Red Lights

“Tim, wake up!” Timoteo jolted, awakened rudely by his brother’s hand shaking him roughly by the shoulder.

“What? What is it?” Timoteo snapped, eyes wide open, heart thudding in his chest. He hated being awakened. He was a very high-strung sleeper.

“Come check this out. You’ve never seen anything like it.” Miguel pulled Timoteo by the forearm and straight out of bed. Timoteo tripped into his slippers and quickly pulled on his robe, confused. He could hear a bustling back and forth out in the hallway. There was some sort of commotion.

“Miguel, what is it?”

“You’ll see brother,” Miguel was excited. He wasn’t easily excited. And given the noise about the palace, something interesting, if not alarming, was underway. The brothers stepped out the room and into the hallway. The lights were all on as servants and guards shuffled up and down the corridor, most reading from their digital OLED scrolls, some tense, some excited, all chattering and moving quickly.

“Miguel, really, what the hell is up?” said Timoteo, securing the robe’s knot around his waist.

“Come and see for yourself.” Miguel led Timoteo down the winding palace corridors, with their neo-gothic marble archways and torches of gold faux-flame glistening against the smoothly polished ivory walls. There was an air of expectant excitement.

They reached the spiral staircase leading up to the West Tower and began to climb, at which point Miguel finally started to speak. “Sorry I didn’t wake you sooner. No one’s quite sure what to call it or what’s causing it—”

“Context,” snapped Timoteo.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. The sky. You’ll see. It started not more than ten minutes ago, and the palace is already going crazy. They don’t think it’s a threat, yet, but—” They reached the final landing at the top of the West Tower and stepped out into the night. It was then Timoteo finally understood what all the hustle and bustle was about.

The night sky was flooded with little beams of bright red light, trailing slowly along and coming, apparently, closer. It was like a red meteor shower captured in slow motion—each beam left a trail of hazy red light which, like an afterimage, remained unsteadily behind until dissolving. Timoteo blinked once—twice—the strangest thing of all was the slow motion effect. These little lights were moving slowly, yet their light trails created the uncanny illusion of their moving at light speed yet being somehow trapped, or at least slowed, in time.

“That is so weird!” Timoteo said.

“I know, right?” said Miguel, his dark eyes fixed eagerly on the red lights above.

“Are they—they’re moving towards us, right?”

Miguel nodded. “Looks like it. The palace is of course going crazy, considering it might be a threat. I don’t think it’s a threat. Mom and dad are in the Skylight Office.”

Timoteo shook his head. “Who would want to threaten us anyway?”

“Come on,” said Miguel, turning back into the palace.

Minutes later they were in the Skylight Office—a glass dome located at the peak of the highest point in the Palace: the North Tower. Rarely frequented, it was an observatory and sky-scanning station, devoted to the observance of celestial anomalies and the tracking and anticipation of potential extraterrestrial threats. A beautiful point from which to survey the entire kingdom, the dome itself was hermetically sealed, accessible through a single trap door in its ivory-tinged steel floor. Sliding glass doors located precisely at the north, south, east and west extremes of the dome led out into an open-air walkway or verandah surrounding the dome.

The place was usually off-limits. Neither Miguel nor Timoteo had been here in some time. “Miguel, good of you to bring your brother,” said Queen Elena, turning from her Chief Astronomer to address her sons. “A good opportunity for you both to learn how to handle unexpected situations such as these.” She turned abruptly toward the Head Military Strategist, who was deep in conversation with her husband, the King. “And so, do we have an estimate?”

“One hour, your highness, until the objects touch down,” said Hermenegildo, the Strategist. “At least according to our calculations, should the objects maintain their course and speed.”

“Still no contact?”

“No, your majesty.”

“Where would they land?”

“The meadow. Between the palace and the woods.”

“Hostile?”

“We don’t think so, dear,” said the King. “The speed at which they’re moving, their lack of any effort at concealment, the size and aspect of their ships—none of it suggests ill intentions.”

