Invaders

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I have almost made the breach,” Rax said.

  “Transfer the device now!” I shouted.

  The ship’s engines suddenly whined to a lesser level. Our craft shuddered, and the engine noises changed dramatically once more.

  “No,” Rax said. “The teleportation attack will not succeed. The sonic-drill apparatus has sustained heavy damage because I strained it beyond its normal capacity. I cannot now place our nuclear device behind the privateer’s shield. Perhaps as important, the Min Ve has begun to strengthen the shield. This is amazing. I wonder what tech he is using. Your idea was a gamble, and that gamble has already failed.”

  Frustration that had been growing in me finally erupted. “Place the nuclear device outside the shield.”

  “That will not help us.”

  “Rax, I’m ordering you to do as I say.”

  A second passed. Then another.

  “Very well,” Rax said. “I will do as you say, since you are a natural and may possibly have stumbled onto the answer.”

  The truth was that I was desperate. I meant to do something, because something was always better than doing nothing.

  Several seconds later, our thermonuclear device appeared outside the privateer’s shield. The device ignited, hitting the shield with blast and heavy radiation. The privateer’s shield buckled—and went down! I had no idea how much radiation struck the various modules then. I had no idea—

  The white ship’s ray struck the privateer at that moment. The incandescent beam targeted the Min Ve’s module—the command center of the vast starship. I think the thermonuclear device had caught the Starcore by surprise. The construct might be beaming the privateer with more power than it would have wanted to if simply trying to incapacitate the interstellar voyager until it could take it over.

  According to my readings, the Min Ve’s main module was more heavily armored than the others were. The terrible ray chewed through the armor plating in a matter of seconds, digging into the hardened ablative foam underneath. The furious ray burst into the module. Air exploded out of the breach, even as the ray continued to smash inside the module.

  The white ship’s ray finally stopped beaming. The Starcore must understand the danger to its plan.

  I held my breath. Would my idea work? I had helped weaken the shield in a surprise move, hoping the ray would do more damage than the Starcore wanted.

  Struggling beings burst through the breached module. A red glow—

  The command module burst apart like a grenade. That hurled broken pieces of armor plating in every direction. The command module was near the very center of the starship. Heavy shrapnel shredded another module even as they cut girders in half. The second module erupted with a furious explosion. Maybe it had been a weapons locker. The intense blast sent even more shrapnel spinning against girders and others modules. A chain-reaction event was occurring—my fondest hope for my gamble.

  The great Min Ve privateer began to come apart at that point. An exploding engine compartment added to the destruction.

  While some of the enemy personnel might still be alive, the privateer as a singular vessel was dying before our eyes. In time, perhaps, one could collect the largest intact sections and try to remake an interstellar voyager. I didn’t plan to give the Starcore that luxury.

  “This is amazing,” Rax told me. “It appears as if the first part of your plan has succeeded. That was well thought out, Logan. Now, the Starcore lacks a useable starship in the near future.”

  “It’s always good to get lucky,” I said, unbuckling myself from the piloting seat.

  “I would not call this luck,” Rax said. “You suggested the Polarion called you—what are you doing, Logan?”

  I’d grabbed Rax, stuffing him into the front pocket of my combat vest. I sprinted out of the piloting chamber, racing down the short hall into the transporter room.

  I already wore a weapons belt, but lacked a spacesuit. I didn’t need one, though, for what I planned. Jumping onto the dais, I said, “Do it, Rax. Teleport us to the white ship to these coordinates.” I spoke them fast.

  “This is madness,” Rax said. “It is a suicide pact, as we cannot teleport past a shield. I am not suicidal, Logan. Let the white ship attempt to leave the solar system. Its vessel is ancient and has little chance of surviving an interstellar voyage. We should wait for a Guard fathership to appear. I can give a full report—”

  “Rax, we’re running out of time. The white ship will be out of teleportation range soon. It has built up too great a velocity for us to match. This is our last hope to stop a terrible menace.”

