Inside the tent at the comms station of point Alpha, Emma and her team are watching the countdown for the continuous event.
"Is everything packed?" Emma asked the marines.
"Yes, ma'am," the corporal leading them replied. "We can depart immediately if we're ok with losing the comms and camera gear within this tent. Everything else has been loaded onto the LMTV."
"Good. Gabe is expecting something to go wrong. We need to be prepared for anything," she said before falling into silence.
I subtle tension began forming in the tent. Everyone at the comms station, including Emma, the intelligence agent and four marines, were all standing around a Holo watching the camera feeds of the event. The countdown was slowly ticking away while everyone fidgeted nervously.
"10, 9, 8…" the intelligence agent announced to the group. "3, 2, 1. We have lost connection to those on-site."
After losing connection with the cameras on-site, the comms station team looked at the feed from their own long distance camera setup. These were the cameras that Command watched during the event activations.
Besides a slight fuzziness on the camera feed, everything seemed to be as expected. Nothing too strange seemed to be happening to the black hole. Everyone's shoulders had just started to relax when the intelligence agent explained.
"We've lost connection to command! The range of the interference is greater than we expected."
"Send up a black flare now!" Emma shouted in hurry." The teams on-site need to know that we're on our own."
BANG. The flare gun sounded outside of the tent.
"Black flare signal sent. We are waiting on a response."
After hearing that, Emma fell deep into thought. She was debating on what to do. She turned to address the intelligence agent and the corporal of the marines.
"The way I see it, we have two options. We either stay here and be another set of eyes for the teams on-site, or we pack up and head towards the event to rendezvous. What do you think?"
"Don't you remember our orders? We are to retreat and reconnect with Command as soon as possible," the intelligence agent argued. "We should pack up and head towards the sub-base until we have signal."
The corporal spoke up next. "I'm in favor of returning to the teams on-site. We should try and consolidate our forces in case of emergency."
Emma didn't know what to do. She might act like she knew, but she didn't. This was her first time in a situation like this.
The intelligence agent and the corporal got into a fight about what to do. Their opinions were complete opposites after all. The private that shot the black flare reported, cutting off the two's argument.
"Green flare spotted. The teams on-site will stay and record as much data as they can."
"How about this?" She said after hearing the on-site teams' decision. "We zoom out the cameras and act as a lookout for the teams on-site. We send you," she said while gesturing towards the intelligence agent, "with one of the marines in the LMTV towards the sub-base. You will try to reach Command. The rest will stay here and act as a fallback point for the others. How does that sound?"
"I don't like splitting our forces," the corporal pointed out.
"I know. However, we need to follow orders. We need to try and reconnect with Command," she replied to his worries.
"Then why don't we all fall back to the sub-base. There's no point staying here. If the others retreat, we'd be stuck here with no transport."
"Because we need to do our job as the comms station. If you can reestablish connection with Command, then we can act as intermediary if you're too far away. And on the matter of transport, then we send more marines with you. I'm staying here, though," Emma said stubbornly.
The two looked at her in shock. Neither of them expected this much bravery and courage to come from Emma.
"Very well. I'll stay behind with you," the corporal said seeing the resolve in Emma's eyes. The intelligence agent nodded his approval.
He didn't care for their sacrifice. He thought they were fools to put themselves in danger when orders were telling them to pull out. He wasn't going to stop them, though. As long as the job was done he didn't care if they potentially threw their lives away.
"Then we need to move. There's no time to waste," Emma hurried everyone. "I want everything besides a set of cameras and flares packed up to leave with you."
It was unfortunate. Everyone at the comms station was too busy to see the commotion happening at the event. If they did, perhaps they would've acted differently.
—-
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"
Nobody knew who shouted that. Nobody cared. They were all thinking the same.
The putrid green leg was soon joined by another. A small green creature walked out of the black hole.
