Alien Storm

by Don Viecelli

  Chapter 18

  Crash Site:

  The helicopter abruptly pitched nose down and quickly descended the two hundred feet or so to the lake’s surface and skimmed over the water at seventy-five miles per hour toward the shoreline on the east side of the lake. As they approached the crash site, Kaye could see the burned out areas of the forest where the alien spacecraft debris had broken apart and crashed into the forest. At the edge of the lake sat a white tent the investigation team was using to decontaminate the search and recovery team. The trees grew right up to the edge of the lake. The helicopter would have to use its pontoons to land on the water near the shoreline without hitting the tree branches with its massive rotors.

  Major Cole skillfully landed the helicopter on the water as close to the edge of the lake as he could and shut down the engine. The water was only about two feet deep and the bottom of the lake was sandy and clear. The weight of the helicopter pushed the two pontoons all the way to the sandy bottom. Dave jumped out first into the water. “Let me help you down ladies” he said. He grabbed Kaye’s hand as she tried to step down into the water. It was deeper than she had expected and lost her balance. Kaye fell backward into Dave’s arms. Dave quickly grabbed her waist with both hands and straightened her up. “Careful, Miss Weston. You don’t want to get water inside your suit.” He smiled pleasantly at her as he said it.

  “Why, thank you, Colonel. I’ll try not to fall over next time.” She found herself flirting just a little and hoped the others didn’t notice.

  Dave liked this woman for some reason and was suddenly aware how attracted he was to her. He pushed the thought out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Debbie jumped out of the helicopter into the water and landed on both feet. She thanked Dave for his help and walked over to Kaye. Kurt handed the colonel his camcorder while he stepped down into the lake. He took his camcorder back and walked to the shore. Dave grabbed his equipment bag from Major Cole and walked to the shore. “See you in an hour,” he shouted back to the major. Major Cole saluted and went back to the controls to fly the helicopter back to the visitor center.

  Lieutenant Tim O’Rorke came down to the edge of the lake from the tent. He saluted Colonel Hampton who saluted back and spoke with a slightly Irish accent. “Hello, Colonel. I got your message. We’re ready for the tour.” Colonel Hampton introduced the lieutenant to the TV reporters and they acknowledged him. “Lieutenant O’Rorke will show us the wreckage. It will take less than an hour to see the debris and get cleaned up to fly to the next site. Please do as he says and watch your step. We don’t want any of you to rip your suits or get hurt. Now let’s put on your gear and we’ll get you taped up for the walk.”

  Kaye, Debbie and Kurt put on their radio headsets, headgear and gloves. Dave and Lieutenant O’Rorke wrapped tape around all the seals. It was mostly a precautionary measure since the suit was rated airtight when properly sealed up. It allowed other team members to inspect each other’s suit before entering a hazardous work area. The group was ready to go. Dave inspected each of their airflow meters and asked each person if they could breathe properly and everyone said they were fine. Lieutenant O’Rorke led the way into the forest. The sky disappeared as they made their way through the trees. Soon they came upon the first piece of wreckage. It was about fifty feet in diameter and one hundred feet long. It was badly damaged and almost broken in two. The outer surface was blackened by fire and the trees around where it fell from the sky were broken into ragged pieces and burned to the trunks. “This is the first piece,” said Lieutenant O’Rorke over the radio headsets. “We think it’s one of the engines. The other one is about a hundred yards further up the trail. This is as close as we can get. It’s slightly radioactive, but the dose is not high enough to hurt us at this distance. For some reason the radiation level drops in half every hour. We don’t know why this is.”

  “That’s not normal, is it Colonel?” Kaye asked.

  “No, it’s not. Our team is very curious about how this is happening.”

  Kurt was busy filming the whole scene. He took a close-up of the wreckage. Kaye took a moment to step in front of the camcorder with the wreckage in the background and spoke into her radio headset. She was able to patch the wireless radio output into Kurt’s camcorder for a voice connection. She briefly described the scene for all to hear in their headsets. Dave was amazed at how cool and professional she sounded. He was impressed considering how unrehearsed it all was. She quickly finished her recording and looked over at Colonel Hampton. She could see he was impressed with her. She hoped he didn’t disappoint easily. “I’m ready to move on,” she said to Dave. He acknowledged her comment and asked the lieutenant to take them to the next piece of wreckage.

  They walked through the woods for about ten minutes. They broke into a clearing. The sky could be seen through the tree branches. Several search and recovery team members were busy working in the area. Some of them were dressed in white suits, some in yellow and one in blue. The people in white suits were members of the Army National Guard. They were busy trying to wrap the two broken pieces of wreckage in some type of shielding material. The people in yellow suits were checking for contamination, radiation and other safety hazards. The person in the blue suit was Karen Sing, the chief biologist on site. She was taking soil samples to check for biological agents. Kurt quickly pointed his camcorder at the scene and started to record everything he could.

