Then I woke up....
By Richard Austin, 11
With the morning sun on its wings and slowly growing bigger, it came from the east, a giant silver unidentified flying object. It stunned the small crowd at the local market. The market was always body to body on a Saturday, but this day most of the shoppers had remained in their homes after two Haitian MiG 21's had reported a UFO in Haitian air space. All the people of Haiti were terrified, all except Jordan Leppie.
Jordan was born in a boxcar and raised in a tough neighborhood. He didn't believe anything until he saw it for himself. The reports made him curious; "a silver UFO" he thought, and then derided himself for even contemplating such a foolish thing. He was not one to sit around indoors so he decided to check it out for himself. When he walked out of the boxcar which was his home, he was greeted with the horrible sounds of men, women, and children screaming , while a mysterious red light from the space ship shone onto the crowd.
It was now hovering 30 meters above the Caribbean Sea. One by one the people were being beamed up into the spaceship, never to be seen again. Jordan spotted his mother, Joanne, one meter above the earth. Thinking only about the one person who cared and loved him, and with total disregard to his own safety, Jordan ran and pushed his mother out of the red beam only to be captured himself . The red beam then moved just 50 centimeters over to where Joanne was lying on the ground, and lifted her to the spaceship as well.
The two MiG 21 planes that reported the UFO witnessed all the events that took place in the market. Their next decision was either caused by fear or hate. The decision to shoot down the UFO would also be their last. With a big bang eight air to air combat missiles struck the UFO but only four did the damage, the other four ricocheted off the haul and two of them hit each plane. The missiles hit the UFO's twin engines. It then stalled and began to fall toward the sea.
As the UFO's air bubbles were dissipating into the sea, people began to fall over dead within a one kilometer radius.
Dick Port and Norman Friz were lounging in Port's luxurious home built over a waterfall, a design by the 20th century architect Frank Lloyd Wright. They were sipping martinis on the patio. Port was a tall man with black hair, brown eyes, and a slender aristocratic nose. He had a taste for expensive baseball cards, exotic women, and fast cars. Norman, unlike Port was short, stubby, blue-eyed with blond hair, and had a little paunch. Norman, a man of high intelligence did not have near as much confidence as Port's . He was a computer genius and spent all his spare time reading sci-fi books or working on his model train layout.
Just as the cook was serving a light dinner, John Terpuka, founder and head boss of Quest For The Best, walked in. This high level, top secret government agency finds and studies anything that might be of interest to the US government. As John limped through the patio door, he said "Port, Norman, the president wants to see you two in his office at 6:30 pm sharp, and you'd better pack your shorts and T- shirts because we're going on a Caribbean cruise."
Fifty minutes later, after boarding a Chinook military helicopter at the Pittsburgh International Airport , Port and Norman were being escorted by the police to the White House in the President's Mercedes-Benz limousine.
After entering ,they were immediately moved by the president's secret service agents to one of the many secret conference rooms that lay twenty meters below the White House. There the president was waiting very impatiently in his leather armchair, while gulping down a Slim Fast milkshake.
After one glance at him Port said, " You look like a stockbroker who was in a sauna all day, and forgot to take off his business suit".
"At least I'm wearing a suit, look at you ".
Port looked down at himself and new that his old school buddy was right, unless a Hawaiian T- shirt and khaki shorts qualify as dress clothes.
"Enough with the chit-chat, Port. Lets get down to business. I called you two down here for a reason. A UFO crash-landed in the Caribbean Sea thirty-two kilometers
from shore off Haiti. Just before it went down it sucked up about ninety peasants, and to make matters worse, when it sank into the sea it killed all living things within one kilometer of radius. Nothing in that area has survived since."
Norman's brain seemed to be working overtime today. He thought about it all, and came up with the conclusion that someone did not want anyone else to see what was in that UFO.
"Exactly. That's why I called the two of you here. You're going to raise the UFO out of the sea".
"But, Mr. President, that's almost impossible! That UFO could easily weigh 1000 tons and must be under 2800 meters of water."
"If I can recall, there are two men who have conquered the impossible many times. Besides, you got to go to Haiti. So what is it going to be, sitting in a office all day and doing paperwork or going fishing for UFOs in the sea?" Norman and Port looked at each other and knew the answer.
" I thought so," said the President. " There will be a military plane waiting for you first thing in the morning with all the supplies you will be needing".
When Port and Norman arrived at the military air base it was five in the morning. John was there to greet them with two cups of steaming hot chocolate, but it wasn't necessary because it was already 70 degrees at the military base. "What gives, John, why did you get me out of bed so early?"
"I thought you and Dick would like to get a head start. There is your airplane. I hope it will do."
Both men stared in amazement. "This plane must have been out of service for nearly thirty years."
"Exactly right Dick. But this isn't just any old wreck. We had our mechanics install an F-14 jet engine; the body is just to blend in with the Haitian planes so you won't look suspicious. You better get going before the Russians find out our plan."
