Illegal Aliens (19 page)
CREW OF THE UNSF:
RAMARIEZ
Dagstrom Keller
—
captain
Abigail Jones
—
first mate
Paul Van Loon
—chief surgeon
Martha Soukup
—
Navigation
Purity Lilliuokalani
—
Communications
Marvin Hamlisch
—
Sensors
John Buckley
—
Weapons
Abduhl Benny Hassan
—
Spaceman First Class
UN SPACE MARINES: ‘HECTOR’S HELLCATS’
Kurt Sakadea
—
lieutenant
Tanya Lieberman
—
master sergeant
James Furstenburg
—
private
THE REST
(unpronounceable)
—
Queen/Mother of RporR
Einda
—
prostitute
Silverside
—
criminal ganglord
The Galactic League
The 3000
—
Supreme Commander of the Great Golden Ones
Bachalope Thintfeesel
—
news reporter
Jose de San Martin
—
Secretary-General of the UN
With a dazzling pyrotechnic display, the
Ramariez
shunted into hyperspace, escaping just as the Gees were about to unleash another superweapon, leaving the aliens with nothing but a viewscreen full of zigzagging drones and the certain knowledge that they had failed yet again.
* * *
As the black of space was replaced by the featureless gray of the hyperspatial void, the bridge crew of the
Ramariez
broke into wild cheering. They’d done it! Success!
“All right, settle down,” Captain Keller ordered after a few minutes of therapeutic pandemonium. “That was the easy part. Snap to! We’ve still got a job to do.”
This sobered the crew immediately and, as the sailors went busily to work, the starship captain glanced at the digital clock in the left arm of his chair. Four minutes to go.
Blond hair, blue eyes, square jaw, six feet tall and darkly tanned, Dagstrom Keller more resembled a movie star playing a professional boxer than a naval officer. Actually, Keller had boxed during college and been considered an Olympic hopeful. But he had been forced to withdraw from competition as the training interfered with his studies. He still occasionally boxed these days in the Swiss naval tournaments. In point of fact, was well known as Ol’ One-Two Keller, both for his devastating left-right combination attacks and, unfortunately, for his bedroom prowess.
The UN General Assembly had never heard of Dagstrom Keller until the FCT promoted him as their candidate for captain. Dag himself had been surprised. But upon due consideration, the man seemed perfect for the assignment. Keller was the youngest captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier to be decorated four times for bravery. He had graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic Institute magna cum laude and read science fiction; the latter a hobby the FCT believed might give the man a certain advantage in any bizarre situation that cropped up on his quixotic search for the Galactic League.
As ratings scurried about with their arms full of plastic boxes and Chief Petty Officers meticulously swept the deck clear of excelsior packing, the captain pinched together two wires inside the open right arm of his chair, ignoring the slight electric shock that tingled through his fingers. “Power Room? This is Captain Keller. I want a readout on the spacewarp generator.”
“Sorry, captain,” a voice said from the tiny speaker dangling in the rat's nest of wires. “But we can't do that.”
He scowled, “And why not, mister?”
“Haven't unpacked the gauges yet.”
Damn. “Well, do your best and report when ready.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Twelve levels below, in the center of the great ship, protected by hundreds of feet of durasteel and lead, Trell clicked off the Power Room's intercom and dutifully returned to his work.
Ever since he had been rescued from the Deckers, the little alien had been worked like a Thurstd gik, a phrase that had no human analogy, aside from sticking a fountain pen into an electric pencil sharpener.
Hard work? Yes. But the little Technician had never been happier. Unlimited amounts of material and assistants had been placed at his disposal. He had been awarded every Ph.D and scientific award that humanity had possessed, and been paid a truly staggering lump sum for his time and effort. Something no gik got.
Now on board the
Ramariez
(a name that filled him with shame, even though he’d had nothing to do with the murder), Trell sported the official rank of Master Technician, and was second only to the leader, ah, make that the captain, in authority. Plus, NASA had allowed him to design the light blue jumpsuit his team of engineers wore: the directors of the space agency knew that within the heart of every engineer there lurked the soul of an artist.
The little alien had done them proud. Once the extra set of arms had been edited out, the purely functional outfit was extremely comfortable for humans, possessed over 80 pockets of varied and assorted sizes, was certified stain resistant, and naturally smelled like beer; which saved the Power Room crew the trouble of constantly consuming breath mints. It was quite accidental that blue was the alien's favorite color and complemented his green skin tone.
