The Fermi Paradox Read online

  SpaceForce

  The Fermi Paradox

  Mark Harrison

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Commander Steve Lewis

  2. Rick Frost

  3. John Slate

  4. Sandra Connor

  5. Oleksii Borachev

  6. Rick Frost

  7. John Slate

  8. Sandra Connor

  9. Oleksii Borachev

  10. Rick Frost

  11. John Slate

  12. Sandra Connor

  13. Oleksii Borachev

  14. Rick Frost

  15. John Slate

  16. THE DAY OF INVASION

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

  Rick Frost’s Diary Entry #1124

  It’s been five years since they came.

  Massive machines from beyond the stars.

  Systematically, city by city, they destroyed our civilization. Billions dead. All hope lost.

  Our bullets and bombs were useless. All we could do was run. So that’s what we did. We ran.

  Everyone who survived now hides in the forests, deserts, or mountains. Far from the cities or towns we once called home.

  Thinking about what life was like before seems like a dream, a twisted fantasy meant to haunt us. I want to wake up from this nightmare. But I can’t.

  And it’s because they won’t finish us off. I don’t think these machines want us all dead.

  They know where we are. They know where they can find us.

  But once our armies were destroyed, once our civilizations were brought to their knees, they kind of just stopped.

  They kill any who try to attack. But now, if we leave them alone, they leave us alone.

  Part of me wishes they would just chop off the head. End this misery for all of us. Eradicate any traces of the human race. Put an end to the suffering.

  But they won’t. And no one has any idea why.

  We know nothing about them, other than the fact they came to destroy us.

  Now I manage the defenses of a camp of survivors. My jacket has a SpaceForce emblem on it. It’s a symbol of the time before the invasion. I wear it to remind myself of my past, of the mistakes I’ve made.

  It means nothing now, but it’s my symbol of hope.

  1 Commander Steve Lewis

  Sept. 20, 2051, Space Force Station 1, Upper Atmosphere

  Steve Lewis was going to die.

  The crack in the screen of his helmet was growing. He could feel the air in his lungs being forced out. He couldn’t speak. He kept his mouth shut so as not to let the spit on his tongue boil. He wanted to hold on as long as he could.

  He was stubborn like that.

  With the strength he had left he gritted his teeth and took a last look at the deep blue haze of the atmosphere.

  God, it was beautiful. He closed his eyes and thought about his wife and child. They were down there somewhere. Then the momentum rotated him, the blue earth left his field of vision, and all he could see was the vast emptiness of the black void before him.

  Just twenty minutes before, his first operational space walk was textbook perfect. The color of the upper atmosphere above the Indian Ocean was vibrant and rich. He watched in awe as the final strands of sunlight disappeared slowly beyond the curvature of the Earth. He could have stared at it for hours, but he had to get back to work. The free world depended on it.

  The static of his radio hissed. “This is mission control, checking in on the status of the installation. How’s it going up there, Steve?”

  Steve’s military training taught him to be focused, but one thing it never prepared him for was just how beautiful it was in orbit. His skin prickled with excitement as he’d exited SpaceForce Station One and took those first few breaths. Reading other astronauts’ reports of their first walks gave him some insight, but not enough. No matter how prepared he was, and he’d run through perhaps a thousand simulations of this exact maneuver during training, he’d never be ready for this. This was a life-changing event. He wouldn’t be the same man when he got back to the station.

  He couldn’t wait to get back inside and send a message to his wife, Clarissa, and their 4-year-old son, Steve Jr.

  “Commander Lewis here,” Steve responded. “Installation is on target. The encryptor chip has been installed. I just need to close the casing. Roger out.”

  “Roger, roger,” mission command responded. “We’re on stand by.”

  Steve gripped the shell of the NDT Space Telescope and slid the casing back into position.

  Being an astronaut had never crossed his mind when he was younger. He never really thought it was a possibility. He was bright, athletic and driven, but outer space didn’t seem like much of a priority in the early 2020s. It really wasn’t until twenty years later that people started to pay attention to space again. Of course that was when the first biological organisms were found on Mars and the average Joe on Earth became enraptured by what the media called ‘alien-fever.’ Kids and parents alike started to look up at the stars again and dream about humanity’s place among them. If two planets in our Solar System were capable of supporting life, how many worlds out there must also be? It was a humbling moment. And not without controversy. Religions around the world denounced the finding. That, or they changed scripture to justify them. It didn’t really bother Steve. His family wasn’t religious.

  Steve was in college when alien-fever struck. And it was because of ‘alien-fever’ that he joined SpaceForce. It was his ticket to the stars and had the added benefit of paying his college tuition. He enrolled in the Military Engineering program and quickly became top of his class.

  When the U.S. government started SpaceForce in the early 2020s, it always seemed like a bit of a joke. It was hailed as a full branch of the military, but kids in online military forums joked that all they did was surveillance and satellite maintenance. Funding was poor and public perception even worse.

