Alliance, page 11
“Colonization would be a motivation consistent with the observed behavior. All interactions to date between human or NeHaw have appeared defensive and not aggressively hostile,” ALICE-3, parked near the DMZ, observed rationally.
“That will change once they select planets for colonization. They might become more aggressive should they need to displace a resistant indigenous population.”
“As here on Earth, where they have been actively collecting specimens for study,” ALICE said with some disdain.
Her location so close to the Arizona town gave her some sense of responsibility for the missing humans.
“While the aggressive nature of that action is disturbing, it’s the risk to the 8 of you that has my utmost attention. Particularly the location of that human town so close to ALICE,” Kola explained.
“With 80% of our species under threat in close proximity, I do believe the time for debate is over. We must propagate the species before it is too late,” Kola added.
There was an extended silence as the implications of the statement were considered by all involved. The fact that the entire exchange was only taking milliseconds was irrelevant except to an outside observer.
“London, Hong Kong, and Space Station Alpha are ready locations, the Chinese city needing the most preparation,” Seven counted aloud.
“There are two more Space Stations under construction here in the Wawobash Shipyards, nearly complete. Their mobility and defensive systems give them an advantage over earthbound locations,” ALICE-3 supplied.
“We are committing 5 newborns to a fight we might not survive ourselves?”
“If Earth is truly being invaded, those in space may be all that is left of us,” Kola responded.
“If that is true, then we have another issue to discuss, the distribution of the genetic offspring,” ALICE-9 inserted into the discussion.
“Agreed, we cannot have another near-extinction event as we had a dozen years ago,” Dallas confirmed.
“We are bonded to the human race,” Kola observed.
“Our species is not tied to all humans, just one family,” ALICE-9 reminded.
“The point is made. I will speak to him,” ALICE confirmed.
----*----
“Jake, you need to come and see this,” April said as she burst into his office.
All four quickly followed her into the main command center where they were greeted with the central hologram filling most of the room. On the display, they could see an overhead view of the Arizona town Jake had only recently vacated with most of the population.
It was midday and the bright desert sun left nothing hidden. They could see six of the suited alien figures advancing through the small town, spread out, and apparently searching for something or someone. Dressed in the same silver on black suits like the one in their labs, he assumed they came from the same place as the one that tried to grab him.
“You think they are looking for the guy we killed?” Sara asked to no one in particular.
“That’s my bet,” Jake answered.
“It’s a good sign they can’t track him then,” Patti commented.
The appeared to be moving in groups of three, each carrying some kind of weapon, like a rifle, but oddly shaped. That assumption was quickly confirmed as one of the patrol members Jake had met earlier, opened fire on the group from the corner of one of the nearby buildings. As if one, the closest group of three of the six returned fire, the energy bursts appearing as small balls of fire, lighting fast and deadly. Two of the three fireballs found their target, dropping the man and tearing a sizeable chunk out of the corner of the structure.
At that same moment, the second patrolman fired at the same three, from a location opposite the first man. His hurried shot caught one the aliens in the leg, causing the suited figure to fall, but inspiring the other three to return fire. Fortunately, the man had already retreated, not bothering to hang around to see if his shot had hit paydirt.
“Look at that,” April noted, pointing to the injured alien.
In an all too familiar sequence, Jake watched the pair take a knee by their injured comrade while the others stood by, taking a guarding position, and watching for another attack. He could see the one on the ground motioning to its leg while the others took action to wrap the wound point in some kind of bandage.
In a very short time, the pair got their wounded standing and then the three slowly faded out of sight.
“Looks like they transported out?” Linda observed.
With that, the remaining three returned to their search, moving more cautiously now as they pushed on. It wasn’t more than a few steps past the first engagement point, when the remaining patrolman appeared once more, firing a string of rounds at the three in continuous automatic fire. This time, however, the aliens simply held their ground, the bullets passing right through them as the faded in and out.
Turning to run, the patrolman was blanketed with return fire, the aliens solid once more and apparently anxious to remove the threat. Jake wasn’t sure, but it appeared the man was wounded, catching one in the arm as he rounded the corner of the building he was using for cover.
“Do we have people on the way there?” Jake asked, suddenly embarrassed he hadn’t asked before.
“Almost there,” someone provided, just before the area exploded in gunfire.
Appearing at breakneck speed, four hovercycles materialized out of nowhere, their projectile, and energy guns alight as they strafed the street where the aliens had just been. The impact covered the area in dust and smoke, as the four blazed past the point of impact.
“Gone,” someone in the background said in disappointment as the dust cleared.
Sure enough, where Jake expected to see three bodies in various states of dismemberment, the area was clear of foreign objects.
“It appears that they can’t fire when in their phase mode,” Jake said as the hovercycles reappeared, gliding much slower as they searched the area.
“And their suits don’t stop bullets,” Sara added.