Under Trell's watchful eye, wrenches, spanners, laser torches and hammers were applied with artistic fervor to the ever growing complex of machinery in the center of the giant ship. In short order, the army of workers had assembled the equipment into a more coherent shape and they were at last able to remove a smoking brassiere from the innards of a power relay. A fast-thinking tech had saved the day by using it to lift and separate a pair of red-hot ion thrusters without losing a hand.
The entire Engineering crew had applauded the act, half for the woman's ingenious solution to the problem, and the rest for her superb structural integrity.
* * *
With a musical ding, the bare steel doors of the elevator opened on the bridge and out strode the ship's doctor, Paul Van Loon. Slightly balding and with an enlarged nose, the tall, athletic Dutchman was considered a perfect choice for this post as he was an accomplished NATO surgeon who had served two tours of duty in the Middle East, held a minor degree in veterinary science, and was an amateur botanist.
This was his first real visit to the bridge, and the physician took the opportunity to look around. This ship was going to be home for quite a long time.
Located near the top of the globular ship, the round room was reduced to a half circle by a dividing wall in which were located a turbo lift, elevator, emergency spiral stairs and a fireman's pole. NASA redundancy at its peak. Tech station consoles lined the outer walls, with the front of the room dominated by a staggeringly huge triptych viewscreen. The captain's command chair was strategically positioned on a small dais overlooking the freestanding Navigation, Communication and Weapon consoles. Suspended from the ceiling was a video camera that recorded everything that was done and said for an eventual review. The Roddenberry Design Studios had created a functional masterpiece.
Picking his way through the litter on the deck, the physician noted the incredible vista of swirling gray visible on all three of the forward viewscreens. Casually, he glanced at a working meter on the environmental console and was surprised to find the outside temperature well over a thousand degrees Celsius. No wonder the aliens used hyperspace as a swear word. Nothing could live in that dead, sterile void.
And that was probably going to be the extent of his work on this ship, realized Van Loon. The UN computers had accessed the personnel files of the world to choose their complement of 80 from the teeming billions of Earth, so it was no surprise that everybody, from the captain down to the lowliest Marine private, was in perfect health, a college graduate, combat veteran, a specialist in a dozen different fields, and could probably sing and dance as well. It made the physician feel uneasy to realize that he was probably the dumbest person on board the starship.
Taking his time, the Dutch physician strolled over to and took a seat at the vacant Weapons console. “Okay, sir, we made it to hyperspace, what's next?” he asked.
With a start, the captain regarded the man. “Don't you know?”
“Sorry, I was too busy organizing my equipment and staff to attend any of the final planning sessions.”
Placing aside a duty roster, Keller nodded. Those last few days in Florida had been truly hectic, what with everybody working around the clock at a fever pitch, skipping meals and losing sleep. It had rather reminded him of finals in college.
The captain glanced at the clock. Two minutes. “According to Trell, the best way to travel through hyperspace is by using an avantor. Unfortunately, in spite of a exhaustive search of every self-proclaimed mentalist on Earth, we couldn't find one with a perfect six dimensional sense of direction.”
“Six?” the doctor queried.
Captain Keller nodded as he lifted his feet for an enlisted man to sweep under. “Yes, six. This means we have to use the cumbersome method of computer guidance, as most races do.” He lowered his feet as the rating passed on by. “But in order to do even that, we need a Hyperspacial Navigation Cube. And while Trell could tell us how to build such a device, he doesn't know any planetary coordinates. Not even his own home world. They’re just too complex to remember: thousands of integers long. Thus, in order to travel to the Galactic Council, we’ve got to get a HN Cube first.”
Just then, a swarthy machinist mate with the name
HASSAN
on the breast pocket of his dirty blue coverall, ambled over and began to install a bank of push button controls in the gaping hole in the right arm of the command chair.
“So we’re off to find a cube?” Van Loon asked.
“Exactly, Doctor.”
“But how?” Van Loon asked, standing for a moment so a rating could bolt the chair he was sitting in to the deck. “We can't blindly jump around the galaxy hoping to find a friendly race who just happens to have a couple of spare navigational cubes laying about. They must be very expensive.”
