Chapter Nine
Indy could have scoffed at Elaine's assertion under less stressful circumstances. She hadn't seen the alleged spaceship, he hadn't seen the alleged spaceship - but the light and the jostling of the plane were enough to make it seem very real at the moment. He certainly didn't have a better explanation. His surroundings felt claustrophobic all of a sudden, as if the plane would shrink until it crushed him inside it.
Bernard grabbed the radio. “Get away from them!”
“I can’t...” came the pilot’s response. From the cockpit, he could barely make out the shimmers in the air that denoted some kind of energy emanating from the spaceship, enveloping them. “They’re flying the plane!”
Bernard pursed his lips together.
"Well, Bernie, we may as well sit back and relax," Indy said, doing exactly that. He didn't feel very relaxed, but his captor didn't need to know that.
"Look!" Elaine said, pointing out the window. "Oh no. They're going to ruin everything."
“You Americans excel at that,” Bernard said.
***
Outside, the two Sabre Jets roared across the sky, the distinctive yellow stripes on their bodies and wings conveying a message of speed and danger. “This is the United States Air Force,” Sabre One broadcast. “You are in violation of American airspace –” He looked down, seeing the spaceship and the Russian plane. “What the?” He switched channels to his wingman. “Do you see that?”
“I see,” Sabre Two said slowly. “I don’t believe it.”
There would be time to figure out what this strange vessel was later – some new Russian machine, no doubt. “Repeat,” Sabre One radioed out to it. “You are in violation of American airspace. Respond or we will engage.”
No answer, not even static. He wasn’t about to wait around and see what it could do.
“Sabre Two,” he said, “this is Jigsaw Daddy... engaging.”
“Roger that.”
The two jets dropped down on the craft. Running in classic dogfight style, mortars firing, they made a pass overhead. It wobbled from the hits as they exploded against its exterior, leaving no visible damage. The jets banked and came back, this time firing missiles. As they struck the ship it released the Russian plane from its tractor beam and allowed the pilot to regain control.
The jets split formation and came at the spaceship from opposite directions for a final pass, but this time –
“What the?” Sabre Two said. “Where’d it go?”
The saucer reappeared in front of Sabre One. “I’ve got it!” he said. “In pursuit.”
“On your wing,” Sabre Two assured him.
The Sabre Jets roared one after the other out of the clouds and after the flying saucer, staying with its every move as it fled before them. Sabre One moved his finger to fire, but the saucer dipped and dodged, faster than anything its size had a right to be, just before he could pull the trigger. “Almost...” he said to himself. “One more second...”
The clouds cleared to reveal a mountain dead ahead. The saucer pulled up at an impossible angle and the Sabre Jet, unable to follow, rammed into the face and exploded.
Behind him, Sabre Two pulled up just in time, skimming the top of the mountain. He stared back at the explosion in disbelief, but there was no time to mourn his fallen brother. “Where’d you go, you cowardly sonofabitch?”
As if in response, the saucer appeared in front of him over a mile away.
“Try a taste of this,” he said, emptying both missile racks. The missiles raced toward the saucer and engulfed it in an explosion larger than the first. He smiled to himself.
His smile faded when the saucer emerged from the explosion without so much as a scratch on its hull.
“What the –” he began again, but before the expletive could escape his lips the saucer fired an orange beam that surrounded his plane and melted it into oblivion.
***
“Sabre Two, come in Sabre Two, do you copy?” The shift commander shook his head in disbelief. “Damn it.”
An air of panic was sweeping through the facility. “Did you see how that thing moved?” someone whispered.
“Scramble more fighters, sir?” someone else asked.
The shift commander shook his head again, as if in a daze. “We don’t know what we’re up against, what it’s capable of. We need more intel. And backup.” He ran for the phone and picked it up. “Hello? Get me General McIntyre.”
***
Inside the Russian plane, Indy and the others still couldn't see the saucer, but they watched the second Sabre Jet vanish before their eyes. Bernard, finally beginning to lose his composure, yelped, “They’re going to kill us!”
“No, they’re not,” Indy said, maintaining his composure despite his own nervousness. “If they wanted to they would’ve already. Elaine is right – they want it back.”
Just as quickly as it had surfaced, Bernard’s fear was masked with defiance. “Never!” He turned to the soldiers. “Shoot it down!”
Trembling, they rushed further toward the back, where the weapons were.
“Are you out of your mind?” Elaine said. “If the jets couldn’t stop them, what can you do?”
“We cannot let them have it,” Bernard said, avoiding the question.
“Technically it is their property,” Indy said. “Maybe we can negotiate.”
