SODIUM:2 Apocalypse

by Arseneault, Stephen

  Heinz was a little thinner, but looked to otherwise be in good health. We never found out where he had run off to, but we were happy with his return. Since his departure we had not had any sightings of wild dogs so we guessed he was either leading them or keeping them at bay. Either way we were happy to see him.

  Since our return I had been spending a lot of time outdoors, always watching the skies for our visitors. There had been no sign of the intruders since bringing Janie home.

  Were they regrouping? Were they bringing reinforcements from elsewhere? Would they soon be scouring the countryside in pursuit of us? I had no way of knowing and my old tried and true technique of not stressing over things you don’t control... was not working. There was too much on the line and I was stuck with running scenario after scenario of outcomes through my head.

  After several weeks the stress and idleness was beginning to take its toll. I knew we would need to get back to Daytona soon if we wanted to continue our fight, if not only for my own sanity. Janie was now in good enough shape to travel. She needed to rest, but I knew I was going to have a hard time making her do so. Even with her pain and injuries she was ready to get back in the fight. We spent most of an afternoon getting supplies together and getting the farm in order for another extended stay away from home.

  David’s automatic feeders had worked perfectly for the chickens. I continued to be impressed by his abilities, especially when those abilities were so needed for our continued survival. I had questioned early on whether or not he would be a contributor to our group and those questions had certainly been answered.

  With our farm in good shape we again decided to make our way back to Two Mile camp. Heinz remained at the compound as our lookout as we dare not have him running about and attracting unnecessary attention in battle.

  Upon arrival David and Rachel raced up the tree to our stand. Using the binoculars and spotter scope they swept the countryside for signs of the aliens. I had to restrain Janie to prevent her from climbing up with them. She was not stable enough yet for that level of activity, so she stayed with me on the ground.

  David’s first report was that he could not see the giant ship. Rachel peered towards the beach with the binoculars and alerted David of an area that looked suspicious. David soon called down that there was indeed activity just off the beach at the sight of the first downed water ship.

  It appeared as though they were trying to recover from our attack. David and Rachel again swept the skies and only after a full minute of doing so reported back that some type of smaller black craft was landing on the beach near where the downed ship had been, before the sprayers the sprayers had fogged the debris.

  It was too far to tell if it was a fighter or one of the transports. There was no sign of the mother ship which made me even more nervous. We would have to once again venture down towards the beach to get a better look.

  We made our way to the Daytona camp with the hopes of first getting the big gun up and running again. Debris from the last crashed fighter had severed our power and communications cables between there and the howitzer setup.

  We would have to disconnect the power at the substation before affecting repairs. As I approached the howitzer station I was encouraged to see that everything there looked to be as I had left it. Upon close inspection I was thrilled that the howitzer was still charged and ready to fire. I posted David at the howitzer while Rachel, Janie and I continued to the substation to cut the main gun power.

  Again, the substation seemed to be in perfect working order. With a little time we would have all of our weaponry once again up and ready to use. With David manning the howitzer and Rachel manning Bubba’s machine gun I would be free to reconnoiter the beach and the activity around the downed ship.

  After disconnecting the fuse and affecting our repairs on the power cable, I once again flipped the fuse into place. The arc told me we were now powering up the big gun. While we were there I also took the time to plant another smoke decoy by the vertical gun. We had been lucky and had taken out a fighter with it once so maybe our luck would hold if needed a second time.

  When we returned to Bubba I helped Rachel into the bed of the pickup and made sure the machine gun was again fully functional. I had Janie come with me as I began to head towards the beach. We hadn’t made it 50 yards when I spotted a black craft making its way towards us. Janie and I both turned and ran towards Bubba. Once again time seemed to almost stand still as I ran. I could only see one craft approaching, but that was all that would be needed to kill us all.

  I was not ready to go without a fight though and began immediately to aim the big gun when I returned. I know Janie wished she could contribute more, but nonetheless she had a single thirty-eight out and cocked. If she was going to go it would be while fighting.

  I wanted to call David and warn him, but our communications line was still down. I had not had the time to splice the coax cable that had been severed by the fighter debris. All we could each do now was to hope that the other was ready.

  Once again the predictable craft came straight towards us. I could not believe our luck. I instructed Rachel to wait until it was almost upon us before firing the machine gun. I would have one good shot with the big gun so I didn’t want the distraction from her gun firing. I watched patiently as the craft slowly moved right into my line of fire.

  I only needed a few more seconds when all of the sudden soldiers seemingly came out of the woodwork and were screaming at us to freeze. It took me several seconds to realize they were speaking English... and they were ours!

  When I turned around it was American soldiers with their weapons trained on us. I glanced back at the craft just in time to notice that it was a Blackhawk and not one of the fighters. It was one of our own! Had some of our military survived? Were they here to help? What of the rest of the world? The aliens?

