“Keep it there!”
The gunner swept his fire back and forth inside the shrinking opening. The saucer started to glow a dull white, which appeared bright green in their goggles. The saucer began to rise into the air, but the ramp stopped with a foot and a half to go before it was closed.
“More!” Jake shouted to the gunner.
The landing struts on the saucer inched up into the underside as it struggled to gain height.
It’s been six, maybe seven seconds, Jake thought. There must be more than three hundred bullets bouncing around inside of that thing. They have to be damaging something.
Suddenly the saucer tipped toward the slightly open door and fell to the ground. The glow disappeared.
The two Ospreys on the outside of the formation slowed and hovered over the tree tops with their side gunners firing into the landing zone, clearing the way for the other two Ospreys to land. The Osprey carrying Jake’s team and the President’s Unit swung right, left side facing the antenna building. The fourth Osprey was right behind them, both rapidly dropping toward the ground. The rear platform was lowered quickly as the President’s Unit stood, weapons ready, waiting to hit the ground running. Jake, Honi, Stafford and Ken were right behind them.
The Osprey hit the ground with a heavy thump. They all rushed onto the ground and toward the building. The Osprey in the air on the right focused its Gatling Gun fire right into the open door of the building, preventing anyone from coming out and joining the fight. As soon as all the soldiers were on the ground, those two Ospreys lifted off and turned to take the place of the two still in the air, which two rotated to the outside and swung around to land.
An explosion blew open the front of one of the Ospreys that had just lifted off. It banked hard to the right and spun down into the trees. A second Osprey, swinging in to land, was struck in the right engine pod by a blinding flash of light. The pod exploded and the Osprey tipped and dropped to the ground, pieces of the large blades shattering and shredding nearby trees. Jake looked up, over the trees. The bright glow of a saucer was streaking across the sky toward them, powerful light beams flashing at the Ospreys still in the air. The damned saucer came back!
Just then, Jake heard the screeching of fighter jets. Four Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet Joint Strike Fighter Jets curved around the landing zone at nearly Mach 2, pointed directly at the incoming saucer. Multiple sonic booms echoed across the canopy of trees. The first four jets fired two missiles each at the flying saucer. Eight fire trails rapidly closed in on the saucer, which moved vertically at an amazing speed. It then quickly moved forward, flying over the missiles, and fired blazing flashes at the Super Hornet jets. Each jet was hit, lost control, and curved away from the saucer, heading down into the trees. Four explosions from the damaged jets rocked the deep forest as the planes crashed.
I hope the pilots got out, Jake thought. Four more Super Hornets flew in right behind them, launching another eight missiles at the glowing saucer. Meanwhile the first eight missiles had turned and were closing in on the back side of the saucer. Eight rapid flashes leapt from the back of the saucer destroying the missiles. The second set of four Super Hornets banked sharply to the side as another four screamed overhead and fired more missiles.
Still more screaming Super Hornets closed in on the saucer, four from the far left, four from the far right and four flying right over Jake, all firing two missiles each. The air was filled with burning trails of air-to-air missiles closing in on the saucer. The saucer again shot vertically at an unbelievable speed and fired bright flashes at the Super Hornets, striking each of them and sending them spiraling to the ground. As the saucer fired at the incoming missiles, twelve more Super Hornets joined the fight, boxing the saucer in from three sides. Two dozen more missiles were fired as they quickly closed in on the saucer. Some of the missiles had been fired high, ready to take on the saucer, should it jump higher into the air, which it did. Now the saucer was being forced to move away from the battle. Another wave of twelve Super Hornets rose into the air, firing more missiles toward the saucer. As the saucer retreated, it fired more brilliant flashes of light at the missiles, destroying them one after the other.
Two more waves of twelve Super Hornets closed in from the sides of the saucer, launching even more missiles. The saucer continued blasting missiles out of the air, but more were being fired by the jets than the saucer could shoot down. Gradually the tide turned. To avoid being hit by a missile, the saucer retreated into the distance.
Jake looked over at the crashed third Osprey. Soldiers were slowly climbing out of the wrecked plane and stumbling toward the building. The Osprey that had been firing into the open door of the building had also crashed. The fourth Osprey landed and its soldiers surrounded the building in a defensive formation. The entrance to the building was now open for a frontal assault. The Special Forces soldiers and the President’s Unit swarmed the door, firing into the interior as they entered. Jake, Honi, Stafford and Ken were right behind them.
The interior of the building was lighted, so they had to flip their night-vision up and out of the way before they entered. The brightness blinded them for a second until their eyes adjusted. Some of the Special Forces soldiers and some of the President’s Unit had fallen and were lying on the floor, wounded. Jake, Honi, Stafford and Ken quickly stepped over some of their downed comrades, identified targets and fired. Jake’s first clip was empty. He dropped the clip from the underside of his rifle and snapped the second one into place. Honi was doing the same.
Three men in white lab coats raised their arms in the middle of the firefight. One of them had a bright red blood stain spreading across his coat from the lower left side of his abdomen. Every enemy soldier was down and bleeding. The Army Special Forces soldiers and what remained of the President’s Unit swept the weapons away from the men on the floor and checked to see who was still alive. Four were found alive but unconscious. The Special Forces soldiers placed the enemy soldiers’ hands and feet in plastic cuffs and dragged them away from the desk mounted to the wall farthest from the front door. Medics attended immediately to wounded Special Forces soldiers and those of the President’s Unit.
Honi rushed forward and checked the two computers on the top of the desk.
“No, no, no. They’ve all been hit. We can’t recover anything.”
The three men in white lab coats stood, glancing at each other. They appeared confident that their mission had been successful. The soldiers pushed each of them to the floor and placed them in plastic cuffs. Jake calmly walked over to the wounded man and placed the hot barrel of his M-16 near the guy’s nose so he could feel the heat and smell the burned gunpowder.
“You’re too late!” he yelled. “It doesn’t matter what you do to us, it’s done. You’re all going to die!” His arrogant expression remained.
Jake walked away and started opening drawers and cabinets.
“What are you looking for?” Honi asked.
“Anything that might help.”
Andropov peeked around the corner of the door frame.
“Come on in,” Honi said.
Andropov slowly made his way around the soldiers who had fallen in battle and came over to the desk. He looked at the shattered computers on the bullet-ridden desk and raised his eyebrows.
“That’s not helpful.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Jake continued to search through drawers and file cabinets. He thumbed through the files. Most of them were in German, but some were in English. He looked at the titles. More reading for Andropov, he thought. He continued looking. When he closed the last drawer he looked back at Honi.