Bethany Anne had stopped her own workout and said, “Eric, we need to pull together a few people for an impromptu meeting.”
Eric jumped up and grabbed his towel, “Purpose?”
“Hell if I know, ask Cheryl Lynn. She’s the one who has a clue.” She winked at Eric where Cheryl Lynn couldn’t see it. Eric just smiled at Cheryl Lynn, who looked like she had just drawn the short straw. Eric tossed her a second towel, and she numbly caught it.
“Welcome to the group, CL. You just created your first project!”
Eric followed after Bethany Anne, who had stepped outside of the workout area already. Cheryl Lynn dazedly followed. She could hear Eric ahead of her yelling to Bethany Anne who was ahead of him, “No, it wasn’t Scott who said she create a project ‘first day’, it was me! I won the pot!”
---
Cheryl Lynn was standing in front of a large group of people. Some she knew, like Bobcat, William and of course Marcus. She didn’t know Jeffrey too well, but she knew Bethany Anne, Lance and Patricia. John was present, along with Eric who had guard duties for the day. Kevin was kind of new to her, and she had met Stephanie for the first time that morning.
Nathan and Ecaterina were meeting with Gerry in New York, so they couldn’t attend. Tom was included in case they had specific I.T. questions, although Cheryl Lynn couldn’t fathom why computers would be involved. Ten minutes before they were going to start, Bethany Anne decided that she wanted Captains Thomas and Wagner to join. Eric shrugged his shoulders, looked at his watch and told everyone they would be back in ten minutes.
They made it back in eight.
Cheryl Lynn knew that Bethany Anne had some other way to transport that was even faster than the Pods, but she hadn’t asked anything about it yet. Since Bethany Anne and Eric walked back in with two minutes to spare and two men who looked like they had just come off shift, it had to be a very fast method.
Her mind went into overdrive trying to figure out how they could walk out of here, get two guys from the Mediterranean, and return here in eight minutes? Something for another time, she decided.
Bethany Anne opened the meeting, “Ok, consider this a working meeting. Cheryl Lynn brought up what I feel is an important concern, and what do I usually do to those who come to me with a problem?”
“Ask them to deal with it?” Bobcat said, smiling.
“Curse them with the job?” Marcus added.
“Provide the opportunity to expand their horizons by learning the solution to the problem?” Kevin threw in, grinning as Bethany Anne pointed to him then touched her nose.
She looked at Bobcat and Marcus, “Two demerits for the both of you two.” She looked back to the group assembled around the large meeting table, “So, this is the only time I’ll say this, and it goes only for this meeting: try to be only sort of rough with her. No biting!” She looked around, “Damn, no Wechselbalg.” She turned back to Cheryl Lynn, “Your meeting!”
Fourteen faces turned to her, and she wanted to crawl under the table. She thought about the true purpose of this group, and standing her ground she started. “I would like to say, I am up here due to the mistake I made of telling Bethany Anne we needed more PR, more ‘marketing’ for the group.” She felt relieved when not less than six of those at the table laughed and a few more had smiles on their faces.
Apparently, there were others who had fallen prey to Bethany Anne’s method of leadership. “So, my concern was born out of being the ‘newbie’ here, and my cousin’s effort to educate me on why some of you have made this your life’s mission. It is due to these conversations, and the conviction of those who I spoke with, that I understood what we are about and why we need to do this.
Enough so that I’m in this … ” She paused a second, then continued, “All the way.” She turned to her cousin as she wiped away a tear, “Ad Aeternitatem, John.” She stepped over to him, and he enveloped her in a crushing hug. The table responded with a large amount of cheering. They all felt joy for someone who had come into their ‘family.’
“I love you, little John.” She murmured into his chest.
“I never doubted it, cuz.” He responded. They separated, and she felt emboldened. The feeling that they were all in this together, without the political back-stabbing, made her feel comfortable and ready to forge ahead.
“As I was saying, before my emotions so rudely interrupted me,” She wiped away another tear and got back on track. “I think we need to have our narrative ready for the world, and to do that, we need to be ready when we do this stuff on the moon. I don’t believe we are going to do this flawlessly, without someone finding out. So while others are trying to confirm it, I say we deliver the goods in a fashion that makes us the latest ‘cool company.’”
She nodded over to Marcus, “I know from Marcus, that Space-X has some of the most rabid workers in the space industry, because they aren’t just working for a cool company, they are working to get into space. The company can offer less salary than normal wages, due to the understanding that you are working for the future. If you aren’t devoted to space and willing to understand that is part of the package they offer? Well, you aren’t right for them, and that is what we are going to offer. We are going to be the new company doing amazing things never seen before.”
