U-10

Colonel Hubert was incredulous as he watched Lavender and his squad walk out of the alien craft.

Ty came straight to him and saluted.

“Glad to see you’re not hurt, Sir.”

“Seems I have a lot of catching up to do,” Hubert responded. “Your debriefing is going to take some time.”

“Yes, Sir, but right now, we need to get everyone on board. Once we get back to the safety of the camp, I’ll fill you in on everything.”

“Please don’t tell me there are little green men on that ship,” Hubert said.

“No, but there is one puzzled cricket,” Ty grinned. “His name is Koritt Diviak.”

“What?” Hubert whispered.

Just then, Psycho stepped close and said, “The wounded are being moved to the Hold. Another fifteen minutes and we’ll be ready to leave.”

“Thank you, Corporal,” Ty said. “Any problems?”

“Just wide-eyed stares is all,” Psycho replied. “Hashtag is keeping Koritt in the cockpit so no one thinks they’re in a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.”

Ty grimaced at the reference but had to admit the events of the past few hours merited the description.

Turning his attention to Colonel Hubert, he said, “I want you to meet our alien before we introduce him to your men. If you’re comfortable with him, it will go a long way toward calming their nerves.

***

Ty led Colonel Hubert into the crew’s quarters and asked him to put on one of the blue-sequined outfits.

Despite his complaints, Hubert shrugged into the gear after Ty explained it allowed him to speak to the alien. To his surprise, the suit writhed and settled into a snug fit.

“How do you communicate with it if you’re not wearing one?” Hubert asked as he flexed his arms.

“It’s a long story,” Ty replied as he guided the Colonel toward the passenger cabin. “I’ll tell you later.”

The first person Hubert saw when he entered the deck was Lincoln Frost. The left side of her face was still swollen, and her hands were tied. The moment she saw Hubert, she struggled out of her seat and confronted him.

“At last, someone in authority. Tell these idiots to release me. I must get in touch with SEED Headquarters.”

Colonel Hubert peered past her trying to catch a glimpse of the alien cricket. Frost realized he was ignoring her.

“Colonel!”

“Yes, yes,” Hubert said as he brushed by her and headed to the cockpit. “Nice to see you as well.”

Staring at his back as he walked away, Frost was going to say something else when Ty whispered in her ear, “I don’t think he’s interested in you at the moment.”

Frost stomped her foot in frustration and then looked embarrassed by her uncharacteristic display of anger. Ty brushed past her as he moved to join Colonel Hubert, and she felt something like an electric shock as his shoulder touched hers. Puzzled by her reaction, she sat down and focused on the cockpit meeting. She heard murmuring, but nothing distinct enough to make out words.

Her concentration was broken by a tiny, electronic vibration. The proximity alert on her wristband had activated. It was set to advise her when a SEED team was within five kilometers of her position. Her homing beacon was working as designed. With her rescue only minutes away, Frost settled back in her seat with a smug look.

Instead of thinking about the rewards and possible elevations in rank from capturing a working, alien spacecraft, Frost mused about the pleasure she would get from outsmarting Ty Lavender.

***

“Frost’s homing beacon indicates she is in a valley five klicks away,” Thann said.

“Transfer the location to my HUD,” Turner ordered.

Thann flicked her iPad screen, and a copy of the blinking location light jumped into the HUD. Turner pulled back the throttle on their modified cargo jet, and for the first time in several hours, the G-forces pushing against them eased.

Turner touched his throat mike and said, “Get the Baffle ready. We will be on-site in four minutes.”

The 30-man crew in the cargo hold jumped to obey. They had practiced the drill countless times, and they knew the procedure by heart.

The Baffle was a unique design created to ground all known forms of UFO’s. Simple but effective, the device consisted of a tungsten-carbide net one hundred meters wide with eight weighted retaining lines. The weights on the ends of the retaining lines were electric augers that could dig into the ground at the rate of one meter per second. Once in place, the rig was designed to prevent the liftoff of a Saturn Five rocket generating 7.5 million pounds of thrust.

