Saucer: Savage Planet

by Stephen Coonts

  “Is this the saucer that just left Hudson’s Bay?”

  “No, sir. It’s the one that has been up there for several weeks.”

  The president, O’Reilly, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, and five of O’Reilly’s aides stared with open mouths at the colonel.

  The president recovered first. He made a shooing motion at the officer as he said, “Keep me advised.”

  When the door was again closed, hubbub broke loose. “Here? Washington? What could this mean?”

  “Is this an attack?”

  “Are aliens arriving?”

  “They’ll probably demand our surrender.”

  “Maybe they just want to negotiate for Adam Solo, establish friendly relations, get some fresh food.”

  “And lay some of the local dollies, perhaps? You’re a moron.”

  “If they land on the lawn outside, will you go out and meet them?” This from O’Reilly, directed at the president.

  The president’s eyebrows rose dramatically as he pondered the implications.

  Here. Washington. Oh, man! This might be it!

  It!

  The Arrival!

  Aliens from another solar system. Maybe from another galaxy.

  He surveyed the people around the table, all educated apparatchiks without enough common sense to pour piss out of a boot, even if the directions on the heel said, “Turn up.”

  “Where’s Petty Officer Hennessey?” he asked the nearest aide. “Find him.”

  The aide obviously didn’t recognize the name. “Hennessey?”

  “He’s in the honor guard. Go.”

  * * *

  The president and Petty Officer Hennessey were standing on the South Portico of the White House as the incoming saucer raced across the heartland. The cabinet and leaders of Congress, hastily summoned, and the top brass from the Pentagon all stood behind them. Aides scurried up to the president to keep him and Hennessey updated. It was over Iowa. Over Indiana. Over West Virginia. Well below 100,000 feet. Slowing. Trajectory seemed to be aimed right at the heart of Washington. The FAA was rerouting airliners away from Dulles and Reagan National airports. F-16s were overhead, just in case the president wanted the saucer destroyed.

  “What do you think of just shooting the damn thing down?” the president asked the sailor standing beside him.

  “Might work, sir, if there was only one of them,” Hennessey opined. “Kinda doubt that, though. Then it’s got a nuclear reactor, or so I heard. A crash might be messy.”

  “Yeah.”

  The president could see the television cameras being set up on the edge of the lawn, just in case. No doubt they would be beaming live to every television network on earth if the saucer landed here.

  The president felt hot and used a hanky to wipe his brow. Some of his makeup came off, but he didn’t care. The aliens wouldn’t give a damn either.

  Hennessey looked calm, cool and collected.

  “Where you from?” the president asked the sailor.

  “Oklahoma, sir. Joined the navy to see the world, and I did see a little of it, then they sent me here to Washington, which ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  “No, I guess not,” the president agreed and shot his cuffs.

  The tension was building nicely, and the president was acutely aware that he had to pee when the saucer came into view flying over the Potomac River. It turned and came over the top of the Washington Monument aiming right at the president and Petty Officer Hennessey.

  “This is it, I think,” Hennessey said. Then he remembered and added, “Sir.”

  The president realized something was wrong when the saucer came over the White House fence and didn’t continue to descend. It leveled off about a hundred feet in the air and flew toward the White House, slowing. About a hundred yards in front of the president, about where Marine One always landed, the saucer came to a stop. It was still a hundred feet up there. Stopped dead.

  The president and everyone else on the portico and the gathered press and billions of people all over the planet watching on television held their breath.

  Nothing happened. It just sat there, stationary, a black, ominous, silent flying saucer.

  After a while one of the officers in the honor guard walked toward the saucer. When he hit the repulsion zone under the thing he felt it and quickly retreated. The saucer and the earth were repelling each other; anything that entered the zone of repulsion would be instantly crushed.

  After a bit the people behind the president became restless. “Well, hell, what’s it gonna do?”

  The president conferred with Petty Officer Hennessey. “What do you think?”

