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  The captain had no desire to be in Washington. He had always despised politics, he was a soldier, he did as he was ordered and he expected the orders he issued to be attended to with the same attention to detail. Everything in Washington came at a price. Every word here had meanings on multiple levels. Ulterior motives were the norm in this town. Here he was trying to avert a National Disaster, and the President, a pot smoking draft dodger, was more concerned with recent poll numbers. The President couldn’t believe that the aliens would come to Earth on an election year.

  “Sir, we’ve got some eyewitness reports but they are not all that reliable.”

  “How so Captain?”

  “Well sir, most of the eyewitnesses are still pretty shaken up, or else they were under the effects of various types of drugs.”

  “Drugs, Captain?”

  “Yes sir, it was a concert, it’s tough to get an accurate picture of what happened from a person tripping on mushrooms,” the captain noted sarcastically.

  “Captain, I’m not much in the mood for humor today. I know you don’t like politics much, or more specifically me. I know you think that I’m more concerned with poll numbers than the crisis at hand.”

  The captain looked up with a start, not meaning to, but the President had hit his thoughts on the button.

  “Ah, I see by your reaction that I was correct. Captain, I am concerned with the numbers only for the fact that I need to stay in office to deal with this threat. If the Republicans get into office we both know their stance on this new crisis, hit it with everything in our power. Well I’ll let you in on a little secret, Captain, that wouldn’t do a damn thing.”

  “Sir?” the captain said, now a little curious.

  “Captain, what you are now about to hear is top secret information only a handful of people in this country know about.”

  The captain was hooked.

  “We had prior knowledge of these aliens coming.”

  The captain bolted upright out of his seat. “Sir, how could you not let us know, we could have prepared ourselves!”

  “Sit down Captain, we didn’t have forewarning of their intentions, only on their possible arrival. Do you remember that outbreak of anthrax in Kansas last year?”

  “Yes sir, the National Guard was mobilized and pretty much shut down the town of Missoula.”

  “Well it wasn’t anthrax, it was an alien probe. It actually wasn’t all that remarkable looking, at first we thought it might be some sort of Russian device. The first inkling we had that it was not terrestrial was the fact that it had no burn marks upon it. Any satellite that could possibly survive reentry would at the very least have some serious burn marks on its skin. This was perfect, it was spherical, roughly the size of a VW bug, smooth as polished stone. We had our scientists study it for months; they couldn’t even get a shaving off of it to study what type of material it was. They radiated it, exposed it to molten metal and absolute zero freezing temperatures, nothing. We actually had no idea that it was even a probe until one of the scientists by accident discovered that it was sending signals on a super low frequency. It’s actually a frequency that we just discovered and as of yet have not figured out how to send a signal on. Once we discovered there was a message piggybacking on the signal we had 22 Cray super-computers working non-stop 24-7 to decipher the message. The problem was that these machines were programmed to crack any language or mathematical code on this planet; we had no previous basis for the computers to rely on. So the gears spun inside the computers but we couldn’t crack the code.. The only things we learned from the probe was that their technology was far advanced of ours, that the probe was indestructible and where the general direction of the signal was being transmitted. We were not even able to learn the planet of its origin. Near as our scientists can figure the signal is being sent to a black hole out in the Beta-Centauri area, and that the aliens must be using the hole as some sort of worm device to transport the signal to God knows where.”

  “Sir, I thought that nothing could escape a black hole’s gravitational field once it entered it?”

  “That’s what we thought also, Captain, but apparently that’s not the case. This probe is indestructible and I fear that the mother ship uses the same technology, and any direct assault on these beings will most likely unleash hell on earth. For the first time in my life I am afraid, Captain. Not for me but for our country, for our planet, for mankind’s very existence.”

  The captain saw beyond his prejudices and began to admire this man. He could finally begin to understand with his charisma and bravery how he had been elected to the office of President.

  “We have actually had contact with the ship.” The President turned to look at his monitor.

  “Sir, how is that possible? We at NORAD have detected no signal from the mother ship.”

  “Well Captain, you didn’t know where on the frequency spectrum to look. And unlike the probe’s unknown signals, this message came through in perfect English. Would you like to see a transcript of the transmission?” Without waiting for the captain’s response the President hit his intercom button and requested his secretary to get the ‘Project Blue-Fire’ dossier.

