Don't Mess With Earth (7 page)

The Terran woman walked up to the human
female pilot, and said, “Hi, I’m Susan. That was terrific flying! I
think it’s even more terrific since I just found how you’re a
woman. Doesn’t flying get you in trouble with the
powers-that-be?”

“Hi Susan, I’m Amelia, thanks for the
compliment. I don’t fly enough to get noticed by anyone, this is
sort of just my hobby for the time being. I’m currently working as
a nurse’s aide at a military hospital here in Toronto, helping with
the wounded soldiers from the war over in Europe. Are you
interested in flying too?”

“I am fascinated by these airplanes, and I
would love to try my hand at the controls. Is it very hard to
learn?” asked the Terran.

“Not really, the only tricky part, I think,
is the landing. Once you got the landing down though, it’s pretty
easy. If you’re interested in becoming a pilot, then let’s talk
about you becoming a student pilot.”

Amelia Earhart and Susan Transavera became
fast friends and Amelia taught Susan the basics of flying, and when
Amelia thought Susan was ready, even some aerial acrobatics. A few
months later, Amelia caught the Spanish flu from working amongst
the wounded soldiers who had brought the flu back from Europe. The
rest of the Earhart family caught the flu too and they also began
to die. Amelia contracted pneumonia and slowly began dying herself,
so she called for Susan to ask a favor from her. When Susan arrived
at Amelia’s bedside, Amelia said, “Susan, I’m glad you came. I have
a favor to ask of you, since I will no longer be able to pursue my
dream of becoming a world-renowned pilot. When I die, I want to you
to continue on in my name, become Amelia Earhart, and make the
world see that women can do the same thing as men.”

Susan was stunned by Amelia’s request.
Normally, she thought she would answer yes to this request, but,
since she wasn’t from Earth, this could get her into major trouble
with the Terran authorities. She thought for another moment or two
and responded with, “Amelia, I’m going to have to think about it.
What you’re asking of me is a big decision and I’m not sure how to
react. Can you wait a day or two for my decision?”

Amelia, who was looking like death warmed
over, weakly said, “I can wait as long as it’s a day or two, but
any longer and I may die before you tell me. Thank you for thinking
about it, I appreciate it.”

Susan went home and thought about the pros and cons
of taking Amelia’s place. The biggest con was the fact that Susan
was a Terran. The Terran authorities made no bones about the fact
that they wanted the humans to develop technologically faster on
their own without Terran help, but, each time there was a change in
power, the official line about Earth changed. Right now, the
powers-that-be on Terra really had no use for Earth, didn’t care
about humanity, and wanted any situation with Terrans interfering
to go away. But, political winds change all the time, so that
seemed to Susan a risk she could probably take. The pros outweighed
the cons, in Susan’s eyes. She could become the first white woman
pilot to circumnavigate the globe, as Amelia, she would be famous
and known throughout history, and showing men what women could do
was also a pro. Susan went back to Amelia and told her that she
would take Amelia’s place. Amelia was pleased with the answer and
died two days later from complications from pneumonia. Susan waited
a year or two, moved to the United States, and began her
adventure.

