by Frank Neary
SOME TIME
Origins : Pico
Frank Neary
Copyright © 2020 Frank Neary All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Garry Staines & Ben Mascari
Origins : Pico
Chapter 1
The dawn doesn’t gently break on Aurelia, instead the sun hurls itself up into the sky smashing shadows to oblivion and chasing darkness under trees and tables like a dog after a rat.
This initial lurch of light, this dazzling brightness would be enough to blind any human observer but no human has ever been nearer than a million light years from Aurelia…
oOo
Pico is already up and springily stepping his way down the ramp and out from his dwelling. He’s a young male, tall at two metres and, as common with all Aurelians, orange skinned. The orange lightens in tone across the tauter part of the rounded tops of his muscles and darkens towards the base. This highlights his musculature perfectly, and being strong, wiry and physically fit, Pico is a truly perfect specimen.
Pico throws the strap of his day pack over his shoulder and once out onto the track immediately looks up at the sun. Since ‘The Spotting’ happened, looking at the sun in the early morning, and feeling slightly sick in the process, has become the national pastime.
He turns left and trots along the wide flat track, kicking up little brown dust clouds with every footfall until he reaches the corner, then he stops and takes another look up at the sun. Pico is an older teenager by Human standards, and by his age shield lenses in the eye socket are fully formed, he can now look directly at the sun without burning out his retinas. The sun is already 25 degrees up from the horizon, only half an Earth hour from dawn. Pico can see the black dots silhouetted against the sun; the fleet, they are gathering, threatening. Pico’s hearts both skip a beat and he feels a knot in his throat, the sense of foreboding is growing in the city, indeed on the planet. Each day, more black dots on the sun, an ever increasing silent threat. Since ‘The Spotting’, when the first ship was seen, there are now just under 100 different sized dots, not just a fleet anymore - an invasion fleet.
He drops his head and waits a few seconds for the glare to dissipate and then trots off again, now with less ‘jaunt’ but still leaving new dust puffs in his wake. As a miner, Pico is well used to working outside and with his hands. He loved the camaraderie and sense of purpose of his crew, taking hills apart from the top down and rebuilding them nearby but only once any minerals, mainly the metallic and highly prized Geront, had been removed. Geront ore, when worked by the Aurelian Temperors, produces the element Gerontium, a strong, flexible, super-conductor that can withstand ultra-high heat and pressure. It has been mined in Aurelia and sold to intergalactic traders, following galaxy-wide super-conductor trade routes, for centuries. The proceeds of which have allowed Aurelia to become prosperous, not rich, but pretty well off, and although Aurelians rarely leave their planet, they are well used to intergalactic visitors.
But Pico’s love of mining and the closeness of the crew is now a memory - becoming more and farther distant with every passing day. As soon as ‘The Spotting’ occurred he was quickly repurposed by a worried Government as a ‘Defensive Fortifications Operative’. Pico’s height and tight, sinewy build has allowed him to perfectly adapt to his new role. He now mounds huge piles of earth up around important buildings creating defensive berms to protect from attack. As he arrives at work, back on the ever growing mound, he sighs. He enjoyed hunting for and finding Geront, he had a nose for it and could often uncover twice as much ore in a day as almost all of the veteran miners. But this never ending piling up, although important, is just boring.
oOo
The Sun is reaching its zenith making work both hot and exhausting. Aurelia is a small planet that spins quickly, a day lasts only as long as four Earth hours so Aurelians work in shifts; four hours on, fours off for sleep, then back on again. The standard way of working is two days on, then two days off - which means every business has its own sleep facility ensuring the work force doesn't have to go home during their two days at work.
Pico snatches a drink from his flask and a short break. He takes a handful of the fluid and rubs it into the ridges on top of his head working the liquid deep into the whirls. Work is hard, all Aurelians have large webbed hands with four fingers and opposable thumbs. When the hands are locked together and opened wide, they produce a large shovel. With strong backs and long, levering limbs, Pico and his other work colleagues are able to push large double handfuls of dirt around. With many organised groups working as ‘Chain Gangs’ all over the city, large defensive mounds have sprung up in a very short space of time. But Pico knows they are all wasting their time. Surely if your enemy has the ability to make this amount of ships and pilot them to this planet from some unknown homeworld, you’ve got to imagine that they’ll possess the means, the weaponry, to just piss all over Aurelia. This is an existential problem that a few hastily piled up mounds of Aurelian clay will never be the answer to. Aurelia is defenceless. Although there is ‘Blitz Spirit’, everyone knows they are looking down the barrel of a gun - but there is little else to do.
Pico is helping at the Defence Department. As he works, mounding the dry earth higher and higher, ministers arrive and enter the building with great frequency. It is a hive of activity with ministers and fortification workers all mingling, getting on with their jobs and with little communication from one to another. Everyone knows their role, they’re all working together to try to save the planet.
