Authors: Tom Horneman
“What are the MP’s for?” Janet
questioned.
“I’m sorry, Commander, but the General’s
orders are that you will not be left unguarded tonight. The MP’s will be
watching the outside of the house all night to ensure that you do not leave. I
will pick you up at 06:00 and take you back to Carswell where we will board a
chopper to Padgett. At 07:00 you, the General, five scientists and two soldiers
will board your spaceship as you agreed. Do you have any questions?”
“No! I think that was specifically
clear.”
Her parents were waiting as they pulled
into the driveway. Janet hugged them and they went into the house. Her dad
looked out the window and watched Captain Gates drive away. The MP’s who were
watching the house leaned against their vehicle talking and joking around.
Janet’s dad nodded as he glanced over at
her. “Hmmm, I’ll be darned. It’s just like you said it would be.”
“I told you, that if you got another call
from me that I’d be back here for one night only and under heavy guard. Did you
make the arrangements we discussed?”
Her dad gave a knowing glance to her mom,
and she left the room. A moment later she walked in with a young woman the same
height and build as Janet with an almost identical
hair style
.
Janet smiled and quickly embraced the woman.
“Gayla, thank you so much for being
here.”
“Girl, I wouldn’t have missed this for
the world. Just remember that someday I want to meet this Tarku guy and take a
ride in your spaceship.”
“I’ll do what I can, but you know that we
may not be able to come back.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Gayla was Janet’s best friend. They had
grown up together, living only a few houses apart. Over the years they had
stayed in close touch with each other, and Gayla still lived just down the
street. When her parents died a few years ago, she moved back into the house
she had grown up in. Throughout their childhood everyone remarked about how
much they looked alike, and often the girls told people that they were twins.
Tonight they were going to put that to the ultimate test. The only time the
MP’s had ever seen Janet was when she arrived tonight. She had purposely not
spoken to any of them and kept her face turned away from them, so the odds of
them recognizing that Gayla was not her was pretty much in Janet’s favor.
“This is all going to go just like we
planned,” Janet said.
“I’ll distract the MP’s while you slip
out the back and go to my house, right?” Gayla asked.
“Exactly. Dad, do you have my bag with
the equipment?”
He walked over to the hall closet and
pulled out a black backpack. “Yep! You’ve got topographical maps of the Padgett
area, with your route marked in red. Night vision goggles and some wire cutters
in case you run into any barbed wire.”
Janet kissed him. “You’re amazing, dad.”
“Just taking care of my little girl.” He
pulled out the map and pointed to the route marked in red. “Right here is the
old road to an abandoned oil well. I guarantee that the military doesn’t know
anything about it. You’ll have to traverse it by foot, because it is too grown
over with trees and underbrush to use a vehicle, especially a car. It is barely
even recognizable as anything more than a path. The old well was just outside
of the city limits and within a mile of your ship.”
Janet kissed him again. “You are the
greatest, dad.”
“The night vision goggles should let you
clearly see the road, even though it’s pretty overgrown,” he said.
The sun was setting and Janet prepared
for her departure. She was dressed in black clothing and had the small backpack
strapped on.
She hugged Gayla. “You ready?”
Gayla was holding back a tear. “As ready
as I’m ever going to be.”
“Don’t be nervous. We’ve pulled this
trick a dozen times on other guys, and these MP’s are no different.”
Gayla nodded, took a deep breath and
opened the front door. The MP’s immediately noticed and looked up in unison.
She had four cans of cold Cokes and walked right up to them.
“Hi guys. I thought you might like
something cold to drink while you’re guarding me.”
The Corporal in charge stepped forward.
“Thank you, Commander. We sure appreciate that.”
Gayla smiled and handed each man a Coke.
Her nervousness immediately ceased as she realized that she and Janet had
pulled off their little switch. The MP’s had no idea that Gayla wasn’t
Commander Shelby.
“Are you guys going to sit out here all
night?
“That’s our orders, Ma’am.”
“Please, don’t call me Ma’am.”
“Sorry Commander.”
“Are you guys hungry?”
“We brought some food, but we really
appreciate the drinks. All we have is water.”
“Corporal, I know you men have orders to
watch me, but I’m not a prisoner you know, and I’d like to take a walk around
the block. It’s such a beautiful evening.”
“That’s no problem, Ma’am, I mean
Commander. We just have to go with you.”
“Wow! Kinda makes a girl feel special,
having four men walk her around the block.”
The men smiled as they began their walk.
Gayla started out asking each one his name and things about them. Inside the
house Janet hugged her mom and dad.
“I guess this is the last time,” her mom
said as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Janet also wiped back a tear. “I’m sorry,
mom, but you know that I have to do this.”
Her dad hugged her. “We know, honey, and
we understand. We’re just going to miss you.”
Janet kissed them both one last time. Her
dad looked out the back window. “It’s all clear.”
Janet nodded and slipped out the door.
Her mom and dad watched as she hopped over the fence and disappeared into the
neighbor’s yard.
“God be with you, baby,” her mom
whispered.
Janet quickly made her way down the
street to Gayla’s house. Gayla had left the garage door open and her car was
parked inside. Janet started it and eased onto the street, watching carefully
in both directions. She certainly didn’t want to run into Gayla and the MP’s.
Gayla’s plan was to go around the block in the other direction and even stop at
the local park around the corner and swing for a few minutes. She was sure that
she could talk the MP’s into joining her. After all, she was their assignment.
It took Janet nearly an hour and a half
to drive to Padgett. It was a very secluded town, northwest of Fort Worth.
That’s why she and Tarku had picked that location. She knew that the town had
been locked down by the military, and that she would only be able to get to
within three miles of the city.
