Chapter 3 - Encounters

The flattened forest had provided plenty of timber to choose from. Duke had easily constructed a crude travois to carry his friend. He dragged her across the loose ground, careful not to fall into another sinkhole. Duke lost count of how many times he tripped. His legs and ankles were becoming sore. Duke paused to check on his friend.

Mindy had been slipping in and out of consciousness, but had not been able to converse clearly. Her breathing was still very shallow, and Duke felt he was running out of time for her. If he could just make it to the highway, which should lie just a few more miles to the south, he might find a ride and give Mindy a fighting chance.

Duke wasn't only worried about his friend. He was beginning to feel a sense of urgency to get back to Eglin. Whatever had the power to shake the earth as it did, and flatten the forests had surely caused unimaginable damage to the nearby cities. His wife and son lived on the base, and he feared for their safety. He pressed forward.

As he resumed his trudge through the broken swampland, a strange feeling slowly came over him, growing steadily in intensity. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he had the feeling of being watched. He stopped and glanced around, but saw nothing. Just flattened pine forest. He heard nothing but the wind and his own labored breathing.

Then something was calling him. A soundless voice, beckoned him to come east. Duke did not know why, but he felt compelled to follow. It felt like a cry for help. He began to see images in his mind, as if he were daydreaming. He saw in his mind's eye an image of a craft he had become all too familiar with recently. The image of a half-buried, bent and broken black triangular spacecraft came to him. East was not the direction of the road. Mindy did not have time for Duke's mind to play tricks on him, but the call was so strong. The feeling Duke had was too urgent. He could not refuse.

Dragging Mindy with him for another quarter of a mile he found it. A place where the ground had dropped away to form a new sloping cliff, the craft rested in a narrow ravine. From where he stood he could see into the cockpit in the forward section of the craft.

He stiffened. The being inside was looking back at him. The creature looked like every alien he had ever heard described by one of those people claiming to be abducted. It was the visage that was posted on t-shirts and every U.F.O. fanatic's convention button. Large dark moist eyes peered unblinking at him from a round gray head. There was no nose, and a small slit for a mouth completed the expressionless face.

Was this for real? Now Duke was convinced he was hallucinating. Duke recalled some show he watched on a cable channel about how aliens like this were supposed to be some kind of spooky scientist aliens, tagging abductees like animals and inserting things into unpleasant places. Yet, this one had clearly been the pilot of the fighting spacecraft they had seen go down shortly before them. Duke understood that this being was a warrior by all accounts.

A trapped warrior. One who Duke understood now had been calling him for help. He looked at the alien, then at Mindy. He didn't have time for this. Besides, there was no guarantee this one was friendly just because they were enemies of the obviously hostile aliens in the red ships. As he thought this, an image appeared again in his minds eye. It was an image of a healthy Mindy, and a feeling of goodwill.

Duke shook his head to clear it. What was going on? Suddenly he understood, staring into the dark eyes once more. The alien was communicating with him. A very strange way to communicate indeed, Duke thought.

Duke set down the travois, and started down toward the ship. The ship was half buried at an odd angle, and Duke realized this was not the original crash site. The alien had stayed inside the vessel during the attack of the_weapon? Some sort of feeling he got looking at the alien as he approached confirmed his suspicions. So it was a weapon then. That meant_. “Oh no,” he breathed. Duke forced the negative thoughts from his mind and searched for a way to free the creature. He would have to break the canopy somehow. He picked up a good-sized rock.

Another image came to him, this time of Duke opening a compartment on the side of the spacecraft by touching the surface in certain key areas. Duke went to an area of the craft that looked similar and tried touching it in a few places. Nothing happened.

“Ummm, show me again, please,” Duke said out loud timidly.

Nothing came to him. Duke closed his eyes and pictured himself in a bewildered shrug. The image came again, then and Duke was able to touch the spacecraft in the correct five places. A small door hissed open and a box the size and shape of a good sized brief case slid out into Duke's hands. The box was silver with a sort of weird star symbol on one side. He touched the star and the box opened. The next “hallucination”, as Duke thought of them, was an image of himself using a small cutting tool. The tool looked like a dentist's pick and had a small green flame. Duke set the box down, grabbed the appropriate tool and set to work freeing the creature.

The job was done in moments. Duke cut a circle in the clear material. It was defiantly tough, whatever it was, and Duke's rock would have been a futile effort. The alien inclined its head to regard him.

“Eh, heh heh,” Duke laughed nervously. “Alright you're free buddy. Climb on out.”

The alien's dark eyes continued to stare, and then it looked down at its own body. The creature's four-fingered hands were clutching its side. Slowly the alien looked back up at him. Duke understood, and he was not thrilled.