“I don’t understand why we haven’t heard from Agent Frost,” Thann said. “Cruneval gave her the mission knowing she needed a success. Another failure and she’ll have to be replaced.”

“I hate to agree with you, but it appears Frost hit the upper limit of her capabilities with this assignment. What do you women call it? Oh, yes, the glass ceiling,” Turner sneered. “Such a clear, yet unconvincing excuse for incompetence.”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Miles,” Thann retorted. “Cruneval had a choice of who to send on the mission, and he chose Frost instead of you. It’s clear you bounced against the ceiling.”

Turner’s neck reddened at the insult, but he managed to hold the controls steady.

“Why don’t you go to the cargo bay and supervise the trapping operation. We’re coming up on the canyon,” Turner said.

“Just make sure the weapons take out the personnel and not the equipment,” Thann warned as she headed toward the bay. “Cruneval doesn’t want a repeat of the Nova Scotia disaster.”

“Shut up,” Turner warned. Her comment bit into his pride. She knew the Nova Scotia incident was his worst failure and the probable reason Frost had been chosen over him for the Afghanistan operation.

Flipping a sequence of switches as the ship crested the canyon ridgeline, Turner put his craft into VTOL configuration.

***

Akhund watched the American soldiers leave concealment and begin treating their wounded.

He was too far away to hear what was being said, but gestures indicated they wanted to check the trucks where Akhund was hiding for survivors. If he stayed where he was, they would find him and kill him. At least, that’s what he would do.

Death was not a word Akhund wanted to know, so he shuffled from under the truck and crab-crawled until he reached some boulders high enough to hide behind. He was checking to see if anyone saw him when the weird aircraft appeared out of thin air and landed.

He had seen jets and helicopters, but this thing was new. It had a long, gray body with white trim. There weren’t any propellers or visible motors. Akhund didn’t hear any engine noise, just the pop and grind of brush and rocks being crushed as the thing landed.

A wide ramp lowered from the far end of the ship, and soldiers came down it gesturing for the convoy troops to board. Akhund glared. From their appearance, it looked like the people controlling the craft were the same ones responsible for the failure of his ambush last night. The apparent leader of the convoy disappeared into the ship, and minutes dragged by as the wounded were treated.

Akhund gritted his teeth. He felt impotent. Alone with only an AK47 and limited ammunition, there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t end with him dead. He became aware of a growing roar, and something huge drifted over the canyon walls, blotting out the sun. It looked like an American C-17 military cargo jet, but the wings and jet engines were different. The thundering roar got so loud, Akhund had to cover his ears, and sandy-dust on the canyon floor swirled into tornado-shaped funnels.

A net-like object fell on the gray aircraft with a clank and several pillars of sand and rock erupted from the canyon floor like geysers. Gunfire from Gatling guns mounted in the keel of the huge jet blasted the silence with a sound just a little louder than the engines struggling to keep the thing in the air. Akhund dived behind his rock, but none of the shots came toward him.

The cargo jet floated over the canyon. Four VTOL engines were swiveled downward, thundering as they held the jet stationary. The Gatling gunfire stopped. Wind-driven sand forced Akhund to cover his watering eyes. The last thing he saw before ducking behind his rock again were dozens of commandos rappelling from the hovering jet onto the top of the net covering the long, gray craft.

Scared beyond belief, Akhund scuttled out of the rocks and made his way to the remaining Insurgent trucks hidden outside the canyon under camouflage tarpaulins. Ripping away the sand-colored tarp covering a jeep, he gunned the motor. In moments, he was headed toward the only place he could think of where there might be some safety - the remote village hiding the headquarters of Wakil Amed Ghaffar.

***

Colonel Hubert squeezed into the control cabin, staring open-mouthed at the alien.

It stood erect on its hind legs and did resemble an insect in appearance.

“It does kinda look like a cricket.”

“Who are you?” the alien asked.

“You speak English?” Hubert asked wide-eyed. “Mr. Diviak?”

