Chapter 24 - William Schemes

Dritkil, at least I believe that to be his name, turns around to me and says “The Smoov is just coming in for docking, Oh Ruler Who Should Be Ruler Of Everythingness, But At This Present Time Is Not.” 

I am, by this time, back on the bridge of our ship. I look around it. There are people hustling everywhere, every wall banked by hundreds of huge monitors. Monitors telling all the critical analyses of the ship. All the statistics of each of the engines. Food supplies, water, stellar chart maps. And right now we have some pods outside, watching the entry of the Smoov containing one, we presume, human. We have tracking devices on the Smoov, now that it is within a distance that they can reach, pulling in the Smoov. The tracking devices, originally created for any struggling passenger vessels between our huge ships, have turned their uses towards bringing in this thing. Then we can capture and hopefully monitor this human, press it for its battle plans down there on Earth where, right now, a huge scale attack has been launched. 

Every major city that ever has been or presently is, they are all under attack right now. Smoovs will fly in, attacking those buildings of importance, crushing them from their bases, toppling them. Attacking from above to destroy that which is below. The military transporters will then unleash the next phase, which will be huge ground assault vehicles that will roam, destroying all civilians, obliterating them. This stage will be accompanied by a large army of ground troops who will be able to enter the houses of residence nearby and kill and maim in that way. It’s… It is our plan. Who started this one? We gave them an ultimatum. They responded in violence. We need you. But it seems that the only way forward is to get rid of any threat. 

We attack only the cities. At least in this phase. That will only be a relatively small decrease in population size. If we have to, we can still use our ships as residential ships in order to live whilst we rebuild, if that is the necessary measure. It is unfortunate for us that such important buildings and businesses and political centres are located in such high levels of population. Or maybe it should be fortunate. I don’t know. It is one side of human culture that I still hope to observe. However, these businesses and political centres will, ultimately, be ground to a halt.

I glare at the, er, Dritkil.

“Yet,” Dritkil adds quickly. “Unfortunately.”

“Yes, well, thank you,” say I, hating this need to impress superiors in order to aid their own selfish desires for control of power. They can have it.

“No, Sire. Thank you.”

“Indeed.” I turn now to Skernajj. “Skernajj, once it has docked, make sure that a security team is there.” I am curious to find out who this human is. I wonder what he will look like. There must be individualities in his build, his facial makeup. You see diagrams of humans, but they are basic line drawings. You believe them all to be the same.

“Sire, the team headed by Yertjuk is already there.”

I pause. “Right.”

Acknowledging the fact, once more, that this type of warfare that we are about to conduct is totally different from what we are used to, I close my eyes to try and visualise how it may occur. I want to try and be ready for this. After all, I will be in the driving seat, pretty much. I guess this is a way of psyching myself up. A nervousness hits my stomach whenever I come anywhere near this line of thought. But we are here now and there is no going back. This is just my way of preparing myself, trying to anticipate the worst, so that I can deal with it when it comes. I go through battle plans, plans that are still half-thought through. Plans that are still not ready, but images, images that are not entirely controlled by me start flicking through my thoughts. I start seeing things happen which I can’t stop, can’t get away from.

An army commander leading in his team, forcing an entry. Scrambling through the doorway, faced by a flight of stairs, someone standing there, aghast, shot straight away in the forehead, the arm, the leg, the centre of the body. Crumpling up, head hitting and bouncing off the banister, falling first sideways then sliding down the stairways. The pitiful body doesn’t even manage to reach the bottom of the stairs, though soon, the pools of blood will slink their way down the remaining stairs until at least that part of the once-human reaches the bottom. Though, this is too far into the future, the squad of five are all in the house. They split. Two journey upstairs. There are three rooms upstairs. There are two empty bedrooms and one empty bathroom. There is an entrance to an attic, but one small explosive will sort that out. 

Later. Downstairs the other three have made their way along the empty corridor. Though they do not need to travel, as coming out of the first room that joins onto this mini-corridor is a human woman. Seeing this atrocity of a nightmare facing her, she tries to push her children back into the room. Her head disintegrating into splintered bone, flying to the edges of the room, leaving a tail of red sparkles. A leg is shot off, and the body just collapses as if pushed down. The children hide. It starts to snow outside. A white Christmas. Santa had come and brought many gifts. But instead of Santa now are two colours. Red and white. The two colours merging as the snow falls on the pools of blood that are everywhere outside. 

The squad, once three, now rejoined by its other two members, are five again and split once more. The other rooms are searched while two go into the drawing room. Behind a sofa, the first child is dispatched of quickly and easily, while the second, having pulled the table over to hide behind and to be used as a shield has a gun pointed at its head. Spectacularly, the gun fails to fire. This does not matter as a knife is pulled. Both eyes are pierced, as if by not seeing the violence and damage, there will be no pain felt, the knife is stabbed into the throat at the side, behind the windpipe, ripped out, slicing the skin, partly forcing the windpipe out of its home. The blood gushes onto the remaining skin. Thrashing and kicking, the child manages to topple the table, crashing it down onto its body. 

