Alien Nightmare, Part II: The Return
by 80sarcades
Welcome back! Hogan and Kinch begin their storyline in this chapter.
Enjoy the story and have a Happy New Year!
February 9th, 1864
Richmond, Virginia
A chilly, almost biting wind laced the cheeks of Jefferson Davis as he stood on the parade grounds. Oddly enough, he barely noticed the feeling of his numbed skin as he stared curiously at the latest example of Confederate technology.
When does it stop? he wondered sadly. And where does it go from here?
Although he hoped for victory, the fourteen foot iron rocket that towered above the heads of the assembled men seemed nothing less than monstrous.
The Army used a smaller - and quite different - version in Mexico, he remembered. However, at least they could see the enemy. This...this is obscene. If successful, this thing will kill people we will never see.
And yet, we have to use everything in our power to win this accursed war. He sighed, then silently shook his head in resignation.
"We're ready, sir," an assistant told him. The President of the Confederate States of America mutely nodded in reply before he turned to his aide-de-camp.
"Go ahead," he curtly ordered. The aide quickly pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket before waving it back and forth over his head. Moments later, a man on a nearby platform lowered a torch to a trail of gun cotton and set it ablaze before he scrambled to safety.
With a thunderous roar the rocket ignited and began its climb towards the gray sky. A brown/gray trail of smoke trailed after the ascending missile until it disappeared into the low-hanging overcast. Its intended target - Washington City - lay at the end of its projected flight path. For a moment President Davis wondered it the rocket would make it there.
The seeds of doubt soon sprang into dismal reality. Spies reported no mysterious detonations in the capital city of the Union; the rocket itself seemed to have disappeared to points unknown. Curiously, the President seemed unperturbed by the whole affair.
It was worth a try, I suppose, he finally decided. Still... A small smile then quirked his lips.
And who knows? Perhaps it actually did hit a worthwhile Union target somewhere!
He briefly chuckled, amused by the dark thought, before returning his attention to the latest missive from General Lee.
In one sense, Jefferson Davis was wrong.
Instead of flying towards Washington City the rocket vaulted into the upper atmosphere. The original fuel - a paraffin and nitrous mixture - had been replaced at the last minute with a liquid type developed in secret by a Richmond chemist. It had no real name as such; a later version of the fuel, developed by NASA, would be known as monohydrazine.
Ironically, the Confederate researcher had stumbled onto a propellant that was almost twenty times as powerful as those used in the American and Soviet space races some 100 years later. It easily pushed the missile out of Earth's gravity and halfway towards the moon before its fuel ran out. The now-powerless projectile drifted onward through the solar system even as the nation that created it ceased to exist.
The Confederate rocket, as with the chemist, quickly faded into into the mists of history. However, like all good legends it refused to die quietly.
Eighty-two years later the rocket - tumbling, yet mostly intact - began its final return to Earth. A bookie wouldn't have even bothered to calculate the odds of two relatively small objects colliding in the vast expanse of outer space. Yet, as if drawn by a moth to a flame, the two craft silently approached each other on a collision course.
Proximity detectors on the Matriarchate ship quickly detected the inbound object and sounded the alarm. Unfortunately, due to a glitch, the strident beeping alerted only the empty bridge. Even so, the automatic defenses - energy weapons and shields - stood ready to defend the ship...if only the Captain had remembered to activate them before she left the bridge.
Without warning, the three aliens were knocked to the deck as the ancient missile slammed into the top aft of the ship. The outer armor, designed to withstand energy weapons, buckled and gave way under the sheer kinetic force of the rocket as it smashed its way through the engineering compartments. A jagged trail of yellow fire, soon extinguished by vacuum, trailed in its path before the projectile tore its way out through the underside of the ship.
Captain K'yrk, dazed, shook her head as alarms erupted around her. "Secure the quarantine tubes!" she yelled to a now recovering Ma'koi. "Everyone to the bridge!" She ripped off her suit helmet and threw it aside just as another distant explosion sent her into the nearby wall. Recovering quickly, she grabbed S'pok with her powerful arm and lifted the science officer to her feet before the two of them stumbled toward the hatch. Behind her, the ship's doctor put the human women into forced sleep before following the two other officers out of the lab.
The ship shuddered alarmingly once more just as the alien officers reached the now-darkened bridge to take their stations. Sparks and smoke flew from various consoles; the ship seemed to be on the edge of tearing itself apart. "Status!" the ship's captain screamed.
S'pok consulted her readouts. "Impact with unknown object," she coolly replied. "Engines and hyperdrive off-line! No ships in immediate vicinity."
"Hull breaches, multiple decks!" Ma'koi's voice rang out. "Initiating containment fields!" Clawed fingers rushed over the controls as the two officers attempted to save the ship. As they did so, the artificial gravity fluctuated wildly; K'yrk felt slightly nauseated as her stomachs seemed to lurch upward into her throat. Suddenly, the ship stopped vibrating; the bridge lights, wreathed by smoke, started to turn on as main power was restored.
"Containment fields active. Hull breaches on decks one through fifteen. Structural fields are functioning." Her alarmed eyes took in the data readouts before she looked at her commanding officer. "Life support at 70% and dropping."
"Cut life support to all decks except for the bridge and engineering," she ordered quickly. "Release all unnecessary containment fields and divert that power to the structural forcefields." Her eyestalks then swiveled towards the science officer's station.
"What hit us?" she demanded.
