Battleship

stand on.” He paused, glancing at Nagata, who was standing next to him. No offense, he mouthed to Nagata. None taken, Nagata mouthed back.

Hopper continued: “I don’t think that’s a coincidence. This old girl ended one war. We do our jobs today, and she’ll see to it we end another… and just maybe save the world in the bargain. My…” He hesitated, trying not to choke up. “My brother always said the same words to his men before a mission. Since he’s not here, I’m saying them to you: Be safe out there. Look out for one another. And let’s keep chargin’.

“Mr. Ord… take us out.”

“Aye, Captain.”

There was a slight lurch, and a groan, and for a second Hopper was worried that someone had forgotten to clear the last of the moorings and the ship was going to rip out the dock in its departure. But then the Mighty Mo eased from its resting place like a coma patient waking after a decades-long slumber. She slid into the water, the propellers picking up power and speed, and a raucous series of cheers went up from all over the deck. Hopper even fancied that he could hear the cheering from deep within the bowels of the ship.

Nagata cleared his throat to get Hopper’s attention. Hopper turned to him, his face a question. With his customary calm, Nagata reached toward a switch, the purpose of which Hopper didn’t know, and flipped it once.

The song “Anchors Aweigh” blared through the speakers, not only setting off a rousing cheer, but also prompting many of the men to start singing along.

“Nice touch,” said Hopper. Nagata bowed slightly. Then Hopper noticed that a number of Nagata’s men were also singing the song, but in their native tongue.

“Man, you have got to teach me how to sing it in Japanese.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because at some point in the future, you’ll attempt to sing it in front of one of my superiors. He will demand to know who is responsible for your butchering our language, and I will be obliged to commit ritual suicide.”

Hopper stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Do you want to take that chance?” he said solemnly.

After considering it, Hopper shook his head. “Wouldn’t be fair to your unborn son.”

“Hai,” said Nagata gravely.

Driscoll was on the flying bridge with them, and he said, “If you don’t mind my asking, Skipper… what’s the plan?”

“Here’s the deal, Driscoll: the enemy doesn’t seem to register us as a threat so long as we don’t do anything threatening. With me so far?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay. So for all any of them knows, we’re just going on a nice little pleasure cruise to Saddle Ridge, which my…”

Girlfriend? That’s gonna sound good.

“…my away team has informed me is Ground Zero for the aliens’ transmission tower. We blow it to hell and that way they won’t be able to get word to what we believe is the rest of their invasion party, waiting for the ‘go’ order.”

“I see. Got it.” Driscoll moved his chin around as if he were chewing on something, and then said, “And just out of curiosity, once we show we’re not just a heavily armed cruise ship out for a jaunt, what happens then?”

“Very likely all hell breaks loose. But we’ll have bought our planet valuable time. These creatures aren’t invulnerable, Driscoll. They can be hurt, they can be killed and they can be blown the shit out of. I’m not sure what the hell is keeping the rest of our fleet at bay, but once the aliens are facing the combined armed might of Earth, nothing,” and Hopper, repeating it with pride, “nothing can stand in our way.”

“Captain, there’s something standing in our way.”

At first Hopper thought Ord was just trying to be funny, but then he saw where the sailor was pointing.

The alien structure that the stingers had been guarding was now blocking their path, as if it had anticipated what direction they were going. It looked the same as it did before: a strange, central body, jagged angles and industrial panels, weird shapes of unknown composition.

Hopper fought to keep his voice casual, as if he were observing some minor weather event that hadn’t been in the morning report. “I didn’t know that one moved.”

Ord said apprehensively, “I got a super-duper bad feeling about this.”

So did Hopper.

The Sea Commander activates the morphing circuits through the command ship. It begins to charge with energy, its surface pulsing, its five segments extending to reveal their full fierceness.

Now the humans will experience the consequences of their actions. Now they will see the full power and potency of the Regents.

And it will be the last thing they ever see.

Everyone watched in shock as what was now clearly a vessel—probably the flagship of the alien fleet—began to rise upward, water cascading off ragged metal, splashing white as it poured out of armored sheathing, revealing itself in sections: teethed and buck-knifed with jagged segments that slowly unfolded into five identical pieces of malevolent construction: twelve hundred feet of gritty, industrial danger.

There was deathly silence throughout the Missouri.

It was Ord who broke it as, in a very soft voice filled with barely controlled panic, he said, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

SADDLE RIDGE

The Land Commander is satisfied with the way in which matters are proceeding, even as he fights his frustration over the manner in which he must work.

He surveys the readiness of the power cells, all of which appear to be running at full capacity. He nods in approval as he appraises the various displays and vertical satellites, the human technology that they have cannibalized for their own purposes. He supposes that there is a certain irony to utilizing the very equipment that summoned them in their campaign against the current residents of this ball of dirt and water.

Yet it appalls him that it should be necessary.

He cannot help but dwell on his meeting with the World Commander. That smug bastard, looking down at him with such arrogance, making decisions about how they were to proceed based upon his understanding of how such matters were supposed to proceed. All of it theoretical, none of it taken from actual firsthand experience. The World Commander, sitting there safe and sound in his so-called “strategic center” back home, sent in troops as if Regents’ lives mean nothing to him. Let’s see him at the helm of a combat vessel being dispatched into a war zone and see how he likes it.

And crippling their resources while he was at it? The unadulterated nerve of him. If the landing teams had had the redundancy equipment that they’d asked for, it wouldn’t have mattered that one of their arrays had been destroyed during the unfortunate mishap upon landing—there would have been backup resources. Instead the World Commander dares to talk of how the Regents are spread thin throughout the galaxy. He talks of how— rather than providing the landing troops with all that they could possibly require so as to enable the invasion to run smoothly and flawlessly—they are to take only what they need and make use of found materials upon the target world should there be problems. What sort of nonsense is that? How are they supposed to eradicate the humans with minimal difficulties if the World Commander hampers them? Who sends troops into a war situation without properly outfitting them? Even the humans likely wouldn’t do something so stupid, and they’re primitives.

It prompts the Land Commander to wonder if politics are not being played here. If the World