by Peter David
“One thing at a time,” Sam shot back under her breath. “How long is this going to take?”
“I’m on it.” Moments later he had gathered coiled cord and batteries and brought them over to Sam. “I tuck it away for safekeeping.”
“You mean, like, in case of an alien invasion?”
“Actually, most of this stuff’s for gaming.” Leaving it with her, he crawled under a desk that was piled high with hard drives and CD-ROMs, reaching for what looked to Sam like a pretty high-tech-looking box in a corner. He managed to get a grip on it with the fingers of one hand. “Got it.”
“Great,” said Sam. “Just don’t make any noise extracting it.”
He endeavored to do as she instructed as he began to pull. This nudged the box forward toward him, close enough that he was able to get a second hand on it. Then, slowly, he began to back out from under the desk, hauling the box a few inches at a time and then moving with greater confidence.
That confidence cost him when his back leg bumped into another desk nearby. It had a towering pile of stuff on it, and the impact from Cal’s leg jolted it. Sam tried to lunge toward it, to catch the pile before it fell, but she wasn’t even close to getting there in time. The pile tilted, slid and crashed to the floor. Cal whipped around, a look of wide-eyed fear on his face.
The Land Commander finds that he cannot take even the slightest break without being disturbed.
He hears the crash within the nearby human structure. It is as frail and poorly put together as any human shelters are … indeed, as much as actual humans are. It could easily be falling apart all by itself. Nevertheless, attention must be paid, in the unlikely event that any of the creatures are lurking inside.
He summons two of his subordinates and they approach hastily even as he tosses away his salt stick. They await his orders. He gestures for them to head into the structure, to determine just exactly who or what it was that caused the things inside to fall over.
Each of the soldiers is carrying a cleeb, a bladed instrument that could slice any human in half with the slightest contact. They head toward the structure, their cleebs at the ready. When they approach the structure, the door is shut. Without hesitation the foremost grunt kicks it open and enters with full confidence that nothing inside can possibly pose a serious threat. They are warriors in the service of the Land Commander, and there is nothing they cannot accomplish. Nothing they cannot defeat. Nothing—
—in the room.
The first soldier steps in, the second right behind. They clear the corners, making sure that no one is hiding there.
The rear window. It is hanging open. They move to it and look out.
No sign of anyone.
They report their findings—or lack thereof—to the Land Commander. He considers the information carefully. Which seems the most likely? That some random stack of human leavings tumbled over because of a possible gust of wind, or maybe it had never been properly aligned in the first place and had eventually given way to gravity? Or that some human or humans had braved all manner of threat just to search around in an empty building and had barely managed to escape out the back window before they could be seen?
The answer is self-evident.
He orders the two back to work and resolves to give it no further thought.
Sam had come to think of the area where the first contact had been made—the spot that was now occupied by the overturned Jeeps—as her own personal Ground Zero. The place where her view of the universe, her understanding of reality itself, had been upended.
Now she and her companions had taken refuge on a hill overlooking it and were doing everything they could to take down the creatures that had performed the actions of total destruction. God, I show up at someone’s place, I come with a bottle of wine, maybe some dessert, and if it’s a party, I offer to stay after and help with the cleanup. These guys come a bazillion light-years to our place and the first thing they do is blow shit up. I swear, some people …
Calvin Zapata had worked with surprising speed and confidence—surprising, Sam reasoned, because thus far she had only seen him out of his element. Now that he was operating within his area of expertise, he was all efficiency. He had effortlessly set up the spectrum analyzer and rigged it to batteries. Then he had put on the headphones as if he were crowning himself and, with complete certainty, snapped on the analyzer.
That was where his confidence came to an abrupt end. Needles, dials, readouts—all of it just lay there, unmoving. Dead.
“You doing this right?” said Mick.
Cal shot him an annoyed look and started double-checking the connections.
Speaking as much to herself as anyone else, Sam said softly, “Yesterday my biggest fear was that my dad wouldn’t accept my boyfriend. Now …” Her voice trailed off and then she looked back at Mick. “You?”
“I thought I couldn’t climb a little mountain. Good one?”
Suddenly they both jumped at a nearby surge of sound. Sam automatically thought it was some sort of weapons blaster aimed at them, about to blow her head off. Judging by Mick’s expression, he’d probably thought it was the same thing. She relaxed when she realized it was just the analyzer humming to life. Cal looked at them with an expression of smug triumph and then began adjusting the dials. “Oh, I should have mentioned this before,” he said in an offhand manner, “but if this works, and we get a good frequency—”
“We’ll only have a few seconds to communicate. You already told us,” said Sam.
“Yeah, that. But …” He was trying to sound casual about it and wasn’t being terribly successful. “Also those monsters are pretty much guaranteed to get a lock on our position, too. So we’ll only have a few seconds to get out of here.”
Sam took in this new information. “I almost wish you hadn’t mentioned it.”
He shrugged and returned to the spectrum analyzer, fine-tuning the dials so delicately that he seemed like a safecracker trying to discern the combination through subtle clicks of tumblers. Sam mused that, in a way, that’s exactly what he was doing: he was trying to crack into a wave band in order to gain access to it.
