Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem Read online

  Outside Context Problem

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Cover Blurb

  When a UFO crashes near a top secret military base, the American Government realises that aliens have been spying on the human race for years. But even as they rush to unlock the technological secrets in the alien craft, the aliens launched the first step in their plan to invade the Earth and enslave the human race. With a giant mothership approaching the planet and the inhabitants promising peace and plenty, humanity must defeat an vastly superior foe with uncertain motives or lose its freedom forever.

  On one side, a powerful alien force…

  On the other side, a divided humanity…

  The battle for Earth has begun.

  Dear Reader

  If you downloaded this during the promotion, I hope you enjoy this free introduction to my work. I have other books on Kindle, a number of my earlier books free on my website and a blog; please feel free to check them out. If you would like to reward me, you are welcome to send me money through PayPal or buy me a book on my wish-list (see my site: http://www.chrishanger.net), but all I really ask is that you leave a review on Amazon. Yes, this is another attempt to gain readers .

  If you didn't obtain this book when it was being offered for free, I do run promotional events fairly regularly. Subscribe to my blog (http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/) and you will receive updates.

  As you will notice, this is book one of a trilogy. Book two will be uploaded somewhere around February 2013, to coincide with the paperback publication of The Royal Sorceress. Book three will be uploaded, if all goes to plan, in June 2013. If you want to see it sooner, please drop me an email; I always love hearing from my readers.

  As a matter of principle, all of my self-published electronic books are DRM-free. If you don’t like Kindle format, just convert the files using Calibre or another conversion program.

  A slightly embarrassing problem is that I wrote this book before NASA terminated the space shuttle program. The handful of sections that feature a space shuttle are outdated. I apologise for any confusion this may cause.

  Finally, the team Outside Context Problem was devised by Iain M. Banks, one of the most inventive SF writers in the world today. This book is dedicated to him and those who believed in my writing enough to help.

  Thank you

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Kota Kinabalu, 2012

  “An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass...when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sail-less and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he’s keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.”

  -Iain M. Banks

  Chapter One

  Schriever Air Force Base, USA

  Day 1

  “All ready for another fun-filled evening in front of the box?”

  Airman First Class Robin Lance rolled her eyes as she took her place in front of the radar screen. Night duty, even at one of the most vital facilities in the Continental United States, was almost always boring, without even the prospect of a stealth aircraft trying to fly through their area of responsibility to look forward to. She had learned to enjoy the times when a new and exotic aircraft would be put through its paces, when she would be charged with detecting it before it got into position to do harm to the base, but there wouldn’t be one tonight. It would be just another boring evening, enlivened only by her ongoing project.

  “Yes, dad,” she said, simply. “I brought my homework to do when nothing was on TV.”

  Technical Sergeant Dave Heidecker laughed. Robin had worked under him for the last six months and he’d taught her a great deal, including some of the mysteries of USAF protocol, which she had regarded as a closed book. Her interests lay in radar and some of the more exotic applications of passive sensors, not in standing up and saluting when someone with a higher rank talked down to her. Heidecker understood her and that was all she needed to blossom into someone the USAF needed desperately.

  “There’s nothing in the log book,” Heidecker confirmed, as she skimmed through the brief list. A handful of civil aircraft had been tracked, along with a couple of fast jets from the nearby AFB, but nothing particularly special or important. There were no warning notes about the equipment, nor any signs that the radar system might need urgent repairs, but she checked it anyway, just in case. The systems were far more fragile than civilians tended to believe and Robin had no intention of allowing a faulty system to remain online any longer than absolutely necessary. The Bill of 2017 authorised rapid replacement of any faulty system charged with defending America’s heartland.

  Schriever Air Force Base handled most of the space-based military systems that had been launched into orbit by the United States. As such, the 50th Space Wing – which was charged with overseeing the complex network of satellites, ground-based radar stations and other, highly-classified systems – was one of the most important units in the USAF, although most of the fast-jet pilots would have hotly disputed that claim. Robin had no arguments with it. The rapid detection and identification of anything that might be remotely hostile to the United States was critically important in a world where more and more rogue states were developing the technology required to launch ballistic missiles towards her country. It didn’t help that most of the space-faring powers had encircled Earth with thousands of pieces of junk, from old rocket components to dead satellites, that presented the space-monitoring teams with a challenge. A new contact could be anything from a glove lost by the ISS to an incoming enemy missile.

