Kneel Or Die

by Michael Anderle

  Marcus rolled his eyes. He would never trade this life for anything he had before, but these two guys just kept pushing him beyond his comfort zone. Now they wanted a completely off the cuff answer that he was sure they would hold him to. “How heavy is it?”

  He looked back to Bobcat and William who seemed to be trying to do some sort of mind-meld and come up with an answer without speaking.

  Marcus was pleased. It wasn’t often he was able to play ‘stump the military guys’ and win. He took his coffee cup back over to their refreshment area and tossed out what was in it. He picked up a single serve pod of something French and stuck it in the little coffee maker. He loved this machine. As far as Marcus was concerned, he was living in the future right here, right now. His coffee finished, he tossed the little spent coffee Pod into the trash and took his beverage back over to the table. He started pulling up a spreadsheet to calculate weight to engine thrust abilities when William finally spoke.

  “Well, the space shuttle was about 80 tons, the external tank about 40 tons and each solid rocket booster was 93 tons. If we can use some of the nanotube technology TOM spoke about, we can reduce the weight. If a forty-foot container plus material takes two regular engines, then the space shuttle would take something like…” William started looking around for a pencil and some paper.

  Marcus plugged the numbers into his spreadsheet. “It would be about 18 engines for the Space Shuttle alone. Maybe 13 engines of the max size we can easily build. That is to launch it into space. Mind you, that’s not the same amount of thrust needed to also lift the fuel, fuel tanks and solid rocket boosters. Once you’re outside the gravity well of the planet, all of that thrust is going to seem like an insane amount of power to push the ship around.” He temporized, “unless you’re trying to move around in the gravity well of a gas giant. Then all bets are off.”

  Bobcat walked up to the whiteboard and reviewed some of the design team’s requests. “They want to go really, really fast. They have a request to be able to get to Pluto in 24 hours.” Bobcat turned to look at Marcus, “How far away is Pluto?”

  “Which part of the elliptical orbit? Nearest or farthest?” Bobcat continued to stare at Marcus, “Farthest, right... figures” Marcus stared up to the ceiling twenty feet above them, as if his answers were engraved in the rock above. “Well, at its farthest Pluto is 4.7 billion miles away from Earth so they want us to dream up something that will allow them to go about 195 million miles an hour or … ” He paused for a second to calculate this as well as he could. “Call it somewhere around three point two million miles per minute orrrrr … fifty-five thousand miles a second.”

  William asked, “Isn’t the speed of light something like one-hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second?”

  Marcus nodded while Bobcat whistled and said, “Now that’s fucking fast.”

  William nodded toward the whiteboard, “So they are asking us to help them push those large fuckers there at something like 30% the speed of light, right?”

  Marcus agreed, “Yes, we would say .3c.”

  William snapped his fingers and pointed at Marcus, “Wait! What about TOM’s engine? Can’t we just pop in and out of existence or whatever it does and be there?”

  Marcus shrugged, “As you two like to say, beats the fuck out of me. I’ve not worked with TOM on that stuff yet. All of my focus has been on the engines that work here in the atmosphere. I’ve not even enjoyed the fruits of my labor and been able to stick it to those NASA assholes with what I’ve accomplished so far!”

  Bobcat answered, “Waa! Cry us a river, Marcus. Your name is going to be heralded for centuries, but you’re going to have to toil in obscurity for a while yet. If you don’t we are all going to be tossed into the biggest, darkest dungeon the government has and all of your sweet toys are going to go bye-bye.”

  William added, “Besides, if you want to have some fun go speak with Frank. I hear he is going to release fictional stories about the team members.”

  Bobcat looked back to William, “I thought Frank didn’t have permission to print his Bethany Anne story until we are up on the moon or whatever?”

  William answered, “Bethany Anne agreed he could write up a lot as fiction to get it out there early, but he has to hide some of the important details.”

  Marcus asked, “Like what?”

  William grumped, “Do I look like his fucking agent? I don’t know! I imagine he can’t admit to anything she can do or maybe he still has to pretend vampires are allergic to garlic and all of that shit.”

  “Well,” Bobcat commented, “it’s true most vampires can’t go into the sun so why not add a few extra red herrings?”

  William agreed, “That would be hilarious! Imagine what could happen if the government thinks his bullshit is true? They have a big meeting and then ‘bang’ they bring out the garlic! They would shit their pants when nothing happens to keep away the vampires!”

  “They would ‘shit their pants’,” Marcus added, “if they knew the vampires could smell the garlic a city block away. It isn’t like a lot of people carry garlic with them.”

  Bobcat stared back at William, “That is fucking genius! We’ve got to talk to Frank about this. What if we spread disinformation so idiots who believe it will do something stupid like carrying garlic” He impersonated an evil villain laugh “Muu-ha-ha, they would be tagging themselves and letting us know they’re around!”

  William started chuckling, “Like a spy who comes onto the base not realizing they are the only garlic wearing individual here? Like having a big-ass sign that says, ‘which one of us doesn’t belong here’?”

