Poverty Rocks! (Rock n' Roll in Outer Space Book 1)

by Douglas Hardee

  Although his partners in crime from Earth were unaware of it, they would be getting this procedure as well. And with Kurt's Mountain doctor, they wouldn't have to wait until they were 50. This way, they would be robust and energetic enough to help create the environment for the coming musical revolution.

  Thus, their legendary DNA imports would have a real chance at a cosmos-changing evolution.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  I Can See for Miles and Miles

  It was almost as if I'd been waiting for it to happen.

  –Keith Richards (after hearing Elvis for the first time on Radio Luxembourg)

  Jonathan Richmond, Decleanus and Leigh Redmond had long known what the late great Sam Phillips once told the writer Chet Flippo: "Music is power." The owner of Sun Records had shaped the modern culture of Earth like very few had ever done, and, if they had anything to do with it, Zeon would be kept free of the locust-like quality of rock 'n' roll. Preparation was the key and these three had done everything possible to put the Zeon defense systems on the highest possible alert. Zorbane and his Earthling friends must be stopped, at all costs, of landing on Zeon and infecting the planet with this cultural plague that Phillips and others had unleashed on Earth. Zorbane was a very gifted pilot and he knew every parcel of land on the planet where one could land safely. How dangerous were these musical ambassadors Zorbane was promoting to the people of their planet?

  Decleanus read to Jonathon and Leigh from an Earth newspaper web site:

  “Elvis Presley guns set new auction record: People still want a genuine piece of Elvis as auction attendees took care of business and picked up a pair of wheel guns formerly owned by The King for all-time highs last week.

  “Rock Island Auction Company sold the Elvis memorabilia during their premiere firearms auction last weekend with an embellished Smith & Wesson Model 19-2 bringing $195,500 and a Colt Python hitting the gavel at $172,500. RIA said each price is a world record for its respective model.

  “The Python, also a .357, was expected to bring $125-175K and went for $172,500.

  ‘We had high hopes for these incredible firearms, and our collectors did not let us down,’ said RIAC President Kevin Hogan in a statement. ‘Half an hour before Elvis' items sold, there wasn't a seat to be had in our auction hall. It was absolutely electric with anticipation.’”

  "The man has been dead for nearly 40 years and these Earthling idiots pay enormous sums of money for his guns," said Jonathan.

  "Yes, and what's more amazing is Earth's rulers allow them to actually own guns. Instruments of death and nothing more," said Leigh.

  "He was one of Earth's biggest and wealthiest entertainers and he collected firearms, no, not a trace of this backwards culture will reach these shores, my friends. Leigh and I left the planet years ago to escape this kind of moronic behavior," said Jonathan with finality.

  Decleanus smiled at his Earthling colleague’s musings and walked over to a monitor which his assistant and an obviously high-ranking general of Zeon's Air Defense Group had rolled into their room. On it were various maps and markers designating the Zeon Air Defense System?

  The assistant left. The general stood by the monitor and used a pointer to accentuate the points the great man was making.

  "Leigh, Jonathan, the path that Zeon rests in our galaxy is one that puts us in harm's way for comets, asteroids and all matter of shooting stars and the like. We are blessed with many advantages here but because of these unforeseen dangers we have been forced to adapt a complex system of detector and defense shields which spring into action when alien objects are detected. We are not bothered by the Defense Committee on these sporadic intrusions, but, they must be dealt with and the shields that are in place offer a near foolproof dome around our planet when it is activated. We don't normally need to activate the entire system. It is a difficult and most times wasteful enterprise to do so. However, these are not ordinary times, as you gentlemen point out. The threat to Zeon is a most serious one, and we must protect the sanctity of the planet from these, well, barbarians from Earth," said Decleanus as he motioned the general to down his pointer and took a sip of tea. He continued.

  "To ensure that Zorbane's mission of landing in the Mountain Region with his band of Earthlings doesn’t succeed, we are taking the rare step of activating the entire planetary force shield. I will address the planet tonight about this as normal air travel will be disrupted for approximately 48 hours," Decleanus said with the upmost gravity.

  The two Earthlings looked at each other.

  Jonathan spoke up. "That must be an enormous expense to shut down all commercial flights and commerce."

  Decleanus motioned for the general to leave the room. He quickly exited.

  He watched the officer shut the door and turned to face Jonathan and Leigh. "Yes, it is, and that is why we have only done this once in our history, when an enormous comet from another galaxy was on an orbit headed right toward us and would have wiped us totally out. This occurred some 10 years ago. You fellows wouldn't have known because we kept it all hush hush as not to cause panic,” said Decleanus with a calm satisfaction. “I'm informing you now because you two were alive when these musical rebels were contaminating Earth with their sounds. Can you offer any insights which may explain Zorbane's infatuation with these people and their music?" said Decleanus in his clinically detached manner.

  "Well, Leigh and I never were fans of electronic music at all so their musicians held no sway over us. We did, however, love folk music and that, in a sense, is how we came to Zeon," said Jonathan.

