Chapter 3

“The attack was only the first part though, we still have no idea about the events that followed afterwards.”

“We have some slight clues, but all accounts of Discord's activities still remain unknown.”

“You talk as though we could find out.”

“We might be able to, but at the same time it's like that anyone who did find out can't tell us.”

“Who would he tell? As far as we know, Discord's only ally was himself!”

---

Three Days After the Attack

The C-130 touched down with a jolt, the propellers reversing pitch and cause the plane to vibrate violently. Clifton gripped his harness and held on for dear life. Not that he needed too, neither him nor the plane were in any danger, Clifton just hated flying. Lieutenant Assad who was sitting next to him was happily taking a bite out of a Snickers bar while looking up news on his smart phone.

Ordinarily, Clifton would have reprimanded him for using electronics on a plane, but he hadn't spoken a word since the plane had taken off and didn't plan to until he was safely on the ground lest he say what was really on his mind.

“Hey Sir! You're on CNN!” Assad spewed crumbs and held the phone up for Clifton to see. Clifton's stare at Assad would have melted steel.

The plane taxied off of the runway and slowed to a stop. Clifton unbuckled immediately and quickly walked to the ramp that was lowering. There was equipment in the center of the C-130 while men had sat on the rim of the fuselage, Clifton practically jumping over some of them to get out of the plane. He reached the end of the ramp and stepped onto the tarmac.

This is stupid, he thought, you're a Navy Captain whose entire life was flying planes. His arm twitched at that thought, and a flood of memories filled him.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Assad casually walked down the ramp with the rest of the men. “You forgot this.” He said casually holding out a briefcase.

“Thank you.” Clifton said gruffly before grabbing it and turning away. He made it as far as the C-130's wing before his name was called again. “Captain Clifton.”

Clifton turned to see two men approaching him. One was a Naval commander while the other wore a black suit. Clifton knew the commander as Alejandro, an old shipmate before Alejandro was transferred to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Clifton moved towards them with a grin.

“Al! You sonofagun! How have you been?” Clifton took his friend's outstretched hand and shook it firmly. Before Alejandro could respond, Clifton looked at the other man and asked. “Who's the suit?”

Alejandro introduced him as Agent Carter, and when Clifton asked if that was his real name, Carter's response was a blunt and monotone “No.”

“Fair enough. You with the CIA?” He asked.

“NSA. Commander, if you would please inform the captain of the debriefing.” Carter said in the same monotone voice.

Clifton looked at Alejandro. “Debriefing? I already sent in my reports. I don't have time for a debriefing! I need to get home!” His voice rising.

“Calm down Bob.” Alejandro said. “We got your reports, we just need you to answer some questions.”

“It's been three days, no one thought of asking me when I was on the carrier? You just had to wait until I got leave?” Clifton protested to his friend. “Dave! Why don't you ask Admiral Bogart! He had a better seat than I did!”

The three men were silent, wind whipping around them. Finally, Agent Carter spoke. “There's been an incident regarding the Admiral.”

Clifton was taken by surprise. “What happened?” He asked.

“Not here.” Alejandro said abruptly. The two men began walking and Clifton dutifully followed them. The trio entered a low squat building that two Marines were standing in front of. Inside was another agent who was working with several pieces of electronic equipment.

He looked up as they entered. “All clear sir.”

Carter nodded and the man left.

“Sit down.” Carter said, making it sound almost as much of a statement as an order. Clifton sat on one side while Alejandro and Carter sat on the other. He felt uncomfortable, the way Carter kept glancing at him while shuffling through papers and Alejandro's nervous look was putting him on edge.

“Shall we begin?” Carter said at last.

“Might as well.” Clifton grumbled.

Alejandro gave him a condescending look, but softened. “Alright Bob, let's hear it from start to finish. Make sure to include anything that may be of importance, no matter how small.”

Clifton sighed, and then began. “Well, as you know, the Fifth was stationed in Okinawa, just sitting there watching China.” Clifton smiled. “Every once in a while, we'd get some idiot thinking he could buzz the carrier. Had every ship put a missile lock on him, guy's cockpit had to have been one big alarm.”

