Your Truth is Out There (Find Your Truth Book 1) (7 page)

He was about to vow that if he made it out of this in one piece, he’d pay more attention to his wife in the future, when the ship lurched heavily to the left and he nearly lost control, snapping his focus back to the task at hand.

No time for vows, self-recrimination or second guessing now! I can do that once I’m safely out of here. For now, it looks like I’m just going to have to deal with what’s in front of me.

Struggling to control the ship, he glanced out of the front window.

“Gralt!” he shouted frantically, seeing his bad situation turning disastrous. He was about to land right on top of the Irtling!

Pulling back on the controls and frantically pushing buttons, Gsefx maneuvered the ship up slightly and over just enough to clear the Irtling and set the vehicle down in a clear spot without doing any further damage to the ship or the native on the ground. He shut the engines down and took a few deep breaths to compose himself before unbuckling his safety restraint and opening the door.

“Thank the Gods there’s only one of them,” he said, as he stepped out to meet the lone representative of planet Irt.

As it descended, the ship lurched from side-to-side with ever-increasing frequency, never leaving its track directly toward Henry.

It’s going to crash for sure, and take me and my paintings with it!
Thought Henry after a particularly violent surge. A part of him wanted to get out of the way of the rapidly descending ship, a part of him wanted to save his paintings, and still another part of him wanted to raise the gun in his hand and start firing on the intruder. In the end, he could do nothing but watch, transfixed by the strange craft bearing down on him.

The ship stopped suddenly, barely fifty feet above his head, bounced around for a few seconds and then moved off, missing Henry and safely setting down in an open space about thirty yards away. Henry clicked the safety off on his revolver and walked toward the new arrival.

As he approached it, he could see that the ship was about forty feet long and ten feet high—nearly twice the size of his car. It also had a strange looking, tent-shaped, appendage on the top of the hull that added another four feet to its height. The ship was off-white, with a rounded front, a dark tinted windshield and dark windows on the side where he suspected the passenger seat would be located. Outlines for the doors were set midway between the front and rear of the craft.

Henry stopped about ten feet away from the now silent ship and waited to see what would happen next. To say he was scared would be putting it mildly. Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been ready to take his own life, but the arrival of this uninvited guest to his farewell party brought on a new feeling that overrode all other considerations. Regardless of the circumstances that brought him here, Henry was now the only thing standing between an alien of unknown intentions and the rest of humanity. For the moment, at least, it seemed he had something to live for.

Without warning, the dark windows cleared and the doors slid silently open. Its pilot stepped out onto the dirt and faced Henry.

What he saw when he stepped out of his vehicle was more foreign to Gsefx than he had expected. The landscape was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He and his Irtling counterpart were standing in a large open area, covered with dirt and large rocks. They were surrounded by hills clearly made of the same material as the rocks scattered about on the ground and except for the two of them, it was completely uninhabited. Of course, that was why he had chosen this spot to land and make repairs, but to actually experience such a large empty space was very new to him. He was the product of an urban metropolis and had never before been anywhere this bereft of life, aside from travelling through space, and even then there were usually other ships passing by.

The Irtling who stood before him was not nearly as strange as he had expected someone from a world this primitive. Its dimensions were not too unlike Gsefx, himself, except for the fact that it had only two arms and two legs. It was similar in height, although much thinner. Its face and head were also of similar size and shape and the hair on the top of its head was fuller than Gsefx’s, and of a light brownish color.

Wanting to get a closer look at the creature, Gsefx momentarily forgot the potential danger and started walking toward the Irtling. As soon as he did so, the creature raised one of its two arms, pointed something at him and yelled something completely incomprehensible. Gsefx froze, cursing himself for once again being so careless.

Fear and fascination mixed together in Henry’s mind as the alien emerged from the ship. His first reaction was that this creature was not totally unlike him, it was humanoid at least, similar in height but a bit larger around. What fascinated him the most was the creature’s four arms and four legs. He wondered how so many limbs could work in concert with one another. It seemed impossibly inefficient.

The creature’s face was rounder than the average human, but it contained the same basic features, two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. The skin was very smooth, seemingly incapable of growing facial hair and had a light bluish hue to it. Aside from a small ring of short, straight blonde hair around the top of its head, it seemed completely hairless. It also wore clothes not unlike those found on Earth. They were obviously made of different materials and were dramatically more colorful than anything Henry had ever seen before, but the basic pants and shirt concept were still the same. Its feet were large and leathery and seemed to require no shoes.

The creature, who had been staring at Henry in much the same way he had been staring at it, began walking toward him. Fear took over and without thinking Henry raised the gun and pointed it toward the creature.

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot. Don’t come any closer!” he shouted, fighting to keep the gun and his voice steady.

Stopped dead in his tracks, fear making an impression on him at last, Gsefx slowly raised all four of his arms with his hands open wide in a gesture meant to show he was unarmed and posed no threat. He didn’t recognize the specific item being pointed at him, but knew what it was just the same.
Primitive Cultures
was a required course in school and he remembered learning just how paranoid and violent beings of lesser evolvement could be. Whatever it was being pointed at him was undoubtedly a weapon of some sort. Primitive perhaps, but dangerous nevertheless, possibly even deadly.

“Please, put down your weapon,” he said, “I’m just here to repair my vehicle. I don’t want any trouble.”

The Irtling again said something unintelligible and continued pointing the weapon at him.

“Please, just let me fix my vehicle,” he said as he gestured toward his ship, “and I’ll …”

He was interrupted by a loud “bang” and the whirring sound of a small projectile as it passed by his ear. The Irtling had just fired at him!

