Thursday, April 26, 2012

War Angel: part fifty-eight


From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 8, 2019

We are getting nowhere. Okay, that isn’t quite fair. Every day that passes, we get a better idea of who the Omegans are and what their society is like. Our intelligence provides us with a clearer picture of their movements and their numbers. If we’d have known half this shit a year ago, we might have found a way to stop these bastards. Though realistically, there was very little chance they wouldn’t have achieved a landing of some sort. At this point, I’d estimate that we’ll need at least five to ten years in order to build ourselves up to a point where we truly stand a chance of beating them back.

In the meantime, some of the reports have been pretty gruesome. Even though they’ve stopped firing meteors at us, they’re doing a solid job of wiping us out when they land. Shock troops hit the ground running, firing on every living thing in their path. The worldwide death toll right now has moved passed 200 million. That’s so staggering that I can’t even truly comprehend it.

Yet weirdly, I am feeling a sense of peace and calm. I wake up in the morning, stretch, eat a light breakfast, drink a cup of coffee, and go to work. In the middle of all this, I have achieved normalcy and a routine. Crazy! On the mornings where Yumiko has stayed over, we lay together and enjoy the quiet as the sun rises. For just a little while, we forget. It is wonderful.

Then I get moving and remind myself that I am a linguistics professor living and working on a secret Japanese island, trying to find out why aliens have invaded the Earth and what they are doing here. After that, I take a moment to regain my sanity, and then I get back to it.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 9, 2019

All the credit goes to Pettit. My favorite frog sociologist (as he said to me “I’m the only ‘frog’ sociologist you know. I’d best be your favorite, cochon.”) was looking over the morning intelligence report while the rest of us yawned and scratched our asses. None of us had paid much attention to it when we read it. Thankfully, we have diverse interests.

“They’re digging in the wilds of Puerto Rico. Huh,” he said. We all just sort of looked at each other and shrugged. “Ah,” he continued, “I was just remembering taking holiday there. Had a crazy experience.” Shareen laughed and asked if it was weed or mushrooms, but Pettit begged off. “Non. Mes amis, we saw a UFO. I swear to you, this thing hovered over San Juan and then moved off into the distance and vanished. It was quite mysterious. Though now it seems rather trite in the grand scheme of things.”

I’m sure if we had footage, you’d be able to see all of our jaws dropping at once, probably in slow motion. Heads swiveled slowly as we looked at each other in amazement.

Pradeep spoke first, and I think he spoke for all of us. “Mother. Fucker. What if they were here before?”

“What if they left something behind?” Yumiko asked softly.

We huddled on that one, immediately calling up any data we had on UFO sightings, but it was clear that what was readily available was not enough. We asked for a meeting with the Colonel, and when we told him what we wanted, he seemed a bit skeptical. However, after explaining it to him, he agreed to try and get what we asked for. We’ll see what happens.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 18, 2019

It’s taken us almost a full week, but the data the Colonel was able to get us has started to make sense. There were a surprising number of unexplainable incidents over the past hundred years, almost one actual UFO for every one that can be disproved. We started building that map next to the map of the Omegans’ movements and landings, and after a while we could start to pick up a pattern with certain locations. We can attribute almost thirty percent of the “real” UFOs to places they are at in force right now. As a group we have decided to call that statistically significant.

So now we’re waiting for the Colonel to see if he can get us more intel about those particular incidents. I have no idea what we’ll discover, but at least we’re making headway into something.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- June 20, 2019

Walked into the room this morning to a stunning sight: six large crates. In them we found eyewitness reports from civilians, military personnel, and commercial pilots; telemetry data; classified photos; Presidential orders; an autopsy report; and debris.

Holy mother of God.

I’m glad we shut the door before we started looking at the stuff, because frankly our decorum was not great. For us, it was Christmas morning. A jackpot of goodies just dropped in our laps.

There may have been shouting and whooping.

The autopsy, interestingly, was not of a fully grown Omegan, at least not from what we could tell. That’s something we’ll have to come back to later, I think. Instead, we divvied up the reports, photos, and debris and got started.

I was reading reports, mostly. To be honest, after a while it got boring. People saw stuff, had no idea what it was, and couldn’t catch it. Same thing over and over. But it does seem from the descriptions that what were being seen in most of these cases was indeed were Omegan ships. Smaller craft, more maneuverable, but Omegan all the same. Just as I was about to take a break and stretch my legs, though, it got a little interesting elsewhere. Pradeep called me over to look at the debris.

“Professor Steve? How about a little linguistics help?”

He had my immediate attention. Parsing out the Omegan language is something I would love to be able to do on a grand level. My first thought was about how I could use whatever I was about to see, but what he showed me was pretty bizarre. Pradeep handed me a piece of jagged metal. Its surface was smooth and shiny, with some small scoring, and on the flip side it had a number of symbols that I recognized from my time on the ship in orbit. “Definitely our bad guys,” I told him, and handed it back to him.

