by Jerry Ahern
“Well, I’m telling you that someone has,” Paul said emphatically.
Rourke met the flight of Marines from Mid-Wake. As the five transports lowered their loading ramps, one heavy assault vehicle disembarked from each along with a contingency of Marines. As they prepared to travel he saw Lieutenant Torquelson and went to greet him. “Hey LT, we meet again.” Torquelson turned and saluted but before he could speak, Rourke pointed and roared, “What the hell is that?”
The Detachment Command, Major Frank Jamison stepped forward and saluted, “General, after the Lieutenant’s briefing on the Mediterranean episode we got to thinking. We need some help with this process. Following the initial after-action review of what happened here and the camo issue I convinced the higher-ups to give the idea a chance. General, meet Sergeant Carl Haly, part of a new program the air-boys have been developing called K-9 Working Dog, based on the German Schutzhund program. Sergeant Haly, front and center.”
“Sir, Sergeant Haly reporting as ordered.” Major Harrison returned the salute and turned to Rourke. “Here you are Sir, what I hope will be our secret weapon.”
“Again I ask Major, what the hell is it?”
Haly took over, “This Sir is Gibson. He is a male Belgian Malinois, a breed which originally was developed in Malines, Belgium. The Malinois is prized for his working character and historically the breed has been a favorite of police and the military. They are about twenty-six inches at the shoulder and can weigh between sixty and eighty pounds. The Malinois is extremely fast and versatile. Gibson has acute hearing, exceptional eyesight, and the strength to take down a grown man when attacking at full speed.”
“Okay, so Sergeant what does Gibson do, why is he here?”
“Sir, Gibson can hear things no human can, like ‘high frequency electronic shield harmonics.’ Sir, I’m hoping that Gibson will be our eyes and ears to locate that which is invisible to us.”
“Why do you believe he’ll be able to do what our people and monitors have not been able to do?”
“Simple, Sir, the human brain is dominated by a large visual cortex; the dog brain is dominated by an olfactory cortex. The olfactory organ in this dog is about forty times bigger than the olfactory bulb in humans, relative to total brain size. He has about 125 to 220 million smell-sensitive receptors. Not only does his hearing exceed ours, but General have you ever smelled ozone around electrical equipment? Well, Gibson can smell it a quarter of a mile away. It has been estimated that dogs, in general, have a smell sense ranging from one hundred thousand to one million times more sensitive than humans. Additionally, I suspect that if in fact the camouflage issue is best on electronic field generation, we will be able to find that frequency by watching the way Gibson responds and know when to search a narrow range of frequencies.”
“Okay, makes sense to me. Let’s see if it works, I have a hunch we’re going to need all of the help we can get. Major, did you get my message about weapons substitution?”
“Yes, Sir, I did. We have retained our smart side arms but all rifles are ammunition based, like the old stuff you like carry. Uh, sorry Sir, I meant no disrespect.”
“None taken Major. Continue.”
“As I started to say, all of our individual as well as crew served weapons and ammunition are of a... more seasoned persuasion. Likewise, we were able to pull three of the old style mortars out of mothballs and dust them up. Only have a total of fifteen rounds for them. Oh, and we found an old BAR, also with magazines and ammo. Any air cover?”
“I sure hope so, Major. Is you comm. up and running?”
“Yes Sir, it is.”
“Then let’s make contact with the other elements of this little foray and get this operation in motion.”
“Excuse me Sir, but you’re not planning on participating in the operation, are you?”
“Major, you don’t have enough people to keep me out of it. I suggest we make it to the first rally point and prepare for the ground action. We still have to find something we can’t detect and I have been told it is virtually invisible.”
Jamison gave a hand signal and shouted, “Saddle up Marines!” and got a resounding “Hoo ah” response. Rourke shook his head thinking, “Some things I guess never change.”
