by Paul Phipps
“But… But… We DIDN’T have anything to do with this incident!” The reporter said in shock.
“Perhaps not, but it IS your government. Do your job and find out why this incident occurred.” Evana directed her. “No more questions!” And then she turned her back on them.
She looked over the crowd who were dispersing quickly and saw Colonel James by the Entrance to the Institute building. She started to walk toward her and was communicating quickly.
Captain Thomas/ Comm Mode: Dawn please lift off and pick up Colonel James and myself at the entrance to the Institute. Admiral Webster, thank you for the magnificent backup!”
Dawn Seeker/ Comm Mode: “Aye Aye Captain, I’m on my way!”
Fleet Admiral Webster/ Comm Mode: “Yes, it seems to have done the trick. I think that I will be visiting the nation of Iceland. I have some very pointed questions to ask.”
Captain Thomas/ Comm Mode: “Yes sir, I think that is a fair thing to do. I suggest a month or so though. Let them get a chance to think it over before you show up.”
Fleet Admiral Webster/ Comm Mode: “Yes and maybe their dry cleaning will be back by then too!” He added with a mental chuckle.
* * *
At that moment in time a heavily encrypted satellite phone call was in progress.
“Master… I’ve failed to retrieve the pilot or the TSN Vessel.”
“How did this happen?” asked the cultured yet frigid voice. “She was alone; you had plenty of time to get your people into position. She is the least aggressive of them and was unarmed.”
“We tried to get her to surrender herself and her ship. It was all being televised, we were being reasonable. She should have gone along with it for form’s sake. Just as her previous military training would have her do.
She said ‘No’ and the sky grew dark with the ships of the Terran Space Navy, hundreds maybe thousands of them, one was almost as big as my nation!”
“I see… Now I am still trapped here behind this Allah cursed wall. And the Mother’s calls are becoming more insistent. I must go to her and… I CAN’T get to her!”
“What do you want me to do now, Master?” The voice said with a quaver.
A high pitched squeal came through the telephone another squeal answered it in turn.
“You have your orders… Slave.” The rich tone of the cultured voice was heard again.
Then there was the sound of a single gunshot and the sound of a body and the telephone hitting the floor.
“At least you knew how to accomplish that one.” And the connection was canceled.
* * *
Across the world there flashed the news of what was happening in Reykjavik Iceland. What had started off as a minor incident grew to one of International proportions. The news media was in full cry demanding to KNOW everything.
And then there was an awful silence as all of the vessels of the Terran Space Navy appeared in the skies of Iceland. The shock was palpable in the halls of national governments everywhere. Many of them realized at that moment what they called their armed forces were as nothing. Their weaponry and their power to project military force to impose their national will on other nations was so totally eclipsed as to be ludicrous in comparison.
Not a single shot was fired, no one was injured and nothing was damaged except a few egos.
In the Pentagon of the United States Secretary of Defense Anderson was receiving a very, very private and heavily encrypted phone call.
“Yes sir, I’m trying to sir…” he said
“I don’t care what you have to do, get me out of here!” The cultured tone of voice was gone in its place was a savage cruel tone the Secretary had never heard before.
“Until the Congress passes that resolution they won’t cooperate with us any further sir.” The Secretary said.
“Then I want you to personally go to that ship, the Epiphany, and make sure the Commanding Officer and his Executive Officer are implanted with a Q-MOT. You can do that can’t you?” The silky smooth tone of voice returned.
“Yes Sir! I can do that.” The secretary told him.
“Let me know when it is done.” And the connection was dropped.
* * *
While on her way back to the Comfort Evana was having a meeting with her fellow officers and Fleet Admiral Webster. As a courtesy Colonel James was invited to attend since she had been present at the incident.
“Let me begin by saying that the events that led up to this incident were not anticipated by any of us, Human or AI.” Fleet Admiral Webster began. “Of all of the Nations on this Earth, Iceland ranks as one of the least aggressive. They only have four naval vessels of their own and those are of the Frigate Class, their Army has only five hundred active members and the rest of the male populace is considered to be on Reserve status up to the age of sixty.
So why did they act this way? Any suggestions?”
Johan, the Command A.I. of the Companion spoke up. “I have some information there. Our IGD’s assigned to monitor the ‘Great Leader’ picked up his side of a Satellite Phone call that he received just before Captain Thomas left the Institute site. As usual he is using the 512 bit encryption on his communications. So it will take some time to de-encrypt the communication so that we hear both sides. May I play back what we recorded?
“Yes, please do so Johan.” The Admiral Directed.
“How did this happen?” asked the cultured yet frigid voice. “She was alone; you had plenty of time to get your people into position. She is the least aggressive of them and was unarmed.”
