A Drop in the Ocean

by James Cooke

  ‘Here let me carry your bag, it’ll look more realistic,’ Brain said.

  ‘Oooh, a gentleman as well, thank you, Brian,’ Jill said.

  When they entered the Acapulco, some awful Country and Western music was playing, and it was the best sound ever. Apart from a few locals in the far corners of the bar, it was empty. Brian and Jill sat at the bar and ordered a pilsner each from the barmaid.

  ‘I think we’re okay,’ Brian said.

  ‘How d’ya mean?’ Jill asked, frowning.

  ‘The music, yeah, it didn’t stop, carried on playing. And look, there aren't any pentagrams on the wall’s, that’s always a good sign.’

  Jill was still none the wiser.

  ‘You’re mad, but anyway, thanks again, Brian. I must admit, it looks like I might have been worrying unnecessarily from the look of it.’

  ‘Ah, it’s no problem, always happy to help a friend out, besides I’ve got plenty of time to reach the mine.’

  Jill’s eyes were climbing into Brian’s. Now that she had her parka coat off, he could see how slender she was, under her tight-fitting t-shirt, he guessed a hundred and twenty odd pounds.

  ‘Well Jill, I’ve got to admit, you’re not your typical truck driver type, what got you into this line of business?’

  Jill chuckled, no doubt she’d heard that asked several times before. Brian hoped he wasn't too corny.

  ‘You could say that it’s a kinda long story, I guess. I like to try many different things, you know, cram it all in before I hit forty, I suppose. What about you?’

  ‘Ah, nothing special, been doing this for a few years now. It’s a living, that’s all.’

  ‘I see you’re married, how does Mrs Hopper take to your job?’ Jill asked glancing at Brians wedding ring.

  Brain stared at his ring and smiled, ‘Yeah was, still am in a way. My wife Joanne died early last year in a car accident. Now it’s just me and Megan, my six-year-old daughter. She’s all I got, she means the world to me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that, Brian. It must be difficult for you to raise her, how d’ya manage?’

  ‘Thanks, yeah it has been. Fortunately, I’ve got fantastic in-laws who happen to live in Edmonton; they look after Megan when I’m away.’

  The alien's homeworld society had for the equivalent of solar decades, argued over the right to colonise other planets in the galaxy. The vast majority had no qualms whatsoever about destroying other forms of life elsewhere, in order to expand their foothold.

  However, there was a growing number who felt the need to be more selective as to which planets met their criteria for complete destruction, on the basis that any intelligent alien life, particularly those on the brink of star travel, where worthy of nurturing, rather than being wiped out completely. The argument being that other intelligent life might develop technology which could benefit themselves. Those who held that belief were known as the Quassac’s. Such ideas were effectively regarded as treason by the majority rulers, and any Quassac’s found to harbour such views were quickly recycled.

  A certain Quassac had secretly managed to infiltrate the planetary terra-forming mission by masquerading as one of the crew of four on the spaceship, bound for Earth. His objective was to, if necessary, scupper the mission to plant and activate the Kel-Taire device by all means possible; and his fellow Quassac’s had secretly provided him with the means to do that, hidden within the spaceship, should it ever prove necessary to deploy.

  The object on the holographic screen now grew to a significant size, several feet across. It was gold in appearance with large oblong panels together with many rods and other complex shapes protruding in all directions. The word NASA, written on the side, meant nothing at all to them. Not realising what the object was, they failed to take any avoiding action in time to avert the inevitable collision that was to follow. The impact was colossal, throwing the aliens to the floor, but not quite severe enough to destroy the spaceship outright there and then. The aliens struggled to regain full control of their spaceship and prepared for the worst, an unplanned crash landing on the planet below them, Earth. They quickly analysed the biometric and geometric data scanners and aimed for the nearest uninhabited area. The last thing they wanted to do was to announce their arrival and then have to deal with any of the primitive planetary species as a consequence.

