Casserine

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “I am called Zaros first, and then,” Zaros made a sound with his mouth Jake could not hope to imitate.

  “Well, at least you have a second name,” Jake replied. “We call the other Alien leader Binky, because he told us we couldn’t say his name anyway.”

  “Their names can be said by your race, but the accent would probably lead to a mispronunciation. They have many nuances in their names,” Zaros instructed. “The one you called Binky may have been trying to save you from embarrassment.”

  “Then he was wasting his time,” Mercer said. “We were very close to erasing them from existence. Embarrassment did not enter into our thoughts about Binky’s people.”

  This statement caused Zaros to hesitate, as if uncertain how to reply. “If you will forgive me, may I ask why did you not destroy them then?”

  “They asked the same thing,” Jake told him. “I figured with all the times you could have annihilated Earth, and didn’t, you would just naturally know why. You didn’t enslave us either.”

  “We were studying your race for just such a purpose,” Zaros admitted.

  “Huh?!” Mercer exclaimed.

  “What stopped you?” Jake asked.

  “We had no where near the weaponry you seem to employ now, with invisible ships, and the firepower such advancements bring with it. Binky’s race, as you call them, plucked us out of space without any trouble. We had barely reoccupied our mining colonies after the war, and we were militarily weak. Our civil war of stupidity was disastrous,” Zaros stated sadly. “After peace was restored, the colonies were our only hope to rebuild.”

  “That still doesn’t explain the enslavement remark,” Mercer reminded him.

  “Many of my people were enthralled with your chaotic world, but they were also wary of trying to conquer such a race as yours,” Zaros explained. “We found humans to be a violent, warrior race, and the subjects we took up into space, gave us no hope we could do much besides destroy you. Your planet was rich with many elements we wished to claim, but we could not come up with a plan for taking them from you.”

  “Did your people ever consider a trade option?” Jake asked.

  “Remember please, we thought of ourselves as superior to your race in every way, and.”

  “Taking would be more acceptable to you arrogant bastards than trading,” Mercer broke in angrily.

  Zaros shook his head in denial. “Those people are long dead, Major Mercer. I have been away a long time from my home planet, but we were no longer the arrogant bastards, as you say, even when I was at home. The race who considered the enslavement or death of Earth exist no longer, and I wonder at what has become of my planet since I was taken. Some of the more recent captives amongst us told me they were in a battle against the same creatures who drove us from our colonies. It is possible they were lying dormant in something we brought back with us. I am.”

  Jake gripped Zaros’ shoulder. “Are you saying you have Bugs on your home planet?”

  “Such may be the case, General,” Zaros said, confusion on his face. “Why are you.”

  “Never mind,” Mercer cut in, looking at Jake grimly. “I don’t know how long they’ve been on your planet, but there may not be much left of it. When you said recent captives, what did you mean by recent?”

  “The last captive was taken about six of your months ago,” Zaros replied. “Do you know something about these creatures you call Bugs? They are vicious killers. We barely were able to evacuate our people from the colonies before they overran us.”

  “We know quite a bit about them,” Jake said. “They killed thousands of us on one of our own mining colonies before we managed to exterminate them. We just finished wiping out infestations on the same mining colony, and one other new one. They breed in the millions. One Queen can supply enough eggs to literally wipe your race out, unless your people have some shielding technology. They feed on everything until they starve to death, and the Queen goes into some kind of hibernation until something else comes along they can eat.”

  “We must have brought one of these Queens to our world inadvertently,” Zaros surmised. “We do have force field technology.”

  “We’ll have to hurry, Jake,” Mercer added, shaking his head in frustration. “You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”

  ‘Tea, but we’re committed for now,” Jake replied. “We’ll find out how many Queens they planted, and then we need to have Doug come across with the Yorktown to back us up. We’ll need to recall the Tennyson from wherever, to transport the people we rescued back home, and get Anton on the other side of the Gate. It looks like we’re back in the Bug business, Charlie.”

