RED MIST FALLING

by Richard T Green

  Zana ran to the big metal drawer in the kitchen and lifted out the suitcase, walked through into the café and set it down on one of the tables. As I watched her, the memory of that night came flooding back. She'd chosen the table that didn't have any chairs standing on it, the one I’d thrown her onto in my desolate anger, the one that five minutes later had been the place where both of us experienced emotions we'd never felt before.

  The one where I'd finally had to admit to myself I was in love with her.

  She knew the significance of that table. As she lifted a small cylinder out of the case, she looked into my eyes and smiled. ‘This innocent table seems to have played a big part in our story, Madeline,’ she said quietly.

  I stood behind her, wrapped my arms tightly around her waist. She turned to me, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  ‘I love you too,’ I replied, as our lips met in a long, bitter-sweet kiss.

  We both knew it would likely be our last.

  She turned back to the table, pressed a switch on the base of the cylinder, and a tiny blue light began to flash. ‘The beacon is transmitting,’ she said.

  ‘They won't be expecting it though, they know you’ve betrayed them. They’ll think you'll not fire up the beacon.’

  She looked at me with desolate eyes. ‘Maybe they'll think one of the others have set it. They might not know they are all dead.’ She let out a little cry. ‘Either way they have to follow the signal… if they don't pass over us Madeline, I can't do what I have to do.’

  Even in the darkness of the café I could see the pain and desperation in her eyes. I pulled her close, letting her feel the love and togetherness I knew she needed to take the final step.

  ‘What is it you have to do, Zana?’

  She wouldn't look at me. Her voice was breaking as she finally told me what was to happen.

  ‘In less than an hour the ship will be here. It is full of battle troops. I'm going to kill thirty-thousand of my own people, Madeline.’

  I closed my eyes, her words stabbing into my heart. And suddenly I knew why she needed my love. Why she needed me beside her.

  Why she'd said it was because of me.

  ‘Is there no other way?’ I whispered.

  ‘No. I told you they are evil. Cold, heartless warriors, they know no other way. They will take over your planet Madeline, bit by bit.’

  ‘But thirty-thousand troops couldn't possibly defeat the whole of humanity.’

  She shook her head, walked over to the glass doors and stood looking out at the mist. ‘Their master-plan is perfect. If I don't stop it, the ship will sit half a mile above London, and create an electronic fence ten miles in diameter. Everyone inside will be trapped, no human will get in or out. Then those inside the fence will be… adapted. So they become willing workers…’ the words trailed away, choking her into silence.

  It was all starting to make sense. ‘That's why you and the other six were here first.’

  She nodded. ‘Our mission was to study you, carry out research so they knew how you could be controlled, put the plan into operation as soon as they got here.’

  I joined her at the window, stood by her side. ‘But something in you changed.’

  ‘Being around other humans, I began to see what it was like to have a heart, to know compassion. Then what Arik did to Daisy made me seriously question the so-called values that had been instilled in me since birth. But I didn't truly understand until I found love.’

  ‘But I didn't have a heart either, not until you.’

  She turned to me and smiled. ‘Yes you did, Madeline. You just didn't know it.’

  ‘Guess I could say the same about you.’

  ‘Guess you could.’ She walked back to the case, closed the lid. ‘In a few minutes we must go to the top of the hill. The weapon I built has limited range, so we have to be as close to the ship as possible.’

  ‘I still don't understand why your people would even bother to conquer another world so far away?’

  She smiled sadly. ‘Need, Madeline. Our world is tiny, and many years ago it became too small for all of us. We had to look for another planet, so scout vessels began long journeys. You would be surprised to know just how few worlds out there are actually habitable. But then we found yours.’

  ‘But thirty-thousand people won't make a dent in your overcrowding problem.’

  ‘The ship, big as it is, is simply a search-and conquer vessel. Only if their mission succeeds will they send a message back home. Then many others will come.’

  ‘And if they don't?’

  ‘If they are never heard from again, no other ships will make the journey.’

