately in need of replacing one of her most trusted cabinet members.
The General later stated that he could care less about the tribute itself. It was the fact that every Marine in the CP that had witnessed the act had signed the petition for the award that meant more to him than anything. The day after he left Walter Reed Hospital, the Chief of Naval Operations told him to report to the Pentagon within the hour. Believing himself about to get a reaming for placing himself in such jeopardy, he was shocked to walk into the conference room to be greeted by the CNO, a dozen Senators and a phalanx of reporters. In the middle of the throng were his wife and President Eleanor McReavis. "General…I am holding a petition in my hands from seventeen Marines who basically told me they dared me to "just say no" to what I am about to read! Stand at attention, please…" Although the General had been told "…there's something in the wings", to hear his name and the words "Congressional Medal of Honor" in the same sentence was overwhelming.
The President finished the citation, then took the Medal from an aide and turned to the general. Although the general was what many might call an "average" sized man, next to the President's five foot even frame, he was almost a giant.
As the General bowed slightly to permit the petite President to place the award over his head, President McReavis allowed the soldier to resume his position, and then she saluted him. As he returned the Honor, the President said "Now General, I have a more daunting task for you…" Little did he know just how 'daunting' it would be!
Suddenly, McReavis was brought back to the present by the Secretary's deep baritone voice. "Yes Ma'am. Given any mission, they can act autonomously to achieve a pre-determined goal to a certain outcome."
The tall-back leather chair at the head of the table almost seemed to swallow her at times, but she sat back for a moment, her left hand across her chin.
The President then turned to the screens behind her and stood. "Dr. Park, Colonel Hastings, I'll leave it to you two on how to best coordinate this, but that core has to be off the surface of Mercury and enroute to the McAuliff before local sunrise."
She then turned back to the table behind her. "Thank-you, Ladies and Gentlemen…" was all she said as she left the room.
President of the United States or not, Eleanor McReavis didn't want to see the look on Colonel Hastings' face when her order arrived.