The story of the Current Galactic Empire
Created | Updated Oct 20, 2005
Chapter I: The beginning
In the unregarded backwaters of a Newcastle suburb is a small housing estate. At approximately 250 metres from the main road is a small unregarded house and in this house lives the most unsuspecting person in the world. For in approximately ten minutes time, he will get the most unexpected phone-call in the history of his planet (Well apart from the one relating to the sinking of the Bismarck). Unfortunately for the caller of this unsuspecting phone call, the answerer is far to busy to hear the phone ringing, and so the caller will try again in nine minutes time.
Our answerer, however still suspects nothing as he continues being busy. This ‘all so important’ task that is keeping the answerer busy from picking up the phone is wallpapering.
With five minutes to go until the phone call, although he didn’t know this, he decided to make himself a cup of tea. Since waiting for an electric kettle to boil takes ages, he decided to start placing the dishes in the dishwasher as well. When the kettle finally did boil, he didn’t notice it, the phone was ringing.
“Hello, van I speak to Mauritania please” said the ringer with a rich quality Russian accent.
“He’s speaking” said the answerer
“Well van he come to talk to me when he’s not”
“No, I mean he’s speaking to you now”
“Is he really, I didn’t notice”
“Listen” said Mauritania, upset that the water in the kettle is getting cold “I’m Mauritania”
“Good, I wish to speak to you”
“You are speaking to me” he said losing patience
“No, I meant in person, I would like for you to come and meet me”
“Why don’t you come and meet me”
“Fine, where do you live?”
“Why don’t we meet somewhere neutral, let’s say the café at the central station?”
He could hear a pen squiggling on the other end of the phone.
“So where is this central station?”
“It’s in the centre of town”
“Which town?”
“Newcastle”
“Where’s that?
“Do you know where William the conqueror built a new castle to keep out the Scots”
“No”
“Well when you do know, next door to that is the central station”
“Okay then, when?”
“Whenever I’m free”
“When’s that”
“After I’m finished wallpapering”
“When do you plan on finishing?”
“Today”
“Fine, I’ll meet you at the central at midnight”
“That’s too late”
“How about eight?”
“Eight’s fine, nine’s a bit better, and it means I get to watch EastEnders then”
“Okay, nine o’clock tonight at the central, fine”
With that Mauritania put the phone down and poured himself a cup of tea, he then finished his decorating.
******
The central station was dark, as tonight was the night they were installing the new generator so they had to switch the electricity off. Neither Mauritania nor the ringer knew this, however if Mauritania had just asked his dad, he would have found out, since he was the one that sold the generator to the station.
The café itself was a hive of activity, full of people wearing illumined jackets with a candle on each table. The room had a romantic feel to it, although if you said while in the room, you would have had your lights knocked out. Mauritania knew that the bloke he was destined to meet would not be wearing an illumined jacket, instead he wore a stupid-looking grey fluffy coat with a ferret on his head. Mauritania sat opposite to him, with a slight degree of embarrassment.
“I’ll cut to the chase shall I?” said the man, with a now posh-English accent.
“If I knew this would involve chasing I would have worn trainers” said Mauritania”
“I’m the last surviving member of nation that died out with the last ice age”
“Are you really, I didn’t know the ice age ended in 1990 in Russia, although it would explain a lot” said Mauritania with an upcoming suspicion that this guy was mad. “with the snow and everything…”
“Shut up and let me finish, terran” interrupted the man
“What did you call me?” said Mauritania sounding insulted
“Argh, for terras sake”
“What?”
“Shut up”
Mauritania did so, he didn’t want to make the man angry
“My civilisation died out with the last ice age…”
Mauritania nodded to show he was listening although he couldn’t care
“…and I think its time, to start again”
There would have been an eerie silence at this point, however the foreman came in and complained about how lazy everybody was being, and reminded everyone that they had been in here awhile. A heated argument ensued between the foreman and a member of the work force union, who has sick to death of what the management had to say. But this isn’t important to the story.
“Start what again” Mauritania asked “If you’re talking about starting an ice age, I really doubt people would agree with it”
“No, I’m not” said the man, losing his pertinence, yet not getting angry “I’m talking about my nation”
Mauritania tried to look understanding, but failed miserably
“I think you’re a bit late to start claiming land, you should have tried a few centuries ago. Every bit of land on this planet is claimed by some government or other, well apart from that city on Cyprus and Zaire, of course”
“My nation isn’t really the sort of place that needs land” said the man, Mauritania looked confused.
The man dug into his pocket and found a pen, it had a weird sort of language written along the side that looked entirely unlike English.
“Nice pen” Mauritania said
A bit of plastic that emerged from the side of the pen, erected itself perpendicular to the pen, a silk curtain came across from the pen using the bit of plastic as a rail. The language appeared again on the silk curtain from no where. Then a picture came up showing a space station.
“What is that?” asked Mauritania
“It’s an orbital factory, it got hit by an asteroid a few decades ago and it smashed up into a few pieces, but now it’s been completely repaired” said the man.
“No, that pen, where did you get it, its mint”
“I want to give this space station to you”
“May I ask why?”
“I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening”
Mauritania nodded, trying to pretend he remembered. The man dug around in his pocket a pulled out a key card with a LED on it, although it was switched off. Mauritania wanted to make a serious point but if this was a joke, it would make him look stupid. He made it anyway.
“How am I supposed to get to it?” Mauritania asked “I mean it’s hardly just parked outside the corner shop”.
“I have a couple of spaceships in Russia, I brought one of them here with me” said the man.
“Where is it then?” asked Mauritania
“Your not getting it, I’m using that to get home” said the man, he stood up “if you want come with me to Siberia”.
Mauritania knew he’d regret it, but he wanted to go.
“Can you pick me up tomorrow, after I finish college if you don’t mind” said Mauritania
“Fine” said the man, he walked towards the exit of the café
“By the way, can I bring a friend or two” asked Mauritania
“Fine, I’ll meet you here at four”, the man walked out as Mauritania’s dad walked in, although he didn’t notice that his son was there.
Mauritania did know, so he sneaked out wearing an illumined jacket one of the workmen left behind. It’s not that Mauritania hated his dad; he just hated the car he drove.
*****
The smell of drying wallpaper gave Mauritania a headache that lasted all night, this made him extremely angry in the morning.
"I said I’m in late not early, I'm pretty sure someone at the Inland Revenue can tell the difference" he said to his mother. His mother didn't say anything, but she did leave by slamming the door. Mauritania decided to sleep on the sofa when his sister left for school.
When he arrived at college, he was in an overall better mood. It was a particularly nice spring day, although he could tell a cold front was coming. He decided he wouldn’t tell anyone about the meeting last night at the central, in case people thought he was barking mad. He decided just to tell two people he could really trust.
These two people were after all Mauritania’s oldest friends, these people casually ‘hang-out’ with Mauritania and less occasionally help him. As Mauritania found out when he started wallpapering. These people were once social misfits, then people started paying them attention and now they are bombarded by pointless e-mails, phone calls by people they don’t know, and completely illegible text messages. How they miss the good old days! He finally plucked up the courage to tell them at the end of the day.
“Oh, buy the way, I got this phone call yesterday from some Russian saying he wants to meet me at the central” said Mauritania “I went after watching EastEnders…”
“Yeah that was a good one last night, I wish Ian would pluck up the courage to punch Phil” said Jesse
Mauritania starred at her, as though as if she was mad. He then continued
“We met in the café…”
“What’s his name?” asked Rachael
“What?” Replied Mauritania
“Who were you meeting?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask him”
“I would have asked him” Jesse said
“Well you can have the chance too, I’m meeting him tonight, and I would like to invite you two along”
“Are you really?” asked Jesse, just to annoy him
“Hang on, this isn’t a double date is it?” Rachael asked with a degree of suspicion
“No, but you’ll find out, meet me at the central, at four” and with that Mauritania left for his last lesson. If he knew what he was about to get into, he wouldn’t have bother.
*****
The central station was busy at five to four, Mauritania just got off the Metro with a dazed expression as he had been rushed by hundreds of commuters that have just gotten off the GNER from King’s Cross and were now all heading east to there homes in North Tyneside, but actually he just felt tired.
At one minute to four, the girls arrived carrying ‘Metro’s, they didn’t want to read them, it just made them look important. The Russian man then walked in from the taxi rank and said “so nice to meet you again” in a Geordie accent.
The men then continued walking down the platform to the metro station.
“Where are we going?” asked Mauritania
“To the airport” said the man
“What is your name by the way” asked Jesse, as if she hadn’t actual been listening to anything
“Good question, I’m Kamidake”
“That’s doesn’t sound Russian” said Rachael to Mauritania
“Well he isn’t?” Mauritania replied
“You said he was?” Rachael
“Well I implied he came from Russia, not that he was born there”
“I’m not Russian” said Kamidake, he turned to Mauritania “you mean you didn’t tell them”
“Tell them what?” asked Jesse, coming in from a neutral perspective
“Never mind, I’ll tell you on the way” Kamidake murmured
The group headed towards the Metro station
When the Metro arrived at the airport, the girls were left stunned by what Kamidake had said. Mauritania got up with Kamidake, but Rachael pulled him back. Kamidake walked towards the terminal leaving the three in an empty train.
There’s was silence before Rachael said something
“Tell me you don’t believe him” said Rachael tiredly.
The airport was not pretty desolate, there were only three check-ins open and the queues for them were half a mile long but by airport standards, it’s considered desolate. Kamidake was not looking at the tele-screens for a flight to Groznyy as they expected him to but instead he was looking for someone high up in the airport hierarchy. He did this by making a complaint.
“Err… excuse me” said Kamidake
“Yes, hello sir” replied the First choice rep
“I wish to make a complaint!”
“Why?” said the rep, being really patronising
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why do wish to make a complaint?”
Kamidake thought about this before making a remark
“Because I didn’t enjoy it!”
“Enjoy what? Sir”
Kamidake poured over this predicament, he didn’t expect this.
“The film on the plane”
Kamidake regretted saying this as soon as he said it.
Mauritania walked up behind Kamidake, Mauritania didn’t know why he was arguing, but he knew it had a point.
“Boo” shouted Mauritania towards the rep
“Boo” yelled Kamidake following Mauritania’s lead
“That was the worst thing I ever saw”
“It was terrible”
“Horrendous”
“Well it wasn’t that bad”
“Oh yeah”
“There were some parts of it I quite liked”
“Actually, I quite liked most of it”
“It was good”
“It was great”
“It was wonderful”
“I want to see it again”
The rep was confused,
“Do you want to speak to my manager” said the rep
“Yes please” said Kamidake
In order to get to the top, they used this method of complaining all the way, although changing the plot depending on person. On the control tower operator they used the communication channel operation procedures which none of them knew, although didn’t matter. When they reached the director of the airport, they decided to stop.
