Was this their first meeting ?…
A saucer shaped spacecraft thirty meters above, it casts a shadow across the ground giving shade to a small group of mourners from the hot sun in a blue sky. The spacecraft, 40 meters across is dead still like it is attached to a sturdy pole fixed firmly in the ground beneath it. There is no sound from the craft. Warm pulsating rectangular neon-coloured lights from its silvered and heavily scorched base slowly flicker on and off.
Three human mourners, two androids and two plain, scratched, dented dull yellow basic maintenance robots stand around a shallow rocky grave near a crystal-clear stream of water on a rocky vegetation less and virgin sterile planet.
A moon with an angled rocky ring halo around its fat waist hangs low in the blue sky. The moon seems like it is looking down with a rocky frown on the mourners. Almost overhead is the planets fiery hot sun. John looks tired, worn down, his cloths are grubby and torn, he has blood on his plain white long-sleeved shirt, his space over-suit is tied by its arms around his waist.
On John’s left and right stand Ghost and Tombs, they are two well-built war worn and heavily armed marines picked up from earths future. On the other side of the grave stands two human like Androids, Dizzy and Porter.
John is holding Luna’s body carefully like a new-born baby, her slim body is wrapped like an Egyptian mummy in bandages head to toe. He gently lowers the lifeless Luna into the shallow rocky grave, tears appear at the corners of his blue eyes, he rubs his eye with his palm and then across his face around to his ear.
He looks at his hand, he has blood on his palm from a cut on his ear, he gently touches his white hair above his ear checking for more blood.
Looking down at the body John says the Lords pray, JOHN: “'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven our sins.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen”.
The mourners say “Amen”.
The yellow droids robots heads are the same size as a human, but completely oval all around very much like an egg shape. Normally a kaleidoscope of colours are projected onto the inside of their clear but frosted textured heads that scan the entire electronic and light spectrum of heat, colour, radar etc.
If they need to communicate with a human or other being they project a monochrome face onto the inside of their head. Although the face looks rather flat without protruding nose or ears.
John looks around at the two yellow metal clad dented and scruffy looking maintenance robots that resemble Artist Manikin models that are standing back from the mourners, he nods at them, they “Buzz” like they are saying “Ok”. The robots walk over to the grave and pickup rocks to cover the body.
John and the mourners walk towards a square doorway that looks like someone has hung a picture in the air of a high-resolution TV screen of the inside of a spacecraft with a narrow surrounding frame just a few centimetres off the ground. The mourners walk through the 2D doorway and onto the spacecraft hovering above.
The 2D doorway is called a “Trans migration gateway” (T-M-G). John waits by the T-M-G doorway for the robots to finish their task, the robots
finish and walk through the T-M-G and onto the ship. John goes to step though the doorway, but he pauses for a few seconds and looks back at the grave, John visually sighs and looks down as he turns and walks though the doorway and onto the spacecraft.
John is now on the spacecraft hovering above Lunas grave, he walks across a big flat dimly lit cargo deck towards a very modern looking transparent elevator. The cargo deck has various crates and machinery against its interior walls and bulkheads, it is obvious that the inside of this spacecraft is dimensionally larger on the inside than the outside.
John steps out of the elevator and onto the largely white flight deck of the spaceship. The crew work in pairs and are sitting or standing at their designated positions on the spacecraft. Porter is an android, he worked originally as a Porter for a well-off owner once. He looks and acts just like a male human; he speaks poshly and was an expensive high end Artificial Intelligence model when new.
He is shuffling around and making noises like he is moaning about something; he makes himself comfy at his navigation seat just like a human would.
Dizzy, or Elizabeth, (but the crew call her Dizzy or Diz) is an attractive female android with unmissable left electric blue and right yellow eyes, she looks and acts just like a female human. She talks commonly, and was a medium end Artificial Intelligence android originally, she had worked in a restaurant, and later in a brothel. Dizzy got damaged when her brothel owners tried to re-program her and damaged a processor in her memory, this caused her to act seeming oddly on occasions, hence Liz became Dizzy.
Both Dizzy and Porter had been re-programmed to be part of the crew of the Alice, but still have memories of their pasts. Both Porter and Dizzy have odd but charmingly amusing and often funny quirks in their personalities.
Dizzy is upset and sobbing, she is standing next to the helm seat, this is where the ship would had been piloted from by Luna who had just been buried on the rocky planet.
John walks over to Dizzy and hugs her,
DIZZY: “What are we going to do now Luna is gone”
JOHN: “We’re going to carry on, it’s what she would had wanted us to do”.
John pauses for a moment.
JOHN: “Dizzy, why don’t you help Porter with Navigation”
PORTER: “But, Captain, I don’t need any help”
John smiles at Porter, and nods, then winks at him, JOHN: “Just let her help you Porter”.
PORTER: “Oh! Ok captain”.
John sits down at a control station next to where Luna would had sat down normally, he picks up her mascot from the helm control console that has a magnetic base.
Lunas mascot is a plastic wobbly toy of a 1960’s Nasa spaceman on a spring, it has “To Luna my alien space goddess”, I Love you, John”
written around the waist of its base. John can feel the eyes of his crew on him.
John looks up and turns, he looks around at his crew, they are all silently looking at him, he puts the toy spaceman back in its place.
JOHN: “Dizzy, authenticate and shut down the T-M-G. Porter, authenticate and undock Alice”
Dizzy looks into an eye scanner mounted at her console. The scanner dimly illuminates her eyes in a rainbow of surveying lights, DIZZY: “Ioa. Allow unlock console for T-M-G. Command, Trans migration gateway shutdown”.
Ioa is the ships onboard soft female voice interactive Artificial Intelligence computer, (IOA: Pronounced; “I-O-Wah” Input-Output-Answer) Ioa can also appear around the ship as an attractive ghostly holographic female, often wearing different modern cloths and hairstyles, sometimes with wild makeup.
