by William Lee
Snap’s eyes popped open and he jolted out of bed. He was in a large hospital room with multiple beds. His chest was on fire, and his throat was dry and itchy. He looked around the large room to see the rest of his team lying in medical beds. None of them are wearing armor; rather they were wearing traditional hospital gowns, and hooked up to medical monitoring devices.
“Soldier, you got your ass whipped,” barked General Benjamin Paxton. The General was standing in a doorway, a few feet from Snap. “You are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that if we are going to win the next war.”
“Yes Sir, what was that thing, Sir?” Snap asked.
“That was an Ondagra. He and his kind are from a planet called Botacoure. His name is Ater, and he is working with us to help get you boys ready for the next war.”
“What?” Snap asked, with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“We have a lot to discuss, Major Slade. I want you and your squad in my office in one hour.” The General surveyed the hospital bay. “Make that two hours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Hill Air Force Base, Utah
General Benjamin Paxton’s office was seven levels below the surface of Hill Air Force base. The structure was referred to as a Deep Underground Military Base, or DUMB for short. The General’s office had a large desk, conference table, and a dozen chairs. The only people present were, the General, his chief of staff, and Snap’s squad.
“Men, you just encountered your first extraterrestrial, or alien, if you will. His name is Ater Velens, and if you had met him anywhere but in a training exercise, all of you would be dead,” General Paxton said from behind his desk at the front of the room.
“When your team came here from Delta Force on a special duty assignment, you thought you were here to perform field tests on new equipment. While that was part of the reason you were here, we were testing you, to determine if your squad had what it takes to be a part of our command. You passed the test, and now, you are one of the few people on this planet to have knowingly seen an extraterritorial. You are about to be read into a program that is so far above Top Secret that the last five Presidents didn’t even know of its existence.” General Paxton reached into his desk and retrieved a laser pointer.
“Your team has been training for several months with the next generation FALOS suit. You are now aware of many of its advanced functions. What you don’t know, is that, in addition to all the functions you have been training with, the suit is outfitted with electrochromic plates and light emitting diodes that create a chameleon effect, giving you a cloak of invisibility.” The General strode out from behind his desk to the table where the men were sitting.
“The problem is this,” the General cleared his throat. “You are not even close to being the most advanced combatant on this planet. Even with these advantages, you are still the underdog when facing Ondagra battle armor.”
Snap and his squad were dumbfounded. You could hear a pin drop.
“Another thing you need to know, the FALOS suit that you have been training on, was not designed by human scientists. The FALOS suit was developed by Nordic aliens that work with us on this and other secret facilities. The MMFR, fusion technology, that powers the armor is only made available by our alien benefactors. Without special light elements, that are not available here on Earth, we would not be able to generate enough power to operate the FALOS armor.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” muttered Justin Thomas from the second row.
“What was that soldier?” General Paxton barked.
“Nothing Sir”
“You will all have the opportunity to ask questions at the end,” General Paxton assured them.
Paxton continued, “These Nordics, as we call them, are from our own Milky Way galaxy, about 620 light years from here. They refer to themselves as Vitahicians and call their home world Vitahic. There are a few thousand of them here on Earth. Most of them live on U.S. military bases. They have been visiting our planet for hundreds of years, but they contacted the government about 70 years ago. The Nordics and the Government have a good working relationship, unlike the Ondagra. The Ondagra you met in the training exercise has defected and now helps us. Part of his job is training new recruits, like yourselves. From this point forward, your squad will be working closely with Ater Velens and the Nordic aliens. Any questions?”
Senior Master Sergeant Justin Thomas stood up, while partially raising his hand. “I have a question, General.”
“Yes, Sergeant Thomas.”
“So, all the UFO stuff we see on the internet is real? Roswell, New Mexico is real?” Justin sat back down.
The General cleared his throat. “Yes, for the most part, all the stories you see on the internet are real. Of course, some of them are faked or exaggerated; but, generally speaking, they are true. The government has spent billions of dollars trying to discredit the UFO crowd, you know, make them look like crack-pots. The reason we do that, is to keep the public in the dark. Yes. The Roswell incident happened. We recovered an alien space craft and made contact with an alien species. Any other questions?”
Snap stood.
“Major Slade.” The general pointed at Snap.
“Presumably, we are in some kind of war with the Large Gray species, or Ondagra as you call them, and we are being recruited to engage them. Given that their technology is advanced far beyond our own, how do we fight them?” Snap asked.
“Excellent question, Major Slade. Tomorrow you begin combat training with Ater Velens. He will teach you how to exploit their weaknesses - their very few weaknesses.”
Senior Master Sergeant James Martin raised his hand. “How many of these Ondagra are operating on Earth?’
General Paxton shook his head. “Truthfully we don’t know. We believe the number to less than 1800, but we can’t be sure. On the top end, 2400. But, if they learned to reproduce? Who knows.”
