Christopher Nuttall: Invasion

On the ground, matters were a little better, despite the chaos. The Army had been called up and had been deployed around the country, while air assets had been dispersed to avoid a single lucky hit taking out entire squadrons of fighters. The National Guards and the Reserves had been called up as well — if nothing else, it was a fascinating exercise — and deployed in defensive positions, but he had his doubts as to how useful the entire exercise would be. The rest of the world was doing the same — he’d read a report that warned that the bulk of the French Army had been deployed near Paris, in case the aliens landed there — but he suspected that it was just whistling in the wind. They’d prepared, as best as they could, for the worst case scenario… and he couldn’t help feeling that that was exactly what would happen.

“Mr President, Ambassador Prachthauser is here to see you.”

“Thank you, Irene,” the President said. He’d spent the morning, as he had almost every day since the alien starship had been detected, in conference with different world leaders and almost welcomed the interruption. The larger countries tended to be carefully choosing their options, but the smaller countries — and the UN — were publicly buying into all kinds of tales of alien benevolence, acting as if the new millennium was about to begin. The UN debates on the alien starship had gotten nowhere fast, but the President knew that many of the smaller countries had no reason to view the alien arrival with caution. “Please send him in.”

Ambassador Francis Prachthauser was a tall dignified man, barely entering his forties, with dark hair that somehow gave an expression of length. He had a very empathic face; the President had known him during his election campaign and had been impressed by how well he’d handled people who might have been a problem. He’d offered Francis the post of Ambassador to the Court of King James — Britain — as a gesture of thanks… and a highly practical measure. It was the most significant Embassy in the world, outside Russia and China.

“Mr President,” Francis said, with a half-bow. “That was a very… entertaining flight.”

The President smiled. He’d given orders for Francis to be picked up by an F-15 aircraft from one of the bases in Britain. Speed was of the essence now that there was a working consensus, between the larger powers, on how to proceed. It wasn’t as if the remainder of the world could prevent America, Russia, Europe and China from proceeding, but the whole affair could leave a bad taste in their mouths.

“I hope that you enjoyed it,” he said, settling back into his chair and waving Francis to one of the smaller chairs. “Do you know what this is about?”

“The aliens,” Francis said, proving again that he wasn’t a fool. Even the President wouldn’t order a fast-jet fighter aircraft used as a transport, even for an Ambassador, unless it was urgent. “I assume that you have some role in mind for me regarding the aliens?”

The President nodded. “How would you like to go up to Earth orbit and meet them?”

Francis stared at him. Deep inside, where no one could see, there had once been dreams of flying into space. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” the President said, flatly. He stood up and started to pace the office. “The alien starship will probably, at least in the belief of my expert advisors…”

“As far as we have expert advisors on this sort of thing,” Francis injected.

The President acknowledged his contribution with a nod. “The aliens, we think, will attempt to dock at the International Space Station,” he said. It was more likely to be the other way around — the alien starship was far larger than the ISS — but that hardly mattered. “It represents, so I’m told, an easily-accessible group of humans, just waiting for them to come and visit. They could be sure, if they docked with the ISS, of meeting representatives from the great powers on Earth. It has been designed that a group of Ambassadors will be placed onboard the station and, hopefully, that they will meet with the aliens.”

He paused. “Would you like to be the American representative onboard the station?”

Francis laughed. “Do you even have to ask?”

“No,” the President said. They shared a long smile. “I won’t lie to you, Francis; I could be sending you to your death. We don’t know what the aliens actually want and, if they’re hostile, the ISS is pretty much a sitting duck. Still want to go?”

Francis frowned. “The aliens have not responded to any of our messages?”

The President shook his head. Ever since the alien starship had become public knowledge, there had been attempts to signal the craft, a torrent of radio signals pouring out from Earth, some not even pointed in the right direction. No one could agree on what to say to them, however, and the aliens, if they were listening, had to be very confused. There had been sober and mature transmissions, invitations to land at one location or another… and hundreds of messages offering everything from marriage to abduction victims. The aliens had to be really confused… but there had been no reply to any of the messages.

“Not as far as we know,” the President said. “The most sensitive communications gear we have, items so classified that I’m barely allowed to know more than their existence, has been deployed to cover the alien craft… but if they’re transmitting, they’re doing it without us being able to pick it up. Some of my advisors are worried that they’re actually in communications with the Russians, or the Chinese, but if they are, they’re doing it without us hearing anything.”

“Occam’s Razor,” Francis said. “The simplest explanation is normally the correct one — and it’s that they’re not transmitting anything to Earth. If we can’t detect any transmissions, the Russians are unlikely to be able to detect them themselves.”

“I know,” the President said, wishing that he could somehow convoy the gut-wrenching feeling that the lack of communications was causing. A hundred kilometres of alien starship was racing towards Earth… and no one knew what they wanted. Colonel James had been right, he decided; there was something ominous in the lack of communication, let alone their attempt to limit Earth’s warning time. The decision to start dispersing the federal government had been easy once he’d realised just how ominous it was. “Still want to go?”

“Yes, Mr President,” Francis said. “Someone has to be up there to meet them, so… why not me?”

“Why not indeed,” the President said. He smiled thinly and took his seat again. “You’re going to be up there with four other representatives; a Russian, a Chinese, a European and a UN representative. The UN expects their representative to take the lead, but the great powers have agreed that it will be them in the lead, not least because we paid for the ISS and the space program. The European has instructions from the European Union, but he may have orders from his own government as well…”

Francis rolled his eyes. That always seemed to happen. For everyone devoted to the international organisation that they worked for, in theory, there were ten who were actually following the orders of their own countries, regardless of how well — or badly — they interacted with the remainder of the world. The only country that seemed to actually respect the concept of international organisations was the Swiss, and they’d been safe for hundreds of years.

“ Your instructions are simple enough,” the President added. “Ideally, we want an exclusive agreement with the aliens, but that’s not likely to happen. More practically, we want to ensure that we have a share in whatever dealings happen with the aliens and that we don’t get frozen out, or that the Europeans don’t get frozen out. We can rely on them to support us against Russia or China, but the UN representative is a wild card. She might have ambitions of placing the entire issue before the UN.”