Dulce Truths

“Chances are good that some of them are in on it,” Mark says.

“So what do we do?” Turn asks. “How do we notify them about it? In case none of you have noticed… we’re stuck on an alien spaceship of some sort, thousands of miles above the Earth!”

“Ssshhh!” several of the men make the sound, trying to quiet Turn down. Up ahead, Bennewitz looks back around the corner, sees that Aaron and the aliens are still talking, and gestures back that everything is alright.

“He’s got a point,” Walter says after a moment, nodding his head Turn’s way, “how are we gonna—”

PING!

Walter cuts himself off as the sound of something metal hitting the craft’s strange metallic floors is heard. He looks over his shoulder, as do the other men. Standing there with his face going red is Turn, and at his feet a grenade. The pin is still in it thankfully, but the small mistake of dropping it could cost them. All eyes shoot up to Bennewitz, who’s just then pulling his head back from around the corner. He gives them a wide-eyed look and starts shaking his head, then is up and rushing back to them.

“They heard that!” he says in a half-shout, half-whisper as he moves past. “Aaron’s already rushing for a teleporter — let’s go!”

Bennewitz doesn’t need to say it twice. As he shoots past the men Mark waves for the others to go too. He gets up to Turn just as he’s bending down to pick up the grenade.

“Here,” he says, and holds out his hand for Turn to give it over, then claps him on the shoulder and says, “go.” Turn goes. Mark waits until he’s a dozen feet down the hallway, then he pulls the pin on the grenade and rolls it down the hallway. It stops just a few inches from the bend in the hallway, the corner that Bennewitz had been waiting at. And with that Mark starts running. He doesn’t even look over his shoulder a few moments later when a resounding ‘BOOM!’ can be heard.

* * *

“Go, just go!” Mark shouts ahead of him at the men rushing down the long hallway.

There are no doors, so they have to keep running. They don’t know where to go, and now red lights are flashing, some sort of emergency warning system, Mark has no doubt. He knew that grenade was a mistake, even as he’d been throwing it, but what else was he supposed to do? Bennewitz said the Grays were coming, and had any of them gotten around that corner it would have been a good bet that the men would be small black piles of ash right now. Instead they were alive, though how long that would hold, Mark hadn’t a clue.

The hallway continues on for another few dozen feet, then bends in another corner. The men rush around that corner and then come to a screeching halt. There before them is a small entry-port hangar of some sort. Several small UFO crafts are parked there, each levitating off the floor and swaying slightly. There are classic ‘flying saucers,’ craft that look V-shaped, and others that defy description. More, there’s a large opening on the far wall, a clear path out of the ship and into space if there ever was one.

“There!” Mark says, pointing. “The skimmer.”

“The what?” Turn says.

“The skimmer,” Mark repeats, already breaking out into a run to the spaceship. “That’s what we call ‘em. They’re fast and can punch into Earth orbit real quick.” In moments the four of them are over and standing before it.

“Can you fly that thing?” Walter asks, glancing over at Mark.

Mark just stands there for a moment with his hands on his hips before he starts rubbing at his jaw.

“Mark?” Bennewitz says.

“She’s a skimmer,” Mark says, more to himself than to the others, “capable of doing 650,000 miles per hour in inter-orbit bursts with booster capabilities that can put out a lot more horsepower, a lot more.”

“That fast and still usin’ horsepower?” Walter says, but Mark only shrugs.

“Ship like that’ll take us to the moon and back in four hours, maybe less.”

“But will she take us home?” Turn asks.

Mark looks over at him and gives a sly smile. “You bet.”

“And you can fly it… right?” Walter asks again.

Mark’s smile slips away and he takes on a serious expression and tone. “I could fly a bathtub if you put wings and a rudder on ‘er.”

“Hey, he can fly a bathtub… I feel better already.”

“Can it,” Walter says to Bennewitz’s words, and then looks back to Mark. “So, should we—”

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Walter words were cut-off as three blasts hit the wall behind the men. They look back and Turn rushes to the bend in the hallway to see what’s there.

“Shit!” he says a moment later, pulling his head back and then running back to the men. “Grays, ‘bout a half dozen of ‘em and comin’ up fast.”

“Let’s go,” Mark says. He doesn’t even wait to see if the others are coming, he just darts out toward the nearest skimmer. The others have no choice but to follow.

22 — Dogfight

They get into the craft then get settled, Mark up at the controls and the others crammed into the back.

“You sure you can fly this thing?” Turn asks.

Mark scoffs and shoots him a hard look over his shoulder. “I can fly anything.”