Children of Terra 01

Part 1 Chapter 1

“The Gray Ones”

Mahmud was taking cover behind a crumbling wall of sun-baked mud bricks and rough rocks, right at the outskirts of Mosul. He tightened the grip on his AK-47 automatic rifle and glanced with a pounding heart over the rim of the wall. That he had turned fifteen only yesterday was as far from his mind as everything else connecting him to his home.

He had been trained to be a fighter for god ever since he could walk. He had been raised on burning hate for infidels and everything associated with them.

He remembered only little things about his father, who had died for Allah and the prophet, blowing himself up, sending thirty-eight of the blinded dogs of the ′Sunnie ′ to the deepest hell, where Sheytan would torment them forever, while he would be greatly rewarded by Allah himself.

Mahmud, did remember the wailing of his mother who mourned for weeks, crying loudly as it was proper for a widow of a martyr but somehow quite disturbing for a six-year-old. His uncles praising father, teaching him about the will of the prophet and showering him with praise and gifts when he decapitated his teddy bear with the combat knife of his father.

There was little else they talked about in school. The Koran, the prophet and the new caliphate that had to be built on the blood of martyrs and the courage of true believers.

All this was Mahmud’s world, the only thing he learned and yet there was a voice in him that asked questions. Mahmud had a problem, he was quite smart and his mind hungered for more, for answers and for knowledge.

He wiped his eyes, these were improper thoughts for a Jihadist. One must not question the imam and the will of the prophet.

He resumed his grip on the weapon and watched the three camouflaged, heavily armed and well equipped American soldiers standing guard next to a kicked in  door, where more of them inside the house conducted a raid.

Abdul right next to him whispered.”Go take the RPG and take Allah’s will to them, before one of their flying terrors sees us.”

Mahmud started to shake a little as he exchanged his gun for the projectile launcher. The Chinese manufactured copy of the ancient Russian RPG 7 with its shape charged rocked propelled payload would be enough to take out these soldiers and perhaps even kill and maim some of them inside, but it was most likely the last thing he would do in his life.

Abdul mentioned the flying terrors, the terrifying efficient and deadly Apache helicopters of the enemy. There was no escaping their high tech, electronically enhanced eyes and there was no cover for their precision-guided munitions or the heavy machine gun projectiles these flying machines carried.

He had heard the distinctive belching sound of these chain guns, heard the sharp hiss of hundreds of projectiles peppering the ground, perforating vehicles and chewing stone walls to debris and dust. He had seen what humans looked like after being torn apart by machine gun fire. Friends and strangers alike, rendered into bits and pieces of unrecognizable bloody gore. He shouldered the weapon, popped up the simple sights and aimed. He was ready to die and he was ready to do the deed, but he could not deny a sense of fear and regret that crept in his thought. There was a voice in him crying for help, for a chance to live longer. Yet his indoctrination was perfect, he functioned just like a Jihadist had to.

Abdul beside him yelled. “ By Allah ... what... ?”

Mahmud felt a sharp sting in his neck, he did not know if he still had time to squeeze the trigger, he was almost certain he heard the explosive rushing sound of the igniting rocket motor, felt the sudden jerk of the heavy projectile leaving the barrel. Then everything went dark.

--””--

Aoife O’Reilly was too young to remember the struggle and what her father called ‘the troubles’. She had been born to a new century, and relative peace. At least on the surface Northern Ireland was now a peaceful place. The southern cousins of the Republic of Ireland for the most part did not want their northern brothers to join and make a united Ireland, because it would cost too much. The Northern Irish for the most part did not want to reunite because they lived just fine as part of the United Kingdom.

But there were those in the South who still marched on Easter Sunday to the Post office in Dublin, putting down wreaths and flower arrangements to remember. Those who still dreamed about a free Ireland and all counties united under the green, white and orange flag.

There were those in the north who had not forgotten what it meant to be Catholic under a minority rule of rich protestant orange men and the heavy hand of British rule.

