A Midsummer's Night Over Maitland

Can’t believe I was put on this ship. How hard could it be to find an idiot lost in a wheat field?

“Aras?”

And why did he allow that fool on the ground anyway? Something’s up.

Did you not understand my command?”

Aras flipped away her long, pink hair, continued collecting data and half-heartedly rotating the search rays. “What was that?”

Commander Naros sighed. “I heard your thoughts. In the very least, can you keep them more hidden? I will command you again: Do not keep the search rays too long on any particular area of domesticated flora. The agrarian chiefs might become aware of your sweep.”

Aras rolled her eyes and returned to the virtual module. “For the zillionth time. They are called crops. And they are not chiefs. They are farmers.”

The commander looked back at the Science officer, perhaps to confirm a witness to Naros’s incredible disrespect. Unfortunately, Science officer Hadras was busy acclimating the dimensional wormhole just above their ship to the time imprint of July 4, 1926; the time-warp fluctuations greater than anticipated.

It’s all that freak’s fault anyway.

Commander Naros snapped his head back. “What did you just think?”

Aras grinned. She scratched her pink hair into a frenzy; some strands stayed aloft in the air by static. And then she thought again: Allow me to reiterate: I-declared-that-your-partho-lover-is-the-reason-why-we-are-in-this-mess… Got it?”

"How DARE you!” Commander Naros slammed his thin fists against his chair. “Do not blame Iros! Iros is without blame!”

“Iros is without blame?” Aras pushed her stationary field brace away and stood up; the virtual module disintegrating into a million specs of white light. Against the ship ganglia’s loud warning: Prsnl not fstnd! Plz retrn to yor seat!

Aras leaned over the commander and mocked, “’Do not blame Iros! Iros without blame! COMPUTE! COMPUTE! What are you, some kind of imbecile android?”

"Do not…and I mean Do-Not-EVER talk to me like --"

“—You!” She pointed her purple-nailed index finger towards the commander’s angry, swollen face; her black, ripped T-shirt drooping around the neck to reveal a Sex Pistols tattoo along her collar bone, “You and your idiot thing down are screwing with my investigation. I told you…

Prsnl not fstnd! Plz retrn 2 yor seat!

…I need this report to graduate!”

 “I am your commanding–!”

“–Not to mention we are breaking every time breach rule in the freakin’ universe–!”

Prsnl not fstnd! Plz retrn 2 yor seat!

“Please return to your post, Aras.” Science Officer Hadras laid her gentle hands on Aras’s shoulder; her thoughts as calm and pure as a shot of Venusian palm sap.

Prsnl not fstnd! Plz retrn 2 yor seat!

“I promise,” Officer Hadras continued with a motherly nature, “No dimensional harm has been appropriated to the inhabitants, or to us. We are well within statistical error of space-time fluctuation. Please, Aras.”

Prsnl not fstnd! Plz retrn 2 yor seat!

Aras bit her lip, tried not to stare too deeply into the Science Officer’s sympathetic eyes. The last thing she wanted was to be calmed of her growing hatred towards this idiot Iros Ninars! I’m on to you. Before the ganglia could warn again in its annoying squeal, Aras returned to her seat and sunk her head into the newly formed module as the stationary field brace quickly wrapped around her thin body. She tugged on the collar of her black leather coat, further burying her head into herself; her head feeling like it wanted to explode!

The commander cooled in his seat. “Officer Hadras, I will not continue to allow this…supposed Anthropologist to speak to me in that insubordinate manner. Will you continue to help maintain order on my ship?”

“Understood, Commander Naros.” Officer Hadras pacified. “We are all worried for Lt. Commander Zaros’s safety. We are in an unprecedented situation, yet not a hopeless one.”

Aras lifted her head; her face still hidden behind a mop of pink hair. “I’m not worried for that parthenogenetic freak. I’m worried for me.”

Commander Naros slammed his tiny fists again. “How dare you call Iros that filthy name!” He looked back at Officer Hadras. “She used that word again, Laras!”

“It’s true!” Aras screamed, flipping her hair back; her scowl a fracture of antipathy. “You gave birth to your own lover, who happens to be YOU!”

“Aras! How could you make such an outrageous statement?” Officer Hadras stepped between them. “And to your commanding –”

“Hear me out, Laras. I just finished comparing his iDNA and full genetic binding algorithm with that idiot’s down there. Ganglia! Send to Officer Hadras file “Aras666thedevilisafreakafterall” and tag with the 4^th Layering Mapping App. See for yourself, Laras. It’s all true!”

For the first time on the mission, Officer Hadras appeared tightlipped.

Commander Naros sunk in his chair.

“Look, look. It’s all true.”

The commander glowered over his module and into the glassy imprint of the Canadian night sky lit only by the stars and the effervescence of the ship’s now stalled conical rays lighting up an untilled field to the north.

