The Young Dictator Read online

  Albert put the general objection into words. “On many other occupied planets, there have been attempts to oppose the reign of Genghis Kan’t. A few weeks ago, a world orbiting the star Polaris sent a message declaring their refusal to pay taxes to him. And guess what happened to them? They were all bounced to death on trampolines.”

  Gran considered this and said, “Yes, that does sound savage, but if you remain pacifists then you will always be trodden upon. Trust me! I won’t let you down. I’m a superb strategist.”

  Albert blinked. “You won’t let us down?”

  “That’s what I said!” said Gran.

  The Vegans began chattering together. Finally Albert said, “Very well, we agree to let you lead us. But you do promise that we will win and that none of us will be maimed or killed?”

  “I promise! On my word of honour!” shouted Gran. Then she turned to Jenny and winked at her. Jenny frowned.

  “What do you want us to do now?” Albert asked.

  “Just obey every order I give. We will start preparing tomorrow. I am going to train you to fight like a proper army,” guffawed Gran, “but first I want you to bring me wine and sweets!”

  “Certainly. As much as you desire!” said Albert.

  “Oh, I want a lot more than that!”

  Albert hurried to fetch the food and drink. Gran called after him: “And then I want you to dance for me. I want all of you to dance for me. And I want you to dance all night long! This is the start of your freedom! I will give you back your dignity, my friends!”

  The Vegans cheered, but it was rather a quiet and uncertain cheer. And Albert had a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that they were about to swap one horrible dictator for another.

  It took several days of preparation and training before Gran announced it was time to launch a raid against the nearest enemy garrison. Weapons of extreme crudity but lethal effect had been manufactured and the Vegans had practised using them until they were competent. At least that’s what Gran told them, but in private to Jenny she was less full of praise for the skills they had managed to acquire.

  “Some of them still don’t know one end of a spear from the other. It’s a good job we have the advantage of surprise,” she said. “That’s one of the best weapons a general can have.”

  “Are you a general now?” Jenny wondered.

  “For the time being,” said Gran.

  On the fateful night chosen, Jenny and Gran led the commando unit of handpicked Vegans on the raid. In fact every Vegan from the settlement was involved. Gran explained that most of them were ‘cannon fodder’ but didn’t bother to clarify her meaning.

  Across the dark terrain they prowled, towards the enemy camp, which was a cluster of tents and temporary sheds five miles north of the village. A fence protected this outpost and inside this fence stood three dented but big and powerful spaceships. Gran paused.

  “Sentries!” whispered Jenny.

  Gran nodded. She signalled for half the Vegans to creep towards the sentries on their bellies through the gloopy shadows and attack them as silently and efficiently as possible, while she guided the remainder of her force around the fence to the far side.

  “Those saps are our shocktroops,” she said to Jenny, but when Jenny asked for more details, Gran only said, “They are troops who have got a big shock coming to them, that’s what.”

  Jenny frowned and she must have looked uncomfortable because Gran leaned closer and added in a soothing tone, “Don’t worry, dear girl, they are expendable. I know it’s hard to be tough sometimes, but really it’s the best for us all. Now get ready to run.”

  “Run? But we haven’t been defeated yet!”

  “In that direction, I mean!” Gran pointed at the spaceships. “Our main objective is to climb the fence and steal one of those vessels. Can you see how they are bristling with ray guns? We can destroy the entire garrison if we can get control of heavy weaponry.”

  “I get it,” said Jenny. “While the shocktroops are creating a diversion, we will be doing the real work here.”

  Gran patted her on the head. “My old friend Bony would have enjoyed working with you, I’m sure of that.”

  Jenny blinked. “Who was he?”

  “Napoleon Bonaparte. I knew him well a long time ago. He conquered many lands and crowned himself emperor. When he was starting on his career as a military genius, people would often ask, ‘Do you think he can conquer Europe?’ and they would also ask, ‘What’s his nationality?’ and I found a way of answering both questions with a single reply. ‘Course e’ can,’ is what I always said to them.”

