A Drop in the Ocean

by James Cooke

  ‘They're gone, they ran off as soon as they heard gunshots. I should think they’ll be far enough away by now.’ Sarah replied.

  Chapter 29

  The crew on board the cargo ship waiting offshore had just finished loading the spaceship into a purpose-built wooden shipping crate when the remainder of Eghert’s men took off in their rib. The Filipino Captain gave the order for the anchor to be weighed, and the first officer set a course east to Guam. Egherts men intended to rendezvous with the USS Carrier George H.W Bush several miles to the North. The spaceship was strapped down with chains within the shipping crate, which itself was bolted to the cargo deck in preparation for the long journey ahead. Just as the last nail was hammered home on the shipping crate lid, a myriad of multi-coloured lights lit up within the spaceship.

  The timer had reached zero and the detonation circuit activated. A small thermo-nuclear reaction acted as the catalyst for the main event. Surrounding the nuclear detonator, a shell of hyperdense material composed entirely of quarks was held in place by a cryogenic magnetic field. After detonation, the magnetic field collapsed, and the densely packed quarks ripped apart at the speed of light releasing a ball of plasma with the energy equivalent to a conventional one hundred megaton hydrogen bomb.

  The difference was that the blast radius was limited to a much smaller volume, about half a kilometre in diameter. The effect was nonetheless devastating. All matter within the blast volume was instantly vaporised into component atoms. In a fraction of a second, a sonic shock wave radiated outwards, creating a powerful pressure blast that would in no time at all, hit the Island. Just as Foss had predicted, the explosion left behind a spherical void, until seawater poured in under the pressure of the surrounding ocean. The in-rushing water created a tsunami wave travelling at five hundred miles an hour, which would arrive at the coast of South Africa some two and a half hours later. The sonic shockwave blast dissipated the further it travelled, nevertheless, by the time it hit the research base less than a minute later, it still packed the punch of a category four hurricane.

  The resulting blast of air ripped away all but the sturdiest parts of the research base structure. Much of the aluminium roofing was torn apart, like peeling paper off a wall, in the ensuing maelstrom. As Brian, Foss, Lucy, and Sarah hung on to the undercarriage of the truck for dear life, they could feel the impact of flying objects hitting the truck. Foss was absolutely right though, it didn’t move, and although it seemed like minutes of utter chaos at the time, it was actually all over within a few seconds. As they emerged from underneath the truck and dusted themselves down, it was clear that they were entirely unharmed, sustaining no injuries. The sense of relief that it was all over was overwhelming, Brian and Sarah had tears in their eyes, hugged each other, and then Lucy, who didn’t resist but clearly felt confused at their actions.

  ‘Wow, good call agent Foss, you saved our lives.’ Brian said.

  Foss flicked her head side to side, shaking the dust off her long silky black hair.

  ‘No problem. Hell, this place is going to need a shit load of rebuilding to fix. By the way, just so we’re perfectly clear, what you just experienced was a natural disaster, yeah. Some sort of freak storm. Please, can I have your agreement on that?’ Foss replied.

  ‘Yeah sure, a natural disaster if anyone asks, came out of nowhere, I get it.’ Sarah chipped in.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll have enough paperwork as it is with that creep lying over there.’ Foss replied and then she added, ‘Well if it’s all the same to you, I suggest we all go and have a well-deserved drink, that is assuming the bar is still intact, while we wait for the return of the others of course.’

  Eventually, they found the bar or what was left of it. Brian rummaged behind the counter while Foss, Lucy, and Sarah perched themselves on the remains of the bar stools.

  Lady luck was still with them, a bottle of bourbon begged to be opened. Brian poured three large glasses.

  ‘To us, to the world, and most of all, to Lucy.’ Brian toasted.

  They all necked it down as if it were to be their very last drink.

  ‘Mr. Hopper!’ Foss asked.

  Before she could continue, Brian interrupted her, ‘Hey c’mon, less of the Mr Hopper, I think we’ve been through enough now, for you to call me Brian all of the time, yeah?’

  Sarah tutted and shook her head.

  ‘Whatever, Brian. I think you should be aware of the bigger picture here.’ Foss went on.

  He put his glass down and waited for the punchline.

  ‘By sheer coincidence more than anything, you happened to be in the right place at the right time when that UFO crash landed in Canada.’

  ‘You mean the alien spaceship?’

  ‘Okay spaceship. The thing is, your subsequent intervention in heading off on a wild goose chase with Lucy and Sarah here, was, also as it turns out extremely fortunate for all of us. What you don’t know is that Colonel Eghert has been, or was as is now the case, under investigation for a long time, for reasons that I can’t fully divulge. Needless to say, it was suspected that he was part of a covert group that still want to use alien technology for their own nefarious purposes.’ Foss explained.

  This was all way out of Brian’s league and too much to take in. Further clarification of his involvement felt unnecessary, it was a lot to take in and process, and he needed time to do it his way.

  ‘With all due respect agent Foss, I hear what you are saying, but you need to know, that I for one, am just a truck driver who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t ask to get involved in any of this.’ Brian said.

  ‘That goes for me too, the bit about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Sarah chipped in.

  ‘Hey, relax guys, the worst is over, for now anyway.’ Foss replied.

  Brian’s head was spinning, and it occurred to him that he might still be stuck in a dream, perhaps, suddenly about to wake up from the crash. He could hear a voice calling his name, only it was getting louder and louder. ‘Brian, BRIAN! What the hell’s the matter with you.’

  He felt somebody shaking him. Snapping out of his daydream, he saw the angst on Sarah’s face.

  ‘Hey, are you ok, you seemed to have drifted off with the fairies!’ she said.

  ‘Yeah I’m ok thanks’ Brian replied groggily.

  He then remembered what agent Foss had just said, and asked, ‘What the hell do you mean “the worst is over for now”?’

  There was an awkward silence, and Foss sat upright in her chair, letting out a deep sigh.

  ‘Okay, basically we have good reason to believe that there are quite a few more of those things, a Kel-Taire as you called it, scattered around the world and we don’t know if they are a threat or not.’

  ‘Oh my god, are you absolutely sure about that?’ Sarah replied.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. This is off the record you understand. We, that is the US Government, are aware of other similar spaceships’ having arrived on Earth in the past seventy years, and we have good reasons to believe that they all came from the same space coordinates. So, as you can see, we are not entirely out of danger.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Brian asked, naively.

  ‘Why, because we simply don’t know where those damn things, are.’

  Lucy interrupted, ‘I do!’

  End