  “Darn, sir, I kinda think it’s parked up there.”

  “What do you think they’re doing in that thing?”

  “I’m wonderin’ if there’s anybody in there a’tall. Maybe a helicopter could hover and take a peek through the canopy and tell us.”

  That, the president thought, was good advice. He acted on it quickly, and within minutes a chopper from Homeland Security made its approach to the saucer, which didn’t move an inch.

  The chopper hovered, then flew all the way around the thing at a distance of about twenty feet, and the answer came back. “It’s empty.”

  The crowd bled away. The television crews stayed longer, but eventually they made an agreement among themselves. One camera would remain aimed at the saucer and the feed would be shared by all the networks.

  The saucer was still there, steady as the Rock of Gibraltar, when the sun set, so lights were rigged.

  In the White House all the options were considered, and one by one rejected. The hatch was in the bottom of the ship, so with the antigravity system on, entry there was impossible.

  A helicopter could deposit a crew with blowtorches on the top and they could try to cut their way inside. If they got in, then what?

  Shooting down the saucer was considered. The idea was a nonstarter, for the very reason that Hennessey had articulated. If it were shot down it would fall close by, perhaps hit the White House, and the thing was nuclear powered. If the reactor were breached all of Washington would have to be evacuated. The cleanup could cost billions. If the mess could be cleaned up. If not, Washington might become a wasteland for thousands of years. Tens of thousands.

  Hmmm.

  The president conferred one last time with Petty Officer Hennessey before he went to bed. As he looked out his bedroom window at the saucer parked in the sky, he asked the Oklahoma sailor, “What do you think?”

  “Somebody put it up there, sir. I reckon it’s gonna stay there until somebody takes it down or flies it away. Probably that Solo fella, I figure.”

  The president nodded. “You going to be on duty tomorrow, Hennessey?”

  “Actually, sir, tomorrow’s my day off.”

  “Liberty is canceled until further notice. See you in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hennessey snapped to attention, did an about-face and marched out.

  * * *

  It was twilight in Western Australia when the saucer’s crew saw the little crossroads village. Two dirt roads crossing in the desert made a giant X. Around the crossroads Rip counted seven buildings. A telephone line ran east-west through the village.

  They landed a mile away, along the deserted road. Rip dropped out and went over to examine the nearest telephone pole. He paused behind the saucer to relieve himself, then climbed back inside.

  “I think it’s just telephone. Push the pole over and I might be able to cut that wire.” From his gear he extracted a souvenir Viking sword.

  He climbed out and waited.

  Solo maneuvered the saucer against the pole and pushed gently. As the line came in reach, Rip gave it a mighty whack. Hmm. Two more mighty whacks, and the line broke.

  He climbed back inside. “Better go around the town and do it over there too.”

  Solo avoided the village by at least a mile, staying about a hundred feet above the ground.
Rip got the wire with two whacks this time.

  They parked the saucer on the edge of the village, got out and closed the hatch. It was almost dark, but two medium-sized boys were standing in front of the nearest building, a house perhaps, and gawking. A dog must have been tied out back, because they could hear him baying at the top of lungs.

  “Say, lads,” Rip called, “is your mom or dad home?”

  They turned and fled. A moment later, a woman in pants came out on the porch with a flashlight, which she put in their eyes. “And who might you be?” Her voice quavered a little. The dog kept on barking.

  Egg made a sign to Rip and stepped forward, towing Charley along. “Ma’am, my name is Egg Cantrell, and this is Miss Charlotte Pine. We dropped in to see if we could get something to eat and drink. Be glad to pay you, of course, in American dollars.”

  “Oh, my Lor … You’re that saucer crowd that’s all over the telly that everyone’s looking for. Why on earth are you here?”

  “Well,” Charley said patiently, “we are hungry and thirsty and tired, and our ship isn’t designed for many creature comforts. I hope we didn’t frighten you.”

