I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku
by elfinblue
Author's note: I was really, REALLY tempted to end this on an even worse cliffhanger, but I refrained. ;) This was an interesting chapter to write because I knew what kind of trouble I was getting Danny into but I had no real plan for getting him out of it. Hope you like what I came up with. Again don't try any of this at home. I'm not a scientist or a member of the medical profession. I just make stuff up.
Chapter 12: The Interrupted Journey
"You're at the bar wearing Jacobson's jacket with a cold patch on your pocket." Danny said into his phone.
"So the device Carpenter was given," Steve was following the reasoning, "could have been an infrared camera with a filter to control the heat range it registered. If it only registered cold, we'd have all been a bunch of shadowy figures, but I'd have had a blue spot-a light-on my pocket."
"Marking you as Jacobson and singling you out for a little something extra in your beer," Danny concluded. Something stung his neck and he slapped at it. "Ouch." As he pulled his hand away he looked down to find he was holding a small dart between his fingers. "Uh oh. That's not good."
His head spun. HPD headquarters blurred in his vision. Sounds grew muted and distorted. He could still make out Steve's voice calling his name from a distance, but he was powerless to answer. He felt his phone leave his fingers but never heard it hit the ground nor realized that he was following it down. Dimly, he became aware that he was lying on the pavement, looking up at the night sky. A buzzing, thrumming noise approached, growing louder and louder, like a swarm of killer bees from a bad B horror movie. A UFO swooped into view overhead. A cone of light shone out of the bottom of it, catching him in the center. It came lower, not stopping until it was hovering directly over him.
From his position he could see the interior. It was a massive drone with eight propellers providing it lift. A light sheath of some kind covered the outside, providing the illusion of a flying saucer. White Christmas lights poked through holes in the covering and a single spotlight shone beneath it. Below the spotlight was a metal claw on a telescoping arm. It came down now and closed around him with bruising force.
As it drew him up into the protected area at the center of the eight propellers, he lost consciousness. He was not aware of the craft rising up again above the level of the buildings and turning towards the sea.
5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0
"Danny! Hey! What's happening? Danny, talk to me!"
By the time he finished speaking, Steve was back in his truck, headed for HPD headquarters. He could still hear background noises-cars, sirens, the babble of a crowd-but his partner remained silent. Footsteps approached and then a familiar voice, but not the one he was wanting to hear, spoke.
"Hello?"
"Duke? What the hell is going on there?"'
"Uh, Steve? I don't know how to tell you this but Danny just got kidnapped by a UFO."
"He what?"
"Swear to God. It was like nothing I've ever seen. Danny was walking across the grass, headed towards the building, and he suddenly stopped and then he just collapsed. Then this big flying saucer came down out of the sky. It had a light coming out the bottom of it and lights all around the rim. It came right down close and hovered over him and when it flew away again, Danny was gone."
"Where did it go?" Steve demanded. "Which way did it go? Please tell me you've got someone tracking it?"
"Yeah. It's flying about sixty feet up, headed towards the beach. But the lights have all gone off. It's going to be hard to follow it once the sun is completely down."
Steve swore under his breath and changed direction, driving towards the ocean.
"You've got to keep it in sight. It isn't really a flying saucer." Duke knew, of course, about the case Five-0 was investigating, though not all the details about the break in at Pearl Harbor. "This whole thing is a scam. They're trying to get rid of Danny because he's seen two of them. He was on his way to meet a sketch artist just now. Hang on, I'll call you right back."
He hung up on Duke and brought up another number, cursing impatiently at the time it took to be picked up.
"Hello?"
"Are you up in your chopper now?" Steve demanded.
"Yeah, bruddah," Kamekona said. "I'm in the middle of a sunset tour. What do you need, my fine friend?"
"Danny's been grabbed by a flying saucer."
"He's what?"
"Just listen. They're flying about sixty feet up and headed for the water. If they drop him from that altitude, he's dead. Also, we think he's unconscious, so if they drop him in the water there's a good chance he'll drown before we can get to him."
"I wanna help you, man," Kamekona said, "but I don't know what I can do against aliens."
