Simon and the reptile got either side of Mark and half carried him out of the command centre. They turned left and across the corridor about ten metres down and entered a room which looked much the same as all the other empty rooms that Mark had seen during his exploration. Except as they entered, a platform was extruding from the floor. They approached it and Simon and Mike carefully lifted Mark on to it.
“Orange? His name isn’t really Orange is it?” Mark asked.
“Yes, of course it is.” Replied the reptile with the unlikely name of Mike.
“The colour Orange?” Mark asked again.
“No, not a colour, his name is Orange.” Mike replied again.
“Oh, the fruit.” Mark said.
“Fruit? Are you concussed? His name is Orange.” Said Mike.
“You’re not used to translators are you.” Said Simon.
“No, we don’t have them on Earth. I guess you’d know that as you were down there with us.”
“Yeah. It must be difficult, all those languages your species use. When you meet someone for the first time your AI will often pick up from you what the most memorable thing about them is and translate their name to that thing as an alias. When you say it, they will hear their name, when their name is spoken, you will hear the name your AI has given them. It makes it easier to remember them.” Simon explained patiently as though he was talking to a child.
“Oh right. Except I don’t have one. Sally’s must have picked up something and translated it like that.”
Mike and Simon looked at each other but said nothing.
“Anyway, why was she so violent with me? Is she normally like this? She wasn’t like that on Earth. You both saw her there, she was quite relaxed. And pleasant.”
“I didn’t see her on Earth.” Mike replied. “Look at me, how well do you think that I would have blended in?” Mike made a series of rapid high pitched metallic sounding chirps while turning round to waggle a short but thick scaly tail.
“Sally isn’t relaxed when we are on a mission, she is cool, focused and controlled, even when the shit is hitting the fan, but she is really pissed off with you, particularly as you went off with Alan. Sally and Alan have history going back a long, long time.” Mike explained.
“Really? I guess that would explain why she was a bit off hand with him when she met him on Earth.” Said Mark. “So what happened between them?”
“That is not our story to tell.” Said Mike. “You will have to hear it from Sally and Alan. If you get both of them to tell you I am sure that you will hear two very different stories. Sally is a good person otherwise she wouldn’t do what she does and I am sure that Alan is too. The People aren’t generally liked, but I know that they mean well.”
“Not everyone shares your good opinion of the People.” Simon growled.
“No, they don’t.” Mike agreed. “Now, you’re from a pre-emergent species so there’s a good chance you’ll go into shock, so I’m going to give you a sedative before treatment starts.”
“What do you mean by pre-emergent? I’ve not heard that before.” Mark asked.
“It means that your civilisation hasn’t advanced far enough for interstellar travel yet, that’s all.” Mike walked over to a synthesiser and pulled out a cylinder that looked like the one which Alan had given him a painkiller.
“Now this won’t hurt…” Mike started to say, but Mark interrupted him.
“Yes, I know. Alan has already used one of those on me. Are you Sally’s doctor?”
Mike made the series of rapid high pitched metallic sounding chirps again and said “No, I’m just a soldier and all of Sally’s soldiers have medical training. Things get messy in battle and everyone has to be able to patch up wounded colleagues.”
“And your wounded enemies?”
Mark said.
“We kill our wounded enemies.” Mike replied and pressed the tube to Mark's neck. Everything went black.
Not Who He Thought
Mark woke up with Orange and Simon standing either side of him. He didn’t know where he was for a moment, but then remembered his broken nose and all the blood.
“Oh, hi.” He said sleepily. “Is someone going to do something to my nose?” He asked.
Orange answered “It’s done. We’ve come to collect you.”
“But I’ve only just got here.” Mark said. “Where are we going?”
“You’re all fixed now. You’ve been here some time. We are taking you to Sally’s operations room.”
“Whoa, hold on a moment. I’m not going there if she’s going to attack me again!” Mark said, realising as he said it that Simon and Orange could take him anywhere they liked and there wasn’t much that he would be able to do about it.
“You’re safe now.” Simon said. “She’s had a couple of days to calm down and she has her hands full now with the action on the ground. If she had really wanted you dead, one of us would have done it by now.”
“What a comforting thought.” Said Mark. “So why does she want me there?”
“Damned if we know.” Replied Orange. “She told us to get you, so we came to get you.”
“You might want to put these on.” Simon said, passing a fresh jumpsuit and shoes to Mark.
Mark looked down and realised he was covered in just a plain pale grey sheet.
“Right, thanks. Any socks and pants?” He asked.
“Socks and pants?” Queried Simon. “What are they?”
Mark sighed. He had only been comfortably dressed for a couple of hours and now he would be going commando again.
“Never mind. Do you mind turning around so I can have a little privacy while I get dressed?” Mark asked.
Orange and Simon looked at each other, shrugged and turned back to face Mark.
“I guess that’s a no.” He said and got off the table to pull on the jumpsuit and shoes.
Mark looked around and saw they were in an empty room with just the table in it.
