Bridged Worlds - Operation Barracuda [Private]

[Monfrox]

Militarized Border of the Yellow Zone, Monfrox
3 miles from Checkpoint Alpha 2 6
0822 Hours

"This is so fucking boring."

"Watch your mouth, or you may get what's coming."

"Whatever, there's nothing to find out here."

"And we do this so that it stays that way."

"If you say so. I just hope this shift is over. Ready to go back."

"Yeah well we still have to get through our shift, and I'm not gonna get caught trying to "pass the time" with you again, so don't even think about it."

"I told you to drive farther away."

"And I told you to quit bugging me about it."

"Whatever..."

Private Melania Stachnik was doing a regular foot patrol from their Humvee with Corporal Viktorie Tomanová. She was bored out of her mind, and hated these cordon patrols. The only real reason they still did them was to help measure how far the Yellow Zone had really expanded in the months since its formation, and to keep mutant freaks from running out of it and causing trouble elsewhere. There were already enough problems as it was, but luckily the manpower was never stretched too thin.

Melania and Viktorie walked on for a bit, checking their surroundings. Most of the Yellow Zone was a forest for the most part. It was strange, too. A lot of people get lost in parts of the forest, and most never return. By some stroke of bad luck, one of the brain dead victims of a psionic burst through the Zone, came wandering out. He was dirty, disheveled, toting a rusty AR that he had clung onto as a result of one of his only remaining brain functions. He knew how to shoot and reload and walk, but beyond that he was mindless. He attacked anything he saw in a never-ending wander until he died, and when he saw the two troops on a patrol he opened fire.

"SHIT!" Melania hit the dirt from where she stood.

Viktorie ran for a tree and ducked behind it. She had no idea at first where the fire was coming from. Still, the mindless attacker marched on, firing wildly in their vague direction. Kind like his did not care, and had no sense of self-preservation. They walked, they wandered, and they shot at anyone they saw. And as quickly as he announced his presence, he vanished. Poofed. Gone. The two soldiers poked their heads up and noticed that the area was quiet and the mindless zombie was no longer there.

"The hell?" Melania said, standing up and dusting herself off.

"Let's get back to the Humvee. Now."

Melania didn't need any more convincing as the two made tracks for their vehicle they left almost a klick behind for the foot patrol. But when they arrived, the radio was going off like mad. The Corporal answered their hail and stood by as the FOB relayed instructions. They were to head to coordinates given to monitor for increased anomaly activity that one of the Data Monitoring Control Centers back at the underground capitol had reported as incredibly irregular. Looking at the map, Melania groaned when she saw that they were being sent right back to where they came from. Viktorie made a comment about her bitching before hopping in and driving the two of them back. A larger force was being mobilized to take over, so they were there mainly to observe and advise if conditions changed. Well, it was good practice for Melania in detecting and observing anomalous phenomena, but they both couldn't help but wonder: Where the hell did that mindless zombie go?

[The Union of British North America]

Poconos Base, Pennsylvania, North American Union
Wardenclyffe Section, Special Projects Group (designated: Inter-Service Research Group), Defence Advanced Research and Development, NAU MoD
1123 hours

Dr. Christopher Marsh, codename Goodluck, shivered and rubbed his upper arms, and then reached for his pullover jumper and then for his lab coat on the table in front of him. It was 55 degrees in the Portal Room, and he was sitting on the main dais where the other scientists, military men, and bureaucrats were mingling about as the technical crews started up the artifact--the greatest discovery of the 20th century--an artifact that has been kept under wraps for an entire century. It was put later into the highest levels of secrecy in the late 1960s and 1970s after the crisis that threatened the mortal plane of which Goodluck helped stop, and which had taken a toll on him. Little did everyone else know, he was a special person to Wardenclyffe and in fact to the entire United Empire's secret research organizations. Beyond his scientific skills and theoretical mind, which are unparalleled in this world.

"The artifact was discovered in Egypt in the late Twenties near Giza. It was a strange find, given that it was metallic and had strange runes on the inner ring structure. Perhaps an older civilization that inhabited the Nile region, such as the Badarian or the Naqada cultures, may have built it but this was too advanced for either of them to construct..." began Goodluck as he directed the attention of the politicos, generals, and security service officers to a small multi-slide lantern screen that depicted the cliche images of Giza's great pyramids and the Sphinx, and the photograph of the artifact circa 1930 just outside Giza.

"...Initial analysis of the artifact found it to be made of an unknown material, though stronger than steel or titanium, though we have concluded it is a mineral. Now, I know you are all wondering what this thing can do..." he motioned to the technical crews down below him to start up the artifact. The inner ring began turning and it appeared to everyone like a lock with a combination, except the combination was a series of coordinates. After the last rune was clicked in, a giant field of energy emanated from the artifact, which resembled water to everyone.

"...This artifact, ladies and gentlemen, is in fact a portal...to other worlds." Gasps and shocked stares came from the audience, as usual. Goodluck was used to this, no matter the time or who comes through, they are always shocked. "Our first real evidence of this being a inter-world portal and not just some elaborate religious or funerary artifact came in 1968, during the Burma War, or the Burmese Emergency, depending on your historiographer and political sympathies. A combat correspondent and the NAU infantry section he was attached in the Irrawaddy Delta found several of these..." he clicked from the Egypt photos to a generic picture of United Empire troops landing near Rangoon to the next picture, a picture of a hideous creature. A creature that had instead of a head, a strange crystal protrusion from its neck. The audience gasped again, louder, with some putting hands to their mouths. "These photographs came from that journalist, who was killed by these creatures along with the section. The recently established "Inter-Service Research Group" sent in a team to investigate these creatures after NAU Secret Service Bureau got a hold of the pictures. They wiped them out."

Goodluck proceeded to explain the 1975 incident with the portal: the artifact unexpectedly opened a portal and began to inhaling everything in sight. Several base personnel were sent through, and one lost an arm while trying to save a comrade. The arm mysteriously regenerated within a few weeks, and while the survivor was in the medical facility, a hastily organized expedition was sent through the portal after the boffins figured out how to activate the artifact's portal. The survivor was also sent through given his strange connection to the other side. Ultimately, most of the Charon Corps was killed though they, along with the Captain, stopped the creatures who were attempting to figure a way to Earth, and now the humans of Earth can now control the artifact's portal generation.

"...And now we can visit other parallel worlds, those that we have discovered are rather pleasant and boring than the ones first discovered in the 1970s--"

Suddenly, the portal created by the Poconos base team collapsed, but only a few seconds later another one materialized.

"This...never happened before..." said Goodluck. The security team raised their assault rifles at the portal. One minute had passed until some of the tension had subsided. Goodluck was trying to figure this out. A portal collapse and reappearance is impossible, unless there was power surge from the other side to force another side to close?

A figure shambled through the portal, dragging its feet, muttering to itself. It appeared to be carrying a weapon of some kind. The audience on the dais were confused and intrigued simultaneously.

"I didn't know we had a team already sent through before today..." said Goodluck to the audience. He then whispered to the security team leader to check out the visitor. Two Royal NA Marines armed with carbines approached the figure slowly, stating and repeating orders to identify itself. When about arm's length away, the figure raised its weapon and began shooting. The Marines close to him were wounded but the rest of the security team fired to put the figure down. The audience on the dais all ducked and screamed.

The figure screamed bloodcurdling screeches and yelps, firing into the ceiling as it collapsed. Blood gurgled from its mouth, running down its face. Garbles were audible for a few seconds more until the figure expired on the metal grating of the ramp attached to the artifact.

Goodluck got up, and realized that this was all too familiar to him, and that there was something else out there, and that it needed to be stopped.



*Multi-Slide Latern (OTL slide projector)

[Monfrox]

Militarized Border of the Yellow Zone, Monfrox
3 miles from Checkpoint Alpha 2 6
0936 Hours

It had been ten minutes since they arrived back at the anomaly site, but Melania and Viktorie weren't counting. The story was that they were to secure the perimeter until they could get relieved, but how did you secure an anomaly? It didn't exactly go anywhere. And it didn't really pose much of a challenge. The two sat in the Humvee, trying not to die of boredom, before movement caught Viktorie's eyes. There was a GMV approaching them from behind. She kicked the vehicle back into gear and turned it around to head off towards it. Eventually, the two met down the path and she rolled the driver's side window down.

"Yeah?"

Inside the GMV was a team of five recon foxes. The product of years of genetic engineering unabated by squeamish bureaucrats, not that many of those existed in Monfrox to begin with. Human women spliced with fox DNA. The had the eyes, the ears, and even the tails of the animals too. The idea was to give ordinary soldiers more of an edge in tactical situations. They had better hearing, natural night vision, and even fanged cuspid teeth should the need arise in a situation where they are bound and need to bite the neck out of an assailant.

"Sergeant First Class Pitt, Recon Corps. We're part of your relief."

"Part?"

"Yeah, we'll take it from here. Head on back to the checkpoint. Your team is on high alert for 24 hours at least unless otherwise specified."

"Roger that. Good luck."

"Hey," Melania leaned over from the passenger seat. "What the hell's going on here?"

"That's classified for now. Just keep yourselves ready."

"Okay..."

Pitt watched the Humvee drive off and sighed, taking the GMV off into the forest and parking it. The squad leader of Alpha One was not with her usual team today, but had been out on a training exercise for some of the new recruits. Staff Sergeant Vlasta was taking her team around the other side of the way and the two recon teams began the process of camouflaging their equipment while maintaining no more than 100 meters and no less than 25 meters distance from the anomaly. Rebekah Royce was even here, after having earned an appeal from serving and being wounded in the line of duty in the 222nd Mechanized Battalion during Operation Blind Knife. In a roundabout way, she was responsible for their hearing regulators that automatically adjusted incoming sounds on the fly to keep their hearing sharp and sensitive without losing it to extremely high decibel sounds that may occur, gunshots notwithstanding. The problem with Royce though was that she was a very promiscuous girl and Pitt was resolutely celibate. It made for quite the annoyance when she caught Royce trying to get into someone else's pants.

"Alright, two of you keep watch. Rest of you go over your gear one last time and then maybe we'll break out some MREs. Report anything you see immediately. And remember, we're on the Zone border. Don't get careless." Pitt ordered, keeping things short and sweet. "Royce, you're on first watch."

"Fine. Maybe I can get some sleep in later, too. You wanna be my cuddle buddy?" The shortstack of a young woman replied.

"Not especially. Now move it."

[The Union of British North America]

Poconos Base, Pennsylvania, NAU
Wardenclyffe Section Laboratories
Charon Corps Armory
1236 hours

"Hurry it up! We need to be on station within 20 minutes, ladies and gentlemen!" bellowed Group Captain Jack O'Neill, the overall commander of the Charon Corps. He was a Royal North American Air Force Commando, and one of the original members of the operation back in the 70s to stop the Great Menace that threatened Earth. He was a Pilot Officer, fresh out of the RNAAF Academy and done his Commando training as well. Armed with a SLR and the early storm rifle NAF, he went with the Survivor to find the rest of the team that was sent in before them, the first Charon Corps. He was the only that came back to Poconos, but he knew that the Army Captain, the Survivor, Felicity Packard, was alive, even though she didn't come back with him.

O'Neill glanced around at the Charon Corps' various men and women--about 20 in total--of the best of the NAU and United Empire. About 8 of them came from North America, and the rest from Britain, Ireland, Australasia, India, and South Africa. They were military--SAS and SBS types, Commandos, Rangers, or whatever Dominion special forces they were seconded from to this NAU and UE top secret project. As far as he knew, and was allowed to know according the secondary legislation stemming from the Official Secrets Act 1954, the PMs of the Dominions and Mother Country, the Chiefs of Staffs Committees, and the Sovereign were the only ones who knew about Wardenclyffe, and even less knew of that group knew about the artifact. Only the PMs of the NAU and Britain, and the Sovereign. Wardenclyffe is known to be a top secret research team, but even less know about its true purpose.

