Fort Washington

Month 6, Day 25

3:00 P.M.

Third Commander Jean Deaunius swished the iced tea around his mouth before swallowing it. He sat together with Prion Bonaparius in one of the lounges around the base, discussing the earlier screening of the Americans’ bombing run.

“Prion, you must do anything you can to secure the support of these people,” Jean said with unbreakable determination. He remembered how just a couple dozen aircraft were able to wipe out an entire army. He recalled the weapon they called white phosphorus totally incapacitating their enemy while massive bombs called MOABs brought an entire mountain down upon the suffocating targets. Like them, these Otherworlders fought with maximum efficiency and lethality, except with far superior weapons and equipment.

“I agree, Jean. I saw it too, but why would they show us such a display of force? It is clear to me that this is a form of warship diplomacy, meant to intimidate us so that we are more compliant to whatever they demand.” Prion shook his head slightly, fearful of making a diplomatic mistake that could have negative repercussions on his nation.

“Ah, I spoke with General Harding about this. He told me that his people are best reflected by sayings from their history. ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’” Jean smiled, finding great wisdom in the quote. “Essentially, they have achieved peace on their world through overwhelming power. They strive for friendship, but are never afraid to defend themselves and their allies.”

Still suspicious, Prion voiced his doubts, “The tales of the defeated are suppressed by the voices of the victorious.”

“Admiral Picardius?”

“Indeed. I would caution against trusting them outright. So far, the exchanges we’ve agreed upon have been quite reasonable. In fact, they’re probably offering us more than we are to them! However, we still do not know of their true intentions. Their recent victories against the Nobian Empire could be seen as steps toward conquest.”

“To be true, they were attacked first.”

“Then for all we can be certain, they are fortunate to have such a reason to invade.”

“That is a valid point, but consider what they’ve done to this… Bractin Army. So far, they have been generous to the Sonarans, especially in regard to their defense alliance. We could benefit much from something like that. And, it would be in our best interest to keep the Americans from being swayed by the Divinians, should they ever consider involving themselves in the matters regarding the portal.”

Prion nodded in understanding; Jean’s argument and the threat of the Divinians convinced him to opt for a more open and friendly approach with the Americans. “You’re right. It has been 50 years since our last war with the Divinians. They still hold us in a negative light, and it does seem that another war is looming over the horizon.”

Jean saw where Prion was going with this, and smiled internally, glad with his small victory. Helping Prion complete his thoughts, he added on, “We need to be as prepared as possible for the next war. Their display of might through their combat livestream was, I believe, merely the tip of the kaes root. I could see it in the eyes of General Harding, he is experienced in warfare. There are yet many secrets to be uncovered, and he is the keeper of them.”

—

Portal Hangar

“Welcome to Gaerra, Captain Lamarr!” Major Henry Donnager greeted a striking blonde lady, a new transfer from Cheyenne Mountain.

“Why, thank you, Major. It’s nice to finally meet the famous hero who fought off hordes of monsters and even a dragon!” Captain Emma Lamarr smiled, further captivating Donnager.

Henry stared into her beautiful blue eyes for a bit too long before he realized what he was doing. ‘No, I cannot do this! There is no fraternizing in the military!’ he thought to himself.

Thankfully, Emma only giggled. Trying to regain his composure after this slight embarrassment, he began again, “Sorry, Captain. Please, follow me to General Harding’s Office so you can be debriefed.”

Emma nodded, asking some questions as they walked to their destination. “So, I hear magic really does exist. I’ve been told by some scientists at Area 51 that it’s a new force in this universe, separate from the four fundamental ones we already know about.”

Henry instantly became nervous. Obviously, this woman was much smarter than he was, and currently he struggled to remember any bit of information from the Academy that he could. “Yeah, magic is real. I’ve even got a magic user on my team, Kelmithus! We sometimes call him Kel for short, but that’s usually reserved for Dr. Tesla and Dr. Oppenheimer.” Henry found the perfect escape from his situation. “If you want, you can probably ask Kel about magic; he’s a Master Wizard in the Sonaran Federation. Or you can talk to the Docs.”

