Tiara and the Comet Apocalypse

By Neil A. Hogan

Available in digital and in print

This is a work of fiction. An resemblances to beings living or dead is completely coincidental.

Part 1

Prologue

Tiara completed her circuit of deck nine in disappointment. She was bored. So very, very bored. She madly scratched her long black hair in frustration, and let out a loud exasperated groan.

It wasn’t that the massive white cruise ship didn’t have anything for her to do. Completely the opposite, in fact. 16 bars. 12 snack bars. Night clubs, gambling areas, gym, squash, bingo, and even a water slide. She was briefly tempted to join the 18-25-year-old singles party on deck two, but was sure that the people there would be just like every other person she’s met on the cruise so far.

Sheeple.

The ship was completely full of sheeple. Sheeple who like sheeple things. Following the crowd. Eating the same. Drinking the same. Watching the same TV shows as everyone else. Sheep-people.

She knew her parents were on deck five enjoying a morning coffee on their balcony while doing some crossword puzzles, probably arguing about the existence of UFOs or some other story her dad had made up to cover up his job. She still wasn’t sure what he did. Her brother was off with his mates watching sport and drinking beer, pretending to be stupid. They were just doing the same thing they did at home, just on a cruise ship.

What was the point?

She couldn’t believe how backward this supposed advanced cruise ship was. It reminded of the time she went to Coffs Harbour and suffered because all they had were continental breakfasts and meat-based traditional meals. Where was the Thai? The Sushi? This was one of the most modern cruise ships, yet she couldn’t even get sashimi and rice for breakfast? She clenched her hands. Another cruise she was going to starve on.

Unfortunately for Tiara, she was allergic to cow milk products. A blessing in disguise, really. While all her friends were overweight, she remained as thin as a rake. No butter, milk, cream, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream and more. She had thought for a while that she might have been allergic to gluten too but had found out that butter is traditionally added to ramen noodles to make sure they separate. So, she could have them, she just had to make them herself.

The worst was potato chips. She loved salt and vinegar potato chips, or crisps as some of her international friends called them, but many were being released by companies with milk as an ingredient. Used as a binding agent for the flavor, perhaps? So now she was extra careful in the supermarket.

She also had to be careful around some of the cheaper non-Japanese sushi stores. A salmon and avocado sushi roll sometimes turned out to be salmon, rice, a tiny bit of avocado, a glob of mayonnaise and a huge blob of butter. What was the obsession with putting milk products in everything, she thought despairingly. Don’t they know they didn’t have to have it past the age of two?

The worst thing was it wasn’t really lactose intolerance. Australian cows just created milk she was allergic to. She had found out, only recently, that she wasn’t allergic to some milk products from Europe. She wasn’t going to ask her dad to order some though. She could live without them, as long as there were plenty of sushi and sashimi available somewhere.

Oh, oh, she realized. She was spiraling again with negative thoughts. She couldn’t move to the next stage of her awakening until she had broken through these negative belief systems. ‘Cognitive Distortions’ her counsellor had called them. And she had had a lot.

She’d managed to get through ‘filtering’, ‘polarized thinking’, ‘overgeneralization’ and ‘jumping to conclusions’, but she was still struggling with ‘control fallacies’ and the ‘fallacy of fairness’. And don’t talk to her about ‘shoulds’! But she was getting better at addressing these misconceptions, and was hopeful she’d be a shining light for others in the future.

The counsellor had helped her realize that she was depressed about the past and anxious about the future, and many of her thought processes were related to the idea of not actually staying in the present – not staying in the ‘now’.

She’d also read that staying in the present was the best way to improve her outlook on life. Treat every day as a completely new day, unrelated to the day before and the day to come. If a friend of hers did something she thought was bad, and she felt betrayed, it was because she thought her friend should have behaved a certain way. But that was a belief from the past and it was going to affect the future, so she had to think of her friend as a completely new person every day, and not worry about the past or the future.

When she thought of it that way, that each day her friend was a completely different person and should be treated as such, it was easier to get over her obsession with how people should behave. Unfortunately, not having that molecule in her brain that put the brakes on perfect memory formation meant that she remembered everything that had ever occurred in her life, and was then also able to extrapolate multiple realities from it to worry about.

Tiara sighed again and shook herself, dislodging the negativity and feeling her vibrational frequency raise a few levels. Then she looked at where she had ended up.

In front of her were three short and thin grey aliens. Stick-like bodies, big heads and very large black eyes.

But she wasn’t surprised. More resigned to it.

She recognized them as being from the alternative Earth that had become so technologically advanced they’d practically wiped themselves out. They were tunneling through to different parallel Earths looking for fresh genetic material to reinvigorate their now cloned race. She wondered if the aliens that had been chosen to oversee this massive multi-universe project, the Zeta Reticulans, were about too. One of them was her future self from that world.

“Are you ready for the next insemination?” asked one of the aliens in her head, her large black eyes conveying combined love and concern. Tiara had long since got over the fear these aliens brought out in people so that they could help them face their dark sides, and simply smiled back.

“If I must,” she said in her head, back. “Anything to help save your race.”

The aliens nodded, circled her, then quickly reached out to hold her tightly, but carefully, then spun her at high speed.

She knew they were shifting her quickly into an alternate reality. Probably a vibration that currently overlaid the cruise ship.

She knew anyone new in her position would be terrified at their quick and seemingly cold behavior. But she’d known them for years and had been able to remember almost every encounter in that time.

Glad, she wasn’t feeling sea sick, she thought.

They materialized in one of the silvery grey rooms aboard the aliens’ IFO. She knew that the room probably had many different colors that were not visible to human eyes. It would be great to be tetra-chromatic, she thought. All she could see were shades of glowing grey everywhere.

The aliens let her go and Tiara shielded her eyes from the bright light, then walked over to the cold, flat, horizontal, metal bed frame. She looked distastefully at the stirrups where she knew she had to rest her legs on, apart.

She hadn’t noticed it before, thinking that the metal bed was completely blank, but now she could vaguely make out some shapes and structures in the flat area. Sensors. They were as grey as the metal around them but now she could see a very slight difference in greyness. Maybe some of her DNA was finally reactivating. Maybe she would become tetra-chromatic! She felt cheered up at that idea.

