“Well sir, Trinity’s power base comes from those aliens who feel disaffected. If you look at the countries that he is strongest in, it’s the same list that have the worst rights records. There hasn’t been an uprising in the U.S. because we’ve almost got parity between aliens and humans. Trinity is feeding off their hate for humankind. We’ve got to counter that. We’ve got to show that it isn’t Alien versus Human, but order versus insanity. I suggest that we open negotiations, make it look as if we’re willing to talk. We need to be reasonable. Win their hearts.”
General Hudson broke in. “That’s just the kind of crap I’d expect from one of them sir, we’ve got to hit ‘em and hit ‘em hard. If we come in with overwhelming force I’m sure that we can smash their will to fight within a few weeks. I say nuke every city he’s got.”
General Fitzhue of the Marines chimed in, “That’s our philosophy Mr. President, overwhelming force.”
President Talbot dismissed him, “I’m not going to be the President who blew up half the planet. I need a better solution. How about embargo, conventional forces, what else do we got? I’ve got to talk to the press and we need a plan that’s going to work. There’s an election coming up for god’s sakes.”
“Sir let me suggest that if we do send in troops, let’s use alien troops in the front lines. Again, we can’t make it look like an alien versus human war. We can’t win a conflict on those terms,” said Jim.
General Talbot stood up from his chair, “That’s it, I’m not going to have this traitor in our ranks any longer.” He pulled out his sidearm and leveled it at the young secretary. The two military police that guarded the room from prying eyes looked at each other for guidance. They were unsure what to do. Jim’s eyes opened wide and a look of shock came over his face. He instinctively started backing his chair from the table.
“General Hudson, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” screamed the President. General Talbot was sweating profusely. With his arm straight out and his weapon cocked, he looked at the President. Then he looked at the alien. Then he looked at his fellow generals. Then back at the President.
“I gotta get some air. Excuse me sir,” he said. He uncocked his gun and proceeded toward the door, which the MPs opened for him. The last thing that people inside could see of General Hudson was his pulling out a cell phone. The door closed.
“Ok, what are we going to do about this? I want answers people. I’ve got to go to the press in ten minutes. People are going to want a plan. I can’t afford to come off looking indecisive.”
Various ideas were proposed and discarded for several desperate minutes as the President’s staff tried to come up with something that wouldn’t make the situation worse. All of a sudden, General Hudson barged back into the room, looking refreshed and smiling. “Gentlemen, the problem has been solved.”
President Talbot gave a dirty look to the MPs who let Hudson back in the room. “And by that you mean?” he said.
“Project Zephyr-Alpha sir.” He looked directly at Jim. “It’s codeword sir, but I guess everyone’s going to know about it soon anyway, so I’ll spill the beans.”
“Project Zephyr-Alpha?” The President looked at the puzzled meeting members. None gave a signal of recognition.
“Project Zephyr-Alpha sir. It’s a Cold War legacy project that I’ve been revamping. Very close hold sir. I believe you were briefed on it when you took office.” His eyes were fixed on Jim the way a wolf stares at a sheep.
President Talbot looked over at his Chief of Staff, who said, “must have been that day when the intel folks came over and briefed you on all the codeword programs sir.”
“There were like 500 of those things, I lost track halfway through,” complained the President. The Chief of Staff shrugged. Talbot leaned across the table. “Talk to me like I’m stupid Hudson.”
“Sir, when we shelved our bio-weapons program back in the ‘70s, some in the military felt that we had made significant progress in certain areas, and there was no reason to lose what we had accomplished. So, we moved those projects to an abandoned tunnel outside of Area-51 and kept going. You wouldn’t believe what those guys achieved.” He beamed as if he himself had done the research. “It all started when somebody got the bright idea that we could tailor a virus to just kill a certain race. Can you believe that sir? If we had used it in Vietnam, we’d have wiped out half the continent without losing a man! We made anti-Russian, anti-Negro, anti-Chinamen, all of it sir. It’s all there, waiting in big drums for your authorization. The idea was to use it in case of a sneak attack, but that never happened, so no one ever bothered to inform anybody. But they’ve been out there in the desert sir, slaving away.”
“That’s barbarous!” said General Landon.
