Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (4 page)

His fellow SEAL Stefano fixed an intense look on Bill. “Bob is right. You hate brass. You hate taking orders from keyboard generals. But I can tell . . . you’re telling the truth!”

Mark looked curious. “You said they talked to you and this gal from orbit. Did you get a ride up to the ISS for some kind of special operations deal?”

Chris, the third Ranger in the crowd, squinted at Bill. “You’ve picked up a deep tan since you were here last. Did you get that from being in space? Out with it!”

Bill smiled, tapped a third icon on the iPhone, then showed the image to everyone. “What does this look like?”

“The bar scene from the first
Star Wars
movie!” yelled Alicia, her tone wondering.

Frank nodded. “Yeah, some
Star Wars
thing. So?”

Bill put the iPhone down on the table and leaned forward. “So,
those
are the Aliens I’ve worked with over the last nine months. They became crew on the spaceship run by my wife, Captain Jane Yamaguchi of the Air Force. And the Prez is going to tell the nation, and the world, that Earth will soon be under attack by six spaceships run by Aliens who have been visiting Earth to capture folks camping out or hunting in wilderness areas. Which is how Jane and I got captured by these nasty buggers.” The crowd at the table had gone deathly silent. “We escaped captivity, fought the Alien crew, captured the ship’s cockroach captain and took over their spaceship. We renamed the ship as
Blue Sky
.” He tapped another icon and held up the iPhone. “This is how she looks from the outside, up in orbit, which is where she is right now.”

Frank groaned. “Buddy, you hit your head while out fly fishing? Those pics can be found on the internet. Hollywood does wild stuff these days with digital imaging. Did your ex’s departure send you round the bend?”

Stefano grimaced. “Bill, never known you to lie or make up stuff. You seem to believe what you’re saying. But it can’t be real. Why you doing this? With us?”

“Yeah,” called Master Chief Joe, his blue eyes looking over Bill. “You SEAL guys got your secrets. Like we all do. Spec ops is like that. Me, I just did fast boat drug busting in the Coast Guard. But even I know the stuff on your phone is made up fantasy!”

In the background, Alicia and Cassandra were looking at each other, then looking back at him. Alicia clapped her hands loudly, silencing the muttering from the crowd. “Bill, this Jane Yamaguchi you said is your wife. And Air Force. Does she work at Peterson?”

“She does. Did. Until we got kidnapped by these Collector Aliens,” Bill said, feeling tired by the open dismay of his vet buddies. They’d always stood by him in the past. Why couldn’t they believe him now?

“Thought so,” Cassandra said, leaning forward and acting intensely alert. The woman who cut her hair to a rooster-tail Mohawk dyed orange fixed blue eyes on him. “Met her during some work I did at Peterson. For NORAD in Building Two. We met at lunch. She does satellite tracking and ASAT alert watch, right?”

“She did do that at Peterson,” Bill said, putting the iPhone down on the table.

Alicia tilted her head, looking at him the way an eagle might look at a rabbit. “Same way I met her, while on an intel consult at Building One. Was with my Lorilee at the time. My gal pulled me in for some supersecret chat with Air Force intel folks of the 21
st
Space Wing and their 721
st
Mission Support Group. To scope out some Chinese ASAT activities. Had to do with modernizing the ITW/AA weapon system. And now
she’s
the captain of this spaceship of yours?”

“Yup.” He’d noticed the other folks at the table had quieted as Alicia and Cassandra confirmed one part of his story.

The sandy-haired Ranger nodded slowly. “Fine. You know this Captain Yamaguchi. You got married to her. Congrats, I think. So why are you telling us this tall story? Why did you tell us to arrive with travel bags?”

Beyond their group the music and floor dancing made a nice sound buffer. The Friday night regulars had swarmed in after the last vets had sat down and no one was paying them any attention. He tapped on the iPhone and showed its image to them all.

