Part 5 - Part 01

“We had lunch at the grove today and guess what the food was called… ‘Village food’, of course… He stole the name from the old lady…”

At this point Enai piped up and told everyone the whole story of how the first batch of village rakia was made here. He told them that rakia was a Macedonian drink. Many didn’t know that. Because it

was a Macedonian drink, he told them, I had the right to pick a name for it. This sounded okay to everyone so we moved on.

The next item for discussion was Ireva’s ship. After she gave us an update on how well it operated and how much she loved it, she asked that we give it a name; a nice name to reflect its purpose and to sound cool. At that point everyone went silent.

After several moments of silence Nagol said, “The Ambassador.” She didn’t seem happy with that and showed no enthusiasm.

I suggested “The Morning Star”… nothing.

Her father suggested “The Emissary”… still nothing.

“Well, it appears we’re not going to get too far with the name today. Maybe you should pick the name yourself… It will eventually come to you…” said Captain Orihci.

“What’s the place you come from called?” asked Ireva, looking at me.

“You mean earth?” I asked.

“No, no…”

“I think you mean Macedonia…, right?” asked Delche. “It’s a beautiful place…”

“Yes, that’s it… I will call her ‘Macedonia’…” she said with a smile.

“Why thank you! You did that to honour me, right?” I asked mockingly, while feeling very proud that she’d chosen the name of my country for her ship.

“No! That name seems to bring you luck… Its flag is under your ship… right?”

“Yes?” I replied sounding a bit confused.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“That I am.”

“It might bring me luck too!”

“Okay, now we have two historic events to record today… Let’s move on to the next subject of interest… The berries…” said Captain Orihci.

I gave them an update on the berries. I basically told them that my soldiers would pick them and Delche and Ori would look after the transportation, storage and processing. I also explained the means by which they would do it. Everyone was happy with that.

Captain Orihci then went on to discuss the new report we’d received about Livè and Tolo from the communications tower.

Only Nagol had a comment. He warned everyone not to believe everything they heard in the news.

“If we believe what the central intelligence security service is telling us… that they will execute those two… we are more likely to surrender them. Everyone here wants those two to pay for what they did… But no one wants to get their hands dirty, right? So the logical thing to do is surrender them to those who are willing to punish them… And that’s what the central intelligence security service is figuring we’ll do. But we shouldn’t do that… Think about it for a moment. What makes us certain that they’ll punish them? What if they don’t? What if they give them new identities and send them to another part of our world to cause havoc and torment other people? Just like they did with Livè turning her into Madam Grooni and sending her here to torment us… Those two are experienced agents… And they are hard to come by. Think of the training they’d have to invest in again to replace them…. On top of that… if we surrender them to the security services we’ll lose our leverage… We’ll never be able to prove any of our claims of what happened here, no matter what we say. Those two aren’t only witnesses to what happened here… they’re trusted agents working for the

security services… People will listen to them… especially if they say what we say. We need to keep them here by any means possible…convince them to stay here… Think about it. And it would be excellent if we can get them to talk and tell us things we don’t know… That’s all I have to say for now.”

Everyone was surprised by Nagol’s comments but had nothing to add.

“No one? No one has anything to add…?” asked Captain Orihci.

“I have something to add,” I said. “But first let me say that, as much as I despise those two, I have to agree with Nagol. They are more important to us here alive than in the hands of the security services, dead or alive. We need them to back our story, to tell the world that we are telling the truth. And for that we need them to talk, but only Livè and Tolo and perhaps that other guy from the circus… The rest are of no use to us…”

“How are we going to get them to talk?” asked Captain Orihci.

“I have an idea of how we can do that…” I said. “But first let me tell you what happened this morning…”

After I told them what Ukasnek, Ireva and I did at the farm that the morning, I said, “I expect they’ll all be here tomorrow at noon, they’ll be hungry and cold and will want to make some sort of deal; so I think they’ll want to talk. Here’s what we should do. We should first separate Livè, Tolo and that other guy from each other. After that we should tell them that we’ll be interviewing each separately and, depending on the honesty of their answers, we’ll either reward them with a hot meal and a place to stay or leave them hungry and in the cold outside of the facility. What do you think?”

“Excellent idea…” said Nagol.

“I think Ireva should interview Livè and Amih speak with Tolo…; they’re less intimidating… Also they aren’t as well known as Captain Orihci, Ukasnek or Enai… The rest of us are aliens to this

world and nobody is going to believe anything we say anyway…” I said before I was interrupted by Amih.