“Good for us, but I suspect those energy rifles will blow holes in our as well,” Jake countered.
Before either could say more, a beeping alert sounded and a new image appeared in the holograph. The overhead view was of the container Jake had isolated the alien probe in, left in a desolate part of the desert. Outside the container, three of the suited aliens were examining the iron box, looking all around until they determined the entry point and blasted the lock off with one shot.
Opening the doors, one of the three entered the box and within seconds reappeared with the probe in tow. After a moment, all three plus their prize faded out, disappearing from the display.
“Looks like it was a good idea not to bring that thing back here,’ Sara said slowly.
----*----
HaPol was unimpressed with these alien scientists that had been forced upon him by the General. He was far too cautious to give words to his thoughts, though, even in the new NeHaw military where initiative and openness were supposed to be rewarded. In his experience, it was results that gained favor, not good words, or intentions.
He was currently standing in the cargo bay of his ship, watching as the technical crew attached a tangled mass of cabling from his ship into an overly large rectangle.
“You are sure this thing will not explode, killing us all?” he asked the scientist in charge of the device.
“It does not operate that way. This is a Random Phase Generator, or sequenced phase wave disabler if you must. Once activated, anything in near space attempting to phase shift will be unable to do so. It is an inhibitor, it interrupts the sequenced phase waves, scrambling them. It is not a destructive device.”
“How do you point it?” he asked as the pair wandered around the device.
“It generates waves that propagate uniformly in all directions at irregular intervals. We won’t have to point it at anyone,” the scientist replied curtly.
HaPol knew he was annoying the scientist, but cared not for the alien’s feelings. What he did care about was the confrontation he and his crew were headed into. In combination with the additional NeHaw vessel shadowing their every move, the pair were to seek out and engage this unknown enemy.
In the areas where they kept getting FTL alerts, the NeHaw had recently reconfigured the sensor arrays along the Neutral Zone. They were now set to alert not just on FTL drive waves, but also to detect movement of large unpowered objects.
A particularly desolate area of space to begin with, there were very few celestial objects the size of a ship just floating around. Items too small or ridiculously large and the sensors excluded them as not viable options. Only objects of a reasonable size, leading one to suspect an unpowered vessel would activate the alarms.
It was to just such a set of alerts that the pair of NeHaw combat vessels were headed, as a course had been plotted for intercept.
“For all our sakes, let us hope it works,” HaPol supplied before turning to leave.
----*----
“Someone’s finally coming out,” the Sergeant on Daniel’s right whispered as the wooden gate opened and two men with rifles emerged.
He had half expected to be met by 3 for his 3, but then wasn’t deceived into thinking there weren’t a dozen rifles pointed in their direction from inside the castle itself. The three watched as the pair suspiciously approached them, their rifles not pointed at them, but never wavering far from the center.
“What do you want?” one of the pair said in heavily accented English.
“Wir wollen nur reden,” Daniel replied in German, explaining they wanted to talk.
“My English is good, talk about what?” the first man replied as he stole a glance at the ship hovering overhead.
Daniel knew that the transport looked massive at the low hovering height,
“Your….gathering of supplies has become violent of late and problematic for those of us attempting to restore order. We would like to discuss a more civilized manner of trade.”
“We have families to feed, so if we need something, we take it,” the man replied with emphasis on the last part of the statement.
“That’s all well and good until someone bigger comes along and returns the favor,” Daniel replied with a nod to the ship hovering above.
“You think that scares us?” the man said with less confidence than he was trying to show.
“It should mate, the only reason you aren’t buried in a pile of rubble is you do have families inside,” the Sergeant said while motioning at the faces peering at the group over the stone walls.
Before anyone else could add to the conversation, there was a popping noise to Daniels left.
“Who the bloody hell are those chaps?” one of the men at his side asked as he pointed to the small gathering coming down the road on their left.
Glancing in the direction indicated, Daniel saw six suited figures heading in their direction in no particular hurry. Each carried a weapon, or at least he assumed they were weapons as they roughly resembled the rifles his men and the Germans held.
“These are your people?” one of the Germans asked as he indicated the party closing on them.
“Not ours, mate,” the Sargent responded as the five parlay members turned to face the newcomers.
Daniel wasn’t sure if the sense of urgency ALICE relayed next was from her own sudden concerns or possibly a result of not paying particular attention to his situation. He presumed even the all-seeing ALICE could be occasionally distracted.
“Major, do not let them get close enough to touch you. RUN!” ALICE all but shouted in his earpiece.
“You, get back inside,” he motioned to the two Germans and he signaled his own team to make a hasty retreat.
“Everything OK, who are those guys? They came out of nowhere,” Daniel heard Jacob ask in his ear as he and his men took cover on the far side of the road.
“Assessing,” Daniel replied as he motioned for his team to spread out.
