One of my favourite stories growing up was the War of the Worlds. With exception to the latest film effort by Tom Cruise, I have seen/read/heard all versions. My favourite is definitely the 70's musical version by Jeff Wayne. The first time I heard it, I was six years old. Now in my thirties, I still love it and it takes pride of place in my IPod, where I listen to it every chance I can get.
I decided to shamelessly steal the basic idea for my own version of the beginning of the war for the Federation and our birdies.
This is my introduction to my own universe of Battle of the Planets.
I warn you that there are some particularly dark and graphic moments, so if you are squeamish, I won't recommend you read. This is war, and war aint pretty.
Please comment, but no flames. I enjoy constructive criticisms, and encourage readers to email me if they wish to point out any glaring errors.
Thanks
GK
Disclaimer: I don't own G-Force, nor Colonel Cronus, the Federation or Anderson. But I do so enjoy writing them.
The Eve of the WarFew could have believed, in the last years of the 19th century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have believed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets, and yet, from across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.
Excerpt from Jeff Wayne's - The War of the Worlds – 1978 (Taken from H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds - 1898)
It seems strange to me now, as I listen to this old recording, that human beings were so arrogant as to believe that Earth was the only planet in the universe that carried life.
The idea that life existed outside of our own planet was always met amusement and mockery before it was exploited and contorted within the Science Fiction sector to make money on series after series of alien-centric films and books. Planet earth, or more importantly the United States of America, was always the successful superhero in the celluloid wars between planets.
It was laughable, really, when you think about it – Minds of a superiority to ours, minds to us what ours are to the beasts of the jungle, incapable of winning a war that could only be likened to lazers versus sticks and stones.
I can only assume this arrogance drew itself from the legend of David and Goliath. I won't go into detail about that particular story, but I will suggest that this false-bravado ideal of our abilities against creatures with far more scientific and technological skill than Humans could ever dream of possessing was one of the reasons that the warnings from Government and State were taken so lightly.
That's not to say that the warnings in themselves were strong enough to warrant a Nationwide panic. They felt like more of an advisory than anything. Of course, then there were the problems of division within the scientific camps that offered conflicting information as to whether or not the threat truly existed.
And then there was the mockery of the threat on every late-night talk show and comedy stage.
Aliens... Really...
I spent a few evenings with an astronomer friend of mine after the initial reports from a new Scientific Research group known only as the "Federation" broke into the public forum. His name was Henry Keyoppe. He was a brilliant, eccentric fellow who's entire life existed through the lens of a high-powered telescope high inside the National Observatory. He was consistently scruffy-haired and pale, with a caffeine tic and an eye twitch that lifted the entire right side of his face. I don't know if he ever ran a comb through his shoulder-length, white-grey hair, I don't know if it would even have made much difference. His hair always stood on end like he was perpetually touching a Van De Graaff generator.
Typical of an eccentric Scientist, I suppose.
I met him at Harvard whilst I was studying my doctorate. He was teaching a new elective course that I had chosen only to fill a spare few hours a week that may have been better spent in the study halls working toward a thesis that, I am proud to say, was put into practice very shortly after I graduated.
I was as arrogant as most with regards to the subject matter. I truly believed the course would be a breeze and that I would walk through it with little or no study and receive top marks.
Within thirty minutes of my first class I realized how wrong I was ... and just how much love and respect I would eventually gain for the night sky and the secrets she held.
Henry was gifted in most branches of the scientific tree, but had chosen to work within the Astronomological sciences due to the lack of government funding and support. Noone else was interested in entering a field where they would be continually running at a financial loss. Henry was wealthy from birth – he could afford it.
It was his mind I picked during the early days of the initial reports. We'd both settled ourselves in front of the view-monitors of the telescope to scan the heavens for any sign of what was supposed to come.
I questioned him about the possibility of life on other planets:
"Henry," I murmured over a well-chewed plastic straw as I squinted an eye into the eye-piece of the telescope. "What are the chances, you think, of little green men coming down here and getting rowdy?"
He grunted shortly in response, and I could only assume that it was the fiftieth time he'd been asked this question in the last two days. After a few seconds he finally managed a quiet question. "What are your thoughts?"
I raised my head and looked at him through the one eye I'd kept open to focus on the telescope – my other was still clenched shut for reasons I can't provide. "I asked you, first."
A small whip of a smile graced his dry and chapped lips. "You're a smart man, John. I'd have thought you'd have a working hypothesis all of your own."
I answered with a shrug and a sheepish tilt of my head.
He cleared his throat and pointed upward at the open roof of the observatory. "In amongst those billions of stars, can you tell me there isn't one that holds life like ours?"
"I'd like to believe it."
"Is it naive or arrogant to believe such a thing?"
"Wishful thinking?"
His grey eyes rolled slowly. "There is life out there, John."
I took a deep, disappointed breath and looked back at him. "So ... You think it's wise to believe the reports coming from the Federation?"
"I find it unlikely that anything would come from within our own solar system, but I won't rule out the possibility that eventually we may receive visits from other galaxies at some point much further into the future."
His answer both calmed and terrified me. I had to swallow my saliva hard in order to quell a cough of fear. "What ... What are the odds?"
He was calm and firm as he gave an answer he had obviously previously worked out in his mind. "About a million to one that something will come from within our Solar system." He took a breath and fixed his gaze on me. "I'd say a hundred to one we'll have contact from outside within the next twenty years."
My voice squeaked even though I was trying to project a sense of nonchalant disbelief with a pitiful four-word attempt at humour. "So no Martians, then?"
He answered as if the question was serious. "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, John. On that, I can be certain."
"Without a doubt?"
"There can be no living thing on that remote, forbidding planet."
His last line has remained with me for the twenty years since that conversation. As open-minded and welcoming to new ideas and experiments we scientists claim to be, we are still very, very naïve and clueless when it comes to things not of this world. Not once did anyone within my own Scientific group consider that extraterrestrial life could very well survive in conditions Homo Sapiens, and all animals alike, would be unable to. Not once did we entertain the notion that not all living things in the universe require oxygen to survive.
We'd found mild proof at one point that life on Mars existed – once upon a time – but never did we believe that intelligent life could possibly survive on such a desolate and unforgiving planet.
Or perhaps, I say tongue in cheek, it really was wishful thinking.
There was enough conflict and threat from the inhabitants of our own planet; the last thing we needed was a threat from the outside as well.
Of course, who was to say a visit from another world would be hostile?
Such thoughts and ideas were soon forgotten, however, with the time-span from the original reports widening over days, weeks and months.
It was approximately eight months, twenty-three days and four hours after the release of the first reports that the new ones started to come out again.
This time, the reports were making a larger stirring. Those in the scientific community were abuzz with the latest images from the now-antique Hubble Telescope.
