It's Hell to Choose

by Michael Anderle

  Erika clicked the mute button, “Matias, can you zoom in on the bridge?” He did, and she confirmed her suspicion.

  Clicking the button, she continued, “I see two people on the bridge of the Ptah through our video. I cannot get a good view from here to be able to tell who they might be.”

  Stacia asked her over the headset, “Want me to get closer?”

  Erika replied, “Is it safe? How are they lifting those things?”

  Stacia admitted, “No idea and therefore it probably isn’t safe. For all I know, they are playing with gravity, and it will mess up the helicopter.”

  Erika replied, “I’d rather live.” Stacia nodded her acceptance.

  “The Ptah is now past our height, and you can see the Vulcan rising now. Every once in a while more water cascades down the ship and showers down to the ocean below. The three black ships look majestic as they seem to float higher.”

  —

  “William, this is Jeffrey.”

  William reached over and clicked the button, “Yeah boss?”

  “What would happen if one of those helicopters fly too close?”

  “Well, did you ask Marcus?” William responded, confident Jeffrey HAD, in fact, asked the scientist who might have told him bad news in an undecipherable version of English.

  “Yes. I can’t repeat what he said. Not because it was foul, but because it had too many syllables.” William heard Bobcat chuckling in the background.

  “I imagine the gravity field would have to be shrunk up closer to the hull. I doubt we can pull it in closer than 20 feet for safety reasons. If they come inside that? Well, they would probably bounce off the reversed gravity. In which case, they best hope they have a hell of a pilot.”

  “Ok, that is what I thought.” Jeffrey clicked off.

  —

  TQB Base - Colorado, USA

  >>Bethany Anne.<<

  Yes?

  >>Do you have a moment?<<

  I’m about to call Nathan to check up on him, why?

  >>I’m intercepting commands that France is scrambling jets to go see if our three mining platforms can be forced to land.<<

  Bethany Anne put out a hand to John and waved him her way as she reached to grab his shoulder.

  Do they have commands to use force?

  >>Not at this time.<<

  Grabbing his shoulder, the two of them disappeared and reappeared in her closet in Florida. She kicked off her shoes, “John, would you call Ashur up here? I think he’s enjoying himself out in the backyard.”

  John stepped to the closet door and unlocked it. “Where are we going?”

  “Ad Aeternitatem, tell them I want a flight of 12 prepared for lift off, 4 should be the new Black Eagles, One for me…”

  John nodded and started heading out, calling for Ashur.

  Bethany Anne switched to her all black space suit. She knew it was like wearing a spandex full body suit that clung to the skin like paint. She grabbed her dark red half jacket to drape over her shoulders and grabbed her boots that had been made to ‘look good’ with the suit, and be useful should decompression ever happen. Her helmet was on the Ad Aeternitatem.

  She glanced in the mirror. Satisfied, she stepped out and locked the door. She was halfway to the stairs to go down when John and Ashur came up quickly. Both turned around, and Bethany Anne stepped between them, grabbing Ashur with her left hand and John with her right. The next moment, they appeared on the Ad Aeternitatem.

  John opened the door and stepped out, nodding at the Guardian on duty and stepped side. There was an ‘ooohwahh’ sound throughout the ship. Bethany Anne could hear people reacting to get to battle stations.

  >> The jets have just made it into the air, ETA is five minutes.<<

  What kind of time will the ships need?

  >>They are expecting a thirty-minute window for testing before they go into outer space.<<

  Can you confirm they are in International Airspace?

  >>Yes, they are.<<

  Tell the team that they should move an additional five miles away perpendicular to land right now, and let them know the cavalry is on its way.

  She walked down the stairs and nodded to her team, including Peter and Todd Jenkins, who stood next to her baby, her beauty.

  Oh, her pod gleamed in dark black with a ‘shark mouth’ painted on the front like old American P-51’s in WWII.

  When it became apparent that they would probably have to handle air to air combat, Jeffrey and Marcus got together with Paul Jameson to understand the present air combat methods.

  So far, the team had only eight of the Black Eagles but damned they looked good. Sleeker than the pods, you got in them from the top like a regular jet. They had a longer body with a triangle design. The armament would be attached on the sides depending on the deployment. The ‘wings’ would be shorter than what would be necessary for real flight as they needed to stay within the bubble of anti-gravity. Bethany Anne had been amused when she was shown the ‘x-wing’ configuration. The rail gun would descend from underneath when deployed, but the missiles were tiny anti-gravity engines connected to a hockey puck-looking piece of tungsten.

