March: A Tale of Salmon and Swedes (The Glothic Tales Book 4) (15 page)

March changed into something more appropriate, while Clikk laser lashed all the packages, after carefully weighing and calculating where each package should be placed to ensure that the weight was evenly distributed across the girth of the shuttle. He didn’t inform March, but one minor miscalculation could have the shuttle missing its navigation coordinates by a few metres, which is not a lot in the vastness of space, but when aiming at a very small hole, within spitting distance of an explosion from an extremely nasty ballistic missile, it would be far enough to meet the missile head on, and easily fulfil March’s dread of being incinerated. Clikk looked up from his work for a moment, to notice March had changed into his jumpsuit and pixie slippers. At least now, if his calculations were a little wrong, March would not die, embarrassed.

Clikk was finally satisfied, and secured the last laser lashing.

‘Ready then?’ he asked March, as he strode, although bent over due the lack of head room the shuttle offered, towards the pilot’s seat.

‘I guess so.’

‘Well, you know what to do. Strap yourself in next to me, and fit your helmet and visor securely. The flash will be a little bit brighter than on entry, so maybe get ready to close your eyes much tighter as well.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not really, except it will be quite loud for a few seconds when we cross paths with the missile, as it detonates to open our exit route.’

‘Right,’ March said calmly, but inside he was screaming, ‘Ohhhhh noooooo! I’m going to die! I’m going to die!’

Clikk made a few adjustments to his instrument panel, and checked his joystick. He looked across at March and gave him a reassuring Lacertilian smile, complete with a few licks of his lips with his red tongue. ‘Hold on, only four minutes to exit.’

March could only manage a pathetically pessimistic nod, as he did at Clikk’s three minute, two minute and one minute warnings.

‘All right, hold on as tight as you can. Thirty seconds to exit.’

March dug his fingernails into the armrests of his seat.

‘Fifteen…..ten…….five….’

The explosion ripped through March’s protective helmet, crashing violently into his eardrums as a blinding flash of hot light, burnt through his visor, and eyelids. At the very same time a horrendous crunching, crashing type of hitting a brick wall at the speed of sound kind of feeling ripped and reverberated through his body.

As suddenly as it had happened, everything turned dark and silent.

‘Are we dead?’ he asked.

‘No. We just missed the exit hole, and bounced off the force field, that’s all. We’ll try again in five minutes’ Clikk said, rather too calmly for March’s terror ridden, whole of body shaking violently, state.

‘Oh, and if we miss again?’ March said, in the most nonchalant voice he could manage, which more closely resembled screaming in panic, rather than anything remotely close to sounding nonchalant.

‘I usually manage it in less than four tries,’ Clikk said, without any sense of the out of the ordinary in his voice. ‘I’ll just make a few minor adjustments for the next attempt.’

March didn’t at all like the two syllables in the word, attempt. He liked the whole word even less. Clikk started a new countdown at three minutes, and March readied his already broken fingernails for another panic filled grasping of his armrests. At Clikk’s thirty-second warning, March pushed his shiny golden pixie slippers as hard as he could against his footrests.

Once again an explosion ripped through March’s protective helmet, thudding murderously into his eardrums, accompanied by a blaze of searing light that again penetrated his visor, and eyelids. The only difference this time was that there was a noticeable lack of crunching, crashing and seemingly hitting large immovable objects. The other subtle difference was that he believed he hadn’t broken any more fingernails, and that there was a massive and extremely ugly Hoog, looming large in front of the shuttle’s forward viewing ports.

When it comes to brute ugliness, on a scale of one to ten, a Hoog destroyer ranks at around a factor of seventeen. Although massively, hugely big, and equipped with enough firepower to obliterate asteroids, moons and blast large chunks out of planets, its designers clearly had one other criteria in mind, which was to scare the living daylights out of anyone who happened to be unlucky enough to see one.

With hundreds of nasty pointy bits protruding at grotesque angles from its superstructure, it is not easy to recognise that a Hoog is actually shaped somewhat like an egg, but with the sharp end lopped off to make room for its four enormous light thrusters. While Noorlac interceptors are very attractive and stylish in their blue and gold livery, and Glothic Cosmic Cruisers shimmer in luxurious silver, the Hoog is sort of blackish, brownish, darkish and altogether disagreeably gruesome.

‘We’re through?’

‘I told you I usually managed to exit in less than four tries. But two is my record … so far,’ Clikk said, in a very calm manner, which March noted, and understood that he had yet to learn how to apply to his own voice in the face of extreme danger. ‘Work in progress,’ he thought to himself, albeit with the benefit of being altogether out of danger, safe and very much alive.

