by Geoff Wolak
The Police won again, but Pleb himself won an award for the best goal of the tournament. Prizes were issued, gold coins.
Wishing to get more coverage of the tournaments, and thinking about televised football someday, I checked on the delivery of TV sets, to find that some nine thousand had been issued to the Seether, four thousand to the Preether. Most bachelor hostels now operated a set, and most of the larger houses possessed a set. The outlying areas lacked sets, so I made that my priority, only to find that electricity in outlying areas was limited.
After cursing and sighing, and a nice cup of tea, I hurriedly arranged for suitable electrical wires to be sent through, along with a few electricians – and some suitable films on electricity. There were plenty of lumber mills, I saw them every time I drove up to the portal, so I commissioned a great many poles.
First job was switching gear and transformers, so the lads at the car plant got to work - with a little help from their human guides. When batches were ready they would be shipped west into the Rockies, poles erected alongside roads, cables strung. Mile after mile of road was wired up, houses and hostels without electricity soon seeing branch lines made towards them.
There were several main arterial routes west, and many of the Seether lived along those roads. They were my top priority, but suitable poles could be fashioned way faster than the transformers could be made, so gangs went ahead and laid the poles ready. The weather occasionally halted work, but the numerous Seethan work crews pressed on, ever westward or north.
One thing that I had discovered on my return, Henry not being so forthcoming about, was that our humans up in the Canadian sand-oil fields had made themselves at home, quite at home. They had brought through nice prefab huts, had built a few small oil-fired power stations, and had even re-surfaced a few roads. They had brought through diggers in pieces, trucked them north, and assembled them – all done on the quiet. Electric cars were now common in Canada, as was beer – served in a few rowdy bars for oil workers. Those bars allowed in both Seethans and humans – one named The Star Wars Bar, and something of an oil-making community was evolving, if not booming.
I was surprised by what the men had done, but – at the end of the day – we were here to advance the Seether. I had considered that we’d do it in small steps, not giant leaps, but what the hell. I eventually accepted it, but appointed a man in charge of oil country, since it was a little unplanned at the moment.
With time running short, I sat down with Henry and the team. ‘So, what do we tell the Seether about the ships on their way?’ I began.
‘If the action is all on the Azores – nothing,’ Henry suggested.
‘Are we missing an opportunity here,’ a man said.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked him.
‘If they know we’re about to fight a battle - and see us defending them - it may help us to bond.’
I faced Henry, and waited.
‘It may well do,’ Henry suggested. ‘Besides, there may be fireworks here, so … perhaps best to inform them.’
‘If we do that,’ I began, ‘the President will use it as an excuse to tighten his grip. He’ll make a speech on TV.’
‘That helps us,’ a man said. ‘Besides, they are starting to loosen up a bit.’
Most were in agreement, and the next day I sent for the President, suggesting that it was urgent. With the man and his cronies settled, I began, ‘We fought a battle in the west, as you know, against a strong enemy from another world. That enemy now sends more people, but we are ready and strong. We will fight them, but not here. We will fight in the sky.’
‘In the sky?’ they puzzled.
‘They will come in … airplanes, and we have airplanes.’
‘We have airplanes,’ they pointed out. ‘We can fight.’
‘These airplanes are special. Very fast, and they can fly to the Moon.’
They were shocked, pleased, then curious and interested. And could they have a look at one, please? I was on the spot, and they seemed to be suggesting that their planes could cope with alien invaders. I decided to be open about things, and made a call. Leading the men outside, we grouped around the football pitch. The President and his men looked skywards. A minute later, a depression in the grass made me smile.
‘Mister President, our aircraft is here.’
‘Where?’
I pointed. ‘Sat there.’
‘There is nothing there.’
‘Walk forwards,’ I suggested.
They did, soon bumping into Dark Star. Our prototype switched off its holographic matrix, shocking the Seethans, who all jumped back.
