Battleship

SADDLE RIDGE

“What the hell are they doing?”

Sam had spoken so softly that Cal, who was right next to her, could barely hear her. But her exact wording wasn’t necessary; he was able to infer it from context.

The three humans were concealed in the tall, overgrown grass high on a hill that surrounded the Beacon International Project building. They’d gotten there by slithering along on their bellies, moving a foot at a time, stopping, waiting to make sure there was no reaction and then moving again.

Sam supposed it was entirely possible they could have made the approach in the accompaniment of a brass band and it wouldn’t have garnered any attention. The aliens seemed far too involved in their work: walking around, engaged in various tasks, none of which Sam understood. She saw, though, that there appeared to be two different types of them, perhaps arranged along some manner of caste system. There was one who appeared to be in charge: the commander. He was taller, his armor a different color from others, who were broader and mostly involved in doing the serious grunt work.

Watching their movements, Cal whispered, “They’re connecting what I think are the power cells that are going to be required to boost the transmission. They’re wiring everything to the satellite dishes.”

“Then that,” Mick said, “is where we’re going to shut this whole thing down.”

He crawled forward toward the edge of the hill where the drop-off would take them down toward the building. He brought his shotgun up to bear, aiming it squarely at one of the shorter aliens. Sam was right beside him, and then they were brought up short when they heard loud breathing behind them.

They turned and saw that Cal Zapata hadn’t budged. Instead he was busy hyperventilating—or at least very close to doing so.

Mick looked scornfully at him, clearly in no mood to deal with a faint-of-heart scientist. He met Sam’s gaze, and she quickly shook her head, silently imploring him to hold up. She didn’t see any choice; they needed to peel Cal off the metaphorical ceiling before they could proceed any further, as he was crucial to their overall plans of contacting Hopper’s ship. Mick looked like he desperately wanted to ignore her, but then—with clear reluctance and a poisonous glare at Cal—he lowered the shotgun.

They remained where they were as another transport passed overhead, lights glaring. It didn’t illuminate their hiding place, fortunately, thanks to an overhanging tree that obscured their presence from overhead. Must be bringing another power cell, she thought grimly.

The workroom that was the destination of the three humans was visible from their vantage point, so that was something, at least. But it might as well have been on Mars—or even whatever planet these creatures hailed from—for all that they were going to be able to get near it… at least for as long as Cal was proving himself to be completely useless.

The scientist clutched at his chest, trying to steady himself. She prayed he didn’t have a heart attack. That was the last thing they needed. They wouldn’t be able to seek help for him and would probably have to leave him to his fate. Except she wasn’t at all convinced they could possibly do what needed to be done without his scientific acumen. Some part of her was appalled she was measuring the worth of a man’s life purely in terms of how it was useful to her, but ultimately she knew she didn’t have a choice. At this point all that mattered was the mission.

“I’m sorry, but there is no way I’m going down there,” Cal finally managed to say. “I do not possess that particular courage.”

Sam was determined to talk him into it. There was an entire litany of things she could say. She could tell him that the world was literally counting on them, even though no one knew their names. She could tell him that she was positive he had vast stores of inner determination that could be tapped, enabling him to rise to the occasion. She could remind him that, since it was his project that had brought these creatures here, it was his responsibility to jump into the middle of this thing with both feet. To clean up the mess he and his scientist friends had made. She could even remind him that if he showed timidity now, then in the long term his life wasn’t going to matter, since—if they failed to interrupt or, better yet, terminate the aliens’ message home—the planet would be overrun and he likely wouldn’t have a long term or a life. So if he wanted a chance of survival, he needed to pull it together right now.

Before she could articulate any of that, however, Mick said between gritted teeth, “You’re going to acquire that particular courage right now, or I’m going to break my steel leg off in your ass.”

Cal absorbed this new information. “Acquiring courage,” he said briskly, as if he were downloading it off the Internet.

Sam realized that out-and-out threatening the guy hadn’t occurred to her. I’ve just got to broaden my repertoire of techniques for dealing with stubborn people.

They started moving down toward the workstation.

Their stealth served them well. They covered the distance to the simple, square building in a fairly short amount of time, or at least in as short a time as possible when one was crawling on one’s stomach, propelling oneself via elbows. Sam had to think she would never freak out about snakes again, considering they had to live like this all the time.

They froze at one point, when one of the bulky aliens walked by. It stopped and stood there for a moment, seemingly inspecting the air. Sam wondered if it had somehow caught wind of them, and perhaps was even about to open fire. But then, seemingly satisfied that it was alone, it went on about its business. It was all she could do not to breathe a sigh of relief, which would most certainly have been audible. Once the alien was gone, Cal and Sam got to their feet, remaining hunched over as if that would do them the slightest bit of good, and ran quickly to the side door of the darkened structure. Mick remained where he was, keeping his weapon at the ready. If this thing turned into a firefight, he was definitely prepared for it. Sam even wondered briefly if he was hoping it would turn out that way, because these monsters had destroyed a military base and she was sure that Mick was itching for some payback.

