THEY NEVER enacted Plan 10. Omron could not believe those words in the face of the situation on earth. A new thought led to a conclusion and that led him to a pitiful realization.


“This mission was wholly necessary. Some plans failed miserably, for obvious reasons. Some had the opposite results of what we intended, accelerating their progress rather than halting it. Others, though having some success, now prove pointless. With the desired result of Plan 10 being achieved without the need for us to implement it, humans would be in the exact spot they are in now if we had never come here.”


“And that is why we may finally go home.”


“But seventeen lectons here, and all the expense, the manpower. Good men spent most of their lives on this assignment. We canceled all those other missions and exhausted our space budget.” While ‘space budget’ made sense here, being the budget for space exploration and defense, Omron could not help but giggle to himself again about his people putting the word ‘space’ in front of anything remotely related to the fleet and space travel. His pause in the space conversation gave the high commander room to speak.


“Yes, under my oversight and… what do you keep respectfully calling it…? my infinite wisdom, our entire fleet has wasted seventeen lectons and many good explorers and soldiers to defend our Galactic Union from a threat that never existed.”


Thinking quickly and fearing a transfer to the insubordination exhibit, Omron said, “Now, thanks to your incomparable leadership, we have a definitive answer for the Union. Our extensive operation has provided conclusive evidence, only available now in the wake of earth’s environmental ruin, that the threat is neutralized.”


“This is why I commissioned you to write my mission report. However, I am afraid my time has come. I was not a young baltinorc when this assignment began, and I do not wish to return to the home world to be retired in disgrace, my final mission being the most costly, lengthy, and colossally unnecessary in the history of our great fleet.”


“Sir, if you are requesting the Mazgon-Shorliak, I cannot, I will not do that.”


“Give me an honorable death? No, Sergeant, do not be absurd. And do not kill me, or I will become very displeased with you. I have secured a position as a janitor at Area 51, where I can live out my years in peace while monitoring the human’s progress, or lack thereof.”


“But sir, you will age much slower than the humans among you. Are you not afraid they will discover you are an alien?”


The high commander paused as someone emptied the trash in his office and left. “No one ever notices the janitor, Omron.”


“True. And who will lead the fleet home?”


The answer was obvious, and the former high commander did not utter the words. He removed his command insignia from his chest and pinned it on Omron’s space uniform. Without a word, he lifted the data pad, and, after a series of taps, he set it down and disappeared. Until that moment, Omron had not known the science division had completed work on the teleportation device. They started the project after seeing the earthlings do it on a video entertainment program in a period humans called the late 1960’s, and until now, all tests had failed.


Omron stood, walked to the round window in the silver room, and gazed for the last time at the jewel of earth below. He considered it the most beautiful of the worlds he had seen, but those were only photos as this was his first space mission. That made sense, it was a mission in space, so what else would Omron call it?


After ordering the operators of the new teleport to retrieve all remaining agents on the planet, and the presidential nominee clones, Omron instructed the fleet to disembark and head home. It felt good issuing that command and he let himself imagine what glorious mission he would lead the fleet on as its new high commander. Then he remembered his planet was bankrupt and without funding, the fleet would be docked. His would be the shortest term for fleet high commander, but it would end by returning all these men and women, soldiers and explores, home.


As the mother ship’s exterior spun up for interstellar flight, the last to leave earth orbit, they passed the moon. Through the same little round window in the same metal room with the same metal desk and uncomfortable cushionless chairs, Omron looked at the gray ball as they pulled away. He could not help but smile at the idea of Plan 8 and how his predecessor must have secretly enacted it. If humans recovered from their own shortsightedness and once again looked to the stars, the giant laser cannon reaching up from the moon’s dark surface would ensure the safety of the Galactic Union—if the earth spaceship did not launch from the other side of the planet.