‘It is invisible!’
‘Yes, and so is the enemy,’ I informed them.
‘Where are the propellers?’ they asked. ‘And the windows?’
‘Mister President, if your best people studied hard for one hundred years, they might understand and build an aircraft like this.’
They were most impressed. I waited, and here it came.
‘Could you see what the Preether do, with this? You could help us!’
‘We see everything now, and you are both our children. But, if the Preether attack, we will stop them.’
They seemed placated, but only just.
‘Thank you, Dark Star,’ I shouted.
‘My pleasure, sir,’ Dark Star replied, starting to rise slowly whilst being keenly observed by the Seether. It disappeared.
‘Where did it go?’ they puzzled.
‘It moves so fast that you cannot see it, faster than a bullet from a gun.’
They were most impressed, and walked back inside, chatting away. We made an agreement, that any Seether acting oddly would be scanned, and that all government ministers and staff would be scanned from time to time. Besides that, they understood that they could not get involved in this fight, but offered help anyway – should we wish it.
Eight days before the estimated arrival of Slumber’s associates, I popped back to see Susan, and to meet with Jimmy.
‘How do we play it?’ I began as we claimed chairs in a lounge. ‘We could just use Dark Star to blow them up in orbit.’
‘We could, but we need to know their mission remit. I think we know what that is, but we still need to check their ships and databases – just in case.’
‘So we try and take the ships, not destroy them,’ I thought out loud. ‘Electric shocks from Dark Star?’
‘Yes, and also from Slumber’s old ship if necessary. But that ship is the bait, and … you’ll have to make it up as you go. Dark Star will hang back and watch them, and allow them to land. If their crews start walking, we’ll find their cloaked ships and pinch them, then grab the crew.’
‘Hopefully,’ I put in.
‘Yes, hopefully, since I’d bet that they look like Seether. At first, they should try and find Slumber and his ship, then scan the planet, and then carry out their primary missions, and it’s that primary mission that we need to have confirmed. Oh, and as we speak, Slumber’s old ship is demolishing the abandoned Antarctic base of the survivors. That way, the energy signature would look like he did it and then moved on. They’d have no reason to suspect our involvement.’
‘Except our people on Seether.’
‘I doubt that they can tell the difference between the bio-signs of a human and a Seethan from high altitude, so just keep everyone out of sight, all equipment off, and the drones should be landed and hidden, powered down.
‘Those drones might offer us a defence,’ I cautioned.
‘Can’t set a trap … with them in the air.’
I reluctantly nodded. ‘Could the bad guys remotely take control of Slumber’s old ship?’
‘That is a possibility, so we’ve disconnected a few things in the ship. The scientists are pretty damned sure they know how that ship ticks, but there may be a self destruct they’ve missed.’
‘Does the Seethan pilot know that?’
‘He does, and he’s a brave lad. Besides, if they managed to get compute
r control, they’d be surprised to find a Seethan pilot sat there,’ Jimmy said with a smirk.
‘They may even think he took control of Slumber’s ship after it crashed or something.’
‘I doubt they believe the Seethans to be capable of that at this time. They would be … confused. Anyway, I think the three ships heading your way are because of a paradox. A later version of Slumber’s people must have expected the Seether to be gone, or diminished, and to find them alive and well - and strong - must have spurred them in to sending these three ships.’
I nodded. ‘With spies looking like Seethans, their aim must be to diminish the Seether from within. And that means wars that set back the Seether.’
‘Wars … tend to greatly advance technology. So, maybe they have other ideas, maybe a virus or two.’
‘If a virus took hold, our blood product would help,’ I firmly suggested. ‘And they don’t know about that blood product, or us.’
‘We hold all the cards, except one.’
‘Which one?’ I puzzled.
‘Knowing where else they’ve sent ships to, and when in time.’
I assured Susan that I would probably not be in any danger, and headed back.
