Gyraxxian Nebula
The servant quaked before Grobe, who was reading the report of the KNID defeat with an indecipherable expression.
"Is this all the news that you have to bring?"
The servant nodded, his trembling increasing. Suddenly, Grobe growled angrilyl, opening his beak wide. The servant leapt up, intending to bolt out the door, but he never made it. Before he could blink, he was seized by Grobe's tongue, which had shot out faster than the eye could see; and stuck to him like that of a frog, pulling the victim into the attacker's mouth. There was a sickening gulp as Grobe swallowed, and the servant was no more. The snack helped him feel better, but the human problem still existed, a fact that made his stomach turn uncomfortably. The last venture to the Earth system had been a disaster; a whole pod of modified KNIDs had been vaporized by leaser weaponry. Wonka's technology was getting better, he reluctantly admitted. After the thought, however, Grobe grunted in disgust. Humans still were predictable, banal creatures, as he had noted before. A slight change would throw them off, and ultimately lead to their downfall. He cleared the message on the transcriber, writing a new one intended for Engineering. They would need to change the KNIDs again, as they had before…or suffer the consequences. Grobe paused after he had finished writing. He needed another snack.
Aircraft hangar, Lunar Base
"Sir, are you sure you want to depart on this journey?" an attendant asked Wonka worriedly as the Fuhrer began to make his way to one of the Auroras.
Wonka nodded solemnly. "I've never been to Earth before, for one, and also there is some sensitive business that I must attend to at the Undersea Base."
The attendant nodded, hesitation visible in his eyes. "What are we to do in your absence?"
Wonka thought for a moment. "Continue on as before; I'm leaving OS-22 in charge."
Another Oompa-loompa came up behind Wonka, tugging lightly on the hem of his coat. "It's time to go, my Fuhrer."
Wonka glanced behind him and nodded in affirmation, then proceeded to follow the Loompa up the ramp.
"Preflight systems check complete; you may proceed when ready." The Loompa from the Control Room spoke into the mike, audible only through the speakers in the pilots' helmets.
"Roger. Engaging impulse drive, now."
Wonka watched from his seat in the cockpit as the Loompa-pilot activated the systems, now able to feel a vibrating sensation from his chair as the engines cycled up. The pilot gave a signal to the Control Room, prompting them to open the hangar door. The panel slid open, and the ship lifted up into the airlock. After the inner door sealed below them, The ship lifted through the upper hatch, coming out over the moon's surface. Wonka took in the hostile beauty of the lunar landscape, glowing starkly against the blackness of space. It was amazing… He was suddenly thrown back in his seat as the ship lurched forward, the Loompa-pilot howling in delight.
"Yee-haw!"
Wonka threw him a smirk as he straightened in his seat, but smiled after a moment's passing. Their craft was followed by two more Auroras, and the enhanced transport that carried a large stock of Wonka candies. Wonka observed their progression through the screen to the left of his seat. He grunted in satisfaction. "Engage shields now."
"Yessir." The four vehicles activated the forcefields in unison, and Wonka sighed in relief. They were safe from harm now; all they had to do was get into earth undetected.
The trip to earth had been uneventful; Charlie Wonka was slightly disappointed. He had wanted to see a battle with the KNIDs up close, watch them being fried by his invention. But they encountered nothing but hunks of space debris, meteors and ice fragments. Only when they reached Earth's upper atmosphere did Wonka begin to worry; he didn't know if the CP shields would hold out against the air friction resulting from reentry.
The pilot, however, didn't seem to be anxious at all.
"Entering Earth's atmosphere; lowering speed to Impulse 1."
The other craft made the same adjustment, and they all fell from the heavens at the same rate, the shields glowing brightly as they began to heat up. After a few moments of intense heat, shaking, and roaring of flames, the Loompa pilot pressed several buttons at once, simultaneously deactivating the shield and engaging reverse thrust. The ship jolted to a halt, becoming motionless for a spit second before it began to ease forward on impulse 1. There was no more roaring or shaking, so Wonka could now make sense of what was happening. He looked briefly into the screen, verifying that the three other vehicles had undergone the same procedure and were now following closely behind their craft. They were only a few hundred feet above the ocean, the water dark and menacing in the moonless night. Wonka was able to see towering waves crashing and roiling about, and he shuddered to think of what it would be like to be trapped in the ocean's cold grasp at this time of night. His attention was abruptly directed to a brief flash of light down below. The pilot had seen the flash, too, and now nosed the vessel downward. The four craft executed a horizontal landing pattern, coming to rest on the decks of the three seagoing aircraft carriers, engines cycling down moments afterward. The pilot pulled off his helmet and glanced at Wonka. "Are you ready, my Fuhrer?"
The other only nodded, wearing a look of determination as the ramp was lowered.
Pentagon, sublevel 13
Everyone had settled into a kind of sober mood. Feeling utterly helpless can do that to a person, and right now James Randall was feeling pretty helpless.
He sighed, mulling and brooding to himself as he nursed a cup of coffee. At a time like this, he would have preferred a stiff drink to the caffeinated dishwater they had the nerve to call coffee, but alcohol wasn't readily available within a ten mile radius of the Pentagon, not even to the people who "didn't exist to society". Of course, sulking about it wouldn't help, Randall knew, but it was better than sitting stoically, doing nothing as Natasha Goodman had been doing for three hours. Even in the face of defeat, she remained at her station, monitoring feed from around the world. Randall had to admire her determination, even if it was ill-placed, but he didn't really feel anything at the moment, save for the bitterness of defeat. He looked down at his cup. It was empty. He was debating whether or not he should get up to refill it, or call one of the assistants to do it, when he felt an urgent tap on his shoulder. He jerked his head around, glimpsing Natasha behind him. She wore a frown. "Yes?"
"There's something you should see."
Randall sighed. "Don't you get it, Natasha? We can't do anything now. Our level of technology simply isn't advanced enough to match that of the extraterrestrial."
She sighed impatiently. "You don't understand. Look at this." She handed him a printout. He took it in one hand, but set it on the table without looking at it. "Natasha, if the people of earth stay on earth, everything will be fine. There's no way they could have heat shielding; they would get vaporized if they tried to get in."
"Just look at the damn picture, James!"
Randall paled at her outburst, but he complied. Turning the sheet over so that the picture faced him, he took a good look at the image. It was of poor quality, but he was able to discern what it entailed. His face paled even further.
Natasha looked evenly at him. "Do you understand now?"
He nodded, but said nothing.
"This photo was taken last night, by one of our satellites. The image quality is poor because there was no moon that night, and there was pretty decent cloud cover. And get this: the UFOs were observed entering the atmosphere. Purposely. They were assumed to be meteors at first, since they glowed so brightly before seeming to disappear, but actually they stopped about a hundred feet above the water. They then disappeared over the horizon, out of range of our satellite."
Randall nodded as he smiled wryly, the scenario giving him an odd sense of déjà vu. This is exactly how it had been when he had first detected the alien vessels, the occurrence triggering a chain of events that had ultimately brought him here, to the bowels of the Pentagon. Now he was no one, working for the government on a pension he would never be able to use because he no longer existed to the public. This knowledge had given him a grudge that he held against the alien craft. And now that they were on his turf, he could get even. He turned to Natasha. "Alert the others. We need to get defense systems up."
Confusion clouded her eyes. "What?"
"The aliens are here, on earth. We don't know where they landed, or what their intentions are, but if we get some of our own forces to watch the skies around their location of their entrance, we may be able to catch them as they try to break free of the atmosphere, when or if they decide to leave."
Natasha looked unsure; Randall could see it, but she nodded. "Right away."