STERLING

 

Thursday January 9 - 0712 MST

Six days until Turbocharger activates

 

 

"That's it right there, sir."

C.J. had the main projection screen focused in on the event site. The big map display on the wall showed throbbing green circles of light in and around the town of Port Moreau, Louisiana. It was a name that had become synonymous with disaster within the halls of the CTTC. The exo-biological threat was supposed to have been eradicated in the sleepy riverside town, along with the cultists that had summoned it. Now they were back. Why and how were my most immediate concern.

"Can you take it back twenty-fours, C.J.?"

"Yes, sir." The clock in the screen's corner jumped back to yesterday before running forward at ultra-high speed. I could see the evolution of the event from its beginning at eight PM local time until now. The quarter of the town closest to the river was roiling with transient energy that bubbled up and popped before spawning more circles of energy, just like a pot of boiling water. The event began as a Category 5—blue energy—before going turquoise then green where it settled as a Cat 4. Whatever was going on there…it was something big.

"And you said this wasn't an isolated event?"

C.J. pulled a binder from a shelf beside her workstation and handed it to me. "Correct. Though most of them are over a week old, so we don't have them on soft copy. I've been keeping paper copies of the incident reports in this binder. Just in case."

She was talking about Basser's policy on deleting old records. The general cut the position for a full time data specialist that was keeping computer records of all transient events. In his mind a few more exercise machines in his gym were more useful than the ability to look over the last month's exo activity. Since then we only had the capability to look back one week in history at events. In General Basser's own words "If it's not a current event, I don't care about it." Thankfully C.J. was forward thinking and printed them out. I was lucky to have her on staff.

"C.J. remind me to put you in for a medal."

I flipped through the Port Moreau event reports in the binder and found five of them over the last month. Each progressively stronger than the last. This was no sensor glitch in the satellites. There was a new cult there, and they were getting better at magic. Had I still been in charge, a team would have been dispatched to investigate and neutralize the threat. But this was a different CTTC than it was a year ago.

"Sir, are we ever going to respond to these?"

She wasn't asking me an idle question. Like everyone else in the operations center she knew that each event wasn't just a few glowing orbs on a map. They each represented a human life being snuffed out in a ritual sacrifice and something incredibly bad being unleashed, ether an alien entity or some soul-twisting spell. Neither was good for the health of the people that happened to live nearby. Last year there were over two thousand missing persons cases that had never come to resolution. Ninety-one percent of those were the result of transient related events. And since Basser introduced his "apocalypse level events only" policy many of these events went unhandled. Far too many to allow me to sleep comfortably at night.

"We won't let those people down. I'll see what I can do about that, C.J."

Then a new voice interjected itself into our conversation. "You'll see about what, colonel?"

I caught the stern gaze and set jaw of General Basser staring me down while taking a sip from his Air Combat Command mug. His toadie, Major Pease, stood behind him clutching a cardboard box filled with binders.

I'd learned long ago that when faced with an ambush it was better to drive straight through then to try to go defensive. So I had no choice but to lay it out. "Sir, I thought we might discuss options for handling this new Cat 5 event before it can cause—"

Basser shook his head before I could even finish. "Steven, hold that thought. We need to have a word in private."

He entered the CTOC's conference chamber, a glass sided rectangle overlooking the entirety of the operations floor. Once inside we would be seen but not heard by those on the floor. Basser pulled the door shut behind me locking out Major Pease and his box of binders. The major would have to settle for seeing but not hearing our conversation.

Basser took his seat at the end of the table and gestured to the chair at his right. "Have a seat. I'll keep this brief since I've got a lot on my plate this morning."

I sat as directed and boxed up all my emotions and set them in a little used part of my soul. For what I wanted to say next I needed to be concise and to the point without tinging my words with excessive feeling. Men like Basser did not respect that. "Sir, this Category 5 follows a recent surge of transient events indicative of major cultist activity. Without prompt intervention a lot of American lives would be put at risk."

His eyes locked on me like the seeker of a guided missile. "In Port Moreau. You do remember what happened the last time you intervened there?"

I would never forget that terrible night. Yet Basser still felt the need to rub salt in that particular wound. "Sir, the threat is still out there and—"

Basser wouldn't let me finish. "You don't get it do you, Steven? You're done here. As my Flight Ops Director your place is topside, at the airfield. Look around. Do you see any airfields here? It's kinda hard to fly planes underground. So let me make this crystal clear for you. These are no longer your people, and this is no longer your business. Since I took over we have yet to take a combat casualty. Can you say the same? How many was it, Steven? How many KIAs? How many are locked away permanently in an asylum because of the way you did business?"

That jab burned me, but he wasn't done yet with his tirade. He had more hate to pour onto my wounds.

"We haven't touched a single event in the last seven months and things look exactly the same to me. Look, Steven, I get it. You want to stop bad things from happening. But bad things happen to people every day. Everyone knows it and accepts it, except you. Well this stops now. You are not endangering my people. From now on you are persona non grata in the CTOC. Your place is at the airfield. Am I getting through to you, colonel?"

The bitter aftertaste of powdered calcium soured my mouth. I didn't even notice I'd been gritting my teeth. I couldn't believe the callous disregard for American lives that Basser was showing. Did he not understand that by withholding our people he was throwing civilian lives to the monsters? Yes, it was risky to send our folks out on missions. But our people at least had a chance of stopping these incursions. What was the point of having a force to stop exos if we never used them?

Another wave of grit washed over my tongue. "Yes, sir. Loud and clear."

"Good. Now clear out. You owe me an O&M funding plan by close of business. Don't brush that off to watch transient events on the big screen."

I stood up and pushed the conference chair back in place, my emotions were still securely stowed away. There was no way I was going to let him get my goat. "If that's all, sir?"

He nodded and I left making sure not to knock over Major Pease and his box as I opened the conference center's door. C.J. gave me a concerned look as I passed her station, but I cut off her impending question with a shake of my head. General Basser would see the exchange and I wouldn't want her suffering his wrath for that infraction. He needed to continue believing these people were loyal to him.

No, from now on I would have to be more subtle about my dealings with the CTOC staff. They were good people and didn't need an extra burden on their shoulders. Basser's order only prohibited me from dealing with the CTOC in person. This was the twenty-first century and there were many ways to communicate besides being face-to-face.

We would solve the Port Moreau problem. How? I wasn't sure yet. But the only way evil could prevail was when good people did nothing. And I sure as hell wasn't going to sit around doing nothing about it.