Battleship

It was Beast who responded first. “Sealing the aft magazine. We’ll stay afloat.” Seconds later other sections of the ship were reporting in, stating that there was no damage.

Okay. That’s a relief.

“Captain Nagata, we seem to have multiple targets. Care to do something about that?”

“Hai.”

“I take that as a ‘yes.’”

Nagata nodded. A moment of mutual respect passed between them. Then it was back to business. Nagata carefully tracked the second stinger. “Target… INDIA 37,” said Nagata.

“INDIA 37,” Raikes repeated. “One more time.”

Ord watched with growing enthusiasm and blossoming hope as another Harpoon missile leaped into the night sky, an avenging angel carrying considerable firepower. It streaked through the air, zeroing in on the alien.

The stinger tried to leap out of the way, but the missile caught the port pontoon, ripping through it and sending the ship tumbling back onto the water. It landed with a hellacious splash. The stinger listed in the water, and Ord could hear the engines misfiring, sputtering. It attempted to bound to the right but landed heavily, like a crippled bird.

“That’s a hit,” he said. “She’s dead in the water, about fifty yards to the right of where you hit her.”

Seconds later another missile launched from the deck of the John Paul Jones. The stinger apparently saw it coming, because it tried to launch one of its own missiles directly at it, hoping to counter it. It failed to do so. The white cylinder tumbled out of the launcher rather than being propelled, and slid into the water. The firing mechanism had obviously been damaged and the stinger was a dead duck.

Except it wasn’t. There was a surge of the waves, as if the ocean itself had a bet on the aliens and was trying to prolong the action, that pushed the stinger to one side. An instant later the Harpoon hit the water and sank uselessly beneath the waves.

“Miss. That’s a miss. You’re 10 degrees right,” said Ord.

In the CIC, Hopper nodded at the new information, making his own adjustments to the trajectory. “Second coordinates, ROMEO 36.” He nodded toward Raikes and said, “Have a nice day.”

Raikes, with a missile ready to go, fired.

Ord watched the third missile track launch. He followed its trajectory, murmuring, “Please, please, come on, please,” the entire time as the missile streaked through the air.

This time when it hit the stinger, there was no doubt. The alien vessel erupted in flame, blown apart by the power of the Harpoon. Even more, the second vessel got caught up in the backlash of the inferno and went up as well. Flames blasted upward like a volcano eruption, and cheers rang from all over the deck. “Hit! Sink! Big hit! Big sink!” Ord shouted into the walkie-talkie, doing an exuberant dance that would have gotten him roundly lampooned by anyone else in the crew under ordinary circumstances. But these were far from ordinary, and all that resulted was several others joined him in his terpsichorean celebration. Through the still-open walkie-talkie, he could hear the sounds of jubilation coming from the CIC as well.

Then he glanced at his watch and he was filled with considerably less joy. The night had fled and the sun would soon be rising. Once there was full visibility, the playing field would be level once more.

And he wasn’t convinced, when that happened, they’d be around to see another sunset.

SADDLE RIDGE

“What the hell are they doing?”

Sam had spoken so softly that Cal, who was right next to her, could barely hear her. But her exact wording wasn’t necessary; he was able to infer it from context.

The three humans were concealed in the tall, overgrown grass high on a hill that surrounded the Beacon International Project building. They’d gotten there by slithering along on their bellies, moving a foot at a time, stopping, waiting to make sure there was no reaction and then moving again.

Sam supposed it was entirely possible they could have made the approach in the accompaniment of a brass band and it wouldn’t have garnered any attention. The aliens seemed far too involved in their work: walking around, engaged in various tasks, none of which Sam understood. She saw, though, that there appeared to be two different types of them, perhaps arranged along some manner of caste system. There was one who appeared to be in charge: the commander. He was taller, his armor a different color from others, who were broader and mostly involved in doing the serious grunt work.

Watching their movements, Cal whispered, “They’re connecting what I think are the power cells that are going to be required to boost the transmission. They’re wiring everything to the satellite dishes.”

“Then that,” Mick said, “is where we’re going to shut this whole thing down.”

He crawled forward toward the edge of the hill where the drop-off would take them down toward the building. He brought his shotgun up to bear, aiming it squarely at one of the shorter aliens. Sam was right beside him, and then they were brought up short when they heard loud breathing behind them.

They turned and saw that Cal Zapata hadn’t budged. Instead he was busy hyperventilating—or at least very close to doing so.

Mick looked scornfully at him, clearly in no mood to deal with a faint-of-heart scientist. He met Sam’s gaze, and she quickly shook her head, silently imploring him to hold up. She didn’t see any choice; they needed to peel Cal off the metaphorical ceiling before they could proceed any further, as he was crucial to their overall plans of contacting Hopper’s ship. Mick looked like he desperately wanted to ignore her, but then—with clear reluctance and a poisonous glare at Cal—he lowered the shotgun.

They remained where they were as another transport passed overhead, lights glaring. It didn’t illuminate their hiding place, fortunately, thanks to an overhanging tree that obscured their presence from overhead. Must be bringing another power cell, she thought grimly.

The workroom that was the destination of the three humans was visible from their vantage point, so that was something, at least. But it might as well have been on Mars—or even whatever planet these creatures hailed from—for all that they were going to be able to get near it… at least for as long as Cal was proving himself to be completely useless.

The scientist clutched at his chest, trying to steady himself. She prayed he didn’t have a heart attack. That was the last thing they needed. They wouldn’t be able to seek help for him and would probably have to leave him to his fate. Except she wasn’t at all convinced they could possibly do what needed to be done without his scientific acumen. Some part of her was appalled she was measuring the worth of a man’s life purely in terms of how it was useful to her, but ultimately she knew she didn’t have a choice. At this point all that mattered was the mission.

“I’m sorry, but there is no way I’m going down there,” Cal finally managed to say. “I do not possess that particular courage.”

Sam was determined to talk him into it. There was an entire litany of things she could say. She could tell him that the world was literally counting on them, even though no one knew their names. She could tell him that she was positive he had vast stores of inner determination that could be tapped, enabling him to rise to the occasion. She could remind him that, since it was his project that had brought these creatures here, it was his responsibility to jump into the middle of this thing with both feet. To clean up the mess he and his scientist friends had made. She could even remind him that if he showed timidity now, then in the long term his life wasn’t going to matter, since—if they failed to interrupt or, better yet, terminate the aliens’ message home—the planet would be overrun and he likely wouldn’t have a long term or a life. So if he wanted a chance of survival, he needed to pull it together right now.

Before she could articulate any of that, however, Mick said between gritted teeth, “You’re going to acquire that particular courage right now, or I’m going to break my steel leg off in your ass.”

Cal absorbed this new information. “Acquiring courage,” he said briskly, as if he were downloading it off the Internet.