Mirror, Mirror

Buzz Kildare was not a happy camper.



He had, in fact, been royally steamed since the arrival of Colonel Melchor Philpott, commander of a task force of the United Planetary Defense League.



Philpott, accompanied by six of his staff officers, had taken over Kildare's Recycling Emporium and thoroughly discombobulated Buzz and his partner, Lily Padd, making it darn near impossible to conduct his usual business of turning worn-out or damaged space ship parts into useful mining equipment, which he then sold to the mining crews that worked in scattered locations across the craggy, rock strewn face of Back of Beyond.



Back of Beyond was a nondescript, just barely M class planet located at the outer fringes of the galaxy, fitfully lit by a dim sun by day and less lit by three sickly looking moons by night. That the cycle of day to night was thirty-six hours only added to the dismal atmosphere, thus the name, Back of Beyond.



Buzz had gotten his start as a Thorium miner, just past his nineteenth birthday, but decided rather quickly that boring like a mole beneath the surface of Back of Beyond was not his cup of tea, so he'd shucked his mining equipment and opened the emporium. Lily, the daughter of a couple of Thorium miners, like Buzz, didn't fancy spending her life below ground, so, she'd left her family and thrown in with him. The thirty-six hour days, spent bending, shaping, welding, and cutting, metal from derelict ships, was long and boring; but the nights, silent and dark, and with little to do to pass the time other than watch old vids of ancient Earth movies or drink the acrid brew that Happy Boyington cooked up in a still that Buzz had constructed for him; but, it was preferable to spending twelve hour shifts beneath tons of gray rock, breathing the dust kicked up by the laser drills used to pry loose the Thorium.



It had, in fact, been a relatively happy existence until Philpott arrived.



Buzz hated everything about the man; from his self satisfied smirk, to his medal covered silver tunic, to the way he arrogantly ordered everyone around as if someone had died and made him Lord of the Universe.



He wanted more than anything to throw the short, rotund little martinet out of his office, but the laws of UPDL, which is how everyone referred to the governing system of the twelve settled planets, allowed officers of its defense force to commander any property they deemed essential to the defense of the system. Unfortunately, Kildare's Recycling Emporium was the largest facility on the surface, and even though it looked like nothing else but a huge junkyard, Philpott had decided that it was perfect as a command post to mount a defense against a suspected attack by the dreaded Drach, a race of lizard-like beings who had recently begun raids on the outer planets of the system. So, taking a deep breath and counting to ten, Buzz decided he would try to be a cooperative citizen.



"You know, colonel," he said to the officious Philpott. "If you're worried about an attack from the Drachs, you really ought to put your shuttle under some kind of shelter. It's a big fat target sitting parked outside the gate like that."



The sleek command shuttle, from Philpott's cruiser that was in orbit over Back of Beyond, sat glowing in front of the emporium. Buzz was worried that it would be like a neon guide, saying to the Drachs, "Shoot here!" And, here was just too close to his only home for his comfort.



"Kildare," Philpott said with an oily tone. "You're not a military man. You just don't understand tactics. My cruiser will make short work of the Drach when they arrive, and we can move on to sector three to wipe out their reserve fleet."



"But, if they destroy your shuttle, how are you gonna get off the surface?"



Philpott sighed and rolled his eyes. "You civilians can be such sissies, and you don't understand a thing. I just told you; when the Drach arrive, my cruiser will destroy them and we'll move on. Stop your worrying and please stay out of our way."



A couple of Philpot's staff, identical looking, gray-faced drones, dressed in the same silver uniform, but without medals, snickered at their commander's lecturing the hapless civilian. At least, he wasn't hectoring them.



Buzz shrugged and turned to his partner. "Come on, Lily," he said. "Let's get out of here. I have a feeling that this won't exactly be a good place to be shortly."



Lily Padd, a foot shorter than Buzz, but with wiry muscles from hefting heavy metal plates, and light brown hair cropped close to her head, smirked at the colonel.



"It ain't exactly all that nice right now. We gonna need to fumigate the place when this pack of vermin leaves."



Philpott snorted and glared at her, but the regulations of his force forbade him from attacking one of her gender, verbally or otherwise. He turned his back on her, tugging at the hem of this tunic as he did so.



As Buzz and Lily swung through the door, they heard his squeaky voice, loudly berating his men. "All right, you slackers, what are you standing around for? Now that these fracking civilians are out of the way, we can set up a proper command post. Get to work!"



"Now, there's a guy what needs to be shoved out of an airlock," Buzz muttered as they walked across the compound, kicking up gray dust in their wake.



"Buzz, you really think the Drachs are coming?" Lily asked, a worried frown creasing her elfin features. "If they start shooting up the place, a lot of folks could get hurt."



"I know; and that stupid colonel ain't got a clue how to defend us. Parking that shuttle out there like that, he's made this the first target the Drachs gonna go for. We put too much work into this place to let it get blown to space dust because of some dumb military brass what thinks he knows it all."



"Yeah," she said. "But, what can we do."



Buzz rubbed a hand through his close-cropped blond hair. "I been thinking on that," he said. "Trouble is, I ain't come up with nothing yet."



"Shucks," Lily said. "We're just sitting ducks here. As dim as the light is dirt side, coming at Back of Beyond from space, we're lighter than everything else, and that shiny shuttle gives the Drachs a perfect aiming point."



"I know," Buzz said. "If old Piss pot would only put it under cover, the Drachs would only see a gray ball, and they might not know what to shoot at." Then suddenly, Buzz snapped his fingers. "Hey! I just had me an idea."



"What? You gonna hide the shuttle yourself?" Lily asked. "I think the pilot's still on board. He might not cooperate without orders from Philpott."



