Dispersion Wars Chapters 1-2

Readers Notes: I'm sharing chapters form the first book that led to this game being made. 

For those new to Patreon: The books were completed long ago, i'm just sharing them as bonus content.

Cannon notes: My aim is to one day bring together all of my works, Drone Commander is in fact loosely set in the same group of universes. As such, it's possible the game name may change to something Dispersion Commander; which you will see why in Demo 2

Book Abstract

  It has long been considered that first contact with aliens would begin with us looking upwards into the heavens, we sure as hell didn’t expect them to come marching out of the hills. 

 In the twenty-first century Earth, hundreds of unexplained artificial structures begin appearing all over the planet. Some of these structures are benign and inactive, others… not so much. Earth has the distinguished pleasure of hosting the next onslaught from the Deritonian empire, we just don’t know it yet. 

 I Andrew Forbes, a frequent drunk with a mild gambling addiction was drafted into this mess because of my extensive training and my renewed commitment to turning over a new leaf, that and my £40k debt. I was tasked to investigate the structure UK-27, little did I know this would be my biggest gamble yet.

Dispersion Wars

“The beginnings of all things are small.”

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

-1- The Mound

The first time I witnessed a M.O.U.N.D event was during a weekday, I think it was a Wednesday, fortunately I was on vacation, so it didn’t really matter. I was drinking in a small pub at a place called Farnell; a quaint Scottish village.

The musky fumes emanating from the electric heaters reminded me that summer was coming to an end, and it was getting dark outside. I didn’t care much, as beer, entertainment and accommodation had all been paid for by the UNCC United Nations Central Command. They told me the only requirement was to check in, wait for the call and don’t go far – fine by me.

“Andrew, your turn mate” said Miguel, passing me the crooked pool queue we were forced to share.

Miguel was a skinny tech generalist in his late 20s with a bronze complexion and enough curls in his hair to qualify him entry into Crufts. I on the other hand was about a head taller than Miguel, pasty skinned and his senior by a few years. 

Miguel continued talking as I was lining up my shot,

“Anyways, I have been here for five days now, there is bugger all to do in town, aren’t you fed up with just sitting and waiting for something that may or may not happen?”

Miguel pointed to the tv in the corner that was showing an extended news broadcast, the reporter stood in a forest next to a massive clump of land which seemed totally out of place, “so far, scientists are at a loss to explain these bizarre occurrences but assure us they pose no imminent danger. Yet with words like ‘unprepared’ and ‘incursion’ being thrown around at the UN assembly, it’s no surprise that another emergency funding round of the UNCC was just unanimously approved by all nations.”

I shrugged then took my shot, “yeah, but think of it this way, with all this crazy stuff going on, it’s a nice change of pace to be here, you know, before things really kick-off.”

Just like that, both our phones started ringing.

“Frigging jinxed!” snapped Miguel jabbing me in the shoulder with his index finger, I winced a bit then let out a defeated sigh and reached for my phone.

“Hello”.

“Please confirm identity,” buzzed a disjointed female robot.

I turned the phone to my face whilst holding my finger over the back scanner.

“A.N.D.R.E.W F.O.R.B.E.S Identity confirmed, please hold”

After about 2 seconds I was connected to my commanding officer, a Lieutenant Colonel Baines, who was a 24/7 brass tacks man.

“It’s happening, log in to the UN coordinator app for briefing updates and meeting details, I need you two to go and check it out since you are the nearest”.

“Check what out?” I replied, just then we heard sounds I will never forget; a dull, heavy warbling thrum reverberated outside, similar to that of a WW2 bomber but it sounded as if it was coming from all directions. What differentiated it was the frequency, now it was all over the place speeding up and slowing down, the pitch also began to oscillate wildly…then it was gone.

Baines’s raspy voice reoriented my attention back to the call, “Ah good, I can hear it from here; the mound is in Rossie Moor a patch of farmland not far from your current location. Drive on over, cordon off the area and perform a visual inspection, but don’t go inside! You got that?” said Baines.

“Uhm…”, I hesitated.

“What is it?” Baines grumbled impatiently.

“Well, I thought we still had days and am on my third pint, I think”

“Fuck sake Forbes…. Fine, grab a taxi or pay someone to give you a lift, hell, run there if you like it’s only two miles away. I don’t care just get there pronto”.

“Will do sir” I replied but he had hung up before I could finish the sentence.    

Miguel must have got the same pep talk judging by the glum look on his face, we grabbed our stuff, updated the UNCC app and set off. conveniently, there was a taxi waiting outside for us - nice.

We turned up at Rossie Moor about ten minutes later, fortunately no one was around, it was after all the middle of nowhere. People were well aware of these events, as such curiosity had long petered out. Also, governments threatening to impose five figure fines and imprisonment for ‘trespassing’ sure helped quelch their enthusiasm.

The sun was almost set but there was just enough light from our phones to make it through the fields without too much stumbling.

We were loosely following the coordinates shown on the app, this MOUND was designated UK-71-U. The abbreviation was given to an array of structures that had appeared all over the world, in this instance: it was in the UK sector, the 71st occurrence and labelled with a U for unregistered.

I knew other labels existed, such as B for benign and I for inactive; I had admin privileges to make changes to the designation, I hoped that I would never need to use the designation M, which meant Malignant.

Just then we saw it… and smelled it. A pungent sulfur like smell drew us to an otherwise-normal hill in the middle of nowhere, but this one had sprouted an abnormal protrusion which looked like the hill had grown a wart overnight. Given the rugged surface of these anomalies, the term wart or mound became commonplace and frankly was preferable to ‘Massive Oblique Unidentified Non-Newtonian Deformation M.O.U.N.D’.