She shivered, rubbed her darkly tanned arms, then turned to the nearest grey. “You really should warm this room up, you know,” she said.

They didn’t seem to understand her quip and, instead, busied about getting her ready, gliding back and forth, placing their hands on blank white screens to read information, then gliding to another area of the room to check something else. They didn’t seem to be touching the ground, and had better control of gravity here.

Gravity, she thought, remembering another visit. Yes, they would lift her…

Tiara then felt herself being lifted up by the air, the consciousness of the ship and the hive mind of the aliens working together to make sure she was safe, and she was placed carefully on the gurney with her legs apart.

This was the uncomfortable bit, she thought, as the grey alien doctor carefully removed her pants and underwear.

“How many hybrid children have you created from my eggs now?” she asked in her mind.

Just then she realized a much taller, grey, almost insect-like alien, was present. One of the overseers. Her alternate self.

The alien version of herself did not call herself Tiara. The Zeta Reticulans were a hive mentality, all mentally linked with limited individuality. They were both curious and afraid of human’s individual natures. So, while they didn’t have names, if she ever wanted to identify a particular part of the hive mentality, she had a vibration to identify her with. The closest translation of the vibration was ‘Xeta’, which was easy to remember. Xeta from Zeta.

Xeta spoke in her mind. “247. Some though have less than 10% of your genetic material, so I’m not sure if you would consider them as your children. About 200 have greater than 30%.”

Tiara opened her mouth in surprise, then closed it again. 200 children in ten years! Oh, well. Perhaps she’ll make it into the Guinness Book of Records one day for having two hundred human-alien hybrid children.

“Thank you,” she said out loud. She decided that skipping over some time would be best at this point and shifted her thoughts away from the room. She closed her eyes and waited for the cold metal tools to complete the procedure.

Before she knew it, she was already dressed and ready to be spun back to the cruise ship. The aliens sent well wishes and thanks in her head. She looked down and was pleased to see they’d put her clothes on the right way this time.

She nodded at Xeta who sent her a vibrational feeling of thanks, then turned back to her work. A woman of brief words, she remembered.

Then the three short grey aliens surrounded her and began spinning her back to her place on the ship.

She guessed they’ll be back at the end of the cruise to remove the cells.

Well, she thought, closing her mind off to the aliens as she did. That’s what they think will happen.

Brigadier General Hazelnutcoffee, otherwise known as Haze to his friends, was a spritely 120-year-old representative of the secret Australian Military IFO service hidden underneath the Northern Territory. His job was to monitor the billions of alien ships crossing Australian skies every day, and alert various flight companies of any dangers. If any of the traffic became too solid or was likely to remain at the same vibrational level as this version of Earth for too long, he would be advised by his monitoring team and then he’d alert neighboring airports. He wasn’t sure of the use of the term ‘bogey’ as most aliens were friendly. However, that was the cover story and it sounded boring enough that anyone who overheard would forget it in seconds.

He checked in on some of the Homo Galacticus humans that were working around the Solar System. Ida was happily helping on Planet Elizabeth, a planet that had been brought here by a group of aliens in their 1600km ship as they travelled around the galaxy. Code named Alien Characters, there were millions of them, and each one was completely unique with an individual skill that complemented their mission of exploration. They’d helped Earth a couple of times in the past, and he looked forward to working with them again.

Gabriel was still on alternate Earth 347, a version of Earth that had suffered terrible nuclear war, and the humans there had had to genetically reengineer themselves to survive. The form of humans there were similar to the standard grey aliens that many around the world had seen during the genetic harvesting program to help save their race. There was a lot of confusion between the shorter alternate human aliens and the Zeta Reticulan aliens as most didn’t realize they were actually working together but had different responsibilities. The Zetas were overseeing everything on behalf of the cloned humans throughout the multiverse. An unfathomable undertaking. Gabriel was helping train some of the hybrid children in readiness for their eventual complete migration to Haze’s Earth in about a hundred years.

The genetic harvesting program was over in this time period but some individuals had still decided to continue to help, which really helped Earth’s vibrational ascendancy. Without these people sacrificing their genetic material, his Earth wouldn’t be able to shift to the reality it needs to for all humans to be at an advanced level. Certainly, not all parts of everyone’s DNA would be able to be activated in a lower frequency.

Gabriel was also doing his part by creating vibrational bubbles in various suburbs around the world, overlaying Haze’s Earth with the alternate Earth in certain places so that it was easier for people to cross between them. They now had three human/alien hybrid groups becoming acclimatized to Earth, and Haze had even gone to visit a couple of them. Arbor Lodge in Nebraska in the United States and Curzon Hall in Sydney. Both were incredible mansion structures containing many rooms and, as the aliens were on another channel to the humans that worked there, no one even knew the hybrid communities were there.

Gabriel had also fallen for a human/alien hybrid using the frequency name of Frangipani, so Haze knew Gabriel had moved on from his ordeal of a few months ago. He wasn’t sure Gabriel would be able to bring her back to this Earth yet, though. At this stage in Earth’s development, humans couldn’t even accept the idea of a relationship between a human and a dolphin, one of the other alien races on the planet.

We still have decades to go yet, Haze thought. He wouldn’t mind living a bit longer to see it happen.

Tiara was Haze’s latest ward and she had been doing quite well. Another future human, this one’s IQ was off the scale too. Her brain wasn’t capable of developing the way that was necessary if she had dairy so, during weeks where her brain wasn’t needed, they’d supply different types of snacks to the companies she usually bought takeaway from, and she’d get sick from the dairy, reinforcing her belief she was allergic.

Her DNA had been activated in such a way that she was not able to take dairy at all. It should just pass through, completely useless. So, not an allergy as such, just not compatible with her composition. She could handle small amounts as it would simply be flushed out of her system, but then she’d be eating less of what she really needed to eat to maintain brain health.

He swiped his hands over the 3D holographic heads up display above his desk to wipe it away and then put his hand into the space and opened it, activating all the cameras on board the cruise ship Tiara was on.

“Find Tiara Smith” he ordered.

The computer started scanning all the cameras but, within moments, concluded that she was not on board. Her particular vibrational signature didn’t exist anywhere.

