A rhythmic sound filled his head.
Was he dead? Was this purgatory? Heaven? Hell? Oblivion?
No. He was alive. He was breathing. In, out. In, out.
He struggled to open his eyes. He lifted his left arm to shield them from the sudden light. His right side hurt; moving that arm caused pain.
He was still able to push himself up with his left arm, though. He looked down. All was red. Was it his blood?
Some. His suit was made out of red fabric, apart from the shirt under the jacket. That was black. He struggled to remember his name.
Tom? Ted?
Trent. That was it. Trent Easton. Head of the NSA.
He lightly fingered the big gash on his side, then cursed himself as pain flared from his probing. The gash ran all the way from his shoulder almost to his pelvis. He noticed a glimmering to his side. Focusing on it, he saw it was his customized DY-357 LX, with gold plating and tiger-skin grip. Still fully-loaded. Easton cursed his missed chance at that blonde freak. "Extraterrestrial lying bastard," Easton muttered.
Easton's mind flashed back to when he had first encountered the Skedar man.
---
6 months earlier.
Trent always had a tendency to go on the frontlines of espionage with his men. He gained a reputation as a Teddy Roosevelt character, a leader who led. This bust was the latest in a long series of such occurences.
After Castro's death in 2008, a short period of anarchy ruled over Cuba, until a powerful Mexican druglord, Carlos Ignacio, seized power. From reports of his brutality by the few that had escaped Cuba afterwards, it was clear that action had to be taken. After 18 years of Ignacio's insane cruelty, Trent decided that he would be the one to take it.
He and his troops were on board a large black rubber raft. It had been the preferred standby of covert aquatic operations for decades. Trent was giving his troops one last quick briefing/pep talk before their landing on Cuba.
"Alright, men, ever since you've joined the NSA, you've been aching to give this Ignacio bastard a nice .45 caliber present. But those damn bureaucrats in Washington never had a 'real' reason to. It's reasoning like that which caused 9/11, but those bureaucratic bastards still can't think beyond happy shiny thoughts. I could, and after some persuasion, so could the President. One more time, let's review our plan."
Trent passed out small pamphlets. Each pamphlet had a picture and brief description. The first image featured Ignacio, a man in his late 50s with a massive mane of grey hair, with his scalp, beard, and moustache.
"This is Ignacio, our primary target. We have orders to take him in, dead or alive. That means shoot to kill, gentlemen."
The second picture featured Ignacio shaking hands with an unidentified person. He stood at least six feet tall, had a full body length white trenchcoat, and the features of a Scandinavian. His hair was blonde.
"The man you see with Ignacio is nowhere to be found in our files. We believe him to be one of the lieutenants in Ignacio's drug ring. We have been ordered to take him alive, if possible. Intelligence has determined that Cuba in the past few years has acquired an old fleet of nuclear submarines. This means one of two things: either Ignacio is shipping drugs in from South America, or..."
The picture changed again. This time, it showed Saddam Hussein standing proudly next to a scientist and a nuclear warhead.
"Ignacio may have acquired nuclear capability and is planning to strike at targets on the East Coast. This is a warhead purchased by Al Qaeda from Iraq in 2003, before America shut Saddam down. We believe it had been resold to Cuba in an effort to bolster Al Qaeda's funding, after the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Castro may have had the same ideas Ignacio has now, except he never had an ability to launch the warhead. With the submarines, Ignacio now does. Sadly and keep this in mind, gentlemen this was not a factor when this mission was called up." The troops nodded, understanding Trent's distaste for Washington politics.
The third image was a map, featuring the layout of Pescados' palace. Trent outlined the strategy they would be using to break in.
Just as Easton finished the briefing, the Cuban mainland came into view. Trent signaled the motor to cut off. "It's an hour to the palace on foot. Remember, stay in the shadows." The troops nodded their assent as they tossed the water-soluble pamphlets overboard.
---
An hour later, the NSA agents were in position around the palace. The attack was synchronized to go off at 3 AM exactly, which intelligence had stated to be the hour when guard patrols woudl be at a minimum. Trent counted down while watching the second hand on his watch. "Three...two...one...Now!" he called over the radio.
Three agents in the front courtyard immediately charged into the palace's front doors, overwhelming Ignacio's guards. They began securing the grand foyer.
Meanwhile, half a dozen agents infiltrated the palace through side windows. The agents, working alone, began carefully sweeping the palace for any patrols or Ignacio himself.
