Chapter 158: The Battle

Saturday, June 19, 1971

I was so moved by their devotion and willingness to protect me, I decided I would move heaven and earth to protect them and help them.

“Thank you, my friends,” I thought. “Would you please step aside and allow me to pass?”

As the throng began to part, I started towards the invaders, my sword still dangling from my hand. My idea was to meet them on the other side of the Rowena. I figured there would be less collateral damage that way.

When I reached the tracks, I looked back to the Tribal Hall, to see my family one last time, when I realized they were right behind me.

I stopped, turning to face them.

“Listen to me. I love each of you. There is nothing you can do out there, that you cannot do from here. So please, stay here, stay close together, and give me room to work,” I told them. Then to Penny, Kip, Karla, and Tommy, I thought, “If something happens to me, you get them on that train and out of here. Understand?”

I turned, not waiting for their reply, and crossed the train tracks, alone.

As I approached the spacecraft, I was pretty sure that she had finally arrived. I counted thirteen aliens now on the ground, fanned out in front of the spacecraft, watching me approach.

I came to a complete stop as I felt the ring quivering on my finger.

“What am I doing?” I asked myself. Then swallowing hard, I started towards them. I knew that I had to find a peaceful way to settle this and stop them from destroying our world.

Scanning them to see if the one called Tabita was among them, I was once more surprised to find they used no mind shields. But since I could not understand their language, scanning them did me little good. I focused instead, on searching for the emotional signatures I had felt earlier with the ring’s connection.

When I could not detect her among the warriors on the ground, I tried scanning the spacecraft. There were only two emotional signatures left onboard. They were the two I had felt earlier. This ‘Tabita’ along with the other unseen female.

Stopping some fifty yards from the spacecraft, I was surprised to see that some of the aliens wore swords, similar to the one I still held in my hand.

“How can they destroy Earth with these primitive weapons?” I thought to myself as I began to study them more closely.

If this was indeed the aliens I had been prepared to face, then I already knew that they lived much longer lifespans than we did. Other than that, they appeared remarkably similar to us, with skin tones only slightly darker than ours. If these aliens were representative of their world as a whole, then they were on the short side, with only one of them appearing as tall as I was. They were all thin. I couldn’t decide if that was natural, or the result of their long voyage through space. They seemed almost evenly divided with seven males and six females and there was not a noticeable difference in the heights or weight of the genders.

Their clothing looked to be made of cloth and leather, and they all wore what appeared to be lots of necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other assorted trinkets and charms. The six females wore their hair long, with decorated headbands, and several carried bows, in addition to their swords. The six males also wore their hair long and most carried a triangular shaped shield in addition to their swords. The seventh male was obviously the leader. His eyes never left me, as he appeared to be communicating with the two females still on the ship.

The troops were still fanned out in a line, positioning themselves between the spacecraft and me, but they made no move to advance. I had no tactical or strategic experience, and wasn’t sure what I should do next.

As I stood there facing the thirteen warriors, I took a moment to examine the spacecraft. It was also triangular in shape, with curved edges, making it look like one of the prototypical flying wedges I had read about years ago in Popular Science. It sat on short runners that acted as landing gears, and looked to me to be taller than a two-story house. The fact that it was dirty, streaked, and stained made the craft look old and worn.

“Remember, Michael, they have been traveling for over two hundred of your years in it,” Narvenia said. I thought about the fifteen passengers spending centuries on board the relatively small craft and it boggled my mind.

I heard the train began to move behind me, as I felt Kip approaching.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said as he walked up behind me. “I kinda wanted to watch you work.”

“I’m afraid I’m out of my league on this one,” I confessed. I probably should have added that I was really glad he was here. “Tactically, I have no idea how to proceed.”

“But you have something that any field commander in Nam would have given his left nut for,” Kip replied. “You have good intel. What’s the situation?”

I didn’t think it was that good, but I quickly shared what little I knew, including my earlier connection because of the ring, and my surmise that this was the angry alien woman we had been warned was coming.

“Okay. I sent the villagers to the caves behind the village and put the girls on the train. Tommy’s in the cab with Harvey and I asked him to move the train out of the way. Harvey has an old 12 gauge, and Tommy has a couple of my special pieces. Karla and Penny have the rest,” Kip told me. “He’s a Marine, you know.”

I knew he was referring to Tommy. I also knew that there was no such thing as an ex-Marine.

