Extraction

YFnyrdh tried to look guilty and grateful by turns. The officer looked her up and down critically. How degraded we may become in difficult circumstances – this survivor was almost feral.

“You do know this is a closed world – no contact?   You should not be here and neither should we. Get your kit together; I want to be off this planet before there’s an incident. The high Command is going to have some tough questions when we get you home.” She suddenly stopped talking and with a look of horror stared into the long grass, “What the hell is that ginger thing?”

YFnyrdh glanced across at Hank who was watching the proceedings with detached curiosity. “It’s one of the locals. It will get bored if we ignore it.” The cat moved towards them and a twitched marine fired his carbine.

“Kill that shooting!” screamed the officer. On the word ‘kill’ the entire squad opened up. Hair thin shafts of coherent light ionised the air and pinpricks of malachite green illuminated the feline’s fur – harmlessly.

“Frktnz! For Jddhrw’s sake stop firing!”

Hank sauntered nonchalantly over to the tender, sniffed at the hatchway and gave the fuselage a contemptuous pat with a forepaw. He strolled some distance away and sat with his back to them all. The ship rocked on its undercarriage, but did not topple.

“Get on board, now.” the officer snapped to YFnyrdh. “Detail… pick up the life-craft and get that on board too. We’re not leaving any evidence behind.” Then she shouted into a small device tucked under her left epaulette. “Stoke her up! I want out of here, this instant.”

There followed a short period of frantic activity. The hull of the life-craft was not too heavy for the squad of burly marines, it was after all mainly composed of LLmnm-M alloy, but it was awkward and unbalanced and for too long got stuck in the doorway.   Eventually the inevitable shouting subsided, YFnyrdh was bundled aboard the tender and the hatch clanged shut. It hummed a low hum then locked with a clunk. There had been a growing turbine wine, accompanied by a thin whistle throughout the retreat into the tender. The rotor blades deployed and began to rotate while the whining increased in volume and pitch until it was a squeal that pained both feline and Kwmbryn ears. The whistling, whatever its origin, persisted. The whirling blades gathered speed and, wobbling slightly, the craft rose into the air. As it cleaved through some wisps of high cirrus cloud there was a flash from the underside of the fuselage. The rotor assembly retracted and the tender accelerated towards the edge of space on a column of intense white light. Digby emerged from a dark tangle of overgrown flowerbed.

He and Hank watched the ship recede into the vivid blue sky until only a pinhead twinkle of its exhaust was visible. The whistle could still be heard faintly, dying away.

“Looks like they really did come from the stars.”

Space Marines Cometh

YFnyrdh was sitting by a small open fire near a rude lean-to of scavenged timber, rendered waterproof, to a point, by a thatch of dry grass leaves. It had taken her four days to locate the crashed life-craft and now, several months later, its energy cells were all but exhausted, though the emergency food packs were holding out. She was supervising an improvised cooking pot of rehydrated, simmering bllw strynng soup. Clean accessible water was at a premium; there was none to spare for washing so she had a dishevelled air, her hair was long and matted, her mole-skin coveralls were thread bare, stained and mud spattered, and she sported an increasingly inconvenient unkempt beard. Hank was curled asleep in the long grass near the edge of what she now thought of as ‘the lawn’. Both were aware of the other’s presence, but Hank was too well fed and arthritic to bother with hunting and YFnyrdh was more concerned with the whereabouts of Digby. They had had a number of close encounters since she returned to her landing site, but thus far she had evaded recapture.

The sound, when they first heard it, was obviously some form of helicopter. They were, by now, used to the noise of the twin rotor Chinooks that regularly transported the planet’s military above this area, so gave it little attention. However, this time the source of the engine noise did not pass by and it got much louder. They both looked up when it became apparent something was descending.

The craft, an Atmospheric-Operations General Purpose Tender, had a roughly cone shaped fuselage, elongated fore and aft, which hung beneath a single multi-bladed rotor, and shone silver-chrome. The Special Forces insignia and motto was prominent in red and black along the side of the hull as it landed close by YFnyrdh’s camp. The rotor ceased revolving as the engine was cut, and retracted, the blades folding upwards and inwards somewhat after the manner of the cirri on a barnacle. A hatch cracked open, expelling a hiss of vapour round the seal, hinging at the bottom to form a ramp that thumped to the ground in a decisive sort of way. There was stillness, pregnant with expectation, while the cavernous hatchway gaped darkly. Then cries of “…hut, hut, hut…” echoed from within and a group of space-marines, dressed in pristine white uniforms and hard hats, emerged at a trot. The shore party, armed with hangers and laser carbines formed a perimeter whilst the officer, distinguished by a conspicuous display of gold braid, approached with her small but viciously practical automatic projectile hand weapon unholstered.