Easton and another agent entered the palace through the rear. Sticking to the shadows, they dodged patrols, intent on finding Ignacio. They soon came to a grand bedroom (as indicated in the blueprints); the door, however, was locked. The nameless agent set up a charge of explosives on the door, and ran with his boss around a corner before activating the remote mine.
They rounded back the corner and entered the doorway. Ignacio was standing in the middle of the room, a gun to the head of his 14-year-old mistress.
"Ignacio! You're coming with me, dead or alive," Trent proclaimed.
The Mexican grinned. "If you idiots come one step near me, I'll blow this bitch's brains across the fucking wall. Now drop your guns. NOW!"
Easton and the other agent dropped their weapons.
"Now, facedown on the floor. Move!"
Ignacio gestured toward the floor for a fraction of a second, using the pistol in his hand. Big mistake.
Easton fell to the ground on his ass, legs spread wide. He ripped off the velcro covering on his right leg with his right hand. His left hand seized the DY-357 LX hidden there.
Ignacio fired twice. Easton fired once.
Ignacio's head above his nose did a disappearing act.
Trent stood. "Get out of here," he told the mistress. She fled. He turned to the other agent.
The agent was on his back. One of the bullets had caught him in the chest. Easton knelt and took the man's hand. "We got him." The agent nodded and closed his eyes. "Man down," he whispered.
"He was weak."
Easton turned. It was the Scandinavian mentioned in the briefing. Easton aimed his Magnum at the Scandinavian.
"That wouldn't work," he scolded. Trent shrugged and pulled the trigger.
Instantly a surge of color washed over the Scandinavian's body.
"Holy shit," Trent said, the arm falling to his side.
The Scandinavian smirked. It looked unnatural, forced. "I was born under another star...three, to be precise. And since my former...associate," he glanced at Ignacio. "...is no longer with us, I will require a new partner. You see, we lost something on this planet a considerable time ago, and we are now looking for it. And anybody who helps us find it will be...considerably rewarded."
A strange sound filled the room, as the air behind the Scandinavian became first blurry, then white. Two people identical to the Scandinavian alien? had appeared out of thin air behind the first.
"I...I think we might have a deal," Trent hesitantly replied.
---
Two months later.
Trent had informed his limo driver to drop him off here, at Arlington Cemetery. He approached the marker where his father was buried. Mr. Blonde was already there.
"On my world, we liquefy and consume the dead," the Scandinavian commented.
Trent ignored the remark, though it disgusted him. "I haven't been able to gather much support for use of the Pelagic II. The operation in Cuba was a big success, but it cost me politically." He spat the last word out.
"On my world, we do not have 'politics'. We have battles, sometimes to the death."
Trent nodded. "I think we should talk to the dataDyne corporation. They have strong political connections, so they might be able to pull strings I cannot. Their resources are also quite significant."
Mr. Blonde took Trent's words into consideration. "Yes, we will contact this 'dataDyne'. Who is its commander?"
"Cassandra DeVries is the CEO."
"Yes, we shall contact Cassandra DeVries. She will help us retrieve what we lost."
---
One month later.
A café in Costa Rica.
Trent was there on vacation. Cassandra DeVries was there on official and unofficial business.
Officially, she was offering a million dollars in aid to the Costa Rican government. Unofficially, it was her first meeting with both Trent and Mr. Blonde.
Cassandra was practically giddy with excitement as she ate the meal she ordered.
"Just think, Mr. Easton. By this time next year, the...what was the name of their people?"
"The Skedar."
"Right, right, the Skedar. The Skedar will have brought superior technology and peace to Earth, and we'll be heralded as the ushers of a new age!"
Easton was cynical. "Yeah, and dataDyne stock will skyrocket."
Cassandra dismissed the comment. "Better than being another Enron."
"True," he replied. Soon after, Mr. Blonde arrived and took a seat.
"Aren't you hot in that?" Cassandra asked. Mr. Blonde shook his head: a solid no. Cassandra shrugged.
"I have made a significant discovery," Mr. Blonde began. "It seems that a group calling themselves the 'Carrington Institute' have allied themselves with the Maians, a terrorist alien species who oppose us in every way. These Maians, I believe, are also the cause of the folklore in your people's culture about aliens mutilating cattle and kidnapping people. They are villains who have nothing but contempt for humanity. And now this Carrington Institute has betrayed humanity for the promise of the Maians' 'technology'." The Scandinavian filled the last word with disgust, disdaining the Maian sciences.