“Well we can’t be too sure now, can we,” said the Queen, staring up into the sky, her hands placed firmly on her hips. “I assume we are fully ready for combat, should the need arise?”

Hermenegildo gave a curt nod. 

Timoteo was still processing the fact that the red lights in the sky were ships. Nothing half so exciting had ever happened in his lifetime. Could these be aliens? Why were they headed towards Smeralda? Shouldn’t they first choose to present themselves to Foggistan, the planet’s dominant world power? Smeralda was merely a small country on the planet of Coralende, rich and stable and moderately influential, to be sure, but not the kind of country to which an extraterrestrial presence would present itself first. Timoteo scanned the numerous international news screens projecting throughout the interior of the glass dome, and sure enough, the ships were visible only to Smeralda. No other country was reporting on anything remarkable.

But Smeralda was rather small. And considering the distance at which the ships were traveling, didn’t that mean…

“Mother, no other country has reported the sighting?” said Timoteo. She shook her head. “So they’re choosing for us to see them.”

The King smiled. “Smart boy,” he said. “Hermenegildo here seems to think they have some sort of selective cloaking device. Another reason why we don’t believe them to be hostile. Considering their distance, they should be visible to a handful of countries, including Foggistan. And yet the silence on all news stations suggests they aren’t.”

“Have you contacted the neighboring countries, father?” asked Miguel.

“We’ve chosen not to. Not just yet. Under my counsel,” said Hermenegildo in his bass, gravelly voice. “We’ve concluded they may have a very specific reason for revealing themselves only to Smeralda. Were that reason to our benefit, our present silence would be wise.”

“And if it isn’t to our benefit?”  

“Were their intentions hostile, it’s safe to assume they would have remained cloaked until the last possible second. They haven’t done so, so…”

Timoteo headed for the sliding glass door on the dome’s west end and stepped out onto the verandah. The red lights had grown significantly brighter. He was fantastically intrigued. Far below, to the palace’s south, sat Green City, the capital of Smeralda, named for its verdure and abundant greenery. The lights of every single building there were on. The city was expectant. Timoteo had probably stared out into the sky for over ten minutes before Miguel stepped out into the verandah and tugged his arm. “Tim—they’ve made contact.”

Timoteo’s heart began thudding rapidly, flooded with excitement. He followed his brother back into the dome, at the center of which rested the HoloProjection Pad, an inconspicuous, circular metal plate that served to receive and project holographic transmissions. Already, an image was beginning to splutter into view, amid significant interference.

“Who contacted wh—” started Timoteo, before he was overwhelmingly shushed by all present. Lights in the dome had been automatically dimmed to allow for maximum holographic clarity. And suddenly, interference cleared and a man burst into view in maximum detail.

Elegance was the first word that came to Timoteo’s mind. The man wore a thick, rich crimson robe, tied at the waist with what looked like a cord of dark, glistening gold. Over his robe he wore a cloak, also crimson but of a slightly darker shade. In his hand he held a staff, smooth, polished and black as night, with a golden orb floating freely at the tip. And his face— his most impressive aspect—exuded wisdom and authority. He was bald, though his head was perfectly shaped. He was handsome, slightly wrinkled, with deep-set black eyes that glistened as though lit from within, and thick, black, bushy eyebrows. His cheekbones, sharply pronounced, jutted forth at frighteningly jagged angles, and his black beard, rich, flowing and streaked with shocks of pure silver-grey, extended just below the waist. There was a roughness to his overall appearance—an air of experience with a hint of weariness, dominated by a sense of determination, conviction and dignity. Before he even spoke, Miguel could tell he was the respectable leader of a people who had suffered.  

He opened his mouth, and said in a clean, deep voice, “We come in peace. We request your aid.”

At that moment Timoteo knew, in the pit of his stomach, that Smeralda would never be the same again.