Mother Ship

by Scott Bartlett

  “Come on. We need to get inside and bar the doors.”

  Rex was walking around Avery Somerton’s still form, his eyes locked on Jimmy.

  “I’m not leaving him.”

  Max grabbed Jimmy by the neck and dug his fingers in, forcibly turning him around and running with him back toward the house. His friend yelled, but he stopped fighting him, and Max let him go. Together, they sprinted toward the house’s front door, which still hung ajar.

  Behind them, Rex was picking up speed, the rake held at the ready in front of him.

  4

  9 days to extinction

  “We weren’t able to get to the president in time.”

  Normally calm, General Andrews’ voice was heavy with emotion as it came over the satellite phone. “Or the vice president. Both of them were…torn apart by their own staff.”

  Janet Thompson exchanged glances across the mobile command unit with her partner, Ethan Dean. His olive face had paled, and his hand twitched in his lap as their eyes met. They’d all known something like this could happen at any time, but knowing it and experiencing it were completely different.

  “We did manage to recover the Speaker of the House, as well as a few representatives from congress and the senate who still have their minds. As for military personnel, we’re it. Even so, we have the people we need to run the country—provided we’re able to salvage a country to run.”

  The general gave them a few moments to process that before continuing. “I do have some good news. The attackers first targeted classified GDA satellites we had orbiting the moon—but not before those satellites spotted what might be a single point of vulnerability for the enemy forces: a mother ship, ninety kilometers in diameter. They’re keeping it behind the moon, beyond the reach of our offensive capabilities.”

  Janet leaned slightly toward the phone, which sat on a metal stool between her and Ethan. “Our conventional capabilities, you mean, sir.”

  “That’s correct. We’re heading for Colorado now. If all goes well, we’ll arrive in three days, though that projection assumes normal traffic conditions. It seems safe to say they won’t be normal. Either way, when I get there, I need to find you already at the facility, prepping the asset and getting him ready. There’s a good chance this will be our last conversation until then. The aliens are systematically dismantling every means of long-range communication we have, and they’ve assigned three of their ships to shooting down satellites. It’s a minor miracle we’re able to talk at all.”

  General Andrews sucked in a deep breath, and the satellite phone transmitted the inhalation. “This is it. Our worst fear has been realized. Now, we just have to pray our preparations were enough.”

  “How could they be?” Ethan cut in. “We were hoping for decades more before it came to this.”

  “Yes. But we always knew this might happen. Clearly, they caught on to our efforts and decided to strike now, to preempt us. Or maybe their timing is just one big coincidence. Either way, we need to work with what we have.”

  “On that subject, sir,” Janet said quickly, sure that Ethan was going to waste more time with his blathering. “We’ve encountered some difficulties, where securing the asset is concerned.”

  “What sort of difficulties?”

  “It’s his caretakers. They aren’t telling us where he is.”

  “Oh?”

  “They say they want assurances he won’t be…coerced into doing anything he isn’t comfortable with.”

  “I see.”

  “Chambers is headed into the city to collect them now. What methods are we authorized to use in order to obtain the asset’s location, sir?”

  The general’s tone grew firm. “I want the Edwards treated with respect. They’ve been integral to this project since day one, and they’re good people. I want their dignity preserved. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir. And the asset? What of his…agency, in all this?”

  “We’ve all read his psychological reports. Once he understands what’s at stake, he’ll fall in line.”

  “But he’s only had one year at the academy. He lacks training, and discipline. I’m afraid his youth might interfere with his ability to do his duty.”

  “I disagree. From what I’ve seen, he has a strong sense of duty. Like you, Janet. Which is why I’m confident that when I arrive in Colorado, I’ll find you’ve harmed not a single hair belonging to any of the Edwards.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Excellent. I’ll see you in Colorado.”

  Janet reached forward and ended the call. She and Ethan sat in silence for a time. Her partner looked apprehensive.

  All around them, switched-off computer monitors loomed like dark mirrors. They had enough diesel for their generators to keep the command unit fully operational for days, and there were plenty of military supply caches and armories to refuel at if they ran out. But there was still no reason to waste energy.

  Over the years, her colleagues had argued a number of competing theories about how things would unfold when the invasion came. Janet hadn’t bothered to participate in those debates much, but that didn’t mean she lacked a theory of her own, and so far, reality was mostly proving hers out.

  She decided it was time to break the silence. “You know as well as I do that we can’t afford to give any assurances about what will or won’t be done to the asset.”

  Ethan studied her, eyes narrowed slightly. “Tell me what you mean, Janet.”

  “We can’t afford any risk of him deviating from our objectives. We need to find him, now, and we need to take him in. As for the Edwards, they’ll have to be brought to heel.”

  “You heard Andrews. He doesn’t want them hurt.”

  “We’re going to be cut off from Andrews within the next few hours, and there’s no guarantee he’ll even make it to Colorado. From here on out, you and I run this organization, for all intents and purposes. We’re also the only ones who heard the orders he just gave us. They can be whatever we say they are.”

  Ethan’s face went neutral. “There’s a word for what you’re proposing.”

