“Lieutenant!……Lieutenant!  Sumpin’s strange, sir!  Ah don’ know what’s ‘a goin’ on!  Lieutenant!  Come quick, sir!” the topside watchman’s voice, sounding irritatingly high-pitched and frightened like a woman’s, echoed down below.

Lieutenant Catesby Jones, Executive Officer and currently the acting commander of the CSS Virginia, glared up at the open hatch.  Only half-reluctantly, he placed his fork and knife down next to the most unappetizing plate of embalmed beef and beans supper that he’d been laboriously eating, and climbed up the ladder topside.

The Lieutenant stepped out into the gentle ocean wind of the evening.  “Man, why the commotion?  Have you sighted the entire Yankee fleet coming upon us?  Bully if you have man, for such a fault otherwise I shall not countenance…………”

And then Lieutenant Jones stared up at the sky, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and speechless: in a perfect bronze-statue-like imitation of his hapless watchman.  The darkening heavens above looked like they burned with an unholy fire; but that wasn’t the first matter to draw the Lieutenant’s stunned attention.

 

---

 

Frustrated, US Air Force Major Arthur Wesley tried his radio again.

“Langley control, Langley control – this is Phoenix.  Gateway was go, repeat, Gateway was go.  Matrix IPL point achieved.  No fault.  Langley, GPS and VXNA frost underline lost.  No contact.  Langley control – please confirm Source Gateway.  This is Phoenix.”

Still no answer.  Not even static buzzing in his ears.

Something was odd.  Perhaps the Gateway anomaly had fried his electronics.  But no: every light on the board was green.

Unable to raise a contact, or even to hear any civilian chatter, Major Wesley decided to go in closer to shore.  Again, oddly, he saw very few lights; not even south towards Norfolk.

What had happened?  Major Wesley’s gut began to knot up with an unfamiliar feeling – fear.

He tried again.  “Langley control, confirm Gateway.  Langley……….”  The surface radar beeped! at him.  Probably a small ship below.  Lacking any alternatives at the moment, Major Wesley decided to go in for a close visual.

About a minute and a half later, Major Wesley stared down at the sight below him, stunned and open-mouthed behind his mask.  His expression closely mirrored the unabashedly shocked faces of the men below him.

Credits:

CSS Virginia by the_hankster here at Rendo
Horror & Romance (atmosphere pack) for Vue by stamate_filip here at Rendo
Figure's uniforms from Poserworld
Stealth Fighter by Vanishing Point
Scene arranged in Poser 7, rendered in Vue 6 Infiinte

Something To Do At 3:00AM