IOA: “Identity, Elizabeth, crew, android, officer star ship Alice, secure access allowed to T-M-G. No organic or solid moving objects traveling though the gateway at time, now. No organic or solid moving objects traveling though the inductive trans-motive pathway at time, now.
Closing both internal and external portals, allowing shutdown via console control, ID Dizzy”
A screen flashes and outputs commands on Dizzy’s console that tells her the (T-M-G) gateway and pathway are empty and can be shutdown, Dizzy pulls a lever on her console marked “TRANS MIGRATION
GATEWAY” and the remote doorway to the spaceship on the planet shrinks to a dot and vanishes.
The doorway the crew all entered the spacecraft though on to the ships lower cargo deck also vanishes, but a heavy metal door frame next to an unmanned floor mounted TMG console remains.
Porter looks into an eye scanner on his console, PORTER: “Ioa. Allow unlock console for stationary docking and manoeuvring. Command: hover undock”.
IOA: “Identity, Porter, android, crew, officer star ship Alice, secure access allowed to docking and manoeuvring console, Porter adjusts controls at his console,
PORTER: “Undocking explicit stationary hover mode, now under manual control”
The spaceship hums loudly and wobbles, as it is undocked from stationary hover mode.
The pulsating rectangular neon-coloured lights under the ship speed up and glow a little brighter as the ship settles down from its wobbling motion after being taken off auto hover mode to manual control.
JOHN: “IOA, scan my body implants for secure ID and authenticate”
IOA: “Scanning…”
IOA: “Identity, John, crew, Captain star ship Alice, secure access to all ships systems,
JOHN: “IOA, Move helm control to my console”
IOA: “Helm systems moved to; John’s console”
Johns flat see though console illuminates with an array of coloured and brightly lit helm controls. He touches and slides his fingers and hands across the flat table console and hovers his hands in other places, JOHN: “Ioa, Forward viewing screen on. Engaging atmospheric engines”
A large curved outside forward view is projected two meters in front of John. Large venetian blind vents open at the sides of the saucer shaped spaceship, the vents point backwards, black smoke vets out briefly as an exotic fuel mixes with the air and is then sucked back into the engines. A mirage heat haze of clear gas encircles the engine vents as a vortex. The spacecraft slowly moves away,
JOHN: “Engines at one percent. Alice is in motion”
Ghost, who is a well-built mixed race female space marine and John’s drinking buddy, is sitting at a console at the side of the main deck, she is alerted by a flashing screen, she checks it over. She has a scar on her left cheek from an old combat mission, she feels it gently with her fingers which is the way she subconsciously shows concern, GHOST: “One of our orbital tracking satellites is picking up a ship entering this system, its approaching from the other side of the sun, it’s coming our way John, it’s approaching very fast”
John looks around at his crew,
JOHN: “OK, I’m gonna have to spin up the main power core from cold, it’ll take a few minutes before it’s fully online and we can enter space, sorry guys, the ride could get bumpy running on the atmospheric engines, get strapped in”
The crew all activate their over shoulder seat belt mechanisms. Each crew members seat has a pair of arms that extend out and over each left and right shoulder that offers a seat belt to the crew member to attach to a waist belt that has automatically been extended around them.
As each seatbelt is put on it is automatically tensioned and secured with a magnetic clunk from the floor. Each flight seat is put into ejection mode and a warning on an overhead console at each crew station flashes in red
“WARNING SEAT EVAC ARMED” Ioa appears as a small holographic person standing at each crew members console.
IOA: “Flight deck seat one is now engaged to eject in an emergency evacuation situation, flight deck seat three is… flight deck seat four and six and three are now engaged to eject in an emergency evacuation situation”
John slides his left fingers across his console and taps with his right. He throttles up the atmospheric drive engines and black diesel like smoke flows across the skin of the spaceship and fades as the engines behind the venetian blind intakes start to glow orange as they get hot.
Star ship Alice stays at a steady 30 meters above the ground as it follows the undulating contours of the planet, then changes angle buy a few degrees and quickly accelerates into the sky. Dizzy is monitoring a downward facing view screen as she witnesses the ground moving away.
Dizzy smiles to herself.
GHOST: “Detecting incoming radar John”
JOHN: “OK”
Alice is now traveling very fast. John dive’s the ship back down close to the planets naked mountainous and rocky surface of the lifeless planet almost hitting the ground trying to avoid any radar contact with the alien spaceship approaching them.
John is piloting and controlling Alice though valleys and hills as they appear on the curved projected viewing screen in front of him. They emerge from a valley at the edge of the continent by the side of a huge ocean with big curling waves and menacing looking grey clouds on the horizon.
Dizzy’s blue eye turns yellow just like her other eye as she concentrates while she scans her console. Her right eye iris slowly turns as she looks at a smaller main view screen in her console.
Dizzy then looks up at the large holographic forward viewing screen. The star ship emerges from the valley. She then looks back at Alice’s main
core engine generator on her console showing the percentage that the spaceship has to go before her main engine is ready to go to full power.
DIZZY: “Core is at 86% John”,
With the spacecraft flying very low and almost touching the vast sea they approach a huge black and menacing thunderstorm and plunge right into it without hesitation.
The skin alongside the star ships atmospheric engines is now glowing red hot, it gets quenched by the heavy rain, the steam turns to a glowing purple and pink plasma with galvanic lighting as it mixes with the exotic gas from the engine’s hyper sonic jet exhausts just behind the slotted vents.
The ship vibrates and shakes and bumps the crew around as John wrestles with the controls. The instruments on his console flash warnings wildly.
Ioa’s computer warnings are heard, but the crew remain calm scanning their consoles.
An unamused small slow swaying Ioa is standing on John’s console. She is looking down at the console’s graphics and data with her hands behind her back. Ioa starts to walk across John’s console like she is on a swaying ship trying to keep balance and is now pointing down at the flat transparent screen and waving her arms around.
IOA: “Outer hull lightning strikes exceeding one thousand kilo watts.
Rear sensor array has sustained damage, moving to the secondary backup system sensor array. Secondary sensor array system now online, at 100%
and stable”.
