Zack lowered his altitude to 100 feet and opened the big rear door. It was the only time the ship was visible, but at night with the interior lights off, it was still difficult to see during the brief moment it opened for the Elimination Unit to drop to the Earth’s surface. The 48 men were spread out with fifty yards between them as they slowly walked toward the sleeping city prepared to shoot anyone with a weapon. It didn’t take long for the night to light-up with the flash of terrorist muzzle-fire and the blinding light of whitematter rounds hitting their targets. While the commandoes were clearing the city, Captain Zack ‘The Attack’ Verron activated his weapons recognition targeting system and flew the Transport from the border of Lebanon to the border of Jordan along the edge of the Golan Heights. The flashes in the night skies could be seen all the way to Nazareth as target after target disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a crater where a truck, mortar, APC, machinegun or missile launcher once stood and over a thousand of smaller dents in the ground where once stood a man. The members of ISIS just experienced their first Zack Attack.
Major Bentley and Lieutenant Commander Ethridge led the assault on Al Qunaytirah. The ISIS soldiers were dug in really well, firing RPGs, machineguns and recoilless rifles through small holes in the masonry walls that dominated the city. Those small holes soon became much bigger as the accurate fire of the best fighters on Earth vaporized one target after another, then carefully checked to make certain there was nothing left of their target. King Verron had warned them about leaving any sign of a dead enemy behind. The goal was to do a surgical strike, killing as many ISIS soldiers and destroying as much ISIS equipment as possible without collateral damage or excessive property damage. When the sun rose over the city at 0620 there would not be one dead body to be found, only lots and lots of holes.
Camil and her former Navy Seal demolition man exited their gateway to the backside of the apartment building. The perimeter was surrounded by a dozen not very alert Hezbollah guards. One by one they were vaporized as the two headed for the door that led to the underground garage that was being used for missile storage. One round from each and there was a hole big enough to walk through in the middle of the roll-up door. Five more heavily armed guards attempted to repel the invaders and lost their life. Camil and the Seal raced through the area trying not to waste too much time looking at the Russian, Chinese and North Korean crates stacked all over the large area. They quickly attached an individual forcefield to each concrete support column then placed the corner units at opposite corners; finally the plasma bomb was placed in the center of the room. If all went as planned, every missile in the basement would be burned to a lump of melted steel and everything else would remain in tack. The two bravely stood only ten or fifteen feet outside the garage door when Camil pressed the detonator. There was a blinding flash and even through the body armor you could sense the heat, a few seconds later they heard the eight small explosions of the corner and pillar forcefields exploded with a tiny amount of whitematter in their power-supply. It had worked perfectly. All that remained was a dark empty concrete garage covered with molten alloy-steel. The next target was going to be easier, on it they wanted to leave a very deep hole. They shot a few more Hezbollah guards before they took the gateway across town to their next objective.
Hunter and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Johnson from Louisiana came through their gateway in an alley behind the hospital. The security detail was much less obvious at the medical center but it was still pretty easy to spot men carrying AK-47s roaming the alley and surrounding streets. The alleyway was also the entrance to the Emergency room, so they had to wait till the EMTs were safely inside the building before they started shooting people, no one could be sure where the enemy fire may go. Very meticulously Hunter and Gunny Johnson eliminated the security patrol. They opened the heavy steel doors that covered the freight elevator that was located in the middle of the alley. One look into the deep shaft told them that the elevator was in the down position, at least three floors below the surface of the alley. Hunter looked at Johnson and jumped, Johnson landed on the top of the elevator right beside him. Two rounds from their assault rifles and they had a pair of holes to drop through. They were expected. A dozen men opened fire with automatic weapons, shotguns and even a few grenades. They were a bit puzzled when the two intruders stood steady and blew them away in a few seconds. They met a handful of resisters as they worked their way down the hall, ending at a heavy double door. Once again, a few rounds and the door disappeared revealing a chemical lab and hundreds of bombs holding chemical warheads. From what Johnson could tell, they were mostly sarin gas and mustard gas, but the stuff in the chemical lab appeared to be the beginning of a nuclear dirty bomb. They quickly placed their charges and stepped back down the hall. Hunter gave Johnson the honor of detonation. There were a dozen small residual explosions and they made a gateway directly from the basement to their next target.