  I blew out my cheeks. ‘There's a lot riding on this then.’

  We walked together through the mist, but as we reached the top of the hill the air cleared. Stretched out below us, the view was breathtaking.

  We were above the mist line, looking across London to a white blanket below us. It felt like we were above the clouds, except the taller buildings of the city stood clear above the fog, their lights reflecting down onto the whiteness below.

  It looked surreal.

  ‘Look at it, Madeline,’ Zana whispered. ‘How beautiful is that?’

  I took her hand, spellbound by the scene stretched out in front of us. ‘It has to be worth all the pain,’ I said quietly.

  ‘It is.’

  She knelt on the ground, unzipped the case and lifted out another cylinder. Taller and thinner than the beacon, its top was pointed with a small hole in its centre. Then she lifted out a three-footed base and clipped the cylinder to it, stood it on a patch of level ground and stepped back.

  My eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing. It looked like a child's toy rocket.

  ‘How is that going to stop a massive great spaceship?’ I gasped.

  She smiled at my disbelief. ‘Knowledge, Madeline. It is as simple as it is deadly.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘The ship is made of a unique alloy. There is nothing else like it in the universe, as much of it as we know anyway. It is an alloy with a biological component.’

  ‘You mean it's… alive?’

  ‘In a simple sense. Think about your plants and trees. Flowers that turn to follow the sun, bloom in spring and close their petals at night. Trees that lose their leaves in autumn, and create them again after the winter. How do they know, Madeline?’

  ‘Because they are living things.’

  ‘Our scientists found a way to integrate that instinctive form of life into the alloy. Hence the biological element.’

  ‘But why? What advantage is that?’

  ‘The entire ship is made of it. Because it can think in a simple way, it reacts to its environment at all times. It protects itself and everyone inside the ship. If it wears or is damaged it repairs itself.’

  ‘Wow. That's one hell of a piece of tin.’

  ‘It is the perfect material. Almost.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘It has one serious flaw. But it is only a flaw if you know how it is made. Which no one outside Calandura does.’

  ‘But you do… you work in biogenetics.’

  She smiled. ‘What happens if you spray a weed with a powerful weed-killer?’

  ‘Um… it shrivels up and dies.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But that takes days to happen.’

  ‘Not on Calandura. We were able to alter the metabolic structure of the alloy so it would react many times quicker than that. So if it was damaged in battle it would repair itself instantly.’

  I pointed a shaking finger at the toy rocket, my eyes wide. ‘So… so that's just a can of weed-killer?’

  Zana laughed. ‘Give me a little more credit! But yes, I suppose you're right. When I fire it into the underside of the ship, it will set off a reaction in the alloy. In a matter of minutes the entire ship will shrivel and die. Nothing will remain except the mother of all dust-storms.’

  I sw
allowed hard. ‘I said you were cleverer than me.’

  Behind us in the distance, a sudden rumble of thunder shook the ground, a flash of lightning momentarily lighting up the sky.

  ‘Oh joy,’ I groaned. ‘First the rain, then the mist, now thunder and lightning. What else is Mother Nature going to throw at us?’

  Then Zana's arms were around me, holding me so tightly it hurt. I looked into her petrified eyes, and knew instantly my weather forecast was wrong.

  ‘That's not Mother Nature, Madeline. They are here.’

  The nausea was back in my stomach. But this time, it relegated all the previous feelings of dread to the very bottom of the league. I’d never known fear like it. It didn't help that the moon made an inopportune appearance in that moment, a bright full disc of light that bathed the mist in an even spookier glow.

  The world around me looked… alien.

  Desperately I strained to see behind me, but the tops of the trees were too high for me to see much. ‘I can't see anything,’ I cried out, unnecessarily.

  ‘They will come in low,’ Zana said. ‘Maximum effect. But they might remain cloaked until the last moment, so no one knows they are here until it is too late.’

  The ground beneath our feet began to shake. Desperately I reached out for Zana, pulled her into me as a low growl of a rumble filled the air. There was no sound of engines, nothing.

