The Starchild Compact, page 34
He excused himself to confer privately with the others
#
"So that's it," Eber said as he summed up the conversation he had with Jon and Ari. "Ari tells me that it is not if, but when, the Caliphate launches a nuclear attack against Israel, with the intent of taking out every city and virtually the entire population." He watched the horror spread across the faces of his brothers, their wives, and his grandmother.
"Ari – you all know that he is Israeli – told me that his countrymen have been developing a laser weapon, but he does not know whether they have deployed any such weapons yet.
"I need your counsel as to whether we should take preemptive action against the Caliphate, or wait for whatever happens." It appeared to Eber that each person before him was lost in individual thought, trying to come to grips with the horrific concept that they might be forced to end hundreds of thousands of lives, or even millions, in order to save the Israelis, and possibly prevent a worldwide nuclear holocaust. It's an impossible choice, he thought as he reached out to his family emotionally. Quietly, he added. "We need to decide quickly. One-way communication is ninety minutes; the attack may already be underway."
The silence continued for another few minutes, and then – one-by-one – each member of the clan spoke up, affirming the decision Eber had already made in his mind.
"Quickly, then! We must return to Merkavah immediately."
As the group entered the floater, Eber had a sudden inspiration. He tentatively touched his link – it still was an unfamiliar device – and found himself speaking with Jon sans video. "We're heading to Earth without any fanfare or initial report. Would you and Ari care to accompany us?"
#
Saeed watched Ari take a link call from someone, and then hurriedly put a small satchel together. Saeed noted with interest that Ari included a fighting knife with a medium blade. "I'm taking a trip with the Founders," Ari told him. "I'll be back in a few days." Ari left, admonishing Saeed to behave himself, and to report to Dr. Bhuta immediately, and to stay with her until he returned. "She's expecting to see you right away." Ari gave him a menacing look as he left.
This has to be the sign from Allah (may He be blessed) that I have been waiting for! Saeed could hardly contain his excitement as he surreptitiously watched Ari and Jon board a floater and depart. He already knew the location of Merkavah from overhearing the many conversations between the Cassini crew and the Founders. In a similar manner, Saeed had learned how to summon a floater, and he did so at this time. There was no doubt in his mind that he was back on the path of Holy Jihad. He knew that Allah would guide him so that, when the proper time came, he would be able to carry out the will of Allah.
Unbidden the Qur'an verse that he had discovered at the beginning of his quest came into his mind: Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward.
It was entirely clear now. Allah had spoken directly to him, both then, and now! He would not falter from his Holy Jihad.
The floater arrived, and Saeed boarded without anyone noticing. Allah had cloaked their eyes with blindness. Minutes later, the floater stopped next to one of the massive supporting columns, but this one had a large rectangular opening that revealed a mysterious saucer-shaped craft kept off the floor by five legs. The craft was a deep black, deeper than anything Saeed had ever seen before. A ramp extended from the craft, and the interior appeared to be lighted. As he watched in awe, Saeed suddenly heard voices approaching from around the column. Without further thought, knowing that Allah would temporarily blind the eyes of any early arrival, Saeed scampered up the ramp into the interior. He was met with an array of incomprehensible equipment, a layout of several comfortable-looking chairs, and several doors around the chamber. Knowing that the others would be walking up the ramp at any moment, Saeed quickly tried each door in succession, starting with the closest one. The third revealed a high-tech lavatory facility with a locking mechanism on the inside of the door. Saeed ensconced himself in the room, activated the locking mechanism, and prayed silently:
Allah, the Blessed, embrace me to Your bosom, and keep me safe from the infidel's prying eyes until Your moment of glory has arrived. I commit my spirit to Your care…
#
Always suspicious, Rasu'eja touched the hilt of her short sword as she rounded the column and saw the floater still waiting in front of the opening. She touched Arpachshad's elbow indicating the floater with her eyes. "Probably the floater Jon and Ari arrived in," he noted quietly. Rasu'eja didn't pursue the matter, but she kept her eyes peeled. More than once since they had started this crazy journey, her alertness had saved their skins.