He noticed that even though Alejandro smiled at this, Agent Carter was less than amused. “Anyways, the plan was for the Carl Vinson and her escorts to make a rapid deployment in Okinawa, while the Reagan was to leave on the same day that the Vinson arrived. The Reagan was to swing north and leave her escorts about five hundred miles from Okinawa, make a wide loop by the Arctic Ocean, and then meet the escorts off the southern coast of Alaska, they, of course, having stopped in Pearl Harbor along the way. Then, the entire task force was to head down to San Diego for three months and undergo inspections.”

Agent Carter interrupted. “For clarification, what was the point of this exercise?”

Clifton took a moment, then explained. “Pentagon wanted an inspection on the Reagan, as well as a minor refit and to replace all the F-18s with F-35s. Admiral Bogart wanted to put the ship through some cold weather training, and the Pentagon approved. The trip home took about six days, refit at San Diego would have been three months, then it was back to Okinawa.”

Agent Carter frowned. “Am I to understand that C-V-N seven six was unescorted in her voyage across the Pacific?”

Clifton over exaggerated a nod. “That would be a fair assessment.”

Alejandro cut in. “It's typical for the escorts of a nuclear powered carrier to leave a few days in advance or take a shorter route because of the carrier's high speed. The escort ships can't keep up.”

Carter grunted, then shuffled his papers. “Let's move on, what happened on the day of the attack?”

Clifton shivered as he remembered that fateful day. “HooBoy. That was a mess. We had met up with the escorts just eight hours earlier and were making waves for San Diego. We had just passed about where Portland is, and then all these weird distress calls started coming in. Calls from Seattle. A dome of, well. . . I don't know what had covered the center of the city, about ten miles in diameter. The dome extended from the bridges to the harbor, and nobody knew what had happened or where it came from. Bogart ordered the fleet to enter the harbor and see if we could offer assistance of some kind.” Clifton paused. He seemed uncertain. “Then the creatures started coming out of it. Cars that had turned into metallic animals, dragons that looked more like bumble bees, even small buildings had come alive andwere coming out of that dome. It was chaos on shore, and all we could do was listen to it from the ship.”

Clifton's stare went right past the two men as he recounted his story, his voice strong but faltering at moments. “Washington National Guard was scrambled, they had a few battalions doing weekend drills on the beaches. They didn't have any air support though, nearest base was hours away and the pilots were all on leave.”

He paused for a moment, his mouth curving into a smile for a moment. “Bogart refused to run to open water, said that turning tail was not a Naval tradition and had me scramble the jets right there in the harbor. Our escorts started to open up on the dome itself, and that's when things got real.”

“Got real?” Carter asked.

“It, the dome I mean, started shooting at us. Weird stuff. Most common projectile was a big spiked ball, but all sorts of stuff came at us. Giant bowling balls, bathtubs, even a giant flowerpot, complete with a thirty foot daisy. The R-A-Ms and C-I-W-S shot most of them down, but eventually we started taking damage. Carrier took some heavy hits, lost all four catapults. Bogart decided that the shield had to come down one way or another. So we took the direct route.”

Clifton smiled at his own comment. Carter was still not amused and said so. “You took a five billion dollar piece of equipment and used it as a battering ram.”

Clifton shrugged. “If it's stupid but it works. Well, we took down the shield, beached the ship and then most of the crew went over the side for land action. I stayed on board and continued to direct missile strikes. Bogart took a helo and directed ground operations until the fight ended, which was about an hour later. Not much else to tell. Battle couldn't have lasted more than five hours, afterwards, we began to pick up the pieces. Fleet was fubar, city looked even worse. Corpsmen had their hands full while the rest of the crew tried to get the ship seaworthy again. And that's all I've been doing for the past three days.”

Carter scanned his documents, his face impassive. “Captain Clifton, you say it was Bogart who wanted to perform the cold weather training?

