A fourth of a mile beneath the surface of Sirius, directly beneath the evacuated Project
Illusion base, Craig occupied a bunker with two other spotters. The spotters
sat around a table staring at monitors
that displayed video footage of different regions of the planet. Three more
underground bunkers were scattered across Sirius, each hideout containing
spotters perched in front of monitors, plagued, no doubt, by eye strain.
Craig’s station was a little larger than that of his fellow spotters. In front of him
rested a monitor. On the monitor’s right was a scanner showing the exact
positions of the inbound Uit ships. To the left of his monitor was the control
panel to the surface-to-space missile launcher embedded within Sirius’ tallest
peak, a mountain fifteen times higher than Earth’s Mt. Everest.
Uit bombardment of a planet was more surgical than it appeared. Their priority
targeting pinpointed areas their sensors
detected as densely populated. Nothing in their operations profile indicated that
they targeted mountains. In this case, Craig hoped the Uit’s modus operandi
held up and they didn’t target the one mountain housing humanity’s only defense
against the invaders.
Twenty-five blinking pinpoints appeared on Craig’s scanner. Dr. Hecht had launched the
suicide vehicles. They would be breaking atmosphere in ten seconds. Craig
realized that by this time, Dr. Hecht had returned to Earth. With the German
engineer gone, the wormhole link was most certainly cut. Craig tried not to let the disappearance of
their lifeline pull down his spirits. He distracted himself by checking the
clarity and precision of the periscope video pickup his monitor was connected
to. He swiveled the camera control, rotating the camera at a three-sixty angle.
The surface of Sirius showed up on the monitor as a vast monotony of dust and
rocks. Craig could access the other spotters’ footages, but there was nothing
worth seeing on their monitors either.
“Jesus Christ, Craig. This is like that spotter mission I did in Northwest Pakistan
coupla years back, only weirder.” That was Owen Wheeler, former British SAS,
current contractor/advisor...whatever the situation called for. The Englishman
looked up from his monitor, rubbing his eyes.
“And more boring?” Added Jessica Reyes.
Craig smiled as he studied the woman who occasionally freelanced for the CIA. He and
Jessica had recently done an op where they posed as husband and wife. It
involved a high level and ultimately successful assassination.
“Boring is good,” Craig stated very sincerely. “We don’t want any action on this one. We
just want the bad guys to look around and get out as quickly as possible.”
Jessica stood, stretching her long, lithe body. “That being said, I’m going to take a
break. Let me know when the bad guys do show up.”
“That won’t be for six days, three hours, forty seven minutes, give or take a second or
two,” Owen recited smartly.
Jessica pranced out of the main room toward her rest cubicle. “Like I said, let me know
when they show up.”
Five days later, the suicide vehicles met the Uit ships. The battle was painfully short and
laughably lopsided. The suicide vehicles fired off their missiles. The chemical
fueled, slow moving missiles were picked off by gleaming licks of Uit point
defense fire faster than a rattlesnake could lunge. A single Uit ship directed
a pair of guns on the suicide vehicles and unleashed a hell stroke. All it took
was a broad sweep of fluorescent fire to clear the Uit’s path of feeble
opposition.
“Jesus bloody Christ,” Owen hissed incredulously as he witnessed twenty five friendly
pinpoints vanish in rapid succession from the scanner. “The least those damn
aliens could have done was act like our little greeting party was a nuisance.”
“The Uit are not known for their social graces,” Craig commented with cynical humor. “Jessica
do a bunker check. In twenty two hours the Uit are going to be within terminal
range of this planet. I want everyone on their toes.”
Jessica nodded. “You got it, boss.”
Twenty two hours later.
Cameras from the satellites above Sirius captured footage of the Uit ships that was as
vivid as it was terrifying. Twelve Uit ships approached to within 90,000 miles
of Sirius before fanning out to surround the planet. The Uit vessels were
long-bodied, like fluted tubes, with bulbous teardrop-shaped rear sections.
Linear indentations covered the hulls of each ship in unremarkable lengthwise
patterns. There were no signs of guns or missile batteries or any type of alien
contrivance denoting weaponry. Certainly nothing that just blasted twenty five
automated spacecraft to smithereens could be detected.
