Alienable Rights
political satire
5
Flight 19
“I MIGHT HAVE thought of a problem,” Darrell said sheepishly, calling Zeta and Haro aside. Their passengers would be among the last to embark since they’d be traveling by plane.
“What is it?” Haro asked, concerned.
“Well, this is a jumbo jet. It takes about three miles of runway to land it. The runway in Longview is about half a mile. Not only that, it isn’t paved. It’s just a dirt strip,” Darrell explained. They might all have to land by saucer instead of using the planes.
Haro breathed an alien sigh of relief.
“Is that all? We knew that. Neither DCA1427 nor Air Force One will be flying under their own power. The tractor beam will catch us and set us down with only enough noise and taxiing to call attention to our arrival. We’ve even arranged to have steps delivered to the little strip or no one would be able to get out of the plane.”
“Thank goodness. You guys think of everything.”
“Well, you and Janelle and Zeta and I have been on the overall strategy for taking things over. We’ve had several teams dealing with the tactics. We had you working on costumes and the landing site cover because you know the area and the fashions. We have an entire team who are in charge of neutralizing the armed forces. It wouldn’t do to have a B-52 Stratofortress dropping bombs on us.”
“We have B-52s inside the US?” Darrell asked.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have an aide stationed beside you to whisper appropriate responses to you whenever you might need to speak in your new role.”
“Not to seem too ignorant, but what is my new role?” Darrell asked.
“Oh! We didn’t consider it too important for now, but you’ll be the president’s new Secretary of State. Remember, we’ve been studying your people for a long time,” Haro said.
“What’s my role?” Janelle asked.
“We’ll re-establish the Department of Education,” Zeta said. “You are to be the new Secretary of Sex Education. That’s the only part of human education we consider to be all that important. We’ll be replacing what’s left of the top-level scientists with our own people. It really won’t be important to have people educated in the kind of primitive sciences your people have been studying so slowly for so many years. Things like math can be taught in sex education far more effectively than in an arithmetic class.”
“I’ve always thought that!” Janelle exclaimed. “I can’t wait to demonstrate the techniques and pleasures of alien sex.”
“I hope you’ll save a little of that for me,” Darrell said, patting Janelle’s bottom.
“Have you been lacking anything since we got here?” she giggled.
“Not at all.”
“I can’t wait to educate your wife and secretary on the ways three women can please a man,” Janelle said. “And an alien or two,” she added, giving Zeta a heartfelt kiss.
It was less than two hours from Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City. Considerably less, the way Cece drove. They pulled into a Love’s Travel Stop just before I-44 and I-35 split headed north. Cece put almost fifteen gallons into the little Mustang. She apologized for not having had her car gassed up and ready to roll before they left her house.
“There will be a day soon when you won’t need gas for your car,” Ohna said brightly. “Over the past few decades, we engineered a system that uses water for power. Tried to get it introduced here, but people have been stubborn. Especially down South here. Good ol’ boys like their oil.”
“Speaking of a good ol’ boy, take a look yonder at that fine specimen of manhood,” Cece drawled.
She directed Ohna’s gaze to a young stud standing near the store entrance. He was fit and wearing a jeans jacket over a muscle shirt that was tight enough to show his abs. He wore tight jeans and cowboy boots.
“Wow!” Ohna said. She’d spent enough time studying earth to appreciate the human male form.
“He’s not one of yours, is he?” Cece asked.
“No. The guys on the ship would be fighting over a body like that,” Ohna said.
“Then let’s make him ours,” Cece suggested.
Ohna copied Cece’s hip swing as they headed to the door of the store. On her way past, Cece paused long enough to lightly stroke the boy’s cheek with her finger and wink at him. Ohna followed suit. She knew there were a lot of mating rituals humans went through and Cece seemed to have them all perfected. The boy pushed away from the wall and followed them inside, carrying his small backpack.
After the girls emerged from the bathroom, they found the boy loitering near the snack food.
“You hungry, cowboy?” Cece asked. She and Ohna had unbuttoned a couple of buttons of their shirts and tied the tails beneath their boobs. The boy looked at her longingly.
