Re: Godforsaken Future
Posted: 2011-05-23 07:03pm
Episode 28
“The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft
-6:18 AM November 16, 1987, The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London, England
Colonel Anthony Taylor stood at attention as Margaret Thatcher entered the room, when she took her seat, he relaxed his pose and prepared to begin his presentation. Conversation died and everyone else in the room shifted in their seats as the Prime Minister got herself situated "very well, let us begin. What do we have on this new threat so far?" she said without much ceremony.
Anthony cleared his throat "it would appear that after pushing outward and claiming control over the ground and airspace of an approximate forty kilometer radius around each portal, the enemy has ceased all further advances for the time being. It is unknown just what the full motivation behind this is, but it is assumed that the need to secure and consolidate all gains made up to this point is one of the main driving factors. They also seem to be quite preoccupied with continuing to destroy everything in sight."
"Enemy force estimates worldwide at this time indicate a grand total of over seven hundred of the larger ships ranging from one to ten kilometers in size. Smaller craft that fall under the one kilometer mark have reached an undetermined quantity, but it is believed that they number more than twenty five thousand at the least. Ground forces are even harder to estimate, but we have determined that they have landed no less than seven million infantry and more than a quarter of a million ground vehicles of different varieties. Most analysis seems to indicate that these estimates are on the low end however, and as more forces continue to pour in through the portals, this number continues to grow."
"As you are all no doubt aware, both the United States and Soviet Union attempted to launch attacks on enemy positions using nuclear tipped cruise missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles to no avail. It would appear that they possess the ability to shoot down incoming missiles and aircraft at quite some distance."
"The range of enemy airborne weaponry seems to be just over three hundred kilometers for those 'bolt' weapons, and their 'beam' weapons seem to have a range just under one hundred kilometers. Needless to say, any and all attempts at flying within a three hundred kilometer radius of the portal locations has proven to be... problematic to say the least-"
He was interrupted as an uncomfortable grumbling broke out amongst some of the assembled people there.
What they were reacting to, and what he had not mentioned was the horribly failed second attempt that various human air forces had made the day following the first battle as more aircraft had been made available. The casualties from that day had been disastrous, with most formations suffering an excess of over sixty percent of their aircraft, far worse than the thirty to thirty-five percent figure from the previous battle. Over fifteen hundred aircraft had not returned that day, it was the single bloodiest air battle since World War II.
One voice rose above the others "Do we still not know anything about their objectives?" it was Deputy Prime Minister William Whitelaw.
Anthony took a deep breath "I'm afraid not as of yet. No sign of any communication whatsoever has been detected from them and aside from pure destruction, they have expressed little interest in anything else, the-"
Secretary of state for Defense Younger interrupted him "this seems awfully convenient for the bozorgs that this would happen to us so soon after our success in conducting BREADBASKET. I don't think it entirely unreasonable that we consider the possibility that there is a connection to that" he said confidently.
Prime Minister Thatcher cleared her own throat "are you suggesting that this is some form of new action by them? Or that they are allies of some sort?" she asked.
Younger shrugged "it's possible. It is my experience that coincidence is at least an extreme rarity and at most a myth" he replied.
Grumbling turned to debate and argument as the assembled parties discussed the most recently broached topic "while such a possibility should not be ruled out entirely, it should be noted that aside from the timing, there is virtually no evidence to indicate such a connection" Anthony had raised his voice in order to be heard.
The rest of the room quieted and looked at him, he continued "so far the bozorgs have all shown one single minded purpose; the absorption and collection of all biological matter that they can obtain. These new aliens seem entirely unconcerned with such a purpose. Quite the contrary, the forms of weapons they are employing seem quite well disposed to the incineration and destruction of biomass.
“Also, while the bozorgs have attacked and damaged buildings, structures, and vehicles during the course of pursuing their goals, they have never made a point of it, this new threat seems to pursue the destruction of all that they encounter with just as much priority as killing people.”
“Then there is also considerable difference in observed tactics and doctrines that each faction uses. If anything, they seem to have quite divergent or possibly even conflicting 'philosophies' which would not make them well disposed to cooperation" he explained.
Margaret Thatcher fixed him with a firm stare "are you saying that it is likely that we have a third side to this conflict then?" she said, quizzically.
He nodded "without any further evidence to the contrary, that is seemingly the most likely situation, yes" he said.
Additional grumbling reverberated throughout the room, the Prime Minister was quick to squash it however “alright, that is enough speculation for now, we can continue to debate and argue over the various aspects of this new invasion until doomsday. I could use some good news for a change, what is the status of operations in Asia?” she said expectantly.
In spite of the fact that this was not part of his planned briefing, Anthony had taken the time to brush up on the latest developments in the conflict with the bozorgs. He took a deep breath, then proceeded “well, the latest lab results regarding the bozorg mass die-offs have just come in and it is confirmed.”
“For lack of a better word, their ‘batteries’ have run dry” his explanation was met with murmuring of a far more pleasant nature this time.
“Exactly how did we miss this for so long? We’ve had satellite imagery of the region for some time, we should have been able to spot some hint of this” it was Whitelaw again, his question wasn’t confrontational, rather it seemed a genuine inquiry.
“Well, until the enemy started pulling massive numbers of ground forces into the kill zones to exploit what they saw as a breakthrough, their functional forces were more or less intermixed with their dead ones, disguising their losses. There have also been reports of them retrieving many of the bodies in an attempt to either recycle the biomass or recharge their energy reserves.”
Murmurs of acknowledgment filled the room, Anthony continued “the situation on the ground however is both a mix of resounding success and considerable difficulty. The northern region is the biggest mess, in fact the Russians are still trying to plug all the holes in their lines. Although, the Chinese have started to shift forces over to bolster the Russians.”
“The southern region is markedly better, but still slow going, we’ve just managed to fully clear the last few bits of the kill zone. Meanwhile General Sharma has managed to get as far as fifty kilometers northward according to the last dispatches we’ve received from his command.”
“Last updates on the western theatre have General Karadayi halting his advance due to logistical problems, his total distance covered so far seems to be in excess of one hundred twenty kilometers, with minimal indication of increased enemy resistance, this however is subject to change.”
“Finally, the Chinese have managed to advance almost eighty kilometers, again with minimal resistance, although the mountainous terrain has slowed their advances considerably. This is also not likely to last as the Soviets are getting anxious to pull forces from the front in Asia over to Azerbaijan They’ve already started to do so from the European front.”
Murmurs of both agreement and disapproval filled the room. No one spoke it specifically, but everyone knew the question.
Once this new enemy decided to start moving, how were they supposed to be stopped?
-2:48 PM November 17, 1987, Jaipur, India
Kelly ascended the stairs with a deliberate pace, she was nervous. , wondering just what would happen.
She thought that it was ironic that she had fought horrible alien creatures and seen things that were the stuff of nightmares, and yet this made her nervous.
To be honest, she wasn't even sure if she should have come. Of course she had the time.
Following the horrors of that first day there were two days of nothing but waiting while coalition air forces and artillery units pounded the kill zone and everything in it, in the hopes of wiping out every trace of enemy presence. Then there were an additional four days of very low intensity combat as she and the rest of her unit went through the kill zone, clearing it of any of the enemy that had managed to survive.
It was a far cry from the constant nonstop carnage that had marked her first day. They would march and march and check various suspicious looking areas. Usually they would find nothing, but occasionally there would be a warrior, or a mantis or something hiding underneath a pile of dead bodies or rubble. Firing bullets into the piles proved to be of only limited effectiveness. The creatures that hid in them rarely jumped out until someone walked near, and whatever cover they chose all too often did too decent a job of shielding them from weapons fire.
Of course, they couldn't call in an air strike or artillery barrage on every suspicious pile of rubble. They had neither the time nor the ammunition. So the only solution was to send people in to physically check anything that looked like it could hide an enemy.
The result was hours on end of absolute boredom as they marched from place to place, followed by several minutes of white knuckled tension, then possibly another minute or two of pure pants-shitting terror, rinse and repeat.
Then, when they'd finally cleared the area, her ad hoc platoon was sent back to the rear where they were moved from place to place, with some people being reassigned as new units were pieced together and the composition of the US Marine force in India was restructured to form some semblance of an organized force.
