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A Single Motion: part 1
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 26 March 2003, 4:47 PM
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A Single Motion: Part 1
Ellsworth Air Force Base
South Dakota, USA
0515 Hours, July 05, 2004
It was a boiling summer morning in the communications and surveillance building in Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. A recent aerial practice and weapons testing had everyone present on high alert. No one was idle in the large room, whose floor was covered with desks and computers and busy people. Everyone had a job to do.
"Yea, you're clear for landing, Dick," Jason Braid said into a microphone, simultaneously observing the monitor in front of him.
"Roger that," came the response, and a few moments later the F-117 stealth fighter touched down on the airstrip. Then, a couple seconds after pilot Dick Hantersmon landed, he exclaimed, "What the hell is that?"
"What's what, Dick?" Jason asked.
There was a pause, and then, "It's an incredibly bright light flying overhead. I... I can't see it anymore."
There were similar reports and reactions all across the room. Over at the radar station, people were some very weird signals that corresponded with the strange sightings. "Look there," General Wallace pointed out on the monitor, indicating a red dot over Nebraska.
"Christ, its moving Goddamn fast!" Major Kennedy said. "It's over Colorado now!"
"Now it's over New Mexico," Wallace said, amazed. Everyone was still as the red dot almost crossed into Mexico, but suddenly it didn't even register on the radar anymore. "Look, it stopped... somewhere near Holloman Air Force Base."
"Brian, contact General Reeves at Holloman," Kennedy said to the head of the communications department. "Ask him if he's seen anything unusual around there."
"Yes, sir," Brian acknowledged.
As he tried to get a hold of the general, Kennedy asked Wallace, "What the hell do you think that was, sir?"
"An asteroid?" Wallace suggested.
"No, sir," Kennedy said respectfully. "This radar is rigged to detect planes. That means whatever that was, it was somewhere between the surface and the Mesosphere. An asteroid would have gone at a different trajectory and it probably would have been faster. That seemed to have some sort of intelligent "landing" if you can call it that."
"So it was an aircraft?" Wallace asked in disbelief.
Before Kennedy could answer, Brian called, "I've gotten a hold of the general, sir. He reports a bright light in the air followed by a large explosion and an earth shaking impact."
Wallace raised an eyebrow at this report. "Jesus," he said under his breath. "Ask the general is he is properly equipped and has enough personnel to perform a military lock-down of the area."
Brian asked the question into the microphone, and listened for an answer. "Roger that."
"Okay, tell him we need him to do exactly that," Wallace said. "He has to secure the crash site. Tell him we have reason to believe that this was actually some sort of ship."
17 miles southwest of Holloman Air Force Base
New Mexico, USA
0605 Hours, July 5, 2004
"ETA crash site one minutes!" Johnson called from the pilot's seat.
Four UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, accompanied by three AH-64 Apaches, were outbound from Holloman Air Force Base on orders of General Reeves. The Black Hawks carried forty heavily armed Rangers. All they knew what that they were supposed to secure a suspicious crash landing and prevent any locals from approaching the area. They had all saw the light and explosion, or, failing that, they had all felt the massive impact.
"Christ, there it is!" Private Leroy called, looking out the side door, his feet dangling in the air. "Looks like it is pretty intact." Up ahead was a large impact crater and a long drench dug into the earth by whatever had struck there. At the end of the trench was a very large object.
"What the fuck...?" Sergeant Roher's voice trailed off, his mind boggled by the sight before him. The "ship" was at least 250 feet long. It was triangular, almost resembling an oversized B-2 Stealth Bomber, were it not for its purple metallic sheen.
"Have any of you ever seen anything like that?" Johnson called from the cockpit, mesmerized by the sight.
"Negative that, Johnny," Roher said.
The four Black Hawks stopped at four different positions a couple hundred feet from the large craft. They descended, and off each came ten soldiers, dressed in desert camouflage uniforms. "Follow me, men," Roher said to his squad as they cautiously approached the downed ship. They jogged towards the crash and quickly covered the space between them and it. The side of the ship was almost fifteen feet tall, towering high above all of the soldiers. However it was not this that made the soldiers gasp as they came with mere feet of the odd ship, but that its hull was not at all damaged.
Another squad approached Roher. "Big fucking thing, huh?" he said.
"Yea," Roher agreed. "But may I ask how it isn't even damaged? From the looks of this trench and the impact crater, and, Christ, the impact we all felt, shouldn't it be totaled?"
The man cocked his head. "Yea, you'd think." He began walking closer to the hull of the ship, hand outstretched.
"What do you think you're doing?" Roher asked the soldier. "The general said this thing could have come from the upper atmosphere! The hull is probably sizzling." Roher grabbed something out of his pouch and he threw the device onto the "sizzling" metal. It immediately stuck to it. After this had been done, Roher looked at a small computer in his hand, and he gasped. "Jesus! According to this thermometer, that hull is 10."
The impetuous soldier scoffed. "Come on! It must be 80 out here at least." He leaned forward and laid his hand flat out on the hull. He gasped and pulled his hand away and shook it. "That is fucking cold."
Roher raised an eyebrow and a smile crossed his lips. "No kidding," he said, angry, sarcastic, and happy at the same time.
The helicopters were still circling noisily overhead. "Armored convoy is coming from Fort Bliss," Johnson said over the COM channel to Roher.
