by Dean M. Cole
"Vampire Six, out."
Jake turned his attention to the holographic display. The two fighter wings came together between the Zoxyth ship and the Argonian Fleet.
"They're making it look like they're protecting the empty Argonian ships," Richard said.
"Hope that keeps them looking the other way," Jake said, grasping the flight controller. As he guided the Turtle closer, the ship-remnant, still the size of a basketball arena, swelled to fill the view-wall, blotting out the rest of the star field.
"It makes the Moon look positively festive," Richard said.
Jake nodded. Except for a smattering of distorted structures, conduits, and cables protruding from its surface, this side looked like a normal asteroid, albeit charred and melted.
Closing on the asteroid, Jake stopped the Turtle, its nose only a few feet from the ship.
"Whew," Richard whispered. "No lasers so far." He looked around the interior. "There's never a piece of wood to knock on when you need it."
"I'm going to slide left. We'll work our way around to the missile's exit hole."
Jake saw wavering reflections of the Turtle as they glided over sections of rock melted glass-smooth in the nuclear furnace of battle. As the Turtle rounded the asteroid's back left corner, the Argonian fleet slid into view. Nearer, the horizon of the rock's lifeless surface contrasted strikingly against Earth's azure biosphere.
"There it is," Jake said, pointing at a small crater. Silhouetted against the Atlantic Ocean, it protruded from the rocky surface. Having entered the sculpted alien head aft of the right temple, the missile's path cut downward diagonally from the top right to the bottom left, exiting just behind the chiseled alien jaw.
Richard studied the ship's surface. "Look at all the melted metal and craters. I can't believe there's anyone still alive in there."
Jake stole a sideways glance at Vic. The lieutenant put up a brave façade, but obvious dread hovered just below the surface. Breathing heavily, the slight officer's chest rapidly rose and fell. Jake elbowed him. "Hang in there, buddy. We'll kick their asses. It'll be nice to get some payback."
The last comment seemed to strike a chord with Vic. He lifted his chin and nodded. "I'll be all right."
Jake felt his own adrenaline ramping up as the extraordinary prospect of close combat with an unknown alien species neared reality.
Beyond their destination and still clamped in the alien's jaw, the left side of the pitted and charred human skull slid into view.
As they closed on the crater, the opening appeared. Starting as a dark sliver, it quickly expanded into a full circle, revealing the tunnel's smooth walls.
"Now we find out how accurate the hologram was," Jake said, slowing the Turtle.
As they drew closer, the tunnel stretched deep into the ship, a small star-field materializing at its far end.
"Yes," Richard whispered.
Jake stopped the Turtle. "Why are you whispering?"
Richard did the Area Fifty-One salute.
Jake chuckled nervously and looked at the tunnel's five-foot diameter. He pointed to the side. "I'll park us right there with the airlock exit pointing at the hole."
"Once we're in position, activate the autopilot position-hold … here," Richard said, pointing out the control.
"Yeah," Vic said through a manic laugh. "It might be a little difficult to leave if our ship isn't here waiting for us."
Jake considered ordering him to remain in the Turtle, then decided against it. Stopping the aliens was all that mattered. Deleting a pair of eyes to leave a man on lifeboat guard duty was a luxury he couldn't afford.
Jake pitched the Turtle's nose up and extended the landing gear. As it gently touched down, all three sat in breathless silence. When nothing happened, Jake exhaled and activated the position-hold. Picking up his shotgun, he pumped a round into the chamber, wincing as its click-clack sound echoed loudly through the silent Turtle. Turning to his two wingmen, he whispered, "Gentleman, any final requests?"
Richard grinned and pumped a round into his shotgun. "Guess it's too late to ask for that steak dinner."
"Yep."
Vic cocked his shotgun too. A slight shiver cracked his brave façade.
Jake didn't blame him. Judging by his own pounding heart, enough adrenaline coursed through Jake's veins to give a rhinoceros a coronary.
"Richard, you take point. Vic, you take the middle and watch our sides. I'll watch our rear. Any questions?"
They shook their heads.