It took less than 20 minutes to reach the point of debarkation; it was already late in the afternoon. Major Jamison called over a Sergeant and directed night vision goggles or NVGs should be carried by every other squad member. Rourke wanted to know, “Why not issue them to everyone?”
“Sir, I don’t know what we’re going into. If everyone is on NVGs and we have explosions or some other dynamic light show, everyone will lose their night vision at the same time. This way I don’t have my entire force crippled with a temporary loss of vision that could get us all killed.”
“No offense meant Major, just wondering. That is a good idea I probably would not have thought of,” Rourke said, knowing the Major had in fact just passed a test.
“No offense taken General,” and the Major smiled at Rourke, he also knew he had passed a test.
Three minutes later, the teams had organized into assault formations and were converged on the identified area and the unidentified threat. Rourke was impressed with the silence, stealth and speed which exemplified these as seasoned Marines. Sergeant Haly and Gibson were in the lead formation, the Marines had gone a little over half a mile when Gibson stopped, frozen in time and went on full alert. He slowly put his left foot down on the ground and began turning his head but still facing forward. Haly dropped his rifle, letting it hang around his neck and shoulder on the strap; threw up a closed fist signal and everyone stopped, he re-gripped the weapon and flipped the safety to fire and waited—watching Gibson. He whispered, “Pass auf, Gibson.”
The dog was on alert. His hackles were up, and he omitted a low, guttural growl. The Marines in the first ranks had “taken a knee,” trying to penetrate the increasing darkness with their eyes and ears. Squad leaders signaled, NVGs and pre-designated troopers flipped them down from their position on the Marine ballistic helmets; the Major was sweeping the area with an infrared detector looking for body images to appear on the screen. Nothing did.
Haly knelt down beside Gibson and whispered, “Do you have something, Boy?” Gibson continued his low growl but didn’t whimper or bark. Haly released the clip on Gibson’s collar and whispered the command, “Fass!” Gibson looked at his master for confirmation and when he saw Haly’s nod he turned back and began to slink silently forward... Then in an instant all hell broke loose and the night sky exploded.
The first energy blasts tore through the night and a Marine’s flesh, rolling him ten feet. Recovering, he returned fire shooting with one arm as the other continued to smoke from the impact. He fired a burst into the top of a nearby Acacia koa tree, which resulted in a flash of sparks and a dark suit figure plummeting out of the tree top. Gibson turned in midstride and closed for the attack but the man was already dead.
The Marines were taking heavy fire, the armored personnel carriers were called up and were in position in just moments. This gave cover and a firing platform to some of those Marines that had been caught in the open. Rourke was observing the patterns of fire from the enemy positions. While it was deadly, it was not the volume of fire he expected from a fixed enemy position he feared would be heavily manned. Jamison keyed his comm. link and directed mortar fire on the position. The out-of-date and untested ammo sent three duds in that did not explode on impact but their propellant charges had worked and they tore through the force field and the equipment it protected. That’S when Rourke knew he had been correct; the energy field was highly effective against anything traveling at a high rate of speed; like the smart rifles during the fight on the Desperado. Something slower could and did penetrate and would do damage.
His enemies possessed extremely high powered offensive weapons, but their defensive equipment was too sophisticated to protect them. It was like David with a stone being able to defeat the mo
nster, Goliath.
Rourke rolled hard to his left, barely escaping an energy blast and ripped off a three-round burst from his CAR-15, the 54 grain Red-Tip tracers slamming into the belly of his attacker and burrowed through; out the man’s back and streaking off still with the tracer compound burning into the surrounding darkness. Grabbing a spare magazine from his belt pouch, Rourke prepared to reload; gun fire blazing from the Marines and energy blasts coming from the no longer camouflaged camp.
The attack choppers rolled in sending walls of 30-millimeter rounds from each of the M230 Chain Guns carried between their main landing gears. With friendly forces in close proximity to the enemy, there was no room for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or Hydra 70 rockets to be safely deployed. That knocked out whatever the power source had been, and the Marines could now see their attackers. One of the attackers was sweeping a large energy blast cannon back and forth at the advancing Marines. Rourke saw a blur and realized a team of Marines had penetrated from the left flank and were inside the camp.
