Chronicle 1, Episode 1, Chapter 5

The Interstell Chronicles

Episode 1 - War from Above

Chapter 5:-

As consciousness reclaimed Matthew’s thoughts, he almost began to wish for the bliss of the darkness he had been in.
Pain racked his shoulders and his head felt like it had been hit by a coach. He became aware of the sounds of medical equipment bleeping around him, and the smell of disinfectant.
Opening his eyes to a squint, he found himself staring up into a pair of stunningly blue eyes. Opening them further, he could take in the gracefully high, slightly rosy cheekbones, smallish nose, and wine red full lips in a natural smile, all framed by soft long blonde hair.
Smiling up at his colleague, her name was Rebecca Smithson, a fellow nurse. "Either I’m in the MedBay, or I’m looking at an angle."
Rebecca’s smile tugged more at the sides of her mouth, but she moved away slightly causing Matthew to try to turn his head to follow her. It was at this point, that he discovered he was wearing a neck brace.
"Don’t try to move too much Matthew. We are still waiting for the OK from Doctor Stillwell before removing the brace. How do you feel?"
Frowning at his minor discomforts from the brace, and judging by the knots in his muscles, he had been lying on the bed for a good few hours, he injected some humor into his voice. "Not too bad. I really enjoyed finding out what it felt like to be a piece of popcorn!"
"I’m glad you still have your sense of humor Nurse Hunter."
Matthew recognized that tone of voice. It belonged to doctor Stillwell, the Consultant for the medical ward on base. He was a traditionalist if ever there was. Coming from a poor working class family in Wales, he had joined the British Army upon leaving school to remove himself from his native mining community. His grades from school were excellent, and so he had his pick of careers from the Army, and they paid for him to go through medical school. He was a fine doctor, and during his slightly younger days, had helped to pioneer some of the best medical procedures developed in the last thirty years. He was the sort that commanded respect by nature, and he often got it.
"Yes Doctor. How am I?" Matthew kept his voice neutral while addressing the man, but immediately regretted phrasing the question that way.
"From what I heard, either a hero or a fool. But I will let other judge that. You sustained severe bruising to you shoulder blades, and you managed to put a six inch cut on the back of your skull. CAT scans show you only suffered a minor concussion though. You were lucky."
"How many other casualties did we suffer?"
"The pilot and half of the first team were dead on arrival. We lost two more in the early hours. From the team you were in, no fatalities, but some of them have serious burns, and most have lacerations from flying debris."
Rebecca came forward and began to remove the collar from his neck, causing his muscles to involuntarily spasm to stop his neck from going limp. The pain shot down his spine to his legs, and that was when Matthew realized just how lucky he had been.
Footsteps from over near the door caught his attention, and he saw Rebecca glance in that direction. There were two sets. One of the pair of footsteps were regulated, so they probably belonged to one of the military staff. Added to the fact of the look in Rebecca’s eyes as she glanced over, it meant that it had to be one of the brass.
"How are your patients doctor?" The tone confirmed it to be the bases ranking officer, Commander William Longbow of the Royal Marines.
Matthew looked over to the door, now partly blocked by the distractingly shapely behind of Rebecca, as she leaned over another patient changing his bandages. Commander Longbow was standing before Doctor Stillwell, but he had someone else with him. The man was in civilian garb, but the way he wore it indicated he was not comfortable in it. The ID tag over his left breast was just out of easy reading range, but concentrating, Matthew was sure he could work out part of the wording was Gen. General? It was in the area where name and rank were displayed.
"We have five burns patients, ranging from grade one burns that should heal in a few day, all the way up to some grade three burns that will all heal, but will leave some degree of scarring for life. All but one of those in here should be back to work by the end of the week, though some will have to be on light duty."
"Good. Good work Doctor. May I introduce to you General Wesson, United States Airforce."
Both men extended their hands and shook briefly. General Wesson stepped forwards and spoke quietly to doctor Stillwell, who tuned around, almost smiling, and headed to the medical supplies room across the ward. He returned moments later with a small bottle of pills, that due to the colour coding system that had been introduced recently, Matthew guessed that they were to help settle the general’s stomach.
Why would that cause Stillwell to smile? Matthew knew that he did not do much of that at all, and the times he did was usually when he discovered something ironic. Irony? Airforce? No, it couldn’t be! An Airforce general that got airsick?
"Is that no Mr. Hunter over there?" All three men turned to look at him lying in his bed, and Matthew just barely turned his head away to make it seem as though he had not been listening to the conversation. It was as that point that he found himself looking over at Rebecca as she sat at the desk in the middle of the room filling out a patient chart. She glanced up at him, gave him a small smile as she returned to her work.