  The captain read and re-read the transmission, not entirely sure what to make of it.

  “Humans, make no attempt to contact us or confront us, any and all perceived threats to our ship will be met with unbridled fury. We have come to your planet and intend to stay until what we have come for is accomplished.”

  “Sir, that’s it? Nothing else?” the captain said, bewildered.

  “Nothing Captain, it’s very direct on what they’ll do about any perceived threats, but not very clear on their intentions. We can assume from their actions thus far that their visit isn’t entirely one of peace. But I will sacrifice those thousands that were taken for the good of the planet. That haunts me; I do not sleep very well at all. I know that sacrificing the one for the many is the prudent thing to do, but their souls torment me. And the fact that we are powerless doesn’t sit well either. Even if I did not feel that we should give those people up without a fight, there isn’t a damn thing on this planet that we could do.” The president sounded nearly desperate.

  “Nukes sir, would nukes do anything?”

  “Captain, when the probe could not be deciphered or studied and after we learned of the imminent arrival of the ship we attempted to nuke the probe to see the effects. We broke the Paris peace accords by detonating that bomb. Well, the Pacific Island of Guimina was completely leveled, the probe however did not so much as suffer a surface scratch.”

  The captain shuddered. If the most powerful weaponry known to mankind didn’t faze a mere probe, what could they possibly do against the mother ship? They were up against a master race of aliens and had no idea what they were here for. Were they to become their slaves or worse, their food? No scenario the captain came up with sat well with the dinner he had eaten earlier.

  CHAPTER 19 – Journal Entry 15

  A light sheen of sweat covered my body. I felt confident I had made peace with myself, but was I ready for a person seeded No. 310? More to the point, was I ready to die? He would have to be fairly big and intelligent, that new thought broke a brand new sweat across my brow and a failing sense of confidence in my heart. When I saw my opponent step forth from his side of the stadium, my worst fears were realized. Dan was huge; he was almost the same size as Durgan. At one time Dan Sterns was probably considered a good-looking man, but those days were over. This man was now a walking wound. Whoever had faced this man previously had almost killed him; a foot long gash across his shoulder glistened with pus. And by looking at the sweat on his forehead I could tell he was burning with fever. He was hours away from dying from infection, but that was too far away to do me any good. It did, however, give me a chance, and a chance was all I needed. He also had a disfiguring facial wound that literally went from ear to ear that made Dan look like a horribly mutilated clown out of a Stephen King book. It was hard not think of hi
m as simply smiling widely – very widely. But the misery in his eyes made it clear that that was no natural smile. A dark stain over the left knee was the source of this man’s limp and all I needed to know. The field was one of small rocks and stony clumps, clearly designed for the very mobile and sure of foot. One thing I was certain of was that my competitor was no longer either of those things.