  She looked down at the radar screen and sighed. There was nothing exotic or even remotely interesting in her work at night, so she checked with Heidecker and brought up the radar data from the recent clash between Israel and Syria. Her supervisors had been very keen that she – along with hundreds of other analysts – should study the data carefully, perhaps in the hope that a younger mind would see a way to determine new programs that would allow rapid target identification. The Syrians had launched over thirty Scud missiles at Israel, but they’d loaded half of them with decoys and successfully tricked the Israelis into wasting some of their Patriot missiles on harmless duds. A Scud could be had for less than a hundred thousand dollars; a Patriot cost well over a million dollars. The balance of expenditure had fallen squarely against Israel and the USAF had no intention of allowing Iran, or any of their other possible foes who possessed Scud missiles, to do the same to them. If the radar data could be used to separate the decoys from the real missiles, they could avoid wasting millions of dollars worth of irreplaceable missiles. Congress would definitely approve.

  There was no point in keeping her eyes on the main radar screen. Even without Heidecker watching over her shoulder, and keeping one eye on his own console, the computers would alert her at once if anything entered the base’s air defence zone. I
t was hard to keep radar operators at night from goofing off – their job was boring and often unrewarded – but as long as she could split her attention between her homework and the console, she was fine. Others didn’t manage this nearly as well and were eventually streamlined into different units, or more rewarding positions. Robin couldn’t understand why some people didn’t want to study radar with more interest. She’d been fascinated ever since her father had introduced her to the concept.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glowing screen and smiled. At nineteen years old, with long blonde hair, she looked more like a cheerleader than a radar specialist – indeed, she was ridiculously young for her rank. It bothered her from time to time that she had to progress slowly, rather than rising to a level where she could set her own priorities and make the breakthroughs she knew were waiting to be made, but the USAF didn’t have that much flexibility in it. It had already paid for an education well above the norm and…well, now she had to repay it with her service. She didn’t mind most of the duties, but there were times when she just got exasperated.

  Or perhaps I’m being punished, she thought, wryly. Seven months ago, just after her promotion, she’d been assigned to a mobile radar station during an exercise involving F-22 Raptors and a couple of highly-classified next generation stealth platforms. Robin had seen the deployment of the stealth aircraft as a challenge and, rather than wait for them to start dropping bombs, had managed to link the various radar stations together and track the disparate aircraft, shooting several of them down. The losses might have only been simulated – the USAF had never lost a Raptor in combat – but the embarrassment was real. Robin had ignored most of the angry disputes at higher ranks, or the amused response from the Army or the Marines, yet she did wonder at some of the senior officers. America might have the best equipment in the world – and the only known deployment of combat-capable stealth aircraft – but any opponent could adapt their own tactics to confront the stealth jets. Surely it was better to have their flaws and disadvantages pointed out in an exercise, where no one died, than in a shooting war?

  She bent her head over the radar traces from Israel and frowned. There seemed to be little that could be used as a basis for determining which missiles were real and which were decoys, even in hindsight. The decoys missiles might be impossible to separate from the real missiles - at least quickly enough to matter - even through Robin enjoyed the challenge. If it were possible…she was deeply immersed in her work when the console chimed an alert.

  Robin sat up instantly, switching the display back to the live feed from the radars and other sensor systems surrounding the base. A contact had flickered into existence on the display, approaching the base little faster than an Apache helicopter, although it was quite high in the sky. A moment later, it flickered out of existence again and vanished. Robin scowled and triggered a handful of analysis programs – including a pair she’d designed herself – in hopes that they would reveal more than she’d seen, but she wasn't hopeful. The contact had just vanished.

  Radar was a notoriously imprecise science; indeed, the reason the USAF put up with some degree of eccentric behaviour from Robin and her peers was that they had an instinctive understanding of radar. Anything from another radar station to a flock of birds could trigger an alert, convincing operators that an attack was underway and combat jets should be launched to deal with the threat. Robin had studied events back in the days after 9/11, when USAF jets had been launched to do battle with flocks of birds and transient atmospheric conditions, yet this contact had been amazingly solid. Robin felt a tingle running down her spine. Her instincts told her that something wasn't right. A moment later, the contact flickered into existence again.

  It was lower now, heading down towards the ground. The radar beam washed over it again and allowed her to track its course and speed. She knew what was happening before the computers confirmed it. The mystery target – and it had to be real; a real solid contact – was going to crash. The results were odd, but there was no doubt that something was clearly out there. What was it?

  “Sir,” she said slowly. “We have a contact.”

  Heidecker stepped forward and leaned over her shoulder, his face illuminated by the glowing light from the radar screen. “What the hell is it?”

  “Unknown,” Robin said, flatly. There were ways to identify the type of aircraft from the exact radar returns, using them to map the hull, but the unknown aircraft didn’t seem to fit any known pattern. “It’s crashing.”

  The screen flickered again. “It’s crashed.”

