2021 (20 page)

‘But I keep telling you
, that’s
impossible
’ disagreed the head of NASA, a man called John Isaacs.

‘But y
ou’ve seen the film for yourself, John, does that
look
impossible?’ replied Jack as he butted in.

‘So you’re asking us all to believe a spaceship over a mile wide landed on Earth and
none
of our tracking devices even detected it?’ he scoffed.

‘
In a word,
yes
!’ insisted Stuart.

‘Seeing as every electronic tracking device would
n’t work and was switched off by them, I would say it’s definitely possible, wouldn’t you?’ argued Joan.

Arguments were breaking out amongst all the scientists now.

‘HOLD ON! HOLD ON!’ shoute
d the President and everyone was silent again.

‘Now
let me get this straight again. You’re saying these things can render all our electrical devices obsolete and stop anything from igniting?’

‘Yes, no kind of flame can
be ignited, Mr President and hence that mere fact will prevent any of our weapons from working’ added Jack quickly.

The President just paused for a second.

‘OK an
d added to this they can run at least 30 MPH, they can be smashed in the face hard with a heavy metal object and not even be marked, they can jump up to thirty feet high, they can fall over sixty feet and not sustain even as much as a scratch and you’re seriously asking me to believe all this stuff?’ the President finally recapped.

‘In a word
, yes
!’ replied Stuart, Joan and Jack all together.

‘My God!’ uttered the President ‘then how
on earth are we going to stop them?’

‘Let me send in our troops, Mr President, we’ll fight them hand to hand’ suggested General O’Dowd.

‘
Then you’ll be sending them all in to be slaughtered!’ uttered Joan angrily.

‘
Then we’ll pound them from afar’ insisted General Iram.

‘When will you all understand
?’ shrugged Joan throwing up her arms in frustration. ‘
None
of your conventional firearms or bombs will work against these things,
NONE
of them!’

‘I’ve heard enough!’ insisted the President ‘I elect we capture one of these creatures and discover it
’s weaknesses as Professor Keys suggests and we do so just as quickly as possible.’

‘I’ll go!’ immediately volunteered Stuart
, but the President to his surprise shook his head.

‘No, P
rofessor Keys, we need you here or at least outside the dead zone area to create a prison for this creature that it won’t be able to escape from. You’ve witnessed these creatures at first hand and so would be best served in organising a prison to safely contain one of them’ insisted the President.

‘Professor Mellows we need you to design some kind of grab capable
of capturing one of these creatures’ he then added ‘could you organise that?’

‘Yes of course
, Mr President, I already have an idea for that’ she smiled as many more scientists also offered to help.

‘But, Mr President, what do we tell the press?’ one of his personal team now asked.

‘We tell them
nothing
’ he insisted.

‘But surely we need to get all the people out of California?’ queried another scientist.

‘We can’t get them out
’ interrupted Stuart.

‘Why
on earth not?’ The scientist queried.

‘We simply don’t know
how to’ replied Jack as Stuart and Joan both shrugged their shoulders together.

‘Don’t you think at least one
of our power company experts would have come out by now, if they could have?’ suggested another of the scientists. ‘Why they must have sent in hundreds of people by now, you’d think at least
some
of them would have escaped if they really could have?’ he questioned.

‘And two complete platoons of our troops already’ nodded General O’Dowd.

‘
What
? Then why wasn’t
we
told about that?’ demanded Joan.

‘It was a top secret operation
on a strictly ‘need to know’ basis’ the General replied.

‘GENTLEMAN AND LADIES LET US NOT WASTE ANY MORE TIME ARGUING! LET’S GET TO WORK TO BEAT THESE MONSTERS AND RESCUE ALL OUR PEOPLE TRAPPED IN THE DEAD ZONE!’ demanded the President as everyone nodded in agreement or saluted him as he then marched out!

Day Six:

12
^th
January 2021

Eugene,

Oregon. U.S.A.

T
he airship was immediately prepared to leave once again.

Jack was ready to pilot it as before
, but this time he was to be accompanied by three crack American Special Forces Troops to replace Stuart, Jenny and Joan.

‘You won’t need
them
’ commented Jack as he saw all three men carrying their guns on board. ‘They won’t work in the dead zone and anyway, they’re adding un-necessary weight that will slow us down’ he insisted.

‘Are you sure?’ they all queried.

‘Positive’ smiled Jack
‘oh and by the way. Have you some very sharp knives?’

‘Will the
se do?’ asked one of the soldiers as he held up a large knife with a bright gleaming blade as the others all held up the same.

‘Good enough!’ smiled Jack.

‘Why
do we need knives when you are asking us to dump all our guns over the side?’ asked one of the troops curiously as he joined Jack on board the airship.

Jack went to reply
then he decided it was probably better if they didn’t know.

‘
Let’s just hope you don’t find out’ he smiled.

Joan now joined them to describe how the grab system she had designed
with the help of all the other scientists would work.

‘What did you base it on in the end, Joan?’ asked Jack curiously.

‘You know those metal crane things you used to get in glass cases in old amusement parks?’

‘Yeah
’ replied Jack.

‘Well, we
designed it based on one of those’ she informed him.

‘Heck
’ he uttered ‘I hope it works better than one of
them
, they’ve got less grabbing power than my old arthritic grandmother.’