"Mr. Hunter?" Matthew started, he had been so busy trying to pretend he had not overheard any of the conversation that had been occurring, he had not noticed the Commander and General move up to him. Doctor Stillwell seemed to have disappeared somewhere, probably to his personal office.
"Yes sir?" He tried to sit up in bed, but only half succeeded, and instead ended up slumped against his pillows, more pain arching through his shoulders and causing the cut on the back of his head to throb in time with his heartbeat.
"It’s OK Mr. Hunter, no need to be formal here. You are after all a member of the civilian support staff, and as such not under expectations of military discipline. Which would probably explain the fact that you were, shall we say, inventive, with the rescue mission?"
Matthew just looked down at the bedding, trying to compose a reply. But he came up blank. He knew what he had done was stupid. But he had done it anyway. Even the memories did not seem quite real, as though he was recalling something that someone else had done.
At that point, the General moved round the other side of the bed, and reached out to shake hands. Matthew stared at the offered hand for a second, before taking it. The generals grip was firm, and Matthew returned the same pressure.
"Pleased to meet you son. I’ve just been telling your commander here that it is precisely the sort of bravery you displayed today that will win this conflict for us!" There was no mistaking the southern accent from the general, Matthew had visited southern USA for a week just after passing his final Nursing exams, and killed a little time before starting his job at his home towns local hospital.
Matthew frowned at the Generals comments though. "I don’t think it was bravery sir." The generals smile faltered. He was probably not used to being corrected. "It was more desperation. I am trained as a healer, and I do it very well. I saw an alien setting up to ambush some of the soldiers out there with me. I knew that if it had a chance to fire, my services would be called for again. I didn’t want anyone to die, and, and I saw a way to stop it."
The generals smile returned, practically beaming down. "Gee son, that pretty much sums it up. Didn’t you know? Courage under fire is what we all hope we have, but most often the heroes are people in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they do something about it! Hell it’s how I got my first command!"
Matthew returned some of the smile, but now he thought about last night, the more he became disgusted with his actions. While he had indeed saved someone, or even several someones from being hurt, he had had to hurt someone in return. And that just seemed wrong, at least for someone in the healing profession.
The Commander cut into his self analysis, "Anyway, I have come here to offer you three things Mr. Hunter. The first is the option to become a permanent member of a team. According to all reports, you are practically qualified now. The second is some personal leave. The third is a little trip with the general here."
Thinking about his options for a moment, he would gladly take the leave. Getting a chance to see his parents again after nearly four months would be good. The other two, well with the way things were probably going to go over the next few years, fighting on the front line seemed all but inevitable. It just depended whether he wanted to start sooner or later. The thing about the trip, well, something deep down just told him to say yes to all three. So, swallowing one, he looked up at the two men and said yes.
"Excellent. The promotion happens now." The commander reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and pulled out a small wooden box. Opening it to reveal a cloth patch with a black X with gold trimming, with a black bar, again gold trimmed across the middle, with the words X COM in gold across the middle. The commander handed it over to Matthew, and he cradled it carefully in his left had. "Of course, you will start at the bottom of the command structure, but you can consider yourself a Squaddie." The commander smiled and began to back away, "We expect you to back on duty in ten days, at which point, you will leave with the general for our new base in North America"
The general smiled too, clapped Matthew on the shoulders, sending a whole new wave of pain through his back. "See you in ten days son!"
Matthew practically laughed at the image on the cloth badge. It was his design. When the Alien threat had been analyzed, it had been decided to form a top secret organization to investigate landings, and if possible to acquire alien technology for scientists to analyze. In order to facilitate maximum security, all memos and messages had refereed to ‘the organization’. This mean that any interceptions would have to discover what the organization was, as it could refer to any existing agency, like the CIA, MI5, Interpol, Russian Intelligence.
Unfortunately, the title did little to inspire the troops and civilians under it’s umbrella of authority. So some of it’s members had started coming up with names during down time. Some of the good ones were put on a list in the mess hall, and members were asked to rate them in order to come up with an unofficial name for the unit.
Taking his inspiration from a dream he had over nine years ago about the Alien invasion of Earth, Matthew had come up with the name XCOM, along with the logo. It stood for Extraterrestrial Combat Unit.
"Come on soldier boy, time to vacate the bed!"
Rebecca had come over to him, barely containing a smile, and failing most of the time. "I’m sure you want to get back to some semblance of normal life, even if it is only for a few days.

