Loverman

LOVERMAN

by William Young

I came to know Andrew Kissling because he had, during the course of the year he sat innocuously several cubicles down from me, stolen my girlfriend. To the best of my knowledge, he began his machinations of love during the company retreat, an annual event normally held on the shores of Lake Thalbord but this year having been moved to the green slopes of Mount Schii, a ski resort with Bavarian intentions and American sensibilities which had been searching for a summer identity, when I had suddenly fallen ill with a severe case of appendicitis. My appendix, and Erika, were both removed from my life, though Erika much more slowly and without anesthesia.

I should probably say that Andrew Kissling came to know me. He began dropping by my cubicle one day about two weeks after my appendix had been removed, inquiring about how I felt. He was, I thought then and still do, an unremarkable man: brown hair, brown eyes, a predilection toward uninspired dress and, so far as I knew then, an inability to converse on any topic not tax code related. He would have made the perfect spy: He was plain and unremarkable, able to blend into the background with the least effort. He was the type of person who could pass state secrets and never spend the money garnered through his illicit and treasonous dealings, never drawing attention to himself. Not, of course, that he owed me any loyalty. To him, assuredly, I was the man in the nearby cubicle who was dating the pick of the paralegal litter: Erika Montrose.

It wasn't until five months after my surgery, just as my Christmas spirit was beginning to emerge from under the weight of corporate commercialism and I was finally coming around to the idea that I would, as in year's past, gain some small amount of satisfaction by witnessing a smile on the face of a gift recipient (it was, I admit, December 17th at the time) when Erika unexpectedly showed up at my apartment. I had just gotten home from work and had, as yet, to remove my accountant's habiliment when the familiar two tones sounded from the doorbell and I turned from the kitchen, leaving behind the slowly heating mug of water I had been pondering through the window on the front of the microwave. On the stoop stood Erika, shrouded against the cold in a full length parka and a scarf drawn high over her cheeks. The December cold plowed past her and into the foyer where it wrapped around my legs, standing my hairs momentarily on end.

"Come in," I said, smiling happily at the unexpected visit. "I was just microwaving some water for tea; do you want some?"

She shook her head once, no, while quickly crossing over the threshold, her heels clicking on the parquet floor. I shut the door, December resisting momentarily with a mighty gale which forced some effort from me, and followed her into the living room. She pulled the scarf away from her face and drew the gloves from her hands as the heels of her shoes made small indentations on the Oriental rug with each step across the room. I entered only partway, waiting just past the arch so that I could hear the trill of the microwave when it announced that the water had been heated and I could then indulge myself in my daily post-work habit: orange-spice tea.

"Roger," she said peremptorily, her voice matching the timbre of the gusts outside. "We need to talk."

It was then the microwave sounded, a siren call I ignored as my limbs grew slack with anticipation. I had heard this tone of voice in a woman once before, when I was twenty-seven and desperately in love, and memories of that instant and the finality of its guillotine stroke replayed as a black-and-white movie flashback through my brain, complete with her voice over. I closed my eyes firmly for a second and licked my lips, praying that it would be something different, anything -- that she were going to force me to ask her for hand, perhaps -- than a recurrence of that day six years ago. This was not to be the case, however. I could tell that from the fact she only unzipped the upper portion of her parka and stood, with an odd slack-armed certainty, in the corner opposite me.

"Okay," I answered.

She came immediately to the point, wasting no time dallying with questions to which my answers could have affirmed or turned aside any doubt as to the correctness of her action. This particular moment, this treachery, if you will, was not without, however, some doubt on her part. As she moved her lips to begin forming the words which would, in a moment, return me to the shelf from which she had plucked me nearly two years earlier, tears began welling in her eyes. It was Christmastime, I thought, and she must certainly have known that this would wreck any sentimentality that had been forming in my heart and turn my holiday cheer into a chorus of "humbugs" a la Ebeneezer Scrooge.

"Roger," she said, pausing slightly to draw in a short, quick breath. "I think we need to see other people."

This choice of words made me want to say something humorous, as if I were an unwitting character in a situation comedy who requires several repetitions of something said before the implications sink in, but the pit that had suddenly opened beneath my stomach sucked into it all the emotions that had been unknowingly standing upon its trap door.

"Why? What did I do wrong?" I asked, nearly begging for some shred of a reason.

It was then that a tear, the only tear to be shed that night and the last tear to have fallen in my apartment, abandoned its tenuous grip on the lashes of her right eye and trailed quickly down her cheek, drawing along behind it a thin line of mascara.

"I just need to ... I just need to move on. It wasn't anything you did. It's just what I need to do," Erika said, attempting to claim the onus for the end of our relationship while I cast about for reasons, events, differences that could have set us apart.

It was obvious to me that it was my fault, that if there were to be any blame placed it would have to fall squarely on me, since I had evidently proved incapable of keeping her and was apparently losing her for no reason whatsoever. I did not then, however, know I had been outmaneuvered by fifth columnists.

"I don't understand: If I did nothing wrong, then why is it better for you to see other people?" I inquired. "Can't you at least give me some sort of reason?"

She couldn't, and shook her head slightly while wiping the tears from her eyes into the folds of her scarf. "I'm sorry," she apologized, her voice phlegmatic. "I should go now."

I stood aside as she passed by me and walked to the door, neglecting to replace her scarf or zip up her parka, and I watched as she passed over the threshold and into the world outside. The door made a metallic click behind her when it shut. Perhaps I should have protested more, required some amount of explanation, but I have never been that sort of man when it comes to women.

I did not show up at work the next day, opting to use a day of sick leave so that I could recover from the half-bottle of Old Smuggler's Scotch Whisky I had crawled into after Erika vanished from my apartment. I had considered drinking throughout the entire day, allowing my stubble to grow thick and my shirt go untucked while emptied pizza boxes spontaneously stacked themselves in the kitchen, but I found that after I had drunk a glass of orange juice I could not, in good faith, allow myself to wallow in self-pity in the way I had assumed men my age certainly did under such circumstances. Instead, I watched television, allowing myself only shows which were thirty minutes in length, and preferring sitcoms to the variety of nature and political shows available on the cable networks.

When the next day came and the sun cracked its yoke against the horizon, spreading orangish light into the heavens and chasing away a night during which I had, though tempted frequently, avoided drinking the rest of the scotch (I only had it on hand for my father's visits), I returned to work. It was only the fourth day of sick leave I had taken during my thirteen year tenure with Gable, Klein and Arondyke -- I had used vacation time during my appendix surgery recovery -- so my supervisor didn't inquire as to how I felt. Kissling, on the other hand, did come to my desk just after nine, a mug of steaming coffee held gingerly in his right hand, and asked if I had been sick the day before.

"Yeah, you could say I was a bit under the weather," I replied. "It'll take a while to get over, though."

"You should make sure you drink a lot of fluids," he offered and then moved his coffee mug slightly. "Not coffee, of course, but orange juice and stuff like that."

I nodded. "I did drink a lot of fluids, but it really didn't seem to help."

He half shrugged and wished me well before walking away. Of course, I thought nothing of it at the time: The idea that he might have been checking in on how I was doing, for Erika's sake, was something that developed many months later, after it was far too late to go back to the beginning.

That Friday was the company’s Christmas party, normally a night of restrained inebriation and reserved commentary about the size of the Christmas bonus. I had intended only to show up briefly, to make my presence known to those to whom it would have mattered to ensure, whenever the next round of salary raises and promotions came about, I would be seen as a team player. I would then have bowed out owing to my feigned illness, which slowly would have been overtaking me during the course of the day. That was my plan until, in a moment of crass cliche I would have expected on a night-time serial drama, Erika and Kissling emerged from the copy room with the sheepish grins of high school pranksters who had just been caught by the headmaster with a rival school's mascot.

On the contrary, though, they had not been caught, though I could certainly see them from my darkened seat in the nearby mail room, and their grins melted into secretive glances of self-congratulation at having pulled off their exploit while Kissling smoothed his shirt under his waistband. My eyes were wide with shock, amazement and disbelief. Kissling, a nobody from Nowhereville, stood there with the afterglow of fornication with the woman who had been, just days earlier, the ultimate reason for my happiness. I was frozen solid to the chair, uncertain how to sort the array of emotions that had suddenly sprung from the depths of their damnation in my soul. From my shaded seat I waited until they re-entered the main body of the party so that I could investigate the copy room.

It took some searching, but there, in the bottom of the waste basket and wrapped in discarded photocopy paper, was the soiled condom. I would have howled had I been able to utter any noise other than a disbelieving gasp. In a move quite out of character with anything I had ever done before, an action that, had I heard about somebody else doing it, I would have relegated to the realms of insane jealousy, I folded a sheet of photocopy paper around the condom and put the resultant package into my blazer pocket.

Quite opposite of what I had been planning, I re-entered the party, procured a drink from the black man in a bow tie working the liquor table, and plotted an accidental run-in with Erika and Kissling. Twenty minutes later, my second gin and tonic in hand, they emerged from a cluster in the far corner of the company cafeteria and wended their way through the crowd toward the make-shift bar. I slinked off to the side, hiding behind a group of coworkers who were discussing, in nauseating detail, anti-lock braking systems and air bags as fundamental essentials to any vehicle they would purchase. I ignored their proffered opportunity to join the conversation by excusing myself and appearing alongside Erika and Kissling.

"Nice party, isn't it?" I asked, motioning with my recently emptied glass to the crowd behind their backs.

Erika's face grew momentarily ashen while Kissling, the knowing victor in an undeclared secret competition, nodded his head and looked to where I motioned.

"Yeah, much better than the last few I've been at," he said, glancing quickly at Erika before turning his attention to me. "I didn't think you'd be here. I thought you were getting sick again."

"I am sick, but I'm taking your advice about the fluids," I said, turning to the bar and nodding for another drink. "It seems to be working."

Kissling looked at me as if he were nonplused. Alongside him, Erika's face fought against the contortions of revealing herself caught in a lie. She struggled, vainly, to give the appearance that she and Kissling were only recent acquaintances who did not know each other very well, though, I admit, this interpretation came much later. They were quickly handed refills of their drinks and they slinked back into the crowd and away from me, submerging into a group from the paralegal department hovering near the hors d'oeuvre table on the opposite side of the room.

Erika's lie now exposed and the realization of her treachery now known to both of us, I placed my untouched new drink on the bar and left the party quietly via the fire stairwell, my head ablaze with the pain of betrayal. I had been, up until that moment, merely wallowing in self-pity, bemoaning my loss to no one save myself and content to, as my father would say, "Take the pain." Now, though, things were different. No longer could I pretend that I had merely stubbed a toe, suffering a small amount of pain forgotten in time. On the other hand, it seemed going too far to assume that a dirk had been inserted into my back and twisted quickly clockwise while a hand clasped over my mouth to muffle tortured screams.

Outside, the early evening air was frigid, made more so by my absent-minded error of leaving my overcoat in the mail room and my stubborn refusal to now re-enter the party to retrieve it. I had not been, you see, lurking in there knowing that Erika and Kissling had deposited themselves unseen into the copy room. I had been placing my jacket on the pile of other jackets and had taken a seat, momentarily, to consider what I would do were I to run into Erika that evening.

At home I found myself pondering the folded up photocopy paper, infuriated that she had been taken so easily and certain that such intercourse had overlapped my relationship and despoiled the afterglow of sentimentality I placed on my life with Erika. To have lost her fairly, through actions of my own devising, would have been one thing. To have lost her through muffled hallway conversations and after-work drinks which had led (and I am assuming such a course of action transpired, having no evidence to that effect) to whispered desires and late-night encounters was another matter entirely. This was too much to accept, and I admit I have taken a lot, but possessing the instrument of the crime (what I intended to do with it I had no clue) only made me more certain that I should, at all costs, wreck that which had formed because of my near-sightedness.

This, though, proved more difficult than I had anticipated. Merely showing up unexpectedly at her door, feigning to be desperate to restart our relationship -- while Kissling sat on her davenport in the sitting room (undoubtedly rolling his eyes at what must have seemed like my pathetic implorations) -- did nothing but anger her mildly that I could not act, as she said once, "like a grown man and not some heart-broken high school senior." This was, I assure you, an entire fiction wrought by me that I had thought, at such an early stage, would cause enough friction that she would be rattled into, if not canceling, postponing the continuation of her relationship with Kissling. Instead -- of course this plan backfired -- it drove her to sleep at his place more and more frequently, a place she knew I would not intrude on.

Thus it went, past Valentine's Day (and the bouquet of yellow -- for I could not choose red -- roses I sent her) through an uneventful March (she must have been sure, then, I had given up) into April, when I appeared on Easter Sunday at her door, having waited across the street from her apartment building in what must have been the only tavern open on such a day.

"Erika," I said as she walked up the landing to the security door and fumbled through her purse for her keys.

Her shoulders tensed visibly through her dress (a new one) and she rolled her eyes exaggeratedly as she turned around to face me.

"Roger. What?" she asked, her voice flat with annoyment. "Are you drunk?"

"I just wanted to wish you a happy Easter. I hope dinner at your parent's went well," I said, wondering if Kissling had been party to the feast of ham and sauerkraut.

Her face lost all expression as she stared down the short flight of cement steps at me, her right hand resting on the wrought iron railing while her keys, there were fourteen of them dangling from a "Gumby" key fob, clinked together below her left hand. I could tell she had grown tired of this, my constant appearances from nowhere as if I were a poltergeist too lame to be anything other than an occasional nuisance, knocking greeting cards from the mantel or hiding the remote control to the television, and she sucked in a short breath before talking.

"How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?" she said once again, perhaps for the thousandth time, and looked up and down the street hoping for, I assumed, passers-by to come to her aid should I suddenly turn psychotic.

"I don't know. I don't see why we can't still be friends, I mean, we knew each other for a long time," I said, trying reason of a brand recalled a hundred times over by the love regulation safety board.

She shook her head in agitation -- several short jerks to the left and right -- and bit the inside of her lower lip, a look I had never seen from her before. I had, I guess, crossed a line at that moment, if a such a line existed, between those pining away for shorn-off love and those who are considered desperate and dangerous. The look in her eyes had also mutated from what had heretofore been little more than a disbelieving gaze of scorn for the hapless and into a hidden fright of uncertainty, the look of a cornered animal too weak to lash out viciously at its stalker but too proud to cower.

Yet, psychosis, such as it might be, was not a condition to which I had succumbed. Irrational behavior, certainly, who else but an irrational near-felon would, to use a word I disdain but is certainly an apt description of my mind set at the time, stalk his ex-girlfriend in an attempt to prove, finally, the error of her ways? I never intended harm. No, not to a hair on her head. Her pulchritude shined brighter than the morning sun casting diaphanous rainbows through misty air over a calm lake. Never, I swear, would I have premeditated any sort of harm toward her. I would, had I been given the opportunity, died saving her from dire misfortune. There, on her porch, however, I was placed in an entirely different scenario, cast against type as the berserk oppressor who must, at all costs, be defeated by the English-impaired muscle-bound hulk.

My mouth went dry. Erika, the sole source of my soul's inspiration, the pinnacle to which I climbed, the apogee of my orbit, now feared me. Feared me as if I were capable of producing, from within the folds of my clothing, a straight-edge razor honed with atomic precision for the singular purpose of slicing her jugular should she, at that or any other moment, refuse to rejoin me in my destiny. I would be lying to say that I did not want her back, desperately so, but to have shined the light of fear on her caused me to step back, literally, and re-assess the entire situation. So I stepped back into the Easter air, no longer comforted by its lack of humidity, and stared, not quite as wide-eyed as Erika, at the world around me. Disbelief. How, I wondered, had this fate befallen me?

"I'm sorry," I said as put my hands into my pants pockets in an effort to assure that I would not use them against her. "I probably shouldn't pursue you, still."

She was still tense, her shoulders drawn up high against her perfect jaw bones, hiding her elegant neck. She pursed her lips, it lasted only a half-second, before she sighted her eyes along her nose and looked down at me. Down, and I was taller than she.

"No, you shouldn't," she paused, dramatically and purposefully, hoping the words would sink in, I believe, "pursue me ... still."

I sighed heavily, audibly, as if a cartoon balloon had formed above me with the word "sigh," a squiggly, uncertain, exclamation point caboosing along behind it. Erika Montrose, my destiny -- pre-appointed by a thousand astrologers, foreseen in the tea leaves at the bottom of seer's cup -- was slipping from my grasp. I turned, the hardest move I have ever made my legs make, to force them, finally, away from their point of no-return, and made my way down the cement steps from her apartment and onto the sidewalk. The earth never felt so hard beneath my loafers, gravity never pulled me so diligently, as I made my way the block-and-a-half to my car. Behind me, probably, now certainly, was the woman with whom my life was meant to be spent. Behind me, my life was ending.

Knowing the truth of her deception is something, now, I will never access. The restrictive order against me, legally called a Protection From Abuse (as if I had ever), forbids me any semblance of contact with her. That was Kissling's idea. He sat that day in the courtroom with doe-eyes of assumed fear for his newly-beloved's welfare while I sat, ramrod straight and in my best suit, on a bench across the aisle. The gall to think that she, Erika, could believe that I would ever cause her harm, physical or mental or otherwise, if another avenue existed, appalled me. The judge, though, ignored me. It took only a minute for her to obtain the state's protection from me; a moment that mimicked the several low-rent welfare mothers who had pleaded their cases before the same magistrate (to be sure, their husbands or boyfriends must assuredly be cut from the unshaven beer-guzzling, sports-loving cloth of those who would raise a hand against a woman). There, in that courtroom, Kissling escorted Erika away from me, his arm wrapped securely around her as if I had dragon's breath capable of incinerating her were he not shielding her from some last minute paroxysm of violence on my part.

So it was that day, a personal day taken by me (my first) to witness the end of something that had seemingly, months before, no end. I allowed myself a glass of the Scotch I saved for my father as I sat in my bedroom and read the letters she had written to me during the course of our relationship. Were they not the signed affidavits of her unending love? How could this reality be so, I wondered? May blossoms burgeoned heavily on their stalks and my spirits sank. Skirt hemlines rose with the temperature and I could not be bothered to notice. Erika, the Meaning, was now clothed in the mantle of the state's authority and I, who had bought her diamond stud earrings for her birthday (a ring, I had assumed, should wait until later), was a menace.

There, though, in her own writing was the truth. Her love for me. Forever and ever Amen. Interspersed throughout the letters were the photos that I never quite considered good enough to put in my photo album because of their slight imperfections. Photos of us on the beach, my hair mussed, or of us bundled up at the base of a ski slope, my cheeks overly red from wind burn, or us smiling cheerfully, my eyes momentarily closed, at some function or another.

It had been months, and I had forgotten what it was before I opened it, but I unfolded the photocopy paper that was also in the shoe box. I gathered my breath. It was dried, nearly petrified, but it still was: the condom.

What possessed me to visit her apartment that evening I don't know, but I waited until someone to mount the steps who knew me as a familiar guest before I emerged from hiding and tagged along.

"Wait," I called as I hurriedly approached the door he had just unlocked and was pulling open. He looked toward me, squinted, and relaxed. He knew my face but nothing more.

"You going up to see Erika?" he asked.

"Yeah," I motioned towards him with the box of memorabilia. "A surprise."

He smiled knowingly as if he understood the romantic implications and let me slip in through the door before he removed his key. He lived on the first floor -- Erika lived on the fourth -- so he bade me good evening ("have fun") and went into his apartment as I took to the steps.

I knocked loudly on her door, three loud raps. BANG. BANG. BANG. I waited a few seconds and then I heard her footsteps on the hardwood floor on the other side of the door. She was unchaining the door when suddenly the sound on the other side evaporated and there was nothing but the black hole which had sucked in my relationship and was now drawing in sound. I waited ten seconds and knocked again. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Nothing.

"Erika, I know you're in there. I just heard you walk down the hall. Look, I have something I want to show you," I held up the shoe box to the peephole through which she must now be looking. There was the barely perceptible sound of weight being shifted from one foot to another, but I could hear it as loud as a church bell. "Just let me show you."

I knew I wasn't allowed to be there. Wasn't permitted, by the state, to talk to her or look at her or write to her. I wasn't allowed anything but I deserved an explanation. I was owed an explanation. I demanded an explanation. I opened the box and pulled out the folded photocopy paper and held it up eight inches from the peephole.

"I need to know about this," I said.

There was nothing on the other side of the door. Silence. Muted silence, even. An attempt, on her part, to be quieter than quiet allowed.

"Just let me in," I said.

Still nothing. I waited for a moment and, I don't know why, put my shoulder into the door. It gave way, the chain having been removed, and I fell across the threshold while the door banged against the wall and Erika stumbled backwards. I crashed into the floor and my box split open and spilled love letters and imperfect photos across the floor. In my hand I could feel the photocopy paper and the dried condom inside it as I crushed it while tumbling unceremoniously to the ground. Erika backpedaled away from me, screaming something at me while I looked up from the spilt memories spread out around me, the condom in my hand, and tried to say something articulate. For a moment I tried to get up and scramble toward her, love letters scattering as I slipped on them, trying to stand, when I saw the portable phone in her hand. What she said to me I don't remember; it was mass of shouts and shrieks and scrofulous language.

