rim of the Shasta National Forest and sat squarely in the middle of Route 3, a north to south thoroughfare paralleling Interstate 5.
'Benjamin, you must be mistaken. Several thousand enemy infantry with gun ship support await us outside of Weed, a far more important target than a poorly armed garrison numbering less than two hundred.'
'No sir, that's the order. You need to confirm receipt with the courier who brought it.'
Ten minutes later, Stonewall stormed into his command tent at a rest stop along the Interstate. There, sitting in one of two chairs around a big map unfurled on a wooden table, waited a man with a bushy mustache and a shaved head wearing green camouflage but no rank on his collar. Stonewall's urgent steps stopped as he recognized his visitor.
'Ah yes, Mister Gordon Knox. I should have guessed that an order to send my troops on a foolish errand could only come from Imperial Intelligence.'
Gordon stood and smiled. Stonewall, in contrast, found it difficult to smile after having watched so many of his tanks burn due to The Cooperative's Stealth Shield, a technology Intelligence thought would be 'unreliable.'
Knox stood next to one of the hanging oil lamps lighting the tent and told McAllister, 'I need you to occupy Callahan. That isn't too much to ask, is it?'
'No, of course not. Just do me a favor and ask The Cooperative not to send any of their attack helicopters in our direction. You see, we're having a devil of a time spotting their approach. Why, before we even know what hits us, we lose two, three, sometimes more of our tanks and a fair number of troops. And veteran troops such as mine are so difficult to replace.'
'Oh, now never fear, General. We just need to tough this out a little while longer. Trust me, taking Callahan will be easy. The garrison will not only surrender to you, they will replace some of those valuable veteran troops you have lost.'
That captured General McAllister's attention.
Knox continued, 'You see, while The Cooperative's Stealth Field works rather well, it seems the rest of their little paradise isn't quite as wonderful for the rank and file.'
Stonewall could not help it. He matched Knox's smile.
– The Eagle airships sat in the dark wedged between tall Ponderosa Pines. It had taken skill for the four ships to find landing zones in the dense hillside forest, but it had taken even more skill to fly low enough among the mountain crevices and gorges to avoid detection.
Inside Eagle One, Trevor Stone opened a locker and pulled out a gray suit covered in a kind of wiry mesh. Other soldiers already wore the suits, including rubbery helmets and metallic faceplates with goggles. Rick Hauser walked from the cockpit to the passenger compartment. Trevor, slipping one leg then the other into the body suit, asked, 'Time?' Hauser answered, 'Thirty minutes. What if she's late?' Trevor slipped his left arm in one of the sleeves and said, 'Then we're all dead.'
At first glance, the strange battle suits might be mistaken for padded scuba gear. In truth, the suits provided extra support, actually enhancing the wearer's endurance. Just as he reverse-engineered alien technology from the invading armies, Omar Nehru had reversed-engineered the suit Trevor brought home from the humans of an alternate universe.
He fit the mask on and peered through the goggles. Hauser double-checked the mesh that covered the suit and Trevor's assault rifle, and ensured all the power cords were connected. The mesh had not come from that alternate Earth but, rather, came from the Chaktaw; another piece of alien technology adapted for humanity's use. Hauser asked, 'Sir, are you sure you should be in the front lines on this one?' He placed a hand on Rick's shoulder. That served as answer enough. 'Let's go.' The lights in the cabin turned off. The side door slid open. Hauser watched the strike teams head off into the forest behind a line of K9s. — Sparkling stars covered the midnight sky above the buildings once home to the Seventh Space Warning Squadron. The fence-enclosed facility sat atop one of the many small, grassy hills west of the Sierra Nevada range and housed the PAVE PAWS antenna that resembled a three-sided 1970s era stereo speaker standing several stories tall.
The Witiko enhancements-a tower, anti-air emplacements, a fuel depot, a box-like building known as 'the pen'-gave the compound a cluttered, messy look.
That clutter provided cover for Nina Forest and Vince Caesar, the Dark Wolves charged with infiltrating the main building. At the same time, Carl Bly and Oliver Maddock lay in ghillie suits atop hills within sniping distance of the complex.
Two days since the failed air strike, the Dark Wolves did what the F-111s failed to do; breach the facility's defenses. Unlike the planes, Nina's team received considerable help in the form of one disgruntled janitor (a former Cal-Berkley Professor) who hid the two commandos on a maintenance truck.
Armed with a detailed layout of the complex, Nina and Vince made their way to the roof of the four-story building at the center of the base. There they knelt in the darkness, their black tactical suits blending with the night.
Nina dribbled sizzling yellow goo from a small packet onto the iron bolts holding a metal grate above a ventilation shaft. Vince helped her pull the shield away after the bolts dissolved.
With that obstruction cast aside, Vince Caesar assembled a tripod hoist from which dangled a stretch of nylon rope. Nina slipped the hook at the end of that rope around a latch on her body suit and then adjusted the small, but heavy, pack slung on her shoulders.
As for armaments, she left behind her assault rifle and sword, planning to rely on stealth and speed as opposed to firepower.
Nina swung her legs into the shaft…
…A guard in black coveralls continued to walk his rounds between tan-painted walls. His boot steps echoed along the marble floor, announcing both his coming and going.
Nina-hiding behind dusty old crates stacked in a dead-end corridor-allowed the guard to continue unmolested. Moments later, she moved from cover into the open, traversing the brightly-lit corridors.
She had memorized the map provided by the janitor and walked fast for her objective. Of course, she knew she would be discovered eventually, she only hoped to complete her job on time. And while completing her job was always her primary goal, tonight's mission meant even more; she knew Trevor Stone led the assault on the base.
Why he chose to fight in the front lines she did not know. Indeed, the more she thought about Trevor Stone the more he confused her. Ironically, as that confusion grew she found herself more and more intrigued by the man.
Three years ago Stone traveled into hostile territory to rescue Nina and her team, for reasons she did not understand. But now-tonight-she did understand that Trevor trusted her to take out the base's defenses, to the point that he essentially placed his life in her hands.
Yes, she would complete the mission. No one-human or alien-would stand in her way.
Nevertheless, she scurried through the enemy's hallways with a silenced pistol ranking as her most lethal weapon. If things came to a firefight, she stood at a serious disadvantage. Then again, if a firefight erupted before she breached the main computer room her mission would fail.
Captain Nina Forest came to a stretch of corridor where an ancient wall-mounted security camera swung on a motorized swivel. She pressed against the wall and hurried under the device, timing her movement so as to be below the camera's arc of vision as it panned…
…Trevor led the two dozen soldiers of the strike team from the mountain slope onto the rolling, grassy hills surrounding the generator complex. With the cover of the mountainside behind, the time had come to take advantage of Omar Nehru's hard work in studying and adapting Chaktaw battle ponchos.
'Suits on,' he radioed.
One by one the soldiers touched small units mounted on their belts. The chameleon mesh on the suits powered up and adjusted to match the ambient colors around the wearers. In this case, the gray suits changed to a pattern of brown and faded gold in reflection of the dipping and rising field they crossed. The soldiers did not turn invisible- not truly-but only the keenest eyes could depict their moving silhouettes against the background…
…To Nina's left, a thin hall stretched twenty yards to a 'T'. At that 'T' waited a wall of tall glass windows and a corresponding glass door. Behind those windows and that door stood a forest of Cray Supercomputers controlling the network of security sensors around the exterior of the base.
While the place hosted only a small garrison of Cooperative soldiers, a protective shield of automated turrets
