UFO Short Stories 3 - Shaken And Stirred Chapter 1, an ufo fanfic

UFO Short Stories 3: Shaken And Stirred

Set more or less midway between Practice To Deceive and Endgame

Siren Song and Mal's Song © 2008 Vixy & Tony - lyrics reproduced technically without permission, but as they're filk songs they're meant to be shared. I'm sure they won't mind (besides, the lyrics are posted on their website anyway!). Buy Thirteen. You won't regret it; Vixy has a lovely voice. As a Firefly fan I actually bought the album for Mal's Song, having heard part of it on the fan documentary Done The Impossible, but Siren Song was a very pleasant surprise; I always laugh when I hear it. Hell, I sang it, despite being a guy, at Redemption '15!

A very small audience, it's true - four, in fact - and I'd had a lot to drink by then, but I did my best and my fellow SF/filk fans appreciated it. I also sang The Hero Of Canton, just for the gorram hell of it - Jaynestown was a total hoot!

("Look, Mal, I got no ruttin' idea! I was here a few years back, like I said. Pulled a second-storey, stole a lotta scratch from the magistrate up on the hill. But things went way south, I had to hightail it. They don't...put you on a pedestal in town square for that!"

"Yeah, 'cept I'm lookin' at some fair compellin' evidence says they do." - classic!)

I found Banned From Beaumonde by EmmaRigby on the Firefly website, and I thought it too should be shared, as it's funny.

I've never seen Breakfast At Tiffany's (it's on my ever-growing to-do list, along with The Dambusters, 633 Squadron [both for their connection to Star Wars], and Casablanca), so I was very surprised to discover via Google that Tiffany's is a jeweller's, not a restaurant of any sort. Now how was I to know the title refers to Holly Golightly's fantasy world? Though it's also on the list, I've never been to New York!

Speaking of, I remember exactly where I was (on the 1st floor of the Beehive Mill, formerly a warehouse in Bolton, now demolished) and what I was doing (picking single beds for loading onto delivery vans) when the news about the Towers came over the radio. I could barely believe what I was hearing, and as soon as I got home (nearly ten hours later) I frantically emailed every US citizen I was in touch with to check if they were okay; thankfully they were - none were in New York at the time.

Yes, Kelly's gripe about warehouse work is my own opinion. Like him, I tried desperately to avoid manual labour as a job because, frankly, I knew I could do better...but Kelly is the parallel-universe version of me who succeeded where I failed abjectly. If the Inquisitor ever paid me a visit I'd be in the same trouble as Dave Lister. :(

But why, now we've entered the third decade of the Twenty-First Century, do we still have manual labour?! What the hell are robots for already?! Don't we have better things to do?!

Okay, I thought this was going to be a short story, like Diamonds And Gold and Love And Secrets. That was the plan, after the obvious inspiration of Casino Royale, and certainly that's how it started out, but now it's the longest 'short' story I've ever written. I wrote an outline in my head, whilst engaged in (and distracting myself from the utter boredom of) my physically demanding work in a warehouse (again, why am I still doing this, where are the damn NS-5s?!)...but once I started typing the story into OpenOffice Writer (who the hell needs Micro$oft Office?), something weird happened:

Suddenly the gorram thing acquired a life of its own and it was abruptly clear that a short story wouldn't be enough to tell it as I wanted to...or at least not in terms of the way it started to go. It kept adding bits to itself, new story ideas and plot details, and I just couldn't seem to stop it. Things kept happening...!

For instance, Jennifer wasn't supposed to initially turn down the mission. I have no idea how that happened, her mercurial nature as a redhead notwithstanding. I seem to be one of those writers whose characters don't always do as they're told...on the other hand, a bit of dramatic conflict is always a good thing in a story, short or not.

Nor was Kelly supposed to lose at any point - but I loved writing that bit! More dramatic conflict, yay! - and I don't know where Trixie Laplâce came from (doubtless the same Lovecraftian Here-Abide-Wyrd-Beasts, Abandon-Hope-All-Ye-Who-Enter-Here dungeon somewhere deep in my unconscious from which Cherry Bisquet escaped!). I had to juggle various combinations of cards to make it come out in such a way that a) Kelly's hand was better than those of the other two remaining players, and b) there was only one winning hand Natalia could hold, but it was certainly fun.

I came up with a possible explanation for the replicas in Reflections In The Water a few years ago, viz. the Constructs, first mentioned (and, in an act of cross-pollination between the two stories, expanded upon) in Invasion! At some point in writing this story, a possible use for such Constructs occurred to me - and all of a sudden I had a) a brand new plot detail (another one!) and b) a reason for Natalia's existence which was at least consistent with UFO canon!

The casino wasn't attacked by a UFO in the original draft...!

And as for what happened to Pripyat and Chernobyl...! (Mind you, in an earlier draft nukes were used...)