“Target located” I said to no one in particular.

“Smells like your breath” quipped Miguel, I could tell he was jesting to deflect from his fear. Think you are a brave? Remember that next time you are in a field in the pitch dark next to a giant alien tit.

“Miguel, give Baines a call, I’m going to check it out” I said.

“Shit, not him again! Guess I deserved that” replied Miguel with a grin, I returned the smile and got to work.

The wart looked like a giant had pinched at the hill, pulling it upwards as if it was a piece of soggy dough, then letting it go, to form into an unequal clump. I estimated the structure to be around fifty meters squared and six meters in height.

Interestingly the mound was made from the same matter as its surroundings which was mostly dirt and stone; I knew if you squinted the right way during the daylight part of the surface would appear transparent, this and others like it around the globe was determined to be an entrance. I took care not to fall in.

After a couple of hours of fumbling about we called it a night, there were roughly one hundred or so mounds around the world being investigated. I updated the designation on the app to B for benign and we headed back to the pub, this one could wait until the morning.

The next day we returned bright and early, already there were several military tents and jeeps on the scene, there was even a ferry-drone that been shuttling people including the rest of our unit over.    

“Ah there you are,” I turned to see Major Cooper my command officer duck down as he exited a green cammo-style tent nearby. Cooper was a tall middle-aged black British man, he carried himself with an air of confidence and authority.

“Come on in,” Cooper gestured to the tent behind him, “time to hurry up and wait,” he gave us a wink. He was referring to the militaries well known reputation of taking their sweet time to get anything done.

He held the tarpaulin up as we ducked down and made our way inside.

“Charlotte and Ella are on their way,” Cooper grabbed a seat at a plastic table next to a whiteboard, I couldn’t help but notice his belly sagged out and edged the table forward a bit as he sat.

Cooper grinned and shrugged, “the price of long service eh.”

We chuckled and got down to discussing our planned ingress to the mound if and when we got the go ahead.

Shortly after A ruffling noise drew my attention to the entrance, a petite woman with light blonde hair came in clasping a cup of coffee, “hey guys.” It was Ella Thompson our science officer, she was both a talented physicist as well as an informatics expert.

I gave her a friendly nod of my head as she sat down beside us, she returned the gesture, “I’ve been reviewing the readings from the sensors you left by the mound,” she unclipped her tac-phone from her belt and put it on the table, the screen automatically unfolded like petals on a flower to give us a bigger view of what she was talking about.

“See here,” Ella drew our attention to signal graphs and annotated tags, “same as the other mounds, nothing gets through, it’s acting as if the whole thing is an energy sink, like a black hole – nothing comes back,” she swiped, and all our devices nearby beeped with a red update light.

Tac-phones behaved like a normal phone, but heavily upgraded with the ability to sync to any UNCC equipment & devices instantly with a swipe. It also had an advanced AI which could unlock non-UNCC tech and would even attempt to learn things it never encountered before, we just referred to them as tacs or tac for short.

“As usual, we won’t know anything until we get in,” she added.

“Did you even take a break?” I asked, as Ella, Charlotte and Cooper had only just been reactivated by the UNCC.

“Err, kind of,” Ella looked at us coyly, “I was doing a side project back at central.”

“Hah, of course you were,” Miguel boomed, “at least you didn’t have to pay rent.”

“Oh yeah,” Ella turned back to me, with an sympathetic expression, “how did you get on? Did you have to sell your flat?”

I scratched at my head uncomfortably and sighed, “yeah, the bailiffs barely got twenty percent of the debt and I’m exempt from emergency loans, so I had to sell.”

“That’s rough mate,” Miguel said, “any cash left over?”

I nodded in the affirmative, “yeah, but that’s why I opted for early activation.”

There were some solemn nods of understanding, “ah,” Cooper said, “so they put you up at the pub for on centrals tab, so you don’t have to rush into finding a new place just yet?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “UNCC also pay time and a half for early deployment.”

When mounds started appearing all over the world, many signed up out of patriotism or the chance for exploration, I however didn’t really have much of a choice. I was in significant debt due to my gambling issues after my business fell through, and recent automation breakthroughs meant jobs were hard to come by.

“You really need to take up that counselling offer Forbes,” Cooper patted me on the shoulder, he gave me a friendly but stern smile, “I might be forced to make you, especially if your tac field scores and metrics come back low, you know I don’t want to do that.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” sighing, I took out my phone and made a show of looking for the UNCC invite to accept.

“You silly twat!” I looked up from my phone just as a crumpled piece of paper hit my head, it was thrown by Charlotte Wilkinson our combat Medic, she was slim and short with dark black skin and very pronounced cheekbones as she grinned, which she was doing just now.

“Eh? What did I do?”, I exclaimed in mock surprise.

“Goldilocks ring any bells?” she said flipping me the bird, “I put fifty on that horse to finish first because you wouldn’t shut up about her.”

Charlotte had a fierce personality, but she was also a social butterfly and was well liked by the whole team. Though her direct approach had helped us, it had also gotten us into bother with the higher ups, nevertheless she was still one of us.

“But she did come first,” I protested.

“Err, no she didn’t you dick,” Charlotte retorted, “she came third.”

“Third?” I replied, “no, I was talking about the horse Goldilocks zone, not Goldilocks.”

Charlottes jaw sagged, “what!?”, she took out her tac which showed her data without the need for prompting, “oh for fuck sake!” she exclaimed.