I spilled out onto the sidewalk in front of her building in a full run, the apartment complex's door banging sharply behind me as I fled down the street toward my car. Such an ignominious ending, I thought, as I recklessly pulled the keys to my car from my pocket and scratched the paint job on the door as I struggled to get the key in the lock. Over. Done. For finality's sake, I could never talk to her again. I had been driving for several minutes before I realized that I still had the photocopy paper in my hand. Within it the condom which had started my dementia. Within it...her loverman. A man I no longer was. A man I could never again be. A man, any fond memories of which might have existed, trickled onto the floor of her apartment and melted into the past as soon as she would have gotten around to picking up the expired letters of her love for me. That was when I turned around.

I parked the car across from her building and mounted the steps to the front door where I discovered, much to my amazement, that the security door was ajar. Perhaps it was so because of my hasty retreat from the building, perhaps some other reason, but it was open nonetheless. Surely, I thought as I pulled the door open, this was an omen prophesied from some ancient oracle, that Erika would recognize her fault in abandoning me. Such a coincidence could not be accidental.

Her door also was not locked when I arrived before it. It was shut but the lock had been broken just twenty minutes earlier when, in some Neanderthalic fit of rage, I had crashed through it. I pushed it open and stepped inside and saw, around my feet, the now shredded remnants of what had been only a short while earlier letters professing her undying love of me. Now, they were fit only for confetti to be tossed out of some tall building onto columns of GI's marching during a New York victory celebration of some undeclared war. Whatever proof I had that she had once loved me now lay splintered on the floor.

She must have heard me standing silently in the doorway because, just a moment later, she turned the corner and stared at me. In her right hand was a butcher knife; in her left, the portable phone. She pressed the phone's "on" button and a deafening beep echoed down the hallway.

"If I have to dial 9-1-1 it's goiong to be because you're bleeding to death and I suddenly felt sorry enough for you to call for help," she said as she cocked the arm with the phone out in front of her as if it were a pistol she were pointing at me. "But I wouldn't bet on my charity at this point."

I stood there, motionless, and suddenly felt the weight of the paper-wrapped condom in my hand. I held it out toward her, a crumpled mass of over-folded paper, and sighed. Though I may have at one time wanted to beat her, it would only have been metaphorically and in the nature of getting some sense into her, I could now only see the glint of the blade she had used many times to chop open bell peppers or quarter tomatoes. While she had a knife and a phone I had only a condom; a condom that contained the deposit of another man from a season now long since erased by time. Outside, I could hear the sound of a car horn honking, an impatient horn imploring some other driver to get a move on or get out of the way. To make a decision.

I stood there a moment longer, staring at the knife and the phone, and dropped the paper-wrapped condom onto the pile of torn letters. It fell quickly and slapped the ground, the last sound I ever heard in her apartment. It is that moment which crystallized everything for me, that moment which I shall forever remember, above and beyond all the long evenings of VCR movies and Beaujolais by the fireplace: that her love, if ever it existed, had morphed into fear. A fear which would have, if I'd moved forward, forced her to make a decision she had never anticipated making.

I can see her there now, the sunlight streaming in from the windows in the living room behind her, the dust motes twirling within the beams that crashed into the sofa and bounced off the coffee table, standing with a knife and a phone on the edge of a decision that would have to be made quickly. Instantaneously.

Singularity

Singularity

(Pilot episode)

"First contact"

By William Young

FADE IN TO:

int. day - bridge of spacecraft dimension

A crew is manning the bridge of the spacecraft Dimension, the captain sitting at the command chair, watching a screen attached to the left arm of the chair. He touches the screen several times to activate buttons, and reviews more data. He looks away from the screen and surveys the crew, all performing their duty station tasks. He is uncertain of something, and drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. He looks weary.

He returns to the screen, touches it several more times to call up something else, reads it,and frowns.

wretchard
Still nothing from command?

communications officer hanson
No, sir. Not even static.

wretchard
(looks to a different crew station)
How long till we drop out of warp?

Helmsman bevilcaque
(checks screen)
Thirty-three minutes and change, sir.

Wretchard frowns and returns to his screen, touching buttons on it as he searches for information. He’s unhappy with the non-response from the command base, but there’s clearly more he’s unhappy with than a communications failure.

wretchard
(turns in his chair to face the science officer)
You getting anything?

Science officer trifiletti
(nods)
Traffic in our approach course is moving away at right angles, clearing the way in. Not normal, but not necessarily inappropriate.

wretchard
(turns in chair to face another station in the bridge)
Alright,then.
(a beat)
Franzen, what do you think?

franzen
(shrugs)
It’s not protocol, but then we are early, so who knows what they’re thinking.

WRETCHARD walks away from the command chair and closer to FRANZEN. He leans over the control desk and hushes his voice.

wretchard
This doesn’t make sense, and I don’t like it when things don’t make sense. Get the gun teams to their stations and have them power up, but keep it as quiet as you can. I don’t want to alarm the crew.

franzen
Can do. What are you thinking?

wretchard
I’m wondering if things on the surface have changed since we left and maybe we’re not so welcome anymore. I don’t want to break warp and discover we’re now the bad guys.

CUT TO:

int. weapons room – pulse cannon station

Three men rush into a room and take their stations, two at elaborate video-game-like terminals, one at a bank of computers. They strap themselves in to their seats.

cannif
What the heck is going on? I thought we were almost home.

blackside
(at master control)
Focus, Cannif. Get your gun up and ready.

cannif
(punching buttons on a touchscreen)
I’m up and ready.

blackside
Keep your eyes open and your fingers loose.

jacobsen
What am I supposed to be looking for?

blackside
(turns in chair)
Whatever don’t look right, Jaco, you shoot it the moment the bridge says so.

cannif
Great. More shoot first and ask questions later. That worked wonders the last time.

blackside
(shakes head disbelievingly)
You forgetting that they shot first and never said nothing before, during or after?

cannif
No. But this is home.

blackside
Then why are we at red alert? Stop wondering and start concentrating. The captain’ll figure out soon enough. Until then, you got a job to do.

cannif
(muttering quietly to himself)
He’s not the real captain.

CUT TO:

int. bridge of the dimension

WRETCHARD sits in the command chair, drumming his fingers on an arm, watching the screen attached to it. He looks curious and apprehensive.

helmsman bevilaque
Breaking warp … now.
(checks computer screens)
Space normal speed achieved.

wretchard
Decel to orbital velocity and begin scanning the surface. Double-check comm signals with anybody you can hail. We need to know why nobody’s talking to us.
(turns chair to face science officer Trifiletti)
Try and find something down there that’s familiar. They should’ve been talking to us hours ago. Run a nuke-bio-chem scan and everything else to make sure there’s still life down there.
(a beat)
And make double-sure there aren’t any of them down there.

franzen
Sir, check your screen, we’re picking up IFF signatures from the Spalding and the Verona.
(pauses as he examines the data on his own display)
What the… they Spalding is on an intercept course.

Wretchard looks to his screen, taps on it, and shakes his head slowly. He turns to the science officer, who looks his way and shrugs before returning to her own screen.

wretchard
Bring up View One on main screen.

The science officer taps a few buttons and the main screen, a large television monitor, changes from a forward view of what the ship is facing – the planet Earth – to a computer-enhanced picture of the Spalding moving toward the Dimension. The Verona is slowly revolving around it's center of gravity.

franzen
Their weapons are powered up.

wretchard
Easy. Hanson, hail them.

Hanson
Captain Tucker of the Spalding’s hailing us.

wretchard
(calm)
Put it through to my station.

He dons a headset and activates a button on his screen.

CUT TO:

int. weapons room

Everyone in the room suddenly becomes tense.

cannif
We’ve got a bogie blinking big at seven o’clock and another at five.

blackside
(checks his computer)
Lock now and get ready.

CUT TO:

int. bridge

The bridge crew are all intensely monitoring their stations. Wretchard punches at his screen. The screen at his station changes to show a man wearing a headset staring back at him.

CUT TO:

int. bridge of the spalding

tucker
This is Captain Tucker of the Spalding calling the Dimension.
(he pauses, then changes expression as he recognizes the video feed showing Wretchard wearing a headset)
Where’s Captain Aguillera?

wretchard
(on monitor)
He’s dead.

Tucker
Dead? How?

wretchard
(on monitor)
Long story.

Tucker
What do you mean ‘long story?’

wretchard
(on monitor)
I mean I don’t have time to tell it right now. What’s going on? Why hasn’t anybody answered our calls.

Tucker leans back in his chair and looks around his bridge and gives the crew a wave of his hand, signalling them to ease up. He looks at his main screen, which shows the Dimension turning to face his ship.

Tucker
(to crew)
Go to yellow.
(turns to his armchair screen)
No one answered your hails because you weren’t using the proper code.

I think you can power down your gun teams and come on board and tell me what happened to Aguillera.

CUT TO:

int. bridge of dimension

WRETCHARD stares down at his screen, an image of TUCKER on it. The crew is all looking at him, unware of what he is hearing in his headset,but quiet and listening to his responses. They are not reassured.

wretchard
(turns to FRANZEN)
What’s going on?

franzen
(checks screen)
Their weapons are idle, now.

wretchard
Do the same with ours.

CUT TO:

int. day – situation room on the spalding

TUCKER and WRETCHARD are standing in a briefing room watching the ending seconds of a holodepiction which shows a landing craft lifting from the surface of a planet.

tucker
That’s not what I expected to see.

wretchard
There’s more. We stayed in orbit for ten days gathering more information, but none of it is really useful in analyzing what happened on the surface.

tucker
(shakes head)
That’s not how anbody envisaged first contact.

wretchard
Well, it’s not how anbody hoped it would be.

tucker
Yeah. But Aguillera knew better than that. Or he should have, anyway. He broke all of the protocols.
(turns from the screen)
Did he say why?

wretchard
No.

tucker
You were there, what do you think?

wretchard
(shakes head disbelievingly, angrily)
Too much Star Trek in his blood.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day - bridge of the dimension

The bridge crew stare amazed at the imagery on the main screen in the bridge. Playing across it are scenes from the surface of the planet, images that depict what appear to be a group of insect-like humanoids moving beneath an airborne camera, one of the ship’s probes.

aguillera
Change view to probe two.

The main screen flicks to a different view, of a wide plain scrolling beneath the probe’s camera. Suddenly, a small, village-like accumulation of natural-earth structures appears, with more of the creatures moving throughout it. Wretchard sits at the Weapons Station, alternately amazed by the main screen or concentrating on his own readouts.

aguillera
(turns in his chair to face science station)
Well, Gelbart, what are you picking up from down there?

science officer gelbart

Not much, and nothing emitting a wave, pulse or other form of energy. No sign of combustion, either, whether it be natural or artificial. No heat signatures, not even from the creatures.
(presses in an earpiece and listens momentarily)
The shop says there’s plenty of different lifeforms down there, but they haven’t detected any refined metals or any other evidence of an advanced industrial ability.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

ext. day – planet surface

There are a dozen creatures moving as a group on the surface. They examine various things on the ground and occasionally seem to face each other and exchange information. There are flying creatures and some notable insect-sized creatures, but no other higher lifeform-like creatures are visible.

Then, one of the members of the group notices the hovering drone in the air above them. The drone is moving slowly and has several probes sticking out at various angles, sampling air quality, radiation, and other things.

The creatures become highly excited/aggravated and quickly scatter into a circular defensive perimeter.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – bridge of dimension

The main screen shows the creatures forming a defensive ring and moving, as a group, away from the drone, which follows.

aguillera
Well, they know something’s new in their world.

Just then the main screen turns green, then black.

aguillera cont’d
Gelbart, what just happened.

gelbart
(taps on glass panel screens)
The probe’s been knocked out of the air. It seems the camera is covered with something, and,
(pauses)
Just a guess, but it seems like the creatures have gotten hold of the probe and are breaking sensors off of it.

aguillera
How’d they get the probe down from thirty feet in the air while we were looking right at them? Clever.
(turns to Gelbart)
What about probe 2. Put it on screen.

Probe 2 is still making a steady sweep of the countryside, not hesitating to study any single area.

aguillera
(still facing Gelbart)
Keep it moving just like it is. See if we can’t build a map of the area from its readings. I want to go down there in six hours, so get a science team assembled.
(turns to Wretchard)
Get me two men for security and beef them up. The rest of us will go basic load.
(presses a button on his command console)
Preston.

The screen switches to a view of Preston at his duty station in engineering.

Preston
(on screen)
Sir?

aguillera
I’m taking a team down to the surface in six hours. Want to come?

Preston
(on screen, smiles)
Outside? Of course I want to go.

aguillera
Meet in the launch bay at 1600 hours.

Aguillera cancels the image of Preston and returns his console screen to command readouts.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – galley of the dimension

Wretchard is sitting at a table with Franzen. They are eating lunch and discussing the day’s mission.

wretchard
Do you want to go down?

franzen
I will. You know how badly I’ve wanted to get back in the outdoors and breathe some real air.

wretchard
Well, it’s real air. Real thin air above a thousand feet, but it’s breathable below. You’ll need to take the combat load with you. And I’m pairing you with Nguyen. He’s a great shot and he can see around corners.

franzen
Any idea why the captain’s in a hurry to get down there? I mean, I know we’ve been scanning the thing for the past week on approach to it, but it seems kinda hasty to just send a team down the first afternoon you arrive.

wretchard
It is hasty, and I think he knows it, too, which is why he wants two of us maxxed out on weapons. I can’t think of a reason why he’d want to go down there right away, himself. He’ll get in the history books just for being in command of the mission that made first contact, he doesn’t need video footage of him shaking hands with their leader.
(shakes head in concern)
Those creatures barely showed up on our sensors, and if we hadn’t sent down probes, we might never have known to look for them, so be careful.

franzen
(nods)
Well, if we can see ‘em, we can shoot ‘em
(beat, and smiles)
if necessary.

The two men stand form the table and consider each other for a moment, before FRANZEN gives a solemn nod and walks off. In the background, a female junior officer GARDNER has been watching the two talk, and she strolls over to WRETCHARD after FRANZEN has left.

gardner
You look a little too serious right now, is everything okay?

wretchard
(turning soft, compassionate)
I didn’t know you were in here.

gardner
Well, I’d have come over sooner, but you seemed a little preoccupied.

wrethcard
(quickly scans the room)
Yeah, we’re sending down a landing team in a couple of hours to gather some data on the aliens.

gardner
(concerned)
So soon? Nobody informed my department, and we should be going down.

wretchard
(shakes head)
Well, Aguillera’s taking down a hand-picked team. Mostly senior staff and a couple of my guys to look out for them. I’m sure he’ll get around to sending down survey teams soon enough, but I get the impression he wants to be there when history is made.

gardner
That’s not according to regs.

wretchard
It’s his ship.

gardner
(considers the point, softens and touches his arm)
Well, are we meeting in your cabin for drinks later?

wretchard
(smiles)
I’ve already got the videos queued up and ready to go, and the gin is chilling in my fridge. This is going to be a day to remember when it’s all over, and if I know Aguillera, he’s already thinking of how to celebrate first contact when the mission is done.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – launch bay

Aguillera stands before a semi-circle of seven men and women, among them Franzen, Nguyen, Preston, Gelbart, and three others from the science department. They are all wearing utility belts with shoulder straps. All have a sidearm, a radio, a portable emergency oxygen tank with mask, a knife, a Camelback-like hydration system, and whatever other scientific equipment they might need.

Franzen and Nguyen have additional equipment. They also each carry a rifle, a pair of grenades, a variety of body armor plating, helmet with microphone and NVG/FLIR flip-down unit

aguillera
It’s a twenty minute ride down to the surface and we’ll be parking about a mile-and-a-half from the settlement we viewed this morning.
(he’s walking in small strides in front of the group, moving his hands as he talks)
We’ll get to within about a half-mile and get a better looks with the scopes. We’ll bring back samples of just about everything we can: soil, plants, insects, rocks. Whatever.
(adopts a serious tone)
Keep your wits about you, and keep your eyes open for these creatures. Don’t let them get too close, we don’t know anything about them, yet.
(turns to Franzen, Nguyen)
We’re not going to shoot first ask questions second, but we don’t want to find ourselves being manuevered into a situation, either. I’ll make the call on the use of force.
(to entire group)
That said, if things go to hell, regroup at the lander and, if necessary, use whatever means necessary to get back to it.
(gestures behind him)
The pilots will stay with the lander the entire time, and it’ll be ready to launch immediately.
(softens a bit)
But mostly this is just a recon to grab some samples and get a sense of the place, so let’s not go down there afraid. This is the first time any of us will have been off ship in fifteen months, so try and enjoy the experience. Everybody packed?

Everybody in the groups nods they are ready to board.

aguillera
Alright, let’s roll.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

The lander cuts down into the atmosphere and the planet surface comes quickly into view through the front view screens. It is a world awash in color, with vast oceans and lakes, rivers, mountains, forests. The lander maneuvers through what pass for clouds, and the pilots are busy at the controls. The landing party is tense and excited. Most are final-checking their equipment. Franzen and Nguyen tap their weapons idly, confident of their abilities.

A moment later, there is a series of pings against the hull of the ship, and the team members glance up at the pilot station. The pilots look at each other, and one returns to piloting the lander. The other turns around in his chair.

co-pilot
No idea what that was, folks, but it felt like we flew threw a flock of birds… or what passes for birds here.
(checks a readout on a screen)
No damage to the lander, Captain.

Aguillera nods and continues to look at the view screens, which are situated to provide a uninterrupted 180 degree view out the front of the lander.

aguillera
Is probe 2 over the LZ?

co-pilot
(checks a readout)
Yes, sir.

aguillera
Put it on screen.

The co-pilot taps a button and one of the screen shows a picture-in-a-picture of the drone’s camera view of the landing zone. It is a flat, uninhabited area.

pilot
The Dimension says the area is still vacant of creatures, sir.

Aguillera nods.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – bridge of dimension

Wretchard sits at his station, watching data on his console. He looks up at ATKINS sitting in the captain’s chair. ATKINS is fiddling with the variety of equipment at the captain's station, and a smile comes over his face as WRETCHARD watches.

wretchard
(softly, to himself)
It must be good to be the little-C captain.
(turns to face the communications officer)
Split the screen to show the lander’s forward view and put a PIP up of probe 2 in the lower left corner.
(turns to weapons station)
Have the guns aimed and ready for supporting fire. Tell them hands off for now, but to watch closely and be ready.

Weapons Officer
Aye, aye, sir.

ATKINS turns in the captain’s chair and gives WRETCHARD a quizzical, uncertain look.

wretchard
(conciliatory)
If that’s okay with you, of course.

atkins
(nods)
Yes, of course.

END FLASHBACKS

CUT TO:

int. day – captain’s ready room on the dimension

WRECTCHARD is staring at a grouping of view screens, each showing different data and pictures. He taps buttons and cycles through screens, trying to figure some sense in to what happened while the Dimension and the rest of the fleet were gone. He picks up a small model of the Star Ship Enterprise that was coveted by Aguillera, looks at it and shakes his head in disdain.

wretchard
(softly)
See what happens when the captain beams down first?

WRETCHARD puts the model down and returns to the screens. There’s a buzz, and Wretchard hits a button to open the door to the ready room.

TRIFILETTI walks in. She looks at the screens, looks disillusioned, and turns to Wretchard.

trifiletti
The Spalding’ data matches ours. Something catastrophic happened about five weeks ago. My best guess is that whoever, or whatever, attacked Earth, well, they spent about 37 hours in orbit attacking. Not very long for such a devasating result.

wretchard
Thirty-seven hours? Seriously?

trifiletti
(nods, looks at the floor for a moment)
Yes, sir.

wretchard
Any idea how long they spent observing us, learning who we were, what we were up to in the universe?

trifiletti
(shakes head)
There’s no way to know that. You can only assume that whatever they saw, for however long they saw it, they didn’t like it.