  Marcus brought them back to the discussion, “Guys as fun as your fantasy is, what are we going to do about these ships?”

  Bobcat and William turned back towards the board, “Spoil sport. Talking about garlic is a hell of a lot easier than this problem. Shame we can’t just put TOM’s ship at the ass-end and push them around.”

  Bobcat and William turned around when they heard Marcus typing like a madman. Marcus said, “Well, I’ll be damned. Out of the mouth of a Neanderthal…”

  Bobcat leaned towards William, “Is he speaking about you again?”

  William shook his head, “Pretty sure this time he means you, rotor-head.”

  “That puts me up seven to your four.” Bobcat whispered.

  William retorted, “Still think we need to share that comment yesterday morning.”

  Bobcat turned to look at William, “Which one?”

  William shrugged, “Can’t remember what it was about, but I’m damn sure I spoke at the same time as you.”

  Bobcat said, “Nope, if you can’t even remember what it was about you don’t get to share a point.”

  “I’m writing this shit down.” William started patting the pockets of his pants and shirt for paper and pen again.

  Marcus broke off their discussion, “TOM said it’s possible if the connection is solid enough, but that it would be best for the ship not to be too long if you intend for it to go into the atmosphere.”

  Bobcat shook his head, “Nope, no atmosphere for these.” Marcus went back to typing. Bobcat returned his attention to William, “I thought you were looking for paper and a pen?”

  William waved his hand away, “Fuck it. I’ll stop letting you get the easy answers.”

  “Easy answers?”

  “Yeah,” William answered, “I’ve been worried about you lately so I’ve been letting you have these easy answers to help boost your ego.”

  “I’ll give you ‘boost my ego’, you titanic tit-twaddle!”

  “Boys?” Both men turned to Marcus. “TOM says that if you’re going to make a ship that isn’t going to be used for atmospheric flight, you can design it most any way you wish. Although the engine at the back is considered pretty normal. If you designed it for the engine to be in the middle, then you have a chance to use the gravity capabilities to ‘shield’ the ship and other items. But you couldn’t make a ship longer tha
n about two and a half radiuses larger than his ship right now. Plus, if you’re using his ship everything is in it already to plot, move, steer etc. It allows you to be in space as soon as the shell is made.” Marcus looked up from the laptop. “Holy crap!”

  Bobcat nodded and turned back to the sheets on the whiteboard. “If these guys can work with us, we could build some shells and use TOM’s ship as the freaking engine until we can build our own space yards.”

  William went to the whiteboard and put a finger on the little warship design. “We could have a ship in space in months.”

  There was a buzz on their intercom from the first level of security. A voice came from the speaker system. “Mr. Bobcat?”

  Bobcat rolled his eyes. He hated them using his last name, but they wouldn’t drop the ‘Mr.’ for him, so he was stuck with ‘Mr. Bobcat.’ It sounded like a character on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. “Yes?”

  “There is a Mr. Frank Kurns and a Mr. Jeffrey Diamantz requesting permission to move forward to the next security gate?”

  Bobcat called out, “Permission granted.” The speaker cut off. “Look sharp gentlemen. The Research Head just arrived.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem

  The meeting room was overflowing with guys exuding huge amounts of testosterone. Between the Guardians, the marines who went with them and the navy men and women, all of whom were itching for a good fight, the meeting room was damned near packed.

  Initially it was Pete who quickly turned his head to stare at the door, then the rest of the guardians caught the feeling as well. Their compatriots had learned to trust their Wechselbalg teammates and they also turned to see who was coming.

  Not that anyone had any doubt.

  The Queen had arrived and the Queen’s Own had just announced her. Pete’s ears could pick up the conversation Bethany Anne was having with a ship’s engineer when a sudden ‘crack’ sounded and Pete could hear Bethany Anne tell one of her guards to “Cut that shit out! You’re scaring everyone you little prick!” Her tone was humorous, so Pete could just imagine the smile she had on her face.

  Sure enough, the feeling of dread evaporated a moment later. Pete noticed a couple of his team had smiles on their faces. They had heard the conversation out in the hall as well.

  While Bethany Anne might refer to her team as her ‘Bitches’ most knew the story or heard the rumors that her team were very much ‘her people’.

  Her own! They looked out for her and she in turn, held them close.

  Pete smiled a little to himself. He would never spar with John in his Procilici form due to the nearly uncontrollable anger, but he held a certain fantasy about being able to take the guard down at least once for all of the times John had tossed his ass around the mats. Now, he’d lost the chance. Whatever extra stuff had happened to the team, once they had come out of the spaceship, they had been elevated to universal bad-asses. Fortunately, it hadn’t affected their personalities at all. Well, Scott was a little more outgoing but that could be attributed to anything. Like getting laid while in Germany, at least that was the rumor.

  The people at the door had stuck their heads out into the hallway and the ‘she’s here, make a fucking path already!’ comments started as people tried to move aside.