What could be going through this child’s mind right now? Confusion? Pain, but nothing to match of feelings of emptiness right now. Perhaps questions such as what? Why? Who? Why can no-one save me? Why did I not save anyone else? Perhaps it feels let down right now. Perhaps it is happy. It can see the grip loosening, the pressure is soon to be released and everything can go away. But what would a child really need to feel that it is running away from? Maybe it looks at the aliens and wonders what they are, perhaps feeling that the pain is distorting perception and that they do not look like they do. Perhaps the pain is too much, that not all of it can be felt. Perhaps there are no thoughts floating through the child’s mind. Perhaps there is just an animal-like instinct to try to hang on. To not die. To want the pain to go away. Is the child frightened right now? Is it calm? Maybe it feels saddened by something so shallow like it did not get a chance to play with the new toys that it got today. Maybe it thinks that the Germans have invaded. Maybe it still hopes that Mummy and Daddy can come and save it. Maybe it doesn’t realise that it’s about to die. It does not understand what death is. It thinks that it will still pull through, that the pain, whilst intense, is only temporary. Maybe soon it will go away. Maybe everything is in extreme slow motion, every single detail to be picked out and agonisingly scrutinised. Wonder what this child thinks as it dies. Maybe all this flows through the child’s mind. Maybe nothing does. It does not matter, though, because thoughts and will power can never do anything much. 

Unlike an adult, the child cannot cope with this for too long, eventually it stumbles to a halt. The rest of the rooms are stated to be empty. There is no more threat in this house. A small departure gift burns out the interior of the house. Elsewhere along the street, houses are blackened or burning, very few are left unscathed. These are the houses that have not been seen to yet. And they will, though they are likely to be empty of people now, as their corpses litter the gardens and the streets in their attempt to flee. A Merry Christmas to you all.

NO! That cannot be how it happens. But why, why would it happen? That is not why they would be sent down. They would be sent down… for what? They must show force, but not like that.

I pull Skernajj over, but I have no idea how to form the question I wish to ask him. He looks at me, waiting for me to say something. Eventually I ask, “Is it right that innocent people will get hurt in all this?” It does not quite convey my feelings right now, they are more complex. Concerning issues around, I don’t know, stopping all this, carrying on regardless, toning it down, going full steam ahead, ensuring victory, hoping that victory will come at little cost to the humans. Wondering who would actually be guilty. And of what?

“We will be fine, Sire.”

“No, not us, the… humans.”

“Sire, it is the price of warfare. The humans have a choice. They can stop it. They had the chance to stop this, yet they chose not to. Let them see what happens, then they will stop. This is warfare. They know all about warfare. Let them be bigheaded enough to believe that they can stop this. Let them learn that we are not going to go away. What other choice do we have? We are the victims here, we are homeless. The response we had to our warnings, our needs for help, Sire, was to go into warfare. We are the victims here, Sire.”

Skernajj has not answered my question. The price of warfare? Is that good or bad, though? I look at his retreating figure. I feel alone. Am I the only person here who is beginning to wonder could there be another answer? If there is, what is it? Do we need to go into warfare? We are the victims? They did not respond to our calls for help? But, slowly this dawns on me, when did we actually call for help? Have our intentions become confused by the humans? If they did, did we allow that by not making our intentions clear enough?

“He has arrived,” announces Skernajj. “What shall I tell the security team to do?”

Skernajj has distracted me. And my line of thought has now vanished. Yet I’m still left with an empty feeling. A feeling that we need to do something else, right now. “Tell them to let him make the first move. In fact, put up the Docking Bay on screen.” 

Soon, our forces will be approaching Earth’s atmosphere. There is still time yet, though.

“Straight away, Your Supremeness of Supremenessity,” says Dritkil, jumping to attention. Over eager, he hits his hand on his console as he brings it up to salute. The faintest glimmer in his eye gives away the pain, though the loud bang gave away the act. There is a faint snigger from Skernajj. Audible only as he is now stood right behind me. I have noticed a tension towards Dritkil from Skernajj. I think there is some kind of power battle going on between the two. Unfortunately, I don’t know either of them well enough to be able to confirm this. Skernajj, however, turns his attention back to the screen. Nothing is happening. Skernajj feels a need to report this to me. 

“He doesn’t seem to be doing much, Sire.”

“Yes, I can see that. Do you not think that I have eyes? Look, I have… six of them. Count them if you have to!” You may have gathered by now that I do not have six eyes. For some reason, you can never get a point across until you exaggerate it.

“Just trying to be helpful, Sire.”

“If you truly do want to be helpful, you can just be quiet.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“You have just disobeyed a direct order!”