A few days later, a burst signal from Dark Star gave us twenty eight hours, two of our Zim visitors heading for equatorial orbits, one for position over Antarctica. Dark Star was more than half way to the Moon, and working on a low power setting, watching and waiting. Slumber’s old ship sat in a field on the Azores, in a remote spot, and was cloaked, the Seethan pilot watching his screens as his Zim sister ships approached.
With the visitors in stable orbits, slowing down, our young Seethan pilot got a call from them, not answered. The onboard cameras and sensors had been unplugged, and their attempted activation was being registered by a data-pad. An attempt to access the main computer was blocked, a fault registering. The ship would appear damaged. We hoped.
At the embassy, we all sat about with data-pads linked to the Azores via code-embedded radio signals, very low-tech. On the Azores, radars and radios were blasting out at power levels that would give a nightclub DJ sore ears. Our instructors had all left the area, save a few assisting with scanners and missiles. And Admiral Forrestors’ men, they all went about their business as if nothing was amiss, awaiting a signal.
A day later all three orbital ships slowed down enough to finally take static positions, two above the Azores, one above the Antarctic base. And they sat there for the next thirty six hours. But, as planned, radio chatter around the Azores detailed “the alien prisoner”. All we needed was a great big sign saying “come here”, we were being that obvious.
The ship over Antarctica descended first, and dropped straight down to the ruins of the base that once was. It spent ten minutes over the base, and moved off north, a track straight for our embassy. We received intermittent coded signals from Dark Star, and it had closed in slowly, to a lower orbit, the various scanners on the Azores getting an occasional fix on our visitor. That visitor flew north, and adopted a track towards the Rockies, slowing as it approached a point some sixty miles due west of the embassy. And there it landed, in a snow-filled valley.
‘One down,’ I said to Henry. ‘That guy is out and walking, walking this way, and probably looking like a Seethan.’
‘His ship is in the snow, and beyond the attention of casual visitors or wandering sheep herders,’ Henry noted.
‘What do you reckon, four or five days to get here?’
‘I would assume … that he stops at a quiet spot and absorbs the language and customs.’
‘He could take six months to get here!’
‘He could, and would if he was a professional.’
‘Then let’s hope he’s in a hurry.’
‘Our good friend the President could help,’ Henry floated.
I gave that some thought, and glanced at the map. ‘Just the one road from the landing site, and … a village, then a town.’ I faced Henry, and nodded.
We sent for the Police Minister, and suggested that we had information about a top Preethan spy, who was in the west and heading for either that town or village. He was most grateful, and assured us that he would dispatch some of our best police officers.
Our thinking was simple; the spy just got here, so his accent would be a bit rough, rough enough for the police to notice.
The next day, one of the ships over the Azores descended.
‘Bugger,’ I said. ‘One’s staying up there. He’ll see our trap and leg it.’
‘Dark Star is close by,’ Henry reminded me. ‘He could probably catch it, and destroy it.’
On the Azores, the scanners tracked the ship as it descended, and it made a line straight for Slumber’s old ship, the damn thing landing right next to it. It was now dark on the Azores, and the area around Slumber’s ship was quiet, no humans for at least six hundred yards in any direction. Or so sensors would report. Our Seethan pilot sat waiting.
Two hours later, our pilot heard the hatch pop. A shuffling sound echoed down the ship’s internal corridor, our man making himself as small as he could as he lay in the pilot’s dugout on his back. He closed his eyes as the shuffling sound continued.
His visitor peeked around the corner at the slumbering impersonator of Slumber himself, and edged closer after a moment.
The lights came up, our Seethan pilot sitting upright, dart-gun in hand. ‘Peek-a-boo,’ he let out, a surprised face staring back at him. A dart flew out, hitting the visitor in the face, its contents exploding into the visitor’s body. The visitor tried to back up, and made it to the hatch, where he collapsed to the ground, and collapsed in a heap.
