by Don Cook
(Epsy) Three tunes that embolden me when I go into any dangerous situation, which are: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”; William Shatner’s rather cheesy† rendition of Shakespeare’s “King Henry the Fifth”; and Emmerson, Lake, and Palmer’s extended rock version of “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
I credit all that, along with my courage and skills as a top-notch FBI marksman for winning the day...
Michael Donald Bonhoeffer,
Senior Special Agent, FBI (Ret’d) and
Commander/Ship-Priest, AMKEXPRA
V-S-S-Day #1: The Battle of the Solar System *
FIVE MILLION MILES BEYOND EARTH’S ORBIT
13:29 COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (EARTH-TIME)
The Kannatikan fighters kept attacking their Amkerian adversaries, only for the Amkerians to make far shorter and shorter work Trudierre’s fighter-squadrons until they withdrew on Trudierre’s orders.
As the Kannatikan fighters returned to their base-ships for regrouping, seven Amkerian FB-27 Starstalker fighter-bomber spacecraft rendezvoused with Blue 1. Upon their regrouping, Blue 1 and the seven FB-27s flew for a diversion-attack maneuver against the invading fleet’s flagship, the Skandario.
Blue 1 and the seven Starstalkers streaked towards Trudierre’s flagship, while scores of squadrons of Shrion-built Kannatikan Suq-52 Flathead fighter-bombers headed towards the Amkerian Starfleet in order to attempt to destroy the battle-starships, only to be zapped by Amkerian mass-to-energy cannons into freely dispersed energy as they approached within 120 longspans of each targeted vessel.
Each of the Amkerian ships deployed several small, fast-absorbing defensive energy-panels that functioned like solar panels, which were also built to absorb ambient energy, and absorbed the free-floating energy that once were enemy fighters.
Once the energy-state remains of the fighters was taken in by the ships, the panels were withdrawn back into the Amkerian starships.
BRIDGE OF HRMKS SKANDARIO
As the alert klaxons and the flashing red lights brazenly reminded all hands on the Skandario’s bridge that a battle was in progress, the Skandario’s tall, platinum-blonde, bronze-skinned Shrion-born female Offensive Tactics Analysis (OTA) Officer strode up to Trudierre, holding in her hand an updated report on the Amkerian attack tactics that caused her grave concern.
“Your Excellency,” reported the female OTA Officer to Trudierre matter-of-factly, yet also with fearful worry lacing her voice, “I have been analyzing the Amkerian attack strategy in detail, and I have found there is a dire danger to the Skandario and the task-fleet. The updated report’s conclusion suggests that a retreat to home-space would be the best option.”
“RETREAT?! WHEN VICTORY IS WITHIN OUR GRASP?!” Trudierre snarled in autocratic angry derision. “HUMPH! I THINK YOU OVERESTIMATE OUR OPPONENTS — AND UNDERESTIMATE US! WE ARE THE SHRION EMPIRE! I ASSURE YOU, VICTORY IS OURS!”
Trudierre turned up his nose in aristocratic disdain at the OTA officer as he said with snobbish totalitarian contempt, “Retreat, indeed. HUMPH!!!”
FIVE MILLION MILES BEYOND EARTH’S ORBIT
13:40 COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (EARTH-TIME)
Blue 1 and the Starstalkers dodged the Skandario’s photon-shells, mass-to-energy cannons and missiles until they were under the Skandario’s detection cover. The Starstalkers fired several energy-chaff anti-detection shells as Blue 1 flew towards a maintenance-port that led to the Skandario’s internal computer/sensory network.
Blue 1, under the enemy flagship’s detection-cover, activated a force-field bubble and self-miniaturized until Blue 1 was about the size of an Earthly milk crate.
As the Starstalkers temporarily blinded the Skandario’s sensors with several EMP-shells and withdrew back to their base ships, the shrunken Blue 1 sneaked into the flagship’s maintenance-port.
BRIDGE OF HRMKS SKANDARIO
SAME MOMENT
“ARRGH! MAN!” Trudierre yelled angrily. “YOU MEAN TO TELL ME ALL BUT ONE REMAINING FIGHTER HAS WITHDRAWN, AND THAT ONE FIGHTER’S DONE UP AND VANISHED FROM THE SCOPES?!”
“Affirmative, Your Excellency” the Skandario’s helms-being reported. “All their surviving AF-4s, 14s, 15s, 16s, FB-27s, and AF-18VZs have withdrawn back to their base-starships. Strangely enough, Your Excellency, one of the attacking fighters actually registered as a Kannatikan KF-18, but up-fitted to an AF-18VZ configuration… with a stardrive. As you know, our KF-18s are not star-travel capable, nor have they been up-fitted to F-18VZ status yet.”