“It's my property,” Bernard said, his eyes wild.
The fourth soldier appeared with the bazooka, now loaded.
“You can’t do that!” Elaine said.
Indy caught her meaning immediately – as bad as the Russians were, at least they were human and he knew their intentions and their limitations. The creatures in the saucer, on the other hand, were a mystery. All he knew was that they seemed to be invincible and would probably just be angered by any further attempts to destroy them. The conviction in Elaine’s protest was all it took to propel him into action. He pushed away from the other solder and lunged at the one with the bazooka, trying to wrest it away from him.
They were both jostled as the saucer returned to the front of the plane and again locked on with its tractor beam. In that moment Indy’s finger brushed the trigger and the weapon went off, taking the other soldier off his feet and blowing through the door, the cockpit, and the nose of the plane to hit the saucer head-on.
“Wow,” Indy yelled above his ringing ears and the rush of wind, “they’ve improved those.”
The saucer, finally showing visible damage, cut the tractor beam and wobbled off, its lights flickering and its control center trailing smoke. Indy struggled to his feet as wind rushed through the gaping hole in the empty cockpit. Any relief he might have felt was short-lived as he exchanged a look with Bernard and the plane went into a dive.
The wind roaring through the compartment sucked the other Russian soldier out of the opening. Bernard and Elaine each grabbed onto a seat to avoid his fate and Indy, in a gesture converted into reflex by now, lashed out with his bullwhip onto a handle on the wall. With his other hand he managed to snag the parachute that had been taken from him. In exchange, his hat flew off.
As he struggled, Bernard was forced to let go of the device and it rolled away, lodging behind another seat. Elaine saw it and reached for it with one hand. “I can get it,” she said to herself.
Indy pulled his other arm through the parachute, then saw her. “Elaine! No!” Visions of another woman reaching for another priceless artifact above another fatal drop flashed through his mind, just as they had with the artifacts on the rafts, but this time their positions were reversed and he could only hope that Elaine wouldn’t make a hypocrite of herself.
Elaine, fortunately, knew her limits better than Elsa had. “I can’t reach it!” she cried out.
Bernard watched them for a moment, seeming to calculate his own odds of getting the device back. Then the seal on his seat ripped free and he flew from the plane, screaming. Elaine must have weighed slightly less; her own seat began to come apart as well, giving her a few more inches and allowing her to grasp the device with her free hand.
“Take my hand!” Indy called out to her. She tried, but there was no way to do so without letting go of the device. If she let go of the seat instead, she would be swept out in an instant. “Let it go!” Indy yelled.
“No,” Elaine said. Maybe she was like Elsa after all. A moment later her seat tore lose and she was sucked outside after Bernard, still holding the device. “Indyyyyyy!”
Without a moment’s thought, Indy let go of his whip and followed her. The ground, far below, spun up at them as the wind roared by at 180 feet per second. Elaine was screaming, her composure gone, unaccustomed to the gut-wrenching terror of falling. He angled his body toward her, reaching out with one hand, then trying with the other –
Their eyes locked, and the spinning commotion around them faded away. Their hands locked next, and Indy knew there wasn't a moment to lose. “Hold on!” he said, releasing the parachute with his other hand and shooting them skyward. He nearly let go as it nearly pulled his arm out of its socket, and with their combined weight it didn't slow their fall quite as much as it was supposed to, but they were safe for the moment. “Oof! Well, better than a rubber raft, eh?”
“Huh?”
“There was this one time - ah, I'll tell you later.” He pulled her close and held her tight, feeling the pounding of her heart. He might never let go of her again.
Behind them, the plane plummeted to earth and created the third major explosion of the day. The saucer, still wobbling from the attacks, returned to hover over the burning wreckage. Now Indy could see it and he couldn't deny what he could see, even though his brain had a hard time comprehending the significance. Even from this distance its massive scale was obvious, yet it seemed just a little less scary now, less mysterious, more tangible, something he could analyze and think about.
The aliens - they had to be aliens, because this thing certainly wasn't piloted by Belango apes - performed an analysis of their own. Green lights reached down and scanned the wreckage for a moment, then went out. The saucer rose slowly and moved away in absolute silence. Then it shimmered and vanished as if it had been a mirage.
“Back to Mars?” Indy wondered.
“I hope so,” Elaine said. Her heart rate had slowed a little, but she didn't sound convinced.
***
“Where the hell did it go?” the shift commander demanded. “Is anyone picking it up? Anyone?”
All the radar operators murmured and shook their heads.
