by Marc Landau
I looked more closely at the screen and saw why the rock hadn’t spoken to me or blasted off into the horizon, now that it had gassed up.
It wasn’t a rock. It was still Kat.
She was dead.
How could that be? Why hadn’t she turned back into the jeweled cocoon, or something even more powerful, after she got all the energy from the sphere? Maybe the energy wasn’t feeding her at all. Maybe it had made her weak. That’s when I realized Kat wasn’t digesting the sphere—she was fighting it. Why would she fight one of her own kind?
Who cares. The alien’s dead. We’re safe. That’s all that matters, the voice in my head said.
“But she saved us. She killed one of her own.”
So what?
“I have to try to save her.”
Save her? She’s floating in space. No way she could survive that.
A pulse of hope throbbed in my stomach. “Not if she was human. But she isn’t. She might still be alive. I have to find out."
The real Kat is still dead no matter what you do.
It was true. My Kat had died long ago. Still, there was something about the alien that felt so familiar. Too familiar. It couldn’t just be a 3D representation of memories that it had sucked out and sculpted into a person. I had a nagging feeling there was more to it. This alien was Kat. Or at least partially her. Or… I don’t know.
Whatever she was, if she was still alive she wasn’t going to be for much longer out in the vacuum of space. The alien’s abilities were vast but the battle must have taken a toll on her-it. If the alien was truly invulnerable, Kat would be doing water ballet moves in space and swimming back to the ship.
She looked totally dead.
The thought of leaving her-it out there to die crossed my mind. If she died the alien could never threaten Prime. I couldn’t let it or any of the others like it near us or they’d suck the life out of our entire solar system in minutes.
This could be my one chance to save Earth. Not that anyone would know. Not even Mom. I wished I could at least send her a message. I couldn’t let the aliens find Prime and kill Mom. If anyone was going to kill my mother, it was going to be me.
I wished I had the bot to talk it over with. Though I’m almost positive I knew what the walrus would say.
“Let the life form die. Then there is a zero percent chance it can harm Earth.”
If the bot was conscious it would want to restrain me, like it did when I first tried to bring the jeweled cocoon onboard. It would make sure the alien died in order to protect human life. That was one of its overriding programs. Protect life at all costs. Except when aliens scramble your programming and you try to kill me and Poka, of course.
Like the great philosophical question asked, what is the value of one life? In this case it was twenty billion humans. And that was just humans. Who knew what other star systems the alien would discover? The loss of life could be in the trillions.
But then, why did it protect us? It was all so confusing. It could be the alien meant no harm at all. It had never killed anyone, except one of its own. And in fact it protected us when it teleported us here. And it never hurt anyone in either the Earth or the alien fleet.
The only way to be sure is to let it die, the little voice said.
I looked at the screen again and watched Kat floating lifelessly in space. She looked peaceful. Maybe it was best to let her drift off into the blackness.
Without the alien’s help, there was little to no chance we would survive either. The life support systems were failing and even if I got them back up, the supplies would eventually run out. Without the alien to teleport us somewhere close to civilization, we were goners. If I let it die, I was signing our own death warrants. I guess it wasn’t just the cost of one life to save billions. It was one alien, one human, a dog, and a robot. The equation still made sense.
I looked at Poka and a tear welled up. I hated myself for bringing her into this mess. I should’ve left her back on Prime with Mom. She’d be less happy about it. Mom couldn’t handle her and didn’t play with her nearly as much as me and the bot. She couldn’t even walk her. And the helper-bots were pretty worthless, too. Poka would just drag them down the street.
But at least she’d be alive.
I hugged the Pokester and she happily licked my face and tried to jump onto my head. I wished I could be so happily oblivious.
At least the bot wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t even know what had happened, since it was still unconscious. Best-case scenario, it would be found a few thousand years from now and recharged. I’m sure it would be happy to know me and Poka had been dead for thousands of years, though it would never admit it because it didn’t have feelings.
“Ship. Record video.”
I heard the whir of the system, then, “Recording.”
“Hey, Mom. Just wanted to say…uh. Well, I’m not really sure what to say. You did a great job. I’m sorry I didn’t get back for your two hundred and twenty-fifth birthday. Me and Poka kind of got caught up with some aliens. But it all worked out. Oh, and by the way, I finally did it. I saved the universe. Just like you always said I would. But don’t brag, okay? You’ve always been there for me. You’re a great mom. And grandma to the Pokes. We love you.”
Then I let Poka jump onto the console and lick the camera.
“End recording.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Recording ended,” the ship responded.
That was that. Short and simple. I’m not a good public speaker. The few times I’ve tried, I either completely blanked out and forgot what I was supposed to say, or I went off-topic and ranted. I tend to do that.
Yes, I’d bragged about saving the world, but I did it more for Mom than for myself. It just killed me to think of her being alone. It had always been just me and her (and Poka and other random animals throughout my life). She was always there for me, and I was always there for her. Even though we both complained a lot. Mom was especially good at it. She taught me well.
She’d regularly badger the poor clerk at the nourishment center.
