Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders

Darkness was all around and panic was welling up so strong in my mind I thought my head was going to explode. The air was thick with dust, and breathing was like gasping for oxygen inside a pollution-filled, plastic bag. I heard sounds of whimpering, scratching and tunneling. I started feeling my way around, and got a face full of dirt from someone ahead of me.

Instinctively, I started digging with my front feet, and plowing it back underneath and away with my back feet. Adrenaline was taking over, and I was plowing through dirt with massive strides while trying to hold my breath. I couldn’t see anything at all. It was like peering into a black hole in space, but suddenly I could feel upward progress being made.

I wanted to yell out for the others, but that would have required opening my mouth. I was desperately trying to control my nostrils to alternately keep dirt out, while pulling in a bit of filtered air. We started working in unison, digging upward, and forcing dirt downward for what seemed like forever.

My eyes and ears were closed tight like storm windows. Then I heard a shriek and gasp for air, as someone ahead of me broke through to the surface, and allowed slivers of sunlight to stream into a small crevice where we had been entombed by the sand storm.

Or so I thought.

I struggled to the surface, and peeked out to see a huge sign that read, “Future home of Drake Industries Gun Makers Association”.

Something was pulling on my arm. I sat straight up in my fluffy, dirt bed back in Suburbia.

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted at Doc, who was trying to wake me up from another nightmarish reenactment from the past.

“Didn’t the prairie dog with my faltering subroutine ever have good experiences?” I yelled out as the adrenaline in my terrified body began to subside.

The team was gathered around me in our burrow with those expressions on their faces again. It was the look of sympathy for their poor captain who might get stuck in limbo forever as a hapless, overgrown prairie dog.

The feeling of relief that we were not all buried alive by the sand storm came over me and I jumped up and started pacing back and forth. The mini-binocs were sitting in the dirt, but I couldn’t remember what happened....so I asked.

“What happened? The sand storm is the last thing I remember.”

“When the storm was over, we came back here to check on Daisy and the town folk, and they were fine,” said Brown.

“And the Wilder’s headed back to check on the settlement, and we are supposed to meet them at the lab in the morning, which is only a few hours from now,” said Moore.

“Okay, you guys get some more rest. I’m going topside to call up Qualdron and make him feel all warm, and safe in his corrupt plan with Drake, then I’ll be over at the Rabbit Hole to ask Daisy her opinion of this latest episode.”

Everyone stumbled back to their beds, except Jones.

“Mind if I tag along with you, Captain?”

“No problem, but you might as well start calling me Stanley, since I may be stuck here until my prairie dog body calcifies and turns to dust.”

“Since we can’t trust Qualdron or the stability of the transporter system we might all be stuck here,” said Jones, reminding me of how precarious our situation had become.

A short time later, Jones and I were making our way to the Rabbit Hole in the early, heat-infested rays of another Suburbia morning. The sand storm had redecorated the entire landscape of the colony. Hundreds of town-folk were out digging, shoving and excavating dirt to get things back in order.

“So, what did you think of the story I just told Qualdron?”

“Brilliant, actually,” Jones responded. “Telling him that Borish Drake was cleared after finding that three Russian men were framing him for their extortion plot was a good story...and we can ask Wilder to send out a standard, deep-space message to back it up... so, we should be clear, because Qualdron will think his plan is still good- to-go.”

She called me brilliant.

Inside the Community Center, Daisy gave us a rundown on sand-storm history.

“They come along ever so often without any kind of warning,” she explained. “All we can do is dive for cover, and dig out after it passes.”

“For how many years would you say these storms have been happening?” Jones asked.

“Our ancestors never had to deal with them. At least, not in this area, so I expect they have increased over time as the land has decayed.”

I told her about my flashback nightmare as I adjusted the mini-binocs around my neck.

“Why would I envision being buried in a sand storm if they didn’t have them here back then?”

Daisy thought for a minute.

“Wait a second...what did the sign say again?”

“It said ‘Future home of Drake Industries Gun Makers Association’”.

“Ah-ha...I think I know why and it had nothing to do with sand storms. It’s like I said before about poisoning prairie dogs...in those days when humans wanted to build something or level ground to grow crops...they would just bring in bulldozers and flatten the land. They didn’t care about burying prairie dogs alive or any other living creature for that matter.”

A sense of panic rose up in my mind just thinking about it.

“How did people ever evolve from being such cruel barbarians to the level of enlightenment of the folks at the dome?” Jones asked.