Let it not be said I don't check my facts; I had initially thought Pripyat and Chernobyl were close enough for one kinetic strike (!) to take out both, and that they'd remained deserted since 1986 (well, would you want to stay in a hot zone?!), but Wikipedia and Google Maps set me straight - oops. Hence a forced evac of the samosely, plus two strikes for the price of one... :)

Now admittedly the background count in the real world version of Chernobyl is, in most spots, relatively safe now, but I didn't know that when I started writing this and I don't want to/can't change it because that would destroy a plot point (also: tourism at the site of a nuclear accident?! Are they crazy?! What the hell's that about?!). So I hereby declare that this tale takes place in a parallel world where the initial disaster was quite a bit worse and the Russian government as of 2020 ignored scientific advice, even from the CRDP, by declaring the entire region unsafe.

So there! :)

My geography sucks, too; I knew the Black Sea (where I originally put Skydiver Five [which was originally Skydiver Four for the sake of a minor plot point in Invasion!, until I discovered a transcript for The Psychobombs which referred to SKY 4!]) was in the right area, but that's an inland sea and hence inaccessible to a Skydiver...oops, part II. Hence the quick change to the Baltic, which links with the North Sea if you sail around Denmark. Hooray once more for Google Maps!

Once again the long arm of coincidence shows: I was watching episode 1 of Picard when it occurred to me that Picard's observation that Data didn't have a tell was reminiscent of Natalia's similar lack - yet I created her some two years earlier. Great minds think alike. :)

Minor historical point: I was startled to learn at Redemption '15 that Marilyn Monroe was a lesbian, or at least more inclined towards women than men, and had an affair with Joan Crawford; hence Kelly's throwaway lusty remark to Jennifer. Thanks for the historical detail, Snowgrouse!

Translations from Croatian courtesy of Google; I hope they're accurate. :) I had a lot of fun creating Lucija, randy little tart that she is.

Background details are in Invasion!, A Question Of Priorities, Redux and Practice To Deceive, plus one or two in Diamonds And Gold. Kelly's backstory from his UMIST days was in here at first, but I took it out as it wasn't all that relevant (and the 'short' story had already morphed into something other anyway!) - now it's another short story, Erudition & Paranoia. But I felt I had to tell Katniss Dobson's tale; she deserved it after such a horrible if plot-driven death, a graphic description of which appears in Endgame, Part I.

As is often the case, my fics cross-pollinate each other; this one has details from others because it was written after them, but before any of them, except Practice To Deceive, were finished. In fact I've been working on these fics on and off for so long, I've had to write/rewrite them to include real-world events such as Brexit, Covid-19 and ISIS!

Anyway, here's the result of all this. It's my favourite and it was immense fun to write; here's hoping you have as much fun reading it...

Pripyat, near Chernobyl

Nineteen months ago

Is cold. Is very cold.

Coming as it did from a daughter of Mother Russia, that was saying something, Dr. Olga Tsiolkovski mused, laughing to herself. But, Lenin's Ghost, that wind - that was definitely blowing straight from Dantë's Ninth Circle of Hell, dropping the temperature to more than sixty below. She was wearing multiple layers under the thick anti-radiation gear, and still she could feel it.

Don't think of cold. Think of money instead. Think of buying new wheelchair for Mama. Think of duty to UN and to CRDP.

Think of hot buttered brandy and roast chestnuts in front of roaring fire, with even hotter lover Ilya, wrapped in bearskin rug with me!

That did the trick; she shook herself, grinning saucily, and plodded on with renewed resolve. Another ten minutes and her radiological sweep would be complete. So far there were no surprises.

But why do I have feeling of being watched? Is impossible, since samosely were evacuated, long overdue that was - crazy to live in radioactive zone. No-one now would be so durak as to come here!

No-one else, Olga...! she couldn't help correcting herself wryly.

Sadly for her, Olga was mistaken. She was not alone.

The only other human occupant of Pripyat was not stupid; like her, he was there for compelling reasons.

Mainly, though, he had little choice in the matter...

Stand by to intercept.

The telepathic command could have been "heard" only by the tiniest fraction of Earth's population...or one man provided with a telepathic relay. He did not attempt to reply; there was no need.

The girl was very close now.

He wondered if she was blonde.

Olga swept the Geiger counter back and forth along the street, deserted since 1986 as the whole of Pripyat had been since that terrible day, with the exception of the samosely - until a new government finally did the sensible thing and evacuated them. Radioactivity readings were much as she and her colleagues had predicted, but of course there was no substitute for on-the-spot observation and data gathering.

Given the location and what had happened here, volunteers for the Chernobyl Recovery & Development Programme were understandably few and far between; even with protective equipment and even though radioactivity levels had dropped substantially since 1986, there was still a high risk of, among other things, infertility.

But she had been barren since birth, so that was not an issue for her (it also meant her periods were light and thus far from being the ordeal many of her female friends suffered every month). The bonus and danger money would pay for a powered wheelchair for her mother, giving her greater independence; it would be easier for her to visit the museums and libraries she loved so much in their home city of Novosibirsk. That was worth a couple of hours in a radioactive city and subzero temperatures, and even if the worst happened, her mother would still get the money from Olga's insurance payout.

