Chapter Five: Watching the Skies
June 9, 2016. BAINE Headquarters.
Director Mills spun around in his chair to face the numerous captains seated at the table. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it's official: we've recently had our first undeniable contact with organic extraterrestrial life."
A murmur broke out among those present. There had been rumors that UFOs had been spotted recently, but nothing was confirmed until now. None of them were really sure where this would lead, as the only aliens they had encountered until this point were Gems. One of the only one who was completely silent was Daniel. He had been there, and he had seen this ship firsthand. Nobody, not him, not anyone under his command, had been able to do anything other than watch it leave.
"Do we know if they're hostile?" asked another captain to Daniel's left. "We shouldn't act until we know for certain if they mean us any harm." A few others agreed.
Mills nodded. "We only have a select few encounters to go off of, but we can at least infer that they do not have our best interests at heart. The most recent of these encounters shows us that they are definitely willing to fire on our troops. Gentlemen, if you would?"
Aside from Mills and his captains seated at the table, two other men were also present. James Rook and Emett de Santis stood by the wall, waiting to be brought up. At Mills' direction, the two of them stepped forward.
"These are Agents Rook and de Santis," Mills explained. "Agent Rook was present at the steel mill two days ago, and Agent de Santis had an encounter with an alien craft a week ago, the very same encounter that brought this issue to our attention to begin with. We'll start with Mr. de Santis; would you please explain what happened to the board?"
Everyone's attention was now focused on the two men. James stood off to the side, lost in thought, while Emett stood at attention, facing the others. "It started out as a routine mission," he explained. "Me and the rest of my squadron were called in to aid a ground team with eliminating a Gem monster. We engaged several hostels before realizing that the actual Gem was-" He shook his head. "Anyway, the Gem was capable of manipulating the weather, and created a massive storm. I attempted to climb above the storm, and got separated from my squadron. Eventually, I...I saw a light. I went closer to investigate, and it was a craft of some sort."
"Did it resemble the craft seen by Fireteam Romeo, by any chance?" asked another captain. "Greyish, orange lights, two wings that folded up to its side?"
"Exactly the same," said Emett. "For all I know, it could be the same exact ship."
"That is a possibility, but unlikely, given the sheer amount of sightings," said Mills. "Agent Rook, could you please share your encounter?"
"Uh, I'm sorry Director-'sightings'?" said Bridge. "I was unaware that there were more than two encounters with these beings."
"There were, outside of BAINE," explained Mills. "I'll wait for Dr. Rhodes to explain. Now, James, if you would?"
Rook looked up from his introspective. "I mean, what can I say that hasn't already been said?" he said. "We went into the mill looking for a Gem, and we found one-it had already been poofed. We went to investigate some noise, and eventually something shot at us. Wasn't human, that much should be obvious. Couldn't tell what these things looked like, but they're definitely bigger than a person. Pretty sure I saw a tail as one of them was leaving."
"And there you have it," said Director Mills. "Of those present during that day's shootout, Agent Rook was the one who got the best look at the aliens, which unfortunately doesn't leave us with much. However, as I mentioned before, this is not all the information we have." He spoke into a device. "Edmund, we're ready for you in here."
The doors opened, and in walked Edmund Rhodes, along with Gina Packard. The two of them stepped over to where James and Emett had been standing, who awkwardly backed off to the back of the room. Rhodes nodded in Mills' direction. "Director," he said. "Everyone."
"Now, Dr. Rhodes, you tell me you have some troubling information regarding these recent sightings," said Mills. "Could you explain that to the board here?"
"I wouldn't say they're 'troubling' per se, but they're definitely cause for concern," said Rhodes. "And really, Gina was the one in charge of the data. Gina, do you want to present, or should I?"
"I'll handle it," Gina said. "Captains-and Director-please turn your attention to the screen." She pressed a button on a remote. The lights dimmed, and a screen descended from the ceiling. When it turned on, it displayed a map of the world. "As you are most likely aware, but may not be, BAINE is tasked with monitoring all extraterrestrial activity on Earth, not just that of Gems. Up until now, this only included collecting and archiving sightings of possible alien spacecraft. To put matters in perspective, this is a collection of all the sightings we collected in the past three years, from 2013 to 2015."