  "We were enthralled with the folk artist Bob Dylan before he descended into the loud chaos that is rock 'n' roll. We saw it as a seismic shift in Earth's cultural environment and were ecstatic when you reached out to us," said Leigh with swelling pride.

  Decleanus motioned to an assistant outside the glass room to bring them some refreshments. "Leigh, Jonathan, I must now make a confession to you. Back in 1967, when you journeyed forth from Earth to help us rid our planet of the malaria plague, we were very wary of your entire ensemble. During your first physical, unbeknownst to you, while you were sedated, we had a brain scan and biological work done on all of you and the results astounded us. Our scientists said that your personality vortexes were nearly identical to ours. Kurt Roper and Evangeline Daughtry of course, were not a good match and that’s why we banished Roper to the Mountain Region. He was too much the contrarian. Evangeline, being so fetching, and a heroine in Operation PEST, as you all were, and given my brother Parrimore's lust for her, we had to create an amnesty of sorts for all of you. My brother, though not as politically savvy as I, as you two have both pointed out, never the less had very influential friends in our defense departments, who would have been very angry and difficult if we had heeded the advice of some and terminated you after the malaria problem was solved.

  "So, your promises before we came here were not exactly grounded in sincerity," said Leigh with a raised eyebrow.

  Decleanus walked to the far end of the table.

  "Yes, and no. As I said, most of us wanted to honor our agreement, but many bright and rational people thought introducing Earthlings here was not worth any compromise. But my brother and I prevailed. We knew the day would come when Earth would discover us, or your culture would be imported in some form by our young explorers, and we would have to eradicate the source or sources, and well, with your background and obvious scientific talent, we decided to make you our allies. And truth be told, although we are well advanced of Earth in most scientific matters, rocketry was and still is not our strongest suit. Your knowledge in that field has been very useful to us, and we are most grateful for your stellar contributions," said Decleanus in his most modest tone, which given his extraordinary IQ and standing, must have taxed him
considerably.

  Leigh poured himself some tea and a wry smile crossed his face. "You know Jonathan, as Decleanus and I have pointed out to you more than once, if you had only taken your one-time fiancée, Teresa, with us on our trip to Zeon, the very strong-willed and rebellious Evangeline wouldn't have exposed Ranno and Zorbane to the incendiary Earth American records and we wouldn't even be having this state of emergency. I'm afraid your hormones got the better of you brother," said Leigh with a sarcastic laugh.

  "He's right you know Jonathan, Evangeline and, to be fair, my brother Parrimore, were the impetus behind this entire firestorm that is descending upon the planet as we speak. Fortunately, with our satellites, we can see throughout the atmosphere with absolute clarity. They'll never make a landing without immediate capture," said Decleanus with aplomb.

  Jonathan, properly chastised, as he had been throughout the years when tensions got high, walked over to the monitor and pointed toward the Mountain Region. "Unless, they have intelligence on the inside, someone who can direct them through the few holes we have within our Dome Defense System within the Mountain Region, but, as far as everyone here is concerned, we don't have that problem, do we?” said Jonathan, regaining his status within the group.

  As a server was about to enter the room with more refreshments, Everna, Decleanus's go-to woman, took the tray from him and entered the inner sanctum. The server was somewhat startled, but sensing her confident manner, and seeing the smile on Decleanus's face as she strode into the room, he retreated quickly with nary a word. He never saw her plant the micro listener to the tray.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Money (That's What I Want)

  Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

  –Agatha Christie

  As they watched their monitors tracking Zorbane's ship, the Zeon national air traffic controllers were simultaneously linking Decleanus into their feed. He had already dispatched two teams of special operatives to the plotted landing site. These operatives were Zeon's best soldiers, and they were loyal to the core.

  Providing the air traffic controllers with real-time data was Decleanus's ace-in-the-hole mountain spy, Soan, who, when he saw what the Shapers were willing to pay for Trax, set up an ambush for him, and once he had his prey, he would turn the young Zeonese pilot over to the Shapers. Soan expected to be rewarded quite handsomely.

  Yes, he was about to hit the jackpot if he could lead the operatives to Zorbane's landing site.

  But he wasn't absolutely certain of their final coordinates, because despite Decleanus's best efforts, so far, Trax hadn't told anyone the precise location of Zorbane's intended landing place. Torture. Bribes. Family threats. Nothing had worked. The family threats were a bit hollow in that Trax had only an uncle left from a terrible tragedy that occurred years earlier on a family vacation flight. Because of his work schedule, Trax hadn't gone on that ill-fated trip.

  Why did Soan, a man of considerable skill and a true Mountain warrior, change his allegiances to the Shapers? It's actually a very simple universal motive: greed. And he was jealous of his cousin Odurn.

  As we know, The Mountain Region supplied Zeon with all its wine, as well as all its agricultural products. For years, Soan and his family had toiled in the vineyards dutifully, and Decleanus was a man who could make or break a vintner on a whim. So when he offered Soan's tribe the lucrative business of supplying the large and influential INTEL group with wine, well, he didn't look that gift horse in the mouth.

