The Alpha Choice

by M. D. Hall

  Despite what he had just said, Jon had a sneaking regard for the TeCorp CEO. A thought then occurred to him. ‘Everyone on the planet will have seen what happened, there’ll be riots, and worse down there.’

  Jane’s response was as dispassionate as ever. ‘None of what transpired within the room you call the Unification Chamber, or above your planet was seen by anyone outside the room. Other than you, only your leaders and Hugo Black will have any recollection of what happened,’ no further explanation was given.

  Jon nodded, relieved. ‘The man in the hologram, Tala’s boss, he referred to rebels, what did he mean?’

  ‘Elizabeth Corcoran was released as a result of their action aboard the Te’an flagship,’ replied Jane. ‘They have been working in secret, since our last encounter, to undermine the Te’an imperative. This was their first opportunity to influence the outcome of contact with another species.’

  Jon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do the Te’ans know the rebels released Liz?’

  ‘Yes. More precisely, it was one person who aided Miss Corcoran, as well as orchestrating your escape and enabling Hugo Black to assist you.’

  ‘Won't they search until he…?’

  ‘You have guessed correctly, it is a man, a young man of exceptional talents.’

  ‘Won't they search until he’s found?’

  ‘They will try, but for the moment he is safe.’

  Alf added. ‘If you are to prepare your world to face the Void, you will again need the help of the rebel faction, as well as others who recognise the greater threat, and are willing to help.’

  ‘Who are they, these others?’

  ‘They will make themselves known,’ Jane replied.

  ‘How will we contact the rebels?’ he asked, unconsciously confirming he would be working with Hugo Black.

  ‘You cannot,’ Jane replied, ‘they will contact you, and for that purpose we will allow restricted incursions into the Zone.’

  ‘Why would they do that, they don’t know anything about the Nothing, I mean the Void?’

  She had not answered his question, but he reasoned that if his questions were totally unwelcome, they would just spirit him back home. He tried a different approach. ‘Can you at least tell me how we’ll recognise them when they make contact?’ Jane locked her electric blue eyes onto his, and Jonathon Tyler found himself standing in the foyer of TeCorp headquarters.

  Twelve years from now

  Ω

  Commander Kaarn of the Scion had waited inside the Weft for days, his face betraying none of the emotion he felt at having been diverted, on the whim of the Agency, to the desolate sector beyond. As ever, when the Agency were involved, only sparse details were given. The actual orders had come from none other than the High Admiral and were simple enough, remain until I personally give you permission to retire. Any incursion into the sector and you are to exit the Weft and use lethal force on any vessel you find.

  ‘Any vessel’ was a matter for speculation, but Kaarn was not prone to speculation, he simply obeyed orders, and waited.

  Δ

  The Earth star ship ‘Endeavour’ slowed out weft space and the view screen displayed the coalescence of blurred, formless colours into the familiar images of ‘real’ space. Captain Johansson, from his position at the bridge, checked their position with his young Third Lieutenant, Thomas ‘Tom’ Lindsay, who was nervously navigating his way through his maiden voyage aboard a star ship.

  ‘The instruments are malfunctioning, sir.’ Lindsay reported.

  The captain turned to the young officer. ‘In what way are they malfunctioning, Mr Lindsay?’ While he was fully acquainted with the personal details of all one hundred and thirty-five of his crew he noted, for the first time, how young his Third Lieutenant looked. Perplexity was writ large upon his reddening face, making him appear even younger.

  Johansson remembered the panic he felt, sometimes groundless sometimes not, during his own first voyage, and recalled his old captain's reassurances doing nothing to calm him.

  He looked at his first officer, Sylvia Fernandez, a sound officer not prone to panic, very level headed, who raised her right eyebrow. They had known each other for three years and he had, while on shore leave, been a regular dinner guest at the home of her parents. On their return from this mission he would be one of two hundred and seventy guests at her brother’s wedding. Yet, despite spending so much time together, they were, to use an old expression, just good friends.

  Johansson had enjoyed a few intimate relationships in the years he had known her, as had she, but they both knew that as long as they were active officers of the ‘Galactic Fleet’ their relationship had to remain strictly professional. In three years time - the maximum period of active service permitted for an officer of the Fleet was nine years, and they had each served six - they would both enjoy their retirement, together.

  He got up from his chair, determined not to prolong the misery of his young officer, then calmly, not wanting to spook the lad, walked over to the navigation computer to check the readings for himself. He would point out, in the most reassuring but more importantly, the least patronising manner he could muster, where the youngster had made his error.

  In the instant he looked at the virtual screen, he knew Lindsay was right. According to the ship’s computer, they had exited weft space one hundred and eighty light years from Earth.

  His instinctive first thought, how is that possible?

  The brief moment of panic vanished, replaced by the mental clarity that came from years of experience. He asked his first officer to log on and check the readings at her own station. Bringing up the star charts on an adjacent screen, and separate diagnostic displays showing speed and fuel use, he overlaid one upon another. The calculation was carried out instantly and automatically. A glance at his first officer confirmed his findings, somehow they had exited the weft beyond the Zone. If discovered, they would not have the protection of the Custodians.