A few years later, Amelia became the first
woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and did so right after
Lindbergh, because there were influential people who were pushing
for a woman to do the same flight. While she was flying across the
Atlantic, the Terran authorities sent a team of investigators to
her house in California to see if she was a Terran or just a human
after all. If she was a Terran, they didn’t want to make her
disappear and return to Terra at the moment, since Amelia had such
a high profile; the authorities thought she ought to enjoy her
fifteen minutes of fame before they came down hard on her. Once
inside her house, after searching for what seemed like hours, the
investigators end up finding a mysterious looking box that didn’t
seem like it was of earthly origin. It was picked open and what
they discovered shocked them to some degree; they found a laptop
computer, a mini music player, Terran identification papers, and
some newspaper clippings from 1918 about the Spanish flu outbreak.
The head investigator turned on and accessed the laptop, which had
no security password enabled, and discovered Susan’s digital diary.
The woman who was now known as Amelia Earhart came to Earth shortly
before the death of the aviatrix, each discovered both women had an
interest in flying these new aircraft and they became friends.
Apparently, Susan, who was now Amelia, was asked by a dying Amelia
to carry on her goal of flying and showing women around the world
what they could do if they put their minds to it. Susan, according
to her laptop entries, was reluctant at first because she didn’t
want to attract the attention of the Terran authorities and get
into major trouble for interfering in human affairs. After much
thought about it, weighing the pros and cons, Susan decided the
pros outweighed the cons and decided to become Amelia Earhart after
the original died. From there, the fake Amelia made it her goal to
become a well-known woman flier. Once the investigators contacted
Terran authorities through the Mars Communications station about
what they discovered, the Terran authorities decided to leave this
Susan character on Earth for another ten years and see what she
does to interfere with human affairs, if she does so at all. The
Terrans watched as Amelia became the spokesperson for all sorts of
products, from clothing to cigarettes to luggage and writing her
own book, published by G.P. Putman, who helped enhance Amelia’s
public image.

Ten years went by and Amelia came up with an
idea to fly around the world and announced her intentions to the
press. While she was planning this, she was summoned by Secretary
of War Harry Woodring to come to Washington. Amelia arrived in
Washington, was picked up by a car that was sent for her, and the
car headed directly for the War Department; Amelia was about to
find out why she was summoned. Once in Woodrings’ office, he said,
“Greetings, Miss Earhart. I’m sure you’re wondering why I have
asked you to come to Washington,”

“It has crossed my mind, Mr. Woodring. What
can I help you with?”

“I would like you to fly over Japanese
occupied territory and Japan itself, a reconnaissance mission to
some degree. Nobody would suspect that a world famous aviatrix
would be spying, and we can get the information we need without too
much trouble. We can find out through the photos you take if the
Japanese plan on doing more than occupy China, like attack the
Philippines or maybe even Hawaii. Do you think you can handle that,
Amelia?”

“I don’t know. I’m not very comfortable with
the idea. Don’t you think Japan would see this for what it is, as a
spy mission? How would you and the Department of War protect me if
I were to get into trouble?”

“I plan, with this being contingent on
President Roosevelt’s’ permission, on having the Navy shadow you
with battleships, an aircraft carrier, and some other navy vessels.
If you get into trouble, help will not be very far. I’m sure the
President will see the wisdom of this mission I want to send you
on. So, what do you think?”

“I’m reluctant about it, but I will if
President Roosevelt agrees that I should do this. How am I going to
take pictures of everything you need, anyway?”

“I’ll have my best Army engineers install
cameras and navigational equipment on your airplane, train you and
your navigator on their use, and if anyone asks, all you are doing
is conducting scientific experiments. Really, nobody should be the
wiser and you’ll have conducted a successful around the world
flight. Now, let me show you what we need from the flyovers.”

President Roosevelt was consulted and he
agreed to the spy mission using Amelia Earhart. When Japan finds
out about her flight around the world and her supposed scientific
experiments, they complained that all Amelia Earhart was doing was
spying on them and if she flew over Japan, she would be shot down
immediately and if she survived, they would have her executed. The
United States countered that she really was just flying around the
globe and not doing anything untoward towards Japan. If Japan
chooses to shoot her down, then the United States Navy would be
forced to respond, by any means necessary; Japan backed off their
accusations. The Terrans found out what she was going to do, and if
it was one thing they didn’t particularly like, was when Terrans
interfered in the natural political processes of Earth, and spying
for one country on another was considered interfering. The Terrans
sent a small spaceship to the Pacific Ocean to wait for Amelia to
fly past them, and then she would be picked up, and taken back to
Terra.

A few days later, as Amelia was flying over
Howland Island, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were having
problems with the radio and communicating with the United States
Navy. The Terran ship was jamming the radio signal and was making
it difficult for the Navy to pinpoint Amelia’s location. She was
beginning to suspect that her radio was being jammed by the
Terrans, so she waited for whatever that was about to happen, go
ahead and happen. The Terran ship flew above the small aircraft,
used a grappling hook, and then pulled the aircraft in. Naturally,
Noonan was frightened beyond words by this turn of events, but
Amelia seemed very calm in contrast and said to him, “Fred, there’s
nothing to be afraid of, everything will be all right.”

