Some of the other Ra, even some of the halfbloods, had chastised him for being so picky, all except his parents. Rion’s mother was always encouraging. Nature has a way of drawing us to those we’re supposed to be with, she would assure him. Too many people tried to hurry the process, he remembered her saying. Eternally young and immortal, he had not been in any kind of hurry to find someone.
His thoughts returned to Serena again. I bet she looks great in a bikini, he smiled to himself. But there was much more to Serena than her nice curves. Rion couldn’t put his finger on just exactly what it was. Maybe it was a lot of things; like she was truly multi-faceted with all the things that impressed him. For sure, she had incredible wit. Naturally talented in music. He wondered if that’s what she would be called when she was finally awakened—the Goddess of Music. Sevrin would no doubt add her to his list of ‘Muses’, as he liked to call them. They were members of the family that were naturally talented in whatever arts they’d chosen for themselves. If Humans thought the gifteds were unusually talented, they’d be awestruck with the elites within the family who made up that tiny band of Ra muse talent.
He found his hand sliding over the empty sheet on the bed next to himself again. He sighed, rolling over to look at the empty side of the bed. He finally had to admit to himself. Something was missing; and that something was looking more and more like Serena.
Feeling his deep longing for the Texas Belle actually unnerved him. Not Serena herself, but that there was a lot to Rion and his family that she was still completely in the dark about; maybe things she could never and would never be told. He lived a good part of his life in a highly clandestine atmosphere, under a constant threat of war with the old ones. But what kind of relationship would that be if she were always kept in the dark? Not one Rion would be interested in! He wanted to share his life, his dreams, his ambitions, achievements and accomplishments––not hide them; and he would want to do whatever he could to make her dreams and ambitions come true as well.
That sudden realization made Rion sit up on one elbow looking at her side of the bed. Serena wasn’t just another woman in his life, she was undoubtedly a newblood, and very probably Invicti. He sighed. She needed to be awakened. She had her own destiny to fulfill.
Rion again smoothed his hand over the empty sheets. No, there would be no secrets between them if their friendship progressed any further. Secrecy was a recipe for disaster between couples; that’s what Dad had always said.
Couples. Rion flopped back onto his back again, groaning a sigh. He was pretty sure Serena would want to get married. But that was something only Humans did, not gods. And right now Serena was completely immersed in Humanity and its culture. She wouldn’t understand Ra relationships. She lived and thought like a Human—not at all like a Ra.
That thought led to a mountain of dread. At some point he would have to be completely honest with Serena. In many ways Human culture was still incredibly barbaric; immutable; unyielding, and toxic. The Ra didn’t care about Human morays, governments, laws, or any of that. Rion and his family and their various enterprises probably broke enough of Humanity’s local and international laws each day to send them all to prison for several lifetimes if not outright executed. His own security company was just the tip of the iceberg. He didn’t even want to think about what Carson and Dominion, let alone the Dark Clan, did for all of them.
Rion sighed. There was probably a lot of ground to cover between now and whenever, if Rion and Serena ever ‘coupled’. His thoughts slipped back to envisioning Serena in a bikini. He couldn’t wait to see what she actually looked like in one—but his thoughts about Serena would have to wait.
The repercussions of last night’s work would already be coming down hard in the papers and news broadcasts today. In a manner of speaking, some very important rails to a track that had taken years to lay down were now suddenly missing. All that remained was to watch the train wreck happen in slow motion.
10
S erena awoke feeling back to normal once again. In fact, she felt better than normal—she felt wonderful. She usually felt a little crummy for several days after being under the weather. But not this time. Whatever bug she had caught had not lasted long, thank goodness. The whole event had left her feeling energized with renewed vigor.
She changed into some running pants and a couple of long-sleeved tees for warmth and went out for a quick walk in the cool morning air. She didn’t want to over-do it with a run along the trails so she made due with the walkways around the campus. Wow, it was an amazing day. She just felt so alive!
Her walk ended by the cafeteria where she found some breakfast. The flat panel TVs were always on in the cafeteria; usually the channel was set to the news or one of the soap operas.
This morning, everyone seemed to be glued to the news as she found a table and sat down. Serena had already begun eating when someone cranked-up the sound on the monitors. She hated that. Can’t they just read the caption like everyone else? she thought. She frowned indifferently at the screen to see what the excitement was all about. She suddenly stopped chewing—and just stared at the caption at the bottom of the screen.
US Intercepts Chinese Missiles
“… is a very embarrassing issue for the Chinese government, is it not, Jonathan?”
“This is more than just embarrassing, Shep. If, and I emphasize, if the initial reports of the origin of these missiles are indeed true, and from all accounts it appears they are, the interception of these missiles, missiles that were already in flight and heading for U.S. targets, represents an unmitigated act of war.”
“Couldn’t it have just been a mistake, Jonathan, a training exercise gone horribly wrong?”