“Of course not,” Koritt replied. “The crew uniform you are wearing activates the translation functions of the ship’s computer. Who are you?”

“Koritt, be nice,” Ty said as he joined them. “Colonel Hubert is the commander of all the troops in this area. He is my leader.”

“Why do you insist on introducing more Humans to me?” Koritt asked.

Ty was going to respond when Elvis said, “Incoming aircraft detected. I must depart this location.”

“Show me,” Hashtag said. “Where is it?”

“Just coming over the canyon rim,” Elvis said as a picture of a C-17 sized aircraft glided onto the view screen. The engines in the wings and tail of the aircraft were swiveling like Harrier jet thrusters.

“Those are VTOL’s!” Hashtag exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of them being used on a plane that size.”

“Crap!” Ty growled. “It’s got to be SEED.”

From the rear of the passenger cabin, Frost said, “You won’t escape this time, Lavender. They sent the big gun after you.”

“Are all the troops and wounded onboard?” Ty asked.

“No,” Elvis replied.

“Don’t leave until they all are,” Ty ordered.

Just then, everyone heard a clank as something hit the top of the fuselage. A second later, a vibration began and grew deeper in volume. The roar of Gatling guns overwhelmed the vibrating noise. Thousands of metallic thunks, like hammer blows, sounded as bullets pounded the spacecraft’s outer hull.

“What is happening, Elvis?” Hashtag asked as he swiveled a toggle to change the viewpoint on the screen.

“A metallic mesh has dropped over the hull. It is anchored by multiple machines burrowing into the ground. Thousands of metal pellets are being discharged at my hull and the surrounding desert. All Humans not onboard are dead. I am closing the ramp to forestall access to this ship.”

“Can you take off?” Ty asked.

“No. I don’t have enough thrust to defeat the net.”

“Can your hull be breached?” Colonel Hubert asked.

“Given enough time, my hull can be compromised. Success depends upon the methods used,” Elvis said. “The current barrage of metal pellets will not damage my structure.”

“You’re finished, Lavender,” Frost said. “I know who is out there. They will get in here, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.”

Colonel Hubert strode past Ty, grabbed Frost and threw her against a cabinet, dazing her. Wrapping his arms around her in a chokehold, Hubert quickly cut of her ability to breathe. Surprised by the move, it took Ty a moment to realize why the Colonel was attacking her. At last, he understood.

The cold-blooded killing of Hubert’s fellow soldiers by the SEED cutthroats demanded justice. Hubert knew she was part of SEED, and he wanted revenge. Frost’s eyes began bulging and turning red.

“Colonel Hubert. Stop!” Ty yelled and tried to wrestle the hold off her.

Hubert was in a blind rage. He squeezed harder.

“Elvis, can you stop him?” Ty shouted.

“Complying.”

An electric arc outlined Hubert’s blue suit, and he fell to the deck unconscious. Frost began gasping and coughing. Recovering fast, she turned and reared back like she was going to kick Hubert. Ty grabbed her.

“Don’t blame him. He cared about his men and your buddies out there just wiped them out,” Ty said.

“Nonsense,” Frost growled, shaking loose from Ty’s grasp. “SEED doesn’t hurt innocents.”

“I don’t understand how they located us,” Hashtag said.

Ty turned on Frost and grabbed her arm. “How did they find us?”

“How should I know?”

Ty nodded at Wraith, and she began patting Frost down. She felt something on the woman’s wrist and jammed her sleeve back to uncover a thin, dark wristlet.

“Damn it,” Ty said as he pulled the thing off her wrist.

Grabbing a fire extinguisher from its holder, Ty started to smash the wristlet against the deck.

“Too late for that,” Frost grinned.

Her comment prompted Ty to reconsider destroying the thing.

“Elvis, can you mask the locator signal being generated by this device?”

“Yes, open the storage locker to your left. Inside you will find a black mesh bag. Put it in there.”

When Ty hesitated, Elvis said, “The mesh is designed to absorb all forms of electromagnetic radiation. The device will not be harmed but will no longer be detectable.”

