Untitled Story by Benjamin Vander
Jagt
Preface:
I don't really have any way to show how deep the
story goes in just the first chapter. This chapter is a satisfying
story in itself, even though it's only the beginning of a rich story.
Legal information and contact information is listed
at the bottom.
(Note: For all you Planeshift fans, the story is
partly influenced by the very popular Enkidukai race from that
game. You won't see any Planeshift influence in this first
chapter, though. Also, for those who know me, you'll see the
influence from carburetor cleaner right away. ;-)
Chapter One:
Mission Control: "Good
morning, SDI One. I trust you had a pleasant night. Over."
SDI Station: "And
good morning, Mission Control. Why yes indeed it was a pleasant
night. How did you know? Over."
Mission Control: "'cause
we just had forty tornadoes last night. We knew there just
couldn't be that many bad vibes here without you lazy bums getting the
flipside of it. That's okay, though. We'll get you back
today. The sun is shining and the sky is clear! Over."
SDI Station: "I
hate to break it to ya, but the sun is shining brighter and the sky is
clearer up here. Over."
Mission Control: "Dang
it! Yeah, we'll just see how lucky you are when your shift is up
in another five weeks. You guys get to try out our new re-entry
system. Over."
SDI Station: "As
long as you do all the work and guide us in, what do I care? The
kick..over...and it's gooood!"
Mission Control: "Guys,
big chief's coming. Time to sound busy! Over."
Silence.
Mission Control: "This
is Mission Control to SDI One. Come in, SDI One. Over."
Mission Control: "Hey
guys, the CO's gone, you can speak up now. Over."
Mission Doctor on Earth: "WOAH, I've got flatline on Ted. I
repeat, flatline on Ted, now Barbara. Flatline on Ted and Barbara!"
An alarm shook everyone up from slouching in their
chairs. The CO ran directly into the room, holding an empty foam
cup he didn't have time to fill.
CO: "Okay,
everyone wake up and ready."
Mission Control: "Come
in, SDI One. Respond. Over!"
Mission Control was a hectic flurry with departments
coordinating with other departments.
Mission Control: "This
is Mission Control, do you read me? Over."
CO: "Did we lose
signal? Bird hit the antenna?"
Mission Doctor: "No,
sir. We have positive pulse signal on Gene, dropping rapidly."
CO: "Environment?"
Mission Doctor: "Environment
reads normal, elevated temperature. The fire control system has
been activated."
CO: "Decompression?"
Mission Doctor: "Air
pressure is good. I'm sorry, sir, they have good environment."
Mission Control: "Anyone,
respond!"
Mission Doctor: "I
now have flatline on all four!"
CO: "Alarms?"
Telemetrics: "Aft
airlock has been opened."
CO: "Inside door
or outside door?"
Telemetrics: "Both...sir."
(Background: The year is 2010. The war on
terrorism rages on, seeming almost as futile as the war on drugs.
No matter how many weapons depots are destroyed, no matter how many
terrorists are captured or killed, the terrorists just seem to
strengthen. Various terror groups, though seemingly poorly funded,
now have intercontinental nuclear missiles. The Reagan era
Strategic Defense Initiative is now a major military priority.
Thankfully, no attack has succeeded.)
The meeting began with composure. Everyone was
concerned, but this was a team that always stayed cool and in
control. The President set out his trademark stack of about ten
sheets of printer paper, which he would scribble on in various
directions. The Secretary of Defense just stood behind his chair,
waiting for the CO to arrive so that he could ascertain what the mood
will be.
To the head of the table came the NASA Chief of
Operations, Charles O'reilly. Of course, everyone called him
"C.O.". It was like being on a first name basis and a subordinate
basis at the same time. Ever since the prior year, his position
had been diminished to simply being a cabinetmember, and he needed to
regain his ego and self respect somewhere. Here he was, sitting
with the President of the United States ready to hear anything and
everything he had to say. The CO scooted his chair and shuffled
his papers, the Secretary of Defense sat down, and all heads were aimed
at the head of the table. CO leaned back on his chair and clicked
his pen confidently as he began, "At
0458, there was an unscheduled release of the outer aft airlock on
Strategic Defense One. At 0500, the crew was given a wakeup
call. At 0501, there was an unscheduled release of the inner
airlock. At 0502, we lost communication with SDI One. There
had been no suspicious radio activity. The crew had just made
small talk with Mission Control, when communication abruptly
halted. At 0503, Ted and Barbara's lifevests returned
flatline. Automatic defibrillation failed to revive them.
