by Doug Burbey
"Sir, I can't do military grids accurately with what I have, but I have latitude and longitude on my watch and my ATAC application on my phone. I'm on top of the Banha University Hilton at 30.470270, 31.178254." He rattled it off without hesitation. Like he'd known what he would be asked for.
"Rodger, sergeant. Stand by for one second, we can work with what you got." Joel snapped his fingers pointing at the Tech Sergeant sitting in the air cell. "Sergeant, get that hotel up on the board, then let's overlay all available air assets we have, along with any other ISR information. Then let's see if we can share the feed with the Aviano Italy. They should have F-16s in the air by now headed in over the Mediterranean towards Egypt."
"On it, major." The Tech Sergeant answered quickly.
"What can I do, Joel?" Declan asked, feeling like a third wheel.
"As soon as the Sini Task force turns over the Grey Eagle for ground control, we'll need this audio link to Sergeant Sammy tied in with the UAV operators, so we can deconflict potential flight paths," Koche responded. Declan nodded and went to get the connections ready.
"Ummm, guys?" The voice of sergeant Sammy came over the audio. "I'm looking west of my hotel, across the river towards the bridge, and it looks like the Egyptians have blocked it off with a platoon of tanks. People are watching all this shit being broadcast online. The TV networks went dark, but everyone is saying monsters are coming. There's already some gunfire and explosions coming from the northwest."
Declan cut off Joel before he could respond, "Ray, can you see anything from the north of you? It's going to be a few minutes till we get good eyes in the sky over you."
"I can make out the road north that heads toward the coast across the river from me. Problem is this damn Cairo haze makes visibility for shit and people are starting to freak out."
"Sergeant, this is Major Koche again. Time for you to get to work. I've now got a single Navy F-18 vectoring towards you. It has a sniper pod configuration to cut through that haze and give us some eyes. ETA to your location is ten minutes. The F-16's from Aviano are still some ways out."
"Yes, sir. I'm not going anywhere. I'm hearing more gunfire and explosions moving closer from north of me. How fast are these things moving?" A hint of worry had entered his voice, barely noticeable when mixed with the distant sounds of the city.
Joel looked over at Declan and frowned as he answered the trapped sergeant. "Sergeant, the last satellite trace showed a very large force of unknown origin moving rapidly down the coast road directly towards you."
Ray's voice responded flatly "Major Koche, I get that, but how large a force and how fast?"
"Sergeant, quantity is in the thousands and they should be visible to you on the west side of the river from your location in about five minutes."
"Did you say thousands, sir?" Nervousness now clearly evident the Master Sergeant's voice.
"Affirmative, sergeant. But it looks like they are all soft skin ground troops. You are getting an air support wet dream of massed grunts in the open. You're going to have a field day. Now orient on the bridge and see if you can sort out some potential engagement areas for the birds from your vantage point. As soon as we get sorties to you. It's going to be all your show."
"If you say so, sir." The NCO's doubt apparent in his voice, but he stayed on the line.
Declan muted the microphone quickly and whispered to Joel trying to not be overheard, "Joel, you have got to tell Ray to get out of there. What do we have? Maybe three birds heading in his direction? As soon as the locals see these things coming down the road it'll be chaos and he will be trapped. What the fuck do you think Ray's actually going to be able to do there?"
Joel looked at Declan sternly. "That Airman down there will do his job. He's going to rain down as much death on these things as we can get to him. And he will do it for as long as he possibly can. He knows what he has to do."
Yeah. Die, if we don't get lucky.
Chapter 4
The Fall of Cairo, 0943 April 13, 2014, Pentagon EOC
Master Sergeant Ray Sammy used the radio relay from the EOC to contact the incoming aircraft using his radio call sign of 'Vampire One Three'. The incoming F-16 aircraft flight leader was designated Viper One Two. The Air Force ground controller directed the F-16's to the front edge of the massed formation of approaching unidentified ground threats. This was the third time that Ray had guided these pilots on their bombing runs against the hellish targets on the ground.
