North Sea
Aboard the Russian Destroyer Severomorsk
A scant 3 hours earlier, ARC (short for Alien Response Command) had intercepted some strange communications from the Russian Destroyer Severomorsk. Although mostly garbled, the phrase “attacked by aliens” did filter through. This prompted the ARC commander to send out the closest ARC Light Team (commanded by Captain James “E-Z” Sigurdson) to investigate.
The six-man Team, call sign Echo, had landed on the Russian Destroyer from their special ops Helicopter a mere 5 minutes ago and had split up into two teams to search the Russian ship more quickly. One team, composed of John “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, Lee “Sandy” Chin, and Franklin “Jolly” Deckard, headed to the Bridge and Communications Room while the other 3-man Team went into the bowels of the ship to search for the crew.
Former Army Captain James “E-Z” Sigurdson moved slowly down the passageway, his HK MP7A1 Submachine gun firmly attached to his shoulder, scanning the entire passageway of the swaying Russian ship. He was followed down the corridor by two of his teammates, Fernando “Herc” Lopez, a huge, muscular former Marine who barely seemed to fit in the passageway, and Simon “Tig” Lafentz, a shockingly red-headed ex-SEAL whose size paled in comparison to “Herc”.
So far, E-Z’s team had yet to come across any Russian crew members or anything else. The ship appeared to be completely deserted. “E-Z” was getting ready to have his team begin searching the cabins along the sides of the corridor they were in when his earpiece crackled.
“Echo 1, Echo 2”
E-Z lowered his weapon and held up his right hand in a fist, signaling his teammates to pause before he went to one knee and answered, “Echo 1, go.”
“Boss, we’re in the Communications hut two decks above you. You need to come here and see this.” The voice on the other end belonged to “Fitz,” the second-in-command of their team.
“Echo 2, what have you got?” E-Z turned to Herc and Tig, who were also listening, and signaled them to turn around so they could head back to the stairwell leading up.
“We found some of the crew…and something else. Jolly says it may be what we’re looking for.”
“Echo 2, we are Oscar Mike to your location.”
As the three members of Echo team on the lower decks began to make their way up to the Communications hut, E-Z pondered, yet again, how he got himself into this mess. He had made one tiny mistake, and now he was a member of an alien-hunting organization on board a Russian Ship, quickly walking up steep metal staircases.
He was still pondering things when the three-man team reached the hatch to the Communications hut, and E-Z passed by Herc and Tig to enter the room.
At first glance, it appeared that the small room would barely fit all of them, as it was roughly a 30-by-30-foot grey, painted metal room. The three walls to the front, right, and left of E-Z were covered in various electronic equipment whose purpose left E-Z baffled. However, two things were much more jarring than the equipment: Firstly, there were five dead bodies strewn about, some of which appeared to have been dismembered, resulting in a massive amount of blood sprayed about the room. Secondly, mixed in with the Russian Sailor’s blood was a mysterious, thick, metallic purple liquid that appeared to reflect light.
E-Z walked up to Fitz, who was standing next to Jolly, who appeared to be examining a piece of equipment sitting on the table in front of him. “Fitz, give me a sitrep.”
“Hey, don’t ask me; I’m just a door knocker. Jolly’s the one who got all excited when we came in here.” Fitz smiled as he nodded to Jolly.
E-Z looked down at Jolly and was shocked to see that the equipment he was fiddling with looked like nothing he had ever seen. “Whatcha got, Jolly?”
Without looking up from his tinkering, Jolly replied, “I’m not sure. Whatever this is, it’s definitely not Russian. Not only that…” Jolly scanned the device with a handheld piece of equipment he had pulled from his backpack. “It’s also emitting a signal on an upper terahertz frequency.”
“What type of signal?” There was worry in E-Z’s voice as they knew that a Russian response team was also on their way to the destroyer.
“Unsure, but I can tell you this. Neither we nor the Russians have equipment that broadcasts at this high a frequency.”
Before Jolly could continue his explanation, E-Z’s earpiece was again filled with another voice. “Echo 1, this is Highlander, how copy?” Highlander was the call sign of the helicopter that brought the team here.
“Copy five by five.” Which meant that E-Z could hear them loud and clear.
“We have ARC Flash Traffic – incoming Russian Flights. ETA 10 minutes.”
E-Z turned to his team to see their reactions. All of them appeared to be calm, which was probably somewhat of a lie, as they all had to be anxious about the Russians catching them on board their Ship. Still, E-Z had been given explicit instructions. “Highlander copy. We will exfil midship in three mikes. Out”
E-Z turned around and headed to the hatchway. “Jolly, grab that equipment and take it with us. Fitz, scoop up some of this metallic liquid and bag it up. Everyone else, let’s exfil ASAP.”
As Fitz grabbed a sample bag and began scooping up some of the metallic liquid, Jolly put the unusual piece of equipment in his backpack. As he turned to leave, he noticed an unusual piece of Russian Equipment and decided to grab it too.
Less than five minutes later, the team was on their specially modified Blackhawk Helicopter heading back to their base located on the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. With all of their advanced Stealth improvements, the Russians didn’t even know they had been there.