  Just a constant rumble of thunder, filling my soul and making me want to cry out and run.

  ‘Don't let go of me, Madeline,’ I heard Zana shout, her voice an echo through the incessant noise building in my ears.

  Still it grew louder, the ground beneath us tremoring so much it felt like we were in the middle of an earthquake. My ears hurt, the awful flat growl trying to shake my brain to bits. I could feel Zana's fingers digging into my back, and then suddenly her lips were locked into mine, a stolen final kiss that stabbed through my heart. ‘This is it Madeline…’ she screamed.

  And then I could see it. First, three huge black pointed probes, spearing menacingly into the moonlight just above our heads; then the massive disc itself, a giant shadow that crept over us at little more than walking pace, slowly blotting out the light as, metre by metre, it filled every inch of sky.

  All I could see now was the belly of the immense craft, its black menace and the mind-numbing noise ripping the breath from my lungs. ‘What the hell do you call big, Zana?’ I cried out.

  I could only just hear her reply, but it sounded like she said, ‘It's just over a mile in diameter, Madeline.’

  Carl turned the van into Dunston's Road just as the ground began to shake. Ryland Cooper looked up from the map on his phone with the tiny red circle showing Madeline's location. Straightaway he saw the bent BMW parked next to the sidewalk, pointed to it, and then cast frightened eyes into the sky.

  ‘Think we got visitors,’ he said in a shaky voice.

  Carl threw him a grin of anticipation as he brought the van to a stop. ‘Where is she?’ he asked as he leaned over to see the readout on the phone.

  ‘Looks like up there somewhere, on the high ground.’

  As the two men climbed out of the van onto the quaking asphalt, the mind-numbing noise hit them. ‘Geez, what the fuck…’ It filled Coop's whole body, he couldn't think straight. ‘Carl, give me a hand here,’ he called out.

  Heading to the back of the van, Carl couldn't hear him through the thunderous noise. He wasn't listening anyway. He just wanted to be in the thick of the action.

  Ryland Cooper heard the van's rear door slam. Then through the windows he caught a flash of Carl running along the sidewalk, and about to take the pathway up the hill.

  They kept an automatic rifle in the van, in case of real emergencies. Now it was slung across Carl's shoulder. He was gone, in his excitement completely forgetting his boss only had one good leg.

  ‘Carl, you fucking moron…’ Coop didn't bother with any more words, he knew the moron would never hear him. And then he realised something. He’d not told Carl Zana didn't look human anymore. Frantically he pulled the phone out of his pocket, began to stumble painfully along the path after him. As the ominous dark shadow of the ship enveloped him in blackness, he keyed Madeline's number to warn her Carl was bumbling their way. It rang three times, and then desolately he killed the call.

  In this goddam awful thunder she'd never hear it ring, let alone make out any of the words he could say.

  Tears were streaming down Zana's face as I pulled her close to me again. She looked frantic, I'd never seen her like that. I knew nothing I could say would comfort her, there were no words.

  The huge black disc was more than halfway across us now. I caught sight of the toy rocket a few metres away from us.

  The ground was quaking so much it was about to topple over.

  ‘Zana!’ I shrieked. ‘The weed-killer; you've got to do it, now!’

  Her head was shaking violently from side to side, manic eyes staring blankly at the disc above her. I grabbed her head to stop it moving, kissed her hard, found the words I needed. ‘I love you… isn't that what all this is about?’

  That seemed to work, she turned and ran to the weapon. As she reached it, it fell over. I joined her, took her hand. ‘It won't stay upright, Madeline,’ she cried. ‘I can't do it.’ She was shaking her head again, the pain and the anguish defeating her resolve.

  ‘Shall I do it?’ I shouted. She nodded, moved away and fell to her knees, crying hysterically. I stood the rocket up, searched for an on button. It fell over again. I looked up, could see the rear of the ship looming closer.

  It had to be now. I found the button. There was nothing else for it, I would have to hold the rocket steady as it fired. I stretched out on the ground, one hand pressed against the base to keep it upright, my body as far away as I could get it, no idea what it might do to me when it went off.

