Release the Dogs of War

by Michael Anderle

  “No, we just need to get them to work together, I think. The problem is Jennifer has requested basically any position that keeps her away from Stephen.”

  “Why?” Jean asked while Cheryl Lynn nodded in agreement and pointed to Jean.

  “We think because she believes she doesn’t have a chance,” Patricia said, “other than that, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Well, that is an easy hook-up to figure out strategically, but tactically it will be a little more challenging,” Jean said.

  “Yes.” Patricia said, “Ok, now we need to figure out someone for Scott.”

  “Scott?” Cheryl Lynn replied quickly, “I thought we would go for Eric next?”

  “Why?” Patricia acted confused, “Does it matter which one is first? I figure that Scott is still hurting.”

  “Hurting from what?” Cheryl Lynn asked, “Was he hurt on the guys’ night out?”

  “Well, nothing he didn’t heal from, none of the guys had to go into the Pod Doc the next morning. So, no naked shows there.” Jean said raising her eyes up and down and smiling.

  Cheryl Lynn looked at Jean, “You are unbelievable,” she told her, “if I had a tenth of the amount of moxie you do, I’m sure my life would be radically different today.”

  “No time like the present to practice moxie, Cheryl Lynn,” Jean told her, “Hell, start with Scott.”

  “What? No!” Cheryl Lynn looked between the two woman who stared back at her, “What would I tell him?”

  Jean started, “That you admire his massive arms and want to find out if it is true about big muscles and bigger…”

  “Stop!” Cheryl Lynn told her, “I don’t even want to know the rest of that.” She turned to Patricia, “What is behind door number two?”

  “Well, first question. Are you interested in Scott? Like, really interested?” Patricia asked.

  Cheryl Lynn put her hands in front of her on the table and played with them a moment before answering, “Yes.”

  “Ok,” Patricia said, “Now that you have had the moxie to admit that, let’s start talking about possibilities.”

  “You mean other than,” Jean began to say when both women turned to her and said in loud voices.

  “YES!”

  Jean rolled her eyes, “Just asking him over for dinner?”

  “Wait, why would I do that?” Cheryl Lynn asked.

  “Well, duh, you are the PR lady for the group. Who is the most famous one in our group?”

  “Bethany Anne?” Cheryl Lynn said, “Oh, you want me to do a series on the guys next. With John, Eric, Darryl, and Scott showcased?”

  “That is ingenious,” Patricia said.

  Jean shrugged her shoulders, “Hell, I wish I thought of it, so I could agree.”

  “You didn’t consider that?” Cheryl Lynn asked her.

  “No, I just figured we would do another short feature on Bethany Anne, but you would need to get some inside views. Now that I see what you are saying, I’m completely on board with a ‘Bitch’s View'.” Jean admitted.

  “Why would we call it that?” Patricia said.

  “Actually, it might not be a bad idea,” Cheryl Lynn said, “the guys might not care, and we could title the show something like ‘Guarding the Crown - A Bitch’s View’ or something like that.”

  “Isn’t that getting a little close to calling her the Queen? I thought we didn’t want to promote that piece in all of this?” Patricia said.

  “We don’t,” Jean took up the argument, “But she is the top of the TQB Enterprises, and there have already been people who claim she is both richer than royalty and stronger than half the rulers of countries in the world, so why not?”

  “That could be interesting,” Patricia agreed, “I’m not sure how Bethany Anne will react to it.”

  “Which part, the crown or the bitches?” Cheryl Lynn asked, “because the crown part is probably fine, and she likes to dig the guys about the bitches part, and they like to own it like rock stars.”

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Jean exclaimed leaning back in her chair, her arms in the air before slamming forward, her eyes on fire, “Can you imagine the fun we could have with tight black ‘Bitches’ t-shirts on those guys for a calendar? Do it for money so they can give it away?”

  “I’m in for two,” Patricia said, fanning herself, “I’m giving them away to friends, you understand?” She looked at the two ladies.

  Cheryl Lynn smiled at her, “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she turned to them both, “but that is such a kick-ass idea! A Bitch’s calendar with studly men that I have to help photograph.” She seemed to be lost in thought.

  “I’m there for John’s pictures, just saying.” Jean put her finger on the table, emphatically, “No other hussies should be allowed in.”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Cheryl Lynn responded, “I’ve just thought of another idea to go along with it. Tickets!”

  “Oh, that would make the day,” Patricia said. “How would we sell them?”

  Cheryl Lynn considered the question, “How about if we do several shoots in different locations around the world. Start in Australia, Pod them to the next place and finish in… well, wherever the hell the last country is for the day? That way, we get about an hour in each venue and sell tickets to multiple locations?”

  “How do we plan that?” Patricia asked.

  “Flash mob?” Jean suggested.

  “Do what?” Patricia asked.