Suddenly, simultaneously, forward sections of the ships retracted, revealing diamond shaped apertures.
Massive oblong projectiles ejected from the holes to soar toward the planet.
The projectiles picked up speed, reaching near relativistic velocities by the
time they breached Sirius’ atmosphere.
From frigid poles to broiling deserts, to temperate valleys, the projectiles struck ground.
Each individual impact was magnitudes more powerful than the combined yield of
Earth’s entire nuclear arsenal. Mega mushroom clouds boiled heavenward, marking
points of impacts. Daunting plumes of dirt and dust were thrown up to color the
sky with a dirty brush of fallout. Blast waves howled across continents,
reshaping landscapes in a blistering, hammering maelstrom.
The few bodies of water dotting Sirius writhed in wind-lashed furies of turbulence.
Mountain high tidal waves drenched previously parched lands hundreds of miles
from their shorelines. Daylight turned to the bleakest of nights on Sirius’
dayside as layers upon layers of ejecta adumbrated the sun’s radiance to
blackness. The nightside became darker than the most star deprived region of
space, a condition not far removed from an epoch long before God uttered the
divine command that brought forth light. Devastation was complete. Even for a
world that was desolate to begin with, the catastrophe visited upon Sirius made
what it once was but seconds earlier a verdant paradise in comparison.
Other than some mild flickering of overhead lights, none of the high level disturbance
wracking the surface seeped into the still calmness of the bunker.
Craig was fixated on the monitor,
absorbing the unbelievable scale of destruction playing out on the multiple
screens before him. He heard Owen whispering obscenity-laden oaths.
Jessica sat to the right of Craig, her face paler than usual, eyes fixed unwavering on her
screen.
Craig decided to do a bunker check. Conventional communication would not suffice
under current conditions. The Project Illusion researchers knew that, which was
why they developed communication via tachyon spikes. Tachyons were light enough
to be undetectable, with the capability of penetrating any surface.
“Bunker One checking in. All is well,” came the first response. The audio was frayed at the
edges with static, but comprehensible.
“Bunker Two checking in.”
“Bunker Three checking in. No problems here.”
Satisfied, Craig returned his focus to the screens, sat back, and waited.
“Craig, are you getting this?” Jessica asked.
Craig took Jessica’s question to be more rhetorical than actual. She knew he was watching
the exact same footage from the satellite cam as she was. So, he responded with
a rhetorical reply. “Yeah, I’m getting it.”
The Uit robot ships remained stationary in the forty nine hours since they toasted
Sirius. But now one of the screens was showing movement. A much smaller vessel
flew into the picture, and it was heading for the surface. The observer ship.
Maroon in color and shaped like a bullet train car, the observer ship
disappeared into the black murk of Sirius’ tortured atmosphere. Compared to the
gargantuan robot ships, the observer vessel was a fly on an elephant. But if
Craig were to judge its scale against Earth craft, he would have compared it to
a C130 military transport plane.
Craig switched to the periscope cam. The picture was not as crystal clear as the
satellite view. A windstorm raged on the surface, whipping up swells of dirt
and dust. He managed to cut through the soup with enhanced visuals far in
advance of any night vision optics currently used on Earth, providing him with outstanding
clarity. Craig got a sustained shot of the observer ship’s descent toward the
continent where their bunker was located. The ship’s location elicited a bit of
concern from Owen.
“Boss, the bloody buggers are right over us.”
Not really. The ship was about two thousand miles out and coming down fast. Additional
smaller vessels emerged from the observer ship’s enormous hold. Each craft was
probably about the size of an Earth RV. The vessels dropped like rocks before
attaining flight capability. They darted off to other parts of the planet.
Craig’s monitor screens, in conjunction with the scanner, tracked the movements
of the smaller craft. Soon, the mother ship and the smaller vessels made
landings in various parts of the world.
Craig checked the control panel to the surface to space missile launcher embedded in
the mountain to make sure the weapon was still online. The massive relief he
felt barely registered on his face. The weapon was online. Hopefully, he
wouldn’t have to use it.
One of the screens on Craig’s monitor focused on an Uit observer landing party closest to the
bunker…which actually placed them at about four thousand miles away.