By the time they got there, it was surrounded by a hundred defenders determined to protect their missile launchers. Hunter decided to forgo the clean operation of a Box Bomb, as he and Gunny Johnson unleashed two full clips each of 5.56mm whitematter rounds into the Hezbollah defenders and the forty-foot long launchers. When they finished, all that remained were a few pieces of scrap metal from the ends of the launchers. They joined Camil and her Seal just in time to witness the Mosque vaporize, leaving a hole almost a half mile deep. As they made a gateway to join the rest of his team in Al Qunaytrirah he wondered how the other team was doing.
The main refugee camps in Kenya were located much closer to the Somali border than it was a good idea to be, but the bone weary and usually malnourished refugees could barely travel the distance to them, even more would have died on the journey if they had been farther away. That was King Verron’s biggest concern about Desiree and Marie going there, but with hundreds of thousands of sick and starving refugees in Kenya, they felt that was where their first mission of mercy should be. The Shapeshifters had located several hundred Somali terrorists scattered out through villages surrounding the camps and a few hundred more in the cities where the camps were located; Dadaab, Alijugar, Hagadera and Dagahaley were filled with the defenseless refugees and it was not unusual for the Islamic extremist to kill people traveling to the camps or who were on the outer edges. The Kenyan government offered little protection. It had a hard enough time tracking down those terrorists that bombed schools, shopping malls and tourist resorts. Zack Verron dropped his team and their commanders off inside the four camps. They then searched the cities and streets surrounding them as Zack did a Zack Attack along the border of Kenya and Somalia ranging from Amuma to Dif. At first he believed that he was wasting his time, but as the target acquisition began to fire on target after target, he knew there were thousands of Somali terrorists on the ground in Kenya. Al-Shabaad lost over 4000 men to the Zack Attack. He then called in locations of more al-Shabaad for the ground forces to flush-out.
The people in the refugee camps were terrified of the men that showed-up in the middle of the night wearing dark gray body armor and shooting people in the camp. What they didn’t realize was that the al-Shabaad terrorists had infiltrated the refugee camps and were planning to kill every man, woman and child in them. If the Terrorist Elimination Unit had been two days later, they would have found thousands of bodies covering the dry ground of Kenya. As Zack was circling the four camps looking for any remaining snipers or well-hidden mortars, he spotted a family of refugees that looked like walking skeletons making their way in the cover and coolness dark for the safety of the refugee camp. He then spotted half a dozen men with guns waiting in their path. He quickly targeted the would-be assassins and landed his ship in front of the woman with six children. She was carrying a toddler in her stick-like arms and the small boy next to her was carrying an infant. Two more ragged and malnourished girls of four and maybe six years-old were dragging behind attempting to carry the family’s meager possessions. They never noticed the cloaked ship land and were too t
ired to run or fight when the large door opened at the rear and a dark figure existed to meet them. Zack quickly lowered his headgear and greeted them with a welcome in the Somali language. He wasted no time escorting them onboard the ship, actually carrying the woman with a toddler in her arms, and took off immediately after handing them a handful of nutrition bars and six bottles of water. He soon landed his ship right in the middle of Camp Dagahaley and carried the woman and her toddler off the ship and into the safety of a team of terrified doctors and nurses. One of the nurses followed him onboard and helped the rest of the family. After his fragile passengers were safe in the care of the doctors and nurses, Zack boarded the Transport and as the rear hatch closed he said, “We’ll keep you safe.” The ship disappeared from sight as soon as the door closed. He quickly rendezvoused to extract the rest of the team.