JOHN: “Thank you Ioa”,
Ioa smiles at John and fades away.
On Dizzy console the engine core power display is moving slowly, but then suddenly the readout jumps from 98% to an orange-coloured region showing 108%, Dizzy is smiling, she looks around at John, DIZZY: Core is at 108% John,
John taps away at his console,
JOHN: “Engaging main drive engines, integral gravity on, localised damping field starting up”
What sounds like powerful electric motors humming, huge high voltage transformers and capacitors whistling and starting up are heard coming from the star ships engine rooms a few decks below. The star ships shaking, and vibrating slows down for a moment, PORTER: “Captain, the navigation computers have plotted a plan “A”
and plan “B” out of this system, sending the data to helm console”
JOHN: “Thanks Porter. GHOST!”
GHOST: “John!”
JOHN: “Destroy our orbital tracking satellites, we won’t be coming back for them”
GHOST: “Roger that Captain”
Ghost opens a small panel door on her console marked “SATELLITE
SELF DESTRUCT” she turns and pushes a control switch inside the panel.
As Ghost flips the switch she sees an indicator on her console that alerts her to look at a radar screen, she sees a blip on the radar screen very briefly suggesting that there is a second alien ship on the planet where Luna was buried.
The switch Ghost initialised flashes red then transforms into steady blue.
The orbital tracking satellites that had been left in orbit to track and expose any approaching space craft whilst the crew held Luna’s funeral explode far out in space.
GHOST: “JOHN! Oh, it’s gone, ok. Must had been an echo on the radar.
Satellites destroyed captain”.
JOHN: “Roger that Ghost, Satellites destroyed”
GHOST: “That alien ship has entered the planets outer atmosphere”
Tombs is a six-foot four well-built male space marine; he is nearly always unshaven. His hair is long on top with a short ponytail on the top of his
head. Both sides of his head are shaved to reveal Celtic design tattoos. He is also Ghost’s lover. He controls the ships armaments systems, and is John’s trusted protective buddy, he is sitting at the weapons console at the side of the main deck next to Ghost,
TOMBS: “I’m bringing weapons online John”
Laser gun turrets elevate from the ships exterior panel doors in mechanical anger and turn to face backwards.
The ship enters a part of the storm that is particularly violent. Porter and Dizzy are watching the big view screen in front of John, they look at each other worryingly.
Dizzy grips the sides of her seat as the ship starts to shake again. Alice shudders and vibrates violently in the storm. Porter leans over to Dizzy and holds her hand, Porter and Dizzy smile at each other. The ships weapons can be herd clunking inside the ship, and the laser guns armaments cyclotrons are herd whistling as they are charging up.
Meanwhile, back on the planet where Luna was laid to rest an alien
“Craven” species shuttle craft that had been following the Endellion ship from a safe distance is now stationarily positioned over Lunas grave site.
It is using a wide scanning light beam to examine her place of rest.
The Alien race of Craven’s are like inventions of Frankenstein. Physically they are a mix of alien body parts refashioned if necessary to suit themselves. Some of their body parts are crudely mechanical, like semi-permeant appendages of bent metal and bags of organs lubricated with semi-fluids. They are essentially like vultures; they are dead body scavenges.
The cravens collect body parts of the dead to repair their own, or to trade on or sell to other alien species as reconditioned or modified appendages.
The Cravens follow the Endellions around knowing that they leave death and destruction almost everywhere they go. The Cravens main ship is hidden away in deep space.
Back on the Alice the star ship is vibrating and shaking. John coolly makes some adjustments at his helm console. The ship turns in the violent thunderstorm with a graceful arc though ninety degrees until the ship is going vertical.
JOHN: “Here we go. Engaging displacement drive”
John taps away at his console. He briefly checks the rising power levels and engages the main space drive engine. DIZZY, who is being thrown about in her seat quietly says to Porter with a shivering voice because of the star ships vibrating …
DIZZY: “Oh! good, we’re going to light speed. Thank you John”.
The star ship bursts though the clouds at the edge of space, rainwater pouring back to the planet and away from its hull, lightning explodes from the black and grey thunder clouds below trying to grasp the ship like an electric hand with fingers extended.
Now in the very high and thin atmosphere the star ship stops shaking, the main drive engines that work in the vacuum of space start to engage, the pulsating lights around the ship stop, and as the atmospheric engines shut down and their vents close, wide narrow doors above and below the ship open to reveal the main engine drive, a bright blue solid light illuminates the spaceships rear and then turns orange. A misty orange over glow surrounds the ship, and with a sudden lurch the spaceship seamlessly accelerates to 350 times the speed of light.
DIZZY: “Accelerating to L1, L2, L2.5, L3, L3 point five four, main drive engines at 108%”
JOHN: “Pulling engine core back to 99%”
DIZZY: ”L three point six six”
As the star ship leaves the planet the alien ship pursuing breaks out from the dark thunderstorm below and accelerates and pursues the Alice.
GHOST: “They’re closing in on us John. You not going to L4? aren’t you going to outrun them?”
TOMBS: “Were locked and loaded boss”
John turns and looks poker faced around at his crew.
JOHN: “Navigation. Porter! anywhere to hide”.
Tombs looks around at Ghost and is shaking his head, Tombs looks around at Ghost and screws up his face, TOMBS: “Did he say, Hide?”
PORTER: There is a system with a class “L” planet not too far away”
JOHN: “Send me the coordinates Porter”
John sweeps his hands and taps and slides his fingers across his flat console and makes course and speed adjustments, the stars on the forward screen twist sideways as the ship sharply tilts and then the stars blur as the engines loudly hum and whistle after a burst of acceleration, then the screen full of stars come back into focus and tilt back as the ship comes out of its turn.
The stars move up the screen as Johns changes direction again to align with a small planetary system. John brings up a holographic side screen showing the various planetary layouts of the system they have just entered mapped out hanging there in the space beside him.
