”Holy hell, I wish you guys could see this,” Aldridge felt renewed energy, “It’s… it’s definitely a craft of some kind. I’m... I’m going right up close in about ten minutes. Maybe less. It’s a... spaceship. There's no other way to describe it. Bigger than anything the Russians could have put up here – unless they brought it here piece by piece and built it. But that’s… that’s not possible. It's a spacecraft – from another world.”
Aldridge’s long steps became five meter leaps over the moon’s surface. The object started to get closer very quickly and the sparkling surface seemed brighter and more brilliant. The large B inscribed on the side of the object became more prominent as he approached. He’d expected that the letter would disappear, the result of some optical illusion caused by the sunlight. But it didn’t.
”I’m certain now that this craft has a large letter B etched on the side of it,” he continued to bounce towards the target, “It’s big. No way was this brought here by us. So you get to meet your… your, ah, little green men, Whizzo,” he paused. His mouth was dry all of a sudden, “Whether we’re ready or not, I guess.”
He stopped talking then. Narrating the journey towards the shimmering object had helped steady his nerves, galvanise his thoughts. He was close enough to the ship now to make out some of the finer details. The hull was smooth and seamless. It sparkled with fine, diamond-like particles. The letter B was carved perfectly and deeply into the twinkling metal hull. Aldridge wondered if it represented some alien symbol, but it appeared quite clearly as the second letter in the English alphabet. Slightly forward of this was the first of three ridges that separated the cylindrical body from the pointed end. Each ridge was about a half metre wide and spaced about a metre apart. But, unlike the big 'B', each ridge seemed composed of material that reminded Aldridge of electronic circuitry.
He landed on both feet about ten metres from the side of the ship. The instrument package no longer seemed to have any weight. All his attention was focussed on the alien object. Nothing else mattered anymore.
His helmet radio crackled. Coleman’s voice was faint and so very far away. Aldridge couldn't make out what his friend was saying. Aldridge wondered if the alien object was causing some kind of interference.
“Captain?” Coleman was barely audible, “Where is you at, Chris?”
The last word came through surprisingly loud and clear. Aldridge turned round with a skip and a jump, looking back towards the Odyssey lunar module. It was invisible; obscured behind two hills he had traversed. He smiled to himself as he studied the uneven footprints he'd left in the soft lunar dust.
”I’m here,” Aldridge replied, “Lost you for a while, Whizzo. Had some signal issues. How are you reading my transmission?”
”Five by five. You faded out a few minutes ago. I didn't catch all of your transmission. Something about me meeting my Martian?”
”That's affirmative. You're gonna love this. I’m about ready to set down the instrument package. I'll give you the whole story once I've done that. You’ve got to see this thing.”
”It really sounds amazing, Chris, but I’ve been trying to get through to you. We’ve got new orders. You’re not going to like this, Captain, but you’ve got to return to Odyssey immediately. Orders from Houston. Once you get within thirty metres distance of the... of... ah... it... you’ve got to leave the instrument package on the lunar surface and return to the LEM.”
Aldridge held his breath. He stared at the spacecraft lying in the lunar dust. He started to breathe again. The rasping, laboured sound was loud in his own ears. He examined the spacecraft as he considered what to say next. And that's when he realised what the B stood for. It was written, in small black letters, above a hatch in the middle of the ship. The letters were much smaller than the massive B, but there was no mistaking it.
“Bullet,” Aldridge whispered, “It's got the word Bullet written on it. Above a hatch – a doorway. I’ve got enough oxygen to explore this thing for forty minutes at least before I have to head back. Maybe there’s even a way to get inside!”
”Chris, I’m sorry man. Dutch Girl relayed the message from Houston. They’re adamant that you’ve got to get the Hell out of there. The flight controller even used those words. Can you imagine that wormy little chimpanzee lover saying anything even remotely like a curse word? You’ve got to leave the package and get back here.”
”Just leave the damned thing lying on the dust?”
There was no reply.
”Odyssey, this is…”
”Chris, no,” Jimmy Coleman exhaled loudly, “They don't want you to just leave the package. Your orders are to... ah... you’ve got to arm it first…”
Aldridge raised the instrument package so he could see it more clearly. In the spacesuit helmet, he took a quick sip from his drinking straw as he quickly examined the heavy white metal briefcase. It took a few seconds for him to realise that he had been carrying an atomic bomb.
”Shit,” Was all he said.
1976 – Los Angeles, California.
”Well, I just don’t believe this,” Megyn Alexander pushed her wet blonde hair out of her eyes as she opened the door of her small apartment, “Don’t tell me you’ve lost another satellite?”
She wanted to laugh. It had been a few weeks since she'd seen FBI agent Styles. Somehow, she knew he'd be back. Not because he wanted to see her. She wished that was why he had returned. No, he'd come for something else.
”Ma’am, would you please unlock the door for us?” his square features were grim and motionless. He was working hard to control his breathing. He looked stressed.
