SODIUM:2 Apocalypse (9 page)

We had the route to Daytona all mapped out, but the continuously deteriorating roadways slowed any time-savings we achieved by knowing our way there. It was nine in the morning by the time we arrived and unloaded the four wheelers. As we closed in on the beach, we could again see the large water ship hovering a mile off shore, its compliment of fighters buzzing about. We brought with us a small telescope along with our digital camera.

Through the scope the intricate details of the ship were clearly visible, but somewhat unremarkable and very utilitarian. The outer skin of the vessel was covered with box shapes, tubes and piping that seemingly ran everywhere. It certainly wasn't the sleek appearance that it had from a distance.

It actually gave me some hope that if we could manage to get our gun projectile past the concussion weapon / shield we might actually be able to do some damage. I was of course only guessing that their weapon also acted as a shield. But the thought of it as their only defense was something that gave me hope.

We could probably stay hidden away in our little colony until they left, but what if they decided not to leave? And even if they did leave it seemed to me that without more citizens in our colony we were doomed to a life of ever increasing hardships; the salvageable material around us continued to decay.

How would we be fairing in ten years? In 20 years? And the thought of these interlopers getting off Scott-free really irked me. We were humans after all and we weren’t going to take it anymore. I had to stop myself at that point because my daydreaming was beginning to interfere with my focus on our surveillance mission.

We again set up a small camp and planned an overnight stay. The girls handled the details of making sure we were fed while at the same time discussing their own observations. Even with only one good eye Janie had noticed that the fighters would circle 24 times in one direction and then switch to the other. With five of them always going it was difficult to detect, but she had noticed the pattern. And Rachel, while using the telescope, had noticed a flotilla of small watercraft bobbing on the surface just below the ship.

it was a new and fascinating discovery and gave us all something to continue to observe and discuss for reasons why. The boats, if that’s what they were, looked like bubbles floating on the surface of the waves. The bubbles were about the size of a large car and were transparent in appearance.

With the constant bobbing up and down we couldn’t make out what they were doing or what was inside, but there was definitely something going on inside of them. Was it going to be our first look at an alien? We thought hard about and discussed what they might have been doing, but nothing of reason came out of our speculations.

We hoped to make some discovery when analyzing the digital photos on the PC back at the colony. We also determined the need to return with a larger scope on further visits. It had taken us two weeks to find the telescope that we had and we just happened across it on one of our salvage runs. Whenever we went out, we always carried a long wish list with us, just to help with our hunting.

The scope had been found poking out of the tall grass in what was once someone’s backyard. The previous owners had likely been avid bird watchers and may have taken it out to try to observe the alien ships. The thought crossed my mind that we would never know. It was a nice scope and we were glad to have it.

The night came quickly and the cool ocean breeze was actually a bit cooler than we had expected. Even though we ate well considering the circumstances, we were all very lean given the daily work we did to keep the colony going. I had dropped 40 pounds in the last year alone. So, a cool breeze was less than comfortable with our lack of body insulation.

We had one blanket in our supplies and wound up sharing it amongst the four of us. I could see that David and Rachel were enjoying this excuse for close snuggling and I was tempted to try to put Janie or myself in between them.

But they had acted responsibly up until now and I could see there was no stopping the inevitable. They genuinely seemed to like each other and as long as I could keep the romantic activities to a minimum, I didn’t mind letting them have a little happiness of their own. We had the breeze largely blocked by our camo tent, but the cool air was uncomfortable enough by itself. The four of us huddled closely and slowly drifted off to sleep one by one.

It actually did me good seeing the budding romance and it brought back fond memories of my teen years. There was nothing like that first love and the adventure that followed with having a close mutual relationship with someone you cared for. Even if they seldom worked out it was a learning experience that most everyone remembered fondly.

It was after two in the morning when I was awakened by a rumble. I thought it was likely the water ship lifting off towards the mother ship, but I felt the need to investigate anyway. My movement had the rest of the group up as well so we all crawled out of the tent for a look. There was a lot of activity going on. Two of the water ships were side by side and lit up like Christmas trees and the mother ship was hovering just above them.

At nearly five miles across the bigger ship was immense and very intimidating. The outer reaches of the mother ship nearly reached the shore. Had it centered itself above the other two we would have been sitting directly under it looking up at its belly. Since we were only about a half mile under, and a thousand yards out from its outer edge, I grabbed the scope and began scanning the mother ship for detail.

The darkness of the night and the lighted activities around the other two ships made it impossible to pull out much detail. I switched the digital camera we had to night vision mode, but was unable to make out any more detail than with the naked eye.

I reasoned there was too much interference from all the ocean moisture, as infrared did not work well with high humidity. So, I turned my attention to the lighted ships. After a few minutes I noticed that I didn’t see any of the fighters buzzing around. Where were they? With the mother ship sitting this close to the ground I thought that they would have been out in force. As I peered through the scope the hair on the back of my neck stood up, a low hum approached us from behind.

The fighter passed 500 feet above our heads before turning straight up and then heading outward again, for whatever reason we had not been noticed. We were still sharing that one blanket and perhaps it had shielded us enough to avoid detection. Janie quickly retrieved one of our camo covers and pulled it over the top of us. Aside from a slight infrared signature it should have made us largely invisible.

I again turned my gaze back to the two water ships. From what I could see they were busy fetching the multitude of bubble boats from the water below with long cables. And the bubbles were then being hoisted out of the top of the water ships, again on long cables, up to the mother ship. With the bright spotlights illuminating the bubbles and with their slow assent up to the mother ship I could now get a good look at what they might contain.