  Heidecker grabbed for the secure telephone. “Get me the Security Commander,” he snapped, as he picked it up. “Whatever that thing is, it shouldn’t be here.”

  ***

  Master Sergeant George Grosskopf hefted his M16 as the Humvee drove towards the crash site. He could see a flickering white light in the distance, like burning magnesium, suggesting that the unknown aircraft had come down hard. It hardly mattered. His duty was to secure the crash site before fire and other emergency services teams arrived to complicate matters. George’s five-man security team checked their weapons quickly. If inquisitive reporters – or anyone else – tried to approach the site, they’d have to warn them off or take them into custody.

  It wasn't something that sat well with him – there might be survivors in the mystery aircraft – but he understood the logic behind it. No one should have been flying anywhere near the base without clearance and that meant that the mystery aircraft was being flown by reporters, terrorists…or, perhaps, it was a stealth USAF aircraft that no one had bothered to warn him was in the area. If there were injured in the craft, they’d have to take their chances until the crash site was secured, particularly if they were reporters. George had been briefed on some of the more idiotic stunts reporters had pulled to try and gain information they had no need to know and if a few of them had been killed, it could only improve the gene pool. Personally, he doubted that any reporter would actually understand what they were seeing when they flew over the base, but that wasn't his concern. He was charged with keeping the base secure…and, after several shooting incidents at American bases, he wouldn’t take any chances.

  The cool night air was growing warmer as the vehicle stopped, a safe distance from the crash site. He felt an odd prickling on his skin as he jumped out of the Humvee and barked orders, motioning for three of his men to form up and advance behind him. The fourth would remain behind and report if anything happened to them, although George doubted that anything would. Neither terrorists nor reporters would offer any resistance after such a crash.

  It occurred to him that it might be a Russian or Chinese aircraft – there had been rumours that both powers were deploying stealth aircraft capable of reaching the Continental United States – yet it seemed unlikely. No one would fly a spy aircraft right into the heart of America’s radar defences – and the firepower that backed them up – unless they intended to start a war, but the world had been remarkably peaceful lately. There were still brief bloody skirmishes against a hornet’s nest of terrorists and other scrum bags in the Middle East, and there were dozens of minor disputes all over the world, yet there was nothing worth risking an all-out war over, was there? It was far more likely that the aircraft had been hijacked by terrorists intent on using it as a weapon when they lost control and crashed it into the ground.

  The M16 felt reassuringly solid in his hands as his team advanced. The flickering light seemed to be fading, along with the temperature. The mystery aircraft had come down hard enough to be half-buried in the ground, yet he could see a trail of debris surrounding the wreckage. There was something about the wreckage that sent a shiver down his spine. He’d seen aircraft crash sites before and this was no different, yet there was something…not quite right. He reached for his radio to call for reinforcements, and then halted his hand by sheer strength of will, cursing himself for allowing the crash site to spook him.

  He looked down at one of
the pieces of debris as he almost stumbled over it in the fading light. It was a piece of silvery metal, completely beyond easy identification. He reached out to touch it and was repelled by the heat; the ground was scorched all around where the mystery craft had crashed. The feeling of danger kept rising within him and he waved his men back as he stepped forward. For the first time, he looked down at the main body of the unknown aircraft…and stared.

  Civilians always believed that aircraft that hit the ground exploded, or were destroyed completely, but George had seen enough crash sites to know that the main body of the aircraft often remained intact. It depended on the size of the structure, and what had actually happened to make it crash, but it wasn't unknown for most of the body to survive. The aircraft he was looking at was surprisingly intact – he could see crumpled hull metal and other, less visible, signs of damage – and it glowed, wrapped in a fading white light. The feeling of danger only grew stronger. Whatever the exact nature of the craft – he was starting to believe that it was something truly exotic, perhaps out of Area 51 or one of the more classified testing locations – it wasn't anything remotely mundane.

  “Contact the base,” he said. His voice came out in a throaty whisper and he coughed to clear his throat. There was something about the scene that forced him to be quiet, as if something was watching them in the distance. “Tell them we need the emergency trucks out here now.”

  The light vanished, as if someone had turned off a switch. George could see the lights of the base, and the stars high overhead, but the mystery craft had gone completely dark. His eyes hurt – from the curses he could hear behind him, he wasn’t the only one – and he squeezed them closed, remaining still to avoid stumbling over a piece of debris. The temperature fell rapidly back to normal, leaving them shivering in the darkness. He reached for the flashlight he carried and shone it onto the craft. It looked, somehow, even more exotic in the sudden illumination, yet it was still dark. The craft almost seemed to be absorbing the light.