Main Page: The War
Prologue
In the beginning…
The Universe, as we know it, was a happy place.
That isn’t to say that there weren’t a lot of downright heartbreaking miserable things going on in it. But the percentage of them, when compared to the Universe as a whole, was small enough that most of the happy majority chose to ignore them completely, and if an interstellar war broke out once in a while too close for comfort, well, c’est la vie. The point is that to look at the Universe from some high vantage point; which is, obviously, impossible except in convenient hypothetical situations like this one unless you happen to be God (which is unlikely for any of several obvious reasons), you would not feel depressed and need a hug.
The situation changed, of course, as good situations are wont to do. Perhaps the happy majority grew a bit too vocal about their contentment and drew unwanted attention from the cruel goddess of irony, who could not stand for this sort of thing to continue unabated, and nearly died of excitement from the prospect of the challenge before her. That would have been a lucky break for those who were sick of life’s ups and downs and wished wholeheartedly that they could work out all their problems early on and then settle down to a happily ever after. The point is that to look at it now from the same hypothetical vantage point, you would probably need quite a few hugs for the strength to face another day. But that is getting ahead of things.
On a related note, the relation of which will be related to you in a moment, it is often said that you should assume the best of people until you are forced to confront the fact that they are complete scumbags. The happy majority, and even the majority of the unhappy minority, which still numbered googolplexes in and of itself, eventually learned to do so after eons of blasting the snot and other more vital body fluids out of each other, which was a relief because at least half the time they had missed the scumbags and blasted the wrong people.
And so, aside from occasional troubles with pirates, asteroids, and homicidal robots from previous wars that refused to be reprogrammed, the Universe for quite a while was not only vast and exciting, but also safe. It stretched before eager young explorers, who rushed to create futures of wonder and discovery. Some of them got what they wanted, but some ended up finding the Universe a bit too vast and safe, and not nearly as exciting.
***
The inky black void was shattered in this particular spot by a chunk of rock and ice nearly three hundred kilometers in diameter. It floated alone, day in and day out, rotating with what one could almost swear was lugubrious slowness and making a revolution around its sun (which at this point was indistinguishable to the naked eye from all the other stars) every three hundred two thousand sixty four of them (days, that is). If it could have felt lonely, it most certainly would have been justified in going ahead and feeling it.
It could not, however, which was just as well because, against all odds, it was not entirely alone at the moment. For probably only the third time in the Universe’s history, a starship was passing by.
It was a small, dilapidated machine that had clearly seen better days, but not much better. A small legend on its side read “X3-85B”, dwarfed by much larger and more colorful, though by now extremely faded, letters reading “Crispco – the cookies that bite back!”
The occupant of the ship was not a native of the planet below. This went without saying because nobody was. Certainly a species could, as many had, evolve to survive the lack of atmosphere (as in no air), but would most certainly die out from the lack of atmosphere (as in sheer boredom). The fact that nothing interesting could be there until something evolved and that nothing would evolve until something interesting was there was a paradox that many other planets had managed to cope with just fine somehow; but not all of them, and not this one. It was destined to always remain lonely, although if it actually could feel loneliness, its would be rivaled by that of the man floating above it.
In fact the two were connected, in a way that neither of them bothered to care about, the one because it wasn’t alive and the other because he simply didn’t bother to care about it. But it is worth noting for our purposes that the man’s species, and he himself, had years ago been involved in the effort that claimed this planet for their own. It was worth nothing to them or anyone else for that matter, hence the absence of a war over its possession, but it was another world added to their repertoire and anyone who didn’t recognize the name, i.e. all but three of the Universe’s inhabitants who did not include the man floating above it now, would be impressed.
The planet’s name was Juk, but that isn’t important. The man’s species was human and they hailed from a far distant and decidedly more interesting planet called Earth, and the importance of that will be revealed in due time.
Earthling humans had even more of a possessive tendency than the many other varieties found loitering on worlds without number, and for centuries now they had spread like a disease, first to the planets of their own solar system, then beyond to even these outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy, funded by competing cookie companies who wanted the free publicity. Crispco had gone out of business when it turned out that many alien races didn’t like their cookies to bite them back, though many others had become obscenely wealthy and were still kicking.
But the ship was still there, and still running after heaven knows how many decades, though it ought to have been capped and given a decent burial. It was a scout ship, used now only for scouting very out-of-the-ordinary things. These are not hard to come by in such a large and varied Universe as our own, but still Theodore Hays, as the man’s name was, found himself quite frequently very bored.
He was bored right now, certainly. As the planet passed beneath him, he gave it barely a glance. It held no interest for him. It was not what he had come to look for, and if it had been he would have handed in his papers right then and there.
“Planet Juk,” remarked the robot next to him, raising the number of people who knew its name to four. “Nothing to see there.”
Teddy grunted noncommittally. I’m glad I have a robot to tell me these things, he thought. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to see anywhere. To blazes with the stars.
As they grazed the planet’s magnetic field, a brief bit of mild static interrupted the radio. It was softly playing The Commyboppers’ latest hit, “Gone like a Rolla”, for what seemed to be the eight hundred seventeenth time but was in fact only the eight hundred thirteenth. Not only was it getting tedious but he had no idea what the heck a “rolla” was supposed to be or where it had gone. He wanted dearly to change the station but it was the only one that reached this area.
He had tried, additionally, to play chess, poker and Scrabble, but the robot beat him at everything every time despite his repeated threats to blow it out the airlock. Eventually he had tired of this and resigned himself to listening to the radio for another five hours.
The reason they weren’t going through hyperspace was that it was absolutely vital they not miss whatever it was they were looking for. They didn’t know what it was, and the chances of it not being there increased with the longer they took, but he was following orders. If there was a better way to do this, he didn’t care to think of it.