Immediately afterwards, the fire control system was activated. At
0504, Lenny and Michael flatlined. Defib. failed to revive
them. The signal from the lifevests weakened, and by 0556, the
lifevests lost contact with the ship computer. The lifevests
transmitted strong battery charge, so they must have lost signal due to
distance."
The President put his hands up in frustration, his
paper still blank, and asked, "Forgive
me for not putting two and two together, CO, but what happened?
You look as though you know."
"Yes, Mr.
President, I do know. At 0458, an unidentified unfriendly docked
with SDI one, broke into the inner airlock at 0501, dumped my crew
outside."
The Defense Secretary was sitting up, rubbing the
knuckles on his right fist. "What
caused the fire control system to activate?"
The CO responded, "Since
guns would risk decompression, and since the crew had all been highly
trained in hand-to-hand combat, the intruders, who we can only assume to
be terrorists, simply roasted my men and dumped them outside."
The President began writing furiously on his pad of
paper.
The Secretary of Defense began rocking back and
clicking his pen in the same way that CO had. "Sounds logical to me. Before we can
plan a strike, we'll need some photos and x-rays. Do you have
anything?"
CO, "Sorry, but
photos are taken every five minutes and whenever an alarm is triggered,
and the attackers were in and out before then. You can see here
the photo that was taken when the fire control system was
triggered. You can clearly see the long pillar flame and the black
smoke, indicating it was a very fuel-rich combustion. You can
also see that the 0505 photo is completely black. It's possible
that the camera was broken or that the lights were turned off, but most
likely the former."
The President began, "I see here that the outer door is
closed. Why is that? Also, why does this pillar of flame
look like it's heading towards the airlock?"
CO, "I'm sorry,
Mr. President, but my best explanation is that they're unexplainable
discrepancies. Perhaps during the attack the crew was shuffled
around. Who knows why the outer door is closed. Perhaps the
computer was timed to close the door. Maybe the attackers expected
to get in and out without triggering any alarms."
President, "Have
you examined your onboard video?"
Defense Secretary, "Mr.
President, the onboard video was disconnected at my request. All
our communications with Strategic Defense One were encrypted with one
kilobyte encryption except for the video feed. The video feed was
only encrypted at 128 bit, and that posed a possible security threat."
President, "I
understand. That seems a sensible thing to do. Now, how
could some terrorists succeed in pulling off such an attack? I
don't even think our own boys could plan something like that.
Dock, break in through two multi-alloy plate airlocks, and kill four
well-rested, highly trained and armed marines?"
CO and the Secretary of Defense almost
simultaneously sat forward in their chairs and turned to face the
President. The CO began, "Sir, I
strongly recommend we send up another SDI immediately."
The Defense Secretary continued, "Yes,
I agree. We know that several terrorist groups have orbital
nuclear warhead capabilities. If this attack were in fact their
doing, then they can only have been planning to fire missiles that we
can't disable. We must send up another SDI with a heavily armed
crew. We can't let them catch us unprepared again."
President, "Alright,
send up a replacement station and crew. We can't be sure that SDI
One still has the same defense capabilities we sent it up with. Be
sure to send more than just men with guns, though. Send an extra
technician in case we need to make security modifications on the
fly. Until we have more information, nobody is to to plan any
strikes or tell the media anything. You got that? You tell
them that the crew has died seemingly accidentally, there was a fire,
and it's under investigation. That's most likely what the
attackers wanted us to think."
