Grognardia
Emperor Mongoose
Anderson Farmstead, near Big Rock, Illinois, USA
October 31st, 1951 – 7:47 PM
Henry was reading his paper after dinner when Martha called from the front room. “Henry, there are some weird-looking kids outside.”
He closed the newspaper, frowning. The Coopers' farm was three miles east, the Henshaws' place four miles west, and neither family had kids young enough for trick-or-treating.
"Kids?"
"Well," Martha said, peering through the curtain. "I think they're kids. They're wearing Halloween masks. Really good masks. Sort of... shiny?"
Henry joined her at the window. Four small figures stood in the yard, illuminated by the porch light. They were maybe four feet tall, wearing what looked like grey coveralls. But Martha was right about the masks: they were too good. Smooth, almost metallic, with huge dark eyes that caught the light wrong.
Something cold settled in Henry's stomach. Aachen, Germany, 1944. Rain-slick streets and the towers of the Imperial Cathedral rising through the smoke. He'd taken shelter in a doorway during a firefight and looked up to see them: the gargoyles, crouched on the buttresses. Watching. Waiting. Wings folded, eyes too large, faces that weren't quite human and weren't quite animal.
"Henry?" Martha's voice seemed to come from very far away.
"Those aren't kids," he said slowly.
"Well, they're not adults, Henry. Look at them. They're just standing there."
One of them, the one in front, slightly taller than the others, raised a hand. Its four long fingers flexed in ways that made Henry’s knuckles ache just to watch, each one seemed to twist toward the others, like a handful of thumbs trying to agree on something. The porch light flickered. Once, twice, then steadied.
"Martha," Henry said quietly. "Go get the shotgun."
"For trick-or-treaters?"
"Those aren't trick-or-treaters."
The leader knocked on the front door. Three times, very precisely, very politely.
Henry opened the door with the shotgun visible but not raised, the way you did when Jehovah's Witnesses got too persistent.
Four pairs of enormous dark eyes looked up at him. The leader made a sound, high, chirping, almost musical, and gestured toward the barn. No, not to the barn. Past it. Toward the cornfield, where a slow, sullen light pulsed between the stalks. The kind of light that made sensible people lock the door and check on the dog.
"Look," Henry said, keeping his voice level. "I don't know what you kids are supposed to be, but it's late, and…"
Another chirp. This one sounded... apologetic? The leader pointed at itself, then at the others, then made a complicated gesture Henry couldn't understand. Finally, it pointed at the corn again and made a sweeping motion with both hands. Hands that definitely had too few fingers.
"Henry," Martha whispered from behind him. "Look at their eyes. So beautiful."
The eyes of the visitors shimmered faintly, full of stars, as if each one carried a little piece of the night sky inside its head.
Martha stepped forward, bowl in hand. "Well, if you're trick-or-treating..." She held out a bowl filled with homemade cookies, candy corn, and Tootsie Rolls.
The leader tilted its head, considering. Then, with great ceremony, it reached out and took a single cookie. The other three followed suit, each selecting one treat with precise, four-fingered care.
The leader chirped something that might have been "thank you" and made a small bow.
"You're... welcome?" Martha said.
One of the smaller ones, with small wings on its back, chirped something that sounded distinctly amused and popped a candy corn into its mouth. Its eyes went very wide. It chirped again, urgently, and pointed at the bowl.
The leader made a sharp gesture, and the small one went quiet, looking disappointed.
"We don't want any trouble," Henry said.
The porch light went out. Not flickered, went out. Every light in the house went dark. Outside, the only illumination came from the figures themselves, a faint bioluminescence that made them look like they'd been carved from moonlight.
From the back of the farmland came a sound Henry had never heard before: a deep, resonant hum that made his teeth ache.
The leader looked toward the sound, then back at Henry. It chirped once more, definitely apologetic this time, and made a gesture that in any language clearly meant sorry about the noise.
