‘It appears, Mr Herez, that the answer to the age old question, “are we alone?” is an emphatic no,’ said Lake, as their tiny space plane was drawn up closer to the immense matt black starship.
They both craned their necks, trying to look up out of the front screen again; only this time there were no stars above them. It was all ship.
‘They must have some sort of energy beam that can disable our systems and drag us in,’ said Herez. ‘They haven’t attached a cable or anything.’
‘You haven’t watched much sci-fi, have you?’ said Lake. ‘It’s called a tractor beam – at least it is on all the movies I’ve watched.’
Herez just turned and stared at him as if he was insane and Lake realised, partly by the fact that Herez was visibly shaking and partly by the smell of urine in the cabin, just how terrified Herez really was.
Their ship turned and continued up the side of the alien vessel. No light emanated from any part of the vessel either: it was gargantuan, matt black and eerily menacing. They could see along its almost-featureless length, the occasional ripple or blister in its never-ending expanse.
Suddenly, a section of the hull opened – or disappeared, was a better term. One minute, it was a solid section of hull; the next, a gaping floodlit hangar was directly in front of their ship, with several strange-looking craft parked along the far wall.
An invisible barrier shimmered as they were drawn inside and the outer hull immediately reverted to its original dull characterless footing.
Once they passed through the invisible barrier, gravity pushed them down into their seats and anything loose in the cockpit dropped to the floor.
The sudden whirring of the landing skids made them both jump and the space plane clunked down in a corner of the hangar facing a wall. There was silence for a few seconds, followed by a few bangs and scrapes, then they heard the outer airlock cycling. They both remained very quiet and still, wondering what the hell was on the other side of that airlock door.
It wasn’t long before the door control chimed and went green. The inner door slid up into its housing, with a slight hiss of equalising pressure, and immediately a disc-shaped object, about a half-metre in diameter, zipped into the cabin and hung motionless in the centre of the cabin. It slowly turned, emitting flashes of light in an array of colours, which lasted about thirty seconds. Then a commanding voice boomed out from the disc in an alien language that sounded like a string of commands.
‘We don’t understand your language,’ said Lake, in as loud a voice as he could muster without actually shouting.
There was silence for a moment and then the voice returned, speaking in English.
‘Why you are conversing in Gaia dialektos?’ said the voice.
‘I don’t understand the question, what is Gaia dialektos?’ asked Lake.
‘Gaia is a class PV planet and is on katapato list red,’ said the voice.
‘H – hang on,’ said Herez, sounding as scared as he looked. ‘Katapato is a word I know. We did an operation in Greece once and all around the target villa were signs saying “ochi katapato”. It meant no encroaching or trespassing—’
‘So,’ said Lake, interrupting. ‘The planet Gaia is on a red list of no trespassing – so where the hell is Gaia?’
‘Gaia is on the system Helios,’ said the voice.
‘Look up Gaia and Helios in a Greek dictionary,’ said Herez.
Lake tried a couple of commands into the ship’s computer, but nothing happened.
‘I need to access my computer to translate what you’re saying,’ said Lake, looking at the hovering disc with a hopeful expression.
‘Minor access available,’ said the voice, after a few seconds.
Lake typed in Gaia and Helios, and asked for a translation.
‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Lake ‘They’re both Greek words, all right. Helios is the sun and Gaia is the Earth.’
‘So, Earth is on a no trespassing red list,’ said Herez. ‘Whatever that is.’
Lake looked at the disc again, adopting his best diplomatic face.
‘We are from Gaia – although we call it Earth – and we—’
‘This not is true,’ boomed the voice, continuing in broken English and interrupting with an impatient tone. ‘Gaia is backward still technology, race-aggressive with unkind bias, utilise only fossil fuel ability, no jump drive capability on Helios System.’
‘There is now,’ said Lake. ‘And what do you mean by an unkind bias?’
‘Genocide on selves common, recommended negative for GDA membership,’ said the voice. ‘You fire fossil fuel weapon at us without provocation – definite unkind bias, as this was first response from emerge.’
‘We did not fire on you,’ said Lake. ‘We have no weapon systems on this ship. You’ve scanned our ship and slaved into its systems, so you know we have no weaponry. That missile was fired at us by an unidentified ship in the Helios System. We jumped to try and avoid it, only it came with us in the jump—’
‘This not is true,’ boomed the voice again. ‘You to be below arrest on crimes diverse, detention on Katadromiko 37 until Synedrio hearing confirmed at Dasos sitting next. Remain immobile on boarding, noncompliance becomes quickly detrimental to life.’
‘Well, that’s just dandy,’ said Lake, again tapping away at the ship’s computer. ‘Sit still or be killed. I wonder who we’re being arrested by?’
They didn’t have to wait long. The flashing, rotating disc zipped back out the door and was replaced by four stocky humanoid figures, dressed in a full grey body-armour and helmets, their faces hidden by curved screens that seemed to have some sort of head-up display, continually flashing information across them. They also had what looked like a weapon system strapped to their forearms. They kept these pointing at Lake and Herez at all times. Two of the soldiers remained covering the prisoners, while the other two disappeared into the back of the ship, shortly to return, as there were only two small cabins and a kitchen area to check.
