Release the Dogs of War

by Michael Anderle

  “No. Although they are regularly supplied. They receive a cargo container at least once every twenty-four hours.” George told him.

  “How goes the stock market war?” the President asked.

  George turned to another page in his report, “The stock market itself has been up and down, mostly down, so that is hiding some of the activity. However, we believe that over eighty-four companies are in the middle of this battle at the moment. This is the fourth wave we have detected on the NYSE and NASDAQ. Three in Europe and two in Asia.”

  “So, who are they fighting?” the President asked, “because while I understand TQB is obviously huge and a powerhouse, if this is about their fourth huge stock market battle for hundreds of companies we know about, and probably a few hundred more we don’t, who the hell are they fighting?” The President started to warm up to his subject, “Let’s face it, between the two sides in this fight, I only see one side that is being out in the open. This other group is hidden, has used some sort of nuclear bomb on our soil, and I’m going to get back to that in a moment, and is continuing to attack. So, I’m not too happy with not knowing more about this second group. Where are my reports on this group? Why isn’t Intelligence figuring out who they are?”

  George pursed his lips, “I’m not sure I have an answer for you. Intelligence doesn’t have any significant connection between the companies at this time. Or at least, nothing above a twenty-seven percent chance of likelihood. You might as well just make up a reason for their connection as anything else that is plausible.” George answered.

  “I’ll call them the damned Illuminati if this keeps up,” the President grouched.

  George smiled as he reached for the Tums, “Well, I did say plausible, Mr. President.”

  “Yeah, so you did,” the President agreed, “so, I understand that we have actual reductions in the radioactivity out there in Colorado?”

  “Yes. There is an anti-radiation powder invented by Tomihisa Ohta for the Fukushima disaster. It consists of a mixture of minerals including zeolite, said to capture radiation in water and absorb the isotopes of cesium, iodine, and strontium. Plus, another material just coming out of the labs. EPA worked with TQB on location to build special containers to spray the area, and together they seem to be cleaning it up rather quickly.”

  “You don’t seem happy to announce this, George,” the President said.

  “Oh, I’m happy enough to say that the radiation, which wasn’t a lot, is being cleaned up,” the general admitted, “I just believe it is a false front.”

  “Ok, let’s talk about that piece. I’m going to invite the TQB executive for a discussion,” he told George.

  “Is this on the schedule, or hidden?” George asked.

  “Hidden, this time. I don’t need the press to get wind of this at all,” the President answered.

  “How are you planning to get her in without everyone seeing this happening?” George asked.

  “It will be after hours, brought in through one of the tunnels to the DUCC for our discussions,” the President told him.

  “I see. Will you need me there?” George asked him.

  “No, this is going to be a private conversation. What is said isn’t going to be recorded. It will be an exploratory discussion to see if we can have open communications.”

  “Why aren’t you setting this up with your people talking to her people and so on?” George questioned.

  “Well, two reasons,” He replied. “The first is the ‘and so on’ part you just mentioned. We need to be able to talk, and I’m not willing to have too many people beating their breast for political-points on this. I’ve had lower-level functionaries call, and they speak with equal parties. It became apparent that if I want to talk to the top, then it will be me doing the speaking.”

  “Not very understanding of power, is she?” George said.

  “Well, let’s not forget we also have a significantly-sized naval presence watching their ships. If I’m not mistaken, our intelligence services are also trying to crack their computers, and I’m surprised I haven’t heard about any covert operations yet.”

  “Well, they are on the drawing board,” George admitted, “but we aren’t going to attack anywhere on our soil, and the FBI and other government agencies can’t seem to keep their paperwork straight to save their lives.”

  “And you wonder why they don’t want to speak with us?” the President asked him, annoyance in his voice, “I want a list of every effort against this company. This is damned ridiculous!” Making a few notes on his pad, the President continued, “Instead of trying to work with this company, it’s like we are purposefully trying to make their lives as difficult as we possibly can. Every person I speak with in Washington hates them. Most civilians love them. What is the damned problem? So, get me my list.” The President grabbed the Tums bottle for another couple of tablets, and lifted it up to get George’s attention. “Good idea, by the way.”

  George carefully schooled his face, “Yes, sir and thank you, sir.”

  —

  “Yes?” The deep voice answered the phone,

  “JG it’s me, GT,” a voice answered, “The man wants to meet the woman, but without anyone involved.”

  “Ok. Any way to intercept?”

  “Before the meeting? Possibly. But it means I’m out, and would need to disappear. Not exactly how I want to leave after thirty-five years.”

  “No, you are too high-value where you are. Let me see what other assets can be used to accomplish the request. Will the woman have to come in a certain way?”

  “Absolutely. There is an office building near the primary location. The usual entrance is protected in that building. So, they drive in, get approved and escorted in through the tunnel from that side. No one sees, no one cares.”

