The Commander Page 4

  “As long as I don’t have to wear this business suit anymore, I’m in.”

  Her new task was purchasing. The hand-scanner worked fine for food, but not for complex hard goods. Luke wanted her to buy one of everything necessary to supply the Moonbase and then transport the goods to where George had sophisticated scanning tools. Once scanned, each item would be permanently available in the replicator inventory.

  Luke’s plan was to furnish several of the living quarters to function as model homes. It would give the soon-to-be residents a head start in creating their new lives on the moon.

  “Can you take care of this for me?” Luke asked.

  “You kidding? You’re asking a woman if she has a problem with shopping? I will handle this. What’s your next project?”

  “We need a chief of operations for Moonbase. Before we begin recruiting large numbers of people, we have to have someone who can keep everything running. My last boss was a colonel in the air force. Doctor Roth Higgins; he has a PhD in physics. He always thought of himself as a scientist. I felt the military was something he did to stay around leading-edge tech. Last I heard he was working at UNLV. I bet he would be open to what we have to offer.”

  “Sounds like the guy.”

  “He’s gotta be in his sixties, though. I’m hoping he still has some of the adventurous spirit that some of the old service guys have.”

  “Like you?”

  Luke chuckled at the thought. “Not at all. The only thing I want is a small office with no responsibility. Then I can hang out and have a beer now and then.”

  “Is that what you call what we’re working on, saving mankind from a massive alien invasion?”

  “Well, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I don’t really see me becoming some kind of interstellar warlord. If we can just get this thing working, it should take on a life of its own.”

  Annie shook her head skeptically. “So when are you leaving?”

  “Next Monday. I called and got an appointment with him. I’ll go down on the Gulfstream.”

  Annie glanced out the window at the luxury aircraft sitting on the tarmac. The pilot was walking around the jet, giving it a visual inspection before taking off once again. “I could get really spoiled flying on that thing,” she admitted.

  “More so than with Sadie?”

  “Sadie won’t let me drink alcohol. They give me wine coolers.”

  “She probably thinks you’re too young for booze.”

  “Oh, right. Should I start calling you Grandfather?”

  Luke smiled at his young colleague. He did think of her as a youngster and hoped he hadn’t made it too obvious. “If this works out, I’ll be back the same day.”

  # # #

  Luke was surprised by how much Roth had aged. He seemed a bit smaller than Luke remembered. His hair was thinner now and had gone completely white. But his eyes were bright as ever and the friendly smile was just as broad. Books were stacked everywhere around his office. The floor-to-ceiling bookcases behind Roth’s desk were stuffed with manuscripts, thick tomes, and documents of all kinds. One side of the small room was paneled with four-by-eight-foot dry erase boards filled with colorful notes and diagrams.

  “I like your place here, Colonel,” Luke said affably, admiring the academic’s office. He sat across from his old mentor. In their first assignment together, Roth had been Luke’s instructor pilot.

  “Thanks, Luke. But nobody calls me colonel anymore, and frankly, I prefer it that way.”

  “So what do they call you? Professor? Doctor Higgins?”

  “The students feel obligated to use Doctor. But why don’t you and I stick with Roth? So what brings you here? Just passing through or did you get hit by a wave of nostalgia? I wouldn’t have thought that of you.”

  Luke shrugged as if uncertain how to start. Might as well plunge right in. “Frankly, it’s a job opportunity.”

  “Oh? Okay.” Roth nodded. “You need a recommendation or something? That’s not a problem.”

  Luke smiled at the misconception. “No, but I appreciate the thought. I meant this is an opportunity for you. It’s science oriented. I guess you could say it involves space science. I’d like to show it to you today, if you have time.”

  Roth was surprised. “For me? No. Thanks anyway, Luke. I’m perfectly comfortable here. My schedule is accommodating and on weekends I’ve got a fishing boat I can take out to Lake Mead. I’m not interested in starting a new career.”

  “Understood. I figured that’s what you’d say. I felt exactly the same until recently. This gig was sort of pushed into my lap. Before this I was the airport director up in Baggs. You know Baggs?”

  “Couple of hours east of Reno, isn’t it? You drive down here to see me?”

  “That’s it. Small town. But I didn’t drive. I came down here in a Gulfstream 450. Helps take the sting out of travel.”

  Roth smiled and sat back in his chair. “You trying to suck me in? I’ve been in executive jets before.”

  Luke grinned and leaned forward, his elbows on Roth’s desk. “Yeah, I know. You used to fly around on those tiny Citations with some two-star. But not like this one. This is beyond first class. Come on. At least let me show off a little. I’ll have you back here tonight; I promise.”

  Roth chuckled. “You must have some fancy lab if you want me to see it that bad. You gotta understand, Luke; I’m not interested. I’ll come take a look for old time’s sake, but I’m telling you, nothing’s going to impress me that much.”

  Day 61—Population 3

  Luke watched the emotions play across Roth’s face in the Moonbase One hangar. They had just gotten out of the shuttle and Luke knew from experience that Roth was still struggling to come to grips with everything he’d been told during the trip from Earth.