  “Well, bless me, you surely did. The cats are inside climbing the walls, and the boys are scared half senseless. If my man was here he’d have fired some shots.”

  “I see. We were indeed fortunate to arrive when we did. Now back to our request—”

  “You just stay away from this house or I’ll turn the dog loose. I have Jim’s rifle and know how to shoot it. I don’t want my boys kidnapped and flying off God knows where.” She retreated inside and slammed the door.

  Egg took a deep breath and scratched his head.

  “Obviously our vibes are not good enough,” Charley remarked. “Despite the fact that we are nice, wholesome American spacemen with our little round flying saucer.” She paused, then added, “Along with one thousand-year-old Viking alien with a very checkered past.”

  Rip set off for the center of town, such as it was, with Solo trailing along. Egg shrugged at Charley, and she and he followed side by side.

  There was a bar, or pub, and it was open. Rip led the way inside. Two men were huddled over pints at a table in the corner. Rip bellied up to the bar. The barman was a skinny, rangy redhead with only one eye. He squinted at them and asked, “What’ll it be, mate?”

  “Four pints. Do you have anything to eat?”

  “Steaks.”

  “Four steaks.”

  “I didn’t hear you drive in.”

  “We didn’t drive.”

  Before the barman could assimilate that comment, a youngster ran in, shouting, “Harry, there’s a flying saucer parked out there!”

  Dead silence for several seconds, broken when Rip said, “That’s our ride.”

  The men at the table stood and whooped. Harry, the bartender, slapped the counter and howled, “You’re that bunch? The ones they’re after?”

  Assured that was indeed the case, the patrons of this fine establishment pounded the four fugitive travelers on the back, and the barman served overflowing pints of beer. Everyone asked questions at once as more people magically appeared in the room. Over a dozen. Someone turned on the telly, which was hooked up to a satellite dish, and they all shouted and cheered at the video of the saucer hovering on the White House lawn.

  “Drinks are on the house, mate. Glad you dropped in.”

  Charley Pine watched Solo’s eyes and facial expressions. His eyes flicked from person to person, sizing them up, and he kept a friendly grin plastered in place. Nevertheless, he maneuvered himself into a corner so he could see anyone coming in or going out of the room. When his steak came, he ate it standing at the bar.

  Adam Solo, Charley decided, was a careful man.

  * * *

  The saucer parked above the lawn on the White House captured the imagination of the planet’s population. They looked at it on television—a saucer-shaped black presence, menacing, threatening, yet inert—listened to the hot babes and political types pontificate on what it might mean and talked among themselves.

  The saucer didn’t move. It simply sat in one place, repelling the earth with power supplied by its nuclear reactor, waiting for a signal it recognized to tell it to do something else. The signal didn’t come. The machine waited with infinite patience. It had enough plutonium in the reactor to sit here for a hundred thousand years. Time meant nothing to the machine.

  In Vegas the people partied on with occasional glances at the television picture of the stationary saucer. In churches across America and around the world, people prayed. Teenagers kept screwing, with occasional glances at the hovering saucer’s image on their cell phones. In bars all over America patrons stared at the immobile saucer on the televisions that usually showed sports while they imbibed record amounts of liquor. Bartenders noted that the regulars who normally drank beer and wine were on the hard stuff now.

  Meanwhile, a starship approaching earth was decelerating so it could orbit this medium-sized blue planet. Although the sleeping president and the people of earth suspected aliens, voyagers from the stars, were coming, they didn’t really know. They would soon find out.

  * * *

  During the night crowds began to gather on the sidewalks and in the streets surrounding the White House. Due to the position of the saucer, most of the people could see it parked in the sky. From all over the metropolitan area, people took the metro into town, or drove and parked their cars willy-nilly wherever they could find space, and walked closer. In New York and Connecticut and Boston, people packed trains to Washington. When the agents announced the trains were full, they jumped turnstiles and crammed aboard anyway.