He glanced at his robot companion, letting its words sink in. Designated X4-29A, it was nearly as old as the ship. It still served him well, which was lucky because no one was willing to vouch for a newer model. No one cared about his job, not really. He was told the newer models had a capacity for making conversation, which would have been much appreciated at the moment, and wondered about getting an upgrade but thought No, I don’t have money to burn.
“If calculations are correct,” it said, “the signals originated just two million kilometers away from here.”
“Right,” said Teddy. This was the one part of his job he enjoyed, somewhat; finding what they were after so he could go home. They lapsed back into silence, but the mood had lifted somewhat. He kept his eye on the sensors.
It was a good five minutes before the robot spoke again. “Sir, look,” it said.
He looked out the cockpit as it was directing but saw nothing. “What, Ecksfour?” he demanded. “I don’t see any –”
And then he saw it.
It was barely distinguishable from this distance, but growing rapidly. He squinted and picked up his binoculars. Unfortunately they were electronically augmented binoculars and as such very nerve-wracking to get to work properly. Teddy managed to get them adjusted properly with a minimum of swearing that only accompanied years of practice, when the batteries ran out. By now however the object of Ecksfour’s attention could be seen clearly.
It appeared to be some sort of diplomatic shuttle, in the shape of a huge metal vampire bat. Shivers went down his spine. *description needs work*
“Ecksfour, what –!?
“I don’t know, sir. It’s not in my database. Connecting to the Internet.” A slight pause. “Oh dear.”
“Something bad?”
“No idea, sir. There’s nothing about this particular exact model anywhere.”
“It’s not even showing up on the sensors, Ecksfour. They could be jamming us, or maybe it’s just some kind of – screwy thing.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Oh man…” Teddy frantically looked around for the weapons systems. It took him a moment to remember there were no weapons systems. “Fiddlesticks,” he mumbled.
As he watched, the ship’s underbelly yawned open, and some strange creatures, lacking clothing of any type but most noticeably spacesuits, floated daintily into the vacuum. Effortlessly, they began to push their way through it, towards him. Their claws seemed to rip the fabric of space itself; screaming with the wrongness of their presence in it. Shivers went down Teddy’s spine again and back up this time for good measure. Paralyzed with fear, he couldn’t even think to turn the ship around.
“Oh snap,” he finally managed to say. “This does not look good.”
“I detect no weapons, sir,” said Ecksfour helpfully.
“And we can’t detect their strakking ship, either, so that doesn’t help. I repeat, this does not look good.”
The creatures reached the airlock and began scrabbling at it. His heart leaped into his throat and seemed inclined to stay there.
“Sir,” said Ecksfour tentatively, “Preliminary muscle-mass index calculations indicate that if they wanted to, these creatures would be fully capable of ripping the airlock door clean off. I believe they are friendly, and we should extend our hospitality to make sure they remain so.”
Teddy sighed. “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” he said, but he entered the code to let them in.
It was about a minute before they came up to the bridge. The bridge was, in fact, the only room on his small patrol ship, aside from a small bathroom nestled in one corner. He felt that they were deliberately trying to keep him in suspense and thought it rather rude of them. His fear stretched with the seconds like a tangible object, and as he saw them finally emerge, it snapped, and he was left in an emotional world that transcended such things. It was not him controlling his body, now, or thinking his thoughts. He didn’t know who it was, but with his little remaining consciousness he was grateful to them because he would have bungled everything and probably started a war.
There were five of them. The one in the lead bowed slightly.
“Welcome,” said Teddy. He bowed in response. “I am Theodore Hays, and this is, uh, X4-29A.” He nodded at his companion.
Although Ecksfour remained motionless, every sensor at his disposal was busy scanning them and sending the information to an independent database. Some of the things he learned would have astounded him if he were capable of being astounded. Their appearance did get to even him, though. An unholy amalgam of insect and reptile; the only way to describe them without launching into an essay was to say that they looked like everyone’s worst nightmare. The fact that not everyone has the same worst nightmares might have been a complication, but these creatures pulled it off.
That was one reason, of course, why robots still accompanied the pilots on these patrol missions. Everyone in this day and age knew that life comes in incredibly varied forms, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when faced for the first time with something that looked like a sick Komodo dragon’s intestines wrapped around a bundle of sticks and sprinkled with toenail clippings attempting to communicate with them (a famous example given in basic training after one heinous incident), emotion could override their better judgment and make them do stupid things. Ecksfour was programmed to remain calm and aloof in any situation. Still, though these creatures were somewhat more recognizable as sentient beings than said example, they were infinitely more hideous, and even he was feeling somewhat repulsed.
Teddy, of course, was no longer feeling such things. The process he was going through is a very clever defense mechanism and those who have it are very lucky.
“Hi there,” said the lead creature, and Teddy nearly jumped out of his skin.
Aside from the shock of hearing it speak perfect English, at least with the two simple words it so far had said, it was also a bit jarring to hear them spoken in a perfectly docile upper-class British accent. He half-expected it to propose a nice, hot cup of tea. He was no stranger to British accents, having one himself and being among a large number of Earthlings who did, and he even imagined that some sort of parallel evolution could have thrust a coincidentally similar one on this creature, but it just didn’t seem to fit.
“Er… hi,” he responded, grateful to whoever had invented such a shallow meaningless word that allowed him to stall for time while he thought of what the heck to say next.
“Just dropped in from another dimension,” it continued. “Thought we’d take a look around and see what it’s like here. No offense, but so far it’s pretty boring.”
Teddy would have had no problem agreeing with that statement regardless of whether it came from a creature capable of beating him to atoms. “You got that right,” he said. Then he decided that as the first ambassador to its race, he should give it a more complete picture of things. “This sector is, anyway,” he went on. “There are lots more exciting places with all kinds of things happening, in every direction light-years from here.”
The creature did a very convincing pantomime of raising an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”
He nodded, uncertain if he had said the right thing.
“Well then, we’ll have to look around some more. Does, ah, every being look like you?”
