Defending a planet against an alien invasion isn’t usually easy. This is
especially true when the entire defense force consists of one battle
platform that can only move in two directions and shoot straight up. Of
course, it’s somewhat easier if the aliens all attack in a big group and
only fire slow-moving bullets straight down. It still takes some skill,
though. Skill that Lieutenant Gordon evidently lacked as the aliens managed
to destroy his platform utterly. “Damn,” he commented, “I’m just no good at
this.”
Behind him, Commander Gerhardt, second in command of the Anonymous,
looked on with amusement. Idly, he wondered where the technical crew had
gotten the time to port video games to the computer systems of the
Anonymous and why they had chosen “Space Invaders”. “Anything going on in
the real world, Mr. Gordon?” he asked.
“Those rings out there appear to be orbiting Saturn, sir,” Gordon
replied.
“Still? You’d think they’d get tired of it eventually.”
“Maybe they’ve got arcade games too, sir.”
“Does this mean you aren’t tired of orbiting Saturn?”
“No, sir. But then, television and popular culture have destroyed my
attention span.”
“I hate it when that happens.”
“Me too, sir. In fact, I—” he cut off as the proximity detector
sounded. The bridge crew stared. None could remember the last time that
had happened.
“What is that?” Gerhardt asked.
“The proximity alarm,” Gordon replied.
Gerhardt made a note to mention that in Gordon’s performance review. “I
meant, what is it alerting us about?”
“It’s detected a SCSI-class vessel on an intercept course. I think it’s
the Green Squadron.”
Gerhardt blinked. “They gave up already?”
“No, sir,” the communications officer said. “They say they’ve got news
for us.”
“Inform Captain Harrison,” Gerhardt said, standing up and heading for
the door. “I’ll meet them as they arrive.”
After Gerhardt left, Gordon turned to his neighbor. “You know what this
means, of course.”
His neighbor thought for a moment. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh. Well, I guess we’ll find out eventually.”
The Futility smoothly touched down in the landing bay. Computers are
handy that way. “Another mission completed by … the Green Squadron,” Rick
Hydrospok announced as his team of fighter pilots exited their craft.
“How exactly have we completed the mission?” Sally Winters asked.
“Well, we found out where the Blue Squadron is.”
“But we were supposed to bring them back,” George Daniels reminded him.
“Fine. ‘Another mission left incomplete by the Green Squadron.’ Happy
now?”
“You bet,” Winters said.
“Happy as a clam,” Daniels added.
“Two clams.”
“Half a dozen oysters.”
“I always found oysters to be kind of sad,” Stan Losar commented.
“You may have a point,” Daniels conceded.
“But don’t worry,” a new voice added, “if you wear a hat, it won’t
show.”
As one, the Green Squadron turned to face the newcomer, whom they
quickly recognized as Squad Commander Marshall Stanford, leader of the Black
Squadron.
“So,” Stanford continued, “I see you have failed at your task again,
Hydrospok.”
“Again?” Hydrospok asked. “When was the last time?”
“We sent you guys out for soda at the last pilots’ picnic, and you
forgot the Ginger Ale,” Stanford explained.
“That was three months ago.”
“Well,” Stanford shrugged, “not much has happened since then.”
“Whatever. I assume you’re here to give us a message?”
“Nah, I just thought I’d say ‘Hi’.” He paused. “Hi, guys.”
“Hi,” the Green Squadron replied.
(“Still think he’s our ‘arch enemy’?” Hydrospok whispered to Daniels.
“It’s just a clever ploy,” Daniels whispered back.
“I see.”)
At this point, Commander Gerhardt arrived. “Hi, everybody!” he said.
“Hi, Commander Gerhardt!” the others replied.
“I’ve informed Captain Harrison that you’ve arrived, she should be
arriving shortly.” He noticed Stanford, and looked concerned. “There’s not
going to be any violence, is there?”
“Violence?” Hydrospok asked. “What could possibly make you think…”
He turned and looked at his squad and Stanford, who guiltily avoided his
gaze. “What happened?” he asked, his voice suggesting that he didn’t really
want to know.
“You don’t really want to know,” Daniels told him.
“You know, if you’d bothered to tell me about this rivalry, I wouldn’t
be so uninformed.”
“It is the commander’s responsibility to keep informed,” a voice intoned
behind him.
The assembled crewmembers jumped. Captain Harrison had an unnerving
habit of sneaking up on people, which had lead to many rumors about her
profession preceeding her command of the Anonymous.
“Captain Harrison,” Gerhardt said, being the first to recover, “shall we
head for the debreifing?”
“Yes, but first,” she turned to the Green Squadron, “weren’t there five
of you before?”
Hydrospok grinned nervously. “That’s an interesting story, Captain.”
“You were right,” Harrison said after Hydrospok had finished describing what
the Green Squadron had done since leaving the Anonymous, “that was an
interesting story. It also leaves us with an interesting problem: what do
we do now?”
“Well,” Hydrospok said, “I assumed we’d go check out Planet Gloom.”
Harrison raised an eyebrow. “You want us to take a largely untested
starship carrying over a hundred-thousand civilian passengers into the
capital system of a probably-unfriendly empire, there to face an unknown
reaction from an unknown number of defenders?”
“Hmm. When you put it that way…,” he trailed off, uncertain how to
finish the thought.