Haze raised an eyebrow. “Superimpose vibrational signature for the Zeta Reticulan vessel,” he ordered.

The screen obliged, linking into signals from the Zeta Reticulan’s IFO.

Haze was very surprised to find that Xeta’s ship had actually landed within the atomic structure of the cruise ship. Essentially, they were occupying the same space and time but were of different vibrational levels, so neither could see the other.

“Well, well, well,” said Haze. “I guess harvesting at sea is easier than in the city of Sydney. They’re a bit early.”

He swiped a finger over another icon after locating both Tiara and Xeta’s signatures. “Mild stress levels,” he said aloud, reading Tiara’s vital signs. “Uh, oh. She’s suffering from severe boredom.”

That was bad.

He checked the time. 11.30am in Darwin so 1.00pm in Vladivostok. His counterpart should be awake.

Haze swiped a communications icon and the face of his Russian counterpart General Sergei, lit up the screen. Sergei was wearing a cute little hat, a red scarf, and looked like he’d added a beauty spot to his left cheek.

Unfortunately, Sergei fitted the usual Russian stereotype of a squarish face and jaw, solid shoulders and otherwise bulky features, so he was the most unlikely gay person Haze had ever met. Even so, many in the IFO were proud of Sergei for being himself and adding some color to their organization.

“I would blow you a kiss, comrade but I believe that is against protocol,” grinned General Sergei with a playful wink.

“Lol!” replied Haze, grinning back. “You’re such a tease!” Haze had been married four times but they played this and other similar games whenever Haze called Sergei up.

The game was over as quickly as it started and Sergei became serious again. “What can I do for you, comrade?”

“Tiara is bored,” said Haze.

“Oh, no!” said Sergei, waving his hand in surprise, then covering his mouth.

“Oh, yes!” groaned Haze.

“I’ll mobilize a team immediately,” said Sergei. “We have SUB on standby”

“Er,” said Haze. “A submarine?”

“Oh, darling, no!” said Sergei. “The IFO we reserve for underwater missions!” he laughed.

“Well, that’s alright then!” said Haze, laughing.

An eclectic crew appeared aboard the IFO stored under the North Pole near the underwater Russian oil refinery. Various IFO pilots and navigators from around the world flashed in, using the new flash technology that the Alien Characters had trained everyone on.

They’d all been given briefings and were ready to take up their appropriate posts.

While it would have been even easier simply to flash directly to the cruise ship, it was better that they all go in their own platform. Startling the passengers too was best avoided.

The IFO ship shifted to a vibrational level where outsiders would simply see it as light, then sped through the water at over 3000km an hour, passing through fish, rocky areas and ship wrecks on the bottom without touching anything.

In what seemed a few short moments they were at the cruise ship.

The cruise ship was at least 15 stories tall and about 20 stories wide. With a capacity for over 3000 people, it was good that they could track Tiara as soon as she shifted back to this reality.

They had to be quick. If her boredom escalated she’d start spiraling into further and further depression, and if she set up a major spiral of thoughts, her brain would be overwhelmed and completely shut down.

What Tiara didn’t know was that her brain was carrying a spec of dark matter encased in a protective field. If her brain waves dropped below a level great enough to maintain the field, the dark matter would be released and not only would she die, so would everyone on the cruise ship.

Not a good situation for a young girl to be in. Especially as, on paper, it read like a B-grade Hollywood movie.

General Novi looked at her readout and sighed. Of all the missions, they’d given the Government of Indonesia, this was going to be the worst. It was going to be terrible, frightening, distressing and she doubted that any of the crew on board would want to return after this one.

She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes in resignation.

This was going to be a disaster.

She couldn’t think of anything worse than having to entertain a teenage girl.

Tiara rematerialized near a cafe with the aliens spinning around her. As she solidified the aliens let go and she found herself alone, spinning in the middle of the walkway with two old people looking at her curiously over their spectacles. They weren’t at the vibrational level needed to have been able to perceive the grey aliens so Tiara smiled and shrugged at them and they returned to doing their crosswords, and drinking their expensive coffees out of cardboard cups.

One of the crew passed her.

“Good evening,” said the crew member whose name badge said Lafayette. “How are you? Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely,” said Tiara, putting on a fake smile.

The crew member returned the fake smile, nodding. “Very good. Good,” he said, continuing on his way.

Tiara went over to the map of the ship on the wall. She was on deck two in the forward section. She needed to go aft to deck five. She had a stateroom next to her parents and she was sharing with her older brother, but he was rarely there so it was a great little retreat from everything.

She took the lift to deck five and took the long corridor of cabin doors to her stateroom. Taking out her ship pass key she wore around her neck she slotted it into the door, fumbling a bit, and pushed hard to get the door open.

The cruise ship was slightly tilted making the door heavier and it was a bit of a struggle, but she made it inside.

The grey’s implanting procedure had been over quickly, but her body was suddenly adjusting to the sudden need to create nutrients for the growing cells, and she felt overcome with tiredness.

Tiara didn’t feel like eating and, as her meeting with the aliens faded to nothing but a dream, she passed out on one of the single beds to the slow rocking of the ship.

She knew she would remember again what she had to remember at the right time.

“Awooga,” screamed the mp3 alarm. “Awooga!”

“Can someone shut that bloody thing off,” yelled General Novi.

She was shocked to see on the monitor parts of the cruise ship projecting into the IFO’s navigation room at the front and parts of Xeta’s ship splintering through the aft section.

How did this happen?

“Report,” she yelled.

An Indonesian helmsman near the front named Setiawan turned around and looked at the others. No one was willing to give a report, so he sighed and went over to her.

“General Novi, ma’am,” he said, saluting. “I’ve gathered as much information as I could. Both IFOs have merged almost identically, but I believe the ships have merged front to front, so the navigation room for the Xeta’s is on the other side. Reports indicate that, even though our vibrational frequency was not the same as the cruise ship, when the alien craft stepped down to our level, as it were, it actually passed through our frequency. Both our IFO and the alien IFO tried to reverse the conflict at the same time, resulting in both of them auto-cycling through a number of similar vibrational levels and getting stuck on this one,” he handed her a tablet with a spiky graph on it, still fluctuating.

Novi glanced at the readings. “A thousand vibrational realities in a Planck second,” she said. “Is there any precedence for this? Has this happened before?”