The Charon Corps was the code name and moniker for Wardenclyffe's expeditionary force to the other-worlds. It was so named given the first expedition to Dite, a world that was consumed by nanomachines long ago and the inhabitants of that world--the Wanderers--and their leader, the Lord of Dust, desired to have dominion over the multiverse. It was a place of death, with its hellhounds trying to get out.
O'Neill, Packard, and the rest of the Charon Corps that was still alive put an end to that.

After the team was mostly finished getting ready for deployment, O'Neill, Squadron Leader Charles Kawalsky, and Dr. Daniel Jackson assembled in a conference room for a final overview of the operation and check for deployment. Squadron Leader Kawalsky was second in command of the Corps and commander of Charon 2, the second of the five Charon Corps teams. Rules of the Charon teams were there were at least 4 members and they specialize into a particular role for their missions. Charon 1 was first contact and exploration. Charon 2 was combat, research, and search and rescue. Both teams were going to be deployed, with Charon 1 being the lead team in the expedition and Charon 2 supporting them. Just as the three men were getting comfortable around the long table, Air vice marshal George Hammond entered the room. The two RNAAF men and Dr. Jackson rose out of respect of their commanding officer and sat down when Hammond sat down.

"Gentlemen, this is the second most important mission that Wardenclyffe and the Charon Corps has undertaken. After 50 years the artifact has been reactivated and this unit has switched from its custodial role to its now current expeditionary role. You two--" motioning to O'Neill and Kawalsky "--are to lead two teams into this other-world and find out if our archenemy is operating there and putting a stop to those Wanderers." The current hypothesis of the Wardenclyffe boffins was that the figure that emerged from artifact was a Wanderer, given it zombie like appearance, yet it lacked the crystalline protrusion from where its head should be. There was evidence of some kind of biological manipulation with the subject, though it was still unknown what it is. It did look like, on a molecular level, what Wanderers have yet different enough to make people wonder what else it could be. Perhaps a type of Wanderer that is not changed enough and looks human enough to infiltrate other worlds? A carrier or sleeper unit?

"The runes on the artifact point to a an area of space about 3 million light years away, though it is strange as we not have detected a planet there, but a particular anomaly, an odd bending of the space fabric and a very small black star*. I looked at the star chart that help us track teams and what worlds they visit, such as the one that helped us in the 1970s, but this is a completely new situation. It suggests a pocket universe, a universe still connected to our own yet separate enough to have its own space fabric, planets, stars, and possibly thus its own fauna and flora," summarized Dr. Jackson. He was obviously very excited by this prospect of a pocket dimension, even though his knowledge was in linguistics and archaeology. Of course, he had limited astrophysical knowledge, but this was remedied by the arrival of a new expert and addition to the team.

"Group Captain, I requested an special expert on astrophysics from the Air Force Academy's Institute for Spaceflight and Astronomy. A Flight Lieutenant Carter," said Hammond. O'Neill was not pleased with this. "I prefer to choose my own men, sir."

"Not for this mission, given how strange it is and now dealing with this space anomaly. Flight Lieutenant Carter is seconded from the ISA and is the top expert on black stars and other peculiar space phenomena," rebutted the Air vice marshal. O'Neill acquiesced. "Who is he anyway besides the new boffin we have to babysit?" Jackson felt somewhat slighted by that remark.

"She is Fight Lieutenant Samantha Carter, RNAAF. Theoretical astrophysicist and combat pilot," said a female voice. Her figure was obscured by the darkness in the conference room entrance, which has bright lights strictly over the conference table. A design of levity for the nature of the Wardenclyffe Section. She walked over to her seat at the opposite end of the table, across from O'Neill and sitting next to Jackson, and saluted the Group Captain. Her greeting to the Group Captain was intentionally meant to shut down his tirade against the new addition.

"But you go by Sam then," asked Kawalsky? "Yes, but don't worry Squadron Leader, I played with dolls when I was kid," retorted Carter. Jackson was pleased to have another scientist on his team. He looked back and forth between Carter and the military men.

"Let's stay focused. We sent a recon autodev** through the portal, to gather preliminary intelligence. It found that there is a world capable of supporting life, though there are high levels of toxicity. We detected relatively high levels of radiation, but where the autodev was relatively safe for an extended period of time. I'm ordering toxsuits, gas masks, and storm rifles for this op..." said Hammond, summarizing the report and explaining the outline of the planet and mission parameters.

After clearing the air a bit between O'Neill and Carter, the team briefed themselves on the mission. Carter felt her presence as a woman would cause tension among the male-heavy Wardenclyffe Section (there was only one other Charon Corps member that was a woman, and she was a civilian scientist). She was a combat pilot, logging in over one hundred hours in the Mesopotamian Intervention. She could handle anything they could handle. And she was ready for this operation.
---

At the artifact's disembarking bay, Charon 1 and 2 finalized preparation of their teams. They were wearing standard ground force AMPAT camouflaged battle dress, along with toxsuit gloves, boots, and gas masks, and tanks with two hours worth of oxygen. They had two Chimp light utility vehicles, each armed with the heavy machine gun, the Wingate 0.50 machine gun. Each also had a trailer connected to back that held oxygen, food, and other necessary supplies for a three-day mission on the other side. They were all armed with MRS-4 carbines with trisiconic sights and most had forward grips. O'Neill had his carbine armed with a underslung break-action DGL103 grenade launcher. Kawalsky had the exact same loadout.

Carter looked down at her right arm sleeve. She saw the Wardenclyffe Section/Charon Corps unit patch, and she also saw the two flags, one of the United Empire and the other of the North American Union. She was nervous and excited at the same time, part of the greatest expedition and discovery of the 21st century. She thought of her mother, how she would be proud of her. She missed her, and still blamed her father for it, creating the circumstances that led to her mother's death in a car accident.

The two teams assembled themselves before the artifact, with their backs to it. Hammond emerged from a blast door to give the teams a farewell. "It is with bravery and pride that we send our sons and daughters into the unknown. Godspeed." The teams saluted the Air Vice Marshal and got into the Chimps. The artifact portal was activated. Carter was mesmerized by the phenomenon. She stared at it for a solid 10 seconds before her Chimp's ignition was turned on, and the small convoy slowly drove through the portal. She was sitting next to O'Neill in the front passenger seat. There were feelings of vertigo for Charon 1 and 2 as their consciousnesses and particles were accelerated from Earth to the pocket dimension.

---

At last, it was over. Carter brushed off the frost on her battle dress and wiped the fog from her gas mask visor. That was the primary side effect of going through the portal--near blizzard conditions from exiting. Like they were all rushed through an Antarctic blizzard. She turned from her seat to look back at the other portal, their way home. It shut off about five seconds after the two teams emerged, ending the bright blue glow and encompassing the surrounding area in darkness. The portal was also very loud, almost like thunder after a lightening strike. The two Chimps turned on their headlights.

The Chimps kept driving for another 25 yards until they halted to check on everyone. Carter looked at her wrist-mounted combine, indicating the level of radiation. It was within safe levels, according to the Townsend counter. It was dark, and they could see very dark, purplish clouds above them, with the sun setting in the distance, which added a red-orange glow to the clouds.

Carter and the rest of the teams checked equipment and personnel. They were all good, and no one wanting to vomit.

The two teams decided to set up a temporary camp close to the other portal to decide when and where to go next, and collect intelligence from the immediate surrounding area. O'Neill got out of the Chimp with his carbine and walked over to a great tree that had fallen over. It was about 20 yards from "Base Camp", the name quickly chosen for the UE expeditionary team camp. He looked around the tree, seeing lots of burrowed holes into the trunk. A flock of strange birds flew away suddenly, catching him by a slight surprise. "My god, life sure is stubborn. It'll be anywhere. It always finds a way."

He turned away from the tree, and walked over to a collection of large boulders. They had strange symbols on them. "Hey Jackson, take a look at this," he yelled at the archaeologist. Jackson ran over there in a light jog. He was only carrying a handgun, and it was holstered. Boffins expecting protection, as usual, thought O'Neill. Jackson was rummaging through his pack to look for his iconography book. Carter was about 10 yards away, keeping watch, staring at the tree. She radioed that she thought she heard something. She raised her carbine and slowly walked towards the tree.

Just as Jackson was in the middle of solving the meaning of the symbols on the boulder, a strange four-legged creature jumped out from behind the tree and landed between Carter and O'Neill. It charged Carter, throwing her a few yards in the air and into the dirt. Carter raised his weapon at the creature and began to fire, but it shrugged off the bullets. It grabbed O'Neill with its right arm. Jackson took cover behind a small boulder and drew his side arm. O'Neill was staring at the creature in the face, but that was only for a few seconds as Carter shot at the large eyes of the creature, blinding it. It dropped O'Neill. He was on his back and crawling frantically for his carbine. The rest of the military personnel ran to Carter's position and opened fire on the creature. It reared and gave off a terrible screaming roar, before dying. Blood pooled around the creature.

O'Neill got on his feet. He walked over to the creature, and lifted its left arm with his carbine. Carter walked over to the creature, standing next to the Group Captain. O'Neill thanked Carter for saving his life. "Don't mention it, sir," she said.

"Life sure is a mean bitch," he remarked, motioning his hand towards the dead creature. "It sure is, Group Captain," replied Carter.



*Black star is an alternate term for a black hole, and space fabric referring to space-time.
**Autodev -- automatic device aka a robot.

[Monfrox]

Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories
1603 Hours

Much of the buzz about had died down a little in the past few hours. Despite the existence of two separate anomalies at such levels, the reports were being black-inked the minute they left the hands of an officer. Existence of such extra-dimensional beings was being kept to a need-to-know basis. But the Monfrox National Defense were in charge of the one deeper inside the Yellow Zone, while the Monfrox Expeditionary Force had arrived to support the other on the border. With that, jurisdiction was currently the hotbed topic. But, despite that, the MEF were in a position to conduct operations in a smaller time frame than the MND with the border anomaly. As such, the MEF leadership had to be represented. And represented it was.

Track 1 - "Main Title"
The echo of boots down the halls of the base were not new. What was new though, was the presence of a high-ranking officer and her two personal guards. Company and Field grade officers found themselves standing aside as General Sofiko Iosava made her way towards the staging area for a personal briefing the Special Forces operators were about to receive. The Special Tactics Unit had been put aside due to their existence as a training unit, but the good General had specifically requested one Sergeant Khvaram Arynka from one of their squads to be present. The force was small, but the intent was to gauge who exactly was coming knocking over here and if they intended to fight.

As such, the response was limited by time mostly. Getting a handful of operators was quick and easy, while getting a whole battalion on site was lengthy and difficult. They needed boots on the ground and right now, the recon teams were all alone with only a small squad on emergency standby as a QRF should things go South quickly. The General had no time with such going on, and was walking quickly through the halls until she got outside. The smell of gasoline and diesel was in the air as she saw the current task force milling about near the motor pool.

"Group, ten-SHUN!" A powerful voice called out.

General Iosava smirked as she marched on, cigarette hanging from her lips. The operators snapped to attention and faced her, the ranking member was the leader of their Angel fireteam: 1st Leiutenant Ivona Procházková, who took front and center. The fireteam made up four of the ranks of the small outfit, with Sgt. Arynka leading a small mix of two Advanced Combat Unit operators on top of twelve troopers from the Rapid Mobilization Division. Their rides were three troop trucks in order to keep their movements from being tracked, but the angels would still fly as they preferred.

"Ladies!" the General addressed the force, "You are about to be in a very delicate situation. The balance of our lives will be decided by your actions. Just this morning, the MND encountered an unknown foreign force at a large anomaly site within the Yellow Zone. At the same time, another anomaly was detected and reported at a separate location. Two Recon Corps teams were dispatched to secure, and so far have not reported anything wrong. But, we're unable to gauge the anomaly. A battalion is being organized to move in and lock it down, but until then we only have the two teams. As such, to help close the gap and force multiply, your force is being sent in to support. It'll be at least a day before we can get the anomaly site locked down fully, so your job is to be the welcoming committee."