Declan could only watch the various data feeds from the EOC, but he listened intently to the air to ground communications, as his friend worked with the fighters to do as much damage as he could to this threat.
Ray's voice was clear and emotionless as he relayed the critical information he'd been trained to provide the aircraft pilots. "Viper One Two, Viper One Two, this is Vampire One Three. The Egyptian M1 tanks have engaged the massed creatures with main guns and crew-served weapons from the bridge, but they're not going to hold. They're killing these things by the dozens but more just keep filing in over the dead. I need you to vector off my location come in from the east of the Egyptian troops at the bridge and drop all you got at the other end. " Master Sergeant Sammy's voice echoed across the EOC as the traffic between him and the F-16 pilots was relayed
"Vampire One Three, Vampire One Three, this is Viper One Two. Viper One Two and Viper One One confirm weapons free and drop all remaining on the west side of the bridge." The F-16 pilot responded in confirmation of the order at the same time informing Sammy that they would be using the last of their aircraft's weapons load.
"Viper One Two. This is Vampire One Three. That's a good copy, make it rain on them." Ray answered the pilot.
The F-16s flight leader's voice sounded slightly worried. "Vampire One Three this is Viper One Two, not sure if it's going to do any better than the last run. We'll give you everything that we got left. But now I think it's about time you get out of there Vampire One Three."
Ray's response came a few seconds later and held a subtle tone of forced bravado. "Viper One Two this is Vampire One Three. Feel free to send more of your buddies over to the dance. I think I'll be stuck here awhile. I need all the partners I can get today."
The F-16 pilots voiced hesitated a little, "Be advised Vampire One Three, there are no more inbound flights to your location, the Navy and Israelis just lost three birds near the ocean event and this mass of things goes on for miles. It also looks like the creatures are now guiding some weird big assed mobile tanker things towards you. You're going to be all alone after this run Vampire One Three."
"Viper One Two this is Vampire One Three. Understood. It's been a pleasure fighting with you today." Declan understood the flat tone he heard in his friend's voice as Ray vectored in the F-16s last bomb drop.
Declan saw Major Koche close his eyes, and lower his head, as the F-16 pilot responded to the air combat controller on the ground. The pilot's voice cracked slightly as he radioed Ray. "Vampire One Three this is Viper One Two. It's been a real honor, Airman. Good luck."
Colonel Grubs finished his conversation with the intelligence cell and approached Declan. "Major, Central Command has assumed the mission control to support the Egyptians on the ground. They have operational command of the airborne brigade inbound and will deploy them to secure the Suez tunnel crossing near Wataniya. The Grey Eagle for Task Force Sini should be…"
The Colonel froze for a minute as the trapped Air Force Sergeant's voice lost its professional composure for the first time since he started directing the aircraft to bomb the creatures, "All stations, all stations this is Vampire One Three. The things are swarming the tanks. Holy… they are ripping the M1s apart. They are literally ripping the fucking armor plates off the tanks and massacring everyone. From what I can see the damn bullets bounce off some of them, others are taking two or three bursts of machine gun fire to bring down. But they just keep coming. It looks like there are thousands of these things with more coming behind them. They are fast as hell and
the damn tanks barely slowed them down."
"Sergeant, this is Colonel Grubs. We can't extract you and there are no assets headed your way to support. If possible, you need to head east now. Steal a car if you have to, but head out towards the Suez Canal."
"Sorry, sir, no can do. I'm looking over the edge of the roof now. The things are now flooding across the bridge into the streets. What the…? That's interesting."
"What is Sergeant?"
"Well, sir. It looks like, from the colors of the headdresses that about six members of Hamas are walking side by side towards the incoming wave of creatures. They're all wearing suicide vests. They are about to be…." The speakers crackled as the sound of a series of massive explosions was heard.
