THANKS TO Plan 2, Omron’s people had come to Earth to prevent humans from discovering technology that threatened the universe and ended up helping them get closer to being able to do it.


This did not surprise him.


Dreaming of traveling to the stars and meeting aliens, Omron had eagerly joined the fleet. He envisioned himself leading a first contact mission and practiced hundreds of greetings of known races, later considering a never-before-contacted species would not know those gestures. His first assignment, his only assignment, took him to earth to hide from its inhabitants. He had not yet met an alien, from any planet. At this point, he would settle for little green men.


While rising through the ranks, he had passed many incompetent officers and feigned respect for their experience and self-professed strategical brilliance. Now he learned such ‘competence’ flowed down from the top. He needed to guard his tongue.


Of the twelve plans, some had logistical merit and must have been drafted by more capable minds than those he encountered on the mother ship. Omron wrestled with conflicting thoughts of the fleet’s high commander. He seemed to rely heavily on his advisors and clearly was grooming Omron to fill this role, yet he had accepted suggestions to enact outlandish plans that a youngling would have considered foolish, the worst of all being Plan 9, the first one he selected.


Was that where the human zombie craze started?


Again, the high commander slid Omron the pad. “This is a much better plan.”


He glanced at the header. “Pardon my inexperience in seeking to learn from your strategic wisdom. Why enact Plan 3 before seeing the results of Plan 2? If that would have worked, humans would not have weapons to threaten us. Every race in our Galactic Union has the right to explore outer space.”


“I did not share Sergeant Garf’s optimism regarding Plan 2. As I said, I became more cautious after Plan 9.”


Perhaps, Omron pondered, his high commander was not as dimwitted as he had thought. Then again… “Sir, I know you trust your advisors. Who suggested Plan 3?”


“Sergeant Zorlic, my former third. I think he pushed Plan 3 in competition with Garf, to become my second.”


“Yet you accepted his recommendation?” Nope, the fleet leader was just as incompetent as he thought. “I mean, sir, as your acting third, I only wish to understand my place.”


“Another good save, Omron. Understand, compared to Plan 9, everything appeared sound. Read the report, I look forward to your conclusions.” Again, he left Omron alone.

 

Plan 3 Status Report

Earth date: September 12, 1962, to Present

We enacted Plan 3 to supplement our efforts to sabotage earthling goals to create deadlier weapons while also pursuing space travel. The reining US president's words confirmed our worst fears, they were planning to take their evil ways to the stars, threatening us all. 'We choose to go to the moon,' he said. Then he added the ominously ambiguous, '...and do the other things.' Clearly the other things included taking heinous weapons of warfare to outer space. None of our hundred member planets were safe. Sergeant Zorlic led the mission.

Plan 3 outlined the infiltration of the space programs of leading nations to sabotage their efforts to go beyond their own planetary orbit. Thwarting their efforts to land on their moon [which they creatively named 'Moon'], would also be favorable if we later must enact Plan 8.


Our first action was to motivate politicians to limit the funding of such programs. Spacecraft designed and constructed by the lowest bidder would ensure that astronauts of earth never had the best spacecraft.


We had positive results tampering with the Apollo missions and delayed their progress significantly, preventing Americans from going into space until Apollo 7 in 1968.


Unfortunately, while we stalled the Russian's progress, they sent a man to space in 1961.


Despite our best efforts, NASA landed earthlings on the Moon. Our exalted high commander suggested a plan that helped sway some of the enthusiasm for space travel. We used the media outlets of earth to declare the moon landing a hoax. This gained great popularity and is accepted by many to this day.


[Addendum added earth year 2020: We did not seed the idea of 'space lasers' operated by descendants of Earth nation Israel in their media. Humans came up with that on their own. If we ever need to enact Plan 8, the earthlings may suspect themselves of destroying their own space vessels.]

 

That made Omron chuckle aloud. Not surprising, Plan 3 was having great success. It only underscored the absurdity of starting with Plan 9. When he had heard of the failure of that plan, he assumed the other plans, especially one through eight, must have been even worse. Why would anyone start with zombies if the proceeding plans were good ones?


Omron could not wait to see the report on Plan 4 and learn if they ever created the clones.