“Then that must be Blue 1!” Trudierre said. “Bio-sensors report!”
“When our fighters engaged the lone KF-18 and the Amkerians,” the helms-being reported, “the bio-sensors picked up the readings of a human pilot, a male that registered as approaching age 100, nearing the Sliding Years age-range.”
“But how?!” a befuddled Trudierre asked. “No human that old could possibly fly a KF-18 or any other fighter spacecraft!”
The scanner-signal array briefly lost all power.
“Maintenance!” Trudierre said sharply. “Get a tech-EVA shuttle to repair!”
“Repair Tech-1” spoke an unknown voice with a very thick Quebec French-style Quallique accent. “Am on task to repair sensory array.”
“Good!” Trudierre said. “Complete sensory repairs yesterday! Bridge out!”
COCKPIT OF FIGHTER-SPACECRAFT “BLUE 1”
13:45 COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (EARTH-TIME)
“This is Repair Tech-1” Mike radioed through Blue 1’s uprated transmission-disguising protocols, speaking in a convincing Quebecois accent he learned from the Mounties because Khraa/Astra told him that the Quebec French and Quallique accents were uncannily identical to each other. “Over-and-out.”
Of course, Potty-head, I’ll fix your little red space-wagon, Mike mentally snickered in his normal “mind’s voice”, as he threw a few switches while the miniaturized Blue 1 heat-glided through the maintenance shaft that led to the Skandario’s computer core. I’ll fix it alright, but good! Mike laughed to himself within his mind, then spoke mentally, Computer?
Blue 1’s computer psychically spoke into Mike’s mind, Yes, Mike?
Are the twelve thermonuclear charges ready to be deployed?
Affirmative. Commencing strategic deployment of thermonuclear charges, now.
As Blue 1 continued to heat-drift towards the relatively cavernous computer-chamber, in relation to Blue 1’s presently miniaturized state, Blue 1 deployed the twelve 100-Earth-megaton hydrogen bomb charges, each of them slowly tumbling with lethal majesty towards their targets until each one latched onto their targets magnetically.
All charges planted and ready for programming, Mike.
Excellent, Blue 1, Mike spoke mentally. Set them to activate as per plan.
Yes, Mike, Blue 1’s computer spoke into Mike’s mind.
EXHIBIT HALL THEATER, MINNEAPOLIS CONVENTION CENTER
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, USA
8:48 AM CENTRAL TIME
“I came here… to talk to you today…” shouted San Francisco-born Colorado governor Harri La Leche, a brashly butch 50-something woman who was nicknamed “the lesbian Harvey Milk” by the media. “I came… to talk about Mallory Ignacia Stanton.”
The crowd in the hall stood and cheered the intimidating pro-Stanton LGBTQ and women’s rights activist-politician whose far-left political stances made those of LSD guru Timothy Leary look like those of Red Scare Senator Joseph McCarthy.
“Mallory Stanton…” La Leche continued over the cheers, applause, boos and cat-calling, “Ms. Stanton has been a woman who has fought for America’s underdogs.”
The crowd both cheered and cat-called ever more loudly.
La Leche said further, “Stanton has done more for the cause of women’s rights…”
Most of the female delegates cheered once again, more loudly than they did a moment earlier. When the cheering subsided, La Leche continued, “…marriage rights…”
The rainbow-flag crowd, e
ven those supporting Jelinek, cheered louder and more boisterously than before.
“And for blacks —!”
The African-Americans who were present viciously booed and cat-called at La Leche, calling her rude epithets such as “Lyin’ Ho”, “White Trash 2-point-oh”, “Aunt Tom”, and other slurs that no one in his or her right mind would dare repeat.
La Leche, who was used to such verbal barbs, smiled/winced as she strove on with her speech, “And as your president…”
A mixed chorus of cheers and cat-calls erupted inside the hall, as women and gay men roared out, “You are woman. Hear her roar!”
Meanwhile, African-American delegates shouted even more ugly slurs that were misogynist and/or anti-white as they meanly chanted, “Not our president! Malcolm’s the Man!”, which was shortened to the militantly-repeated “Malcolm’s the Man!”
Sexton felt buoyed by the cheers African-Americans shouted in his favor. Meanwhile, Jefferson and Monique, with Jefferson carrying a smartphone-dedicated handheld interphone with a microphone and loudspeaker in his jacket, pushed their way through the Randy Rae security people and reached the podium.
