Evolution of F.O.R.C.E. (The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Book 3)

by Sam B Miller II

"Are you mocking me, animal?" the young Chrysallaman asked.

  "Boottall sit down!" Dunnbull ordered. "Not in front of the small children."

  Boottall might have been 5 feet tall. He was just beginning to experience his first growth spurt, and his legs and feet were large in proportion to the rest of his body. Some kind of gang tattoo was inked into his left forearm, and several of his buddies sitting around him sported similar tattoos on their arms. The young toughs seemed to be anticipating a fight. Boottall acted as if he was the gang's leader.

  Chagrined his angry retort to the General and Boottall was in front of the children; Doug glanced around the room and noticed several of the little Chrysallamans had buried their faces in Cherree's gown out of fear. Becky was looking at him with a pained expression, and he realized he'd made a mistake. You don't respond in anger to harsh words unless your response is understood in context by the listeners. All he'd done was react like an unthinking animal. Now the children were scared of him. No longer holding the high moral ground, Doug felt he had to say something.

  "I apologize for my poor choice of words, General. I'm tired and dirty, and my reactions weren't appropriate under the circumstances."

  Trying to make amends, Doug reached over and unlocked the General’s handcuffs.

  Rubbing his wrists to restore circulation and feeling, Dunnbull said, "No they sure weren't."

  Looking over at Boottall, Doug said, "Sorry for making you mad."

  Still upset by the audacity of the animal, but heeding the warning of Dunnbull and feeling the strength of the telepathic signals emanating from Doug, Boottall settled back on his haunches with a pensive scowl. Several of his buddies slapped his shoulders congratulating him for putting the animal in his place. After all, Doug was nothing more than an ignorant alien for all they knew or cared.

  Dunnbull took the opportunity of silence to say, "The best warehouse where food can be stolen is located in the northern end of the city. I can draw you a map."

  Still remembering the General's attempt to murder his friends and him in the janitor's closet, Doug didn't feel the time had come to trust the Chrik. Using his telepathic abilities, he peered into the lizard's thoughts.

  "So now you're cooperative," Doug replied. "It's the most heavily guarded warehouse. You're hoping we'll be captured or killed by the Asiddians."

  Understanding rocked Dunnbull.

  The Human had seen every thought in his mind. There was no keeping of secrets around these blasted aliens! He'd have to find some other way to eliminate them.

  The Human broke into his thoughts, "General, I appreciate your volunteering to help us. Thank you."

  Staring back at the crazy human, Dunnbull blurted, "I didn't volunteer for anything. I wouldn't be caught dead trying to break into an Asiddian warehouse, especially that one!"

  Feeling a little rested and proud of Doug for using his telepathic powers to good purpose, Becky replied with a humorous look, "Sure you volunteered General. Every time you think out loud you volunteer for something."

  Hearing GooYee’s muffled chuckling, Dunnbull said, "Stop laughing at me, you traitorous slime."

  "Sorry," GooYee answered, but the grin remained. "I'm beginning to understand Human sarcasm."

  ***

  The northern warehouse district in Trissalic was a nasty deathtrap. Discarded trash filled the gutters, and the smell of rotten dead bodies was everywhere. Skeletons of hundreds of Chrysallamans lay in putrid heaps piled as high as 8 feet. Fences had been erected across streets, and armed Asiddian troops guarded the only gate. Emaciated bodies of 10 starving Chrysallamans were impaled on fence poles near the main entrance to Warehouse A-1. The dead Chrysallamans had tried to rush the A-1 gate to get some food and been executed. Their bodies were stuck on the sharpened fence posts as a warning to anyone else who might try to enter the site. Sure death awaited any non-Asiddians who attempted to gain access to the warehouse.