Once inside, Sam continued to stay crouched, keeping an eye on things. She saw Mick propped on his elbows, shotgun at the ready. Cal was rooting around in the work area, which more or less took up the entirety of the building. They didn’t dare turn on any lights since that would unquestionably catch the attention of the aliens. Instead Cal was employing a flashlight that they’d taken from the Jeep, but was doing so as judiciously as possible. He kept low to the floor, making sure not to get anywhere near a window that would allow the light to be seen from outside.

And then, as she peered around the corner, she saw the taller alien, the one she took to be the commander, slowly striding their way.

Reflexively she sucked in air sharply between her teeth. The alien didn’t hear her, but Cal did, and he froze where he was, near stacks of equipment. Even in the darkness she could see the panic in his eyes. She frantically gestured for him to keep his mouth shut.

The alien stopped a few feet away and slowly removed its helmet, accompanied by a hissing of air. She saw the creature’s hideous, inhuman face and bit down on her lower lip not to let out a loud screech. There was no reason for her to be startled at this point. She knew what she was dealing with. Freaking out upon seeing it so close up wasn’t going to help matters in the slightest.

It brought some manner of narrow tube to its mouth, closed its eyes and then lit the tube with a blue flame.

Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Of all the things that these creatures and humanity could have in common, that’s where we overlap? On cancer sticks? Really?

Cal had stopped what he was doing so that he could peer out the nearest window as carefully as possible. When he saw what was happening, he scuttled over to Sam and said, practically in her ear, “I do not wanna die from secondhand alien smoke.”

“One thing at a time,” Sam shot back under her breath. “How long is this going to take?”

“I’m on it.” Moments later he had gathered coiled cord and batteries and brought them over to Sam. “I tuck it away for safekeeping.”

“You mean, like, in case of an alien invasion?”

“Actually, most of this stuff’s for gaming.” Leaving it with her, he crawled under a desk that was piled high with hard drives and CD-ROMs, reaching for what looked to Sam like a pretty high-tech-looking box in a corner. He managed to get a grip on it with the fingers of one hand. “Got it.”

“Great,” said Sam. “Just don’t make any noise extracting it.”

He endeavored to do as she instructed as he began to pull. This nudged the box forward toward him, close enough that he was able to get a second hand on it. Then, slowly, he began to back out from under the desk, hauling the box a few inches at a time and then moving with greater confidence.

That confidence cost him when his back leg bumped into another desk nearby. It had a towering pile of stuff on it, and the impact from Cal’s leg jolted it. Sam tried to lunge toward it, to catch the pile before it fell, but she wasn’t even close to getting there in time. The pile tilted, slid and crashed to the floor. Cal whipped around, a look of wide-eyed fear on his face.

The Land Commander finds that he cannot take even the slightest break without being disturbed.

He hears the crash within the nearby human structure. It is as frail and poorly put together as any human shelters are… indeed, as much as actual humans are. It could easily be falling apart all by itself. Nevertheless, attention must be paid, in the unlikely event that any of the creatures are lurking inside.

He summons two of his subordinates and they approach hastily even as he tosses away his salt stick. They await his orders. He gestures for them to head into the structure, to determine just exactly who or what it was that caused the things inside to fall over.

Each of the soldiers is carrying a cleeb, a bladed instrument that could slice any human in half with the slightest contact. They head toward the structure, their cleebs at the ready. When they approach the structure, the door is shut. Without hesitation the foremost grunt kicks it open and enters with full confidence that nothing inside can possibly pose a serious threat. They are warriors in the service of the Land Commander, and there is nothing they cannot accomplish. Nothing they cannot defeat. Nothing—

—in the room.

The first soldier steps in, the second right behind. They clear the corners, making sure that no one is hiding there.

The rear window. It is hanging open. They move to it and look out.

No sign of anyone.

They report their findings—or lack thereof—to the Land Commander. He considers the information carefully. Which seems the most likely? That some random stack of human leavings tumbled over because of a possible gust of wind, or maybe it had never been properly aligned in the first place and had eventually given way to gravity? Or that some human or humans had braved all manner of threat just to search around in an empty building and had barely managed to escape out the back window before they could be seen?

The answer is self-evident.

He orders the two back to work and resolves to give it no further thought.

Sam had come to think of the area where the first contact had been made—the spot that was now occupied by the overturned Jeeps—as her own personal Ground Zero. The place where her view of the universe, her understanding of reality itself, had been upended.

