BAD RAIN: A SCI-FICTION THRILLER

by Michael Mazzarelli

  “Sounds workable. I suppose I should contact the local office of Emergency Management, and explain the situation to the person in charge, but only what he needs to know. I doubt they’ll have the setup you have at your TV station. But let’s see what they can offer. Let’s get started.”

  Agent Woods said to Donemore in the hallway, “I hope you’re not mad at me for suggesting what you should do, it’s just that this is definitely a Blue Book File of the first order and I think the shit is going to hit the fan on this one. We’re not dealing with a bunch of quacks, hoaxes, headline seekers or obsessed UFO nuts here. They have real equipment, pictures, video, eyewitness accounts, devastation and, more than anything, they’re very reputable people. I don’t know how the government bureaucracy will conceal this one this time, but I believe they’ll have to shoot it down unless we find something as of yet we know nothing about.”

  “You always have a theory, which normally turns out right, Woods,” Donemore said. “Most of the investigation we did on the Blue Book Files turned out to have a logical explanation. I hope this turns out the same way. I’m glad you suggested I go see the dead wild life they collected and the soil results, as I would have suggested it to you if you hadn’t. I’ll be in touch— Just be careful out at the site. I wouldn’t want an alligator to turn you into Captain Hook, leaving me to do all the paperwork,” Donemore quipped.

  “Always the optimist. Call me if you find anything unusual or if you just want to see if I’m still able to answer the phone.”

  Stan drove to the site with the most devastation, made a call and arranged for an airboat to meet them. Agent Woods called assistant director Balder and explained everything that was going on and requested the proper personnel be contacted, on a plane, and in Orlando for the 5:00 p.m. meeting. Woods stressed the importance of dealing with the problem as if no tomorrow was on the horizon, making sure that the authority to shoot down an unidentified object over American soil be dealt with immediately. Balder told him the president would be contacted within the hour.

  Woods kept mulling over how the object only showed up on radar for a second. Would that be enough time, Woods thought, for the military to lock on and shoot it down? And what about the material composition of the craft itself? Could earth-conceived weapons destroy a vessel capable of traversing the universe?

  They were on an airboat and out to the site in short order and, as they approached, Agent Woods noticed that the FMP had blocked off the entire area and had airboats patrolling so no one could enter without authorization. “God, Stan! I know you guys said this was big, but I wasn’t prepared to see everything totally stripped in such a big area! Look how well defined is the path of the devastation. The object we saw on Jeff’s video is about as wide as what we’re seeing here, isn’t it? It’s as if the thing flew over on a sunny day and wherever it cast a shadow that area was destroyed,” Woods said.

  Before Stan could reply, Woods’ phone rang and Stan shut the power off on the airboat so he could hear. “Woods, this is Donemore, are you at the site?”

  “Yes, just arrived. You wouldn’t believe this, Donemore! It’s so big and totally devastated. I never thought we would see evidence of such magnitude! What’s up?”

  “Don’t go into the area! We found that the unknown dormant acid reactivates if water is put on it. So don’t let anyone touch a combination of water and contaminated soil.”

  “For chrissakes! Glad you called, as I was about to walk the area to see the actual ground. I’ll tell Stan to warn his people in the area. That probably explains the dead alligators along the shoreline. They would have come out of the water to warn up and activated the acid.”

  “This stuff is potent and nothing like I’ve ever seen before. I want to believe this was made here, but maybe it is UFO waste. Anyway, see you at 5:00 p.m.,” Donemore said.

  After thinking it over, Janet told Jeff that she felt if Channel 9’s communication room was available it would be best to set up a control room there. This would free up the local EMA space and resources for any major disaster. Besides, the TV station was located right off the East/West Expressway about two miles from the Executive Airport. The powers to be that the Assistant Director of the FBI was sending in could get there by private jet and be five minutes from the command center upon landing. “Jeff, why don’t you drop me off at the local emergency management center. I’ll go over the whole situation with them and get prepared for what we think could happen.”

  “Sounds good to me. It’ll give me time to talk to my boss at the station, then swing by my house and pick up all of my videos, pictures and journals,” Jeff replied.

  “Let me know the second your boss agrees,” Janet said, “so I can call everyone and tell them the meeting at 5:00 p.m. is at the station.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry. We’re sitting on the story of a lifetime and my boss will have the inside scoop, but I’ll call you anyway. Should be able to pick you up by 4:00, but call me if anything develops.”

  Within minutes of the call from Assistant Director Balder to the Director of the FBI, the word had gone all the way up to the President of the United States of America. An alien spacecraft was confirmed as flying over U.S. territory and it was being recommended that the craft be shot down. A meeting was called ASAP, between the President, Joints Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, FBI Director and Assistant Director. Thirty minutes later everyone was sitting in the President’s office, being briefed in detail by Assistant Director Brad Balder. “The bottom line is, friend or foe, we can’t wait and try to find a way to communicate with the alien craft because there is no time. In the last three days, it has caused destruction on our soil. We have been lucky there have been no casualties, but if this continues the inevitability is that there will be a catastrophic event with major injuries and death.

