Delphi Nation (Delphi in Space Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 What A Break

  Chapter 2 Board Meeting – Sept 2nd

  Chapter 3 Business Plans

  Chapter 4 Catie’s Surprise

  Chapter 5 Press Conference

  Chapter 6 Miners

  Chapter 7 Board Meeting – Sept 16th

  Chapter 8 What’s an Asteroid?

  Chapter 9 Space Experiments

  Chapter 10 Vancouver Recruiting

  Chapter 11 Board Meeting – Sep 30th

  Chapter 12 Hydroponics in Space

  Chapter 13 Movie Night

  Chapter 14 Market Outing

  Chapter 15 Space Station Tour

  Chapter 16 Know-it-All

  Chapter 17 Board Meeting – Oct 14th

  Chapter 18 Delphi Constitution

  Chapter 19 Independence

  Chapter 20 First Kiss

  Chapter 21 Fusion

  Chapter 22 Board Meeting – Oct 28th

  Chapter 23 Exposé

  Chapter 24 Moving on Up

  Chapter 25 Birthday in Space

  Chapter 26 Protesters on Corners

  Chapter 27 Dropping By

  Chapter 28 Board Meeting – Dec 2nd

  Chapter 29 Russian Doll

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Delphi Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Robert D. Blanton

  Cover by Momir Borocki

  [email protected]

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/

  Chapter 1

  What A Break

  “Well, at least we can take a break,” Marc McCormack said. The news had just announced the end to the standoff between Delphi city in the Cook Islands and the US. Marc was looking forward to some downtime. He, his brother Blake, and his daughter Catie had been going non-stop since Marc had discovered an alien spaceship off the coast of Hawaii. They had formed MacKenzie Discoveries and were trying to introduce the technology from the Sakira in a slow, controlled fashion, but things kept happening that were forcing them to accelerate their timeline.

  “Captain, North Korea has launched a missile,” ADI said. ADI is the digital intelligence that runs the Sakira, Marc’s alien spaceship.

  “Admiral Michaels, I need you to leave the room.”

  “Why, what’s going on?” the admiral demanded. The admiral was a new member of MacKenzie Discoveries and not yet privy to the secret of the Sakira.

  “Please leave the room!” Marc said. The admiral got up and left in a bit of a huff.

  “ADI, bring up a plot of the missile’s trajectory. And what kind of missile is it?” Marc asked.

  “It appears to be a Hwasong-15, one of their long-range missiles,” ADI replied. “I have plotted three possible trajectories; I have them projected on the table.”

  Catie, Marc’s thirteen-year-old-daughter, rushed around the table to look at the trajectories. “Do we have a satellite close enough to knock it down?” she asked.

  Blake joined them at the table, while Samantha Newman, the company lawyer, and Marc’s girlfriend, just sat where she was and held her head in her hands. “You had to say take a break,” she moaned.

  “Tempting fates. You should know better,” Blake said with a chuckle. He leaned over and started examining the map in detail. “All three trajectories show the missile heading for the US,” he said.

  “Why did you kick the admiral out?” Catie asked.

  “I’m not ready to share the satellites with him,” Marc said. “ADI, do we have a targeting solution? And which are the closest Oryxes?”

  “Captain, it is too early for a targeting solution. I should have one in eight minutes,” ADI said. “Oryx Three and Oryx Seven are in orbits that intersect the trajectories I have mapped. However, neither of them can reach the missile before its reentry.”

  “Jason and Carrie,” Catie provided the names of the pilots. “Use Jason, he’s the better pilot.”

  Marc nodded his head in agreement. “ADI, redirect Jason to the intercept point.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Where is the earliest possible targeting solution?”

  “Captain, the missile’s current trajectory indicates that it is targeting Los Angeles. The earliest targeting point is in the southern Bering Sea. I’ve highlighted it on the map.”

  “It’s north of Great Sitkin Island, Alaska, USA,” Blake said. “That’s part of Alaska.”

  “Wow, I didn’t realize that Alaska goes so far to the west,” Catie said. “It looks like the intercept is north of it above international waters.”

  “ADI, probability of success?”

  “I am already moving a satellite into a better position,” ADI said. “Probability of being able to hit the missile is ninety-five percent. I need your objective before I can predict the probability of success.”

  “Give me the probabilities for destroying the missile, for disabling or destroying its rockets, for destroying the warhead, and for disabling the payload so that it burns up on reentry.”

  “The probability of destroying the missile is sixty percent. The probability of disabling the rocket is ninety-eight percent. The probability of destroying the warhead is eighty percent. The probability of disabling the warhead by rupturing its reentry vehicle is eighty-six percent.”

  “Okay, give me the probability of disabling the rocket and then rupturing the reentry vehicle.”

  “Disabling the rocket first raises the probability of rupturing the reentry vehicle to ninety-six percent,” ADI said.

  “Great!” Marc said. “ADI, execute that plan. Where will the reentry vehicle land?”