“I promised you a great adventure story. Well, you’ve heard bits of it. Got kidnapped by Aliens, fought them, captured their spaceship and found friendly Aliens who now make up our crew.” Bill looked around, hoping his serious expression would wipe the skepticism off the faces of his buddies. “Yeah, what I said sounds crazy wild. But it’s
real
. Tonight the Prez will tell everyone what I’ve just told you. But I called you all here for more than telling you I found a great woman who agreed to marry me.” He jiggled the iPhone. “This is an image of the transport spaceship that dropped me off tonight. At my sister Joan’s house. It’s very stealthy and can be mistaken for a meteor, thanks to the white glow it gives off due to it using a magnetic field repulsion spacedrive.” Several of his buddies blinked at hearing words he’d never used before with them. “I called you from orbit for one specific reason. Me and Jane have a good crew to run and fight our starship. But we lack a boarding crew. Combat-trained folks. Well, today the JCS approved Jane’s plan to send three-man boarding parties against each of the six Alien spaceships that will arrive above Earth in about 50 hours. You nine could make up three of those boarding teams. The other nine are being recruited at MacDill in Florida.” Bill grinned. “Any of you folks willing to hightail it off to space and help me and Jane kick Alien butt and capture some spaceships?”

“Wow,” muttered Mark.

“Crazy,” said Howard, though he said it with a wondering tone.

“Prove it,” grunted Bob the gray-haired Marine.

Bill noticed that of his nine buddies, five had raised a hand or a thumb to volunteer. Those on board were Alicia, Cassandra, Frank, Stefano and Joe. Still to be convinced were Mark, Howard, Bob and Chris. He stowed the iPhone in the pocket of his windbreaker and grabbed his backpack. “I’ll prove it. Jump into your cars and follow me out to Standley Lake. In the woods on the north side of the lake is where my transport spaceship is parked. Its pilot is on the lookout for me to show up with some buddies. You all game?”

Everyone agreed to follow him the few miles to Standley Lake. Putting down forty bucks for Cheryl, he led the way to the back hallway and the parking lot out back. Where all of them had parked even though most had come in through the front door.

The night air was cool, which was normal for early fall in Denver. Being a mile up made a difference between day and night temps. Behind him came the tread of three sets of boots. One he knew as belonging to fellow SEAL Stefano, who’d gone fly fishing with him several times. Looking over his shoulder he caught sight of Frank and Alicia. They smiled.

“Figured we’d ride with you in your Wrangler,” Frank said.

“Right on,” Alicia muttered. “Ain’t gonna let you out of my sight until we see this fancy spaceship of yours!”

Stefano winked at him, his expression amused in the dim glow of the parking lot lights. “I believe you. Figured you might need a lookout, what with carrying your .45 and all.”

Bill pulled open the driver’s door of the Wrangler. “You’re all welcome. Sharing rides means fewer cars on 100
th
Avenue. Which I prefer. Really don’t want the campers in North Open Space Park to pay lotta attention to us as we head out to the western cul de sac turnaround.”

Alicia chuckled as she got into the rear seat with Frank. “Well, the campers might pay attention to this white-glowing spaceship of yours!”

Bill started the Wrangler’s engine and pulled up to the exit onto Lowell street. Behind him came three other cars loaded down with his remaining vet buddies. He pulled out and headed north, aiming for the intersection with 100
th
Avenue. “The campers will call it fireworks or a UFO. Leastwise until they tune into the president’s midnight address.”

“Uh, Bill,” called Alicia. “Today I heard YouTube chatter about something strange showing up on the internet. Said it was design specs for an interstellar starship that used a spacedrive called Alcu . . . uh, Alcubi—”

“Alcubierre spacedrive,” he finished. “Yup, that’s from us. It’s the stardrive that allowed us to visit Alien star systems and travel 50 light years in two days. A big deal. The JCS chairman was kinda pissed when Jane shared the specs with the internet, after also giving them to the Space Command at Peterson.”

“Sounds pretty buff,” Stefano said from the shotgun seat to Bill’s right. “So, you use this magnetic thingie to get up to orbit, then head for a star using this Alcubierre spacedrive?”

“Yup,” Bill said. “We’ve got a Navigator, an Alien woman who looks like a giant flying squirrel. She gets help on setting course from the
Blue Sky’s
ship mind. It’s an AI that is smarter than anything you ever saw on
Star Trek
episodes!”