“General McIntyre wanted us to blow it out of the sky,” he continued. “He isn’t going to like this.”
The operator who had first spotted the anomaly on his screen didn’t like it either. He didn’t feel safe anymore.
Next: Chapter Ten
Bernard grabbed the radio. “Get away from them!”
“I can’t...” came the pilot’s response. From the cockpit, he could barely make out the shimmers in the air that denoted some kind of energy emanating from the spaceship, enveloping them. “They’re flying the plane!”
Bernard pursed his lips together.
"Well, Bernie, we may as well sit back and relax," Indy said, doing exactly that. He didn't feel very relaxed, but his captor didn't need to know that.
"Look!" Elaine said, pointing out the window. "Oh no. They're going to ruin everything."
“You Americans excel at that,” Bernard said.
***
Outside, the two Sabre Jets roared across the sky, the distinctive yellow stripes on their bodies and wings conveying a message of speed and danger. “This is the United States Air Force,” Sabre One broadcast. “You are in violation of American airspace –” He looked down, seeing the spaceship and the Russian plane. “What the?” He switched channels to his wingman. “Do you see that?”
“I see,” Sabre Two said slowly. “I don’t believe it.”
There would be time to figure out what this strange vessel was later – some new Russian machine, no doubt. “Repeat,” Sabre One radioed out to it. “You are in violation of American airspace. Respond or we will engage.”
No answer, not even static. He wasn’t about to wait around and see what it could do.
“Sabre Two,” he said, “this is Jigsaw Daddy... engaging.”
“Roger that.”
The two jets dropped down on the craft. Running in classic dogfight style, mortars firing, they made a pass overhead. It wobbled from the hits as they exploded against its exterior, leaving no visible damage. The jets banked and came back, this time firing missiles. As they struck the ship it released the Russian plane from its tractor beam and allowed the pilot to regain control.
The jets split formation and came at the spaceship from opposite directions for a final pass, but this time –
“What the?” Sabre Two said. “Where’d it go?”
The saucer reappeared in front of Sabre One. “I’ve got it!” he said. “In pursuit.”
“On your wing,” Sabre Two assured him.
The Sabre Jets roared one after the other out of the clouds and after the flying saucer, staying with its every move as it fled before them. Sabre One moved his finger to fire, but the saucer dipped and dodged, faster than anything its size had a right to be, just before he could pull the trigger. “Almost...” he said to himself. “One more second...”
The clouds cleared to reveal a mountain dead ahead. The saucer pulled up at an impossible angle and the Sabre Jet, unable to follow, rammed into the face and exploded.
Behind him, Sabre Two pulled up just in time, skimming the top of the mountain. He stared back at the explosion in disbelief, but there was no time to mourn his fallen brother. “Where’d you go, you cowardly sonofabitch?”
As if in response, the saucer appeared in front of him over a mile away.
“Try a taste of this,” he said, emptying both missile racks. The missiles raced toward the saucer and engulfed it in an explosion larger than the first. He smiled to himself.
His smile faded when the saucer emerged from the explosion without so much as a scratch on its hull.
“What the –” he began again, but before the expletive could escape his lips the saucer fired an orange beam that surrounded his plane and melted it into oblivion.
***
“Sabre Two, come in Sabre Two, do you copy?” The shift commander shook his head in disbelief. “Damn it.”
An air of panic was sweeping through the facility. “Did you see how that thing moved?” someone whispered.
“Scramble more fighters, sir?” someone else asked.
The shift commander shook his head again, as if in a daze. “We don’t know what we’re up against, what it’s capable of. We need more intel. And backup.” He ran for the phone and picked it up. “Hello? Get me General McIntyre.”
***
Inside the Russian plane, Indy and the others still couldn't see the saucer, but they watched the second Sabre Jet vanish before their eyes. Bernard, finally beginning to lose his composure, yelped, “They’re going to kill us!”
“No, they’re not,” Indy said, maintaining his composure despite his own nervousness. “If they wanted to they would’ve already. Elaine is right – they want it back.”
Just as quickly as it had surfaced, Bernard’s fear was masked with defiance. “Never!” He turned to the soldiers. “Shoot it down!”
Trembling, they rushed further toward the back, where the weapons were.
“Are you out of your mind?” Elaine said. “If the jets couldn’t stop them, what can you do?”
“We cannot let them have it,” Bernard said, avoiding the question.
“Technically it is their property,” Indy said. “Maybe we can negotiate.”
“It's my property,” Bernard said, his eyes wild.
The fourth soldier appeared with the bazooka, now loaded.
“You can’t do that!” Elaine said.