“Me?” Teddy was a bit surprised at such a question. “Well, er, I am what’s known as a human, you see. Many of the planets in this universe are populated by humans, and many more species are humanoid, which means they are shaped more or less the same but might have a different color or number of eyes or something. Then there are things that look like… like a sick Komodo dragon’s intestines wrapped around a bundle of sticks and sprinkled with toenail clippings, and all sorts of stuff in between.”
It did the eyebrow pantomime again. “Komodo dragon?”
Teddy looked helplessly at Ecksfour, who projected a hologram and began reciting from his database. “The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) was a species of lizard that inhabited the islands of Komodo, Rincah, Flores, and Gili Motang in Indonesia on the planet Earth. A member of the monitor lizard family (Varanidae), it was once the largest living Earthling species of lizard…”
“Sounds fascinating,” it said after about the fifth paragraph. “We’ve certainly picked a great universe to come to, then.”
“What’s this?” said another voice.
Teddy turned around. One of the creatures had opened his small fridge and taken out a half-eaten pan of cold lasagna which it seemed to be completely perplexed by.
“That’s lasagna,” he said. “It’s my lunch. It’s a kind of pasta.”
“Pasta?” It seemed more perplexed than ever.
Ecksfour played the entry on that. The creatures all watched it in stunned silence the whole way through.
“Play that again,” their leader ordered. “Please,” it added quickly.
He played it again. And again. And again. They still didn’t get it.
The leader stroked its chin, if it could be called that. “Fascinating…” it said.
The creature holding the lasagna tentatively pulled off a little piece of noodle and began raising it towards its face.
“Put that down!” the leader snapped. “You don’t know what it could do!”
“I could have my robot do some tests, see if your digestion can handle it,” Teddy offered.
“It’s not just that,” the leader confessed. “We simply can’t trust it, in particular. Nothing so complex as this ‘pasta’ is to be taken at face value.”
“‘Complex?’” He was at somewhat of a loss for words. “Well most of the stuff in that entry is extraneous; I can tell you what it all comes down to –”
“No need,” it insisted, “I’m afraid the basic principles themselves are too slippery and would continue to elude us. Best to just forget about it.”
Teddy shrugged. “Okay,” he said. His old self was returning, now that these beings had completely dispelled his basis for fears. A bit pushy sometimes, perhaps, but overall rather polite and friendly with just a touch of eccentricity to make this the most interesting mission of his life.
Further dispelling said fears, the creatures’ leader continued, “I suppose we should answer some of your questions now. First off, you’re probably wondering why we speak perfect English. It’s simple, really; we’ve been monitoring your radio broadcasts ever since before we arrived. Why you bother sending them out to this rock is beyond me.”
“That makes two of us,” he said. “Not many Commybopper fans out here.” It occurred to him that that didn’t really explain how they knew English at all, but decided to drop the point because there were things tugging more urgently at his sense of curiosity.
“Anything else?” it said. “Shoot.”
“Well,” he began hesitantly, then growing more bold, “what about the voice, and the accent?”
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“I was born with them,” it said finally. “Weren’t you?”
“Oh.” Teddy was rather embarrassed about this. He wisely didn’t bother explaining why they didn’t seem to fit his guest. “How naïve of me. I guess I expected you to be a Cockney, like me.”
“A what? Never mind, sorry. It’s your question time.”
“Well… back home, we picked up some strange signals coming from this area, and no one could make heads or tails of them. I came to investigate. Here…” He gestured to Ecksfour, who fiddled with some controls until a screen lit up showing the spectra readings from them. “Did they… come from you?”
The creature scratched its chin again and nodded slowly. “I think so,” it said. “Probably from the moment we popped into your dimension.”
The implications of this hit Teddy full force this time. “What?” he said.
“Oh yes. We have technology which enables us to do so. Here.” It held out in its palm a small orb. It was metallic and glowed with the light of the stars, concealing impossibly complicated components beneath a seamless shell. Although none of these components were visible, Teddy found himself believing without question that this was indeed the key to interdimensional travel.
He was nearly speechless. “Interdimensional travel… and you can’t fathom pasta…” In a trance, he reached out to touch the orb.
“There is really no justifiable comparison,” it said defensively, yanking the device back. “To each their own. We manipulate the space-time continuum as easily as you the dough for this… this pasta. If you can master the one, this shall be simple for you as well.”
“Well… I don’t actually make my own pasta…”
“You as a race, I mean. Sorry, your language is rather poorly designed. Sometimes it seems as if it were cobbled together from a bunch of other languages.”
Teddy felt, quite rightly, as if the most incredible opportunity of his life was slipping away. “Never mind that,” he almost shouted. “Show me how. Please. Maybe Ecksfour can make sense of it at least.”
With as much of an “I-was-hoping-you’d-ask” look as it could manage with its hideous excuse for a face, the creature brought out a much smaller, disk-like device, and pressed it. Suddenly a hologram jumped out, nearly filling the small ship’s cabin, displaying in minute detail every inner working of the transdimensional orb. Though much more utilitarian and functional than the artistry of the orb itself, they somehow carried the same beauty, although probably they were just tainted by knowledge of their grand function.
“Wow…” He really was speechless now. Just looking at it blew his mind and he no longer felt like trying to figure it out.
“It took us millions of years to develop,” the creature admitted. “But once we figured it out, it was child’s play. And look at you, your race created pasta. I’m sure you could manage.”
“I for one would have to study it for a while,” broke in Ecksfour.
“In that case,” said Teddy, “I don’t think –”
“With time.” It thumbed the disk again, and the hologram vanished. Teddy blinked.
“But it’ll take so long. Won’t you just share the technology with us?” he pleaded.
“That wouldn’t be…”
“We’d be ever so grateful. And people will be wanting to visit you too, now. And maybe we could even set up some sort of trade system for our mutual benefit, you know, as a symbol of lasting peace between our civilizations. It’d be great. We could even teach you about pasta. Oh, won’t you please share with us?” He wished he’d paid more attention in training to how one was supposed to go about manipulating negotiations.
