SODIUM:2 Apocalypse

by Arseneault, Stephen

  We had worked hard on our testing and our plans for more than a year. The days had seemingly flown by during that time, but the final week was taking forever. I knew we would be in the thick of it soon enough, but one couldn’t help but be impatient.

  After our week at home we again ventured out to Two Mile camp to await our victim. The point we had picked almost two miles away, sat on slightly higher ground. With the help of our binoculars and a small platform high up in a large tree, we would know exactly when to pull the trigger.

  The second day brought a large thunderstorm with loads of lightning. I was a bit worried about our whole setup given the fact that a brisk wind in the right direction could not only easily expose one or more of our guns, but also the electronics that went with them. We had tried to take precautions, but Murphy’s Law had a way of making things happen.

  The lightning from the thunderstorm was not far from us. It was David’s turn as lookout in the tree when a bolt struck the adjacent tree right next to where we had Mike parked. After almost falling, from being startled by the strike, David came down from his perch and we went to inspect our mobile gun. I was stunned that it held about a 30 percent charge. Somehow all the electronics had come through unscathed. I could only speculate that the coils had acted as a giant current sink keeping the electronics from being fried.

  For some reason I had not thought about the gun being able to store a charge. If it proved out that it would keep a significant charge for any period of time it would make the weapon truly mobile. We had nothing but time to kill so I checked the charge about every half hour.

  It took two hours for it to fully dissipate and that was with only a 30 percent charge. My conservative guess, if we began with a full charge, was that we could maintain a greater than 50 percent level for more than three hours. That certainly added a new twist to our ability to fight.

  As the storm moved away from us and towards the substation David once again reclaimed his perch in the tree. He was only there a few minutes when he observed a large lightning bolt strike right in the area of the substation. He scrambled down the tree and ran to me with the news.

  Had Mother Nature done us in? Was power still going to the substation? We had to know as we believed we would only get one good shot at our attack. We piled into Bubba and made our way over to our Daytona base camp. We had our two four wheelers on the trailer behind Bubba and quickly rigged them for our inspection. It was raining heavily with lightning strikes all around, but we had to know if our weapons were still functional.

  The alien ship could come at any time and if we were caught underneath we would not be able to fire the guns without killing ourselves. The first three guns checked out as fine and fully charged. The fourth gun had lost some of its camo in the winds of the storm, but was otherwise OK.

  The final weapon however had taken a direct lightning strike and lay scattered about. I was at first apprehensive about our prospects, but we still had four good functioning guns that were charged and ready to fire.

  Since we had a fuse on each of the lines running out to our guns the fuse on the fifth gun had probably saved the substation transformers from receiving any damage, we had wired straight into them. We headed back to Two Mile camp disappointed in our bad luck, but still anticipating letting loose our big strike. Four guns would have to be enough.

  Our vantage point had at one time had a nice home. After some minor investigation, we were able to excavate its power line and hook up our gun behind Mike. We reconnected the fuse on the nearest transformer and we had power flowing to our mobile weapon. It took a several minutes to fully charge with the smaller line, but it would allow us to unhook and travel for some distance with an active weapon. We were happy with whatever extra protection we could get.

  Chapter 19

  The following morning Janie called down from the tree. Our prey was approaching. It took another 20 minutes to settle over the substation and to drop its cables. Two small robotic helpers emerged and went about their task of hooking the great ship up just as each time before.

  My hands were sweating with the anticipation of what we might be unleashing on our foe. David placed his hand on my shoulder and said that we might want to wait until the beast was almost fully recharged. If we were lucky enough to get explosions a full load of fuel, even though it was only electricity, still might help. The kids were warriors and thinkers and I felt blessed to have them fighting by my side.

  The waiting was even more excruciating than before, but what he said had a bit of wisdom to it. I couldn’t help but think that maybe all that power would also be what might save the ship somehow. I was a very patient person, but the minutes seemed like hours and the hours like days.

  A full 20 hours after the ship had connected we decided it was time for a show. We all climbed the tree and struggled to settle in on our little platform. As we counted downward from ten I finally pushed the button on the walkie-talkie.

  Nothing happened! What had we done wrong? Had the ship somehow drained the power from our guns? Was it interfering with our signal? Was it the lightning? It was turning into a catastrophe when everything up until then, excluding the lightning strike, had gone so well. Had the lightning fried our walkie-talkie radio on the other side? My heart sank further with each of those thoughts.

  That’s when Janie pointed out that my radio was not switched on. Here I was about to do battle with Man’s greatest foe ever and a teenage girl had it together better than I. I flipped the power switch and keyed the mic. What happened next gave me goose bumps then and still gives me goose bumps when I tell of it today. What an adrenalin rush…

  The four guns fired simultaneously up into the great ship. Debris shot downward as the hypervelocity tungsten penetrated its hull. We had positioned our guns in just the right places and only a moment after I keyed the mic the behemoth flipped upward at the point of its only functioning propulsion disc while the other end crashed violently down to the ground on the beach.