The ship shudders and shakes as John slows the engines to adjust the speed yet again for the ship to change direction once more, the crew all sway together as the isolated internal gravity system catches up with the engines as they give a kick as the star ship accelerates again. The ship does another tight sweeping turn in space, passes close by to the planetary systems star and then quickly sling shots back and enters the planet system that John had been tracking on the side screen.
Porter looks across at John, and can see John has brought up a holographic screen hanging in the air with the systems planets laid out, PORTER: “The blue planet sir”
JOHN: “Ok Porter”
John makes some small course adjustments and heads for the blue planet, PORTER: “We’re making a really fast approach, Captain!”
JOHN: “I know porter, I want to get out of empty space, so we can’t be tracked. All hold tight for some rapid atmospheric braking”
The ship dives into the planet’s tropical atmosphere and tilts back causing a fireball to erupt at the base and around the ship as the extreme pressure of the air against the ship’s lower hull heats it up. Mountains and thick primitive forests below witness the fireball and sonic boom.
A small red haired Ioa in a short red dress and red heels appears on John’s console with one hand on her hip and the other hands fingers wiggling and pointing at a flashing readout showing the hull temperature.
IOA: “Extreme heat build-up on outer hull, there is a danger to biological entities on the ship John”
JOHN: “That’s Ok Ioa, I know, I am aware of the danger, just needed to slow the ship down quick without using the integral damping system. I’m gliding in. Going manual. Mechanical flight controls Ioa”
IOA: “Ok John”
John taps away at his console and an alien looking joystick control emerges from the floor next to his seat on his right-hand side. He grips it and steers the star ship away from the forest towards the coast not far away.
As the ship glides low across a sandy beach and over the sea, he tilts the ship up into the sky and then in a controlled stall turns the ship up and over and dives Alice into the clear blue ocean.
The ship vertically re-appears from the sea, steam and water rush away from the hull and have cleaned her silvery surface. Alice runs out of speed in a shallow climb and is about to stall in mid-air and fall back into the sea.
Then the rear engine vents open and the atmospheric engines roar into life, the Alice slightly dives but gains pace with the engines pushing the star ship along they start to give her some altitude. The ships name “IS
Alice” and a picture of Lewis Carrols Alice looking into a sky of stars appears on the sea cleaned bottom of the star ship as she does a slow low tight swooping turn back towards the sandy beach.
“IS Alice” (Inter-Stella - Alice) is written in big letters alongside a graphic of Lewis Carrols “Alice, though the looking glass”. The illustration is of Alice with her arms behind her back gazing up at some stars.
Flying at a low-level, John pilot’s Alice along the sandy coastline next to the forest which is just out of reach of the seas high tide. Vapour trails are curling away from the star-ships outer edges from the remains of the heated-up seawater on the hull.
He steers the star ship inland flying low and on towards a thick jungle and mountains. Turbulence from Alice makes the tops of tall prehistoric trees curl over, and as they swing back their leaves lose their grip with their branches and get sucked up into the air and fall away to the ground.
IOA: “Outer hull temperature is reducing, risk to biological entities negligible”
A happy looking Ioa’s cloths, hair and shoes turn a light blue, she smiles and waves at John then fades away, John smiles, JOHN: “Dizzy, can you scan for a natural cave or opening, big enough to fit “Alice” in”
DIZZY: “Aye Aye, captain”
Dizzy grins and raises her eyebrows at John,
John mouths to himself quietly “Aye Aye captain”, he then looks around at Dizzy, and crosses his head in dis-approval at her “Aye, captain”
remark, but he smiles at her anyway,
Dizzy glances over at John, Dizzy is very fond of John to the extent of a having a crush on him. She is smiling broadly as she scans and examines her control panel that is surveying the planets surface,
DIZZY: “Found something John, its bit of a squeeze, but here yah go, data coming over to you right now”
John overlays the data sent to him by Dizzy with the main viewing screen and aligns the cave up with the planets topology map, JOHN: “Ok, let’s park Alice then”
The warm pulsating and glowing rectangular neon-coloured anti-gravity emitters start-up at the base of Alice. John brings Alice almost to a halt at the foot of a huge mountain thick with tropical foliage and trees. He then slowly guides the ship like it’s going up the slope of a funicular train track into a wide and high cave over hung by vines halfway up the slope of this steeply sided mountain. The ship scrapes the sides of the cave as it goes in.
JOHN: “Dizzy?”
DIZZY: “You can check the data John!, it says Alice can fit in!”
John backs Alice up slightly, moving her away from the cave walls.
As Alice hovers in the cave three legs with grabbing opening metal claws at the ends like excavator jaws flatten out and come down from the fuselage, they then oscillate to carefully feel the ground to see if it is firm enough to land, the ship settles down and the legs push the ship up ever so slightly to level it out. John shuts various systems down, Alice’s engines noise dies away to silence and the neon-coloured anti-gravity emitters beneath Alice fade .
JOHN: “Ok, analysis says that the air is really good to breath, I’m going to go outside and fill my lungs with some of it”
John stretches, and then unbuckles his seatbelt. The seat belt mechanism retracts back into his seat. The seat EVAC warnings display goes out.
John gets up and gets into the elevator which takes him to the cargo deck where lights seamlessly flicker on randomly as he walks across the wide floor.
JOHN: “Ioa, put number two ramp down”
IOA: “Unlocking ramp two. Number two ramp going down. levelling ramp, compensating for an unlevel surface”
Alice’s cargo ramp creaks, hisses, and makes metallic buckling sounds as it lowers and stretches out and down to the caves sandy and rocky landing place.
John stands back a little on the cargo deck watching the cargo ramp go down, then he walks onto the ramp, he hops off the end before it reaches the ground.
He looks around the big cave, and in the rocky soil he sees a pretty flower not far from the edge of the ramp. There is no wind or breeze, but it looks like the flower is softly swaying to unheard beautiful music.
He smiles at it, then reaches down to the red, yellow, and blue flower that looks like it has a liquid pumping though its pink stalk veins.
