Alien Alliance (20 page)

Sarah was astonished to see Mathew was still
alive but he looked worse. However the count was daunting. Five
were missing. Sarah wondered if that included Simone and Dieter and
looked over at the boat she had been on to see Simone hurrying into
the cabin. She then burst out of the cabin crying, "He's alive!
He's alive!" Dieter was in a bag! Maybe it was a sort of plastic.
Obviously, it must be airtight. What a relief! She had been so
horrified to think how Simone felt with a baby that couldn’t hold
his breath.

"How many other of those bags have we got?"
called out Sarah, "we could put the children into them." Quickly,
Sarah continued on from where she had been before the ships came
over.

"Everybody get onto the boats you were on.
Choose a leader. That leader sort out who's on their boat. Are they
sick? Have they got any food? Are there any of those bags big
enough to put children in? Any other problems? Then we need to
arrange a lookout.”

As Sarah turned around she saw Mathew
gesture at her. She swam over to him.

" Looking into shore…and out to sea in…case
they try…to get around…behind us," Mathew gasped.

Sarah turned around and amended her
instructions then turned back to Mathew.

"I'm an expert…on guerrilla warfare. Father
and I…used to play…war games. Got so I won…mostly." Sarah must have
looked sceptical. "Father was a general…as well…as an expert on…war
games." Mathew smiled. "It was the…only thing…I was…really good
at…apart from…making…money." he stopped, exhausted.

Sarah looked at him. She could feel that
this was truthful.

"Well in that case, perhaps you'd better
live."

"I intend to." He paused for a while to
breathe. "Don't despair. They don't…know…our tactics. Looking
at…the other aliens…they probably…expect us…to give…up…quickly.
Also…count the…children…as assets…not…liab…ilities."

"I've already worked that one out. We've
been here such a short time, yet it's amazing what, between us all,
we have learned. I guess it's because every one of us has different
interests and notices different things. God knows what knowledge
was lost with the ones that died," she added.

"Smaller group…easier to…hide and
fight."

"Well I guess so. Awful way to reduce the
size though," Sarah said amazed at how little impact the death of
so many had on her. Then it suddenly hit her. She looked around
frantically. The whole Russian contingent were gone. No, there was
Anaminka, but alone. The elderly scientist and her friend, Ludmilla
were generally inseparable. Simone was the only German. There were
a few Americans and some few of other nationalities. No one team
was all here. Nearly 400 gone.

Mathew looked at her and saw the guilt and
grief. "Survivor guilt…don't let it… cripple you.”

"God. What will we do?"

"We fight."

"How?” Sarah wailed. “We've nothing to fight
with!"

"Sabotage, accidents, hide." If they don't
know…who they're fighting…hard to fight back." He smiled again.
"Use kids. Make like a game."

"A game that can kill them!"

"So will sitting here. Sitting ducks. Have
to find…safe place."

"Where?"

"Don't know. Caves with Trogs?"

Sarah paused to think. "I wonder what kind
of reconnaissance they did. Some probably came here as tourists or
whatever first. So they'll probably know about the cavers. So where
can we hide?"

"Somewhere…they've already…gassed."

"Or in the water? Of course! Most of us in
the water, holding onto ropes like those that were on Terran
lifeboats."

"Might work. Probably got…scanners though."
He stopped again, fighting for breath.

"Can scanners scan under water or through
rock?"

But Mathew didn't answer. All his time was
taken up struggling to breath.

The long afternoon wore on. Once more they
were gassed. The first time one child died. The last time they all
survived. Mathew too, survived, but with no improvement. Sally had
rostered people to sit with him, to remind him to breathe.
Exhausted, he had eventually fallen asleep and promptly stopped
breathing, but had restarted with a gasp when the vigilant Sally
hit him.

*

The main group of Aliens that survived the
gas were clustered in one building running on recirculated air.
There was some panic until they managed to figure out how to stop
the air conditioners. Several Terrans found each other. Tue Ng, who
was frantically searching for his wife Maeling, and Dan, and
several children. All the children had been on an outing and not
one had a parent.

