Veezee: The Invasion by Clyde Key

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  Before Ed left the hospital, his doctor suggested that he needed exercise. Specifically, he recommended that Ed walk for a few minutes several times a day. So Ed began taking walks around Kingman Army Base, and after a few days he started walking farther. Sometimes he would walk a half-mile or so away from the compound and he would take the laser pistol with him for target practice, usually shooting at rocks or junk. After a few such excursions, Ed decided that he had progressed enough to be somewhat more dangerous to the enemies than to himself.

  It was on one of those short trips away from the base that Ed saw the alien globe. A ray of sunlight reflected off something behind a picket fence around a deserted house near the base. At first, Ed wasn’t sure what caused the gleam so he walked closer. Then he got a brief glimpse of the globe before it suddenly spouted a thin stream of flame and sped away around the house and out of sight.

  Ed’s heart thumped and he could feel the adrenalin flow building. My gosh, I hope that heart medicine works! He started to look around the old house for aliens but then quickly reconsidered. It would be much better to get back to the base and have Major Baines organize a search around the area. Then he got another glimpse of a globe, that could either have been the same one or another. Almost without thinking, Ed pointed the laser pistol and squeezed the trigger.

  For a few seconds, nothing happened and Ed worried that he had attracted attention to himself by the shot. But then the globe suddenly shot high in the air and careened off toward the base. A ragged column of smoke marked the place where the alien vehicle had crashed.

  By the time Ed got back to the base, a crowd had gathered around the crash site where the globe had demolished a parked floater. The crash had ruptured the floater’s fuel module and set it afire. Of course, all of those who watched the blaze watched from the upwind side because burning alien substances were many times smellier than live aliens.

  Marilee Sharp was not at the crash site when Ed got there, but she arrived minutes later. “Ed! Do you know what happened? Why did it crash here?”

  “I guess I caused it. I spotted it outside the camp and fired on it. Never dreamed it would come down in here.”

  “Well, you might as well go see Mr. Lane,” she said. “He sent me to find out what happened and tell whoever was involved to report to him. I sure never thought it would be you!”