  “That would depend on whether the warhead explodes,” ADI said. “If it doesn’t explode, it will land within a two-hundred-mile radius, the center of the area is seven hundred miles west of Seattle.”

  “Time to targeting position?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “Time for Jason to reach the targeting position?”

  “Eight minutes.”

  “Why send Jason if he can’t get there in time?” Catie asked.

  “FUD,” Blake answered for Marc. “Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. He doesn’t want anyone to know how the missile was destroyed, preserving the secret that we have satellites in orbit.”

  Marc nodded his head. “Best-case scenario, everyone thinks it was a malfunction. I want Jason close by so the US will pick up something on radar close enough to have done something. He could have fired a missile,” Marc said.

  “What about the warhead?” Blake asked.

  “I don’t think there is one,” Catie said.

  Marc’s head did a little stutter at her pronouncement. “Why not?”

  “I think they’re testing the US intercept capability,” Catie said, “and they want to raise the fear factor in the US to gain more leverage in the negotiations.”

  “How does launching an unarmed missile help there?”

  “They can destroy it before it gets to the US,” Catie said. “Say it was a mistake. The US won’t launch a counterstrike before it hits, it’s only one missile after all.”

  Marc gave a slight nod. “So, by destroying it early?”

  “We mess up their strategy,” Catie said. “They can’t have two launches too close together and still clai
m some kind of mistake.”

  “And the US reaction?”

  “You should get Admiral Michaels back in here,” Samantha said. “This is more his area of expertise.”

  Marc nodded in agreement. Samantha went to the door and invited the admiral back in. Admiral Michaels had been the head of Naval intelligence until the president fired him in a pique of anger. Then fearing for the safety of his family, he had joined Marc in the Cook Islands.

  “Admiral, I apologize for earlier,” Marc said. “But you have to accept that there are certain things that we are not yet ready to share with you.”

  The admiral nodded his head and waited for Marc to go on.

  “It appears that the North Koreans have launched a missile at the United States,” Marc explained.

  The admiral shook his head in shock. “How could you know . . . Doesn’t matter. What do you need from me?”

  “We believe we can shoot the missile down before it reaches its peak,” Marc continued. “We’re trying to gauge the US response.”

  “They’re obviously trying to take advantage of the confusion surrounding the president and Admiral Morris,” Admiral Michaels said, “but firing a missile doesn’t make sense.”

  “Catie believes that the missile is unarmed and that they will have it self-destruct before it reaches US territory,” Marc added.

  “Ah, that makes more sense,” Admiral Michaels said. “If the US shoots it down before it passes the Aleutians, they say it was simply a test, if the US doesn’t shoot it down, they trigger the self-destruct and announce that there was a targeting error during the missile test. If they get by the US defenses, it would really ratchet up the tension in the US and give them more of an edge in the negotiations.”

  “Okay, so what will the president’s response be?” Marc asked.

  “You said you were going to shoot it down, when and where?”

  “Before it reaches its peak altitude,” Marc said. “We’ll hit it just north of Grand Sitkin Island. It should break up and crash about seven hundred miles west of Seattle.”

  “That’s close,” Admiral Michaels gasped. “What about the payload?”

  “We expect it to burn up during reentry,” Marc said.

  “Okay, so the North Koreans will claim it was a test launch and that . . . ,” Admiral Michaels said, then he hesitated as he tried to decide what would happen next.

  “They’ll say it was a success,” Catie interjected. “Taking out the launch vehicle will look like a successful separation, and then it just burns up as planned.”

  “You are probably right,” Admiral Michaels acknowledged. “So that leaves the president ratcheting up his rhetoric. But if he knows better?” The admiral gave Marc a questioning look.

  “We don’t know how much they’re going to be able to see or determine.”

  “If he knows or suspects that you shot it down, he won’t announce that to the public,” Admiral Michaels said.

  “Captain, the missile’s rocket has been destroyed. I am targeting the reentry vehicle now,” ADI said.

  Marc held his hand up as ADI provided the update, “Include everyone and repeat, and include everybody in the rest of the reports.”

  ADI repeated the message, and everyone paused, waiting to hear about the reentry vehicle.

  “The reentry vehicle has burned up and broken apart,” ADI announced. “The debris was scattered in a two-hundred-mile area that is six hundred miles west of Seattle.”

  “As you were saying,” Marc indicated that the admiral should continue.

  “I think the biggest issue will be what he will do about you if he suspects you shot it down. That would significantly raise your threat profile as far as he’s concerned. But after the last debacle, he’s limited in what he can do. Minimally you should expect the CIA to put a lot more effort into trying to infiltrate your position here.”

  “So, we’re basically back to normal,” Marc said with a chuckle.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  Chapter 2

  Board Meeting – Sept 2nd

  “I hope everybody had a good weekend and got a chance to relax after all the excitement of last week,” Marc said as all the board members gathered in the boardroom. “Please, have a seat, and we’ll get started.”

  “I still think we should have gotten a day off,” Blake said. “How many times do you have to avert a disaster to get a day off?”