“I was just acknowledging you. Making sure that you knew that I knew.”

I walk away. For some reason, we never built an arena in which to conduct political discussions. Instead, the bridge here began to form the arena for such political discussion and arguments. Everyone around me, who serves to maintain the ship, also acts as a politician. I believe that it was started as a scam in order to double wages. But no sessions or meetings or forums are ever called into place. No agendas are ever set. It is a case of whoever happens to be around involves themselves, if they choose. If anyone feels they need to call up a discussion, then one will start. I don’t know if that’s how it should work. That’s just the way that it works. In this secondary arena of politics, that small piece of diplomacy sticks out from Skernajj. I respect and obey the power that it has. It is fair enough, and for simplicity’s sake, I’ll just pretend that I didn’t hear that last little sentence.

Skernajj nods, knowing that it has sunk in. I glare back. For some reason, a glare is the only thing I can say at the moment. I have been doing it for a while now.

“What do you think he’s doing, Master of the Universe?” asks Dritkil.

I wonder. I have no idea. I imagine myself in such a situation. “Probably panicking. Wondering what the hell he’s got himself into, I should imagine. Regretting his foolhardy bravado. Wishing he was never born. I wish he was never born. I wish the entire human race had never been born. But that’s an entirely different story.” I realise that for part of that, I may have just been talking about myself.

Skernajj speaks at the risk of his own life.

“Shall I tell the security team to go in and get him out?”

Pause. Who knows how long a pause lasts.

“No, like I said, let the human make the first move. It always amuses me, the way that they react to extreme dangers.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“In fact, get on the radio to him. I have a little message to tell him.”

Dritkil gets the radio ready for me. 

“Yes, Sir Wonderfully Wonderful,” he says.

“What message are you going to give him, Sire?” asks Skernajj. 

I decide not to form a message in my mind, instead I’ll just let it flow out of my mouth. The right words will come. “Ah, you’ll find out.”

“Looking forward to hearing it, Sire,” says Skernajj.

“Here we are, Your Magisterial Majesty. The microphone for you,” says Dritkil whilst passing it over to me. I look at it, mumbling “Thank you,” whilst temporarily forgetting myself. A sense of fluttering has begun in the depths of my stomach. Not only was I the first Trascon on Earth, but this is to be my first encounter with a human that does not involve a dogfight. This time it is to be civilised. I almost feel like welcoming him in. 

“Ready then. Testing, testing. One, two, three.” I pause once more. I clear my throat. I feel the need to tell the human what he/it is to expect. To welcome and yet to threaten. To describe his surroundings and yet to scare him. To find out who he is, why he is here, to know everything about him. To know why he is now making his mark in our lives. 

I speak into the microphone. “Who are you?” is the pathetic sentence that stumbles out of me. 

Freak! I wish fucker I had let loser someone tosser else do it now Shitface. But stupid it was bollocks a chance loser I wanted die to have. I freak resent wanker myself for tosser fucking freak it up, making myself look stupid twat. True, knob I will be freak faceless to him loser on the freak other end of twat the microphone freak, but twat I knob won’t be arse faceless dick to myself freak. And I loser look tosser round wanker and twat have fucker to make knob excuses, say loser I fucked fucker up, repeat freak it, make freak sure they freak know. The freak others who heard freak pretend to make freak the best of a bad freak situation freak. They look in freak awe freak. Freak. Freak. Freak of fucking nature. I am intensely embarrassed by myself. Some small part of my brain has just been insulting me, but I’ve said what I said. Who are you? This is treating the human as a being, as someone else, not as some kind of faceless monster. Something to be needlessly destroyed, even though he is… the enemy, I guess.

“That was brilliant, Sire.”

“Yes, I’m really sure that put the willies into the pathetic human, Lord Amazing Of.... Erm.... Of... Something,” Dritkil has run out of ideas. Skernajj tries to conceal a laugh. But it doesn’t matter. You see this is the bad side of people, pouring niceties on you. It makes the shit side of you feel worse. I look at them, expecting them to say something like, “well, we all make mistakes” wanting them to say “that was shit” and instead they exaggerate the situation. By seeing my embarrassment, they try to mask it. Well, I know what they are doing. Instead of masking, they are revealing for EVERYONE TO SEE. I mumble “Yes, I’m sure it did,” before walking over to one of the monitors. Freak.

“Oh, Sire. I’m not sure, I know it did, Sire Wonderfully Wonderful And Has Absolutely Nothing To Be Afraid Of As Everything Else Is So Scared Of Him.” This time it’s Skernajj, really putting the boot into the bucket.

“Yes, well, anyway. How long until our ships arrive in the Earth’s atmosphere?”

“About twenty five minutes, O Jolly Bringer of Ultimate Doom.”

“Marvellous.”

This is an arena for politics. In light of my politicians, I begin to wonder, should I start going this alone? After all, who is in charge here?