The Anterine Dilemma

“Here they come!” a Human soldier shouts as several towers appear over the top of the blue hill. In seconds, the battle platforms are visible. They resemble mug racks, but each peg is actually a laser cannon. Down below, the bases hover on a cushion of antigravity. On the bases at the controls are three Anterines each. Resembling wolverines with ant-like heads, the Anterines have claimed this world for their own.

“Fire!” comes the order. The Humans fire bullets and small rockets. What advantage the Anterines have in weaponry, they lack in defense. A rocket or two is all it takes to disrupt their force fields, leaving them exposed. One after the other dies and falls from their platforms. However, the battle continues. A second wave of battle platforms shoots through the first, carving up the Human fort and explosively disassembling their vehicles. As many Humans die as Anterines.

From one hundred million kilometers away, Fred and Haticat watch the flashes through their telescope. “I think it’s a battle,” Haticat says.

“Well let’s figure out who the good guys are and help out!” Nathaniel says.

Both sides are contacted and offered assistance. Only the Humans respond. “We were here first. Ten years ago, we started building our first city. Now we have three. The Anterines only showed up in orbit two weeks ago. At first, they wanted to share the planet, but while we were negotiating, more and more of them started landing in areas we wanted for ourselves. There are so many of them that we expect to run out of water in one hundred years,” the Human governor, Mike, says.

“It is a dry planet,” Nathaniel agrees. The planet is named Peznac. It is largely covered in pale blue sand dunes the same color as the sky. It is beautiful. “Well, so long as the Anterines are unwilling to negotiate, I’ll help you fight them. I’ll keep in touch.”

Switching on the invisibility program, Haticat pilots the cross-ship into the midst of the Anterine fleet still in orbit. The fleet is enormous and contains many ships not equipped for serious battle. They approach a gigantic, starfish-shaped craft covered with hundreds of laser cannons. “Target that one,” Nathaniel says. The cross-ship lands gently on the unarmed underside of the starfish-ship and plants an antimatter bomb before departing. An hour later, the spaceship explodes, leaving a debris field that forces the rest of the fleet to move into higher orbit.

Again, Nathaniel attempts contact. “Will you negotiate now? I have planted several more bombs in your fleet. I might tell you where they are if you stop the war.”

He is not prepared for the response. Every ship bombards his with radio static, jamming his transmissions, while immediately speeding towards the planet. Five large battleships approach his, hitting his ship with magnetic scramblers so it cannot form an antigravity field and fly away. They hit it with lasers, but the strong hull simply absorbs them. Fred returns fire, disabling their laser cannons and their scramblers. “Don’t finish them; I need to see what the others are doing on the planet.”

The Anterines are everywhere on Peznac. There are millions of them. They land and disembark in a hurry, landing their ships on steep mountain slopes or in quicksand. Many are no longer usable. Nathaniel is not sure what to make of it. Eventually, he orders Haticat to extend a capture tube and has an Anterine plucked from the top of a dune as the ship flies by. “What is going on? Why is this planet so important to you? Why can’t you leave the Humans alone?”

The Anterine answers. “There is nowhere else to go. I’d rather die than spend another minute in that cramped ship!”

“Why not go home?” Nathaniel asks.

“We have no home. The Batters took it,” it says.

Nathaniel convinces both parties to negotiate. The Humans finally agree to let the Anterines stay, but refuse to give up more than twenty-five percent of Peznac. “We were here first!”

“You have thousands of colony worlds to go to. We have nowhere else to go,” the Anterine representative says.

“That’s not our problem,” the Human representative responds.

“I have an idea,” Nathaniel says.

“What?” the Human asks gruffly.

“Forget for a second who has more right to Peznac. What if we fought the real bad guys here? What if we helped the Anterines to oust the Batters?” Nathaniel suggests.

It takes some convincing, but eventually Nathaniel gets enough Humans and Anterines to organize an army that he leads back to Anterina.