“Me…? I don’t know what to ask?”

“Let me explain… We’ll prepare the questions ahead of time… but that’s not the point… The point is to get them to tell the truth about what happened here and record it. We already know the truth so we can tell if they’re lying. But more importantly we want to record what they say without them knowing it…”

“How?” asked Captain Orihci. “Won’t they suspect that we’ll do that anyway…?”

“Probably… but each of them will be thinking about what the others might say and from what we know, Livè will think that her brother is going to spill the beans. So she might talk and get a free meal out of it. Anyway, I don’t know what will happen but we should be ready for anything. I want hidden cameras and microphones placed in this room and the conference room to record everything they have to say. I suspect the other guy, the circus guy, doesn’t know anything but I’ll interview him myself anyway to see what he has to say. I also want that recorded. I’ll do it in our jail, openly, with all the others present, so please have a portable camera handy for that as well.”

“I’ll get on it right away… I’ll get my associates to help me…” said Enai.

“It’s getting very late… That’s enough information for one day,” said Captain Orihci. “I think everyone knows what to do so if there are no other questions I’d like to adjourn this meeting.”

No one had any questions so Captain Orihci adjourned the meeting and came over to polish off the remaining part of the village rakia.

“This is truly good stuff. I think you’ve outdone yourselves guys,” he said as he gulped down another glass.

“Dad… Please… Leave some for the little people…” said Ireva and grabbed a glass.

After she had a sip she said, “I have no idea what to ask Livè… How am I going to interview her?”

“We’ll help you ask the right questions… We’ll be in your ear at all times… right Enai…?”

“Yes Sir, we have a solution for that too… I’ll get on it and find the right equipment…”

I looked around and saw Captain Rolo taking Nagol away. They all waved at me and left.

For some reason I felt sentimental and gave Delche and Ori a hug. “I’m proud of you guys and I can’t thank you enough for coming here, to this planet, to be with me.”

Confessions of a spy

Early the next morning, one of the helpers from the reception area came to my door and kept banging until I opened it.

“What is it?” I asked.

“They’re here; all of them and I don’t know what to do. I’m alone in the reception area and everyone is still sleeping. I didn’t know who to call and you were the closest, so I came here.”

“Take it easy young lady, everything will be fine, don’t worry…” I said and followed her back to the reception area. When we got there what did I see? Our former prisoners all sprawled out around the reception area. Some were sitting down in the chairs and others were lying on the floor sleeping. At that point I asked the reception lady to go and get Ukasnek and Captain Orihci and let them know what was happening.

After she left I began to walk towards Livè who was standing beside the exit door. It seemed as if she had just entered the building as I arrived. She was holding her bare arms with her hands, trying to warm them and was shivering slightly. The moment I took my first steps the two wrestlers, who were closest to me, bolted away and fled to the other end of the reception area. That was odd behaviour I thought but then I remembered what I’d done to them in the ring.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m not here to start a fight…” I said but realized they had no translators and my words were alien to them. I always wore mine; one of the new ones.

“When I got close to Livè she said, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Grand Poobah himself and spat at me. I didn’t say anything. She looked pathetic. She had dirt all over her face, dead grass in her hair and her beautiful dress was torn in several places. She looked like she’d had fight with a cat and the cat had won. I wanted to ask what had happened but I realized that without a translator she wouldn’t understand me. But even if she had, she would probably insult me again.

By now everyone was off the floor and out of the chairs, looking at me. They were looking to see if I was angry after Livè had insulted me and spit on me. There was complete silence in the room. Then suddenly, I heard a familiar voice coming from the corner of the room. It was Tolo.

“I know you understand me, so please hear me out. Livè doesn’t represent us… Her opinions are her own… She’s not with us… We are here to surrender to your custody and we want to stay here. We can be useful to you… We’ve accepted the fact that we can’t survive alone, not here and not at home.”

I looked around the room and everyone except Livè seemed to agree. Livè leaned against the wall near the exit door, crossed her arms and legs, looked down and spat on the floor.

I wanted to say, “There’s the door Livè … It’s open… get the hell out of here…” but I knew she wouldn’t understand me, so I said nothing.

Then, suddenly, I heard loud footsteps rushing towards the reception area. It was Captain Orihci and Ukasnek with half a dozen of his men. When they saw me there and were assured that nothing violent was going on they stopped running.

