‘He does not really intend to leave us out here in this glass thing unprotected, does he?’ Kareen was beginning to turn a shade lighter. ‘I am not an expert on war tactics, but won’t that make us easy targets?’
‘You’re right, Kareen,’ Bayo chipped in. ‘Captain, maybe we should reconsider helping them, at least for now. It just might keep us alive for a few more hours.’
I shook my head. ‘It was agreed only a few hours ago that we will not be the people that introduce this lot to nuclear weapons. Besides, what if they turn those missiles on us? Also, our mission is to find new planets, habitable ones, for colonisation. With those missiles, we could very well destroy this planet.’
Toni’s hand lightly touched mine. ‘J, right now I don’t think we have a choice. If we don’t do it, then we’re dead anyway. Besides, you saw what happened to them the last time they faced these guys. I didn’t exactly finish the memory, but...’
I had not seen it, either, but she was right. Even without the rest of the memory, it was clear that not many of them had survived. ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘So, we help them. I just hope that we do not regret it.’
Species: Human
Cooperation Status: Voluntary
Recommendation: Initiate Anti-colonisation mission
Interplanetary Conflict: Imminent
We waited. Outside the multiple glass buildings, in the green and purple, all was quiet. I knew who lay there, terrified by the prospect of combat, but unwilling to just lie down and die. Beside me, Bajaji was calm, concentrating on one of the giant monitors in front of him.
I was not afraid. Granted, the idea of dying on another planet, in another galaxy, was unnerving, but actually dying, my body giving up, was not unwelcome. I looked around at my team, sans three, noticing their anxious stances.
Bajaji said something I did not fully understand, until his eye flicked away from the monitor and upwards. Against the planet’s bright light, the numerous hexagon plates provided shade that reminded me of my home planet. They were about the size of a half-ton pickup truck, their charcoal-grey colour not reflecting much light.
Bajaji’s eye closed for a split second, and at once there was movement in the shrubs outside. Then, almost simultaneously, ripples of thin yellow light shot to the sky and the little plates rocked, flames bursting from underneath them.
‘Looks like your weapons work just fine,’ I muttered under my breath, but Bajaji heard me. ‘They are really not as effective as you think, Captain. Wait and see.’
Some of the plates were falling. They crashed into the purple undergrowth, bits of grey metal and red flame providing an unwelcome change of scenery. Bajaji was not even looking, but there was no mistaking his hand signal; retreat. I could hear a faint humming, and then it happened. The remaining plates fired from the air in unison, transforming the bushes into purple and red fire. I winced as the heat permeated the glass shielding us from the flames. Outside, they were not so lucky. Purple heads had a darker shade of slime, while others lay in the middle of the ash, a few charred bones the only significant remains.
‘Lieutenant Vermeen,’ I began to signal Kareen, but Bajaji raised his hand again. ‘Not yet, captain.’
‘Are you insane? Your people are being barbecued out there, and there’s one of my own with them!’
‘I know that, but we must wait for a while longer. They cannot know about our plan yet. Listen, Captain. Can you hear it?’
A few seconds passed, before the humming transformed into the sound of a thousand bees. It was not coming from the plates, which were now descending. It was something else; something much bigger.
With its angled wings and tapered, smooth, silver body, it reminded me of a flying fish. It glided over us, covering most of the buildings with its shadow. I turned to look at Bajaji, who was not even flinching, eye fixed on the giant monitor. ‘It’s here.’
Mbalale was exactly as the memory had shown me. Right ear half-sliced, solitary eye tinted black, with the grey-and-black frame dressed in red. From the monitor, Mbalale’s triumphant demeanour was apparent.
‘I shall make this simple. Yield your planet to us and destroy all your weapons. There is no need for us to annihilate you. After all, we were brothers once.’
‘Go to Vetibra and die,’ Bajaji replied. ‘I told you before that never shall we ever be ruled by a tyrant. We shall die protecting our planet.’
‘I had not finished, Bajaji. I have another condition. You have prisoners, visitors from another world. I want them publicly executed, and their ship destroyed.’