Megyn was wearing a sleeveless pink quilted bathrobe. It was worn to the point of transparency in a few places and almost completely soaked. She didn’t have a sash for the robe and held it together with her right hand. Her left she tried to place nonchalantly on her hip as she struck a pose at the door. She tilted her head to the right, just slightly and bent her head down. Her chocolate brown eyes moved cheekily along Styles’ face.
”This is our third date,” she smiled. She wondered if the gown was covering her large breasts completely. She shifted her right hand a little to make sure that it didn’t. “And you’ve brought your friends? Oh, and your friends brought their guns! How fantastic! You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.”
”Miss Alexander,” Styles smile was obviously fake, but she enjoyed watching his eyes wander as he avoided looking towards her sexy, curvaceous body, “I’m afraid I have to ask you to open the…”
”I know, I know. Let me get the keys,” she retreated back through the eggshell blue door, “Make yourself a coffee or something. I’m going to put some pants on.”
There were three men that she didn't recognise with Styles. They were FBI agents too, she guessed, but dressed in combat fatigues. They lacked the confidence that Styles exuded and seemed to glance at one another in a nervous kind of way. Each man carried a black, short barrelled automatic weapon.
Styles stepped through the door as Megyn retreated back into her apartment. He raised a hand for his three subordinates to stay where they were. Megyn turned left into the bathroom, giving Styles the slightest glimpse of her glistening pear shaped bottom as the bathroom slid to the floor.
”There isn’t time for coffee, Miss Alexander!” Styles shouted after her, almost pursuing her into the bathroom, “I’m afraid we're going to break down the fence if you don’t give me the keys immediately.”
She emerged from the bathroom bare foot and still damp, her long blonde hair a dark and straggly mess. She had skinned into flared, dark blue demin jeans with an embroidered flower over her left hip. The floaty beige coloured top concealed her large braless bosom. She moved with a deliberate sway towards the older man. Her cheerful, energetic expression faltered only slightly when she realised Styles was looking at her blood test results, which she'd pinned to the wall. Styles looked away quickly, and she thought that he looked embarrassed. It made her feel a little bit sha
meful, but she didn't know why. Styles only avoided her gaze for a moment, then he looked into her eyes. A strange little energy passed between them and Megyn felt that her heart had suddenly leapt to her throat. She could tell from his expression that he'd read the hospital report on the wall.
”I don’t get depressed,” she nodded briskly, “But thanks for caring.”
“Miss Lawson. This is a matter of national security,” Styles’ voice was gravelly, low. She loved the way it resonated, “I need the key in five seconds…”
”I know, or you’ll smash down my fence,” she twirled round, allowing her perfume to drift towards the only man she'd had in her life for the past eighteen months, “They still haven’t repaired it properly after the last time, you know. I was hoping you’d come back and… lend a hand.”
The keys were hidden inside an ornamental teapot placed beside Megyn’s yellow orange trimfone. The phone was a new one. He’d torn the old Bakelite phone out of the socket the first time he’d met Miss Alexander - as she’d tried to make a phone call to her mother.
She held the keys by her fingertips, inviting Styles to step towards her to take them from her hand. He did so and she pulled her hand back slightly, pulling him in close enough that she could smell his Old Spice aftershave. He grunted at the mischief in her eyes. But she thought that the corners of his mouth twitched a little in the ghost of a smile.
“Megyn,” he said softly, “There isn’t time for this.”
He took the keys. He was a little rough, which disappointed and startled her all at once. He turned away briskly, heading back towards the door. He checked his watch again, she saw. Megyn could hear the helicopters overhead now for the first time. Heavy, throbbing engines getting closer It was a frightening sound. She followed Styles out of the apartment.
More agents had turned up. A grey Gran Torino blocked the road into the cul de sac where she lived. A helicopter had landed on the wasteland to the north of her home, about thirty metres from the fenced in yard. Three men in combat fatigues were standing around the helicopter. She couldn't tell if they were the same men she'd seen before. Barefoot, she carefully followed Styles as he made his way down her steps and around the side of the apartment towards the back where her damaged swimming pool was situated. The neighbours, an old Jewish couple called Goldstein or Weinstein, watched from their front door. Nobody had emerged from the house on the left, but the man who lived there was rarely to be seen anyways.
Her swimming pool was drained of water and spattered with crumps of grass and weed that had begun to take hold. The fence at the furthest edge of the pool had been repaired quickly and a little shabbily by a contractor sent by the government. The pale wood didn’t match the rest of the fence, which had been stained a darker shade of brown. The tiles at the corner of the pool had still not been repaired. Styles had promised that a builder would come to take care of that weeks ago.
She went after Styles as he unlocked the heavy padlock that held the chain together round the wooden gate. The gate and fence were heavy enough that he and his men would have had to work hard to smash it down, but she didn't doubt that they would have. The padlock was rusty and wet from the night’s rain, but it opened easily enough. She hadn’t been in the yard for a few weeks and it needed tidying. The mess might have embarrassed her, but she had her mind on other things. There were more voices around the house. More heavy footsteps. Running, rushing. She could hear shouting.
“Something’s coming,” she suddenly realised, “Something else is on its way. Am right, aren't I?”
