Codename Alpha

Chapter 12

"No kidding. It'd be interesting to see what that... you know, big white building back there, actually sold," Vance said, pointing back down in the direction we had come from.

"Anything and everything, as far as we're concerned," I added. "Let's just hope none of them called the police, huh?"

"Something tells me that whoever was driving the car that nearly hit us wasn't too pleased. Probably got reported for jaywalking, as well as the top crime of alien-being," Jack said.

I looked around. We were close to the top, with only a few more levels to go. I looked back over in the direction we had come, and could recognize one of the big cranes I had seen when getting off the train. For a moment, I could've sworn I saw the rusted white container we had ridden in, but I figured that the train was already long gone by now. "I guess that, in a way, we're pulling off a sort of divide-and-conquer thing. While they're busy searching the crash site, they'll find out about the distress signal, as well as the potential police reports from anyone who saw us down there."

"Quite," I said. After that, the three of us just looked at the cityscape below. It wasn't beautiful, in the strictest sense of the word - there were multiple smokestacks spread about near the river, for instance, but it still somehow felt pretty in it's own, unexplainable right. I spotted the planet's moon, far to the right of the city, pretty high in the sky. "Too much to focus on at one time. Same goes for us, though."

For a moment, I wondered if I would be able to spot the Valiant in orbit of their moon, when something suddenly occurred to me. "I would not be surprised if they've spotted the Valiant. They likely picked us up with radar, and it's not a stretch to say that they've got deep space versions."

"I mean, that's bad, but how does that change our situation?" Vance asked, sounding a bit confused.

"Well, I guess it doesn't really change much from our perspective. It's just... a thing, I guess. They could interpret its presence and assume it's a warship, and then try and blow it out of the sky with an ICBM, or something."

"If they can get radar back online, they could probably hold their own against a missile assault," Jack said.

"The Valiant is armed with a single point-defense minigun, meant to shoot down meteoroids that get too close for comfort. But, there's a big difference between space rocks and nuclear warheads," I responded.

Ensign Vance broke in before our mini-argument could be continued. "You're both jumping to some pretty extreme conclusions. I mean, sure, they might try and attack the ship, but they could also try to send up a spacecraft of their own to make contact. You're assuming that they're an explicitly hostile race because they shot us down." She sighed. "Well, that's sorta understandable... but you get my point, I hope. Let's just pray it never comes to missiles being launched at the Valiant, alright? Also, I feel that we should really stay mobile for as long as it's daytime. These roads look fairly traveled."

I looked down at the path. She was right. Tire tracks were all over. "Right. Let's head up there, and we'll figure out what to do next," I said, pointing up at the peak.

I walked to the hill and began to head upwards once more. I stopped and held onto one of the plant lattices for balance when the abrupt screaming sound of jets came in. I looked to where the source of the sound was coming from. More jets, these ones of a different design, were coming directly in our direction. They were coming in for an unnervingly low pass.

"Keep your heads down, everyone." I glanced back and saw that they were seconds away from passing directly overhead. Every bone in my body was screaming for me to immediately take cover. However, they flew past us without any trouble, and I breathed a massive sigh of relief.

"God, I thought they were strafing us," Jack commented.

"They would've fired way earlier if they were out to kill us. Hopefully, they just thought we were farmers," I responded. I turned around to face both Jack and Vance. "Besides, sending up some attack jets to kill only three people is way more of a chore than just sending some guy with a rifle out."

"You know, part of me is really concerned about why there are so many jets out and about," Vance said. "But, honestly, so long as they're not after us, let them fight their own fights."

"Agreed," I said.