CO began selecting crewmembers. Sixteen
crewmembers would be heavily armed marines. There was no question
as to the four non-military members. He called the NASA doctors,
psychoanalysts, and testers to verify his selections. Liz and Jeff
were working in mission control, and had been in space within the last
six months, so all they needed was a physical checkup. Jeff,
their competent leader, was also an experienced pilot and highly admired
and respected among all the . Liz seemed like just another
astronaut, but her medical expertise was far greater than anyone really
gave her credit for. She was always very happy-go-lucky, so the
respect she was not given, simply because she didn't look like a geek,
never bothered her enough to lose her smile. Brian's personality
was, well, odd. He tried his best to act normal and average
around his non-nerd teammates. Bruce and Brian had worked as
teammates two years ago, so their records needed to be updated.
Bruce's personality reflected that of an
automechanic, not a computer technician. He could outthink any
certified computer tech, as well as outdrink, outfight, and
outbelch. Bruce was working in the NASA vehicles shop, changing
the air cleaners of small transporters so that they could be used in the
desert and adding top-of-the-line computers to cars and tanks that were
made before he was born. Bruce was holding some electrical
connections together with his left hand when the phone rang. He
let go of the wires to answer the phone, and as soon as he let go, a 12
volt power wire grounded with the chassis and started getting hot.
"This is Bruce in vehicle
maintenance," he answered.
"Hi, this is Dr.
Kleinhaus in recruitment psychoanalysis. How's it going?"
"Oh, moods are
down considering the accident. A healthy amount of crying."
"I'm calling
regarding recruiting you for our replacement crew."
Bruce joked, "To
make sure I haven't gone insane in the last two years, right?"
The doctor replied, "Yeah, but we can probably do this over the
phone. There's no need to make a trip to the office. Do you
have a few minutes?"
The crossed wire finally heated up to a flame; in
fact, a big flame. Considering Bruce had just sprayed a solvent on
the electrical connectors of the $50,000 computer he was installing, he
was about to have an expensive and embarassing problem on his hands.
Acting as unbothered as possible, while talking to the shrink, he
said, "Um, would you hold on for just
a minute?" He set down the portable phone and screamed, "Fire!" He grabbed the
computer he was working on and placed it safely out of the way.
Another mechanic just showing up to work took the fire
extinguisher out of his car and put out the flame. The large flame
was extinguished, and the mechanics stood speechless as they looked at
an aerosol can of solvent that was sitting right in the middle of the
inferno.
Bruce swallowed and composed himself and reached for
where he thought he had placed the phone. It wasn't there!
He misplaced it! Then he had a brilliant idea. He
started shouting loudly, "Doctor
Kleinhaus, I seem to have lost the phone! If you shout into the
phone, I might be able to find it!"
"I'm here!
I'm right here!! Can you find me?!" Some of the
patients waiting in his office started to sneak out.
Bruce located the source of the noise and picked up
the phone. He placed it to his ear just in time for one last
scream.
Bruce shouted, "Okay!
Okay, I found it."
Doctor Kleinhaus finished, "Yeah, um, let's schedule a time for you to
come to my office early this afternoon."
Brian was coordinating some computers which were to
be used for internet access. These computers were non-secure, so
they were actually used more for games than anything official.
Brian hated this job, not because of all the morons with root
access who didn't know what they were doing, but because he had no voice
in what kind of hardware should be purchased. He was
administering computers that cost three times as much as what he could
have built them, just because NASA was offered a service contract from
the big-name computer manufacturer that sold them. Of course, the
service contract didn't cover reinstalling software, rerouting cables,
educating the users on how not
to break things, upgrades, updates, or any of the other work that Brian
was overpaid to do. It did, however, cover replacing original
components, but even if NASA already had the replacement part, if Brian
were to install it, the service contract would be void.
CO walked into the room, where all he saw was a pair
of legs sticking out from under a desk. "Brian?"
"Yeah?"
replied Brian from inside a death-trap of network cables behind a
computer desk.
"Did you hear the
news regarding the accident today?"
"Yeah."
"I need a
replacement team for immediate launch. Do you feel up to it?"
Brian was still wrestling with network cables,
trying to trace a faulty one, while CO was offering him the chance to
change venue and return to what he loved. "Sure," he replied, still speaking
through the desk.
"Congratulations.
Just check in with Dr. Kleinhaus within the next hour."
"Okay,"
Brian replied, still sounding almost emotionless.
CO stood there awkwardly for a minute. "Brian, get out from under there."
