Dulce Truths

“Yeah, a bathtub with wings, right?” Bennewitz says. “Save that crap for the rookies — we’re in deep shit here!”

“Do ya think?” Mark says in a mocking tone, but before Bennewitz can get another word in, Mark hits something and the craft launches forward. With wide eyes, the three men in the back stare out the large open window ahead of Mark. There, rushing up at them is the opening on the far wall, their pathway into space. And then they’re through it, stars all around them with Earth way off in the distance.

“If we can just…” Mark says up at the controls, just before he hits something. The craft begins to move at about twice the speed it’d been going. It also enters into a continuous barrel roll.

“Oh, yeah — you can fly this thing, alright,” Bennewitz says with a roll of the eyes as he clings to his seat.

“Just give me a second here…” Mark says, desperately trying to read the alien controls in front of him. He’s flown all kinds of UFOs — Sirian fighter craft, Andromedan reconnaissance ships, and even a Pleiadian garbage scow once — but he’s never been in a ship from the Grays. The buttons and controls all around him are in lighted colors — which is normal — but they also have strange symbols on them, which is not. Finally Mark thinks he has it figured out and slams a finger down onto one of those strange-symbol buttons.

SHOOM!

The craft speeds on in its continuous barrel rolls but now adds a loop to the mix. Soon the four men in the craft are flipping over and over to the left and right while at the same time going upside down.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Bennewitz says, his tone dead serious for a change.

“Ah, hell,” Mark says, and at that moment gives up trying to figure out what is what and just starts hitting things. Somehow he gets lucky and the craft comes out of the loop. A moment later — and another bunch of buttons pressed — and the continuous barrel rolls end. “Ha,” Mark laughs, looking over his shoulder at the men behind him, “just like ridin’ a bike!”

Bennewitz rolls his eyes to that. “Well then stand up on those petals and start haulin’ ass — we wanna get home!”

“You can say that again,” Walter adds.

“But where are we gonna go?” Turn asks. “We know Mark can’t go back to Blue Lake and—”

BOOM!

Out of nowhere the craft is hit with something, lurches, and begins making sputtering sounds. Turn’s words are cutoff and he and the others all look to the window in front of Mark. There’s nothing there.

“What the hell was that?” Walter asks. “Felt like we just got hit with something and it sure didn’t—”

BOOM!

The craft gets hit again, and this time some shrill beeping starts up, as well as what can only be a warning message of some sort, though the men don’t know since it’s in an alien language.

“Boys,” Mark says over his shoulder, his attention on the controls and the window in front of him, “we’ve got company.”

“Well that’s just great!” Bennewitz says, throwing his hands up, while Turn says, “What kind of company?”

“Grays most likely, and in the same kinda crafts as us.” Mark points to the small screen in front of him. “Radar’s tellin’ me we’ve got four of ‘em on our tail.”

“Any chance you can shake ‘em?” Walter asks.

“Or turn on ‘em and shoot ‘em down?” Turn adds.

Mark shakes his head. “We’re still 90 million miles from earth, with a rate of speed of… 90,000 miles an hour.”

“Damn!” Turn says from the back. “How come we haven’t been ripped apart?”

“Special craft,” Walter says beside him. “Built a special way so our bodies and withstand those speeds.”

“Yeah,” Mark says from the front, “but no way we’re gonna outrun ‘em.”

“But we might be able to outshoot ‘em, huh?” Turn asks.

“We’re sure gonna find out,” Mark says, then more loudly he shouts, “hang on!”

The men in the back don’t get the chance to grab at anything, for Mark hits the same button that’d brought him out of the loop and is soon back in it.

“Let’s see what you bastards are made of,” he says under his breath to himself, and then hits another button, slowing the craft. Radar tells him what his eyes can’t, and then coming out of the top of the loop, Mark sees two of their pursuers shoot past them from underneath. He hits another button and the craft regains speed, and just as a new set of warning lights and signals begin to go off.

“What’s that?” Walter shouts up.

“The four on our tail are now two, but those two are mighty close.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doin’, Mark,” Bennewitz says.

That makes two of us, Mark thinks, but says nothing and instead grips the control stick in front of him all the tighter. There’s a button on top of it, and though Mark isn’t sure what it’s for, he sure hopes it does what he thinks.

“Here goes nothin’!” he says, then presses it several times.

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!