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.
McIntire walked to the front with a rolled-up virtual map. She unrolled it and placed it on the easel Colonel Fielding had placed there.
'As you can see, our operational area is ringed with granite mountains. This will be the outermost area of the assault. The tunnels lead off in all directions as if the animals are seeking the quickest and easiest way to get out once the food supply is gone.' She turned away from the map and picked up a softball-sized instrument and held it up. 'This is a remote-sensing device that will be air-dropped onto the valley below. It will sense the vibrations underground just like the VDF remote devices each of the teams has been issued. These aboveground units will send a signal to an orbiting global-positioning satellite and an AWACS that will relay the coordinates to our teams to allow you some warning. Of course they have never been used in this manner but--'
'Thank you, Specialist,' Collins said, purposely cutting her off. The men didn't need to know the what-ifs if all this technical stuff failed.
McIntire looked at the major, then caught the innuendo about morale and turned and sat, leaving the virtual map out and displayed. The mountains were by far the predominate feature as they circled the valley like wagons in defense against Indian attack, only the Indians were in the circle with them for this fight.
'Okay, assemble to your assigned assault teams and good hunting,' Colonel Fielding said.
The men and women of the tunnel assault teams moved out of the tent with not much said. Jack watched them leave with doubt flitting at the edges of his thoughts. They needed more time to plan this assault. He could be leading them into a massacre by not knowing the animal's full potential.
The tent was near empty as Commander Everett and Lisa Willing stepped inside.
'Jack, you wanted to see Signalman Willing?'
'Yes, I did,' Jack said.
Lisa swallowed. She didn't know what was to come; Carl had said he didn't know.
Sarah was rolling up her virtual map and gathering her equipment, just getting ready to join her tunnel team.
'Specialist, if you would join us here, please,' Collins asked her.
Sarah looked from the major to Lisa and received the slightest downturn of her lips to show she had no idea what was happening. Sarah laid her gear down and joined the small group at the front of the large tent.
Collins nodded in the direction of Colonel Fielding, who quickly pushed the entrance flap aside to allow a tall, lanky man inside. He was carrying something in his arms that was covered with a white sheet. He walked quickly to the briefing table and set his small burden down, but still held on with his old and scarred hands. He lifted one of his hands and quickly removed his fedora and nodded in deference to the ladies in the tent. Then he looked at Major Collins.
Jack half smiled and looked at Sarah and Lisa. 'McIntire, Willing, we have something to show you. Colonel Fielding brought it to my attention that in case something happened to those who are privy to what you are about to learn, we had no one else in the field that could possibly protect the most vital asset we have in the coming fight. Therefore you were chosen by me in case something happens to those who are in the know. You are to make sure that this item gets back to the complex unharmed. Your lives are expendable in that pursuit. If none of us return from the assault in the tunnels, Willing, you are to immediately leave Site One with this package and return to Nevada and personally turn it over to the director. If you make it out of the tunnels, McIntire, you're part of the chain. Others have the same orders; you're just the end of the domino line. Am I understood?'
They both nodded.
'Good. This is Mr. Gus Tilly, the man responsible for us even having a fighting chance is this mess. Gus, this is Lisa Willing, U.S. Navy, and Sarah McIntire, U.S. Army.'
Gus smiled and again dipped his head in acknowledgment. 'The military's changed a mite since I was in,