“Yeah, ain’t it? Perfection! Way cleaner than a nuke. Safer too.” He shook his head, “But that’s not the point, I’m getting off the subject. The deal is that when Johnston put me in charge of this alien invasion task-force, I went to Zephyr-Alpha and gave them a new mission, and they did it, sir they did it.” He pounded his hand on the table for emphasis. “We’ve got a virus that’ll just kill aliens. We used all the data that was collected from the kids in the orphanages. I’ve been sitting on the news for months now. Just kills aliens, totally harmless to humans. Perfect.”
“Hudson, did it ever occur to you that without a vaccine, there aren’t going to be any humans left on this planet pretty soon?” said the President. Jim was in too much shock to give his opinion.
“Already thought of that sir. Those Z-A boys have collected about half a million unused frozen human embryos from fertility clinics. They’re sitting in freezers just awaiting transplantation. If we can’t breed normally, we’ll do it artificially, until we get a vaccine of course. Meanwhile, if those bastards from outer space ever try to come down here they’ll be dead within hours.”
The President put his head in his hands. “Somebody, how many aliens are on this planet?”
Jim regained his composure enough to answer. “Approximately Three point five billion sir.”
“Three point five billion. Three point five billion,” President Talbot repeated over and over, “Three point five billion. General, I won’t be responsible for killing three point five billion people. I will not authorize release of that virus. General Hudson, I want you to call those Zephyr-Alpha people and tell them to stand down and begin destroying whatever virus stocks you’ve got. Then I want your resignation letter.”
“Too late sir.”
“What do you mean too late?”
“I told you, Zephyr-Alpha is a Cold War legacy project, and a lot of those projects were exempted from the requirement for an executive order to deploy the weapon. Had to do with loss of command and control during a nuclear strike I suppose. I’m the only authority that needs to give the go ahead, and I gave the order a few minutes ago. Right now a plane is being loaded with spray tanks. Within twenty minutes the virus will be nicely distributed.”
“Hudson, order your men to stand down. I want that command rescinded!”
“No can do sir. Z-A has strict instructions to cut all communications once the GO order is given. It’s been policy from back in the Cold War days. They didn’t want some commie impersonator giving false orders. Face it gentlemen, within a week, all alien life on this planet will be over. The only thing left to discuss is the future.” He leaned back in his chair and pulled a large cigar from his jacket pocket. “Sorry kid,” he said in Jim’s direction.
Inside of a mesa, just south of Groom Lake, NV
A blue light silently spins round and round. That’s all. One would think that there would be more fanfare for the harbinger of three billion deaths. Shouldn’t there be some sort of siren, or wail or noise? Even the people in the project are subdued. No one is rushing around completing last minute checks, no one is screaming “Let’s move people, on the double!” or any of the inspirational military phrases you might hear at the movies. These soldiers are all professionals. They have been at their jobs long enough to know what to do and how fast it needs to be done. Calmly and methodically, pilots are checking their instruments, loaders are placing munitions under the wings, commanders are opening sealed envelopes containing classified flight plans. Project Zephyr-Alpha was designed to function even after a catastrophic loss of the chain of command. They know just how much time they have to launch, and they’ll take every minute of it. It takes exactly forty-seven minutes between the detection of a Soviet strike and the time the first missile could reach Nevada. The crews have drilled and drilled in order to go from complete unreadiness to launch in forty-five. No need to rush, all motion is ingrained.
1st Lt. Tom Jacobs lies in his bunk, mesmerized by the blue light spinning above his bed. He knows what it means. He has only been with Z-A for ten months, but he knows what the light means. Deep down in his soul he knows what the light means.
He checks his watch, there are twenty-three minutes left before launch. He’d hoped that he would never have to make this decision. He’d hoped that all the training he had been doing in preparation of his mission would be a waste of time. He’d hoped that the leaders of this world wouldn’t be so stupid as to activate his squadron. He has played this scenario over and over in his head, not sure of which way he’d go. He’d fantasized about being on both sides of the coin, at least until she came along. Now there was only one thing that he could do, only one path to travel. He hugged the pillow to his chest and stared up at the light. There were still twenty-two minutes to go, he could afford another five minutes of apprehension.