  That was when John Grimes came to the door. Pete had seen him since the pod, but fucking shit he was a mountain.

  John’s head turned behind him, “It’s a little crowded, BA.”

  Pete smiled, John was poking fun at the vampire again with the ‘BA’ stuff.

  “If you don’t get your big ass out of my way, I won’t be able to see! You know what? Just hold still Gygantor.” Pete noticed Bethany Anne’s head pop up above John’s shoulder. John’s lips compressed as she used him for her personal ladder. Pete wasn’t sure if she was smiling because of everyone in the room or because she was embarrassing John.

  Probably both.

  She called out to the assembled group, “What the hell folks? Some one here want a chance to kick some terrorist ass?”

  Holy crap! Pete almost had to put his fingers into his ears, the roar from the group was so loud.

  She was looking around and waiting for the cheers to die down, which wasn’t happening any time soon. Her smile caused everyone to continue cheering until she put a hand up motioning everyone to quiet down. She called out, “Stephen, clear off the table in front of you please.” It took Stephen only a few seconds to push all of the drinks and paperwork to the side. She yelled out with a huge smile on her face, “Incoming!” The next second the people in the room, most of whom had not seen her do this trick were shocked when she disappeared from John’s back and reappeared standing on the table in front of Stephen.

  That performance caused everyone in the room to start cheering again, and Pete noticed Bethany Anne starting to blush. She waved everyone to quiet down again and started walking down the table, a runway model speaking to her fans.

  “The bitches and I have had a few excursions recently. You will be happy to know that a certain terrorist moneyman based in America is sadly not with us anymore.” She waited for the cheers to die down, “Further, there are now seven other terrorists who, most unfortunately, are no longer with us as well. Let’s have a moment of silence in memory of…” She stopped for a second and grinned, “Who the fuck am I kidding? These ass holes can kiss my ass and now we have a target to hit!” More cheering. “Anybody busy for the next week? Anybody want to dish out a little retribution?” She walked back down the table talking, “This ship is my aircraft carrier. Once we have a plan from Dan and the group, you will be responsible for implementing a timely attack of the Queen’s Guardians.”

  She turned back around, “We have a small window as these training camps pop up and go away quickly. Our intelligence suggests this camp is going away in eight days or less. I want our teams outfitted, ready and on their way in five days. We might not have been able to help those in France, but we sure as hell will be sending a message that terrorists need to be looking over their shoulder no matter where they sleep, where they train, or where they live.”

  She stopped walking and stood in the middle of the table looking around at all who were assembled, the ships captains, Dan and Stephen, and all of the Guardians and marines. She looked over her ship’s crew. Her voice became a whisper and she let the anger she was feeling towards the terrorists infuse her voice. “They thought Germany would be safe for them. They died in Germany! They thought England would be safe for them. They died in England! They thought a Netherlands ‘no-go’ zone would be safe for them… And, they died in the Netherlands!”

  Her voice rose, matching her rage. “Now they think that training zones inside Libya are safe?” Bethany Anne looked over to where Todd and Pete were standing next to each other. “Guardian leaders, get your asses up here!”

  Todd looked over at Pete who told him, “You heard her! Let’s get our asses up there!” Todd smiled as he was half helped, half pushed through the crowd and then shoved up onto the table. Bethany Anne held out her hand, finger pointing commandingly at a spot directly in front of her. The two men walked down the table, hoping to God that it didn’t break on them.

  “Todd Jenkins and Peter Silvers, I hereby command you to take your people into the country of Libya and deliver a message from the Queen Bitch. Do you accept this command for yourselves and your teams?”

  Todd couldn’t help himself, decorum was the last thing on his mind. “Fuck yeah!”

  Pete waited for the laughter to die down. He smiled at Bethany Anne and turned to his Guardians. “What say you, Guardians? What is our answer to our Queen?”

  Matthew spoke up, “May I?” Pete nodded his agreement. Matthew straightened and spoke directly to Bethany Anne, “Where you point us, we go. What you set before us, we achieve. We will accomplish what you demand or return on our shield, Ad Aeternitatem!” Pete thought the cheering before was the loudest he had ever heard. He was sure his ears
were having to heal themselves now.

  Bethany Anne’s Guardians now gained a team saying, a direction, and a course.

  Bethany Anne nodded to her two sergeants. “Gentlemen, I point you to Libya, I set before you a terrorist camp.” Her voice dropped, the anger and vehemence obvious in her tone as her eyes turned red, she commanded, “I demand that there be no survivors!”

  Todd’s salute was the crispest he had ever delivered.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TQB Base, CO - USA

  If Kevin had thought he had a passion for this project after his ride with Bethany Anne, he was well and truly obsessed now.

  Bethany Anne going all vamp had made a huge impression on him, but the raw ferocity of looking at Nathan when he changed had rammed it home. Bethany Anne had some of the strongest and smartest people in the world following her.