“Yes.” Aras grinned. “Please look. Look through all the layers. It’s a fun trip, Laras. Lots of interesting shared traits between our valiant commanders. So obvious, too – and with scientific exactness that he fell in love with his own offspring, because he is a conceded ass. And a freak.”

“Enough!” Officer Hadras called out; her eyes condemning Aras like the guilt of a mother. “Why must you keep using that word, Aras? And surely you are not prejudiced against same-sex unions? We are too advanced for that kind of incoherent, biased ­–“

“What? Of course not!” Aras swiveled back and forth in her chair. “I am biased against Parthos who are asses and who take their own genetic and neuro codes and who grow their bundle of mutations into a man and then who makes that bundle of crap his lover. Ick. Gross. FreaK!”

“I have had it Aras! I will lock you up in detention the next time you say anything more about Iros or me! Do you understand me, Aras? I will also make sure the IDIOM and your Anthropological Holders have your credentials stripped and eternally removed from every report that you have written. Every conversation in this ship has been recorded, and I will upload to every university in the system for their enjoyment. Now, shut up and get back to your sweep. Get back to your sweep!”

“Do as he says, Aras,” the weakening Officer Hadras tried to calm, “Please.” She briefly looked back at her pinging station. “Once we locate Lt. Commander Zaros, we will be well on our way to your period of study. Patience.”

She did as she was told…for a few arcs. She was so bored. She was so over this! We can time travel. Aras fumed; her thoughts now more carefully secured. We have virtual equipment and partially digital spaceships. She rotated the ray beams along a dry creek bed along yet another field for signs of a big-headed, thin-armed, Gray-hominid hybrid… We have telepathy. We are 256,000 years ahead of this century in evolution and hybridization and yet we can’t find a parthenogenetic freak prancing among Canadian wheat? Enough!

“Commander Naros. May I ask you, sir, a question on your scheduled missions?” She did not wait for a response. “When we do find the lieutenant,” Aras continued in a ludicrously amble melody, “and I pray we do; in reflection of the allotted time we have spent in his search, will I be given the remainder of the mission to devote to my investigation and withhold further investigations of crop…disturbances?”

The commander gazed in her direction, but he did not really look at her. “I am not certain. I will make that decision when I deem necessary. Please continue your sweep towards the northern growths.”

“Oh! I knew it!” Aras swirled her chair around towards the stilled commander. “You are the one who decided on this itinerary in the last second so your Partho freak can record stupid crop circles –“

“Oh, Aras.” Officer Hadras shook head, yet looked on intently.

“Oh, did I say crop circles? I meant to say ‘alien disturbances in domesticated flora’.”

The commander tapped his fingers on the console. “Is there a point to this latest outrage?”

“Huh. Oh yeah.” Aras replied. “And then you illegally…immorally allowed that idiot of yours to investigate a crop circle on the ground. And against all universal rules of engagement!”

“I am the commander!” He pointed his finger at her but pulled it away quickly. “Do you not comprehend that fact? I do have the right to send parties to the Earth, at time periods approved by either IDEM or IDIOM or IDOM. Certainly, you have no say in how I operate this ship or its assignments. Laras!” The commander called out to Officer Hadras, yet she returned to her scope too late.

“Yes, Commander?”

“Do you sense as I do that our Anthropologist is jealous that I did not send her down to Earth?”

“Uh–yeah. Like I want to wander Maitland, Canada on a midsummer’s night.”

“Why not? A supposed expert on Mid-Hominid culture?” He scanned Aras up and down with intended, if clumsy, exposition. “You seem to only care about one particular generation and its slang and harmonic declarations…and seem hardly an expert on anything else mid-hominid. A shame. Your obsession is hardly a generation worthy of such sacrifice and study. More like a cultural deviation than a vital period in our development–”

“–I’m going to break your arms off! And feed it to your face, man!”

“Aras!” Officer Hadras called out, but strangely kept to her post.

“Enough.” Declared the commander. “One more insubordinate offence by you, and I will place you in detention. Get back to your assignment! I have already decided to knock down your investigation by one full arc. Care to push me further?”

Aras shrugged with a sarcastic smile, but returned to staring at her virtual module. A few arcs post and a dozen sweeps of the rays across the Canadian plains, Aras grew only more furious as she realized her investigation time was but a mere four full arcs remaining. Another sweep, another delay. Another sweep, another delay. Ugh!

Can someone please tell me why he was not wearing a recon-badge anyway? What a morto.

“I said to keep your thoughts to yourself.” The commander reiterated. “Understood?”

“He does has a recon badge, Aras.” Officer Hadras belatedly responded as she recalculated the dimensional field above the ship. “He reported his location twenty miniarcs post. There is interference from our own time-warping. We just need to be patient and keep to the sweep.”

