The invasion of the crazy bots

The image was grainy, but clearly showed four even triangular faces of an apparently geometric shape amongst a field of stars.

"What is it?" Asked General Tratorez.

Doctor Carlton was nervous at the focus of the warlords' attention, especially because he had very little information to offer them. "Well, sir, from our perspective, it looks like it could be a pyramid; but it is possible that there is additional geometry on the far side that we can't see. But it appears to be a pyramid and it appears to be pointing directly at the Earth."

An ugly general with an eye patch asked, "So what are you saying?"

Doctor Carlton hesitated. He stuttered as he struggled for something new to say. "Well sir, um, it appears to about 500 metres wide. Its difficult to say what it's length is, but it certainly appears to be a pyramid and it certainly appears to be pointing at us. Now maybe, there is additional geometry on it's far side, but for now, all we can see is a..."

"You've told us all this." Said the general with an eye patch, "Twice! Tell us what it is! Tell us how fast it is travelling and where it will strike the Earth."

"Ah, yes. Yes sir. It is difficult to say at this point, but based on its currently trajectory and with respect to the rotation of the Earth it will land in the Atlantic Ocean about 940 kilometres west of Spain."

"And how fast is it going!"

"About 85,000...no sorry 53,200 miles per hour."

"And it is pointed directly at the Earth?"

"Yes sir. It is defiantly artificial and it is defiantly pointed at the Earth."

"Extraterrestrials.." The president said.

"Yes."

"What will happen when it hits the ocean?" The general with the eye path asked.

"Well, the main variable that we need more data for is its length, or hight. We know how wide it is at the base, about 500 metres or so, but since it is pointing directly at us, we cannot tell how long it is. According to the simulation that we ran, it will create a Tsunami that will radiate from that point of impact and cause a five to twenty metre wave surge that will inundate much of the Atlantic rim. Obviously there will be plenty of time to evacuate people from low-lying areas, but there will certainly be significant damage to the east coast of North and South America. Spain has the advantage of a steep coast line but they will be hard hit, no doubt about it.

"When will it impact?"

"Based on it trajectory and velocity, about two in the Afternoon, Washington time, September the tenth."

"Two weeks?" Said he general with the eye patch.

"Yes sir. Two weeks, two days, ten hours and about forty two minutes."

"We must destroy it." Said that general with the eye patch.

"Now lets not jump to conclusions here." The president cautioned, " It might not be hostile. And if it is, their technology is obviously far superior to ours. There is probably nothing that we could do to stop it. Is that a safe assumption Doctor?"

"Yes, probably. Even if it couldn't prevent us from putting a device beside it to alter its trgectory we are not ready to launch anything at it. There are no multi stage rockets ready to go that we could equip with a nuclear device."

The president continued, "I think that we need to try and communicate with it. To see if there is anything that we can provide it with. Food perhaps. Entertainment."

"Mister President." General Tratorez spoke up, "we do have twenty nuclear devices currently in orbit. Doctor, I will remind you at this point of you obligation to secrecy. If one word of this comes out, I will strangle you.

"Mister President... "

"You've parked nukes in orbit?" Doctor Carlton exclaimed.

"Mister President. I can have unto twenty devices beside this pyramid in three days. The public doesn't need to know about this at all."

"Do you have any idea what a gamble you took parking those things in orbit?"

"Doctor Carlton. It would appear, based on this pyramid that is pointed directly at the Earth that it was a very forward thinking gamble. Now if you interrupt me again, I will strangle you."

"Nobody kills doctor Carlton without my permission. He is the world's foremost expert on the subject and we can't afford to loose him until he has told us everything there is to know on the subject. Now, we must first try to make contact with this object. Doctor, send a warning to the pyramid. Tell it that we don't want it here. We don't want it to crash into the ocean or anything of that nature. Explain that any such an action would be extremely detrimental to our economy. Explain that the people of the Earth are not ready for the tsunamis that would result from it plunging head-long into the ocean. Is that clear? Doctor Carlton! Is that clear?"

"I...I'll need immediate access to the George Lucas Deep Space Transmission facility."

"Sure. Gentlemen, are there any other questions for Doctor Carlton?"

"What if we can't stop it?" Asked the ugly general with the eye-patch. This question resulted in many long moments of silence.

"Is that a question for me?" Doctor Carlton laughed. "I don't know. I guess that's up to you guys, right?"

"Mister President, permission to strangle Doctor Carlton."

"No! We need him."

Another lengthy silence.

"Go send your message and report back to the General Tratarez. You will have your access to the necessary equipment. Now go. Go."

Sullen, Doctor Carlton left the room. An escort lead him away from the conference room. She was old like him, but curvy and had bright purple lipstick and a shaved head. They both saw that the other was very sad. They left together and never came back.

Meanwhile the president and his staff continued to discuss how they were going to deal with the Tsunami that Doctor Carlton predicted to occur as a result of the coming impact.

"Do you have any idea what evacuating the entire Eastern Seaboard will do to the economy?" Said the Secretary of Treasury. "Perhaps we should get a second opinion from another scientist about the severity of such an impact."

"Good point Steve." Said the president. "I myself am more of a business as usual kind of guy; at least on the domestic front; or at least on the surface of the domestic front. Get me someone from Area 51 to have a look at this." A man in a suit standing a few feet away from the table took this as a que and made a phone call. "Lisa, is there any sort of distraction that we can have ready to give people something to chew on."

"Well that depends." A homely woman replied. "I think that we should have things in place for an evacuation, just in case it is as bad as Doctor Carlton says it will be."

"Yeah, yeah, sure; but lets say its no big deal, lets say this will all blow over it nobody notices that the damn thing is a pyramid. Can we have some sort of 'incident' pop up that will capture the hearts and minds of the world?"

"Well, we could push a democracy movement against the Dong Chow regime. I'm sure his government's reaction will be very news-worthy."

"Sure, whatever. General Traterez, maybe we should make sure that we can put four or five navy battle groups in the area where we figure the darn thing is going to be hitting the water."

"Mister President, we only have one battle group that we could move into the area right now. The rest are in the Gulf waiting for events to unfold."

"Ah yes. Hm. Well, I guess if its just going to crash into the ocean, it shouldn't be too big of a deal. I want us to be ready to spin this. Just a normal asteroid, right. It was a surprise. Nobody saw it coming. We'll see what our lab rat says and hopefully its nothing that we can't work around. Gentlemen, Lisa, this meeting is adjourned. Everybody that can make it to my ranch on the 13th is welcome to do so. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go kiss some babies." The president stood and walked to the door. The papers on the table where he had been sitting were quickly gathered by the man who was standing in the corner. He then followed the president out the door.

The rest of the people in the room began discussing the issue amongst them selves. Most of the generals stayed with the topic on hand. The ugly general with the eye patch cracked his knuckles. "I got a bad feeling about that thing." he said to general Traterez. "Its like a bullet that's been shot at us."

"But it'll just hit the ocean and probably sink a few cargo ships. We'll have to make sure the important boats that are scheduled to be in the area need repairs at the time. I've got eight ships that are due for decommissioning in the next five years. I could easily sen