Emma’s eyes lit up at the prospect; no longer would she have to study magic in some secret lab on Earth. Now, at the very least, she could interact with real magic users! “Thanks, yeah I’ll do that,” she said.

“So, what do you think of the base so far?” Henry asked.

“Pretty impressive considering it has been a month since it first started construction,” she answered, looking out the window. Outside, additional hangars and research facilities were being constructed, while a section of the main structure was being upgraded for more living quarters.

“Yeah, we also have a few civilian buildings in the works, infrastructure for trade and research. They’re gonna build a bunch of warehouses for the goods that are eventually gonna be shipped through the portal.”

“All this stuff was built pretty quickly, huh,” Emma commented.

“Yeah, the worker bots Lockheed made with the remains of that crashed alien ship back in ‘95 were a big part of that.”

“Oh speaking of aliens, I was looking through some of the stuff brought back from Site Beta One. I was able to conduct some scans of the N25 pistol, and I think we might be able to manufacture them.”

Now, it was Henry’s turn to get excited. Doing his best to suppress his delight, he gave a grin before reducing it to a mere smile. “When do you think we’ll be able to crank them out?”

“Well, I said ‘might’, she said, emphasizing the word. “But, assuming we learn more about magic and more about whatever ancient technology is stored at Beta One, I’d say maybe less than a month or so.”

This seemed like a reasonable deadline. The US military would want to be able to manufacture these as quickly as possible, so they could build a stockpile and then distribute it once enough units are made. For now, though, Henry was content with the N25 units that his Team and fellow airmen around the base would be getting.

As he thought of a reply, he suddenly realized they had reached their destination. “Well, it was nice hearing that news.” He knocked on the door, hearing a “Come in!” that prompted him to open it. “After you, Captain.”

Once inside the office, General Harding greeted them and dived straight into business.

“Captain Lamarr, I’ve requested you here because of your exceptional abilities regarding reverse-engineering new technologies and implementing them. On one occasion, you even saved your entire facility by figuring out how to disable that alien self destruct in what, 3 hours?” General Harding raised an eyebrow, impressed at the feats accomplished by this lady.

“Well, I’m sure anyone else in the research labs could have done it as well; we all spent a lot of time on Project Pioneer,” Captain Lamarr modestly deflected.

“Regardless, it was because of your actions here that you were promoted from Lieutenant to Captain. I have high hopes for you, Captain Lamarr, and that is why I am placing you under the command of Major Donnager.”

Henry’s facial expression changed ever so slightly before he regained control and silenced his shock. “Sir, she’s joining Alpha Team?”

“Correct. I understand that you and your team have already run into numerous advanced artifacts in Site Beta One. I reckon this won’t be the last time this happens, especially not after the database we found down there.”

The two junior officers remained silent.

General Harding, seeking to avoid awkward silence, continued. “The database contained the locations of 5 additional outposts on this continent alone, with nearly 30 worldwide. Some of these outposts may contain caches of weapons, vehicles, and other technologies.

The closest one to us is located in Nobian territory, near a waterfall called Nobaya Falls. According to the description in the database, this outpost was mainly for weapons. It served as an early warning platform for incoming threats, and housed various defensive systems such as ‘PDB-3 batteries’, ‘drone swarms’, and ‘. Of course, Site Beta One has them as well but it seems that it’s previous occupants left with most of their weapons and gear, obvious by the lack of vehicles in the hangars.

Well anyway, I want Alpha Team to check out this outpost. I’m scheduling this mission for tomorrow at 0810 hours. You’ll be inserted via Pave Hawk, right after the leaflet drops happen. This way, most of Nobia will be occupied with the mass amounts of paper fluttering around rather than your mission.