“Yes.”

“And who decided where the escorts should meet with the fleet?”

“Admiral Bogart. All authorization was from the top though.” Clifton didn't like where Carter was going with this.

“One more question Captain. Has Bogart acted strangely at all over the past few months?”

Clifton eyed Carter with distrust. “No. Why?”

Carter remained impassive as he explained. “Doesn't it seem odd to you that the fleet was conveniently placed off the coast just as the attack began? Or how as soon as Seattle fell, the other cities' aggressors simply disappeared?”

Clifton snapped. “What is wrong with you people?”  

Carter's stony expression finally cracked with surprise. “Pardon me?”

Clifton stood up. “You heard me! What is wrong with you people? The world gets attacked! The nations are ready to nuke each other! Entire cities are thrown into chaos and so we retaliate! Suddenly, things start getting normal again! The Navy is the big hero, we've got the entire world signing up to be our ally, and it's all because of one man! And now you say that he planned it?”

“I never said-” Carter began, but Clifton interrupted him mid sentence.

“Can it suits, I've dealt with the Feds before and I got screwed over. Bogart may be eccentric, and maybe he's stepped on a few toes in Washington, but believe me, the last thing he'd ever do is betray this country!”

Clifton turned and kicked the chair out of his way and began walking towards the door.

“We're not finished!” Agent Carter yelled after him.

“Yes we are!” Came the reply momentarily before the door slammed shut.

Carter stared after him, unsure as to what just happened. He looked over at Alejandro who looked back at him with raised eyebrows. Alejandro moved his hand up to disguise the smile threatening to break free. “Well, Clifton seems to have a pretty high opinion of the admiral.”

Carter's gaze returned to his papers. “I hope, for his sake, that it doesn't get him killed.”

Clifton walked out to the parking lot to an old Crown Victoria. The car had been issued to him because his truck was at home and he was not allowed to contact anyone to pick him up.

As he reached the car, the same agent that had swept the room for Carter approached him. Clifton turned. “Listen, I've already told your boss-”

“You forgot this.” The agent held out a briefcase, the same one that Clifton had accidentally left in the plane. He took it and muttered a thanks before getting in the car. Tossing the briefcase in the back seat, Clifton took a deep breath and turned the key. The engine refused to start at first, but slowly grumbled to life and climbed in RPMs.

The drive home was uneventful, the highways were almost clear and soon the Crown Vic rattled into a small neighborhood on the edge of the city. Pulling into the drive, Clifton put it in park and turned the engine off. The gray sky seemed to reflect his mood as he stepped up to the door and inserted the key into the lock.

The door opened without a sound, and he stepped inside. He heard someone moving around in the kitchen and found his wife, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, cleaning a large pizza pan.

“Hello Chrys.” He said. Chrys froze and slowly turned around. Upon seeing him, she dropped the scrubber and ran at him, tears forming in his eyes. They embraced and Bob could feel her wet hands and tears through his shirt. Even with her face buried in his shoulder, he could hear her whispering. “I thought you weren't coming back. Why didn't you call?”

Bob could only hold her tighter, his sobbing breath failing to form words as tears rolled down his face. They stayed like that for some time, rocking back and forth in each others' arms for an unknown amount of time. Small steps could be heard approaching and suddenly an excited voice yelled from the doorway. “DAD!”

Bob and Chrys turned to their eight year old son and knelt down. The boy made a flying leap into their outstretched arms and the three of them fell to the floor in one big hug.

“I was so worried! Mom said that something happened and—and-” His happy face suddenly broke and he began to cry. “Don't ever leave again! Please Dad, don't go anymore!”

Bob held his son close and tried to calm him. “Shhhh. It's okay Sean, I'm here now. I'm here.” He suddenly felt a flood of guilt as he realized just what his family had been going through over the past three days.

In the cool of the evening, long after the sun had set, a lone figure sat on a bench. The backyard had been turned into a rose garden, as beautiful yet dangerous as the person that sat on the bench. The sliding door opened and then closed quietly.