  A hundred feet away, hidden behind some old pallets, Doug fought the urge to vomit. The sights and smells in the warehouse district were beyond anything he'd ever encountered. Becky peered over his shoulder. The look of horror in her eyes was understandable. She'd never seen such depravity in her life. Whatsit was incensed. His people were being wiped out by the Asiddians, and they had a 30 year head start. He wondered how many Asiddians he could kill before his life was forfeited. With difficulty, he held his rage in check.

  General Dunnbull looked placid. He'd seen and smelled so much death in his career, it was becoming commonplace. He would've been surprised if there weren't any dead bodies. Hoping to add Whatsit and the humans to the body count was his goal, but he had to play cooperative right now and bide his time. Sooner or later, death would find them, and he could then return to his routine command of the surviving Chrysallamans. In the meantime, the possible death of a few Asiddians wasn't a bad thing.

  Boottall crouched near Dunnbull and fought his puzzled thoughts. On the one hand, he couldn't understand why the General didn't lash out and kill the humans. He'd had plenty of opportunities as far as the boy was concerned. On the other hand the Human animals had been kind to every Chrysallaman. He didn't mean subservient. They were never that. Nice was a better word. Except for the one outburst of disrespect by the human, Jenson, all of them had been nice.

  The one named Jenson had told a story to his buddies and him about a planet called Earth. The place sounded like a paradise compared to Chrysalis. Blue sky. Plenty of water and food. The story of the Chrysallaman settlers was fascinating. The Human sympathizer GooYee had never contradicted Jenson's story and in fact had added details to it. GooYee had been one of the survivors and lived on Earth for a time. Boottall felt he must have been brainwashed because Gooey, as the humans called him, seemed to like the strange animals.

  Forgetting where he was and the danger of exposure, Boottall peered around the stack of pallets where they were hiding and stared at the dead Chrysallamans speared on the fence posts. Feeling a gentle pressure on the top of his head, Boottall peered sideways and saw it was Jenson pushing his head down and away from exposure to gunfire.

  "Be careful kid. We don't know what kind of sensor system they have. Better to be safe."

  "I'm not afraid of any Asiddians."

  "I didn't say you were," Doug responded with a smile. "I'm counting on your help to get us into that warehouse and revealing our presence isn't being sneaky."

  Grumbling about hating being told what to do, Boottall complied. Now was not the time for confrontations.

  "A direct approach is out the question," Doug whispered.

  Looking at Becky, he asked, "Think you can pull off another Asiddian illusion?"

  The air around Becky shimmered and suddenly an Asiddian in full battle gear was crouching where she'd been seated. The soldier was a good 6 feet 11 inches tall with coal black skin and hair. Her eyes were hazel and heavily lidded. Her nose could be nine inches long but it was difficult to tell because it curved to the right as if it had been broken in the past and hadn't healed properly.

  "Well what do you know," Doug said. "Wendron Piper has returned."

  Dunnbull almost screamed but held his tongue as he noticed Jenson was calm. Boottall wasn't as composed. He squealed. The new Asiddian grabbed him and stepped out from concealment. Acting like she'd been searching for stragglers and found one, the Asiddian warrior dragged the young Chrysallaman toward the closed gate leading into Warehouse A-1.

  The gate guards at first pointed their disintegrators at Becky, but seeing an Asiddian was walking toward them with a struggling Chrysallaman teenager, they lowered the weapons.

  The one in charge said, "Another straggler. I thought they'd all gotten the message to stay away from here."

  Imposter Becky was 20 feet away from the three guards and closing. She answered, "What do you expect from these ignorant beasts? They're too stupid to realize when they're defeated."

  Fighting against the steely grip Becky had on his neck; Boottall dejectedly gave up
and walked to his doom. Despondent over his inability to struggle free from the Asiddian he'd thought was a human, he tightened his gut in anticipation of death. He noticed sweat dripping from Becky's forehead as they neared the guards. On such a cool day she shouldn't be that hot.

  Frowning as he thought about the sweat, Boottall suddenly received a clear telepathic message, "Get ready. Be careful."