  Forty minutes after entering the Acapulco, Brian and Jill were still chatting when suddenly the glasses on the bar rumbled, tiny waves rippled across the surface of their drinks. The television picture broke up momentarily, and then a bright blue glow shone through the windows increasing in intensity before waning. A few seconds later the vibrations stopped, and the television picture resumed.

  ‘Whoa, what the hell was that?’ Brain asked, ‘Earthquake?’ he added.

  ‘I don’t think so somehow, earthquakes don’t light up the sky like that as far as I know.’ Jill responded. The barmaid changed the channel, nothing was being reported on the news.

  ‘Oh well, whatever it was, it's gone now. One more beer Brian, one for the road?’

  Brian sucked air in through his teeth, his lips pursed.

  ‘I shouldn’t really, but, maybe just a half. Excuse me a minute, I’m just going to the-’

  ‘Down past the pool table,’ the barmaid suddenly announced.

  ‘Whoa, ears like a bat eh?’ Brian mumbled to himself.

  When he returned, he saw a fresh half pint waiting for him, and Jill was drinking a large cocktail.

  ‘Wow, that looks good, what is it?’ Brian asked.

  ‘It’s called “a long hot screw in a remote bar”, apparently.’ Jill replied, twiddling the keys to one of two available rooms.

  Brian tried not to choke on his beer. ‘Really, wow.’

  Jill meant business.

  ‘Darling, would you be kind enough to carry my bag, I think we should take a nap, don’t you?’ Just loud enough so that everybody could hear.

  Brian was in a whole new world, something seemed to be controlling his body, and he picked up Jill’s bag.

  ‘Sure darling, after you.’

  The room was at the far end of the building, down a narrow corridor. The door opened into a pleasantly furnished, warm and cosy. The freshly made bed, with its crisp white sheets, dominated the room and hinted of pleasures to come.

  ‘Brian, could you please fix me a drink please, I just need to use the bathroom quickly.’

  ‘Okay, but I can’t stay long, got to make most of the daylight.’

  Brian found the drinks cabinet well stocked, and fixed up two bourbons on the rocks and waited for Jill. The bathroom door opened, and Jill stepped out wearing only a short see-through negligee and a g-string.

  ‘Um, just what I need,’ Jill said.

  As the damaged spaceship tore through the earth’s upper atmosphere, it lost a lot of speed and left a visible trail behind it in the darkening sky. When eventually it broke through the cloud layer, the crew were able to see only a vast expanse of white below together with some dark areas. They quickly realised that this might be a layer of frozen water – snow or ice that lay over a darker land mass, and not, in fact, an ocean. They hoped that they might make a safe crash landing, but such hopes were quickly quashed when they realised that the darker areas were in fact trees intermingled with large protruding rock formations. Approaching earth at an angle of twenty degrees, the spaceship skimmed over the top of a dense cluster of thirty-foot conifers. The ensuing maelstrom of broken trees, bits of the spaceship, and snow - scattered debris over a wide area, as it tumbled over and finally slid to a halt in a tree-less clearing. What remained of the spaceship wasn’t quite half of its original size. It had incurred substantial damage, and its broken parts crackled and sparked as it sounded out its death knell. A strange grey-green smoke drifted slowly upwards.

  The spaceship was never designed for such an impact, and thus fatalities were inevitable. Two of the four crew perished by the time the spaceship had come to rest. The th
ird crew member, who was severely injured and close to death, said to the fourth telepathically (translated into English), ‘Activate the Kel-Taire now before it’s too late. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, so long as we carry out our mission.’

  The fourth member replied telepathically, ‘No, I can’t let that happen. I’ll tell you now, I am a Quassac, and we shall not let the rulers destroy this planet. They are a superior race. What do you think we hit back there? That alone gives some indication.’

  The third crew member was horrified to find out that they had a Quassac traitor on board all this time, without realising. The third crew member, already on the brink of death, knowing that their journey had been wasted, died.