‘The bumpy bit is over, so relax and take in the view,’ Clikk said, as he pulled off his helmet and sat back, and then stretched his arms and legs.

‘Don’t you need to land the shuttle?’

‘The controllers on the Hoog will manage our landing. It should be in landing bay five; over there on the very left of the Hoog.’

‘The one with the big number five painted on it?’

‘Yes,’ Clikk said, as he was far too Lacertilian, gentlemanly and polite to have said the obvious, ‘of course it is, you bloody idiot!’

March had already lifted his visor, but was still struggling to get his helmet off, as Clikk checked an instrument or two. With a little
tthhruupplop
sound, March finally succeeded.

‘After we land, we need to wait for the bay to be secured and pressurised, and my orders are to then stay on board until the Gregorian Guards have boarded and taken possession of your cargo,’ Clikk said, and March nodded.

The Gregorian Guard are the most elite military unit in the entire Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth. They are feared, fearless, focussed and faithful to their one and only sworn duty, which is to protect the Supreme Potentate with their lives. They are also unique in that they are the only Glothic fighting force that is not under the authority of Glothic High Command, which is in charge of anything and everything else that explodes, kills, destroys or renders useless, people, populations, planets or even a sun system or two, if they had the need to do so, that is.

The Gregorian Guard answer directly, and only, to the Supreme Potentate, and have done so ever since the beginning of time. Well, as far back as anyone could remember anyway. Even the few rogue Supreme Potentates that dotted Glothic history, though they were rare, could always count on the undying loyalty of the Gregorian Guard. Well, until they were dead that is, and then the Gregorian Guard immediately moved their undying loyalty to the new, living, nicer Supreme Potentate.

March was not keen on the Gregorian Guards, as they weren’t very friendly, never smiled and tended to have a look in their eyes that could be read as being ready to go insane and kill at a moment’s notice. He did quite like their military band though, which played on Royal Procession days, as it was the only military band on Gloth that included saxophones.

March looked up at the big painted number five as it slowly disappeared from view above the shuttle. Unlike many other parts of his two shuttle flights, the landing inside the Hoog was smooth, gentle, soft, explosion free and altogether very reassuring; except for the dim red lighting inside the landing bay, which was not to his liking at all. He looked through the front ports of the shuttle, but could see nothing moving, until after a few minutes, and quite quickly, the dim red light started changing to a bright whitish green light, which was quickly followed by the appearance of twenty or more armed, helmeted and body armoured, Gregorian Guards.

‘You can unstrap yourself now,’ Clikk said.

‘Right.’

From behind, March heard the rear door of the shuttle opening. He turned in his seat to take a look. First one, and then a second Gregorian Guard launched through the door before stooping, and then striding, with guns pointed, down the short aisle of the shuttle.

‘Do not move! Stay seated! Face forward!’ the first Guard bellowed, so loudly that the echo of his voice bounced and reverberated around the inside of the metal walls of the shuttle for a few seconds.

‘A lovely welcome,’ March muttered.

‘Remain quiet, and no one will get hurt!’ echoed again, and again.

Seemingly happy that March and Clikk had finally understood his orders, the Guard lowered his voice, to a mere shout. ‘Once we have cleared the cargo, you will be free to leave. Please stay seated until unloading is complete.’

March didn’t turn, but he could hear more heavy boots entering at the rear of the shuttle.

‘Very carefully! Only one package at a time,’ the number one Guard ordered.

March could hear a few strained
hhmmpps
at the rear, which probably meant that the Guards had finished with the lighter packets and had got down to the heavier bundles of gold. There was a few minutes silence, before the next order, which clearly came from near the rear door.

‘Consignment to bay seven!’

More silence, until the sound of boots, treading heavily down the aisle, approached from behind them. Surprisingly, this sound was followed by an almost reasonable and polite voice.

‘Thank you for your cooperation gentlemen. You are free to disembark now. Please follow me.’

Clikk and March rose from their seats, and followed the Gregorian Guard down the aisle. At the rear door, the Guard stepped aside to allow them both to disembark from the shuttle. It was then that March noticed that something was very, very wrong.

‘You’ve taken my bag!’

*****

It took an hour or more, but March’s bag was finally, and kindly retrieved by the Gregorian Guards, before it was loaded along with the rest of his valuable cargo aboard four Noorlac class Interceptors. Of course March was not to know, but given the almost infinite value of his Abba collection, the packages had been divided up as a safety precaution into four separate consignments, to be flown back to Gloth by the fastest possible means.