WRETCHARD turns away from the screens and walks to a corner of the room, dispirited. He can’t believe a species of intelligence would just immediately attack Earth without first trying a lengthy dialogue to determine what the human race was trying to accomplish.

wretchard
(taps his fingers on the wall while thinking aloud)
I don’t think you can assume that, Ms. Trifiletti. Maybe they just figured that whoever they were –are - was the only way the universe is supposed to be.
(turns to face Trifiletti)
What if their god told them all other life forms are evil and need to be eradicated? What if their scientists told them that our genetic makeup, if we met, would give them a disease that would wipe out their species?
(turns to screens, speaks softly)
What if they’re just bloodthirsty and intent on domination of the galaxy?
(to Trifiletti)
How’s the crew taking it?

trifiletti
Well, Rev. Manni has been seeing groups of people in the chapel, and the doc has been pressed into some psychological counseling, but most of them are still in shock. Me included, Ben. My husband and boy were in Dallas, and there’s no Dallas anymore.
(softly)
I don’t know if there’s anybody on board that didn’t lose someobody, and most lost a lot of family and friends. This is just … unimaginable.
(turns to the screens WRETCHARD is viewing)
I mean, we went out there trying to find, I don’t know, whatever. But we didn’t go out looking for a fight. But we got one. Then we come home and find out somebody else was out there looking, too, and they were looking for a fight.

wretchard
Well, they’ll get one now.

trifiletti
Who will? Hell, Ben, we don’t have any idea who or what did this, yet, and we may never know.

wretchard
(sternly, but with compassion)
Oh, I think we’ll find out. They left a bunch of markers on the surface. If they weren’t planning on coming back, they wouldn’t have wiped most of us out and then planted a series of white obelisks on the planet. We’re going to have to get ready for their return.

trifiletti
There’s only two of us here right now, and judging from the wreckage of the Verona, two ships isn’t enough.

wretchard
Well, we’ll have to hope the rest of the fleet returns before they do. Otherwise, it’ll just be us.

A communications alert signal beeps in the ready room, and WRETCHARD checks the screen to see who’s calling before touching a button.

wretchard
What’ve you got, Hanson?

communications officer hanson
(on screen)
Sir, we’re picking up some debris near Mars on the long-range scanners that you might want to look at.

wretchard
Why is that?

Hanson
It’s the wreckage of a non-Earth ship.

WRETCHARD and TRIFILETTI stare at each other in shock and disbelief.

wretchard
Well, well, well.

CUT TO:

int. day – ready room on the spalding

TUCKER is listening the the communications officer relay the message from the Dimension, and he’s clearly upset with it. He touches his computer screens and brings up his own ship’s sensor information, which shows the alien space wreckage near Mars. He taps several more buttons and the computer projects the approximate size values of the destroyed ship, and Tucker scrunches his forehead. It’s a small ship, just smaller than his own.

tucker
(taps screen, talks to it)
Get me the Dimension.

communications officer
On the line now, sir.

tucker
Wretchard, what do you think that is?

wretchard
(on screen)
A clue, for sure. Maybe an answer if we head out and check.

tucker
I agree, but we need to stay put until we get the situation figured out around here. We have no idea what else is out there. There could be some more ships out there, lurking.

wretchard
It seems a very slim possibility. There would be some indication on the sensors, being this close.

tucker
I know we’re all excited to start getting some answers, but we’ve only just gotten here, and we need to start getting down to the surface of Earth before we go checking out the neighborhood.

wretchard
Okay. What’s the plan?

Tucker
(uncertain)
Well, we’re not getting any comm links with the surface, so we should send down a couple of landers. I’m thinking maybe to Blakely Launch Base in Australia – that wasn’t hit and it seems like there’s activity – and also to Einstein Center in Nevada, which wasn’t hit, either.

wretchard
We’ll take Blakely.

tucker
Good. Stay alert and keep an eye on that wreckage, and let’s meet in 24 hours after the initial landing teams get back.

wretchard
Roger.

tucker
Out.

CUT TO:

ext. day – airspace over australia

A lander cruises down from space into the Australian sunrise. It passes over Sydney, a destroyed city no longer smoldering, and the crew from Dimension looks at the images on the main screens. All are saddened by the destruction. Then the lander passes over the countryside and cruises into the distance.

ext –day – blakely launch base

A soldier monitoring a radar station bends intently over his screen, watching a single blip appear and begin moving quickly across the screen.

soldier
Sir, we’ve got incoming on screen. Moving west 260 degrees at 3,500 feet, 300 knots.

duty officer
(rushes from desk under tent to stare at screen)
Damn. Sound the alarm and notify the chain of command.
(turns to those in the tent)
We got a bogey incoming with an ETA of eleven minutes. This is not a drill. Get everyone to battle stations, now.

Soldiers rush about intently, manning anti-aircraft weapons, ducking into bunkers and pulling camouflage screens over vehicles and other sorts of equipment. The men are all tense, and all scan the sky nervously, awaiting the return of the unseen enemy from weeks earlier.

GOSWAITE emerges from another tent and walks briskly to the operations tent and stares down at the blip on the screen. He shakes his head in short, slow shakes of disbelief.

goswaite
(to tent in general)
I don’t suppose it’s flown over any other observation stations, has it?

The few soldiers inside shake their heads in answer.

goswaite cont’d
Of course not. Corporal, notify Air Ops command we’ve got a bogey.

communications corporal
Yes, sir.

GOSWAITE exits the tent and stares up into the sky.

CUT TO:

ext. day – a small town in america

FELDMAN and LIPTON are sitting in a conference room, examining maps laid out on a table. There are maps on all the walls, with markings showing the known habitable areas and the known destroyed areas of North America. There are computers on in the room, with aides working at them, analyzing various sorts of data.

A military officer walks into the room, glances around at the maps, and heads directly to FELDMAN.

Gen. harry owens
(nods first to FELDMAN, then to LIPTON)
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, we’ve just go word that one of the landers from the space fleet has landed at Einstein Center.

Those within earshot stop working at their stations and turn in their seats while FELDMAN and LIPTON both become excited and curious and relieved at the news.

feldman
From what ship? When did it arrive?

gen. owens
It’s from the Spalding, Terry Tucker’s ship. It touched down thirty-seven minutes ago and it’ll be on it’s way here shortly, if not already.

feldman
Well, the good news is finally arriving, I hope. How’d we get the news so fast?

gen. owens
(smiles)
An Air Force captain flew his fighter from the base at Mach 2 after they touched down. He said he didn’t want anyone out here surprised when the lander arrived.

lipton
Flew, huh? I don’t know if that’s brave or stupid, but I’ll lean toward brave, for now. Get him debriefed on his flight and find out.

gen. owens
Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary.

GEN. OWENS leaves the room, and LIPTON and FELDMAN look down at a map. LIPTON taps on the location of Einstein Center and traces his finger from there to their current location.

lipton
He could have burned himself a nice hole in the ground, flying a fighter like that.

feldman
Well, at least we know we’re making some progress on getting those things up. And, anyway, this is good news. If the Spalding is back.

Feldman walks to a computer and types in Spalding, then frowns a bit.

lipton
What is it?

Feldman
(motions to screen)
The Spalding is a third wave ship and she’s back already. She should still be heading outbound.

Both men pause quietly for a second and regard each other.

lipton
You think they might know what hit us?

feldman
We’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, the ships from the first wave should be back soon, too, so we’ll have some eyes and ears back up and running above us.

lipton
True, but I’d be satisfied if we could get some reliable communications established. We might need all of the fighters we’ve got should whoever come back to finish the job.

CUT TO:

ext. day – australian military base

The lander glides above the base, circles and approaches for landing. The soldiers are all immediately relieved, and GOSWAITE motions for several to follow him to the lander. He motions with his hands for the men to take up a defensive posture, and the men fan out and assume prone positions, there weapons pointed at the ship. BOOTHE walks up behind him and stares at the ship as dust kicks up from it and it’s landing skids emerge. The ships touches ground and GOSWAITE and BOOTHE look at each other skeptically.

boothe
I hope they’re bringing good news.

goswaite
Like what? They’ve discovered intelligent life on another planet?

boothe
That there’s still intelligent life left elsewhere on this planet.

goswaite
Yeah, you wouldn’t want to think that whoever did this to Australia did it just to Australia, now, would you? That wouldn’t be bloody fair.

The lander’s engine noise powers down and the door on the side opens. A short ramp extends down to the ground and FRANZEN emerges, looks around, and smiles.

franzen
(to GOSWAITE and BOOTHE)
Greetings, we come in peace.

FRANZEN walks down the ramp, followed by several other crew members

franzen cont’d
Just what the hell happened here while we were gone?

GOSWAITE and BOOTHE look at each other and frown.

goswaite
Well, I was hoping you’d be able to answer that one for us.

franzen
(shakes head)
Who’s in command here?

goswaite
I am. Gen. Carruthers is the brigade commander for this area, and Gen. Heller is in overall charge.

franzen
Well, I’ve got a ton of data for you guys from the scans we took from orbit. Maybe we can put that with your experiences down here and figure out what the hell happened. The whole planet’s a wreck.

goswaite
(to BOOTHE)
You see, I knew no alien species was going to come all the way to Earth just to punch us Aussie’s in the gut.
(to FRANZEN)
We can drive to the brigade HQ, it’s about fifteen minutes away. Boothe, you’ve got the base until I get back.

FRANZEN nods and turns back to the crew members standing at the bottom of the ramp. Meanwhile, GOSWAITE waves to the soldiers on the ground to return to their stations. FRANZEN takes a bag from one of the crew.

franzen
See what you can do for them around here, and get a list of what they need.

crew member
Aye, sir.

FRANZEN and GOSWAITE get into the back seat of a vehicle driven by a soldier, with another soldier sitting in the front passenger seat. The vehicle pulls away from the tents and departs in a cloud of dust.

franzen
So, what did happen? From what we can tell from orbit, half the major cities on the planet have been reduced to rubble.

goswaite
That’s more than we know from here. We got hit about five weeks ago. Whoever it was did the job fast, from high orbit, firing missiles down and moving east to west. We first got word from UFDN command in Brussels that they were under attack, then nothing.

There wasn’t much video on it, either. Just Internet reports and satellite feeds of destruction, but nothing lasted very long. Computer nets went down, satellites stopped responding, radio networks were jammed and every phone line or cell tower or you-name-it became over-congested and then went down.

We knew something was coming, but we didn’t really know what. There was a brief transmission we’ve recovered from the base databanks from the Spalding that a fleet of alien vessels had emerged and they were going to move to intercept with the intent of establishing contact, but then nothing more.

The entire military was put on alert by the time there were reports coming out of America that it was under attack, but no news of the Yank response. But, by then, everybody knew it was time to leave the cities, and there were immense traffic jams. Then, they hit Tokyo, Singapore, Melbourne, and that was it. We lost all contact with the outside world.

franzen
(pauses, stares out window of vehicle)
Nobody knew what was coming. And nobody knows why it came.

CUT TO:

int.- dimension weapons room

BLACKSIDE, CANNIF and JACOBSEN are idly sitting at their weapons stations, watching display screens that show blank space. They are bored.

cannif
Three days in orbit now and no word from the surface, that just don’t seem right.

jacobsen
They did send down a lander.

cannif
Yeah, that’s great. The entire planet’s been half-wiped out and they won’t even tell us what parts. I’m getting tired of the rumors. Somebody’s got to let us in. Aguillera would‘ve let us know what was going on.

blackside
Can it, Cannif. Captain Wretchard will brief us when he has the time. Right now, we need to be paying attention to our screens so as we don’t get blindsided like the Spalding and Verona did.

cannif
He’s a commodore, not a captain, sarge.

jacobsen
No, I think he’s colonel.

cannif
Yeah, he was a colonel before he took command, but since he took command under fire in time of duress, and since he wasn’t in the natural chain of command, he’s not the captain or acting captain, he’s a commodore.

blackside
You’re right, Cannif, he’s a commodore, but only because he comes from the security branch. It’s a temporary command title that stands ‘til fleet replaces him with a proper captain. But until then, he’s you’re acting captain, so deal with it. He’s not going to do things the same way Capt. Aguillera did, get used to it.

cannif
I am used to it. I just want to know if my family is alive.

blackside
(softly)
We all want to know. And we will. Just concentrate on the job for now. It’s all we have.

CUT TO:

int. day – presidential briefing room

The crew of the Spalding lander are departing from a briefing with the president, and FELDMAN does not look certain things are changing in his favor. He looks up from the maps and asks the Spalding officer in charge to wait.

feldman
Commander Harkins, please, stay a few minutes longer.

harkins
(nods to the other crew members to continue on)
Mr. President.

feldman
Is there really no word from the rest of the world?

harkins
Well, sir, no. Whatever the aliens did, they did good, because they found a way to block all radioform communication. Like I said in the briefing, we don’t know how.

lipton
You mentioned several monoliths planted on the surface. Could that have anything to do with it?

harkins
I don’t know. Maybe. Nobody’s even seen one in person, yet. We’ve just seen them from orbit.

feldman
Well, tell Capt. Tucker to make it his top priority to check one of them out and determine what they are. They weren’t here before the attack, so it seems likely they’re part of the problem.

harkins
That may be, sir.

feldman
Yes, it may. I noticed the same uncertainty in your briefing. Is there something you’re not telling us? We didn’t send our best and bravest into space just to have them come back and be circumspect. Did you find something out there?

harkins
No sir. A couple of comets and empty planetoids, but nothing that would merit any report.

feldman
So why are you holding back?

harkins
(uncertain)
I’m not holding back, sir. It’s just I don’t know the situation.

feldman
Where? Here? I’m in charge here.

harkins
No, sir, the fleet.

feldman
Who’s in charge of the fleet?

harkins
Yes, sir.

feldman
Well, the UFDN has been out of action for weeks. Surely, you knew that before you came down. That leaves us in command, as per the multi-national agreements, since we funded most of the damn enterprise.

That means I am your boss, Commander Harkins, and make sure your CO knows that. The world is ruined. Now is not the time to worry about who should be in charge. We’ll sort that out later, if I’m wrong. But, for now, the fleet will answer to me, and, eventually, to whatever Congress we manage to put back together.

This is a military mission for you guys, now, so you’ll have to start thinking that way. I suppose the oribtal drydocks are destroyed …
(looks optimistically at Harkins, who nods)
… so you’ll have to figure out how to re-fit your ships yourselves. We’ll see what we can do on our end.
And if there’s any way for the Spalding or Dimension to contact the rest of the fleet and get them back quicker, then do so.

FELDMAN walks around the room and taps the maps on the map table, suddenly overcome with sadness at the size of the devastation. Tears well in his eyes, but do not fall down his cheeks.

feldman
How was it when you found out what had happened down here?

harkins
Well, … we were pretty shocked. We could tell something was wrong from a couple of days out, since we weren’t getting any kind of signals from any of the stations in orbit or planetside, and we got really nervous when we weren’t even picking up any white noise. Nothing, not TV nor radio or anything else. Just silence. Then we got within visual range and, … we were afraid there might not be anything left behind. At first, we thought it must have been some flashfire of a war, but we quickly realized it had to be something extraterrestrial when we saw the Verona destroyed. I have to say, it was tough getting back to business the first couple of days. All anyone could think about was if their loved ones had made it to safety, and nobody up top knows yet, and we’ve been up there nearly two weeks.

feldman
Well, we don’t have an accurate accounting down here, either, but you’re welcome to our database if it’ll help. Thank you for your help, commander, I’ll let you get back to your men.

HARKINS nods and turns, eyeing the maps on the table one more time before leaving, trying to quickly identify where his home town would be, and if it was destroyed. He finds it inside a devastated area, and leaves, sad.

FELDMAN turns to LIPTON and shrugs.

feldman
(taps a PDA he is holding)
We’re going to need a team looking at the Dimension’s logs immediately. It’s going to be impossible to stop the rumors once word gets out that one of our ships made contact with an alien species just months before the alien attacks, and I want to make sure that we know what Harkins just told us is accurate, and if it doesn’t appear that way, we need to find out as much as we can about the species the Dimension encountered.

CUT TO:

int. day – ready room of the dimension

WRETCHARD is staring absently at the computer modelling of the current status of the Earth, wondering how he will disseminate the information to the crew. He knows it will give them the best indication of whether the next-of-kin for the members of the crew survived, but he is worried about what that could do to morale.

WRETCHARD leaves the ready room through the door to the bridge and pauses to survey the crew performing normal work, a top down view of the Earth on the main screen showing continents and oceans and cloud clover, no indication of the damage on the surface. He leaves the bridge and begins walking through the corridors of the ship, stopping and observing the crew, most of whom pay him little mind other than a courtesy nod.

He makes his way through the ship to a door with a red symbol of snake-wrapped staff, and pauses. It is the door to the ship’s sick bay. He enters.

Inside the sick bay, DR. HARRY MINELLA is sitting at his health station. MINELLA looks up, and smiles.

minella
Ben, to what do I owe the honor?

wretchard
(makes a small shrug)
To nothing, Doc. I was just restless and wandering the ship. Ended up here.

minella
Any word from the surface?

wretchard
No. Franzen’s been down there with a team for about three hours now. It’ll be a while longer before he gets back up with any news.

minella
Most of it will be bad, I presume.

wretchard
Yeah… How’s the crew been?

minella
Well, I’ve prescribed quite a few with sleep meds; there’s a lot of insomnia going on, what with all the off-duty wondering about loved ones and what will happen next. Nothing I’d call serious, though. We’ve been away for almost two years, and I’m sure that everybody aboard was expecting a much more joyous homecoming … This has come to shock to all of us.

wretchard
Any change with Kerkorian?

MINELLA stands and walks to an isolation chamber, presses a button to raise the blind, and behind a window is a woman on a medical bed, tubes hooked into her. Above the window, a computer screen relays her vitals.

minella
She’s still in a coma, no change since we got her back from the planet after the mission. She’s got plenty of brain activity, so she should have already revived. But you know that. Whatever they hit her with is something quite outside our knowledge. She should be awake and fine, but instead she’s in a high-functioning vegetative state.
(turns to WRETCHARD)
We need to get her down to a proper facility as soon as possible. If she stays like this too much longer, well, she may never recover. I don’t have the tools on the ship to figure out what to do.

wretchard
You don’t think there’s anything incubating in her, do you?

minella
Like in a movie? Something that’ll tear through her abdomen and run amuck through the ship.

wretchard
Well, I had considered that, but I mostly meant a biological agent, a germ of some kind.

minella
There’s nothing the sensors in there are picking up, and my initial work-up on her didn’t show anything, but then, our equipment isn’t likely to detect things we don’t know about if they don’t resemble something in the system. So, yes, she could be incubating something.

wretchard
So we have yet another decision I have to make out of thin air.

minella
(compassionate)
Hence the phrase, “expect the unexpected,” I presume.

WRETCHARD turns from the isolation chamber window and walks slowly across sick bay to the entry door. At the door, he pauses and turns to the doctor, who is closing the window on the chamber.

wretchard
The only thing I didn’t expect was that it would be me doing it.

CUT TO:

ext. day – australia

FRANZEN and GOSWAITE exit the military HQ and begin walking along a shady path, both apparently replaying the conversations which had occurred inside. Both are now aware of the situation in its entirety. They walk in silence for a short while until GOSWAITE stops.

goswaite
I wonder if we’ll ever be able to rebuild. It took thousands of years to get to where we were, and suddenly all that is gone. Half the world’s population must be gone, and much of the other half is probably living in primitive conditions … subsistence conditions. Where do you start? The choices, the options, the difficulty. It could take a thousand years to tear everything down and build everything back up again. It could never happen. God.

franzen
You know, for a long time I thought it would be us who tore the world apart, fighting over some difference or another. When they started the space program I was just a teenager, and I knew it was what I wanted to be involved in, because it was something that could unite the entire world to a common purpose. But even while I was in the academy, and later during the test trials, I always feared the program could be the issue that set the world on a course to destruction. There were so many people opposed to it, to the expense of it. There were so many people who wanted to spend the money down here that I was almost sure we’d never launch, that the program would be scuttled.
(pauses)
But I never thought another intelligent species would just come by and try to wipe us out. Never even crossed my mind, really, and I grew up reading a lot of science fiction. But here I am, standing on planet earth after another species decided it was better to take us out than try to deal with us.

goswaite
Makes you wonder how many species might be out there that would act the same way. Maybe the universe isn’t full of would-be explorers, but is packed to the gills with species seeking to be the only one, or the dominant one.

franzen
You might just be right.

The two men begin walking down the path toward the vehicle they drove in on. GOSWAITE turns to FRANZEN as they reach the vehicle.

goswaite
You guys didn’t come across any other species while you were out there, did you?

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

ext. day – surface of alien world

Aguillera and the team are loosely spread out along a low hill, looking through binoculars at what would appear to be some sort of community where the aliens live. It resembles more a hive with scores of openings than independent structures, and the surface of the community has many aliens busy on it. They are not doing any type of activity recognizable to anyone on the survey team.

About ten yards behind the survey team, FRANZEN and NGUYEN are keeping an overwatch on the party and checking to make sure they are not being sneaked-up on by the aliens.

aguillera
Anybody got a clue what they might be doing?

gelbart
Damned if I know, sir, but it almost looks like they’re polishing the surface of the place.

preston
(quizzical)
Does it look like more and more of them are doing it the longer we sit here and watch them?

kerkorian
I was wondering the same thing.
(smiles slightly)
Maybe the old sci-fi pictures were right after all, and alien species don’t wear clothes – it’s just us humans and our obsession with body image.
(looks back through binoculars)
I’m going to guess they’re either wearing some very oddly made clothing, or they have some natural leathery protective armor of some sort covering much of their body.

gelbart
I’d go with the natural armor, myself … although it does almost look removable.

aguillera
Make sure you shoot video of this, and see if you can’t get any sound, too. Preston, let’s see if we can’t sneak around to the higher ground over to the left and get a better view. Gelbart, get what you need for analysis from here, dirt and whatever, then bring the team up to meet us.

