Chapter One

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water...yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
-The War of the Worlds, HG Wells

The President of the United States, Colonel Paul James was surprised to note, looked younger than he had expected, although more impressive in person than on the television.  Paul had grown up in a time when politicians were carefully photographed to make them look either intelligent or idiotic – depending on the political values of the given media source – and he had thought that he was used to it, but the President looked oddly impressive.  He was fairly handsome, in an unfinished kind of way…but at the moment, he looked shocked.  It was hard for anyone, particularly Paul, to blame him.  He’d known for years that he might be faced with this moment, but the President had probably never considered it, outside his wildest nightmares.

“Explain it to me again,” the President said, finally, briefly sparing a glance for the three other Cabinet members in the room.  “We have a what coming our way?”

Paul took a breath.  It didn’t get any easier.  “There’s an alien starship approaching Earth,” he said.  He’d spent years, literally, trying to think of ways to get that basic message across to the political lords and masters of the United States, but somehow it had never seemed easy.  He had been prepared for disbelief, or doubt…and he didn’t know how the President would react.  “Perhaps I should start at the beginning.”

The President glanced once at the calendar mounted on his desk.  “It does not appear to be April 1st,” he said, with a hint of the same smile that had captivated a certain class of voters.  “I assume that no one would bring a joke about such matters into the Oval Office, so…by all means, begin at the beginning.”

“A day ago, the International Space Station was doing a routine sky-search with one of the telescopes orbiting near the installation,” Paul began.  “The search was actually part of the asteroid defence program, which was set up to hunt for possibly dangerous NEO asteroids – that is, asteroids near enough to Earth to pose a danger…”

“I’m familiar with the program,” the President said.  He’d even voted funding for the program.  “The telescope sweep found an alien starship?”

“It found the drive flare from the starship as it lit off its drives,” Paul said, carefully.  This wasn't going to be easy.  “The sheer brightness of the display rapidly convinced the observers that it was far from natural and they informed NASA, along with the other involved nations, of the contact.  The information was forwarded rapidly to Operation Nightwatch – my command – and we started to do a preliminary data check and analysis.  The conclusion, Mr President, was inescapable.  There is an alien starship approaching Earth.”

The President said nothing for a long moment.  “Aliens,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.  “I assume that we have a contingency plan for this?”

Paul smiled, despite himself.  “Sir, Operation Nightwatch has contingency plans for everything we could imagine involving aliens…”

“If you tell me that a UFO actually did crash at Roswell, I’m going to be astonished,” the President said.  “I think I’d like a fuller briefing on your activities.”

“Of course,” Paul said, welcoming the distraction.  “There was no UFO crash at Roswell, Mr President.  Operation Nightwatch was founded during the Carter years as a top secret response to the prospect of alien contact, which some members of the administration thought was just around the corner…”

“Bunch of loonies,” Tom Spencer said.  The Secretary of State snorted.  “How many billions of dollars did they waste on this particular boondoggle?”

The President laughed.  “At the moment, Tom, it’s starting to sound as if they were precognitive,” he said dryly.  “Carry on, Colonel.”

Paul nodded.  “It was actually one of several programs launched into the question,” he continued, “but the only one to survive the Reagan years.  Reagan didn’t believe in aliens outside the movie screens, but Operation Nightwatch was actually involved in other intelligence issues as well, such as examining captured pieces of Soviet – and later Chinese – hardware.  The idea was that the techs would gain experience working on technology that wasn't American in origin or derived from American technology, while keeping an operational pool of experienced personnel.  We proved, back before my time, that the Japanese strike fighter design was partly a copy of one of our designs that never made the final cut.  We also were involved with analysis of captured Iraqi hardware after the war and the research into their attempts at fooling our systems.”

He paused for comments, receiving none, before plunging on.  “But the primary objective was to plan for a possible alien contact,” he said.  “The overall cost was barely more than a billion dollars, for which we came up with contingency plans for every possible alien encounter – or at least every possible encounter that we could imagine.  When we actually did discover alien life, Operation Nightwatch was activated as a matter of urgency and I was detailed to brief you personally.”

“I see,” the President said.  He looked down at his desk for a long moment.  “What do we have so far?”

Paul activated the small secure laptop he’d brought with him and displayed an image on the wall.  “This is the best image we have so far from the ISS,” he said.  There wasn't much to see, but a pinpoint of brilliant light against the darkness.  “Most of the data is speculative, so far, but it seems likely that the alien craft is huge, at least a hundred kilometres long.  NASA has a team of researchers analysing what we’ve picked up so far and they believe that, judging by the drive emissions and its observed performance, that it will enter Earth’s orbit within a month.”

“They’re certain of that?”  The President asked.  “It’s definitely coming here?”

Paul frowned.  There was a detail the President would definitely not want to hear.  “Orbital mechanics are well understood, even though the space program would be unable to duplicate the alien ship,” he explained.  “The craft is currently on a trajectory that would allow it to enter orbit within a month – safely.  It’s…very unlikely that they do not intend to visit Earth, unless they’re interested in the Moon, which is a possibility.  If they had been heading to Mars, or the asteroids, we might not have picked it up at all.”

“Aliens, in my term,” the President said.  He was eager, Paul saw, for re-election already.  “I take it that they haven’t attempted to signal us?”

“Not as far as we are aware,” Paul said.  “Operation Nightwatch maintains a handful of contacts in the various SETI programs and other public alien research programs and they have picked up nothing, so far.  However…”

Spencer broke in suddenly.  “Who else knows about this?”

“Us, the Russians, the Chinese, the Europeans and the Japanese, I presume,” Paul said.  “They were – are - all represented on the International Space Station at present and their people won’t have hesitated to inform their superiors on the ground.  It won’t be long before someone leaks…and it’s quite possible that the starship will be detected from the ground before long, in any case.  I doubt that secrecy will last more than a week.”

He paused.  “And there is bad news,” he added.  “Their choice of…orbital insertion manoeuvres is…worrying.”

“Explain,” the President ordered.  “In English, please.”

“Entering orbit isn’t easy,” Paul explained.  “They have to match speed with Earth and slip into orbit.  It would actually be easier simply to ram the planet, but if they intend to arrive intact, they have to make radical course changes to enter orbit.  If NASA’s research is to be believed, the aliens have held back from making those changes until the last possible moment.”

He held up a hand before he could be interrupted.  “It’s impossible to be sure, without knowing more about the alien craft and their technology and physiology, but it looks very much as if they intended to prevent us from noticing them for as long as possible,” he said.  “Unless they have some way of compensating for the effects of the manoeuvres, they have got to be very uncomfortable…and they could have avoided it by starting their burn much earlier.  One possible reason for such an action, the most likely one in my opinion, is to limit the amount of warning time we will have of their arrival.”

“And, based on incomplete data, you believe that they are hostile,” Spencer sneered.  “Are there no other explanations?”

“None that fit the data,” Paul said, refusing to allow himself any anger.  “They could be attempting to limit the time spent under boost, but there seems to be little reason to do that, not least because all of the effects will have been compressed into a few days.  They’re putting themselves through agonies just to limit the time spent under boost and there’s no reason to do that, not when they could have started much earlier and had a far gentler ride in to Earth orbit.”

The President tapped the table.  “Unless this really is some kind of hoax, I think we have to proceed on the assumption that the aliens might be hostile,” he said.  “That leaves us with something of a problem.”

Spencer shrugged.  “Why would the aliens come all this way to start a war?”  He asked.  “I’ve read hundreds of alien invasion novels and most of them were unsatisfactory in that regard.  Why would they come after little old Earth when they have the entire solar system to play around in?”

“There are dozens of possibilities,” Paul admitted.  “They could be anything from refugees themselves to merely stamping on a competitor before we could become a threat.  Radio waves spread out in space, but anyone within twenty light years of us would know that we were here and might consider us possible competition.”

“But none of this suggests that the aliens are hostile,” Spencer insisted.  “They could be friendly and if they are, greeting them with a hail of fire is probably…not a good idea.”

“We will, of course, hope for a happy encounter in space,” the President said.  His manner became recognisably political.  “We do, however, have a responsibility to ensure that all necessary precautions are taken to ensure the safety of America and, indeed, the world.”

And ensure that you have your chance at re-election, Paul thought, quietly.

The President peered around the table.  “That leads to the simple question,” he said.  “Do we mobilise our forces?”

“I believe that we have no choice,” Deborah Ivey said.  Her strong contralto echoed in the room.  “If the aliens are hostile, we have to prepare to meet them, but there is a second possibility.  Someone else, maybe Iran or North Korea, may seek to take advantage of the alien arrival.”

Paul found himself giving Deborah a look of honest respect.  She was, by almost any measure, the most powerful woman in Washington, and perhaps the world.  A close friend and confident of the President, Deborah Ivey had climbed from being one of the world’s leading businesswomen to the post of National Security Advisor, leaving a trail of battered lives and bruised egos.  Knowing, as she did, where far too many bodies were buried, she was regarded with a mixture of fear and awe by Washington insiders.  There was even talk of her running as Vice President or even making her own run at the Presidency in the future.

“Perhaps,” the President agreed.  “Could we handle it if they did so?”

General Hastings coughed.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a bluff honest man, with a long and decent war record.  “The forces currently stationed in South Korea have the capability to break a North Korean attack, assuming that it doesn’t include nuclear weapons,” he said.  Paul nodded grimly.  Even now, no one was sure just how many nuclear weapons North Korea had, or even if they would work when deployed.  It was one of the reasons why the BMD missile screen had been extended – quietly – to cover large parts of the world.  “Iran may pose a more dangerous problem, but the Iraqis and our own forces, stationed in Iraq, should be able to handle it.  If we mobilised, however, we would have more reserves ready within the United States to handle any alien threat.”

Spencer scowled at him.  “There is no reason to believe that an alien threat exists,” he said.  “If we called up the reserves and federalised the National Guard, would we not look threatening to the aliens?”

“A threat exists when capabilities exist to make that threat a reality,” General Hastings said, coolly.  There was little love lost between him and the Secretary of State.  “The aliens may not be hostile, but we have to treat them, for the purposes of planning, as though they are…and they have the capability to do us serious harm.  If they content themselves with knocking out all of our satellites, for example, we would be crippled almost instantly.”

“But you have no proof that they intend to do that,” Spencer snapped.  “Mr President, we should be taking advantage of this magnificent opportunity by making contact, now, with the aliens, before the Russians or the French can get involved.  They’re probably beaming signals at the aliens right now, offering peace and friendship, trying to get ahead of us!”

