Frank made an inarticulate noise of terror. “Turn! Turn! No, not—you’re going the wrong way! You’re going the wrong way!” He shrieked as a pair of headlights came at them at terrifying speed. The woman yanked the wheel, getting out of the way at the last second. Frank shrieked again. Another pair of headlights, then another. His throat was hurting. He wanted to say stop, and pull over, but he couldn’t get the words out.
“Relax, Fronk. This isn’t nearly as hard as an asteroid belt in a shuttle with fried auto-nav… Besides, I can’t let any native fauna die because of me or there’ll be endless paperwork to file with the Guild, and they’ll up my insurance rates. So you’re safe.”
The car lurched again. It took Frank a minute to stop making noises and start breathing enough to realize they’d pulled over into the cover of the trees. He managed to lean out the window before retching over the side.
“Earthlings,” muttered the woman. “You know my father would’ve been cheering for me by now. Anyway—the Grumms aren’t gonna be far behind, they’re pretty quick on their feet. I need you to take the battery out of this ‘car’ while I work on my oxy gens. Alright, Fronk? Great. Come on, my shuttle’s just behind those trees.”
Half his body still hanging out the window, Frank stared at the remains of his dinner trailing slowly down the door of the SUV.
* * *
“I’ve never fixed anything this fast in my life.” Shraa had burned all twelve fingers and wouldn’t smell anything except overloaded crystal for a week, but the generators were back in working shape. All she needed was the battery. “You done with that, Fronk? Fronk!”
“It’s Frank.”
The Earthling had gotten his voice back, it seemed. But he still looked like someone who’d smoked a little too much dreamgrass. He lurched through the shuttle hatch to deposit a giant cube in her arms.
“This is the battery? It’s huge!” Shraa shook her head, “You periphery bipeds, always so obsessed with size… well, never mind, I’ll find a way to make it fit.” She climbed back inside the cockpit and yanked out a handful of wires from under the main console. So much for temp control and automatic door locks. But she had to get that damned battery in there somehow, if she was gonna loop it into the shuttle’s systems.
“Is this some sort of prank…?”
Fronk had followed her inside. Frank. Not Fronk. The translator was being funny. Next time she’d steal a better one.
“Hand me that compensator, will you? The little round thing on the floor. There you go—thanks.” Shraa adjusted the battery’s output to what her oxy gens needed, and hoped the fix would hold long enough to get her back into space. Once she was out of the solar system she’d be good. Grumms may be good at tracking, but they were terrible navigators. No space legs.
“Are you an alien?”
Shraa looked over her shoulder. Fronk—Frank, damn it—was leaning against the wall. Squishing half her luminescent algae cells. The shuttle would be dim for days, until they regenerated.
“Hold this.” She handed him the part of the battery she’d just pulled out. “I know, I know, periphery systems don’t all know about the rest of the galaxy. For what it’s worth, Earth’ll probably get a clue in another hundred years or so. Hand me back that thing—thanks.” She flicked the oxy gens on, and was satisfied to hear the familiar bubbling sounds. Great. She wouldn’t suffocate while the Grumms tried to shoot her out of the sky. “What are those lights?”
Frank glanced over his shoulder. “Cops. Police. Eh—law enforcement.” He shifted on the balls of his feet. “Sylvie must’ve called them. They’ll be looking…” He sounded like someone not fully awake.
“I’m used to that.” Shraa grinned. “Thanks for the help, Frank. Now—uh oh.” Her ears picked up the footsteps before the sensors did. The sensors were probably fried anyway. “Looks like our evening together’s not over yet—oh, damn it, I pulled out the door controls. Sit there!” She shoved Frank against the wall and went to close the shuttle door manually. Just in time: two Grumms rolled out of the tree line, their blasters charring the hull as Shraa pulled the door shut.
Damned three-legged bastards. If they damaged the ignition, she’d never get off this planet.
She threw herself back in the pilot’s seat. “Hold on!”
The shuttle sputtered a few times, but in the end the oversized Earthling battery did the trick. The engines lit up and propelled them upwards. Frank began to make screeching noises again, as the floor vibrated nicely under the engine pressure, and bangs from Grumm blasters punctuated their take-off.
* * *
“Sto-o-o-o-o-p!” Frank staggered over to the woman, while something like weapons fire rocked the ship. “You can’t!” He began to shake her shoulders, trying to get a hold of the controls. “I—Alice! I have a family! I–”
“Honestly!” She shoved him off, “You know how many life forms in this galaxy would be falling over their feet for a chance to be my copilot? Oh, stop screeching. I’m not taking you with me. I can’t afford a copilot’s insurance pay.”
Frank watched open-mouthed as she moved her hands over a lit panel, then put them on some sort of crystal globe in front of her seat.
“There,” she said. “We’re right above your shop. Sorry about the damage, but that currency I gave you should cover it. Go on now, hop off, unless you actually want to be my copilot… but I’m warning you it won’t be a smooth ride back to the multi-territories, not with half the systems still out and those Grumms on our tail.” She grinned, then touched another light on the console. “You can use the emergency hatch to get off. Hurry up.”
Frank stumbled over to the door that had just slid open in the floor. Through it he could see grass and gravel. They weren’t more than thirty feet above the ground.
“It this some sort of prank…?” Had he asked that before? That sounded familiar. He glanced back at the main console. Half of the Jeep battery was still sticking out from underneath. “Is that real?” He looked at the woman again. “I knew you looked funny!”