  “I can’t talk you into nuking these Bug planting bastards from orbit, huh?” Mercer asked.

  “Maybe later.”

  “I did not know, Commander,” Binky stated. He stood in the huge chamber room with a young female next to him, who looked at Jake, Mercer, and the Marine contingent behind them in fear. “My life is forfeit, and my peoples’ existence depends on my convincing you of my ignorance in this matter. Does it not seem logical we would have murdered the Passallions at all costs, rather than allow you to find out about our responsibility in yet another Tattallias infestation.”

  “You talk like you had a choice,” Mercer reminded him angrily.

  “We would have found out for ourselves when we visited their sector anyhow, Bink,” Jake sighed. “I am inclined to accept your denial about knowing, but we need to know how many Queens were planted, so we don’t have to waste time when we get there. You didn’t kill off the entire ruling clan, so can you find out how many Queens are on the Passallion home world?”

  “I will find out immediately, Commander,” Binky promised. “Shall we continue with our meeting?”

  “I have brought down ambassadors to fill in for our interests, with your leaders,” Jake informed him. “A transport, and another warship are on their way here. We’ll be leaving for the Passallion home world as soon as they arrive. I am stationing another warship on this side of the Gate, Bink. The Commander of that warship will have one order. If you hinder or balk at these negotiations, or any ship moves off the surface of your planet, he is under orders to use a planet killer on your world. Do you clearly understand the situation?”

  “Yes, Commander,” Binky nodded. “I would like you to meet my daughter. She will be part of what may be a new age on my world. Your ideas have been met with surprising enthusiasm by the rest of the clans. I know we have no choice, but we want to make this work.”

  Jake nodded towards the young Bazantlan female, who offered her trembling hand out to Jake in what she knew to be the human manner of greeting. Jake shook her hand gently, with a smile. “I am pleased to meet you.”

  “If all the Passallions are dead on the home world, what will you do to us?” the female asked.

  “I don’t know that we’ll do anything at all,” Jake answered truthfully. “It will be a very sad thing if the Tattallias Queens have wiped out their people.”

  The young female shuddered. “Those things are evil.”

  “They are indeed,” Mercer agreed.

  “Commander,” Binky said. “Remember, we have limited control at best over the Tattallias Queens. After an infestation, we must leave them alone until they wipe out everything on a planet, and then we go back after the Queens retreat into their stasis condition. Our success with controlling them after the Queen has begun her egg production is minimal, as my clan found out to their horror. Your people handled the outbreaks we caused recently better than we have ever handled our accidents.”

  “With what information you’ve gathered since finding the Queens, and our own successes, we may be able to formulate an even better plan this time down on the Passallion home world. We are completely unfamiliar with their terrain.”

  “Their planet is a bit hotter than you are accustomed to on your mining colonies. Theirs is a much more lush world as far as vegetation, and with far less mountainous regions.”


  “Why plant Queens on their world to begin with?” Mercer asked. “Do they have any minerals, or fuel cell basics, which would interest your people at all?”

  The Alien remained silent.

  “Just figured there wasn’t enough room in existence for both your race and theirs, huh?” Mercer commented, with visible disgust.

  “We will change, Sir,” Binky stated, putting an arm around his daughter. “We already have to a great degree.”

  “I guess Earth would have been next, if we wouldn’t have found you first, after stopping the infestations,” Mercer added with a sigh. He looked over at Jake. “I don’t know about you Jake, but I’ve had about all I can take of interspecies relationships for now.”

  Jake nodded. He turned and gestured for the two men he was leaving as ambassadors to come forward from amongst the Marines. Jake gestured to them when they stopped near him. “These two men are from the United States of America back on Earth. I leave them now to conduct these meetings. We’ll be back in the area when we can. They will be in constant contact with the warship I’m leaving here. Guard them as if your lives depend on it, because they will.”

