The sun was shining above us, and the gentle blow of the highland wind giving me that cool morning breeze, but somehow it did not give me the push to walk in a quicker pace. It might be because of the sudden spike of adrenaline right when we had just woken up, that all three of us decided to proceed with a little slower pace than before. Aside from that, we should also not talk until it was urgent and really necessary to while at the same time trying our best to not make any footsteps that could give our whereabouts to the aliens.
Just like what Billy had been briefed before, there was absolutely no obstacles whatsoever found around the swamp no matter where we go. The only thing rather unusual that we could see, if any, was only the strange shape and state of all the trees there, especially since each two of them had the tendency to twist against each other, making some sort of a spiral formation and had many thick branches adjacent to each other, to the point that they created a small spot beneath them that could shelter someone from rain.
Shortly after, I suddenly felt the vibration on my watch. I stopped my steps, and apparently Billy also quickly noticed about it. We hurried to one of the nearest spot, not to cover us from any rain, but to provide us cover from the sights of any possible aliens nearby, before I began to look at the messages that had been transmitted to me. Since it no longer vibrated, I decided to initiate the communication again.
'Nest? I have been trying to contact you from yesterday, but you did not respond.' I transmitted the message carefully and as calm as I could. 'What happened?'
At first, there was no response. However, after about three minutes of waiting, a message was transmitted to my watch, although a strange and unusual one.
'Black Caiman… or should I say… Lieutenant Travis Verelli Burners…' my watch responded.
In an instant, I was completely confused by the respond, almost clearly as if it was not Commodore Quentin who had sent the message to me. I tried to stay calm as I thought of any possible respond for the message. Billy also saw the unusual message, although he seemed to have no suggestions on how to respond in his mind as well.
'Are you still with me, Lieutenant?' my watch continued.
'Yes I am here, and receiving your message clearly.' I responded to the message.
'Perfect… then that means my message will all get through to you, without any flaw…' the strange message occurred again.
At that moment, I knew for sure that it definitely was not Commodore Quentin who was responding via the transmitting machine somewhere since the message used the symbol '…' after every several words unlike before. Instead, it was someone completely different who knew exactly who I was, and most likely what I was doing as well as the whole operation. Billy still saw the whole thing, and he glanced to me briefly as he nodded to me once, probably signaling me that I made the right choice to stay calm and look on what the person would like to message.
The person first told me that he was someone holding the position of Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in U.S. Department of Defense. He told me that the whole E.X.T.I.R.T operation had picked up the interest of the United States Armed Forces, not because they were involved in the operation, but instead, because E.X.T.I.R.T had not asked for any sorts of permissions to the U.S. formally.
Since he also knew that the operation had gone too far to be aborted by then, he warned me that I would most likely face court martial with accusations of severe misconducts once I was to go back to U.S., with two of the most possible accusations were unauthorized activity in a foreign soil, and unauthorized usage of an officially registered U.S. military firearms. However, he could provide me with an alternative solution about that matter since coincidentally, the U.S. had taken several particular interests in few elements in the operation, or so he said.
'Are you… still with me, Lieutenant Burners?' the message then asked me again.
'Yes. I received all of your messages perfectly clear up until now.' I replied to him, completely focusing on my watch and strangely did not feel threatened by the message.
'Splendid… that means I can continue further to what I have to offer…' the message continued.
He continued by stating that I would only need to follow through the operation, and provide a physical prove of an extraterrestrial invasion on the foreign soil. That would also mean that I absolutely must not provide the prove in a defective state. Failing to satisfy the offer and also the special requirement would result in the revocation of the offer unilaterally.
'So… are you clear with the offer and the special requirement, Lieutenant Burners?' the message asked to make sure.
'I have a couple of questions regarding what you said.' I answered him, both with the intention to clarify something as well as to buy time for a need I could not yet explain
'Please… ask…' it responded quickly.
I first asked him on how did he know about the operation in the first place and why did U.S. considered the operation as some sort of an illegal operation, despite that I was officially authorized and supervised directly by a flag officer of the U.S. armed forces. Then, I continued by asking him on what did he actually meant by saying the word 'must not provide the prove in a defective state.' He did respond pretty quickly after I asked those questions, but his answers were far from what I had expected to find out.
'Of course… you must be concerned about Commodore Gabe Callahan Quentin of the United States Navy, are you not?' he replied with words that ended in a question, seemingly mocking both me and Commodore Quentin.
At that moment, I did not give any immediate reply since I somehow felt a little bit of anger inside me for a brief moment. Even when it quickly subsided almost instantly after that, I decided to just wait for his respond. I also completely realized that the concerning thing was not that he somehow managed to intercept the communication line between me and Commodore Quentin. It was the fact that he seemed to know in complete details whosoever within the U.S. armed forces that were involved within the operation.
'Come on, Lieutenant Burners… do not tell me that such words are already able to tick a decorated extraterrestrial invasion veteran…' he mocked me further.
I no longer felt the brief anger like I did earlier, but I still chose to remain unresponsive since I believe that nothing good would come out if I were to continue or 'play along' with his taunting mocks. Then, as if my actions somehow resulted in him going a little impatient, he suddenly sent another message again.
'Very well… I suppose that you… insisted that I am to not mince my words here... so let us just move on with the answer to your next question.' he replied.
He stated that what he meant by 'not in a defective state' was simply that the prove must not be broken, or rather still perfectly operable by the time it arrived right in front of his eyes. Either he blatantly did it in purpose or it was unintentional, he continued by saying that he did not want another shameful aftermath like it had been in Chicago.