The colorful murals on the side of houses in Belfast, remembering those who died in prisons, starving themselves to death in hunger strikes. Dying in bombings for the cause.

Yes on the surface it was peaceful and the age of the troubles seemed long gone, but this was also Ireland where memories and old traditions did not die as easily as elsewhere. The natives of this emerald isle where stubborn to a fault and the division between the green and the orange was still there.

Aoife was the daughter of an old family and her parents house was right at the border between communities in Belfast town. Towering, solid steel fences, thick concrete walls and barriers reminded everyone that there was still much animosity.

She could see the houses of the loyalists from her room, with every single one flying the Union jack.

She knew of the marching bands that walked through Belfast streets almost every Sunday, playing rousing melodies and songs, offensive to the other side and sometimes walking very close to the uneasily agreed upon boundaries of each other’s side.

To her the heavy armored police land rovers, with beefy British cops in heavy body armor were a daily sight. She thought nothing special when she saw a Police station that looked like a concrete bunker topped with coils of razor wire. Everyone in her community knew about the countless CCTV(1)cameras mounted on tall posts virtually everywhere, so the British overlords could react to the slightest trouble brewing.

No the “troubles” were only on hold. There was plenty of deadly hardware buried in caches in the woods and pastures all around Ireland to equip an army. This Sunday she had been to a funeral, some of the men including her father had to attend wearing green ski masks. He did that, not because he did not want to be identified as a member of the movement, he and everyone else of the IRA’s militant arm had no illusions about the British Anti terror units not knowing about him, it was to intimidate, to show strength and resolve. To tell the other side, there were still fighters willing to die for the cause.

Her own brother was in jail for being part in a demonstration and torching a police vehicle. Her father’s best friend had been killed by police bullets for similar reasons. The troubles were not over as far as her family concerned. She never liked funerals, even ones on a beautiful sunny day as this one.

The men meeting inside had filled the house with the smell of smoke, the mist of ale, beer and liquor. Father had, much to the delight of the other mourners placed a few bottles of Bushmill’s on the table. Mother and the ladies were busy in the kitchen more talking and gossiping than preparing dinner. None of the activities very enticing to a teenager, so Aoife went out for some air. She was ignored anyway. Good Irish catholic girls were good for marrying, raising a gaggle of kids, preferably sons and cook dinners that always and without fail included at least one form of potatoes, fried, boiled or mashed.

From right across the street and past the fence she noticed William Parker, a loudmouth protestant and son of a well to do loyalist family. He was obnoxious and a bully. However him being on the far side of sixteen noticed the very pretty, red haired catholic girl in a very feminine Sunday dress, her mother had chosen for her to be worn to the funeral.

Everyone agreed that Aoife developed fast into one of the most beautiful young women in town. She was quite tall for a full blooded Irish girl, yet she had all the hallmarks of a true lassie of the Emerald isle.

She moved with the grace of an elf and almost danced across the pavement. That she was a talented Irish dancer was also a locally well known fact. She had the almost paper white complexion of a porcelain doll, with a fine sprinkling of freckles across her nose. The only thing greener than her eyes was the luscious rich grass that covered the rolling hills of Antrim county. While she hated the uncontrollable frizz her stubborn hair would develop at the slightest moisture, everyone else was in mesmerized adoration about the shoulder long truly copper red hair, that framed her flawless features like an explosion of tiny curls.

William threw a fist size rock, over the fence not really to hit her, but to get her attention. Of course he wanted to tease her, egged on by other even more immature male teenagers, but somewhere inside hormones also begun to motivate his behavior.

However just at this moment, little Susie Garde rode her tricycle around the corner and the rock hit the four year old, knocking her of the tricycle in a spray of blood and a shriek of pain. Aoife got angry. The O’Reilly’s where never very successful tempering their rage in the first place. There was very sudden and sharp pain in her brain.

No one really saw it or could explain it, but a rock right before William jumped of the surface of the street and struck the tall boy right at the temple. He too fell, toppled like a chopped down tree.

