Samurai

SAMURAI


The NSA satellite picked it out first.

Jack O’Leary was on the shift he hated the most – the eight to five. It was barely two in the morning and he’d been straddling sleepiness and wakefulness rather well but was now decidedly losing the battle to sleep. He picked up the coffee mug from the table next to his operations console with hands that didn’t feel like his own. He managed to press it to his lips when the first alarm blew.

The console indicator he and his colleagues had playfully labeled “UFO” began to blink hysterically. The coffee mug slipped, dropped, and jettisoned its contents on the immaculate floor of the NSA orbital-satellite control center.

“What the he…”, Jack managed to let slip before the next alarm in a bothersome series of five began to chime relentlessly. The indicator in this case had the authentic words, “orbital quadrant 12 security breach”, boldly inscribed. The next three alarms in the series pretty much indicated the same unbelievable occurrence: an alien craft (it had to be) just passed through earth’s orbit into earth’s atmosphere, setting off the security sensors in orbit put in place for just the purpose. The problem was, no one ever really expected the sensors to pick up anything other than rogue meteors. Besides, rogue meteors passing harmlessly into earth’s atmosphere were the target of a different set of sensors, none of which were set off in this case.

This was an alien object flying with intent and purpose.

But how??

Sensors didn’t pick up any readings specific to mechanical craft – which ideally should be the only things capable of purposeful flight, as directed of course. Jack’s analytical mind went to work, putting years of training into use. In a few short seconds he came up with the following:




The five alarms that just went off were rigged to do so upon detecting alien craft (and by ‘alien’ was meant ‘unregistered’ by NASA). All Russian space craft were registered and accounted for – a fall out of the post-cold war treaty. As far as was indicated by the most recent log, no non-US space craft was on any extra-orbital space mission. All US orbital and extra-orbital space craft and installations in space were all accounted for. The only thing designed to set off those alarms was an alien craft, unregistered and unaccounted for; inbound from space. Another thing (perhaps more significant than any other): even the fastest and most advanced space craft on record would have set off those alarms in succession at an interval of at least half a minute – this craft did so at an interval of much less than a second. A quick mental calculation indicated that the craft in question must have been traveling at a fictional speed of at least a hundred thousand miles a second. That was impossible. Nothing man-made could conceivably achieve such speeds – but then again, this was no man-made craft was it?

Jack punched frantically on the keyboard in front of him, instructing the NSA satellite to download pictures and possibly some video of the intruding craft.

The pictures on his monitor revealed nothing. He examined the video recording next.

Zip.

Anxiety flooded in.

The sensors and monitors had various inbuilt fail-safe mechanisms and were not likely to trigger in error.

He decided to examine the video footage more closely, this time in very slow motion. And that’s when he saw it – saw something.

It was a blurred image of something in flight; at incredible speed otherwise the highly sophisticated cameras would have produced sharper images.

He punched a few more buttons, passing the images through a powerful filter and enhancer.

The powerful imaging software didn’t do a hell of a lot to improve what he already had. Still, he was able to make out some blurry image of an object in high speed flight. It was too small to qualify as a craft of any kind. The most alarming feature however was this: for a flying object manifesting evidence of control and intent, there were no signs of any sort of propulsion system. No gas emissions of any kind, nothing to indicate jet propulsion; nothing.

Jack spent the next few minutes articulating his findings so far and then reached for the red phone at the far right end of his console.

                                       


2




General Hammond was especially euphoric tonight.

The afternoon before, he had beaten General Kowalski at a round of golf. This was especially satisfying since Kowalski had this idea that every conceivable sport was largely an intellectual contest and not so much more. To Kowalski, a win in golf (as in any other sport for that matter) could only be attributed to intellectual superiority and so for Hammond, one win weighed against innumerable losses (nonetheless), meant quite a bit.

He came home that night to an incredible meal by Martha his wife and an even more incredible conference between the sheets later on.

At the moment he was high up in the clouds on his white horse sailing through the clouds over unnamable land masses. He’d had this same dream most of his life and especially after a particularly satisfying day. So why was he hearing the relentless chiming of a bell just when his flying horse ‘buddy’ made that familiar grunting sound after achieving a new top speed. Must be some celestial spectator acknowledging his new accomplishment. He smiled radiantly in response to this new addition to his regular flying adventure. Except that the chiming sound didn’t stop, but became even louder and more insistent. And what invisible hands were these nudging him…..

“Wake up Norman”, Martha nudged her husband some more. He stirred, half opened one eye (Martha never quite understood why he did that) and stared at his wife with an eye that hardly saw anything. Martha nudged some more. Two eyes were now half open. Still, the dreamy, dazed expression.

“Oh, for crying out loud Norman”. More nudging. General Norman Hammond finally woke up to the blaring sound of the one apparatus he never expected to hear (not in his life time, he often hoped): the red phone at the far corner of his bedroom; the red phone on the lonely table only the cleaning lady ever really gave any attention; the red phone that was installed as an extension to an older cousin (equally red) at his pentagon office; the red phone that signaled one thing and one thing only (at least so he believed) – trouble.

He got up from the bed with gusto but feeling none of it, walked up towards the phone (which now looked especially ominous), paused for a few seconds; cleared his throat.

“This better be good son”,

“A what!”

“I said it better be good son, not downright fantastic”. The general fell silent as he listened to the voice on the other side elucidate some more.

“Be ready to meet with me and the joint chiefs in half an hour. Bring your nerd colleagues with you.”

“Norman sweetie, isn’t that phone only supposed to ring when there is an U F…”

“Don’t…” the general cut her off, “…say that word Martha. I can’t stand to hear it one more time”.

General Norman Hammond, director of the National Security Agency of the United States of America, stood in his bedroom at his house (a few minutes drive from the pentagon) contemplating the incredible, downright fantastic news he just received, walked over to another phone, this time a white one on his study desk and made the call.