“On that,” Commander Naros smirked, his spirit seemingly more upbeat and confident, “Lt. Commander Zaros informed me before he departed to the disturbance in the domesticated flora that this culture is celebrating their independence period. He advised that we should blend in with their explosive displays using our cloaking, if need be.”

“We cannot cloak when we are enveloped in our time-warp.” Officer Hadras interjected, kindly.

Aras deadpanned the commander. “Duh.”

“As I was about to conclude,” the commander continued, “We are sitting raw in the atmosphere at the moment due to time-warp fluctuations. So, I suggest that you, Aras, mimic the explosive displays with our search rays.”

Officer Hadras glanced over at the commander, but said nothing.

“What?” Aras asked, truly confused.

“The displays. The explosive light…utilized to celebrate. The potassium nitrate-based composition these hominids –”

“Fireworks?”

“Yes. Those. Why don’t you try to mimic them with your search rays during your sweep? Rotate them, you understand… Split them into two or three sources… Maneuvers such as those, intermixed to confuse them.”

Aras gasped and studied the commander. “You understand that we are over Canada, and not the United States.”

“Yes. I am aware.” The commander returned to his monitor, initiated a slower east to west trajectory for the ship.

“The Canadian Independence Day was the First of July.”

The commander shrugged. “Does not matter. The agrarian chiefs and their families will most likely assume we are late celebrators. Do as I command.” He turned and stared directly into Aras’s small, yellow eye-shadowed eyes. “Do it now.”

Aras placed her elbow against the ship’s console, rested her chin in her hand, and almost admired the commander’s brain fog.

“Craaaackle.” She said as she swiped her hand far to the left, sending the ray beams across the fields to the east scaring, and then scattering, four horses from their sleepy stance.

“Wizzzz.” She announced and then swiped her hand to the right, sending ray beams to the west across a wooded hill-scape; the acres of oak leaves a deep green mass in the light.

“Boooom.” She concluded and lifted her hand up, shooting the ray beams skywards where the beams emptied into the vacuum.

Commander Naros folded his arms and cocked his head as he watched Aras repeat the maneuvers. Before she could start a third round, he declared in a rather confident boom of his own, “Aras Hipas. Under my command, you are relieved of further duties on this ship. Your POI investigations of New York City and London, England, circa 1981 through 1984, are now placed on hold for the remainder of this mission. You are now a passenger and guest. Sit back and enjoy the rest of your visit. We have a vessel of Venusian palm sap in Rec; why don’t you go back there and choke on it.”

Aras tried to push stationary field brace away, but the ganglia was wise to her noncompliance. “Let me the hell out of this freakzone!”

The ganglia released her, but only because Commander Naros gave a nod to the ganglian monitor. Aras brushed off the imprint of the field braces from her arm, walked up to the large observation window, and looked out over the dark plain where the St. Lawrence River dissected the earth in a curving sliver. She leaned her arm up against the cold window; her metal shard bracelet falling down her arm with a disharmonious cling. She stared at the bracelet as the sharp edges dug into her skin. It isn’t true. She thought; what the commander had said. She was interested in all generations of Mid-Hominid culture. She only dressed this way to honor her subjects. Of course.

“We’ve located the lieutenant!” Officer Hadras called out; her excitement unwarranted as far as Aras was concerned. “Please lower the ship at these coordinates, Commander; we may lose them to the warping radiation.”

As the ship instantly lowered and hovered over a ranch house where a corn field stretched just beyond its porch across an eternal plain, Aras unzipped her leather jacket, felt for the small chip between her breasts, rested her weary head on her arm, pressed the chip and rotated her finger clockwise, and exhaled a long-winded sigh.

“End transformed status.” She whispered and, within a milli-arc, her pink hair disintegrated and her bare head swelled to near twice the size. Her eyes, too, enlarged two-fold, turning glassy and dark as they rotated and stretched to almond-shaped masses. She then felt her frayed blue jeans and shiny black leather jacket and droopy T-shirt disintegrate, leaving her entirely nude.

She found herself counting the tiles on the rooftop of the ranch house before she realized a mid-hominid had come out from under the porch…her hair bundled in thick, gray curls…her floral gown dancing in a constant breeze. The mid-hominid then placed thick lens onto her face and, as she pointed up, held a hand over her mouth as she and Aras fixed their gaze on each other. Aras thought to wave, but she hadn’t the interest. She so wanted to record the Cure playing in New York. Or maybe see that red-haired, mid-hominid sing her Sweet Dreams declaration.

I based this short-short on an interesting post by writer Xavier Ortega detailing a series of UFO sightings that occurred in 1926. Made me laugh when pondering what the heck was going on in that spaceship!

( http://www.ghosttheory.com/2015/09/08/maitland-ufo-lights-a-close-encounter-in-1926#disqus_thread )