  “Did you not listen to me, Logan? We cannot teleport past the shield.”

  “What if the white ship reaches wherever it plans to go and then returns to Earth before your fathership does?” I shouted. “The Starcore will destroy the Earth to kill every human. In that way, no one will ever tell your Galactic Guard anything. Besides, I have a way past the shield.”

  “That is impossible,” Rax said.

  I made a fist, showing the glowing Polarion ring to better effect. “This once,” I said, “I can add energy to the transfer that will help us pass the shield.”

  “What is that on your finger?” Rax asked. “It is giving off incredible readings.”

  “It will give us a power boost,” I said, not sure how I knew this. “I think Argon might have foreseen this moment. I don’t know how he did, but it’s our last hope.”

  “Very well,” Rax said in a resigned voice. “Let us make this final attempt.”

  -54-

  Technically, the white ship didn’t have to flee anywhere. The Greenland site was history. Argon was dead. The Min Ve was either dead or defanged. We had spent our single nuclear device. The Starcore could exit the solar system at its leisure. Probably, its wisest course would be to decelerate so it could come and kill us. Of course, that was given that the Polarion ring could even help us teleport onto the white ship.

  Rax began the transfer between our two vessels.

  This was a huge, crazy gamble. But what else could give us even the slightest chance of victory now? I had no idea, so I rolled the dice one final time. I think it would have been impossible to teleport the nuclear device onto the white ship, as the ring actually had to make the journey to the teleported target to add its power.

  Argon had told me something before he died. The Starcore was curious and arrogant. Those were the crystal entity’s twin failings. There was another thing. The Starcore had shown a great interest in gaining Rax. The Starcore also believed it could mentally dominate any human. Rax could act as a shield for a time against the Starcore’s dominating ability.

  All those thoughts roared through my skull as the Guard-ship’s transporter chamber faded from view. Would I know I was dead if we couldn’t pass through the fiery shield? Would I live long enough to know—?

  A chamber appeared around me. The walls scintillated with terrible brilliance. The first part of my gamble seemed as if it was going to pay off.

  I’d given Rax precise coordinates I had no way of knowing. He transferred us into the hardest to reach area of the white ship. It seemed reasonable that that area would hold the fabled Starcore.

  As I appeared in the new place, I noticed the ring on my finger. The gem had burst open, showing tiny electrical discharges. The ring sizzled and fused as a tendril of smoke rose. With a furious shake and a pull, I tore the hot ring from my finger, dashing it onto the floor. Whatever powers the Polarion ring had possessed, they were gone, destroyed by this attempt.

  I had appeared in the brilliant chamber and found the brightness too much. I tried to look around, but it was like the time in Spokane during winter when I’d been a kid. The sun had shone too brightly off the snow, giving me snow-blindness. It had been brighter than the brightest day on Turlock Lake in Central California.

  It seemed wrong that we wouldn’t even have a chance because it was too bright in here. Had I wasted the priceless ring for nothing?

/>   I laughed, drawing Parker’s sunglasses out of a front area of my combat vest. I’d transferred them from my former clothes to the Polarion garment and then to this vest.

  I slid the sunglasses onto my face, no doubt making me look like an old-time 70’s cop. I tried to look around again, and found that by squinting I could actually see.

  There was a giant crystal dome in the exact center of the chamber. It took up half the space and glittered with greater wealth and power than any diamond. I realized that mirrors set at cunning angles reflected the crystal dome’s brilliance back at itself.

  Every place I looked, I saw mirrored rows upon rows of the beautiful crystal. I craned forward, realizing that the brightness hid cracks in various crystals that made up the dome.

  “Well, well, well,” I said. My voice sounded strange in this room. It sounded small and weak. Still, it was my voice.

