Ultraman - Ultraseven E-Book

Pat Cadigan

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 497

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A modern adaptation of the hit 1960s series Ultraseven, bringing the foundational era of the iconic Japanese superhero to established fans and newcomers alike. In the not-too-distant future, Earth is besieged by aliens. However, the mysterious Dan Moroboshi comes to the defense of humanity, transforming into his true form—the towering Ultraseven—when the planet is endangered. Alongside his allies, the six elite soldiers of the Terrestrial Defense Force, Ultraseven will give everything he has to stop the myriad of foes who are prepared to bring ruin and destruction to the people of Earth. Adapting the classic and genre-defining series Ultraseven in the ever popular Ultraman mega-saga, Hugo and Scribe award-winning author Pat Cadigan brings a fresh take to the iconic and action-packed adventures of Earth's monster-battling savior.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Acknowledgements

About the Author

ULTRAMAN TITLES AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Ultraman: The Official Novel of the Series

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Ultraseven: The Official Novel of the Series

Print edition ISBN: 9781803362441

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803363028

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: July 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Tsuburaya Productions. All Rights Reserved.

Pat Cadigan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)

eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, Estonia

[email protected], [phone]

This one is for the Nova Expressions:

Lawrence Person, Dwight Brown, Glen and Jill Engel-Cox,Michael Sumbera, and Rich Simental.

Next time, the barbecue’s on me.

And, like everything I do,

For Chris Fowler,Always the most interesting person in the room

PROLOGUE

The Being of Light known as Agent 340 was in the midst of his latest assignment when a small, unassuming, but high-energy world called Earth caught his eye.

Not that he’d been looking for distractions. He’d drawn a real plum of a job—viz, mapping the Milky Way. Because of the dynamic nature of the galaxy, mapping and remapping had to be done periodically, and the Ultra Beings of the M78 Nebula chose the best and brightest among them for the task. There was no shortage of brilliance to choose from but Agent 340’s active curiosity and relentless desire to learn made him perfect for the job. All the Ultras were eager to see what he would make of the information he gathered.

As with most galaxies, the Milky Way’s greatest changes began at the outskirts and moved inward at varying rates toward the crowded center. It had always been thus, and Agent 340 found it curious. What this meant for him personally, his elders explained, was that he had to remain inconspicuous, if not virtually invisible, especially on the galactic fringe.

Unlike the teeming center, few of the populated planets were accustomed to alien visitors. In fact, most of those worlds had no direct knowledge or experience of any intelligent lifeforms other than their own, and it was policy not to engage if it could possibly be avoided.

Sometimes, of course, it was unavoidable, in which case, encryption had to be employed—not always easy, even for the wisest and most experienced of Ultras. Life on the galactic fringe was more unpredictable than it was anywhere else.

*   *   *

The standard procedure for mapping assignments was to start in the crowded middle and spiral outward, moving counter to galactic spin. As Agent 340 discovered, the areas where stars were most densely packed together practically mapped themselves. These were also the places with the least amount of change from the previous mapping.

Not that there weren’t a few surprises—the odd, unexpected novae here and there. Agent 340 also found that, thanks to increased turbulence in the Orion Nebula, the Ultras had underestimated the number of new stars that had emerged.

As he moved outward and the main galactic arms became more defined and discrete, Agent 340 decided to map each of them in turn rather than continue moving in a widening spiral. There were few stars in the arms but more planetary systems, and therefore a greater percentage of inhabited planets. A good many of these had developed carbon-based lifeforms not terribly unlike the original form of his own people before the Plasma Spark had transformed and elevated their existence.

Some of these fringe worlds were pastoral, with no tool-using species that walked upright. Others had advanced just far enough to have the potential to destroy themselves; some already had, leaving only rubble for him to catalog. But most hadn’t, and Agent 340 catalogued, annotated, speculated (personal observations were encouraged), recorded, and interpreted.

All the while, he dutifully kept his distance, until he didn’t.

CHAPTER

People were disappearing.

In a crowded world where people passed in and out of each other’s lives as a matter of course, it wasn’t always taken as anything more than normal, or at least expected, human movement. But in the area to the south of Tokyo, along the coast and several kilometers inward, the increasing number of disappearances acquired a new twist. Reports came in from witnesses claiming to have seen someone vanish right in front of them, like a magic trick or a special effect in a movie.

At first, the police dismissed the first few calls. But calls kept coming in, the authorities finally realized that something was going on and it was definitely out of the ordinary. The police set up checkpoints in areas where disappearances seemed to be more frequent. There were a few complaints from drivers who didn’t like having their commute or roadtrip interrupted, but most people took it in stride. Hey, that was life—if it wasn’t one thing, it was another, and next week it would probably be something else, so what the hell.

Then everything changed.

*   *   *

Officer Hiroshi Saijo had been a traffic cop for five years and he was bored; he’d been bored for some time now. Before his shift, he had another talk with his supervisor about making a change. His supervisor had said it looked like there’d be an opportunity for a transfer very soon, which was encouraging enough to make tonight’s checkpoint duty seem less tedious.

Working a checkpoint wasn’t difficult. Officers took it in teams so they could back each other up if drivers and/or passengers were difficult, belligerent, or under the influence. And if nothing happened at all, which was usually the case, they could take turns checking their email or playing the latest hot game, or just hang out and talk. Of course, some cops were better company than others.

The guys Officer Saijo was working with tonight were all dependable, stand-up guys, but their conversation did leave something to be desired. Not one of them had any good gossip or rumors. But then, Saijo thought as he watched another pair of headlights approach, he hadn’t heard any good ones lately, either. Except for the unexplained disappearances, it seemed like nothing much was happening in Greater Tokyo, or possibly anywhere on Honshu Island.

Two officers waved the car into the breakdown lane where Saijo and his partner for the evening, a slightly older guy named Ken Hachisuka, were waiting. Saijo aimed his flashlight carefully so he could see the driver’s face without blinding him.

The driver was obviously familiar with the routine—she already had her license out for inspection. Saijo looked it over, intending to hand it back to the woman and send her on her way, when some impulse made him ask for the car registration. The driver didn’t get huffy or complain; she simply leaned over to get it out of the glovebox while Hachisuka watched for any concealed weapons or suspicious-looking packages.

The driver held out the registration politely, but when Saijo touched it, he saw the woman suddenly stiffen. Before Saijo could ask if she was all right, the car was suffused with a blinding white light. Then it was gone, and so was the driver.