“Another reason to prepare for a possible war,” General Hastings said, dispassionately.  “What happens if the aliens get involved in our human quarrels?”

“Why would they care?”  Spencer asked.  “Perhaps we should seek to hide the fact that we are a violent race…?”

“We can’t,” Paul said.  “They will have been intercepting our signals for years.  They may have problems with understanding our language, but it is much easier to understand images…and most of our entertainment is grossly violent.  They may not even understand the difference between Rambo III and the daily news.  They’ll know that we have a capability for extreme violence and they’ll certainly have a good idea of our technological capabilities, if only by using their own development as a yardstick.”

General Hastings smiled.  “They’re also going to be intercepting Star Trek and Babylon 5,” he said.  “That’s bound to confuse them about our capabilities.”

The President laughed.  “We can’t keep this to ourselves,” he said, nodding towards the single phone that sat on his desk.  He could call any world leader, any time, and be fairly sure of an answer.  “I’ll have to discuss it with our allies and the other major powers, particularly those involved with the ISS, before we can decide on a joint response.  If nothing else, we don’t want the aliens playing divide and conquer.”

He looked over at General Hastings.  “General, I want you to start mobilising our forces as quietly as possible,” he continued.  “For the moment, we’ll call it a drill and I’ll brief the Press and the Speaker of the House to that effect; later, once the news breaks, we can explain that it’s a simple precautionary measure.  Colonel James…?”

Paul nodded.  “Yes, Mr President?”

“I want you and your people to coordinate the response and to expand our defences as much as possible in the time we have,” the President said.  “Again, keep it covert until the news breaks, but I want a plan for defending the country – and indeed the world – if it does come down to a fight.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Paul said.  It wasn't going to be easy.  The most optimistic alien wargame he’d played had suggested that humanity was in for a hard time.  “I won’t let you down.”

“We need to get some of our people onto the International Space Station,” Deborah said, bluntly.  “Logically, the aliens will make First Contact on the station itself; they can’t just enter Earth orbit and ignore it.  If we lifted a team of representatives onto the station, we would be in a good position to dominate talks with the aliens, without putting too many international noses out of joint.”

“The UN will demand that it takes the lead in talking to the aliens,” Spencer said.  “How do we respond to that?”

“If the UN could agree on anything more significant than what to have for dinner, I might suggest leaving it in their hands,” General Hastings said.  “As it is, they should come to some agreement a few years after we all die of old age.”

The President winced.  Paul could almost follow his thoughts.  He was a committed internationalist, but at the same time, half of his voter base would desert him if he considered handing the entire contact team over to the United Nations…and the Senate would scream for his impeachment.  Republicans and Democrats alike would scream for his head and they’d probably get it.  Even if he survived that, his chances of being re-elected would plummet like a stone; he certainly wouldn’t be nominated for the coming election.

“That’s something to discuss with the other great powers,” the President said, finally.  “If the Security Council is in agreement about the issue, the remainder of the UN won’t have a say in it.”  He stood up.  “General, Colonel, I’ll want to see you two in a few days to discuss defence preparations.  Tom, I want you to start looking for a suitable candidate to be our ambassador to the stars.”

He paused.  “We will do everything in our power to avoid a war,” he concluded, “but if we have to fight, we will do everything we can to make a good account of ourselves.  We have a mandate to defend America and that, my friends, is what we are going to do…or die trying.”

Chapter Two

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumours and print them as facts.  I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.  If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.
-William Tecumseh Sherman

“So, there’s nothing you can tell me?”

Joshua Vote Bourjaily liked to think of himself as an ace reporter, a combination of Woodward and Bernstein, but the truth was that he was just a muckraker.  He painted himself as having access to hundreds of sources within the military, but when pressed, even he had to admit that his sources weren't high-ranking officials, but dissatisfied juniors who had a grudge against the military.  It made for a handful of interesting scoops, but mostly…he just picked up rubbish.

“No,” Sergeant Ellsworth said.  She’d been passed over for promotion at least twice, according to her, because someone else in her platoon had been sucking off the entire promotion board.  Having met her in person – Joshua had learnt, quickly, that meeting sources in person was the only way to gauge their reliability – he suspected that the truth was that she was actually incompetent.  “All I know is that we’ve been ordered to report to the barracks in a few days for possible deployment.”

She put the phone down; Joshua heard it click as he sat back in his tatted old armchair.  He liked to think of his office as a headquarters, perhaps with a bodyguard and a sexy young secretary, but it was really a converted flat in the low-rent district of Austin City, Texas.  A handful of filing cabinets, a pair of old computers – so old that they ran Windows 95 – and a single modern laptop took up most of the space; it had been months since anyone else had entered the office, or even the flat.  It was cheaper than hiring a proper office…and it wasn't as if he had any chance of gaining a proper position with a regular respectable newspaper.  His blog might have a handful of devoted fans, but his reputation kept most major producers from even considering him as a source, let alone a regular employee.  The newspaper industry was not a forgiving one and someone who had been discredited so comprehensively didn’t have a hope of employment.  The fact that some reporters actually survived such an experience only added to Joshua’s hatred of the world.  They got away with it because they were politically impossible to fire.

He didn’t see the notes in front of him for a long moment.  He was too busy remembering.  He’d been so certain of his source, so convinced that the source was telling the truth…and he’d impressed his editor enough to write the article.  He should have known better; for three days, he’d been a hero…and then he’d become a laughing stock.  The story of torture and rape committed by American soldiers had been detailed; too detailed.  It had been easy to prove that the unit in question not only didn’t have any soldiers with the right names, but hadn’t been anywhere near Iraq – ever.  Joshua’s memories of the next few days had become hazy, probably because he didn’t want to remember, but now…now he was a freelance reporter whom no one in authority would even consider using.  All he could do was pick up titbits and try to pass them onwards.

The notes taunted him as he picked them up and read through them again.  Joshua had realised, much to his own private surprise, that more soldiers, sailors and airmen were being recalled to duty than could reasonably be expected, even through there was a war on.  His opinion of the military had never been high, even before he’d been used to smear every reporter in the United States, but even he had to concede that there was little reason for them to suddenly call up everyone in Texas.  It was possible, of course, that it was just a drill, but Joshua knew that he would have heard rumours about it long before it began…and he hadn’t heard anything.  It was as if the United States was, very quietly, preparing for war.

He’d wracked his brains trying to understand the reason why, but he’d come up with nothing.  Normally, there would be storm clouds on the horizon, some kind of threat to America or American interests in the world, but there was nothing.  Iran was behaving itself, Iraq had been quietening down for years, Russia was concentrating on consolidating it’s gains over the last few years…hell, there hadn’t even been an annual confrontation with China.  It was possible that the country was actually on the verge of war, but he knew enough about the political game to know that it would have been leaked by now, by a politician eager to play the political game.  The President would need to build up support for any policy…and he hadn’t been releasing warning notes, or insider briefings, or anything.  

He looked back down at the notes again.  He was careful never to store anything on computers these days; his enemies wouldn’t hesitate to hack into them to remove the data.  Paper was inconvenient, but it had the advantage of being secure, unless someone actually broke into his office.  He’d traced movements that didn’t quite add up.  Additional Patriot batteries had been deployed around the region.  Various USAF asserts had been placed on standby.  Aircraft at USAF bases and Air National Guard bases were being armed with live weapons.  That wasn't so unusual in the days after 9/11, where everyone knew that one day they might have to shoot down a hijacked airliner before it became a weapon, but there were a lot of them.  Army, navy and air force personnel activated suddenly and whisked off into the unknown.  The entire country was gearing up for war…and he didn’t even have the slightest idea of who they intended to fight!

There was no choice, he decided.  He would have to call Daniel Holloway.

He listened as the phone rang slowly.  Holloway was the pearl in his collection of contacts, a Captain in the USAF who was dissatisfied…without any apparent reason to be dissatisfied.  That bothered Joshua more than he cared to admit.  Normally, he found a source who had a clear motive to want to talk outside of school…but Holloway had never talked about why he wanted to share what he knew.  That made him unreliable, in Joshua’s view, but as the highest-ranking person he knew, there was little choice, but to listen, at least, to what he was saying.

“Holloway,” a voice drawled, finally.  “What can I do for you?”

“Daniel,” Joshua said.  He knew that his voice would be recognised at once.  Holloway swore blind that the phones in the base weren't tapped, but it was his career on the line if he was wrong; Joshua trusted that self-interest, if nothing else, would keep him honest and discreet.  “I wonder…”

“Damn you,” Holloway snapped.  His normal drawl had almost vanished, replaced by…fear?  “You shouldn’t be calling me here?”

For a moment, surprise almost brought Joshua’s heart to a stop.  “Daniel, I…”

“Shut up,” Holloway thundered.  Anger had rapidly replaced fear.  “Fuck off!  Never call on me again!”

He slammed the phone down before Joshua could say another word.

“What the fuck?”  Joshua asked, finally.  He’d sometimes had a source vanish on him, but he’d never been told to fuck off, not in such a manner.  Some of his sources had realised just how little influence he actually had and abandoned him, but even they had been polite, but Holloway…Holloway had been scared out of his skin.  He’d been scared enough to tell Joshua to get lost and had put the phone down.  Someone had put the fear of God into him…which meant that something serious had to be going on…but what?

He spent the next hour making a series of other phone calls.  It was depressing how few of his sources he could actually contact…and two of them, like Holloway, told him never to try to call them again, before hanging up on him.  His research told him that there was something serious going on, but what?  It seemed a riddle he couldn’t even begin to crack.  His sources in the State Police, such as they were, seemed to think that they’d all been placed on alert as well…and warned that there might be riots, if not outright civil unrest.  How did all of it add together?

“Damn them,” he muttered finally, and started to compose a story with what little he did know.  He wasn’t supposed to know, but a few dozen stringers from major newspapers read his blog regularly…and they’d have much better sources.  Whatever the military was trying to cover up, they’d uncover it…and reveal just what they were trying to keep hidden.  If reporters existed to keep the government honest, Joshua was determined that they would find out what was wrong, or die trying.

Maybe it’s a military coup, he thought, and on that note, went to sleep in his armchair.

***
From the outside, the building looked like a normal office block, owned by a company called International Developments, Inc.  Visitors who entered, after passing through a security system that rivalled anything else used in a civilian building, found their way blocked by an attractive secretary, who informed them that the building was merely an office and gave them contact details for the higher-ups in Virginia.  More inquisitive people, or job-hunters, were given addresses to visit, the latter warned, however, that recruiting was not underway, at least not at the present time.  Even if a persistent visitor entered the main building, they would not be able to use the elevator or the stairs, not without passing through a biometric reader that guarded the doors.  The company kept its secrets…and, as anyone could discover, had a long history of being trustworthy, partly because of the extensive security measures.