Just as he goes to touch it, sharp white curved claws appear from the ends of its petals, the flower goes to grab John’s hand, John jumps back, then he observes a coloured liquid dripping from the end of the flowers claws that falls onto the sandy and gravely ground, the surface sizzles. The liquid from the flower seems to be acidic and burn and discolour the sand.
John reaches for his space gun and shakes it in front of the flower like the flower can see it,
JOHN: “And fuck you, flower!”
Ghost and Tombs walk down the ramp bearing heavy weapons and are dressed in camouflaged commando outfits, they are followed by Porter and Dizzy who has who has dressed like a street corner prostitute.
Porter is looking Dizzy up and down. John is also looking at Dizzy.
John is looking confused.
DIZZY: “What? I wanted to dress for the occasion”.
PORTER: “And what occasion would that be?”
DIZZY: “You never know, and you never mind”
Porter quietly talks to himself,
PORTER: “I think that John needs to sort your programming out girl”
As John sits down on a rock Ghost joins him she pushes up her marine corps helmet, the rest of the crew walk towards the caves entrance.
GHOST: “John, you need to talk about Luna, it’ll help you know”
JOHN: “From the beginning?”
GHOST: “Yeah, tell me about her John, from the beginning, that day you met. She loved you deeply, and I know you loved her”.
John sighs,
JOHN: “Well, I lived in a small leafy country town on the edge of a desert. Just a few miles away is a small industrial complex where I used to run my own small company building Robots that run with Artificial Intelligence, you know, Androids, A-I. I’m a mechanical engineer and a computer programmer really, not a space pilot. That day, a couple of androids I had built a few years back came into the workshop for some upgrades, that was Dizzy and Porter,
GHOST: “Our Dizzy and Porter?
JOHN: “Yeah, that’s right, our Dizzy and Porter. I was fitting a right arm assembly to Dizzy, I had her sitting on top of a workbench, she was smiling at me and Porter. I remember her gently swinging her legs.
Porter is helping me with one of Dizzy’s new arms. Both Dizzy and Porter are my second-generation Artificial Intelligence androids. At the time they looked very human from a distance, but if you got close you could see their skin was not human like, as the latex does not seem to wrinkle around their mouths or eyes when they talk or blink as it would in a regular human being. Some of their mannerisms were not quite human like either, but my new software upgrades would help.
GHOST: “Is this all relevant?”
JOHN: “Your gonna want to know how Porter and Dizzy ended up on Alice with me and Luna, and it’s important, it’s how we all ended up together, because on that day, I didn’t think I would ever see Dizzy or
Porter again. Anyway, we are in my workshop inside the warehouse when Porter says to me….”
PORTER: “Sir, will this arm and hand enable Dizzy to carry more mass?”
JOHN: “It will Porter, but it’s designed to articulate more as well”
DIZZY: “Articulate more what sir?”
JOHN: “Watch this”
John pushes all his own right fingers back using his left hand, JOHN: “See that”
Then, with his left hand he grips his own right arm just below his elbow and demonstrates how far it bends in back and forth.
JOHN: “See how far my arm bends back”
He then holds Dizzy’s hand and manually bends back her fingers, JOHN: “Now see how your fingers go back further Dizzy; you will be able to move your arm back 20 percent more than before as well”
PORTER: “I thought we were supposed to articulate within the limitations of humans”
JOHN: “Your owners have asked for these improvements, and that didn’t seem unreasonable”
John plugs Dizzy’s new arm wiring harness into a socket in her mechanically exposed shoulder, he then pulls back her rolled back latex shoulder skin to hide the join at the top of her arm, JOHN: “Ok Dizzy all done, how does that feel”
Dizzy moves her arm and fingers, she smiles broadly at John and Porter, Porter smiles back at Dizzy and looks excited,
PORTER: “Well, Dizzy, how is it?”
DIZZY: “Feels funny, lighter, tingles more!”
JOHN: “Your new arm is lighter, and has more skin sensors, that’s why it tingles. Your software will adjust to the extra sensitivity. Which reminds me, that your skin upgrades will be ready in a couple of months, so both of you will be back here again in December”?
PORTER: “Is that human like skin we are getting?”
JOHN: “That’s right Porter”
Porter smiles at Dizzy, Dizzy grins at John and Porter, DIZZY: “December! It will be like a Christmas present! I can use proper makeup, no more paint!”
John giggles,
JOHN: “Yeah! No more paint”
Johns cell phone alarm goes off, he looks at the screen, JOHN: “Oh!, I need to go into town and pick up a package from the post office before it closes. Frank! Frank!”
An out of sight a door is heard squeaking open, then slamming shut. John looks around but sees no one.
JOHN: “Was that someone coming in or going out?”
Dizzy and Porter look puzzled.
John dials a number on his cell phone and waits for it to answer.
JOHN: “Frank, Frank”
A slightly overweight middle-aged bald guy with a white lab-coat and top pocket over stretched with an excess of assorted pens and pencils walks into the workshop and stands behind John. Frank has already answered his cell phone and is holding it to his ear.
FRANK: “Yes boss”
JOHN: “I got to go and collect a package in town. Can you come into the workshop so I can give you the correct build sheet for these androids I ‘m upgrading”?
FRANK: “Yes boss”
Dizzy and Porter are looking at John then Frank then John as they exchange their phone conversation just a few meters apart. John watching Porter looking back and forth causes John to turn around. John looks at Frank then Porter and sighs, then turns his phone off.
JOHN: “Frank, can you complete the upgrades on these two, here are the build sheets for them. A Taxi is coming to collect them at four PM today to take them both to the airport. They will be making their own way back to their respective owner tonight”.
FRANK:: “Ok boss, no problem”
JOHN: “I’ll see you tomorrow Frank. OH! and Frank!”
FRANK: “John?”
JOHN: “You’re a wanker.
FRANK: “Yes I am John”
JOHN: “Porter! Dizzy! Nice seeing you both again, hope to see you both soon for the skin upgrade in December!”
