by John Ringo
Artillery rounds were already starting to land but they had no more effect on the creature than the Abrams rounds. And, as he watched in horror, more bolts of lightning were jumping skywards. He looked up and winced at the first titanic explosion overhead. Then there was a tremendous roar in the sky and the contrail that had indicated the presence of the B-52 on station was abruptly terminated in a gigantic cloud of fire and smoke.
There were three segments through the gate, now, all of them belching chain lightning. The artillery started to dwindle as some of the lightning intercepted it overhead, the explosions raining shrapnel down on the beleaguered infantry company. But he noticed that the front segment had taken damage. It seemed to be crippled, being pushed ahead by the trailing segments, and was no longer firing. It could be hurt.
“All units,” he called. “Try to aim for repeated hits on the same spot. Try to bust through this thing’s armor.”
The gunner had slid into his seat, replacing the driver who started the vehicle.
“Switch to TOW,” Shane said to the driver, switching back to the company frequency. “All Brads, go TOW!” The Tank-killing, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided missile was the Bradley’s premier antiarmor system. It was capable of taking out a main battle tank at four thousand meters. On the other hand, it was pretty inaccurate at less than a thousand meters, which was the current engagement range. Shane cursed, again, the directive that ordered him to “remain close to the gate.” He was well inside his maximum engagement range, with no room to maneuver against this hell-spawned thing.
He looked to either side and saw that he had lost two of his precious Abrams, both of them billowing fire into the sky. They were mostly intact, ammunition magazine ports blown out but their turrets still in place, but from the looks of them the crews were gone. Whatever that thing was firing seemed to pierce the armor of the Abrams as if it was insubstantial as paper.
“Keep up fire,” he commanded. “Keep hitting it on the same spots if possible. Do not retreat. Say again, stay in place, do not let this thing…”
It was his last transmission as a ball of plasma blew his Bradley sky-high.
* * *
Weaver rolled over and groaned at the pounding on the door. He sat up and stumbled over, cursing.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m up,” he said, unlocking and unbolting it. Command Master Chief Miller was the one doing the knocking and at the look on his face Weaver woke up fully. “What happened?”
“The company in Eustis just got clobbered, again,” Miller said, walking into the room. “It’s all over the news.”
“Let me take a shower at least,” Weaver grumped. He turned on his cell phone, first, and shrugged at the multiple message icon. It could wait until he had a shower.
A science fiction writer he knew always carried a black backpack that he called his “alien abduction pack.” “Everything I need to survive for twenty-four hours in eighty percent of terrestrial environments.” It was really a “I crashed in somebody else’s hotel room at a con” or “the airline lost my bags” pack. Weaver had started carrying one as well and he was glad for it now. He could shave with his own razor and brush his teeth with his own toothbrush. He’d used up the bottle of water the day before but that was easily remedied.
As soon as he was done with his shower, hair brushed, wearing new underwear thanks to the “alien abduction pack” again, he was ready to face the day.
Or, afternoon as it turned out.
As they walked out of the front of the hotel, Weaver hoping that the nice security director would make sure the bill or whatever was paid, he started listening to his messages. The national security advisor wanted him to call. A secretary at Columbia pointed out that he had missed a scheduled meeting with a client that morning. His girlfriend in Huntsville wanted to know when his plane was getting in and reminded him that they were supposed to go to a party that evening. It was still on, despite the news, but Buddy was retheming it an “Alien Invasion” party and what was he going to wear? His cell phone company reminded him that he was overdue on his bill and if the balance of three hundred dollars wasn’t paid in two days his cell phone would be temporarily disconnected.
That reminded him that he didn’t know how any of this was being billed. He supposed he was working for Columbia but, come to think of it, nobody had signed a contract. He was basically working on the word of the secretary of defense. On the other hand, that ought to be good enough. But he hadn’t talked to his boss at Columbia for that matter.
He keyed in the number and got a secretary, the same one that had called him about the missed meeting. He put her off and got ahold of Dan Heistand, vice-president for Advanced Development at Columbia.
“Hey, Dan,” Weaver said as the chief pulled onto Highwayy 192.
“Weaver, where the hell have you been?” Heistand asked. He was normally a pretty mild fellow, so Bill was taken aback.
“I’ve been working on the UCF anomaly,” Bill replied. “Didn’t anybody tell you?”
“No,” Heistand said, calming down. “Who brought you in?”
“The SECDEF. I had a meeting with the War Cabinet on Saturday morning.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, he sent a couple of MPs to my hotel room. Speaking of which, I never checked out of that one, either.”
“Where are you, now?”
“Disney World.”
“Disney? What the hell is happening at Disney? Who’s paying for this? How many hours have you billed? What’s the contract number?”
“I don’t have a contract number,” Bill sighed. “Look, when the secretary of defense, the national security advisor and the President tell you to go to Orlando and send you down in an F-15 doing Mach Three, you don’t say ‘Oh, excuse me, Mr. President, would you mind signing this contract from Columbia Defense Systems so the billing will be straight?’ Okay? As to how many hours I’ve been billing, except for four hours’ sleep this afternoon and about three and a half unconscious yesterday… all the rest. Okay?”