Had she known what was waiting for her at the end of the street, though, she would definitely have had second thoughts. She knew the city had been colonised by various animal species since the 1986 evacuation, including bears, but she wasn't too worried; she'd spent much time in her youth with such creatures in the forests of Siberia and knew them well, knew how to cope with them - liked them, even. She was actually hoping to see wolves, as she'd always thought they were such beautiful, noble animals.

But this predator was far, far more dangerous than wolves or bears.

And his allies were worse.

She took one more step - and came into range of the sonic stun device.

NOW.

He triggered it. She had time for an agonised, startled gasp before she lost consciousness and dropped to the ground. He quickly examined her; his own protective attire notwithstanding, his putative allies had advised him to minimise his exposure time.

Not that he needed the advice. He'd already had enough exposure in 1986.

She was young, apparently healthy - and a natural blonde, as he'd hoped. Blondes were rare in Mother Russia.

Tatiana had been blonde. Their son would have been blond.

For a moment he suffered a twinge of conscience at the thought of what he and his allies were about to do to the girl. Dear Bog, he prayed, let her not wake up...

To his regret, she did.

Her head was aching fiercely, her vision blurred. I...I cannot move, Olga realised apprehensively. What happened to me...?

She could barely raise her head to look around. Her surroundings seemed to resemble a laboratory of some kind, though none of the equipment looked even slightly familiar. Some of it was made of an odd, slickly gleaming metal alloy; she had never seen the like. It was like chrome, yet somehow...not.

She distantly heard a question - a male voice in Russian, but spoken with a Georgian accent: "Why is she here?"

Olga could not, of course, perceive the telepathic reply: Irrelevant. Mitochondrial analysis confirms match. She is compatible.

"She will be missed." A rustling sound (apprehensively she realised she was naked; the man must be going through her pockets). "Chyort vozmi. She carries UN ID - she is part of UN recovery effort for Chernobyl."

They will not connect her disappearance with us. They have no idea we are here. Occurrences of missing persons are commonplace in this country. The native predators which have colonised the deserted city could have taken her - we will plant evidence to suggest such.

"Pozhalusta," Olga managed faintly, "where...am I...?"

"Chyort vozmi," he again cursed softly, "she awakens."

Also irrelevant. We will begin.

"Very well," he conceded, and looked down with pity at Olga, strapped to a table. "I am sorry, gospazha, but I need you - or at least your DNA and mitochondria. Procedure is invariably fatal."

"Nyet...pozhalusta, don't hurt me..." she begged with what little strength remained to her.

"I have little choice, child. Nor have you." He stroked her fair hair. She reminded him so strongly of his beloved Tatiana, dead twelve years now, killed by the baby they had both wanted so badly...albeit for entirely different reasons.

"Will it be boy?"

Impossible, as you should be aware, the rebuke came. The male chromosome is too severely degraded; key genes are mutated far beyond the effective scope of corrective therapy. Even the female chromosome cannot be fully utilised, as it too is damaged. There is only so much even we can do under these circumstances.

"How much?"

65% would be a generous estimate. A probable optimax of 50% with selective genetic editing, utilising a technique similar to CRISPR.

It was better than nothing, he knew. At least she would be a quarter of him, and that would have to be close enough. He nodded.

As Olga desperately struggled against her bonds she froze as she caught sight of...someone else, behind her captor. He was wearing a - spacesuit? He had the coldest eyes she had ever seen, colder than that wind...colder even than deep space.

His face was - green.

By pure instinct she somehow knew who - or rather what - he was, and responded to that instinct by screaming in absolute terror.

And somehow she did "hear" the Alien's next, callous telepathic command:

Kill her.

She had time only for a brief, despairing shriek before the ultrasonic waves, directed to her skull, liquefied her brain fats. The shriek changed to an agonised gurgle as blood and other, now-hot fluids suddenly flooded her sinus cavity and ran out of her nostrils and mouth. In less than five seconds she was dead, her brain melting into ruin.

His face twitched in disgust. Surely a simple lethal injection would suffice. There was no need to make them suffer so, even for only five seconds.

He hadn't asked the question - he didn't dare - but he received a coldly amused answer regardless: Yes, I did enjoy that. I like to hear these primitive animals scream and bubble as they expire. Unknown to his servant the Alien briefly indulged himself by recalling how his current heart had been obtained...and the, to him, delicious suffering of its unwilling donor. Now fulfil your part of our bargain and complete the design...unless you want me to derive similar pleasure from you.

He knew this was no empty threat, so he nodded wearily and sat at a computer terminal, while Olga's tissues were being rent apart by the apparatus in which her remains were held. The DNA would be rendered, sifted - and combined with his own, after the latter had been edited. One or two limbs and part of her torso were being surgically but roughly removed, to be artfully mutilated as if she'd been attacked by a bear.

A few keystrokes brought up a slowly rotating digital 3-D image of what resembled a cross between a fighter jet and a missile, though nothing like it had ever been seen before on this world. One feature, however - the petal-like reflective panels mounted along the length of its fuselage - would have looked very familiar to a SHADO operative:

The same panels usually carried on a UFO...