Authors: Gordon Mackay
The small ship traversed its darkened way around Earth’s system’s outer boundary. The middle-aged yellow sun sat gleaming at the centre, not looking much larger or brighter than any other stars in the heavens. They began to enter a domain they suspected was poised to trap them, with a feeling they perhaps shouldn’t be there.
The Grey ship lay still and invisible behind
the asteroid, poised like a predator waiting for its unsuspecting prey. No communications or signals passed from or to them. Their mission was of the highest secrecy with their presence shrouded by the darkness and silence of space. There had been a blip on their detection screens for the briefest of moments,
the partial sighting of another ship, perhaps
, the Grey commander wondered. It was thought their prey was about to enter the spun web, where an emerald-green coloured sting would catch the small disk complete with its ignorant and simple humanoids. How the Grey ship’s commander looked forward to seeing the faces of the few who thought they could outwit an empire as great as theirs. The momentary blip disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared. Its short-lived presence persuaded the Grey crew it was a stray asteroid or comet on an eccentric orbit, where the gravitational effects of other planetary bodies determined where it would travel.
The wait will be worth it
, the Grey commander assured himself. Earth’s future was as good as signed, sealed and delivered, by virtue of a few unsuspecting and interfering human beings. The commander couldn’t contain his forthcoming sadistic pleasure and almost released a smile.
Belinda was reluctant to start a sweep of the system, searching for other craft, knowing other ships could detect it. Their mission was secret to most, if not all, Patricia had informed Phyllis. “You must not allow yourself to believe you are on a normal flight,” she insisted. Phyllis
said she understood the importance of this mission and would do everything in her power to ensure it would succeed. Patricia had thanked her, saying her confidence was with her as the best pilot she had ever known. Phyllis couldn’t reply to Patricia’s complimentary remark as she’d never heard such a thing said before. She was a pilot, the same as all the others, no difference and the same training. Was Patricia being honest or patronising, she wondered?
Scott watched the overhead monitors, all three of them. There were a few intermittent blips flashing among the planet’s orbits, which he couldn’t recognise, making him wonder what was what. The nine planets stood out quite well; except there seemed to be an additional one at the outermost limit of the system, which caught his attention. Through squinting eyes, he tried to make sure he
was
seeing a little pinpoint of a blip on the central monitor, asking when he felt convinced, “Is that a tenth planet?”
Belinda and Phyllis looked to each other. Scott heard their conversation. They wondered if perhaps Frell had gone to the trouble of explaining there
was
a tenth planet in the system, plus a whole lot more information. They just didn’t know how much Scott actually knew about his surroundings and could only comment when asked to. Before an answer left the lips of Belinda or Phyllis, Scott said, “It’s ok, I can see there’s a tenth. It’s all so flaming wonderful, all the technology and the secrets of the universe that I’m learning; almost as if I’m living in a series of
Star Trek
.”
Words or thoughts didn’t pass between the two puzzled ladies, even though they persisted in looking at each other. Neither knew what the
Star Trek
reference was, or how it might affect Scott’s life. He decided not to try and explain the circumstances behind his remark, but would try to emulate
Captain James Tiberius Kirk’s
bravery, as shown in each and every weekly colourful episode.
“The planet called, Pluto, is very small and there are other orbiting bodies that could in effect also be entitled to be called planets
, or at the very least, planetoids. This could mean there would be at least twenty planets, all orbiting your sun.” Belinda smiled, knowing the revealing information would give him something to think about. Both ladies returned their attention to the task in hand, to evade the Greys and gain entry to Martian space. Each knew the immediate plans hadn’t been discussed with Scott and the dangers involved were quite unknown to him. However, orders were orders and it was time to tell him what dangers he might be in for.
The sub’s officers were seated around the narrow table with jugs of water and steaming flasks of tea and coffee being poured into either glasses or mugs. It was the freshly awakened members who were first to pour drinks for themselves, especially black coffee, as noticed by the Captain. Exactly what he would have done if he had just been dragged out of his bunk in the middle of a deep sleep, he knew.
Rising to his feet, indicating his attention to a projected map on a large screen, he said, “Gentlemen, we’ve received official notification of an unidentified flying object, frequently known as a UFO, arriving south of us at 14:24 hours earlier today. Its description is of a black wedge-shaped vehicle, triangular by any other description, a previously reported type of craft. This may, or may not be, a false alarm, but Strategic Command and protocol state we must investigate. You all know the drill, search for anything unusual, monitor our surroundings for anything that might be connected with the sighting, whether it’s sound, light, magnetic-anomaly or physical disturbance. Most of you are aware of the peculiarities we sometimes come across, and I rely upon you all to stem any rumours or concerns that might occur from our activities. And, in this instance, the UFO might now be a USO, which as most of you are aware is an unidentified submerged object to any who are new to this game, and we all know about them, don’t we?” The Skipper’s audience nodded in unison, except the spotty Comm’s officer. He would ask others about the submerged object reference later. Unexplained heaving sensations of passing USO’s were well known within submarine communities, throughout the world’s Navies, though not by the man-in-the-street at large. All eyes were on the captain of this small submersible craft, a ship that was as flimsy as an egg in a pot of boiling water. Too low and deep could mean it cracking open and inevitable destruction. Too high and their obscurity would disappear. There were birds high in the upper stratosphere searching for any sign of a sub, especially one that carried nukes. The Captain was constantly battling to keep the submarine invisible from prying eyes, insisting their fate was in the hands of all who served on-board. He sometimes likened the job of being a submarine’s skipper to that of a circus acrobat juggling glass balls. One wrong move or mistake and the whole lot could come crashing down on their heads.