  “What are they doing, Lieutenant O’Rorke?” Debbie asked, referring to the men in white suits.

  “They’re preparing the pieces to be lifted out by helicopter. The National Guard is wrapping the wreckage in a radiation shield and they are putting the helicopter lift cables on. We should be ready to move the first piece soon.”

  “Where are you taking them?” Kaye asked. The Lieutenant looked over at Colonel Hampton. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell them.

  Dave looked at Kaye. “Everything is being transported to our air force base in Milwaukee. We’re conducting the final investigation there.”

  “Is that were the bodies will be taken?” Kaye asked.

  “Yes. We’ve already removed the bodies. A medical team is conducting autopsies as we speak.”

  “How many bodies were there, Colonel?” Kaye asked.

  “We recovered four bodies, Miss Weston,” Dave answered.

  “When can we see them, Colonel?” Kaye asked, realizing the significance of the question.

  “I’ll make the arrangements as soon as we get back to the visitor center. First we have to visit the second site. Lieutenant, please show this group the rest of what you found and then take them back to the decontamination tent. I need to talk to some of the recovery team members while I’m here. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  Kaye and her team prepared to record what they saw. Dave wanted to talk to Karen Sing and Walter Simmons from the NTSB. He saw Karen in her blue suit and walked over to her. He switched his radio channel to her frequency to prevent the others from hearing their conversation.

  “How’s it going, Doctor Sing?” he said as she looked up at him.

  “Why, hello, Colonel Hampton. It’s good to see you again. Everything is going fine.”

  “What have you found so far?”

  “Nothing hazardous, thank goodness. I’m still taking soil samples for further testing in Washington, but there doesn’t seem to be any foreign organisms that survived here at this site.”

  “Did you find any at the other site?”

  “Yes, I did. Near the bodies you found. The organisms don’t seem to survive very long, though. Bacteria attack and destroy them quickly. We just don’t know yet if there are any genetic changes afterwards. It will take some time to determine the long-term effects. Who did you bring with you?”

  “Some TV reporters. The President wants them to document what happened. I’m showing them around. I would like you to talk to them later at the visitor center. They need to know why the sites are quarantined. By t
he way, how long do you think we need to keep the public away from the crash sites?”

  “Probably at least a month until we can grow some organisms in the lab and see if they mutate. I’ll know more when I get back to the lab.”

  “Okay. I think we can live with that. I’ll inform the investigation team. Thanks, Doctor Sing. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Dave looked around to see if he could spot Walter Simmons, the assistant inspector for the NTSB. He saw him helping to supervise the National Guardsmen by the wreckage. He walked over and spoke into his radio headset. “Hello, Walter. How’s it going?”

  “Just fine, Colonel Hampton. We’re almost ready to lift these things out of here.”

  “How long will it take to clear them all out?”

  “We should be done by nightfall. There are only three large pieces and a handful of smaller pieces we’ve found so far. We’ll keep searching until we get them all.”

  “How do you find the pieces, Walter?”

  “We have to search manually. This stuff looks like metal, but it isn’t. It’s some kind of composite material, very lightweight and strong. Metal detectors don’t detect them. We use flashlights to get a reflection. We’ve combed every inch of these woods. Everything has been photographed and measured off. We should be able to put the pieces together once we get to the hangar.”

  “Can you tell how the engines worked? Were they nuclear powered?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s something radically different. There is no nuclear core or radioactive fuel cells. Whatever powered this spacecraft is light-years ahead of our technology.” Just then a loud noise descended over them as a large lift helicopter slowly approached from the lake and hovered above them blowing tree branches downward and kicking up a small wind storm on the ground.

  “Looks like the helicopter is here. I’ve got to help these guys hook up the cables. I’ll talk to you later.” Walter Simmons hustled over to one of the pieces wrapped in silver and helped lift the large cable straps lying on the ground. They quickly attached the cables to the hook dangling in the air from the helicopter wench. With a whirring noise, the wench slowly lifted the wreckage from the ground until it cleared the trees nearby. With an all clear command from the ground, the helicopter pilot was free to fly the wreckage to a waiting truck near the visitor center parking lot. Once it was loaded, covered and secured, the wreckage would be driven to the Milwaukee Air Force Base with a National Guard detail and unloaded in the hangar reserved for the crash investigation team. Hopefully, with enough time and the right scientists, the secrets of this alien spacecraft would be revealed and understood.

  Dave watched the helicopter disappear from site. Quietness descended over the forest once again. In the distance, Walter Simmons gave thumbs up gesture to Dave and turned to work on the second piece of wreckage on the ground. Dave waved back and decided he had better rejoin the TV camera crew and fly with them to the other crash site. He called Major Cole on his radio and told him they would be ready for pickup in twenty minutes. He started walking back down the trail towards the lake.