  “That has possibilities,” Cheryl Lynn said, “if we can figure out a way to make it happen safely, we could get a lot of good press this way.”

  “What is a flash mob?” Patricia asked, looking to both women for an explanation.

  “It’s something that has happened because of the Internet and cell phones. Usually, it’s either planned, or a celebrity is on the Internet and says that they are visiting somewhere, and a lot of their fans suddenly decide to go see them. That’s the flash part of the flash mob. So, the idea here is we mention that we are going to be shooting in such and such a country, and then we live…stream…the…hoooly crap,” Cheryl Lynn stopped, “this could be huge.”

  “John goes first,” Jean grumped, “that way the fewest people are around.”

  “The fewest women, you mean?” Patricia asked.

  “Of course, we can let the LGBT group vie for Akio,” Jean smiled, “see, I share!”

  “Scott goes second, then,” Cheryl Lynn said looking back to the two women, “hey, priorities.”

  “Don’t you think the two of them are going to get suspicious?” Patricia asked the two of them.

  “Who CARES?” they both shot back, looked at each other, and laughed.

  “You go first,” Jean told Cheryl Lynn.

  “Ok, they might get suspicious. So, how about a Spanish country and we put Eric at the end for that reason. Then, we have a predominately African-American country, and that is Darryl.” She started, before stopping. “Sorry, nothing else.”

  “We will punt, as the guys say until we get to that part,” Jean said.

  “Ok, that’s three down and a few more to go. Good meeting ladies.”

  “We should have a secret team name,” Jean mentioned.

  “Hmm,” Patricia said, if we can come up with one, it might become notorious throughout the ages. Women for centuries in the future pissed off because we took them off the market.”

  “Hell, who is asking for them to be off the market forever?” Jean asked. “I might get tired of all that hunky man-flesh and want a soft artist type, who is into his feelings and…and…and.”

  Jean looked down at the table and sighed, “Who the hell am I kidding? I want that man!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mid-Atlantic

  Captain Zhang walked along his Han class submarine, numbered 405. The damned ship was loud and noisy, with the somewhat recent radiation shielding modifications helping to reduce the noise a little, and, supposedly, their health and wellbeing.

  He and his group had been
told to change patrol locations and were arriving at their new patrol area in the next forty-eight hours. He had studied what he could of his two targets.

  Both were modified superyachts with tactical offensive and defensive weaponry. It was suspected they had a way to hole a surface ship under its water line. There was no mention of what they could do to a submarine running deeply and firing torpedoes at depths of hundreds of feet.

  His orders were explicit. Arrive in the area, approach cautiously, and acquire the ability to hit both boats within sixty seconds of a fire command.

  If he had a supercavitating torpedo on board, he could do that safely from some distance, but he didn’t.

  He would pass underneath his own group, who would resume their previous range when his boat was in position. Then, it was going to be a game of seeing who would flinch first.

  —

  “Captain?” Sonar called out, “We have a new visitor coming in from the Chinese deployment area, depth approximately five zero zero, sir.”

  Captain Branon of the American group looked over, “Confirmed?”

  “Aye sir, confirmed.”

  Captain Branon turned, “Communications, please pass on this information to those who are on our list, I’m sure they will want to know.”

  Manufacturing Facility 01 - Asteroid Fields

  Bobcat walked through the mid-sized luxury liner presently in use as a hotel to find the location for his meeting with Omar Kolan, the Hotel Manager. While the ship had a Captain, there wasn’t much use for truly doing anything with the ship. Its job was to sit still relative to everything else, hold position in space, and provide quarters to the workers.

  For at least a couple of years, most likely.

  Less if they could swing it, but that was a future problem. Today’s problems didn’t need to borrow trouble from the future.

  He found Omar at the main desk, smiling at a lady with whom he was speaking as Bobcat approached. Omar finished with the woman who walked away after a quick glance at Bobcat.

  Bobcat jerked his head in the direction of the leaving lady, “Everything ok?”

  Omar made a distasteful face, “One of the workers was not being respectful of her private space. Fortunately, some of Annane’s men happened to walk by and she knew one of them. So, it was a comment more than a complaint at the moment.”

  “Damn, this shit always seems to happen,” Bobcat muttered. “Do you want help with that?”

  Omar shook his head, “No, I have a weekly fifteen-minute call scheduled with Bethany Anne in two hours, I’ll bring it up at that time. I imagine she will have a unique perspective on the situation.”

  “Yeah, like showing them what happens to you if you do something to a woman. There won’t be a free ride home for that shit.” Bobcat agreed, “What are you doing about it in the meantime?”

  “We have separate quarters for the ladies, a separate area with female Guardians. If any of the idiots happen to harass those women, it doesn’t go very far.”

