Chapter 4: Aliens…Attack?

“You think it’s lizards?” Rusty asked, the AK-47 hanging limply from one hand. He looked at once enthusiastic and terrified. Behind them, the tent was fully constructed and the doctor was emptying snow out of his shoes beside a small fire, complaining about Alaska in general, but more specifically the cold, the terrain, and the knuckle-headed hillbillies with their own arsenals. “’Cause that’s a lot of lizards,” Rusty added, a bit pale.

Indeed, the ship that seemed to hang effortlessly over the Mat-Su Valley below them was easily the size of a mountain. For almost an hour, it had been gliding aimlessly across the earth, generally heading towards the Cook Inlet.

What stood out the most for Envy, however, was that she couldn’t even look at the floating black half-moon down there without her inner psychic utterly losing its shit. Like angry bees of potential in her guts, stinging her with a thousand different welts of her own horrible demise.

“How many you think there are?” Rusty insisted.

“More than one,” was all Envy knew. She wiped her sweaty hands on her sides again. “Man, this is bad, Rusty. Real bad.”

“Yeah.” He looked solemn. “Dad said we’d need lots of white phosphorus to stop ‘em.”

Envy tensed and glared at the man over her shoulder. The massive black ship spotlighting the valley below them in UV made it harder to write him off as schizophrenic, but she drew the line at white phosphorus. “Look,” she said, “whatever your dad said about aliens, this is not the same breed, you get me?”

Rusty frowned down at the massive black ship. “How do you know?”

Time to pull something out of her ass to keep the hillbilly from RPGing white phosphorus throughout the Mat-Su valley. “You see that ship down there? It’s a different type of tech than the lizards use.”

Rusty blinked at the ship, obviously trying to compute that. “How you mean, Miss Travis?”

“For one, it’s too damn delicate,” Envy said. “The lizards are into big, bulky, blocky tech. That down there looks like elves made it.”

Rusty made a sound of amazement and nodded as if that made total sense to him. “So we’re fighting elves.” He said it with a note of finality that suggested, among other things, that anyone tall, blond, and overly skinny would be fair game.

Time to nip that in the bud, Envy decided. “We’re not fighting anything. They’ve shown no ill intent.”

“And yet you turn gray every time you look at that ship,” Rusty countered. He crossed his big arms over his bulky chest, the AK-47 still dangling casually from a strap. “Come on, Miss Travis, I known you three years. You ain’t foolin’ me. That down there’s an attack. You can feel it.”

It certainly didn’t feel good, that was sure.

Envy made a face. And how did she know that those purple spotlights weren’t roasting everything underneath it alive with ultraviolet radiation? She took another long, unhappy look at the ship. It looked like the unholy brainchild between a Klingon war-chief and an elven necromancer.

But, as of yet, it was just hanging there. Floating. Moving like maybe a mile or two an hour. Every once in a while, it would spotlight the ground under it for a few minutes before shutting it off again. Weird.

“So it’s an attack,” Rusty said triumphantly.

“I never said that,” Envy muttered.

“You didn’t not say it,” Rusty said. “And it already took down our communications and power grids. That’s three strikes for me.”

Two, technically, but who was counting?

“You guys done staring at the Borg long enough to come help me? I dumped kerosene on it, but the fire went out anyway!”

“You did what?” Rusty snapped.

“It wasn’t fucking burning, so I dumped the kerosene on it, but that just put it out,” Douglass said, gesticulating. “Come get it going again before I get frostbite!”

“Fucking city boy,” Rusty cursed.

Envy glanced over her shoulder at the doctor, who was huddled over a smoldering pile of green twigs that he had piled atop it in suffocating intensity, feet bare, blowing on the coals. Rusty’s mockery of babysitting a city-slicker didn’t seem far from the mark.

“I’ll get it,” Rusty said. “You keep watch, Miss Travis. Let me know if anything changes.” He handed her the AK-47, then wandered back to the fire, where he immediately started yanking the green wood from the coals, to Douglass’s loud complaints.

