To Catch a Foo Fighter

By David Hankins

To catch a foo fighter, you need three things: tech, speed, and bait. I’m the bait.

Assuming all went well, and I never assumed otherwise, I’d make history today and stamp a green alien head onto my X-73 experimental jet, right under my name: Lieutenant Jimmy “Wraith” Rigg.

I grinned inside my helmet and punched the afterburner.

I sliced above the South Pacific at Mach 3, scanning cloud-dappled skies as islands flicked past below. Foo fighters always came out when we tested new tech, and the X-73’s inertial compensator was beyond cutting edge.

So where were they?

I huffed into my oxygen mask and keyed my neurotransmitter. The device sounded mechanical and emotionless, but it gave me a voice. “Assassin, status report?”

“No joy, Wraith. Maintain heading one-eight-niner.” Commander Lydia “Assassin” Litvyak sounded annoyed as she circled high above in her F-35. She hated that I, a born mute, had been selected over her to fly the X-73. The most decorated pilot on this project, Assassin had downed twelve aircraft during the brutal Second Korean War while I’d been in grade school.

But I was the better pilot. When I was in the air, it’s like I became one with the jet.

I searched the light blue above and the dark blue below for floating spheres, fingers tapping my control stick. Still no joy. Foo fighters were first seen in World War II and named by a radio operator after something he’d seen in a comic strip. They followed aircraft and defied physics, but never responded to radio calls. Foo fighters birthed the worldwide UFO craze and became a modern myth. But for the US Navy, UFOs weren’t fiction. They were fact.

And they weren’t cooperating.

Screw this. I wrenched my stick to the left. In any other jet, a hairpin turn at three times the speed of sound would have torn the aircraft apart. Aerodynamics sent a shudder through the frame, but the X-73’s inertial compensator made the turn feel like a ride in grandma’s Volkswagen. Inertial energy became more thrust, and I shot toward Guam at Mach 4.

“Wraith! What the hell?” Commander Litvyak followed, but without hope of keeping up in her F-35. I ignored her and craned my neck, looking for the tell-tale reflection of...

My heart jumped. There it was— a silver sphere two hundred yards off my port wingtip. Blood pounded in my ears. I’d actually done it. I’d found a foo fighter.

Now to catch it.

“Tally, Bogey One,” I radioed, confirming contact, my excitement masked by the neurotransmitter’s monotone. I banked ninety degrees again. Come on.

The foo fighter maintained station. It mirrored my maneuver perfectly —just as they always did— a habit I could exploit. A chipper voice echoed in my head, its tone playful. Tally ho, human. Come on.

I whipped my head around and stared at the sphere. Sunlight glinted off its polished surface, and my thoughts did a stutter-step. Did you just...talk?

Silence answered my thoughts before the voice said hesitantly, You heard me? But humans can’t...oh wait...the protocol... It went silent, then said with gravitas, I am an Artificial Intelligence Ambassador from the Galactic Federation. I come in peace.

My stomach churned, and my hands grew sweaty. A century of chasing foo fighters and I’d just made first contact.

Admiral Byng’s tense voice cut into my thoughts. “Batter up, Wraith.” He’d set this trap, betting his entire career on it. I shook myself. According to our code phrases, I was the pitcher, and the foo fighter was the ball. Time to throw this thing into the ‘Catcher’s Mitt.’

I banked eastward. You’re a computer?

A sentient computer, thank you very much. I’m a Federation citizen with full rights and responsibilities. I even pay taxes. We’ve been waiting a long time for Earth to meet the criteria for peaceful Federation integration. We have much to discuss.

Peaceful integration? Humanity barely got along with each other. Sure, it had been a decade since the last war, but the political climate remained...strained.

My heads-up display showed a destroyer two hundred miles northeast, just four minutes away at Mach 4. I punched the acceleration and barrel-rolled down to skim over the wave tops, hitting Mach 5.

You’re fast! Woohoo! the foo fighter said, staying with me. We angled toward Catcher’s Mitt, a cabled spider web held aloft by balloons and tethered underwater to the destroyer. Embedded inertial dampeners would slow and catch the foo fighter which the destroyer would then reel in. At these speeds, the net was invisible. The rest of the carrier group waited as a backstop twenty miles beyond the net.

“Inbound, thirty seconds,” I sent to the destroyer, adrenaline pumping through me. I was making history.

What’s your name, friend? the foo fighter asked.

Call me Wraith, I sent absently, maintaining focus.

Oh, how dark and foreboding. Its tone was mocking, yet light. Call me Arlo. I can’t believe you can hear me. Humans finally crossed the threshold!

A tendril of doubt wormed its way into me. As a born mute, I understood the excitement at finally being heard. God, did I understand. My scramjet engine roared as a lump formed in my throat. I glanced at the five-foot sphere off my wingtip, unsure what to say.

“You're coming in too hot, Wraith. Drop below Mach 2.” Admiral Byng’s voice was clipped, excited.

I tapped the airbrakes, shedding speed. Arlo maintained station. I tapped them again.

Where are we going, Friend Wraith?

Before I could respond, I sliced past the trap and the foo fighter slammed into it. Spider web cabling whipped around the sphere. Embedded inertial dampeners slowed it precipitously, but not enough. The tether pulled out of the ocean, jerked the destroyer, then snapped like wet spaghetti. Arlo’s panicked scream echoed inside my skull.

