by William Lee
“Bullshit. If this were a hologram, my hand would pass right through this tree,” Miller said, as he slammed his hand into a tree trunk. “Damn that hurt.” Miller quickly pulled back his fist wincing in pain.
Snap looked around; several members of his team were outside his field of vision, due to the thick underbrush and dense jungle.
“Hey, I found something” Jones yelled.
Snap and the others pushed through the thick leaves, being careful not to step on a booby trap, toward the sound of Jones’ voice.
“Where are you,” Snap asked, in a slightly elevated voice.
“Over here.”
Snap and the others followed the sound of Jones’ voice. Pushing through the green foliage, their boots sunk into the soft, wet soil. Snap pushed back a large, leafy branch that revealed Sergeant Jones standing over a wooden crate. Jones easily pushed off the lid, to display a cache of weapons.
“Where the hell are we? Why the fuck is there stash of weapons here?” Jones muttered.
“We were supposed to find these, it’s no accident.” Snap concluded as he reached for the first weapon, an AK-47. Snap examined the gun, and pulled back the charging handle. “Seems to be in good working order.”
“These were left here for us to find. Check the firing pins. Make sure they haven’t been tampered with,” Moore said.
Snap looked through the crate to find there was a wide variety of weapons, including assault rifles, sub-machine guns, large caliber pistols, and even a rocket launcher. The rest of the squad had arrived and were going through the crate.
“What the . . . a double-edged battle ax?” Miller asked, holding up the weapon.
“Look here. Why would we need a sword?” Johnson said as he lifted the sword from the crate. Johnson twirled the blade in his right hand, to check the balance. “It’s sharp,” he said, pulling his left index finger away quickly.
“Hey, watch that thing. You almost cut my arm off. Who the hell do you think you are, fucking Zorro?” Ryan Taylor shouted.
“I’m a little concerned,” Snap said, “why would they – whoever they are- give us such an odd assortment of weapons? They are not only from different manufactures and countries, they are from different time periods.”
“Maybe it’s an experiment of some kind?” Williams said, shrugging his shoulders.
“You are God Damn right it’s an experiment, and we are the fucking lab rats,” Davis shouted. “We need to get the fuck out of here before the inevitable shit hits the proverbial fan.”
“Hold on,” Snap ordered, “everyone grab a weapon first, then we can figure this out.” Snap lifted a GM6M Bull-pup anti-material sniper rifle from the crate. The GM6 shot a 50 caliber BMG round, the same round that was used in anti-aircraft machine guns. It was known for its ability to stop trucks, airplanes, and light armor. Snap detached the magazine to reveal five very large 50 BMG rounds.
Very odd weapon to have in the jungle. This may come in handy if we run into one of those Ondagra.
“Hey, Snap, is that new Exacto round? You know, the one that can self-course correct in mid-flight?” Neal West asked.
“Holy shit! I think you are right. I have never seen one of those before. Supposedly, it locks onto the target and follows it like a guided missile,” Snap said.
“It’s a sniper rifle round, great for distances, but here in close quarters, it’s pretty much useless,” Neal pointed out.
“I don’t know Neal; I got a feeling we are going to need this, even in the jungle. It may come in handy if we run into alien armor.”
Snap leaned into the crate and picked up a WW2 era combat knife. He flipped it around a couple of times to ensure that the weight was right and tucked it into his belt.
“Everybody got a weapon? Check them out; make sure they all work. Any ideas on where we are?” Snap asked, in a rhetorical way, since he was pretty sure none of his men had any idea.
Senior Master Sergeant Thomas stepped forward, holding a Russian AK-12 assault rifle, “We’re not going to figure out how we got here or where here is by standing around in the woods. The way I see it, either we were transported here somehow, or we are in some hypnotic trance or something. Either way, we need to move until we see something we recognize.”
“Agreed. Since we can’t see the sun through the canopy and rain clouds, and we have no idea where we are, I say we just start walking in this direction,” Snap pointed into the jungle.