“We actually don’t have any record of any historical occurrence of anything similar,” said Setiawan. “The Alien Characters reported a merger of Alexander’s Moon and their Planet Elizabeth about a year ago which they were able to reverse, but they had a lot of help and the space bodies were huge. I’m not sure how stable something as small as our three vessels could be in comparison.”

“Casualties?” asked Novi, almost tentatively.

“No reports, yet,” replied Setiawan.

Novi nodded.

“Well, I guess Tiara is not going to be bored now,” said Novi.

The Malaysian operative grinned, then hid the grin. It probably wasn’t funny yet. “Very good ma’am,” he said.

But now, they were all trapped. The cruise ship, the Australian Military IFO and the Zeta Reticulans IFO. How on Earth were they going to be able to separate the ships?

Channel One

Tiara had just passed out with tiredness and was dreaming of having hundreds of strange looking children around her when she suddenly awoke to the feeling of something in her room.

She looked in alarm at the spike of some kind of silvery metal poking out of the middle of the air. The metal seemed to just sit there and, when the wall vibrated, the spike vibrated too, as though the spike was really in the wall, but with a piece missing. A piece that was no longer in this reality, but still connected, somehow, between the floating spike and the wall.

It was making her head spin just to look at it.

Just then her stateroom intercom rang. She pressed a tab and the screen lit up to show the black hair and darkly tanned skin of her brother Noel’s face. He looked concerned.

“Hey sis,” said Noel. “A massive wall has cut me off from our deck. I’m going to have to go and find another way back. I’m using my mate’s com so if you get any messages from mum and dad, forward them here.”

“A wall?” asked Tiara.

“Probably aliens coming for lunch,” said her brother with a smirk. He still didn’t believe her.

“I have a large metal spike floating in the middle of the room,” said Tiara. “It’s not attached to anything in this reality but it is definitely not moveable. And I can pass my hand between it and the wall. You could be right.”

“Ah huh,” said her brother looking away at something and not really listening. “Got to go!”

Her brother walked away from the screen and it disconnected.

She looked around the little stateroom. Two singles beds with towels folded in various animal shapes positioned on them. A mini bar on the left and the intercom/TV tablet panel on the right. Before her was a tiny little shower/toilet cubicle that contained a really cool handle that told you what temperature mix your shower was on.

She still felt a bit groggy, lazy and lethargic or, as her friends would say, ‘burrgh’ so checking out the metal wall could wait. Maybe she needed a shower.

She undressed, gathered her showering things, and before getting into the shower, reached over and turned the tap on to get the right mix before getting in.

Nothing happened.

She waited. There was a gurgling sound, then nothing.

Perhaps that wall had cut off the pipes too. Lucky the room phone was Wi-Fi, otherwise she would have been cut off from everything.

Suddenly there were three spurts and liquid started to come out of the wide shower head.

But it wasn’t water.

She stepped back in horror knowing exactly what it was. She’d seen it enough times in jars and various growth tanks.

Hybrid alien fetus amniotic growth fluid.

The brownish-green goo oozed pungently out of the shower head and dripped to the floor, splattering in little sunflower shapes as it hit.

But that wasn’t the only reaction turning on the tap had caused.

The unexpected situation, and the spike in adrenaline, had begun a process that always alarmed her.

Her brain power was suddenly increasing.

It was as though a motor was being revved, and then her higher IQ centers went into analysis mode. Suddenly she could see all the details of the cuts in the tiles and could analyses the composite structure immediately. Thoughts began appearing in her head as though scanning the interior of the shower.

Igneous composite, limestone, sandstone, glaze firing at 360 degrees heat, sealed with epoxy resin, imported from Portugal…

She shook her head and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to be overwhelmed with data.

Then her brain started analyzing the smell of the fluid. She grimaced, and backed out of the room. She already knew what it was made of and didn’t need to review that data again.

But wait, she could use her heightened senses for something else.

She turned to the spike hanging in the air in the middle of the room. This time she could see the energy field surrounding the spike. It was definitely projecting from the wall, and somehow it wasn’t a spike.

She opened her mouth in surprise at the information she was discerning. It was part of a saucer ship. A sliver.

The spike was merely the ripple of a sine wave across the matter from that reality.

If it was a ripple, then that ripple must continue within this reality.

She looked across the room to the cupboard and opened the door. Another spike floated above one of the shelves.

Her stateroom was on the very edge of the saucer ship and a ripple of the surface had appeared within her reality, and it wasn’t going away.

What could have caused it? The spinning back to this reality? No, the spike had appeared later.

Had space folded somehow? They weren’t anywhere near the vortex of the Bermuda Triangle.

She scanned the rest of the room and realized that the spikes led out to the doorway.

She was about to open the door and run down to have a look when she remembered she was still undressed. That would have surprised a few people, she thought.

Quickly dressing in a comfortable blue vertical-striped dress and dark brown shorts, she opened the door and saw more of the spikes stretching across the corridor.

Her stateroom was on deck five on the odd side of the corridor, about half way down. A few doors down, the corridor took a turn and that was where the balcony cabins were. These were now blocked off by more and more concentrated chunks of metal floating in the air, that ended in a metal wall where the ship had shifted almost completely into this reality.

But there was something else. Some other thing that she was missing.

Then she realized. The colors were different. Where the spaceship had begun to solidify, there were actually different grades to the steel, as though the metal had meshed together somehow, but parts of it didn’t belong.

She carefully pushed herself around the floating chunks of metal, being careful not to bump too close to any that looked like sharp edges into this reality. As she got closer to the combined metal she realized that it was only her perception that was combining them. Obviously, they were two completely different realities superimposed on each other and her eyes were blurring them together.

Two ships! And she sensed that one of them was older.

She wondered where the second ship had come from and why it was here.

She grinned, thinking about what her brother had said. “So, definitely aliens then!”

Tiara carefully moved back to where her room was, left a voice mail on her brother’s mate’s room’s phone, then headed out in the opposite direction.

She wondered what her brother would make of the message.

Noel looked in awe as his tattooed hand passed through the metal. Maybe it wasn’t there? But it seemed to get thicker the further he went in.