  He was 4 feet from the guards and still wondering what the message meant when all hell broke loose.

  Without warning, the grip on his neck was gone, and the Asiddian who'd been holding him plowed into the guards. Quick chops to their necks with the edge of her hands cleaved the heads off two of them. The third began raising his disintegrator, but Becky was faster. Losing her illusion as she concentrated on the guards, Becky dissolved into her Human form, lunged at the last guard and shoved the barrel end of his weapon toward the sky. The disintegrator fired a red beam, but all it did was shoot a passing cloud. Boottall watched in amazement as the thick gun barrel bent as Becky grabbed it with two hands. Before he died, the last thing the shocked guard saw was the u-shaped barrel of his weapon. A quick chop to his neck severed his head from his body, and it joined the others on the asphalt. The whole attack had lasted perhaps 15 seconds.

  Picking up two of the undamaged disintegrator weapons, Becky handed one to the puzzled teenager and motioned for the rest of her group hidden behind the stack of pallets to join her.

  "Good work Becky. Boottall," Doug said as he walked up.

  Boottall puffed out his chest and replied, "They didn't have a chance."

  Looking at Becky, Doug said, "No they didn't."

  Smiling at the compliment, she turned her attention to Whatsit and said, "Why don't you see if you can find a transport. We need to take as much as possible on this trip because I have a feeling Asiddian security is going way up after they discover these bodies."

  "I'll help," Boottall said as he grinned at Whatsit.

  "Thanks," and they walked into the warehouse with the young Chrysallaman holding the disintegrator at the ready like a trained commando.

  General Dunnbull looked in amazement at the Asiddian blood on the edge of Becky's hands and the bent barrel of the weapon on the ground. He knew he couldn't have bent the metal barrel by himself using a steel vise and all the strength he could muster.

  Regarding Becky with narrowed eyes, he thought, "There's something very strange about these humans. Very strange indeed. It may not be as easy as I thought to get rid of them."

  Whatsit found a vehicle and with everyone's help, they loaded over 3 tons of canned food, boxes of energy bars and special energy drinks Boottall said were needed for a healthy Chrysallaman diet. They added a couple of pallets of medical supplies and drugs. The trip back to the safe house was uneventful. It didn't go unnoticed that Boottall sat next to Becky with a smile.

  Chapter 6 – Discovery

  General Montrose Harrier paced the floor of his office in a rage. The Asiddian commander was so upset his fright wig hair was standing out like he was ready to attack someone.

  Harrier was the highest ranking military official in the Asiddian Fleet. His skin was medium brown in color, and his nose was at least four inches long with a sharp downward taper at its tip. His eyes were a piercing deep brown and looked like he'd accentuated their outline with dark mascara. He was tall for an Asiddian male at 6 feet 5 inches, and he'd never adopted the colorful uniforms other high ranking Asiddian male officers favored. Instead he opted for the dull browns and light grays worn by the warrior class of females. Some gossipers questioned his male gender, but no one questioned his military genius. It was Harrier's dedication to gathering intelligence about the enemy and his ruthless murder of Chrysallaman scientists that had enabled the Asiddians to conquer the lizards' Empire with ease.

  His office was set up to impress anyone who entered it. The room was 20 feet square with a stone ceiling and floor. The walls were made of dark wood with holes like wormy chestnut in the otherwise smooth surface of the panels. The chairs, desk and various credenzas were made of a special lustrous Asiddian wood not found on Chrysalis. The flat tops of the desk and the chair backs were inlaid with complex patterns made from a scarce substance akin to mother of pearl. The walls were hung with various photos of Harrier receiving medals and rectangular shadow boxes containing past uniforms he'd worn. To most people the room looked and smelled like a museum.

