by Bobby Adair
In a way, it feels like a cowardly thing, skulking like this, but maybe covert operations always feel that way. Or maybe it’s that the platoon is part of a nine-battalion force of highly trained soldiers headed to the moon to root eighteen bulbous-headed aliens out of an unwelcome starship parked there. Six thousand of earth’s most skilled killers exterminating frail creatures that probably don’t weigh forty pounds each doesn’t seem fair.
But then, humans aren’t just vicious. They’re clever. Secrecy and surprise can be just as effective as brute force in subduing an enemy.
Such are the boredom-spawned thoughts that lollygag through Kane’s head after sitting for three hours in a metal bin designed for hauling ore.
Like him, most of the other men in the trailer are quiet, drifting through their thoughts, maybe replaying memories of their last time naked under the sheets with a girlfriend, maybe seeing the smiles of their children in the sunshine of the front yard, watching with proud eyes as daddy strides away in his uniform.
Maybe the men are thinking of their first trip into outer space, a venture into the unknown. Until this day, a rare privilege for people from the planet earth.
Perhaps they’re thinking about the battle that awaits them on the moon.
Will victory come easy?
Kane’s fingers play across the metal of his M4. It’s a calming ritual created out of nervousness in just such a situation some years ago. Maybe it started in Afghanistan, maybe Syria. He doesn’t remember. Kane first became aware of the habit when it was pointed out to him by a corporal who got himself shot by a sniper twelve hours later. Since then he let his fingers busy themselves when they needed to, not thinking anything of it, except that it tended to help pre-battle stresses simmer down to calm.
His fingers graze the handle and trigger guard. They’re oddly shaped, made to fit the thick gloves he’ll be wearing once it comes time to put the weapon to use. The trigger guard is just one example of the thousands of little things the scientists and engineers have been obsessing over to make sure humanity’s first military adventure in outer space will end in victory.
He finds the modification comforting.
Chapter 2
The semi’s diesel rumbles as it climbs the steep grade. Its destination, a molybdenum operation that’s been strip-mining a few peaks at nearly twelve thousand feet on and off for over a century.
Sitting high in the mountains between two nearby ski resorts, the mine goes unnoticed, just as three tall, tin-covered buildings stand invisible in plain sight—unremarkable structures among a dozen others that serve no readily apparent purpose.
Relatively few people on earth understand the workings of a mining operation. Not one alien on that interstellar cruiser parked up on the moon has a clue what any of the buildings holds. Throw in the remote location and a steady flow of large trucks both in and out, and the mine became one of the hundreds of spots chosen across the globe to hide a launch site.
Kane and the platoon have been up the road to the site at least a dozen times. The generals running the show know they’re sending their soldiers into a theater of war in a place no human has ever fought before, a place that can only be roughly simulated on earth. They chose to familiarize the men with the bits they could.
“Here’s what I don’t get, Sarge.” It’s Harney talking, First Squad’s sergeant.
Kane looks up from his busy nothings.
“It’s just the eighteen Grays up there, right?”
Kane nods.
“Eighteen Pinocchio-size aliens, right?”
Kane nods again, though nobody knows the number for sure. “You saw the video just like everybody else. But then again, that ship’s pretty big, a kilometer long. Could be a million of ‘em sardined inside, I suppose.”
Harney shakes his head. “They’re telepathic, right? That’s what the scientist said.”
Kane knows who Harney is talking about, but he asks anyway. “The one in the video?”
“One of the ones they sent up there last year,” says Harney, clarifying. “With those others, after the ship landed there, the ones the Grays captured.”
Lieutenant Garcia, sitting across from Kane against the wall of the trailer, nudges Harney. “You never get when he’s yankin’ your chain, Harney. He knows there aren’t that many. Or they’re telepathic. I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” says Harney. “I know. I’m just saying, they’re telepathic, and telepaths can’t lie.”
Kane takes a moment before he responds. “I’m telepathic, and I lie.”
Harney ignores Kane’s response. “I saw on TV. They were saying the aliens read minds so they can’t hide a secret from each other, so they won’t know what a lie is. That’s all I’m saying. So if they say they’re only eighteen of them up there, then we have to believe them, right?”
“I think you watch too much TV.” Kane looks over at Garcia for help.
Garcia says, “It doesn’t matter if there are eighteen Grays or not. The Grays said they have some other species for slaves up on that ship. They’re the ones the Grays have been forcing to build those weird structures. Might be a thousand slaves up there—maybe ten thousand. We don’t know, but I can tell you one thing, it’ll be the slaves we need to worry about.”
“Slaves don’t count,” says Harney, turning his attention to the lieutenant. “Nobody gives a weapon to a slave and tells him to go fight the war for them.” Nobody responds to that, so Harney shrugs like he’s been asked a question. “Put a gun in a slave’s hand and the first thing he’ll do is kill his master.” Harney looks back at Kane. “Right, Sarge?”
“Is that what you’d do?” Kane asks.
“In a heartbeat,” answers Harney. He glances at Garcia. “You?”
