by Carl Derham
CHAPTER 7
Grrghracksh
Seven o'clock on Sunday evening and Jay was preparing to leave, as he was the only member of the band who had to work the next day. Roberta had gone to the kitchen to make everyone a cup of tea. The second that she was out of the room, Ed re-established his line of questioning with Oli regarding how he had ended up with the perfect woman. This was about the thousandth time and Oli still couldn’t give him an honest answer.
“Don’t be jealous mate, she’s actually a robot that I made yesterday, just to wind you up.”
Ed roared with laughter at this.
Suddenly Roberta appeared in the doorway and beckoned for Oli to come. Whilst the drone never displayed any kind of emotion, Oli could tell something was wrong.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some rather disturbing news.”
“Not again! Can we hold off with the bad news for a while?” asked Oli.
“I’ve been monitoring an energy source emanating from the Annenian system. At first I thought that it was an echo of our own Graviton Generator as we left the planet, but it would appear that there are three separate sources and they are heading this way.”
“Ships?” asked Oli.
“Undoubtedly so Oli. They are traveling at a considerably slower velocity,” she said with a sideways glance down her nose. “About light 110. Whoever they are, they will be here in one month and two days.”
“Any ideas who they might be?” asked Oli.
“I have no idea Oli. No other known species had Graviton technology when the Annenian crew came to Earth and I don’t see how anyone could have developed it in such a short time. We must assume the worst and regard them as hostile. They are certainly following our Graviton trail.”
“I don’t suppose by any chance you’ve come tooled up, have you?”
“There is no weaponry on this ship, but the mothership that carried everything from Annenia embraces certain defensive capabilities.”
“I thought you said the Annenians were a peaceful race who hated war?”
“They were Oli, but that doesn’t mean that they hadn’t prepared for an eventual meeting with a race that might harbour a more aggressive mentality.”
“Let’s go get it then.”
“I'll have to come and get you now and then we can...” Roberta tailed off in mid sentence and leant to one side, staring straight past Oli’s shoulder. There, crammed into the doorway were Ed, Jay, Julie and Sara, staring at Oli and Roberta with ‘tired and confused’ written all over their faces. Ed gave Oli a questioning look with his hands open, palms facing upward as if to say, explanation please. Oli never lied to anyone, especially his friends. Anyway, they would know immediately if he was kidding them because it would be written all over his face.
“Okay,” said Oli. “I haven't been in Egypt for the last two weeks. I've been on a spaceship that found me in Egypt. We’ve been to a distant planet called Annenia to pick up parts that we needed to stop that asteroid from hitting the earth.”
Silence...
More silence...
“Yeah right,” smirked Ed. “Try another one. I may have been up all night but really?”
“Show him Roberta,” said Oli.
“Is this a good idea Oli?”
“They're my friends Robbie. I trust them with my life,” said Oli, looking for a moment more serious than Robbie had yet seen. With that, Roberta slowly morphed into the plain grey drone. Now usually when you’ve been up all night partying and then headed home with a group of friends and continued partying for most of the next day, odd things can happen, but as a general rule, your friend's new girlfriend doesn’t usually morph into a blank, grey, humanoid shape in front of your eyes. It took about five seconds, but Julie was first to react with a lead-piercing scream. Then, as though connected by an invisible force, everyone in the doorway shuffled backwards into the living room.
“You see,” said Oli, moving into the doorway and chuckling at the sight of his friends lying in a pile on the floor. He explained that he had so much to tell them but it would have to wait because they had a bit of an emergency on their hands. “Robbie, the ship's computer,” he offered by way of an explanation, “has detected three unknown ships heading this way and we've got to go and check them out. So…” he paused, grinning across his face with excitement. “I was wondering if you all might like to come along for the ride.”
Silence...
More silence...
“I knew he couldn't have pulled a girl like that!” exclaimed Ed.
“This is awesome,” said Julie.
“So, what do you reckon? Fancy it?” asked Oli.
“Yeah!” they all shouted in unison and then began helping each other up from the ungraceful tangle.
“I'll have to get the time off work,” said Jay and they all looked at him as if to say, that's the last thing that should be on your mind right now. They all had a million questions that they wanted answering immediately, but Oli had to hold up his hand and insist that they go with the flow for a while because they had to work out a plan for getting to the ship. He discussed it with Roberta who had reverted to her more aesthetically pleasing form and they decided that it was too early in the evening to fly the ship into Earls Court. What they needed was a large open space with lots of tree cover.
“Richmond Park!” cried Julie.
They would have to get the tube to Richmond and walk to the middle of the park. Robbie could then find them by locating the drone. So they all marched off to Fulham Broadway Station, bombarding Oli with questions about the Annenians, the ship, his journey through space and so many things. Oli tried to answer all their questions, whispering so that their conversation could not be overheard by all the other tube passengers. One hour later they were in the middle of Richmond Park in a huddle, looking expectantly skywards.