He nodded and took it back from me. “That’s what I thought, too.” Reaching down, he picked up a second piece of metal. Showing it to me, he then placed it next to the first one, and I could see that they fit together. “Obviously two pieces of the same whole.” I was starting to get confused, which I think he could see. He flipped over the second piece and handed it to me. My confusion grew immediately.

“I don’t understand,” I told him.

“Does that look familiar to you?” he asked. I nodded weakly. There was damage obscuring some of it, but having worked in my field for a long time, and having lived in an area that focused on Native American history pretty heavily, I had no doubt in my mind about what I was seeing.

“This,” I told him, “appears to be written in Cherokee.”

Pradeep swallowed hard. “What does it say?”

I looked at it again, tilting the piece around to catch every angle of lighting I could. Finally, I realized I was just delaying the inevitable.

“Deep, I could give you a full, ridiculous translation, but the gist of it is this: what we have here is an invitation of sorts.”

“To what?”

“The afterlife.”

Thursday, April 19, 2012

War Angel: part fifty-seven


Ben stared hard at Jack. His palms had begun to sweat, and his breathing was shallow. Yet he knew he had to focus. Jack stared back at him, his posture relaxed and free. How had it come to this, Ben wondered. Only days earlier, he had considered Keys to be a lightweight, a guy who took school and life a little too seriously and who probably would never rise above his social station. But now… “You’re a murderer, Jack. A murderer.”

Jack waived him off. “I may be a pirate. Or a terrorist. But I think murderer is a bit strong. If Morrison had his way, we’d be prisoners right now.”

“Like my dad is,” Ben interrupted. Jack nodded. “You going to kill me, too, Jack?”

“Why would I wake you up just to kill you? I even got Kate to promise not to kill you.” Jack paused. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“No way I can just lay here and let you let my father die, man. No way.”

Jack stood up and began to pace. “I want to save his life. I really do. I just need to find the way to do it. We need leverage.” The young captain stopped and picked up a scalpel, twisting it in his hand and watching the medlab lighting glimmer off it. “I just don’t what that leverage is.” Jack looked at a nearby monitor. “I have thirteen hours to find it, though. There has to be something…” his voice trailed off.

“These bastards have been looking for something on our planet for over a hundred years, and you’re going to figure out what it is in the next thirteen hours?” Ben swiveled to look at Wilma. “Doc, I think I’d like to go back into my coma. That’ll make my death a lot less painful than yours.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds a little more daunting,” Jack replied, Ben shaking his head in agreement. “So, uh, don’t put it that way, okay?” Jack did a heel spin and made his way out of the medlab, leaving a mystified Ben Drake behind. Wilma walked over to him and held up a syringe of clear liquid.

“This will put you back under if you really want,” she said quietly, her eyes focused on the door as it closed.

Ben looked up at her and thought about it for a moment. Finally, he shook his head no, and she walked away. As she did, he began looking around for his clothes. “Hey Doc? Have you seen my underwear?”

Without hesitation or turning around, she replied “Is there anyone on this ship who hasn’t?”



Sarah answered the door, wiping away tears. Jack paused for a moment, surprised to see her in such a state, his curiosity almost overwhelming. Seeing it in his eyes, she shook her head at him. “Not now, Jack, okay?” She moved aside and beckoned him into the room. He walked in slowly, almost as if he was afraid of disturbing the air.

She walked past him and plopped back down into the bed, lying on her side, right in the middle. Seeing that she had not left room for him, Jack moved her desk chair across the room and next to the bed, and he sat down. Minutes passed as each waited for the other to talk. Finally, Jack broke the impasse. “I don’t know what to do.”

Her brow furrowed. “I’m not exactly full of ideas right now.”

“The easiest thing to do would be nothing,” he said softly. “We stay completely safe if we stay right here for now.”

“That won’t last, you know. Eventually…”

“We’ll have to find a new hiding place. Right. Hiding places, really. We’ll need more than one. Otherwise we’ll become predictable. Hey, can we survive inside the sun’s corona?”

Sarah raised her head, incredulous. “That’s a joke, right?”

“So that’s a ‘no’. Good to know.”

“Give me a year to really work on this old tug, and then we can talk about hiding near the sun.”

Jack grinned. “I may hold you to that.”

Sarah rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Jack? What happens to us when we die?”

“I… don’t know. I’ve always assumed that when we do, that’s it. Nothing else.”

She exhaled. “For centuries, most of the people on Earth believed there was some sort of afterlife. That you would be reunited there with loved ones.”

“It’s a lovely idea, no question.”

Her hand reached over and grasped Jack’s. “I… dammit, Jack. It would be wonderful if that were true.” She gave him a squeeze, then let go. “I suppose the Omegans never think about this kind of stuff. Bastards.”