“Unconscious?”
“I got blown up by one of those rhinoceros tanks,” Bill said. “That was after the standoff in the house. Hey, did you know that an H K USP .45 caliber pistol will kill one of those dog-demons if you hit it just right?”
“Bill,” Dan said, then paused. “Forget everything I said.”
“Already forgotten,” Weaver replied. “Hey, if you want to be a help, find whoever has to sign the contracts, and I can imagine what howling they’re going to make when they see my hourly rates, and get the whole team down to the anomaly site. I’ve got a national guardsman who used to be a physics student doing all my monitoring and half the analysis. He’s been helpful and I’d like to keep him but I could use some help.”
“Will do.”
“And see if you can find a guy named Gonzales or Gonzalves or something in England, Reading, I think. Pure math guy. Ray Chen used to go to him for Higgs-Boson math he couldn’t get. And send me some clothes. And get somebody to pay my cell phone bill.”
“Okay,” Heistand said, chuckling. “In retrospect, the meeting this morning wasn’t all that important, despite the fact that there was about two million dollars in billing riding on it and you were the star of the show.”
“Hell, Dan, I’ve probably billed a quarter of that just this weekend,” Bill said. “Okay, we’re pulling into a McDonalds to get some breakfast. As soon as I can slow down enough to do anything like a report I’ll get it to you.”
“Bye, Bill,” Heistand said. “And, oh, try not to get blown up again, okay? You’re my star biller.”
“Will do,” Weaver said, chuckling. Then he thought of something apropos of the order and frowned.
“Oh, one more thing, Dan,” he added. “Send the Wyverns.”
“That’s a classified program, Bill,” the vice president said. “I can’t just open up that compartment on your say-so.”
“I’ve got the access I need to get it opened,” Weaver replied. “B
ut do you really want me to go that route? Call the DOD rep, explain the situation, get the compartment kicked open. But in the meantime, put them in their shipping containers and get them down to Orlando. I’m tired of nearly getting my butt blown off. Send the Wyverns. And their full suite of accessories.”
“I had to call my boss, too,” Chief Miller said. “What do you want?”
“Number one, Diet Coke,” the physicist replied.
The SEAL gave the order and pulled around in the Humvee, the Mk-19 just clearing the overhead. The employees manning the windows were visibly bemused to be serving a Humvee with a grenade launcher being driven by a heavily armed SEAL.
“The Team didn’t know where I was; they thought I’d bought it at Eustis,” the chief said. “Even sent a damned counseling team over to my house, chaplain, a captain, the works. My wife couldn’t decide if she was happy as hell that I was still alive or pissed that I hadn’t called earlier when I called and told her they were wrong. They didn’t even know that Sanson was in the hospital. Most of the casualties at Eustis were ‘missing presumed dead’ including the Old Man.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Weaver said. “Glasser was a good man.” He looked over at the chief who was driving the Humvee with one hand and eating a Quarter Pounder with the other. “I didn’t even know you were married.”
“Three happy years,” the chief replied around a mouthful of burger. “And twelve that weren’t so bad either. Hell, every time I go out the door she figures I’m not coming home. The kids hardly know who I am. But she doesn’t bitch about it. Well, not much. Somewhat more when I return from the grave.”
“And kids,” Weaver said, shaking his head. “It just doesn’t fit the image of the world-traveler SEAL. How many?”
“Three,” Miller replied. “Being a SEAL’s just like any other job after a while. At first it’s all ‘oooh! I’m a SEAL!’ and getting into fights in Bangkok. Then there’s the ‘Okay, I’m a SEAL, that’s my job and it’s sooo coool’ phase after you’ve been on the Teams for a while. Then there’s the ‘honey, I’m off to work’ phase, which is basically me.”
Weaver laughed at that.
“And one from my marriage to She Who Must Not Be Named,” Miller added. “He’s in the Army. Studying computers of all things. The rest are high-school and one in elementary school. Sixteen, fifteen and nine. Boy, boy, girl.”
“And she’s the apple of daddy’s eye?” Weaver grinned.
“She’s daddy’s nightmare,” the SEAL groused. “Daughters are nature’s revenge on fathers. She’s already got a string of boyfriends. She’s going to be impossible when she’s a teenager. I’m seriously thinking about putting her in a barrel when she turns twelve and not letting her out until she’s eighteen and no longer my problem.”
“Be a pretty messy barrel,” the physicist pointed out. “Maybe with a mesh bottom? And rinse it out once a week?”
“Whatever.”
* * *
When they got to the developing encampment around the Orlando anomaly they had some problems getting into the main camp. The guards there had never heard of a Dr. William Weaver, didn’t care that they were in a National Guard vehicle and seemed only mildly interested in the fact that Command Master Chief Miller was a SEAL and had been one of the first people through the gate.
After a few calls and calling the Officer of the Guard they were let through but only on condition that they report to the camp headquarters and obtain proper passes.