Lights burst into life, floodlights. Soil moved, and men emerged, weapons prone, the Marines soon over the visitor, our Seethan pilot running towards the known location of the other ship, and slamming straight into it. He felt his way around and to where he knew the hatch was, a light touch detecting three very slight indentations. He placed three fingers down, and waited. After ten seconds the hatch popped, our pilot having wiped Slumber’s DNA onto his fingers from a tube.
Inside, our man turned away from the pilot’s area, and towards the rear, feeling his way through the dark. Three fingers popped open a hatch in the floor, a weak light coming on. He reached down, grabbed and twisted a silver orb, and yanked it out. Reaching further down, he grabbed a glass crystal the size of a household candle, and pulled it out.
‘Spark plugs removed,’ he said with a sigh, wiping his brow. Outside, he was handed a radio by a Marine whose face was covered in green and brown stripes. ‘Admiral, ship captured and secured, sir.’
‘Well done, son,’ came back.
At the embassy, I received an image. ‘Oh hell.’
‘What is it?’ Henry asked from across the desk.
‘That first alien, we have his facial image.’
‘And?’ Henry nudged after a few seconds.
‘It’s you.’
Henry stared back. ‘Me?’
‘Yep, you, my old friend.’ I showed him the image.
‘My God, they know we’re here!’
‘Their future records must show that we’re here,’ I pointed out. ‘Or that we were … here, if you know what I mean.’
‘But why imitate us?’ Henry puzzled. ‘To cause a rift with the Seether?’
‘Or something more sinister,’ I suggested. ‘To go back to our world, now that they know that we’re assisting the development of the Seether. Maybe to get our frequency, see who we are.’
‘We must now be their main target, since they know that we’re here to develop the Seether.’
‘But that guy walking this way must be Seethan, or they would stop and stare at him.’
‘I guess so,’ Henry muttered, still staring at the image. ‘I look younger, I mean … he does.’
I smiled. ‘Anyway, I’m going to have to put on some rubber gloves and shine a torch up your arse.’ Henry gave me a look over his glasses. ‘And if you do anythi
ng odd, we’ll shoot you, stuff you, and mount you.’
‘Well, I guess it’s a form of flattery. I must make a difference here for them to wish to target me.’
I laughed. ‘Good attitude. But when you go to bed, check under it first.’ I left Henry, our ambassador, looking worried. And I checked under my own bed.
Lying in bed, my head spinning a little, I grew concerned, and then grew angry. I was here trying to develop the Seether, and these arseholes were here trying to destroy them. It was fair to say that we were on opposite teams. The bad guys had clever ships and portal technology, and that worried me, worried me that more than just our mission here was in jeopardy, that maybe a war was on the cards, a temporal and galactic war. Jimmy had something planned, but he wasn’t letting on yet, and I was confident. Only not. I stared up at my white painted ceiling, thinking through scenarios.
In the morning, the final ship was still there, just hanging in orbit. We sat and waited, or we paced up and down, not much getting done. The next morning the ship was still there, but at around noon it started to move off to a higher orbit. Dark Star moved before any signal could be sent out from our visitor, and closed in as quickly as it could, a bolt fired from its rail-gun from twenty miles above.
The alien ship was hit, the bolt passing straight through it, the ship slowly tumbling in its orbit as Dark Star rushed towards it. Closing into just fifty yards, Dark Star fired a bolt through the side of the ship, the exact same position in the ship where our young Seethan pilot had pulled out the spark plugs.
The alien ship was now quite dead, all EM readings at zero. Dark Star fired a line to the ship and snared it, soon dragging it towards the Moon, a signal sent to me.
‘Dark Star just shot big holes through that last ship,’ I told Henry and the staff. ‘It’s now towing the wreck off to the Moon, where a portal will take it to Baldy’s world to be inspected, to their Moon base. Couldn’t bring it down through the atmosphere with a big hole in it, it would have burnt up.’