“Awwwwww,” Duke whined. “Alright. Fine. Sure. Whatever. You better not be heavy, or I swear I'll leave your alien a_”

Duke cut of his tirade with a grunt as he hauled the alien up and out of the ship, grabbing the creature under its arms. The alien was not all that heavy. The hardest part was done, and Duke easily carried the creature up the hill. It still clutched its side, and was wearing a dark black and silver jumpsuit of some sort.

He set the creature down and it sat. It pointed back down into the ravine at the box that Duke had retrieved the cutting tool from, and then it lay back onto the soft ground. As he went to retrieve the box, another image entered his mind. This time Duke saw an image of what he recognized as the inside of the cockpit of the alien ship. Duke saw himself touch another weird symbol about the size of his hand on a sort of side console. It was a triangle with strange squiggly lines inside it. Duke shook his head and rubbed his eyes with one hand. This sort of communication was starting to annoy him.

He turned and looked back up at the top of the barren hill at the Alien and Mindy.

“How long have you been watching us?” Duke called up to them. “Ever seen our movies? Ever heard of translation robots?”

Duke shook his fist in agitation as he said this. Then he strode towards the cockpit and did as shown.

The triangle glowed a dull white as he touched it, and a low tone sounded. Through the center of the triangle an object seemed to phase directly through solid material. It was a small pyramid that began to float a few inches of the console, suspended by some unseen force. It was clear but sparkled with many different colors. Duke snatched the object up and climbed back out of the cockpit. He took the object and the box back up the hill.

As Duke approached the alien it turned its head to look at him, and another vision entered his mind's eye. This time he was shown how to remove an item that looked like a small tuna can without any markings. When he pinched it between his fingers, it expanded liquid like into a larger can. Tapping the top twice caused the can to open. He was to apply the gray jelly-like substance to all of Mindy's wounds and burns. When he had done all this, Mindy's burns began to steam and bubble. Rapidly, the jelly substance began to disappear, and the black and blistery skin progressively was replaced with fresh new bleach white skin where her burns had been. Moments later, Mindy's eyes fluttered open and she awoke with a moan.

She sat up slowly. She rubbed scratched at her shoulder and looked down at it, perplexed.

“Where Am I?” she asked. She noticed Duke first. Duke braced himself.

“Uh, Mindy, now don't freak out . . .” Duke began, but he was too late.

Mindy had seen the creature lying next to her. Her eyes flew open wide. She began a series of squealing screams as she crab walked backward; dirt went flying as her feet slipped on the dusty, shaken ground. She backed into a torn and frayed tree stump where she stopped and pointed at the alien.

“W-what is that thing?” she stammered, breathing heavily.

The creature turned its head to regard her, and she squealed again.

“It-Its alive!? Duke, did you see that, it mo- ..”

Duke interrupted her, taking a few steps to squat in front of her.

“Hey! Hey! Cool your jets, Mittens.”

Duke placed his hand on her knee and shook it gently, getting her attention as he spoke.

“He means us no harm. I helped him, and he gave me this stuff that healed you.” As he said this, Duke gestured to the box next to the alien, and then back to Mindy. She calmed visibly, but she remained wary. She took a deep breath.

“How did it get here? How long was I out after_” She trailed off, her eyes never leaving the aliens. She stared straight ahead for a few moments.

Duke frowned, he was about to try and snap her out of her thoughts, when she shook her head and wiped her eyes. Duke knew what that meant.

“Uh, that's the way he talks. You get used to it after a while.”

Mindy regarded Duke thoughtfully, and then stood up. “Creepy,” she said.

“What he tell you, or um, show you?” Duke asked.

Mindy walked over and knelt next to the alien, no longer afraid.

“He showed me how he crashed. He showed me his view of our planes. It was all like some weird instant replay. Ummm, I think he respects us, or something. He_how do we know it's a he anyway?” She looked at Duke who shrugged.

Duke had a sudden and strange feeling of amusement that wasn't his.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I think he's dying.”

Duke started toward the briefcase-sized box. Mindy stopped him. “Umm nothing in there will do any good.” She paused, considering. “Do you have a little pyramid thingy?”

Duke nodded, removing the small object from his pocket. It sparkled like a diamond. Mindy whistled low.

“Yep, that's it,” she said.

At the appearance of the object the alien raised a slow tired arm and pointed at it. Duke knelt beside Mindy and presented the object. Instead of taking it, the alien placed his hand on Dukes wrist. What followed was the longest vision Duke had seen from the alien. It was so long that Duke felt he was in a dream that came of full sleep, not a daydream.

It started with the small pyramid object. Then the object morphed into a computer disk, which was being inserted into a personal computer. Then the floppy disk morphed into a large key. The key opened a silvery metallic door, which was floating in darkness. Light peaked out around the frame of the door. The door began to open, a white light shown brightly but before he could see what lay on the other side the white light flashed intensely causing Duke to shield his eyes.