  “Frankly, I don’t give a shit about being insubordinate. This isn’t about the chain of command anymore, Ethan. It’s about humanity’s survival.”

  “Insubordinate wasn’t the word I was thinking of.”

  She shook her head, feeling impatient. “Spit it out.”

  “Treason,” he said.

  She sighed. “Call it what you want. Look, I plan to follow Andrews’ orders, so long as the I get cooperation from the Edwards, and from the asset. But if I don’t get that, I’m not going to risk the future just so Andrews can feel like he kept his hands clean. For what it’s worth, even if we do have to go against orders, I doubt he’ll want to risk losing two of the last few special agents this country has left. But it doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m going to do whatever it takes to beat these bastards, and that doesn’t involve holding the asset’s hand and telling him what a special snowflake he is. It also doesn’t involve letting Cynthia Edwards push us around. Are you with me or not?”

  Ethan sighed. “I’m with you.”

  5

  9 days to extinction

  Eventually, the hired help stopped trying to break down the front door, but not before he smashed the glass storm door with the rake. Max couldn’t help wincing when he heard it shatter.

  They’d piled up furniture against the door, like Max’s father had told him to do, but it didn’t turn out to be necessary—not to stop Rex, anyway. The dead-bolted door held fast against the battering. After twenty long minutes, Rex gave up.

  By then, they’d barricaded the back door too, and were standing in the living room. Waiting.

  “We can’t let him keep doing that to dad’s body.”

  Max nodded. “I know. But what’s the alternative?”

  “Go out there and stop him.”

  “How?”

  “Kill him.”

  Turning from the bay win
dow, Max studied his friend’s face. “Or, he might kill you when you try.”

  “Not if I get dad’s rifle.”

  “He still might kill you. But even if you do manage it…that’s not something you come back from easily, Jimmy. Killing someone.”

  “He’s not someone. He’s a savage animal.”

  “He’s a person. He was before, and he might get better—get back to his old self. You don’t want to be the one to take that chance from him, all because he did something he couldn’t control. You might think you do, but you don’t.”

  Jimmy dropped onto the worn wooden chest between the couch and the TV and raised his hands to cover his face. Sobs racked his body. “What’s going on, Max?” he said through his fingers, his voice wet. “That newscaster…what Rex did to dad….” His shoulders heaved.

  “I’m sorry, Jimmy. I’m sorry, man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening. But I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that it happened after that ship appeared. It’s doing something to people.”

  Jimmy sucked in air and seemed to compose himself a little. He nodded. “Thing is, I feel like I could kill someone, too. Not just Rex. Anyone. I’m angrier than I’ve ever been.”

  “You just lost your dad.”

  “It’s not just that. Something’s gotten into me. Do you feel anything inside you, like that? Anything weird?”

  Max took careful inventory of his thoughts, his emotions. During Basic Training, he’d gotten to know himself better than he thought possible. What he was like under real stress, for instance, and the general location of his breaking point. He hadn’t reached that breaking point during Basic, but he had learned for sure that he had one. And this wasn’t it. “No. I’m fine.”

  Max turned to look out the window again. “I didn’t see Rex go back toward the hay field. I think he left your dad alone.” But he wasn’t looking in the hayfield’s direction. He was staring at the giant Frisbee, still suspended in the sky. If that thing had made the news anchor and Rex go crazy, why hadn’t it done the same to him?

  “I guess he’s off to find his next kill,” Jimmy said, his voice bitter. “If we’d killed him, he wouldn’t have been able to.”

  Max didn’t answer. Jimmy’s point made sense, on the face of it. But it was also wrong. Max just couldn’t think of why.

  He turned to find Jimmy wearing a stricken expression.

  “God. I just realized how I sound,” Jimmy said.

  Max did his best to offer a sympathetic smile.

  “If I get bad…don’t let me do anything like Rex did. Okay? Don’t let me, Max.”

  “I won’t. But you won’t get bad.”

  “If you say so.” Jimmy stood up, opened the chest’s lid, and rooted around inside it. After a while, he came up with a small baggie half-filled with weed. A little more rummaging produced a small pipe. He opened the baggie and began packing the bowl full.

  He noticed Max watching. “You want some?”

  “No. And I don’t think you should have any, either.”

  “Why not?”

  He gestured toward the window—toward the ship suspended in the distance. “They might already be doing something to your brain. I doubt it’s a good idea to add any substances to that mix.”

  Jimmy frowned, nodded, then dumped the pipe back into the bag and put both away. Then he began pacing back and forth, the length of the living room, then the kitchen. Max stood by the window, watching the afternoon wear on. Every now and then he checked on Jimmy—studied his eyes, as discreetly as he could. Though, he was pretty sure Jimmy noticed him doing it, and knew what he was watching for.

  But his friend kept the same blank expression, staring into nothing as he paced the house.

  Around his twentieth time coming down the hall, he stopped and flicked a light switch. The fan light over the couch came on. “Power still works,” he muttered.

  “Turn it off. Dad said we should keep the lights off.”

  Jimmy switched it back off and resumed pacing.

