Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The pain is what he felt first. His head and back throbbed like a continuous tick of a clock. His right eye hurt like hell. He tried to reach up and scratch it, but he felt the restraints over his arms and chest. He opened his left eye and looked blurredly around the room. He was in some sort of hospital room. It was dimly lit, but well kept. Everything looked like it was in good shape. He wondered where he was. There weren’t too many places left that hadn’t been leveled by the damned monsters. His thoughts were interrupted by a young man in white robes who came into his room.
“Ah, you’ve decided to wake up! This is excellent.” The man beamed a wide, bright smile.
“Wh… where am I?”
“You’re in the Orlando Memorial Hospital. My name is Dr. Jamison, and I’ve been taking care of you for the last month.”
“Month?” he asked. “I’ve been here for a month?”
“Yes, but you’ve made remarkable progress. You were a wreck when they brought you in. Didn’t know if you’d make it. But you put up an impressive fight, if I might say so.”
“Who brought me in?”
“I wasn’t here at the time, but according to the sheets here…,” Dr. Jamison flipped through some papers on his chart. “Ah yes, here it is. It was a Lt. Kranz.”
“Where there any others brought in with me?” The Dr. rifled through the charts again.
“It looks like there were a total of 8 men brought in, including you.”
“How are they doing?”
“I’m afraid to say that you are the only survivor.” The Major’s head spun like a top. He had lost at least a full squad on a stupid tank raid. Men who were willing to follow him into anything. Men who trusted him with their lives. Men who took orders and obeyed without question. Men whom he had failed.
“Why didn’t I die like the rest of them?” He said out loud.
“Because I needed you to live.” The voice from the door startled both Dr. Jamison and the Major. Standing there in a dark military uniform was a tall, chiseled man with short cropped blond hair. He approached the bed with a smile.
“Major, my name is Major Alan Klugg. I am here on behalf of an entity called Kalechnostar.”
“Kalechnostar? I’ve never heard of ‘em.” The Major replied.
“But we have heard of you.”

The small helicopter rocked back and forth from the turbulent Antarctic air. The Major was impressed with the pilot. He handled the small craft well, despite the conditions. He would have to look into getting him transferred to his command. Major Klugg was sitting across from him, smoking a large cigar. “Probably a Cuban,” the Major thought to himself. It had been three months since that day Major Klugg introduced himself at the hospital in Orlando, and the Major had been working for Kalechnostar ever since. He was given the task of forming a new Special Forces unit. He was given free reign as to who he wanted in his unit, and had spent most of the last three months finding just the right men for the job. Of course he first went to his men that survived the raid in Orlando. He knew that they had been through hell, so he wasn’t surprised when the majority decided to pass on the opportunity. A handful of them agreed, including Lt. Kranz, who since proved to be a very able second in command. Now he was heading back to the Kalechnostar headquarters, or what he thought was their headquarters.
He’d been to the facility in Antarctica once before. It was a massive structure, three hundred feet below the ice, and shielded with some special material that effectively hid the massive heat and electrical signatures the facility was sure to put off. Klugg had told him the base had been in operation for 30 years, which meant that it was here before the Demons came. He had wondered who originally built it, seeing as Kalechnostar was only in its infancy at the time. Probably the Americans. They had a fetish for top secret things, not that they were really secret. That was also a problem with the Americans, they wanted their secret bases and spy planes, but they also wanted you to know they had them. Not necessarily the way the Cuban army operated, but to each his own. He thought back to his training in the Direccion General de Tropas Especiales, the top military personnel in Cuba. He was a quick study, becoming a Major faster than anyone had for sometime.
“What are you thinking, my friend?” Klugg asked.
“Just remembering how things used to be,” the Major replied.
“Ah yes, Cuba. When were you last there?”
“Last year. I was in Havana when the Demons attacked. I was one of the lucky ones. I was on patrol out of the city.” He looked silently out the window.
“I was in Düsseldorf.” Klugg said quietly. “I got lucky too.” They rode in silence for the rest of the flight.

The pilot landed perfectly inside the large hanger. The Major thanked him for the flight in, and told him to visit him tomorrow morning for reassignment. Klugg waited patiently for him to finish up.
“Found another one I see.”