“Are you sure the Trillvian prunes are fresh? They don’t look fresh.”
“We just got them in!”
She’d look at them with cynicism. “Today?”
“Yes, like five minutes ago.”
She’d put the prune down and leave, because she was sure it was scam. “They put the bad ones out so you buy them first. Five minutes ago. Don’t believe it for a second.”
She also liked to take the opposite position on things whether she believes it or not. I think she just liked arguing.
“What did you think about that amazing vid everyone in the world loved and raked in billions of creds?”
“It was meh,” she’d reply.
“Wasn’t that the best chocolate Himalayan cake ever?”
“I like the strudel better. And my feet are sore from walking here to get it.”
“We flew all the way up to the door.”
“The door is far away from the shuttle. Why do they put it so far away?”
“It’s like five feet.”
“I’m not a spring glucken like you.”
What Mom never complained about was helping me out. She also never complained about helping out friends or family. Or Poka. Or any animals, for that matter.
One of her friends ran a sanctuary for Erkans. They’re small, fuzzy cat-like creatures from the planet Erkania. Tourists thought they were cute and often smuggled them back onto Prime to keep them as pets. They were thought to be perfect pets because they were easy to care for, cheap to feed, and didn’t give birth.
Unbeknownst to the idiots who brought them back, instead of giving birth, they replicated. A lot. Prime was a good environment for them. No predators, lots of food, and a good climate for replication. Soon the planet was littered with them. It’s a classic story of species invasion and overpopulation. Something humans have been doing since the beginning of time.
They bring a spe
cies in to get rid of some other species, then the species they brought in breeds like crazy, so they bring in another to kill them, but then that species overpopulates and the next thing you know you have a billion frogs or sparrows or snakes.
In this case, the Erkans weren’t brought here to get rid of another species, but the overpopulation effect was the same. In certain regions of the country they were literally everywhere. All over the streets. In stores and restaurants. Even in houses. They were like roaches, except really, really cute and cuddly, so no one ever stepped on them. Even big game hunters wouldn’t kill them. They were just too damn cute. So they built sanctuaries.
Eventually they figured out that if you added a nano-supplement to their food supply, it would stop the replications. But by the time that happened, there were millions of the things everywhere.
Mom’s best friend from the sector, Delina, started out like most people with one Erkan, but wound up with over fifty before they figured out how to stop the replications. Then Delina started reducing Erkans so mom helped out. She did it to the point of practically ripping Delina’s hair out because she wouldn’t stop rescuing Erkans.
Eventually they kicked Delina out of her house, so Mom let her stay at her place. Delina and her now three thousand Erkans. That’s a story for another day. Trust, me you can’t imagine living with that many Erkans. The closest comparison would be living with five hundred golden retriever puppies, two hundreds kittens, and three hundred bunnies.
Mom then helped Delina get a new place and apply for animal rescue status to get creds from the government. It took awhile, but eventually Delina got it all up and running and now has like three thirty thousand happy, healthy, adoptable Erkans.
Anyone want an Erkan? Call Delina’s Erk Farm.
Ugh, poor Mom. I wouldn’t even get to talk to her before I died yet again for the fiftieth time in a day. Hey, I’d gotten out of worse predicaments than this. Maybe there was some hope.
I could reboot the bot, get the life support systems running, and at least buy a year to figure out a way back to Prime. The odds were still super-slim according to the bot, so most likely we’d die in a year, but who knows? Maybe we’d find a worm-portal or something. Maybe the universe would conspire to help get us home. It was probably the smart thing to do.
But the safe thing to do was to let Kat-Alien die then blow up the ship. That way there was no chance Kat (in case she wasn’t actually dead) or her alien brethren could ever discover Prime because of us. And when I say us, I mean me. I’d already screwed things up enough. I wasn’t about to let my mistakes destroy the Earth.
Kat was most likely dead, and if I destroyed the ship, that would be that. We’d just become space debris orbiting a beautiful alien planet. Maybe our bits and pieces would make the sunset slightly more fantastical. We’d contribute a little beauty to the universe.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, so this is it. I’m going to let Kat die and blow up the ship,” I said, as if to convince myself it was the right thing to do.
That’s crazy, the little voice inside me replied.
“Yeah. I know. This whole thing is crazy. But it’s the only way to make sure Earth is safe from these ridiculously super-powered aliens. If they ever found our solar system, it would be an apocalypse."
But they could find it anyway.
“Not because of me.”
How do you know they don’t already know where Earth is? Maybe they sucked all the info from your brain already.
Shat. My inner voice had a point. But the odds of that still seemed slim. And if so, my guess was that only Kat had the info. And Kat was floating dead in space. Blowing us all up was still the safest bet.
Dude, wait, the little voice said.
“What?”
I don’t want to die.
“Me neither!”
What about Poka?
I looked at her goofy, loving face and tears came out.
“Don’t go there.”
But…
“Stop it!”
What about Kat, then? Look at her.
Kat’s lifeless body floated on the screens.
You can’t be sure she’s dead.”
“You’re right. I can’t be sure.”