One side of each bubble appeared to be filled with a silvery substance. I wasn’t the best at chemistry, but from what I could remember, silver, tin, aluminum and magnesium were all silvery in appearance. My best guess was that this was Magnesium because they appeared to be moving it very carefully.

While seawater has a fair amount of magnesium locked in it the magnesium is combined with other substances. Magnesium and water don’t mix without a violent reaction, they are quite explosive when thrown together.

The aliens were hoisting large amounts of this substance up to the mother ship in the countless number of bubbles. If they had wanted to gather Magnesium and or salt for its Sodium I would have initially thought that there were better places than off Daytona.

But I guessed by doing it there they had unlimited volumes of water to use in their processing efforts. I also ventured to guess that these were the processes they were familiar with and perhaps had been their best method of gathering this material elsewhere.

Whatever their reasons they were gathering large amounts of it. David could not recall ever having seen the mother ship up that close, but if it only came down occasionally and only came at night he could have easily missed it.

A fighter hummed overhead about every five minutes. Janie had been looking away from the lights and had been able to point out two other fighters following the same pattern, one to our north and one to our south. How bold and empowered I felt at being so close to the massive ship and not having been detected. And then again how awed I was at the scale of the immense craft that hovered nearly overhead.

Despite our tiny size we were still the first humans to have observed these invaders from that close without being flattened. I wondered what damage my coil gun would do from that distance. I wondered how much fun it would be to release the Magnesium from one of the bubbles back into the sea. I wondered how heroic I would feel if I was able to bring down just one of the ships and bring a little human vengeance into the world of these alien invaders. It took a nudge and pointing finger from Rachel to bring me out of my fantasies.

One of the two water ships was seemingly in trouble. There was a flurry of activity followed by a bright flash and soon the rolling thunder from an explosion. Perhaps one of the bubbles had burst or fallen. Whatever it was that had happened, the water ship was burning.

Even though the ships were already a dark gray color I could clearly make out a darkened and still smoldering part of the hull. There was a buzz of small activity around that area of the ship as if fires were being fought or repairs of some kind being made.

Perhaps the Magnesium was tricky for them to handle and a mishap had occurred. Sodium itself was just as explosive when combined with water so it was possibly an accident from that instead, either way, it was the first sign of weakness that we had seen from them and I was all about trying to figure out a way to exploit it.

We watched the entire night and it wasn’t until dawns first light that the mother ship finally lifted off back up to its perch high in the sky. The second water craft then moved into a position directly above the damaged craft and its fighters were buzzing about the combination of the two.

I felt the break was as good a chance as any for us to pack up and make our way back out and safely back home to our bunker. During the night I had begun to cringe at the thought of having to try to sneak away with the mother ship so close by and with the fighters passing overhead. So, we took the opportunity to quietly leave.

When we arrived back at the colony the girls went off to their daily attendances and David and I began looking over the images we had captured. We gave up after several hours as having been there and seen what we did was more information than we could gather from the digital images. The camera itself had not been useful, but the spotter scope had worked wonders. We would look for a larger one on any future scavenging trips.

I wanted to make another trip over to the coast within the week to see what progress had been made with the damaged ship. Perhaps we could gather some more useful information while repairs were underway. And if they were still actively working on them I would venture to guess that the damage had been extensive. We had not been noticed in our two trips over, so I was somewhat eager to return.

The following day we had all fallen back into our routines. David was now working on our ground cover project at a torrid pace. I didn’t for a minute believe that he was enjoying it. It was much more likely that he was trying to impress someone. And it was easy to guess who that someone was.

The way those two kids had been looking at each other I knew it would probably not be long before they were sneaking off into the woods in the middle of the day. I was sure they wouldn’t dream of doing anything in the bunker where they would get caught. I knew I would have to keep an eye on them either way.

It was very awkward for me, but I decided that I would have to give them a talk. I was not eager to do this as I had absolutely no experience at dealing with teenagers or anyone else on such matters. I remembered my own awkward adventures back when I was a teen and how terrified I was of getting caught.

Even though I pictured myself as somewhat of a ladies man back then, I had not gone past third base with any of my girlfriends until well after I met Renee. My parents were devout Catholics and the whole pre-marital sex thing had been drilled into me pretty good by that age.

I knew I wasn’t responsible enough and I didn’t have the means to support a kid back then, so even though there were opportunities, and I was certainly tempted, I had managed to wait. Renee had been my first and I had actually taken a little bit of pride in that.

David and Rachel were still only 17 and 15 so that behavior was not something that should be going on anyway, especially given our situation of not having the medical know how needed to deal with any accidents. So, a talk was in the cards and I was tormenting myself about having to do it.

The next day they were both sitting on a bench up under the canopy that David had made. I walked over, sat, placed my hands on my knees and looked directly at them. My talk only lasted a few minutes, but it seemed like hours.

They both listened intently as evidenced by the occasional nod. When I finished I looked at both of them for a moment longer, gave a little smile, got back up and walked away. By that time the beads of sweat were obvious on my forehead.

I had walked about 50 feet away when I heard footsteps running up behind me. As I turned Rachel grabbed me by the arm and pulled herself up to kiss me on the cheek. She then turned and walked back towards David while swinging her arms as she walked.

I remember getting goose bumps at that moment and it was the first time that I really felt like I had been like a father to them. Janie would cling to me all the time, but this was the first time that Rachel had shown me that level of caring. It felt good and really warmed my heart for the remainder of the day.