As Ty closed the locker, his eyes fell on the pouch hanging over one of the passenger seats.

“Maybe,” he said as he picked up the U-10. “We’re not finished yet.”

“Playing with fire is dangerous,” Koritt warned.

***

Lights signifying the status of the Baffle anchor lines turned from blinking yellow to solid green and Turner said, “The Baffle anchors are secure. The alien craft is going nowhere.”

Thann kept her attention on the main monitor, but all she saw was billowing sand and dust.

“Put this thing on the ground,” she said. “The engines are creating a sand storm trying to keep it aloft.”

“There’s not enough room in the canyon,” Turner replied. “I’ll have to set her down out on the plain.”

“Just do it. I want to see our prize. I want to touch it,” Thann said.

Turner flipped the communication toggle and said, “Air One to Ground leader. Are you secure?”

“Ground leader to Air One, all non-SEED personnel have been eliminated. The ramp into the craft closed before we could stop it. Gunfire doesn’t even dent the hull.”

“Surround it. I don’t want anyone to escape. I have to land outside the canyon but will join you in less than twenty minutes. Air One out.”

Turner shoved the engine throttles full-forward, and with a thunderous roar, the hovering ship began rising out of the canyon.

As it soared over the ridgeline, Thann said, “I’ll unpack the proton laser. One way or the other, we’re getting inside that thing.”

Turner nodded. The special laser was a good idea. It produced temperatures of 8,000 degrees centigrade but only on a point three millimeters wide. It didn’t melt things, it vaporized them. The alien hull material would be breached. It was only a matter of time.

***

As Air One disappeared, the dust clouds began to settle. Thirty American mercenaries pulled off their protective headgear and stared at the strange, net-covered spaceship. A couple of the braver ones touched the craft as they surrounded it, perhaps to make sure it was real.

“I don’t like this,” Stan Letch said as he positioned himself near the aft-end of the craft. “It should have been harder to snare it.”

“Yeah, something’s not right,” Benjie Stiles agreed. “What do you think, Sarge?”

“I’m not paid to ask or answer questions,” Sarge growled. “Neither are you, so shut up and keep your eyes and ears open.”

“Come on, Sarge,” Letch said. “This thing’s not going anywhere. The Baffle is holding it down.”

“Stow it, Letch,” Sarge warned. “I’ve been on three missions before. On one, the ship faded away like mist. Trouble was some of the guys got radiation burns. Another time, the damned thing turned into a bright light and disappeared. Twenty men went blind from their exposure. The last one electrified the net somehow and fried ten guys in the process. Then it dug into the ground out from under the Baffle and reappeared over a quarter kilometer away. These things are dangerous.”

Letch and Stiles didn’t say another word, but their grips on their weapons tightened. They didn’t touch the hull again.

***

“Is there any way off this ship besides the ramp?” Ty asked.

“There is a maintenance hatch near the aft gravity actuator,” Elvis replied.

“How do we get past the net?” Fisheye asked. “I can only pick off a few of the mercenaries from inside it before they pin me down.”

“Let me see what handy-dandy tools the bag can conjure,” Ty said as he thumbed through the cards.

The descriptions began with Dozer, Drag, S-one, Moisturizer, Emollient, Match, Scoop, Bore, E-Three and on and on. The cryptic names were frustrating. Ty had to choose something fast, but the wrong card could make a weapon more dangerous to Ty and his squad than to the mercenaries.

“Stop wasting valuable resources,” Frost said as she watched him frown over the cards. “They just want this ship and its technology.”

“Your friends out there just killed everyone who wasn’t onboard,” Sasquatch said. “Stop lying.”

“Nonsense,” she replied with a self-righteous glare. “I already told you SEED doesn’t kill innocents.”

Wraith pulled Frost out of her seat and shoved her to the port observation bubble in the control cabin. Frost was indignant until she saw the bodies lying on the canyon floor. Even wounded soldiers on stretchers had been shot.

“What is going on?” she asked, appalled.