  Roth looked at his watch. “I guess I was wrong about not being impressed,” he whispered to himself. “Thirty-three minutes from takeoff. That’s around five hundred thousand miles per hour.” He gave Luke a quizzical glance. “So what do you have in mind? I haven’t said yes, though, by the way. But this…”

  Roth trailed off as Luke guided him through the food court toward the training room. A disheveled Annie met them coming the other way. She was pushing a huge stack of heavy furniture without apparent effort. Luke explained that sensors reversed the gravity under the pile of furnishings to slightly negative as Annie pushed it along and then changed it back to one gee once she passed.

  “Hi,” Annie greeted them cheerily. “Did he take your offer yet?”

  “Not yet. Roth, this is my colleague, Annie Daniels. She’s our finance director. We recruited her from Royal Deutsche Banque.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, he’d recruited Annie from a cheap diner in Baggs, but a formal version might be more palatable for someone like Roth. Not that she looked much like a financier in her current condition.

  “Please hurry and say yes, Professor. He won’t hire anyone else until you’re onboard. In the meantime, I’m doing all the grunt work.” She didn’t stop to chat further, just kept moving down the corridor.

  The two men watched her retreating figure for a moment and then stared at each other, unsure what to say.

  “Is she…?” Roth asked uncertainly.

  “Totally off limits,” Luke replied firmly before continuing to the training room.

  “Okay.” Roth nodded. “That’s smart.”

  “Anyway.” Luke broke the awkward silence. “You were the best boss I ever had. You’ve got the management skills to handle a big organization. You’ve got a scientific background. You are the perfect fit for this job and I can’t tell you how critical it is that we get started.”

  “What’s the job exactly?” Roth asked.

  “Your job would be to run this place. I see it as a mirror to when you were a commander at Nellis. You brought their very first F-35 squadrons to mission ready status. That was a brand new fighter with technology most of us had never seen. Same thing here. You’ll need a maintenance
chief, engineers, logistics, and a personnel chief.”

  “How much of that is in place right now?” Roth asked.

  “You, me and Annie.”

  Roth shook his head.

  “This is the training room,” Luke explained. “Let me introduce you to George. He’s the resident AI. George, this is Dr. Roth Higgins.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Higgins.”

  “I’m leaving you here for a few minutes,” Luke told Roth. “George is going to give you a thorough overview of what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s more understandable when you see his presentation. Ask questions at any time.”

  Roth had a long discussion with George. Luke joined afterward to talk about the threat mankind was facing and the mammoth task in preparing to meet it. Two hours later the men departed Moonbase One for Baggs.

  “I’ll give the university a week’s notice,” Roth said.

  “Perfect,” Luke agreed. “That will give you enough time to spread the word about the great job opportunities in PDEF. We start advertising this weekend. The public pitch is that we’re building a new research facility in an undisclosed location, one that’s rough and inhospitable. We hint, but won’t confirm, it’s in the Antarctic. We encourage job seekers to bring their families. Other than that, all we promise is that it is a remote, extended duration contract where employees will be out of touch with people back home. No cell service at the South Pole…or here.”

  “When will you tell them what’s really going on?”

  “I won’t. They’ll figure it out when they get to Moonbase One.”

  “Kind of harsh, don’t you think?” Roth asked.

  “Not as harsh as having our planet blown away,” Luke replied, putting that question firmly to rest. “Let me know if there is anybody in particular you want and I’ll visit them in person.”

  “How will you review everyone? You’re going to get thousands of resumes, you know. And most of them won’t be accurate.”

  “I know,” Luke said. “We contracted with NexGen Recruiting and other big headhunting firms. They’ve got systems in place to do that kind of screening. Annie had our attorneys customize their standard contracts. We established rewards for bringing in the right people and stiff penalties for giving us duds.”

  “I’d like to bring in Samantha Meyer,” Roth suggested. “Last I heard she was the head of Space Systems in Denver. She’s a real tiger and one of the brightest people I’ve ever met. And she’ll know who else is a good fit.”

  “Let her know I’ll be calling on her. If you can get me an appointment, even better. One more thing,” Luke added.

  “What’s that?”

  “Welcome aboard, Roth.”

  # # #

  Samantha Meyer was an easy recruit. She’d crossed paths with Roth a decade earlier and her respect for the older gentleman rivaled Luke’s own. She expected Luke’s visit, having been prompted by Roth to accept a quick flight on the Gulfstream.

  Once Samantha was on board she and Roth decided the next item on the to-do list was a construction crew. Once the recruitment process kicked into gear they would be bringing on hundreds of people a week. That meant building a host of facilities and everything that was part of constructing a small city. That including providing homes for everyone to live in.

  Samantha sent Luke after Ambrose Baker, the senior manager for engineering and construction at a large multi-national corporation. He, in turn, brought along structural engineers, architects, and an entire construction team. Luke promised the builders a full year contract, with options to stay longer if they wished.

  Everyone hired had to sign an employment agreement acknowledging they would be out of touch for a full year.

  Annie in particular breathed a huge sigh of relief when the construction crew showed up. She had been running ragged, furnishing all of the existing rooms. With the arrival of the construction team, Luke sent Annie back to Earth almost full time.