“Well, you took some finding.”

Dan to the Rescue

When Daniel came in to see what all the meowing was about he found the three of them standing motionless, each apparently waiting for one of the others to do something.

“What the hell have you brought in this time Digby?” He peered down at the tiny creature with its long pointed face, black boot-button eyes, grey velvety coat and short, whip-like tail.

“That’s not a mouse, what on earth is it?”

Wasting no time, Daniel collected his rodent rescue kit from the under-stairs cupboard. The diminutive vole, or whatever it was, looked up as he dropped a beer glass over it and slipped a piece of card underneath. As he inverted the assemblage the little animal fell into the bottom of the glass, squeaking angrily. Daniel carried it carefully outside whilst Digby and Hank searched all the nooks and corners of their dining room for their now missing lunch. Daniel walked some way down the lane and stopped at an overgrown patch of waste ground. He tipped out the ungrateful animal. It paused and glared at him for a moment, then scuttled into the undergrowth. It did not seem to appreciate having been rescued at no slight inconvenience to its saviour. Daniel’s tea would be tepid by the time he got back.

“Off you go, little feller. This should give you a head start. And be a bit more careful in future.”

Are Clangers Edible?

Digby had a plan – he would wait. The thing would get hungry, or bored, or homesick, or just forget why it was hiding, and then it would come out. His plan had not included being shouted at.

He sat up, stunned. Then quickly went into the lounge and woke Hank, who was sleeping on the sofa.

“I think you’d better come and see this.” They padded, together into the dining room. “I found it outside. It’s just called to me, in Cat.”

Hank tilted his head to one side and studied the creature. “Did it say anything useful?”

“It said,  ‘Hey you,’ and then, ‘Take me to your leader.’ Do I have a leader?”

“Shouldn’t think so. What’s a leader?”

“Should I poke it?”

“No.” Hank pushed his nose towards the alien. “Let’s humour it. What are you and where are you from, little creature?”

Well, so far so good. There were two of the terrifying predators now, but she had not been eaten. The second alien was even bigger though less stocky and a darker orange. It did not look any less dangerous. YFnyrdh’s throat was dry and she was trembling slightly – imperceptibly, she hoped.

“I am YFnyrdh of the Kwmbry and I come from up there…”

The two cats looked up.

“Did it just say it fell off the ceiling?” asked Hank.

“It’s making it up.” replied Digby, “I brought it in from next door’s garden.”

“No…” YFnyrdh indicated towards a large transparent rectangle in one of the walls, “…out there. I come from the stars.”

“Now it says it fell through one of the shiny holes in the big black roof. Has it got concussion?”

Digby had dropped onto his elbows and was beginning to wiggle his bottom. Before he could pounce Hank stopped him. “Give it a bit longer, this is fun.”

“I am a space wrecked traveller, sole survivor from a doomed Galaxy Class ore carrier. I am unable to return to my home world without your assistance.” YFnyrdh assumed the posture of a supplicant. Then, indicating her surroundings with a wide sweeping gesture of her arms, she continued, “Your species has obviously achieved wondrous technological advances, are you capable of interstellar flight?”

“What is a technological?” asked Hank.

“What is advances?” asked Digby.

“You are too modest, this vast hall with its amazing artefacts, the many buildings beyond, only a great civilisation could construct such marvels or take all this for granted.”

“This…” explained Hank, “…is Home.   You don’t construct Home, it just is; it’s more to do with philosophy than physics.”

“And we are ginger moggies from the planet Hereandnow,” added Digby, “and we eat small creatures; even annoyingly deluded, gobby ones that think they are aliens.”

Not going quite so well now, then. Oh, Sqwrll! If this had been an episode of Star Quest she’d just shoot her way out of this mess and steal herself one of their space ships. Only they didn’t seem to have any space ships and Leading Spacepeople were hardly going to be let loose near guns. The crews on VLBCs were notoriously quirky. It was a long time between ports and you had to be a bit mad to be out there in the first place.

“We may have got off on the wrong foot here. Please, let me try to explain. I have inadvertently become trapped on your planet, which, pleasant as it may seem to you, is far from my home. I am considering the possibility that you are not the dominant species here and I wonder if you could put me in touch with…” The voice of the translator distorted. There was a pause, then it said, “Battery low!” in all known languages and went silent. YFnyrdh carried on for a while in Kwmbrysh, but it was pointless.