Oli had just begun explaining how the Parrot civilisation had developed on Annenia, when without any warning at all, just twenty metres from their position Robbie brought the ship in, probably a little faster than he had intended, but he was aware that Doctor Branith and his team would be scouring the skies over Britain. The ship just seemed to appear out of nowhere, hovering at head height. Then the legs extended with a clunk, that Oli realised was even louder when experienced from outside the ship. He gave Ed a slightly embarrassed look. A general gasp of amazement was emitted as the ship settled onto the soft dew-soaked grass. Although the ship was as dark as interstellar space, the light from the two moons was giving it an ethereal glow and Oli took a few steps back to admire it. Ed gave him a little nod with his top lip puffed out which immediately translated as nice ride mate. The side ramp extended and Roberta looked over her shoulder as she tottered up the ramp whispering, “hurry! We've got to get out of here.” They all scampered up the ramp which closed behind them and the ship hurtled back into space.
By the time they reached the control room, they were floating one hundred meters above Mons Herodotus in the northern hemisphere of the moon. They'd gathered in the control room and Oli was introducing everyone to Robbie and Pardy, who was more excited than it was possible to be.
“Hi Robbie. Hi Pardy.” They all nervously waved in different directions.
The screen was focused on a huge mountain about five kilometres in diameter.
“That’s the moon!” exclaimed Sara. “How did we get here so fast?”
“Don’t tell me that whole mountain is a ship?” asked Oli.
“I thought this was the ship,” said Ed, getting more confused by the second.
“No Ed.” said Oli. “Well it is obviously a ship, but there's a bigger one down there.”
“Cranus does not occupy the entire mountain,” said Robbie, “merely the central one kilometre.”
Robbie brought the ship in to hover, just above the top of the mountain and activated the Matter Transform Bubble and they began to descend through the surface of the moon. Two minutes passed as they were all mesmerized by the patterns on the screen and then the dis
play ceased. It was replaced by total blackness. They all tried to focus their tired eyes but came to the conclusion that the screen must be broken. Then Robbie turned on the outside floodlights to reveal a giant cave, one and a half kilometres long and two hundred metres deep. Filling a large part of the cave was the star transporter, Cranus. A general “wow” filled the control room. The ship was massive. Roughly the same shape as the little ship, fat in the middle and tapering to a blunt nose, but the rear was completely different. It didn’t taper away but ended in a sheer cliff the height of a five-storey block of flats. Above this on the superstructure were three large bulges, one on top and one on either side. These housed the much larger and more powerful Graviton drives. To Oli’s delight, the colour of the ship could best be described as British racing green, his favourite colour. If he ever had the money, he would buy an Aston Martin Vanquish in British racing green. He disappeared into Oli World for a while, hammering his Vanquish around the country lanes of Cornwall. The fact that they were looking at the greatest ship ever to be built by the Annenians didn’t deter him from his sojourn into Oli World.
Robbie flew the ship along the length of Cranus, fifty metres above the superstructure. As they passed over it, Oli, quickly snapping away from his Aston Martin, noticed that the hull was not perfectly smooth like the little ship, but had irregular lumps and bumps which caused shadows to slither around the hull as the little ship’s lights passed over them. There appeared to be satellite dishes and antennae dotted across the surface. They flew over a large shallow bowl, large enough in which to land twenty little ships. Robbie explained that this was where they held outdoor parties. A force field would enclose the bowl and the Annenians would party hard, embraced by the universe surrounding them. Travelling along the length of Cranus was like swimming along the back of a giant whale shark.
They made their way to the front of the giant vessel until they were hovering over an indentation in the surface, just behind the front of the ship. The indentation was exactly the same size and shape as the little ship. They landed in the cup and a dome folded over the ship causing the viewer to black out. Robbie connected himself to the mothership and ran a check of the on-board systems. For the last twelve thousand years, Cranus had been dormant with just a few vital systems operating under the power of a backup power source. Robbie didn’t let on, but he was not entirely, one hundred percent certain, that the systems would have withstood the test of time.
“Well, it would seem to have held together rather well,” he said. “Hold your breath, boys and girls. Let’s see if the old tub is going to start.”
Oli turned to Pardy and grinned at Robbie’s increasing use of his vernacular. The lights in the control room dimmed for two seconds as they do in a plane when they start the engines. The little ship was actually jump-starting this huge vessel. The lights returned and Robbie let out a little “yeeees!” If he'd had an arm, he would have used it to punch the air.
“I need you to go down to the flight deck Oli. The central computer needs a humanoid life form to authorise activation of the propulsion drives.”
“But I’m not an Annenian. Will it still work?”
“Yes Oli. The ship was converted to accept human input, in preparation for the eventual transfer of ownership. You simply have to sit in the command seat and the ship will assign all on-board commands to your voice recognition and DNA.”
“Do you mean to tell me that I’m going to be commander of a star ship?”
General looks of concern were passed around the group. As far as Oli was concerned though, this was getting better by the second. Of course Robbie would control the vessel, but he was going to be the Commander. He decided to promote Pardy to the position of first mate. On hearing this, she puffed out her chest, ruffled her feathers and stood to a parrot’s version of attention, which involved touching her wingtips behind her back. Being promoted to the first mate on a star ship was just about the most seed-tastic thing to have happened since the day that she scored the winning crap in the end of year dive crap derby at school.
“Oops, sorry,” said Oli, looking at Ed, “but Pardy did just rescue the ship.”
“No frets mate,” said Ed. “Just along for the ride.”
They went to the rear cargo bay where the drone was waiting to guide them to the flight deck. They stood in the centre of the room and Oli looked up, anticipating the lift through the roof. But this time they went down. The section of floor descended out of the bottom, completely unconnected to the ship and floated down to the floor of a small room. As he looked up, Oli could see the jet black underside of the ship and still attached by the suction pads, ripped wires bursting lifelessly from the casing, was the limpet speaker.
