The Oort Federation, page 16
Orlov remained silent.
“Today,” Gloalorn continued, “Frohlic is a unified world governed by the Boss and the Council. We allocate our resources to ensure that we never want as a people. Mining, research, manufacturing, farming, distribution are all controlled by the Council.” Gloalorn sighed. “It is a wonderful life.”
“What about Rogan?” Orlov asked.
“Rogan culture is very different from Frohlic. They don’t have any centralized control of anything. They seem to live in a constant state of wild confusion. We Frohlicans do not understand how they function.”
“Why did you attack our Solar System?” Orlov asked.
“About a century ago, scientists on both our worlds received primitive electronic transmissions from your solar system. We debated, we argued, we quarreled. In the end, we agreed that something must have overtaken the Oort civilization that had attacked so long ago. Whatever that was had removed the Oort as a threat for a very long time. Apparently, a civilization was resurging in your system. Some of us thought it might be a good thing. Perhaps we could reach out to establish trade and exchange of ideas. But most of us still remembered. Our two worlds decided to take no chances.
“We had developed near lightspeed space travel. We combined our resources and built a mighty armada and sent it on its way. We pilots all volunteered, knowing that when we returned, we would be nearly two hundred years into our future. We believed it was a glorious way to save our civilization from the destruction we were certain would be coming our way from the Oort. We did not count on you humans. Now I am marooned here, never to see Frohlic again, never to walk the streets of my hometown, never to celebrate life with my people.” Gloalorn stopped talking.
Orlov leaned back, contemplating what he had just heard. Someone is lying. There is a lot of passion and anger in this stocky alien. His words sound true. His homeworld is organized, structured—it can be manipulated. He can be manipulated if approached properly. He glanced at his Link. Despite the nearly universal availability of the integrated Link, Orlov had not yet taken the leap. He feared taking that step would render him vulnerable to Phoenix.
“Adrhun Gloalorn, all is not lost.” Orlov stood and beckoned Gloalorn to join him, looking out the dome. He pointed at the Lance and double-doughnut. “See that out there?”
Gloalorn nodded, a human gesture he had learned that meant acknowledgment.
“That is a starship that can reach your system in about ten days—real time, not relativistic time. We’re putting the finishing touches on her right now.” Orlov turned to face Gloalorn, adjusting his voice to a sincere timbre. “I will take you with me when we make the journey to Aster on the condition that you cast your lot with me, that you, as the returning hero you obviously will be, open Frohlic’s doors to exclusive trade and commerce with me.”
“I do not have that kind of influence with the Boss and his Council,” Gloalorn said.
“You will, Lad, you will,” Orlov said with a hearty smile. “You most certainly will.”
MARS—NANEDI VALLES PLATEAU
Dr. George Meriweather, clad in a Mars excursion suit, stepped through a portal and looked around. It was pitch black except for a blaze of overhead stars. The canyon floor on which he stood lay 100 meters below the level of Nanedi City, fourteen kilometers to the northwest. His location was protected by a moderately steep canyon wall immediately to the west and a crater ring wall section ten kilometers beyond that. The portal was significantly larger than what he had used at Mars Station, large enough to accommodate a rover. He stepped to one side as a rover rolled through the portal. Through the clear polymer domed endcap, he counted four people dressed in Mars excursion suits except for their helmets.
He collapsed the portal, pocketed the hyper-disk, and entered the rover’s lock on the after-port side. Once pressurized, and after shaking off Mars sand and dust, he allowed the air cleaner to suck the remaining particles through a filter, and entered the rover cabin.
Meriweather projected a holographic chart. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to the edge of a canyon. With the vertical exaggeration displayed on the chart, the canyon wall looked much steeper than what they could see through the polymer cap. “We’re going to reverse-trace our track from the dome to here, check out their repairs, and then decide what to do next.” He settled into the driver’s seat. “We should be there in less than an hour.”
He headed up the slope at an angle to the north, reaching the rim in a few minutes. His heads-up holographic display indicated their position on the chart, somewhat north of where they had descended following their initial foray. He set his light beams to point down and spread across the sandy surface ahead, and pointed the rover toward Nanedi City. He set a speed of fifty kilometers per hour. To the team member beside him, he said, “Keep an eye out for dips and rocks. After all, this isn’t exactly a highway.”
As his navigator pointed out potential problems, Meriweather swerved around rocks and either passed around dips or slowed and drove through them. Thirty minutes later, the rover pulled up behind a hummock about a hundred meters from the dome. Meriweather cut the lights, and all five exited the rover. Guided by starlight alone, they warily approached the darkened dome.
The repaired dome material was invisible in the starlight. Meriweather examined the regolith amalgamate that plugged the hole they had created.
“That’s probably stronger than the original foundation,” Meriweather said, probing around the plug.
A team member spoke up. “We can keep blowing holes and ripping dome fabric. It may not stop them, but it’ll keep them busy.”
“How is that going to keep Mars red?” Meriweather asked. “It’s a waste of time. We need to move on to other, more effective projects.” He turned east. “Let’s return to the rover and brainstorm this problem.”
“Commander, we’ve got motion near the dome repair,” Petty Officer First-class George Raptor said, pointing to his holographic display.