Bob walked on the stone pathway he had laid out to the bench, careful not to touch any of the thorny plants.

“I finally got him to bed, he didn't want to go to sleep though.” He said as he sat down next to Chrys, pulling out a cigarette.

“I'd prefer if you didn't.” She said. Bob shrugged and put the cigarette in his shirt pocket. He felt Chrys lean on him and put her head on his shoulder, so he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.

“Everyday.” She said, a distant look in her eyes. “Everyday I would wake up in that bed with no one beside me. And I would wonder, Bob. I would wonder if that bed would ever hold two people again.”

Bob sighed but said nothing, so Chrys continued. “Just last night, the Huckabees' were broken into, right down the street from us. And you know what happened? Eric woke up and grabbed a shotgun and killed the burglar. You know why? The man was in their kids' room. . . Fancy that, little Eric who never hurt another human being in his life, and he killed a man without even thinking about it. And it made me think, Bob, if a burglar ever came into our house, that there's no one there to grab that gun, and make sure that our Sean is alright.”

“If you're worried, I'll get a house on the base for you.” Bob said.

“I don't want a house on the base.” Chrys replied, her voice staying the same. “I don't want a guard dog, I don't want a fence, I don't want a house surrounded by the few, the proud.” Her head turned and she looked right at him. “I want you Bob. I want Sean to be able to wake up for a week straight and be able to say good morning to his father. I want to be able to get up and see someone I love in the bed next to me, go out and make that man coffee and eggs. I want to be able to turn on the news one day without the fear that you'll be on it.”

Bob stayed silent for a moment, contemplating his wife's words. “I want that too, but not right now. Right now, the Navy needs me, almost as much as you do.”

Chrys felt a tear roll down her cheek. “You remember what you promised me? When Sean was born, you promised that you were going to watch Sean grow up with me. Remember when you said that?”

“That was different.” Bob said.

“That was different?” Chrys said, hurt. “I was five months pregnant, then I get a call and told that there's been an accident. You come home in a stretcher, I can't even visit you in the hospital for an entire week. And you tell me no more risks. You were done with flying, with the Navy, and you were coming home to stay.”

Bob's mind kept repeating her words, no more flying, and his thoughts took him to eight years prior, ten thousand feet above the North Atlantic. A flight of four F-18s were flying through an ice storm in response to Russian bombers venturing further into the Arctic and closer to North America. The American response was to launch a series of long range patrols directly into the path of the bombers.

Clifton was flight lead, his F-18 plunging into the ice storm that slammed into the fuselage. Three more planes followed suit. Visibility became so low that the pilots could not see the planes ten feet away. The storm buffeted the flight, threatening to cause a midair collision, but the pilots were experienced and ready for such a pounding.

“Falcon, this is Eagle, I've lost visual.” Clifton's wingman radioed.

“Stay in formation.” Clifton ordered. “Last thing we need is to get separated.”

A third voice chimed in. “Falcon, this is Hoot Owl, ice is starting to form on my wings.”

“Same here, Owl. Time to turn on the heaters.” Eagle radioed back.

The F-18's wings were outfitted with coil heaters specifically to prevent ice buildup on the wings, which could disrupt the airflow and cause the plane to lose lift or control. Slowly, the ice began to thaw and break off.

“Mayday! Mayday! This is Raven! Fire in number one engine! Losing thrust!”

Clifton froze as the fourth man in the flight sent out the frantic call. “Charlie flight! Break right! Abort mission! Repeat, Abort mission!” He ordered.

The four planes turned as one and began to make their way back to the carrier. However, plane four was falling behind.

“Falcon! This is Raven! I'm losing oil pressure, extinguishers aren't doing a thing! Fuel's leaking right into the engine!”

Clifton made a split second decision. “Eagle, Hoot Owl, split off and take perch at twelve thousand. Raven, I'm coming back to take a look.”

