“We come in peace,” Jasmin repeated. Then, and afterwards she could never understand why she did so, but she performed a strange bow, first touching her hands to her forehead, then displaying her empty palms in a wide welcome.
As she looked up, the monster with the gilded chain replied, touching a claw to his brow then displaying a broad golden paw. The paw was open, devoid of any threat.
“Peace.” Jasmin repeated with a smile. At her back, Blake was all nervous energy with his continuous tapping feet even an impatient slap to his side. He needs to be still Jasmin thought. She herself did not want to move a muscle. She felt calm, serene. So good, she was born to this.
Across from her the alien pulled back his paw and with a swipe, he waved to her to step aside. Okay so that was a very clear gesture of his claws, paws and arms, the alien meant: Mind out of the way.
Jasmin looked down to where she was standing on the end of the gang plank.
“Okay,” she said thoughtfully, and took two steps back onto the woodland floor.
Then the alien came towards her. It ran like a bear. What she mostly noticed was how it wore a transparent mask over the lower part of its face, a tube connected to a pack strapped to its shoulder. As is past Jasmin felt the heat of its body, the silkiness of its billowing fur. Then something scratched her arm, drawing blood.
Ouch. What? The creature wore what looked like glittering mail hanging like a cloak across its shoulders and down its back. It was metal, and sharp edge. It had cut her forearm like a knife. Still this was nothing. A narrow cut, not deep, it would heal in days, and if she was lucky she might have a lifelong scar to point to when she spoke of this day.
Oh this was glorious! She almost smiled as she watched the red and gold shields illuminate, as the alien initiated the tech it needed to lift yet another Redwood.
“No!” protested Jasmin, stepping back up on the gangplank, but Blake was faster.
“I got this Jazz,” he said pushing past her. But his hand was shaking as he touched her. Under this confident façade, he was really scared. Jasmin wondered, then how long had it been since Blake Allen had been truly afraid?
Blake strode to the center of the gangplank, simultaneously waving to his tame cameraman, as with a low bow akin to a courtier at the French court of Louis XIII, he shouted:
“We come in Peace…”
The second alien appeared impatient to Jasmin, glancing from the screen with the heat map of humans, peering out from the craft and sniffing the air. It looked with obvious longing to where his leader with the gold chain was powering up their equipment.
“We humans of Earth,” Blake was saying. “Would like to welcome…”
All around people were reemerging at the edge of the clearing to watch Blake. Jasmin could see the alien fretting, and calling out in a howl to his companion. A howl that was replied to with two short barks.
Get over here, one appeared to say to the other.
“Welcome here to the Sequoia National Park,” Blake was speechifying… “where you have found some of the most magnificent trees, our planet has to offer…”
The alien leapt down from its craft onto the gang plank and roared in Blake’s face.
Blake froze.
The alien lazily lifted an arm to knock him aside.
It’s wide paw and claws held high appeared to block out the sun, yet Jasmin found herself propelled to step up and stand next to Blake.
“No!” Jasmin said holding up a hand. ‘Stop!’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the military types raising their weapons.
Blake saw it too, and he squared his shoulders and set his jaw.
“We come,” he started to say.
“…in peace,” Jasmin echoed him, then they spoke as one. “We want to be friends.”
Only the creature roared. Jasmin had a clear view inside its maul to its pointed tongue and yellow and jagged teeth of its top and bottom jaws. Her senses were overwhelmed by its foul breath. Yet she felt fine. Her soul was still and quiet within her. An alien roared in her face, but this was what she did. She stood a moment marveling at how all the jaggedness, the bitterness had left her. Finally she was in her space.
Not so Blake. He was reaching to grab her arm.
“Let’s get outta here, Jazz.”
Jasmin went to shake him off, and in doing so analysed his face, the bulging eyes, the sweat beading on his forehead, the red puffiness of his cheeks. How scared was he? Jasmin had read that Blake had made his first million aged 23. He’d been bankrupt at 25, but then a billionaire by 31. For almost 30 years he had been cossetted by a huge stash of wealth and an growing halo of fame. When was the last time he had fought for anything? Had he ever feared for his job? Lost even so much as a pet, that he could not easily afford to replace?. While she Jasmin had spent most of her life fighting to be fit enough, smart enough keen enough to made it through Nasa astronaut training, only to have it all snatched away from her. For days, weeks she had survived on the cusp of death, how many times had she lain knowing the lights might go out in the next few hours, how many operations to her spine, her cranium, her legs. She had fought to live. She wanted to live, and in doing so she wanted to be here.
And if she died here, well she had slipped through death’s fingers so many times, maybe this time. This would be a good death, maybe she would let him take her…
But Blake was not ready to die
He snatched the M17 from the holster in the small of her back.
“What are you doing?” Jasmin gasped.
Blake had the small gun clenched in his two hands. His jaw was set, even though his arms shook, but what surprised Jasmin the most was the terror in his eyes.
Then she felt the breath on her neck.
As she had turned so the alien had advanced to stand at her back, out of the corner of her eyes she could see the dark muzzle of its snout, even feel the tickle of whiskers on her shoulder blade.
