“How are we going to do that on foreign soil, sir?” Gen. Thourbourah asked.
“I’ll probably have a better answer for that after tomorrow’s meeting which I want you to join. Right now, all I have is a hunch.” The President said, and then walked out of the room.
QBS Polarus - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
The bridge watch all focused on their jobs, but snuck a surreptitious glance at Bethany Anne every little while, “So, we are still being shadowed, Captain?” She asked the man who had started to stand, waving him back to his chair.
“Yes, by the U.S. and China, with Russia a little farther out.” Captain Thomas agreed.
“I’m tempted…” Bethany Anne was tapping a finger on her lip, “Captain, what would happen if one of your major ships in a group like this were to suffer a hole in a compartment?”
“Well, they would, of course, seal off that area and depending on their duties, they would probably return to get it fixed if a patch is not sufficient. If I’m the captain of a ship, I don’t want to chance all of my men on a repair done at sea if I don’t have to. However, those above me might make me.”
“So,” she continued, “if we punch a small hole below the waterline, it will flood a small compartment and then?”
Captain Thomas started listing off the steps, “Well, lot’s of figuring out what went wrong, is it going to happen again, how bad is the problem, how hard to fix.” He stopped and looked over to Bethany Anne, “Do I need to get Jean up here?”
Bethany Anne looked in the direction of the Chinese ships, “Yes, I think you do.”
Pentagon - USA
The President stepped past the final check. With a moue of annoyance, he took off his fitness tracker and handed it to the sergeant to hold, who said, “Sorry Mr. President, no electronics inside the room.”
“It’s ok, Sergeant. I just hate the idea of missing my steps. It annoys the ever loving hell out of me to be short my ten thousand every day. I’m like a damned energizer bunny at the end of the night trying to catch up if I’m short.” The President lifted his arms as the sergeant went over him one more time with a wand to confirm nothing else.
“Good to go,” he smiled at the President, who stepped into the room; the door closed behind him.
“George,” He nodded to his trusted go-between. There were times when he wanted communications to happen between his advisors, but nothing electronic and he trusted George to handle it for him.
“Gentleman,” he glanced around as he sat down at the head of the table, “I can’t stress enough that I hope there is a silver-lining in all of this mess. I understand that their capabilities cause a lot of people to be anxious. However, I’ve heard rumors of efforts I don’t support. So, what are your concerns?”
“Well,” Chief of Staff (COS) Mark started, “from the Air-Force’s perspective, I can tell you that our planes can’t touch them.”
“Obviously, our ships can’t either since ours can't levitate above the water,” John COS of the Navy admitted. “We are also talking about a new type of weapons platform that took out two missiles and obliterated the attacking ship and one small craft. We have guesses as to what they are, but no absolute knowledge.”
The President turned to his Army COS, “Mark?”
“Not sure what to tell you there. We have some information gleaned from …sources.” He started, “And I’ve gone over General Reynolds jacket as well. They unquestionably had a much larger engagement in Colorado than those who responded in any official capacity understand. Now, TQB has everything cleaned up too well for anything else to be reviewed without a serious effort on the legal side. However, the initial assault by the aggressors, we believe, was a feint to set up listening devices to sniff their networks. The mercs probably wanted to get in, create a diversion with the bomb, and leave. The problem is that it was Reynolds’ home base.”
There were many snorts around the table. You don’t attack a person on their home turf when they have had time to set up defenses. “Yeah, that worked out as well as you would think,” Mark quipped.
“How many dead on TQB’s side, does anyone know?” The President asked.
“Sir,” Air Force COS responded, “We tracked eight outbound from their Australian base during what we believe was a funeral ceremony.”
“How many attackers?” the President added.
George took this, “We believe somewhere between fifty and a hundred. Probably closer to the hundred.”
“Hell of a defense,” the President commented.
“They have some rail-gun technology that is out-of-this-world,” the Army COS replied. “I bet the opposing group easily lost twenty or thirty men before the first encounter with the defending group.” He shook his head, “What I would give to know more about their capabilities.”
“Have you asked?” the President inquired, but the Army COS shook his head.
“Well, it worked for my guy,” COS of the Navy responded. “That’s how we got the info we did on their Pods before they went screaming into the future. Right towards the oil production facility which was attacked in Iraq. ISIS was dealt a hell of a blow that night.”
“Surgical, neat and precise,” Bob admitted, “damned nice. Can I get these guys?”
“That’s the problem,” George admitted. “We had most of these guys and gals. A huge component of TQB’s people are ex-military. Mostly ours, some from other countries now.”