ARC Base three hours later
Fair Isle, Orkney Islands
The conference room Echo Team was currently sitting in was like every other conference room they’d ever been in. It was a large room, longer than wide, dominated by a long rectangular table that could easily sit 20 people. At one end of the room, a bank of monitors was embedded in the wall with various computer equipment sitting on small tables in front of them. Along the bare side walls were a few old metal cabinets containing who knew what. This conference room would not have been out of place in any corporate office.
All of the members of Echo Team were seated at the end of the large conference table closest to the monitors, waiting for the briefing to begin. They’d barely had time to clean up and eat some chow before they’d been called in for this meeting. All of them were extremely curious about what the research group discovered about the stuff they’d found on the Russian Destroyer.
They had been sitting here for almost six minutes, chatting and waiting for some higher-up to come talk to them. “Cap, are you sure you don’t have any idea why they called us in this quickly?” Sandy asked for the fifth time.
E-Z sighed as he answered, “Like I told you before, Sandy, nobody has told me shit. In fact, …” Before he could finish that thought, the door to the conference room opened and in walked Major Tom Baker, CO of the base they were on, followed by two lieutenants.
Before Echo team could fully rise up from their seats, Major Baker waved them to sit back down and walked to the front of the room, flanked by the two lieutenants.
Having never been on this particular ARC base, nobody had met this officer before, and all of them were sizing him up, trying to determine precisely what type of officer he was. The Commander was neither short nor tall and looked a bit out of place in his heavily creased, spotless ARC uniform. From Echo team’s perspective, he looked like the definition of a desk jockey. This was further enhanced by the almost identical appearance of the two lieutenants.
“I’ll get right to the point.” As the Major spoke, one of the Lieutenants turned to the monitors and flicked them on. “We’ll start with the liquid sample you found.” A slide appeared on the screen behind him.
“The liquid appears to be non-human blood.”
Some members of the team seemed surprised by this information, like Tig, who spoke up, “Wait. You mean like little green men, non-human?”
The Major glared at Tig before answering, not liking being interrupted, “I mean what I said, Sergeant. Non-human. There are, though, a few things we can tell you about this alien based on their blood.”
Another slide appeared on the screen, showing a lot of figures and information that most of the team (with Tig being the exception) were unfamiliar with. “As you can see, their blood is roughly 80% similar to ours. However, that 20% difference is quite profound.” Another slide came up with even more formulas and tables. “From that difference, we can deduce that the aliens are most likely humanoid in size and shape. The sample also contained some microscopic pieces of a hardened substance, indicating that they either have some sort of armor or, more likely, have a hard carapace. Additional light-reflective studies suggest that they probably come from somewhere with less sunlight than ours. They breathe air and are carbon-based. Finally, due to the similarities in their DNA to ours, they are probably susceptible to the same chemicals and diseases we are.”
E-Z, his brow furrowed, asked the next question, “I hear a lot of ‘probably’ and ‘we think ‘ statements in there, major.”
Herc, doing what he usually did, spoke without thinking. “That’s because they don’t know anything and are just making crap up.”
Before the major could dress him down, E-Z turned to Herc, “Stow that shit, Sergeant.”
“Yes, Sir,” smiled Herc, as he winked at Jolly.
“As I was saying,” The major continued, “Our scientists have determined that although these aliens are non-human, they are fairly confident that they are terrestrial, and before anyone asks, that means that they are from here, on Earth.”
While Echo team digested that bit of information, another slide appeared on the screen behind the major, this one was a picture of the alien equipment they found. “Then there was the equipment you found. It appears to be some ultra-high-frequency communications device. We’re not sure where the Russians got it from, but based on the Russian equipment that Deckard grabbed, it looks like they were trying to tap into the communications. That’s probably why the aliens attacked the ship.”
Fitz nodded his head and turned to look at the rest of the team, “That all fits with what we found major.”
Herc spoke up again, “But that does leave us with more questions than answers. Like, why did we only find five guys in the Comm hut and no other crew members? Or why was the alien equipment left behind?”
The major raised his hand before Herc could ask any more questions, “Hold any more questions for now, gentlemen. We have more important things to worry about.” The men were all professional soldiers and understood when an officer wanted all comments to cease. “The most jarring thing we found out, using our ARC Sat system, is that there is an additional location where this frequency is currently being used.” With that, the map behind the major began to zoom in on the state of Minnesota.
The map stopped zooming and centered on a remote small town. “As of two hours ago, this same frequency was being used in the town of Crawford, Minnesota. Additionally, it appears that all cell and Internet traffic has ceased in the town. When we dug into that piece of information more thoroughly, we discovered that there’s been no cell or online activity from Crawford in the last forty-eight hours.”
The room was silent as Echo team considered the ramifications of that. The major continued, “We sent an ARC Light team into the town an hour ago and lost all Communications with them almost immediately. This has led Command to assign a full attack force to investigate what happened to the town and our people. Your team, Captain, has been assigned to that attack force and has been designated as the point team to enter the town.”
The screen behind the major again changed, this time to an aerial view of the town of Crawford. “Your team will leave immediately after this meeting, catch a MACV flight to the U.S., and then meet up with the rest of the Attack Force at the ARC base near Helena, Minnesota.” The major turned to the map and used an electronic pointer to outline the team’s travel route. “From there, you will helo into the foothills and disembark two klicks to the north of Crawford. You will then hike through the foothills, ending up in this park on the north edge of the town.”