  William had requested a unique set of tools (and backups) when the call to work with tungsten came in, as the material was so damned dense. However, it went through steel and cement block tests when accelerated to Mach 10. With the ability to move the device up to Mach 30, they would be considered ‘weapons of mass destruction’ should they impact the ground. Each stubby wing had twelve of these devices so that a deployment of four wings providing forty-eight weapons that could take out missiles, planes, ships and small towns.

  Bethany Anne prayed to God that never happened. But if those mother-fuckers thought they would disobey International Law by forcing her ships down…?

  Well, fuck that. They should have come with bigger sticks.

  Peter handed her the helmet that worked with her suit. She looked to the two, “Have you been told anything?”

  Todd nodded, “Yeah, France has their panties in a twist over our flying ships and are seeing if a few jets can scare us down?”

  “Pretty much,” She agreed, “I’m not expecting to do anything but wave the flag, but if you wave a flag…”

  “Wave it proudly?” Peter smiled.

  Bethany Anne cocked her head slightly to the side, “Yeah, that works.” She turned to the other eight Guardians by their standard pods, “You guys are there to surround the ships. If a missile or someone stupid gets too close, get in between them and the ships. The engines on your Pods will block most munitions. Messing with our efforts will not be accepted. I’m playing by their fucking rules about taking off over water, but someone is getting pissy. Well, I’ll show them we don’t permit ‘pissy’.”

  Eight strong voices shouted back ‘Yes Ma’am!’

  She was surrounded by people who were ready to make sure nothing happened to their fellows.

  She stepped beside her Black Eagle and placed her hand on a circle beside the hatch. Reading her handprint, the cover rose up quickly. She noticed someone had decided to play a joke and stenciled her name next to the canopy.

  It said, “Pilot: Bethany ‘Bite Me’ Anne.” She looked over to John, who was getting in his own Black Eagle and she pointed at the name. “Is this your doing?”

  He looked down where she was pointing and then looked back to her face, “Um, No?” He palmed his own canopy and tried to keep his face straight without cracking a smile. She noticed he failed.

  Bethany Anne looked over at the woman who was taking care of the upper doors and nodded.

  She jumped in her ship as the doors above started to open. She locked herself down and hit the close canopy button, then prepped her computer connection.

  TOM, we ready?

  Of course. I can get you to the area, but I’m not going to be able to release any weapons for you, Bethany Anne.

  That’s not a problem TOM. If a decision like that needs to occur, well, they suck, but I will m
ake that decision.

  How do you want to leave?

  Like always, TOM. Take us out of here at 11…

  The two personal sail craft that had been hanging around the large Ad Aeternitatem, Polarus and Consanesco could hear the warning alarms coming across the water. They had seen the people running around on the ships, and they had their phones out taking video.

  Which, for them, was good. They were the first to capture the rapid release of twelve pods screaming out of the Ad Aeternitatem during the day. Unfortunately, they all seemed to be mostly blurs on the video when you looked at it frame by frame.

  Bethany Anne, how fast do you want to get to the ships?

  ADAM, how soon before the jets intercept the platforms?

  >>One minute, twelve seconds.<<

  There is your maximum answer, TOM.

  We are going to break some new records and if we don’t fly high enough, windows on ships, that sort of stuff.

  Get us there as fast as you can, but don’t hurt anyone on the way there.

  I understand.

  —

  “What the hell?” Erika was shocked when four French Mirage jets flew into the airspace. They separated into two groups of two and started their tight turns to come back around.

  She turned to Stacia, “Are we in French Airspace?”

  “No,” Stacia admitted, “we are probably about eight miles out now that the ships did that jog a couple of minutes ago.

  “Were we within their air space then?” Erika asked. She had already hit the record button and could see Matias was already taking more video.

  “No, they were at least two, if not three miles outside of French-controlled airspace before they lifted off the water.”

  Erika started her report, “This is Erika Lennisa. There is a new development here as the TQB ships have been what we think are testing efforts before they take these reconditioned cargo container ships up into outer space. I can see four French military aircraft with weapons on their wings now flying around the three ships. I don’t know how they are expecting to communicate with the ships as our own efforts to have any discussions have been rebuffed so far.”

  Erika took a breath, “We are trying to move our own communications to the channels usually reserved for Military and we are receiving what are obviously requests for these ships to land.”

  Then, a female’s voice interrupted the constant demands from the French captain who was speaking in accented English. “Negative, Captain. These ships are in International airspace and will not accept your illegal effort to force them to land. That you might want to review their technology is unacceptable.”

  “What? Who is this!” the Captain demanded.

  “Why do you care, Captain?” The voice demanded, “As you are illegally trying to force these ships down, why does it matter who is pointing this out to you?” The voice continued, “If a child identified the unethical behavior, would it have any less value?”

  There was a pause in the communications and Erika looked over to Stacia, who shrugged her shoulders as she tried to pilot the helicopter so Matias could get some good shots of the warplanes and the ships at the same time.

