The Craft, Quentin Pheonix [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

The Craft

1-Alien Invaders

Quinn worked high up in the military. He was stationed at the control room at military base in the city. The city was bathed in twilight for all but a few hours of the day.

In the evening, after dinner, when they arrived home, Quinn noticed some strange aircraft flying through the sky. The lights that flashed on them were abnormal. There was a standard light flashing pattern for all aircraft in the city that they all had to adhere to. But the craft that flew overhead used a different pattern, and the colours of the lights were conspicuously different to standard. “Let’s smoke a joint,” said Jenine, getting out of the car.

“There’s something suspicious about these planes,’ he said, pointing. ‘I’ll be in in a few minutes.’ Jenine went inside and put on some jazz music and got into her pyjamas. Quinn walked across the road to the park to get a better view.

It was a warm night. Quinn watched the horizen. After a minute, one of the craft appeared. If flew towards him. The shape was quite flat and sqaurish. Definately not like anything from around here. He tried to make out the detail, but the ship was shrouded in a cloud of fog, hiding its finer aspects from his vision. Listening closely, he found that the ship made no sound as it went. It flew silenty past him and gradually decreased in size until it disappeared.

From the same spot, another one of them appeared and flew at right angles from the direction of the previous ship. It crossed him on the far side of the city.

Turning around and scanning the sky, he saw yet another one of the strange craft approaching. It’s bright lights could be seen flashing within the shroud of mist that cloaked it. He jogged through the park and down the street in order to get directly beneath the ships flightline.

It flew low right over him. From this close, he was able to see through the fog to glimpse some of the detail of the bottom of the ship. A six-spoked metal wheel spun slowly at the bottom of the ship. He took a couple of pictures with his camera.

For the next hour, Quinn watched as the craft flew overhead, taking pictures of them with his phone as they went. One by one, a fleet of these abnormal ships gathered over the city. Tracing the flight line, he saw that they emerged from somewhere on the horizon and disappeared on the opposite side behind him. From there, another stream of ships emerged, and they flew on an angle to the other horizon so as to make a giant triangle over the city. They were taking dominion of the sky, in the shape of a giant triangle. Something gave him the feeling that they were being scanned; collecting data.

He took his phone and called Holt at the military base and told him what he’d seen, and sent him the pictures. “Seems strange,’ said Holt. Holt then checked the radar for any signs of the ships, and found nothing. “There’s no sign of them.’

‘Look out the window and face east of the tower,’ said Quinn. But Holt still couldn’t discern the ships from the other clouds and mist in the atmosphere. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ said Holt.

Back inside, Jenine was singing along to the music. Quinn opened his laptop and scanned for more data about the ships. He was in contact with Holt at the base as they worked together to try and solve the problem. “Come to bed,” said Jenine.

Quinn looked at her. She was beautiful. That was the thing that attracted him to her. Then he looked back at the screen. The problem of the unidentified ships was imminent; the need to work on them pressed upon him. But work would still be there in the morning, and it was his birthday, after all. He left the programme running and hopped to bed.

In the morning, the sound of a low flying aircraft roused him. He went to the window, and then out to the balcony. It was still warm. The cat was on the balcony. The sound of the engined roared from behind him. He turned his head just in time to see an airplane roar right over the roof. The cloud of fog was only a sparse mist, now. And the shape and form of the ship was more like the aircraft in the city. But there were still a few abnormalies in certain parts of the plane, and the spectacular lights marked it as the same as the ones who had appeared before. They had undergone a distinct change in the time he’d been in bed. He knew of no known technology in the world capable of doing this. Just as the plane passed overhead, the cat went flying up from the balcony and got sucked into the wheel at the bottom of the ship. He showered and readied to go. Janine was doing her stretches. ‘I had the strangest dream,’ she said.

2-Dominion of the Skies

At the tower, Quinn and Holt studied the pictures. “I’ve never seen anything like this,’ said Holt. The craft were invisible to radar. They had to scan the sky in order to detect them. They could only see where the craft were in the one moment in time. They were able to do only one scan of the skies per minute. Quinn made contact with them in every way he could, but the craft were unresponsive. By midday they had taken dominion of the skies. Planes and helicoptes that had transformed from the original ships’ shapes flew all about the place, like boats on an ethereal ocean. “They’re in disrepute!’ said Holt. The crafts’ spectacular flashing lights of silver, gold and ruby, startled him. ‘Let’s shoot ‘em down.’ Holt dialled the government. ‘We are being attacked by an unknown host with alien technology. We are going to fire.’

‘Permission denied,’ said Rebecca the stateswoman. ‘We noticed them. They are clearly benign.’

‘Who knows about this?’ asked Quinn.

‘Not many,’ said Rebecca. ‘They appear to have gone unnoticed.’

‘Have you spoken to the other cities?’

