Miles sat near the front of the impromptu briefing office in the hastily-erected Command tent. Around him were a haphazard collection of young officers from both the Canadian and American armed forces. He could see the familiar Canadian insignia for the Royal Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as their American counterparts. He even briefly spotted a Space Force insignia.

He supposed it wasn’t surprising. After all, considering what he’d seen on his parent’s television only hours before, it made sense that the Americans would respond. He was truthfully more surprised to see Kia there.

He and Kia attended the same college and signed up with the Armed Forces almost concurrently. They had several of the same classes. While Miles was in the Navy, Kia was more interested in the Army. It created a friendly rivalry between the two of them, but they’d fallen out of touch in recent years. They were still friends on Facebook, though. Last he recalled, she was a Lieutenant with the Public Affairs Office, but the three diamonds on her shoulder told him she got a promotion.

As he moved into her line of sight, her eyes lit up in surprise. “Miles? I thought you were in Colombia!”

“Took leave,” he explained. “Or at least I tried. Same to you, shouldn’t you be in Ottawa?”

“Here on duty,” she replied, carefully nodding in the direction of a nearby Colonel. “Got called in. I’m assuming you did too.”

He nodded and took a seat next to her. “This is wild,” he commented. “I’m not even sure why they called me in.”

“You aren’t?” Kia asked. “What, you think the people that came out of the magic portal riding dragons speak Queen’s English?”

Miles opened his mouth to reply, but the words didn’t come out how he intended. Instead he laughed. “Point taken.”

The chatter around them suddenly went quiet. Near the front of the briefing room, a man walked in and stood in front of the screen that had been set up. Miles immediately shot to his feet along with the other officers in the room and saluted him. He recognized the man, though he’d never met him. Nonetheless, he’d read several of the man’s articles on peacekeeping tactics. He’d served in the Serbian conflict as a young officer and had refused orders that would have seen innocents killed. He was later punished for ignoring those orders, but his hero status persevered and it likely did more to help his career than hinder it. Now he was a man in his early fifties that commanded any room he entered. He looked sternly at the soldiers saluting him, then responded with one of his own.

Everyone sat down.

“Good afternoon,” he began. “My name is Colonel Alan Burke, with the British Columbia Regiment, Duke of Connaught’s Own. You might be wondering just what the hell is going on. Truth is, we all are. We all had breakfast this morning thinking we knew how the world worked, and then something that belongs in the movies just goes and becomes real. Let me tell you, we had a lot of contingencies for absurd eventualities. We have a plan in place for everything from alien invasion to zombie apocalypse.” He curled the corner of his lip into a smile. “Looks like we didn’t account for magic portals and dragons.”

Several of the officers laughed. Many stayed silent.

“As such,” he continued, “we’re in uncharted waters. But that doesn’t mean if you hurt civilians on Canadian soil, that we won’t have something to say about it!” He slammed his fist on the table. “As best we can figure, we have about sixty casualties, and another dozen hostages. And we’re not going to let that stand. The enemy, their oddities aside, appear to have an exceedingly primitive military organization. That means we are skirting dangerously close to crimes against humanity if we unleash hell on them. Boy let me tell you, I’m tempted.” He sighed. “Our primary concern will be to defend the civilian population of this city. How we will achieve this is through forcing the enemy to retreat back to where they came from, and then securing the portal. You will have access to a litany of non-lethal suppression methods and equipment, and I expect everyone to use them. We will prioritize capture over lethal force, but not at the risk of any of your soldiers or civilians. Our people come first. You may have noticed our American friends in attendance. This is a Joint Task Force Operation containing elements of all major branches of both of our country’s armed forces. I expect our American counterparts will be welcomed and respected. Welcome to Operation Strange Egress, ladies and gentlemen.”

He looked over to the Public Affairs Office Colonel, Kia’s boss. “Colonel Stamets here has prepared a brief I’d like you all to hear. Colonel Stamets?” Burke beckoned, and then stepped off to the side while Colonel Stamets stepped to the front. Kia also stood up and hooked up a laptop to a projector.

“My name is Colonel Stamets, Public Affairs Office.” He pointed to Kia. “And my assistant, Captain Kia Singh. She’s been hard at work compiling everything we’ve managed to glean off of social media and our preliminary reconnaissance where available.” The lights went dark, and the telltale signs of a Powerpoint presentation shone up on the screen. It was the Faye Wong broadcast he’d seen earlier, and several times since.

“At approximately sixteen minutes past noon today, a visible anomaly of unknown origin appeared above the street on Annacis Island. A local news program was covering a brewery on the island, and managed to capture this footage,” he said, motioning to the projection. “Within minutes, the anomaly caused the rapid growth of a tree of an as-yet-unknown species, upon which time an invasion force composed of soldiers with medieval weapons, very large wolves, and what appear at first glance to be large flying reptiles emerged.”

“The threat may seem impossible, but we have confirmed its legitimacy through numerous sources both civilian and military. As Colonel Burke explained, our secondary mission is to secure the portal, which we are referring to as Delta Anomaly. In order to do that, we need to understand the military capabilities of the enemy.” He nodded to Kia, and the footage flipped over to a still image. It was Faye Wong’s livestream. It had aired during the live coverage of the incident, only a few minutes after her camera went dead. A blurry image of one of the dragons ridden by the invaders appeared.