“Re-up them?” the President asked.
“Only if you want to empower Congress to get involved. All of the officers resigned their commission and the guys were on loan to a secret organization that, well, that could handle stuff our hard-asses would rather sit out,” COS of the Marines stated. “I looked into it.” He confirmed.
“So, are they pissed with us, yet?” the President asked.
“Doesn’t look that way to me,” COS Navy responded, “You respect them, they respect you. You attack them…”
“You become Sean Truitt,” George interrupted.
The President held his breath and counted to three, “Is that confirmed?” He asked.
“No,” George admitted, “but pretty damned likely. That was a surgical strike and executed expertly. We guess one of their Pods swooped down and that maybe they used a powerful magnet. We can’t tell from his car as it has too many scratches from sinking and hitting the sides down in the lake, but it looks like they grabbed it, went to the lake and dropped him in.”
“So, they are into committing murder?” the President asked, testing the feeling of the men around the table.
“They were the victims of a sudden, unprovoked military assault,” George answered, “I doubt they considered it murder.”
“What would our courts think?” the President asked.
George shrugged, “That there isn’t enough evidence to convict. You can’t place any of them at the location or method of killing him.”
“But, it’s all plausible.” the President answered.
“Of course, but it is also plausible that the U.S. government did it,” George explained. “It’s not like we don’t have some pretty hush-hush technology.”
“Yes, but we had no reason to do it.” the President responded.
“Yes, and neither does TQB. Remember, they hid everything. We would have to admit in court everything we know.”
“They are such a pain in the ass.” the Chairman of the JCOS said, “We want their technology, we are happy with what they did, we are pissed that is impossible to pin what we think happened on them, and did I already admit we want their technology?”
“We could try to grab it,” George tossed out to the group. He noticed the stony silence and looked around at the faces staring at him. “Hey! I’m just throwing stuff on the wall.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it.” the President said dryly. “You did show me the results of their efforts in Australia. Something that can make those shockwaves is not something I want to be aimed at American soil.”
“Th
ey don’t seem to be focused on civilians, sir,” George responded. His job, apparently, was to be the bad guy and bring up all of the conversations he had heard from everyone sitting at the table at one time or another.
“And I’m not going to provide a valid excuse to test that theory.” the President shot back. “I’m going to think about how we can use them, sure. But from the NSA reports, they have already started attacking a lot of other corporations.”
“What reports?” COS of the Air Force asked, “is this something relevant?”
The President thought about it for a second, “TQB has used the financial markets to attack something like sixty different companies around the world on various stock exchanges. Many of these businesses had been trying to attack them initially. The NSA has agreed that TQB probably has some sort of massively parallel computing system to be able to handle this type of attack. To date, twenty-six of the companies have been bought out, and all upper management have been fired. If there were any issues with how they ran the company from a legal standpoint, then the board and previous upper management have been sued. Seven are in jail, and one has committed suicide.”
“They don’t fuck around,” CoJCOS Robert quipped.
“No, they don’t,” the President admitted, “Furthermore, they are now in a majority position in thirty-two additional companies and are petitioning to oust their respective boards.”
“Keeping them busy looking at their jobs and stock accounts so they can’t cause mischief with TQB.” Robert agreed.
“That’s one answer, the other is they are taking positions in additional companies in their sector and using the troubles within the attacked group to ride the stock prices and using the profits to procure larger positions to continue the financial warfare.” George mentioned.
“That is just scary,” Robert said. “Had they been doing this before?”
“No. They respond brutally when attacked,” the President said. “So, research reports the lady at the top has an unyielding sense of justice. She is fine until she encounters something that isn’t ‘right’ ... then, well, all bets are off.”
“Well, that explains why you don’t want to push them,” Robert finished, “but what about talking to them; and what do we know about their CEO?”
“That you don’t want to believe the tabloids,” George took the conversation back. “You might be thinking she is a strikingly beautiful air-head who loves to wear expensive clothes. However, from everything we have now been able to pull together, we have a thirty-two percent match on who she might be.”
“Who is that?” Robert asked.
George looked down the table before answering, “A dead woman by the name of Bethany Anne Reynolds.”
QBS Polarus - Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Jean Dukes walked into the bridge and raised her eyebrows when the captain and a very annoyed-looking Bethany Anne were waiting for her.
“I take it I am called and get to play?” Jean asked, getting right to the point.