The major turned back to face the team. “You will proceed through the park and recon the nearby structures along the south edge of the park. Your main goal is to gather information about what occurred and then exfil with said information”.
“What’s our ROE, sir?” asked E-Z.
“Your Rules of Engagement are simple. Defend yourself in whatever capacity you see fit. However, remember, gentlemen, that this is an American town filled with civilians. I do NOT want to hear about us shooting any civies, clear?”
E-Z nodded, “Crystal, Sir.”
“All right then, any last questions or comments?”
Fitz spoke up, “There is one more bit of information we can get from that blood, sir.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
Fitz smiled, “If it bleeds, it can be hurt.”
The major just smiled as he turned to leave. “Indeed, Chief. Indeed. Now get your gear and mount up. You have a long trip in front of you.”
A few minutes later, the entire team was in the weapons bay choosing their loadout for the coming mission. Although each member was allowed to choose their own loadouts, they tended to do so in a way that ensured the entire team was prepared for any eventuality.
The Commander of the team, E-Z, chose as his primary weapon a light (or PWL), a Heckler & Koch MP7A1. This is a modern submachine gun distinguished by its compact size, high rate of fire, and the 4.6x30mm cartridge, which offers high penetration with low recoil. It has fully ambidextrous controls and a polymer-reinforced construction. E-Z preferred smaller weapons with higher rates of fire. If he missed, he wanted to be able to put as much lead downstream as he could.
Fitz, meanwhile, chose an FN Mk. 20 SSR as his primary weapon (PW). It is a Belgian American semi-automatic designated marksman rifle based on the FN SCAR-H platform in 6.5 Creedmoor, designed for long-range precision fire. Key features include a longer, heavier barrel, an extended receiver for mounting optics such as night vision and thermal devices, an enhanced two-stage trigger, and a non-folding stock with adjustable length and a cheek rest. It was developed to support sniper teams and was approved for use by SOCOM in 2010. Fitz wanted to be able to tag people from far away with power.
Both Herc and Tig chose the Heckler & Koch MP5SD6 as their PW. This weapon is a 9mm submachine gun based on the Heckler & Koch MP5, featuring an integrated suppressor, a retractable stock, and a 3-round burst trigger group. This design is optimized for stealth and close-quarters combat, often favored by special operations forces, due to the integral suppressor’s effectiveness in reducing muzzle flash and sound without needing subsonic ammunition.
Jolly, being more of a technician than a shooter (although he could shoot almost as well as anybody else on the team), chose a simpler weapon. His PW was a Heckler & Koch HK416 D10RS, which is a sub-compact variant of the HK416 assault rifle, featuring a 10.4-inch barrel and a short-stroke gas piston operating system. It is based on the AR-15 platform but is more reliable, especially in demanding conditions, due to its piston system that keeps fouling out of the receiver.
Finally, Jolly went with a weapon that could be used to breach doors and still fire at range. He was intimately familiar with it as he’d been using it since he’d joined the military. His PW was a Colt M4 with an underbarrel M870p Master Key. This weapon is a military rifle-shotgun combination designed for special operations and urban combat. The system consists of a standard M4 carbine with a heavily modified, shortened Remington 870 12-gauge pump-action shotgun mounted underneath the barrel, similar to an M203 grenade launcher.
Once the teams had chosen their weapon loadout, loaded up on ammo, and then picked up their armor to go along with their lightweight backpacks, they headed to the tarmac. They had a flight waiting for them.
Onboard the MH-60 Blackhawk RK Helicopter Code Name “India”
10 km out from Crawford, MN
The noise of most helicopters is deafening when you’re riding in them. It’s so loud that you must either yell at full volume to be heard or use headsets. However, the specially modified MH-60 that Echo team was traveling in was an exception. Initially designed for the U.S. SEAL teams, this version of the aged helicopter incorporated some Top-Secret technology that wasn’t available anywhere else in the world, including a noise muffler that decreased the sound of the whirling blades almost 200%. This allowed people riding in the helo to talk to each other in normal tones.
“I’m just saying that ARC should’ve sent in more people than just us and three other teams,” Tig said for perhaps the tenth time. “I mean, if a Light team has already been lost, then why send just us? After all…”
Before he could finish his thought, Fitz loudly interrupted him, “Give it a rest, Tig. We’ve been given our orders and that’s that.”
“But…” Tig never got to finish that thought before Fitz yelled at the top of his impressively loud voice, “I said STOP! Have I made myself clear?”
Even the slight sound of the Helicopter was drowned out by the silence that followed. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that someone spoke, and it was the pilot of the helo, “Echo 1, we are one mike out from LZ.”
E-Z looked around at each member of Echo Team to ensure everyone had heard the pilot. He was assured when he noticed everyone doing last-minute checks of their equipment. Seeing this, he replied back “Echo 1 acknowledges” before he began his own check.
After what seemed like a few seconds, the helicopter flared out and slipped the rear of the helicopter to the front, almost making the Helo appear to be flying ass end first. Actually, the pilot was bleeding off speed in order to quickly land the copter, which he did by making the warbird drop almost one hundred feet in less than three seconds, only powering up at the last minute to avoid a crash landing. Instead, the Helo smoothly sat down on a small clearing surrounded by a large amount of brush.
