Major Joseph Unsinn salutes the MPs stationed at the glass vault door, then climbs into an awaiting tram. After a brief ride through a maze of tunnels, he arrives at NORAD’s command center to begin his twelve-hour shift.

The NORAD commander is no stranger to missile launches, each year witnessing no less than two hundred such “events.” But this is different. With the world on the brink of war, tensions are running high.

His counterpart, Major Brian Sedio, is busy studying the Defense Support Program satellite monitor, the image of Vice President Chaney’s face plastered across the video-comm mounted above his console.

“What’s going on?”

Sedio looks up. “You’re just in time. The VP’s flipping out.” The major turns off the muting switch. “I’m sorry, Mr.Vice President. DSP’s designed to detect heat signatures, not electromagnetic interference. If these alien objects of yours continue across the Pacific into Asia, there’s a chance we could pick them up using our land-based radar, but as far as our satellites are concerned, they’re invisible.”

The intensity of Chaney’s eyes is alarming. “Find them, Major. Coordinate whatever search you have to. I want to be informed the moment you get a fix on their locations.”

The screen goes blank.

Major Sedio shakes his head. “Would you believe this shit? The world’s on the brink of war, and Chaney thinks we’re being attacked by aliens.”

DECEMBER 14, 2012
ROCK FOREST OF SHILIN,
YUNNAN PROVINCE, SOUTHERN CHINA

5:45 A.M. (BEIJING TIME)

The province of Yunnan, together with Guizhou, makes up the southwest region of the People’s Republic of China. With an abundance of lakes, staggering mountains, and rich foliage, few areas in all of China provide visitors with such a wide variety of landscape to explore.

The most populated city in the province is Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. Located seventy miles southeast of the city is its most important tourist attraction: the Stone Forest of Lunan, also known as the Rock Forest of Shilin. Covering an expanse of over one hundred square miles, the Rock Forest is a myriad of bizarre, mountainous needles of limestone soaring to heights of nearly one hundred feet. Walkways lead visitors through the ranks of pinnacles, the wooden bridges crossing streams and boring through natural rock archways that proliferate on this torturous landscape.

The factors leading to the Rock Forest began some 280 million years ago, when the rise of the Himalayas caused erosion that carved jagged spiral formations out of the limestone plateau. Further upheavals over eons created deep fissures within the karst, which eventually became enlarged by the rainwater, forming towering shards of grayish white, dagger-shaped rocks.