“How much do you think Bethany Anne knows about what’s going on up here?” Marcus asked aloud.
“Well, you talk with TOM,” Bobcat answered, thinking aloud, “Samantha rats us out to ADAM all the time, so probably just about everything she wants to know.” He smiled at the two men, “I happen to know it isn’t the details. She trusts us to do that. I can’t tell you what her threshold is before ADAM or TOM will speak up.”
“How long before we can move?” William asked.
“Samantha?” Bobcat said aloud, “Estimated time to leave?”
Samantha answered, “Seven hours, forty-three minutes.”
Bobcat looked to his two friends, “Based on previous calculations, and my safety margin, for now, it’s going to be twenty-four hours before some of those on earth can even possibly see us, and forty-eight before we can get there.” He held up a hand, “Bethany Anne wants us there as safely as possible, and I’m not comfortable going too fast, just yet. So, unless she releases that constraint, it won’t be balls-to-the-wall.”
Marcus looked at the visage of Bethany Anne, still projected on the wall, “I hope there is something left when we get there.”
“Of who, TQB or China?” William asked.
“Both.” he replied.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Space in route from Australia to Pacific
Bethany Anne’s team were in their Black Eagles, heading to the Ad Aeternitatem from Australia, the world turning beneath them.
>>Bethany Anne, incoming call from the President of the United States.<<
“Bethany Anne,” she spoke aloud.
“How are your people?” he asked.
“Alive.”
“Can we help?”
“The only suggestion I have is not getting in our way. They have declared war, and I’ll bring it. I’ve already told them they had two choices and they apparently chose option one.”
“Which was that?” he asked.
“Try to kill me,” she said.
“Option two?”
“Sue for Peace. But I’m not allowing that option until they understand if they fuck with me again, I’ll use the bricks in their Great Wall to erect the highest cairn in the world above the dead of their military.”
“Not much for diplomacy at the moment?” he asked.
“Tried it, I call it patience but it didn’t work too well for us.”
“They can be rather petulant over offenses given them over the centuries,” he told her, “as I’ve been informed when I’m rather pissed at them myself.”
“I’ll file that under shit-I-don’t-care-about.”
He chuckled, “You’re kind of a straight talker, aren’t you.”
“You are the one asking the questions,” she allowed, “No need to blow smoke up anyone’s ass right now.”
“No, there isn’t. However, that brings me up to another reason for this call. I have a request on the behalf of others that have requested to find out if I can engage with the CEO of TQB and whoever is responsible in China to come to the negotiation table.”
“Mr. President, I’ve been attacked with missiles sent to destroy my base in Australia, they have killed a reporter asking questions related to Chinese solar energy efforts from an American congressman. They tried to kill our D.C. legal representative and failed. They have attacked several of our companies, killing three security guards, one researcher and an unborn baby girl named Alexandra.”
There was a pause on the other side of the line as the Pods started their descent into the night. Bethany Anne told TOM to make sure they came through the sky as hot as possible.
She wanted to make an entrance.
The time of hiding their abilities was passed. If staying under the radar wasn’t working, then it was time to awe them into submission and stomp on those who remained belligerent.
“Why do I believe the unborn baby girl is the one that hurt the most?” he finally asked.
“Because you have empathy. I delivered a message, and they replied in kind. I’ll do my best to stay away from non-combatants, but this time, it’s to the knife, Mr. President.”
He sighed, “Please leave enough infrastructure around so the world doesn’t go down in flames.”
“I’m well aware of the socio-economic aspects. I know which general is responsible for this. I’ve already been to his office but he isn’t in, or I would have delivered my grievance personally.”
The President understood how that could happen and realized her pistol wasn’t for show.
“I appreciate your understanding.”.
“Very good, Mr. President, Black Eagle One out.”
Disconnect ADAM.
>>Disconnected.<<
The President stared at the phone in his hand for a moment before hanging up. Something was tickling his memories from the morning reports about TQB and how she had just signed off. Then, he connected the dots. In a lot of those reports, the female that was leading the fighters, the one who was involved with the French and over in China was call sign Black Eagle One…
This woman was personally going to war.