A blue glow outlined S'pok's eyestalks as she looked into her scanner. "Reading debris at 285 carom 43," she announced.
"Asteroid?"
The other officer shook her head. "Negative. Processed metallic shell. Additional object filled with unidentifed explosive material." The science officer glanced upward. "Logically, I can only conclude the object was some type of missile."
"Impossible!" the Captain roared. "The humans do not possess such technology!"
"Given our location, it seems unlikely," her subordinate admitted. "However, once you eliminate the improbable, then the impossible seems logical."
Captain K'yrk glared at the science officer for a moment before her smooth tones switched gears. "Send a distress signal to the nearest fleet units," she commanded. "Advise them of our status and request...assistance." Her teeth visibly ground out the last word.
"Primary and auxiliary communications arrays destroyed, Captain." Doctor Ma'koi regretfully announced. K'yrk successfully resisted the urge to roll her eyes upward in annoyance.
"Then access the shuttlecraft's communicator and contact them directly!" she snapped.
"Impossible, Captain," S'pok's voice dryly sounded. "Shuttlecraft bay also destroyed. Transporters nonfunctional."
"Is there anything on this ship that works?" K'yrk growled, trying to keep her voice level. With a wave of her hand, she cut the rhetorical question off before it could be answered. "Can we restore engine functions?"
"Possibly, Captain," the science officer replied. "According to sensors, two of the pulse drives are destroyed. I may be able to restore partial functions in the one remaining unit...but it will not be enough to remain in orbit." The security officer looked her superior directly in the eye. "Logically, I recommend that we survey potential landing sites and await rescue."
This time, the Captain's snarl of frustration echoed around the small chamber. "Make it so," she ordered.
July 5th, 1947
Somewhere near Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico
Captain James Kinchloe blinked slightly at the bright light as he ducked into the cockpit. His dark eyes scanned the desolate landscape beyond the windscreen before he tapped the pilot on the shoulder. The Lieutenant glanced briefly in his direction before removing one of the headphone 'cans' from his ear.
"How much longer?" Kinch asked.
"Fifteen minutes, Captain," the pilot replied. "We're starting our descent now. General Hammond's been alerted."
"Thanks," the former POW said. Without another word he left the cockpit. Behind him, unnoticed, the pilot jerked a thumb toward the rear of the plane and rolled his eyes. The unspoken message caused the copilot to grin. It was bad enough to have a brass hat on board. However, dealing with a uppity colored officer - and a aide-de-camp to boot! -was just a bit too much.
The main cabin was deserted except for a tall man slouched in one of the hard seats. A uniform jacket with the two stars of a Major General swayed back and forth on a hanger nearby; the bill of his cover was draped across the man's eyes. For all intents and purposes he appeared to be asleep.
However, Kinch knew better. "General?" he called out.
Except for a sigh, the other man didn't move. "You know, we're the only ones around," a low voice finally groused. "Would it kill you to call me Rob every once in a while?"
The Captain grinned. "I might, General," he teased. "However, someone has to keep your ego blown up. Might as well be me."
Hogan snorted before he pushed the cap upward with the tip of his thumb. He fixed a stern - yet twinkling - eye on his unflappable aide before a grin cut across his face. "That's low," he chuckled. Both men knew the former POW avoided formalities when possible. "So, where are we?"
"About fifteen minutes out of Roswell," Kinch replied. "We're being met by a General Hammond. You know him?"
After a moment, the general officer nodded. "Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Bob Hammond. He was two years ahead of me at West Point. From what I understand, he was on Eisenhower's staff until he got sent home for talking too much. I'm surprised he's still a General."
Kinch glanced outside; the barren ground was more distinct now. "Guess we'll find out soon enough." He looked at Hogan with a pensive stare. "What are we going to do if it is true?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the roar of the piston engines. "If it is one of them?"
Hogan shook his head. "I wish to God I knew, Kinch," he admitted, shaking his head. "I wish I knew."
A/N: In 1947 Earth's orbit, unlike now, would have been relatively free of orbital debris; the first 'space' launch was a V2 rocket in 1946 that traveled just inside the edge of space. Nowadays the skies above the atmosphere are filled with anything from old boosters to copper needles...and (supposedly) a manhole cover blown upward by the force of an atomic test (if it's not in the solar system somewhere). There are a number of papers devoted to *that* one subject alone.
All of these objects are potential hazards. A tiny speck of paint, for instance, traveling at nearly 18,000 miles per hour left a small crater in the front window of the Space Shuttle Challenger back in 1983. At that speed there's not much that can stop a larger object such as a screwdriver or wrench.
A good number of generals were relieved (for cause or otherwise) during World War II. These officers were usually demoted back to their permanent (Regular Army) rank as opposed to their temporary rank. The Major General that blabbed about D-Day, for instance, was scheduled to be demoted back to Major before Eisenhower intervened.
February 9th, 1864 is also a red-letter date in prisoner history...that night, 109 Union officers escaped from Libbey Prison in Richmond. 59 of these men eventually escaped to the Union lines. The Confederate rocket, though cool, was just a Civil War myth...or was it?
Back in the late 1970's there was a short-lived TV series called Salvage 1. The pilot plot concerned a salvage operator that used a rocket to salvage the remains of the Apollo moon missions. The rocket itself was powered by a highly explosive fuel called (drum roll) monohydrazine. I always wanted to use something from that series in a story...even indirectly:-)
Thanks for reading!