“Almost priceless,” Keller agreed. “But we are not thieves, the
Ramariez
will pay market value for any goods received.”
“There's something you’re not telling me,” Van Loon stated as a fact.
Captain Keller nodded, his blue eyes never straying far from the clock. “That's Part Two of our escape plan. You see, we know the exact location of one, and only one, HN Cube.”
At first, the Dutch physician didn't understand, but then as comprehension dawned, his face sagged. Good lord, not that!
* * *
The right honorable Jose de San Martin, the new Argentinean Secretary General of the United Nations of Earth, felt a cold rivulet of sweat trickle down his back as he prepared to meet the avantor. His staff had delayed taking the Gee's call for as long as they dared, but the aliens had forced his hand.
Seconds after the
Ramariez
escaped, the Gees had released a salvo of incredibly small missiles, each only about as big as a flashlight. One by one, the zigzagging unmanned drones had been hunted down and destroyed in a nuclear flash that the sensors indicated was an antimatter explosion. The lemon-colored missiles punching through the Deflector Plating like it was paper. A fact that cheered nobody on Earth. Apparently, there were various degrees of invulnerability.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, snort,” the Secretary General apologized as he displayed a politician's smile to the video camera set above the monitor on his desk. “But I was indisposed.”
“Unacceptable,” Avantor snapped, radiating hot-buttered fury from every pore of her body. “Tell me where that ship went or I shall destroy every satellite and space platform orbiting your measly excuse for a planet.”
To Jose's way of thinking, this conversation was breaking down far too quickly. “Surely, you don't mean that,” he demurred. “Many of those platforms are manned, and besides—”
The view of the Gee was instantly replaced by a shot of the nighttime sky above North America and the blackness became filled with pinpoint explosions. Then in a blinding flash of light, 12 astronauts, 8 cosmonauts and 1 very surprised looking chimpanzee were suddenly teleported into the Secretary General's office.
“We are not murderers,” Avantor noted in somber tones, as the video monitor returned to a picture of her.
“But you had no right!” de San Martin blustered, as everybody else dashed for the door. “Some of those were private property! You’re no more than a common criminal!”
The golden female frowned. “Incorrect. My assignment is to erect a blockade about your planet and to ensure that your race does not gain unauthorized access to space travel. How I do so is my concern. You have just lost the right to use any orbital platforms for the next 10 solar rotations. Do you wish to loose your sub-orbital privileges as well? I am fully capable of grinding your transportation system right down to surface level!”
The stern face of the Gee swelled to fill the video monitor. “Now for the very last time, where did they go!”
As a trained politician, the lies flowed smoothly to de San Martin's mouth. “Acting as they are, without the official consent of our organization, how could I possibly know their destination? It seems unreasonable on your part to assume—”
“The human is stalling, my liege,” The 16 interrupted with a scowl.
Avantor agreed and her finger descended to press the button which would annihilate every operating airplane Dirt possessed when there was a transdimensional bang and the
Ramariez
burst out of hyperspace inside the force shield of the Gee's centihedron superdreadnought. The alien craft being the only known location of a HN cube.
As the starships stridently rammed together, the avantor was ripped free from her command chair and slammed against the forward viewscreen, fully half of the systems in her vessel shorting out. In the dim orange glow of the emergency chemical lights, the woman limply slid down the wall to land on her head, a dazed expression slackening her golden features.
“My liege!” The 16 weakly cried from the corner of the room, amber blood dribbling from his nose. Ignoring the pain in his brain from the howling feedback from the damaged computer, the disoriented Gee forced himself to crawl across the deck and tug his commander into a sitting position. Her golden head wobbled like a balloon on a string as she attempted to focus her attention on him.
“Of course,” the avantor burbled incoherently. “They didn't go anywhere. Couldn't. No cube. Come to steal ours.”
She began to pitch forward. “Stop them, 16! Don't let the Dirtlings get the cube, eat the device if you have to!” Then the woman slumped unconscious to the deck.
But the damage had already been done. While her intentions had been good, Avantor's choice of words had been disastrous. Even in its present condition, their warship was still quite capable of defending itself, but only if told to do so. Locked in the unbreakable grip of his hypnotraining, the 16 was forced to crawl out of the room, unable to stop himself from heading for the navigational computer, not even to pause for a moment at the kitchen to grab a bottle of organic vegetable flavoring.