“Not entirely true. Being a big purple monster doesn’t mean there’s no Heaven. They call it Erestia, I think. Very similar place to some concepts believed in by early Native Americans. We’re talking stuff that’s five hundred years old, mind you, but you get the general idea.”

Sarah giggled. “That would be pretty funny, a bunch of purple monsters showing up and finding early North American natives in their Heaven. ‘Did you guys take a wrong turn or something?’”

Jack’s jaw went slack. “Holy shit, Sarah! I think you’re onto something.”

She sat up, looking at him warily. “Jack, the Omegans aren’t attacking us in order to look for the door to this Erestia. That’s crazy.”

“Not quite what I meant, and not as crazy as you think. What if, just for kicks, Erestia really is an actual place? And what if the door really is actually on Earth?”

“How could that even be remotely possible?”

His eyes opened wide and he flashed a maniacal grin. “Let me go get my ancestor’s journals. I have something I want to show you.”

Thursday, April 12, 2012

War Angel: part fifty-six


Gina laid her head back on her pillow, her hair gently spilling out in both directions. Her eyes fluttered as she fought to keep them open, fatigue both physical and emotional settling in to her bones and joints. This was the first real chance they had to rest since she made her discovery in the caverns carved beneath Pluto, and it dawned on her that her life had suddenly become something surreal.

Yet, she realized, she had also caught a lucky break. “I’m alive and not trapped or imprisoned. That counts for a lot,” she thought. “I just have to stay that way.” Her thoughts turned to her parents and the escape plan she knew they had in place. The small island in the middle of the Pacific was a perfect hiding place; the volcano was long dormant, leaving underground passages where equipment could be set up away from prying eyes. The many years of activity before its dormancy had generated an electromagnetic field in the area that generally blocked sensor probing from a distance, and any up-close look by the Omegans would reveal no human habitation.

“As long as they get themselves there, they’ll be alright,” she said softly, her voice barely rising above the hum of the ship. “We’re not the only free humans left,” Gina smiled. “We’re just the only ones who can fly.”

Suddenly an insistent pounding came at her door. “Gina!” More pounding. “Gina!” The voice was half whisper, half-scream, but she realized quickly that it was Kate. Gina rolled out of bed and bounded across the room to open the door. As she did, she saw her friend doubled over in pain, blood running down the legs of her pants.

“Shit!” Gina yelled. “Let me call the Doc!”

“No! No! Just let me in!” Kate replied. Gina moved aside and Kate stumbled forward. She put her arm around Kate and led her inside. Kate slumped down to the floor and curled herself into a ball. “Doc Gray doesn’t need to know about this, okay?”

Gina’s eyes widened. “Know about what? What the hell is going on, Kate? You’re bleeding! You’re bleeding from… oh… oh no.”

“Okay, yes,” Kate looked up at Gina. “I’m having a miscarriage. Happy now?”

“But that’s impossible! No one has had a miscarriage in decades,” Gina replied.

Kate groaned. “You mean no one has had a natural miscarriage in decades. But if you mix up a few chemicals, create an abortifacient…”

Gina dropped to the ground next to her friend. “I… damn, girl. Did you overcook the mix?” Kate nodded slowly. “Come on, let’s get these pants off and start figuring out what to do next.”

“That’s what got me in trouble in the first place,” Kate replied, gritting her teeth through the pain.

“Only you would joke at a time like this, Stinson.” Gina slowly removed Kate’s pants and threw them across the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much blood in my life, Kate. Are you sure we shouldn’t get you to medlab?”

Kate shook her head. “There would be questions I don’t really want to answer,” she said softly.

“What about stopping the bleeding?”

“I got it under control.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

“Bitch.” Gina stood and walked across the room to grab some towels, then returned to her friend’s side and began cleaning her up. “I know this is crazy, Gina. I know.”

“I just don’t understand. I mean, yeah, I get it in a certain respect, but why not go to the doc and - ?”

Kate grunted. “No. No medlab.”

“You mean the place where maybe this could have been done without you exsanguinating yourself? Where a qualified physician could have made sure you didn’t overcook the mix?”

Stinson cut her off. “I just couldn’t, okay? He couldn’t know. He. Couldn’t. Know.”

Gina pulled back, confused. “Jack? Why would he care? Are you kidding, he’d probably be thrilled to see you matching him obsession level for obsession level.” Kate rolled over and looked Gina in the eye. As she did, she shook her head slowly. “Oh, no,” Gina said, realizing what Kate meant. “Oh, no. No wonder you hate him so much. No wonder you tried to kill him.”

“It seemed,” Kate exhaled, “like the right thing to do at the time.” A small tear fell down her face. “So did this.”

Gina threw the bloody towels into a pile and laid down facing Kate. “It goes no further than me. I mean, you’re pretty much my best friend you know.”

Kate coughed. “We don’t exactly have a lot of options. You’re kinda stuck with me.”

“Bitch.”