  She flew to Seattle where she contracted with the international firm, Okada Accounting, to manage their payroll and other financials. Even if their employee’s worldly needs were being supplied, wages still had to be deposited to real bank accounts. Talented scientists could be tempted by exciting research, but people wanted to know there was a paycheck somewhere.

  Luke didn’t want Annie getting bogged down with accounting and auditing requirements. She complained that she could handle those activities; she was an accountant, after all. Her complaints vanished when he tasked her to oversee the infrastructure development of the Baggs airport, starting with a thousand-bed luxury hotel and convention center.

  Luke hated to dump so much on her young shoulders, but her financial skills weren’t necessary on the moon; money didn’t exist at Moonbase. Instead, he needed a partner planetside who knew what was going on. Someone had to prepare for the day when the secret of Moonbase One’s existence became public.

  “It’s going to happen at the end of the first year,” he told her. “That’s when the employment contracts start expiring.”

  Luke hoped most of their recruits would remain on the moon, but if even a few employees returned to their hometown, the word would be out. When that happened, he expected two significant events. First, he could openly recruit people to come work on the moon; and second, their growth would explode. They had to be ready for that growth. It meant infrastructure on the moon, of course, but it also meant preparing a base of operations Earthside. The airport at Baggs was going to be that base and Annie had to get it ready.

  Day 80—Population 27

  “We don’t have weapons?” Luke asked. It was an unsettling discovery.

  “None at all,” Lou Morrow admitted. Morrow had arrived the day before to oversee the fleet development for a new space navy.

  Morrow was the second oldest guy on the moon, next to Roth. He had a grizzled look, earned from a lifetime of building mammoth seaworthy vessels. Samantha said that Morrow was the last true visionary when it came to shipbuilding. He was responsible for many of the advances built into new aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines

  The morning after his arrival Morrow went to his new boss, Samantha, and insisted on having an emergency meeting with Luke. In turn Samantha pulled in her boss, Roth. They now sat at the small conference table in Luke’s Moonbase office.

  “But that’s what you’re going to build, right?” Luke asked. “You will meet our need for ships and weapons.”

  Morrow looked at the ceiling. “George, why don’t you summarize what we talked about last night.”

  “Of course, Lou,” George responded. “Commander, Mr. Morrow is referring to my lack of knowledge about weapons systems that are capable of mounting an effective strategic campaign against the alien advance.”

  “What do you mean, your lack of knowledge? If authorization is a problem, I’m authorizing you to tell him everything you know.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” George replied. “That was assumed. His concern is that I have no knowledge of such weapons.”

  “Seriously? I mean you really have no such knowledge? Are you holding back? Is this a limitation imposed by the Nobility?”

  “While that is a possibility, I think it improbable. If it is true, I’m not aware of the fact. Beyond that, if you’re asking am I deliberately holding back information, I assure you that is not the case.”

  “Then how are we supposed to fight the aliens?”

  “That, Commander, I do not know. I must confess I was curious about your plan.”

  Luke looked at Morrow. “Well, that sucks.”

  Morrow nodded sourly. “‘Appears there’s a lot you didn’t tell me when I signed on with this outfit’,” Lou quoted.

  Luke was sympathetic. “Yeah, if you only knew. But that doesn’t solve the problem. George, what would you suggest.”

  “I don’t have any suggestions Commander Blackburn. Your planet’s combat armaments would be ineffectual in a modern conflict.”

  “What about phasers and photon t
orpedoes and those sort of things?”

  “Those are fictional concepts, Commander.”

  “Yeah, I know that. But can’t you invent them or come up with something similar?”

  “I apologize, Commander, but the concept of creativity is not in my programming. I can assist your scientists to the maximum of my ability, which is significant. But in any case, my conjecture is those types of weapons would be ineffectual in modern combat.”

  “Why is that?” Morrow asked.

  George’s voice took on the tone of a college professor. “Lou, my assumption is that you intend to use manned spacecraft to locate and engage the alien navy. But my current ability to detect Bakkui ships is non-existent. Certainly, my archives do not include details of any such contact. Without detection, targeting is impossible.”

  “This gets worse and worse,” Morrow groused.

  “Consider the following,” George said. “To be useful in interplanetary combat, sensor technology must detect and identify combatants that are millions of miles away. This is due to the speed of spaceflight.”

  “Okay. Makes sense,” Morrow admitted.

  “I do not possess that ability. Further, my lack of sensor technology does not even address questions associated with offensive weapons. Will the engagements occur at light speed? If so, your so-called phaser blasts will be slower than your combat vessels.”

  “Luke,” Morrow said somberly. “This is kind of a reality check for me. I’m not saying there’s no answer, but right now, I’m not sure I even know what the questions are.”

  “What can I do?” Luke asked.

  “I need scientists and theoreticians. And I need to know what limits I have regarding George.”

  “As far as George goes, you can’t physically touch him, of course. But regarding access, he is totally available. George, you got any problem with that?”

  “Not at all, Commander.”

  “No secrets? None at all?”

  George replied after a several-millisecond pause, “None whatsoever, Commander.”