  ‘Zana!’ I shrieked as my finger pressed the button.

  Like a supercharged roman candle, a streak of light particles blasted into the air, slamming into the belly of the craft a hundred feet above us. Zana turned, saw the pillar of sparks and ran to me, grasped my free hand and held on to it so tightly my fingers went numb.

  For fifteen seconds I lay there motionless. It was like holding a firework, nothing bad was happening to me. Then the light died. ‘It's done,’ Zana cried out, as the ship finally passed over us and the hilltop was bathed in moonlight once more.

  The ear-splitting noise began to lessen. Zana stood up to watch the ship begin to disintegrate. I was about to stand up when Carl appeared, automatic rifle in hand.

  He didn't see the truth. All he saw was one of his own lying on the ground, and an alien being standing over her.

  Panic written all over his face, Carl fired the rifle. Ryland Cooper might call him over-excitable and under-intelligent, but he was a very good shot. The bullet thumped into Zana's chest. She crumpled to the ground.

  ‘No!’ My anger and heartbreak boiling over, I flew at the man, pulling Arik's weapon from my pocket. As Carl dropped the rifle and turned to run, I pressed the trigger.

  The gun was spent, it didn't fire.

  But I had another weapon in my armoury. As I caught up with Carl, the cheese-cutter was already in my hands. Blind rage took over, my actions automatic. It only took a second, and then he fell to the ground, his head half severed from his body.

  I ran back to Zana, dropped down next to her and cradled her head in my lap. She smiled, a beautiful smile full of pain and relief. ‘Look Madeline,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse. ‘We did it. There is no danger now.’

  I followed her gaze, saw the giant ship in position right over the city. But now it posed no threat, its once-black body glowing red as its structure dissolved into super-heated dust. The noise was gone, replaced by an eerie silence that seemed to make our voices echo.

  ‘Kiss me,’ I heard her say. My tears came, I leant over and our lips met. She felt cold, the red dapples on her face growing darker.

&nbs
p; ‘Please... don’t leave me. Not now...’

  ‘Don't be sad,’ she said quietly. ‘We did good, you and me. It will all be fine.’

  I smiled for her, through the heartbreak. ‘Yeah... we did good.’ I caressed her face softly as I spoke, it made her smile again. ‘And we shared precious memories.’

  She coughed painfully, looked up into my eyes. ‘I like that word, sharing.’

  ‘I know what it means now.’

  She reached up, stroked my face with trembling fingers. ‘You know all about the power of love too. That's the most precious memory of all, Madeline.’

  Her breathing was shallow now, every intake painful. She was slipping away, and there was nothing I could do. ‘Stay with me Zana... I’ll get help.’ The words were futile, we both knew it.

  ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

  She cried out as I gently lifted her upper body against mine. She managed to fold an arm around my shoulder, despite the pain. I held her delicately to me, her body growing colder still, her head resting on my shoulder. And then, in the faintest of whispers, she said her final words.

  ‘Time to say goodbye, Madeline.’

  I felt her body go limp, and watched her beautiful eyes close for the last time.

  I hadn't noticed Ryland Cooper standing quietly close by, allowing me time to say goodbye to Zana in peace. As soon as he realised she was gone, he walked over.

  ‘Maddie…’

  ‘She's dead, Coop.’

  ‘I'm sorry, kid.’

  I lay her body gently on the ground, stood up next to my friend. And then I was hugging him, holding him tight, breaking my heart. He hugged me back, letting me cry it out.

  ‘What am I going to do, Coop?’

  ‘Get your ass out of here, right now.’

  ‘But, Zana…’

  ‘I'll look after her. It’s pretty clear to see what happened here, and your trademark nullification makes it obvious who killed one of our own. You's a wanted woman now.’

  ‘You should be hauling me in.’

  ‘Yeah I should.’

  I held my hands out in front of him, tears still rolling down my face. ‘Then do your sworn duty, Coop. I don't care anymore.’