by Tom Holloway
Staring into his eyes, I project my thoughts into his brain. “Marco, focus! I am reading your thoughts. You know it. I know you feel it. I know you also understand my thoughts. You have a lot more pain to go through before you die.”
He knows I’m in his brain as our eyes lock as I probe, causing more pain. His eyes reflect his pain and horror. The pain is now beyond his brink, and he is approaching insanity, and now his mind is totally vulnerable to me. I’m alarmed by his memories as I force his mind open. Marco is truly a bad man, more than I expected. He also has been busy. I can see into his memories and can see many of his previous ugly activities, what he has done. I see the terrible damage he inflicted on many young girls, and one real recently, today, a young girl, Heidi. She should be alive still, although suffering in some warehouse. It is a fresh memory. I understand now. I know how he was going to get the health department to shut down the restaurant. I ask him where she is and her father’s name and number. Marco wants his own death; I feel it. He is pleading, begging for an end to his agony. I reassure him mentally that I will kill him quickly after he tells me about the girl. I will put him out of his misery and pain.
He tries to scream again, as adding to his terror, he finally comprehends he is hearing my thoughts mentally. This bewilders him. He can barely talk, barely able to breathe, mostly because of the broken nose and crushed jaws; his speech is now a garbled, blubbering blood. His eyes wild from the extreme pain, he blurts, “Who are you? Are you a demon?”
I ask him again, this time out loud in a snarl. He cannot speak; it’s impossible with his jaws swelling and his face a bloody mess. No matter. I can hear his thoughts. I know where Heidi is, the warehouse’s location, and her father’s name—George—and his cell number.
I don’t need Marco anymore.
I immediately finish him off. It ends fast. He never knows what hits him, my right fist exploding into the middle of his chest, crushing his sternum and exploding his heart. The pain is intense only for a moment as he dies of a massive heart attack. I stare into his horrified eyes, penetrating his last thoughts as his life drains from him. He is a dismal, violent, cruel man who is afraid to die, his soul beyond redemption. He receives the bad death he deserves.
I then call George, Heidi’s father, using Marco’s cell phone and tell him I know about the kidnapping of his daughter. I know where she is located, and I give him the address. I tell him to tell no one and not to do what was asked of him for her return, saying, “It’s all over. Your daughter may need some medical attention. She is in bad shape. Hurry! Go get to her now!” I tell him. “Her kidnapper will never bother her or you again—ever.” He’s weeping as he thanks me. He asks who I am. I do not respond. I hang up.
The Saber sends down a cleanup crew, specialized debris-eater drones. They take care of the blood, the gun, the knife, and the bodies. They look like swarming termites humming away. Then nothing remains: the bodies vanished, blood all gone, no sign they ever existed. They all become recycled waste. I straighten up the room as much as possible and lock the door as I leave.
I need to head back to the Saber quickly, no time for Central Park. I also have to change clothes, as mine are covered with blood and smell awful. The spaghetti dinner took more time than I wanted. I have things to do. It was good, though. Poor Alfonzo and Rosa. I hope I helped them.
Chapter 4
Russian Overflight
I need to figure the velocity at the current latitude and longitude of the Cyclone to navigate my trip back to it, as it is moving fast over Earth’s atmosphere. The Saber immediately gives me the starship’s location. The interception point will be plotted automatically.
The Cyclone is currently orbiting the Earth about 170 miles up, not far from Russia, moving in line toward Moscow, with a heading due southwest at a speed of thirty-eight thousand miles per hour including Earth’s rotation speed. The Saber calculates the intersection point, changing course, tracking a new destination plot, then notifies the Cyclone of the intersection point.
Our direction takes us up over Siberia, not far from Alaska. We are accelerating to make a quicker hookup yet keeping an altitude of thirty thousand feet. I want to see Alaska and Siberia. The vast pristine wilderness there is amazing, worth the time. Siberia alone is three times larger than Alaska or half the size of the United States. Last time I was here the cloud layer was too thick to see much. It was a carpet of clouds for miles, earth not visible from above.