Green flashes of light flaring off the surface of Mars.
Green balls of light breaking free of the planet's atmosphere and hurtling towards Earth drawing a green mist behind it.
It would have been terrifying had it not been so beautiful.
Again, I sought out words of advice from my Astronomer friend:
"Henry," I yelled breathlessly as I leaned and gripped hard on the doorframe, exhausted having ran to the observatory from my own small lab. "Tell me you saw that."
His head did not raise from the eye-piece of the microscope, but I did see his cheek crinkle in a smile. "John. You were five minutes slower than I expected."
I quickly caught my breath and pushed myself off the doorway to approach. I waved the newspaper ahead of me, flicking the front colour image with my fingers as I walked. "Have you seen this?"
He silently pulled himself away from the telescope and padded on rubber-soled shoes toward the impressive 19" LDC monitor for the Observatory computer. He flicked a finger over his shoulder at he in a request for me to join him as he tapped at the keyboard with the other hand. "I have it on live-cam."
My eyes widened in excited anticipation as I went from an apprehensive walk to a jog to join him. I couldn't help but let out a breath of awe at the new image before me. "Is … Is it true? Is it from Mars?"
He nodded and folded his arms across his chest. His head lowered so he had to regard the image before him through his brows. Whilst the image I just painted you of him seems arrogant, it was actually a very thoughtful pose. His lips were set in a tight pout as his eyes flicked from one side of the screen to the other.
He was a human cat-scan, I tell you. He had the image before him fragmented and analyzed in such minute detail that I would have challenged any radiologist/MRI technician to do better.
He finally exhaled a breath neither of us knew he'd been holding. "Yes."
I stiffened slightly at the flat delivery of his affirmative. I wasn't used to simple one word, non-cryptic, answers from him. I squinted my eyes and stooped for better focus at the grainy image. "What exactly is it?"
"I have no idea."
I raised a brow and raised only my head to look at him. "Well. Is it a craft? A meteor? Just a glowing ball of gas?"
He was silent for a long five minutes, during which time I chewed on my lips and switched my attention between the monitor and the picture on the front page of the newspaper. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and grave.
"It's heading directly towards us."
I say the first thought that entered my mind. "Good God."
He nodded quickly in response, then pulled his arms free of their cross and pressed his palms into the table. "A projectile this size will cause infinite damage."
I spoke as I inhaled, which made my question come out as a high-pitched whisper. "How big is it?"
"About the same size as a football field."
I can't help but cough. "Are we talking …" I couldn't finish the sentence – I didn't have to.
"No, John. There won't be total annihilation of the Earth," he began in a low voice in an attempt to assure me. "There will be considerable damage at the crash site, and possibly a lot more if the meteorite crashes in the ocean, but I can't see any reason that it will destroy planet Earth as we know it."
As we know it … How wrong could such a brilliant man be?
Turns out that there was more than one projectile to leave Mars. There were five to be exact.
Henry and I studied the images through his telescope for much of the next week. The anti-tail appearance of the largest meteor told us that it was in a direct line towards us, but gave us no real indication of speed. We couldn't tell if it would be days, weeks, months or years before they would hit.
Henry attempted to assure that it would be at least one or two years before contact; which would give the International Space agencies plenty of time to formulate an adequate defence strategy.
I must have appeared doubtful, because he felt the need to show me a computer simulation that proved beyond a doubt that no lump of rock could possibly travel any faster than that.
"But, Henry. What if it is an actual craft?"
The question caused him to give a long-suffering groan best reserved for a first-year student who knows nothing. "What did I tell you, John?"
I tilted my head at him and shrugged. "Uh …"
His frustration finally presented itself as he fisted the table hard. "No!"
I gasped and actually took a step backward. "Henry?"
His eyes and nostrils flared. "Do I have to draw you a diagram, tattoo it to your palm, take you to Mars myself? There is no way that Mars supports any life form capable of constructing a vessel to travel to other worlds. The planet has no resources to create the fuel required for such an endeavour."
I shook my head at him, backing off another step and raised my hands defensively. "I know you believe that, Henry, but can we be completely sure of that? We've never scratched the surface of the planet, we don't know what is hidden underground."
He grunted and pressed his hands hard onto the table top, dropping his head in an exhausted slouch. "It's impossible, John."
"Impossible, or improbable?"
He sighed and looked up at me with pleading eyes. "Now it's my time for wishful thinking."
I should have known, immediately, from that short exchange that this threat was to be much worse than N.A.S.A. and the government were assuring us it would be.
They offered the suggestion that the meteor would break up and disintegrate to only twenty percent of its original size and leave little more than a one-metre crater in the ground. They were even suggesting a meteor lottery, where the winner would be determined through the actual landing site.
This was obviously a very ill-thought out and dangerous method of assuring the general populous that everything was going to be okay.
As the days passed and the comets drew closer, the energies and worries of those in power grew – and quite rightly so. The meteors were approaching at 50 times the speed first calculated by Henry. His prediction of a handful of years for approach fell to only a handful of weeks, and then days.
Twelve days after the initial flare-burst from Mars, planet Earth was on impact watch. We still didn't know exactly what metals or minerals were the base of this large projectile, or what it even was, so the eyes were on full 24 hour surveillance.
As the day of impact drew nearer I was concerned to see the people of our city calmly going about their day to day lives as if nothing was wrong. People continued with their shopping, ate in café's. Lovers walked calmly along the streets or settled quietly in the park to read a book. Children played in the streets with their parents watching quietly from the stoops as they shared cigarettes and lemonade with their neighbours.
It was hard for me not to quickly usher them away and tell them to prepare for the worst.
I couldn't.
I didn't even know, myself, if this threat was as great as I feared it to be. As heavy as my stomach felt as the butterflies swelled and pounded at its walls, I simply couldn't bring myself to warn the city based on just a bad, gut feeling.
Looking back … I should have.
It happened late one Autumn evening at around 11:30pm, which was right about the time I was pulling the fold-up bed out of my twenty year-old love seat in my single-room apartment on the east side of the city. It was a blinding light and a crash of proportions I hoped I would never have to hear in my lifetime.
The resulting shockwave shook and tossed my building as if it were stalk of corn in a field. Beside my own building, I knew others were sharing the same fate. I yelled in fear and ran to the doorway as the roof above my head splinted and groaned as it was torn apart by forces unseen.
'An earthquake,' I told myself over and over as I dropped slowly to my knees and cowered on the floor like a shrieking woman. 'Nothing but an earthquake."
Unfortunately I knew better. Henry and I had predicted it to the hour.
The meteorite had landed.
Then the shaking stopped.