“If you’ve already killed the master in a heartbeat,” answers Garcia, “I don’t see I’d need to do anything.”
“That’s not the point,” Harney tells him, looking back at Kane. “Right?”
In a bored tone, Kane agrees. “Right. That’s not the point.”
“No,” argues Harney, but his attention is glued to Kane now. “Would you kill your master if you were a slave?”
“I suppose,” says Kane. “But it’s complicated.”
“Not for me it isn’t,” says Harney. “It’s simple.”
“That’s because you’re a killer,” says Kane, thinking maybe it’s time to lighten the mood before Harney goes too far into the oddball theories he picked up from the Internet. “That’s why LT likes you best. After he gets killed by a gray Pinocchio, and I’m busy pissing in my space suit while I hide behind a moon rock, you’ll take over the platoon and lead them in.”
“The platoon?” Harney asks, thrown off balance.
“Yeah,” says Kane, just starting to smile. “Me and Garcia talked about it with the other sergeants last night. We all agree. You’re like a little trailer trash Napoleon. I’m proud to know you. Hell, I might even name my kid after you.”
Garcia laughs.
Harney gets it. “You’re messin’ with me.”
“You think?” Kane smiles for real.
“When’s that baby due?” asks Garcia, changing the subject.
“Next month,” answers Kane.
“Does she know we’re launching into space today?” asks Garcia, referring to Kane’s wife.
“She thinks I’m a miner,” answers Kane. “I never told her I was in the military. They told us this was top secret, so I haven’t said a word. You tell your wife?”
“Didn’t have to,” answers Garcia. “We’ve been married for six years. She reads my thoughts.” He nudges Harney again and smiles. “I think she’s telepathic.”
“Top secret is probably stupid for this,” says Harney. “Does anybody think the Grays have spies down here?” He looks at Garcia and grins. “Besides your wife, I mean.”
“It’s not about spies,” says Garcia. “If it gets out on the radio or TV, who’s to say t
he Grays won’t pick it up? I bet they’re monitoring us. They’d be stupid if they weren’t, don’t you think?”
Harney nods noncommittally, turns back to Kane, and goes back to the original question. “So what would you do? Would you shoot your master?”
“Of course,” answers Kane. “But nothing’s ever as clear-cut as you imagine it’s going to be.”
Harney thinks about it for a moment before replying, “So that’s why we’re sending up a few hundred rockets and six thousand men?”
“Where’d you get those numbers?” asks Kane, knowing that his tone is implying that those are the top-secret figures. At least those are the numbers everybody’s whispering.
“Rumors,” answers Harney, defensively.
“Did you hear it,” asks Garcia, “or pass it along?”
“Just heard it,” Harney answers without taking enough time to recall one way or the other.
Kane glares at Harney, but softens his gaze after a moment. The information is out there, that much is sure. If the Grays know, then there’s nothing that can be done about it now. The attack is on. The rockets will be launching no matter what.
Kane smiles at the irony of that expression.
No matter what.
Ever since the alien ship blipped out of hyperspace two years ago and floated in a geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic for a few weeks before settling into a seemingly random spot on the moon’s surface, everybody’s idea on the size of the realm of possibility had expanded.
Harney’s not done with his point. “All I’m trying to say is if we’re sending up all these ships, and all these men to kill eighteen little aliens and their unarmed slaves, it seems to me like we’re overkilling to the max, unless there’s something about this whole operation we don’t know.” He pauses as he casts a knowing look at both Kane and Garcia. “Or there’s something they’re not telling us.”
Garcia laughs out loud. “Are you kidding me with that?”
“With what?” asks Harney, defensive again.
“There’s an alien ship on the moon,” Garcia pauses and then repeats, “an alien ship that’s three times the size of an aircraft carrier. Until a couple of days ago, when the aliens broadcast the video with the scientists they captured, we didn’t know anything about them or their ship except it could fly faster than the speed of light and—”
Harney cuts in. “We don’t know that.”
“Know what?” asks Garcia.
“That it flies faster than the speed of light.”
“What?” Garcia is looking for a way to counter Harney’s point.
“We don’t know for sure it flies that fast,” says Kane, “but we can guess. The ship appeared suddenly out of nowhere. That means it spontaneously created itself twenty thousand miles out in space—not likely—or it somehow traverses through higher dimensions of existence and decided to stop for a visit in our three-dimensional space—mathematically possible, I guess, but also unlikely.”
Harney looks confused but Kane pushes on to make his point, “Or they devised some method to travel faster than the speed of light, maybe a wormhole or something. They seemed to appear from nothing because we saw them after they came out of hyper-light travel. Heck, for all we know, they’re so far ahead of the light reflected from their ship while they were traveling here, our telescopes will still see them coming for years after they’ve already come and gone.
Garcia laughs now. “Is that possible?”
Kane shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not a physicist. I’m a soldier.”
“Fine,” concedes Harney, “They fly faster than the speed of light. What’s your point?”