He didn’t yet know how to explain it. Anything involving the slightest bit of intelligence he tended to leave to his sister. He liked sport, booze and women and he wasn’t about to give that up. He looked at the skull tattoo standing in stark relief against the faded metal. He was tired of the tattoo now, and every time he saw it he thought of getting rid of it.

He shook his head. Back to the metal.

The metal was cool, calming, but strange and he suddenly felt relaxed, shifting into a slightly dazed and drunken state, watching his hands dance in the cloud of grey.

He’d had a free ride with his parents. They’d invested in property in the 80s, following the famous American financial guru Robert Kiyosaki, and had made quite a bit of money in Australia. Not as much as Robert had done due to the differing laws in each country, but enough to be pretty well off until retirement.

They’d wanted to put Noel through university but he couldn’t see the reason for it. Like Tiara, he thought there was no point in learning stuff at Uni from people who learned stuff at Uni. It didn’t make sense to perpetuate knowledge just for the sake of it.

Instead he’d simply decided to reject any study and stay perpetually drunk.

He knew, though, that his IQ was almost on par with Tiara’s. He had been playing dumb for years and, after several days of binge drinking on the ship, he was starting to believe it. There was something comforting about alcohol that deadened his anxiety. Though, not drinking for a while set him into introvert mode and depression again so he usually ended up drinking again.

After a few years of this, maybe the alcohol would have destroyed enough brain cells that he would become blissfully unaware of all his worries. He doubted it though. It was going to take more than alcohol to drop his IQ from 160.

His mate was just behind him. He kept him around as someone he could emulate. It was really hard being a bogan without a guide.

He pulled his hand out of the metal and realized only seconds had passed. There must be some kind of time delay on the end.

“Hey, mate,” said Davo. “This is brutal, man. I dunno what we’re going to do. Maybe we crashed into sum fink.”

“Yeah, bro,” replied Noel. “You’re right. You’re a genius aren’t ya.”

“Thanks mate,” Davo looked quizzically at him trying to work out whether Noel was teasing him or not, then forgot what he was thinking. “So how do we get around it? Stairs?”

“I checked that,” said Noel. “The wall stops at the edge of the landing so there’s no space to go to the next flight down. I guess we could climb the banister.”

“Oh, what? Like Mr. Bean?” Davo said.

Noel laughed. “You remember that episode! I’m impressed!”

“Aw,” said Davo in disappointment. “Now you’re just teasin’ me.”

“No,” said Noel, punching his arm. “Not a bit of it. Come on, let’s go back to your room and see if there’s a message, and then we’ll try another way.”

Back at the room Noel pressed the voice mail icon on the comtab and waited for it to connect to the database.

A message from Tiara.

“Noel, you’re right,” her compressed recorded voice said. “Definitely aliens. Two alien craft have merged with the cruise ship. It’s dangerous but humans just don’t have any kind of technology capable of helping them. I just hope they can work it out.”

Noel nodded while he was listening. Davo had his mouth open, trying to take it all in.

“So, she does know aliens,” said Davo. “I thought you’d been teasing me.”

“You’re my mate,” said Noel, slapping him on the shoulder. “I do tell you the truth, sometimes!”

“You’ve been teasing your sister about it for years, but.” said Davo, suddenly more sober than before.

“I didn’t want her talking about it,” said Noel. “I guess the time for talk is over.”

He reached over to the tray on the shelf where two large bottles of water from the mini bar sat and took them both, handing one to Davo.

“Water?” said Davo, looking at the bottle with distaste.

“We need to be on our toes now, mate,” said Noel with a grin. “Time to be sober for a while.”

They went back outside into the corridor with their bottles, hoping to find a way around the wall. Noel knew if he could get some people together they might be able to help. Or at the very least, support each other.

“Hey, did you try the lift?” said Davo.

Noel looked at him incredulously, then felt stupid. Logically he had assumed the lift wouldn’t be working. But he didn’t try it.

“Mate, you could be on to something,” said Noel. “If the comtabs are working, maybe the lift is too!”

“Right!” said Davo.

They headed to the lifts in a vestibule next to the cabin corridor, and Davo pressed the up button.

Suddenly there was a loud grinding/shearing noise as though something was cutting through sheets of metal, and then silence.

“Oh well, worth a try!” said Noel, realizing bits of metal were holding the lift between floors. “Let’s follow the corridor and see if we can’t get to another set of stairs or lifts somewhere.”

Davo nodded. They headed down the corridor, Noel deep in thought. Aliens! This will be fun!

He wondered what Tiara would be doing on her end.

Tiara walked around the ship. Everything was silent. Everything seemed dead. Where was everyone?

She went to the piano bar on deck three. The chairs faced the windows with the backs to the room and the soft lounges were lined against the walls facing inwards. The window shutters were drawn so she couldn’t see out. Not the most comfortable design.

No one was there.

Next to the piano bar was a water feature. A large stone statue with water running down the side. Well, it would have had water running but it seemed as though the water had stopped. Only brownish green goo was coming from the pipes.

She pinched her nose and walked past it.

There was a tiny chapel for Christians but there was no one in there either, though that wasn’t much of a surprise it not being a Sunday.

Down the steps and around the fountain from the chapel were old style chairs with metal arms and tiny tables that fit a coffee or two but not much else. The walls were a stylish brown with little carved faces in the wood-like fixtures.

This lounging area stretched for meters in both directions. The ship held thousands of people so there should have been at least one or two people nearby. There was no one.

She walked a bit further and found herself in the casino. The casino area should have been buzzing with people. This was the most popular area for people to while away their time, losing lots of money on chance. There should have been crowds but, again, there was no one.

Where had everyone gone?

Maybe everyone had been called to the muster stations, as two alien ships inside the cruise ship would be cause for an emergency evacuation. Tiara quickly ran to muster station C but, there was no one waiting. She went through the sliding doors and looked at the life boats. They were still in position. The cranes hadn’t moved them. Though it was hard to see much as it was dark.

Her brain whirred again and possible reasons flittered across her mind. She saw one that was the most likely and caught it.

She covered her mouth after considering it. What if the ship hadn’t merged with the IFOs? What if the ship had actually shifted to the realities the IFOs were in, and left the people behind? In the water? And only those closest to the rim of the IFOs and within that area survived?