“What was that?” Miller asked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Jackson said.
“Over there, behind that tree.” Miller dropped to one knee and raised the WW2 era M-2 Carbine to his shoulder. The rest of the men took cover behind trees.
“There, see it!” Brown hollered, while pointing at some moving brush.
Snap turned to where Brown was pointing and saw a figure darting between trees about 20 feet out. The figure was hard to make out; it was almost translucent, as if light were passing through it making it difficult to see. Then, it disappeared into the green jungle.
Shit. We are up against something with invisible armor. I have no armor, and a sniper rifle. I should have grabbed a machinegun.
Davis, Miller, and Moore clutched their chests at the same instant, and silently fell over, like dominos, faces first into the dirt. Snap could see a light trail of smoke reaching up to the sky from a grapefruit-sized hole in Davis’ back.
Shit. That fucking alien.
“Where did that come from?” Snap yelled, while crouching behind a tree.
“I don’t know,” Ryan Taylor replied.
“It happened too fast,” barked Jackson.
Snap saw the translucent figure running toward Anderson, who was facing the wrong direction, staring into the woods. Snap switched off the safety, dropped to one knee and aimed the 25-pound anti-material gun toward the blurry creature.
I can’t get him in my sights. He will be on Anderson in a second. Too Late.
The nearly invisible, creature jammed a sword through Anderson’s back and lifted him into the air like a rag doll. Anderson slid down the sword like a human shish kabob. The creature slung him off the sword, and Anderson’s lifeless body hurdled through the air, slamming into a tree.
Snap pulled the trigger as the bones in Anderson’s corpse broke against the tree trunk. The sound of the BMG round exploding caused his ear to start ringing instantly.
Miss. Shit. Four rounds left.
The eight-foot-tall beast was gone, blending perfectly with the thick, green leaves. Seconds later, it reappeared directly in front of Brown. Brown dropped, clutching his neck as blood sprayed through his fingers. Snap squeezed the trigger again. Miss.
Three rounds left.
Through the noxious haze of gun smoke, the creature looked directly at Snap and charged. The heavy sniper rifle was difficult to lock onto a target in such close quarters. Snap felt the creature’s clawed hand close on his neck. The creature arched forward in pain as thirty rounds from an M4A1 carbine slammed into his back. It was not enough to kill the beast, but enough to make him release Snap. The creature’s attention was diverted for a second; a shard of light shot from its breastplate and cut down the carbine-wielding Smith.
While the creature was still focused on Snap, who was scrambling behind a tree, Jackson fired the Magnum Research single action revolver into the beast at point-blank range. It screamed. Jackson fired the hand cannon a second time; a copper-colored fluid burst from the beast’s armor. The creature leapt toward Jackson, knocking him down. Snap came from behind the tree and fired the 50-caliber rifle at the beast on top of Jackson.
Dammit. How’d I missed again? Just too close for this rifle.
Thomas stepped up and swung the battle ax down on the beast while it was still on top of Jackson. The beast leapt up, revealing a mangled Jackson, and the incinerator weapon on his chest glowed blue. Another flash of light, and Thomas’ battle ax dropped. Snap charged, raising the GM6M, at 11 feet away, he pulled the trigger. Th
e beast dropped. Then, there was a blinding flash of light and Snap was violently thrown to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Granite Peak Installation
Once again, Snap was back in the training room on Level 15. Slowly, the room stopped spinning, and Snap forced himself to stand up. All his men were alive and shaking off minor aches and pains. Anderson, who a few minutes earlier had been impaled by a sword, was checking out his stomach and chest with both hands. In a couple of minutes, they were all standing in the training room.
“Told you it was a hologram,” said Tim Moore.
“Bullshit. No way it was a hologram,” Brown argued. “You can’t feel a hologram. I felt that shit. I felt it for real.”
“Quiet,” Snap ordered. The men stopped talking and looked toward Snap and then at the eight-foot-tall beast they had just been fighting.
