Arlene and Jeff

I can't get over how those "helmet cams" as the General called them, could produce quality images like that. The cameras have to be small — tiny even — but the videos were every bit as sharp as any hi-res movie or TV show I've ever seen. And that — thing — seemed to almost jump off the screen with its suddenness when it attacked. And the sound — you were just there. I didn't know we had technology like that. The lettering on the bottom of the screen gave the person's name and rank. How can Jeff, or any of them for that matter, concentrate with all that information projected on the inside of their visors like that? Well, I guess it's projected. One of those heads-up displays; HUDs, I think they call them. Then again, maybe the visor is something like a computer screen that they can also see through, but I figured out that all those red dots overlain on the visor represented Jeff's team. And one set of numbers had to be a compass direction, but that's about all I could make any sense of.

But I know that was Jeff long before his promotion. The bottom of the screen had Maj. J. Matthews, with the date and time beside it. It was obvious that Jeff saved that man's life ... and it had to be on another world, like the General said. Everything looked so odd. All the foliage there was a blue/green that didn't look — natural. It was almost solid in places, just thick — bushes I guess you could call them — interspersed with little clearings. The man in front of Jeff, one of his team, was wearing that weird-looking outfit — I guess they all were. He was moving forward, hunched over, everything so quiet. Then suddenly, you could see Jeff's foot reach out and shove the man at the same time someone — something — rose up and ... fired his weapon, I guess the expression is. It was loud. The bushes near the man who Jeff pushed down, were riddled with holes. Jeff's rifle gave a loud burp sound and the thing went down on its back, holes in its body leaking something that had to be its blood.

The man who Jeff pushed down also spun and fired his weapon; he was way too late, though. But for Jeff, the man would have been dead. The General told us that the race of beings used that creature and others like it as their version of suicide bombers. They would hide in wait, using a camouflage suit that would mimic its surroundings, making it almost impossible to detect them. The suits gave off no heat signature, or anything else our equipment could use to warn of the alien's presence. Once the aliens realized we were on-planet, they would airdrop many of these hide-and-wait teams all over the area where our portal showed up. Although they invariably died themselves, they could bring havoc to a team. Afterward, the only comment from the man almost killed was a quiet, "Thanks, Major."

Jeff's response was a single click of his mike button that most of us in the living room didn't even pick up on until the General mentioned it. When that creature had fired its weapon, and Jeff had returned fire at almost the same instant, I, and I guess everybody there, had screamed or at least jumped as that torrent of sound hit us and that ... thing fired his weapon almost straight at us — or at least it seemed that way as we looked at that big screen. The sudden roar of those weapons with the sound turned up in that quiet room, and with that big screen, made it seem almost as if we were right there with Jeff. The effect was very impressive, indeed. I can well imagine that Whitworth is still chuckling over scaring the shit out of all of us.

The team went on as if nothing had happened. Later, the scene had shifted to another perspective, this time from one of Jeff's team members. The date and time had shifted forward a couple of months. Bushes and leaves slapped against his visor as the man rushed toward something. His visor showed a grouping of red dots, similar to what Jeff's had shown, but there were fewer of the numbers on the sides as well as other information in his display. One thing was there, though, that had not been on Jeff's display. A slightly larger gold dot. Even I could tell that the man was trying to get to where the person represented by the gold dot was.

The man — well I thought she was a man — but later I found out she was one of the females — was firing her weapon before I could even see the enemy she was shooting at. But I saw them fall when she shot. The General stopped the vid for a moment and said that the woman had been sent out on a flanking maneuver, but the enemy had attacked in force just before she had managed to get into position. Because Jeff was being attacked and due to the noise of the gunfire, she broke silence, according to the General; she was still deadly quiet as far as I could tell, and rushed to the attack before Jeff and the other members of the team directly with him could be overwhelmed. She had caught the enemy by surprise, and with the help of the flanker on the other side, Jeff's crew had decimated them in minutes.

Jeff's, "Thanks guys. You saved our asses," was only answered by two distinct clicks before the team moved on.

I remember that Whitworth stopped the presentation and told us that his physicists had learned to detect other planets. He said it was still a lengthy process, but the destination was no longer a more-or-less random event the way it was in the beginning. He told us they had been able to retrieve several items and substances that have already made the whole project worthwhile. The planet where we just saw Colonel Matthews fighting those beings has a plant with sap that enhanced healing. He told us it certainly wasn't in the same category as Little One, but bones that would take five or six weeks to heal, now take a week or so. Infections heal overnight. Other things as well. Unfortunately, the plant defies synthesization, though. We can duplicate its sap, but the synthesized product doesn't have any healing abilities. This planet, as is true far too much of the time according to the General, also attracts another race. A race that isn't amicable to ours, to put it mildly.

The General assured us that we were not trying to depose the race that originated on the planet. He said it was quite obvious that they have been subjugated by this invading race. At first, we were getting along fine with the planetary race, but then the bad boys showed up. The General's people think the aliens have a way to detect our portal, for they eventually find us, and they "come shooting." He said we are limited by the size of the opening of the portal, the amount of people and equipment we can transmit at one time, and frequently we were unable to put the portal down in certain areas. The missions have become costly in lives and equipment, yet the rewards from both materials and knowledge prevent us from closing down the project. Not only are the stars open to us because of the portal, but so also are the dimensions — both to a limited degree, of course. Although still in our infancy, with our baby steps, we continue to totter forward and learn. But should this information get out, he thinks the naysayers would shut down the project. At best, the program would be run by a committee of politicians. He thinks we would be NASA all over again — constant meetings and useless bickering, with a massive budget, but going nowhere. He said that would never happen as long as there was a breath left in his body.

I remember the General looking around at all of us and asking, "Should we pull back, stick our heads in the sand and pretend there is nothing or no one out there, as I'm sure the naysayers would want? We're using every precaution we can think of to protect our location, and indeed, we are a very, very long way from the planets we are beginning to explore, but there are no absolutes that say we will never be found — even if we give up this project. We know for a fact that at least some of these beings have star travel, although so far we haven't found anything to indicate that any of them have the portal technology, except ... this:"

That big screen had blanked for a second, then gradually faded into a shot of the inside of the giant mountain hanger at the base, and of the ship sitting there looking vaguely like a great bird of prey. The dark gray shape flowed from one section to another, a faint shimmer seemed to keep the ship just slightly out of focus. It reeked of alien. I remember a collective hiss in the living room as on the screen someone stepped off the ramp and onto the floor of the hanger — the person suddenly giving perspective to the vast size of the ship.

"Oh, shit," Dave had sighed into the silence.