The Voting Species (8 page)

‘Ask her why she didn’t tell us about the Lab
research.’

Elena responded innocently, ‘How could I? One
woman amongst ten criminals.’

Denton broke free of her spell and
interrupted them by raising his hand. ‘Excuse me ladies, but could
I speak?’ The four of them nodded. His dark blue eyes glared at
Elena who held her innocent look. ‘You were at the lab with ten of
your people. You sent that emergency message, you must have had all
the telecoms you needed, RF and quantum. You’ve had plenty of time
to contact anybody in the Galaxy to report this planned crime!’

Her eyes were
now suggestive and pleading at the same time. ‘What’s your
name?’

‘Alan,’ he snapped.

‘I was watched all the time Alan.’

‘
Your
psychotype readout showed that you’re a double agent, and was
involved in this crime.’

Denton’s
words tipped the balance in favour of the four, Elena’s innocent
look surrendered to one of anguish, now reflected back from all her
people. Silence cooled the hot jungle for a few seconds.

‘How did you know?’ the Captain asked the
four.

‘We could see, hear and scent her guilt,
before Alan spoke.’

The Professor
sidled up to Denton. ‘That was animal cunning Alan!’ he stated.
‘Since when has a psychotype told us all that?’

‘
Since I saw
our four ladies carrying weapons, then the answer in their eyes.
That started me deducing, and then of course creating.’

‘What now?’ The Captain asked, looking at
Boss.’

Boss thought
awhile, his eyes showed confusion for the first time. ‘Perhaps we
could imprison her? We are not used to such genetics. She has
helped save many of us and many Cyanese in the past.’

The four
ladies stepped aside for a few seconds, then rejoined the group.
‘All four of us say she should give up her life for the sake of our
own people, her dangerous genetics are too high a risk for our
people to bear.’

‘
And if she
doesn’t,’ Boss asked as he cast a pleading look at the four, who
remained silent.

The Captain signalled to two of his men.
‘We’ll put her in a cell until you make up your mind what to do
with her.’

Two troopers
walked slowly towards Elena, by the time they’d reached her the
anger in her eyes had dissolved into sorrow, now reflected in the
twelve warriors’ eyes. When they were close she lunged at one of
their side lasers faster than either of them could react; four
arrows became four flashes removing the modern weapon from her
desperate grasp; with a thud it hit the lush green turf.

All humans gasped out their confusion, Denton spoke, ‘I
take it you ladies
have
changed your minds?’

The lady
warriors smiled, relief shone from four pairs of expressive eyes.
Boss spoke, ‘No they didn’t, Elena changed her mind! Her eyes
showed her sorrow, there was now no point in her killing
herself!’

All stood
and shared the relief awhile before Boss continued, ‘Elena is the
Admiral’s problem, it was he who recruited…and trained her,’ he
continued with a faint smile, ‘he has the rank to take on such a
headache!’ He beckoned to the Captain. ‘Take her to the Admiral.’
Boss was now back to his decisive best. ‘Now we can finish our
mission.’

‘
Which is?’ Denton asked
.

The Captain
interrupted, ‘Best you get the whole story from the
Admiral!’

THE ALIENS LAST STAND

The
Prospector sixteen, the media, other prominent citizens and the
mighty Senate assembled at the military training theatre on the
Europa base. It was a large circular, fifty metre diameter,
horizontal screen that was surrounded by comfortable tiered
seats.

The Admiral started from the vantage point of
a side platform. ‘Understandably, there have been questions from
all quarters regarding the way the military have introduced our
friends from Planet AO 2374. I hope the following hologram
recording enlightens you all.’

The theatre
lights lowered, the hologram formed in seconds like a ghostly mist
coming out of the floor but then materialized into a beautiful
jungle scene. The sound with voiceover explained the military
perspective of the visuals.

‘This hologram is about to show you how a
particular battle was won, it is also a model of how battles were
fought up to seven hundred years ago.’

A forest
surrounded a large clearing on three sides. Thousands of bowmen,
wearing patches of leather, strolled out of the trees at the closed
end of the clearing.

‘There are approximately four thousand
bowmen.’

One thousand
went into trees that bordered their left flank, another thousand
into trees that bordered their right flank. The remaining two
thousand broke into two ranks of a thousand each with their backs
to the central trees, bridging the gap between the two flanks; they
now faced a ridge that was within arrow range.

‘
There is an
advantage to be gained in battle by the side that chooses the
terrain on which it is to be fought. The bowmen ensured this by
retreating into the trees; they also calculated that their enemies
would follow because of the false sense of security that their new
weapons gave them.’

The waiting minutes had been cut from the
hologram.

Into the open end of the clearing marched
wave upon wave of laser riflemen, dressed in nature’s wardrobe of
hides and roughly woven cloth.

‘
There are
approximately fifty thousand laser riflemen.’

They formed
into ranks of about a thousand wide, and marched between the tree
lines towards the ridge. Before they reached the top, a sprinkling
of arrows arced over the ridge, whilst intense volleys flashed from
the trees to cut down those on the flanks. There was a rush to and
over the ridge.

‘
The
rapidity with which arrows were fired from the cover of trees
seemed like there were greater numbers of bowmen. This encouraged
the riflemen to run over the ridge.’

