Alien Storm

by Don Viecelli

  Kaye looked concerned. “No, not yet. He should have called me by now. Something has happened to them, I can feel it. If he doesn’t call by tonight, I’m going to call the police.” She decided to change the subject. “What do you think about filming the crash scene?”

  “It’s going to be very interesting. Do you think we’ll get to see the bodies?”

  “The President said we must document everything. That also means the dead bodies. I’m sure the Colonel will agree to that.”

  “I guess you’re right. Are you going to turn over the evidence your brother has to the colonel?”

  Kaye hadn’t thought about that. “I guess we should, considering they gave us the story. Maybe I should tell him about Ryan. What do you think? Maybe he can help us find him.”

  “I would wait until we film the story, Kaye. Who knows what we’ll find. Besides, they have a whole army trying to find your brother and his friends. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called you. He is just being cautious.”

  “You’re probably right, Kurt. But I don’t want them to hurt him. I’ll wait until tonight. If I don’t hear from Ryan, I’ll tell the colonel. Let’s go outside and see if they’re ready for us.”

  The four of them left the meeting room and walked down the flight of stairs to the exit. Once outside, they walked towards the two helicopters at the end of the parking lot. The sun was still shining through the clouds and the wind was warm. It was a beautiful afternoon. They had at least five more hours of daylight, more than enough time to film the crash sites, she figured. Joe said goodbye and promised to call her as soon as he refueled the helicopter in Houghton and checked into the hotel they were staying at for the evening. He promised to fly back and pick them up whenever they were ready.

  Dave was talking to Colonel Feldman and a few National Guardsmen who were standing near the Army helicopter. He waved to the group when he saw them approaching. “Hello. Colonel Feldman is ready to show you how to use the hazmat suits.” Colonel Feldman picked a medium sized blue suit out of a box on the ground he thought would fit Kaye and handed it to her. Then he found two more suits, one large and one small for Kurt and Debbie. He handed them the plastic suits. “Please put these on over your clothes. You’ll need to take your shoes off and find a pair of boots that fit you. This is the headgear and gloves. Everything will be sealed with tape when you enter the restricted area. The two air tanks will strap on your back. They’re a little heavy, but you will get used to them. The air in each tank will last 60 minutes. You will have to change them in the field if you stay out longer. The air tanks will automatically switch when one of them is empty to the full one. You’ll wear a wristband display with an airflow meter, emergency button and a watch built in. It will sound an alarm every minute when you’re getting low on oxygen. You’ll also wear a wireless two-way FM radio headset for communication purposes. You will all be on the same radio frequency and can hear each other within one hundred meters. It’s like an intercom system. The emergency button will put you on the emergency radio channel, which is good for up to 5 miles. Everything is recorded, so watch what you say. The battery pack will be worn around your waist. When you leave each crash site, you will disinfect your boots and you will be sprayed down with a disinfectant in the clean tent. You can remove your headgear and gloves once you’re given permission. Okay, let’s put everything on and we’ll let you test them for a few minutes.”

  They all struggled putting the suits on for the first time with the help of several National Guardsmen. They felt a little bit clumsy once they had everything strapped on. As they walked around, they all tried the two-way radio headsets. Kaye, Debbie and Kurt were laughing as they joked with each other about how they looked. Dave and Colonel Feldman just watched them stumble around for a few minutes in amusement. Then Dave spoke into the headsets. “All right. I think that’s enough practice. Take off the headgear and gloves and let’s get ready to go.”

  Dave thanked Colonel Feldman for his help. Dave would take the TV reporters to each crash site and show them around. Colonel Feldman would stay behind at the visitor center and run the command center. There was a lot to do. The team at the main crash site was ready to start hauling wreckage out by army truck. The biohazard team was still taking samples at the other crash site where the radiation levels were high enough to prevent them from removing the debris. The recovery team had decided they could wrap the bigger pieces in a protective lining and haul them out with the lift helicopter to trucks waiting at the visitor center parking lot. Everything would be trucked or airlifted to the Milwaukee Air Force Base for further investigation.