  I had a thousand questions that I wanted to ask all at once. My thoughts then turned to David and the Howitzer. Was he about to blast our own people from the sky? Without our communications link I had no way of stopping him. Luckily our soldiers had coordinated their raid and taken David at the same time.

  Several minutes later we were confronted by an Army Colonel who demanded to know why we were in a militarized zone. I began to tell him our story and after a few minutes he was on the horn to his commander.

  Twenty minutes later another Blackhawk landed and a four star General stepped out and greeted us. By this time the other patrol had brought David over. Another five minutes with the General and he was ready to fly us off for a debriefing.

  It only took me seconds to convince him that it might be to our advantage to give his troops a quick training session on the coil guns. I was informed that there had been no further sign of the aliens and the General’s intelligence indicated that the remaining large craft had left the atmosphere. The fighting was over.

  I couldn’t help but think that our little rag tag army had defeated this gigantic enemy by ourselves. At that moment I know that I was looking around at David and the girls with my jaw dropped. Once again the goose bumps shot up on my arms.

  With another ten minutes taken, the soldiers were given the how-to on the coil guns in case the aliens returned. The final lesson was to let one of them cut loose a burst from the machine gun on Bubba. All the soldiers were in awe and I could tell they each wanted a go at it, the destruction was impressive.

  We had requested that Heinz be picked up. I gave the General my address and they had a chopper ready to go get him in 10 minutes. David and Rachel volunteered to ride in the chopper to pick him up. Within a half hour the soldiers had a tent set up with tables, chairs and refreshments. It seemed the General was able to travel with some comforts.

  A short while later the chopper returned with David, Rachel and Heinz. We talked with the General for several hours. I told him of our battles and the aftermath with the aliens cleaning up their losses before leaving. That's when he informed me that there was still one fighter laying
on the beach. I guessed they must have wanted to recover it, so it had not been fogged. Had David and I not gone back that last night and drove them off they would have left no evidence of their existence behind, that is, except for the immense death and destruction.

  Before we were to leave I turned to the General and asked if he could do me a favor. I asked him if we could have a close look at the downed fighter that was still intact on the beach. He of course approved and our group made its way to the beach. The craft sat nose first in the sand, it had come skipping in on the waves after being knocked from the sky.

  It was 80 feet long and shaped like an arrowhead. There was no windshield or any other indication that it could be piloted by anyone or anything. The exterior was much like that of the larger ships and was covered with piping and boxes. An examination under one side revealed two rails that had the same appearance of the propulsion discs on the larger ships; we had speculated it was how they moved about.

  On one side there was what looked to be one of the helper robots now only partially attached. It was eerie looking even though it was lifeless. As I looked it over I imagined that David would probably love to begin dissecting it. The helper robots were like a slice out of a sphere, domed on the bottom and largely flat across the top with three spindly legs.

  On the fighter ship there appeared to be a carved out space where the dome of the robot would reside for transport. I imagined that the bottom of their transport ships had been covered with the dome shaped depressions and when the last transport made its run to gather robots they had popped right in place on the bottom of the ship as it moved over them. This one on the fighter may have attempted to free itself, but one of its legs had been trapped underneath the fighter.

  The robot had what looked like ten tiny eyes spaced evenly around the rim of the dome which I surmised was how they could see. On the curved bottom were three long spindly legs with several joints on each one. At the lowest joint there appeared to be a claw mechanism that could be used for grabbing or cutting when the end section of the leg was folded up.

  As I looked closely at the claw I was suddenly aware that the solenoid mechanism that powered the claw looked exactly like the object the crazy old man had given me so many years before! The aliens had visited us before and had left this tiny piece of evidence behind! Better yet, that tiny piece of evidence had just been used to defeat them! My head was swirling as I tried to put all the pieces of the past years together.

  I had a million questions that I wanted to ask the old man. How did he come by the solenoid? Had he seen them? Had he fought with them himself? It had easily been thirty five years since I had encountered the old man. I didn't hold out much hope at that moment that he was still alive. What a difficult life he had probably endured not only knowing the aliens were out there, but with everyone he told his story to probably thinking he was a crackpot.

  I continued listening to the General about the world as we continued to walk around the ship. As it turned out the aliens had come in over Tampa and began the systematic destruction of Central Florida. The governments of the world were then all notified of the terms of Earth's surrender.

  After the slaughter of four and a half million souls in just a few days, coupled with the total ineffectiveness of our weapons, the U.S. government along with the U.N. Security Council and the world body of the U.N. unanimously agreed to the surrender terms set forth.

  The alien’s terms were for the peninsula of Florida to be completely evacuated. That included south Florida whose inhabitants had to all be loaded onto cargo and cruise ships and taken to other U.S. gulf ports. It also called for complete radio silence.

