Morningstar/Alignment by Keith Trimm (people reading books txt) 📕

Just as they reached the edge of camp two of the men disappeared into the tall grass without a sound. Then another and another until only Ramsey and two others were left. Ramsey stopped, seeing his men vanish before him, and yelled for the other two to do the same. They were no more than ten feet from safety, but something stood between them and the woodlands.

"Halt!" he yelled and everyone stopped in their tracks. "Sergeant, I need this area cleared!" he yelled pointing to the strip of grass before him. The sergeant waved his hands and pointed to the area before the three stranded men. Five soldiers stood on the perimeter of camp and proceeded to blast their guns into the grass clearing the area of whatever stood between them and safety. The sergeant waved his hands and the firing stopped.

Ramsey looked to the man standing to his right and then to the one on his left. "On three we are going to run," he stated calmly. "Got it?"

The two men nodded and Ramsey looked to the sergeant. "If anything moves, kill it." The sergeant nodded and the five soldiers stood ready to blast anything that moved in the grass. "Ready?" he asked. "One, two, three," he said and the men in unison, took off running.

Guns blazed as two of the men were pulled down into the grass. Ramsey dove and fell to the ground in the wooded area pulled to safety by his men. He stood and looked back at the tall grass. "Where are they?" he screamed.

"I don’t see them," the sergeant replied.

"Me neither," replied one of the soldiers scanning the area.

"Something is wrong here," Ramsey said and looked to his sergeant. "How many men do we have?"

"Thirty seven now," he replied.

"That’s it?" Ramsey asked looking to camp. "What happened to the rest?"

"We were strung out quite a distance. I suspect there are another thirty or so still out there."

"How long will they last alone?" Ramsey asked. "Where is doctor Rhine?"

Tony ran up to the captain and stood out of breath. "Right here sir," Tony said.

Ramsey pointed to the five armed soldiers and then to the tall grass. "Keep this area under heavy guard." He then motioned for Tony to follow him into the woods. They stopped and Ramsey stood with his arms crossed staring into Tony’s eyes. "Brief me doctor," he stated angrily.

Tony hesitated and looked away from Ramsey. He took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "This was all an experiment," he said.

"Experiment?" Ramsey asked grinding his teeth afterward.

"This was an experiment to see if time travel was possible."

"I don’t believe you for a second."

"Then how do you explain what is going on?"

"I don’t," Ramsey said. "Something is not right, I do know that. What it is I do not know."

"You have to trust me. We were supposed to end up fifty thousand years in the past. I think we did it," Tony said gesturing with his hand pointing to the area around them.

"Are you saying fifty thousand years ago there were huge bat dog things flying around?" Ramsey asked.

"Yes and no," Tony replied. "I don’t think we are exactly where we thought we would be."

"You seemed to know back on the plane. You told the pilot where to go."

"I will say that I think we are in the right place. I just don’t know if we are in the right time."

Ramsey paced in the dirt looking to the ground. He turned and faced Tony again. "One of them sons of jerks spoke to me,"

Tony’s eyes opened wide. "What did it say?" he asked.

"Don’t ask me what it means, but it asked me if I were the Son of Man."

Tony processed the information. "Son of Man?" he asked looking to the side.

"Jesus Christ," someone spoke up from camp.

Ramsey looked over to one of his snipers standing next to a tree relaxing. "What did you say private?"

"Jesus Christ," he replied again.

"I hope you’re not trying to be funny. I have no funny left in me," Ramsey said to the man. "Who are you son?" he asked.

Pvt. Jackson sir," he replied.

"And what do you know about this Pvt. Jackson?" Ramsey asked.

"Do you know your bible sir?"

"I guess not private. Won’t you please fill us in?" Ramsey said sarcastically.

The private stepped away from the tree and approached the men. "For the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath day. Mathew twelve-eight," he said to the men before him.

"You know your verses well," Tony said to the private holding his sniper rifle at his side. "Does your religious convictions interfere with your duties?" he asked.

"The sixth commandment reads, "Thou shalt not kill." It is improperly translated from the Hebrew word for murder. It is alright to kill for riotous purposes."

"You do your homework private," Tony said. "So you’re saying this thing was asking the captain here if he were Jesus?"

"Yes sir."

"Thank you private," Ramsey said shaking his head. "I want you to set up a post in one of these trees. Keep an eye out for those damn things."

"Yes sir!" the private said and headed out to scout out the best location.

"What do you think now?" Ramsey asked Tony.

"If I didn’t know better, I would say those things look an awful lot like demons to me."

"Let’s get on the same page," Ramsey responded coldly. "We have time travel and now demons. What will be next?"

"Captain, in all your years, have you ever seen anything like those things before? Can you explain what happened to your men just feet from the edge of camp?"

"No, and neither can you!" he barked back.

"At least I’m willing to try!" Tony snapped back. "One of the damn things spoke to you. We know they’re intelligent. Why don’t you try to speak to one of them?"