  The crowd cheered at our entrances and our fates were sealed. Well, as I had learned from my baseball coach, to be truly competitive one must think like his competition. His motives, his desires and even his fears. This wasn’t baseball but the advice fit aptly. Although I was only a pawn in a much larger game, I had no intention of sacrificing myself for the common good. So I thought like a wounded man/animal. An animal - hurt, cornered, defensive. That’s it, I shouted in my head, he’ll definitely be on the defensive and what better weapon to use on the defensive but a bow and arrow. Although I’m not physically intimidating he is in no shape to battle anyone hand to hand. He had not received those wounds from long range and he would be severely gun-shy of another frontal assault. The odds were on my side that this man was right-handed, in fact my life depended upon this assumption. Yes, I thought to myself, I know all about assuming things. I was now going to feel my prey out. But first, I got the necessities out of the way: I threw up, nausea striking my stomach more effectively than a fist. Was I starting to like this? No, I answered myself, it was a question of survival. Pull it together, Durgan would have already buried the proverbial hatchet by now, GET IT TOGETHER! With that sobering thought in mind I started out, totally oblivious to the taut grin that was stretched over my face. Halfway across the arena I went to the right side wall and grabbed my weapon of choice for the evening, a mace. It weighed more than it looked. I was going to have to be careful that I made contact on the first swing as it would be difficult to bring it back around with any true speed or precision. Even halfway across the arena floor I had yet to feel true fear regarding Sterns. I was fairly certain that he had holed up in a somewhat secure and sheltered area and was going to wait until I was in full view before unleashing his hopefully non-lethal volley of arrows. I traversed another twenty-five yards through some short scrub grass and stones. It was now time to begin employing tactics. I had to be closing in on his firing zone, unless I had made a horrible mistake and he had circled behind and was even now ready to cut my throat. I spun around, more than expecting him to bear down on me, and there he wasn’t. My nerves were primed, I was on edge. I had to stick to my game plan; it was time to play cat and mouse. The first thing I had to do was find out where the very large and dangerous mouse was hiding. This cat was going to be very cautious. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ crossed my mind more than once. I looked across the surface of the remaining twenty-five yards or so and could see nothing except rocky crags and grassy outcrops. This place reminded me of a miniature Maryland with its rolling hills and green grass. There were dozens of places he could be holing up. My first break came and the smile I wasn’t even aware I was wearing got even bigger. The place where the bow and arrow had hung in my last round was bare. I was right and Hank Sterns, whether he knew it or not, was as good as dead. The best he could hope for at this distance was one shot and one shot only, or so I hoped. I got down into a kneeling position and picked up a grenade-sized stone and hurled it side arm ten or fifteen yards back into the middle of the arena. Sure enough his dark curly topped head jerked up and he peered about looking for me. His eyes no longer appeared to have agony in them; when he realized that he had exposed himself for a mere rock, his eyes took on the look of a trapped animal, and terror reigned supreme. My stomach convulsed again. Being raised as a Catholic I should be helping a man that looked that desperate, but instead I was planning ways for his untimely demise. God forgive me. Thankfully I had nothing left in my stomach to bring up. After a few seconds the feeling passed. It was him or me and I didn’t know him. I grabbed another rock and hurtled it almost directly in front of his hidey-hole. In a panic he stood up and fired blindly, luckily blindly because it still came dangerously close to the left side of my head. I’ll swear to this day that I heard that arrow whistle by over the roar/hiss of the crowd. I jumped up from my crouching position and halved the twenty-five yards in NFL record time, it was then that the world slowed down to a snail’s pace. No! I screamed to myself. This can’t be the time or place to have one of those crippling dreams. I took a step, he brought an arrow out of his sheath, I took another step bringing the mace up, he began to notch the arrow. I took another step and brought the mace back beyond my shoulder, he fully notched the arrow and pulled back on the bow. Damn, I thought to myself, how the hell did he load that thing that fast, was I running that slow or was he moving that fast? I took another step and brought the full splintering force of the mace down onto the top of his head. The mace shuddered in my hand as the steel made contact with his head; his skull snapped like a dry branch under my foot and brain matter flew everywhere. So this is what it feels like to be Gallagher I thought nonsensically. Sterns crumpled like a Coke can under a car; his knees seemed to have blown out at the sides as his head and neck both skewed at right angles to each other. The mace had buried itself a good five inches into his skull so that the ball was resting directly above his now empty eye sockets. My first impression was that sweat had stung my eyes and filled my mouth but upon closer examination the metallic taste would not go away. I spat, I heaved and then I collapsed. The bastard had gotten the shot off and it had struck true. The question now was how good of a shot had it been? The pain in my side was searing. Damn, I thought, I’m going to die by the hands of a dead man. I guess that’s what poetic justice is all about. Blood flowed from my wound, a deep crimson red; even I knew that this was no superficial wound. In those old John Wayne movies I always thought that when the cowboy gets shot with an arrow and they show him holding onto it, they just did that for dramatic effect, but that’s not the case. The mind just can’t grasp the concept that you have this foreign object inside of you. The first inclination you have is to just wrench it out of you, but the slightest movement of the shaft sends agony blistering through every nerve ending so you basically just put your hands around it to keep it from moving around. I stayed there for a few minutes not really having any thoughts other than would I be admitted into Heaven after today’s festivities. I thought not, but how bad could Hell be after this little jaunt in the park. Then I died.

  CHAPTER 20

  “How go the games, Krulak?”

  “They go well, my Supreme Commander, the hu-mans are even more cruel and savage than we had originally thought. But for a few rare cases they have no regard for other human lives.”

