The Invader Candidate: From the Adventures of Khraa-Veh, Alien Explorer

by Don Cook

  LIVING ROOM, RANCH HOUSE, THREE-CROSS RANCH

  TEXAS, USA

  27 JUNE 9:45 AM CENTRAL TIME

  “This Earth-beverage your people call coffee, Jim” Makarrth, now in ranch coveralls, said to Jim, as he sipped from a coffee mug for the first time in his life, savoring the experience. “It’s a lot like our viffo, only not as sweet. But then, viffo is more like vegetable juice with caffeine than this ground bean-water we’re drinking.”

  Mike and his family, Jim, April, Abby, and Dr. Goldshtein laughed at Makarrth’s observations as they, Khraa/Astra, Makarrth and his team sat in Jim’s hunting trophy-dominated living room, with each adult enjoying a cup of “ground bean-water”, the non-Earthlings other than Khraa/Astra for the first time in their lives.

  Makarrth continued, “And Khraavie, the data your distress-beacon had on carbonated beverages called soda pop made me wonder… Captain, do you feel you’ve gained body mass since you started to drink that kind of beverage?”

  “You know, Patty,” Khraa/Astra said, “come to think of it, I do feel heavier.”

  “Shouldn’t be drinking so much pop!” Donny joked, which made everyone laugh.

  “Then take my advice, Khraavie, and get off the pop,” Mike said, before he turned to Makarrth et al and said, “and Admiral, please don’t import this stuff to your part of the Universe. It won’t be good for your extraterrestrial peoples.”

  “How do you know, Mike?”

  “Trust me. I used to drink pop like a fish until I had to lose weight fast to keep my FBI badge. After I did, I felt a whole lot better, and I’ve stayed off the fizz ever since.”

  “Point well taken” Makarrth said. “Whatever pop is made on Earth will stay on Earth.”

  A pleasant hush briefly took over the group, until Val, Mike and Dr. Goldshtein pondered about how Khraa/Astra’s people travel across interstellar and even intergalactic space.

  “Captain?” Val asked.

  “Yes, Val?” Khraa/Astra responded.

  “If it’s not too much to ask, aside from the Admiral’s team being beamed across the Universe, how do your people travel across the stars?”

  Khraa/Astra grinned mischievously before she said, “Should I tell them, Patty?”

  “Beyond avoiding giving away crucial details,” Makarrth said, “why not?”

  “Okay” Khraa/Astra said. “First, for sub-light travel, we’ve mastered maglev, plasma, and ion propulsion quite well, thank you. And we power our ships’ life support, computer, and other systems using nuclear cold fusion reactors.

  “And when we teleport anyone or anything,” Khraa/Astra said, “we do not shred people and objects at the subatomic level! We’ve tried that, and it has always ended in disaster. That’s why our peoples have abandoned trying to create that heinous method of teletransit.”

  Everyone was stunned to learn that the teleportation method used in Star Trek was not safe and was indeed a dire failure from people who actually use teleportation, as yet another science fiction “bubble” was burst by scientific reality.

  A scientifically curious Dr. Goldshtein asked, “Then what do you do for teleportation?”

  “We use warp-field envelopment and neutrino-beam transit” Khraa/Astra said. “You might say that we locate a point in space using a neutrino-beam locator, wrap a person, persons, or an object or objects within a warp-field, and then teleport them using a neutrino-beam ‘transmitter’ to the desired Point B. We’ve done that for centuries, with excellent results — including getting Velbie, Har, Makarrth and their team here.

  “And as to the method of propulsion that takes our spacecraft across the stars and galaxies…” Khraa/Astra continued, with grandness in her voice, “we use a modified application of your Alcubierre stardrive theory. Our star-faring peoples have long solved the problems of negative energy creation-utilization, the harnessing of quantum gravity, and all other factors applicable to practical star travel. That’s all we can tell you.” A hush befell the living room, before she said, “And if that’s not good enough for you — tough!”

  The Earthlings laughed nervously at Khraa/Astra’s bold way of keeping alien techno-secrets. But the thought that was on everyone’s mind — what to do about Mephistula and the safety of the Earth — surfaced as the next topic for discussion.

  “If I may ask,” Dr. Goldshtein said, “Who is this ‘Mephistula’?”

  A tense pause crashed down in the living room after Dr. Goldshtein asked his question.