Undeterred by the chaos, La Leche pressed on as she said, “And as your president, Stanton will continue to —”
“Lie, cheat, backstab and destroy America!” Jefferson spoke through his interphone strapped to his chest, as if speaking through a bullhorn. “Mallory Stanton’s whole campaign is a major total lie!”
Gasps arose from everyone in the hall, both pro- and anti-Stanton, as Jefferson began his loud, ranting assertion that was hellishly damaging to Mephistula/Stanton.
Meanwhile, in the lobby, Har-as-Mike, along with FBI Special Agents Luther Martin, Natalie Valdez, Bill Chang, Randolph Elkins, Jerry Storm Cloud, veteran agent Felicity Weizman, and Iranian-American Agent Fatima Abdulla gathered to confer about their plan in case the worst happened (with the other Agents believing Har-as-Mike was indeed Mike Bonhoeffer.)
“Is Jeff Stanton loco or something?!” Valdez asked in rhetorical panic.
“I think Jeff’s got some sort of plan up his sleeve” Har-as-Mike said. “Abdullah, you go to rear right stage, Valdez, rear center, Weizman, rear left. Chang, you take far left front wing. Jerry, you take the left aisle. Marty, you take right aisle. Elkins, take far front right wing. I’ll come up the middle. I think La Mis is going to do something rash, and if she does, we move in and bust her ass! Is that clear?”
Every other FBI agent nodded yes.
“Let’s go!”
Har-as-Mike and the FBI Agents he led stealthily fanned out and took up their positions.
As the FBI Agents ran to take up positions, Monique shouted from the podium, “And now I know why Jeff Stanton was such a philanderer who dragged me down into the mud with him!”
While Jefferson and Monique exposed Mephistula/Stanton for who she truly was as much as they could, the devilish ex-First Lady sneaked up behind the female Randy Rae employee that roughed up Rick the previous day, and stuck a metal rattail comb with a lethally sharpened handle right in the security guard’s back.
“Give me your gun,” Mephistula/Stanton snarl-whispered to the Randy Rae guard, “or I’ll dig up so much dirt on you, you’ll end up six feet under! Got that, bitch?!”
The guard, fearing for her already-tarnished reputation and her life, nodded as she sheepishly surrendered her service revolver to Mephistula/Stanton.
Monique continued her attack on the ex-First Lady, “And it’s not all Jeff’s fault! Jeff’s as much of a victim as I was! And Ms. Stanton was nothing more than a lezzy version of Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and the Antichrist, all rolled into one!
“That’s right, people!” Monique ranted on. “Most of the stuff Jeff Stanton did that ruined America was done at the demands — yes, demands of Mallory Stanton, and all for the sake of this party that is now so corrupt that, if it were not for equally corrupt past sessions of the US Supreme Court and lower high courts across America, half the mess our country and the world are in right now wouldn’t even exist!”
Meanwhile, Rick Perry and his CTC crew recorded every word on video.
Rick said to convention-anchor Lyssa Legault, “Are you getting this, Lyssa?”
“We sure are, Rick,” Lyssa said, “every word and image.”
“I’ll cover as much as I can. Over to you, Lyssa.”
“You’re a real trooper and a half, Rick.”
During the chaos at the podium, Jessica Bueller, the Heavenly Home TV actress-turned-mainlining drug addict who was ultra-dependent on Mephistula/Stanton but decided to go rogue and come clean about the former First Lady, ran like the wind up to the podium where she joined Jefferson and Monique.
Jessica grabbed the interphone from Jefferson and shouted, “Ms. Stanton’s a damn fraud!”
Gasps of how-dare-she-outrage flooded the hall.
“She’ll keep you all hooked on some chain of dependency or another!” Jessica continued to shout into the interphone. “She kept me hooked on reefers, snow, angel dust, crack cocaine, ecstasy, hash, LSD — you name it, she kept me hooked on it! I know a lot about this —this FELON! I’ve posted it all on various websites all over the Internet and you can read it all! Just type ‘Jessica Bueller talks Stanton’ into your favorite search engine. YOU’LL SEE STANTON FOR THE SATANIC CON ARTIST SHE IS!”
Jessica gave the interphone back to Jefferson, after she, Jefferson and Monique spoke the most inconvenient truth of Mephistula/Stanton’s life. As a chillingly blended chorus of cheers and gasps of outrage and disbelief flooded the hall, Mephistula/Stanton sneaked over to a position well-concealed enough to fire at Jefferson, Monique and Jessica, drew the gun she seized from the Randy Rae woman and aimed it squarely at her detractors.
