I had an idea for a funny story, which has probably already been done-


Distress Signal

Story by DireWolf505, assisted by SammyConnor.


Well, it beat Afghanistan. Or Syria. That was how Candy Pollard thought of it. It was a beautiful day on the outskirts of Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The sun was shining, there was a nice breeze, and it was in the high 70s. All of her equipment was working, none of the military people were yelling at her to get out of the way, and the talking head that she had been assigned to was seasoned enough to listen to her. Much better than Afghanistan.
Like Afghanistan though, the area was loaded with military vehicles. She kept the focus on her reporter, who was describing to the visually impaired that there 'was a strong military presence' in the area 'due to the situation'. Candy had framed the shot perfectly, setting them up on a hill over the crater, and with the ship in the background, or as the talking head referred to it, 'the situation'.
Part of the 'situation' was that something had blown the water tower outside of Grover's Mill to hell. In fact, damn near every water tower in America had been blown to hell. All within minutes of each other. And several observatories had reported dozens, if not hundreds of bright flashes on Mars and it's two moons. NASA reported that several of the flashes had been recorded by the Mars Rover, before they had lost contact with it.
And then the spaceships had appeared in the skies, making wide turns and sonic booms. One had come to a stop at Grover's Mill, and Candy, who was back Stateside after nearly three years in a variety of hot, hostile places, was thrown into a helicopter with the talking head, who she thought was named 'Bill', or maybe 'Bruce'. They were sent to Grover's Mill, where the big spacecraft was, along with a large amount of National Guard, regular Army, and Air Force units. The Air Force units in particular had caused them a slight bit of concern.
Candy had watched with bemusement as an F-15 had bore down on them at nearly mach one, forcing the news copter to dive, and making Bryce (or was it Ben?) shriek in terror. Then the chopper had to pull up, as the dark olive bulk of a New Jersey National Guard Blackhawk filled the windscreen. She could hear the military ground controller screaming at them through the pilots headset, even over the tortured whine of their helicopter's engine, and wished she could have gotten a picture of the crewchief of the Blackhawk, his mouth open, eyes wide.
But they had landed safely, the pilot had gotten into a screaming match with several MPs, and she and Burt had simply walked off, waving their PRESS passes. Pollard grinned to herself. Everyone had gotten used to embedded reporters.
She zoomed in on the crater, over one-hundred feet across, and at least thirty deep at the middle, there were chunks of twisted metal all around it from the water tower. Several troops in MOPP suits were poking at the metal with a variety of tools and sensors, writing notes. Bob was yammering on about how this was a very exciting moment. Basil stopped talking, so she stopped recording, hearing the producer back in New York praising the talking head. She lowered the camera, and looked around the area.
Tanks were jockeying themselves in fighting positions dug into the hillside, and troops were running around, setting up weapons, digging holes, and generally doing soldier things. A few hundred yards away the spacecraft sat, long, smooth and silent. It rested on it's flat belly, ignoring everything around it. She frowned at it.

When it finally did something several hours later, the other stations had gotten news teams into the cordon as well, but Candy and whatever-his-name-was had already done the required interviews with military spokepeople, interviewed random troops, and were rested up, sitting on the bumper of a large tan truck drinking coffee. They dropped the cups when troops began yelling, and quickly made their way to the observation area the Army had provided.
A hatch had opened in the side of the gray machine, extruding a ramp. Several long, low multi-wheeled vehicles emerged, each of them a startling lime green, and with a large white flag flying from posts mounted in the right-rear corner of the boxy vehicles. They approached the cordon at a measured speed, stopping well away from the ranked lines of entrenched vehicles and troops. Pollard made sure she had the camera rolling as a humvee ventured forward, carrying a colonel and two other people she couldn't make out.

Colonel Gene Robinson didn't like this. It didn't fit into his worldview. UFOs, aliens, Mars, water towers- well, water towers fit into his worldview. They were real. As was Mars. But this, this was not right. Water towers exploding. Mars being carpet bombed with nukes. A UFO landing in his home state. None of these things made him happy. They weren't in the book.
And having two scientists from Pacific Tech in the humvee with him didn't make him happy either. The fact that the two had been fishing in the area was happenstance, and gave him the closest things to experts in the area. More scientists had been flown in, but these two were senior in some way the colonel didn't fathom, which is why the two doctors, Forrester Buren, and George Bilderbeck were traveling with him. Robinson thought that meeting the aliens was a bad idea. National Command Authority told General Mann to send out a delegation, and General Mann told him he was leading it, so off he went.
The alien vehicles had stopped in a line abreast formation, and his trained eye saw what appeared to be weapons mounts on the low slung armored cars in their garish paint, but he couldn't discern any weaponry. Buren and Bilderbeck were talking over each other about the vehicles, the white flags, the ship, and making wild guesses about the aliens, the ship, and everything else.
The corporal driving stopped the tan colored truck a dozen yards from the line of alien vehicles, and Robinson exited the vehicle, and checked his creases as the scientists tumbled out, shivering like hyperactive puppies. The aliens that moved out from behind the middle vehicle weren't what Robinson expected. No big head, black eyes, or spindly limbs. They were squat, compact quadrupeds with a torso extending up past the forelegs, with two muscular arms and a long, snouted face. They looked like big lizards, wearing what looked like bright green web gear, covered in pouches, bags and equipment cases.
The first one of the aliens, a pale blue specimen with yellow eyes raised it's left hand (three fingers, a thumb, and claws on the end of each) and spoke in a raspy growl. "We're sorry it took us 86 of your local time units to respond to this inter-system attempt of forceful annexation between planetary cultures. The Peace Enforcement Bureau receives so many reports that a backlog is to be expected. While enroute we examined all of the pertinent data we had available, as more than half of the distress signal received by the autonomous listening post was garbled, our political science team determined that the attack upon your world was totally without conceivable justification, and then, via orbital nuclear bombardment eliminated any military, or potential military facilities on the fourth planet, known to you as 'Mars', and it's satellites, and used orbital PAMs, that's 'Precision Attack Munitions', to destroy all occupation units we could detect here on this planet. The rest of our force should be landing now to find and capture, eliminate or otherwise neutralize any remaining invading forces located on this landmass and the others of your world." The alien stopped, as the three humans stared in open-mouthed shock. "We will of course help to rebuild vital infrastructure and teach you the skills you will need to become full members of the galactic community." The lizard-like creature looked about, nodding towards the wreckage of the water tower in the distance. "We expected a lot more resistance, especially here, at the primary landing point."
Doctor Buren began to laugh a high, hysterical laugh, and Bilderbeck frowned mightily as Colonel Robinson looked on with confused distaste. Distaste turned to incredulity, and then a growing sense of horror as Bilderbeck explained the significance of Grover's Mill in 1938, 86 years prior.
The alien looked between the two of them with what may have been an expression of confusion, politely waiting for the representatives of the local indigenous tribe of the war-torn planet to finish speaking to each other.