After a few more questions, the General said, “Okay, we have several days of orientation to go through; we don’t need to solve all the world’s problems this afternoon. Keep in mind, everything you learned today is Top Secret SCI. More details will follow in the next few days. Tomorrow, you are to report to Dugway Proving Ground for training with Ater Velens.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dugway Proving Ground, Utah
Dugway Proving Ground, or DPG, sits about 85 South West of Salt Lake City. DPG is adjacent to Utah Training and Testing Range, also known as UTTR. DPG is almost 800,000 acres; together, DPG and UTTR cover almost 3,900 square miles of land.
The next morning, the squad piled into a fifteen-passenger van and were driven to Dugway. DPG consists of hundreds of miles of flat, treeless desert. The military complex is surrounded by mountain ranges on three sides.
From Hill AFB, it took over an hour to travel to the DPG main gate, where they were waived in with a salute. Once through the main gate, they drove several miles through barren salt flats, until they came to the main installation. The main installation was a cluster of buildings, hangers, and housing surrounded by miles of empty desert. It only took a few minutes to pass through the small town-like area. Then, they were heading toward a huge mountain in the distance.
Snap, sitting in the first row of seats behind the driver, leaned forward and asked, “I thought we were stopping at Dugway?”
“Yes Sir, heading to Granite Peak Installation,” the young Sergeant said, as he turned off the pavement onto a gravel road.
“Granite Peak Installation? I thought they closed that after WWII,” Snap questioned.
“I’ve been here for six years. It’s been open the whole time. It’s a top secret underground bunker. Not many people, even here on Dugway, know what goes on in there.” The Sergeant continued to drive along the gravel road, through the flat desert, toward the looming mountain.
“What’s up, Major?” Neal West asked from the second-row window seat.
“Seems we are heading to Granite Peak Installation.”
<
br /> “Thought that was closed decades ago?” Neal pulled himself up to the bench in front of him.
“Supposedly, they closed GPI after WWII. It was a huge self-contained facility right here on Dugway. GPI had its own barracks, mess hall, administration, laboratories, utilities and runway.”
“Why did they close it?” Neal asked.
“War was over; they cut a lot of bases and programs. During the war, it was used for biological weapons testing.”
As they traveled, the mountain blotted out their view of the sky, so that all they could see was a solid rock face through the windshield of the van. They stopped at the foot of the mountain, before a large half circle opening in the rock. The entrance to the underground bunker was cut directly into a sheer rock wall. A heavy metal gate was affixed to a concrete frame that defined the outside entrance to the passage.
“No guards?” Neal asked.
“No need for guards. They have been watching us approach for the last 45 minutes. If we were a threat, several attack drones would have been dispatched before we were even close. The gate will open in a minute; they know this van. We are expected.” The Sergeant stretched his arms and legs from a seated position, “Long drive.”
“Look, the gate is opening,” Neal said. The gate slowly rose off the ground and disappeared into the stone ceiling.
“Here we go, Gentlemen. Welcome to Wonderland,” the Sergeant said with a chuckle, as he drove the van into the dark tunnel. Inside the underground passage, was a paved road leading down to a large open space. The walls of the tunnel were rough granite rock and arched up toward a dome-shaped ceiling. Once in the large open cavern, they could see numerous vehicles and self-contained, modular metal buildings. The space reminded Snap of an airport parking garage that was under construction.
“Here we are, end of the line. Hope you gentlemen enjoyed the ride, no tipping allowed,” the driver said jokingly. “Lieutenant Black will be here in a few minutes to take you to your next stop.”
“Thanks for the lift, Sergeant,” Snap said, as he jumped out the side door of the van. The rest of his men followed suit.
A few minutes later, a medium built man walked through the door of the mobile, shipping container-like admin office and right up to Snap. “Good morning, Major, I’m Max Black. I’m here to escort you to level fifteen.”
“Morning, Lieutenant Black,” replied Snap.
“Please follow me,” said the young lieutenant, obviously more of an administrative type than a warrior.
Snap and the men followed Lieutenant Black through a man-sized tunnel, bore through solid granite, to another large chamber. The man-sized tunnel was next to a larger tractor trailer sized tunnel that led to the same cavern. This chamber was more militarized than the first parking-garage type chamber.
Immediately upon walking through the short tunnel, they found themselves at a security check point. There were waist high concrete barriers set up to corral visitors toward a guard post. On the other side of the long concrete barriers were military personnel armed with TAR-21 bull-pup rifles. On either side of the check point were 50 caliber machine guns mounted on armored turrets.
Snap could see over the concrete barriers, past the check point, to the rest of the cavernous space. In the middle of the granite cavern was a ramp, that was large enough for a tractor trailer to drive down, into an underground facility. The ramp was surrounded by thick concrete walls and there appeared to be a large steel door that could come down to secure the tunnel. The ramp leading to the tunnel was guarded by a squad of soldiers and one M3 Bradley fighting vehicle.