It had been boring and mind numbing, and after all that, they had been informed that they were getting shipped up north to fill gaps left by all the casualties that the Soviets had suffered. That wasn't for another two days though, so she had some time to herself.
Her mind wandered back to that day, to all the death she had seen, all the loss she had suffered. The faces of all those she had seen die haunted her nightmares, Ditty, Private Sorensen, and Private Horatio among others, his guts smeared across the ground as he tried to pull them back into the gaping hole in his stomach, helplessly mewing and crying out for his mother.
Hope seemed to have left her almost entirely then, there didn't seem to be anything to live for, so she fought and marched and followed orders, all on automatic. She had thought about that young Russian soldier who she had tried to save that day, wondered if he were alive. She had been convinced that he had died, she dared not hope for anything else, all her experiences in the war thus far had taught her otherwise. All the same, she had nothing much better to do after being shifted to the rear, so she tracked down the corpsman who was there that day. He had told her that the Russian was still alive when he had left him at the field hospital where he had dropped him off.
She managed to make her way to the field hospital and that's where the trail had gone cold. Only one person; a nurse, remembered him, and she had only treated him for about an hour before being dragged off to something else.
Kelly tried to tell herself that he had been fine, that he had made it back to some hospital shitty food being the worst of his worries, but she knew better. Good things like that didn't happen out there, not anymore.
Then a day prior, a Russian man, dressed in a Red Army Lieutenant's uniform came by, asking everyone questions about that day at Barwala, and about a particular sergeant... sergeant? That kid was a sergeant? He looked so young, maybe a year older than her, no more, and he was a sergeant.
He asked her all kinds of questions about it, how many bozorgs she had seen him kill, how long between the time she had spotted him and when they had gotten to him, things like that. She gave the lieutenant a full account of her experiences, the best she could recall anyway and that was that, or so she thought.
She had expected that the kid had died of his wounds, that the Soviets were just gonna use his last stand as some propaganda tool to boost morale back home, maybe give him some medal posthumously.
Then the lieutenant had said that the sergeant; Nikolai Antonov was his name, had survived, that he was currently being treated in a hospital in Jaipur.
She was so excited that she practically kissed the Russian officer. She had requested and was granted a twelve hour pass to go and visit the man whom she had saved, and so here she was, ascending the stairs of this crowded hospital, anxiously anticipating her meeting with someone who she didn't even know but had a strong emotional attachment to.
*-*-*
Nikolai hated it here in the hospital, almost as much as he hated being up at the front. He hated the pain of his wounds, he hated the fact that nobody spoke enough of any language he knew to talk to(except for one doctor who spoke Russian), hated the constant suicide attempts night terrors of the other patients.
However, what he hated most of all was the boredom. There was nothing to distract him, nothing to keep his mind from drifting back to all the memories, the nightmares, the horrible images that filled his mind.
He had gotten one visitor, a Red Army Lieutenant named Agapov. He had asked Nikolai scores of questions about his experiences during the war, about all that he did, but especially about that last day in Barwala.
Nikolai didn't like talking about it, but there was no one else there to talk to, and nothing else to do, and the Lieutenant was the first other Russian he had seen in days.
He'd managed to get news from elsewhere in the world, apparently the battle had been a huge success, except in the north, where the Red Army had had to drop a whole bunch of nuclear weapons on both the enemy and their own men. He wondered if he knew anybody that was up there, wondered if they had died.
He also heard about another species of aliens invading, that they had popped up all over the world.
Theories abounded about where they were from, that they were more bozorgs, that they were actually people from the future, and about a dozen other equally crazy ideas. He really didn't care too much then though.
The boredom continued that way for days and days, until about a few minutes before when that Russian speaking doctor; Rao his name was, approached Nikolai and informed him that he had a visitor, an American.
Nikolai was confused, what would an American want with him? Maybe they wanted to present him with a bill for airlifting him away from the front line.
He was even more confused when he looked over at the door to see a young girl in a soldier's uniform standing in it. She looked pretty, and quite tall for a woman, her skin was of an olive complexion. Her face looked familiar, but he didn't know from where.
Dr. Rao stayed by his bedside, he had agreed to act as a translator for the two of them.
The girl looked nervous, but as she approached, her steps were sure and confident.
When the girl arrived at the foot of his bed, she smiled and gave him a salute, he returned the gesture, she introduced herself as a Private Kelly Vasquez, US Marine Corps. He replied with his own introduction.
Then there was an awkward silence as she stared at him quietly, her expression seemed to indicate that she did not know what to say, finally he decided to break the silence “if you're here to complain about all the blood I left on the inside of your helicopter, well you can just bill the Red Army for it” he said sarcastically.
Her lips twitched slightly, then she started to chuckle. When she calmed down she said that she wasn't there about that. She said that she was part of the unit that linked up with him at Barwala. He'd nodded in understanding “I'm sorry, but I don't remember you in particular” he apologized.
Suddenly the humor dropped out of her face, her expression changed to something else, maybe regret, sadness? He couldn't quite place it.
She said that that was alright, she wasn't that good with faces either. She said that she was just in town to see if he had made it out alright and was glad that he was okay. Then she stepped up to him and extended a hand which he accepted “well, I appreciate your concern” he said.
Then she bade him farewell and good health and said goodbye “the same to you” he replied. Just before she turned to go, she stopped herself and asked a simple question, she wanted to know what 'ania' meant.
The question surprised him, how did she know that name? He paused for a second, and it looked like she was about to leave without him telling her when he gave her an answer “it's my sister's name, but how did you-” she nodded in understanding, then turned on her heels and walked away.
As she headed for the door, recognition suddenly dawned on him -that soldier with a girl's face! It wasn't a hallucination! He yelled after her, desperately trying to get her to stop, to turn around, she either didn't seem to care, or didn't hear him.
She was almost at the door, he tried to remember some of the English that he had picked up from the Indians and Pakistani's, finally he blurted out the English words “wait, stop, please!” he shouted after her just as she was about to exit the room.
She stopped suddenly, frozen in place for a second. At first she merely stood there, doing nothing, he wondered if she might resume her pace and continue on her way.
Then she turned around and looked at him for a moment.
She started to walk back.
10:28 AM November 18, 1987, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, United States
“Well, after that I’ve got more questions than answers at this point.”
Dr. Cromwell threw a stack of papers down on the table in front of him in a gesture of exasperation. The rest of the group looked up at him inquisitively, Mr. Jourgensen was the first to speak “would you care to elaborate?” he asked impatiently.
The exobiologist shrugged “where to begin? The specimens that I saw being dissected all matched, and they were all equally enigmatic. They seem very much like living things, but artificial at the same time, like a manufactured organism” he started to explain.
Jerry Pournell furrowed his brow “you mean like the bozorgs?” he asked.
Cromwell shook his head “no, the bozorgs exhibit traits of having grown or been born in some way. Yes, each individual variety seems to have been specifically designed in a very artificial way, but the process by which they were created appears to be relatively natural. These… things seem artificial in just about every way, except they look and act like living beings, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say they look like some kind of weird caricature of a human-“
The room burst unto surprised conversation “wait, what do you mean human? I’ve seen the pictures, there is virtually nothing human about them” said James Randi.
Cromwell nodded “yes, yes. Physically they look very alien, aside from the basic bipedal form, but once you get take a much closer inspection, things start to look very familiar, if somewhat warped. All the necessary parts are there: lungs, heart, pancreas. They’re shaped differently, but as far as we can tell, functionally, they are exact copies of human organs. It’s almost as if someone who had never seen a human body before had one described to them; how they worked, the basic layout and setup of all the organ systems, their chemical makeup and composition, and then were told to build one, mind you without any knowledge of cellular biology.”
“And it gets weirder. From the looks of things, whoever made them also had increased durability in mind when they did so... kind of. A number of organ systems have redundancy, but not all, and there appears to be no logic applied to that redundancy. The heart and lungs have twins, which makes a lot of sense, the liver does not, nor do the kidneys.”
“The skeletal system is also reinforced, with thicker and more numerous ribs, and additional mass in the leg bones among others, but then there are completely ridiculous things too. Both the coccyx and appendix have backups, the spinal cord also has a spare, except that it's packed right inside of the spine next to the other one. So, chances are that if you damage one of them, the other one is done for as well, effectively defeating the purpose of having an extra in the first place.”
Confused conversation filled the room “well, that certainly is odd” said Carl Sagan.
