Klargon had been on duty for three hours now. He was half-asleep when the notification came in. It looked like a meteor was heading for a rural location in America. Another meteor, another mission. Every time something of a significant size fell to earth from space, the Reptilian Agents for Reconnaissance and Exploration team would mobilize and go to see if it was any concern of theirs.

  Following RARE procedures, he informed his boss of the notification and went back to his mundane task of waiting for notifications.

  In his office, Graylorn received the notification. He immediately reached out to his contacts in the US to see what was going on. His first contact, a mid-ranking CIA official knew nothing about the meteor; therefore, they must not be thinking it to be from a foreign country. Next on the list would be NASA. RARE had many contacts in NASA.

  He activated the video phone on his desk and scrolled through the contact database until he found the file for NASA. He searched through the contacts until he found someone with high enough rank and was also in the vicinity where he believed the object would make impact.

  “Ah,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Nolan Giuseppe. It's been a while since we’ve talked. I believe you still owe me a favor.” With that he made the call.

  Nolan looked with exasperation at his phone. He knew this call was coming, he just hoped he had more time to figure out what was going on and what this thing coming in hot was.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Hello, Graylorn. What a surprise.”

  “Hello, Nolan. Cut the BS. You knew damn good and well we would be calling. How's the family?”

  “So-so. Junior is in travel ball now; Sara is still working at Walmart. How's things on your end?” replied Nolan.

  “Good, good. Enough with the pleasantries. What can you tell me about the meteor coming this way?”

  “I can tell you it’s no meteor. It’s travelling too fast for that. We haven’t been able to determine what exactly it is, only that it’s going to be landing in the Monongahela National Forest.”

  “Interesting. Do you believe it could be of any importance to us?”

  “Well, without knowing what it is, that’s hard to say. If I were you though, I’d definitely want a team here, just in case.”

  “Do you have an ETA for when it will hit?”

  “Based on the data we have, it looks like you’ll have about eight hours, give or take.”

  “The Monongahela huh? That’s in what, Virginia?”

  “West Virginia actually.”

  “Let whoever is in charge out there know we will be there.”

  “I’ll have to see who is running things out there. It’ll either be Homeland or Space Force. They’re both out there, just not sure who’s running it. I’ll let you know when we find out more about it.”

  “Sounds good. Tell the family I said hi. We’ll be in touch.”

  Graylorn spun around in his chair. “Looks like we’re in for a long day, Klargon. Start getting a recon team together. Nolan said whatever is inbound will most likely make contact in the Monongahela National Forest in eight hours. I’d like to be there before it hits.”

  “Hopefully they can pinpoint the impact area a little better before then. That Forest is huge.”

  “Nolan is supposed to call when he figures out who is running things over there, it’s either Homeland or Space Force. I’ll ask if he has coordinates when he calls.”