It was right after he mentioned those words, that I also came to another realization that he most likely had been watching very closely the activities of every military officers who had been directly involved in that incident – me, Jonathan Xavier, Ryan Ming, and Commodore Quentin. By then, I completely eliminated any doubts that the person behind the transmitting machine was lying about him being in the position of Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and knew for sure that I was most likely messaging someone in the rank of either a three-star general officer or flag officer.
'If that is the case, I wonder what the consequence of failing the offer and the requirement will be, besides from my court martial.' I replied to him, fully convinced that he must have another plan.
'You must be one smart fellow to be able to say those words, Lieutenant…. I like that…' he messaged.
He first said that thanks to the incident that took place in Chicago three years earlier, the U.S. could develop a whole new prototype of a Direct Energy Weapon. I knew instantly that he must be talking about the finalization and perhaps a few more changes to the technology that Commodore Quentin had been in charge of at that time when he was still a Captain. He continued that the weapon would be sent and exploded upon to the last known location of my position.
'I wonder how you will cover up that massive scale of mess that you create upon this country later on, then.' I replied, still with my composed state with me.
'I would not worry about that cheap country… I even bet they could not tell the difference between a volcano eruption and an explosion caused by a Direct Energy Weapon in the first place.' he answered, somehow I felt like he laughed hard as he transmitted the message.
I looked towards Billy for a brief moment, but thankfully he did not seem to be upset or offended by what the person had transmitted to my watch, even though he had been following and paying attention to the message right from the start. The same person then sent me his last few messages, before seemingly going off.
'One more thing, Lieutenant… suppose that you are willing to take my gracious offer, I am afraid that you also have to silence any forms of witnesses to your… undoing…' he continued, practically telling me to kill both Billy and Jessica as the second requirement in his offer.
'And what does that mean?' I asked him, pretending I did not know what he wanted to tell me.
'You are a smart officer, Lieutenant… I believe you have answered that question yourself.' he answered very quickly. 'I will expect your answer exactly thirty hours after I end this transmission, and a simple yes or no will suffice.'
My watch then no longer received any more messages after I still waited for exactly three minutes, meaning that the countdown had begun. I then lowered my left hand, and looked towards both Billy and Jessica. He looked like he had realized or at least thought of a few other things when I had been in the middle of the communication, while Jessica seemed to be still clueless as to what had just happened since she could not yet read much Morse codes.
"That was definitely-" I said before Billy cut off my words.
"Blackmail… Yeah I know that much…" Billy said, as he nodded and sighed.
He then immediately realized that the same person had most likely hacked into his Commander General's Morse code communications system first before making his next move to Commodore Quentin. He supposed that the person had gone along the line of threatening the Commander General as well, accusing him of giving support to an unauthorized U.S. military operation in foreign soil and also to an unauthorized usage of U.S. military firearms. However, he was also sure that the Commander General must be currently thinking of another solution given the unpredicted situation.
"But what is it about the Direct Energy Weapon that he mentioned many times in your transmission?" Billy asked me, full of curiosity.
"I did not know much about that weapon, but it is a form of a weapon created through absorbing the sunlight and to first contain it in some sort of a chamber, before it would be then be fired upon a target." I answered to him.
I then continued by saying that since light would not be affected at all by gravity, then it would mean that the weapon would have a flat trajectory and making it having a perfect straight-in-a-line accuracy, and unlike nuclear weaponries, Direct Energy Weapon would not create any forms of radioactive radiations. That would mean once the weapon was fired upon the target, the radiation traces of the weapon around the target could be considered caused by a natural ultraviolet radiation
With him having a slight comprehension on the weapon, he proceeded to ask me about the correlation between the incident that took place three years earlier and the weapon itself. I answered him by explaining that during the incident back then we witnessed directly that the firearms belonged to the aliens back then had a slight resemblance to the concept of the direct energy weapon itself. What concerned the military was how the aliens could make it into such a portable size, to the point that the manner they had operated it were not too far compared to how one would use a long rifle.
Commodore Quentin had realized upon the possibility that the military would want to use the technology for their own advantage and perhaps, also profit. That was the reason why he urged us all to destroy every last of their weapons back when we were inside the aliens' mothership. Unfortunately there was one thing that he could not do back then.
It was when he was knocked unconscious by the alien's leader, and even went into a coma after that, forcing him to not be able to destroy the very last piece of the alien technology – which was none other than the beam spear belonging to the alien's leader. As for the mothership itself, it was actually Ryan who had forced and urged the backup team that had arrived there to destroy and sink it to the bottom of the great lake back then, after he heard Jonathan's full explanation on his suspicions against the military top brasses back when we had split up inside the mothership.
Apparently, somehow few personnel of the backup team there managed to get their hands on the beam spear which ended up on the hands of a general officer in the U.S. Air Force. It was solely thanks to the beam spear that the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy decided to join their hands in updating the Direct Energy Weapon prototype, especially when it comes to storing the contained sunlight energy.
"But… how did you get this information?" Billy then asked me once he understood everything that had happened.
"Commodore Quentin and Ryan told me last year when I was still re-learning how to run due to my serious legs injuries…" I answered him quickly.
Billy only nodded to the facts that had been given to him, and also maybe giving him some more things to consider about. There was nothing else that we could do anymore at that time just by staying there, and so I suggested both him and Jessica that we should move again, but not necessarily in a rush since we still would not want any of the aliens' attention towards us.
The time was then exactly 07.00 a.m., and I realized right away that each of us had our own burdens in our minds to carry with ourselves. Although, I also noticed that the atmosphere around us was not tense at all, and I suppose that it was actually a rather good thing to happen to us, at least for that moment…