The man who strode in through the front doors looked like a casual visitor, at first, until he stepped up to the inner doors and pushed his hand against the reader.  There was a brief pause, and then the doors unlocked, allowing him entry to the remainder of the ground floor.  He marched through the corridor to the elevator, waited for it to open, and then stepped inside, pressing his hand against a second reader as soon as the door hissed closed.  It was a nasty little trap, in its way; anyone who attempted to use the lift, without clearance, would find themselves trapped inside the cubicle.  The newcomer waited for the lift to reach the fifth floor and stepped out as soon as it opened.  Here, the trappings of a normal office block were cast away, revealing the heart of one of the foremost covert operations units in America.  The men and women in the office might not wear uniforms, but there was no disguising their military bearing.

Captain Brent Roeder stepped into the briefing room and caught the Colonel’s eye.  The Colonel had commanded SF34 for the past two years, although – unlike Brent himself – he hadn’t actually been on a mission for a while.  The SF unit only accepted experienced officers, those who had seen the elephant and knew that there were times for breaking rules, but someone so senior could hardly be risked in Iraq, Afghanistan and a number of places where everyone would be surprised to learn that American soldiers had served.  A month ago, Brent had been in Northern Pakistan, hunting the Taliban and the terrorist leadership hiding somewhere within the badlands.  The recall to duty, two weeks ahead of his planned return time, had been a surprise.

“Now we’re all here, we can begin,” the Colonel said.  Informality was the order of the day in SF34.  The Colonel wouldn’t put up with any horseplay or the jokes that idle soldiers would sometimes play on each other, but he would allow a level of free discussion that would have been out of place in most units.  “There has been a surprising development and we have been placed on alert to cope with it.”

Brent found himself leaning forward eagerly and pulled himself back.  The grapevine had been suggesting, for the past week or so, that the Iranians had finally been caught with their fingers in the till…or, rather, accepting money from terrorists to host bases in their territory, safe from conventional attack.  Brent and the remainder of SF34 represented a more serious – and unconventional – response to their actions.  It wouldn’t be the first time that they had raided a friendly country, or at least a country that they were not officially at war with, aiming to burn out the terrorists.

The Colonel’s next words shocked hell out of him.  “NASA has detected an alien starship heading for Earth,” he said, shortly.  “I have been given a classified brief – an extremely classified brief – that we are going to be going on full alert for their arrival.  God alone knows how the world will change – hell, God alone knows if they are hostile or not – but if there is an invasion on the way, we’re going to be ready.”

Brent stared at him.  He’d been told, months ago, that they would be conducting a secret mission in Germany…and he’d taken that calmly.  He’d hiked over Saudi Arabia in local clothing and he’d taken that in his stride, but…aliens?  Cold suspicion flared through his mind; it wasn’t unknown for the Special Forces to be tested to see how far they would go, a procedure intended to guard against the possibility of a rogue unit blindly following orders that ended with the assassination of the President or something along the same lines.  Aliens were a little unusual for such a test run, but maybe…

One of the other officers put it into words.  “Sir…aliens?”

“I’m afraid so,” the Colonel said.  “This isn’t a drill.  Ideally, you won’t have anything to do and all of these are just precautions, but if you have to act as stay-behind units, you’re going to find yourselves in the rear lines.”

There were some nervous chuckles.  SF34 had been tasked as a stay-behind unit, but it had been generally accepted that they wouldn’t be staying behind in their own country; after all, America was generally impregnable.  The war-gamers came up with endless contingency plans, but barring a Mexican invasion or a major civil upheaval, no one seriously expected to be operating behind enemy lines, on American soil.  The closest any of them had come to such operations had been special – and highly classified – operations in Iraq.  Aliens, on the other hand, might actually be able to invade America directly, something that no nation possessed the power to do.

“Hopefully,” the Colonel continued, once he had fielded a handful more questions, “you won’t have anything to do.  However, you will spend the rest of this week working on covert operations procedures in the event of America falling under enemy attack.”

“Madness,” Brent said, shaking his head.  “Are you sure it’s not a drill?”

Another soldier had a different question.  “When is the President going to tell the nation?”

“We suspect in a few days at most,” the Colonel said.  “We want to get as many of the preparations completed, out of the public eye, as possible before it hits the news channels.  Once it does, there is going to be a panic, and when that happens…”

He didn’t bother to elaborate.  “I’ll hold individual conferences with you over the next few days to sort out final preparations,” he concluded.  “If nothing else, this will make for a particularly interesting exercise.”

***
“The shit’s about to hit the fan,” Deborah Ivey said, cheerfully, as she swept into the Oval Office.  “We’ve had calls from a dozen major media outlets and other such bastards demanding to know just what the fuck is going on.  I think we’re going to have to come clean about the aliens, chief.”

The President eyed her balefully.  Deborah’s ability to swear like a drunken trooper never creased to irritate him.  Days spent arguing with various world leaders about disclosure, let alone a united front to confront the aliens, hadn’t done anything for his mood.  The Europeans and the Japanese wanted to move to informing the public, while the Chinese and the Russians wanted to keep it to themselves, for the moment.  The NSA had informed the President, covertly, that the Chinese in particular were working overtime to block out the news, even to the point of restricting the Internet use rights of foreign-owned companies.  He was morbidly certain that the Chinese, and probably everyone else as well, were already trying to communicate with the aliens.

“I see,” he said, finally.  Deborah’s intelligence was both an asset and a curse.  “How much do they know?”

“They’re pretty much figured out that we’ve calling a covert mobilisation…and that most of the other world governments are doing the same,” Deborah informed him.  “No one has actually dropped the A-word yet, but ten gets you twenty that the thought has crossed their minds…and they might even be considering using it in public.”

The President smiled thinly.  “How long do you think we have?”

“A day, at most, before it leaks out,” Deborah said.  “It’s probably going to leak out from Europe – their security is pretty much crap – but as we brief more and more of our own people, we increase the likelihood of a leak from our side as well.  If one of the national governments goes public…”

The President nodded.  “Contact the Press Office, then,” he said.  “Tell them that I want to reserve a slot on all of the national networks – normal conditions – for this evening.  Get in touch with the various Governors and tell them that we’re going public, so they have to put their people on alert for any panic, and then tell Tom that he is to inform the other governments…”

Deborah frowned.  “You really think that there’ll be a panic?”

“I don’t know,” the President said.  “Young James couldn’t give me any real production, but as far as I am concerned?  We’re in uncertain – uncharted – waters…and God alone knows what’s going to happen when we drop this little bombshell on the world.”

Chapter Three

If a space-faring species with faster than light travel wants to take Earth they are probably going to succeed. Once a species "owns" the gravity well, there's not much you can do about it.
-John Ringo

“The President and Governor Rollins appealed for calm in the wake of a further set of panic-buying riots and further chaos in the streets of New York,” the talking head said, speaking from a television set into the room.  She would have been pretty under more natural lighting.  “This has had no apparent effect on the rioters and the NYPD has warned that it might be necessary to call out the National Guard for additional crowd control.”

There was a long pause.  “The riots are, of course, in the wake of the President’s announcement, subsequently confirmed by the foremost observatories, of an alien starship heading towards Earth,” she continued, just in case someone had just joined the program.  “A wave of panic-buying has swept America, with food, drink and guns being purchased right across the country.  Senator Hanks, in response to the crisis, has criticized the President’s decision to inform the country of the alien ship and has demanded that the President face a special session of the Senate to explain his actions.  In the meantime, marchers demanding a peaceful meeting with the aliens clashed with marchers demanding military preparations and had to be separated with water cannons…”

Paul picked up the remote control and silenced the television before the talking head – he couldn’t even remember her name – could offer any further inanities on the Meaning Of It All.  America – hell, the entire world – seemed to have gone crazy in the wake of the announcement; people were, as the talking head had said, were panicking and rioting.  Millions of citizens had fled the cities for the countryside, while millions more intended to remain where they were to greet the aliens personally…and the rest of the world wasn’t much better.  The Arab states had attempted to conceal the presence of the alien craft from their people, but the rest of the world knew…and, thanks to the Internet, so did most of the Arabs.  Censorship was much harder these days; the Russians and the Chinese had sealed their borders and were mobilising, just in case.  The President had been talking to them, trying to get some kind of common agreement on dealing with the aliens, but they were both playing their cards very close to their chests.

He scowled and returned to the reports on his desk.  The President’s decision to appoint him defence coordinator for the United States, in the event of an alien invasion, had been an inspired one, in his opinion.  If he’d had an unlimited budget and a few years, he could have ensured the entire world’s safety against the alien starship, all one hundred kilometres of it.  He had barely two weeks left before the alien craft reached Earth orbit and, in that time, he knew that there wasn’t going to be any new technology for deployment.  America – and the rest of the world – had to work with what was on the shelf, and he knew, better than anyone else, that the cupboard was almost bare.  It was ironic; he was, in effect, a General…with hardly any forces under his command.

The deployment of THAAD missiles, including the latest configuration designed for satellite interception – as well as a limited BMD role – was proceeding apace.  Unfortunately, the United States had agreed to a cap in the number of viable ASAT missiles after China had deployed a working ASAT system of its own, and while production had been intensified, he knew that there weren’t going to be more than a few hundred missiles at most by the time the aliens arrived.  Patriot missile batteries and Air Defence Artillery had been deployed around the country, linked into a ground-based communications system that would allow their efforts to be coordinated even if the satellites were lost, but again…he wasn't convinced of their effectiveness.  He’d attempted to get the shuttles rigged up as gunships, but only one shuttle was available and that craft had already been assigned to a role, ferrying the diplomats to the ISS.  He hadn’t even tried to have the ISS armed; the consortium operating the station would never have agreed to have it armed to the teeth.

On the ground, matters were a little better, despite the chaos.  The Army had been called up and had been deployed around the country, while air assets had been dispersed to avoid a single lucky hit taking out entire squadrons of fighters.  The National Guards and the Reserves had been called up as well – if nothing else, it was a fascinating exercise – and deployed in defensive positions, but he had his doubts as to how useful the entire exercise would be.  The rest of the world was doing the same – he’d read a report that warned that the bulk of the French Army had been deployed near Paris, in case the aliens landed there – but he suspected that it was just whistling in the wind.  They’d prepared, as best as they could, for the worst case scenario…and he couldn’t help feeling that that was exactly what would happen.