“I couldn’t slip you a few quid could I?” said Mauritania, it was getting dark, and all this complaining gave him a headache.
“We came all this way, and the bloke at the end doesn’t want to know” said Jesse
“One illegal lift-off, that’s all I’m asking for” mopped Kamidake
“Will you stop mopping about and just get the hell out of my airport” angered the director
“That’s what I’m trying to do!” replied Kamidake
“If I give you permission, I never want to see you at my airport again”
“Oh great, I’ve been barred my Newcastle Airport International” said Rachael sarcastically.
The director phoned up the control tower and informed them of the changes, the group then headed for the hangers in Callerton Parkway.
The group didn’t know what to think, this was the first time they saw a spaceship disguised crudely as small private luxury propeller plane with a jet engine.
“Well it’s a bit squalid” said Mauritania,
The plane was murky yellow with two strips along the side, one red and one black. The tail/jet engine was also murky yellow with two strips, however one was pink and the other was grey. The plane itself was not your standard streamlined fuselage aircraft shape but more of a converted Ford Transit with a jet engine on top.
Mauritania was now having second thoughts about travelling in this. “Well go on” said Kamidake
“Go on what, the wings”
Kamidake pulled out the key card and pressed the LED, it turned green. They didn’t know if this was a good thing as nothing happened. Kamidake walked up to the side and kicked it really hard. The door at the back opened. Kamidake give Mauritania his key card. Mauritania looked at it and pocketed it without much concern.
“It’s a bit old, but for twelve thousand years, it’s not looking too bad”. He was reluctant to get in, but then he thought “what the hell!”
Inside, the plane was poorly lit, the lights were particularly dim and the cockpit was black. Mauritania walked up the ramp into the cockpit. The cockpit wasn’t really divided from where the passengers sit, along the side of the hull, with no seatbelts. There were three seats in the cockpit itself. The console was a green touch screen with a load of white lines which were quite hard to see in the light. Kamidake slipped past Mauritania into what he thought was the driving seat in the middle. He then put on his seatbelt. Mauritania followed suite and sat in the right hand chair. The girls just sat at the side looking scared.
When the plane was switched on, the lights become brighter and the engine started making a ticking-over sound. This sound would become an also familiar noise, which if you asked them about it in two years time, they would be completely sick of it. The ship then hovered off the ground and three wheels emerged from the ship. This was a particularly unusual thing to happen however no one outside noticed.
The plane emerged from the hanger, at the usual speed planes normally emerge from hangers. The plane even went the normal speed planes went on runways, however it seemed to clear the runway far too quickly and then sped towards the sky at a speed that space shuttles would be jealous of going.
The clouds just shot past them, it was amazing how fast they were going. Mauritania even said so. The plane then decided to stall. They began slowing down, Mauritania didn’t say anything. However once they reached space it wouldn’t matter, he thought. But what about the gravity, he thought. He then decided to express his thoughts.
“Err…Kamidake”
“What?” said Kamidake increasing the rate he was pushing the buttons. But keeping cool
“Is it alright for the plane to be slowing down”
“Yes!” he said with anguish.
The plane then made more positive noises, Kamidake smirked and began typing with much more glee. He turned the plane upside down, however the artificial gravity hadn’t kicked in yet, so they all hurt they’re heads as they fell towards the ceiling.
A few minutes later they approached the station. It is best described by Jesse.
“I love the gold motif, and those arms, they glitter in the sunlight. That circular structure at the centre, gives it a… rustic feel”
Mauritania just gasped in awe.
Kamidake piloted the ship underneath the station. He then got up and lifted open the bench the girls were sitting on.
“What are you doing?” asked Mauritania, starring at the station with some concern that they were heading at quite a speed towards it.
“I’m looking for the breathing masks” he said
“Well I’m looking at space station that’s getting particularly close”
“Is it nice?” said Kamidake wrestling with a breathing tube caught on a bit of metal.
“Yes it’s very nice, it’s also very close”
Just then a door on the station opened and let the plane inside.
Kamidake went to the controls after a bumpy landing, which he apologised for when he was on the opposite side of the cockpit from the controls.
“I would have preferred it if you remained at the controls, just to make me feel better” said Rachael who was still in shock.
The space station hanger was dark, not eerie dark, but pitch black. Kamidake switched on his helmet torch which he told them he got when he worked in Russia’s first tin mine. The group didn’t care that much. They then walked into a corridor, it hurt.
They walked onto what Kamidake called the “command centre”, Jesse said it was more of a bridge. Mauritania had to agree, she was holding his hand really hard. Kamidake walked to a lit console, pushed a few buttons and the place lit up, not unlike a Christmas tree. They all took their breathing masks off after Kamidake did the old ‘taking off the breathing mask and pretend your suffering from asphyxiation’ routine.
“Well it’s a bit squalid, I can see they were using military grey during the ice age as well” said Jesse touching one of the consoles checking the levels of dust. What she didn’t realise is that she activated the auto targeting lasers which was now targeting all satellites within range.
“Well I think that’s every thing you need for now” said Kamidake picking up a manual for the space station on one of the chairs. The manual was made of really thick yellow coloured paper, the writing was in that language only Kamidake could understand. Mauritania opened it, with much difficulty, he looked at few lines of numbers and letters and decided to make a sarcastic comment to Kamidake.
“I fail to see how owning the galactic version of the yellow pages will be everything I need.”
“Use the computer to find a satellite that’s transmitting in English, use that to programme the computer to use English and then ask it?” Kamidake then stormed off never to be seen again.
“What?” they all replied simultaneously.
After about five minutes of searching for Kamidake they decided he was having a laugh. After ten, they took him seriously, after fifteen, they began to panic.
“Try that button there” shouted Mauritania to Rachael standing behind consoles.
“What button?” she asked
“The green one that has the symbol that looks like a house on fire. Jesse went over and had a look.
“I think he means this one” she said, Rachael pressed it and the lights went off. She pressed it again and the lights came back on.
“Alright we found the light switch” said Jesse, she found a sticky label in her bag and wrote “light switch” on it, she then applied it to the button. The lights went off.
They then decided to stop there, in case they accidentally switched off the oxygen or blow themselves up. They decided to find a way to get home. They retraced there steps to the hanger where the plane was waiting. They decided that was unsafe, they looked for other planes. They found a larger ship that looked like Ford Transit with a pigeon box on top. It had no wings, no discernable methods propulsion. Like the plane, the door was at the back, when they walked round to try and open it with Mauritania’s key card, a weird low toned voice howled which was completely illegible.
This hurried them to get the door opened, after a few seconds the LED on the card turned green and the door opened. Mauritania went to the main console and looked at it. He tried to remember what Kamidake pressed, he couldn’t remember.
“Come on, you must remember” said Rachael
“Well it’s a different ship, the controls are different” he said sitting down in the centre seat, not bothering with the seatbelt. He hit the console with his arm and two different lights appeared on the console, one grey, and the other blue. But on closer inspection it looked like the Earth viewed from the Pacific.
“Well why don’t you press it” said Rachael after a few seconds of silence.
“How do I know that it won’t blow up the Earth” said Mauritania
“Because that would be stupid” she replied
She pressed it anyway. The converted Ford Transit hovered one metre from the ground and then flew away, after the door opened of course.
The Transit flew through the sky and then stopped about the same level as the stratus clouds.
“Well this is interesting” said Mauritania, he decided to push the same button he hit his elbow with before. Three lights appeared, the grey one that they seen before, the blue one with the Pacific Rim and a one that looked liked a golden spider. A thought struck Jesse.
“Hang on, I think I know what this means, the blue thing must be the Earth, that spider one must be the space station and that grey button must the moon”. This revelation struck Jesse as a good theory, however, Mauritania had already figured it out, a few minutes previous. He pushed the green button again. This time a geographical map of the world appeared on the panel, although it was rotated at 21°. Mauritania pressed the area where the UK was in hope that the ship would take him there, and it did.
When the ship arrived, the map zoomed in, and the ship lowered in the sky. They did this a few times before it finally landed itself in a converted barn at the Rising Sun farm. They got the bus home, apart from Mauritania who lived around the corner.
They landed about six hundred hours GMT, but he didn’t care, he was too tired. He decided to have the following day off, he believed that the college would understand and leave him alone, but they didn’t. They rang five times that day.
Jesse also decided to sleep in, however she felt a bit guilty, so decided to do a solid afternoon study. The idea fell apart after ten minutes. Rachael decided now would be a nice time to clean her mouse cage after, the only one of them not to have any lessons that day. That idea also fell apart after the mouse bit her.
******
Lazy days, are ten a penny, when you’ve got your own space station. The problem is what are you going to do with it? With the international space station, governments are using it to convey market research and spatial experiments, or something along those lines. Mauritania thought about handing it over to ESA or someone, but he didn’t want to answer loads of awkward questions, which normally come about when you hand things over to space agencies.
Mauritania decided to go back, first he phoned up the girls to see if they were willing to join him, both of them laughed down the phone at him and called him mad. He took off in the Transit, using the Kamidake method of flying, i.e. stalling at the Tropopause and press as many buttons as you can to get the engines going again.
When he arrived the lights were on, which he thought that meant Kamidake was here with his plane, but actually he forgot to switch them off when he left. He walked down the corridor shouting for Kamidake, but after he reached the control centre/bridge, he found a note on the console saying “I’ve programmed the computer to speak/print in English, I’ve also put the programme on a crystal which you can insert into the transport-ship controls in the hanger, good luck”.
After reading the note he thought he’d try speaking to the computer.
“Hello computer”
“Voice unrecognised, programme indicates voice is that of Mauritania, please enter your new password…” said the computer, with a voice similar to Kamidake.
A red-lined box appeared on the main screen, he went to the controls which now looked like a QWERTY keyboard and typed in his password. He pressed enter.
“Please re-type password”
He did it again
“Password conformed, stand by”
Mauritania gave out a silent cheer
“Welcome Mauritania” said the computer “please complete the forms on the console behind you to accept full authoritarian control”
He went to the console, and began the forms.
“Question one…” said the computer
“It’s alright I can read, there’s no need for you to dictate”
The computer continued “what will be the primary purpose of this station”, a list appeared with various options. He really felt the need for an ‘other’ option. The computer offered him the chance for battleship construction, command centre, fighter harbour, research & development and the old time favourite of space station purpose of diplomatic relations. He thought about the diplomatic relations one for a bit but there was no-one to have relations with, he thought long and hard about battleship construction, but then he thought what would be the point of a battleship? He decided to go home and sleep on it.
He grabbed the crystal and went to the flight deck. He went into the Transit and opened the back. He noticed Kamidake’s plane was still there. The computer then spoke “Would you like to deactivate the station, since you are the last person onboard?”. He paused for a moment, then decided on saying “nah”.