  A pressure struck my mind, and I stumbled. I took Rax out of hiding, attaching him to the front of my vest. The terrible pressure receded enough for me to think again. It was like a balancing act. If I tilted the wrong way, the awful pressure would crush my free will and make me the Starcore’s slave.

  Despite the remaining pressure, I grinned at the great dome.

  “You must leave this instant.” The voice sounded mechanical, lacking the crystal’s bright beauty. “This is holy ground, reserved only for my choicest servants. If you will not leave willingly, I will—”

  I staggered to the side, and my free will almost succumbed to a heavy surprise assault.

  “Parker,” the Starcore said in a loud, robot voice. “Hurry to the holy place. A two-legged species of vermin stands before me, profaning the air with its tainted breath.”

  I concentrated with everything in me. I let my hatred of the Starcore fill my being. At the same time, I drew the .44 Magnum. I flipped open the cylinder and put the bullets Argon had held into the separate slots.

  I don’t know how, but I knew energy weapons would have proven useless against the Starcore. Argon must have planned this event.

  “You must stop at once,” the Starcore said. “I can offer you great power, if you do.”

  I flipped the cylinder into place and thumbed back the hammer.

  “This is a perverted monstrosity,” the Starcore said. “You cannot hurt a divine being like me.”

  I held the Magnum with both hands.

  BOOM!

  The heavy Polarion-enriched bullet smashed against crystals, blowing some of them away and plowing deeper into the massed substance.

  “No!” the Starcore said. “What are you doing? This is gross sacrilege. You must stop this instant or I will—”

  BOOM! BOOM!

  I sent two bullets at two different points of the great crystal dome. I shattered more of the Rax Prime crystals that made up the Starcore. I also caused cracks to appear in other parts of the dome.

  “Please, Logan, you do not know what you are doing.”

  “Wrong,” I said. “Remember Debby, you devil.”

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  I felt each shot. I watched my hand-cannon rise. I listened to shattering crystals with great delight. I might have been grinning like a maniac at this point. It felt good to destroy the demon that took over people’s minds. I was sick of aliens by this point. I could conceive of no better way to end the Starcore’s menace to my planet.

  I opened the cylinder and let the spent cartridges tinkle onto the smooth floor. I reloaded as fast as I could. My fingers were steady. With a snap, I clicked the cylinder back into place. I think the Starcore had weakened enough so regular bullets could damage it.

  “Logan…I beg you. Ask me…anything. Logan…this is…wrong.”

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  I kept firing, reloading, firing and… Everything began to fade from view as a panel slid open. Parker rushed inside with his pump shotgun. He leveled it at me, and he began to fire. Walt the Robot was hot on Parker’s heels. The ex-sheriff of Far Butte had drawn its pistol and fired with Parker.

  Those two were the last things I saw on the white ship as Rax teleported me out of there.

  ***

  I reappeared on the Guard-ship, stumbling as I did so.

  “That was great timing, Rax,” I said.

  “That was pure luck,” the little crystal said. “I realized we were almost out of teleportation range. Fortunately, as the Starcore died, the cosmic energy-strengthened shield went down. Even so, it is amazing we made it back onto the Guard-ship at all.”

  I stumbled off the dais, dropped my .44 and walked around the chamber in a daze. I began laughing. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I laughed, began coughing, laughed louder and finally put my hands on my knees as I wheezed from coughing too much.

  “Are you well, Logan?” Rax asked.

  “I don’t know. I feel spent, Rax. But I don’t think it’s over yet.”

  “We must return to the piloting chamber.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I wanted to sprint there, but I simply lacked the energy. Soon enough, though, I sat down with a grunt. I used the long-range scope. The white ship was moving fast, still gaining velocity. It would reach the Moon in a short time. It would—

  “Warning,” Rax said.

  I didn’t need the little crystal to tell me anymore. This time, I didn’t even need the Guard-ship’s scope. A white explosion caused the window before me to glare with brilliance. Fortunately, I was still wearing Parker’s old sunglasses.