"Welcoming committee? Has the recon team reported anything?" The Lieutenant asked.

"So far, their check-ins have been normal, but after this morning we aren't taking any chances. For all we know, this could be the jump-off point of an invasion. We need to be prepared. Your comms have the recon team frequency and you have enough supplies to last you three days. I'm trusting you to make quick decisions in the field, but I'll be giving orders should you ask for them. Now go! You women will be the first line of defense against foreign invasion, and you will show them just who these being will be dealing with!"

The team solemnly nodded, not really wanting to give the General more reason for flair and prose. Everyone knew that for as eccentric as she was, she commanded a respectable reputation as well as the few scary stories that no one dared to whisper in her presence. So, with that in mind, the task force loaded up and headed out to the anomaly site. It would be at least a three hour trip without any interruptions.

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone
1843 Hours
Track 2 - "Shadows"

The teams had switched out every hour from small patrols, sleeping, making reports, and monitoring the anomaly field. It was getting close to night time, and the promise of reinforcements was reassuring. Everyone of the operators had spent their fair share of six months time inside the Yellow Zone's border training for instances like this. But the only way to operate inside the Zone was to experience it first. Many candidates met their end in the survival training course. Now, those memories were knocking from the back of Pitt's mind. She hated spending the night in the Zone, but she would do it because it was asked of her. For now, she was going over her HK33. The updated models allowed for railed handguards and top optic mounts, allowing them to attach proper scout optics and other necessary items. It was about that time that she heard a loud thunder crack that made just about everyone in the vicinity of the anomaly almost jump out of their skin. The edge patrols, conducted by two teams of two foxes, immediately hit the dirt in the direction of the sound.

The appearance of two off-road vehicles occupied by unfamiliar individuals made things uncertain. Pitt had been informed of the events with the MND operation, if only vaguely to ensure that she knew what to expect. This had all but confirmed it, and so she donned her boonie hat and settled into the dirt with her rifle. She had ordered her team to paint their faces and put on their ghillie tail wraps to further camouflage them, as stealth was their best means of surveillance.

"Royce, get Corporal Zobor. Tell her to get over here."

"You got it."

Pitt hit her radio.

"Be advised, we have confirmed presence of foreign military. Team 2, keep an eye on them while we contact command."

"Roger that." Came the reply from Staff Sergeant Vlasta Sýkorová, Team 2's leader.

A moment later, Corporal Dorina Zobor was beside the SFC with her radio pack. Pitt gave the immediate report of eight initial soldiers in two small vehicles as she watched them from 60 meters away in the underbrush through her binoculars. She watched one walk to a fallen tree and held her breath. Merely five meters away, Corporal Iwa Gromek laid still as a dead body. The only saving grace was that the time of the day was perfectly between where night hadn't yet settled in and the sun had already gone down, at that point where visible detection was hardest right before natural night vision kicked in. Of course, their eyes had natural low-level night vision that gave them a better edge over normal soldiers. Even when the birds scattered, she didn't dare move a muscle. She heard her heart beating in her ears before the soldier walked off, waxing poetic on his way.

Gromek breathed easy until the rustle of the grass caused her to tense up again and stop her hand mid-movement to her radio. A flesh pig, a mutated creature woeful yet docile, sniffed around. The Corporal had debated shooting it but that would just attract attention. However, dying seemed like the only other option and she didn't want that. She watched the mutant pig step closer and then squealed and jumped over her, moving to attack the foreign soldiers. In a few moments, they had dispatched the creature. Iwa slowly poked her head above the trunk of the tree after the flesh pig was confirmed to be dead. Her comm came to life in her ear with new orders that refocused her mind.

"Orders from on high, ladies. Detain the troops and interrogate them." Pitt ordered.

"How do you propose we do that?" Sýkorová said back.

"Go say hello. Let's try not to shoot these guys and give them a reason to be upset. Converge and assess. Let's do this clean and quiet."

"Affirmative. Team 2, let's get these guys over here. By Corporal Gromek."

"Team 1, head in on the camp."

It was fluid motions from there on out. Two of the recon team from team 2 approached with the boulder keeping them hidden from view for now until they got right up on it. Gromek and Sýkorová were on the flanks with their positions and slowly picked their way as quiet as possible until they were close enough. The two behind the boulder, Private Lora and Private First Class Glita Romanovske, each turned out and put the muzzles of their rifles in the faces of the foreigners.

"Drop your rifle or I drop you. Your call." Lora stated matter-of-factly in perfect English.

Sergeant Pitt was more tactful with her response, if rather a bit too casual. Her four team members silently stood in the now empty base encampment as she lit two chemsticks and dropped them on the ground. Her team's weapons were up and ready, but she had hers hanging off its sling in front of her.

"Come quietly, boys. Let's all sit and have a nice little chit-chat. Or you can wait and answer to my superiors, who are a lot less nicer than I am." She called out to where she saw them surrounded by Vlasta's team, no doubt their marksman having already gotten her angle for a shot way off from the standoff. "What's it gonna be?"

[The Union of British North America]

Note: I changed the term of supranational organization in my world from United Empire to United Commonwealth, and future references will reflect that.

Charon Corps Base Camp, near the Artifact
Pocket dimension world, codenamed "Janus"
1844 hours

Kawalsky and the rest of the armed personnel had returned to camp after defeating the grotesque creature, which looked like a mutated boar to everyone. "Jesus, what the fuck happened here, boss? They had a loud war* or something?" asked Pilot Officer Brassman. Kawalsky shook his head in ignorance. "Don't know. Possible, though a shame. We could have seen what this world would have looked like with green grass and clean water. But they just have all this now," he said as he turned to Brassman and slowly waved around him, indicating by gesture the extremely hazardous conditions around them. The Townsend counter** on their wrist mounted combines*** indicated still acceptable radiation levels though the air was still not good to breath with out a supplemental source and a a mask. They couldn't even risk taking off their masks for a few minutes. They were feeling a little uncomfortable with those things on, but there was a fate worse than death here, given what they have seen so far that emerged from this world.

About 20 meters away, Kawalsky and the rest of the team stopped suddenly and dropped to a knee, listening in on a small commotion ahead of them. "What is that? Another boar-monster?" asked Pilot Officer Ramirez. "No, it's voices. Ours and not ours," said Brassman.

"Charon 1 Leader, this Charon 2 Leader, we're heading back to camp and we're going to check out a disturbance, over," said Kawalsky on his personal wireless to O'Neill.

A-firm, Charon 2 Leader, report back what you see. Hopefully not something worse than a monster-boar...oh uh over.

"Let's move in quietly, see what we're up against. There's a small overhead position to our left that we can go to get an advantage.
Brassman, you head up there, Ramirez, with me. If it's a close encounter with intelligent life, we're going to be in a complicated situation. Boar-monsters are easy to understand, at least," whispered Kawalsky, making a finger gun and shooting it. "If they open fire on us, return fire. Maybe they are related to that crazy guy that walked through the portal."

Everyone got into position, and Brassman called in through the wireless to Kawalsky to report. He indicated that the two that were left behind as the rest of Charon 2 went to support Charon 1, was taken hostage it seemed, a biochemist name Jones and the other member of Charon 1, the primary technician of the initial expeditionary force, Chief Technician Cooper.

"Jones's got his hands up and they took his D-114, while Coop's on his knees with his hands on his head, and they got his carbine. And they seemed to be interrogating them. Count 4 tocs.**** One searching the Chimps, and two have Jones, and the last has Cooper," said Brassman.

"Ok, you get into position to flank now, we'll move in on my go, try to watch those two who are detaining Cooper. We'll get them back. " said Kawalsky.

Now it's time for Wardenclyffe Section first contact protocols. But one of their own is not going to be a test subject or a meal for whatever is coming next.

---

"Almost done...the runes are exactly the same on the artifact we have on Earth and here, on Janus. Absolutely remarkable. It's small universe after all...multiverse, I should say," quipped Jackson, as he went back to looking over the large boulder with the symbols, using a torch***** propped up at an upward angle on the ground with a small rock.

O'Neill and Carter, still staring at the boar, both remembered that this was the codename for this other-world that Wardenclyffe had picked. Janus, the Roman god of time and the namesake of the first month of the year. Fitting, it seemed, as we have seemed to travel to another time period, perhaps indicating what's in store for Earth in the future, if their suspicions are confirmed, thought O'Neill.

"Remarkable, yeah. This boar-monster is remarkable yeah. Almost became the pig trough dinner for this dead bastard," said O'Neill out loud, pointing to the carcass of the boar-monster. "Sir, what if this is the mother? Or god forbid, a one of the piglets? Then we'll have to deal with a larger..." Carter trailed off, and she began to bring here weapon up again, but was denied by the presence of two soldiers, who strangely looked like they came from Earth, who had their weapons in O'Neill and Carter's faces. They even spoke the King's English. Jackson had his hands up and his back to the boulder. They came from behind the boulder. Should have maintained a perimeter. Shit, thought O'Neill. The death of one monster boar didn't necessarily mean it was safe.

"Easy, easy, I've already been dropped once today and I don't want to go through with that again," said O'Neill as he slowly raised his arms. Carter did the same silently, watching her commanding officer do all the talking. "We...uh, come in peace,"

Carter sighed. Not another cliche, especially from a sci-rom** show or book. But she rolled with it. "Yes, my friend is saying we mean nobody any harm, and we'll cooperate. We have...come from that artifact, down that way," Carter pointed with her left hand in the direction of the artifact.

Both of them then realized that these were women soldiers. The initial shock of them materializing out of nowhere had subsided, and now both of them silently analyzed the two lady soldiers detaining them. They, likewise, were slightly surprised that Carter was a women among them, though they could barely tell a slightly slender and feminine figure in the modified battle dress.

Jackson slowly lowered his handgun to the ground and kicked it away. Carter and O'Neill did the same with their carbines and their D-114s. "We're not from here, as you can see..." said O'Neill. "I'm Group Captain O'Neill, Royal North American Air Force, and that is Flight Lieutenant Carter. Over there is the boffin Doctor Daniel Jackson," O'Neill decided to try introductions and ice-breaking with these people. First contact protocols dictate diplomacy, and hopefully these guys aren't going to kill them or take them hostage.

"FRSAm, uh...Fellow of the Royal Society of America, and professor with Harvard College's Institute of Indigenous and Ancient Archaeology; I'm a researcher and linguist. We're from a country called the North American Union from a planet called Earth. We came from that artifact over there, and what brought us here was a human figure that emerged on our end when we attempted to activate it. We were shocked discover there were other humans in the universe besides our own on our planet. And now, we're even more shocked. We seem to have to a lot more in common, though given our preliminary findings..." summarized Jackson, motioning with his head towards the scouting party that had detained them all. He began trailing off however, thinking about the ramifications of the recent research and discovery of other humans in the universe or possible multiverse.

Indeed, the two groups both looked like modern soldiers, though the North Americans were wearing more protective gear given the environment. The weapons looked very similar too. And they all spoke the same language, save for differences in idioms, expressions, slang, and jargon.

"We have a lot we can learn from one anoth--" began Jackson, interrupted by the call over the detaining party's wireless of detaining two foreign personnel at a camp near the artifact. Then O'Neill's own wireless went off and everyone could hear it:Sir, this is Charon 2 Leader. We've made visual contact with possibly hostile humanoids, they took Cooper and Jones hostage. Requesting orders and backup.

"Sorry, I gotta take this..." began O'Neill.

---

Gaining the advantage, Kawalsky, Ramirez, and Brassman snuck up on the scout party that had detained Cooper and Jones. Kawalsky and Ramirez had taken position behind two large trees about 15 yards away from the Chimps and where Cooper was being held, while Brassman was 20 yards to their right, looking at Jones.