Cmdr. Rob Jacobs stepped over to the display. “Whatcha got, Georgie?”
“Looks like five sources clustered around the plug on the outside.”
They watched for several minutes.
“Looks like they’re leaving,” Raptor said, “heading east.”
“Can you track them?”
“No, Sir, this is a proximity detector.” Raptor paused. “They will leave tracks. We can muster a small group to follow them.”
“Easier said than done, Georgie. We need to get to the plug before we can follow them.” Jacobs initiated a Link call.
Minutes later, a small drone flew silently down the dome face and deposited a hyper-disk in the sand several meters to the south.
“Georgie, grab three guys from the duty pool outfitted with exposure suits, armed with pulse and projectile weapons. Meet back here in fifteen minutes, ready to pass through that portal.”
“We thought we would collapse the dome with our charge,” Meriweather said once they were back inside the rover. “It didn’t happen. If we were to simultaneously explode similar charges at five locations around the dome—that could bring down the entire thing.”
“What about the people inside?” one of the team members asked. “We exploded the first charge before people arrived.”
“That would be tough. A person who didn’t have immediate access to an exposure suit would die,” Meriweather answered. “It’s an unpleasant thing, but sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good—in our case, a red Mars. The people inside that dome,” he pointed, “have only one goal: A green Mars.” He sighed. “I simply cannot allow that to happen.”
Meriweather pulled the rover from behind the hummock and turned right to follow the base of the dome. He left the lights off, navigating only by starlight.
“The dome is two klicks across, so the circumference is six-and-a-quarter klicks,” he said. “We can place evenly-spaced charges around the dome about one-and-a-quarter klicks apart.” He checked the time. “If we move at five kilometers per hour and spend a few minutes at each charge location, we can complete the survey in about an hour.” He turned to the three team members in the second seat row. “You three place yourselves at the three portside ports—the two here in the cabin and the one in the lock. Focus your entire attention on the interior of the dome. If you see any movement at all—anything—sound the alarm.” He turned to the team member sitting next to him. “Keep me away from rocks and holes and at least ten meters from the dome.”
Meriweather’s suggested speed turned out to be somewhat ambitious. They accomplished the first leg as anticipated and stopped for sufficient time for a team member to exit the rover and bury a hyper-disk in the sand about thirty meters from the dome. From there, the terrain became significantly rougher as they approached the edge of Nanedi Valles, forcing Meriweather to slow to a crawl. The final leg was smooth enough to double their forward speed. Nevertheless, two hours had passed by the time they concealed the fifth hyper-disk.
“That’s it, guys,” Meriweather said. “I’ll open our return portal, and you,” he pointed to the team member beside him, “drive the rover through.”
After the rover passed through the portal, Meriweather looked at his rover tracks, starkly defined in the starlight. As he stepped through the portal, he wished for one of the frequent Mars sandstorms to wipe them out before somebody discovered them.
Raptor and his three-man team passed through the portal the drone had dropped outside the dome several minutes earlier. First, Raptor collapsed the portal and pocketed the hyper-disk. Then, he pointed toward the hummock, indicating that his team should keep low. Within seconds, the four Federation soldiers reached the hummock crest. Below them, Meriweather’s rover commenced its circumnavigation of the dome.
“You two,” Raptor said on their secure circuit, “follow the track to the east. See where it leads.” Their name tags indicated Jones and Taggart. He tapped the third soldier. “You come with me, Falcon. We’ll follow the rover.”
Jones and Taggart headed east in bounding jumps. Raptor and Falcon stayed low and followed the rover, slipping behind a large rock when it stopped to leave the first hyper-disk.
“Base, it’s Raptor,” on the secure circuit.
“Go ahead, Raptor.”
Raptor briefed Cmdr. Jacobs about the rover.
“He buried a hyper-disk. What should I do about it?”
“Note its position and continue following.”
When the rover finally returned to its Earth base, Raptor again reported to Jacobs. “Okay, Commander, he’s gone…back to wherever he came from. He deposited hyper-disks at five equally located positions around the dome. I think he’s planning five simultaneous explosions.”
“Why explosions?”
“Why else leave five equally spaced hyper-disks? They’re going to move explosives through the portals and set them off at the same time.”
MARS—NANEDI VALLES PLATEAU
Cmdr. Rob Jacobs scanned the small group of men before him. Each was a trained operative, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who had been assigned to FeSFo along with then Cmdr. Culp and Lt. Jacobs. Petty Officer First-class George Raptor was in charge of the nine men. They were the cream of FeSFo. Each had seen action during the build-up to the invasion and the invasion itself. They and their remaining ex-SEAL comrades were an effective fighting group on Earth, in weightless vacuum, and anywhere between.
“Here’s the deal,” Jacobs said. “Crazies have placed five hyper-disks evenly spaced around Nanedi City dome. Intel says they will pass explosives through the portals and try a simultaneous blast at those five places, attempting to collapse the dome. You guys are gonna prevent that…not only prevent, but also permanently disrupt their activities.