I slowly raised my head to look at my apartment roof. While my dream home had always included a sky-light to the stars, the one I now had wasn't exactly what I had in mind. The three apartment floors above mine were gone, swept away by the ball of fire that had exploded across the skies and into the ravine a little more than a kilometre away. All that was left of my own room was a shattered left wall and a beam above my head.
There was fire to my right; small and hot, it's crackle hidden under the blare of car alarms and the distant sounds of emergency vehicles. I should have run for the extinguisher, but I could barely move. I remained on me knees inside the splintered doorframe to my kitchen with my hands tugging hard at fistfuls of my hair.
I expected it to be bad, but when it happened … I realized I wasn't as prepared for the destruction as I thought I'd be.
Slowly I rose to my feet and leaned my shoulder against the jagged wooden frame to take a short look around.
The path of the meteor was immediately obvious. What was left of steel beams burned red and oozed their own substance where their other half had been torn away from them. Wood burned and smouldered, splintered and shattered as if exploded from within. Concrete and brick had been returned to dust and carpeted what was left of the rooms that survived the impact relatively intact. I could see body parts from the old gentlemen across the road. The top half of his body lay beside his legs and hips, which still remained sitting in the lawn chair on his balcony. Beside him was his lit cigarette still burning in its ashtray.
I laughed at the irony of it. I had only been chiding him, yesterday, that those cancer-sticks would eventually kill him.
On one hand I was right. His apartment was still marginally intact. Had he been in front of the television watching his reruns of Quincy M.D., he'd still be alive. And now, he was dead. Partly through his smoking, partly through the long flaming tendril arms of the crashing meteor.
Screeching from the street below took my attention from the grizzly scene across from my apartment. A woman, likely in her mid thirties, with dark, matted hair and torn clothing ran along the road. She held a wailing infant in her arms and was screaming with fear and pain. She stumbled against another frantic individual and fell to her knees onto a wet street. The infant was brought into her chest and she wept, unnoticed or ignored by the other terrified people around her.
They stumbled aimlessly in between upturned cars and debris. They looked up into the yellow and orange sky; some with rags covering their mouths, others with confused and desperate open arms as they looked to the heavens and questioned:
"What the Hell had happened?"
I knew. I knew full well what had happened. Henry and I had predicted it.
The time for truth and discovery was nigh. I had to pull myself together and find the crash-site. I had to know exactly what this meteor was … and why it had arrived on our planet so far ahead of any schedule that physics had set.
I frantically searched what was left of my apartment for my glasses and wallet. I would have left the apartment in my boxer shorts had I not accidentally caught my leg on a large splinter and cut a shallow gash across the top of my thigh. I cursed and grabbed the first pair I could find - a brown pair that had long ago been discarded due to an acid burn on the knee. Forget stains, I wasn't going to attend a fashion show.
I finally joined the throng on the streets under my apartment. I had one man grab the front of my shirt. His face was streaked with blood from a wound on his head. He slurringly asked me to help him, to help him find his wife and child. His breath wasn't tainted with alcohol. He was fighting shock and the onset of concussion. He needed more help than I could give him, I shook my head and mumbled my apologies as I slipped my glasses on to my face and pushed him off me to run to the crash site. I all but stumbled over the woman and her infant. She had her head raised to the heavens as she wailed painfully for someone to call her husband. Apparently he was at work, she needed to find him, their home was gone and her baby needed food.
I looked down at her child, a little girl, and my heart leapt into my throat. She was silent and her lips held that terrifying blue tinge that told me she'd been unintentionally suffocated against her mother's bosom. I didn't have the heart or will to tell the frightened woman about her child and how, that in the process of trying to protect her, she'd ended her life. Instead I fought my own tears and rushed away from her.
I had to cover my ears to drown out the pitiful moans and cries of the frightened and injured. I couldn't stop and help them. I had to leave that to the professionals. I had to make it to the crash site and make sure that the carnage I witnessed at my home would not happen again because of this damned alien meteor. I had to make sure it was nothing more than a lump of stone with no heartbeat. No breath. No thoughts. No agenda.
I had to make sure this nightmare was not life imitating art.
It was not the fourth of July, the twelfth day of August or any other significant date in the Sci-Fi calendar of Alien attacks. This was not another story in the minds of film creators …
I look back on that moment with self-disgust at my actions toward my fellow man. I ignored the desperate pleas of women and children. I stumbled against and shoved away from me frantic men.
And I stole a pushbike off a teenage girl who had stopped to help an injured animal.
But I had to do it. I needed to get to the crash site. I needed to make sure that what I saw at home was just a one-off thing and not a prelude to a massive invasion..
The image I saw before me as the bike reached the top of the ravine is something that remains to me to this day.
There was a channel in the ground, ten metres wide and at least two metres deep at the point just above the crater. The meteor, itself, was partially buried under two metres of dark brown soil. It was easy to see the meteor in amongst the smoke and fire of the trees and holes surrounding it. It was a deep amber colour that deepened or intensified with each pulse of … well, like the beat of a heart.
I felt my own heart struggle to beat against it. I seemed to want to change my own internal rhythm to match the glowing cylinder before me. I was immediately enamoured and drawn to it; captivated and awed by its beauty. I wanted to reach out and touch it. I wanted to stroke the smooth exterior of it.
As I stepped forward to answer my sudden desperate need, a sharp pull on my sleeve snapped me out of my reverie.
"John! John, thank God you're here."
My body shuddered its way back into the now and I looked at my friend with knitted brows. "Henry? Henry, what are you doing here?"
His brow rose slightly with my question. Admittedly, the question was stupid, but I still didn't completely have hold of reality. He took hold of my elbow and walked me closer to the meteor. Immediately we were stopped by a large police officer who dug the tip of his baton into the centre of my chest.
"This site is off limits to non-emergency personnel," he boomed robotically as his eyes flicked between the two of us. His eyes caught Henry's and the baton immediately swept in his direction. "And I've told you this several times already, Sir. If you insist on trying to break the barrier, I will be forced to arrest you."
Henry snapped back like a triumphant child who was ready to chant "neener neener neener" to the officer as he got his way.
"I am with him." He declared with a slight wrinkle of his nose.
The officer narrowed his eyes but looked suspiciously toward me. "And you are?"
I was silent for a little longer than was necessary. I was genuinely confused as to why I was suddenly thrust before this man and questioned as to whom I was. With a prod from Henry I cleared my throat and answered the Officer. "Anderson, Doctor John Anderson of the NTSB."
"NTSB?" The Officer questioned with a slight raise of the brow. "What do you guys have to do with this?"
I shrugged and tilted my head toward the meteor. "Well we have a vehicle that crash landed here. We have everything to do with this."
