Saucer-shaped, silver spacecraft skimmed over the desert horizon.
There were two of them. They darted, swooped, and danced, spears of blue and red light slashing each other.
One shuddered and began to fall. The other shot off into the distance.
_____
Applejack sat on her bed, swinging her legs and watching the sun come up.
There was a low, threatening hum. Applejack tilted her head and listened.
The hum was growing louder, more ominous, as if it were right above her. A sharp tingling shot down her spine. She dove to the extreme right of her jail cell and flung her arms over her head.
Seconds later there was an awful crash and an explosion that flung Applejack flat down on her belly. Ash and dust filled the air, blinding her. She felt flying splinters of wood strike her cheeks and arms.
Applejack coiled into a tight ball, hugging her legs to her chest. She could hear the low hum again, along with the crackling of flame. She struggled to sit up, coughing. Smoke tinged the air.
There was a long metal wall before her. It was quite tall - as if a giant, faintly rounded building had suddenly dropped from the sky, nearly on top of her. The jail cell was quite demolished. She could see people running in the distance. It rose quite high, punching through the ceiling of her cell.
Her eyes swam with water from the smoke. Applejack touched the metal sphere, and pulled her hand away quickly. "Ow! Darn it, that's hot. Now what's all this?"
Freedom lay just over the rubble of the jail cell's wall. But Applejack turned and made her way deeper into the sheriff's untidy little office. The thing that had crashed into it hadn't improved the room much. The table and chair lay scattered on the floor.
Smashed whiskey bottles littered the place - one or two had survived the fall, much to Applejack's pleasure. A box of cigars had spilled. Applejack noticed that the sheriff's gunsafe had been ripped open with the shock. She ran over to it and helped herself.
Minutes later, Applejack strode out of the burning building. A repeater rifle was slung over her back: two bandoleers of ammunition draped her shoulders. Two long-barreled, heavy revolvers of blued steel, with walnut-wood grips - more like hand-cannons than anything else - sat holstered at her thighs.
There were people clustered at the far end of the metal wall. Applejack joined them. Nobody noticed her. They were nervously watching two men - the Sheriff, and one of his cronies, a squat little man with a paunch and a sparse hay-colored beard - rapping the steel wall with their gun barrels.
There was a sharp hiss, and a hatch opened in the metal wall. Steam poured off in thick clouds from the hatch The sheriff backed off, as did his partner. The crowd leaned in, straining to see. Applejack found herself pressed up at the front.
"Wonder what's in there?" one of the women at Applejack's side murmured.
"Shoot, we've got things fallin' outta the sky now," chuckled a man at her elbow.
A small man at the front turned and shushed them both severely. The steam was clearing. A brightly lit hallway led into the steel construct.
There were skittering and squealing sounds.
A large creature - nearly horse-sized - galloped out. It was all hard black carapace, like a beetle, and insectoid wings sprouted from its back. Yet, Applejack noticed, it was vaguely horse-shaped. Its teeth protruded from its muzzle, long and sharp and white.
The sheriff's partner screamed and ran. Very shortly, the men and women around Applejack did the same, pushing and trampling and milling about in blind panic.
The creature cast about like a wasp about to sting, its legs skittering on the ground, stabbing the soft dirt with sharp tips. Green, blazing eyes set on the Sheriff.
It charged him.
Applejack pushed a girl out of her way. "Move! Blast it, GIT-OUTTA-THE-WAY!" she screamed into the girl's face.
The creature was running at full tilt.
Applejack unslung the repeating rifle, bringing the stock up to her shoulder and lining the iron sights up on the creature. She squeezed the trigger.
BLAM!
The gun rang out as loudly as a thunderclap. A fist-size hole exploded through the creature's head. It bleated weakly, tumbling in a ball to the ground.
Applejack worked the lever. The spent casing flew out. She ran over to the Sheriff and pulled the shaking man to his feet. "Look sharp, pardner. There's more o' them." She nodded grimly at the metallic ship. More loud skittering and screeches were coming from its bowels.