“Do you sense any other aliens besides the thirteen in front of us and the two still on the spacecraft?” Kip asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Okay, Two against fifteen. I’ve seen worse odds. Do you know if your paralyzing thing will work on these guys?” Kip asked.

I had no idea.

“Anna, if I show you their minds, could you tell me if they are similar to ours?” I asked.

“I’ll try,” Anna replied.

I picked the apparent leader and scanned him for Anna.

“They appear very similar, but there are differences as well. Their basal ganglia appear to be in the right place, but I cannot readily show you their motor cortex,” Anna said. “It will take some trial and error.”

“So we don’t know if your paralyzing thing will work,” Kip summed up. “Do you want to try and find out now?”

“Not just yet. Except for the reported threat, and maybe trespassing, they haven’t done anything yet,” I replied. “Maybe we can settle this peacefully.”

We stood there watching them. The warriors appeared to be waiting on something.

“You know,” Kip told me thoughtfully, “something doesn’t seem right here. Narvenia told us that an angry alien was threatening to destroy our world, yet her troops are standing there with very primitive clothing and weapons.”

“I know,” I replied. “it is weird. You know what else I find a little weird?”

“What’s that?” Kip replied in a casual voice.

“How did she know to come here? I mean, the earth’s a big place. Granted, we’re the only ones to know she was coming, but how did she find us?” I asked. “Do you think they could be homing in on the ring?”

“That’s a good...” Kip started.

Suddenly, the air surrounding the ship shimmered as an opening appeared under the spacecraft.

“So their spaceship has some sort of shielding,” I mused to myself. Obviously, their shield didn’t stop my empathic abilities, but it explained why the troops had not seemed too concerned about us.

When I scanned the emerging alien, I knew immediately it was the one who had said her name was Tabita. She was dressed as her warriors, except she seemed to be adorned with even more ornamental trinkets. And she wore a wicked looking dagger on her belt. She walked to stand beside the male I had surmised was the leader of the ground force.

“Can you tell what they are saying?” Kip asked.

I connected him to their conversation. “Do you know Greek?” I asked him. “Because it’s all Greek to me!”

“Spanish and a little Vietnamese,” Kip chuckled. “Sorry, no Greek.”

We stood studying them, as they seemed to do the same. Finally, Tabita took a few steps forward.

“Heads up!” Kip said quickly as he looked all around.

“Welcome to our world,” I thought to her from where we stood. I guess it sounded pretty lame, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. It turned out that it didn’t matter because she never bothered to answer.

“Why do you possess Don’rahall’s sword?” Tabita asked me. She seemed surprised to see me with the sword.“How did you get it?”

Tabita had spoken of the ring when I had accidently connected to her earlier and I had begun to suspect it then. Now, as she saw the sword in my hand, her question removed any doubt. I KNEW what had happened to her Don’rahall.

“It’s a long story, Tabita,” I replied. “One I would be glad to share with you. But not while you threaten to destroy my world.”

“With Don’rahall no longer alive, my mother counsels to just destroy your miserable little planet and be gone,” she stated. “Tell me, why I shouldn’t do just that?”

I studied her for a moment before replying. I found myself wondering what had driven her to travel all this way. “Was she really seeking her lost mate?” I asked myself.

“The best reason I can come up with, is that I do not wish for anyone to die,” I told her. “However, I think I know what happened to Don’rahall. If you destroy us, I’m almost certain you will never know what happened to him.”

I could feel Tabita relaying our words to the others. There appeared to be a serious discussion going on.

“See if you can find out HOW she plans to destroy the world,” Kip thought to me.

Before I could say anything, Tabita turned her attention back to me. Then raising her closed fist to the sky, she began a short chant. In moments, the sky turned dark and lightning began to flash. It was the cloud-to-cloud type, common on summer evenings. Suddenly, a large bolt of lightning broke from the clouds, striking the earth between the spacecraft and the train, now over a half mile away. The earth beneath our feet shook as if it was an earthquake, knocking Kip and I to the ground. A large crater appeared in the ground, causing part of the tracks between the train and the loading platform to collapse, as a large cloud of earth and dust hid the train from view.

“THAT,” Kip exclaimed, “was no ordinary lightning strike!”

The words were barely out of his mouth, when suddenly, the winds began to howl, blowing the dust and debris toward the village. In moments, the entire village was covered in a layer of dirt and ashes.

Tabita lowered her hand, clutching it to her breast with her other hand as she looked towards me. It was then that I noted that she wore a ring. It appeared similar to the one that I wore and I became aware of an odd sensation emanating throughout my body.