Some of the witnesses later suggested that William threw another rock, but too low and it bounced of the steel barrier hitting himself. No one saw the girl throw anything, but Aoife was to terrified to wait. Tempers flared, there were shouts of accusation and revenge flying back and forth. Events like this had a tendency to escalate quickly, she could already hear the police sirens wailing as she watched Susie’s father lifting the little girl of the street. Men and boys gathering around the fallen shape of William. Somehow she feared it would all be blamed on her. She ran! She ran as fast as she could through alleys and narrow passages. She was thinking about catching a bus at the Bus Eirone staisun to flee to her grandmother’s sister who was living in Cork down south.

Running through one of the almost hidden paths between the old houses, she didn’t even notice the stinging sensation, before she passed out.

--””--

The last thing Aaron remembered was a sudden pinching pain as he rode his bike through the park, on his way home from piano practice.

Father had always warned him to take the shortcut through the park, especially after sundown. As a matter of fact father did not like it when Aaron rode his bike in public in the first place and would have preferred Aaron taking a taxi.

While Aaron was anything but a rebellious teenager and much more the archetype for what everyone instantly identified as a geek, he did occasionally defy the will of his overbearing father. Especially if he could save the taxi fare and invest it in merchandise offered at the Heroes & Dragons store.

Right now he felt, almost the same way as he and Ricky did when they secretly sampled two cans of beer: woozy, somewhat groggy with his head spinning.

Ricky had heard from several sources that the consumption of beer made girls prettier, or more precisely influenced the perception of the beholder.

Ricky, his best friend was convinced the beer companies added some sort of very sophisticated hallucinogen or mind altering drug to their products. He further believed if they could analyze, extract and maybe alter the substance Then use it to increase their own attractiveness in the eyes of the opposite sex.While the geeks and nerds in TV shows and movies did have girlfriends now, they still did not score in real life. The quarter backs and sport jocks attracted all the female attention and neither Aaron nor Ricky were successful in that regard. Despite his considerable knowledge in chemistry and access to his father’s quite advanced laboratory, analyzing many brands and types of beer, their effort remained unsuccessful.

There simply wasn’t anything secret in the beer. As a last resort Ricky convinced Aaron to try it in a clinical test, in other words by consuming some beer while looking at girl pictures. Well that didn’t work either, but that is how he felt right now as he opened his eyes.

He stared into a gray ceiling and before he could focus on any details, a light came on, so painfully white and powerful, his eyes watered even while he squeezed them shut. Aaron turned his head away and tried to open his eyes again, this time he saw something. Something so frightening he closed them again.

It could not be real! It all had to be some sort of nightmare, or the affects of some hallucinogenic drug he did not remember taking, not that he ever did drugs in the first place.

He opened the eyes again, his heart now pounding so hard he could feel every beat. In a much faster rhythm than he remembered it ever beating before. His mouth had suddenly become paper dry. The hair of his body stood on their ends covering him with goose bumps from head to toe.

He stared into the face of an alien!

A real extra terrestrial, a sentient life form not from Earth. Depicted in so many cheap movies and the childish drawings of those claimed to be abducted. It all was true!

They appeared just as they have been always described: gray skin, large heads with huge black eyes and an almost none existing nose and small mouth. The being was naked, except for a metallic harness, in an X shaped arrangement and with small square panels also apparently made of metal, but of a different, darker shade material.

Aaron himself was certain he was also naked and rendered completely helpless by broad clamps across his wrists, arms, feet and a larger, tight across his belly. He turned his head the other way and into the face of a second, seemingly identical alien.

“Help!” He yelled, his mind incapable of really comprehending the situation, provided him with few other alternatives than to scream.

He did try to fight the bonds that secured him to an examination table, but to no avail.

The two aliens communicated with each other, their small mouths moved, and he could hear faint sounds that did have the rhythm and acoustic appearance of a language, but there was no doubt in his mind. This was a language no culture of Earth ever developed. Those weren’t disguised humans, classmates playing an elaborate prank. Those weren’t masks and costumes.