  Max lowered himself into the overstuffed armchair, not bothering to mask his monitoring of his friend, and glancing behind him through the window every few minutes. What he was waiting for, he didn’t know. How long would it take his parents to get here?

  After about an hour of Jimmy’s pacing, he stopped again, this time in front of Max’s chair. “We have to bury dad, Max. I won’t be able to sleep with him just lying out there.”

  Max considered this for a second. He sighed. “Yeah.”

  “We should let the horses go, too. I don’t want to keep them penned where they’re vulnerable to the first crazy to wander by.”

  “Okay. Get your dad’s rifle.”

  Piece by piece, they hauled away the furniture barring the back door, not wanting to deal with the broken glass littering the front step. That done, Max followed Jimmy outside, squeezing past an end table to reach the door.

  “Horses, then dad,” Jimmy said. “We take care of the living first.”

  They went to the paddock, and Jimmy opened the gate, lowering a bar to stabilize it against the ground. The horses took no notice of the act.

  “They’ll figure out they’re free eventually.” Jimmy’s eyes found Max’s.

  Max would have offered to bury Jimmy’s dad by himself, but he doubted it was wise to be outside alone. Or at all. Besides, it would probably be better for Jimmy to get the closure. He would want to have a part in it.

  His friend exhaled loudly. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  They went around the barn again, to where Avery Somerton’s blood had dried on the hay all around him. Max hooked his arms through the body’s armpits, and Jimmy took the feet. Avery felt stiff—rigor mortis had already begun to set in.

  They carried him to a stand of pine trees a couple hundred feet from the house. A dozen meters in, they came upon a headstone in the middle of a clearing. It bore the name “Candice Somerton,” and an inscription: “ALL THINGS TO THE GLORY OF GOD.”

  “I didn’t know your mom was buried here.”

  “Yeah. She was happiest here, on the acreage. This place was filled with all her childhood memories. She never did want to leave.” He sniffed, and his voice trembled a little. “Not dad, though. He thought of this ranch as a prison. Just like me.”

  Jimmy turned away, but not before Max saw the way his eyes glistened. “We’ll need a shovel and pickax. Come on.”

  They collected the tools from a shed, and returned with them. With that, they took turns—one digging, the other standing watch with the rifle.

  6

  9 days to extinction

  Ted Chambers kept to the shadows as he made his way through the city, the afternoon becoming evening.

  He needed to make haste, but it was preferable to jump backyard fences than to encounter a murderous mob in the street. One instant of carelessness could spell his death—his suppressor-fitted pistol lying empty on the ground beside his maimed corpse.

  Mostly, fence-hopping wasn’t necessary. The neighborhoods he whisked through boasted plenty of elm trees, and their broad canopies served to cast him in shadow, their trunks blending with the greens and browns of the camo he’d grabbed from a supply trailer before heading into Oklahoma City.

  Something snapped nearby, and he froze. With the speed of glaciers, he turned his head toward the source of the noise. His hand wandered toward the butt of his FNX Tactical.

  A child wandered out from between two houses, clutching a teddy bear with its head torn off. Ted squeezed his eyes shut and forced his breathing to stay slow and steady. His stomach started in on the acrobatics.

  Please God, don’t let her see me. Nothing good could come of that, whether she still had her mind or not. The headless bear could count as evidence for either possibility.

  She crossed the lawn in halting steps, meters away from Ted. Her mouth kept opening and closing at random intervals, and he didn’t think he could see fear in her eyes, though it wa
s hard to tell in the fading light. If there was no fear, she’d definitely lost it. The odds were good for that to begin with. Few people hadn’t lost it.

  He tried not to think about what it must be like for a child who still had her sanity. One surely existed somewhere in the city. Possibly, he was looking at her right now.

  The girl reached the street, not hesitating or checking for traffic as her feet left the curb. Had her parents never instilled that habit, or had it fled with the rest of her mind?

  You can’t save her, he told himself. The best you can do is get the Edwards out of the city alive.

  She reached the other side of the street and veered left, headed for the porch of a brick bungalow with green trim.

  Ted shook himself and moved around the tree, putting it between him and the girl. Then he moved down the street away from her, a succession of grassy lawns muffling his footsteps.

  He stopped again, under an awning’s overhang. The daylight had receded enough.

  Checking for nearby threats, he unbuttoned his camo jacket, wriggled out of it, then dropped it in a heap. He unbuttoned his gun belt then shucked off the pants and added them to the jacket.

  Underneath, he wore a black long-sleeve shirt and dark pants.

  Burglar’s uniform. When it came to city stealth, it paid to borrow from the best.

  He buckled on the belt and continued through the city.

  At last, he arrived: yet another red-brick bungalow, this one with a second story tucked over the double-wide garage. So, not technically a bungalow, then. The house was nice, but not nice enough to attract much attention.

  Gaining entry posed a challenge. The occupants were inside, he knew, but knocking was out of the question. Breaking and entering offered a more attractive option, provided he managed to do it without noise.

  First, he explored his simplest option: the doorbell. It worked. The tone was loud enough that it reached him on the porch, and he grimaced.

  The door swung open. “Ted.” A note of relief.

  “Hi, Cynthia.”