She was very disturbed by this idea and hoped it wasn’t true, but then she realized she’d missed something.

Slowly she turned back and looked out past the life boats in shock.

It was night, and the waves had stopped moving.

Channel Two

General Novi had called a meeting. This kind of situation was way beyond anything they’d experienced before. They had no way of separating the ships as the vibrations had locked and were resonating together, but the connections were unstable. Some parts of the ships were not connected at all. Others were merged inseparably. If they tried to start the power again to surround the ship in hyper light and take it out of this reality, they were going to bring the other ship along with it, and perhaps cause more merging that could result in deaths.

The only hope they had was to get the other ship and their ship to work together. Novi just hoped that it would be possible to communicate with the Zeta Reticulans and the alternate Earth humans. Individuals working with hive minds? Could be problematic.

“Right,” said Novi, looking at the crowd of people with her. “You know the situation. Our main goal is to try and find a way to meet Xeta and her crew and work together with them to separate the ships.”

“But, what about Tiara?” asked Setiawan, concerned. “Her dark matter energy could blow at any minute!”

“If she’s started investigating this situation from her end, her brain’s power will have strengthened and the dark matter would be heavily shielded,” replied Novi. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I have been trying to establish a telepathic link with the aliens without success,” said a small, slightly overweight bald man, rubbing his head. “It’s almost like my signal is being interfered with.”

“I’ve investigated where the metal walls end in the hope that we might be able to find a way in,” said one of the engineers. “I’ve located an exit to the cruise ship here but no entry to the spaceship on this end. I believe we might have better luck entering from outside.”

“Station a guard there immediately,” said Novi. “We don’t want random people stumbling into our top-secret space craft!”

“Already done, ma’am,” said another operative.

“Excellent,” said Novi. “What about the ship’s status?”

“We’ve lost access to half the ship,” replied one of the pilots. “That includes access to the kitchen. In the short term, we’re going to need food and water so going onto the cruise ship is also my recommendation.”

Novi nodded. No one else had any reports so she said “Well, unless there’s something urgent…” No one said anything so she continued. “Commander William, arrange three teams for exploring the decks. Take three decks each. Spend no more than one hour and come back to me. If you find food, grab what you can. Cruise ships have plenty so if the food is available they won’t miss it. To start with, I’m pretty sure this cruise ship has 38,000 frozen eggs available. That’ll keep us all going for years!”

“Very good ma’am,” said William. He stood up and pointed at various people in the room and within moments the teams were together. Moments more and they’d left, heading to the particular decks assigned to them.

Novi hoped they would find an entrance to the other UFO. Failing that, some scrambled eggs would be nice.

Commander Warren Jones approached the area where their IFO and the cruise ship had merged. The cruise ship carpet seemed to grow into the stark metal corridor, and the walls seemed like they were overlapping, the IFO metal dripping into a kind of non-space.

“Careful of the edge of the metal,” said Warren. “It might be infinitely sharp.”

The teams stayed away from the walls and kept close, taking careful steps forward behind Warren.

Warren got to the edge of the door and stopped. There seemed to be a barely visible flicker in the air between the sections.

Was it safe?

He took out a mismatch of items that on first glance looked like a string-wrapped bottle cap and an old apple. The strange shape was attached to a piece of string, one end of which Warren held onto while he threw the rest through the doorway. The apple and bottle cap seemed to move a bit slower through the air at the doorway but landed safely without any change. He then pulled them back through and looked at them.

“Even though parts of the ship don’t exist in this reality, moving between realities seems to be safe,” he said. He knew everyone had already figured that out from his experiment but he thought it best to say it out loud anyway. “Let’s go.”

The crew moved out into the corridor, getting a shiver as they passed through the flickering air, then collected into their three separate groups.

Group One was to take decks one to three. Group Two; four to six and Group Three; seven to nine. There was a partial deck ten and eleven but they suspected that those decks would either be empty or not relevant anyway so didn’t assign anyone to investigate.

Warren looked over his motley groups. Scientists, technicians, researchers and astronomers, each group with a military representative leading them.

He couldn’t see how this would end well!

“Just a reminder,” Warren said. “Your group leader makes the final decision on everything. For your safety and security when they say jump, run, stop – whatever it is. You do that. No arguing about it. You can argue later AFTER your leader decides you’re safe. If you don’t obey your leader, you may not be able to argue about it afterwards. Understand?”

The non-military crew nodded.

“Excellent,” said Warren. “Let’s be off.”

The teams headed out with Warren leading his to the nearest stairs up. They were going to deck nine first and will work their way down.

Novi kept monitoring the movements of her crew through the ship. She could get blurred readings of energy blobs but not much else. What worried her was that she was only able to detect her crew’s energy blobs from the tracking devices they all carried. If there was anyone out there a bit crazy wanting to hunt them, she couldn’t warn them. The system’s infrared detection was not working so she had no idea whether all 3000 or so passengers were nearby or not.

She tried again to contact Haze but all she got was static. The merger may have damaged their external communication system. Not good.

She saw that William’s team had reached deck nine and called him.

“Status?” asked Novi.

“We’re on what looks to be a buffet deck,” replied Warren. “I’ve looked in the rooms behind each of the food counters and there’s no food stored anywhere. Interestingly there aren’t even food marks or dirty plates or streaks on utensils. Not even oil on the stove. Is it possible this is a new ship?”

“It’s been at sea for three days now,” replied Novi. “Unless they have some kind of organic, demolecularising microwave system, I suspect something else is going on here.”

Novi thought for a moment.

“Slight change to the mission,” she said, patching the other group leaders into the communication. “In addition to trying to find a way to contact the aliens in their ship, look for a way back into our ship that will get us to our kitchen.”

The two other group leaders confirmed and began looking for other ways into the IFO.

“General Novi,” said Warren. “Why don’t we just call Brigadier General Hazelnutcoffee and have them send another IFO to collect us?”

“I haven’t been able to contact him,” said Novi. “And I don’t think it’s a problem with the connection.”

Warren was silent. “Very good, ma’am,” he said, disconnecting.

Novi sat in silence in her empty navigation room, looking at the gleaming bright white panels waiting for input.

