Zircon - Chapter 2

Six weeks ago

All I can hear is the tap, tap, tap of the keyboard as I write my dissertation. The sun rays illuminates my office warming my right cheek. I usually close the door half way to avoid being distracted, but not so much as to say I am not there. For the past few days I’ve been literally eating the literature jumping from book to book, from journal to journal. I want to get the facts straight. As I write I think I hear that creaking sound the door makes when its being open very slowly, but I take no mind to notice who’s coming in.

“Hello, Sunshine!”

“Hi Sara.” I answered without even taking my eyes away from the screen

“Katy…”

“What?” I answered still looking at the monitor of my computer

“Katy….”

“Yeah?”

“Katy” She said elongating the "a" sound of my name while she rotated my chair to force me to look at her. Sara with her dark curly hair, dark brown eyes and for some strange reason her skin always reminded me of caramel. Sara is good friend… ok scratch that, she’s my best friend.

“What?”

“For the past few days I haven’t seen you. Why is that?”

“What do you mean? I come to the university every day.”

“I mean you never come out of your office, and when you do, you are either in the field or most likely avoiding me.”

“I am not avoiding you, I’ve just been busy.” I said as I rotated my chair back to its original position to keep typing on my computer.

“Well can you at least fill me in, in what’s got you so preoccupied?”

I stop writing and look at her. “I’ve been finding some strange anomalies in my collected data and I have no idea what to make of it.”

“Like what?” She curiously asks

“Well you remember the spot in space I had chosen to observe for any body mass?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I found something, I think it’s an asteroid. As I keep observing, it seems to be getting close…”

“What? You mean like in a collision course with Earth?” She said interrupting me with a tone of fright “Because if so, shouldn’t you tell your advisor so he can tell someone to alert the public?”

I just had to chuckle with her occurrences. “No, it is no where close enough to even think about a collision course. In fact is far out our solar system.”

“Girl, don’t ever scare me like that! You know how I get ever since I took that evolution class and learn how that asteroid wipe out the dinosaurs”

“Yep, I know”

“Anyways, what’s so strange about this asteroid?”

“Well, I call it an asteroid but I am not so sure anymore because according to the satellite images it shifts course too often.”

“So? Asteroids tend to do that all the time.”

“Yeah I know, but my data also shows different rates of speed as it shifts course without any sign of a cause, that is, from what I can tell from the data.”

Sara widen her eyes while she looks at me “what if it’s an alien from out of space?”

“Sara, please. Be serious.”

“What?” she said slightly offended

“I mean seriously; an alien?”

“Well that could explain the change in speed of the “asteroid” What, don’t you believe that there might be other life forms out their?”

“I didn’t say that, but neither am I going to say that it’s an alien spaceship without any proof. By the way do you have the time?”

“Yeah” she said and looked at her watch “It’s a quarter to two”

“Oh, good” I said as I put my computer in sleep mode and stand up.

“What? Where are you going?” she said making her sad puppy face

“I need to head to the lab and analyses the new image from the satellite. You want to come?”

“Oh yes!”

We both walked out of my office and I lock the door behind us and headed towards the astronomy lab down the corridor. When we arrive the door was shut and the light were out. I turn the systems on and waited for them to warm up before getting down to business.

“This is so exciting, finally going to see this mystery asteroid”

“Yeah, and you’ll see that is not a spaceship” I said with a chuckle

“Can you imagine what it would look like if it was?” she said with a smile

“Hmmm, maybe a little E.T waving us bye.”

“I was thinking more of a Clark Kent.” As Sara talk she had that sort a serious- philosophical expression on her face.

“Damn! If only” I replayed and we both when into laughter. As we began to discuss how handsome Tom Welling was in Smallville the computer made a beeping noise which indicated that it was ready for use. I open the satellite program and made a new folder to insert the new images. Once I had saved them I opened the file and started glimpsing at the celestial photos.

“So where is this asteroid?” Sara asked over my shoulder as we both looked at the images. Frankly I was asking myself the same question as I passed the photos.

“Hmmm, that’s interesting.” I finally said after a while

“What is it?” Sara asked as I keep passing the images. “Where is the asteroid?”

“It seems to have vanished.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that is not in any of the quadrangles that I had set up in the perimeter. It’s just not there”

“Maybe you opened the wrong file.”

“No.”

“Maybe someone tamper with the coordinates on the satellite.”

“No, the coordinates are the same. And the asteroids was nowhere near at the end of the perimeter that I had perform last week when the images came in.”

“Maybe is a spaceship…” said Sara in a whisper

I turn to look at her, not believing how she could find the humor in my desperation.

………..

Thyrrhenian Sea

Mar Tirreno off the coast of Naples, Italy

Why don’t you first start with your name and occupation? asked Elma Lombardi a lieutenant from the Italian air force.

“My name is Ricardo Santiago, I am the captain of a small fishing boat called La Barca.”

“Could you tell us about the incident?”