It was 0437 when the first Transport arrived back onboard the Carl Vinson. It was followed 12 minutes later by the second. The men were in high spirits about a successful mission. They were even more thrilled about the fact that the casualties had been on the other side. The suit and ship computer gave Hunter a quick count of rounds fired. No one else had that interface with the computers like Hunter and none knew that every round fired was recorded by the body armors targeting system and collected for his review. Assuming that one round meant one dead terrorist, since they had all been drilled over and over about one round center mass and the entire target will vaporize. Hunter threw out a small percentage for multiple rounds fired into large vehicles and missile launchers and estimated that 8700 men had died that night. After receiving the intelligence reports from Somalia, he also knew that four times that number had just been saved. As requested, the ships mess deck was ready to serve-up a big breakfast for his men. No one complained. They knew that the Navy had the best food and the best cooks of all the military branches. One of the Seals pointed out that you’ll never see an Army or Marine cook working in the White House, it’s always the Navy. Hunter had to agree, it was some pretty good grub. He got cheers from his men as he entered the mess deck. He knew they were proud to be a part of the team that had vowed to rid Earth of terrorists.
That afternoon King Verron arrived. The Admiral was never able to figure-out where he came from. He congratulated the men on a job well done and made a point to tell everyone how proud he was of Captain Zack Verron for saving a family of refugees. No one knew about it but Zack and he had told no one, afraid he would get in trouble for landing the ship and exiting it alone in enemy territory. Paul had the film from the ships cameras projected on the big screen in the ships briefing room of the refugees inside the Troop Transport gulping down nutrition bars and drinking water, so weak they could barely chew or lift the 12 ounce plastic bottles. One of the TEU members joked, saying, “Those poor people must really be desperate. I can’t imagine being that excited over one of those nasty energy bars.” King Verron smiled in agreement, saying, “One of these days I plan to fix that, but we have a few hundred thousand of those things to get rid of before we make new ones. Looking at those poor people, I may have found a place that would actually be glad to have them.” He then pointed at the big screen and commented, “We must never forget, this is why we’re here. The purpose for the next few years of your lives is so people like these can be free to live healthy normal lives and see their children live to be adults. I was told that if that lady had gotten to the camp an hour later, the infant would have died. Let’s not dwell on how many we kill, let’s praise God for the ones we save.” Admiral Gilbert knew now why this man was considered such a great leader. He suddenly had no regrets about having this entire operation under the control of the Nation of Verron. After his speech, Paul made a point of introducing himself to the Admiral’s entire staff and thanking them for their support and told them if they needed anything at all to make this tour go more smoothly, to just let him know.
The crew of the USS Carl Vinson had been watching the news on satellite and on the internet. It reported that ISIS had withdrawn from the border of Israel and deeper into Syria. Al-Shabaad appeared to have done the same thing, but it didn’t look like they had any men left in Kenya to withdraw. Paul felt much better about having his daughters arrive in Kenya in two more days, but he still planned to send a company of Marines to surround wherever they were working and demand that they wear forcefields, even in their sleep – maybe even in the shower. After the ships staff left the briefing room, Paul dismissed everyone except the officers of the TEU. He had Hunter go over his plan for the operations to be conducted in a dozen different countries. Instead of getting bogged down in one place day after day, the plan was to make selective strikes in a seemingly random pattern. He didn’t want a group to get dug in or go underground because of constant pressure from the TEU. He intended to put a heavier press on the countries in turmoil in Africa. After looking at the economic plans put together by Paul, Michael and his Grandmother Leona, he realized that they had two goals in Africa, freedom from fundamental Islamic terrorists and economic development to move them toward independence and economic security. Africa held a massive untapped workforce and a tremendous potential for products to be marketed, but before anyone was going to invest in the countries of Africa they had to be politically stable. The same was true in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other countries but in those nations it was much more difficult to sort out the issues. In those countries the vast majority of the people were already Islamic and the terrorist organizations were much harder to identify. Hunter did intend to make one more hard push against al-Shabaad to make certain that when his aunts arrived in Kenya there would be no problems. Then he would wait a day or two and carefully select a target in a completely different country, moving from country to country in unpredictable assaults, keeping the enemy off balance. It was a good plan.
