19 THE ENCOUNTER AND REBIRTH
Corporal Skoogs watched the choppers glide in and land on the pads. He started closing the mountain door as soon as the second chopper cleared. He knew from experience that to leave it open to long caused problems especially from the civilians that visited the National Park. Of course it had been a full year since this area had been shut down to tourism and even locals due to dangerous gasses in the lakes and no live fish but he still kept the protocol for secrecy. It was a real chancy thing to decloak the choppers prior to entering and waiting until after leaving to re-cloak. The force shield had been a great addition to the base but they had lost 1 chopper that remained cloaked as it flew through and it was a very nasty thing to witness the death of the men on board. The chopper had flown into the back of the hanger area because the men had been melted as the bird came through. It took a good month to clean up the mess and repair what damage it had caused. He watched the four men climb from the choppers and head toward the mess hall. He had cameras for the hanger area and all the rooms involved with the mini base. The exterior within 200 yards of the cave entrance had also been rigged. The cave that ran around to the west side of the mountain had not been set up with video at this time but it was determined that it was not necessary. However the entire tunnel had been rigged with motion sensors. Something had set off one earlier but then he saw the seismometer showing another small quake deep in the mountain and racked it up to that. These things were annoying to him because they happened on a regular basis and the seismometers were set all wrong or least he thought so.
Harvey set the timer for the crews and the recharging and kicked back to read his magazine. The magazine had slipped from his lap and fallen to the floor and he was almost starting to snore when the silent alarms rang. He jerked up suddenly and looked at his instruments. The motion sensors had registered something close to the beginning of the rooms in the tunnel. He moved the only cameras he had in the tunnel to look at the long distance. Nothing was showing. He reached over and turned the sensors off. He started to relax again when the sensors on the outside caused the alarm to sound again. He stared at the monitors that lined the upper bulkhead of his operation room. He could see nothing at first and thought it might have been an animal that tripped the alarm. He started to shut the system back into quiet mode but then noticed some brush moving on one of the monitors. His attention became glued as he grabbed one of the joy sticks and swung the camera with the movement. The brush was moving close to the ground as well as higher up. The higher movement was a few feet behind the lower movement. The camera seemed to warble and he began to realize that someone or something might be cloaked and whatever it was seemed to be moving toward the small door in the mountain that allowed humans to come and go. He knew that if that human or whatever tried to enter that door they would be annihilated by the force shield if they kept a cloak on. He moved a different camera that was mounted higher on the mountain side above the hanger door and scanned the lake for any movement. He moved it up and zoomed in around the surrounding area and could not see anything but there seemed to be an anomaly of some sort on the Eastern side close to the tree line. The area he zoomed in on had the same warble affect as he saw on the close up camera although it was stationary. He had to stare long and hard to see the difference in the surrounding area. He placed a call to the guard area by the man door. Sergeant Rutyard answered and Harvey told him that he needed to take men and investigate some suspicious activity outside. He gave the sectors and approximate coordinance.
Sally had taken Bethy and moved around the north side of the lake while Ken and Buffalo moved around the south side. Samuel and Mary stayed in the chopper and kept all systems hot. John had just woken up and Bill stood up suddenly. Bill shook him self and looked around and made little whimper sounds. John asked where everybody was. Samuel said “well sleepy head it’s good to see that you are still among the living. Ken and Sally are scouting the area. We saw two choppers decloak and fly into that mountain through a door a while ago. John buckled his jet belt on and started to move toward the hatch. Samuel told him to hold up for now. “We are waiting for Ken and Sally to report back before we take anymore action.”
Sergeant Rutyard hung up the receiver and chuckled to him self as he walked to the small arms locker. On his way he picked two men to go with him. Private Gonzo and Corporal Vail both stood and walked with the sergeant to the locker and they all took the small rifles and loaded the magazines into them. Rutyard pulled his pistol and told the two men to ready theirs as he jacked a round into the chamber and replaced it into his holster. “Apparently the Corporal is having another one of his illusions of something or someone moving around outside. We get to go and check it out. The three men moved to the exterior door that was camouflaged into the mountain to the North of the hanger door. “If you see something, anything, do not shoot until we Identify it fully first, you remember the last time Skoogs had us do this and we shot that poor elk. I do not want to deal with a dead animal this time. Rutyard opened the door and the three men stepped out and moved through the brush to an open area. Private Gonzo moved toward the area where Skoogs said he saw something. He had his rifle at the ready as he walked. He walked about 20 feet and something hit him and he fell to the ground. He began to scream and yelled for someone to get whatever it was off of him.