QBS Base Australia
Yuko reviewed on the screens the applications that she had been running. The teams had doubled-down since the attack at the base. Most of them had a hard time believing that they had been attacked until they had gone outside to see the scorch marks from the blast outside of the shield.
Everyone’s headphones got an alarm that said they were going to join together for a meeting with ADAM. Yuko could hear everyone’s clicking clacking on their keyboards slow, then stop, and the room got quiet.
ADAM’s voice came through each headphone, “Our original mission was to use normal attacks, ones that we have been accomplishing effectively for over a year with a fair amount of success. However, based on conversations with another hacker in our group, we have new targets.”
“Please view your screens, and I will explain our new strategy,” ADAM told his group.
“We are going to bring China to her knees.”
FUTURE
Ahrgri-vactix of the Ristorian Sept looked out to his class of three hundred and five. Out of all of his courses, the one on the Queen Bitch was his most popular and his most well-attended.
He smiled to those out in the audience, representing over twenty-four different worlds and three different systems.
“Today, we will study the response of TQB and Bethany Anne the first time they had an altercation with a significantly larger target that should have caused them to hesitate. TQB might have negotiated after showing an impressive amount of abilities rather than get involved in military actions with the country, China, on their own home world, which almost certainly should have caused loss of life in her teams.”
“Excuse me, Professor?” A hand from a Gellentii went up in the second row. Well, if you could say that a tentacle was a hand.
“Yes?” Ahrgri-vactix responded.
“Why would her people not expect her to negotiate? Wouldn’t they want to reduce the chance of their own death?”
“Good question, but the answer is tied up in humans, what they are fighting for and the leader they follow. Humans have the ability to believe that there are ideals that are worth fighting and dying for. One of the mistakes some who have fought Bethany Anne’s group have made include attacking first as a form of negotiation. The Yollins were the first to try to impress with military abilities as a lead, true negotiation second with the humans once humans set up their bases on this side of the Terran Annex gate. Remember, no one had any idea who they were at that time. While they had acquired the technology to communicate, they were, unfortunately, very straightforward with their speech, and the Yollins figured they were obfuscating when they claimed they were just running through on their way to find Kurtherians.”
Ahrgri-vactix took a drink and continued, “So, as the humans passed through, the Yollins attacked from the rear, expecting to surprise the humans with their prowess.” He looked arou
nd, “So, the first question on the quiz will be ‘which race was the first to suffer utter defeat to the humans and started the Queen Bitch’s Annexed sphere of influence on this side of the gate?’”
The whole class chuckled, “The Yollins,” they all called out.
“Yes, the Yollins.” Ahrgri-vactix agreed and stuck up a finger, “First Rule of Negotiation with the Queen Bitch, Don’t attack first, She doesn’t appreciate that type of negotiation at all.”
TQB Base, Australian Outback
Yuko was the first to get in, hacking into a secondary bank branch that allowed her access.
The attack style was absolute genius, she thought. They were attacking the SWIFT network which facilitated transactions between banks via the Internet. Once they had the password and credentials for any relevant Chinese bank, they were able to request money out of Chinese accounts in other banks around the world.
Her first transaction moved eighty-seven million U.S. dollars equivalent out of the foreign accounts, moving money China had positioned to buy stocks to accounts under ADAM’s control. He, along with another smaller group within the team, moved the money to millions of accounts, bouncing the transactions through banks located in the ‘Stans (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc.) which, similar to Switzerland's old banking system, had confidential banking laws and no relationships for extradition. Once the monies were in the almost impossible-to-locate accounts, they would purchase real-world items such as construction materials and the like. Now that the money was moved to material goods, there was no money to re-acquire should the account be found.
Next, Yuko started working on another purchase, this time for just under a billion dollars, pulling China out of sixty-seven percent of all TQB stocks they had been able to acquire from thirty-seven of TQB’s companies.
And that was just this minor bank.
Yuko smiled, as ADAM’s offensive was going to decimate China’s stock market war with TQB and kick them out of their positions within the companies. Her first trade complete, she started setting up, with ADAM’s help, the next major hit.
—
ADAM, Gin, Amber and Kevin were actively looking for a way to bust into China’s diplomatic cables. They had been working on this for a couple of days, but unfortunately did not have any luck so far.
