Aquifer: A Novel (9 page)

Clayton instinctively recognized the shock wave for what it was, even though he had never been so close to the source of one before, nor been so thoroughly jarred by its impact. Although he recognized what he was experiencing, his mind could not fathom the intensity of the experience. He instantly remembered when he was a teenager, back in the 1960s, that commercial airliners occasionally broke the sound barrier creating sonic booms which, though quite mild in comparison to this one, broke windows in stores and homes. Laws were eventually passed that limited aviation velocity over populated areas. So to Larry’s generation, sonic booms were unknown. Therefore, what Larry had just experienced, was something for which he was totally unprepared.

As the flaming incandescent object screamed overhead it lit up the entire riverbank so brightly that the men’s eyes could neither focus nor adjust. They were momentarily blinded by its brilliance. The flash lasted less than a second – only to be immediately followed by a tingling and mildly searing heat wave. The cool evening air was instantaneously heated by fifty degrees. The momentary heat wave passed just as quickly as did the flash of light, sharply contrasted by the chilling dampness of the Ozark night air which seemed to be sucked in behind it. Then thick, heavy darkness and silence settled in. The silence was elusively palpable. Even the critters of the forest dared not break the stillness. The sound of the two men’s blood coursing throughout their bodies was the only sound they heard as it thundered in their ears with each succeeding heartbeat.

Then the silence was shattered as Clayton dropped his dinner plate and coffee mug onto the ground and slowly rose to his feet. As he stood, he turned his head to follow the arching glide-path of the now distant flaming object. He watched as confusion and disbelief drained his face. Both men gazed at the falling object until it disappeared behind a distant hill beyond the bend in the river downstream, only to be immediately followed by the brilliant light of the object’s impact silhouetting the mountain ridge before them.

Obviously this was not a plane crash. Neither was it a meteorite. The two men were stunned and speechless, standing there as the lone witnesses to the demise of the celestial object which had just passed above them.

Shortly the deep boom of an explosion came from the direction of the impact.

“Twenty-five seconds . . . about . . . five miles from here. First thing in the morning we’re checking it out,” Clayton declared, not knowing what else to say.

=/\=

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

Cheyenne Mountain

Eight hundred miles to the west, chaos ruled at a military satellite tracking station buried deep within Cheyenne Mountain outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. A training exercise had been in progress in which a new breed of
Star Wars
weaponry, a Laser-guided Missile Defense System (LMDS), was being tested. Moments earlier, a drone target rocket had been launched from a base in the South Pacific.

Everything had been proceeding according to expectations. The drone had been on course and the satellite defensive weapon had locked onto it.

“Systems Report!” General Branigan had snapped at a technician bent over a computer work station.

“The drone should enter the intercept range within three minutes,” the technician had reported. “The LMDS is powering up and will soon be ready to take it out.”

“Let’s hope this thing works half as well as the designers claim it will,” groused General Branigan.

The General and his aides had watched the wall-sized projections of computer screens and monitors that were mounted around the room, while other team members had been focused on their personal computer screens. Trajectories had been calculated, time to impact was indicated, capacitance charging levels were projected; both manual and automatic tracking and monitoring of all aspects of the test were reflected upon the massive wall screens.

“Star Wars laser capacitance is now fully charged. Time to firing is T-minus 30 seconds and counting,” the technician had reported. “Target drone is on course.”

“Switch to tactical onboard computer targeting and auto fire sequence . . . Gentlemen, let’s see what this puppy can do,” Branigan had ordered.

The computer console screens reported the drone’s trajectory relative to the targeting satellite’s position. A computer-generated voice poured from the intercom system counting off the seconds until the clock registered 0:00.

At that moment a laser beam had automatically fired from the Star Wars LMDS satellite.

Then, to the astonishment of everyone who had been glued to the projection monitors, a tremendous explosion occurred midway between the targeting drone and the LMDS.

“What the? . . .” exclaimed General Branigan.

“General, tracking computers indicate that the laser struck an object that didn’t exist. It just materialized from nowhere,” reported an aide.

It seemed like an eternity had passed, but a glance at his watch told General Branigan it had only been five minutes. During that time an army of technicians and engineers had scrambled to determine what had just happened. There had been no doubt that the laser from the LMDS had struck something. But radar, visual monitors, radio, everything had verified that the skies were clear, there was nothing there prior to firing. Nevertheless, something had been hit. Now they needed to ascertain what it was in the hopes of preventing an international incident. The implications of this accident were beyond imagination. If some nation had perfected a stealth technology so advanced that its armaments were totally undetectable by our most advanced monitoring devices . . . but General Branigan checked his thoughts before they reached their logical conclusion. This was a scenario that he was not willing to entertain.

An aide checked his computer again, then addressed the General. “Sir, our calculations show that the object we struck is massive, bigger than anything
we’ve
ever launched. Bigger than anything that anyone has ever launched. It’s fallen out of orbit and is careening toward the Mid-West. Impact is calculated to occur in . . .” He checked his consol again. “It’s already down, Sir!”

“Track the trajectory of whatever that was and let me know where it impacted,” yelled Branigan. “There’s so much uncharted space trash floating around up there, it’s a wonder we get anything done. It’s an orbiting junk-yard!”

“Preliminary data calculations indicate It wasn’t junk, sir,” the aide replied. “It was something massive that was deliberately built, and it was cloaked - probably extraterrestrial,” the aide replied.

“Don’t speak to me in science fiction terms, I tell you it was uncharted space junk! And that’s an order!” he barked as he glared around the room to ensure that everyone got the message. Then returning his gaze to the aide, he continued. “Now get me those coordinates.”

