From the Journal of Steven Keys- August 30, 2018
They presented us a plan today. Just outside of Palm Springs, an Omegan ship has landed and is engaged in some unknown experiments. To our advantage, it’s a smaller ship. Intel suggests that there are about a dozen enemy troops on the ground.
For us, it’s a strategic target. Palm Springs sits on top of a bountiful aquifer. If we could wrest control of it for even a short while, we could restock our fresh water supply for months.
Can’t believe I used to piss and moan about the proliferation of bottled waters and how much they were hurting the environment. Now I’d pretty much kill someone for a bottle of Perrier.
I volunteered to go. A couple of days ago, a guy named Mike taught me how to use an RPG launcher. Rocket-propelled grenades! My twelve-year old self would have eaten it up with a spoon, back before I put down the joystick and became a pacifist. Ha! It turned out that I have a knack for it, and a pretty decent aim. And if the shit hits the fan (we can always hope it won’t) we’ll need someone to cover our exit.
When I told her I was going, Nadine freaked out. Over the last week I thought she had actually been getting better. She’s slept a bit, looked a little more peaceful as she walks around. But this really set her off. At first I begged her to come with us; I kind of thought that seeing this in action, seeing us take down those… well, I think they’re maroon, but some say purple… sons of bitches taken down would do her some good. I think that when people see that the damned things can be killed, that we can start fighting back, the terror will diminish and we will have a chance of taking back our planet.
Nadine, however, is having none of that.
We leave for Palm Springs under the cover of darkness in two days. Crossing my fingers that by the time we leave, she’s at least okay with me going.
From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 1, 2018
It was the most exhilarating moment of my life, bar none.
First of all: holy shit! I saw aliens! In fucking person, right in front of my eyes! This whole ordeal, all the things we’re going through, there’s been an element of the unreal about it, seeing it all develop on T V and on the internet and in pictures. But as we crept into Palm Springs this morning, it all changed. There, sitting in the shadows, was an honest-to-God spaceship. With aliens!
Two of them were standing guard outside the ship. There was very little activity, which leads me to believe that the Omegans must observe some sort of nocturnal cycle of their own. Interesting. Infrared scanners showed eight other bodies inside the ship, leaving two unaccounted for.
A few of our guys, led by Ed, headed for the water treatment plant. Best guess was that the other two were inside there doing something, so they had to be careful. It was Ed’s idea to get even more basic when arming his crew: someone had located a blacksmith outside of Flag, a guy that made his stuff and sold it at ren faires across the U.S. The guy gladly gave up broadswords, katanas, and a couple of maces. So those guys were packing, the only downside being that they needed to get close to use them. We had no distance weapons aside from the RPGs, and we didn’t want to use those in the plant for fear of destroying the water supply we had come all that way for.
Anyway, I’ll get full details from Ed later, but whatever they did worked! We got a ping on the walkie that all was clear inside, so we made our move. Mike was the bait; he walked about a quarter of a mile away from the ship and then began singing loudly, acting drunk., bobbling and weaving his way towards their ship. The two guards took notice, and sensing a potential threat, they unholstered their weapons and began approaching him, shouting at him to stop in halting English. He did, and just as it looked like he was going to take a laser blast in the face, two shots rang out from the darkness and Omegan brain matter went splattering across Mike’s shirt.
Disgusting, by the way. And pretty damned smelly, too.
Ed’s guys wandered out of the shadows, objective one completed: Omegan weaponry captured and tested to see if humans could use it effectively. They dragged the bodies back towards the ship and placed them near where they had been before.
Next up came a couple of guys that Mike knew. They were in the Corps of Engineers, and the hope was that our destruction would remain uninvestigated if what happened seemed like an accident. Those guys got themselves up to the ship and started looking over it, especially the engines. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but after a few animated moments, one took out a toolkit and started prying open something near the engine. From what I could tell, it looked like they cut some wiring. One of them shot some pictures with a small camera, then they retreated back towards the water plant, beckoning for Ed and his guys to join them in prepping water to take back. Once they were inside, Mike pointed at me, pointed towards a location directly behind the ship’s engines, and motioned for me to move.
I moved as quickly as I could while still being quiet, winding up about 150 yards from the Omegans. The RPG was slung over my back, making it easy to pull off and aim at my target. Thinking about it now, I understand what they did; they caused what would hopefully be seen as a normal malfunction that could lead problems. If the ship was online with Omegan command, they would expect the crew to deal with it in the morning. If they had some sort of “black box”, it would show that the explosion was natural. We’d be home-free if and until they discovered the bodies of their fellows inside the plant. No time to drag those bodies out. We needed to finish it fast, before any of the others woke up.
What I did felt so simple, so natural, that it should probably frighten me. I locked on to the heat source of the engines, flicked the switch to put the launcher in “go” position, and pulled the trigger. I barely even thought about it, I just did it.
The explosion was incredible! It lit up the night sky for almost a minute. The ship scattered into thousands of pieces, along with the creatures that were inside of it.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Pardon me while I go into shock over the fact that I BLEW UP AN ALIEN SPACESHIP. I am through the looking glass here. Wow. Wow.
We got the water loaded in our trucks pretty quickly at that point, and got out of there. The Omegans were surely going to get another ship on scene pretty fast, and we didn’t want to be there for that!
Now we’re almost home. People have been high-fiving me, back-slapping me, congratulating me… it’s pretty surreal. In my life, I have never seen being a killer as something honorable or something to celebrate. Yet I cannot help but admit that I do feel like I accomplished something great today, something important. We demonstrated that the human spirit lives on and that we will fight. Knowing this, I can only hope that others take our lead and start their own battles.
Being a terrorist? Yeah, I think I can live with it.
Can’t wait to get home and see Nadine and tell her all about it. Should perk her up quite a bit to learn that we pulled it off, and did it with no casualties. Huzzah!
From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 2, 2018
I found Nadine’s body hanging from our favorite tree. She’s gone. I don’t know what to do.
From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 4, 2018
I buried Nadine this morning. Ed helped me dig a grave, and a few of the others came along for support. I spoke a bit, delivering what passes for a eulogy, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what I said. I’ve been on autopilot for the past 48 hours. I do remember what Ed said, though, after we finished piling the dirt on her. He told me to be strong, that I should remember that not everyone was going to be able to survive in the Horrific New World. The question is: can I? Without the one person left who gave me meaning?
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