  “I am under orders to not allow these ships to leave. There are concerns that an illegal technology transfer has occurred and is leaving France. This will not be permitted.”

  “Oh, cut the bullshit.” The female voice replied, “No technology in France is even close. As evidenced by that fucking useless Mirage you are flying. Hell, you guys can’t get a rowboat to lift up in the air, much less a container ship.”

  “I demand to know who this is!” the now very annoyed-sounding Captain came back in reply. The four jets continued to circle the four ships, staying outside the helicopters which were now flying around closer to the three ships.

  “Demand all you want, it doesn’t mean I have to tell you. Besides, the cavalry is here you fucking overrated testicle pirate!”

  Erika’s mouth opened at the use of such language on a open line. Then, her face lost all sense of propriety as eight of the TQB Pods she had seen on video looked to ‘appear’ around the three ships between the helicopters and the fighter jets. She turned to look out at the fighters and realized where there had been two jets before, there were four for each group. Two mirages and two...of something else.

  They looked like black, stubby X-wings staying perfectly off the sides of the Mirage jets.

  “What are you doing!” the flustered Captain yelled over the channel.

  “It’s called giving you the finger!” the female replied. “In my group, it is a recognized symbol of rejecting authority. As in, your stupid ass has no power out here, and these ships are going to outer space. Whoever is in your country trying to steal this technology just made a grave mistake.”

  Erika watched in fascination as the Mirage jets went into rapid maneuvers to shake the sleeker-looking Pods, without any effect. They easily stayed next to the four planes.

  “Are you done showing off?” the voice asked, “because I can go to sleep while you run out of fuel and where is that going to leave us?”

  “And I can call in more planes!” the Captain said.

  “Well, I suppose so, but if you want to escalate this because your pilot’s ego is bruised, I wouldn’t suggest it,” the lady replied back.

  “We aren’t going to be able to stick around much longer, Erika!” Stacia called out, “The ships over here are starting to rise up higher. We are four thousand feet up, and I’m not sure how much higher we can go with our fuel load and make it back to land!”

  “Do what you can.” Erika answered and then turned the microphone back on, “As you can see from our video, there seem to be eight TQB Pods in a protective circle around the three ships which are rising up in the air. The suggestions that TQB has stolen any technology from France is, as the woman who is commanding these craft has mentioned, ludicrous. The four different Pods, these black winged pods, are easily keeping up with the Mirage fighters. So much so, that it is infuriating the French pilot who is in charge right now.”

  >>Bethany Anne, I am intercepting commands to the fighter jets to do a strafing run on the ships.<<

  What will that do with the gravity engines?

  >>Nothing, except the expended munitions will go somewhere.<<

  Aw…shit!

  Bethany Anne jumped on the radio, “This is Black Eagle One, repeat - This is Black Eagle One. These idiots are going to strafe the ships. Those bullets are liable to go ‘anywhere’ in the local area. Unless you can take a few 30mm rounds to your helicopters and shrug it off, I’d suggest backing off. You cannot land on those ships, the technology will not let you. Please heed this warning!”

  Sure enough, Erika noticed the four Mirage jets turning in towards the ships.

  How did they know this was going to happen? Stacia already had their helicopter turning sharply and slightly ‘up’.

  “Why are we going up?” Erika asked.

  “30mm rounds are heavy, they aren’t going to fly ‘up’ against gravity too far” she replied. “At least, I hope not” she amended.

  She watched the video from Matias as the four jets attacked the three ships. She could see the sparks as bullets hit something near the ship. One of the jets, heading in their direction from the pass suddenly started smoking.

  “You dipshits” the lady called out, “your ricochets have damaged your own plane!”

  Erika turned her head to watch as the aircraft continued past them. It angled back towards land.

  “Dammit. If you keep this shit up, I will be forced to respond. I will NOT allow you to hurt the people on those ships.”

  “You will land those ships…” he started to say.

  Bethany Anne tuned this idiot out and called on their private line, “Jeffrey, everyone good over there?”

  “Fine,” Jeffrey came back, “all of the rounds hit the bubble and bounced off. We didn’t even suffer a reduction in power. These engines might be a tad over-engineer
ed.”

  The two of them heard Marcus come on the line, “There is no such thing as ‘over-engineered’ when you are building the first of its kind to go to the asteroid belt!”

  Bethany Anne replied, “Agreed Marcus, now close down your connection unless I ask for it.”

  “Mayday, Mayday!” A new voice came online, “I’ve lost engine power.”

  “Squad ‘A’ go!” Bethany Anne ordered, and four of the standard Pods pulled out of formation and started tearing after the jet which had left earlier. The other four spread themselves out to close the gaps.