Chapter Fourteen

Project Overview: Untitled Document is a serial comedy novel dealing with the sort of topics that we so frequently make fun of here at Something Awful. This Chapter: The world and the spacey stuff around the world are teetering on the brink of all out war, but this is a chapter of meetings. Captain Henry meets the president, Maximillian meets with the sinister mind-reading esper, Raylene meets with a muderous duo, and three hapless astronauts meet with the reaper. Find out what exciting twists and turns the plodding narrative will take this time around, and remember to have your decoder rings ready for a special message from El Blanco Negro!

Astronaut Nathan Thomas was quickly discovering that it was difficult to pound angrily on things in space. He and cosmonaut Alexei Koschenko were hammering their fists on the sealed hatch to the communications module, shouting for their fellow astronaut to let them in to try to contact earth. They had gone four days without transmissions from mission control, which would not have been as terrible if it weren't for the huge flotilla of alien spacecraft visible outside almost every porthole on the International Space Station.

Mission Control in Houston had sent the last message, informing them that power grids were failing and that the space center was being evacuated because of extraterrestrial threats. Then an Air Force general had come on and asked them a bunch of questions about the aliens. During the first wave they had barely caught glimpses of Well Meaning Gesture and its assault drop ships. Now the sight of the much larger fleet was unavoidable.

"We might be able to explode door." Alexei suggested in his thick Russian accent. "I have chemical compounds for big blast."

Nathan shook his head, although a better astronaut might have slapped Alexei for even suggesting using explosives on the oxygen rich ISS.

"Too risky, dude." Nathan explained. "We might be able to drill out the hinges, but it's going to take hours. That shit is aluminum with a ceramic heat shield built in."

Locked inside the communications module, Rashmi Patel ignored the muffled shouts and dull hammering of fists on the hatch. She had a mission, an obligation more important than her duties to NASA and the ISS, a task that she would have never thought necessary. With a sigh she completed her adjustment of the satellite antenna and began cycling through the nineteen emergency frequencies.

"Overwatch to Underlord, Overwatch to Underlord, come in. Over." When there was no reply she repeated the transmission on the next frequency. "Overwatch to Underlord, Overwatch to Underlord, do you read me? Over."

"Five by five, Overwatch." She heard the reply on her sixth attempt. "Good to hear you're still alive. Over."

"Give me a port for a data handshake. I've got images of Elephant in motion. Over." Sweat beaded on Rashmi's lips and she craned her neck to see through the small triple-thick porthole.

"Roger that, nineteen nineteen on the port. Signal is strong and computers are…making time now. What can you tell us Overwatch?"

"Elephant, reinforced, moving into low earth orbit. There is a lot of traffic, mostly small craft but also a formation of larger ships. I see fighters, assault shuttles, and a number of other unidentified vessels. A handful of the larger vessels have trajectories that are suggesting a reentry course." A shadow darkened the ISS as one of the alien supply freighters passed ponderously overhead.

Rashmi struggled to describe the enormity of what she saw through the porthole. There were City-sized spacecraft glistening black and bristling with antenna and turrets. Circling around them were flocks and swarms of assault shuttles, bloat-bellied mass landers, and hundreds of menacing interceptors and bombers of all shapes and sizes. Rashmi rattled off her descriptions to the best of her abilities, trying to focus on one detail at a time. Eight missile pods under the wings of the bat-shaped interceptors. Rear and belly gun turrets on the blocky bomber craft. Smoke-stack like funnels lining the sides of the cruisers, likely some form of weaponry.