The Cresperian Alliance (16 page)

Bang shrugged. “Not necessarily. If you want me to, I can come in and talk for awhile. Or if you'd rather, I can go back to my quarters."

"Would... you mind... not coming in... this time?” Piki looked up at him, pleading with those glorious eyes.

"No,” Bang murmured, understanding. “It's okay. I know how you feel."

"Thank you,” Piki whispered. “But...” she tilted her face to one side, “you may kiss me, if you wish..."

Bang smiled, bent down, and dropped a soft kiss on the velvet cheek. Then he saw her safely into her quarters and made his way back to his own, happy with the evening and deciding maybe it might not be so bad after all to date an alien. He went to bed happy and content.

The next morning, however, the other shoe dropped.

"All hands, please report to the auditorium immediately. All hands not on security duty, please report to the auditorium immediately. This is not a drill.” The loud annunciation from his computer woke Bang from his sleep. He leaped from the bed, years of military instinct taking over, and realized he was hearing the voice filtering through the door of his quarters as well.
Must be loudspeakers in the hall,
he thought.
I hope this isn't “The Big One."

He shucked into a fresh uniform, ran a damp comb through his close shorn hair to ensure there were no cowlicks, scraped a dry razor across his cheeks, and headed out the door.

The corridor was a river of people, all headed in the same direction he was. Side corridors were tributaries, funneling more and more human floodwater into the main stream. At last, like tumbling over a waterfall, they spilled into the lake of the auditorium, where they swirled about, located their respective units, and sat together in some semblance of order. The Crispies intermingled with Bangler's platoon. Piki chose to sit next to Bang, and Bang could find no particular objection to having a gorgeous blonde beside him.

Once everyone was seated, Admiral Terhune himself rose and moved to the front. A soft gasp went up from civilian and military alike; Bang realized that, whatever it was, it was serious.

"Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed across the auditorium without need of a microphone, “The
USSS Galactic
has entered our solar system. In two minutes, we will be receiving a broadcast from that vessel which is also being relayed to the President and his staff of advisors, as well as to the heads of state of our allied nations, though with a slight delay in transmission. This will be our initial debrief regarding what they have found. And since they entered the solar neighborhood with all speed, we may assume that the news they bear is extremely important."

He sat down, and moments later, the viewscreen flickered to life.

General William Shelton's face appeared onscreen. “Sorry it couldn't be Jules sitting here,” he said, referring to Captain Becker, “but he's a little busy right now, navigating into the solar system as fast as possible without repeating the Cresperians’ wreck."

"That's okay, Bill,” Caleb Washington said on a microphone headset Bang hadn't noticed him don. “What's up? You guys are coming in like hell bent for leather, as the saying goes."

"Well, we got good news and bad news. First off, did the
Zeng Wu
make it back?"

"They did, safe and sound—at least from the point where the
Galactic
showed on the scene."

"Good. So you already know about some of the bad news."

"If by that you mean the Snapper race, yes."

Shelton drew a deep breath. “Okay. Good news. We found Cresperia. Bad news. So did the starship from India, who had a deranged Crispy on board, purporting to be their god, Kalki, Tenth Avatar of Vishnu. More bad news: they got there first."

"Shi...” Washington began, then broke off, remembering the abused Crispies in his audience. “Blast."

"Good news. Kalki went totally off the deep end and got himself and a bunch of his more rabid followers killed. Bad news. The Snappers followed us to Cresperia, even though we tried to lose ‘em,” Shelton continued.

"So that's why you're running at max speed,” Washington realized. “Are they following you?"

"Not so far as our sensors can detect, Caleb,” Shelton noted. “But we couldn't detect them during part of the flight to Cresperia and they still found us. So I don't know. Besides, good news: The Crispies outfitted our ship with technology that whupped the Snappers’ butts when they attacked Cresperia. That's the other reason we're going ‘hell-bent for leather’—to get the technology back here before the Snappers can find Earth."

"Fantastic,” Washington noted grimly. “We'll all be glad to have that. Keep going; you don't look like you're done with the eleven o'clock news report yet."

