Don't Mess With Earth (17 page)

“Well, keep monitoring Earth and see if you
can’t detect that ship again. Our vigilance will pay off
eventually. Keep up the good work.” ordered Lomanco.

Six
hours
later, the
Reprisal
returned to Earth still cloaked and landed at Area
51. The engineers and scientists at the installation pored over the
mission logs, the black box, and how the ship handled the round
trip. The crew of the ship was then de-briefed and they were told
to continue their training through the virtual reality simulations
until the President let them know their mission was to
proceed.

The Inauguration of the new President of
the United States had been over with for a few hours when former
Secretary of Defense Chris Carson met with the new Secretary of
Defense, Tom Houston. Carson had tried to inform the previous
administration of Area 51, but, since the President was a lame duck
in his second term and the election had been only a few weeks away,
he wanted next to nothing to do with Area 51 and didn’t want to
make a decision. Leave it to the next president, he had said, let
whomever it is deal with it. He had been justified with feeling
that way, he had, after all, led the country through four pointless
regional wars left over from the previous two administrations,
which stretched the military even thinner, Congress constantly
stonewalled whatever plans he had for the country, the economy was
tanking, and everyone just seemed to think he was the worse
president ever in the history of the United States. Carson wasn’t
sure how Houston would react to this news about Area 51, but he
hoped Houston would at least listen to him.

“Tom, I have one more item I need to brief
you on, before you get settled in,” Carson said, as Houston was
moving some personal stuff into his new office.

“Whatever you need to tell me, why wasn’t
it part of the official briefing when I got the job?”

“What I’m about to tell you is classified
beyond official, on the record, where everyone knows, kind of
briefing I could give you. Currently, not even the President of the
United States knows this secret, but he will have to know once I
tell you, because it’s time for him to make a decision on what to
do next. I need for you to follow me to the Pentagon Conference
Room, where you will be briefed on this secret and meet some of the
more important people of the project.”

A few minutes later, both men walked into
the Conference Room, where General Bridger, Captain Kell, and a
couple of scientists were sitting at a table waiting for the
Secretaries of Defense. They were introduced to each other, they
shook hands, everyone but Bridger sat down, who handed everyone
folders, and then he went to a computer and projected the program
on the computer onto the screen at the front of the room. Area 51’s
logo was the first to appear, causing Houston to raise his
eyebrows, and whispered to Carson, “Area 51? Are you freaking
kidding me?”

“
Sorry, but Area 51 does exist and
has since 1947. Before you make up your mind, Houston, watch the
presentation General Bridger has brought with him, it is quite
enlightening. I watched this same video when I became Secretary of
Defense, just remember to be open-minded and everything that never
seemed to make sense, will soon make sense.”

“This is all so very cryptic and slightly
frightening given how serious you seem. However, I will be patient
and listen to the presentation, afterwards though, we’ll see just
how serious this is.” remarked Houston.

Houston watched the presentation and
read the classified documents in the folder, all of which was
pretty hard for him to believe. He always heard the rumors, as had
everyone else in the United States, about aliens, Roswell, Area 51,
men in black, and every other rumor those crazy conspiracy
theorists came up with. He really wanted to believe that Carson,
Bridger, and these others were playing a joke on him, but they
seemed so serious, so he figured he would listen, play along, and
then decide what he would do next once this briefing was all over.
Three long hours later, Bridger finished, and then asked Houston if
he had any questions. Houston answered, “Haven’t we already seen
this movie?” he sarcastically said, “Do I have questions? You
unload this on me on practically my first day on the job and you
want to know if I have questions? First of all, are you serious
about this cloak and dagger secrecy of Area 51?”

“Quite serious, sir,” answered Bridger.

“
Well, if you were serious, then your
security is pretty piss poor if you ask me. For one thing, there
was that investigation by Fox Television a few years back about an
alien autopsy, then there are lots of conspiracies about Area 51
and Roswell together, and all of those movies, including
Independence Day
, saying that Area 51 was in Nevada and it had aliens and a
ship housed there. Now, I find out most everything about what I’ve
heard is true, so sorry, if I find most of this hard to believe. I
require hard and solid proof, people, not just a fancy video
presentation and a classified folder.”