  Jenny looked blank. “Um.”

  “Don’t you understand?” asked Gran.

  “Not really,” said Jenny.

  “Well, look him up on Fascbook when you get the chance. He’s worth having as a friend, I assure you.”

  “I will,” promised Jenny.

  Gran smiled. “Good. Now let’s concentrate on the task in hand. When the sentries notice our shocktroops, we must run and climb the fence. Are you prepared? Any second now…”

  There was a screech of outrage and a muted battlecry from the Vegans on the far side of the camp. The sentries had noticed the figures crawling towards them and were shooting at them. The Vegans were standing up and throwing their spears in return.

  Gran bellowed, “Run!”

  And Jenny found herself lurching over rough ground.

  Floodlights snapped on.

  The terrain was bathed in a harsh glare.

  Jenny tried to control her breathing and then suddenly she had reached the fence and had climbed over it. She dropped down, bending her knees and landing lightly. Then she sprinted towards the nearest spaceship. She felt exposed in the bright illumination.

  Gran overtook her. Something hissed past them and burst into flames. The enemy soldiers were firing at them!

  They reached the spaceship and raced up the ramp.

  “Inside! Quick!” barked Gran.

  She had managed to get the airlock open. Jenny followed her within. A Vegan tried to join them, but Gran pressed a button and the door closed in his face, slicing off his mouth.

  Gran sat on a chair facing a console, took hold of a lever and pulled it. Up rose the spacecraft, hovering above the camp. “Let them have it!” she called to Jenny, nodding at a ray gun.

  Jenny positioned herself on the gunner’s seat…

  Aiming carefully along the sights, she pressed the trigger. A blast of energy tore into the nearest tent, vaporising it in a blue flash. Keeping the trigger depressed, Jenny raked the sputtering beam back and forth across the enemy troops who were scuttling ineffectually towards the spot where the spaceship had stood. They vanished.

  Puffs of coloured smoke swirled where they had been. “Don’t forget to laugh as you slay!” suggested Gran.

  “Ha, ha, ha!” responded Jenny.

  “Put a bit of zest into it, my girl!” snapped Gran.

  “Muwahahahaha!” tried Jenny.

  Gran nodded. “That’s better. Direct the beam onto the sentries who are fighting our shocktroops,” she added.

  “I don’t think my aim is good enough. I might kill our own soldiers as well as the enemy,” confessed Jenny.

  Gran shrugged. “So what? That’s why they are there. To be sacrificed. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and I know what I’m talking about. I was hatched from one.”

  “You’re right,” said Jenny. She aimed at the sentries and blasted them and the shocktroops into oblivion. Then she destroyed the remaining tents and huts and picked off a few soldiers who were attempting to sneak off into the darkness. Gran was delighted.

  “Now we can land again,” she said.

  The spaceship settled down and the airlock slid open. Jenny and Gran emerged to congratulate the battered survivors of their little army. “We have won a great victory!” cried Gran.

  A very small cheer rose up from the Vegans.

  Some of them were missing ten
tacles and other body parts. A few had collapsed onto the ground and were unmoving. Blood was everywhere. A stench of charred flesh wafted up.

  Albert said in a cracked voice, “What shall we do now? Genghis Kan’t will be furious when he finds out what happened here. He’ll be certain to send a fleet to take revenge on us.”

  “Then we must pre-empt him,” replied Gran.

  “What do you mean exactly?”

  Gran indicated the spacecraft. “We now have three battleships at our disposal. We must use them to attack all the other garrisons on this planet and steal even more spaceships.”

  “And then what?” Albert persisted.

  “We will leave this world and fly off in different directions and create rebellions on other planets, as many as possible, and slowly increase our numbers until we can launch a direct assault on Genghis Kan’t himself on Bellatrix Three. My friends, you are going to be free whether you like it or not! Jenny and I will lead you into a new chapter of your destiny. The old Federation is dead! Long live me!”