“We are not as primitive as you think,” she said, haughtily. “I want the sword and that ring!”

“Strange,” I thought. “It’s almost as if my ring is attracted to the one she wears. But yet, her ring does not seem to fit with her emotionally.”

I slowly climbed back to my feet, dusting myself off. I was stalling for time as I considered. Then raising my left hand, I pointed my ring to the sky as she had done moments earlier and began to repeat her chant, focusing on her spacecraft. To say I had no clue of what I was doing was the understatement of the century, but I figured it was worth the shot.

Within moments, the clouds gathered again, but this time, much darker and more ominous. As I felt my power flow through the ring, I felt myself growing weak as the ring drained the energy from me. I was approaching the point of having to quit, when I felt the girls. They had begun channeling their love to me just as they had been practicing. As they did, my energy returned.

“Focus, Michael,” Deedee cried.

What happened next was truly remarkable. If not for my shield, Kip and I would have both been injured. But when the girls’ love surged through me, amplified somehow by Deedee’s abilities, a bolt of white light that looked like lightning, flashed from the ring, up to the clouds and then back to earth, striking the spacecraft.

Kip and I were blown off our feet by the ensuing explosion, landing more than a dozen paces away. But other than that, we were unharmed, again, thanks to my shield.

When the lightning struck the shield surrounding the spacecraft, it had sizzled and popped. But the craft remained whole. However, Tabita, and the troops on the ground were blown off their feet, away from the craft. Most were knocked unconscious by the blast.

That turned out to be a good thing because the spacecraft’s shield had caused the energy from the lightning strike to go around it, striking the ground. A huge crater, even larger than the one Tabita had made, appeared directly beneath one side of the spacecraft.

Kip and I watched as their spacecraft slowly toppled over on its side, sliding into the large crater. It came to rest almost back to level with only a slight list to starboard, halfway down the side of the crater.

Suddenly, I sensed the other female inside the spacecraft as she cried out in pain. Quickly I ran towards the ship, Kip right on my heels. The only entrance I was aware of was on the bottom of the craft, now buried in the crater. With the dust and dirt still swirling around, I called out to Tabita.

“Is there another entry?” I shouted in my mind.

There was no answer.

“What would it look like?” Kip asked. He was only a few feet away, but I could barely make out his form when I heard him choking on the dust.

“I have no idea,” I replied. I could hear the trapped female whimpering in pain beneath my feet.

“The main hatch is buried,” came a female voice. “The other one can only be opened from inside the ship.”

“Find Tabita,” I told the unknown voice.

I stopped and pulled myself erect, closing my eyes to the swirling dust. Then focusing on the living things, then the earth, and finally, the ring, I began to sense the spaceship. I was expecting some elaborate and technically exhaustive readings as my senses homed in on the craft. But it was a surprisingly simple feeling. I felt the ring on my left hand began to pulse with energy and the spaceship below my feet responding as if they were old friends.

“I have GOT to ask Narvenia about this!” I thought as I felt the two inanimate objects pulse with energy.

Then stepping about four paces to my right, I felt Tabita’s mother directly beneath me. She was alive, but her pain was overriding everything else, so she couldn’t speak to me.

“Help is on the way,” I thought to her. “Hang on!”

Stepping away from where I had sensed her, I lifted my sword over my head, focusing all my energy on the ring once again. Then, with a powerful downward swing, powered by the ring, the sword split open the spacecraft’s outer skin like a knife through warm butter. Another quickly repeated stroke formed a ‘V’ in the hull. Then, using the blade to pry open the point of the ‘V’, I tried to pull back the skin.

Kip stumbled into me just then with an “Oomph!”

“Help me!” I thought. “There’s someone in there. They’re injured.”

But even together, we could not bend it back enough to get in.

“Stand back!” I told Kip. Then raising the sword high and focusing on the ring one more time, I slashed again. This time across the wide end of the ‘V’. Then stomping on the triangle, the ‘V’ shaped portion of the hull crashed to the deck below. Quickly I peered inside, but it was too dark and dusty to see anything.

“Take my hand,” Kip shouted. “I’ll let you down.”

Sheathing my sword, I grabbed Kip’s hand. Then sitting on the edge of the opening I slid down into the darkness. I felt the ragged edge of the hull rip through the skin on the back of my leg causing me to wince in pain as I twisted my body away from the edge. Holding on to Kip’s arm, my dangling feet frantically searched for a purchase, but there was none. Finally, I just let go of Kip’s arm and plummeted into the unknown abyss. Turns out, it was only a foot or so, so I was able to maintain my balance as I landed on the triangular piece of hull. I quickly looked around in the darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I realized I was able to see by the dim glow of lights from what looked like instrument panels around the craft.