Desperate for information they finally found
a Clet that would talk to them. He was a large brown male named
Loefee. He told them that several of his people had managed to fly
away but that he didn't know what had happened to them. "Our
communicators are blocked," he said. His Translator was a more
expensive one that incorporated a communicator that was linked to
the other Clets on Torroxell. Luckily the Translators still worked
because they ran off a battery. He told them that,

"this type of attack is not unknown and is
probably because Torroxell is an unaligned and independent planet.
There is a vast and complicated system of treaties and alliances.
The Priskya label most Aliens as unethical and lacking a moral
code. I tend to agree. Most are. No one has seen the Aliens who
conquer planets."

"But why do they attack?" "What do they kill
for?" asked Tue Ng.

"Various alliances buy conquered planets.
Sometimes a Race will buy one. It is complicated. If a planet is
independent then it has no other planet or planets to fight for it.
Or to claim it. So it goes up for sale."

"I still don't understand. Do the aliens
that conquer the planet buy it?"

"No. That is not possible if they are
pirates, only with open war. This must be piracy because there was
no warning, no declaration, no Challenge, and gas is illegal. They
get whatever booty they can steal and disappear. They steal small,
valuable items. It is suspected that they conquer planets to order.
That someone pays them to clear a planet and then tries to buy it.
Nothing can be proved. But there are few consortiums that can
afford to buy a planet and it is suspicious that the huge amount of
credit required is available."

"Who do they pay? I thought the Priskya
owned this planet."

"The Priskya were tricked into a long term
lease of the land. They only own the oceans."

"How did that happen?"

"Innocence and unscrupulous lawyers."

"But the ones who leased the land. Are they
also independent?"

"No, but no alliance will go to war for a
lease, only for ownership."

But Tue still looked puzzled. "Who gets to
sell a planet? Who gets the credits and why?"

"It's very complicated. In this case I don't
know. I believe some consortium pays all the creditors, all those
who are owed money, big financial institutions. Then more money is
paid to the main financial institutions to put the planet into
credit. Maybe they will just move in. Who will stop them?"

"Sounds like possession is nine-tenths of
the law," muttered Dan.

"What will happen to the Priskya?" Continued
Tue.

"Probably nothing if they live. They will be
ignored. But they have lost all right to ownership of this planet.
They will have no rights. No appeal.”

By this time the planes had gone. Outside,
they could see bodies everywhere. The gas was still there, drifting
a little in the breeze. It was horrific.

The long afternoon drifted on. Amazingly,
some started to grizzle about lack of food and having to use the
dispensers. Later, they found out that some had given up and gone
out into the gas. It seemed that all were convinced they would
die.

When night came there were more grizzles as
they all had to sleep on the floor. The Clet, Loefee, was miserable
as his feet were ill equipped for sleeping standing up and he said
he couldn't get up if he lay down.

Loefee said in the morning he was going to
leave, gas or no gas. "I won't live long but at least I'll die
free."

"If you can fly away, how come you can't
live?" Asked Mayling who had joined them.

"There's no food or drink outside the
cities. Pretty soon now they will cut off the power and we will
starve."

"But you can drink water and aren't there
game animals you can catch and eat?" asked Maeling.

Loefee replied, "I couldn't do that and they
have scanners so they would find me where ever I went."

This was the first the Terrans had heard of
scanners. Loefee explained, “They are usually so good they can find
a single being, so long as they have been programmed
correctly.”

"You mean they need to know what to look
for?" Asked Dan who was a computer buff. "If they haven't been
programmed to find Terrans how would they know what to look for?
What would we show up as?"

But Loefee wasn't sure. “Perhaps as
animals.” The Terrans discussed this and most decided to leave in
the morning if the gas had blown away. They would risk the
scanners.