"They're not really aliens. Okay? They're just ordinary people pulling a con. You've gotta help me. Please. I need you to get eyes on that craft."
"Okay. Hang on."
Steve pulled into the nearest marina, threw his truck into park, jumped out and ran down to the docks. He ran along until he came to a fast speedboat just getting ready to pull out.
"Five-0! I need your boat," he said, flashing his badge and jumping in. "And I need one of you to come with me." There were three young people in the boat. Two of them scrambled out and the third, a barefoot young man in board shorts, sank back down behind the controls.
"What do you need me to do?" he asked.
Steve pointed away from land. "Take us out about twenty yards and hold until I know where we need to go."
"McGarrett?"
He put the phone on speaker. "I'm here!"
"I got them. They're just crossing over Ala Moana Boulevard at Kamakee Street, headed for the beach. What you want me to do?"
"You want me to head towards Ala Moana Beach?" the young boater asked.
"Yeah. As fast as you can," Steve said. he turned back to the phone. "Okay, listen to me. We think this UFO is actually a large drone that's been disguised. The only chance Danny has right now is for us to force this thing to fly low enough for him to survive the fall, but we can't make it crash either." He stopped for a second to take a deep breath. If this went wrong, his best friend was going to die in the next few minutes. "I need you to get one runner on top of the craft and force it to fly lower, but you have to do it gently enough that you don't burn it out and cause it to crash. Can you do that?"
Kamekona's voice, when it came back over the phone, was as serious as Steve had ever heard it. "I don't know man. I can try but..."
"You're our only hope."
"Okay, but if I pull this off you have to start calling me Obi-Wan Kamekona."
"There!" the boat's pilot said, pointing. They were just off Ala Moana Beach now and Steve, following the kid's finger, saw Kamekona's helicopter closing in on the flying saucer, just crossing over the water's edge now.
Kamekona drew close, centered his right runner on the top of the flying saucer. "Here goes everything," he said over the phone, and took the helicopter lower. The saucer bobbled, tilted off kilter, fell away and dropped like a stone. Steve's heart went with it.
The saucer fell a good twenty feet, then pulled up and stabilized. It was still headed over the water and it was still too high up for Danny to reasonably survive the fall.
"Okay," Steve said. "Try it again."
Kamekona closed in a second time and put his runner on top of the craft. He forced it down another twenty feet. Smoke started to pour out of the saucer. Steve's heart faltered, wondering if the saucer was filled with smoke, choking Danny. If the device overheating was burning him or the electronics shorting out had electrocuted him. There were so many ways that Danny could be dying right now.
"Are you saying there's somebody in that thing?" the kid driving the boat asked.
"Yeah. My best friend."
"Damn."
"How low should I go?" Kamekona asked.
"As low as you can," Steve said.
"Just say the word and I'll put it in the drink."
Steve kicked off his shoes and nudged his pilot. "As soon as it goes in get as close as you can." He took up the phone again. "Keep it flying as long as you can," he told Kamekona. "It's better if the electrical components short out before it gets wet."
"Can do."
He hovered just above the water, following the dying saucer to keep it from climbing even as Steve and his companion followed them both. Steve was hyper-aware of everything that was happening around him. The sky behind him was painted in the orange and scarlet hues of a glorious sunset. The kid steering the boat for him was holding it steady in spite of shaking with tension. Kamekona had passengers, tourists watching out the windows, gawking at the high drama.
Danny could die.
He could be dying.
He could already be dead.
The saucer was about eight feet above the water. Steve motioned to the kid with him to move close. "Pull up. Get closer. I want to see if I can see inside."
The young man did as he commanded. They drew up under the saucer and Steve looked up, his heart in his throat.
From underneath he could see that it was, in fact, a drone. The frame, covered by some metallic material, shivered and trembled under pressure from Kamekona's copter. But what held Steve's attention was the limp form of his best friend, dangling from a huge metal claw in the center.
"Danny! Danny! Danno, can you hear me?"
He received no response and from this distance he couldn't tell if his partner was still breathing or not. With no time to waste, he looked back towards his pilot. "He's being held in a giant metal claw. If I can't get it open when that thing goes down, he'll drown. Please tell me you have a tow rope on this boat."