Today is much better, blue skies. I drop to ten thousand feet, enjoying the scenery using the Saber’s video magnification lenses, seeing the magnificent forests, the coastline of Alaska, then the miles and miles of heavy forest in Eastern Siberia. Suddenly I am surprised to see a massive area of forest that is not all forest. My infrared scanners are picking up much higher temperatures under the tree canopy, what may be lots of people and moving vehicles spread for miles. This is mostly uninhabited Russian territory, no towns, no cities—nothing is supposed to be here other than wilderness. I see nothing at first, and then there it is. I’m barely able to see them, camouflage and forest hiding a lot of tents and tanks and thousands of troops. They are truly hidden. Even with the magnification lens, which gives me a view at a thousand times normal, really a close-up, it’s not easy to see them from above. Still, I know they’re there.
What is all this? Not possible, I think. This is a real anomaly. Very odd, and hidden by someone who went to a lot of effort. I see something, maybe a tank moving along the edge of the forest. Whatever this is, none of it is good. Maybe it’s thousands of military tanks and millions of troops. Unfortunately for me I can’t ignore it; it is certainly worth checking out.
The Saber changes course instantly, reading my thoughts and knowing exactly what to do. We swing back and reduce altitude severely, still maintaining supersonic speed, letting the air friction slow us down. Much to my surprise, several missiles are fired at us from multiple ground locations, none of them sophisticated. They are primitive and not a real threat. The Saber’s defense systems destroy all of them instantly. More missiles are fired and destroyed. Why all this? They are serious about killing me. Something important is down there, with so much effort to protect it. I suspect it’s a large troop encampment, maybe millions of soldiers. This could not be possible. The infrared signature is massive. Does Russia have that many troops?
Now that they know I’m there, there’s no reason to be coy. I am definitely an enemy target, as they have fired at me, though without success. I need to take a closer look, and I can show some teeth. They deserve it. I drop down to two hundred feet above the ground, extremely low since I am moving at fifteen thousand miles per hour. The supersonic air concussion from this velocity will come close to blowing out most of the eardrums of any troops below or burn them with the mega heated air from the hull’s friction burn; even worse, this causes a lack of air that will suffocate many of them. And more terrible, the ship’s mega hot fusion tail-stream blast will literally blow a channel four miles wide behind it, burning and erasing ground brush, roasting the trees, burning troops, tumbling buildings, overturning trucks, destroying camouflage covers, and starting many fires. It will scare the hell out of the other troops, and as I’m moving so fast they won’t see me, just hear the thunderous booms and feel the massive blast of mega hot air. There will be casualties.
Actually the sweep caused much worse destruction than I expected; because of troop density it caused a lot of instantaneous death and obliteration, no escape possible from the massive megahot tail-blast thrust. Too bad, this was predicable.
Then it seems I was premature in my confidence that I escaped other military threats. There they are. Many fighter jets are now descending upon me firing missiles, yet they have little chance of keeping up with me. They can see only my exhaust trail. It’s still irritating, though. Maybe time to show them a real military ship. Circling high, I come roaring back, accelerating, and blasting out a massive fiery tail thrust for miles. I’m white hot, the blast resultin
g in sweeping the air clean of their fighter jets behind me. Between the massive air concussion and the air-friction firestorm coming from the hull with the twenty-five-thousand-mile-per-hour acceleration and the thirty-thousand-degree fusion heat coming off the two-hundred-mile thrust tail, most of the planes are simply destroyed or evaporated. The rest try to escape. I accidentally run over several as they attempt to leave. They are so thin-skinned, the result is obliteration. They are also disintegrating from flying debris or just losing control from the whipping air whirlpools and then crashing.
The Saber is armored. Nothing can penetrate it. The collisions and debris have no effect on it, and my flight continues. I accelerate up and away, heading for the Cyclone.
