In the Name of Earth

Chapter 9: Supernova Protocol

“He said left, right, left!” Alexa whispered as she followed Marvin’s aimless wandering through the maintenance halls of Gaia Station.

“That’s what we did! Right, left, right!” Marvin whispered back.

“That’s not at all what I said! Wait! Haven’t we passed by this fire extinguisher, like, ten minutes ago?”

“Maybe? Gosh, how do engineering even navigate these things?!”

“For starters they aren’t pissed drunk!” Alexa spoke and giggle, only to be pressed against the wall by Marvin, who firmly blocked her mouth with his hand.

“Shh! I heard something!” he said, holding the inebriated woman for another three seconds before she freed herself.

As the two paid attention, they could hear the characteristic hiss and click of a door sliding shut above them, followed by a series of footsteps over their heads. In an instant, lights fired up above them, invading the dark confi9nes of their secret passage through small circular holes on the ceiling. The two students hurried away from the light beams, holding each other into a dark corner of the corridor, not daring to speak, move or even breath.

“What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait until morning,” a familiar deep voice asked as yet another set of footsteps came to a halt above their hiding place.

“That’s my dad…” Marvin muttered, and Alexa hurried to press a finger against his lips.

“We were just informed that our Sentience Status is being reviewed,” the raspy, yet polite, voice of Professor and Ambassador Watson spoke.

“Reviewed?” now the voice was feminine. Miss Fahad’s. “But we have met no criteria whatsoever for the C2 classification.”

“Which can only mean they’re not considering and increase in our sentience,” the Chief-Ambassador spoke again. “Someone wants to downgrade us.”

“f**k!” General Silva, Marvin’s professor of intergalactic warfare 101, punched something, sending the reverberations down into Marvin’s and Alexa’s hidey-hole. “Someone’s screwing us over!”

“Someone really is,” Watson spoke again followed by the sound of an infopad being tossed over a table. “It’s not a routine status review. Someone made a whole case against humanity. Claim our treatment of Earth can lead to irreversible ecological damages.”

“They would not be wrong,” Mrs Ming, professor of Xeno-Culture and Art pitched in.

“Bullshit!” the General barked again. “We’re doing just fine!”

A short argument ensued between the general and the professor, but both were silenced by the Chief-Ambassador stomping over the hidden student’s heads.

“Shut up, both of you! It doesn’t matter if their claims are justified, if the Moderators think we’re destroying our planet we’ll have an intervention!” Marvin Grant Senior paused to let the fact sink in. “Whoever got this review in motion has their sights on Earth. This might be the most important crisis of our careers.”

Another pause, during which a shiver assailed every inch of Marvin’s body. He could feel the same happening to the girl pressed against him. He wondered if the mean and women standing over them were experiencing the same nauseating dread.

“I say it’s time…” General Silva spoke again. “Time for Supernova Protocol.”

“Negative!” the Chief-Ambassador replied with the reprimanding tone Marvin knew so well. “We’re not solving one crisis with another!”

“Why not?! Our boys in black are ready!” the general words brought back memories and theories Marvin had abandoned months ago. “We call those green little bastards from Eagle Nebula on the favors they owe us, get ourselves a few gunships and star cruiser and do what must be done!”

“We’re not ready! It would be suicide!”

“I don’t know, Chief,” Watson said. “The man has a point. It would get us to B tier, and we’d be legally safe from interventions. Besides, whoever had enough pull to get this review in motion probably had enough pull to force us to lose it.”

“I agree our chances in the Galactic Court are bleak,” Fahad interjected, “but I don’t think would be the answer! Is that really the image we want for humanity? And can we even win an intergalactic war?”

“We can if we pick a weak target!” General Silva punched his open palm.

“And what’s to say the sponsor of this Sentience Status review won’t just side with this weak target to take us over?” Fahad protested.

Another argument followed, this time with the participation of all those present.

“Enough!” Marvin’s father shouted. “Supernova Protocol is not happening. For all we know, Earth is under attack, and we might as well be its last hope. Watson, find out who the f**k is behind this petition and we’ll revisit the subject when we know more. Meanwhile, focus all available resources on drafting a defense argument. If anyone asks, it’s a routine environmental report. The truth of this does not leave this room!”

Marvin and Alexa exchanged a brief guilty glance.

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Chief-Ambassador!” all the other voices answered in unison, but even underground Marvin could not help but notice General Silva had shared the enthusiasm of his peers in the response.

Immediately after, the senior officers and diplomats above departed on messy drumming of steps over the thin metal floor separating the command room from the maintenance tunnels.

Alexa and Marvin held each other for five seconds after the meeting was finalized, afraid that even the slightest movement would give them away. Then, in an alcohol-boosted surge of bravery, Marvin released the girl and stepped right under the holes through which the light invaded the dark passages.

Alexa tried to silently pull him back to cover but failed. He was hellbent on peeking through the holes. After a moment of espionage, Marvin raced down the dark halls, chasing a shadow cast through the venting holes above them.

Alexa tried to whisper a protest, but ultimately failed. Marvin was gone after one of the shadows, for whatever reason, and, as evidently reckless as that might have been, Alexa felt compelled to follow.

The alternative was wandering alone through the maintenance accesses until she hopefully came upon a safe exit point.

When she caught up to Marvin, she tugged on his shirt.

“Where are you going?” she asked him through clenched teeth.

He just signaled her to be quiet. The low ceiling above them was no longer punctured, which allowed for a brief sense of security, but heavy footsteps were still drumming the iron over their heads.

And Marvin was following those footsteps!

After fifteen minutes of aimlessly pursuing ghostly footsteps, there was finally silence. They halted. After another two minutes, another set of lighter footsteps approached their position.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?” General Silva, the man whose footsteps they were originally following, spoke from beyond the wall to which Marvin and Alexa had glued their ears. “Maybe it won’t be this crisis, maybe it won’t be the next, but someday some alien assholes will occupy our home unless we don’t act first!”

“I know, but we can’t blame the others for playing safe,” the second voice was muffled, but it was undoubtedly Ambassador Watson. “There are too many question marks. I mean, it’ll be a rough transition one way or another. Humans will die, probably by the millions, starting with all your boys in black. Are you okay with that?”

“That’s the cost of every major technological leap, Ambassador” Silva spoke again. “A generation pays the price of war so their children and grandchildren can benefit. Penicillin, microwaves, computers, cars… all byproducts of war. Imagine how human life would improve if we had access to the collective knowledge of the galaxy! That’s worth drafting half the globe if we must! Not to mention we would be sovereign. Our own people, independent of the mercy of those self-righteous birds!”

“The Moderators have been fair to us…”

“Listen to yourself!” the General half-barked, half-hissed. “How long can we trust them? What if they decide we’re not taking care of Earth? We’ll just bow our heads and be relocated to another world like kettle? Be exterminated, birth-controlled, told what we can and cannot do with our own home? Our own species? Have some pride!”

“Okay, so what’s your plan?” Watson asked. “Bypass the Chief-Ambassador and move on with Supernova Protocol anyways?”

“I’ll leave the politics to you, Ambassador. My men and I just point and shoot!” the general’s heavy steps guided him away, then stopped for one last remark. “And Ambassador, we might have more friends than you think. Ming, for one, might’ve said nothing in our little meeting, but you count on her support. As that of many others!”

Only a long while after the two sets of footsteps faded on the distance did Marvin and Alexa breath easily again, heads spinning with all they had just learned. At least the shock had sobered them up.

And they now realized they were further than ever from finding a way out of the guts of Gaia Station.