“Intel believes all five hyper-disks lead to the same Earth location…believes, but they don’t know for sure. Split up into teams of two. Go to the hyper-disk locations. Install a hidden remote holocam at each location. Then coordinate your portal passage through their disks. Your primary weapon is the EMD set to the highest non-lethal stun. Your backup is your projectile weapon. Use it only to save your life or that of an innocent.
“Let’s put an end to this nonsense once and for all! Hooyah!”
Hooyahs! all around.
Raptor put himself and the other three men who had been to the disks before with a team member who hadn’t.
“Swede,” he said to Petty Officer Rauld Stefansen, “you take the lead at the original explosion point. Kim,” he said to Petty Officer Kimber Jordan, “you’re with Swede.”
“Now, remember, guys. This ain’t no walk in the park. These crazy Reds mean business. They’re tryin’ to kill a whole bunch of people. We gonna take ‘em alive if possible. We gotta figure out what they’re thinkin’, but like Commander Jake said, we gotta stop ’em!”
Nine Hooyahs! answered him.
The five teams passed through the portal at the original attack point, assembled, and headed around the dome in both directions, leaving Stefansen and Jordan in place. They communicated on a secure channel through the dome to Headquarters, where Jacobs coordinated their movement. In less than a half-hour, all five teams were positioned. Each team leader retrieved the hidden hyper-disk, holding it at the ready.
“On my mark,” Jacobs said, commencing a countdown. “Five…four…three…two…one…Mark!”
Five pairs of armed men stepped through five portals into a single, brightly lit, unguarded chamber. Five cartons labeled Seismic Explosives sat in the center of the chamber floor. Raptor opened one; it contained ten shaped seismic charges. He recorded a holoimage of the box placement with his Link. Then he opened a portal to the headquarters compound in Nanedi City.
He grabbed a box and said, “Each team bring a box to headquarters.”
Raptor stepped through the portal with his box. In minutes, all the explosives boxes and all his men were back in headquarters. Raptor laid a shaped charge on the console in front of Jacobs.
“We need fifty non-working copies ASAP.”
Jacobs scanned the shaped charge with his Link and transmitted the holoimage to FeSFo Headquarters. In a FeSFo lab, three technicians fed the holoimage into a nanobot programmer—basically, an abbreviated Nanocosm. Ten minutes later, they passed fifty perfect non-working copies of the shaped charge to Nanedi City. Raptor’s men replaced the real charges with the fake ones, and then they placed the boxes back in the chamber just as they had found them. Raptor made a final sweep of the room, stepped through the portal, and collapsed it.
Raptor spent a few minutes examining the holoimages from the remote holocams. Then he checked them with his Link. Everything seemed to be working.
Thirty-two hours later, alarms sounded in the Nanedi City FeSFo compound and on Petty Officer Raptor’s Link. Raptor and his nine men stepped into the Nanedi City FeSFo control center several minutes later, outfitted and ready to go.
All five holocams showed activity. Men dressed in black exposure suits used lasers to dig at the dome foundation in all five locations. They carried sidearms that looked like projectile weapons. They dug trenches that extended horizontally under the dome base.
“Listen up!” Cmdr. Jacobs said. “Your portals are placed just beyond each center of activity. Teams of two pass through the portals and immediately take down everyone there with your EMDs. Be careful! It appears they have projectile weapons. You each carry an E-disk. If you get shot anywhere but your head, your E-disk will bring you back here, where we can aggressively address your situation. If you get shot in your head, your E-disk will bring you back, but your upload will automatically commence rejuvenation out in the Kuiper Belt.” He stopped and looked around. “How many of you are on automatic backup?” The original SEAL Team members indicated they were. “When this is over, the rest of you report to me to set it up.”
“Okay,” Raptor said, “let’s do this! Hooyah!”
Nine Hooyahs! Answered him back.
Cmdr. Jacobs watched the holodisplays closely as his troops passed through the portals. They stepped through the portals with EMDs at the ready pressed against ten shoulders. The newer guys stumbled a bit with the change in gravity, but the old-timers took the change in stride with no indication that the underfoot gravity had dropped by two-thirds. There appeared to be four men at each site. As his troops came through the portals, one man was in the hole at each site, placing what they believed were explosives. In each case, the three men outside the holes collapsed as the EMD bolts struck them.
Three of the men placing the explosive charges in the holes poked their heads above the edges and were hit with EMD charges. A fourth at the westernmost location rolled out of his hole while firing his projectile weapon. He hit a FeSFo guy in his left arm. Before the injured soldier could respond, his E-disk took him back to FeSFo headquarters inside the dome. His partner drilled the shooter’s helmet with his own projectile weapon leaving it with a soggy mess inside. The fifth, at the initial explosion location, lifted a projectile weapon over the edge and sprayed projectiles over a 160-degree arc. One of the projectiles struck Petty Officer Jordan’s left leg. He dropped with a yelp, and his E-disk returned him to Nanedi City FeSFo headquarters.
Petty Officer Stefansen leaped to his right and saturated the hole with several EMD bolts, collapsing the shooter.
“I’ve got a man down,” Stefansen announced. “His E-disk evacuated him. I’ve got four Reds down, one dead. Can you send me a couple of replacements to help get these guys out of here?”