Ukasnek yelled, “You’re all under arrest for trespassing… You’re coming with us…”

At that point Ukasnek asked Livè to follow him. Captain Orihci went and spoke to Tolo in another language and Tolo went with him. I followed all the others to the jail. There we met Enai holding a portable camera in his hand. He began to record as we approached and when I looked at him I asked him, telepathically, what was the status of the recording devices in the other rooms? He told me everything was set up. His associates had to work during the night because he figured something like this would happen.

After all the prisoners were inside the jail, one of Ukasnek’s men closed the door and locked it.

“There’s no point in us being here…” said the same man who handed me the key and they all left.

“Well gentlemen, I see you all took my offer and came back, even earlier that I expected. Why?” I asked and Enai translated for me.

“Well, first of all, it’s really cold during the night on this planet, much, much colder than on our planet and we’re not used to the cold. Second, we all realized that we can’t survive on our own here without help. And third, we don’t want to go home in this political climate without knowing for sure what will happen to us… And I speak for everyone here when I say that… Put simply we don’t trust the security services…”

“I think we can find a place for you here. No one here believes you’re guilty of anything, but we do need to know what your involvement was with the security services; specifically yours…” I said to the man speaking for the rest.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you except that they came to me one day and told me that the fines I had to pay for operating an illegal circus would go away if I did something simple for them. So I agreed… Why not…? I didn’t think the police would ask me to do something illegal, right? I guess I was wrong…”

“Did you know Livè and Tolo before you came here?”

“No…”

“They, who you said, came to you one day… Who were they…?”

“Well, they didn’t physically come to me… A man called me and identified himself as the Chief of the Central Intelligence Security Service…”

“Would you recognize his voice if you heard it again?”

“Of course… Then a few days later the gadget that substituted for a microphone, which Ukasnek confiscated, arrived with instructions on how to use it. I also received instructions on what to do and when

to do it… Basically, my job was to contact the Chief after you appeared in the ring and contact him again after you fell down… And I did. That’s it. I had no idea they were trying to assassinate you…”

“How did you find out they were trying to assassinate me?”

“Rolo told us… He told us everything… He’s the one who told us we’d be dead if we returned home because the security service doesn’t like witnesses running around…”

“How well do you know the wrestlers and your ship’s crew?”

“I know them well, we’ve worked together for years. I can vouch for them. They, however, don’t know what they’ve done, what laws they’ve broken and why they’re still here?”

“What about these other twelve guys, the paid actors…, Madam Grooni’s so-called investigators?”

“I don’t know any of them and they don’t know us. They say they don’t know what they’ve done… or why you have kept them here.”

“Did they know Livè, or Madam Grooni as she called herself, before they came here?”

He looked around and they all shook their heads indicating no.

“It looks like they didn’t know her but from what one of them told me, she was already on the ship when they boarded it to come here.”

“What were they told their job would be when they arrived here?”

One of them spoke up and said something. Enai asked him to come up closer to the camera and asked him to repeat what he’d said, while recording him.

“The people who hired us said we would get our instructions from Madam Grooni, but all she told us was not talk to anyone… So that was our job. We didn’t even talk to each other, except for the time

when we put on an act pretending to be emissaries from the various Galaxy Trader planets and having arguments and that kind of nonsense. Madam Grooni instructed us to do that.”

“Is there anyone else here who wants to say something, anything?” I asked.

There was silence…

“Someone will come here later and bring you breakfast. So please bear with us for a bit longer,” I said and Enai and I left and headed for the conference room to see what was happening with Tolo. When we walked in we saw Tolo and Captain Orihci having a nice talk. Amih hadn’t yet arrived. Tolo looked at us with his sad eyes wondering what we were going to do.

“Don’t worry about them. They’re going to interview Livè and just came here to see how we’re doing,” said the Captain.

“Livè isn’t going to cooperate but I will. I’ll tell you everything I know. I realized that my life isn’t worth living anymore… You’ve been nothing but kind to me despite all the things I have done. So I owe you that much.”

“Why wouldn’t Livè cooperate? What makes you say that?” asked the Captain.

“She told us herself… She thinks our boss is going to swoop down here any day now and save us… She’s a fool. She’s so stupid she believes her own lies…” he said and began to cry.

“Don’t worry, we will protect you here. No one can land here without us knowing…” I said.