The blur was the 80 pound Belgian K-9, Gibson in full attack mode. He hit his target from the right side, dislodging the man from the cannon and knocking him to the ground. Gibson’s teeth locked onto the man’s right forearm, his victim screaming as the large animal alternately dragged and whipped the man’s body back and forth. Moments later the Marines had control and the firing stopped. Now fully encased in darkness the area fell strangely quiet.
The parameter was secured and “mop up” was initiated. In all, twelve Marines had been killed and sixteen more injured. Eight enemy bodies had been found and once Sgt Haly was able to convince Gibson to turn loose of his target; one live prisoner was brought forward. The man’s hands had been zip tied behind his back, a painful process with a dislocated elbow a result of the K-9’s great jaws. His environmental suit sleeve and right forearm bore tears and punctures from the attack. Gibson was back on lead and stood calmly at Haly’s side, his eyes locked on the prisoner ready to take him down again.
Rourke and Major Jamison approached and Rourke removed the man’s visor helmet, smiled and said, “Captain Dodd, how nice to see you again.”
“How do you know me? We’ve never met before.”
“Oh, I met your ‘fathers’ a while ago.”
Jamison picked a prisoner detail and Haly released Dodd to them. Jamison called his reserve force up, and ordered them to replace the Marines that had been killed or wounded on the line. Medics began treating the wounded and preparing for their evacuation. The enemy dead were stripped of weapons and the camp area locked down and secured. Lieutenant Torquelson, who had sustained a grazing wound from one of the energy blasts, refused evacuation, instead telling a Medic to “put a Band-Aid on it and give me something for pain. It burns.”
Rourke set about examining what remained of the camp. After the evacuation of the wounded was underway, Major Jamison joined him. “What do you think about all of this stuff, John?”
Rourke was kneeling holding pieces of a damaged console; he stood and handed one piece to Jamison. “Major, I’m not sure what this stuff even is. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but I don’t think it was offensive in nature. I can’t be sure until the experts get a chance to look over it, but I think the majority of it was some type of communications or monitoring equipment. I would suggest that you get this stuff collected and have it transported back to Mid-Wake and let the ‘science boys’ start trying to figure it all out. What I know is this was the second battle with an unknown force in which we have encountered a Captain Dodd clone; I doubt it will be the last.”
Jamison nodded, “I don’t think you could actually call this a battle, Dr. Rourke. This will simply go down in history as ‘The Fight in the Forest.’”
“Whatever we call it Major, it is not the last time we’ll see Dodd,” Rourke said with finality.
Chapter Twenty
“As near as we can determine, this stuff was primarily for chemical and mineral analysis,” the speaker, Dr. Fred Williams, head of the Mid-Wake Research Institute said as he pointed to an array on the other table. “That appears to be communications and surveillance equipment. None of my staff however is familiar with the technology or have seen anything like this before. Of course, it would have helped Dr. Rourke if you people hadn’t shot it all to hell before you gave it to me to figure out what it was.”
Rourke smiled and nodded, “Things were a little... intense Doc when we came upon it. Any other information?”
“Not really except, if this is communications equipment, and it is our belief that it is, it is for extremely long range communications. And it definitely did not originate on Earth.”
“Any hope of getting any of it to work again?”
Williams shook his head, “The analysis stuff, no way. The communications and surveillance stuff... maybe. It isn’t as badly damaged, we think. How long will it take? No clue, we’re still trying to understand the technology, but we will continue to try. Dr. Rourke, do you know anything about UFOs?”
Rourke, remembering the trip to Canada before the Night of the War, said, “I know there have always been legends of flying ships and visitors or ‘Gods’ that could fly. Every culture has those stories.”