Ken and Buffalo had skirted the south side of the lake and moved to where the big door was in the cliff face of the hill. They had to move through some thick grass and brush as they approached the spot. Ken was examining the face and found a crack that was very even and went straight up about 40 feet or more. His suspicion was that it was where the door was separated. He was moving to the North of the face to find the other side of the door when he heard the opening of a door. Buffalo had stopped suddenly and his tail was sticking straight out behind him. Ken could tell that the dog was preparing to attack. Sally had come up on the North side of the lake and was moving toward the cliff face from that direction when she heard the opening of a door. Bethy had also stopped and stood in the attack position.
Three men in military fatigues stepped into a clearing through some thick brush and stopped. One walked toward where Ken and Buffalo were standing. Sally watched Buffalo run and jump on the man and knock him to the ground. He began to scream and yell and Bethy ran and jumped on one of the other men. He also started screaming and yelling. The one man that remained standing raised his rifle and began firing toward Ken’s position and the man on the ground that was writhing and trying to get away from Buffalo. All of the commotion that started with the dogs attacking as Sally watched and began to move was in slow motion. She saw the man firing his weapon and Ken fall slowly to the ground as she seemed to move ever so slowly toward the man that was firing. She heard Buffalo yelp and saw the man on the ground jerk violently as the bullets ripped into him. Buffalo rolled off and lay still while Ken rolled off to the side to avoid any more of the bullets that were raking the ground. Bethy had taken the second man down and tore his throat open as she came back up and hit the man that was shooting. He fell sideways and his rifle flew from his hands. She reached him just as he was hitting the ground and stuck him in the ribs with her K-bar knife.
While all of this was happening Sally also noticed the big door in the mountain opening. As she approached the man that was falling she saw the first chopper emerge from the opening and as it came through its mini gun was firing across the lake. The second chopper was on its heels and it quickly moved straight up and she could hear its mini gun firing also. The next thing that happened was a very large explosion inside the mountain and fire came roiling out the small door and the large door. The sound was deafening and the fire and smoke scorched her face and made it hard to breath at first. She had begun to crawl toward where Ken and Buffalo were while Bethy was right beside her. She did not know what was happening with the choppers as she crawled but then the mini guns went silent. The fire and smoke was still boiling out of the openings in the mountain and she heard Ken breathing. The smoke was thick making it hard for her to see and as she crawled she felt Buffalo first and Bethy had stopped and was licking him. She felt for a heart beat and found one although it was weak, so she moved across the ground toward where she thought Ken would be. Crawling through the smoke she came to where she last saw him and the ground felt wet in a few spots. She called his name and heard him say “Over here” she moved toward his voice and touched him. He was lying on his back and grabbed her hand as she felt him. She reached his face with a hand and asked where he was hit. He told her that he took a bullet in the leg and he would be okay but he had to stop the bleeding first. He asked about Buffalo and she told him that he was breathing but did not know how bad he had been hit. Ken rolled over and began to crawl in the direction of Buffalo. Sally stayed him for a moment while she completed the wrap on his leg and then helped him to stand the best she could. They both then moved towards the dog’s position.
Mary had been monitoring her instruments closely when the commotion broke out across the lake. Samuel saw the three men come out of the mountain and everything seemed to happen in a flurry from that point. The shooting started and Mary said we have company. He watched the big hanger door open and the choppers coming out and firing the mini guns their way. The bullets strafed the water as they splashed toward them. Samuel grabbed Mary and yelled at John to get Bill and get out. He pulled Mary through the side hatch and they ran into the forest just as the bullets hit the side of the chopper. The men flying the choppers did not know exactly what they were shooting at but it was clear that they knew there was something there. They all hit the forest and dove to the ground as the strafing continued for a relatively short space then all went silent. The explosion had been so loud that it drowned out the mini guns. When the guns quit hammering the ground Samuel looked up and the choppers were gone. He saw the fire and smoke coming from the mountain and his hearing was ringing. Mary stood up and was crying but something told her that all was right. She felt a movement in her body as Bill took off running around the lake, John called to him. “Bill, wait” and then he started to run toward the mountain area.
