Vatican Abdicator

by Mike Luoma

  Brutal! At least the Eldred seem to be distinguishing between the UIN and the UTZ ships.

  “Can we pick up any UIN communications?” BC asks the captain.

  “Depends on the channel,” he tells BC. “Let me try to pick ‘em up. Let’s see…”

  The com comes to life. A panicked voice pleads in Arabic.

  “Can we translate that?”

  “Here it comes.”

  “…please! No! We are standing down! Do not fi…”

  “Aiiiieeee…”

  They hear many voices begging for mercy. Pleading to be spared. The Eldred ignore the cries and continue eliminating the UIN forces ship by ship, sweeping through, killing in a methodical fashion, one UIN ship at a time, no matter if the ship is disabled and non-threatening.

  “Can we get in their way?” BC asks the captain.

  “What?” The captain can’t believe what BC just asked him.

  “I want to get their attention,” BC explains. “Let’s go get the Eldred’s attention!”

  The captain shakes his head but does as BC asks. Their ship zips up in front of the advancing Eldred ships, among the few remaining UIN ships.

  “Open all channels,” BC tells him. “Let’s say hello!”

  “You’re on.”

  BC clears his throat.

  Let’s see if this works…

  “This is Bernard Campion calling the Eldred Fleet. I am in the ship that has just approached you. Do not fire. I repeat, this is Bernard Campion of Earth to the Eldred Fleet…”

  “This is the Leader of Responsibility for the Eldred fleet responding. Hello, Bernard Campion,”

  an Eldred responds in a mellow, calm, even-toned voice.

  “Uh, yeah, hello yourself,” BC says, surprised by the quick response. “What are you doing?!”

  “We are eliminating the enemy,” the calm alien voice responds.

  “Right,” BC says. “But you’re killing, destroying, ships that aren’t even a threat anymore. Why are you blowing up disabled ships here?”

  “Your assessment of the situation is not accurate,” the Eldred says. “The threat is greater than you know. We detected the presence of Dolomay among these ships. He is a primary threat, and requires the most extreme measures.”

  “I see. Dolomay is…” BC starts to answer.

  “You are distracting us in our hunt for Dolomay,” the Eldred says, cutting BC off. “Do you try to aid him?”

  “You dare to suggest this?!” BC says, trying to muster all the indignation he can. “I have spoken with the eldest of the Eldred. I have been a guest on Eldray. I could be your ally!”

  “And yet you help Dolomay escape,” the Eldred says.

  “I do no such thing!” BC yells at the com, at the Eldred, at everyone. Frustrating Fucks!

  “BC!” Anita’s voice cuts in over the com. “The Eldred just destroyed one of our ships! There were six people on board!”

  “Okay, now you’re blowing up our ships, mister ‘Leader of Responsibility’ of the Eldred!” BC

  yells.

  “Stop this now!” he thunders at the com.

  “Our apologies, Bernard Campion. We were unsure of the status of that ship,” the even-toned voice of the Eldred leader tells him. “We have entered a situation where Dolomay’s whereabouts are now unknown. Thus all human ships are now legitimate targets.”

  Great! So how long until they blow up?

  “Bernard Campion,” the Eldred speaks again suddenly. “There has been a change,” the even toned alien voice informs them. “We have received word that Dolomay has returned to Mars. This battle is over, for now.”

  The Eldred ships begin disappearing from the screen, light blue dots blinking out, clearing the space around the Project’s asteroid base. BC notices all the red dots are gone from the display, too. That went well…

  “Anita?”

  “Go ahead, BC.”

  “Seems to be over out here for now. We’re coming in.”

  “See you when you’re down,” she says, and clicks off.

  BC watches through the viewscreen as the ship maneuvers around battered UTZ ships and flying asteroids. The captain weaves and waltzes their ship’s way past crippled craft, debris and random rocks into the asteroid base’s landing bay. They touch down amid other battle blasted UTZ ships and their battered and wounded crews.

  BC finds Anita waiting for him as he gets off the ship.

  “Anita!”

