Illegal Aliens (11 page)
End synopsis.
Be kind, please rewind.
* * *
“And the Prime Builder knows, we don't want that kind of an event ever to happen again!” Avantor noted aloud to herself.
Disconnecting the computer link, she stepped off a moving stair strip and purposefully strode along a golden corridor that ended at the pumpkin-colored security door that led to the control room of her starship.
Calling the location a room was an act of pure politeness, a broom closet would have been a more correct description, as it was scarcely large enough to hold the two Gees at the same time. The walls and ceiling were a deliciously cool shade of blue to aid their concentration, and a wide bank of video monitors ringed the cramped room at head level: Avantor's when she was sitting, 17 when standing. In the middle of the alcove was a square metal pedestal with a short bench bolted to the front and topped by a complex control board.
Standing next to that was The 16, his gold uniform more clean and pressed than his hypno-training deemed necessary. Had Avantor known the human word, as she should have, she would have deemed him a martinet. But then, making job-related mistakes was why the two of them had been sent here.
Set alongside the pedestal was Avantor's goal, the squat, immobile Command Chair: a heavily cushioned recliner from which she literally flew the ship by the seat of her pants.
As the avantor seated herself, 17 gave a little bow and then saluted.
“We are proceeding towards Dirt at our maximum sub-light speed,” he reported crisply. “Arrival in 57,600 seconds.”
“Unacceptable,” she replied, feeling the itching sensation of the Command Chair's neural links passing through her clothing and delicately entering into her body. “Prepare for a Jump.”
“At your command.”
In proper military fashion, The 16 began throwing switches, shunting power to the starship's dimensionally unsure Q-coil enginettes. During this procedure, the joining process was finished and Avantor interfaced with her vessel: seeing through its cameras, breathing with the airplant and feeling her heart beat to the pulse of its reactor. With a mental command, she formed a glowing 3-D grid in the air before/inside her, spatial equations scripting along the bottom. Next to/inside her, 17 activated his navigation controls and a pair of blue dots blinked onto the grid.
“From here . . . to here,” he suggested with a pointing finger.
“We agree,” the female/starship said, then the avantor closed her eyes and concentrated. From the eight corners of their golden cube streamers of invisible energy ripped apart the Time/Space continuum and once again she felt the omni-directional sucking sensation of as the starship dropped out of normal space and into the hot, gray nothing of hyperspace.
To Avantor's enhanced senses, hyperspace was a painful tingle. Not lethal per se, just terminally unpleasant, very similar to asking an RporRian for a loan. This was what the job of an Avantor entailed, so the female warrior gritted her teeth and forced the interstellar craft onward through the endless thermal void.
“You’re two degrees off course,” a voice warbled from somewhere. “Correct and maintain.”
“Affirmative,” she heard herself reply and redirected her ship by the sheer will power of her artificially enhanced mind.
Despite the bizarre nature of the medium, some of the galaxy's leading scientists seriously postulated on the possibility of lifeforms evolving in hyperspace. So far, no proof of their existence had been found. That was one of the main problems with hyperspace, the only people who could really examine it closely were the avantors: the dedicated navigators who guided star ships through the featureless expanse by the sheer power of their living minds. They were far too busy working to take note of interesting scenery, had there been any.
Second after agonizing second ticked by as Avantor rigidly kept her ship on course and The 16 carefully monitored her vital signs. Soon enough, the tiny blue dots on the grid met, a chime sounded, and with a sweating gasp Avantor disengaged the struggling enginettes; the craft phased back into normal space.
Gratefully, she accepted a glass of chilled fruit juice that The 16 offered, letting her ship continue along its original trajectory and slowly radiate away its excess heat.
Now filling their forward viewscreen was the planet Dirt, an attractive world. This time Avantor and her 17 had a good chance of catching Idow and friends so that it might remain that way.
On the other hand, if they let those space criminals get away, and another species tumbled down the fiery hole of global destruction, then the Galactic League would probably order the Great Golden Ones to build a real Galopticon 7, just to have a fitting place to exile the two of them for punishment.
Wisps of purple gas floated past Hammer, clinging hungrily to his visor and obscuring his view of the control room. Annoyed, he tried to wipe the deadly moisture away, but his metal glove only succeeded in smearing the faceplate.