“Anything?” said Mick.
Cal shook his head and continued to adjust and refine it. The needles and dials were now flitting about, bouncing from one side to the other. And then, all at once, they stopped their twitching and became rock steady, pointing straight up with only the most minute of quivering. As they remained steady, Cal whispered in amazement, “I hear them. I’m listening to aliens communicate.”
“What’s it sound like?” said Sam.
He pulled a headphone free so they could hear it, too. To Sam, it sounded like a steam wand on a giant cappuccino machine. Apparently it came across that way to Cal as well. “Starbucks,” he said.
Great. Thanks to him, now I’m craving a latte.
Mick nudged Cal, who made a final adjustment, getting the patched-together device online with where they needed it to be. Then he took the police radio they’d salvaged from the Jeep, plugged it into the spectrum analyzer and handed the microphone to Sam.
Sam worked to keep herself calm. She needed to be all business. There wasn’t time for histrionics or sounding like the frantic girlfriend in one of those horror films.
“John Paul Jones, this is an urgent message for the USS John Paul Jones, do you read?”
No response was forthcoming. She repeated it again and again, and with utter despair crushing in on her, she heard a familiar voice come with an excited, “Sam? Sam, is that you?”
It was Hopper. His voice was static-filled and phasing in and out, but it was most definitely him. “Sam, what the hell are you doing on the naval emergency channel?”
She didn’t have time for a back and forth. For all she knew the aliens were detecting the transmission. Plus the horizon was beginning to redden—the sun would be coming up soon, making her feel even more exposed. Without even acknowledging him by name, she got right down to business. “Three items. One: these
things are here and their immediate goal is the satellite array on Makapu’u Head above the watershed, near Saddle Ridge. Two: at 10:30 a deep-space satellite will orbit by, which they’ll use to slingshot a message home. And you can guess what that means.”
His voice was still laced with static, but at least she understood him. “Millions of ’em. Everywhere. What’s the third?”
She paused, and for the first time, she allowed emotion to fill her voice. “You better stop ’em, because we’re getting married and they’re not invited.”
“Sam! Sam, get out of there! You’ve got to get out of there! I love—!”
The static overwhelmed the clarity of the transmission, and Sam winced from the feedback as she removed the headset. “He’s gone.”
“I know,” said Mick, “we could pretty much hear his side of it leaking out of the headset. We better get gone, too.”
They rose to their feet. The spectrum analyzer having served its purpose, they left it behind. As they moved quickly away from it, Mick said, “By the way, I’m pretty sure that the last word he was going to say was ‘you.’ ”
“Pretty sure?”
“Well, it might’ve been ‘pizza.’ Or ‘baseball.’ Or maybe ‘being a semi-fiancé and we shouldn’t make it any more serious than th—’ ”
“Shut up,” she said as they disappeared into the rain forest.
USS REAGAN
Seated behind his desk with a phone to his ear—which was where he felt like it’d been forever—Admiral Shane was starting to have trouble recalling a time when he didn’t think he was losing his mind.
I’ve had meals with this man. Hell, I’ve golfed with this man. He seemed sane and reasonable all those times. When did he turn into such a flaming asshole? Guess it takes an alien invasion to bring out one’s true character.
As Shane’s aide, Ensign Chavez, came in with a cup of coffee, Shane tried a different approach. “I’m asking you to reconsider, Mr. Secretary …”
“And I’m asking you,” came back the Secretary of Defense’s voice over the phone, “to keep following orders, something I’d think I shouldn’t have to ask. Your orders were to continue trying to find a way through that water obstruction they’ve tossed up.”
“We’ve already lost two planes and a fully manned attack sub trying to do just that—”
“And we’re willing to lose more if we must.”
Shane’s voice was low and flat, an unmistakable tone of screw you in his response that not only could he not hide, but he wasn’t even trying to. “Are we.”
There was a pause on the other end. Message sent. Message received. Message rejected. “Just scramble the jets, Admiral,” said the Secretary in a way that drew the divide between them in stark relief. “Circle that barrier. Find a hole in it. We need to get in there—”
“We need to get in there?” Calm. Stay calm. He’s not one of us, he can’t understand, he answers to the President, don’t say what you’re thinking. His mind split down the middle, one side listening to the very solid advice being presented by the other side. After listening, the other half of his mind completely ignored the first, and Shane said what he was thinking. “While you sit six thousand miles away, I’m on the enemy front line, with four hundred of my men and my only daughter trapped inside that dome! I am far more aware than you of the need to get inside there, but wasting lives will not help.” He paused, and heard the Secretary inhaling on the other end, about to speak, but the admiral steamrolled right over him. “You want me to send up another plane? I’ll do it the second you come up here and sit your ass in the copilot seat!”
He slammed down the phone, killing the uplink. Waves of anger radiated from him, and it was that moment he realized that Chavez was still standing there, waiting to hand him the coffee. In a fit of uncontrolled rage, he snatched the mug from Chavez’s hand and threw it with all his strength. It shattered against the wall.
Chavez stared at the mess in shock. Shane looked directly at him, his eyes like twin thunderstorms. Chavez gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I … I’ll get you another cup.”