After she was sure there wasn’t going to be a problem, Envy glanced back out over the valley, unable to shake the feeling that it wasn’t safe down there, and it had little to do with the ship that was hovering over it. As it hung there, the crescent-shaped object spun slowly, revealing intricate shapes and rolling curves protruding from the black surface. It was moving across the Mat-Su Valley with no particular urgency, kind of like a whale with a full stomach.

Notably missing from all this was United States airpower of any kind. She didn’t hear or see a single moving engine in the whole valley, and there wasn’t the requisite halo of Black Hawks and fighter jets that one would have expected from Independence Day and War of the Worlds.

So what’s the next step? she wondered, watching it float peacefully across Palmer, headed towards Wasilla. Wait for it to land and send in a Welcome To Earth team?

Strangely, the thought carried no future ‘weight’ to it whatsoever, like the potential for it to happen didn’t even exist. Envy frowned and felt it out, then felt it out again.

Behind her, Rusty was cursing. “How the fuck do you put the fire out with fucking kerosene? How is that even possible?!”

“Just dumped it all on and it went out,” Douglass said, shrugging.

Rusty froze. Then, narrowing his eyes at the doctor, picked up the 5-gallon canister and shook it. There was an empty slosh of liquid in the big tin can. “Wait. You used all of it? All?”

“Fuck your kerosene. My feet are cold. I want a blanket.”

“Why, so you can wrap it around your feet and set it on fire?”

“Hey guys?” she reluctantly called over her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s gonna land. Doesn’t feel right.”

“Score,” the doc muttered. Then, to Rusty, “But you’ve at least got a pillow, right?”

“This ain’t California, doc. We don’t wear pillows on our feet.”

“Pretty sure nobody wears pillows on their feet, you slow-talking mouth-breather.”

“I’m not the one who managed to put out the fire with a flammable liquid.”

“Don’t you mean inflammable?”

“No, I mean flammable. As in, ‘catches fire’.”

Douglass snorted, then cried out and frantically crab-crawled backwards in the snow when Rusty struck a ferro rod to the pool of kerosene and the spark made the whole area whomph as the latent vapors caught fire.

Envy frowned at them, then went back to feeling out the ship in the valley below. It looked peaceful enough, but every time her eyes found those exotic black curves rolling down the ship like entwined serpents, bad mojo hit her like a sledgehammer to the gut.

So it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t going to land, either. She continued trying to piece it together, then eventually shook her head and wandered back to the fire. Rusty—and five gallons of kerosene—had gotten it roaring, and she needed to warm up.

Rusty was throwing wood from his stash onto the fire, glaring at Douglass. “That kerosene could’ve run our lantern for two months,” he muttered. “Now I’ll have to make a scavenging run with the truck.”

As soon as he said the words, Envy’s guts twisted at a sudden feeling of loss, loneliness, and dread.

“Nobody’s making a ‘scavenging run,’” Envy said. At Rusty’s sharp look, she quickly added, “At least not yet.”

“Why’d he give you a gun,” Douglass whined.

Envy hefted the AK-47. “’Cause I’m in charge.”

Douglass laughed, then, grinning, turned to look at Rusty to laugh with him. Rusty just nodded. The doctor’s face went slack. “Her? But I’m a doctor.”

That made her hackles rise. “Oh yeah? You just dumped all our kerosene on our only fire and managed to destroy them both.”

This time, Rusty nodded. The big man folded his arms over his chest in satisfaction.

“Why not him?” Douglass demanded, jerking his finger to Rusty. “He’s the badass.”

“I’m smarter than him,” Envy said.

Rusty nodded again.

“I went to Harvard,” Douglass snapped.

“And now your pansy ass is stuck on a snowy mountainside, freezing your balls off, as a woman with an AK-47 tells you how it’s gonna be,” Envy said. “Got a problem with that?”

Rusty raised his hand like they did in kindergarten. “Miss Travis?” At her lifted eyebrow, he said, “It’s an AR-15.”