We all burst out into laughing, I threw the paper ball back at her which she swatted out the way, knocking it towards Miguel’s head.

“Ok, kids settle down,” Cooper raised his hand calling for our attention, “now you are all here, I want to let you know I’ve spoken to Baines who has assured us we are definitely the ones to go in, but there has been a hold up by UNCC coordinators.”

Charlotte waved her hands dismissively, “pfft, the UNCC couldn’t coordinate a g angbang.”

We chuckled and got back to drinking coffee and catching up.

Our team of five were part of a newly formed series of global rapid response units. We each specialized in at least two domains, the reasoning from the brass was simple: given we have no idea what we will encounter in the mounds, it’s best to maximize the skill sets available. This mound was pretty small so a team of 5 was about right.

After several hours of waiting and drinking coffee we were finally given clearance to enter.

As I stepped into the partially transparent barrier, I experienced a thick gelatin like gloop engulf my body as it offered a small but noticeable resistance, I flinched as the cold smothering encroached upon my face and neck. The thought of it seeping into my ear canal made me grit my teeth and tense every muscle in my body. Fortunately, it didn’t happen and before I could give it a second thought, I was through.

Reorienting myself and grabbing my bearings, I could see we were in a small cave, bizarrely the light from outside did not disperse through the whole room, instead it tapered into a small triangle on the floor as if it were being sucked into a black hole.

There was however some ambient light being emitted from the large glowing symbols on the walls, unable to see any discernible power source, I decided to check it out. 

Meanwhile Cooper was working on what appeared to be a doorway directly opposite the entrance that we came through.

“Fuck, it won’t budge. There is a small hole though, let’s try to poke it with something long and thin.” suggested Cooper.

“Use your dick,” said Miguel.

Laughter ensued throughout the team, I was glad they were in good spirits…and that Cooper didn’t drop Miguel outright.

Ella was applying all of the force her slim build could muster into pushing up against the entrance that we just came through, it had apparently sealed up yet was still letting light in. Huffing with exertion she brushed her blonde bangs back from her face and gestured to the rest of the team,

“It’s locked up, so, what do we do now? Why do you think the drones we sent made it in and out?”. 

“No idea” I replied, “maybe the entrance seals up after a set number of pass-throughs?”.

I was assigned to the team as a mech-tech, the equivalent of a combat engineer and it was my job to co-assess any signs of technology, but already I was feeling out of my depth.

“It could be some sort of barrier that sensed biological life and bagged us like a Venus fly trap” retorted Ella.

“Yeah, I thought of that too, let’s try not to piss our pants just yet though,” I turned to my CO, “any luck Cooper?” I asked.

“Kind of, it feels like I’m picking a padlock, I definitely have traction on the pin, it’s just…”

“Just what?” I asked.

Cooper went eerily silent, removed the pick, turned around to look at us, he was frozen with a blank expression.

Cooper was deadpan and unresponsive to our questions, he just looked at us, moving his eyes from one person to the next.

“What the fuck Cooper?” exclaimed Miguel noticing that something wasn’t quite right.

“Guys! Look sharp!” he continued, gesturing towards the rest of us, we instantly complied raising and pointed our guns towards Cooper. In the UNCC paranoia precedes etiquette.

“Don’t even fucking think about it mate”, said Miguel.

Cooper was the assigned leader, military trained, even although he was only recently promoted to Major in the British Army, he secured this job due to his recent experience with a similar mound structure found in Wales.

Cooper was the last to enter back then, found everyone unconscious and dragged each of them out, one at a time. This made him a bit of a minor celebrity and certainly didn’t hurt his career.

Now however, expressionless Cooper started for Ella, as he sprinted the rest of the team began firing, except nothing happened.

“Shoot him, my fucking gun’s jammed!” exclaimed Miguel.

“Mines too, shit!” replied a panicked Ella.

Thinking fast I stuck out my foot, tripping Cooper; with no time to recover he carried his momentum, then stumbled. Wham! his face hit the ground hard, jaw first as the side of his face and elbows skidded along the rugged surface making the whole team wince in unison.

I quickly followed up, putting my boot on Cooper’s back and snapping my gun in anticipation of resistance, but there was none. Just like that Cooper stopped moving.

“What the hell, is he conscious?” I exclaimed.

Miguel began inching slowly towards Cooper

I spoke again, “Cooper, what’s going on? Charlotte, check him out.”

Charlotte, the competent all-rounder in the team was also a biochemist as well as a medic, she was one of the first members assigned to the team. This was in response to the Wales incident that mandated all teams to have medical support.

“His pupils are dilated and sluggish, he looks out of it”.

“Cooper, can you hear me? Are you alright?” she asked.

Cooper raised his head to look at Charlotte as if awaking from a hangover.

“Charlotte? What happened?”

“It’s alright, can you remember anything? You went full fuck nugget on us for a moment there”

“I…I remember messing about with the door, that’s about it. I must have blacked out”.

Charlotte gestured for me to let Cooper get up, I kept the muzzle of my gun pointed towards him, hesitantly I eased off and took stock of our situation, shit, does that mean I’m in command? I pondered.

“Charlotte, fix him up, also let’s report this back to central, sorry Cooper I’m going to have to bind your hands for a bit to reduce the unknown variables, hope you understand chap”.

“Yeah…ok”

“Cheers, oh and good job not bitching about your injuries” I said giving Miguel a wink.

“Get fucked” Miguel quipped. That at least put a smile on Cooper’s face, reminding us of some humorous antics a couple of weeks back.

I began getting down to business, working on the portable equipment we brought in with us. All teams assigned to the mounds were supplied with ‘science crates’, essentially a metal box of tricks including oscilloscopes, multi-meters, comms equipment and more.