“Starving,” he said.
“Let’s see if we can get you filled up. Maybe later you can fill us up. Headed north?”
“Wherever,” he said.
She had him select a bunch of food. The two women selected some snacks as well. Ohna watched Cece and simply duplicated her selection of snacks. As soon as they got outside the store, the boy started wolfing down the hotdog he’d grabbed. They walked toward the car.
“What’s your name, cowboy?” Cece asked.
“Austin.”
“Austin what?”
“Just Austin. Might have had another name once, but I don’t remember it.”
“No ID, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Austin, I’m Cece and this is Ohna. We’re the Warden twins. You just became our brother, Austin Warden. If the po-po or Gestapo decide we’re of interest, the story is I just picked up you two to make a fast trip to Kansas because our grandma is dying. You two didn’t have any time to pick up your purse or wallet. Got it?”
Both Ohna and Austin nodded. Ohna and Cece had come up with the story during the first part of the trip, while they were still a good three hours from Longview.
“So, tell us about our brother Austin,” Ohna said.
“Don’t remember my parents, either. I got passed around from foster home to foster home until I got sick of it and just walked away. Been living on my own ever since,” Austin said.
“Where?” Ohna asked.
“Oh, here and there. I found an abandoned trailer in a storage area and stayed there until they came and tore it down this fall. Then I thought I’d better move. Don’t know why I chose to go north. Thought Dallas would be a good place, but they aren’t kind to vagrants or street people. And ICE just started rounding up everyone they didn’t like the looks of. Saw a buddy of mine hauled away by guys in masks. Never saw him again,” Austin said.
“All right, now look,” Cece broke in. “There’s a .45 and three clips in the glove box. I’ll stop for local or state cops, but anyone shows up in a mask and tries to stop us, Ohna, you get out that gun and hand it to me. As far as I’m concerned, masked men are robbers and rapists. We shoot them down rather than surrender.”
Ohna looked in the glove box and saw the gun and shells.
“We won’t need to worry about that in Longview. Enough of my people are there that they’ll respond immediately to a threat,” she said.
“How’d your people get to Longview?”
“Got dropped off in the night. Probably still getting a shuttle or two. It ain’t quite daylight yet. They all got warned that even at Halloween, people in that kind of mask would get shot.”
“You two sound like sisters,” Austin laughed. “And you both look good enough to eat.”
“Think I might give you a chance at that,” Cece said. “Ohna, have you figured out how to drive this hotrod?”
“I think I can manage it now.”
“Point it down the highway and press the accelerator. If you happen to get stopped, just show my license. You’ll be me and I’ll be you.”
Cece pulled off the highway to switch with Ohna. It was going to be tight in the backseat of the Mustang, but Cece was determined. They pushed the front passenger seat forward as far as it would go and started immediately removing each other’s clothes. Ohna adjusted the mirror so she could watch.
“We’re beginning to get reports from our agents in Washington, New York, and Florida,” Haro announced to his team. “It’s almost sunrise and people are beginning to head for work and for school. Of course, it will be two hours yet before the government and financial offices open. We have agents among the laborers, keeping watch over the city waking up and a timeline for starting things in DC.”
“That’s great. There isn’t much of anything in the government or financial world that’s worth anything once you’ve taken over,” Darrell said.
“Well, we won’t be just randomly shooting people down,” Haro said. Janelle had just perched herself on his lap and was being filled by his ever-growing appendage. “On the other hand, we won’t be stopping people from shooting each other. I’m afraid we’ll be in for a few bloody days. That’s why your instruction is going to be so important, Madam Secretary. We want people converted over to the old ‘make love, not war’ mindset as quickly as possible.”
“Shoot into me, Haro. I love the feeling of your sex tentacle in my pussy.”
“Have I let you feel this before?” Haro asked. He began twirling his appendage inside her vagina.
“Oh, God! I feel like I’ve got an egg beater in my cunt! Only it’s not sharp. It’s like a little tornado that’s twirling around and touching all my… Oh… shit… yes!”