It’s not much longer before the sun drops back over the far horizon and darkness arrives swiftly like the blowing out of a candle. Pico heads into the building to find his designated sleep pod. He’s been working at the ministry for a while and he’s starting to get to know his way around the warren.
Aurelians don’t have doors, they were never invented because there has never been any need for them - nothing here is really private. People could walk in and out of each other's dwellings if they wanted to but you just don’t, it’s not polite. You could steal, and some people do, but not many, and they always get caught and punished so it’s not really a problem. If one did walk in on a private conversation, you just wouldn’t listen, you’d apologise, and leave. That’s the convention, it always has been. The only time someone might get annoyed is if one was walked in on during the act of bonding. Again, it happens and usually an apology will suffice, but most Aurelians would also try to be as discreet as possible in picking the time and place for bonding so as to minimise the opportunity for disturbance. Aurelians are naturally very open and comfortable around each other. At work, they sleep together in groups, usually mixed, often with strangers. The sleep pod Pico is heading to takes a maximum of 24 people. There’s no funny business, no cuddling, no bonding, no pissing about, this is a public sleep centre sited on a business premises. You stick with the age old convention - and mind your manners.
Pico walks up a ramp in the ministry, one he’s walked up before, and accidentally walks into a group of three ministers in deep conversation.
“...only hope. We’ve exhausted every other avenue.” A tall Aurelian male is speaking to the other two, a younger male and a female.
“Sorry to disturb.” says Pico, this is the standard response when one walks in accidentally. Pico turns on his heel and starts to walk back down the ramp in the dire
ction he came from.
The female’s eyes flick quickly from the younger man’s eyes to the older. She says,
“No offence taken (the standard reply). Can we talk with you for a moment?”
Pico stops, this isn’t something totally out of the ordinary, he turns.
“Of course, how can I help?” he smiles.
“I’m Disbursement Leader Roi of the newly created Space Defence Department. We’d like your help with something?”
“Sure, is it about the defences outside?”
The younger man speaks, “It’s about defence but not the ones you’re building. We’re interested in you.”
Pico tilts his head to the right enquiring,
“Me? Yes, what do you want to know?”
He ventures forward, closer to the group and is introduced to the two males. The older male, and the taller of the three, is Droos, the Minister of Defence and the younger man is Ovor, his skin is less orange than that of the others, in fact almost yellow which indicates he’s the chief adviser to the minister. He looks at Roi again, she’s older than him but still a young female, he can sense his ‘Feel’ warm a little inside his chest. Not enough to redden the bare chest skin, which would be a bit embarrassing, but enough for him to want to speak more to her.
They have a tale to tell. Ovor starts to speak...
Chapter 2
“Since the Spotting, we’ve been looking at ways to defend our planet against an unknown, potentially dangerous alien race. We don’t know if, or when we will be attacked by them. They may be here in peace, and we may all be preparing for the worst, but they’ve so far, not responded to any of our communication. We don’t know who these people are. We don’t know why they’re suddenly here. We do know that more and more ships seem to be assembling. We’ve tried everything in our power to contact them with no reply.”
The others are listening and nodding along, the minister continues,
“We imagine they’re more technologically advanced and therefore have more advanced weaponry. They may well be more intelligent than us as we are unable to build spaceships in the way that they do. It is possible that this fleet is just using our solar system as a rally point before moving off somewhere else. We know very little for certain but we have to try to be as prepared as possible for every eventuality.”
Pico is listening to all this and taking it in although nothing yet has been revealed that he doesn’t already know or hasn’t already thought through or discussed with work colleagues. He looks down and idly kicks a bit of the crusty surface with his foot. He lifts some dust and a few smaller pieces of the brown, brittle clay crust break away as he does.
Droos, the older Aurelian, has been watching Pico intently, eyeing him up, studying his face, his shape, his demeanour, he sees the dust rise from the floor and interjects.
“So what does any of this mean to you Pico?”
Pico’s ears prick up at the sound of his name and he suddenly straightens and blurts out.
“I’ll do anything I can to help sir, I’ll miss out my…”
Droos lifts his hand to stop the younger man. Pico quietens.
“Something odd and unexpected has happened.” His tone is low and measured, he’s well used to speaking and has a practiced control to his delivery. He continues,
“In the act of us sending repeated messages out to the alien fleet, it seems these messages have also been picked up by another alien vessel. This alien vessel is heading towards our solar system but is currently outside of it and, although travelling fast, is very far away. We’ve been able to talk to this ship and it is able to understand our language and predicament. Unfortunately, due to distance, we have to wait weeks for messages to travel to and from the ship. Suddenly, we’ve more than one alien to think about.”
“Is this alien friendly?” Pico asks.