“Please,” it said, “my brain hurts at the mere mention of that ‘p’ word. It’s much too complicated, I tell you. Maybe some other time, when everything’s settled down and I have a few centuries free to study.”
“A few –? How long are your lifespans, anyway?”
“Oh, depends. Awful long time by your standards I gather. Until we die, pretty much.”
“Ah. Is that so?”
“Don’t any beings in this universe live for centuries?”
“Well yes, but they tend to avoid it on account of massive boredom. For most it’s only relatively recently, with space travel, that that’s ceased to be a problem. At least,” he added under his breath, “for some of us.” He instantly took that back because he remembered that this mission was actually turning out to be pretty darn interesting, and that the most interesting part of it was trying to elude him. This was the greatest opportunity of his life, and even the other entity that still had somewhat of a grip on his body couldn’t keep the excitement from welling up in him.
“Our dimension is a blast,” it boasted, making it well up further.
“Come now,” Teddy nudged gently, “you’re stalling, aren’t you? Please, make a decision. Won’t you please share your technology with us? Think of what it could mean. I’m sure nearly everyone in this universe would love to visit your dimension.”
“Well,” said the creature, suddenly seeming uncomfortable, “I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue.”
The entity suddenly left entirely and Teddy was left with rapidly rising levels of discomfort. “Uh – how so? Whaddya mean?”
“Nothing,” it said quickly, and tore off his head.
Well, his spirit thought as it floated off into space for a long journey home, at least I finally got some excitement.
If Ecksfour were capable of screaming, he wouldn’t have had time. The creature thumbed some other sort of disk-like device, or perhaps the same one being thumbed in a slightly different manner, that froze his metal body in place. His sensors were still operative, however, and he watched and listened helplessly to the rest of the proceedings. If he were an organic and capable of feeling fear, he would have been paralyzed anyway.
“Nice going,” said another creature. “Tell him everything, why don’t you. What if he’d been more powerful? What if he’d escaped?”
“Come on, you knew the whole time that he was never any threat,” insisted the leader. It looked into the eyes of the head still gripped in its claws, and casually tossed it aside where it thunked sickeningly off the wall. “These Komodo dragons he speaks of, on the other hand… we may have to watch out for them.”
“I’m just saying… it seemed a little risky…”
“Well the risk is gone now, okay? Enough whining. We have to get back and report on everything. And then… the real work begins. Come on.”
They headed back for the airlocks. One of them picked up the lasagna.
“What do you want with that?” demanded their leader.
“Perhaps I can solve its mysteries,” it suggested.
“A waste of time. You’ll never figure it out, and we’ll have real work to occupy your mind soon enough.”
“I can do both,” it insisted. “Do not underestimate my incredible mental power. That’s why I’m here, after all.”
“Yes…” The leader sighed. “Fine, then. Do what you must. But do not let it impact your performance. We will need all of that mental power soon enough.”
“Um, guys?” piped up another creature. “Why are we still speaking in this idiotic tongue?”
“Search me. Maybe we’re intimidating the robot. Which reminds me,” said the leader. It turned to the paralyzed, helpless Ecksfour. “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you all alone,” it said. “Forever. And I don’t anticipate much traffic near this worthless dirt ball. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure to introduce ourselves to all the rest of your organic friends in this lovely universe.” It waved to the airlocks, and the other four creatures traipsed out. It began to follow.
“Oh yes,” it added, pausing and turning back. “It just occurs to me, you don’t even know who we are. None of us have need of worthless petty individual names, but as a whole, you may call us… the Skreel.”
It moved away from the airlock and bashed its way through the wall instead.
***
This encounter happened at about the same time as several others throughout the Universe, always in isolated areas with few witnesses, who were quickly silenced. No one ever found out about these first encounters, but soon the Skreel made a much grander entrance as promised, slaughtering every being they ever encountered and blasting the heck out of their planets for good measure. And so commenced the greatest war that anyone could remember, for the very good reason that it was the greatest war they’d ever had, and it was enough to make the happy majority permanently lose their contented smiles. Anyone who was still happy at this point probably had a brain aneurism.
To be strictly speaking, of course, it should be clarified early on that it wasn’t technically a war, so much as an extermination that was taking a long time simply because the Universe was, and is, such a staggeringly huge place. The men, women, and various other genders of every intelligent race living in it, and many who were not so intelligent but knew sure as taxes they didn’t want to be dead, fought valiantly, did heroic deeds, and made the Skreel pay for their comrades’ deaths; but it soon became apparent that they didn’t have a prayer. Quite frankly, they were outgunned and outnumbered by an obscene percentage, which is fantastic because, you must remember, this is an entire universe we’re talking about here. The invaders just wouldn’t stop coming.
The Skreel, it should also be mentioned, were much worse than your average scumbags. They were, without noteworthy exception, disgusting, vile, atheistic creatures. They were the sorts of creatures that would not only rip out your spleen, but, while you were still conscious, stuff it down your throat and say terrible things about your mother. Perhaps a few stayed at home and wrote touching romantic poetry, but this is doubtful because they reproduced by budding and ate their offspring if given half a chance. Concepts like friend, love, and charity remained almost but not quite as foreign as pasta to them.
So, being born into this sort of a Universe, one would naturally not have the most optimistic view of things. But then, that made it all the much easier to fight when you knew that, invariably, you would be killed, in an explosion if you were lucky but quite possibly in a much more terrible way.
One more thing to add. At the time this story takes place, The War, as the Universe’s inhabitants called it, or The Extermination as we have more accurately identified it but which we will not continue to call it by because no one else did, had been going on for approximately fifty years, measuring by Earth time, or anywhere from 0.0000023 to 750,000,912 years depending on which alternative systems you use. And why not? What’s so important about the Earth anyway?