  Any violation of this would mean the swift death of the closest populous which would have been Savannah, Atlanta or Charleston. I finally knew why we had not heard a peep over our radio after the first few weeks.

  They had knocked out all orbiting satellites just before entering the atmosphere, so the ground stations were all that had to be shut down. I shuddered at the thought of the entire populous being without TV and radio of any kind. The cell phone companies were completely shut down. Those were daily rituals that we were all addicted to and would be majorly inconvenienced without.

  As it turned out the cable / internet infrastructure along with the still completely intact telephone land lines had allowed the government and military to continue to communicate with the majority of our citizens.

  There were quite a few less channels to choose from without the satellites, but the local channels had all stayed running over the cable as no over the air broadcasts of any type were allowed, and according to the General "thank goodness for the internet".

  Also disallowed were flights of any kind and no ships on the Atlantic seaboard or in the gulf after that first several weeks. Not a single aircraft of any type was allowed to fly anywhere. In the ensuing panic some cities had taken this literally and had also ordered all kites destroyed.

  The paranoia and misinformation had run rampant in some towns and there was also the customary looting by those vile individuals who would try to capitalize on the situation. Several major cities had police battles where hundreds of armed looters and thugs had decided to try to take control for themselves. More than five thousand had died in these fights in the US alone. The military itself had to rely on couriers for much of their communications, until land lines had been sufficiently put to use.

  The General stated that these same scenarios had played out in many cities around the globe. One small nation being run by a dictator had decided to defy the terms of surrender. A single fighter was dispatched and within a few hours another six hundred thousand unfortunate souls were lost to the concussion weapon. Compliance was 100 percent after that and there was no bickering by any nation’s representative at the UN.

  The aliens had come to our planet in search of natural resources. From what we could tell they were looking for Sodium, which we had an abundance of in our oceans. I had wondered why they didn’t just mine the salt from elsewhere where it was much more concentrated and the General filled me in with the Military’s speculation that the mining equipment aboard the ships was specifically geared toward ocean mining, so that’s what they did.

  As it turned out they could have loaded their ship with Sodium and not made a difference to us. If all the salt was removed from the oceans and stacked on land it would cover all the continents with a 500 foot thick layer. It was one resource we had plenty of. It was also a substance that was abundant in the universe, but I guessed again that they needed the water to mine it effectively and water was a tougher commodity to come by.

  The General also revealed that not a single alien had been seen. He believed that all of the ships were autonomous and had been programmed to come in, establish order and take what they wanted. The mother ship had likely either moved to a safe distance where it could affect repairs on itself or it had just left and would make its repairs on its journey home, wherever that may be.

  The Military had only been able to track its initial trajectory that was headed towards a star about 10 light years away. We had no way of knowing how long it had taken them to get here or how long it would take them to get home. We were just glad they were gone.

  For more than three years the nations of the world had been adjusting to the new order of things. Food had been the biggest world problem with millions having starved or having been displaced to areas where food was available.

  With the food supplies disrupted there had also been a number of military skirmishes with civilians who were just in search of food to feed their families. Many a man would turn to savagery on others if it meant the survival of himself or his family. According to the General, many a man had.

  It had taken more than a year for our government and military to get our own society to a somewhat stable and sustainable state. Many in the Southeast had fled to the Western states to get as far away from the aliens as possible.

  The historians would no doubt be having a fie
ld day with the recent events and the politicos would all be second guessing themselves and falling all over each other in search of who to blame. I for one was looking forward to living without the immediate threat of annihilation.

  My first priority would be to see that my little family would be able to stay intact. Rachel and Janie had an Aunt and Uncle in Missouri and David’s grandparents lived on Long Island. We really had not had time to discuss this amongst ourselves with the events unfolding before us so quickly and our minds still occupied with our survival.

  I was certain they all felt the same way as I as we had all become as close as family could be over the last few years. I briefly made mention of this to the General and he said he thought I would be granted just about anything I wanted at this point. I was eager to get back to civilization and all the comforts and conveniences that came with it.

  We posed in front of the downed fighter for a final photo op. As we stood there for several pictures Janie decided to go over to the helper robot and pose with her foot on top of it in triumph. As the camera flashed I heard a metallic screech and I turned just in time to see the helper robot grab onto Janie’s shoe as she screamed and tried to jump away. I dove onto the robot and attempted to free her. Her shoe was released, but only because of the bigger prize now within the robot's reach.

  Of the three multi-jointed legs on the robot only one seemed to be functioning. Using its one available claw the robot released Janie's shoe and then clamped down hard on my left arm severing it just below the shoulder and stripping it to the bone down to the elbow.

  With a second effort it grabbed my left collar bone, immediately shattering it. The claw had pierced my skin and was digging in ever deeper when a Lieutenant who had been standing close by, pulled his weapon and fired repeated rounds into the dome. As soon as it had started it was all over, but the damage to my body had been done.