She shooed Arpachshad up the ramp first as a safety precaution, but she did it so unobtrusively that nobody noticed. As a further precaution, she was the last to mount the ramp, and she retracted it a soon as she was safely inside.
Rasu'eja mentally reviewed everything she could think of that could possibly go wrong. The mechanical side of Merkavah she left to Eber, but she took very seriously that only she and Arpachshad were capable of handling any other danger. She implicitly trusted her spouse and the other eight clan members. She knew that Eber trusted Ari, and because Ari implicitly trusted Jon, Eber trusted him as well. Nevertheless, she was nervous about having both the descendants inside Merkavah, and so close to the rest of the clan.
While Rasu'eja conducted her private safety check, Eber was explaining to Jon and Ari a bit of the nature of what they were about to experience. He indicated the duplicate sets of controls and screen-like devices that served as monitors while placing himself before one set while Asshur took the other. At that moment the monitors showed the illuminated interior of the column absent the craft, as if it were not sitting on the floor. Another, smaller display showed the immediate surrounds outside the column. Rasu'eja noted that the Floater had departed.
The clan members took seats, and Eber invited Jon and Ari to sit or stand behind himself and Asshur to observe the operation more closely. "Because the hyper-vee system acts on every molecule within its field," he explained, "there is no need for anyone to strap down, or in any other way to take any particular precaution. You'll be quite safe standing behind us."
Eber checked his personnel monitor; it indicated thirteen souls. In his preoccupation with the moment he did not react to this, and neither did anyone else, not even Rasu'eja, although her internal alarm system had begun to make her feel even more uneasy than before. Eber nodded at Asshur who touched a panel display, and the view shifted, showing a bird's-eye view of Merkavah inside the cylinder with the ramp retracted. The cylinder door was closing, which did nothing to ease Rasu'eja's sense of unease.
#
"We've got a green board," Asshur announced. Jon looked over their heads at the display. Odd, he thought, that some expressions seem almost standard between our cultures. Eber commenced evacuating the cylinder.
"To facilitate rapid evacuation," Eber explained, "our ancestors constructed large storage chambers in the overhead substrate alongside the cylinder. They are maintained in an evacuated state, so that the air in the cylinder can be dumped into the chambers, making rapid evacuation of the remaining air possible."
To Jon's astonishment, the whole process took only about five minutes. Eber told him that five kilometers overhead a cover had slid aside, exposing the cylinder interior to the hard vacuum of space. The remaining air had puffed out in a crystalline cloud, and settled to the surface. Eber activated his controls. The only indications that they were moving were the shifting images on the monitors. Eber explained to Jon and Ari that Merkavah shot out of the cylinder so fast, that had there been topside observing, they would have seen nothing at all.
Eber set the controls to move the craft at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic, so that it rapidly rose out and away from the immediate gravitational influence of the nearby ringed planet. As he did this, Eber explained that shifting the hyper-V system into near light-speed too close to a significant planetary or stellar mass produced unpredictable results, and could even damage the craft. As Jon pondered what he was seeing, Merkavah powered out of the ecliptic at the highest safe velocity until the instruments indicated that it was safe to shift to near light-speed.
A few short minutes later, the Resident locked in the appropriate vector and simultaneously activated the hyper-V system. Within a fraction of a second, Merkavah and its occupants were moving at 99.9 followed by six nines percent of light-speed, and 0.2 seconds later, the Resident brought Merkavah back out of hyper-V high above the ecliptic above Earth.
"We're here," Eber announced.
"Unbelievable," Jon stammered as he looked at Ari. "All those months, the tedium, the danger…" His voice trailed off.
"What about dust and gas in the ship's path?" Ari asked.
"They're swept away by the hyper-vee field like floating objects in the path of a fast moving ship are swept aside by the ship's bow-wake," Asshur answered.
