“Fuck,” he cursed, twitching back. “Cease fire,” he barked at his men, still hoping to salvage this first contact situation about to go FUBAR{3}.

“Jameson!”

Private Jameson immediately got on the radio, trying to relay Brennan’s order in case the two flanking units hadn’t caught the command, but even from his position Brennan could hear the static from the speaker.

Communications were down. Must’ve been some kind of interference from the wreck, or maybe the aliens were jamming them. Hard to see how, given the condition of the ship, but they were aliens. Who knew what they could do?

“Radio’s down, sir,” Jameson reported, voice tight. His skin was sickly pale and sweaty, his eyes round as saucers. He was trying hard to keep it together, but Brennan could see the superstitious fear in his eyes.

This was somewhat out of the range of their experience. Anybody’s experience.

“Keep trying,” Brennan snapped, then glared at the other members of his squad, who were clutching their weapons and looking twitchy. They’d probably watched the same movies he had; it was hard to blame them for being upset. However, upset soldiers tended to be trigger-happy soldiers.

“This is a fucking first contact situation, people,” Brennan reminded them.

“We don’t engage unless we need to defend ourselves. Is that clear?”

The yes, sirs he got in reply weren’t quite as firm as he was used to, but rookies or not, they were soldiers. They’d obey.

Brennan got up so he’d be visible from the bottom of the depression, arms spread to show his peaceful intentions.

“United States Army,” he shouted down into the crater. “Put down your weapons and—”

This time, he could feel something whistle past his ear so closely every hair on his body stood on end. There was no bang to accompany the shot—the alien weapons were almost completely silent—but something exploded in the air above his head in a burst of vicious green. Brennan hit the dirt, swearing a blue streak. Whichever of his men had fired the first shot had effectively destroyed his credibility with the aliens. Also, the creatures likely hadn’t understood a word of what he’d said.

The shot from below was answered immediately by a staccato burst of automatic fire, which pretty much nixed any hope for peaceful negotiations, not that Brennan gave a damn by that point. As Brennan watched, one of the sentry aliens dragged the wounded back toward the questionable cover of the wreck, staggering like a drunk when bullets pinged off its silver-covered back. Given the distance between the aliens and the troops, Brennan was impressed that so many of his men’s shots hit their targets.

However, distance wasn’t a problem for long. The three unoccupied armored aliens tossed their weapons to their comrades and took off running, each of them headed straight for one of the squads occupying the high ground. Taking the fight to the enemy. They were fast, faster than Brennan would’ve thought, moving with the deadly grace of something otherworldly. No hesitation at all when they reached the steep slope leading up to the ridge; they just kept running, falling forward onto all fours to get more traction on the partly glazed surface.