I wrenched my control-stick back and shot skyward. The scream faded with distance. I cut thrust and spun my nose downward. Gravity and momentum fought over me. Below, the foo fighter jinked left and right over the wavetops, trailing the half-mile-long tether like a dog’s leash. Admiral Byng screamed through my radio.

“Shoot it down. Now!”

My hands gripped the flight controls, finger on the trigger, but I didn’t fire. This felt...wrong. What had I done?

White smoke belched from the destroyer as its deck guns bracketed the corkscrewing foo fighter. The massive net dragged the sphere down, slowing it enough for the shells to fence it in.

“Wraith!” Admiral Byng’s voice burned with fury. “We need that tech. Shoot. It. Down!”

I shook my head. First contact shouldn’t end like this.

It wouldn’t.

I slammed my engines to full power and screamed out of the sky. “Destroyer, stand down. I can bring it in.”

Byng cursed, but the flashing guns stopped as I plummeted into the line of fire. Breath coming fast, I dropped the hook I used for carrier landings, timing Arlo’s movements as the ocean rushed toward me. I picked my intercept point, leveled out, and shot over the top of the foo fighter. My landing hook snagged the net.

I didn’t have time to cheer. I barrel-rolled to wrap the alien craft up tight. Sorry, Arlo. Please, calm down. It’s better this way.

A terrified yell answered me, and Arlo jumped skyward. The net yanked upward against my forward momentum, and I tried to follow. Too slow. Despite the inertial compensator, it felt like God hit me with a baseball bat.

The X-73 tore apart.

My world became a spinning swirl of sea and sky as my cabin skipped across the water like a spinning stone. The compensator worked for a few precious seconds, reducing the unsurvivable crash into a gut-wrenching fair ride before giving out when my nose cone caught a wave. I spun into the air, vomited into my oxygen mask, and splashed down.

Pain and darkness rolled over me with the waves.

Acid churned in my gut as I soared above the Pacific. The ocean was peaceful today, as close to glass smooth as it ever got. I tried and failed to find the same calm as I burned fuel and time. Despite running the aircraft through its paces all afternoon, the foo fighter hadn’t appeared.

Charlie had rewired my old neurotransmitter into the X-73 and Admiral Byng had insisted he install a recorder with it. Commander Litvyak flew overwatch again, a surly guardian waiting for me to screw up, while Admiral Byng grew increasingly caustic over the radio.

Frustrated, I closed my eyes and focused on the aircraft wrapped around me, seeking calm. The engine thrummed, its roar muted by my helmet as it vibrated muscles sore from my wreck. I considered Charlie’s idea of electronic telepathy and imagined reaching my mind toward the flight control computer. It felt silly, but I told the X-73 to do a barrel roll.

The aircraft spun on its long axis, dropping toward the sea. My eyes snapped open, and I wrenched on the stick to level out. Charlie had been right! Commander Litvyak sounded in my ear.

“Six o’clock, Wraith. It’s on your tail.”

“Roger,” I sent, drawing a calming breath, and twisting around to look. Arlo’s shiny metal sphere glinted from two hundred yards behind me. My heart lurched, and I keyed my transmitter so Admiral Byng could listen in. “Arlo, can you hear me?”

I became one with my aircraft and maintained station just behind the foo fighter, matching his every maneuver.

You almost killed me last time, Arlo said. Why should I believe you have peaceful intent?

“We were trying to capture you. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.” Arlo gave an electronic snort. Hoping to move past my screw-up, I asked, “Why does the Federation want us? What’s so special about humans?”

You are a race of potential prodigies. Most Federation races rose from hive minds or herd mentalities. Your ability to innovate at the individual and collective levels is staggering. The Federation needs that innovative mindset.

Potential prodigies? So not slave labor or fodder for a war. I breathed a sigh of relief. “What is the Galactic Federation?”

A loose coalition of systems bound together through common financial interest and the peaceful advancement of science, which we freely share. If accepted, Earth would have access to regenerative medicine, perpetual energy, the intersystem portal network, and more.

Woah. That would change...everything. It was like a grand uplift to pull humanity out to the stars.

And yet, I hated to ask, “At what cost?”

I dropped to one knee and shoved the sphere with my shoulder. It was heavy, but it tipped over the flight deck’s edge and plummeted toward the ocean. The Marines tackled me with angry yells, and I hit the deck, my head and shoulders over the edge. Knees dug into my spine and cuffs ratcheted onto my wrists, yanking my shoulders painfully back. I didn’t care. I gazed downward.

The ocean swallowed the foo fighter with a splash. Sunlight needled through the water, glinting off Arlo’s sinking sphere, refracting in a dozen directions.

I will present your plea to the Federation Council. Arlo sounded weary. Disappointed. Expect long deliberations. Humanity’s betrayal and barbarism have no place in the civilized galaxy. And yet, your defiance to save me through non-violent means has been noted. Perhaps there is hope yet for humanity. Goodbye, Wraith.

There was a flash of light and the ocean bulged outward and then collapsed on itself. A tiny whirlpool formed, blurring everything for a moment before clearing.

The foo fighter was gone.