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Galactic Marshal III
by
Hilltopper
CHAPTER 8
“I don’t like this one bit. We are heading to a dog and pony show. No one is going to listen to us or care what happens to us.”
Karen nodded.
“I don’t know what Tinker proposes to accomplish by our presence. I still think there is something else going on.”
Mary stood up with Raylan.
“There is also Raylan to think about. All of his things are on your ship.”
I brightened.
“Hey, that may be our out. We tell Tinker that we need to go aboard my cruiser to get our belongings. Then, we split.”
Karen looked doubtful.
“I’m sure they have thought of that.”
“I don’t know. They probably don’t know much about caring for our babies.”
“OK, when Tinker comes back, we will ask.”
A while later, Tinker returned. We told about Raylan’s needs.
“I am aware that your ship is near by. You are right, we need to allow you access to your things. OK, Mary and Karen can go to your ship with Raylan. Gina, you must remain here. Take our shuttle. I will instruct it to dock with your ship.”
“I really need to go with them.”
Tinker would not allow it so Mary and Karen went to the shuttle. It separated from Tinker’s ship and headed toward my cruiser. About 10 minutes later, Karen informed us that they had docked and entered the ship.
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Karen and I arrived at Jonnie’s ship. We went to the control room. Karen turned to me.
“OK, what now? This isn’t going like we wanted.”
I shook my head and we sat down to think. Suddenly, Tinker’s shuttle separated, we left orbit and accelerated away from Prowhiness.
“Gina, what’s going on?”
“Orders from Marshal Harper.”
I looked at Karen. She shrugged.
“But Marshal Harper is not on board.”
“My instructions are to go back to Fledora at top speed as soon as anyone came on board, even if Marshal Harper was not here.”
“Oh, that’s just great!”
Karen shook her head.
“Jonnie is just looking our for you and Raylan.”
Tears came into my eyes.
“I know but she’s all alone now. I fear what Tinker might do.”
“I think this is the way Tinker wanted it. I don’t know what they want with Jonnie but it’s my feeling that she is the only one they really wanted to take to their planet.”
I frowned.
“Gina, can you contact Tinker’s ship?”
“No, my orders are for no contact until we reach Fledora.”
“Shit!”
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As my ship sped away, Tinker turned to me.
“You knew!”
I nodded my head.
“I left instructions for our ship’s AI. I figured that you would know my ship had followed us. I didn’t think you would let me off this ship but my main concern was Mary and Raylan. I had a feeling that the threesome thing was a ruse. I think you really only needed me. So, they are safe. Now what?”
Tinker grinned.
“You are even better than we hoped. Now, we go to our planet and try so save it.”
“Save it! What are you talking about?”
“Enough for now. Bell, show Gina to her room.”
Bell took my hand and led me to a door. It opened and I went into the room. The door closed with Bell on the outside. There was no way to open it. The room contained a bed, a soft chair, and a vid unit of some kind. I lay down on the bed. I wondered what Mary was thinking. I knew she was not fooled. She knew I was getting them out of harm’s way. I hope she forgives me, if I live through this that is. I still had no idea what my role was to be. The statement about ‘saving the planet’ had startled me. I had assumed that there population was doomed unless they left the planet. The gates were to take care of that. Tinker acted like I was some kind of savior or something.
“This is crazy!”
I lay there staring at the ceiling and, finally, drifted off to sleep.
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When we arrived at Fledora, the ship landed on the moon.
“Gina, what now?”
“I have no further orders.”
“That’s a relief.”
I turned to Karen.
“Should we go back to Prowhiness?”
Karen shook her head.
“I’m sure Tinker has already left and we have no way of tracking their ship.”
“But you have been to their planet. Can’t you take us there?”
“No, I had no access to the navigation systems. I simply don’t know where their planet is located.”
I sighed.
“There is only trouble here. As soon as we leave this ship, I will probably be escorted with Raylan to the council.”
Karen smiled.
“Not if Raylan stays on board.”
I nodded.
“OK, I’ll send the chairwoman a message that I have important news about the aliens.”
Karen raised her eyebrows.
“What exactly are you going to tell them?”
“Well, I must tell them about the gate but I don’t think I’ll mention Jonnie’s involvement.”
“Hmm, what about me?”
I smiled.
“I’ll tell them that the aliens want you to be the go between.”
“That will go over like a lead balloon.”
“Maybe not. You are an envoy appointed by the Planetopolis, so to speak. It makes sense.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I sent the message and then exited the ship. No one was waiting for me so I just took my shuttle back to the capital. I was driven to the council building and went in. Margaret, the council chairwoman, stood as I entered the chambers.