AGUILLERA stands and pulls a communications device from a pocket on his belt.

aguillera cont’d
Franzen, you and Nguyen reposition to the higher ground. Preston and I are moving there now, and the rest of the team will follow in a few minutes.

FRANZEN and NGUYEN begin walking up the slight grade toward a hilltop lightly dotted with leafy trees and small bushes. AGUILLERA and PRESTON begin walking up the hill.

aguillera
You bring your camera?

preston
Of course.

Aguillera
(smiling)
Good. Before the rest of the team gets up, let’s get some snapshots with the village in the background.

preston
I’m not sure I’d call this air fresh, but I’m sure glad to be breathing it. And dirt, damn, I haven’t seen real life dirt for almost two-and-a-half years,
(makes a dismissive hand motion)
and the lunar surface doesn’t count. You’ve got a protective suit on, so you can’t touch it or smell it or run your bare feet through it.

aguillera
(laughs)
I’d keep your boots on while we’re down here, Press.

FRANZEN and NGUYEN suddenly rush by, their weapons held up to their shoulders, each man sighting down the barrel. AGUILLERA quickly looks to where the men are pointing their guns, and sees the rest of the team backing up at a brisk walk, their hands hovering above the holsters for their sidearms

A dozen yards away, about a hundred of the aliens are approaching. They are bunched in an intricate network that appears to be a battle formation, and smaller groups within the larger group are moving in different ways, as if to break from the large group and form smaller groups to flank the survey team.

AGUILLERA turns and looks to the lander through his binoculars. The CO-PILOT is performing a walkaround check of the vehicle. It sits about three-quarters of a miles away in a mass of tall grass, partially obscuring it.

preston
What’s going on?

aguillera
I don’t know, but it doesn’t look like the neighborhood welcoming committee to me.
(turns attention to Franzen and Nguyen)
Let’s fall back and stay even with the rest of the team, but see if we can’t remain outside their attention, for now.

The entire group on the hilltop begins to fall back.

Below, the rest of the team is nervous and uncertain, but not yet frightened.

gelbart
Rest easy on the weapons. Let’s see if we can’t just walk backwards all the way we need to.

kerkorian
They don’t look so little when they’re coming at you.

The advancing aliens stand about five feet tall and have a generally lanky build, except for what would be their chest and abdomen, which appears to be covered with layers of what is either heavy folds of skin or sheets of intricately layered leather armor.

kerkorian cont’d
And would you look at that, they’re trying to get around our flanks and surround us.

gelbart
I see it, but let’s not hit the panic button yet.
(to the group)
We need to pick up the pace here a bit, folks.

Among the aliens, those in the front rank reach into the folds on their chest and produce handsful of tiny, fluid-coated spiky balls, each about the size of a pinball. There is a brief series of squeals and similar noises before one of the creatures lunges from the group and hurls a handful of balls at the survey team.

From the top of the hill, AGUILLERA watches as one of the members of the survey team screams in extreme pain and collapses in a heap to the ground. FRANZEN takes a step forward and fires a burst at the alien that threw the balls, and it is ripped open from the fire and collapses silently. All of the aliens suddenly stop advancing save for a group on the side nearest AGUILLERA, which turns to face his group.

aguillera
Now we’re in the soup.
(speaks into communicator)
Gelbart, pick up Lileks and get back to the lander as quickly as possible.

The alien formation across from GELBART is making squealing noises again, as if conferring on a course of action. GELBART bends over crewman LILEKS, who is bleeding steadily from three punctures in his stomach and chest. In each wound is a small, spiky ball. LILEKS is already delerious, blanched and wracked with pain.

gelbart
(motioning to the other crewmember for help, then looking at Lileks)
Come on Jimmy, we’ll get you fixed up.

lileks
Hurts … oh, god, it really hurts … everywhere.

KERKORIAN draws her handgun.

kerkorian
We need to be moving, sir, now and fast.

Gelbart
I know.
(to other crewmember)
Let’s –
(screams in agony and collapses)

KERKORIAN fires several rounds at a trio of aliens that have just hurled balls at GELBART while the other crewmember grabs for his gun. Too late, as another trio of aliens separate from the group, step forward, and hurl balls at the crewman. KERKORIAN turns and sprints toward the lander while the crewperson collapses.

From their position on the hill, FRANZEN and NGUYEN sweep fire across the aliens position, taking down those that hurled balls and then targeting the group moving toward them, eliminating them all.

franzen
(to Nguyen)
Frag grenades followed with smoke, then we fall back fast to the lander.

NGUYEN takes a white and three red grenade rounds from his utility belt and loads them into the side of his rifle as FRANZEN does the same.

aguillera
(to group)
When the smoke pops, we need to see if any of them are still alive and bring them back with us.

franzen
I wouldn’t advise that sir.
(points)

Below, the aliens have several multi-alien pursuit parties racing after KERKORIAN. They’re gaining. Elsewhere, a large group of aliens is separating the three crewmembers and, apparently, examining them to determine what they are.

preston
We need to get the hell out of here, sir.

Several groups of aliens are now moving up the hill toward the team. FRANZEN sweeps them with fire and swaps clips on his rifle. NGUYEN fires on the team most closely gaining on KERKORIAN, bringing them down.

franzen
(to Nguyen)
Grenades now. You move center mass to the right, I’ll move to the left. Put the smoke in the middle of your three splashes. Ready? Go.

FRANZEN and NGUYEN fire grenade rounds while AGUILLERA and PRESTON remove their pistols from their holsters and begin moving toward the lander. The grenade explosions create disorder in the alien ranks, and they pause when the smoke grenades pop and blue smoke pours into the air.

The four men sprint down the hill and follow after KERKORIAN, who is in a panic-stricken run for the lander. AGUILLERA, FRANZEN, NGUYEN and PRESTON run and make quick turns to check for pursuers, and soon enough the aliens are moving quickly through the smoke screen. Amid the aliens are a different version of the species. Taller, leaner and a slightly different color, with mottling. The tall aliens are also wielding long spear-like weapons they pull from what appears to be an organic quiver. The tall aliens run after the retreating crew members and quickly close the distance.

aguillera
(pauses mid-spin to survey pursuing aliens)
Apparently we were only dealing with the workers before. Now it looks like they’ve brought out the warrior class.

Preston
(also coming to a stop and looking back)
Suddenly you’re a quick study.

A series of spears crash into the soil around the two men. They look at each other and begin running again. Within a few steps, a spear rips through PRESTON and he tumbles to the ground. FRANZEN and NGUYEN turn and let loose with a burst of fire.

preston
(staring disbelievingly into the sky as AGUILLERA bends over him)
I don’t understand …
(dies)

aguillera
(emotional, tears in eyes, he raises his pistol and fires several rounds randomly)
This isn’t the way it happens.

About twenty warrior aliens are running toward the group, and the three men turn and run headlong toward the lander, which is powered up. Inside the lander, the two pilots are watching the viewscreens as KERKORIAN in forground and AGUILLERA, FRANZEN and NGUYEN several hundred yards behind.

pilot
Let’s get light on the skids and start hovering their way.

co-pilot
The door’s down.

pilot
Raise it.

The lander lifts up about two feet and begins slowly hovering toward the running crew.

FRANZEN and NGUYEN pause to wait for AGUILLERA to catch up, sweeping their weapons.

franzen
Another volley of grenades. Choose your own targets.

The two men load and begin firing, bringing down some of the advancing warrior aliens. NGUYEN screams and crumples to the ground, a pair of spears skewering his body. FRANZEN turns and sees a new column of warrior aliens advancing on his flank. He fires a last grenade into them and cuts the rest down with rifle fire. AGUILLERA reaches his position.

aguillera
(quickly picks up NGUYEN’S rifle)
Let’s go.

The two men run, firing brief bursts behind them as they do. In the distance, the hovering lander manuevers to land short of KERKORIAN, who is flagging from running so desperately. She pauses for a moment and turns a quick circle, her pistol held shakily at the ready. The lander sets down fifty yards from her on level ground. She starts a slow jog toward it.

FRANZEN and AGUILLERA are also slowing down, fatigued from the first true exertion either has had in more than a year, although FRANZEN is the stronger of the two. He pauses to let AGUILLERA catch up again.

franzen
Less than five hundred meters left, sir, we need to haul ass.

AGUILLERA
(drops rifle to the ground)
I’ll be quicker without this.

franzen
(raises rifle and fires a burst toward advancing warrior aliens)
Move!

A spear slices through AGUILLERA and he turns to see another column of warrior aliens advancing from the other flank. He grimaces in extreme pain and then another spear cuts through him. FRANZEN fires at the new group of warrior aliens until his weapon quits, drops his rifle and sprints toward the lander.

KERKORIAN is now only pretending to move quickly, a person mimicking a run. Her arms are at her sides as she walks quickly toward the lander. The CO-PILOT is outside the lander with his pistol, sweeping the landscape looking for aliens. A group of twenty worker aliens emerge from a copse of trees and he begins firing at them. He drops several and reloads his weapon as KERKORIAN stumbles toward him. He fires again, bringing several more worker aliens down, but one worker alien throws a handful of balls at him just as KERKORIAN reaches him. A single ball strikes her in the arm, and she winces in extreme pain.

co-pilot
In in in in! Get in the lander now!
(he turns his attention to FRANZEN, who is nearly at the ship)
Hurry! These freaks are everywhere.

KERKORIAN takes several steps and collapses on the entry ramp to the lander. FRANZEN reaches the lander while the CO-PILOT fires several more rounds at the advancing worker aliens. FRANZEN grabs KERKORIAN and drags her aboard. The CO-PILOT enters on their heels and presses a button on the wall, lifting the ramp.

co-pilot
Ramp’s up.

pilot
Hold tight.

The lander begins to hover up as the ramp door closes. It pauses at about thirty feet in the air, just as warrior aliens and worker aliens converge on the spot it just occupied. The door closes, and the lander slowly lifts higher, heading for space.

END FLASHBACKS

int. day – ready room of the spalding

WRETCHARD is studying a display of the solar system, and the locations of the various Earth stations, none of which have been contacted. He zooms in on the Mars station and taps the screen where the alien ship wreckage is. He calls up more telemetry on the station, all computer generated predictions, and opens a second window on the screen that shows the schematics of the base. He becomes excited.

wretchard
What the …?
(hits a button on the command console)
communications officer
(on monitor)
Sir?

wretchard
Patch me through to Captain Tucker on the Spalding.

There is a brief pause and WRETCHARD drums his fingers idly on the table. The monitor changes and TUCKER is seen sitting in his ready room.

tucker
(on screen)
Wretchard, what have you got?

wretchard
Something interesting, I think. I’ve been running through the data the last few days and I got to thinking about that alien ship over Mars.

tucker
Yes.

wretchard
So, I compared the damage to the base with the base schematics and I think we’ve missed something big.

tucker
(leans toward his screen)
Oh?

wretchard
(taps several buttons while talking)
I’m sending over my analysis, but I think that base is still functioning. My guess is that the alien attack on it only destroyed the surface structure. That base goes down ten levels, and if the damage the computers are predicting is accurate, then the subsurface infrastructure is probably intact.

tucker
Hold on.
(takes a cursory glance at the data he’s just received)
You might be right. We need to send a lander down to HQ and see if they want us to check it out.

wretchard
I’ve got one prepped for launch. We should know something in a couple of hours if I send it now.

tucker
Do it.

ext. day – equatorial africa

A lander from the Dimension is parked in the background. A camp of tents and technological equipment has been set up around a thirty-foot tall obelisk, and soldiers are stationed around the perimenter of the camp.

TRIFILETTI and another man, SCIENTIST JEFF MESKILL, are walking away from the obelisk conferring over a tablet PC data readout.

meskill
Well, we’ve been looking at this thing for nearly a week and it hasn’t emitted any signs of anything we can detect.

trifiletti
Agreed.

meskill
I say we dig it out and see what happens.

trifiletti
And do what with it? If it’s part of what’s causing all the problems, it’ll still be a part of what’s causing the problems, since digging it up will only uproot it, not deactivate it.

meskill
Maybe we can take it apart when we’ve got it out of the ground.

trifiletti
Maybe.

meskill
Or haul it into space and send it into the sun.

trifiletti
Well, at the moment, we don’t have the capability to haul it into space.
(motions to lander)
We’ve got four of these and none of them are capable. I say we see if we can’t bust it open and see what make it tick.

meskill
Yeah. Let’s just hope the thing isn’t rigged to blow or anything.

trifiletti
(refers to her tablet PC)
I don’t see anything that indicates that. I don’t think the folks that put it here thought there’d be anybody around able to take it out.

meskill
That doesn’t make any sense, does it?

trifiletti
What?

meskill
Well, an advanced species comes here to wipe us out and put these things down here for whatever reason, and not put some safeguards in place. I mean, there aren’t any patrolling spacecraft around and no occupation force on the ground.

It doesn’t have any logic to it. If they wanted the planet, they had the opportunity to take it. If they wanted to wipe us all out, they didn’t do the job. And they know we’re a space-capable race, from what I’ve seen in the reports, so what were they up to?

trifiletti
You know, I really hope we don’t have to find out until we’re able to do something about it. And if they never come back, I won’t mind. They did enough.

meskill
You don’t want to take the fight to them?

trifiletti
It won’t bring my husband and sons back.

meskill
It won’t bring anybody back, but that’s not the point. They came here and killed half the planet for no reason we know of.

trifiletti
Yeah, and we aren’t remotely able to stand up to them should they come back again. Do I want to go after them? Yes, but in a hundred or a thousand years. Not now. We’ve got to rebuild. We’ve got to get stronger. We can’t possibly do anything to them, so pausing on thoughts of revenge or retaliation is a waste of time.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we need to understand them first. I don’t think we need a dialogue to find out why they tried to wipe us out. No matter the reason, they can’t make amends. I don’t think they want to, either. I think they think we’re done for, that what they did will kill the rest of us from within.
(turns and motions toward an obelisk)
And these things… these things are either warnings to other species or devices that will do something to the planet or maybe some sort of way of turning a planet into a navigational beacon. But whatever the hell it is, it has to come out before whatever it does happens.

MESKILL and TRIFILETTI continue to walk away from the obelisk toward a collection of command tents.

CUT TO:

int. day – bridge of dimension

WRETCHARD is sitting in the captain’s chair, alternately staring at the main screen and his command chair console. The main screen shows an ever increasing Mars while his console screen depicts a tactical readout showing the Spalding on a different course toward the red planet. The entire crew of the bridge is nervous and tense, and the battle lighting is on, making the room dim and reddish.

helmsman bevilacque
Checkpoint one,sir.

wretchard
Launch Lander One.

In the launch bay, Lander One lifts up and powers through the open bay door, clears the ship and jets away at an angle from the Dimension.

WRETCHARD gazes at his screen and sees that a lander has launched from the Spalding and is on a similar course. He nods and returns to the main screen.

wretchard
Split the screen and give me a view of the alien ship on the right side.

On screen, the first clear view of the alien ship can be seen. It is a strange ship broken into several large pieces, all of which are slowly rotating about a center of gravity. The ship is a shiny black color, as if it were made out of polished granite rather than metal and high-tech polymer sheets, as are the Spalding and Dimension.

Wretchard turns to Franzen, who is at the weapons station.

wretchard
Anything?

franzen
Nothing on passive scan.

bevilacque
Checkpoint two.

wretchard
(turns to his console)
Launch Lander Two.

Lander Two launches from the bay and arcs toward the alien ship wreckage. Inside the lander, the entire crew is wearing space suits, the passengers fully armed as a boarding party. The lander moves directly toward the wreckage.

CUT TO:

int. day – cannon room

The three cannon operators are at the ready, and tense. BLACKSIDE is watching his screens carefully while CANNIF and JACOBSEN finger their weapons terminals gingerly.

blackside
Keep a close watch and listen up. If we get the call for fire, you’ll want to be on your targets fast, so don’t daydream about the possibilities, just concentrate on the reality.

CUT TO:

ext. day – lander two

Lander Two approaches the alien wreckage and makes several passes. There is no activity from the ship. The lander moves to a stationary position near one portion of the alien ship, and the door opens. Seven armed men clear the ship and descend to the exterior of the alien ship. They form a perimeter and scan the length of the ship for signs of life.

CUT TO:

Int. day – bridge of dimension

franzen
The boarding team is on. Initial report is no activity. They’re moving across the ship.

wretchard
What about lander one?

franzen
They’ve got nothing from where they are
(taps screen)
and the data from the Spalding landers shows no activity in their search areas.

wretchard
Okay, slow to a quarter and bring us in above the alien ship to a stop. Make it a kilometer and keep everyone ready to move. Tell lander two to stop where they are and keep a look out for anything unusual.

bevilacque
Ahead one-quarter.

CUT TO:

int. day – bridge of spalding

TUCKER surveys images on his main screen, which is broken into four components, one of which is a wide angle of Mars, another is the surface of the Mars base, and the other two tactical readouts showing the positions of the ships from different perspectives.

tucker
(speaking to his command console)
Shuttle Two, what’re you picking up from the base area?

shuttle pilot
(voice from console)
Sir, the base superstructure is destroyed. It looks like four impact craters in a diamond pattern around the base tower location.

tucker
Are you picking up anything else? Any RF signals, locator beacons or anything?

shuttle pilot
No sir. Everything's quiet and dark so far as we can tell. We’re going to poke through the atmosphere and make a pass above the base and transmit the data simultaneously.

tucker
Make that pass at a safe altitude.

shuttle pilot
Roger.

tucker
(taps screen)
Shuttle One, reposition to cover Shuttle Two from high orbit.

shuttle two pilot
Roger that, Spalding.

tucker
Helm, cycle tactical view two over to a view of the alien craft.

One quadrant of the main screen quickly switches to show the Dimension lander hovering above the alien wreckage. There is a sudden flash of yellow and orange.

tucker
Enhance that image, NOW!

CUT TO:

int. day – bridge of dimension

The half of the screen showing the alien spacecraft suddenly lights up with a brilliant explosion.

wretchard
(quickly leans forward in chair)
Hail the lander and focus tighter on the alien ship. Franzen, get the gun crew online.

CUT TO:

ext. day – surface of alien craft

There is no movement. The members of the landing party are all lying on the deck of the ship or floating in the space above it. For several moments, nothing moves. Then one of the members of the landing party struggles up, weapon at the ready.

Within moments three others are on their feet and moving quickly toward the source of the blast. An alien in a space suit ripped open with fresh wounds floats out of the cavity of the ship.

The squad leader of the team signals the others to move around the opening in the ship and check for other aliens, and after a quick investigation, one member of the team drops through the hole. Several smaller light flashes blink from the hole, and the squad member climbs back out.

squad member
All clear.

squad leader
All clear. ABRAMS and FLUTTER watch the hole, POSTREL, check the others.

Abrams, what was that?

ABRAMS
Some sort of grenade, I think. There were three of them in there hooked to something like a life buoy. I think they meant to throw that thing at us but didn’t have the strength to get it out of the hole. They’re all dead, now.

squad leader
(takes several steps back and taps a button on his arm)
Lander, all clear here. We think there were a couple of aliens on some sort of life support system and they tried to hit us with some sort of explosive device. Hold a sec
(taps sleeve)
Postrel, what gives?

postrel
They’re alive, just stunned.

squad leader
(taps sleeve)
Everyone here seems to be okay, just a bit dazed.

wretchard
(breaking in to the squad frequency)
Hold in place, squad. We’re not going in there until we get a bigger team assembled.

squad leader
Understood.

CUT TO:

int. day – bridge of dimension

WRETCHARD stands out of his command chair and walks over to FRANZEN.

wretchard
Well, the wily bastards sure can stay alive in the dead cold of space for a long time. What’s it been now, six weeks since the attack?

franzen
About that.

wretchard
Contact the Spalding’ security chief and get a team ready to go through that thing. Make sure you run every scan possible to get some sort of idea on the schematics and layout over there, and make sure you do a risk assessment on whether you can get in and out safely. I don’t want a team in there if that thing’s going to shred to pieces at any moment.

franzen
Maybe we should just nuke the thing where it floats.

wretchard
No. We need to know everything we can about it, and the creatures that flew it here. And we need to get all of the bodies off that ship that we can so medical teams can examine them. That ship could be our Enigma machine.

franzen
I’m on it.

Communications officer HANSON breaks in from his station.

hanson
Commodore, there’s a comm link at your console.

WRETCHARD returns to the captain’s chair. He taps a button.

tucker
(on screen)
Tough bastards, aren’t they?

wretchard
It would seem so.

tucker
One of my shuttles is picking up significant IR signatures from below the base surface. It seems the base is still alive.

wretchard
Well, we’ve got two options: tackle the alien ship first or see if we can get inside the base. What do you think?

tucker
Do you think there are any other aliens alive on the ship?

wretchard
Our scans didn’t show these ones to be alive, so it’s impossible to know.

tucker
So, let’s just let the ship stew for awhile. If there are living aliens on it, well, maybe they’ll die and make our job easier. Anyway, we don’t speak their language, so we’d have a tough time interrogating them. But we might have our own people alive below surface, and we need to let them know help has arrived.

wretchard
Agreed.
(taps screen to end link)
Lander Two, get the squad back on board and return to the Dimension.

