Space Patrol!

by Sarah Nicole Nadler

  Ash and Shiro fell in behind Lissa, guarding her with their own armored bodies as she turned back to Filbert. Octi’s voice came over the station intercom. “He’s gone for the last escape pod, Captain.”

  “Let him,” Lissa ordered.

  “The pods have no armaments,” Ash added. “As soon as they get here, 3rd Patrol will pick him up.”

  Lissa privately thought the alien probably had a rescue of his own coming, but she only turned and watched Filbert wind up for the throw.

  Like he had done every day of his adult life, Filbert Jones yanked once on the solar pulley and drove that kernel into orbit around Space Station 42.

  Octi’s voice said over the intercom, “Your flight is green, Mr. Jones. Perfect throw!”

  Still whistling, Filbert gave another slow nod to his son.

  Shane gulped visibly, his eyes wide, but he played his part just as well as his old man. At exactly the right moment, just as the kernel drifted up above the horizon, he fired.

  There was a flare that almost overwhelmed even the protective dimming of the atmodome. Lissa blinked. She raised a hand to shield her eyes … Then it was gone and the light settled into a warm glow. Shane climbed down from the tower. Filbert stepped back to join them and the five humans watched dawn come over the park meadow.

  “We did it!” Shane crowed. He gave a whoop.

  “Oh no! No, no, no…”

  Lissa looked up. “Octi?”

  “That...____!” His shout was followed by the bot’s exclamation that the Europan’s language was not suitable for translation.

  “Octi, what’s wrong?” Lissa shouted. She could see no cause for his dismay. A golden glow began to fill the air around all five humans, and a pop mixed with a fizzle told her they were being MTransed out of the park.

  She blinked as they appeared on the deck of the Forty-Five, Shane and Filbert as well as her crew.

  Octi did not even look up from where he floated in his aquarium, eight tentacles tapping furiously against a Tri-D screen in the water before him.

  She took the ladder up to the deck two rungs at a time, calling out to him. He ignored her as the steam engines gave a hiss. Below, she saw a soot-bot scurry across the deck faster than she had ever seen one go.

  “Octi!” she called out. “What’s going on?”

  “He had a ship! That ____!” Once again, his translator bleeped out the cursing. “He had a ___ing ship sitting right there, hidden by its exact angular size to a ___ing star!”

  “What?” Ash demanded coming up the ladder behind Lissa.

  “I saw him dock with it. He's headed straight for the escape pods!”

  Lissa’s jaw fell open. A cold foreboding crept over her as she turned to see for herself on the screen. The assassin’s ship was heading straight for the rendezvous point where over two thousand escape pods now sat outside the Rosette Nebula awaiting rescue. Including …

  “Mags!” Filbert’s grip crushed Lissa’s shoulder. “Mags and Ginny!”

  They stared at the screen, horrified as that bright dot moved closer. The pods had limited maneuverability, and anyway, how could they know this was not a rescue ship but a deadly threat?

  “Is he looking for hostages to use against us?” Shiro suggested, straining to see over Filbert’s shoulder. “Or just going to …” He gulped without finishing the thought.

  “He’s powering up his forward guns!” Octi’s voice was a wail. His tentacles danced a mad beat. “I’m trying to find the station defenses …”

  “Don’t bother, he’s way out of our range!” Shane interjected.

  “No!” Filbert hollered. “Mags! Get away, get away!”

  “Oh no you don’t!” Octi’s translator drowned out Filbert’s anguished cry. There was an enormous light that blinded all of them for an instant. A tingle ran through Lissa, not a pop nor a fizzle but a zap that made her bones ache, and then suddenly the Forty-Five was not sitting on the water inside the atmodome but hurling across the last twenty lengths of space to stand between the escape pods and the oncoming ship!

  “Woah!” Ash yelled, seeing the assassin on a collision course. Their sails were still furled. The Forty-Five had no way to catch the solar winds and tack out of the way—Octi was running entirely on the engine-powered thrusters, which spit steam that froze instantly in the absolute zero degrees of space. Trailing shards of ice, they could only watch as the oncoming ship veered off, barely missing them.

