STERLING

 

Friday January 10 - 2222 PST

Five days until Turbocharger activates

 

The Predator had been feeding us video for almost three minutes. Hardly enough time to build a complete picture of the battlespace. But that still didn't make me feel any better. All I saw was a magnificent palace on a scenic stretch of the California coastline. And not a single sign of my people or the entities trying to kill them.

I needed a better vantage point. "Larry, get the pilot to swing High Roller around to the far side of the house."

"Yes, sir." Larry, my ISR operations manager, replied before reaching out to the Predator's pilot over the radio. This particular Predator flew out of Las Vegas's Nellis Air Force Base, hence the callsign High Roller.

But despite all the high tech eyes and ears brought to bear I still didn't have a clear picture. Hollywood and CNN tend to paint the military as some all seeing, omnipotent force that knows exactly what's going on at any point on the globe. The shocking truth is that's rarely the case.

Even with satellites, Predator drones, the NSA, and troops on site, I still didn't know who or what we were up against. There were an unknown number of hostile exos and a second group of hostile humans in battle with my people. And I'm responsible for sorting out what little info has sifted its way back to the CTOC and turn that into an actionable plan.

This is a text book example of the fog of war. It happens every time we go into battle and no amount of high tech wizardry will ever eliminate it.

People were now packed into the CTOC. Everyone in the Underground wanted to know what was going on. It had been a long time since we had sent out a team and like all humans they had an insatiable appetite for information whenever there was a crisis.

It had gotten so crowded I had to order the SFs to turn people away. Anyone who wasn't mission critical would have to sit it out. Even so, there were still a lot of eyes in the CTOC looking at me for answers. And I had none.

Then a voice crackled in my headset. "I've found General Basser."

It was Adam, and he still hadn't gotten the hang of identifying himself over the radio. Still, that was welcome news. I activated the wall speakers so everyone could hear the rest of the conversation. Frankly, I wasn't in the mood to repeat it and everyone in the CTOC would be clamoring for answers.

"Adam, that's great news. Is anyone else with you?"

"Yes" There was a long pause while he got their names. "Mr. Gibbs and Senator Carver. They're unharmed. But the General, he was uhh…right next to my gun when I fired and can't hear anything right now."

As much as it pains me to speak ill of a higher ranked officer, I can't say this was necessarily a bad thing. Basser couldn't countermand my orders if he couldn't hear them. I was tempted to have Adam fire off a few more rounds, but that would probably be pushing things.

"Is anyone from Alpha there?" I know they had been separated upon landing, but with the fog of war so heavy they may have linked up without my knowledge.

The speakers crackled to life again, but this time it was Grider's voice on the line. There was intermittent gunfire in the background as he spoke. "Zero-Six here. We've made contact with hostile exos. Reds. Spiders with five legs and a lobster claw…"

As Grider described the transient creatures I looked over to the research staffers crowded around their workstation and gave them an index finger that was my way of saying This is yours. Handle it.

Rick Arden was with them and gave me a thumbs up in acknowledgment. His team was now on the hunt. They were flipping through ancient texts and searching databases trying to track down any clues about the spiders that Alpha was up against. Anything that could give them an advantage.

"5.56 seems to work really well on them" Grider continued. "We've got some good news. One bad guy is down and we've got seven of his hostages with us."

That garnered a lot of grins and nodding heads from the CTOC staff. "And what about the bad news, Zero-Six?"

"Something big is rumbling around on the second floor with us. We haven't seen it yet, but we can hear it through the walls. Sounds like a rhino is on the loose."

Adam's voice broke into the conversation. "I'm on the second floor too. And there's a—"

When Adam was cut off all the grins evaporated. I noticed especially grim faces on the three new Primes. This was one of their own.

They perked up when Adam got back on the line. "Sorry, something is trying to bust through the door."

The fact that he said something and not someone was not lost on me. "Adam, can you tell us where you are?"

"I'm in some kind of big ballroom. And there's this glowing purple uhh…opening to a desert right in the middle of it."

Great. An open transdimensional portal. As if we didn't have enough problems to deal with.

There was a map of the peninsula up on the projector screen opposite the Predator feed. This map had colored bubbles indicating transient energy superimposed over Gibbs's mansion. Looking over this map I could see the green circles of a Category 4 event bubbling like a pot of boiling water in one large room of the house. The problem was the Predator was circling around the huge mansion from the wrong side and I had trouble making heads or tails of what I was looking at.

Then a little red dot appeared on the Predator feed. Larry was pointing a little handheld laser pointer. "It would be this room right here, sir."

He must have read the confusion on my face. It was times like these that I am reminded of what a truly fantastic staff I have.

"Thanks, Larry." Then I hit the transmit button. "Zero-Six. New orders. I need your team to move to the north facing of the floor you are on. Once there you will help secure the priority cargo."

Priority cargo meaning the three VIPs that were with Adam.

And God help us, but they need to find a way to shut down that transdimensional gate too. Because if they didn't I would be forced to use the last resort: the F-16 orbiting above the mansion.