Janelle was one happy Secretary of Sex Education. She’d been recording everything since she boarded DCA1427. They’d allowed her to post the edited version of her first encounter with Darrell, assuming no one would know who they were or where they were. Once the takeover was accomplished, she’d be able to start posting the sex videos with Haro and Zeta, too.
“Mr. President, we have a situation,” the secret service agent said, waking the president.
George Constantis was specially selected for this position. He was the only one who could wake the president from sleep without being fired on the spot. No one knew that the former agent known as George Constantis was in cold storage up in space. The alien in his place had fully adopted the former agent’s look and personality.
“I’m not in the mood for an interruption,” the president said. “I was just about to enter a dressing room filled with naked teenagers.”
“That’s a memory, sir. Not a dream. You can relive it any time,” George said.
“All right. So, what’s the big deal?”
The president bounced a couple of times before managing to get his bulk to sit up in the bed. George handed him clothes as he described the situation.
“A squadron of Navy fighters has just landed at Andrews,” George said.
“Is that a problem? It’s a joint base,” the president growled.
“It’s Flight 19, sir. They’ve been missing for eighty years.”
“That’s before I was born! Go check again. It can’t be the same flight,” the president said.
He reached for his phone and began typing a message on his social media account.
“Halloween prank! Navy fighter pilots pretend to be pilots missing for eighty years. HaHa!”
“Sir, they claim to be the same pilots who lost compass functionality on December 5, 1945 in the Bermuda Triangle,” George said. “The fourteen crewmen all appear to be in their twenties.”
“Any explanations?” the president asked.
“They claim they were caught in a time warp and were given a special assignment as they were transported to this time. The message included the coordinates and directions to Andrews, and the instruction to ‘protect the president.’ We believe you should be ready to go to Air Force One,” George said.
“I knew it. I knew you were coming,” the president muttered. “Covfefe. The aliens have invaded.”
“What, sir?”
“The Covfefe. I met them years ago. We should have grabbed the rest of the Democrats in congress. They’re all illegal aliens. Call the generals to the Oval Office! Stat!”
“Yes, Doctor,” George chuckled.
Nonetheless, in thirty minutes, the president arrived in the Oval Office where the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of the War Department were waiting. None of them looked as sharp as the president in his blue suit and red tie. His hair was perfectly coifed and sprayed stiff. Fresh spray tan had been applied to his face.
“We have confirmation that the Navy fighters that landed at Andrews are, indeed, Flight 19,” Admiral O’Connor reported. “The serial numbers of the aircraft and the blood samples from the crew all match.”
“Yeah, yeah. Satisfy yourselves. Just keep them at the ready,” the president said. “We have a critical emergency.”
The Joint Chiefs seemed to wonder what kind of emergency trumped the arrival of a flight that had been missing for eighty years.
“We have not been effective enough in rounding up illegal aliens!” the president shouted. “Congress has been infiltrated. All the women in congress and the senate are suspect. And all the rest of the Democrats. And Senator Cannon—thinks he can vote against me! Double the number of National Guard in DC. No, triple it. Head to the Capitol and arrest them all. If anyone resists, shoot them. And send a company to arrest the judges of the Supreme Court. Any other judges that try to get in our way. I’m declaring a National Emergency. We need to be ready to fight for our great country! Go!”
There was no discussion allowed. That wasn’t unusual. They were used to following absurd orders from the president. Besides, four of the five leaders called in by the president were replicas of the original chiefs. The Secretary of War had been an alien plant all the way back in his television days.
Of course, bringing several hundred more troops into the capital wasn’t unnoticed. There were only a few restaurants still open in the nation’s capital. Hotels were nearly empty. People avoided the troops like they avoided the police.
Soon the rumors of aliens having taken over congress were louder than the squeaky tracks of the tanks that slowly surrounded the Capitol. Several members of the house and senate heard the rumors and turned their drivers west. They intended to hide out in the mountains of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Others paused to arm themselves before heading into town. Armed locals suddenly hit the streets. It was only a matter of time before violence erupted.
