“You will accompany me,” an alien said, appearing suddenly in the hatch. She was obviously female; two guards, obviously male, flanked her. The presence of the guards always made him smile; the aliens seemed to expect them to suddenly pull a gun out of an unthinkable orifice and start shooting the starship apart. He wondered, with a sudden flicker of gallows humour, if the aliens had watched too many action movies and taken them for reality. James Bond would have had some problems finding a way out of the alien craft. “Follow.”
She pulled herself through the corridor to the same open bay. “These are communications devices,” she said, as they floated into the room. “They will provide a direct link to our ships and…diplomatic personnel. You will take them, our demands and our data to your governments and use them to open communications.”
Francis coughed suddenly. “You are prepared to negotiate with us?”
“We are prepared to discuss your race’s integration into our society,” the female said, in response, and turned to the group. “You will be returned to the ground, where you will make your own way to your leaders, carrying with you our messages. The groups that open communications first will receive preferential treatment when they submit to us.”
But if the aliens worked to manipulate human powers on Earth, they would eventually knock down all of their opponents and take over the planet. If there really were a billion of them, as they claimed, they’d be the most powerful race on the surface of the planet instantly – hell, they already were – and by playing the human factions off against one another, they would remain on top. It was a devious, if obvious, offer…and he wondered, bitterly, who would be the first to accept the alien trick. Which nation would be the first to swear allegiance to the aliens?
“Follow,” the female said, and led them down another long corridor. The design seemed to be changing all around them, changing from a stylised – if understandable – set of corridors, orientated to have a deck…to a compartment that seemed to have been designed like the International Space Station. It was clearly intended to remain without gravity, permanently…and, watching the aliens moving through the area, he understood why. They used the area to prepare and launch their spacecraft.
The massive hatch opened as they approached, revealing the interior of a vaguely conical spacecraft. They found themselves escorted in to discover a set of chairs that had obviously been designed for the human form; the guards, silent as always, pushed the humans into the chairs and secured them down with straps. The escort checked the straps, nodded once to the humans, and floated up back through the hatch. A moment later, it slammed closed.
“I wonder if we’re alone on this craft,” Gary said, suddenly. Francis silently cursed himself for forgetting the closest thing to an expert they had. “It looked like a basic SSTO design from the outside, but I don’t think that there was enough room for the pilot, not inside.”
“Perhaps it’s on remote control,” Stanislav suggested, absently. “We have used remote-controlled spacecraft to resupply the space station before and there is no reason why the aliens might not use a similar tactic. I wonder if…”
A series of bangs and shocks ran through the craft. “They’re launching us,” Katy said, her voice shaking. Francis understood her feelings; it was rather like being about to take a roller-coaster ride. There were more shocks…and then everything stopped. “Boss…”
“I don’t think we’ve been launched,” Gary said, calmly. He sounded perfectly calm; Francis couldn’t hear any tension in his voice at all. “It sounded more like they were attaching something to the craft, perhaps the piloting section. Two-stage SSTOs have been discussed for years, but no one actually produced a working model. The aliens would certainly need something like that unless they actually managed to develop some magic…”
Francis winced as a new sensation, that of endless falling, swept through him. The SSTO didn’t seem to have changed at all, but he was suddenly convinced that the craft was finally moving, flying down towards the planet. A dull hiss echoed through the craft, and then another, pushing them back down to Earth. Brief moments of pressure built up in the craft and then dissipated; he wished, suddenly, for a porthole, some way of judging their progress. The aliens had sent them on a ride without any way of knowing what was going on, apart from the sensations they could all feel. None of them, except perhaps Gary, could read them…but it felt as if gravity was finally reclaiming its hold on them.
The pressure on his body was growing as the SSTO’s engines started to fire. There was no mistaking the roar as they fought to slow their fall, saving them from crashing into the planet like a KEW, or from burning up in the atmosphere. His ears ached as the noise grew louder, but he didn’t dare cover his ears, even without the straps. They’d been warned, back before the aliens had arrived and the world had looked bright and full of promise, that doing so could prove fatal…and he had no intention of being wounded, not while it would leave him under alien care. The noise grew to a crescendo…and then stopped.
A dull thump ran through the SSTO and gravity caught up with them permanently. It felt, suddenly, as if he were carrying a crushing weight, one he hadn’t even been aware of while in orbit. It was all he could do to raise his head, cursing himself for not asking for an exercise machine or something while on the alien ship; they had to have known about the problem. Two weeks – it felt like much longer – in zero-gravity…and it felt as if all of his muscles had atrophied to fat and bone.
“The feeling will pass,” Gary assured him, as the aliens opened the hatch. Air, warm dry Earth air, wafted in. Despite an unpleasant smell tickling his nostrils, he had never tasted anything so good. “It takes longer than two weeks for real problems to kick in, although we should all rest before we actually go anywhere.”
The aliens seemed to understand. Surprisingly gently, they helped the humans out of the ship and down to the tarmac. Francis looked around, suspecting that they were somewhere in the south by the air, but he didn’t recognise the small airfield at all. A handful of other SSTO craft dotted the field, patrolled by heavily-armed aliens; there were no sign of any other humans at all.
Philippe looked up at him from where he was trying to stand on wobbly legs. “Do you know where we are?”
Francis laughed. “I suppose you know everywhere in France, right?” He asked. “You Europeans; your countries are so
“No,” Philippe said, reasonably, “but the aliens wouldn’t have dumped us somewhere we couldn’t get out of, would they?”
They looked towards one of the aliens. “Where are we?” Francis asked, wondering if the guard spoke English. “Where do we have to go?”
The guard said nothing, but pointed with one long hand towards a small group of aliens, waiting for them at the edge of the field. Francis placed his trust in his legs and started to walk towards them, feeling his legs grow stronger as his body got used, again, to the Earth’s gravity field. The aliens waited patiently for the humans and their guards; he suspected, watching the way their faces twitched, that they were finding their progress funny. The aliens should have been used to bodies that had been in space too long, but instead…they were laughing! He was sure of it.
“Welcome to Earth,” the lead alien said, with hopefully unintentional irony. “You will take that vehicle there and head to your people’s lines, outside our area of control.”
Francis followed the alien’s gaze and saw a large SUV, carrying a white flag on the hood, fluttering in the wind. It would be very visible from space, he realised; the aliens were taking no chances on a friendly fire incident from either side. It would be fairly easy to drive once he got his strength back – and Gary or Katy would be able to drive it as well – and it should have enough fuel to get to friendly lines, wherever they were. Gary went over to check the vehicle out as Francis continued to speak to the aliens.
“Thank you,” he said, dryly. The aliens probably wouldn’t recognise sarcasm. “Where are the friendly lines?”
The aliens produced a map. It was a fairly basic roadmap of Texas, one that might be used by any driver planning a road trip, and someone had written on it in green ink. If the map was accurate, the aliens controlled the state as far north as Waco, although the area that represented Fort Hood couldn’t be that firmly under their control.
