Chapter 1: The Hive<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI<\/strong>n hindsight, we should have seen it coming,\u201d the general began. It was all I could do not to stifle a yawn. He wasn\u2019t a bad speaker per se\u2014which was good, because the man loved to hear himself speak\u2014but it was far too early and far too warm on the bridge of the old barge for me not to feel the slightest bit drowsy. An ankle dug into my shins from my right, and I snapped back to attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan you take this seriously?\u201d hissed the voice that owned the boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay, okay, I get it. But you know we\u2019re the extras on stage today, right?\u201d I whispered back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve still got a part to play. You\u2019re buying Mom\u2019s ticket to Svalbard, remember?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFine, fine, I get it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n My little brother, ever the straight arrow. Still, he was right\u2014this was a somber stage, and a little respect would go a long way for my carefully cultivated self-image here. I straightened up in my chair and tuned back in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe anomalous structure we\u2019ve come to know as the Hive we believe to be a periodic phenomenon of unknown nature. While the specifics are beyond my grasp, the bottom line is this: every 1200 years the Hive appears, and a global superstorm accompanies it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, that much was obvious. It was hard not to notice that we were nearly a hundred miles out at sea\u2014and well over a thousand from the nearest city\u2014and you\u2019d still be hard-pressed to find a star in the sky. In fact, we\u2019d seen the Hive the day we left port in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat appears to be unique this cycle is the appearance of unknown types of humanoid creatures stemming from the Ross Ice Shelf.\u201d Right, we knew that part too. Nobody on Earth would sign on for this suicide mission if they hadn\u2019t heard the tales of biblical armies slaughtering cities. I\u2019m sure there were some real heroes out among the half million men on cramped boats heading to Antarctica right now, and General West might have even been one of them, but I sure as hell wasn\u2019t. Luckily, despite the Beretta holstered to my thigh, I had been assured by every power that be that I wouldn\u2019t be fighting. Thank the Lord. So why were my hands trembling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The overhead projector whirred, and a dim, yellowish image of the continent flashed up on the wall. The captain gestured, and a short Slavic man stood up and peered at us through half-inch-thick glasses. Without so much as an introduction, the old man began speaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere is the center of the storm,\u201d the old professor said, gesturing to the scratched-out name McMurdo on the map. Unfortunate as it was for the poor bastards stationed there, had it popped up at any of the less populated, less traveled outposts on Antarctica, it might have been weeks before we\u2019d known about it. The old man continued. \u201cFrom its epicenter extends a 500 km region of extreme anomalous semiconductor interference. This field decreases in strength but has created a number of substantial\u2026 difficulties for us worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n My degree didn\u2019t mean much here. I\u2019m not sure anyone\u2019s did. All we knew was that one night, everything broke. It wasn\u2019t just computers and phones\u2014that would have been disaster enough. Everything broke. Power plants, merchant ships, traffic lights\u2014you name it, and it was suddenly rendered useless. At first, the hypothesis among everyone was electromagnetic radiation, something like a big solar flare, but nobody could find any visible signs of damage, and things like radio communication (albeit with old vacuum-tube-based sets) still worked fine. All the way up in Scandinavia, there were rumors that systems as complex as calculators were still functioning, but down here\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese difficulties are most pronounced on the Antarctic shelf itself. The equipment we have collected from the volunteer nations around the world has not ever been tested in such conditions, but we believe, with good reason, it will still survive\u2026\u201d He trailed off. That wasn\u2019t much of a shock. The odds of a D-Day-sized invasion of Antarctica repelling an unknown (though a man like Professor Sokholov would never admit it) and likely supernatural army were slim to none. But nobody got to bring F-16s to this battle. The UN had tasked each Security Council member to pull out all the stops and find hardware from before the transistor was even an idea in someone\u2019s head. I looked out at the deck of our old cargo ship and caught the glint of dim moonlight off the barrels of a dozen howitzers. I heard we got those from the National Park Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The professor began rambling about previous sightings of the Hive in historical records\u2014the famines of 870 AD, the red fires that filled the skies, etc. Of course he had quite a time talking about his own work back before his arrest. Around 0430, the general finally decided to cut him off. \u201cProfessor Sokholov, that\u2019s quite enough. We still need to discuss the operation.\u201d With a slight pout, the old man sat back down. A bit petulant for a man in his seventies, but I was sure I\u2019d get there someday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All at once, the general turned to face me. My blood froze. Did I forget to leave my briefing on his desk? I caught a hint of a smile in his steel-blue eyes, though. \u201cSergeant Drake, since you\u2019ve been here the longest, would you care to brief the crew?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cU-um, sir, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d be the right\u2014\u201d I started to say before I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder. Of course my brother had put him up to this. The bastard. He thrust a stack of transparency film into my coat pocket. It was best not to keep the general waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I stood up and loaded the sheets into the old projector. All of a sudden, I felt two dozen sets of eyes on my face. I breathed, counted to five, and exhaled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThank you, General.