Gina pressed a button on the remote, and a scattering of red dots appeared on the map, particularly in rural areas. There were a fair number of them, but they were far from covering the entire thing. After a moment, she pressed the button again. This time, a mass of yellow dots appeared; far more of them than of the red, and many of them were located in more populated areas, but not all of them.
"And this," she continued, "is a collection of sightings from this year so far. As you can see, there have been almost four times as many reported UFO sightings in the past five months than in the last three years combined. We can't verify that all of them are from the same beings seen by our two guys here, but it stands to reason that a good deal of them are."
More murmurs from the board. "This is bad. Shouldn't we alert the Gems?" said one of the captains.
"I have two of my agents down in Beach City as we speak," said Bridge. "I told them to ask for help if they could, but we might not get any."
"Indeed," Mills said. "With Homeworld's return possible and Jasper still on the loose, they have their hands full. Unless these beings attack us in earnest, the Crystal Gems have more important matters to deal with."
"There's also the matter of the other encounters," Gina said. "Eddie, you take this one." She tossed him the remote."
"Thank you, Gina. Now, while most of the sightings indicated on this map were just that, lights in the skies and the like, a few of them were a little closer than that." He pressed a button on the remote, and the image changed to that of a burn mark on a wall. Rook recognized it as one of the ones from inside the mill. "Up until now, the only evidence we had of this being an extraterrestrial issue was burn marks identical to these, reported by several employees of Polaris Industries."
Rook quietly approached Gina. "Are Polaris still enemies with us?" he asked.
"Hard to say," Gina replied. "Ever since the Children of Homeworld went underground, St. Augustine hasn't tried to contact us, and he hasn't replied to any of our attempts. But they're definitely collecting Gem monsters and tech, which was against our agreement."
"It had been reported that several sites of valuable material had been raided. At first, we suspected that it was the Children of Homeworld, as before, but the presence of enhanced guard patrols suggests that St. Augustine is not in league with them anymore. Also, our inside man informed us that burn marks identical to the ones in the mill were found at some of the sites."
"We have a man inside Polaris!?" Rook asked in hushed disbelief.
"We do now," Gina said. "He came forward several months ago, claiming he was disillusioned with how St. Augustine was running the place. It's strictly need-to-know."
"As you can see, the marks are nearly identical," Rhodes continued, the screen now showing several pictures of the burn marks side by side. "We ran some tests on the marks found in the mill, and learned that they were most likely formed by some sort of high-aperture laser weapon. Now, here's where the interesting part comes in: what little we've learned about Gem weapons indicate that they also use high-aperture lasers. And under the right circumstances, they create marks just like these."
"So...what does this mean?" asked Bridge. "That these aliens were using Gem weapons?"
"We wondered that too, but we figured it was unlikely," Rhodes said. "However, given that we have reverse-engineered some weapons of our own out of Gem tech-more on that in a minute-it stands as a possibility that these beings have done the same."
"Which could be why they're on Earth," a captain said. "To collect samples of Gem equipment without having to deal with any actual Gems."
"My thoughts exactly," said Rhodes. "Of course, we can't be sure until we've…" He trailed off. "Nevermind, it's stupid."
"No it isn't," said Gina. "Eddie, tell them what you have planned."
"It's not so much a plan as it is a general idea," Rhodes continued. "But unless the Gems know exactly who we're up against, the best way to figure out who they are and what they want would be to capture one. Easier said than done, of course."
"That it is," said Mills. "Now then, with this new threat on the horizon, Dr. Rhodes has asked me to present several projects he has been working on. Agent Rook, Agent de Santis, I'm afraid this is above your clearance level for the time being. You are excused."
Emett nodded, and James replied with a curt "Of course, Director," and both of them stepped out. Once they had left, Rhodes pressed a button on the remote once more.
"Let's start off with one of my favorites," he said. "I call this baby the Quartzbreaker…"
Rook and de Santis made their way down the hall away from the conference room. The former didn't pay the latter much attention until he broke the silence. "So, apparently we have a mole in Polaris," he said. "And there've been several alien attacks on Polaris facilities. What else do you think they aren't telling us?"
"If they're keeping anything from us, then it'd be for a good reason," said James. "They'll tell us what we need to know. That's why it's called a need-to-know basis."
Emett gave him a curious look. "So, you trust all of them?"