“I’m not crying because I’m afraid… I’m crying because she is my sister… She is so evil and so caught up with the security service that she mutilated her face and body… She’ll never tell you anything…”

“Okay that’s enough, we’re leaving…” I said and Enai and I walked out.

“Did you get all that?” I asked Enai.

“Sure did…” he replied.

“We’ll show it to Livè and see how she reacts…”

When we walked into the common room Livè protested because we hadn’t knocked. She was sitting on one side of a desk and Ukasnek was standing, leaning against the wall, legs crossed, fiddling with his fingers and looking at the ground.

“Doesn’t anyone knock in this stinking place? What am I doing here…? What are you doing here…?”

“Relax Livè, we’re not here to harm you… We just want to ask you some questions… Do you mind if we record you?”

“You’ll record me anyway so why should I mind?”

“We just want to tell you that we’ve interviewed Tolo and now we want to interview you… That is if you allow us…” I said.

“What did that toad tell you?”

“Would you like to see?”

She didn’t answer.

“Show her anyway. I’d like to see…” piped up Ukasnek.

“Sorry, we don’t have a display…” said Enai nervously.

“Well, go and get one… please…” I said sounding annoyed.

We sat there in silence looking at one another. Ukasnek resumed his original pose and kept looking at his fingers. Occasionally I smiled at Livè but she kept giving me the evil eye.

At one point I said, “You’re such a beautiful woman. Why did you mutilate yourself so badly? No man will want to look at you ever again… Are you married by any chance?” That made her furious and she made a really terrible face; like a beast before it strikes. She was about to leap out of her chair and attack me but Enai suddenly flung the door open, again without knocking, startling her. She sat back down.

“Please give me a moment,” he said as he realized he’d forgotten to get a cable to connect the camera to the display. “I’ll be right back…” and ran out the door.

“Idiots… Fools…” she mumbled to herself, crossed her arms and legs and began to stare at the wall, ignoring me standing in front of her. We sat in silence until Enai returned and started running the recording. She watched it all and said nothing…

“So, your brother was right… You’re not going to cooperate… There’s nothing more for us to do here… We’re leaving… She’s all yours Ukasnek, do as you wish with her,” I said and we walked out. Ireva was standing behind the door.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Long enough… I’m going in…” she said and, after quietly waiting a couple of moments, walked in. Enai and I stood there and listened.

“Oh, hi Ukasnek. Hi Livè…”

“What do you want…?” Livè asked in an angry tone of voice.

“I just came to see how the interview was going. Aren’t they here yet?”

“They came, they left…” said Ukasnek looking at his shoe.

“And?”

“And nothing… The Madam here won’t talk…”

“So what happens now?”

“I guess I have to figure out what to do with her. If I put her in jail I’ll have to feed her and look after her. I think I’ll drive her to the valley and surrender her to the robots; they could use the extra hands… I guess…”

“Do what you must. I’m going now…” said Ireva and began to walk away.

“Wait!” Livè yelled.

“Why?”

“I’ll talk to you… But not in front of him…”

Ireva went back and sat down on the chair facing Livè and said, “Why not in front of him? Whatever you tell me I’ll have to tell him anyway. I have to,” said Ireva. Livè crossed her arms and legs again and began to stare at the wall.

“Okay, okay…. Please Ukasnek, can you leave the room for a while… as a favour to me?”

“Fine, I’ll go and see how the prisoners are doing in the jail. And you’d better be here when I return…”

After Ukasnek had walked outside and closed the door Livè said, “I can’t talk to you here, I’m pretty sure they have the room bugged.”

“So what? What’s so important…? What are you going to tell me that is so important?”

“You’ll see...”

“Where do you suggest we go?”

“Let’s go to the conference room… That place is rarely used…” said Livè.

The moment we heard that, Enai, myself and Ukasnek, who were standing outside listening, quickly ran to the conference room and got Tolo, Captain Orihci and Amih out of there. We took Tolo to the jail and went to Enai’s lab to watch and listen to what Livè was going to tell Ireva.

In the meantime, Ireva stalled Livè by asking her if she’d seen the interview I conducted with Tolo.

“Where was the interview conducted?” Livè asked.