Jon shook himself free from the effects of their nearly instantaneous transition from Saturn to Earth. "What kind of near-planet maneuvering capability do you have?" he asked Eber.
"Merkavah can maneuver in three dimensions up to about one-quarter light speed in space, up to about Mach ten in an atmosphere for short distances, and about Mach five for sustained atmospheric flight. She can start and stop and change direction nearly instantaneously."
I need to tell Rod we're here, and we need to be in position to monitor the activities of the Caliphate and Israel.
"Can you get us just inside Link range?" Jon asked.
"And that is…?"
"Five thousand kilometers from the Earth's surface, and the entire wedge consisting of the Earth, Moon, El-four, and El-five." The Link translator took some time clarifying the Lagrangian points, but Jon was satisfied that it did the job correctly when he saw Eber manipulate the monitor to display a diagram of the Earth-Moon system showing Link connectivity.
"Let's keep out of sight until I make contact," Jon said. "Keep the Moon between us and Earth.
Even at a quarter light speed the transitions were nearly instantaneous. It was not something Jon got used to immediately, and he had trouble tearing his eyes away from the monitors. As soon as his Link notified him that it was connected to the planetary grid, he placed a secure call to Rod Zakes.
"Yah, what is it?" Rod's sleepy face appeared in the air before Jon. "It's two in the morning!" Jon adjusted the image so only he could see and hear Rod. "You! How the hell…?"
"Yah, I know. I'm with the Founders on their ship beyond the Moon's far side. They plan to interfere in the Caliphate/Israel matter. Please let our guys know, and anyone else who matters. The Founders pose no threat to anyone but the Caliphate, but they will defend themselves if attacked. Believe me when I say they can defend against anything we have!"
#
Rod shook the sleepiness from his eyes and grabbed a cup of coffee. It was going to be a long night. First a call to the National Security Advisor. He didn't appreciate being called this early either, but once the message had sunk in, he signed off to call SecDef and the President. Then Rod called his friend, David Ben-Gurion, head of Mossad, on a secure connection.
When Rod finished briefing him, Ben-Gurion said, "You know that we have been working on a laser beam weapon? It's an outgrowth of the Iron Dome project. Basically, the system pinpoints incoming threats, and takes them out with a high-power laser. The weapon uses a capacitive discharge, so there is a time lag between successive firings. Currently, we have deployed two prototypes. Between them, they can fire every five seconds." He paused while Rod assimilated this. "We can handle a limited strike of perhaps three or four missiles, but that's it. You say the Founders want to help us?"
"It seems so."
"We're grateful, but we need to show the Ayatollah that we cannot be bullied, and that an attack on Israel has deadly consequences. Please ask the Founders to stand down."
#
"So, that's the long and short of it," Jon said, as he completed briefing Eber and the rest of the Founders.
"It's a brave but foolhardy stance for such a small nation," Arpachshad said. "Their weapon is a prototype, right? Prototypes break down. They develop bugs. They never work correctly the first time…"
"Please give me the general coordinates for Israel," Eber asked Jon. "We will stand down for the time being, but we will stand by just in case." Eber gave the Resident the coordinates Jon gave him plus some added instructions that Jon did not understand. Moments later Merkavah settled into a hover about 2,000 kilometers above Israel.
"Show me the outline of the Caliphate and your best estimate of their potential launch points."
Jon complied, with Ari indicating the launch points. Eber gave the Resident further instructions, and one of the monitors started displaying a bird's eye view of the Teheran launch facility, which Ari had indicated was the most likely launch site.
While this was happening, Jon took a call from Rod. "It's pretty tense right now. The Israelis have their laser fired up. Their on-site intel says an attack is imminent." Jon relayed this to Eber.
Just then, the bird's eye monitor flashed red. A missile had been launched from the Teheran facility, followed in short order by several more. The Resident superimposed the missiles' tracks on the image. They appeared to be headed for Tel Aviv, Haifa, and several industrial and military areas. Jon started to speak, but Eber held his hand up.