I heard myself gasp while Mbalale continued. ‘It was foolish of you to think that I would not be aware of such an important event. Now, you know what we are capable of. Do this within the next ten quintines. If you do not,’ one tinted eye moved faintly, and the hexagon plates opened up, ‘Those will only be the genesis of your downfall.’
I did not wait. ‘Bayo, get in here.’ He was through the glass doors in seconds, his normally-pristine uniform covered in ash and smelling like kerosene. Half his face was covered in tiny gashes lathered with black slime. ‘I heard,’ he said.
‘The others are all set. After what that thing just said, I do not want you out there. He wants us dead in ten quintines, which is five Earth minutes, and I don’t trust our current allies not to turn on us and act on it.’ I turned to Bajaji. ‘We need to act now.’
‘Yes, we do, captain. You may go.’
The others were waiting. Jakaya was pacing around, speaking to no one in particular, while Kareen sat in her chair, unmoving. ‘We have about three minutes. Does everyone remember what we have to do?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ Hossam replied. ‘I already collected the samples we need, so the rest is up to all of you.’
I was about to bark everyone into their positions, when I heard the distinct crooning of Toni.
Ni nde undirije mwana
Yo gacaracara
Yo gacana injishi
Akenyegeza ibisabo
Wirira wihogora
Nkwihoreze
‘What are you singing?’
‘My mother used to sing it to me when I was a child,’ Toni replied. ‘Something like, ‘who made my child cry, don’t throw a fit, I will calm you down’ and all. She always sung it when I was troubled. Seemed appropriate.’
‘I like it,’ I said, and she looked into my eyes and gave me one of her disarming smiles. ‘Time’s up. We should get the signal anytime now.’
The signal came in the form of a giant plume of smoke; Bajaji’s men had taken down two of the plates. Even as we rose, we could see the two sides’ ground troops firing on each other in the charred underbrush. I knew what we had to do. ‘Shoot at the little plates first. That ought to get that big fish’s attention.’
It did. Toni and Bayo concentrated their machine gun fire on the hexagon plates, and at once the underbelly of the big ship began to move. It was repositioning, getting ready to fire, just as Bajaji had predicted.
‘Now is your chance, Captain,’ Bajaji’s voice materialised from within the ship. ‘We are counting on you. Also, if you miss, you die along with the rest of us.’
‘It would help if you shut him up, Captain,’ Bayo interrupted. ‘Concentration is hard enough already without his bullshit.’
‘Yes, Captain, that would be wise,’ Toni echoed. Then, directing her gaze at Kareen, ‘Are you sure these things are okay?’
‘Yes, dammit, now fire!’
Simultaneously, two thermonuclear missiles were fired at the large vessel. I stared, waiting for impact. There was none. Kareen sat still and only spoke one word; ‘Wait.’
‘Wait for what? That thing is about to vaporise us!’
The big ship’s stomach rumbled, and cracks began to show, bleeding out molten flame. We watched as, like melting plastic, parts began to disintegrate. The hexagon plates also began to fall, crushing unfortunate troops on the ground beneath them.
‘We did not think things all the way through,’ Toni disrupted the unusual
ly silent bridge. ‘Those troops down there are going to get crushed by all those falling dishes.’
‘I anticipated that, which is why I recalibrated the nuclear cores in the missiles to melt the pieces, not just tear them apart,’ Kareen said, her eyes betraying excitement and satisfaction. ‘At least it won’t be as bad. Isn’t it time we left, J?’
I agreed. We had kept our end of the agreement. ‘That was the plan. Are we okay, Jakaya?’
‘We will all be better if we get the hell out of here, Captain.’
We had just passed the melting monstrosity when a familiar voice filtered through the ship again. ‘Leaving so soon, Captain?’
I had expected this. ‘We have done our part, Bajaji. Now, as per our agreement, we are free to go. I’d rather not wait, lest you change your mind.’
‘We still have a war on our hands, Captain. It would be unfortunate if...’
‘It would be unfortunate if you forgot that I still have more missiles aboard this ship,’ I interrupted. ‘Now, I have taken out your biggest threat, even some of the little ones. You can do the rest. I told you before that this is not our war.’