Before another word was spoken, Port and Norman had jumped into the plane and were taxiing toward the runway. With a jet engine, they were going to get to Haiti in about two hours.
The first words spoken in two hours were: "You better get higher altitude, Port. We're approaching the Chain du Haut Piton mountain range on the north side of Haiti, it has an altitude of 1183 meters . Once we pass it, there is still another hour until we reach the aircraft carrier in the Caribbean Sea." said Norman.
As the plane was just approaching the shore of the Caribbean Sea, three unmarked super-jets flew over the silver plane.
"Looks like our friends from Africa" said Port.
" Egypt?"
"No, Norman, Libya."
Ten minutes later they landed on the U.S.S. Freedom, a QFTB aircraft carrier that the Navy also uses in case of trouble in the Caribbean. Before the plane even stopped Port was out and running to the bridge where the captain was standing waiting for him.
"Would you mind telling me what those three jets were doing in Haitian air space?" said Port.
"They are Libya's jets searching for the space ship. Don't trust anybody except Norman and myself. Libya has thousands of spies looking for leads or leaks to get information on the spaceship."
"But what would they want to do with a spaceship?"
" That spaceship contains a very rare element that can make a bomb capable of blowing up the world three times over in one blast, but such an element has never been found in large enough quantities to make a bomb that size. If a country like Libya got hold of the element it could mean the end of mankind."
"So what do you want Norman and me to do."
"I want you to locate the ship and dive into the sea and retrieve the element. There will be a midget submarine ready to search for the spaceship at 18:00 hours."
Port and Norman were dressed in black wet suits with three air tanks good for eight hours. The submarine was filled with just enough air to stop the sides of it from closing in and crushing the occupants to a pancake, but not with enough air to breath. After being lowered into the submarine, the hatch was closed, but when a Navy SEAL slammed the hatch it hit Norman's head , causing a mild concussion and loss of blood. Before Port could reopen the hatch, the small Navel sub was launched out of a torpedo tube and into the sea. Port ripped off the right sleeve of his wet suit and wrapped it around Norman's forehead to stop the bleeding. The cool water of the Caribbean woke Norman up instantly.
Just as the sonar detected the spaceship about one mile and a quarter away resting on the edge of what seemed like a never ending canyon there was a high noise, pitched so high that it almost sounded like a scream. As they looked out the tiny port hole a shark swam by and stopped dead, rolled over on its back and slowly rose toward the surface.
When Port turned the sub around, it started to tremble and shake. It turned around in a drill-like form for what seemed like forever, bumping and bruising both Port and Norman. It stopped with a clash of metal. When Port looked up out of the right porthole all he saw was an endless wall of granite. But when Port looked out the left port hole and into the port hole of the spaceship a human like face stared right back at him. Only it had red eyes and was deathly pale; it was wearing a skintight green track suit like those on Star Trek and had a large mass of patted brown hair. Port realized he was looking inside the spaceship.
"Norman, said Port. how much air do you have left."
"About three hours."
" We don't have enough air to unbog the sub and pilot it to the surface. So we have two choices ,one is to sit here and wait for our air to run out or get into the spaceship some how, find the element, refill our tanks, and get to the surface as fast as we can. The other is unmentionable.
Norman and Port pulled out their Swiss Army knives and started unscrewing the porthole window. Water didn't pour into the spaceship or the sub because when the two machines were forced into the canyon by the water current they collided and the two portholes stuck together producing an air lock. Once they finished removing the Plexi-glass of the sub, Port started looking for screws to undo but there were none. Port had no choice but to blow it open.
"Norman, said Port, pass me the flair gun. I'm going to blow this window to kingdom come."
Even with two big blasts the window did not budge nor was it scratched. Port threw his arms up in frustration and brought them down on the window. With not so much as a whisper it slid out of the frame and into the spaceship.
"Ouch!" came a voice, " Watch were you put that thing; it can poke an eye out. The name is Richardson, Austin Richardson. My friends called me Tex," said the little pale man.
"What did you mean when you said 'called', asked Port."
" It's such a horrible thing that it's hard to talk about. When we got shot down about a week ago, all my friends were playing go fish in the engine room while I was left to control the beaming up of people in the market place. As you probably know the four missiles hit the engines and activated a few grams of Cancafur which erupted the engine room into an oven burning and killing all my best friends."
"What's Cancafur? said Norman"
"It is the most powerful and flammable element known to you earthlings."
"Where do you store the Cancafur, Austin, and what about those peasants in the market place. Where are they stowed away?"
"The peasants are in the examining room waiting for dissections so that we can find out if human blood is red or purple. The Cancafur is in the storage room but you will have to disconnect the wires leading from the storage tank to what's left of the engines."
After hours of work the three of them managed to disconnect the eighty pound storage tank from a mass of multicolored wires.
"Now if only we had some idea of how to get to the surface, said Port."
"I think I have the answer to your problem said Austin. We have a spare engine in store room number two, but it will need to be powered by one pound of Cancafur. Come this way and I'll show you two where it is stored and how to set it up."
