Read Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile Online
Authors: J.L. Bourne
Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (36 page)
He replied callously with only: “I have been briefed in your background and I have decided that you will ride the
Virginia
to China and you will support this operation. I know about what you did in Texas. We screened all military message traffic leading up to the anomaly. Your name came up as, shall I say . . .
missing
?”
A line of seriousness appeared on the admiral’s forehead and then he said: “Can’t say that I blame you, son. There was no way to
win at that time, but there may be a way to win now. There’s space on the helicopter as well as the boat for an extra body, if you want to bring someone you know and trust. I’ll leave that to you. You leave in three days’ time. That is all, Commander.”
All I could mutter was, “Aye, aye, Admiral.”
. . . Then dismiss myself and walk out.
Leaving the cabin in a confused daze, I didn’t realize until Joe congratulated me on my new promotion that I had been bumped up two ranks to commander. He also handed me the appropriate collar rank devices and wished me better luck than the man who had held these oak leaves before me. I tossed them in my pocket, never planning to wear them, and made way to my quarters.
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CRITIC FOLLOW-UP/I+274/
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Be advised this is not a finished intelligence report. Numerous COMINT intercepts originating from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) leading up to the event reveal the probable anomaly source.
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One year ago VORTEX received communications revealing that the PRC had recovered something of great technological interest from the ancient ice of the Mingyong glacier in Yunnan Province. An object of ovoid shape (see separate enclosure 01: AURORA overflight imagery) about the size of a large passenger bus was discovered by the local population and reported to the local authorities. Chinese web precognitive awareness predictive language supports this intercept.
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At first the Chinese radiometrically dated the unknown alloy of the object back greater than six billion years (a geological impossibility). That was until they calibrated their instruments to the alloy’s true decay rate. After instrument calibration, it was discovered that the object had been in the ice for approximately twenty thousand years.
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The vehicle (as it turned out to be) was not without damage to the outer hull. Imagery analysis indicated a two-meter hole in the top of the object that allowed the elements to slowly enter the inside of the vehicle during its glacial interment. The immense pressure of the ever-contracting and expanding glacial ice and the vast time span from crash to recovery was a direct factor that likely caused the outer hull to warp over the centuries. After weeks of careful excavation the Chinese
advanced to the cockpit of the vehicle (see separate enclosure 02: HUMINT handheld imagery). It is unknown by this agency why the Chinese chose to excavate in the direction of the cockpit and not the assumed advanced propulsion systems of the vehicle. In the cockpit the excavators discovered what is known in the transcripts only as a creature assigned the Chinese code name CHANG.
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When discovered, CHANG was restrained in the cockpit seat wearing a thin exoskeleton of unknown technology that Chinese researchers postulated could function as a conventional astronaut environmental suit [REF 243B2]. CHANG was still mobile and seemed to react to the excavator’s presence by moving its head from side to side inside the exoskeleton’s helmet. CHANG was also encased from the chest down in ice. The scientists and security personnel were initially very disturbed by the movement of the creature and were given orders to keep it restrained by any means necessary. They were also given specific instructions not to remove CHANG’s cranial helmet.
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TACNOTE: Some of the researchers were executed when central military commission cyber-defense agents discovered that they had PGP encryption keys installed on their personal computers and were in intermittent communication with unknown [to PRC] persons outside the PRC (covered in separate agency correspondence).
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According to intercepted initial magnetic resonance imaging, the creature is bipedal and has the rough appearance in mass and appendages of a young adolescent human.
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After securing and removing CHANG (still at this point in a relative block of ice), the Chinese began to excavate the rest of the vehicle. They discovered numerous artifacts, some
destroyed by the ages and immense glacial ice pressure and some still very much intact. Most notable were the advanced propulsion systems that the Chinese recovered and took back to the same research facility in which CHANG was being examined (probably in Beijing). At first the Chinese took great interest in reverse-engineering the advanced magnetic levitation, propulsion and inertial dampening systems as well as the exotic power plant of the vehicle. The vehicle appeared to possess what PRC researchers hypothesized as a crumple drive module that might allow the vehicle to distort or crumple the space directly in front to an area twenty meters out (single-source HUMINT report). Also recovered were numerous handheld directed-energy weapons. Utilizing a transmission electron microscope with half-angstrom resolution capability, the Chinese were able to perform a cursory examination of the artifact internals. Much of the inner workings examined on the smaller artifacts indicated subnano technology advanced circuitry. When the PRC quickly came to a technological impasse with reverse-engineering attempts, their focus turned to CHANG.
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CHANG was being kept in a biohazard containment vault in the compound (probably in Beijing). He (unknown gender) was under constant security and observation but seemed to exhibit very little intelligence and made no attempt to communicate with the scientists or military officers charged with interrogation and study. It was decided after deliberations by Chinese presidential authority that CHANG be removed from ice and observed.
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The last communications intercept contained a distress call from the research facility that held CHANG (confirmed to be in Beijing, PRC, by this timeline of reporting). All HUMINT sources inside the facility have since gone dark.
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Remote viewing data is available via separate compartmented reporting channels.
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Assessment: This agency assesses that CHANG was infected with the Mingyong Sickness somewhere in transit between his star system and Earth. Judging by the acquired photos taken at the glacier site, it appears that the vehicle was at an abnormal attitude in the ice, which suggests an inverted crash landing. The hull damage score marks possess melted and deformed edges, which could indicate a blasting event by some great force, possibly a separate energy weapon event.
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Also of intelligence value: It is assessed that due to the timeline of the anomaly and the extreme complexity of the subnano circuitry, the Chinese were unable to effectively reverse-engineer the propulsion systems of the vehicle or even develop a theory about how the systems function. Beijing was the first city to be overrun by the creatures, thus halting research and development of advanced systems. Home Base and Utah Site 84-026 concur with this assessment.
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TF HOURGLASS is standing by to provide operational intelligence support to the Beijing incursion.
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DECLASSIFY ON: MANUAL REVIEW
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