"Ok, we're moving in and securing Cooper, once we get the nod. He can fight and we'll have the numerical advantage when's he free. We'll then force the other two to free Jones," ordered Kawalsky.

Kawalsky then called in the situation to his commanding officer over the wireless, waiting for an answer.



**** Tocs: from the United Commonwealth phonetic alphabet, similar to Tango and the term for target.
** Sci-rom: scientific romance aka OTL science fiction.

[Monfrox]

Between the two recon teams, they had it up on the Charon fireteams by two more. O'Neill had went to try to get away for a bit despite being at gunpoint, and was probably unaware that Vlasta was flanking him. Well, she grabbed him by the back of his vest and kept him firmly planted within her team's sight.

"Take what?" She asked in a play questioning manner before addressing the rest of the squad. "Regroup with Pitt."

The team shuffled Carter and Jackson along towards their base camp where Pitt and her team were as Vlasta followed up behind with Gromek in tow, keeping a strong hand on O'Neill's vest in case he got skittish. The Staff Sergeant got the impression that he was a slippery sort.

"Bad luck I caught you." She said to him. "Cause I reaaaally hate officers. Especially Captains."

The teams were regrouped and Vlasta called her marksman in to collect the discarded weapons. She counted the number of troops in the base camp and frowned, looking at Sergeant Pitt. The SFC nodded, having done a headcount herself. They were three short. She nodded silently and checked her watch before looking out behind her.

"We have your Captain, and a number of other members of your squad. You have less than five minutes to give yourself before we come in there and drag you out. I know where you are, so don't think you'll sneak up on us." Pitt shouted.

She waited for a bit and then ordered two of her team to go in. The rustling in the bushes told her that they were about where she thought, and watched them come in with their weapons above their heads and very nonplussed looks on their faces.

"Good choice, boys. Sit tight, because..." The glare of headlights made her cut her sentence short. "Ah...the task force is right on time. Good."

"If what you said about coming in peace was true, then you'll have a chance to prove it to the higher ups. Don't try anything cute, now." Vlasta spat.

Pitt went with Corporal Zobor and was greeted from the front truck by Lieutenant Procházková. The SFC shook her hand and thumbed back to the Charon teams at their camp.

"Right," Ivona mused. "Well, the RMD troopers will all be stationed here while your teams head back to the base."

"Can I leave a team here in exchange for a few of your operators?"

"Don't see why not. Need a truck for transport too?"

"Read my mind."

"Alright, Sergeant Arynka and her small team will be pulling security for the trip home then. Battalion will be out here in a day or so to start full lockdown."

"Roger that."

Pitt watched the task force fan out and start securing the area against other threats as well as setting up hasty protective measures. She yanked Sergeant Arynka aside and informed her of the new changes and watched her grab her two cohorts. Pitt ordered Vlasta to stay here while her team rounded up the Charon team members, with the two researchers kept behind as collateral in case anymore forces showed up. RMD troops created firing lines for ambush tactics as well as small cover positions for prolonged engagements. Corporal Zobor and Royce went with the rest of the team to get the GMV ready to roll out as Pitt and Arynka hedred the six foreign soldiers into the back of the deuce and a half, with Sergeant Grzymislawa Kafka and Private Viola Chernomyrdina taking the seats on the ends nearest to the tailgate to discourage anyone from jumping out. Private Chernomyrdina herself was one of the ACU's psychokinetics, able to move and control objects with her mind, while Sergeant Kafka was the resident psychometric who could read information by touching whatever she needed. Together, they and the rest of the Charon team were transported back to Fort Silver by Pitt and Arynka.

The drive back was long and tense, but thankfully uneventful. The truck was parked inside the perimeter and the Charon soldiers were escorted out by very unfriendly looking security forces members who thoroughly frisked each of them for extra weapons before confiscating everything but the uniforms they had on and the boots they were wearing. Pitt was nonplussed, remembering the rumor that those in the security forces were mainly all sadists. She wondered if it was true.

"Take these three aside. Find them cells. The other three are to be sent for immediate situating." The team lead said as she pointed out Jackson, Carter, and O'Neill. "Sergeant Pitt, you've been specially requested to help along with Sergeant Kafka, Sergeant Arynka, and Private Chernomyrdina."

"Situating" was code for interrogation. They called it such to keep them confused and from steeling themselves more for the inevitability of questioning. Luckily, the Fort was equipped with a multitude of facilities and though there were only two interrogation rooms, Jackson was not left out after being put up in an impromptu private room out of one of the barracks rooms. Carter and O'Neill were both sitting in a room with two seats and a table. For the sake of being nice, they were not restrained. A large one-way mirror viewed the room from the side where other troops were no doubt monitoring them closely.

It wasn't long before the questioning began. Sergeant Arynka walked into Jackson's own little barracks with two MPs guarding the door out and sat down, taking off her helmet and plate carrier and setting them to the side.

"Why don't you...start from the beginning." She said, trying to see how he would react and wondering if that question was a bit too vague.

In Carter's room, Kafka and Chernomyrdina both entered with the Private taking a stance at the wall behind as the Sergeant took a seat at the opposite end of the table.

"You smoke? Drink? Can we get you anything here for you?" She was a master of the Scharff technique, and despite the obvious distance between her and Carter in many ways, Kafka had an ace up her sleeve. All she needed to do was touch her, and Kafka could read Carter's mind's most immediate thoughts. The Sergeant entwined her fingers and regarded the woman before her without any disdain in her eyes.

For O'Neill, he was in for a treat as the main leader of the two teams. Sergeant First Class Pitt had only just opened the door after taking off her boonie hat and hadn't even had the chance to wash off her camo face paint.

"Well, Group Captain. It seems-" She paused as she heard her name called loudly from down the hall she had just come from. It wasn't to much longer before she stood at attention on the wall as General Iosava strolled in, smirking with another cigarette in her lips.

"Thank you, Sergeant." The General said as Pitt closed the door and took a spot on the wall, her HK33 hanging down in front of her.

Sofiko Iosava, despite being a General, was merely 19 years old and on the shorter side of 5' 8". Her maturity was notable, though. She commanded respect among her troops without demanding it, and carried herself with a very aloof and haughty attitude from her many early successes. She knew she was not immune to failure, but she enjoyed living without it clouding her mind all the time. She took her time pacing to her seat, not regarding O'Neill at all as she placed herself onto the chair. She took a drag from her cigarette as she placed a small ashtray on the table near her, tapped the ash into it, and then set it down. She folded her hands together and propped her elbows on the table with a slight lean forward, moving them up to one side as she looked at the Captain with a smile curling its way across her face.

"So tell me, Group Captain O'Neill of the Royal North American Air Force..." Iosava's tone was dangerously bordering on sultry as she spoke to him. "Why are you here?"

[The Union of British North America]

Foreign military installation, Other-world designated JANUS,
Estimated time of 1530 hours GMT-5 (Eastern NAU Time)

O'Neill, Carter, and the rest of the military members of Charon Section mostly meekly surrendered and cooperated with these strange and feminine soldiers. They hardly gave any protest but of course being the leader of the section, and a special forces unit at that, O'Neil tried to turn the tables and failed miserably, though the foreign soldiers maintained a cold, even, but not overtly hostile anticipated response. Charon Section except for the other boffin Jones and the technician Cooper were taken away from their base camp, away from the artifact, away from home and further into trouble.

So far, Carter, Kawalsky, and O'Neill had a silent understanding and consensus of what was going on as they were separated from Cooper and Jones. Jackson had been brought along to act as a cultural liaison and because he was thought to be the most educated and most pliable of them all for the other-worlders to question. The military personnel save for Cooper were taken along with Jackson to the other-worlders' main regional base of operations. Cooper and Jones were to act as hostages, it appeared. This created a dark cloud over the heads of the rest of Charon Section.

---
The long drive to their local major headquarters was indeed a tense situation for all, and O'Neill's attempts at jokes and stories were short-lived as the other-worlder soldiers told him to shut up. While O'Neill gave short but sustained protests at the boredom of the trip, Carter and Jackson managed to communicate to one another in quick and quiet whispers of what to do when they get to their destination. Essentially, it was to cooperate as much as possible with these other-worlders, without giving away state secrets or sensitive information, always stating the obvious, and trying to learn more about them. They were still on-mission, even if given the more limiting constraints they acquired. It was unclear as to what their fate might be, collectively and individually, but Charon Section will finish the mission.

At some point, the rest of Charon Corps will go in when Charon Section doesn't report in within the next few days. In fact, in 12 hours. There was supposed to be the first report back with one of the autodev's smaller units to be sent back through the portal, but now that was in question. It was due in 3 hours and if no response, the rest of Charon Corps would be sent through the portal to try and look for them and possibly detonate a powerful tactical atomic device near the gate to render the area uninhabitable and damage the portal beyond immediate, if possible, repair, to stop anything that killed Charon 1 and 2 and prevent it from reaching Earth. That was procedure for the first and only mission that O'Neill and Packard had together, thought Carter, as she remembered that significant section of the post-mission report. O'Neill was the only survivor from that op. He says Packard gave herself up for him and to put a stop from the hellish things from reaching Earth. Carter looked towards the driver's cabin as she thought about this. There is something out here, on this world.
---
After the Section was stripped of their tactical vests, wireless equipment, and belt packs and any other extra pocket or useful junk, they were sent to their cells. Kawalsky, Brassman, and Ramirez were taken to another cell block while O'Neill, Carter, and Jackson were taken to a place for 'situating'. Torture, all thought the trio. O'Neill and Carter could last last longer than Jackson, a mere scientist and civilian. The first look at the means of his torment and he'll give up the Union and goose before he would give up his ghost.

Carter and O'Neill were taken the interrogation room's corridor, and each were placed in separate rooms that were barren and grey save for a steel table and four metal chairs, with two on one end facing the door and the other two facing a dusty, old wall that had a large mirror. "Good guy, tough guy," muttered O'Neill before they were separated. "Remember, we weren't on 9th and 2nd Street that day," joked O'Neill, pretending to be caught criminals who were trying to avoid sweating and start naming names. "Sir, this isn't the time for jokes," retorted Carter as she was gently guided to her room. She didn't care for his flippancy and glibness towards the situation, though perhaps this was to undermine somewhat their interrogators that they weren't going to be an easy bunch to get through.

As they were situated, two people entered the room that held Flight Lieutenant Carter, and another took position by the door behind what appeared as the leader of this interrogation session. Judging by the chevrons on their sleeves as Carter caught a quick glance at their right sleeves, and how similar they were to North American Army's despite being concave; the NA Army's was convex and had more subdued green colors on it. She determined the one sitting down was some kind of sergeant. What she said next was a bit surprising, given all that had transpired, but a classic in any manual's personal interrogation techniques--torture by kindness. The foreign lady sergeant had asked Carter for any refreshment.

"Oh no, thank you. I don't smoke, it's a bad habit, and I hardly drink, unless it's water since you took our canteens, but thank you nevertheless," replied Carter.

O'Neill, in his room, was requesting something, in fact shouting his demands, and they all could hear it in Carter's room through a small air vent, albeit somewhat muffled: "I would like a coffee, a reading of Judges' Rules*, and my solicitor."

Carter sighed.

The two foreign soldiers looked a bit confused.
---
Another lady-soldier entered O'Neill's room, and by the stride and confidence she expressed with her body language, she was higher on the enlisted's totem pole. She began, "Well, Group Captain. It seems--," until her name was yelled "PITT!" and an officer of this installation and its military units strolled in. Pitt stood at attention, a natural reflex of being in a hierarchical system like the military. What shocked O'Neill was that this officer, which he surmised to be some kind of general or high ranking staff officer, was rather young; she would be a cadet in any NAU military academy at her age.

The general situation herself at the table, in a rather odd but somewhat unsettling disposition. But O'Neill, ever the joker, decided to have some fun. She had asked, with his name and rank, why he was here.

