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The Marquesas Islands
Residents across the islands were nervous, talking with neighbors and watching the night sky. There had been a flash high in the heavens and then word started to spread of an awful disaster. It was a bad omen.
A series of furious calls were exchanged between Paris, Papeete, and the Marquesas Islands' administrative staff in Taiohae on the island of Nuku Hiva.
Paris was adamant that the people of the Marquesas should take cover from potential radioactive fallout.
A phone chain was started to pass the information, but the word was already spreading thanks to text messaging and televisions that were being tuned to the international news. Older islanders understood fallout. The South Pacific was home to some of the largest atmospheric nuclear testing in history. France's own testing grounds were due south of the Marquesas, but Paris hadn't cared much then.
The islanders knew something else - the winds blew toward South America.
Many islanders were looking east and wondering what would come next. They saw it, a thin line of light from the heavens that struck the ocean far beyond the horizon. A dim flash was seen but it quickly faded. A half hour later they heard a rumble, and then all was quiet.
Pacifica Space Station
What the earthly observers thought was one bolt, was actually two. The light trails were cut through the atmosphere by two lawn darts from hell surrounded by a layer of plasma. They would be mistaken for kinetic weapons, as the AIs intended. They were not so simple darts of condensed metal wrapped in a heat shield of AI magic, and powered by a miniature engine able to generate enormous thrust. The package was guided by a bit of programming and stubby steering vanes.
The recently delivered station module had provided the raw materials for the weapons.
Waylon watched the entire event with artificial vision from his sarcophagus of medical constructors that were in a desperate race to save his life. Despite the awesome velocity involved, it still took forty minutes for the weapons to travel from Pacifica to the ocean's surface.
The AIs wanted to grant Waylon every wish, but drew the line at weapon velocities that would begin to creep into tangible percentages of light speed. The resulting destruction would be too great, and the technology obviously of other than earthly origin.
The Chinese AGI, and its container ship companion, disappeared in twin flashes of light. All that was left was roiling ocean and dead fish obscured by slowly dissipating clouds of cooling gasses and condensing steam. The companion vessel had been a Q-ship, disguising its true purpose. The bandit was transporting a large number of troops outfitted with radiation protection gear, engineering equipment, and helicopters. They were a party of grave robbers and never knew what hit them.
Running the figures in his head, Waylon knew that the Chinese had planned this well ahead of time. It was obvious now that they had received help from the inside. The rogue intelligence had been destroyed. The AIs were scouring the recovered data to determine the depth of its betrayal. If the death of their former colleague bothered them, they didn't mention it.
"Waylon, we obtained solid telemetry data from the darts. We can adjust our calculations accordingly, depending on the target selection. We will have to scrap most of the station and parts of the orbiter to obtain enough mass for the first strikes."
"Time," he replied.
"The adjustments can be made immediately, or are you referencing something else? Your neurological functions appear stable."
"Sometimes it's better to take your time and do the job right, wouldn't you agree?"
"It is a valid observation."
"Begin cataloging all Chinese military satellites in orbit, functional or otherwise. Find their space station test bed, Tiangong-1, and put that high on the list. Be prepared to seize them."
Waylon had to pause to give his damaged voice a break. To his ears, he sounded like a completely different person. Maybe it was an effect of the thing he was buried in.
"I also want to make sure that we have access to all remaining Chinese commercial communications satellites, phone, television, and weather or anything else I'm forgetting. I want us to have a way in."
"What about the manned Shenzhou spacecraft currently heading our way?" Barry asked.
"They probably think we're all dead up here."
"It is reasonable."
"We'll take it too, but I have something special I want you to build for me before they get here. As for taking the rest, if the world needs a justification we'll call it prizes of war."
"Waylon, you have to have won to take a war prize."
"It's not about winning, not after what they've done, but somebody is definitely going to lose. I want vengeance."
The Bunker, West Virginia
Captain Arnold, fueled by coffee, put his head together with his CIA friend and the very capable Air Force man via a separate video conference in a bunker side office. Both military men were well versed in nuclear weapons and filled in the gaps for their CIA colleague. If the Chinese had used a neutron bomb, American officials probably knew more about its capabilities than the Chinese. The communists had managed to steal that particular American warhead design in the 1980s.
"So, you're saying if he's alive. He'd be a dead man walking and have nothing to lose," the CIA man said.
"It's a fair guess."
"Great, it keeps getting better. How do you think the president will respond to the Chinese? They popped off a nuke in orbit and that wasn't good enough so they had to bust one in the atmosphere. That's two treaty violations right there. It's going to be ugly."