Cassandra turned livid. "I am all too familiar with the Carrington Institute. They shut down a so-called 'illegal' robot factory in South America owned by one of dataDyne's sub-companies." Cassandra began to eat her food more aggresively, spearing a bit of meat on a fork hard enough to push the plate and chewing angrily only a few times before swallowing.
Trent was glowering. "The Carrington Institute...I had always thought Daniel Carrington was a rational man. I guess not." He turned to Mr. Blonde. "I will do everything in my power to crush the Carrington Institute."
"As will I," Cassandra added.
Mr. Blonde nodded, pleased.
---
One month later.
The trio was in another meeting place, this time a secure building owned by one of the subcorporations owned by dataDyne, located in Chicago.
"What is it that you're looking for, again?" Trent asked.
"A ship that crashed on Earth long ago. It contains a lost colonization ship of the Cetan people. They were the first race to challenge the cruel oppression of the Maians, and had a powerful weapon that could have wiped them out. They were prevented from using it because the Maians, upon hearing of the weapon, annihilated their homeworld. If we revive the Cetan people, get their weapon, and arm our species with it, we can swiftly crush the Maian threat."
Trent nodded. The Maians' atrocities still revolted him.
"The Cetans communicated telepathically. Thus, their computers had no physical input ability. An AI entity with remote capability would be quite useful in this medium. Since dataDyne is the world's leading software firm, we require you, Ms. DeVries, to create a true Artificial Intelligence, so that we may activate the Cetan stasis pods. From there, we will forge an alliance to crush the Maians."
"We are also beginning to believe that your President is conspiring with the Maians. For this reason, we have provided you with this." Mr. Blonde gestured toward a strange device he had given to Trent and Cassandra. "It is a cloning machine, one that works on different principles than mankind is familiar with. You insert a tissue sample first. It will then create a complete organism from its DNA, which it will grow at an accelerated rate."
Mr. Blonde handed Trent a gun-like object that had a needle protruding at the end.
"Once your President is cloned, inject this into him. It is a colony of self-replicating nanobots which allow us to take complete control over the specimen. We will use the clone to attain control of the Pelagic II, the Cetan ship, and we can finally end the Maian terror to the galaxy. In return, that which we have given you - shields, cloaks, weapon technology - will seem but trinkets."
Trent and Cassandra nodded. They would kill their traitorous President and save the galaxy.
---
Present.
Trent cursed himself for being so easily tricked as he stumbled out of the icy cave's mouth. The Skedar had given the NSA and dataDyne a few cute trinkets - shields, cloaking devices, that marvelous K7 Avenger - but Trent should have guessed the alien's nefarious intentions from day one. He was unsure what was under the ocean now, but he was damn sure it wasn't a lost colonization ship from a now-extinct race.
He couldn't really blame himself, though. The Skedar HAD presented a compelling case, and he couldn't (and didn't know how to) get any second opinion, especially from the Maians themselves.
He saw a glimmering in the distance. After lurching towards it for half an hour (stopping to rest every so often), he finally saw that it was a downed flying saucer. Like the kind the Maians piloted. There were several figures near it: two human (Joanna Dark and the real President?) and a short, grey one (a Maian?).
Easton began to trudge through the snow into Elvis' direction.
---
Trent opened his eyes. Everything was a haze. There were shapes at the end of the bed. He strained to make them out. A Maian was the first thing he recognized. The fat guy with the beard might be Daniel Carrington. The woman was all too familiar.
"Ms. Dark..." Trent managed to whisper.
"Hello, Mr. Easton," the agent responded curtly.
"How...how did I get here?" he asked. He tried to raise an arm, but it was restrained, bound to the bed.
"Well, just as Elvis got his ship working again, you staggered into camp and fell on your face. We couldn't really leave you, so..."
Carrington spoke up. "The doctor said your injuries are quite serious, but a few weeks' bedrest should heal you up just fine."
Joanna's eyes narrowed. "After that, you'll have to deal with the authorities."
"What...what happened to the Skedar?" Trent mumbled out.
"They seized the Pelagic II, along with dataDyne forces. They had a...falling out under the ocean, though, and I managed to destroy the Cetan megaweapon." She cast her eyes down in mourning. "Thanks to Dr. Carroll."
Trent nodded. His eyes were getting heavy. Morphine? "Good."
