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  “And, of course, we know nothing about what weapons they possess,” Waikoloa said. Area 51 had invented more than a few nasty tricks for American warships; he was pretty certain that the other Great Powers and the Rockrats had invented their own weapons as well. Space warfare was a confusion business; it was nothing like when his father and grandfather had marched through Mexico and Central America, seeking to enforce peace on the region. “They could have everything we have, or something that we don’t even have on the drawing board.”

  “They will certainly have the numbers advantage,” Brown said. The total population of the human solar system was ten billion, but more than nine billion lived on Earth; the moon, Mars and the asteroids didn’t account for that much of the population. The Rockrats valued manpower beyond anything else; they had been willing, years ago, to accept women from the various exclusion zones on Earth as brides, just to boost their population. Waikoloa found it impossible to believe that the aliens would have brought ten billion or more of their own people alone, but with most of the human population trapped on Earth, they might not need ten billion to win…

  He rubbed his head. If, of course, the aliens had come looking for a fight…

  “And our orders are to do something about that,” he said. The United States would be launching some of its orbital industrial units out towards the asteroid belt, placing them away from any possible alien attack…unless, of course, the alien fleet split up and assaulted the asteroids. It hardly mattered; none of the units could be pointed towards Area 51 without breaking the secrecy. The large colony on Ganymede would receive most of them eventually – there were enough Americans there to make something useful from the industrial units – but it would put them out of action for at least two months. That would leave them only three months to produce components for defence. “What did the think tank have to say?”

  “Doctor Kelly Jorgensen told me that the design for the first advanced warship has been finalised, checked through by professionals, repaired, and then completed,” Brown said. “She wants to show you in person, but I think that it’s a workable design; one of them can be constructed at a yard at Earth, where we can put it through trials without having to worry about compromising our secrecy. There’s nothing really new in it…”

  “Then let’s go talk to her,” Waikoloa said. “I have to compose a report on our productive capabilities for the President within a week.”

  Brown nodded, her face sympathetic; people on Earth rarely understood that it took time for events to happen in space. The aliens had spent years travelling through space; some of the commenters on the planet had wondered aloud why they had taken so long, let alone why they weren’t arriving tomorrow. The alien starships had been decelerating from nearly half the speed of light, but assuming they came from the closest star in that region of the sky, they would have spent at least fifteen years in transit. The program for launching a human starship towards Tau Ceti expected that the flight would take at least thirty years; volunteers were being warned, right from the start, that there would be no going back…

  “I wonder what Conrad Hamilton thinks of all this,” Brown said, referring to the brains behind Message Bearer. The multi-billionaire had spent a fortune on assembling the components for the first human flight to another star; a handful of probes, everyone agreed, didn’t count. “I would think that he’d be pretty pissed.”

  Waikoloa laughed. “I saw a brief update from the Pentagon,” he said. “He was talking about redirecting Message Bearer towards the alien home star…or what we think is the alien home star. Personally, I think that that’s a rather bad idea, but frankly, I’d be happier if Message Bearer was somewhere well away from the aliens when they finally reach Earth.”

  The interior of Area 51 was just the same as any other asteroid habitat, from the dull corridors, mind-numbingly boring, to the carpet of air-producing grass, something that added a slight smell to the air as people walked through the corridor. Waikoloa was used to the smell by now; it existed on every space habitat or colony, even some of the bridge ships. He considered that a lunatic risk – if something went wrong on a bridge ship, it would be almost certainly impossible to rescue any of the passengers – but it made a certain kind of grim sense; running out of air would be fatal on a spacecraft.

  He quickly inspected a pair of sections before entering the main cavern. Area 51 was unique in one aspect; there were no children or even young trainees assigned to the base. The Americans on the base all had contraceptive implants; Waikoloa enforced only two rules when it came to sexual relations. No children…and whatever happened in the bedchamber stayed in the bedchamber. There was little point in trying to ban sex; Waikoloa knew better than to issue an order that would never be obeyed.

  “Admiral,” Doctor Kelly Jorgensen said, as they entered her office. She had a much smaller staff than most people would have expected; the endless limitations on manpower ensured that automation and semi-smart computers would have a much greater impact than anything the unions would have allowed, back on old Earth. Her staff members were mainly designers with a handful of engineers…and two people, not counting Brown, who had real experience fighting in space. “How are you today?”

  They exchanged small talk for a few moments before she continued. “We have been designing warships for the last ten years,” Kelly said, telling Waikoloa something he had known for almost as long. He didn’t blame her; like most semi-civilians, Kelly couldn’t resist the chance to lecture the military officers who intruded into her domain. “The latest designs have just been finalised.”

  She tapped a control. “Observe.”

