Transgalactic Antics

Chapter One – Carrie the Maverick CARRIE HATCHETT SILENTLY wished she had put on her thermal underwear. She had been crouching for hours in a cold, damp, trench dug by Unity troops, while the siege of the squashpump city dragged on. ‘City’ was a loose word to describe the squashpump municipality. It was in fact a massive mound of moist, brown organic matter on a bare, boggy plain. Try as she might, Carrie couldn’t help but see it as a huge manure pile and the squashpumps as large, intelligent, civilised slugs. “Ma bairns, ma bairns.” Nearby—close enough for Carrie’s translator to pick up its squeaks and transform them into Scottish-accented English in her mind—a squashpump official sat, or lay. At the beginning of the negotiations several days earlier, this squashpump, who went by the name of MacDougal, had been calm and professional, but over time it had weakened under stress and concern for its family. According to official estimates, roughly 236,000 squashpumps were being held hostage by the placktoids, a mechanical alien species intent on taking over the galaxy. Wincing as she moved her cramped muscles, Carrie went over to the distressed squashpump and sat beside it. “I’m sure there’ll be some progress soon. We’ll get your children out. How many do you have?” The squashpump reared up, lifting its upper end five or six centimetres off the ground, and sprouted multi-coloured soft tentacles. “One thousand and seventy-eight, give or take one or two. I can ne’er keep count of the wee rascals. Oh, and three hundred and twelve eggs.” Its tentacles flopped. “What’s t’ become o’ them?” “One thousand and seventy-eight? That is a large family.” Carrie tried to imagine what it must be like to be a parent to so many offspring. “We haven’t heard from the placktoids for a while. They must be about to agree to surrender. With Unity or Transgalactic Council presence on every habitable planet across the galaxy, they don’t have anywhere to go. They might be hostile, but they aren’t stupid.” “Och, that’s what I mean. It’s taking too long. Yon evil machines are trying t’ figure a way oot. They’ve a trick or two up their sleeves yet, I warn ye.” Carrie rubbed her chilled arms and blew into her hands. MacDougal was right. The placktoids were extremely devious. When she had been the first to uncover their illegal activities, they had fooled the Council into believing they were the victims in a dispute with the yellow liquid known as the oootoon, when in fact they had been the aggressors. But their latest plan of invading the squashpump planet had failed. Unity soldiers had driven them from every area to this final refuge. Surely they had no way out? They had no alternative but to surrender. “How are the tunnels coming along? They must be nearly finished now,” Carrie asked MacDougal. “This evening, they say.” “I’ll go and see if there have been any developments,” Carrie said, hoping to find some news to calm the anxious squashpump. MacDougal collapsed limply to the ground as she left. Not far down the trench, she found her Transgalactic Council Intercultural Community Crisis Liaison Manager, Gavin, speaking to some Unity soldiers. In their combat gear and helmets with opaque visors, Carrie found the soldiers creepy. Not because they were alien—some were human, or at least humanoid—but their uniforms took on the appearance of their surroundings, like chameleons, which made them hard to spot. She was sure one or two of them had deliberately snuck up on her to make her jump. She waited while her huge insectoid manager finished his conversation. A cold wind circulated, and she hugged herself, looking up into the thick, grey clouds that constantly covered the sky. After a few moments the soldiers nodded at her and went away. “Any news, Gavin?” “I am afraid we have received no further communications from the placktoids since their most recent expression of defiance. The general consensus seems to be that positive action is required.” “What kind of positive action? Not an assault?” “Probably, yes.” Carrie gasped. “But there are hundreds of thousands of squashpumps in there, and they’re so small. How will the soldiers be able to avoid hitting them? Can’t we wait until the squashpumps have finished digging the tunnels? At least then we can sneak up on them.” “We cannot afford to wait, unfortunately. We have not heard from a single hostage since this morning, and the placktoids are fully aware of the squashpumps’ ability to tunnel quickly and efficiently. They know we would not use tunnelling machines because they would detect the vibrations, but that the squashpumps will dig tunnels manually to allow troops to approach the city. We are sure they can also estimate the time it would take and know the tunnels will be completed soon. A crisis point is approaching and we must be decisive.” Carrie bit her lip. On her previous assignment she had been in charge of negotiations between the squashpumps and the former tyrants of the galaxy, the dandrobians. While on Dandrobia the squashpump delegation had attacked the dandrobians, and it had taken Carrie too long to discover the real reason—that the placktoids were forcing them to by holding their families hostage on their home planet, and that the dandrobians had been in on the plot from the very beginning, for reasons no one yet understood. “I wish I’d spoken to the squashpump delegation earlier and not allowed myself to be hoodwinked by the dandrobians, Gavin. I feel like this is partly my fault. We might have had more time to act against the placktoids and avoided this whole situation.” “Your feelings of guilt are irrational and non-beneficial. Please focus on the matter at hand.” But Gavin’s news about the proposed assault was not what she wanted to take back to MacDougal. “There must be something else we can do. Can’t we allow some of the placktoids’ demands? Can’t we just confine them to their planet, like we did with the dandrobians?” “The placktoids’ ability to create transgalactic gateways makes this impossible. We must be certain no placktoid can escape. It is confinement within the oootoon or nothing.” The mysterious, yellow oootoon, through which transgalactic gateways would not operate. Carrie well understood the placktoids’ refusal to give up their only bargaining tool, the squashpump hostages. Living in air pockets within the oootoon for the foreseeable future was not a fate she would resign herself to easily, either. Her heart sank. When it came down to it, a violent end to the siege seemed inevitable. But she could not, would not, allow squashpumps to come to harm. “Gavin, we can’t just let the Unity storm the compost, I mean city. We have to do something. I have to do something.” “I appreciate that you are concerned about squashpump safety. Such a sentiment is natural and admirable. But you must understand you are only one Transgalactic Council Officer within a large team of Council and Unity staff. You cannot and must not act as an individual in this matter. We must all obey the joint decisions made, for our own safety and that of the squashpumps.” “But I’ve had personal experience of dealing with the placktoids. I know them. I’m sure if I could speak to them face-to-face I could reason with them.” Though Carrie had been the one to expose the mechanical aliens’ devious plot, she hadn’t been allowed much input into the negotiation process. This was probably because the Council was aware that taking part in long, detailed discussions was not one of her strengths, but being excluded annoyed her, and she was tired of sitting on the sidelines, distant from the action. She itched to take part and be useful. “A face-to-face meeting would be far too dangerous,” Gavin replied, “even if you were to possess the authority, which you do not. Please do not even consider such an action. It would be suicide to leave this protected position, and in the event that you did survive to approach the placktoid commander, you could seriously destabilise the negotiation process.” Carrie clenched her fists at her sides. “The negotiation process is going to be seriously destablised the moment those troops storm the manure pile. I mean city. There are squashpump babies and eggs in there. Goodness knows what the placktoids will do when the Unity starts to attack.” “It is precisely to protect the squashpumps that the Unity must attack, and soon.” Frowning at her ten-legged, bronze-carapaced manager, Carrie struggled for an answer, but she couldn’t think of a suitable response. She stalked away without a word. There had to be a better way than a frontal assault. There had to be. Avoiding returning to MacDougal, she went in the other direction, towards the area where the squashpumps were constructing tunnels for the Unity soldiers. Scanning the ground for squashpump workers, she approached a tunnel entrance. The squashpumps had created a chain to shift the earth from the tunnel, and on the far side was a great mound of excavated soil. As Carrie approached, the chain broke up, and the squashpumps began undulating and hooting. “We’re there,” they shouted. “We’ve reached the city.” A thought struck Carrie, and she made her decision quickly.