  “He’s coming around,” Shiro warned. He had grabbed onto the rail and was hanging out over the edge.

  “I see him!” Octi was grim.

  The assassin swung in an elliptical arc and then came straight for them, guns blazing.

  “Shields!” Lissa ordered.

  “Shields are holding!” Shane called back from where he had seated himself, at the con, eyes glued to the Tri-D screen.

  “Don’t we have guns on this boat?” Ash yelled.

  “It’s a ship, not a boat!” Octi retorted. “But … as a matter of fact, we do! Captain?”

  Lissa nodded. “Permission granted. Fire at will!”

  Suiting actions to words, Octi shot a ray blast from two mounted cannons on the port side.

  Only to watch the blast be absorbed by the other ship’s shields.

  Still, and not for the first time, Lissa was suddenly grateful that her mode of transportation was an ex-pirate ship. Surely most ambassadors weren’t this heavily armed!

  Octi got off another shot with the cannons, and then a grinding noise filled the air.

  “What’s that?” Lissa called. Her stomach roiled as the deck dipped and shuddered beneath Octi’s use of the thrusters.

  “Just a little extra something I found in our arsenal,” Octi replied. “Let’s see if his shields can withstand this!”

  A boom sounded over the starboard side just as the assassin passed under their keel. Lissa ran to the rail in time to watch as an actual cannonball shot from the rear gun. It sailed through space and hit the other ship’s shield. The shield faltered, letting the projectile through to rip into its left engine. A gaping hole the size of a bowling ball appeared and the ship began to limp, leaning heavily to starboard.

  “You got him!” Ash shouted, fist pumping the air.

  “The pods are moving off,” Shane reported.

  “Good,” Lissa said. “Can you hail them, Shane? Make sure they keep us between him and them.”

  He nodded and, pressing a button, began to speak rapidly in some alien tongue to the station officials currently herding the other pods ahead of them like a flock of sheep.

  “Let’s finish off this blood-sucking bat!” Ash’s face was twisted with hatred as he watched the assassin try to arrest the slow descent his ship had begun toward the gravitational pull of the nearby nebula.

  “No, wait,” Lissa said.

  “Lissa? It’s Stephanie. Are you guys okay?”

  “Stephanie!” Lissa whirled, scanning the sky. She felt a soft bump on her left leg and looked down. Lollipop was rubbing an affectionate eyestalk against her boot.

  “Ambassador Lissa, we have completed the negotiations for a Dragg’k withdrawal from the Jeropul Bazaar and are readying for breakaway from orbit around Vega,” said Captain Naarl. “We have been unable to reach the mind of Lt. Commander Briar Semo. Can you confirm her status?”

  “Octi, I’m getting Captain Naarl in my thoughts. He says he can’t reach Semo. What’s the situation aboard station?”

  “Her vitals read as normal for a Kweep in hibernation,” Shane replied instead, still sitting at the con. “The sun has barely risen and the temperature onboard is still subzero. I’m getting a strong reading on her heartbeat, though. And Samison is … yes, that’s his signal. I’m patching his voice through our intercom.”

  “-Five come in,” Samison’s voice boomed across the deck of the ship. “This is Ensign Samison calling the Forty-Five. Forty-Five come in.”

  “We hear you!” Lissa and Ash both chorused. They grinned at ea
ch other, Ash looking sheepish and gesturing for the captain to continue.

  “Is everything okay?” the commander’s aide demanded. “You disappeared! How did you … how did you get off the station?”

  Lissa turned to Octi’s tank. “Mm, how did we get off the station?”

  The Europan octopus managed to look smug as he bobbed up and down in the water, folding his tentacles in an Earth gesture. “I used the station’s MTrans.”

  “You used a cargo MTrans to lift us out of there?” Shane’s jaw dropped. “No wonder that hurt!”

  “I take it they’re not meant for live transfers?” Lissa crossed her arms.

  “Transferring organic matter is … not recommended,” Octi admitted. “Not that it was likely to scramble us up or anything!” he hurriedly added. “They’re just awfully powerful.”

  “Yeah, I felt that power in my bones,” Lissa shivered.

