kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"Remembrance"

words

I'll always remember the day quite clearly, when the bugs first showed. She was some ship, I tell you, jet black against the noonday sun. That's how we knew she was there, you see, the first indication we had. Somehow plum managed to sneak into the system right under them scientists' noses. President called a general state of emergency, and then the tension cross the whole planet was thick as good southern marsh. We waited then. Waited, holding our breath, wondering what they aimed to do. It was their choice, you see. This huge black ship, just hovering above us, has us scared as feebleminded rats. Sure, the selfsame scientists that didn't notice it approach did their attempts at communicating. Beamed all sorts of signals at it. It just sat there, large and mute, unmoving.

Eventually, I suppose people just snapped, couldn't take it any longer. As grouped intelligence tends to fall to the lowest common denominator, human kind lost it. This silent looming ship just cracked our psyche like the blow of a cold .45. We was all calling for first blood, senselessly. "Get them before they get us," was the battle cry as we aimed our toy rockets skywards. The rockets never made it. Strangest thing was, we hadn't even started the launch when the alien ship sent out little spores that destroyed every launch pad that we had been prepared to use. And the surrounding cities. Tiny little spores with the destructive radius of nuclear weapons, without any of the nasty fallout. That was when things started to get bad.

The president hid, and there was rioting in the streets. But us military types knew what to do, what we had trained to do every day of our mature lives. We aimed our sights high, high up. I was one of the fifteen special mission crew selected to infiltrate the floating alien fortress. Fact as captain, I was the one what did the selecting. Our mission was simple. We were supposed to die to save the human race. Catch was, we were supposed to do it in a certain way. We were supposed to take the ship with us. Armed with a full payload of tactical nukes, our objective was to fly up one of the chutes the spores had come out of, find the central intelligence, and let loose with everything we had.

As we lifted off the air was cool and the earth lay quiet, as if even the Mother held her breath for us. Our ship swooped peacefully towards the black, black sky, the sun behind us bathing us in a protective halo that we hoped we could not be seen through. Upwards we flew, unknowing of our destiny. You see, they were waiting for us, as if they knew all along what we'd planned. That was when things got really bad. We never made it in the chute.



I looked up calmly at the television now mounted in our ship. It no longer bothered me as much as it had... I mean, it still really gave me the creeps... but I could watch it. I could watch myself. There I was, on the screen, going over the mission specifics, telling myself exactly what I was to do when. What to expect from the enemy down to whether they were going to duck left or duck right when we threw the smoke grenades. You see, our scientists managed to steal some of their technology. Well, that was what it boiled down to as far as I could tell.

Had to do somehow with the fact that since they entered our system, all their little quantum particles were interacting with all our little quantum particles. Which would have been fine on its own, except these bugs had this invention, sort of functioned like a time machine. It acted in conjunction with a relay moving away from us at relativistic speeds, and it let us send messages backwards in time, to a proper receiver. Well, I say us... you see, once the bugs entered our system with this idea, it just sort of quantum trickled down to this scientist, and the next thing you know I've got this idiot tube being installed on my ship. Delayed the mission, it did, but as soon as it was turned on we started getting this signal from me, explaining exactly what was going on, as far as we were to know it.

As we lifted off the air was cool and the earth lay quiet, as if even the Mother held her breath for us. Our ship swooped peacefully towards the black, black sky, the sun behind us bathing us in a protective halo that we hoped we could not be seen through. Upwards we flew, laughing at our destiny. We made it in the chute. They were waiting for us, of course, but we knew where they were, and this time we were one step ahead of them. Didn't seem they were expecting that. My boys set up smoke cover and we dashed through the ship, heading in deeper and deeper. We completely circumvented traps that I'd told myself about. Then we found ourselves in this long silver tunnel, and I swear I hadn't mentioned it to myself, and I swear I would never have forgotten it. It was oppressive. That was when things got really bad. We never made it out of that tunnel. We trudged along for hours, but no end was in sight. In the distance, whirring sounds echoed towards us, and the slow his of gas. They never even had to look for us in the tunnel. They knew exactly when and where we were.



I looked up calmly at the television now mounted in our ship. It no longer bothered me as much as it had... I mean, it still really gave me the creeps... but I could watch it. I could watch myself. There I was, on the screen, going over the mission specifics, telling myself exactly what I was to do when. What to expect from the enemy down to whether they were going to duck left or duck right when we threw the smoke grenades. You see, our scientists managed to steal some of their technology. Well, that was what it boiled down to as far as I could tell. I was taking careful notes, as it seems I'd been through nearly the entire ship. I'd even extrapolated exactly where the control station would most likely be.

As we lifted off the air was cool and the earth lay quiet, as if even the Mother held her breath for us. Our ship swooped peacefully towards the black, black sky, the sun behind us bathing us in a protective halo that we hoped we could not be seen through. Upwards we flew, laughing at our destiny. We made it in the chute. They were waiting for us, of course, but we knew where they were, and this time we were one step ahead of them. Didn't seem they were expecting that. My boys set up smoke cover and we dashed through the ship, heading in deeper and deeper. We completely circumvented traps that I'd told myself about. We made it about ten steps into the silver tunnel and about faced immediately, running around a corner in the exact opposite direction. It curved upwards, and we could tell we were climbing to the center.

All of a sudden, there it was, had to be. The control station loomed in front of us. My boys were quick on the uptake, better than I, and had this giant quicksilver sphere rigged with bang before I stopped my gawking. Then all I could do was laugh. We'd done it, it seemed. I reached to my belt to press the detonator, give my life for my planet, happy to die for my cause. That was when I saw the bug. It was laughing. Laughing at us. And it had my prized little button writhing in its claw. That was when things got really bad. There wasn't anything we could really do. They'd seen us through again, and this time they weren't just going to kill us. One by one, we were dragged to isolation chambers. We told them rank, name, serial number, even confessed our sins. They never said anything, doubt that their throats could synthesize our language, but oh man how we spilled. I think it was the silence more than anything. But that was the end. And they knew it the entire time.



I'll always remember the day quite clearly, when the bugs first showed. She was some ship, I tell you, jet black against the noonday sun. We'd heard about her from the future first, and followed her trajectory all the way in. It wasn't the normal space line thing. Our scientist types said it had something to do with bending the space-time, or something like that. Whatever it was, it wasn't a path that our eyes could follow, but this new technology of ours sprouting up everywhere made it as plain day. We even knew why she was there, we'd told ourselves on the seven o'clock, nonchalant as anything. She was just spreading her message of peace. The futility of war. And for some reason, we just couldn't help but believe her. Well, it took a bit of convincing, you should have seen us arguing, but eventually we got sense in our heads somehow.

As we lifted off the air was cool and the earth lay quiet, as if even the Mother held her breath for us. Our ship swooped peacefully towards the black, black sky, the sun behind us bathing us in a portentous halo that we hoped we could not be seen through. Upwards we flew, rejoicing at our destiny. We made it in the chute. They were waiting for us, of course, and we knew they were. Slowly, I unrolled the scroll, calling out in their clicking tongue our welcome for their light.