“I am Ater Velens. This is my base. You will follow my orders while you are here. Do you understand?” Ater towered over them. He was no longer wearing his battle armor, but he appeared to be wearing form-fitting, translucent suit.
“How should we address you?” Snap asked.
“I do not stand on ceremony or titles. You may call me Ater.” As Ater moved, the colorless suit reacted to the movement by changing to different hues of a translucent blur.
“Ater, could you explain what just happened to us?”
“Half of your squad was killed by one Ondagra,” he hissed with a hint of disgust.
“Ondagra?” Jackson asked.
“Ondagra is the name for my people; like you refer to yourselves as humans, we refer to ourselves as Ondagra. My kind, the Ondagra, come from Botacoure, a planet that is located thousands of light years from Earth.”
“How did you transport us to a jungle?” asked Snap.
“Major Slade, I did not transport you anywhere. You never left this room. This room is one big holographic projector. The tiles on the walls, floor, and ceiling are each able to project millions of holographic images at once. Combined with that black dome above us, they create an alternate reality that will trick the eye and mind.” Ater pointed at the hexagon-shaped tiles on the walls and floor.
“Not possible,” Snap said. “We felt the rain on our faces, the trees, the ground and the impacts of your weapons. You can’t feel a hologram.”
“Almost true, Major. You don’t feel the holographic projection. In this room, you are surrounded by billions of flying nanobots. These nanobots interact with the hologram, and when they detect that you are about to come in contact with an object in the holographic world, millions of them contact your skin in the appropriate location with the appropriate pressure so that you think you are touching an object, a tree, rain, or a weapon.”
“I picked up a weapon and fired it. I felt the pistol grip in my hand; I felt the recoil.”
“You saw a holographic image of a weapon. When you went to grab the handle, you really grabbed a hand full of nanobots that applied the correct amount of pressure to the palm of your hand to make you believe you were lifting a weapon. The nanobots are too small for the human eye to see; each one is controlled by microchip that is 1,000 times smaller than a white blood cell. This is a training room. Everything that happens here is recorded for later review,” Ater said, as he waived his hand toward the wall.
Instantly, an image appeared on the plain white wall. “Replay last twenty minutes,” Ater commanded, speaking to the projection on the wall.
“That’s us in the jungle,” Ryan Taylor said in surprise. The wall-sized video display showed a perfect image of the squad sorting through the crate, examining the weapons in the jungle.
“This is a video replay of the simulated attack on your squad. We use the replay as a training exercise, to help you learn what you did wrong. I like running this simulation on new recruits before they are aware of the holographic technology. It gives me a true understanding of each of your strengths and weaknesses. I find soldiers become braver after they realize they are in a simulated hologram,” Ater said, as he crossed his huge arms over his muscular chest.
“When you attacked us, you were wearing advanced body armor, but now you are wearing some type of invisibility suit. How did you change so quickly?” Snap asked.
“I did not change. When you killed me with the 50 BMG, the training exercise immediately ended, and seconds later you were able to see me in this suit. I was wearing this reflective suit during the entire training exercise, it projects the appearance that I am wearing armor. All of you will receive suits like this for training, and when you put them on, they will look and feel exactly like you are wearing the FALOS armor that you wear into combat.”
“You were able to kill half of our squad before being neutralized, and we are one of America’s most elite fighting forces. Those don’t seem like very good odds for the battlefield,” Sergeant Martin said.
“Fighting the Ondagra will not be easy, but you will perform better than this training exercise suggests. You were not wearing armor during the training exercise. Some of you had weapons that were capable of killing an Ondagra, but you were not trained in how to use those weapons. Once training is complete, your chances against a Large Gray, as you call us, will be much improved.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why are you helping us to fight your own kind?” Snap asked.
“I had a falling out with our leader here on Earth, Nox Bellator. He is secretly trying to rule the Earth through proxy corporations and shadow governments. I have grown to appreciate the freedom and creativity that some humans enjoy. Nox would slowly destroy all of that,” Ater explained.
“Are you the only Ondagra working with the U.S. Government?” Snap asked.