Douglass dropped his face in his hands.

Rusty sidled closer to her and whispered, “He’s not used to taking orders from a woman.” Then he got that creepy Come Get Me look in his eyes again and said, “But I am.”

Envy felt an immediate need to bathe. She unobtrusively inched away from him, then, clearing her throat, “Further, Doug, it’s probably best you don’t carry a gun until you prove to us you’re not gonna shoot someone in the head. Leave the shooting things to Rusty and me for the time being.” Rusty gave a grunt of approval and nodded. Then, with a glance at Rusty, she said, “But all things considered, I think it’s best if Doug’s my second-in-command.”

Rusty nodded again. Then, mid-nod, he frowned. Douglass pulled his hands down his face far enough to look at her over his fingertips.

Here’s the point where everything implodes and we all start clawing for the gun, Envy thought, tense.

But, after a moment of contemplation, Rusty just shrugged. “As long as he don’t try to tell me what to do—” he held out a finger, “—in the woods,” he held out another finger, “—in a fight,” another finger, “—in a boat,” another one, “—or in a shootout with aliens.”

Which was, Envy noted, pretty much all the time.

But Douglass seemed happy with the compromise. “You got it, Rambo.” He cleared his throat and glanced sideways at her again. “So what are our chances of getting off this mountain before my toes freeze off?”

Envy, knowing that would be the immediate question, nonetheless grimaced. She turned to glance at the valley to feel out his question. The big ship was sliding out of view, slowly spinning like a leaf caught in the current.

“Not anytime soon,” she muttered. “Something bad’s happening down there. I just don’t know what yet.”

Douglass gave her a too-long, calculating look. “Are you really psychic?”

“She died twice when she was a kid,” Rusty happily volunteered, as if that explained everything.

But Douglass was watching her too closely. “Like, what, one of those Out of Body Experience thingies?”

Envy, who didn’t like talking about it, shrugged.

“She said her daddy came down with a big bottle of whiskey and—”

“Rusty, just shut the hell up before you get hurt, okay?” Envy snapped. She hated to be so terse, but today was dragging the worst out of her. “It’s private. I told you in private.” She really didn’t want Rusty mentioning the name of her dad, because she was pretty damn sure a bright fellow like Douglass would figure out she wasn’t what she was claiming to be sooner rather than later.

“Her daddy was a whiskey salesman,” Rusty said, chest puffed out proudly. “Some guy named Jimmy Lovett.”

“Rusty!”

But now the look Douglass was giving her was much too acute. “You mean John Lovett?” he asked, eyes never leaving hers. Of course not, because the only heir of the biggest business magnate in America, a humble man from humble beginnings as a whiskey brewer, was worth billions.

“Oh, yeah, that’s what it was. Jimmy.” Rusty grinned. Then he saw Envy’s face, and his grin faded.

Envy felt her cheeks burning, but she just shook her head and looked away. Thankfully, Rusty didn’t say anything else, but she could see Douglass casting her thoughtful sideways glances as he warmed himself by the fire.

Great. Just great. Six years locking in her new identity and now it had been blown by a redneck with an alien fetish. She wandered down the hill, fuming. Behind her, Rusty called out a concerned, “Miss Travis?”

“Just stay at the fire!” Envy snapped. She found a good place to cool down several hundred feet away, one that still afforded her a good view, and stomped out a place to sit down in the snow. She glared out at the

A few minutes later, she heard the telltale sound of footsteps approaching. She rolled her eyes and said, “It’s fine, Rusty. I just really didn’t want the city-boy knowing my family history, that’s all.”

“You know,” Douglass said, as he sat down beside her, “If we’re not all dreaming and those are aliens and this is the end of the world, nobody’s gonna care you’re a billionaire.”

Envy, who had tensed all over at the sound of his voice, slowly turned to look at him.

Douglass winked at her. “Except for me. ‘Cause I call bullshit on the ‘no-guns’ rule if you grew up a Lovett and you get to carry one.”