Lander two pilot
Copy.

CUT TO:

int. day – president’s briefing room

FELDMAN is reviewing reports when LIPTON enters the room waving his PDA excitedly.

feldman
What is it Charlie?

lipton
Mars base is still functioning.

feldman
How do you know that?

lipton
Because we’ve also got line-of-sight laser communications back. We got a signal from the Spalding.

feldman
So, we know what one feature of the obelisks is, don’t we?

lipton
Absolutely, sir. Take the rest down and we should be back to working order, more or less.

feldman
What about that alien ship they found?

lipton
Apparently there were still some living aliens on it. They’ve decided to quarantine it and rescue the survivors on Mars.

feldman
Good. What can we do from here?

lipton
Not much, yet. But the Spalding is coming back to pick up excavating equipment and such to take back. We’ll need to assemble a team to do the task and get them ready for deployment.

feldman
Do it.
(pauses)
And tell the Dimension to return. We need a ship in orbit that can transport teams around the planet to remove the remaining obelisks.

Lipton
Already recalled them, sir.

feldman
Our first priority has to be uprooting those damn obelisks. It seems clear that they’re what’s keeping us from flying and communicating.

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – bridge of dimension

The telemetry from the surface is quickly unnerving the bridge crew. ATKINS sits ashen-faced as he listens to the hot-miked conversations of the landing party. He fingers the command console nervously, his eyes flitting about the room, and at the main screen, which is a set as a computer recreation of the action.

WRETCHARD sits at his station in agitation, wondering when ATKINS will make a decision. On the surface of the planet, crew members are being killed. He taps buttons to alert the weapons room to be on the ready, then adjusts his own screens to narrow in on the action on the surface. His screen shows what appears to be a computer game, with small figures and attached names moving across the screen. The aliens are represented with non-descript icons.

atkins
Mr. Wretchard, ready the weapons room and prepare a target list.

wretchard
Done. Targets keyed in.

ATKINS turns in his seat and looks uncertainly at WRETCHARD. WRETCHARD gives him a withering look.

ATKINS stares at his screen, then the main screen, as the sounds of the battle on the surface grow more frantic.

atkins
Helmsman, tell the launch bay to ready Lander Two with the rescue team.

bevilacque
Aye, sir.

WRETCHARD taps target coordinates in to his console and relays them down to the weapons room. He notices the computer depiction of lander one on the move, and he leans into his microphone.

wrethcard
(to himself)
Rescue team? There’s not going to be anybody to rescue if we don’t act now.
(taps controls and speaks into console mic)
Blackside, on my command fire at will at all hostiles. Note the lander and create a wall of fire around it on my order. Use the Grade L fragmentation rounds.

blackside
Roger that, sir.

WRETCHARD returns his gaze to the captain’s chair, and notices that ATKINS is frozen. There is silence from the planet, heavy breathing as the remaining members of the landing party are sprinting. A burst of fire over the speakers. WRETCHARD watches his display and the icons and names as they move across it.

wretchard
(to himself)
Come on, Franzen, get them out of there.

WRETCHARD looks up and watches ATKINS sit in the captain’s chair, mesmerized by the action on the main screen. On the screen, the icon for PRESTON suddenly turns gray, indicating death, and there’s an audible gasp from several of the crewmembers. On the main screen, the icons for NGYUEN, AGUILLERA and FRANZEN are moving quickly toward the lander. WRETCHARD taps his console and centers on them. NGUYEN is hit and his icon grays out, and WRETCHARD saddens noticeably for a moment. There is the sound of weapons fire, then the huffing and puffing of AGUILLERA and FRANZEN running in a panic.

There is a pause, and from the speakers comes the following dialogue:

franzen
Less than five hundred meters left, sir, we need to haul ass.

AGUILLERA
I’ll be quicker without this.

franzen
Move!

AGUILLERA lets out a yell of pain and his icon grays out. FRANZEN’s icon moves quickly, firing on the run. The CO-PILOT can be heard shouting in the background, and then FRANZEN reaches the lander.

co-pilot
(on overhead speakers)
In in in in! Get in the lander now! Hurry! These freaks are everywhere.

WRETCHARD looks toward ATKINS.

wretchard
Atkins!

atkins
(turns in the chair, ashen-faced)
Get them up … back up here.

wretchard
(ignores ATKINS)
BLACKSIDE, fire now and fire for effect. Sweep away from the lander’s direction of travel. Cease fire when the lander breaks above two hundred feet AGL.

Indicators on WRETCHARD’s console light to indicate the weapons battery is firing. WRETCHARD looks up to the main screen and watches as the computer begins marking strike points on the surface of the planet. The fire begins to move into the aliens as the lander loads and lifts off.

bevilacque
Lander One’s on the move.

pilot
(on overhead speakers)
Dimension, this is Lander One. We are clear of the surface enroute your location. We have one seriously wounded crew member aboard.

There is silence for a moment as ATKINS stares up at the main screen. Everyone on the bridge is looking at him, the sudden commander of the Dimension.

pilot
(overhead speakers)
Dimension, this is Lander One, over.

communications officer hanson
Roger, Lander One, this is the Dimension. We read you loud and clear.

pilot
(overhead speakers)
We’re going to need a medical team to meet us in the launch bay. Commander KERKORIAN is hurt pretty bad.

ATKINS turns in the command chair and nods to HANSON.

hanson
Copy.

wretchard
(activates his mic)
Doc, you need to get a team to the launch bay ASAP and set up a quarantine intake for a wounded crewmember coming back from the surface.

minella
(materializes on screen)
What happened?

Wretchard
The mission to the surface just pooched and we’ve got KERKORIAN coming back to ship with injuries.

minella
(on screen)
What kind?

wretchard
Don’t know. Nobody from the party was able to tell us what they were being attacked with, but the camera images suggested something biological, like poison-tipped quills or something.

minella
(on screen)
I’m on my way.

The image of MINELLA washes to the tactical screen showing six gray icons on the planet surface. WRETCHARD shakes his head in disgust and sadness.

END FLASHBACKS

CUT TO:

ext. day – surface of mars base

Crewmen from the Spalding and Dimension have been at work for days removing debris from the central hub of the base. Additional workers have been shuttled in from earth by both ships, and there is a smallish colony of temporary support huts nearby, along with noticeable efforts at rebuilding basic support structures.

TUCKER is watching over the work in a spacesuit as it nears completion and the work crews are about to establish a pressurized chamber above an emergency door access to the base.

A member of his crew gives a signal and TUCKER approaches.

crewman
We’re ready,sir.

tucker
Open it.

TUCKER gives a signal and a security team assumes a defensive posture, aiming their weapons at the site. Nobody knows if the base staff is inside, or if aliens are.

A worker enters a code on the outside of the door and it slides open. He peers in, wearing a spacesuit, and sees a member of the base staring back up at him, also wearing a spacesuit.

worker
You guys alright?

base crewmember
You took long enough. What happened?

The worker steps back out of the enclosure and gives a positive signal to those around, and TUCKER enters the enclosure.

tucker
Who’s in charge here?

base crewmember
Commander Frederick Basil. And you are?

tucker
Captain Jonathan Tucker of the UFDN space ship Spalding.
(he reaches up and twists his helmet off)
If you can take me to commander Basil, I’d be much obliged.

base crewmember
Of course, come on in, sir.

CUT TO:

int. day – ops room of mars base

BASIL and TUCKER are discussing the situation.

tucker
How long can the base remain operational?

basil
As we are now, we’re useless. We can survive like this for about a year, given the provisions we’ve got in larder, but all our support services were knocked out months ago.
We’ve recovered some of the data that was backed-up during the attack, but it isn’t enough to make any sense of it. One minute, we were sitting here monitoring the normal space traffic, the next we were being hit with something that knocked out the top levels. After that, we closed the blast doors and just waited, praying there was somebody to come.

tucker
You don’t know what hit you?

basil
Not really. Five ships came in fast from nowhere and rained down fire on us. We lost our signal stations within the first ten or fifteen seconds and after that we were deaf and blind. The computer emergency response controls came on and started shutting the doors to prevent massive atmosphere loss, and that’s it. We’ve been down here trying to find a way out ever since, but the doors wouldn’t open because of the pressure of the debris.
(pauses)

What did happen?

tucker
Nobody really knows. It appears that a fleet of alien spacecraft attacked the earth and solar stations about two months ago. They just warped in, hit us, and left, almost as if it was an afterthought. The current thinking is they didn’t think we’d be here, and when they happened upon us they just attacked. But their attack was short and limited, and they mainly targeted large urban areas on Earth.

If they’d been coming to kill us off, they could have, judging by what they did. But I don’t think they knew we were here. It seems they were just covering their bases in trying to wipe us out, and they must have figured that whatever they did would do the trick, or else they would have stuck around a bit longer.

basil
The earth? It’s been attacked?

tucker
Yeah.

basil
What large urban areas?

tucker
Most of them, really. Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, New York and maybe twenty-some more across the planet. Like I said, it doesn’t appear that they knew we were here, or else they would have taken out more of our military installations planetside.

basil
Jesus.

tucker
Yeah.

basil
What about the fleet?

tucker
The Verona is gone. The Dimension and Spalding are in orbit right now. The others, well, they’ll be back when they get back.

basil
What’s the situation on earth?

tucker
Unstable, at best. There are a couple of regional conflicts going on that were spurred by the attacks. Apparently, the initial reaction by some nations didn’t believe it could be aliens, but most of them have since calmed down to shaky truces, although there’s still a lot of opinion that it was actually the fleet that did the attack.

basil
(incredulous)
What?

tucker
(shrugs)
A lot of the UN affiliates think the UFDN perpetrated the attacks as a means to consolidate power. The attack was so quick and devastating that it left everyone without much information about what happened.

But I’ll get you the full report soon enough. We need to concentrate on getting this base up and running.

basil
Well, as you can tell, it was only the surface structures that were destroyed. All the engineering and life support systems were on the lowest levels, and they’re still running. We’ve got food, water and O2 to last us a year without resupply, so we need to get topside running.
(pauses)
How bad is the destruction?

tucker
About forty percent is totally destroyed, but none of the remainder is habitable. The power and life support systems are all out, and it’s a good bet that the data systems were wiped clean from the blasts.

basil
Well, that’s all backed up down here every minute, so we can reload it all when we get a command center re-established.

tucker
And we will.

FLASHBACKS:

INT. DAY – BRIDGE OF THE DIMENSION

The crew is busy at work analyzing data from the surface. On the main screen are several split images from drones and on-ship cameras. The atmosphere is tense and disheartened.

ATKINS is quiet in the command chair. He surveys the data on his command screen and gives a small shrug, a shrug of not knowing what to do next.

trifiletti
The best we can determine is that the creatures have taken all the bodies below ground, into that structure nearby.

atkins
Do we know for sure if they’re dead?

trifiletti
No.

atkins
What about scanning below the surface.

trifiletti
(pauses in consternation)
We can’t do that from up here.

atkins
What about surface activity?

trifiletti
(turns toward the main screen, taps a button at her terminal)
About the same as it was before our team approached the structure.

atkins
(to himself)
It doesn’t make any sense.
(stands from chair)
I’ll be in the captain’s chambers. Let me know if there are any changes.

trifiletti
Of course.

ATKINS walks out of the bridge and through the door to the ready room. TRIFILETTI shoots WRETCHARD a look of disbelief. WRETCHARD makes a small gesture with his hand to stay calm.

MINELLA appears on WRETCHARD’S control panel.

wretchard
Doc, what’s going on down there?

minella
I’ve run every scan we have on the team and I can’t find anything. Kerkorian is, well, I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve removed the spore, for lackof a better word, from her, but she’s still unconscious and writhing in pain. I’m going to keep her in a quarantine chamber for now and see what happens.

wretchard
Good.

minella
I’m going to run some tests on the spore to see what I can find out, but I wouldn’t expect anything soon. Just from looking at it, though, it seems to be some sort of poison filled sphere with hundreds of small hollow spikes on it, most likely a delivery system for the poison. A very strange biological adapatation, if you will.

wretchard

How’s Franzen?

minella
Fine. He’s fine. He’s angry, but other than that, he’s fine.

wretchard
Keep him there. I’ll be down in a minute.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – sick bay of dimension

Wretchard walks in and looks at the two pilots and Franzen, all of whom are standing together talking. MINELLA is looking through a window at Kerkorian and checking her vitals on an overhead monitor.

Franzen notices Wretchard and walks over to him.

franzen
FUBAR if you ask me.

wretchard
Yeah, too much Star Trek, too.

franzen
(puzzled)
Star Trek?

wretchard
(waves it off)
You okay?

franzen
Physically, yes.

wretchard
(compassionately)
How’d it go for Nguyen?

franzen
(sad)
It came out of nowhere. He died quickly, I think.
(pause)
I hope.

wretchard
Well, we saw it all from up here, and there was nothing you could have done differently. There wasn’t any reason to expect that kind of a welcome.

franzen
AGUILLERA half expected it, or he wouldn’t have had Nguyen and me down there in full armor.

wretchard
True.

franzen
So who’s running the ship?

wretchard
Atkins.

franzen
(disbelief)
What’s he doing?

wretchard
(shrugs)
Trying to decide whether we should go back down and get the bodies.

franzen
Seriously?

wretchard
Yeah. And I’d agree with him if we had any real chance of succeeding, but the aliens have taken all the bodies below ground into that warren. We aren’t equipped for anything like that.

MINELLA walks over to WRETCHARD and FRANZEN.

minella
There’s nothing else I can do for her here but try to keep her alive, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. Whatever that thing is they hit her with, well, I’ve never seen anything like it before.

What was the plan for going down there, anyway? And who made the decision to take all the senior officers down to a planet we hadn’t even made first contact with?

wretchard
Aguillera.

minella
Aguillera?

wretchard
He wanted to breathe some fresh air, such as it is down there. I don’t think it really occurred to him that it would go down the way it did. All the preliminary scans didn’t indicate the aliens were aggressive in any way.

minella
That may be, but that’s still no reason to take down the entire senior staff. That violates all the contact protocols I’m aware of, and while I may be the ship’s surgeon, I’m still aware that I’m not supposed to go down until positive contact has been established and we’re certain it’s safe.

wretchard
Aguillera knew that, too. He just ignored it. He was the captain, so who knew what he was thinking? Maybe he thought it would be a better read in the history books if the captain of the Dimension made the first official contact with an alien species and not some junior officer in an EVA suit with a fully armored weapons squad.

But if we’d sent Franzen down with a recon team, we’d have ended up with hundreds of dead aliens and a hasty evacuation of the planet, something that most definitely might not play well in the history books. You can just imagine the press: Humans make contact with aliens, kill them in massive firefight. The UN affiliates would’ve had a field day with that, making it look like it was clear the UFDN was soley intent on dominating the universe while neglecting certain nations of the earth.

But if a noble captain from a UFDN ship made peaceful contact with an alien race, well, then it would look like we were spreading the good news and the UFDN would’ve been saying how interplanetary cooperation could better the lives of people on earth.

Instead, we got the worst of all scenarios.

minella
So what happens now?

wretchard
Well, if it were up to me, I’d turn the ship around and head home. We’ve got a crewmember who needs help we can’t give her here. And we’ve got a ship’s captain who’s only experience is as officer of the watch.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. evening – wretchard’s quarters

WRETCHARD is in his quarters with his girlfriend, ALEXIS GARDNER, a celestial mapping officer. They are drinking cocktails and relaxing.

gardner
How many more days are we going to be in orbit?

wretchard
I don’t know.

gardner
It’s been almost two weeks, now, and we’ve got all the geographic detail we can use. We’re just sitting around doing nothing.

wretchard
Well, Atkins is trying to figure a way to get back down there.

gardner
Do you think he’s really serious about that?

wretchard
I don’t think he really knows what to do. He’s little more than a kid and this is his first mission. He was just supposed to be officer of the deck, not the next commander of the ship. Aguillera wasn’t thinking very far down the road when he took all the senior staff down to the planet.

gardner
What about Belkins in engineering. He outranks Atkins. So do several other officers. Hell, you do.

wretchard
Yeah, well Doc Minella isn’t in the command chain, and neither is Belkins or any of the others. For any of them to take command, well, they’d have to have Atkins assign it to them or have them all agree Atkins isn’t fit. I don’t think anyone’s ready to ruin the kid’s career by pulling him as unfit, so they’re all waiting to see what he’s really going to do. Anyway, I’d rather not think about it tonight. Tomorrow’s my – our – day off and I’d like to drink a few martinis, watch a movie and sleep for a long, long time.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS:

int. day – briefing room of the dimension

ATKINS is sitting at the head of a large round table with in-mounted view screens. WRETCHARD, MINELLA, BELKINS and three other senior officers sit around the table, with HANSON sitting off to the side at a stenographer’s station.

atkins
We’ve been up here for almost two weeks and not been able to make any determination of whether any of the crew left on the surface is alive, and all indications from the contact event leave me to believe they are dead.

I have spoken with all of you during that time about a course of action, and I do not believe it would be wise to try to recover their bodies nor make another attempt to go down to the planet to study the creatures.

Three is noticeable relief in the faces of the officers.

atkins
As the acting captain of this ship, however, I do not believe I have the experience necessary to command it on its return journey to earth.
(pauses, then softer)
I also don’t think it would be wise for someone with my rank to assume I know more about the operations of this ship than any of you here, all of whom have years of service in the fleet.

I’ve checked the regulations and determined that in the best interests of the members of this crew, that Colonel Wretchard, as the senior-ranking member of the crew, should take operational command of the Dimension until such time as Fleet Operations can appoint a new captain.

There are mixed reactions initially, but general calm and acceptance as all of the other officers knew that if ATKINS made this decision, WRETCHARD was the obvious choice.

atkins cont’d
So, as the close of this briefing, Colonel Wretchard will become commanding officer of the Dimension.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACKS

int. day – hallway outside briefing room

ATKINS walks down the hallway as the other officers group around WRETCHARD. They all shake his hand and slowly wander off. Engineering officer BELKINS comes to him and motions that they walk down the hallway.

belkins
Commodore Wretchard has an interesting ring to it. I have to say I never thought there’d be a day I’d see someone using that rank.

wretchard
Me either.

belkins
So, what are we going to do?

wretchard
(pauses)
We’re going home, maximum speed. And, I’ll bet once we get back, we’ll be returning to this planet at maximum speed, only it won’t just be us coming.

belkins
You don’t think anybody would want to try to get their bodies back, do you?

wretchard
No. We’ve just encountered some sort of intelligent life form, and I don’t doubt there’s going to be a large interest in learning about them. Maybe they’re just large bugs, maybe not, but our people are going to want to come back here and study them to figure out what makes them tick.
(turns, pauses)
We came all this way and found what all the scientists said probably couldn’t be found given what we know about this area of the galaxy – a life form. They’d have been overjoyed if we’d discovered something microsopic, but instead we found … I don’t know what to call them.

But we didn’t travel all this way just to kill them so we could get the bodies of a few fallen crewmen back. No, we’re coming back with our best minds to figure out how to contact them, if possible, and if not, to study them.

We didn’t come all this way to pick a fight.

END FLASHBACKS

CUT TO:

int. morning – president’s briefing room

FELDMAN is standing before a group of about fifty men and women, the known remaining elected members of the Congress. There are a variety of computer screens and paper maps and charts showing the current national and world situation. FELDMAN has been briefing the officials on the state of affairs and is wrapping his remarks up.

feldman
So, it appears that with the removal of each of these obelisks we get a bit more of the communications and navigational spectrum back. We still don’t know how or why, but we do, and I’ll settle for that for now.

Air travel is still a bit tricky, but much better than it was in the weeks after the attacks, and by much better I mean we seem to be able to get our advanced aircraft up into the sky in most areas.

We’ve established some communication with the rest of the world, mostly thanks to shuttle diplomacy courtesy the Spalding’ shuttle craft, but it appears the UN affiliates are still skeptical about the nature of things, seeing as until recently, they weren’t sure any UFDN nations had been attacked. With any luck, we can convince those regions that began warring in the attack aftermath to continue their ceasefires, but there’s no guarantee. The world as we know it is in a vacuum and there are many groups that want to fill that empty space, and many of them will have their own agendas.

All Navy vessels have been recalled and we will soon also begin to recall land forces from their current staging points in other nations. For the time being, we’re going to have to put geopolitics on hold and make sure we secure our own country. There’s no immediate threat, but we want to make sure America is strong at home before we worry too much about elsewhere.