If they couldn’t find anyone and they couldn’t communicate with anyone and they couldn’t separate the ships, they would die here. That was certain.

But she didn’t want anyone to be thinking about that. Not yet, anyway.

Warren called his team together. They were surrounded by some creative crisscrossed metal artwork dividers, punctuated by little blue balls throughout. There wasn’t much in this section besides empty food trays and oval plastic plates next to buckets of pairs of utensils wrapped in napkins.

The group looked about concerned. No food and water. Not a good situation. They had even tried the coffee machines but even these didn’t contain any coffee beans. And not being able to find any crew or guests meant there was a real possibility they were on some kind of ghost ship.

“We’re heading to the middle section now,” said Warren. “There are glass lifts going through to deck two of the ship, so we can see whether the lifts will be safe or not, just by looking at them.”

“Aren’t we just checking nine, eight and seven?” asked Rupert, a small, wiry man with a thick black moustache and unruly hair. Their astronomer.

Warren indicated a woman in her 50s with her grey hair tied back in a bun. “Helena has checked. Just corridors of guest rooms. I’m guessing that as she was able to walk through decks eight and seven and do the entire circuit, that the IFOs are confined to somewhere between decks one to six. The other team will update us.”

“All rooms were unlocked,” said Helena. “No one about.”

They began walking around the various tables, chairs and lounges used for guests to eat their lunch, and headed to the center of deck nine where the glass lifts awaited. There was a wire banister that wrapped the center and it was possible to see all the way down to deck two where there was a bandstand and a bar on one side, opposite the dance floor, just before the lifts.

The glass lifts were stationery on deck two, like half diamonds studded with lights on all facet corners, projecting from the walls.

Helena went over and pressed the call button for one of the lifts which immediately started sliding up the wall to them.

Then it vanished.

“Oh my God!” said Rupert.

“Wait,” said Warren. He had already guessed what was happening.

Moments later the lift reappeared, continuing as though nothing had happened from deck seven onwards.

“The IFO is invisible from here!” said Rupert, understanding.

“That’s why we can see all the way to deck two, even though the IFO is right underneath us,” said Helena, understanding.

The other team member, a brown-haired portly man with no distinguishable neck, who had been silent for a while, spoke up. “I’ll do it,” he said.

If Sebastian had been military, Warren would have simply indicated for him to go. But Sebastian was a statistician and taking these kinds of risks wasn’t his job.

“Thank you for your offer, Sebastian,” said Warren. “In this case, I’ll be doing it. You watch from up here and keep in contact with command. I’m going to get off at one of the stops. If I don’t return within about half an hour, contact the General and head back the way we came.”

With that, Warren set off for the lift. The doors had already closed so he pressed the button and they opened again. He then went inside and pressed a round, metal, touch sensitive number, and a red light came on indicating the lift would go there.

Well, that’s a good sign, he thought.

The lift doors closed and he looked through the glass at his team watching from the metal fence. Then the lift smoothly departed, sliding down the wall towards the invisible space ship.

He had no idea which IFO he would be able to enter but he’d chosen the most likely floor for entry. Deck five. From the schematics of where the ships merged, their shapes were similarly positioned but on opposite sides. If the IFO wasn’t upside down the lift would be closest to the navigation room for Xeta’s IFO.

His only concern was whether the lift passing through the different vibrational levels to whichever ship he reached would rip him apart.

He knew he’d soon find out.

Channel Three

Xeta, also known as Alien Tiara, looked about her command deck with excitement, her wide black eyes taking everything in with intense curiosity. Somehow her systems were not disengaging from the vibrational level of the other IFO. Somehow the light pulse had merged the IFOs and the cruise ship. Somehow, her normal constant connection with other Zeta Reticulans on board had been disrupted. It was all quite thrilling, though her face remained its normal passive expression.

She knew there was no such thing as an accident, however she had no idea how this interesting development would play out.

Reports had come in that there had been a minor rupture in the amniotic fluid tank for the hybrid babies. The rupture was not enough for the liquid to pour out as much as it had. It was like the cruise ship was so desperate for organic material that it was sucking it out of her ship like a black hole sucks matter out of the universe. There were also parts of the ship where the catalytic chemical containing bovine serum, that they used to activate certain Annunaki switches in the DNA of the hybrid babies, was also being sucked through. What was the cruise ship, or more likely, the vibrational fluctuation in this area, trying to do? Was it some kind of organic reaction?

There was also a lot of interference with the ship’s senses and it was difficult to get information, even through telepathic connections. Two of her close hive had been attempting to reconnect with the higher consciousness of the vessel without success. Thankfully, due to the rupture, and the organic matter spreading through the cruise ship, they were able to use the amniotic fluid as a way to gather information.

Humans had been able to leave their IFO and there were about 15 of them wandering the ship. In addition, there were about five guests on board, including Tiara. She had no idea where the other guests had gone but, with so many vibrational levels intersecting, she assumed they were on another channel somewhere.

Scanners indicated that most of the food and water had disappeared from the cruise ship too. Simply absorbed or converted somehow? There were a few bottles of water lying around in cabins close to the IFOs so the humans would at least be able to survive, but she didn’t feel there was enough for a long period. Without H20 most of the humans would certainly die within a week. She could teach them how to absorb energy from Source which could give them another week but it didn’t look hopeful.

Xeta looked at her wall where a piece of the cruise ship was showing through a vibrational tear. Large hydraulic cables hung limply against a rectangular section with a couple of doors. She knew this must be what lifts look like from the inside.

Suddenly the hydraulic cables started shifting side to side, and a bright glass capsule slid through the shimmering edge to be directly in line with the doors closest to the floor, then stopped.

Inside was a human from the other ship. He turned and looked through the glass, down at the navigation room from his capsule, saw the five Zeta Reticulans including Xeta, then waved.

Xeta held up her hand then put it down again.

Obviously, the human wanted to meet them, but she wasn’t sure whether that was going to be a good idea or not. Exciting, but perhaps not a good idea. What could they do to help anyway?

But she knew the human also had a bigger problem. The lift capsule could see into the navigation room of their spacecraft, but the doors led out to the cruise ship. He had no way of getting in, or even communicating with them.

Xeta looked at her control panel, then at the other Zeta Reticulans in the room. Communication quickly passed between them. She knew what she had to do.