General Branigan knew that the aide was correct, but he also understood the strategic implications for national security if word got out that some other country had developed a stealth shield, or worse yet, that the object’s origin was extraterrestrial.

The General’s aide worked feverishly at his computer console for a moment, redirecting the focus of the uplink satellites to pinpoint the area. Then he responded, “Impact occurred at latitude 370902 North, longitude 912127 West. Let’s see . . .” A computer monitor overlay map of the U.S. started zooming in on the coordinates. “That puts it in south central Missouri . . . Shannon County . . . about 10 miles east of a little town called Eminence,” reported the aide.

“What’s the nearest military base?” barked Branigan, eager to learn what they had hit.

The aide entered the request into the computer, “Sir, Ft. Leonard Wood outside of Rolla, Missouri, is about seventy-five miles away.”

“Get the base commander on the phone, NOW!” the General demanded.

General Branigan then turned to Major Reid, standing rigidly to his right. Richard Reid was a very proficient career man who did everything
by the book
. For him there was no leeway or tolerance for variance once an order had been given. He was not a brown-noser, nor did he intentionally try to impress anyone. He was just an extremely anally retentive person who honestly believed that this was the way things should be – no variance from
the book
, regardless of the situation, circumstances, or personnel involved. To Reid, trying to understand “why” an order had been given, the objective of its issuance, or thinking for oneself when circumstances changed, were strictly forbidden. This characteristic made him very popular with his superiors, especially when a task needed completion for which his superiors did not wish to make explanations.

Reid blindly, almost robotically, followed orders to the extreme, never questioning them; similarly, he expected orders he gave to his subordinates to be equally blindly followed.

In actuality, though, Reid did not have a clue about how things really worked outside of his by-the-book approach to life. In the civilian world this trait would have served him well as a financial planner, bank examiner or IRS auditor, but in the military, it had caused him difficulty in several command situations.

Behind his back, Reid’s subordinates frequently called him “Major Major,” a mildly derogatory nickname they had dubbed him for his eccentricities and strict adherence to the chain of command. Men under his command often wondered why he was in charge. He could not think for himself, and when circumstances changed he continued to blindly follow the original orders – orders that were clearly intended for circumstances other than the current situation. Though he would staunchly deny it, Reid was strictly a mindless puppet whose strings were pulled by his superiors.

“Major, I want you on a plane within thirty minutes to take personal charge of the cleanup operation. I need some eyes and ears. Keep me posted,” stated General Branigan.

“Yes sir!” said Major Reid as he saluted, turned sharply on his heels and briskly headed for the door.

“Sir,” the aide interrupted, “General Tyler, the base commander of Ft. Leonard Wood, is on the phone.” The aide handed the phone receiver to General Branigan.

“Tyler, this is General Branigan over at Cheyenne Mountain. We have a situation and I need your assistance. We shot down an unidentified object that has crashed in the Ozark Mountains near you.” The General switched the phone to his left ear as he picked up a pen to sign Reid’s transport orders which his aide was holding on a clip board. He continued his phone conversation without missing a beat. “I want a containment team on location before sunup. Major Reid is flying out to oversee the operation as my personal representative. Tyler, this is a Black Ops situation. Not a word of this is to get out. Neither Reid, nor his detachment is to have official recognition. Until we know what we’re dealing with, I want absolute silence maintained.”

=/\=

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Crash Site

Late the next morning, Larry drove the black Hummer south along a twisty, winding Ozark back-country dirt road. Two weeks earlier, as they had been preparing to transport their equipment from St. Louis, Larry had chided Clayton about his choice of the Hummer H-2. How could such a staunch environmentalist justify using such a gas hog?

Clayton had responded that eighteen wheelers would be entirely inappropriate, from an environmental perspective, for use as a family vehicle, but that when used for their intended purpose of hauling large, heavy loads across the country that they were the most environmentally friendly vehicle of choice.

Similarly, for the purpose of backwoods travel the H-2 was the most logical and environmentally friendly vehicle they could use. Inasmuch as he had only leased it for the summer project, he would return it to the dealer in the fall and once again use his Toyota Prius.
Besides
, he had said,
there wasn’t any mass transit or public transportation in the back-country
. Regardless, Larry suspected that the seductive allure of the H-2 had more to do with Clayton’s decision than the logic he presented. But Clayton was the professor. Who was Larry to argue with that?

The lush green forest seemed to swallow the Hummer as it meandered down the seldom used dirt road. Overhead, the dense canopy effectively blocked all sight of both the sun and sky, casting the forest floor into an eerie, perpetual twilight. The thick foliage was so dense that the men could usually see no more than a few feet into the surrounding forest, causing them to lose all perspective of their relative position, though Clayton was sure that he and Larry were heading in the right general direction to discover whatever had crashed the previous evening.

Underbrush and tree branches grew right up to the edge of the dirt road, brushing the sides of the wide Hummer. It gave the impression that the men were descending through a long, narrow, dark green tunnel.

Every few hundred yards the underbrush would give way to a few acres of open patches, allowing the men to catch quick glimpses of extended portions of the forest floor, though the tall trees ensured that the twilight never receded.

Large granite boulders lay scattered in patches at random intervals throughout the fern covered open spaces. The boulders were overgrown with mosses and lichens and portrayed the image of huge, sleeping, green hairy ogres strewn amongst the ferns and grasses. Thick grape vines draped the landscape, dangling from the lofty tree tops and playfully beckoned adventurous youth to swing from boulder to boulder.