  After the expulsion of the Te, twelve years earlier, Jonathon Tyler had explained to Earth’s leaders, that if they chose to venture out towards the stars they would be protected from the unwelcome attentions of the Te, provided they remained within one hundred and fifty light years of Earth, in any direction. The Te were physically prevented from crossing that perimeter, into what became known as the Zone. With the backing of Hugo Black and the incumbent US President, there was no resistance to Tyler’s warnings. Beyond the perimeter, they would have to fend for themselves, which seemed reasonable enough; one hundred and fifty light years is a long way, and there was much to explore within the Zone. They would only venture beyond the boundary once they had advanced to the point of being able to protect themselves, and that time was far, far away.

  Once he had convinced them they could not rely upon Custodian intervention again, Tyler had told of the advanced civilisations which had fallen to the Te, notwithstanding technology dwarfing anything the Te had demonstrated, and the salutary warning did its work. Every ship was equipped with a failsafe device, which cut in once a ship had reached a cumulative hundred and twenty light years in the Weft.

  He had told them nothing of the danger posed by the Void.

  Endeavour’s captain was all too aware of the need to remain within the Zone. He gave the order to dispatch a message to Earth, confirming their position and status.

  No sooner had this order been carried out than the view screen displayed a disturbance in normal space. It was the formation of a weft-space exit. Johansson’s stomach reacted faster than his brain, which was not far behind. He gave the order to activate weft drive, which would take all of twelve-seconds. In that time his worst fears were realised, a Te’an warship appeared, no more than three thousand kilometres from their position.

  Nine-seconds to safety. He gave the order to activate defensive shields, and personally hit the transmit button, which would send all logs back to Earth, including the sighting of the Te’an ship.

  Three-seconds before the activation of we
ft drive, he looked at Fernandez whose face tried to reassure him. Their screens confirmed the Te’an ship was charging it’s weapons.

  Two-seconds later, he saw a flash emanate from the other ship.

  Ω

  On board the Te’an warship, Commander Kaarn, his face betraying no emotion, glanced over his command holo screen and instructed his communications officer to signal Te’ath. Signal transmitted, he gave the order to fire upon the errant Tellurian ship.

  α

  Just as Scion had despatched her signal to Te’ath, Agrion awoke. Stumbling out of bed, he walked over to the window, rubbing his eyes before letting them sweep over the peaceful landscape he had come to call home. He looked back at Liron, who was beginning to stir. They had both known this day was coming. Soon their separate journeys would begin, with no guarantee they would ever see each other again. Turning back to the view, he let his mind drift back to his arrival on Tellus.

  From the moment their ship was taken, he was oblivious to all that had happened at Gallsor. He was sure he was conscious throughout, but his memory was blank. What was more, he had not seen his captors or Liron; he had called out her name and got no reply.

  The first he knew of his arrival was when he found himself sitting in a circular chamber. In front of him was a semicircle of seated humans. They looked no different to anyone he might see on Te’ath except, even when seated they appeared quite tall and slim. So, he thought, this is the Balg, I never expected them to be human.

  All the seats were taken, he counted eighteen split equally between men and women. All of them shorthaired and wearing long, various coloured robes.

  Liron? He looked around, but beyond the immediate area there was only darkness. So far as he could tell, other than the semi-circle, he was quite alone. He returned his attention to his captors. Their reserved appearance made him no less afraid. Te’an philosophy was to assimilate or destroy, almost always the latter, why should he think the Balg would be any different?

  A man at the centre of the semi circle spoke up, with a quiet yet surprisingly clear voice, ‘You have nothing to fear.’

  Agrion heard the words and ignored them. He needed to find out what was going on, if he lived that long. ‘Why am I still alive?’

  ‘Why would we want to kill you?’

  ‘Because we’re at war.’

  The man shook his head, but appeared amused. ‘You may be at war, we are not,’ he gestured towards his companions. ‘We are Tellan, and you are on our home planet, Tellus. But you call us Balg, due no doubt to listening in on a broadcast message.’ The man then turned his head both to left and right, and as Agrion followed the man’s line of sight he could see the remaining seventeen were smiling.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Balg means water, in our tongue.’

  The Te’an agent closed his eyes. As long as the name, as everyone in the Agency knew, remained unexplained, it was as good as any other but knowing its true meaning, in his current predicament, was something he could do without. ‘Why did you take me, and where is my colleague?’

  ‘We took the two of you because we have a use for you.’

  ‘My colleague?’

  ‘She is well, and you will see her at a time of our choosing, but not for some little while.’

  ‘I demand to see her now!’

  ‘And if we do not comply with your demand, what then?’ his host enquired, without the slightest hint of smugness.

  Agrion impotently clenched his jaw and fists, finding nothing to say. He watched as the man stood, then walked slowly towards him. A seat appeared and the man sat down. The Te’an looked at the semi circle, ‘where’ve they gone?’

  The man’s smile was not unpleasant. ‘We thought this might be less intimidating.’