  For a few seconds the great ship stood upright on its side as we watched the flashes from secondary explosions on the underside of the great beast. The whole scene was surreal and no movie special effects could have ever done it justice.

  In a final death roll the ship finished its flip and crashed into the ocean waves upside down... fire and smoke billowing from its now exposed underbelly. We watched with our jaws dropped and a few seconds later were ecstatic when the rumbling sound finally made it to us. As the once mighty ship now lay upside down and on fire, it became evident that it was a complete and utter victory.

  At that moment we were all experiencing what was probably the greatest group hug for mankind in his short existence on the planet. In our excitement we almost fell out of the tree. We watched for several minutes as nearly half of the great ship began to burn. All I could think of at that instant was "burn baby burn".

  The massive ship now lay just off the beach, upside down in about 30 feet of water. A few minutes passed and then a major explosion blew nearly a quarter of the damaged ship to kingdom come. I surmised that it was the power storage source now interacting with the saltwater.

  Again the results were spectacular and I didn’t know if mankind would ever experience a prouder moment. Rachel had the digital camera out and was snapping pictures of the action. I could only imagine the money those pictures would have brought if there had been a media around to fight over them. The images gave us one more reason for an eager return to home, so that we could relive our ultimate moment.

  It then occurred to me that there was another ship out there of the same size, backed up by one ten times as large. It was time for us to move as we had already wasted precious minutes with our gawking and celebration.

  We scampered down the tree, unhooked our mobile gun from the power line and began to break camp. David took one final look with the binoculars and informed me that at least one of the fighter ships was now circling over the wreckage. We gathered ourselves as fast as we could and made a bee
line down our getaway road. In two hours we were secure in our compound with the vehicles safely hidden away.

  The excitement was just too much for us and we stayed up all night reliving the moment over and over. Rachel had taken the camera and recorded the event live before snapping away with pictures. We watched the recording again and again that night, each time brought celebration.

  For me I felt as though I had finally done something right in my life, and for the girls and David it was thoughts of justice for the slaying of their loved ones. The best part of all was that we had all escaped unscathed and were ready and eager to fight another day.

  We let three weeks pass before deciding to venture back towards Daytona. After a short stop just up from the Ferrari memorial to put a charge on our mobile gun we headed to Two Mile camp.

  When we arrived the first item of business was to again hook up our remaining gun to the grid. Two minutes later and we were ready for battle if needed. We would have to be completely lucky with a ship just happening to fly directly into our firing line, but it felt good to at least have something for our defense.

  Rachel and Janie shouted down from the tree perch that the wreckage was still there. There were several of the fighter ships hovering around it, and what looked like some ongoing activity on top of its overturned hull.

  We would have to make our way back down to the Daytona camp to get a better look. With the fighters around we would have to be extra careful to maintain our cover in the overgrowth. We decided to leave Mike and the gun charging at the Two Mile camp and had even taken a few minutes to aim the gun towards the path we had taken from there to the Daytona camp. If we had to run and they happened to chase, we hoped we could get off a lucky shot. It would have to have divine guidance to score a hit, but at least it was something.

  We managed to creep into the Daytona camp and get Bubba and the four wheelers covered. We would do our surveillance on foot as we needed to get close to get good intel. I carried the binoculars and David the spotter scope. We made it to just under half a mile away before deciding any further was too risky.

  Our first mission was to conceal our little outpost. We had a good stockpile of camo tarps to draw from as a previous Army Navy store had been located on one of our scavenging travels. Even with the crushed building we were able to dig out all the tarps we could ever want. They had certainly come in handy.

  The defeated ship lay still in the water showing tremendous damage. One quarter of the ship was missing after the last great explosion, and a full third of the rest was a burned out hulk. After observing the activity going on around it, we determined that it was nothing more than a salvage operation. The still intact part of the hull was teaming with activity from hundreds of the little helper robots, small freight carriers were occasionally lifting off and heading out towards the other water ship.

  The remaining water ship was still hovering in the same position it had been in for the past year. There were still signs of damage and there was still activity from the robots on those sections, but it looked to at least be partially functioning again as far as the mineral extraction went.

  The mother ship hovered about a mile above it on the other side. The freighter craft were still lifting off from the remaining water ship towards the larger craft with their stolen cargo.

  We would return to Daytona to spy a number of times in the weeks after. Each time the activity was the same, although the activity at the destroyed craft seemed to be winding down.

  I had taken the time to check out the substation and our vertical guns. The substation itself had been damaged, but looked to be largely intact, meaning it still had power. The vertical guns had been obliterated by the blowback from their victim.