Lightning Squad easily passed through the security checkpoint. Once on the other side, Lieutenant Black pointed them toward another 15-passenger van and indicated that they should climb aboard. Once settled into the van, Lieutenant Black drove the van toward the ramp that descended even deeper into the mountain. He was stopped at the mouth of the tunnel by a security team that checked over the passenger van, presumably for bombs. They passed through the second check point and onto the ramp, making wide left turns as they descended. The large ramp reminded Snap of driving round and round in a multi-level parking garage. Each level was clearly marked with large numbers painted on the wall near the heavy gate giving entrance to that level. Even this far down, the ramp was wide enough for a tractor trailer to pass. Each level they passed had small parking lots, with a few empty vehicles.
They reached Level 15, and Lieutenant Black pulled the van to the curb, near the large metallic blast doors.
“Your stop. Your ID card will open the blast doors,” Lieutenant Black said from the driver’s seat.
“You’re not coming in with us?” Snap asked.
“No Sir, what’s behind those doors is not within my need-to-know. Good luck, Major.”
“Alright, everyone out,” Snap said.
The unguarded, steel blast doors were large enough to allow a single tractor trailer to drive through. Snap walked up to a display monitor and raised his ID. A few seconds later the heavy doors slowly raised from the concrete surface to reveal a wide-open area resembling a loading bay. Two guards armed with holstered semi-automatic pistols walked toward them.
“Good morning, Major Slade. We are here to take you to the training center.”
“Roger that.”
Level 15 was much larger than Snap had expected. As they walked through the open bay area they could see all types of equipment, some familiar, some not. There were saucer-shaped craft, tanks, and other armored vehicles in various states of disrepair. Skilled technicians were upgrading existing equipment and working on developing new types of armored fighting vehicles with exotic weapons systems. On either side of the large work zone were numerous doors that led to areas unknown.
“Part of orientation will be a tour of Level 15. You will be staying here for a while. Look over there,” the security guard pointed toward a set of non-descript double doors with no markings, “over there is Level 15 temporary housing. You’ll have sleeping quarters and a small dining facility.”
They continued walking. “Here we are, the training room. Someone will be with you shortly.”
“You’re not coming in?” Snap asked.
“Nope. My job was to see that you got to this point. Just walk through those doors, and someone will be with you shortly,” the guard said, as he turned to walk away.
“Very well.” Snap pushed open the plain metal door and walked into a large open room. The auditorium-sized room was very plain, with no decorations on the walls, and only three doors on the back wall. It reminded Snap of a high school gymnasium. To the right, were twelve chairs set up in three rows, all facing toward a blank wall. To the left there were mats on the floor like you would see in a karate studio.
“What the hell are we supposed to do here?” Sergeant Williams asked.
“I guess we just stand around and wait for someone to show up,” Justin Thomas replied.
“I wonder what that big ass dome is for,” Senior Master Sergeant Smith asked as he pointed toward the center of the ceiling.
“Damn, that thing looks like it is 10 feet across. I bet it’s some sort of surveillance device,” Sergeant Williams said.
By this time, most of the team was looking up at the large black dome. “It has some sort of reflective quality, I don’t think it’s is a video monitor,” Snap mumbled.
A great white flash of light instantly blinded Snap. A deafening crash of thunder forced them to cover their ears, as they felt a brief weightlessness sensation. Snap and the others were thrown to the floor by a violent force. Snap’s eyes were wide open, but he could not see. He struggled to focus and refocus, but his eyes could see nothing but white.
I can’t see. I’m blind.
Snap pulled himself to his hands and knees. The temperature was different; it was much hotter and very humid.
I can’t feel the concrete floor anymore. It feels like dirt or mud. Where the hell am I?
“I can’t see. Williams, Robins,
are you here?” Snap called out to his squad.
“I can’t see either; I was blinded by that flash of light,” Williams said, in a frantic voice.
“Can anyone see? What the hell is going on?” Snap yelled out.
“Major, my vision is starting to come back, but all I see is green,” Moore said, from what seemed like far away.
“Where are you, Moore?”
“About 20 feet to your left, Major. I think we are in some kind of jungle.”
“Is that rain? I think the temperature just went up 40 degrees!” Senior Master Sergeant Davis proclaimed.
The bright white light was fading into a mellow green. Snap could start to make out leaves and vegetation. The ground was soft, and his face was being sprinkled by a light rain.
“Is everyone okay?” Snap yelled out.
“I’m good, ears are ringing a bit,” Ryan Taylor called out.
“My head is pounding,” Miller said.
“I think I twisted my ankle when I fell,” James Martin hollered. “But, I’ll be okay.”
Snap looked around, his vision better. He could not see his entire squad, due to the thick underbrush. The squad suffered no serious injuries. It seemed the physical effects of the event were quickly wearing off.
“What the hell was that? Where are we?” Jones asked.
“Maybe we’re in a hologram?” Moore guessed.
“What the fuck? You can’t feel a hologram!” Brown exclaimed. “We must have been transported to another location.”
“Transport? How? They don’t have that kind of technology,” Josh Miller said.
“Really? What makes you think that?” Ryan Taylor said sarcastically. “Have you not been paying attention? We are wearing alien armor and carrying laser cannons – seems like they could teleport us to wherever they wanted?”
