Thomas P Hanna

Crash and Go: an Indianapolis Smithe Adventure Thomas P Hanna

Publisher Marketing: Saskatchewan Indianapolis Smithe (Polie to friends and foes), is an honorary curator of the Thyemaster Museum of Science and Man-Made Arts where he often accidentally causes chaos. Curious, Smithe attends a local event for amateurs interested in greeting alien visitors - or hunting them. There he encounters rich entrepreneur and thief of high-tech systems Dolores Hollister who suspects there could be alien technology around and she wants to claim that for herself and her profit. He also meets Otto Pratley who may have a crashed UFO in his farm field. Ever skeptical, Smithe goes to see what is in Pratley's field with Barmes and Nogle, his minders from the museum, tagging along. There they find four cultists defending a large object that could be a spaceship that buried itself under the hill of dirt it pushed up when it crashed at an angle. Ms. Hollister is there sneaking around to decide whether to claim the object and the technologies inside it as her own. Smithe, with advice and help that might be coming from someone inside the object, works to keep Hollister and her men from taking the object or its contents away as their own. A mysterious floating box with two holographic honor guards is of special interest. At times the cultists help him; at other times they work against him. When the large object disappears in a cloud of dust as if it flew away, Smithe and the others follow a GPS signal to Venezuela to find it. There the object has crashed again, this time burying itself in a cave near the top of a tall mesa. The various groups all reach that site but this time Hollister's help are heavily armed mercenaries. With Venezuelan military choppers on the way, a drone aircraft that has been altered to unearthly abilities buzzing around, and a synthesized voice that comes from different sources at different times, the resolution and everyone's safety is uncertain.