It only took Echo Team five seconds to dismount before the helo did a quick vertical takeoff. The pilot then pressed the nose down, and the helo shot off at top speed. The helicopter would dip down and perform this same maneuver three or four more times in the next few minutes. He would do this in order to confuse any enemy that may have seen the Helicopter land. Hopefully, the enemy wouldn’t know exactly which landing site was the real one.
Barely hearing the Blackhawk RK speed off, E-Z raised his right hand with pointer finger extended and circled it in the air a few times. This was the signal for the team to spread out and begin to advance. E-Z then motioned for the team to move in the direction of the town of Crawford.
The team knew they had a hard thirty-minute walk in front of them. The land they were in was just a few miles from actual forest and consisted of a lot of one-to-one and a half meter bushes interspersed with some yellowish-brown crab grass. Since they were in the middle of an exceptionally warm summer, there wasn’t much green around.
Every member of Echo team had their eyes peeled in every direction (even the rear) as all team members looked for any distinguishing landmarks to mark their way back to the LZ they had landed in. One of the worst things that could happen to a team was to get lost, and it was now second nature for them to keep an updated map of where they were, at all times, in their head. They had gone over every inch of their path into the town as well as the town itself multiple times with every map and satellite photo they could get their hands on before they landed. After all, information was life to an ARC team member.
The team made good time moving through the foothills until finally arriving at their destination, at the north edge of Crawford City Park, some twenty-five minutes later. The first thing E-Z did upon arriving at their destination was to activate his Comms.
“ARC one, Echo one. How copy?”
There was a lot of static before E-Z barely heard the reply, “Echo one, you are 3 by 5.” This meant that communication was poor but still understood.
“ARC one, we are at Phase line Bravo.”
“Roger Echo one. Hold until Phase Charlie,” came the static-filled reply.
The park itself was not large, by modern city standards, but was considered a good size by locals, measuring a solid fifty meters by fifty meters. Its boundaries formed a rough circle, surrounded by trees, now in a state of summer bloom, on all sides. The middle of the circular grass-covered clearing was dominated by a small ten-by-ten-meter Dog park with a cluster of three small trees in the middle.
Strewn somewhat haphazardly throughout the park were various-sized benches, with small water fountains scattered around. Additionally, along the left side of the park, almost two-thirds of the way to the far end, stood a large stone water feature, maybe two meters high, representing one of the ancient Scandinavian gods.
It was in this idyllic place that Echo team found themselves, crouched down and waiting for command to give them the go-ahead to move. The ops plan had called for them to advance to the edge of the park and wait for confirmation from command to proceed in. Command wanted all the ARC teams to enter simultaneously.
While waiting for the call, E-Z motioned for Fitz to come closer. Once he was next to him, E-Z spoke to Fitz softly so as not to be heard more than a few meters away. “Which approach do you think we should take? The slow way around the edges, hiding in cover? Or the more direct way, straight across the open field?”
Fitz deeply examined the park before answering, “Both ways are valid, but I think, tactically, that sticking to the trees along the edges would be the normal, by-the-book way, as we’ll have more cover.” Before E-Z could reply, Fitz carried on, “But I think that going that way will take too long, since civilians might be in danger. I think every second counts.”
Fitz looked directly into E-Z’s eyes as he answered, “I say we go directly across.”
E-Z replied, “Affirm.” At the same time, his earpiece informed him, “All Teams, go for Charlie.”
E-Z nodded to Fitz, who turned around to look at the rest of Echo Team. All of them were concentrating on examining the sectors their training had assigned them to watch. Fitz smiled sardonically, happy that they were doing their jobs before he spoke into the Team’s channel, “Herc, you’re up. We’re going with plan Alpha two to the Dog Park. Go!”
With that, Herc took off at a half-run, half jog straight ahead, aiming for the three trees in the center of the small Dog Park.
As the team waited for him to get there, E-Z turned to Fitz to get his attention. “Fitz, have you noticed that there are no animal or insect sounds?”
Fitz had indeed been thinking that something seemed off, and now that he’d had it pointed out, he knew what it was. “Yeah, kinda creepy.”
E-Z was hoping for more insight from the grizzled veteran, so he continued to talk as Herc was now only halfway to the Dog Park. “Have you also noticed that there are no human sounds? No kids yelling, no cars, no music playing…nothing.”
Fitz glanced at the other three members of the team with a knowing look and then turned to reply to the captain, “Yeah, I noticed, but so what? It just means that we’ll be able to hear the enemy coming more easily.”
E-Z just nodded his head and smiled at the response. Before he could come up with a glib response of his own, it appeared Herc had gotten to the fence of the Dog Park. At first, E-Z thought that he was going to leap over the meter-high obstacle, but at the last second, Herc looked to the left and took a huge step in that direction. Then he reached down and unlatched the gate, and stepped into the small Dog Park.
He swiftly moved behind one of the trees and went to one knee, and began to scan around. From his position, he could see the thin line of trees in front of him as well as the backyards of the row of houses behind those trees. He couldn’t see or hear anything to the front, so he switched his line of sight to the left. He didn’t see or hear anything there, so he switched to the right side. Again, nothing there.