  “I can only imagine what happens if the lady growls at you and her eyes flash yellow,” Bobcat replied, smiling. “So, got fifteen minutes for me?”

  “Sure, give me a couple of minutes to call my second over to cover the desk. There is a meeting room through the doors over there to your right. It will seat four unless more are coming?” Omar said.

  Bobcat shook his head as he started towards the door Omar pointed to, “No. Just you and me for now.”

  A couple of minutes later, Omar joined Bobcat in the nicely appointed little room. It had a small, round table with a red top to match the golden carpet and gray chairs. Bobcat was sitting when Omar joined him.

  “Pleasure to see you again, Mr. Bobcat,” Omar told him.

  “It’s just Bobcat, Omar,” he replied, “Mr. Bobcat might be my father, but his name was George.”

  “Ok, Bobcat,” Omar said as he sat down, “How can I help you?”

  “I need to know how full we are on this vessel?” While Bobcat could get the stats from Samantha, he wanted the man’s opinion, his gut response.

  “We have filled twenty-five percent of the berths on this ship. I would not want to increase it past maybe half at this time. The ship, while modified for space, is not as efficient as a hotel, and we don’t have everything working as proficiently as we might wish to do for now.”

  “How long do you think it would take to make this ship more efficient?” Bobcat asked, “It can hold over two-thousand if we double-berth people, right now we are giving them one per berth, right?”

  “Yes, we are.” He agreed, “But, we are working out all sorts of kinks with eating, water reclamation, and air issues in some parts of the ship. These could be a serious problem if we are taxing the environmental systems before we get the kinks worked out.”

  “Ok, I needed to know. Bethany Anne might have to bring a shitload of Russians up here, and I’ve been asked to figure out where we can house them. The short answer is we can only hold a few hundred who are required for the manufacturing and mining operations at this time. Plus, you need additional engineering support to figure out the problems we are having that you guys can’t nail down.” Bobcat rubbed his chin, “So, I need to talk to Frank to find out if he has any suggestions for manpower.”

  “Wouldn’t he tell you to speak to your country’s NASA?” Omar asked.

  “Ha!” Bobcat barked out, “One, it isn’t my NASA, and they really aren’t that pleased with us at the moment.” Bobcat chuckled, “Although hiring from them is funny as hell, we probably don’t want to implement that option if we can help it. No, I’ll ask Frank to help find you some people and get them working with Jeo. Furthermore, those over on the new ship can spend some cycles with you here. Perhaps they have some technology that you can also use.”

  Bobcat considered what he had learned, “Omar, do me a favor. I want you to pretend you had an unlimited budget. What would you build for the solar system’s most fantastic space hotel?”

  “For how many?” Omar asked.

  “Well, the biggest Cruise Liners right now can almost hold seven thousand people fully berthed. Nimitz-class aircraft carriers carry five thousand. I’m guessing, twenty-thousand?”

  “Twenty,” Omar replied, “thousand?”

  “Or, I don’t know, fifty?” Bobcat said, ignoring Omar’s look of incredulity and looked up in the air in consideration, “Well, maybe you should be thinking about a space station, not a hotel, ok?” Bobcat stood up from the chair. “Damn, I feel better with you thinking about this problem, Omar.”

  Bobcat left the stupefied man staring at the wall as he patted him on his shoulder, closing the door behind him as he walked away.

  Washington D.C. - USA

  The President entered his little meeting room to speak to Gen. George Thourbourah. He closed the door behind him, leaving his security outside and noticed a small container of fruit-flavored Tums.

  Extra Strength.

  He sat his notepad and pen down, popped the top and poured three into his hand, “I see we upped the quantity for the meeting. This an indication of how bad you think this meeting is going to go?”

  “Well, sort of,” George admitted, “I know you are going to want to discuss reaching out to TQB, and I’m not sure how to answer that right now.”

  “So, you have nothing new?”

  “Well, our Navy has spotted a Chinese submarine coming into the area around the TQB ships.” George started.

  “That’s going to go well,” the President commented sarcastically.

  “See, now you agree that they are just a powder keg waiting to go off,” George told him.

  “No, what I think is that the Chinese are doing what they do to us, but they are doing it to a group that doesn’t operate like a country. The TQB ships are in international waters and have their ships registered with a foreign country. What are the Chinese going to do when something happens to their submarine? Blame TQB?”

  “Probably,” George replied, “they know wh
o they are going up against. The Chinese are pushing their military might around. I’ve talked with Navy, the guess is that the submarine is going to get close enough to fire a torpedo and then force TQB to accept their Navy’s approach again.”

  “I don’t think that is going to work,” the President advised his liaison. “There are no negotiations to leverage. The Chinese don’t have all of their Navy in this incident, and I doubt that TQB is showing all of their cards. I don’t understand why TQB just doesn’t get up and leave, it isn’t like they are required to sit in any place, are they?”