David Golemon - Event

"Direct hit," Jessup said in a businesslike manner into his oxygen mask.

As Drover Three and Four banked hard to come around for an assessment pass, they didn't see another two waves approaching the first set until they were almost on top of the strike zone. Jessup saw the twin waves breaking fast from above his pilots, who were too busy to notice the approach. In horror, he watched an animal they thought had been stopped in the cluster munitions strike rise from the dirt and sand and shake itself.

"Drover Three and Four, pull up, abort pass! Bandits are approaching the strike area, and the active target is now aboveground!"

The call came three seconds too late. As the colonel watched in horror, two of the animals approaching the first exploded out of the sand and dirt of the desert. Bunching up their muscled legs and using their powerful tails as a natural catapult, they sprang into the air at incredible speed. The first one caught Drover Three in the left air intake, smashing into the fuselage and being sucked in, exploding through the Pratt & Whitney engine, causing a catastrophic failure and explosions that ripped through the cockpit and fuselage of the heavy fighter, tearing it apart. The second animal ricocheted harmlessly off the remains of the disintegrating jet, falling onto the desert floor, along with the mile-long stretch of settling wreckage of Drover Three. To the amazement of all watching, the animal rose and stumbled, fell to the ground, then rose again. This time it shook its massive bulk, jumped into the air, and dove into the desert soil. Drover Four banked hard and climbed, pushing the big fighter to afterburner in its attempted escape, taxing the huge jet's air-frame as it did so. The first beast was on the surface of the desert floor below and was watching the F-15 Eagle trying to make her escape. The beast timed its jump perfectly and leaped just as Drover Four went to afterburner and started climbing. But before the full effect of the powerful twin engines could provide enough thrust to propel the heavy fighter forward and up, the animal struck hard. It hit the Strike Eagle's left wing and punctured straight through it, tearing out control surfaces and bending and weakening the struts until the wing creased and folded inward toward the cockpit with a pop that sounded as if a bomb had exploded. The wing then slammed hard into the glass-enclosed canopy, crushing the life from the two men inside instantaneously, seconds before the aircraft slammed into the desert floor and disappeared in an expanding fireball. The Talkhan that had embedded itself in the fighter's wing rolled free of the wreckage. It was burning as it gained its feet, stumbled three steps, then collapsed dead to the sand.

"Jesus Christ!" Jessup yelled into his mask. "Drover Three and Four are down. Repeat, Drover Three and Four are down, no chutes. Drover lead is on the attack."

Jessup banked hard to the left, bringing the fighter to a nose-down attitude. His wingman mimicked the move as he followed. The colonel brought his cannon to bear on the still form of the animal that had downed Drover Four. The cannon embedded in the left side of the aircraft just aft of the radar dome in the nose erupted with all six barrels with a short bruuuuuup. Rounds from the powerful minigun struck the remains of the invader, tossing pieces in all directions and further disintegrating the wreckage of the downed Drover Four, pushing the carcass hard across the desert floor.

Jessup applied power and pulled back on his stick, bringing his fighter back up to a safer level, then he called, "Drover flight, climb to five thousand feet and hold for targets."

Lieutenant Colonel Jessup removed his oxygen mask as he made the fast climb to altitude and rubbed a gloved hand across his sweating mouth. In all the missions he had flown in deserts just like the one below him, in all the time he had spent in, over, and around the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, he had never lost anyone, not even an aircraft, with all his aircrews coming home safely. Now four men lay crumpled and dead in their aircraft on American soil. Dead because someone on the ground had underestimated the ability of the enemy they were facing. Jessup had become like most commanders in the opening phases of war. He took it for granted that he had superior firepower and numbers, the same mistakes that had been made by men of his nation since the times of Washington, Lincoln, Custer, and Westmoreland.

Once he made it to a safe altitude, he thumbed his transmit switch and raised his mask to his face. "Drover base, Drover base, this is Drover lead. Inform National Command Authority, the enemy is a viable air threat."

Billowing clouds of black smoke that marked the remains of the two downed air force fighters and crews could still be seen from their high vantage point above the mountain valley. They had all listened and watched in horror as the aircraft and four brave men were lost, and that made for the grim determination they felt as they gathered in the large command tent.

Collins watched Specialist Sarah McIntire as she spoke with a member of Delta, obviously a part of her tunnel team. He waited until she looked up and made eye contact with him. He had been tempted to place her on his team, which had been assigned one of the town holes, but they needed one of the tunnel experts to go in after the mother, and Sarah was it. Since she was the most experienced in tunnels, she would be making a few points about the geology of the valley during the briefing.

"Alright people, let's settle in and get started, we're damn near out of time," Colonel Fielding said, standing at the head of the one hundred men and women of the tunnel assault teams.

Behind Fielding was a three-dimensional computer blowup of the surrounding mountain and desert floor. Marks in a dozen places indicated the routes the squad-sized tunnel teams would take. Larger dots indicated a parental hole and the smaller ones the offspring.

"Before we start out, we wanted you to hear what we're up against here. It's nothing you have trained for, but your units have been chosen for your ability to adapt to a fluid situation. And make no mistake, people, your enemy is ruthless and cunning, as we just witnessed in the valley."

The absolute quiet of the gathered soldiers told the colonel they understood.

"Very well." He turned and looked at Collins. "Major Collins, if you would, please."

Collins stood and stepped forward. "Here's what we know. They are diggers, as you've heard. Our soil is absolutely nothing to them because their body is so much denser than our own. They can be killed, even though they're heavily armored. Hit it where it is weakest, where the armor plates meet, but even then it will take a pounding before it dies. As search teams, your job is simply to search and destroy and count. I can't stress this point enough, count.

"I'm sure some of you are wondering why we just don't bomb the valley from the air. We need to keep them confined. If just one escapes, the cycle will start over and we can't control it. Airpower is never a certain thing, especially after the events of this afternoon; the creatures actually sacrificed themselves for the well-being of the group, so the air campaign is not the answer. I believe along with the docs here that all the animals would have to do is go deep. Dirt and sand is the best bullet and bomb stopper there ever was.

"When you leave the briefing, we have a gift that has been supplied by the army and a very special engineer from the University of California at San Diego. We're pulling in a lot of favors here today." Jack turned away and retrieved something from behind him. When he held it up, it looked as if it were another piece of body armor that covered the chest and back and zipped up like all others. "This is a new piece of armor developed by Kenneth Vecchio, a mechanical and aerospace engineer. He has developed new armor made from, of all things, abalone shell. The shell has undergone what they call 'depth of penetration' testing and can resist a steel rod traveling at two thousand miles per hour. In our language, people, it is what is called a bullet stopper. And that means this animal may have a hard time biting or clawing through it. As you can see"--he laid the vest down and brought up leggings, which resembled shin guards like those a catcher would wear, and thick arm bands--"these are made of the same material. Each of you will be issued a set after you leave this tent." When Jack saw the doubt on their faces, he said, "Welcome to the world of biometrics, people. We are imitating other life-forms from our own world to survive." He paused for a second. "In this case an abalone." That elicited tension-breaking chuckles from these hardened soldiers. "Now, a quick brief by our geology element, Specialist McIntire." He indicated Sarah, in the front row.