  “BC! Good to see you in one piece!” she says. She hesitantly approaches, and he gives her a friendly hug. She pulls away a little too quickly.

  She’s hard to figure out! Is she happy to see me?

  “Good to be seen in one piece,” BC tells her, smiling.

  But you know... I do like this woman…

  “Dolomay is making a public broadcast from Mars,” she tells BC. She motions for him to follow her, and she leads him over to the wall of the landing bay.

  “He’s on right now! That’s obviously how the Eldred knew he was gone… He has announced himself as the new leader of the UIN, BC!” she says as she walks.

  “Ibn Al-Salid was standing next to him, announced he was stepping down because of his health and that ‘Ibn Al-Dolomé’ was being installed in his stead.”

  “And when did this happen?” BC asks.

  “It’s happening live!” Anita tells him as she turns on a nearby news screen built into the bay wall. The announcer cuts in as a picture of Al-Salid and another man, evidently, Dolomay, standing side by side appears.

  “The new head of the Universal Islamic Nation, Ibn Al-Dolomé, appeared briefly before the media earlier after what he described as a ‘dust up’ with UTZ forces,” the newscaster reports.

  “These UTZ forces have been described by Ibn Al-Dolomé as new hybrid UTZ ships produced with the help of the previously clandestine government group known as ‘The Project’. The attack reportedly occurred at a formerly secret base out in the asteroid belt run by this mysterious group, led by head UTZ CEO Bernard Campion, the former pope.”

  Damn. What’s Dolomay doing? Dragging all this out into the open in his own skewed way.

  The news announcer continues his report.

  “Ibn Al-Dolomé promised to make a lengthier statement about this ‘dust up’ in about an hour. But he finished his current statement by repeating that the Universal Islamic Nation will not be deterred in what he described as their ‘quest to follow the Prophet, Mohammed, to the greater glory of Allah…’”

  CLICK.

  BC turns the news screen off.

  “Hey,” Anita protests.

  “Old news, now,” BC insists.

  “It’s strange for me to hear The Project talked about on the news,” she tells BC. “I guess we are in the public eye, now…”

  “About the Project, maybe. But it’s not all out. Not really,” BC argues. “The media have no idea about Dolomay’s background. They’ve never heard about the Ancient Enemy. Maybe they’ve heard something about aliens being responsible for the plague. Maybe,” BC insists, “but they don’t know who the Eldred are. Dolomay made no mention of their involvement, did you notice that?”

  “I did,” Anita sighs.

  “The average person out there still has no idea aliens are fucking with us… Have been fucking with us for some time! They don’t know Dolomay’s an alien. The general public still don’t know that the Domo, The Flaze, or even that the Eldred exist, never mind what they’ve been up to.”

  “They don’t know those new hybrid ships Dolomay mentioned actually use reverse engineered Domo and Flaze tech,” Anita points out. “Dolomay only mentioned that the UTZ and The Project were collaborating. He didn’t actually mention that we were using alien technology.”

  “You see my point, then?”

  “Not exactly.” Anita plays obtuse.

  “It’s what Dolomay is leaving out,” BC tells her, “On purpose! He doesn’t want anyone to know about the Eldred, especially the people on Mars. Any talk
about the Eldred, or any of the aliens, would lead to talk about the Ancient Enemy.” BC is thinking out loud. “I would bet you there’s no way Dolomay wants talk of them to get out, because that could lead to the revelation of who he really is,” BC

  figures.

  “Right,” Anita says uncertainly. “Sure… Maybe. I’m not sure humanity is ready to grasp the concept that we come from ancient, alien stock, either,” she says. “And even if they get that? They might embrace Dolomay as an ancestor; hold him up as a hero,” she says, shaking her head.

  “He could play himself off as the hope of the UIN and the human race against hostile aliens. Maybe,” she theorizes. “Then we begin to look like the bad guys!”

  “So you’re an optimist, then?” BC cracks.

  “I’m a realist,” she protests. “The UIN hierarchy already mastered the whole ‘us against them’

  mentality, BC! Dolomay at least appears to be human. The Eldred and the others are definitely more alien and strange. You don’t get much more ‘us versus them’-y than humans versus aliens,” she finishes. BC sees her eyes focus as another thought crosses her mind.