Bajaji’s hologram came onto the bridge, his mouth straining into what I’m sure was an attempt at a smile. ‘Very well, Captain. I truly am grateful to you. We shall not be colonised in the near future, thanks to you and your technology. Perhaps we shall meet again one day.’ Then it was gone.
‘Meet again. God forbid,’ Bayo exclaimed, cracking his knuckles. ‘You did sweep this whole thing, didn’t you, Gufuli?’
‘Yes, I did, while your face was getting roasted, and don’t call me that,’ Jakaya fumed.
‘Okay, everyone, relax,’ I managed to say, trying to control my laughter. ‘We found a new planet, the Doc collected the samples he wanted, and most important of all, we survived intergalactic imprisonment and kicked some alien ass. We accomplished what we came for, now let’s go home.’
#
Something was following us. Jakaya noticed it first. It was a simple speckle on the radar, but when we were so close to home, such a thing was a major risk.
‘Pirates?’ Toni asked.
‘Don’t be daft, Kagame,’ Bayo chimed in. ‘Those are a myth. Besides, we haven’t encountered anyone since we left the planet of whatshisname a couple of months ago.’
Something about what Bayo said made me think. ‘How long until we have visual, Jakaya?’
The man did not answer, but instead pointed at something to my left. I turned and immediately wished I hadn’t. There was one hexagon plate heading straight for us. The pilot was all too familiar; I had seen the gold apparel a few times before.
Kareen’s scream brought me back to the ship. Bayo was slamming a skinny man against the aluminium floor. ‘I asked you if you checked this place for trackers and you said you had! How the hell did that thing find us?’
‘I checked the entire ship, I swear! I have no idea how he followed us here!’ Jakaya was now being lifted off the ground.
I knew there was little time to do anything, least of all figure out how he had found us. The re-entry sequence had been initiated.
‘Fire the remaining missiles,’ Toni suggested.
‘Don’t do that!’ Kareen snapped. ‘We are attempting re-entry. You’ll kill us too.’
‘There was only one thing to do. ‘Warn ground control and strap in! There is nothing else we can do now. He timed this, and he timed this very well’
It still bothered me as we swept past the red heat, slowly approaching home. Despite our differences, I trusted Jakaya; he was competent. And if he was right about the ship being clean, how had Bajaji found us? And if he had been following us the entire time, why hadn’t he killed us?
Bajaji fired when we hit Mesosphere. I tried to reassure myself that it was turbulence, but the explosion soon ripped through the ship’s hull. Toni was saying something to me, and then she was gone. The last thing I thought of was how close we had come. Now, death was literally at Earth’s doorstep and we had brought it there.
#
‘So, tell us, Captain,’ one of the two men finally spoke to Jumbe, the mockery in his tone unmistakable. ‘Do you really expect us to believe this wild story?’
‘You have to, if you want to live,’ Jumbe replied, tugging nervously at her hospital gown. ‘Those things are out there, and now they know our location.’
‘Which is, by your own admission, your fault,’ said the other man. He had stood by the room’s large French windows while Jumbe narrated her story. ‘How exactly did they achieve that?’
Jumbe looked at her two visitors, well-built men in expensive suits. ‘I have told you before; the history pills. They had inbuilt trackers so that they could be short-circuited afterwards. Clearly, we were tricked into thinking that they had been destroyed.’
The two men were apparently unconvinced. ‘Look, Captain,’ the man by the window began. ‘Your ship was destroyed, your entire crew is dead, and all the samples you claim to have collected have not been found.’ He was looking directly at her; Jumbe looked away. ‘Worse still, you claim that an alien ship shot you down, something which was not detected by any of our advanced satellites.’
Jumbe had nothing to say. She felt drained. All the years spent travelling, searching for a new planet, and she had found one. They had endured prison, and then they had fought alongside their captors in order to earn their freedom, only to return to death and an untrusting world.
As the men left her, she remembered Bajaji’s words. They would never be colonised. And what better way to ensure that than to destroy the only other intelligent species they knew?