She rolled her eyes. “Second-hand camo suit. Doesn’t work as well as a new one—and you wouldn’t believe the itching. Guess I don’t need it now anyway.” She pulled down the zipper of her jacket, and suddenly she looked different. Her head was longer, and her eyes even farther apart, and large like fly eyes. She had more… limbs. Frank shook his head—was he seeing double?
Her grin looked about the same, though. Only her teeth were sharper. “I’m Shraa.” Her voice sounded… richer. Like there were more voices in one. “Nice to meet you. Now get off my shuttle before I charge you a transport fee. I’m not into charity, you know!”
Frank kneeled awkwardly by the hatch. A sort of ladder had appeared below. He gripped it tight, and yowled when it began to move downward.
He glanced up while the ladder lowered him out of the shuttle. Shraa was tapping the console again.
“What do you want on Earth?” His throat was dry. “Is this the end? Are you here to kill us?”
Shraa looked up. “I’m more into retrieval and reappropriation, not so much killing.”
“And those things? The ones who shot up the store?”
“Grumm Alliance. Don’t worry, they don’t care about Earth, either. They just wanted this.” Shraa reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a rectangular shard of glass. Frank shook his head. The ladder was still moving down, slow enough that he didn’t get dizzy.
“What’s that?”
Shraa grinned her sharp-toothed grin. “The First Federation’s oldest archive.” The oblong eyes blinked. “The location of the Ur-world. The first world. The secret of the universe as we know it.” She winked. “And my retirement fund, more importantly. So you know all your trouble tonight was in the service of a good cause.”
Her laughing insect-like eyes were the last thing Frank saw before he found himself back on the parking lot gravel. The ladder pried gently from his fingers to roll back up, and with no noise the shuttl
e was gone. Like it had never been there in the first place.
He blinked. The night was silent again. The “O” in Joe’s Pizza across the lot blinked a few times then burned out. The back door to Shop & Save was open, and there were police lights up ahead. But they were far enough away that no voices reached him.
Frank looked up. There was only the night sky, and a couple smoke stacks in the distance.
He fumbled in his chest pocket, getting out his dinged old iPhone. There was only one number he ever called. His hands were shaking as he tapped the cracked screen.
“Alice? It’s Frank. I was thinking… how would you like to take that cruise to the Caribbean next month? Yeah. I think I’m ready to retire…”
Suddenly a light streaked above, like a falling star only going in reverse; then, seconds later, another. Too slow, thought Frank. That Jeep battery had some juice to it. The cyclopes’d never catch it. Good old homemade gear.
His shoe stuck to something gooey on the pavement. Frank looked back down. A piece of pasty-gray flesh, right next to dark skid marks.
“Yeah, I’m still here. No…” He stuck a hand in his pants pocket. When he pulled it out, a handful of small diamonds glittered in his palm. “You know, I really don’t think money’ll be a problem.”
He slowly drew the tip of his shoe across the gravel. The last of the Grumm mixed with dirt and pebbles into an indistinct smear that would be gone by morning. Frank brushed off the hem of his shirt, and ambled back to the door of the Shop & Save.
Contributor Notes
Mark Bilsborough is a Science Fiction and fantasy writer based in England. He has a growing number of short story credits including, most recently, stories in Phantaxis, Strange Fictions and Zetetic. He is currently finishing his first novel. He has a Creative Writing Masters degree and is a graduate of the Odyssey writing program. He is a member of the One Step Beyond writing group (anthology available on Amazon).
Peter DiChellis concocts sinister tales for anthologies, ezines, and magazines. He is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and an Active (published author) member of the Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. For more, visit his site Murder and Fries at http://murderandfries.wordpress.com/
Ryan Fitzpatrick has been published in Every Day Fiction and Hinnom Magazine.
Ana Gardner is a recent graduate working as a teacher and researcher in Rhode Island. Her spec fic and humor short stories have appeared in 600 Seconds Saga, Storyland, Edify, and others, and she currently serves as an editor for A Lonely Riot magazine.
Graeme Hurry edited a magazine called Kimota in the 90s and a horror anthology called Northern Chills in 1994. Now he has branched out by editing this kindle magazine, Kzine. He has a story in Terror Tales of The Scottish Highlands anthology and an honourable mention in Year’s Best Horror 2001 for a story he collaborated on with Willie Meikle called The Blue Hag.
Ken McGrath lives with his wife in an upside down house in Dublin, Ireland. His stories have recently appeared in Cirsova Magazine, Liquid Imagination Magazine, The Arcanist, Bards & Sages Quarterly and Daily Science Fiction, with more forthcoming. If you want you can find him online at https://kenmograthauthor.tumblr.com/
E.V. Morozov has published academic philosophy, several rants about video games (including a couple of prize-winning letters), and a couple of short stories. ‘Manipulation’ is his first short story to be accepted for publication. It received a Silver Honorable Mention in the October-December 2017 Writers of the Future contest.
Louis Palmerino has previously been published in Swords and Sorcery.
Dave Windett is a professional comics artist and illustrator. He has worked for numerous publishers in Britain, Europe and America—among them Cappelen Damm, DC Thomson, Fleetway, Future, Marvel UK, Panini and PSS (a division of Penguin USA. Korky the Cat, Count Duckula, Lazarus Lemming, Inspector Gadget, Ace Ventura, Tails the Fox, The Loony and Tiny Toons are just a handful of the very many original and licensed characters he has drawn. With Writer John Gatehouse he self publishes some work under the Little Lemming Books imprint the latest of which is The Kaci Bell Mysteries. He recently completed work on Monster Hunters Unlimited a four book series for PSS. Samples of His work can be seen at - www.davewindett.com.
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