Calmly, Billy continued to watch as the image began to speak again.
“Twenty years ago, we began to fight one another in a pointless civil war. The rebels developed a virus, which is now running out of control and will kill every Garmaurian. In a few days, the Garmaurians will be no more, and there will be no one, except yourself who will know how to use Trion technology. The universe, and every living being, is at the mercy of anyone who can work out how to develop and use Trion technology. The universe is now in danger of destruction should anyone develop the technology and fail to fully understand its destructive power,” the image wheezed and rasped.
“Your mission, First Admiral, is to unite all of the intelligent species of the universe in one Universal Alliance,” the image continued, “everything you will need is stored safely on Garmauria. Use the Trion technology for the betterment of all living beings, harness and control the power of the Trion by sharing it with others. Do not make the mistake of Garmauria. I beg you, set right the errors that we have made, undo the wrongs we have done, bring together all of the peoples and creatures of the universe into one great alliance. Use this alliance to share our technology for the greater good, and save the universe from annihilation.”
The image then disappeared.
Billy Caudwell and Tega Samarasa stood in a respectful silence for a few moments after the recording had stopped.
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” Billy said softly to himself, inwardly shaking at the enormity of what he had just heard.
“Well, there you are pink-skin,” Tega Samarasa said matter-of-factly, “That is why I am here, and why you have been chosen.”
Billy stood stunned. His young mind totally overwhelmed with the implications of what he had been pulled into. Like any fourteen year old in that circumstance, he had no conception of the potential consequences of what Teg Maggor and Tega Samarasa were asking of him. Had he been older, Billy would have recognised that effectively the life he knew was over. Yet, he was filled with a feeling of excitement that he was barely able to control. Like every other fourteen year old boy on Earth, he craved adventure. Here, he was being handed the biggest adventure in the entire Universe. He had dreamt of being a brave victorious soldier vanquishing an evil enemy, perhaps a heroic fireman or a brilliant scientist. Yet, he had never ever imagined dreaming about what lay in front of him now.
“When do I start?” Billy said eagerly with a strange unknown confidence, forgetting that a few minutes before he had been cowering in a corner in fear of his life.
“You have already started, pink-skin,” Samarasa informed him with a hint of a smile.
She had quickly come to the conclusion that Billy had absolutely no idea of the consequences of his actions, and that he would undertake the most impossible of challenges to achieve an objective. In reality, the part of his mind that was now Teg Portan was quietly rationalising the likelihood that his chances of survival would be much greater with compliance with this alien.
“Now we need to get you kitted out,” she said and led him over to the Synthesiser Room.
It was then that Billy was introduced to the Personal Environment Suit. At first, the suit fit Billy with little more elegance than an oversized potato sack. Billy had jumped like a startled rabbit when the self-closing and self-sealing mechanism had smoothly and seamlessly wrapped the P.E.S. from his left hip to his right shoulder. However, when it was adjusted to fit, it looked a little bit better. Billy’s chunky frame was not conducive to high fashion or to one piece uniform overalls. Calmly, and patiently, Samarasa explained the workings and functions of the suit to the young human, who slowly and clumsily grasped the concepts involved.
For a brief instant Samarasa felt a moment of doubt, and wondered if she had really made a wise decision to recruit this young human. As she did so, she felt the increasing tightness in her chest swiftly dispel any alternative course of action being open to her.
The virus was starting to enter the final phase, and the tiredness and breathlessness were starting to affect her more and more. She knew that she did not have long left to live and that made her even more determined to fulfil her commitment to the mission as swiftly and effectively as possible.
As she watched the young human marvel at the Personal Environment Suit, the waves of tiredness and nausea began to sweep over her. Her heart pounded heavily in her chest and the dizziness and light-headedness made her want to lie down, close her eyes, and never wake up again. She then implemented her contingency plan. Distracting the young human for a moment, she loaded the data sphere she had prepared many days earlier, in case of this event, and touched it to the exposed part of the young human’s neck. It had rapidly dumped all the knowledge he required directly into his long-term memory. Once again, Billy Caudwell felt the momentary sharp sting at the base of his brain, the pain of which had subsided even before his involuntary reflexes could react.
“Will you please stop doing that!?” Billy said in childish impotent outrage, rubbing the back of his neck, more from instinct than actual pain relief, whilst being aware of things he had not been previously known.
He understood a whole range of systems in the ship, how his suit worked, and what the cylindrical object with which she kept inflicting pain upon him was.
“Stop whining, pink-skin!” Samarasa snapped, slumping down, breathlessly, into one of the pilot chairs “I don’t have time to do this any other way; now sit on the other chair.”
“I have very little time left to me, and there is a great deal that you must know, including how to pilot this ship.”
Stunned into silence, Billy sat patiently, now realising that in whatever quest or adventure he was about to embark upon, he would be alone.
As he sat in the chair, he felt the tingling in his spine that meant the onboard systems were reading his brainwaves, cataloguing them and storing them in the ship’s main computer. The systems were interfacing with his Central Nervous System and recognising his thoughts to be able to understand his thought commands.