  Jake sat alone in his cabin, sipping a small glass of the rum drink. He still had a few bottles left him by the colonists. Someone knocked on his hatch entrance. “Come in.”

  Mercer entered. “How you doin’, Jake. I haven’t seen you since we left the surface. What’s with the retreat? Responsibility weighing heavily on you? Pour me a drink, you big weenie.”

  Jake laughed at the standard Mercer insultathon hello, and poured his Chief of Staff a rum drink. “I’ve been resting.”

  “It’s a good thing I didn’t bring that lush Dougherty with me,” Mercer observed, as he took a sip of the rum. “He’d be breaking into your cabin on a daily basis if he knew you still had anymore of the rum.”

  “You’re just mad because he drank you under the table on Bougainville,” Jake kidded him.

  “He did no.” Mercer retorted angrily, and then grinned. “I was just resting my eyes.”

  ‘Tea, while curling up on the floor where you had passed out cold,” Jake pointed out. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you this, but Tim used the vid pickup on the counsel to film you resting your eyes.”

  A look of horror came over the Marine Major’s face. “Jake, you didn’t let him do that. What kind of brother are you?” Mercer put his head in his hands as Jake laughed uproariously.

  Mercer looked up after a moment. “God, that weasel will spring this on me at the worst possible moment. He will have to die. Find out if he has any family for me to send support to. He’ll have to have an accident in the air lock. I’ll.”

  Still laughing, with tears streaming down his face, Jake lurched forward, and gripped his friend’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Easy boy… easy .I confiscated the record before he could streak out of sight with it. I have it right here in my cabin.”

  “Oh man, thanks Jake, I…hey…why didn’t you just erase it? What…okay, give it up right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Major, I’ve had to put the video record of your disgrace under lock and key, so to speak. It will be held as part of the historical record,” Jake replied calmly.

  “That’s cold, Jake, I thought we were family,” Mercer shook his head in disappointment.

  “We are, buddy,” Jake assured him, as he patted him on the back. “I just thought it might be good for you to have a reminder of a treasured family moment on video, whenever you start tossing around family type endearments, like big weenie, my way.”

  “I guess I had that coming,” Mercer admitted. “You get a chance to go over the info Binky sent up?”

  “More importantly, we’ve relayed it back to Nick. Zaros added detailed climate and terrain information. We also have actual mapping shots Binky’s people have of the Passallion home world. They really turned the tables on the ET’s. What goes around comes around, even out here.”

  “That does seem to be a universal truth,” Mercer agreed, taking another sip of his drink. “We should do this more often.”

  “You mean insult each other, and muse about how close we humans have come to extinction?” Jake asked in the way of an answer.

  “We’ve kicked alien ass from one quadrant to the next,” Mercer retorted. “The right people have the weapons, buddy. We’ve refrained already from erasing a questionable species from existence, and even resisted the urge to enslave them. Now, we go forth to save yet another race of poor Bug ridden miscreants, who God knows what they would have done to us if in our place. Our cup runneth over with the milk of human kindness.”

  “Tea, I guess I’m just not feeling filled with the human kindness part,” Jake replied, “hence the rum.”

  “I understand completely,” Mercer concurred, “but, as you have so aptly put into words, it’s business, and it works a heck of a lot better than the slave trade or destruction. We’re the good guys, and we seem to be the only race right now with the knack for turning such a fact into a profit.”

  “Well put, my brother,” Jake replied, lifting his glass, and clinking it against Mercer’s. “Here’s to the milk of human kindness.”

  “And to being the baddest sons of bitches in the valley,” Merceradded.

  Chapter 37

  New Parameters

  “I’m in position, Sir,” Colonel Stavros said. “You can count on me to do my job.”

  Jake sat in front of his vid screen, contemplating his next words to the Commander of the Gallant. Stavros looked a bit anxious to Jake. “Colonel, I have complete confidence in your judgment. I just wanted to emphasize there’s no reason to overreact here. We have people on the ground, and the Aliens have shown a willingness to cooperate fully.”

