Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

Saying goodbye to her native forest, the fox slipped into the bushes. North it was. There was no need to put something off until tomorrow when you could have done it yesterday.

No one noticed that the ruffled crow was left sitting on the tree. Her plans for revenge had failed so suddenly… If the fox could do such tricks this easily, her retaliation would be fantastically terrible, with salvation not possible. She had to run! Or rather, to fly! To quietly disappear from this forest and settle in a distant and secluded place. Somewhere with no fox, no stupid sparrow with an even more stupid skull on his head, no elusive food.

When the ship disappeared in the clouds, the crow looked sympathetically at what was left of the wolf. A piece of scorched earth and a handful of ash covering the ground with a thin layer. The crow cawed goodbye, flapped its wings, and slowly flew north.

The crowd heading north had no idea about each other, and they were moving toward Kashchey’s castle, the safest place on the planet. No sane creature would ever look for the fugitives there. It was too life-threatening. And Kashchey was unlikely to pay attention to a lone tenant among his possessions.

If they were lucky.

The captain stopped at an altitude of three miles and stared sullenly at the control panel. He didn’t want to look at the green forest beneath him. The primitive inhabitants of this world were idiotically brave and reckless. The unintelligent species were just the same. A savage civilization. Like an epidemic of some kind…

“Of course!” It suddenly dawned on the captain. “It’s not microbiological expertise! There’s a massive occurrence of rabies!”

“So, I have to check the health of the local population, to identify the causative agent of the disease, if any, synthesize the drug, and cure the local forms of life!” And then he would emerge dressed in a white suit and declare himself their savior and master. It was a lot of work, but the result was worth it!

The ship hovered over the village and released a probe with a micro-robot. The captain decided that he shouldn’t risk it by personally roaming this location. One never knew when someone was going to attack. These beings definitely would.

The probe flew down, and the captain stared at the monitor.

“The village,” he muttered disdainfully. “Primitive economics at the dawn of civilization. No automatic devices, no gas and electricity, and in the eyes of the citizens, the road is the direction in which they move on one half-dead horse. But they are angrier than the entire Galaxy!”

Gradually, though, the captain began to realize that what was happening at the bottom did not correspond to the usual village life. Almost no peasants were outside, and those who occasionally appeared disappeared back in their houses as quickly as they left them. The modulator of a straight-through image showed that people in the houses seemed to be actively preparing themselves to something. They were building something akin to a defense system, but against whom? Neighbor versus neighbor war?

It felt like something big was coming.

“Like I said, they are mad!” the captain grumbled. In case some native ceremony was going on, he turned on the recording equipment. But the captain had to wait for the development of events for so long that he almost dislocated his jaw from boredom and yawning. He perked up only after receiving the first data from the micro-robot.

The data showed that the inhabitants of the area weren’t particularly sick and weren’t planning on becoming sick in the nearest future. Moreover, they didn’t suffer from any health problems at all. This wasn’t an accident. The natural conditions here were just perfect. Especially for an interplanetary resort.

“By the way, yes,” the captain said thoughtfully. “It’s a long way, really, but it’s worth it. The composition of the air… The composition of the soil… Other rubbish… Hmm… Nothing significant. Nothing bad, that is. Then why the heck are they so crazy?!”

The computer could translate the local language, so the captain started reading the printout. It was mostly a meaningless chatter, but there were slips indicating that the organisms whose existence was dubious could attack the village at night.

“What a joke! Getting ready for a battle with non-existent enemies! I can’t miss this! What a funny planet. There are either psychopaths or crazed folks here. Oh! I’ve figured out how to make them obey! I’ll create holograms of monsters and arrange a light show, and then I’ll drive them away and make the locals worship me as their savior!”

It wasn’t all that difficult to become the master of this primitive world. Ha! The evening couldn’t come fast enough.

How many hours did the local day have, a hundred and fifty or something>?

When the sun went over the horizon, the captain was already exhausted from the tedious waiting. The holograms he had created were projected onto the surface of the table in a reduced size, but even in this form, they were truly repulsive, if not terrifying. The captain pressed the button, and the holograms disappeared from the table, being projected all over the ground in the size of the average person now. Another button, and the figures moved to the village in a disorderly crowd.

The captain rubbed his hands in glee. Watching the phantoms approach the village, he imagined how frightened the villagers would be, unable to hold back his chuckles. Because of this, he didn’t immediately notice that a crowd of no-less strange creatures had casually joined his phantoms. An impartial computer immediately analyzed the aliens and transmitted the data to the printer. The captain looked up, surprised, and took the paper from it.

What was the matter? The text was printed automatically only in case of emergencies!

The captain quickly looked through the first lines, then returned to the beginning and started to read slowly and carefully. As he read, the fun wore off, and in the end, his face showed not just fear but actual terror. He turned his eyes to the screen and turned cold, seeing what an ignorant person would have probably found funny. The vampires were trying to pounce on the phantoms. They jumped through them, turned, and pounced again and again, not understanding what was happening. The phantoms were calmly marching toward the village as the vampires were trying to bite their neck or hit, acting crazed now. Their efforts didn’t bring any results.

The captain tried to read the text again but failed. His hands started trembling more and more, the letters jumping in front of his eyes.

“It just can’t be!” he exclaimed. “They were destroyed thousands of years ago!”

Space plague, the inhabitants of dark worlds, alien parasites from an ancient star, the cruel vampires… and they were quietly living on this god-forsaken planet!

“No! No! No!” the captain kept repeating frantically.

In the great deadly war that had once involved hundreds of star systems and required a truly cosmic effort, an innumerable amount of parasites was destroyed. Everyone believed that the vampires went on living only in the memory of the winners.

But the computer data showed it clearly. The vampires had managed to survive, had somehow flown to this insignificant planet in a remote part of the Galaxy, and quietly existed here until today!

“How did they escape?! The planet must be destroyed! Blown up! But with what?! I have to hurry back home! I need proof! To provide some documented evidence!”

The captain threw the paper on the floor, bent over the computer, gave it the order to destroy the phantoms and turned on the recording. He’d have to sacrifice a few natives to shoot a scene with hunting vampires.