“Well, they weren’t all that way. But, again, I think it may have had lot to do with their race being almost wiped out from their own exploitation of the planet and other things that are truly all connected in one way or another,” answered Daisy, in a subdued voice.

She seemed to be getting weary of defending the indefensible actions of humans and explaining the senseless deeds of their past.

“I guess we will have to face an evident and depressing fact...that after eons of time have passed and lessons learned—not everyone is as evolved as we would have them be...not humans and not even Rosenians,” I mumbled.

“Maybe not,” responded Jones. “But there are far more good ones now than there are bad ones on both sides.”

“And my kind would rather help than hurt and it has always been that way for us,” said Daisy.

Suddenly an insane idea popped into my cross-wired brain.

“Daisy, you’re a genius! Come on Jones, let’s get to the lab!”

By the time Jones and I got to the lab everyone else was already there, including Wilder, Cassie, Sara, and the rest of my team, but the guards weren’t around.

“No guards today?” I asked as we entered the air-conditioned lab. “Does that mean you have ruled out the possibility of any more stooges hiding in plain site?”

“Pretty much,” replied Wilder, as we all settled onto stools, the bench and the floor. “My staff and I have talked to everyone personally, and haven’t found reason to believe anyone else was involved, other than three greedy goons hired by Drake. They arrived here on the last supply ship a few weeks ago.”

Hmmmm...

That was good news, but the 7th sense of my prairie dog subroutine was still on full alert, and it had nothing to do with my heightened sense of smell or hearing.

“Any damage from the sand storm to the prairie dog town?” asked Cassie.

“Nothing permanent,” I replied. “They were digging out the landscape this morning, and we had 2 inches of extra sand in our burrow, but it just made our fluffy, dirt beds more comfortable, in my opinion. How about the people at the dome?”

“We had to replace a few outside solar orbs that were scratched by the sand-blasting,” Wilder responded. “But everything else was okay.”

“What are solar orbs?” asked Jones.

“They are the modern day version of the original clunky solar panels invented centuries ago,” answered Sara.

“Yeah, they’re about the size of grape fruits, and so powerful it only takes 12 of them to supply energy to the entire settlement,” concluded Wilder.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” said Davis. “How did the human race ever come up with such clever devices, yet still manage to damn near wipe themselves out?”

Ah, that’s brilliant, Davis. Why don’t we just pummel our new human friends over past human stupidity?

“How ’bout I tell you guys my conversation with Qualdron this morning,” I said, redirecting the conversation.

So, tell them...I did.

Wilder agreed setting up the stooges as the master-minds, who framed Drake was a good strategy, and said he would take care of getting an unofficial memo launched into deep space to confirm my story that would be easily intercepted by the traitorous, pale-faced, Rosenian.

“Qualdron probably won’t try anymore communications to Drake for a while or he may wait for Drake to get a message to him which we can use to our advantage for baiting a trap later,” said Wilder, presuming the inter-planetary traitor would lay low for a while.

“What do you think, Doc? You have been quieter than usual today,” I asked my medical officer, who was sitting at the end of the bench cleaning his eye glasses on his furry thigh.

“Well...I could be wrong and if I am it wouldn’t be the first time, but I think Qualdron probably has an ego the size of Muirrams Crater, and thinks he can outsmart anyone, so that will work in our favor.”

“Now, tell Wilder about your dream, Captain,” said Doc, changing the subject again.

So, I did...and the only detail I left out was that I was so scared of being buried alive I would have wet my pants if I wore them.

“So, the sign in your dream implied Drake Industries used to make guns?” asked Cassie.

“Yep, but it was a long, long time ago,” I replied. “So, how does Drake produce weapons of any kind in this century, when you told us they had become culturally unacceptable?”

Wilder and Sara looked at each other with the kind of smile one has when they are helping a toddler learn how to put a square peg into a square hole.

“Drake could easily produce fully functional, plastic 3-D guns or any other kind of weapon if those company secrets were kept on computer disc,” explained Wilder. “They would be virtually undetectable to any kind of metal sensor.”

“We photographed the ones used by the stooges in the attack on Cassie then destroyed them. We searched extensively for others, but came up with nothing,” concluded Wilder, who seemed to think the danger here had been limited to Drake’s activities and arrogance.

Then Cassie gave us a bit of comic relief.

“The three attackers said that my ‘animals’ must have been some kind of specially-trained, elite guard varmints sent by the Mars Federation.

“Yes, and we will let them keep thinking that, too,” responded Wilder, with a laugh.