***
“Mr President, Ambassador Prachthauser is here to see you.”

“Thank you, Irene,” the President said.  He’d spent the morning, as he had almost every day since the alien starship had been detected, in conference with different world leaders and almost welcomed the interruption.  The larger countries tended to be carefully choosing their options, but the smaller countries – and the UN – were publicly buying into all kinds of tales of alien benevolence, acting as if the new millennium was about to begin.  The UN debates on the alien starship had gotten nowhere fast, but the President knew that many of the smaller countries had no reason to view the alien arrival with caution.  “Please send him in.”

Ambassador Francis Prachthauser was a tall dignified man, barely entering his forties, with dark hair that somehow gave an expression of length.  He had a very empathic face; the President had known him during his election campaign and had been impressed by how well he’d handled people who might have been a problem.  He’d offered Francis the post of Ambassador to the Court of King James – Britain – as a gesture of thanks…and a highly practical measure.  It was the most significant Embassy in the world, outside Russia and China.

“Mr President,” Francis said, with a half-bow.  “That was a very…entertaining flight.”

The President smiled.  He’d given orders for Francis to be picked up by an F-15 aircraft from one of the bases in Britain.  Speed was of the essence now that there was a working consensus, between the larger powers, on how to proceed.  It wasn’t as if the remainder of the world could prevent America, Russia, Europe and China from proceeding, but the whole affair could leave a bad taste in their mouths.

“I hope that you enjoyed it,” he said, settling back into his chair and waving Francis to one of the smaller chairs.  “Do you know what this is about?”

“The aliens,” Francis said, proving again that he wasn't a fool.  Even the President wouldn’t order a fast-jet fighter aircraft used as a transport, even for an Ambassador, unless it was urgent.  “I assume that you have some role in mind for me regarding the aliens?”

The President nodded.  “How would you like to go up to Earth orbit and meet them?”

Francis stared at him.  Deep inside, where no one could see, there had once been dreams of flying into space.  “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” the President said, flatly.  He stood up and started to pace the office.  “The alien starship will probably, at least in the belief of my expert advisors…”

“As far as we have expert advisors on this sort of thing,” Francis injected.

The President acknowledged his contribution with a nod.  “The aliens, we think, will attempt to dock at the International Space Station,” he said.  It was more likely to be the other way around – the alien starship was far larger than the ISS – but that hardly mattered.  “It represents, so I’m told, an easily-accessible group of humans, just waiting for them to come and visit.  They could be sure, if they docked with the ISS, of meeting representatives from the great powers on Earth.  It has been designed that a group of Ambassadors will be placed onboard the station and, hopefully, that they will meet with the aliens.”

He paused.  “Would you like to be the American representative onboard the station?”

Francis laughed.  “Do you even have to ask?”

“No,” the President said.  They shared a long smile.  “I won’t lie to you, Francis; I could be sending you to your death.  We don’t know what the aliens actually want and, if they’re hostile, the ISS is pretty much a sitting duck.  Still want to go?”

Francis frowned.  “The aliens have not responded to any of our messages?”

The President shook his head.  Ever since the alien starship had become public knowledge, there had been attempts to signal the craft, a torrent of radio signals pouring out from Earth, some not even pointed in the right direction.  No one could agree on what to say to them, however, and the aliens, if they were listening, had to be very confused.  There had been sober and mature transmissions, invitations to land at one location or another…and hundreds of messages offering everything from marriage to abduction victims.  The aliens had to be really confused…but there had been no reply to any of the messages.

“Not as far as we know,” the President said.  “The most sensitive communications gear we have, items so classified that I’m barely allowed to know more than their existence, has been deployed to cover the alien craft…but if they’re transmitting, they’re doing it without us being able to pick it up.  Some of my advisors are worried that they’re actually in communications with the Russians, or the Chinese, but if they are, they’re doing it without us hearing anything.”

“Occam’s Razor,” Francis said. “The simplest explanation is normally the correct one – and it’s that they’re not transmitting anything to Earth.  If we can’t detect any transmissions, the Russians are unlikely to be able to detect them themselves.”

“I know,” the President said, wishing that he could somehow convoy the gut-wrenching feeling that the lack of communications was causing.  A hundred kilometres of alien starship was racing towards Earth…and no one knew what they wanted.  Colonel James had been right, he decided; there was something ominous in the lack of communication, let alone their attempt to limit Earth’s warning time.  The decision to start dispersing the federal government had been easy once he’d realised just how ominous it was.  “Still want to go?”

“Yes, Mr President,” Francis said.  “Someone has to be up there to meet them, so…why not me?”

“Why not indeed,” the President said.  He smiled thinly and took his seat again.  “You’re going to be up there with four other representatives; a Russian, a Chinese, a European and a UN representative.  The UN expects their representative to take the lead, but the great powers have agreed that it will be them in the lead, not least because we paid for the ISS and the space program.  The European has instructions from the European Union, but he may have orders from his own government as well…”

Francis rolled his eyes.  That always seemed to happen.  For everyone devoted to the international organisation that they worked for, in theory, there were ten who were actually following the orders of their own countries, regardless of how well – or badly – they interacted with the remainder of the world.  The only country that seemed to actually respect the concept of international organisations was the Swiss, and they’d been safe for hundreds of years.

“Your instructions are simple enough,” the President added.  “Ideally, we want an exclusive agreement with the aliens, but that’s not likely to happen.  More practically, we want to ensure that we have a share in whatever dealings happen with the aliens and that we don’t get frozen out, or that the Europeans don’t get frozen out.  We can rely on them to support us against Russia or China, but the UN representative is a wild card.  She might have ambitions of placing the entire issue before the UN.”

Francis frowned.  “Should we not be working towards a united front?”

“It depends on what the aliens have in mind for us,” the President admitted.  “We have a series of agreements with the other great powers that if the aliens are hostile, we will fight them together, but if they’re not hostile, they could play divide and rule very easily.  The orders I gave you…well, the other Ambassadors are likely to be following similar orders, and the crew of the ISS…well, they’ll have similar orders themselves.  They might be more pro-American than their fellow countrymen, those who aren’t American, but…”

“The stakes are high,” Francis agreed.

“Too high,” the President said.  “The entire country seems to have gone crazy, but hopefully it will have calmed down by the time the aliens enter orbit and actually make contact.”

“Let’s hope so,” Francis said, pessimistically.  “What about our defences?”

“I can’t really discuss those with you,” the President said.  “No offence, but if the aliens capture you…”

Francis nodded.  “I understand,” he said.  He smiled, a little nervously.  “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Ambassador, perhaps, to the Galactic Empire,” the President said.  “Thank me when you come back alive, Francis; I suspect that I haven’t done you any favours at all.”

***
The daily briefing to the President was a chore that Paul disliked, not because the President was an unpleasant person, but because it took him away from continuing his work.  There was little choice, however, and he had to admit that it was better that he briefed the President, rather than some REMF who wouldn’t know what was important and what wasn't.  The thought was quietly ironic; he’d been in the American armed forces for sixteen years and he’d never fired a shot in anger.  He’d never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of the other places where American troops had been deployed.

“NASA confirms that the space shuttle Discovery is currently going through its final flight checks before launch,” he said, once he’d updated the President on the ground-based preparations.  “They’re stripped out the planned launch schedule – they intended to launch a trio of new communications satellites – and replaced it with a module for supporting additional crewmembers, so the Ambassadors won’t be too much of a burden on the ISS.”

“Good,” the President said.  The ISS normally had only six crewmembers and adding five representatives – and the shuttle crew -  would have pushed life support to the limit.  “And the defensive capability?”

“It’s been added, after a long argument,” Paul admitted.  NASA had been almost universally opposed to the idea of arming Discovery; the basically civilian organisation hadn’t wanted to accept the idea that the aliens might be hostile.  It wasn’t as if the shuttle could be turned into a real space warship, but at least it would have some teeth.  “Captain Markus Kane has been practicing using the weapons on the simulator, but…”

He shrugged.  “We ran simulations for intercepting Chinese and Russian satellites, not alien ships,” he said.  “It could be that Discovery will last more than a few seconds, but I doubt it.”

The President frowned.  “We’d better hope that it doesn’t come down to a fight, then,” he said.  “Have the Chinese responded to our proposal?”

“No,” Paul said.  “The Chinese ASAT capability is remaining firmly in their hands.  The Russians have expressed some limited interest in sharing data for launching the Gorgon and Gazelle missile systems, but the system is outdated and the number of operational missiles is…not large.  We have heard a rumour that they’re actually refitting the nuclear warheads onto the missiles, but so far we have no independent confirmation of that fact.”

The President smiled.  “Doesn’t that violate a treaty?”

“We might be happy that they had them,” Paul warned.  He’d proposed arming American missiles with nuclear warheads, but that suggestion had never made it onto the operational level.  The proposal alone was hugely controversial.  “That said, they never composed a serious ABM shield for technical reasons, although one of the more persistent worries of the past decade was that they would solve their problems and deploy a working nuclear shield.  If they had succeeded in accomplishing such a feat…”

He shrugged.  “But it didn’t happen, so not to worry,” he said, and changed the subject slightly.  “They’ve also been altering their old ICBMs for launching them straight upwards into alien ships, if it does come down to a fight.”

“Ouch,” the President said.  He scowled down at the table.  “How much damage are they likely to cause to the aliens?”

“That’s the question,” Paul admitted.  “The Russians have been revamping their nuclear missiles over the past decade, but the Soviets let their missile designs atrophy slightly during the years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.  We don’t have exact data, but its quite possible that not all of the missiles will fly when they hit the launch button.  It’s also possible that they’ll all fly, but some will disintegrate in midair.”

He frowned.  “The Chinese missiles are more modern, but they have far fewer missiles than either us or the Russians,” he added thoughtfully.  “They might be very effective if it comes down to a fight, or completely useless.”

A tone rang.  “Excuse me,” he said.  The Nightwatch staff wouldn’t have interrupted unless it was important.  “Yes?”

He listened, carefully.  “Mr President, there has been another development with the alien craft,” he said.  “They’ve split their craft into two starships…and they’re both still heading this way.”

Chapter Four

Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.
-Carl Sagan

“It’s confirmed, then?”

“It looks that way,” Jeremy Damiani said, as Commander Gary Jordan frowned over his shoulder.  Standing wasn’t really possible in the zero-gravity environment of the International Space Station, but he loomed as close to his subordinate as he could.  “The aliens have launched a smaller part of their starship at us.”