Noorlac class Interceptors were the fastest craft every built by Gloth, and could operate over vast distances, due to their incredible speed and limitless energy supply. With only a two man crew, of compact size and designed to intercept things that moved quite quickly, they were of course very agile, and it is often said that they have the ability to turn on a threepence at three times the speed of light. Like all Glothic spacecraft, the Noorlac uses light compression thrusters, which operate on the very simple principle of sucking in huge amounts of light into a compressor, compressing the light, and then releasing the compressed light via thrusters. Simple, but very effective.

In the case of the Glothic Cosmic Cruiser, the compression ratio used by its propulsion systems is one thousand to one. In other words, light is compressed by one thousand times, before being released into its thrusters. For a Hoog Destroyer, the ratio is ten thousand to one. What is uniquely special about the Noorlacs is that they use a twenty thousand to one ratio, which is why they are so very fast. The only minor problem with such high ratios of light compression is that if something goes wrong, which has been rare in the case of Noorlacs, but has occurred on a few occasions it must be said, the resulting explosion of such highly compressed light immediately creates a very nasty, deep and quite wide black hole.

While the two pilots would know nothing of their demise in such a case, black holes are a grave navigational hazard, which can suck up something the size of a Glothic Cosmic Cruiser and reduce it to a mere handful of anti-matter in seconds. Luckily however, there are only a few Noorlac created black holes in the Twelve Sun Systems, but they are very clearly marked on all navigational maps as ‘
Very, Very, Very Dangerous
.’

Perhaps because of the rare, very unlikely, yet not totally impossible failure of a Noorlac, someone made a wise decision to divide up March’s priceless cargo of packages, and to despatch them to Gloth aboard four separate Noorlacs, which were due to depart at one hour intervals.

By the time March sat down for a quick lunch with Clikk, the first Noorlac had left, and was on its way to Gloth. By the time he had dinner alone, all his packages were on their way.

Thank You For The Music

Due to the limited range of the Hoog’s larger and more comfortable regular shuttle, March had to wait for three days until the Hoog had travelled far enough away from Earth to be within range of the nearest spaceport, where he could finally board a Cosmic Cruiser for his trip back home to Gloth. As luck would have it, Lieutenant Slicketty Clikk would be travelling with him, as after his missions to Earth, he was due for rest and recreation leave, and had decided to go back home to spend a few weeks with his family on Lacertilia. Perhaps fortunately for Lieutenant Slicketty Clikk, other than sharing the short shuttle flight with March to the spaceport, he would not have March as a travelling companion after that.

Gloth was much closer to their present location than Lacertilia, but as March would be travelling in Luxury Class aboard the Cosmic Cruiser, and Clikk was booked in Club Class, it didn’t really matter.

‘It’s a pity we won’t be able to share a couple of glasses of Fozzoxly together,’ March said, as the shuttle moved slowly away from the Hoog.

‘Yes, it is a shame.’

*****

Not unsurprisingly, there was no one to greet March when he arrived back home after his shortish, but very eventful and insanely profitable trip to Earth. He slung his bag onto the sofa, and went immediately, directly and did not pass go on his way to fetch a Draft Sunk, which he guzzled down in seconds. The rapid calming effect of it started to reach his brain just a few seconds after a long loud belch. He grabbed another and headed for the sofa; kicking his bag to the floor, and flopping himself down in readiness to enjoy the soothing results of his second Draft Sunk. Half way through it, and much calmer now, he reached down to his bag and grabbed his Q’muniktor. There were two messages.

‘I hope you arrived home safely. Just to let you know that the media (propaganda) campaign has already started. Health researchers link caviar with asthma, brain shrinkage to oysters and the big C (of course!) to salmon. Tryskolia.’

The second message was from the Deputy-Under-Secretary for Earth Containment, retired Major Errst Humff.

‘Hello sir. I have been asked by the office of the Supreme Potentate to arrange a time to meet with you in your offices to discuss your recent voyage and to brief you on recent developments. Please advise your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Errst Humff.’

March tossed his Q’muniktor on the sofa, sat back, and took a long swig of his Draft Sunk, before waving his hand to illuminate his state-of-the-art ultra wide Slampa Rescen, to catch up on the latest Glothic news. Apart from the newsreader sprouting the sickly, yet always expected glories of his father, and expanding into vomitous detail about the Supreme Potentate’s wise, wonderful and remarkable decisions and exploits that he had managed in only one day, there was little actual news, like a planet being destroyed, or a very decent and profitable war breaking out in some remote Sun System. He was about to wave his hand again, to stop the agony, as he watched his father silently, accompanied only by a traditional Glothic glorification hymn; sign something, which was apparently Gloth shattering. Maybe he was signing an order to restrict the use of horrid Glothic hymns during transmissions of Glothic propaganda, March thought, but it hardly mattered. Luckily, it was all over very quickly, as an advertisement popped up in dazzlingly bright colours to replace his father.