Elsewhere in the facility, the planes were preparing for launch. The anti-alien virus, code-named ‘backbreaker’ had been pre-positioned in spray tanks. As soon as the blue light began to flash and the confirmation code was given, flight crews began moving the tanks from their cold storage locations in the bio-containment area to the runway. A full-scale runway existed here, underground. It was impregnable to all but the strongest nuclear blast, and virtually invisible to any satellite that happened to be snapping pictures overhead. You couldn’t land a plane here, but that was never the plan. Once the virus had been released, the planes could land anywhere, the need for secrecy would be over.
Lt. Jacobs picked up the phone near his bed and called his mother. He barely moved. The pillow was still clutched to his chest, his eyes were still on the rotating blue light. “Hello Mom? Don’t talk,” he said, “I don’t have much time.” His mother didn’t know where he was of course. The phone he was using had been sanitized, and no trace anywhere could locate the source of the call. “Mom, I know that you’ve always wanted to know what I’ve been doing on this secret project. Well, I’m pretty sure that you’re gonna find out real soon now. I just wanted to let you know that I love you, and that when people ask what happened here, I want you to know that I did it for Leilana. I can’t say more Mom. I know that doesn’t make any sense right now, but it will soon enough. Just tell the papers that if they ask. I just figure that people’ll... that people’ll want to know that’s all. Bye Mom.” He dropped the receiver on the floor. He looked at his watch again. Sixteen minutes to go. They’d be looking for him soon. He needed to report. The time for reflection was over.
The base housed eight B-1 stealth bombers. They didn’t officially exist of course. There was no record of their purchase on any Department of Defense manifests. The pilots had received no official training on their operation, and no shipments of jet fuel had ever officially been shipped to this base. In each of the eight non-existent airplanes, the non-trained crews finalized their detailed flight paths. The B-1 was capable of extended flight, and the eight planes were to follow eight distinct patterns that would allow them to drop their cargo over the widest possible range. Depending on weather, and if their refueling sites survived, they would be able to achieve 94% coverage of all land areas within three days. A much more efficient delivery system than the silver cylinders employed by the alien invaders.
Lt. Jacobs opened his footlocker. It was the one place he had all to himself, his one inviolate secret place within this most secret of places. Inside were magazine cut-outs, pasted to the lid. They had been lovingly cut out and carefully placed to form a collage of images. He looked at the face of the girl he loved. Leilana Banks, the first Alien-American pop singer to hit it big. He ran his hand over the worn paper, and touched the image of her cheek. She was smiling back at him. She was always smiling, and that’s what made him fall in love with her in the first place. He shed a quick tear. There was no time to listen to the music he had stashed away beneath his uniforms. He would have to hear her voice in his head. He checked his watch one last time. Thirteen minutes to go.
“Where the hell is Jacobs?” said Major Boone. He sat in the cockpit of his plane. The status checks had been completed and they were just awaiting final confirmation from the loaders that the spray tanks had been properly attached. Of course, they were missing their bombardier, an essential component for this mission.
“Here he comes now,” shouted the co-pilot. Jacobs ran across the staging area, still zipping up his flight suit. He dodged his way through the crowd of support personnel and entered the airplane.
“Glad you made it Lieutenant,” said the Captain, “Would hate for you to miss the big show. Hope we didn’t get you off the can or nothing.” There was some chuckling in the cockpit. Tom smiled in mock amusement.
The next four minutes were spent in final flight checks. Everything was ready as far as the pilot was concerned. As the bombardier, it was Tom’s job to ensure that the plane was prepared to not only fly, but to deliver its payload. Their plane was scheduled third for takeoff. Tom watched the line of planes in front as they taxied towards the beginning of the runway. Once they were all lined up, and the arm-codes were given, operation Zephyr-Alpha would be underway.
Zephyr-Alpha was a holdover from Cold War paranoia, and some of their procedures were designed for a different time. Not only were the wings of the planes outfitted with spray tanks containing deadly virus, but they were each armed with two nuclear weapons as well. With the loss of command and control possible in a large-scale conflict, the battle plans of Zephyr-Alpha called for the use of nuclear weapons as a backup. Even though their mission had changed completely, their procedures had never been updated. So each bomber still carried four nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Since the weapons had never officially existed, it was just easier to leave them in service than to figure out a way to dispose of them. Weapons-grade plutonium is a carefully monitored substance, and having a few hundred extra pounds show up somewhere would generate a lot of questions that the Z-A administrators didn’t want to answer.