The sheriff grabbed her arm, wild-eyed. "What'll we do?" he yelled at her.
"Shoot back, darn it! SHOOT BACK! You a lawman or a wormy apple settin' on a branch, SIR?!" She threw him aside and dashed for cover, rolling behind a boulder.
More of the chitinous, glossy black creatures were pouring out of the vessel, screeching and baring their fangs, frothing green venom snapping at the air.
Applejack peered around the rock. Two of the creatures were sniffing at the air and fluttering their sheeny, clear, insectoid wings.
She bounced up, brought the repeater up to her shoulder, and lined up her iron sights on one of them. She squeezed the trigger. The rifle roared, blasting a hole through the creature's neck.
Applejack brought her sights on the other creature as it spun to and fro in confusion. A single squeeze of the trigger sent it tumbling to the ground, bleating and weakly skittering its legs.
Gunfire at her right told her the Sheriff was opening up. One of the creatures squealed in pain as its leg exploded in shards of green blood and chitinous armor.
The creatures were blinded by the muzzle-flashes of their guns. They spun and squealed, raking their claws skyward.
Then two of them shot into the sky, wings beating in a frenzy, buzzing like giant, angry bees.
"Miss! They're flyin'!"
Applejack turned to find the sheriff's companion at her side. She blinked at his squashed, homely face. "What? Ya yeller-bellied coward, ah thought you ran off! Look sharp!"
Applejack raised her rifle and brought the sights to bear on one of the flying creatures. Her first shot severed its wings. She followed it with her sights to the ground, following up with another shot to its gut.
The other one dove at her - then its head exploded into fine green mist and chitinous shards. The gunfire right next to her ear nearly deafened her. "Darn it! Don't fire that thing so close to mah ear!" she screamed at the man next to her.
Then one of the creatures hissed. It kicked its back legs up. Applejack heard a low, deadly whir, and saw black streams flying at her. "COVER!" she bellowed, ducking behind her rock.
She heard something thudding into the rock next to her. Applejack peeped up to find long black spikes - like chitinous daggers - stuck fast in her rock.
"They're firing back! Watch it!" she yelled at the Sheriff.
"Alright! Grimes! Let 'em have it!" he shouted at his partner.
Grimes leaned out from behind Applejack's stone, squinting at the bucking monster. He brought a snub-nosed little revolver up and squeezed the trigger.
Applejack heard squeals of pain and the loud, disgustingly wet sound of bullets ripping through flesh, the spattering of blood.
"Got 'im! I got 'im!" hooted Grimes, dancing up and down.
Applejack stood up carefully and surveyed the crash site.
Dead creatures lay everywhere. Some were still dying noisily, sucking at air, and scrabbling at the ground. She heard the Sheriff open fire on one, and a thud of a few hundred pounds of monster-flesh sliding back to the ground.
Applejack picked her way through them. She squatted down over one of them, sniffed at its wounds, and touched the green blood running from its flanks. "Ugh. Smells like....rotten cider," she murmured.
She stood up, wiping her fingers on her jeans, and fished around in her pocket. One of the slender little cigars - rather battered and abused-looking - came out. Applejack perched it on her lips, struck a match, and lit it. The mellow tobacco smoke tasted pleasant, and Applejack could feel her mind sharpening up.
Applejack turned and began walking into the open hatch of the vessel.
"Hey! HEY! You ain't goin' in there, are ya?" She found the Sheriff scampering up to her elbow, puffing with the exertion.
Applejack slung her rifle over her shoulder, and pushed her Stetson up with one finger. "Sure am, Sheriff. Ah wanna see what kinda fancy flyin' house these dogies have. Ah reckon we'll find a pret-ty nice ca-che of goodies in there. Who knows? Mebbe one of 'em's still alive, too."
She tamped off some ash from her cigarillo, and settled it back at the corner of her mouth. Then she ducked into the hatch.