“I think we should grab the opportunity that we have here and try to infiltrate the alien base.”
“That sounds pretty crazy.”
“Well maybe not as nuts as it sounds. Consider: the aliens are expecting a short stop on the Earth. If we hand over the ship to PD it could take weeks before they get something ready, and they may not even launch an assault.
Mike held up a second finger. “We have the captain’s cooperation...”
“In your dreams!”
“...at least after we get his puppeteer off him so the aliens will have less of a reason to think things might be wrong.”
Mike approached the captain with a taser. "Your choice, you can get off him voluntarily, or we can shock you till you leave."
"You wouldn't dare!"
Mike reached behind the captain and gave the Puppeteer on his back a little jolt.
"Alright! Alright! Just wait a moment!"
The Puppeteer flowed off the captain's back and into a trash bag that Mike supplied for it. He handed the bag off to Tom, who held it like it contained an annoyed cobra. The captain looked disoriented, but gave a shaky thumbs up.
Mike raised a final finger "We have a unique group of Puppeteer-controlled experts in alien infiltration ready to go and perform the mission.”
“What if you all get captured or killed?” asked Tom.
“We leave the 2 infiltrators and the engineer behind and hand them over to PD. We lose the ship, but PD learns a whole lot more about the alien’s technology.”
“But if we succeed, he can learn a whole lot about the disposition of their forces in the solar system. We may even be able to sabotage a base or two. That could buy a whole lot more breathing time for PD.”
“You make a good case, but I’m going with you.”
“I think you would be more useful explaining to PD our little AWOL stunt and perhaps the hijacking of an enemy flying saucer.”
“Wonderful. While you and the lady go gallivanting off into space I’ll just sit around and try to clean up the mess!”
Mike became serious: “No, Tom you’re humanities last hope if this crazy plan doesn’t work. You gotta make those dinosaurs back at Head Quarters understand the threat they are facing. You have information that could mean the difference between survival for the human race and annihilation.”
“You’re also the only sane person who tried to understand what was going on with me and that believed in what I was trying to do. Believe me, I want you on this mission, but you have got to stay behind.”
Tom looked dubious, but relented. “If you get killed out there, I’ll be very upset with you!”
Mike smiled. Alice, Mike and the captain scrambled aboard the ship. The ship’s door shut.
One of the other members of Mike’s team approached “Do you think we should stand back when the thing takes off? Heat and all that sort of thing?”
Tom turned to the other guy “I honestly don’t know.”
The ship began to emit light and a wind blew up out of nowhere.
“On second thought, let’s seek cover!”
The ship lifted into the air, slowly at first, but with increasing velocity. It was heading almost straight up.
“I only hope they know what they’re doing.”
###
Thank you for reading this story. If you enjoyed it, please leave a comment on the site that you downloaded it from. I am planning on writing a sequel – the more feedback I get the faster the sequel will get written.
Excerpt from Puppet: Defender the sequel to Puppet
A few minutes after liftoff, a red light started beeping and a display showed something that looked suspiciously like a missile tracking the ship.
“I thought you said that this ship was radar invisible!” Mike squeaked.
“It’s not invisible, just very hard to locate with radar!” The captain was madly typing in commands and flipping switches.
“Well they don’t seem to be having too much trouble locating us!” shouted Mike.
“Shut up, you two!” cut in Alice. “Do you have any counter-measures?”
“Well we can try dropping a decoy and generally getting the hell out of here.”
“Then do it!” shouted Mike and Alice at the same time.
“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing while the two of you were shouting at me?!!”
A miniature flying saucer detached itself from the main craft and took off at a 90 degree angle. The missile dithered for a moment, then flew off in pursuit of the decoy. Several minutes later a huge nuclear explosion light up the sky.
“My god, they weren’t messing around!” said Mike, covering his eyes as he stepped back from a port hole.
“If we’re lucking we should be out of their range by now...there’s another missile tracking us, but it’s way too far away to be a threat. I think we are out of Earth’s defensive airspace.”
“So now what?” The captain cocked an eyebrow at Mike.
“We head for the refueling station,” said Mike.
“Why would we want to do that?”
“First of all it’s a strategic asset. If we control their fuel supply then we control whether they can toss any rocks at earth. Second most ships have to drop by to refuel regardless, which gives us an opportunity to infiltrate those ships that come through.”
“But we’ll never be able to infiltrate the station unless we are all wearing puppeteers and I for one don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We have managed to “domesticate” some puppeteers so that they act more as a helper than a controller.” Mike told the nervous captain.
“Uh huh” Replied the captain, clearly not impressed.
“No really, it works!” Alice enthused. “They’re really great for losing weight, getting in shape, studying - any place where you tend to be lazy.”
* * *
“You know, that’s not a bad plan!” the captain exclaimed after hearing Mike’s idea.
“Nice to know that you think so.” Mike said.
Alice smirked.
“I think so too.”
“Good.”
“You did leave those others with Tom, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you know, when we get vaporized the human race is going to have some chance.”
Mike glared at Alice.
“Don’t you mean if we get vaporized?”
“Oh, right, slip of the tongue.”
Alice thought a moment.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try ‘take me to your leader?’”
“Look, do you have a better plan?”
Alice raised her hands and stopped talking, though her face reddened.
Mike turned to the Captain.
“Are you sure this is the only fueling station they have in the system?”
“Pretty sure, though their home base probably has a reserve of deuterium.”
“One thing at a time.”
Alice excused herself, saying she needed to visit the bathroom; though Mike could hear her laughing after she left the room.
“How long until we reach the fueling station?”
“A day or two.”
“Good.”
The ship sped on through the starry night.
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