Despite all this Aaron had the distinct impression the two gray monstrosities were amused. He had no illusions about the metallic instrument the alien was holding. It was something to probe and examine him. The tool appeared to be part flashlight, part bone saw and the wicked serrated blade started to rotate in high pitched hum. To dissect him without compassion or emotions no doubt! Just as he had dissected frogs and pig fetuses in biology class.

It was all true! The tales of the loony, usually physically very unattractive social security recipients, mentally challenged UFO abduction crowd. No one really believed them, all it did was provide entertainment and material for the supermarket checkout rainbow rags. He even owned a T-shirt with an image of Batboy greeting the president. He had laughed, rolled his eyes, giggled with the feeling of intellectual superiority when a woman in shrill make up, a big cheap and ill fitting wig usually overweight insisted of being sexually mistreated by gray skinned aliens.

Aaron no longer felt amused, he was terrified down to the core. He screamed again for help, instinctively knowing there was no one answering his panic fueled pleas for help.

--””--

Nalkook made the motion of success and topped it with the left shoulder shrug signifying that his feelings were of the third level. “We did well, the Inners will accept our suggestions to raise us one notch on the Supreme scale. No more dangerous missions, no more visits to this world of primitives or anywhere else for that matter.”

Mulkuub, the sharer of command on this mission agreed. “It will be us setting goals for the Lower Notches, sending them onto all sorts of missions to do the bidding of the Inners. Thirty healthy biological samples of primitives will keep the researchers and knowledge finders busy for a while. Not that I fully understand what we still want to find. We bringing these disgusting specimens to the Inners for many generations and there should be nothing we do not know about them.”

Nalkook made several very elegant executed conversation support gestures. First he opened with the eye twitch of agreement, followed by the folding of the upper fingers in the ancient way of expressing disgust and then he tapped his left hand on his right cheek, skirting dangerously close to a vulgar and quite prohibited expression. He left it at a rather mild version of the forbidden critique gesture. “The motivations of the Inners must not be questioned.”

That there was much more to this mission, he could not share even with Mulkuub. He said out aloud, somewhat contradicting his last gesture.”The primitives are biological related to the Sarans and thus of interest. Maybe the Inners use whatever knowledge they gather to form a strategy or develop a way to eradicate those arrogant denizens of Naab.”

“While one agrees with you, the word Naab must not be spoken!”

The two Freons stared at their latest acquisition, a male specimen. It was protesting its treatment and capture by loud sounds of obvious fear. Nalkook always loved that sound, it assured him just how much more advanced he was.

Mulkuub did not openly admit it, but he found pleasure in causing pain to these primitives and he too liked them screaming. “Let us make them beg.”

“Yes!” Nalkook made the gesture of firm conviction. “We must not kill them! The Inners would not be pleased if one perishes.”

--””--

Without turning to face the commander, her scanner operator said. “The Freon ship just left Earth atmosphere and destroyed a Terran artificial satellite in it’s wake.”

The Saran commander acknowledged and closed the safety harness and thus securing her into the command seat.”All space warriors ready for combat action.”

The Saran vessel resonated with the rhythmic drum beat of combat alert and everyone rushed to his or her duty station and prepared the pyramid shaped vessel for action.

Guided projectile ports opened, Directed energy turrets swung around as their targeting electronics locked onto the Freon ship, that somewhat resembled the shape of a Terran ping pong paddle.

The Freon ship was a marvel of technology and the pinnacle of Freon engineering, but compared to the Toth class Saran war barge it was slow, hopelessly outgunned and separated by an entire Tech level.

The ships were close enough from each other for Electro Magnetic Visuals. While both societies had discovered Myon communication technology, a slightly faster than light communication technology, it was unreliable and could not be used for visual or acoustic transmissions, the way EM waved could. It was used by all space faring societies known to the Sarans, which included all known societies that had a seat in the Galactic Council.

The Freons and the Ferons their closely related cousins as well as the Sarans were members and knew each other well.