“I was impressed by his flying. I need more good pilots and I think he’ll fit in nicely.”
“Well, hopefully the rest of our business here goes just as good.” He clapped the Major on the back and they walked toward the large hall leading into the base. It was a huge hallway, more of a road than a hallway. Two large tanks could drive down it side by side. Just as they were getting into a small personnel vehicle, a Hummvee came screaming up the hallway. It skidded to a halt in front of them. A Captain thrust his head out the passenger window, “Major Klugg! You’re needed in the SIT room.” Klugg grabbed the Major and pushed him toward the still running vehicle.
“What’s the situation Preston?” he asked as the two of them climbed into the back seat.
Captain Preston turned to face them. “Sir, we have contact.” Klugg said stared straight ahead, and slowly shut the door.
“Contact? With who? What are you talking about?” The Major asked. Captain Preston looked at Major Klugg, who appeared to be weighing the matter over.
“What’s going on Klugg? What the hell is going on?” The Major was almost shouting.
Captain Preston was still looking straight at Major Klugg. Finally Klugg looked at Preston, and nodded slowly.
“Major, sir, we have some images that will explain everything,” he said to the Major. Preston then turned quickly, giving orders to the driver and the Hummvee sped off back down the corridor.

Five minutes later the two men were being herded into a large conference room with plasma screens covering almost every inch of wall space. Information was streaming over all of them except for the main screen, which showed what appeared to be a large spaceship. The Major stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the picture. He had seen that ship before. The Demons used it wipe Havana off the face of the Earth. Klugg stood silently beside him for a moment, then ushered him into one of the many chairs around the conference table. Seconds later the room filled with ten men, the collective leadership of Kalechnostar. A tall man, whom the Major had never met, stood before the group and silenced all the hurried chatter.
“Gentlemen, as you can see, we have a situation brewing. This photo was taken from a long range reconnaissance bird supposedly looking at Jupiter, but as you can see we found something else. The ship came into the system two days ago. We thought it might have been a routine transfer of some of the damned things, like we’ve seen in the past, but then we caught a break.” He pressed a button on a small hand held remote. The image shifted to reveal a wider shot, taken from what looked like behind the ship, towards Pluto. The picture showed not one ship, but five.
“Where did we get that picture?” A small man asked from the other side of the table. “I’m pretty sure that’s not from one of our birds. It looks like it was taken from Pluto, but that’s not possible. We haven’t got anything further than Mars.” The tall man running the presentation nodded, “It’s not one of our birds Professor. But you are correct, it did come from Pluto.” There was a collective gasp in the room.
“But if it’s not from us, then who the Hell took the picture? And how did we get it?” A burly man asked from next to the Professor, he appeared to be an Admiral of some sorts.
“It’s one of theirs.” The answer came from Klugg. The men in the room turned to face the large German.
“Major Klugg,” the tall man said, “I believe the floor is yours. Please fill these gentlemen in on your current operations.”
“Thank you sir.” Klugg walked to the front of the room and inserted a small diskette into the computer terminal. “Before I begin gentlemen, let me introduce you to Major Carlos Rodriguez, the leader of our newly formed special forces branch.” Klugg waved at the Major. The men around the room nodded in acknowledgement. “I apologize for the lack of introductions,” Klugg continued, “but we’re running short on time, so I’ll get to it.” He reached over to the computer terminal and grabbed the remote. As he started the presentation on the large screen the lights automatically dimmed and once again the large spaceship was on the screen.
“As we know, this came from RS-22, roughly a week ago. As we review the markings on the ship here and here,” Klugg used the infra-red laser light to point to the markings on the ship “we can deduce that this is the same ship that has been in orbit for the last three months.” He pressed a button and the image changed to the new picture that had been shown to start the meeting.
“As we have well documented, the ships usually stay in orbit for about three to four months, and then they leave the system to be replaced by another ship. This ship was, according to our estimate, scheduled to leave six days ago. Which brings us to the image we have before us.” He walked to side of the screen to let the group get a good look at the screen. “If we look closely here,” he pointed to the ship second from the right, “we can see that the ship is still here, and as far as we can tell, this image was taken two days ago.”
“So how did we get that picture?” the burly Admiral asked. Some of the men around the table murmured in agreement.