Tamara had approached the area of the main base inside the mountain and new that she had set some kind of alarm off. She knew that no one could see her so she waited for a few minutes and then opened a door to enter the human habitat from the tunnel. She entered a long corridor that had doors on both sides. She came to a door that had writing on it stating that it belonged to a Major Sorrows. She tried to open it but it was locked. She reached through and unlocked the door and entered the area. She noticed a man sitting at a desk in another room and moved closer. The Man was communicating with someone on a computer. She made herself visible and stood quietly until the man turned and saw her. He almost fell from his chair and said “Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?” “Who I am and how I come to be here is of no importance to you. You are a very bad man and should be with another bad man.” The Major stood up and opened his desk drawer to pull out his pistol. Tamara let him pull the gun out and even point it at her. He jacked a round into the chamber and pulled the trigger. Vinnie fell from his chair as the bullet hit the back of his chair. He pulled his pistol and came back up from the floor and fired. The short mousy man jerked and fell backwards as the bullet ripped into his sternum. Vinnie stood up and called for his security team. Once they came in he said “How did this piece of crude get in here and I want to know who he is and who let him in, do I make myself understood?” (The capitol building is not a nice place to work.)
After sending the Major away Tamara left the room and moved down the corridor. She knew that she had to hurry now so she saw where the other humans were located and began to send them to other places when she found them. They became very surprised to see this little girl just before they disappeared to other realms. When she reached the main Guard area and dispatched the remaining humans that were there she walked into the main hanger bay. She had begun to collapse the tunnels in the mountain and could hear the rumbling of that result. Entering the Hanger bay she saw the two choppers moving through the opening. It was almost too late. She was going to make them go away but she had to do one other thing quickly. She moved to the operation room and entered. The first thing she saw was the monitors and the dogs and her team mates being hurt. She set the chain reaction off of the explosives in the lockers that held the deadly things and moved back to the hanger to dispatch the choppers that were shooting at her mother and father. Just as she sent both of them to a place where they could not fly and no life could exist a bullet hit her in the back. She fell forward in a very awkward motion and as she was slowly moving through the air she turned and saw the man that had shot her. The explosives started going off as she watched this man. The fire ball that happened consumed him in one great gulf. She knew that the choppers were gone and her team was all still alive outside as her spirit dropped the corporeal body and moved into the universe and entered the waiting room. The table held only one smooth stone that was azure blue. She quickly picked it up and found herself floating in a warm comforting fluid. She felt her mother weeping and sent a talking to her mind to comfort her.
Samuel Grabbed Mary and held on to her tightly. She had been crying violently and then stopped. Her smile made Samuel wonder until she spoke into his mind about their child. John and Bill had made it to Ken and Sally and he picked up Buffalo and began to carry him back to the chopper. Sally helped Ken limp back and once they all reached the chopper, Samuel and John got Ken up inside and laid him on the seat. Sally broke the med kit out and tended his wound. The bullet had been a clean pass through so she just disinfected and sewed it up and wrapped it. John had laid Buffalo on the ground outside and Bethy and Bill both were laying next to him. His wound had been too great to treat and he gave up his corporeal body shortly after he was brought to the chopper. His spirit was moved into a puppy that was just being born by one of the dogs in paradise. The children all welcomed him and loved him. Ken had been sedated and did not know that Buffalo had passed until later. Bethy and Bill both mourned and were consoled by Sally and John. Tamara was given a soldier’s honor with no body and everyone cried. They waited the rest of the day and that night before they continued the mission
In the year 2037 on February 14 the seismology meters at the volcanology labs in Tacoma Washington registered a 5.4 quake on the Richter scale with its center located under Mt. Rainier. The lakes on the eastern side of the mountain stopped spewing gasses and a few months later the fish began to spawn once again. It was as if the mountain gave a big sigh and went back to sleep. The national parks reopened and people began to enjoy the entire mountain once again.