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Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: Sortmind Press
ISBN-10: 1771154640
Type: Fiction
Pages: 204
Copyright: 2020
ISBN-13: 9781771154642
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
As former Typhoon II ship’s engineer Phil Sperry struggles with his decades-long treason to the human race, Supreme Commander Jack Commer and his wife Amav journey to the paradise planet Andertwin for a painful visit with their reclusive son Jonathan James, survivor of an abduction by Alpha Centaurian security forces and now the author of a bestselling novel about the collapse of the Centaurian empire.
Kidnapped by Alpha Centaurians to 2049 along with Jack Commer’s infant son Jonathan James, former Typhoon II ship’s engineer Phil Sperry struggles with his reversion to Centaurian brainwashing and his treason to the human race. His lover Hedrona Bhlon, who resists Conversion to the Centaurian Grid, is considered an Animal and must fight as a Gladiator of the Sled for four years. In May 2053, when the Emperor dies and the Grid collapses, the two rescue Jonathan James and his robot attendant, John Root, an irritating recreation of the youngest Commer brother John, who died ramming the Typhoon I onto Mercury. In June 2075, after twenty-two years of Gridless Alpha Centaurian misery amid futile Martian counseling efforts, Phil must challenge his mentor, the non-telepathic Martian G’rea’nyaigu’nye, onetime terrorist, Mayor of Marsport, and Martian Star General, who has inexplicably declared himself Emperor of Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile the robot John Root gloats that he inserted malware into Jonathan James’ bestselling, libelous, father-bashing autobiographical novel in order to spread a new Grid throughout Alpha Centauri.
Excerpt
“Oh my God,” Phil said. “That Who is Lee Borman crap is probably some pre-election propaganda. Damn, why didn’t I see that?”
“Wow, did Borman turn into a bigot too while I was gone?” Joe said.
“Well, there has been a lot of idiot talk about ‘Mars for humans’ recently. I had no idea Borman was into it, though. And these other jerks here.” Phil yanked out his comm and whispered: “Public Records. Election Filing. Marsport Mayoralty. March 2039.”
Hedrona blinked at how quickly Mr. Teenage Boy Peeper had sobered. She didn’t want to think why she now glued her right breast to Phil’s forearm and read the results coming up on his screen: BORMAN, L. RANSOM, R. PETERSDORFF, W. THOMP--
The feed cut off. The screen froze, then went white.
“Cripes, what a thing to happen,” Phil said in disgust, but he kept his left arm exactly where it was. Hedrona pressed in another eighth of an inch.
“Wow, I can’t remember the last time I had a comm freeze,” she said.
“Damn, I need some background. I haven’t even filed Greeney yet.”
“Hah!” Borman said, picking Phil’s voice out of the uproar. “Greeney boy should stick ta bein’ damn Marshun genral! Leave our damn siddee alone! We built it, afta all! It’s ours!”
Fresh clapping erupted around Borman. The murmuring from the rest of the crowd turned decidedly dark.
“You can’t run for mayor!” Jack cried. “USSF personnel can’t hold political office!”
“If Greeney kin do it, and he’s in da USSF, ah kin do it!”
“Dammit, you know there’s a difference! We have Martian customs to take into consideration!”
This was a surprise to Hedrona. The story had been that Jack was trying to end the loophole that allowed a Martian Star General, nominally under USSF command, to run for office. Still pressed against Phil, looking over his frozen screen, she could hear the political gears meshing in his head as he factored Jack’s statement into his coming campaign strategy. Maybe there was more to this man than she’d given him credit for. Maybe he’d talk politics, maybe that was the way to get to know him.
“Aw, crap on Marshun custums! Crap on ’em! Thass whah ah say! An when ah’m ’lected--”
Jack motioned his squad of four big USSF guards forward. “Okay, Mr. Borman, you can go ahead and run for President of the United System Council if you want, but I’m sick of all this politicking and you’re out of the III project as of now!”
“Naw, ah’m gonna command ’er!” Borman bawled. “Da tree’s mah baby, man!”
“You can’t command her! You don’t even hold a pilot’s license, you fool!”
“Joe kin pilot my ship if he wants ta! Ah’ll command da whole BS from mah goddamn turret! Blast ’em outa da sky! Whaddya dinka dat?”
The gray-clad USSF guards rushed to the tables and grappled with Borman, sending more silver dishes clanging to the tile, cheese and meats and lettuce and cucumbers whirling in the air. Borman let out of a stream of truly foul curses.
Jack turned to Dar. “Dammit, Dar, is this your idea of a great significant event for today?”
Dar shrugged as the banging, clattering, and grunting went on from atop the buffet table. Borman slipped from his guards and ran straight down the tables, but abruptly the entire row overturned down its eighty-foot length, dumping Borman in a deafening roar of metal bowls, flower vases, china plates, and champagne bottles. Borman stood and was tackled, swinging a punch at a guard who took it personally and decked him in return, knocking him cold.
Jack turned to Phil. “Dammit, Phil, my comm froze. Can you get some help for Borman here? Anyone else hurt? You guys okay?”
“Wow, my comm froze too,” Phil said.
Hedrona pressed in further.
Every light in the place went out, replaced by a bright blue flash and acrid ozone.
“Get your hands off me!” came the female cry from the other end of the hall.
“Not again,” Hedrona muttered.
A heart-freezing screech tore through the hall.
She couldn’t register what she was seeing. Tall bright blue forms, undulating. Bathed in blinding blue light. Waving arms? Tentacles?
Those tentacles brandished sticks of some sort?
“God, those are pulsar tubes!” Phil cried, pointing to the apparitions gathering around Jonathan James’ crib.
“What?” Hedrona said.
“Alpha Centaurian pulsar tubes!”
“No! They can’t be!”
“They are! Those are Zarj from Alpha Centauri!”
Zarj. Four-armed monsters with their nasty purple whirlpool eyes and all their tentacles. The most merciless killers of Alpha Centauri.
Why was she running right at them? Punching wildly, she tried to block the creatures from the crib. Amav lay beneath it writhing. Hedrona looked back for help, but the four oblivious USSF guards were still handcuffing Borman.
“You damned sons of bitches!” yelled General Scott, rushing up with a heat blaster and firing. Two Zarj fell flailing against the white wall, spewing blue-purple blood, arms blasted off, heads and torsos fried. Scott ducked a pulsar tube blast that took a twenty-foot-long chunk out of the ceiling.
Hedrona beat against the aliens in slow motion. The air was thick with electromagnetic sludge, but the crib was bathed in its own white light, and Greeney Gooney was atop it, drawing his Martian shattergun.
A Zarj crushed the gun and Greeney’s hand into one bloody mush. Then two Zarj had him on the floor.
A Zarj trooper, seven feet tall, lifted a screaming Jonathan James Commer out of the crib as Hedrona flung herself on both of them.
The shrieking intensified. The Zarj language? But all comms were frozen and there was nothing that could be translated.
Phil wrestled a pulsar tube from a Zarj and struck the monster again and again.
The tube banged to the floor. Phil was gone.
The Zarj holding Jonathan James vanished. Greeney Gooney vaporized.
And Hedrona was flying out of herself. Amav’s despairing screams faded as Hedrona felt herself being sucked--elsewhere.
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