The officer coughed and quickly looked behind him. Now that it was cooling, the meteor's true shape was beginning to show. Much to the horror of all present, the meteor that had us questioning its substance for the last few days had finally given us the answer.
It was definitely a craft, that much was obvious. It was cylindrical in shape with two long, elongated wings either side of it that protruded maybe only three feet from the surface, but ran the entire length of the craft. There were no visible windows or portals, but the remnants of radar dishes indicated its method of navigation. It had landed on what appeared to be the bottom part of the cylinder, so that it stood straight up. Along the top of the craft there seemed to be a deep seam about one metre from the very edge. I feared this was the exit point as I could see no other sign of a door or ramp.
The top of the baton started to shake as the Officer took in the scene. With little more than a squeak, he let us pass.
"This is not good, John," Henry commented quietly as he ushered me towards the three other investigators on the scene. "If they are capable of this, what else can they do?"
I lowered my head and looked through my brows to scrutinize the scene before me. I had been an investigator with the NTSB for five years, now. With my Physics background and extensive studies in engineering, both biological and mechanical, the role had been easy to fall into. I rarely enjoyed the investigations, personally, and preferred to remain back in the lab to analyze the various fragments and piece together a viable story for the government and the transport companies. This day, I was more than willing to pull on the black NTSB jacket and take lead in any investigation.
I was met with curious glances from two of my lab-partners as I approached the closest point to the crash site that could be considered safe.
Eric Kane was the first to speak. He was an ambitious man with his eyes set on world leadership. Out of spite, many of the investigators called him "President Kane" as he was always the one to take charge and issue orders while he sat around, as foreman, and watched us work. This was fine with us, with his distinguished look and proud demenour, he was always the one in front of the cameras. We were as happy as he was with that arrangement.
"Anderson. I didn't think we'd see you here."
There was a snort from a young lady behind him. Her name was Susan Wong, a Chinese-American woman with a sultry, husky voice and a sharp wit. She flicked her long black hair over her shoulder and peered at me over her shoulder.
"Mr. Sci-Fi? Of course he'd be here." Her lips pursed in an inappropriate pout as her voice purred in the back of her throat. "He probably thinks there'll be some new and exciting alien technology that he can use for his weird experiments."
My eyes narrowed at her in irritation. "Genetic enhancement and engineering is not weird, Susan."
Her breath escaped in a moan. "When you work as a crash investigator it is."
I had to roll my eyes in irritation at her and looked towards my final lab partner, who was on his hands and knees in the dirt, scraping small metal fragments into a glass vial. His name was Gerry Forseberg. He was the complete opposite of me in many ways, yet so damn similar. He was a friend and a verbal sparring partner who I could always guarantee would engage me in a stimulating conversation centering on physics and the armed forces. His dream was to create a race of super soldiers capable of defending the nations borders. He felt my side passion of genetic engineering and research would aid him greatly in doing so. For the most part I humoured his ideas, even if some of them were far more thought out and work researching than any would think possible of him. He always wore a monogrammed lab coat no matter where he was. The most vivid thing I can picture about him is the giant G-F that was crested on his chest.
Before I could question him on the fragments he was collecting, Henry let out a startled, yet excited cry.
"My God! It's opening!"
Our mouths gaped as we raised our eyes to the behemoth before us. The air and smoke seemed to vacuum into our chests as we simultaneously inhaled and held our breaths.
Above our heads, press helicopters began to gather and hover. Their lights and the thumping of their rotor blades cutting into the wind acted as spotlight and drum-roll to the performance in front of us. We couldn't move through terror and excitement.
This was to be our first meeting with a being from another world.
As the lid slowly unscrewed, deafening me with its metal on metal scraping sound, I felt the blood in my body still. There came a pressure inside my head that risked explosion if I didn't cry out and release something. But I couldn't. My held breath maintained its place inside my lungs, not willing to move, not even if I wanted it to. It was as if my very breath was in so much fear that it crawled in to the deepest part of my lungs, never to emerge.
The suspense was unbearable. I had to know. I had to see. I lunged forward, expelling a yell in a belch so loud it seemed to silence everything around me. I fell in to a world of silence as I fought against three sets of arms that were trying to hold me back. I struggled and looked to the floor, where Gerry was still on his knees, his eyes wide and head tilted in an eerie awe. He turned his head and spoke in a voice I simply couldn't hear.
I wish, so much, that I could have known what he said. I wish I could have heard him, and warned him not to go ….
Gerry crawled like a rabid animal towards the cylinder as the rest of us stood mesmerized by the unscrewing of the lid. The slow grind squealed its metal against metal shriek one last time before falling eerily silent.
And then the lid fell off.
Time, they say, is a relative thing. Whilst it is perhaps the most reliable of all things in this world, something that couldn't possibly have deviation of any sort, it can certainly feel as though it does. In its truest sense, time is pin-pint accurate. Each second can be perfectly counted off with a three-syllable word between each count – the most common being: one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, and so on. I never needed my science doctorate to know that. I believe I was taught that in grade one, right after I learned how to count to ten. It was something I practiced and perfected with each Mid-Western thunderstorm while I was growing up. Myth suggests that counting off the seconds between the flash and the thunderclap can accurately plot the distance to the storm.
Whether this is actually true, I have never truly tested. Someone in the Meteorological field may have done so a few times in the past, but reading the Doppler is so much more effective and definite. I imagine it has something to do with sound waves and their speed across the plains. I should totally know the answer to it, being the Physics genius that I am, but to spend so much time conducting experiments and factoring in variables and the such really seems to me to be a waste of time when technology can produce an answer within a split-second.
Another of my favourite subjects within physics is the relative velocity of anything falling from above. Gravity is a reliable woman. She will deviate just as much as time, i.e., none. Everything falls at a pre-determined speed. There is no bartering with Madam Gravity. She has a specific course and speed plotted for the object and can only be manipulated when taunted by factors, such as the parachute effect, out of her control. Her pull will be as unforgiving, but she can be fooled.
Something unaided by such tricks will never sway the lady. Each will fall into her with a definite rate of acceleration of 9.8 metres per second. I understand that at first glance it seems an impossible theory when you compare a falling brick with falling piece of paper – and I have a young green-eyed beauty currently trying to wrap her brilliant mind around it now – but we are talking acceleration here, not actual velocity. There is a difference.
The reason I explain this to you now, is to try and scientifically analyze and answer my own question based on what I saw in the ravine that night.
Surely time and the fall could not have really slowed so much.
As the lid of the cylinder popped free, and the echo rang out with a shockwave effect against our chests, time seemed to slow. I thought I immediately looked down to Gerry, who was still on his hands and knees crawling with toddler-speed towards the craft. I could have sworn my\mouth quickly opened as I called a warning to him, but, it was as if time slowed to an almost stop when it happened. My muscles seemed heavy and slow. I felt clumsy as I struggled to break through the sudden slow-motion effect of my surroundings.