Four Uit observers, dressed in environmental suits, wearing bubble helmets with dark
visors, emerged from their half light bulb shaped vehicle.
“They move and walk like humans,” Jessica commented.
She was right. The Uit, in their suits, were almost shaped like humans as well. Almost. A closer look revealed some divergences in
their human-like outlines. Unusually long arms. Legs that bent sideways at the
joints instead of forward. No feet. Craig couldn’t out anything like ‘normal’
human feet. They appeared to balance themselves on stubs. They did have hands,
though. Craig counted six fingers on each hand, but no thumbs. Interesting.
Their helmets were small, indicating that a Uit’s head was tiny in proportion
to the rest of its body.
Two Uit began venturing away from the landing craft. They each held a flat device which
they waved in front of them.
“Must be some type of hand held scanners,” Owen surmised.
The Uit left behind unloaded equipment from a storage hold at the rear of the landing
craft. They removed six glossy metal crates and placed them on the ground about
twenty feet from the vehicle. They lifted the tops from the crates and unloaded
pieces of something which they promptly began to assemble. The finished result
was a bronze colored box that looked like an antique radio resting on a tripod.
The box rotated slowly, a red blinking light radiating from its center.
“What is that thing?” Jessica asked.
Craig shrugged. “I don’t know specifically, but I’ll assume it’s a life scanning
device.”
“It looks like one of them is taking soil samples,” Owen pointed out.
The screen showed an Uit filling a transparent tubular container with dirt. He carried the
container to the vehicle and climbed inside.
“What’s he doing? Examining the dirt for microorganisms?” Owen derided. “And if he finds a
live microbe-which is extremely unlikely-then what?”
“Another bombardment,” Jessica replied gravely.
Craig wanted to take what she said as a joke. He couldn’t. The Uit were thorough in
their genocides to the point of insanity.
Craig studied each display screen to see what the other Uit observers were doing.
Each landing party had set up equipment and was appearing to be taking
atmospheric and soil readings. After nearly an hour, the Uit closest to the
bunker began packing up their equipment.
“They’re leaving,” Jessica declared with a sparkle of hope in her voice. She met Craig’s
neutral gaze. “I think we just might have succeeded in selling them a bill of
goods.”
“We’ll see,” Craig said, not ready to claim mission accomplished just yet. Suddenly,
his screens went blank.
“What’s going on?” Owen tapped the side of his monitor. “I’ve lost visual. What the
hell?”
“Same here,” confirmed Jessica. “Could be the effects of the Uit barrage is playing havoc
with our signals.”
Craig fiddled with the monitor controls in an attempt to regain visuals. No success.
He punched the communication button. “All bunkers come in. We’ve lost visuals,
what’s your status?”
The answering silence was deafening in its own right. Craig tried again to contact
the bunkers. After five minutes of fruitless attempts a low hiss of static originating
from Bunker Two came in, followed by a warbled voice. “…compromised…repeat, we’ve been
compromised…!
The transmission cut off with the finality of a decapitating sword stroke. Cold
shock surged through Craig. He rose slowly, trying to wrap his mind around a
word no operative ever wanted to hear when on a mission: compromised.
Jessica
and Owen cast disbelieving stares Craig’s way.
“Did I just hear right?” Owen muttered, cocking his head.
Craig dashed to the arms crate in the corner of the bunker. “Yeah, you heard right.
It’s time to bail out of here. Let’s go, let’s go!” He threw open the crate,
took out a pair of pressure detonators and stuffed them in a supply pouch
attached to his belt.
The three operatives snatched their
helmets and assault rifles and headed for the bunker lift that would catapult
them to the surface.
“You won’t be able to launch the missiles!” Jessica realized as they boarded the lift and
the door slid shut.
Craig held up a flat hand size device. “I can fire them off with this. My uncle is too
devious to not have thought of a portable missile control mechanism.”
“This is not going according to plan!” grumbled Owen, slapping an ammo clip into his
modified M-16.
Craig grunted. “Blame it on that son-of-a-bitch, Murphy.”
After a harrowing five minutes of extreme upward acceleration, the lift reached the
surface.