‘Yes. They didn’t notify us of any similar phenomenon occurring there. We’re the only ones.’

‘We should alert the media on this,’ said Quinn.

‘Are you crazy?’ said Holt.

‘Let’s not be rash,’ said Rebecca.

‘The media will only cloud the issues,’ said Holt.

‘Keep working on it,’ said Rebecca. ‘I’ll get back to you soon.’

Quinn and Holt went back to work trying to find out where the craft went to when they disappeared over the horizen. Extra ships appeared to be popping up out of nowhere, and disappearing again. ‘Where are they hiding?’ demanded Holt.

That time of the day when the sun rose and shed its light upon the city for a few hours came. The stars dissipated, and the sky was lit. Holt got on the phone and ordered a squadron of jets to be launched immediately for a mission. The mission was to hunt down one of the alien craft and surround, harangue, or in any way subdue it.

The jets took off and flew in a loose pack as they stalked the pack of alien ships, looking for one to prey. Holt and Quinn communicated with the jet pilots over the radio, guiding them. But the craft were illusory on their radars, and even their eyes seemed to be playing tricks on them. ‘Surround one of them,’ commanded Holt.

Using all their auronaughtical nous, they were to trap one of the craft, any single one of them, by surrounding them, harangueing them, using what ever means necessary short of blasting them down to assert the military’s authority over them.

The jets took off. Using skill and communication, they managed to surround one of the ships in the form of a utilitarian chopper with windows. “We have you surrounded,’ said Holt to the chopper through the radio, ‘Identify yourself, immediately.’ The chopper hovered nonchalantly. ‘You are an unauthorised aircraft trespassing on military airspace. Respond to this communication, or prepare to pay the consequences...This is city command to you in the chopper: answer yourself, now!’

The chopper dipped back and forth, and in the blink of an eye it had darted beneath the jets into a gap left in their formation, and it sprang away into gap between itself and the jets that left them languishing. ‘After them!’ ordered Holt. The jets recovered their pace and set off in pursuit of the chopper. With a higher top speed, it was only a matter of time until they caught up to the chopper. But the chopper was more dexterous, and try as they might, the jets were unable to hem the chopper in. It led them on a merry goose chase to the outskirts of town. ‘Take it down!’ ordered Holt. ‘I said fire!’ But the radio had cut out. The jets had reached the point outside the city where the radio waves no longer reached, in the reach between cities. Holt got on the phone to call the nearest city in the direction in which the jets had gone, but the call couldn’t be connected.

Rebecca burst through the doors. ‘Your unauthorised methods just cost you your job. I’m ordering you to stand down, Holt.’

‘My methods have never failed before. I may have lost out on this one occassion, but you can’t keep me out of the military. I was born to die in war.’

‘Far be it from me to hold you back from your destiny,’ said Rebecca, ‘But the citizens of this city have had enough. Get out.’ Holt left the room. ‘I’m trusting you to keep things safe with the military,’ said Rebecca to Quinn.

‘They’ve taken dominion of the skies. It’s untenable. I advise that all commercial flights be cancelled, until we can decipher their intentions.’ ‘Thank you for your advise, but you are to proceed with regular operations. It’s business as usual.’

‘Why all the hiding? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

Rebecca confided in him: ‘There’s evidence just in that we’re heading into a recession. It would be unhelpful to put the breaks on industry. As long as they don’t get in our way, don’t do anything.’ Rebecca left.

Quinn assumed command. Quinn pelted the craft with radio transmissions designed to scramble their electronics and compasses. There was a slight response from the craft as the effects of the transmissions were felt, and a moment later they adapted to the interference and retained normalcy in their operations. He sent audio signals of all frequencies in demand that the craft should acknowledge their reception of his attempts to communicate immediately,’ but his cries were flagrantly disregarded.

The sun went down and the sky faded back into twighlight.

Quinn got on the phone and called a nearby city to see if the same phenomena were occuring there. There was no response. He tried several times, to several different cities in the nearby lands to theirs, but nobody was answering anywhere.

All around him, there were murmurrs in the staff about UFO’s. Quinn continued to work on the radars, gathering information and sending signals to influence the ships. Holt came back in.

The time of day when the regular staff finished their shifts came. One of them approached him on behalf of the crew. ‘We’ve lost dominion of the skies. What’s going on?’

‘We’re being invaded,’ Quinn said.

‘Don’t be crazy!’ said Holt, interrupting. ‘These people deserve the truth. Those planes you’ve noticed are just a cheap political stunt. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, but I won’t have discontent breaking in to my staff through perpetuating lies!’

The staff accepted what Holt had said and left the building. ‘Are you crazy?’ asked Holt. ‘You’ll waste a good thing.’

‘What, ‘good thing?’”

‘See, the truth,’ said Holt, ‘Is something you possess,