“That doesn’t look like it’s meant to be there,” he said pointing at the object. The drone looked up and Robbie explained what it was.
“It looks really expensive. We’d better give it back to them when we get a chance,” said Oli.
The drone floated up to the underside of the ship, flicked a switch on the side of the suction pad. The device fell into its waiting hand and it drifted silently into the cargo bay and placed the device in a locker.
They walked to the only door in the room, which Psst open as they approached it. Oli laughed as everyone jumped. It was a deeper sort of Psst, but still, he had to point out, a little urgent. They walked into a corridor leading through the centre of the ship, passing many doors on both sides of the corridor and Oli was itching to explore this ship in its entirety. The drone continued to the end of the corridor to a waiting lift. They followed the drone into the confined space and a strange rapid clicking sound from the drone caused the doors to close. When the doors opened, Oli’s eyes lit up. This was more like it, a control room that actually looked like a control room.
The room was split into three levels. They had entered on the highest level, where there were several workstations around the edge of the twenty metre wide, semi-circular room, all containing screens that were flickering in anticipation of their instructions. In the centre of the room at the bottom level was a half star-shaped console with a chair positioned between each of the four points and behind that on the middle level was the command position. The command seat had curved consoles on either side, angled into the seating position. Two screens on support brackets projected from the arms of the chair. Every edge of the room was filled with technology, but the furnishings and soft carpet on the floor made it seem like a very hi-tech living room. The consoles were coffee brown in colour with dark grey metal trims framing every section. The carpet was light grey and Sara immediately thought; shoes off in here then.
The end of the room where they were standing after exiting the lift was straight, but the remainder of the semi-circular layered space, presented the shape of an amphitheatre. The walls were made from the same material as the small ship and the light that emitted from them had an indiscernible colour to it that seemed to complement all the other colours in the room. Everyone had fanned out around the top floor of the bridge and Julie ran her hand over one of the consoles and held up a dust-covered finger. “Hey Oli, you should feel right at home here.” she said clapping her hands together and watching the ancient dust float to the floor.
“Sit on the seat in the middle of the room Oli.” Robbie’s voice appeared from the ten metre wide curved screen at the front of the room. “I’ve taken over all systems on the ship, I just need command authorisation and we can get out of here.”
Oli sat in the chair, the others gathered around and Pardy hopped onto one of the screens. As Oli sat down, the screens swung into position over his legs and Pardy nearly fell off. She flapped her wings and did a little dance to keep her balance. The screens lit up with outlines of hands. But the hands only had four fingers each. Oli immediately thought of The Simpsons and had to struggle with his head to banish the image of Homer in charge of a star ship. Everyone else was thinking Oh my god, Homer’s in charge of a star ship. Oli had no idea that his friends like
ned him to Homer Simpson. They figured that it was best to keep it that way.
“Place your hands on the screens and say something Oli.”
Why is it, thought Oli, that whenever someone says ‘say something’, you can never think of a single word to say? Out of the thousands of words that everyone has stored in their heads, not a single one wants to offer itself up for selection. He put his hands on the screens and following a blank pause that lasted a week for everyone else in the room said, “halibut.” And with this piece of vocal mastery, all the screens around the room came to life and started flashing symbols and computer graphics. The star-shaped console burst into a supernova of activity. Lights were flashing, and several screens across the desk were self-typing text and symbols. Then Oli heard the Graviton Generators start to throb. The sound was very different to the one on the little ship. It was lower and slower. It pulsed every three seconds and was the best bass sound Oli had ever heard outside of a club. He looked over at Jay. No words were required; they both agreed and nodded approvingly.
“Well how about that then Oli?” Robbie said, with an uncharacteristic air of excitement about his voice, “It started first kick.”
“Nice one Robbie. Now how do we get this mountain off our heads?”
“Unfortunately, the Matter Transform doesn’t work on an object as large as Cranus, so we have to blast our way out. There’s a ring of thermo-plasmic charges at the top of the cave. They are designed to blast in one direction only. It’ll remove the top of the mountain and we can fly out.”
“I hope they planted them the right way up,” said Oli, as he and Pardy exchanged concerned looks.
The big screen came on and they were looking directly up at the roof of the cave. A red button started flashing next to Oli’s right hand.
“Would you care to do the honours Oli?” Robbie asked.
Oli thought back to the fireworks that they used to have on Guy Fawkes night. He’d been banned from lighting the fireworks following an ‘incident’ when aged ten, he’d lit a rocket but before lighting it he’d altered the angle of trajectory to send it flying across the neighbour’s back gardens. No harm was done, but poor old Mrs. Evesham at number fifty-four, refused to come out of her house for a whole week. Oli spent that week weeding her garden and sweeping up leaves, which he didn’t mind, because he kind of liked the old lady and she always baked him fresh flapjacks.
His finger hovered over the button for a few seconds. Pardy had folded her wings over her head, as though a few feathers were going to protect her if this all went wide of the mark. But why would it go wrong? So far, the Annenians had demonstrated that they really knew their stuff.
“Are you sure this is safe?” asked Sara, always the cautious one. “I mean, those explosives have been sitting there rotting, for an awfully long time.”
