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A Single Motion: part 2
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 30 March 2003, 12:45 PM
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A Single Motion: Part 2
17 miles southwest of Holloman Air Force Base
New Mexico, USA
0705 Hours, July 5, 2004
"Armored convoy is in sight, Johnny," Corporal Stevenson said, taking his radio out of its holster.
"Confirmed," came the answer a moment later.
In the hour that had passed since the fatal first contact, nothing further had taken place at the crash site. All the Rangers on the roof of the ship had their weapons trained at the hatch where the aliens had been seen coming out, but it didn't move; everything was still. This unnerved all of the men present, but at the same time it made them grateful. They had all seen what the alien weapons were capable of.
Eleven of the Rangers present at first contact were vaporized, and two were so badly burned they were hardly recognizable - the medics said they stood little chance of lasting the day. All that had happened because of one alien with one small gun. It was exactly why the task ahead was deemed very undesirable by all of the soldiers here.
It was also why the voice Stevenson had used to announce the convoy had been shaky at best. It had been told to them that it contained a large demolitions team to crack through the ship's armor plating so that they could investigate the ship inside. Of course, it wasn't known if there were any more aliens inside. If there were, it was bad news for the Rangers.
The convoy stopped and halted near the ship. The convoy consisted of twelve hum-vees and five heavily armored APCs. Out of three hum-vees came twenty-two men, none of them in proper uniform. Stevenson recognized the men as the demolitions team. The team had requested an extra large team with a lot of C-4 and other explosives. The hull had lasted an impact with the earth going many times the speed of sound. It would likely take weeks to get through the hull.
After exiting the vehicle, the men hopped aboard three different Black Hawks and they sat waiting inside. Moments later bag after bag of supplies was also brought to the helicopters by military personnel who had also exited their vehicles. After the last of these bags were aboard, all three Black Hawks took to the sky and landed a short time later of the roof of the ship. The demolitions team jumped off and they started towards the team of Rangers standing with guns ready at the hatch. One man approached Stevenson, who, for whatever reason, seemed to presume he was in command. "Spread your team out from the hatch... corporal," he said, examining the stripes on his sleeve. "We'll take it from here."
"Acknowledged," he responded, not quite knowing how to address this man, who had no insignia. He motioned for the other Rangers to back up.
After about five minutes of rigging explosives around this hatch, the men stood back and the man who had talked to Stevenson earlier held a small device in his hand. Suddenly he called, "Fire in the hole!" and with that, sixty-five kilos of C-4 plastic explosives detonated and the concussive blast sent a plume of smoke and a wave of metal shards flying in every which direction. No one was hurt, but some of the Rangers were half-deafened by the explosion.
When the white smoke cleared, it revealed a smooth plate of metal with a small dent in it where the outlines of a hatch were barely visible.
The demolitions man sighed and scratched the back of his head in an irritated manner. "Well..." he said, his voice trailing off. "I guess we'll be here a while."
17 miles southwest of Holloman Air Force Base
New Mexico, USA
0930 hours, July 9, 2004
"US officials still not commenting on the odd, luminous object that streaked across the skies of the central states last week," the news reporter said, "and they scoff at the idea that it was, indeed, an alien craft. They also said they, too, felt the tremendous impact many residents of New Mexico and Texas experienced, however they said their investigation into it was "inconclusive". When asked about the heavy military presence there, they responded by saying it is part of their investigation. As for their reasoning behind shutting down the air space, they say it is because of an ongoing military training exercise."
Stevenson turned the TV in the Black Hawk off and wearily rubbed his tired eyes. All this CNN was giving him a headache. He didn't like to think he was part of some huge conspiracy, even though he knew it was far beyond that. He had always been told as a child about all the government conspiracies that were surely going on, and he had always scoffed at them. Now he was not so sure.
As soon as he turned around, he was faced with yet another blinding explosion. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, but it was too late - already he was seeing red and green spots. He cursed. For the past week, it had been a constant barrage of explosives on the hatch. Tons of C-4 had been used, anti tank Hellfire missiles had been fired from Apache helicopters, and even a laser-guided bunker-buster bomb had been dropped by a stealth F-117, and the results, though slow, had been promising. There was a deep crater of twisted metal that went down nearly a meter into the hull. Stevenson had no doubt they would be going in soon.
Indeed, a moment later his radio fizzled and crackled with static and then a voice became audible. Stevenson recognized it immediately as Captain Macdonald's voice. "Those demo guys seem to think they're almost there. Get to Black Hawk 14 and prepare yourself. Looks like we're going in."
The corporal's heart seemed to turn to ice. He had never been in actual combat before, and engaging an extraterrestrial enemy was an even more daunting task. Nevertheless, he had his orders, and his training. He would just have to do his best... and survive.
"Roger that, captain, I'm on my way." He had no need to get his gear together. The idleness in the camp had unsettled him, and he was constantly cleaning his weapons and checking his ammo. He was as prepared as he ever would be.
He ran towards a Black Hawk on the ground with the large numbers "14" painted in white near the tail. He was the first aboard. He used the time to steady his shaking hand and calm his nerves. He would almost be glad to be fighting other human forces. A bullet to the head was more preferable than being burned alive.
Soon the helicopter was filled and they were suddenly once again on top of the alien craft. His squad walked over to the awaiting men of the demolitions team. "Good morning, Eric," he said to the lead man.
Eric acknowledged his greeting with a nod but said nothing in response. "All right, men, we've determined that we are almost through the hull. We have very little to go through. To penetrate the last bit of hull we will use the alien weapon." He produced the claw-like device. "Don't worry, it's auto-rechargeable via solar energy." He smiled appreciatively. "Very efficient."