Declan pressed the transmit button on his microphone. "Ray, you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm still here. Although the ringing in my ears is a tad not fucking normal. The explosions knocked me away from the ledge. Looks like the terrorists sided with us for once. Shit…. That worked. Well, the good news is those guys must have taken out about a hundred of these damn things."
Declan paused before asking, "What's the bad news, Ray?"
"These things are ripping through the buildings and are apparently very fast climbers. It's like watching a tsunami of giant hell-born monsters rip apart a world. Man, they're fast."
"Ray, you need to lock yourself away somewhere." Declan struggled to think of anything else useful to say to his friend.
"Naw, Declan, there's nowhere for me to go man. They're almost here. I think I'll hang up now and have a smoke. Fuck, I should have stayed in Greece. I never ever got to hook up with that chick here anyway."
The line went dead as the trapped sergeant terminated the call from his end and Declan went slack in his chair.
Declan closed his eyes feeling as if these last few hours had been days long and mumble, more to himself than anyone else, "Go with God, my brother. I'll see you on the high side." He opened his eyes and wiped at their wet corners as everyone politely looked away from him.
Mr. Jones coughed from the front row to get the rooms attention, "We have the Task Force Sini UAV feed up. It's online and tracking its gimbal to 30.470270 by 31.178254. The creature swarm has now crossed the river and is moving through the outskirts into Cairo's old city. Population of ohhh, fourteen million. Give or take."
Declan heard Colonel Grubs behind him speak in an almost fatherly tone, "Major Kenner, why don't you go on break for a few minutes. Take Koche too. As a matter of fact, grab us some coffees, would you? You fly, I'll buy."
"In a few minutes sir. I'd like to see… I mean… We need to confirm our JTAC's status on the ground sir." Declan answered softly then turned to look at the UAV's video relay.
"OK, bring it up, Mr. Jones. Let's confirm our JTAC's status on the ground and then compile swarm density number estimates." Colonel Grubs directed the intel analyst.
Declan watched the camera take in a wide angle of the hotel as it approached from a few hundred meters above the rooftops. Even though the Grey Eagle's optics from this close were crystal clear, the live scene below was difficult to process. It looked as though the gates of hell had opened into Cairo and monsters were ripping it to pieces in some form of oddly focused rampage.
The things move so fast. I can't really make out individual characteristics of these things in this mass.
The UAV's camera panned over the hotel rooftop where minutes ago Master Sergeant Sammy had called in his last airstrike. The creatures had already apparently surged through, and over, the hotel. Now the rooftop was mostly clear, except for what appeared to be pieces of a human and strips of a Hawaiian shirt in a large pool of blood.
It looks like Ray was put in a fucking blender. Declan thought as he forced himself to keep it together. What the hell … is his blood moving? It is. The pool of blood is starting to move!
Chapter 5
After Action Review (AAR), 0715 April 14, 2014, Pentagon EOC
General Williamson waited for people to finish shuffling in. "All right let's get to this. Everyone find a seat and get settled. I know it's only been a couple hours, but we need to summarize everything that we know. This shitstorm has fully consumed the public and is getting replayed continually through reconstructed social media feeds. The Secretary of Defense wants to be standing right next to the President when he makes his statement. The President is going to be handing off the tough questions that he gets from the press to the SecDef and we want to have our boss ready with the answers. Colonel Grubs, you had the lead in the operations center when this went down. I want you, and the rest of your staff, to tell us what you know. This is quick-turn, so you don't need any fancy PowerPoint. I don't give a shit about that. Now give us what you actually know. When the Secretary of Defense talks he's going to speaking from a point of fact, not conjecture. All right, Colonel, tell us what you got."
Colonel Grubs stood up, ignoring the podium at the side of the room, and positioned himself directly in front of the group and began to speak without notes. "Yes, sir. Well as you all know, approximately twenty-two hours ago we started tracking an event off the northern coast of Egypt. The technology, of undetermined origin, allowed a hostile element to move from an unknown location through this event's point of origin and then back to wherever they came from. That technology, we are currently calling 'the ring' or 'the portal'. At that time, we assessed via spectral analysis readings that the ring used an unknown energy source to create a two-dimensional surface estimated at fifty meters in diameter. A portion of this ring was beneath the surface of the water. The imagery analysts have assumed approximately twenty percent of the object was below the surface."