The response and cheering she received overwhelmed Cheryl Lynn. She kept grinning as everyone seemed excited about coming ‘out of the shadows’ and driving the future. She looked around the table and stopped at Bethany Anne.
Who winked at her and mouthed ‘keep going’.
“Further,” She continued as the cheering quieted down, “We are going to do this internationally. We need someone who is going to play the part of a neutral party. I don’t know any reporters myself, and I’ve never been out of the United States…”
“Oooh, ooh!” Eric interrupted, “I’ve got one!” They all turned to him, “What about the reporter down in Costa Rica, Giannini Oveda or something?”
“Oviedo”, Bethany Anne corrected.
Eric pointed to Bethany Anne, “Her!” Bethany Anne rolled her eyes.
Cheryl Lynn pursed her mouth, “Do we know if she has the skills and connections? I don’t know anything about her.”
“I’ll have ADAM check her out. But Michael and Tabitha have kept close tabs on her. We would need to make sure she is able to keep what she knows about our other ops out of the limelight.”
“Why would she do that?” Cheryl Lynn asked.
“Because we saved her life?” Eric opined.
“How many times did we do that?” John asked wryly.
Eric turned to John, “At least a couple. Plus, she became a famous reporter because of us, too.”
“Yes, there is that.” John agreed.
Bethany Anne interrupted the two men, “Enough congratulating yourselves for shit you did a long time ago.” She pulled the conversation back on track, “ADAM says she is solid and hasn’t released anything about us that we wouldn’t want out there. She has pulled together a lot of information, and had she wanted to, could have already caused us problems. Also, Michael didn’t kill her back when he met her, so there is that.”
Cheryl Lynn’s eyes widened with shocked surprise. Bethany Anne casually mentioned Michael killing someone offhandedly, and no one here reacted like it was strange at all.
She still had a lot to learn, it seemed.
Cheryl Lynn continued, “Oookay. So, we possibly have our reporter. We will need to confirm, get her involved, and then start getting video. Believable video.” She nodded to Marcus, “Is there any way to get third parties to confirm the video isn’t photo-shopped?”
“It’s not Photo-shopped, that’s for pictures.” Tom interrupted, “You want to make sure no one thinks that we’re using special effects for this.”
Ok, Cheryl Lynn thought, maybe there is a use for I.T. people. “What he just said, Marcus?”
From there on, it became a discussion on how to ‘prove’ the authenticity of their conte
nt, and how much of their technology, their people, and their resources they wanted to display.
The answer to most of those questions, unfortunately, was less than Cheryl Lynn had hoped. However, video would be shot, just set aside, only to be used with Bethany Anne’s permission.
They had been in the meeting for two hours before food was brought in, and the group broke up into discussions on normal day-to-day operations. Many of these people were friends and didn’t see each other very frequently, so they were catching up.
“Is it legal for us to put a base on the moon?” Bobcat asked. He had been thinking about how his launches were already skirting the law.
Those few around him who heard his question looked over to Marcus, who grumped, “Rocket scientist, not space law legal consultant.”
“Is there such a thing?” Asked William.
“God, here we go,” said Jeffrey with a smile on his face.
Cheryl Lynn had gravitated to be with Marcus’ group while they ate, because of her familiarity with them. Her head was tracking back and forth as each one spoke.
“I don’t know, but you know we’re going to piss people off.” Bobcat said.
“You know what they can do with that?” Said William.
“No, but I’m sure you are going to inform us.” Bobcat replied.
“They can try to serve us on the Moon with their legal stuff.” William replied, grinning.
Bobcat reached up and rubbed the side of his face. “You know, that might be funny - if we can setup a legal company that way.”
“You need to deal with the fact that the moon has certain ‘hands off’ aspects to it,” Marcus mentioned.
“Like what?” Bobcat asked, “How the hell can countries tell you to keep your hands off it, if they can’t get up there?” He asked, confused.
“It was back in the late 50’s,” Marcus answered, “When the United States and Russia started the space race, they held some bilateral discussions on keeping space peaceful, and moved it into the United Nations right at the end of the decade. In the sixties, we got the Outer Space Treaty which, I guess, could cause us a problem, because we are based in a country that is part of the agreement. Once our capabilities become known, it’s going to cause all sorts of fits with the legal beagles, since we will have a base up there, and a lot of countries are going to blame the United States.”
“Is every country a part of this?” Cheryl Lynn asked.
“Oh no!” Marcus said, “Only about half of the countries are part. It isn’t like too many are worried, because the other countries don’t have the resources…”
Bobcat smiled, “Until us.”
William smirked, “Team BMW is about to open a company in a foreign country, aren’t we?”
Jeffrey smiled, “Guys, I need to engage a space law expert and -- do we need to start planning to move our operations out of here?”