Craig was the first to step outside when the door opened. Fierce winds nearly shoved him
backwards. The surface was a dark, storm wracked scene of utter, ruinous,
devastation. A mad prophet could not
have envisioned this screeching tumult. The operatives’ EHGV (Enhanced Head
Gear Vision) rapidly adjusted to the deficit of natural eyesight, pulling
fluorescent green outlines of detail from the surrounding blackness. The bunker was directly below Project
Illusion’s base. Now, it was as if what little imprint humanity left behind in
this small area never existed at all.
A craft swooped down upon the trio. An Uit landing vehicle.
Craig raised his weapon and opened fire.
Jessica and Owen followed suit, filling the disaster-churned air with crisscrossing bursts
of graphene-tipped rounds. A broadside
of sparks from bullets striking hull lit up the bottom of the craft. Executing
a roll, the Uit craft knifed upward a few hundred yards, paused fractionally,
then soared toward the surface for another pass. It screamed overhead, but not
as close as the first time.
The operatives again fired on the craft.
Craig spotted something dropping from the vehicle’s rear. Whatever it was the object was too
slow and too dumb to be a missile. Which left only one viable possibility…
“Hit the dirt!” Craig yelled through his helm mike bare seconds before the bomb impacted
the surface, detonating upon contact.
WHOOMP! Craig was lifted off his feet. It felt like he was levitating…like he could almost
control the duration and direction of his elevation. Gravity disabused him of
any notions of intrinsic flight capabilities. Craig plowed like an errantly
thrown football into the ground, rolling multiple times, each tumble a mallet
blow to his body. Friction, combined with countering wind currents, slowed his
flailing progression to a grinding halt.
His head clamored like a city full of tolling bells. Craig let out a ragged groan of
pain as he urged his battered body along. He foisted himself to his feet,
looking around, searching for his companions. His helmet display’s visor
alternated between blurry resolution and normal clarity.
Craig noticed Jessica at least thirty yards away. The woman was on her back, alive,
but clearly wounded from the blast. She tried to stand, but could only manage
to twist onto her stomach. Owen was
down, too. He was farther away and not moving at all. Craig couldn’t determine
if the Brit was dead or alive.
The appearance of the Uit craft snared Craig’s attention. The craft landed some
twenty yards in front of Craig, like an enormous Jurassic avian setting down to
roost.
Craig couldn’t find his weapon. He
lost it in the blast. No time to search. Craig pulled out a combat knife with a
hair thin blade forged from graphene, a substance harder than diamond. He
skulked toward the Uit craft.
No Uit had yet exited the landing vehicle. Craig rounded the back of the craft, slowly
gliding his way toward the cockpit. He never made it. An unseen force swept
Craig’s feet from under him, slamming him hard against the vehicle. Craig sank
to the ground, the wind knocked out of him.
An Uit approached Craig.
The human could not tell from which direction the Uit came, or if the alien was even on
board the craft to begin with. All Craig
knew was that the Uit was looming above him, pointing some kind of cylindered
object at him. Undoubtedly, the cylinder was the source of the teeth gritting
paralysis that prevented Craig from sinking his knife into a vital Uit artery.
Craig could not move despite his most exhaustive efforts. His muscles felt
heavy as cold lead.
An even colder aura emanated from the Uit. Up close, the alien was not as imposing as
Craig expected. But what the Uit lacked in the physical, was more than
compensated for in the genocidal horror the being represented. Craig could not
shake off the sensation of being nothing more than a lump of corruption beneath
the Uit’s unfeeling, helmet-shrouded scrutiny.
A deep resonant sound, like rushing waters, filled Craig’s audio. It wasn’t static or
feedback. The flow was too smooth, tranquil even. If Craig were to close his
eyes he could picture himself strolling along the beach of his island retreat.
Craig was tempted, but managed to keep his eyes open and focused on the
nightmare before him.
The sound grew louder, higher, elevating to a mournful keen. A throb of discomfort coiled
through Craig’s head, congealing into an aching knot behind his eyes. Words
suddenly materialized across Craig’s helmet display. English words.
The alien had hacked into Craig’s
helmet, somehow dissolving the language barrier to establish communication.
WHAT ARE YOU?
Craig overcame his surprise to respond verbally. “Human.”