Indy caught her meaning immediately – as bad as the Russians were, at least they were human and he knew their intentions and their limitations. The creatures in the saucer, on the other hand, were a mystery. All he knew was that they seemed to be invincible and would probably just be angered by any further attempts to destroy them. The conviction in Elaine’s protest was all it took to propel him into action. He pushed away from the other solder and lunged at the one with the bazooka, trying to wrest it away from him.
They were both jostled as the saucer returned to the front of the plane and again locked on with its tractor beam. In that moment Indy’s finger brushed the trigger and the weapon went off, taking the other soldier off his feet and blowing through the door, the cockpit, and the nose of the plane to hit the saucer head-on.
“Wow,” Indy yelled above his ringing ears and the rush of wind, “they’ve improved those.”
The saucer, finally showing visible damage, cut the tractor beam and wobbled off, its lights flickering and its control center trailing smoke. Indy struggled to his feet as wind rushed through the gaping hole in the empty cockpit. Any relief he might have felt was short-lived as he exchanged a look with Bernard and the plane went into a dive.
The wind roaring through the compartment sucked the other Russian soldier out of the opening. Bernard and Elaine each grabbed onto a seat to avoid his fate and Indy, in a gesture converted into reflex by now, lashed out with his bullwhip onto a handle on the wall. With his other hand he managed to snag the parachute that had been taken from him. In exchange, his hat flew off.
As he struggled, Bernard was forced to let go of the device and it rolled away, lodging behind another seat. Elaine saw it and reached for it with one hand. “I can get it,” she said to herself.
Indy pulled his other arm through the parachute, then saw her. “Elaine! No!” Visions of another woman reaching for another priceless artifact above another fatal drop flashed through his mind, just as they had with the artifacts on the rafts, but this time their positions were reversed and he could only hope that Elaine wouldn’t make a hypocrite of herself.
Elaine, fortunately, knew her limits better than Elsa had. “I can’t reach it!” she cried out.
Bernard watched them for a moment, seeming to calculate his own odds of getting the device back. Then the seal on his seat ripped free and he flew from the plane, screaming. Elaine must have weighed slightly less; her own seat began to come apart as well, giving her a few more inches and allowing her to grasp the device with her free hand.
“Take my hand!” Indy called out to her. She tried, but there was no way to do so without letting go of the device. If she let go of the seat instead, she would be swept out in an instant. “Let it go!” Indy yelled.
“No,” Elaine said. Maybe she was like Elsa after all. A moment later her seat tore lose and she was sucked outside after Bernard, still holding the device. “Indyyyyyy!”
Without a moment’s thought, Indy let go of his whip and followed her. The ground, far below, spun up at them as the wind roared by at 180 feet per second. Elaine was screaming, her composure gone, unaccustomed to the gut-wrenching terror of falling. He angled his body toward her, reaching out with one hand, then trying with the other –
Their eyes locked, and the spinning commotion around them faded away. Their hands locked next, and Indy knew there wasn't a moment to lose. “Hold on!” he said, releasing the parachute with his other hand and shooting them skyward. He nearly let go as it nearly pulled his arm out of its socket, and with their combined weight it didn't slow their fall quite as much as it was supposed to, but they were safe for the moment. “Oof! Well, better than a rubber raft, eh?”
“Huh?”
“There was this one time - ah, I'll tell you later.” He pulled her close and held her tight, feeling the pounding of her heart. He might never let go of her again.
Behind them, the plane plummeted to earth and created the third major explosion of the day. The saucer, still wobbling from the attacks, returned to hover over the burning wreckage. Now Indy could see it and he couldn't deny what he could see, even though his brain had a hard time comprehending the significance. Even from this distance its massive scale was obvious, yet it seemed just a little less scary now, less mysterious, more tangible, something he could analyze and think about.
The aliens - they had to be aliens, because this thing certainly wasn't piloted by Belango apes - performed an analysis of their own. Green lights reached down and scanned the wreckage for a moment, then went out. The saucer rose slowly and moved away in absolute silence. Then it shimmered and vanished as if it had been a mirage.
“Back to Mars?” Indy wondered.
“I hope so,” Elaine said. Her heart rate had slowed a little, but she didn't sound convinced.
***
“Where the hell did it go?” the shift commander demanded. “Is anyone picking it up? Anyone?”
All the radar operators murmured and shook their heads.
“General McIntyre wanted us to blow it out of the sky,” he continued. “He isn’t going to like this.”
The operator who had first spotted the anomaly on his screen didn’t like it either. He didn’t feel safe anymore.
Next: Chapter Ten