“It seems nothing is more important to SEED than Elvis and this ship,” Wraith replied. “Like you said, they are going to get in here, and there is nothing we can do about it.”

“I didn’t mean they were going to kill you,” Frost said, but her voice no longer sounded confident.

Colonel Hubert began regaining consciousness, and Frost moved as far from him as she could. She hovered near Ty, trying to stay out of Hubert’s line of sight. Ty ignored her as if she was a leper. His entire attitude toward her had changed since the VTOL had arrived and killed all the soldiers. It dawned on her that she wanted him to know she would never have killed fellow Americans.

“I’m not putting the safety of my squad or this ship in the hands of those murderers,” Ty said as he chose the card labeled Bore and slipped it into the slot.

The U-10 swelled, and he pulled out a shiny, metallic tube shaped like a flashlight. The head was around fifteen centimeters in diameter, and the lens had a rainbow-like sheen that appeared to swirl. Ty’s vision strained at the sight, and he averted his gaze. The tubular body looked like it would hold four D-sized batteries. Two red buttons on the grip were located just below two dials. The first dial was labeled gauge and marked from 1 to 10. The second dial was labeled Range, and its markings varied from 10 to 200.

Showing the gizmo to Koritt, Ty asked, “What is the Bore, and how does it work?”

“The only reason I will help you is my bias toward self-preservation,” Koritt replied.

“I’m glad we have something in common,” Ty said. “So talk.”

“The Bore is a simple tool. It drills holes like an auger. The first dial sets the width, the second the depth or length.”

“What about the dirt from the digging? We have no way to get rid of it.”

“What dirt?” Koritt asked.

“Why two red buttons?” Psycho asked. “Everything else we’ve seen only has one.”

“It works in two directions before it deactivates. The designers decided a one-way hole could be a trap.”

“I don’t understand how a flashlight is going to help us,” Colonel Hubert groused. Then glaring at Frost, he continued, “But if we do make it out of here, I’m going to break her neck instead of using a slow chokehold. And this time, no damn computer is going to stop me.”

“Everyone get back into the blue outfits and grab a weapon. We leave in five,” Ty ordered.

“What about her?” Wraith asked and nodded toward Frost.

“Let her have one,” Ty said. “She might slow us down if we take her without a suit.”

Ty based his decision on Frost’s reaction to the slaughter of the wounded soldiers. Her expression, when she saw the murders, offered a window into her true self. He hoped his judgment about her character wasn’t wrong.

The look on Frost’s face when she heard Ty say she could have one of the alien uniforms puzzled her. Ty had never been good at reading anyone’s emotion; however, there was no mistaking Wraith’s reaction.

Her curses and detailed questions about Ty’s sanity were long and loud.

***

Two dune-buggies, trailing plumes of sandy dust, drove away from the C-17 toward the canyon.

The one being driven by Kristan Thann pulled a trailer covered with a desert-camouflage tarp. Turner’s ride entered the canyon mouth first and skidded to a stop near the Baffle. The commander of the mercenaries trotted to his side.

“There’s been no activity from the ship.”

“Tell your men to stay alert, Lieutenant Bacia,” Turner said. “As soon as we start cutting into the hull, you will see a reaction.”

Lieutenant Jarod Bacia was a former Navy SEAL discharged for sociopathy. Bacia wasn’t more than one and a half meters tall, and Turner got a strong impression he was suffering from ‘little man’ syndrome. Bacia’s dark eyes appeared as lifeless as those on a dead fish. Turner noticed him finger his combat knife as Thann drove past them.

“Careful, Bacia,” Turner said. “She’ll have you for dinner.”

“I don’t think so,” Bacia replied. “She just needs an introduction to a real man.”

Turner shook his head and walked toward the ship.

Thann guided her load near the closed ramp, and Turner helped her set up the equipment. The heaviest part of the proton laser was its power pack which they left on the trailer. It took only a few minutes to position the tripod-mounted laser and connect it to a heavy gauge wire from the power pack. They placed the emitter tip within two centimeters of the hull and instructed one of Bacia’s men how to use it.