Still she kept her focus on Blake.
“Please, don’t shoot.”
But he did. He fired off three sharp rounds.
Jasmin could tell from the look on his face and the angle of his gun that he was firing up and to the right of the alien. Effectively shooting into the blue sky, probably hoping to scare The Alien.
Seriously?
However what Jasmin also saw was what Blake intended was entirely unclear to the military on all sides.
A cacophony of shots rang out.
“Jump!” Blake yelled as he leapt off the gang plank and into the crater below.
“Peace!” Jasmin cried, spinning round once more to face the alien with her open hands shielding her face. The creature was just there, a mere hand’s breadth away. So Jasmin saw it jerk at each impact and bark withpain. She was close enough to see the explosions of blood and fur, along the length of his thigh, into the soft flesh of its belly.
From his hiding space deep in the crater which had been the root ball of a giant redwood, Blake desperately waved to Jasmin to join him.
“Get down his Jazz. I’ll not have you killed.”
No, she thought, you’ve only gone and gotten this alien murdered. There was no need…
Shots fizzed before her, and at her feet, until she saw one last explosion in the alien’s arm. The narrow flesh and bone of its elbow exploded outwards, with this last impact, the creature squealed with real pain and fell flat to the ground screaming.
“Jazz, get down…” Blake yelled at her with real anger.
The same shooter continued his arc of fire, and Jasmin felt herself knocked sideways as bullets lodged themselves in the hip, thigh and knee of her artificial leg.
Now Jasmin was falling even as the alien fell, so the two found themselves nose to snout on the cool metal of the space ship’s gang plank.
And yet still the shooting did not stop, and Jasmin witnessed the pain and fear in the alien’s eyes, as its body jolted from further impacts. All because she had left the safety off on her own gun -
why had she even brought the M17? Blake had not been armed. His shots may have started this, but ultimately it was her gun, her fault.
Gritting her teeth she heaved herself to her feet, her mechanical leg inert beneath her, still she forced herself to rise up from behind the alien, then shouted:
“Stop shooting! Stop shooting.”
Two or three more shots rang out. Followed by an angry burst of machine gun fire.
“No!” screamed Jasmin. “Don’t shoot a man when he’s down.”
Crater
Jasmin stood over the fallen Alien.
All was silent in Converse Grove.No background chatter of bird sound, no low hum of communications, no banter amongst the soldiers. Just Jasmin standing protectively alongside the prone and groaning Alien. Blake crouched in the crater under the gangplank glaring up at her. She had disobeyed him. She too should be cowering in the mud, only she wasn’t.
She took stock.
One Alien was on board the ship, Jasmin glimpsed it looking out at her, then diving out of view. Soon a new low vibration emanated from engines, so they were preparing to leave, but…
The second Alien had emerged once again and worked with the equipment surrounding the Redwood, every other second it glanced at Jasmin, then at the men with weapons beyond.
The third alien…
Jasmin tiptoed forward to look, there was a long line of bullet holes from his shoulder to his hip. How many times had they shot this fallen creature?
“Cowards!” She shouted at the ring of armed men and women. “How dare you shoot when it’s already down.”
The creature moaned.
Was the alien alive? Jasmin started. She crept closer to the alien’s head. This would be her first touch of an alien body. Checking its vital signs. One of the creatures long paws was stretched ahead of its body and frozen even as it tried to claw its way back to the ship. Its outstretched claws were as long as her forearm.
She reached to pull back the lid of its eye, lashes long like a giraffe she thought and eyes that stared right back at her. Such sadness she thought, such defeat. Without thinking her hand was reaching to its jaw. Peeling back the lips, she looked at its teeth, the molars were almost as big as her hands.
Then she shuddered - why was she afraid? What now? Where should she go? Into the Alien ship? No. Back to the forest? No. Would they start shooting if she left the wounded alien’s side?
“He’s not dead!” she called out and was pleased to see looks of horror spread across the watching faces. Maybe now the military would help…
Only they weren’t looking at her.
She noticed the vibrations had increased.
What was…She turned.
Behind her, a vast Redwood floated through the air. The root ball intact, dripping soil and stones to the ground. The three gilt and red shields rotated as they carried the tree, from where it had dominated the forest into the hold of the asteroid ship.
A giant redwood was being stolen.
No, Jasmin thought. That’s not right. She had to…
Gasp!
Something had grabbed her from behind.
She had been picked up by the second alien, the one with the gold chain, who leapt out from the woods.
Now she was four-feet in the air as the alien brandished her aloft.
I’m a hostage, she thought in panic. Then with admiration: He figured out that they will not shoot me. And now he is using me as a human shield.
Huh. Okay.
But what if there were marksmen amongst the guards and army?
“Don’t shoot!” She cried throwing her arms wide.
The Alien paused to bend over his injured colleague, he appeared to offer him something that looked like an orange. The other gobbled it up. What was that? Then the alien holding Jasmin bound onwards to the ship. As they passed inside, the alien set her down. Jasmin now stood inside the space craft. She ran back to the open door then stopped.
Was she really going to run away from aliens and their ship?