  “It is amazing that this species has survived to this juncture in their evolution. Apparently we will only be speeding up their demise by a decade or two.”

  “I agree, Commander, and the entertainment is just what the populace needed after the last buckle we completed.”

  “Yes that was a particularly difficult space traversal, are the Genogerians behaving themselves?”

  “Yes oh Great One, but all the killing has made them a little more unstable than usual. A couple of fights have broken out among the crew but only two deaths and five serious injuries.”

  “Maybe, my dear Krulak, we should have done on our planet what these Earthlings did on theirs.”

  “Sir, by wiping out Cro-magnon these hu-mans rid themselves of a valuable asset. Now they have to do their own dirty work.”

  “You are right my dear Krulak. If we had destroyed the Genogerians we would have succumbed long ago to the Fregtew. I still have a hard time believing that we have any commonality to the beasts though.”

  “Sir, we have as much in common with them as a piece of steel does to a sword. We are of similar material but we have been worked and honed to be a thing of beauty and power.”

  “I agree. As always Krulak, your faith has never wavered, old friend. Please let me know when Round Two has been completed. You m
ay go.”

  “By your leave, sir.”

  CHAPTER 21 – Journal Entry 16

  I thought I had died. Apparently I had just passed out. I knew this to be true because I had some sort of strange wrappings around my wounds. I’m pretty sure Heaven wouldn’t need any type of gauze to keep me from bleeding out. Unless God of course had a strange sense of humor, which by the way he probably does. If you need proof of that just look at the predicament I’m in at this moment. But I’m alive. For good or bad, I’m alive to fight another day. Man, how hollow had those words sounded a lifetime ago, now they ring as true as the Liberty Bell. I stood up from my bed and flexed my bad side. I felt remarkably well, the aliens must have some super-Neosporin, either that or I’ve been out for a long, long time. Curiosity won over morbidity; I crossed the room to turn on the ‘Kill-O-Vision’ as I had affectionately begun to call it. No battles were being waged at this time so all that appeared was a static list of the remaining contestants and their respective rankings. At first I thought it was a misprint. I had beaten Sterns, ranked at 310, and my rating by comparison had dropped. I was listed at No. 812. That meant that either the competition was that difficult or Sterns’ injuries had severely hampered my chance at a better rating and an easier challenger next round. I stared at the screen in horror and dismay. I had hoped that I would have a relatively easy opponent next round, but the aliens had seen it differently. I had faced a man who had been close to death and I had almost joined him. How in the hell was I going to beat this next person? I was shaken out of my stupor when a countdown clock appeared to announce that Round Three was about to get under way. I had five hours to prep myself for another battle, how long was I out for? Well, I had five hours to fully recuperate, and depression had settled in deeply. I was thinking it was time for a nap. Backing up towards my bed, I put an arm out to guide myself down and touched something warm. At first I thought I was still dreaming, so I moved my hand back and forth a little without turning around. I was afraid to see what was there; I slowly turned, half-expecting to be face to face with Mace Head. The thought of him coming at me, brain matter still oozing out of his gaping maw, almost made me double over in fear. It was then that a high shriek brought me back to reality or at least a semblance thereof. The woman in my bed, upon opening her eyes and seeing me, recoiled in terror. She pulled the blankets around her and got into one of the tightest fetal positions I had ever witnessed. After the initial shock and surprise of finding another warm-blooded creature sharing my abode, I wondered what caused that reaction. I may not be Tom Cruise but I’m not the Hunchback of Notre Dame either, what gives? The whole situation might already have been somewhat humorous if I hadn’t been as startled as her and fell backwards, lightly brushing my head against the table, but more ridiculous than that was the sound of my pride making a solid thunking sound as my ass hit the floor. I could do nothing more than laugh. Her eyes shifted from terror to bewilderment. As my laughing increased her eyes became even softer. I think that for a moment through my tears of mirth I even witnessed the beginning of a smile. Still trying to wipe the tears from my eyes and holding my stomach from splitting I continued to laugh and to my amazement my new roommate joined in. After a few more moments the merriment of the situation came to a drawn out finale. The wariness began to creep back into her eyes. So I spoke to try and calm whatever her fears were.