“On the face of it, yes. But the truth is that we really don’t know. It seems to be but it could be any sort of trap. It could be the command vessel for the alien fleet for all we know - but it is talking to us and it has made us an interesting proposition and that’s what we want to talk to you about.”
Pico’s taken a little aback, he’s trying to read the faces of the other two but they’re just staying silent. He’s trying to process under pressure. What has any of this government stuff got to do with him? He’s just walked in off the building site for a sleep.
This time, it’s Roi, the female, who speaks,
“We’re currently having these messages checked out by military intelligence, to see if there’s anything they can fathom from them. But we’ll take them at face value for our purposes here. The second alien ship, the one approaching us from outside our solar system, identifies itself as ‘15’. 15 maintains that it’s a fleet building ship that roams around the universe offering help and assistance to planets, systems or peoples who are in peril from other outside forces or entities. It states that we can ‘buy’ a battle fleet of spaceships from it to defend against the alien fleet that’s already here - the fleet that has been identified during ‘The Spotting’.”
“So it wants to sell us a space fleet to take on the aliens with?”
“Correct.”
Pico moves his head a little from side to side a few times to indicate that he’s thinking this information over.
“OK, a couple of questions. Does it know if the aliens are going to attack us or not?”
“15 seems to suggest that it’s a distinct possibility or it wouldn’t be offering a trade.”
“What if it’s just a ruse to get us to give 15 loads of raw materials and then 15 give us back a load of crappy ships that don’t do anything?”
“That’s one version of our thinking but we’d expect to check goods before agreeing a trade.”
“Won’t us buying a load of weapons just antagonise the aliens?”
“We’re working to the hypothesis that if they’re just using our solar system as a rallying point before moving on then us buying some ships shouldn’t be a threat to them, they’ll just move on anyway.”
“What will the ships cost, all of our Gerontium?”
“Not all but pretty much all.”
Once again, Pico mulls over the answers. Then, finally,
“But what’s this got to do with me?”
Droos steps in fast with his slow, measured tones.
“The ship has proposed a wager for the chance to win back the total payment in full. It has a ‘Champion’, an alien lifeform that lives on the ship with it. 15 has proposed a fight, between its Champion and our challenger, one-on-one, possibly to the death.” Droos finishes talking and looks at Pico, the others look at Pico too. Pico looks to all of them in turn, his eyes flitting from one to another. The three say nothing. Then it dawns on Pico.
“Oh, no. No way. No.”
Pico looks between them, hoping one of them will say something.
“You want me to fight this alien thing?”
“We want you to fight to save your planet. And on your return, you’ll be richly rewarded for doing so. You’ll never have to mine again.”
“You want me to put my life on the line just for some Gerontium?”
“It’s for an awful lot of Gerontium and being a miner you know how hard it is to come by, it’s not just for the Gerontium though, it’s to save your planet.”
“No, you said the Gerontium would buy the ships, you’ve got enough. Just buy them and attack the aliens. You don’t need me.”
“The ship insists on a fight. It won’t give us the ships without a fight and also losing that much Gerontium will cripple our global economy, millions would be pushed into poverty.”
“But they’d be alive, I won’t be.”
Roi piped up again,
“Pico, I know this is a difficult decision but you’re young, strong and very capable. We get to choose the makeup of the fight, so it’ll be to our advantage but the fight does have to happen on the ship.�
�
His ‘Feel’ had ceased to grow and flattery was not going to work.
“No way, not only am I not going to fight, I’m not a fighter. I’m certainly not going to be doing it on a spaceship out in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t happening. I’m going to get off to sleep. Bye.”
Pico quickly turned and speed walked back down the ramp and straight towards the sleep pods.
oOo
An hour later the first attack came. From the dark side where it was difficult for the military to spot. A single troop ship made an incursion into the third upper quadrant of the planet. No-one really knows why this target was chosen - it has little resource, is sparsely populated and is of little military significance but within minutes, every living creature in a five mile square was massacred with blaster weapons. No wounded - all dead. Then they left. Just like that, hit and run. Was it a message? Was it to test defences? Was it just to scare the shit out of an already scared population? If that was the message - it worked. Once it was light, Pico was summoned from his sleep pod.
“But, why me? I just bumped into you, I could’ve been anyone. You just picked me because I was there...“
Pico is now pleading to a room full of Aurelians, mostly military and governmental officials, he’s directly speaking to Droos again who seems to be in charge.
“That’s not entirely true. We first heard from the alien ship two weeks ago and we’ve been looking for a candidate since. It’s the main reason you were asked to work on the defence of this building - we wanted to assess you and your physical ability. We think you’d be perfect for what we’ve in mind.”
“Which is?”
“We’ve been sent a physical schematic of the alien Champion. We can decide on the battlefield and weapons to be used in the fight. We can choose what we want in order to give you the advantage in the fight. To ensure you win.”