  ‘I’m your prisoner, that’s intimidating enough!’ As if to satisfy himself they were alone, the captive agent looked around the room. He could see, but not identify unmoving darker shadows within the background. If the lighting was meant to unbalance him, it failed.

  So far, he had elicited no information to help him escape, he needed to push for answers. ‘What are you going to use us for, and was it worth destroying three ships?’ He weighed up the chances of overpowering his captor, he’s tall but doesn’t look too strong, he thought, but where are the others? There must be some guards back there? But even if I get the upper hand, where would I go, and where is Liron? I can’t go without her. Reason asserted itself, and he decided he was better off lulling his captor(s) into a false sense of security, play along and strike only when he had enough intelligence.

  ‘We did not destroy your ships, but before you build up hopes of rescue, know that your ships have returned to your home world. They think you are dead.’

  So, he thought, I’m on my own, with nowhere to escape to. I don’t know what they want but I can at least…’

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but it is most important you realise we have gone to a lot of trouble to get you here, and it would be such a waste for you to use the dangerous implant in your brain to cut short your visit. Until you become more informed, you are too volatile to be left to your own devices. Agrion’s hand went to the back of his head, and he breathed a sigh of relief, no scar tissue, it’s still there.

  The man must have seen the panic in the agent’s face, as he quickly added. ‘We have removed the implant by non-invasive means.’ The hope that had flared briefly in Agrion, died, but he had no time for self-pity as the next piece of information was, in it’s way, even more unnerving. ‘I fully understand your need to escape, please feel free to try, but know this: it is both impossible and unnecessary. In a couple of months, you and you colleague will be free to leave this place and return home, free to relay to your people everything you have seen and experienced, should you wish it,’ the man paused before adding, ‘even down the nature of our defences. But for now, I need to let you know something of your past.’

  Without giving him a chance to object, the man recounted a tale Agrion found both fascinating and terrifying. As the tale progressed, the fascination became totally subsumed in the terror. After a while the storyteller stopped. ‘I have told you enough, for now. Consider what I have said then, when the time is right, we will resume; I will finish the story, and then ask you a question.’

  Whatever Agrion expected, it was not this. He was confused. To accept what he had just been told, required him to turn everything he knew about his own people on its head. It was asking too much, his captor had to be lying…but what if he was telling the truth? He put his hands behind his neck and kneaded the muscles there, before asking: ‘What question?’

  ‘A difficult one,’ and with that said, the man, who had remained nameless throughout the interview, stood. Two men appeared at either side of Agrion, I was right about the guards, he thought. The new arrivals were dressed less informally than the storyteller but still not in what he would consider military attire. ‘Kindly escort our guest to his quarters.’

  As he stood, no attempt was made to restrain him. Silently, the newcomers turned and made their way towards the edge of the auditorium. Following, he looked back once and was not at all surprised to find both captor and seats, gone.

  The Agency operative expected, as he left the room, to pass through a series of corridors and was ready to commit every step and turn to memory, as per his training. Instead, he found himself in the open air. He was standing on a hill, overlooking a valley of verdant green with large areas of deciduous woodland. The open areas were interspersed with bright green domes all, so far as he could tell, the same size; the colouring made some of the more distant structures harder to make out against the landscape.

  Turning to look at the building he had just exited, he found it too was a dome and no larger than those he had just cast his eye over, this is impossible! he thought. He began to walk around the building, the Tellans doing nothing to restrain him. In a little over thirty-seconds he was back where he started. Examining
the structure more carefully, he could see it was fluted vertically all around the circumference, extending about twice the height of a man. Set at intervals above the fluting were three lateral rows of hexagonal dimples, while above the dimples, the dome was smooth all the way to its apex. There were no windows or doorways of any kind, not even where he had exited just minutes before. He stepped towards the structure and a doorway appeared, half as tall as himself and at least twice his width.

  As his Tellan companions joined him - still silent - the width expanded to accommodate them all. One step into the dome, and he was confronted by the same large expanse, as before - he guessed it would take him at least five minutes to walk around the interior circumference. Stepping backwards, he continued to keep the dome in front of him. When he was about five or six paces away, the doorway disappeared. Retracing his steps around the building, he stopped, turned to face to the structure and once again stepped forward. Unsurprisingly, another doorway opened. Repeating this procedure several times, he discovered, no matter where he stopped, a doorway would open and the interior was always the same size, several times larger than the outside!

  About to ask his escorts for an explanation, he saw them walking away from the dome across closely mown grass, not appearing to care whether he followed. With nowhere else for him to go, he hastened after them. Within a few minutes he was led to another dome, identical to the auditorium, must be some kind of dormitory, he thought. However, the surprises were not over for the day. Once inside this dome, he found an interior no bigger than his city apartment on Te’ath, albeit bare of any furnishings. No sooner had he realised this, than the area began to be populated with items identical to those he had just imagined from his apartment, but that was not all; other objects appeared, things he had seen elsewhere on his travels and liked, some of them forgotten, until now. Their appearance brought back vivid memories. The process repeated itself as he climbed the stairs to the upper floor. He looked at the two Tellans. ‘Very impressive, no that doesn’t do it justice, but I was wondering, if it can appear this quickly…’