Forlorn Hope

Chapter Eleven

Willow and several of her 'siblings' milled around the southern border of their village. She had been warned about leaving the village, but no one had told her not to watch events unfolding to the south. She had arrived shortly following the crack heard earlier. Throughout the day, her 'siblings' had joined her. No one was sure of the purpose of the silent vigil, but anything that made the elders uneasy was attractive to the youth.

The gathered faithful could see three figures making their way towards the village. Willow hoped one of those figures was Bear. She was unsure what the repercussions would be if Bear returned to The People. Hushed whispers along this theme reverberated through the crowd.

Who is with him?

Willow was far from the only one in the crowd thinking this. None dared to speak this aloud. Never had anyone left the village and subsequently returned. Willow turned her attention to the crowd – it was no longer just her 'siblings.' The previous generations were starting to gather to watch events unfold.

A rumbling shook the ground. Several lost their footing and fell. Willow turned and gasped audibly – the approaching figures were down and a cloud of flames and smoke rose into the clear sky. Many of the gathered fled away from the explosion, but not Willow. She had to stay to see if those three figures got back up.

* * *

"Skimmer approaching."

Colonel Mathers turned in time to see the skimmer roar overhead, heading north. He had never heard a skimmer make audible noise, let alone what sounded like a growl. It reminded him of the predatory growl of a wolf. Mathers couldn't help but wave to the pilot. He doubted the pilot could see his wave, but did it nonetheless.

"Double time, men!"

He suspected the order was unnecessary. He had already increased his pace at the sight of the skimmer and it had likely had the same effect on his team. They were close enough now to see the fugitives – the skimmer would attempt block any additional egress while he and his team made the rendezvous.

He glanced down at the field compass, now swinging wildly north, when the ground seemed to repel him. A deep explosion accompanied it, pitching him forward – he landed facedown in the snow. Scrambling up, he witnessed the rolling cloud of smoke and flames rising up. Lightning appeared to crackle along the perimeter of the cloud. The fugitives were no longer visible, replaced by the conflagration he witnessed.

* * *

The village appeared on the horizon. Bear pointed at it and gestured with his other hand. Anna didn't recognize the hand gesture and spread her arms to indicate confusion. Bear took a step toward her and fell to his knees hand to his forehead. A low growl was heard from the south. It reminded Anna of the growl of a wolf. She was aware the skimmer was heading their way, thanks to Bear's previous warning, but it didn't seem real until she heard that growl. Looking up she saw the skimmer fly overhead. When it was directly above them Bear appeared to be trying to bury himself in the snow. His thrashing and cries of pain were fortunately short lived. The skimmer overtook them, banked sharply and hovered directly in their path. She couldn't see the pilot, but the skimmer nosed down exposing the viewing ports toward them.

Without forethought, Anna yanked the medallion from her neck and produced the frag grenade from her pocket. In a single fluid motion she wrapped the medallion and chain around the grenade and pulled the pin. Releasing the safety lever she lobbed the grenade at the skimmer.

The pilot must've seen her – he pulled the nose of the skimmer up to avoid the grenade. This maneuver exposed the group to the magnetron and more screams of anguish from Bear.

The grenade was on a downward arc when the pilot maneuvered, causing the magnetron to exert attraction on the metal chain wrapped around the grenade and pull it towards the skimmer.

When the grenade exploded it was inches from the magnetron. The skimmer shuddered, shedding pieces. The pieces didn't fall far – attracted back into its magnetic embrace. As soon as these pieces made contact with the damaged magnetron, they seemed to explode again, raining more pieces. These pieces were once again dragged back to begin the cycle anew.

The pilot was still attempting to pull up the nose of the skimmer during these explosions. Anna counted three explosions before the magnetron seemed to lose power.

A high-pitched noise came from the skimmer, then her ears stopped registering sound of any kind. Her eyes told her all she needed to know as the skimmer flipped over in midair and slammed into the snowpack. Anna screamed a warning to her companions, but it was ineffective – the skimmer already impacted one hundred yards from the group now gathered around Bear, still flailing on the ground.

Anna had thought nothing could compare to the forces exerted on her body from the magnetron back at the library. She had been wrong. When the skimmer impacted she was still enveloped in an eerie silence – she felt the magnetron stutter, it made her teeth hurt and all the muscles in her body reverberate with that stutter. Then she felt nothing as the skimmer simply ceased to exist.

* * *

Fifty feet below the skimmer impact was the southernmost location of the alien ship crashed there almost a century earlier. When the skimmer crashed, it managed to crash directly over an auxiliary oxygen storage tank long ago forgotten by the aliens who had constructed the vast ship.

A single crack formed, allowing pressurized pure oxygen to escape. This oxygen interacted with the flaming debris stuck to the magnetron – increasing both heat and flame. When the magnetron containment failed, the control systems emptied their electric and magnetic fury directly into the oxygen storage tank.

The superheated oxygen had only one path to escape – up, through the snow pack and through the burning carcass of the wrecked skimmer. The resulting explosion reverberated through the snow pack, vaporizing layers of frozen snow beneath the surface.

For about one hundred yards the surface snow dropped fifty feet, forming a funnel of sorts into the alien ship. The debris cloud rolled straight up into the atmosphere, releasing electric arcs conducting across particulate objects within the cloud. Anyone witnessing this would have seen it as a cylindrical pillar of smoke, flame and lightning dispersing into the upper atmosphere. The fugitives, villagers and Mathers' extraction team had front row seats to the devastation.