“She’s a fine ship,” Billy said distractedly beginning to understand the systems and Mind Technology that would allow him to take this vessel to strange alien places.
He seemed to know some of these places intimately, despite never having visited them, not even in his wildest dreams.
“What do you call her?” Billy asked eagerly, his eyes wide with enthusiasm.
“What are you talking about? Call who?” Samarasa questioned absent-mindedly, adjusting some of the controls on the column to adapt to Billy’s thought patterns.
“The ship, what’s her name?” Billy asked.
“The Garmaurian Fleet does not give its ships names, how preposterous. It is not a person it is a ship, a tool, an object to carry out our will!” Samarasa said definitively and with finality, continuing with the fine tuning of the Mind Mechanism.
“On Earth, people give their ships names.” Billy said very matter-of-factly.
“Why would they do that?” Samarasa asked finishing her task.
“I don’t know, they just do, maybe it is to remind them of someone or something that they love,” Billy responded somewhat confusedly, wishing that he had never asked the question.
“That is utterly stupid,” Samarasa intoned, sitting back in her chair; exhausted.
“I would call her the Black Rose,” Billy announced after a few moments of thought.
“Why?” Samarasa questioned still baffled by the young human’s strange attitude and logic.
“Because, when I was younger, and my father was in the police, he used to keep roses. He once told me that rose growers all over the world used to work and dream of producing the perfect flower. A pure black rose,” Billy responded and saw that the alien’s eye lids were starting to droop.
“Leave me now, pink-skin, I need to rest,” Samarasa ordered, rising slowly and unsteadily to her feet.
For a moment Billy felt sadness for this creature that he had only just met who was
now preparing to die with as much dignity as her situation allowed.
“And, you must remember never to tell anyone of what has happened today,” Samarasa warned, “you now hold knowledge and technology that your primitive Earth governments would kill you and your entire family for. So, for their sake and your own, you have to be careful and keep all of this a secret.”
Silently, Billy nodded his head, stood up and walked the few short yards to the Synthesiser where he had left his school uniform. By the time he returned to the Control Room, the alien had retreated to the sanctuary of the Living Quarters and secured the door.
His mind still awhirl with excitement, strange images, powerful inexplicable emotions and strange alien knowledge Billy Caudwell retired to the teleporter bay. With the briefest of thoughts, he altered the projection parameters on his new Personal Environment Suit to reflect a clean and pristinely laundered school uniform. The real version lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of his school bag. Without having been shown how, Billy set the coordinates on the teleporter.
A few moments later, he appeared with a blinding flash outside the back door of the home he had left with such fear and trepidation barely nine hours previously. Cautiously, he slotted his key onto the lock and turned it carefully, hoping not to disturb anyone inside the house. Slipping in as quietly as he could, he glanced at the clock on the cooker and discovered that it would be another thirty minutes before his mother returned from work. With a sigh of relief he realised that no one would have noticed him being home late, very late.
Still, he was happy and energized.
Suddenly life looked much more exciting and wonderful than it had previously for Billy Caudwell.
Chapter 20
That night Billy slept very badly. Yet, in the morning, despite being dog-tired, Billy did not experience the deep sickly feeling he normally felt before another day at school. In fact, Billy felt very calm at the prospect. With the usual routine of breakfast completed, Billy climbed onto the bus and through sheer force of habit took his usual seat. Except, today was different. The Personal Environment Suit gave him a feeling of invulnerability and power he had never experienced before in his young life. All his life he had been under someone else’s shadow. At home, it had been his rather stand-offish father. At school it was Tim Reilly, just as there had been other Tim Reilly’s in his previous schools.
He promised himself that one day there would be a reckoning for Timothy Patrick Reilly, but not now. Just for now, he had to keep his head down. He had to adjust to the new technology and way of life that the strange otherworldly creature, up beyond the atmosphere, had chosen for him. Apart from which, Billy Caudwell, who had spent so many years being bullied and domineered did not know how to fight back. Not yet. There were many things that he had to learn, he realised, and how to assert and defend himself were but just a few.
At first break, he enjoyed sitting in the sun, watching some of the boys batter a small football around rather pathetically. However, without the all-consuming ever-present need to protect himself, Billy began to appreciate some of the other things going on around him on the playground. Girls were chatting in groups near to the small football pitch, where piles of jumpers made up the goalposts. Some huddled in their little groups like refugees from a cold wind. “If only they knew what I know,” Billy smiled softly to himself, and then his eyes lit upon Julie Martin. Billy’s expression changed almost instantly from amused detachment to concern for the smaller girl that she was with, and actual revulsion for Julie Martin.
Julie was busy with a smaller, red-haired girl, who seemed to be cowering away, backing against a wall, from the older and much larger Martin girl. From a distance, Billy saw the Martin girl’s hand reach out and tug the smaller red-head’s hair, shaking her several times like a rag doll. Instinctively, Billy’s hands bunched into fists, and he fought back the urge to run across and push Julie Martin aside. Then, after shaking her, Julie’s hand reached out and delivered a stinging open handed slap to the smaller girl’s freckled face.