"First of all, I didn't get my coffee, and second of all," he leaned in a bit, and folded his hands while he placed them on the table, "I don't know who you are. Why don't we get the pleasantries out of the way before we discuss business? Who are you all? Are we in Siberia? You all have Russian names save for that one over there," pointing to Pitt and then returning to the General, "yet speak the King's English perfectly. Why are we being detained by the Okhrana**?"
---
Jackson's room was more comfortable than Carter's and O'Neill's, but he imagined they were getting 'situated' in ways he didn't dare to imagine. He wondered if he they die or be horribly disfigured. A lady soldier entered the room he was in that was guarded by what appeared to be two provosts guarding outside. She took offer her helmet and her tactical armor vest and asked him to start from the from the beginning.

He summarized what was the proximate cause of Charon's expedition to this world, including explaining how two artifacts connected their worlds, but what was weirder than that was that this world was in the position of a black star in Jackson's world. The interlocutor of Jackson's was somewhat taken aback that there was a weird astronomical phenomenon involved connecting their worlds and of a special transportation device as well.

This was such news to his interrogator that she got up, grabbed her things, and left, pushing the door wide open with Jackson staring out in confusion.




* Judges' Rules: England's first version of a Miranda warning, the reading of the accused's rights when being interrogated by the police. The UC countries have adopted many policies and practices from the Mother Country. O'Neill is being humorous to hinder the interrogation. O'Neill partially ignored the consensus decision to be reasonably cooperative.

** Okhrana: the Tsarist secret police. In my world, the Tsarist system retained its power and throne through gradual reform and development of a pan-Slavic ideology and nationalist programme. There was no Russian Revolution and subsequent USSR as left wing political revolutions have started and fizzled out faster than OTL, but Imperial Russia is still quite brutal, with occasional antisemitic pogroms, a police state, and a great mistrust of the Western powers and East Asia, considering the United Commonwealth, Japan and her Co-Prosperity Sphere, and China to be her greatest rivals and enemies. Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia allied with each other and fought together in the Great Global War, against the UC, France, China, and was in a conflict with Japan for a few years before that. Germany and Russia still cooperate post-war, and the UC, Japan, and Russia are still in a 'quiet war' with each other. Tensions are lower than in past decades, but everyone is still uneasy.

[Monfrox]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

The plan was simple, really. The contingent had traded off some of their own operators to keep Vlasta's team in the field and briefed on happenings, which is exactly what she was doing with Ivona since the Lieutenant was the current ranking member. All in all, it was actually rather peaceful. The two foreigners hadn't even been detained, probably because of the surrounding squads that made the anomaly site bristling with automatic weapons and soldiers with a direct line to reinforcements should they need them. The RMD troopers, more akin to airborne rangers, were assessing fields of fire on both sides of the surrounding cordon should they be attacked and were digging in for a long night. Their relief would come in the form of a fully outfitted mechanized battalion with support from CBRN forces to enclose and lock down the anomaly.

"Well, that's the gist of it anyway." Ivona said after explaining to Vlasta the big picture plan.

"I really hope they don't take long. Really not keen on spending the night out in the wilds here."

"Yeah, I get you." She said, stealing a glance at the two researchers. "Keep up the rounds, Sarn't. No telling what'll happen."

"Yes ma'am."

The Lieutenant gave Vlasta a pat on her shoulder and headed to the center of the base camp the foreign soldiers had set up upon arrival. She noted the almost primitive looking vehicles they brought, wondering how easy they thought this mission was going to be, before walking in further. Her angel wings had been sufficiently stretched on the trip in, so she tucked them in a little as she walked.

"So...what are you even doing here, anyway?" She asked the pair, her arms resting on top of her CZ 806 that was hanging down in front of her plate carrier.


Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories
Track 3 - "Situating"

Much of what had been going on was strange enough already, but precautions were always in place to keep things under control. Even so, Arynka was not prepared at all for Jackson's whole spiel on other worlds and portals and everything else that came with it. She found herself trying to get him to pause with the usual "wait a minute"s and "hold on"s but he just seemed to keep running his mouth. She tried to commit as much as she could to memory, but it was quite a lot to take in so suddenly. She was a bit shocked and when he had finally reached the end, she nodded slowly and then walked out of the room to gather her thoughts. One thing was for sure, she needed to tell the others.

Sergeant Kafka had raised an eyebrow at hearing the muffled shouts of the Group Captain in the room over.

"I take it through your exasperation that he's always like that?" She smiled, trying to be a bit humorous. "Private," she turned to Viola "can you get a cup of water?"

Viola nodded and headed out of the room, she returned in record time. Except it wasn't just her, but Sergeant Arynka with her. "With her" being the operative term as the Sergeant about bowled over the Private, trying to get into the room. The two tumbled and the cup went flying. Kafka followed it with her eyes as it sailed across the room, and then stopped just before hitting the floor. She watched it dance around and keep as little water from escaping as possible before settling.

"Minimal spillage. You're getting better, Private."

Viola stood up slowly as she held her hands out, the cup seeming to float towards her hands until she grasped it, breathing a small sigh of relief. Arynka took to Kafka's other ear and began whispering hurriedly into it. Kafka's eyes widened slightly before she looked to Arynka.

"You're sure."

"Yes, I have to tell Pitt too."

"Very well." She excused the Sergeant and then turned back to Carter. "It seems your compatriot was rather helpful. Don't worry, this isn't even really an official sort of interrogation. Rather, think of it as an interview. We won't beat anything out of you or talk in circles. The presence of foreign nationals spontaneously appearing inside our borders is a rather uniquely troubling matter. I'm sure you have similar measure should the roles be reversed. However, your arrival here has placed you in a very precarious situation as you find yourself in a strange land where-" Kafa put her arm out to stop Viola from walking in front of her to hand Carter the mug she requested, then nodded as the woman let the cup out of her hands and moved it to the table in front of the Flight Lieutenant with her psychokinetic abilities. "-all is not as it seems."

In the other room, Pitt merely watched O'Neill from her place on the wall opposite the one-way mirror. General Iosava merely smiled and leaned back in her chair. She got out, sauntered around the table after slowly pulling it away from O'Neill, and paced around the back of his chair. In all that, she had picked up her cigarette and put it between her lips. She paused to take a drag and exhale out into the middle of the room.

"Pleasantries, Group Captain?" She turned to smile at him. "But what pleasantness is there in all your...demanding and questioning..."

The General took another drag before deftly parking herself up on the table, crossing one leg over the other as she sat well within O'Neill's personal space. Her chesire grin never left her face.

"Siberia...Russian...Okhrana...really, these words don't mean anything here. Or anywhere else around here, for that matter. You are not very welcome here, you and your squad. I can feel it. The land here does not take kindly to...outsiders. But while you are here, maybe we can reach a sort of...enlightenment, about your predicament. But who am I is of no matter. I was here before you were born, and I will be here after you're dead." She finished her cigarette and put it out in the ashtray behind her.

"But that also is of no matter to you. For you are here to seek an answer to a question so rudely broached upon your country's doorstep, are you not? The reports never escape me. At approximately 0830 Hours today, a cordon patrol came under fire by a braindead zombie usually found within the confines of the border of the Yellow Zone. It vanished without a trace shortly after. Two squads were dispatched to investigate and several hours later...you show up, with your team and your scientists. Seemingly out of nowhere, a whole unit from another place appears right on our doorstep to begin muddling about with whatever they want."

There was a knock at the door, to which Sofiko swiftly and immediately said "denied" to before Sgt. Pitt could answer it. She uncrossed her leg, and then sent the sole of her boot loudly into the unoccupied space on the chair between O'Neill's legs.

"Tell me, Group Captain...what allows you to make such demands of me? Especially when you have given me nothing. But I understand. I, General Sofiko Iosava of the Monfrox Expeditionary Force, am your acquaintance for tonight. And, as long as you wish to have me." She smiled wide as she leaned back, looking at him from under the brim of her hat. Her teeth showed, and her incisors were notably sharp and even slightly longer than normal.

Sergeant Pitt looked visibly uncomfortable at the mix between sultry and cryptic as the General spoke. She knew she was eccentric, but she had never gotten a front row seat to it before. She wondered if she should go to the door for a second. Just to see what was up.

[The Union of British North America]

Poconos Base, Pennsylvania, North American Union, Homeworld EARTH
1845 hours



Goodluck was staring intensely at one of the combine* screens while sitting in the overhanging command room of the portal chamber, trying to make out the latest readings from the automatic probe, which has continued to provide meteorological, climate, and atmospheric data. The world Charon went to was extremely toxic and irradiated. If anything lived there, it would not be recognizable to anything on Earth. Charon Section was dedicated to finding, cataloging, and possibly bringing back some artifacts or samples of the local fauna and flora for study. This otherworld was the discovery of the century, and even more so, a black star leading to a pocket universe. How did this come to be? There were theoretical works on pocket universes, the concept of multiverse. This pocket universe seems to be tied strongly our own, a confirmation of the universal inflationary model. Perhaps just as there is life in this universe with Earth, and the world of the great monstrosity discovered decades before, this pocket has its own requirements. Was the weakness in the cosmic fabric here and the portal being in this area connecting us to other pocket dimensions? Further study would be required, of course, but the grander things will have to be put aside now. Goodluck turned from his screen to look at another screen regarding Charon's message, which was flashing: ***WAITING FOR RECEPTION***. What was expected was a brief opening of the portal to send a device, like a message in a bottle or like a tube container sending paper through a tube, through the portal with the team's log and reports on artifacts and the flora and fauna. This would be followed by actual transfer of the items back to Earth via the portal.

When the device was sent back, it would automatically hail and upload to the Poconos servers. It was right about time now for their report, thought Goodluck. 5 minutes had passed, then 10, and then 15, and then 30. By then, everyone was worried something had gone horribly wrong. "What the hell is going on?" asked Goodluck loudly, but he thought of it as a rhetorical question, as all the other possibilities were ruled out or declared inconclusive. Charon was disintegrated, sent somewhere else, or something happened to them that prevented their first report-back and a sign of them not dying in the first hour of their mission.

Protocol was to send in another team after them to find out the truth. A larger, more armed force, in case the truth was not pleasant. Charon Sections 2 and 3 were to go in with heavier weapons, including a couple of projectors** to terminate the unpleasant things. Goodluck got with the leader of this reaction force, Major Louis Ferretti of the North American Special Air Service and operational commander of the Special Section, Charon's heavily armed reaction force with special recruits from the UC special forces around the world. The two were walking to Special Section's armory.

"It's time we send in another force to check up on them. You will lead to find and support Charon Section. As the Special Section, you are the hammer to their scalpel. See what happened at the their base camp, which should be close to the ring structure there," instructed Goodluck, realizing his instructions were already being carried out when the metal powered doors of the armory opened and revealed the preparatory work being done before him. The Special Section was looking forward to this. They were wearing old gray RNAAF flight suits, had white vehicle crew helmets with a horizontal blue stripe on the back. They grabbed their SLRs, projectors, heavy portable machine guns, and loaded up two Chimps with tractors with supplies for an extended mission: four days. After that and even Special Section didn't come back, an atomic device would be sent through and detonated, rendering the ring on that side of the portal useless and kill any inhuman monster in a three mile radius that had or could figure out how the ring structure worked. "Don't worry, sir, we'll get them back and teach those bastards a few manners," replied the Major.

As the two Sections assembled in the front of the ring device, Goodluck started the process of inputting the coordinates. After a minute the ring device became animated, with a rush of blue energy rushing towards the Charon Sections. The portal to the Otherworld is now open again. Goodluck came over to give them, good luck, as they were now dealing with a possible severe danger to not only to themselves but also to the United Commonwealth and the whole world.

Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories
O'Neill suddenly quieted down from his demanding tirade, beginning to see that this General was...something else. Otherworldly. Her demeanor was something he could not put up a defense. After she removed her boot from his nether regions' vicinity, he resigned himself to telling her the truth. "You are right about that, there is something about this world that doesn't agree with me or my section. And yes it looks quite strange from your point of view that we are here. So I'll tell why we are here."