John goes to his front office gets his briefcase, goes out though the front of building door where his old Pontiac convertible is parked in front of the building.
He puts his briefcase on the passenger’s seat and takes a short drive across the desert into town where he picks up a box from the post office.
He puts the package on top of his briefcase in the car, then Johns phone rings, he looks at the phone screen, it says that Frank is calling him, he answers the phone.
JOHN: “What’s up Frank”
FRANK:: “I’m having a problem with setting the building alarm, the warehouse is locked, but the alarm won’t set, Kathy from the office tried to set the alarm, but it did not work, the building is locked, but there is no security, so I’m calling you”
JOHN: “Ok Frank, go home, I’ll come back and have a look at it”
John drives back to the warehouse. When he arrives, he lifts the package he got from the post office up and notices a faint yellow luminous glow where the box was sitting on his briefcase.
He puts the box down and takes off his sunglasses for a better look. He then rubs his eyes and looks at the sunglass lenses and rubs then clean.
He looks back at the briefcase again, but the glow has gone.
He opens up the warehouse and goes to the security alarm where he pushes some buttons and resets it, the security alarm gives a reassuring three beeps followed by a short theme tune from the film “ET” (Extra-terrestrial), John smiles,
JOHN: (To himself) “That’s got it, ET can go home now. I’m ready for a shower, some dinner, and a cold beer now.
JOHN to GHOST: Anyway, I put the package in my office and leave the building, I get in my car and drive across the desert road to go home. It was a bright sunny cloudless day, and I was listening to some great music on the radio, roof down on the convertible, humming and singing to the tunes, then, BAM!
This pole or rod, four or six inches wide came from outer the sky and smashed into the passenger seat; it just missed my briefcase!
Then it retracts! It shoots up into the air! So, I look up! And fuck! I’m looking up at the underside of this flying space saucer, must had been some 10 meters above me, completely silent.
Then BAM! Again, this rod shoots out from the bottom of this spaceship again, and the end goes through my briefcase and passengers’ seat, then straight though the cars metal floor! Then the car starts to lift off the ground.
I look up, and this space saucer is starting to oscillate and wobble like there is something wrong. The car drops back onto road and this pole
retracts back into the spaceship, next thing this spacecraft tilts over to the left and starts losing height, then it flies off and over this shallow sandy and gravel hill and vanishes, then I hear a crash. I drive off the road and over the hill to where this triangular looking space saucer has skidded to.
It had crash landed but was all in one piece.
I get out of the car and walk around this thing; it was maybe 20 metres across and 4 meters high, silverish, and sort of triangular in shape with rounded edges and corners, like a big metallic triangular pillow.
GHOST: “Not the Alice then”
JOHN: “No, it was the tug; the Ballerina.
As I stood staring at it, I see what looked a rectangular shape forming on the side of the ship’s hull, it was like a door frame appearing. Then suddenly there was just an open space in the side of this spaceship, a ramp comes down to the ground and I walk over to look inside.
I hear what sounds like coughing coming from inside the craft, then a slim humanoid figure dressed head to toe in a skin-tight white outfit like some sort of spacesuit stumbles out. This alien tumbles down the ramp and onto the ground. I go over to see if I can help, but there is no movement, there appears to be blood soaking though its garment in various places like it is injured. It has its face covered in a skin-tight head mask.
I cannot see its face or head to make any sort of judgement about its condition, so I kneel down beside it, and I go to pull off this enclosed head mask when this alien suddenly grabs me by the back of my head with one hand and pushes its palm firmly against my forehead with its other hand.
GHOST: “Then what?”
JOHN: “I am like, frozen, I cannot move, I see all these visions in my head, I hear things, and can taste things, and smells that are strange to me.
My head is spinning, then this alien lets my head go. I feel dizzy, but I get up, I have this urge to go into the ship. So, I go in and go straight to this compartment and get this case, like a toolbox.
I put that in the car and go back and get this alien. I put the alien on the back seat of the car and cover it in a blanket and put the roof up. I look
around at the spaceship and it starts to fade away, it vanishes! And I drive home.
GHOST: “You put an alien and its toolbox in your convertible and take it home!”
JOHN: “Yeah, it was like, I had an uncontrollable urge to do that! I get to my street, drive up and down a few times to check no one is around, I park in my driveway, and then I carry the alien into the house, then go get the toolbox and take that inside the house as well.
I go to the bathroom and fill the bath with hot water, I test the temperature and add some cold to the tub. I get the aliens toolbox and inside are containers and stuff, I open one of the containers and pour out the powder inside it into the bathwater which turns it white. I get the alien and put it in the bath water as she is, then I go to the front room and lay down on the sofa and fall asleep.
GHOST: “You just do all this like your hypnotised or something?”
JOHN: “Yeah! Suddenly I wake up, and there standing, looking at me, is this, this stunningly beautiful, humanoid, female alien.
GHOST: “So, how you know she was female John!”
JOHN: “Mainly because she was naked, and wet, and the bits I have that make me a man were missing on her. OH! she was female, no doubt about that! She had bits like you Ghost!”
GHOST: “You ain’t seen my bits, John! but I know what you mean”
JOHN: “Then she started talking, in English!”
Ghost looks surprised,
GHOST: “Go on”
JOHN: “She said”…
LUNA: “I’m cold, have you got something I can wear to keep warm”
Ghost looks more surprised…
GHOST: “Set the scene, more detail John!”
Mouth wide open, John is staring at Luna, admiring her.
He goes to get up, but as he pushes himself up on the sofas seat cushion his hand loses traction and he slides off the sofa onto the floor, in shock he kneels in front of her. Not knowing what to do in Luna’s presence, he puts his fists under his chin and like there is an imaginary table under his elbows,
JOHN: “Yes, Yes, of course”
He goes to his bedroom and returns with a light blue dressing gown, he goes behind her, and just before he puts it around her shoulders, he stops and admires her beauty again, he looks down from her head and back down to her feet, he notices that she is wiggling her toes. She looks around at John.