"No matter what happens, its serious business," the Air Force man said. "The doomsday plane is flying, the National Command Authority is distributed to separate locations, and the military is a step away from war footing. I couldn't even begin to guess what units are being moved. The shit is dangling over the fan blade and we're waiting to see if we have to clean it off the walls with one of the war plans."
"Captain Arnold," an aide said from the doorway, "they need you in the room."
"Find out what you can. I'll be in touch," Arnold cut his end of the video conference and stood up.
The guards at the conference room passed him through. He noticed a few ties had been loosened on the civilian side of the table before he sat down.
The Director of National Intelligence waved a printout at him, "Captain, our orbital detection system spotted two simultaneous detonations, separated by less than a quarter mile, in an area of the Pacific located about three hundred miles northwest of Freehold. They were non-nuclear events, according to the analysis, but the measured energy expenditure is approaching that of a small tactical nuke. Got any ideas?"
"Not as to the weapon, but I can guess the target," Captain Arnold leaned toward the computer terminal sitting on the tabletop, "May I?"
"Be my guest."
The captain typed quickly and sent the reference to the projector. "This Chinese AGI, AGI for auxiliary intelligence ship, had been lurking around Freehold for weeks. USS Carl Vinson saw it and the USS Ohio observed it two weeks later withdrawing to the northwest, perhaps to resupply."
"So, it's Freehold firing back?"
"There's no one else in the area with an axe to grind," Arnold replied, quickly appending a "Sir."
The DNI waved at him, indicating that the lack of formality wasn't an issue. "Any ideas about the weapon?"
"We never saw one. You could say the stealth drone was the most militarily ready platform we observed. When it buzzed the Carl Vinson it flew clean with no external weapons. The suborbital vehicle on the other hand could be a first strike delivery platform, but what would they drop?"
Captain Arnold scratched an itch on his neck and thought furiously.
"The Chinese used nukes in a surprise attack. If Freehold can respond, does any military action they take even make sense? It's like a gnat stinging a supertanker. Everything we know about Freehold points to an extremely sophisticated operation with some capabilities that are a step above our own. They were only a handful of people, most of whom we have to assume are deceased. They've still got the space station and orbiter ... if any of it is still functional."
The captain paused and closed his eyes for a second.
"Captain?"
"They could always drop a rock. Deorbit their station and vehicle over China. They couldn't hit a specific target, but China is too big to miss if you do the calculations right. That's not a problem Freehold has and what have they got to lose?"
The vice president had been listening quietly. With that news he started rubbing the bridge of his nose. The itch was spreading.
An Army lieutenant colonel walked over to the DNI and whispered in his ear.
"Our technical folks have something we should see. Colonel, would you do the honors?"
A new image was shown on the screen.
"What is that?" the vice president asked.
"It's the Freehold web site, but they've changed it since yesterday," Captain Arnold replied. "I believe that screen grab is showing a building they call their community center."
"There's a video file here," the Army lieutenant colonel said.
Captain Arnold had jumped on the computer terminal to access his classified cloud storage account and bring up the photos they'd copied from the Freehold website over the previous weeks.
He selected a photo and displayed it next to the web site image.
"Looks like the same place to me," the DNI said after inspecting the two images.
The video started to play. The Freehold residents were having a party and shouting things to the camera, but there was no sound.
Arnold leaned forward, and then sat back in his seat with a hand over his mouth.
"What?" asked the DNI.
"Look at the date," he said, his voice muffled.
On the screen a beautiful young woman walked by the camera and waved, her hand passing over the lens as she went out of frame. She reappeared moments later pushing a tiny elderly man, a native islander, toward the camera.
"She's pretty," the vice president said.
"Marylee Walker, Eckermann's girlfriend according to our good friends in Australian Intelligence."
Captain Arnold closed his eyes.
On the screen, the girl was mugging for the camera and making the old man wave. The man smiled and said something when the video frame jerked, and went to black.
There was silence in the room.
Finally, the vice president spoke, "Is there anything else?"
"No, sir," the Army lieutenant colonel said. "The page has been stripped of everything but the background image, that's the Freehold flag, and the embedded video file. There is no text, no statement of any kind."
The DNI shook his head, "What other statements do they need to make?"
A firestorm of international public opinion and outrage built over the next twelve hours. The lack of information drove wild claims of secret wars and conspiracies. In the South Pacific and in China, things were quiet.
Behind the scenes, nerves were fraying.