"Yeah. Sometimes we waterski. What do you want me to do?"
"Get it set up. When the saucer goes in the water, I'll put the line on it. I'll need you to pull us to the side of the boat as fast as you can and anchor it to a seat or something. We have to keep it from sinking until I get him free. Can you do that?"
The young man nodded, pale beneath his tan, and went for the tow rope. Overhead the saucer started shuddering and oscillating wildly. It occurred to Steve suddenly to be afraid it would simply explode, but before he had time to nurse that new fear the saucer sparked and snapped and died. The edge nearest them tilted downward and the rest of the saucer followed. The spray from it splashing into the ocean fell across the motorboat. Steve blinked and the saucer was gone beneath the waves.
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The first thing that registered in Danny's mind was pain. Something was squeezing him tight around his hips and shoulders, digging into his flesh and crushing skin and bone. He was moving, sailing and juddering like he was caught in a maelstrom. The air around him was hot and he choked on the acrid stench of burning electrical wires. He could hear a loud buzzing sound. It seemed to be everywhere. He tried to look around but he was caught firmly in the embrace of whatever was holding him and couldn't move. The only thing he could see was a patch of blue rushing past him in a dizzying blur.
Even as he became aware of the sound it spluttered and died. He felt himself lurch to the side and then he was falling towards the blue. He landed with a mighty splash and when he gasped from the impact his mouth and nose filled with salt water. He struggled against the crushing force that held him but he couldn't free himself. His heart pounded in his chest and his last thought, as his vision went dark again, was how ironic it was that he was going to drown like Billy Selway after all.
5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0
Seconds after the saucer disappeared, Steve hit the water in search of it. The water was only about fifteen feet deep here, protected by a reef from the ocean currents but dark in the growing twilight. Still, it only took him a minute or so to locate the fallen drone. It had flipped in the water and lay upside down. Danny was struggling weakly, caught in the giant claw, and Steve's heart leaped at the evidence that his best friend was still alive. Determined to keep him that way, he reached inside the saucer and looped the tow rope around one of the struts that held a set of propellers. He made it fast, then tugged on it sharply twice and the kid (Steve still didn't know his name) immediately started dragging it in.
Steve got underneath the craft and pushed, ignoring his own growing need for oxygen. Slowly at first, the saucer began to rise. It breached the water and Steve surface beside it. The boater had tethered the craft to the side of his motorboat, but the saucer was still filled with water and Danny was still completely submerged. With no real way to empty the water out, Steve leaned over, caught Danny's head, and lifted it above the surface. Danny was no longer moving and Steve couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.
He climbed onto the edge of the saucer, causing the motorboat to tilt alarmingly until the boat's driver rushed to the opposite side to counterbalance. Steve put his fingers against Danny's neck and was relieved to feel his heartbeat fluttering underneath his hand, but he didn't seem to be breathing. Steve tilted his friend's head back and blew two quick breaths into his mouth. He turned Danny's head to the side as much as he could without letting his mouth and nose go back under and pressed on his diaphragm. Danny coughed and choked. Water dribbled out of his mouth and he took a watery, gasping breath.
"That's it," Steve coaxed. "That's it. Come on, man. Breathe for me."
"What do you need me to do?" The kid asked.
Danny was still breathing. It was ragged, but there was air passing his lips. Steve lowered himself back into the water. "Come back over here and hold his head up for a minute," he instructed.
The young man did as he asked and Steve reluctantly surrendered his friend to him so he could swim around the motorboat and climb aboard on the other side. Once he was in the boat he returned to the side next to the tethered saucer and took Danny's life back into his own hands.
"Get us back to the docks, as fast as you can. We're going to need tools to get him out of this."
Steve's phone was lying in the bottom of the boat, floating in the water there but Steve was a SEAL. His phone case was waterproof. Holding Danny's head above water with one hand, he grabbed the phone with the other and found Kamekona still on the line.
"Hey, bruddah! How's my little haole friend? Is he okay?"
"He's alive. Thank you, Obi-wan Kamekona."
Steve hung up from talking to Kamekona and called for an ambulance and the fire department to meet them at the pier.