“Guys I don’t think our video feeds are getting through, I tried contacting base but got frig all,” I lamented.

“That’s the null field,” Ella replied, she noted our looks of confusion, “err, that’s what we are calling it, we think the material that makes up this place has EM dampening properties.”

I scratched my chin in thought, “maybe the creators are likely to be hostile then”.

“How so?” asked Cooper, who was by now sitting on the side of the box licking his wounds.

“Well, I’m guessing the doorway that messed with you has some kind of friend or foe recognition, that’s probably what made you go shitballs” I explained.

“That’s conjecture mate,” Cooper replied.

“Yeah but think about it, we are likely to be inside something like an airlock. The outer door can afford to swing open now and again, but the inner door has to be strictly locked down”

“Actually, that makes sense, but the outer door we came through seems to be opaque now,” said Charlotte.

“That’s where the hostile bit comes in,” I gave Charlotte a thumbs up, “someone clearly wants to come through to our side but prevent us from going the other way.”

Miguel chuckled, “Maybe he or she has an evil corporate key card or something”.

Trying to hide his concern, Cooper shuffled towards me, giving me his full attention.

“Hmm, ok, that makes sense, but it doesn’t mean they are hostile. It’s probably just an advanced airlock, to ensure it’s not accidentally opened by flying debris or something”.

“True, but that’s why you would put a failsafe on the door – to mess with any biological entity trying to come back through that isn’t on their team” I said with a grimace on my face, half realizing the gravity of what I just said.

“Shiii… so it is a trap then?” Charlotte exclaimed, nodding towards Ella in recognition, given she originally called it.

“Uh, yeah, yeah I guess so” I replied.

Cooper made a spinning motion with his index finger, “Right, I’ve heard enough, we’re scrubbing this, let’s get out ASAP we need to report this. Ella, I need you to…what the…weren’t you listening? get back from there! Didn’t you just see what happened to me?”.

At this point Ella was right next to the doorway as though she was struggling to peer through a fogged-up window trying to make out what was on the other side. Ella’s expression suddenly changed; her eyes widened, and she slowly stepped back

“guys, I think someone’s coming”.

Just then a silhouette formed on the doorway, it wasn’t shaped like a human, for one thing, I was counting four arms or appendages. It was on two legs and upright, it was tall, very tall. I could hear a faint humming noise and I was pretty sure I could feel static in the air, just then the weirdest thing happened. The door didn’t open, rather a tiny black circle appeared on the surface, it expanded until the recess was the size of a doorway, it seemed to then fall back on itself as if eating out a chunk from the wall increasing in depth. Light around it seemed to contort as if it was a black hole.  

In the black void stood a figure what could best be described as a humanoid body with a head resembling that of an alligator, except the skin on the face was a metallic silver. It was holding a metal rod of sorts and appeared to have lots of items or equipment attached to its clothing I couldn’t tell if it was tech, ceremonial attire or armor, I was dreading it was the latter.

My mum used to say that most people who look violent, usually are. It took us all of 10 seconds to validate this hypothesis, after shouting and signaling for it to drop the rod, it looked at us and began talking. Bizarrely what we assumed to be its mouth didn’t move. At first, we heard garbled gibberish, then we could make out a single word being verbalized, slowly and labored as if speaking for the first time.

“S   C   U    M”

“I don’t think that’s alien speak for aloha” Miguel said aloud. Just then out of nowhere I felt a violent force pulling me downward, being a 6ft guy I can hold my own, in this case however, I crumpled to the ground like Jenga.

My face was smushed tightly to the ground, it took tremendous effort just to raise my head, but I managed it; looking around I could see the rest of the team didn’t fare any better. We were stuck to the ground, as if gravity had just increased 5-fold, looking at the croc man or whatever the hell he was, I could see he was interacting with his rod device, I feared he was typing up a new recipe of pain for us.

Angry and desperate I spoke without thinking, (a daily occurrence for me), “fucking Pussy” I jibed.

The alien turned its attention to me,

“Interesting, you talk about mating with felines in your last moments. Primates are so perplexing”.

The alien’s voice was a low, throaty rasp, filled with a sinister undertones and an almost reptilian timbre. Each word was drawn out, dripping with venom and malice.

Being completely oblivious to the psychology of croc men, I decided anger might be a universal trait, and that it was a theory worth testing.

“No, I mean you are a coward, a big guy like you has to force us to the ground, you must be really scared of us.”

“What are you babbling about human? I’m not here to fight you, that’s beneath me, we have slaves for that. I am an emissary assigned to deliver the terms of your planet’s capitulation, to your leaders in person”.

His words drove a pang of fear, confirming the worst of our worries about him. I re-oriented myself, tuned out my concerns to focus on the here and now.

“Ok, ok I understand, you’re scared, don’t worry we won’t tell anyone. Anyway, I’m sure the guys watching this back at central won’t think you are running away. You are after all a grand emissary”, when I bullshit, I always like to go extra-large with a side serving of fuck you.

The being made a low clacking like noise, “Insolence, fine I will grant you your wish, I will carry your entrails with me as a trinket for your leaders, regardless, it should serve to better clarify our intentions”.

Our croc-man friend pointed his wand of misery in my direction, but I instantly felt the pressure alleviate, I got up, noticing the rest of my team were still pinned to the floor. This fired me right up as fight or flight kicked in and for a moment I really considered going for it, but a quick re-evaluation of the alien’s physique drove some harsh realities home. Even although I was 6ft he still towered over me by at least another 3 feet. I decided to stall for time.