  “Well, hey, it worked,” Octi said. “And I had to get us out here to stop that jellyfish from frying our friends, right?”

  “Right! Speaking of which …” Lissa turned to glare at the assassin’s ship, “let’s make him Space Patrol’s problem, shall we?”

  As she spoke, she felt Captain Naarl’s assent in her mind. An instant later, the massive ring that was the 3rd Patrolship appeared fifteen degrees off the port bow. An MTrans glowed around the assassin and his ship vanished, reappearing beside the Space Patrol craft, where two large grappling hooks seized it.

  “Looks like he’s not going anywhere,” Ash said with satisfaction. A golden glow then lit the sky as the Patrolship began to pick up the nearly two thousand escape pods dotting the surrounding space.

  “It’s over,” Shane breathed, echoing Lissa’s relief. He stood and came to watch beside her at the rail.

  “I would like to see my wife,” Filbert announced, his gaze never leaving the scene of the escape pods disappearing one by one to dock with 3rd Patrolship.

  “I’ll make contact with the comm officer and find a safe spot to MTrans you in,” Octi assured him, knowing he didn’t need to check for Lissa’s permission.

  “Maybe you should go, too,” Lissa told Shane, not meeting his eyes.

  “Probably,” he agreed. “But look, Lissa … I mean, Ambassador.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry,” he ducked his head. “Lissa … Look, once I’ve seen my family and made sure Mom and Ginny are okay, can I come aboard with you? I want to see space.”

  “I’d love to have you.” Lissa blushed before amending with, “I mean, I was thinking of taking all of you—your parents and sis, too. Our next stop is Earth.”

  “Stellar!” He whistled. “I’ve always wanted to see Earth.” Hands in his pockets, he turned on his heel and went to stand beside his father.

  ***

  The reunion between Lissa and Stephanie aboard the 3rd Patrolship was full of relief and joyful hugs. Lissa was impressed at Will’s recounting of the negotiations with the Dragg’k and subsequent trial against those responsible for the murder of his crew aboard the 108th. Aewn slapped Ash on the back and gave Octi an affectionate poke for their role in defending Lissa against the assassin and the rescue of the endangered escape pods, while Krywith bowed deeply to Lissa herself to thank her for saving Commander Semo’s life.

  “She was the first to allow pale-skins like me into the Patrol,” he told her. “And your testimony was key in helping clear our name and bring the Dragg’k scum to justice. All Corians owe you a debt for what you have done.”

  Lissa blushed before taking refuge from her embarrassment in hugging Stephanie again. “I’m so glad you’re here! I missed you.”

  “I know!” Stephanie said with her usual bossiness. “Thanks for keeping an eye on … things.” Her gaze drifted over to Shiro, who was staring at the two of them.

  “I brought ‘things’ back all in one piece,” Lissa joked, elbowing her friend.

  Stephanie elbowed her back but said nothing as she walked up to the Kazakh boy.

  Shika came to stand beside Lissa. “We did well on Jeropul—but looks like you did even better! I heard you got the commander to sign a contract! Congratulations.”

  “Nothing is signed yet, exactly,” Lissa deflected modestly. “And you know, I’ve been thinking about that …” She crossed her arms, watching the faces of her reunited crew and their friends, all chatting animatedly.

  “We need a plan,” Shika voiced Lissa’s own thoughts. “It’s one thing to say, ‘Let’s overthrow OneWorld,’ or even to gather allies, but another thing to actually do it.”

  Lissa exhaled a breath. “Yeah … I’m kinda hoping Semo will have some ideas on that.”

  “What do you hope I have ideas for?”

  Lissa rounded to see the Kweep commander striding toward them from the MTrans zone. She was slow, setting her hooves carefully one after the other on the grass as she made her way to them. But she was, very much, alive.

  The others turned to look as Semo and Lissa came to face one another. The smile on Lissa’s face was as wide as the galaxy as she stared up at the Kweep.

  “I suppose, I won’t have to worry about never seeing Earth, after all,” Semo said at last.

