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An Alien War

Old leather crackled a sharply pungent scent as Mark slid into the battle worn seat and sighed.

The canopy sidled back into place, whispering a lament to his fore-concluded fate. Atom fine filaments ignited, lacing the glass in incandescent fury as a million tendrils of silicon engineering augmented the fleeting landscape. It was a cartoon caricature of reality.

Noradrenalin burned his veins as he slowly activated the ignition and sent a muffled howl of insidious pain into the vacant silence, the whimpering exhaust of antiquated jet engines

sang a miserable epitaph.

The plane shuddered and the cellophane scene pivoted around him, focused on the steel-edged runway.

A faint rustle.

Gracefully the flight suit rose. A chain mail contrivance on gossamer thread, fed by a thousand rainbow cables. Assiduously it draped around him and multitudinous sensors pierced his skin.

Man? Machine?

Vibrant pulses tuned his brain.

No, computer.

Console lights sparked to fervent life, steel lidded eyes masked in a funereal cage.

"Welcome back, Mark."

Mark nodded needlessly as data flooded the bio-interface, the computer would understand.

"It's good to be back BEKI," he spoke. It felt strange to hear his voice, "are we ready for flight?"

"Five minutes," BEKI crooned, "runway 9 is being patched."

"Good," Mark muttered, "I want to get going."

BEKI sighed dolefully.

"You still have a high impatience quotient, Mark."

"And you're still a wise-arsed lump of steel."

Console lights flickered in mild amusement.

"Sticks and stones......"

THURSDAY 28.12.06, 18:25:57

MARK TOWNSEND, MAJOR. ACE PILOT. RECENTLY RETURNED FROM SICK LEAVE, WOUNDED IN ACTION. ENGLISH. SINGLE. TENDENCY TO ARROGANT DISREGARD FOR ORDERS. SELECTED FOR MISSION 'SUICIDE'

"...names will never... Runway nine's clear." BEKI hummed, mindless of Mark's sour remarks. "I am entering launch procedure."

A dizzying landscape swung wildly beyond the canopy screens. Plastic clouds and trees scampered as the plane accelerated, locked onto his fractured pathway to the sky. Runway lamps trailed, like plucked eyes, in shattered remains on the concrete.

"Well, buddy, here we go," an inept voice crackled through the earpiece.

"Keep your eyes open," Mark snapped. "We've lost three planes before take off, I don't want to be the fourth."

"Peeled and skinned," the voice rustled archaically, the old intercom anomalous in the hi tech plane. "No Gloop will catch me off guard man. Haa!"

To Mark's left the flare of an exploding Gloop glowered purple in the sky.

"Thanks Alfrik," Mark paused, shaken, "I hope you keep it up."

"No sweat brother."

THURSDAY 28.12.06, 18:45:07

ALFRIK CHALCA, LIEUTENANT, REAR GUNNER, SURVIVOR OF SIXTEEN HITS UNWOUNDED, HIGHLY COMMENDED AT HEAVY LASER GUNS, HIGHEST RECORDED DESTROY RATE, AMERICAN, ENGAGED, SUSPECTED OF MENTAL INSTABILITY. SELECTED FOR MISSION 'SUICIDE'

Where had it come from? Mark swallowed, the Gloops grew smarter every mission. Stonewalling Alfrik's flippant remarks he launched the plane, aware that his opinion of the black man varied as greatly as the sloppy American's mood.

Mark rubbed his jaw with uncomfortable memory. Alfrik's berserk rage had almost killed him once.

Almost.

Mark shook his head. Mad or not no one was a better gunner and this time he'd need the best.

"We're coming onto course," BEKI intoned. "Estimated time of arrival, 21:55:21 hours. Any instructions?"

"Just keep our heads low." Mark growled, annoyed at BEKI's nonchalance. "And keep an ear open for base. I want to know if a Gloop so much as sniffs our vapor."

"Understood."

BEKI fell silent.

Mark perused the papers again, his fingers an iridescent shimmer in the Suit. The Suit, another wonder of science, a computerized sensory amplifier. Amplified tenfold the paper's surface irritated his skin. Automatic lenses focused on the inks. Flight plans, briefing charts. Already a second memory to him, he read them again, to be certain.

"So, man, the Gloops have sent down big brother?" Alfrik's scornful tone vibrated in his ears. "Don't think it'll stay long, we're gonna make it hot."

"Don't get cocky," Mark's comment sizzled the line, "it's taken out seventeen fighters and none of them got near enough to see it. There's no visual description at all."

"Yea, yea, I know all that crap man. But this time they've got the best. D'you know who they sent last time. Rookies man, pure rookies. Didn't even have a Sigma to their collar. Sure, we're the guys to cook Gloops, even Gloop's big brother."

"We've got Tyro flying wing," Mark added bitterly.

Alfrik's shocked silence gratified him, the black man's heavy breath silenced the mute air.

"Hey man, how'd that happen. How'd that albino sheep tick suck his way into this. Shit! Take us back before Dickhead blasts us."

"Hold it!" Mark warned. "Greeny worked this one Alfrik, there's no way out save feet first or busted civvies, and you know what that'll mean."

"Aw c'mon, why us? What's Greeny got against two hot blooded Americans, hey I forgot, you're a limey. Sorry man, no offence."

"Just keep a can on it," Mark advised, inwardly cursing Greenward. "We'll sort it out when the jobs done. Greeny won't get away with it again."

Mark sensed Alfrik's tension, the inbred anger. Slowly the black man relaxed. It was good, they had a tough target and he needed Alfrik's coolness, not his frustration.