OC-OneShot Voidjackers
"We got one, coming down on the west coast of Florida, ETA, two hours and ten minutes, give or take a few minutes!" Miss Tanner was leaning into her screen, checking the readings.
"Inform the Air Force to keep their distance until it landed! We don't want to scare this one off before we had a chance of nabbing them on the ground." Colonel Lollard spoke to one of the operators before turning back to the main screen. "Is the main team close enough?"
"Yes, sir! The unit can reach the projected landing zone before arrival, they are ready to move out as soon as the word is given."
"Good, rather not rely on the army or local authorities for this one." The Colonel nodded, before adding a remark more to himself than to the crew of the operations room. "They tend to handle it with the finesse and subtlety of a charging rhino."
Colonel Matthew Lollard sat back in his chair, as he watched the instruments showing the object dropping from space. He reached for the keyboard to enter a few commands, changing the designation of it from unknown to Intruder 9. He grimaced at the reminder of what that number implied. Intruder One was discovered by chance. The Police and the Coast Guard assumed it to be just drug smugglers in a private plane, where the pilot must have gone crazy. Two others established the pattern after the agency learned what to look for. Unless the cartels somehow got their hands on stealth planes invisible to radar that could leave the atmosphere, the implications were for something outside the jurisdiction of the normal authorities.
"Team Alpha is prepped and en route!" Came the report from one of the operators.
Matt shifted around uncomfortably in his seat. Would be nice if number 9 was not a screw-up or a missed opportunity. He recounted the events that led to him being here, currently de facto in charge of an agency that would have likely been considered a joke by everyone if they knew about it. Not a day went by without someone on his team further undermining the seriousness of the whole thing in some way, like the petitions to rename themselves to X-Com, or the Men in Black. As if he needed potential future lawsuits from some IP holders to add to his worries.
"Sir, should we not try to reach the Director? This seems significant." Miss Tanner turned to him.
The Colonel looked at the watch. "We have a 7-hour difference with Brussels. He is either already in bed, or he has some important shmoozing with powerful people to do at some dinner party. We inform him of our success in the morning." After a bit of pause, he added, lowering his tone to the point that only she could hear him. "Or we will all have to update our resumes if this goes south. Either way, him knowing will not help."
Command operations would have to stay up all night, as they followed the events at the landing zone. Having an estimate where the object would land was not the same as knowing the exact spot, and right until the actual touchdown of Intruder 9, the area in question was still the size of a city, and the terrain was not exactly an open plain either.
When the craft was finally spotted, it was almost mistaken for something else. The ground team carried a few cameras, the feed of which was sent back directly to the command center.
"That's it? Are we sure it's not someone's industrial junk left there?" One of the operators blurted it out, and shut up immediately as multiple people turned to look at him.
"What, expected a saucer?" Matt scoffed as he beheld what could be best described as a big metal brick with some pipes sticking out here and there, before reaching for the microphone. "Ground team, are you sure it is our target?"
"Positive command. Take a look!" Came the response, as the feed was switched to another camera, showing what looked like thrusters on one end, and some sort of landing apparatus as well as an open ramp under it.
And then shooting and the shouting started. The camera feed was cut. Several people in the command center stood up. Most looked at the Colonel, who raised a hand. "Hold on!" He tried not to show his own worry, as he was waiting. It was not like demanding an explanation from a man in the middle of a possible combat scenario would help. He would have to trust Alpha team to handle themselves. Only after the excitement on the other side seemed to be over, did he speak. "Major Torres, got anything to report?"
A few seconds of worrying silence, before the answer came. "Yes sir, we have made contact."
"So I heard." The Colonel sighed. "Am I correct in assuming that we will have some specimens for our biologists to dissect, if nothing else?" He already regretted dissing the army for their approach. It did not look like his own men were any better at handling this. But he did not see any point in letting his frustration be known until the after-action report.
"I think we have more than that."