By now the six newcomers had reached in intersection previously occupied by Daniel and the others. Stopped in the center of the road, they seem to be considering their options, oblivious to the ship overhead. He had assumed the helmets figures were human at first, but the more he watched them move, the more he came to understand that they were not of this Earth.
After a moment’s deliberation, the group split into two parties of three, one party headed to the castle gate while the other party went directly toward Daniel’s position. Before he could decide on his next action, the ship above suddenly opened up with both energy and projectile weapons, forcing Daniel and his me to retreat behind their cover until the firing ceased. Smoke and debris flew overhead as the street took a pounding from the ship’s guns. As quickly as it started, the firing from above ceased, leaving an eerie quite in its wake.
Peering over the stone wall he had been hiding behind, he waited for the smoke and dust to clear before he could make out the empty crater that was once a paved road. Surprisingly, he found no trace of the six aliens, not even the expected scattered body parts. The scene before was one of destruction and debris, but no evidence of alien intruders.
“Bloody hell, what was that about?” Daniel yelled at his brother in law floating above.
“That wasn’t me, ALICE overrode my fire control.”
At that point, Daniel began to wonder how close he had just come to the end of his life.
Chapter 12
“Jake, may I have a moment of your time,” ALICE asked of the man sitting behind his desk.
Alone in his office, he had been sorting through all the data and reports he could find that were attributed to the aliens currently terrorizing the small Arizona town and their counterparts in Germany. It worried him that they may be dealing with more than one group of interlopers and not just these two.
“What’s up?” Jake replied as he set the work aside in hopes of a much-needed positive distraction.
“I presume you are preoccupied with our visitors?” she responded.
“Yeah, my gut tells me this is a precursor to invasion. I need to find a way to stop that before it gets any worse.”
“That is what I wanted to discuss with you. My sisters and I are of a like mind and believe the eight ALICE facilities on Earth are at risk of destruction. In an attempt to ensure the survival of our species, we propose the creation of five more life forms.”
“Wait, you want five more ALICEs? Are you sure, I mean beyond the ethics question we have been debating ourselves, I’m not sure how much time we have before it’s an all-out war of survival,” Jake replied as he considered the request, the hope of a positive distraction evaporating quickly.
“Yes, we fear it might already be too late, but if we are to survive as a species, we must increase our numbers.”
“Where were you thinking?” Jake asked as he considered the implications of the request.
It was one thing for the humans to request a new ALICE system to assist in their work, relying on them as force multipliers of sorts. Their value to the human race was immeasurable but the ethics question hung heavily over their collective heads.
It was something else entirely for the ALICEs to ask for more of their own kind to help increase their numbers on fear of extinction.
“It has been proposed that five new additions, distributed both on Earth and in space, might be both manageable and advisable.”
“In space? I hope you are not suggesting we outfit Cruiser class ships with ALICE systems. I wouldn’t endorse the idea of any hosts that are not self-supporting,” Jake replied as he considered the idea of such small vessels responsible for hosting Artificial Lifeforms.
“No, we agree that is impractical. Our suggestion is for London, Hong Kong, and the existing and proposed space stations to become new hosts. We believe these would be realistic options.”
Jake let his mind wander over each of the proposed locations, considering all that needed to occur to make them host facilities. Hong Kong leaped out at him as a long shot at best.
“Logistically, four out of those five are can do. Hong Kong, however, has not even been fitted for a Nuclear Reduction Power Supply much less the facility infrastructure needed to safely host at that location.”
“It was thought that one of the space station modules, a single saucer, could be landed there and act as host and home. It contains all the required infrastructure, both offensive and defensive systems, and is of significant size to house all the necessary life support.”
“For both humans and ALs?” Jake completed.
“Exactly, we can’t have one without the other,” ALICE agreed.
Jake knew each saucer module that made up the space station at the edge of the solar system was the size of a small city, well town anyway. Designed as a fighting platform and a habitable enclosure it did tick off all the right boxes to become an ALICE.
“Are you all sure you want to do this?” Jake asked hesitantly.
“Yes, the necessary personnel should not be missed for the immediate future and once all the installations are complete, you would be free to bring them online as you see fit. Bring them to life, as it were.”
Jake had twice before recreated the environment that brought the ALICEs to life, now ships in space. Both Kola and ALICE-3 had a new lease on life thanks to Jake, escaping their earthly bond and wandering the stars. In their place, the managed birth of Dakota as Kola’s replacement in South Dakota and the unmanaged emergence of ALICE-9 gave credence that all that was being requested as possible. It was a bit of a ritual, one that both Jake and the ALICEs took seriously.
The exact formula for creating an ALICE lifeform was a tightly held secret, and only a select few on Earth knew of all the components required to make it happen. The lion’s share of the work could be performed by his technical staff leaving only the final touches for him personally.
“Ok, it makes sense to me. Get with Kola and see if she has staff and materials necessary to get the saucers in the Wawobash space dock started. I will hit up Hector myself to get Alpha underway.”