Declan watched the Colonel pause for a minute and glance around the room as if looking for questions before he continued his presentation." We were able to observe what we now know was the construction of a heavy support bridge pushed from somewhere not visible within the ring. It was constructed in such a manner that it materialized from the ring's origin point to the beachhead in Egypt in one hour. Before the bridge was completed approximately over a thousand watercraft of some sort, with an analytical guess of a two or three, hundred things inside of each watercraft that raced through the water parallel to the path of the bridge under construction. The watercraft then moved forward in the ocean to precede the bridge and then landed directly onto the beach. The watercraft then released creatures causing civilian mass casualties immediately upon exiting their watercraft. The largest numbers of the creatures crossed to the land over the bridge once it was fully constructed, along with their heavy machinery that appear to be large storage tankers of some sort."
The Secretary of Defense's public affairs officer was furiously scribbling notes on a pad in front of her. She glanced up at the colonel and raised her hand. "Excuse me, sir. I'm Cassandra Smith, Sec Def's public affairs officer. I have a question that's going to need to be answered right off the bat."
"Yes, ma'am, ask away. This show is really for you and your boss."
"Well, the big question is, what are we calling these creatures? We have to be consistent. Public media is already calling them demons. I must admit that they sure as hell, no pun intended, look like demons to me. I mean this thing happened less than a day ago and there are already large groups of people around the world calling this the end of days and that the Gates of Hell have opened. I'm not sure if we, from the Department of Defense perspective, should be feeding into that narrative. Any suggestions on something else we should call them?"
"Miss Smith..." Colonel Grubs started.
"Please call me Cassandra."
"Okay, Cassandra, I don't know what the hell to call them. Heck, I've seen the movie Aliens probably two dozen times. That's about as close to an expert on this crap as I claim to be. Nobody here is calling them demons. All that we're calling these hostiles are things, or creatures, and a bunch of other profanity-laced words. I know what they look like. I can tell you that when they ripped through the unit that we
dropped on the Sinai Peninsula they were definitely demons from hell. I don't give a crap if we call them Xenomorphs, gremlins, things from the deep or aliens. I don't give a shit. Just don't call them friendly. Because these damn things are hell-bent on carnage. Of that, I have no doubt."
The public affairs officer paused for a moment chewing the tip of her pen. "Xenomorphs, I think I can go with that. The secretary can call them Zeno's for short. Thank you, Colonel."
General Williams waved at Colonel Grubs to continue. "All right Colonel, after the press meeting with the Secretary we'll call them whatever he does. If he calls them alien Care Bears, we will call them alien Care Bears. Let's move it along. We're almost out of time."
"Yes, sir." Colonel Grubs paused for a moment to regain his thoughts. "Okay, so the Zeno landing craft hit the beaches with a group of creatures massacring the onlookers on the beach. Best we can tell from video images it was approximately two hundred civilian casualties. It took these creatures about eighty-two seconds to completely rip them all to shreds. After which time they moved out of our media camera angles and we lost track of them momentarily. To be specific, it was for ninety-four seconds as we reoriented to Lockbox imagery."
"Excuse me again, Colonel." The public affairs officer raised her hand as she spoke up a second time.
"Yes, ma'am, what's your question?" Colonel Grubs answered, with a hint of annoyance over the interruptions in his voice.
"What's Lockbox?"
"Oh crap, I know you're cleared, but that's still a classified program nobody in this room is allowed to discuss with the general public." Colonel Grubs quickly answered while visibly caught off guard at his verbal slip in security protocols.
"What the hell are we supposed to tell the press? That we were tracking the Xenomorphs through mental telepathy or something?" Mrs. Smith responded aggressively.