"I trust my commanding officer," James said. "Why? Do you not?"
"I trust who I know, and I don't know any of them," replied Emett. "Who I do know, though, is my team, and I have to look out for them."
"If it's looking out for your team that concerns you, I'm sure you'd get along fine with Bridge," said James. "You can trust him, which means you can trust the rest of them."
"I suppose I have to trust them, given the position we're in," said Emett. "Can I trust you?"
James nodded. "Of course. I imagine we'll be getting to know each other pretty well, given our shared encounters."
"Sounds about right," Emett said. He was quiet for a moment. "Oh! I just realized, we were never introduced. I'm Emett, Emett de Santis, Vortex in the air. I'm the leader of Falcon Squadron."
"James Rook. I'm under Captain Bridge in Fireteam Victor." The pair shook hands.
Beach City.
"Why are you here, anyway?"
Two figures sat at a table outside of a shop on the pier, while a third stood nearby. One was the smaller form of Ichigo, sitting across from the much larger form of Garnet. Leaning against the wall was the similarly large (for a human) Vargas. The humans were dressed in casual clothes to better blend in.
"I told you, I wanted to ask about some aliens," Ichigo said. "I figured of all the Gems, you'd be best suited to answer them, and not just 'cause of your psychic eye."
"I mean why are you here here?" Garnet asked. "We could have met anywhere, why Beach City?"
"Because I wanted some ice cream," Ichigo said, motioning towards the shop. "What's the issue? This just saves time for you, since you don't have to warp as far."
"Steven could see you," she said. "I've told you before, I don't want Steven getting involved with BAINE."
"Not even with Homeworld coming back?"
"Homeworld doesn't use guns," Garnet said bluntly.
Ichigo raised his arms. "Alright, we're getting off track. Like I said, the real reason we're here is because some of our guys had some close encounters recently. Now, both of your components served Homeworld before meeting and becoming you, right? Do either of them know anything about some of the various species that Homeworld encountered?"
Garnet adjusted her glasses. "Yes, but I doubt any of it would be helpful. Sapphire, as a strategist, was called in numerous times by Blue Diamond to advise her regarding hundreds of species. It's likely that one of those species is the one you're looking for, but actually finding which one it is would be incredibly difficult. They all started to blend together after a while."
"Okay," Ichigo said. "And Ruby?"
Before Earth, the only non-Gem life Ruby had to deal with was a Kalderian incursion into Homeworld-controlled space, and even then she was never on the front lines. Tell me, do you know who the Kalderians are?"
"Uh...no," Ichigo replied.
"Then they aren't the ones responsible," Garnet continued. "If they were, they would make sure you know without a shadow of a doubt that they were who you were dealing with."
Ichigo thought for a moment, before he pulled out his phone. "This picture was taken in Brazil a few days ago," he said. "We believe it's one of the same variety that's been going around. Does it look familiar?"
Garnet leaned in closer, squinting as she tried to make out the shape. "Not in the slightest," she answered.
"Hmm…" Ichigo wracked his brain to try and recall some other info. "Alright, well, we know that they use high-aperture laser beams. Do you know of any other species that uses-"
"Do you have even the slightest idea how common high-aperture lasers are for spacefaring races?" said Garnet. "It'd be simpler to list the ones that don't." Ichigo slumped back in his chair, defeated. "Look, I'll ask Peridot about it. Maybe she knows more about aliens than I do."
"I hope so, because we're pretty in the dark otherwise," said Ichigo. "You're sure your future vision doesn't show you anything? Some sort of invasion, or something?"
"I told you, I can only see possible futures," said Garnet. "Unfortunately, it's possible that any number of species could invade Earth, given how important it seems to be to Homeworld. I'm sorry, Ichigo, but you're on your own. We still haven't found Jasper, Homeworld just sent a probe to find her, and I'm still not entirely convinced that Lapis doesn't still hate us. Unless your mystery aliens launch a full-scale invasion, we have our hands full."
"It's alright, we'll figure something out," Ichigo said. "We figured out SEEN, we figured out the Children, we can figure out some aliens. ...Welp, I think I'll get a sundae. You want anything? I'll pay."
"I don't eat," Garnet said.
"Right, right, I remember. Vargas, you want-"
"No."
"Alright then. More for me."