The night was uncomfortable, crowded and
noisy. Most of them got little sleep except for some of the
children. In the morning, the gas looked to be clear and they
decided to take a boat and go out to sea. One of the Clets,
arriving that morning, had told Loefee to tell the Terrans that
many were in boats on the sea.

Dan said, ”I’ll go out by myself, locate a
boat and have you others join me if I seem to be alright.”

Loefee disagreed. "If they have good
scanners they will see you and gas you. You are best to go all
together and very fast."

They decided to take his advice and do
that.

Most left together except Steve who had
joined them last evening. He refused to move. The children were
eager to go and ran ahead to the boats while the adults looked
around warily. Wanting to see if their parents were alive, the
eight children chose a boat and leaped onto it urging the adults to
follow. They did and after a quick discussion found one child, Ali,
who had seen how the boat was started. Carefully, and with a few
very scary moments, they got the boat underway and headed out to
sea. As they went, they saw a Clet winging its way into the hills.
They hoped it was Loefee.

It wasn't long before they reached the other
Terrans. Mathew called out,

"How many of you?"

"Eleven.” Answered Maeling, and they learned
that the survivors now numbered 47 in this group, but some others
had been seen going down the coast. They didn’t know what their
fate had been.

"Well 48, said Dan. "Steve Nilsen wouldn't
come with us. He still seems to be in shock." Quickly, Sarah
brought them up to date. She added, “the planes attacked the boats
yesterday but by getting under the water we survived. Do you know
of any other survivors?”

"Some people went to the caves yesterday,"
said Ali.

"Yogabala went with her family and Bea's,"
added his twin Alia.

"What were their surnames?" But the children
didn't know. "Well how many of them?" Added Dan.

"About ten. Ilse and Bea were sisters…"

"The Nedri's and the de Jonges?" Interrupted
Sally.

"Yes, that's right," confirmed Alia.
"There's so many people it gets confusing and I was…" she stopped
appalled as it hit home and started to cry. Dan cuddled her. Her
parents were missing too.

"The Clets seem to be the only race apart
from us who even seem to consider trying to survive!" said Dan in
exasperation. "Lily livered bunch the rest of them!"

Sally cut in with, "The sun is hot. Get
these kids under shade," she said pointing to the paler ones. But
there was little to use to shade the children.

There was some laughter as the Negroid Dan
made a show of hiding from the sun.

Mathew was still visibly unwell and
breathless but considerably better than yesterday. Sally had
stopped guarding him and pronounced him “on the mend”. He decided
to hold a council of war as he called it to discuss their options.
They were joined by a Priskya.

"We need intelligence, strategies, a safe
place to hide, allies would help, supplies, communication. Who
wants to do what?"

There was a chorus of offers. Mathew quickly
sorted them out and organised who would try what. “You can go in
one group then split into two. You can all leave after dark. You
all need to exchange information with all the others. Tell them
what worked and how you survived. Move around the city and learn.
See if anyone survived. There should be survivors in any airtight
area. Keep a sharp lookout for the planes while you’re outside. Get
out of the city before daylight. Understood?”

“Understood,” they all chorused back.

Stella looked at Mahmoud in shock. This
couldn’t be happening! Then all the years of experience she had had
with her mother and all the teaching kicked in. Trying desperately
not to cry she started cardiac massage. Li, used to helping her
parents and trained in first aid too, took over the respiration.
They continued for a few minutes that seemed like hours and then
Stella, who had kept checking, found that his pulse was going.

“Stop,” she told Li. “Just do the
breathing.”

Donny looked up in alarm, “Has his heart
restarted?”

“It can’t have stopped. It must have slowed
down or stopped circulation to his limbs maybe. You can only
restart the heart with a defibrillator. I counted. His heart rate
is 26-28, but it is going.” Li and Stella alternated with the
respiration. When Li was doing the respirations, Stella checked
him. “Heart rate steady at 28, no response to pain, no corneal
reflex. He is deeply unconscious. Donny do you know what to
do?”

“No but I’ll try,” so Stella coached him and
he took a turn. This made it a lot easier.