Finally, after a few agonizingly long minutes the transport slowly, reducing the power to the vertical thrusters, came down to a graceful touchdown.  From her position, Sara could not make out the pilot’s face. Her heart was racing.  “We are totally screwed if that thing shows up now.” Sara thought.  Norman came across the comm line, “Troopers load up!  You know your seating!” Sara, being one of the last few to get out of the transport, knew that she was one of the first to load up into the transport.  The back hatch slowly raised with nothing more than a slight hiss, “pssssssss.”  Meanwhile a ramp began extending from the floor of the back hatch to the ground with a massive “THUD!”  Though this whole process might have lasted a whole ten seconds, to Sara and all the other troopers; it might as well have been ten hours.  The two troopers before Sara, loaded one-by-one into the transport and went to their assigned seats.  Sara then lowered her weapon and made a run from her position into the transport.   On her way up the ramp, she moved her rifle from the carrying position to her Y-rack.  She then moved to her seat at the back of the transport.  

“Hurry up!” she thought, as the other troopers loaded in, one-by-one.  “That thing could be here any minute!” kept repeating in her mind.  The chatter across the comm line slowly faded from the foremost of her attention until she could no longer hear it.  “Come on! Come on!” she thought.  The seconds felt like minutes and the minutes like hours at this point.  Sara powered off her suit and sat down in her seat.  She then removed her helmet and straightened her glasses though they didn’t need it.  Her field glasses, more like aviator goggles in shape with a large elastic band which went from the side of the lens to her ear; then, splitting into two smaller bands going around her ear around her head, were secure in their location.  The two bands parted directions with one going down towards the base of her skull and other rode higher, up and around the back of her head.  Both of the bands were securely fastened in place and made indentations in her jet black hair, which was folded up on itself to prevent it getting in the way of quickly putting her helmet on.  As she felt along the rim of her glasses, she couldn’t help but think about her best course of action should the enemy appear.  “First, I would have to get out of the transport.  That wouldn’t be hard.  The hallway would be mostly empty, and I could tuck and roll to avoid the explosion.  My suit should be able to give some protection from the fire and shrapnel should the transport explode.  But, would it be better to engage or run at that point?” Her thoughts were racing through all these scenarios that hadn’t even happened.  

The next trooper loaded in and sat down; then, another; and another.  They kept coming until finally Norman himself loaded in.  Norman then came across the comm line, “We are all in.  Get us outta here!”  “Roger that, “the pilot responded.  The thrusters of the shuttle came alive with rumble that could be felt all over the transport.  The ramp began to pull in and the doors began to close; all while the transport began lifting off.  The transport had only lifted a few feet from the ground before the door closed and the ramp had pulled all the way into its resting place.  A brief moment of total darkness covered the troopers in the back of the transport; followed by the lights in the back of the transport coming on “Click.”  

Sara was completely baffled by the events of the day, as was everyone else for that matter.  She looked over at Haroldson, who had taken his helmet off as well, Heraldson said to her, “See, just stick with us and you will be fine.”  Sara couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved and even let out a small sigh, “Whew.”  The tension left her momentarily, but was then replaced with a feeling of disappointment.  “All that training!  We finally get called to active duty only to get our butts kicked!  Voss is gone!  Huskins is gone!  Unit 37 is gone!  And we don’t even have anything to show for it!  We never even got a look at the thing!”  She thought as the anger began to show on her face.  Tears also began to show, but only she knew they were there; her glasses concealing their presence.  Haroldson, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her, noticed the expression on her face and said, “Woah there missy!  Might as well get that thought out of your head.  There is no way we could have known that damn thing could turn invisible.  Also, we had no warning that it was targeting transports.  Honestly, we are lucky that we were off when it did.  Otherwise we would have just been another number on the KIA board.”  Sara thought about what Haroldson had said for a minute; then she asked, “if it was going for the transports, then why didn’t it go after this carrier? Isn’t it just a bigger transport?”  Haroldson said, “Hmmm, you have a good point there, Missy, but only the ghost knows the answer to that one.  As best I can tell, this ghost is leaps and bounds beyond anything we have ever seen before.  In both smarts and raw power.  I think it is best that we just be happy that we weren’t one of the casualties.  You know, regroup and live to fight another day.” 

“There has been much debate throughout history about man versus machine when it comes to warfare.  While the machine and automation have taken over much of the everyday affairs, such as cab driving, house cleaning, and even simple money transactions; it is still believed by many that only man can handle the most complex of situations such as warfare or ghosts.  Though many feel that having machines handle the conflicts would greatly reduce the risk to human lives.    

~Excerpt from The Pan-American Press. January 12th, 2177