At the edge of The Great Salt Nebula, Anterina is a smallish planet of brown deserts and pocket-forests of trees with brown leaves and splintery red bark. It has been overrun by giant bats with big teeth called Batters. “We were safe inside our huts, but we couldn’t stay inside all the time. The Batters hid in the trees and flew faster than we could run.”

Nathaniel cooks up a virus that attacks lungs, making it hard to walk, but impossible to fly. Since the Batters are slow walkers with poor balance, this will give the Anterines an advantage. Standing under a very large tree populated by several Batters, he threatens to release the virus into the atmosphere if they don’t leave. “This is our world. Go away,” The king Batter says, hanging upside-down.

“You took this world from the Anterines,” Nathaniel says.

“And they took it from the Pinnips,” the king Batter says.

“That was over a thousand years ago,” the Anterine by Nathaniel’s side retorts.

“And we took it over ten weeks ago, so what? It’s ours now,” the king Batter says.

Fred whispers a question to Doctor Bill. “How long does it take for a planet to become yours?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Doctor Bill answers.

Nathaniel continues. “They don’t have anywhere else to go. Why don’t you just return home?”

“Because our home was also taken. Batteria now belongs to the Chorn,” the king Batter explains.

After much argument, Nathaniel finally convinces the Anterines, Batters, and Humans to form an alliance to oust the Chorn from Batteria. It is another dry, smallish planet, with a slightly thicker atmosphere than Anterina, and more trees. The plants there are filled not with wood, but something akin to corrugated cardboard. There is no soil, but instead bright orange gravel covering most of the planet. Water is trapped inside the crystal lattice of these stones and animals eat them to stay hydrated.

The Chorn are heavily armored humanoids five centimeters tall. They were able to drive away the giant Batters so easily because they are highly radioactive. All their energy comes from beta decay and they eat food only to replenish damaged amino acids and vitamins. Nathaniel wears a spacesuit to meet with them. “We don’t care if the Batters stay or go, but we have to live somewhere and our home planet was taken over by robots.”

“Robots?” Nathaniel comments.

“Yes. They trampled us and chased us with flame throwers. They tried to kill all of us, but thirty thousand Chorn escaped without them noticing,” The Chorn representative recounts.

“Genocide?” Doctor Bill mutters.

“Why would they do that? Do they need secrecy to amass an army or something?” Haticat asks.

“Let’s hope not, but that does sound likely,” Nathaniel says.

Soon, Nathaniel convinces the Anterines, Batters, Chorn, and Humans to help him defeat the robots. The Chorn were too weak on their own, but together the alliance is strong. The combined fleet arrives in orbit around Chornia. It is a planet of many volcanos and shallow pools of algae. The robots are everywhere. They seem to be mining and building more robots. Their numbers are much higher than when the Chorn left. Nathaniel does a low flyby while in invisibility mode to see what’s going on. The most common type of robot is a large humanoid form with spiked boots. Those in the mines often have one arm that has been converted into a sword, chainsaw, or drill. They use these to cut through rock. Those in the factories are accompanied by a second type of robot resembling monkeys. They use their prehensile tails to climb. Apparently acting as guards are the rhinoceros-like robots, carrying a machine gun on each side and a flame thrower horn. Saucer-ships are parked in fields and towering antennas deliver wireless electricity to power the bots. Every robot and ship is engraved with a large letter A. The structure of the towers also resembles a capital letter A.

“Scans reveal the towers run on geothermal energy,” Doctor Bill says.

“And there are too many of them for us to take out by ourselves,” Haticat adds.

“I think I’ll have the Anterines jam the antigravity of the saucer ships while the others target the power towers. That will make taking out the ground forces easier,” Nathaniel says.

“Captain, wait,” Doctor Bill says. “There’s something weird about those antennas.”

“Show me,” Nathaniel orders.

“See the gears? Why would they need to rotate when the electromagnetic field is isometric?” Doctor Bill says.