Saijo let out a shocked cry that brought the other two officers rushing to his side. ‘The driver—she just disappeared! Like, flash of light and bang! Car’s empty!’ He backed away, letting the other three search it for a trap door or a hidden panel. Despite his training and his record as a conscientious officer, Saijo couldn’t bring himself to get within a meter of the vehicle.

It wasn’t simply the woman disappearing—it was the way it had felt when the registration had vanished while he’d been touching it. The certificate hadn’t been yanked or snatched away, he had felt it dematerialize. As Saijo told everyone later, he had never felt anything more disturbing, more… unnatural.

*   *   *

Several kilometers away and a few hundred meters underground in the Terrestrial Defense Force, Captain Kaoru Kiriyama of the Ultra Guard took one more look at the latest incident reports before heading over to Overwatch, where the TDF Joint Commanders were waiting for him. Six of them were on the premises today, including Commander Edwin Bogarde from North America, which was highly unusual.

The main headquarters of the TDF was in Paris; besides Tokyo, there were branches in Washington, DC, London, Berlin, Moscow, Rome, Cairo, Johannesburg, and the Arctic, as well as a host of other major cities. In Kiriyama’s sixteen years of service, he had seen the original organization expand not only globally but beyond, to Lagrange point space stations and the moon.

Kiriyama was a bit on edge as he walked through the base, nodding at various TDF personnel. He still knew a lot of them by name, although new faces popped up all the time. The TDF numbered some three hundred souls, many more than when Kiriyama had been a shiny new recruit. Back then, he hadn’t decided how long he was going to stay in. He’d never imagined he’d end up in command of an elite squad within the TDF, but here he was.

Minister Yamaoka had chosen him for his extensive experience with alien encounters. The four people under his command weren’t as experienced but Yamaoka had chosen them as having exceptional potential. At first, Kiriyama had been dubious—he’d have preferred to choose his own personnel. But he had to admit that Yamaoka had a good eye and a talent for finding the right combination of people.

Two of them Kiriyama had already been acquainted with; the other two were new. One of the former had seven years of service, the others only two or three. According to Commander Manabe, this meant they had fewer bad habits to unlearn. They had gelled quickly as a team, to Kiriyama’s great relief, and now he couldn’t imagine swapping any of them out for someone else. Although he did wonder if Yamaoka planned to add to their number; five seemed to be a small group for something called the Ultra Guard, no matter how elite they were. But when Kiriyama had broached the subject with him, Yamaoka had dismissed it and Kiriyama decided not to push it. He’d made Yamaoka aware of his feelings. Now he simply had to wait and see if anything came of it.

The TDF guard outside Overwatch announced him via the intercom before opening the door. As Kiriyama went in, he saw the commanders gathered at a wall monitor displaying a topographical map of an area not far from the base.

‘Glad you’re here, Captain,’ Yamaoka said. He turned to Kiriyama with a tense, uncertain expression. ‘You’re aware we’ve had another disappearance?’

‘I am.’ Kiriyama nodded to the other Joint Chiefs, some of whom he’d only seen onscreen until now.

‘We have a difficult job for the Ultra Guard,’ Yamaoka went on. ‘Commander Takenaka can fill you in.’

Takenaka stepped forward holding a file folder. He was one of the old-school types who had to have hardcopy printouts.

‘In the past week, we’ve had people vanish from parks, hotels, shops, restaurants, sports arenas, universities—anywhere and everywhere. And as far as we can tell, there’s no pattern. Students, office workers, manual laborers, engineers—anyone can disappear from any place at any time and we still don’t know why it’s happening, let alone how.’

‘And there’s nothing left behind?’ Kiriyama asked, although he knew the answer. ‘No dust or residue?’

‘Witnesses have reported a blinding white light, followed by nothing. Whoever’s doing this has technology far beyond our own.’ He looked around at the other commanders. ‘After careful analysis and much discussion, we feel the phenomenon is… not of this Earth.’

Kiriyama nodded; he’d had come to the same conclusion, albeit very reluctantly. But if any country or organized group on Earth had developed the ability to pop people out of existence, it seemed highly improbable they’d have kept it so completely secret. Humans loved to show off, take credit, or worst of all, threaten.

‘Witnesses have all described people just—’ Yamaoka snapped his fingers. ‘And you know what Sir Arthur C. Clarke said: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

But only if the observers believe in magic, Kiriyama added silently.

‘We’d like the Ultra Guard to take point and investigate this more…’ he hesitated, ‘…aggressively. You yourself have more experience with aliens than most of the people in the TDF—certainly more than any of us.’

‘I’ll assemble my team.’ Kiriyama activated his wristcomm as he left.

*   *   *

Soga was at the target range, showing off his sharpshooting skills by way of demonstrating the latest model of the Ultra Gun for a new class of TDF recruits. The training officer was sorry to see him go—she’d already won a bundle from newbies who didn’t know better than to bet Soga wouldn’t miss even one target, and she’d been hoping to clean up with the next group of trainees.

Soga met up with Shigeru Furuhashi, fresh from a flexibility workout on the trampoline. At twenty-nine, Furuhashi was the most senior member on the team after Kiriyama, with seven years in. As the strongest member of the team, he had to make an effort to keep himself limber.

The third member of the team was poring over data in Planning and Scheduling when Kiriyama’s summons reached him. Amagi was in his early twenties: tall, skinny, and gawky, which made him seem even younger. Nonetheless, Kiriyama had never met anyone with a better head for strategy.

Anne Yuri had joined the TDF at around the same time as Amagi, coming in with twin degrees in medicine and communications. Kiriyama’s call found her in the clinic, wrapping a singed forearm and telling her patient to give the medication in the wrap enough time to regenerate new skin. She pretended not to notice the guy’s disappointment at her having to leave as she gave him some mild analgesics. Under other circumstances, she might have been a bit disappointed herself—Mr. Second-Degree Burns was pretty cute. But the world was full of good-looking guys—there was only one Ultra Guard, and getting to work with Kiriyama was a dream come true.

She reminded her patient not to over-medicate, then ran to change out of her scrubs and into her Ultra Guard uniform.

*   *   *

All four arrived within seconds of each other in Overwatch. The room was full of TDF officers keeping a close eye on the surveillance feeds.