“The incident…..” Ricardo’s face goes blank by the thought of it, after a brief moment of silence he began his tale. “It was around five thirty in the morning when the morning light began to ascend towards the havens from the east. The peaceful sound of the waves splashing against the docks where La Barca was anchored is music to any fisherman’s ears. It was the first day of the season. I had been planning this trip out into the open sea with Pedro and Lucas for some time. We were to bring back fish to sell at the market. Everything had started well, we had spent all morning making good game. The seagulls flew over our sails waiting for a chance at catching an easy prey in our nets. The sun was high up in the sky and the clear blue water made it easy to spy any fish below.”

“It was around high noon when it happened. It began with a screeching sound, so loud that we could barely hear our own thoughts. I got out of the cabin of the boat to see what made it, but saw nothing but the clear blue sky. Pedro was at the starboard when he shouted come over here and see this! Lucas and I ran towards Pedro to see what was causing the unbearable noise. And that’s when we saw it. It was some sort of a vessel descending from the sky with a tremendously stable and constant speed. From our position it seems to be about 3 nautical miles away. We were all amazed, Lucas grabbed his cell phone to film the event. I return to the cabin to stir the ship away from vessel. “What is that? What is that?” Pedro kept asking. Then Lucas yelled “Look!” pointing towards two air force jets intercepting the vessel.”

“What the fuck is happening here?!” Yelled Pedro in all of this commotion. The jets flew over the strange vessel and over us heading south, they were gaining speed and distance as they turn to face it again. Only that this time they opened fire. The strange aircraft expelled four other sphere looking ships while evading the missiles. The original ship, which was the biggest fell into the water creating a big enough wave to hammock the boat uncontrollably.”

“What the fuck is happening here?! Did you see how it fell into the water?!” It was obvious that Pedro was freaking out; in a way we all were. The small ships that separated left the area with such a tremendous speed that created a wind tail that almost tilted over the boat and a loud noise was heard, as if the sound barrier had been broken! Not even the jets could follow its trail for crying out loud! The three of us were so caught up looking at this turn of events that we had not notice the approaching helicopter until it was right over us.”

“You are in great danger! Abandon the area immediately!” said the pilot in the speaker “Return to dock, you will receive further instructions there!” I looked at my friends and Pedro was hysterically screaming, Lucas on the other hand still had his phone in hand filming the whole damn thing! He focuses the camera at me and I yelled at him “Turn that damn thing off!” Lucas seemed surprised by my reaction but he still did as he was told. By that time, the helicopter was heading towards where the larger vessel had fallen into the water, and for a brief moment after what had just happen I thought that it was all finally over. I was a Damn fool for thinking that. Out of the water came a great energy of light that crippled the helicopter and created a massive wave that I had never seen before far out in open sea. I knew that there was no way that we could outrun it, so I decided to head right towards it. I gave it all the speed the engine could handle to reach the wave before its crest got too big and sank us to the seafloor. Pedro ran towards me “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

“Are you trying to get us killed?!” Yelled Lucas at me.

“Shut the fuck up, both of you! Get in the fucking cabin and shut the goddamn door and windows!” I told them and they did. La Barca began to ascend towards the crest of the wave with struggle. As we reach the top the crest began to break, we were lucky enough to make it over. The others were yelling and cursing. When we began to descend the crest at a 70 degree angle, I yelled “Hold on!” We gain speed, I had to force the boat to descend sideways to the wave, because straight forward would only cause the boat to sink from the bow. We made it safely to the base, looking back at the wave that was heading straight to Naples without any warning. Since there was no way we could warn anyone of what was to come we decided to head back towards where the helicopter had sank in search for any survivors but we found none. It was as if nothing had sank, there was no debris floating about, no survivor, not even their bodies for God’s sake! After about 3 hours of a futile search we decided to head to port, we took the bearings of the location to report to the authorities before we left. As we headed back it seem like all that had happened was only but a dream. The ocean and the breeze was serine as if the event s we witness had never occured. If it wasn’t for the video that Lucas took and the destructions the tsunami cause to Naples we would have started to question our sanity.”

As Ricardo told every detail of what had happened out in the Thyrrhenian Sea, Lieutenant Elma Lombardi sat at the other side of the table taking notes. Ricardo watched the lieutenant and as he did he kept moving his hands and changing positions in his chair. The Lieutenant not once cared to look at Ricardo while she was writing. Since she didn’t say a word he broke the silence again. “I told you everything I know. Now can you care to explain what in the name of God was it that we saw out there?”

The lieutenant put her pen down and looked right at him with a serenity in her expression “For the sake of humanity you saw nothing but a basic air force training and just happened to be right in the middle of it”

“What? Look lady there is no way that could have been a basic air force training. I’ve never seen anything like it! I’ve heard about technological advancement but not like that, not in our lifetime. No, it had to be some sort of alien aircraft, like a spaceship,the video proves it.”

“Mister Santiago, Think about have you’ve just said in our perspective. What do you think would happen if the public knew about the incident?” Ricardo remain in silence as she talked. “I’ll tell you, complete and utterly chaos. The public is not ready for this, if your friend’s video hits the net people would go to the street. People this days are ticking bombs waiting for any excuse to revolt. And that’s exactly what we want to avoid. Neither you nor the others can say anything about what happened in the Thyrrhenian Sea.”

“So you are admitting that it was an alien ship.”

“Let’s just say if you want to avoid life imprisonment you will forget this ever happened.”