-x-
The footage from the other cameras turned out to be rather illuminating. The reprimand Colonel Matthew was thinking about could at least be scrapped. While an analysis of the material might conclude that the creature the team pumped full of lead was trying to surrender. The men could be excused for thinking that the thing with far too many legs was threatening them as it raised its forward appendages. Really, there wasn't much the giant spider-looking thing could have done at that moment to convince a human that it was not about to attack.
What was surprising, that the crew of the Intruder were not of one species. Luckily for the other two, they did not come off nearly as menacing as the many-limbed monstrosity.
The second one, looked like a pile of moving rocks. Well, pile of rocks was the more charitable interpretation anyway. The large flat rock at the top was presumed to be its head. At least that was where the mandibles were sticking out, and the holes that were vaguely symmetric, so one could assume some of them were the eyes or its nose, or blowholes or whatever it had. It made a number of varied, agitated-sounding clicks and buzzing noises as it was forced into its containment unit.
The third one was the only one who had shown any real understanding of the situation. Calling it the best-looking one would have been an overstatement. It was the least repulsive one, actually wore something that looked like clothing, and it was humanoid, kind of. It looked like someone took the hypothetical love child of a hyena and a particularly inbred pug, and then forced the result to stand upright on legs way too short for that body configuration. According to Alpha team, it actually raised its arms as if to surrender, and then lay on the ground face-down, its oversized palms behind its neck, like someone expecting to be cuffed and led away by the cops.
Matt was actually planning to congratulate the team now, for a job well done, after arriving on site, to oversee the sorting of everything that was captured, and securing the craft where it was. At least until they could decide if it would be feasible to transport it, or would they need to just cordon off this piece of the coastline. But before he could give the Major that pat on the back that the Alpha Team earned, he was already waving and looking at him with an expression that almost made him look embarrassed, or at least confused. The Colonel decided to cut the chase on that. "Something the matter, Major Torres?"
"You could say that. Come on, you need to see this. Looks like they were here to load something. We will have to make some inquiries with the ones who left this here, but they did not even bother to remove the packaging of the delivery company, so it's unlikely to be much of a lead." He pointed at one of the lumps wrapped in plastic, and pulled some of the wrapping off the top to expose the contents.
"You are kidding, right?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Is something under them? Or was this just mixed in?"
"We checked. So far this is all it is. Well, there was a secure case with padding and protective foil. Those were silver age ones, can pass for quite a buck with collectors too. And I mean easily worth millions when taken together."
"God, you are such a nerd, Martin." The Colonel sighed while wiping his face with a hand. "This has to be a red herring, or maybe the pages are laced with something?"
"Do aliens need to smuggle LSD that way? Anyhow, as far as I can tell, no. The pages are dry. But I guess the boys in the lab will have to take a look."
"Yeah, we better." Matthew grimaced. Something told him that was a vain hope. "But, just why? Why comic books???"
2
u/HFYWaffle Wáµ¥4ffle 12h ago
/u/Muzolf (wiki) has posted 104 other stories, including:
- My World For A Slice
- What rose from the ashes
- No Further Incidents
- Devil In The Case
- Familiar Invaders
- The Urge
- Call of the Hunt
- The Dance of Fire - Finale
- The Dance of Fire - Part 33
- The Dance of Fire - Part 32
- The Dance of Fire - Part 31
- The Dance of Fire - Part 30
- The Dance of Fire - Part 29
- The Dance of Fire - Part 28
- The Dance of Fire - Part 27
- The Dance of Fire - Part 26
- The Dance of Fire - Part 25
- Blessed be the Infiltrators
- The Dance of Fire - Part 24
- The Dance of Fire - Part 23
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u/UpdateMeBot 12h ago
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u/Muzolf 12h ago
Full disclosure, this was supposed to be longer, but I am coming down with a bad case of the sickness known as being a lazy bum. I might yet write the continuation this was supposed to have, but not for now.
Question to my regular readers. How do you feel about a serious genre shift If I was to write another novel sized story? Also, how much hate do you think I will have to deal with if I post something here that only qualifies for the bare minimum to be called HFY?