“I see… Now I am still trapped here behind this Allah cursed wall. And the Mother’s calls are becoming more insistent. I must go to her and… I CAN’T get to her!”
“You have your orders… Slave.”
“At least you knew how to accomplish that one.”
Johan then announced, “He is making another one right now. Do you want to hear his side of the communication?”
“Definitely!” The Admiral said.
“I don’t care what you have to do, get me out of here!”
“Then I want you to personally go to that ship, the Epiphany, and make sure the Commanding Officer and his Executive Officer are implanted with a Q-MOT. You can do that can’t you?”
“Let me know when it is done.”
“Well!” Evana said explosively, “We know who is pulling the strings here. He sounds like he is getting desperate. She finished up in a normal tone of voice.
“Yes, he does sound like it doesn’t he?” Lt. Commander Fuller. “I wonder if we can be a bit more proactive here?” He mused out loud.
“Pro-active, Albert?” His wife Commander Fuller the Commanding Officer of the Companion asked.
“Yes, pro-active Catherine. One method would be for the Secretary to have an unfortunate heart attack, another would be for his plane to go down with all hands over the Pacific and no bodies would ever be found. And yet another would be for him to go to the Epiphany and be caught on video surveillance attempting to parasitize the Commanding and Executive Officers. He could then be removed from his position. These are all various scenarios, the key point here is that the man is in a position of power over the military forces of the United States. And he is now an agent of the Quarn and the Great Leader.”
“Hmmm, well Albert you do have a good point there. I’m not sure if we should act unilaterally or not. He still is a good source of information. The bad side of that is the question about how many of the top officers in the Pentagon he has infected with these Q-Mots.” The Admiral said quietly. At that point he looked over at Colonel James whose mouth was open in shock.
“Would you like to say something Colonel?” The admiral asked her.
For a few moments she looked like she was unable to speak and then she said slowly as if she was carefully thinking and choosing her words.
>
“I know that voice, I don’t remember from where but I know that voice. And the secretary you are speaking about, is that the Secretary of DEFENSE, correct? And pardon me, what the hell is a Quarn or a Q-Mot?” She finished with her voice rising at the end.
“Hmmmph, Well Colonel James, perhaps congratulations are in order, you are now on the front lines of a potential global war. Who was doing the Speaking? That was the Former President-for-Life of the United States now known as the Great Leader. And yes the second person he was speaking to is probably Secretary of Defense Anderson.
What is a Quarn? Evana, I mean Captain Thomas, when we are done here please give the Colonel a COMPLETE briefing about the Quarn.” He told Evana looking at her directly. “Colonel James, the only other people who know about the Quarn are President Richardson, Anne Richardson his wife and the Secret Service detachment that guards them.
I’ll make this very brief because the good Captain here will bring you up to speed. We, that is, the Earth, have been invaded by an alien species. We believe that the former President-for-life was the first human parasitized by the ‘Mother’ when she first came to Earth when he was a small boy around ten years old.
We only recently and I mean within the last couple of weeks have discovered this information. We are still trying to work out a decent response that will stop the invasion. There are a lot of complications though and we have to deal with those too.”
At that point Seeker interrupted the Admiral and said ‘Admiral Webster, I believe that we now know who the Great Leader was talking to the first time.” A different hologram formed at the end of the table where her McAndrews Hologram had been.
There was FOX/CNN’s logo blaring and the words “SPECIAL REPORT – International Incident in Iceland!”
For the next fifteen minutes they watched the incident with Captain Thomas and the Icelandic Police and Military authorities through the eyes of the News Camera and commentary of the Reporter. At the end though was the final piece of information that completed a part of the puzzle.
The Prime Minister of Iceland was being reported as having committed suicide in his office just after Evana and Colonel James had left Icelandic airspace.
“It appears you have a point Seeker, it does look like the Prime Minister of Iceland was the first person and from the conversation he was probably Parasitized and made into a Quarn slave.” Lt. Commander Fuller said into the silence.
“Thank you, Now what do you suggest we do?” She asked the gathering of Human officers.
Ansel indicated that he wished to speak. Admiral Webster in turn indicated that he was free to do so.
“Admiral, Seeker, I think we need to see how far the rot is set in at the Pentagon. We know from Secretary Gore-Simmon’s Engram that the entire upper echelon of Homeland Security is comprised of the Act-Now Factions personnel. So if the United States armed forces are similarly compromised by the Quarn or Act-Now people then it is going to be very difficult to turn that around.