‘Whatever entity or force that’s been spiriting people away has upped their game,’ Kiriyama said by way of hello. ‘We’ve just received a report that two TDF officers on patrol have vanished on the same road where a woman disappeared at a checkpoint last night. Unlike the incident with the woman, however, their car disappeared with them. I don’t have to tell you that’s a brand-new wrinkle. We’re still questioning witnesses, but so far, the car hasn’t turned up and I don’t think it’s going to.’

‘Where exactly was this?’ Furuhashi asked.

‘About fifty kilometers from Point V,’ replied Kiriyama. ‘Out in the hills. We’re lucky to have any witnesses at all, as it’s rather remote. I’ve sent all of you a map with the coordinates clearly marked.’

Soga’s eyebrows went up as he checked the map on his wristcomm. ‘That’s closer to the base than any of the other incidents.’

Kiriyama nodded. ‘I want you and Furuhashi to go to the scene. Amagi and Anne, you’re with me—we’ll keep an eye out for any more activity from here.’

Amagi was already bent over a monitor. Anne joined him; Kiriyama could tell by her expression that she was disappointed she hadn’t been sent into the field.

*   *   *

One of the great things about being in the Ultra Guard, in Furuhashi’s opinion, was driving the Pointer. Its official designation was TDF/Ultra Guard Pointer-1, and it had been designed for the kind of extraordinary situations the Ultra Guard had been established to handle. Among its many features, it had an energy barrier to repel weapons fire, puncture-proof tires, and a top speed of 365 kph. As much as Furuhashi enjoyed that last feature, this particular section of road through the countryside was twisty and narrow. The local police had closed the route to regular traffic, but Furuhashi kept the P-1 to a relatively sedate 100 kph.

When he saw the police car parked on the dirt shoulder, he slowed down, and as he did he heard Soga chuckle. ‘Thank you, Lead Foot. I really like it when we don’t crash and burn first thing in the morning.’

‘I live to serve. And we weren’t going that fast,’ Furuhashi added under his breath.

They saw only one officer sitting in the driver’s seat as they passed.

Furuhashi frowned. ‘Don’t the locals always work in pairs? Where do you suppose his partner is?’

‘Napping in the back seat?’ Soga guessed. ‘Although satnav says this is only one and a half kilometers from the spot where the TDF guys disappeared.’

Furuhashi eased off the accelerator a little more as the fields and brush gave way to hills and rock walls, and the road became curvier. They were rounding a bend along a broken rockface when Soga suddenly yelled, ‘Stop!’

‘I see him,’ Furuhashi said, bringing the vehicle to a stop.

The guy standing in the middle of the road certainly was easy to see in a bright yellow jacket over t-shirt and jeans. If he was a hitchhiker, his last ride had dropped him off in the middle of nowhere. Furuhashi wondered if that had been at his request or the driver’s insistence. He waited for the guy to move or ask for directions, or even a lift, but he only stood there.

Annoyed, Furuhashi leaned out the driver’s-side window. ‘Hey, you mind moving out of the way? You shouldn’t be here anyway.’

The guy didn’t answer, didn’t even change expression. He was young—Furuhashi thought he was about Soga’s age but something about his posture suggested he might be a bit older. The Pointer had automatically taken his photo several times and Furuhashi decided to take a closer look later.

Soga stuck his head out of the passenger-side window. ‘If you keep going that way—’ he pointed back the way they had come, ‘—you’ll find a police officer parked on the shoulder. He can probably help you get wherever you want to go. But you can’t be here right now.’

The guy still said nothing, although Furuhashi thought he detected a hint of a smile on his face, which took his irritation up a couple of notches. Apparently, the guy was one of those people who felt compelled to defy authority. Furuhashi knew the type: some people believed that in a free society, they had a duty to give anyone in uniform a hard time.

Sighing, he turned to Soga. ‘Looks like we’ll have to smoke him out. Hit it.’

Soga opened a panel on the console between them and flipped a switch. Clouds of white smoke poured out of the Pointer’s grille, enveloping the man in the road until he had disappeared completely.

Most people gave ground immediately, thinking the smoke was tear gas or worse. In fact, it was only harmless vapor, and Soga had triggered a very short blast. When the cloud dissipated, however, the man was gone.

Furuhashi had a flash of anxiety that the fog might have covered another disappearance, then decided that would have been far too neat a coincidence. Besides, whoever (or whatever) was behind the vanishing acts didn’t do it under cover of anything but right out in the open, possibly for maximum shock effect.

He shifted gears and pressed on the accelerator. The engine revved and he heard the tires spinning, but the P-1 didn’t move.

‘Oh, for crying—what now?’ Furuhashi fumed.

Soga opened his door and looked at the rear wheel. ‘I don’t see anything over here. Try it again, and really step on it.’

‘I am stepping on it, I always step on it,’ Furuhashi snapped as the engine continued to rev and the tires spun to no avail. He put on the parking brake and got out of the Pointer, then heard someone laughing. Anger surged in him; whoever was messing with them was going to be very sorry.

Then he looked up to find the guy in the yellow jacket was now sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Pointer and laughing like he’d never seen anything so funny.

‘You get down from there!’ Soga ordered, reaching for him. ‘You should know better than to interfere with us when we’re on duty!’

The guy was still laughing as he evaded both Soga and Furuhashi, sliding down the windshield to the hood, then jumping to the ground.

‘You’ve got it backward, Officer Soga,’ the guy said, laughing even harder at Soga’s surprise. ‘I’m not in your way.’

‘How do you know my name?’ Soga demanded.

The guy shrugged one shoulder. ‘I also know you’re Officer Furuhashi,’ he added, turning to him and grinning at his reaction. ‘You’re the strongest person in the Ultra Guard, if not the entire TDF.’

Furuhashi put a hand on the sidearm attached to his belt, even as his instincts were telling him he wasn’t in danger. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

The stranger never stopped grinning. ‘Well, I’ve been waiting around here for hours, hoping to save your lives.’

Furuhashi and Soga looked at each other, then burst into laughter. The Ultra Guard was always getting messages through the TDF website from cranks and fantasists claiming they had special secret knowledge, or super-powers, or some kind of device that would protect everyone from harm or bring about world peace or reveal the secret of life. Saving the lives of two members of the Ultra Guard was pretty tame by comparison, but the guy made it sound earth-shaking.

‘Well, that’s great, it really is,’ said Soga. ‘If you walk back to the police officer parked on the road, he can get all the details from you—’

‘I’m not joking and I’m not crazy.’ The guy spoke quite calmly but something about his face gave Furuhashi pause; he kept his hand on his weapon.