A problem then emerged, the crystal Kamidake gave him didn’t seem to fit anywhere. So he decided to give up and just to use the ‘press the world’ method instead. Once home, he went to sleep.
******
The next day, he decided to go to college, much to the detest to his ego. The place was just as how he left it, in complete anarchy. Jesse was the first to recognise his arrival during break, she decided to go and talk to him, much to the detest of her sanity.
“Mauritania, how are you doing, 'how is' the hand” she said
“Much better since you let go, although it might still hate you for the next few days” he replied sarcastically.
“Did you go back to the…err…” she said looking around, she then pointed skyward.
“The Space Station, yes it can speak English now”
“Can it really”
“Yeah, now apparently I’m in charge of it and it asked me what I want to do with it”
“What did you tell it to do”
“I told it I’d sleep on it, and get back to it tomorrow”
“What did you think you’ll do with it”
“It’s sort of a cross between a command centre/ battleship factory or a diplomatic hub.
“…and”
“Well I thought about the diplomatic hub, I mean all quality space station Sci-Fi’s are about diplomacy. Then I thought there was no-one to have diplomatic relations with, so then I thought about a battleship factory, but then I thought what am I going to do with a battleship. So I’ve decided to have it as a command centre”
“A command centre for what exactly” Jesse asked
Mauritania thought about this a bit, then decided to come up with a sarcastic answer until he could find a proper answer.
“It would be a great place for parties”
With that the bell rang, and the two quickly scattered as a hundred people came running down the corridor.
******
The week that followed was pretty enjoyable, Jesse and Mauritania returned to the station to finish off those forms. They then held a party there after they told more people about it. Those people didn’t really want to be told, but they were told anyway. However after they found out, they were happy. Not many people own space stations, and those that do, don’t throw parties on them, Mauritania was thinking of setting up a real venue business on his station with all the money and attention that was coming his way, but that was all about to change.
Chapter II: The fall before the storm
One week on and the place was a success. Mauritania hired some friends from his college to help him run the station. These were not the sort of people who did two things at once, most of them decided to leave college along with Mauritania, which shocked some people.
Least of all those shocked was James. James was not in the same social circle as Mauritania, in fact they hadn’t even seen each other. James remained on at Sixth-form at his ‘not-so-local’ school, which was a lot more organised then Mauritania’s college. There was however one person they both knew, and he was meeting James tonight.
He was Chris, the infamous party animal that Mauritania hired just to go to his parties. Nobody hated Chris, apart from those that were jealous of his reputation. Any party Chris went to, his followers followed. Almost one out of seven people in the region were believed to be followers. Although no one did a survey, so the results are still inconclusive.
James had known Chris for a few years now, and was considered one of the elite followers of Chris’s order, a disciple if you will. Many swots in North Tyneside have tried to report the situation to the relevant authorities, but many of those that have tried to blow the whistle on Chris have either been converted to Chris’s way of life, or have been quelled to a life of silence, afraid to speak a word.
“Alright Chris” said James as entered the Sixth-form common room
“Hey frood, there’s a party tonight on the satellite of love, are you coming?” said Chris not looking at James, to busy looking for his name on the register. The room fell silent, waiting for his response, everyone was staring apart from a friend of Mauritania who was counting how many people were in the room, making sure there was enough booze. There was never enough booze with Chris around, so there was a crack team of scientists (well people who were studying AS level biology, chemistry, physics or Earth Sciences at the college) trying to figure out how the protein sequencer machines worked, then someone had a great idea to just go and ask it for a tikka-flavoured milkshake, the computer said it didn’t know what a curry or a milkshake was, however, if they provided a sample it would be happy to replicate it for them.
James was weary of space flight. It is extremely unsettling when the transits stall at the tropopause but Chris comforted him the only way he knew how. “Cheer up, it might never happen”. To which James replied
“It might happen in the minute”
“What might happen?” said Chris’s third girlfriend of the week
She and Chris then kissed, James then felt more unsettled.
He was even more unsettled when he thought the transit was going to crash into the side of the station. He just wanted to go home.
A bouncer escorted them to the party room/ empty cargo bay and accepted the two pound per person entrance fee. Chris of course didn’t pay, and he refused to let anyone else in the group to pay either. Once Chris arrived, the atmosphere in the place moved up a lot, the music was moved up a few decibels in his glorious presence and he got to pick the first song for karaoke. Karaoke normally has the tendency to clear normal pubs, but this was no ordinary pub. Mauritania began his mingle session by asking everyone if they were okay, benefiting from the local amenities and telling people where the toilets were, the usual management questions.
Rachael popped in for a few minutes but got a headache pretty quickly and left. Chris tried to ask her if she would like a drink, she said “no”, this shocked him and he went home. James was trying to find Chris for an hour before he realised he went home. He also realised he was lost. He was wondering around desolate corridors looking for anyone who could tell him where he was, and how he could get home. He also really wished he listened to that management bloke earlier. There was a metallic clank from around the corner, he rushed around the corner and there was…was…Kamidake.
“Who are you?” asked Kamidake “Are you one of those people Mauritania brought aboard? I tell you, how are you supposed to run an empire with those drunks?” Kamidake mucked about with the innards of a control panel with his screwdriver.
“I’m James, but err…what are you doing?” James asked
“When the nanities rebuilt the station, they didn’t have enough power to complete the job, I’m just about finished, I’ve only got a few more shafts to do then I’ll power up the nanities again”
James didn’t understand what this meant, although he was just about to tell him so when the music bleared again.
“Can you tell Mauritania to turn the music down!” Kamidake ordered
“Yeah” said James, just trying to get away from this man, he ran down the corridors towards the music when he walked into a closed door. He fell unconscious.
“Are you alright” asked a shadow
James felt like he’d been hit on the head with a heavy door, little did he realise, it was him that hit the door.
“No, not really” said James, his eyes opened, he saw who helped him. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Mauritania, you’ve just hit my door”
“You’re Mauritania”
“Well I think I am, nobody has ever told me I’m not”
“There’s a man down the corridor wants you to keep the music down”
“What man!” Mauritania yapped
“I didn’t catch his name but he wore a fur coat and was mucking about with the electrics behind the wall.”
Mauritania ran down the corridor with Rachael in pursuit. When they arrived at where Kamidake was working but all they found was an industrial screwdriver and scratched paintwork on the wall.
Back at the bridge/command centre, they had just managed to find out how the internal sensors work when Mauritania walked in.
“Guv”
Mauritania wasn’t listening, or he presumed that he wasn’t being addressed.
“Guv”
He looked at the bloke who was shouting ‘Guv’, he didn’t realise he was looking at him, he did now.
“Yes” Mauritania said presuming he was speaking to him.
“We’ve found out how the internal sensors work”
Mauritania walked over to the table with different maps of the station, the bloke pressed a button and a holographic image of the station appeared in the centre of the room. Mauritania walked over to the image.
“The red dots indicate people”.
“Well that will really help us find Kamidake” said Mauritania, unaware that it sounded sarcastic.
“If we move everyone to the hall, the red dot that hasn’t gone isn’t there must be the person you’re looking for”
“Good idea”, Mauritania pushed a button that activated the PA
“This is your Guv speaking” said Mauritania, who liked his new title, “Will all people onboard the station please move to the main hall, thank you”. He then let go of the button and the message repeated itself, he thought that was pretty clever.
Most of the people on the station were in the hall already, this message became a cause of concern.
“Hey” said one of the party goers to Jesse, who was behind a makeshift bar made of inconspicuous barrels containing a weird gelatinous substance and MDF.
“How may I help you” said Jesse with a sincere voice.
“What’s going on” said the party goer.
“Well…err…I’ll ask”
She picked up her mobile and phoned Mauritania, as expected the phone didn’t get a signal.
“Oh yeah, I forgot we were in orbit” said Jesse
“We’re where?” said the party goer
“In orbit, didn’t you know”
“I got a lift here in a dodgy looking Ford Transit”
“That wasn’t a Ford Transit”
“Well I gather that now”
Rachael came into the hall from the bridge/command centre and took Jesse to one side.
“What was that message about?” said Jesse
“He just wants to know where Kamidake is” replied Rachael
“Is that all” said Jesse as though she didn’t care.
On the bridge/command centre, Mauritania was looking at a holographic image of a space station built by a long dead civilisation, and began complaining there were only two places were all the red dots were and there was not a single dot on its own.
“Where is he?”
“Well he isn’t here Guv”
“I give up” said Mauritania “let’s start sending people home”
With that order everyone went home.
******
The rest of the week was fairly dull as far as parties on space stations are concerned, the place was getting boring, however that wasn’t the problem. What was a problem was that an UFO that had just left the Oort cloud and was now heading for them at twice the speed of light. Mauritania decided to do something about it once the computer started shouting at him about it.
“Do we have any kind of defences or what?” said Mauritania to the now lit emergency console that was flashing infra-red lights at the them.
“Well, you can activate the ion deflector screens and the low-frequency laser” said the computer
“I don’t know what that meant, but do it anyway” shouted Mauritania
“What’s the happening Guv?” asked Rachael who wanted to leave with the next transit
“There is a ‘thing’ heading for us at an incredible speed and if it wants trouble, I’ll give them some” he said in a scouse accent, for some reason.
He seemed optimistic enough so she decided stay.
The bloke at the sensor console thought now would be a good time to make a point.
“Guv, the UFO is changing colour on my console”
“What?”
“It was grey before, now it’s turned into pinkie-red sort of colour”
“What does that mean” asked Mauritania
“I don’t know, how would I know that” he replied getting into a panic, “it’ll be here shortly”
“Can we ask the computer what it is” said Jesse, who hadn’t said anything for a while.
“Good question” Mauritania, had a look on the console for that option. He didn’t find it. “Computer, what is it?”
“What is what?”
“That thing that is heading for us really quickly”
“Yes”
“yes, what?”
No response…
“It could be a weird spacey thing Guv” said the sensor controller
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, a comet”
“Comets don’t fly twice the speed of light” shouted Mauritania at his ignorance.
The ’thing’ arrived.
A holographic image appeared of the space station and two giant metallic things that were only a matter of metres away from the them, although they couldn’t guess, they couldn’t figure out the measurements used. Everyone looked in horror. They started shooting. Nothing happened.
“Mauritania, they’re shooting at us” said Jesse getting scared.
Mauritania pressed a button marked “lasers” and the station started firing back. Nothing happened
“What’s going on” asked the bloke at the sensors
Mauritania looked at his console.
“Well apparently, we’re losing about 4 persec of our ion deflector screens per Quueg, while they are losing 2.5 persec of there shieldy things per Quueg. The major problems of understanding are whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing, how long a Quueg lasts?, what a persec means? and whether or not the people who built this station, use base-10 mathematics?”.
