Alien Invasion

By elveloy

Mrs Claus carried two frothy mugs of hot chocolate across the floor to where Santa sat, cosily ensconced in front of the fire in his favourite armchair.

The television screen above the fireplace was dark and Mrs Claus allowed herself to hope that perhaps, for once, they could have a quiet night and read a good book. She had a Charlaine Harris novel she was only half way through and was looking forward to getting back to it.

Santa reached for his mug and beamed up at her. She saw he had the TV remote in his other hand, and her heart sank.

"Home Alone?" he asked, already hunting for the movie in his collection.

"Again?" Mrs Claus couldn't help the word escaping. Watched every year since 1990...would this be thirty-three times or thirty-four? Whichever it was, she felt she could have recited the entire script from memory.

Then she felt guilty as Olaf's face fell. "Well, I suppose we could watch Home Alone 2," he conceded, regretfully. "Though it's really best if we watch them all, in sequence..." His voice rose, hopefully.

Mrs Claus suppressed a sigh and gave it one more try. "Or perhaps we could watch something new," she suggested. "What about Gunpowder Milkshake? That looks like it might be fun..." Her voice trailed away at the look of horror on Santa's face.

"But that's NOT a Christmas movie, is it?" His bottom lip quivered.

"Well, no... oh never mind, go on then. Home Alone 2 it is." Mrs Claus suppressed an even deeper sigh, and settled back in her own armchair. The things she had to put up with... Her eyes glazed over as the title credits rolled up the screen.

Christmas movies were all very well in their place, she supposed, but a constant diet of sweet, happy endings tended to become too much of a good thing. Secretly, she favoured action films, especially those featuring strong, feisty women - a good Angelina Jolie movie or Linda Hamilton in Terminator, now there was one spunky heroine!

When Olaf had proposed all those years ago, she'd thought she had known what she was getting in to. Obviously, Olaf was going to be the visible member of their partnership. Santa was the character everyone knew, the man children wrote their letters to, and the man they hoped to see coming down their chimneys on Christmas Eve. But she hadn't expected to be quite so... quite so invisible. Hardly anyone, apart from Olaf, the reindeer, and the Elves, knew she existed.

She sipped her chocolate and licked the froth from her top lip. Of course, there had been that one movie, years ago, and although she'd enjoyed some of it from an objective point of view, the title had been irritating. Mrs Santa Claus. As though she had no identity of her own. They hadn't even used her real name, which was Pernille. Pernille Lund. They'd just chosen the popular "Anna" and stuck it in front of Claus.

She glared at Olaf. Then caught herself and took a deep breath. It wasn't his fault. Her fingers drummed on the chair arm. Would this movie never end? She took another deep breath. This irritation wasn't like her, she needed a holiday or at least a change of scene.

Screeeechhh! Thud! The noise came from outside, followed by a flash of green light.

"What have those dratted Elves done now?" grumbled Santa, fumbling for the 'pause' button.

Pernille got to her feet first, embracing the distraction.
"You keep watching, dear. I'll go and see what the matter is."

"Are you sure?" asked Santa half-heartedly, his eyes already returning to the screen.

"I'm sure. I need to stretch my legs in any case. I won't be long."

Pernille pulled on her coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and pulled a woolly hat down over her ears. Stepping into sturdy wellingtons, she opened the heavy wooden door and peered out into the whirling snow.

The Elves' factory was brightly lit as usual, but instead of the familiar sounds of hammering and sawing, there was a lot of angry yelling. Not only that, but there appeared to be some foreign object stuck in the roof.

To Pernille's astonishment, it looked just like a flying saucer from a cartoon. It was bright green and about two metres in diameter, with small oval windows circling the perimeter.

What in Hel's name was going on? A miniature alien invasion?

Then she laughed, self-consciously. Of course, it must be a new toy the Elves were working on for the next season. She shook her head regretfully; it looked very realistic but it was much too big to fit down a chimney. Though, this one was probably a prototype. But what was it doing, stuck in the roof, and what was all that noise coming from the factory? They'd wake the reindeer if they weren't careful, and then they'd all be sorry.

