Well here is yet another chapter! Anyone getting bored yet? I hope not! Enjoy~
Pacific Ocean, Impact Point, 2012
Seaman Ord was standing on the observation deck of the John Paul Jones, studying the surrounding area with his binoculars. They were flanked by vessels on either side; they were hanging by a hundred meters or so, making sure to keep their distance. They last thing they needed was for the vessel to get in each other's way. He was glad that Alex wasn't a captain like Yugi; they would make a mess out here somehow. Out of habit he glanced up at the sky looking for Melody, but scolded himself because she was on the mainland with Sam helping a guy named Mick to get his fighting spirit back. He turned back to the waters looking ahead.
He didn't see it at first, the object that they were looking for. It was as if his eyes gazed over it, like it wasn't tree one minuet then BAM there it was. A maze of some sort coming out of the ocean. It was a triangular an industrial-definitely man-made, not some sort of natural phenomenon, like a meteor-encrusted with strange panels and what appeared to be a jagged assembly that looked like an antenna. It was protruding from the water about five hundred feet ahead of them.
"Is this some kind of surprise part of the exercise...?" Ord spoke to himself. "Like a big, 'Okay, what do you do when this happens' kind of deal?" he asked before pausing and answering himself. "Doesn't really feel like it." Then he grabbed his phone that put him immediately to the bridge.
Word quickly spread to the other two vessels about the object that they were heading toward. All three ships immediately came to a full stop. Brownley was on the horn with Stone Hopper over on the Sampson, who was saying, "Officer of the watch confirms contact, six hundred yards but..."
"But what?"
"Tactical has nothing. We're seeing it, but the computers aren't. The slick 32s say there's no electronic signal."
That made zero sense to both of them. "Hang tight," Brownley said, and called down to the weapons room. "Hopper. We've got an unidentified contact dead ahead, six hundred yards."
There was a pause before Hopper's voice came back. "We've got nothing on the screens."
"Bearing 272."
"I'm not seeing a thing, sir." Hopper sounded confused as Brownley felt.
Out of frustration with both Hopper and the situation at hand, Brownley said, "I am looking at it with my own eyes."
"Instruments are blind down here, sir."
"Okay. Keep monitoring. He switched back to Stone. "Yeah, Commander, we got nothing on our scanners either.
He could hear the voice of Stone's radiomen in the background saying, "This is the USS Sampson on a heading 038, hailing unidentified vessel... or structure. We are U.S. Navy warship. Identify yourself." Pause. "No response, sir."
"Okay, "Stone returned his attention to Brownley. "Let's get close and personal. We need a recon."
"I agree. We'll handle it Commander. I have just the man for the job."
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Alex, Beast, and Raikes were on a twenty-foot rigid-hulled inflatable or RHIB for short. All three of them wished Melody was there watching over them, thought Alex was glad she wasn't there because he knew in his heart that this was dangerous and any of them could die at any moment and it would kill Stone if something were to happen to her.
"Don't get too close," Alex told Beast when there were about forty yards out. He studied the structure. "What do you make of that?"
"I'm not sure," Beast replied. He looked at the navigation array in front of him and raised a bushy eyebrow. He tapped the array in order to bring Alex's attention to it. "Check out the compass, it says we're heading due north.
"We're heading east," Raikes stated.
"That's correct," said Beast.
"Whatever it is, it's creating magnetic flux. Get the PA system online."
Beast flicked a switch and passed the microphone on a cord to Alex. Raikes called over to him, "Just be aware, if you're going to sing 'my way' again I am armed."
What Alex was aware of was Stone and Brownley watching from their respective bridges, so he refrained from sticking his tongue at her. That made him think of Melody and how she would join Raikes in threating out him. It was clear that he was never going to live down the Fourth of July that he had too much to drink and sung an assortment of Sinatra's great hits, encouraged by shipmates that were slightly more sober then he was.
Thumbing the mike to live, Alex-all business- said, "This is the U.S. Navy Identify yourself or prepared to be boarded." There was no response from the vessel or structure. Even when he asked where the bathroom was in Japanese.
He tapped Raikes on the shoulder. "It's your boat. You've got the gun." "Not afraid to use it, sir."
"Just try not to shoot me."
"No promises, sir."
Alex jumped onto the part of the structure that was slightly under the water. He spotted a path that lead to the main part of the structure. He turned and made eye contact with Raikes, pointed upward and then at his buttocks. An onlooker would have interpreted it as something obscene gesture, but Raikes immediately got the shorthand:
I'm going. Cover my ass.
Alex was having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that this could be an alien object and not man-made. He made his way to the object that was shimmering in blue in red being emitted on top of the ray.
He drew close enough to the tower that all he had to do was reach out, get a grip and climb up. The closer to it, he got the more intrigued he became. It was a unique collection of shapes, material and colors, which seemed to be shimmering in time with the red and blue pulses.
"What the hell-?" he whispered as he reached out toward its surface. His fingers brushed against it…
The instant he made contact with it, an electromagnetic pulse ripped across the structure. As if it had a mind of it's own. I zeroed in on Alex in a split second and blasted him clear off the tower.
Well, this can't be good, thought Alex, desperately trying not to pass out.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Stone was back in the cabin on the USS Sampson watching his younger brother be blasted off the alien object. If only someone else was there then maybe he wouldn't be going out of his mind right now. He missed Melody, but he was glade she wasn't here as he watched the plane that watching fall out of the sky. The man was unable to eject from his jet and was met with a fiery end. He was thinking God that Melody wasn't here... He was picturing that she was in the jet instead of Kenny Johnson who Melody asked to take her spot since she couldn't be there. He was one of her friends and now he was gone because she asked him to be here.
Shortly after the jet crashed all communications went down. It was the first time in a long while that Stone started to feel frustrated and useless. His brother was out on an alien object that crashed in the ocean and Melody was back on the island, but who knew how long it would take for the aliens to get to the island while he was stuck on his ship unable to help the people he cared most at the moment.
So I hope everyone is still with me and maybe you could leave me a review to let me know if you are. Well hopefully I hear from you in a review!
