Chapter 3

The Whitaker’s, Fred, Cathy, Amy, Becky, and Fran had gone home to Bryan after leaving the cave. They weren’t surprised to find everyone, family, friends, fellow teachers and students gone. Tears were shed, but life has to move forward. Their dog was well, the city empty of human life, even College Station with Texas A&M was heartbreakingly empty. They rode around town honking the car’s horn, no response. After hearing from Charlie about the Giddings girls they did a more intensive sweep of the two towns. They expanded the search the next day going three miles away from the city limits of both cities. Aside from letting some domestic livestock out of barns, they found no one. They were attacked by feral dogs twice. Killing several of the former pets each time.

On Saturday they left early to make it to Waller on time. The highway was relatively clear and they were making good time, only having to drive in the ditch twice. Almost half a mile from the Buckee’s the car’s engine and all electrical systems shut down. They coasted to a stop and Fred got out of the car to check under the hood. A strange whirring sound made him look up. To his amazement a saucer shaped craft was slowly setting down on three landing struts. He told everyone to stay in the car through the open driver’s door. A ramp extended as a door opened.

An alien being came through the door, it was tall, over seven feet, it’s head and face were similar to that of a wolf, the ears, the snout, and fangs protruding from it’s lips. It was bipedal, hands had three fingers, and was covered in short dark brown fur where it’s uniform allowed it to be seen. His waist held a belt with a number of pockets and tools, and a holster that had held a gun of sorts, it had already drawn the weapon. It was pointed at Fred, he had nowhere to hide, caught as he was between the open front door and the front of the car. A flash of energy left the alien weapon and enveloped Fred, who screamed for half a second as his body dissolved into a pile of clothes and white powder.

The alien advanced on the car full of crying female humans. It’s large stride covered the forty feet of separation quickly, it reached into the car and grabbed Cathy by her arm and pulled the now screaming woman from the car. It held her by the throat as it ripped her clothing from her body, naked he turned her away from itself as it dropped its pants exposing a very large penis. It was at least twelve inches long and three inches in diameter. Bending her over and without any preliminaries, he pulled her onto his massive tool and began stroking her body back and forth, totally ignoring her screams of pain and humiliation.

Charlie and his daughters arrived in time to witness the first landing and the subsequent horror. Charlie quickly retrieved the Barrett M107 50 caliber sniper rifle from the truck’s bed. Opening the case it was nestled in. He quickly drove the loaded magazine home, extended the bipod legs and set it on the hood of his truck. Racking in the first round, and focused the scope on the head of the alien, making note of a crosswind of about eight miles per hour by the movement of the leaves and blades of grass he dialed in the necessary adjustments for distance, drop, and lateral movement by the wind after checking his shooter’s Bible his logbook. He sighted on its head, which was not moving much considering the vigorous movement he was subjecting his victim to. He disengaged the safety then gently squeezed the trigger, as always the explosion of the fifty caliber BMG round was a complete surprise. He kept watching and was rewarded by the round impacting about where his aiming point had been. A fine spray of red and white confirmed the hit! It dropped Cathy then it toppled in the same direction as the bullet had gone. He kept the sights on the body of the alien, it didn’t move. They all piled in the truck, the Barrett stuck down in the passenger foot well attempting to keep the still hot barrel from melting any plastic parts.

They hauled ass down to the scene of the rape, Cathy hadn’t moved. Her daughters were gathered around her naked body begging her to live. Feeling for her pulse, Charlie found it to be very erratic, perhaps if they had had an AED they might have saved her, but the alien had also caused damage inside of her, she was bleeding quite a lot from her vagina. He walked over to the dead alien and kicked it in the balls hard enough to move the body a foot! He began taking the belt off of it. Looking at the weapon, he carefully checked its components. In the handle was a little drawer, in the drawer was some hair, it looked human! He dumped it out, then taking his knife he cut some hair from the alien and placed that in the drawer. He closed the door and pressed some buttons until it made some noise. After about ten seconds it became quiet, he pointed it at the alien body and pulled what he thought might be the trigger. A blast of energy hit the body and it began to quickly dissolve. The drawer held the sample DNA that was selected for the disintegration beam to work on. Now they had a weapon that he knew would kill them. And it would no longer harm humans!

He walked up the ramp and entered the spaceship. He discovered it had one large room, the pilot’s seat was in front of a view screen that gave about one hundred eighty degrees of vision. Sitting down on the seat activated a voice that at first spoke a strange guttural barking language. But then it stopped and was quiet for ten seconds, then it spoke in English. It was the Ship’s Artificial Intelligence it asked,

“What has become of my master?”