  ‘ Us versus them-y’? Well, I know what she means. And I had been hoping that would work for us, not against us.

  “Let’s head into the base,” she says, off on her next thought. “You can survey the damage from our command center.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” BC agrees.

  He follows Anita into the base. They leave the landing bay through a neat gray corridor and travel up two levels to the base’s control deck. The elevator door opens on a large room whose walls are lined with view screens.

  The screens display the outer rock of the base and the surrounding space. Some screens have colorful graphic overlays, others offer simple yet breathtaking views of deep space. The room is full of busy people, technicians and engineers checking on damage, ship landings, casualties and other technical aspects of the battle just past.

  “I notice the base itself doesn’t seem to have taken much damage,” BC observes. “Or am I just not seeing it?”

  “No, you’re right,” Anita confirms. “We were lucky. We finished up some new modifications to our Domo-based defense screens just in time. We were able to deflect most of the UIN ships’ attacks.”

  She looks serious as a darker thought occurs to her.

  “I don’t think even our modified screens will stand up to those Eldred weapons, though, BC. Did you see them? We were able to get some energy readings from our ship, the one they attacked, before it was destroyed. The readings were off the scale!”

  “Yeah,” BC agrees, “For mellow little blue koala guys, they sure do pack a wallop.”

  “Wonder if they learned their tricks from the Ancient Enemy?” Anita speculates, “and if they did… Will Dolomay be able to get the UIN weapons to function at that level? And how soon?”

  “Jeesh,” BC exclaims, caught a little off guard by Anita’s pessimism. “You must be a lot of fun at parties,” he jokes.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Mr. Campion?” A tech calls out to BC. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I’ve got Mr. Wentworth on the com for you.”

  “Is there a room I could use to take his call?” BC asks Anita.

  “Sure, there’s a conference room over here.”

  She leads him across the room to a door between the view screens. “Route the call to conference room two,” she tells the technician.

  BC laughs as he walks into conference room two and startles two scientists sitting in the room, the remnants of their lunch strewn across the conference room table. Apparently Doctors Krishnavarti and Dundell had previously taken over the small conference room for their use as a cafeteria.

  “Hello Dell. Hi Krish,” BC greets the two scientists. Dell waves as he chews.

  “’Lo ee-ee,” Krish gets out past a mouthful of food.

  “What are you doing in here?” Anita asks them.

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” BC cracks.

  Dell finishes swallowing his last bite and speaks up.

  “Not to worry. We were supposed to

  eat just before the battle commenced. This was the first pause we’ve had since then. We thought we’d eat in here so we’d be close by the command center, in case we’re needed.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” BC reassures him. He looks over at Anita, who just shakes her head, trying not to laugh. “Eat your lunch,” BC tells them. “You two mind if I take a call in here?”

  “Not at all,” Dell says.

  “’Ope,” Krish says, still eating.

  “Here’s the com,” Anita says, showing BC the private headset unit. He turns it on. A transparent image of Wentworth appears in the air in front of BC.

  “Hello, Wentworth!”

  “Campion! You okay?”

  “I’m fine. We lost a lot of ships, though.”

  “How many?”

  BC turns to Anita.

  “How many?”

  “What?” she says. “How many what?”

  Oh, she can’t see or hear him at all! Very cool tech!

  “How many ships did we lose?”

  “Twenty one. And one is missing,” she says somberly. “We’ve got ten ships left from the original thirty-two. Maybe five of those are completely intact and ready to fly again. Those are the early reports, anyway.”

  “Did you hear that?” he asks Wentworth.

  “What?”

  “What Anita just said.”

  “No.”

  BC repeats what she said, and then turns back to Anita.

  “Can you put him on, like, a speaker or something, so he can hear you and you him?” he asks her. “I don’t think this conversation needs to be so private.”

  “Sure. Hold on a second.” She reaches over and takes the headset off of BC and places it on the table. She hits a button on the side and Wentworth’s face appears in miniature hovering in the air above the unit.