Then all four of them turned and walked toward the cornfield. Not running. Not hurrying. Just walking, in perfect formation, like they had all the time in the world. Two more shapes emerged from the rows to meet them, tools glinting faintly, and together the six vanished into the pulsing light.
Henry stood in the doorway with his useless shotgun and watched them go.
"Martha," he said finally. "Maybe don't mention this to Pastor Williams."
"Not a word," she agreed.
The humming got louder.
---
The ship lifted off ten minutes later, and Henry, watching from behind the barn, got his first clear look at it. A disc, maybe forty feet across, covered in symbols that glowed like someone had written on it with liquid light. The symbols pulsed in sequence: slow, deliberate, almost ceremonial.
Then the thing moved.
Not accelerated. Moved. Like someone had cut it out of the sky and pasted it a hundred feet higher without bothering with the intervening space.
Three of his Holstein cows, arranged in a neat triangle in the north pasture, mooed at it.
The corn in the back of the farm was flattened in patterns that looked almost like writing. The kind that would make headlines the moment anyone flew over.
---
INTERCEPT – OVER ILLINOIS. October 31st, 1951 – 20:06 Hours.
USAF Channel 3B, Call-sign BLUE FLIGHT
Blue Leader: "Control, Blue Flight has radar contact climbing out of Kane County area. Multiple returns... no, single return. It's jumping around the scope."
Control: "Blue Leader, close and identify."
Blue Two: "Visual contact. Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
Control: "Report, Two."
Blue Two: "It's a flying saucer, Control. An actual, no-kidding flying saucer. Covered in Christmas lights."
Blue Leader: "Confirm visual. Disc-shaped object, approximately forty feet diameter, covered in luminous symbols. They're blinking in sequence."
Control: "Can you determine speed and heading?"
Blue Three: "Negative, Control. It's not... it doesn't move like anything should move. It's just… there. Then it's somewhere else. No acceleration, no…"
Blue Leader: "Target is non-compliant with, uh, expected flight characteristics. Maintaining position off our starboard wing. Range: two hundred yards."
Control: "Maintain visual contact. Do not engage. Repeat: do not…"
Blue Leader: "Uhm… Control, my aircraft is not responding to inputs."
Blue Three: "Same here, Leader. Stick's dead. We're being moved."
Blue Two: "Negative moved - we're being rotated. I just did a three-sixty and I didn't touch the stick."
Blue Leader: "Confirm. All three aircraft. We're being arranged into... it's putting us in a triangle formation."
Control: "Blue Flight, say again your last…"
Blue Three: "We're in a goddamn triangle, Control! And now we're spinning back to base heading!"
Blue Two: "Controls are back. I have my aircraft."
Blue Leader: "Confirmed. We're free. Target is... it's leaving. Climbing vertically. Fast."
Blue Three: "Leader, it's accelerating. Mach one... Mach two... Holy smokes, it's still going!"
Blue Two: "Radar contact lost. It just... disappeared off the scope."
Control: "Blue Flight, return to base. Prepare for debrief."
Blue Leader: "Copy, Control. Just for the record... I think we lost that one."
---
[Aboard the Droyne Scout Ship Oysrrak - Two Minutes Earlier]
"Stop playing with them," said the Leader.
The Sport, Kriyusk, was standing near the repulsor controls and managed to look offended. "I'm not playing. I'm conducting a scientific assessment of their manoeuvring capabilities."
"You arranged them into a triangle."
"An equilateral triangle. Very efficient formation. I was helping."
The Warrior leaned over his console. "Their radio traffic suggests extreme psychological distress."
"Then they're learning," said the Sport cheerfully. He tapped the controls. The three F-86s rotated gently in place, like a mobile over a crib. "See? Now they're pointed to where they came from. Helpful!"
The Drone covered her face. "Kriyusk, you're traumatizing pre-spaceflight sophonts."