"I'm not,” Shelton said simply. “More good news: the Indian ship left. Bad news. We haven't seen them since, so we don't know if they were captured by Snappers, or their ship malfunctioned, or they took a different route back, or what. Good news: We have a colony on Cresperia, composed of civilian human scientists, a contingent of Space Marines, and Gordon Stuart heading up the Crispy humans, of which there were several in progress when we left."

Washington waited. Shelton stared at the screen. “What else is up, Caleb? Waiting for the bad news."

"That's it. No more news. End of the report. Downlinking a list of casualties from the Swavely fight, and another fight on another planet, for notification of next of kin now."

"So you found a second group of hostile aliens?"

"No,” Shelton corrected, “we found another planet of Snappers. We figure we inadvertently encroached on the edge of their space. Whether they have an empire or the like, or not, we didn't bother to find out, for obvious reasons. The encounter at the second planet was an immediate and unprovoked attack upon an exploratory team of scientists. Needless to say, we got the hell out in a real hurry."

"How bad?” Washington winced.

"Josh and I figured you'd ask that,” Shelton said. “Here's some video one of the surviving scientists got of the initial attack."

The image of Shelton faded, replaced by a lovely pastoral scene. Humans fanned out through the meadow in front of the ship, and began taking samples of soil, flora, and other, less identifiable items. A few just held hands and strolled. Rolling hills faded into the distance, and a stream lined with something that closely approximated Earth trees ran off to one side.

Abruptly two large hovercraft zoomed over the hills and landed at the edge of the field. They opened and disgorged hordes of Snapper infantry, which immediately began firing on the civilians with laser weaponry, obviously with intent to kill—at which they were decidedly successful. The hovercraft themselves turned into armored vehicles similar to large tanks, equipped with heavy laser cannons, adding to the mayhem. Many humans went down screaming, until the remainder could organize themselves and begin to fall back. The scene rapidly turned into hellacious, gory carnage.

Over the shoulder of the cameraman, a large laser beam suddenly lanced forward, attacking the armored vehicles, and the popcorn sound of small arms fire could be heard. Moments later the camera view swung wildly, taking in a view of the Earth ship before diving down. A jiggling view of the ground, then of the metal ramp, followed, and the audience realized the cameraman was running for his life to get inside the ship while he still could.

"We pretty much had to take out the sons of bitches to the last man—er, being,” Shelton said, as a view of his face returned. “We lost an entire platoon of marines, but we couldn't take off until we'd cut down the attack sufficiently to do so safely, and they wouldn't stop until there weren't enough left to mount an attack. Even then, the few survivors were still firing on us as we took off.” He shook his head. “These are some real mothe—"

Caleb Washington cut him off quickly. “We believe you, Bill,” he said hurriedly. “What else?"

"Here's some footage of the Snappers’ interaction at Cresperia,” Shelton added.

Again his face was replaced by video, this time of the standoff exchange between the Indian ship and the Snappers, followed by the destruction of the small Snapper runabout. Then it cut to a montage of Snapper raids on the Crispies’ automated supply ships, followed by a scene of a Snapper runabout's attack on a Cresperian underground city, using split screen to depict orbital and ground based scenes. The lovely garden on the surface vanished, but the laser cannon stopped short of reaching the rock carved buildings beneath. Suddenly a bright flash erupted from the city and the Snapper runabout... vanished. Shelton's face came back.

"Completely unprovoked attacks on Cresperia, I might add,” he said. “No communication between them and the Cresperians, and the Cresperians made no move to harm them."

"Could they have thought the Indian ship was Cresperian?” General Washington wondered, and waited while Shelton considered the matter.

"It's possible, I suppose,” Shelton finally said, “but unlikely. Their ship and ours didn't look enough alike for the Snappers to be certain they were built by the same people. And I fully expect the Snappers could resolve the planetary surface sufficiently to see that our tenders were positioned... opposite each other, let's just say."

Caleb nodded. “Okay. Bring it on in and let's get started on the technology. What is it, by the way?"

"Defensive shields and offensive beams, and the brains to go with them,” Shelton said, mildly cryptic. “We'll be on the ground in half an hour."