Next: Chapter One
The Universe, as we know it, was a happy place.
That isn’t to say that there weren’t a lot of downright heartbreaking miserable things going on in it. But the percentage of them, when compared to the Universe as a whole, was small enough that most of the happy majority chose to ignore them completely, and if an interstellar war broke out once in a while too close for comfort, well, c’est la vie. The point is that to look at the Universe from some high vantage point; which is, obviously, impossible except in convenient hypothetical situations like this one unless you happen to be God (which is unlikely for any of several obvious reasons), you would not feel depressed and need a hug.
The situation changed, of course, as good situations are wont to do. Perhaps the happy majority grew a bit too vocal about their contentment and drew unwanted attention from the cruel goddess of irony, who could not stand for this sort of thing to continue unabated, and nearly died of excitement from the prospect of the challenge before her. That would have been a lucky break for those who were sick of life’s ups and downs and wished wholeheartedly that they could work out all their problems early on and then settle down to a happily ever after. The point is that to look at it now from the same hypothetical vantage point, you would probably need quite a few hugs for the strength to face another day. But that is getting ahead of things.
On a related note, the relation of which will be related to you in a moment, it is often said that you should assume the best of people until you are forced to confront the fact that they are complete scumbags. The happy majority, and even the majority of the unhappy minority, which still numbered googolplexes in and of itself, eventually learned to do so after eons of blasting the snot and other more vital body fluids out of each other, which was a relief because at least half the time they had missed the scumbags and blasted the wrong people.
And so, aside from occasional troubles with pirates, asteroids, and homicidal robots from previous wars that refused to be reprogrammed, the Universe for quite a while was not only vast and exciting, but also safe. It stretched before eager young explorers, who rushed to create futures of wonder and discovery. Some of them got what they wanted, but some ended up finding the Universe a bit too vast and safe, and not nearly as exciting.
***
The inky black void was shattered in this particular spot by a chunk of rock and ice nearly three hundred kilometers in diameter. It floated alone, day in and day out, rotating with what one could almost swear was lugubrious slowness and making a revolution around its sun (which at this point was indistinguishable to the naked eye from all the other stars) every three hundred two thousand sixty four of them (days, that is). If it could have felt lonely, it most certainly would have been justified in going ahead and feeling it.
It could not, however, which was just as well because, against all odds, it was not entirely alone at the moment. For probably only the third time in the Universe’s history, a starship was passing by.
It was a small, dilapidated machine that had clearly seen better days, but not much better. A small legend on its side read “X3-85B”, dwarfed by much larger and more colorful, though by now extremely faded, letters reading “Crispco – the cookies that bite back!”
The occupant of the ship was not a native of the planet below. This went without saying because nobody was. Certainly a species could, as many had, evolve to survive the lack of atmosphere (as in no air), but would most certainly die out from the lack of atmosphere (as in sheer boredom). The fact that nothing interesting could be there until something evolved and that nothing would evolve until something interesting was there was a paradox that many other planets had managed to cope with just fine somehow; but not all of them, and not this one. It was destined to always remain lonely, although if it actually could feel loneliness, its would be rivaled by that of the man floating above it.
In fact the two were connected, in a way that neither of them bothered to care about, the one because it wasn’t alive and the other because he simply didn’t bother to care about it. But it is worth noting for our purposes that the man’s species, and he himself, had years ago been involved in the effort that claimed this planet for their own. It was worth nothing to them or anyone else for that matter, hence the absence of a war over its possession, but it was another world added to their repertoire and anyone who didn’t recognize the name, i.e. all but three of the Universe’s inhabitants who did not include the man floating above it now, would be impressed.
The planet’s name was Juk, but that isn’t important. The man’s species was human and they hailed from a far distant and decidedly more interesting planet called Earth, and the importance of that will be revealed in due time.
Earthling humans had even more of a possessive tendency than the many other varieties found loitering on worlds without number, and for centuries now they had spread like a disease, first to the planets of their own solar system, then beyond to even these outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy, funded by competing cookie companies who wanted the free publicity. Crispco had gone out of business when it turned out that many alien races didn’t like their cookies to bite them back, though many others had become obscenely wealthy and were still kicking.
But the ship was still there, and still running after heaven knows how many decades, though it ought to have been capped and given a decent burial. It was a scout ship, used now only for scouting very out-of-the-ordinary things. These are not hard to come by in such a large and varied Universe as our own, but still Theodore Hays, as the man’s name was, found himself quite frequently very bored.
He was bored right now, certainly. As the planet passed beneath him, he gave it barely a glance. It held no interest for him. It was not what he had come to look for, and if it had been he would have handed in his papers right then and there.
“Planet Juk,” remarked the robot next to him, raising the number of people who knew its name to four. “Nothing to see there.”
Teddy grunted noncommittally. I’m glad I have a robot to tell me these things, he thought. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to see anywhere. To blazes with the stars.
As they grazed the planet’s magnetic field, a brief bit of mild static interrupted the radio. It was softly playing The Commyboppers’ latest hit, “Gone like a Rolla”, for what seemed to be the eight hundred seventeenth time but was in fact only the eight hundred thirteenth. Not only was it getting tedious but he had no idea what the heck a “rolla” was supposed to be or where it had gone. He wanted dearly to change the station but it was the only one that reached this area.
He had tried, additionally, to play chess, poker and Scrabble, but the robot beat him at everything every time despite his repeated threats to blow it out the airlock. Eventually he had tired of this and resigned himself to listening to the radio for another five hours.
The reason they weren’t going through hyperspace was that it was absolutely vital they not miss whatever it was they were looking for. They didn’t know what it was, and the chances of it not being there increased with the longer they took, but he was following orders. If there was a better way to do this, he didn’t care to think of it.