Nathaniel squints at the scanner screen. There are very many parts to these antennas. Why? “I get it,” he finally says. “We’re not only fighting with robots; we’re up against a programmer who is also a brilliant military strategist.”

“So, what do we do?” Haticat asks.

“Be a better military strategist,” Nathaniel says.

Each tower is topped with many tiny antennas pointing in all directions, but they can be moved to point in the same direction in order to focus all their energy on incoming missiles or ships. Attacking them would be to fall into a trap. Nathaniel comes up with a plan and has the alliance carry it out. First, they land in groups on the slopes of volcanos. Next, Nathaniel in his invisible ship causes a nearby tower to temporarily shut off. Then, he causes a factory to temporarily shut off near a different volcano. Then he uses antigravity beams to collapse two mines near another volcano, followed by a factory near a fourth volcano. The Anterines drill boreholes into the rock and fill them with laundry detergent. Eventually, the robots drive the invaders away, who simply retreat without a shot. Sometimes they leave behind unimportant equipment. This confuses the robots.

A few days later, Nathaniel is on board one of the Anterine ships when his name is called. “Captain Nathaniel, we have the results of the tracking scan.”

“Let’s see it,” he responds.

He is guided to a screen showing a map of the planet and some zigzagging, colored lines. “The red line shows the path of the only saucer to visit as many as three volcanos. The same ship also visited the tower and the factories.”

“And this blue line must be another saucer that visited two more volcanos,” Nathaniel says.

“Yes, and it left from the same field the first one landed at,” the Anterine general says.

“I see that,” Nathaniel says, using his fingers to zoom in on the touch screen. “Different ship, same investigator.”

“And you assume this will be the same person that designed the robots?” the general says.

“I’m counting on it. Can you transmit this image to my ship?” Nathaniel asks.

“Oh, all the information is in here,” the general says, peeling a paper-like film off the surface of the screen with his claws, rolling it up like a scroll, and handing it to Nathaniel. There is another, identical layer underneath.

“It’s both screen and printer?” Nathaniel asks, surprised.

“Yup,” the general responds.

“Cool,” Nathaniel says.

Nathaniel returns to his ship with a strike team of Humans and fills Haticat in. “We found the programmer. He took the bait and has been investigating our activities around the volcanos.”

“When do we leave?” Haticat asks.

“Now,” Nathaniel answers.

The programmer’s saucer-ship shudders while in flight. “Unidentified turbulence detected. Running aerodynamic modifications to compensate,” one robot drones. No one yet suspects that a second ship has landed on top of theirs, certainly not an invisible one. Then someone tries to cut through the door.

“Saw device detected. Battle bots prepared!” another robot reports.

“Protect the programmer. Engage protocol A,” a third robot says.

“No.” A quiet, yet calm and commanding voice comes from behind – a girl’s voice. “This is a targeted attack. They know I’m here and will have planned for it. Let me take the steering computer,” Allison says.

Finally, the Human strike force cuts the door off and rushes inside, Nathaniel taking the lead. Suddenly, the ship lurches and he is thrown against the wall. Two of the Humans are tossed out the door and parachute to the ground. For a moment, he is alone. Two giant robots attempt to stomp him with their spiked boots. He scrambles out of the way just as the three of them are thrown against the other wall. Meanwhile, Haticat is piloting the attached cross-ship and struggling to maintain course.

Nathaniel is soon joined by Fred, Doctor Bill, and four Humans who disable the robots with some quick shots. They are now all on the ceiling, and the ship is losing altitude fast. Next, they fight with four monkey-bots, able to steady themselves by wrapping their tails around things while the ship lurches back and forth. The Humans are all killed, but Nathaniel hides behind a giant robot and returns fire from there. Finally, they get to the cockpit door. Nathaniel opens the door and pushes in a disabled monkey-bot as a decoy. Zrrrt! The laser comes from below and to the left. Nathaniel shoots back without looking by wrapping his arm around the doorway.