‘That’s considerate of you, but we protect other people, not just ourselves,’ Soga was saying.

‘If you keep going along this road, you won’t be able to protect anyone,’ the guy said.

‘Listen carefully, fella,’ Furuhashi said. ‘Right now, we’ve got something we need to take care of. If you’re here when we come back, we’ll take you in.’

He and Soga were about to get back into the Pointer when they heard a vehicle approaching from behind. It was the police car they’d passed a few minutes earlier, now with two officers in the front seat. The driver pulled around them and stopped.

‘Everything okay here?’ the cop asked Furuhashi.

The stranger suddenly materialized at Furuhashi’s elbow. ‘Don’t go any farther, there’s danger ahead.’

The driver looked him up and down, as if he were something both unusual and ridiculous before turning back to Furuhashi. ‘We’ve been patrolling the area since before dawn, including the forest. So far, there’s nothing to report. Except maybe…’ He jerked his head at the stranger.

Furuhashi stepped back from the car, pulling the guy with him by his sleeve. ‘Okay. Stay safe, keep in touch.’

‘Will do.’ The driver released the brake and drove on.

To Furuhashi’s surprise, the guy ran after the car, calling for them to stop, they were in danger. The driver responded by speeding up, leaving him in a small cloud of dust.

‘And that’s all the time we have for cranks, wackos, and weirdos today,’ Furuhashi said, motioning for Soga to get back into the Pointer. As he opened his own door, he heard a sound very similar to a plasma rifle, only much fuller and louder, more like a plasma cannon, from somewhere overhead. He looked up and saw a bright ball of energy zoom downward to make a direct hit on the police car.

Before he could yell to Soga, a second blast hit, making the car glow brightly for a second before it melted out of existence.

‘I tried to warn them.’ The stranger shook his head, looking deeply unhappy.

Furuhashi pounced on him. ‘Who are you? What do you know about this? Who’s behind it?’

‘You’re facing a deadly alien menace,’ the guy said. ‘I’m here to help.’

He was serious, Furuhashi thought, and in a better, more benign world, it might even have been true.

‘They’ve been collecting human specimens for years,’ the man went on. ‘They’re preparing for an invasion and I guess they’re stepping things up. Why do you suppose that is?’

Furuhashi blinked at him, looked at Soga, then back at the guy. ‘You got a theory?’

‘It’s because the Ultra Guard are responding now, investigating the disappearances. They’ve moved on to the next phase and things are gonna get a lot worse.’

‘And just who in the world are you that you have this special knowledge?’ Furuhashi asked.

‘In this world?’ The guy actually seemed to be thinking that one over. ‘I’m only a traveler. Just passing through.’

‘You got a name?’ Soga said.

The guy hesitated; his expression gave Furuhashi the impression he was glad Soga had asked. ‘You can call me Dan. I’m Dan Moroboshi.’

Soga opened his mouth to respond when Furuhashi heard the plasma-weapon sound again, still overhead but now much closer. He looked around wildly, but Dan Moroboshi was shoving him and Soga roughly away from the Pointer and across the road toward a pile of broken rock just as something punched a crater in the center of the road, spraying them with stones, dirt, and chunks of asphalt.

Furuhashi looked up and saw another ball of plasma materialize out of thin air some fifteen meters above them. It hurtled down and hit only centimeters from his foot. The ground exploded and something sliced into Furuhashi’s knee. He clapped both hands over it, feeling blood pouring out between his fingers.

‘Something up there’s firing on us!’ Soga yelled. ‘We gotta get outta—’

The rocks in front of them blew apart, leaving them completely exposed.

‘Come on!’ The guy dragged both of them back across the road, shoving them into the back seat of the Pointer so quickly that it didn’t occur to Furuhashi until later how strong the guy was—easily as strong as himself. In the moment, all he could think of was how bolts of plasma were congealing out of nothing.

‘Hit the barrier button!’ Furuhashi shouted as the guy slid across the front seat to get behind the wheel. ‘Gray one, left of the steering column!’

There was a deep hum as the Light Wave Barrier activated a fraction of a second before the next bolt would have hit the Pointer’s roof. The whole car shook but remained undamaged.

‘Step on it!’ Furuhashi yelled.

Dan Moroboshi put the Pointer in gear as if he’d been driving it for years. But before he could accelerate, more plasma bolts hit a rockface not ten meters ahead of them. The impact sent boulders flying down onto the road, blocking their way.

Furuhashi opened his mouth to tell the guy to shut off the barrier and hit the blaster, to turn the boulders into crumbs. But the guy had already done it; Furuhashi fell back against the seat as the Pointer zoomed forward.

Soga was cradling one arm but had managed to activate his wristcomm.

‘This is Anne Yuri at HQ,’ said a cheerful female voice. ‘Anything to report?’

‘We’ve been attacked by a—’ Soga floundered for a second. ‘By an invisible flying plasma cannon!’ he said finally. ‘I know how that sounds but both Furuhashi and I are injured!’

Immediately, Kiriyama was on the line. ‘Status?’

‘Nothing critical,’ Soga assured him. ‘We’ll be back at HQ shortly and, uh, we’re bringing someone with us. A friendly.’

Anne’s face on the small, flip-up screen was a mix of concern and confusion. ‘If both of you are injured, who’s driving?’

‘I’d show you on the wristcomm,’ Soga replied, ‘but I think my arm is broken.’

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Anne had finished suturing Furuhashi’s lacerated knee (while the Ultra Guard’s strongest member kept his gaze averted from the needle). The on-call medic assisting her had determined Soga had a dislocated elbow rather than a fracture and had immobilized it with a splint.

‘And that’s the extent of the good news,’ Kiriyama informed everyone in Overwatch. ‘We have an enemy that’s armed, dangerous, and worst of all, invisible, and they’ve added two police officers to their collection, plus their car. For anyone keeping count, that’s two cars and possibly as many as two dozen people.’

Chief Yamagawa’s lined face was grave. ‘With those capabilities, they could have massacred us by the tens of thousands—except they haven’t. So what are they up to?’

Kiriyama took a breath. ‘The civilian who came in with Furuhashi and Soga claims they’ve been collecting human specimens for research.’