Oli hesitated.
“How far into their forgetfulness had they gone, when they planted these charges Robbie?” he asked, his finger resting just below the red button.
“Some were worse than others,” Robbie replied, “but I’m sure they wouldn’t have messed up something as simple as laying a few explosives, would they?”
Robbie explained that short of picking up some shovels and digging Cranus out of the moon, they had no other option. As Oli’s finger slowly crept up the console towards the red button, everyone grimaced and held each other’s hands so tightly that they were in danger of restricting blood flow.
“Here goes nothing.” Oli dropped his index finger onto the button. There was a small flash in the centre of the screen and the roof of the giant cave was suddenly replaced by thousands of stars. There was no falling rubble or rocks hurtling out into space, it simply vaporised one million metric tonnes of moon.
“Holy oly!” exclaimed Ed, in his usual mockery of Oli’s favourite tag,” now that’s some kind of banger!”
The throbbing of the engines increased in frequency by an almost indiscernible amount and the ship lifted off and emerged from the gaping hole that was previously known as Mons Herodotus.
“Oli, I’ve been able to use the more powerful sensors on this ship and I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”
“I thought I asked you to hold off on the bad news,” said Oli.
There was a short period of silence.
“I’m joking Robbie. What’s the bad news?”
“There are definitely three ships heading this way at light ninety seven and I’ve managed to intercept some ship-to-ship transmissions.”
The screen changed from a view of the stars to a full frame image of the ugliest creature Oli had ever seen. Sara and Julie and, for that matter Ed, let out stifled screams. Everyone looked round at Ed, who was coughing into his hand as though clearing a lump in his throat. Nothing was said, but Ed knew that it would not be forgotten in a geological period of time. The creature had green and yellow skin, a huge mouth that occupied a large portion of its head, two jet black eyes which seemed to stare out of the screen and burrow through Oli’s skull and a bald head that was ringed with yellow veins. It was wearing a black and red uniform, adorned with decorations. It was obviously the leader, judging by the cowering individuals in the background. Oli could only see the top half of the leader, but he gathered from the two creatures behind that they were humanoid. They had two legs and two arms, although the arms were much longer and thicker proportionally, than those of a human. The creature was spitting at the screen, making gurgling noises. It sounded like it had a dockyard oyster wedged in its throat.
“I do not know how Oli. It is implausible at best, but what you are looking at here, is a Throgloid.”
Oli gasped. “Throgloid! As in savage beast hell bent on killing, conquering and destruction and very unlikely to ever be bright enough to venture into space?”
“Yes Oli, that’s the one. I have no idea how they have mastered space travel and cracked the light barrier in such a short time, but it would appear none-the-less, that they have. If we let them reach Earth, they will obliterate it and everything on it, just for fun.”
“I’ve seen a picture of this creature in the library,” said Pardy.
Oli and Robbie silently waited for an explanation. Pardy was enjoying the moment of having something to offer and she puffed up her feathers and repositioned herself into a more commanding pose on her computer screen perch.
“They visited our world about three hundred and eighty years ago.”
“They were the other visitors you told us about?” asked Oli. “How come they didn’t destroy everything?”
“Apparently, the parrots of the time didn’t like the look of them, so they hid in the forest and let them go about their business. They were only interested in the contents of the ancient city. They stayed for about five months, loaded lots of things into their ship and left.”
Whilst Pardy was telling her story, Robbie had used an undetectable carrier wave to infiltrate the computer on the Throgloid vessel and was able to extract the whole story.
“Oh I see,” said Robbie.
“What do you see?” they all asked in unison.
“You’ll find a Neural Feed Set in the left arm of your seat Oli. Everyone else can sit around the star console, where you will also find NFS units. Put them on and I will explain.”
Oli clarified the use of the NFS and ensured the crew that they were perfectly safe and that it would not fry their brains. In an instant, they all learned the sequence of events that had brought the Throgloids to the worrying position in space and time that they now occupied.
Eight hundred years ago, the Throgloid home land, Throwgus, was separated into two factions, one on each of the two major continents which occupied opposite sides of the northern hemisphere of the planet. They were sworn to fight each other to the death and had been doing so for most of the previous two thousand years. No one actually knew what it was that they were fighting about, but that no longer mattered; the need outweighed the motive by some considerable amount.
One nig
ht on the continent of Gagmazi, the home of the Gami tribe, a ball of fire came from the sky and crashed into a lake. They spent the next two months retrieving the object from its watery grave and discovered that it was an alien spaceship. Whilst they had often contemplated the idea of space travel, it would have detracted too much from their main occupation; that of kicking seven bails out of the Magi tribe. Inside, they found three skeletal remains of strange, puny-looking life forms, all sitting at their stations, their eye sockets fixed blankly on the inactive screen. When the Annenian crew had all suddenly forgotten how to fly the spaceship and for that matter, the name of their home world, the autopilot had continued to fly the ship in one direction. Gradually, they’d forgotten how to get up, then how to breathe, and that’s where they had remained. The ship was a very basic model transporter, generally used for ship-to-ship work, or ferrying cargo to a planet’s surface. It was equipped with a minor grade drive system that could achieve light 5. The ship’s computer was only semi-intelligent and when the control system failed to receive any Annenian input, it shut down the drive and waited…and waited, until the power ran out and it shut itself down. It remained in this dormant state, drifting through space for ten thousand years, when it was caught by the gravitational pull of Throwgus. As it fell through the atmosphere, the emergency power kicked in. This was designed to prevent a wayward ship from crashing into a planet and causing a catastrophic graviton explosion. There was just enough power to find a soft landing and dump the ship into it before the computer completely died.