The sun shone brightly on the freshly-mown grass outside the hospital. The skies were happy, the clouds playfully chasing each other. Beyond them, thousands of miles away, little hexagon plates, recently commandeered, lightly floated, waiting to fire upon an unsuspecting planet. Inside the hospital, in a room on the fifth floor, a solitary occupant softly sang to herself.
Ni nde undirije mwana
Yo gacaracara
Yo gacana injishi
Akenyegeza ibisabo
Wirira wihogora
Nkwihoreze
Andrew C. Dakalira draws his inspiration from the people, places and events happening around him. His stories have been published by Brittle Paper, Africa Book Club, The Kalahari Review and Africanwriter.com. His debut novella, VIII, appears in AfroSFv2. Andrew won Malawi’s 2014 Dede Kamkondo Short Reads Contest. His story, ‘The (Un)lucky Ones’, was shortlisted for the 2017 Writivism Short Story Prize. He lives in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe.
Ogotemmeli’s Song
Mame Bougouma Diene
To Marie Therese Diene and her undying love.
ChinaCorp’s planetary-harvesting ship, the Kublai Khan decelerated over Mùxīng’s moon, Mù-wèi-sān, the gas giant’s gravitational pull stabilising the ship synchronously with the moon. As it spun to a halt the ship’s reflective surface blended with the empty space around it, catching flashes of the Jovian world’s tempests of resources and the large moon’s shining frozen surface.
Standing by the glass panel in the Control Room, her black, red and blue uniform sending heat into her body against the effects of cryo-sleep, Captain Wu looked down on her mission’s target. The layered gases, broken by the Great Red Spot reminded Wu of the vegetables her mother would blend with eggs into pies.
She missed carrots—most of her crew had no idea what they were.
‘Lieutenant Arnaudeau,’ She commed into her wristband.
‘Yes Captain,’ The 1st Lieutenant responded, his French accent breaking through his Canto-Mandarin.
‘Has the Harvesting Crew recovered from cryo-sleep?’
Arnaudeau laughed. ‘As well as could be expected. Still a little sluggish, but they’re excited.’
‘Perfect. We’ll need a few more hours to lower the Great Khan into the upper atmosphere.’ She didn’t know why she had taken to calling the ship that. Perhaps because this
was the first step to uniting the Solar System since the Western Chinese Empire’s Han Industries and the Eastern Chinese Republic’s ChinaCorp had agreed on the merger that ended the war.
Captain Wu shivered, unsure if she was still weary from the bone-deep cold of six months in cryo-sleep, or in apprehension of the responsibility she carried.
She retired to her quarters while the ship’s computer guided the Kublai Khan within harvesting range of a patch of hydrogen floating on the planet’s upper atmosphere.
If the corporations had merged only two hundred years ago, they could have been here much earlier; perhaps she would have known what an organic orange tasted like.
Lieutenant Arnaudeau chimed in on the com-line. ‘We’re in position, Captain.’
‘Good. Have the harvesting crew connect the pumps to the outer hull. No leaks, I hate helium on the air, and what we breathe is recycled shit already.’
‘Yes, Captain. Beginning Planetary-Harvesting now.’
Wu took her position in the ship’s Control Room. This close, the planet’s curve was invisible, only an endless sea of brown and beige gases and micro-storms merging and dissolving in peevish bursts.
The pumps spread their hungry black tentacles down from the ship, disappearing into the swirling atmosphere.
And that was it.
Six months of cryo-sleep, years of training to operate the equipment, more years of building the prototype, and now all she had to do was wait. She would have to make something up. No one would want to hear about how dull the process was.
‘The tanks are full, Captain.’ Arnaudeau informed her.
Already? Well...damn. ‘Well done, 1st Lieutenant,’ she said, thinking about the next ice-cold plunge into cryo-sleep. ‘Have the crew check the pressure on the tanks. I’ll supervise from the Control Room.’
‘Of course, Captain.’
Wu turned on the screens to the storage containers. The football field-sized tanks swirled with the colours of Mùxīng, mingling freely until the crew floating around them inserted suction pumps, pulling the different gases apart, and storing them.
‘Captain,’ Harvesting Sergeant Rahman, commed. ‘We have a minor leak, it was expected, but we’re losing hydrogen and helium, and...’
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