“How can you say that? How can you be so
calm? We’re experiencing something like out of one of those science
fiction magazine stories. I’m frightened and you’re calm? This
makes no sense!”

“Fred, just trust me, ok?”

All Noonan could do was nod his head and sit
there and wait for the airplane to stop moving. Once the aircraft
was safely inside the Terran cargo hold, Amelia killed the engine,
she and Noonan got out of the aircraft, and waited for whoever was
set to come out and arrest her. What appeared to be an officer and
two guards walked into the hold and the officer said to her, “Susan
Transavera, you are charged with interfering in human affairs and
for impersonating a human, even though that human had requested for
you to take her place. We are taking you back to Terra, where you
will not be allowed to leave the planet. This aircraft will be
taken apart and parts of it will be scattered on the island below
us, so that it will appear you crashed and died. Since you involved
a human who had no knowledge of who you actually were, he will have
to come to Terra too and live, albeit for a much shorter span of
time. We’re sorry, Mr. Noonan for involving you in this, but we
follow a non-interference policy when it comes to humanity. You
must be a bit shocked by all of this, but it can’t be helped.”

“You bet I’m shocked, but at least you look
human enough. This is really crazy; Amelia’s an alien, who knew?
This feels like something out of the
Amazing
Stories
magazine I recently read. Am I supposed to ask you
to take me to your leader?” the officer shook his head no, “Ok,
well, lead the way to wherever you’re gonna take me.” The officer
and his guards took the two and led them off for processing by the
Terran authorities.

The ships’ crew scattered pieces of the
Lockheed 10E Electra all over Howland Island and
then the ship flew off towards Terra. The United States conducted a
massive search all over the Pacific and didn’t find the aircraft
parts until someone independent of the government found the parts
on Howland Island. There was speculation that Japan had shot the
aircraft down, even though Japan claimed they hadn’t, and took
Earhart and Noonan prisoner, but that theory was laid to rest when
the United States occupied Japan after World War Two. On Terra,
Fred Noonan actually thrived for the short time, in Terran terms,
that he lived on Terra. He worked on starship navigation systems,
which took him a very short time to learn, and he found he enjoyed
working on technologies that had been beyond his imagination a few
years earlier. As for
Susan Transavera, even though she was
banned from leaving Terra, she was asked by historical societies
and universities to speak about her experiences flying primitive
Earth aircraft and how she dealt with living in a somewhat
technologically backward society. She claimed she enjoyed Earth,
especially since she lived in Malibu, California when she wasn’t
flying and got to live in a house near the ocean. She missed flying
propeller driven aircraft, so she had a replica of her last plane
built and flew it all over Terra, which gave her a following of
people who wanted to do the same thing, since propeller driven
aircraft hadn’t been used since the Terrans had originally left
Earth. Susan was also asked by a publisher to write about her
adventures on Earth, she does, and the book ends up on the Terran
bestseller list. So, the punishment ended up not being much of a
punishment for the flier known on Earth as Amelia Earhart.

World War Two breaks out on Earth and the
Terrans note that this time it really is a worldwide war, fighting
was occurring in the oceans, the seas, and on six continents.
Terran scientists predict that Germany would conquer Europe and
Africa, while Japan would take all of Asia and the Pacific Islands,
including the Australian continent. Once both countries conquered
those regions, the Terrans thought Japan and Germany would team up
and conquer North and South America. Hitler, they reasoned, would
then turn on Japan, conquering them and their territories, and then
he would have the whole world to himself. The prediction fell apart
when Hitler made a strategically bad blunder when he ordered an
attack on the Soviet Union while still trying to take over Western
Europe and bombing England into submission and when Japan
miscalculated the reaction the United States would have when they
bombed Pearl Harbor.