He began that his people had a device they uncovered some time ago that apparently let a group of people to travel from one world to another, apparently to another dimension. Some time after this discovery, a strange creature turned up in some part of his world (the monster in the Irrawaddy Delta, Burma). His people fought and killed this monster that was very difficult to kill; he was a bullet-sponge but it managed to flee upriver to an old temple at Bagan, where his people discovered strange runes as well as a pictogram of the ring structure they discovered before. They put two and two together and found where the monster came from: a world where tiny microscopic machines took over all life. That "Irrawaddy Monster", nicked named the "Woolly Bully" by UC troops (he told her he's from the North American Union, a part of the pluri-continental intergovernmental organization and personal union that is United British Commonwealth of Nations) because they thought a weird monster lived where they were deployed during the Burma War.

O'Neill then revealed he was on that original mission to explore that other world from where the Woolly Bully came. Only he made it back, after defeating a terrible monster hellbent on expanding to other universes and worlds and that his team needed to stop it. It was a Pyrrhic victory.

After he was finished, he stared up at the General, who took a drag of her cigarette, still staring at him. Contemplating at his words. "My fellow soldiers and the good scientists will back me up on my story," he replied as her eyes and face were betraying her skepticism.

---

Jackson looked bewildered as his interrogator ran out of the room, revealing her demi-human appearance to him. "These are interesting times," he remarked to his guard.

---

Carter looked confused, as she overheard that O'Neill settled down, and a strange woman with a tail entered the room.

Ring structure area, Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone, Monfrox (Charon-Poconos Project designation: JANUS)


Charon Special Section after exiting the portal

The portal of the ring structure whirred to life, exuding its blue energy cloud forward and stabilizing the portal. The two reinforcing sections of Charon Corps jogged out of the portal. The the portal illuminated for a brief few seconds of the humanoids that were at the base of the ramp that led to the ring itself. Both sides raised their weapons, and both exchanged similar phrases of 'hold it' , 'surrender', or 'drop your weapons'.

"Wait," said Ferretti, lowering his weapon slightly, "you can speak English?"

---
*Combine refers to the Analytical Processing Combine of Dr. Daring who created the first basic prototypes for wartime decryption and mathematical computation, the name of a computing machine of data, words, and numbers.
**Projector is my world's alternate term for a rocket launcher.

[Monfrox]

Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories

General Iosava listened intently as O'Neill explained everything from the beginning, hanging on every word while trying to appear as laid back as usual. Her cheshire grin was still firmly plastered across her face, though. The talk of past incidents, the response, the existence of a different world beyond their dimension, it was intriguing. She wondered if maybe the Group Captain had such an imagination before the man professed the contrary. It was...too easy. The General stood up off the table as she puffed on her cigarette, doing another lap around the back of O'Neill's chair. She used the concept of personal space against her prisoners a lot when doing interrogations as she threw her arm around him and puffed once more, blowing the smoke out and looking at it thoughtfully as it drifted away from her lips and dissipated into the room.

"My dear Group Captain, do you know what you've just done?" She asked, pausing before looking over with her fiery orange eyes and locking his gaze. "You just admitted to a potential foreign invasion strike."

She paused, once again, to study his reaction before she fell into a fit of laughter as she let go of him and walked back to her side of the table. She quickly quieted down with a sigh as she put her cigarette out in the ashtray.

"No, but seriously. I could have you detained and put on trial before the military tribunal for the actions of you and your squad. However, I will not. In fact, since you've been so cooperative, I will do the humane thing and send you back with your unit. I'm sure-"

She was cut off by the knocking at the door again and sighed.

"Enter!"

Sergeant Pitt happily took this opportunity to get out of the room as Sergeant Arynka fought with another girl to try to get into the room at the same time, squeezing and prying until they both came through.

"Report!" The General ordered.

"Ma'am, I-" The Sergeant started.

"Was your questioning successful?"

"Ah, y-yes ma'am. Well, they talked about them not being from...around here, so to speak. I-"

"Very good, Sergeant. And you?" Iosava looked to the other woman.

"General, we're getting reports of other hostile forces at the anomaly site, what are your orders?"

"Assemble the squads that were sent in first and load the prisoners back onto the trucks. Tell Lieutenant Procházková that we're on our way back and to try not to start an international incident."

"Yes ma'am!"

The General turned around and regarded O'Neill.

"Well, it seems your country wants its people back. Would you rather keep them waiting?"

---

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

The appearance of yet more troops was quick, but that was something that was expected. Vlasta and her team were already brandishing weapons as the First Lieutenant barked out to hold fire, knowing the willingness to so easily pull the trigger. She got on her radio, immediately reporting the situation back to base. She was really lamenting the lack of any overhead support. It was a standoff as she called her other three angels in to support. There were nine of them with the twelve RMD troops on outer guard duty, should anything decide to pay a visit. Procházková was still trying to keep the Staff Sergeant reeled in before she got called on the radio again with the plan. Of course these guys were a QRF, and that made sense, but she was given a trump card to defusing the situation and quickly moved around from behind the foxgirls.

One of them spoke out, asking about their English. Procházková looked and noticed the odd choice of gear they were wearing, but that was not the priority right now. She held her hand up and stepped forward from the others.

"We know why you're here, so let's just all take it easy and have a quick chat. You wanna know where the rest of your unit is, right? They're coming back, so let's just tone it back a few notches."

[The Union of British North America]

Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories

Group Captain O'Neill knew he was definitely giving away a little too much information to these obviously foreign military forces, but he also did not want to cause too much distrust between Charon and this General and the forces under her command. Perhaps spinning a story about the UC doing a blind, first jump to another world would have sufficed for the time being? Perhaps. The revelation of another force coming in if Charon didn't report back in time was also perhaps too much but then again it might have caught these foreign soldiers by surprise and lead to an incident, and apparently it almost did. If he hadn't revealed that information, there would have been a firefight, a non-peaceful first contact between two intelligent peoples. O'Neill sensed they were now at the precipice of war. The UC still didn't know much about this world, and now with these otherworldly military forces and whatever capabilities they have. Whatever the consequences he might face back home for his apparent disregard of information compartmentalization in this first contact scenario he would bear them. But it might just prevent an all-out conflict in the future.

Plus, he didn't want to see what this world's military justice would be. O'Neill and his men could have argued ignorance about this whole affair starting up when they first encountered these Monfrox troops, but this wasn't an international tribunal. Judging by how they all lived in this hell-hole of a world, they would be quick on the trigger or the drop-door lever, or worse.

"Be it as it may, this is a first for both of us, General," replied O'Neill. "We still don't know much about each other." He was uncuffed from the table, stood up, recuffed again, and was begun to be lightly escorted from his interrogation room. Carter was right behind him in the same matter, and Jackson joined them outside while in the same, restraining predicament. When they were escorted to the truck, she whispered to him: "Whatever you said to her, you got us out without a scratch or a bruise." He smiled sheepishly and looked away from her. "Yeah, what DID you do?" inquired Jackson. "What can I say? I got a way with the ladies..." he began until he was told to be quiet by one of his lady guards.

Anomaly Site, Gate Area

The reinforcement team looked around and saw they were indeed seeing more and more of these odd troops. How did anyone survive here? Were they in their government's declared no-go zone and the advance team led by O'Neill were the first victims of these otherworlders?

"All right, we'll stand down but we're defending this," Ferretti said as he pointed at the gate, slightly lowering his weapon. "We want our people back. Do you know what happened to them? I am fairly certain it was you all who took them. We don't want conflict, but this is all very suspicious,"

"Who are you, by the way? I am Ferretti, of the North American Union, from beyond the gate," he asked the odd soldiers finally. Their leader lowered her weapon and let it hang on the cord attached to her gear but was flanked by two guards, and beyond the light of the gate Ferretti saw another squad looking apprehensive at this first contact scenario. "It's surprising we can understand one another."

[Monfrox]

Fort Silver, Monfrox Outer Territories

The prisoners had been loaded back into the trucks they arrived in with the operators taking their seats at the tailgates, only this time O'Neill and his team found themselves sitting with the General for company. She wanted to see what all this could end up becoming, and was also able to act in a diplomatic fashion should she be required to. But it was at least a two hour ride there, and so they had radioed in to report the decision ahead of time at the hope of avoiding a skirmish erupting while they were en route. General Iosava couldn't wipe the smirk off her face as she sat opposite of the Group Captain, her leg over the other and her arms crossed over her chest.

"I hope your people are as entertaining to be around as you, Group Captain." She remarked.

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

"I'm First Lieutenant Procházková, 1st Angel Company. Currently, you are trespassing on Froxian soil. Your team was apprehended and brought in for questioning, which is why you're seeing us."

Vlasta hit her radio with her left hand, holding her carbine up with her right still.

"Send your traffic." She said. A few moments passed by before she acknowledged. "Roger that, Team 2 Actual copies." She looked to Procházková. "Ell Tee, General's ordering us to stand down. She's on her way back with the prisoner's."

"That's gonna be a while..." The Lieutenant hit her comm. "Outer Cordon, be advised: friendly transports are on their way back. Continue to maintain security." She looked back to Ferretti and also let her weapon hang down.

"You boys are a llooooong way from home." Vlasta said as she lit up a cigarette clenched in her teeth. She wasn't very happy about the whole ordeal.

[The Union of British North America]

Ring structure area, Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone, Monfrox (Charon-Poconos Project designation: JANUS)

Ferretti narrowed his eyes a bit when he saw Procházková light her cigarette. He looked around where he stood, with two of his men walking up to cover his flanks in case something happened, but everyone read each other as be calm, stand down, let's sort this out. But the news that O'Neill and the rest were fine--a relatively loose word as far Ferretti was concerned--more like alive, at least, was a good sign. He hoped nothing like torture or medical experimentation took place while they were detained by these apparently humanoid people. He sensed they were confused by their presence as much as they were confused by the United Commonwealth presence.

Language, weapons, tactics--these were modern soldiers. Russian? Eastern European? They spoke very good English, even getting the North American accents right. JANUS was strange, these people were strange. Did we stumble into some Siberian training ground for Russian troops to practice operating in the North American wilderness? With Imperial Japan and the Co-Prosperity Sphere on the decline and China taking up the economic mantle for East Asia, Russia was proving to be the next great power to challenge the United Commonwealth--Europe and the Far North of the American continent were at risk. Last week the Russian Prime Minister and head of the National Orthodox Party claimed that the rogue Russian army units that seized Svalbard in the early 1980s did nothing wrong except shown to the world and the cowards in charge of Russia at the time that they were weak and Russia will assert herself in the world against Western corruption.

But these soldiers were different, for many obvious reasons as well as by Ferretti's gut feelings.

"I see, First Lieutenant,' began Ferretti though pronouncing the second word with the stereotypical linguistic uniformity of the United Commonwealth: 'Left-tenet'. "Yes, it does appear we are far, far away from our home. Thank you for having our team members return here. We hope to resolve this peacefully. As I said, my team and I, and our comrades, are from the other side of this gate, from a land called the North American Union. My superiors have instructed me, in cases of first contact, to foster communication at lower levels, and to possibly have relations between our governments. My team came here to rescue our comrades, the so-called prisoners you have taken. But, as the situation as developed to this, we shall wait for our comrades to return and we'll discuss matters further."

The rest of the Special Section kept their eyes on the visible Monfroxian soldiers near the ring structure--the thing itself had its runes glow a turquoise color--but the Special Section troops had their night-vision goggles on while Ferretti and his two guards had electric torches, the ones not attached to their weapons but holding large, clublike ones in their left hands while their right hands kept their weapons pointed downwards but pointed away from the Monfroxians, shining on the ground near Procházková. Ferretti and his men were about 20 feet away from Procházková and her soldiers. Stay vigilant, he thought, as he remembered his special forces training and previous work with foreign intelligence services. They may be only telling half the truth, omitting certain facts.