  “I didn’t mean to give the impression I would create a new black hole the moment you left orbit, Sir,” Stavros smiled. “I only meant there will be no more creative interpretations of my orders.”

  “Thanks, Anton,” Jake laughed. “That’s all I was hoping for. Matthews out.”

  Jake left his cabin, and headed down to where he had arranged a staff meeting. The meeting would include the Commanders and Executive Officers of the Intrepid and Yorktown, along with his Chief of Staff. Lieutenant Dougherty would be interpreting the data General Richardson had sent, regarding the new terrain features on the Passallion home world, and the technology Binky had gathered on the Tattallias Queens.

  The passageways of the Intrepid teemed with ship’s personnel, and rescued colonists, interspersed with the several hundred Passallions. Jake had authorized limited movement for the Passallions on board ship, because of their expert knowledge of English. They were more popular than anything else on the Intrepid, with both the rescued colonists, and the ship’s crew. The historical significance of having rescued members of a race, which had visited Earth long ago, propelled the Passallions into celebrity status. They in turn were thrilled to speak directly with humans.

  Jake saw Mercer hurrying towards him, as he walked across the huge hanger bay, housing the Intrepid’s Command Wing Fighters not on patrol, and the Drop Ships not in play on the Bizantlan home world. He waited for his Chief of Staff to catch up. Mercer handed him a panel with the updated technical facts Lieutenant Dougherty would be going over.

  “Did you get a chance to look at them, Charlie?”

  “Yep, want the bad news first, or the good news?”

  “Bad first,” Jake replied grimly.

  “The Passallion atmosphere has an ionic charge, Nick says will play havoc on our blocking signal to the Queens.”

  “Crap,” Jake commented, shaking his head. “I don’t want to lose a bunch of Marines saving these ET’s, and I don’t care how cute and cuddly they are. Okay, gimme’ the good news.”

  “Nick’s theory is the same ionic charge, which will disrupt our blocking signal, must also limit the Queen’s range to guide her drones.”

  Jake began walking towards the wardroom, he had chosen for the staff meeting, pondering Mercer’s
statement. Stopping, he turned to Mercer again, who was grinning. “What the hell are you grinning at? I was just going to ask you what you thought that would mean.”

  “I knew what you were going to ask me,” Mercer replied. “I asked Tim the same thing, and he has the same answer: he doesn’t have a clue.”

  “What did Nick think would happen then?” Jake persisted.

  “He thought anything from Bugs wandering out of range, and not answering the Queen’s homing call, to the Queen coming up with some elaborate messenger network to extend her control. This could be a real interesting mission,” Mercer concluded, still smiling. “You were getting bored anyway, weren’t you?”

  “Oh yeah, Charlie,” Jake retorted. “We didn’t have enough in our bowl without adding numerous logistic problems to the mix of acting as peacemaker policeman of the universe, not to mention Bug exterminator.”

  “Look at it this way, Jake,” Mercer reasoned. “We ain’t politicians or ambassadors. We have a pretty narrow view of what we’ll do for a bunch of rag tag aliens. We are less than adequate, sitting around in space, acting as Lord High Oracles of Wisdom. What we do best is break things, and kill anything that gets in our way. We just need to go out and do what we do best.”

  Jake laughed, and put his arm around Mercer’s shoulders. “Leave it to you, partner, to come up with the Marine take on all things of a confusing nature. You are, of course, absolutely right.”

  “Hey Jake, I know you’re worried about casualties, but we have boot camps who want to give their right arm to go down with us and kick some ass. On top of that, we have trained Marines, who have probably thousands of Bug kills to their credit. No matter whether there are any ET’s left alive on planet or not, we need to go down there and fry some Bugs.”

  “Tea,” Jake agreed, walking again towards their destination. “It would be just our luck some other goofy race would Gate in there and collect samples to redistribute.”