She checked her map and left the main
road well ahead of the military roadblock, and then turned off the headlights.
From this point on she would navigate using her night vision goggles and
compass. Another thing in her favor was that the moon was only in a quarter
phase, which made it more difficult for anyone to see her, but still provided
enough light for her night goggles to clearly see the way. The old road was
exactly where her dad had marked it on the map. She left the car and began her
night hike. Her dad would take Gayla to pick up the car sometime within the
next two days. Gayla had a spare set of keys, so Janet locked the car with the
keys in the trunk.
She checked her watch. It was twelve
thirty and she had about two miles of hiking ahead of her. She guessed that she
could make it to the ship in about an hour or less, provided she didn’t run
into problems. The forest was thick, and the terrain was rugged. Within twenty
minutes she came upon the old oil well and checked her compass. So far she
hadn’t encountered any military guards, but she knew that wouldn’t last long.
Another twenty minutes of hiking and she saw the first outpost. She immediately
recognized two problems: each post was only two hundred feet apart, and they had
guard-dogs. The dog at the post nearest to her noticed her at the same time she
noticed it. She dropped to the ground behind a bush and watched. The guards
also had night vision goggles and one of them put his on and looked in the
direction where the dog was looking.
“What do you see, boy,” he said to the
dog.
“Probably another deer or a raccoon,” his
partner said, not bothering with his goggles. “That’s all it ever is. Why the
hell did they give us dogs out here when there’s so much wildlife around? This
is such a waste of time. Who the hell gives a shit about Padgett, Texas
anyway?”
“Obviously, whatever they have there must
be pretty damned important since the whole damned town is quarantined,” the
first man remarked.
“Well, I hate this shit! They put us out
here in the middle of nowhere, with damned dogs that act up every time the wind
blows, and tell us to make sure nobody goes in or out, but they don’t tell us
why.”
“I heard that they got a spaceship
hovering over the town.”
“Yeah, right! And you expect me to
believe that bullshit? What I do believe is that some biochemical engineer
fucked up and released some kind of virus into the town, and it’s probably
going to kill all of us.”
At that moment the air was filled with a
putrid odor.
“Oh hell! Another damned skunk! Every
time they sense the dog they spray that nasty shit. I wish they’d let us
shoot-em.”
The other man now had his goggles on too.
“Yeah, there it is over there.”
The guards at the next post heard the
commotion. “What’s going on, man?” one of them shouted. They both donned their
night goggles and looked out into the woods. Janet stayed close to the ground,
behind the bush.
“Another fuckin’ skunk,” a guard from the
first
post
yelled back.
“Let the dog go after him,” a guy from the second post
shouted.
“You let your damned dog go,” he replied,
“unless you plan on giving my dog a bath after the skunk sprays the shit outta
him.”
“Not me!”
“Well, I ain’t either, so don’t even
think about it.”
Janet took advantage of the situation and
crawled as fast as she could while the men were watching the skunk, which
fortunately for her was going in the opposite direction. The men in the third
post saw what the other men were doing and ignored them. The skunks seemed to
be a nightly routine. Janet crawled between the second and third posts. Even
when the dog at the third post noticed her, the men ignored the dog, thinking
that it was barking at the other guys. She silently thanked God for sending the
skunk at the same time she encountered the guards. When she was about two
hundred feet past the guards she began walking again.
Another fifteen minutes passed and she
arrived at the edge of the town. She couldn’t believe that she’d only run into
one line of outposts. But that changed as she entered the town. There were
guards everywhere. She could see her ship hovering above the street, covered
with a huge tent and surrounded by scaffolding. At the base of the ship two
guards were chatting and having a cigarette. About a hundred feet out from the
ship there was a perimeter of barbed wire, just as her dad suspected. Around
the perimeter of wire there were two more guards slowly walking, not paying
much attention to anything. Each street corner also had a guard, but they all
seemed to have a very lackadaisical attitude. With so many guards they didn’t
expect anyone to actually try to get to the spaceship. This would definitely
work in Janet’s favor, but the mere number of them could pose a problem. She
would have to be extremely stealthful.
Another disadvantage was that the area
immediately around the base of the ship was well lighted. It would be nearly
impossible to get through the barbed wire and past the guards. She had to think
of another way.
Just then, out of the corner of her eye,
she caught the flash of a cigarette lighter out in the darkness. She turned her
head to see a guard standing alone at the corner of a building in a very remote
area. This was perfect. In the darkness, she worked her way towards him and
went around behind the building. He wasn’t wearing any night goggles and she
was. She had the element of surprise and literally walked up right behind him.
He was completely unaware of her. He dropped his cigarette and was about to
snuff it out when she put a fist into the small of his back, causing him to arch
backwards. Immediately she brought her other forearm slamming into his throat
and brought him to the ground. She didn’t want to kill him. She shut off his
air only long enough for him to pass out. The entire event took less than
fifteen seconds, and with her arm around his throat, he was unable to make a
sound.
Quickly, she undressed him and put on his
uniform. It was a little big, but she didn’t think anyone would notice in the
darkness. She had to act fast, because she didn’t know exactly how long he
would remain unconscious. She grabbed his helmet, rifle and radio, and began
walking towards the spaceship. She used the old scenario that if she acted like
she was supposed to be there, odds were that no one would question her. She
walked down the middle of the street, in plain sight of all of the other
guards. They watched as she walked by. One even waved, thinking that he knew
who she was, but not one of them challenged her. She couldn’t believe that it
was this easy. Even as she approached the two guards at the base of the ship,
they didn’t look surprised as she walked right up to them.