He reached up and tapped his earpiece and spoke, “Echo one, Echo three. Negative on contact.” He waited a few seconds before repeating himself. Hearing only static, he turned back to face his team, still waiting on the north side of the park. He stood up and stuck his left arm out horizontally to his body and moved it left to right a few times. This was the signal that Comms was out. He then moved his arm from his hand to his elbow, towards his body, and back out, signaling to the team that all was clear and to come to him.
Seeing this, E-Z hit his own earpiece, “Arc One, echo one.”
“Go Echo one.”
“Comms jamming in AO. Proceeding to Phase Line Charlie.” E-Z was letting command know they would continue without Comms.
“Roger Echo one.”
E-Z then turned to the rest of his team, “Hand Signals only from now on. Let’s move out.”
With that, the team spread out and, using the same half jog, half run Herc has used and headed for the cover of the Dog Park. Before they got halfway there, E-Z suddenly held his right hand up in a fist and immediately dropped prone. The entire team copied his actions; their guns at the ready, facing forward. As E-Z stared intently at one of the houses in front of him, Fitz crawled up closer to E-Z on his left side.
Once next to him, he whispered, “What?”
E-Z didn’t take his eyes off the target “Movement. Blue house, fourth from the right, second story, third window from the left.”
Fitz found the house and the window and stared at it for a second before he saw something moving inside. He immediately reached over to E-Z, unzipped a pocket on the left side of his backpack, and pulled out a pair of binoculars. He then scanned the window in question before smiling, “Looks like a kid’s Mobile.” He zoomed in even closer. “Yep, definitely a mobile.”
He stood up and motioned the rest of the team to do the same. Then he turned to Herc, who was scanning all directions, and signaled to him that everything was OK. While he was doing this, E-Z stood back up and gestured for Fitz to hand him the binoculars. Then he too scanned the window until finally huffing a bit and putting the binoculars back into his backpack. By then, he noticed he was ten meters behind the rest of the team, who were now heading to the Dog Park.
Once they were all huddled up around the trees in the Dog Park, the entire team spent the next two minutes staring intently in all directions. Finally, E-Z leaned forward and tapped Herc and Fitz and motioned for them to move forward.
Both men hurriedly moved out towards the tree line twenty-five meters in front of them, spreading out to be about five meters apart. This time, they were only moving at a fast walk, with their eyes peeled for any movement. After getting to almost five meters from the tree line, Herc quickly went to one knee, raising his gun to his shoulder and hissed to warn Fitz, who followed suit and also went to one knee with his weapon raised.
The rest of the team immediately readied their weapons and scanned for any enemies. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, Herc stood and signaled Fitz to move up with him.
They passed into the tree line and headed to a two-story house behind the trees. Fitz advanced right up to the house while Herc stayed in the tree line. Fitz quickly popped up and looked through a window into the house before dropping back down. He then turned back to Herc and motioned for him to bring up the rest of the team.
Herc hurried the few feet back to the edge of the tree line and motioned for the rest of the team to join them. A few seconds later, all six members were gathered at the back of the house.
The team waited almost a full minute, scanning around and listening for anything abnormal before E-Z spoke up, “Stack up, Jolly first.” This meant that the team would form a stack outside the sliding glass door and enter in a specific order, one at a time. Their training had taught them that the best way to enter a house that might have enemies inside was to “stack” up outside the door, then have the entire team enter quickly, each member assigned a different quadrant to watch upon entry.
The team quickly lined themselves up with Tig holding the sliding door panel. He’d open the door for the rest of the team and come in last.
Seeing everyone was ready, Tig began his countdown, “On three. One, two, three!” with that, Tig yanked open the sliding glass door, allowing the team to enter.
The SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) the ARC teams used when entering a house was based on a Delta-Force procedure (with a few minor differences based more on the advanced equipment ARC had at their disposal). The first person through, Jolly in this case, would immediately head left and cover the leftmost corner of the room, gun up and ready to fire. Then the massive form of Herc would enter and immediately head to the right, covering the rightmost corner of the room. Next up would be Fitz, who would head straight forward and stop when he reached the end of the room they were in. After Fitz, E-Z would take two steps into the house, then head to the left, but would cover the right-side corner on the left. Jolly would follow closely behind E-Z but would head to the right and cover the left-side corner on the right. Finally, Tig would enter and stop in the doorway, looking from side to side, ready to support in any direction.
This kind of entrance is exactly what Echo Team had practiced almost daily for the past 18 months. Consequently, it took less than three seconds for all members of the team to enter the house and reach their assigned positions. Everyone then waited for a few more seconds before they called out in order.
“Jolly Clear.”
“Fitz Clear.”
“Herc Clear”
“E-Z Clear.”
“Sandy Clear.”
Lastly was Tig, whose clear signal would initiate the team moving to the next phase of the search. “Tig Clear.”
Like the finely practiced team they were, they all spread out to search the rest of the rooms on the first floor of the two-story house they were in. It only took a few seconds to do that before everyone again acknowledged the all clear.
E-Z then motioned for Fitz, Jolly, and Herc to move upstairs. All three of them moved towards the staircase located at the front of the house, directly across from the front door. They stacked up on the stairs and slowly began to head upstairs. Meanwhile, Tig, Sandy, and E-Z began to search more thoroughly downstairs.
