Moonlight bathed Ina and the strange woman from the stars sprawled out before her on the sandy shores of her secret nook. There, in that place where Ina came to run away from that world, the space woman appeared and smiled at her.
Confusion, curiosity and fear played at Ina's heart strings in equal measure. Her flight-or-fight response kicked in like the switchboards of the supercomputers of Kennedy Space Center running calculations for the space program. And yet, when the otherworldly woman smiled at her and glanced at her with shimmering, starry eyes, Ina's curiosity won a tenuous majority.
Barely.
But it was enough for her to decide to not run away.
"A-are you... alright?" Ina asked, cautiously approaching the woman.
The woman didn't answer. Instead, Ina saw the woman tilting her head almost innocently at her.
"Do you not understand me?" Ina thought out loud.
Again, no reply. Just the woman's curious, albeit reassuring stare.
The stalemate continued. Ocean breeze blew into the nook, combing the hair of Ina and the woman under the moonlight.
Then, the woman rose.
A curtain of sand cascaded from her strange, flowing dress and from her tanned arms and thighs, captivating Ina. She raised up her hand, urging Ina to stay put - to be not afraid. Ina took a deep breath and held her ground.
The tall, tan woman approached Ina. Her bare feet crunched the sand beneath her until she towered over Ina. Then, the woman slouched forward and pressed her forehead against Ina's.
"Wah...!?" Ina gasped.
However, the tall woman held Ina's shoulders and kept her in place.
Before Ina could say anything else, her purple eyes widened. In her mind, she felt the presence of the woman peering through the synapses of her mind. It was almost as if some sort of neural link had been established between them, centered on their joined foreheads.
After a short while, the woman pulled away. Ina felt the residual warmth of the woman's forehead on hers and started to blush.
Then, the woman finally spoke with a sweet, lively voice.
"You, NASA." She pointed to Ina, and then to herself, "Me, Sana!"
"Sana..." Ina repeated the name, savoring it, "What a strange name."
It rolled off her tongue and somehow tasted sweet. Ina had to shake her head and clear her throat to get back on track.
"So, you can understand me after all." Ina tested.
Sana placed her hand on her forehead and smiled.
"Sana learn from NASA."
"Is that so...?" Ina blinked nervously, stealing glances at the space woman, "Actually. I'm not NASA. I work there... I mean, used to work there."
Sana tilted her head again. The concept of employment probably didn't register with her yet. Ina heaved a sigh and laid a hand over her heart.
"My name is Ina'nis Ninomae, but you can just call me Ina."
"Ina." Sana said her name. Then, she started repeating it fondly, "Ina, Ina!"
Childlike innocence like that was hard to fake. Everything that Sana did seemed to come straight from the heart.
Everything about her was genuine.
Unlike Ina.
Suddenly, Sana piped up.
"Sad?" Sana asked.
"Huh?" Ina gasped.
"Ina sad?" Sana repeated.
"Oh, I..." Ina tried to deflect the question, but she felt tears sliding down her cheeks, "Don't mind me." She paused and turned away from Sana, "I've just got a lot on my mind. If you saw any of that, I'm sorry."
"Huh." Sana remarked flatly.
She scratched her head and furrowed her brow, as if she was trying to break down Ina's words and digest them properly.
"Oh, sorry..." Ina apologized.
Ina lowered her head.
Damn it .There I go apologizing for every little thing.
Before Ina could say anything else, an ominous sound reached her ears. The unmistakable whir of helicopter blades reached her ears, coming from the nearby US Air Force base. Searchlights from the Kennedy Space Center also started combing through the fenced off beach and marshland around the sandy nook.
Then, Ina heard footsteps snapping twigs and driftwood beneath them.
She felt chills running up her spine. She looked up to the unnatural hole torn through the clouds in the night sky and then to the strange space woman standing innocently before her.
A morbid thought ran through Ina's mind.
She wondered what sort of reward she could get from turning Sana in to the authorities, but that thought didn't last long. When the footsteps drew closer, she cast away those thoughts and grabbed Sana by the wrist.
"We're hiding." Ina urged.
"Bad?" Sana asked.
"Bad people are looking for you!" Ina declared, "So come with me. We need to hide!"
Sana still seemed confused, but she let Ina lead her away. The two of them found a small ditch hidden behind tall grass and marshland reeds. All the while, Ina kicked up sand to cover up their footsteps - something that she had done many times before while trespassing on that sprawl of government property.
Air Force helicopters flew overhead and the searchlights swept through the nook, but Ina kept her head down. Sana followed suit and did whatever Ina told her.
Then, the footsteps arrived at the hidden nook.
...