Movement was slowed, but the sounds weren't. I heard the lid of the cylinder break free and strike the edge of the craft as it began its slow-motion descent.
There were screams of terror and warning from those around me.
"Gerry!" I cried vainly as I watched his head finally rise to the lid in realization. "For God's sake, get away from there!"
The rabid look on his face slowly contorted to one of mortal panic. His eyes widened in time with his mouth as his left hand raised to the falling object as if to stop it with sheer will.
My final image of a dear friend is of him on his knees, one hand grasping at the dirt, the other raised high in the air with a look of terror as the large metal lid fell, with a deafening thud, on top of him.
Susan shrieked beside me as her delicate hands finally raised to her mouth. Eric stood straight to her right, his head turned away from the image with his eyes clenched tightly shut. He finally pulled Susan against him and cocooned her in his arms. She sobbed and shook her head, unable to take her eyes from the small flip of white shirt that protruded from the bottom of the lid.
I …. I can barely remember my own position as the metal object impacted the ground. I do remember, however, finally dropping to my knees in the dirt, with my hands outreached in front of me like a man seeking penance from a vengeful deity. I don't remember actually crying, although my face was wet and salty in indication that I was.
Our sorrow was interrupted suddenly as time returned to normal speed. There was an unearthly holler from above our heads, we immediately looked skyward, our mouths as wide as our eyes.
The Martian emerged slowly and with a projected regal arrogance that immediately drew a breath of awe from all present. Two luminous, almond shaped eyes emerged over the top of the cylinder. A lithe form, not much larger than myself, followed, rising the swollen head with three snake-like tentacles, as long as pythons, into the air. Its skin had a blue hue, much like the morning sky, and glistened against the helicopter's lights. There was no mouth, no lips, but the cheeks quivered, expanding and contracting much like it was taking a breath.
For all my life I had been bombarded with images of aliens from abduction stories and sci-fi movies. The image of the "Grey" had always been the most believable to me. Grey, lifeless eyes, a grey body several shades lighter than the eyes, an emaciated tiny body with an up-side down pear-shaped head.
The image before me was something I had never imagined. Aside from a disproportionate head, writhing tentacles on his head and the absence of a mouth, it was just like us.
I hoped with a smile, that they would be just as vulnerable.
A few news helicopters inched their way forward to get a closer look at the visitor. I shook my head at them, mentally, irritated and saddened by their lack of commonsense. I barely let the question of the Martian's reaction to the intrusion enter my mind before a large, funnel-shaped gun rose beside him.
Without warning, and without order, a rainbow-coloured beam leapt from helicopter to helicopter. In an instant the million-dollar machines were engulfed in flames. We shielded our eyes against the light as each helicopter exploded and littered the area with flaming debris. The Martian looked down at the group of us and pointed a stout bony finger at us. We knew instantly that we were to be the next targets of this unearthly heat ray.
Immediately we began clawing our way out of the ravine, grunting and yelling in panic for escape. I heard a buzz, like the building up of static energy, and then a flash of pink and purple light.
I could feel the sand and soil shift as it melted into glass at my feet. Beside my panicked path of exit, trees burst into flame. Wildlife and humans, alike, joined in the painful exodus of the Meteor's crater.
I still don't know how many of us made it out. I didn't stop to check. I ran. I ran with all my strength away from the crater, terrified and sure that even when I had found safety and sanctuary that the heat ray would find me and reduce me to a charred cinder.
Whilst I am sure I didn't really stop to take notice of anyone around me, my mind does recall the frenzied scene around me. Men staggered and fell, aimless and lost as the Martian aimed and fired his heat ray at the homes and buildings around us. Dogs snarled and pulled rabidly at their chains. The traffic, normally calm and quiet at this time of night, was loud with the honking of horns and the impact of bumper against bumper. People swore and argued with each other and shots rang out in the din.
I continued to run.
I ran until I could no longer breath or take another step.
I found an abandoned building and slipped in under a board. I dropped painfully to the dusty floor and fell into a tortured, dreamless sleep.
I awoke on what I believe was the next morning to the sounds of someone shuffling in the darkness around me. I carefully opened my eyes, blinking them several times against the shifting dust hoping to find clarity in my sight. Finally, with the aid of the sunlight forcing its way into the room through the thinnest gaps between wooden slats, I saw who shared a room with me. It was a young pilot, his flight uniform torn and streaked with blood. He staggered in the darkness and I could hear him stumble against something that was unable to support his weight. I heard it crash to the ground and then the thump as his body followed.
I rushed to my feet and then over to where he sat crumpled on the ground.
"Are you okay?" I asked softly.
He gasped and pulled away from my voice, shuffling on his backside. "Who? Who goes there?"
"My name is John," I answered quickly as I slowly walked over to a window where I hoped to be able to pull one of the wooden planks off the wall. "You should be safe in here."
He gave a quiet chuckle, "I don't think anyone's safe anywhere. There's too many of them out there."
I gave a grunt as I secured a hold on a plank and tore it from the hinges. "Are they on patrol?"
The airman shook his head and let out a yelp as the sunlight stung his eyes. I turned to take a better look at him. He couldn't have been more than twenty five years old – only a whisper younger than myself. His hair was a soft, sandy brown – which I would later discover was actually a very dark auburn brown covered with light coloured dust – that was unwieldy and long.
When he finally took his forearm from across his eyes, I noticed they were a piercing blue. On his upper lip was a pencil-thin moustache that was currently as wild and messy as his hair and I imagined that underneath the dust and blood was a very attractive man.
I slowly approached and noticed he was eyeballing me very suspiciously. Out of respect to his current state I made sure I was only a handful of feet away from him – Close enough for comfort, but not too close.
I stooped into a crouch as I watched him wince and rub at his arm. "Are you injured?"
"I didn't eject quickly enough," he lamented quietly. "Damn near got myself caught in the heat ray."
"Do you need to find your unit?"
He let out a sharp breath that could have been interpreted as a single laugh. "Just looked for the charred remains. I was lucky to get out. My wing man and co-pilot weren't so lucky."
I let out a sympathetic breath. "I'm sure there are others who escaped."
He shook his head and winced as if to quell any unmanly emotions. "I was the last. Fifty jets. Fifty!. That's seventy-five men. All of them shot down with that damned ray."
"How about ground forces?"
He shook his head slowly at me. "They can't get close enough."
I let out a long moan of unease. "Are you saying we're defenceless against them?"
"I don't know what I'm saying." His eyes, slowly reddening, looked up at me. "I've only been on the force for a couple of years. I only shoot the targets they tell me to and make sure I dodge any weapons."