---
"...and that's the whole story," Trent finished. He was sitting in a wheelchair in the Oval Office, across from the President.
He remained silent for some time. "I suppose, Trent, that I cannot hold you personally responsible for your actions. Nobody would, under the circumstances. So I'm going to issue a full pardon for your acts."
Trent sagged in relief.
"However, I must still ask for your resignation as head of the NSA. Politics, you know."
Trent nodded. He had expected as much. It didn't make it any easier to accept.
The President stood and began walking out of the room. He turned back toward Trent. "You're welcome to attend the ceremony, you know. Ms. Dark and Carrington are due in less than an hour."
Trent thought for a moment, then nodded. The ceremony, which would take place on the White House front lawn, was the historic 'First Contact' that would herald the first official contact between the humans and the peaceful Maians.
Trent piloted his wheelchair via control stick to follow the President out of the room. The door was seven feet behind him when a tremor made him stop.
The President stopped too, and turned to Trent. "Did you feel -" he began to ask.
And then fire and noise shot out the doorway behind Trent. More explosions raked the front of the White House. The Skedar had attacked.
Trent had been knocked out of the wheelchair by the blast. The President had also fallen over. Trent helped him up, grabbed a Cyclone from a nearby fallen Secret Service agent, and began running with him to safety, abandoning the wheelchair. He didn't need it to move around, it was just easier on his stitches.
They passed a guard post and paused for a second. A TV was showing the White House in flames, and a Skedar shuttle landing on the front lawn. "Jesus," the President swore. The various diplomats, VIPs, and reporters who were in the audience scattered.
Trent forced the President onward, taking a staircase, turning down this hallway or that. He finally reached the secondary entrance to the President's bunker (the first being inaccessible since the Oval Office was blown to smithereens). The President stepped in. "Come on, Trent," the leader urged.
Trent shook his head no. "I haven't resigned yet, Mr. President. I'm going to save some lives." The President understood, and extended his hand. Trent shook it, and watched as he pressed the button to go down.
---
One of the Skedar had already gotten inside the White House. It smashed through door after door, searching for humans. Finally, it smashed through a door and found many humans. It was the press conference room. The people started screaming as the Skedar raised its Mauler...
A series of shots, and it toppled over. Trent entered the room, smoking Cyclone in hand. "Everybody, get the hell out of here!" he shouted. They complied, fleeing through every doorway they could manage. Trent discarded the empty Cyclone and picked up the Mauler.
He kept running through the White House, making sure everyone was evacuated. He found a room where a Skedar armed with a Reaper had a bunch of people pinned down behind a staircase. Before the Skedar could turn the terrible weapon on him, Trent blasted a hole in it with the Mauler. He picked up the alien weapon and stuck the Mauler in a pocket. His stitches were starting to bother him.
At one point, he ran into Elvis, the Maian ambassador. He it? was already present at the White House for the ceremony. "Trent Easton! You must help me get to my saucer on the roof!" the Maian begged. "If the Skedar are attacking Washington, they are surely attacking the Carrington Institute, too!"
"Okay, let's get you up there," Trent replied. Between Elvis' Phoenix and Trent's Reaper, they managed to take out a fair number of Skedar who had gotten into the White House before making it up to the roof.
"Good luck, uh...Elvis," Trent told the alien.
"Thank you!" And the saucer closed and flew away, to the west.
Trent moved back downstairs, heading for the White House's front exit (if it was still intact from the rocket attack). He was going to investigate the Skedar shuttle.
He made it outside unmolested. No Skedar appeared to be outside; they all had apparently rushed inside. He approached the open door of the shuttle, Mauler at the ready. Entering, there appeared to be nobody inside. But he noticed something blurry, and-
Trent fired. His instincts proved him right: the Skedar toppled to the ground at his feet, dead after the round from the Mauler passed through its cloaking device. If he had hesitated a moment longer, the Skedar would have had him.
He stepped out of the shuttle just as the FBI hovercars arrived on the scene. Good thing, too. His stitches were starting to ache a lot.
Several of the FBI agents made a beeline for Trent and the shuttle. "Mr. Easton," one of them greeted, recognizing him.
Trent sat near the edge of the loading ramp, waiting for a hover ambulance to arrive. All in all, it looked like the Skedar attack had failed; there were some casualties, yes, and the White House would need a definite face lift, but they had merely postponed the ceremony.
He heard a pair of agents nearby talking.
"-you hear that on the radio?" the first commented to the second.
