Timothy Callahan

Incident On Rygel IX

Just another, old, short story I thought I'd share.

Incident On Rygel IX

By Timothy Callahan

 

    I can't believe I saved the world, and this is the thanks I get? Major John Rammos thought as he stood in line at the supermarket. A line he'd been standing in for the last 45 minutes. A line he got into because he thought it'd move faster than all the other lines. A line that was supposed to be the express line.

    "Register three open!" He heard and looked. He saw the light above the register turn on and like moths the group of people behind him rushed over to the light, and the newly opened register.

    Anger quickly built up inside of the Major and he took a deep, calming breath. I should be the first one in that line, those people behind me weren't in line nearly as long as I was, and now they'll get out before me!

    His line inched forward ever so slowly, while the line next to him seemed to zip along as if there was some sort of super-checker at the register. He was tempted to move to the other line when he realized that he was next after a rather large, burly woman.

    The burly woman in front of him searched her pocket book. "I'm sorry, I know that I had the cash. Do you take checks?"

    Rammos sighed.

    She turned to him, "do you have a problem?"

    Deep breath, Rammos thought. "No problem at all. You just write that check for a dollar thirty three, go ahead, I'm in no hurry."

    "Good." She turned back to the cashier.

    Rammos followed her gaze to the cashier. This was the reason he saved the world, for beautiful woman such as her.

    She had blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her face, young and full, held two of the brownest eyes Rammos had ever seen. The store uniform she wore did little to hide the athletic body underneath. Her nametag read Cassandra. Major Rammos wished he were 50 year younger just so he stood a chance at such a lovely vision of a woman.

    Yeah, he thought. What would my pick up line be? "Hey baby, did you know that I saved the world?"

    "Oh really?" He imagined her reply.

    "Yup, it was on this little back water world called Rygel IX."

    "Please, tell me more!" In his mind he saw her big, brown eyes fixated on him with undeterred attention.

    "Oh, it was nothing. You see, the Rygel's, this worm like race, wanted to destroy the Earth with this massive ray, well me and my company stormed the base, took out the leader, and destroyed the ray. It was nothing really, I mean, all in a days work for the IA."

    "The IA? What's that handsome? Oh, and I want to sleep with you once you tell me."

    "Oh, you will after I tell you. The Intergalactic Army, very top secret, very hush, hush. In fact, just telling you this will mean I'll have to kill you, after we make love of course."

    "Oh, of course, I'm sure that after we make love I will never be able to fulfill myself again, so death is the only option anyway."

    "Sir?" The brown eyes woman said, "Sir, you're next."

    Not realizing that he was daydreaming so hard, Rammos blinked twice. "Oh, sorry." He said and put his groceries on the conveyer belt.

    He watched as she scanned each item. He was sure he looked like an old fool, standing there not moving when the rude woman in front of him had left.

    "Oh shoot." She said.

    "What?" He asked, looking at her confused face.

    "The system just went down again, it's been doing that all afternoon. It'll take a few moments for it to come back up."

    "Oh, okay." He replied and stood there, trying not to stare at the girl. The imaginary conversation he had with her ran through his head again. A wry smile formed on his lips and he thought, what the hell. "Say, did you know that I saved the world?"

    With a smile she replied, "oh really, How did you do that?"

    "You see it was on this little planet called Rygel IX, probably never heard of it before, huh?"

    Her smile broadened, "no, can't say that I did."

"Oh yeah, it's near the crab nebula. You see, they had this weapon of mass destruction and they wanted to use it on Earth, they wanted to destroy us."

"Why would they want to do that?"

"They were assholes." He replied.

    From behind him he heard laughter, the people in line were listening in on his conversation. Cassandra giggled. "Is that it?"

    "I'm sure there were other reasons, but that's the one I like to go with. Anyway, my company, we stormed the main base. Oh, it was a massive fire fight, see, I got this scar," he rolled up his sleeve to revile a small scar on his upper arm, "during the fight. We took out at least 200 of them before we could enter the base. Once we did we met even stiffer resistance."

    "My goodness, it's a good thing you weren't killed."

    "Oh, they tried, but in the end, we made it to the gun. Just me and Jack."

    "What happen to everyone else?"

    "Sadly, they were killed." Maybe he put too much emotion in his voice, maybe his eyes just dropped a little too far because the reaction he got from this girl wasn't one he was expecting, she stopped smiling and looked sad. "Anyway, so Jack and I, after killing the Rygel's in the room, went to work on the ray. I mean, we shot the crap out of it, blew it to bits! There by saving the world!"

    Cassandra, once again smiling, clapped. "Thank you sir, I'm glad we have people like you saving us from alien destructors."

    "For a pretty thing like you, it's worth it."

    "Thanks." She shyly replied as her register came back to life. "Your order is up, that'll be 15.98."

