Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 38

Chapter 38 Flying Saucers in my Sleep

Captain Neshok told me that he would contact me once the government made up its mind on the matter, so it didn't surprise me when the call came in on my wrist com a little over a relfa later. Along with Dorie, my whole crew and I were enjoying a relfa of relaxation down on the beaches of Akdor. We had practically taken over a wonderful little hotel right on the beach. The Falthians were extremely proud of their beaches, and went to great lengths to protect them. This particular hotel sat right on a beach of it's own with nothing else around, surprisingly, all access to it guest as well as all deliveries were made through a network of tunnels running underground. A shuttle system quickly and efficiently moved guests and supplies from a central point in Akdor proper right out to the small resort.

So with this in mind, we were trying to enjoy a little time off, before getting back to another advanced training program. I had heard my guys talking about all their new girlfriends, but hadn't met any of them yet until we all gathered at the hotel. All were extremely good looking, with well developed bodies. They all had either reddish or auburn hair, cut short. As expected, all were in the Falthian military in some capacity, Jeff's lady friend was a junior officer in their marine corps training command. Ethan's friend was also in the same training command, but the equivalent of a staff sergeant. Both Gerry and Kevin's friends were what they called commissioned instructors who were the equivalent of warrant officers back on earth. Although I was suspicious of motive at first, it soon became very apparent that these women were extremely proud to be dating Kagorian military men.

I think I mentioned that Falthian women generally went topless while at the beach, with what passed for a bathing suit barely covered their private part. It was during this idyllic atmosphere that I received a call from captain Neshok informing me that he and one of his recovery crews would be out at the landing field to look over my saucer. At the time Dori was studying for an upcoming exam on her computer, and the other women were all playing a computer game called "Mutarex." Since it was all based on Falthian and Amulian slang, technical terms and a strong knowledge of Falthian history and culture, all my guys took a pass. On one hand it was a good way to really learn their culture but as Gerry told me,

"There are other easier ways to learn all that, the women have been playing this game since they were kids, we just look like idiots if we try and get in on it."

So instead, we all jogged over to the airfield to find out what the captain had to say. It was roughly four li's over to the field, so we all got a good stretch of the legs. As we neared the pad where the Giuffrida sat with my saucer next to it, I could see someone sitting cross legged on the saucer's deck while three other individuals stood next to it and appeared to be talking. As we got closer, I could see the captain standing there with what sure looked like Amulians, then I remembered the captain telling me he had Amulian crews. Jeff spotted them too and groaned,

"Oh s**t, not these guys again!" Unlike me, he and the others were still smarting from our previous experience with them.

Tall and thin, pointed ears and slanted yellow eyes these guys were right out of central casting for stereotypical aliens. The Amulian sitting on the saucer looked up as we approached and damn if he wasn't the spitting image of "Ming the Merciless," from Buck Rogers, but I couldn't remember the name of the planet he was supposed to rule. I shook my head and stifled a laugh, as captain Neshok turned as well along with the other two Amulians. "Ming," wore a perfectly trimmed Van Dyke type beard and bald head while his buddies were clean shaven.

"Ah Mr. Gandrigg I'd like you and your fellows to meet Yemock, he will be captaining the recovery craft that will actually lift your ship here, along with his co-pilot Sarmak, and ship specialist Owlsek." Kevin then spoke up,

Do they have last names," a question that brought angry looks from the three Amulians. Unbeknownst to Kevin, an Amulian's last name was a very private and personal thing. Apparently I had been the only one to take the time to study up on them, trying to learn as much about their culture as I could which wasn't much.

I immediately bowed spreading out both arms palms facing the offended Amulians,

"Please forgive my friend here," I offered.

"He is ignorant of your culture and wishes to apologize." Kevin wasn't a fool, so quickly followed suite bowing and spreading his arms palms towards the Amulians as he apologized. This appeared to have the desired effect, calming the three, as Yemock said.

"It would seem that these "Maunaka" might not be the savages we had been led to believe." One thing was certain. This little venture was certainly going down hill fast, hoping that I wasn't making the situation worse, I spoke up.

"We mean no disrespect captain; we just haven't had much experience with you Amulians." Yemock frowned,

"What is it we're expected to do with this thing? "he asked, "Something about hauling it to Hyach 3 for something or other, then over to your planet?" I started to reply when captain Neshok spoke up,

"Yemock is just looking to provoke, he knows the plan…Which by the way, has changed, I have just spoken to Mr. Kormas who has given me his permission, and final instructions as to the disposition of this craft."