“
Well, we do have hard proof, Mr.
Secretary, and we can take you to see the proof.” stated
Bridger.

“Fine then, lead the way.”

Carson, Bridger, and the others led Houston
to the parking lot, where they got into a van and drove to Andrews
Air Force Base. Once on the base, they made their way to a hangar,
which was guarded by heavily armed men in black military outfits.
Houston followed the others inside, which appeared to him to be an
empty hangar; he turned to Carson and asked, “What is this, some
sort of trick?”

“Patience, Mr. Secretary,” answered Carson,
“Captain Kell, would you do the honors?”

Captain Kell spoke into what appeared
to Houston to be a small cell phone, when something began appearing
out of thin air. Less than thirty seconds later, the
Reprisal
appeared, shocking the new Secretary of Defense. He walked
around the ship, touched it a couple of times, and then said,
“Well, this is definitely hard proof. What do you call
it?”

“
We call it the
USS Reprisal
. Want a tour,
sir?” asked Bridger.

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. Since I’m
touring the ship, why not a trip to Area 51 while we’re at it?”

“
The trip has already been arranged,
sir. Now, please follow me and we’ll give you the grand tour of
the
Reprisal
.” stated Bridger.

They toured the engine room, sick
bay, the crew quarters, recreation room, astrometrics, mess hall,
and finally the bridge. The ship was currently fully staffed, minus
the Marines, so they had to fly across the country to meet them,
but the Secretary of Defense Houston was able to meet most of the
crew. Once they made their way to the bridge, Captain Kell ordered
the ship to be prepped for launch, including cloaking the ship, and
five minutes later, they left Andrews. The
Reprisal
flew into orbit and to
show Houston how well the ship flew, Kell ordered a pass around the
moon, which seemed to awe the Secretary of Defense. Once Kell felt
Houston was sufficiently impressed, the
Reprisal
re-entered Earth and flew
to Area 51 and landed. Houston was given the grand tour of the
secret installation and was shocked when he met Ostoro, who was his
usual blustery and grumpy self. Once Houston felt he was completely
informed of everything that had been and was going on with Area 51,
he told Bridger that he would inform the President within the next
few days.

Two days later, Houston went to the White
House, entered the Oval Office, and said to the President, who was
sitting at his desk reading some kind of document, “President
O’Bana, there is something I need to talk to you about, and you may
need to clear your schedule for the next few hours, sir.”

“What’s so earth shattering that I need to
clear my schedule, Tom? Has North Korea or Iran launched a nuke or
something?”

“No, sir, it’s nothing like that. It would
probably be best if I just let you read the file and not try to
give you the whole song and dance. Here you go sir,” Houston handed
the Area 51 folder to O’Bana, “you’re probably going to be
skeptical and dismiss this whole idea as a fairy tale, but, I
assure you that it is quite real.”

“Let me be the judge of that, Tom,” stated
the President as he opened the folder to see the official logo of
Area 51, and he absentmindely let out a derisive snicker as he
began to read the documents.

Defense Secretary Houston squirmed
impatiently in his seat waiting for the President to finish reading
the Area 51 folder, which only took forty-five minutes, since all
he did was skim the documents. O’Bana closed the folder, tossed it
on his desk, and said, “This is a bunch of bullcrap. President
Truman writes an executive order to hide this information, creates
a secret organization to disavow any and all knowledge about
aliens, we end up with lots of technology we currently have from an
alien and his knowledge, and we’re also apparently stuck in the
middle of a war between the alien we have and his people and some
supposed humans who left Earth thousands of years ago and have been
watching us most of that time since then. Now, I’m expected to make
a decision based on the fact that we now have the means to do
something about all of this intergalatic stuff that may drag us
into an interplanetary war. The American people elected me to fix
all of our economic problems and get us out of the Middle East, yet
I’m supposed to be considering conducting a pre-emptive war against
two planets nobody knows exist yet. If I knew how much this job
really sucked, I wouldn’t have bothered running for president. Tom,
do you know if this Majestic-12 organization still exists, because
if it does, I’d like to meet them and tell them what I
think.”