"Man, that's just nuts. Another one of those alien shuttles, on the West Coast?"
"Yeah, and it just blew up right over the Carrington Institute! It probably would have taken out the whole facility if it was still on that landing pad."
"Definitely. That Dark chick deserves a medal for getting that ship out of there before it was too late." The two agents walked out of hearing range.
Trent sat there for a moment digesting the information. Fact: Skedar shuttles explode big. Fact: Skedar shuttles can self-destruct. Fact: He was sitting on a Skedar shuttle.
He ran back into the shuttle. "GET OUT! GET OUT!" he shouted. "IT'S GOT A SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE!"
Trent quickly explained what had happened, as well as tossing in his opinion here and there. The FBI agents, in dawning horror, started screaming over their radios for a general evacuation of the White House, out the other side. They, too, exited the shuttle, paying no attention to Trent.
Wearily, he eyed the controls of the shuttle. He knew what he had to do.
The seat was pretty uncomfortable. It was designed to fit Skedar form and posture, not human. The controls seemed to be easy enough to manipulate, though, by human standards.
The biggest problem was getting it off the ground. He bumped the shuttle into some trees on the White House lawn, at first. The FBI agents were screaming for him to get out of the shuttle; he didn't know how to close the entrance.
He soon managed to get it to ascend. "I have an idea," he whispered to himself. He had been in the Air Force for a few years before joining the NSA, so piloting it once in the air was no problem.
Within a minute, he was hovering over the Potomac. And then he had a little snag.
"Alright, how do I land this thing?" he asked himself. He tried the button that made the craft go up. The shuttle only rose in the air another dozen or so feet. He hit every button he saw. A rocket launched from the shuttle. "Damnit."
Finally, he had tried every button, and gave up in frustration. He stood and the lights on the control panel went dark. The sound from the engine died down. The shuttle began to sink from the sky.
"Oh SHIIIII-" Trent cried, as he seized something to hold on to the back of the chair before he was battered about inside the falling ship.
Trent didn't remember the ship hitting the water. He only remembered trying to take in two lungfuls of air, and getting only water instead. Desperately, he swam for the rear of the ship, towards the still-open hatch.
He made it. But the surface of the water was a long way up.
He had almost made it when the ship finally exploded.
---
Newspaper headlines:
"UNWITTING ALIEN CONSPIRATOR SAVES WHITE HOUSE"
"MAN AND MAIAN MAKE FIRST OFFICIAL CONTACT: THE PRESIDENT MEETS 'THE KING'"
"TRENT EASTON STILL MISSING"
"EASTON ALIVE: NSA HEAD WAS COMATOSE 'JOHN DOE'"
---
It almost hurt to open his eyes again.
"Light," he hissed in pain. The light dimmed.
"Good morning, Mr. Easton," a feminine voice greeted him.
"And to you, Ms. Dark," Trent wheezed out. "What...what happened?"
"You've been out for a month. Basically, you've been hailed as a hero for saving the White House."
"And...the Skedar?"
Joanna smirked, though Trent couldn't really see it. "I don't think we have to worry about them for a while."
---
Trent once again found himself in the White House just before a ceremony. This time, the ceremony would consist of the President giving him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The two men were in the Lincoln Bedroom, which the President had chosen as his office while the Oval Office was being rebuilt. They had been talking for a while, as two men who used to be bitter enemies sometimes did. But, the ceremony time was drawing near.
"Now, are you sure you won't change your mind, Trent? Let me remind you, you saved a lot of people, as well as the White House itself. You have a free ticket in this town, to change whatever policy you think is poor...hell, how does 'Secretary of Defense' sound?" The President leaned forward in anticipation of Trent's answer.
"It sounds nice, Mr. President, don't get me wrong. But...over these past few weeks, I've come to the conclusion that there are places where my time would be more well-spent. Places where I can make a significant difference."
The President nodded, then checked his watch. "Well, it's about time, Trent. Shall we?"
The former head of the NSA nodded, stood, and followed the President out the room.
---
"Agents, staff, please give a warm welcome to our newest member, Trent Easton!" Daniel Carrington gestured to Trent, sitting on a chair on the stage that had been erected in the hangar. Trent smiled and waved at his new co-workers.
After a while, the festivities broke up. Carrington, before returning to his office, instructed Trent and Joanna to come with him. "Agents, I have intelligence on your next mission. There's something going on at the Asteroid Belt, and we want you to investigate..."