He glanced at his robot companion, letting its words sink in. Designated X4-29A, it was nearly as old as the ship. It still served him well, which was lucky because no one was willing to vouch for a newer model. No one cared about his job, not really. He was told the newer models had a capacity for making conversation, which would have been much appreciated at the moment, and wondered about getting an upgrade but thought No, I don’t have money to burn.
“If calculations are correct,” it said, “the signals originated just two million kilometers away from here.”
“Right,” said Teddy. This was the one part of his job he enjoyed, somewhat; finding what they were after so he could go home. They lapsed back into silence, but the mood had lifted somewhat. He kept his eye on the sensors.
It was a good five minutes before the robot spoke again. “Sir, look,” it said.
He looked out the cockpit as it was directing but saw nothing. “What, Ecksfour?” he demanded. “I don’t see any –”
And then he saw it.
It was barely distinguishable from this distance, but growing rapidly. He squinted and picked up his binoculars. Unfortunately they were electronically augmented binoculars and as such very nerve-wracking to get to work properly. Teddy managed to get them adjusted properly with a minimum of swearing that only accompanied years of practice, when the batteries ran out. By now however the object of Ecksfour’s attention could be seen clearly.
It appeared to be some sort of diplomatic shuttle, in the shape of a huge metal vampire bat. Shivers went down his spine. *description needs work*
“Ecksfour, what –!?
“I don’t know, sir. It’s not in my database. Connecting to the Internet.” A slight pause. “Oh dear.”
“Something bad?”
“No idea, sir. There’s nothing about this particular exact model anywhere.”
“It’s not even showing up on the sensors, Ecksfour. They could be jamming us, or maybe it’s just some kind of – screwy thing.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Oh man…” Teddy frantically looked around for the weapons systems. It took him a moment to remember there were no weapons systems. “Fiddlesticks,” he mumbled.
As he watched, the ship’s underbelly yawned open, and some strange creatures, lacking clothing of any type but most noticeably spacesuits, floated daintily into the vacuum. Effortlessly, they began to push their way through it, towards him. Their claws seemed to rip the fabric of space itself; screaming with the wrongness of their presence in it. Shivers went down Teddy’s spine again and back up this time for good measure. Paralyzed with fear, he couldn’t even think to turn the ship around.
“Oh snap,” he finally managed to say. “This does not look good.”
“I detect no weapons, sir,” said Ecksfour helpfully.
“And we can’t detect their strakking ship, either, so that doesn’t help. I repeat, this does not look good.”
The creatures reached the airlock and began scrabbling at it. His heart leaped into his throat and seemed inclined to stay there.
“Sir,” said Ecksfour tentatively, “Preliminary muscle-mass index calculations indicate that if they wanted to, these creatures would be fully capable of ripping the airlock door clean off. I believe they are friendly, and we should extend our hospitality to make sure they remain so.”
Teddy sighed. “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” he said, but he entered the code to let them in.
It was about a minute before they came up to the bridge. The bridge was, in fact, the only room on his small patrol ship, aside from a small bathroom nestled in one corner. He felt that they were deliberately trying to keep him in suspense and thought it rather rude of them. His fear stretched with the seconds like a tangible object, and as he saw them finally emerge, it snapped, and he was left in an emotional world that transcended such things. It was not him controlling his body, now, or thinking his thoughts. He didn’t know who it was, but with his little remaining consciousness he was grateful to them because he would have bungled everything and probably started a war.
There were five of them. The one in the lead bowed slightly.
“Welcome,” said Teddy. He bowed in response. “I am Theodore Hays, and this is, uh, X4-29A.” He nodded at his companion.
Although Ecksfour remained motionless, every sensor at his disposal was busy scanning them and sending the information to an independent database. Some of the things he learned would have astounded him if he were capable of being astounded. Their appearance did get to even him, though. An unholy amalgam of insect and reptile; the only way to describe them without launching into an essay was to say that they looked like everyone’s worst nightmare. The fact that not everyone has the same worst nightmares might have been a complication, but these creatures pulled it off.
That was one reason, of course, why robots still accompanied the pilots on these patrol missions. Everyone in this day and age knew that life comes in incredibly varied forms, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when faced for the first time with something that looked like a sick Komodo dragon’s intestines wrapped around a bundle of sticks and sprinkled with toenail clippings attempting to communicate with them (a famous example given in basic training after one heinous incident), emotion could override their better judgment and make them do stupid things. Ecksfour was programmed to remain calm and aloof in any situation. Still, though these creatures were somewhat more recognizable as sentient beings than said example, they were infinitely more hideous, and even he was feeling somewhat repulsed.
Teddy, of course, was no longer feeling such things. The process he was going through is a very clever defense mechanism and those who have it are very lucky.
“Hi there,” said the lead creature, and Teddy nearly jumped out of his skin.
Aside from the shock of hearing it speak perfect English, at least with the two simple words it so far had said, it was also a bit jarring to hear them spoken in a perfectly docile upper-class British accent. He half-expected it to propose a nice, hot cup of tea. He was no stranger to British accents, having one himself and being among a large number of Earthlings who did, and he even imagined that some sort of parallel evolution could have thrust a coincidentally similar one on this creature, but it just didn’t seem to fit.
“Er… hi,” he responded, grateful to whoever had invented such a shallow meaningless word that allowed him to stall for time while he thought of what the heck to say next.
“Just dropped in from another dimension,” it continued. “Thought we’d take a look around and see what it’s like here. No offense, but so far it’s pretty boring.”
Teddy would have had no problem agreeing with that statement regardless of whether it came from a creature capable of beating him to atoms. “You got that right,” he said. Then he decided that as the first ambassador to its race, he should give it a more complete picture of things. “This sector is, anyway,” he went on. “There are lots more exciting places with all kinds of things happening, in every direction light-years from here.”
The creature did a very convincing pantomime of raising an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”
He nodded, uncertain if he had said the right thing.
“Well then, we’ll have to look around some more. Does, ah, every being look like you?”