Cromwell gave a slight chuckle “that's not just 'odd' it's impossible, until I sat in on that dissection, I didn't even think half the things I saw in that body could exist. And don't even get me started on the 'additions' that we found” his voice was a mix of exasperation and bewilderment.
More inquisitive looks met him from around the room, he gave yet another sigh before relenting “well, as you may have learned from my preliminary report, the 'helmets' on their heads are actually the heads themselves. The head has been replaced with all kinds of complex machinery which neither I nor any of the experts I've talked to so far have been able to make any sense of. Again, according to the laws of physics that I learned in school, half the stuff in there shouldn't work, and yet it does. Then there are those machines that they wear on their backs.”
“Well, I use the term 'wear' loosely. They are actually part of their bodies, I'm not sure how they work exactly, or all that they do, but they certainly seem to act as some form of energy source for both their weapons and the bodily functions themselves. Which only makes the presence of the digestive system even more confusing, there is no need for it, and yet from what I can tell, it's a perfectly good working organ system. It's gonna be another couple weeks before all the lab results come back in, but I'm not sure if we'll ever really figure these things out.”
He slumped back in his chair, seemingly exhausted by his own confusion. More murmured conversation continued throughout the room, after a minute, Pournell spoke up “well, what we have learned from their tactics and equipment only adds to the confusion even further” he said as the attention shifted over to him.
He continued “I've been going over the after action reports and gotten a good look at the captured items, and I tell you that if these things went to school, not only did they sleep through half of their biology classes, they also did the same thing for military tactics.”
“They seem to employ combined arms tactics between their infantry and their armor” he said as he pressed his finger down on a loose pile of photographs of several of the identified alien heavy land units. He picked one up, it was of a large four legged, stout looking contraption “in fact they do really well at supporting each other, but it's as if their air elements seem to care little about the needs of their ground forces. I've read accounts of those 'gunships' of theirs flying by without so much as pausing to lend a hand to outnumbered infantry.”
“Their infantry is seemingly well equipped with some very high tech toys, and while some of it seems very well designed, some of it if flawed to the point of being idiotic. Their body armor is very effective at stopping bullets, and isn't too heavy either. From what we can tell, they can take upwards of fifty or more hits from high caliber rifle fire before going down. Hell, if not for the re-chambering everyone's been doing to take on the bozorgs, we would be looking at even worse casualty ratio's than what we're seeing right now.”
“Yet, then we have those 'backpacks' of theirs. A single well placed shot or two to any of a couple spots on those things seems to do the job just fine. They could have placed some armor on those things with only a marginal increase in weight, and yet they just didn't seem to bother.”
“The only thing I could say for sure about them and their motivation at this point, is that they are alien, really alien.”
*-*-*
Forty minutes later the group had adjourned their meeting for the day, and several of them had already left. Charlie Post was not one of them, he was busy going over some notes he had made during the meeting.
He was so deeply focused on what he was doing that he didn't notice Mr. Jourgensen walking up to him until the man was standing about a foot or two away.
“How are things going Charles?”
It took Charlie a second to realize that the question was directed at him, he looked up at the source of the statement “oh... um, fine, and you?” he replied.
Mr. Jourgensen pulled out a chair and sat down “I'm doing fine, just fine. So, how has your sister been lately? I heard that she has been in the hospital back in Atlanta, what was it? Lung cancer?” he asked, his voice had a slight tone of concern, and something else...
Charlie was confused, and a bit suspicious. Mr. Jourgensen never made an attempt at getting friendly with any of the members of the think tank, not that personally anyway. Not to say that he was rude or abusive, but there was always a bit of cold detachment, even when he was being cordial “yes, the doctors say that she has maybe a year or less” he said warily after a moment of silence.
Mr. Jourgensen nodded solemnly “I'm really sorry to hear that-” he suddenly leaned in towards Charlie and looked him in the eye, his expression suddenly one that was very serious. His stare was piercing and intense, Charlie suddenly felt very uncomfortable “you should take some time off some time soon to go visit her” he said as he slid a small piece of paper across the table toward Charlie, his expression all but screamed act like everything is normal.
Charlie tried his best to nonchalantly place his hand down on the table over the piece of paper “...uh, yeah, maybe you're right” he said hesitantly.
Mr. Jourgensen then got up out of the chair, pushing it back in under the table “I'll be sure that your request for leave gets approved when you make it. Again, I'm really sorry to hear about your sister” he said as he started to walk away.
Charlie sat there in silence as everyone else left. Satisfied that he was alone, he finally lifted his hand and looked down at the paper, almost as if to confirm that it was real and that what he had just experienced had indeed happened.
It was a small piece of loose leaf, torn off from a larger piece. It had been folded in half. Charlie pondered it for several seconds. Then, looking around the room again to see if he was still alone, he finally picked it up and opened it.
There was a short handwritten note on it. He started to read, at first it confused him, but when he read the very last sentence, his heart skipped a beat.
“Union Station, Washington, D.C.
December 6 at 2:30 PM
Give your name at the sales window, there will be a ticket waiting there, don't be late.
Burn this letter.”
-11:26 AM November 26, 1987, Lyons, France
Corporal Jean LeClerc reflexively reached up to wipe his brow, remembering the fact that he was wearing NBC gear, he abruptly jerked his hand down. He looked out over the ruined expanse that was once the beautiful city of Lyons.
Not a single intact structure was visible in any direction, in fact most every 'structure' was hardly recognizable as anything but crushed and mangled walls jutting out of the ash covered and scorched ground. Three months of brutal fighting as NATO forces were pushed out of the city, followed by the nuclear carpet bombing campaign conducted along the outer fringes of enemy controlled territory had taken a devastating toll. Jean wondered if anyone would ever live in this place again.
He took a deep breath, then sighed “alright, this area's clear, let's move on to the next one” he said to the three assembled members of his fire team. After a second he realized that there were only two of them there “where the hell is Sabatier?” he asked, annoyed as he looked at privates LaRoche, and Primeau.
LaRoche merely shrugged, Primeau nodded his head in the direction of what had once been an apartment building, it was now no more than an open topped box with windows in the sides “Private Sabatier! Get your ass moving, we are going on to the next area!” he shouted.
No answer came.
“Sabatier!”
Again, nothing.
A twinge of suspicion creeped into the back of Jean's mind what could possibly be keeping Sabatier? he thought. He gestured toward Primeau "would you go find our missing comrade?” he ordered to the other enlisted man who promptly hefted his FN Minimi and headed over in the indicated direction, quickly disappearing around the side of a ruined wall.
A minute passed in silence, then “corporal LeClerc, can you come here?! I think there's something wrong with Sabatier!” shouted Primeau from somewhere unseen.
Rolling his eyes, Jean headed on over in the same direction, LaRoche following right behind him “I fucking swear Sabatier, if we are late for linking up with the rest of the squad I am going to put my boot so far up your ass!” he shouted, annoyed, partially to berate the errant soldier, partially to mask his own feeling of worry.
Soon the two soldiers came into view, they were facing each other. Primeau turned and looked back at Jean approaching “I don't understand, he's just standing there, he won't move or talk” he said confused.
Sure enough, Sabatier was standing there, his weapon was missing, and he just started back at them, still as a statue.
“Private, where the hell is your weapon?”
There was no response to Jean's query what's wrong with him?
LaRoche stepped forward, heading toward the motionless soldier “come on Robert, let's go” he said as he approached. That twinge started to get a bit stronger, something didn't feel right.
Then he noticed something odd about the area surrounding Sabatier, there were strange, dark spots all over, they looked glossy “LaRoche...” he said, a touch of warning in his voice.
He was missing something, something big, something important. What were those dark spots? The lighting was lousy and it was hard to make out details. He bent down and touched one of the nearest spots, some of it rubbed off on his gloved hand. A closer look revealed that it was dark red... blood.
His heart skipped a beat what the fuck is this blood doing here? He realized that there were blood splatters all over everything, hard to notice with all the ash and soot all over everything, but this blood was fresh “LaRoche...” he said again “stop moving right now” he ordered as his weapon went up to his shoulder in a flash.
The Private looked at him, but didn't stop walking forward “what?” he said confused.
A horrible feeling of dread had filled his gut, there was something very wrong there, very very wrong. Why was there blood splattered all over everything? Why wasn't Sabatier talking? Where was his weapon? What was he missing?
