It was near 2am and my team was tired.

There is not even time for a bad cup of coffee from the automat. We race across the airfield. I watch from a distance as one of our "Pacer Coin" recon and surveillance craft lifts into the air. Based on a C130 with LOROPS (long range optical cameras) and a secured UHF SATCOM link to Shamballa.

We zip up our flight suits and put on new SDAI visor-helmets equipped with night vision, a variable wavelength filter for infrared and which are coated in a unique tinted polycarbonate exterior resistant to small arms fire and laser light emissions.

The wind blows against the sand, and I can see a small dust storm in the distance at the base of the mountain crevasse where the winds are focused by the craggy peaks.

Tech7 catches up to Tech4, Tech2 and myself and she pulls ahead. There are clearly advantages to weighing only 110 pounds. Not the least of which is the gentle curves she puts into the lines of the flight suit.

A classified, one of a kind craft awaits in the hangar, sleek and sinewy its black body absorbing light and looking like a huge shadow. The photos of which plane watchers would give their eyeteeth for. Tech7 has climbed a ladder and swings open the huge gull wing canopy and we quickly strap ourselves in our harnesses while Tech2 triggers the automatic closure of the huge and unusual gullwing door.

The craft is the Borealis - a stealth-based hypersonic custom team insertion/extraction plane with advanced armament based upon a long-ago aborted experimental Northrop platform. The seats are in a permanently semi-reclined state and remind me of an astronauts launching position.

A magnetic pulse engine howls to life - which starts with a scream like a dinosaur in agony from some primeval era but which slowly descends to a unique humming sound.

Tech2 rotates the plane into takeoff position from the pilot's seat while I am in the mission commander's seat making a necessary systems and function check. Oxygen and air pressure are being adjusted in the pressurized cockpit, and will continually compensate for speed and altitude - although the constant hissing sound is a bit disconcerting until one is familiar with it.

Another craft of unknown origin has been spotted in the southwestern hemisphere at speeds in excess of 9500mph as it crisscrossed over Arizona, New Mexico and the Gulf. It has landed in the wastes northeast of Kingman in the Mojave area.

This damn plane's a shaker, although quiet now, as it takes off in a perfect 70 degree angle relative to the ground. My teeth are rattling harder than if I were left butt naked in a snow bank in Anchorage. In moments we are at 3000 feet, airborne and racing to the location of the CUO.

The suite of sensor arrays and multiple live satellite feeds come to life. The Pacer Coin is already far behind us, passed in a moment, as we accelerated to mach 5.

"This the same one seen just before the Indonesian, Italian and Alaskan earthquakes?" asks Tech4 casually.

"Just how many other mach 8 flying circles with 1000 foot diameters are there?"

Tech7's sarcastic words are all I have time for as I monitor the live satellite signal observing the gold hued disc - a disc that looks like a treasure worth more than all the gold in the fabled Lost Dutchman mine.

These craft are suspected of causing the recent earthquakes and are considered hostile. Even our advanced armament will likely be way insufficient to take out the craft. It would be nice if all the CUOs were friendly looky-loos checking out the global real estate, but such is not the case. This may end up a glorified kamikaze mission.

Within two minutes we have arrived at the crafts location.

It is huge.

I supress a sick feeling rising in my stomach and try to convince myself its just the side effect of hypersonic flight - but I know this is wishful thinking.

"Well we're here - what the hell do we do now?" asks Tech2 awaiting instructions.

All our cameras are filming the gold disc, two thousand feet below us, and it has absolutely no discernable features outside a shape and a hue.

"It's not emitting conventional heat - but its emitting a smorgasboard of high band radiations. We better not get to close this thing - it's carrying its own damn Van Allen belts!"

"Any chance on picking up a communication signal out of that mess?" I ask, hoping.

Tech7 turns to us, "Captain, all hailing frequencies are open but I'm just getting gibberish."

"Keep trying lieutenant."

Tech4 joins the game:

"Fascinating. The spectrograph reveals a signature that defies all known metals. It looks like gold but it is made out a material totally foreign to us."

"Maybe we should try talking to them?"

"Good idea Tech7, open up the highest channel you can on the SUHF band."

"This is Tech1 representing SDAI, the United States and the planet we call Earth - please identify yourselves and your intentions on this frequency."

Not a sound.

Suddenly over our headsets we hear something...

Unearthly sounds seem to coalesce and converge into words.

"We.........are.........here...........to..."

I feel like I am about to make an unscheduled bowel movement.
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Suddenly I awaken in a sweat, I kick the heavy, suffocating blanket off of me as I make my way to use the facilities.

"No more late night pizza." *

SDAI-Tech1

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*What did you expect - the most valuable of our coveted national secrets blurbed all over the internet? I don't think so! You'll just have to take this ending and like it!