MOTHER'S LOVE
by E.W.
Richardson
"Have you ever seen a UFO?"
"Like in flying saucers?
No, I can't say that I have. Why do you ask?"
"Well, quite a few have been
reported along this route. In fact they are about as common as the
deer."
"Really? You would think
the Air Defense boys would be all over the place."
"Yeah, well, the boys in blue
are interested all right, and they've screwed up already. Did you
hear about those choppers disappearing last week? About twenty of
us saw the whole show, until the choppers went into the mountains that
is."
"What happened? I've
been out of the country and haven't caught up on the news."
"Well, HATT-148 radioed that
several UFO's were buzzing him. So the air-heads sent three, attack
choppers to intercept them. They were all over the sky firing cannons
and missiles and all they hit were cactus groves and rocks. The UFO's
shagged ass into the mountains, and the dumbass choppers followed.
They're still looking for some trace of them."
"What about the tracers?
Aren't those birds equipped with tracers in case they go down? What
about communications?"
"No tracers were found.
As for the communications, they have a broken transmission from one of
the choppers... want to hear it?"
"Sure, but how. . .?"
"All HATT's have onboard recording
devices, just in case. Hang on a second. . .okay. . .here we go.
. ."
The recording began suddenly.
The soft whump-whump of the chopper's blades was barely audible above the
hysterical screaming of the pilot.
POP 31. . .POP 31.
. .30 AND 33 ARE GONE. REPEAT. 30 AND 33 ARE GONE... THEY ATE
THEM... DO YOU READ... THEY ATE THEM!
The translation burst into
static, through which could be heard muffled gunfire. Also, a strange sound
was growing, a dull roar that was increasing in intensity. Over the roar,
which was nearly deafening, the pilot was still
screaming, but only one word came through clearly.
. .
TEETH. . .TEETH. . .TEEEEEEETH.
. . (click)
"Well, what do you think of
that?"
"Weird."
"Yeah, real weird."
They rode in silence for a
while. The younger of the two men disconnected his safety harness
and went into the privacy cubicle.
On the way he picked up his
bag. Once inside the cubicle, he swiftly assembled a micro-transmitter
and punched in a rapid series of numbers. Slipping the transmitter back
into the bag he reached for the door, then,
stopped. Reaching once more in the bag, he slipped
a heavy assault pistol and two extra magazines into the thigh pouch of
his coveralls.
Back in the control cab, the
older man leaned back in his safety lounge and popped open a beer.
With practiced ease, he scanned the control panels and made several adjustments
to insure the big rig stayed on course. His
name was Don and he had been driving Heavy All
Terrain Transports for nearly 20 years. He reached out and caressed
the smooth dash of the control panel. He was going to miss the old girl.
Nearly two decades of his life had been spent in this vehicle. Yep,
ole HATT-028 was as much a part of him as his jockey shorts.
Don's young apprentice returned
to his lounge and buckled himself in. Don watched as the young man checked
the control board and make note of the adjustments made. He nodded
to himself, pleased with the youngster's
performance.
They rode in silence for several
minutes, then Don casually reached out and shut off the window screens.
Suddenly the two men were greeted with a view that few were privileged
to see; an unfiltered panorama of the Great
Southwestern Desert.
Don watched his trainee out
of the corner of his eye to see what effect this would have, and he wasn't
disappointed.
"Well, what do you think,
Martin?"
The young man just sat gazing
around him in obvious wonder.
"Holy shit!"
PING. . .PING. . .PING. .
.
Don frowned and looked toward
the side-scan radar screen.
"We've got a contact here.
. .speed 1700. . .range 5 miles. ..crap, how come we didn't get it sooner.
. .uh oh. . .we have multiples now..."
Martin leaned forward and
armed both the guns and the armor. He also hit the HELP transmitter.
"Well, looky here. . .real
honest-to-God UFO's."
The three silvery disks swooped
in from the south and began to circle the huge transport. Don punched
the turbo and their speed went past 250 almost instantly.
"Guns are inoperative, armor
is down, communications are down."
"Are you sure?" Don asked
calmly.
"Absolutely." Martin replied,
not so calmly.
Don pulled the Mark 9A carbine
from its holster on the bulkhead. He opened a firing port and fired
a burst at the nearest saucer. It burst into a pinkish cloud flecked
with silver. Drops and splats of thick, pink, liquid smeared the
window.
One of the disks suddenly
dove on them. It began to roar, a sound that Martin had heard on
the chopper transmission. It reminded the younger man of a tornado
that had ripped through his home town on Old Earth. As it
approached, the leading edge of the disk split
to reveal a gaping mouth filled with hundreds of curved steely teeth.
Martin took careful aim and as the gun fired, he understood the fear the
chopper pilot must have felt.
At Martin's shot, the disk
closed the mouth and to the astonished eyes of the human, changed it's
shape into something that resembled a huge, silver, bird of prey.
It smashed, talons first, into the transport.
The impact was tremendous.
One silver claw, looking like a sword pierced the cab and severed Don's
left hand. He yelled in agony and emptied the carbine through the
shattered window at the creature. It burst like a rotten
melon, showering them with chunks of pink flesh
and silver exoskeleton. The transport slowed and ground to a halt.
Martin shook his head and
wiped gelatinous matter from his face. In the distance, he heard
the sound of a tornado. Slowly he raised himself to his feet.
The sound was so loud now that the metal cab was vibrating. Unsteadily,
he turned to face the source of the noise. It was no funnel of black
clouds that he saw approaching, but a huge, tooth-studded mouth that seemed
to fill the sky. Martin aimed and began to fire, one shot on top
of the other. Fifty feet from the disabled transport, the creature
burst.
"Well, ole buddy, I think
in the future you had better get a bigger gun."
"Obviously," replied Martin,
still breathing hard. "How long have you heavy haulers known about
those things?"
On the horizon, a dozen or
more attack craft were approaching rapidly. Don watched them approach as
he applied the MedKit to his injury. "About three years or so.
They never bothered people until you guys, I presume you
are Air Defense? Yeah, I thought so, until
you guys started terraforming. You should have left well enough alone.
"
"You can't stop progress,"
replied Martin scornfully.
"Well, old buddy, maybe we
can and maybe we can't, but somebody sure is gonna try," said Don gazing
toward the south.
In the distance a huge swirling
cloud was racing toward them. A ground shaking roar was growing.
"What the hell is that?" asked
Martin apprehensively reaching for his transmitter.
"Well, just off hand," said
Don, opening a beer and loading his carbine, "I'd say it's probably Mom."
As Martin began to yell into
the communicator, the mile wide disk of the mother ship could be seen emerging
from the cloud of dust and vapor.
-end-