Oh, and try to avoid encounters with any Nobian forces along the way, but in the event you run into some, just radio for assistance. I’ll have an Osprey with some Marines on standby should you need an evac.”

“Yes, sir!” The two officers said, saluting.

Once they exited the room, Henry asked, “Ever worked in the field before?”

“Yeah, actually,” Emma replied, trying to remember the details of her most recent mission. “It was a forest in Oregon, we were investigating anomalous energy signatures, and we ran into some robots. They were guarding some sort of crashed vessel, and they’ve apparently been there for a while now. We traced some disappearances in the area to these robots, dating as far back as the early 1900s. Turns out, the robots were on a strict defensive program.”

Her eyes suddenly became watery, her breathing slowly becoming irregular. “When we ran into them, they were in like a sleep mode, I guess to save energy. We accidentally activated them when we got too close. I-I lost my commanding officer that day, Captain Nick McKay, and one of my close friends, Lieutenant Joseph Evans. They were in front when the robots activated… I…” Emma faltered. “I should’ve said something…”

Henry looked at her, sympathetic to her plight. “It’s not your fault, Emma,” he said. “There was no way you could’ve known.”

Emma turned to her side and brought her arm up to her face, wiping a set of tears that streamed down her cheeks. “I wish I could’ve done something, but…”

Henry waited for her to continue.

“But the robots killed them with a self destruct sequence. There was nothing left of them. I try to let my work distract me. I try to tell myself that I’m fortunate and honored, working with alien tech and all that, haha.” Emma looked up to Henry with a sad smile, which Henry reciprocated.

“Well,” Henry said, “you can now look forward to working with magic. There are some real miracles that can happen around here, like when Kel first healed some of our wounded after the time the Nobians attacked our base here.”

“If only these people could heal mental wounds…”

“We are all capable of doing that ourselves. I used to hate myself over a particular botched mission from my past. Sometimes I still get bad dreams about it, but they’ve been getting better. You know, now that I think about it, I probably wouldn’t be here if I had never experienced that mission.”

“Oh?” Emma tilted her head slightly, the gears in her head working to figure out the mystery behind Major Donnager’s statement.

Noticing Emma’s confusion, Henry continued. “Normally, I wouldn’t have been qualified for this, but I picked up a few things along the way, as I fought my way out of enemy territory. Had to do things not too many people would be fond of, just to survive.” Henry saw a flash of his memories as he said that: a moment where he ripped the fingernails off a captured enemy soldier in order to secure intel.

Emma nodded in understanding, seeing that her new commanding officer did not want to speak further of the topic. Suddenly, a man ran past them, yelling for the General.

“Hm, wonder what’s got him in a hurry,” Emma remarked.

—

“Sir,” the intelligence officer panted out, tired from his sprint.

“What happened, Lieutenant? Report!”

“Emperor Novus is missing!”

“What?!” General Harding couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His forces, working in tandem with the CIA, had placed numerous recording devices throughout the capital and royal castle during their assault on the city. They even had agents embedded within the Royal staff, serving as cooks and cleaners. If the Emperor had gone somewhere, they would know. However, the contrary was evident.

“Sir, one of the CIA agents reported that the Emperor just went to his private chambers and then simply… vanished. The agent was scheduled to serve him breakfast the next day, but when he entered, Novus was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t have exited, since we have the corridor outside the room under 24 hour surveillance.”

General Harding sat there in deep thought, trying to make sense of the situation. “That is concerning,” he finally said. “Despite this, I would still like to carry out our schedule for tomorrow. Keep monitoring the situation, and take some extra drones. I want the Emperor found.”

“Understood, sir.”

—

Ovine Forest

Ketan stopped by a tree, catching his breath after escaping from that burning, toxic hellscape. Now, having had a sip of water, he allowed himself to relax and contemplate the occurrences of the past few hours.