Brian let out an annoyed sigh and let go of the
wires he had been working on for hours. He stood up and looked at
CO. CO grabbed his hand and said, "I just wanted to shake your hand."
CO smiled, and Brian momentarily forgot about the computer and
smiled in return.
CO left and Brian did what he had always wanted.
No, he didn't shoot the computer screen. He wrote a note and
place it on the keyboard. The note read, "Screw it! It's out of order."
When the team had been verified, CO assembled them
for briefing. "Welcome, crew of
Strategic Defense Two. Let's begin with a moment of silence."
The long moment of silence proved to upset the new crew.
The mood changed from cheer surrounding being selected for a space
mission to terror at the prospect of being sent into space immediately
after what they thought was a freak accident. "Evidence indicates that the SDI One crew
was murdered and blown into space by terrorists this morning. We
believe that they did so in order to disable our defenses.
Therefore, we need to send a replacement SDI station and crew
immediately. Your secondary mission will be to gather evidence
from SDI One to build a case for a military strike." This
could have sent them packing, saying, "No
thanks!" except that they felt a deep responsibility to protect
the nation. "Jeff will be your
captain." Brian and Liz, who were sitting next to him,
gave him a high-five. "Second in
command will be Brian, as he comes in second with piloting experience.
Are there any questions?"
Bruce began, "Why
didn't the terrorists remain onboard and steal SDI One?"
CO quickly replied, "I mean any mission-specific questions."
He looked around the room. "Good. Suit up, get lunch, and
prepare to board SDI Two. Good luck, men."
The crew of an astounding twenty was all fake smiles
and waves as they walked across the bridge into the cabin of the SDI Two
station about to be launched. The media was out en force.
Everyone wanted a shot at the crew that nobody knew. Everyone
around the world knew the SDI One crew by name. The news story
here was this replacement army. The news media had been fed a
story about a powerful electromagnetic scanner on the space station
being calibrated to study the reversal of the magnetic poles on Earth.
They ate it up.
"This is SDI
Two. All systems are go. Over."
"SDI Two, this is
Mission Control. We read you loud and clear. Stand by for
ignition in one minute and thirty seconds. Over."
Chatter on the base and in the station was silenced
momentarily as Brian began speaking, "Oh
Lord, in Jesus' name we ask you to protect us and to help us protect
our country."
"Amen!"
came the response from the rest of the crew.
CO, "Thank you,
Brian, but please don't speak out of turn. Over."
Brian, "Copy."
"Three. . .two. .
.one. . ." and the takeoff went flawlessly, just like it had
thousands of times before. There hadn't been a takeoff accident
since 2006, when some of the exterior paint which had not been properly
electroplated managed to stick to the windshield. Since nobody had
a good view of the Earth from the cockpit, that whole mission was a bit
of a downer. Engines and skins had been improved greatly, so at
least takeoffs and landings took less time.
Strategic Defense Two took nearly the same orbit as
Strategic Defense One had taken.
Jeff began assigning tasks immediately. "Alright, I want three marines ready at the
port airlock. We're gonna secure SDI One, then send a team of
technicians to connect the onboard computer to our own. Let's see
if we can get the onboard video. Ready?"
Everyone stood ready with equipment in hand.
SDI Two silently and softly clamped onto SDI One. With docking as
quiet as it is, its no wonder that nobody noticed the intruders.
The marines arrived at the outer airlock of SDI
One. After punching in a very long security override code, they
opened the outer door and saw something which made them almost hurry to
slam it in horror. There was, on the floor, a shoe. It had
not been taken off of the foot, but the foot had been taken off of the
leg.
"This is alpha
team leader. We are preparing to enter, but we have a foot on the
floor in the airlock. Over."
Jeff responded sarcastically, "Can you be a little more vague,
please? Over."
"There is a
severed human foot, sitting on the floor, staring our 'blown out into
space' theory right in the face. Over."
Jeff, "Okay, send
technicians to take pictures and gather evidence. Then have the
technicians fall back while you proceed to secure SDI One. Over."
"Affirmative.
Over and out."