She stood inside the door and looked back. The alien ship was vast, a vast asteroid that had been hollowed out to provide a cavernous space, where the Redwood hung with space to spare. How could such a vast tree just hang there? It made no sense. She was standing firmly on the floor, the tree hung midair, high above. Jasmin looked around for a forcefield or a mechanism. The lower levels of the ship was utilitarian, there were no ladders or stairwells. Instead when they had mined out the core of this ship, they had created storage spaces connected by a trellis of hexagons. No structural elements had been added to the interior of the asteroid, every thing was hewn out of the rock with materials and equipment secured to the walls with nets and straps.
“Tell us what you see,” Blake again, he had climbed up out of the crater.
“It’s functional,” Jasmin said reaching for her phone. “Like a delivery truck. I can’t see how they are controlling the redwood. I guess, if I looked in the cockpit…”
She needed to see the pilot’s chair, she thought. Then unbidden a memory from her schooldays: ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths.’
Shakespeare!” She muttered. “No, I will not be that coward. I will not leave this ship before I have seen the cockpit. I must…” She looked back to where the alien with the gold chain had disappeared. The cockpit was in that direction, back inside the ship. The exit was right here and the door was still. “Maybe I can find the control to restore the redwood.”
She should go back inside, she should try to save and restore the redwood. She should get some wanted to see inside, only… The third injured alien lay immobile on the gangplank.
Was that it? Were they going to leave it behind?
“Jazz!” It was Blake, he was coming towards her. “Forget all that, Jazz! Just get your butt outta there.”
She should, shouldn’t she? Just leap out of the craft to freedom and… But what if she stayed on the alien ship? Would she fly off with them? In space? Beyond Earth, to outer space.
The gangplank was starting to retract.
She did not care. This was it. She was leaving. She wanted to go into space. Whatever the cost.
Only.
They were leaving the injured alien behind.
Why? What would happen to the creature? Her alien, the one she had watched suffer and fall, the one she had shielded with her own body. No. How could they leave, how could she abandon it?
“JASMIN CHANG!” This last cry was one of desperation, as Blake released the gangplank and rolled to the safety below.
The injured alien was sliding down, in a moment it would…
She looked back inside the ship. Should she leave with the aliens? What about air to breathe, food and water? Was it safe? What about the space acceleration? Was there a safety seat?
The alien with the golden chain leant down from the cockpit and roared at her.
“Yes, I’m here,” Jasmin shouted back, determined not to back down. “What do you want?”
It pointed to the open door with a paw and claw outstretched.
“Okay so you want me to leave,” Jasmin pulled herself up straight and took her time to nod in parting, as she concluded with defiance. “Just so you know we came in peace!”
The creature paused then, head on one side, ears twitching. Then it lifted its claw to point to the door, this time it spoke in a quiet bark.
“Since you ask, so nicely,” she said and leapt.
Like a child jumping onto a slide, she slid down the sloping gangplank and tumbled down following the fallen alien. Together they splash-landed into the sodden mud.
Jasmin crawled and clambered around to the alien’s head…
“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be…”
Once again she pulled back the lid from its eyes, and she stared into its pupils. This time there was no reaction.
“If you are alive,” Jasmin said digging in her bag for a torch. “hey, we can learn each other’s language, maybe find some common foodstuf
fs. Who knows crack open a keg for a few beers…”
No movement that signified life and consciousness.
“But if you’re dead….” Jasmin leant against the creature, as she threw her head back. “Oh God.” Would this creature be defiled and dissected? How could any knowledge gained this way, be worth the price they had paid. First Windsor, now California, two aliens dead, two corpses…And dead because of my gun, my gun and Blake. I hate him.
“We come in peace. We are your friends,” she whispered. She believed that didn’t she?
She felt herself overcome with sudden grief and then the sun went out.
Panicked, Jasmin looked up. It was the alien craft, it had risen up from the lake’s surface to the tree line, its vast shape now eclipsed the sun.
Then she heard roaring and the sound of water boiling. Was that the lake? Warm water was washing through from the right. What now? What of the alien? On instinct Jasmin curled herself inside the inert paws of the dead creature.
“I will stay with you,” she muttered. “Even if I am the only one…”
The roar of the space craft had reached a new intensity.
Jasmin bowed her head in sorrow and crouched in terror. Would they be blasted by those huge engines? There was a wall of noise and compressed air, but no fire, the ship soared upwards at speed, cutting through the blue sky, until all she could see was a white trail arcing up to the stars.
On the ground, Jasmin lay back in the mud and watched.
“Well,” she told the alien. “There they go. They got away you know? So that made your sacrifice worthwhile. I guess. I sure wish you were alive. I’m sure they do too. Still here we are.”
Blake slipped through the mud towards her.
“Are you okay?”
“Me, yes,” she nodded. She knew there was something wrong with her leg, probably the mechanism was jammed by the bullets that had hit her, but at least she had not hidden in the crater. Still she could tell by the look in his eyes that Blake was a little nervous around her:
“I’m not hurt,” she heaved her prosthetic leg around, even as she sadly patted the fallen alien. “This Guy is dead.”
Aliens in Sequoia National Park Page 3