As they entered the airlock, the helmet issue resolved itself. One grew from each suit's collar. Undulating like flowing water, a clear membrane propagated vertically from the ring. Meeting at the top, it solidified into a perfectly smooth dome with a small fixture at its peak.
Victor looked at Jake's helmet. "What's that on top?"
As he turned to look at the lieutenant, light poured into his eyes from Victor's fixture. Jake squinted. "Thanks, bud."
Victor narrowed his eyes against the light shining from Jake's helmet. Realizing he was blinding him, Vic turned away. "Sorry."
Jake heard him over a speaker in his suit.
Victor turned his head and looked up, watching the spot track his line of sight. "Cool, the light shines wherever you look. These guys thought of everything."
Richard nodded. "It's all pretty intuitive."
Each man attached a shotgun to the outside of his left thigh. The smart-suit held it like velcro. Experimentally, Jake peeled off the weapon. It released with moderate effort. It even sounded like velcro. Pressing it back in place, Jake took a deep breath and exhaled, then took a long drag on his waterline. "Let's do this."
They turned toward the Turtle's outer skin. A fading hiss echoed through the chamber. Then, the wall vanished, exposing the airlock to space.
Jake's heart raced. His ears rang with an adrenaline-fueled rush. Swallowing hard, he stared through the opening at the fissured surface of the alien ship. With all the handholds the cracks provided, the transit would be easier than he'd feared. "Use the cracks to pull yourself over to the opening." Looking across the enemy ship's surface, he saw the Atlantic Ocean two hundred miles below. "Watch that first step, it's a doozy."
Richard stuck a tentative foot through the opening. "The Turtle's gravity field ends right here," he said, pointing at the edge of the airlock's floor. "Feels like zero-Gs beyond."
Peering over Richard's shoulder, Victor looked at the distant ocean. Through another nervous chuckle, he said, "That's good. Otherwise, that really would be a big step."
The lieutenant's words triggered a realization. Jake hadn't considered how far outside the asteroid's surface the alien's gravity bubble might extend. Thankfully, Richard had already confirmed that it reached at least a few feet. Jake wondered how much farther it protruded.
Richard crouched. Reaching for a crack in the asteroid's surface, he eased his head through the opening.
As his body passed through, Richard's respiratory rate doubled. In a surreal gravitational disconnect, he floated weightlessly, only five feet from where Jake stood in normal gravity. Like an underwater swimmer gliding just above pool bottom, Richard drifted hand over hand across the surface.
Dislodged by his passage, a rock drifted up from the asteroid. Roughly the size of a baseball, it tumbled as if in slow-motion, gradually rising. Answering his wonderings, it suddenly fell earthward when it reached eye-level. "Holy shit," Jake whispered.
Victor's head snapped around. "What?"
"Oh." Jake waved dismissively. "Nothing, it's just an awesome view."
The lieutenant gave him a queer look, then shook his head. Breathing heavily, he turned and crouched to follow Richard. Looking across the ten-foot gap between the airlock and the crater, he asked, "Could you have parked any farther away?" A nervous edge crept back into his words.
Vic reached for the first crack and started to pull himself through the opening. When his head exited, Jake saw his body convulse. Throwing his other hand into the fissure, he pull
ed himself tight to the surface. "It feels like I'm falling!"
"You're doing great, buddy," Jake said, trying to encourage him. "You're just feeling the zero-Gs."
Richard reached the crater rim. Grabbing it, he pulled himself headfirst into the five-foot opening. Disappearing for a moment, he reemerged with his head and shoulders protruding from the hole. Waving impatiently, he said, "Let's get moving ladies."
After a moment, Vic pried one paw from the rock face. Extending a trembling hand, he desperately grasped the next crack and shifted forward. Maddeningly slow, he crept toward the opening.
Jake followed close behind, only allowing himself a brief moment to realize this was his first taste of weightlessness. Before he was fully through the door, he heard a panicked voice over his suit's radio.
"Shit … Oh!"