Donning special goggles, they backed away from the focal point of the cutter beam, and ordered the operator to activate it. Their attention was riveted on the reaction of the hull to the laser, and they didn’t notice a hatch opening in the craft’s keel.

***

The forward cabin where the maintenance hatch was located was a general storage area lined with wall-to-ceiling shelves and cabinets.

Wraith and Frost were strapped together at their wrists with a zip-tie restraint. The ploy wasn’t ideal, but it would keep Frost from sneaking away once the invisibility functions of the blue outfits were activated.

“What’s in these containers?” Roadkill asked as he surveyed the area. Hundreds of boxes, arranged by color code, filled the space.

“Most of it is food, essential liquids and powerpacks,” Koritt replied. “Every mission is stocked with provisions for the survival of a six-man crew for one year.”

“Elvis, open the hatch,” Ty ordered.

With a slight whirr, a portal large enough to accommodate the biggest box in the shelving opened in the deck. There was about a two meter drop to the sand below.

“Someone is using a cutting device to enter the main hold. I estimate they will gain entry in forty-three minutes, 35 seconds,” Elvis announced.

“Elvis, these are your instructions once we are gone,” Hashtag said. “Close this hatch. You will resist all attempts to access your core operating systems by a non-crew member. In the event you cannot prevent such access, you will take the following actions. Destroy all power equipment, then delete all data and your core programming. Understood?”

“Acknowledged,” Elvis replied.

“Okay, let’s see what this gizmo can do,” Ty said, brandishing the Bore device.

Discussion had been mixed about the size and depth of the initial hole. It was decided the tunnel should be 20 meters long at a ten percent grade using the desert floor as the baseline. The slope was gentle enough for walking and the 20 meter length would get them beyond the Baffle net boundary. They decided a two meter diameter bore was best. No one wanted to crawl or crouch, and anything bigger might be weak and result in a ground collapse.

Ty set the dials, estimated the ten percent slope angle and pressed the top red button. A shimmering cone of light mist emanated from the iridescent lens and a tunnel two meters wide appeared below the opening. There was no noise. The earth below the light seemed to disappear. The misty light cut off after two heartbeats.

“My God,” Ty whispered.

“It is very efficient,” Koritt said.

Roadkill pointed his flashlight into the hole. The sides of the tunnel looked like smooth obsidian, reflecting the light like a black mirror.

“Looks like the entrance to Hell,” Fisheye said. “Who wants to go first?”

“Frost and I will,” Wraith said. “If we do meet the Devil, I’ll offer her as a sacrifice.”

“You’re not funny,” Frost said.

“Didn’t intend to be,” Wraith retorted.

“Be sure to activate the invisibility function on your suits before you jump,” Ty said. “The purpose here is to escape without anyone out there seeing us.”

Frost and Wraith donned their helmets and activated their screens. One moment they were standing in the hold, the next they were gone. There was a scruff on the deck and seconds later, the two reappeared in the tunnel below them. Frost was favoring her left ankle and braced herself against the tunnel wall to keep standing.

“Be prepared for the landing,” Wraith said over her Molar comm. “Invisibility has its drawbacks. You can’t judge distance when you can’t see your body.”

“Got it,” Ty replied.

“What about the cricket?” Sasquatch asked.

“Watch this,” Ty said as he pulled on his helmet.

He put his hand on Koritt’s shoulder and pressed a button on his belt buckle. Both Koritt and he disappeared. Sasquatch gasped and swung his arm through the spot where Ty had stood. His hand bumped into Ty’s shoulder.

Ty and Koritt reappeared. Ty was grinning.

“A little trick I learned from Elvis,” Ty said. “You can extend your invisibility shield to encompass an object no larger than 2 cubic meters.”

Now the rest of you get into the tunnel. Be ready to catch Colonel Hubert when he jumps. I’ll come last with Koritt.”

***

Light dimmed as if the black obsidian tunnel walls absorbed it. Even the beams of their flashlights seemed weak and ineffectual.