She picked up a laser pistol, pointed it and fired.

Xeno, also known as Alien Warren, heard the explosion from his communication room. He quickly came running, knowing that he had been here for a reason and he also knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his reason for being here was this moment. He couldn’t check with the collective unless in their presence so had to trust in his intuition.

The current gravity didn’t allow him to glide so he took quick strides in his long, thin grey body and rushed into the navigation room.

“You’re right!” said Xeta in his head.

Buzzing with excitement, Xeno ran over to the human who was crawling out of the broken glass of the lift.

“Thank you for letting me out, or in, as it were,” said Warren, with a smile. Then he saw the large black eyes, big head and long grey body of the alien that was helping him to his feet, and opened his mouth in shock.

“You recognize me,” said Xeno in his head, his big black eyes glinting kindly.

“I had no idea I would meet my alternate self today,” said Warren.

“The universe is full of surprises,” said Xeno, as Warren straightened up. “I knew to be on this ship without really knowing why. We need our human counterparts to be able to communicate easily. You and I will be the conduit between the ships. You can call me Xeno”

“But I’ve never done telepathy before,” said Warren. “How can I be the conduit?”

“You’re doing it now,” said Xeno, his thoughts in Warren’s head smiling. “Just meeting each other opened the doors, crossed the vibrational threshold where contact would be possible.”

Suddenly a new voice entered the conversation.

“It’s great you too are getting along,” said Xeta. “Now, what do you think we should do about separating the ships?”

Warren looked confused. “I don’t think we have the technology,” he said.

“You do,” said Xeta. “But it is our combined technology that will help. Though, as the problem was made at this level, we somehow need to raise ourselves above it to take us out of the problem.”

“We need to work together as a team.” said Warren aloud.

“Yes,” said Xeno. “Humans, grey humans and Zeta Reticulans working together may be enough.”

“I must get back to my ship and convey all this,” said Warren, excitedly.

He stumbled through the broken glass and twisted metal and climbed back into the lift, then pressed a button.

Nothing happened.

“Ah,” said Xeta in everyone’s mind. “There was a chance that that might happen, or not happen, as the case may be.”

Warren turned and looked shocked.

Now what were they going to do?

Channel Four

Brigadier General Hazelnutcoffee sat in his plane, and his pilot invisibly swooped them over the cruise ship. It was several hours after the IFO had disappeared. The sun had just come up and he could see that already everyone seemed to be having a great time, now that the Anzac Day ceremony had finished. He knew the sun wouldn’t be out for much longer. The cruise ship would soon be heading into the rainy weather attracted by the islands.

While watching the ceremony he had had a tear in his eye for his mates who’d lost the fight in the Boer War, World War I and World War II as well as some friends who’d gone to Korea and Vietnam, and never came back. He’d met them all in their new lives again, of course, but while you might have an infinite number of lives throughout the multiverse, you’ve only got one ‘person’ life, so there was some regret knowing those persons only existed in the past.

Haze knew his pilot had been his superior in World War I as Sergeant Terrence Nation and was very pleased when he came back as Pilot Roger Blake. He didn’t talk to him about it though. Best not to disturb this life with memories of previous ones.

Haze sighed. That was the problem with being 120. He had outlived almost everyone. There wasn’t anyone left, besides a Japanese man named Hirohito who had tortured him in 1945. They’d resolved their differences years ago and occasionally drank sake together, but Hirohito was so filled with guilt at what he had to do to some prisoners at that time on behalf of his military commander that he was staying alive to punish himself. Haze had no idea how many more decades he would live for, suffering in this life. He had forgiven him long ago. Haze felt sorry for him and wished him a safe journey when he finally decided to choose his exit.

Haze snapped out of his reverie and looked at the people on the cruise again.

On the top forward deck was the gym and he could see people happily pedaling away and running on the equipment.

Just behind that was a swimming pool with two bars and a spa. People were lying on deck chairs, kids were splashing each other with water and families gathered around tables eating and drinking.

There were two sections like this on that deck, then past them, up a level, were two waterslides with queues of people laughing and taking turns on them, with family and friends recording everything on their mobiles.

At the back was another bar which also had spherical napping areas, sun chairs and hammocks. This was also filled with people.

Haze still felt surprise at this. It all seemed so normal. He had not believed it when he had heard and had to go here himself to check it out.

The blip of their IFO and the blip of Alien Tiara’s IFO had simply disappeared, just as they were changing their vibration.

His scientists had guessed that the IFOs had attempted to engage their hyper light reality shifting systems at the same time and had somehow attracted themselves to each other – Novi’s ship being pulled into the exact vibrational location of Xeta’s ship.

The thing was, they had both vanished. Tiara with them.

The plane swooped around the side of the ship, looking for some kind of reality tear or vibrational shift, but there was nothing. It was as though nothing had happened.

Well, something had definitely happened, and Haze had to find out what.

The ship was coming into the harbor of Mystery Island and would require tenders to take passengers to and from the island. Haze would land on the Mystery Island airport runway, a large patch of grass the size of a football field, go through the island, and grab a ride to the ship. No need to alarm anyone, and the Captain was already aware he was in the area, so he’d get on board pretty quickly.

Quietly surveying everything happening on the ship though might be a bit harder.

There had to be something, some kind of bridge or connection to the channels that the other IFOs had disappeared to. And why weren’t they able to contact each other?

Haze rubbed his chin. It was going to be one of those days, again. If he couldn’t get an answer he would have to call in the Alien Characters.

Captain Lorenzo looked at his intercom system in surprise. The system didn’t even have a recording device attached. How was it possible that it kept playing the same message over and over?

He looked at his first officer who shrugged. “It’s a mystery, captain,” said his officer with a smile.

“I see. A joke, ha?” said Lorenzo, scratching his balding scalp and adjusting his glasses; his deep accented voice echoing in the wheel room. “You come up with a better answer, yes?”

The first officer coughed to disguise a laugh. “Yes, Captain. I’ll look into it.”

“Good. Good,” the Captain replied. He checked his watch. The message will play again on the hour, and they were no closer to solving the mystery. Any minute now.

To be continued

Tiara and the Comet Apocalypse Digital

Tiara and the Comet Apocalypse Print