An emergency session of the United Nations Security Council was called. China, one of the five permanent members, did not attend. With China unable to cast a veto, or defend its actions, a resolution was passed unanimously condemning China's multiple treaty violations and prepared the way for a full council investigation.
The resolution stopped short of calling for any specific actions.
The Secretary of State had attended the session in person, as had the Foreign Ministers of the other three permanent members. They were going to have a private lunch, when the Israeli ambassador to the UN approached and requested a private word.
An empty room was found and quickly swept by her security team.
"Madam Secretary."
"Mr. Ambassador, time is short."
"It may be shorter than you know," the ambassador replied.
"You have my full attention."
"Waylon Eckermann contacted a man of some influence in our government, not two hours ago."
"Eckermann's alive?"
"Alive, but injured," the ambassador said. "Mr. Eckermann wanted to pass along a personal message to my colleague. They enjoy a convivial relationship, but the tone of the conversation was tense on Mr. Eckermann's end, as it has been relayed to me.
"He advised our colleague not to travel to China and that if he had any friends there, they should leave. Eckermann stated that he heard that the avian flu was growing particular virulent and would peak within three days time. He further advised that air travel over Chinese territory be avoided, as well as any of their military bases with global concerns, as those might be particularly dangerous places to be ... if one wanted to avoid falling sick."
"An unusual message," the American Secretary of State said.
"Eckermann also offered some financial advice."
"Oh?"
"Sell any stocks in the Chinese space program, and that was all. When my colleague asked if Eckermann minded if he passed the message along to his American cousins, Eckermann replied that it didn't matter."
"Ambassador, am I correct in assuming that this was not a conversation about the flu?"
The ambassador shrugged, "Israel is calling its embassy and trade staff home for consultations in light of China's unconscionable actions, and will publicly advise our citizens to avoid travel there after this conversation is over."
The ambassador left and the Secretary of State went looking for her aide. "Extend my apologies to the ministers, but I've been called away."
She signaled the head of her security detail, "I need to see the president."
Pacifica Space Station
One of the Chinese astronauts floated in a fetal position. His eyes were open but they looked at nothing. Microgravity caused drool to pool around his mouth and nose. The other astronaut spun slowly, his arms and legs twitching randomly.
Their mission had been a great success. After launching the weapon the Chinese capsule waited until ordered to close on the enemy space station. They were preparing for an extra vehicular activity, a space walk, so they could assess the entry points of the space station and board it.
That was the last thing they remember before regaining consciousness. At least they thought they had regained consciousness. After all those hours in the dark, they were no longer sure if they were even alive.
Waylon glanced occasionally at the monitor showing his uninvited guests. The men were each floating in their own personal black holes. It was an idea inspired by Waylon's time in the microgravity training sphere. These spheres were smaller, about double the height of their occupants. They had been easy to build and anchor to the station.
A swarm of constructors kept the men from drifting to the edges of their confinement. The air and humidity were in balance with the men's core temperatures. There were no light sources or points of reference for the naked men to latch onto. All sound was deadened in the sphere. Not even their screams reverberated back to them.
Sensory deprivation combined with psychotropic drugs tailor made by an alien artificial intelligence? He had been impressed that the Chinese astronauts lasted as long as they did. They were military men, handpicked, and only the best made it into China's space program.
When they broke, each was interrogated by a demoness who spoke flawless Mandarin. She wrapped her leathery wings around the men and her long serpentine tongue flickered over their sensory deprived bodies. The men begged to tell her their dark secrets, military and otherwise. At least that's what Penelope said the men experienced. In the dark, after all that time with a cloud of constructors at her disposal, he would have talked too.
"What will you do with them?" Barry asked.
"I don't know. Are you disappointed in me?" Waylon countered.
"Your planet's convention on the treatment of prisoners of war is admirable. At the time these men attempted to murder you, a state of war did not exist between your two countries. My only concern is how your actions may affect you."
"I don't know if there's anything left of me to bother."
"When do you want to launch the second phase?"
"Do it now."
Crystal City, Virginia
Captain Arnold had returned to his offices outside the capital. Some key members of government were still in bunkers, and the military was on alert. Some sense of normalcy was returning, but Arnold worried it was a false sense. The lack of action over the last twenty-four hours had helped ease some tension, but it was mostly because the Chinese hadn't mobilized a thing. Not a single major military unit had moved. Neither had the Chinese offered any explanation, official or otherwise.
That hadn't quelled the international outrage.
Arnold had been given his orders; 'Look at whatever you need and predict what Freehold will do, if anything. Failing that, explain what does happen.'