WE HAVE DETECTED NO RESIDUALS DENOTING A PREVIOUS EXISTENCE OF LIFE ON THIS WORLD.
“That’s because you murderous bastards destroyed every trace of life on this world!”
UNLIKELY. I STRONGLY SUSPECT THERE WAS NEVER LIFE HERE TO BEGIN WITH. THE UNDERGROUND
ENCLAVES WE HAVE NEUTRALIZED HAS NOT YIELDED ANY DATA TO CONFIRM MY SUSPICION
NOR WERE THERE ANY HUMANS ALIVE IN THOSE PLACES TO INTERROGATE.
A spike of anguish drove through Craig’s heart at the loss of his fellow operatives.
Instantly, he stifled his emotions, adopting a cool, mission oriented poise.
WHERE IS YOUR HOME PLANET? The Uit stepped
closer, gently prodding the human’s chest with the cylinder.
Craig forged a smile that the Uit could not see, and probably would have been unable to read
if it could. “This is my home planet.”
A cutting, constricting pain erupted in Craig’s chest, rapidly flaring to his extremities.
I AM NOT CONVINCED.
Foamy spittle seeped from the corner of Craig’s mouth as the agony subsided. The
human heaved for breath. “Humans are indigenous…to this world…this is…my…home
world…”
Another pain-burst so mind consuming Craig could barely hear himself screaming.
“Stop, please! Please! I’ll talk…I’ll talk…you’re right…humans aren’t native here…”
YOU WILL PROVIDE US WITH THE COORDINATES TO YOUR HOME SYSTEM.
“Please…don’t do this. We…are not a threat to you!”
The Uit stepped back, lowering the cylinder. ANY SENTIENT EXISTENCE OTHER THAN OUR OWN
IS A THREAT TO US. NOW, GIVE ME THE COORDINATES.
After a short pause, Craig uttered an alpha numeric string.
Another pause ensued as the Uit linked to its observer ship astronomical computer to
confirm the acquired data.
YOUR DATA IS ACCURATE, ENSURING YOUR EXTENDED SURVIVAL UNTIL YOUR DEMISE FROM LACK OF
SUSTENANCE.
“Well thank you kindly. Your mercy is much appreciated.
In the end, you’re going to lose. You can’t wipe out every single pocket
of life in the universe. It can’t be done!”
WE WILL ACHIEVE OUR OBJECTIVE IN TIME. WHILE YOUR COOPERATION IN THIS MATTER IS MOST
HELPFUL, IT IS NOT WITHOUT TREACHEROUS INTENT. YOUR MOUNTAIN TOP MISSILE
LAUNCHER HAS BEEN DESTROYED.
The Uit turned away and boarded his landing craft. Seconds later the craft lifted off.
A black tornado of sand and dust whipped around Craig in the vibratory wake of
the craft’s ascent. The paralysis holding
Craig in place dissipated as the vehicle gained distance. But a paralysis of a
different, mind-numbing sort kept the human rooted in place as he visualized
his plan flushing down a toilet. After all, Craig was counting on the missile
launcher to end the Uit threat. Revealing Earth’s location was a ploy to get
the observer ship back into space so it could be targeted and destroyed.
Craig looked up in the direction of the departing landing craft. He adjusted his EVHG
to maximum range and spotted the Uit observer ship hovering in the sky just
short of reaching orbit. The ship was receiving all the landing craft that it
had dispersed across Sirius. When the final craft entered the observer ship’s
hold, the vessel resumed its flight toward space.
Craig took out the portable missile launch control and thumbed the launch button. A tiny
strip of a display screen at the top of the launch control read OFFLINE. Craig
slammed the control into the dirt, whispering a curse. The Uit wasn’t lying.
The mountain top launcher really was neutralized. Now, Craig was forced to fall
back on Plan C…might as well have been Plan D. This was about as last minute a
gamble as he could come up with, something he pulled out of his nostril in a
flurry of desperation.
All he had to do was wait and see if the gamble was going to pay off.
He waited…
The observer ship was seconds from reaching orbit, becoming an ever-decreasing speck on his
EVHG display.
He waited…
Perspiration trickled down his face.
He waited…
Anxiety applied a strangle grip to his heart.
A flash of light blossomed on the side of the observer ship like an emerging sunrise.