The commander of the Saran vessel hailed the Freon vessel that was now trying to gain speed for a trans-spatial jump. “ Freons, cease your futile attempts to flee, you can not outpace our Seth Tooth missiles, all seven launch ports are open and the system has a solid lock on you. You are in clear violation of Galactic Council resolution 6800 and the terms that were agreed upon in council and sealed in binding contracts by all societies.”

“Saran Vessel” the Freon responded, “We wish not to offend the mighty Saran empire. We experienced navigational problems and calculated the last jump incorrectly. This is why we ended up in this stars vicinity, that is well known to be under Saran protection. We wish no confrontation and only to continue on our mission of pure scientific and peaceful nature.”

“It is universally considered impolite to accuse a fellow star barge commander of lying, but we Saran’s take great offense and consider it highly disrespectful being lied to. Your ship was observed leaving the atmosphere of the third planet. We know Freons have taken interest in this world despite the treaty and obtained biological samples of humans before.

Violating the treaty by landing on that planet is grounds enough for me to order your destruction and inform the council of your trespass, but we send a boarding team and if we find no humans aboard. I will let this pass with the report only and spare your lives.”

The Freon, knowing that such a report alone would end his life and career changed his friendly tone and sounded much more hostile. “Yes, Saran Commander we have thirty human specimen aboard. They are alive and we know how much you treasure your brethren’s lives. I will order them killed, if you do not let us pass.”

The commander of the Saran vessel raised her eyebrows in a surprised fashion and turned to look into the face of her second in command. It displayed the same expression. “This is new. The Freons have never admitted so openly breaking the treaty.”

The second in command said. “Because they never got actually caught in the act leaving the planet.”

The one sitting in the command chair pressed the activation sensor for the ship to ship communicator again. “Freon commander for someone not wishing to offend us, you seem eager to do just the opposite. This admission of you, breaking the treaty will be brought before our queen as evidence of Freon declaring war upon the Saran Empire and we will deliver it along with you in shackles. We will not endanger the humans you abducted, but you endangered the existence of the Freon race!”

--””--

Mulkuub neither felt well nor was he certain they would receive any rewards from the Inners at all.

What Nalkook had done by this ill advised gamble, was certainly not sanctioned. Open war with the Sarans, despite their current engagement with the Pan Sarans would cost the Freons dearly.

Freon extinction was even more a very likely possibility if the rumors were true and the Pan Sarans also considered that cursed blue planet some sort of sanctuary.

He made all seven motions of utter distress, by waving his left arm in full circular motions and holding his right hand before his mouth.” Mulkuub, has the Saran commander used some mind altering psionics to make you say what you did? Our only course of action was to self destruct, To destroy all evidence and us!”

Nalkook forgot to make any gestures and snarled back.”I am under direct orders. These thirty and this device,” he held up a boxy gray thing that was clearly not of Freon design.”must reach Freo. There is much at stake!

I am not ready to explore what lies on the other side of life.

The Xunx are stirring and soon ready to flood this part of space with their relentless hunger driven conquest. We must find a way to stop them or divert them, for we too are in their path!”

The Inners must find a way to raise Freon might. So we may stand against the Xunx and take ourt place amont the important ones, whatever occurred here will be forgotten when the Xunx awake.”

--””--

Melissa Rockford was a drop dead gorgeous blonde from Texas, but she was anything but a dumb blonde or a helpless damsel in distress. She too had found herself strapped to some sort of examining table and in the presence of beings that were not of Earth. The gray skinned, mostly naked extra terrestrials had left a few moments ago.

It had taken her a while to process the situation and she was unable to really process it, but true to her pragmatic Texan nature, and the teachings of her Marine Corps veteran father(*) she was ready to act now and deal with everything else later.

She was not alone, there were other humans, all of them however inside

transparent tubes, almost like the many animal specimen preserved in

yellowish formaldehyde and stored in the store room for science class in her

school.

