John Ringo: Von Neumann’s War

Roger and Alan tried not to fall off their stools laughing as the waitress bounced over to get their order. Tom just sighed.

“Well, sir,” the president’s science advisor George Fines explained, “scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute have actually discovered that the bolometric albedo — that is what astronomers call the spectral content or colors of a planetary image — of Mars has changed over the past year dramatically. But what is even more alarming is that within the past month it has changed at an incredible rate. The current spectrum when compared to the previous one shows that there are now many different metals, gases, and other compounds on the surface and in the atmosphere. This is an unprecedented change.”

“Yes, George. I realize that, but what does it mean?” President Colby replied as he looked out the window of the Oval Office. He was a businessman — top of his class at Harvard. Economic recessions, inflation, hell, even depressions, he could handle. Planets changing colors during his administration was something he wasn’t sure he was prepared for. “How’s this going to affect us ? I’m interested and all that, but it’s not like there’s a great big comet headed this way that only Bruce Willis can save us from…”

“If I may, Mr. President,” NASA Director Jess Obannon interjected. “The planet got shiny all of the sudden. We don’t know why. Then we started losing probes. That… doesn’t look like coincidence.”

“You’re saying… what?” the President asked. “Aliens? Little green men?”

“We don’t know, Mr. President,” the science advisor said, frowning. “That’s the problem.”

“Mr. President, we’re trying to gather more data. But we need more time. And, we need a closer look than we can get with Earth-based telescopes.” Obannon rubbed his bald head and looked nervously at the President’s back. “But, so far we can think of no natural cause for this.”

The President rolled up his left sleeve, then began with his right as he turned to face the NASA bureaucrat.

“All right then, I want this gagged. Nobody, and I mean nobody leaks this info to the public yet. Anybody that knows about it gets read the National Security Act and the pertinent Executive gag orders. I mean it. The economy is flaky enough as it is right now. No telling what rumors about Mars exploding or little green men will do to the NASDAQ and the Exchange.”

“Mr. President, we might need other astronomers and planetary scientists to help figure this out,” the NASA administrator said. “If it’s classified we might not be able to convince the best ones to help.”

Fines had dealt with the planetary science community long enough to know that NASA “scientists” didn’t believe in secrets except when it came to their personal publications. Most of them hated the military and the intelligence community and wouldn’t work and play well with them. He remembered the example of a few years before when the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, then NIMA) told them that they had found the failed Mars polar lander in some of the other Mars orbiters’ imagery and that it was sitting upright on its landing struts. NASA scientists didn’t believe it because nobody is smarter than NASA scientists — and the NASA scientists said it was impossible to make such claims from the data available. NASA administrators at the Office of Space Science didn’t care or acknowledge that the NGA had spent a mammoth Cold War budget developing spy satellite image analysis techniques that were decades beyond those developed on NASA’s shoestring budget. But since they were not NASA, NGA couldn’t know what they were talking about — the “not invented here” syndrome.

Fines knew that NASA scientists were not who he needed. He wanted the best scientists, so he knew not to look to the stagnant “white collar welfare” technical community. There were some smart guys at NASA, but most of them were involved with the nation’s spy organizations in some form or other. Brains go where the money is and for decades NASA’s budget was much smaller than the intelligence community’s.

“Mr. President, I think we need the space reconnaissance community’s help,” the science advisor suggested.

The President tapped his phone, “Judy, get me my NSA, the DCI, and the DNRO in my office right now, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, thanks.” He smiled at Fines. “You’re right, George. Now, let’s get this thing quieted down, shall we?” The President smiled and showed the science advisor and the NASA administrator the door.

His phone buzzed as he sat back down in his chair. “Yes, Judy?”

“Mr. President, the national security advisor is here to see you. Should I change your one o’clock meeting with Ambassador Chiaz?”

“Yes, see if you can delay him until sometime next week, will you? And send Vicki in.”

“Right away, Mr. President.”

“Oh, Judy, as soon as the Chairman, the DCI and DNRO get here, send them in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. President, from the data that we have it’s my conclusion that this is some sort of preparation for invasion,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs stated.

“Really, Kevin? How would we know that?” Dr. Vicki Johnson, the national security advisor asked. “What if it turns out to be a natural phenomenon? Or if it’s unnatural, then what if they’re just moving in or building a home? If it’s an alien race, they might prefer Mars.”

“Vicki,” the President interrupted. “I don’t know which thought scares me most. Whether we’re talking about preparations for attack or just moving in, we might still be talking about strangers — aliens — moving into our neighborhood. And we know absolutely nothing about them.”

“We need to know more about what is going on, Mr. President,” the national security advisor commented. “But how to get that information is the hard part. Mars is a long way away from Earth.”

“John, what do you think?” The President turned to the director of Central Intelligence. “Is there a way to get the recon we need?”

“Not today, not tomorrow, hell, Mr. President, not even this month, maybe not even this year. We would need to complete a Mars satellite design and build and mission implementation in an extremely compressed schedule. I don’t know much, if anything, about that. What do you think, Mike?” he asked the director of the National Reconnaissance Office. NRO handled all the satellites used by the intelligence and military branches and developed the new technologies for the next generation systems.

“I don’t know, either, Mr. President,” the DNRO replied. “I would like a couple of weeks to have my guys run some numbers. We would need some budget for this and I mean serious budget.”

“Well, figure it out,” the President said. “But if they’re preparing for something, do we have two weeks? Hurry. Vicki, John, Kevin, I want y’all to make sure that NRO gets whatever support they need on this. For now this is to be kept quiet. Got it?”

“Major Shane Gries reporting for duty,” Shane said, saluting the Navy captain behind the desk. The officer, the equivalent of a full colonel in the Army, which meant a senior division staff officer or brigade commander, occupied just one cubicle in the large room in the bowels of the Pentagon, indicative of just how important the “Bureau” was considered by the real powers in the building. The desk itself had a high-end monitor on it with some sort of blueprint displayed and was just about covered in paper. Shane didn’t even recognize most of the forms on the desk but he did see that most had Top Secret cover sheets.