“We finally got lucky.” Klugg said, a smile spreading across his chiseled jaw. “Yesterday, a small raiding party in London ambushed one of their small patrol tanks. And they successfully captured the vehicle in working condition.” The Major couldn’t believe his ears. He had performed fifteen raids on the damned small tanks and had never even come close to capturing one fully operational. The fact was he had never really tried. Usually He had his men blow up the damn things whenever they could. He had found it easier to fight the demons if you didn’t have to worry about blowing up their tanks. It looked like He would have to change his methods; He couldn’t have the Brits showing him up.
Major Klugg continued, “The commanding officer, one Commander Donald Whitaker found this image on the computer screen when they boarded the vehicle. The computer engineers believe it was taken two days ago, although they are not exactly sure.”
“Did they find anything else?” asked the Professor. “The databanks on that vehicle are invaluable! This could be the key to cracking the demons’ codes!”
“They are working on it round the clock.” Klugg replied. “But before we get carried away, we must determine what this picture means.” Everyone in the room looked quietly up at the image. Five ships shown on the screen. Something was going on, and it didn’t look good.
“When is the next pass from one of our birds?” asked an older gentleman.
“We should be getting an image…” the professor looked down at his watch, “we should be getting an image in about ten minutes, in fact.” The men around the table stared at the images on the screen, each wondering what the satellites would show them.

Fifteen minutes later and the men were sitting speechless. The latest image from the reconnaissance bird had shocked all of them. There weren’t five ships, there were now fifteen.
“Gentlemen, this is very disturbing.” The tall man stated. “We need to know why they are here.”
“It’s pretty obvious as to why they’re here” the Admiral stated dryly. “They’ve come to finish us off. They’re tired of losing they’re little tanks, and we’ve shown them we’re pretty good at being a nuisance.” The men around the room took in what the Admiral said, some shaking their heads in agreement, some in silent thought.
“I disagree.” Everyone turned to look at the Major. “I do think they are here for a purpose, but I don’t think that it is because of us.”
“Please elaborate on your interpretation Major Rodriguez.” The tall man asked, beckoning the Major to come to the front of the room. The Major began to elaborate as he walked to the front of the room. “Our scouts have been monitoring the damn things very closely over the last two weeks. We have noticed that recently they are starting to clean things up, reorganizing their ranks, polishing their armor if you will. These actions, in conjuction with the images we have seen today, lead me to believe that what we are witnessing is some sort of Military inspection, and not an invasion. Besides, we all know that they only need one of the damned ships to finish us off, not fifteen.” The men around the room thoughtfully digested this new information. “Besides,” continued the Major, “In all of the times I have come in contact with them, I have learnt that they are not the kind to wait for backup. If they wanted to get rid of us, they would already have done so.”
“Maybe they are just biding their time. Feeling us out.” Asked the older gentleman.
“I think the Major is right” replied the Admiral. “I think he has a valid point in that they wouldn’t amass a large scale invasion force to destroy a planet that they already control, despite my earlier ideas. But I do feel that there is still a great chance that they are planning an attack on us.” Everyone began talking at once. The Tall man finally got the room back in order.
“Gentlemen, we must decide how we proceed from here.” He stated. “Major Rodriguez, seeing as you have the most field experience with them, what do you suggest we do?”
The major thought for a moment before answering. “We lay low. We don’t give them a reason to attack us. For all we know, they do not know of our existence, or at least they underestimate the size of our forces.”
“So we stay out of the way? Just sit by and wait?” The Admiral asked.
“Yes. You will sit by and wait.” The Major replied. “But we will need to continue our small raids, with some regularity. We cannot give them any idea we know what is going on.”
“Major Rodriguez, how long to assemble your team?” the Tall man asked.
“Most of my team is here, but give me three days to fill in some holes and we’ll be ready.”
“Excellent. Gentlemen, we will meet back here in three days and the Major will outline our strategy. Get to work and let’s get him some information that he can use.” As the men filed out of the room, the tall man introduced himself to the Major. “Major Rodriguez, I am Sir Reginald Brandt, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine, sir,” replied the Major.
“Is there anything you need for your team?” he asked.
“Yes, I need Commander Whitaker.” Sir Brandt gave him a long smile.
“Then go get him, my boy. Go get him.”