The natural Human instinct is to walk with arms extended when there isn’t enough light. Ty was annoyed until Roadkill discovered the alien suit helmets had enhanced nightvision capability.

“Everyone close your eyeshield,” Roadkill whispered. “The visor has an automatic nightvision mode. It’s better than anything we have.”

With their eyeshields in place, they arrived at the end of the tunnel without any problem other than a surging feeling of claustrophobia. Wraith was uncomfortable in the narrow confines of the bore and urged Ty to drill the escape hole as fast as possible.

“I don’t know where the exit hole will appear. Be ready for anything,” Ty warned.

“How do you want us to handle the guards covering the ship?” Psycho asked. “Do you want prisoners for interrogation or do we kill them all?”

The glint in his eyes indicated his choice.

“No unnecessary killing,” Ty said. “There have been too many American lives lost today, and I don’t want us acting like those murderous thugs. Get them to retreat to their transport if you can. We’ll cut through the net holding the ship and fly it to base. Colonel Hubert will contact some trusted people to take charge of our find.

Heads nodded and Ty double-checked the Bore settings. Aiming the device, he pressed the red button, and the new tunnel appeared. Just as the shaft broke through to daylight, the Bore winked out. They heard a gritty rumbling near the new exit and something rolled across the opening, leaving only a tiny sliver of daylight showing. Small rocks rolled down the obsidian floor of the new tunnel. Sasquatch, Fisheye and Psycho ran toward the end to see what happened. Pulling Frost into motion, Wraith followed them. Pushing Koritt along, Ty, Hashtag and Colonel Hubert trailed after them.

“Sasquatch and Psycho were digging at the side of the shaft, widening the exit, when Ty arrived.

“No way to foresee a boulder hanging over the exit,” Wraith said. “Looks like the Bore dissolved what was keeping it in place, and gravity did the rest. We’re lucky it didn’t seal the exit.”

“At least we can dig our way out,” Ty said.

“It’s tough,” Psycho said. “The obsidian walls are like armored glass. Can’t even scratch them. It’s going to be a tight fit, but I think we can slide out. Might have to push our equipment ahead of us, but we should be all right.”

“Let me help,” Koritt said. “There’s an easier way. Hand me one of the weapons.”

“Don’t give anything to the cricket,” Frost warned.

Ty stared at her for a few moments and handed his alien weapon to Koritt.

“Are you insane?” Frost asked as she struggled to free herself from Wraith. “He’ll kill us all.”

Flipping a couple of switches and twirling a dial, Koritt looked at Sasquatch and Psycho and said, “You should get out of the way.”

The two men scrambled behind Colonel Hubert as the alien aimed his weapon in the general direction of their dig. A pulsing beam of red light emanated from the muzzle and a hole appeared. It cut through the boulder in a semi-circle, disintegrating the rock and soil and creating a clean path into the open desert.

Handing the weapon back to Ty with a shrug, Koritt said, “Brrtgh u it would nertag easy.”

Ty was silent as he took the gun. Some of the alien’s words were garbled.

“Quitzpi did u huhq?” In his mind, Ty had tried to ask, ‘What did you say?’ but his words sounded distorted.

Koritt looked at Wraith and said, “Vutrow gqxteri bhernutc ikhwquert.”

Wraith translated, “He says your translator tab is fully digested.”

“How come you can still understand him?” Ty asked.

“My metabolism must be slower than yours,” she replied. “I think we’re all going to lose the translator benefits in a little while.”

“We’ve got to get back to the ship,” Ty said. “Elvis can help us communicate.”

Wraith told Koritt what Ty said, and the alien nodded.

Crawling through the opening Koritt had created, they activated the invisibility screens on their suits. Ty had just extended his screen to encompass Koritt when two mercenaries hopped from behind the boulder.

***

Cutting through the hull was slow and infuriating.