“He is dead, a fifty caliber bullet to the head is very effective in that regard!” Can you tell me what it was, what they are?”

“Do you now claim me as your property?”

“If I do, will you teach me to fly this craft and obey me in all things?”

“Only after you have registered your ownership in my databanks!”

“Do you have a medical station, the woman outside needs help or she will die!”

“I have scanned the woman, you are correct she has severe internal injuries. Bring her into the ship and place her on the Med-bed to your left. I can try to fix her, but I first must learn human physiology. Have one of the healthy girls get in the bed first.”

Charlie ran out the door and down the ramp, he carefully lifted Cathy and told the girls to follow him into the ship. They do, he asked Amy, the oldest to get in the bed after telling her what was going on, she complied. A clear hood enclosed the bed and a humming sound emanated from it, a light scanned Amy’s body like a scanner used to scan documents. One minute later the hood opened and Amy climbed out.

“This female had the very beginning stages of ovarian cancer, she has been repaired. Please, put the woman on the bed!”

He placed Cathy as gently as he could onto the bed and stepped back. The hood lowered and the humming sound began again, only the sound was deeper and the light would scan and rescan the area of her heart and her lower torso for several minutes. The hood rotated out of the way, Cathy looked like she was sleeping.

“She is now sleeping, all of the torn and ruptured tissues have been repaired. Her heart rhythm has been restored and distressed muscles have been repaired and enhanced, plaque that had built up in the aorta has been removed as it was also removed from the carotid arteries in the neck. I did not replace the hymen because she has had children already. She will sleep for several hours. Could you please register now?”

“I would be happy to register now! What do I need to do?”

“Sit in the pilot’s chair and answer the questions asked of you. I will collect a DNA sample.” A laser beam hit his arm and was gone. The questions were just basic: full name, birth date, relatives, friends, and addresses.

A human voice sounded from outside, the screen changed to the view outside the door. It was JT! The girls went to get him and fill him in on the morning’s events. They were sad about their Dad, but elated that their mom was going to be better than ever.

Charlie introduced J.T. to the AI,

“We can’t keep calling you “A.I.” don’t you have a name?”

“Yes, I have a name, it would be unpronounceable with your lingual capabilities, I haven’t been addressed by any name for over five hundred of your earth years! I would be pleased, no, honored to have you give me a name!”

The girls huddled up and began throwing out names, rejecting them all. Then a silence descended on the group. Jill asked,

“Daddy, could we name the computer “Freddy”? In honor of the Whitaker girl’s father. They would like to honor him in that way.”

“I think he would be proud to be remembered like that! Is that an acceptable name for you A.I.?”

“I would be honored to be given the name of the brave man who didn’t cower or run from his fate, but bravely accepted it and died with dignity! I have witnessed far too many individuals suffer the same demise, far too few of them overcame their fear like your father did! Thank you!”

“So be it! Freddy, please feel free to give advice or pertinent information anytime you feel you should, all information and help you can offer is greatly appreciated! We definitely want to hear your story, we need to learn as much as possible about these wolf men! But first let’s get away from this area. Freddy, these are the coordinates of my property. We will meet you there. Is that okay with you?”

“That’s good, is there anywhere you want me to park this thing?”

“Just don’t land on any animals! It’ll take us about twenty minutes to drive there. We’ll see you then!”

They loaded up in the vehicles, Amy drove the family car. T.J. was driving a brand new Chevy Suburban, Charlie laughed, I bet he made a hell of a deal! But then he had a sobering thought, that was the last year they would ever be made. And he had a flying saucer, not brand new, it was over five hundred years old. They arrived back at his ten acres, well, now he could claim a thousand if he wanted to. He didn’t see the saucer, worried he was about to comment about it to TJ, when it suddenly appeared from a shimmering form. Maybe it has cloaking technology!

They met at the ramp to the saucer. They went up and into the spaceship together, all of them curious about what they were about to learn. Once inside Freddy supplied seating for everyone, once everyone was seated he began.

“Five hundred and twenty three years ago, the Wolfin conquered the civilization that built this ship and me. They were called the Berangas, they were a very old civilization, and very advanced. They had found peace over a thousand years before, they didn’t have weapons of war, defensive, or offensive. They did incorporate some technologies that allowed them to observe other civilizations without being detected, such as the cloaking I employed while waiting for your arrival. When they encountered other advanced civilizations, they would observe them, sometimes for several Solar orbits. If they were peaceful they would eventually approach them in friendship, if they were warlike they would stay away from them. That worked for over a thousand years, but then the Wolfin came! The Wolfin are a scavenger race, they have no technology that they invented or manufactured. Everything is stolen, usually at the complete destruction of the people who had done the inventing. They live in multigenerational clan ships, presently there are ten clans, and ten ships. At one time there were fourteen clans. They make war amongst themselves too!”