Pernille strode through the snow and flung open the factory doors. A scene of utter chaos met her startled gaze.

Everywhere, small creatures wearing green spacesuits with antennae sticking out the top were struggling with Elves, apparently each trying to get possession of the workshop tools. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and red angry faces. Pernille spent a moment to admire the green costumes, but why were they all fighting? Was this a role play that had got out of hand?

"What the heck is going on here?" asked Pernille in a loud voice with her hands on her hips, then fumed as nobody paid any attention. She wasn't going to put up with this any longer.

She took a whistle from her pocket and blew it as loudly as she could. Elves and aliens alike clapped hands to their ears, or the sides of their helmets in the aliens' case, and spun around to face Pernille.

"What's going on here?" she repeated, her expression fierce. Everyone started talking at once, even the aliens made high pitched noises which were totally unintelligible.

"Enough!" Pernille glared until they were all silent. One of the aliens tried to take advantage of the lull by tweaking a hammer from their opponent's lax grip, but dropped it hastily under Pernille's stern eye.

"Thorsgard," Pernille addressed one of the older Elves. "Fill me in."

"They crashed into our roof and when we went to see if anyone was hurt, they came in here and then tried to steal our stuff!" Thorsgard was indignant.

"And what's your side of the story?" Pernille addressed the alien who had been battling with Thorsgard. High pitched gibberish emitted from the helmet and Pernille sighed. This was taking authenticity too far.

"Freya, get me one of those Babel Fish Translator toys."

The Babel Fish had been one of their big success stories from last Christmas, translating Earth languages into Elvish, or Klingon, or other fictional languages. Pernille hoped it had been upgraded to accept this new language.

Freya handed her a Babel Fish and Pernille gave it straight to the alien. "Now tell me what's going on."

The alien turned the Babel Fish over in its gloved hands, seeming not to know what to do with it. Pernille took the device back and spoke into it.

"Tell me what you're doing," she said in Norwegian. Then translated it into Klingon so they'd get the idea.

After a startled pause, the alien grabbed the Babel Fish back and spoke rapidly into it. For a while nothing happened, and then a very oddly accented Norwegian came out.

"Take me to your leader."

Pernille rolled her eyes. "Very funny." She pointed to her chest. "I'm the leader."

The alien made a funny ducking motion, then spoke into the device. Most of the words were unintelligible but she managed to pick out a few. ".... crash... help...broken..."

She turned to Thorsgard. "See, a simple communication problem. They need help to fix the ship. Nobody was trying to steal any tools. Go and see what you can do, will you? The translator needs a bit of work but a great job on the costumes. Though I'm not sure about those antennas. I think most children would break them off the first time they played with them. Good night, everyone. I'm going back inside."

"But-"

"We'll talk about this in the morning, Thorsgard. It's late and if I don't get back inside soon, Olaf is likely to start the whole damn movie again. I'll see you all tomorrow."

Pernille sighed as she tromped back to the cottage. If only that had been a genuine crisis, a real alien invasion for example, and given her a chance to flex her spunky heroine muscles, like Ripley in Alien... though, come to think of it... that had not ended well. She pushed open the door into their cosy room, enjoying the warmth. She smiled at Olaf. Maybe there were worse things than hot chocolate and an old movie.

~~

In a galaxy far, far away, Brgg descended from the spaceship, xeir gait a little wobbly. Xeir aural units had still not completely recovered from that piercing weapon.

General Zlgg was waiting eagerly to receive xeir report. Brgg took a deep breath.

"Apologies General, but I'm afraid Sol 25478 is unsuitable for our purposes. It's occupied by a giant, violent race with fearsome weapons. We were lucky to escape with our lives!" Brgg glossed over the help xei had received to repair their ship. Coming from a world without magic, xe had been almost as frightened by the Elves and their workings as by their monstrous leader. "I discovered that even their younglings are violent and prepared to attack us, to rip off our antennas just for fun!"

The General wasn't the only one who flinched at that image. Without their aural and audio units, they would be deaf and dumb, unable to communicate. A ghastly fate and not worth the risk.

Still, that was exactly why they had advance scout ships.

With a small sigh, General Zlgg crossed Sol 25478 off xeir list.