Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

There had been one odd whisper from a friend in Afghanistan. Apparently — and it could easily have been rumour — there had been a new black ops team inserted into the country from an unknown nation. And yet they’d had near-complete access to American intelligence and resources, something not offered to any nation. Maybe they’d been an American team, so secret that they’d been mistaken for foreigners, or maybe there was something else going on. Were they connected with the Taliban deaths?

Shaking his head, wondering if it was all the result of jet-lag and tiredness, he started to try to put the pieces together. But none of the results he got seemed to make sense.

The President looked haggard, Jürgen realised, as he stepped into the Oval Office. He had spent an uncomfortable night in the bunker underneath the White House while his wife and children were whisked away to an highly-classified location. Behind him, Craig Henderson looked concerned. He didn’t think much of the President — Jürgen could read his body language, even if his voice was nothing but respectful — but he was still their Commander-in-Chief. And he’d spent the night wondering if Earth was on the verge of being destroyed.

“Be seated,” the President said, as the CIA and NSA directors entered, followed by two more officials Jürgen didn’t know personally. “We have received a communication from the Russians. They know that something happened in orbit.”

Jürgen wasn’t surprised. Whatever Mr. Stuart and his men used to keep their shuttles undetected by purely human technology — and he had some theories about how that technology worked — it hadn’t managed to hide the brief and violent battle in orbit. NSA’s network of satellites had picked up the energy flashes, as had a number of civilian systems and — apparently — the Russians. There was no point, Jürgen suspected, in trying to cover the whole affair up. After all, there was nothing so conspicuous as a man ducking for cover.

“I received a very tart note from the Russians earlier this morning,” the President continued. “They out-and-out accused us of violating several treaties, including the one forbidding the deployment of nuclear weapons to orbit. Reading between the lines, they don’t have the faintest idea of what actually happened, but they think we do.”

“The emergency alert,” Jürgen said.

“Yes,” the President said. “They know we called an alert before the fireworks started in orbit and they don’t believe in coincidences.”

CIA nodded. “They won’t be the only ones, Mr. President,” he said. “There isn’t another government in the world who knows about Mr. Stuart and his band of… lunar settlers. They will all be demanding answers.”

It was funny, Jürgen reflected, how CIA could make settling the moon sound like a crime worthy of good old-fashioned hanging. But then, the CIA had been thoroughly embarrassed by the near-complete extermination of the Taliban leadership. They hadn’t been responsible for it. If they had, the news would probably have leaked right now. No more than the DHS, the CIA needed a success to secure their position in the world.

“There will be others putting the pieces together,” one of the unnamed men said. “I’ve had several calls from various independent reporters, the ones willing to take chances on something… a little out of the ordinary. So far, there’s nothing from the mainstream media, but I wouldn’t expect that to last. There’s just too many sources of information for them to assume that someone is trying to hoax them into making an embarrassing mistake.”

“Not to mention the Russians threatening to lodge protests at the UN,” the President muttered. “So… what do we tell them?”

“The truth?” NSA suggested. He smirked. “Let them lodge their complaints with Mr. Stuart?”

CIA eyed him, nastily. “There are two problems with that,” he said. “Either they would believe us or they wouldn’t. If the latter, they would assume that we were covering up something and take the whole affair public. If the former, they would believe that a group of Americans has taken over the moon and declared themselves an independent nation. They’d start panicking, then they’d start blaming us for the whole affair.”

NSA looked back at him. “How — exactly — can Washington be blamed for Mr. Stuart’s actions?”

“He’s American — or he was American,” CIA said. “Whatever, the Russians will have good reason to blame us. And if they decide that he’s acting completely without restraint, Mr. President, they are likely to do something drastic.”

“But if we lie to them,” the President said, “eventually the truth will come out and we’ll look dishonest.”

He snorted. “And what is to stop Mr. Stuart announcing himself to the world?”

“Nothing,” Jürgen said, simply. “They were planning a public announcement soon enough in any case.”

“And what,” the President said, “will happen when the news gets out?”

There would be panic, Jürgen knew. Maybe not over Heinlein Colony, but over the existence of aliens, aliens who had come alarmingly close to bombarding Earth. Hell, there was definite proof — now — that aliens had abducted humans from the planet and turned them into cyborg soldiers. There would be colossal panic right around the globe. And then… who knew what would happen then? How would humanity cope with the thought of no longer being alone in the universe?

He recalled the files Kevin Stuart had given him to read. They were immensely detailed, too detailed for him to believe them a hoax. There were upwards of ten thousand intelligent races known to exist — at least, known to the starship’s designer — and most of them were far more advanced than humanity. At best, Earth was a tiny primitive tribe in a jungle, utterly unaware of the surrounding world. The shock of discovering just how badly humanity was outmatched would shake the world to its core.

He’d read some of the scenarios devised over the years concerning alien contact. The writers had been more than a little paranoid, pointing to the prospect of humans adopting alien religions or abandoning homebuilt tech and becoming entirely dependent on alien technology. Or there would be humans who would embrace xenophobia and attack everything alien, to the point they accidentally started a war, a war humanity couldn’t hope to win. Even the most optimistic scenarios had been thoroughly ominous. The very foundations of human society were about to shake and shake badly.

The President cleared his throat. “I will speak with Mr. Stuart later today,” he said. “However, we need a contingency plan to release the information as soon as possible.”

CIA leaned forward. “I agree that we should level with the Russians and the rest of the world governments,” he said. “Or at least the ones we can trust to keep a secret. However, I do not believe we should tell the general public just yet.”

The President lifted his eyebrows. “You propose to keep it a secret indefinitely?”

“Mr. Stuart’s people have been hellishly effective against the Taliban,” CIA pointed out, carefully. “And most of the involved governments don’t have the slightest idea of what happened in Afghanistan. But if we reveal the truth, the Pakistani Government — among others — will tremble, perhaps fall. And they’re not the only ones.”

He took a breath. “Fusion power and super batteries, Mr. President, offer the chance to break the oil dependency once and for all. If that news leaks, we will see a sudden upsurge in trouble from the Middle East. Nations like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, nations dependent on oil revenue, will do whatever it takes to delay the introduction of fusion power. They will stroke the fires of anti-nuclear feeling, throw money at political candidates who will pledge to delay the introduction of fusion indefinitely and probably finance terrorist attacks aimed at Mr. Stuart and his people.”