“
Sorry, sir, but the men who ran
Majestic-12 have all died from old age and they had no one to
replace them. The reasoning for not replacing the original members
was because of secrecy, everything they did was recorded for
posterity sake though, but we couldn’t have too many people, other
than those who work at Area 51 or parts of Wright-Patterson, know
about this. I understand your anger, I was really torqued when I
found out and that was two days ago. Would you like to visit Area
51, get the lay of the land, and find out everything you need to do
to make a decision, sir?”

“
You bet I would. Request two F-22’s
from Andrews and get us two pilots you can rely on to fly us to
Nellis, ASAP,” then the president paged his secretary, who came
into the Oval Office, and the President said, “Get someone to bring
my car around, Cynthia,” seeing the look Cynthia gave him and
before she could say anything, he continued, “no, I don’t need a
convoy or a contingent of Secret Service, the Secretary of Defense
and I are going over to Andrews immediately,” then he said to
Houston, “let’s go, Tom.”

Two hours later, the two F-22 Raptors,
after flying at mach 4 the entire way, landed at Nellis Air Force
Base outside of Las Vegas. The President and Secretary of Defense
got into an Air Force car waiting for them and drove north to Area
51. An hour and a half later, they stopped at the gates of the
installation, where the guard asked to see their identification,
and then, when he realized who they were, stood at salute.
“Sergeant, you can stand at ease, just open the gates to let us
in.” ordered O’Bana.

The two men made their way to the hangar
for the trip underground, where they found General Bridger waiting
for them. “Mr. President, welcome to Area 51 and I hope what you’re
shown today is an elightening experience.”

“Thank you, General. Now, you can give me
the grand tour of your secret base.”

The three men traveled down the
elevator to the underground complex, where five minutes later, the
doors opened up to the complex. As they stepped through, O’Bana
stood in awe of what he saw and said, “I feel like I just stepped
into
Independence
Day
. I guess you have the Ragnor ship here,
corpses of the aliens, and some kind of mad scientists here too. Am
I right, General?”

“Except for the mad scientist, you’re right
on every count, sir. We conducted autopsies on the dead Ragnor back
in 1947, and we figured out their ship and its technology back in
the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. Unfortunately, it took us this long to nearly
equal the Ragnor technology and build it ourselves, but we finally
have done so. If you would follow me, sir, I’ll take you on the
tour.”

Bridger showed O’Bana the hydroponics
bay, the massive storage locker, the science labs, the morgue where
the dead Ragnor were kept in formaldahyde, the secret museum
collection of aircraft assembled and flown by Area 51 and its
pilots, along with the virtual simulator, and then the Ragnor ship.
O’Bana walked around the ship, and then asked, “I thought this was
supposed to be a flying saucer,”

“
That’s a common misconception sir.
The Ragnor cloaks in our atmosphere didn’t work very well, so it
appeared as if their ships were flying saucers. Since 1947, anytime
anyone without this knowledge looks for UFO’s, they expect to see a
flying saucer. The Majestic-12 didn’t bother to crush this idea,
but they did put out the idea that people were suffering from
hysteria if they saw a flying saucer. Sometimes, those reports of
weird lights in the night sky weren’t aliens, they were our pilots
testing new aircraft, and they were messing around by tapping into
the paranoia people already had about aliens and being abducted. We
have people over in Rachel who keep claiming to see UFO’s, then a
news reporter comes out every so often, so we put on a show for the
reporter, convincing everyone that people who believe in aliens are
a little bit nuts. One of the last flight tests we conducted was
over Texas and people reported seeing UFO’s there too.”