“Well I presume since we’re losing more whatever’s than they are, they’re winning” said Rachael, guessing
“Right then, we must find a way to beat them” said Mauritania
“Computer, is there anything we can use to fight them”
“The low-frequency laser is the only offensive weapon on the station, the station does however carry a self destruct option”
“Alright then” said Mauritania, moving to the centre of the room “We run away and blow the station”
“What about the booze” said one of the bar staff, who regretted saying it.
“Grab what you can, we’ll get everyone to leave in the escape pods on the lower deck” said Mauritania leaving and ran down the corridor for the armoury. He grabbed his school bag on the way.
The armoury was a dark room that was poorly lit, although this didn’t matter.
“Quick grab what you can and stuff in here” said Mauritania as he raided a cupboard when Jesse came in the room.
“What is this?” Jesse said as she picked up a metallic oval thing with metal prongs.
“It’s a personal shield” said Mauritania coming out of the cupboard with long rifles.
“How you know?”
“The computer told me what they were and I grabbed a few”
He hung the rifles around himself as they couldn’t fit them in his bag.
After the bag was full he ran down the corridor to the escape pods.
Everyone was busy nicking stuff, mainly booze from the replicator hatches. Many had the idea the more you put into the replicator, the more you get out, but most were seeing double. Someone made a PA that the space station would be exploding soon, so now would be a good time to leave, so they did. Once everyone was in the escape pods, they launched them. The only person left on the station was Mauritania, who launched them. He activated the self destruct and searched the station for Kamidake. However after Kamidake heard the self destruct announcement, he was soon searching for Mauritania. They met in a corridor.
“Are you serious?” asked Kamidake
“About what?” said Mauritania
“Blowing up this station that I’ve just fixed” said Kamidake angrily.
“Well there is a rather nasty spaceship outside that doesn’t look to kind”
“Really”
“Yes”
Silence followed
“What race was it” said Kamidake
“Excuse me?”
“Who owned the spaceship?”
“How do I know?, they didn’t talk to me”
“That sounds dodgy?”
“Does it really?”
“It could mean someone hired them to do it, it‘s not very chivalrous shooting people with introducing yourself”
“Well that’s fascinating, let’s discuss this somewhere that’s not guaranteed to blow up in sometime in the near future”.
“Have you got the nanities”
“Is it contagious”
“No, the little microscopic robots that built the place”
“Err…“ he checked his pockets sarcastically, “No”
“I’ll get them, you get to the plane”
“Can I take the Transit instead”
“Fine, you take the transit and leave, while I’ll get the nanities”
Mauritania then ran down the corridor to the transit and left.
“What a failure” thought Kamidake
“They’ve been in power for two weeks and they’ve been blown up, could have been worse, they could have done it themselves. Well this proves it, we must do something now before it’s too late”.
*****
For the people of St. Petersburg, the sight was quick shocking. After a rather large explosion in the sky, in the middle of the day, it started to precipitate. It didn’t precipitate rain or snow as it normally did. But it started to precipitate large metal spheres. This was a fairly rare and interesting event, so interesting that many people intercepted the spheres with their Larders to where they landed. When the people with the Larders arrived, doors on the spheres opened and people came out. The people with the Larders were surprised, the people who came out the spheres were even more surprised. Most people on board the station, didn’t previously know that they were on a space station, so the flight through the atmosphere shocked them a bit. What was even more shocking was that people with Larders then offered to take them to their leaders, the people from the station refused insincerely, most saying they would rather die than be caught in the back seat of a Larder. It was a good thing most of the people with Larders couldn’t speak a word of English.
Chapter III: Where winds of new beginnings flow
Joe Smith had a problem, his problem was not that he had the most common American name but the fact he didn’t know where he was. He was driving down Rural Route 49 when his van stalled and lost consciousness. He had just regained conscious but refused to open his eyes until he remembered exactly what happened?. He was lying down and felt cold and damp which was an unfamiliar surrounding to him, he then heard clicking sounds so he decided to open his eyes. He saw a weird man.
The man had a geometrically perfect beard and was wearing a clean white robe. The man was obviously not a doctor so he threw away the idea that he was in hospital. He looked to the thing that was next to the man and saw the most shocking thing he ever saw. Next to the man was a small grey lifeless body with huge jet black eyes that covered most of its face. It had two little slits as a nose and no ears. Joe began kicking and screaming to get out however he felt his muscles get tired all of sudden, he kept conscious however lost the will to fight.
He then noticed the two beings turned around to face a shadowed man talking to them. Joe thought the man was there superior officer however once he started shooting at them with red bursts of light, he then thought “what’s going on?”. After the two beings were on the floor, the shadowed man approached Joe.
“Hello, I’m Mauritania, I take it by the fact you’ve been tied down that you’re a prisoner” said Mauritania untying him. Joe just vomited all over the dead alien. Rachael barged in with an adrenaline rush and panting.
“Mauritania, we’ve taken the command centre place, or what we think is the command centre? I don’t know”, she then ran out.
“This is a farce” said Mauritania to himself, Joe threw up some more so Mauritania decided to leave him and decided to go to the command centre.
******
“What is it?” asked Rachael at the holograph in front of her.
“I don’t know ma’am” said a respectful goon who was previously on the dole and needed a job to support his new family, although he didn’t know a part-time bar work involved some much alien-fighting.
“What is it?” asked Mauritania when he walked in.
“We don’t know” replied Rachael starring into the holograph.
“Well it looks like bridge” said Mauritania “there’s a lot of stuff in here, it’s spherical, there don’t appear to be any consoles or keyboards or anything”. He then noticed the holograph.
“What’s that?” asked Jesse walking in through an opposing archway. Mauritania looked closer at the holograph. Silence filled the room as everyone stepped closer to the holograph. The holograph was a long ballistic shape and Jesse made an now obvious observation.
“It’s American” she said
“How do you know?” replied Mauritania
“It’s got the American flag there” she said pointing at the nozzle.
“I think I know what it is!” said Mauritania full of calm and placidity despite the fact the holograph was showing a three-dimensional representation of a Patriot missile which was heading towards them.
“Are you sure it’s going to hit us?” asked Rachael
“Are you sure it’s in the job description?” thought the goon to himself.
“How would I know?” responded Mauritania trying not to panic.
“Let’s get out of here” suggested Jess.
“I agree” said Mauritania trying to be reserved for the time being. “I’ll go and get that bloke”. As Mauritania headed for the door, the holograph changed into a confusing image. It was a plane grid with various streaks running from all directions.
“Err…Mauritania” called Jesse.
“What is it…what is that?” he said looking at the image. He got blank faces, so he gave up on the question and went to go and get Joe.
*****
“What…what is going on?” Joe asked himself as he started putting his clothes on. His clothes were lying on a table-like structure on the far side of the room away from the dead beings.
Mauritania ran in accidentally stepping in the pile of sick. He scraped his shoe on the abduction bed and went over to see Joe.
“Alright mate, sorry to rush you but we’re getting out of here” Mauritania said trying to comforting, failing miserably.
“Where are we?” asked Joe. Mauritania didn’t answer and just started pushing him in a suggesting manner towards the door-like structure. They walked down a corridor-like structure to a bay-like structure which contained Mauritania’s transit and Joe’s van. The bay-like structure also had a transit shaped hole in the side which was causing an unsightly draft. The party had already a massed inside the transit and he invited Joe to get in as well. Joe was a bit reluctant however Mauritania pushed him in and closed the door.
“Let’s go” said Mauritania. The transit made another aperture in the bay-like structure, the weakening structure gave way and fell away to the ground far below. The force of the pressure change was enough to throw Joe’s van out of the bay. The patriot missile came barrelling down and hit Joe’s van in a spectacular explosion.
“Ah…maybe that was what the image was trying to tell us” said Rachael admiring the explosion.
“Why isn’t that UFO falling?” asked Mauritania, it’s got a big enough hole in it. He would have liked to have circled it and waited to see what, if anything, would happen, however they still hadn’t figured out how many of the Transit controls worked yet.
“Oh well” said Jesse.
“Oh” said Mauritania as though he was missing something important. He got up to the back area where everyone was standing in confusion, he held out his hand to Joe. “I’m Mauritania, by the way”
“I’m err…Joe”
“I’m sorry for all this trouble Joe but we had a score to settle”
“Oh my god, aliens are real!” shouted one of the goons, who had just come to grips with the past hour.
“Yes, this begs the question, what should we do now?” asked Jesse.
“Well, I think we should drop Joe off somewhere near here then find out what is going on before everybody’s mind is reduced to that of a cabbage” said Mauritania.
The Transit came down and landed on Route forty-nine by the roadside. The road was in the middle of the desert. The desert was in the middle of nowhere.
“It’s hot out here” said Mauritania stepping outside to let Joe out. Joe stepped out into the blinding sunlight. “Do you want us to wait until a car comes along?”.
“No need” said Joe pointing into the distance where a black object could be seen travelling down the road.
“Ah well” said Mauritania, “It’s some distance, have this bottle of Evian, it should only be a few minutes but I don’t like abandoning people in the middle of deserts”.
“I’ll be fine” said Joe as he was stood by the roadside with his thumb out.
“Good” said Mauritania as he stepped inside the Transit, the Transit took off in a aeroplane mode down the long straight road. Joe stood there in the sweltering heat, collecting his thoughts, he decided not to panic.
The car pulled up, it was a vintage black car and was in a very pristine condition. Joe went up to the drivers window, the drivers reeled down his window and a draft of air conditioned air hit Joe in his face.
“Can I hitch a lift?” asked Joe.
The back door opened, Joe slid across the leather. His ragged farming clothes looked out of place in the back seat. There were no seatbelts, so Joe asked if he could lie down. He got no reply.
“Something weird just happened to me” said Joe, “It was kind of like unusual, hell, if you didn’t believe me you’d probably throw me out the car”.
“What happened?” said the suited man in the passenger seat. He had an unusual deep accent.
“I was driving along, then my truck stalled, for no reason. Then, I don’t know what happened. When I woke up…”
“You were in the middle of the desert”
“No…There were these people…”
“People…”
“Yeah, they were weird…there was one who called himself Mauritania. They all spoke English but in kind of weird accents, they could have been Scottish, I don’t know. Anyway, this guy, Mauritania, he shot this creature that looked like a devil…but it was grey. He went away, I put my clothes back on. He then came back in and he forced me onto his spaceship, I was confused didn’t know what was happening. He then brought me here and left as soon as he saw you coming…”
There was no reply for a while, then the passenger turned back to look a Joe. “You do not tell this to anyone” the passenger shouted.
“Why not?”