  In a moment, the glare vanished.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I believe the badly damaged Starcore lost its ability to control its remaining cosmic energy. The energy must have ignited the ancient engines. The white ship is gone. We have truly won, Logan. We have completed our mission.”

  I sat at the controls, letting that sink in. A grin spread across my face. There was no Starcore now to screw with Debby’s mind.

  A second later, the grin vanished. Argon was dead. All the Neanderthals and apish hominids had surely died. Was there anything at all to salvage from the ancient Thule station? Before I dwelled on that too long, I realized that all the Far Butte people had died as well.

  “Logan, I am detecting life-readings on the privateer.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I headed for the wreckage of the privateer. There was no mercy in me for them. They had nuked the Earth too many times. Because of those detonations, the world leaders were outraged at each other. If I could, later I would try to help defuse that situation.

  First, I was going to use the laser cannons to finish the pirates and force the various ship pieces into the atmosphere. There, they would burn up, eliminating the starship and alien corpses from curious eyes.

  It was part of my bargain with Rax to do this. I’d made the crystal promises that I intended to keep.

  -55-

  After completing that grim chore, I went into stealth mode. The privateer had already taken out all regular satellites. Still, a few agencies attempted to make contact with me as I destroyed what was left of the privateer. By their questions, they didn’t know exactly what had happened, although a few seemed to have a good idea. If it was possible, I wanted this to be another UFO mystery.

  I also wanted to cruise underwater with Debby for several weeks, getting to know her better. I was in a unique situation, possibly the weirdest in all human history. I had a Guard-ship, a Rax Prime crystal, perfect health, increased vitality and strength, and…I had more knowledge about what was going on than anyone else on the planet. Hmmm….I wondered if that was completely true. Debby must have extensive knowledge, too. She’d also been young for possibly longer than anyone else in human history.

  The first thing I did after inserting deep into the Pacific Ocean was talk to her, asking her how she felt.

  Debby was in the sleeping compartment, wearing some of my clothes. She wouldn’t look at me and mumbled something about being horribly embarrassed by all the things she’d said
and done.

  I tried to tell her those things weren’t her fault.

  “No,” she whispered. “That’s not how it worked. I…I…could have resisted more.”

  “After sixty years in the Starcore’s control?” I asked.

  “Give me some time, Logan,” she pleaded. “Let me go somewhere so I can think things through. I need that.”

  There was no way I wanted to do that. I’d gone to the ends of the Earth to rescue her. Didn’t she understand that? Wasn’t she grateful?

  “Sure,” I said, keeping the hurt out of my voice. “I think that’s a good idea. Where would you like to go?”

  She looked up at me for a moment before looking down. “Where do you suggest?” she asked in a small voice.

  I thought about that and decided I should drop her off in Kauai, the Garden Island of the Hawaiian Chain.

  Suiting thought to action, we used the transfer chamber three hours later, appearing near the car rental agencies close to the Kauai airport. There was only one on the island.

  I’d had Rax manufacture a Kansas driver’s license and a Visa card for her. I helped her rent a jeep from Avis and drove her around for a while. An hour later, I got her set up in the Koa Kea Hotel. It was right on the beach and had fantastic service.

  “The ocean is beautiful,” Debby said that evening.

  We stood together on the sand, the hotel behind us. I had so many things I wanted to tell her. The way she had come for me while I’d been in the Far Butte jail…

  “Everything you need is within walking distance,” I said. “I suggest you rent some snorkeling equipment later and swim in the ocean. Talk to one of the hotel desk women about setting you up for a helicopter ride, horseback riding and inner tubing…anything you want to try. Relax and enjoy yourself for a time. Walk on the beach and think. Relax in the hotel Jacuzzi. But you should know that some men are going to try to pick up on you.”

  Debby smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Logan. I’ve been around awhile.”

  Her smile made my heart thud. I wanted to hold her, but I held myself back by sheer force of will.