Elite varmints?

Even Wilder’s guards thought we were Cassie’s well-trained pets. A bit undignified maybe, but it was a good cover for my team until Wilder was ready to reveal our existence.

“What’s going to happen to the Borish and Zatosha now?” asked Brown, who became almost physically ill when she heard the part of my nightmare about how humans would often bury prairie dogs alive in their burrows during land development.

“And could I have just two minutes alone with them before you do whatever it is you plan to do with them?” It didn’t matter to Brown that Borish and his sister were merely descendants of previous owners of Drake Industries, and would not have been directly responsible for such abhorrent cruelty in the past.

“Brown, you’re just such a badass!” shouted Moore. “But you know we couldn’t let you be alone with two such creepy-eyed criminals.”

“Yeah, we’d have to come along with you,” Davis joined in, with a toothy smile. “For your own protection, of course.”

Wilder got Davis’s meaning and promised Brown he would consider her request, but he was joking around, too. Apparently, punishment of the Drakes would be up to the Martian Federation Council, and they would make a decision soon.

It seemed like the right time in the conversation for me to roll my dice again.

“I’d like to bring up some new business,” I said to everyone.

“Well, it’s new business about an old problem...specifically the big ditch that’s needed to finish the water extraction experiment.”

That got everyone’s attention and brought focus back to one of the main holdups at hand.

“What would you think of asking Suburbia’s town-folk to dig the trench?”

Everyone looked at me like I had a third ear above my nose, instead of being a freakishly, handsome prairie dog with long, black whiskers.

“I am dead serious. They dig their own burrows and underground chambers almost as deep and they know how to dig fast and hard...trust me.”

A minute of silence passed as everyone mulled over the idea.

“Well, I can testify to how hard the town-folk work on any project, including hauling hundreds of entertainment devices to the surface for solar recharge every month,” said Moore. “They all work together like a well-oiled machine.”

“It’s true...and not that they would relish being out in the abysmal heat day and night, but they have adapted to it much better than humans, who rarely leave the climate-controlled settlement,” I continued.

“Is there a downside?” asked Wilder, after giving the idea some thought.

“Well, I could think of about a dozen,” said Davis. “But I’m not much of an optimist anymore since we no longer have a safe transport to catch home in a few days.”

“Tell us your concerns, Davis” I said, but I already knew where he was headed.

“Well, for starters the biggest concern is the environmentally unstable condition of this planet. Let’s forget about the unrelenting heat for a minute. I’m talking about unpredictable shaker-quakes, sand storms, and unknown internal forces by crooked humans that may or may not still be lurking about trying to jeopardize Sara and Cassie’s plan.”

Yeah, that about covered it.

Silence...

“I’m not sure we want to ask the prairie dogs of our last known colony to put themselves at risk in such a way,” said Sara, and I suddenly remembered the deep affection her and Cassie shared for the town-folk, and how they often observed them from afar, as the town-folk worked and played together.

“My mother is right,” injected Cassie. “If anything happened to a single one of them, we could never forgive ourselves.”

“Besides, we don’t even know if they would be willing to help us,” said Wilder, who was more objective regarding the colony, than his wife and daughter.

“That’s the easy part,” I shrugged. “Besides, what other options do we have?”

Silence...

“Yeah, all we would need to do is tell our friends in Suburbia that Ted Turner and Kevin Bacon are buried 20-feet below ground and they would scramble like their tails were on fire to dig them out,” said Brown with a laugh.

“Who?” asked Wilder.

“Never mind...she’s joking,” I said, smiling at the humor of it, because town-folk did love their heroes.

“And after generations of watching human entertainment they learned to understand most of the language,” I continued on with my idea. “So, they’d be able to understand what you guys are saying and what you want them to do...mmm....they just wouldn’t be able to communicate back in your language.”

“Well, as long as they can signal ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘screw that’, which they can easily do with hand gestures...there shouldn’t be a problem,” said Brown.

I thought it was an exceptionally simple answer to a complex dilemma, and I was certain our PD friends would be willing to help.

At the same time, I was struck by the irony of humans having a spacecraft that could travel from Mars to Earth in six hours and small, solar orbs that supplied energy to the entire dome from the sun’s rays...yet digging a big, ole 20-foot ditch was a major obstacle on this planet.

“Out of curiosity, what are your solar orbs made of, and can they be adapted to anything?” I asked, trying to settle pieces of an idea that were floating around in my mind.

“They are made of aluminum and...yes, they can,” replied Wilder.