Yamagawa nodded. ‘Makes sense. Knowing your enemy would seem to be a ubiquitous practice.’ He turned to Kiriyama. ‘I’m sure they’ve traced the Pointer back here to us.’ He raised his voice to address the entire room. ‘Continue monitoring both ground and airspace in a one-hundred-kilometer radius. If we can’t see them, maybe we can see the signs of their movements and locate them by changes in air currents, even atmospheric disturbances.’

Kiriyama was about to respond when Amagi suddenly appeared at his side. ‘Captain, commanders—I think there’s a transmission trying to come through.’

They followed him to the communications board, where several TDF officers were gathered in front of two wall monitors with flickering screens.

‘What kind of transmission?’ Kiriyama asked tensely, then saw what appeared to be the outlines of an image. It started to become more definite, then faded back into the static before the screen suddenly cleared up altogether.

Kiriyama blinked. The creature staring out from the monitor had an oversized bulge of a head that looked very much like an exposed brain, two wide-spaced, lidless eyes, and below them, six jointed limbs ending in claws and a vestigial body shaped like a cylinder.

‘Attention, all Terrestrial Defense Force members,’ said a high-pitched, nasal voice issuing from a flap just below the staring eyes. ‘We are the Alien Cool. You will immediately disarm and surrender your planet unconditionally to us.’

The Joint Chiefs exchanged incredulous looks.

‘We protect this world,’ said Yamaoka. ‘None of us would surrender it to you or anyone else.’

‘Humans are nothing more to us than insects,’ the alien said in its nasal whine. ‘Watch. You’ll see.’

The second monitor lit up and there were horrified gasps from everyone in the room at the sight of people floating in some dimly lit space. Some were upside down, others sideways, all with their arms and legs flailing as they struggled to right themselves while they called for help.

‘What are you doing to them?’ Yamaoka demanded angrily.

‘Anything we want.’ Now there was a gloating undertone in the thin, reedy voice. ‘Their lives depend on your response. Answer now—will you surrender and give your planet over to us?’

Yamaoka drew himself up to his full height. ‘No. Of course not.’

Kiriyama braced himself for a high-pitched whining tirade of threats. Instead, both screens went dark, leaving the room in stunned silence.

‘I think it hung up on us,’ Furuhashi said finally.

The sound of his voice broke everyone out of their daze. But as the TDF members went back to work, the monitors lit up again to show two different views of the newly completed Keihin utility complex forty kilometers away. Visibility was good at the moment; across Keihin Lake, the Tokyo skyline was clearly visible, no haze at all.

Something bright streaked down from the sky into one of the power substations, which disappeared in a fiery explosion. There was a second strike, followed by a third, obliterating two immense cooling vats. Then it was raining fire and the entire complex became an inferno.

One of the screens flipped to show the alien again.

‘This is how powerful we are,’ it said in its grating voice. ‘You have sixty of your minutes to decide, or Tokyo is next.’

Then it was gone and they were watching the complex burn.

Yamaoka turned to Kiriyama. ‘We have to do something, Captain.’

‘In an hour? How?’ asked Commander Bogarde. ‘We can’t even see them.’

‘We can’t just let Tokyo burn!’ Yamaoka said.

Beside him, Commander Manabe spoke up. ‘Our ultrasensitive detection system should be able to find anything in our atmosphere. If we can figure out where this thing is most likely to be, we could fire missiles—’

Takenaka was shaking his head. ‘They’ve taken human hostages. We have to rescue them before we attack.’

‘We can’t rescue them if we can’t find them,’ Yamaoka said hotly.

‘Captain.’ Amagi was beside Kiriyama again. ‘The Keihin complex is completely destroyed. Half of Tokyo is without power.’

‘So what’s the plan, Captain?’ Yamaoka was glaring at Kiriyama as if he were personally responsible.

Kiriyama didn’t blame him, but he had to take charge before blind panic descended on them and overrode training and discipline.

‘All right, everyone, listen up!’ Kiriyama raised his voice and the background murmur in the room cut off. ‘We have to have a plan before we can act.’ He looked around and his gaze fell on Anne, standing with the stranger, Dan Moroboshi.

For a split second, she looked startled, then composed herself. ‘Dan, you seem to know more about these aliens than anyone else,’ she said. ‘Do you have any ideas?’ Her gaze went from him to Kiriyama and back again.

Moroboshi frowned thoughtfully. ‘When high tech fails, the solution calls for a simpler approach. If we can’t detect the alien spaceship, why not try making it visible?’

Kiriyama gave a single, humorless laugh. ‘That would be a neat trick.’

‘As neat as spraying it with paint,’ Moroboshi replied.

Kiriyama blinked, then shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. ‘Of course,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘The hardware lab can throw some equipment together in no time at all. Amagi—’

‘Already on my way,’ Amagi called over his shoulder as he hurried out of the room.

Yamaoka looked at the other commanders, who nodded at him. ‘All right, Kiriyama, this is your operation.’

Kiriyama barely heard him. His attention was on the stranger with the bright ideas, currently in conversation with the Ultra Guard’s physician. He went over to join them. If Moroboshi had any other inspirations or special knowledge, he wanted to hear them first.

*   *   *

The stranger who had introduced himself as Dan Moroboshi listened intently to Anne Yuri as she gave him a quick rundown of the Ultra Guard and the TDF. He was aware of Captain Kiriyama making his way over to them. In fact, he had already gleaned quite a lot of what she was telling him, but despite the coincidence of the special squad’s name, humans weren’t Ultras; not even close. It was best to let humans share information in their usual way. On this world, very little ever went without saying or, at the very least, an opinion.

Captain Kiriyama had a lot of questions for him; he could sense them running through the man’s mind. Who are you? Where did you come from and where are you going? What are your intentions toward us, toward the world, toward anything?

The only way he could help these people would be to gain Kiriyama’s confidence, make him an ally, and that required meaningful communication. I’m merely a traveler, just passing through wouldn’t cut it.

At the same time, however, he had to avoid interfering with their natural development by telling them too much. He’d already made a significant change in the scheme of things when he had saved the falling climber on the mountain.

He hadn’t intended to take such crucial action, but when the climber had cut his own rope to prevent his companion from falling to his death with him, he had reacted automatically. But in truth, even if he’d had time to think about it, he’d have done the same thing. There was no good reason not to.

Humans, he had learned, didn’t live very long—barely long enough to know they were alive. To let such a short life be cut even shorter was an inexcusable waste, especially since the man had put his climbing partner’s life ahead of his own. Self-sacrifice was a virtue normally found only in the most advanced beings, and yet a lifeform that lived barely longer than an eye-blink had not hesitated. Such a species deserved a little extra help on their journey toward enlightenment.

