Friday evening
November ??, 2014 Brigadier General Carl J. Grant’s steady eyes hold hers for a long moment. When he speaks, he sounds exhausted. “Have you ever heard of Rendlesham Forest?” Kara shakes her head. He sighs. “About thirty years ago—no, almost thirty-four years now—a spacecraft crash-landed in a forest in Suffolk, England. An honest-to-goodness unidentified flying object. Between the heightening tensions of the Cold War and the growing number of UFO claims worldwide, the Air Force had dedicated immense resources to investigating any reports of airborne phenomena. I was team leader for one of several commando units that would respond to these reports—and it was my team that was assigned this one. “I was forty-five at the time. Not old, though certainly the oldest on the team. But we were specialists… and I was looking for answers. Twice I had refused promotion, because it would have taken me out of the field—and I wanted to be there when we finally made that big discovery. I wanted to see it in person. “Well, that time, I did.” He settles his aging frame back into the seat, eyes flickering out the window and off into the distance. “It was the night of Christmas, 1980, and I was alone as usual. Quarter way through a bottle of scotch when the call came. There’d been a sighting in southern England just a few hours before, around midnight local time. Hundreds—maybe thousands—had seen what looked like a meteor streaking out of the sky, trailing flame.” He steeples his fingers. “We had two Air Force bases there at the time, rented from the Brits, and our people had seen it too, had seen it come down in the forest just outside the base. The security chief at the closer base had taken a team out to investigate… and they reported they’d found something. Sleek, black, swept-back wings. He even touched it before it lifted off, silent as a ghost, disappearing into the night. Oddly enough, said it felt almost like fabric. “The facts didn’t fit, but it didn’t matter. Six hours later, my team was on a plane, and ten hours after that, we’d arrived on the scene—unbeknownst to our people there. We began our search just before dusk… and that was the night we met KLINE.” “Kline?” Kara asks. Grant nods, still staring out the window. “Our codename, for the pilot of the downed craft. And what a sight, too. Badly injured in the crash: suffering from head trauma, severe facial burns, numerous broken bones.” He shakes his head, eyes distant. “I’ll never forget that nightmarish face, never get it out of my mind. But those eyes… those large, shockingly blue eyes…” He seems to slip into a reverie for a few moments, and when he returns, it is with obvious difficulty. He speaks almost casually, but it seems forced. “The poor soul was terrified. Fought like a cornered animal, firing repeatedly and injuring three of my men. But my troops had strict orders: non-lethal force only. I was not going to lose this prize. Finally, after an hour-long chase through the woods in the dark, we connected with a tranq round. He pauses again, even longer this time. “KLINE was kept in an induced coma for more than a month while our people treated the burns and trauma… and tried to decide what to do. “But all of our plans, all our contingencies, everything we thought we knew—it all went out the window when KLINE awoke. It was from KLINE that we learned about the campaign that would be waged against our world. About the war…” He looks up then, his eyes bright. “The war which began today.”
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