The entire military intelligence apparatus, in addition to the national agencies and their international partners, were churning over reams of data, but most were still in the 'what the hell is Freehold?' stage.
The Air Force was flying missions to capture radioactive particles off the western coast of a friendly South American country. That would tell them more about the makeup of the bomb.
A military satellite had been diverted to get pictures of the island to see the extent of the damage.
Arnold had the feeling that there was a lot happening below the surface.
The news channels were running the Freehold island video intercut with footage from Eckermann's interviews conducted in orbit. Different networks had tracked down people who claimed to have known him in Texas or even while in the Navy. Most depressing was the media scrum parked in front of a home in a once quiet suburb of Sydney, Australia. The residents, the Walkers, had yet to make a statement about the video and their beautiful daughter.
"Sir, the Air Force wants you on a conference call, ASAP," his aide said, poking his head in the open doorway.
"Notify everybody else for me," Arnold replied.
Captain Arnold walked to the conference room and sat down. He was busier now than he had been at the end of his naval career. That was something he needed to think about.
The screens came alive and the Air Force representative sat down on camera. The man looked tired, but what caught Arnold's attention was that he was wearing the Air Force battle dress uniform. Normally the man wore his blues.
"It's happening," the man said.
Here we go, Arnold thought. "Can you be more specific?"
The Air Force man held up his hand and signaled that he'd be right back.
The other members of the working group were checking in, which kept Arnold from cursing the man's abrupt departure.
His CIA friend looked rumpled, and was in a different location.
"Get sent to the basement?" he asked.
He was flipped off in response.
"I'll have you know that they gave me a bigger office and told me to stop hogging the video conference room," his friend said. "I got certified to have a camera in my new office. It has to stay in a locked safe when I'm not actually using it."
"Congratulations."
"It's too damn far from the coffee room."
The Air Force was back. "Sorry about that, breaking news here."
"The floor's all yours," Arnold said.
The Air Force man rubbed his face and checked his notes. "Okay, three different events, but they're related or I'll eat my hat. Starting a little over two hours ago our space tracking radars, and those operated by our allies, lost a couple of key Chinese defense satellites—"
"Lost?"
"—they disappeared. Vanished from radar. They are not, repeat not, being replaced by clouds of debris, if you take my meaning."
Captain Arnold was almost afraid to ask. "And?"
"And it didn't stop with those few. They continued to disappear. Hold on, sir, let me check something."
Captain Arnold looked at the message that had popped up on his screen. Not everybody in the conference was cleared for what the Air Force wanted to discuss. He entered the commands to reconfigure the conference security level.
"Oh, now wait a minute—" the FBI woman started to say before her screen and another went blank.
"Are we good to go?" Arnold asked.
"Yes, sir. As I was saying, their satellites starting disappearing and the Chinese military went ape shit about eight minutes ago now. I think they finally figured out it wasn't a systems glitch. They're losing the ability to talk over satellite so UHF and VHF communication nets are going up. There's a lot of confusion, and—"
"Hold on," Arnold broke in. He couldn't believe the add request he was seeing for the conference. "We have a special guest joining us."
A new screen went active, and the Director of National Intelligence was looking at him.
"Captain Arnold, I hope you don't mind me joining your little group. I wanted to get your take on things before I have to join the president."
"Sir, we were getting a briefing from the Air Force now. We can break if you prefer?"
"Don't mind me, I'll observe."
Everybody on the conference call sat up a little straighter.
Arnold needed to get things back on track, "Disappearing satellites and the Chinese military in an uproar, I believe you were saying?"
The Air Force man nodded, "That's right. Their satellites started going dark and the older com networks started coming up. They're out of practice using radio and it shows."
"What's taking out the satellites?" the CIA asked.
The Director of National Intelligence leaned forward.
"We know they're not being destroyed, at least in any traditional manner, because there's no debris—"
"You can track that?"
"—we can track a bolt in orbit. If there were a debris cloud spreading up there we'd know. Let me say also, if that were happening, global communications would be at risk, not to mention our critical defense satellites. You have to realize that things are built to be as lightweight as possible and they do not take damage well, particularly from objects moving at orbital velocities."
"Any ideas then?" Arnold asked.
"We've got one, but it's kind of crazy."
One of the DNI's eyebrows jumped.
"Before we get to outside the box thinking on the disappearing satellites, what are the other events?" Arnold asked.
"The Freehold satellite began moving after the Chinese attack. Our tracking people thought it had been damaged, but it remained stable and eventually parked itself over the South China Sea."
"Which gives it a very good look at the Chinese mainland," Captain Arnold said.
