The Reply

CHAPTER 36

“The ruby sphere is the key,” Turcotte said. “We can’t let Aspasia get it.” The bouncer was racing through the sky, now heading west toward Africa, the southern tip of India passing by to the right.

“How do we stop him?” Duncan asked. “Not only does he have that fleet incoming, what about the foo fighters and the guardian computer under Easter Island? How do we destroy those?”

“We haven’t simply been sitting still all these years at STAAR and doing nothing,” Zandra said. “We’ve analyzed the data of all confrontations with the foo fighters, and it seems that they have found a way to control electromagnetic energy and use it to disable or control the attacking craft or missile.”

“That’s why we can escape them if we shut all power down,” Turcotte noted. “Correct.”

Turcotte thought about that, and for the first time in a while, a smile crossed his face. “I have an idea how we can attack the foo fighters. It won’t be easy, but it is possible. We need to coordinate. If all don’t follow the same procedures, we won’t have a chance.”

“That’s a lot to do in not much time,” Duncan said, shaking her head. “It’s almost impossible.”

“We still have ST-8 clearance and authorization,” Zandra said. “I can access MILSTAR and talk to every military force the United States has. Tell me your plan and let’s make the impossible possible.”

“Our first priority is to get into the Rift Valley complex and get the ruby sphere,” Turcotte said. “To do that,” he continued, “we’re going to have to eliminate the threat of the foo fighters.”

“How?” Duncan asked.

The smile came back on Turcotte’s face. “We’re going to have to make the Air Force and Navy become dumb again.”

There were four F-14 Tomcats from the George Washington circling over Kenya, a hundred miles from the Rift Valley complex. They’d heard their two fellow crews go down and they were itching to get into the fight; but so far their orders had been to hold in place.

Lieutenant Commander Perkins was the flight leader, and he was more seasoned than the other seven fliers who were part of his group. He wasn’t as anxious to tangle with the foo fighters as they were. It wasn’t cowardice, it was experience. There was no purpose in fighting a battle that couldn’t be won, and as far as he knew, dating back to World War II, no human plane had ever won an encounter with the small alien spheres.

Thus, when a man named Captain Turcotte came over his radio and briefed him on a plan to take out the two foo fighters over the Rift Valley complex, Perkins listened with a mixture of enthusiasm that someone finally had a plan and trepidation over the difficulty of executing the difficult maneuver Turcotte was suggesting.

In the end though, all he said was “Roger that,” and gave the orders for his four planes to head north.

On board the Springfield Captain Forster and the fleet commander on the surface above the foo fighter base listened to the problem and course of action that Turcotte radioed to them with similar feelings. The situation there was compounded by the problem of the Greywolf being in close proximity to their target.

After a short discussion with Turcotte, Forster came up with a plan. It was half-ass, as they would say back at sub school, but still it was a plan, and that was more than they’d had.

Slowly and with minimum expenditure of power and electromagnetic signature, the Springfield and Asheville turned away from the foo fighter base. As the distance between them and the base increased, both submarines increased energy until both reactors were at full power, pushing the two geared turbines and, in turn, the one drive shaft at maximum RPM. The subs raced away from the foo fighter base at over forty miles an hour underwater.

At JPL, Larry Kincaid started awake as the door to the control room opened. Coridan walked over to his console. The rest of the room was still empty, the other workers all waiting on the arrival of the Airlia the following morning.

“Have you plotted the TCM that will put Surveyor over Cydonia?” Coridan asked.

“You specified such a quick burn,” Kincaid said, “and then not being able to check position and trajectory after the burn…” Kincaid stopped, realizing he sounded like one of the whining youngsters he so despised. “It’s plotted.”

“Execute it for a time-on-target of four hours from now,” Coridan ordered.

The foo fighter came over the Antarctic ice at five times the speed of sound. Reaching the appropriate spot, it halted. A golden beam lanced out from the small sphere, slicing down through the ice toward Scorpion Base, but the onboard sensors told it that it was already too late: there was no electromagnetic power being generated below. Whatever and whoever had been there was now gone.

The foo fighter shut off the beam and raced back to the north.

Bouncer 6 was already over southern California and flying at four thousand miles an hour. Kelly Reynolds sat in the copilot’s seat and slowly rocked back and forth, her mind focused and trying to figure out what she could do to get through to the guardian and then to Aspasia to stop the oncoming disaster.

Her hands were pressed against her temples, trying to stop the pain she felt in her head.

On board the Greywolf Commander Downing’s head jerked up as he heard the faintest of noises. He glanced over at Tennyson, who had come awake also. They listened for a minute before Downing realized what he was hearing: someone banging out Morse code, metal on metal, echoing down from the surface.

Downing grabbed a grease pencil, blew on his frozen fingers, wiped the condensation off the metal plating in front of him, and began writing the dots and dashes down. When he realized the message was repeating itself, he went back to the start and began translating the code into letters. When he had the message he stared at it for a few seconds, then nodded.

He didn’t know why and he didn’t know how, but it was better than sitting here freezing to death.

“All right. Time to be going.”