Gary scowled.  The only telescope mounted on the ISS – a research program that would have served so much better if it had been floating freely in space – had been watching the alien starship ever since it had been sighted, three weeks ago.  He’d been suffering from steadily growing envy ever since the starship had been sighted – compared to the alien starship, the ISS was little more than a toy – and yet, it worried him.  What respect could the human race hope to obtain from a race that could cross the interstellar gulf without worrying about little details like cost and ‘social programs’ down on Earth?  They’d probably take one look at the ISS, and the shuttle that was coming in to dock at the main tube, and die laughing.

And the alien separation manoeuvre was even more worrying.  The larger section of the alien craft had continued decelerating, violently enough to shake the crew, while the smaller section continued to race towards Earth.  The smaller section – and ‘small’ was relative, given that it was over ten kilometres long – would make Earth orbit in a week, while the larger section would arrive in two weeks.  He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the implications seemed ominous; it wasn't as if the aliens could avoid visiting Earth now.  The aliens might be much more advanced, but it wasn’t that wide a gap; their technology, or at least what the human race had seen, wasn’t that far in advance of humanity’s technology.  If Earth concentrated enough resources on space travel, they could match the alien ship in short order…

He pushed that out of his mind as a ‘might have been’ and focused on Damiani.  “What does that suggest to you?”

Damiani frowned.  “There are two possibilities,” he said.  “The first is that that’s the ‘meet and greet’ ship, with their ambassadors and maybe even trade goods, sent ahead to ensure that we don’t mean them any harm.  The second possibility…is that the aliens are hostile and that they’ve launched a warship at us, with the intention of knocking us out of space before the mothership arrives.”

“I was hoping you’d come up with something different,” Gary admitted.  He’d been the Commander of the ISS, insofar as the rank meant anything when everything had to be checked with Houston and NASA, for five months and he knew the station like the back of his hand.  The ISS could actually manoeuvre, but only enough to avoid a major collision, not a missile or a manned spacecraft.  If the aliens were hostile, his unarmed command wouldn’t last more than a few seconds.  “Of course, there’s a third possibility; it’s a planet-killer aimed at us.”

They contemplated the image for a long moment.  “I don’t suppose that the telescopes have picked up anything new?”

“I’d have told you if we’d seen anything new,” Damiani reassured him.  Every telescope in the world might be watching the alien craft, but so far, they’d seen very little beyond the drive flares.  Even the most powerful telescopes hadn’t seen much to suggest alien capabilities, but NASA had done enough research – without actually building any hardware – to have a rough idea of minimum alien capabilities.  They made a fearsome list.  “There’s nothing, not even a radar pulse or a communications signal…”

“I know,” Gary said.  He looked down at the live feed from the telescope.  The entire world was logging onto the internet to see that feed; the telescope’s owners had had to invest in extra systems just to meet the demand.  “Keep me informed…”

He scowled as he pulled himself back through the modules towards the main hatch.  He’d spent some time browsing the internet for anything useful, but apart from hundreds of paranoid messages, there was nothing useful at all.  Some of the comments and suggestions made Stalin seem a trusting sort of man…and almost all of them would have been gravely insulting to a human ambassador.  They couldn’t demand that the aliens went through a strip-search for weapons before they boarded the ISS; after all, they had no way of backing up the threat.  He hadn’t been allowed any details on Earth’s defences, just in case he was captured and interrogated, but he was intelligent and knowledgeable to know just how weak the defences actually were.  The Earth might have had the numbers advantage – although no one knew how many aliens might have been stuffed into that starship – but the human ability to carry out a frontal attack in space, let alone a defence, was minimal.  If the aliens bulled through to orbit and took control of LEO, the war would be within shouting distance of being lost.  The United States had been watching, nervously, the development of Chinese and Indian ASAT systems…but this was worse, far worse.  

And, now, there were going to be Ambassadors on his station.  They were probably going to start complaining about the food, or the lack of gravity, or whatever else high-ranking dignities could find to complain about.  The ISS was as comfortable – and safe – as human ingenuity could make it, within the limited budget, but it was far from the Waldorf Hotel.

***
Ambassador Francis Prachthauser was in no state to complain about anything.  The pre-flight medical at Houston had been the most intensive medical procedure he’d ever been through in his life, a nightmare of drugs, poking, and simulators that made the worst roller-coaster ride in Disneyworld look like nothing.  He’d staggered out, half-convinced that he’d failed the program completely, only to be told that he’d passed with flying colours, for a man of his age.  The others hadn’t fared so well, although the Russian had gone through his own preparations first in Russia; they’d all ended up looking terrible the day they’d eating steak and eggs, before boarding Discovery.  It had been easy to read the looks on some of the NASA personnel faces; they’d been envious of the Ambassadors, and wished that they’d been flying with them.

The shuttle launch had been terrifying, but exciting at the same time, even though he’d felt as through an elephant was sitting on his chest during most of the flight.  When the shuttle had slid into orbit, they’d been allowed to leave their seats and float about in the cabin, something that had almost lived up to his dreams.  He’d been told, by one of the doctors, that zero-gee could be unpleasant to a person who was unprepared for it, but he’d managed to adapt quickly.  The same couldn’t be said for Bai Li, the Chinese representative, or Philippe Laroche, the EU representative, both of whom had been sick when they floated into the air.  The shuttle’s co-pilot had sucked the vomit out of the air with a vacuum cleaner and ‘suggested’ that the representatives remain in their seats until they were used to the conditions.

Francis was lucky; he was invited up to the main cabin.  The shuttle was shaped like an airliner, allowing the pilot a view out into space, and Francis peered out with glee.  The blue-green sphere of Earth turned slowly above him, falling…no, it was below him, but the shuttle was orientated towards Earth…and the twinkling shape of the ISS could be seen in the distance.  He’d expected to see networks of satellites orbiting the Earth, if not the alien starship itself, but they were too small or too distant to be seen with the naked eye.  The shuttle’s radar display picked up pieces of space junk, or even active satellites, but their current orbit appeared to be clear of any obstacles.

“The vast majority of space junk heads down towards Earth fairly quickly,” Captain Markus Kane said, reading Francis’s thoughts.  “The real problem comes from items that somehow got loose from the ISS or other stations and remained in the same orbit.  NASA keeps talking about rigging up some orbital sweep, but so far nothing has actually passed beyond the research stage.”

He scowled.  “One Chinese proposal was to have a station of their own that they could blow up if there was a war,” he added.  “If that worked, they would seal off space for at least a decade, or so they thought.  There was even a terrorist plot to get a bomb onboard the ISS, but everything loaded onboard the shuttles or the supply capsules from Russia gets checked carefully, just in case.”

“I don’t think I wished to know that,” Francis said softly.  He looked out at the ISS.  “How long will it be until we dock?”

“Forty minutes,” Kane said.  “It won’t seem that long, believe me, but we have to be very careful.  If we collided with the station instead…”

He tapped a key on his console.  A moment later, Francis recognised the use of the opening from Richard Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz, a tune he’d first heard on a movie soundtrack.  He had to laugh as he realised why Kane was using the tune; it kept the passengers relaxed while the shuttle moved steadily towards the ISS.  Kane had been right; the docking did seem to take only a few minutes, although he’d been entranced for most of time.  The Earth from space was so…beautiful.

“Welcome to the International Space Station,” Kane said, after the docking formalities had been completed.  “Please remember to tip your pilots after the docking and that the flight back to Earth will be, God willing, in two weeks…and if you miss that, you’re stuck on the ISS for two months.”

He grinned up at Francis as he finished the announcement.  “Back when I was a kid, I read a story about someone rigging the IS escape pod so that they all got to go home early, apart from the commander,” he added.  “They had to send a shuttle up to recover the poor bastard on his own.”

Francis winced.  They’d been briefed, endlessly, about ISS safety procedures, but they looked a little flimsy to him.  If the crew couldn’t reach the escape pod, or were trapped without a spacesuit, they were dead.  End of story.  He’d thought himself resigned to that, but now he was on the station – well, technically attached to the station – it felt as if he’d made a huge mistake.  He should have let some hotshot young State Department punk fly into space and meet the aliens…and then steal the limelight when the aliens moved their activities down to Earth.  He should have…

Kane read his thoughts again.  “Don’t worry,” he said.  “There are hundreds of would-be astronauts who would be furious with you if you got up and then panicked when the aliens arrived.  They were all more than a little…miffed that the shuttle wasn't crammed with scientific people and even duplicate pilots, instead of…”

“A bunch of fat ambassadors,” Francis guessed.  He had always thought himself in good shape until he’d gone through the pre-mission physical.  “Just now, I wish I’d let them come up instead.”

“And if you’d been on the bottom of the gravity well, watching as history is made up here, would you share those feelings?”  Kane asked.  “Think about it; you’re going to make history up here and people will remember your name a long time after Kennedy, Carter and all those other idiots who sabotaged the space program are forgotten.”

“I suppose,” Francis said, with a sudden smile.  “So, what do you think the aliens will look like?”

***
Somewhat to Gary’s surprise, the first three days on the ISS passed almost without incident.  The Ambassadors were shown around the station, once they had gotten over the shock of finding themselves in zero-gravity, and enjoyed themselves.  Gary didn’t hesitate to show them everything, apart from a handful of classified instruments; he couldn’t allow the opportunity of impressing such important people with the importance of the space program to slip past.  The Ambassadors were all trusted friends and allies of their Heads of State and if they could be convinced to support the space program, it would be worthwhile.  The aliens alone might not be enough to convince humanity to advance into space, although Gary hoped that the mere presence of alien life would serve as an incentive, but if there was actually some strong political support for the program, it might push the human race forward.

And space was insulated from most of the tensions on Earth.  The rioting and panic in America was calming down slowly, although millions of citizens were still intending to move away from the cities, at least until they knew that the aliens were friendly.  China and Russia had a major dispute over testing boosters for their space program, but the representatives from both powers on the ISS ignored it and played endless games of chess with one another.  Gary had half-expected them to be studying their instructions and trying to sort out what they would say to the aliens, but there was little point in further revision.  Like children awaiting an exam, there was a point where further revision would be almost useless…and they’d reached it long ago.  The sheer absence of data on the alien starship, let alone what they actually wanted, made it impossible to draw up any real plans for the future or even key non-negotiable points.  They all hoped for an outcome that would be, at best, beneficial to their countries and, at worst, neutral towards their countries, but in the absence of further data, there was little point in speculation.

That didn’t, of course, stop them from speculating like mad.  “So,” Sonja Greenhorn said, one evening, “what do you think the aliens will look like?”