Eric directed the weapon towards the crater and pulled the trigger. The bluish flame shot out again, engulfing the base of the hole, making the solid metal bubble and sizzle. After about six seconds of use the weapon seemed to shut down, evidently out of power. However the damage had been done. After several moments the red hot metal disintegrated and dripped onto the floor beneath, revealing a jagged hole that would allow a soldier and all his gear to jump comfortable in.
Eric lay down on the metal and brought out a fiber-optics camera and he snaked it about, observing the small computer he held to see if the aliens had anyone waiting immediately down below. He glanced at the palm pilot briefly, and then handed the device to a man next to him. "All clear," he said. "And remember, we started the hostilities. If at all possible, try and keep things peaceful." He took a sweeping look at all the Rangers. "Who wants to go in first?"
Stevenson almost, mustered the strength the raise his hand, but he could not. His comrade, Paul Miller, was the first to volunteer. "I'll go. I'll do it."
Eric nodded and gestured openly to the hole, inviting him to go in. Miller took a deep breath and then hopped in. Stevenson glanced down. Miller had lost his footing on the long drop, but he quickly stood back up and looked around. "It's clear!" he called up.
In several more minutes, ten Rangers were in the halls of the strange ship. Stevenson was the last of the ten. When he entered he couldn't repress an oath. "Christ!" he breathed. The walls were a smooth purple metal that had odd bumps and crevices in impractical places, and holographic images plastered all along it made it look like a living, pulsing thing.
Five Rangers went down either way of the hall, one man with a rocket launcher in each group. Stevenson's group made it to the end of their section of hall. Around the corner there was another long hall, but in this hall, on the right side, there were large, wide doors with odd, rounded shapes on them, apparently a form of writing explaining what each door led to. Out of one of these came another one of the massive, blue armored aliens, except this one held a large, purple-pink weapon, and when it saw them it screamed something in its language and opened its maw to an impossible width.
Stevenson remembered what Eric had said. "No, wait, we don't want hostilities!" he cried, hoping beyond hope that this thing did indeed understand their dialect.
Whether it did or not was irrelevant, for the alien opened fire with this new weapon. Stevenson ducked behind the wall of the first hall but two of the soldiers in front of him were not so lucky. They were instantly shredded in a rapid-fire barrage of bullets, far faster than anything Stevenson had ever seen before in his life. His fellow Ranger, Michael Carson, who had the rocket launcher in his group, quickly whipped around the corner and immediately pulled the trigger. A dull thud resounded from the weapon followed by the screaming of the RPG and then the explosion afterwards.
Without thinking that the alien had dodged the projectile, the other soldier in the group, Matthew Clarke, also turned around the corner and ran down the hall. When no shot was heard thereafter, Stevenson and Carson followed him. They saw Clarke standing over the fallen extraterrestrial. It writhed painfully on the ground, its body armor perfectly in tact but its face was now a blackened, charred mass. It patted the floor pathetically around him, searching for its weapon. Clarke wasn't about to let that happen. He fired a couple rounds directly into its face. The alien writhed once again, but was soon still without a sound. "Bloody thing didn't want to give up, did it?" Clarke asked no one in particular.
Stevenson picked up his radio from his belt. "We have engaged another alien. Yeats and Fancey are KIA. Hostilities confirmed." At that moment he heard gunshots and screams from somewhere else on the ship. He just had to hope the Rangers could handle it. Reinforcements would be on the way now anyway.
Stevenson's group continued down the hall, but it led to a dead end, so they backtracked and decided to go in the door they had seen the alien come out of. They entered hesitantly, guns at the ready, but there was nothing to oppose their entry - just yet another hallway with more doors along it. This one was much shorter, however. They proceeded to walk down it. Clarke put his back to the wall and peered around the corner. He quickly snapped his head back.
"There's something in the next room," he mouthed. They nodded. Clarke held up three fingers, then two, then one...
The three of them simultaneously turned around the corner, eyes at their scopes, fingers on the trigger. What they saw was a large, circular room, with a platform suspended seemingly by nothing a couple feet off the ground. On the platform was a wall of odd-looking computer-like devices and holograms. In front of one of these computers was yet another type of alien, one that looked quite different from the others. This one seemed man sized, and it wore a long, flowing robe of sorts, red, outlined with purple. Its face was an almost sickly grey with a long, pointed chin and large eyes that looked too big for its thin face. What was most peculiar about it, however, was it massive headdress. It seemed almost as big as the rest of its body, with a purple, metal skeleton and golden slabs in between them. It also had two, long metal prongs off the side of it, making it look far more foreboding than it actually was.
This new alien was speaking in a constant, gibberish tongue to a computer, and only gradually did it realise that the three Rangers were standing there. It reared its whole body in surprise and then began searching in the folds of its robes for something. Stevenson could guess what that something was. "No, don't do it," he screamed uselessly.
The alien continued to search in its robes and then it pulled out a weapon similar to the one the short alien had used on the roof when they made first contact. "Fuck it," Clarke said beside him, and he opened fire on it, peppering the extraterrestrial with a full, automatic spray, carefully aimed at its center mass to inflict the maximum damage. The bullets tore through the target, punching holes in the computers behind it and covering the back wall in torrent of blood and bits of alien. The thing dropped to the floor in a pool of its own blood, dead before it hit the ground.
There were footsteps behind the three men. They all turned around, scared of what it might be, but it was only the other team of Rangers, entering the room from the second door. They all looked immediately at the dead alien on the platform above, and then back at the group, noticing suddenly there were only three of them. "I guess you guys didn't fare much better than us."
Clarke shook his head. "No. I guess there'll be quite a conspiracy here yet, huh?"
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