Captain Thomas allowed a small smile to slip across his lips for a second before answering his ever-ready and destructive Gunnery Officer, “Yes. Although this time it is surgical.” Jean’s look of disgust caused him to chuckle, “I’m sure you will get to play with bigger explosions, Jean, but this time Bethany Anne wants to annoy the Chinese and keep damage to the sailors to a minimum.”
Bethany Anne’s voice was deeper than normal, controlled, “If they don’t get the nice message, I’ll release one they can’t ignore.”
Jean looked at her ultimate boss one more time. She wasn’t just looking annoyed; she was looking like she was trying to control something inside. Jean nodded her understanding. “Tell me what you want to be done.”
“Captain Thomas and ADAM have come up with a suitable target area on the lead ship, and I want to punch holes in them and flood those areas. Hopefully, this will cause them to go home. If it doesn’t, do it two more times in different compartments. The third strike will attack three more of their ships simultaneously. If they are just that stupid, I’ll decide if we are leaving, or they are sinking. I’ll let the two of you finish this conversation. I’ve got a meeting with Barnabas that he wants to have over in Australia for some reason. His shit had better be relevant.” Bethany Anne finished before nodding to everyone, and then stepping back and disappearing.
“That never gets old,” Captain Thomas commented before turning to Jean, “You got the message?” He raised an eyebrow as he waited for her response.
“I understand. I’ll see if we can set up a smaller puck and fabricate it to have a point. I’ll have to use something damned hard and I’ll…” Jean stopped talking as she noticed him staring at her. “I’ll get you a plan,” she finished.
“Good,” Captain Thomas said as he sat back in his chair, “let’s see your first draft in an hour, and we will go from there.”
“Yes, sir.” Jean finished and turned to go back to what had been named the Den of Destruction. The current scuttlebutt was that Bethany Anne had modified it to Den of Iniquity and Destruction, and the guys in her group were wondering just what had been said about them? Jean had merely responded with “nothing had been mentioned about you guys” as far as she had heard.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Manufacturing Facility 01 - Aboard New Ship
“How the hell are you able to get this done so quickly?” Bobcat asked Jeo as they were walking down the main path from the front of the ship to the back.
“A lot of time on a new ship is design, tooling and then debugging.” Jeo said as they passed a workman, “We have all of the specs in TOM’s ship for this design. It was taken from one of the other Species out there somewhere that are more aggressive than Kurtherians and are bipedal like us. They are about half our size, so ADAM, TOM and half the damned group that came over from the Navy side have been working like it is their new goddess to get it modified for humans and address any issues if Pricolici had to change to fight in here, as well.”
Bobcat looked up to the higher than normal ceilings, “I was wondering why we had the extra height,” he admitted. “I figured not even John Grimes was this big.”
The two turned left to a stairway and went down a level before coming up to a door with a Guardian in front. The Guardian required their security clearances by scanning the back of their hands and confirming that they had approval.
“Good to see you are making sure this shit is all secured, Jeo,” Bobcat mentioned as the two men went in.
After his catastrophic failure in front of Bobcat and William earlier, Jeo was happy to receive the compliment. “Thank you.”
They walked into a room that was twenty feet tall and a mirror image across the middle, “Do I see double here?” Bobcat asked looking from his left to his right. He had seen all of the plans and approved anything he could, but often what was going on was beyond him. Further, he preferred to play the ignorant boss. Jeffrey had been here two weeks earlier and come back so excited that Bobcat and William had decided the fourteen-hour trip would be worth it.
“No, you see eight command and control locations where we have four duplicated. Actually, any one of these stations can switch to provide the controls for any of the different ships areas. Here in engines, we need two at a minimum. Normal watch is going to be two on engines, one on environmental and a watch lead that can run environmental, engines, or damage review. Duplicates exist for here and if they need to replicate something elsewhere in the ship.”
“Is that our design or original?” Bobcat asked.
The two walked up to one of the control screens that looked like a large twenty-inch monitor in portrait mode at an angle in front of an acceleration seat, “The duplication was an original design, we modified it for how humans operate.”
Bobcat sat down and looked down, he secured his legs into the holders, “These remind me of cyclist grips,” he said. The screen came up but had an outline of a hand with the words, “Sign In”.
“Kind of the same con
cept, actually,” Jeo admitted. “Each of those on duty have specific shoes specially fitted for them. They lock in and can use the pedals to operated certain controls if they want. The different layouts are able to be setup specific to the user. The log-in’s are all kept in the shoes. So, if I sit down and lock in, it will have my preferences, and when I step out, and you step in, yours are immediately good to go.”
“Why didn’t you just use a handprint?” Bobcat asked pointing at his screen.
Release the Dogs of War Page 7