"They killed half my men!"

"You don’t know that for sure!"

"The hell I don’t!" Ramsey yelled and stormed off towards his men working in the camp.

Tony couldn’t help but make the connection between what Brinkman had said earlier and what this creature had supposedly said. Brinkman said Tony shared the same DNA pattern with blood remains of Jesus Christ. This creature seemed to be seeking out Jesus Christ. Were they looking for him? He put the thought out of his mind and walked back to camp.

Chapter 22

That evening, Tony looked to the sky above examining the stars, puzzled by what he saw. Sitting on a fallen tree, he unpacked an electronic instrument from a steel box and placed it on a tripod. He pressed a switch and the gadget began to hum. Lights blinked in a rhythmic pattern darting back and forth across the illuminated screen. He pressed another button and the internal compass spun until it found North.

He waited for the machine to read the stars above through its camera and give him a readout. It blinked an error message and asked to be reset. "What the hell?" he thought and pressed the reset button. Again it came out with the same message. Tony stood up and craned his neck looking to the black sky above. His eyes caught the problem and a shiver went down his spine. There was a bright orange object just to the left of the center star of Orion’s belt.

"Hey you! Come over here," Tony yelled to one of the guards motioning with his hand. The guard ran over and stood holding his rifle in ready position.

"Did you see something sir?" he asked looking off into the pasture.

"No, I mean yes, I want you to look straight up and tell me what you see."

The guard looked up and said, "Stars sir."

"Anything out of the ordinary?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, there’s an orange moon up there. I didn’t know we had two of them."

"We don’t," Tony responded. "I was just curious if you were seeing the same thing I was. Thank you. You can go now."

"Yes sir," he replied and ran back to his post.

Tony now realized his machine was reading an error because it did not recognize the star pattern with this object in view. He leaned over and punched in an override code. "Just tell me what I need to know," he said to the machine watching it blink. The machine’s readout glowed green in the dark making reading it quite easy. A long beep followed by a short one told Tony it had finished its computation. Tony sat back on his rear as he finished reading the display. It read plus or minus fifty years of the date 2010. He now knew they did not time travel at all.

Other than the strange orange object high above him, the star pattern looked as familiar to him as it did a week ago before the mission. He suspected it all the time. We went nowhere. Or did we? He sat and rubbed his temples thinking about the possibilities.

"Rhine!" he heard from camp and looked up at Ramsey coming towards him. "What have you found out?"

Tony chuckled under his breath and closed his eyes. Looking up at Ramsey he said, "I can only guess at this point."

"Alright then, guess."

Tony picked up a rock and tossed it at the tree next to Ramsey. "Best guess would be…" he said and paused thinking how to say it.”We jumped dimensions."

"Dimensions?" Ramsey asked unconvinced.

"My star time calculator tells me we have not jumped in time at all. At least not within fifty years."

"Fifty years ago there were no seven foot tall bat things running around on the Earth. Are you telling me these things sprung up in fifty years?"

"No I am not. We are in a different reality."

"Yes you are Doctor Rhine. Where are the rest of us?"

"I don’t know."

"How do I get my men home?"

"You don’t," Tony said firmly.

Ramsey stood silent. He paced back and forth thinking of what to say. "Are you telling me that this hi-jacking has turned into a suicide mission?"

"Looks that way," Tony replied leaning back on his palms. "You said this might be a one way trip."

"At least we had a fighting chance against a hi-jacker. You knew about this all the time?"

"Yes I did. I had no idea you weren’t in on it. I realized back on the plane when you told me about this hi-jacking scam, that they used this as a cover story to get your team on the mission."

"Cover story?"

"They knew you would never volunteer for a suicide mission."

"Why the hell did you doctor?"

"I knew my fate. I had nothing to lose. I am sorry."

"I bet you are," Ramsey said and turned back to camp. Tony sat alone in the dark with his machine contemplating the fate of the men. He was truly sorry.

Ramsey stood behind a group of his men sitting around a campfire and looked at their faces afraid to tell them the truth. He chose not to. "I need five men to volunteer for a recognizance mission."

"Where to captain?" one of the men asked.

"There is some kind of settlement due East from here about twenty miles. Two of the men identified it from the air on the way down to this God forsaken hell hole."

"What kind of settlement sir?"

" That’s what we need to find out. Any volunteers?"

No one raised their hand or spoke up. Ramsey pointed to the first five closest to him and told them to ready the ATV. "I want this mission going in fifteen minutes!"

Tony came up from behind Ramsey and asked, "How much fuel do you have?"

"Over half a tank. They can go two hundred miles I estimate."

"Where are your reserves?"

"We had five hundred gallons on the C-130. The other ATV ruptured its fuel tank and burned. That is it."

"Maybe we should wait until light? That is our only working vehicle."

"Doctor!" Ramsey shouted losing patience. "Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet, so let me make this perfectly clear. I am the commanding officer; I