Now she and her companions had taken refuge on a hill overlooking it and were doing everything they could to take down the creatures that had performed the actions of total destruction. God, I show up at someone’s place, I come with a bottle of wine, maybe some dessert, and if it’s a party, I offer to stay after and help with the cleanup. These guys come a bazillion light-years to our place and the first thing they do is blow shit up. I swear, some people…

Calvin Zapata had worked with surprising speed and confidence—surprising, Sam reasoned, because thus far she had only seen him out of his element. Now that he was operating within his area of expertise, he was all efficiency. He had effortlessly set up the spectrum analyzer and rigged it to batteries. Then he had put on the headphones as if he were crowning himself and, with complete certainty, snapped on the analyzer.

That was where his confidence came to an abrupt end. Needles, dials, readouts—all of it just lay there, unmoving. Dead.

“You doing this right?” said Mick.

Cal shot him an annoyed look and started double-checking the connections.

Speaking as much to herself as anyone else, Sam said softly, “Yesterday my biggest fear was that my dad wouldn’t accept my boyfriend. Now…” Her voice trailed off and then she looked back at Mick. “You?”

“I thought I couldn’t climb a little mountain. Good one?”

Suddenly they both jumped at a nearby surge of sound. Sam automatically thought it was some sort of weapons blaster aimed at them, about to blow her head off. Judging by Mick’s expression, he’d probably thought it was the same thing. She relaxed when she realized it was just the analyzer humming to life. Cal looked at them with an expression of smug triumph and then began adjusting the dials. “Oh, I should have mentioned this before,” he said in an offhand manner, “but if this works, and we get a good frequency—”

“We’ll only have a few seconds to communicate. You already told us,” said Sam.

“Yeah, that. But…” He was trying to sound casual about it and wasn’t being terribly successful. “Also those monsters are pretty much guaranteed to get a lock on our position, too. So we’ll only have a few seconds to get out of here.”

Sam took in this new information. “I almost wish you hadn’t mentioned it.”

He shrugged and returned to the spectrum analyzer, fine-tuning the dials so delicately that he seemed like a safecracker trying to discern the combination through subtle clicks of tumblers. Sam mused that, in a way, that’s exactly what he was doing: he was trying to crack into a wave band in order to gain access to it.

“Anything?” said Mick.

Cal shook his head and continued to adjust and refine it. The needles and dials were now flitting about, bouncing from one side to the other. And then, all at once, they stopped their twitching and became rock steady, pointing straight up with only the most minute of quivering. As they remained steady, Cal whispered in amazement, “I hear them. I’m listening to aliens communicate.”

“What’s it sound like?” said Sam.

He pulled a headphone free so they could hear it, too. To Sam, it sounded like a steam wand on a giant cappuccino machine. Apparently it came across that way to Cal as well. “Starbucks,” he said.

Great. Thanks to him, now I’m craving a latte.

Mick nudged Cal, who made a final adjustment, getting the patched-together device online with where they needed it to be. Then he took the police radio they’d salvaged from the Jeep, plugged it into the spectrum analyzer and handed the microphone to Sam.

Sam worked to keep herself calm. She needed to be all business. There wasn’t time for histrionics or sounding like the frantic girlfriend in one of those horror films.

“John Paul Jones, this is an urgent message for the USS John Paul Jones, do you read?”

No response was forthcoming. She repeated it again and again, and with utter despair crushing in on her, she heard a familiar voice come with an excited, “Sam? Sam, is that you?”

It was Hopper. His voice was static-filled and phasing in and out, but it was most definitely him. “Sam, what the hell are you doing on the naval emergency channel?”

She didn’t have time for a back and forth. For all she knew the aliens were detecting the transmission. Plus the horizon was beginning to redden—the sun would be coming up soon, making her feel even more exposed. Without even acknowledging him by name, she got right down to business. “Three items. One: these things are here and their immediate goal is the satellite array on Makapu’u Head above the watershed, near Saddle Ridge. Two: at 10:30 a deep-space satellite will orbit by, which they’ll use to slingshot a message home. And you can guess what that means.”

His voice was still laced with static, but at least she understood him. “Millions of ’em. Everywhere. What’s the third?”

She paused, and for the first time, she allowed emotion to fill her voice. “You better stop ’em, because we’re getting married and they’re not invited.”

“Sam! Sam, get out of there! You’ve got to get out of there! I love—!”

The static overwhelmed the clarity of the transmission, and Sam winced from the feedback as she removed the headset. “He’s gone.”

“I know,” said Mick, “we could pretty much hear his side of it leaking out of the headset. We better get gone, too.”

They rose to their feet. The spectrum analyzer having served its purpose, they left it behind. As they moved quickly away from it, Mick said, “By the way, I’m pretty sure that the last word he was going to say was ‘you.’”

“Pretty sure?”

“Well, it might’ve been ‘pizza.’ Or ‘baseball.’ Or maybe ‘being a semi-fiancé and we shouldn’t make it any more serious than th—’”

“Shut up,” she said as they disappeared into the rain forest.