  The stone floor was laid out in a beautiful mosaic pattern of sweeping arcs and intricate designs meant to mimic water flowing in a mountain stream. The direction of the water flow was toward the desk. Stones in the colorful patterns ranged from 24 inches long and 8 inches wide all the way down to the smallest at 3 inches square. It'd taken Chrysallaman artisans over six weeks to lay the floor's pattern because Harrier kept finding minute faults in their work. Perfection was ingrained in the General's psyche and nothing less was satisfactory. Besides, he relished every chance at torturing a Chrysallaman. He loved to hear their grunts of pain.

  Harrier was fuming because over the last few days, three warehouses had been attacked and looted by unknown killers. Thirty Asiddian guards had either been shot to death or decapitated. At the A-1 warehouse, one of the guards' weapons had been left behind because its barrel was bent.

  "Bent! It would take a special lever powered by a hydraulic ram and the barrel held by a vise to create the u-shape. No witnesses. But it had to be the Chrysallamans," he decided for the umpteenth time.

  "Something's got them stirred up, and I've got to find out what. Maybe it's the humans," he thought.

  Princess Peregrine was still missing. It'd been seven days since her disappearance and despite rigorous destruction of the secret passageways riddling the palace, she'd not been found. Torturing the palace Chrysallaman slaves to gain information had been fun, but the end result was nothing. Yes they'd found many hidden entrances to the secret passageways in the palace but not a trace of the Princess.

  The door to his office opened and in walked Dr. Emil Corvus. Corvus was short for an Asiddian, standing only 6 feet tall. He had dark black skin and matching black eyes with pupils tinged with purple highlights. His eyes seem to bug out of his head and move back and forth as if he suffered from a nervous twitch. His black nose was long in relation to his body. The man's demeanor screamed of pretentious intellectual snobbery. The prissy scientist was wearing a light green pantsuit with a frilled pink scarf tied around his neck. He was carrying something that looked like a black ball. Scowling at the unannounced intrusion, Harrier was about to yell at the pompous jerk when he noticed the excited look on the man's face.

  "General Harrier, I've found something interesting in the alien saucer."

  "What now," Harrier responded as he sat down in his chair. "I thought the thing was a derelict. Your last report . . ."

  Corvus held up the black ball. The object had a slick exterior unmarked by anything except three round holes covered by a clear glassine material. The ball was around nine inches in diameter, and nothing but the three holes indicated any difference between it and a common Asiddian child's kickball. The position of the holes in the ball reminded Harrier of the face of death. He got the distinct impression the ball was looking at him.

  The skinny scientist said, "We discovered this object in a storage chamber aboard the alien scout saucer. It was attached to another ball just like it with some rope netting. After I managed to pry one of them open, I discovered a curious circular grid. After powering up the grid, its secret was revealed."

  "Just tell me what you found in 10 words or less."

  Instead of answering, Corvus released the ball. Rather than falling to the floor, it levitated; floating in the air with no visible support.

  Rising, Harrier asked, "Just what have you discovered Doctor?"

  "I believe it's the secret of the alien fast as light space drive," Corvus responded. "I think it may also be some kind of energy tap heretofore undiscovered! The thing seems to draw power from the aethe
r."

  Now Harrier was interested. The last time the Asiddians had discovered a new energy source, they'd learned the secret of the disintegrator beam. Harrier walked over to the hovering ball and touched it. Even though the black ball appeared heavy, his tentative touch made it float several inches away from him. The object was as light as a feather.

  "How long to discover how it works and duplicate it?"

  The frown lines across Corvus' forehead deepened, and his eyes darted back and forth a little faster than usual.

  "The mathematical theory is still being developed. I estimate at least 10 days before I have a working model."

  Noticing the uncertainty in the weasel's answer, Harrier asked, "What happened to the other ball Dr. Corvus?"

  Acting like a teenager caught coming in too late from a date, the scientist admitted, "The circular structure in the first one I opened destroyed itself. I attached a proton accelerator and began feeding power into the thing. Some kind of black goo formed in the center of the lattice. Excited by the results, I fed the thing more power. There was a flash of brilliant white light, and the lattice dissolved into powder."