The green creature was your stereotypical fantasy goblin. It stood about 3 feet tall with an animal skin rag wrapped around its waist. It had a small pot belly and carried a wooden club. It had long pointed ears and a large pointed nose that drooped down. It had disgusting yellow eyes and teeth. If the team was closer, they'd notice a horrible stench of sewage and decay.
The goblin wore a horrible sneer as it continued walking out of the black hole. It was soon joined by more of its kind as it took a few steps forward before stopping. It left enough room for its kin to leave the black hole, but it didn't approach Alpha team.
"Is that a fucking goblin?" One of the scientists questioned aloud. Most of those gathered knew what a goblin was. Most just didn't believe their own eyes.
The lead scientist left the LATT he was in and joined Olivia and Mateo who were standing near the LATV. He interrupted a fierce conversation between the two.
"…are stopping. I say we wait until provoked," Mateo finished saying before the lead scientist joined the conversation.
"They are obviously not human. We should treat this like a first contact scenario. These might be the first form of intelligent life humanity has ever encountered," Olivia countered. They were saying the same thing, but their nerves turned their conversation into an argument.
"If I might say a word or two," the scientist interjected.
"WHAT??" The couple yelled in irritation, annoyed someone interrupted them. The scientist jumped back in fright. Getting yelled at by two sergeant veterans was not easy on the heart. He pulled himself together, though. There were nerd fantasies on the line.
"I'm not sure how much you know about our version of goblins," the scientist started, "but from what I can see, I am forced to believe that some of our descriptions are true. These descriptions usually depict goblins as cunning and mischievous beings of chaos and violence. They aren't strong individually, but where there's one, there's usually thousands."
"Where are you going with this?" Mateo asked impatiently.
"If you'll let me continue, I will get there," the scientist said annoyed. "Goblins are usually described has having the intelligence of a five year old. They're smarter than beasts but usually unable to form complex plans. That is, of course, unless they have someone to lead them."
The implication that there is something stronger behind these goblins was not a welcome thought to those listening in.
"The last bit of worrying information I have is that goblins are usually a unisex species. In other words, they are male only. They require kidnapping and using women of other species to breed with. When they do, they breed like rabbits. If a single goblin is given a few women to breed with, they can single handedly save their species from extinction within a few months."
Hearing that, all the surrounding eavesdroppers' mouths fell open in shock. Only those that had played fantasy games on their Holos knew anything about them.
"Ok then. What do you recommend we do then?" Mateo asked the scientist with full seriousness.
"We give no quarter. We must exterminate them. If even one goblin were to escape, then within a few months time we'll be dealing with goblin raids and established dens. Clearing them out then will be significantly more complicated than doing so now."
"Then we will need to thank the Commander for giving us the tools to do so. Thank you for your assistance doctor. Please return to your LATT. We will handle this," said Mateo while turning to his wife.
"That's my decision, Liv. You ok with that?"
"Of course. I didn't realize they were such vile vermin," she said with thick disgust in her tone.
She had taken personal offense to the information the scientist had given them. She would not let anyone be subjected to the crimes the goblins would inevitably commit.
"Then we need to get ready now. I can already see them itching to start something," he said. The goblins had started sneaking their way closer, making it look natural. They sure were mischievous like the scientist said.
"We'll need to conserve ammo. We have no idea if these are all or if more will come through the portal later."
"Portal?"
"Yea. That's what the black hole is now, right?"
"Yea, I guess it is," Mateo said stunned. He never thought about it that way. He shook his head to get himself back on track.
"Use E-Mag for now. We have no connection to Command, so I'm authorizing powder and lazer for emergency use. If they come within 50 feet of our location before we're ready, don't be afraid to cut them down. I don't want any risks. Just let everyone know before firing so we're ready in case they go berserk once one of them dies."
The couple talked quickly. They needed to get a plan of action ready as soon as possible. Several of the marines were seen running back and forth carrying orders as the two talked.