“Sure, and that could indeed be the excuse or rationalization that we get from the Chinese government. One or even two missiles veering off course to potentially strike a U.S. population center by accident, sure, that’s possibly a horrible mistake. But, Shep, forty-seven?? How do you lose control of forty-seven simultaneously launched nuclear missiles, all of them heading for various places on U.S. soil? That just seems like a massive stretch of reality and does not happen by accident.”
“Of course this morning Beijing is adamantly and quite forcefully, I might add, demanding that they had nothing to do with this apparent attack on the U.S. In fact, aren’t they denying the entire incident even happened? Are we as Americans really going to believe them?”
“Well, Shep, this opens up a number of really ugly possibilities that I think the Joint Chiefs are going to have to come to grips with. The first possibility is that Beijing is just flat out lying and they willfully launched an attack against a major superpower for their own nefarious reasons. The other is that there are rogue or hard-line elements of leadership within their military or government who perpetrated this act without official sanction by China’s Communist government.”
“Neither of which is really a consolation, I might add,” the news anchor appended.
“No, it’s not. Any way you look at it, it’s a heinous act of war, whatever the excuse or reason.”
“The other interesting twist is that this whole thing happens while the President is in Beijing meeting with China’s Communist leadership for the U.S. / China Trade Summit.”
“Indeed, Shep. We reported last week that the President was taking an unprecedented number of commercial planes to China for his entire cabinet and even many of his own party from Congress are in Beijing right now. Even two of his own appointed Supreme Court justices were invited guests. It’s unthinkable, but the President and the highest members of his own cabinet and party are suddenly ‘out of town’ at the same moment China decides to launch a major nuclear strike against the U.S. That would seem like just too much of a coincidence for many of us to swallow.”
“Hmm, that is interesting. And where is the Vice President right now?”
“We’re told he’s been in meetings with both the Joint Chiefs and in telephone conversations with the President and m
embers of Congress. But again, Shep, nearly half of the President’s party in Congress are in China right now and we don’t know what kind of communication is going on between them. Are the Chinese allowing them to do anything? We just don’t know at this point. The President has made no public appearances since the attack …”
The older balding man entered the elevator. He had never been in this complex before. The four squads of heavily armed Marines who now escorted him had deliberately and without warning relieved the Secret Service of their responsibilities and left all of the black-suited agents scratching their heads about what to do next.
The elevator doors finally opened after a very long descent. The complex was nicely decorated, not unlike some of the posh law offices he spent most of his life in and out of. He was escorted to a large intelligence room filled with numerous busy military personnel working in a kind of pit command center the high-tech likes of which he had never seen before.
Wow. The place was impressive. A meeting was already in progress within a large meeting room with a glass wall facing the command center. He recognized a couple of the Joint Chiefs whom he knew personally, some Congressional members on the Armed Services Committee and the Chief Justice also sat at the table.
“Mr. Vice President,” the Joint Chief began, “Welcome. Please, have a seat. We were just discussing you.”
“Me? What’s this all about?” he demanded.
The uniformed general stared at the elder man, his eyes like steel. “What do you know about last night’s attack?”
The old man looked around the room. Every eye was on him. He suddenly realized this was not a briefing. It was an interrogation. He quickly changed his tone.
“Listen people, I know as much as you do. I was supposed to be on my way to a video briefing with the president when my motorcade was intercepted by your MP’s.”
The disbelieving looks he saw from around the room now made him nervous. The problem was, they all knew him and he knew all of them. He had made his decades-long political career out of half-truths and outright lies. They all had on the political side of the aisle. Democrat, Republican or Independent, it didn’t matter. It was the nature of the business. It was understandable they didn’t believe a word coming out of his mouth at the moment.
The Join Chief turned his attention to someone else in the room. “Julia?” he asked.
“He’s telling the truth,” the woman he had never seen before chimed in, her long dark brunette hair flowed over her shoulders and gifted chest curves. She was absolutely beautiful. He’d never seen anyone so striking. “They kept him out of the loop. That’s not surprising.” She grimaced at him.
“Kept me out of the loop about what?” he demanded.
“Don’t get excited, Fred,” Mark, one of the Senators seated at the table, calmed the Vice President. “We’re here to try to sort this out and find out who knew what and when they knew it. It appears they kept you in the dark on this.”
“Hell, they keep me in the dark about everything,” he grumbled.
“Well, in this case you should be glad they did,” Mark assured the nervous man. He then continued the conversation they were having when the Vice President had been escorted in. Mark turned his attention toward a former federal judge whom Fred had seen around—he was someone who was no friend to the administration.
“Brian, there’s a good chance that a majority of those people over there right now didn’t know about this. We need to know how high up this went.”
“If we start pointing fingers right now, we could scare them off,” Brian stated. “We need to have them come back here thinking they are still in charge. If we play dumb, they may all just come back and we can nab the bastards then.”
“What do you mean by, ‘thinking they are still in charge’?” the Vice President interjected.