  “The worst, most evil mortal being that has ever existed, Dr. Goldshtein” said Khraa/Astra, with gravely somber heaviness. “Think of someone with the combined evil of, say, Egypt’s Ramses the Second, Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar, Greco-Macedonian dictator Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome’s Julius Caesar and Nero, English Kings John and Henry the Eighth, Corsican-born French despot Napoleon Bonaparte, Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, his Soviet Russian rival Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong of China, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, and many more political strongmen.

  “Now combine them with radically-extreme versions of feminist ideologies shared by the most radical members of your feminist movements, any Suffragette from anywhere on Earth, and a whole plethora of other evil personages of power and influence.

  “And then roll them all into one evil, bat-winged, barbed-tailed, scarlet-exoskeletal beastly marauder who resembles a sort of ‘Childhood’s End Overlord-meets-Darth Vader’ armor-plated stereotype of Satan. That’s who Mephistula is, Doctor. In fact, this evil, dark she-plunderer-dictator who has ravaged planet after planet was actually fathered by Satan, and born of Eve.”

  “Oh, dear!” Dr. Goldshtein said, in worried astonishment. “You said that this Mephistula could travel back into time?!”

  “She already has, Goldy” Khraa/Astra said in drop-dead seriousness. “Shortly after we arrived in Earth-space, she created a tornado-like time vortex, entered it and went back into your world’s yesteryears. I have a theory that many of your planet’s worst dictators were born of her, or conceived within certain Earthwomen via telepathy by this monstrous dictator, also known as the Queen of the Nephilimites.”

  “Nephilimites, you say?” Dr. Goldshtein said. “I know of the Nephilim in Judeo-Christian teachings and ancient folklore. Are these Nephilimites —?”

  “The Nephilim and Nephilimites are all-too much one the same, my learned friend” Khraa/Astra said. “And I hate to say it, but if Mephistula is true to form, and she always is, Earth is the next world she will attempt to enslave and/or destroy.”

  “And there’s something else” Makarrth said. “I have some bad news about how the Rubiaar IV defense shields we breached.”

  Makarrth hesitated out of fear.

  “How were they breached?” Khraa/Astra asked.

  No one said a word, with Makarrth still not quite sure how to break the bad news.

  Khraa/Astra got angry and shouted, “Out with it, man! Tell me!”

  “Trudierre gave the Rubiaar IV security protocols to Mephistula and the Shrions!” Makarrth blurted out.

  “How did Amkeria learn of this?!” Khraa/Astra said in perplexed angst.

  “I got the news from a highly placed source at KASIF” Har said. “A KASIF agent friend of mine, knowing he would face a court-military for doing the right thing, passed me this information about Trudierre selling Kannatika out to the Shrions. This agent told me in all-too clear terms to send this data to the FIA through the Red Two-Planks by diplomatic parcel.

  “It wasn’t among the backups I brought with me,” Har continued, “and the FIA has the only existing copy of the security-defense intelligence data on Trudierre’s complicity in the beaching of our Expedition’s security-defense protocols and those of numerous other Kannatikan outposts.”

  Khraa/Astra fell silent for a prolonged, excruciating moment as she felt immense betrayal, bewilderment, grief, and outrage at Trudierre’s actions.

  “That slime-devil Trudierre sold us out!” Khra
a/Astra snarled in anger over how her home and native star-realm was betrayed. “THAT BASTARD PRACTICALLY GAVE AWAY OUR COUNTRY! WE WERE BETRAYED BY THE VERY GOVERNMENT WE TRUSTED TO PROTECT US!”

  Khraa/Astra, too angry for tears, sighed heavily instead.

  Dr. Goldshtein became panicky as he said loudly, “Then something must be done about this madwoman. THIS MAD-SHE-MONSTER FROM SPACE MUST BE STOPPED!”

  “And if we don’t make any moves,” Khraa/Astra said, “Mephistula will get herself elected as the next President of the United States, and that would be the end of your world.”

  “From what you’ve told us,” Mike said, “I wish we could count on our own planet’s governments, but we can’t.”

  “Why not, Dad?” Glenn asked. “Why can’t we all get together for the common good?”

  “Son,” lamented Mike, “if it was only that simple.”