“We’re calling them Wyverns, based on the British legends. They appear to be four-limbed winged reptiles capable of advanced flight maneuvering with an average constant payload estimated to be about three hundred pounds. The limits of their payload capacity is as-yet-unknown. The Wyverns pose a danger to ground troops and aerial vehicles. It might slice them up, but if one of these things flies into a rotor, everyone’s going down. These animals have been deemed priority-level threats, and considering their physical abilities are still yet to be fully ascertained, lethal force is recommended. We’re dealing with something that takes the appearance of coming from myth, so whether these things breathe fire or not is still up in the air. With that in mind,  we would ideally like to capture some for study.” Another nod to Kia. The shot switched to one of the giant wolves.

“These… Direwolves stand at approximately two hundred inches tall from pad to earlobe, capable of carrying a rider while sprinting at what we estimate to be up to fifty kilometers per hour. These animals pose a serious threat to ground troops, but two officers with the Delta Police Department took down at least five of these animals with a rifle and a shotgun. They’re vulnerable to bullets. If possible, we would like to capture some of these for study as well.”

The slide shifted over into a close-up shot of some of the enemy soldiers, standing under a surveillance camera inside a warehouse.

“This is a recording from approximately two hours ago, from a surveillance camera inside the Bishop & Rook brewery. It appears the enemy is using the brewery as their own command headquarters and stockpile. They appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that they’re being watched. We’ve even managed to capture some audio of their speaking. What’s clear is that they don’t speak any language the few who’ve heard the audio can identify.” He briefly glanced at Miles. Suddenly, it made sense why he’d been called in.

“But we have been able to ascertain that these people are as human as any one of us. They bleed out and they die. But their arsenal is predominately iron age. Swords, iron-tipped arrows, pikes. Their armor appears to be rudimentary. Half-plate armor with leather. It might offer some protection from an errant blade or a poorly-aimed arrow, but I’m told with authority that even a twenty-two calibre bullet could pierce it. To repeat Colonel Burke, we’re to force them to retreat, and capture who we can. Lethal force is authorized only if your men or a civilian is in immediate danger. These people may not have signed the Geneva Convention, but we most certainly did, and we will abide by it.”

“With that said, time is not on our side,” he explained. Behind him, a satellite photo of Annacis Island appeared on the screen. “This is from thirty minutes post-Egress.” He turned to look at the screen. At first, Miles couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at. Then, it shifted. “This is from three hours ago.”

He could make out the telltale shapes of tents having been erected in the Area of Operation. Moreover, the number of soldiers had increased by a factor of ten.

“This is from one hour ago,” he said. It shifted again. The image showed even more tents, and again the number of soldiers had increased.

“We estimate approximately one thousand troops passing through the Delta Anomaly per hour. With this in mind, we need to step up the timeline on the Counter-Operation as we’ve no way of knowing exactly how many to expect.”

The scene shifted again, but went back to the surveillance camera from inside the brewery. It was a still image, centered on a small group of people. Colonel Stamets pointed to an individual on the screen. A larger man with wild hair at the sides of his mostly-bald head. A robe hung off his shoulders, and he appeared to be surrounded by an entourage.

“We’ve identified this man, Target Alpha, as their primary command,” he said. “He and members of his entourage are high profile targets for capture and interrogation.” He pointed to the others around him. “Target Bravo, Target Charlie, Target Delta.” Finally he pointed to a distinctly feminine form on the screen. “Target Echo. As far as we can tell, Echo is a non-combatant. She’s not wearing armor, and carries no visible weapons. Being the only female we’ve seen thus far, we’re assuming her to be a concubine to Target Alpha. This makes her high value as she’s likely to be more compliant during interrogation. We have a facility in Burnaby being prepared to keep them under quarantine while we can interrogate them.”

There was an uncomfortable rumbling in the crowd at the mention of quarantine. It made sense, of course. If they really were from another world or dimension like so many were speculating, they could have invasive, alien viruses that humans on earth had no defense against, and nobody wanted to go through another global lockdown. Not to mention the fact that the whole scenario could end like War of the Worlds.

“While under quarantine, study of their language will occur, and we will begin attempts at communicating with them.” He glanced again at Miles.

Stamets leaned forward and put his hands on the table. “HMCS Vancouver is currently en route to the mouth of the Fraser River from CFB Esquimalt. 443 Helicopter Squadron and Eleventh Service Battalion are likewise en route. The area around the island is currently being strictly controlled by the Coast Guard and all inbound air traffic has been re-routed to the Abbotsford International Airport. We have cooperation from the Twelfth Service Company, Fifteenth Field Artillery as well as American Naval and Air Force support. CSOR Operatives are already embedded in strategic locations outside the AO. Sunset is at twenty-one fifteen tonight, so the counter-operation is going to begin at twenty-one hundred hours.”

Another satellite image of the AO appeared on screen. “CSOR will move in on the AO from these three entry points. Westbound on Cliveden Avenue, northbound from Eaton Way, and eastbound from the food services plant on the far west of the island. They will be engaging largely in non-lethal diversionary methods until we can move sea and air support into position while the Fifteenth Field Artillery will be supporting from the roof of the BC Institute of Technology building. The idea is to confuse, then press them into retreat with a show of force. If they do not respond favorably, we’ll kick up the counter-offensive and expand our definition of acceptable losses.”

He sighed. “As Colonel Burke said, this is unprecedented not just in Canadian military history, but as far as we can tell, human history in general. Those people might be human, but this is still being considered as a First Contact scenario, so we need to keep our noses clean here. The whole world will be watching us tonight, ladies and gentlemen, and our actions will fall under the highest scrutiny.”

He nodded once more at Kia, and the lights went up. “Now,” he continued. “Questions?”

Every hand in the room went up.