It was a typical household carpet-covered staircase, having walls along both sides all the way to the top with a solid wall behind it. Fitz led the way up the stairs, moving slowly step by step with his gun raised and pointed to the top of the stairway. Jolly followed right behind him with his gun also pointed to the top of the stairway, while Herc was in the rear, his gun down so he would not accidentally shoot a teammate.
When Fitz got close to the top, he held up his hand to stop the team. This caused Jolly to put his hand on Fitz’s shoulder while Herc, moving up behind Jolly, did the same thing to Jolly. This let each member know the person behind them was ready. Once Jolly got Herc’s hand on his shoulder, he double-tapped Fitz to continue.
Fitz reached the top of the stairs, then immediately turned left and went down the left hallway. Jolly, right behind him, instead went to the right, going down the right hallway. Herc, meanwhile, stopped at the top of the stairs and waited to move either way.
Both Fitz and Jolly stopped by the first door they came upon and looked back at the other members of their Team. Fitz counted with his fingers from three to one, and then both he and Jolly entered the rooms in front of them. After what seemed like a lifetime but was, in actuality, less than 10 seconds, both Fitz and Jolly backed out of the rooms. Signaling a thumbs up to the other team members, they repeated this procedure for the other three rooms on the top floor of the house.
Downstairs, on the first floor, both E-Z, Sandy, and Tig were doing a preliminary search of every room, quickly looking for any sign of what had happened here. Since they did not find any actual people or bodies, they were instead looking for any signs of a struggle, bullet holes, blood splatters, or anything that looked out of place.
By the time they were done, Fitz and Jolly had also completed their preliminary search. Fitz called out, “Second floor all clear. There’s nobody home.”
Hearing this, E-Z transmitted back to everyone, “OK, initiate full search. Fall back to the room we entered the house from when complete.”
It took only a couple of minutes for everyone to complete the room-by-room comprehensive search and then move back to the dining room, which was next to the sliding glass door where they entered. Seeing everyone there, E-Z started “Fitz report.”
Fitz looked around before he replied, “I searched two bedrooms. One was the main bedroom, and the second was a younger child’s room. No signs of struggle. Nothing out of place.”
He turned to look at Jolly, who began, “I searched two teenagers’ rooms. It was hard to tell if anything was out of place because everything was out of place. Man, these kids nowadays. If I’d left my room like that, my parents would have strung me up.”
Fitz growled as he stared intently at Jolly. “Just report the facts, Sergeant.”
Jolly smiled as he nodded in response, “Sorry. I couldn’t see anything abnormal as both rooms were a mess. I did not see any signs of an obvious struggle, though.”
Herc, being a man of few words, spoke next, “Same here. Messy children’s room. However, I did find some scuff marks on the floor that looked like someone had been dragged from the room.”
E-Z turned to Tig, who chimed in with his report, “Front room and TV rooms were clear. The TV was on, but there was only static on all channels. There was a computer in the corner that was shut off and would not boot up.”
Lastly, Sandy gave his report, “Nothing of note in the other front room. I did find two phones set on one of the tables. Both were out of power.”
Finally, E-Z nodded and told the rest of the Team, “I found a few things in the kitchen.” As he said this, every member of Echo team looked into the kitchen. “First off, the Fridge was left open, and based on the smell, it’d been open for a couple of days. Secondly, there was a half-made sandwich on the countertop. It looks like someone stopped partway into making it. Finally, the stovetop was actually turned on with a pan sitting on top of it, whatever liquid in it having already burned off. Other than that, no signs of struggle.”
As he finished his report, the rest of the team looked pensive, each considering what they had just heard. Fitz broke up the silence, “So, no one here. No signs of struggle. Everything was left right where it would normally be. Also, did you notice the two small dog cages and pet food bowls by the back door?”
They all turned to look at the dog cages as Fitz continued talking, “Yet I didn’t see any hints of dogs. No dog piss or crap and no sounds of animals.”
“Ok, this is starting to get a little creepy,” Jolly responded as he looked around.
“Yeah, I think I saw this in a horror movie last week. Isn’t this the point where a Killer Clown jumps out and scares the bejesus out of us?” Tig gestured with his hands as he spoke.
As Tig said, a loud THUMP had everyone bring their guns up to the ready and point them towards the sound, their pulses racing as adrenaline surged through their veins, only to find Herc sheepishly looking at them.
“Wow, your guy’s reaction time is impressive.” There was a book at his feet.
The storm cloud over Fitz’s head seemed to grow massive as he stalked towards Herc, coming to rest toe to toe with him and staring up into his eyes, “You think that’s funny, jackass? The next time you pull a little prank like that, I’ll rip your balls off and feed them back to you. Understood?” It looked as if Fitz was going to spontaneously combust.
Herc, realizing that now was not the time to fuck around, replied the only way he could, “Yes, Sergeant!”
Fitz stared at him for a few more seconds before turning to face the team, “Anyone else want to make a joke?” Silence greeted him. It was broken by E-Z. “We still have a job to do, gentlemen. We need to find the civies. We’ll break into two teams. Fitz, you take Jolly and Sandy and examine the house to our left. I’ll take Herc and Tig and look into the house on the right, which should also give us a clear view down the street at the T intersection in front of that house.”