While Bruce was taking pictures, Liz handled the
foot as she would any other piece of evidence and placed it neatly in a
ziploc bag labelled 'Evidence 1'. The technicians then returned to
SDI Two while the marines made their way through the inner door.
Jeff impatiently broke in and said, "What do you see?"
Alpha team leader responded, "All clear. Over."
Jeff, "Any
crewmembers? Over."
"There isn't even
any blood, sir. Nothing's broken. Over."
Jeff, "Alright,
technicians move in. Over."
Brian, "Copy."
As the technicians took pictures of the immaculate
cabin of SDI One, Bruce made note of the slight burn marks on what is
considered to be the "ceiling" of the SDI control room. Brian
photographed an aerosol can that had landed in the lab. The lab
door was open, so it could have landed there from where they were.
Brian, "Hey
whaddaya know? It's a can of carburetor cleaner."
Brian smiled as he held the can up, almost as though advertising it.
Bruce, "Oh yeah,
Berkebile 2+2, the good stuff. I use that stuff all the time."
Brian, "Yeah, I
know. It's the only thing that seems to cut grease and tar off of
electrical contacts and mechanical parts. It's also fun on the 4th
of July!"
Bruce, "I didn't
know they let techs take this stuff onboard with them."
Liz, "You think
maybe the attackers brought it with them?"
Bruce and Brian were obviously shown up. Bruce
had to turn up the coolness, "Well, of
course the thought crossed my mind, but I thought that terrorists would
have used something like a real flamethrower."
Liz showed them up again, "On September 11th, 2001, terrorists used
simple box cutters."
Jeff broke in, "Guys,
save the conjecture for later. We've got a lot of people
listening to the radio signals. Over."
Liz, "Sure
thing. Over."
Brian proceeded to access the computer and make a
network connection available for SDI Two. "The network should be up now. Try to
telnet in. Over."
Jeff, "Looks
good. Great job, guys. Finish up there and come on
back. We'll have dinner as we wait for the data to download.
Over."
Over recent years, as the art of eating in space had
been refined, dinner together became a more and more important
tradition. As building costs dropped sharply, shuttles became
bigger and bigger. The standard fare was a shuttle with so much
room that it was referred to as a space station. By this time,
entire dining rooms were being added to shuttles, complete with chairs
and a table! NASA approved a project that would add a centrifuge
room, but that wouldn't be available until next year.
The crew swam to their seats where Bruce had set out
their hot meals in boxes attached to the table by magnets. Magnets
and sticky food made dinner a very civilized event, and except for the
fact that everyone had bags for their beverages, you wouldn't know from
looking at it that this room had no gravity.
Jeff began with a prayer, and a speech, giving a
toast to the crew of SDI Two and a memorial for the crew of SDI One.
Everyone waited for Jeff to take the first bite, as this was a
very civilized dinner.
Brian started chatting with Raymond, a marine
sitting next to him.
"Ray, I hear you started payments on an apartment in
the space station."
"Yeah, it's true. This is my first time in
space, but I've always been a sci-fi fan, and I want to be on the
cutting edge of space travel. I figure I'll retire in another 25
years, so by then, there oughtta be quite a resort up here."
"No swimming pools, ya know."
"Ah, that's true. I never thought of that."
"No tennis, golf, volley ball, baseball, basketball,
hockey, football, mountain climbing..."
"Okay, now yer getting me down. Maybe I should
pull out on my payments."
"One hell of a TV and internet connection, though,
being that the station is also a network satellite."
"Hmm, that's true."
By the end of dinner, the download from the SDI One
computer to the SDI Two computer had completed, so the crew of twenty
gathered around a computer screen. Liz opened a set of video
streams, and the last half hour of the SDI One crew was played back for
them. The video streams showed every videotaped part of the ship
as well as ship status. The SDI One crew was sleeping silently,
motionless. Nobody watching the video dared to speak.
Speaking now would have been like interrupting a hero's dying
words. It was easy to tell how everyone felt, though. They
were watching their friends sleep blissfully unaware of the attack that
was to come; how in just minutes they would no longer be dreaming of the
stars but be screaming in pain as they are burnt and tossed
outside. By 0455, there was a radio signal audible in the onboard
video. It was an unrecognized voice, "There is a Haraqi revolt in
your area. Be advised!" Haraqi? Did the speaker mean
Iraqi? That didn't make any sense at all! There hadn't been
any revolts in Iraq for years. Why would there be one now?