None of that was supposed to happen! He was lucky he had a plan for escape, and a protective charm to help him survive. However, that plan was meant for escaping a Sonaran raid or a futile battle against a Sonaran force. At least he would be able to tell epic tales of his escape from what was essentially a volcanic eruption. He smiled, thinking of how he could hyperbolize his heroics, and relieved that he no longer had to play that silly act with the dumb attitude.

Well, that was enough of that. He had to report the situation to his superiors first. They might not be happy about the events that have transpired, he thought, but they would definitely be glad to hear about this new intelligence. His original mission was to monitor the status of the Bractin Gang, in order to account for them and plan appropriately for the conquest of their continent, Eanif. After the skirmish in the Ovine Mountains, he was able to convince Bractin to go on the offensive; they could strike while the Sonarans were busy scufflin’ with the Nobians. As a result, his objective changed: gauge the losses inflicted upon the Sonarans by the Bractin Gang. All that got thrown out the window with today’s bombing.

He pulled out a peculiar device from his travel sack, about twice the size of a modern walkie talkie. The configuration of the device was similar to a modern radio, except without any way to adjust the frequency. Instead, runes adorned the surface of the device, numbered from left to right. Ketan recalled his training, focusing his mana on the device. He called to the first four runes, and used them to tune the device to the frequency given by his commanding officer: 105.3. With the device now connected, he activated the fifth rune, enabling one-way communication.

He began from the beginning, detailing the disappearance of a raiding party. After they hadn’t reported in for a day, another party was sent to investigate. Finding bodies riddled with bullet holes and metal fragments, the party immediately reported to Bractin. At the time, Bractin and his inner circle haven’t yet heard a single thing regarding the portal in the North Grenden Plains. Ketan also knew nothing of the people who came through the portal, since communication with the Imperium was restricted to reports and orders. Knowing nothing of the Americans and the weapons they used, they assumed Sonarans killed the raiding party, seeing that the transgression occurred on Sonaran territory. He was able to convince Bractin to attack the Sonaran Federation, ultimately leading to the massacre of his army.

“It was as if the demon Vesif himself rose once again to smite mortal armies,” he detailed. “But, this was different. This was caused by men, by the Otherworlders rumored to have established a base in the Grenden region. These men flew in planes, like the ones in Mekkan and Divinia, but certainly more advanced than those of either nation. I know not if they have shields like the Divinian models, but they certainly carried greater firepower than the Divinian and Mekkanese warplanes I’ve read of. These American warplanes truly do deserve the titles given to them by the locals: metal dragons. One large one was able to spew fire upon the encampment, covering the entire area in poisonous gas and flames. Two others blew up the mountain, whose base we had established our camp, causing a disastrous rockslide. The smaller planes, their escorts, took out our wyvern forces as if they were mere target practice! We could not even see the enemy planes until the wyverns were annihilated. And then, the escorts exploded the air around them, going faster than I can imagine.”

Ketan began to falter, some of the details too egregiously dark to coherently describe. “Bodies, and burning men. Everyone around me choked to death! And as I ran, the escorts returned, dropping thousands of bombs that blanketed the entire camp. The entire camp. It… All the people turned into red… A man’s arm hit me in the head as I ran from the camp; I still have blood on me!” Ketan screamed, beginning to go mad from the carnage he witnessed. “No! I can’t do this anymore!”

Ketan pulled out a flintlock pistol and brought it under his chin.

“I came face to face with a d-demon…”

Ketan channeled mana into the weapon, priming it.

“And it exterminated a hundred thousand men without mercy.”

Ketan cast a flame spell in the ignition chamber. The powder stored in the chamber exploded, sending a metal ball through the barrel and into Ketan’s head. The man dropped to the floor, a large hole where his chin used to be. He knew fighting demons would be futile, and he feared his fate should he fall in battle against them. His superiors on the other hand, did not share the same fear, as they were confident in their abilities even against a possible altercation with the Mekkanese or Divinians. Their counter to this fear: ignorance.