  The remaining Quassac crew member was also severely wounded but was still able to operate what was left of the console. It prodded several virtual buttons with both hands in a very ordered sequence; it already knew that it wasn't going to live for much longer, but at least it would be able to activate the secret plan to save earth from annihilation. After hesitating momentarily, it then pointed at the final button before collapsing back into a chair. A short while later, a panel in the bridge floor opened, and a three-foot-wide cylinder emerged, rising slowly. A minute later it had extended to six feet before stopping. The outer shell had the appearance of a glassy material. Then the outer shell slowly retracted back into the floor of the spaceship, but as it did, it left behind a cylindrical block of translucent jelly.

  Several multi-coloured lights pulsed on and off within the gelatinous block, in a seemingly random nature. As the light pulses slowed and then ceased, the block melted away, like ice on a hot summers day, slowly at first before quickening until it finally revealed its contents; the shape of a life form. As the last drop of gloop thawed and drained away through the floor, it revealed a female human. Her appearance was that of somebody aged between twenty to twenty-five, approximately five feet nine inches tall, and of athletic stature. She had long wavy hair the colour of mulled wine. Her skin was flawless, enhancing her dark green eyes, and shapely lips. She was fully clothed in a skin-tight electric blue coloured garment, similar to a wetsuit, which had a distinct hexagonal pattern on its surface.

  After stepping out of the cylindrical base, the humanoid walked, without hesitation over to the console, and moved both hands over it. A few seconds later, she stopped and went to the nearest body. She passed her hand over the heads of the dead crew members as if attempting to read their last thoughts, trying to ascertain what had happened. After finishing, she interfaced the console computer, placing her right hand on a small screen from which bright green lights emanated. It only took her a few seconds to read the ship's log and download the mission directive, which was to be executed in the event of the death of the entire crew. All she knew was that she had to try and locate the previous spaceship and its contents the crew may have left behind, assuming that they had successfully landed on earth back in 1979 and that the equivalent earth coordinates of its planned location, were 46°51’60’’ South 37°49’3’’ East.

  She calculated the optimum plan would be to establish communication with one or more of the planets apex lifeforms and solicit their help, however possible. Her data banks indicated that she had just under twenty-seven solar periods in which to locate the other spaceship and destroy its deadly cargo, a planet terraforming device called Kel-Taire. Otherwise, it would be too late to stop its automatic activation. Once activated, the Kel-Taire would commence a slow chain reaction that would eventually break down all RNA and DNA molecules in existence on the planet. Its destructive action would accelerate once it reached the oceans before affecting all land-based flora and fauna until eventually, every living thing would die, and the planet would be devoid of all life, bacteria and virus’s included. Eventually, the rulers would make the long voyage back to earth and have at their disposal, a blank canvas on which to re-seed and populate the planet to their own requirements.

  Having read data on earth’s terrestrial broadcasts over the last seventy years, the humanoid was fully aware that the dominant species were both relatively primitive and hostile when compared to her own creators. This was mostly attributed by the amount of warfare that had been and was still being engaged on the planet, something that her creators had avoided for over twenty-thousand years. Her creators, the Quassacs, had created her in the same form as a human female. They had studied many in great detail from specimens collected decades ago.

  The humanoid calculated that she would have to make any approach to humans very carefully if she was to succeed in the mission her creators had programmed her to carry out.

  Three hours later, after a long hot screw in a remote bar, Brian lay in bed with Jill snuggled up beside him.

  ‘Sorry about missing the daylight, will it matter if you set off in the morning?’ Jill asked.

  Brian sighed and smiled.

  ‘Probably, but who cares, you’re worth it.’

  ‘Is that so, perhaps you can show me again how much you care.’

  At eight-thirty the next morning, Brian, blipped the horn twice before setting off in the truck. Four hours later, things were going well. He hadn’t crashed or broke through the ice over the numerous lakes, and because of the clear skies, he’d been able to maintain good progress. He’d managed to complete his second ice-road truck delivery of the week, way ahead of schedule. The weather was pretty good, clear skies, no snow, just minus twenty below, as good as it got.

