equipment on the ships so that some of them can grow food while others do maintenance on energy sources, or other things like that. When they’re traveling at high relativistic speed, they don’t need to worry about those things since almost no time passes on the ships. But when they loiter for months or years, they do need to take care of the normal housekeeping across the fleet. Even the warships will connect to the others when they’re not patrolling the defensive perimeter.”
“OK, so if we can take control on Mars and get the biological agents into the ships that return to the fleet, it looks like your plan will work, but what if it doesn’t?”
“First off,” Brad replied, “the plan is our plan. You’re part of it now, Harry. Second, if this doesn’t work, we could lose in the end. We still have our combat ships, but we really don’t know how well we would do against the alien warships. They have a lot more experience and may have other types of weapons that weren’t on the ships that crashed here and that weren’t listed in the records that we extracted. But remember that the alien battle force has its limits too. We don’t have battleships or heavy cruisers, but our fighters can move at relativistic speeds like theirs and would be hard to hit when they maneuver on the attack. We would also have the advantage of surprise, so we could win if the main plan fails, but we don’t want to get to that point.”
The rest of the day was spent going over some of the details of the plan so that Harry could understand how everything fit together. The final stage, if the covert operation on Mars and the biological attack on the alien fleet succeeded, was a direct attack on the remaining alien ships. The force built at Nebula Two and housed at Ops was intended to do the final mopping-up once most of the alien population had become sick or died. This was clearly a war of annihilation. That was what the aliens intended, so it set the rules for the war.
Billingsley returned to the room just as Brad was finishing. “So, I think that you’ve had a full day by now. Let’s break, and you can pick up tomorrow. I think that Brad wants to take you to Ops for the rest of the familiarization. Let’s call it a day.”
Chapter 4
Harry woke early the next day. His accommodations were comfortable enough, and he certainly was tired. He should have slept until they came to wake him, but the information from the day before weighed on his mind. It was all true, strange and frightening, but definitely not a hoax. He could see that. Strange as it seemed, he was now part of an army that was going to defend Earth. It was crazy, like a continuation of that grade-B movie, but it was real, too real.
“Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss,” he thought, as he got out of bed and shaved, showered, and brushed his teeth, just like any normal morning. Then he got dressed and wandered out into the hallway. There was a dining room somewhere to the right. He remembered Brad taking him there for dinner. Now he needed a cup of coffee and something to eat, just a small bite, maybe a bagel or a piece of toast. His stomach was in no mood for much this morning. The tension that had built up during the night took away most of his appetite, but he knew that he needed to get something into his stomach.
He found the dining room with no problem. It was only five or ten rooms down the hall to the right, as he remembered, and the coffee machine was ready to serve. He found some sliced bread in one of the cabinets and put it into the toaster.
Just as the toaster signaled that it was done, Brad walked in. “I see that you found your way back to our modest dining hall. Did you sleep well?”
“Actually no,” Harry replied as he started to spread some strawberry jam onto the toast. “I guess that I was too worked up from everything that you threw at me yesterday.”
“We usually try to go a bit slower with new recruits, but your case is
“OK, so if we can take control on Mars and get the biological agents into the ships that return to the fleet, it looks like your plan will work, but what if it doesn’t?”
“First off,” Brad replied, “the plan is our plan. You’re part of it now, Harry. Second, if this doesn’t work, we could lose in the end. We still have our combat ships, but we really don’t know how well we would do against the alien warships. They have a lot more experience and may have other types of weapons that weren’t on the ships that crashed here and that weren’t listed in the records that we extracted. But remember that the alien battle force has its limits too. We don’t have battleships or heavy cruisers, but our fighters can move at relativistic speeds like theirs and would be hard to hit when they maneuver on the attack. We would also have the advantage of surprise, so we could win if the main plan fails, but we don’t want to get to that point.”
The rest of the day was spent going over some of the details of the plan so that Harry could understand how everything fit together. The final stage, if the covert operation on Mars and the biological attack on the alien fleet succeeded, was a direct attack on the remaining alien ships. The force built at Nebula Two and housed at Ops was intended to do the final mopping-up once most of the alien population had become sick or died. This was clearly a war of annihilation. That was what the aliens intended, so it set the rules for the war.
Billingsley returned to the room just as Brad was finishing. “So, I think that you’ve had a full day by now. Let’s break, and you can pick up tomorrow. I think that Brad wants to take you to Ops for the rest of the familiarization. Let’s call it a day.”
Chapter 4
Harry woke early the next day. His accommodations were comfortable enough, and he certainly was tired. He should have slept until they came to wake him, but the information from the day before weighed on his mind. It was all true, strange and frightening, but definitely not a hoax. He could see that. Strange as it seemed, he was now part of an army that was going to defend Earth. It was crazy, like a continuation of that grade-B movie, but it was real, too real.
“Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss,” he thought, as he got out of bed and shaved, showered, and brushed his teeth, just like any normal morning. Then he got dressed and wandered out into the hallway. There was a dining room somewhere to the right. He remembered Brad taking him there for dinner. Now he needed a cup of coffee and something to eat, just a small bite, maybe a bagel or a piece of toast. His stomach was in no mood for much this morning. The tension that had built up during the night took away most of his appetite, but he knew that he needed to get something into his stomach.
He found the dining room with no problem. It was only five or ten rooms down the hall to the right, as he remembered, and the coffee machine was ready to serve. He found some sliced bread in one of the cabinets and put it into the toaster.
Just as the toaster signaled that it was done, Brad walked in. “I see that you found your way back to our modest dining hall. Did you sleep well?”
“Actually no,” Harry replied as he started to spread some strawberry jam onto the toast. “I guess that I was too worked up from everything that you threw at me yesterday.”
“We usually try to go a bit slower with new recruits, but your case is
Similar Books