I had to frown at the admission. "I thought you were all well versed in setting firing coordinates and analyzing the target for weaknesses."
He let out an unimpressed cough. "Are you a wannabe Base Commander?"
"Excuse me?"
He slowly drew himself to a stand and wandered toward a rusted tap. "If you were up there," he pointed out the window for emphasis, "then you'd understand that you have no time for analyzing anything except your escape route, and even then it's a 'hang onto your balls, this might be fuckin' close' deal."
"There's no need for profanity." I really don't ever see the need for such language, even if we weren't in a professional surrounding.
"Yeah well excuse me if I get irritated at stupid questions."
I was quiet as I watched him grunt and struggle with the tap. The knob finally turned and spewed forth brown water. My face screwed in disgust as I watched him cup his hand, fill it and then drink thirstily from it. "That water is rancid. I wouldn't recommend …"
He held his other hand up to stop me and swallowed hard. "I would rather drink my own piss than die of thirst, and seeing I don't need to go right now, this will have to do."
I set one hand on my hip and thrust the other into my pocket. "So. What is your name?"
He tilted his head toward me and gave me a raised-brow stare. After a moment, where I assume he'd realized that I wasn't going to use the information in any detrimental way, he rolled his shoulder to turn to me and folded his arms across his chest. "Matthew. Matthew Cronus, Airman First Class."
I extended my hand to him out of cordial politeness. "John Anderson."
His shake was firm and strong, a good sign of his inner strength and honesty. He barely gave a smile – it was more than an arrogant smirk – but gave a nod. It was enough to tell me that I was trusted.
"So," he asked after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. "What do you do for a living, John Anderson?"
The very side of my mouth curled into a grin at his use of my full name. "NTSB."
The simple four-letter acronym for my workplace seemed to intrigue the young man. "Investigator?"
"And laboratory."
His index finger tapped a couple of times at his chin in thought. "So you know the intimate workings of most transport vehicles, then."
It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. "Yes, that's correct. I am versed in military vehicles, also. My unit is … was … the most specialized in the country."
"Then you could pretty much figure these machines out, then."
Again it was spoken as a statement. I opened my mouth to respond then realized that he had used a plural term … and referred to machines. All I had seen was a single Martian standing atop a large transport vehicle. I turned my head to one side and gently tilted it to regard him with a sideways glance. "Machines?"
He appeared stunned by the question. "Where have you been? There are platoons of Martian machines all over the place."
They must have been hidden in the giant craft. I pursed my lips and frowned. "They managed to move out in force overnight?"
His head cocked to one side and he narrowed an eye at me in curiosity. "It took them nearly three days."
I gasped in shock. Three days? Had I been asleep for three days? It felt as though I had only slept a handful of hours. "What … What day is it?"
He looked to the floor as if trying to figure it out, then looked back up at me. "Friday."
I palmed myself in the forehead. The craft landed on Tuesday night. How had I slept for three full days?
At this point I felt the headache that my concern for this young man had helped hide. Obviously I had suffered a concussion during my escape from the Martian. Perhaps I had fallen into a light coma.
I sighed and pointed to a red and purple lump on my head. "I got a bump on the head."
He gave me a nod and wandered to the window. He set one hand on the top of another slat and peered covertly through the hole I had made earlier. "Then you need food. I think it's safe for the moment to go out and scout something."
"Are you sure?"
He turned his face to me and slowly blinked his eyes. "They aren't after us," he commented dryly. "They're after the new Military base in the country. The newest technology is there, if they destroy it, they'll cripple us."
My eyes widened in absolute horror.
Father.
My father was stationed there as an engineer.
I moved forward so quickly that I stumbled with dizziness. I fell against Matthew and immediately tried to push him away from me. "We have to get there. We have to stop these things."
He shook his head and stepped in between the doorway and I. "Oh no you don't."
I curled a lip in a pathetic attempt at a snarl. "Get out of my way."
He took a step to one side and presented to door to me like a game show hostess would present a prize. "Then go. Get yourself killed."
"Well I can't sit around here doing nothing. My father is at that base."
He leaned a palm on the doorframe and slouched against it. "And you storming out there isn't going to do shit. You're unarmed and have no fucking idea what you're about to go up against."
"Then what do you suggest?"
He looked away from me to peer into the silent street. "I don't know."
I groaned and elbowed him to get past him. "Then you're no help. I'd rather go out there and risk my life than hide away in here like woman wondering what to do."
He grabbed hold of my upper arms and snarled as his grip tightened. "Find me a plane and I'll take you there …. On one condition."
I narrowed my eyes, ready to argue, then took a breath and calmed myself. "What?"
"You spend an hour up there with me and help me find a weakness to their armour."
I grunted. "I wouldn't even know what to look for."
"You're NTSB, John. You should be able to find something."
I held my breath for a moment, conflicted between helping mankind and simply rescuing my father. I finally nodded in agreement. "We'll find something in the NTSB yard. It won't be military, though."
He gave an arrogant smirk only a parent could be proud of. "I don't need a military jet, John. Just get me something that'll fly."
Detachment is something I was always unable to fully obtain. Self-preservation was easy. Fighting for myself and damning all others to Hell so that I may live one moment longer is something I had no real problems with. After-all, self-preservation is a primal urge that I doubt any human being, or any animal for that matter, can really fight.
It's the guilt afterwards that I can't escape.
Guilt for not waiting that extra second to help the little old lady onto the curb so she wouldn't get hit by the same car I was running from. Guilt for turning my head from a mugging in fear that I, too, would end up on the receiving end. Guilt for not running from house to house in the days before the aliens landed to warn everyone to leave. And guilt for running like a frightened woman and abandoning my workmates, my only friends in this world, in the pit with the heat ray.
I wondered how police officers, military, and government did it. How was it possible to go day by day, to see and take part in the carnage, and not end up a neurotic mess at the end of the day?
Was it learned? Was it in one's nature?
I later learned it was a conditioning response – a psychological adaptation. Something the human mind does in order to maintain a reasonable level of sanity to whomever is struggling with the constant imagery. My old Psychology professor believed that one's emotional reactions were actually completely voluntary and not the involuntary responses we all believe them to be. He said that you decide how you feel and how you react to different stimuli; whether you are aware of it or not.
This most certainly explains the inconsistencies in emotions towards similar experiences. It also explains how one is able to achieve the detachment towards others pain and suffering through repeated exposure to such.
However, it doesn't explain why the smallest spark of empathy and guilt still remains. As much as I try to convince myself that I don't care … It doesn't stop.
At least the guilt and empathy fuel my passion for my life as it stands now.