The man had been unconscious when he’d caught him and flown him down to the floor of the valley. Placing him on a soft patch of grass in an open area, he had hidden and kept watch, curious. What would he do when he woke up, what would he think? After a bit, he realized that for the man to regain consciousness, he had to leave. He had given the man a second chance; now he had to go away and let the man’s life continue, for good or ill.

Then Kiriyama and the one called Yamaoka joined him and Anne, who excused herself politely, giving him one last look of concern mixed with curiosity as she withdrew to the communications console.

‘We have a great deal to talk about, don’t we,’ he said to Kiriyama.

*   *   *

Kiriyama took Dan Moroboshi to his office rather than an interrogation room. Yamaoka raised his eyebrows but said nothing, even when Kiriyama steered them away from his desk to the round conference table where, on his busier days, he ate lunch, reviewed incident reports, and organized the Ultra Guard schedule, sometimes simultaneously.

‘I know you’re wondering how I know so much about these aliens,’ Moroboshi said. ‘They call themselves the Alien Cool, yes?’ His smile was fleeting.

‘Something like that.’ Yamaoka’s neutral tone had a hint of expectation. ‘Although the most important thing we need to know right now is what we can do about them. If you have any background information, you can tell us later.’

Moroboshi nodded. ‘So you accept that these are aliens.’

‘Well, of course.’ Yamaoka frowned at him. ‘The TDF was founded to deal with alien incursions. We’ve had quite a few, as Captain Kiriyama can tell you.’

‘Some alien visitors have been friendly,’ Kiriyama said, sitting forward, one hand piled atop the other. ‘Or at least harmless. Some have done varying degrees of damage without meaning to, sometimes without even knowing it, because they didn’t understand the local customs or laws. Others, like our current trespassers, have been hell-bent on conquering the planet and too bad for us insects.’ He looked into Moroboshi’s face and Moroboshi met his gaze evenly, openly, without a hint of defensiveness or dark intent; Kiriyama had seen enough faces to know.

‘I’ve been… traveling for quite some time,’ Moroboshi said after a bit. ‘And to many far-flung places. We live in a world—universe—teeming with the miraculous, the wondrous, and the terrifying, and you’d be surprised at how many of them find their way to the outskirts of the Milky Way.’

Kiriyama and Yamaoka exchanged looks.

‘I would think that we’re well off the main travel routes.’ Yamaoka spoke slowly, like a man who was choosing his words carefully. ‘You might say, on the road not taken. By most travelers, anyway.’

‘It is,’ Moroboshi said with a small chuckle. ‘Which paradoxically makes this world, and others like it, an ideal destination for those whose actions are deemed unacceptable in places with more inhabitants and more regulations. Or so it seems to me.’

‘I can see that,’ Yamaoka conceded. ‘Aliens can do anything they want on a planet where the majority of indigenous lifeforms may not even believe they exist.’

‘There are still people in the world today who will argue the Earth is flat,’ Kiriyama noted. ‘Although some of them do it simply to be contrary.’

‘I’ve come to believe that a good part of humanity’s charm is its capacity to inhabit an imagined reality that contradicts the one they live in,’ Moroboshi said.

‘I don’t know about charm,’ Yamaoka said, chuckling without humor. ‘Most people find out that living in denial doesn’t end well.’

‘Denial is a universal phenomenon,’ Moroboshi said. ‘Although those societies that choose it instead of reality tend not to last very long.’

Kiriyama and Yamaoka traded looks again, and Kiriyama wondered just how well-traveled Dan Moroboshi was.

*   *   *

True to Kiriyama’s prediction, the hardware lab had created a device for painting large structures and had it ready to install within half an hour. What Kiriyama hadn’t expected was Yamaoka’s decision to have Dan Moroboshi accompany the Ultra Guard on the operation as a provisional crew member.

On the one hand, it seemed like a good idea to have someone among them with a feel for what the aliens were up to. On the other, however, Moroboshi was a total stranger who had picked a very odd time to pop up out of nowhere. To all appearances, he was a good guy with a genuine desire to help—he had, after all, come to Furuhashi’s and Soga’s aid when they were under fire.

But truth to tell, they didn’t actually know much more about him than the Alien Cool. Yamaoka was putting an awful lot of trust in a man who had literally wandered in off the road. If it turned out that Moroboshi was working with the aliens, or if he was actually a homicidal psycho planning to crash the Ultra Hawk 1…

Except he wasn’t. Kiriyama felt as certain of that as he’d ever been about anything, and he was damned if he knew why. Something about him made Kiriyama want to trust him without question, and he wasn’t the only one. Yamaoka was already there, and the other Joint Chiefs were close behind him. While the rest of the Ultra Guard treated the guy like he’d already made the team.

Kiriyama had never imagined that the Joint Chiefs or the Ultra Guard would ever trust someone they’d known only a few hours to help them release weather balloons, let alone participate in a mission to defend the entire planet. But here they were.

*   *   *

Furuhashi and Soga were mostly recovered from their injuries when the aerosol device was loaded onto the Hawk-1. In that time, TDF’s communications specialists had, with Anne’s and Amagi’s help, picked up traces of the alien vessel. With a few suggestions from Moroboshi, they were able to configure the sensors at HQ and on the Ultra Hawk so they wouldn’t lose it.

Everything was coming together, Kiriyama thought as he buckled himself in behind Furuhashi in the pilot’s seat. Soga had the copilot’s spot with the controls for the spray device. Anne took the seat behind Soga with Amagi on her left and Dan Moroboshi behind her at the very back. Kiriyama kept a discreet eye on him via a small wide-view mirror mounted on the ceiling, angled so he could see everybody in the cockpit. He wondered what Moroboshi would make of the Ultra Hawk. The first time he’d been aboard during midflight separation, he’d been astounded even though he’d known what was coming.

At the moment, Moroboshi was listening intently to Anne, who was twisted around in her seat explaining the Hawk-1’s unique capabilities. Moroboshi seemed completely at ease, as if this were his millionth flight with the Ultra Guard rather than his first.

Whatever happened once they were airborne would tell them everything they needed to know about the guy, Kiriyama thought, and if it wasn’t good…

But it would be. Kiriyama’s instincts were sure of it.