“Is that it?” he demanded, the adrenaline still pounding through his veins. “Is that the lot of them?”
Trell squeaked a confirmation. All of their enemies were dead.
Muffled hurrahs came from his gang, and one voice in particular triggered a response in the ganglord.
“Not quite,” Hammer growled as he met Drill's gaze.
With a nod, the two men attacked. Spinning about, the locksmith kicked the laser out of the hand of the startled Crowbar. The weapon hit the wall and discharged, its bolt of polychromatic fire vaporizing a chunk of the floor. Then Hammer ducked beneath the big man's roundhouse swing, and punched him hard in the stomach. Next, Chisel blindsided the biker, tackling from the rear. Crowbar stumbled from the impact, but did not fall, and he backhanded the boy away. Chisel arced through the air and hit the wall, his helmet ringing from the hard blow. That was when Hammer and Drill moved in for the kill. Remembering their lessons in the airlock, the youths jabbed the spacesuit with their fingers, triggering the opening sequence, and the front of the suit split apart, exposing the man inside to the deadly mist.
With a bitter curse, Crowbar stabbed out with his knife, determined to take somebody with him to hell. But the act was never finished. As silent as a prayer, his suddenly vacant suit crumpled to the floor like so much dirty laundry.
Contemptuously, Drill snapped his fingers at the empty spacesuit and Chisel spat at it, momentarily forgetting that he still had his helmet on. Bleh!
“Now all of our enemies are dead,” Hammer stated dryly, exchanging the thumbs-up sign of victory with his friends.
Nervously, Trell swallowed a small intestinal organ that had unexpectedly risen into his throat during the slaughter. It was starkly obvious that Prying-Metal-Bar must have outlived his usefulness to the gang, and so . . . PFT! Well, by the Prime Builder, Trell-desamo-Trell-ika-Trell-forzua, Jr. wasn't going to outlive his!
“I will disperse the Omega Gas now, sir, if I may,” the little alien asked, submissively lowering his head.
Impatient to get out of the spacesuit, Hammer waved a gloved hand. “Absolutely dude, go earn your keep.”
My intention exactly, thought the Technician as he crossed the room to punch the appropriate commands into Gasterphaz's control panel.
Imperceptibly at first, the swirling purple fog took on a new pattern, slowly returning to the vents. Stratifying in the air like a lake mist, the layers of heavy gas dropped lower and lower in the room until, hugging the floor, the last traces of Omega Gas flowed back into the hall. The air appeared clear. Checking an environmental monitor, Trell indicated that it was safe for the Bloody Deckers to leave their spacesuits.
“You first,” Hammer said brusquely, a hand resting on the stolen laser rifle.
A slightly paler shade of green than was normal for his race, the Technician undid the seals on his helmet, lifted the crystal dome just a bit and gingerly sniffed. When he didn't drop dead, the little alien relaxed and began removing the rest of his suit. Judiciously at first, the surviving Bloody Deckers did likewise, and then took Trell's suggestion of storing the space suits and extra rifles in a wall closet.
Freeing himself from the armored suit, Drill gratefully stretched. But then a horrifying thought hit the locksmith, and with sure fingers he removed the squirter mechanism from Boztwank's spacesuit and clipped it to his leather jacket just in time. Ah!
With the toe of his metal boot, Hammer nudged Crowbar's lack of remains. “You got a garbage chute around here?” asked the tall human with a sneer.
“Of course, sir,” Trell replied, weighing his next words carefully. “Should I take care of that before or after I turn the ship over to you?” There was a pause, and slowly the street gang turned towards him. Yes, he thought that would catch their attention.
The ganglord tried to speak, but found he couldn't. Turn the ship over to them? Holy spit, it hadn't occurred to him that this spaceship was now theirs. They owned a spaceship? A freaking bloody spaceship!
“Brother Deckers!” Hammer proclaimed, taking a dramatic stance. “We have hit the big time at last!”
“Right on!” Drill cried enthusiastically, shaking the laser rifle in the air above his head. “The Bloody Deckers in space! Look out NASA! Who-wee! We gonna be badder than the baddest! Badder than . . . than the freaking Angels!”