"Are you still convinced they're peaceful, Sandra?” President Waterman asked his Secretary of State as the transmission ended.

"Absolutely,” Fellowes declared. “Obviously the second outpost had had communications about the evil invading humans from the first outpost. No wonder they followed them to Cresperia."

"But they attacked the Cresperians!” CIA director Jess Ravenshoe protested, incredulous.

"You heard the general say they mistook the Indian and American ships for Cresperian ships,” Fellowes shrugged.

"You only hear what you want to, Sandra,” General Salter remarked, voice dripping with disgust. “He SAID he SUPPOSED they MIGHT, but that it was IMPROBABLE."

"You military types are all alike, aren't you?” Fellowes snapped. “It's never YOUR fault."

"Considering every video we have yet seen, and every testimony from STATE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL, have corroborated that conclusion, yes,” Salter averred.

"Just give me half a chance,” Fellowes declared confidently. “I'll show you what real diplomacy can do with intelligent beings."

Waterman sighed. “Be patient, Sandra. You never know. You just might get it."

[Back to Table of Contents]

As soon as the
Galactic
landed, technicians and engineers were waiting to meet it, study the new technology, and begin replicating it for the some eight other ships of the fleet that were currently in various stages of construction. Becker and his crew stayed with the ship, but Shelton and the Leversons led the civilians, both Crispy and human, off the starship and toward waiting transport.

Soon they were on their covert way to the Enclave.

A spur of the moment cocktail party took place the evening after arrival, in the Leversons’ quarters. Every Crispy in the Enclave, new and old, as well as their friends and significant others and several officials such as Caleb Washington and Bill Shelton and his wife, were there. All in all, the apartment, large though it was, was jammed; there were nearly thirty Crispies, with associated humans.

"We did it, guys!” Kyle exclaimed enthusiastically, popping the cork on a magnum sized bottle of champagne. “We not only found Cresperia, we're now an interstellar species!"

"We did,” his wife Jeri grinned. “Or rather, you did. We were already an interstellar species, I guess."

By this time, all of the Crispies had converted successfully to human, and were happily participating in the food and drink. “And we are very glad you did,” one of the ‘imports’ from Cresperia, who'd taken the name Margie Jones, declared. “This is a delightful exploration of a new culture."

"Not without loss, though,” Shelton said quietly, and the group sobered.

"Listen, everyone,” Caleb Washington injected into the sudden silence, “not meaning to mix business with pleasure, but since everyone who needs to discuss this is already here, I've got some propositions to put to you..."

"We are already doing this, those of us who have been here,” Piki averred, standing beside Bang. “We have been grateful for our rescues and, considering the news the first starship returned with, decided it was appropriate."

"I suggest a vote,” Jeri remarked. “All in favor, raise your right hand."

Every Crispy in the room raised a hand.

"I think you have your answer, generals,” Jeri grinned broadly. “We're willing. Do we need to start now?"

"No, no,” Washington protested. “Most of you have barely even gotten moved in. And you certainly deserve this ‘splashdown party.’ Those that can, please report to Sira Whitman's office tomorrow morning. Those that can't, do so when you get the chance."

"Consider it done, sir,” Margie declared, and everyone returned to the celebration.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, John Salter, had called a classified meeting. Attending were his aide, Lieutenant Gerald Bannerman, functioning as secretary; Secretary of Defense Martin Singletary; CIA Director Jess Ravenshoe; FBI Director Jose Torres; Chief of Crispy Operations, Research and Development, Lieutenant General Caleb Washington; his predecessor in that post, General William Shelton, back from space for a scant week; and Space Fleet Commander In Chief Wayne Terhune.

"So the Crispies’ defensive shields have a limited area, huh, Caleb?” Salter asked.

"Yeah,” Washington responded. “Stands to reason. Can't say I fully understand this ‘unreality physics’ myself, but if nothing else, you have power supplies and fluxes and inverse square laws and all kinds of shit like that. Same goes for the disintegrator cannons."

"So what's the effective range?” Singletary wondered.

"One maximum scale shield will safely cover roughly ten thousand square miles,” Washington noted.