Gsefx jumped at the near-death experience and began backing up toward his ship, hands still in the air. The Irtling remained where it was, but surprisingly had lowered its weapon. Gsefx stopped and looked closer at the creature. It was clearly shaken and seemed to be just as scared as he was. Perhaps it hadn’t meant to fire on him.

Gsefx was about to repeat his appeal to be left alone, when a thought struck him. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try and he was out of alternatives.

Although his hands were steady as he aimed the .357 magnum, Henry was a complete wreck inside. His heart was pounding, his mouth was dry, and he could feel the sweat pouring down his face.

The alien’s four hands were raised as if it was trying to show it wasn’t a threat. When the creature spoke again and made a movement toward the ship, Henry’s shaky nerves could take no more. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of the gun firing and felt the recoil that he realized he had actually pulled the trigger. Fortunately for the alien, this was the first time Henry had ever fired a gun. The shot missed and glanced off of the ship’s tent-shaped appendage.

Henry was as surprised as his alien counterpart. He certainly hadn’t meant to fire. Stunned, he lowered the weapon and tried to think about what to do next. He thought about simply dropping the gun completely and running away. Let the alien kill him if it wanted to, he was prepared to die. The only thing stopping him was the tiny voice in his head that insisted on reminding Henry there were things worse than death, and that turning his back on this creature before knowing what it had in mind was a very bad idea.

The alien began backing away toward its ship, hands still in the air. It opened its mouth to speak, then closed it again as if considering another option. When it opened its mouth again, Henry was shocked to realize he understood what the creature was saying.

“Night is day and day is night,” it said in a high-pitched, but clear voice, “don’t say I won’t ‘cause you know I might.”

Henry stood in stunned silence, trying to process what he had just heard. The creature repeated the words, and as it did so, Henry realized he recognized the words as lyrics from one of his favorite songs. As his mind tried to come up with a logical explanation as to why an eight-limbed being from outer space would know the words to a late 70’s rock song, he failed to notice the gun slipping from his hand and falling harmlessly to the ground.

“Where is it now?” yelled the General into the ear of his assistant. His helicopter was fully powered-up and waiting just a few feet away, but he needed one last check before he lifted off.

“Ops says they’ve lost coverage, sir,” replied the assistant. “They say the craft appears to have continued along its projected path and landed.”

“All right, Major, we’re a go. Have all units proceed to those coordinates. Keep me posted of their progress.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”

The General nodded, climbed aboard the chopper, and shut the door.

Along with the four stars on his shoulders, General Theodore Eustace Alcorn carried a full set of mixed emotions as well. When he was assigned this command, he had known contact with a non-terrestrial race was a possibility and had, in fact, spent the last three years preparing for this day. Even so, he never really believed it would happen. He never actually believed non-terrestrials even existed. But now, it seemed one had actually arrived and touched down within the borders of the continental United States, and he found that he was actually excited.

Still, a part of him had hoped this day would never come. With less than eighteen months until retirement, he had settled into an acceptable, even comfortable routine. Throughout his career, Alcorn had always been a man of action, preferring to see his plans and strategies enacted in real-world situations, rather than endless drills and simulations. In this case, however, he would have been content with running drills and conducting exercises designed to simulate all the potential ways first contact could occur until it was time for him to retire. At this point in his life, he and his wife had begun doing many of the things they’d been unable to do while Alcorn had been climbing the ladder, and their son, Theo, had been at home. But that was all over now. Theo had long since moved out, and there were no more rungs on the ladder left to climb. Contentment was no longer a dream for General Alcorn, it was an attained reality.

Even before graduating at the top of his class in high school, Teddy, as he was known by those closest to him, knew he would be a career soldier. His friends and family all urged him to reconsider his application to West Point and his choice of a military career. The civilian sector is where it’s at, they said. With your intelligence, instincts, and ability to read people, you can write your own ticket, they said. And they were right, of course. He could have done anything he wanted, which was why he pursued a career as a military officer. It was exactly what he wanted; it was exactly what he was meant to do.

For nearly thirty-nine years now, he had served proudly and been well rewarded. Few ever made it as far as he had. There had even been talk of a possible appointment to the Joint Chiefs, but he knew how that game was played. The powers that be might dangle the possibility of an appointment in front of him, like they did with all of his four-star peers, but he would never have been assigned First Contact Command if they were truly serious about a seat at the Joint Chiefs’ table. Around the Pentagon, First Contact Command was better known as Last Stand Command. Being assigned to it meant it was your last stand as a commander. Although he’d played the political game well enough to make it as far as he had, sitting on the JCS was the last place Alcorn wanted to be anyway, so he accepted his assignment to Last Stand with the same vitality and vigor he had every other command. He told himself he would give it everything he had until he reached the forty-year mark and it was time to retire. It was only lately that he’d caught himself starting to look forward to the day when he could spend the rest of his life golfing, fishing or just plain lounging around the house in blissful ignorance, instead of poring over troop levels and readiness exercises.

Today’s events could change all of that. It now appeared he would be required to fulfill his assigned mission. To make first contact with a species not of human origin. His plans for retirement could very well be delayed, if not canceled altogether. The needs of the Army came first. They always came first.

Adding to the mix of emotions was the additional aspect of his mission. Simply making first contact might not be good enough. He and his men might have to forcibly detain, or even eliminate the aliens if he determined them to be a threat. He hoped it would not come to that. Alcorn always believed his mission was to find a peaceful resolution to conflict, whenever possible. But that wasn’t always an option. Sometimes military action was required and it was his job to be ready when force became necessary. In this case, securing the safety of the United States, and perhaps the entire planet, was priority number one. Everything else was secondary.