When he opened them, Duke found himself alone on a highway at night. It stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. He held the pyramid in his hand. Dark figures rose from the ground on either side of him. The figures crazed the item in his hand. Duke involuntarily felt his hand close around the pyramid, no, the key. His knees relaxed and he readied himself. He would protect the key at all costs. The dark shapes became shadowy figures of men. They were not to be trusted. Then Duke was in space, high above the earth. Duke recognized the landmass that was North America. Suddenly he was falling. His gut twisting as he descended quickly through clouds. He was over the western United States. He fell even further; memories of Air Force Red Flag exercises came to mind. He was over Nevada, descending into the same airspace used for Red Flag. The fall continued. He was over an area of land he did not recognize, but he was over an airbase, a shape no pilot could mistake. Specifically, it was a military airbase. He was standing at ground level at that airbase, and he moved quickly into a large hanger. He passed quickly by several sleek looking aircraft of a design he had never seen before. Alone at the back of the hanger was a small console that was blank except for a small square hole.

The vision shifted. Suddenly the dream became a nightmare. A nightmare of what to Duke felt like memories. So varied was the parade of images though, that it would have been impossible for them to be memories of a single person. He saw through the eyes of alien pilots and witnessed through the cockpit battles that raged on many worlds. The worlds involved ranged from the orbits of gas giants, worlds with pink, purple, or even green skies, even worlds with more than one sun. He danced through these skies at speeds he could barely comprehend. He fought with and around ships of all sizes and shapes. Many were similar to the ones he had encountered in the skies over the gulf, but there were many others. From gigantic dark pyramid shaped ships to small silvery ovals and saucer shaped designs. The blood red organic shaped ships were the constant, engaged in every battle. Then the pace shifted away from dogfights to glimpses of events both spectacular and terrible.

Duke got just a glimpse, one at time and in rapid succession, of strange structures, crystalline cities, and underwater habitats before some unseen tremendous force obliterated them, twisting and bending into nothing. Species after species became engulfed in fire and destruction. Surprisingly to Duke, many of them were human looking. A massive malevolent ground force hunted them down. Large spiked turtle shell shaped vehicles hovered close to the ground, spewing forth green flashes from several sharp looking turrets. Next to these a sea of beings clad in scaly blood red armor marched forward. They were shooting any living being that they saw with what looked like a deadly black claws that were grafted into the top of the forearm of the armor. The claws stuck out at least a foot past each hand and spat the same familiar green energy blasts from tips that looked menacingly sharp. Gloved hands concealed long fingers that looked sharp at the tips. The armor seemed durable but light, covering the entire body of the beings and capped off with a fearsome helmet. The helmets were streamlined and tapered down into a pointy cone where the “mouth” would have been on a human. The tip of the cone had slits that could have been some sort of breath filter, making the helmet appear as it were a mini rocket-launching pod. Whatever wore the helmets apparently saw through a shaded visor in the helmet, which consisted of two large circles nearly on the sides of the helmet which were connected by a thinner rectangular strip across the front. These warriors had the support of various types of close air support and artillery. Duke understood he was seeing a race of beings that conquered and destroyed, and left nothing behind in their wake. It was obvious that Earth was next, and mankind listed for extinction.

Duke came back to himself with a start. He checked his watch. They had lost nearly an hour. He was breathing hard and was sweating. So was Mindy. Duke looked at her curiously.

“You saw that too, huh?”

Mindy nodded.

Duke turned back to the alien.

“No.” Duke shook his head. “Uh Uh. No way! No! Get someone else to be your little errand boy. I've got a family to find, I've got to keep them safe, I've got to_”

He stopped. The aliens hand went limp, and dropped from his wrist. Duke knew it was gone. There were no eyelids to close. Mindy helped Duke bury the creature in the loose earth-shaken ground next to its ship. Duke didn't know what sort of beliefs the alien had, but he erected a small marker anyway. All this was done in silence. After a few moments Duke turned and looked up at the sky.

“What do you think it all means?” he asked Mindy.

Mindy hesitated, and then said, “That pyramid must be important, and we need to take it somewhere, and put it in the control box. I didn't get that whole fall from space part.”

Duke began to walk back up the hill, fingering the small pyramid. “I recognize the area. It's the Red Flag range. You missed the last go around didn't you?”

“Yeah. My in-process date for Eglin was delayed a little. So what?” Mindy shrugged as she asked this.

“So.” Duke let the word drag out. “There is a particular air base out there in that range that is so off limits it has a no fly zone over it.”

Mindy stared. “You mean_”

Duke nodded. “Where Elvis lives. Dreamland. Area Fifty One, whatever you want to call it.”

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