The Throgloid scientists spent a hundred and forty years attempting to reverse-engineer the technology in the ship, whilst they weren’t inventing new and horrific ways of wiping out their enemy. Eventually, they discovered a power source that worked and the ship sprang into life. It then took them a further hundred and fifty years to make it fly and another fifty years to make it land again. They were hoping to find some super-advanced weapons systems on board, but eventually decided that the only way that they could use the ship to harm the Magi would have been to throw it at them. So they sent a party of ten, out into space to discover the ships origin. Luckily the navigation system was working so they put the ship on autopilot and spent the next fifteen years arm wrestling each other, and inventing new games of If You Dare. By the time they reached Annenia, there were only four of them left. Fortunately, they were the four scientists and the brightest of the bunch. They found the workshops and the dismantled remains of ships. One of the gutted ships had a store of computer globes containing design plans for D class transporter craft, which the computer on board their ship was able to read. They collected as much hardware as they could carry and began the long journey home. In their quest to return with as much of the technology as was possible, they had stripped the ship of all non-essential items. Unfortunately, this included the back-up food maker. The fitted unit had packed up one year into the journey. When the ship set down on Gagmazi, the reception party found only one set of bones and three sets of clothes.
The ship was a treasure trove of technology. There were designs for weapons, drive units and things that were designed as drive units but were better suited as weapons. They set to work and within five years had completely wiped out the Magi. With the total eradication and indeed consumption of their enemy, the Gami split down the middle and began the lengthy process of attempting dividing the spoils. After three more splits and millions more dead Throgloids, one military leader came up with the radical suggestion that they stop fighting each other, build a ship and embark on a quest to find some aliens to fight. They shot him for coming up with such a stupid idea, but then, following a split second of serious thought, decided that maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. For twenty years, with only a few breaks for in-fighting when they got bored, the Throgloids built a fleet of war ships and headed out into space. They covered their small sector of the galaxy exploring every star system for planets that contained life that could be conquered, but all they found, fortunately, were worlds full of stupid animals that provided no sport whatsoever. They extended the search, split into four groups of three ships each, and headed off in different directions. One group of three battle cruisers commanded by Commander Grrghracksh was patrolling close to the Annenian star system when Robbie and Oli appeared from the planet and shot off at speeds that the Throgloids could only dream about. The captain, a hugely decorated war hero from the old days, wanted the secrets that were contained in that little ship. He didn’t want any of his rival commanders to take the credit, so without informing the rest of the fleet he set course in pursuit of the little ship.
Oli removed the NFS and gave a huge stretch and yawn. He looked down at the star console and his four friends were sound asleep, draped across the chairs that had adjusted their shape to place the crew in a more comfortable position. Jay was snoring away with his feet on the consul.
“Ah,” he sighed, “all partied out, little lambs. Let them sleep for now Robbie. It's a lot to take in.”
Robbie said that the relatively slow velocity at which the Throgloids were travelling, only ninety seven times the speed of light, implied that fortunately they hadn’t acquired all the Annenian technology. Anyway, the Annenians had mined the Throgloid sun with six Graviton Inversion Bombs. When detonated, they would cause the star to collapse into a singularity that would suck in all the surrounding planets. Problem solved, except for the minor inconvenience of the three battle cruisers, but Robbie assured Oli that they would present no problems.
“You can’t do that!” blasted Oli. Then realising that he might wake the others, he started to talk softly. “You can’t wipe out an entire civilisation with one flick of a switch. What if they’ve changed; you know, become nice?”
“I can assure you Oli, they will not have become nice. They’re Throgloids. They’re horrible.”
“I don’t care,” said Oli. “You’re not going to wipe them out without first talking to them to see what it is that they want.”
“I can tell you what they want Oli. They want to kill everything that moves, eat it and then kill each other for dessert.”
“I want to go and talk to them,” said Oli in his most assertive voice.
“Very well Oli, you’re the boss,” a statement that jolted Oli somewhat, “but I assure you, you are not going to like what you see.”
They departed the moon, narrowly missing the new moon that Robbie strongly denied having overlooked and headed back towards Annenia at the top speed of Cranus, which was significantly higher than that of the little ship. It could make the relatively short journey in two and a half days. Oli and Pardy set out to explore the giant ship while the others slept.
The main bulk was taken up by two huge cargo bays, each of which could have held a hundred double-decker buses. They actually contained very little, except the equipment that the Annenians had used to build the pyramids. In the corner of the deck closest to the front of the ship, Oli found a row of motorbikes without wheels. They looked more like jet skis, but there was no water on which to use them. He assumed that they must have been for use on planets with oceans. He gazed into one of the machines and tried to figure out the controls. He started pressing all the buttons on the small control panel and suddenly the machine emitted a soft whining sound and lifted a few centimetres off the deck.
“Hover bikes!” grinned Oli.