Paul decided he didn’t want to interfere in the operations developed by Hunter and decided to depart the Carl Vinson and make a few stops on Earth before he headed back to Verron. Vice Admiral Sara Barnett, Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, was in her office when Paul arrived unannounced just outside her receptionist’s workstation. A bit stunned that a King had arrived without proper protocol, the young Petty Officer sat speechless for a moment, then rang the Admiral’s office to announce his arrival. He couldn’t help but notice that the young lady was quite beautiful and did a bit more looking than he should. The Admiral saw his look and cleared her throat to announce her arrival in the room. The Admiral’s interruption of his voyeuristic stares did not go unnoticed by the Petty Officer. Both tried to act like they weren’t checking each other out, but it was a bit too obvious. Paul knew he would never ask her out, he never asked anyone out, but he was really enamored by the petite strawberry blond with big green eyes. He immediately extended his hand to the Admiral and apologized for just dropping in, but he did want to make sure that everything was going smoothly with the operation of the new ship now that his people were gone. The Admiral smiled and asked, “You wouldn’t be interested in selling us that cloaking technology you have on your other ships would you?” Paul knew it wouldn’t take long for that request to be made. He gave her his most sincere but honest reply, “Right now the United States , France and Great Britain aren’t completely sure you have that battle cruiser, when they find out I sold you a ship that could destroy their Pacific Fleet, I have no doubt they will not be happy. Maybe one day when Earth is a bit more politically stable, there will be greater advances available to you.”
She knew better than to push it and changed the subject, saying, “I’m pretty sure the Chinese have been lurking around to get confirmation of the Cruiser, so they are aware by now that our Navy has become a greater deterrent to their aggressive behavior. We rarely see any of their regular Navy ships venture very close, but they have hundreds of those smaller fishing trawlers and freighters constantly roaming our waters. However, to answer your question, I feel my officers were very well trained and Captain Tala and Major Katelyn are two of the best trainers
my men have ever worked with, I might add they left behind a fan club of Royal Navy seamen. I’m not certain you are aware of it, but both your officers invited my staff to Verron to experience what a fully functioning Battle Cruiser could do.” Paul smiled, he knew all the Dragon Guard were proud of the Verron military capabilities and wanted others to get a glimpse of the future. He replied, “Just let me know when and how many and I’ll make arrangements for you and your staff to come visit. It will be a life changing experience.” The Admiral shook her head in agreement and informed Paul, “I am concerned about one thing. Several of my officers and even my enlisted men and women are considering joining the Verron Air Force and Marine Corp when their commitment is over with the Royal Navy. We can’t afford to have our best people leave the service.”
Paul knew it was a delicate situation. Verron’s military had been getting thousands of inquiries from all their allied forces. He wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. He was however making sure that anyone who joined the service of Verron had in fact completed their obligation to their home country. They had already turned away a dozen men and women who were planning to simply desert their branch of service and join Verron. He replied, “I’m aware of the problem. People like these men and women desire to fly and fight with the best. They know we have things to offer no one else can. I assure you that any man or woman that joins my military from Australia will be assigned to protect Australia in times of trouble. Those people in my service assigned to protect your Nation will have all our technology at their disposal. Maybe you should consider it gaining assets instead of losing them.” Before he left her office, she opened the calendar on her computer and set a date for August when she and 20 of her people would visit Verron. She then handed him a list of 30 names of Officers and Senior Enlisted men that were planning to not reenlist so they could move to Verron. He asked, “Any of them that I wouldn’t want?” She took out her pen and circled only one name, saying, “We don’t even want this one. We’re not sure how he’s lasted 15 years.” Paul was walking out the office door and decided to push his luck. Looking at the Petty Officer he directed his comment to the Admiral, asking her, “Be sure that all 20 of those people coming to visit are not just officers. There should be a good mix of Petty Officers and Warrants included.” Petty Officer Megan Smart smiled at the Admiral. They both got the hint.
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