“And I am truly VERY sorry, America,” Jefferson pleaded loudly, “FOR LETTING THAT MY DEVIL-WIFE WITH A BLUE DRESS ON WEAR THE PANTS IN MY FAMILY, IN THE WHITE HOUSE, AND DURING MY TIME AS PRESIDENT OF YOUR UNITED —!”
Mephistula/Stanton fired several shots at Jefferson, Monique and Jessica Bueller, which caused the crowd to panic insanely!
All three victims fell to the floor side by side as the crowd gasped in revulsion and horror. Jefferson and Jessica died instantly, while Monique was seriously but not critically wounded.
“Can you believe this?!” Rick said into his microphone while on-air. “Former First Lady Mallory Ignacia Stanton has just shot her former President-husband Jefferson Innes Stanton, along with two women! Lyssa, there have been presidential assassinations before in American history, but this is the first time a US President has been assassinated after leaving office, and by his own wife and former First Lady!”
Mephistula/Stanton ran towards the exit, as the team of FBI Agents dashed after Mephistula/Stanton in hot pursuit and while Tranxa-as-Astra ran straight towards her for an “ambush interview.”
“Oh, no!” Mephistula/Stanton groaned as Tranxa-as-Astra dashed towards her.
“What the hell does that crazy chica Astra Downey thinks she’s doing?!” Valdez said rapidly with a moderately thick Hispanic accent, as Tranxa-as-Astra got in front of Mephistula/Stanton first to falsely ambush-interview her.
“Hello, Ms. Stanton!” Tranxa-as-Astra said with catty rapidity, “I’m Astra Downey with The Bull-Free Truth with Astra Downey —!”
“Outta my way, fake-newsie!” Mephistula/Stanton shouted at Tranxa-as-Astra.
“Could you comment on what just happened now —?!”
“NO COMMENT!”
“Could you at least explain why you blew away your husband and former President Stanton and Jessica Bueller, and almost killed Monique Levy —?!”
“NO COMMENT!”
“Could you at least make a statement —?!”
“I SAID NO COMMENT!”
“Well, if that’s the way you want it —!”
Tranxa-as-Astra quickly sprinkled some garlic powder from inside the hollowed-out mic into Mephistula/Stanton’s face.
Everyone presen
t screamed in panic, as former First Lady Mallory Ignacia Stanton, like a bat forced into daylight, hissed with gut-wrenching terrifying ferocity as she quickly morphed into a female version of “Mr. Hyde.”
COCKPIT OF FIGHTER-SPACECRAFT “BLUE 1”
15:49 COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (EARTH-TIME)
My sensors indicate that our presence has been detected by the Skandario’s sensors, spoke Blue 1’s computer into Mike’s mind. Shall I use chaff-dissuaders?
No, Blue 1, Mike spoke to Blue 1 with his mind. We’ve got the upper hand now, and besides… I’d like a word with that mean, dirty planet-killer Trudierre. Open full communications with the Skandario’s bridge, Blue 1.
Blue 1’s computer spoke into Mike’s mind, Affirmative, Mike.
BRIDGE OF HRMKS SKANDARIO
15:57 COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME (EARTH-TIME)
“Your Excellency,” the Skandario’s communications officer reported, “the unknown KF-18 is trying to hail us on full video. Its call-name is Blue 1.”
Trudierre grew simultaneously furious and giddy with killer’s delight.
“Blue 1, eh?” Trudierre said. “Put the pilot on, com-officer.”
“Yes, Your Excellency” the communications officer said, while touching some touch-pad buttons. “I have Blue 1 ready for you now.”
“Thank you, com-officer” Trudierre said.
Mike’s confident Cheshire cat-grinning face from Blue 1’s cockpit graced the Skandario’s main viewscreen, which infuriated Trudierre. A confident Mike spoke with witty mock Southern folksiness, “Howdy, Your Excellency! I’m Mike Bonhoeffer, Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge and Chaplain with the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the You-Knighted States of America, from the little ol’ planet Earth. You know, that little ol’ piece of global real estate you’re just itching to blow to kingdom come?
“You know, Potty-head,” Mike merrily continued as he talked like Huckleberry Hound, “it ain’t nice goin’ ’round blasting planets to smithereens like some Darth Vader wannabe. Or goin’ ’bout outer space conductin’ sicko scorched planet policies or that stuff. My people’s presidents, they awls got themselves into right plenty of hot water, goin’ ’round the world, doin’ awful bad stuff like that —”