“In the jail in front of everyone... He said some nasty things about you and about your boss… I found it hard to believe him… I couldn’t understand how he could say such bad things about his boss and his own sister…”

At that point Livè opened the common room door and peeked outside. There was no one there. The two then rushed down the hallways and went to the conference room. Livè opened the door and looked inside. The lights were off. She then turned on the lights and the two sat in the far corner of the room.

“No one can see us here, even if they try…” said Livè.

“Okay, what is so important to tell me that you brought me all the way here?” asked Ireva.

“Not so fast, girly. First I want to know what my brother said that was so damning to me…?” she asked.

“Well he said many things…”

What specifically did he say about my early life?”

At this point Captain Orihci ran to the jail and, wearing a micro communicator that connected to him with Ireva’s ear, asked Tolo to tell him something about Livè’s early life that no one else knew.

“Let me see now… Your earliest time in life… He did say something… What was it now… Oh yes, he said you were beaten up

by another girl… He said her name was Lali and she beat up you pretty good. That was the first time you met the security services. You said something to the officer which impressed him… As a result you became a prime candidate for their recruitment program and they came looking for you two years later.”

“And all this was recorded you say?”

“Yes… Otsiron and Enai recorded all of it on a portable camera. I saw them, I was there.”

“Okay, okay… I will kill the little bastard… He’s sealed my fate. I told him to keep his mouth shut but he didn’t listen. We would have been surrendered to the security services and we would have been fine.”

“What about the report we’ve heard that they were looking to arrest you and execute you?”

“Oh that! They wouldn’t do that to us.”

“You mean to all of you here?”

“No silly, I mean to me and Tolo. Who cares what happens to them. They’re expendable. They’ll find their way to heaven the moment they leave this planet… through an accident or something… They need to be silenced.”

“Tolo mentioned some nasty things about you and your boss. Is that true?”

“That we were lovers? We’ve been lovers since I was seventeen…”

“And how old was he?”

“Thirty six!”

“Livè are you nuts?”

“Maybe I am. So?”

“What other sorts of things were you involved in with him, besides being lovers?”

“His greatest pleasure was to kill Otsiron and I wanted to help him.”

“Why…”

“Because he constantly interfered with his plans… It started out with the destruction of the Karon fleet, then the humiliation of the captain of the first Galaxy Trader destroyer, then with the super soldier project… I can go on and tell you a dozen more things… Before I met Otsiron I thought he was some sort of super hero, but after I met him I changed my mind… He is an idiot and a fool… I think you feel that way too. He’s a clown… I just don’t know how he has survived this long… And Voskot was a bigger idiot for giving him that stupid ship. He has ruined everything… He has ruined my life.”

“I get the feeling that your boss is from Ostikon too?”

“Yes, all of us are from Ostikon. All these fools here, all they know how to do is trade… They have no idea how to protect their interests. They have relied on us, the Whites from Ostikon to protect them. The entire security service is run by agents from Ostikon. It has been that way for many years…”

“Wow, I didn’t know that. But the thing that really interests me the most is this damn super soldier project, which consumed my two brothers and my cousin Jess. What the hell was that all about? What happened?”

“Well, that one is quite interesting. It started out about ten years ago. The security services are excellent at gathering information but very weak when it comes to defending the Consortium. They rely heavily on the Galaxy Trader military… their ships… especially their destroyers. But when they were needed to do something it was almost impossible to get them. Year after year the service tried to get a budget and build its own force but they kept getting the same runaround… We already have a military, we don’t need another one.

But then, when your hefty friend succeeded in humiliating the Consortium’s best captain, thanks to him we convinced the idiots to give us a budget… But it was a small budget. What could we do with a small budget? Well the eggheads decided to build a permanent force that would cost very little to build and operate, obey orders without question, work for free and be powerful… all at the same time, right? Is that insane or what…?! In other words something that was not possible. But then some idiot mad scientists took us seriously and began to work on what we later called the super soldier project. We wanted the project to be secret so we chose this sleepy, backwater planet to do it on. Unfortunately the two idiot brothers, to whom we gave the contract, had a falling out. They broke up their partnership and started working on the project independently. It became a competition for them… We didn’t care how it was done or who did it; we just wanted our super soldiers. But then they started running out of money and asked for more. In the beginning we gave them some. Since the Galaxy Trader Consortium wouldn’t give us any more, we turned to the pirates. We promised to leave them alone if they gave us some money and they did. When that dried up the two brothers came back for more but we said no… We’d already paid them too much and they had nothing to offer us at the time… No super soldiers. They tried to continue the project without our money but failed, so they resorted to stealing money, robbing businesses and banks. They built robots to replace the scientists and their manual labour. They couldn’t get legitimate scientists because their work was considered shady. That worked for a while but they still needed more money so they kept stealing it. Eventually the competition for money between the two brothers became so intense they used their robots and super soldiers to fight one another and steal from each other. The fighting became so intense they left civilian casualties everywhere. We had to come down on them… We had to… We raided their facilities in order to shut them down… but they refused to give up. So we killed them thinking that it would all be over. But, as you know, it wasn’t. The idiots had programmed their robots to continue their work, even in their absence… And you know the rest…”