“I spent months at the range,” Envy muttered, hating the way she had constantly been forced to defend her own competency just because she had been raised with money.

“Then teach me,” Douglass said. His eyes held hers a moment, then drifted out to follow the massive black crescent that was looming over the Mat-Su. “I got a feeling I’m gonna need one soon.”

No sooner had he said that then the crescent, which had been oriented vertically, started to tilt on an invisible axis, leveling out horizontally.

“You see that?” Envy said, jumping to her feet. “Something’s happening!”

Rusty came jogging up behind them, six more guns strapped to his person. “You think they’re landing?”

“They’re not landing,” Envy said, a wash of dread hitting her in a wave of dull, generalized misery. She began backing up, despite herself. “Guys, whatever’s happening, it’s gonna be bad.”

Rusty took one look at the ship, then got between her and the ship, shoving her behind him in a macho gesture of Protect The Pretty Woman. Because a three hundred pound meathunk was somehow going to save her from whatever the aliens were about to release on their world.

It was touching, though, in a brainless sort of way. Envy carefully stepped around him so she could see.

Standing beside her, Douglass looked equally uneasy. He leaned over to say, “It’s changing shape.”

Indeed, the crescent was thinning out and elongating, becoming a cylinder.

“Everyone stay calm,” Rusty said, clutching his newest rifle with white knuckles. His face was pale and sweating. “If it’s lizards, the best way to kill them is white phosphorus. Even a match head will do it.”

“They don’t make match heads with white phosphorus anymore,” Douglass commented. “Something about delusional domestic terrorists trying to use them to make weapons.”

“Bastards,” Rusty said. “Just like the government—tryin’ ta fix shit that ain’t broke.”

Douglass cast a glance at Envy. “Guess it is.”

He was in the middle of giving her a grin and a knowing wink when the bottom of the cylinder exploded and a beam of violet light pounded into the earth beneath it hard enough to send visible shockwaves in all directions.

“Holy shii—” Rusty began, then the roar of the oncoming wave overpowered the rest of his statement. Seeing the wave oncoming, hearing the unearthly rumble, all three of them started backing up.

Then, like a train crashing into a ball of lightning, it hit, and all three of them went tumbling backwards into the snow, rifles flailing.

When they stopped rolling from the force, Envy found herself laying on her back on the suddenly-snowless ground, staring up at a blue sky. Somewhere nearby, she heard the telltale rumble of an avalanche, but she couldn’t find the breath to sit up and figure out where it was.

Beside her, somebody—she thought it was Rusty—groaned. Envy forced herself up onto her elbows to see.

Rusty was holding his side, face scrunched in pain, moaning. Douglass, face tucked into the newly-exposed mountain shrubs a few feet away, looked down for the count.

Down the valley, the massive black cylinder seemed to be…pumping…the violet light balls into the earth. Connecting the ground and the cylinder was some sort of barrier—dare she say a force field??—and every three seconds, another ball of light shot down the tube, into a gaping hole in the ground. Seeing it, all the pangs of alarm that she’d been having since waking up that morning intensified to an all-out scream-fest in her head and guts that made her want to grab a rifle and just start running, even though she got the distinct feeling there was nowhere to hide.

The sound, though… That was what sent cold chills up her back. It was a slow, rhythmic thumping that she could feel in the ground under her ass, almost gentle were it not for the terrifying source.

Behind her, Douglass groaned and stirred. He raised his face from the shrubbery and spat out twigs, then sat up and gingerly dabbed at a cut on his forehead. Staying low, he slid over to come to a stop beside her and stared down into the valley below them, his cut forgotten.

“Is that thing…fucking…the planet?” Douglass asked.

“Sure looks like it,” Rusty agreed. “Even sounds like fucking…”

But Envy was remembering something from her internships in the Arctic, studying permafrost. Strange inconsistencies, places where there seemed to be some sort of unexplained melting period and strange seismic activity…events that almost always preceded a massive extinction.

“Guys,” she whispered, feeling that dread grab her by the throat and hold on, “we need to get to higher ground.”