Bright Horizons

Chapter 9

Hastily thrown together graphics started filling the screen as the media scrambled to be the first to put up the newly disseminated information.

Kyle muted the TV and started to lean back.

“Colonel Martin?” a voice behind him said.

Both Kyle and Kitch were up from their seats in a flash, completely surprised by the man standing behind them.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” Kyle asked roughly as he looked back at the closed door behind the stranger.

The man was dressed in dark slacks with a light blue dress shirt and a yellow tie. His light brown hair was slightly receding, and his nose looked like it might have been broken at some point in his life. He held his hand out to Kyle.

“My name is Franklin Smith,” he said as his hand remained unshaken. “I’m here to observe for now, but we’ll get to that in a moment.”

All three people in the room stood motionless for a few seconds.

“I’ll ask you again, Mister Smith, how did you get in this room?” Kyle asked with more than a touch of irritation in his voice.

“I walked in Colonel Martin. I walked past your guards and through that door. Does that satisfy your question?” Smith responded as he lowered his hand and sat down in a chair near the door.

Kyle and Kitch continued to watch him carefully as he settled in.

“Ambassador Thomas was truly inspirational, didn’t you think?  I hope he was able to bring up that legendary human fighting spirit. We were concerned that fear might paralyze your planet into inaction and make the Iltia’cor invasion a simple event. But I’ve been studying humans for quite a while, and I think that you have a shot of making it at least uncomfortable for the Iltia’cor to hold your planet.”

Kyle looked at Kitch and nodded. They both sat back down and Kitch turned back to her screen.

“Mister Smith, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Kyle said coolly. “Can you tell me who you are and why you are so eager to be with me at this time?”

“I am an alien in plain language. The name of my people are the Pelod.”

Kyle watched impassively as Smith continued.

“We have been on your planet for around 200 years now, Colonel Martin. We have observed your people and your habits and honestly we felt that you were interesting, but no more than an anomaly of nature. Surely not a race that would have an impact on ourselves or any other major race. We were, apparently, very wrong. I’m sad to say that although we are scientifically much more advanced than you and our level of technology and engineering… well, let’s say that we are impressed by very little in terms of technology and engineering. But as I was saying, although we are more advanced than you, it did not occur to us that your lack of mosar was anything more than a weird aberration in your solar system.”

He shrugged uncomfortable for a second and his confident persona slipped just a moment. If Kyle hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed it entirely.

“But it is important, isn’t it? Our lack of mosar.”

Smith looked over at Kitch, weighed some thought quickly, and turned back to Kyle.

“Yes, it’s important. It wouldn’t be except for the rest, but we can see now that it is very important.”

“Does it have to do with the weapon theories among the other races?”

“Very good, Colonel Martin, but it goes beyond that. One might be tempted to speculate that you would be invincible in combat against other forces, but that’s not true. Mosar based weapons are very expensive to run. They are common enough, but not every race can afford them in mass quantities…”