So with that being said I propose that I invite Admiral Caparelli and any of the other Joint Chiefs of Staff that desire to, come to Camp Heinlein to see our training facilities. We will use the excuse that we are looking for experienced military officers input on how to build a great training program for our people. We can also request that they bring along anyone else who might be interested in seeing what we are about.
This will give us an opportunity to see how many are parasitized by the Quarn and possibly alert them to the dangers we are about to encounter.”
“I like it, but before you go and extend the invite let me talk to President Richardson first. He may have other ideas that are just as useful.” Admiral Webster said.
Evana at that point wanted to speak. “Alessandria and Dr. Davis have been working extensively on the Quarn parasitized people we have on board the Louis Pasteur. Neither of them have an aggressive military type personality, this means that they have been working and looking for a ‘cure’. They have reported to me that once a person is parasitized, it’s over for the original human personality. That human personality is permanently ‘dead’. This in turn leaves them at a dead end, neither of them can ‘see’ what else could be done after that point had been reached. What I think we need now is to develop a weapon of perhaps weapons that target and kill only Quarn parasitized people. And due to the nature of the problem we are going to need a medical frame of mind that can assist with that.” Evana paused at that point and looked around for comments.
Lt. Commander Fuller spoke up, “I think I see where you are going here. Do you need some assistance to accomplish this?”
“Yes I do, the Comfort is a Hospital ship and that means that we are in the opposite frame of mind from a fighting ship and the people who occupy one. What I think is that a dedicated Research and Development section needs to be established to handle problems like this.
Alessandria and our fabricators did come up with a means of detecting and sterilizing the De1t8 and Shaitan’s Breath spores. But that was approached from the aspect of disease detection and eradication. I believe that if Alessandria was directed to develop weapons against the Quarn, it will corrupt her current ‘frame of mind’ that is dedicated to saving lives. I think that is a very dangerous direction to go in.”
Seeker stepped in at that moment, “Evana, that’s very astute of you. You have a very good point about corruption of purpose. And we, that is, the AI’s of the TSN know this can happen to us. We’re on guard for it, but just like humans, corruption can sneak in when we are trying to do good deeds. You have a wonderful proverb, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
The others and I will ponder this question of yours. I’ll get back to you later today on it, ok?” Seeker finished up.
“That sounds good to me.” Evana told her and then continued on a bit wistfully, “I wish the team from USAMRIID was still on board, they have the proper frame of mind for this task.”
“That’s true and you have worked with them also. Perhaps we can get them back for a consultation period?” Lt. Commander Fuller said in agreement. He then looked over at Admiral Webster and raised one eyebrow in a question.
“When I talk to President Richardson, I’ll bring it up.” He promised the group as a whole.
Haridu, Iraq Province, Iranian Unified Republic, Wednesday, December 30, 2026
The Archaeological Dig sponsored by the University of Hamburg has been operating even though the Nation of the IUR has been blockaded by the Terran Space Navy. The Archaeologists and their Under-graduate students have noted the blue force field that appears to the west of them. But it is only as a curiosity. Their real interests lay below them and far, far in the past.
“Greg!” Professor Li shouted as he slammed the door of the trailer that he and Professor Gregory Anagnostis shared and worked the site from. “The Embassy sent a courier! They are closing down next week, we won’t have any more diplomatic support and they are recommending we evacuate with them too!”
“What?” Greg said in confusion as he looked up from the nearly whole tablet of cuneiform writing before him. “Huang my friend, start at the beginning please.”
Professor Li Huang stopped and slowed down his racing mind. He retold his colleague and fellow team leader as well as friendly rival on occasion, the latest news from the German Embassy in Tehran.
“Really? What do our hosts say?” Professor Anagnostis asked.
“Captain Fahr says that his detachment is being reassigned and they are leaving next week. That means no defense against those damn raiders. With the Embassy closing down we’re without any support here at all.” Professor Li told him as he busied his hands making up a pot of green tea from his home province in China.
“Well, we did discuss this almost a month ago. It’s time to pack up our finds. Do we still have access to those two trucks Captain Fahr told us we could use?”
“I don’t think so. One has a busted axle from these horrific roads and the other left yesterd
ay on a supply run to Baghdad. I imagine it won’t be back.” Professor Li said gloomily.
“Alright then.” Greg said and then paused, after a bit of thinking he started to rummage in a footlocker in his room. Then with a yell of satisfaction, “YES! I thought it was here.”
He came trotting out into the common area to see Professor Li looking over the hard baked clay tablet just as he had earlier. With a chuckle he said. “It’s fascinating isn’t it? It looks Sumerian to me. But either the scribe was more meticulous or it was done by machine, every mark looks precisely uniform don’t they?”
“It does look that way at first. Have you started to translate it?” Professor Li asked.