Morningstar Pass

Stewart Newman led Cassandra Chen nervously to a back booth in the bar.  He put down his laptop and turned it on, put down a tape cassette beside it.  Cassandra watched with interest.

“Stu, the tape, is this what you want to show me?”

“This tape, this stuff you’ve been investigating, is it really true?”  Newman was sweating and trembling.

“Stu, this tape?” asked Cassandra.  “I haven’t seen it yet!”

“We got his tape at NBC yesterday-- He lit a cigarette nervously  “It purports to be a tour of an alien base, we think at Morningstar Colorado--”   He plugged in the tape, watching trembling, as she looked at it on the laptop screen.  It showed Schwartzman and Virgil beginning their decent into hell.

“Oh my God, I know that person!” exclaimed Cassandra.  “He’s a Colonel in the Special forces, the cover-up forces!  He’s the one who warned me months ago at the airport not to investigate this--” She was suddenly afraid for him, deathly afraid.

“So, Cassie, you’re saying this stuff is really true?!” asked Newman.

“ Stu, haven’t seen the whole tape!  All I know is that man in it is part of the cover-up!  What does it show?”

He handed her a copy of the tape with a trembling hand.

“Horrible things-- Cassie, horrible things --We can’t air it.  But, anyway, it can’t be true.  This.  It can’t be true.  It’s got to be some sort of government dis-information.”

“Stu, why would the government make up horrible lies about itself?” asked Cassandra levelly.

“Its not possible.” Newman began to shake.  “No, its not true!  This Government cannot keep secrets like this!”

Cassandra shook her head in cold determination and looked at the tape copy in her hand.

“Yes, Stu, they can.  Its so easy to keep secrets nobody wants to know--Now I haven’t watched this tape yet, but based on everything we know, from the abductions, from the mutilations, human and animal, in that  area, we at CNS believe the alien base at Morningstar is a chamber of horrors for human beings.  She looked at him with her almost hypnotic eyes.    “So--Stu--be afraid--.be very, very afraid--”

***

Lyle Talbot awoke with a start in the early morning. He pulled his cowboy hat off his eyes. He was looking straight at Joe Nighthawk, who was dressed in buckskins and had his face done up in red , blue and white warpaint.  Joe had nudged Talbot’s leg with the butt of his rifle, but was looking off to the Northof them on the crest. Lyle followed Joe’s eyes. A dimly glowing manta ray shaped craft hovered approximately a hundred yards away near some cattle.  Lyle swiftly rolled out of his blanket and onto his stomach and eased the Meteor SAM-7 missile out of its canvas case. He slowly pulled it up to his shoulder. He then popped  the rubber cap off its business end and sighted it on the craft. It was a beautiful night with cold crisp stars behind it.  He guessed it was four in the morning.  He clicked the safety switch on to arm the missile with a snap that he muffled with his fingers so it wouldn’t be loud. He then lined up the missile on the craft carefully. Inside the missile tube he could hear a little motor whirring, running some mechanical scanner, soon he heard tone, the missile's seeker had locked on to the craft. Lyle Talbot heard the tone and thought calmly for one second, he realized he was going to start an interstellar war right there, right then. He then pulled the trigger; it gave a satisfying solid click--

On board the craft something strange happened, a ruby red light began to flash on the spacecraft control panel.  The aliens seemed to freeze, then one was talking excitedly.  Virgil had about one second to become afraid.

With an enormous concussion the missile ignited and leapt from the launching tube.  The craft seemed to rise slowly in the fraction of a second that the missile took to cross the hundred yards.  However, it didn’t rise far enough or fast enough and the missile hit it dead on and a tremendous and a deafening explosion sounded.  The explosion was sharp, like a ten-foot tall firecracker going off.  Beside Lyle Talbot,  the other hands all leapt out of their blank