Primeau had turned back to look at Jean again “corporal? What are you doing?” he asked, a touch of concern in his voice.
“LaRoche, stop, moving, right, now.”
The other soldier finally did stop, about half a meter away from Sabatier, he started to bring his hand up to reach for the other soldier “what's the problem?” he said as he did so.
Alarm bells were going off in Jean's head, his hands tightened around his rifle, expecting something to jump out at them at any second. Primeau stepped in front of Jean's line of fire, it saved Jean's life, and cost Primeau his.
“Corporal LeClerc, it's alri-”
He wasn't able to finish his sentence as something long and sharp shot out from the direction of the silent soldier, slamming right into his skull with such force that it went in the back and punched through the poor man's face. Something else that moved so fast that it blurred, whipped out and sliced off LaRoche's arm, he screamed in agony as he collapsed to the ground, clutching at the stump where his arm used to be.
Suddenly, the soldier standing before them was no longer there, he had been replaced by a nightmarish looking thing, some kind of large tentacled creature, a bulbous spiked abdomen sitting atop four spindly legs. A giant gaping maw filled with massive serrated teeth grinned back at Jean in a horrific caricature of a smile.
Jean hesitated, and while it had been merely a fraction of a second at most, to him it had felt like an eternity. He squeezed the trigger, his FAMAS kicked him in the shoulder, sending forth a volley of 7.62 mm bullets which slammed into the horrible thing's body. It spasmed and lurched, letting out a nightmarish scream in response. Large holes appeared where the bullets had struck, exploding in large gratuitous black spatters.
It sent out another tentacle at incredible speed in an attempt to strike back at Jean, but he was quicker and sidestepped the attack. Finishing the dodging maneuver, he corrected his aim and let out another burst of fire, the creature screamed again, then stumbled and fell to the ground. It's limbs spasmed and twitched for another second more, then they were still.
Jean remained tense for another second, half expecting the monstrosityto come back to life again, but when nothing happened, he allowed his tense muscles to relax just a bit, then lowered his weapon. He approached the now dead thing as it lay there on the ground.
Suddenly, he realized that there was something odd about it, it wasn't twitching anymore, but there was something about it's body -it's growing!
His eyes went wide with shock as he found the nearest place where he could find cover and dove behind it. A half a second later a loud pop sounded out, followed by a wet splattering noise and then what sounded like sizzling.
When he came out from his shelter, he saw that the tentacled monstrosity was gone, and his two comrades were now reduced to gruesome piles of bloody mush.
-Excerpts from the journal of Dr. Willard Maye, Phd. Archeology, Princeton University
“December 1, 1987,
At last! After months of running into nothing but bare residential portions of the city, we have finally come across something truly astounding!
Two days ago, one of our digging teams uncovered something that they thought was another set of skeletal remains, however after fully uncovering it we have discovered that it is so much more.
Standing about ten feet in height, it appears to consist of some kind of bipedal form, made from a combination of steel, stone, and human remains. In the typical grizzly fashion of much of Antarctican artwork, this particular item seems to be an idol or sculpture meant to act as a representation of some kind of religious being, perhaps some form of demon or mythical creature from their religious pantheon.
Interestingly, it is not clear just how the idol is held together, as there is no indication of just what mechanism has been used to fasten the metal to the stone, it just seems to be ‘bonded’ with it somehow.
The same can be said for the bones as well, which seem to have simply gown onto the structure itself. However, the odd thing is that there appear to be spikes that have been forced through the bones as a means of securing them into place. This would seem redundant, however one of the theories that has started floating around the staff and which I am not quite prepared to dismiss is the possibility that the victims were actually alive when they were secured to the statue.
Should this prove to be correct, it would seem that the obvious reason for the spikes is not to act as fasteners, but rather to induce pain in the victim. Considering the rather unpleasant nature of so much of the rest of Antarctican religion and culture, such a theory is not outside the realm of realistic possibilities.
Text surrounding the sculpture is limited so far, but I have managed to uncover a handful of references to some kind of great and horrible warrior which acts on behalf of the ancient gods and those that worship them. The presence of numerous bladed weapons which protrude from the limbs and body of the statue would be fitting of just such a purpose.
In spite of a number of inconsistencies with its namesake, many of the staff have taken to calling it a ’Golem.’ While not entirely fitting, in light of the difficult to pronounce ‘n’glfla’zaxn’ which appears to be its name in the original language, and in the absence of a more apt name, it would appear that ‘Golem’ is the best choice thus far.
On a side note, I have also met our ‘administrator’ today. At first I was inclined to dismiss Dr. Atwood’s distrust of the man, after meeting him today, I may have to change my assessment. In spite of his incredibly well manicured appearance, and seemingly amiable demeanor, I get very unsettling feelings whenever I talk to him.
While I am inclined to agree with him in dismissing the complaints of nightmares that have been surfacing amongst many of the staff, I am very off put by his dismissal of the sharp rise in the number of accidents and violence amongst the staff over the past couple months. Even with the increase in the amount of ‘security personnel’ that have arrived recently, they seem almost exclusively concerned with preventing unauthorized access to the dig site and artifacts rather than protecting the staff. This is something that I am NOT happy with.”
“December 2, 1987,
They can't do this!
One of the most significant finds that we have managed to uncover since beginning the excavations, and they have restricted my access to it! How do they expect me to do my job if they are cutting me off from the very artifacts that I have been sent here to study?!
I took my complaints to the administrator, yet he refused to change his mind, merely saying that ‘operational security’ demanded that the Golem be placed under tight security for study by ‘the proper experts’ whatever that means.
And who are these supposed ‘proper experts?’ that he mentioned anyway? As head of this dig I am supposed to be in close communication with all research staff on site. How can I successfully run this dig if they are bringing in people who I don’t even know who they are let alone have any kind of communication with them?!
I’m starting to wonder if Dr. Atwood wasn’t being overly paranoid after all. Next thing I know they are going to start opening my mail and censoring it too.”
-1:53 PM December 3, 1987, Lambda Complex, Blackbird Research Facility, Nevada, United States
Dr. Gordon Frohman hurriedly walked down the corridor. He reached up quickly and wiped his sleeve against his forehead, attempting to dry his dripping brow.
Things had been frantic at both the complex and the entirety of Blackbird ever since these new aliens had shown up. People wanted answers as to who these new invaders were, where they were from, and how they were able to break through the jamming. Gordon wished he could have come up with an answer to even one of those queries.
He rounded a corner and quickly approached a door at the end of the corridor, two guards were standing at either side of it. As he came to the door, he raised up his ID to the one on the right “thank you sir, just a moment” he said in a disciplined and orderly fashion. Turning around, he entered a code into the keypad behind him, after a second the door hissed open and Gordon walked through it.
The Arrowhead Network Control Center bore a strong resemblance to a mission control center in a space port, just far smaller, there was only one row of computer terminals with a total of six workstations. At the moment, the room was full of activity as each workstation had a technician at it who was frantically entering commands into the keyboards before them, others were observing the various instrument panels that lined the walls of the room and others were frantically talking on phones to persons unknown.
At the front of the room was a large image of a map of the earth projected against on the wall. On that map were various different symbols marking various things of interest. The most numerous of which were the various green dots representing the orbital position of each of the satellites in the Arrowhead Network. Interesting he thought to himself it hasn't been this hectic in here since- his thoughts were cut off when he noticed something about the map.
It took him a second to realize what that was, or rather wasn't.
“What's going on? What happened?”
He asked in the direction of Bob Griggs who was reading some information off of a monitor along the wall. The scientist took a second before prying himself away “it's the portals, the big ones. They've closed, all of them” he said finally.
“I can see that, but when did it happen? Do we have any idea as to what the cause is? Do we have any information other than just that?”
Gordon's tone was annoyed, and while he was certain he already knew the answers to all of those questions, it made him feel better to just ask anyway “no, they just... closed. It was very sudden and it happened all at once, but that's about it” said Dr. Griggs as he shook his head.
Shit.
Gordon got a very bad feeling at the pit of his stomach as he walked over to the nearest available phone and picked it up. He waited for a dial tone then dialed the switchboard operator “communications” came the prompt reply.
Gordon took a deep, troubled breath then spoke into the handset “this is Dr. Frohman, get me the White House” he said with reservation.
