“What the. . .?”
“Is that what I think it is?” Williams asked.
“Well, it’s sure as shit ain’t no UFO, since it just came out of our base,” Johnson replied.
“It’s a UFO to your mom,” Davis said.
“Alright men, cut it out.” Snap ordered.
A ramp descended from one of the equal sides of the triangle, revealing a well-lit metallic interior that resembled the inside cargo compartment of a transport plane.
“This must be the rear of the craft,” Snap said.
“Not precisely,” Ater said from the command center.
“Board the plane,” Snap ordered his men. On board, they could see their fixed-wing jets suspended from the ceiling. The sidewall seats were designed for soldiers wearing bulky FALOS suits.
“Where’s the pilot?” Williams asked.
“If he were up your ass you would know,” Johnson replied, with a chuckle.
“Fuck you man. I was serious,” Williams retorted.
“Get strapped in. You will be briefed as soon as you are in the air,” Ater said. A couple of minutes later, they were cutting through the atmosphere at nearly 8,000 miles per hour.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Magadan Oblast
Present Day
Commander Caliana Furier sat in the pilot’s seat of the jump shuttle, perched directly on the ridge overlooking the crash site. Not only was she the highest-ranking officer in the jump shuttle, she was the same rank as Commander Forte. His mission was to safely get them to Earth; her mission was to ensure the safe passage of the valuable cargo. Both had failed. Furier and the other nine crewmen in the shuttle were dressed in full battle armor.
The other jump shuttles and Forte were back in the cave. Commander Furier and her team were wearing 10 combat suits that they found in the jump shuttles. The other four combat suits were being worn by officers back at the cave. Furier and the team exited the rear of the jump shuttle, leaving it in stealth mode.
“Everyone stay in chameleon mode,” Furier said, as they exited. The battle armor not only added an extra layer of protection and warmth, it was also capable of rendering the operator nearly invisible. The Americans FALOS suit was based on the same technology, only the Americans’ suit was even more advanced. Each of the suits had helmets with communications systems that allowed the crew to speak with each other. Unlike the more advanced FALOS suits, their communications could not be monitored by a command center. Additionally, they could not receive a data-link from the Americans command center, meaning they were not receiving real time updates regarding enemy troop movements. Their armor had built in radars, which would give them limited INTEL regarding movements within a 25-mile radius.
“What are we doing here?” Catrix asked. Catrix was one of the ship’s engineering crew. Much like many of the survivors, he had no combat experience.
“We are here to observe and gather intelligence on the ship and cargo. Ultimately, we would like to recover as much of the Element 115 as possible. Also, many of our fellow crew are back in a cave freezing. If we could recover some equipment to help them; that would be nice.”
Genu, one of the crew’s navigation team, was staring through the only pair of binoculars found in the shuttle’s emergency supply locker. The ridge they were standing on was not a natural formation; it was created as the ship crashed, driving through the otherwise flat, rocky terrain. The ship was situated, in three large segments, at the bottom of the very long trench that was dug into the ground as it crashed.
“Look, there’s the command tower. Looks like it broke off the super structure in the crash,” Genu said, pointing over toward the tower, whose top level was barely above the ridge line.
“It’s remarkably intact for such a violent impact,” Commander Furier said.
“I guess Commander Forte really knew what he was doing by activating the plasma shields the way he did,” Genu said, completely unaware of the ongoing rift between Forte and Furier.
“Yeah, I guess we have to give him credit for that,” Furier mumbled.
“Commander, the tower looks pretty much intact. Why don’t we go down there and access the crew’s quarters? We could salvage some blankets, clothes and food for the crew back in the cave.”
“I don’t know. It could be very unstable in there; decks could collapse any minute,” Furier said.
“We will be careful. Also, we are woefully outgunned if the locals show up before the Americans. We should recover some weapons from the armory, just in case,” Sergeant Fabris said. Fabris was one of the few military personnel standing on the ridge with Furier.
“Most of our people are not trained to use weapons,” Furier objected.
“An armed group of civilians is better than an unarmed group of civilians, in my opinion, Commander.”
“Okay, it’s better than sitting here doing nothing. But our first priority is food and clothing, our people could die from exposure before a single shot is fired.”
“Understood, Commander,” Sergeant Fabris responded.
“How do we get in and up to the crew’s quarter’s level? We can’t just take the elevator,” Furier said.
“No, it would have no power. We could take the stairs,” Fabris offered.
“The stairs would be a long walk through a lot of potentially unstable space. If a level were to collapse we may not be able to exit,” Commander Furier pointed out.
“We could fly the shuttle directly up to the level we want to access and break in from the shuttle as it hovers. Maybe, if we are lucky, we find a damaged area where there is already a hole in the superstructure for us to enter,” Situlas said. Situlas was the only other female on the mission with Furier. She was the loadmaster for the Impegi, her job had been to make sure weight was distributed evenly throughout the ship. She had worked with Furier, as she was Quartermaster, and they knew each other well.
Furier nodded her head in agreement, “But how do we break in? We have no cutting tools and the shuttle has no offensive weapons.”
“True, but we have two laser rifles. We could use them to burn a hole in a weak spot on the hull, maybe near a portal.”
“How long would it take to burn a hole through the hull of the ship?”
“Under normal circumstances, probably an hour. However, we may be able to find a weakened spot, maybe one that is already breached. We won’t know until we take a closer look.”
“Everybody, back in the shuttle. We are going to breach the hull and recover supplies for the survivors,” Commander Furier said.
The short shuttle ride to the tower was surreal. No one said a word, as they flew over the debris field that was once a magnificent spaceship. Most of the crew just stared out the portals taking in the destruction.
“Here we are. Looks like we are near what was level 10 of the tower,” the Commander said. The shuttle was hovering about five feet from the wall of the tower.
“Let’s fly around the whole tower, see if there is an opening or weak spot. We may not have an hour to burn an entrance with the laser rifles.”
The Commander maneuvered the shuttle away from the wall and around to the other side of the tower. There, they could see the command center blast doors were closed, as they should have been. However, several decks below that had sustained severe damage and the hull walls had been ripped away from the superstructure.
“Look, there’s an opening,” yelled Genu, as he pointed to the gash in the tower that was about the size of a residential home.