  By dawn over a hundred thousand people filled every square foot of space for blocks around the White House. The nervous Secret Service officer in charge asked the army for troops to control the crowd, which didn’t need controlling. The people were orderly and quiet. They stood or sat whispering to each other and looking at the saucer and snapping photos with their cell phones or cameras. Thousands of pictures of the saucer were uploaded to Facebook and YouTube. A crowd control specialist with the district government quickly ordered hundreds of porta-potties and asked that they be delivered immediately. Sidewalk vendors, indomitable capitalists, set up shop to irrigate and feed the assembled multitude and sell them souvenirs. The crowd continued to grow. Thanks to the aroma of pot smoke wafting over everyone and to beer and liquor people had brought from home, the crowd was pretty mellow.

  Surveying the saucer, which hadn’t moved, and the gathering sea of humanity, P. J. O’Reilly got plenty worried. If the crowd panicked, this mess had the makings of a real disaster. On the other hand, if the army and police tried to move them away, there might be a riot.

  O’Reilly went down to the command post and found the White House telephone switchboard was out of service. Too many incoming calls. O’Reilly pulled out his cell phone and tried to log on. No service. No doubt the cell towers were overwhelmed too. He was busy talking to the Secret Service and government cops about crowd control when an aide interrupted to tell him that the saucer that left Hudson’s Bay was no longer in orbit. O’Reilly had more important things on his mind just then.

  The chief of staff decided to awaken the president and brief him on the situation in the streets of Washington. He enjoyed telling the Head Dog bad news, so he trotted off to the presidential bedroom with a spring in his step.

  * * *

  Dr. Jim Bob Spicer, the famous evangelist, was on top of his game. He knew an opportunity when he saw one. He managed to rent a construction hydraulic lift and got a permit to park it on a sidewalk from a crooked bureaucrat in the D.C. government. Armed with his piece of paper, he and the rent-a-lift people spent two hours maneuvering it through the packed streets to the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, where he had the crew put it on a sidewalk and elevate it with him and his cameraman as high as the thing would go. It was just high enough to give the camera a good view through the treetops of the
stationary saucer and the floodlit White House.

  With the camera rolling and the saucer as background, Spicer launched into a fevered prayer for the human race—indeed, for all of the world’s species large and small, from germs and worms and beetles right on up. The camera sent the digital feed to a satellite. From there it was rebroadcast to the studio where Spicer recorded his cable religious shows.

  With his prayer finished, Spicer looked straight at the camera and started in. The morning sun illuminated the saucer over his right shoulder.

  “Judgment Day is here,” he roared into his handheld mike. “In fulfillment of biblical prophecy, the Anti-Christ is almost here. There”—he gestured grandly at the saucer behind him—“is his chariot! Do you doubt the word of God? Do you doubt the evidence of your own eyes? Repent, you sinners, and be saved. Repent, I say, and God will save us from the Anti-Christ and evildoers who accompany him…” His harangue went on and on while his producer told him via an earphone that he had the largest audience in the history of his ministry. The news gave him new strength.

  With the saucer looming ominously behind him, Spicer wrestled with the Lord over the fate of the earth’s sinners, which was everybody, of course.

  Ten minutes into his oration, Spicer had a larger audience than Fox, MSNBC and CBS combined. Given the news over his earphone, Spicer had to suppress his glee and keep a somber look on his sour old puss while he ranted on.

  Government cops decided to run Spicer off and started making noise; the rapt crowd nearby shouted ugly things, so they backed off.

  * * *

  After listening a while to O’Reilly’s summary of the coming Götterdämmerung, the president got out of bed, pulled the curtains aside and peeked out the window. Yep, that damn black plate was still there. For all he knew, it might remain there until Judgment Day. Hell, the next election was only a year away; then the next president could worry about it.

  “The D.C. chief of police estimates the crowd at a quarter million and growing,” P. J. O’Reilly said ominously.

  “Tell them to shut down access to the city,” the president said. “Stop the trains. Put up roadblocks. Don’t let anyone else in.”