17 June, 0718 hours, Nevada
Murphy banged a nearly empty ceramic coffee cup on the desktop three times, and yelled for quiet in the room. General Barkus simply pointed at Murphy's coffee mug and said "Duncan is leading the charge to clean up this mess. Give him your complete cooperation. Or, I'll have you cleaning toilets on the Mungier/Reese space fleet." Barkus went over the top like that on occasion. The staff believed him though because people just disappeared from duty, whether reassigned or... whatever. The threat was in working with the Reese (as we call them) since they have a natural slime that oozes from their skin when under stress. This wouldn't be quite so bad if the slime didn't also smell so foul.
Murphy took a deep breath, cleared his throat and started the investigation. "I want the past 90 minutes of all those video feeds and through the next hour backed up to a safe area and preserved." He pointed grandly at both video walls. "Keep recording everything. Secondly, let's have a round of reports. I need to know what you hold to be the bare facts and what you observed directly in the video feeds. I don't want conjecture, opinions, or theories. Just the facts at this point, right?
Buzz started the discussion, and he gave a fairly thorough account of what he saw, which for the most part matched the video. Colonel Mathis thought he had seen markings on the door of the spacecraft as the door opened for the shooter to fire, but when the video was reviewed nobody could find it again. Sergeant Todd suggested that they also view the video through ultraviolet and infrared filters to see what else might be found, which was a suggestion that was immediately adopted.
"Now then, I want a written statement from every one of you sonsabitches about what you saw, thought you saw, or whatever you think might have happened. I need that in my sweaty little hands by zero-seven thirty local time, which means you have exactly twelve minutes to dump your brain. Standard sitrep format and drop it on the file server. No exceptions - I mean everybody!" There was a little bit of grumbling around the room. "Get on it!"
Buzz leaned forward and spoke in a low tone in Murphy's ear. "Why do documentation now? Shouldn't we go through the videos?"
"It is fresh in your head now. The video feeds are going to be available for us, but not your memory of what just happened. Start writing." Buzz nodded and moved off toward his spot.
Murphy walked toward the hologram table and stood silently watching as Michael and Alisse rotated the view, zooming in and out. The mood between them was calm and concentrated, which easily and quickly affected Duncan. "What did you guys find?"
Alisse rotated the view so that it seemed Murphy was standing behind Moses as he was speaking. "Pretty easy to find." As Murphy watched, a small window opened in the sky and the telltale visual distortion caused by the wake of an incoming heavy round flashed through the air toward Moses.
"Looks like heavy caliber, probably either a Tac-50 or M107. " Michael added. "Definitely terrestrial. Your weapons, not ours."
"What's in the window? Back up a bit" Murphy leaned in so far that his nose was in front of hologram-Moses' face.
"We don't have a good view of that." Alisse frowned around the edges of her mouth.
It was dark in there. No flashes. No visible people or aliens. Nothing. Just three rounds coming in fairly rapid succession toward Murphy's nose. This meant no shell casings, no fingerprints, no crime scene to investigate. The shooter also wasn't using a bolt-action weapon because the spacing was too close. Or there were three shooters in there. Damn.
"Where is the rest of the ship?" Murphy reached into the hologram to show Alisse where to zoom and rotate.
Michael leaned back in his seat. "It looks like they either stayed between dimensions, or have a better concealment system than we're used to dealing with. We didn't know they were there until the window opened and they started firing."
"Damn." Murphy creaked back up to his full height. "Damn clever bastards. Here we are rolling out our alien friends to the world, and somebody takes a pot shot."
"If we had a leak, they already know it was us. They will come after us, whoever they are." Alisse spoke as though in a trance, manipulating the hologram as she looked for clues.
"Maybe. Can we take this hologram data with us?" Murphy still had his nose inside the display.
"We'll need a few minutes to pack it up." Michael nodded. "We may lose a little definition in the details though."
"I'll take whatever we can get out of it. Thanks." Murphy backed out of the display and took in the room. It was possible one of these people was not completely on board with the project, or it could be one of the few others that knew about the project. Cumberbatch was animatedly discussing something with Barkus but in a low enough voice Murphy could not follow the conversation.
Barkus motioned Murphy closer. "Okay, Navy. You have the ball."
"Aye sir. I'll be taking my team then." Murphy pointed toward Michael and Alisse at the hologram table.
"Roger that. Take anybody from this command that you need. Gear up with anything you might need. Stay in touch. Speed and discretion, Captain."
"Um, Commander. Sir."
"Captain. That's your effective rank as of this minute. I'll have your paperwork lined up and at your D.C. hotel by the time you get there. Is your go-bag ready?"
"Yes, sir. We'll need a little time to coordinate transportation." So Murphy finally had a bird to wear on his collar, but at this point it was as meaningless as the soles of his shoes.
"Speed and discretion, Captain."
"Perhaps not. I remind the General that since we know we have a leak, whoever ruined today knows where we are, who we are, and what we've been up to. They'll brand us as traitors and terrorists, close us down, and try to put the Djinn back in the bottle so they can pretend this never happened."
"What's your plan then?" Barkus was rubbing the fuzz on top of his head again.
"Break the bottle, sir. Then I'm going to see who cuts themselves on the glass. I can do that more effectively outside, with nobody reading my mail. Or my thoughts."
Barkus raised one eyebrow and thought for a moment. "You are probably right. Damn risky, but I don't know what other play we have right now." The general offered his hand to Murphy.
"Use any hammer you need. We're here because the President wanted all of this alien crap out into the open, and now that it's all hosed, well I didn't think we'd need plan B on this scale. Good luck, and stay in touch."
"Aye, sir. I'll be hopping frequencies and call signs, but you'll know it is me." Murphy gripped the general's hand and saluted.
After the General stomped off to rejoin the conspiracy huddle around Buzz and Cumberbatch, Murphy signaled Michael and Alisse and headed for the door. "Conference room Baker 4-221 in fifteen minutes".