The breath Craig was holding gushed out in a triumphant cry of relief.
The observer ship spiraled out of control, spewing hot gas, smoke, and debris from
a flame-throbbing hole in its hull. Down to the surface the ship plummeted, the
friction of its reentry converting the disintegrating vessel into a blazing
contrail.
Craig tracked the ship’s fiery descent until it struck the surface no more than fifty
miles from where he stood. The blinding fury of the Uit ship’s demise splashed
a patch of radiance across a half square mile of complete darkness.
Before Craig’s encounter with his Uit tormentor, he managed to place a pressure
detonator on the landing craft. He set the timer for when he estimated the
craft would rejoin its host vessel. He had three concerns: was the length of
time he programmed into the detonator long enough? Would the explosive produce
a powerful enough blast to cripple the observer ship? And would it be
discovered and deactivated?
Well, Craig didn’t have to worry about those concerns anymore. His gamble had paid off big.
He stared at his raging victory pyre in the distance for a few gratifying
minutes. Then he turned, trudging back to check on the status of his
companions.
Uncle Reese was all smiles as entered the infirmary to visit his nephew. The infirmary was
located somewhere on Earth, deep inside a secret installation. Craig was being
treated for an assortment of cuts, bruises, and sprains. He was not at all
happy to see the man who got him into this predicament.
“Exemplary job, Craig. You saved us all.”
“Not in the mood for celebrating,” Craig huffed, sliding off the med pallet. He examined
the dressing wrapped around his cracked ribcage. “I came out of that goat screw
of a mission with two wounded operatives and the rest, dead. It wasn’t supposed
to go down like that.”
Uncle Reese’s good cheer dimmed slightly. “Craig, you know as well as I do that no
mission projection is written in stone. Project Illusion put together the best
possible plan that it possibly could, based on the best data at its disposal.
The Piron provided us with excellent, detailed information that tried to factor
in likely future advancements in Uit technological capabilities.”
“But no one could have known that the Uit would acquire the ability to detect detection
proof underground bunkers, or missile launchers hidden in mountains,” Craig admitted,
reaching for his shirt.
Uncle Reese nodded in sober agreement. “I did my part to try to anticipate ways this
mission could go wrong. But for every scenario that I came up with and
countered, more negative scenarios sprang up to keep me awake at night. That’s
why I called you.”
Craig paused, fixing a skeptical spotlight upon his enigmatic relative.
“You’re good at what you do,” Uncle Reese elaborated. “There’s no doubt about that. But
beyond being good, you have a knack for yanking success out of the gaping mouth
of disastrous outcomes.”
A grin was pulled out of Craig, followed by a wince of pain as he eased into his short
sleeve polo. “I’ll bet you were itching for a time and a place to use that
metaphor.”
“I’m serious, Craig. Thinking outside the box is something you do exceptionally
well. Using a pressure detonator to bring down a hostile alien ship when all
other options had failed. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. I probably would never
have thought of that one.”
“Thanks for the accolades, but it doesn’t make me feel any better,” Craig griped.
Uncle Reese put an earnest hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’m not trying to make you feel
better. I’m trying to make you see that for the price of a handful of brave,
dedicated warriors, six billion lives have been saved. Six billion. What a
small price to pay for the continued survival of our species.”
Craig reluctantly accepted the wisdom of Uncle Reese’s words. “Yeah. We dodged a
bullet this time. Of course something tells me more bullets are on the way.”
“Well, if or when the next bullet arrives, I think we’ll be far better equipped to repel
it.” Uncle Reese brought his hands together in a topic-ending clap. “Now,
enough talk of proverbial little projectiles. Whether you like it or not, I’m
treating you to dinner and all the alcohol you can consume. Lord knows you’ve
earned it.”
“And when we’re done,” Craig announced as he headed for the infirmary exit, “you can drop
me off on my island and not bother me ever again.”
Uncle Reese put a hand to his chest. “I promise I will not be calling on your services
anytime soon.”
“I didn’t say anytime soon, I said ever again.”
“Now, now, Craig, let’s not think
in such…final terms.”
“Uncle Reese…”
“I know this wonderful little restaurant in Tokyo. I think you’ll like it…”