  Waikoloa couldn’t help, but feel a flicker of excitement as a spacecraft design appeared in front of him. A groundpounder would never have understood the excitement he felt as the spacecraft appeared and started to rotate; the design would never have won any awards for beauty, but few spacecraft could hope to actually appear attractive. Apart from the doomed attempt to create a spacecraft that bore more than an imaginary resemblance to the ancient Starship Enterprise, which had failed miserably, few spacecraft were truly awesome in appearance. The spacefarer in him saw past the appearance and knew…

  The spacecraft was tiny, little more than forty metres long, composed of a handful of modules and weapon launchers, based around a fusion tube and fuel tank. It wouldn’t have a large crew – only ten men at most could operate the spacecraft without becoming far too compressed into one location – but that wasn't important, not with the computer support. Like almost all spacecraft, it would be built out of standardized parts; almost all of the Great Powers kept their basic equipment standardized, not only with their own ships, but with the other nations as well. It would be easy to construct and easy to operate…

  “Acceptable,” he said finally. He saw Brown smile and knew that he had failed to hide his excitement. “How many can you produce within the five months we have before the aliens arrive?”

  Kelly hesitated. “A lot would depend on how many supplies we could muster without breaching the security of this area,” she said. Waikoloa nodded grimly; Area 51 had its own miners, but every time a mining mission was launched, it ran the risk of being noticed. In theory, there would be no Rockrat activity for years in this part of the asteroid belt – the belt was so vast that it would be centuries before the rate of expansion reached Area 51 – but Waikoloa knew the hard way that security was an easy thing to breach. “Assuming that we continued at the current rate of production, we could have as many as fifty of the spacecraft ready before the aliens arrived at Earth, but we would be ramping up our own production rates to the point where we could triple that in a few extra months.”

  Waikoloa scowled. He wouldn’t have thought of expanding the production machinery himself, even though it was obvious in hindsight. It would mean a trade-off, building fewer warships in the first few months to ensure that they could build additional warships later, but it might be worth it. He’d have to discuss it with the Preside
nt; there were alternatives, but few of them were truly worth the risk, or the political costs…

  “The real bottleneck lies in the crew,” Kelly continued. “It should be noted that we don’t have anything like enough people to crew even the first fifty ships, although we could in a pinch run them all with five crewmembers. We would need to bring up more crewmen from Earth, and that would risk breaking security, let along the need to actually give them practical hands-on experience with their ships. There’s only so far that you can go with simulations, Admiral; the crew will need some actual training…”

  “I am aware of the limitations of simulations,” Waikoloa said, grimly. He strokes his chin as he studied the design for the American warship. “What about the space fighter designs?”

  “There’s really little more to report since we last studied the concept,” Kelly said. She tapped the control and displayed an image of a ball-shaped craft, sitting in the middle of empty space. “The fighter design bears some resemblance to a Rockrat mining craft, but obviously we’ve replaced the mining tools with weapons and some advanced lasers…although the Rockrats might have similar lasers for mining. The catch is that they have low endurance; the Rockrats don’t mind moving slowly, but a slow-moving space fighter will be an easy target. The fusion drive is the most capable that we can produce for such a small craft, but it burns through its fuel quickly and if it runs out…”

  She didn’t spell it out; Waikoloa’s mind filled in the details anyway. The hapless fighter would race off into the void of space and would be almost impossible to recover, whatever else happened. He liked to think that the USSF would do what it could to recover the pilot, and the IAU had organised an interplanetary rescue treaty which would – in theory – bind every spacefaring power to rescue any stranded pilot, but the iron laws of physics would make rescue very difficult.

  “I want you to start preparing to expand our productive capabilities and produce as many warships as we can before the aliens arrive,” he said, carefully. “I’ll have to discuss it with the President and the Pentagon, but I suspect that that will be the decision they will take; fifty ships won’t make that much of a difference if the aliens are implacably hostile when they enter Earth’s orbit.”

  Kelly hesitated. “It occurs to me, sir, that the other Great Powers will have similar programs of their own,” she said. Waikoloa nodded; he had taken it almost as a given, it was human nature to scheme and try to garner whatever advantage they could from any given situation. “You could recommend cooperation to the President…”

  “I could, yes,” Waikoloa said. He paused; it was a good thought, but it was well above his pay grade. “I’ll mention it to him, but, for the moment, assume that Area 51 stands on its own. We should be used to that by now.”

  Kelly said nothing.

  Chapter Seven: The Welcome Fleet, Take One

  Washington DC

  “Ah, Captain Buckley,” the President said, as his aide showed the man into the room. “Have a seat, please; I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  He quickly completed his brief study of the briefing paper from Area 51, marked it with his Presidential Seal, and turned to face Captain Joseph Buckley. He’d read the captain’s file carefully, although it had been sheer luck that Buckley and his spacecraft had been available for the mission. The iron laws governing the flight of the bridge ships between Earth and the outer colonies – Mars, Venus, Mercury and the moons of the various gas giants – meant that whenever a bridge ship was needed, one was never available. The Neil Armstrong, one of the largest spacecraft built by humanity, had been a month out from Earth when the aliens had been discovered.