  “So, the best time to acquire the suspect is going to be either pre- or post-meeting. I’d prefer pre-meeting, myself. Although, maybe after the meeting would be better. That way, the man is ignorant until some agreed-upon situation doesn’t develop. Will she have protection?”

  “Not inside the tunnels, that won’t be permitted. I imagine she will be covered by her guards until then.”

  “Can we fake the location request?” the deep voice asked.

  “Hmm, that isn’t a bad idea. There is a backup building that can be used. It isn’t in service at the moment due to maintenance modifications planned for the next six weeks. However, a mistake on the address, if caught, could be explained away.”

  “Is it possible to place our men in that location?”

  “Yes. So, have her men in the car, allow her in, grab her, and take her out another way?” George asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That is possible. But you are going to need to procure some men with the correct uniforms. I can’t supply those.”

  “That can be handled, but I need you to be there in the receiving location, to make sure I get my package or that the package is destroyed, GT.”

  “I understand. I almost think that is the smarter choice. I don’t think playing with a live package is smart, JG.”

  “Sometimes, GT, you need to get a little payback before the bill is paid in full.”

  George hung up his phone when the line went dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Manufacturing Facility 01 - Asteroid Fields

  “I really don’t give a shit.” Bobcat looked at the fourteen leads tasked with building the ship arrayed down the meeting table. He continued, “It is immaterial that we are building the first spaceship in space. That it is an alien design not made with gravitics in mind for thrust, that blah blah blah.”

  “I care that we get it done, that we get it fixed and that it is safe.” Bobcat put up a hand to hold off commentary, “Safe doesn’t mean taking for-fucking-ever either.” He put his hand down. “So, get some bricks and pound some nuts if we need to. If you have ovaries, do the equivalent, I just don’t know what that is.” he admitted to a few chuckles around the room, �
��Nothing really worth doing takes less than a hundred and fifty percent or more of your effort. Pull out the impossible and beat reality with it. But get it done.”

  Bobcat looked over the group, “I’m getting reports back from Earth. There is a lot of shit going on, and my gut says we need this bad-ass ship there, not here. We need a ship that can go down to the ground if possible, or close. That can handle missile shots and can fire back if need be.” Bobcat smiled wickedly, “But if a twelve-hundred-foot spaceship suddenly turned up over my head, I’d need clean shorts before I launched shit at it. Well, I could probably just fling what was in my shorts.” He grunted to a ‘hell yeah’ coming from the group. “So, kick the tires and light the fires folks, this bitch needs to get done, dismissed.”

  The group smiled, and grabbed their stuff, talking as they left. Jeo and Marcus stayed behind.

  When everyone had stepped out, and the door finally closed, Bobcat called out, “Samantha.”

  “Yes, Bobcat?” Samantha came back, her face showing on the wall.

  “What is the real timeframe for finishing this ship? At least to the level that everything is working well enough?”

  “Twenty-two days,” she told him. Bobcat noticed Jeo look down at his screen and his eyes open wider.

  “How many times have you been told, Jeo,” Bobcat spoke as Jeo looked to him, “that I have all access? You don’t think padding schedules hasn’t been done for centuries? The technology is different, not the practice. You younglings, always thinking you are pulling something over on us.” He smiled at the sheepish Jeo.

  “Well, then what about your seventy-two hours?” Jeo asked.

  “Wanted to see if you would give me the minimum, or shove everything you could into the seventy-two hours. Good to see you passed the pop-quiz, my man.”

  “What were the odds?” Jeo asked to Marcus’ snort.

  “William and I both wanted to believe you would push it all in and not take the easy way out, so we actually didn’t bet on the outcome. No one took odds,” Bobcat admitted.

  Jeo turned to Marcus, “That’s kind of a compliment, right?”

  “Absolutely. This is the first time I’ve ever heard them not agree to some sort of odds. They must think it would jinx the effort to bet against you,” Marcus confirmed.

  Jeo looked down at his table, put his finger to the screen to move a few things and looked over to Bobcat, “I see some changes that might help the team. I’m going to go talk to a few people.” He looked up to the wall, “Samantha, I need to get Tom and Trina together in meeting room B-1-12. Please see when they can jointly meet.” He stood up and looked to Bobcat, “We won’t fail you.”

  “Dude, we all won’t fail Bethany Anne,” Bobcat replied.

  Jeo smiled and left the room.

  Bobcat turned to Marcus, “Ok, talk to me about the engines and the math, and use words I can understand.”

  “Well, let me go get my ‘Hop on Pop’ math books,” Marcus started before Bobcat laughed and put up a hand.

  “Ok, I deserved that. How about I ask you to give me the issues in chunks I can process, and leave off the high-level issues you know I won’t be able to handle?” Bobcat asked him.