Jake looked up to see Vic flail as a piece of asteroid crumbled under his death-grip. In a panicked swing of his arms, the lieutenant tried to grab the surface. Finding no purchase, his hands struck the rock, only accelerating his drift into space.
"Oh god!" Victor squeaked. His spasming body was three feet up and rising. Two feet above him, the rocks he'd launched reached the edge of the gravity bubble and fell earthward like homesick granite.
***
Still clad in her stark military dress uniform, the dark haired female Air Force major strode into the Command Center and approached the two people standing in front of a large wall map of central California. "Sorry for the interruption, sir, but I think you'll want to see this."
Having just finished debriefing the base commander, Sandy looked from the general to the excited aide.
With a somber shake of his head, the general turned from the long red arc Sandy had drawn on the map. Closing his eyes, the older man ran grizzled fingers through his short gray hair. After letting out a long breath, the general looked at the thin dark haired officer. "What is it, Major?"
The aide placed a hand on the shoulder of a young female sergeant sitting in front of one of the room's consoles. Pointing at the Center's main display, she said, "Bring up video feed sixteen."
The major turned back to the general. "We have one of the new Key Hole spy satellites coming into position, sir."
The large display flared to life, Earth's beautiful horizon chasing away the blank blue screen. Arcane digital location data churned through a gray bar spanning the bottom of the display. Most of the numbers made no sense. However, Sandy did recognize the first four digits: KH-12.
This was a live feed from the National Reconnaissance Office's newest spy satellite. Recently launched, it had optics and sensors better than the Hubble Space Telescope.
"The battle was at a higher altitude than the satellite's orbit, so we had to turn it away from the planet."
In amazed fascination, Sandy studied the ultrahigh definition display. Earth's gently curving surface filled the left half. On the right side, a majestic field of stars shone like diamonds scattered across space's black velvet void.
Far exceeding the video feed supplied during the battle, the image created by combining the KH-12's clarity with the ultra HD display's pixel density was breathtaking. It looked like a twenty-foot-wide portal to outer space had opened in the room's main wall.
Looking forward this time, the satellite drifted toward North America's cloudless East Coast. Curving out of view at the bottom of the display, Florida's peninsula extended south. Ahead, sunlight reflected off the Atlantic Ocean. Even visible from this altitude, the long south to north swath of decimation wreaked by the alien ship's calamitous atmospheric entry matched the destruction Sandy had seen extending south of Monterey, California.
"The techs are fighting with the system's software," the major said. "They said the change in orientation and focal length is playing hell with their control algorithms. For now, they're using the wide-field optics."
"Have we heard from Colonel Newcastle yet?" the general asked.
The major shook her head. "No, sir."
Sandy looked at Earth's scrolling horizon. In the few minutes that had elapsed since they'd watched Colonel Newcastle nuke the last enemy ship, they'd been unable to get a status update. The video feed wasn't the only thing supplied by the previous satellite. It had provided the telemetry data and radio relays. So, when the battle disappeared behind the horizon, those went with it.
The aide pointed victoriously as a charcoal speck peeked above the distant horizon. "There's the debris field!"
For the second time in twenty minutes, the room's occupants broke into cheers and applause.
"Debris field?" Sandy asked. The question went unheard in the loud room. Eyes furrowed, she studied the slate-gray dot with mounting disquiet. There shouldn't be anything left. The ship remnant should've fallen and been vaporized like the rest of its fleet.
The screen flickered as the satellite increased its magnification. The dark point blossomed to fill half the display. The object hovering in stark clarity silenced the room.
Unease morphed into horror as Sandy stared breathlessly.
General Pearson's head snapped back as if he'd been slapped. "What the hell?"
Like a satanic sunrise, the malevolent sculpted alien face Sandy had first seen rising from Chesapeake Bay, now slowly rose from behind the planet. It was still very much intact.
In the magnified view, Earth's distant horizon partially obscured it. However, gradually revealed by the planet's rotation and the spy satellite's faster orbit, the sneering rocky visage appeared to slither up through the planet's murky atmosphere. As if blackened in hell's fiery furnaces, the sculpted bust looked like a scorched horror-movie prop. Finally rising clear of the obscuration, and still clutching a human skull in its fangs, the pockmarked and blackened alien ship-remnant appeared to glare down on the room's occupants.