“because if you do, we will kill you. Give us that bottle of water as well”
In the unregarded backwaters of a Newcastle suburb is a small housing estate. At approximately 250 metres from the main road is a small unregarded house and in this house lives the most unsuspecting person in the world. For in approximately ten minutes time, he will get the most unexpected phone-call in the history of his planet (Well apart from the one relating to the sinking of the Bismarck). Unfortunately for the caller of this unsuspecting phone call, the answerer is far to busy to hear the phone ringing, and so the caller will try again in nine minutes time.
Our answerer, however still suspects nothing as he continues being busy. This ‘all so important’ task that is keeping the answerer busy from picking up the phone is wallpapering.
With five minutes to go until the phone call, although he didn’t know this, he decided to make himself a cup of tea. Since waiting for an electric kettle to boil takes ages, he decided to start placing the dishes in the dishwasher as well. When the kettle finally did boil, he didn’t notice it, the phone was ringing.
“Hello, van I speak to Mauritania please” said the ringer with a rich quality Russian accent.
“He’s speaking” said the answerer
“Well van he come to talk to me when he’s not”
“No, I mean he’s speaking to you now”
“Is he really, I didn’t notice”
“Listen” said Mauritania, upset that the water in the kettle is getting cold “I’m Mauritania”
“Good, I wish to speak to you”
“You are speaking to me” he said losing patience
“No, I meant in person, I would like for you to come and meet me”
“Why don’t you come and meet me”
“Fine, where do you live?”
“Why don’t we meet somewhere neutral, let’s say the café at the central station?”
He could hear a pen squiggling on the other end of the phone.
“So where is this central station?”
“It’s in the centre of town”
“Which town?”
“Newcastle”
“Where’s that?
“Do you know where William the conqueror built a new castle to keep out the Scots”
“No”
“Well when you do know, next door to that is the central station”
“Okay then, when?”
“Whenever I’m free”
“When’s that”
“After I’m finished wallpapering”
“When do you plan on finishing?”
“Today”
“Fine, I’ll meet you at the central at midnight”
“That’s too late”
“How about eight?”
“Eight’s fine, nine’s a bit better, and it means I get to watch EastEnders then”
“Okay, nine o’clock tonight at the central, fine”
With that Mauritania put the phone down and poured himself a cup of tea, he then finished his decorating.
******
The central station was dark, as tonight was the night they were installing the new generator so they had to switch the electricity off. Neither Mauritania nor the ringer knew this, however if Mauritania had just asked his dad, he would have found out, since he was the one that sold the generator to the station.
The café itself was a hive of activity, full of people wearing illumined jackets with a candle on each table. The room had a romantic feel to it, although if you said while in the room, you would have had your lights knocked out. Mauritania knew that the bloke he was destined to meet would not be wearing an illumined jacket, instead he wore a stupid-looking grey fluffy coat with a ferret on his head. Mauritania sat opposite to him, with a slight degree of embarrassment.
“I’ll cut to the chase shall I?” said the man, with a now posh-English accent.
“If I knew this would involve chasing I would have worn trainers” said Mauritania”
“I’m the last surviving member of nation that died out with the last ice age”
“Are you really, I didn’t know the ice age ended in 1990 in Russia, although it would explain a lot” said Mauritania with an upcoming suspicion that this guy was mad. “with the snow and everything…”
“Shut up and let me finish, terran” interrupted the man
“What did you call me?” said Mauritania sounding insulted
“Argh, for terras sake”
“What?”
“Shut up”
Mauritania did so, he didn’t want to make the man angry
“My civilisation died out with the last ice age…”
Mauritania nodded to show he was listening although he couldn’t care
“…and I think its time, to start again”
There would have been an eerie silence at this point, however the foreman came in and complained about how lazy everybody was being, and reminded everyone that they had been in here awhile. A heated argument ensued between the foreman and a member of the work force union, who has sick to death of what the management had to say. But this isn’t important to the story.
“Start what again” Mauritania asked “If you’re talking about starting an ice age, I really doubt people would agree with it”
“No, I’m not” said the man, losing his pertinence, yet not getting angry “I’m talking about my nation”
Mauritania tried to look understanding, but failed miserably
“I think you’re a bit late to start claiming land, you should have tried a few centuries ago. Every bit of land on this planet is claimed by some government or other, well apart from that city on Cyprus and Zaire, of course”
“My nation isn’t really the sort of place that needs land” said the man, Mauritania looked confused.
The man dug into his pocket and found a pen, it had a weird sort of language written along the side that looked entirely unlike English.
“Nice pen” Mauritania said
A bit of plastic that emerged from the side of the pen, erected itself perpendicular to the pen, a silk curtain came across from the pen using the bit of plastic as a rail. The language appeared again on the silk curtain from no where. Then a picture came up showing a space station.
“What is that?” asked Mauritania
“It’s an orbital factory, it got hit by an asteroid a few decades ago and it smashed up into a few pieces, but now it’s been completely repaired” said the man.
“No, that pen, where did you get it, its mint”
“I want to give this space station to you”
“May I ask why?”
“I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening”
Mauritania nodded, trying to pretend he remembered. The man dug around in his pocket a pulled out a key card with a LED on it, although it was switched off. Mauritania wanted to make a serious point but if this was a joke, it would make him look stupid. He made it anyway.
“How am I supposed to get to it?” Mauritania asked “I mean it’s hardly just parked outside the corner shop”.
“I have a couple of spaceships in Russia, I brought one of them here with me” said the man.
“Where is it then?” asked Mauritania
“Your not getting it, I’m using that to get home” said the man, he stood up “if you want come with me to Siberia”.
Mauritania knew he’d regret it, but he wanted to go.
“Can you pick me up tomorrow, after I finish college if you don’t mind” said Mauritania
“Fine” said the man, he walked towards the exit of the café
“By the way, can I bring a friend or two” asked Mauritania
“Fine, I’ll meet you here at four”, the man walked out as Mauritania’s dad walked in, although he didn’t notice that his son was there.
Mauritania did know, so he sneaked out wearing an illumined jacket one of the workmen left behind. It’s not that Mauritania hated his dad; he just hated the car he drove.
*****
The smell of drying wallpaper gave Mauritania a headache that lasted all night, this made him extremely angry in the morning.
"I said I’m in late not early, I'm pretty sure someone at the Inland Revenue can tell the difference" he said to his mother. His mother didn't say anything, but she did leave by slamming the door. Mauritania decided to sleep on the sofa when his sister left for school.
When he arrived at college, he was in an overall better mood. It was a particularly nice spring day, although he could tell a cold front was coming. He decided he wouldn’t tell anyone about the meeting last night at the central, in case people thought he was barking mad. He decided just to tell two people he could really trust.
These two people were after all Mauritania’s oldest friends, these people casually ‘hang-out’ with Mauritania and less occasionally help him. As Mauritania found out when he started wallpapering. These people were once social misfits, then people started paying them attention and now they are bombarded by pointless e-mails, phone calls by people they don’t know, and completely illegible text messages. How they miss the good old days! He finally plucked up the courage to tell them at the end of the day.
“Oh, buy the way, I got this phone call yesterday from some Russian saying he wants to meet me at the central” said Mauritania “I went after watching EastEnders…”
“Yeah that was a good one last night, I wish Ian would pluck up the courage to punch Phil” said Jesse
Mauritania starred at her, as though as if she was mad. He then continued
“We met in the café…”
“What’s his name?” asked Rachael
“What?” Replied Mauritania
“Who were you meeting?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask him”
“I would have asked him” Jesse said
“Well you can have the chance too, I’m meeting him tonight, and I would like to invite you two along”
“Are you really?” asked Jesse, just to annoy him
“Hang on, this isn’t a double date is it?” Rachael asked with a degree of suspicion
“No, but you’ll find out, meet me at the central, at four” and with that Mauritania left for his last lesson. If he knew what he was about to get into, he wouldn’t have bother.
*****
The central station was busy at five to four, Mauritania just got off the Metro with a dazed expression as he had been rushed by hundreds of commuters that have just gotten off the GNER from King’s Cross and were now all heading east to there homes in North Tyneside, but actually he just felt tired.
At one minute to four, the girls arrived carrying ‘Metro’s, they didn’t want to read them, it just made them look important. The Russian man then walked in from the taxi rank and said “so nice to meet you again” in a Geordie accent.
The men then continued walking down the platform to the metro station.
“Where are we going?” asked Mauritania
“To the airport” said the man
“What is your name by the way” asked Jesse, as if she hadn’t actual been listening to anything
“Good question, I’m Kamidake”
“That’s doesn’t sound Russian” said Rachael to Mauritania
“Well he isn’t?” Mauritania replied
“You said he was?” Rachael
“Well I implied he came from Russia, not that he was born there”
“I’m not Russian” said Kamidake, he turned to Mauritania “you mean you didn’t tell them”
“Tell them what?” asked Jesse, coming in from a neutral perspective
“Never mind, I’ll tell you on the way” Kamidake murmured
The group headed towards the Metro station
When the Metro arrived at the airport, the girls were left stunned by what Kamidake had said. Mauritania got up with Kamidake, but Rachael pulled him back. Kamidake walked towards the terminal leaving the three in an empty train.
There’s was silence before Rachael said something
“Tell me you don’t believe him” said Rachael tiredly.
The airport was not pretty desolate, there were only three check-ins open and the queues for them were half a mile long but by airport standards, it’s considered desolate. Kamidake was not looking at the tele-screens for a flight to Groznyy as they expected him to but instead he was looking for someone high up in the airport hierarchy. He did this by making a complaint.
“Err… excuse me” said Kamidake
“Yes, hello sir” replied the First choice rep
“I wish to make a complaint!”
“Why?” said the rep, being really patronising
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why do wish to make a complaint?”
Kamidake thought about this before making a remark
“Because I didn’t enjoy it!”
“Enjoy what? Sir”
Kamidake poured over this predicament, he didn’t expect this.
“The film on the plane”
Kamidake regretted saying this as soon as he said it.
Mauritania walked up behind Kamidake, Mauritania didn’t know why he was arguing, but he knew it had a point.
“Boo” shouted Mauritania towards the rep
“Boo” yelled Kamidake following Mauritania’s lead
“That was the worst thing I ever saw”
“It was terrible”
“Horrendous”
“Well it wasn’t that bad”
“Oh yeah”
“There were some parts of it I quite liked”
“Actually, I quite liked most of it”
“It was good”
“It was great”
“It was wonderful”
“I want to see it again”
The rep was confused,
“Do you want to speak to my manager” said the rep
“Yes please” said Kamidake
In order to get to the top, they used this method of complaining all the way, although changing the plot depending on person. On the control tower operator they used the communication channel operation procedures which none of them knew, although didn’t matter. When they reached the director of the airport, they decided to stop.