The spare engine was so powerful; it had not even been thought of by any scientist on earth. Surprisingly, it only weighed forty ounces and fit into a slot in the roof. With the flick of a switch the spaceship pulled itself off the sea floor and slowly rose to the surface.
Port looked up through the gigantic skylight of the spaceship's lounge and saw the outline of a forty foot luxury cruise liner on the surface.
The spaceship broke through the surface twenty meters from the cruise liner. Not even a minute after they broke surface, gun shots were fired from the cruise liner, but because of the triple layer steel the bullets didn't do any damage but shatter the skylight and awake Port with a bullet in his arm. Port jumped in sheer pain and pulled out his percussion revolver. He ran upstairs onto the deck and released five bullets, two into the drivers head, one into the chest of a man who was about to throw a grenade at the space ship, and two into a gunman's right and left arms. That wasn't enough. The third gunman quickly took control of the vessel and set it on a direct crash course at the spaceship. Just as Port was bracing himself for an explosion the gunman turned the boat sideways and sprayed water all over the spaceship, leaving Port soaking wet. The unknown gunman, dressed completely in black, his black painted face revealing his green, almost lifeless eyes, threw a rope bridge connecting the two vessels. He and three other men dressed just as he was, boarded the spaceship and the third gunman said "Down on your knees ."
Port did not obey because he knew that the gunman would surely murder him if he did."
"I see Mr. Port, that you are one of those independent types who do not do what they are told, he said in a exasperated tone of voice."
Then the gunman pulled out a M1-automatic rifle and aimed it at Port's head, saying: "I'm the head of operation 002956 which is to get the Cancafur from the spaceship, for our beloved Libya. Then our country will be the super-power of the world, and no one can stop us. Ha Ha Ha!"
After he finished his evil laugh, he pulled the trigger but Port saw it and jumped out of the way, only to see it hit a peasant who was coming up to see what the commotion was about.
"You're a wise one, Mr. Port but you are unaware of the fact that we have the ship totally surrounded and you don't have a chance of leaving if you don't cooperate. So where is the Cancafur, Mr. Port? We know it's on the ship somewhere, so if you don't talk we will haul the spaceship to our base and search it from floor to ceiling."
Everything the gunman said was true. There were almost twenty ships filled with men just like the third gunman and they probably had a base in some cove in an uncharted island off Haiti. They would soon find out about the base, because three of the boats of the fleet were getting ready to tow the spaceship to the base.
After about an hour they arrived at an island that just had a volcano on it and a few palm trees. It looked as if they were going to crash right into the mountain when the bottom of the volcano opened up and all the ships entered. It was an amazing sight. There were fifty ships, two submarines, and four super-jets. Port knew that the gunmen did not intend to let the people that were in the spaceship leave alive, but he decided to play their game until the time came to make his move.
All the civilians on board the spaceship were lined up against a brick wall while the gunmen, who told Port they called themselves "The Brothers of Libya", searched the ship for the Cancafur while Port and the other people were being guarded by the third gunman. When they were finished searching the spaceship and found the Cancafur, the third gunman who was clearly the leader of the clandestine operation pulled off his mask. Port and Norman were shocked.
"Frederick, how could you do something like this? You had it made, you are the President of the United States and are American. You came from one of the richest families in the US! " said Port.
"You don't understand, Port. I was adopted when I was two years old and my parents, knowing friends in high places, paid them off to make me a legal voter. I joined this organization because they threatened to kill my parents and I had to run for president so that I could have all the knowledge and my organization would know what the States was up to, like this mission for example. I am very sorry, Port; you and Norman were my only friends in high school but I have to kill you and all the people here, said the President."
"I don't think so," said a voice in the back of the room.
A boy no older than thirteen ran from the direction of the spaceship with a steel crowbar in both hands and brought one down on the President's shoulder just before he pulled the trigger. The President fell to the ground in sheer pain and dropped his gun. Port had jumped out of the line of fire and grabbed the gun. Before the other gunmen could respond the Haitians captured and tied up the other thirty nine men.
Port used the underground base's radio and called the aircraft carrier for May Day.
An hour later three Navy helicopters landed on the island's helipad and checked all the Haitians for bullet wounds, burns, or bruises. After that they searched the offices and found plans to blow up the White House, an office building in Oklahoma, the Ambassador bridge in Detroit, and the CIA headquarters in Washington, DC.
"I've got to hand it to you Port, you're one-of-a-kind," said the Captain of the USS Freedom. "Don't give
me all the credit Captain," said Port. If it weren't for this little guy we would all be dead now."
"So what's your name, little dude? asked the Captain."
"Jordan, Jordan Leppie, he said"
"Well Norman," said Port "We have done it We found the Cancafur, stopped that terrorist group and now we finally get to finish our martinis."
Port hadn't even finished his sentence when John entered the patio and told Port and Norman that they had to testify in the President's trial.
"Oh no," groaned Port.
At this point I woke up, and the next instalment is up to the reader.
Orchard Lake Middle School, West Bloomfield, MI, May 1996