I still look back on my first meeting with Matthew Cronus with mixed emotions. That's not to say that I look back on our meeting with any form of regret – he is, beyond all doubt, my most trusted friend and ally – But I look on the circumstances of our meeting, and the events shortly thereafter with a myriad of emotions that have seen me on a therapist couch more than once.
But that whole couple of days will never, ever be forgotten.
After leaving the warehouse together, Cronus and I headed toward the NTSB yard as quickly as was humanly possible given the current affairs.
I should have followed my gut instinct and focused only on our path, not on the devastation either side. I should have kept my eyes on the USAF symbol on the back of Cronus' jacket and ignored everything else.
I should clarify things a little before I go on. While there was complete and utter devastation around me that included such images as mangled bodies, blood and body parts, injured people, rubble and destruction – that goes without saying – there was also something else. Something that might not seem as horrific as what I just described, but to be there; be inside it; left me feeling so much worse.
That was the slow human stampede out of the city and in to uncertainty.
It wasn't a stampede in its common form – or the connotation we have attached to the word. It wasn't a thundering herd of spooked animals driving headlong and dangerously out of the range. It wasn't chaotic and explosive. It was unorganized and hurried, of course, but it felt more controlled, fuelled by frustration and loss. There was an undercurrent of fear, but that wasn't truly the motivating factor.
I ran close behind Cronus and swept my head from side to side all at once seeking someone I could help and at the same time fearing that I wouldn't stop even if I found someone.
Something I found both remarkable and disturbing as more and more people slowly joined in on the painful exodus, was the intermingling of races and classes that would ordinarily remain separated. I could see weary women leading their children, their faces streaked with dirt and tears, their husbands protectively banding together to protect them. They were black and white, yellow and brown. There were rich men rubbing shoulders with beggars, middle class leading the wealthy. It was as if the mosaic of life in this city had been struck by the heat ray and began to melt, to mould into one colour, one race, one group of humans. It was a reversion to the very roots of mankind where wealth and colour meant nothing; were nothing.
The question of why that should be such a visually disturbing sight has been asked many times. It should have been warming to see the banding together of these people, and to see the strength and unity of humankind.
I'm sorry. It's not. It is the most devastating and confidence shattering sight one will ever see.
To call the division between classes and races a chasm wouldn't be an exaggeration. You won't see a millionaire offering an arm to an elderly beggar to help them across the street, nor giving them a dollar to let them buy some food. He won't sit with him on the curb and talk about the affairs of the day over a cigarette or a beer. He wouldn't ask him to join him at the theatre or invite him to meet his friends. Likewise the beggar would rather choose to remain solitary and alone. He won't help you or talk to you beyond asking for change because he wants anonymity and solitude. He does his own thing, on his own terms, by himself.
Race is less selfish with regards to division. Theirs is not an image thing. There are inadvertent barriers set up between races: Language, culture, religion. It is simply easier to hide within the group than to confuse and be confused elsewhere.
But when the crunch comes down, confusion and vanity be damned.
The only time you would ever see such unity is during a disaster of epic proportions. The one defining thing that is within us all is emotion. It is the one true thing that we can all share, all understand, and all become. When a mass of individuals simultaneously share the one same emotion, they suddenly become one.
There is no other emotion that can do the same. Happiness will never unite. Only devastation. In order for us all, as a species, to ever truly "get along", we have to all share a horror, pain or sadness that is, in this case, unworldly.
And it was most definitely an unworldly attack most worthy of the above explanation.
What I saw, how I felt, won't ever be forgotten.
Cronus was surprisingly well skilled in covert ground operations considering he was only a pilot. Now, that isn't to say that pilots are inept on the ground. What I am saying is that my own retarded view on pilots is what drew such surprise. I never saw them as more than flyboys whose skills are limited only to flying jets and firing targeted missiles. Cronus very quickly proved me wrong on that account.
He was as much radar as the equipment on his jets. I could see his eyes flicking quickly from side to side in search of the Martian troops.
"God," he breathed almost inaudibly as he pressed the back of his hand against my chest in a manner to stop me.
I unintentionally moved enough of a step forward to make him grunt, flex his forearm and ball his flat hand into a fist. "What?"
He left his fist against my chest and lifted his other hand to his face to press his index finger against his lips in a shush. "There's three of them ahead of us."
I frowned first at him and then into the smoky distance ahead. I couldn't suppress a startled gasp at the silhouette of the enemy in front.
I appreciated, later, that the smoke and dust had distorted their size somewhat. They appeared to be over ten-feet tall, with a huge, bear like bulk that was rounded central to the Martian's body like a Spider's abdomen. Large, writing tentacles seemed to fan up and out like an insect's antennae; and legs, thin and skeletal, appeared almost unable to carry the mass atop them. I couldn't see the heat-ray; and for that I was relieved.
I caught a short glance at Cronus' blue eyes as he flicked them past me to look for cover. He bit on his bottom lip and snarled in what I can only assume was disgust at the area.
"I hope you're not claustrophobic," he muttered quietly as he grabbed a handful of my collar and roughly dragged me in to the alleyway.
I grunted and stumbled as I was dragged, but managed to keep my footing enough to keep up. "They're going to find us in here, Cronus."
He heaved up the lid of a large trash container. "Get in."
My nose wrinkled at the acrid odour of days-old garbage. "You're kidding me, right?"
He shoved me toward the bin, which forced me to slam against it with my chest. "If I didn't need your help, I'd tell your pathetic ass to stay outside and get killed."
I ineffectively tried to express my disgust at him with a snarl. "There's no need…"
He shrugged me off and interrupted me with an accidental kick of his foot as he hoisted himself inside. "Don't be a woman. Would you rather smell like garbage or lie dead beside it?"
I couldn't exactly argue with his reasoning, so I made do with a defeated grunt as I heaved myself up in after him. I glared at him for a little less than a second as my ass fell square into a torn bag of discarded foodstuffs from the restaurant behind us.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes at me in response as he pulled open the Velcro pouch on the outer thigh of his flight pants. I widened my eyes, impressed, at the hidden compartment of small screwdrivers, Allan keys, and various other useful odds and ends that would obviously be a good help to him should his plane ever be downed in battle. From a separate section of the compartment that I later learned was a drop thigh holster, he retrieved a small Beretta hand gun. He held it up to the light, cocked it once, checked it, and lowered it to his side. He spared a glance at me as he pressed his hand to the edge of the bin and used it for leverage to peer over the lip to view the open end of the alley.
"If we go, John, we go with a fight. Got me?"
I shrugged and tried to cough in response. I didn't know how to fight.
He read my actions loud and clear, but spared me another click of his tongue. Instead, he curled a lip and demanded quiet with a short hiss of breath.
I closed my eyes and listened as hard as I could as I prayed to God to let me survive this.