It was Philippe Laroche who answered first.  “I think they’ll look exactly like us,” he said, and grinned at their faces.  “They’re an evolved race, just like us, and so they will fit their environment.  The humanoid form is so useful that the aliens are quite likely to have evolved along similar lines to us.  If they were, say, massive octopus-like creatures, could they have evolved a space-based technology?”

“Octopuses are actually quite smart,” Sophia Friedrich said.  The UN’s representative, a German-born girl who spoke English with a slight accent, smiled from her perch.  “You could get one of them to actually do almost anything, as long as it was underwater.”

Kane laughed.  “So, you don’t believe the abduction claims, then?”

“No,” Francis said.  “I think they’re just attention seekers.”

Gary nodded.  The number of reported alien abductions had skyrocketed in the days since the announcement of an actual alien starship.  The reports had featured the stereotypical little grey aliens, but also hundreds of other kinds of aliens, from humanoids with pointy ears to perfectly indistinguishable human-aliens that had been attempting to pick up breeding stock.  So far, no one had actually managed to provide proof that any of the abductions – let alone the UFO sightings, government men in black covering up alien contacts or even the super-secret FTL starships flown by the American government – actually existed.

“Its obvious,” Bai Li said, with one of his rare smiles.  “They’re going to be Chinese.”

“Chinese?  Asians?  Space Asians?”  Kane asked.  “How did you figure that?”

“Well,” Bai Li said, mischievously, “it’s been proven by the latest revisionist history book, in the sprit of 1421 and 1434 that the old imperialist patriarchy actually built spacecraft and headed into space before somehow losing the technology in the collapse of Chinese civilisation caused by the Glorious Revolution.  Of course they’re Chinese.”

Kane stared at him, realised that he was being wound up, and laughed.  “I don’t think that that’s quite the answer,” he said.  “Maybe they look like spiders, or other insects.”

“Won’t happen,” Sonja said.  “There are limits to how large a spider, or a crab, could become before it collapsed under its own weight.  It’s rather more likely that they’re dinosaur-like creatures.”

“Or little baby elephants,” Francis said, grinning.  The barriers were breaking down, one by one.  “Hell, they could look like anything, even the Manhunter from Mars.”

“That would be funny,” Philippe said, dryly.  “Do you think that there would be a case for a lawsuit if the aliens actually looked like some alien we invented on Earth?”

“It would be hard to imagine an alien who didn’t look like something we invented on Earth,” Stanislav Genya said.  The Russian smiled into the silence.  “Come on; between Hollywood and the rest of the world, we have hundreds of thousands of aliens that might reassemble the real aliens.  They could look like something from Star Trek or Lost in Space or…well, anything.”

Gary spoke into the silence.  “Does anyone have any phobias they wish to confess to, now they’re up here and beyond recall back to Earth?”

There was a long pause.  “Perhaps the aliens are machines,” Kane suggested.  “That entire starship could be a machine, or two machines, and there won’t be any humanoid life at all.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Gary said.  He leaned forward carefully.  “Anyone want to confess?”

“I can’t stand horses,” Sonja admitted, suddenly.  “I rode on one once, fell off and broke my arm…and since then, I haven’t been able to deal with them at all.  You, sir?”

Gary shrugged.  “I’m scared of falling into vacuum,” he admitted.  “It focuses the mind a bit on the station.  Anyone else?”

“I used to be terrified of the Germans,” Philippe said.  “No offence, Sophia.”

“None taken,” Sophia said.  “My family weren’t in Germany during the war.”

“Perhaps we should forget about humanity’s long history of war,” Stanislav suggested.  “After all, this is the dawn of a new era, right?”

On the screen, the alien starship raced closer.

Chapter Five

Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star.
-The War of the Worlds

Colonel Paul James watched as the President took his chair in the middle of the White House National Command Centre.  The decision to have the President in the White House, even though he was actually in the underground command centre, hadn’t been an easy one for the Secret Service to swallow.  They’d read countless novels of alien invasion, and seen Independence Day and other big-screen versions of alien invasion, and they feared that Washington would be attacked almost at once.  They’d wanted the President in one of the massive command centres, well away from anything that might draw alien fire, but the President had insisted on remaining in the White House.  First Contact, he’d said, on national television, would not be made with him cowering in a bunker somewhere.

The Vice President, Theodore Taylor, had been packed off to a command centre, despite his protests.  If the aliens attacked Washington, it was likely that he would be President of the United States within the next hour.  The NCC was supposed to be proof against a nuclear detonation, built using the most advanced bunker-building techniques known to man, but there was no such thing as absolute security.  If the aliens dropped an asteroid on the city, the shockwave alone would probably collapse the bunker completely.  Paul watched, dispassionately, as the President glanced around at his fellows, from the operators working at various consoles to the handful of Cabinet members who’d joined him for the alien arrival.

There was one hour to go.

Paul caught the eye of one of the Secret Service men and nodded briefly.  The man didn’t respond.  He’d seen Secret Service men who fitted the stereotype exactly and men who blended perfectly into the background, but they all had one thing in common; they couldn’t be distracted from their primary task.  They would all put themselves between the President and lethal danger, yet they knew that there were limits to their protective abilities, particularly against such a dangerously unknown faction.  The aliens might have weapons that were beyond human imagination; Paul was reasonably certain they wouldn’t be flying City Destroyers into the atmosphere and blasting Washington with a death ray, but even the weapons encompassed by their observed technological level were formidable.  A single asteroid would completely ruin their day.

His eyes strayed to the big screen, overlooking the room.  Normally, it would show the President, at a glance, the precise status of the entire United States military machine.  Now, it showed the images from the ISS and the orbiting telescopes, including a pair of highly-classified spy satellites that had been re-tasked from watching for terrorists to studying the alien craft.  The larger alien starship, the one that was still a week away, was still almost impossible to resolve, even in the most powerful telescopes, but the smaller one was much easier to comprehend.  NASA’s scientists believed that it didn’t have any gravity of its own, which suggested that it was designed for high-speed manoeuvring, rather than a slow and stately entrance into Earth orbit.  The ship’s hull, vaguely conical in form, was studded with bumps and blisters, some of which looked like smaller spacecraft, attached to their mothership like giant parasites.  The more Paul studied the footage, the more worried he became; if nothing else, the aliens had made a hideously effective show of strength.

The President looked over at him from his chair.  “Colonel?”

“Ah, yes, Mr President,” Paul said, ashamed of having been caught unprepared.  The sheer size of the alien craft was daunting.  He checked his terminal briefly before speaking.  “I have the latest reports from the joint defence program.”

The President lifted an eyebrow.  “The FAA has grounded, at our request, almost all civilian air traffic,” Paul said.  It hadn’t been a hard decision; almost everyone in America, and indeed the rest of the world, had decided to stay at home and watch the alien arrival.  The live feed from the ISS was going to have more viewers than anything else in human history; companies, resigned to the inevitable, had decided to give their employees a day off to watch the show.  No one seriously believed that anyone who had a choice would come in to work…and, for those whose service was essential, they were still glued to television sets or watching streaming internet broadcasts.  “The only aircraft in CONUS, apart from emergency aircraft, are military aircraft maintaining a CAP over our cities and defence bases, and the Boeing 747 aircraft that we adapted to carry laser weapons.”

He paused.  “Please, continue,” the President said.  “What about our ground forces?”

“The soldiers are in their deployment zones and ready for action, if called upon,” Paul said.  Most of them would be watching their television sets as well, even in the bases.  “Police departments across the nation have been called out completely to maintain order, if necessary, but everyone seems to be staying home.  Crime seems to have dropped to almost nothing over the last couple of days.  The street parties in New York and San Francisco for the alien arrival have been boisterous, but almost completely non-violent.”

Deborah scowled.  “They need proper jobs,” she said.  “Policy isn’t decided by people shouting their heads off in the streets.”

“They have a right to express themselves,” Spencer snapped.  It was an old argument.  “If they want to protest what they think of as injustice…”

“We want a peaceful contact as well,” Deborah snapped back.  “Don’t they know that?”

“Not today,” the President said, firmly.  The two scowled at each other and then returned their attention to the main display.  “Colonel?”

Paul had used the brief diversion to catch up with the reports.  “The THAAD launchers, Patriot missile batteries and Air Defence Artillery are on standby and ready for action, if required,” he continued.  “The ground-based radar network is up and running at full capability and hard linkages between each site have been checked and confirmed.  If we lose the satellites, we should still be able to coordinate our operations.  The Navy has deployed antiaircraft ships in positions to provide extra firepower to defend our ports and other installations; the ballistic missile submarines and other strategic assets have been placed on alert.  We have a direct link to Discovery and the ISS, Mr President; we’re as ready as we’re ever going to be.”

The President nodded slowly.  An unnatural air of peace had settled over the entire world.  Everyone was watching the alien contact, even the people whose leaders had tried to keep the fact of alien existence from them; wars, disputes and even underground insurgencies had almost come to a stop.  The President was fundamentally a man of peace, but he had come to power in a world of endless war, one where he had to wage a war against shadowy opponents.  The peace wouldn’t last…but then, did it ever?

“That leaves one question,” he said, looking up at the alien craft.  “What about the rest of the world?”

Paul spoke without taking his eyes off the screen.  “The Russians, Chinese, French and British have launched and dispersed their ballistic missile submarines,” he said.  “Russian and Chinese ASAT systems have been brought online and, in line with the secret protocols, have been linked into our tracking system.  The EU will do what they can, but their ASAT weapons are rather more limited than either the Russians or ours.  In short, everyone who has some ASAT capability is preparing it for operations, while everyone else is merely going on alert and praying.”

The President snorted.  “And the aliens themselves?”

Paul shook his head.  “Nothing, Mr President,” he said.  “They’ve said nothing to us.”

“When I was elected to lead this country,” the President said, talking more to himself than Paul, “I thought I wanted the job.  I thought that it would be the crowning accomplishment of my career.  Now…I think I made a mistake.”

Paul smiled, but said nothing.

There was half an hour to go.