He thought he recognised the background music, and suddenly knew he needed another Draft Sunk when he heard the voice over.

‘Tonight only! Abba, live, on stage at August the Third Stadium. Only a few tickets left so don’t miss out!’

March waved his hand, killing the pain that his state-of-the-art ultra wide Slampa Rescen was delivering. He drained his can, and went off to grab his third Draft Sunk, before abject dejection sent him back for a fourth.

*****

Draft Sunk is a remarkably popular drink throughout the Twelve Sun Systems; except Earth, where it is a prohibited import, due to the fact that there is something in Draft Sunk that reacts badly with the Erdean gene, and induces immediate, and very long lasting homicidal tendencies. However, in the rest of the civilised world of Gloth and its Twelve Sun Systems, it is especially favoured by those who are young enough to have disagreeable parents to suffer, which gives Draft Sunk an enormous market. Unlike other brain numbing drinks, it has little after effect, but does successfully induce total unconsciousness within a few drinks. Depending on the age, resistance, body weight or gender of the drinker, this can range from one to six cans that are needed to induce the freedom to ignore one’s parents, totally unconsciously, for at least twenty-four hours, and then wake, as fresh as a daisy, without any side effects at all. The drinking of between eight and ten cans in one sitting is known to induce heart seizure and hence, immediate death, but this fact is not disseminated widely by the manufactures.

March was safe from heart seizure however, as after half of his fourth can, he was soundly peacefully and happily unconscious on his sofa – safe from anything and everything for at least twenty-four hours.

*****

March woke with a start, yet feeling extremely refreshed and ready for the day, whatever day it was. He didn’t worry or fret, but on sensing the less than agreeable aroma emanating from his armpits, he decided that a refreshing and cleansing shower was definitely in order.

As he relished the warm water running down his back, he started singing,

‘Yes a bang, a boom-a-boomerang

Dum-be-dum-dum be-dum-be-dum-dum

Oh bang, a boom-a-boomerang..’

Until the water suddenly ran cold and broke his mood.

Once March was dressed, he decided to attack the new day, by first finding out what day it was exactly. Discovering that it was Thursday, which wasn’t so bad, as he quite disliked Wednesdays, he was very pleased that he had in fact missed one of his least favourite days. He thought this was a very good start to his day. Then, noting that it was well after three in the afternoon was even better, as along with Wednesdays, he was less than fond of mornings as well.

He found something edible, and heatable to eat in his less than well-stocked pantry, and after digesting its contents, was ready for the day ahead. Starting with replying to Tryskolia by saying,
‘yes, arrived safe and sound. No doubt the salmon and sturgeons are quite happy! See you soon, M.’

He then managed a respectably civil reply to Humff.

‘Today at six. March G.’

His thinking in making this arrangement was to get his briefing with Humff over and done with as soon as possible. Once it was over, he could get back to being March, layabout son of the Supreme Potentate, and free to do whatever it was that took his fancy to do.

‘At last, almost back to normal,’ he muttered, as he finished tapping out his message to Humff, but he in fact spoke a little too soon, as his Q’muniktor made a loud clanging-cum-siren-cum-wailing dog sound, which meant it was a message from his father.

‘Meet me in my office at seven tonight.’

Well, at least that would make sure his meeting with Humff didn’t go on for very long.

*****

‘So, what do you have to report?’ March asked Humff, as soon as he had sat down.

‘Well, the meeting of the subcommittee on Earth Containment, which met last week in emergency session; after not having convened for some months due to…..’

‘I’m sorry, but you will have to get to the key points a little faster, as I have a meeting with the Supreme Potentate shortly. You have three minutes.’

‘Oh yes, sir. I will try to be brief,’ Humff replied, but March doubted he could rise to such a demanding challenge.’

‘Carry on then.’

‘Yes, well, after due consideration over the period of four arduous hours; because of a variety of opinions on the committee, and the fact that the issues involved were of the most serious nature, the committee finally voted, after a long and well deserved dinner break, on the motion proposed by the office of the Supreme Potentate, due to the windfall availability of suitable and adequate wealth, to upgrade, or not, the existing force field that is currently installed around the planet, er, just a moment, it’s here in my notes somewhere. Oh yes, the planet Earth.’

‘And?’

‘Um, and what, sir?’

‘The result of the vote. What was it?’ March asked, becoming impatient.