The image flickered and the pitch-black bust shrank as the satellite decreased its magnification. In the wider field of view, Sandy saw several of the much larger ships also rising above the atmosphere. According to General Pearson, they belonged to the defense forces of the galactic government working to integrate Earth.
Barely discernible in the blackness of space, the ships no longer maintained an ordered formation. Sandy's horror now blazed white hot as the dreadful reality struck home. All but one of the GDF ships were slowly tumbling. The sole stationary ship sat dead-still.
"Oh my god!" She blinked away the tears threatening to breach the dam of her lower eyelids. "Jake was right," she croaked through a tightening throat.
The general had been unsure of the Turtle's current status. However, during her short debrief, he had described the minutes leading up to the battle she'd witnessed upon arriving at the Combat Control Center. Sandy had been surprised to discover the integral part the Turtle's crew had played. Finding out that we are descendants of the galactic rulers had been a big shock in a day chock full of them.
"Excuse me?" the general said.
Sandy shook her head and pointed at the drifting ships. "They're all gone."
"What do you…" The general stopped mid-sentence as the battle's apparent outcome struck home. "Oh fuck…" His voice trailed off as he dropped into a chair. As if deflated by the news, the general appeared to age before Sandy's eyes. Turning from the man, Sandy stared at the horrible scene filling the room's wall.
After a few moments, the base commander's tired voice ruptured the silence. "The Argonians were too … humane!" After shaking his head for a moment, he pointed at the reptilian head. "And, the goddamned lizards used it against them." He looked at Sandy and nodded. "If Captain Giard hadn't figured it out, they would've vaporized them first and then turned their attention back on us. Vampire Squadron would be trying to nuke these fuckers as they skipped from one holocaust to the next."
A pair of sleek silver ships sped through the image.
The general's eyes brightened with relief. "Speak of the devil."
"Vampire Squadron?" Sandy said.
The general nodded. "I thought w
e'd lost them too." Pumping his right fist, he yelled, "Get 'em Zach!"
Glinting flashes stitched fiery lines across the giant sculpted alien head. Blasting away the scorched surface and revealing the rock's underlying natural color, the relatively small explosions of the fighter's ineffectual cannon fire sewed a line of small orange craters across the blackened asteroid.
Emitted from the sides of the rocky face, a pair of laser beams chased the two fighters. To Sandy, they looked perfectly aimed. However, the lasers had missed.
Two more Vampire attack fighters strafed the alien ship with similarly ineffectual fire. General Pearson studied the scene with a look of consternation. "It's like pissing on a goddamned forest fire. We're never going to get anywhere like this."
A moment later, the aide pointed at something creeping from behind the mountainous rock. "We have a new player here."
Looking at the image, Sandy felt her pulse quicken. She moved closer to the display. Squinting, she studied the squat disc-shaped object. While it looked much thicker from top to bottom, the new ship was a little longer than the Vampire fighters. Its round top matched the description Jake had given her when they'd spoken during her San Francisco ordeal. Is that you, Jake?
Tapping the sergeant on the shoulder again, the aide pointed at the new vessel. "Zoom in on that."
A few keystrokes later, the screen flickered and the alien head filled the display again.
General Pearson confirmed Sandy's suspicion. "Holy shit! That's the Turtle."
Like an insect skittering across a boulder, the relatively small vessel proceeded down the alien ship's side. Apparently finding what it was looking for, the Turtle turned its flat bottom parallel to the surface. Sitting motionless, it looked like the disc-shaped vessel had somehow parked itself on the side of the asteroid.
Sandy stared longingly at Jake's ship. Come back to me, baby.
Something stirred in the small gap under the Turtle's belly.
The aide stepped closer. "Is something moving in there?"
Watching in stunned, frightened fascination, Sandy gasped and her heart skipped a beat as something next to the Turtle flared white.