"They scrambled interceptors at us! I'm being proportional. And polite. I could have imploded them."
"Release them," said the Leader.
"But…"
"Now."
The Sport sighed and disengaged the repulsor beam. "Fine. But I'm noting in my log that my diplomatic overtures were underappreciated."
The ship climbed, its coyn-symbols blazing through the departure sequence. Behind them, three fighter pilots tried to explain the unexplainable to a control tower that was already reaching for the "weather balloon" rubber stamp.
The Drone flicked open a glowing slate. “Post-contact checklist,” she said, voice steady. "So, we got the coolant fixed?"
"Yes," said the Technician.
"Did we make contact with the locals?"
"Yes," said the Warrior, with feeling.
"Did we really need to knock on their door?" asked the Technician.
"We landed on their property," said the Leader firmly. "Protocol requires notification."
"Did we establish positive diplomatic relations?"
Everyone looked at Kriyusk.
The Sport’s wings rustled innocently. “I was being very polite.”
"You wrote an elaborate insult in their crops," said the Leader.
"In a script they can't read!"
"You levitated their livestock."
"Very gently!"
"You moved three military aircraft around like toys and then spun them in place."
"They were misaligned. I corrected them. You're welcome."
The Leader pinched the bridge of his nose: that ancient, universal gesture. "Drone, for the record: Illinois, planet designation 'Earth,' year approximately 1951 by local calendar. Contact made. Contact regretted. Recommend future visitors bring sedatives. And perhaps spare coolant parts."
"Noted," said the Drone, stylus poised over her slate.
The Technician checked his monitors. "Jump drive optimal. Requesting destination."
"Anywhere that isn't here," said the Leader.
The Technician engaged the M-drive, and the ship surged forward, cutting through the upper atmosphere in silence.
From somewhere in the back of the ship, the Warrior's voice drifted forward: "You really are a jerk, Kriyusk."
The Sport settled into his couch, wings folded, looking entirely pleased with himself.
"I prefer 'helpful and misunderstood,'" he said.
October 31st, 1951 – 7:47 PM
Henry was reading his paper after dinner when Martha called from the front room. “Henry, there are some weird-looking kids outside.”
He closed the newspaper, frowning. The Coopers' farm was three miles east, the Henshaws' place four miles west, and neither family had kids young enough for trick-or-treating.
"Kids?"
"Well," Martha said, peering through the curtain. "I think they're kids. They're wearing Halloween masks. Really good masks. Sort of... shiny?"
Henry joined her at the window. Four small figures stood in the yard, illuminated by the porch light. They were maybe four feet tall, wearing what looked like grey coveralls. But Martha was right about the masks: they were too good. Smooth, almost metallic, with huge dark eyes that caught the light wrong.
Something cold settled in Henry's stomach. Aachen, Germany, 1944. Rain-slick streets and the towers of the Imperial Cathedral rising through the smoke. He'd taken shelter in a doorway during a firefight and looked up to see them: the gargoyles, crouched on the buttresses. Watching. Waiting. Wings folded, eyes too large, faces that weren't quite human and weren't quite animal.
"Henry?" Martha's voice seemed to come from very far away.
"Those aren't kids," he said slowly.
"Well, they're not adults, Henry. Look at them. They're just standing there."
One of them, the one in front, slightly taller than the others, raised a hand. Its four long fingers flexed in ways that made Henry’s knuckles ache just to watch, each one seemed to twist toward the others, like a handful of thumbs trying to agree on something. The porch light flickered. Once, twice, then steadied.
"Martha," Henry said quietly. "Go get the shotgun."
"For trick-or-treaters?"
"Those aren't trick-or-treaters."
The leader knocked on the front door. Three times, very precisely, very politely.
Henry opened the door with the shotgun visible but not raised, the way you did when Jehovah's Witnesses got too persistent.