‘Safi?’ asked one of the remaining soldiers.
‘Safi,’ replied one of the returning soldiers.
The first soldier touched an icon on a small screen on the back of his hand.
‘Stand and remain subdued,’ he said. ‘Follow lieutenant into security housing.’
They both stood, looking at each other, knowing there was absolutely nothing they could do but comply.
They were led out of the airlock, down some steps that had been pushed against the hull and across the vast hangar. As Lake looked around, he counted six other ships parked along one wall, all of varying sizes. It looked like a set from a sci-fi movie. He noticed that two of the ships had the tell-tale scorch marks on the underside of Earth like planet insertion and wondered where these planets were and if he’d get to see some of them one day.
They continued through a door and down several, bland, grey passageways until they were ushered into what looked to be a small one-carriage subway train. The doors silently closed and the round tube-like carriage soundlessly swished away from the station. They lost count of how many stations they went through and, at one point, the carriage stopped and went up several decks before continuing again.
Finally, after about twenty minutes it stopped and they were escorted out into an open corridor. One wall was solid and the other was open with a chest high green coloured railing.
It overlooked an enormous cavern that must have been several kilometres long and at least two wide, with trees, parks – even a river flowing between groups of buildings. Birds could be seen flying between the trees. Lake and Herez stared open-mouthed, not quite believing they were still aboard a space ship.
‘It seems we’re a little behind the eight ball compared to the rest of the galaxy, Mr Herez,’ said Lake, glancing across at a very subdued and miserable looking Herez.
‘I feel quite ill,’ said Herez, obviously becoming more self-conscious of his very damp crotch that was probably beginning to chafe with all the walking.
Lake noticed he was getting unusually fatigued, quickly deducting it was the artificial gravity on the ship, set slightly higher than that of Earth.
‘Have you noticed how short and stocky the majority of people are on the ship?’ said Lake. ‘Their home planet gravity must be higher than ours.’
‘I need a shower and a lie down,’ answered Herez, continuing to remain in his sulky funk.
The lead soldier led them into what must be a security wing. They were handed over to some slightly less aggressive-looking security staff, searched, stripped of any possessions and placed in what they thought were side rooms.
They turned out to be cells– very comfortable cells. They each had a bedroom with a couch, a table, a chair and a small bathroom, and some sort of holographic vision system for entertainment.
As the security officers left them in their new homes, the doorways shimmered, similar to the big hangar door their ship had entered through. Lake quickly discovered that the officers could pass through these doors unimpeded, but he couldn’t. It was a solid barrier to him that made his skin tingle when he touched it.
The security staff that had taken responsibility for them were not wearing body armour or helmets and, for the first time, Lake could see what his captors really looked like. They were shorter than him at around five and a half feet tall, but they were very powerful in the upper body, with huge arms and shoulders that reminded Lake of professional rugby players. Their heads were almost human, but when you looked closer, they had a slightly more protruding forehead and a squarer jaw.
After about an hour, a trolley motored into his room, followed by a guard, and a meal was placed on the table. The security officer did not seem remotely concerned about being alone with the prisoner or turning his back on him either. Lake concluded that there must be systems within the room that would subdue him if he showed even the smallest degree of aggression.
The officer pulled a small device out of his pocket and scanned Lake as he was sitting on the couch.
‘What does that do?’ he asked.
The officer looked up at him and touched an icon on a small pad attached to his forearm.
‘Please repeat?’ he said through the translator.
‘What does that scanner do?’ repeated Lake.
‘Body nutrient gauge,’ said the officer. ‘Discover nutrient needs, so health maximum achieved.’
‘Thank you. My name is Lake. What’s your name?’
‘Carlon,’ said the officer, and smiled. ‘Is you from Gaia on system Helios really?’
‘Yes, we are, Carlon,’ said Lake. ‘Although we seem to have offended your people by mistake.’
‘Be patient, Lake,’ said Carlon. ‘If truthful proved, you guest on honour with GDA.’
‘What is GDA, Carlon?’ asked Lake.
Carlon looked thoughtful for a moment and turned off his translator. ‘Gerousia Dipodi Agones,’ he said, then turned the translator back on. ‘Council for Bipedal Races,’ he repeated. ‘Is translation understand?’
‘Yes, thank you, Carlon,’ said Lake, grinning. ‘Now, how does this visual entertainment system work?’
The meal was some kind of stew – similar to an Irish stew – served with something resembling pitta bread. Lake had to admit it was quite delicious. The drink was some sort of cordial and tasted faintly of raspberries, which was all right, but he felt a nice bottle of 2046 Puligny Montrachet would have been much better.
‘I’ll have a word with my new best mate, Carlon, and see if they have any wine,’ said Lake, chuckling to himself, as he reclined on the couch and watched a badly-translated holographic history of the GDA.
He could hear Herez next door, snoring.