  But after ‘alien-fever,’ SpaceForce really began to capture the public imagination. The hype lasted long enough to fund and launch the doomed Olympus Mons Mission. Steve was in his final year of training when the Olympus Mons ship left Earth’s orbit.

  This was the mission that was supposed to change everything. Real space marines, even if they were all science officers, heading toward the final frontier to kick some alien ass. In the heat of the moment, you could have been forgiven for forgetting that the life they’d found was purely microbial.

  The President demanded, and Congress funded, a ship capable of transporting armed space marines. The first mission sent them to Mars. They were to set up a permanent research station alongside the NASA engineers and scientists that would be travelling with them. The SpaceForce personnel onboard were to test weapons on the martian soil. They would also set up new asteroid detection stations. Olympus Mons could have changed everything.

  But it was doomed. The ship, and all hands, were lost after Captain Frost overrode the automated flight controls and made an ill-advised course correction. Pure disaster. After that incident, the plan to put space marines where everyone thought they belonged, in space, was abandoned. Space once again began to wane in the public imagination and Spaceforce’s funding was cut back significantly. Now the only time a SpaceForce soldier spent anytime outside of Earth’s atmosphere was when they were manually installing chips into surveillance satellites.

  Tiny alien biological organisms can only hold the public’s interest so long.

  Steve didn’t want to think about missions gone wrong. He shook his head and looked down at his tool belt. He needed to secure the shell casing.

  He maneuvered the plate into po
sition. He then grabbed his drill and began fastening the plate.

  That’s when he saw it.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a flash of yellow light. He looked up. There was nothing there, just empty space.

  “Uh, mission control?” he said. “Is there any other experiment taking place right now?”

  “That’s a negative, commander.”

  Steve looked at his biometrics, a small digital display on top of his left wrist. His heart rate was steadily rising, but it was nothing out of the normal. He was trained to do this. If his heart rate got too high, he’d have to abandon the mission, but he wanted to avoid that outcome at all costs.

  He looked at his oxygen levels. They were normal.

  He got back to work. He took hold of the drill and put pressure on the trigger. Then he saw it again.

  The yellow light reappeared in the corner of his eye. He looked up struggling to turn in the bulky suit. Nothing was there.

  “Jesus.” he told himself. “Focus, Steve.”

  He looked back at the casing, but the yellow light appeared once more. This time, he couldn’t keep it together. He dropped the drill. It started to float out of reach. Luckily, it was tethered to his suit. It couldn’t go far.

  He looked around, struggling to get a clear look at the light, trying to see what he was sure was there. He wasn’t going crazy, was he?

  God damn it,” he said. “Mission, are you sure there is nothing else going on up here?”

  “Again, that’s a negative, commander. We recommend coming in for a quick debrief. When you start seeing things, it’s time to call it a day.”

  Steve winced. He was determined to finish what he’d started.

  He didn’t want his first official repair marred by a panic attack. They’d never let him up here again.

  “I can do this,” Steve said. He shook his head. Come on, get yourself together. Focus.

  He checked his surroundings, grabbed the cord that was attached to the drill, and began to pull it back. He took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. His eyes were just playing tricks on him. That was all.

  With the drill now back in his hand, Steve checked around the hull of the enormous NDT Telescope once more. The yellow flash of light appeared again. This time, however, it wasn’t in the corner of his eye. It was dead center, clear as day. The light shone over the telescope and Steve’s space suit.

  It was coming from a metallic orb with a large, glowing circle directed at Steve. The orb was about the size of a basketball. It moved around like nothing he’d ever seen before.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “Mission, I’m turning on my video monitor. You’ve got to see this.”

  Mission didn’t respond. There was just silence.

  “Mission control?” Steve said again, unnecessarily raising his voice. “Are you reading me?”

  No response.

  Due to funding, there was no crew aboard the Space Station. Satellite maintenance was considered rudimentary and the Station’s onboard computer system didn’t require anybody to operate it. If he didn’t have contact with mission control, he was alone.

  The orb started to move toward him. Its movements were like that of a drone, as if it was being propelled on all sides. There were no clear signs of propulsion. It didn’t look possible. Steve tried to communicate with mission control once again. Nothing.

  The yellow glow of the orb was soft, like the light from a dim flashlight. Steve looked into the glow. Inside the orb he saw a wave-like pattern. The orb moved closer. As it approached, Steve pushed himself off the telescope. He was tethered to the Space Station, not the telescope, and began manually pulling himself back to the ship.

  Could this be Russian? Chinese? It was time to get back to the safety of the station and find out.

  As Steve pulled himself to the station, the yellow light transitioned to a deep purple. The purple light shot out of the orb like a laser beam. It scanned the part of the telescope Steve had been working on, pausing over the still uncovered encryptor chip.