  “Long live you?” questioned Jenny.

  “I meant long live us!” said Gran.

  The Vegans applauded her speech, but when tentacles are clapped the sound isn’t as encouraging as hands.

  The rebellion spread rapidly. Gran was insistent that no prisoners should be taken. Every enemy soldier must be annihilated, she said. Jenny was a little unsure of the wisdom of this at first, but finally she conceded that they didn’t have the resources to keep captives. Simply out of necessity it was advisable to slaughter them all.

  “It’s called giving ‘no quarter’,” explained Gran.

  “I hate fractions,” said Jenny.

  “That’s why I don’t want you to give any.”

  “I won’t,” promised Jenny.

  And she was right, she never did. Soon the rebels had the enemy on the run, forcing them to retreat to solar systems nearer to the main base of Genghis Kan’t on Bellatrix Three.

  It was a busy time for Jenny and Gran. Despite all the excitement, it was hard to keep awake sometimes.

  “I’m exhausted,” Jenny admitted one afternoon.

  “Of course you are. So am I.”

  “I suppose that’s one of the disadvantages of the job of being a rebel and a potential galactic dictator?”

  “Yes. But think of the perks when we’ve won!”

  “We haven’t yet, though.”

  “Give it time,” said Gran confidently.

  Jenny yawned and put her eye to the lens of the telescope. They were currently residing on a planet called Regulus Nine, a large world with a relatively low gravitational field, due to the scarcity of metal ores in the geology. As they hopped through the galaxy, it was necessary to establish temporary headquarters in many places.

  The telescope stood on a tripod on a flat roof of the white building that was their new home. Gran explained that it was acceptable when fighting a war of resistance to ‘requisition’ property or supplies or anything. Jenny didn’t know the meaning of this word, but Gran explained it was the same as stealing, only without being told off.

  When Jenny and Gran had landed on Regulus Nine, they had ordered the owner of the house, a rotund being with a head shaped like a pyramid, to pack and get out within ten minutes. He could have his house back the moment they departed for the next world, they added. And now they were enjoying his possessions in his absence.

  They had eaten most of the strangely coloured and oddly textured but delicious food in his cupboards. The telescope wasn’t edible but came in useful in other ways. Jenny was watching the spaceships come and go in the evening sky, bright flecks of green and blue flame. Every time a new world joined the rebellion and overthrew the local occupiers, Jenny’s side gained more equipment, more troops, more confidence. Not long to wait before the final attack on Genghis Kan’t!

  While Jenny concentrated on staring at the sky, Gran studied the latest reports that had just been transmitted to her from her various commanders spread throughout the galaxy. “We just lost a space battle in Gemini,” she said. “All our ships were obliterated…”

  “That’s dreadful news, isn’t it?” Jenny asked.

  “Just one minor setback. The general trend is what matters. That’s the main difference between tactics and strategy. Tactics is about how to win individual battles, but strategy is about winning the war. Yes, our losses have been high, but our numbers keep increasing. Thus we will win in the end, sooner rather than later, in fact.”

  “I understand,” responded Jenny.

  “This is a war of attrition, my girl!” cackled Gran. “Wearing down the opposition more than they can wear us down. Even if we lose 99% of our troops, the goal is make the other side lose 100% of theirs. That sounds callous, doesn’t it? Well, I am callous! And so must you be if you want to rule! By the way, where is Albert?”

  Jenny shrugged but she didn’t look round. Albert the Vegan now acted as a servant to both of them. He seemed unhappy about this, or maybe he was sad because Gran had broken her promise when she told him that no one would get hurt in the conflict and most of his friends had been killed already, but he was compelled by his nature to remain loyal. Gran sighed and stopped reading and then said:

  “I suppose I’ll have to make my own cup of tea!”