“Me?” Teddy was a bit surprised at such a question. “Well, er, I am what’s known as a human, you see. Many of the planets in this universe are populated by humans, and many more species are humanoid, which means they are shaped more or less the same but might have a different color or number of eyes or something. Then there are things that look like… like a sick Komodo dragon’s intestines wrapped around a bundle of sticks and sprinkled with toenail clippings, and all sorts of stuff in between.”
It did the eyebrow pantomime again. “Komodo dragon?”
Teddy looked helplessly at Ecksfour, who projected a hologram and began reciting from his database. “The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) was a species of lizard that inhabited the islands of Komodo, Rincah, Flores, and Gili Motang in Indonesia on the planet Earth. A member of the monitor lizard family (Varanidae), it was once the largest living Earthling species of lizard…”
“Sounds fascinating,” it said after about the fifth paragraph. “We’ve certainly picked a great universe to come to, then.”
“What’s this?” said another voice.
Teddy turned around. One of the creatures had opened his small fridge and taken out a half-eaten pan of cold lasagna which it seemed to be completely perplexed by.
“That’s lasagna,” he said. “It’s my lunch. It’s a kind of pasta.”
“Pasta?” It seemed more perplexed than ever.
Ecksfour played the entry on that. The creatures all watched it in stunned silence the whole way through.
“Play that again,” their leader ordered. “Please,” it added quickly.
He played it again. And again. And again. They still didn’t get it.
The leader stroked its chin, if it could be called that. “Fascinating…” it said.
The creature holding the lasagna tentatively pulled off a little piece of noodle and began raising it towards its face.
“Put that down!” the leader snapped. “You don’t know what it could do!”
“I could have my robot do some tests, see if your digestion can handle it,” Teddy offered.
“It’s not just that,” the leader confessed. “We simply can’t trust it, in particular. Nothing so complex as this ‘pasta’ is to be taken at face value.”
“‘Complex?’” He was at somewhat of a loss for words. “Well most of the stuff in that entry is extraneous; I can tell you what it all comes down to –”
“No need,” it insisted, “I’m afraid the basic principles themselves are too slippery and would continue to elude us. Best to just forget about it.”
Teddy shrugged. “Okay,” he said. His old self was returning, now that these beings had completely dispelled his basis for fears. A bit pushy sometimes, perhaps, but overall rather polite and friendly with just a touch of eccentricity to make this the most interesting mission of his life.
Further dispelling said fears, the creatures’ leader continued, “I suppose we should answer some of your questions now. First off, you’re probably wondering why we speak perfect English. It’s simple, really; we’ve been monitoring your radio broadcasts ever since before we arrived. Why you bother sending them out to this rock is beyond me.”
“That makes two of us,” he said. “Not many Commybopper fans out here.” It occurred to him that that didn’t really explain how they knew English at all, but decided to drop the point because there were things tugging more urgently at his sense of curiosity.
“Anything else?” it said. “Shoot.”
“Well,” he began hesitantly, then growing more bold, “what about the voice, and the accent?”
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“I was born with them,” it said finally. “Weren’t you?”
“Oh.” Teddy was rather embarrassed about this. He wisely didn’t bother explaining why they didn’t seem to fit his guest. “How naïve of me. I guess I expected you to be a Cockney, like me.”
“A what? Never mind, sorry. It’s your question time.”
“Well… back home, we picked up some strange signals coming from this area, and no one could make heads or tails of them. I came to investigate. Here…” He gestured to Ecksfour, who fiddled with some controls until a screen lit up showing the spectra readings from them. “Did they… come from you?”
The creature scratched its chin again and nodded slowly. “I think so,” it said. “Probably from the moment we popped into your dimension.”
The implications of this hit Teddy full force this time. “What?” he said.
“Oh yes. We have technology which enables us to do so. Here.” It held out in its palm a small orb. It was metallic and glowed with the light of the stars, concealing impossibly complicated components beneath a seamless shell. Although none of these components were visible, Teddy found himself believing without question that this was indeed the key to interdimensional travel.
He was nearly speechless. “Interdimensional travel… and you can’t fathom pasta…” In a trance, he reached out to touch the orb.
“There is really no justifiable comparison,” it said defensively, yanking the device back. “To each their own. We manipulate the space-time continuum as easily as you the dough for this… this pasta. If you can master the one, this shall be simple for you as well.”
“Well… I don’t actually make my own pasta…”
“You as a race, I mean. Sorry, your language is rather poorly designed. Sometimes it seems as if it were cobbled together from a bunch of other languages.”
Teddy felt, quite rightly, as if the most incredible opportunity of his life was slipping away. “Never mind that,” he almost shouted. “Show me how. Please. Maybe Ecksfour can make sense of it at least.”
With as much of an “I-was-hoping-you’d-ask” look as it could manage with its hideous excuse for a face, the creature brought out a much smaller, disk-like device, and pressed it. Suddenly a hologram jumped out, nearly filling the small ship’s cabin, displaying in minute detail every inner working of the transdimensional orb. Though much more utilitarian and functional than the artistry of the orb itself, they somehow carried the same beauty, although probably they were just tainted by knowledge of their grand function.
“Wow…” He really was speechless now. Just looking at it blew his mind and he no longer felt like trying to figure it out.
“It took us millions of years to develop,” the creature admitted. “But once we figured it out, it was child’s play. And look at you, your race created pasta. I’m sure you could manage.”
“I for one would have to study it for a while,” broke in Ecksfour.
“In that case,” said Teddy, “I don’t think –”
“With time.” It thumbed the disk again, and the hologram vanished. Teddy blinked.
“But it’ll take so long. Won’t you just share the technology with us?” he pleaded.
“That wouldn’t be…”
“We’d be ever so grateful. And people will be wanting to visit you too, now. And maybe we could even set up some sort of trade system for our mutual benefit, you know, as a symbol of lasting peace between our civilizations. It’d be great. We could even teach you about pasta. Oh, won’t you please share with us?” He wished he’d paid more attention in training to how one was supposed to go about manipulating negotiations.