The smaller red-head, stung by the slap, winced and fished a small object from her blazer pocket, which Julie Martin took. Then, Julie Martin slapped the girl again before stalking away, her long dark hair flouncing jauntily. Only a day before, Billy had thought Julie Martin the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world, and now, today, he only saw the ugliness, cruelty and brutality masked by that breath-taking beauty. Nearby, was Julie’s younger sister, Jennifer, who was in several of Billy’s classes. She was a quiet, timid creature, quite the opposite of her sister, and not blessed with the same curl of hair and lip that singled Julie out for the attentions of so many boys.
At lunchtime, the school diners queued up outside the main door of the dinner hall.
Today, Billy‘s strengthened instinct told him that trouble was nearby. Slowly, he shuffled forwards, as the diners were allowed to enter the hallowed sanctum. As he trundled, Billy kept an eye out for Reilly and his cronies. Sure enough, he quickly spotted the movements down by the side of the wall, just next to the hidden courtyard. This was where the gang of bullies lay in wait for whatever victim they chose.
“You go first,” Billy said to his book-absorbed companion, and took the position next to the wall.
The bespectacled, book-engrossed boy nodded confusedly as he stepped away from the dangerous position. Still shambling forwards Billy carefully watched the diners in front of him hobble like hopeless abandoned souls into the dark gaping maw of the dining hall. Three places in front of him, Billy saw the flicker of movement that indicated a victim had been chosen. An arm reached out from the other side of the wall and grabbed a jacket. Like lightning, Billy barged forwards through the queue, and shoved the startled intended victim aside. The dislodged hand then grabbed Billy’s arm and he felt himself pulled down into the courtyard.
“Caudwell!?“ the large intimidating frame of Tim Reilly gaped in astonishment as Billy lurched into his presence.
“I told you to get MacLeod. Can’t you do anything right!?” he snapped at his erstwhile lieutenant, a small dark haired boy with large ears called Murray.
In frustration Reilly delivered a swinging punch to young Murray’s head, sending him sprawling to the ground.
“It was MacLeod!?” Murray squeaked in surprise and pain, still unable to fathom how he had seized Billy Caudwell instead of MacLeod.
“Shut up, you numpty!” Reilly snarled, “You know Caudwell doesn’t have any money,” he snapped at the grounded figure of Murray, “You don’t have any money do you carrot top?” Reilly asked, possibly hoping that today’s ambush would not be a total waste.
“No, Reilly, I don’t have any money,” Billy feigned terror, yet looked the bully squarely in the eyes.
For a moment the arch-bully faltered, caught by Billy’s gaze, but then launched into the inevitable attack. There was still an edge of fear at the back of Billy’s mind, from years of previous experience that he just could not shake. Now, however, Billy knew that the P.E.S. would protect him from whatever followed.
“Well, I’ve told you before ginger nut, no money, you get a booting,” Reilly hissed in anger and frustration, and lashed a brutal punch into Billy’s stomach.
To Reilly, it felt like he had punched a brick wall, yet Billy doubled over and fell to the ground. On the ground, Billy rolled up into a protective ball as the kicks and blows rained down upon him. Reilly, angered by the pain in his fist, and from a strange feeling that he had just been defied, lashed several stinging kicks at Billy. Once again Reilly felt like he was attacking a very hard, solid object. Billy, curled protectively into a ball, felt nothing except gentle pressure from the impacts.
After a few minutes, it was over. The bullies moved on, to cause fear and terror elsewhere, slightly less financially advantaged than they had expected to be. Billy rose from the ground and dusted himself off. With a simple thought command he dropped the protective force shielding from around the Personal Environment Suit. Any dust, dirt and g
rime that was stuck to the force shielding fell to the ground, leaving Billy looking pristine and untroubled when he reinstated the invisible force shield.
One day, he thought to himself, he would pay back Tim Reilly, but in the meantime, he would be content with doing his best to prevent Reilly and his gang from hurting others.
Chapter 21
Later that afternoon, Billy Caudwell rushed from the classroom to taste the sweet fruits of freedom that were the rewards of the weekend. It had been almost twenty-four hours since he had seen the alien Tega Samarasa, and Billy was not quite sure what to expect.
He slipped away quietly to an isolated spot beside the squat concrete and glass monstrosity that comprised the Technical Drawing Block. Making sure that no one saw him, Billy activated the remote control switch of the teleporter device on the alien vessel. An instant later, he materialised, in a flash of blinding white light energy in the teleporter cabin aboard the alien vessel. Expecting to be castigated by the alien called Tega Samarasa, Billy was surprised not to find her in the Control Room of the vessel. There was an oppressive silence in the vessel that made Billy feel decidedly uneasy. The silence was heavy with foreboding that made Billy feel uncomfortable.
“Officer Samarasa!?” Billy called, and was greeted with a silent response, that made Billy feel even more anxious.
The last time he had seen Tega Samarasa, she had been in no fit condition for excursions beyond the confines of the vessel. Now, he wondered if she had gone anywhere by herself, or if she was simply unable to respond.
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