I had a prompt, the title of the story. That was it. Hmm, what can I do with this?

The Last Stones

The door to the Alien’s plas-steel shelter opened and the alien Commander, Kekud, emerged with a retinue of advisors. Flags on both sides dipped and General Dane Douglas, followed by his aide, Jon Foster, crossed the smoking, blasted ruin of what was once a Kansas wheat field to the table in the center of the field. The aliens did the same.

At the small table, the two competitors bowed. The aliens’ insect manipulators weren’t made for shaking. Dane sat on the stool someone found, Kekud squatted, much like a praying mantis would.

Jon recited the rules. “Each one of you takes one move in turn until one or the other is blocked from further movement. Winner gets the planet Earth. Losers leave the planet, if Alien, or surrenders to slave-hood, if human.  First move goes to the one who chooses the white stone. He signaled a third person, the human judge, to come forward. His hands were out, closed around the stones.

Kekud pointed at the man’s right hand, Dane chose the left. The judge opened his hands, Kekud had the white stone. The human dropped a sack of stones in front of each player and both judges stepped back.

Dane opened his sack and poured out nine black stones, Kekud poured out white. He placed his stone in the middle of the nine block wooden board.

Dane swore to himself. It was too much to hope the aliens wouldn’t study the game. He could feel a trickle of sweat run down his back. The stench of the burned earth and aliens made him gag. It already looked hopeless. He put a black stone in the lower left corner.

Drones hovered over the game on three sides. The aliens were recording and broadcasting to their ships and to the concentration camps where they held captured humans. Dane wiped sweaty palms on his borrowed uniform trousers.

Kekud picked up his next stone, the pinchers of his manipulators moving delicately as the stone was placed in the upper right corner. He spoke, the translator around his neck interpreting the words from insectoid to human speech. “My government has commanded I win this game.”

Dane looked up into Kekud’s multi-lensed eyes. “We do not give up.”

The insect Commanders’ head, three times the size of a human’s, nodded gently. “I understand. You and your people have fought well.”

Dane picked up a rock and put it on the upper left square. “We fight for our home.”

“We fight to survive.” Kekud placed his rock in the lower right corner. “Your planet still has much to supply us.”

“This is our home. You cannot have it.” Dane studied the board. The alien had made a mistake in placing his rock. His heart beat faster as he put his rock in the middle right square.

“My government grows weary of this war. I must bring it to its conclusion here.” He put a white rock in the lower middle square.

Dane relaxed. There was no way for the alien Commander to win now. He put his black rock in the upper middle square. “You have found that we are hard to eliminate and harder to control.” Dane knew that the human prisoners continually escaped, rioted, destroyed as much as they could and generally made life difficult for their captors. “You must leave Earth.”

Kekud studied the remaining spot on the board, the middle left. It lead nowhere. The game was a stalemate. “I told my leaders that this game was not winnable. I ran it through our computers millions of times. They insisted that I win.” He put his rock in the square.

The humans cheered as they saw the rock go into the square on the jumbo screen the aliens had erected. There was silence on the alien side of the field.

“You played the last rock, Kekud. You have lost.”

“It was a stalemate,” the aliens’ translator hissed.

“It was not a win.” Dane tensed. Would his plan work? Would the aliens accept a stalemate as a loss for themselves?

Kekud was silent for several minutes. The humans grew quiet and tense.

Dane knew the aliens had the ability to communicate outside of human hearing. His only hope was that Kekud would be ordered to leave the planet. The aliens, the humans learned over the years, kept their word. He didn’t feel bad at all about fudging the rules. Out of materiel other than rocks, teeth and nails, this was the human’s only hope of winning.

At last, the translator hissed. “My government concedes, General Douglas.” The Commander bowed. “Congratulations on your accomplishment.”

The human side of the field erupted with cheers.

Over the noise Kekud said. “Your people will be released at once.”

Dane stood up and turned to go. There was a lot of work to be done to heal the planet.

“General,” Kekud said.

“Yes.” Dane turned around.

“My government has never failed at an invasion. They offer an alliance.”

Dane struggled to keep his face neutral and the words, “Hell no,” from escaping his lips. “Why would they do that?”

“You are a worthy adversary. Think of what our species could do, united,” Kekud said.

All of the rebuilding that had to be done, crossed Dane’s mind. Shelters needed to be built, people moved from the camps to new towns, crops planted, food found to get through the winter. It was a tempting thought. Human infrastructure was totally destroyed.

“We’ll take reparations,” he finally said. “Alliance decisions will have to be decided after we are whole again.”

Kekud bowed. “We will contact you.”

Dane bowed then returned to his camp to cheering troops. We might make it, he thought as the crowd surrounded him. Who knew it would come down to tic-tac-toe.

The End

963 Words

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