Beach city was a mess.
Pieces of the hand ship hadn't discriminated as they rained down from the sky. Countless fragments, large and small, had practically destroyed the wooden boardwalk, making it unusable. Car sized piece of debris had managed to strike one of Fun Land's support pillars, causing the pier to bend under all the additional stress. The several of the houses had been hit by fist size pieces of more, had broken windows from the shockwave that hit the town when the largest pieces of the ship collided with the ground. Even the Big Donut wasn't spared, a particularly volatile material had managed to take out a majority of the 'Big Donut' on the roof, leaving little proof of its former shape.
Honestly, they had been lucky that no one else had been hurt, or worse killed.
From the hill Steven sat on he could see it all.
If the ship had crashed a hundred yards inland, there wouldn't be a Beach City to return to.
The spring air felt chilling. A shiver shot up his spine, as his thoughts drifted. It had been too close. If he couldn't escape his cell… They'd all be on a one-way trip to Homeworld. He'd never see his father again. He'd never see Connie again…
Who knows what they would have even done to him on Homeworld. Would they experiment on him? Put him to trials for his mother's crimes? Throw him in some sick human zoo for gems to laugh at and throw peanuts at!? Honestly, each thought only seemed to terrify him more and more as he realized how close of a call it truly was.
He shook his head, banishing the dark thoughts. They wouldn't help him now, he needed to focus on the now not what could have been.
He stood up slowly, dusting off his pants, before heading down the hill back towards the temple.
They all were tired, Steven felt like a sack of bricks, but they needed to get started with cleaning up all the wreckage before it got too late. The falling ship would attract attention, which is the last thing any of them wanted.
Once the wreckage was taken care of everything could begin to return to normal.
Johnson was a career spook.
He wore a black suit that fitted him like he had to be poured into it every morning. He carried himself with such a sense of purpose that most people never questioned his presence, regardless of where he actually was. His naturally unassuming form and completely average looks allowed him to blend into any background, without question. If one could sum up his appearance in a single word it would be forgettable.
Which made him perfect for work in the field of intelligence acquisition. Otherwise, know as spying.
However, if one were to see him now, speeding down a dark hallway as fast as he could walk, abandoning all grace and poise, one would still never suspect that he was second in command in one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world.
It took him an exorbitant amount of will power not to break out into a sprint to get to the door at the end of the hallway, even if it would only get him there a second faster.
The Director had delivered a verbal beat down to the last agent to run down the hall to the Big Office. It had been so vicious and cold that it was customary to bring new agents to visit Frank as a warning. Poor Frank had, mistakenly, thought that the threat of nuclear war was warrant enough to break this unspoken rule. One only needed to look into his dead eyes to know that the possible end of the world was Not a valid enough reason.
Still, some small part of him whispered in the back of his mind that the folder under his arm was important enough to risk career suicide to deliver just a moment faster… Then again bayou duty was open again… Best not to risk it.
Finally arriving at the door, he nervously flattened a non-existent crease in his suit and straightened his perfect tie before taking a deep breath.
This was the moment.
He quickly rapped his knuckles on the door in front of him, before returning to attention.
Silence answered. He waited nearly thirty seconds before raising his arm to try again. Before his knuckles could strike the wood, a hard voice called from beyond it.
"Enter."
Taking one last deep breath, Johnson opened the door and stepped inside.
While he had been in there countless times, the office never ceased to amaze him. Countless artifacts and awards decorated every available open space. Dozens of certificates of various types dotted the entirety of the left side of the office, ranging from diplomas to awards in excellence, each one was more impressive than the last. On the opposing side of the office sat a large shelf with historic artifacts dating back thousands of years, all depicting strange human forms in various degrees of violence. One of the stones even glowed with a soft light
He made sure to avoid that one.
Finally, directly in front of him sat The Director. An individual he had no doubt could destroy nations with a single spoken word.
"Do you have a report, Johnson?"
Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat he began. "Sir, we have confirmation of a Class 1 atmospheric disturbance". He decided to take the lone raised eyebrow as a sign to continue.
"At approximately eleven thirty-five last night, a class 1 object was detected by our satellites approaching earth." He laid the folder down and opened it to a page depicting a blurry green shape in the backdrop of space. "We tracked the object for as long as we could before the object left satellite range. While we cannot identify the specific location, it is safe to assume that it made landfall. The projected path places it within the range of areas: 5, 6, 8 14 and 23."
The narrowing of his audience's eyes did little to assuage the growing pit of lead in his gut, nevertheless, he persisted. "At approximately eleven forty-eight the object was observed leaving earth's atmosphere before maintained geosynchronous orbit around the planet. The object maintained its position for approximately two hours and thirteen minutes before a small series of explosions started from within the object. Shortly after the object appeared to launch a small capsule before a larger explosion fragmentized most of the object. The remnants of the object began losing altitude and entered collision course for the earth. Fortunately, in this time our satellites managed to reorient themselves and we were able to determine the exact location of impact of the debris. We currently place the time of impact at two twenty-three A.M. All signs points to area 23 being the point of impact."
Finished with his brief summary, he allowed himself to fall into parade rest. He watched The Director carefully examine each document within the folder, never speaking as his superior read every detail.
Finally finishing with the folder, The Director sat silently fingers interlocked, deep in contemplation. After what felt like an eternity, the silence was broken.
With a loud sigh, The Director's shoulders sagged. Reaching to the edge of the desk, The Director pulled out a cigar from a small box. With a quick flame, the cigar lite, followed by a deep drag of tobacco smoke. Holding the breath for a moment, the smoke escaped, filling Johnson's nose with the smell of tobacco leaf.
"Don't become an optimist Johnson. It doesn't suit this kind of work." With another drag from the cigar, The Director continued. "I had hoped that the sensor hit from last year had just been a false positive from the new hardware. How Naïve of me… With this estimated tonnage, we need to move fast. It undoubtedly attracted unwanted attention, something that big is hard to ignore. If we are to prevent any possible leaks, we need to contain this quickly. I want at least two cleanup crews there within the next four hours. I don't care what it takes or how much it costs. Four hours and not a second later." The Director began chewing the cigar, clearly not happy with the situation.
"Clean out a few skeletons we have on our list. Make sure the details find the way to people within major news outlets, preferably those centered on the east coast. I don't even want this to make Good morning! Prepare a team of scrubbers. If a video hits the web, I want it dead in the water or looking like a drunk three-year-old filmed it. Have our people contact the appropriate offices and make sure they understand this is Oursalvage. If they try anything I want them dealt with. They know better than to fuck with us and ours. If we need to isolate the town, have road blocks ready and have some ships with sonar on the coast. Prepare the third field division for deployment, I want 'gem grinder' loadout. Have them hold back a mile from the site until we receive confirmation of the situation, we don't the civilians to get uppity and remind them that nontarget casualties are not acceptable. The citizens are already used to the bizarre, but this might be too much. Have our man in town keep things civil and have our shell company be ready to pay whatever 'insurance' we need to keep this from getting too far."
Taking the stub of what was left of the cigar, The Director eyed the soft embers on the end.
"… Anything you think I missed Johnson?"
Looking up from a small pad of paper, Johnson's face scrunched up in thought.
"What about the… uh, 'locals' from 23?"
Taking the cigar butt, The Director slowly ground out the dying embers in a nearby ashtray.
"I'll deal with them myself…"