The two struck up a conversation about this forest while they waited for O'Neill and the others to come back. "Why does this forest look so haunted and looks like it can kill you in a million horrible ways, aside from other forests that are very similar?" asked Ferretti.

[Monfrox]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

Vlasta wasn't happy at all about the arrangement. She'd sooner have these guys ventilated and be done with the whole thing. How could the Lieutenant just be so calm about all of this? A foreign army came here making demands and they were just sitting by? It wasn't the way she was used to. She was frustrated as the LT went off to go contact the General's convoy again to get an estimated time of arrival. She chomped at her cigarette and blew smoke out the side of her mouth as she sat on one of the NAU's equipment boxes. The rest of her squad hung around and kept eyeing Ferretti and his unit up.

Iwa Gromek was the only one still standing in her original spot, near where the Sergeant had just been. Her ears pricked up when Ferretti and she looked dead at his face. Her eyes went wide at first but her brow narrowed. Her grip on her rifle audibly tightened.

"What did you just say?" Vlasta said, immediately standing up and grabbing her rifle with her other hand. She marched up and closed the distance to Ferretti. "What did you just fucking say?!" She grabbed his vest and jerked him towards her. "You better pray to whatever God you believe in that these ears of mine are going bad. I swear, if you just-"

"Alert." Her radio crackled in her ear. "This is Bishop 1, we've got incoming. All squads, prep for hard contact. Lay low until we can identify."

Bishop was the callsign for the RMD squad that was handling the outer cordon. Vlasta gritted her teeth and shoved Ferretti out of her face.

"Squad, set up to ambush. Quick." She turned back at the man from the foreign country with a glare. "If you have any sense of self-preservation, I suggest finding a hole to hide in, right now."

The team moved and others were brought in. The rumble of an engine grew near.

"Hold. 1 target. Class 3. Possession. Wait for the right moment..."

The sound grew close as it came through the trees, around through the road, and towards the grouping. What sounded like an engine at first had turned into a grinding of metal and gears over combustion. A Boxer APC rolled around the bend in the road and came into full view, crawling along towards the small encampment. There was blood running down all the sides and black smoke pouring from the exhaust. It had holes in the armor where something moved around inside it. It stopped inside the perimeter, it's cannon moving with a twitch as it scanned left and right.

"Shit...LT, I don't think it wants to leave." Vlasta radioed.

"Get AT on it. We'll see if we can't open it up and get some thermate inside. Prep 40mils and fire at your own discretion. HEDP rounds. Everyone else, aim for the viewports and optic systems. Go!"

The RMD troops launched two grenades at once that smacked into the top and side of the APC, causing an inhuman screech to erupt from it as it's turret recoiled in a way it wasn't mechanically designed to. The Recon team opened up with support on the optics on the turret at the viewports. A pair of the RMD operators moved in sequence with a shoulder-launcher and an ammunition bag around towards the rear. From the vehicle's holes, large tendrils with spiked sprouted out and writhed. They swiped at anything that could be seen, causing the operators to hastily relocate around other trees.

"Corporal, wait!" The ammo bearer cried as she tried to keep up.

The Corporal kept pressing on until she found a nice spot to shoot from. There, a good view from the rear around the road. She hopped over a fallen trunk and heard her partner fall over it. She looked back just in time to watch her fumble over it and onto the ground.

"Let's go!" The AT specialist yelled before she turned around.

The last thing she saw was one of the tendrils before it took her head off as it swept and wrapped around a tree to grab onto. The Corporal's body fell forward, still holding onto the Froxian launcher.

[The Union of British North America]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

Ferretti did not like the tone or substance of Sergeant's question as she walked over to him and seized him by his tac-vest. The other UC special forces operators who were slightly caught off guard by Vlasta's boldness at getting into the face of their commanding officer made them start yelling too; one of them pointed a weapon at Vlasta's chest and the other started saying back off. At least there wasn't a language barrier, and the universal language of threats with weapons and yelling made things clear.

But there was something strange going on. The rest of the UC special ops team started to feel it, as did the Monfroxians. "Contact?" inquired Ferretti. "Another monster-boar? Or several of them? A pack?" Vlasta shoved him away at his suggestion. The rest of the UC team took up defensive positions, some were close with the Monfroxians. At least there were more guns and covering fire for this. Whatever this is.

But the Monfroxians had a code name for this apparent threat. It emerged through the wood and accelerated violently up the road to the clearing where the Anomaly was located. A bloody and black armoured troop carrier emerged from the trees. Screeching, screaming and howling emanated and filled the dead silence.

"My God, what is THAT?" One of the UC special operators was the openly morbidly curious one. The local troops and the UC troops just started shooting just as Vlasta gave the general, desperate order.

Ferretti couldn't believe this thing was a living thing, as he overheard from Vlasta and her troops.

The Monfroxian anti-armour pair began to move to a good position to open up the monstrous machine while the rest of the UC and Monfroxian troops aimed at the portholes and any other opening. Tendrils were shaking violently out of the carrier. "Jesus Christ," said Ferretti. It was not even vaguely representative of anything on Earth. This was some kind of monster from Hell, according to the Earthers.

Ferretti saw the tendril shoot out from where the AT specialist was located, and in a split second saw her face go from combat-ready to blank as she was decapitated. Her lifeless eyes stared into Ferretti's. She still held onto the launcher, however. Ferretti gave an order over the team's radio to maintain suppressive fire as he ran over to the AT specialist position behind the log. A tendril grabbed at his chest as he was going over the fallen AT specialist's body, but quick use of a combat knife and the Froxian corporal's rifle bursts made it recoil back into the armoured carrier.

Ferretti picked up the launcher, and with the aid of the Froxian corporal, fired a projectile into the side of the carrier, creating a hole and exposing the innards of the carrier--grotesque, bloody flesh. Some of the North Americans who had light support weapons shifted their fire over to hitting that target as Ferretti made it known of an open target to his comrades. The Froxian assistant specialist also radioed the good news.

Suddenly a large tendril shot out from the carrier and seized Vlasta, wrapping around her torso. Her arms were restrained by the creature's appendage. A bunch of Froxian and a couple UC operators ran over to her to try and free her but smaller tendrils shot out to trip them and slow them down as the large tendril holding Vlasta began pulling her closer to the damaged carrier that was the exoskeleton of this monster. She was struggling to try and free her arm and hopefully reach for her combat knife.

[Monfrox]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

To his credit, Ferretti had avoided the composite armor and managed to nail the APC right near the lower area. The ammo bearer, who was only a Private First Class, pulled out a warhead with a giant red X on two sides. She pulled the arming pin and uncovered the shaft from the protective sleeve, then loaded it into the launcher. She looked at Ferretti and yelled due to her ears being ringing over all the gunfire.

"THERMATE WARHEAD! SOFT-TARGET! AIM RIGHT FOR THAT OPENING!" She knife-handed at the newly made hole made by the HEAT warhead that he had just launched. "SET! FIRE!" She ducked her head into his knee and covered her ears.

On the other side, Vlasta was trying to wriggle her way out of the tendril's grip while shouting and cursing up a storm. One of the other RMD operators, Corporal Aksinya Tredyakovskaya, grabbed her Groza-4 and loaded a grenade into the underbarrel 40mm launcher before flipping up the leaf sight. In a second, she had the grenade downrange and watched it obliterate the tendril. She whistled at two other operators near her and signaled to the recon team leader currently trying to escape her coil. They quickly ran up and dragged her back, tendril and all.

"This is Bishop-1, calling out. We have a serious situation here and need assistance, does anyone copy?" The platoon's radio operator was currently slunk behind a tree, trying not to get grabbed by the Possession.

"Bishop-1, this is Widow-5. We read you, what's your situation, over?"

"Widow-5, this is Bishop-1. Class 3 entity currently in the AO. Local forces are engaging, requesting any support as well as a clean up crew, over."

"Roger Bishop-1, this is Widow-5 moving to your position. ETA 5 mikes out."

"LT! WE GOT SUPPORT ON THE WAY! 5 MIKES!" The radio operator announced.

[The Union of British North America]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

To his credit, Ferretti had avoided the composite armor and managed to nail the APC right near the lower area. The ammo bearer, who was only a Private First Class, pulled out a warhead with a giant red X on two sides. She pulled the arming pin and uncovered the shaft from the protective sleeve, then loaded it into the launcher. She looked at Ferretti and yelled due to her ears being ringing over all the gunfire.

"THERMATE WARHEAD! SOFT-TARGET! AIM RIGHT FOR THAT OPENING!" She knife-handed at the newly made hole made by the HEAT warhead that he had just launched. "SET! FIRE!" She ducked her head into his knee and covered her ears.

On the other side, Vlasta was trying to wriggle her way out of the tendril's grip while shouting and cursing up a storm. One of the other RMD operators, Corporal Aksinya Tredyakovskaya, grabbed her Groza-4 and loaded a grenade into the underbarrel 40mm launcher before flipping up the leaf sight. In a second, she had the grenade downrange and watched it obliterate the tendril. She whistled at two other operators near her and signaled to the recon team leader currently trying to escape her coil. They quickly ran up and dragged her back, tendril and all.

"This is Bishop-1, calling out. We have a serious situation here and need assistance, does anyone copy?" The platoon's radio operator was currently slunk behind a tree, trying not to get grabbed by the Possession.

"Bishop-1, this is Widow-5. We read you, what's your situation, over?"

"Widow-5, this is Bishop-1. Class 3 entity currently in the AO. Local forces are engaging, requesting any support as well as a clean up crew, over."

"Roger Bishop-1, this is Widow-5 moving to your position. ETA 5 mikes out."

"LT! WE GOT SUPPORT ON THE WAY! 5 MIKES!" The radio operator announced.

Ferretti picked up his individual combat carbine and launched a cased grenade from its launcher into the bloody opening of the assault carrier. It writhed in pain and used another tendril to try to seize Ferretti, who was partially successful with shooting at its opening maw but when he turned to run away it seized his leg, digging its teeth and whatever into his right leg. He screamed in pain and fell to the ground. The tendril started dragging him over to the carrier, and then several other tendrils wrapped around Ferretti's body.

Suddenly, the top hatch of the carrier burst open and revealed a a head-like appendage, with a single, giant eye and and a mouth with razor-sharp teeth. It roared and screamed in pain and lifted the restrained Ferretti to meet its eye. Ferretti squirmed some more. The head of the creature showed itself. Ferretti looked closer at it; his helmet-cam was capturing intelligence, he thought. Suddenly he saw embedded in the side of the "neck" of the creature, human-like faces as if the bodies of people were used in making this thing. A monster, through and through, thought Ferretti. Everyone else stopped shooting and watched as the creature stared into Ferretti, curious as to what it would do next as well as fearing they might hit Ferretti, though the Monfroxians were keeping their guns aimed at the creature; small tendrils kept most of the fighters at bay, behind cover.

The creature began to speak. "Ughhh...human...flesh...all will...die...all will succumb..." it began, but didn't finish its sentence or start to prepare to consume Ferretti (as most would assume at this point what would have been Ferretti's fate), but its need to begin a monlogue caused to be distracted and struck in its own eye by a rocket from the clean-up response crew. The tendrils release Ferretti, and he fell about 15 feet. He felt one of his arms break as well as feeling severely weakened; the tendrils embedded in his leg were drinking his blood.

As soon as he fell, the rest of the temporarily allied troops and the clean-up crew kept firing at the head. It writhed in pain more, swaying the carrier from side to side, and then made a final shriek and collapsed into the bloody mud around the carrier.

Some of Ferretti's team ran over to check up on him, as well as Vlasta along with one of her medics. Ferretti was barely conscious and in serious pain. His own men started wrapping bandages around his bitten leg and others started tending to his arm.

[Monfrox]

"Bishop-1 one, come in. This is Widow-5 on station. Get your girls out of there, over."