\u201d I began. \u201cThough we don\u2019t yet understand the precise mechanics of the Hive, we do know a great deal about it.\u201d I advanced the slide, and a grainy photo appeared. To the untrained observer, it probably looked something like a black-and-white photo of an incandescent light bulb. I gave the crowd plenty of time to appreciate the details (or lack thereof) before continuing. \u201cThe Hive, simply put, confounds modern science. As of yet, we don\u2019t know anything about the composition or mechanism behind it, the storm that accompanies it, or the\u2026 creatures that it appears to spawn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That drew a few murmurs from the crowd. That was probably the most generous way anyone had ever described them. Most had taken to simply calling them demons, and that wasn\u2019t too far off the mark. Most descriptions were of gaunt, tall humanoids: ashen red skin, sunken hollows for eyes, prehensile tails\u2014the whole nine yards. Think any depiction of \u201cdemon\u201d minus the pitchforks and wings, and you wouldn\u2019t be too far off. To a\u2026 man\u2026 every one of them had some measure of physical deformity, large or small. Some simply had crooked spines, while others had entire additional tumorous appendages. I wasn\u2019t particularly well-versed in this, but my understanding was that their body was a sort of large cancerous mass\u2014a malignant tumor of sorts\u2014that granted them incredible regenerative properties. The stories from the early days of the invasions across South America were the stuff of nightmares\u2014and yet here we were, an honest-to-goodness volunteer army gearing up to fight beasts that would eat buckshot for breakfast and come back for seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I caught my mind wandering and snapped back to my slides. \u201cWhat we do know is that the Hive itself constitutes an incredibly powerful energy source\u2014far in excess of anything we can sustainably produce or maintain here on Earth. Through it streams 10\u00b9\u00b2 W of broad-spectrum radiation\u2014though mostly long-wave infrared\u2026\u201d I caught the eyes of the general in the crowd, silently pleading with me in English, please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I cleared my throat and set down the carefully scrawled notes I had written for someone else to hopefully give. No use getting stressed by something like this on a day like today. \u201cSimply put, the Hive is a generator, and every single minute, minute by minute, flows the power of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.\u201d I gestured out the window to the swirling storm that blotted out most of the faint crimson sky. \u201cIn the time we\u2019ve been talking, thirty-five \u2018bombs\u2019 have gone off high in the atmosphere, their heat powering the air currents that make this storm.\u201d I walked back over to the projector and gestured at the small glowing orb in the center of the frame. \u201cAll from this 5-foot sphere\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A hand shot up from the crowd. One of the young Brits on my brother\u2019s team. Miles I think. Far too young to even be here, but not too young to ask the question of the hour. \u201cAnd the anomalous interference?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Hive very likely powers that too, though we don\u2019t yet understand how\u2026\u201d I trailed off. The faces in the audience had grown dark. These were powers beyond the reckoning of modern science. I tried to put it into terms they could understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe aim of this mission is the destruction of the Hive.\u201d Ears perked up. \u201cThis photo was taken by one of our WB-57 aircrews on loan from NASA. At their closest approach, they were still 60,000 feet below the target and didn\u2019t have the speed or power to fly any further into the storm without being torn apart. From this data, we learned that the Hive is completely surrounded by winds exceeding 500 knots and seems to hover between 100,000 and 120,000 feet\u2014well outside the reach of most modern aircraft. Of course, as you all know, we don\u2019t have the luxury of working with modern aircraft\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The theory behind the Hive was simple enough. There was a debate months ago during the DC hearings about how to model the structure itself and whether physics as we knew it applied\u2014but everyone eventually agreed on three things. First, priority over understanding the Hive was to stop the deleterious effects it was having on the world\u2014primarily the interference it was causing to our electronics, and secondarily the storm that would render much of the Southern Hemisphere unlivable in due time. Second, how <\/em>exactly the Hive worked was far less important than what<\/em> it was doing. Third, and certainly most contentious, the Hive probably still obeyed the laws of thermodynamics. I wasn\u2019t personally too convinced on that one, but on the other hand, it didn\u2019t make sense to try to fight unknowns with unknowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan that followed was simple enough. The labcoats like Sokholov concluded that even if the Hive could convert its pure mass to energy (like a giant atomic bomb, for example), it would have fizzled out weeks ago\u2014therefore, the Hive was just a conduit. Imagine a transmission line, likely sized to only carry a certain amount of current, and only in one direction. If someone were to try to force through a tremendous amount of energy from the other side, they might just be able to burn it out. Now we were into the meat and potatoes of the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn order to destroy the Hive, we need to deliver a nuclear weapon to the core. Lacking any computerized guidance solutions, a pilot will have to physically deliver the warhead to target. This means not only climbing to that altitude but penetrating the storm surrounding the Hive and traversing through potentially hostile airspace to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I clicked the next slide into place, and a blotchy yellow schematic flashed up on the projector screen. \u201cThis is the primary vehicle\u2014an experimental X-15B and the only one of its kind. With 20,000 lbs of fuel aboard, a single pilot, and a modified AIR-2A nuclear weapon, it should be able to not only climb to altitude but retain the speed and control to penetrate the storm walls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShould?\u201d asked General West. \u201cShould as in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe ran through the numbers to the best of our abilities back before we left, but frankly, there are still too many unknowns to really\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen give me the number, damn it!\u201d he shouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c63%. There\u2019s a 37% chance the aircraft disintegrates when it tries to breach the storm\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The silence felt oppressive. In truth, 63% was incredibly generous. If the hasty modifications to the plane and the rocket sled we brought worked in the cold, and if it could cross fifty-odd miles of demonically infested airspace without being shot down, and if all the controls and equipment even worked that close to the core\u2026 Truth be told, I\u2019d say the odds were at best 1 in 3\u2014and calling it anything but a suicide mission wouldn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGo on, sonny.\u201d The voice this time was an old man of at least seventy. With the thick accent of a farm boy all these years later, he was the oldest of the crew, and everyone just called him \u201cGramps.\u201d He was our pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I turned to General West. \u201cGram\u2014uh, Major Burton here was informed of the risks and volunteered for the mission. He\u2019s one of the few men left with any hypersonic flight experience on the X-15, and our single best shot at destroying the Hive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The general cocked his head for a second. \u201cBut you\u2019re not telling me we only have one shot at this, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe do have a second aircraft, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, go on then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna like it, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a helluva lot about this situation I already \u2018don\u2019t like\u2019\u2014lay it on me, son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I clicked the next slide into place. A tiny, lawn-dart of an aircraft flashed up on the projector, carrying a rocket almost as large as it was. \u201cGiven the conflicting information in early reports about the presence of hostile air elements, we deemed it prudent to prepare an escort aircraft for the X-15B. In the event the X-15 is seriously damaged or destroyed in transit, the escort is equipped to complete the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEquipped to?\u201d the general asked, clearly looking uneasy at the flimsy-looking plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTechnically, yes. It\u2019s an old NF-104 \u2018Starfighter\u2019 that was supposed to be fully converted into a research plane during the Apollo program. It was easy enough to strip out the fire-control radar, most of the instrumentation, and install the necessary hardware for the JATO system. Then we just swapped out her fuel for hydroboranes and overhauled her\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t answer my question, son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI beg your pardon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow much legwork is \u2018technically\u2019 doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The old bastard was sharp\u2014I\u2019ll give him that. Truth be told, the F-104 was my baby, and the entire reason a museum conservationist like me got to go on this expedition to begin with. Still\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s the very last Starfighter, sir, and she was never designed to fly this high or this fast in weather this cold. We\u2019ve pulled out every stop we can think of to reinforce the hull, stretch the fuel tanks, and upgrade the engines, but at the end of the day\u2026 we estimate about a 3% chance of success if it had to be used to carry out the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, even that estimate was insanely generous. In truth, it was as likely the airframe would melt from the speeds we\u2019d be pushing it to as it was to disintegrate when it hit the bulk of the winds. Even the nuke we\u2019d armed it with was older and less sophisticated than the X-15\u2019s, but powerful enough still it probably couldn\u2019t escape the blast radius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c3%…\u201d The general repeated for a moment, looking genuinely unsure. Like most brass, he\u2019d been given the broad brushstrokes of the picture. We\u2019d sail down to Antarctica on a requisitioned Coast Guard icebreaker while half a million poor souls gave their lives to buy us time to set up. We\u2019d then fly a very old plane carrying an even older nuke into a big storm and hopefully save the world. He looked positively deflated having just been told that the best mankind had to offer in the face of its own extinction amounted to a weighted coin toss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A thin German man strolled up to the front. Ernst was in his mid-fifties now, and accent aside, had integrated well into the crew over these past few weeks. He was also one of the few pilots around today with any experience on the F-104. He was the only sonofabitch who laughed when I told him his odds of coming home alive\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a grin on his face, he patted the general\u2019s shoulder and looked to me. \u201cSo when do we start?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter 1: The Hive \u201cIn hindsight, we should have seen it coming,\u201d the general began. It was all I could do not to stifle a yawn. He wasn\u2019t a bad speaker per se\u2014which was good, because the man loved to hear himself speak\u2014but it was far too early and far too warm on the bridge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-serial","category-laststarfighter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dannysserverserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}