Harrison stood and walked over to the conference room’s window, which
would have provided a majestic view of Saturn, except that it opened into
the landing bay. Instead, it provided a view of the Futility, which would
have been pretty majestic if the remainder of the Green Squadron weren’t
currently playing hockey against the Black Squadron right next to it. She
couldn’t tell who was winning. “What do you think, Gerhardt?” she asked.
“Huh?” Gerhardt said, snapping awake and looking around quickly in a
futile attempt to convince the others that he hadn’t been daydreaming.
Harrison sighed again, then winced as one of the Black Squadron (It
looked like Menéndez, although it was hard to tell from this distance.) got
hit with the puck. “I suppose,” she said, returning to the business at
hand, “that the Anonymous would have a better chance against whatever’s
out there than the smaller ships….
“Gerhardt, prepare the ship for overly-hyped speed. We’re off to see
Planet Gloom.”
“Yes, sir.”
Horlun SoFah, currently unemployed resident of the planet Foobarh, was
sitting in an observation deck in the Fortress of Gloom. There weren’t that
many observation decks in the Fortress of Gloom, not for security purposes,
but because the landscape of Planet Gloom isn’t something most people want
to look at. While Horlun was, technically, staring out the windows, he
wasn’t seeing the landscape. His subconscious mind, after a few seconds of
exposure to the view, had decided that it was Something Horlun Was Better
Off Not Knowing About, and had blocked it from his consciousness. Instead,
Horlun was thinking about his friends, Anme, who was even now distributing
revolutionary pamphlets to the soldiers stationed below, and Orliss, who had
gotten them into this mess in the first place. Of all the ways to sneak
into a fortress of evil, Orliss had chosen to masquerade as reporters for a
magazine that didn’t exist. Despite everyone’s expectations (except
Orliss’s), this plan had worked. To Horlun, this was more of a comment on
the enemies’ intelligence than on the effectiveness of the plan.
“Yo, Horlun,” a voice called from behind him. It was Roy Gaelen, whose
friends they were searching for. “The Emperor wants us all to come to the
Communications Room so he can gloat about that EDIT project he mentioned.”
“Sounds exciting,” Horlun said dryly.
“Oh yeah. I’m quivering with anticipation.”
“We’d better hurry then, before you shake yourself to pieces.”
The Communications Room, normally filled with activity, was quiet. The main
screen, which could be used as an Omnimax theater (if Kodak dealt with space
aliens, which they don’t (so far as we know)), was dark. Before it stood
Emperor Vakaz and his military commander, Kvasha. Facing them stood Orliss,
Horlun, Anme, and Roy.
“I’ve called you here,” Vakaz began, “because I— Say, aren’t you
missing someone?”
“‘Aren’t you missing someone?’” they repeated.
Vakaz frowned, but didn’t otherwise reply.
Eventually, Roy took the hint and answered. “Um, our companion is
probably off … getting statements from the soldiers.”
“You need statements from the soldiers for an interior design article?”
Kvasha asked.
“Of course,” Orliss replied. “It wouldn’t be a balanced article if we
didn’t get everyone’s opinions.”
“I see,” Kvasha said.
There was another pause.
“Anyway,” Vakaz continued, “I’ve called you here because I wanted your
fine magazine to be the first to see … our ultimate weapon.” He gestured
at an officer, who turned on the main screen.
At first, all they saw was a fairly normal view of space around the
planet, the star Abgila dominating the display. In the corner, they could
see the A/600 (which was now labeled “Alpha Ra”, for some reason).
Suddenly, something began moving between them and the star, creating an
artificial eclipse. The view zoomed in as the shape rotated, revealing that
it was not a sphere, but a disk. A large, thin disk. As they watched, the
disk folded into a cylinder, closed on one end.
Vakaz, seeing the moment had come, spoke up again. “I give you: the
Enormous Destructive Interstellar Tortilla!”
The four fake reporters stared, mouths hanging open. Words failed them,
although Orliss got a chance to use his knowledge of Heroic Gasps of
Amazement. On the screen, orbiting Planet Gloom, was the largest single
piece of Mexican food they had ever seen.
Horlun was the first to recover. “Words fail me,” he said.
“That’s the largest piece of Mexican food I’ve ever seen,” Roy
commented.
“Guh,” added Orliss.
This sparkling example of wit was followed by another moment of silence.
“So,” Anme said finally, “how does it … er … work?”
“I’m glad you ask,” Kvasha replied. He did sound glad. Very glad. As
if he’d been waiting months for someone to ask that. “Its interior contains
a great deal of complex circuitry and some Automatic Beet-Peelers/Subatomic
Re-Integrators.”
“Guh,” Orliss said again.
They waited for Kvasha to continue. When it became clear that he wasn’t
going to, Anme spoke up again. “And what does that do?”
“Oh. It opens a gateway to an altiverse which consists entirely of
fajita toppings. [Most likely 648SFSTORY, although we can’t be sure since
the Zakavians won’t show us the schematics—Ed.] In that configuration,
the fajita components quickly accumulate in the center until they reach
critical spice levels, at which point they release a blast of spicy energy
capable of destroying planets.”
“Gah,” Orliss said, for variety.
They watched the EDIT unfold into its disk shape—that form was easier
to send through overly-hyped space, according to Kvasha—and then excused
themselves to go “copy down their notes.”
In Jen Kadar’s quarters, the mysterious alien known only as Bob turned off
his comlink. He had heard enough, now was the time for action. He could
afford to delay no longer.
“Food’s ready,” Jen called.
Actually, Bob reflected, he could probably afford to wait until after
dinner.