  Marc laughed, “The world keeps marching along. Let’s discuss where we are after last week’s drama. Admiral?”

  “With the help of ADI, I’ve reached out to my friends in the White House,” Admiral Michaels said. He was referring to the fact that ADI could connect his comm to any cellphone without leaving a trace. “They tell me that the president is still fuming. But they say he is resigned to the fact that seizing Delphi City is no longer an option.”

  “That’s certainly nice to hear,” Samantha said. “What is he saying about North Korea?”

  “They did see your Oryx fly by,” Admiral Michaels said. “But it was too late to have shot the missile down. They’re assuming it was coming to see what was going on. The consensus is that the missile had a normal separation and that the reentry vehicle failed due to flaws in the North Korean design.”

  “I think that is good news,” Marc said.

  “They are wondering how you would have seen the missile launch,” Admiral Michaels said. “That is something I’m wondering myself.”

  “Well, a little wondering is good for the soul,” Marc said. “For now, we continue forward with our plans. I would like you to think about what we could do to permanently resolve the instability caused by North Korea. What do you think about the situation vis-à-vis our families?”

  “I would recommend keeping them outside the US for a while longer,” Admiral Michaels said. “I know we would all like to think we can trust the government not to take advantage of our loved ones, but your new technology threatens too many interests.”

  “I agree,” Marc said. “I just hoped it would be different. Sam?” Marc nodded to Samantha, giving her the floor.

  “We have to reschedule the press conference about the clinics,” Samantha said.

  “Do we really have to?”

  “Hey, the world keeps marching,” Blake said, laughing at Marc’s discomfort.

  “Okay,” Marc said. “Schedule it and let me know.”

  “It’s already scheduled for Friday at two o’clock,” Samantha said, giving Marc a bright smile. “Moving on, we have completed negotiations for the Moroccan automotive plant. Herr Johansson will start construction next week.”

  “Thank you. Kal, how is security going?” Kal was the ex-Marine who Blake had recruited to run security for MacKenzie Discoveries.

  “Our police candidates are doing well,” Kal reported. “This first four rotated back last week. As I explained before, they’ll work here until the next class starts, then go back. But it gives us some community-type police to handle the normal day-to-day stuff.”

  “Good!” Samantha said.

  “The rest of security is going well. Now that we’re off Manuae, it’s a little easier. Much better control of access and one less place to worry about. We’re patrolling the airport on a regular basis now. We send a fresh group on the catamaran every time it makes a trip to Arutanga, and it picks up the off-shift guys on its way back.”

  “That’s a long overnight shift for them,” Blake said.

  “We send two shifts; they break it up into two four-hour shifts,” Kal explained.

  “Looks like you have things covered,” Marc said. “Blake?”

  “Construction is running smooth,” Blake said. “I’ve handed off a lot of the management of the day-to-day to Hakim Mostafa; he ran a construction company back in Syria. He’s picked it all up quickly. We only need to meet once a week.”

  “Sounds like a perfect match,” Marc said.

  “It would be a perfect match if only he drank,” Blake quipped.


  “I suspect it is a perfect match because he doesn’t drink,” Samantha said. She laughed as Blake gave her a silent comment with his hand.

  “You’re probably right,” Blake agreed. “Anyway, the airport is coming along. We’re completing the sections along the side, adding warehouses, hangars, and some office space as needed.”

  “Sounds like you could pick up some more work,” Marc said.

  “NO! Why is the punishment for doing a good job always more work?” Blake asked with a sigh. “I was planning on doing an investigation of how to set up a distillery here so we could make our own scotch.”

  “I’m fine with you having a hobby, but we have a lot of projects to manage,” Marc said.

  “You say that now, but wait until someone decides to embargo our alcohol,” Blake said.

  “I think I’ll fall back on the age-old custom of smuggling,” Marc said. “The Lynx is the perfect ship for that. Speaking of the Lynx, Catie, how are we doing?”

  “Now that we have enough superconductor matrices,” Catie said, “I’ve started making more Lynxes. We’re still using the standard engines so they won’t be able to make orbit, but we can refit them later. We’re going to start building the Oryxes in the space station next week. We’re going slow so we can iron out the process first. Besides, we don’t have a big enough crew up there to run a full production process. We’ve sent four Lynxes out for certification, two to the Kiwis, one to Mexico and one to France.”

  “I assume Sam insisted on France making it to the top of the list,” Marc said.

  “Yep, she even has some friend over there who’s supposed to help expedite the certification.”

  Marc laughed at his girlfriend’s efforts to get them a vacation in Paris without having to spend a day traveling to get there.

  “Last but not least, our asteroids are here,” Catie continued.

  “Asteroids,” Admiral Michaels said. His voice almost squeaked, and he sprayed his last sip of scotch across the table.

  “Oh, I guess there’s no use hiding that from you,” Marc said. “We acquired three asteroids that we will be mining for the materials we need on the space station.”