He climbed into the fully enclosed pod and located two joysticks, one for each hand. Assuming that they would have the same speed and steering functions as the little ship, he tentatively pushed the left stick forward a fraction. The bike silently moved across the deck and Oli let out a little whoop. As he approached the first obstacle, which was an odd-looking bulldozer with huge spiky wheels, he pushed the right stick to the right. To his elation, the bike lent slightly into the corner and turned. This is easy, he thought. He spent the next hour riding around the hangar, weaving in and out of the heavy plant and gradually finding the top speed of the bike, which he estimated to be about
sixty kilometres per hour. Pardy was enjoying stretching her wings and chasing Oli around the impromptu race track. Finally he headed back to the bike rack and skilfully backed the bike into its parking bay. Pardy landed on his shoulder as he stepped out of the pod, her heavy chest movements revealing her determination to keep up with the bike.
What now? thought Oli, scanning the bay for more toys. He was drawn to the low throbbing noise of the engines and asked Robbie if they could go and have a look at the engine room. Robbie explained that the ship was powered by three Graviton Generators that were housed in sealed compartments that only the micro-drones could access. If these Generators were ever allowed to leave the confinement of their force fields, they would swallow all space-time for an area of three light years. These were the most powerful drive units that the Annenians had ever built. They tapped into the very fabric of Nulspace from which to draw their power.
“I’ll take that as a no then,” said Oli.
The weapon, that had never been used, but Robbie assured Oli that it would work, directed a highly localised beam of this power at the target. Theoretically, the target would crush itself down to an infinitely dense particle. When it was released from the beam, it would scatter its mass to the four corners of the universe, if in fact the universe had any corners. If it didn’t work, the ship was equipped with a shield of the same variety as Oli’s ring, only much more powerful, so they could always use the bulk of Cranus to flatten the Throgloid ships.
Oli and Pardy decided to explore the upper decks of the ship, where they stumbled across the armoury. Inside, were rows of rifles, handguns and enough plasma charges to level a planet. But Robbie assured Oli that they had never been used. The Annenians deplored violence, but at the same time they accepted that there were those who thrived on it. So they had figured that it would be prudent to be prepared. Oli took one of the rifles from the rack. It was as light as a child’s toy gun, but its lack of weight was in no way related to its ability to seriously ruin the day of its intended target.
“That's a plasma rifle Oli,” said Robbie, sensing Oli’s puzzlement. “It possesses sufficient power to stop a Throgloid.”
Oli had always deplored guns and he delicately replaced the weapon on the rack. He started thinking about what would happen if the more unpleasant factions of humanity got their hands on these weapons. He was rapidly going off the idea of handing over all the knowledge of the Annenians to the people of Earth. They just weren’t ready for it yet. The desire to make money and their bewildering attachment to various mythical beings would drive people to abuse the new found power. He suddenly felt rather morose. Wanting to share his doubts, he told Robbie that they had to rethink the plan and come up with a way of drip-feeding the knowledge as and when it was appropriate. This would of course mean that Oli and the crew would be the only humans with access to the ship. It would be a full time job, and Oli had never had one of those before.
Realising that by London time, it was three in the morning, Oli and Pardy decided to call it a night. Robbie directed them to the Captain’s cabin, which was more like a suite at the Ritz. Pardy was offered her own room but she didn't want to be alone in this strange environment, so Robbie made her a perch with a view out of the window. Oli asked Robbie to wake him if any of the crew stirred but, as was usual when crashing after a party night, he was certain that would be out of the game for a considerable time yet.
Ed was the first to wake and in his state of semi-consciousness, assumed that he was in his usual position, reclining in his favourite armchair, thinking about the weird dream that he’d just had. The room was dark and he reached out with his left hand, groping for the table lamp next to his sofa. Just then the room gradually lit up by itself.
“Scream!” He leapt out of the chair and spun about on his heels, taking in the bridge of Cranus.
“It wasn't a dream,” he said to himself, not really expecting a reply.
“No it wasn't Ed,” said Robbie. “Welcome to Cranus.”
The lights in the Captain’s suite slowly came to life and Oli awoke from a deep restful sleep.
“Is it morning?” he said groggily.
“London time Oli, it’s actually midday. Cranus time, it's neither morning nor night.”
“Too early in the day for smart ass Robbie. At least let me wake up first,” yawned Oli.
Oli had a quick matrem, threw on his neatly pressed clothes, woke Pardy from a very pleasant dream about eating a barrel of seeds and headed for the bridge, where he found all his friends, awake and exploring the freshly polished control panels trying to work out what was going on. The bridge was gleaming as though just out of the shipyard on its maiden voyage.
“Morning campers,” chirped Oli. Pardy just chirped; she never was much of a morning parrot.
Oli took them out to their quarters, which were right next to his, and showed them how to use the matrem and other facilities. Julie and Sara expressed their uncertainty at the morning biscuit.
They had two days left to waste, so Oli suggested that they embark on a major exploration of Cranus. First stop was the cargo bay, where Oli had found the hover bikes. They walked around the cavernous deck designing a racecourse, winding in and out of the various pieces of machinery. Oli suggested, with a knowing wink to Ed, that they give the girls a head start. This was greeted with the expected torrent of abuse from Sara. They all donned gloves and helmets. Whilst the helmets fitted reasonably well, the gloves were a finger short on each hand, so they were tossed back onto the shelf. Robbie instructed the drones to make some human-fitting gloves. Following a brief tutorial on the control functions, they lined up on the start and Robbie counted down from ten. When the horn sounded they all rammed the right stick as far as it would go and the bikes shot off down the first straight. Oli was the only one who fully understood the capability of these machines at going round corners, so he left them standing as they all settled in to the controls. The rider sat reclined in a bucket seat enclosed in a streamlined fairing. The right hand stick, apart from controlling the steering, could be pulled back, causing the bike to climb higher. The bikes could only elevate to about three metres from the ground, but it was very useful when traversing rough ground.