The sound of their march was unmistakable. It was like a choreographed dance, like River Dance, where each performer was in such perfect synch that you would believe only one set of feet were stomping heavily on the ground. It was a metallic clink against the asphalt, not the usual thump of rubber I was used to. It was high-pitched and immediately alarming. Occasionally I could hear the gut-wrenching sound of metal cracking what I could only assume were the bones of the dead. Once or twice, I swore I could hear Cronus' involuntarily dry-heave at the sound.
"Jesus," he hissed quietly. "Are they aiming for complete annihilation, for domination, what?"
This time I shushed him. My eyes were still closed and ears were on, just listening for anything at all. "Just give me a second, Cronus."
I heard him inhale long as if waiting for my reasoning. I listened harder and tried to analyze what alloy might have been used for the armour of the Martians. I had to fight to hear over the sound of my heartbeat pulsing through my ears – it wasn't easy.
The sound approached slowly, methodically. It was haunting, terrifying. I held my breath hoping to find a quick answer to our problem within the sixty seconds, or so, that it would take for them to be upon us.
"What do you think?" Cronus whispered after a few short moments, obviously not wanting to waste precious time on me thinking I was a human spectrograph. "Got a solution, yet?"
I raised my eyes slowly to him, my gaze asking him if he was serious. He must have read it perfectly because he gave a short laugh and shook his head.
"Once you're in the air, John. Once you're up there and can get a better look …"
"And get shot down with the heat ray," I interrupted in an impatient retort.
Cronus angled his head downward and gave an arrogant smirk. "I didn't get shot down the first time. I can out manoeuvre anything they throw at us."
"Then why are you on the ground, no aircraft, no navigator or wingman by your side?"
He turned his head away from me and grunted. "Fuel leak. Ran out of fuel."
I frowned at the amateur mistake that possibly lost a jet or two. "And you didn't know?"
"Interference," came his quiet response as he pushed his hand downward in front of me to tell me to get down. "They somehow managed to jam our frequencies and make our instruments go bezerk. I couldn't tell until it was too …. Shhh, they're here."
If I thought the sound of my blood racing through my ears couldn't get any louder, I was sorely mistaken. The pulse of each heartbeat was now in stereo, and I swear it was so loud even the Martians could have heard it. I held my breath, exhaled slowly, then drew in another breath to gather the courage to be a man and look at them.
Cronus grabbing a handful of my hair to pull my head up over the lip of the bin was encouragement enough. I managed not to grunt as I gave him a hard stare than focused my gaze on the troop in front of me.
Now, I could see them as clear as day. There was no more smoke and dust to magnify and distort their size. I could see exactly what Cronus and I were about to fight, and was actually pleasantly surprised by the humanistic stature of the Martians in front of me. This was my third witness to the alien invaders, but my first non-distorted angle of them – even though I am aware that fear itself has a distorting effect, I can say with all certainty that this was by far the most accurate account of their image I can possible give.
They weren't incredibly larger than either Cronus or myself. In height, they would have beaten Cronus by about three inches, me by four. Their girth was much more impressive than either of us, but that was through their armour and, perhaps, the Martian version of an oxygen suit. No doubt they required survival gasses and atmospheric protection like we would on their planet. The almond shaped eyes that I remember from the original landing site were still as luminous and large as I initially recalled, only they were more of a sweeping green-brown colour than dark grey. They were hidden behind a light clear visor and didn't move at all to indicate it was searching for anything.
The tentacles seemed pythonian, most definitely. I could see that it was likely they acted as sensors to the outside environment. They writhed and pulsed in the air in a manner that made them seem a complete separate entity to the actual being itself. I found myself wondering just how uncomfortable something like that must be. I actually mirrored a move by Cronus that involved looking down at our crotches with wide curious eyes wondering just how …
To save crass descriptions, I will merely mention the curiosity a woman must feel about what it actually feels like to have … something hanging off the body that appears to have a mind of its own.
Ahem.
Anyway. It became apparent to me that these tentacles must be a weakness that we could exploit in one way or another – but I couldn't suggest this to Cronus, with his itchy trigger-finger locked firmly on his weapon, not without knowing this for certain.
If there was some way to give the tentacles false information… Something that could cause a catastrophic failure in their armour.
It was a thought that had me pursing my lips in concentration.
Cronus had his attention on the Martians looking for a very different mode of attack. I could see it in the rippling of his fingers against his weapon. This action made me look upwards at the Martians again.
Four. There were four of them, and two of us – only one of whom actually had any knowledge of weapon use and combat.
I had to put my hand over his to push it, and the weapon, down.
"No, Cronus. It's not worth it. Not yet."
His eyes slid slowly to my hand, and then to my face. I could read the defiant indecision in his gaze.
"I might have something, but if we move to quick, it'll be pointless."
He huffed. "Typical."
A brow slowly rose on my head. It was a challenge for him to explain, and a mildly irritated and offended message also. "Meaning?"
"Bloody scientists," he whispered as a low hiss. "You have to over-analyze everything. We don't have ten years for you to do your research, John. Remember that."
"And you army boys are far too trigger happy and impulsive." I whispered in response, careful to make sure I couldn't be heard over the loud clink of metal on bitumen.
"Air Force, John," he corrected with the barest hint of a smirk.
"Same shit," I declared gruffly, "Air Force, Army, all the same. You're all "shoot first, as questions later" people."
He shrugged. "Kill, or be killed."
"Save one life, or save a million, Matthew?"
He narrowed his eyes at me and leaned his face an inch from mine. "I have a wife and unborn child, John. I'm saving my own life so I can get back and protect them."
I raised a single brow and twitched one side of my mouth so that my moustache gave a prominent flick. "If I can have time, I can see that you won't have to protect them against things like this." I watched his lips purse in defeat that didn't want to show, so I exhaled a breath and attempted to bargain with him. There was no sense in arguing – there wasn't enough time. "I'm not asking for a full-scale investigation. I only want an extra hour or so to confirm my suspicions." I gave a long inhale and then finished with a genuine, "oh, and congratulations."
He had taken his eyes off the small troupe of Martians during our debate and was now looking directly at me. My congratulations had an effective calming effect. "Five months to go, John. Five months and I've got a family. We've got to find a way to stop these things."
"I'm sure the military and White House are working on a strategy right now."
He gave a short, still-whispered laugh. "You want to talk about shoot first?"
"Don't suggest that it's all up to us, Cronus. The pressure will kill me."
A sudden shift of wind beside us stopped our hushed conversation immediately. A smell much like stale tea wafted across the top of the trash, alerting us to a presence too close for comfort.
Too close wasn't an adequate enough description, however, as the sticky skin of a reptilian tentacle slapped its eyeless head on the rim of the bin.
We'd been discovered.