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM IT!" The RTO screamed.

The ammo-bearer watched as Ferretti was brought into the Possession's reach and grabbed the rocket launcher.

"OPEN UP AND SAY 'AH'!" She shouted as she sighted it in and shot.

The rocket flew from the launcher and carved its way into the inside of the creature, stopping in the turret ring that was lined with sharp, jagged teeth. When the creature shuddered, Corporal Aksinya hopped up between the tendrils and onto the top of the metal hull.

"Hiya, sweetheart!" She said as she grabbed Ferretti and dove off the top, wrestling him from the clutches of the withering tendrils. "You finished playin' cowboy?"

The Corporal headed out without stopping, having to carry the man bridal style as she ran into the prepared positions they had dug. Moments after she dove behind a fallen tree, the APC exploded as a missile streaked in. The steel ruptured and the gore exploded. The whole thing then imploded into the ground in a pool of blood, creaking and screaming in an unholy cacophony until it disappeared. A new sound replaced it. The unmistakable sound of whirling rotors. A helicopter resembling a twin-rotor version of a Blackhawk flew overhead. There was two small wings off the sides with rails of ATGM missiles on them, one noticeably bare.

"Good effect on target, Widow-5. Class 3 Entity is dispatched. Thanks for the assist, over."

"Don't thank me yet. Gotta drop off a VIP. Look pretty, over."

VIP? Who would want to come here? It couldn't be the General, as she was still on the way with the prisoners they drove to the base. The chopper landed in a clearing down the way and kept the rotors spun up. As this was going on, Aksinya was assisting Vlasta and the Lieutnenat, who had glided down with her angelic wings after she was no longer needed in the air.

"Shit, this isn't good. Vlasta, hold him down."

"Right." The recon fox replied, putting her rather strong arms over Ferretti's chest.

"Hey, hey, hey! Back off! You'll get infected!" Aksinya barked at the UBNA team while she held down Ferretti from the other side.

"Alright sir, this is going to fucking hurt. But we need to know if you've been infected. Unfortunately, there's only one way to know so you'll have to bear with the pain." Lieutenant Procházková said as she pulled out a small packet with an unfamiliar symbol on it. It was, in fact, blessed salt. She tore it open and sprinkled it into the open wound. She watched his leg jerk expectedly and waited while the other two girls held him down, noticeable avoiding open wounds themselves. It was a few agonizing minutes, but Ferretti wasn't coughing up anything black and the wound wasn't hissing and smoking so the First Lieutenant deemed it "clean" and poured some water in to dissolve the salt and went about cleaning it up.

"You're a lucky man, today. I was afraid we were gonna have to amputate the limb. Alright, let's get you all patched up now..."

There was a call over the radio about a VIP being dropped off that made the Lieutenant curious, but she had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. As it stood, she hadn't noticed the sounds of footsteps behind her until a shadow was cast over her patient. Procházková turned around and saw a woman with red hair pulled into a ponytail and an eyepatch over her left eye. She didn't recognize her but she did know her rank.

"Can I help you, Colonel?"

"No. I think you need to help someone else, though." The woman said, pointing off across the road.

The ammo-bearer was kneeling over the body of the AT gunner she had been assigned to, clutching the body's vest and crying. The Lieutenant looked around from that, to Ferretti, to the Colonel, to Ferretti again. "Dammit." She muttered before taking off and letting the foreign medics take over for her. She walked over and held the crying girl with another RMD trooper, consoling her as best they could.

"What's the official report?"

"3 KIA, 5 wounded. One critically injured."

Procházková keyed her radio. "RTO, tell Widow-5 we're putting them on a MEDEVAC mission."

"A-firm, Ell Tee."

"Load them up and get them back to the base."

"Right." The woman next to her said before she headed off and began helping handle the bodybags and stretchers with the rest of the unit. Procházková looked down and softly kissed the ammo-bearer on the side of her head.

Elsewhere, the Colonel knelt down and looked between Ferretti and his medics. "Who's in charge of your unit, soldier?"

[The Union of British North America]

Poconos Base, Pennsylvania, North American Union, Homeworld EARTH
0200 hours

After several hours of lack of contact of not only the preliminary survey team but also the backup team that was supposed to figure out what was going on, all of the suspense built up to this moment made Goodluck both afraid and sad. Whatever the hell took out both teams was surely something not to ever be allowed to reach Earth.

The Prime Ministers of the North American Union and of Great Britain were both briefed on the situation, and both assented to the final recourse of any mission like this that has ended in the unfortunate demise of explorers and special forces that are charting a largely unknown and unforgiving universe: the use of nuclear weapons to render whatever alien environment and alien animals took these brave souls.

Well, these brave souls and O'Neill, thought Goodluck as he got the nod from the RNAAF Fourth Ardian (ATL term for an Air Commodore) who was on the phone with General Command Headquarters in Philadelphia. The Viceroy will privately meet with the next of kin for the deceased, the North American Forces top brass will pay these families exorbitant sums to just keep them quiet that they dated special forces, everything produced by this project will be forever classified TOP SECRET and covered by loopholes on Public Access to Information decades-long rules that control how long government sealed records can remain sealed. And Goodluck would be out of a job.

But at least Goodluck got to see something interesting and get some data on this strange world. The screaming humanoid corpse that came through the ring was dissected and analyzed, and to confirm was indeed human, with a non-trivial amount of TNA (Thymine-based Nucleic Acid) sequences that indicated mutations and adaptations that would allow certain organ tissues to have higher resistance to background environmental radiation and other environmental hazards, among other things that suggested direct genetic manipulation. Indeed, preliminary data suggested this other world to be not friendly to humans without special environmental suits. If any of the UCF teams survived whatever happened, they would be under the most curious eyes of the science teams of this project.

A tracked automech was loaded with a Red Sun atomic device, hopefully rendering the local environment, inhabitants, and the parallel ring and its controls inoperable and preventing any future incursions from the other side. Its yield was about three times that of the Operation Apollo test bomb.

Goodluck finished his bittersweet mental ruminations of this situation and was getting ready to oversee the launch of the automech probe that had the atomic device. Suddenly, the ring started spinning and glowing, and the ring's rotary-style marker stopping at the runes that gave the coordinates for Earth. A bright light shined and illuminated the receiving chamber. The computers were giving off strange readings, and the whole complex was shaking.

The blue water-like jet of energy shot forward, and the ring's interior was filled with that silverly-blue film. The wormhole formed. And three seconds after it appeared, O'Neill, Ferretti, and the rest of the UCF teams sent through the ring came back. Air Banneret O'Neill was limping and helped by Squadron-Leader Ferretti, with Flight-Leader Carter, Dr. Jackson, and the rest of them were all looking ragged and worn out. Even O'Neill, Jackson, and Carter were not wearing their standard-issue webbing.

Fourth Ardian Hammond came down to the receiving chamber. "What in God's name happened to you all?" asked the Ardian. "Well, boss, a large boar was just the first ungodly thing, and the last thing we encountered sounds like it came out of a monster horror cine-pic..." began O'Neill

---

30 Minutes before the return of the UCF forces to Earth
"...God, fuck, fucking painful...what the hell is that thing..." said Ferretti, gritting his teeth through the pain. Was that a brave move? Yes. A stupid one as well? Yes. Forgivable, given the very unusual environment and situation? Yes. At least the medical intelligence boffins will have something to look at in terms of human-alien fluids cross-contact.

As he was being tended to by United Commonwealth Forces Charon Corps medics along, the Monfroxian medics tended to their dead and wounded. Ferretti heard the report of their casualties. The only UCF casualty was him, as wounded in action. The rest of the UCF forces kept up their fire behind cover, and the near-silent, almost-telepathically conveyed consensus and plan of action between the Charon teams and the Monfroxian teams were to stay behind cover, lay down suppressive fire for the rockets and grenades to do the coup de grace for that inhuman monster. Which mostly worked, though at the expense of several of the Monfroxian troops.

Another of the lady soldiers came up to him. She had an eyepatch, red hair, and a look of no-nonsense like most of the soldiers hear, most likely an officer. Ferretti overheard the word Colonel though he was still somewhat delirious from the pain. "I'm Squadron-Leader Ferretti...Royal North American Air Force. I'm...in charge of Charon Team 2, the backup. I believe your soldiers have some of my comrades in custody. We came in through the ring in search of Charon Team 1 that was sent here first on an expeditionary mission," said Ferretti. "Charon Team 1...made first contact with the local wildlife, and then encountered some of your soldiers...the Monfroxians took them into custody, from what I gather..." he gritted his teeth in pain.

Ferretti was helped up the Charon medics and given some more pain relief and foldable crutches. I'll be out of action for a while,

The foreign colonel stared at him for a moment, likely sizing him up in terms of combat effectiveness and what the UCF forces sent here were capable of.

The Monfroxian finally arrived, along with more troops, medics, and supplies for the Monfroxian forces. O'Neill, Jackson, Carter, and the rest of the captured Charon Team 1 were coming along, in handcuffs, with guards to the ring.

[Monfrox]

Anomaly Site, Yellow Zone

"Yeah I could've guessed that. You know, we don't take too kindly to outsiders around here, so consider yourselves extremely lucky. Your people are on a convoy returning so stay put." Not that he could go anywhere. The redheaded Colonel keyed her radio. "Widow-5, this is Honey Badger. Did you spot the convoy on your way in?"

'Negative, Honey Badger. But they shouldn't be much longer, over."

"Roger that, get the wounded and dead out of here. We'll finish up. Out."

One of the RMD troopers still hanging around noticeably locked her gaze onto the Colonel when she mentioned her callsign and silently mouthed 'oh fuck' to herself. She set off, barking distant orders at her fireteam very hastily.

It was actually rather quiet at the site for the remainder of the wait. The convoy arrived, escorted by a Rosomak APC. Some of the RMD troopers were singing a song amongst each other called Davai Za with the ammo bearer who had lost her AT gunner. General Iosava stepped out from the back and stopped with Sergeant Kafka, looking on at the scene for a brief moment before moving on. Her trademark cheshire grin was no longer present. There were things that needed to be addressed, despite the casualties. The Colonel approached and the two shook hands.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Colonel Nasta. You freelancing today?"

"Not exactly. But it's not every day that we get two anomalies like this at once."

"There was another?"

"Yes, we'll bring you up to speed another time. What I can tell you now is that they appear to be separate incidents for now."

"I see. We've concluded our investigation for now and will be returning the first team to their masters." She paused and looked around, noting the smell of blood and cordite in the air. "How'd you get on?"

"Possessed APC. Five wounded, three dead, one in shock. My chopper already took care of the MEDEVAC."

Iosava clapped the Colonel's shoulder with a satisfied smile.

"Let it never be said that you haven't had a talent for getting a lid on things."

"Right." The Colonel replied.

The General watched as O'Neill and his team were filed out from the transport trucks while the rest of the troops fanned out and took up watch positions. Iosava put her hands on her hips, her short stature now visible in direct comparison to the Colonel's 6' 2" height. Feeling proud of herself; the General approached O'Neill and looked up at him.

"All's well that ends well, I suppose. Perhaps it's time you reported back to your superiors. I hope you can forgive our 'lack of hospitality' for the most part. After all, it seems hardly worth it to start an international incident over this. Or would that be a...more, "inter-dimensional"? Ah, politics. Rest assured that this area will be seeing a large build up in force and protection very soon. Don't be a stranger, now." She said before walking back to the trucks.

Much of the time was spent fortifying positions, with a few patrols being sent out and the Colonel talking with the General about what battalions to activate in the area to lockdown the site. In the midst of all this, one of the RMD troopers, Corporal Aksinya, walked over to Ferretti where he was and handed him a small metal glass.

"We don't got much to offer for the pain, but this should help. Make sure you don't taste it on the way down, though." She said, smiling. Her teeth were all sharp which mad a zig-zag through her mouth. The glass had a very strong smell to it and the liquid inside was clear.