In the meantime, the Spalding and the Dimension will direct all returning fleet vessels to contact Einstein Center for instructions upon re-entering the solar system, and their first priorities will be to re-establish continuous contact with all UFDN affiliated nations. Neither the Spalding nor the Dimension was due back by the time they arrived, so the first scheduled return is a month away when the Enterprise comes back. At that point, we should see a ship every week for the next three months, provided none experienced problems delaying them.

For more detail on everything I’ve talked about today, refer to your briefing disks. They contain information that I didn’t touch on, as well, but events you’ve probably heard about.

FELDMAN walks away from the podium and picks up a bottle of water. Congressman Reagan Barry approaches the table, takes up a bottle, and turns to FELDMAN.

barry
Mr. President, it’s good to see you finally.

feldman
Likewise, Reagan, I spent a lot of time wondering who had made it through the attacks and hoped you had.
(soflty)
How did you’re family fare?

barry
We’re all okay. We were at home in Oklahoma at the time, so – well – as much as I love my state, I’m glad there wasn’t anything in it to target.

feldman
(smiles)
The aliens just didn’t know better, that’s all, or they’d have done to Tulsa what they did to D.C.
(amiably)
And I’m glad Governor Heller called up the state Guard after the attacks. Not everyone did that, and it shows foresight. He’s a good man who can think on his feet, even if he is in the other party.

barry
Is it true the Dimension made first contact with an alien species?

feldman
(pauses to consider)
It is. The details are in your briefing materials.

barry
There’s talk that maybe it was that contact that caused the attacks.

feldman
Absolutely not. The Dimension encountered a very primitive hive species, nothing remotely capable of spaceflight and, judging from the reports, quite possibly not sentient.

barry
But I heard the –

feldman
(raises a palm)
Reagan, I don’t know what you heard, but it’s all there in your briefing package. Every report and all the raw data from the Dimension mission is included, unedited. You’ll see it couldn’t have beent them.

But if this news is already out there, we’ll need people like you to get out there and quash the talk with the evidence. None of it is classified.

barry
People are going to assume that it was us going out into space that led the attackers here. They’re going to say we brought it on ourselves.

feldman
They’ll have a tough case to make. Even if the aliens who attacked us found out about us by coming in contact with a ship from the fleet, there’s no evidence yet that anything happened that would’ve provoked the response we got from them.

barry
But we’ve only gotten two of our ships back, and both returned early. We don’t know what the others might have come in contact with.

feldman
No, we don’t. And that’s precisely why we can’t run around speculating that it was our foray into deep space that brought this attack to us. There’s no evidence that it did.

You’re theory may prove to be true, but until we get at least a single fact back that might support that, I would urge you to remind anyone who raises such an argument that they are merely speculating on a possibility. For all we know, these aliens that attacked us saw the first broadcasts of the 1936 Olympics and decided Adolph Hitler was an evil man in charge of a planet that needed to be destroyed.

Barry
Hitler?

feldman
You see? You can come up with any theory you want in a vacuum of facts. We need our leaders to focus on getting things fixed, not wondering about what went wrong or what we could have done differently. Until we know more, we need to work on getting our planet back in order, and the first priority is getting America up and running again. We’ll figure out what went wrong, don’t get me wrong, we’ll find out why they attacked us and we’ll respond, but hand-wringing isn’t the activity we need to be doing right now.

We’ve got eight more ships due back, and one of them might have an answer. But it’s just as likely none will, so let’s concentrate on the immediate until we know more.
(pauses)
And dupe copies or your briefing materials and pass it out to all your local media affilates. We don’t want anyone to think we’re hiding anything.

barry
What about information on the attack?

feldman
Tell them everything you know. None of us knows any more than that.

BARRY nods and walks away. FELDMAN walks over to a computer display screen and studies it. On the screen are depictions of the planet from several angles, with notations of the obelisks and the two that have been removed. Overlapping the views are depictions of the areas of the planet that have some air travel, radio, satellite and other types of communications coverage.

Additionally, some countries are in blue, indicating communication with them has been established, some are gray, indicating no communication. Most are gray.

LIPTON walks up behind FELDMAN, peers over his shoulder, and moves to his side.

lipton
Two months of work and two obelisks down. I don’t know if that’s good progress or not, but I know it’s good news.

feldman
I agree. If we had more of the fleet available we might be able to work more quickly, but we’ll have to wait until they start returning. Until then, the Spalding and Dimension will have to do the heavy lifting.

lipton
Have you made a decision on whether to broadcast a message to the fleet to let them know what the situation here is?

feldman
I have, I have. I think you’re right about putting them on notice on their way back, but I think we need to be much more subtle about it. We can’t go broadcasting some encoded message with all the details because we don’t know who will get it, and we don’t want the aliens that attacked us getting wise to the fact we’re not as helpless as they think they left us. So, we need to let them know to contact the Spalding on approach to Earth. General Owens thinks we that would alert them to an abnormal situation, since the Spalding shouldn’t be here yet, and then the Spalding can head out and meet the incoming vessel and personally deliver the briefing.

lipton
What about putting satellites back up for communication?

feldman
That we should do, soon. I spoke with the science advisor about it and he said there’d be no way for the signals to reach anyone and alert them, meaning if the aliens were attracted here by receiving our transmissions, however long it took them to get there has had a two month break, and if they’re as smart as they think they are, then they’re still getting decades old signals. Then they’ll get two months of silence, and by the time the new signals reach them, well, it’ll be a whole new ballgame.
(pauses solemnly)
Or else the ballgame will have long since been over.

An aide in the briefing room approaches with a PDA and proffers it to the president.

feldman
What have you got there, John?

john
We’ve just turned up the UN president, Mr. President. Apparently, he came in to Miami on a boat two days ago and is demanding to meet with you.

JOHN hands the PDA to FELDMAN, who scans it quickly and then smiles.

feldman
(to JOHN)
Thank you, John.

JOHN walks away.

Lipton
What is it, Mr. President?

feldman
Apparently Atrios-Atrios Kos had been vacationing on St. Bart’s during the attacks and, afterward, did not know what happened and could not understand why aircraft weren’t able to depart the island’s airfield. So he chartered a boat after rumors of a world war reached him and headed for here.
(laughs)
And when he pulls into Miami he sees Miami acting almost normally, give or take some problems. It’s a good thing the aliens didn’t know enough about us to take out everything. Miami… well, thank god they didn’t take out Miami.

Anyway, the FBI has him under protection and says he doesn’t believe accounts of world wide devastation.

lipton
Doesn’t believe?

feldman
Well, the FBI gave him a briefing package but he’s carrying on that he thinks it’s fakery.

FELDMAN waves JOHN back over.

feldman
Tell the Spalding to pick up President Eschaton and have him flown here at once. But make sure the flight plan they use is low, slow and heads up the east coast to Boston before turning to here.

john
Yes, sir.

JOHN leaves. FELDMAN motions to LIPTON to follow him, and the two begin walking out of the briefing room and down the halls of the building.

feldman
(to LIPTON)
I don’t know if that’ll do the trick, though. Eschaton doesn’t believe anything we say, not even when he sees it with his own eyes.

lipton
Some people always believe the worst, even if they have to make it up, first.

feldman
It’ll be interesting to hear how he spins this, if he can. I don’t know if the attacks will be enough to bring the UN into the fold, though. It’s been dead-set against us for a long time, and this is surely an opportunity for them to blame the UFDN for what happened.

I was just talking with Congressman Barry from Oklahoma, and he told me of a theory circulating out there that it was fleet contact with an alien species that led them here and caused the attacks.

lipton
For real?

feldman
Unfortunately, yes. It appears that word of the Spalding’ contact with its aliens is coloring the context of the attacks on Earth, and the two events share nothing in common except that humans were killed in both.

FELDMAN and LIPTON walk out of the building and onto the street. It is a beautiful day and people are going about the activities of daily life.

lipton
You know, sir, I keep wondering how long it will take to get back to normal. A hundred years or a thousand? There’s just so much work to be done it boggles the mind.

feldman
(looks around before turning to LIPTON)
Normal? We’re not going to be able to go back to what was normal. That’s gone forever. Whatever’s coming next is going to seem mighty strange for a long time before people come to think of it as normal.

And when people in the future look back on this, they’re going to wonder how what we had before the attacks was considered normal. It won’t make any sense to them. They’re going to think we lived in an era of magical fantasy where anything was possible and everyone could have anything.
(pause)
And they’ll be right.

FADE OUT:

A Day at the Beach

He had been riding the waves for about thirty minutes, hopping atop the boogie board and coursing in on the crests of breaking waves. He was all alone for a hundred yards up and down the beach, and he occasionally allowed himself the thought of a passing shark. A thought stirred by an old movie, not reality, he would tell himself as he trudged back through the waves to the break point. Nobody gets attacked by a shark in three feet of water. Not in three feet of water within fifty yards of the shore. No, sharks stayed out where the fish ran, where the food was, they didn’t come in to the shallows looking for a bite of human.

So Paul wasn’t worried, not inordinately, as he rode the waves by his lonesome. He could see his wife reading and her parents sunbathing next to her. He could, sometimes, tell she was watching him by the way her sunglasses changed their relationship with her book. He’d smile and wave, and she’d smile back. This was his third trip to the outer banks of North Carolina, to Ocracoke, and he was happy to be away from the world of computers and deadlines. Here, all he had to do was ride a wave in, ride the next wave in, and repeat. Here, life was slow. This was vacation.

It was about then he noticed the three teenagers. None of them were clad in the uniform of the beach. None looked older than sixteen. They were two boys and a girl, the girl wearing jean shorts and a red midriff-bearing halter top. Paul stared at the girl for a moment after riding a wave in and admired her long brown hair and the way it lifted from her face with the gusts of wind. The two boys were looking up and down the beach, and the girl was looking past him, at the waves crashing and reforming on the sand bar a hundred yards out from shore. It wasn’t until three rides-in later that he really noticed them, the three gawkers, three teenagers standing just out of the surf, one of the boys with an old Leica strapped around his neck. That’s when the thought hit him, a thought out of nowhere, left field, a thought which made no sense.

“They’re waiting for me to die,” Paul said as he battled back through the waves to begin another run in. He paused, fifty yards out, and looked around. Up and down the beach he could see others doing the same as he. Further out, he could see hopefuls with surfboards trying to catch ten-second rides on the tops of two-foot curls. What, Paul wondered, did these three think he would, could, die of? The water was too shallow to drown in. The current was too weak to be pulled out by. There was no real possibility of sharks. But, still, he had the sudden feeling that these three teens were there, standing on the sand, camera in hand, waiting to take a picture of his last moment, the moment where terror gave way to conscious realization that death was the next moment. So, Paul rode another wave in, and, after standing up in the surf, shaking sand from his trunks, he eyed the kids up, again.

“Do you think he knows?” asked Tommy

“No,” said the half-Vietnamese boy, Thom. “How could he?”

“Don’t look at him,” said Jenny, the girl in the red midriff-bearing halter top.

The three immediately tried to look nonchalant, as if they were merely three beachcombers who’d walked

“We’re way too early. We should have waited,” said Jenny. “Things could change.”

Thom shook his head. “No, nothing ever changes. It’s always the way.”

Tommy looked at the two of them, took the camera from his neck,
pointed it at them and said, “Smile!”

Jenny and Thom pretended to smile and Tommy pretended to take a picture. Soon, it would unfold.

Paul rode another wave in, saw the girl smile at the camera, and shrugged off his delusions. Just a few kids walking up and down the beach, taking pictures, he told himself as his he road the surf to a stop and small shells washed over him. He stood up and looked around, saw his wife looking at her novel, and headed back out for the waves. He caught a bit of the girl’s laugh as he waded out, a small hiccup which was fractured by the crash of waves, and he turned to look over his shoulder and caught all three kids looking at him. They quickly looked away: one at the horizon, the other at a breaking wave, the girl up along the beach. Why were they watching him?

He paused fifty yards out and stood in the waist deep water, letting the curling waves push by him. What could they possibly want with watching him? He wasn’t the only person riding a boogie board on the beach, and he certainly couldn’t be the best, so why were these three kids hanging around, pretending to have no interest in him? Paul looked around the waves for a dorsal fin, saw none, and wondered if his fear of sharks was rational. He figured it wasn’t, since he worried about them when he was in fresh water, too, even though he knew there weren’t any fresh water sharks which were dangerous to man. Here, fifty yards offshore, he knew there was probably a shark within a couple of hundred square yards, was certain there was more than one within the square mile of water he was in, but he was also fairly certain they weren’t going human hunting. After all, shark attacks are rare: only three in North Carolina the entire previous year, and none fatal. Still…

“Any idea how long this is going to take?” asked Tommy as he turned sand with his foot.

Thom shrugged. “It’s always hard to say, especially with one of these.”

“What’s this guy’s deal, anyway?” Jenny asked. She always wanted the back story, to know something of the history behind the event they were about to watch.

“Ahh, he’s a free-lance journalist who wants to be a fiction writer. He writes short stories that never get published, and travel pieces that do,” Thom said. “His wife’s a therapist of some sort. They’ve been coming down here the last couple of summers with his wife’s parents. She’s pregnant, now, a couple of months,” Thom turned and looked at the woman reading the paperback. She was clearly showing. “This is their last day at the beach this year before heading home.”

“That’s sad,” Jenny said.

“I wonder what he’s thinking, now,” Tommy said. Tommy always said that, and none of them ever knew.

Paul rode in another wave and noticed that the kids had walked a dozen yards inland and had sat down, apparently no longer interested in him and his wave riding. He waded back out and thought about the kids, wondered if they had some sort of second sight, some sort of premonition which called them to the scenes of people about to die. Did they use the camera to record the final moment of the dying person? He smiled to himself.

“That would make a good short story,” he said aloud. He closed his mouth and jumped a breaking wave, landing on the smooth water behind the curl and pulling himself onto the boogie board. He paddled out a few more yards and rode the cresting waves, waiting for the right wave to align itself with his position. But if it would make a good short story, he thought, what was the chance that it was true? Maybe he was going to die out here, maybe this realization was his last one, the moment where he knew he should head back in, and, as he did so, was bitten in the leg by a shark and pulled under the three feet of water, his leg ripped off at the knee, blood coursing into the waves, saltwater in his mouth. He looked around. No fin. He felt the hair on his body rise as he thought over the prospect, goosebumps rising on his arms.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered, calmed himself, and caught the next wave in. At the end of the run, in an inch of water, he eyed the kids. None looked anywhere near him, and he knew he had let his imagination run wild. Still, it would make a good short story. He rolled off the board and stared up into the blue sky, watched a few cumulus clouds slip slowly by. Fair weather clouds. It was a beautiful day. He began walking back out into the waves.

“This is the most boring part, the waiting,” Tommy said as he picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers.

“Hey, just be lucky we were able to get one of these while we were here,” Thom said, sagely. “This just popped up last night, so it wasn’t written in stone.”

“Yeah, those are the weird ones,” Jenny said. “It’s kind of weird thinking about it, how one small thing changes and everything changes. I always wait for something else to change, for nothing to happen, for us to one day just sit there and go, ‘Whoa, that’s never happened.’”

Thom nodded. “Me, too. But it’s weird that that never happens. They can pop up, but they can’t go away. It kind of makes you wonder how the system works.

Nobody even knows they’re making that choice, whatever choice it was. Tea instead of coffee in the morning? Saw the wrong film at the cineplex? Who knows?”

Paul turned around in the water and saw his wife wading out toward him, a boogie board cord strapped to her left wrist. Paul was surprised: his wife hadn’t even tried riding a board this entire trip. She said her belly got in the way and it was uncomfortable.

“Hey, Tressa, coming out to ride some waves, I see?”

Tressa looked up and smiled. She had left her sunglasses on. “I was thinking maybe I’d ride out a little bit and float around,” she said, pointing out another fifty yards to where a sand bar showed. "Have you been out there?”

Paul turned and looked. “No, the waves wouldn’t be strong enough to ride all the way in on. They break right there and then reform a little bit in. Why?”

“How deep do you think it is out there?” Tressa asked.

Paul shrugged. “Well, you can see the sand bar, so I’d guess just a couple of feet. If you look up or down the beach, you can see people standing on it.” Paul pointed to groups of people, adults and children, standing in the waist deep water of the outer sand bar.

“Well, I’m going out there,” Tressa said and started wading further out.

Paul turned and watched her move away. After twenty more yards she had to hop on top of her boogie board and paddle, the water by then having reached her breasts. He watched her pulling away and began to feel something odd, a mild panic about something undeniable, about letting his pregnant wife stray a hundred yards from shore, alone, with nobody near. Paul began wading after her, hopped onto his board and quickly caught up to her.

“I thought you could use some company,” Paul said as he caught up to Tressa.

“Thanks,” she said, turning her sunglasses toward him. “How deep do you think it is, here?”

Paul shrugged and slipped off his boogie board. He sank down several feet and his feet struck bottom while his chin caught the top of the water. “This deep.” He swam back onto his board and they kicked slowly to the sand bar and its braking waves.

“Hey, they’re both out there, now,” Tommy said, placing the camera to his eye and zooming in on the couple. “I can see them pretty good.”

“What’re they doing?” Jenny asked.

Tommy shrugged. “Not much, just riding the crests of those waves as they break.”

“Well, keep watching, it could be a minute, it could be thirty minutes. But they’re both out there, so it’s coming,” Thom said, standing up and looking over the water at the distant couple. He turned and looked at the woman’s parents, neither of which was looking toward the ocean. “That’s kind of sad.”

Jenny looked up from her spot on the sand. “What is?”

Thom nodded toward the woman’s parents. “The two of them out there and their parents won’t even know what happened. They won’t even know for who-knows-how-long.”

“Both of them,” Jenny said, looking out at the couple on boogie boards. “That’s sad.”

“Yeah,” said Tommy as he looked through the camera.

The only thought Paul had been thinking was that the waves were lame. They came in, crested, curled and broke, and the whole ride on the board was just a couple of seconds. He wished he had stayed by the shore, where the rides could last fifteen or twenty seconds, cover fifty yards, show him the shore and let him know he had ridden it in. Out here, on the sand bar, it was boring. Now he knew why he hadn’t bothered to come out earlier. He looked over at Tressa, and she gave a faint smile.

“How deep do you think it is, here?” Tressa asked.

Paul slipped off his board and waited for his feet to hit sand. They did, and the water lapped over the top of his head. He pushed up on his toes and floated a few inches, “I’d say just over six feet.” He grabbed in some air and sank below the water, feeling the current on his calves. Not strong, he thought, but you can feel it. He kicked back up to the surface, got on his board, and rode another couple of waves.

“Honey!”

Paul looked over to the voice, his wife’s, and furled his eyebrows. There was a flushed look on her face, a hint of uncertainty. “What?”

Tressa looked him in the eyes, her eyes were wide, and Paul wondered what the problem was.

“I’m starting to get a little scared,” Tressa said.

Paul immediately understood his wife’s fear, knew in the way only a husband knows about a wife, knew that his wife had just reached some certain comfort level, some benchmark, which signaled the need for the activity to end.

“Okay, we’ll go back in,” Paul said as he paddled on his board toward his wife.

“We’ll just point the boards to the shore and swim back.”

“Okay,” Tressa said, her voice devoid of conviction, full of dread, despair and hopelessness.

Paul looked over at her just as a wave crashed in overtop. The water coursed over his head and he lost sight of Tressa for a few moments. Salt water dripped into his mouth. Then he saw Tressa, a few feet away, her face now in panic. He felt his heart sink.

“Okay, hon, we’ll just start kicking in, now. Come on, you can do it, just hold onto your board,” Paul said.

“Okay,” Tressa said.

Paul felt fear in his chest as he paddled alongside his wife, aiming his boogie board toward the shore. It took awhile, perhaps a minute, before he realized they weren’t moving. Then a wave crested overtop them and buried them beneath the ocean. Paul felt his feet hit the sandbar, opened his eyes and could see a murky green-yellow world, his wife’s feet kicking madly above him, and he pushed off the bottom. He surfaced and saw his wife atop her board. He slipped atop his and looked over at her, her face full of fear.

“Okay, hon, we’ve got to just keep swimming in and we’ll get there,” Paul said, keeping his voice as even as he could. Her fear had infected him, and he was drawing short, panicky breaths. They started kicking. No progress. A wave rose and broke, and they were where they had started. Then Paul noticed that the cords to their boards were tangled, a result of their last upheaval, and Paul undid the Velcro holding his board’s cord to his wrist.

“Hey, honey, we’re tangled up. Our cords are wrapped together. Hold on a second,” Paul said as he unraveled his cord from his wife’s.

Tommy had the camera zoomed-in to its maximum, and he watched in awe. He had seen it all before, in different ways, but it always mesmerized him: the way people struggle for life, their refusal to die.

“What’s going on?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t know, for sure,” Tommy said. “It look like they’re trying to come back in.”

“Don’t they know you’ve got to go sideways?” Thom asked himself. “It’s always sideways in a riptide.”

Tommy looked away from the Leica’s viewfinder. “Is it soon?” he asked.

