Christopher Nuttall: Invasion

Francis frowned. “Should we not be working towards a united front?”

“It depends on what the aliens have in mind for us,” the President admitted. “We have a series of agreements with the other great powers that if the aliens are hostile, we will fight them together, but if they’re not hostile, they could play divide and rule very easily. The orders I gave you… well, the other Ambassadors are likely to be following similar orders, and the crew of the ISS… well, they’ll have similar orders themselves. They might be more pro-American than their fellow countrymen, those who aren’t American, but…”

“The stakes are high,” Francis agreed.

“Too high,” the President said. “The entire country seems to have gone crazy, but hopefully it will have calmed down by the time the aliens enter orbit and actually make contact.”

“Let’s hope so,” Francis said, pessimistically. “What about our defences?”

“I can’t really discuss those with you,” the President said. “No offence, but if the aliens capture you…”

Francis nodded. “I understand,” he said. He smiled, a little nervously. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Ambassador, perhaps, to the Galactic Empire,” the President said. “Thank me when you come back alive, Francis; I suspect that I haven’t done you any favours at all.”

The daily briefing to the President was a chore that Paul disliked, not because the President was an unpleasant person, but because it took him away from continuing his work. There was little choice, however, and he had to admit that it was better that he briefed the President, rather than some REMF who wouldn’t know what was important and what wasn’t. The thought was quietly ironic; he’d been in the American armed forces for sixteen years and he’d never fired a shot in anger. He’d never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of the other places where American troops had been deployed.

“NASA confirms that the space shuttle Discovery is currently going through its final flight checks before launch,” he said, once he’d updated the President on the ground-based preparations. “They’re stripped out the planned launch schedule — they intended to launch a trio of new communications satellites — and replaced it with a module for supporting additional crewmembers, so the Ambassadors won’t be too much of a burden on the ISS.”

“Good,” the President said. The ISS normally had only six crewmembers and adding five representatives — and the shuttle crew — would have pushed life support to the limit. “And the defensive capability?”

“It’s been added, after a long argument,” Paul admitted. NASA had been almost universally opposed to the idea of arming Discovery ; the basically civilian organisation hadn’t wanted to accept the idea that the aliens might be hostile. It wasn’t as if the shuttle could be turned into a real space warship, but at least it would have some teeth. “Captain Markus Kane has been practicing using the weapons on the simulator, but…”

He shrugged. “We ran simulations for intercepting Chinese and Russian satellites, not alien ships,” he said. “It could be that Discovery will last more than a few seconds, but I doubt it.”

The President frowned. “We’d better hope that it doesn’t come down to a fight, then,” he said. “Have the Chinese responded to our proposal?”

“No,” Paul said. “The Chinese ASAT capability is remaining firmly in their hands. The Russians have expressed some limited interest in sharing data for launching the Gorgon and Gazelle missile systems, but the system is outdated and the number of operational missiles is… not large. We have heard a rumour that they’re actually refitting the nuclear warheads onto the missiles, but so far we have no independent confirmation of that fact.”

The President smiled. “Doesn’t that violate a treaty?”

“We might be happy that they had them,” Paul warned. He’d proposed arming American missiles with nuclear warheads, but that suggestion had never made it onto the operational level. The proposal alone was hugely controversial. “That said, they never composed a serious ABM shield for technical reasons, although one of the more persistent worries of the past decade was that they would solve their problems and deploy a working nuclear shield. If they had succeeded in accomplishing such a feat…”

He shrugged. “But it didn’t happen, so not to worry,” he said, and changed the subject slightly. “They’ve also been altering their old ICBMs for launching them straight upwards into alien ships, if it does come down to a fight.”

“Ouch,” the President said. He scowled down at the table. “How much damage are they likely to cause to the aliens?”

“That’s the question,” Paul admitted. “The Russians have been revamping their nuclear missiles over the past decade, but the Soviets let their missile designs atrophy slightly during the years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. We don’t have exact data, but its quite possible that not all of the missiles will fly when they hit the launch button. It’s also possible that they’ll all fly, but some will disintegrate in midair.”

He frowned. “The Chinese missiles are more modern, but they have far fewer missiles than either us or the Russians,” he added thoughtfully. “They might be very effective if it comes down to a fight, or completely useless.”

A tone rang. “Excuse me,” he said. The Nightwatch staff wouldn’t have interrupted unless it was important. “Yes?”

He listened, carefully. “Mr President, there has been another development with the alien craft,” he said. “They’ve split their craft into two starships… and they’re both still heading this way.”

“It’s confirmed, then?”

“It looks that way,” Jeremy Damiani said, as Commander Gary Jordan frowned over his shoulder. Standing wasn’t really possible in the zero-gravity environment of the International Space Station, but he loomed as close to his subordinate as he could. “The aliens have launched a smaller part of their starship at us.”

Gary scowled. The only telescope mounted on the ISS — a research program that would have served so much better if it had been floating freely in space — had been watching the alien starship ever since it had been sighted, three weeks ago. He’d been suffering from steadily growing envy ever since the starship had been sighted — compared to the alien starship, the ISS was little more than a toy — and yet, it worried him. What respect could the human race hope to obtain from a race that could cross the interstellar gulf without worrying about little details like cost and ‘social programs’ down on Earth? They’d probably take one look at the ISS, and the shuttle that was coming in to dock at the main tube, and die laughing.

And the alien separation manoeuvre was even more worrying. The larger section of the alien craft had continued decelerating, violently enough to shake the crew, while the smaller section continued to race towards Earth. The smaller section — and ‘small’ was relative, given that it was over ten kilometres long — would make Earth orbit in a week, while the larger section would arrive in two weeks. He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the implications seemed ominous; it wasn’t as if the aliens could avoid visiting Earth now. The aliens might be much more advanced, but it wasn’t that wide a gap; their technology, or at least what the human race had seen, wasn’t that far in advance of humanity’s technology. If Earth concentrated enough resources on space travel, they could match the alien ship in short order…