Category: A Victory!

Edgar Simmons and Cletus Bellefontaine had been best friends since the church nursery. They grew up together, gutted through as much school as was demanded of them, and eventually married. Their wives were large, intolerant of foolishness, and best friends in their own right. Edgar and Cletus kept food on the table, serving ably as sign holders for the county road department.

Success turns on perspective. To the outside world, Edgar and Cletus were just barely scraping by. However, they met their respective mortgages and had enough left over for beer and fishing gear. The two buddies felt themselves inordinately blessed.

Prep

“Pass me another Miller Light, brother,” Cletus said amiably. WWE SmackDown roared in the background. Brutus Creed was about to go mano a mano with El Grande Americano, and the crowd was getting properly tooled up. Edgar’s expansive plasma-screen TV caught every nuance. It was almost like being physically in the ring. The effect was all the more compelling during the women’s matches.

“Cooler’s empty, loser,” Edgar responded without taking his eyes off the screen. “You’ll have to go hit the fridge. Get me another bag of Fritos while you’re up.”

Cletus was awfully comfortable.

“This is why God made wives,” he said flatly. Both men snickered.

“Jimmie Earl!” he shouted. “Be a dear and bring us some more beers and another bag of Fritos.”

The raw potato was half the size of a football. It flew out of the kitchen and crossed the living room in an instant. Jimmie Earl Bellefontaine had played competitive softball in junior college, and she still had an arm.

The heavy projectile caught Cletus behind the right ear and lifted him bodily out of the tattered recliner. The man fell unceremoniously across the coffee table and landed in a heap on the floor. Beer cans and empty chip bags skittered across the dingy carpet. Edgar reflexively leaped to his feet and took cover behind his wife’s favorite potted plant. He hoped that Pauline’s weakness for horticulture would spare him from a similar fate.

“Dang, woman!” Cletus said as he lifted himself to his feet with difficulty. His head swam from the well-placed blow. “I am forever amazed at that chick’s rarefied sense of hearing.”

“Yeah,” Edgar said as he surveyed the mess. “You know, it might be best if we wrapped up anyway. It’ll be an early day tomorrow, and them fish ain’t gonna catch themselves.”

With that, both men smiled. They would sooner fish than breathe, and the weather forecast was sublime. Cletus collected Jimmie Earl and bid his best friend goodnight.

History in the Making

The specific location of the Fishing Spot was a secret more closely guarded than the President’s nuclear launch codes. Edgar’s beat-up Ford pickup bounced to a stop underneath a familiar elm. Cletus moved to unlock the chain that secured their old john boat to a nearby tree, while Edgar unloaded the fishing gear and beer cooler. Unbeknownst to both men, however, danger lurked in the skies nearby.

“Sensors detect two bipedal life forms, Captain,” the reptilian helmsman hissed across his bifurcated tongue. “One creature is preparing an aquatic vessel. The other is preoccupied with a piece of equipment of some sort. It could be a weapon.”

The mission of the Archon-class scout ship and her twelve-lizard crew was armed reconnaissance. Their objective was to compile a detailed assessment of the indigenous life forms on this planet and relay that information back to the waiting invasion fleet via tachyon burst transmission. This would be their first encounter with the native bipeds.

“Bring us into position within range of both creatures,” the Captain hissed. “Ready photon cannons. Let us observe their response, but be prepared for any eventuality.”

Scaly three-fingered appendages tightened on sundry controls.

Edgar noticed the bizarre little object first. It was maybe three inches across and resembled a dark grey hockey puck as it hovered motionless some twenty feet distant. The compact object made no sound.

“Cletus, you seein’ this?” he said. “That thing some kind of drone? You don’t suppose anybody else has got designs on our fishing spot, do you?”

Cletus looked up from his tacklebox and spotted the curious little object in an instant. Without a moment’s hesitation, he snatched up his skulling paddle and advanced.

“Ain’t nobody stealing our fishing spot,” he said with authority. “We been fishing this place since we were weaned. It’s ours by rights of eminent domain.”

Neither man really knew what eminent domain meant. They likely intended squatter’s rights more accurately, but the gist was there. Cletus raised his wooden paddle and prepared to strike.

“Captain!” the helmsman exclaimed. “The creature is positioning itself to attack!”

“Right,” the senior officer said flatly. They had trained for this eventuality. “Forward batteries, fire as you bear. I had hoped not to have to resort to violence, but this will send an indelible message.”

There was a modest blue spark, and the air reeked of ozone. In an instant, Cletus Bellefontaine was simply gone. All that remained were his two pig boots, smoke trailing lazily up from the gory stumps where they were insulated by the rubber. Edgar processed the scene in an instant.

“Sweet holy crap!” the stunned man exclaimed. There was no time to grieve. Reaching through the open door of the pickup, Edgar retrieved his well-worn Remington slide-action 12-bore.

He cycled the action by rote and had the front bead on the malevolent hockey puck before the reptiles could respond. Edgar Simmons had a near-supernatural gift for wing shooting. At twenty feet, his tight bolus of number sixes struck the little starship squarely. The snuff can-sized cylinder spun crazily away and plopped into the lake without further fanfare.

Edgar cycled his gun without conscious thought. His ears rang, but his lizard brain was too preoccupied to notice. The confused man switched his gaze between the ringlets now propagating uniformly across the lake and his buddy’s smoldering footwear. He struggled with the decision regarding who to call first.

The tachyon feed had related all of the gory details in real time. The Commodore of the invasion fleet reviewed the pertinent data several times from three systems away before making his decision. He possessed the firepower required to subdue these primitive apes.

However, none of the raw materials to be found on this wet, cold orb justified the expense or effort. He dictated an order to bypass the planet and signed it with a single perfectly manicured claw. He would have a subordinate draft the notices for the families of the lost crew.

Turning his attention back to his tactical plot, the reptilian commander occupied himself with the particulars of fuel reserves and manpower.