“And where have you been and where is your child?”
I sighed.
“He is with Karen on her ship. He was taken by the aliens and we had to go to Prowhiness to get him back. He is safe now and the aliens have gone home, for now.”
“For now?”
I sighed again.
“They have told me an incredible story that involves us. The population of their planet is doomed unless they can move them to other planets and quickly.”
I hesitated a second.
“The thulium they took from us is being used to make gates that will allow this to happen. One of the gates is to be put on the other side of Fledora.”
The room quickly degenerated into bedlam. After order was finally restored, Margaret turned to me.
“We can’t allow that to happen!”
“I don’t think we have a choice. They made it perfectly clear that they would put down any resistance. Karen has been chosen to be their go between.”
“That renegade!”
“She is their envoy appointed by the Planetopolis. What else can we do?”
She huffed.
“I’m going to contact the Planetopolis immediately. We are adjourned until in the morning.”
She looked at me hard.
“When we convene again, I expect your child to be present.”
I went home and contacted Karen.
“You were right, they want nothing to do with you.”
Karen laughed.
“The feeling’s mutual.”
“The chairwoman is going to contact the Planetopolis. Do they know about the population transfer?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“This is not good especially with Jonnie AWOL.”
Karen bristled.
“She is not AWOL. She’s with the aliens like the Planetopolis wanted.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid all hell is going to break loose. I’m supposed to go back to the council in the morning with Raylan.”
“I think you better come back up here.”
“I think you are right.”
I decided not to call for my driver. In stead, I drove my hovercraft to the shuttle port. I noticed a guard at my shuttle, so I went to the moon on the public one. As soon as we landed, I went straight to Jonnie’s ship. I entered and went to the control room. I picked up Raylan and hugged him tightly. I couldn’t help it. Tears flowed. Karen patted my shoulders.
“Yeah, it’s a mess. I say we take off and sort it all out.”
I just shrugged.
“Gina, take off and put us into a high orbit.”
“Karen, I just don’t know what to do. I wish we would hear from Jonnie. This not knowing is driving me crazy.”
Karen sighed.
“All we can do is wait. I have a feeling we are going to be bombarded with messages before long.”
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I awoke to my door opening. Bell walked in.
“We are almost to our planet. Tinker would like to speak to you.”
“OK, lead on.”
We went back to the meeting room. I sat down across from Tinker. Bell stood at the side.
“It is time to prepare you. We were intrigued by you and your sister’s remarkable DNA. Your heritage of regular Human combined with the genetic enhancements of Fledora has produced a unique DNA sequence. We, at first, hoped to use Karen. When she went with us to our planet, tests showed us that her DNA was not quite right. We hoped that yours was a better match. It turned out to be almost exactly what we needed except for one thing.”
I shook my head and sighed.
“Let me guess, I was too much male.”
Tinker nodded.
“Correct! When we put you in the unit to turn you into a true female, the sequence fell into place. We believe you are now a good enough match for it to work.”
This sounded crazy. What could Tinker be talking about.
“For what to work and what do you mean by true female?”
Tinker stared a minute.
“In our search for planets to move our people onto, we came across a device. We determined that it is designed to stabilize a planet. We moved it to our planet in hopes that we could use it to avoid our crisis. Unfortunately, a specific DNA sequence is required to activate it. Ours is not even close. Our scientists figured out that Human DNA is fairly close but not enough to use. We ran across you and your sister while checking out Fledora. You will be able to activate the device and save our world!”
I was stunned. I knew Tinker wanted me for something but this is unbelievable.
“How will I know what to do?”
“We have worked out the details of its operation and will train you. It is pretty simple really.”
Tinker looked hard at me.
“You are our last hope. Please help us!”
I nodded.
“Sure, I’ll do what I can but then what?”
“If all goes well, we will be able to discontinue plans to relocate our people. We will, however, still have our new transportation system. It is certainly possible to share it with your race.”
I brightened. This might be a way to get them to meet with the Planetopolis. Still, there is the issue of my gender.
“That sounds great but what about me?”
Tinker appeared confused.
“We will, of course, take you back to Fledora even if the device fails. We are confident, however, that all will go well.”
“Yes, thank you but what about my gender?”
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Comments
Galactic Marshal III - Chapter 8
Talk about the unexpected! Waiting to see what happens next!
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Sorry Gina
I suspect it is a one way street.