‘Initiating pre-flight,’ Furuhashi announced. ‘All passengers must now be in an upright position with safety harnesses securely fastened and no talking.’ He looked over his shoulder at Anne, who was the picture of innocence.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ she said.

‘Commencing hangar opening,’ said a filtered voice from a speaker in the ceiling.

A deep rumble passed through the aircraft as, far above them, a section of hillside slid sideways under the adjacent wooded area. The Ultra Hawk had VTOL capabilities but Furuhashi opted for a standard aircraft take-off and landing whenever possible, claiming it was easier on the eardrums. Acceleration pushed Kiriyama back into the seat padding and he glanced up at the wide-view mirror. Moroboshi still displayed the seasoned calm of a frequent flyer.

‘Does HQ have sensor readings?’ Kiriyama asked Amagi.

‘Sending them to you now, captain,’ Amagi replied. The screen in the seat-back directly in front of Kiriyama lit up with the figures.

‘Levelling off,’ Furuhashi informed everyone.

‘Then let’s not waste any time,’ Kiriyama replied. ‘Target registers at three o’clock. It’s pacing us. Prepare to fire.’ He felt more than heard the panel in the Ultra Hawk’s belly opening to lower the adapted device in its launch cradle.

Soga thumbed a yellow button on the dashboard. Kiriyama watched from the side window as the device streaked away from the Ultra Hawk on a curved trajectory, then started to disgorge thick clouds of vivid red into the air.

For several excruciating moments the clouds were all Kiriyama could see, and he wondered if the hardware lab had screwed up the targeting. But as the scarlet began to dissipate, he saw a shape form, something round and a bit flat, with wings on either side.

‘That’s definitely not a charter flight to Kowloon,’ Furuhashi said cheerfully.

‘Sure isn’t,’ Kiriyama agreed. ‘Initiate separation and begin attack maneuvers.’

‘Separating,’ Soga announced, one hand dancing across the control panel.

There was a chunk! as multiple mechanisms released the center section of the fuselage. Kiriyama’s seat-back screen showed feeds from the external cameras; the section rose up and away, leaving a long, much skinnier body.

‘Stage one complete,’ Soga said. ‘Your turn, Anne.’

‘Beginning stage two,’ Anne said, tapping the graphics display on the monitor in front of her. ‘Disengaging tail subsection and activating autopilot.’

The vibrations from this process were much fainter but Kiriyama always felt them. Tail cameras showed the subsection withdrawing smoothly as the Ultra Hawk became three aircraft.

‘Attack formation,’ Kiriyama said briskly. ‘Purpose is to harry and force it to land, not to shoot down, not to destroy. There are human hostages aboard and we want to keep them alive.’

‘Damn, that thing looks like a toy,’ Furuhashi said, circling the alien spacecraft.

‘A really weird toy,’ Soga added. ‘Like a police-car-light with wings.’

‘That’s just the color,’ said Anne.

‘It’s no toy.’ Amagi sounded tense as the alien vessel began firing harsh bright bolts of energy at them.

Furuhashi evaded the shots easily and fired neutralizing charges at the bolts; they fizzled loudly in the air. With the other parts of the Hawk flanking them, Furuhashi herded the alien vessel toward the nearby canyon.

The bright red alien spacecraft dropped suddenly. Furuhashi went after it but was forced to pull up when the thing slipped between two tall rock formations and disappeared from view.

‘Dammit!’ Furuhashi fumed. ‘Whoever’s on the stick flies like they know the terrain.’

‘If they’ve been collecting human specimens for as long as Dan says, they probably do,’ Amagi said. ‘Can you get a fix on it?’

‘The mineral deposits here are messing with the Hawk’s sensors,’ Furuhashi said. ‘I thought the TDF techs had upgraded the software to fix that.’

‘And they probably thought we’d done that,’ Soga said wryly.

‘I hate when that happens,’ Anne sighed.

‘Never mind,’ Kiriyama said in a sharp, no-nonsense tone. ‘We’ve got it boxed in down there. Let’s put the Hawk back together and find the damn thing before it breaks something we can’t fix.’

Reassembling in flight was actually the more dangerous maneuver. Furuhashi took them up three hundred meters so the sections could reunite without any interference. Kiriyama had always found the procedure nerve-wracking, but Furuhashi breezed through it as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

‘You know, Captain—’ Anne began when the Hawk was back in one piece. But that was as far as she got before something big hit the tail-section. Furuhashi fought to keep them steady, but they were losing altitude quickly.

‘Brace yourselves!’ he shouted. ‘We’re coming in for an unscheduled—’

The impact drowned out the rest.

*   *   *

The Ultra Hawk 1 hit the canyon floor like a stone skipping across a lake before sliding to a stop. As crash landings went, it was one of the better ones, in that the newly reassembled body of the aircraft remained together.

The echoes of the crash died away, leaving the kind of heavy silence that always seemed to follow a disaster. No one in the Hawk was conscious so there was no one to note how long it lasted, but in fact it was quite brief. They were all still unconscious when, a short distance away in a hidden gully, the dome of the alien vessel split open with a loud, electronic whine and released eight smaller flyers into the air.

The flyers were also bright red and looked even more toylike than the mothership. They flew together in a formation that made the wind whistle oddly around them. It was the sound of their approach that roused Dan Moroboshi.

*   *   *

He was checking Anne’s pulse when he heard an energy blast, followed by the sound of falling rocks hitting the Ultra Hawk. His new friends had no critical injuries. If he wanted to keep them that way, he had to draw the alien’s flyers away from them.

Quickly, he found the emergency exit, climbed out, and ran from the downed aircraft, taking a narrow path between two towering rock formations. The machine-hum of the flyers rose in pitch to a whine, and he knew they’d picked up on him as another alien, albeit one different from the Alien Cool. Which meant they wouldn’t be looking to make friends—to them, he was a competitor to be eliminated.

The crash had been more of a physical trauma for him than he’d expected. This body he’d made for himself was sturdy for a human but much weaker than his own, even with reinforcement from his Ultra nature. Fortunately, his protector panels absorbed ambient light continuously, so he was ready to take on the Alien Cool.

He also had something to keep the alien flyers busy and away from the Ultra Hawk. The capsules were in his trouser pocket. He took them out, looked them over to make sure they weren’t damaged, and selected one.

‘We need you now, my friend—help us,’ he whispered, then hurled the capsule away from himself as hard as he could.

