The Tale of Mark Devereaux

His World Ends

                                                                                                   I

The ship, pelted by lasers, and trailing black smoke, with a wing that held together by the grace of god, came out of hyperspace too fast. It was night in the world below. The pilot tried to hold it together, but the ship was too badly beaten.

Mark Devereaux was heading home with his wife and seven year old daughter. It was just another day as he drove down the highway. When he saw the ship fall from the sky, the road ripped open, he did all he could, which was to brake hard and tell his family to hold on. His car jack-knifed. Broken glass, and shattered steel lay strewn across the road.

"Mary, Susan!" Mark unbuckled upside down. His wife wasn't in the seat next to him. He moved to get a look at the back seat. The contortions of the body told him that his daughter was dead.

The man looked around at the snow filled landscape half mad with grief. He saw his wife lying supine on the highway, and, when he got closer, he saw that she too was dead. His eyes were suffused with tears. He looked from the wreckage where his daughter lay, her heart no longer beating, to his wife in his arms. Then movement caused him to turn to the roadside. Six feet in height with emerald skin and black eyes, the pilot wasn't a specie Mark had seen before.

"I'm sorry," it said in a voice that was digitally altered.

It waited for a response from Mark, who clutched his wife's body with frozen hands, but then it heard sirens, looked in the direction of its ship, and retreated into darkness.

II

"We all support you." Mark's partner Dwayne glanced out the patrol car at the city. The skyscrapers and streets reminded him of Earth. "Maybe you should take some time off."

"I don't need to."

"It's only been a week since the crash." Dwayne looked hard at his partner, usually handsome and intrepid, a real family man; now that same person wore a weeks worth of stubble, had red eyes from lack of sleep, and carried a hip flask with him. "The news said that it was a spaceship. A kind of craft they've never seen before."

Mark said, "That ship murdered my wife and daughter."

"They'll catch the pilot."

Mark thought of the alien that stared at him amongst the falling snow.

"I hope they kill her."

"You saw it - her?"

When Mark didn't answer, Dwayne said, "I'm sorry man. Mary was a knockout, and kind." Mark and Mary Devereaux had been together for nearly a decade; they had a beautiful daughter and an exemplary marriage to show for it. "Susan was just like her--"

Mark took a swig from his hip flask, then a few more.

"That's not cool on the job."

Mark shot a plaintive look at him. "I'm not interested in a life without them."

"Code 5, Westin Avenue, reported disturbance."

Dwayne grabbed the radio, "Despatch, officers en route."

The fight had already spilled onto the street in the busy downtown area. Dwayne alighted and tried to calm the men down; Mark got out, but with boozy steps advanced up the sidewalk.

"What's the problem?" Dwayne said.

"The human grabs my girl," an Astorian replied in a deep baritone, "I'll have his head."

"You either calm down, or you get deported off planet." Dwayne had diffused the situation when a shot fired. The girl, who was the cause of the fight, was struck in the arm. The big Astorian flew into a frenzy, and the fight became a brawl en masse. Three other squad cars had to come to sort it out, but not before people were seriously hurt. Mark had fired the shot. The safety wasn't on when he'd been waving his gun around in an attempt to calm people down by a show of force.

Back at the precinct, Dwayne watched through the glass while his partner was stripped of his gun and badge. The chief was sympathetic to Mark in light of the recent tragedy. The sudden loss of his family was enough to send anyone over the edge, but the commander knew that he wasn't fit for work. Mark, formerly an outstanding cop, was a hazard to everyone around him. The chief forced him to take leave, get counselling, and, when he passed a psych eval, he would be able to return to active duty.