The planet Mars was indicated in the centre of the middle screen, its position shown as a rapidly flashing circle coloured red. The ship was ready for its insertion into the isolated system, and whatever adventures might lie ahead for it and its unfearing crew.
Belinda looked across to Phyllis, who in turn looked to Scott. He, however, rested his own gaze upon the red flashing indicator, almost mesmerising himself into a train of deep thought as he attempted to work out within his mind what they all might be heading into.
He turned to face his crew of two lovely looking women with a smile, saying, “Let’s go find Frell and Drang!”
Belinda turned from Phyllis and looked towards Scott, releasing a smile at his assuring demur, announcing by telepathy, “Your meeting with Frell is long overdue. It’s time to take her home.”
Phyllis stepped forward and nodded in silent agreement. She too knew the moment had arrived where they would all be involved in an adventure of a lifetime, where success had an even chance of failure. She was ready for whatever came at them, ready to give her best. Scott had awakened something within her, r
aising her feelings to reach a level of excitement and being alive, in an animal sort of way. She had never envisaged the moment they now shared, the feeling of common ancestry and camaraderie, a deep sensation of belonging to a group that knew not of their future but were destined to fight for their beliefs.
Scott was aware this was a rescue mission, plus the addition of perhaps fighting a foe of unknown strength and numbers. His thoughts rested on the possibility of a bloody battle, wondering if the blood might be red, green, brown or grey.
With a determined look, he said to both ladies, “Let’s go get ‘em!”
Grey eyes were looking in the wrong direction, expecting their prey to arrive as if on a dish served to a table of hungry diners from the kitchen door, all waiting to devour the contents with fervour and unrestrained glee. The quadrant they were monitoring for activity was in the opposite direction from where the smaller ship now entered
, a plan that was well thought-out by Scott and his military methodology. His training had prepared him to think like the enemy, which armed him with a preconception of what to be ready for and what to avoid. His distant memory of the Grey Empire recalled they tended to work on logic, a straight-laced mind of expectation that could not conceive an entity who could double-cross at any time. Scott’s mind worked like a machine, biologically determining what might happen and how to go about avoiding whatever ambush or trap might be in place. He released a smile at the thought he was outwitting a civilisation that was so technologically beyond anything he might mentally conceive or dream-up.
Grey eyes scoured the heavens with a concentrated effort, fully expecting a small ship to appear before them at any moment. Their recently received information had indicated a small ship from the human colony would enter Earth’s system close to their own position, appearing in complete innocence and pathetic naivety. The Grey commander almost grinned at the thought of capturing the humans before they even got beyond the system’s outer extremes. His mind was clear, his plan was set, his instructions were memorised
.
He was to catch the humans and deliver them to Mars.
But instead of transporting the captives to their base, as he was ordered to, he had retrospectively decided to send the captured ship and its crew hurtling into the system’s sun. The ship’s total obliteration would destroy any evidence of its capture. His simple plan was assured to work, he surmised, finally causing the commander to release a silly-looking impish grin. He was not prepared to take any chances with a human who was capable of destroying a ship like the one he himself was captaining. He had to be destroyed!
Scott’s little ship swung around the sun that was
ultimately supposed to destroy them, had the Grey plan worked. It’s system intruding path was shrouded by the sun’s emitted clouds of charged particles that would sweep their way across space. Phyllis matched the ship’s velocity to that of the clouds transit across the system, obscuring their journey towards the red planet that was in their sights. The deviation of a few particles would go unnoticed, especially by those of Earth’s astronomical observatories. The change was so small it would have taken a more advanced technology to see the effects of the craft’s clandestine movements. The Greys, however, had that technology and they were much more dangerous than that of any earthling using a telescope.
The little ship swung about as it entered into visual range of Mars, changing its attitude to suit a gentle descent. The deviation might be picked-up by radio-telescopes on Earth, appearing
as a magnetic anomaly, but it didn’t really matter. Scott was unaware of the intricacies of space travel and how their journey might be plotted or discovered by unseen and unwanted eyes. His mind was presently concerned with infra-red or radio transmission signatures, aware of the need for utmost stealth and radio silence. The fact that any alteration in magnetic resonance or fluctuation could also give away a ship’s position was just a little too high-tech for him, including how the sun’s corona could discharge bursts of charged particles across space. Phyllis and Belinda were aware of what might give away their position, taking whatever precautions were necessary to prevent the possibility of detection.
Belinda had already plotted the sites of failed and sometimes missing exploratory craft from Earth, the small and fragile little pieces of scientific instrumentation that were to hopefully inform Earth’s humans about their sun’s fourth planet with a view to eventual colonisation. There was a pattern concerning where most of the little ships had failed, a distinct area that might be regarded as unlucky for any launched piece of human ingenuity that might head that way, to the affect that any space agency who really wanted to avoid failure should steer well clear of it.
Scott was daydreaming about Frell and the memories he had of her. The adventures, he recalled, were far too science fiction related, he thought, and yet, here he was, flying across space in a flying saucer on route to Mars.
How science fiction was that
, he silently asked himself?
The sun’s brightness and thermal energy lit up the small craft as it dropped towards the red surface, not following a straight line but traversing its way across the void of open space between the other planets’ orbits. The internal generators hummed their single note tune with the effort of supplying the power needed for the drive mechanisms. The sound was one of reassurance to Scott, telling him all was well and functioning properly. By using the ship’s own internal power
supplies they would remain in darkness, except for reflected light. As long as they weren’t detected, they could be sure their progress would go unhindered. Their mission was known to only a few and unrecorded, so it had every chance of succeeding. And if the Greys were aware of their mission, then so be it. They would have to deal with anything that happened as a matter of course.