The capsule landed in a fiery blast that shook the ground. There was a swirl of flames and thick white smoke that blew back to reveal the fifty-foot metallic being he had named Windom.

It had been a long time since he’d last released the creature from the safety and confinement of the capsule. Windom straightened up to his full height, stretching his bulky metal arms wide with a growl, and turned to see three of the red flyers coming toward him.

The growl became an angry roar as Windom swatted one away, straight into a wall of stone where it blew apart. The little flyers really were only drones; they had no live passengers, and unlike Windom, they weren’t metal lifeforms.

Humans wouldn’t have known the difference—they were unacquainted with any form of life not carbon-based. They’d have mistaken Windom for a robot rather than an autonomous being. Better that they didn’t know about Windom yet, he thought. If Windom wiped out enough of the flyers, the Alien Cool would call the rest of them back. He could track them to the mothership, and with any luck, by the time the Ultra Guard came to, he’d have neutralized the alien threat.

It was a good idea but this world, this Earth, was one of those weird little places where you couldn’t count on anything working out the way you wanted. Windom batted two more flyers out of the air and fired on a third with the Laser Shot from the lamp atop his head.

Instead of fleeing to the alien vessel, however, the remaining drones grouped themselves together in a way that reminded Dan of the Ultra Hawk reassembling. Together, they sent a concentrated beam of energy straight into Windom’s lamp.

The metal giant fell to his knees with a sound that was more of a wail than a roar. Even from a distance, he could perceive Windom’s suffering as the charge blasted into his head and ran through his body, overriding all his sensory input with pure agony. Dan had to call the creature back before the flyers damaged his electronic brain.

He raised his arm and called out, ‘Windom, return!’

The faltering metal creature turned toward him and suddenly changed into a ball of white light. It zoomed through the canyon to his palm, resuming the form of an innocuous-looking capsule.

‘It’s all right, Windom,’ he whispered, tucking it back into his pocket. ‘As the humans say, I’ll take it from here.’

The Ultra Eye in his jacket seemed to stir and awaken as he pulled it out and pressed it to his face.

*   *   *

The shift back to his Ultra state was a full-on shock, a blast of power that spread through him as it overwhelmed his smaller, more fragile human aspect. He took to the air, rising high above the canyon. The little flyers had separated, he saw, and were fleeing back to the alien ship nestled against a jagged rockface.

Touching down beside the spacecraft, he concentrated and assumed human proportions so he could enter the ship without tearing it apart and endangering the humans trapped within. Except, he saw now, the spacecraft had no visible points of entry.

That was no problem. He reached up and removed the Eye Slugger, sitting atop his head like a crest, and slung it at the ship. The Eye Slugger followed his unspoken command, cutting a wide rectangle in the spacecraft’s bulkhead before it returned to him. The neatly cut rectangle fell outward with a surprisingly quiet thump! and he stepped inside.

He paused for a second, expecting an alarm or possibly an attack from some kind of defense system, but there was nothing. It seemed the Alien Cool weren’t used to active opposition, or at least nothing that a few flying drones couldn’t take down. Extending his Ultra senses, he found the group of humans imprisoned in the center of the spaceship, but only one alien.

An alien on a solo mission to take over an entire planet? Granted, the planet was less advanced technologically, but still—what kind of invasion was this?

One that had been devised by a society that reveled in pride, vanity, and cruelty, he realized. These were preening creatures who enjoyed terrorizing other lifeforms, thinking a species not yet capable of interstellar travel would be an easy conquest.

He moved through a long, dimly lit passageway, following life-signs he could sense from both humans and the alien, until he came to an open space with two large consoles. These were the spacecraft’s controls, he realized. Raising his hands to his lamp, he used the Emerium Beam to turn the consoles into scorched piles of junk.

With the controls gone, he found he could sense the Alien Cool much more strongly. It was hovering behind him in the passageway, he realized, and turned around.

No wonder the humans had been terrified, he thought. The alien was more like a grotesque insect or a sea creature that had escaped from a nightmare. And the Alien Cool knew it, reveled in it, even fed on it.

Anger surged in him at the alien’s contempt for the way it saw humans—fleshy beasts whose only purpose was to cower before superior beings like itself. He reached up to the crest-shaped Eye Slugger again and hurled it at the alien.

The alien didn’t try to dodge. It knew about Ultras, but apparently it wasn’t familiar enough with them to know what the Eye Slugger could do. Or perhaps it was so arrogant, it really believed it was invincible.

The Eye Slugger sliced easily through the alien’s body just above its staring eyes and then flew back to him. He watched the upper part of the thing’s body—all of its brain—topple away, leaving only those eyes, its tube-shaped body, and the six clawed limbs to sink lifelessly to the floor.

In the absence of the alien’s domineering disdain, the humans’ terror and desperation came through to him much more strongly. He ran along the passageway, following their cries for help until he reached a gigantic chamber with transparent walls.

All the humans who had disappeared were there, trapped in a zero-gravity environment. Some had been there for months; all of them were disoriented and confused to some degree and a few had lost all sense of time or place, unsure if they were even still alive. Anger surged in him again.

Two hands suddenly slapped up against the glass directly in front of him. ‘Is someone there?’ asked a young woman plaintively. Her face was only inches away from his, but she couldn’t see him, he realized; she couldn’t see anything. He put his own hands on the wall as if he were touching hers.

She looked startled, then pressed one ear to the wall. ‘I can almost hear you! Please, help us! Get us out of here!’

He tried to send her a reassuring thought, but she recoiled from the mental contact with a frightened cry. Withdrawing quickly, he searched the outside of the wall until he found a panel of unmarked controls in a vertical arrangement. There was no time for careful exploration; he pressed the top button.

Everyone in the room dropped to the floor as gravity was restored. The next button down turned up the lights and he found himself practically nose to nose with a familiar face—one of the police officers who had vanished only that morning.

‘Open the door! Let us out!’ he shouted. His thoughts shouted even louder.

The third button made the transparent wall disappear. The captives immediately rushed forward in a blind, panicky stampede and he drew back as they raced down the passageway, going back the way he had come, until they found the opening he had cut for himself. They didn’t stop to wonder where it had come from or why. In the distance, he sensed the approach of the Ultra Guard and the TDF.

Once he sensed they were all outside and a safe distance away, he allowed himself to return to Ultra proportions, punching out the top of the spacecraft. The screams outside became louder and he looked around, wondering if he had missed some other danger, perhaps another of the Alien Cool.