He, Fred, and Doctor Bill then enter and see Sarah badly injured on the floor. “I should have suspected it was you,” Allison says. She and Matilda stand to the right, pointing weapons at the boys. Suddenly, the ship lurches again and they start tumbling. Nathaniel hits his head and drops his gun. Allison also drops her gun. They all land in a heap together and slide along the wall into a corner. Nathaniel tries to bite Allison’s ankle, but she kicks him in the face.

Nathaniel is full of questions. “How did you survive? How did you get away from The-Mama-And-Daddy? Did Katie escape too?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Allison says teasingly.

They are all in the air again, this time heading for the other wall. Allison lands awkwardly and Nathaniel is able to punch her before she regains balance. Matilda shoots at Fred, but misses, and Doctor Bill shoots her in the head. Then they are thrown again and Nathaniel catches his gun out of midair, but Allison jumps on his back and tries to take it from him. They struggle, hit the trigger, and Fred is shot in the belly.

Then the ship crashes. Everything goes flying. Nathaniel blacks out for a moment. When he wakes, his entire right side tingles, but nothing seems to be broken. He looks around. Sarah and Matilda are dying. Fred is injured, but will live. Allison is gone. He grabs a gun and runs out the door, followed by Fred and Doctor Bill.

The saucer is smashed on the slope of a volcano. Above it sits Nathaniel’s ship, still attached. The invisibility shield is shattered, leaving some parts visible and some not. It looks weird.

Allison is running in the distance. Nathaniel speaks into his communicator. “Haticat, are you alright?”

“I’m not injured,” Haticat responds.

“Can you fire a warning shot?” Nathaniel says.

Haticat fires the ship’s hyperlaser cannons in Allison’s direction. She stops. Nathaniel runs to her. She exudes anger like he has rarely seen. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to shut off your robots so the Chorn can live here again,” Nathaniel says.

“For you? The whole reason I built my robot army was to take over the galaxy and set it against you the way you did to me,” Allison says.

As she talks, she takes a few steps. Nathaniel realizes too late what she is doing. She has put him between her and the ship’s guns. “Nathaniel, there are fifteen saucer ships headed here fast!” Haticat reports.

“How long?” Nathaniel asks.

“Forty-five seconds, tops!” Haticat says.

Nathaniel points his laser pistol at Allison. “Call them off and I let you live.”

“I have no reason to trust you. Your word is worth even less to me than you are,” Allison says.

“Don’t do this. We can make a deal,” Nathaniel says.

“You killed my friends. Any deal in which you go on living is unacceptable. Kill yourself and I’ll call them off,” Allison replies.

The approaching ships are just visible now as specks in the sky. Nathaniel does some quick calculations in his head of how long it will take to run back to the ship. Then he blows her head off. “Haticat! Power up the engines!” He, Fred, and Doctor Bill enter the door just as the shooting starts.

“The engines aren’t working,” Haticat reports.

“Keep working on them and return fire,” Nathaniel orders.

“No good. I can’t raise the angles of the laser cannons enough,” Haticat says.

“Captain, there are forty more ships on the way,” Fred reports.

“I can’t alert the allied fleet; there is some sort of interference,” Doctor Bill says.

“How long can our hull take a beating like this?” Nathaniel asks.

“A long time, but if more ships get involved and pelt us continually, I don’t expect to survive the hour,” Doctor Bill says.

“What do we do?” Haticat asks.

Nathaniel sits down in his chair and stares at the attacking ships on the viewscreen. “Power up the time machine.”

Pop! The ship arrives several months ago before the robots first arrived. The adventurers immediately get to work on repairs, but soon need a break.

“For just a brief moment, I did consider killing myself,” Nathaniel says.

“Well, then we would have killed her,” Fred says.

“Yes, of course, I know,” Nathaniel says. “And of course I wanted to kill her. I always have. I’m happy about it. It’s just that…just a little bit…I think I miss her.”

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