Bright Horizons (8 page)

Both
Kyle and Ambassador Thomas sat quiet for a few minutes.

“Lon,
how do you think the Iltia’cor will punish us and our people?” Ambassador
Thomas asked.

“They
will attempt to conquer Earth by force and enslave all humans,” Lon replied.

“For
a few dead scientists and soldiers?”

“They
have done it before, and for much less,” Lon said calmly. “They have fifteen
planets that they control. Five are in the Iltia system. The other ten are of
races that have insulted them and they have conquered.”

Kyle
sat forward and asked Lon “Why are you doing this?  Won’t you get in trouble?”

“When
I first met you, Colonel Martin, you seemed to me a person who was used to
getting what he wanted because he had the authority to command it. After I have
known you for some time I realize that you are a person who is used to getting
what he wanted because he knew he was correct in wanting it. Your authority
comes from your belief that what you are doing is right.”

“I
will be punished, imprisoned even, when I go back to Kortit. If I am right
about you and humans as a whole, I will live long enough for my actions to be
justified. If I am wrong, I will not have to worry about a life in prison as I
will have doomed my world to the Iltia’cor as well.”

Kyle
saw Thomas lean back. The time for diplomacy was over and now it was up to Kyle
to gather the information that Earth would need to fight back against the
Iltia’cor.

“Lon,
how will they attack?” Kyle asked.

“They
will take out your military first. Then they will land and start enslaving your
people in the cities,” Lon said.

“But
they know we aren’t affected by mosar based weapons, right?”

“Yes,
Colonel Martin, they have older weapons that they still use for… primitive
races. Mosar based weapons are expensive to use, they consume much energy.
There are other energy weapons that they use as well. You have started working
with them I believe.”

“Lasers? 
High burst energy weapons that burn?”

“Yes,
I believe you call them lasers. They also have some supplies of weapons that
use nuclear fission, but they haven’t used them in over a hundred years.”

“Good,
hopefully most of their nukes have gone inert if they haven’t kept them up.
With luck, they won’t think of them. Ambassador, we will need to make a list of
people to start contacting as soon as we get a com link set up. Lon, you have
been very helpful, your personal risk will hopefully save many human lives.
Thank you.”

“You
are welcome Colonel Martin, I know you have much work to do and I need to
explain to the crew that they will not be held responsible for my actions.”

Chapter 9

10 January
2043

“Yes
General, the report I sent you is real. It is not a joke. The timetable has
been clarified within the last hour. We are looking at the invasion fleet
nearing earth within forty hours. Yes. That is correct. No, we recommend that
you abandon your military bases and heavy equipment. Yes… well… I know. We
think they will bombard the military bases from orbit before landing near our
cities. I know, but you can check your reports and see that we are doing the
same. Thank you. Good luck to you to.”

Kyle
switched off the phone and rubbed his eyes.

“Do
you think he will do it Colonel?” Major Kitch asked.

“I’m
not sure Kitch, I hope so. General Moseved seemed to believe me, but whether he
can convince the High Command in time will be the bigger question.” Kyle yawned
and looked at the clock. “Looks like we are within the forty hour mark. Have
you heard back from Langley yet? We need to have dependents moved from our
installations within four hours.”

“Yes
sir, everything looks to be good except for a glitch near Aviano.  Apparently
the local government is worried about why we are moving our people off the
base. I guess the info hasn’t filtered down to that level yet,” Kitch said
without looking up from her display.

“Ambassador
Thomas will be breaking in on all networks in a few minutes, I guess they’ll
learn with everyone else. Well, speak of the devil.” Kyle picked up the remote
and turned the sound up on the TV panel on the wall. A news anchor was
introducing Ambassador Thomas as he approached the podium at the UN.

“James
Thomas is a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Great Britain and China. He is
President emeritus of the Council of Foreign Relations and was the key
negotiator for the U.S. in the settlement of the Indian war. He has called for
an emergency broadcast, and he is speaking…”

“Thank
you Secretary General, Ambassadors, members of the media, the people of the
U.S. and the people of the world. A little over a year ago, the U.S. received
communications from an alien race.” Thomas had to stop for a few seconds to
quiet down the questions being shouted to him.

“Please,
please, all of your questions will be answered, but it is vitally important
that we get this information out to you. Due to circumstances beyond what we
have time to explain at present, another alien race has declared war on us.”