Oli glanced over his shoulder and realising that they were no longer with him, he slowed down to let them catch up. He always believed that a game was more fun with a little close competition. He wasn’t even remotely surprised that Julie was the first to catch him because she possessed more competitiveness in her little toe, than all of his male friends grouped together. She considered herself equal in every way to any man, and spent a large part of her life proving the point, whether by sport or intellect. Oli really loved playing games with her because she would get so wound up when she lost. Now she had found a new sport at which to excel and Oli was fully aware that she would strive with her final breath to pass him, which made it all the more fun. As she made her first attempt, he pulled across her and accelerated. Then she cut across the inside and he swerved to cut her off.
“Oi!” she shouted, “get your slow arse out of my way.”
The two of them were having such a battle together that they didn’t notice Ed sneaking up behind them. At the top end of the course, lay a large machine that looked like a digger without a shovel. This marked the 180-degree bend leading to the long straight, running down the length of the hangar. Oli and Julie were fighting to be the first around the bend, when out of nowhere, on the inside of the corner, Ed snuck past them both and floored it down the straight, hotly pursued by two very unhappy friends who had completely forgotten about their own private race and were now fully focused on catching Ed. As they approached the end of the straight, Oli looked over his shoulder and saw Jay and Sara closing on them. Excellent, he thought. Game on. They’d planned to have a ten-lap race and Robbie was keeping track of their laps. As they finished the fourth lap, the drone arrived on the start/finish line with a number 4 flashing on its chest. They all laughed out loud at this. Th
e bikes made no noise, apart from the sound of the air rushing past the riders, so they could hear each other clearly. This led to considerable barracking, the likes of which would be more at home on a cricket pitch.
“Is that all you’ve got?” shouted Ed, as Oli failed to pass him on a bend.
“Maybe if you took it out of reverse?” squealed Julie, grinning from ear to ear.
On lap nine, they’d all mastered the controls of the bikes and were flying round the course. Ed had been in front since he passed Oli and Julie and he was in no mood to relinquish the position. He was weaving all over the course and no one could pass him. Julie was getting more and more irate. She knew that she could go faster than him if he would just get out of the way. Realising that it was now or never, she went for a big pass as they all beaked for the fast chicane. Unfortunately, she clipped the front of Ed’s machine as she passed him and her bike skidded sideways into the wedge-shaped ramp of a flatbed hover-trailer. Everyone watched in horror as she slid, completely out of control, up the length of the ramp and became airborne. In what appeared to be slow motion, she parted company with her bike which was spinning in all directions through the air and headed straight for an ugly looking machine with dozens of protrusions pointing in all directions. It looked like a giant porcupine and was used to collect rubbish after the global parties.
Everyone pulled back on their throttles, bringing the bikes to an abrupt halt, and together they shouted; “Julie!”
The fun was at an end, and they were powerless to prevent their friend from being skewered. Sara couldn’t watch and turned away. Ed and Oli were in mid-leap from their machines in some worthless attempt to reach her in time to save her. At that precise moment, Julie stopped dead in mid-flight, hanging unceremoniously upside down just metres from the spiky machine. She was still screaming at the limit of her lungs, her long hair limply falling from her upturned head. Oli and the crew all tilted their heads, confused as to how she was performing this feat. Julie was focusing on the nearest spike that appeared to be frozen in time a few metres from her head. She figured this was what they meant when they said that time appears to slow down when you’re facing death. Then she smoothly righted herself, having exhausted the limit of her scream, and gently floated back to the track and landed softly on her feet next to her friends. Everyone looked at her, open mouthed, as though she could give a satisfactory explanation.
“Towing beam,” stated Robbie, after a few seconds of stunned silence. “I’m no fortune teller, but this was inevitable, so I was ready with that and other safety precautions.”
Everyone cheered, dismounted their rides and gave Julie a big hug. She was clearly shaken, so they thought it best to call the race a draw and find a new game to play. Oli suggested that they construct a shooting gallery. They went to the armoury and he handed everyone a plasma rifle. Jay’s eyes opened a bit too wide with delight for Oli’s liking. Even Sara and Julie were excited about the prospect of shooting something. They never were very girly, which was why Oli liked them so much. Oli watched them all strutting around in commando poses and looked away to where he thought Robbie might be, with his see-what-I-mean face.
“And these are my friends. Good people. You see,” he whispered. With a tut and a raise of his eyebrows, he said, “Humans.”
They went back to the cargo bay. Oli gave the Go-ring a tap and hopped into one of the hover bikes.
“Let's see how good you are then,” he said, with a beckoning wave of his finger.
