The clock on the shelf behind the desk was expensive. Not the “I’ve got more money than you and I want you to know it.” kind of expensive, but rather the “I’ve been around this block, and I’ve done well for myself.” variety. The fact that it was naturally in the line of sight of anyone standing in front of this desk was probably intended to get under the skin of anyone who found themselves here behind schedule.
“Take a seat, Ensign.”
With one more glance at the clock, she dropped her salute and sat stiffly in the chair opposite the man behind the desk. It was a nice clock. The man put his pen down and leaned back in his chair with a creaking of thick leather.
“The man behind you is an aide to the National Security Advisor. He is here as a professional courtesy, and will only be observing.” Casey glanced back to the man leaning against the far wall. He had propped himself far too casually against the wall with his arms crossed. The sneer his mouth sported spoke volumes on the amount of trouble it would get him into if he opened It.
“Do you know why I called you here today?”
“Even if it is incorrect, Admiral, the obvious first choice is our recent visitor to the UN building in New York. Regardless, one does not find themselves at the bottom of the Pentagon by accident.”
“Well, in case Annapolis was keeping you too busy to watch the talking heads, the Entity was recording for much of it and sent a copy to all the major news outlets world-wide. Who would have thought that the damned aliens would have staged an intervention?”
Casey waited patiently. One does not interrupt the Admiral in charge of Naval Intelligence if one values their career.
“Think tanks will be examining the full implications for years, but there is some part of what this “Hive Queen” said that is instantly relevant to your interests.” He shifted in his seat as if it were anything but sinfully comfortable. “The twenty countries with the largest militaries on Earth have been tasked with creating a new force under the command of the United Nations that will be responsible for protecting the planet.”
“And while the advisory panel tasked with putting that together argue through all the details, ten of those countries have been tasked with providing one volunteer each for advanced and immediate training.”
“Not that I am not intrigued to be presented with this, Admiral, but what were the criteria used for my selection? I may have done well at the Academy, but I was hardly the best.”
“It was pretty simple, really. You are a newly commissioned officer that has no political ties, and; respectfully, no family attachments. You have been selected to undergo training for submarine service, but have not yet started that schooling. And while you were not the best at Annapolis, you were in the top fifteen percent of your class, and top ten for most of it. Your psyche file indicates that you probably could have done better if you weren’t so damnably humble. You talked yourself out of higher standings in a few cases.”
The Admiral made a throwing gesture.
“And with your degree in mechanical engineering you are a shoe in for what this may all lead to.”
“I suppose that is a fair assessment, sir. What’s next?”
“Before we continue with this, there was a stipulation attached. The queen indicated that there would be some kind of technological augmentation requirement. It said that things would be explained before steps were taken, and the initial stage would only monitor health and help you process language. If you are alright with that then we can move along.”
Casey nodded.
“We need that agreement to be verbal and explicit.” huffed the man in the back of the room.
“While mister NSC may be speaking out of turn, he is correct.”, agreed the Admiral.
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“I agree to that condition” Casey stated.
“We were given one week to make our selection, and one week to get the candidate to New York. We can cut you new orders today, but how long will you need to get yourself squared away?”
“I was all set to report to NNPS as ordered in three weeks. I can be completely packed by tomorrow morning.”
“Good. On paper and for the immediate future, you will be working for me as a cover for what you will actually be doing. We don’t want the press hounding everyone you know for a story, so we want to keep as much of a lid on things as we can.”
The admiral pressed a button on his phone and a few moments later a Lieutenant Commander walked in.
“I’ll leave you with Mike then. Take care, and hopefully we have a chance to talk again soon.”
With another salute, Casey followed the new officer down the hall to another office. He shut the door and handed her a file he had been carrying.
“Read that and sign at the bottom and we can get started.” Casey glanced it over as she fished the pen out of her pocket. She quickly scribbled on the bottom and handed it back. Lieutenant Commander Mike MacNeal circled around behind his desk and sat. He waved her to the couch he had against the facing wall.
“At 1200 hours zulu on the first, a spherical object with a diameter of 100 meters appeared on several radar systems at the lunar L1 point. It remained at that location for exactly 24 hours, upon which time it descended on a straight line course directly towards the Earth. It accelerated at a speed of 1 meter per second squared for 4 minutes and 13 seconds, upon which it slowed at the same rate before coming to rest in relation to the Earth. After the balance of 24 hours passed, it did it again five more times, stopping at the Kármán line line 1 week after its first appearance.”