  “General Stormer of the Air Force will fly down to oversee the project, code name Bad Rain. His mission is to seek out and destroy this object that only in the last three days started showing up on radar as a dot of short duration. He has the authority to use whatever means necessary to bring down this object, which appears the size of a football field. The only admonition to General Stormer is to try and bring it down out of harm’s way. Let me stress that—if possible.”

  Within minutes after the meeting’s close, calls were made to every military and private radar facility in the country. All alarms without an explanation or sightings that pilots reported were to be examined immediately. No calls were made to other countries of Earth. The reasoning was relatively straightforward: Since it happened over U.S. territory and was going to have to be resolved by us, other inputs were irrelevant at this point. If something went wrong, the rest of the world would find out soon enough.

  General Stormer placed a call to Agent Woods, requesting where and when to meet. Woods put him on a three-way conversation with Janet and it was decided that Jeff and Janet would pick him up at the Executive Airport at 4:30 p.m. Before heading to his plane, General Stormer asked General Hensel of the Navy and General Libby of the Army, to put all their bases in the central Florida area on alert. He would need ground to air missile sites, mobile sites, troops and the closest fighter squadron at his immediate request. Once he had a command center set up, he would let the Generals know where all communications should be directed.

  Jeff called Janet and told her everything was okay with his boss, that the TV station was at their disposal. Janet relayed her conversation with Agent Woods and General Stormer, suggesting that as soon as Jeff picked her up, they could go to the airport and pick up the General and head to the meeting from there.

  At 5:00 p.m. sharp everyone was at the TV station, seated, and waiting only for Jeff, Janet and General Stormer to arrive. Al felt the tension building, just like before a lightning strike. You could see it in everyone’s faces. What an ironic comparison, Al thought to himself. The lightning and storm conditions that enabled them to see it in the first place was the resting place for Man’s
first contact, encounter being a better word, with an alien ship presence on Earth. The unique hobby that reduced a lot of stress was now creating a twisting knot in his stomach, sitting around and waiting for a General from the United States Air Force to show up and tell them how he was going to bring down the first proven alien spacecraft in the history of mankind, and the co-conspirators of the entire tale were Jeff and Al. Ironic indeed—s Whatever was about to happen, good or bad, was Jeff and Al’s doing. He hoped it would turn out good.

  Al’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Janet, Jeff and a handsome, strong looking man, about six feet tall, late fifties wearing a uniform that had enough medals and ribbons that would make a normal man tilt forward. Across his upper lapel were the rare and unique four stars that declared him General, United States Air Force.

  Agent Woods knew him well, having worked closely with him during the Blue Book Files era. He greeted his friend with a strong handshake, then made the proper introductions.

  When everyone sat down, General Stormer announced, “I want everyone to tell me everything that has happened up to the point where you all just sat down.

  “My orders are to terminate the UFO, or UFOs, and I’ll do just that—if we have the fire-power to penetrate the craft’s metal, after I know all the facts. I’m a firm believer in intuition, so if you have a strong feeling or theory as to what is really going on here then I want to hear it.

  “Don’t be afraid to tell me something that you might feel sounds ridiculous because I worked on the Blue Book Files long enough to know there is no such word as ridiculous.”

  After hours of facts, videos, pictures, theories and even a dead, defeathered and disfigured Coot bird that agent Donemore brought in, General Stormer said, “I’m sorry to say, I see no other avenue but to shoot this thing down, even if it’s friendly. I’ll make arrangements to have mobile ground-to-air missiles along with two F-10s in the air, armed twenty-four hours a day. I need Harry to contact me on any alarms on the radar and have Jeff in charge of monitoring the weather for signs of thunderstorms and predictability of locations. If we’re lucky, Harry will pick it up first, then I’ll need someone who knows the area.

  “Jeff, I imagine you can determine the location with your Doppler radar maps. We don’t want to bring it down in a populated area if we can help it, but the F-10s should do the job if the area is clear.

  “Judging from Jeff’s input, we’ll constantly keep mobile ground-to-air missiles near the storms. I’ll have the pilots and the ground units wearing infrared visors.

  “Janet, if we have to strike over a populated area, you better prepare a plan to let the public know as soon as we’ve made that decision, granting of course that there won’t be much time for the public to plan exit routes, but it can’t be helped.

  “Clare, I don’t have any idea what will happen if and when we bring this to conclusion. But I want you to have a team ready on a moment’s notice to seal off any area. If we end up shooting it down over water or swampland, then co-ordinate your efforts with Stan.

  “Agents Woods and Donemore, I want you to go through the Blue Book Files and see if you can pick up anything similar as happening previously, either in the air or on the ground.

  “I also need Agent Donemore to exercise careful expertise in forensic medicine to try and find a countermeasure against this corrosive material. That would seem a must I would think. Maybe Al can help on this. It would be nice to have something that can be used to ease the death toll if this UFO happens to spray a populated area or we bring it down in a city, either accidentally or with no choice.