"No," Buzz replied. "I ain't gonna hide it. If the Drachs see one shuttle parked here, they're gonna know there's not much of a defense force, but, what if we made it look like there was a whole fleet? Might make them decide to call off the attack."



"I suppose so. They ain't likely to send more than one ship to hit a dirt ball like Back of Beyond. But, how you gonna make them think there's more than one ship here?"



"Just come with me," Buzz said. "I'll show you."



He took her by the arm and led her to an untidy pile of plates and machinery at the side of the building. He began pulling plates and machines from the pile and tossing them into another untidy pile. Lily, who had no idea what he was up to, fell to helping him, but looked curiously at him from time to time, thinking that the stress of the impending attack had finally unhinged him, but there was nothing else to do.



When he was satisfied that he had what he needed, Buzz issued strange instructions to Lily. "You set these plates around the shuttle, and he sketched in the gray dirt how he wanted them placed. While Lily was positioning the plates, he picked up a laser that he'd taken from the pile. Checking that the lithium batteries still had some charge, he lugged the heavy device over to a point some twenty meters from the shuttle and extended the tripod legs, aiming it at the body of the craft. After fiddling with the controls for a few seconds, he nodded and helped Lily finish setting up the plates.



"What do you hope to accomplish with this?" she asked him.



"Just you watch," Buzz said. He walked back to the laser, looked through the view finder and stood smiling. "Okay, now I'm gonna show you some magic."



He flipped the activator switch. The machine hummed and whirred, and then the indicator lights glowed. A bright red beam shot out the front of the laser and struck the shuttle, and then divided into dozens of tinier red beams which zoomed toward the shiny plates they'd placed around the ship.



Suddenly, Lily's mouth gaped open in astonishment. Dotted around the junkyard there sat a dozen identical shuttles. Up close, it was apparent that they were merely laser images; you could see through them. But, if you squinted, they looked real.



"Oh, my gosh!" she said. "If that don't beat all."



"It wouldn't fool anybody on the ground," Buzz said. "But, I'm hoping from space it'll look like we got shuttles from a dozen cruisers parked somewhere out there just waiting to pounce on the Drachs. Keep your fingers crossed."



"What if it don't work?"



"Then," Buzz said. "We're gonna have a lot of rebuilding to do. Not much different than when a tornado hits." He was referring to the storms that raged across Back of Beyond's surface about every three or four years, funnels of dust that moved at over three hundred kilometers per hour, dipping down here and there and reducing any structure on the surface to kindling. "We better get in the shelter."



They went into their little underground cubbyhole, which also served as sleeping quarters. All of the planet's residents lived in similar structures as a precaution against the tornados, with only Buzz and Happy having built anything on the surface, and they had to rebuild after every tornado. Like everyone else, though, they slept below ground.



As Buzz and Lily settled themselves in the shelter, a dark, misshapen ship dropped out of hyperspace a thousand kilometers from the planet. The commander of the vessel, a hulking figure who looked like an iguana with warts, was staring at the view screen. Figuring only to encounter a relatively barren planet inhabited by a small population of miners, he'd decided to save power and use only visual reconnaissance to acquire targets.



The sight that met his slitted, yellow reptilian eyes caused them to widen. There, parked on the surface, out in the open, were twelve human craft, of the type his intelligence had informed him were shuttles, assigned one each to one of the human's deadly cruiser ships. Against such odds, his vessel, as well-armed as it was, stood no chance. They might destroy a couple of the humans, but the combined weight of so much firepower would reduce them to dust.



A valiant warrior he was, having won promotion through the ranks by defeating many rivals, he was no fool, and he wasn't suicidal. He preferred fights when the odds were in his favor. With a guttural snarl he issued a command. His vessel did a sweeping turn and blinked back into hyperspace. The dratted planet would have to wait for another day and a larger invasion force; the humans were waiting for them. He would have harsh words for his intelligence section when he got back to his home planet.



Meanwhile, on the surface, there was pandemonium. Philpott, upon receiving a radio signal from his vessel in orbit that the Drach had arrived, and just as suddenly departed, and furthermore, visual signals showed a dozen shuttles hear the junkyard, while electronic sensors indicated only one, rushed out of the office.



Even below ground, Buzz and Lily could hear him shout. "What the blazes is this?"



They came up from the shelter to find Philpott standing nearby, rubbing his bald pate.



"What happened?" Buzz asked.



"The Drach dropped out of hyperspace, but, instead of attacking, they turned tail and ran. Now, do you mind telling me what this is all about?" He waved a pudgy hand at the laser images dotting the yard.



"Uh, well, you see," Buzz said. "I figured you might need a few reinforcements, so I used a laser and some mirrors to get them for you."



Philpott looked contemplative, and then suddenly his fleshy face creased in a smile. "I see that I underestimated you, Kildare," he said. "You understand military strategy after all. I would never have thought of this. Masterful, simply masterful. You'd do quite well in the force, you ever think of enlisting?"



"No thanks," Buzz said. "I'm not much for uniforms and such. Besides, all my friends are right here, so I wouldn't want to leave."



"Well, if you should change your mind, send me a signal," Philpott said. "In the meantime, I'll be commending you and your little stratagem in my report to headquarters."



The colonel shook hands with Buzz and Lily and strutted off to his shuttle, with his staff following him like hungry puppies following their mother. In a cloud of gray dust, the shuttle whirred, lifted, and darted upward.



"Hope that's the last we see of him," Lily said.



"Never know," Buzz said. "Least ways we don't have to rebuild. Want to help me put all that junk back where it belongs? Then we can go over to Happy's for some killjoy juice."


They went about their business, unaware that the Battle of the Galactic Junkyard had just become a part of history.