  From the looks of it, and because there had not been any searching for us, I guessed that they had no idea of what had taken place. Maybe they thought it was some type of catastrophic failure as there was no evidence of any warhead or explosive. There was also no evidence of anything but an accident. Our luck to date had been more than we could have ever hoped for.

  We returned to our homestead with new plans. With the impressive power that our guns had managed we felt we could make a half scale version that we could place on a swivel base. With faster charging and with the ability to aim we reasoned that it might give us a fighting chance against one or more of the fighters.

  Again it took months of work to gather the resources needed. I was getting good at welding and figured that I could build just about anything I needed given the time and materials. As it ended up, we took an old rear axle from a small pickup and mounted our newest gun on it, we called it our howitzer. We could easily tow it behind any of our vehicles and with just a little muscle we could aim it before getting out of the way to fire it.

  As part of our battle plans we also made a few remotely controlled decoys. Two were just radios that would start broadcasting when they received a signal and three were smoke bombs that would detonate when triggered. We felt we would need to make use of every trick in the book if we were going to stand even the slightest chance against an assault of any kind. The enemy had defenses while we had few. Our only real defense was that they didn’t know we were there.

  One idea I had was that if we built another of the half sized guns as a vertical gun and rigged one of the decoy devices up beside it, we might be able to lure a fighter in and blast it from a remote location. We would get to work immediately on two such weapons after completing the howitzer.

  David had also resurrected our original hand held coil gun with a few extra modifications. With power supplied from the grid it could fire a steady stream of tungsten pellets with an energy force of better than a .50 caliber machine gun. We would not be able to hold it for such, but after welding up a nice swivel base in Bubba’s bed, we could put up a modest defense if we had power.

  All of our planning and work was exhausting, but the levels of adrenalin created from our initial success kept us working hard and barely sleeping at night. I for one could not wait for another engagement with our nemesis. It took us another four months to bring together our new military equipment. With our weapons complete it was again time for some training. So, off to the Ferrari substation we went.

  The overgrowth was now encroaching on the transformers within the chain link fence. I felt it would not be long before Mother Nature would be knocking out our little well of power. It would be too dangerous to practice around the Daytona station.

  We hooked up the howitzer first and took several practice shots with it. Again the only way we were able to control such force was with an equal force going out the back.

  The half sized weapon was recharged and ready to fire again in less than ten seconds. We had hoped for such and had made an automatic ammo feeder mechanism to go along with it. Our electronics work to date had been outstanding and the auto feeder was no disappointment. About every ten seconds a new round would shoot out in each direction.

  Each salvo was accompanied by a loud crack as the speed of sound was breached. And each salvo cut an even deeper swathe through the forest before us as well as the one behind us. The girls had fired every round and I had to say they both loved the power.

  After several dozen rounds we switched our attention to the swivel gun mounted on Bubba. I wanted a go of it first. I know David was a little disappointed since it was his baby, but he offered no argument against it.

  We connected the power cables and David flipped the fuse into place. We had the auto feeder dialed up and I let a five second burst fly. It was a good thing we had taken the time to really make the swivel mount sturdy as I could feel that the back pressure being generated was immense. With each five second burst I could cut a two foot diameter tree in half.

  I was beginning to think we might just have a shot at defending ourselves after all. If we could catch a fighter with its shield defending a different side we could do some real damage to it. I believed the fighter's defense was the concussion shield and I had a gut feeling tha
t it could only be aimed in one direction at a time. The nature of it focusing a wave of energy down to a point would have to leave other parts of the ship vulnerable.

  For simultaneous attacks I guessed they would rely on stretching out the point of concussion on a first projectile and then swing it around and focus it closer in for the second. It was pure speculation on my part, but I was willing to take some risks over it. With our day of practice complete we headed home to begin preparations for our next offensive.

  Chapter 20

  We tended the animals as best we could as we were planning to deploy our little army to the field for at least a week. David devised an automatic feeder for the chickens and a new calf would hopefully take care of our milking for us. We had taken one of our old refrigerators and strapped it to one of the trailers.

  We would be making our base at Two Mile camp and would be able to power the fridge for our horde of food from there. None of us could wait to get back in the fight with the aliens and I guessed that it was partially because we had not suffered any casualties, as of yet. When and if we did it would be a very bitter pill to swallow.

  I loved those three and had not felt like that since being a young boy around my parents. I remember idolizing my father before getting to the age where your friends became far more interesting. It was a feeling of peace and security, and even though I was dealing with three teenagers now, I once again had that feeling. I had not met anyone in all my days that I would rather be going into battle with. All three were loyal, intelligent and seemingly fearless.

  The lack of fear is what sometimes makes people into fools. That same lack of fear is also what makes some people heroes. Heroes after all are not born. They are self-made through their actions and deeds. With the three of them having already contributed so much to taking out that first ship, they were all heroes to me.