That was sacrilege to Chisel. The Hell's Angels? Nobody was badder than the Angels! Why, the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang was like having to take a leak, or rush hour traffic; an unstoppable force of nature. But if Drill said so, then it must be true. The boy grinned from ear to ear. Wow, badder then the Angels. Gosh!
“So what we gonna do first, chief?” Drill asked eagerly, slinging the crystalline rifle over a shoulder.
Do? The ganglord's plans hadn't evolved that far. Scratching his neck, Hammer surveyed the bullet-shaped room with its incredible array of controls. What could a starship do, fly to the moon? Who cared? That wouldn't put money in your pocket. This called for some serious thinking. Hammer sat down in Idow's deserted chair and rested his boots on top of the control board. Fearful, Trell rushed over to neutralize the controls before the human accidentally pressed the wrong button with his feet and blew something up, most likely them.
“Hey, Trell, baby,” Drill asked copying the position of his chief. “Can you fly this ship for real?”
Even to the humans, the expression on the face of the alien crewmember said that he was insulted. “Fly the ship? I am a Master Technician! Why, given time and materials I could build a starship!” Trell stated firmly, but politely.
“Chill out, dude,” Hammer commanded, lacing his hands together atop his greasy mane of hair. “The man was only asking.”
While rooting through the clothes of the dead aliens searching for something to steal, Chisel found three metal belts made of woven silver strands, each having a weird ornate buckle covered with bumps and lumps. Those must be the controls, the boy deduced, his brain almost exhausting itself from the strain. Buckle and unbuckle. Pressing a random bump to see if he was right, a sparkling bubble sprang into existence around Chisel. The frightened youth threw the belt away and the bubble went along with the belt, leaving Chisel behind.
With a clang, the metal belt hit a panel near Hammer's feet, startling the ganglord. He turned grudgingly. “What in the hell are you doing now, pinhead?” Hammer asked annoyed.
“It bit me!” Chisel whined with a finger in his mouth, using his standard phrase for anything not working as expected.
“Yeah, sure,” Hammer replied, rising from his seat and retrieving the belt from the floor. The twinkling light field readily admitted his left hand, but his right, holding the laser rifle, met stonewall resistance. The ganglord switched hands and the same happened.
“Hey, Trell, what is this thing, anyway?” he demanded.
“Personal defense field,” Trell sighed in disappointment. He had not planned on telling the Deckers about the devices as a bit of insurance against their wrath. “It is what my ex-shipmates used to cowardly defend themselves from your brave sneak attack.”
Drill lifted an eyebrow. “Laying it on a little thick, ain't he?” the locksmith asked sarcastically.
“So what?” Hammer sneered. “I happen to like having my boots licked.”
As Trell explained the operation and limitations of the devices, the Bloody Deckers strapped on the field generators and playfully tried clubbing each other over the head with the lasers. The exchange of blows got spirited and Trell scurried over to the ruin of the security door, not willing to chance getting crushed to death by these, to him, lumbering giants.
“Ah, gentlebeings. There are many delicate instruments in here, so perhaps it would be wise to desist?” he suggested, taking another step into the outside corridor. “Or move your exercising to the arena?”
“Enough then,” Hammer agreed, chuckling. “Cool it, guys.”
Panting from the exertion, the gang broke apart and Trell hesitantly entered the room again, staying close to the wall.
“Goddamn!” Drill gasped, mopping his brow with a red and white bandanna. “These are great!”
In careless abandonment, Chisel turned the sparkling defense field on and off several times. “Yeah,” the boy agreed happily. “Neat!”
Shifting his gunbelt, Hammer cinched the flexible metal belt tighter about his waist. “Only good against energy weapons, though. Right?” he asked.
The alien Technician confirmed his earlier statement.
Useless then, decided the ganglord. Cops don't carry lasers. Wearing this thing wouldn't protect you from a gun, or a club. But Hammer decided to keep his anyway. You never know, you know?
Now armed and armored, Drill strolled over to Trell and rested a friendly arm about the alien's scrawny, green shoulder. “Answer me a question, dude, will ya?”
Dubiously, the Technician glanced upward at the towering human. “If I can, sir.”
“Why the hell is everything so freaking white in here?” the gang member asked in exasperation. “Walls, floors, ceilings, doors . . . shit, boy, white paint cheap where you come from, or what?”