  “Good!” BC says. “Now we won’t have to keep repeating ourselves.”

  “What about the base’s shipyard?” Wentworth asks. “Were the ships on the line damaged? How many of those ships will be ready… and how soon?”

  “It’s a small operation here,” Anita says. “We’ve got seven operational or near operational. Eight, maybe nine close to full mobility.”

  “I think it’s becoming obvious we need to ramp up that second shipyard you’ve been setting up out there, make it a much bigger one, make it match or exceed the output of the one on the Moon,”

  Wentworth proclaims. “But first? Right now we need to deal with the UIN and this ‘Ibn Al-Dolomé’ and the fact that the Eldred have shown their teeth.”

  “I’ll say,” Anita says.

  “It bothers me that Dolomay knew where this base was, and knew it was important enough to make it a target,” BC chimes in. “Let’s set up flyby patrols, get some scouts out there watching for any more UIN ships in the neighborhood.”

  “Done,” Anita says. “Your last ten ships are still out there on watch. I’ll have our seven that are ready to go head out there to take over for them.”

  “Fine, but let’s mix the shifts up, so your seasoned asteroid pilots can help our earth based guys,”

  BC offers.

  “Good idea.”

  “Thanks,” BC says. “I’ve gotta figure that as soon as the UIN… as soon as Dolomay, that is, figures the Eldred aren’t paying close attention, they’ll strike here again.”

  “Speaking of the Eldred,” Wentworth says, “Apparently they can distinguish between our ships and the UIN. That’s some good news.”

  “They still took out one of ours,” Anita points out.

  “By the way, what happened to you at the start of the battle, BC?” Krish asks, interrupting.

  “Your pilot said you blacked out. More headaches?”

  “That’s true, you were out,” Wentworth agrees.

  Gee, thanks a lot for bringing that up, Krish. Might
as well tell them the truth.

  “It was Dolomay. He was on one of the UIN ships,” BC explains.

  “Dolomay made you black out? How?” Anita asks.

  “You’re going to love this part,” Wentworth cracks.

  “With his mind,” BC tells them. “I’ve heard Dolomay in my head. He has telepathic powers. I think all of the Ancient Enemy had psionic powers. Dolomay reached out with his mind and… somehow, attacked me.”

  “Really?” Dell says with an arched eyebrow.

  “From what I’ve been able to figure out, The Ancient Enemy could speak mind to mind,” BC

  tells them, “attack mind to mind, read minds, maybe even move things with their minds and influence the minds of weaker people. For some reason, I seem to be on a similar ‘wavelength’ or something to Dolomay. I’m aware of him. He can sense me, knows I can hear him. He’s tried to get into my thoughts. So far, I’ve been able to battle back and keep him out. I think.”

  “You think?” Wentworth asks.

  “Maybe he found the location of this base within your mind,” Dell suggests. “What else might he have gotten from you? You don’t know.”

  There is no way he…

  Anita shakes her head. “I’m still not sure we can totally trust the Eldred’s version of the story. If we… if we humans come from star seeds sent out by this Ancient Enemy, why don’t we have powers like these?”

  “I think their ‘star seeds’ worked with the native DNA back on Earth to create us, so we’re kind of a combination of Earth and Ancient Enemy, if I understand it right,” BC says.

  “So even though Dolomay looks like us, he probably isn’t the same biologically?” Wentworth asks.

  “One would assume he has an alien physiology,” Dell confirms.

  “But Dolomay can still work on the minds of those around him. I think that’s what happened to Al-Salid. I think Dolomay took him over. He’s powerful and dangerous.”

  “Beyond the spooky stuff,” Wentworth says somewhat sarcastically, “he’s obviously helped the UIN to modify their ships and weaponry.”

  “Has there been any sign of new UIN activity around the Earth or the Moon? Any sign of UIN

  scouts?” BC asks Wentworth.

  “Not so far,” Wentworth reports. “Troops and ships are all on alert, but it looks like the raid on the asteroid base was an isolated attack.”