“So you’re responsible for this mess… I don’t mean you personally but the security services…”

“Yes.”

“So, why didn’t you intervene and stop the robots from continuing the project?”

“Well, there were some people in the security service who felt we should continue this project, especially since it was being done for us for free by the robots. We figured that when the robots had created the number of soldiers we needed, we’d swoop in and take them over, except we hadn’t yet figured out how… And then your idiot buddy Otsiron comes in and ruins everything. Not only does he stop the whole super soldier creation process, he ‘somehow’ manages to take over the super soldiers… That sure made my boss furious to the point of becoming suicidal…”

“Why didn’t you tell the Ostikon authorities not to send all those soldiers here? Why did you allow them to sacrifice so many lives?”

“Are you kidding me? We needed about two to five million bodies to turn into super soldiers. We wanted to have a big army. Where did you think we were going to get the soldiers from? So we concocted an idea, which the foolish Ostikon government swallowed wholesale. First we signed a treaty with them to help each other should one of us be attacked and then we fabricated the fake war… We suckered them in… It was the biggest scam we ever pulled. That was going to serve a couple of purposes; create our super soldiers and at the same time deprive the Ostikon government of the new force that Princess Vieria had created. Very clever, eh? We also had help from the inside. We promised to elevate Princess Anelia to Queen of Ostikon in exchange for helping us. After that she did whatever we asked. We made sure she was placed in a good position in Asora’s government and she almost succeeded in fulfilling our plan… until that idiot Otsiron was brought back. Again he interfered and brought most of those soldiers back to Ostikon… And if I may add, he destroyed the rest when he blew up the other facility. You wouldn’t believe how much that angered my boss.”

“Moving forward to a short time ago when you called your boss, I mean when Ukasnek forced you to call your boss, to give him an

update after the wrestling match, why did you tell him that Otsiron was dead; when clearly he wasn’t?”

“Sweetie, no one can make me do anything. So please don’t even think I did it because Ukasnek forced me. I did it because I truly believed he was dead and we’d finally got rid of that menace once and for all…”

“And why did you tell your boss that your rescue ship had exploded above the planet, on its own… when it clearly it hadn’t? It was shot down by Otsiron. According to your words it blew up because ‘it entered the atmosphere too fast’…”

“Well, I overheard Enai say that it blew up because it entered the atmosphere too fast… and that’s what I thought happened… It made sense… I was led to believe Otsiron was already dead… so who else could have done it?”

“There is one more thing that bugs me about all this…”

“What’s that…?”

“The golden super ship… What was that all about and why did it fail?”

“I told you, my boss went mental and wanted guarantees that Otsiron would be dead once and for all… so he commissioned a sure fire way to do it and that was the golden ship. That project robbed everyone and still failed. Most of that project was bankrolled through King Rodot. He convinced every shady organization to donate money to get rid of Otsiron. After Otsiron destroyed his scout ship, you know the one that was sent to Nelez to pluck the gold out of the other facility, Rodot was convinced that Otsiron was a big problem and would become an even bigger problem if he continued to exist. In fact Rodot was so angry he wanted to kill Otsiron himself. After the ship was built he demanded that his son fly it; even though he wasn’t ready.”

“Why did your boss agree; I mean to allow Rodot to take charge of such an important mission?”

“Well, for one, Rodot came up with the money to pay for the ship, which by the way robbed his entire planet and most of the pirate enterprise, and the ship was supposed to be indestructible and idiot proof. Who would have thought that that idiot Otsiron would find a way to destroy it? This was the biggest surprise yet…”

“Have you been in touch with your boss since your arrest?”

“No! How could I? Ukasnek confiscated my communicator.”

“Do you think he’ll ever come here to rescue you?”