“The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft
-6:18 AM November 16, 1987, The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London, England
Colonel Anthony Taylor stood at attention as Margaret Thatcher entered the room, when she took her seat, he relaxed his pose and prepared to begin his presentation. Conversation died and everyone else in the room shifted in their seats as the Prime Minister got herself situated "very well, let us begin. What do we have on this new threat so far?" she said without much ceremony.
Anthony cleared his throat "it would appear that after pushing outward and claiming control over the ground and airspace of an approximate forty kilometer radius around each portal, the enemy has ceased all further advances for the time being. It is unknown just what the full motivation behind this is, but it is assumed that the need to secure and consolidate all gains made up to this point is one of the main driving factors. They also seem to be quite preoccupied with continuing to destroy everything in sight."
"Enemy force estimates worldwide at this time indicate a grand total of over seven hundred of the larger ships ranging from one to ten kilometers in size. Smaller craft that fall under the one kilometer mark have reached an undetermined quantity, but it is believed that they number more than twenty five thousand at the least. Ground forces are even harder to estimate, but we have determined that they have landed no less than seven million infantry and more than a quarter of a million ground vehicles of different varieties. Most analysis seems to indicate that these estimates are on the low end however, and as more forces continue to pour in through the portals, this number continues to grow."
"As you are all no doubt aware, both the United States and Soviet Union attempted to launch attacks on enemy positions using nuclear tipped cruise missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles to no avail. It would appear that they possess the ability to shoot down incoming missiles and aircraft at quite some distance."
"The range of enemy airborne weaponry seems to be just over three hundred kilometers for those 'bolt' weapons, and their 'beam' weapons seem to have a range just under one hundred kilometers. Needless to say, any and all attempts at flying within a three hundred kilometer radius of the portal locations has proven to be... problematic to say the least-"
He was interrupted as an uncomfortable grumbling broke out amongst some of the assembled people there.
What they were reacting to, and what he had not mentioned was the horribly failed second attempt that various human air forces had made the day following the first battle as more aircraft had been made available. The casualties from that day had been disastrous, with most formations suffering an excess of over sixty percent of their aircraft, far worse than the thirty to thirty-five percent figure from the previous battle. Over fifteen hundred aircraft had not returned that day, it was the single bloodiest air battle since World War II.
One voice rose above the others "Do we still not know anything about their objectives?" it was Deputy Prime Minister William Whitelaw.
Anthony took a deep breath "I'm afraid not as of yet. No sign of any communication whatsoever has been detected from them and aside from pure destruction, they have expressed little interest in anything else, the-"
Secretary of state for Defense Younger interrupted him "this seems awfully convenient for the bozorgs that this would happen to us so soon after our success in conducting BREADBASKET. I don't think it entirely unreasonable that we consider the possibility that there is a connection to that" he said confidently.
Prime Minister Thatcher cleared her own throat "are you suggesting that this is some form of new action by them? Or that they are allies of some sort?" she asked.
Younger shrugged "it's possible. It is my experience that coincidence is at least an extreme rarity and at most a myth" he replied.
Grumbling turned to debate and argument as the assembled parties discussed the most recently broached topic "while such a possibility should not be ruled out entirely, it should be noted that aside from the timing, there is virtually no evidence to indicate such a connection" Anthony had raised his voice in order to be heard.
The rest of the room quieted and looked at him, he continued "so far the bozorgs have all shown one single minded purpose; the absorption and collection of all biological matter that they can obtain. These new aliens seem entirely unconcerned with such a purpose. Quite the contrary, the forms of weapons they are employing seem quite well disposed to the incineration and destruction of biomass.
“Also, while the bozorgs have attacked and damaged buildings, structures, and vehicles during the course of pursuing their goals, they have never made a point of it, this new threat seems to pursue the destruction of all that they encounter with just as much priority as killing people.”
“Then there is also considerable difference in observed tactics and doctrines that each faction uses. If anything, they seem to have quite divergent or possibly even conflicting 'philosophies' which would not make them well disposed to cooperation" he explained.
Margaret Thatcher fixed him with a firm stare "are you saying that it is likely that we have a third side to this conflict then?" she said, quizzically.
He nodded "without any further evidence to the contrary, that is seemingly the most likely situation, yes" he said.
Additional grumbling reverberated throughout the room, the Prime Minister was quick to squash it however “alright, that is enough speculation for now, we can continue to debate and argue over the various aspects of this new invasion until doomsday. I could use some good news for a change, what is the status of operations in Asia?” she said expectantly.
In spite of the fact that this was not part of his planned briefing, Anthony had taken the time to brush up on the latest developments in the conflict with the bozorgs. He took a deep breath, then proceeded “well, the latest lab results regarding the bozorg mass die-offs have just come in and it is confirmed.”
“For lack of a better word, their ‘batteries’ have run dry” his explanation was met with murmuring of a far more pleasant nature this time.
“Exactly how did we miss this for so long? We’ve had satellite imagery of the region for some time, we should have been able to spot some hint of this” it was Whitelaw again, his question wasn’t confrontational, rather it seemed a genuine inquiry.
“Well, until the enemy started pulling massive numbers of ground forces into the kill zones to exploit what they saw as a breakthrough, their functional forces were more or less intermixed with their dead ones, disguising their losses. There have also been reports of them retrieving many of the bodies in an attempt to either recycle the biomass or recharge their energy reserves.”
Murmurs of acknowledgment filled the room, Anthony continued “the situation on the ground however is both a mix of resounding success and considerable difficulty. The northern region is the biggest mess, in fact the Russians are still trying to plug all the holes in their lines. Although, the Chinese have started to shift forces over to bolster the Russians.”
“The southern region is markedly better, but still slow going, we’ve just managed to fully clear the last few bits of the kill zone. Meanwhile General Sharma has managed to get as far as fifty kilometers northward according to the last dispatches we’ve received from his command.”
“Last updates on the western theatre have General Karadayi halting his advance due to logistical problems, his total distance covered so far seems to be in excess of one hundred twenty kilometers, with minimal indication of increased enemy resistance, this however is subject to change.”
“Finally, the Chinese have managed to advance almost eighty kilometers, again with minimal resistance, although the mountainous terrain has slowed their advances considerably. This is also not likely to last as the Soviets are getting anxious to pull forces from the front in Asia over to Azerbaijan They’ve already started to do so from the European front.”
Murmurs of both agreement and disapproval filled the room. No one spoke it specifically, but everyone knew the question.
Once this new enemy decided to start moving, how were they supposed to be stopped?
-2:48 PM November 17, 1987, Jaipur, India
Kelly ascended the stairs with a deliberate pace, she was nervous. , wondering just what would happen.
She thought that it was ironic that she had fought horrible alien creatures and seen things that were the stuff of nightmares, and yet this made her nervous.
To be honest, she wasn't even sure if she should have come. Of course she had the time.
Following the horrors of that first day there were two days of nothing but waiting while coalition air forces and artillery units pounded the kill zone and everything in it, in the hopes of wiping out every trace of enemy presence. Then there were an additional four days of very low intensity combat as she and the rest of her unit went through the kill zone, clearing it of any of the enemy that had managed to survive.
It was a far cry from the constant nonstop carnage that had marked her first day. They would march and march and check various suspicious looking areas. Usually they would find nothing, but occasionally there would be a warrior, or a mantis or something hiding underneath a pile of dead bodies or rubble. Firing bullets into the piles proved to be of only limited effectiveness. The creatures that hid in them rarely jumped out until someone walked near, and whatever cover they chose all too often did too decent a job of shielding them from weapons fire.
Of course, they couldn't call in an air strike or artillery barrage on every suspicious pile of rubble. They had neither the time nor the ammunition. So the only solution was to send people in to physically check anything that looked like it could hide an enemy.
The result was hours on end of absolute boredom as they marched from place to place, followed by several minutes of white knuckled tension, then possibly another minute or two of pure pants-shitting terror, rinse and repeat.
Then, when they'd finally cleared the area, her ad hoc platoon was sent back to the rear where they were moved from place to place, with some people being reassigned as new units were pieced together and the composition of the US Marine force in India was restructured to form some semblance of an organized force.
It had been boring and mind numbing, and after all that, they had been informed that they were getting shipped up north to fill gaps left by all the casualties that the Soviets had suffered. That wasn't for another two days though, so she had some time to herself.
