Alien Manifesto (29 page)

PART FOURTEEN

The Aliens Have
Returned!

The senior elder watched as
the alien ship settled down into a thick grove of wild vegetation.
He must tell the Queen;
the aliens are
coming!
The senior set off toward the
queen’s chamber at a dead run and far too quickly for one of his
advanced age. The sheer terror gave the senior elder a strength he
had not known since he was but a young nymph, and he covered the
erg to the Queen’s chamber in record time.

The chief aide immediately intercepted
the senior elder once he entered the Queen’s chamber. He waited
patiently for the senior elder to regain some semblance of calm
before disturbing the Queen. Finally, the senior elder was able to
gasp in a panicked voice, “The aliens have landed a single erg from
here. They are coming, what will we do?”

The excited voices of her chief aide
and the senior elder roused the Queen from her light post-feeding
nap.

“
Who dares disturb my
rest?” she screeched loudly, her agitation scents filling the space
between them.

Scraping their chest plates on the
ground, the chief aide spoke first, “My Queen, the senior elder
reports that the alien ship has landed a single erg from
here.”

“
We must hurry,” said the
Queen, “they will be here soon. Take half of the nest, gather
energy collection globes and drain enough power from the alien ship
that it will be unable to take off. The other half of the nest will
hide in the chambers until I call on them to swarm the aliens,”
commanded the Queen. “Fear not, my children, we will be victorious,
and soon we will bring the glory of the sun to all once
again.”

“
My Queen, the aliens have
many powerful weapons and we have none. We have already lost two of
our nest mates to their weapons. How will we fight them?” asked a
quaking senior elder, his fear scents clouding the air around
him.

“
Now that I have feasted on
their ship’s power I have regained my full strength, they will be
no match for me. Just be ready to swarm on my command,” answered
the Queen.

“
As you command so shall it
be,” both the senior aide and the senior elder answered in unison
before they scurried away to carry out the Queen’s orders.
Things are proceeding exactly as I have foreseen
it
thought the Queen to herself as she
preened her antennae, basking in the warm glow of one who is about
to fulfill her destiny and knows it.

PART FIFTEEN

The Queen is
Found

“
Snarth, we have found the
Queen,” I reported as soon as the shock of the sudden encounter
passed.

“
Hold position until we get
there,” Snarth ordered, so we held position.

“
There has been much
activity in here not long ago,” warned the feline master with a
loud hiss.

“
Full stealth mode from now
on,” came Snarth’s message across my wrist pad.

That was okay for Snarth, the feline
master and me, however SSlice presented a problem as he had no
cloaking device. Realizing his oversight, Snarth said to SSlice,
“You go up the walls to the ceiling and we will cover you.” In an
incredible display of agility, SSlice scurried up the closest wall
and made his way to the center of the ceiling directly over the
Queen’s throne.

SSlice blended in perfectly
with the empty ceiling around the opening
.
If I had not known he was there, I would have missed him
completely
.

“
It is time to check out
the Queen’s throne. You two flank the sides, I will take the
middle; move out,” came Snarth’s order over my wrist
pad.

As I broke to the left, my mate went
right. The Queen’s chamber was a huge round room with a high domed
ceiling. Oddly, the floor was perfectly clean and smooth, not even
a grain of sand underfoot. I was almost half way around when I
discovered the first chamber. It was filled with what looked like
small glass globes.

I signaled Snarth about what I found.
“Continue your sweep,” came back my orders, so I continued forward.
I would be getting close to my mate anytime now.

“
Another chamber here,”
came a message from my mate the feline master. “It leads to a large
passageway that slopes down,” reported my mate.

“
Tom, join up with the
feline master and reconnoiter a short distance down the
passageway,” ordered Snarth, “I have reached the throne and I am
beginning an examination.”

PART SIXTEEN

An Unexpected
Raid

“
HA, I have you in my
sights,” said the Irishman. He and Rowl were playing their favorite
game of cloaked hide and go seek to pass the time.

“
I don’t think so,” growled
the canine in his ear from behind, causing the Irishman to jump in
surprise.

This caused Rowl to erupt in laughter,
“That’s two points for me, one for sneaking up on you and one for
scaring you like a little girl. I win,” said Rowl with a boastful
chuckle.

“
Best out of five?” asked a
disgruntled Irishman. Before Rowl could answer, a loud crash
sounded from behind the ship, snapping the pair to full alert and
sending them running toward the noise, one to the right, one to the
left.

They arrived at the rear of the ship
at the same time to find it swarming with the same creatures the
feline master had killed at the entrance to the defense complex
just the night before. Rowl drew his twin swords and began mowing a
path through the crowd of creatures on the ground. The Irishman
unslung his blaster rifle and began cleaning off the ship’s rear
quadrant.

The slaughter was over in just a few
minutes, as the creatures offered no resistance. They each carried
a glass globe and seemed intent on escaping with it. Very few
escaped the Irishman’s aim or Rowl’s twin swords.

“
Better tell Snarth then
check the ship’s power supply. They were not there ten time units
ago, no telling how much damage they have done to the main engine
plasma,” Rowl said to the Irishman.

“
I will check the ship’s
condition, you tell Snarth, after all it was your idea to play,”
retorted an indignant Irishman.

“
I will stand guard while
you check out the power systems,
then
we will tell Snarth,” said
Rowl, no longer in such a good mood and hoping little if any damage
had been done.

A short time later the Irishman’s
voice interrupted Rowl’s intense search for any of the surviving
creatures. “We got lucky, old friend, no noticeable power
drain.”

“
Now that is some good
news. I will tell Snarth what happened immediately,” answered Rowl,
his good mood returning.