“Yes… eventually…”

“Let me ask you a different question. Why did you tell me all this? You know I’ll have to report it Ukasnek. And you know I have no authority to do anything for you…”

“I know that… I gave you information… That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yes but I already knew everything you told me… You haven’t given me anything new…”

“That’s the idea. I want asylum on this planet in exchange for this information. Now go and tell your dad and Otsiron.”

“Okay if that’s what you want… But first we have to go and find Ukasnek, before he finds us and arrests us.”

On their way to the jail they ran into Ukasnek.

“Where have you two been? I’ve been looking all over for you. I missed my breakfast…”

“Oh you poor man… Now you’ll die of starvation…”

“You get out of here…” yelled Ukasnek to Ireva… “And you get in here…” he yelled at Livè after he unlocked the jail door. Soon after

that one of his men brought the prisoners their food. At this point Ukasnek left and caught up to Ireva who was heading for Enai’s lab.

The moment she walked in she asked, “Did you get all that?”

“Yes, all of it… Thank you…” replied Enai.

“Now Enai, you should combine all the recordings, including the ones from Livè’s midnight conversations with her boss, and place them unedited into a single medium, make many copies and give them to Nagol to take with him,” I said.

“And what will that do… She only told us what we already know…” said Ireva.

“This is evidence that will counter the propaganda and lies circulated by the security services about us and our involvement…” I said.

“Sounds good… It doesn’t hurt to have such a recording but first let’s discuss it with the others. How about we get everyone together after lunch and have a meeting in the common room,” said Captain Orihci.

It’s time to gather the crops

The moment Enai and two of his associates walked into the common room with a big display, Captain Orihci said, “Now that everyone is here, let’s begin the meeting. Thank you for coming. I invited you all here to bring you up to date on a number of events that took place this morning, to discuss what to do with our prisoners and to talk about picking the berries tomorrow and what to do with them. Is there anything else that we need to discuss today?”

Amih put up her hand and said, “I have been unable to find anything about how to increase the food production for the soldiers. Should we also be discussing that today?”

“No, not today, we’ll tackle that as a separate issue another time… Anyone else? No one? Okay let us begin. Otsiron, what happened early this morning? Please bring us up to date.”

I told everyone in detail about the prisoners returning and about the interviews we conducted. When I was done Captain Orihci asked Enai to play the entire recording, including Livè’s midnight discussions with her boss. After we’d watched the whole thing, including Amih’s interview with Tolo which I hadn’t seen yet, Nagol was the first to speak.

“This is amazing… There are a lot of things in there I didn’t know… What a crazy world we live in… This will blow many things out of the water. The Central Intelligence Security Service has been running both our worlds, wreaking havoc on all of us before our eyes and none of us had any idea… Wow!”

“I wonder how Livè’s boss will take the news when he sees this on every network in both our worlds…?” retired diplomat Ilisa asked.

“And to think that I was placed in charge of taking all those soldiers, our most precious young people, to the slaughter-house and was completely oblivious to it… It makes me sick, it makes me want to vomit…” said retired Admiral Aneleh.

“It’s all good but it means nothing if we can’t get this information to the people… It seems to me we’re still losing even when we are winning because the same bad guys still control the media and those who control the media control the message… The propaganda against us has been rampant… Even if we get this message out they’ll create ten other messages that contradict it… We’re fighting a losing battle… I think we need to change our tactics…” I said.

“Otsiron is right… We have been fighting all this time and winning but not making any gains… I think we need to hold back on this until our enemies commit to all their lies…” said Nagol.

“What exactly does that mean?” asked Amih.

“It means that we must provoke the security service to commit to telling more lies about us until they have no more lies to tell. Then we can go on the offensive with this recording…” said Captain Orihci.

“It seems to me they’ll still lie, even after they tell ten lies…” said Ireva.

“What do you mean by that, dear, give us an example…” said Nagol.

“They can always say we forced Livè to say those things…”

“But from what I heard, Tolo corroborated most of what she said. That should help, right?” replied Nagol.

“We have to do the best we can… They have the upper hand today… that’s unfortunate but it will be up to the people to decide who to believe…” said Ilisa.

“Well, those who are curious and want to know the truth will also look at the people telling the story… We have a lot of credible people here; diplomats Nagol and Ilisa, Admiral Aneleh, Captain Orihci, Captain Otsiron, Delche, Ori, myself, Ireva, Amih, Enai… What reason would we all have to lie…? Whereas the security services are known liars… no one trusts them…” said Captain Rolo.