“What’s your name? Why come out all this way, we must be pretty valuable to you.”

“Scum, you know nothing, your world is just a single item on a long backlog.”

“Hah, I get it, you are just a servant, maybe at your level, name and rank are so meaningless it may as well be omitted”.

It was my experience, that the best way to piss off arrogant people with power, was to question the basis of their power. Today I was in luck, well sort off; croc-man pivoted sideways and lunged for me with its two right arms, I darted backwards dodging most of the attack.

One of its claws however, caught a buckle on the side of my uniform ripping it out and spinning me around like a mummy, I fell to the ground but quickly righted myself in preparation for its next play.

“I’ve changed my mind, I’m going to keep you as my pet, I will enjoy torturing every last increment of your flesh”

Running out of ideas, my eyes darted around the room frantically looking for something I could use, just then I noticed Cooper pinned down next to my feet, I don’t normally carry a combat knife, but Cooper sure does.

I urgently gr oped my very confused senior officer and found what I was looking for. Not liking my odds in hand to claw combat, I decided to go for gold, I twirled the knife in my fingers and threw it with as much force as I could muster at the startled being.

The alien let out a deafening wail, even though it was exactly what I was hoping for, the deep warbling growl was disconcerting. Refocusing my vision, I could see I had nailed Mr. croc right in the eyeball, unlike crocodiles on earth, its eyes were more central and bulbous. I couldn’t believe my luck; I was aiming for anywhere on the face and didn’t expect to hit the bullseye so to speak.

Now however wasn’t time to celebrate, I needed to capitalize on my luck, I dove in close and grabbed the metallic wand-like object. Retreating back to the other corner of the room, I was on borrowed time and was ready to bash buttons when I noticed there were six circles, four of which were inside red boxes.

I quickly figured out what the red boxes meant, now I just needed to guess which of the two circles was me and which was our croc friend.

Assuming naturally the nearest one was myself; I tapped the other circle and boy was it a sight to see. The alien was instantly and violently pulled to the ground, for an added bonus, it fell face first; this had the unintended effect of driving the knife further into its skull...if it even had one. It made a subdued gargling noise as fluids gushed out its face, the sight was not pretty.

Now came the hard part, looking at the device, I didn’t know if tapping the red squares would remove the gravity field or up the ante and turn my team into pancakes. Acutely aware of their agony I had to act, I tapped the next square closest to myself then Cooper slumped out on his back, his body sprawled over the ground.

At first, I thought I had killed him, but I was soon relieved when I heard him groan and curse. I repeated the process for everyone else, and soon we were back on our feet again.

“Cooper isn’t doing too well,” Charlotte approached me jerking her head backwards in his direction and spoke in hushed tones, “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to monitor his state down here given what he …has been through.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right” I sighed, “I’ll need to report this up the chain anyway.” I turned for the exit, but then I remembered, “shit, that barrier thing is still there.”

Ella gestured to the staff I was holding onto, “why don’t we give that a try sir? Maybe that alien switched it on to stop us escaping?”

I extended the flat end of it outwards for her to see, “last time it just lit up with dots and squares,” I said, “I’ve no clue how it works.”

“May I?”, Ella gestured for me to hand it over, shrugging I spun it upright and placed it in her hands.

Ella’s eyes lit up as if she was a dog with a bone, she pawed at it, inspecting every nook and cranny.

“Ah, I think I’ve got it,” Ella tapped at the staff in several places, then pointed it towards the barrier. A barely audible hum preceded the feeling of static electricity crawling up my necks.

 “Uh, I think that’s it,”

We all gathered ourselves, but with a new sense of paranoia, we slowly but cautiously edged our way out of the mound.

Once I was able, I called to Baines:

“Colonel, we are back from wart UK-27 and have some urgent intel to update you on” I said.

“What? Why the hell are you back so soon? Report!” Baines replied in an irritable manner.

“Uh well we kind of made first contact sir”

“What do you mean kind of? You either did or you didn’t”

“We did, but the enemy was hostile and alien”

There was a silence on Baines end.

“Sir are you there”

Yes, so what happened? How many died?”, Baines seemingly distracted.

“None sir, it used some very advanced technology, but we managed to get the upper hand.”

“Hmm, impressive; look we need you to go back in there, we don’t have time for mission planning or briefings. I’m going to forward pertinent details to your tac, I need you to explore the tunnels, find anything of strategic value and inflict some damage. Better yet, find someone of importance, and bring them back here by force.”

“Tunnels? You mean the doorway?”

“Yes, don’t worry they are safe, but we haven’t been able to get many teams through. A lot has happened in the past 2 hours; we are encountering hostile resistance at a number of mounds. Look Forbes, we need to find a way to regain initiative and I need you to make it happen”.

“Uh ok sir, can we get a couple of hours to review our data and change our gear?”

“You’ve got 30 minutes, by the way did your friend say anything before you offed him?”

“Only that we were scum, and he was an emissary to our leaders to demand our surrender.”

Baines chuckled “hah, figures, ok, try to catch them alive next time. Oh yea, when you go back in toss its body out to us and anything else you found of value.”.

I was going to reply but he had already hung up.

Looking at the team, I broke the news to them “looks like we are going back in” I said, they looked like I had just flushed their goldfish.

-2- The Sphere

My team headed for coffee and took the time to digest what just happened, we plonked ourselves down on stools in a makeshift canteen which was essentially a big tent.

