Although he wouldn’t share with me how the technology worked he assured me that our ship would be ‘masked’ and that the Noridians would mistake it for one of their own. Apparently, this was how he planned on getting us onboard their ship with the element of surprise still intact.
“Won’t they be suspicious and looking out for that kind of deception?” I asked.
“Why would they?” he responded. “Galactic society has had no need for armies or military strategy for millennia. It was our exposure to Earth and specifically my exposure to your military intelligence organizations that taught us how to be devious. Before that I’m afraid that we were all quite naive.”
Suddenly Silva grinned. “That’s one advantage that Coridia now has over everyone else in the galaxy—we won’t be surprised by you Earthers.”
‘Maybe,’ I thought to myself. He might know us better than most off-worlders but if Silva thought a few years living amongst us could teach him millions of lifetimes of Earther survival lessons he had another thing coming.
I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth though and he had more good news to share. Although it wouldn’t be ready for training purposes until we were already a few days into our journey, our ship was using nanotechnology to remodel a portion of itself to duplicate the interior layout of the Noridian ship. We’d all spent a lot of time on her but like a luxury cruise liner we’d only been given access to the upper decks; most of the ship had been off-limits to us. Our boarding party would now be able to train on what we believed to be a perfect replica of the floor plan.
In addition, my concerns about our team being out of practice or in some cases totally unfamiliar with our new assault rifles were laid to rest when I discovered that a portion of our new ship was also being reconfigured as a live fire range. Now even the civilians could get some orientation. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where they’d need that training before we returned them planetside and to the relative safety of Earth, but I liked the idea of being prepared.
After Silva left I spent a long time just thinking.
Although military leaders are trained to make decisions on the fly there is a misconception that we’re trained to make quick decisions. We are trained to think through as many possible scenarios as possible so we’ll (hopefully) not be taken by surprise. It’s called ‘Thinking in the Future in Detail.’
Quick decisions get you killed; applying well thought out decisions quickly can keep you alive.
Our immediate safety seemed relatively secure and we were at a standstill for a couple of more days while essential matériel was being printed. I had authorized a number of our civilian scientific staff (with military escorts) to go planetside and learn more about the Largans so now seemed as good a time as any to take a little time for myself. As fast as things had been moving and as unique as our circumstances were it was time to do some serious soul searching.
Julie had focused us all on what was in retrospect the obvious immediate mission, to take over the Noridian ship and remove the immediate threat to Earth. But then what?
We would do our best to convince the powers that be on Earth that the Noridians were a major threat and that our actions against them had been necessary, but I’d been around long enough to know that there would inevitably be a faction that opposed us and vilified my command.
I was fairly confident that we would be exonerated of any wrongdoing simply because the Coridians were willing to come out into the open. I’m sure they still harbored some hope that we would want to accept their offer to make Earth a protectorship so they had every motive to support us against Noridia.
Of course discovering that there had been an alien presence on Earth for several hundred years was going to be a shock in its own right—this was the only part we’d left out of our reports we were sending to Earth. I felt that everything would go a lot smoother if we were there when this became known.
The best I could figure, this left Earth with three challenges.
First, how would the Noridian Dynasty respond to us removing Jaki and her people from the equation? Would they attack? Would they forget about us? Not likely. If they were inclined to retaliate and press their demands on Earth we didn’t have the technology to resist them - so we’d have to figure out a way to discourage them from being aggressive with us. Taking out the Noridian ship would buy us some time but it didn’t remove the problem.
Dr. Spencer and Dr. Spelini were off to try and solve that very challenge but Mark himself didn’t give it much chance of success and I knew we couldn’t just sit back and hope it worked—we needed to come up with our own solution.
Secondly, how do we prevent Silva and the Coridians from simply replacing the Noridians with themselves—going around us and offering Coridian protection and technology to all the Earther world leaders? Silva was acting respectful to our wishes but these were high stakes and I had no idea how much pressure he might be under to make this happen.
Finally, what about all the Earth politicians and governments that would see an advantage for themselves by siding with the Coridians? Assuming we could keep the Coridians from going around us straight to Earthers, what’s to keep Earthers from going straight to the Coridians? Hell, I wasn’t even confident that my own government wouldn’t disregard our warnings.
Human psychology is a funny thing. If any other Earther government wanted to take away our sovereignty we would fight tooth and nail but I had a certainty in my gut that many politicians would see this differently. Especially since the benefits of getting great technology and a much improved standard of living would be immediate and the negative repercussions of losing our independence to a bunch of galactic aliens that nobody ever had, and most people probably never would meet, could take generations to unfold; and most importantly, if those same politicians could keep their jobs and power and practice business as usual… well, I didn’t have any confidence at all that they couldn’t justify selling out the (Earther) human race.
Three pressing challenges that I didn’t have a solution for.
Three challenges that I needed a contingency plan for.
Or did I?
Was this really my responsibility? I had promised Mike I was prepared to take out the Noridian ship even if my superiors ordered me not to. I still felt this was my duty and we would accomplish it, but we would almost certainly be ordered to stand down after we did. Mike and I are both soldiers. We would defend our planet from an imminent threat no matter what but there could be no justification for disregarding orders once that imminent threat was removed. We would have to turn over the future of our planet to the politicians. As hard as the pressure of command had been to bear in this ordeal, was I willing to set back on the sidelines just watching; or worse, being kept in the dark? I know I need to take my selfish emotions out of it—of course I want to be a part of everything but do I have that right if the powers that be say differently? If by chance I didn’t have to break orders to take out the Noridian ship there was still a chance I would be in the mix because of my experience with the situation, but I and my team would no longer be making decisions or calling any shots. The government would take the burden from our shoulders and handle it from there. Why then wasn’t I relieved at that thought? Why did it only leave me with a sense of dread?
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had nightmares about petty politicians making petty and selfish decisions that traded away our future. Try as I might, I couldn’t visualize any scenario where a majority of our leaders didn’t sell out; and even if the United States refused the trap of Coridian or Noridian Protectionism it would only take one country to accept to change the balance of power on Earth.