“Captain Rolo is right. Maybe we should also each be interviewed individually and tell our side of the story… I lost two sons in this madness of theirs…” said Amih.

“We should do that anyway and record what we know before we start forgetting things…” said Captain Orihci.

“I think we should send the recording that we just saw to Ostikon too. There’s a lot of damning information there and they have the right to know too,” said Delche.

“I can help with that, we have contacts… We have Ruzha who can help us get the message on the air,” said Ori.

I looked at Rolo and Ilisa and saw sadness on their faces; they must be missing Ruzha a lot. Perhaps it was time to bring her here.

“I think so too. Ostikon is also a victim of this madness and needs to know the truth but, like Nagol said, we need to provoke the security services to commit to their narrative before we attack them with the truth. If we send the recording to Ruzha the security services there will intercept it and respond to it. They’ll come up with all sorts of lies… Captain Rolo and Captain Orihci are right, we should each tell our own story but to do all that we’ll need a professional producer and our own broadcasting system. We need to respond to the lies ourselves from here.” After pausing for a second I continued, “We need to bring Ruzha here…”

There was big smile on Rolo’s and Ilisa’s faces. Everyone agreed that we should invite Ruzha to come here.

“That’s a very good idea…” said Ori, “because I know our messages to Ostikon are always intercepted and we definitely don’t want the authorities to know what we’re planning to do.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve come up with today… I’ll make the request as soon as we’re done here,” said Nagol with a big smile on his face.

“What about our plans to fly to the various planets on our diplomatic missions? What happens to them now?” asked Ireva.

“We’ll still do that…” said Nagol.

“If I may add…” interrupted Enai, “we have a powerful transmitter right here in this facility that can reach the other side of our galaxy, even as far as Ostikon. It’s been turned off and is sitting there doing nothing. We can put it back into operation and do our own broadcasts from here. We can tune it to display our broadcasts on one of the public, pre-existing free channels. I’m sure it will be discovered by the people eventually.”

I looked around the room and it looked like everyone was in favour but before I said anything Captain Orihci said, “Yes Enai, please bring the transmitter on line and get it tuned to one of the free channels anyway. We can start using it right now and attract viewers… Please make it operational and see what happens… Thank you.”

By the time the Captain was done talking there were little conversations going on all throughout the room. I kept hearing Ruzha’s name being mentioned, especially by Rolo and Ilisa. Only Ukasnek sat there quietly.

To get everyone’s attention Captain Orihci yelled, “Ukasnek…” and everyone stopped talking. Ukasnek snapped out of his stupor and looked at him.

“Ukasnek, you haven’t said anything today, what do you think…?”

“I’m concerned… I don’t know what to do with the prisoners… I have no idea what to do with them; especially Livè… She gives me heartburn…”

“That’s a tough one Ukasnek…” said Nagol. “I sympathize with you… but you have to let them go… If we believe in the right to have freedom and in due process we must let them go…”

“Give them to me…” piped up Amih.

“Mom?” said Ireva.

“Give them to me and I’ll find things for them to do…”

“Like what?” asked Captain Orihci.

“Like… like… making announcements on the new channel you plan to open. Bibi has a nice voice. He can do that for you.”

“Who the hell is Bibi?” asked Captain Orihci.

“You know; the circus announcer guy…?”

The Captain shook his head and said, “I don’t want to know… Who is in favour of releasing the prisoners into Amih’s custody?” Almost everyone put up their hand. “Anyone against?” Only Ireva put her hand up.

“Why?” asked the Captain looking at Ireva.

“I don’t trust Livè…” she said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll read her the riot act… and a few other acts…” said Ukasnek.

“Okay then… Ukasnek release them sometime today… after you’ve read everyone the riot act… We don’t want it to look we’re picking on Livè,” said the Captain.

After everyone stopped whispering the Captain said, “And now about tomorrow and the berry picking job… Otsiron…”

“Thank you Captain. Tomorrow is a regular exercise day for the soldiers, but instead of marching to the valley we’ll march to the grove. We’ll march single file and as the soldiers arrive I’ll deploy them in groups a six per tree to pick the fruit after each tree has been shaken. I understand the farmers have ten shaking machines in total, among the five families. I want them all used. There should be a bushel available to each group of soldiers and a place to dump the