This was a tough question to answer, but Trell did his best. Keeping to the most basic of terms, he told the gang about hyperspace, covering the basic relationship between colors and velocity in that weird non-dimension. He kept mathematics out of the discussion entirely and described things as childishly simply as he could, but it still took him quite a while to cover everything. Throughout the speech, the translator on his belt remained totally silent. When Trell finished, it spoke to the waiting street gang using the most advanced scientific terms they could possibly understand.
“Big juju,” the box declared. “Much magic. Ship no fly fast, if not white.”
Blandly accepting the report, the Bloody Deckers returned to their examination of the control room.
Shocked to the very core of his being, Trell was stunned beyond words. Impossible! The entire theory of chromatic space travel boiled down to two sentences? Gak! The Technician quickly reversed his opinion of the Dirtlings. Obviously they were nowhere near as primitive as he had originally believed.
A blinking light on the Communicator board caught Chisel and he nervously summoned Trell. To the alien's surprise, it was an incoming transmission.
“Hammer, sir,” he called respectfully, indicating the flashing blue button. “Do you wish to answer this message?”
“A call?” the ganglord sounded surprised. Confused, he lightly fingered the array of controls spread across the console. Now how do you . . . ah, aw to hell with it, answering the phone was not his job. “You do it, Mr. Master Technician.”
With a straight face, the alien touched the blinking button activating the main viewscreens. The great panels of frosted plastic swirled like a snowstorm to finally clear and show a large room with wood paneling and a row of computer consoles. Sitting behind those were what the gang would classify as Big Money types. There was a football player in a military uniform, two college professors; a gray hair guy in a blue suit, and one with glasses and a moustache in an expensive three-piece job, a hot Oriental chick in a flowered dress, and a skinny dark guy in somebody else's suit. The professor started to speak and the viewscreen speakers crunched and hooted louder than an elephant raping a Volkswagen.
“Well, the same to you fellow!” Drill answered rudely, sticking out his tongue at the screen.
That stopped the translator cold. In swift computations, it harmonized itself with the operating being and started again. This time performing the arduous processes of translating English into English.
With both fists resting on his hips, Hammer glared at the viewscreen belligerently. “Okay, so who the hell are you clowns?”
* * *
In their underground bunker, the FCT exchanged perplexed looks.
Ceremoniously, General Bronson removed the cigar from his mouth to speak everyone's unspoken question. “And since when,” he growled, “do street punks talk like the damn Prince of Wales?”
“I REITERATE,” the wall monitor demanded. “PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELVES POSTHASTE.”
Taking charge, Sigerson faced the monitor squarely. “I am Professor Rajavur, in command of the United Nations First Contact Team.” He motioned to the people about him. “This is General Bronson, Dr. Wu, Sir Courtney and Dr. Malavade. We are the official representatives for Earth in this situation. Are you all right? What has happened to the aliens?”
“WE ARE UNDAMAGED AND THE PRESENT SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL. FIGHTING IN SELF DEFENSE, MY ASSOCIATES AND I WERE FORCED TO DESTROY THE CRIMINALS WHO HAD KIDNAPPED US. THE ALIEN MENACE HAS ENDED. THIS STARSHIP IS NOW UNDER OUR CONTROL.”
With these words, the world rejoiced, the previous communications blackout forgotten with this overwhelming good news. Earth had been saved by the Bloody Deckers! Hooray! Hurrah! Historic enemies hugged and kissed each other, cops and crooks, blacks and whites, Arabs and Jews, Democrats and Republicans. The glorious sounds of popping champagne corks, car horns and church bells filled the globe as Humanity celebrated their deliverance from what had been almost certain doom.
Deep in their underground Command Bunker, the FCT did not join the revelry, as their cerebral teeth were buried in a puzzling mystery. Via their throat mikes and earphones, the team held a fast conference.
“The translation device?” Dr. Malavade postulated scratching his chin. “Could it still be in operation?”
Dr. Wu made a rude noise.
“I agree with Yuki,” Sir John sub-vocalized. “If so, then why is it converting the street gang's idiomatic sub-tongue into colloquial English?”
“Could be broken,” Bronson guessed, adjusting his necktie. “Damaged in the Deckers’ no doubt violent takeover of the ship.”
“Logical,” Rajavur whispered. “But no, I do not think so.”