May 5, 2440 – 12:00:00 AM
The lights came up just as the knock on the door registered.
“Enter,” Leonard called wiping the sleep from his eyes. “You are a godsend, Ellen,” he added, standing and stretching, wishing he had picked the couch for sleeping rather than its commanding presence. “How’s the mod on the floor?” he asked her, “and thanks for the coffee,” he added. Not even his wife brought him coffee the way he liked it after thirty years of marriage.
“That is the job of a senior NCO,” SGM Ellen Bacchus chuckled, taking a seat. “Truth is I just don’t know how to read it. There are too many eager beavers who want to claim a piece of history. What I can say is they are too focused on the ship that is going to land this morning and not the seven others that will be here in five days.”
“Not you?” he asked knowing the answer. At thirty-six years in service with twenty of it as a sergeant major he knew this woman was unflappable.
May 5, 2440 – 1:00:00 AM
“They’re entering atmo,” the tracking officer said tensely, fingers flying across the console. “Looks like they’re pulling thirteen G’s.”
“What was that?” General Leonard Octavius Wood demanded, leaning forward.
“The ship… we thought it was attracting debris as it passed into the inner system, but we were wrong. It appears to be more Beacon Tech left behind to interact with damaged ships to prevent them from becoming dinosaur killers. We confirmed that with Captain W’ren before the latest solar storm disrupted comms again.”
“Great, more tech we don’t control that has just been floating around inside our reach since the 1970’s,” Leonard’s eyes narrowed. “Do we have a trajectory?”
“Not yet, sir. It’s decelerating too smoothly, like it’s being cradled. Descent is too slow for standard reentry. We can’t predict a final landing site.”
Silence settled over the command center, thick and electric. The only sound was the hum of holographic displays, flickering with alien telemetry.
Then…
“General! We’ve got movement!” another tech called out. “Objects are ejecting from the ship or maybe the cradle. Hundreds, no thousands. Tens of… No Hundreds of… Fuck, I don’t know, sir. Small, drone-like. Too many to count. They’re spreading out in a wide formation.”
Leonard’s jaw tightened. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Pulsing lasers, targeting the Earth’s surface!”
“Are we under attack?” Leonard’s voice sharpened.
“Negative, sir. They’re scanning topography. The data’s… being sent directly to us.” The officer paled. “This is incredibly detailed. It looks like they’re mapping the planet in real time. I think they’re looking for a landing site.”
May 5, 2440 – 3:00:00 AM
The command center erupted into focused chaos, maps updating by the second, alien data flooding the systems.
“Earth Command,” a new voice came through the speakers, clear and steady with a hint of strain. “This is Sub-Captain K’Rem T’all, navigator and acting captain of the V’ren refugee ship Kalnareth, now under complete Progenitor control. Eighty possible locations have been identified as suitable by our automated systems. Here are the coordinates. Estimated landing in three to four hundred of your minutes.”
“Where?” Leonard barked.
“The list size is decreasing as we speak. Seventy. Fifty-Eight…”
“Thirty-one…” A tired voice announced 5 hours later.
“We are down to eight sir. They looked to have just a handful of orbital passes left. Three in the western desert, two in Kansas, one in Missouri, one in Indiana, one in West Virginia,” the tracking officer reported.
“Great, yokels and hillbillies,” muttered Colonel Neils.
“We have time to scramble fighter bombers with nukes.”
“Sir, the options are down to two, Missouri and West Virginia,” the officer said. “The others have been rejected.”
May 5, 2440 – 5:00:00 AM
“Sir, the ship is slowing further. Final approach pattern confirmed. Missouri is the likely landing site. Should we scramble assets?”
Leonard snapped into action. “No. Those are in the CCA or Seaboard Alliance and Amazon’s relationship is too fragile. Focus everything else there. I want a full security perimeter, medical teams prepped, but keep air support on standby. We need physical containment. Every asset, now.”
The command center shifted into a disciplined sprint, orders flying, teams mobilizing.
Leonard’s expression darkened.
“Missouri,” Colonel Neils scoffed.
“We have an operative on the ground in the projected path. Former Logistics Command, Special Services. Inactive since his wife died nine years ago, but he owns most of the land near the projected crash site,” Jeff Adams said, looking through the list of assets
“What’s he doing now?” Neils asked.
“He’s still in logistics. Runs a small distribution network and farms his ancestral land under a freehold title. according to the CCA note.”
“Get him on the line.”
The call buzzed, then connected to a gruff voice.
“Matthew Jonathan Boone Marmaduke here. What the hell do you want?”