He got out of there as quickly as he could.
USS JOHN PAUL JONES
“Dammit,” muttered Hopper as he watched the seemingly random, unpredictable movements of the remaining target.
He was still having trouble processing that somehow Sam had managed to get in touch with him. He’d always known she was resourceful, but this was beyond anything he would have thought she could have cooked up. There had to be someone there with her, out on Saddle Ridge. Maybe someone military. He hoped so. It made him feel a little better knowing that perhaps there was an experienced soldier or Navy man by her side, working to get her the hell out of there …
I wonder who it is? Should I be jealous?
Then he pushed such dead-end thoughts out of his mind. This sure as hell wasn’t the time for them.
Nagata was right next to him, seeing the same thing that Hopper was when it came to the alien vessel. “They’re learning from their mistakes.”
Hopper nodded. “We can’t hit him. Can’t lock a missile on his movement.”
“They’re smart.”
“Yeah, well we’re not exactly a bunch of dummies ourselves. If nothing else, we bloodied them up pretty good, so that bought us some time. They’re not going to come right after us.”
“Too bad,” said Nagata. “Recklessness on their part could have worked in our favor.”
Hopper hated to admit it, but Nagata was right. Can’t be helped now, though. No sense dwelling on it. We need to focus on what’s next, not what was. “We know a few things,” said Hopper. He ticked them off on his fingers. “If you hit them, they come after you. They value their own. So if you kill them, they seem to resent that. Agree?”
“Agree,” said Nagata.
“We also know they don’t handle light very well, and their ships are not bulletproof. They are hittable.”
“Yes, agree.”
Hopper considered all of it a moment and then picked up the radio. “CIC to engineering. Beast, give me good news.”
“We’ve shored up the port engine,” Beast’s voice came back. That alone was enough to prompt a sigh of relief from Hopper. Beast continued, “I can give you 10 knots now and 20 in ten minutes.” Then Beast’s voice suddenly became fainter and Hopper realized Beast was facing away from the radio on his end, speaking to someone else softly, thinking his voice wasn’t being heard. He was saying, “Hiroki, can you give me twenty in ten?” A second later he came back on and said, “Yeah. Definitely twenty in ten.”
Hopper smiled at that, but he didn’t let his amusement sound in his voice as he said, “I’m holding you to that.”
He clicked off the radio and glanced at the monitor. The stinger was showing no sign of slowing its movements.
“I don’t think this one is going to make the same mistakes.”
“No,” said Nagata.
His gaze drifted to the island of Oahu. His mind racing, he said, “Let’s see if we can take him somewhere he doesn’t want to go, and hit him somewhere he doesn’t want to be hit.” He looked to Nagata for approval, but Nagata just appeared puzzled. This actually pleased Hopper—he was one step ahead of Nagata. This was shaping up to be a good day after all. “Miss Raikes.”
“Sir?”
“What time is sunrise?” He exchanged looks with Nagata, and this time it was clear that he was now on Hopper’s wavelength. Nagata didn’t smile—that would have been too much—but the edges of his mouth actually seemed to twitch ever so slightly.
Raikes, not sure why it was of that much relevance, checked her chronometer. “At 0553,” she said briskly.
“Okay.” He clicked back on the radio. “CIC to engineering. Beast, you said twenty minutes?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine. Meet me on the bridge in twenty-one minutes.”
“Aye, sir,” came Beast’s voice, but he sounded as confused as Raikes.
Mome
nts later Hopper and Nagata were heading up to the bridge at a brisk pace. As they did so, Nagata startled Hopper by saying, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You are all that your brother was and more. So why do you act as if you were so much less? Why such self-destructive behavior?”
He glanced at Nagata as they walked and then laughed softly. “Do you have any idea how many people have asked me that?”
“Not really, no.”
“It was rhetorical.” He paused and then said, as they continued to move, “When Stone and I were kids, I was better than he was at … well, lots of things. School. Athletics. Strategic thinking. Everything. And I loved rubbing it in his face, because I was a typically obnoxious kid brother. And one day we were in the woods near our house, playing some game … I don’t even remember what it was … and he just got fed up. He stalked off and I ran after him, shouting and being snide. Suddenly the ground went right out from under me and I fell straight down a hill, which sent me tumbling into a river. Got knocked cold by a branch and the water just started carrying me downstream. I’d’ve drowned, no question. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital. Stone had jumped in and swam after me and pulled me out. And what woke me up was my father shouting at Stone. Telling him it was all his fault. That it was his job to watch out for me. And I thought, Son of a bitch, he saved my stupid life and he’s the one getting his ass chewed. And that was it.”
Nagata looked at him, confused. “What was it? That was what?”
“I swore I would never do anything to make Stone look bad again. That he’d be the hero of the family. Because I might have been better at all this stuff that, in the end, doesn’t matter … but he was the better person. And he deserved to have the world recognize that.”
“That is … very noble of you.”
“Thanks.”
“But I would point out that it doesn’t explain your obvious rage issues. Your tendency to solve problems with your fists. Your knack for self-destructive behavior.”