Amalfi Echo Page 8

  Various leaders around the world bolstered border defences, moved a few troops around and reviewed overseas deployments, curtailing them where they easily could. This was presented as, “In these uncertain times…” The Russians accelerated a program, already existing, that was investigating better ways of destroying satellites in orbit around Earth. They felt no need to mention this anywhere.

  President Newman did nothing. He was, after all, a lame duck President waiting for the end. If the other world leaders had been impressed by the tour, they hid it well. Lacking direction from their governments, most people went about their business, adding yet another stress to daily life. Gyms and the self-help industry in general, added Gorgon stress programs to their repertoire and these proved to be very popular.

  Tessa stayed closely in touch with her fan base. They all loved the slimy, spitty weapon and enjoyed demonstrations of blowing holes in stuff.

  -oOo-

  Two weeks later, which was six months subjective time, Tessa, with Jazmine in close support, dropped in to help a team of U.S. Navy SEALs trapped by Islamic extremists while trying to extract American oil workers from the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Tessa no longer used the shuttle, having now conducted many small field operations from a variety of alien attack craft.

  The few SEALs still alive had withdrawn to the roof of a 10 storey building to make a final stand. Below, in the streets and in the surrounding buildings, were thousands of militants, already firing their weapons in the air in triumph at the American prize that was about to be theirs. The Americans watched helplessly through satellite feeds. Extraction had become impossible.

  Tessa arrived in the street below. Jazmine could simply have taken the Navy men from the top of the building but that was not the point of the exercise. Like whispering death, Tessa cleared the surrounding streets and buildings.

  Prior to exiting to the roof of the 10 storey building Tessa holstered the jellyfish because she was not prepared to designate the American military personnel as friendly. Out on the roof, the remnants of the SEALs team stared at her warily.

  “There are two trucks down below,” Tessa said. She tossed a map scan into the air where it hung in front of them, a green light winking at a location. “That’s your alternate,” she said, gesturing at the extraction point. They knew the location. Apart from the 3-D, the map was a copy of the one in their heads from the briefing. “I’ll make sure you get safely to that location.”

  The SEALs team scrambled onto the trucks and Tessa laid down a hurricane of covering fire, directing both Jazmine and the heavy weapons of the ship. Towards the edge of town they came to a T intersection. Tessa unlimbered the Amalfi rifle, to which she had graduated several weeks before and, in one smooth movement, targeted the buildings in front and fired. Eight city blocks, covering a square kilometre, vanished in dust and debris.

  It was, as they say, an excess of fire power.

  Strangely, it was also largely soundless. The weapon pushed, or sucked, the tremendous noise of the buildings exploding, away ahead somewhere. This was no accident. It was a feature of the weapon designed to protect an Amalfi soldier from the concussion.

  The firing from the remaining buildings either side of the street died away as the militants withdrew. They too watched television and were realists—the Americans were denied to them today. Some believed that the Gorgons had already begun their attack and were taking the Americans prisoner. They did not want to suffer the same fate.

  The SEALs team were looking at the jewelled stone in the middle of the emptiness that was the Amalfi rifle and partly described by her twisted hands. One of them yelled, “Why is it invisible?”

  Tessa answered without taking her attention from the scans and targeting program. She jabbed at her eyes. “Amalfi eyes.” At his blank look, Tessa said, “I can see it. You can’t because you have human eyes.” She went back to the task in hand. Behind her back, or at least, so they thought, another SEAL pointed to Tessa and mouthed, “Alien.”

  The first man flung a questioning glance at Tessa. “Are we glad she’s on our side?”

  “Hey, Tessa,” the dude of the group yelled. “Are you still an American?”

  Tessa stayed focused on the scans and targeting. She deployed a jellyfish over the dude, heavily dampening its reactions. Without looking around, she yelled, “Don’t, ever, ever, ask me that again.” She quickly holstered the jellyfish before it reacted to the emotion of her response. The SEAL swallowed, flicking his eyes at the others, his look saying, “We don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

  They made the extraction point without further trouble. The Navy men swung aboard the helicopters which lifted away. Jazmine swallowed Tessa with a silvery tongue. The craft of mercury escorted the helicopters out to sea.

  Tessa helped out an SAS black ops operation in the Libyan Desert against a militant extremists’ camp. Jordanian special forces in Syria. Russian special forces in Chechnya. None of the governments involved had any choice in this and, as the operations were secret anyway, they said nothing, unsure where this was heading.