“Roger that,” Fitz replied as he gestured for Jolly and Sandy to follow him.
Before he left, Jolly leaned over and whispered to Herc “I thought it was funny as hell,” and then he followed Fitz out of the house.
A few minutes later, both teams were searching their prospective houses using the same room-by-room clearing procedures they’d been taught. Both teams found almost the exact same thing they had discovered in the first house they had searched, which was almost nothing.
E-Z was busy looking around the first floor while Herc and Tig were upstairs, when he thought he saw something outside the front window. He moved to the large front window and looked out of it, down the street in front of him. What he saw shocked him to his core.
He immediately ducked down and keyed his throat mic “Zulu 4, Zulu 4!” This was a prearranged signal meaning he had spotted four enemies, none of which were human. “Contact close. ETs 30 meters to my front. Herc, look out a window upstairs and see if you can get an eye on them. Tig rally to my position.” He didn’t notify Fitz and give him orders, as he knew Fitz would figure out the best thing to do on his own.
With that, E-Z slowly raised his head to glance over the windowsill to make sure he had actually seen some Aliens walking up the street towards them. Unfortunately, as he looked harder, he saw the exact same thing he’d seen before: four alien creatures walking up the street towards them as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
They were roughly the same size as an average human with two arms and two legs. Their skin had a slightly brownish-grey tinge to it and looked somewhat leathery. At first glance, he noticed that they were wearing some sort of armor that covered almost all their body. However, it was the head that their alienness was most pronounced.
First off, the head was much larger than a human’s head. It started off like a human head but sloped back to the rear of their head, rising 3-4 inches before it rounded off at the back of the skull. When they turned sideways, the head took on an almost triangular shape. It too was covered with the leathery brownish-grey skin with no hair anywhere on the head.
As the aliens moved closer, E-Z could see that instead of a nose, there were two small air slits in the face, just above a mouth slit horizontally across the face with no lips.
However, the most prominent feature on the head was the eyes. They were large jet-black pools of emptiness about three times the size of a human eye without any eyelids. Their eyes reminded E-Z of the eyes on the little grey men that most people associated with Aliens on TV.
E-Z then noticed that all of them were armed but only with primitive weapons. They each carried some sort of gun-like weapon or a sword with what appeared to be a knife sheath located on their right hips. There appeared to be a thick belt wrapped around each alien, holding a few different devices.
E-Z also noticed that they appeared to be walking in a standard Diamond Formation with each member looking in a different direction. This meant they had some sort of military training.
They were heading directly for the house E-Z, Herc, and Tig were in, but were still about twenty meters away. Suddenly, they stopped in the middle of the street, waited a second, then moved quickly to the cover of a nearby car. As E-Z watched, one of the aliens pulled a device from their belt and looked down at it. After examining the device for a few seconds, he pointed directly at the house E-Z’s team was in. To E-Z, it seemed like it was pointing directly at him.
E-Z ducked back down and hit his comm button, “Herc are you seeing this?”
The reply was almost instantaneous: “If you’re talking about the little grey Aliens taking cover behind the car down the street and pointing at us, then yes, I’m seeing the same thing you are.”
“Do you see any other tangos?”
Herc had been scanning for that exact thing and was ready to report it “Negative, in fact….Uhhhgh.”
E-Z heard a loud thump above him and correctly surmised that Herc had been hit, and before he could say anything, he heard Tig over the Comm, “Echo 1, Tig coming up on your six.” Tig did this so E-Z would know a friendly was coming up behind him, avoiding a friendly fire incident.
E-Z hit his comm “Tig, Herc’s been hit, head back upstairs.”
“Roger,” came the reply as Tig turned back to the staircase and headed up towards Herc.
While Tig was running back to Herc, E-Z put his weapon to his shoulder and popped up in the window just long enough to sight down the optic on his MP7A1 and fire, in burst mode (three shots per pull of the trigger), at the first alien he saw, hitting it and causing it to fall back down behind the car.
Before E-Z could get off another shot, two more of the aliens fired bolts at E-Z, barely missing him as he knelt back down under the window frame. He then rolled to his right as fast as he could, putting himself underneath the second window in the front room. It was a good thing he did, as two more bolts came crashing through the front wall right where he’d been barely a second ago. The bolts continued to go through the back wall before they finally stopped.
Just as E-Z was about to call Fitz, his Comm buzzed with Fitz’s voice, “Echo one, we are attempting to flank. Lay down suppressive fire on the count of three.” E-Z took a deep breath, flicked his gun to full auto, then grabbed one of the Frag grenades on his belt and prepared to get up and throw the grenade at the aliens, before going full auto on their asses.
“One, two, three.” Fiz counted down. On three, E-Z fired a few rounds at the window in front of him to clear out all the glass, got up to one knee, cocked his right arm back, and threw the grenade as far as he could at the aliens still hiding behind the car.
Unfortunately for him, the aliens had excellent reflexes, and one of them was able to launch a bolt directly at E-Z, hitting him in his armor right above his heart. E-Z was knocked a few feet back and landed on his ass. A second or two later, E-Z heard the “Boom!” of the grenade going off as he tried to catch his breath.