"Missile flight time is seven minutes," Eber said. "I'll give the Israeli's four."
The first two minutes were the longest minutes Jon could remember spending. He found himself holding his breath. Then one of the missiles disappeared followed closely by another. After a pregnant pause that actually lasted only five seconds, a third and fourth missile disappeared. Five seconds later the last missile vanished, but almost immediately the Caliphate launched another five. Israel brought down three of them as before, but the fourth continued its flight for another fifteen seconds before disappearing, and at the four-minute mark, the fifth missile was still headed toward its target.
Eber issued the Resident a command, and the fifth missile vanished. "That's it!" he said, issuing yet another command.
A split second later the view from the bird's eye monitor erupted in a massive fireball as a tiny anti-matter package was delivered to the middle of the Teheran launch compound. The Resident destroyed missiles launched from Istanbul, Ankara, Damascus, Bagdad, and Cairo, followed by others launched from more widely separated sites such as Tripoli, and Tangier to the west, a whole host of launches from Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa to the south, and from the "Stan" countries stretching from the Arabian to the Caspian Seas to the East. Following the destruction of the launched missiles, each missile launch site received an anti-matter packet as rapidly as the Resident could make it happen.
#
Saeed had opened his door a crack sometime during the ensuing action, and listened intently to the activity in the control room. Very clearly, a disaster was unfolding before his eyes, and Allah had placed him in exactly the right place and time to turn calamity into victory. Finally, Allah (blessed be He) has revealed Himself and His path completely. Near his door he spied Ari's satchel with the fighting knife. Saeed drew in a deep breath and whispered softly: Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward.
Quietly, he crept through the slightly open door, silently approached the satchel and opened it, and grasped the fighting knife, the first weapon he had held since stowing away aboard the Cassini II. Holding the dagger firmly in his right hand, Saeed leapt to his feet and charged Eber, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" while holding the dagger out in front of himself.
#
Out of the corner of her eye, Rasu'eja saw motion to her left, as sound penetrated her rapt attention to what was happening on the monitor. Instinctively, she drew her short sword while turning, took in a hand grasping a dagger about to pierce Eber's right kidney. With a powerful overhead slash, her weapon found its mark, severing Saeed's hand as the dagger clattered to the deck. Saeed screamed as he fell, clutching the stump to his chest.
Arpachshad swiveled to his right with drawn short sword, to be confronted by the writhing Saeed, his severed hand and abandoned dagger nearby. Rasu'eja watched the scene as if in slow motion. Blood dripped from her sword, making a popping sound as each drop hit the deck.
Ari stepped toward the fallen dagger, but Arpachshad motioned him back with his sword. Arpachshad asked Rasu'eja if she was okay. "I'm fine," she answered, as the scene around her speeded up to normal. "How's Eber?"
Rasu'eja heard both Jon and Arpachshad answer, "He's fine!" after which Eber stepped forward to look down at Saeed, who was now whimpering, while holding his stump against his chest. Vesta dropped to the deck next to Saeed, and motioned for Lud to join her. Jon looked at Eber questioningly. Eber told him that both Vesta and Lud were surgeons.
"What are you doing?" Rasu'eja asked.
"Saving his life," Lud answered.
"Because we're not barbarians," Vesta added.
#
Reports coming to Rod were sporadic. Initially, Israel was reported under missile attack, but that morphed into every known Caliphate missile launch site, and several nobody knew about, virtually vanishing off the face of the Earth. A few minutes later a terrorist group nearly succeeded in toppling the Eifel Tower – the story flashed around the world on every holocast. Within minutes the U.S. State Department received a communication through channels from the Persian Caliphate that it had ordered the Paris attack, and Washington would be next, unless it ordered off its space-borne lackey.
Rod received an update within minutes, and immediately informed Jon. "We think they're using sleeper cells. Is there any way your friends can stop them?"
"Not unless this flying saucer has psychic capabilities."