“I thought this was supposed to be a medical room or something. Did you leave me in an empty room?”
“Anywhere can be a medical room or hospital on a ship as advanced as this. The medical AI will reconfigure and equip it with exactly what it needs depending on the species and the reason that the patient is there.”
“Right. That explains all the empty rooms I have seen. Just a minute, you called this a ship. Alan insists it’s not a ship, it has to be called craft.”
“Yes, odd buggers, the People.” Orange said. “They never had a navy so most of them don’t like their spaceships being called ships. They a have a lot of idiosyncratic speech patterns.”
Mark was surprised to hear Orange using a word like idiosyncratic. He looked like he might struggle with any word with more than one syllable.
“Do the People come from a planet with no seas?” Asked Mark.
“That’s a long story.” Replied Orange. “Ask me again when we go planet side. There is always plenty of time between engagements. Most of being a soldier is about waiting for something to happen or for things to be put in place. Fighting battles doesn’t take up much time.”
“Yes but I’m not going down there. I think it’s plenty dangerous enough up here. I’ve already had my nose broken and suffered from chafing through lack of underwear.”
“You’ll find your opinion doesn’t count for much right now. If Sally wants you on the front line with her, that’s where you’ll be.” Orange informed him.
Simon and Orange each grasped one of Mark's arms and pulled him into the centre of the room with them and stood closely together.
Mark blinked - or at least he thought he did and they were standing at the edge of a very large room filled with consoles, which were all being used by various species and most had two or three others stood by them talking amongst themselves. All of them were wearing black jumpsuits. The room was full of noise and activity. Sally was standing by a table with Mike, both bent over a device that bore a resemblance to a shoulder mounted weapon.
>
Mark had time to notice now Sally had lost the glasses, the horrible mousy coloured hairstyle, which must have been a wig, and the badly applied makeup. Her hair was now a bronze red colour, about four inches long and brushed straight back. It seemed to come lower down her forehead than before and her hairline came further down her neck than he remembered. Without the makeup, her skin was a light honey colour. She looked a lot better for the change.
After a few minutes, Sally stood up straight and Simon nudged Mark forwards. Mike picked up the device and hurried out of the room.
“What was that you were looking at?” Asked Mark.
“You’re out of medical then.” Sally said, ignoring his question. “You’re bloody lucky I was in a good mood when I came on board.”
Mark opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it and closed it again.
“The enemy outnumber us by at least fifteen to one. They have advanced weapons at least as good as ours and are well organised. Their troops have a wide variety of state of the art body armour and they are well trained, well disciplined and well led. They have taken most of the planet, have good defensive positions and are continuing to gain ground against the indigenous population who are taking heavy casualties. I have got two thousand troops on the ground actively engaging them on four fronts. We’re going down to join them shortly.”
“Er, is that a good idea?” Asked Mark. “With those kind of odds, it sounds like suicide.”
“Oh, it is, without a doubt. Knowing we’ve arrived I’m surprised they haven’t given up already. They are either in a hurry to die or they are expecting reinforcements. We’ll find out one way or another soon enough.”
This was not the Sally that Mark knew. His Sally was a bit of a bumbling buffoon, this Sally was sharp decisive and confident. His Sally was known as Mad Sally because she was a bit ditzy. This Sally seemed to have completely lost touch with reality. It all seemed so surreal that if Sally hadn’t been so serious and backed up by all the people - and other creatures around them, he could almost believe this was a comedy sketch.
“What if they have reinforcements coming?” Asked Mark. “Won’t that alter the odds even more in their favour?”
“It might if they were to land, but we have already taken out their troop transporters and orbital armoured platforms. If any more of their ships turn up, they’ll be dust before they can fart.”
“Couldn’t you shoot them up from orbit?” Asked Mark. He really didn’t want to go into a war zone. He could feel his legs starting to shake just at the thought of it.
“We’re not Ants for Satan’s sake!”
“Satan? Are you devil worshippers?” Mark asked. “And there was I,” Mark thought, “thinking that things couldn’t get worse - and then they did.”
“The words I’m getting from your translator indicate that you think we might follow an incarnation of evil. Quite the opposite. Well, almost the opposite, we don’t worship anyone as an organisation, though many of my troops have their own religions they follow. We exist to fight evil bastards like the one’s down there. My expression was just a turn of phrase, a bit like on Earth when people say ‘oh for god’s sake’ when they don’t believe in any kind of god.”
“You say you exist to do this, but why do you do this? Isn’t it dangerous? Alan explained that you don’t get paid for it.”
Sally sighed and she seemed to soften a bit. “We do it because somebody has to. Otherwise scum like the invading army down there would sweep through the galaxy, killing and destroying wherever they went. The galactic community isn’t perfect, but it deserves better than to be preyed on by garbage like them. I am good at it, in fact, I am very good at it. I lead the best army in the galaxy. Is that reason enough for you?”
“Er, yes. That's interesting, but I haven’t got a translator.”