"That was nice of him," I thought, I certainly wished I had been part of this.

Captain Neshock continued,

"Captain Yemock will pick up this craft with his recovery vessel then once in orbit over Falth, his ship will be taken aboard my ship, where upon we will travel on to your galaxy and Hyach 3, whereby the captain here will travel to the planet's surface and unload your ship, we'll take some pictures, load back up again, then he will re-load into my ship for a fast trip to Kagor, where I will orbit your world while captain Yemock flies your craft down to the location you have selected, then return to me."

"Rather than load back into your ship over Hyach 3, simply travel to earth," I replied

"Because his ship has no cloaking capability, from what you told me earlier, the scanners on Kagor would pick him right up."

"Very true," I replied, I do have a landing location in mind, and I'll get you the coordinates as soon as I can, and the only reason we have to land on Mar…Er, Hyach 3 is to establish the fact that this is where this craft is coming from." Sarmak snorted and expressed what I took for a grin.

"Excuse me," I stated, "Did I say something wrong?" Yemock scooted off the edge of the saucer and dropped to the ground,

"You humans are a most curious race, I for one find it difficult to understand what these Falthians see in you, but I suppose that's their business." Then pointing his finger at me he added,

"I did some checking on you…Jake Gandrigg, it would seem that you have Nuelian blood in you, you treated some of my friends with dignity and honor that counts for a lot. I also hear you've invited some more of my people to your home, but I didn't hear why for." My first thought was,

"How in the hell does this guy know my business, or how I treated those Amulians who were sent by their government?"

"Because we are a small race Mr. Gandrigg, we are just one large family…Yes, we can read your minds as well…when we want to."

I shrugged as I replied,

"You and your friends here are more than welcome to enjoy my hospitality , I don't know what your schedule is once you drop the saucer, but you boss here along with his wife will be dropping by, you're more than welcome. I know you folks don't like to be bothered, so I won't." Switching gears, captain Yemock said,

"Neshok tells me your planet has scanner technology, how effective is it?" I squinted at him,

"If your ship doesn't have any cloaking ability, you will be picked up, every craft flying in the skies of earth has an identification code and number, you will be picked up as a UFO. There is an air force base as well as an airport not far from my home, I guarantee, they will investigate." Both captains looked at each other, then captain Neshok said,

"I've got a proto-phason amplifier around somewhere we could install on your ship." Yemock thought for a moment then shrugged,

"Might be worth a try, better than nothing I suppose." I then asked,

"What are those, I've heard the term once or twice."

"It's very old technology Mr. Gandrigg," replied captain Neshok.

"Basically it disguises what ever craft it's mounted on, creates a horrendous storm…Er, by the way, you do get storms on your planet don't you?" I smiled,

"Some pretty bad ones at time, storms that wipe out whole towns, and kill lots of people, yeah, we get storms."

"Then that's what we'll do," said Neshok to Yemock Captain Yemock then turned his attention to me, saying.

"I heard the whole story about this craft, so what do you think your people will do?"

"I hope it gets properly displayed in the air and space museum," I replied. Hopefully, it will clear up a lot of false information and hearsay, but who knows what the government will do."

By now my crew had struck up a limited dialog with Sarmak and Owlsek in a feeble attempt to cement pan-Amulian relations, so I repeated my previous offer,

"Once we get this thing wrapped up the captain here asked to spend a little time at my place, why don't you guys join us? Your buddies will be there; we can sit out under the stars and enjoy a campfire and just talk. Seems to me neither of us knows much about the other, how about it?"

"Perhaps," was all I could get out of Yemock.

Before heading off with my team and the Falthian marines, I touched bases with Robarik Draaka who told me a couple more descendants had turned up and wanted to meet me.

"My father's partner's grand children," explained Robarik,

"They have been off-planet for a number of dorns and only just now heard about all this." He also told me everything was set to go as far as returning with any Kagorians who wished to study here on Falth. I told him I would be busy for the next relfa, and to contact Dori if he had any questions.

I also talked with Kha'Mak about our next flight back to earth, as well as what I had learned from captain Neshock. I also alerted him,

"From the looks of things Kha'Mak, we will have a rather full ship, as Moreck's parents were still interested in visiting earth. He then dropped a bomb on me,

"I have a friend who shares my interest in your science fiction, I-I was wondering…"

"Damn! How many would be traveling on the Giuffrida?" I wondered.