As he said this, the planes began to emerge from the depths of the storm and visibility increased. Clifton watched as the other two elements of the flight pull up and  maintain position above them, then chopped power and eased his way back to Raven. The F-18 was trailing a thick line of smoke, occasionally a burst of flame shot out of the tail pipe. Slowly slipping his plane underneath the damaged one, Clifton was able to see the extent of the damage. The engine had blown out, tearing a hole through the bottom of the plane.

“Raven, you've got-”

“Falcon! Break-”

Hoot Owl's warning was cut short as Raven's right wing suddenly whipped down towards Clifton's plane. Clifton threw the stick over and down. Too late. He felt a shudder and suddenly the F-18 spun out of control.

“Eject! Eject!” Someone yelled over the radio.

The G-forces threw Clifton around the cockpit and blackness enveloped his vision. His hands found the handle and he yanked up. The canopy popped up and the rockets fired, sending Clifton out of the plane and safely into the air, dangling from his parachute. Instantly, a chill bit into exposed skin. Clifton's vision returned, allowing him to view the frozen North Atlantic as he helplessly drifted downwards.

Bob's shivered as he remembered the event, his experience had given him a deathly fear of flying. It had taken eight hours before he was fished from the frozen waters, the other pilot, Joseph Vallejo, had been found, his very blood had turned to ice. The mere fact that Bob was still alive stunned doctors. They called it a medical miracle when he was deemed fit to return to service. However, his recovery still took over a year, Sean had been born while Bob was still in the hospital.

After the accident, the inquiry had tried to accuse him of risking both his and Vallejo's planes by flying too close. Fortunately, a certain Admiral had taken a liking to Bob and stepped in on his behalf. Bob's career was salvaged and he made captain, but it was likely that he would never rank up again.

Chrys, on the other hand, had been horrified when Bogart stepped in. She had wanted Bob to retire for the Navy and live a simpler and safer life. She had made Bob promise that he would never take a combat position again. When Bob was assigned to the Reagan, Chrys nearly destroyed the house in anger.

As the two of them sat on the bench, Bob contemplated whether or not he should resign from the Navy. However, his choice was made for him as a buzzing sound shattered the silence. Pulling out his phone, his eyes read the emergency text. “There's been an emergency, all military personnel are to report to their stations.” He read aloud.

Chrys felt tears start to roll down her face. “I can't take it.” She told him. “I can't wake up alone again.” She pushed herself away from Bob and hugged herself, the night air growing colder as she did. “Bob, I'm not going to make Sean grow up with a father that is never there for him.” She looked at him, her green eyes piercing him. “If you go, we won't be here when you get back.”

Bob's breath caught in his throat. “I-”

“Don't.” She cut him off. “We both know what you're going to do. Just don't.”

Bob and Chrys sat there, staring at each other. Finally, Bob turned away and stood. Slowly, his steps clicked down the path to the door. He reached it, but turned around.

“Chrys.” He called to her. She ignored him and continued to stare at the roses. “Just know, that everything I do is for you and Sean. I love you Chrys. More than you realize.”

With that, he opened the door and closed it behind him. The house seemed emptier than ever, the darkness oppressing and dead. Perfectly navigating his way through the rooms, he reached the front door. Closing it behind him, he was greeted with the sight of the dingy Crown Vic sitting in the drive. The keys rattled as he inserted them into the ignition, turned the car on, and pulled out of the drive.

The highway stared back at Clifton in his headlights as the car sped on. Perhaps it was for the best. He had always felt that he was inefficient for Chrys, she had always been the stronger of the couple. Maybe now she could-

“You know she really means it this time.”

Clifton's head spun around to see the face of Discord staring back at him. Reaching for his glove box to grab the pistol, Clifton failed to notice the blinding light that enveloped the car. A sense of zero gravity caused Clifton's body to strain at the seat belt. His hand finally found purchase on the gun and he leveled it at Discord's head.

“Oh Captain.” Discord smiled. “Has no one ever taught you to keep your eyes on the road?”

Clifton looked out of the windshield to see the car floating. Outside, a world of impossible stared back.