Whatever the person on the other end of the radio meant, it was missed
by the SDI One crew who slept right through it. At 0458, the
computer showed that the outer airlock was open. It was indeed,
since the airlock camera didn't show the small blinking light on the
door that would indicate whether it's locked or not, but since there was
no light in the airlock chamber, it was impossible to see who the
intruder was.
The crew was woken up. "Good morning, SDI One. I trust you
had a pleasant night. Over." One of the marines
watching the video started to breathe hard. His chin started to
tremble, and he walked out of the room.
"As long as you do
all the work and guide us in, what do I care?" The inner
airlock now started to open on the video. One of the marines
watching the video shouted, "C'mon!
Get outta there!" Hearts were pounding in fear.
Blood was boiling in rage. Out of the airlock entered the
intruder; a small crawling thing. Certainly it wasn't a
terrorist. Was it a robot or some walking flamethrower? It
looked something like a turtle or a beetle. It was about the size
of a small child, and it had a peculiar white shell with cow-like black
spots. The SDI One crew saw it and jumped in shock. It
walked toward the crew, making a sound like corduroy jeans. The
SDI One captain took a gun from the wall and fired a single shot at
it. "Intruder alert!" he
shouted, "Bullets just bounce off of
it. Don't fire any more shots, it could trigger decompression!"
The SDI One crew started hitting it with heavy objects. The
technician grabbed an iron prybar and hit the intruder hard, seemingly
killing this large insect. At that moment, the room flooded with
man-sized creatures, all looking like upright beetles. For the
next minute, there was no visibility, as there were creatures in the way
of the cameras. The sound was chilling, though. The SDI One
crew was screaming in terror, and with every noise the crew made, the
creatures made a longer, louder noise. Slowly, the masses started
leaving the cabin, and with the last creature went the last crewmember,
fighting for his life. The creature simply tore pieces off of him
until he stopped fighting, haphazardly leaving a foot on the floor of
the airlock. The video continued, but there was nothing more to
see. The only thing left to hear was Mission Control hoping
against hope that it was just some prank; that the SDI One crew
disconnected their lifevests to play a joke on them. Even after
the frantic calls for reply stopped, the video continued for ten
minutes. Everyone was silent as Liz walked to the computer and
stopped the video.
Liz broke the silence, "Jeff?" Jeff yelped, then
composed himself and said, "Yeah?"
Liz grounded everyone by saying, "I
guess that explains the foot in the airlock." Jeff knew he
had to act cool in order to calm the rest of the crew. "Oh great, just what we needed...Martian
Terrorists." A nervous laughter made its rounds among the
crew. Liz said, "Aww, you've
handled worse. You argued with CO before his morning coffee, right
Jeff?" as she hugged him. It may have looked like she was
hugging him while joking, but she saw the dangerously high pulse rate
coming from the captain and knew that a secure embrace would drop his
pulse ten points. Liz saw Jeff's pulse suddenly drop to 60 beats
as Jeff finally clicked into his leadership role that he had always
been known for. "Alright, we
know that bullets don't do anything to them, so let's put the guns
away. We don't want extra weight or accidental fire. All
that will do is punch a hole in our ship. Considering the new
evidence, it's not likely that any terrorists were planning to fire any
nuclear weapons, so let's re-allocate more of our men to ship
security. Liz, I want you and a few marines to examine the
video. Find out what hurt the one..thing at the beginning of the
attack. Brian, lock the airlock. Weld it if you need
to. Bruce, see if you can download SDI One's data, then upload it
to our dirt-treading friends at Mission Control."
Everyone acknowledged and, with their new-found
confidence, began their missions. Work progressed quickly and
neatly, but this crew was prepared to disable missiles and prevent
another attack, not fight bulletproof monsters from who knows where.
A few hours later, the computer let out a familiar
beep.
Jeff looked at the computer, "We have an unidentified object just within
RADAR. It appears to be a missile, but it's not in disabling range
yet."