  “What about getting the New World Order into action? Surely, those guys would move on this —”

  “That’s out!” Khraa/Astra snapped. “Their ilk would actually back Mephistula, Glenn, and the likes of her, as well. The New World Order help us?! Yeah, right!”

  “But aren’t they all about world unity —?”

  “Not the good kind, Glenn” Jim said. “Not the kind we need here. Like Khraavie said, the New World Order would all-too gladly give this planet to this Mephistula and her Shrions. Am I right?”

  “On what you Earthlings might call a diamond-studded gold platter, Jim” Makarrth said. “More likely a diamond-studded platinum platter. And yes, it would be game over for Earth.”

  He turned to Khraa/Astra and said, “Khraavie, do you have any ideas?”

  “Half of a plan” Khraa/Astra said. “One of your tech-soldiers is a Protean, right?”

  “I am, Captain” said Tranxa. “What do you have in mind?”

  “What’s a Protean?” Val asked.

  “Proteans like me are human beings with the power to become any kind of creature we choose” Tranxa said. “Your science fiction fans would call my kind shapeshifters. We also make excellent actors.”

  “Think of how Hollywood could use your kind!” Glenn quipped. “You would be so convincing that everyone in SAG-AFTRA would be out of a job!”

  Everyone laughed, as Tranxa turned to Makarrth and said, “I see part of Captain Veh’s plan. That beats any acting role any day!” Everyone laughed briefly again, before Tranxa asked Khraa/Astra, “So, Captain, just what is your plan?”

  “Tranxa,” Khraa/Astra said, “you would take on my form and pose as Astra Downey at the convention for Stanton’s ‘coronation.’ You would then ambush-interview Mephistula, sprinkle her with some gar-leek powder — sorry, Earthlings, garlic powder in a salt-shaker-type thing concealed within the casing of a dynamic microphone. That’s what I had in mind.”

  “I see…” Makarrth said, his curiosity radically piqued. “The gar-leek — oops, garlic powder would make Stanton slowly morph back into Mephistula, and at least slow her up. Then what?”

  “I will be at the convention in my spacesuit, in invisibility-and-stealth-mode, teleport and install three miniaturized crucifix-shaped lights, place them at three points in the auditorium by warp-teleportation and secure the crosses with strong mag-panels” Khraa/Astra said, outlining her plan. “Then I will lie, or rather, hang by the ceiling in wait in the same auditorium at the Exhibit Hall Theater until the right moment. Then, Tranxie, after you-as-me sprinkle the garlic powder on Mephistula, I’ll fight Satan’s bad-girl, take her out, and hooray for our side! And Mike, Jim and all you other Earthlings, our side includes you!”

  “But why you, Khraa-Veh?” Mike said, gravely concerned. “Why do you have to lay your life on the line?”

  “I’ve defeated her in battle before,” Khraa/Astra said, “and I’m the only mortal human to have done so. No Earthling could fight Mephistula. Not even your most seasoned exorcist could combat her. And no one else from the Known Universe, not even another telepath, can tangle with her either. The only other entity anywhere who can defeat Mephistula is God Himself. And someone’s got to fight Mephistula, so it might as well be me. Besides, since she killed my husband, my kids, my brother Yesh and most of my expedition, it’s personal.”

  “I can’t argue with her there” Velbya said.

  “Nor I” Har said.

  “I can’t, either” Makarrth said.

  Mike, Glenn, Val and even Donny realized that Khraa/Astra was right, even if they didn’t want to, for fear for Khraa/Astra’s life.

  “Well,” Mike said, “that might take care of Stanton-Mephistula, but what about this Trudierre and a possible invasion from space?”

  Mike, out of desperation, got onto his knees and prayed, “Oh, dear God, please show us what to do if Trudierre’s evil forces should invade Earth!”

  A bright light slowly came into the room before the group with no logical explanation. The light slowly materialized into an open vision of Jesus Christ, who stood and stretched out his pierced hands.

  Thank you, Mike, for turning to Me, Jesus spoke gently to Mike and everyone present.

  “J — Jesus?” Mike said, in trembling fear. “I — is that you? Really you?”

  Yes, Mike, I am He, Jesus said. And yes, I have a plan for you and your group here to defeat the daughter of Satan known as Mephistula. But first, Mike, do you love Khraa-Veh?

  “Yes, Lord,” Mike said. “I love her with all my heart, but is loving her right?”