Her mind wandered back to that day, to all the death she had seen, all the loss she had suffered. The faces of all those she had seen die haunted her nightmares, Ditty, Private Sorensen, and Private Horatio among others, his guts smeared across the ground as he tried to pull them back into the gaping hole in his stomach, helplessly mewing and crying out for his mother.
Hope seemed to have left her almost entirely then, there didn't seem to be anything to live for, so she fought and marched and followed orders, all on automatic. She had thought about that young Russian soldier who she had tried to save that day, wondered if he were alive. She had been convinced that he had died, she dared not hope for anything else, all her experiences in the war thus far had taught her otherwise. All the same, she had nothing much better to do after being shifted to the rear, so she tracked down the corpsman who was there that day. He had told her that the Russian was still alive when he had left him at the field hospital where he had dropped him off.
She managed to make her way to the field hospital and that's where the trail had gone cold. Only one person; a nurse, remembered him, and she had only treated him for about an hour before being dragged off to something else.
Kelly tried to tell herself that he had been fine, that he had made it back to some hospital shitty food being the worst of his worries, but she knew better. Good things like that didn't happen out there, not anymore.
Then a day prior, a Russian man, dressed in a Red Army Lieutenant's uniform came by, asking everyone questions about that day at Barwala, and about a particular sergeant... sergeant? That kid was a sergeant? He looked so young, maybe a year older than her, no more, and he was a sergeant.
He asked her all kinds of questions about it, how many bozorgs she had seen him kill, how long between the time she had spotted him and when they had gotten to him, things like that. She gave the lieutenant a full account of her experiences, the best she could recall anyway and that was that, or so she thought.
She had expected that the kid had died of his wounds, that the Soviets were just gonna use his last stand as some propaganda tool to boost morale back home, maybe give him some medal posthumously.
Then the lieutenant had said that the sergeant; Nikolai Antonov was his name, had survived, that he was currently being treated in a hospital in Jaipur.
She was so excited that she practically kissed the Russian officer. She had requested and was granted a twelve hour pass to go and visit the man whom she had saved, and so here she was, ascending the stairs of this crowded hospital, anxiously anticipating her meeting with someone who she didn't even know but had a strong emotional attachment to.
*-*-*
Nikolai hated it here in the hospital, almost as much as he hated being up at the front. He hated the pain of his wounds, he hated the fact that nobody spoke enough of any language he knew to talk to(except for one doctor who spoke Russian), hated the constant suicide attempts night terrors of the other patients.
However, what he hated most of all was the boredom. There was nothing to distract him, nothing to keep his mind from drifting back to all the memories, the nightmares, the horrible images that filled his mind.
He had gotten one visitor, a Red Army Lieutenant named Agapov. He had asked Nikolai scores of questions about his experiences during the war, about all that he did, but especially about that last day in Barwala.
Nikolai didn't like talking about it, but there was no one else there to talk to, and nothing else to do, and the Lieutenant was the first other Russian he had seen in days.
He'd managed to get news from elsewhere in the world, apparently the battle had been a huge success, except in the north, where the Red Army had had to drop a whole bunch of nuclear weapons on both the enemy and their own men. He wondered if he knew anybody that was up there, wondered if they had died.
He also heard about another species of aliens invading, that they had popped up all over the world.
Theories abounded about where they were from, that they were more bozorgs, that they were actually people from the future, and about a dozen other equally crazy ideas. He really didn't care too much then though.
The boredom continued that way for days and days, until about a few minutes before when that Russian speaking doctor; Rao his name was, approached Nikolai and informed him that he had a visitor, an American.
Nikolai was confused, what would an American want with him? Maybe they wanted to present him with a bill for airlifting him away from the front line.
He was even more confused when he looked over at the door to see a young girl in a soldier's uniform standing in it. She looked pretty, and quite tall for a woman, her skin was of an olive complexion. Her face looked familiar, but he didn't know from where.
Dr. Rao stayed by his bedside, he had agreed to act as a translator for the two of them.
The girl looked nervous, but as she approached, her steps were sure and confident.
When the girl arrived at the foot of his bed, she smiled and gave him a salute, he returned the gesture, she introduced herself as a Private Kelly Vasquez, US Marine Corps. He replied with his own introduction.
Then there was an awkward silence as she stared at him quietly, her expression seemed to indicate that she did not know what to say, finally he decided to break the silence “if you're here to complain about all the blood I left on the inside of your helicopter, well you can just bill the Red Army for it” he said sarcastically.
Her lips twitched slightly, then she started to chuckle. When she calmed down she said that she wasn't there about that. She said that she was part of the unit that linked up with him at Barwala. He'd nodded in understanding “I'm sorry, but I don't remember you in particular” he apologized.
Suddenly the humor dropped out of her face, her expression changed to something else, maybe regret, sadness? He couldn't quite place it.
She said that that was alright, she wasn't that good with faces either. She said that she was just in town to see if he had made it out alright and was glad that he was okay. Then she stepped up to him and extended a hand which he accepted “well, I appreciate your concern” he said.
Then she bade him farewell and good health and said goodbye “the same to you” he replied. Just before she turned to go, she stopped herself and asked a simple question, she wanted to know what 'ania' meant.
The question surprised him, how did she know that name? He paused for a second, and it looked like she was about to leave without him telling her when he gave her an answer “it's my sister's name, but how did you-” she nodded in understanding, then turned on her heels and walked away.
As she headed for the door, recognition suddenly dawned on him -that soldier with a girl's face! It wasn't a hallucination! He yelled after her, desperately trying to get her to stop, to turn around, she either didn't seem to care, or didn't hear him.
She was almost at the door, he tried to remember some of the English that he had picked up from the Indians and Pakistani's, finally he blurted out the English words “wait, stop, please!” he shouted after her just as she was about to exit the room.
She stopped suddenly, frozen in place for a second. At first she merely stood there, doing nothing, he wondered if she might resume her pace and continue on her way.
Then she turned around and looked at him for a moment.
She started to walk back.
10:28 AM November 18, 1987, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, United States
“Well, after that I’ve got more questions than answers at this point.”
Dr. Cromwell threw a stack of papers down on the table in front of him in a gesture of exasperation. The rest of the group looked up at him inquisitively, Mr. Jourgensen was the first to speak “would you care to elaborate?” he asked impatiently.
The exobiologist shrugged “where to begin? The specimens that I saw being dissected all matched, and they were all equally enigmatic. They seem very much like living things, but artificial at the same time, like a manufactured organism” he started to explain.
Jerry Pournell furrowed his brow “you mean like the bozorgs?” he asked.
Cromwell shook his head “no, the bozorgs exhibit traits of having grown or been born in some way. Yes, each individual variety seems to have been specifically designed in a very artificial way, but the process by which they were created appears to be relatively natural. These… things seem artificial in just about every way, except they look and act like living beings, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say they look like some kind of weird caricature of a human-“
The room burst unto surprised conversation “wait, what do you mean human? I’ve seen the pictures, there is virtually nothing human about them” said James Randi.
Cromwell nodded “yes, yes. Physically they look very alien, aside from the basic bipedal form, but once you get take a much closer inspection, things start to look very familiar, if somewhat warped. All the necessary parts are there: lungs, heart, pancreas. They’re shaped differently, but as far as we can tell, functionally, they are exact copies of human organs. It’s almost as if someone who had never seen a human body before had one described to them; how they worked, the basic layout and setup of all the organ systems, their chemical makeup and composition, and then were told to build one, mind you without any knowledge of cellular biology.”
“And it gets weirder. From the looks of things, whoever made them also had increased durability in mind when they did so... kind of. A number of organ systems have redundancy, but not all, and there appears to be no logic applied to that redundancy. The heart and lungs have twins, which makes a lot of sense, the liver does not, nor do the kidneys.”
“The skeletal system is also reinforced, with thicker and more numerous ribs, and additional mass in the leg bones among others, but then there are completely ridiculous things too. Both the coccyx and appendix have backups, the spinal cord also has a spare, except that it's packed right inside of the spine next to the other one. So, chances are that if you damage one of them, the other one is done for as well, effectively defeating the purpose of having an extra in the first place.”
Confused conversation filled the room “well, that certainly is odd” said Carl Sagan.