Four pairs of enormous dark eyes looked up at him. The leader made a sound, high, chirping, almost musical, and gestured toward the barn. No, not to the barn. Past it. Toward the cornfield, where a slow, sullen light pulsed between the stalks. The kind of light that made sensible people lock the door and check on the dog.
"Look," Henry said, keeping his voice level. "I don't know what you kids are supposed to be, but it's late, and…"
Another chirp. This one sounded... apologetic? The leader pointed at itself, then at the others, then made a complicated gesture Henry couldn't understand. Finally, it pointed at the corn again and made a sweeping motion with both hands. Hands that definitely had too few fingers.
"Henry," Martha whispered from behind him. "Look at their eyes. So beautiful."
The eyes of the visitors shimmered faintly, full of stars, as if each one carried a little piece of the night sky inside its head.
Martha stepped forward, bowl in hand. "Well, if you're trick-or-treating..." She held out a bowl filled with homemade cookies, candy corn, and Tootsie Rolls.
The leader tilted its head, considering. Then, with great ceremony, it reached out and took a single cookie. The other three followed suit, each selecting one treat with precise, four-fingered care.
The leader chirped something that might have been "thank you" and made a small bow.
"You're... welcome?" Martha said.
One of the smaller ones, with small wings on its back, chirped something that sounded distinctly amused and popped a candy corn into its mouth. Its eyes went very wide. It chirped again, urgently, and pointed at the bowl.
The leader made a sharp gesture, and the small one went quiet, looking disappointed.
"We don't want any trouble," Henry said.
The porch light went out. Not flickered, went out. Every light in the house went dark. Outside, the only illumination came from the figures themselves, a faint bioluminescence that made them look like they'd been carved from moonlight.
From the back of the farmland came a sound Henry had never heard before: a deep, resonant hum that made his teeth ache.
The leader looked toward the sound, then back at Henry. It chirped once more, definitely apologetic this time, and made a gesture that in any language clearly meant sorry about the noise.
Then all four of them turned and walked toward the cornfield. Not running. Not hurrying. Just walking, in perfect formation, like they had all the time in the world. Two more shapes emerged from the rows to meet them, tools glinting faintly, and together the six vanished into the pulsing light.
Henry stood in the doorway with his useless shotgun and watched them go.
"Martha," he said finally. "Maybe don't mention this to Pastor Williams."
"Not a word," she agreed.
The humming got louder.
---
The ship lifted off ten minutes later, and Henry, watching from behind the barn, got his first clear look at it. A disc, maybe forty feet across, covered in symbols that glowed like someone had written on it with liquid light. The symbols pulsed in sequence: slow, deliberate, almost ceremonial.
Then the thing moved.
Not accelerated. Moved. Like someone had cut it out of the sky and pasted it a hundred feet higher without bothering with the intervening space.
Three of his Holstein cows, arranged in a neat triangle in the north pasture, mooed at it.
The corn in the back of the farm was flattened in patterns that looked almost like writing. The kind that would make headlines the moment anyone flew over.
---
INTERCEPT – OVER ILLINOIS. October 31st, 1951 – 20:06 Hours.
USAF Channel 3B, Call-sign BLUE FLIGHT
Blue Leader: "Control, Blue Flight has radar contact climbing out of Kane County area. Multiple returns... no, single return. It's jumping around the scope."
Control: "Blue Leader, close and identify."
Blue Two: "Visual contact. Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
Control: "Report, Two."
Blue Two: "It's a flying saucer, Control. An actual, no-kidding flying saucer. Covered in Christmas lights."
Blue Leader: "Confirm visual. Disc-shaped object, approximately forty feet diameter, covered in luminous symbols. They're blinking in sequence."
Control: "Can you determine speed and heading?"
Blue Three: "Negative, Control. It's not... it doesn't move like anything should move. It's just… there. Then it's somewhere else. No acceleration, no…"
Blue Leader: "Target is non-compliant with, uh, expected flight characteristics. Maintaining position off our starboard wing. Range: two hundred yards."