LUNA: “I’m cold”,
JOHN: “you put your arms though these holes”
Luna frowns at John,
LUNA: “Yes, I wear items similar to this with holes in them for your arms”
JOHN: “Eh? Yeah, of course you did, you do? Do you need your cloths washed at all, that, eh, flight suit you had on?”
LUNA: “No, that dissolved away”
JOHN: “Ok, so, something to eat, drink, water, whiskey? I‘m going to have a whisky. I think I’m going to pour myself a double whisky, or more. Ok, yeah, so I have an alien in my house, that is speaking to me in English”.
LUNA: “Thank you for saving my life, John”
JOHN: “I haven’t said my name once yet, how do you even know my name? can you read my mind? OH! when I saw you naked, those things I was thinking, I was, it was, eh?”
LUNA: “John! I was not sure if we would be a compatible species. I was going to die in that desert. I needed your help! I had to let you into all my life’s memories and thoughts, so you knew what to do to help me”
JOHN: “It that when you grabbed my head, back at your spaceship”
LUNA: “Yes, I had to let you know everything about me. I would never do that normally, and I never have done that before. But it would had been life or death for me. I was not sure it would work”.
John walks around Luna shaking and holding his head, nodding occasionally,
JOHN: “Well, whatever that was, it did work. So that’s why I have all these weird memories and experience’s, smells and tastes that are not mine”.
John is agitating his mouth like he is tasting something, LUNA: “yes, they are mine, and I have all of yours!”
Luna is agitating her mouth like she is tasting something, JOHN: “Oh! that could be baaad, are you tasting the chicken with garlic salsa I had for lunch?”
LUNA: “My name is Luna”
JOHN: “Well, you know who I am, Hello Luna! I’m John!”
LUNA: “you should know why I am here John”
JOHN: “You were trying to grab the briefcase out of my car, but it does not have the isotope you were looking for in it”
LUNA: “The sensors were damaged in the attack on my ship, and they gave a false reading”
JOHN: “Yeah! That was some fight wasn’t it, hey how do I know that?”
John holds his head again,
LUNA: “Because you know what I know”
John starts to concentrate,
JOHN: “So, the spaceship is stolen, you’re not from around here, and you have travelled though time, and all your species are dead, is what I am thinking. WOW! I’m sorry about all your family and friends, really!”
LUNA: “I know you can help me John”
JOHN: “Oh! Wait, Earth, this planet”.
LUNA: “How long before earth is gone, you know that from me”
Luna points at her head,
JOHN: “Yeah, ok!”
John is smiling and slightly laughing at Luna, but the laughing stops, and his smile goes away,
JOHN: “This is the last day of Earth?”
LUNA: “we need to leave, and you need to fix my ship”
John holds his head,
JOHN: “I know what’s wrong with your ship, how do I know that?”
Luna taps her head,
LUNA: “Because I do John, and now you do, but I am not a fixer, you are”
JOHN: “I need to get some tools from the garage”
John rushes out of the front door and opens the garage door, he then starts to pile tools into the trunk of his black 1970’s Pontiac Firebird convertible.
Meanwhile, Luna looks around John’s house and finds the kitchen. She starts to open cupboards and looks at the contents. John finishes filling the car’s trunk with tools and slams the lid down and goes back in the house.
JOHN: “Luna, Luna?”
John goes to the kitchen and finds Luna eating a banana with its skin on while glugging down hot salsa from a glass jar out of the fridge, John pauses to look at her eating and drinking, JOHN: “I did ask if you were hungry”
Luna holds up the jar of salsa, she has salsa all around her face, LUNA: “I like this drink John, but this banana does not taste like your memory of it”
John snatches the salsa jar and banana from her and puts them on the kitchen table.
JOHN: “That’s not a drink! And that’s because it’s not ripe yet. When they are green, they are not ripe, where’s the skin?”
LUNA: “I eat it”
JOHN: “You don’t eat the bananas skin, or even eat the banana when it’s green, that’s why it does not taste like what it is like in my memory, YUK!, come on let’s go”
John grabs Luna by her hand and starts to walk out to the car with her in tow, as she passes the half empty jar of salsa on the kitchen table she grabs it with her free hand and starts to drink it again.
As they get outside John lets her hand go so that he can open the passenger side car door. Lunas loose dressing gown belt allows the gown to fall open, and it reveals her full nakedness just as a passing neighbour goes to say hello to John.
John looks up to see his neighbour staring at Luna who is looking into a now empty glass salsa jar. John looks at Luna and then at his neighbour.
Luna Burps.
JOHN: “OH! eh? She’s European!”
NEIGHBOUR: “OH! Yeah! I can clearly see that that John”.
JOHN: “Just got to take her to, eh, the doctor. She, eh, ate something.
My cousin, here for a few days”
John runs over to Luna and pulls her dressing gown around her to cover her nakedness, he then pulls the cord around the waist of the gown and ties it, so the gown is shut,
JOHN: “Come on Luna, let’s get you to the spaceship, Eh? the ships doctor”
John gets Luna into the car and winds down her window and then goes over to his neighbour,
JOHN: She came by a sea ship, and that’s where her doctor is, on the sea ship. Oh! and you might need to look out for big comets later up in the sky, and I wouldn’t bother putting out the trash tonight.
NEIGHBOUR: “Really John? Think its gonna rain as well?”
John gets in the car, and starts it, he stops for a moment to admire Lunas beauty and then puts her seat belt on for her, they then drive off.
JOHN: “Cocky sod! Never liked him much, you see! he pervs at aliens”.
Luna looks down and tugs at her seat belt,
LUNA: “I am not going to escape”
JOHN:” Huh? Oh! no, it’s a safety device, in case we crash”.
LUNA:” you cannot control this transport?”