  After shining it’s purple light over the encryptor, the orb’s light transitioned back to the dull, glowing yellow.

  Steve was just five yards from the station door now. He was so close.

  “Come on,” he said. “Come on.”

  He reached for the door and began the manual override sequence on the airlock. The process was painfully slow. Suddenly, he was jolted back.

  “What the hell?”

  The orb’s yellow glow pulled him back toward the telescope, away from the airlock. At forty yards, the tether attaching him to the station, and to the rest of humanity, grew taught. He began to wince in pain. He could feel his suit starting to tear. The orb continued to pull.

  “Control!” Steve cried. “Control, do you read me? It’s got me in some sort of tractor beam!”

  No response.

  Fearing his suit would be ripped open, leaving his body exposed to the cold vacuum of space, Steve unlatched the tether. The beam of light was pulling him back towards the NDT, maybe he could grab it and manually operate one of its stabilizers. It was a long shot, but it was better than letting his suit tear open.

  The telescope approached rapidly. It was now or never.

  Still in the pull of the orb’s tractor beam, Steve extended his arm as much as he could. The glove of his space suit grazed along the hull of the telescope. With every ounce of strength in his body, he grabbed hold of the panelling he’d been installing over the encryptor chip.

  But the orb’s pull was too strong.

  He couldn’t hold on. He floated away from it and the space station.

  The orb’s glow disappeared and he could hear the static of his radio once again. “This is mission control, commander Lewis, where are you?”

  “I’m…” he paused. He didn’t know what to say. It was insane. “I’m floating away from the Space Station.”

  “Can you say that again, Commander. It sounded like you said you were floating away from the ship.”

  “Roger,” Steve said. “There is an object out here, a metal orb. It pulled me away from the station. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try to send an image,” he said.

  At that moment, the orb reappeared about 15 yards in front of him, its yellow glow shining on him once more.

  “Control?” Steve said, but he already knew the answer. The yellow glow interfered with his communication.

  There was no response.

  The orb violently shot toward him.

  “This little fucker.”

  As it came toward him, he pulled out his drill and braced for impact.

  The orb slammed into him. His helmet cracked. But just as it hit him, he managed to stick his drill into the glowing part.

  The force of the impact pushed him back, his helmet’s crack widened. From the corner of his eye, he could see the orb’s glowing light flicker on and off, his drill sticking out of it.

  Steve’s biometrics began to blink red.

  The oxygen inside his suit and his lungs began to leak.

  He was dying.

  Commander Lewis’s body continued to float. Pieces of glass floated around his limp frame. His mouth and eyes were frozen wide open.

  2 Rick Frost

  Sept 22, 2051, Deadwood, South Dakota

  Rick hated modern country music almost as much as he hated looking at the stars. He was in the Dusty Saloon, the dingiest bar he could find in Deadwood.

  “Hey Bob, do you think you could play something good for once?”

  The bartender looked at him and grimaced. He said nothing.

  “Fine,” Rick said. “But if I’m going to listen to this crap all night, I’ll need another shot of whiskey.”

  Bob poured a shot of Jack Daniels and slid the glass down the bar top. Rick nodded to him and caught the glass. Bob didn’t say a word but the grimace on his face softened.

  The glow of a television lit up the whole bar. ‘Breaking News’ flashed across the bottom of the screen. The scr
oll of text rolling across the bottom read: ‘First SpaceForce death since infamous Olympus Mons Mission.’

  “Fuck,” Rick muttered.

  He shot the whiskey back, then motioned to Bob for another.

  News about SpaceForce made him want to get drunk. It made him remember, and he just wanted to drink and forget. That was the reason he lived out here, a hundred miles from the nearest supermarket. He moved to Deadwood, population 2,789, to get away from his past, but it seemed to follow him wherever he went. It didn’t help that wherever he went, each night he was under the glare of the stars.

  He picked up his phone and scrolled through his messages. He had a job offer:

  ‘Rick, can you install the eco-neg VI into a 2006 F-150? I’m taking it to a classic auto show this weekend and I need a legal power source.’

  Rick put his phone on the bar.

  Since settling in Deadwood, he’d worked as a mechanic. Business was slow. Real slow.

  Almost everything these days was automated. Autoshops had assembly-line-like robots inside them. Why hire a human? Human’s make mistakes. Robots don’t.

  The only way Rick was able to make a living as a mechanic was by working on old vehicles. Vehicles that ran on gasoline and diesel. Dirty vehicles that were mostly outlawed. He had a reputation as the best in the business when it came to those old engines.

  People hired him to retrofit fossil fuel engines to run on eco-negs.

  Every time he did it, he felt bad. There was something about those old engines, the way they were made, the way they sounded. The roar of a diesel engine coming to life was a thing of beauty to Rick.

  Rick needed another shot. Quick.

  As if reading his mind, Bob slid the glass down the bar. Rick snatched it and knocked it back. The burn felt good.