Control: "Maintain visual contact. Do not engage. Repeat: do not…"
Blue Leader: "Uhm… Control, my aircraft is not responding to inputs."
Blue Three: "Same here, Leader. Stick's dead. We're being moved."
Blue Two: "Negative moved - we're being rotated. I just did a three-sixty and I didn't touch the stick."
Blue Leader: "Confirm. All three aircraft. We're being arranged into... it's putting us in a triangle formation."
Control: "Blue Flight, say again your last…"
Blue Three: "We're in a goddamn triangle, Control! And now we're spinning back to base heading!"
Blue Two: "Controls are back. I have my aircraft."
Blue Leader: "Confirmed. We're free. Target is... it's leaving. Climbing vertically. Fast."
Blue Three: "Leader, it's accelerating. Mach one... Mach two... Holy smokes, it's still going!"
Blue Two: "Radar contact lost. It just... disappeared off the scope."
Control: "Blue Flight, return to base. Prepare for debrief."
Blue Leader: "Copy, Control. Just for the record... I think we lost that one."
---
[Aboard the Droyne Scout Ship Oysrrak - Two Minutes Earlier]
"Stop playing with them," said the Leader.
The Sport, Kriyusk, was standing near the repulsor controls and managed to look offended. "I'm not playing. I'm conducting a scientific assessment of their manoeuvring capabilities."
"You arranged them into a triangle."
"An equilateral triangle. Very efficient formation. I was helping."
The Warrior leaned over his console. "Their radio traffic suggests extreme psychological distress."
"Then they're learning," said the Sport cheerfully. He tapped the controls. The three F-86s rotated gently in place, like a mobile over a crib. "See? Now they're pointed to where they came from. Helpful!"
The Drone covered her face. "Kriyusk, you're traumatizing pre-spaceflight sophonts."
"They scrambled interceptors at us! I'm being proportional. And polite. I could have imploded them."
"Release them," said the Leader.
"But…"
"Now."
The Sport sighed and disengaged the repulsor beam. "Fine. But I'm noting in my log that my diplomatic overtures were underappreciated."
The ship climbed, its coyn-symbols blazing through the departure sequence. Behind them, three fighter pilots tried to explain the unexplainable to a control tower that was already reaching for the "weather balloon" rubber stamp.
The Drone flicked open a glowing slate. “Post-contact checklist,” she said, voice steady. "So, we got the coolant fixed?"
"Yes," said the Technician.
"Did we make contact with the locals?"
"Yes," said the Warrior, with feeling.
"Did we really need to knock on their door?" asked the Technician.
"We landed on their property," said the Leader firmly. "Protocol requires notification."
"Did we establish positive diplomatic relations?"
Everyone looked at Kriyusk.
The Sport’s wings rustled innocently. “I was being very polite.”
"You wrote an elaborate insult in their crops," said the Leader.
"In a script they can't read!"
"You levitated their livestock."
"Very gently!"
"You moved three military aircraft around like toys and then spun them in place."
"They were misaligned. I corrected them. You're welcome."
The Leader pinched the bridge of his nose: that ancient, universal gesture. "Drone, for the record: Illinois, planet designation 'Earth,' year approximately 1951 by local calendar. Contact made. Contact regretted. Recommend future visitors bring sedatives. And perhaps spare coolant parts."
"Noted," said the Drone, stylus poised over her slate.
The Technician checked his monitors. "Jump drive optimal. Requesting destination."
"Anywhere that isn't here," said the Leader.
The Technician engaged the M-drive, and the ship surged forward, cutting through the upper atmosphere in silence.
From somewhere in the back of the ship, the Warrior's voice drifted forward: "You really are a jerk, Kriyusk."
The Sport settled into his couch, wings folded, looking entirely pleased with himself.
"I prefer 'helpful and misunderstood,'" he said.
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