  Colonel Hampton helped everyone get on board the army helicopter that had started its engine. The wide rotors were kicking up dust everywhere and they had to shield their eyes. Major Cole was at the controls with a copilot. He was a bit surprised at seeing TV reporters getting on board with Dave. “What’s this, Colonel? I thought everything was restricted on this job.”

  Dave nodded his head as he leaned close to the major and shouted over the noise. “President’s orders. We’re to let them document the crash for when the President has to announce what happened here. We don’t have any choice in the matter. They know what happened.”

  “How did they find out?” the major asked in surprise.

  “I’ll fill you in later. You need to fly us to the first crash site so I can show them around. It will only take one hour or so; then I want you to fly us to the main site.”

  “No problem. Tell them to buckle up. Here we go.”

  The big helicopter lifted straight up for about fifty feet and then angled towards the dark blue lake below. Everyone looked out the doors at the mountains and trees that surrounded the lake as far as the eye could see. Way off in the distance, Kaye could see the clouds and light blue sky merge with the cold blue waters of Lake Superior. Everything looked so rugged and pristine as if they were the only people anywhere to be found. Then reality set in as they headed for the first crash site.

  Chapter 17

  FLN:

  At the Freedom Liberation Movement headquarters located just west of Highway M-64, approximately two miles south of Porcupine Mountains State Park, things had taken a sudden turn in a new direction, one which the local paramilitary commander, Colonel Ted Nash wasn’t prepared for. First, there was this military plane crash everyone was talking about. He just assumed it was a jet from one of the nearby bases that crashed. Good riddance. They flew over the area all the time. One had to crash sooner or later. Second, there was all the military activity in his area. He didn’t need Army National Guard troops traveling in convoys and guarding crossroads all around the park. Something was up. Third, there were state troopers blocking all the entrances to the park. He thought they were just trying to keep everyone out. And, forth, there were these three college kids trespassing on his property. His men were always kicking someone out during the tourist season. But, it was the fifth event that would change his life—the disk. The boys said they found it in the park. He didn’t believe them.

  Colonel Nash had joined the Freedom Liberation Movement ten years ago when he retired from the army. He bought some farmland as far away from civilized parts of the country as he could get. He was raised poor, but he was not dumb. He made it through high school and joined the army. He served twenty years in the army as a special ranger and fought through four desert campaigns without getting a scratch. After he retired, he thought about joining a mercenary group, but changed his mind to come home for a while. He became a mechanic and bought this farm, 160 acres in the woods. He loved to hunt and this place suited him fine.

  Colonel Nash’s biggest problem was he was an extremist. He hated the government, hated paying taxes and he hated minorities. The FLM promised him this would all change in time, with his help. They needed a place to practice maneuvers. To keep sharp for that day in the future when it was time to support a new government. To make it what it was like when the founding fathers lived. Colonel Nash quickly rose in t
he ranks. Now he commanded over a hundred men. They were easy to find. He gave them what they wanted. They met two times a year at his place to practice shooting their guns and playing soldier. He loved it. They were dedicated to the cause. The only problem the FLM had was it needed more money to expand. More money than he could give them, until now. He sensed an opportunity that only happened once in a lifetime. It depended on if these three young men were lying to him or not.

  “Go get his camera,” Colonel Nash said to Lieutenant Whitey Hall who was standing next to him. They were all in the room where Lieutenant Grady demonstrated the little problem with the disk downloading information from one of their laptops. There was nothing important on this computer, Colonel Nash knew. He rarely ever used one. But these fool kids didn’t know that and he wanted them to be worried.

  Lieutenant Hall left the room and returned in a few minutes with Ryan’s backpack. It had been searched and everything thrown back inside. “Here it is.” He threw the pack it on the table.

  Ryan got up from his chair and rummaged through the pack until he found his digital camera. He asked Lieutenant Grady to give him the notebook and take the disk out of range so it wouldn’t interfere with what he wanted to do. They had figured out that the disk only operates within a certain range and it seems to use the light from the sun to recharge and become operable.