  Your beloved Khraavie is just as human as you are, Jesus spoke to Mike. Her people are as much descended from Adam and Eve as you are. And as for the Nephilimite side of their ancestry, their ancestors — whom I will add, were prayed for by the very full-blooded humans they enslaved and took captive with them to the stars — these same human-demon hybrids, who had no choice in how they came to be, came to Me in faith and the hope that I would deliver them from the chains of their demonic bloodline.

  I forgave them, just as I forgave you and anyone else on Earth who has come to faith in Me. The fact that certain of Khraavie’s ancestors, as well as Har’s, Makarrth’s, Velbie’s, Tranxie’s and those of the rest of all their starfaring peoples had Nephilimite blood only altered the degree of their need for Me as their Savior, not the fact.

  Mike, Glenn, Val, and Donny, hearing Jesus’s words, were reassured.

  Mike, the choice is yours, Jesus said. You and Khraa love each other dearly and deeply. You’ve both been widowed through the tragedy of terrorism. You share the same interest, the same values, practically everything. And she loves and needs you, Mike. There is much she doesn’t have that you can offer her, and vice versa. So, what will it be?

  “Jesus!” Khraa/Astra shouted desperately as she fell to her knees. “I thought I knew the true god, but now I’m not so sure! Please, if I am not saved from the ravages of hell, please forgive me this day of all my sins, become my new Savior, Lord, God and King. I welcome you as all those things! And Lord, please send your Holy Spirit to transform me into whom You want me to be! I ask all this in Your Name, Jesus. Amen!”

  “And what Khraavie has asked of You, Jesus,” Velbya said, as she and all the other members of the teleported advisory-team humbly trembled and dropped to their knees in prayerful agreement, “the very same goes for all of us non-Earthlings here today — please also forgive us, for we apologize to You for all our evil ways, thoughts, words and deeds, and surrender fully to You right here, right now! In your name, Jesus.”

  All the extraterrestrials present, in the same Christ-seeking accord, said, “Amen!”

  And by your faith, My beloved non-Earthlings, you have all been saved this very moment on this very day, Jesus said happily. And now, let us all partake of My supper.

  “But we don’t have any communion wafers” Jim said. “Or unleavened bread. And we don’t have enough wine right now.”

  You have plenty of soda crackers and grape juice, Jesus said. They will do. Bring everyone on your ranch to the open area where you hold your
ranch hand functions at 5 PM. I know all your hands believe in Me, Jim, even Dr. Goldshtein. I want them for Communion with Me. Glenn, Val and Donny, watch and pray. I will meet all of you there in vision again...

  The open vision of Jesus faded slowly until Jesus disappeared. Everyone knew he or she had a job to do, and knew that there was very little time to lose. The future of the Universe was at stake.

  “You heard the Son of Man,” Jim said, “so let’s get cracking.”

  Everyone rose from his or her seat and walked outside.

  OUTDOOR MEETING AREA, THREE-CROSS RANCH

  TEXAS, USA

  4:58 AM CENTRAL TIME

  Everyone in the Stocks’ employ was gathered in the area where the Stocks held picnics and other gatherings on the ranch, along with Khraa/Astra, Mike and his family, and Velbya, Makarrth, Har and their team, all seated in three semicircles. Everyone, human and alien, was dressed in Earthly working denim-and-boots attire so that those ranch hands not in the know about Jim’s helicopter-transported guests remained in the dark about their real identities. Everyone present who was not in the ranch house earlier wondered why Jim called this meeting and muttered between themselves about it.

  “Heads up!” Jim said to his hired hands, as well as Khraa/Astra, Mike and his family, and the advisory-team. “Now I know yawls are wondering about our mysterious guests. Some of you know their real identities because you were at the helipad when they arrived. All of you already know our good friends, the Bonhoeffers. But I’m sure many of you don’t know about the ten strangers here with us today.”

  Jim motioned to Bambi and the unearthly nine and said, “Yawl come on up here so my wife and I can introduce you good and proper.”

  Khraa/Astra, Velbya, Har, Makarrth, the other “aliens”, and Bambi walked up to where Jim and April stood.

  “Now, yawl know we Texans often call non-Texans foreigners, even if they are from the other states in the union, but nine of these folks are real foreigners. And since yawl know I hate being a floor-hog, I’ll let Miss April introduce these folks to you so yawl will see why. Okay, honey.”