Kevin, a laid back man with long blond hair, shrugged his shoulders, “Look, patience and effort, and a shit-ton of computing power and we will win the day. We have the computing power, let’s keep up the effort and have a little patience.” The two women and Kevin kept at it, going deeper and deeper into the backgrounds of those who worked in the offices.
ADAM had modified one of the ICP’s (Independent Computing Platforms) to work on deciphering the Chinese language on the fly for the team. While he might have several orders of magnitude more computing power than the small group, they were able to intuitively leap to new ideas that he had not yet been able to figure out how to do.
However, he was working on it.
—
“Sir?” Senior Bank Operation Manager Bojing looked up to regard his second in command.
“Yes?” Huan, the Bank Manager, replied
“May I close the door?” Bojing asked Huan nodded. Bojing stepped closer, “Sir, we have uncovered a recent transfer of assets from the Committee's accounts that went through the bank network. Sir,” Bojing swallowed, “it looks like we have had funds stolen from the Committee’s accounts.”
Huan’s face barely moved a muscle as he considered the implications, “How?”
“A set of hackers seemed to have figured out the security credentials for our SWIFT system and determined the accounts the Committee uses.”
Huan tried to slow down his rapidly escalating heartbeat, “How much?”
Bojing barely whispered, “Sir, a little over six billion Yuan.”
Huan calmly put his elbows on his desk, “You believe that we have had almost a billion U.S. stolen from the Committee's accounts from our bank?” Bojing nodded, “Do we have specific accounts within those?”
“The military was hit harder, but most accounts have lost assets.”
“What have you done?” Bojing shrugged, “At the moment, I’ve told them to shut down the SWIFT account and to pull together the fraud department for a meeting.
“I understand,” Huan nodded to him, “Please, I need to make a few calls.” Bojing bowed and turned, opening and closing the office door.
Huan, forty-eight years old, called his wife and had a pleasant conversation before hanging up. Huan’s personal assets, due to his inclusion in many opportunities, almost equaled six hundred million Yuan in total. The responsibility for the mistakes - however, they happened - would come back and rest on his shoulders.
Huan had been paying attention to the transactions associated with the government’s accounts, one would have to be a fool not to. They had been trying everything they could to acquire technology by the typical expedient of purchasing the companies, and it wasn’t working with TQB.
He made a call and requested an immediate meeting with the head of the committee that ran the bank. He hung up the phone, closed and locked his desk and stood up.
Looking around, he considered if he wanted to take anything and exhaled loudly. With the money missing, and he suspected this wouldn’t be the only hit, the currency was most likely going to take a hit and he would be one of those blamed.
His wealth was gone, and he would be lucky to keep his life, much less a memento of his job. He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into a future he had never expected for himself. A future he didn’t want because his government attacked the wrong group.
Washington D.C. - USA
“Mr. President?” General Vance Deliando nodded his head as the President sat down at the small table.
“Vance,” he responded, “How are things going with the contacts now that you have this new position?”
“Oh, I’ve been better - I’ve decided all of the gods must hate me.”
“Oh?” The President looked down at the table and realized it was always George providing the Tums.
“Yeah. I’ve read the documents on that shit George was into, and if that isn’t bad enough, this issue between China and TQB is causing a fffuuu…lot of problems all over the world. The QBS Polarus and Ad Aeternitatem received sixteen landings in the last three hours before they went tits up and flew out of range of our following vessels.”
“How are the different chiefs reacting to this?”
“Outwardly? Calm if annoyed. Behind closed doors? They are rooting them on. When their Pods interrupted the two J-10’s on that intercept mission and sent them packing it was the absolute best bit of P.R. they could have done with the Air Force.”
“Our information from that trip?” the President asked.
“That we aren’t sure?” Vance shrugged, “We used some of the new technology and were able to get access to the gravitic wave anomalies until about two miles out. So, we have some range.”
“On their pods?” the President asked.
“Yes,” Vance moved a couple of pieces of paper aside and picked up the third, “So far, the geniuses we have working on that situation don’t have a clue how they did the little planes. Oh, we have ideas. We have images of them landing little,” he put up both hands to create a circle about three inches around, “pucks, probably about twenty-one, across the jet. We figured they forced the plane to move a certain direction pretty carefully.”
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