{"id":1371,"date":"2019-11-11T10:53:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T15:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1371"},"modified":"2019-11-11T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T15:53:23","slug":"first-contact-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1371","title":{"rendered":"First Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(book excerpt)<\/p>\n

The Masset met the Earth delegation on their own carrier deck, looking formal and engaged, as if this was their actual ‘first contact’ with Earthers.\u00a0 They knew better.\u00a0 Admiral Geller noticed how big and beefy this group of humans was, better than average (his clients would be pleased).\u00a0 Their encounter suits were unarmed, clearly diplomatic, which was a good sign.<\/p>\n

It was inevitable that the Earthers would detect the Masset at some point.\u00a0 Still, Geller was disappointed.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0He had hoped to exploit them for a few more decades.\u00a0 He was getting very rich.\u00a0 Hopefully only a change of tactics would be necessary.<\/p>\n

With a gesture, Geller invited the Earthers inside, but they insisted on the formalities (it was a really big deal – for them).\u00a0 Their ambassador introduced himself as Colonel Smith and welcomed them to the Terran Solar System,\u00a0 tediously explaining that they called their world Earth but that we were all currently orbiting Jupiter.\u00a0 He offered the esteemed greetings of a long, boring list of political, corporate, and religious luminaries, and with a load of bows and flourishes he droned on through the standard diplomatic script.\u00a0 Geller responded as expected.\u00a0 This Col. Smith was testing his patience, but he and his warriors knew the drill…nothing was to happen until everyone was inside.<\/p>\n

That’s when he heard Smith say something very odd; “…and thank you Admiral Geller.\u00a0 The people of Earth thank you personally for all the advanced technology you’ve been sending us…”\u00a0 And every Masset warrior switched-on to full alert.\u00a0 This was not what Geller had expected to hear today…but just then his earpiece came alive with the clutter of proximity alerts and his senior officers barking frantic orders. Meanwhile, an Earther ship was de-cloaking just above them.<\/p>\n

According to the Rhee Republic, Earth was off -limits.\u00a0 It was illegal to land there or to fly within the orbital proximity of Jupiter.\u00a0 Humanity was considered an “emerging culture.” It was either on the brink of advancing to eventually join the Republic…or of catastrophic self-destruction.\u00a0 Quarantined.<\/p>\n

The Masset, however, had commerce to conduct and orders to fill.\u00a0 They were a diverse culture, but elements of it controlled the Republic’s vast black-market trade cartel…and some people had a taste for Earthers.\u00a0 The Veen used humans for slave labor, the Binnish used them as lab rats for biomedical research, and the Lumia just found them delicious.\u00a0 Apparently, enough Earthers had been abducted over the centuries for a strong market demand to develop…and the Masset owned the franchise (for which all Masset benefited).<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Masset were in good standing with the Rhee Republic.\u00a0 They had helped to repel the last three military invasions, had powerful advanced technology, and were influential in Republic politics… so they had no wish to upset the balance.<\/p>\n

That’s why Admiral Geller (who was only a legal consultant at the time), came up with a clever solution around the quarantine law.\u00a0 Since they couldn’t go to Earth to harvest humans, they would have to ‘lure’ them off-world.\u00a0 It wasn’t strictly legal, but it would work (and it did for a good long while).<\/p>\n

Geller labored for decades, secretly transmitting propaganda to maintain division between Earth’s nation states, while feeding them choice bits of advanced technology to get them off the ground and into space, to explore and colonize.\u00a0 So, when they started leaving the quarantined area in really profitable numbers, the Masset were there to intercept and abduct them…and nobody was the wiser.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, Geller might have miscalculated the adaptability of the Earthers.\u00a0 He’d never thought them intelligent enough to apply and integrate the technology he sent, into all the different alien ships and technology abandoned on Earth over the centuries.\u00a0 He certainly had NOT counted on them outmaneuvering him…in an ambush.\u00a0 Perhaps the Masset had become complacent…<\/p>\n

In the time it took for the Earther ship to de-cloak overhead, Admiral Geller had a few additional thoughts:\u00a0 First, he had never actually given Colonel Smith his name…curious.\u00a0 Second, the Masset were the only culture with cloaking technology.\u00a0 Hmmm…and third…wait.\u00a0 Were those jet-packs they were wearing?<\/p>\n

“Thanks again, Geller…” said Colonel Smith, “and have a nice day!”\u00a0 And on his order, the entire Earth delegation lifted off the deck in perfect formation toward their ship above….and as it pulled away, Geller saw the first of an impressive flight of earth missiles de-cloak before slamming into his ship’s broadside.\u00a0 As to Geller’s third and final thought, he said, “The Earther MISSILES are cloaked too?\u00a0 How clever!!!”<\/p>\n

***We posted this image a few years ago, but the story is new and written especially for our new book, “A Short Burst.”\u00a0 It’s one of the longer stories, almost two whole pages.\u00a0 Burst is a clever compilation of illustrated flash science fiction.\u00a0 Find it at our Etsy shop (search EEWbooks) or by following the links above to www.sallemander.com…which will take you to our Etsy shop.\u00a0 \u00a0-Marsha<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(book excerpt) The Masset met the Earth delegation on their own carrier deck, looking formal and engaged, as if this was their actual ‘first contact’ with Earthers.\u00a0 They knew better.\u00a0 Admiral Geller noticed how big and beefy this group of humans was, better than average (his clients would be pleased).\u00a0 Their encounter suits were unarmed, … Continue reading First Contact<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242,150,124],"tags":[79,250,210,248,38,10,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1380,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}