The room was suddenly silent. Fred hadn’t been privy to the beginning of the meeting that had been going on now for hours.
“Fred, you may not realize it,” one of the Joint Chiefs began, “But as of this moment, as far as these Joint Chiefs are concerned, you are now the President of the United States. When and if your predecessor gets back to American soil, as the Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, he will be arrested and tried for treason under the UCMJ. There won’t be an impeachment proceeding.”
“What!?” Fred shot a glance at Brian. “That’s not Constitutional! You—you cannot just remove a sitting president without a Congressional impeachment. Can you?” He shot a glare at the Chief Justice.
“When a sitting President commits an act of high treason, especially one this heinous, Fred, actually conspiring with what we thought was an ally to murder millions of Americans via nuclear strike; that is by nature a wholly military act. The Court is not going interfere with how the Armed Services Courts deal with him at that point. There won’t be a civilian criminal trial. He will be arrested and formally impeached, but under the UCMJ.”
“But that will cause riots. Do you know how popular he is right now?”
“I don’t give a damn if he’s the Messiah,” another Joint Chief retorted. “That bastard launched nearly fifty nukes at us, Fred! He provided aid and comfort to the enemy by giving them access to our most sensitive defense systems and tied up our GMD’s and Minuteman silos with Chinese-authored code making us utterly defenseless against their attack. Alot of their missiles were specifically targeted at military installations. They left the major population centers alone. This was wholly intended to be a military strike designed to cripple American defenses. A couple of those birds were heading for secret fleet positions known only to the top unified commanders.”
Fred couldn’t believe his ears. But it all made sense now. So that is what the “big secret” was that everyone had been keeping him out of!
He frowned now, nodding. “I think I may know who is involved with this,” he offered. “Maybe not everyone, but I can tell you who has been keeping me out of those meetings and in the dark this whole time. But you’re wrong. The President had nothing to do with what was being discussed within those meetings. He wasn’t in them. Someone named Rigel was.”
The woman cast her glace at Brian and the other Joint Chiefs, nodding her approval of what the Vice President had just said.
“Fred,” Brian began, “the president’s new adviser, Amethyst. What does she know?”
“Amy? What doesn’t she know,” the Vice President retorted. “Sometimes it feels like she’s more in-charge than Brett is.”
“Then it’s what we’ve been thinking all along, Fred,” Brian began again, “your administration is being puppeted.”
“By who, Brian? The Chinese? Hardly.” He scoffed.
“No, the Chinese are in the same boat your administration is in. They are being puppeted as well.”
“Well, whoever these puppet masters are, I will tell you this—they’re not stupid, and neither is Brett. This was no small effort, and for whatever reasons, their big plan just failed. My guess is that they are going to try to spin this every which way from Sunday. Make it seem like it never happened. Believe me, you won’t even see this in the press.”
“Brian?” the Joint Chief began. “If the administration tries to spin this, how do we combat their media spin?”
Brian frowned. “You don’t, general. We saw someone literally get shot on national TV during the Health Care Hearing and the media all but killed the story. Spun it as just so much nonsense and political noise. It’s going to be hard for us to prove that we even took out their missiles.”
“I agree,” Mark added. “They have multiple layers of plausible deniability here. If it gets that far, they can claim that some unauthorized faction within the Chinese military launched the missiles as retribution for the devastation in Shanghai. We’re fucked,” he fumed.
“Not as fucked as we would have been had those missiles been allowed to hit,” Fred muttered darkly.
Others were nodding their agreement across the table.
“What do you want us to do, Fred? You are the president at this moment as far as all of us are concerned.”
Fred tried on his Presidential shoes for the first time, “What’s the state of our defenses now if they try something like this again?”
Mark, one of the other Joint Chiefs, smiled, “We’re at a hundred percent of our defensive capability and at full alert, Mr. President.”
“What about our defense systems? You said Brett allowed enemy access to them. Have we taken steps to mitigate their infiltration?”
“We have. New software has overwritten whatever the enemy had put in place within the affected systems. We’re clean.”
“Mark, do we know how they got into those systems to begin with?”
“They were given official access as part of joint training exercises. It was during these access windows that they uploaded malicious code. Thanks to some very observant contract security staff, we detected the tampering and sent some of our best people in to undo the damage, and not a moment too soon. We blasted those birds out of the sky before many of them even reached apogee.”
“Heads are probably rolling in Beijing right about now,” Fred snickered.
“I’m sure of that,” Mark agree, a half grin crossing his lips.
“Here’s what I’m not going to do, people. I’m not going to make a huge deal out of this.”
“WHAT?” Mark looked at him like he had lost his mind.
“Listen, all of you. I’ve seen first hand how these people operate. They’re smart. Fucking smart. There’s a good chance they already have a plan in place to mitigate the fall out from this, no pun intended. If we challenge them directly, we’ll get crushed. Just like what happened with the last purge. All of you sitting here will be out. Trust me, I watched it happen.”
Interra (Awakened Series Book 5) Page 8