  “I’m going to show you what we found in the park. You’re probably not going to believe what I’m going to tell you, so I’ll show you some pictures first and then we can talk about it.” Ryan turned on the laptop and then turned on the camera. He waited a few seconds for both devices to sync up on the wireless Bluetooth communication link. Then he downloaded his video file. It took a few minutes. He found the command to open the compressed video file on the laptop. He said a silent prayer and switched on the video. The picture started at the camp scene last night just before the spacecraft exploded over the park. It continued with their discovery of the dead alien at the crash site. It ended with the sounds of a helicopter overhead and the two young men scrambling away from the scene. It only lasted fifteen minutes. It was enough.

  No one said a thing for about ten seconds. Colonel Nash just sat quietly for a moment thinking. This is unbelievable, he thought, just plain unbelievable. The kid was right. What good luck!

  “So you’re telling me these are aliens? Their ship crashed in the park and you got this disk from the dead alien in the seat on the ground?” Colonel Nash looked at all three of them at the end of the table. They all nodded yes.

  “That’s right, Colonel. I told you it would be hard to believe, but it’s true. We were planning to give these things to my sister before we were caught,” Ryan said.

  “Who’s your sister?” the colonel asked.

  “Her name is Kaye Weston. She works for Channel Two News in Chicago. I sent her a copy of this video file this morning. She’ll go public when I give her this evidence.”

  Colonel Nash thought for a moment. Then he made a decision and turned to Lieutenant Hall. “Bring this stuff to the house. Keep these boys here and feed them lunch.” Then he turned back to the three young men. “You can keep your stuff. We’ll keep the camera and radios and, of course, the disk and other items you found at the park. I need to check some things out. I’ll be back after lunch.”

  “What about letting us go? You have no right to keep us locked up here,” Ryan said.

  “We’ll talk about that later. You’ll be safe here. I need to verify what you’re telling me before I can let you go.” Colonel Nash and the two lieutenants left the room with their stuff and locked the door behind them.

  “Well, that went well,” quipped Tom. “Now what do we do?”

  “I guess we wait and see what he decides,” Ryan said.

  “Do you think he believes what we showed him?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t know. We wait and see. If not, we try to get out of here as soon as possible,” Ryan said.

  “And how do we do that?” Tom asked.

  “I call my sister and have her send the cops.” Ryan answered. That made sense to them, so they waited for food to be brought in.

  Colonel Nash was excited. The three men entered the house, which served as command headquarters for the group. It was also his home. He poured himself a drink from the cabinet against the wall in the dining room. He offered the bottle of bourbon to Hall and Grady. “Well, what do you think? Do you think the video is for real?”

  Lieutenant Grady spoke up first. “I don’t see how they could have faked the pictures in the park. They would need a computer lab to do it. And what about the explosion last night? Several of us saw it. We didn’t know what it was, but it happened.”

  “Don’t forget this,” Lieutenant Hall added holding up the disk. It was still glowing in a subdued light. “It sure seems strange to me.”

  “I think you’re right, Hall. The disk is proof enough. But I think we better investigate the crash a little further. I want you to sneak into the park and see what’s going on. Take two men with you. Stay out of sight and see if you can find any more evidence what those army boys are doing. When you get back, we’ll make some plans.”

  “What about the kids? Do we let them go?” Grady asked.

  “No, I think we hang on to them for a while longer. I have a feeling this disk will be worth a fortune to the right people. It may be our chance to move up in the world.” Colonel Nash was thinking ahead. “The FLM will give us a big reward for something like this.” He was already thinking of the top FLM general he would call to tell him what he found. It was his chance of a lifetime, and he wasn’t about to let some young kids take that opportunity away from him. He thought of something else. “I want you two to keep this quiet. Don’t say anything to the others. If they ask what’s going on, tell them we’re interrogating the boys and plan to let them go soon.”

  What about the disk, sir?” Hall asked. “Some of the men saw it and wondered what it was.”

  Colonel Nash thought for a moment. “Tell them it was just a new computer game. Nothing unusual.” He hoped that would be enough. He wanted to keep this event a secret in case he needed to follow a different course.