“I couldn’t slip you a few quid could I?” said Mauritania, it was getting dark, and all this complaining gave him a headache.
“We came all this way, and the bloke at the end doesn’t want to know” said Jesse
“One illegal lift-off, that’s all I’m asking for” mopped Kamidake
“Will you stop mopping about and just get the hell out of my airport” angered the director
“That’s what I’m trying to do!” replied Kamidake
“If I give you permission, I never want to see you at my airport again”
“Oh great, I’ve been barred my Newcastle Airport International” said Rachael sarcastically.
The director phoned up the control tower and informed them of the changes, the group then headed for the hangers in Callerton Parkway.
The group didn’t know what to think, this was the first time they saw a spaceship disguised crudely as small private luxury propeller plane with a jet engine.
“Well it’s a bit squalid” said Mauritania,
The plane was murky yellow with two strips along the side, one red and one black. The tail/jet engine was also murky yellow with two strips, however one was pink and the other was grey. The plane itself was not your standard streamlined fuselage aircraft shape but more of a converted Ford Transit with a jet engine on top.
Mauritania was now having second thoughts about travelling in this. “Well go on” said Kamidake
“Go on what, the wings”
Kamidake pulled out the key card and pressed the LED, it turned green. They didn’t know if this was a good thing as nothing happened. Kamidake walked up to the side and kicked it really hard. The door at the back opened. Kamidake give Mauritania his key card. Mauritania looked at it and pocketed it without much concern.
“It’s a bit old, but for twelve thousand years, it’s not looking too bad”. He was reluctant to get in, but then he thought “what the hell!”
Inside, the plane was poorly lit, the lights were particularly dim and the cockpit was black. Mauritania walked up the ramp into the cockpit. The cockpit wasn’t really divided from where the passengers sit, along the side of the hull, with no seatbelts. There were three seats in the cockpit itself. The console was a green touch screen with a load of white lines which were quite hard to see in the light. Kamidake slipped past Mauritania into what he thought was the driving seat in the middle. He then put on his seatbelt. Mauritania followed suite and sat in the right hand chair. The girls just sat at the side looking scared.
When the plane was switched on, the lights become brighter and the engine started making a ticking-over sound. This sound would become an also familiar noise, which if you asked them about it in two years time, they would be completely sick of it. The ship then hovered off the ground and three wheels emerged from the ship. This was a particularly unusual thing to happen however no one outside noticed.
The plane emerged from the hanger, at the usual speed planes normally emerge from hangers. The plane even went the normal speed planes went on runways, however it seemed to clear the runway far too quickly and then sped towards the sky at a speed that space shuttles would be jealous of going.
The clouds just shot past them, it was amazing how fast they were going. Mauritania even said so. The plane then decided to stall. They began slowing down, Mauritania didn’t say anything. However once they reached space it wouldn’t matter, he thought. But what about the gravity, he thought. He then decided to express his thoughts.
“Err…Kamidake”
“What?” said Kamidake increasing the rate he was pushing the buttons. But keeping cool
“Is it alright for the plane to be slowing down”
“Yes!” he said with anguish.
The plane then made more positive noises, Kamidake smirked and began typing with much more glee. He turned the plane upside down, however the artificial gravity hadn’t kicked in yet, so they all hurt they’re heads as they fell towards the ceiling.
A few minutes later they approached the station. It is best described by Jesse.
“I love the gold motif, and those arms, they glitter in the sunlight. That circular structure at the centre, gives it a… rustic feel”
Mauritania just gasped in awe.
Kamidake piloted the ship underneath the station. He then got up and lifted open the bench the girls were sitting on.
“What are you doing?” asked Mauritania, starring at the station with some concern that they were heading at quite a speed towards it.
“I’m looking for the breathing masks” he said
“Well I’m looking at space station that’s getting particularly close”
“Is it nice?” said Kamidake wrestling with a breathing tube caught on a bit of metal.
“Yes it’s very nice, it’s also very close”
Just then a door on the station opened and let the plane inside.
Kamidake went to the controls after a bumpy landing, which he apologised for when he was on the opposite side of the cockpit from the controls.
“I would have preferred it if you remained at the controls, just to make me feel better” said Rachael who was still in shock.
The space station hanger was dark, not eerie dark, but pitch black. Kamidake switched on his helmet torch which he told them he got when he worked in Russia’s first tin mine. The group didn’t care that much. They then walked into a corridor, it hurt.
They walked onto what Kamidake called the “command centre”, Jesse said it was more of a bridge. Mauritania had to agree, she was holding his hand really hard. Kamidake walked to a lit console, pushed a few buttons and the place lit up, not unlike a Christmas tree. They all took their breathing masks off after Kamidake did the old ‘taking off the breathing mask and pretend your suffering from asphyxiation’ routine.
“Well it’s a bit squalid, I can see they were using military grey during the ice age as well” said Jesse touching one of the consoles checking the levels of dust. What she didn’t realise is that she activated the auto targeting lasers which was now targeting all satellites within range.
“Well I think that’s every thing you need for now” said Kamidake picking up a manual for the space station on one of the chairs. The manual was made of really thick yellow coloured paper, the writing was in that language only Kamidake could understand. Mauritania opened it, with much difficulty, he looked at few lines of numbers and letters and decided to make a sarcastic comment to Kamidake.
“I fail to see how owning the galactic version of the yellow pages will be everything I need.”
“Use the computer to find a satellite that’s transmitting in English, use that to programme the computer to use English and then ask it?” Kamidake then stormed off never to be seen again.
“What?” they all replied simultaneously.
After about five minutes of searching for Kamidake they decided he was having a laugh. After ten, they took him seriously, after fifteen, they began to panic.
“Try that button there” shouted Mauritania to Rachael standing behind consoles.
“What button?” she asked
“The green one that has the symbol that looks like a house on fire. Jesse went over and had a look.
“I think he means this one” she said, Rachael pressed it and the lights went off. She pressed it again and the lights came back on.
“Alright we found the light switch” said Jesse, she found a sticky label in her bag and wrote “light switch” on it, she then applied it to the button. The lights went off.
They then decided to stop there, in case they accidentally switched off the oxygen or blow themselves up. They decided to find a way to get home. They retraced there steps to the hanger where the plane was waiting. They decided that was unsafe, they looked for other planes. They found a larger ship that looked like Ford Transit with a pigeon box on top. It had no wings, no discernable methods propulsion. Like the plane, the door was at the back, when they walked round to try and open it with Mauritania’s key card, a weird low toned voice howled which was completely illegible.
This hurried them to get the door opened, after a few seconds the LED on the card turned green and the door opened. Mauritania went to the main console and looked at it. He tried to remember what Kamidake pressed, he couldn’t remember.
“Come on, you must remember” said Rachael
“Well it’s a different ship, the controls are different” he said sitting down in the centre seat, not bothering with the seatbelt. He hit the console with his arm and two different lights appeared on the console, one grey, and the other blue. But on closer inspection it looked like the Earth viewed from the Pacific.
“Well why don’t you press it” said Rachael after a few seconds of silence.
“How do I know that it won’t blow up the Earth” said Mauritania
“Because that would be stupid” she replied
She pressed it anyway. The converted Ford Transit hovered one metre from the ground and then flew away, after the door opened of course.
The Transit flew through the sky and then stopped about the same level as the stratus clouds.
“Well this is interesting” said Mauritania, he decided to push the same button he hit his elbow with before. Three lights appeared, the grey one that they seen before, the blue one with the Pacific Rim and a one that looked liked a golden spider. A thought struck Jesse.
“Hang on, I think I know what this means, the blue thing must be the Earth, that spider one must be the space station and that grey button must the moon”. This revelation struck Jesse as a good theory, however, Mauritania had already figured it out, a few minutes previous. He pushed the green button again. This time a geographical map of the world appeared on the panel, although it was rotated at 21°. Mauritania pressed the area where the UK was in hope that the ship would take him there, and it did.
When the ship arrived, the map zoomed in, and the ship lowered in the sky. They did this a few times before it finally landed itself in a converted barn at the Rising Sun farm. They got the bus home, apart from Mauritania who lived around the corner.
They landed about six hundred hours GMT, but he didn’t care, he was too tired. He decided to have the following day off, he believed that the college would understand and leave him alone, but they didn’t. They rang five times that day.
Jesse also decided to sleep in, however she felt a bit guilty, so decided to do a solid afternoon study. The idea fell apart after ten minutes. Rachael decided now would be a nice time to clean her mouse cage after, the only one of them not to have any lessons that day. That idea also fell apart after the mouse bit her.
******
Lazy days, are ten a penny, when you’ve got your own space station. The problem is what are you going to do with it? With the international space station, governments are using it to convey market research and spatial experiments, or something along those lines. Mauritania thought about handing it over to ESA or someone, but he didn’t want to answer loads of awkward questions, which normally come about when you hand things over to space agencies.
Mauritania decided to go back, first he phoned up the girls to see if they were willing to join him, both of them laughed down the phone at him and called him mad. He took off in the Transit, using the Kamidake method of flying, i.e. stalling at the Tropopause and press as many buttons as you can to get the engines going again.
When he arrived the lights were on, which he thought that meant Kamidake was here with his plane, but actually he forgot to switch them off when he left. He walked down the corridor shouting for Kamidake, but after he reached the control centre/bridge, he found a note on the console saying “I’ve programmed the computer to speak/print in English, I’ve also put the programme on a crystal which you can insert into the transport-ship controls in the hanger, good luck”.
After reading the note he thought he’d try speaking to the computer.
“Hello computer”
“Voice unrecognised, programme indicates voice is that of Mauritania, please enter your new password…” said the computer, with a voice similar to Kamidake.
A red-lined box appeared on the main screen, he went to the controls which now looked like a QWERTY keyboard and typed in his password. He pressed enter.
“Please re-type password”
He did it again
“Password conformed, stand by”
Mauritania gave out a silent cheer
“Welcome Mauritania” said the computer “please complete the forms on the console behind you to accept full authoritarian control”
He went to the console, and began the forms.
“Question one…” said the computer
“It’s alright I can read, there’s no need for you to dictate”
The computer continued “what will be the primary purpose of this station”, a list appeared with various options. He really felt the need for an ‘other’ option. The computer offered him the chance for battleship construction, command centre, fighter harbour, research & development and the old time favourite of space station purpose of diplomatic relations. He thought about the diplomatic relations one for a bit but there was no-one to have relations with, he thought long and hard about battleship construction, but then he thought what would be the point of a battleship? He decided to go home and sleep on it.
He grabbed the crystal and went to the flight deck. He went into the Transit and opened the back. He noticed Kamidake’s plane was still there. The computer then spoke “Would you like to deactivate the station, since you are the last person onboard?”. He paused for a moment, then decided on saying “nah”.
