The Invasion Committee
THIRD PRIZE
The Invasion Committee by Mark Uden
You know you’re in trouble when your entire species’ future hangs on the creativity of a committee.
While we waited for Commander Gwell to arrive, I glanced around the table: politicians, generals, managers, and so-called experts. Most were chattering excitedly to neighbours or on their communicators, with carapaces and tentacles displaying their nervousness in pale yellow. Others were in silence, including one ancient relic called Simov; I didn’t know why he was even there, and it didn’t look like he knew why either (perhaps not even where). Not one of us had the brains, creativity or chutzpah to tackle the issue at hand, myself included. We were all doomed, of course, but the more immediate and personal threat of the Commander’s wrath loomed closer.
Eedoc slaves scurried around, preparing. A projection of our target planet was beamed onto the table’s centre. Although it was only a flickering hologram, it somehow mocked our hopeless endeavour with its solid, blue permanence. You want to invade me, do you? Take my precious resources? Kill or enslave my inhabitants? How will you do that? You don’t know, do you? You don’t have a clue.
A sudden silence - even a shadow - swept across the room, heralding the arrival of Commander Gwell. She stormed in, tentacles erect, teeth shining and hungry. Towering above even the largest general, she dominated the room. Cowering beneath, we wished ourselves far away.
“Quiet!” she boomed, quite redundantly since most of us had stopped even breathing, let alone talking.
She smacked an Eedoc slave across the room to hammer home the point: she wasn’t happy.
“I call the Invasion Committee to order.” She looked us over, flashing with angry pink, but flecked with purple dots that highlighted the pressure she was under.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, more quietly, but with equal aggression, “I don’t need to outline the problem, or indeed the consequences if you fail to solve it soon. There will be no more chances for us. We need good ideas and we need them now. Who has got something?”
It was a simple, direct question, with a simple, direct answer: no-one. Not one of us had a good idea for invading the planet Earth. Most of us had probably never had a good idea about anything in our lives. But if we valued our lives, we daren’t state this self-evident truth to Commander Gwell.
Still, an answer was demanded. One of us had to say something, and all of us wished not to be the one. We shrank back in our seats, sunk below an imaginary parapet, hoping to become invisible through sheer willpower, hoping not to be seen by Commander Gwell. Even though I avoided her terrible gaze, I could feel her eyes piercing my mind, probing its emptiness. I felt a psychosomatic itch under my right mandible. The more I tried to ignore it, the louder it taunted me. I felt a nervous twitch forming, and I couldn’t hold it much longer.