  “Ok, not a problem. Effectively, we are now up to ninety-two percent efficiency. The math is making TOM’s head hurt.”

  “So, he is bitching about it?” Bobcat asked.

  “No, he is super excited about it. Apparently, nothing like this has ever been tried by his people, at least before he left. So, if nothing else he will either have figured out something they never tried, or he will have accomplished something as a single Kurtherian that will certainly not have been done by any other single Kurtherian when he gets to meet them again.”

  “What about us humans helping?” Bobcat asked.

  “Well, when it comes to math, we might as well be doing their version of ‘Hop on Pop’ arithmetic monkeys, so we don’t have much credibility,” Marcus admitted.

  “Even with our computers?” Bobcat questioned.

  “They don’t count anything but what’s in your mind. So, for them, our computers are considered calculators only and crutches as well,” Marcus responded.

  “What about ADAM?” Bobcat wondered.

  “Hah!” Marcus barked, “Personally, I think they would have a group aneurysm if they found out about ADAM.” Marcus thought for a moment, “So if they didn’t know about ADAM in Bethany Anne’s head, and she pulled some stunts with his help on them? They would probably worship her as the second coming of their version of a math deity.”

  “Oh, that would play so well to Bethany Anne. I wonder how fast she would be pulling ADAM out and shoving him into something so they could all bow down to him in his new android body?” Bobcat said.

  Marcus shrugged, “Don’t know. But, getting back to the subject at hand, we are running into another major integration issue with the shields, and some of it has to do with the armament. If we push the guns out of the shield, then we can attain almost eighty-two percent efficiency after trying to equalize the protection conflicts. If we don’t have the weapons, we have almost a hundred percent.”

  “So, anytime we push through the field, we are fucked, right?” Bobcat asked, “I mean, eighty-two percent is incredible, but I’m a bastard, and I want it all. In fact, I want a hundred and ten percent.”

  “Wait!” Marcus stopped, then looked around quickly, like he needed a drug in the worst way.

  “Samantha, place the wall in whiteboard mode,” Bobcat said then turned to Marcus. “Marcus, use your finger!”

  Marcus shoved the chair back and walked quickly around the table to the wall and started using his finger to write mathematical notations. Samantha drew them in a black ink until Marcus said, “Orange” at which point she switched the next set of annotations to orange. A moment later, he wanted blue.

  Bobcat watched for a minute, then shrugged to himself and pulled out his phone, checked the time on Earth, and dialed William to communicate through the Etheric.

  “What’s up?” William asked.

  “Marcus the Amazing has resurfaced,” Bobcat said.

  “Oh? What’s he doing without his whiteboards?”

  “Drawing with his finger on the wall,” Bobcat admitted.

  “No shit? He is using that functionality you wanted a couple of months back?”

  “Yup, you owe me twenty.” Bobcat agreed.

  “Wait a minute,” William protested, “That was only good for two months.” There was a pause, “Which is today you lucky bastard, what time?”

  Bobcat replied, “I’ve checked, It’s only four AM in the morning in Europe, so, I’ve got a few hours to go.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch, that’s cutting it close,” William said. “Wait, weren’t we in Colorado two months ago?”

  “No.”

  “Damn, I tried. Ok, so what is he working on?” William asked.

  “Something I said about wanting a hundred and ten percent of what I could get and being greedy,” Bobcat told him.

  “Oh, shit!” William responded.

  “What do you mean, oh shit?” Bobcat asked, “that didn’t sound like a good oh shit, William. Don’t tell me I went one step forward, but two steps back with you.”

  “Maybe, sorry, got to go and check on something, bye,” and William disconnected.

  Bobcat pulled his phone down to see the disconnection time, “Fuck.”

  —

  “That should do it!” Marcus quit doodling on the walls. It had taken him forty-five minutes, one long wall and half a short one. Bobcat looked down at the scratches on his pad to note he had used seven colors, as well.

  “What is it?” Bobcat asked, startling Marcus, who had forgotten he was in the room.

  Marcus waved at all of the marks on the walls, “Your hundred and ten percent. The gravitic drives are not stuck with a limitation like normal engines. They can be tweaked up and down considerably. We keep them to the same settings because that is what we are used to
doing. It keeps our math, which is already difficult, from becoming more complicated. However, in this case, it has caused our problems, too. When I start adjusting potential areas and allow them to supersede the max we artificially created, they can compensate for the flux. It doesn’t fix all of the problems perfectly, but I bet in practice we can hit ninety-seven percent effective while we push the guns through the field and attain a hundred percent within seconds after it is done.”

  Bobcat smiled to the rocket scientist, “Nice. Now, when can I get a hundred and ten percent?”