STERLING

 

Friday January 10 - 2228 PST

Five days until Turbocharger activates

 

The CTOC had been a buzz of chatter and hushed conversations throughout the event. Now it was cemetery quiet. The last sound that could be heard were choked off gasps as the explosion ripped the mansion apart with Adam still in the middle of it.

We were all silently hoping he would make it out but that hope was dashed when the screen went white with the detonation. The feed from the circling Predator had been washed out when the pair of GBU-12 500-pound bombs went off. Intense heat from the blast temporarily overwhelmed the drone's infra-red camera. One moment we saw Adam running on the balcony, the next pure white.

Now everyone in the CTOC was struck with the realization that they had just watched a colleague, a friend, a teammate killed live on TV. They needed some good news.

I hit the transmit button. "Alpha team, Iron Shack Actual. Do you have confirmation that the transient threat has been neutralized?"

The forms of Alpha and the rescued hostages milled about on the lawn far from the blast site. A few of them held their sparklers up checking for any sign of residual transient energy.

Grider's voice came across the CTOC's speakers. "We have confirmation. Negative exo contact. Sparklers are black."

When a sparkler was black it meant it wasn't detecting any transient energy. Voices behind me began chattering quietly, congratulating eachother on a job well done. But it was subdued, devoid of the enthusiasm usually brought on by a successful mission completion when everyone comes home.

"Wait, I've got something" Jay's voice added.

"Pan the camera back to the impact site." Larry carried out my order and had the Predator crew zoom in on where the bombs had detonated. If something was still crawling around out there I wanted to see what it was.

The view swept over the ruins of the mansion. All that was left was two separate wings of what was once a single building with a pile of rubble in a big heap between them. The place was so huge that even a pair of 500 pound bombs wasn't enough to completely level it. Still, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for repairing it. It was a shambles.

To one side was an enormous swimming pool. At one time it was probably a fantastic and luxurious spot to hold a party. Now it was littered with the smoking remains of the once opulent manor house behind it. Half of that debris was floating in the pool. And to my astonishment, in the middle of it all I saw a human shape floating face down in the water.

"It's Adam" Jay's voice crackled over the speakers. "He's alive."

Figures were running across the lawn towards the pool. In seconds they were pulling the motionless figure out of the water. When I saw how much larger he was than the others dragging him from the pool it left no doubt in my mind it was Adam.

"What's his status?" I asked.

They placed him in the grass and made room for one of the Alpha soldiers to examine Adam. That would be Ronnie, the team medic. After several tense seconds of silence a new voice came out of the wall speakers.

"He's got a good pulse and is breathing." Ronnie said. "He's unconscious but I think he's gonna make it."

Cheers went up all around me. This time they were genuine. We had stopped all the exo threats. And now everyone was coming home.