A problem then emerged, the crystal Kamidake gave him didn’t seem to fit anywhere. So he decided to give up and just to use the ‘press the world’ method instead. Once home, he went to sleep.
******
The next day, he decided to go to college, much to the detest to his ego. The place was just as how he left it, in complete anarchy. Jesse was the first to recognise his arrival during break, she decided to go and talk to him, much to the detest of her sanity.
“Mauritania, how are you doing, 'how is' the hand” she said
“Much better since you let go, although it might still hate you for the next few days” he replied sarcastically.
“Did you go back to the…err…” she said looking around, she then pointed skyward.
“The Space Station, yes it can speak English now”
“Can it really”
“Yeah, now apparently I’m in charge of it and it asked me what I want to do with it”
“What did you tell it to do”
“I told it I’d sleep on it, and get back to it tomorrow”
“What did you think you’ll do with it”
“It’s sort of a cross between a command centre/ battleship factory or a diplomatic hub.
“…and”
“Well I thought about the diplomatic hub, I mean all quality space station Sci-Fi’s are about diplomacy. Then I thought there was no-one to have diplomatic relations with, so then I thought about a battleship factory, but then I thought what am I going to do with a battleship. So I’ve decided to have it as a command centre”
“A command centre for what exactly” Jesse asked
Mauritania thought about this a bit, then decided to come up with a sarcastic answer until he could find a proper answer.
“It would be a great place for parties”
With that the bell rang, and the two quickly scattered as a hundred people came running down the corridor.
******
The week that followed was pretty enjoyable, Jesse and Mauritania returned to the station to finish off those forms. They then held a party there after they told more people about it. Those people didn’t really want to be told, but they were told anyway. However after they found out, they were happy. Not many people own space stations, and those that do, don’t throw parties on them, Mauritania was thinking of setting up a real venue business on his station with all the money and attention that was coming his way, but that was all about to change.
Chapter II: The fall before the storm
One week on and the place was a success. Mauritania hired some friends from his college to help him run the station. These were not the sort of people who did two things at once, most of them decided to leave college along with Mauritania, which shocked some people.
Least of all those shocked was James. James was not in the same social circle as Mauritania, in fact they hadn’t even seen each other. James remained on at Sixth-form at his ‘not-so-local’ school, which was a lot more organised then Mauritania’s college. There was however one person they both knew, and he was meeting James tonight.
He was Chris, the infamous party animal that Mauritania hired just to go to his parties. Nobody hated Chris, apart from those that were jealous of his reputation. Any party Chris went to, his followers followed. Almost one out of seven people in the region were believed to be followers. Although no one did a survey, so the results are still inconclusive.
James had known Chris for a few years now, and was considered one of the elite followers of Chris’s order, a disciple if you will. Many swots in North Tyneside have tried to report the situation to the relevant authorities, but many of those that have tried to blow the whistle on Chris have either been converted to Chris’s way of life, or have been quelled to a life of silence, afraid to speak a word.
“Alright Chris” said James as entered the Sixth-form common room
“Hey frood, there’s a party tonight on the satellite of love, are you coming?” said Chris not looking at James, to busy looking for his name on the register. The room fell silent, waiting for his response, everyone was staring apart from a friend of Mauritania who was counting how many people were in the room, making sure there was enough booze. There was never enough booze with Chris around, so there was a crack team of scientists (well people who were studying AS level biology, chemistry, physics or Earth Sciences at the college) trying to figure out how the protein sequencer machines worked, then someone had a great idea to just go and ask it for a tikka-flavoured milkshake, the computer said it didn’t know what a curry or a milkshake was, however, if they provided a sample it would be happy to replicate it for them.
James was weary of space flight. It is extremely unsettling when the transits stall at the tropopause but Chris comforted him the only way he knew how. “Cheer up, it might never happen”. To which James replied
“It might happen in the minute”
“What might happen?” said Chris’s third girlfriend of the week
She and Chris then kissed, James then felt more unsettled.
He was even more unsettled when he thought the transit was going to crash into the side of the station. He just wanted to go home.
A bouncer escorted them to the party room/ empty cargo bay and accepted the two pound per person entrance fee. Chris of course didn’t pay, and he refused to let anyone else in the group to pay either. Once Chris arrived, the atmosphere in the place moved up a lot, the music was moved up a few decibels in his glorious presence and he got to pick the first song for karaoke. Karaoke normally has the tendency to clear normal pubs, but this was no ordinary pub. Mauritania began his mingle session by asking everyone if they were okay, benefiting from the local amenities and telling people where the toilets were, the usual management questions.
Rachael popped in for a few minutes but got a headache pretty quickly and left. Chris tried to ask her if she would like a drink, she said “no”, this shocked him and he went home. James was trying to find Chris for an hour before he realised he went home. He also realised he was lost. He was wondering around desolate corridors looking for anyone who could tell him where he was, and how he could get home. He also really wished he listened to that management bloke earlier. There was a metallic clank from around the corner, he rushed around the corner and there was…was…Kamidake.
“Who are you?” asked Kamidake “Are you one of those people Mauritania brought aboard? I tell you, how are you supposed to run an empire with those drunks?” Kamidake mucked about with the innards of a control panel with his screwdriver.
“I’m James, but err…what are you doing?” James asked
“When the nanities rebuilt the station, they didn’t have enough power to complete the job, I’m just about finished, I’ve only got a few more shafts to do then I’ll power up the nanities again”
James didn’t understand what this meant, although he was just about to tell him so when the music bleared again.
“Can you tell Mauritania to turn the music down!” Kamidake ordered
“Yeah” said James, just trying to get away from this man, he ran down the corridors towards the music when he walked into a closed door. He fell unconscious.
“Are you alright” asked a shadow
James felt like he’d been hit on the head with a heavy door, little did he realise, it was him that hit the door.
“No, not really” said James, his eyes opened, he saw who helped him. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Mauritania, you’ve just hit my door”
“You’re Mauritania”
“Well I think I am, nobody has ever told me I’m not”
“There’s a man down the corridor wants you to keep the music down”
“What man!” Mauritania yapped
“I didn’t catch his name but he wore a fur coat and was mucking about with the electrics behind the wall.”
Mauritania ran down the corridor with Rachael in pursuit. When they arrived at where Kamidake was working but all they found was an industrial screwdriver and scratched paintwork on the wall.
Back at the bridge/command centre, they had just managed to find out how the internal sensors work when Mauritania walked in.
“Guv”
Mauritania wasn’t listening, or he presumed that he wasn’t being addressed.
“Guv”
He looked at the bloke who was shouting ‘Guv’, he didn’t realise he was looking at him, he did now.
“Yes” Mauritania said presuming he was speaking to him.
“We’ve found out how the internal sensors work”
Mauritania walked over to the table with different maps of the station, the bloke pressed a button and a holographic image of the station appeared in the centre of the room. Mauritania walked over to the image.
“The red dots indicate people”.
“Well that will really help us find Kamidake” said Mauritania, unaware that it sounded sarcastic.
“If we move everyone to the hall, the red dot that hasn’t gone isn’t there must be the person you’re looking for”
“Good idea”, Mauritania pushed a button that activated the PA
“This is your Guv speaking” said Mauritania, who liked his new title, “Will all people onboard the station please move to the main hall, thank you”. He then let go of the button and the message repeated itself, he thought that was pretty clever.
Most of the people on the station were in the hall already, this message became a cause of concern.
“Hey” said one of the party goers to Jesse, who was behind a makeshift bar made of inconspicuous barrels containing a weird gelatinous substance and MDF.
“How may I help you” said Jesse with a sincere voice.
“What’s going on” said the party goer.
“Well…err…I’ll ask”
She picked up her mobile and phoned Mauritania, as expected the phone didn’t get a signal.
“Oh yeah, I forgot we were in orbit” said Jesse
“We’re where?” said the party goer
“In orbit, didn’t you know”
“I got a lift here in a dodgy looking Ford Transit”
“That wasn’t a Ford Transit”
“Well I gather that now”
Rachael came into the hall from the bridge/command centre and took Jesse to one side.
“What was that message about?” said Jesse
“He just wants to know where Kamidake is” replied Rachael
“Is that all” said Jesse as though she didn’t care.
On the bridge/command centre, Mauritania was looking at a holographic image of a space station built by a long dead civilisation, and began complaining there were only two places were all the red dots were and there was not a single dot on its own.
“Where is he?”
“Well he isn’t here Guv”
“I give up” said Mauritania “let’s start sending people home”
With that order everyone went home.
******
The rest of the week was fairly dull as far as parties on space stations are concerned, the place was getting boring, however that wasn’t the problem. What was a problem was that an UFO that had just left the Oort cloud and was now heading for them at twice the speed of light. Mauritania decided to do something about it once the computer started shouting at him about it.
“Do we have any kind of defences or what?” said Mauritania to the now lit emergency console that was flashing infra-red lights at the them.
“Well, you can activate the ion deflector screens and the low-frequency laser” said the computer
“I don’t know what that meant, but do it anyway” shouted Mauritania
“What’s the happening Guv?” asked Rachael who wanted to leave with the next transit
“There is a ‘thing’ heading for us at an incredible speed and if it wants trouble, I’ll give them some” he said in a scouse accent, for some reason.
He seemed optimistic enough so she decided stay.
The bloke at the sensor console thought now would be a good time to make a point.
“Guv, the UFO is changing colour on my console”
“What?”
“It was grey before, now it’s turned into pinkie-red sort of colour”
“What does that mean” asked Mauritania
“I don’t know, how would I know that” he replied getting into a panic, “it’ll be here shortly”
“Can we ask the computer what it is” said Jesse, who hadn’t said anything for a while.
“Good question” Mauritania, had a look on the console for that option. He didn’t find it. “Computer, what is it?”
“What is what?”
“That thing that is heading for us really quickly”
“Yes”
“yes, what?”
No response…
“It could be a weird spacey thing Guv” said the sensor controller
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, a comet”
“Comets don’t fly twice the speed of light” shouted Mauritania at his ignorance.
The ’thing’ arrived.
A holographic image appeared of the space station and two giant metallic things that were only a matter of metres away from the them, although they couldn’t guess, they couldn’t figure out the measurements used. Everyone looked in horror. They started shooting. Nothing happened.
“Mauritania, they’re shooting at us” said Jesse getting scared.
Mauritania pressed a button marked “lasers” and the station started firing back. Nothing happened
“What’s going on” asked the bloke at the sensors
Mauritania looked at his console.
“Well apparently, we’re losing about 4 persec of our ion deflector screens per Quueg, while they are losing 2.5 persec of there shieldy things per Quueg. The major problems of understanding are whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing, how long a Quueg lasts?, what a persec means? and whether or not the people who built this station, use base-10 mathematics?”.