“My point is,” says Kane, “a couple years ago, we didn’t know that was possible. We didn’t know aliens existed. When we sent that probe up there with those six scientists, we didn’t know the Grays would shoot at it. We didn’t know they’d keep those scientists hostage for a year. We didn’t expect the Grays to put one of them on TV and tell us they were going to be our new slave masters and that our only choice in the matter was to decide how long it was going to take us to get the hell over it. I’d say there’s plenty of evidence to support the idea that there’s a lot up there we don’t know anything about.”
“Yeah.” Harney slumps as he sits, looks up at Kane, and absently says, “You think we’ll get killed? Most of us? Maybe all of us?”
Kane shakes his head and lies, because Harney’s question isn’t the kind you answer honestly in front of men on their way to war in the unknown. “I’d say we’re sending up a force so overwhelming none of us will get killed. We’ll scare the piss out of those little gray bastards. We’ll free the scientists, put the Grays in a cage, and take their ship.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” says Kane. “We’re sending up so many guys because it’s all about capturing the ship, right? Technology to travel the stars is sitting on the moon for the taking. That would be huge for humankind. That’s Star Wars kind of shit right there. If this were only about winning, the generals would send up a few nukes and leave nothing but a dirty spot on the moon where the aliens’ ship used to be, and we’d watch the whole thing on a big HD screen while we got drunk and ate bratwurst.”
Harney turns to Garcia and asks, “Is that true, LT?”
Lieutenant Garcia backs up Kane’s version with a nod.
Kane only hopes he’s right. Everything he said could be true. The stickler in the whole thing is the point that nags at him and everybody who’s been paying any attention since the Grays’ ship showed up two years ago.
Twelve months after the arrival, nearly a year after the alien ship found its spot on the moon, earth’s space-faring governments launched six scientists in the company of a few military types. They hoped to greet the aliens to the solar system and offer them earth’s friendship.
That didn’t work out.
The Grays disabled the scientists’ lunar lander and captured them.
A year later, a few days ago, the aliens set the invasion in motion.
They broadcast a video of one of the scientists standing with eighteen silent Grays arrayed in a semicircle behind him. At the invader’s behest, the scientist told earth’s people to accept the role as slaves for the next twenty thousand years so the Grays could shepherd humanity to a transcendent state of being. If earth didn’t want to accept that, then the little bastards would take humans as permanent slaves by their right of conquest.
Conquest?
There were just eighteen of them with one ship and some number of slave creatures.
No world leader, not one politician at any level of any government considered surrendering to the Grays.
The Grays were arrogant. They were bluffing. That’s what everyone thought.
All that message did was unite the world in anger at the diminutive creatures on the moon.
The nagging question bothering Kane was what if they weren’t bluffing? What kind of weapons were they hiding? What if they do have the power to subjugate the entire planet?
Chapter 3
The truck parks beneath a pavilion and the men groan as they unload.
Kane stretches his legs and back as he walks around in the thin, cold air. He looks west at the sun sinking toward the horizon. Fateful thoughts cross his mind. Is this my last breath of air on earth? Is this the last sunset?
The useless crap that goes through a man’s mind before he’s off to war.
If death finds me, so be it.
Kane won’t cower. He won’t throw his life away, but his mission is much bigger than him, more valuable than the lives of the men and women launching tonight. The little gray aliens on the moon are proof the universe is a hazardous place, and earthlings are a technologically backward people.
That needs to be remedied.
Garcia walks up. “I just talked to Captain Chamberlain. He’s switching spots with us.”
“What do you mean?” asks Kane.
/> Garcia points to the nearest of the three tall structures. “He’s taking Alpha.” Garcia then points to the third tin-covered structure a half-mile away. “We’ll take his ship, Charlie.”
Kane shakes his head. This ship. That ship. It shouldn’t make a difference. But a last-minute change makes him feel like something’s being taken from him. “Our pilot and copilot?”
“Jensen and Dorsey stay with the ship.”
Kane stifles a curse. The platoon has been drilling with Jensen and Dorsey for nearly eight months. “Why?”
Garcia shakes his head and looks away.
Kane suspects something. “You know. Tell me.”
Garcia grits his teeth and leans in close. In a voice just above a whisper, he says, “Jensen made the best score through the simulations, didn’t crash once. At least not when the ship wasn’t so damaged it couldn’t fly.”
“And?” Kane asks. He never bothered to ask any questions about pilot performance. He always figured the simulator runs were more about getting the platoon accustomed to the rigors of a moon assault.
“Howard and Booker,” says Garcia, “the captain’s pilot and copilot, killed the whole platoon at least once a week.”
“You’re shitting me.” Kane says it, but he already believes. “And Captain Chamberlain can take our guys, just like that?”
“Nothing I can do about it,” says Garcia. “It comes straight from Colonel Knox.”
Kane mutters a curse. The Army should have never put a colonel in charge of a company, no matter how important the mission.
Garcia taps his watch and points to the furthest tower again. “Thirty minutes and we need to be down there. Give the men a few more minutes, and then get them moving that way.”
“Yes, sir.” Kane’s fuming.