Weaver had Miller drop him at the physics trailer, which had acquired a sign while he was gone. It was now designated “The Anomaly Physics Research Center” and had another sign that said: “Authorized Persons Only. All Others Keep Out. This Means You!” He figured he’d better get the proper papers later.
The guard on the trailer, however, had another opinion.
“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t let anyone in who doesn’t have the right pass,” the guard, an 82nd Airborne private, said.
“Look, son,” Weaver said, patiently. “This is my lab! This is my project. And unless the secretary of defense or the national security advisor have taken me off the job, that is my equipment in there.”
“That may be the case, sir,” the guard said, doggedly. “But unless you have the right pass, you’re not going in.”
Weaver had just opened his mouth when his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and held a hand up to the guard.
“William Weaver.”
“This is the Secretary,” the secretary of defense said. “There’s supposed to be a FEMA representative down there to coordinate the tracking of the gates. You talked to him, yet?”
“If he’s in my lab the answer is: no,” Bill said, shaking his head. “I’m having a little trouble getting into it.”
“Why? Lost your keys?” the SECDEF chuckled.
“No, the nice young man from the Army who is standing outside the door won’t let me in.”
There was a long pause as the secretary digested this fact.
“Let me talk to him.”
Weaver handed over the phone.
“Private First Class Shawn Parrish, sir,” the private said, politely.
“No, I don’t recognize your voice, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, sir,” this somewhat strained but determined. “But I’d be happy to call the sergeant of the guard, sir.”
There was a long period while the private’s face gradually got whiter.
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.” This with a very white face.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Dr. Weaver, I need to call the sergeant of the guard,” the private said in a very small voice, handing back the phone. He pulled a civilian multiband radio off his LBE and spoke into it.
Weaver spent the next three minutes considering the nature of boson particles, muon detection and particle degradation. He’d been doing that a good bit while not being attacked by aliens or visiting alien planets in the last couple of days, which mostly meant while driving or eating, but every little bit helped.
The sergeant who came running up with two privates trailing him was panting.
“What do you got, Parrish?” the sergeant said, looking askance at Weaver’s mussed desert camouflage BDUs, missing such items as nametags or rank insignia and worn over tennis shoes and a civilian T-shirt.
The guard pulled the sergeant aside and carried on a low voiced conversation of which Weaver caught only the exclamation: “Who? Are you sure?”
“Dr. Weaver?” the sergeant said. “Could I see some ID?”
Weaver pulled out his driver’s license and Pentagon pass, then waited as the sergeant examined them and the list that the guard handed him.
“Sir, we’ll get this straightened out,” the sergeant said, handing back the IDs. “For the interim, I’ll provisionally add you to the pass list on my authority. Please see that you get the proper paperwork as soon as possible.”
“Will do,” Weaver said. “Can I go in, now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks.”
“Sir, can I ask a question?”
“Yes.”
“Was that really the secretary of defense?” the sergeant asked, clearly hoping that it was not.
“Yes,” Weaver replied. “Want me to call him back so you can make sure?”
“No, sir!”
“Sergeant, I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off since Saturday when the SECDEF, the national security advisor and the President had me flown down here in an F-15. I’ve been blown up, had to learn to use a pistol and a shotgun to keep aliens from eating me, learned more than I want to know about gate teleportation and had about four hours’ sleep, and three hours recovering from a concussion, since. Could you do me a small favor?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, smiling.
“Get somebody to find me the appropriate paperwork or something? If you need to talk to
General Fullbright, do it. As the SEAL I was with said when we busted down the gates to Disney to find this latest gate, I don’t have time for Mickey Mouse. Okay?”
“Got it, sir.”
“Thanks,” Weaver said, walking in the trailer.
There were three people crowded in the main room. Two of them he vaguely recognized; the third was a total stranger, a blonde female. Not at all bad looking, little light on top but easy on the eyes. She was running some sort of track calculation on a new computer that had been installed while he was away.
“Dr. Weaver,” one of them said, standing up and coming over to shake his hand. “I’m Bill Earp from FEMA, you might remember me…”
“From that remarkable safety lecture you gave Sanson,” Bill said, shaking his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Good to see you,” the FEMA rep replied. “First word we had from Eustis was that you were a gonner.”
“The report of my demise was exceedingly exaggerated,” Weaver replied. “I’m sorry to say that Howse and, apparently, Lieutenant Glasser bought it. Sanson, Chief Miller and I were in Shands hospital. Where’s Garcia?”
“Getting some rest, sir,” the other male, a young soldier replied. “I’m Crichton. I was at the site…”
“You did the initial survey, sure,” Bill said.
“I’ve got some radiological background,” Crichton said. “I’m just trying to help out, keeping an eye on the boson count, mainly.”
“FEMA sent me over to coordinate with finding the bosons,” the safety specialist said. “I’m a chemist, not a physicist but I know the tune and can dance to it.”
“Robin Noue,” the young woman said, waving. “I’m a programmer… I was a programmer at UCF, in the AI Lab.”
“Good, okay,” Bill said. “What’s the count on bosons and have they surveyed any more sites?”