“Pshaw!” Bobcat waved a hand, “By the time they figure out all of the legal stuff, we will already be up there, and not much of what we need will still be down here.”
“Oops.” William smiled. “I guess it was our bad we failed to launch that stuff from the right country.”
“We are still,” Cheryl Lynn interrupted, “going to need to have a decent front operation in some foreign country, so that the U.S. can’t use it to spin the P.R.”
Jeffrey turned to Cheryl Lynn, “Did you have a major in Journalism?”
“Journalism? Why would I need that? I have two pre-teens. They know how to try and spin everything to their advantage. I’m just extrapolating their logic to international intrigue.”
“Oh, yeah - that would work.” Jeffrey, a fellow parent, admitted and raised his drink to her.
She raised hers back and then said, “So, let’s figure out how we can set up a legal entity that isn’t a party to the treaties, and provides the U.S. plausible deniability. By the time everyone gets done with the finger pointing, we should have world support, if everything goes right.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Marcus asked.
“Well, I’m hoping that Tina, Todd and I will already be up there with you.” She replied.
Bobcat smiled, “Are you asking for an apartment? Because we haven’t designed any specifically for a small family. Want in on that?”
“Hell yeah!” She grinned, “I’ll be the first space designer who has actually done work for moon apartments.”
“Well, actually the second.” William quipped, “We had to ask Ecaterina some questions and got her input.” He shrugged, “Sorry.”
Cheryl Lynn’s shoulders slumped just a bit. “That’s ok.” She admitted, “Better to be number two. Number one always has the jealous bitches trying to take them down.”
“Fat chance on the jealous bitches ‘taking down’ Ecaterina.” Jeffrey mused.
“Word.” Bobcat nodded his agreement.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
QBS Polarus - Mediterranean
“So, Dan, what’s your concern?” Bethany Anne asked as she entered Dan’s office on the Polarus. It wasn’t a large room, but it fit his personality well.
“Nukes,” Dan said succinctly.
“Come again?” Bethany Anne responded, “Are you talking nuclear weapons?”
“Yes,” He responded. “I’m considering what could happen if someone really, really, really doesn’t want us on the moon.”
Bethany Anne sat on the chair in front of his desk. She wasn’t sure what kind of occupant this office had previously, but it was probably some type of officer as he had a lot of furniture in it. “You don’t start out with tiny concerns, do you?”
Dan smiled, “I’m already dealing with the tiny concerns. I’m only bringing this one up to make sure that we have thought of potential retaliation concerns. I believe that the United States has had asteroid busting nukes for many decades, so it isn’t too hard to imagine they have something that could be thrown at us pretty easily if they are pissed off enough.”
She exhaled loudly, “Well, that would put a damper on our relationship with the U.S., I’d imagine.”
Dan grimaced, “Quite.”
“Ok, I know you wouldn’t give me this problem without some solution.” She said, “What do you have?”
“We are going to need anti-missile batteries on the side of the moon facing earth. We will need to have enough of them that, depending on the trajectory of the incoming missiles, our counter-measures miss the earth.”
“This is higher than my pay-grade, so I’ll ask our resident Rocket Scientist…” Bethany Anne began.
>>Or, you could ask me.<<
Bethany Anne put up a finger, then pointed to her head. Dan nodded in understanding.
Or, I could just ask you. What’s the determination?
>>While the rail-gun rods will need to escape the Moon’s gravity at 2.3 kilometers per second, or 5,300 miles per hour, and we have that ability, we won’t have to do that. We can place payloads with a gravitic engine, and then use the small satellites to confirm potential missile location. Since our missile defenses will not be complicated, being essentially a metal block, they can accelerate without regard to any other constraints. No major country admits to having missiles with nuclear payloads that can reach the moon, at this time. However, as Dan mentioned, there is documentation which suggests the U.S. has had asteroid destruction capabilities for five decades. Presently, most news accounts refute that conclusion. Due to the significant amount of lead-time, we do not need to do much more to handle attacks in which destruction of the launch vehicle is approved.<<
Dan noticed Bethany Anne’s eyes focusing back on him, “What did he say?”
“This time, it was ADAM, not TOM.” She stated. “Effectively, he suggested that we use the gravitic drives Team BMW has for powering the pods and have some available on the moon to reach the missile and slam into it. There would be such a huge amount of time for acquisition, tracking and destruction that it is a non-issue.”
Dan said, “I sense a ‘but�
�� in there.”
She scrunched up her face, “Not so much a ‘but’ as ‘what if’. As in, what if we have incoming, but we don’t want to destroy them?”
“Like what, an uninvited shuttle?” She nodded. “Well,” he continued, “if killing them isn’t an option, or we don’t think it would be wise, we need to consider both PR and military responses.”
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