At
this point the cacophony was overwhelming. Even Kitch looked up from her
screen. She looked at the pandemonium on the screen and then over at Kyle.
“Looks like they are taking it pretty well, Colonel,” she said as she poured
another cup of coffee.

“That
they are, Kitch, that they are.”

A
few minutes passed before Thomas was able to be heard clearly again. In fact he
was shouting.

“Yes,
we have a plan! Yes, we are trying to get information out! Here is the long and
short of it, a race called the Iltia’cor have decided to invade Earth and
enslave humanity. But we won’t go down! We will fight them where they land and
drive them back to the stars. But we don’t have a lot of time. They will be
here in less than two days and we need to prepare. Each government has been
given information that will help them. The U.S. military will aid in any way we
can. But as much as we must fight as a world, we must fight as individual
nations, as individual cities, as individual families and as individual
people.”

“Each
of us, individually, has a stake in this. Each of us, individually, can make a
difference. If you see an Iltia’cor come into your village, into your
neighborhood, into your home, you need to make sure that he will not kill you,
your children or your neighbors. We will not be conquered and we will not be
taken!”

Hastily
thrown together graphics started filling the screen as the media scrambled to
be the first to put up the newly disseminated information.

Kyle
muted the TV and started to lean back.

“Colonel
Martin?” a voice behind him said.

Both
Kyle and Kitch were up from their seats in a flash, completely surprised by the
man standing behind them.

“Who
are you and how did you get in here?” Kyle asked roughly as he looked back at
the closed door behind the stranger.

The
man was dressed in dark slacks with a light blue dress shirt and a yellow tie.
His light brown hair was slightly receding, and his nose looked like it might
have been broken at some point in his life. He held his hand out to Kyle.

“My
name is Franklin Smith,” he said as his hand remained unshaken. “I’m here to
observe for now, but we’ll get to that in a moment.”

All
three people in the room stood motionless for a few seconds.

“I’ll
ask you again, Mister Smith, how did you get in this room?” Kyle asked with
more than a touch of irritation in his voice.

“I
walked in Colonel Martin. I walked past your guards and through that door. Does
that satisfy your question?” Smith responded as he lowered his hand and sat
down in a chair near the door.

Kyle
and Kitch continued to watch him carefully as he settled in.

“Ambassador
Thomas was truly inspirational, didn’t you think?  I hope he was able to bring
up that legendary human fighting spirit. We were concerned that fear might
paralyze your planet into inaction and make the Iltia’cor invasion a simple
event. But I’ve been studying humans for quite a while, and I think that you
have a shot of making it at least uncomfortable for the Iltia’cor to hold your
planet.”

Kyle
looked at Kitch and nodded. They both sat back down and Kitch turned back to
her screen.

“Mister
Smith, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Kyle said coolly. “Can you
tell me who you are and why you are so eager to be with me at this time?”

“I
am an alien in plain language. The name of my people are the Pelod.”

Kyle
watched impassively as Smith continued.

“We
have been on your planet for around 200 years now, Colonel Martin. We have
observed your people and your habits and honestly we felt that you were
interesting, but no more than an anomaly of nature. Surely not a race that
would have an impact on ourselves or any other major race. We were, apparently,
very wrong. I’m sad to say that although we are scientifically much more
advanced than you and our level of technology and engineering… well, let’s say
that we are impressed by very little in terms of technology and engineering.
But as I was saying, although we are more advanced than you, it did not occur
to us that your lack of mosar was anything more than a weird aberration in your
solar system.”

He
shrugged uncomfortable for a second and his confident persona slipped just a
moment. If Kyle hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed it entirely.

“But
it is important, isn’t it? Our lack of mosar.”

Smith
looked over at Kitch, weighed some thought quickly, and turned back to Kyle.

“Yes,
it’s important. It wouldn’t be except for the rest, but we can see now that it
is very important.”

“Does
it have to do with the weapon theories among the other races?”

“Very
good, Colonel Martin, but it goes beyond that. One might be tempted to
speculate that you would be invincible in combat against other forces, but
that’s not true. Mosar based weapons are very expensive to run. They are common
enough, but not every race can afford them in mass quantities…”

“If
I can interrupt and ask a question that I have never had answered.”

”Please
Colonel.”