Casey nodded. Definitely a controlled descent.
“It should be noted that at no point had this object behaved in any way that could be described as an orbit, which is beyond any known or theorized terrestrial technology or any natural phenomenon. It should also be noted that the rate that it fell towards the Earth in the periods when it was falling was significantly slower than it would have fallen under the effects of gravity alone.”
Curiouser and curiouser, thought Casey, but didn’t interrupt.
“Once it reached the Kármán line, it then turned 90 degrees and took a direct line course to a spot above international waters approximately 100 miles SouthEast of JFK airport in New York City. Again, it took a very leisurely 24 hours to traverse this distance.”
He looked up from his notes. “Any questions? Will you need the notes later?”
“No sir. Half the reason I did so well at the Academy was a phenomenal memory.”
“Photographic?”
“I believe my psyche file has established that I don’t like to blow my own horn.”
Lt. Commander MacNeal nodded and dropped his eyes to his notes.
“Here is where things really take a left turn into the surreal. Once it reached that location, it used radio to contact Air Traffic Control at JFK and asked for approach instructions and landing clearance. When asked by a supervisor what its intentions were, it stated that it needed to make arrangements to address the United Nations general assembly and security council.”
MacNeal gazed up at the ceiling and rubbed his jaw. “It asked the tower for assistance in making the arrangements, indicating that it knew that intruding on our cellular networks without authorization would not reflect well. And since the FAA uses unencrypted radio, the press got their hands on recordings of it all near instantly.”
He laughed, a short barking noise. “The UN was flooded by calls from the press asking for comment before the FAA even got their hands on a phone. In the interim, the object moved under FAA direction to a location on the outskirts of the airport, where it has been hovering at an altitude of 10 meters. It took about 24 hours for the UN to make the arrangements, and they agreed to host our visitor at a time 72 hours later. That meeting was six days ago.”
“On the morning of, the entity made a verbal request over loudspeaker to the security team patrolling underneath it for a transport to Manhattan. It made sure to clarify that it would be properly accommodated by any normal street legal automobile. When the van arrived, the object descended to 4 meters and deployed a mechanical lift for one passenger, which was a humanoid robot of some type, approximately two meters tall.”
He got up and crossed the room to a mini fridge, and pulled out two bottles of water. Tossing her one, he crossed back to his seat.
“The robot indicated that it was a remote communications platform that would be attending due to environmental issues, and it presented the security team with a tablet containing rough schematics so the security teams would know what they were looking at. It got in the car with no fuss and passed all the security checks that the UN guys could think of.”
Finishing his bottle of water, he continued. “Before lunch it addressed the general assembly and after lunch it addressed the security council. It asked for nothing, but it did state that it had plans for our future, which at this point is arranging for clean food and water, and basic medical attention for everyone on the planet. To the security council it stated that it would provide training personnel and materials for a planetary defense fleet while we were designing and building out the ships.”
Casey raised her hand slightly to indicate a question. At MacNeal’s nod, she asked “They aren’t involved in a war are they? This seems like a classic trope in sci-fi. Harvest the new guys for Cannon fodder suicide missions.”
“Not according to the messenger. To the general assembly it indicated that all it would be doing are things we could be doing with local resources if those in charge could look past their self-destructive greed, and to the security council it indicated that the fleet would be necessary because when we eventually get out into the greater galaxy we would inevitably pick a fight with someone out there and they would like us to survive it. They were appointed to keep us under a blockade for our own protection since we discovered radio. It’s all pretty humbling if you are in a position of power.”
“It has already provided educational materials to the UN. Universities are going over it all with a finely toothed comb. Heads are exploding, and papers are being written. What these entities know about gravity makes everything we know look like doodles on a refrigerator. Their computer systems make ours look like toy blocks. If they had come in guns blazing we would not have offered even token resistance. They wouldn’t even use us for labor, since their power generation, robotics, and AI trump anything we could come up with.”
MacNeal closed the file on his desk and locked up again in a drawer.
“So that’s where we are at.”
Casey nodded along. “So we reach the first deadline tomorrow? And we have seven days to get me to New York city?”
“Six days. You will stay overnight in a hotel next to the airport. Tomorrow we fetch your gear from the Academy, and between the two we make sure you are ready for anything. This week is going to suck, Ensign, but welcome to your future.”
The week did indeed suck.