“Well I presume since we’re losing more whatever’s than they are, they’re winning” said Rachael, guessing
“Right then, we must find a way to beat them” said Mauritania
“Computer, is there anything we can use to fight them”
“The low-frequency laser is the only offensive weapon on the station, the station does however carry a self destruct option”
“Alright then” said Mauritania, moving to the centre of the room “We run away and blow the station”
“What about the booze” said one of the bar staff, who regretted saying it.
“Grab what you can, we’ll get everyone to leave in the escape pods on the lower deck” said Mauritania leaving and ran down the corridor for the armoury. He grabbed his school bag on the way.
The armoury was a dark room that was poorly lit, although this didn’t matter.
“Quick grab what you can and stuff in here” said Mauritania as he raided a cupboard when Jesse came in the room.
“What is this?” Jesse said as she picked up a metallic oval thing with metal prongs.
“It’s a personal shield” said Mauritania coming out of the cupboard with long rifles.
“How you know?”
“The computer told me what they were and I grabbed a few”
He hung the rifles around himself as they couldn’t fit them in his bag.
After the bag was full he ran down the corridor to the escape pods.
Everyone was busy nicking stuff, mainly booze from the replicator hatches. Many had the idea the more you put into the replicator, the more you get out, but most were seeing double. Someone made a PA that the space station would be exploding soon, so now would be a good time to leave, so they did. Once everyone was in the escape pods, they launched them. The only person left on the station was Mauritania, who launched them. He activated the self destruct and searched the station for Kamidake. However after Kamidake heard the self destruct announcement, he was soon searching for Mauritania. They met in a corridor.
“Are you serious?” asked Kamidake
“About what?” said Mauritania
“Blowing up this station that I’ve just fixed” said Kamidake angrily.
“Well there is a rather nasty spaceship outside that doesn’t look to kind”
“Really”
“Yes”
Silence followed
“What race was it” said Kamidake
“Excuse me?”
“Who owned the spaceship?”
“How do I know?, they didn’t talk to me”
“That sounds dodgy?”
“Does it really?”
“It could mean someone hired them to do it, it‘s not very chivalrous shooting people with introducing yourself”
“Well that’s fascinating, let’s discuss this somewhere that’s not guaranteed to blow up in sometime in the near future”.
“Have you got the nanities”
“Is it contagious”
“No, the little microscopic robots that built the place”
“Err…“ he checked his pockets sarcastically, “No”
“I’ll get them, you get to the plane”
“Can I take the Transit instead”
“Fine, you take the transit and leave, while I’ll get the nanities”
Mauritania then ran down the corridor to the transit and left.
“What a failure” thought Kamidake
“They’ve been in power for two weeks and they’ve been blown up, could have been worse, they could have done it themselves. Well this proves it, we must do something now before it’s too late”.
*****
For the people of St. Petersburg, the sight was quick shocking. After a rather large explosion in the sky, in the middle of the day, it started to precipitate. It didn’t precipitate rain or snow as it normally did. But it started to precipitate large metal spheres. This was a fairly rare and interesting event, so interesting that many people intercepted the spheres with their Larders to where they landed. When the people with the Larders arrived, doors on the spheres opened and people came out. The people with the Larders were surprised, the people who came out the spheres were even more surprised. Most people on board the station, didn’t previously know that they were on a space station, so the flight through the atmosphere shocked them a bit. What was even more shocking was that people with Larders then offered to take them to their leaders, the people from the station refused insincerely, most saying they would rather die than be caught in the back seat of a Larder. It was a good thing most of the people with Larders couldn’t speak a word of English.
Chapter III: Where winds of new beginnings flow
Joe Smith had a problem, his problem was not that he had the most common American name but the fact he didn’t know where he was. He was driving down Rural Route 49 when his van stalled and lost consciousness. He had just regained conscious but refused to open his eyes until he remembered exactly what happened?. He was lying down and felt cold and damp which was an unfamiliar surrounding to him, he then heard clicking sounds so he decided to open his eyes. He saw a weird man.
The man had a geometrically perfect beard and was wearing a clean white robe. The man was obviously not a doctor so he threw away the idea that he was in hospital. He looked to the thing that was next to the man and saw the most shocking thing he ever saw. Next to the man was a small grey lifeless body with huge jet black eyes that covered most of its face. It had two little slits as a nose and no ears. Joe began kicking and screaming to get out however he felt his muscles get tired all of sudden, he kept conscious however lost the will to fight.
He then noticed the two beings turned around to face a shadowed man talking to them. Joe thought the man was there superior officer however once he started shooting at them with red bursts of light, he then thought “what’s going on?”. After the two beings were on the floor, the shadowed man approached Joe.
“Hello, I’m Mauritania, I take it by the fact you’ve been tied down that you’re a prisoner” said Mauritania untying him. Joe just vomited all over the dead alien. Rachael barged in with an adrenaline rush and panting.
“Mauritania, we’ve taken the command centre place, or what we think is the command centre? I don’t know”, she then ran out.
“This is a farce” said Mauritania to himself, Joe threw up some more so Mauritania decided to leave him and decided to go to the command centre.
******
“What is it?” asked Rachael at the holograph in front of her.
“I don’t know ma’am” said a respectful goon who was previously on the dole and needed a job to support his new family, although he didn’t know a part-time bar work involved some much alien-fighting.
“What is it?” asked Mauritania when he walked in.
“We don’t know” replied Rachael starring into the holograph.
“Well it looks like bridge” said Mauritania “there’s a lot of stuff in here, it’s spherical, there don’t appear to be any consoles or keyboards or anything”. He then noticed the holograph.
“What’s that?” asked Jesse walking in through an opposing archway. Mauritania looked closer at the holograph. Silence filled the room as everyone stepped closer to the holograph. The holograph was a long ballistic shape and Jesse made an now obvious observation.
“It’s American” she said
“How do you know?” replied Mauritania
“It’s got the American flag there” she said pointing at the nozzle.
“I think I know what it is!” said Mauritania full of calm and placidity despite the fact the holograph was showing a three-dimensional representation of a Patriot missile which was heading towards them.
“Are you sure it’s going to hit us?” asked Rachael
“Are you sure it’s in the job description?” thought the goon to himself.
“How would I know?” responded Mauritania trying not to panic.
“Let’s get out of here” suggested Jess.
“I agree” said Mauritania trying to be reserved for the time being. “I’ll go and get that bloke”. As Mauritania headed for the door, the holograph changed into a confusing image. It was a plane grid with various streaks running from all directions.
“Err…Mauritania” called Jesse.
“What is it…what is that?” he said looking at the image. He got blank faces, so he gave up on the question and went to go and get Joe.
*****
“What…what is going on?” Joe asked himself as he started putting his clothes on. His clothes were lying on a table-like structure on the far side of the room away from the dead beings.
Mauritania ran in accidentally stepping in the pile of sick. He scraped his shoe on the abduction bed and went over to see Joe.
“Alright mate, sorry to rush you but we’re getting out of here” Mauritania said trying to comforting, failing miserably.
“Where are we?” asked Joe. Mauritania didn’t answer and just started pushing him in a suggesting manner towards the door-like structure. They walked down a corridor-like structure to a bay-like structure which contained Mauritania’s transit and Joe’s van. The bay-like structure also had a transit shaped hole in the side which was causing an unsightly draft. The party had already a massed inside the transit and he invited Joe to get in as well. Joe was a bit reluctant however Mauritania pushed him in and closed the door.
“Let’s go” said Mauritania. The transit made another aperture in the bay-like structure, the weakening structure gave way and fell away to the ground far below. The force of the pressure change was enough to throw Joe’s van out of the bay. The patriot missile came barrelling down and hit Joe’s van in a spectacular explosion.
“Ah…maybe that was what the image was trying to tell us” said Rachael admiring the explosion.
“Why isn’t that UFO falling?” asked Mauritania, it’s got a big enough hole in it. He would have liked to have circled it and waited to see what, if anything, would happen, however they still hadn’t figured out how many of the Transit controls worked yet.
“Oh well” said Jesse.
“Oh” said Mauritania as though he was missing something important. He got up to the back area where everyone was standing in confusion, he held out his hand to Joe. “I’m Mauritania, by the way”
“I’m err…Joe”
“I’m sorry for all this trouble Joe but we had a score to settle”
“Oh my god, aliens are real!” shouted one of the goons, who had just come to grips with the past hour.
“Yes, this begs the question, what should we do now?” asked Jesse.
“Well, I think we should drop Joe off somewhere near here then find out what is going on before everybody’s mind is reduced to that of a cabbage” said Mauritania.
The Transit came down and landed on Route forty-nine by the roadside. The road was in the middle of the desert. The desert was in the middle of nowhere.
“It’s hot out here” said Mauritania stepping outside to let Joe out. Joe stepped out into the blinding sunlight. “Do you want us to wait until a car comes along?”.
“No need” said Joe pointing into the distance where a black object could be seen travelling down the road.
“Ah well” said Mauritania, “It’s some distance, have this bottle of Evian, it should only be a few minutes but I don’t like abandoning people in the middle of deserts”.
“I’ll be fine” said Joe as he was stood by the roadside with his thumb out.
“Good” said Mauritania as he stepped inside the Transit, the Transit took off in a aeroplane mode down the long straight road. Joe stood there in the sweltering heat, collecting his thoughts, he decided not to panic.
The car pulled up, it was a vintage black car and was in a very pristine condition. Joe went up to the drivers window, the drivers reeled down his window and a draft of air conditioned air hit Joe in his face.
“Can I hitch a lift?” asked Joe.
The back door opened, Joe slid across the leather. His ragged farming clothes looked out of place in the back seat. There were no seatbelts, so Joe asked if he could lie down. He got no reply.
“Something weird just happened to me” said Joe, “It was kind of like unusual, hell, if you didn’t believe me you’d probably throw me out the car”.
“What happened?” said the suited man in the passenger seat. He had an unusual deep accent.
“I was driving along, then my truck stalled, for no reason. Then, I don’t know what happened. When I woke up…”
“You were in the middle of the desert”
“No…There were these people…”
“People…”
“Yeah, they were weird…there was one who called himself Mauritania. They all spoke English but in kind of weird accents, they could have been Scottish, I don’t know. Anyway, this guy, Mauritania, he shot this creature that looked like a devil…but it was grey. He went away, I put my clothes back on. He then came back in and he forced me onto his spaceship, I was confused didn’t know what was happening. He then brought me here and left as soon as he saw you coming…”
There was no reply for a while, then the passenger turned back to look a Joe. “You do not tell this to anyone” the passenger shouted.
“Why not?”
“because if you do, we will kill you. Give us that bottle of water as well”