The two LATTs full of people disembarked. The marines prepared to slaughter the goblins while the non-combatants packed everything they could into one of the LATTs along with themselves. Once they got as much as they could, they LATT left for the Sub-base. The scientists and logistics people would only be a burden on the marines.
Eventually, enough of a plan was formed that they needed to move. The goblins had never stopped pouring out of the portal, and there were now over a hundred of them. There were even a few riding skinny boars with large tusks acting as cavalry units. The boars were so large that two to three goblins could ride atop them.
The laughter and strange noises of the goblin's language was extraordinarily eerie to the men gathered around the portal. The clicking, popping and grunting were the three main sounds of their makeshift language. If gave off a primitive vibe to the marines listening in.
"I'll take my team in the LATV to the right flank. You handle the center and left flank. We'll support the center as much as possible. Retreat is going to be a last resort. We cannot afford to let any goblins get away. You have full discretion on how to handle your teams. Understood?" Mateo asked Olivia.
"Understood," she replied.
"Now you be careful. Ok, Liv?" He asked. His tone completely changing from his sergeant voice to his husband voice.
"Yes, yes I understand. Now get going. I want to get back and have a nice, hot shower," she said teasingly. Mateo gave a wide smile seeing his wife's antics. He gave her a quick kiss before moving towards his team's LATV.
Once there he quickly briefed his team again on their objective while grabbing his PEC-T101 E-Mag rifle. The T101 was the standard primary weapon for marines and special forces. It had semi, burst and full auto firing modes and had various standard attachment points for just about anything.
The PEC at the beginning is a special designation meaning post ecological collapse. It essentially meant that this weapon was specifically designed to reduce damage to the environment.
The PEC version was about 1/10 the strength of the original. However, the PEC version did not require specially manufactured rounds. Since this is an electromagnetic weapon, essentially a railgun, anything magnetic could be used.
The rifle came with a material compressor in the butt of the rifle that the user could load with magnetic material and create their own rounds as needed. Of course, the team set out on this operation with ammo in tow, so they likely won't need to use the compressor unless a lot more goblins appear. The E-Mag rifle did require power to operate, though far less than their laser based counterparts.
In terms of firepower, the Westen Nation military had four tiers: PEC electromagnetic, gunpowder or powder, regular electromagnetic and laser.
Powder based weapons were about twice as powerful as the PEC E-Mag weapons with regular E-Mag weapons being about five times stronger than gunpowder.
The reason PEC E-Mag was weaker was because they had to work with basically anything magnetic. They also could not control the contents of the rounds made in the field very well. If two rounds were made and one of them had twice the magnetic material, that one would be stronger. However, even with all this, PEC E-Mag were the standard as they resulted in the least ecological harm while remaining the most versatile.
Laser based weapons were stronger than regular E-Mag, but there were three big issues. First, they used high capacity capacitor magazines (HCCMs). These required lots of power to charge, and so, without a strong and stable power source, laser weapons would quickly run out of ammo.
Another issue is the extremely dense smog. In optimal conditions, a laser weapon can shoot up to ranges of 15 miles while still maintaining lethality. With the smog, that range is only 500 feet. They are now only good for close quarters engagements.
The final reason is that the high energy laser beam produces a ton of ozone in the lower atmosphere. Ozone in the lower atmosphere is one of the primary reasons for the ecological collapse.
Powder based weapons are the oldest and most refined of the technologies. Gunpowder has been used by humans since the 9th century after all. The manufacturing process isn't nearly as involved as standard electromagnetic rounds, but the burning gunpowder is very harmful.
The fact that Gabe had sent these more powerful, but very damaging weapons, showed just how worried he was about the continuous event.
Mateo, holding his T101 at the ready, kept a close eye on the goblin hoard that was slowly forming around the portal. After a minute of watching, he shouted so everyone could hear him.
"OPEN FIRE!!"
"OPEN FIRE!!" Olivia shouted to relay the order to the soldiers on the left flank.