Rested and relaxed after ten days spent in the comforts of his home, Matthew sat in a passenger seat of a RAF Hercules Heavy Lift aircraft. Gazing out the segmented viewport at the front of the plane, he ignored the conversation occurring between the Pilot and Co-pilot about a storm front just off their course to America.
White clouds brushed the perspex, leaving behind little water trails which moved towards the edges of the window. Following one, letting his mind drift free, he continued to contemplate his mission.
He was headed for the new American base, with a few other people from his own, to give a first hand account of combat with the Aliens. His particular topic was to be combat trauma caused by alien attacks. Having not really death with any, he still wondered why he was being sent. Of course, he had read all the medical reports of the casualties suffered last week by XCOM forces, but it would have made more sense to send one of the medical staff that had had to deal first hand.
His tour was obviously hiding something, and that he did not like. He had spent the first few hours of the flight studying his notes again. But after a while, there was nothing new he had to pry from the pages, and so he had been left with little to do for the remainder of the flight.
Images flashed before his eyes. Aliens were moving around out there. He had to warn someone. He had to find a weapon. He to fight back.
Of to his left, moving as in slow motion and blurred like there was water on a camera lens, a knot of people ran screaming from a building, being trailed closely by a monstrous green alien with a purple face, holding a massive bladed weapon, and another gun like weapon slung over it’s back.
Wielding the blade, it charged with amazing speed, hacking left and right through the fleeing people. The heavy blade cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter. Limbs fell bleeding to the ground. Heads rolled, and so did the blood. Making it’s way like molten lava out of buildings around him. The green alien turned to face Matthew, charging forward with his blade held high, Matthew ducked to his right, then felt a presence to his side.
Starting, Matthew woke suddenly to find himself being prodded none too gently by General Wesson. "Wake up son. Were here!"
Swiping his cold sweat damped forehead, Matthew glanced a his watch. Four hours had just disappeared. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, he stood and made his way from the plane, out into a wonderfully cool moist air.
It was almost as if he had been in his dream, no nightmare, and then he wasn’t.
Looking around him, it all felt so surreal. He half expected the hulking alien to step out and continue the attack. But all he saw were a few buildings, on a similar layout to his home base in England.
Following the rest of the group, he descended the boarding steps and collected his luggage, and trudged across the tarmac towards the control tower for the airfield.
The airfield had been built parallel to the base of a cliff, with the control tower sitting between runway and cliff, and the square building beneath the tower actually running into the clifface.
Closing on the building, Matthew began to pick out several details. First, that the windows were high off the ground, and reflective. So even if you raised yourself to the height needed to see though the window, you could not. The building also seemed to be sturdily constructed of concrete, an impression only heightened, when, as the group stepped through the recessed doorway, the thickness of the walls was six feet. The room they found themselves in was almost identical to the guarded entrance back in England. That was when he noticed that there were no windows inside. The outside windows were probably just there for show, and as such would be mounted in small recesses in the concrete structure.
Matthew drew his attention back to General Wesson, who was starting to give a little speech as the accompanying members of the group were processed by the security details.
"….be staying here for a few days, before we head out to DC Er… that’s Washington DC folks. It is there you will give your talks to a senate select committee, and President Bush. I warn you now, that he is not very supportive of the idea of an international force like the organization having free reign inside American boarders. It will be up to you to pursued him otherwise."
Matthew stepped forward and interrupted the general "What happens if we don’t manage to convince him?"
The general faltered there and frowned. "Well son. You’ve seen them close up. The aliens I mean. The simple fact is that we must persuade him to continue to support the organization, especially as half the operational budget comes from America. Otherwise I dread to think what will happen."
Matthew nodded, and continued to pay attention as they were guided to their quarters, begin given a small tour on their way. It would be three days while American intelligence set up the last details of the meeting in DC All of the speakers would have to then be smuggled into the meeting place, so as to throw off observation by ‘outside forces’. Again, the fact that the governments involved had decided to try to keep the Alien attacks secret boggled Matthew’s mind. How did they honestly believe that they could keep an invasion hidden?

NOW OUT:- CHAPTER 6