  The TV crew was already back at the clean tent with Lieutenant O’Rorke. They stepped into a tub full of disinfectant to clean their boots and were thoroughly sprayed and scrubbed with disinfectant and told to stand in the tent for a few minutes to dry off. Then some of the workers unwrapped the tape around the seals and told them they could remove their headgear and gloves once they were outside. Colonel Hampton followed the same procedures and soon joined the group outside the tent. He stood beside Lieutenant O’Rorke and had to wait a few minutes until Kaye finished what she was saying before Kurt’s camcorder down by the edge of the lake.

  “That’s one nice looking woman, Colonel,” Lieutenant O’Rorke commented.

  “I agree with you, Lieutenant. I’ll talk to you later.” Dave walked towards the lake.

  “Did you get everything you needed on film?” Dave asked Kaye as he finally approached her.

  “Yes, we certainly did. It was incredible. Is the other site like this?”

  “It’s bigger. There is more debris scattered over a much larger area. It will take a couple of hours to cover it all.”

  “Do you think we can shoot it all today?”

  “I think so. We still have two or three hours of daylight left. We should be able to do it.”

  Dave was studying Kaye’s face as he spoke to her. The light was reflecting off the lake behind her and made her hair glow red. She reminded him of someone he once knew in his college days at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He fell in love with that girl, but she didn’t feel the same way about him and they parted ways. He wondered if he would get a chance to find out what this girl was like. Kaye smiled at him wondering what he was thinking and was about to say something when their ride suddenly broke the silence.

  Major Cole expertly landed the helicopter near the shore and cut the engine. The rotors slowly stopped turning and the people on shore wadded out and climbed on board for their trip to the other crash site. Kurt helped Debbie climb aboard while Dave held the camera. Kurt climbed aboard. Then Dave helped Kaye get on board and climbed up behind her. Dave sat behind Major Cole and tapped him on the shoulder when everyone was strapped into their seats. The engine roared to life and Dave nodded to Lieutenant O’Rorke as they climbed up into the air.

  The helicopter quickly picked up speed over the lake. The lake was not very wide, but they had to travel to the northern most end and climb a few hundred feet in the air to clear a mountain ridge covered with trees before they spotted the crash site in the valley on the other side. The devastation was clearly visible from the air. Trees were mangled in a long straight line, starting near the top of the trees and moving downward to the splintered trunks until a large black hole appeared at the end where what was left of the spacecraft burrowed into the ground. Around the hole the forest was blackened from small fires that must have flared briefly during the crash and were quickly extinguished by the cool damp forest. Kurt pointed his camera at the crash scene and filmed everything he could as Major Cole circled once and flew to the landing site near the river gorge at the end of the old mining trail. As the helicopter was landing, Major Drew from the Army National Guard unit arrived in his green and brown Humvee to pick everyone up and drive them to the crash site.

  Major Cole shut down the engine and everyone got out of the helicopter. Dave said hello to Major Drew and introduced him to the TV reporters and asked everyone to get into the Humvee. He told Major Cole he would call him when they were ready to return to the visitor center. Dave climbed into the front passenger seat with Major Drew. “Thanks, Major, for picking us up. Are you loading the trucks yet?”

  “Yes, Colonel. We started an hour ago. Sergeant Carter has identified which sections are ready to be cleared and we’re loading the wreckage now. One of the trucks should be ready to move when we get there.”

  “I need to let the TV reporters film your men loading the wreckage onto the trucks. It’s for documentation purposes, nothing more.”

  “Fine with me. How long are you going to be here?” Major Drew asked.

  “For a couple of hours. Then we have to get back.” They drove in silence for a few more minutes until the Humvee arrived at the main crash site a half-mile up the newly made road and pulled over. There were several men in white suits milling around the trucks, most with their headgear off taking a break. They jumped to attention as Colonel Hampton and Major Drew stepped out of the Humvee. Most of their attention, however, turned to the two TV women as they climbed out the back of the Humvee. Major Drew told them to get back to work, which drew a look of disappointment until Kaye told Kurt to film the trucks and asked Debbie to select a couple of the men to pose for the camera.

  Major Drew turned to Dave and commented, “She certainly knows how to get your attention.”

  “I’ve noticed, Major.” He explained to Major Drew why the TV reporters were here.

  “I hope the President knows w
hat he’s doing,” commented Major Drew.

  “It was the only way to stop the story from breaking today. We needed more time to get organized and not cause a panic,” Dave said.

  Sergeant Eugene Carter walked up to them and saluted. “Colonel Hampton, welcome back.”

  “Is everything okay?” Dave asked.

  “Everything is going according to plan, now that we have a road and trucks to haul the debris away, thanks to Major Drew.”

  “That’s what I hear. I’ve brought some TV reporters to document the crash site, Sergeant. This is Kaye Weston from Channel Two News in Chicago.” Kaye walked up to the three men and shook Sergeant Carter’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Carter.”

  “My pleasure, Ma’am. I know who you are. I was born and raised in Chicago. I’ve seen you on TV when I visit my folks there.” Kaye just smiled and they chatted for a few minutes on what was happening in Chicago.