“Please,” it said, “my brain hurts at the mere mention of that ‘p’ word. It’s much too complicated, I tell you. Maybe some other time, when everything’s settled down and I have a few centuries free to study.”
“A few –? How long are your lifespans, anyway?”
“Oh, depends. Awful long time by your standards I gather. Until we die, pretty much.”
“Ah. Is that so?”
“Don’t any beings in this universe live for centuries?”
“Well yes, but they tend to avoid it on account of massive boredom. For most it’s only relatively recently, with space travel, that that’s ceased to be a problem. At least,” he added under his breath, “for some of us.” He instantly took that back because he remembered that this mission was actually turning out to be pretty darn interesting, and that the most interesting part of it was trying to elude him. This was the greatest opportunity of his life, and even the other entity that still had somewhat of a grip on his body couldn’t keep the excitement from welling up in him.
“Our dimension is a blast,” it boasted, making it well up further.
“Come now,” Teddy nudged gently, “you’re stalling, aren’t you? Please, make a decision. Won’t you please share your technology with us? Think of what it could mean. I’m sure nearly everyone in this universe would love to visit your dimension.”
“Well,” said the creature, suddenly seeming uncomfortable, “I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue.”
The entity suddenly left entirely and Teddy was left with rapidly rising levels of discomfort. “Uh – how so? Whaddya mean?”
“Nothing,” it said quickly, and tore off his head.
Well, his spirit thought as it floated off into space for a long journey home, at least I finally got some excitement.
If Ecksfour were capable of screaming, he wouldn’t have had time. The creature thumbed some other sort of disk-like device, or perhaps the same one being thumbed in a slightly different manner, that froze his metal body in place. His sensors were still operative, however, and he watched and listened helplessly to the rest of the proceedings. If he were an organic and capable of feeling fear, he would have been paralyzed anyway.
“Nice going,” said another creature. “Tell him everything, why don’t you. What if he’d been more powerful? What if he’d escaped?”
“Come on, you knew the whole time that he was never any threat,” insisted the leader. It looked into the eyes of the head still gripped in its claws, and casually tossed it aside where it thunked sickeningly off the wall. “These Komodo dragons he speaks of, on the other hand… we may have to watch out for them.”
“I’m just saying… it seemed a little risky…”
“Well the risk is gone now, okay? Enough whining. We have to get back and report on everything. And then… the real work begins. Come on.”
They headed back for the airlocks. One of them picked up the lasagna.
“What do you want with that?” demanded their leader.
“Perhaps I can solve its mysteries,” it suggested.
“A waste of time. You’ll never figure it out, and we’ll have real work to occupy your mind soon enough.”
“I can do both,” it insisted. “Do not underestimate my incredible mental power. That’s why I’m here, after all.”
“Yes…” The leader sighed. “Fine, then. Do what you must. But do not let it impact your performance. We will need all of that mental power soon enough.”
“Um, guys?” piped up another creature. “Why are we still speaking in this idiotic tongue?”
“Search me. Maybe we’re intimidating the robot. Which reminds me,” said the leader. It turned to the paralyzed, helpless Ecksfour. “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you all alone,” it said. “Forever. And I don’t anticipate much traffic near this worthless dirt ball. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure to introduce ourselves to all the rest of your organic friends in this lovely universe.” It waved to the airlocks, and the other four creatures traipsed out. It began to follow.
“Oh yes,” it added, pausing and turning back. “It just occurs to me, you don’t even know who we are. None of us have need of worthless petty individual names, but as a whole, you may call us… the Skreel.”
It moved away from the airlock and bashed its way through the wall instead.
***
This encounter happened at about the same time as several others throughout the Universe, always in isolated areas with few witnesses, who were quickly silenced. No one ever found out about these first encounters, but soon the Skreel made a much grander entrance as promised, slaughtering every being they ever encountered and blasting the heck out of their planets for good measure. And so commenced the greatest war that anyone could remember, for the very good reason that it was the greatest war they’d ever had, and it was enough to make the happy majority permanently lose their contented smiles. Anyone who was still happy at this point probably had a brain aneurism.
To be strictly speaking, of course, it should be clarified early on that it wasn’t technically a war, so much as an extermination that was taking a long time simply because the Universe was, and is, such a staggeringly huge place. The men, women, and various other genders of every intelligent race living in it, and many who were not so intelligent but knew sure as taxes they didn’t want to be dead, fought valiantly, did heroic deeds, and made the Skreel pay for their comrades’ deaths; but it soon became apparent that they didn’t have a prayer. Quite frankly, they were outgunned and outnumbered by an obscene percentage, which is fantastic because, you must remember, this is an entire universe we’re talking about here. The invaders just wouldn’t stop coming.
The Skreel, it should also be mentioned, were much worse than your average scumbags. They were, without noteworthy exception, disgusting, vile, atheistic creatures. They were the sorts of creatures that would not only rip out your spleen, but, while you were still conscious, stuff it down your throat and say terrible things about your mother. Perhaps a few stayed at home and wrote touching romantic poetry, but this is doubtful because they reproduced by budding and ate their offspring if given half a chance. Concepts like friend, love, and charity remained almost but not quite as foreign as pasta to them.
So, being born into this sort of a Universe, one would naturally not have the most optimistic view of things. But then, that made it all the much easier to fight when you knew that, invariably, you would be killed, in an explosion if you were lucky but quite possibly in a much more terrible way.
One more thing to add. At the time this story takes place, The War, as the Universe’s inhabitants called it, or The Extermination as we have more accurately identified it but which we will not continue to call it by because no one else did, had been going on for approximately fifty years, measuring by Earth time, or anywhere from 0.0000023 to 750,000,912 years depending on which alternative systems you use. And why not? What’s so important about the Earth anyway?
Next: Chapter One