***
“And tension is rising in the streets as the alien starship continues towards the International Space Station,” the talking head said.  Joshua Bourjaily listened with half an ear as he typed away on his laptop.  He’d actually managed to win back some prestige with his article on the secret military build-up, although not for the right reasons, at least in his view.  His sources had started to offer him titbits again, but now that the MSM had access to the story, there was nothing exclusive for him.  “In San Francisco, crowds have gathered to welcome the aliens to Earth…”

The television changed, briefly, to show a group of topless men and women dancing together in the streets.  “Welcome to our new insect overlords,” one of them shouted, through cheers and giggles.  They were clearly all very drunk.  “We welcome you…”

The cameramen at the studio hastily cut back to the alien starship.  Joshua had followed the negotiations with some interest; NASA had wanted to classify most of the live feed, but the MSM had refused to accept that.  They’d pushed and harried NASA until they’d been forced, in the wake of congressional enquired into the failure of the American space program, to agree to share the raw footage.  Again, it wasn't something that really interested him, at least not as a source of possible income.  He didn’t have a steady wage; he only got paid for exclusivity, and every news service in the world would have access to the live feed.  Even Al Jazeera had decided to show the alien contact, live and uncut.

“Only twenty minutes to go until the alien starship comes to a halt near the space station,” the talking head continued, her voice breathless with excitement.  Joshua wondered, in a moment of pure spite, how she managed to keep awake from the excitement of pointing out the obvious, time and time again.  “NASA scientists have informed us that the aliens will enter an orbit that will put them at rest, relative to the International Space Station, where they will either dock directly with the station or send a smaller shuttle towards the station.”

She rolled on and on, making it simple enough for an idiot to understand, dumbing down the science as much as possible.  Joshua tuned her out as best as he could, ignoring her even as he wrote his own article, knowing that getting it online was his only hope of making money off First Contact.  Once the alien craft docked with the station – or however they intended to proceed – the entire world would see what was going on…and, unfortunately, would have talking heads explaining the meaning of it all.  There were times when Joshua wished he had chosen a better line of work.

There was fifteen minutes to go.

***
The house looked like a normal semi-detached, one that might be owned by an up and coming junior executive, or high-paid tax lawyer, with a wife, two children and a third on the way.  Inside, it looked normal enough on the ground floor, but the upper floor rooms were studded with weapons of all kinds.  Any of the gun control factions who saw the weapons would probably have fainted; Captain Brent Roeder and his men, all wearing civilian clothes, had amassed enough weapons to take and hold a shopping mall for a few hours.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Corporal Cody Fahy said, in-between stripping down a M16.   SF34’s ‘deployment’ to suburban America hadn’t sat well with a man who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If the shit hit the fan, he’d been loud in expressing his opinion that they would all die before being able to fire a few rounds in the direction of the enemy.  “We should be out in the countryside holed up in a barn or a farmhouse or…”

“We’ve been through all this,” Brent said, as patiently as he could.  There were twelve men occupying the house, all carefully briefed to keep themselves out of sight so that the neighbours didn’t see them, and the tension had been rising steadily.  The suburb on the outskirts of Austin was almost deserted – the population had headed out to the countryside to escape an alien threat, if the aliens were actually hostile – but there were too many people around, still, to lower their guard.  Everyone in SF34 had been warned about the discovery of one team – on exercise, thank God – that had been reported to the Police as a possible terrorist cell.  Somehow, he was pretty certain that having a shoot-out with the local SWAT team or the National Guard would not endear him to his superiors…or SF34 to the politicians.  “If something happens, we have to be emplaced in position to fight…”

“If we have to fight at all,” Fahy growled.  “They’ve come hundreds of light years to visit us, sir; they’re not going to be hostile.”

“You don’t know that,” Brent snapped.  “Tell me something, Corporal; how did you get your medal if this was the level of professionalism you showed in Ashcanistan?”

“There, I knew that I was on a mission,” Fahy replied, dryly.  “I knew what I was doing, even if it was just lurking under a blanket for a few days until Mullah Fat-Ass drove by, unaware that there was an American soldier ready to send him to a fiery end.  Here, sir…here is surreal.”

“There’s a vampire in the loft and a roomful of student nurses in the next house,” Sergeant Clayton Mancil offered, from his position in the corner.  “What more do you want?  A chance to fire automatic weapons with total abandon?”

“You know what I mean, sir,” Fahy said.  He finished working on his M16 and picked up a second weapon, running through a basic set of checks.  “This whole situation feels unreal.”

“Yes, but…it’s our duty,” Brent said, dryly.

“So shut up and soldier,” Sergeant Tessa Wireman said.  The stocky woman didn’t look like a soldier, something that she’d used to her advantage in the past; as the only woman on deployment with SF34, she had to play the role of the woman of the house.  The other men had to remain out of sight, but she could be seen in public; no one would even question her presence.  “Best case; we all go home in a week and never speak of this…embarrassment again.  Worst case, well…”

She shrugged as they directed their attention back to the television set.  There was little point in taking up defensive position, not unless the aliens had some kind of matter transmitter…and if that were the case, the war against them would become rather more unwinnable than it already was.  The remaining soldiers ambled in with studied casualness, taking their seats and leaning back to watch, knowing that their overt brethren, deployed across the nation, would be watching as well.

There were ten minutes to go.

Ten minutes until the world changed forever.

***
NASA’s standard emergency vacuum protection suit felt hot and clammy to Ambassador Francis Prachthauser as he shifted uncomfortably within the heat, but there was no choice; it had taken hours of arguing to convince Gary to permit the diplomats to wear the protection suits, rather than a full-out spacesuit.  The protection suits were supposed to provide protection against a brief exposure to vacuum, but it felt uncomfortably as if he was wearing a condom, one large enough to cover his entire body.  He hadn’t spoken that thought aloud; the closer the alien starship grew, the more tense and silent the ISS felt, even to him.

The alien starship was settling down into its orbit now, catching up on the ISS on its stately orbit around the planet.  The hail of communications beams from Earth had only intensified, but still the aliens made no reply.  It was almost large enough to be seen with the naked eye now, even though it was hundreds of kilometres away from the station.  Francis swallowed twice as he realised just how dry his throat was becoming.  The entire situation was becoming increasingly surreal.

“If they don’t slow now, they’re going to ram us,” Gary said, softly.  The ISS commander was as riveted to the display as the rest of them.  Almost on cue, the alien starship twinkled with little lights, slowing the starship still further.  “Impressive power source; I wonder what they use to provide their power.  Those aren’t chemical rockets.”

Francis felt his gaze straying to the display.  “Perhaps they have something we haven’t even imagined,” he said.  He’d read all the speculations, but now, watching the alien craft approaching in silent majesty, they were somehow inadequate.  The aliens seemed to move so effortlessly in space…and still they were silent.  “Or maybe…”

An alarm sounded.  “Radar sweep,” Damiani snapped.  His face was very pale in the room.  “They just swept space with a high-powered radar!”

Sophia flinched.  “Did they detect us?”

“They detected everything on this hemisphere,” Damiani said.  It had been a stupid question, born of fear and tension, but he allowed it to pass.  The aliens would have located the ISS with a simple telescope sweep.  “They’ll have picked up everything that wasn't behind the planet…”

A second warning tone sounded.  Francis saw Gary’s eyes swinging towards the radar display…and saw the icon of the alien starship slowly beginning to break up.  For a crazy moment, he thought that the aliens were committing suicide, that they’d spent all of the effort to get to Earth only to die, but then he realised that the aliens were launching smaller craft.  Lots of smaller craft…

Damiani’s eyes went very wide.  “Incoming,” he shouted suddenly.  There was no hiding the raw fear in his tone.  “Incoming…”

And the hammer of God struck the space station!

Chapter Six

Is an alien attack possible?  Of course it is.  Statistically speaking, almost anything is possible.  There is a better question to ask, which is ‘what is the probability of an alien attack?’
-Travis S. Taylor

Captain Markus Kane watched with increasing disbelief as the alien ships opened fire.  He’d watched, enviously, as the alien starship launched its parasite vessels – hell, he wished he had one of them; each of the smaller ships was still larger than the shuttle – but then awe had turned to horror as the alien ships launched a single missile at the ISS.  The station, almost defenceless, was hit and started to come apart in chilling slow motion, tumbling though space.

“My God,” Sonja breathed.  She sounded stunned and Kane didn’t – couldn’t - blame her.  The aliens had opened fire.  Without any communications, without any provocation…they’d simply opened fire.  They hadn’t even transmitted a surrender demand!  The ISS was doomed – that was inevitable – and it was only a matter of time before the aliens turned their attention to Discovery.  The shuttle had been flying a few dozen kilometres away from the space station, watching and recording everything that happened…and the aliens had to know where it was.  Escape was probably impossible.  “Sir…”

“Focus,” Kane snapped harshly, as he brought up the weapons console.  The shuttle had never been intended as any kind of warship and it had been a new addition, but they might manage to take a bite out of the aliens before they were blown away.  The alien ships were spreading out, taking out satellites with some kind of rail gun-like weapon…and he knew that Earth was rapidly being knocked out of space.  The aliens would take and hold LEO…and further resistance would become almost impossible.  “Concentrate on your duties!”

The shuttle orientated towards the lead alien ship, now boosting towards them with effortless ease, not even making any attempt to hide from the shuttle’s sensors.  It was a gesture of contempt for the human race, Kane was sure, and one he intended to ensure cost them.  The alien ship was the size of a small wet-navy destroyer, larger than anything humanity had launched into space, and yet…it wasn't doing anything impossible.  It was bound by the same laws of physics as Kane and his own ship.

“Weapons online,” Sonja said.  Her voice had steadied as she pulled herself together.  Like him, she had probably accepted that they were both dead; it was only a matter of time.  “I have a track on the incoming ship…”

“Fire,” Kane ordered.  The shuttle jerked once as two missiles were launched from the open cargo bay.  They didn’t have nuclear warheads, an oversight he cursed silently under his breath, but if they hit the alien craft, they would do some damage.  The aliens probably couldn’t evade them at such distances, either; unlimited by concerns for human pilots, the missiles were travelling much faster than any manned ship already.  “Bring up the second pod and…”

The first missile exploded, a good five kilometres from the alien ship.  Kane spared the telemetry a glance and realised that the aliens had somehow shot the missile down with a point defence system, probably a laser.  The second missile followed moments later, while the big alien craft orientated itself on the shuttle.  Alarms started to ring in the shuttle as the forward heat shield, designed to shield the crew from the fury of returning to Earth, started to melt under the alien bombardment.  The alarms grew shriller as the lasers swept across the protective covers over the cockpit windows; Kane saw red light starting to burn through as the shuttle started to spin helplessly in space.

He looked across at Sonja.  “I'm sorry,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand.  “I wish that…”

The alien lasers punched through the hull.  A moment later, the wave of heat reached the remaining fuel in the shuttle’s tank and Discovery, one of three remaining space shuttles, exploded in a ball of fire.  The alien craft moved slowly through the wreckage, paying a moment of respect to the crew, and then returned to its attack profile.  The remaining satellites had to be wiped out of space.