‘After this long deliberation, there were a range of…’

‘The result, Humff! The result! I haven’t got all night.’

‘Oh, yes. Just a moment, it’s here in my notes,’ he said, flipping pages ... slowly. March grunted. ‘Ah, here we are. The vote was unanimously in favour of the motion.’

‘Right. Anything else?’

‘In fact, there was a subsequent motion placed before the subcommittee by the office of the Supreme …’

‘For the installation of entry ports.’

‘Yes, indeed, sir. But how on Gloth did you know about that? Such delicate matters before the subcommittee are of the most secret nature, and apart from the office of the Supreme Potentate, and the subcommittee, no one whatsoever is privy to such top secret information,’ Humff stated, in absolute shock.

‘Did they vote yes, or no?’ March asked, ignoring Humff’s displeasure.

‘I am quite aghast, if I may say so, sir.’

‘No you can’t. Now, yes or no? I have to leave for my meeting with the Supreme Potentate in thirty seconds.’

‘It was a close vote, sir.’

March stood up. ‘Twenty seconds.’

‘The vote was tied.’

‘Ten seconds.’

‘There was a second vote, and one entry port was approved, with the decision on the second entry port adjourned until early next….’

‘Thank you, please close the door on your way out.’

Humff left in a noticeable huff, clearly upset about the fact that March had access to information that Humff considered to be of the most secret nature, on top of him being forced to rush through his briefing. March was unsure which had upset him the most.

In any case, the brief briefing had confirmed what March had already surmised from his message from Tryskolia. That his father and Dum Dum Diddle had already done a deal.

A little later, as March sat patiently in the waiting room of his father’s office, waiting for his now one hour overdue meeting with his father to begin, he pulled his THE from his pocket, and did a search for, latest entries. It was only a whim, but perhaps there may be something interesting. The most recent update listed was about the death of a charming young princess. He rolled up his THE, put it back into his pocket, and decided to bow his head and have a little snooze instead.

‘He’s ready to see you now, Mr. Gregorian,’ a young woman’s voice said, which quite startled March, and jolted him from his little daydream about Agnetha’s blue satin jump suit.

‘Um, yes,’ he managed, as he shook his head and got unsteadily to his feet. He wasn’t sure how long he had been snoozing, but judging by the wobble in his legs, it had been some time.

‘This way please.’

March followed, and once shown into his father’s office, he took a seat in front of the ornate desk. His father was behind it, standing and shouting at someone on his Q’muniktor. He couldn’t make out what it was about other than the fact that his father was extremely displeased.

‘It’s not difficult. Send a few Hoogs and change their minds!’ he bellowed, and then ended his call. He huffed, and then calmly sat down.

‘Sorry it’s taken so long to get to see you March, but we’ve had a little thermo-nuclear war break out between two outer planets in the Eleventh Sun System. Nothing serious, but as one of the planets is our only reliable source of Naepic-Silt, it has meant taking reasonably rapid action, so hence the delay. Anyway, I gather you had a nice time on Earth.’

‘It was…’

‘I’ve met with Mr. Dum Dum Diddle, and we have come to a mutually acceptable perpetual exclusivity arrangement concerning this musical product from Earth.’

‘So I gath….’

‘It was quite a straightforward deal, but I relented a little and allowed him the naming rights to the first new Northern entry port. It will be called the Abba Gate I believe. But with regards to the proposed second Southern installation, I have retained the naming rights, so all in all it was a fair arrangement. The only minor details, were agreeing that Mr. Diddle would attend to a small commission for Mr. Simmer, and the other regarding any possible future lifting of the force field surrounding Earth, and if the agreement covered such an eventuality. We agreed that this was extremely doubtful, but in the end, we agreed to include it in the short annex to the agreement that covered any possible future expansion of the current Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth.’

‘That sounds ….’

‘With the wealth acquired under the agreement, of which Mr. Diddle has already paid thirty percent upfront, and will make four additional annual instalments to clear the balance, I have approved stage one, so the upgrade to the force field will begin in about three months I believe, followed by the entry port about a year later. I have advised Tryskolia Munchk of the details, so she can take the appropriate action with her contacts there.’

‘About salmon I suppo …’

‘I have received the long term economic forecasts from Glothic treasury, and when all of the data is factored together, the current eleven percent, year on year loss, should improve very quickly over the next three to four years and see an annualised Earth profit of nearly twenty percent. This should increase over the following five financial years to close to thirty percent, and at that rate, Gloth will finally achieve a break even on the whole Erdean project in less than one hundred and fifty years. So all said and done, a good deal.’