Meanwhile, Fitz, Jolly, and Sandy, having heard E-Z’s call out about enemies to their front, had paused just inside the door of the house two doors down. Upon hearing the grenade go off, Fitz, then Jolly, followed by Sandy, left the confines of the house they’d been searching and ran as fast as they could across the street. They headed to the space between the house directly across from them and the house to its right. This placed them closer to the aliens, but with a house in between them and the hostile tangos.
Fitz stopped as soon as he got to the cover of the house they were running to. He waited until he felt Jolly’s hand on his shoulder before he brought his gun up to firing position and headed around the front of the house, heading to the front door. This time, instead of running at full speed, they were walking at a normal pace, which would allow them to more accurately fire at any enemies that showed up.
They hugged the front side of the house until they got to the front door. Fitz reached down and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Letting it go, he again moved forward, hugging the front side of the house for two meters before the wall ended at the left side of the garage, which stuck out maybe two to three meters towards the street.
Following the turn of the wall, the three ARC agents followed it to the front of the garage and stopped. Again, Jolly put his hand on Fitz’s shoulder as Sandy put his hand on Jolly’s shoulder, letting him know he was right behind him. Then Fitz leaned out and looked across the street at the house E-Z, Herc, and Tig were in.
“Crap,” whispered Fitz as he saw one alien run into the house that the other half of the team was in, as another was almost at the front door.
Fitz quickly spoke on the company-wide channel, “E-Z, one tango is in your house. Jolly, Sandy fire front.” With that, Fitz knelt on one knee and took aim at the alien almost at the front door. Jolly quickly stepped up beside Fitz, still standing with his weapon at the ready, and quickly scanned the area. Sandy took two steps to the side of Jolly and went to one knee, also scanning to his front. All three of them opened fire at almost the same time and got multiple hits on the alien, but it kept running into the house.
“Second tango in the house,” Fitz informed the team as he stood up and motioned Jolly and Sandy to follow him across the garage to the fence on the right side of the house. He wanted a better look down the street.
In the house, E-Z was still trying to catch his breath from the bolt that was now embedded in his armor. He didn’t think he was bleeding, but the bolt had packed quite the punch. Just as he was able to sit up and pull the bolt out, he heard Fitz’s warning about an enemy in the house.
E-Z quickly swung his gun towards the sound of the front door crashing into the house and waited for the alien to come into his sight. The alien was much faster than E-Z was prepared for (and E-Z was still a little woozy from the bolt hit), and he rolled into the front room past where E-Z was aiming. Before E-Z could swing his weapon to the right, the alien leaped towards E-Z, getting close enough to swipe at E-Z with his sword, missing E-Z but hitting his gun barrel hard enough to cause the weapon to be flung out of E-Z’s grasp.
Surprised, but knowing he couldn’t just sit there, E-Z did the only thing he could think of and leapt at the alien’s legs, hitting it right on the knee. This caused the alien to fall on top of E-Z, dropping its sword. E-Z immediately reached down to his right hip and grabbed his knife, and brought it up to stab the alien. The alien, however, was no stranger to combat, and as he fell, it too drew its knife, a wicked-looking shiny silver thing with razor-sharp edges.
The two combatants rolled around on the ground, each struggling not only to block the other person’s knife but also to bring their own into play. After a few seconds, it appeared to E-Z that although the alien was slightly faster, E-Z held the edge in strength and size. So, he used that strength to push the alien back, creating just enough space to bring his left leg up and put it between him and the Alien. Then, using the strength of his left leg, he pushed the alien back further into the wall next to him, basically pinning him to the wall.
E-Z then reached down with his left hand; his right hand still wrestling with the alien’s left hand, and drew his Colt .45 pistol and brought it into firing position. The alien, however, was not done yet and stabbed its knife into E-Z’s left leg. As the pain hit home, E-Z screamed out, “You a-hole!” before unloading his clip into the alien’s face and upper body.
Apparently, nine shots to the face and torso of the alien were more than enough to kill him.
As E-Z’s hand-to-hand battle was taking place, the second wounded alien staggered into the house and, seeing the first alien head to the right, decided to head up the stairs. He got about halfway up before Tig appeared around the corner and unloaded his HK into the alien, who went down in a hail of bullets.
Across the street, Fitz and Jolly had reached the end of the fence. Fitz quickly peered around the fence and took in the scene in front of him. The car the aliens had hidden behind was in flames as it appeared E-Z’s grenade had landed directly under it. There was a bit of metallic blood splattered about, but no alien bodies close to the car.
Fitz then turned his gaze down the street and saw the last alien limping quickly around the corner of another house. Fitz brought his gun up and fired, but completely missed the alien and hit the house.
Seeing that no other aliens were around, Fitz turned to Jolly and motioned him to follow him into the house, where the rest of his team was. He then spoke into the comms unit, “Echo all, how copy? We will be entering the front door of the house in 10 seconds.”
Nobody replied until Fitz, Sandy, and Jolly were almost at the crashed-in front door. “Echo one copies, one enemy disabled.” That was followed very quickly by Tig, who replied, “Echo 4 copies. Also, one enemy was disabled. I’m upstairs moving to patch up Herc.”
As Fitz and Jolly turned to enter the front room, E-Z was busy wrapping a bandage around his leg. Seeing this, Jolly smiled and said, “Honey, I’m home.”
To be continued….
Author: Brett Dedrick