‘No, it’ll work’ Joan
insisted with a smile.

On the design of the grab the team of experts the pentagon had put
together had specified hardened steel.

‘That may not
be strong enough’ Joan had insisted.

So NASA
sent in a special titanium alloy especially for the job instead.

Stuart meanwhile, was busy preparing a prison for the alien consisting of digging an over eighty foot deep hole that was then to be filled
in with four foot thick fast setting concrete, reinforced throughout with special hardened steel wire.

‘But isn’t this a bit excessi
ve for just one creature?’ asked one of the construction engineers as he examined the plans.

‘Not really’ pondered Stuart ‘I only hope it’ll be
enough.’

With the airship finally fuelled up and ready to go, Jack finally steered it out of the hanger ready to begin their perilous mission into the dead zone.

‘It doesn’t seem right not having any guns
with us?’ queried one of the troops again.

‘Believe you me,
where we’re going they’ll be as much use to you as a paper hat in a thunderstorm’ Jack told him with a smile. ‘You might all just as well get comfortable as this will take us a while’ he added.

W
ith that, Jack headed the airship off towards the dead zone with the troops all sitting on the floor next to him.

‘If we could stash the mooring ropes up out the way so nothing can grab hold of them’
suggested Jack ‘there are a couple of long hooks with which to get hold of them’ he explained.

‘But what could
grab hold of the ropes?’ puzzled one of the soldiers as Jack didn’t answer.

A while into their journey
, Jack became curious as to what exactly the troops had been told about their mission.

‘Tell me’ he asked curiously ‘what exactly have
they told you?’

‘No
t much’ confessed one of the soldiers ‘only it was a mission of utmost importance, that’s all.’

Jack
did consider explaining it to them, but in the end he decided against it. ‘Better they find out for themselves or they might force me to turn back again’ he pondered.

Just as before, a while into their mission the airship
’s engines just cut out.

‘Two
of you to the cycles please if you will’ Jack smiled as the sergeant and one of his soldiers just nodded their heads before they both then ran off to man the two cycles.

With the super fit Special Forces Troops handing out the
‘pedal power’ and keeping Stuart’s clockwork engine fully charged, Jack found the airship was now surprisingly fast.

‘Heck, Stuart, you must be really out of condition
for it to be this much faster’ Jack now chuckled away to himself.

Eventually though, the large black building
appeared underneath them and Jack didn’t laugh anymore. His stomach just sank as he dreaded the sight that would inevitably greet them on the other side of it.

‘Holy cow
!’ uttered the third serviceman as he peered down over the side ‘and I thought the Pentagon building was big. What the heck is that thing?’ he questioned.

‘We estimate i
t’s over a mile across and possibly the same deep’ Jack informed him.

‘But what
is it?’ the serviceman asked again.

‘I wish I could te
ll you, Soldier’ Jack just shrugged.

Soon Jack could see the horizon approaching
so he immediately alerted the troops.

‘OK
, EVERYONE, UP WITH ME NOW!’ he shouted and the two soldiers on the cycles immediately ran to join him as they both stared out over the huge black building beneath them.

‘What the hell?’ the s
ergeant uttered in surprise as he looked down over the side.

Jack now took a deep br
eath before he began to explain.

‘OK General O’Dowd recommended you for this mission as Americas finest and bravest. Well
, you’re going to need all your courage for some of the sights you may have to witness now’ Jack quickly explained.

‘Our mission is to trap and collect in our metal grab one of the hellish creatures on the other side of this building and I warn you, it’s not going to be easy. You will be very shocked, but I plead with you to hold your nerve as it’s not just America, but possibly even the entire world that may end up needing you to succeed in this mission’ Jack now told them as he looked very serious indeed.

‘I’ve seen sights in war
s you couldn’t even imagine, son’ boasted the sergeant ‘there ain’t nothing left in this world that can possibly shock me now’ he insisted.

Just as
he finished the sentence though, they passed over the end of the giant building and suddenly his eyes grew wide and then even wider as he just stared downwards in disbelief.

‘Then again
, son, I take that back’ the sergeant now uttered as he just gazed down in horror.

‘We won’t have much time for this, so look liv
ely, men’ Jack ordered.

‘My God, they’re killing people down there! What the heck are those things?’ uttered one of the soldiers as he just gazed downwards.

‘COME ON, MEN,
I SAID LOOK
LIVELY
!’ screamed Jack as they suddenly sprang into action and got hold of the grab.

‘WE’VE GOT TO
CAPTURE ONE OF THESE CREATURES AND THEN JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!’ Jack now shouted.

Joan had rather cleverly used the same sights
on the grab that many of the military men would have already used and been familiar with on heavy artillery weapons. So one of the troops now looked through these to line up a suitable target.

‘Not yet’ uttered the
sergeant as he carefully lined one of the creatures up in his sights.

‘REMEMBER, YOU’LL NEED TO PULL THE CLOSE LEVEL STRAIGHT AWAY!’ added Jack.

‘CAN YOU GO A LITTLE
SLOWER?’ asked one of the troops.

‘WHAT? DO YOU THINK THIS IS
? A CAR WITH A REVERSE GEAR OR SOMETHING? PICK ANOTHER ONE. HELL, THERE ARE ENOUGH OF THEM DOWN THERE!’ shouted Jack as he steered the airship and tried to keep it very still to help them.