A slender young woman with silver hair worn into cat-like buns and a pretty braid on her bangs appeared on scene. She brandished an old-style Single Action Army revolver and wore a sharp suit and led a small team of similarly dressed and armed men - among them, a large, tank-like muscle man carrying an M60 light machine gun like it was lighter than a grocery store baguette.
"Fan out!" The young woman declared, making hand gestures in the air, "Bazo, with me."
The well-dressed men spread out on the young woman's command. The muscle man Bazo, meanwhile, accompanied the young woman to the nook while she shone a flashlight around the sandy nook. She prowled around like a cat stalking her prey and kept her revolver at the ready, twirling it with exceptional skill all the while.
A pang of pain struck Ina's heart. Her secret base was being desecrated by armed, unsavory-looking people.
Then, another group of people approached the nook from the opposite direction. Military policemen from Kennedy Space Center accompanied a peculiar figure.
The Director of NASA, Amelia Watson.
Ina gulped. She kept her head hidden behind the grass and the reeds and watched the conversation unfold.
"You're already here." Director Watson spoke with equal parts surprise and shock, "You weren't kidding about 'thirty minutes or less'."
"It's crazy how quickly you can get things done without so much government oversight in the CIA." The cat-like woman answered. She twirled her revolver one more time and holstered it by her slender hip, "I had a feeling that NASA would need our help on this matter sooner or later, so I mobilized my attache."
"Prudent as always, Special Agent Zeta Vestia." Director Watson hummed.
"Anything to beat the Soviets to the moon, Director Watson." Special Agent Zeta beamed cheerfully.
"So, what's the situation?" Director Watson asked.
Zeta paced around the sandy nook and shone her flashlight at the place.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that we're dealing with an extraterrestrial object or being that fell here tonight." Zeta explained her findings, "But right off the bat - there's no crater. You NASA folks should know that that's not normal."
Amelia hummed and looked around the nook too.
"An object that can survive burning up on the way down through Earth's atmosphere should have left something." Amelia assessed, "Either the object burned up to a crisp or stopped short of slamming into the ground or the sea. But in both cases, there should have been a trace."
"It's not Soviet." Zeta promptly added, "If one of the Sputnik satellites were going to fall into Florida, we'd know about it. Moscow would have been making a big stink about it - but there's nothing." She shrugged, "Not yet, at least."
"Agreed." Amelia folded her arms. She brought out a packet of cigarettes from her breast pocket and offered one to Zeta, "Smoke?"
"I don't smoke." Zeta refused.
"Neither do I." Ame hummed. She still took a cigarette, lit it with a match but didn't smoke it.
"Is that so?" Zeta mused.
Ame tapped the ash off of her cigarette and turned to Zeta with urgency.
"Whatever it is that fell here in Cape Kennedy tonight is extraterrestrial. I will need your help, Special Agent Vestia, to find it - whatever it is." Ame spoke firmly, "The Soviets are pulling away with their rocket technology. Anything that can give us a leg up over the reds - I'll take it."
"Ah yeah." Zeta remarked, "After that thing with Apollo 1."
Suddenly, Ame crushed her cigarette in hand and growled, "I don't want to talk about Apollo 1!"
Zeta's face went pale.
"Forget I mentioned it." Zeta shrugged. Instead, she faced Ame squarely and spoke with an authoritative tone, "I will have you know, Director, that the US Air Force is also bidding for whatever extraterrestrial materials or beings we find." She put a hand on her hip and proposed, "I was hoping that you would be alright with a fifty-fifty split of the goods. We're all working for Uncle Sam, after all."
"How's that gonna work?" Ame asked.
"If we find an alien spacecraft, we'll let NASA study it first. One week. Maybe two. Then, we cut it in half and send the other half to Area 51." Zeta explained casually, "Same thing for the aliens themselves."
"Even if they're still alive?" Ame tested.
A sly smile formed on Zeta's lips.
"Especially if they're alive."
"Fine." Ame answered without hesitation, "I could care less about the extraterrestrials. We have a deal."
With that, Ame and Zeta shook hands.
...
Cold sweat formed on Ina's brow while she heard the whole exchange. She imagined the CIA agent and her goons taking Sana away and doing unthinkable things to her. All the while, Sana watched the scene completely oblivious to it all.
Special Agent Zeta and Director Watson were going to turn Sana into just another life thrown away into the fire of the Space Race, Ina thought. She took a deep breath and made her decision.
"I'm not gonna let them lay a hand on you, Sana." Ina whispered her declaration.
Sana regarded her curiously, but Ina's determination made her smile.
Ina smiled back.
Her daring escape with Sana from Cape Kennedy was about to begin!
...
Close Encounters
Against The Wind
...
To Be Continued