Wave upon wave rushed down towards the two
thousand, a wall of arrows sliced into them every second.

‘
Such a
small number of bowmen encouraged the riflemen to charge down the
ridge at them. The riflemen blocked their own forces when they
slowed to fire their rifles, thus making even easier targets. Using
this rapid form of carnage gave the lasers little time to spit
back. Only the occasional rifleman found his mark.’

The bodies
piled up, slowing down later waves even more, giving the bowmen
even more time to cut them down. The riflemen that took aim became
fewer and fewer. The arrows kept coming from the trees, as if they
too disapproved of the trespassers. With such slaughter it was only
minutes before the riflemen panicked and fled from the ridge in the
direction from whence they’d came, followed by an arc of
arrows.

‘The following arc of arrows was used to
encourage those fleeing to keep doing so. The casualties were about
twenty thousand dead for the riflemen and about two hundred dead
for the bowmen.’

The audience
sat in dark silence as the quietening battle scene slowly faded
back into a mist, then evaporated from above the large horizontal
screen, like ghosts moving on.

The lights
brightened to show rows of stunned faces, the Admiral waited
awhile. ‘Ask yourselves if you would have let humans loose on that
planet. The mere whisper of yet another Earth like discovery would
have had millions blocking the heavens on their way to ravaging yet
another world. This time the planet had half a billion defenders
with modern weapons. Another quarter of a billion who want peace,
but not at any price, would have defeated us with their genes.’ The
Admiral waited before releasing his thunderbolt to a now murmuring
audience. ‘Those modern weapons you’ve just seen were supplied by
smugglers to human colonists, in an attempt to wipe out an alien
species, we the military arranged for those smugglers to be
neutralized.’ The whole audience was stunned into silence, three
jaws dropped, Denton, Tubary and the Professor could only gape at
each other. The Admiral continued, ‘This latest event encouraged
peaceful behaviour, I am now ready to answer any
questions.’

The stunned silence switched to a media
frenzy, questions were thrust at the Admiral from all around the
tiered arena:

‘Where did the colonists come from?’

‘
DNA scans
showed they were descendants of escapees from the Penal Colony,
over a period of two hundred years.’

‘What were they fighting about?’

‘The usual, land.’

‘Who supplied the rifles?’

‘The serial numbers showed they were stolen
from the Cyan Government by their own security leaders, who were
renegade aliens from AO2374, and shipped by smugglers.’

‘
How did the
colonists pay for them.’

‘
Platinum,
our assays told us it was mined on their adopted planet, then
shipped back by the smugglers.’

‘Did you find a hoard of platinum?’

‘Yes, the smugglers left the renegades share
in a cave on AO2374. As the cave was in alien territory it now
belongs to them.’

‘How did you find this hoard?’

‘From agents we sent there.’

‘What happened to the smugglers share?’

‘It evaporated in space along with the
smugglers, I am not obliged to elaborate.’

‘
How did you
know the renegade aliens were involved?’

‘From human and alien agents we sent to
Cyan.’

Hit hard by
the Admiral’s fact firing rapidity, the media frenzy
faltered.

‘
Surely this
wasn’t just about land and platinum?’

‘
True, the
renegades wanted to control their own people on their home planet,
not by land grabbing like the colonists, but by politics; they got
platinum as a bonus.’

‘
There are
rumours from Cyan that the renegades were going to unleash the hell
of epigenetic control over their own people, what you could call
gene grabbing?’

Now the
media perked up again, they all saw the horror that could garnish
their already excited headlines.

The Admiral
looked at the Prospector sixteen, then gave a wry grin back at the
media. ‘All sorts of cures were experimented with at the Cyan
Government’s Lab, imaginations are bound to run riot. We’ll keep
you informed.’

The media was lusting for more, the Admiral
was ambushed by another question that would add scandal to
excitement.

‘There’s been a lot of dirt thrown at the
Military regarding its legal obligations, what have you got to say
about that?’

‘
Planet
AO2374 was not in the Federation, we had no obligation to that
planet or anybody on it. However, we do have an obligation to
protect it now it’s negotiating Federation Membership.

‘What was the Cyan Government’s part in all
this?’

‘
Nothing by
intent, they are guilty only of incompetence. We will however be
arresting five Senators on suspicion of periphery crimes, too
numerous to mention.’ The Admiral paused and looked around, the
silence told him that their lust for detail had been more than
sated. ‘That is the end of our conference.’

The media
cheered, they had been handed enough sensation to gorge on for
months. They also had the positivity of heroes that would be given
publicity that Senators could only dream of. Five politicians had
just had their dreams shattered into nightmares of the Penal
Colony.

‘
Is that
finally it?’ asked Denton of his now contented team, lounging in
their comfortable seats.

Tubary
volunteered his usual quip, ‘Only if you don’t go off without me
Dents.

‘So, who won this greatest of Galactic
gambles Prof?’

‘I’m surprised you ask Alan, evolution of
course.’

‘What if evolution strangles its own
planets?’

‘
That’s its
smartest trick, the one that concocts mutations that fly its genes
all over the Galaxy.’

‘
Thanks
Prof.’