John looks at Luna, as he looks at her his eyes squint. He thinks hard for a practical answer for an alien to understand, then gives up and changes the subject,
JOHN: “So what’s wrong with your spaceship”
LUNA: “I was attacked coming here to your earth, the Endellion’s knew I was coming for the Gyre (pronounced; Ji-ah), so they tried to destroy me, I got them back as I was trying to out manoeuvre them in your
asteroid belt, they lost control of their vehicle and crashed into an asteroid, but my ship was damaged.
The engine was venting radiation inside, I thought I had it under control, then when I was trying to retrieve the Endellion Gyre from this car transport, there was a zoom! Bang! Woosh! noise, my ship lost power, and I crashed.
JOHN: “What is a Endellion Gyre”
LUNA: “This device dissolves all your planets, it removes them all from time, all your system, like it never existed. That’s why we need to leave very soon. My ship is protected from the Gyre, but we must be up there, in space”.
JOHN: “This radiation concerns me”
LUNA: “It should be Ok, the type of radiation emitted is very short lived, I can test for it before we board the ship”
JOHN: “You know, it’s really weird that I have this incessant urge to help you, apart from the fact that earth won’t be here tomorrow. My head is buzzing with all sorts of stuff about you, but it’s like some things are missing, and I have this unsettling feeling we have met before”.
Luna looks away from John and sees a small heard of wild pony’s running across the desert. Luna quickly changes the subject of the conversation.
LUNA: “Oh look John, some running goats”
JOHN: “Goats? no, there pony’s”
LUNA: “The ship is landed just here, over that hill”
John drives off the road and over the hill and slows down to a crawl, JOHN: “Its invisible isn’t it; I remember seeing it fade away, around here somewhere”
Then suddenly, Bang! The car hits something and the engine stalls. Steam starts to come out from the sides of the cars bonnet, so John un-belts
himself and Luna and gets out of the car, he walks to the front of the car and looks underneath,
JOHN: “I think we hit a rock in the ground”
John sighs and turns around and walks just a few steps, Bang! A metallic thud, John stops suddenly like he has head butted a wall. John rubs his forehead,
JOHN: “I think we found out where you left your spaceship”
Luna grabs the top of the car door and pulls and pushes it several times to try and get out of the car,
LUNA: “This is broken?”
Luna tries to get out of the car by getting over the top of the door and falls to the ground as the door opens anyway,
JOHN: “It has a handle you pull. No! you need to, oh ok, you can get out of the car like that if you want. That’ll work”
LUNA: “Your transport car is like bang! car-pooped!”
JOHN: “I Think you mean Kaput, but, yeah, it is, pooped”
Annoyed, Luna stamps her feet as she walks towards where the space craft should be. The silver spaceship quickly appears.
JOHN: “How did the spaceship appear. How do you do that?”
LUNA: “Implant”
JOHN: “Where?”
Luna points at her bottom,
LUNA: “Up my bum!”
JOHN: “Really?”
LUNA: “No! I’m trying out your humour that I now know, I got it from your head, now you need to come on me”.
JOHN: “What, is that more humour?”
LUNA: “What? No! Just quickly come over my ship and come in my door”.
JOHN: “humour again?”
Luna puts her hands on her hips.
LUNA: “What?”
JOHN: “I’ll get some tools”
GHOST: “Then what”
JOHN: “Wait a sec”
John stands up and presses his left hand down on the skin behind his left ear, pushing against a hearing implant under his skin. Ioa talks to John though the implant,
IOA: “I am detecting a ship, it is close by and moving slowly, it will be in viewing range very soon”
John stands up and yells at the crew near the caves entrance, JOHN: “Ok guys we got company, get on the ship”
While the crew get back on the ship Ghost and John go to the front of the cave. Ghost turns on a device that is attached to her utility belt, then cocks her heavy gun. The gun internal transformer hums increasingly as its battery power pack rapidly charges. A screen on the gun displays
“BATTERIES CHARGING”, 1%, 44%, 81%, then flashes 100%.
GHOST: “Two-meter radius set on the cloak. I set it to block out any human biological detection, they can’t see us now. We’re just background noise”.
Ghost’s device is hiding her and John. They are both hidden in a security bubble that is enveloping them both. They fade into the background as
the shield modulates to emulate the background to their foreground and masks their heat, biorhythms, heartbeats and breathing, JOHN: “Ok Ghost. Look, there it is”.
A large dark ominous spacecraft slowly hovers past the caves entrance and stops, coloured lasers scan the ground, trees, and foliage, then it scans around the caves entrance.
Some scans move across Ghost and John’s position in the cave as they stand still. The cloaking bubble that they are in absorbs the scanning alien lasers.
John and Ghost look at each other, Ghost makes some adjustments to the heavy looking ominous gun, an illuminated screen on the guns side shows an orange flashing “CHARGING PRIMARY WEAPON” as the guns charging capacitor whistles while it’s battery charge transfers to the guns primary weapon.
The whistling reaches a peek then stops, then a red flashing “MAIN
WEAPON ARMED” is displayed.
GHOST: “Heads up display!”
A reflective gold heads up display clunks down from out of the front edge of her Maine corps helmet. As she looks though the display various information about the hovering ships distance, speed, position are displayed along with a “LOCKED ON TARGET” are also seen.
She slides her resting forefinger finger over the guns trigger while aiming at the hovering ship. A computer voice from the gun questions Ghost.
GUN VOICE: “Gun is armed, do you want to, Maim, Disable or Destroy”
GHOST: “Completely destroy the fucker”
GUN VOICE: “Destroy mode selected”
The heads-up display flashes “DESTROY MODE SELECTED”
They both stand very still looking at the alien ship as Ghost strokes the guns trigger. But the ship slowly moves on. Ghost rotates a dial on her
gun that clicks, the dial snaps back on its own, the gun makes a low hum like an electric motor slowing down to a stop, the illuminated screen on the guns side shows in a flashing yellow “DISCHARGED” and then flashes in blue “SAFE”. John puts his hand on Ghost’s shoulder, GUN VOICE: “Gun is discharged. Gun is in safe mode”.
JOHN: “Come on Ghost, let’s get back on the ship and go, I know they will be coming back this way”