Cromwell gave a slight chuckle “that's not just 'odd' it's impossible, until I sat in on that dissection, I didn't even think half the things I saw in that body could exist. And don't even get me started on the 'additions' that we found” his voice was a mix of exasperation and bewilderment.
More inquisitive looks met him from around the room, he gave yet another sigh before relenting “well, as you may have learned from my preliminary report, the 'helmets' on their heads are actually the heads themselves. The head has been replaced with all kinds of complex machinery which neither I nor any of the experts I've talked to so far have been able to make any sense of. Again, according to the laws of physics that I learned in school, half the stuff in there shouldn't work, and yet it does. Then there are those machines that they wear on their backs.”
“Well, I use the term 'wear' loosely. They are actually part of their bodies, I'm not sure how they work exactly, or all that they do, but they certainly seem to act as some form of energy source for both their weapons and the bodily functions themselves. Which only makes the presence of the digestive system even more confusing, there is no need for it, and yet from what I can tell, it's a perfectly good working organ system. It's gonna be another couple weeks before all the lab results come back in, but I'm not sure if we'll ever really figure these things out.”
He slumped back in his chair, seemingly exhausted by his own confusion. More murmured conversation continued throughout the room, after a minute, Pournell spoke up “well, what we have learned from their tactics and equipment only adds to the confusion even further” he said as the attention shifted over to him.
He continued “I've been going over the after action reports and gotten a good look at the captured items, and I tell you that if these things went to school, not only did they sleep through half of their biology classes, they also did the same thing for military tactics.”
“They seem to employ combined arms tactics between their infantry and their armor” he said as he pressed his finger down on a loose pile of photographs of several of the identified alien heavy land units. He picked one up, it was of a large four legged, stout looking contraption “in fact they do really well at supporting each other, but it's as if their air elements seem to care little about the needs of their ground forces. I've read accounts of those 'gunships' of theirs flying by without so much as pausing to lend a hand to outnumbered infantry.”
“Their infantry is seemingly well equipped with some very high tech toys, and while some of it seems very well designed, some of it if flawed to the point of being idiotic. Their body armor is very effective at stopping bullets, and isn't too heavy either. From what we can tell, they can take upwards of fifty or more hits from high caliber rifle fire before going down. Hell, if not for the re-chambering everyone's been doing to take on the bozorgs, we would be looking at even worse casualty ratio's than what we're seeing right now.”
“Yet, then we have those 'backpacks' of theirs. A single well placed shot or two to any of a couple spots on those things seems to do the job just fine. They could have placed some armor on those things with only a marginal increase in weight, and yet they just didn't seem to bother.”
“The only thing I could say for sure about them and their motivation at this point, is that they are alien, really alien.”
*-*-*
Forty minutes later the group had adjourned their meeting for the day, and several of them had already left. Charlie Post was not one of them, he was busy going over some notes he had made during the meeting.
He was so deeply focused on what he was doing that he didn't notice Mr. Jourgensen walking up to him until the man was standing about a foot or two away.
“How are things going Charles?”
It took Charlie a second to realize that the question was directed at him, he looked up at the source of the statement “oh... um, fine, and you?” he replied.
Mr. Jourgensen pulled out a chair and sat down “I'm doing fine, just fine. So, how has your sister been lately? I heard that she has been in the hospital back in Atlanta, what was it? Lung cancer?” he asked, his voice had a slight tone of concern, and something else...
Charlie was confused, and a bit suspicious. Mr. Jourgensen never made an attempt at getting friendly with any of the members of the think tank, not that personally anyway. Not to say that he was rude or abusive, but there was always a bit of cold detachment, even when he was being cordial “yes, the doctors say that she has maybe a year or less” he said warily after a moment of silence.
Mr. Jourgensen nodded solemnly “I'm really sorry to hear that-” he suddenly leaned in towards Charlie and looked him in the eye, his expression suddenly one that was very serious. His stare was piercing and intense, Charlie suddenly felt very uncomfortable “you should take some time off some time soon to go visit her” he said as he slid a small piece of paper across the table toward Charlie, his expression all but screamed act like everything is normal.
Charlie tried his best to nonchalantly place his hand down on the table over the piece of paper “...uh, yeah, maybe you're right” he said hesitantly.
Mr. Jourgensen then got up out of the chair, pushing it back in under the table “I'll be sure that your request for leave gets approved when you make it. Again, I'm really sorry to hear about your sister” he said as he started to walk away.
Charlie sat there in silence as everyone else left. Satisfied that he was alone, he finally lifted his hand and looked down at the paper, almost as if to confirm that it was real and that what he had just experienced had indeed happened.
It was a small piece of loose leaf, torn off from a larger piece. It had been folded in half. Charlie pondered it for several seconds. Then, looking around the room again to see if he was still alone, he finally picked it up and opened it.
There was a short handwritten note on it. He started to read, at first it confused him, but when he read the very last sentence, his heart skipped a beat.
“Union Station, Washington, D.C.
December 6 at 2:30 PM
Give your name at the sales window, there will be a ticket waiting there, don't be late.
Burn this letter.”
-11:26 AM November 26, 1987, Lyons, France
Corporal Jean LeClerc reflexively reached up to wipe his brow, remembering the fact that he was wearing NBC gear, he abruptly jerked his hand down. He looked out over the ruined expanse that was once the beautiful city of Lyons.
Not a single intact structure was visible in any direction, in fact most every 'structure' was hardly recognizable as anything but crushed and mangled walls jutting out of the ash covered and scorched ground. Three months of brutal fighting as NATO forces were pushed out of the city, followed by the nuclear carpet bombing campaign conducted along the outer fringes of enemy controlled territory had taken a devastating toll. Jean wondered if anyone would ever live in this place again.
He took a deep breath, then sighed “alright, this area's clear, let's move on to the next one” he said to the three assembled members of his fire team. After a second he realized that there were only two of them there “where the hell is Sabatier?” he asked, annoyed as he looked at privates LaRoche, and Primeau.
LaRoche merely shrugged, Primeau nodded his head in the direction of what had once been an apartment building, it was now no more than an open topped box with windows in the sides “Private Sabatier! Get your ass moving, we are going on to the next area!” he shouted.
No answer came.
“Sabatier!”
Again, nothing.
A twinge of suspicion creeped into the back of Jean's mind what could possibly be keeping Sabatier? he thought. He gestured toward Primeau "would you go find our missing comrade?” he ordered to the other enlisted man who promptly hefted his FN Minimi and headed over in the indicated direction, quickly disappearing around the side of a ruined wall.
A minute passed in silence, then “corporal LeClerc, can you come here?! I think there's something wrong with Sabatier!” shouted Primeau from somewhere unseen.
Rolling his eyes, Jean headed on over in the same direction, LaRoche following right behind him “I fucking swear Sabatier, if we are late for linking up with the rest of the squad I am going to put my boot so far up your ass!” he shouted, annoyed, partially to berate the errant soldier, partially to mask his own feeling of worry.
Soon the two soldiers came into view, they were facing each other. Primeau turned and looked back at Jean approaching “I don't understand, he's just standing there, he won't move or talk” he said confused.
Sure enough, Sabatier was standing there, his weapon was missing, and he just started back at them, still as a statue.
“Private, where the hell is your weapon?”
There was no response to Jean's query what's wrong with him?
LaRoche stepped forward, heading toward the motionless soldier “come on Robert, let's go” he said as he approached. That twinge started to get a bit stronger, something didn't feel right.
Then he noticed something odd about the area surrounding Sabatier, there were strange, dark spots all over, they looked glossy “LaRoche...” he said, a touch of warning in his voice.
He was missing something, something big, something important. What were those dark spots? The lighting was lousy and it was hard to make out details. He bent down and touched one of the nearest spots, some of it rubbed off on his gloved hand. A closer look revealed that it was dark red... blood.
His heart skipped a beat what the fuck is this blood doing here? He realized that there were blood splatters all over everything, hard to notice with all the ash and soot all over everything, but this blood was fresh “LaRoche...” he said again “stop moving right now” he ordered as his weapon went up to his shoulder in a flash.
The Private looked at him, but didn't stop walking forward “what?” he said confused.
A horrible feeling of dread had filled his gut, there was something very wrong there, very very wrong. Why was there blood splattered all over everything? Why wasn't Sabatier talking? Where was his weapon? What was he missing?