“I am now. I originally came here with a delegation of Ondagra in 1954. There were 40 of us sent here to work with the Americans. Nox was trying to play both sides of the cold war. After a long series of unfortunate events, all of them returned home in the early eighties.”
“Except you.”
“I could have returned home. Nox wanted me to leave this place. But I grew to dislike Nox’s way of doing things. It’s not that I love Americans, it’s that I really dislike Nox Bellator.”
Snap knew he could not begin to understand the Ondagra’s facial expressions, but he sensed he could trust this Ondagra. “So, how did we do for our first training exercise?”
“Compared to previous groups, you did remarkably well. Many squads take far higher casualties before the simulation ends. Over half of the time, I kill the entire squad before they can neutralize me.”
“During the first training exercise, back in the desert compound, after taking out the terrorists, why were our laser cannons not effective against you?” Snap questioned.
“The Ondagra developed their armor among a group of solar systems where there are several warring planets. The primary enemies of the Ondagra use directed energy weapons, not ballistic weapons. For a thousand years the Ondagra have been developing armor to defend against lasers and beam weapons, but we have not focused on projectiles, like bullets. Don’t misunderstand, the Ondagra’s armor will stop small caliber bullets, but it will break down under a barrage of sub-machine gun fire or high caliber weapons. That is why the 50 BMG works so well.”
“Easy, we all get outfitted with 50 caliber rifles and go hunting,” Ryan Taylor said with a laugh.
“Not so simple,” Ater replied. “The GM6M Lynx sniper rifle has a five-round magazine, and compared to a particle beam accelerator, it has an incredibly slow rate of fire. The Large Gray will be able to fire 100 lethal particle beams at you for each high caliber projectile fired at him. It’s like charging a machine gun nest with a musket,” Ater cautioned.
“That’s right,” Snap said. “Targeting Ater with that heavy rifle was not easy.”
“Pistol rounds like 9 mm, or 45 are pretty much ineffective against Ondagra armor. Larger rounds, like .308 or 7.62x39 may be effective with multiple strikes from a fully automatic weapon. There
are very few conventional, man-portable weapons that deliver a lethal blow to the Ondagra’s armor. As you saw, the 50 BMG Lynx is one of the few that will deliver a kill strike with one hit.”
“So, will we each be issued one of those?” James Martin asked.
“No. Four of these will be issued to your squad. Remember, I said man-portable. There are several squad based weapons that will effectively take out Ondagra armor. The mini-gun will easily slice through his armor and deliver multiple kill shots per second.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” said Justin Thomas.
“Normally, squad weapons require multiple soldiers to operate, but, in your FALOS suit, you will easily be able to carry a mini-gun and thousands of rounds of ammunition.”
“How many of those will we get?” Snap asked.
“Four squad members will have mini-guns. A FALOS suit and mini-gun is almost an even match against Ondagra armor. Remember, even with a mini-gun, the Ondagra has an advantage,” Ater cautioned the squad.
“What’s that?” asked Miller.
“The FALOS suit can only carry a few thousand rounds of armor piercing ammunition. The Ondagra’s particle accelerator weapon has unlimited shots and is much lighter than a mini-gun,” Ater replied.
“So, what’s next in our training, Ater?” Snap asked.
“The rest of the day will be spent debriefing you on the Ondagra threat to global and national security; on their technology, types of crafts, weapons and weaknesses. Tomorrow you will begin training on a new piece of equipment; I think you will enjoy it.”
The team sat through several hours of presentations from various speakers, including combat veterans, DOD contractors, National Security Agency representatives, and scientists. After the training and briefings, the squad was dismissed to their temporary quarters for the evening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Granite Peak Installation
The steward took the squad to the guest housing area. Lightning Squad had their own suite of rooms; there were enough suites to house up to six squads at a time. Each suite had a small central living space with several couches, chairs, and tables. On either side of the living space, there were two doors, leading to sleeping quarters. Three of the bedrooms had four bunks each, and the fourth had only two bunks.