  Two hours later, he’d reached the Lupin mine and waited for the equipment to be craned off the trailer. He was on his way back within an hour and already covered over twenty miles on the return trip and estimated that he would reach the depot back at Lupin town, about another two hundred miles to the south-west, in about eight hours, hopefully arriving before midnight. That would give him enough time to pay a visit to the Acapulco and have a few beers with the other truckers before sleeping in the bed of the truck. If Jill was around, all the better. He’d learnt from experience that the key was to be in a reasonably good condition for the early morning flight home, which is more than he could say for some of the other drivers. The last thing he needed was to be hungover when Megan and her grandparents greeted him at Edmonton airport.

  With that in mind, he re-focused on the job at hand, namely getting the truck back to the depot as soon as possible and preferably in one piece. He switched the radio on and tuned into a local station. The presenter was talking to a so-called expert about something that sounded like a meteor strike. They were explaining the differences between shooting stars and meteorites that land, citing several famous examples, notably Tunguska, the big one that occurred over Russia over a century ago. Several people were ringing the station to say that they had seen what they thought was a shooting star except it was much brighter, shining bright blue. The odd thing was, it seemed to have occurred at the same time he and Jill were in the Acapulco.

  Chapter 4

  Lieutenant Frank Eghert came across to most who knew him, as a very serious man who appeared to have no sense of humour whatsoever. Aged fifty-nine, he had risen through the ranks after joining the air force in the late seventies. He was invited to join a special division of the USAF in 1979 by Captain William Trent who was at the time, working at the black operations unit out of Edwards air base in California.

  Now sitting at his office desk with both feet on the top, Eghert puffed away on a Lucky Strike cigarette while intently reading the latest classified reports of open case files which involved unexplained images from AVT-1X; the U.S military’s latest ultra-high-resolution surveillance satellite. Eghert had class-7 clearance, one of only a dozen or so within the NSA and its covert sub-groups. The AVT-1X project was classified to such an extent, that not even the US President was made fully aware of its existence. That was a risky situation on the basis that whoever had made the decision to withhold its existence, albeit temporarily, processed enormous balls, for not even the highest class-7 clearance would normally override the Presi
dent's authority.

  Eghert was just about to call it a day when one of the staff data analysts knocked on his office door and entered his smoke-filled office, letting out a small series of coughs as he did. This alone annoyed Eghert immensely, the sheer audacity as he saw it, to cough upon entering his office as if he was trying to make a point. Eghert had grown to despise the organisation’s human resources influence and, in his mind, their pathetic no smoking rules. This only added to his increasing hostility towards the agency's ever-increasing political correctness. This had better be fucking good, he thought.

  ‘Yes, Harrison, what is it?’ Eghert snapped.

  ‘Excuse me Sir, but AVT-1X has just gone offline, we...’

  Harrison was cut off midstream by Eghert.

  ‘What the hell do you mean offline? Who's taken it offline?’

  ‘No one sir, it's just disappeared, and we can't re-connect with it.’

  ‘Bullshit! Have you checked the backup links and run diagnostics?’ Eghert replied.

  ‘Yes Sir, we've double checked everything, but there's something I think you should see.’

  Eghert reluctantly followed Harrison out of the office and into the operations room. There was an unusually quiet atmosphere in the room, and all the operations staff eyes were upon him. He figured it must be something serious to be dragged away from his office, primarily as he was just about to go home. Don’t these clowns know anything?

  ‘Over here, sir, on Williams's camera number two monitor,’ said Harrison.

  ‘For god’s sake, how do you expect me to see that, put it on the big screen, you idiot.’ Eghert snapped.

  Harrison nodded to his co-worker and with a few clicks of his keyboard, Williams’s enabled everyone in the room to see his camera feed on the big screen, which comprised of six one hundred-inch 4K panels sandwiched together in a three by two formation. Everyone in the operations room now watched a recording made by auxiliary camera No. 2 on the AVT-1X, which covered a semi-sphere field of view. The clip showed nothing untoward at first, just the empty darkness of space. But then something grew more substantial in the upper left part of the screen. Eghert’s eyes opened even wider. The camera automatically focused on the object, which was now clearly visible, as it approached the satellite.