He raced around the cargo bay, in and out of the machinery, as his friends fired green bolts of plasma at him. This is much more fun than Xbox, thought Jay, who could quite happily waste an entire day playing shoot-em-up games. In fact, most of Oli’s male friends had become completely hooked on this strange virtual world. Occasionally, Oli would turn up at their houses to see them, and they would be engrossed in some online combat game with other like-minded single lads around the world. He was always amazed at their inability to focus on anything other than the action unfolding on the screen in front of them. He would sit there for a while and then just get up and leave. His sudden disappearance was never questioned, such was their fixation on the make believe world in which they were ensconced. Oli, whilst fully accepting the fun to be had with a game console and a group of mates, preferred pursuing more real-life thrills, and being shot at by a load of close friends, armed with futuristic weaponry was certainly thrilling. Whenever they hit him, the force field around him would flash with a wash of green light like a laser cutting through the smoke in a club, and everyone cheered. Robbie was watching all this fooling around and remembered with a virtual tear in his circuits how the Annenians used to lark about in a similar manner on their way to, and indeed back from parties. He'd definitely chosen well.
The plasma rifles, on their lowest setting couldn't do any real damage to the machinery or the ship; just dent the metal and remove a bit of paint. At one point, Ed found the dial on the side of the rifle that controlled the power. He turned it half way and squeezed the trigger. No change. So he turned it up to full power, pointed the gun at the massive shovel of an earth mover and squeezed the trigger. Still no change. So he assumed that it was broken and carried on blasting the bejesus out of his best mate. In reality, Robbie had disabled the power control on all the rifles because one wayward shot on full power would put a hole in the side of the ship.
After about an hour of shooting Oli, everyone got tired and lowered their rifles, beckoning Oli to come back to them. He’d realised that they were getting a bit tasty with those guns, so he was keeping his distance. He would dart between machines and never give them more than a few seconds of target. As he approached their position, in one swift and perfectly choreographed move, they shouldered their rifles and, from ten metres away, showered him with automatic plasma bursts. With hundreds of direct hits on the bike and his head, the green plasma flashes completely blocked his vision. He knew that they were standing right in front of him, so rather than plough into the crew, he made a sharp turn to the left and careered into a stack of metal container boxes. The boxes went flying, as did Oli. He left the confines of the hover bike in a Superman-style pose and the bike, no longer protected by the Go-ring, fell apart with a rather impressive display of sparks and electrical arcing. The girls, displaying deep concern for his well-being and a certain amount of guilt for his impending crunch, had lowered their weapons. The boys however, continued to blast Oli as he left the bike and followed his airborne path with a trail of plasma. Oli ended his flight, upside down behind one of the boxes, with his legs above his head, resting against a bulkhead. Sara shouted at the boys who were trying to blast the boxes away to get a good shot at Oli, to cease fire. They immediately obeyed, as they both had sufficient experience of the wrath of Sara. They walked over to the pile of smouldering boxes and the sparking wreck of the hover bike, where they found Oli, guffawing with laughter from his ungraceful, inverted resting place.
“Why didn’t you save me with the tractor beam?” he asked.
“You didn’t require saving Oli,” stated Robbie. “You’re wearing a ring.”
“Hmm,” was the only response that Oli could muster.
Ed offered him a hand up and they all headed, arms linked, to the massive two hundred seat restaurant, where they found that a round table had been set up with five chairs and a perch for Pardy. Robbie had prepared a banquet for them, with all kinds of strange-looking food and some Earth dishes too. Pardy’s previous night's dream came true, with a selection of the finest seeds from across the known galaxy.
“Nice one Robbie,” said Oli. “To what do we owe this treat?”
“I merely wanted to express how agreeable it is to have some fun-loving people around the place again, that's all. Enjoy!”
Everyone looked at each other, slightly confused. They’d shot the cargo bay to hell and trashed two, probably very expensive hover bikes and were the recipients of zero grief. Without knowing it, they were all thinking the
same. Annenia must have been one fun place to live. The food was delicious, and the Annenian version of ginger beer that Robbie had provided to wash it down, hit the spot. They spent the whole evening, London time, eating, drinking and laughing until they were fit to burst and had to retire. Before he went to bed, Oli decided to view the known history of the Throgloids. A little light bedtime reading. Robbie was not kidding. They were hideous creatures. Their preferred form of combat was hand-to-hand with a weapon called a Grax. It was a double-edged two metre long sword. The handle also contained a pair of scissors, a screwdriver and a bottle opener for opening the Garg beer to wash down the vanquished foe. Throwgus never suffered from an over-population problem, because apart from the constant murder and warring, it was the duty of every second born son, on his twelfth birthday to butcher his parents and provide a hearty meal for the remaining family members. They had no music, no art, no literature and as far as Oli could see, no fun in any shape or form. He was beginning to regret his decision. But he was resigned to meeting with them and trying to make friends. And with that rather intimidating thought, he hit the hay.
“Night Robbie,” said Oli.
“Night Oli,” said Pardy and Robbie together.
“Night Pardy,” said Oli and Robbie together.
“Night John Boy,” said Robbie. In all his years of absorbing every television channel, The Waltons had made the biggest impression on him. The lights slowly dimmed and Oli slipped into a peaceful sleep.
The next day was spent fooling around again. They all went for a walk outside on the top of Cranus. They had to hold hands so that the Go-ring would cover them all. They walked the entire length of the ship and sat on the bow, watching the stars slide by. Time just flew by and before they knew it, Robbie was calling them in for their evening meal. He suggested that they all get a good night's sleep because they had a big day ahead of them tomorrow.