  Buckley himself was tall, blond and rugged, with a nose that showed the signs of having been broken once or twice in the past; his file claimed that it had been a training accident in the Space Force Academy. The dividing line between civilian and military spacemen was much thinner than most people assumed; Buckley might have had no real military experience, but he certainly possessed the training necessary to handle any real emergency. The Neil Armstrong wasn't a warship by any stretch of the imagination, but, like all heavy colonist-carriers, it sometimes had to deal with internal dissent. Not everyone coped well in space, even colonists who had been selected for Mars or the asteroids; Buckley had occasionally had to sedate someone who had become hysterical out in space.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, finally. Buckley would have returned to Earth somewhat unwillingly; the Neil Armstrong might be generating Earth-standard gravity as it spun, but returning to the planet had to be uncomfortable to him. “I assume that you have been following the news of the aliens?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Buckley said, as calmly as ever. The USSF would not have given an excitable man command of the Neil Armstrong. “Several of my passengers wanted to return to Mars the moment they heard about the news.”

  President Cardona smiled. Thousands of colonists, from all of the Great Powers, went to Mars; not all were allowed to return. The Neil Armstrong and the handful of other bridge ships were important because, unlike most ships, they had a nearly unlimited cruising range; they could have followed Message Bearer to Tau Ceti if they didn’t mind spending years on the journey. They took colonists and certain pieces of equipment that couldn’t be launched along the slow-transit orbits to their destination; they brought back some rare materials and the occasional group of short-term colonists who had finished their contracts. What the bridge ships couldn’t do was reach high cruising speeds; what some ships could do in weeks, they took months.

  “I’m not surprised,” the President said. He leaned forwards. “How do you feel about the aliens?”

  Buckley looked wary. “It does rather put what we have accomplished in perspective,” he said. “That fleet of theirs is an awesome achievement, although we could duplicate it now; indeed, to some extent we have with Message Bearer. I’m not so sure that I like the sheer number of ships they have sent; if they have sent so many, that argues that they’re pretty certain that they intend to settle somewhere in the solar system. We can pack a thousand people on the Neil Armstrong if we use hibernation drugs; the alien craft could carry many more humans. If they are colonists…”

  He paused. “On the other hand, I can’t see how they’re unaware of our presence, which means that they may have a plan for dealing with us, one way or the other,” he said. The President nodded inwardly; there was nothing new here, but the endless question – just what did they want – remained. “They may intend to ask if they can settle on Mars, but…if they have so many ships, it argues that they have no choice, but to come here.”

  The President lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “The plan for Message Bearer is to send one ship to Tau Ceti,” Buckley said. “We know that there is a habitable world there and we believe that it is uninhabited. The aliens have made a massive investment in sending their fleet here; unless they have some super-advanced economical system that allows them to make such an investment, they have made a massive gamble on an uncertain outcome. It could be that they are refugees, fleeing from something even worse.”

  The President rubbed his eyes. “That’s something none of the research teams thought of,” he said. “The general consensus is that the aliens intend to settle somewhere in the solar system.”

  Buckley frowned. “Mr. President, if I may ask--” the President nodded “--has there been any communication from the alien fleet?”

  “Nothing,” the President said. “The IAU has been attempting to signal them with every idea every halfway sane scientist could dream up, everything short of sending up smoke signals or launching missiles across their bows. So far, no response at all; I cannot help but find that ominous.”

  He shook his head. “But that's not the issue at hand at the moment, Captain,” he said. “You may have heard that there is a great deal of pressure for the dispatch of a welcoming fleet to intercept the aliens a few weeks short of Earth itself, just to find out what t
hey want. We believe that they will have been confused by the cacophony of messages from Earth and the asteroids; they may well talk to actual representatives from Earth itself.”

  He leaned forward. “It has been decided that the Neil Armstrong will lead that fleet,” he said. Buckley’s eyes flickered with a barely-concealed delight. “There will be twenty-seven ships in all going, including at least three from each of the Great Powers, as well as a Brazilian and Israeli ship. The ships will be armed, just in case, but we hope to establish a peaceful contact.”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” Buckley said. “Exactly what is the overall plan for contact?”

  President Cardona stood up and paced around the room. “The Neil Armstrong itself will carry a large part of the diplomatic team, including both Director Hussein, whom you may have heard of, and at least one reporter.” Buckley made a face. “Ideally, the aliens will pause to allow you to establish communications; we will have enough scientists on board the Neil Armstrong to talk to them…unless they are completely alien, of course.”

  He looked down at Buckley’s grim face. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “If the aliens are hostile, we will be sending you into terrible danger without proper support at all, or even a real chance of escape; you will be far too close to the aliens to escape before being destroyed. The mission is volunteer-only…”

  “I volunteer,” Buckley said, at once. “Sir, I cannot say how much I want to do this…”

  Cardona’s lips twitched. “Understandable, I guess,” he said. He understood the desire to take a role in history; who would remember the first people on Mars or Venus when compared to the man who had commanded the welcoming fleet for an alien race? Buckley would have a place in history that no man could match. “You will have tactical command of the welcome fleet, but be diplomatic; some of the Russians and Chinese will be reluctant to serve under an American.”