  It's worth knowing for the purposes of our story that Soan, in addition to being a spy for the hated Shapers, kept some forbidden music as well. He and Leigh Redmond loved Rod Stewart's disco period.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  The Year 2525 Forever

  The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy.

  –Joseph Conrad, Victory

  Ranno, despite living in relatively nice conditions inside the Shaper's most secretive prison, was nevertheless tormented every other day by terrible music that was piped into his quarters. The reason it wasn't every day was because it was more hellish to have a day off to contemplate how hellish the next day would be.

  And his tormentor, Decleanus, despite his often-stated hatred of all things Earth, studied and frequently employed the techniques of the infamous Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin. From Stalin he learned the power that being forced to listen and accept bad music could be dehumanizing. The Russian ruler would often times order his commissars to visit his dacha outside Moscow to listen and dance to recordings of wolves howling, for hours. That was his way of breaking their spirit and debasing them.

  So Decleanus had a certain playlist of songs that he knew would drive Ranno crazy pumped into his rooms every other day. He hoped that this would eventually turn the great pilot’s mind to mush, making him a willing confessor. They weren't the sounds of howling wolves, but Decleanus was certain the effect would be the same.

  “The Year 2525” by Zanger and Evans. “You Light up My Life” by Debbie Boone. “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire. “We Built This City” by Jefferson Starship. The Spin Doctor's Greatest Hits. The Pitbull collection. The complete works of Barry Manilow. “We Are the World” by USA for Africa. “One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)” by Coven. “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles. Yoko Ono's catalog by you-know-who. “Do You Think I'm Sexy?” by Rod Stewart.

  And that was just for starters.

  Although the Geneva Convention doesn't cover the atrocity of receptive exposure to these and other like tunes, it should.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  A Hard Rains Falls

  Rock and roll is the hamburger that ate the world.

  –Peter York

  As the spacecraft began to enter Zeon's atmosphere, it began to experience severe turbulence. Haskell and Jericho exchanged glances with Louise as they jerked and dipped like meteorologists aboard a hurricane hunter going through the wall of a category 5 storm.

  Zorbane knew there would be turbulence but this was much stronger that he had anticipated. Being the ace that he was, he displayed none of his apprehension to his passengers.

  Although he was considered one of the top young pilots on Zeon, this battering was testing all of his skills. He briefly considered taking a sharp turn and heading back to space, but they would face a difficult climb out before they reached the tranquility of space. No, he would go full steam ahead. He looked over to his passengers grimacing with their eyes closed and saw the gauges jiggling into a blur.

  Did the Shaper Air Force get word of their arrival and employ the Wave Force Field? That was a possibility since he was being tossed about like never before. He was going to have to land them in tropical winds in a mountain pass. Fortunately, he was about the only guy on the planet who could possibly pull it off, he thought to himself. And even though taking his passengers into Zeon's Mountain Region meant leaving the somewhat safe zone of this broadcasting region, he knew he was bringing in the one element that every artistic revolution needed: unrepentant sinners. Haskell, Jericho and Louise all danced the light fandango and then some. They had gulped life instead of sipping it. They drank, merrily, and sold drink, illegally, with no apologies. Indeed, Louise used her charms so shamelessly and effortlessly that all the famed courtesans of any era would be jealous of her natural wiles.

  Yes, despite the very real chance that he might not ever get back to his broadcasting orbit, and continue his revolution, he had to get these people into the mix. Odurn, his Mountain Region brother in arms so to speak, had assured him he would integrate them into his agricultural farms and the culture without too much trouble. He now knew that Soan was a spy, and he would make sure his treacherous
rival would never get wind of their whereabouts.

  One of the best things about living in the Mountain Region was one's relative freedom from the meddlesome Shapers. That was because Zeon's Force Field Fence was so effective, they tended not to worry too much about what went on there. So long as the wine was excellent, the vegetables, fruits and livestock produced were of a consistent quality, they were basically the freest folk on all of Zeon. Not the richest people, nor the most cultured, or perhaps the most learned, but the freest, yes.

  As they descended, Jericho, Louise and Haskell could feel the intense buffeting of their spacecraft in their bones, and the turbulence created a rollercoaster effect that would test even the most level-headed of pilots.

  Jericho looked up at the captain's seat and saw Zorbane's hands moving like a concert pianist at the control knobs.

  He thought to himself, I survived the streets of Philly, the back alleys of Fallujah, but now it looks like I might be going down in the Mountain Region of Zeon. As he watched Zorbane's skilled dexterity, it reminded him of a chopper landing they had made under fire in Iraq and the incredible skill and courage it took the young pilot to maneuver and ignore the rockets and bullets whizzing by you. This wacky Zorbane dude really was a rock 'n' roller. Yeah, this guy just might disrupt that planet after all if he could bring this thing down safely – in an intergalactic hailstorm!