"Yeah, sure Kha'Mak bring him along, I take it your friend is a droid?"

"Um…yes, but my friend is female, she is also a pilot, flies for the Thenta Makur."

Something wasn't "computing" here,

"I didn't think you droid's had the ability to become romantically involved." I could sense the hurt in his voice as he replied,

"You have much to learn about droid's Mr. Gandrigg, even some of your science fiction writers understand us better than you do."

"I'm sorry Kha'Mak, really I am, please, she's more than welcome, perhaps the two of you can set my mind right."

It was clear, that I was going to have to try and understand not just Kha'Mak a whole lot better, but the very concept of highly developed artificial intelligence. Before shipping out with the marines, my team and I were fitted for space suits. None of the bulky things seen on TV or in the movies, but individually custom fitted suits with helmets. The suits were black and dark grey, containing a complete self-sustaining environment; you didn't have to do a thing, you never got too hot or too cold, the atmosphere inside never got stuffy either. Another amazing feature was that you had full freedom of movement, and you could "go" inside your suit, and the waste would be recycled, the liquids could either be consumed in an emergency, or drained, and the solid waste was captured in a replaceable filter. Branak hinted that we were technically violating the prime directive by wearing these suits, but no one was going to push it.

We then loaded onto a transport that took us to a small planet, more like an asteroid really that the military used for training purposes. Although we saw some of the Falthian troops remove their helmets and even their suits for short times, we were warned not to remove ours, as the weak atmosphere and certain rays would certainly harm us. Although not as elaborate as Altair IV, the training village they had constructed here was quite the challenge, especially for us puny Kagorians. I now have a lot of respect for the astronauts and the training they go through, we more or less were simply "thrown into the breach," every man for himself. Along with trying to run a training course, we had to deal with the problems of remaining "suited up" all the time, and very low gravity. We had recommended a location with an unforgiving environment and the marines found one.

The whole exercise was intended to gain experience in landing, (on an asteroid) move in and clear the "village" in the shortest time possible. This time it was we humans who were coming up short, for some unexplained reason the United States Marine Corps didn't train with space transports or land on asteroids. All of us were determined to overcome every obstacle, we were US marines after all, and we adopted. By the end of the relfa when the training exercise ended I think each of us had lost close to six or seven pounds, and were so damn tired, we could have slept for another week. Christ! I thought OCS at Quantico was tough. Although the Falthians didn't cut us any slack, I think they realized just how hard we were trying. Even though our primary mission was to oversee the techniques of street and house clearing, we worked just as hard as anyone else.

After we had returned to Falth, my whole team was called into the commander's office where Branak Narshu, Darjonic Fennra, and Marpalik Nargana waited as well. As we stood at attention, the commander spoke,

"You Kagorians have certainly caused quite a stir here at military affairs. Call it respect, call it admiration, but the skeptics are eating their words. Lieutenant Gandrigg, is there any chance you might be able to recruit any more of your marines?" I wasn't sure I heard him correctly so I asked him to repeat, when he did, all I could do was shrug.

"Sir, I simply do not know, it's not like I can just return to earth and open a recruiting office, my government would take a mighty dim view of my efforts, what we are doing now is technically against the law, but since there's very little chance anyone will find out, I'm not worried. How many did you have in mind?"

"No one has set any real figure, although I did hear somewhere around twenty-five or thirty." You could have knocked me over with a feather, "My god, how could we ever recruit that many without drawing suspicion?" Well the marines prided themselves on getting things done so I said,

"Well sir, all we can do is make some very discreet inquiries; there is always the possibility that we might be able to interest veterans of other nation's marines. I have to be extremely careful about this, so it might take some time; perhaps if sergeant major Branak could assist me things might be a little easier."

"Well that would be strictly up to him Lieutenant, but right now, nothing is definite so don't rush out and start inviting people to Falth."

Well, we turned in all our equipment, and had a big party, but all my men and I could talk about was the possibility of even attempting such a thing.

My guys tossed around some names, but in the end we truly doubted that any would willingly leave earth possibly never to return, I was lucky to have the men that I did. "Maybe Carman knows someone?" I thought, "She always had a lot of brass floating around her," I guess I'd just have to ask her.