“This is bullshit” said Miguel for the fourth time, he leaned in towards us and continued

“We go in there, get cut off from the outside world, make first contact and nearly become pancakes damnit, then they send us right back in! no debrief, nothing. Shit, you think they would at least make time to reprimand us for killing a diplomat or something”.

“You can always take the bench on this one” I said, “just give Baines a call”.

“Nah, it’s cool big guy” replied Miguel in a welcome change of tone.

Passing the sugar to Miguel, Ella interjected, “I agree, given all that’s going on and how nonchalant our higher-ups have been, this still feels weird”.

“I know what you mean” I replied, “for one thing, Baines knows a hell of a lot more than the briefing updates this morning. He knew about the doorway and didn’t seem surprised that we made first contact with aliens”.

It had been something that wasn’t sitting right with me, why didn’t he ask more about the ambassador? Does he know what we will encounter in the mound?

Charlotte nodded her head, gesturing in the general direction of the mound, “those things aren’t man made, it was just a matter of time before ET would show up, I bet the brass knew that, but that alien was insane, how did it pin us down like that?”.

Ella perked up at the mention of the alien, “it’s unbelievable, it looked so familiar especially given the variety of forms that life could take. The fact this alien was a bipedal creature with eyes, teeth and comparable height seems beyond convergent evolution to me”

“Comparable height? I wouldn’t go that far, it made Andrew look like a toddler,” said Charlotte. Chuckling, Ella replied “true, but why wasn’t it the size of a whale or a flea for that matter?”.

“This is the size that gets shit done!” said Miguel unscientifically.

“Speaking of which, let’s gear up guys. We need to leave Cooper behind on this one, I’ve briefed the medical team, he needs a full check-up but is in good care”.

“Are we getting a replacement for Cooper?”, asked Ella.

“Nope, you’re stuck with me for the moment, it seems central are anxious to get us back in ASAP”.

“That’s rich,” said Charlotte bitterly, “if we were Grey Unit, they would fill the spot instantly with Einstein or something.” Grey unit were one of the first teams assigned to explore the mounds, they gained press coverage simply because they were world class and hand-picked known as the S-class unit. But soon after the mounds got boring, so the next batch of UNCC were produced, they were all-star elites in the A-class category. After that the ranked specialists B-class were formed. Finally, there was us, just the specialists, unranked and rated C-class, we were all-rounders tasked with plugging the gaps in mound coverage’. At least we weren’t the UNCC regulars D-class, or the auxiliary support commonly referred to as the sloppy seconds that had no rating.

“Hmmm, if there really are tunnels inside, let’s take Navi” suggested Miguel.

Navi was a new technology rushed into service by the UNCC, it was essentially a mini flying drone. Navi functioned as an on-site personal assistant to units in the field, it was semi-intelligent and fully autonomous boasting the latest array of integrated smart tech.

In general Navi would fly about doing its thing and when it got ‘tired’ it would find an outlet to charge up. We were fitted with shoulder patches which Navi could land on to periodically leech off our uniform’s power supply, fortunately our gear recharged with movement, so it was a convenient arrangement.

 “I just got a text from Baines”, said Charlotte as we made our way back to the mound.

“What does it say?” I asked.

Smirking she read the message aloud, “Don’t waste your time fucking about with hazmat suits, there’s breathable air on the other side of the tunnel. I can see your GPS location so tell them to stop pissing their pants and get a move on.”.

“He’s all bum and parsley that one” said Miguel, who had a thing for Scottish Idioms, in this case I had to agree; Baines was a prick.

We made it back inside the mound, nothing had changed so we got to prepping our gear and performing some final checks.

After fidgeting with her equipment, Ella stood up and straightened her back, “electronics seem to be working again”, she then consulted her tablet, “still no telemetry back from Navi.”

Ella placed her gear down and gestured us to follow her to place the alien entered from, “all indications show that doorway the alien ambassador came through is still active and I’m picking up minimal radiation”.

“Do you know where it leads to?” Miguel asked.

Ella shook her head, “afraid not.”

“…I suppose we just walk through then?” asked Charlotte.

“Suppose so” I said through gritted teeth as I stepped into the tunnel.

“Wai…”, before I could hear the rest of Miguel’s sentence my vision blanked out and my hearing cut off. It’s hard to tell but I think there was a brief gap where I couldn’t feel anything although I am sure I was conscious through it all.

It was now pitch dark, instinctively I tried to step back but felt a force preventing me from doing so, I continued onwards until I was somewhere else. Light crept into my vision and detail slowly emerged, before I could get my bearings I was overcome with a wave of static. A light throbbing sensation moved from my feet up to my head, once complete I felt able to move freely again.

Gaining my senses, I could see I was indeed inside a tunnel, the walls emitted their own ambient deep blue lighting with occasional patterns dotted around the surface.  Looking back at the entrance, I could see a dark shadow similar to the door on the other side.

Deciding to not go too far, I waited on the rest of the team; I reflected on just how bizarre the tunnel structure looked, it wasn’t sterile and smooth like an underground bunker, but it wasn’t rugged like a mole tunnel either, it was somewhere in between. Familiar whiffs of petrichor, the wet earthly scent filled my nostrils, complimented by bizarre fragrances I couldn’t place rounded off with synthetic odors that reminded me of fresh packaging. 

The walls were clearly technological, the patterns and pictures appeared to be familiar at times like constellations and the others looked like complete jargon.

Once the team arrived and got over the initial shock and disorientation, we began to move out to explore deeper into the tunnels.

After walking for some time we finally arrived at an opening. We were in a small room with a tunnel in front and two behind us, including the one we just exited.

Ella tapped me on the shoulder, “Sir, can we take a breather? I want to go over the sensory data from Navi”.