Williams nodded, “As a scientist I can’t discount anything. The UFO craze really got started back on June 25th, 1947. Kenneth Arnold, a pilot, reported seeing several objects while flying near Mt Rainier, Washington. He said they appeared to be in formation and moving ‘like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water’; from that report, the term ‘Flying Saucers’ was coined. Arnold could not identify the flying objects, and thus the age of the Unidentified Flying Objects was born.”
“On July 7th, after hearing about Arnold’s ‘flying saucers,’ a ranch foreman named Mac Brazel contacted the Sheriff of Chaves County, New Mexico about some strange material he had found on the Foster Ranch. Brazel was certain it was the remains of a ‘flying disc.’ Sheriff Wilcox contacted the Roswell Army Air Force base and a base intelligence officer, Major Jessie Marcel, was immediately detailed to look into the matter.”
“The Roswell Daily Record released a story on July 8th that said the Army Air Force had ‘captured’ a flying saucer. The story was quickly picked up by the news-wires and the story went viral. Almost as quickly, the next day in fact, July 9th, the paper ran a story that the AAF backtracked and declared the remains were just parts of a weather balloon experiment that had failed.”
“Soon everyone that did believe in UFOs was saying it was a cover-up. One version of the story said the UFO had crashed, another said it had landed. There were even claims that as many as three passengers, alien beings, had been killed; some stories said one was seriously injured but died shortly after and the government had the bodies and were studying them.”
“I saw an old report that said in September, 1947, two months after the crash, a renowned astronomer and meteor expert Dr. Lincoln La Paz was recruited by the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps to determine the speed, direction, and trajectory of the craft prior to its impact. Strange, since the military was maintaining the story to the public that the object was nothing more than a mere slow moving wind-blown weather device. La Paz ran into a ‘sea of reluctant witnesses,’ apparently hushed up by the government. They had forgotten, however, about the fairly large number of Spanish speaking people in the general Roswell-Corona area. Of special interest to La Paz were those along the suspected flight path, a group that was somehow collectively overlooked by the powers that be.”
“Lt Walter G. Haut was the Roswell base public information officer who had written the original press-release. It had begun with ‘The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc.’ Haut lived in Roswell and became one of the most interviewed and public Roswell witnesses and key advocate of a UFO crash. He always said he thought
the original press release was the truth and he was convinced the ‘material recovered was some type of craft from outer space.’”
“Haut also left a sealed, notarized affidavit to be opened after his death. In it, Haut claimed the crash site was 40 miles of north of Roswell and that was where the main craft and bodies were found. Haut swore that he had personally seen the crashed craft at Roswell Base Building 84, also known as Hangar P-3. He said it was 12-15ft long, not quite as wide and about 6ft high. It was more of an egg-shape, no windows, portholes or wings—NOT the classic round flying saucer. He also said he had seen short—about four feet tall—alien bodies with disproportionally large heads.”
“An Army Sergeant named Frederick Benthal said he was the Army photographer flown in from Washington to photograph the alien bodies in a tent at the crash site, with everybody else cleared out. Two MPs, PFC Ed Sain and Cpl Raymond Van Why, reported they had been at the site. Sain said he had been brought to the site in one of the ambulances and ordered to shoot anybody who tried to enter a particular tent. His son said his father didn’t like to talk about it, but had told him he had guarded the bodies in the tent until they were transported to the base.”
“Sgt Homer Rowlette, 603rd Air Engineering Squadron, at least according to his son and daughter, told them on his deathbed he had been part of the cleanup detail. He had handled the infamous ‘memory foil’ and had seen the ‘somewhat circular’ ship and ‘three little people’ with large heads and at least one was alive.”
Rourke asked, “Why are you telling me this, Doc?”
“Because Dr. Rourke, I don’t believe these pieces of equipment originated on Earth, that raises the question, ‘if not from here, where?’ I can only think of one answer.”
Chapter Twenty-One