“How
did the Otina have mosar weapons then?  Aren’t they a minor race, more a
nuisance than a power?  ‘Vagabonds of the Galaxy’, I think Lon told me once.”

“Indeed,
but not quite. They are pirates and thieves for the most part, but that means
they have money.”

“Who
would sell them top of the line weapons then?”

“Why
we would, Colonel. The Pelod. The arms and technology dealers of the Galaxy.”

Kyle
glanced over at Kitch who was obvious in her attempt not to be listening. He
looked back at Smith and started to speak. Smith spoke first.

“Because
we have no home. The first system the Iltia’cor took in their history was
Terti, our home world. Those who escaped found work as engineers, chemist and
inventors.  As it turns out, weapons were a very good seller and for the last
600 years we have plied our trade to every known race who had the resources to
afford it.”

“Including
the Iltia’cor?”

“Yes.”

“But
they destroyed your home world.”

“Not
destroyed, just... they took it over. While it’s true the people who live on
Terti are under the oppression of the Iltia’cor, 600 years has allowed us to
come to some understanding. We give the Iltia’cor a discounted price on our
technologies we develop and they leave us be.”

“So
you’re their useful slaves?”

Smith
bristled at this and sat forward in his seat.

“Colonel
Martin, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for your people. But I
must warn you never to say that to another Pelod. Some may not have the
restraint that I am showing.”

“So
you do have some fight in you.”

Smith
leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Yes Colonel Martin, I suppose we do,
although staying in the background and letting business take care of itself is
part of who we are now.”

“You
mentioned that you have observed us for 200 years, but the Hedali said that no
one would even come to this system because it was a ‘dead’ system, meaning we
had no mosar. Why did the Pelod come here then?”

“For
the iron, of course. Your system has an abundance of pure iron. Earth clearly
has plenty, but you have entire asteroids of it in your system and Mars was an
uninhabited planet with livable conditions and a solid iron core. We have had
one of our major manufacturing facilities on Mars for the last 150 years.”

“Why
Mars and not Earth?”

“Fear
of discovery and disinterest I suppose. Your people have always been an oddity
to us, but as we were engineers and craftsmen, your biology or society never
really interested us.”

Kyle’s
mind formed the words and he spoke carefully. “Were you responsible for the
destruction of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in Mars orbit a couple of years
ago?”

Kyle
noticed Kitch out of the corner of his eye. She obviously had no idea that the
Shuttle was at Mars when it was destroyed.

“No
Colonel Martin, we were not responsible for that. It was an Otina warlord named
Jii who decided that he didn’t want his ship spotted by your vessel. Our people
at our facilities were completely stunned by his reckless actions and there was
even debate about whether to contact your people and let them know what
happened. The Hedali communicating with you a few weeks later ended that
decision as we really don’t want the Hedali to know we are in the area.”

“I’m
sorry Mister Smith, this is a very stressful time for me and you are just
pouring out information. If I seem a little scattered with my questioning,
please forgive me. Why, exactly, did you not want the Hedali knowing you are in
our solar system?”

“Not
just did not, but do not. I came to you over the objections of many of my
advisors. The Hedali are… weak. Not bad or evil or even contemptible, but weak.
If they were questioned by any race who they felt threatened them, they would
give any and all information immediately. It’s not their fault, really, they
are scientist and knowledge seekers by their nature and culture. They have
almost no military to speak of and even their few soldiers and military leaders
are not held in high esteem. The repelling of an Otina attack on one of their ships
had never happened before humans came into their existence. You may not realize
it, but you, personally, are something of a Hedali legend now. The repelling of
the Otina and then the killing of the Iltia’cor make you and Sergeant Ramirez
the most whispered names on Kortit. If word got out that we were in your
system, other races, like the Iltia’cor, would find reasons to come here and
put pressure on us. We would likely have to move our base of operations and
find another desolate system to work out of.”

“Then
how did the Otina know you were here?”

“We
invited them to come and buy directly from our base. They are steady customers,
and as pirates and raiders, don’t want their locations known either.”

“How
long have the Otina known of us?”

“Around
150 years. They are the ‘Greys’ of your UFO lore.”

“Cattle
mutilations? Abductions?”

“Yes,
Colonel, those things happened. The Otina were looking for something to sell.
Some angle to work. Some would come and do experiments on your planet.”

“And
you approve of this?”

“Not
really any of our concern, Colonel.”

“So
what is your concern?”