"Roger that," the sergeant said. "I wonder why they are directing so much attention here." He turned his attention back to the soldier who was still opening and closing his pained hand. "What's your name, anyway, sergeant?" he asked.
"Sergeant Rowe, sir," he said, saluting.
Roher nodded in approval at this much too late acknowledgment of his authority. His thoughts of this were not allowed to linger, however; at this moment, there was an unsettling noise on the top of the ship. "What the fuck..."
"Christ, the top of the ship is opening, guys," Johnson announced over the Com channel. "There's some sort of... something coming out! Fuck, you guys got some sort of Goddamned alien on your hands!"
Roher wasn't exactly sure what to make of this. Had it not been for the alien appearing just over the edge of the top of the ship, he probably would have believed this to be some sort of joke.
The alien was a ludicrous sight. It stood maybe four feet tall and had a tiny head that was disproportionate to the size of its body. It wore a breathing apparatus which took up much of its face, and it carried a tank on its back as well, presumably for the same purpose as the mask. The tank was almost the size of the rest of its entire body, and its small form was bent over under the immense weight. Its elephant-like feet and clawed hands were both reptilian with blue scales that shone brightly in the rising sun. Across its torso and the top of its head, it wore some sort of armor that was orange in color and almost too reflective to look directly at.
What was most disconcerting to Roher, though, was the irregular shaped weapon it gripped tightly in its awkward hand.
For a moment, both alien and human stood there, stunned to see each other. The tiny alien was the first to react to this unlikely situation. It squealed in some high pitched, unknown language and then raised its weapon.
Despite their obvious shock, the Rangers were not going to stand there and be slaughtered by this ludicrous foe on their own soil. They all raised their weapons as well, training their scopes on the alien's center mass. "Drop it!" Roher called uselessly, for surely this extraterrestrial had no comprehension of the English language.
"Put it the fuck down!" another man called from behind Roher. The situation was escalating dangerously. All the yelling and screaming, combined with forty guns trained on it and seven helicopters overhead, was only making the neurotic thing more nervous. It had its shaking finger on the odd shaped trigger and it would have fired if not for the intervention of some other creature that came on the roof to join this alien. It placed a restraining hand on its shoulder and whispered something in its ear. It yelped and but was immediately quiet thereafter, and it lowered its weapon.
This other alien was quite different from its comrade. It stood over twice as tall as it, and its muscular body was also quite a contrast to the other stout extraterrestrial. It was covered from head to toe in a thick blue armor that looked to the Rangers to be impenetrable. The only part of its enormous form that seemed to be exposed from its protective shell was its face.
The alien walked to the edge of the ship, taking no heed of the many guns pointed directly at him. With a swift and sudden movement he leapt of the edge and landed gracefully and painlessly on the hard rock about fifteen feet below. This startled many of the already shocked soldiers. It shook them even more by surprise when the tall alien slowly walked towards them.
No one hesitated in their actions, and the Rangers' weapons snapped up in unison. "Stop right there!" Roher shouted at the alien, as he looked through his scope.
Either the alien spoke English or the Rangers' obvious intent was conviction enough, for the extraterrestrial halted immediately in its tracks, backed up a step and held its hands up as if protecting its body. It would be a single motion that would change the course of human history forever.
Sergeant-Major Thomas Garrentine was sitting on the deck on one of the Black Hawk Helicopters, his sniper rifle scope constantly trained on the unprotected face of this new alien. Garrentine had always been the "believer" in his squad, and this meeting with another race spooked him more than he would have guessed. He was sure the aliens' intentions were hostile, and that made his finger all too ready to pull the trigger. Then, as he saw the alien hold its hands up, the rising sun made a brilliant flash off of its highly reflective armor.
"Christ, that thing fired at them!" Garrentine cried, easily willing to believe this as the case.
"No, it didn't!" pilot Ben Webster called back to him. "Hold your fire!"
But it was too late - Garrentine pulled the trigger after carefully aiming at the center of the alien's forehead.
Roher was surprised when the alien gave them all a confused look as if to suggest it couldn't understand their hostilities towards it. Its apparent apprehension also shocked him. What startled him the most, however, was when a spray of purple-blue blood spattered across his face and the alien's face caved in on itself.
At first, Roher thought it had thrown something at him, but a not too distant report and the alien's face made the situation all too clear - and not just to him. As the massive alien toppled over face first, the smaller alien above slowly began to comprehend what had just transpired. It then once again raised its weapon and pointed it as the Rangers.
"No, wait, don't..." Roher screamed, but it was too late - a blue-green flame leapt out from the tiny muzzle and sprayed all the soldiers with a withering, superheated flame. Roher was the first to be incinerated by the plasma.
As the Rangers were being massacred, an apache helicopter overhead made a strafing run over the top of the ship and the small alien seemed to disintegrate under the massive firepower of the 30mm chain gun. All four Black Hawks flew directly over the ship and touched down on its surface to deploy the men inside who had been acting as snipers providing cover for the Rangers - all except Thomas Garrentine, who was being held on a Black Hawk for immediate punishment.
Meanwhile, Ben Webster opened a COM link with Holloman Air Force Base. "General Reeves, I suggest you respectfully ask the armored convoy from Fort Bliss to get their asses here ASAP. We have made first contact - and it wasn't pleasant."
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