The troops’ commanding officers will be shocked at the sudden catastrophic loss. They will realize it was caused by some kind of supersonic military jet, massive in size in their perception and many times faster than anything they know about. They will feel instinctive fear, much anxiety and apprehension, or maybe even dread as they eventually realize someone has discovered them. They will also be terrified by the knowledge that there was a military confrontation and they were so vulnerable as well as by the realization that they have a powerful unknown and certainly strange new enemy. Who did this to them? Who has discovered them? They will ask themselves, “Who has this kind of technology? Maybe the United States?”
Of course I realize it is my first military engagement on Earth, which is truly unfortunate. Gabriel will not like it.
The only possible good result to hope for is that maybe it will scare them enough to rethink their plan, whatever their intent.
Still, it puts me in an awkward situation. What do I do? No question this massive army being there is not a good sign, so close to the United States, so many troops. Does anybody know about them in the States? Need to find out what this is as might be critical, will go ahead and implement a reconnaissance survey. Really strange, and bad timing for me. What is happening on Earth? Why are they there? I have no time for this. I circle back to make the drop.
I release several hundred reconnaissance drone slips with a host oversight drone, before leaving the area. They will give a detailed report of what is down there. It sure looks like a lot of troops, shocking enough and hard to believe, just bad news. Crazily enough it looks like a lot of Chinese army divisions sharing the same site, with just a couple of Russian divisions. Are they allies? They’ll be wondering about me.
No time to mess with it now. I’m approaching the Cyclone and need to load the Saber back on board. The bay doors open and I lock in, on track, the starship happy to see us. Time to start my real visit.
Chapter 5
Employment by Consortium
I am back on the Cyclone, the Saber loaded up and now heading for Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States, the location of my hometown, or what was my home many years ago. For many decades I have roamed the universe and thus know it well. Because of this I now know the Earth to be an unusual planet, really a precious jewel. It has a very small population as far as inhabited worlds go. Plus it’s a long way off the starship trajectories, the well-traveled trade routes, which are the hyper speed corridors. Earth unluckily—or maybe luckily—is much too far away in an immense universe, even for starships, to get much attention. Worst of all, unfortunately there is almost nothing on Earth anyone wants.
I know not to meddle too much in human affairs. Actually it’s forbidden. I have been warned many times not to make contact, as too many issues would come out of it. Earthlings are too primitive to be trading partners, not like the other civilizations. No one is interested in Earth except for me. I am also told the people of Earth are not ready for trading—too many complications would result, maybe even serious harm. Even with our good intentions, it could be disastrous for Earth. The massive difference in technology plus an alien culture would be shocking for Earth humans; there could be worldwide panic.
I have tried many times to advocate the admission of Earth into the Consortium—and been turned down enough times to quit trying. Since no one knew of Earth, the Consortium felt it did not need protection for now. Earth’s best defense is to be unknown.
Maybe they are right. Contact with an advanced civilization from some other world in the universe would be problematic. Many issues would be created with real contact or continued interactions, such as when Europe’s population met the North American Indians; a lot of Indians died, and there was much suffering, too. Even if someone could give the human race starship technology for effective space travel, the cost would be prohibitive for Earth. The price tag is about $300 trillion for one no-frills starship. The other challenge is the nuclear-fusion energy a starship requires. It has huge fuel needs. To fill the gas tank for just four months of starship travel is equal to three years of Earth’s total energy production. Think about creating enough starship fuel for several years, the resources required. It’s just not possible on Earth at this time.
Still, Earth is my home planet. I was born there on April 17, 1920, in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a great place to live and grow up: friends, school, family, and lots of boyhood adventures. My biggest wish was to return there and raise a family. However, this was not meant to be. After four years at Indiana University, I graduated, and then I joined the US Army in 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, and became a pilot. Then I died, or maybe almost died, on June 6, 1944, at Normandy Beach, part of the invasion force on D-Day, flying a P-51 Mustang fighter plane for the US Army. I was, unfortunately, shot down; there was no escape for me. My Mustang hit the water hard, and I was badly injured, couldn’t get out of the sinking plane. My last memory is that I was in a lot of pain. It was dark and cold, and I would miss my friends and family, especially my mother. My last thoughts were about her. She would be sad, and she would miss me. I wished I could have seen her one more time.