She strained at her bonds, tried to twist and move her arms and legs. Surprisingly and without all that much effort, her right hand passed

through the metal cuff. She had no idea how exactly she managed to get her right hand out of the metal cuff that secured her arm. Maybe it was to loose or to wide for her slender girl hand, but free it was.

She probed the cuff on her left and found a stud like hump and pressing it, snapped the thing open.

Once she had figured out how the alien bonds could be opened, it was

child’s play to open the rest. While it should have been technically

impossible for a person, so immobilized to reach those opening studs, she still thought it stupid and careless. Earth shackles would need keys to be opened.

She swung her legs of the examining table, picked up one of the strange probing tools, she had no idea what its exact purpose was; but it was made of metal and had a serrated cutting wheel on one end. To her it was something she could use as a weapon.

That it could be used as such, became clearly evident, just moments later after she had rushed to the folding door that appeared to be the only exit of this alien lab facility.

One of the gray skinned beings stepped through the door that was suddenly folding back, more out of instinct than anything else, she had rammed the alien tool right into one of the black almond shaped eyes. A spray of dark, disgusting smelling blood and bits of alien tissue soiled her arm, the alien made a gargling, sound that was clearly a sound of pain and unquestionably the last sound this alien would ever make.

Melissa was most likely the first Terran human slaying a Freon(*), as she stared wide eyed at the gray alien who now slumped to the floor and came to rest in a widening puddle of its own black blood.

Melissa was at the edge of her own sanity, her breath labored hard and her pulse was racing, but for some reason she felt not as afraid anymore. The gray bastards could be killed!

The metallic thing on the dead aliens belt, was even more promising than the alien tool. It was of non human design no question, but it fit her hand and she found another stud like control, she could press with her thumb. A sharp crack and a hole with white hot glowing edges in the wall was the result. Melissa’s lips curled into a wicked grin. Despite the bizarre situation, things always looked up if one had a working gun, that was perfectly Texan reasoning.

That she was a crack shot, even with an alien, to her completely unfamiliar ray gun became evident as the second Gray Skin stumbled backwards, with a smoking new hole in his large head, right between those big black eyes.

The Freon was dead long before the body hit the floor. Melissa pumped up on adrenaline and acting more on reflexes and instincts than anything

else, dragged the dead alien completely into the room, so the folding door mechanism could close again. Melissa did not want an army of these things storming the place alarmed by a dead body, before she had time to figure things out.

--””--

Nalkook in all his predicament and knowledge that he did indeed choose the wrong course of action, wondered why neither Nunhuuk nor Vurgoom answered his calls. He was sure they amused themselves by torturing a few of the newly acquired specimens. Not that there was anything really wrong with that, but the ship, the mission and their very life was in jeopardy and he needed his crew to respond to his instructions.

He understood them however, he too hated those fleshy, bony things of that planet without any of the desirable shades of gray just as they did. He hated the arrogant and aloft Sarans even more and wished he could strap that commander onto one of his examining stations and perform a few deep probe examinations, for no other purpose than to cause pain and humiliation. This method of examination was one of the developments that had been made, after examining so many of these primitives over the centuries. Humiliating and causing pain to helpless primitives had been his special talent.

Usually they only took one or two back to Freo, their home planet for the Inners and their experiments, this time they had taken thirty for a proposed mating and a secret psionic ability study. The Inners had long known about this almost magical ability that some species developed. The Inners wanted to know more about it. Not even his second in command knew about this part of the mission.

“Mulkuub, go and see why two of my specimen keepers decide to ignore my calls. The Sarans might not want to wait and do something before we have reached jump speed. Showing them life feeds of their brethren in mortal peril might give them pause and they let us pass.”

Mulkuub, rose from his seat and went to the pneumo pipe to execute the order but he made the signs of disrespect unseen by Nalkook, thinking with worry about his foreseeable future. Either ending up as atomic ashes, blasted by the Sarans, or sent to the other side of life by the Inners for being part of the crew that effectively ended Freon as a society, presented much appeal to him.