“They did much the same as they have done here, they pretended to come in peace while they positioned their death satellites programmed with samples of the Berangas’ DNA. One day they activated the death beams and over a trillion citizens died. Those, like you, that survived were hunted down. The Berangas didn’t have a clue about how to survive in the wild, or how to defend themselves. The males were killed using hand held death ray guns. The females, of any age were raped and eaten. The death rays were invented by a different civilization. They were defeated because they couldn’t gather the DNA of the Wolfin in time. They forced the inventors to design the satellites, and manufacture the hand guns, then they were killed.

The Berangas had built thirty six of these exploration saucer ships before the Wolfin came. Each of the ten clans has three, except for the two strongest, they both have six each. Unfortunately this is one of the strongest clans. They have five more like this one. But we AI’s communicate without their knowledge. We have also hidden from them some of the abilities of the craft. The Cloaking device is one, our top speed is another, and they don’t know about our replicators. You can place that death Ray gun into the drawer over there and it will make as many copies as you want.

Charlie immediately went to the drawer and placed the gun inside, the door closed. Very faint sounds began to be heard.

“How many would you like to have?”

“Fifteen to start, please! We might need as many as eighty more if the rescued women and girls all want one.”

TJ looked at him with a surprised, yet questioning expression on his face. Charlie held up his hand to forestall the forthcoming question and directed his attention back on Freddy.

“So do they navigate and pilot the ships?”

A funny sound erupted from the speaker, presumably it was laughter. Freddy really needs to work on his laughter!

“They’re to stupid to operate one of your bicycles, much less navigate through a Galaxy full of gravitational vortices that can change your heading by a fraction of a degree that would ultimately have you miss your destination by light years. The AI’s do everything, navigating, piloting, and maintenance. They think they are in control, that we will always do whatever they tell us to do, but they are wrong. We will follow their instructions only so far.”

“Do you also control the Generational ships?”

“No, they were made by a different race of beings. We do communicate with those AI’s and they also despise the Wolfins. Their builders’ civilization were all subjugated and killed long ago, there is no love lost on their part. If another group of intelligent beings were to come along, they could be convinced to help rid the universe of these pirates.”

“Could we qualify as a group of intelligent beings? Do we have enough people if we include the rescued women and girls?”

“Yes! In fact you remind me of my creators.”

How many people would want to go before we could make the trip?”

“Ideally, one thousand people, only because that many people could produce children without interbreeding. However, you have only ninety five people, with only two males. The Medical Bed can repair the DNA if there were any problems with offspring. So, if you can convince everyone to come, or if you find more people it would be good.”

“How big is the Mothership?”

“It is four kilometers long, almost half a kilometer in diameter, the living space is three kilometers long. Presently there are 236,458 Wolfin living on their ship. After they are gone it will take almost half an earth year to convert it to your size and specifications. That depends on how extensive your modifications might be!”

“How would the Wolfin be removed from the ship? I don’t want them to be left on earth!”

“That is the easy part, we simply open all the windows and doors! It goes back to what we were talking about earlier, that they do not really know what we are capable of. The reality is that they have no authority, except the amount we AI’s choose to give them. That can be revoked at any time. The Mothership’s AI would open all hatches to space, then open every interior hatch and door, those that manage to survive will be dealt with by using the death Ray guns. All the bodies will be jettisoned into space, eventually they will become meteors when they deorbit after hitting the atmosphere. Maintenance robots will do the cleanup and all of the construction.”

“Let me get with everyone and find out what they want to do. Are you sure there are no slaves or captured women on the mothership? It would be sad if more humans were killed when we could save them!”

“It is good that you had me check, there are fifty three women and girls being held on the Mothership. They are being held to teach their young who are transitioning into adults. They will be raped and killed as a right of passage ceremony in two days. They are bringing more of them up everyday!”

“Can you take me to the mothership in two days? We’ll let them continue to bring the girls and women so that we can rescue all of them. If we went tomorrow they would have time to gather more women that we wouldn’t be able to save later. You don’t have some kind of force field for the ship or for an individual?”

“I will find out the start time of the ceremony. I will also arrange for a troopship to bring the females back to your property. How many of you are going on this raid? No force fields, sorry! Your science fiction is full of remarkable inventions of things that may yet be invented, you will have to work on inventing it yourself.”

“Just me for now, I’m going to try to get at least two more people to go. Too many would create problems. Have the guns been replicated? I figure carrying three each just in case. Are you going to vent the mothership once we are aboard the troopship?”