Kim
Disbelieve
it shouldn't be except the aliens are unbelievably stupid. I mean if they can rewrite the DNA of a human they surely can make a backup of the original DNA. I won't believe they believe an intelligent beeing will accept beeing permenantly altered without their consent. So they should make a backup.
I have to admit I'm not really surprised by this "twist". Something like that was bound to happen, the only possitive thing is it happened to someone who tended to the female gender anyway. Imagine they had done that to his male Marshal friend. eww...
Someone should give those aliens a lecture about human culture, so they'll stop making stupid mistakes and eventually starting a war with the planetopolis.
Didn't See That Coming
This story is wonderfully unpredictable. I can't wait for the next chapter.
It sounds like the aliens didn't tell Karen why there were so interested in her, but at least they told Jonnie/Gina. That's some progress, even though it sounds like Gina is on a one-way trip to womanhood.
I suspect Gina won't mind being a woman so much.
Thanks and kudos.
- Terry
Makes More Sense Now...
While I can't help thinking that all the mutual double-dealing was more trouble than it was worth -- a simple "I have Raylan and you have John; if you want to see them both again, let's trade" from Tinker ought to have done the job -- this unexpected explanation does seem to have the ring of truth. We'll see where things go from here.
Not sure our author will want to go there, but there ought to be some significance to the fact that an alien artifact capable of doing what Tinker's race can't (and presumably humans can't either) is triggered by Fledora-modified human DNA. Either the inventors' race carried the same DNA structure that Jonnie/Gina does, or they manipulated the whole situation in advance so that Tinker's people and humans would need to work together to spread across the galaxy. I suppose there are other possibilities -- for one, the "aliens" may be future Fledorans (maybe even Raylan's direct descendants) who can send artifacts back through time: the ever-popular paradox in which their future only exists because someone sent the stabilizer back, so they have to send it back to make everything work.
Very enjoyable -- I'm looking forward to the payoff.
Eric
Double dealing in spades!
Our marshal has been betrayed in one way or another by Feldora, his or should it have been her dad, his home planet and the aliens. In contrast two of his/her strongest most loyal supporters have been the women he was initially charged to track down and bring back to justice!
If it had not been for Feldora's anti male society he or she would have grown up with their sister Karen, possibly with both parents and may have become mostly a woman. She sure seemed to be heading that way until puberty and daddy's *vitamins*. Now Feldora and finally the aliens have made her 100% female.
If they can do so they probably can turn her back to both sexes, predominantly male as he was before all this but can or will they? With the changes done to him multiple times by Feldora is he even genetically who he/she was?
Mind you if not for his dad foolishness he might not have become male, a Marshal and might not have met Mary the mother of his child. But was that his dad's choice to make? And Feldora's obvious threat to Raylan, his and Mary's child and the aliens kidnapping Raylan give the Marshal little reason to trust or like either planet.
This weird device the aliens found hints of time travel or why else is his and his twin sisters DNA the closest match to the DNA *key* needed to activate it and specifically Gina's post multiple partial sex changes and now totally female after the last one by the aliens a perfect match to the key? It is as if Gina, our now fully female Marshal, was manipulated to this end and perhaps others were as well.
Our long suffering and decidely decent, honest Marshal needs answers and a safe place to live with his/her family without fear of retribution from people who see him/her as gay, a pervert on his home planet or rom the sex oriented perscution as Feldora seems hell bent on.
Have fun with this. I'm enjoying it even if I would like slightly longer chapters as they are so interesting.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
One Thing That Time Travel Would Explain...
There are strong arguments that the aliens knew about John and his DNA as far back as the first trip to Prowhiness -- before Karen knew that Gina was John and that the two of them were related.
With Raylan abducted and Mary trapped, John almost assuredly would follow one way or another. When he did, there was the android assault on him as Gina, which had no logical explanation at the time but now seems to have been a win-win: whether the android gets Gina or Karen does, both Gina and Karen end up on their way to the alien home world for inspection, so to speak.
(I have this weird thought that Bell may be the mastermind here: by taking a "secondary" role herself and insisting that Gina do the same, Bell effectively cut Gina/John/the Rangers out of the negotiating process. We don't really know whether those seen-and-not-heard cultural restrictions on secondaries actually exist or were invented by Tinker and Bell for this purpose; Karen's previous dealings with their race had been with humanoid screen images, android bodies and "Alliance" human intermediaries.)
Anyway, one wonders if the world-saving device came from the future with some sort of message attached identifying Karen and Gina as the potential operators and telling how to find them. As most of our human cast has commented, the aliens have a remarkable ability to know where Karen and especially John are, no matter how secretly they travel. Are they following a script?
Eric