Earth Star(87)

‘Quite regrettable of them.’ Mason Leveque sounded completely untroubled by the opinion of the Physics team. ‘However I appreciate civilians are unused to this sort of situation and may find it stressful.’

Fian made a choking noise. ‘While Leveque makes crucial decisions involving wars with aliens on a daily basis?’

I pulled a face. ‘These days, yes he does.’

‘How does Leveque stay so calm? Isn’t he human? Even the Colonel is sounding tense, and Leveque’s wife would be leading the fighters in an attack so …’

‘The Threat team have to stay calm and think. The Physics team seem to be having a major panic attack. If Leveque did that …’

‘Why aren’t the Physics team doing their own talking, instead of the Colonel relaying their messages?’

‘I suppose he doesn’t trust them on the command channel. If he has to give an extreme order, he won’t want civilians arguing.’

Fian pulled a face. ‘I don’t think I want to know what you mean by extreme.’

I wished I didn’t know either. The General Marshal himself had gone on formal record stating Colonel Torrek was authorized to take any and all measures necessary to protect humanity, and everyone knew what that phrase meant. If it was necessary to save humanity, then Colonel Torrek would give the command that Tellon Blaze had given about Thetis. He’d order the Military forces to nuke Earth to cinders.

Back in the tactical meetings, I’d been convinced that could never actually happen. Neither the General Marshal nor Colonel Torrek thought Earth was disposable, or the Handicapped mattered less than other human beings.

Here in Ark, I was far less confident. If Earth turned into another Thetis, then Colonel Torrek might have no other choice, but I knew he’d stay and die with the rest of us even if he had the chance to escape.

If the worst happened, if Colonel Torrek did have to say those words, then I hoped I wouldn’t hear them. Even if I did, I’d probably have less than five minutes to panic about what was going to hit us. There were a chaos lot of missiles on standby at Echo base, Adonis, so it would be over mercifully quickly.

Major Rayne Tar Cameron of Command Support team spoke. ‘Interference from solar radiation levels is at medical safety limits. Earth portal network is entering five minute lockdown sequence.’

Down in the main hall, the portal lights would be flashing green. No new portals could establish, and existing ones would close down when the lights turned amber and then red. There was no way for any of us to leave Ark now. I didn’t usually suffer from claustrophobia, but I was suddenly very aware of the solid rock surrounding me.

‘Threat team, you still think lockdown is the critical moment?’ asked Colonel Torrek.

‘Yes sir,’ said Leveque. ‘If the sphere is hostile and actively observing us, it will detect the network shutting down, and should immediately attack to make the most of its window of opportunity. We would expect either a move into closer orbit in preparation for an attack on Earth, or a pre-emptive strike on Earth Africa solar array. Any incoming alien portal signals would be timed to coincide with that.’

‘Ark team, evacuation status?’

‘We’re at 99.3 per cent,’ said the Ark team leader. ‘Fractionally better than predicted.’

There was silence for a while.

Fian groaned. ‘If I’ve influenced the Military into not attacking the sphere, and this goes badly … Maybe Gaius Devon was right after all. A pre-emptive strike would give us the best chance of taking it out.’

‘Gaius Devon is an idiot. Attacking the sphere would have been a stupid move. It’s friendly.’ I said the words with as much conviction as I could, and hoped like chaos they were true.

A computerized voice started counting down the last few seconds of the portal lockdown sequence. I held my breath during the last ten of them, watching the image of the alien sphere for any threatening change or movement. Nothing happened. A minute passed, five minutes, and still nothing.

‘No immediate reaction then.’ Colonel Torrek’s voice was heavy with relief. ‘Threat team, when do you predict the next danger point will be?’

‘We may have an interesting moment at lockdown plus fifty-seven minutes,’ said Leveque, ‘but I emphasize this prediction is far from reliable. We assumed the sphere had recharged its power cells during the previous solar storm, tried to estimate its power usage since then, and calculate when it will regain maximum power.’

‘And what happens at that point?’ asked the Colonel.

‘There are two possibilities, sir,’ said Leveque. ‘The first is it attacks. The second is its rate of power absorption drops to match the level required to maintain the shields. The second possibility is obviously to be preferred, and would strongly indicate it does not have immediate hostile intentions.’