Project Blackthorne

Chapter 8 Doors openning Can Be Dangerious.

"What the Hell are we suppose too be looking for?" Willis asked his partner Harris from his position about ten foot away on the side of a dusty desert highway. They were out in the middle of freaking nowhere with nothing but heat waves, scrubs and cactus as far as the eye could see. The black top highway stretched off into the distance father than the normal eye could see. Harris the senior of the pair of mercenaries but not by much simply shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. "Orders are too stop anyone and everyone check them out and report anything of interest." Harris patted his Glock 9 mm feeling the reassuring weight under his right arm. Harris and Willis were two of a twenty four member team that had been directed to this location. They were one of six other four men teams positioned in a grid circle around a site they were only given digital coordinates too and no other information. Their orders were at least simple too deal with. "Stop EVERYTHING!" was what Will Riker had yelled over the phone too Harris the last time they had spoken. Harris right hand touched his ear piece. "Fallon and Sikes report." Harris ordered. They were stationed about a half click on either side of the interstate out in the desert stretching even farther on either side of the road. "All the Hell I see is fucking sand and damn jack rabbits." Fallon grumbled into his mic from his position on the right hand side of the road looking deeper into the desert. "Keep it tight! That's an order." Harris shot back slapping Fallon into his place. "We are getting paid quite well to do a job. Let's do it right and get it done." Harris let it stand at that bringing his attention back too the road. He wasn't exactly in the mood too be sweating his ass off in the middle of a freaking desert. But the thought that this wasn't exactly the worst desert heat that he had faced made him smile even as he continued too sweat. He had a feeling that they were in for some boring long hours to sweat off a few pounds with nothing of too much interest to pop up way out here. The only exceptions being two buzzards, one lone hawk and the occasional tips of a pair of rabbits ears trying too figure out what these strange beings were doing out in this desert.

Jim Donovan, Hannibal Sikes and Bryan Holts were in one Toyota Land Cruiser heading for the site near the Rift where the ship had landed. Sam Tyler, Luther Tonaka and Kiran Lively were following close behind in a second Land Cruiser. "Mother," Jim spoke straight up yet everyone in the following car could hear everything he was saying. "What kind of movement have the satellites picked up sense we've touched down?" Mother had found an abandoned flat sandy strip too set the C141 Statlifter down on so as not too attract too themselves. There was only a heartbeat of a pause before Mother called back but there was the added plus of an LCD monitor on the dash which showed Mother smiling back at everyone. "There was a Gulfstream 7 that landed at another private air field in the last twenty minutes. They have already placed a grid around the perimeter of the crash site in under fifteen minutes of the Gulfstream touching down. So you may face a slight bit of resistance when you try too get up close withe the anomaly. From what I can gather from available satellite images about four miles from the mountain range you should see looming up in the distance as you continue heading east. Some kind of small one man craft can be view being disassemble as we speak." The satellite area view showed a group of what looked like worked ants dismantling a dead carcass but was in fact a group of technicians carefully taking the small craft apart loading the parts into the backs of three large Hummer trucks.

"What about the local police and the White Sands Army base? Surely they are scrambling something too see what's going on out there." Sam queried of Mother from the passenger seat of her Land cruiser. Mother smiled nodding as she spoke. "White Sands is having a problem with a number of strange fire alarms across the whole base. Cannon Air base west of Clovis is having a problem finding their aviation fuel. Holloman Air base west of Alamogordo is on base lock down cause they keep receiving a message that Air Force One is wanting too land at their base ASAP. Kirtland Air Base has the possibility too be a problem but their satellite guidance systems in all available flight equipment is down for the moment." Sam nodded approvingly to Mother already starting to like how this outfit handled itself so far. "But I have just intercepted a communication from one of the teams. I am sending the co ordinance to all of you. They seem too have ran across someone in the desert of interest." Mother seemed to be reading something off another monitor. "They have sent word too Riker who is in route to their position. But as it stands right at the moment. All of you are closer than Riker own present position. So if you get a move on you may beat Riker and his heavily armed crew and get too whomever it is roaming around the desert."