***
The entire space station was shaking madly.  Francis heard the sound of tearing metal as the station spun through space, the noise somehow overcoming the noise of the alarms blaring out as the space station was torn apart.  The status display on the wall was showing hundreds of red icons, almost obscuring the image of the space station itself, before it blinked out of existence, revealing that the power was failing.  He caught on, desperately, to the side of his chair, just as he heard the dread noise of an air leak.  The habitation module had been breached.

This can’t be happening, he thought, dazed.  The sudden rush of air towards the breach was pulling at him.  He saw one of the space station’s crewmembers flying towards the breach and then out into space, pulled helplessly along by the rush of air…and then he saw one of the ambassadors following him.  It looked like Bai Li, to him; the Chinese ambassador was merely the second victim of the aliens.  This can’t be happening…

A hand caught on to his arm and he turned, automatically, to see Gary waving a mask at him.  Gratefully, he took it; he hadn’t even realised that the air was racing out of the compartment, leaving him with nothing to breath.  He saw Sophia, one of her hands turning black and blue in the fading light, take a second mask and breathing desperately through it; he couldn’t see the Russian or the Frenchman at all.  He concluded, as the seeping cold started to filter into his system, that they were both dead.  The air was starting to slow now, leaving them completely dependent on the masks and their links to the emergency air storage units; he said a silent prayer of thanks for the NASA genius who had designed the protective outfits.

We should have been in spacesuits, he thought.  It was becoming harder and harder to think; his head was pounding away like mad.  An hour ago, they’d been so hopeful about the meeting…and now the aliens had simply opened fire.  It was crazy; had they really come hundreds of light years just to start a fight?  He didn’t have any illusions as to how long he would survive the coming few hours; as long as they were using the masks, they couldn’t reach the escape pod…assuming that it was still intact.  Even if they did reach it, the aliens might target it on the way down, which would mean certain death.  If Discovery was still in orbit, the crew might manage to pick up the survivors, but somehow he doubted that the aliens would give them that chance.  He’d read a thousand different versions of the alien invasion story in the fortnight since he’d known he was going to meet the aliens…and all of them warned that the aliens would seek to control space.  Given how weak Earth’s defences actually were…

The cold was growing colder, somehow.  The station was still spinning, providing the semblance of gravity, but he could see the hull buckling under the pressure.  A moment later, a new rent appeared in the side of the module, tearing open and revealing the spinning starfield outside.  For a moment, he saw Earth, growing larger in the growing breech in the hull…and wondered if the entire station was plunging down towards the planet.  It would destroy them without any need for further expenditure of alien weapons.  It was so hard to think now…

Something moved at the edge of his perception.  He turned slowly, feeling his body slowly turning to ice, and saw something moving towards them, coming through the steadily growing rent in the hull.  It looked human, at first, and he wondered if one of the crew had managed to don a spacesuit, but as it came closer, manoeuvring with the aid of a small gas pack mounted on its back, he realised that it was humanoid, but far from human.  It was impossible to make out any features in the black spacesuit, if spacesuit it was, but all the proportions were wrong.  Looking at the featureless humanoid, Francis realised that it was moving…oddly, as if it had grown up on a very different world.  The alien came closer and closer…and then one hand reached out and pulled Gary’s air tube free of the wall.

Gary thrashed, desperately, as he started to run out of air.  The alien ignored his struggles and carefully pulled him away from the wall and into an inflatable bubble, leaving him floating in the middle of the room.  Francis stared, convinced that the alien intended to kill them all personally, and then he realised that Gary was breathing normally, inside his bubble.  A moment later, the alien pulled Sophia free of her chair and added her to his catch, seemingly unconcerned or unaware that she was female.  A second bubble inflated and the alien pushed Philippe into its warm confinement, and then added Stanislav and Damiani’s body to the catch.  A third bubble inflated and Francis cringed as the alien reached for him, breaking the air hose with one hand and pushing him forward into the bubble.  He fought to prevent himself from breathing, irrationally terrified that the aliens breathed poison, but in the end he had to take a breath.  The air was hotter and dryer than the ISS had been, almost like being in a desert, but it was breathable.  A wide-eyed Katy Garland, one of the scientists on the ISS, joined him; the alien left the remaining bodies behind, perhaps for later recovery.  Damiani and the remainder of the crew had to be dead.

Damn you, Francis thought, staring at the alien shape.  The alien’s features were completely hidden, but he tried, desperately, to gain a sense of how his – or her – body language worked.  It was impossible and he gave it up after a few moments of struggle, choosing instead to lean back and watch as the alien started to tow his – he decided to think of the alien as male until he knew for sure – human captives out towards the rent in the hull.  A moment of insane panic swept up in his mind as the alien tugged them out of the hull and into space, Earth glowing below them as they were dragged towards the alien ship.  The parasite vessel, a blocky shape reminiscent of Thunderbird Two, awaited them.

“No,” Katy said, her voice breaking with shock.  “Sir, look…”

Francis followed her gaze back towards the ISS.  The station had looked fragile when he’d first seen it…and now, all of his fears seemed to be coming true.  The ISS was slowly tearing itself apart, spinning in space and flickering with light as the solar power panels came apart.  The once-neat modules were torn and broken; he felt a bitter lump in his throat as the alien pulled them through a hatch into a small chamber.  It was as featureless as the alien helmet and protective spacesuit, but there were seven other aliens in the chamber, watching emotionlessly as the humans were escorted forward.

Of course, they could be gloating, Francis thought, bitterly.  He’d given up most science-fiction because of its reliance on space barbarians…and an hour ago, he would have sworn that they didn’t exist.  Of course, the Soviet Union or the Communist Chinese had managed to accomplish wonders, despite having a very unfree society…and the more repressive states on present-day Earth could simply buy most of the items they couldn’t produce for themselves.  It seemed impossible that the aliens could have so much without developing democracy, but they might have somehow accomplished it…or maybe they were a hive mind, or…endlessly, he contemplated the problem, using it as a way of avoiding the real question.  What were they going to do with their captives?

Reality intruded as the lead alien pulled out a sharp knife and started to cut the bubble open.  Katy screamed as the alien pulled her out and left her floating in the room; Francis, more sedately, followed her a moment later.  An alien stepped forward, somehow walking on the deck despite the lack of gravity, and caught him.  He saw a second flashing knife and feared the worst, but all the alien did was slice all of his clothes away from his body.  The protective outfit might have protected against the vacuum, but it was no protection against the knife, which cut through it sharply and left him floating naked in space.  The aliens showed no interest in their human captives once they were naked, transferring out the remains of their clothes and various electronic gadgets through a tube, leaving the humans floating helplessly in the middle of the room.

Bastards, Francis thought angrily, trying not to look at either of the two girls.  They’d taken four men captive and two women, and they’d stripped them all.  It made a certain kind of sense – the aliens might not recognise a human weapon on sight, so they’d removed anything that could possibly be a weapon – but it was inhuman.  The thought made him smile, bitterly.  They were in a very inhuman position.  The aliens just…watched them, unconcerned by their protests or attempts to talk.  Francis tried to speak directly to one of the aliens, but got no response, not even a sign that the alien could even hear him.  It was like dealing with robots, or automations.

He met Gary’s eyes briefly and saw the hell in the former ISS commander’s eyes.  He’d lost his command and almost all of his crew…and, now, he was a prisoner.  The aliens had him under their thumbs and there was no way out, not without weapons.  Francis lifted an eyebrow, wondering if the far more experienced Gary had any idea what was going on, but the former commander merely shook his head.  They were trapped.

A dull rumble ran through the alien craft.  Francis felt the craft shift under silent acceleration and felt himself wafting towards the wall.  The aliens ignored their struggles and allowed them to grip hold of handles set into the wall, while the craft shivered slightly as it moved on in its orbit.  Francis hoped, despite knowing that it would mean their certain death, that they were under attack from the ground, but he knew that that was unlikely.  The aliens were probably safe from anything that the human race could throw at them.

The rumbling grew louder.  They were on the move.

***
Philippe Laroche was not a man given to panic.  Unlike most of his contemporaries – and his fellows who’d been onboard the ISS – he was used to being in stressful situations in his roving brief as the President of France’s special representative.  He’d been held hostage in terrorist training camps, threatened by armed militants in countries where France had ‘interests,’ and fired upon by one side or the other in various civil wars.  He knew enough to be fairly certain that the aliens didn’t intend to kill them outright – they could have destroyed the ISS completely or merely left them to suffocate or freeze to death – and that meant that, sooner or later, they would be talking.  It was a power game, like those played by human militants; they would do what they had to do to show that they were The Boss…and then they would talk.  Being naked didn’t bother him, much; he’d been stripped naked before, by at least a dozen highly suspicious factions.

Besides, it’s not as if the aliens are interested in human bodies, he thought, and concentrated on acting harmless.  Stanislav looked as if he was furious – he might even have jumped the aliens if they’d been kept in gravity – and the American representative looked to be on the edge.  Sophia, the UN representative, was shaking madly, her eyes wide with panic and fear.  Naked, she was pretty…and almost completely helpless.  Philippe watched with a certain private amusement as she clutched the handles and waited for death.  It would be a long time in coming.

The pressure pushing them against the wall suddenly eased.  Like Francis, Philippe had considered the possibility that the craft was under attack, but it wasn't something he could do anything about.  Chances were if the craft was destroyed, they would die before they knew what had hit them, but in any case there was nothing they could do about it.  The aliens would talk to them, in time, and when they did, he would be prepared to open a line of communication.  Perhaps he could even convince them that Earth was harmless and attacking the planet was hardly productive.

He turned his attention, briefly, to the aliens.  They were as featureless as ever, but the more he studied them, the more he could pick out slight differences in height and, he suspected, weight.  If they were alien soldiers, they would be fit and healthy, but he couldn’t tell how strong they were, relative to a human soldier.  Philippe had more experience with the military, particularly the French covert operations unit, than he cared to admit…and he found himself studying the aliens from a tactical point of view.  It was a shame that he couldn’t see their weapons in action, but…

Another dull thump echoed through the ship.  A moment later, the aliens started to pull the humans off the handles and escort them through a door that had just appeared in the featureless hull metal, down towards an unknown destination.  Philippe forced a smile onto his face as an alien started to pull him along.  If he were right, the alien ship had just docked with their larger mothership…and they were being taken to their leader.  Philippe could talk to him then…

And see what advantage he could draw from the nightmare.