Luckily for Mulkuub, he did not have to worry about his future or his possible fate. Melissa put an end to all his worries with a well placed shot,

simultaneously answering the question why neither Nunhuuk nor Vurgoom answered the call from command.

The answer was given in such a way, Mulkuub’s only chance to deliver it to

the First in Command was if there was indeed another side of life. and they both met there.

--””--

Melissa was not sure how to free the other humans from their transparent, tube like prisons. They seemed in some sort of suspended animation and she did not want to simply use the weapon to open one of the cylinders, fearing she might damage whatever system kept them that way.

She had killed four of the gray skins so far, and just blasted a fifth that had emerged out of a big vertical pipe. She had decided to fight her way to the outside and then alarm the authorities. Even better, call her father and thus the marines.

She inched forward in the quite alien, musky and humid corridor. Hoping to find some kind of door or passage that lead to the outside. She suspected to be in some kind of secret base or outpost, perhaps hidden in a warehouse or somewhere underground.

But as she reached a small oval shaped view port, she realized what she had feared deep down all along. She was no longer on Earth, but in deep space. The planet of her birth, clearly visible in its entire splendor, but no bigger than the moon as it appeared sometimes in the night sky over her families ranch. The beautiful blue orb presented itself before an utterly black background without any horizon, but brilliant sparkling dots of light. This was indeed deep space and she was on her way to wherever the Aliens lived.

Tears of fear and hopelessness streaked down her cheeks as she slowly sunk to her knees. She would never ever see her father or mother again. Her disappearance would break the hearts of her parents and they would grief to the end of their days not knowing what happened to their only daughter.

Her fist cramped around the weapon, her sobs and sniffling subsided and she whispered. “Hell no, I ain’t givin’ up just yet. Maybe one of those fuckers can be convinced to turn this ride around.”

They bled, they died so maybe having a gun to the head would be as convincing just as it would be to a human.

Just then a folding door, a few steps distant and to the left opened, and a Gray alien stepped out, apparently in a great hurry, looking over his shoulder.

“Hey you, Ugly ass hole!” Melissa shouted. Then fired and burned a hole into the door frame just an inch next to the alien’s head. “I know how to use this thing, the next blast drills you a new hole where you never expected to have one unless you do what I say!”

The Freon started gesturing, signaling the angry Terran that he would comply, he understood some of the words and clearly understood the threat the Line Blaster represented that was aimed at him.

Unfortunately, Melissa did not know that over fifty percent of the Freon language was expressed by gestures. His waving hands and the fact that he too wore a Line Blaster on his belt, was reason enough for the agitated girl from Brownwood, Texas to fire. She was angry and expressed her emotions, burning whatever the Freons had between their legs.

Olupoor, just like the One in Command forgot all stylized gestures the Freons were so proud of, and simply yelled at the highest volume as he dropped to his knees.

While he indeed identified as a male, Freons did not have a reproductive organ where human males did, however the central nerve cluster that was located there, made that region of his body just, or perhaps even more sensitive.

Having most of it turned to ashes by a beam of accelerated protons was however the main reason Freon gesture protocol was far from his mind.

Melissa glanced in the room behind. it was just another examining laboratory, looking just like the one she had regained consciousness in. An examination table at its center with a human boy perhaps her age strapped on it, just as she had been.

He was like her, completely naked and even though the situation certainly left no time for such consideration, extremely handsome with a body, Michael Angelo would have used as a model for his Apollo. His perfect body and much of his lower face was covered in dark, blackish blood. A second alien was lying on the floor, still twitching.

He noticed her and said something in a language she did not understand. She came close released the bonds and said. “I am Melissa from Texas and we are in an alien space ship. Do you understand English?”

The sandy blonde young man jumped to his feet, and his English was

heavily accented but she understood what he said.”I am Sigurd Olafson(*), I come from Norway.”

Sigurd, turned the dying alien on his back, retrieving its gun, instantly

holding it like Melissa showed him. “The stud on the back, is the trigger.

Seems to have no safety other than a secondary handle squeeze. Are you

hurt?”