Primeau had turned back to look at Jean again “corporal? What are you doing?” he asked, a touch of concern in his voice.
“LaRoche, stop, moving, right, now.”
The other soldier finally did stop, about half a meter away from Sabatier, he started to bring his hand up to reach for the other soldier “what's the problem?” he said as he did so.
Alarm bells were going off in Jean's head, his hands tightened around his rifle, expecting something to jump out at them at any second. Primeau stepped in front of Jean's line of fire, it saved Jean's life, and cost Primeau his.
“Corporal LeClerc, it's alri-”
He wasn't able to finish his sentence as something long and sharp shot out from the direction of the silent soldier, slamming right into his skull with such force that it went in the back and punched through the poor man's face. Something else that moved so fast that it blurred, whipped out and sliced off LaRoche's arm, he screamed in agony as he collapsed to the ground, clutching at the stump where his arm used to be.
Suddenly, the soldier standing before them was no longer there, he had been replaced by a nightmarish looking thing, some kind of large tentacled creature, a bulbous spiked abdomen sitting atop four spindly legs. A giant gaping maw filled with massive serrated teeth grinned back at Jean in a horrific caricature of a smile.
Jean hesitated, and while it had been merely a fraction of a second at most, to him it had felt like an eternity. He squeezed the trigger, his FAMAS kicked him in the shoulder, sending forth a volley of 7.62 mm bullets which slammed into the horrible thing's body. It spasmed and lurched, letting out a nightmarish scream in response. Large holes appeared where the bullets had struck, exploding in large gratuitous black spatters.
It sent out another tentacle at incredible speed in an attempt to strike back at Jean, but he was quicker and sidestepped the attack. Finishing the dodging maneuver, he corrected his aim and let out another burst of fire, the creature screamed again, then stumbled and fell to the ground. It's limbs spasmed and twitched for another second more, then they were still.
Jean remained tense for another second, half expecting the monstrosityto come back to life again, but when nothing happened, he allowed his tense muscles to relax just a bit, then lowered his weapon. He approached the now dead thing as it lay there on the ground.
Suddenly, he realized that there was something odd about it, it wasn't twitching anymore, but there was something about it's body -it's growing!
His eyes went wide with shock as he found the nearest place where he could find cover and dove behind it. A half a second later a loud pop sounded out, followed by a wet splattering noise and then what sounded like sizzling.
When he came out from his shelter, he saw that the tentacled monstrosity was gone, and his two comrades were now reduced to gruesome piles of bloody mush.
-Excerpts from the journal of Dr. Willard Maye, Phd. Archeology, Princeton University
“December 1, 1987,
At last! After months of running into nothing but bare residential portions of the city, we have finally come across something truly astounding!
Two days ago, one of our digging teams uncovered something that they thought was another set of skeletal remains, however after fully uncovering it we have discovered that it is so much more.
Standing about ten feet in height, it appears to consist of some kind of bipedal form, made from a combination of steel, stone, and human remains. In the typical grizzly fashion of much of Antarctican artwork, this particular item seems to be an idol or sculpture meant to act as a representation of some kind of religious being, perhaps some form of demon or mythical creature from their religious pantheon.
Interestingly, it is not clear just how the idol is held together, as there is no indication of just what mechanism has been used to fasten the metal to the stone, it just seems to be ‘bonded’ with it somehow.
The same can be said for the bones as well, which seem to have simply gown onto the structure itself. However, the odd thing is that there appear to be spikes that have been forced through the bones as a means of securing them into place. This would seem redundant, however one of the theories that has started floating around the staff and which I am not quite prepared to dismiss is the possibility that the victims were actually alive when they were secured to the statue.
Should this prove to be correct, it would seem that the obvious reason for the spikes is not to act as fasteners, but rather to induce pain in the victim. Considering the rather unpleasant nature of so much of the rest of Antarctican religion and culture, such a theory is not outside the realm of realistic possibilities.
Text surrounding the sculpture is limited so far, but I have managed to uncover a handful of references to some kind of great and horrible warrior which acts on behalf of the ancient gods and those that worship them. The presence of numerous bladed weapons which protrude from the limbs and body of the statue would be fitting of just such a purpose.
In spite of a number of inconsistencies with its namesake, many of the staff have taken to calling it a ’Golem.’ While not entirely fitting, in light of the difficult to pronounce ‘n’glfla’zaxn’ which appears to be its name in the original language, and in the absence of a more apt name, it would appear that ‘Golem’ is the best choice thus far.
On a side note, I have also met our ‘administrator’ today. At first I was inclined to dismiss Dr. Atwood’s distrust of the man, after meeting him today, I may have to change my assessment. In spite of his incredibly well manicured appearance, and seemingly amiable demeanor, I get very unsettling feelings whenever I talk to him.
While I am inclined to agree with him in dismissing the complaints of nightmares that have been surfacing amongst many of the staff, I am very off put by his dismissal of the sharp rise in the number of accidents and violence amongst the staff over the past couple months. Even with the increase in the amount of ‘security personnel’ that have arrived recently, they seem almost exclusively concerned with preventing unauthorized access to the dig site and artifacts rather than protecting the staff. This is something that I am NOT happy with.”
“December 2, 1987,
They can't do this!
One of the most significant finds that we have managed to uncover since beginning the excavations, and they have restricted my access to it! How do they expect me to do my job if they are cutting me off from the very artifacts that I have been sent here to study?!
I took my complaints to the administrator, yet he refused to change his mind, merely saying that ‘operational security’ demanded that the Golem be placed under tight security for study by ‘the proper experts’ whatever that means.
And who are these supposed ‘proper experts?’ that he mentioned anyway? As head of this dig I am supposed to be in close communication with all research staff on site. How can I successfully run this dig if they are bringing in people who I don’t even know who they are let alone have any kind of communication with them?!
I’m starting to wonder if Dr. Atwood wasn’t being overly paranoid after all. Next thing I know they are going to start opening my mail and censoring it too.”
-1:53 PM December 3, 1987, Lambda Complex, Blackbird Research Facility, Nevada, United States
Dr. Gordon Frohman hurriedly walked down the corridor. He reached up quickly and wiped his sleeve against his forehead, attempting to dry his dripping brow.
Things had been frantic at both the complex and the entirety of Blackbird ever since these new aliens had shown up. People wanted answers as to who these new invaders were, where they were from, and how they were able to break through the jamming. Gordon wished he could have come up with an answer to even one of those queries.
He rounded a corner and quickly approached a door at the end of the corridor, two guards were standing at either side of it. As he came to the door, he raised up his ID to the one on the right “thank you sir, just a moment” he said in a disciplined and orderly fashion. Turning around, he entered a code into the keypad behind him, after a second the door hissed open and Gordon walked through it.
The Arrowhead Network Control Center bore a strong resemblance to a mission control center in a space port, just far smaller, there was only one row of computer terminals with a total of six workstations. At the moment, the room was full of activity as each workstation had a technician at it who was frantically entering commands into the keyboards before them, others were observing the various instrument panels that lined the walls of the room and others were frantically talking on phones to persons unknown.
At the front of the room was a large image of a map of the earth projected against on the wall. On that map were various different symbols marking various things of interest. The most numerous of which were the various green dots representing the orbital position of each of the satellites in the Arrowhead Network. Interesting he thought to himself it hasn't been this hectic in here since- his thoughts were cut off when he noticed something about the map.
It took him a second to realize what that was, or rather wasn't.
“What's going on? What happened?”
He asked in the direction of Bob Griggs who was reading some information off of a monitor along the wall. The scientist took a second before prying himself away “it's the portals, the big ones. They've closed, all of them” he said finally.
“I can see that, but when did it happen? Do we have any idea as to what the cause is? Do we have any information other than just that?”
Gordon's tone was annoyed, and while he was certain he already knew the answers to all of those questions, it made him feel better to just ask anyway “no, they just... closed. It was very sudden and it happened all at once, but that's about it” said Dr. Griggs as he shook his head.
Shit.
Gordon got a very bad feeling at the pit of his stomach as he walked over to the nearest available phone and picked it up. He waited for a dial tone then dialed the switchboard operator “communications” came the prompt reply.
Gordon took a deep, troubled breath then spoke into the handset “this is Dr. Frohman, get me the White House” he said with reservation.