"Right, so the third event is very slick. Our cyber people say that a massive, but very interesting, hack against China's internet and some of their television broadcast satellites is underway. That's not my area of expertise, but the office next to mine is really buzzing with excitement."
Captain Arnold didn't have to tell his aide to find him an expert. He could see that the younger man was already browsing a special government directory.
"What is the nature of this attack?" the CIA asked.
The Air Force man almost grinned, "I've got a summary. Basically, their internet is up and running smoothly. What's not is China's censorship apparatus. It's completely offline. It's built into their infrastructure, so how that's been disabled is a question. You might be tempted to say, 'So what?' Imagine the panic happening in Beijing. Any Chinese resident with a computer or a cell phone can search for Falun Gong, the June Fourth Massacre (aka Tiananmen Square), Japanese porn, whatever their heart's desire. Forbidden news sources, web sites critical of the Chinese leadership ... China is wide open."
That was interesting. Was it something Freehold could pull off, Arnold wondered?
"You mentioned something about television?"
"The official government sanctioned news broadcasts have been replaced by international news feeds. They're switching every fifteen minutes to a new station. A billion Chinese are seeing what the entire world thinks about the last twenty-four hours."
"I had not heard that," the DNI said as he learned forward. "I'm sorry, but I can't see your rank."
"Colonel," the Air Force man said.
"Thank you, colonel. You mentioned a wild ass guess about the satellites. I'd like to hear about that if you don't mind."
"Yes, sir. It's not my theory. Do you mind if I bring on someone else?"
"It's Captain Arnold's conference," the DNI said with a casual wave of the hand.
"Bring in whoever you need," Arnold replied. The director didn't have to say that, but it was a nice gesture nevertheless.
There was a brief pause and one of the empty conference slots was filled by an Air Force major. Arnold watched the man's eyes with amusement when he recognized the DNI.
"Major, I realize this is a bit unusual, but I understand you have an interesting theory about what's happening to the Chinese military satellites?" Captain Arnold asked.
"Yes, sir. It's something rather delicate I'm afraid."
"Major, do you know who I am?" the Director of National Intelligence asked.
"Yes, sir!"
"If you need to disclose the details of a sensitive program, I will grant you permission to do so and these men will all sign the appropriate non-disclosure agreements."
"Thank you, sir. I think I may have a way around that."
The major's eyes twitched a couple of times and then he came to a decision. "For the purposes of this discussion, let me say that we war gamed something like this when I was at the War College. Similar capabilities have been discussed publicly in some space industry circles."
"Please continue, major," the DNI said. "I think that will be fine."
"Okay, for our scenario imagine you want to capture an asteroid. You send a small rocket motor up to it, and like an animal, you shoot a net around it. You could also use a blanket of material. Then you simply 'tug' your captured prize to wherever you need it.
"Taking our scenario further, instead of an asteroid, imagine you want to do something similar to a satellite. Perhaps you want to study it, or take it somewhere for repair. All you need is some terrific navigation skills, an understanding of orbital dynamics, a small rocket motor, big net, and off you go."
"Very interesting," the DNI said.
"The blanket material could inadvertently mask the satellite's radar signature or, perhaps, do so by design."
Captain Arnold made a few furious notes about things he needed to check.
"Although, I should mention that when we war gamed a similar scenario, we only envisioned capturing one or two enemy satellites. The rate at which the Chinese birds are disappearing is remarkable."
"Thank you, major," the DNI said. "This has been a very informative briefing. Captain Arnold, my compliments."
Pacifica Space Station
Waylon was still confined to the sarcophagus. The AIs said he might be able to transition into a special wheel chair in a week or two that would encase the majority of his body, and allow him some mobility while repairs continued.
"Waylon, I have completed the transactions per your instructions."
"Thank you, Penelope."
The next of kin of the Freehold residents had been sent an official letter of condolence, electronically, via the Israeli embassies in their respective countries. Zvi Ben-Artsi assured him that the embassies would print color copies and hand-deliver them. Waylon had also initiated the transfer of a significant death benefit to the beneficiaries. Marylee hadn't had time to fill out the forms, but her parents would benefit regardless.
He couldn't bring himself to call them, yet. He had managed a brief phone call to Arman. It may have been the hardest thing he'd ever done before his voice gave out from the radiation damage.
Waylon had been forced to speak in simple, short sentences at the AI's insistence. He couldn't even type his instructions with his immobilized body. Barry had said that movement was an unnecessary bodily function in his current state.
"Should I send out the warning notices?" Penelope asked.
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