“Proceed lieutenant”

Ella pulled out a small odd-looking tablet with the bottom half of the screen comprised of physical buttons. The small hand-sized drone waltzed over perching itself on Ella’s shoulder as she began her analysis.

“Where the hell are we?” asked Charlotte.

“Dunno, I’m not getting a signal on GPS,” replied Miguel.

Ella looked at us with concern, “Uh, we might not be on earth.”

That drew all of our attention, “our planet’s magnetic field is unique in our solar system; it ranges from about 0.25 to 0.65 gauss, but Navi’s magnetometer is reading a far lower value. I checked the backup instrument, it concurs.”

“Shhh! Listen!” I interjected clasping my hand around my ear. Hesitating for a moment then frowning Miguel spoke up, “pretty sure that’s gunfire”.

“It’s coming from behind us, it can’t be the tunnel we just came through, so it has to be the other one. Let’s go check it out, people may need our help.”

“Andrew, you sure that’s wise mate?”

“It’s Captain to you, Lieutenant, and this is the shit show that Baines sent us on”

Sure, we are a newly formed unit and I liked Miguel, but I still needed to maintain a command structure, even if it was just the four of us. That meant avoiding first names. But then I was guilty of that myself.

I nodded to Miguel, he could see that I regretted being overly harsh, I needed to decide what kind of leader I wanted to be, I parked the thought for now.

I pointed to the rear tunnel, “Thompson, pack up the diagnostics kit and send Navi ahead to scout for us”.

“I’m on it sir, but I need to keep the tablet for the video feed”

“Understood, everyone else get prepared to follow but let’s keep our distance, ok?”,

“Sir!”, the group all responded in the affirmative.

Navi flew its way through the winding tunnel streaming a real time video feed back to Ella, the four of us followed behind all the while fixated on the tablet display.

As Navi took another corner the now familiar snaking pattern of the tunnels gave way to a vast opening, the enclosure was huge, easily big enough to fit a football stadium…and then some. The land was uneven, hilly even and dotted around with all sorts of artificial structures, possibly vehicles with large patches of greenery and vegetation; I got the distinct feeling this place had witnessed eons.

“What the, where is the light source coming from?” I asked, even though I could see walls in the distance this place felt like the vast outdoors, it was perplexing.

“Everywhere, I think” replied Ella, “these walls appear to be emitting ambient light, the intensity varies but increases as you go up, look at the ceiling.”

I tilted one of the camera controls, “whoaa,” the sky was awash in a deep and warm orangey-yellow, “that explains the plant life” I considered.

We soon spotted a floating sphere about a meter or so in diameter, which was moving erratically and sending out the occasional sharp flashes of light.   

“Sir, there are definitely people around, I think they are hiding from that giant orb.”

I was about to ask for more detail when the sphere drifted in the direction of what appeared to be a large pile of debris. Just like that the pile vanished in thin air, revealing three people who were moments ago hiding for cover. What we saw next will stick with me for a long, long time.

They opened fire in unison for about 10 seconds then stopped abruptly, even though Navi was about 100 meters away, their screams were picked up in grim detail by the microphone. Starting from the bottom up they each slowly began to disappear, helpless to do anything, it reminded me of an artist erasing their characters out of existence.

As horrible as it sounds, what shocked me the most wasn’t the engagement but seeing the color drain out from my teammates faces. It must have happened to me too, as none of us made a sound, we were frozen in place, just staring at the tablet.

Just then another group of people appeared, leaving their cover behind to engage the sphere. The sound of gunfire shook me out of my trance and snapped me back into reality, it was time to act.

“Let’s go let’s go! They need our help!”

Clearly this had the same effect on my team, we all sprang to life moving towards the chamber with purpose, no one complained, and I was proud of them.

“Sir, it still hasn’t fried them yet” wheezed Charlotte mid sprint.

“Maybe it needs time to charge up” replied Miguel.

“That’s why they chose to engage, come on we are nearly there!” I said.

Turning the corner, we were suddenly taken aback by the sheer size of the place, I estimate it to be about three hundred meters end to end, there was more greenery than I originally thought, it felt like being out in the open. Reality soon kicked in and we began hugging the rear wall like frightened mice.

“Their gunfire doesn’t seem to be having any effect”, Miguel noted, “wait, hold on, I think it is. I can make out some dings in the gunfire, at least some of them must be getting through”.

Indeed, this was the case, large dents were now visible on the sphere with scorch marks on the ground from heavy weapons damage.

I squatted down, signaling the team to do the same, “I have an idea, Miguel pass me the rod we got from the croc alien, I’m going to try something”

Pulling the device we recovered from the emissary earlier out of his backpack, he made his way over to me and he handed it over.

“You better act quick mate, somethings happening”.

It was too late, a dull humming noise grew as waves of light rippled around the surface of the sphere, the dents and scorch marks began to disappear along with another victim.  This time I could see the horror on her face, it was much slower this time and very disturbing. 

“Fuck! That’s another, but it looks like only one person this time”.

Ella signaled for my attention, “Sir, I think it’s depleted of charge, there were two distinct drops in E.M in this room, I think they tied closely to the sphere attack. It might be vulnerable now”

As if reading her mind, more people sprang out from cover engaging the sphere, this time it darted away in retreat, and those brave souls gave chase.

I finally understood what was happening, this was a game of cat and mouse, only when the sphere had shot it’s load it’s shielding was weakened so it backed off.

“It’s too fucking fast, they can’t catch it” exclaimed Charlotte.

“I know, hold on, Thompson are you able to connect me to all UNCC members in the area?”

