by John Pearce
‘Me too,’ echoed the other two Prospector crew.
The Captain counselled, ‘You’ll probably need to see the results of your work, it’s psychological, we all get detached from the real world when we fight through technology.’
On land now, they all saw the bodies being checked by the warriors, as if not trusting human technology. Less traumatic were the six human prisoners being marched to their cells.
‘What’s Senator Goring’s part in all this?’ asked Denton of his academic mentor.
‘There’s no evidence linking him to this crime, but he’s wanted for questioning about other matters, that’s straight from the military. ’
‘What’ve they got on him?’
‘Evidence supplied by their agent, who’s around somewhere.’
Boss beckoned his human friends to assemble around him, happier now his gruesome tally had been completed. ‘This was our thinking, there was no vengeance, only pity for them, greater was our responsibility to protect our species from DNA irregularities! We have no penal establishment on our planet, should humans let us use their penal colony our criminals would easily escape, so we had no choice.’ The four of them could only look at Boss and say nothing.
Bushes were gently pushed aside, as Elena like no other woman could, seemed to materialize like a heavenly visitation dressed in a tight grey uniform. She could only release the one platinum melting word, ‘Hello,’ before those expressive eyes flashed the concern that she was surrounded by more than mere humans, and even worse, four of them were female.
All male eyes of both species were fixed on this vision, the four ladies’ eyes showed a different spell had been cast, they turned to Boss and one of them spoke so that all around could hear.
‘Ask her why she didn’t tell us about the Lab research.’
Elena responded innocently, ‘How could I? One woman amongst ten criminals.’
Denton broke free of her spell and interrupted them by raising his hand. ‘Excuse me ladies, but could I speak?’ The four of them nodded. His dark blue eyes glared at Elena who held her innocent look. ‘You were at the lab with ten of your people. You sent that emergency message, you must have had all the telecoms you needed, RF and quantum. You’ve had plenty of time to contact anybody in the Galaxy to report this planned crime!’
Her eyes were now suggestive and pleading at the same time. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Alan,’ he snapped.
‘I was watched all the time Alan.’
‘Your psychotype readout showed that you’re a double agent, and was involved in this crime.’
Denton’s words tipped the balance in favour of the four, Elena’s innocent look surrendered to one of anguish, now reflected back from all her people. Silence cooled the hot jungle for a few seconds.
‘How did you know?’ the Captain asked the four.
‘We could see, hear and scent her guilt, before Alan spoke.’
The Professor sidled up to Denton. ‘That was animal cunning Alan!’ he stated. ‘Since when has a psychotype told us all that?’
‘Since I saw our four ladies carrying weapons, then the answer in their eyes. That started me deducing, and then of course creating.’
‘What now?’ The Captain asked, looking at Boss.’
Boss thought awhile, his eyes showed confusion for the first time. ‘Perhaps we could imprison her? We are not used to such genetics. She has helped save many of us and many Cyanese in the past.’
The four ladies stepped aside for a few seconds, then rejoined the group. ‘All four of us say she should give up her life for the sake of our own people, her dangerous genetics are too high a risk for our people to bear.’
‘And if she doesn’t,’ Boss asked as he cast a pleading look at the four, who remained silent.
The Captain signalled to two of his men. ‘We’ll put her in a cell until you make up your mind what to do with her.’
Two troopers walked slowly towards Elena, by the time they’d reached her the anger in her eyes had dissolved into sorrow, now reflected in the twelve warriors’ eyes. When they were close she lunged at one of their side lasers faster than either of them could react; four arrows became four flashes removing the modern weapon from her desperate grasp; with a thud it hit the lush green turf.
All humans gasped out their confusion, Denton spoke, ‘I take it you ladies have changed your minds?’
The lady warriors smiled, relief shone from four pairs of expressive eyes. Boss spoke, ‘No they didn’t, Elena changed her mind! Her eyes showed her sorrow, there was now no point in her killing herself!’
All stood and shared the relief awhile before Boss continued, ‘Elena is the Admiral’s problem, it was he who recruited…and trained her,’ he continued with a faint smile, ‘he has the rank to take on such a headache!’ He beckoned to the Captain. ‘Take her to the Admiral.’ Boss was now back to his decisive best. ‘Now we can finish our mission.’
‘Which is?’ Denton asked.
The Captain interrupted, ‘Best you get the whole story from the Admiral!’
THE ALIENS LAST STAND
The Prospector sixteen, the media, other prominent citizens and the mighty Senate assembled at the military training theatre on the Europa base. It was a large circular, fifty metre diameter, horizontal screen that was surrounded by comfortable tiered seats.
The Admiral started from the vantage point of a side platform. ‘Understandably, there have been questions from all quarters regarding the way the military have introduced our friends from Planet AO 2374. I hope the following hologram recording enlightens you all.’
The theatre lights lowered, the hologram formed in seconds like a ghostly mist coming out of the floor but then materialized into a beautiful jungle scene. The sound with voiceover explained the military perspective of the visuals.
‘This hologram is about to show you how a particular battle was won, it is also a model of how battles were fought up to seven hundred years ago.’
A forest surrounded a large clearing on three sides. Thousands of bowmen, wearing patches of leather, strolled out of the trees at the closed end of the clearing.
‘There are approximately four thousand bowmen.’
One thousand went into trees that bordered their left flank, another thousand into trees that bordered their right flank. The remaining two thousand broke into two ranks of a thousand each with their backs to the central trees, bridging the gap between the two flanks; they now faced a ridge that was within arrow range.