Thom shrugged. “Can’t say. You can float on one of those things forever, if that’s all you have to do. They might just do that. When it has to do with water, it’s always tough to know how long it’s going to take—“

Jenny laughed. “Yeah, that guy off Brigantine stayed out there for twenty minutes before he went under, and nobody but us knew he was in trouble.”

There was a pause before Tommy spoke, his voice soft. “Yeah, I remember that guy.”

Another wave crashed down on Paul and he was upended. Saltwater flooded his nose, but he held tight to his board. When the wave receded, he could see his wife twenty feet to his left. He scanned the world and saw her board thirty feet to his right.

“Give me your board,” Tressa said as she dog paddled to him, her words pregnant with fear.

Paul paused, panicked: Give her his board? Didn’t she know two people couldn’t float on one? Give it up? He could drown without it.<

Tressa kicked up to him and grabbed the other end of the board. Paul looked around, panicked for a second, and saw Tressa’s board. He smiled at his wife, let go of the board,

“Where are you going?” she asked quickly.

“To get the other board,” Paul said. He wasn’t sure it was the right decision. He wasn’t sure if she thought he might be going to the board merely to get it, so that her dad wouldn’t have to buy another because they’d lost it, rather than to have something to float on. He wasn’t sure if the current would get stronger as he swam toward the board, wasn’t sure if he would be pulled out beyond the sand bar, forced to swim in twenty or fifty feet of water, hundreds of yards from the shore. He thought about all of those things, wondered if he could swim in to shore if any of them happened, and then forced them out of his mind as he breast-stroked over to the board. He grabbed onto it, tightly, and looked for a dorsal fin.

Paul slid onto the board, paddled it around, and looked for his wife. She was now fifty yards or so away from him, paddling away from the crests of the waves. He could make out her face, which was a mixture of fear and concentration. He turned his board sideways to the waves and started paddling: he’d remembered Tressa telling him on their first visit to Ocracoke that’s what you had to do. It had been his first time in an ocean, and she wanted him to know that if he got caught in a riptide, he had to swim to the side to get out of it, not against it. If he swam against it, he would get tired and drown. So he swam sideways, paddling his boogie board and not sure if he was making any progress. Two minutes later he turned the board in toward the beach and began making progress.

“How about that? I guess you can be wrong,” Tommy said as he looked through the camera.

Thom stared out at the water and Jenny walked over to Tommy, tapping him on the shoulder to indicate she wanted to look through the camera. “What do you mean?” Thom asked.

“The guy just got out of the current. He’s standing in a couple of feet of water, now. He’s okay,” Tommy said.

“That can’t be. It’s never wrong,” Thom said, striding toward the water.

Jenny took the camera from Tommy. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, seeing someone beat it.”

Tommy looked up at her. “Yeah, it’s just weird. It’s always right. If Thom says its two people, that’s the way it works. It’s always the way Thom says. Nobody’s ever beat it.”

“Well, hooray for them,” Jenny said without a trace of irony.

Paul stood in the water and looked back out to where his wife had been on her boogie board. He couldn’t see her. He moved around in the waves to change the angle, to see if the waves were in his way, and still he couldn’t see her. He looked up at the beach and saw his in-laws minding their own business. Paul started walking through the waves, careful to stay out of reach of the outer sand bar, trying to catch a glimpse of his pregnant wife on her boogie board. He saw nothing. He looked to shore, nothing. Fear rose up his throat

“Tressa!” he called out, his word dulled by the waves. He pushed frantically through the waves, calling her name, but no one on shore heard him. His heart beat faster and every fear he’d ever had of the water deserted him. Where was his wife? Where was Tressa? He pushed through more water and saw a boogie board bobbing atop the waves, just shy of the sand bar, in the spot between where the waves broke and re-formed. His wife was nowhere.

“Tressa!” he yelled, his word nearly a sob.

Thom walked back from the surf and shook his head. “We missed it.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny asked.

Thom tilted his head toward the water. “It’s over. We misinterpreted it. No picture this time. Nothing. We weren’t paying attention.”

Tommy grabbed the camera from Jenny and scanned the waves through the viewfinder.

“What’re you talking about? He’s still there. He’s not going anywhere.”

Thom looked at him. “She’s gone. She was the one. Not the both of them. Just her. We missed the shot.” Thom scratched his neck. “Well, this was a waste of time. C’mon,” he said and started walking away from the beach and toward the road back inland.

Tears were streaming down Paul’s eyes and he walked through the waves, trying to find some sight of his wife. Where could she have gone? How could she have let go of the board? Where was she? He wasn’t sobbing, not yet, that would come when he got on the beach and asked his in-laws if Tressa had come back in and gone somewhere without telling him. Then the whole story would, eventually, come out. Then the search would begin, whatever kind of search they performed for swimmers lost at sea. Right now, in three feet of water, Paul felt fear and dread and loneliness in ways he had never before imagined possible, never been able to convey in any of his unpublished short stories. Right now, he wanted to see his wife, somewhere, clinging to a piece of flotsam or standing, paralyzed with fear, in a shallow on the sand bar. But he saw nothing. Only endless waves breaking and re-forming.

After a few minutes he turned and looked to the shore. The kids were gone, and he now wondered if he had only imagined them, or if they had really been there waiting for something to happen. He wondered how long they had been gone, if they had seen anything, if they knew where his wife had gone. And then he thought of his short story idea and cursed himself, wondering if it had somehow jinxed the entire day, if his thoughts had bounced off some cosmic force, mis-aligned themselves and targeted his pregnant wife. Paul waded into shore, wondering what he could, what he would, tell his wife’s parents, certain he would never tell anyone that he had imagined something nearly as awful as he had when he watched the kids watching him. But Paul knew such a reality couldn’t exist, just as he knew that sharks swam with humans all the time, and rarely attacked.

It's All There

I had spent much of the afternoon counting the money. I had organized it by denomination, year of minting, condition of the bill, and serial number. The bills sat in a neat pile on the coffee table in front of me while the football game I had bet on worked its way through the third quarter.

There was $357 on the table in front of me, and not one dollar of it was mine. The money bet on the game -- $20 -- was mine; I'd win $130 if Dallas< covered the thirteen points. They were. The money on the table belonged to Alexander P. Krzotny Jr., a 42 year-old member of the Zanesville Moose Lodge married to a pale-skinned redhead with blue eyes. He had three shirts and four pairs of slacks being cleaned at The Corner Laundry, mild starch, which could be picked up in two days. He had nine credit cards, three department store cards, a video rental card, driver's license, the Moose Lodge membership card, a photo of his wife and one of his two kids, and $357 in his wallet the night he lost it.

I had dropped my car keys and found the wallet in the snow just a foot away, a fat black leather wallet jutting up from the snow like the bow of a ship sinking in an ice floe. For a moment, I forgot about my keys as I reached over and picked up the wallet, flipped it open quickly to see if any cash was within, and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. It took another minute to find my ring of keys underneath the layer of powder being sprinkled out of the gray clouds overhead.

I didn't know how much money was in the wallet until the next day.My wife had gone to work at the salon and I was sitting in the recliner flipping through the cable channels when I remembered it was in my jacket pocket. I almost fainted when I pulled the bills out of the wallet and started counting them: 14 twenties, 4 tens, 7 fives and 2 ones. A whole month's rent and 27 spares for the local bar.

I had lost all interest in the game the more the money sat on the table in front of me and I began checking the bills for serial numbers that would be useful in a game of serial number poker. There was one with 3 eights and 2 fives, but that was it. It was a lot of money, $357, the kind of money that a guy like me, a bartender at a first-rate dive, couldn't afford to lose if I didn't want to lose a wife as well. Sheryl would kill me if I ever lost that much. She didn't mind if I blew an occasional $20 on a game, I usually broke even in the long run, but to lose a whole month's rent and then some, well, she'd walk out on me.

So, there the money was, all laid out in neat stacks in front of me, Dallas whipping the Bears by 17 and covering the spread, and I'm thinking life is going to be sweet with an extra $487. With that kind of extra money we might even be able to buy a small TV for the kitchen and the canopy bed she saw in the Sears catalog. Better still, she didn't even know I found the wallet because I'd forgotten about it almost as soon as I'd picked it up and checked it for bills. There were some in there, I thought last night -- probably fifteen or twenty dollars, I was thinking, no big deal -- so I forgot about it as soon as I slipped it in my pocket.

But $357? Who carries that around for a night at the bars in the neighborhood we were in? Nobody I knew, that's for sure. Now I had it and the Cowboys were winning and there was still beer in the fridge. Things were good. Sheryl would be home from work in about five hours and we'd be almost $500 dollars richer and she'd make love to me tonight the way she did after I took her out to a nice restaurant like when I'd won on the Dukes or Villanova and then spent the money on her instead of having to pay Sal back for letting me float for a couple of weeks like so many other times before.

I don't know what made me flip back through Alexander's wallet, I wasn't going to use his credit cards or anything, but I guess I wanted to see what kind of guy he was to be carrying that kind of money around. I mean, not everybody carries that kind of cash out for a night at the bars. The kind of guys that do usually use plastic, so I was curious. Maybe it was his wife. She looked a couple of years younger than him, though not many, and had a strange look on her face. Not happy, not sad, just sort of like Alexander had pointed the camera at her in their back yard during a barbecue and said something like, "Hey, honey, smile." And then she turned around, saw the camera, and just sort of smiled for the camera. Just a smile that said something like, "okay."

That's when I started flipping through his credit cards and stuff, again. I mean, the guy had a ton of charge cards, but who doesn't? I mean, I got three even if I don't use them anymore. Just because the guy had nine doesn't mean he uses them, does it? Maybe he just had them in case of some emergency. Like me. But a Moose Lodge card? Who joins clubs like those, anymore? Nobody I knew.

So, that's when I picked up the phone and dialed number information. No reason, I didn't think I was really going to call the guy, but I just figured I might get his number, maybe call and tell him I found his empty wallet on the street and tell him I was going to mail it to him. Sure, he'd suspect I had the money but what could he do? Nothing, especially if I didn't tell him my name and just said I was going to mail it to him. After all, what'd he expect after he lost it? To get his money and his wallet back?

When his number turned up unlisted I was even more sure. Hell, nobody with no money has an unpublished number. Only rich or famous people don't want their number listed, not normal people. Shit, Sheryl and I always looked in the book when it came out to make sure we were listed, especially if it came out after we'd moved to a new apartment. It meant we existed. But no listing? Sorry, he'd just have to be thankful that his wallet showed up in the mail and hope he hadn't canceled all his cards by then. Except, maybe, for the Moose card. Who'd use that?

That's when I remembered he was a junior. Dallas had just kicked a field goal to put them up by 20, so I was no longer thinking that I might somehow be losing something when I went to the kitchen and got the phone book. There it was, right in the K's, an Alexander Krzotny on March Street in Maplehurst. Junior lived in Cannondale, the township right next door, so I just took a guess this guy was his dad when I called.

"Hello?" a woman's voice asked on the other end of the line.

"Hi, you don't know me, but do you know an Alexander Krzotny who lives in Cannondale?" I asked.

"Yes, hold on a second, I'll get my husband," she said, putting the phone down on something I guessed must have been a kitchen counter. A few second later an old man picked up the phone and said "hello."

"Hi, Mr. Krzotny?" I asked.

"Yes, that's me, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"Well, I found a wallet last night belonging to an Alexander Krzotny Jr. and I was wondering if you knew him. His number's not listed, so I couldn't ask him," I said.

"Well, yeah, that's my son. You found his wallet, you say?" he asked.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you could tell me how to get hold of him," I said.

"Hold on, I'll get his number," he said and put the phone back down. A few moments later he picked it back up and rattled off the digits. I thanked him and hung up the phone without ever telling him who I was.

The Bears had scored, so now Dallas was just barely covering and I was staring at the money on the coffee table wondering if I should wait until after the game to call him. If they covered, then I'd call. If they didn't, shit, I'd just mail the wallet to him. He'd never know, and it’d be only $20. I wanted to call Sheryl and ask her what she thought, but then that would ruin the surprise if Dallas covered and I kept the cash and took her out to dinner. Besides, she didn't much like it when I called her at work to talk about things she didn't think were important. I don't know if she'd think $357 of somebody's else's money was important, especially if she couldn't see it sitting on the coffee table like me. She'd probably just say keep a twenty and send the rest back. She'd say that because she'd guess that's how much I'd bet on the game and expected me to lose it and figured we might as well break even.

That's when I picked up the phone and called the guy to say I'd found his wallet. He was excited. He couldn't believe I'd worked so hard to track him down. He'd figured it was lost. He didn't ask about the money but insisted that we meet right away so that he could get it back, so I told him to meet me at Jack's, the bar around the corner from our apartment where I tend bar Tuesday through Saturday, in half an hour. The televisions there would be on the game, so I wouldn't miss anything if I went during a commercial break. Alex said he'd be the guy using crutches, but he would also be wearing a black leather jacket.

I was sitting on a barstool talking with Dave and drinking a pint of Guinness when Dallas turned the ball over. Damn. Dave owns Jack's and doesn't take a cut of the tips, he just sticks them in the jar by the register and lets me, Connie and Barry split them at the end of each week. Anyway, I was on my second beer and sweating it out when a guy with a knee brace comes into the bar on a pair of crutches, a skinny redhead right behind him. I could see them in the mirror behind the bar as they walked a few steps into the bar and looked around at the two dozen people scattered at tables or sitting at the bar. I waited a moment longer until they walked over to the bar and took a pair of stools a couple of seats down from me.

"Alexander?" I said as I turned on my seat.

He turned and looked at me. "Yeah, that's me. You found my wallet?"

I nodded. "Yeah," I said and moved down to the stool next to his.

"Thank god. I thought it was lost for good," he said, his face relaxing as I pulled the wallet out of my pocket and set it on the bar. "You can't imagine the panic I was in last night. After I got home and realized it was missing, I drove all the way back and started looking everywhere for it. Liz and I were out last night with flashlights trying to find it."

His wife nodded her head at the mention of her name, and I said "hi."

"Let me buy you a beer," Alexander said, motioning for Dave to come over.

He still hadn't even touched his wallet. It was just sitting there on the bar in the same exact position I'd put it in. He didn't act curious or anything; he just let it sit there. When Dave came over with two beers and a vodka tonic for Liz, Alexander pulled a twenty out of his pants pocket and paid with that. Maybe he was afraid to touch his wallet.

"You don't find honest people like you anymore," he said as he took a sip of his beer. "Most people would have never called, but you, wow, I can't believe it. You're a real honest guy; I can't thank you enough."<

I shrugged and I could see Dave looking at me sidelong down the bar, wondering just what the hell we were talking about. The only praise I normally ever got was how good my drinks were, and that was from the late afternoon guys that came in after work from the canning plant. They'd come in for a couple of shots and beers, before heading home to their families, and tell me about their day and say things like, "You pour a good shot."

So, Alexander was sitting there sipping his beer, his wife nodding agreement all the while, and telling me about the state of honesty in the world. It was like I had just rescued his kid or something. After a few minutes he stopped talking and stood up, so I got off my seat, too and he stuck his hand out. I shook it and he thanked me again and then, for some reason or other, he reached into his pocket and handed me a crisp twenty-dollar bill fresh from an automated teller machine.<

"You don't have to do that," I said as he stuffed the bill into my hand. I meant it, but he just left it there and I didn't know how to go about forcing it back on him.

"Hey, you deserve it. You did something a lot of people never would have done."

I shrugged as he put a crutch under his arm. He reached over to the bar for his wallet and nonchalantly slipped it into his back pocket. And then, for some reason I never figured out, I said the strangest thing.

"It's all there."<

He totally ignored me. It was as if I'd said nothing or, I guess, as if I'd just said something totally meaningless. Without even looking in his wallet to make sure there was any money in it, he had just handed me a twenty and thanked me for being honest. And there I was suddenly wondering if I had put the bills into the wallet in some sort of order that he would later realize meant I'd rifled through it. Maybe he expected that I had done so and figured I wouldn't have given it back to him with anything less than the total. Who knows?

I just stood there feeling guilty, knowing that both of us knew that I had gone through his wallet with the thought of keeping the money. He just turned away from me and hobbled out the door of the bar and into the cold Sunday afternoon, his wife taking one last look around, but not looking at me, before the door eased shut behind them.

"What was that all about?" Dave asked.

"Just some guy's wallet I found last night."

I sat back on my stool and took a sip of beer.

"Hey, did Dallas cover?"

The Alley, I

This alley goes nowhere.
The asphalt is pounded to dust and the trees
that line it sag with desperation (this is their lot?).
Left to the railroad tracks; right, to a street.
This alley is the backdoor to home, as so
many are. It’s a way to slink back home or
steal off under the cover of darkness.
Truly, it goes nowhere.
But I found my way to it.

Alley, IV

The alley out back is paved, with a streetlight strung above, shedding amber light. This is home. Small yard. Small house. No parking.

But elsewhere is a place called home, too. It has an alley, freshly paved. It has a streetlight. No yard. Small rooms. No parking.

Here, you call out a time, “5 a.m., boys” and see who can make it, sitting there on the stoop, drinking beers, smoking, waiting time out.

There, you say, “what’s next, hon?” and fix something or move a piece of furniture. There’s always work to be done, there at home.

But you wouldn’t come back to here, to the sweltering heat, not if you had a choice. No. You’d stay, there, at home. You’d do the work. You’d say, “Yes, honey.”

But here, you watch the feral cats, the skunks, the opossums, and wonder about rattlesnakes. Here, you avoid your bed, then stay in it for too long.

FLAGBEARER

A long pole pierced the morning sky, a flag ruffling from it in the wind. Its dark silhouette flapped starkly against the light gray horizon, the snap of the fabric the only noise audible to the group of men who stood near it. The group stood on a hill overlooking a field that rose, a few hundred meters away, into another hill of about the same size; in the air over the field a thin white smoke mingled with the wind, a vaporous shroud to the many bodies strewn in the tall grass. The men in the group were waiting for the scouts to return, uncertain what could be taking them so long: they had disappeared over the far hill forty minutes earlier and should have already returned.

The first sergeant was wondering who to send next when a figure, clad in mottled black and green, appeared from the tree line atop the other hill and waved, motioning for the group to cross. The major slowly shook his head and the first sergeant separated from the group and waved to the other hill for the soldier to come to them.

Several minutes later the soldier walked up the side of the hill toward them, carrying a pouch he hadn't started out with. A lieutenant looked at him strangely for a second while the first sergeant looked to the major for an order. The major lifted his eyebrows skeptically and squinted down at the returning man.

"Whatcha got, Corporal?" the major asked.

"Ammo," Fletch said. "Picked up about a hundred rounds off some Mong colonel sprawled out under a tree in there."

"Gols, huh?" the major said, shifting the weight on his feet and looking across the field. "I didn't think any of them were around here. What'd it look like down there … I take it that smoke's not gas?"

"Nope, just smoke," Fletch said, dropping the sack. "It's pretty bad: bodies from both sides stretch off pretty far back into the woods. We went twenty minutes in and didn't find anyone alive."

“The rest of your squad?” the major asked.

“Just inside the tree line,” Fletch said.

The major signaled for the battalion to begin moving, and across the field men lifted themselves up from the ground and spread out. As the battalion fanned out and moved forward, more men appeared from the tall grass and from behind trees, taking their places in well-rehearsed formations that didn't require words or gestures. Fletch watched several of the replacements as they followed along in their positions, nervously holding their guns as they moved across the field, anxious for their first taste of battle, afraid of the experience they knew they needed to have to survive long, but an experience which could kill them all too swiftly.

"Jensen," the major called out.

"Sir," a lieutenant replied.

"Take Fletcher and his squad and start searching from the edge of this field and continue into the woods about a click."

Jensen nodded quickly and left with Fletch to round up the other men.

“Lieutenant Nuwen,” the major called, and a thin officer wearing a pair of urban warfare camo pants and a desert camouflage shirt hurriedly walked over.

“Sir?” Nuwen asked.

“Take your platoon and go through the bodies for batteries for techsights and comlinks,” the major said. “And look for a TacSat, they must have had one, I want to know what’s going on out here.”

The lieutenant nodded and trotted off.

"I wonder what it must have been like," Jensen said as he rolled a body onto its side with his foot. "Gol divisions are supposed to be the best they've got."

"I'm just glad I wasn't here. It looks like they really went at it: hand-to-hand to the last man," Fletch said, licking his chapped lips as he stepped over a body, the saliva evaporating as quickly as the tip of his tongue placed it.

Fletch watched the lieutenant motion for the rest of the men to fan out as they entered the tree line. Jensen pulled out his pistol and moved slowly past the first trees. They were about three hundred meters into the woods when a series of charred tents and overturned tables broke the continuity of the shrubs and trees. Scores of bodies lay in a rough square around the perimeter of the tents, and a gust of air brought the familiar sickly-sweet smell of blood and burnt flesh to Fletch's nose.

"This is where I found that Mong colonel with the ammo," Fletch whispered, pointing to a tent at the center of the square of bodies.