    He gave her the money and after getting the change grabbed his stuff to leave. The girl touched his arm, "that story isn't true, is it?" She whispered.

    "No," he whispered back, "just the ramblings of an old man with too much time on his hands."

    She nodded, took her arm off his, and said, "thanks anyway, you know, just in case."

    "You're welcome, you know, just is case." He winked, and then left the supermarket.

Things that make sense to me: Renewable energy

I sometimes picture God up there in heaven, looking down on us, complaining to any angel that happens to fly by saying, "I give them wind, the sun, tidal waves, and geothermal and they still insist on using the stuff that I specially placed deep underground for their energy. Geez, what else do I need to do?"

That's how I see it, God placed all the oil and coal underground because he didn't want us to use it, just like we place poison on a high counter top so our kids can't get to it.

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if the companies that run the world had, when they first started, put their money and power toward the renewable energy resources we have on the planet. Imagine if, 100 years ago, Henry Ford thought, "I wonder if I could get this car to run on water instead of gas?" What if Thomas Edison thought, "Hey, I bet we can set up some wind mills to power this new light bulb thing I invented."

During the turn of the last century coal, gas, and oil were the best way to create the power that was needed and we never thought we'd need another way. It seemed limitless and abundant but now we know better so, shouldn't we be working harder to figure out how to use the sun to power our cars? How to use the tides or geothermal energy to power cities? The oil and coal we dig up won't last so wouldn't it be smart to look elsewhere?

I know we're trying and I think we've got a good start with hybrid and electric cars but really, that's just a small start. We're decades behind where we should be at this point in history. I've heard that the oil, coal and natural gas left could last us for another 100 years. I've also heard that we've reach the peak and we'll start to run out by 2020. I'm kind of hoping that it's 100 years because I'd like to believe by 2111 almost everything will be run on renewable energy.

I sometimes wish we had continued the research started in the 1970's during the energy crises. That really should have jump started the move from oil to other forms of energy but, thanks to some very smart oil people, it didn't. The companies that owned the oil fields saw what was happening here and decided to increase production of oil, lowering the price, making the government wonder why they should pump billions of dollars into renewable energy when we had plenty of cheap energy coming into the country. Look how well that turned out. It seems we're paying the piper now and it'll only get worst.

I remember when gas cost a dollar a gallon, that's when I first started to drive about 10 years ago. Now, 5 bucks a gallon doesn't seem that crazy at the rate gas keeps going up. We almost reached that a few years ago and we've come close a few times since then. I guess nothing jump starts a need for new energy sources like money.

Energy creation has always been hard on the planet and on us. When all we could burn was wood it caused entire cities to burn to the ground. Once we found other means it made some people insanely rich, and made some countries insane. I do often wonder if the Middle East didn't have so much oil would it nearly as important? I don't recall my history perfectly but I know that area has always been important for trade routes and spices and stuff but without oil would we really even care? I see that area as being just another Africa. You see, there are a lot of bad dictators in Africa but we really don't seem to care since those countries can't provide us with anything we really need If Libya didn't have oil riches would we really be bombing them? Well, maybe but I doubt it. Energy, the ability to have electricity so we can watch our TV's and gas so we can drive to the bar, that's what it's all about.

We need energy, we need it to run our lives. Energy creation provides billions of dollars to our economy in jobs, labor and taxes. How many people does it take to bring one gallon of gas to our country? What would happen if that just went away. I'm all for renewable energy but there does seem to be a dark side to it too. What would happen to our social and economic structure if, all of a sudden, everyone had a solar panel and windmill on their roofs providing energy for their homes and electric cars?

I see a future where power plants are located on the coasts; I figured that's the best way to get three out of the four major renewable energy sources easily. Wind, sun and tidal power. If you happen to be here a hot spot all the better, you can have all four! The power companies will still charge you for the service, only it would be simply to help upkeep the equipment. Would that make it cheaper? Probably but would they charge you less? Probably not. No company wants to drop prices if it they can avoid it, that includes the power plants.

I also see a future where gas stations are a thing of the past and instead you'll have charging posts along all the highways. Imagine that every few miles you see a charging station, which I see a simple pole with a solar panel and maybe a small windmill, high in the sky absorbing light and wind. You pay whatever they'll charge (would it be by the kilowatt or a flat rate? Not sure yet) it charges your car in less than a minute and you're off again. Hopefully the batteries in the future can charge the quickly.

I also see that the battery will be small enough to take out of your car and plugged into your home outlet to charge overnight. I've read stories on how people are experimenting with all kinds of ways to produce electricity, from photosensitive paint to cloths that, when you move, generate a current. Than would be really cool for your iPod, just plug it into your shirt and start walking!

But to get there we need to start now. My vision is at least 100 years away, I'll probably be dead but I would die happy if I knew we were heading there. It's going to take a huge reconstruction of our power system to get to that point and we need to start now, not tomorrow, but now.