  Lieutenant Hall left the house, picked two men and told them to follow him. They were going on a little military expedition. They decided to take their rifles in case they ran into some trouble.

  Colonel Nash made sure Ryan and his friends were fed and secure. He had Lieutenant Grady stay with them and let them get some exercise outside while he planned his next move. From what he knew there had been no announcement on TV or radio about any alien spaceship crash. So that meant the government was trying to keep everything secret. He expected as much. How long could they keep it a secret, he wondered? The boy said he told his sister in Chicago and sent her a copy of the video. She was a reporter. That means she could break the story at any time. So what, he thought? That just lets the rabbit out of the hat. The public would demand proof and he had some. They would pay a fortune, he was sure.

  Colonel Nash looked at the strange disk, camera and wreckage items from Ryan’s bag on the table. He picked them all up and put them into a duffle bag along with some other important items he felt he would need if he had to leave the place suddenly. Things were becoming clearer in his mind. Maybe this was his chance to leave everything behind and make a fresh start. He wasn’t sure. He would need more time to think about it. He would wait for Lieutenant Hall to come back and tell him what he found in the park. He turned on the TV and used the remote to flip through the channels searching for anything related to the crash. So far, the only news was a report about a military test plane crash in the park and how the government was trying to clean up the mess. Supposedly, it was top secret and nothing more was discussed due to national security. He wondered how much time they had before the real story leaked out. Maybe he should help it along. He would become famous. He hadn’t thought about that angle. Rich, famous or both? He poured himself another drink. It was going to be a l
ong afternoon he figured.

  Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hall and his two men rode four-wheel cross-country vehicles to the edge of the property line. Then they hiked the mile or so to the edge of the park and checked for police or guardsmen. No one was around. They avoided the main hiking trail entrances into the park. They knew the area well and with the information the boys had supplied, they knew the approximate site of the crash where they filmed the dead alien. It would take a couple of hours to find the site and see what was there. One of the men had a camera they could use.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time they found the crash site. It was easier than they expected due to the noise of trucks and helicopters working in the area. They looked around for about an hour and filmed everything they could see. They saw the workers in contamination suits and this worried Lieutenant Hall for a while, but he didn’t think they were close enough to pick up any germs. He could see the new road the National Guard had cut through the woods to the site. There was a group of people in hazmat suits that seemed to be filming the wreckage from every angle. It was getting late and he wanted to get back before nightfall. He ordered the men to leave and they were about a mile from the crash site when someone spotted them. It was the National Guard. They must have had guards out patrolling the area and he didn’t spot them on the way in. One of the guards yelled at his group to stop. Lieutenant Hall got scared they would be captured and Colonel Nash would get really upset, so he shot a round off with his rifle in the general direction of the trooper to scare him off. He heard a yell from someone nearby who had been hit by a stray bullet. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to hit anyone. In the confusion they escaped. They ran as fast and as far as they could in the woods. Soon it was quiet again. No one was following them. They made their way out of the park and back to their vehicles. It was dark now. They quickly returned to their compound.

  Lieutenant Hall took the camera to Colonel Nash and told him what happened. Colonel Nash was upset they had been spotted, but the fact that someone had been shot only seemed to help him make up his mind. He told Lieutenant Hall and the two men to pack their bags and get ready to leave the compound. He ordered Lieutenant Grady to get the boys and their things and put them in the vehicle. They were leaving this place tonight for another location. Everyone else, he told to leave right away. Because of the shooting, he expected some police or troopers to stop by soon and he wasn’t planning to be here when they arrived. Everybody scrambled to pack their belongings and leave the property. Soon the place was nearly empty. Colonel Nash got into his Humvee with the boys in back and drove out the gate. Lieutenants Hall and Grady and the two men followed close behind him. They drove through to the main road, M-64, and turned south. Colonel Nash owned a cabin in the woods down by Lake Gogebic about fifteen miles south. It was hidden from view and it was not registered in his name. No one knew about the place except him and a few hunters he let use the cabin. He needed a place to hide out for a while and this was where he could plan his next move. He thought he had planned for every contingency, but the situation was starting to get complicated.