"Command post?" The lieutenant asked as he motioned the other men around the area.

"Yeah," Fletch said, raising his rifle and putting the stock against his shoulder.

Fletch followed Jensen and crouched down on one knee to the left of the tent's doorflap. Jensen counted down on his fingers and motioned quickly to the flap. Fletch threw himself through the torn canvas and hit the ground on his stomach, his rifle wedged tightly to his shoulder and sweeping the room in small arcs.

Streams of light filtered through several holes in the roof of the tent, illuminating a man sprawled across a table, his dark green uniform with large golden epaulets stained with blood, his hands dangling limply over the edge nearest Fletch. There were three other dead men dressed similarly and lying on the dirt to the right of the table. Fletch looked curiously at the one farthest from him. The Gol officer, most of his head congealed in a puddle in front of his nose, was holding a small sword with a broken blade. On the floor near him, a soldier lay dead, a shank of sword stuck in his neck.

The lieutenant crouched and pushed through the flap, stepped hesitantly over to the table and pushed the Mong colonel's body onto the floor. Fletch stood up and walked over to the table, bending over to examine the maps.

"What mountains are these?" Fletch asked, pointing to a vast brown swath on the map.
"I’m not sure, but we're not anywhere near where these maps show," Jensen said, lifting up his helmet to wipe some sweat from his brow. “They must’ve gotten lost and were trying to figure out where they were.”

The lieutenant put his pistol down, turned on his helmet comlink and began talking quickly. Jensen paused to listen for a while, said a few more words and switched off the mic.

"Let's keep going. The major says this area's due for a large offensive soon," Jensen sighed, slipping out the tent flap ahead of Fletch. "Seems the Turbs have mustered up a few divisions from somewhere."

"Did he say what happened to these guys?" Fletch asked as he picked his way around a few corpses and pulled a sword and scabbard from a dead Gol officer.

"Nobody knows for sure, but the major says the uniforms are from two divisions, one Gol and the other Jihad, and that our guys from Third ID were probably moving down to Ploesti, same as us, when they ran into each other," Jensen said as he walked out of the tent, waving to the other men to move forward. “There’s probably eight thousand bodies within a couple of kilometers of where we’re standing. The Third barely managed to break contact with half its force left.”

“What about these guys?” Fletch asked, putting the scabbard through his web belt.

Jensen shrugged. “They’ve got to be around somewhere, what’s left of them, anyway,” Jensen said, cocking his head to the side. “I didn’t think you were the souvenir type.”

Fletch looked down at the sword tucked underneath his web belt. “I’m not. I might need this.”

Jensen shifted his gaze to the side. “They’re ceremonial, Fletch; they’re not made for real use.”

“That guy used his,” Fletch said with a nod to the dead Gol officer.

“Yeah, he used it, but just once,” Jensen said. “If it comes to that, you’re better off with your bayonet.”

Streams of late morning sun poured through the trees, creating columns of light in varying shades of yellow. The shafts were visible and geometric, almost tangible, yet nothing more than shafts of sunlight breaking through the canopy above. On the floor of the forest, bodies were strewn on the dirt as if they were fallen leaves. Charred tents smoked into the air accompanied by bird songs. It was beauty in horror, a tableaux creatable only by men with strong armies and vicious differences in opinion.

"Sir," Fletch said, pointing to a mound of bodies in the next clearing.

Bodies were tossed about in a large convoluted pile of death, as if they had been collected by a tornado and spun around with precision. More than a hundred of them, Fletch guessed, all within a fifty square meter area. Directly in front of him was a large pile of corpses, a grotesque mockery of a gang tackle in football. It was mostly a pile of Gols, their backs riddled with bullets. Fletch rolled a few of the bodies off the pile with his foot, wondering what was at the bottom.

"They don't seem to have been stacked here," Fletch thought out loud, "looks like they were fighting over something."

Jensen moved closer and began to pull bodies off the pile, signaling the other men to hold their positions. Fletch dragged off another body and saw something at the bottom of the pile, wrapped around several clawing hands.

“I think I’ve found it,” Fletch said quietly, taking his helmet off and dropping it on the ground next to his weapon.

“What is it?” Jensen asked, walking around the pile and standing behind Fletch.

Fletch turned over his shoulder. “A flagpole.”

"Let's get it out of there," the lieutenant said, waving in the other men.

The two men bent over the pile and began dragging bodies off the top, the syrupy blood of the dead glopping onto the their hands. After they had pulled several bodies from the pile, the end of a highly-varnished pole was visible, a silver point atop it. They reached down into the pile and grabbed onto the pole. As they pulled, several bodies dragged out of the pile, their hands in death grips around the shaft. Fletch noticed the flagbearer, his body hacked and stabbed in hundreds of places, still clutching the pole in death. Fletch swallowed hard and pried the man's fingers from it; Jensen cleared his throat and headed over to the other side of the pile. Fletch felt sick in spite of himself. It wasn’t the sight of death that churned his stomach, that was something he’d seen more times than he could recount, but the thought that so many men had fought over a flag, mere cloth, sickened him. Fletch stood up with the pole and backed away from the mass of bodies.

Fletch saw Jensen pull a large blue piece of cloth from the pile. Jensen waved it through the air, causing it to unfurl and briefly display its colors: all blue with a blood-red scimitar in the upper left corner, the flag of the United Jihad. Fletch looked down at the pole he had in his hand, wondering which person on which side had started the fight over it, wondering who had bothered to tear the flag from it. He looked up at the lieutenant, and Jensen shook his head in bewilderment and signaled the men to move forward.

An hour later Fletch was walking down a dirt road as the point guard for the battalion, his squad spread out to either side of him in the adjoining field. Fletch hated having to be point leader because it meant the enemy was going to shoot at him first because he happened to be in front. He signaled to the other men to spread the line more, increasing the distance between the men and reducing the risk they’d all be cut down in a quick burst from a machinegun. Fletch took in a deep breath of air, smelling the aroma of dry grass in it. He could taste the grit of the dust that swirled off the road, could feel it collecting in the corners of his mouth and eyes, wherever it could find moisture. He looked up at the blue sky and cursed its lack of clouds. No clouds meant no rain. No rain meant no reprieve from the impending battle.

He could smell that in the air, too. Battle. War. It had a definite smell, metallic and tangy like stray sparks of electricity jumping from a live wire and burning the air. An electric smell that tensed the muscles and held one to his place. A smell that attracted instead of repelled, a smell which raised fear to unimaginable levels of anticipation, yet voided that fear at the last moment, morphing it into action when the fighting started. It was a noisome stench that only compelled one to breathe more deeply and wonder at the origin of such foulness.

Fletch brought his mind back into focus, shaking his head to ensure that he was not still day dreaming, and checked the fields on either side of the road to ensure his men were still there. They were. He signaled for them to pause and he dug out a pair of binoculars from a leather case at his side. He looked through them down the road, scanning both sides of the field ahead. The fields looked deserted, so he looked harder. Now he saw them: two rows of trucks hidden with camouflage netting were standing off either side of the road near a copse of trees about two clicks ahead. He replaced the binoculars and switched on his helmet mic, noticing the charge on the battery was in the low yellow, nearly dead.

"Bravo six, I have visual contact" he said over the link, the processor in his helmet scrambling the signal and sending it out in three-tenths second bursts to avoid radio intercept by the enemy. "Orders, over?"

"Make positive ID and re-call; we will halt until your signal," the major's voice said, small and insignificant coming from the speaker in Fletch’s helmet.

Fletch waved the men in and explained the situation to them, telling them to flank the trucks from both sides of the field. He didn't exactly like having to sneak up on trucks that were supposed to be giving him a ride, but what if they shot at him? More than a few men had been shot up by friendly units edgy about the approach of an unknown force. This in mind, he had intentionally walked down the middle of the road: he wanted the men in the trucks to see him and hopefully recognize him as a friend instead of opening fire with their guns.

Fletch pulled the techsight down from inside his helmet and placed the slip guard on his nose. He looked through the lenses and tapped the power switch on the inside of his helmet, watching as the screens crackled into life, overlaying an LED grid of 100 meter boxes while the uplink connected. A few seconds later, a barely visible depiction of the terrain ahead of him resolved before his eyes.

“Key in GPS 001,” Fletch told the privates, and within seconds six blue dots sprang to life before his eyes. “Good.”

Fletch looked through the computer imagery at the men before him and smiled. “We shouldn’t even need this,” he said tapping his techsight and noticing the emergence of red dots: unidentified signatures. “But it’s always nice to know what the sats see down here.”

After twenty minutes of walking at a casual pace, Fletch began to slow down. He was doing so partly to let his own men get into position, but mostly because he was getting nervous about whether he had chosen the right person to walk down the middle of the road. If they weren't friendly trucks, he would be finding out soon. He zipped up his kevlar armor in spite of the heat and buckled his helmet. He focussed in on the techsight depiction and was satisfied with his men’s placement and the fact the red dots, now closer, hadn’t moved.

He was a hundred meters from the trucks and closing and still couldn't detect any movement from them. Fletch tried to spot his men out in the fields but couldn't see them. Fletch was alone despite what the blue dots in front of his eyes said. His lips turned dry again and he licked them with his dry tongue, accomplishing nothing but getting more dust in his mouth. He closed in on the first truck and flipped the safety switch on his gun to the "off" position.

“Thunder,” a voice called out from the brush.

Fletch paused a millisecond, “Peaches.”

A trio of men popped up from the tall grass a few feet in front of him, their weapons dangling. Fletch immediately reached up to his helmet and turned off his techsight, not wanting to waste what little battery time was left.

"It's not too safe to be walking the streets alone at this hour of the day," a short black sergeant said, separating himself from the others.

Fletch looked into the grinning face of the man, a cigar stub sticking out of the left corner of his mouth. Fletch shouldered his weapon and motioned to the truck. "You call this parallel parking?"

The sergeant smiled, turned and was gone. A moment later the doors on the trucks popped open and the drivers and crewmen hopped out and began milling around, passing canteens and packets of cigarettes between them. Fletch activated his helmet mic and called back to his unit, stripped off his bullet-proof vest and other equipment and climbed into the back of the nearest truck. He yawned, stretched out on the floor boards, grabbed a folded up tarp to use as a pillow, and slept.

It was dark outside when he woke up. He sat up on the floor and noticed Jensen sitting on the bench across to his right, a fivesome of soldiers were leaned over and sleeping domino style nearby. The truck was moving down the road raising dark clouds of dust and making the following truck use its windshield wipers to clean its windscreen. Jensen handed Fletch an apple but still didn't say anything. Fletch didn't feel much like talking either, so he only nodded when he took the apple.

It was dry when he bit into it, and the flesh was grainy. Fletch ate it anyway, not particularly caring that his dry mouth didn't seem to be doing a good job chopping the apple into easily swallowable pieces. He forced a large chunk down his throat and sucked hard on his cheeks for some saliva to send down after it to lubricate his throat and help it slip down more easily. He noticed Jensen's hand holding something else out now, a canteen.

"Water?" Fletch asked.

"Yeah, if you'd have stayed awake you would have seen the provisions they brought for us," Jensen said. "Don't worry, I've got yours right here." Jensen said motioning to a bag next to him.

"Standard three day BatRats, I suppose," Fletch said flatly as he grabbed the small plastic bag.

"Yeah, before battle's the only time they issue anything anymore," the lieutenant said. "I hope they’ve got some ammunition when we get there or else they're going to have to start passing out pointed sticks."

“Batteries?”

Jenkins shook his head.

"When will we be there, sir?" Fletch asked, wanting to avoid the same depressing conversation about what they didn't have.

"About noon tomorrow," Jensen said slowly. "HQ expects an attack within three days, so we don't have much time."

Fletch nodded and rummaged through the bag for something chocolate and pulled out a candy bar. He looked at the packaging date on the outside of the wrapper and sighed in relief: it was only two years old. He ripped the airtight wrapper off the bar, broke off one of the three squares and popped it into his mouth, letting it melt slowly over his tongue.

"We're going to be spread thin," Jensen said. "Word is that the Sixth Armored is going to be our backup."

Fletch nodded at the information and broke off another section of chocolate. Tanks? He hadn’t seen tanks in years, at least not in any sizeable amount. He decided it was another rumor being spread among the troops by higher-ups to raise morale. He glanced down at his watch -- 20:43 -- and looked out the back of the truck at the column. Three or four trucks down Fletch noticed the silhouette of a small flag flapping crazily as it strode forcefully into the wind. He gazed at it for a moment as he took another drink from the canteen, then laid his head back down on the tarp, intent on getting all the sleep he could before he would be forced to stay awake by the rigors of war.

Fletch awoke instinctively when the truck braked to a quick stop, and he looked over at Jensen. The lieutenant returned Fletch’s look with a blank stare. Fletch took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, trying to rid himself of sleep.
"We there?" Fletch asked.

"Yeah," Jensen said, "time to move."

Fletch hopped off the back of the truck and looked around. People: there were real people. The battle to come must be coming quickly, Fletch thought as he looked around. Civilians were normally evacuated to "safe-areas" days before a battle was to begin. He looked at the buildings of the town: most were either charred or piles of rubble, an indication that the town had been changing hands frequently. He wondered why these people were still here: didn't they know a battle was about to happen? Fletch heard the lieutenant's voice from somewhere behind him and headed to join the platoon.

Fletch threw another clump of dirt over his left shoulder. If there was anything he hated, it was entrenching. He hated digging stupid holes that he knew he wasn't going to stay in for more than a few minutes into battle. He spat out the dust that had been accumulating in his mouth and sucked on his cheeks for some more saliva to wet his tongue. What was so damned important about Romania anyway? Most of it had been bombed into craters and the rest of it was just a bunch of useless mountains.

According to the major, Romania was important because the enemy was there. Anywhere the enemy was meant the area was important. Fletch didn't quite understand the logic behind it, but then he wasn't an officer. He didn't have to understand anything, he just had to do. That was why he was digging a hole to hide himself in, because some officer way up in the chain of command had said that the enlisted men should dig holes and put themselves in them. It made sense when there was artillery to worry about, but anymore, you were unlucky if the enemy had even a few working mortar tubes and a handful of rounds. And you were really lucky if your own Corps HQ allotted any fire missions to your sector.

When Fletch had finished his hole, he went to check on the three fighting positions the men in his squad were digging. Three holes, two men to a hole. The enemy would soon come to think those holes were important, and would begin to fight over them with deathly earnest. Couldn't they dig their own holes somewhere else?

Fletch spent the rest of the day making his hole better, surrounding it with sandbags and covering them with carefully replanted vegetation he had scrounged up, but not really accomplishing anything that would really fool anybody who knew where to look, certainly not anybody with a functioning techsight. By nightfall he was satisfied with the job he had done and generally thought he had made his best foxhole of the war. He looked out over the lip of his position at the other holes dug to either side of his own and noticed a large flag flapping in the wind about a hundred meters to his right, a group of silhouetted men preparing to take it down for the night. He returned his gaze to the field in front of him.

Morning twilight had just set in when Fletch first noticed it. The last few moments of light left behind from the now vanished stars cast a blackish-gray scrim across the field, turning the world into a kaleidoscope of shapes in varying shades of indigo. He felt movement in the field: for a moment he thought it was just the wind blowing through the wheat and causing the stalks to sway, but then he remembered the field was barren, except for some trees and scrub brush about three hundred meters to his left. He looked over to his right into the charcoal gray smudge his vision chose to identify as a foxhole and wondered if the two men in it were sleeping. They were expecting to be awakened by either machinegun fire or the morning sun, but the enemy was sneaking across the field without the use of either.

Fletch pulled down his techsight and tried to scan, but the batteries were too weak and showed him only a green fog. He turned off the techsight, clicked on his helmet mic and tried to raise the lieutenant, but got no answer. He clicked off his mic, picked up his binoculars and looked through them at the field as the darkness slowly faded to gray. People. He was certain there were people out there. People coming from the other side of the field. The enemy. The enemy would come from that side of the field. He flicked off the safety switch on his rifle and sighted it into the field. He was sure somebody must see the movement in the field that he saw; maybe they were having the same problems he was raising anybody on the net. Maybe nobody had a working night vision sight. Maybe all the techsights were down. Maybe the satlinks had crashed.

From far down on the right side of the field he heard the staccato fire of a lonely machine gun, saw its bright flashes and the red streaks from tracers as they arced angrily through the air. The machinegun fired for several seconds, paused, and then fired again. Fletch thought he heard shouts from far off, but wasn’t sure. The movement in the field was getting closer, moving faster. He squeezed his trigger and his rifle jerked into his shoulder with a movement that was so familiar his muscles automatically compensated.

The movement broke up and became erratic. Wherever he aimed his weapon he dispersed the gray wave, but only momentarily. Fletch yelled out for others to wake, and the men in the holes nearby responded by firing into the field in mid-yell, experience having already awakened them to the sounds of battle, where the first pop of a rifle round roused the attention of any man in earshot.

A small sliver of sun popped up over the horizon and cast orangish light onto the field, showing a mass of men rushing across it. They were close, too close and getting nearer. The smell of cordite laced the air and soon his weapon stopped its vibrating and began to click repeatedly, out of ammunition.

He reached down to his belt and grabbed another clip, his second of three, and slapped it into the weapon. For several minutes there was a symphony of noise from the line of holes, and then, slowly, the sound wound down as if the orchestra musicians had been issued varying amounts of pages and could only play for so long. To Fletch's right, the mass of enemy soldiers swept over the line of holes and there was frantic fighting, with men erupting from their fighting positions and swinging their rifles like clubs. Fletch could tell that the men near him were running out of bullets by the way their fire became less constant, the men manning the guns more selective in their targets.

Then it happened.

The men to his right and left suddenly rose up and charged out into the field, the few with functioning weapons leading the way. He saw Lieutenant Jensen run by leading a group of men. Fletch noticed a large sheet billowing from a pole as it was carried by him. The flag. The man with the flag was charging into the enemy, too. He could see the blue flag of the enemy closing on his side of the field, a dense mass of men running with it.

Fletch sprang from his hole and ran toward Jensen's group. The lieutenant was heading toward the friendly flag bearer. Fletch saw the flag stutter a second and then start to fall, but within an instant it was striding forcefully into the enemy. Fletch caught up to Jensen and grabbed his arm, spinning the lieutenant around.
"What the hell are you doing?" Fletch yelled.

"Protecting the flag," the lieutenant yelled back, his pupils wide.

"This is suicide," Fletch shouted. "Turn the men back."

"Turn them back?" the lieutenant cried. "This is the way to victory."

Jensen shook off Fletch’s hand and turned to run after the flag. Fifty meters in front of Fletch, the two opposing lines of men had melded to form one. Fletch could make out a swirling melee of madness, men fighting each other with bayoneted rifles, hand-held knives and sharpened sticks. Fletch stood still for a moment, watching the world of chaos and death around him as it revolved and consumed men. Fletch held his rifle at his side as he watched Lieutenant Nuwen get stabbed in the belly and topple to the ground, his hands trying to shove his guts back into his body.

And then Corporal Fletcher ran forward, firing a few bursts from his weapon at any enemy soldiers that managed to break through toward Jensen. For a half-second, Corporal Fletcher watched in awe as the enemy soldiers stopped their headlong charges and suddenly careened to the ground, dead from bullets he had fired. Fletch licked his lips: his tongue was moist. He charged into the fracas.

Jensen had the flag. The lieutenant was running full tilt into the waves of brown-uniformed enemy soldiers, paying their weapons no heed. Several soldiers in front of Jensen fell to the ground as a Gol with a rifle fired at them. Fletcher sighted the man and squeezed his trigger. The familiar kick failed to appear, his weapon empty. He threw the gun to the ground, pulled the Gol sword from his waist and charged after the lieutenant.

A Gol separated from the crowd and lunged at the lieutenant with a bayoneted rifle; Fletcher watched as the blade cut through Jensen's shirt and pierced Jensen’s sternum. The lieutenant stopped and wavered, watching as the Gol pulled the weapon out, paused, and plunged it back in. Jensen spit blood from his mouth, his knees buckled and he started to fall.

Fletch watched as the world turned in slow motion, and Corporal Fletcher leaped over a fallen soldier and grabbed the top of the oak pole. Fletch looked down at Jensen and watched the man's life drain from him the further down the wooden shaft Jensen’s hands slipped. Jensen's body sank to the earth slowly, as if the air were buoying it up, and Fletch stared into Jensen’s eyes as the last bits of life fled them. For a moment, Fletch knew the man, realized Lieutenant Todd Jensen had died, and then forgot it all and wrenched the pole from the dead lieutenant.

Corporal Fletcher turned and ran into the crowd, not noticing the Gol soldiers that leapt out at him in their attempts to claim the flag. He yelled for men to follow him forward, and they came. He let loose a wild shout and blinked back the tears that stung his eyes; he swung the flag back and forth through the air, so that everyone's attention might be drawn to it. He continued his run, confident that if he fell there would be another to take his place.

And yet another still.