  “This room will be fully functional around the clock. If anyone finds out anything, it is to be reported here instantly. I know you can’t go without sleep and food, so make sure you have backup personnel that can cover when you’re out of reach.

  “This project is coded Bad Rain, and is top secret until I say different. You and your personnel will not mention any of this to the public. The last thing we need is a panic in the most visited city in the United States, let alone what would surely happen worldwide. Let’s do our jobs and pray we get this thing quick and in a desolate area.

  “I want everyone at a briefing at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, if nothing happens between now and then. Good luck to us all.”

  After the meeting, General Stormer pulled Agents Woods and Donemore aside and said, “Glad to see Balder sent the best of the best down here. We never had proof on the Blue Book Files, but this damn sure looks like the real thing.

  “Woods, you were always the visionary on these projects, your thoughts on this one?”

  “I saw one of the sites this afternoon and I believe you’re right in bringing it down,” Woods replied. “The only problem is I think it may be friendly and there appears to be more than one, but at least one of them has a problem. There’s a correlation between seeing this thing on radar, infrared, naked eye and devastation on the ground, all in the last three days. Let’s hope you bring down the one with the problem.”

  “Well, I just hope we can bring it down. It’s not as if our pilots practice shooting down UFOs on a daily basis. If you think there’s more than one, we’ll know after we’re successful in disabling the first one and have it on the ground. If that happens and we get another alarm from Harry, you’ll be right, I would imagine. Then the situation changes, doesn’t it?” the General responded.

  As they were leaving the building, Donemore said to Woods, “What makes you think there’s more than one?”

  “Donemore, I checked on Orlando, ‘The city beautiful.’ It’s also the lightning capitol of the world. The reason is because it’s located about midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Everyday during the summer, the sea breeze from the Atlantic heads west, and the Gulf breeze comes east. When they meet, which normally is from noon to dusk, thunderstorms are created. This meeting of fronts generally happens in central Florida, with Orlando being the primary city in central Florida. The UFO for some reason likes thunderstorms, lightning or rain. It can find all of that here almost everyday. Jeff said they saw many with the goggles, but only in the last three days has all this other crap happened. Do you think aliens, with the technology of space travel, defying the laws of gravity by just floating in the air, really need to test anything before they decide to destroy us? I think not. I believe there is more than one, but I also believe there is something is wrong with one of these floating stadiums.”

  Janet had stayed at the station and called the Orlando center she had visited just a few hours earlier and told the division manager what was going to happen and to quietly prepare for the worst. She then walked over to Jeff, who was asking some technicians to link up the Doppler radar to a large screen in the control room, thus providing a way for everyone in the room to see what was happening over the towns or cities affected by the storms. If this thing was sighted, Jeff could display its exact location on the screen, and right down to the street name. “I’m hungry, tired and, most probably, mentally exhausted. I wish we could get a nice dinner and glass of wine, but I know we should stay here.” Janet said.

  “No we don’t! I would love to take you to dinner, so grab what you need and we’re outta here,” Jeff said.

  “What about the UFO?” she said.

  “The radar shows no storms in the area. If any flying football stadium needs a wash it’ll have to take a bath. Hey, maybe it does take baths, but it would have to be the Atlantic or the Gulf, either one we wouldn’t pick up. My brain is fried, UFOs taking showers or baths! No matter what, there’ll be no storms in our area ‘til tomorrow, so let’s go.”

  Jeff told the General that there would be no rain or thunderstorms in the area until maybe noon tomorrow. He was leaving someone to continue the monitoring but was sure nothing would happen tonight, anyway. “Janet and I are going to get a bite to eat,” Jeff said. “You have our cell phone numbers if something happens and need to call.

  “I really don’t think you need your mobile un
its and pilots on alert tonight, but that’s your call. We’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  Jeff held out his arm to Janet and said, “Time to drink wine, talk, eat and relax. It might be our last opportunity. I know this nice restaurant off Colonial Drive at the Executive Airport.”

  General Stormer called his units and told them to stay on alert, not that he didn’t believe Jeff, but it was the military way and he just couldn’t take the chance of this thing appearing without cover of a storm and catching him not ready. While talking to the Air Force Unit Commander in charge of having two F-10s in the area at all times, he discussed how they were going to handle shooting down the unthinkable. The General knew that these porcupines must know there is aircraft in the area because the large jets flying into and out of OIA didn’t seem to bother them. “Let’s hope they have become complacent with aircraft flying in and out in a pattern. This could be an advantage to our pilots, because if we maintain the same traffic routing as the airliners, when we see the UFO we can break from the normal traffic pattern at the last second and fire our missiles. They might be caught off guard and not realize until too late that they are being fired upon.

  “That being so, the heat-seeking Mavericks won’t work in this situation commander, so what do you think is best?” the General asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I agree with you, sir. Since this thing might not show up on radar and it doesn’t appear to give off heat, we should load up with pilot-locked Mavericks and fire as fast and as many as possible in one burst. We might not have a second chance to fire.”