He shook his head and fired the gun into the head of the alien on the floor

before him, ending its life. “No, I bit his throat, they taste nasty I tell you.” He grinned wicked as he said it.

“We are far from Earth and there are more humans like us in some sort of

test tubes. I was trying to fight myself to whatever they have for a wheelhouse and have them turn this boat around.”

He jumped over the mortally wounded alien in the doorway, Melissa had blasted into the groin. “It is a good plan.”

Looking at the scorched wound between the weeping alien’s legs, the grin left his face. “Remind me never to piss you off!”

She followed him and an impish grin of her own flashed over her lips. “No worries I will, would be a shame to burn what you got there.”

His ears turned red and he tried to change the subject. “You realize we will

be the most famous people on Earth landing this freak show in Stockholm.”

“I was planning to have them land it on the White House lawn.”

--””--

Nalkook now felt very nervous, the Saran ship had not stopped the pursuit, and there were still a good eighteen niccs to jump speed. He raised his voice in volume, something Freons frowned upon like little else. “Have you calculated our jump?” The question was aimed at the Master coordinator of Math and Transition.

“Yes, Nalkook. We are at the necessary jump coordinated in sixteen niccs and we will transition into the vicinity of Juty 674, a planet less old star. Which is the closest available gravity well.”

“Mindless you are! Even if they let us jump, they will be right behind us, guessing the destination! Pick a gravity well at the maximum distance!”

“Very well, Nalkook who has the answers. You commanded me to get us to the first jump coordinates as fast as possible. The new jump point you request is thirty nine niccs out and requires a realignment of the trajectory.”(*)

“Do not realign! Keep the original Jump point!”

“Yes, Nalkook who is in command.”

--””--

The Saran commander turned her head. “My patience has worn out, We are sufficient distant from the home of our blissfully ignorant sisters, for them to really notice battle action.

Weapons officer, send two Seth Teeth into the propulsion section of that

Freon interloper and then bathe the ship with sleeper rays.”

The Saran officer inside the weapon control booth, released two of Sarans

most advanced and most feared missiles. The projectiles accelerated faster than any ship and bridged the distance between the two ships in less than a

few heart beats. The first missile bringing a few thousand tons of kinetic energy to bear completely destroyed the energy shield the Freon had activated; the second shredded the aft engineering section to scrap metal, thus releasing the nuclear energies produced inside the ships two fusion reactors.The Freon’s propulsion section was utterly destroyed along with whoever had been in it when the missile hit.

--””--

Melissa was lifted of her feet, by a sudden and violent jolt followed by an ear shattering boom. Fast acting emergency doors, prevented her from being killed by the shockwave and the following fast decompression. But there were sparks, smoke, flickering lights and the erratic sizzling of exposed energy conduits.

Sigurd didn’t fair much better and struggled like a drowning man but without any water.

Melissa and Sigurd also suddenly felt very sick to the stomach as their feet

no longer connected to the deck. While their eyes told them what was up and down, their stomachs and their sense of equilibrium could no longer tell. Both floated weightless in the corridor...

--””--

The once elegant paddle shaped ship now drifted at the speed it had attained until now, with most of what could be described as the handle completely gone, the remaining stump, a mess of twisted metal.

What the commander had called sleeper rays, were a technology Sarans acquired from the technologically much further advanced Saresii.

Saran engineers and scientists understood in principle how they worked, but were far from reproducing it reliably on their own.

The effect of the weapon was as marvelous as it was non lethal if used at lower settings. It somehow interrupted the neuron flow between nerves of a carbon based life form and instantly paralyzed a being and sending it into a comatose state that could last between a few minutes to several hours and at higher settings caused permanent coma and death.

To do all this over a distance by using a projector emitting invisible directed

waves and penetrating many unshielded materials, was a technological marvel to the Sarans and a ship system worth over three million Trade

Units. But then the Commander was of a rich and old Saran family that was

able to provide the finest and latest technology available to the ships they contributed to the royal fleet.

Chapter 2 »