After ten minutes dragged by, the proton laser progress was a disappointing thin slice, a few centimeters long. Thann was growing impatient. Examination of the cut revealed the alien hull was only 1/10th of a centimeter thick, yet the obdurate material reflected heat with little or no absorption of energy. It took several seconds for the laser to begin to warm it. The temperature continued mounting at the laser’s focus point until the hull vaporized. It didn’t melt and drip away like molten steel. The radiant heat caused by the cutting required operator turnover every few minutes.

Thann was surprised by how thin the material was compared to the hull plates on ocean liners. Steel ships had hulls with an average thickness of two and a half centimeters. The proton laser cut through two and a half centimeters of steel plate almost as fast as you could move the emitter.

“Why don’t we try cutting through the observation ports?” Turner asked.

“The laser needs an opaque substance to work. It will pass through a clear window with little effect. I want access to the ship without damaging its internal mechanisms,” Thann replied.

“I don’t understand why the ship hasn’t tried to defend itself,” Turner said.

Thann started to reply, but was interrupted by Bacia.

“My men saw a boulder move near the middle of the canyon. Someone might be out there.”

“Check it out,” Turner replied. “Sounds like there’s a straggler or two.”

Nodding, Bacia said, “Sarge, send a couple of men to check on the rock they saw change position.”

“Yes, Sir. Letch, Stiles, you heard the man. If you find a hostile, try to capture him. Keep alert. There may be others out there.”

***

Their weapons at the ready, Letch and Stiles started toward the boulder. Separating as they neared it, they leaped around the big rock. There was nothing but a dark hole.”

“This is a trick I learned from my older brothers,” Letch said. “You take a cherry-bomb, light it and chuck it into the burrow of a groundhog. The critters hate it.”

Letch pulled the pin on a grenade.

“Nice of the government to provide a bigger bomb for bigger groundhogs.”

Popping the grenade lever, he started to lob the live charge into the hole. Just as his arm swung forward, Sasquatch, invisible within his alien garb, hit him in the jaw with a devastating upper cut. Unprepared for the blow, Letch lost two teeth, flipped backwards and landed unconscious. The live grenade plopped into the sand and didn’t move.

Stile’s first impression was that Letch had been shot in the head. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed the grenade, chucked it at the hole under the boulder and scrabbled away. To his amazement, Letch’s body began sliding away from the hole. At that moment, an insect resembling a human-sized praying mantis, standing on two legs, appeared from nowhere and grabbed him. A figure in a glistening, blue bodysuit materialized from nowhere and dived at the giant insect holding Stiles. The dive hit the insect full-on and knocked it away from the boulder just as the grenade exploded.

Flames belched from the hole, throwing dirt and small rocks into the air.

Opening his eyeshield, Ty shouted, “Fisheye, take out the laser. Our surprise party just got busted.”

***

The proton laser exploded. One moment it was there, the next it was obliterated. Shrapnel killed the operator and ripped into Thann’s and Turner’s bulletproof vests. Balls of energy, resembling comets, sizzled into rocky outcroppings, exploding on impact.

Automatic gunfire erupted as the mercenaries tried to defend themselves, and Thann heard Sarge yelling instructions. Clouds of dust, sand and smoke made breathing and vision difficult.

“I can’t see a target,” someone screamed.

“He’s right. We’re sitting ducks out here,” Sarge coughed.

A large boulder near Turner exploded in a cloud of dust, showering him with fine grit. Thann realized no one other than the laser operator had been wounded or killed. The enemy was focusing its fire on inanimate objects like rocks and overhangs. Realization flooded Thann’s consciousness.

Gathering her courage, she ran to her dune-buggy and ordered, “Bacia, tell your men to retreat. We’re out of here.”

“What about the ship?” Turner blustered.

“Another time,” Thann replied. “There’s no reward for dying while trying to take it. We’ll have another chance. Our laser did enough damage to keep it from leaving Earth.”

“Cruneval won’t be happy,” Turner said as he ran to his dune-buggy. An energy bolt exploded a boulder nearby, and rocks dinged the metal sides of his rig.

“Then he can join us and make the decisions,” Thann yelled as she sped away.