He looked at her with a forced expression of cold detachment. But she could see something burning right at the back of his eyes. A fire or a passion. He was excited about something, she could tell. She wished that he was excited to see her in the damp, tight jeans. But it was obviously something else. He took a deep breath and glanced towards one of his men. She felt that he was about to order the agent to escort her away. She spoke again, a slight note of the desperate in her tone.
“What is it? Something exciting? Another lost spaceship? Are they coming back?”
She put her arms out by her sides in an open and friendly gesture. Her big mouth smiled and her eyes twinkled. He did not glance down to see the bruises on her arms left by the chemotherapy, but she somehow felt that he was purposefully avoiding looking there.
“I can't..,” he looked down at his shoes for a moment, “I’m not at… I can’t tell you that.”
And she knew that the right thing to do was to have her ushered away. Back to her ordinary, boring and devastatingly short life. When he raised his head again she expected him to call his men across. But his eyes narrows and there was the ghost of a smile on his lips.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he whispered. She felt that he wanted to wink, but he didn’t.
She smiled. The armed agents couldn’t see her smile. Her back was turned to them. She smiled into Styles' eyes. He didn’t smile back, or even hold her gaze for more than a second. But he didn’t need to. There was an energy between them that didn't need any more words.
Then it began. Everything was over in about four seconds. There was a rumble. Hannah looked at Styles. He was looking towards the new fence at the rear of the yard. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light and a loud, ear splitting popping sound. The light was so bright that it blinded Megyn and two of the agents who looked towards the sound. Styles and agent Bain had looked away in time. Styles was stepping forward even before the rumble had subsided. She felt proud of him. He was so brave.
The metal case fell five feet to the hard bottom of the pool, cracking fully open and revealing the tactical nuclear device inside it. Aldridge fell the same distance, landing on top of the device that had been teleported with him millions of miles back home to Earth. His helmet smacked hard against the pool tiles, making new cracks to join those that had been left by the Freedom probe two months earlier when it had landed half in and half out of the water. The helmet itself remained undamaged, as it had been designed to.
Aldridge was disoriented. He’d only just finished arming the device when there’d been a flash of light. Then all hell was breaking loose. He was tumbling, sightless, and falling hard against something hard and flat. His first thoughts were that the explosive detonator in the device had somehow malfunctioned, exploding but not setting off the atomic core. If that had gone off then he’d be having no thoughts at all. His body was in shock. The suit was heavy, but he ached from head to toe anyway and did not register the new gravitational forces pinning him to the ground. He was shouting into his suit radio for Coleman, but the lunar module was two hundred thousand miles away. Then there he could feel hands pulling at him. A voice was shouting.
“Captain Aldridge! I understand this is confusing. You’re back on Earth. There isn’t time to explain how or why. But you have to listen to me, Captain. When the anomaly transported you back to Earth you dropped the atomic device. The atomic device has automatically armed and if we don’t deactivate it immediately it’s going to detonate!”
Aldridge could barely hear what was being said. Styles’ voice was muffled through the helmet. Additionally, the instantaneous journey from the moon to Earth left him feeling like he’d just recovered from a G Force blackout. His mind was reeling. Something was pulling at him, trying to move him away from the instrument package. He remembered, suddenly, that the instrument package had turned out to be a bomb. NASA had sent him to destroy the Farside Anomaly, not study it.
Styles reached under Aldridge for the bomb as agents Hutchison and Bain struggled to pull the astronaut off it. He’d fallen into the empty pool and had gotten wedged in the corner, just like the lunar probe had when it had been sent back by the anomaly.
“How long have we got?” A gaunt and officious looking man shouted. He was looking past a tall, damp, buxom blonde towards a heavy set bearded man in a sweat soaked white shirt. The fat man huffed and puffed his way through the gate towards the scene.
“Not... lon
g,” the bearded man gasped, “You must… throw the safety switch…”
Aldridge was still disoriented. Someone released his helmet visor, which startled him. Sounds and fresh, cool air flooded his senses. Despite his thrashing and struggles, the men holding onto his suit managed to pull him free of the pool corner. The tallest man, who sported a hip holstered wood gripped Colt Python revolver, grunted in pain as he tore his forearm against the jagged, smashed tiles. But the metal briefcase came free. He whirled round, almost smashing the fat scientist in the face with it.
“What's going on?” Aldridge asked.
The tall man struggled with the case, fumbling with the latch. The fat man had made it into the dry pool and grabbed the case from agent Styles.
“Set it down, set it down,” Filscher grunted, “We have seconds, to do this.”
The nuclear device would detonate in twenty seconds, but Filscher knew exactly what to do. His large fingers reached inside the case and searched for the metal safety lever. It was protected by a strong metal cover which he pushed frantically aside after the fourth attempt. With seconds to spare, he flicked the safety switch on.
Aldridge removed his helmet, somehow, with the assistance of one of the green clothed men. His senses were almost fully returned and he struggled to his feet, dropping his helmet to the cracked tiles below. The three steps he took towards Styles felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. Breathing hard, he stared at the German scientist and the FBI agent.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 3