Based on my extensive knowledge of spacecraft, mainly from Gene Roddenberry, and other sci-fi writers, I decided I had landed on the bridge. Tabita’s mother was lying on the deck. A large bank of machinery had broken away from the bulkhead, pinning her down across her lower legs. She was conscious, but rapidly going into shock. She grabbed hold of my ankle, still whimpering in pain.

I quickly tried to lift the machinery up, but it was too heavy.

“Kip, it’s about seven feet down. I need help. She’s trapped by some fallen debris and I cannot budge it,” I told him.

“We need something to use as a lever,” he said aloud. He was at my side almost before I finished my thought.

We searched quickly, but saw nothing we could use for a lever. Spotting a console chair with a metal frame mounted to the deck in front of a bank of monitors, I drew my sword and slashed through the chair, removing the back of the chair.

Kip grabbed the metal chair-back, sliding one end under the machine bank, and grunted as he gave a mighty heave. I grabbed the barely conscious woman and slid her clear just as Kip’s strength gave out and the bank of machines crashed back to the deck.

“Thanks,” I told him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied still breathing hard. “How do you plan to get her out of here?”

“Give me a minute,” I told him, still breathing a little hard myself.

The alien woman groaned, but otherwise didn’t move. The spacecraft appeared stable for the moment, so I focused on the woman’s injuries. There was no blood, but her right ankle was twisted awkwardly and swollen.

“Can you straighten out her ankle?” I asked Kip. “Maybe then I can help her.”

“Should we try that?” Kip asked. “It’s not normally the way to handle a break like this. Maybe we should just put a splint on it until Anna can look at it. After all, they aren’t from here, you know. They may not be built the same.”

“You’re probably right,” I replied. “But I think she’s going into shock and we’ve got to do something. I’d like to try to see if I can heal it, but not with it twisted like that.”

Kip shrugged as he reached out his hands to her ankle. “I hope you know what you’re doing”

“Me too!” I replied.

“Get ready. This is bound to hurt some,” he said as he tugged the woman’s ankle back into place. She let out a shriek and fainted. I was ready and immediately began to flood her ankle with the golden glow I used on humans. It didn’t seem to be working at first, but then I felt the familiar feelings as her body drew on my energies to begin healing itself. I felt my powers began to wane.

“Help,” I said softly to the girls. I don’t know what they were doing in the wake of the excitement outside the craft, and they asked me no questions, but suddenly, my energy level began to rise.

“Thanks!” I told them a couple of minutes later. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Are you and Kip okay,” Penny asked. I could feel her concern. Oddly, I sensed most of it was for Kip. So I connected them, as I said with a grin, “Kip, Penny wants to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. A little tired,” he replied. “Unfortunately, I don’t have thirty women to draw on like some people I know.”

“Oh-o-o. I’ll thirty women you when I get my hands on you!” Penny said. You could sense the relief in her voice. “Okay, Palmer, report!”

“Michael made the lightning strike the ship, causing a crater under it. As the UFO slid into the crater, one of the aliens still inside became trapped. Michael then used his sword to cut a hole in the hull of the spaceship. We entered and rescued one alien female trapped under some wreckage. Michael is healing her as we speak. The opening is about seven feet up and we have no way to get out or to transport the injured woman,” Kip summed up the situation.

“Help is on the way,” Penny said. “Hang on. Are you in danger?”

“I think we’re okay. The spaceship appears stable, but I don’t know what will happen if we get a bunch of people on the hull,” Kip replied.

“Michael,” Anna jumped in. “What are you doing to that woman?”

I replayed what I had found and then how she had responded to my healing glow. “She seems to be resting now. I can still sense some pain, but nothing else appears to be broken and there is no blood visible.” I told her. “I’m just trying to keep her comfortable until help arrives.”

Suddenly, one of the alien females dropped to the deck, landing in a crouch. She stood and immediately drew her sword as she surveyed the situation.

I was sitting on the deck, with my legs spread, holding the injured woman’s head in my lap. Kip had also been resting, leaning back on his hands as he rested. So neither of us could reach our weapons quickly enough to defend ourselves.

I debated for only a millisecond before searching out what Anna had thought was their motor cortex and tweaking it slightly. The female trooper immediately dropped her sword, collapsing to the deck beside me.