You were the one arguing against me before. You wanted to save her so go ahead and do it.
“It’s too late.”
I pressed a few buttons on the console. I was surprised I’d even remembered them from the training vids. It wasn’t something I ever expected to need.
“Ready for auto-destruct sequence,” the ship responded.
Dude, don’t!
“Sequence Abandon All Hope. Alpha Nine Nine Seven.”
I can’t believe you just did that.
I didn’t bother responding. There was no point in arguing with myself anymore. The decision was made. It was time to live with the consequences of my actions. And that would be about three minutes.
“Ship, send vid to Mom.”
A moment passed. “Sent.”
I doubted the transmission of the vid would get back to Prime, but at least I gave it a shot. Now, all that was left to do was wait. I hugged Poka for the last time. Crazy that after all the energy I’d spent trying to avoid dying, I’d just actively chosen to end it all. Like I always say, humans are ridiculous creatures.
At least the bot would never know what happened. I felt a little bad for it. I'm sure its goal in life wasn’t to end up as space rubble rotating around some unknown planet. It would kill its data hungry brain to not even know the name of the planet.
I looked at the screen and watched Kat’s limp body dangling in space. I knew it wasn’t really her, but it still was a knife in my heart. On the plus side, maybe it was the closure I needed. I never got to see the real Kat before she died. They never even found the body, so there was just an empty casketed memorial service that left me angry and confused. Seeing her out there was a bizarre, but small comfort.
“One minute to Sequence Abandon Alpha,” the ship said.
It had all come down to one minute. My last moments weren’t like the vids or stories. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. Now that I think of it, none of the times in the recent days had my life flashed before me. Maybe once it did. I couldn’t remember. It seemed like I’d almost died like a hundred times in the last few days. Who could keep track?
This was the only time the choice was mine. The one time the power was in my hands. My one chance to be a hero. An unknown hero, but a hero nonetheless.
You’re no hero, the little voice said.
“Don’t start.”
You’re scared of living.
“That’s stupid. I’m terrified of dying. So are you.”
You’re taking the easy way out.
“Quit it with the quotes. And trust me, this isn’t easy.”
“Thirty seconds to sequence Abandon Alpha,” the ship interrupted.
My inner voice was right, but I was doing the only thing I could think of to protect my home. Still, there was something bothering me. Something small and real. Deep down under the little voice’s protests. Something from my core.
I went as quiet as I could and tried to find it. Tried to listen to that thing buried deep inside. I closed my eyes, took a breath and listened.
Poka and Kat were the two words that came to me. I focused and followed the thread. It took a minute—which I didn’t have.
“Abandon Alpha in ten seconds,” the ship sounded off.
Suddenly I realized what the words meant.
I had to do anything and everything to try to save them, until there was nothing left to do. And when there was nothing left to do, I had to keep trying because like the bot says, “There’s always a solution but humans aren’t intelligent enough to figure it out.” We might not be intelligent enough but we’re definitely stubborn enough.
“Ship. Cancel sequence Abandon Alpha.”
The ship made its own buzzing and beeping sounds. Nothing like the bot’s. Each sys
tem had its own unique personality.
“Unable to process command request,” it replied.
“What? Ship! Cancel Abandon Alpha! Now!”
The ship beeped. “Ten seconds to sequence.”
“Cancel Abandon Alpha!”
“Nine. Eight. Seven.”
Are you kidding me? This is unbelievable. The only thing I could think of was that the damn aliens had scrambled the ship too. Frak!
“Five. Four. Three.”
Hellvian’s sack! This can’t be it.
“Two.”
I hugged Poka tight and kissed her dumb cute face.
“One.”
I shut my eyes tightly and prepared to be ripped to shreds.
“One.”
Okay. Here we go. I’m about to be turned into a space smoothie.
“One.”
And, I’m ready to explode…now!
“One.”
Uh, what was going on here? Did I explode? Was this the afterlife?
“One.”
I slowly creaked my eyelids open. I was still on the ship. Definitely not the afterlife.
“One.”
What the frak?
“One.”
Holy hellvian. The ship was stuck on repeat. Talk about a lucky break.
“One.”
It had to be misfiring because of all the alien shat. First the retrieval-drone. Now this. Everyone was misfiring. My brain. The bot. Probably Poka, too. Except with her it was impossible to tell, because she was so crazy to begin with.
Thank goodness for the giant mirrored sphere deconstructing and reconstructing the ship. It must have messed up the core self-destruct sequence along with the life support systems. Oh, wait, I forgot, life support failure was because the Earth fleet tried to blow us up with a plasma blast. Regardless, I’d never been so grateful for the alien intervention.
“One.”
Ugh. The bad news was that the ship was going to keep repeating the word “one” until I fixed it. Which I couldn’t do without the bot.
“One.”
It was like a smoke detector beep going off every few seconds. “One.” The ship droned again. Unlike a smoke detector, I couldn’t remove it from the ceiling, wrap it in a towel and throw it in a garbage can. Add shutting that thing up to the list. It wasn’t the number one priority, though. That was reserved for saving Kat.