‘There is an advantage to be gained in battle by the side that chooses the terrain on which it is to be fought. The bowmen ensured this by retreating into the trees; they also calculated that their enemies would follow because of the false sense of security that their new weapons gave them.’
The waiting minutes had been cut from the hologram.
Into the open end of the clearing marched wave upon wave of laser riflemen, dressed in nature’s wardrobe of hides and roughly woven cloth.
‘There are approximately fifty thousand laser riflemen.’
They formed into ranks of about a thousand wide, and marched between the tree lines towards the ridge. Before they reached the top, a sprinkling of arrows arced over the ridge, whilst intense volleys flashed from the trees to cut down those on the flanks. There was a rush to and over the ridge.
‘The rapidity with which arrows were fired from the cover of trees seemed like there were greater numbers of bowmen. This encouraged the riflemen to run over the ridge.’
Wave upon wave rushed down towards the two thousand, a wall of arrows sliced into them every second.
‘Such a small number of bowmen encouraged the riflemen to charge down the ridge at them. The riflemen blocked their own forces when they slowed to fire their rifles, thus making even easier targets. Using this rapid form of carnage gave the lasers little time to spit back. Only the occasional rifleman found his mark.’
The bodies piled up, slowing down later waves even more, giv
ing the bowmen even more time to cut them down. The riflemen that took aim became fewer and fewer. The arrows kept coming from the trees, as if they too disapproved of the trespassers. With such slaughter it was only minutes before the riflemen panicked and fled from the ridge in the direction from whence they’d came, followed by an arc of arrows.
‘The following arc of arrows was used to encourage those fleeing to keep doing so. The casualties were about twenty thousand dead for the riflemen and about two hundred dead for the bowmen.’
The audience sat in dark silence as the quietening battle scene slowly faded back into a mist, then evaporated from above the large horizontal screen, like ghosts moving on.
The lights brightened to show rows of stunned faces, the Admiral waited awhile. ‘Ask yourselves if you would have let humans loose on that planet. The mere whisper of yet another Earth like discovery would have had millions blocking the heavens on their way to ravaging yet another world. This time the planet had half a billion defenders with modern weapons. Another quarter of a billion who want peace, but not at any price, would have defeated us with their genes.’ The Admiral waited before releasing his thunderbolt to a now murmuring audience. ‘Those modern weapons you’ve just seen were supplied by smugglers to human colonists, in an attempt to wipe out an alien species, we the military arranged for those smugglers to be neutralized.’ The whole audience was stunned into silence, three jaws dropped, Denton, Tubary and the Professor could only gape at each other. The Admiral continued, ‘This latest event encouraged peaceful behaviour, I am now ready to answer any questions.’
The stunned silence switched to a media frenzy, questions were thrust at the Admiral from all around the tiered arena:
‘Where did the colonists come from?’
‘DNA scans showed they were descendants of escapees from the Penal Colony, over a period of two hundred years.’
‘What were they fighting about?’
‘The usual, land.’
‘Who supplied the rifles?’
‘The serial numbers showed they were stolen from the Cyan Government by their own security leaders, who were renegade aliens from AO2374, and shipped by smugglers.’
‘How did the colonists pay for them.’
‘Platinum, our assays told us it was mined on their adopted planet, then shipped back by the smugglers.’
‘Did you find a hoard of platinum?’
‘Yes, the smugglers left the renegades share in a cave on AO2374. As the cave was in alien territory it now belongs to them.’
‘How did you find this hoard?’
‘From agents we sent there.’
‘What happened to the smugglers share?’
‘It evaporated in space along with the smugglers, I am not obliged to elaborate.’
‘How did you know the renegade aliens were involved?’
‘From human and alien agents we sent to Cyan.’
Hit hard by the Admiral’s fact firing rapidity, the media frenzy faltered.
‘Surely this wasn’t just about land and platinum?’
‘True, the renegades wanted to control their own people on their home planet, not by land grabbing like the colonists, but by politics; they got platinum as a bonus.’
‘There are rumours from Cyan that the renegades were going to unleash the hell of epigenetic control over their own people, what you could call gene grabbing?’
Now the media perked up again, they all saw the horror that could garnish their already excited headlines.
The Admiral looked at the Prospector sixteen, then gave a wry grin back at the media. ‘All sorts of cures were experimented with at the Cyan Government’s Lab, imaginations are bound to run riot. We’ll keep you informed.’
The media was lusting for more, the Admiral was ambushed by another question that would add scandal to excitement.
‘There’s been a lot of dirt thrown at the Military regarding its legal obligations, what have you got to say about that?’
‘Planet AO2374 was not in the Federation, we had no obligation to that planet or anybody on it. However, we do have an obligation to protect it now it’s negotiating Federation Membership.
‘What was the Cyan Government’s part in all this?’
‘Nothing by intent, they are guilty only of incompetence. We will however be arresting five Senators on suspicion of periphery crimes, too numerous to mention.’ The Admiral paused and looked around, the silence told him that their lust for detail had been more than sated. ‘That is the end of our conference.’
The media cheered, they had been handed enough sensation to gorge on for months. They also had the positivity of heroes that would be given publicity that Senators could only dream of. Five politicians had just had their dreams shattered into nightmares of the Penal Colony.
‘Is that finally it?’ asked Denton of his now contented team, lounging in their comfortable seats.
Tubary volunteered his usual quip, ‘Only if you don’t go off without me Dents.
‘So, who won this greatest of Galactic gambles Prof?’
‘I’m surprised you ask Alan, evolution of course.’
‘What if evolution strangles its own planets?’
‘That’s its smartest trick, the one that concocts mutations that fly its genes all over the Galaxy.’
‘Thanks Prof.’