  Jenny ignored her. She was too interested in staring at the activity high above, the zooming of the spaceships.

  She wished that the telescope was more powerful, that it could peer all the way to Bellatrix Three and show her exactly what Genghis Kan’t was doing at this instant. Was he trembling with fear because he knew he was fated to be overthrown by the rebels?

  The truth is that he was scared, but he didn’t let himself be paralysed by terror. He continued giving orders to his own troops. If Jenny could have seen him, she would have been confronted with a being agitated and angry but still competent and dangerous.

  He was reading his own batch of reports from his own commanders. It did please him that he was winning some battles, but he realised that his time was short. Yet he had no plans to escape and hide. He didn’t want to be remembered in history books as a coward. He would fight until the last breath in his body was completely gone.

  And in the chilly depths of outer space, thousands of spaceships came together and blasted each other to pieces on a backdrop of glittering stars, multicoloured nebulae and fuzzy quasars.

  It was the biggest war the universe had ever known!

  On Earth, in the meantime, the humans were mopping up the survivors of the occupying force. The aliens had lost here too. Maya and Lisa were happy to take the credit for this and they had become famous as a result. Many journalists wanted to interview Maya to find out how she had done it. She answered the questions modestly.

  “It was easy really,” she said. “Nothing to it.”

  “But how did you cause the equipment of the aliens to malfunction? It saved our planet! What did you do?”

  Maya smiled at the interviewer, then looked into the television camera and said, “I adapted my school project, that’s how. We were asked to do a project on scientific measurements. I learned that the unit of weight called a ‘kilogram’ was based on a real solid object located in a special vault in France and that this international prototype kilogram forms the reference point for all other kilograms in the world.”

  The interviewer frowned. “Sorry, I still don’t understand and I suspect that the millions and millions of viewers watching you right now don’t have a clear idea of what you mean…”

  Maya sighed and said, “In that case, let me elaborate. I sabotaged that kilogram, the IPK. I made it lighter.”

  “How did that change anything?” the interviewer asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I altered its value!”

  “Altered the value of the IPK, you mean?”

  “Yes and therefore the value of all kilograms everywhere in the world. The IPK is the kilogram. I made it lighter. And it sets the official value of every other k
ilogram in the world.”

  “Do you mean to say that changing the weight of one object made the weight of everything else different?”

  “That’s right. It’s called logic,” said Maya. “The consequences of the change for physics and engineering were momentous. The alien invaders realised this fact too late. That’s why their spaceships and machines went wrong and crashed or malfunctioned.”

  “Because the value of their calculations suddenly became erroneous? Is that what you are trying to tell me?”

  Maya nodded briskly. “Consider the escape velocity of the Earth. It is 11 kilometres per second. Spaceship engines, whether they are rockets or some sort of antigravity device, are designed with that figure in mind. In other words, those engines have to be capable of achieving that speed to escape the pull of Earth’s gravity…”

  “I’m with you so far,” said the interviewer.

  “Right. But when the IPK became lighter and every other kilogram in existence followed suit, the spaceships of the aliens were suddenly lighter than previously. But their engines were just as powerful as before, more powerful than necessary. In fact they were now too powerful and because the change happened without the aliens being aware of it, they kept losing control of their much faster vessels.”

  “Ah, I see! That makes sense now!” cried the interviewer.

  “May I go? I’m busy,” said Maya.

  “Certainly! And thank you for saving humanity!” The interviewer was sincere. He faced the camera and added, “Well, that’s a remarkable young lady. She saved the world for us. And now she’s going back home, across the big ocean to the United States of America. We will always be grateful to her and also to her lovely mother.”

  He watched her walk away. Maya joined Lisa and they both boarded a ship that was waiting in the harbour.

  It was a long journey back across the ocean.

  They were shocked to discover that America had vanished!

  “Where has it gone?” Maya asked.

  “I don’t know, honey,” said Lisa. Then she spotted something on the horizon. “What’s that over there?”