Bruce exclaimed, "So,
was it terrorists after all! Did they disable SDI One to make us
vulnerable!"
"Be advised!
Haraqi are becoming violent in your area!" suddenly buzzed in
over the radio.
One of the marines whined, "Oh man, not now!"
Jeff jumped over to the communications desk and
slammed his hand on the transmission button. "Who are you?!"
"Uh, hello, this
is Jamaal at Mission Control. Is everything alright up
there? Over."
"No! Not
you! Who just contacted me? Over."
A few seconds later, Mision Control replied, "Nobody here, sir. What is the nature
of the problem? Over."
That moment, the aft airlock burst open with an
explosion, and the beetle creatures that the SDI Two crew had just
become acquainted with walked in slowly. They simply postured for
a few seconds, until one of the marines threw a hatchet at them and,
either with fantastic aim or with deadly luck, killed one of them.
The remaining creatures made a loud noise, almost like people
chattering at a party, and attacked.
The creatures were not organized nor effective, as
they were randomly puncturing or removing body parts, most often only
slowing the person down and rarely killing him. The humans were
very precise in their attacks, and they were effective in disabling and
killing the creatures, but there were so many creatures constantly
flooding in through the airlock. Bruce was holding his own,
sometimes fighting two or three creatures at once without any
weapons. However, the marines, some of the best trained fighters
on Earth, were dying. The creatures were walking back out with the
bodies of the marines, sometimes still alive. Brian and Liz were
standing clear. They had been ordered to. Jeff fought the
best he could, but even he was captured and carried away,
screaming. The creatures were trying to kill or abduct Bruce, but
Bruce overpowered them. Now it was just the technicians; the ones
who were told not to
fight. Bruce rejoined Brian and Liz, hoping someone had a plan or
a weapon or something.
The creatures stopped advancing and stood ready to
pounce. It appeared that they fully intended to kill the
technicians, too, but the technicians weren't fighting back at the
moment. The creatures obviously wanted a fight. Brian looked
down at the torch he had been using and the evidence kit on the
counter. In one quick motion, he grabbed the can of carburetor
cleaner and his torch. In the middle of it all, what seemed to be
a housecat ran into the room! The creatures started to lunge
towards the technicians, and Brian quickly sprayed the carburetor
cleaner through the nozzle of the torch, creating a huge column of
flame. The cat was caught in the flame, but it ran away in time to
prevent death by fire or by trampling. The flame was
effective! The creatures were backing away!
The computer made its always untimely beep.
Liz ran over to the computer, "There's a MIRV head en route to North
America! I can't use the SDI computer. I'm not authorized!"
Brian shouted, "Can
you maneuver the ship?"
"Yes!"
"Set a collision
course to begin in thirty seconds!"
"..Done!"
Using the spraycan, the technicians fought their way
through the crowd to the port airlock, where they ran into the SDI One,
closed the door, and detached before SDI Two took off. They
watched in anticipation as SDI Two aimed at and perfectly hit the MIRV
head.
"Yess!!"
came from all three, as they hugged and began cheering. They had
killed two birds with one stone and lived to brag about it.
I, Benjamin Vander Jagt, believe that
the use of copyrights to restrict the disemination of any sort of
knowledge without the consent of all restricted parties is immoral and
counterproductive. I will only use the copyright system where it
appears necessary in order to protect data from being wrongly
copyrighted by a third party. Inasmuch as possible, all of my
creative works are public domain.
Specifically, I do have preliminary plans to write a full, public
domain novel and only profit from the sales of signed printed copies.
Consider the following: Would you be more interested in
downloading the Blues Brothers soundtrack from Kazaa? Or would you
be interested in buying an autographed album? Of course, between
unautographed CD and Kazaa, clearly many people would consider the
illegal route. For my own protection, I only plan to publish
chapter 1 at this time.
Comments? Inquiries? Email me at
benjaminvanderjagt@adelphia.net, or ICQ me at 6730681, AIM me at
benvanderjagt, or YIM me at benvanderjagt. I appreciate all
comments, including "Cool", "Crap", or whatever else you may find
appropriate. Thank you for reading!