“My fellow citizens of this great country. I want you to know there is no country greater than this one. We are the focus and envy of the world. And, it turns out, of other worlds, too,” the president said in his hastily called address to the nation.
“For a few days, you’ve been hearing alarming news about a pending invasion from outer space. We’re meeting this attack head-on. I’ve mobilized the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, National Guard, and Reserves—brave men, all of them. Probably no military force in the world that is as competent as our force and I’ve mobilized them to protect Americans all over the country. They aren’t going to let any rumors of aliens touch our great citizens.
“If you aren’t a citizen, I’m sorry for you, but we offered you a way out and you refused to go. The rapists and murderers and drug dealers who flooded into our country across the previous administration’s open borders are on their own now. That was a terrible administration. Worst president ever. Stole the election. Now, we have enemies at hand and are going to devote our energy to protecting our brave businessmen who make our country so rich that everyone else wants what we have.
“It doesn’t make a difference if they are disguised as judges or senators or other Democrats. This isn’t a democracy—it’s a republic. We don’t want any more reference to democrocritics. So, I want to tell you to protect yourselves and join our great military in fighting off this threat.
“I am going to meet this head on and negotiate with the aliens myself. I’ll end this invasion in time for dinner. I should get a Nobel Peace Prize for this. No one else is going to go face the aliens. I’m the great Peace President. It’s very unfair that they haven’t recognized this already.”
The president abruptly left the press room and went directly to the concrete garden to board a helicopter to Andrews where Air Force One and Flight 19 awaited his arrival. No one understood anything he said.
“Mr. President, should we awaken the first lady and your son?” asked an aide as they left by the side entrance.
“Don’t bother. They’ll be fine,” he said, crawling up into the helicopter.
By the time the president reached Andrews, shots were being fired near the capitol. To no one’s particular surprise, shots were being exchanged in the House Chamber. There weren’t many in the large room due to the shutdown, but they could hear shots elsewhere in the building as well.
“This is why you wanted the government shut down! You prepared this all for the aliens!” someone on the left shouted at his colleague on the right.
“Now we know why you wanted us all disarmed! You wanted it easier for the aliens to take control!” a voice from the righthand side of the chamber shouted as he came up shooting. He was surprised when a volley was returned.
“Do you think just because we want better gun laws that we’re unarmed?” shouted an opponent. “Take that, you child-raping sack of shit!”
It seemed as though a civil war had broken out in the chamber. And as desperate aides and lower employees burst out the doors of the Capitol, they were immediately swept up by soldiers in riot gear and masks.
The battles were not confined to the House and Senate Chambers. Beyond the Capitol, there was also gunfire in the halls of the Supreme Court. It was mostly lawyers shooting at each other, so no one was terribly concerned. The justices hadn’t arrived at the Supreme Court Building. In fact, no one was sure where they were. No one had heard from the eleven old men and women.
The battles spread throughout the nation’s capital. Self-proclaimed militias took up stations at random locations, declaring they were protecting the Treasury, the National Air and Space Museum, the Lincoln Memorial, and Starbucks. No one really understood the logic of their deployment, but if they crossed paths, they exchanged fire.
Harlan Graves and Millie MacDonald heard the news in the morning and jumped into Harlan’s Bronco with the scratched sides to head toward West Virginia. They hadn’t bothered to dress when they got out of bed, but grabbed bathrobes and slippers as they rushed out the door.
“Where are we going, Harlan?”
“Right to the heart of it, Millie,” he said. “There’s a backwoods ho out there who knows exactly what’s happening. We’re throwing our lot in with her.”
Millie turned in her seat and examined the gun cases attached to their seatbacks.
“I hope you bought some ammo for these babies,” she said.
Harlan glanced over at her. Millie’s robe gaped open as she examined the guns and he definitely saw the babies he had ammo for. He reached over and squeezed her left tit. Millie swatted at his hand and then opened her robe wide.
Harlan nearly drove off the road.