PART SEVENTEEN

The Queen Wakes

As Snarth stood in front of the
Queen’s throne, he was amazed at the artisanship, and even more so
by the huge jewels that decorated it. So intently was he studying
the jewels that he failed to see the Queen open her eyes. The
Queen’s antennae instantly located Snarth even though he was
cloaked.

“
Who dares invade my nest,”
she screamed in galactic standard, causing Snarth to jump back,
blaster drawn. “I can smell you. I recognize your scent,” said the
queen, “Your species once called me Queen. Have you come to declare
your obedience once again? SPEAK or risk the destruction of your
home planet,” screeched the Queen.

“
My home planet wasss
dessstroyed a long time ago becaussse of you,” Snarth hissed
angrily. “My people killed or ssscattered, having been wrongly
accusssed of collaboration with you. Your threatsss mean nothing to
me,” he hissed as he decloaked, his blaster rifle trained on the
Queen.

“
So you have come to claim
vengeance then?” asked the Queen, completely unconcerned about the
blaster rifle pointed at her.

“
Yes and no,” hissed
Snarth.

“
Riddles,” scoffed the
Queen “I should have expected it from such a worthless species as
yours.”

Realizing he was being baited Snarth
paused to get his temper under control before answering. “Yes, I
will take my vengeance, and no, I was actually here looking for
treasure. The whole galaxy thinks you are dead and I am about to
make sure that happens.”

With a shrill laugh the Queen said,
“It will take more than you and your two friends to kill me,
foolish one.”

Shocked that the Queen could detect me
and the feline master, Snarth tried bluffing the Queen. “I am here
alone; all of my assssociatesss are guarding my ssship.”

“
So, you think I am a
simple fool to be deceived by a puny being such as yourself,” said
the Queen as she preened her antennae. “I smell a female feline and
a male of another species that I have never tasted before. Perhaps
he will make a pleasant desert after I have feasted on the two of
you.”

With a lurch, the Queen left the
throne where she had been seated for five hundred years and bore
down on Snarth. Snarth let loose a volley of blaster fire as he
scrambled backward to escape the oncoming Queen.

Seven direct hits and no
effect,
thought the retreating Snarth.
“Engage and fire at will,” he hissed at the top of his lungs to me
and the feline master. An instant later two other blaster beams
arched toward the Queen also scoring direct hits, still with no
noticeable effect. Turning the power setting on his rifle to
maximum, Snarth fired at the Queen’s head; no effect.

At this power level, the blaster
rifles were only good for two, maybe three shots, before their
power cell would be exhausted, realized Snarth. “ssSingle ssshot
volleys at full power,” hissed Snarth to me and the feline
master.

After a shot from each of the teams’
rifles, the Queen was almost on top of Snarth, nearly boxing him in
against the wall. I barrel rolled between them, stopping directly
in front of the Queen, and fired at close range directly into her
abdomen.

With a scream, the Queen paused in her
headlong advance, giving Snarth time to slide away from the wall.
The feline master angled in from the opposite side and fired,
scoring a direct hit in the same spot on the Queen’s abdomen. This
caused the Queen to stop her advance and rise up to her full
height, towering over me, nearly capturing me in her long
arms.

“
No,” screamed the feline
master as she leapt straight at the Queen’s head, delivering a blow
with her feline blade that would have cleaved an ordinary being in
half. Instead, her blade shattered on the Queen’s diamond hard
exoskeleton. The feline master quickly recovered midair and almost
made it clear of the Queen’s reach.

However, she was a split second too
slow. The feline master screamed with rage as the Queen’s arms
snared her. The Queen’s feeding appendage appeared and began
dissolving the helpless feline master, her screams of rage turning
to those of agony.

In desperation and in a rage I had
never felt before I attacked the Queen head-on only to be swatted
away by the Queen’s second pair of arms. Stunned but not out, I
rolled with the blow, landing on my feet then leaping toward the
Queen’s head. I sliced off the feeding appendage midair with my
feline blade as Snarth fired the last shot from his blaster rifle
into the Queen's abdomen. With another scream of rage and pain, the
Queen flung the feline master against the wall, and with a
sickening thud she landed in a heap on the floor.

With all of the blaster rifles
exhausted, the Queen still standing, and one team member down and
likely dead Snarth signaled for the Irishman and Rowl. We only had
to hold on for a few more minutes and help would arrive and enable
the team to retrieve its wounded and retreat to the ship and
regroup.

The Queen was standing, screaming in
rage, writhing in agony and blocking the way to the feline master’s
rescue. Snarth knew that I would not leave without my mate and that
I would fight the Queen to the death rather than retreat. Snarth
watched, his own hand blaster drawn looking for a shot as I circled
the Queen looking for an opening, going in for the kill, hand
blaster in one hand, feline blade in the other.

“
The othersss will be here
sssoon,” he hissed at me: I did not even acknowledge Snarth so
intent was I in my desire to kill the Queen and rescue my mate. I
fired my hand blaster at one of the Queen’s many appendages and
watched with a wicked grin as it disintegrated causing the Queen to
scream even louder.

Seeing my success, Snarth fired a
volley from his hand blaster in rapid succession. He was not as
successful, the Queen’s exoskeleton deflecting his entire volley.
It only brought him to the Queen’s attention once more, nearly
trapping him against the wall again.

All had forgotten about SSlice and his
perch on the ceiling. SSlice watched as his friends engaged the
Queen, trembling at the explosion of violence beneath him. A sudden
realization hit SSlice like a blaster bolt. He was the spinner,
chosen by fate, to exact vengeance on the Queen for all the
atrocities the Ones had committed against his people. And that time
was here and now.