Ella began frantically tapping commands into her tablet, “Done, you’re patched in via Navi, it’s unencrypted though”, I would just have to take the risk.

“To all UNCC engaging the sphere, my team have just come on site and we are about to try something to incapacitate it, please keep back”.

I was trying to get the rod working again, I had been fiddling with it in the tent and was getting a feel for the alien interface, the display was dynamic and seemed to change based on the situation, this time it was back to looking like it did when I first used it. I observed around 10 glowing circles in the middle, four on the outside, I guessed that was us and finally a much duller circle at the other end of the chamber.

“This is captain Joe Price from the US section, please act fast if we don’t press the advantage real soon more will die”

“Hold your horses cowboy” said Charlotte, “we are working on it”.

Too busy to reprimand her poor etiquette I pressed the dull circle symbol, but nothing happened. The sphere continued to dart about, evading gunfire.

“Sir, it’s not working”.

“I know! Give me a second”.

I pressed it again, nothing, “Fuck” I exclaimed, I then double tapped the icon and it flashed a strong byzantine purple, this time I got a reaction, just not the one I had hoped for.

“It’s moving towards us! What did you do?” exclaimed Ella.

“Shit, just a second!”

I double tapped again, and again the deep purple twinkled.

Desperate I went into button bashing mode, by the third tap I froze, then jerked as if struck by lightning.

“F   R   I   E   N   D”

Out of the blue the word friend was sounded out in my mind; in clear English, even more disturbing, the letters flashed in my field of view. Freaked out, but still caught up in the urgency of things, I continued tapping, on the fourth tap new words appeared.

“F   O   E”

“Sir we need to act!” shouted Miguel.

“I’ve got it!” I exclaimed, instinctually I held the icon down this time. The circle icon became enclosed by a red square. The sphere didn’t react right away, rather it slowed down as if encountering some invisible resistance. Eventually it slowed to a crawl and then stopped in mid-air, about 20 meters from our position.

“Open fire, take it out!” I yelled.

The four of us laid into that bastard orb without mercy. The noise was deafening, a plethora of pings and ricochets quickly increased in frequency as we switched from burst fire to full auto.

We unleashed a torrent of abuse onto the sphere as it began to wobble and sputter. Grabbing a grenade from my pack, I set the timer to three seconds and shouted “down!” as I side armed the explosive upwards into an arcing trajectory.

We took cover as it arced towards the sphere, a satisfying bang was followed by an echo of thunder. We peered out from behind our cover, Charlotte winced, “Fuck, it’s still intact!”.

“Hold on a moment, I think we got it”.

The blacked sphere’s spin began to slow and was clearly wobbling as the tilt axis was all over the place. It then stopped, dropped out the air and hit the ground, breaking open like an egg.

“Humpty dumpty is down! Fuck yea!” whooped Miguel.

At this point others in the room were catching up, they spotted us and began taking a longer safer route towards us keeping clear of the orb, I couldn’t blame them.

“Lieutenant, send Navi over to check it out” I signaled to Ella.

About then, a giant hulk of a man approached us, he was African American, buzz cut with a gruff beard and spoke with an easily discernible US accent “Well fucking done!”.

“Joe Price?” I asked

“The one and only at your service, thanks for helping us out there. We lost many good people, I really thought we were done for”

“Glad we could help Joe, my names Andrew Forbes, I’m our generalist”, pointing at each one of my team members I continued, “that’s Ella Thompson our academic, Charlotte Wilkinson our Medic and Miguel Costa our tech.” Using generalized professions was much more convenient given that everyone was multi-skilled.

Looking at Joe with concern I asked, “what happened here captain?”, Joe sighed putting his hand on his forehead to wipe sweat of his brow, “It was a big cluster fuck, I was part of a much larger squad when we first encountered that monster of a thing”, pointing towards the sphere in disgust Joe continued “it began stalking us, picking a few of us off at a time. We were lost but soon met up with other teams from Europe, China and Africa who joined us, but now we are all that’s left. Until you showed up, the sphere was winning by attrition.”

Putting my arm on Joe’s shoulder I was about to attempt some form of consolation when Ella shouted aloud “Sir!!”. Snapping my head around towards the sphere, it took me a few seconds for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing.

Navi our drone, was hovering above the broken sphere, blue sapphire tendrils crept outwards and upwards from the core snaking towards Navi.

“Get it out of there!”

“I can’t sir! The controls won’t respond”

I was about to order the team to fire, when Ella spoke up.

“Sir, come look at this!”

Passing over her tablet, the interface display had disappeared and was replaced with plain text.

“Please don’t kill me, I am no longer trapped or controlled”,

We stared at each other in shock.

“Everyone hold your fire! Joe have you seen anything like this before?” I asked.

“No, I appreciate you helping us out here, but I vote we take it out, we can’t take the chance”

“Wilkinson, Costa, Thompson? Ideas? Thoughts?”

“Fry the fucker” said Charlotte, “agreed” concurred Miguel.

With a look of conviction, Ella stepped forward,

“Sir, if this is sentient life, we can’t just murder it, especially if it’s a victim as it claims. I’m not strictly military but, isn’t this a great chance to gain intel?”

I looked back at Joe and he shrugged his shoulders at me, which was a powerful testament to his character, that he could remain impartial given what he had been through.

The blue goo like tendrils were now probing Navi as they slowly encroached onto its outer casing, I had to think fast.

Typing into the tablet and speaking aloud I said, “Why should we believe you after what you have just done?”.

Before I could finish typing however, more text appeared on the screen.

“I can help you save __earth__”