  “You’re gonna see more of it than you want to, very soon,” Lissa retorted. And then she hugged the Kweep, although her arms were not long enough to even wrap once around the large female’s foreleg; she squeezed it, nonetheless, and felt tears spring to her eyes when she felt Semo tap her lightly on the back with her hoof, the closest approximation to a hug.

  “Let’s eat, shall we?” Filbert interrupted, coming up to them with Mags under one arm and Ginny on the other.

  “There are a lot of things to settle …” Lissa began.

  “After you’ve eaten,” Mags said firmly, reminding her with a pang of another mother waiting five thousand lightyears away.

  The Joneses went off together to find the makings of a picnic lunch, and Lissa watched her friends, new and old, gather about her in the meadow. Shika and Will stood holding hands tightly beside Shiro and Stephanie, who did the same. Commander Semo folded her knees and knelt in the grass beside Stephanie, while Aewn crossed his muscled forearms next to Krywith, whose uniform had been exchanged for a flowing gray robe. He tucked his hands into his long sleeves and bowed to her. She nodded back. Ash stood at her right-hand side, as he always did, with Octi wrapped loosely around his shoulders. Lissa stood there a long moment, surveying them all, especially her crew.

  Being stolen from their homes into slavery had not broken them; being sold out by Earth’s government had not shaken them. Like her, they had seen what needed to be done and at every turn they had done it. And now, what they had accomplished for themselves and for each other had forged them into the unbreakable circle that stood before her. Proud. Determined. Strong.

  It was a circle that was about to roll right over the Jesters’ reign on Earth, Lissa vowed, and would spell the end of the slavery of humankind.

  Never Before In Earth History...

  The freeing of the third planet in the Sol system from its own political folly was a news item everywhere throughout the Milky Way for the next several rotations. Backed by enormous military power from certain interests in the Andromeda Galaxy, Ambassador Melissa Phelps managed to oust her own governmental leaders, simply by exposing the plot by vested interests on Earth to export and enslave two-thirds of the population.

  In her stirring speech, broadcast to every denizen of the planet by UC drones, the Ambassador Lissa stated, “A popular American president once said, ‘Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.’ Never before in Earth’s history have those words held true more than they do today …”

  With the assistance of Space Patrol and large loans from Universe Co., Ambassador Lissa followed her exposé with the first truly democratic vote in Earth’s history, essentially gaining the legal right to depose the Earth
president and one Timothy Rocksquatter—head Jester and ringleader of the illegal slave trade on Earth.

  To her surprise, and dismay, she found herself immediately elected the temporary head-of-state!

  “No accounting for taste,” Ash teased her. Wherein he promptly had a glass of water dumped on his head by his elder sister. As Shika calmly put down the glass she had used to punish him, Lissa tossed him a towel and said, “Let’s see you do any better!”

  So, in the weeks that followed, Lissa continued to hold daily video sessions wherein she laid out the bald facts to a population that was in the main quite willing to listen to the bright sweet-faced girl who told them in simple terms her plan to integrate Earth into the galactic community.

  “There will be those who oppose it,” Mr. Piff warned her, now stationed as Universe Co.'s advisor to Earth. She had hardly been surprised when he finally admitted that, besides being 2nd Mate on the 32nd Patrol, he was also the youngest brother of Universe Co.'s CEO. “There are always those whose sordid minds and petty ambitions make them fight anything good or decent. Ignore them. Operate on the idea of doing the greatest good.”

  “Your people are many and varied,” Semo added “But you have this on your side—there are a great many good, hard-working, intelligent Earthlings who lack only a direction to go and the means to follow it. Let the evil ones squawk. As for the rest, give them a goal they can agree to and let them get on with it.”

  So she did. Lissa wrote several basic multiple-answer surveys, which were answered by means of those invaluable drones. The resulting tabulation gave her the majority opinion of Earthlings on what role they would like to play as the first planetary members of Universe Co. in the Milky Way. Election of a permanent world leader came next, and the only criterion their new allies in Space Patrol requested was that none of the new candidates could have any history with the Jesters.

  With everything from personality tests to intelligence scores of candidates now open for view by any citizen of Earth, and drones equipped with translator technology to explain to even the most illiterate child in the most obscure dialect, real leaders were elected directly by popular vote.