“I’ll be damned,” Frank muttered from the back seat. “Bill, I’m with you on this boarding team thing. Always wanted to get up into space. But, uh, how are we going to get into these Alien spaceships? How many Aliens will we fight? And what kinda weapons will we use? You and the others have your pistols. Me, I’ve just got a slingshot I use for knocking down squirrels for roasting over a campfire.”

“Not to worry,” Bill said as he turned onto West 100
th
Avenue. “I’ll cover all that when we get up to the
Blue Sky
. It’s got a big room we call the Collector Pods Chamber. Got plenty of room for practicing with the taser and laser rifles we’ll give you, and for trying out the fancy spacesuits everyone has to wear.”

A slap-thump came from the back. “Uh, Bill, I’ve got a beer gut,” Frank said. “Will this spacesuit fit me?”

“It will. It’s a tube suit thing that is kinda alive. It stretches to form tubes for legs and arms and fingers. Its helmet has a comlink in it for talking. And a water supply. Plus plenty of air. You’ll be comfy in it.”

“Interesting,” Stefano said as Bill spotted the Simms Street intersection and turned left into the North Open Space Park that bordered the north shore of Standley Lake. “Sounds like a fancy high-altitude chute drop outfit.”

“Kinda like that,” Bill said as he came to the lakeshore and turned right to head for the cul de sac turnaround. That was where Builder of Joy had said he would park the transport, showing Bill an image from Google Earth that indicated the cul de sac was treeless and open enough for the transport to land there. “Stefano, use your iPhone to text the cars behind us that we are about to arrive at the spaceship. Tell them to cut their lights once they turn onto the road to the cul de sac.”

“Got you. Doing it,” said his fellow retired SEAL.

A few hundred yards away from the main camping area Bill slowed the Wrangler, then pulled it off the paved track to park in a slot near the entry road. That was as far as he could go. The rest of the cul de sac was filled with the hundred foot long teardrop shape of the transport. The ship’s hull dimly reflected the light of a full moon. Otherwise the craft was dark, not glowing, since the Magfield engine had been turned off by its giant squirrel pilot to avoid drawing attention. Builder of Joy had said he would sprinkle the access road with some ultrasound emitters tuned to make humans feel uncomfortable when inside their zone of influence. To discourage visitors. Which of course explained why he felt irritable. He tapped the comlink badge in his shirt pocket.

“Builder of Joy, shut off those fucking ultrasound emitters! Me and my buddies don’t need to feel more pissed off than we already do.”

“Emitters shut off,” chittered Builder over the comlink.

“Damn,” Stefano muttered from his right. “That really is some wild spaceship!”

“That it is,” Bill agreed. “Grab your travel bags and let’s get out of this jeep! Time to meet a real live Alien. And take a trip up to orbit!”

Behind him came the sound of car engines shutting off and doors opening. Six other people scuffled along the park road to join him, Alicia, Frank and Stefano.

“Start the Magfield engine,” Bill said over the comlink. “Let’s give our guests a show!”

Before them white light flared.

“Damn!” called Bob the skeptic. “That sure as shit
is
a spaceship!”

Sitting before them was a stretched-out teardrop with a bulb-like nose. It stood on three metal struts that supported it ten feet above the soil and pavement of the cul de sac. From the middle of the long teardrop came a metallic creak as the cargohold airlock door lifted up. At the airlock door’s bottom rim, something moved. A metal tongue came out of the ship’s body and slanted down to the ground. With a loud ‘twang’ the metal ramp flipped up pole railings on either side. From inside the airlock and from the ship’s hull a bright white glow illuminated the cul de sac and nearby pine trees.

“Magfield engine activated,” Builder of Joy chittered. “Your party includes nine humans in addition to you, Weapons Chief Bill. Yes?”

“Correct,” Bill said, turning to face his vet buddies.

Their expressions at seeing the white-glowing transport ship were varied. Some had mouths gaping wide open. Some looked shocked. The five who’d volunteered back at the saloon were all grinning like kids about to open their presents at Christmas.