  “Where is it headed?” Digby asked, sharing an enormous fruit frappe with Tessa. There was no need for them to share, it just seemed a nice thing to do as Tessa was home from the wars and all that. Tessa didn’t object. They tucked, companionably, into the frappe. They both knew that Digby was not asking about Tessa’s operations as such because, on that path, all was progressing to plan.

  “We’ve got a real problem, Digby,” Marion said.

  “Yes. That is why I asked,” Digby said patiently. He took another mouthful of frappe. “Mmm. This is so good.” Tessa shook her head sorrowfully. Digby’s enthusiasm for eating nice stuff and doing nice things, and just all-round having a nice time was either extremely irritating, or infectiously uplifting, depending on her mood. Right now she let it roll over her without comment. She too had picked up on Marion’s increasing tension and focused on that.

  Not wanting to be left out, Marion created a spoon and also tucked into the frappe. In between mouthfuls, she used the spoon to jab at the air as she made her points. “Going directly to the people is full of risks. If we get them on side, they’ll naturally begin to take on board the message about the bugs. Even if they don’t believe it completely, it could cause them to demand that their governments…‘do something.’ None of the governments of the world have formulated any clear policy response. The result will probably be riots. Seriously, they may completely lose control and the planet slips into chaos and anarchy.”

  “You hadn’t anticipated this?” Digby said.

  “Early on, that scenario was only one of the many possible. Even for the learning programs, there were too many variables. Down the track, we’re getting a clearer picture of the way events are moving. There are now an awful lot of people in the world who are primed for a broadcast from me. Trouble is, every speech I write, the scenarios end in disaster.” Marion carefully placed her spoon on the table and sighed heavily. “What I want, may not even be doable and I may have to face that fact.”

  “You can’t give up,” Tessa said, matter-of-factly. “The bugs are not going to conveniently stop and decide to go somewhere else.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Marion said.

  “Okay, okay,” Tessa said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’ve run the scenarios many times. It doesn’t matter which way I run it, all the scenarios end the same. They do nothing to help themselves and they all die.”

  “Digby could have easily made the learning programs give that answer,” Tessa said, gazing sceptically at Digby.

  “Yeah,” Marion said, “except that my gut feeling tells me the same. It’s the old story. The nations of Earth are so bound up in their vested interests that they won’t even unite to save the planet.” A painful acceptance settled on her face. “It’s not doable in the time-frame available to us.”

  “It never was,” Digby said.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that, i
nstead of letting me go through all of this?”

  “Despite my God-like attributes, I don’t know everything and nor do the learning programs. There was always a possibility that you would come up with a new wrinkle.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got plenty of those now,” Marion said, “but not much else to show.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tessa said, as the awful truth began to dawn. “You’re not giving up?”

  “I was kidding myself about what I could achieve. So much for being the great leader.”

  “Hey, Adult, you’re setting a bad example,” Tessa said, surrounding the three of them with inspirational, cheer-up messages.

  “I could do without this,” Marion said.

  Instantly Tessa swapped the messages for a priest’s confessional box and sat, draped in dark robes, in the priest’s chair.

  “Go away,” Marion said.

  Encouraged, Tessa tried again, surrounding Marion with drop-dead gorgeous little puppies with large, soft, love-me eyes. Marion picked one up and played with it in her lap. Eventually she said, “Fall-back plan is we do the Ark thing.”

  Tessa created the Ark, with Digby as Noah and a long column of animals plodding up the ramp. They all watched the animals for a while until Digby said, “Not really my style.”

  Which was so obviously true it didn’t warrant further comment.

  “Earth. What a shit-hole,” Tessa said, quoting a line from another famous movie. She tried not to think about her followers dying at the hands of the bugs.

  “Looks like we’re going down fighting,” Marion said.

  Digby gave them an out. “There is nothing further to be gained here,” he said. “I won’t be staying.”

  -oOo-

  Later Marion said to Digby, “So have you got what you came for?”

  “Yes,” said Digby.

  “That’s right up front,” Marion said, taken aback.

  “You did ask,” said Digby. “And now it’s time to pick up our skirts and fly.”

  -oOo-

  So flee, they did.

  Fiction by John Zanetti:

  The Gardener Who Could See

  Writing Home

  Amalfi Echo

  War of the Shadows

  Non-fiction:

  The Christchurch Destructor

  Who Owns the Fish?

  Back to beginning

  About the author

  I am a New Zealander, now wandering around northern Australia in a caravan. I am also an Australian citizen. I brought my two boys up on my own but they are now grown and gone, leaving me free to write full-time. Mostly, I count myself fortunate to be living in the tropics, with the freedom to simply hitch up my caravan and move on whenever I get restless, which is often.

  Twitter: @johnzwriting

  Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7306535.John_Zanetti/blog