There was a moment's silence, then Sally, Simon and Orange burst out laughing.
“You mean he hasn’t told you?” Said Sally through her laughter. “And you hadn’t realised!” This caused even more raucous laughter and several of the crew turned to look at them.
Mark was angry with them for laughing at him. “What do you mean he hasn’t told me? What are you talking about?” He demanded.
“Of course you’ve got a translator.” Sally answered, still laughing. “And you’re lucky, it’s one of the People’s! Listen for a moment.” Sally paused, then continued. “You see him over there?” She pointed to a tall individual with red skin and a stripe of light brown downy feathers that ran from his forehead to the back of his head and disappeared down the back of his jumpsuit. His most prominent feature however, was a black and yellow beak in the middle of his face.
“He is a Fu Drek, an avian species. They rarely get involved in anything outside their own civilisation, but Yek Drah is an exception. He has been with us for a long time now and shows no desire to leave.”
“That’s interesting.” Mark said. “But I’m not sure why you’re telling me this now.”
“Because Mark, I turned my translator off before telling you about him and I’m damned sure you can’t understand my native language.”
The room seemed to go silent to Mark. He couldn’t even hear the fresh tirade of laughter from Sally, Simon and Orange.
“Where is he!” Mark barked. “Tell me where he is!”
“Simon, take him to Alan and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. When the unpleasantness is over, bring him back here.” Sally ordered.
Simon reached out for Mark's arm but he shook him off and marched over to where they had appeared in the operations room. Simon kept step beside him and when they reached the point where they had arrived they both stood still. Mark blinked, or thought he had, and they were standing in the corridor outside of Mother’s command centre.
“How did you do that?” Mark asked Simon, still angry.
“It’s the internal transport system.“ Simon replied. “Alan gave us full access to it.”
“Why didn’t he give me access?”
“He probably did, but you need to use your AI to use it and you didn’t even know you had one.” Simon told him with a wide grin on his face.
“Right!” Said Mark and burst into the command centre where Alan was busy making gestures in the air with all four hands over the main console.
“I’ve just found out I’ve got one of your bloody translator AI things in my head! I said I wasn’t having one!”
Alan turned to him casually. “Yes, I was waiting to find a good moment to tell you, it would seem that now is a good time.”
”What, because I’ve already found out!”
“That is correct.”
“But I said I wasn’t having one!” Shouted Mark.
“Yes, I recall it vividly. Perhaps you don’t recall me saying it wasn’t optional.”
“So you just went ahead and did it anyway! When did you do it?” Mark demanded angrily.
“The first night you were on my craft. There seemed no reason to delay.”
“For god’s sake!” Said Mark. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Not right at the moment.”
“You shit!” Mark said and stomped out.
“That went better than I expected.” Alan said to himself and returned to his work.
Friends?
Simon took Mark back to the operations centre and as soon as they got there Mark strode over to Sally. He was so angry that he was shaking and adrenaline was coursing through his veins.
“OK, enough of the jokes and violence. What are you so pissed off with me for?” He demanded.
“Oh, let me think.” Sally said, tilting her head and putting her finger to the side of her mouth. “Could it be that I spent months running around doing your work and getting you tea whenever you wanted it? Or maybe it was putting up with your constant whining about how shit your boring life was and that you were going to do something to change it - only you never did. Or it could be that I took you out for a night out wi
th my team which, from what you have said must have been the best night of your life. I made it fairly clear that I was going to change your life - I even left a bloody note in your wallet! And you just piss off with Alan of all people not only without telling me but leaving me to wait for you like a prat in reception to take you out again.” Sally jabbed him in the chest with her finger as she said: “Which of those do you think pissed me off most!”
Mark was a bit deflated by that, He hadn’t seen it the way Sally had, but to be truthful, she had a point. “Er, you didn’t actually do much of my work, you spent most of your time blundering around knocking things over and spilling tea into boxes of documents. Are you sure you’re up to being on the front line?”
“Do you want a demonstration?” Sally asked. “One of the reasons we chose Earth for our team building and training is that it’s a low gravity planet and I need to get back up to speed in working in a low grav environment. It’s difficult to keep your balance in half the gravity that you’re used to, let alone fight. It’s less than one Earth gravities down on Gnn'Ath so it will be my first time in action in low grav for a long time. And, I would remind you that I command a full complement of six thousand troops - when they all get here, with thousands more reserves and I could get thousands more volunteers if I put a call out. So - running off and getting you tea isn’t exactly part of my usual routine.”
“So why were you doing a lowly job in IFG and running around getting people tea?”
“When you’re in a position like mine, it’s good to ground yourself in menial work occasionally. It helps preserve your humility.”
“Well, it failed badly this time.” Retorted Mark.
“Fuck you.” Sally growled at him. “And think carefully before you say anything to me. You’re on very thin ice as it is. You’re only a hair’s breadth from being put out of an airlock. Go and get me a drink.”
Unwilling From Earth Page 13