Then I woke up, and, to my astonishment, I was still alive. However, life had changed for me in a big way. The first thing was I was a long way from Earth, trillions of miles. I would learn later that an interstellar reconnaissance robot starship picked me up. It was assigned to find someone like me, the right military DNA, beyond hope, dead to my world, ready for a new life to be granted on new terms.
I was rebuilt, as a damaged car is fixed, put back together with new parts and good as new, actually better, an improved version when they were done. It was pleasant—no pain, no fear. My new comrades were kind, certainly strange, not human yet very human, as empathetic, compassionate, and concerned about me.
I had a purpose, which was explained to me, and I understood. This new world to which I was introduced was really beyond my comprehension, yet, I learned fast. The learning was mostly telepathic. Words were rarely spoken. Really hard to explain, just that I had a constant stream of information coming in, like a software download, and amazingly enough I retained it permanently. I learned later a small microcomputer processor (part synthetic, partially organic, as it was nurtured by my body) was implanted in my brain when they were rebuilding me, which has turned out to be quite handy. For one, I am now telepathic. It has also increased my brainpower by giving me access to massive computer data links. It can be used anywhere and everywhere. My brain has a language communications link, too, given to me by the use of telepathy. I needed to communicate with my benefactors in their way—cerebral: a mental exchange of facts, emotions, and thoughts. Being able to talk with them directly, with my mind opened up to everything, is a much better way to give and receive information.
Remarkably enough, I can even link to any computer software program. For example, I can access Earth’s phone communication system anywhere or any communications system on any world, even check into anyone’s e-mail on Earth. It also gives me the language capability of all the populations of the civilized worlds known by my benefactors, which is a lot.
And yes, there are trillions of beings throughout the universe, spread over the immense trillions of miles of empty space in many different galaxies.
Unfortunately for all of us, the universe is mostly empty space, with vast distances with no mass, nothing, just long, lonely voyages between planets. Most of the worlds we know about, that are inhabited, are in the Consortium. Those that are not members are too young and primitive or just too far away. Most of the member civilizations are very old, existing for millions of years, in a universe that is about fourteen billion years old, older than Earth by three times. Earth is about four and a half billion years old. The Consortium leaders are the most ancient of all the civilizations. Most are more ancient than I can comprehend, maybe counted as in billions of years. They are not sure either. I feel privileged to be part of it all, maybe even a key player, a small one anyway. Who could ever imagine this for my destiny?
Always the real gift to me, bringing me up to maximum effectiveness, is this imbedded little microcomputer synthesizer/processor in my frontal lobes and all the downloaded software it contains. It gives me the technical knowledge and the telepathic ability to command or communicate with the Cyclone, my command starship. As I am always linked to the Cyclone, anything is possible, with access to its unlimited data and unlimited power. I can also ask it to do anything I need, no matter where I am. It has the capability to do everything, absolutely no limits to its power. No entity in the universe can withstand this power and intelligence. I don’t think we can be compromised in any way.
The Cyclone will also link me to everything. For example, I can contact all my fleet commanders no matter where in the universe, although many times it’s delayed because of distance. They all report to me by way of Cyclone’s communications center. This is a huge amount of communication flow. The crew of the Cyclone knows how to handle much of this activity, especially now, during my visit home.
My only real issue with all of this is that I am accountable for results. My benefactors know mostly everything that happens to me, including what I do. If they decide to check on me, I am always available. Luckily for me they like me, and I do not hear from them often. Their thought processes are beyond my comprehension, and many times they know outcomes before they happen. Yes, they can predict the future to some degree. I know they respect me; at least they know exactly what I am required to do and know it is difficult. In a universe of free choice and free will, my attempts to achieve good results do not always bring about great endings. There are so many variables and judgment calls, all giving me decent chances at total failure, which is misery for many others and me. My benefactors understand, yet the accountability is rough sometimes. Not that they are angry, just disappointed, sad, and unhappy. I feel the same, too.
