by Paul Phipps
“Yes, they did as a matter of fact. They did say that they really didn’t want to repeat the experience though.” He said with a smile.
“Yes, I can imagine that,” Evana told him. “It’s a little tricky setting the charge right to effect people wearing non-conductive personal armor. I’m glad they are none the worse for the experience.”
“Ah yes,” The colonel said and then paused for a moment while Evana looked at him quizzically. “Would it be possible to speak privately?”
“Certainly! Come with me.” She led him up the ramp into the MARS unit and went to the command capsule in the front. With the door shut behind them she indicated he could talk freely.
“I have been given the understanding that your Fleet Admiral Webster will be speaking to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet tomorrow.”
“Yes, I had been told that also.” Evana confirmed.
“Ah… good then. Will you also be present?” The Colonel pressed gently.
“No, not this time. I have my own duties to fulfill. And at the level these negotiations are taking at I would just be a bystander.”
“Too bad, we had hoped you would be so that we could demonstrate what we have been going through on a daily basis for years.” The Colonel told her.
“You mean the Rocket and Artillery attacks your people endure daily?” Evana asked
“Yes, those.”
“Have they occurred today yet?” Evana asked.
“Yes, they usually are during the time periods most people are out and about doing shopping or commuting to or from work. The bombings are usually in the late evenings if they occur. We have gotten very, very good at intercepting those though. So now they just shoot around a half dozen rockets from mobile launchers or disposable mortar tubes and run away before we can react.” He told her.
“Too bad. I would have enjoyed demonstrating a Gatling Laser for you.” Evana told him jokingly.
“Well yes, that would have been an interesting thing to see.” He told her with a grin. “Still you might get that chance anyway. We received a telephone call from an informant, our ‘friends’ in Gaza have decided to try and shoot you down when you leave the airport. The flight path is a known one and they do have MANPADS that could be used on you. In addition there are some intercepts that indicate they plan on launching up to twenty-five FAJR-7 Surface to surface missiles in a welcoming display for your Fleet Admiral tomorrow.” He told her seriously.
Evana smiled enigmatically, Captain Thomas/ Comm Mode: “Admiral Webster, I have some information for you.” And then proceeded to pass along the information she had just received. “Unless you have a problem with it, I think I am going to do a little demonstration for our Israeli Hosts.”
Fleet Admiral Webster/ Comm Mode: “Certainly, don’t break too many windows and try to leave me some bargaining room for tomorrow.”
Captain Thomas/ Comm Mode: “Thank you Sir, and I think you will get a warm welcome from the Israeli’s tomorrow.”
“Well Colonel are you and your men going to be busy for the next hour or so?”
“I have nothing planned at the moment. Are you offering a diversion for the evening?” The Colonel asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, I think so. Just between you and I, I am very displeased with anyone who thinks they have the right to shoot me or my vessels down just because…” Evana said with a Cold, Cold Voice. “Perhaps I should have them meet Hameed… No, that’s not fair to her. She’s already paid the price. I believe I will have to handle this in my own way then.”
The Colonel looked a bit concerned and then said tentatively, “Uhhh, who is Hameed?”
“He was a man who raped his cousin, got her pregnant and tried to beat her to death; all while hiding behind the ‘laws’ of Islam. I showed him and his town the error of his actions. I turned him into a beautiful woman… and returned her to her loving family.” And then with a tone of ice, “I told them that she had now been punished and if they tried to punish her any further. All of them would find out what it was like to be the opposite sex. So far they have been good little people.”
The Colonel looked at her in disbelief and then started to chuckle, “That was truly an inspired punishment! I hope you will never get that angry at my people or myself.”
“I don’t believe that will work here though. As I understand it these people have been brainwashed from birth for generations now, to hate Israel and everything it stands for. Instead I believe that I am going to have to demonstrate with a bit of force that their ways of thinking are incorrect.”
Evana paused suddenly and cocked her head as she remembered her mentor words back when she was an Ensign. ‘You don’t know it all, You CAN’T know it all. Because of that it’s always a good thing to ask for other people’s ideas and opinions before you go off half-cocked!’
“Colonel Guderian, what in your opinion would be the most effective means to get these people’s attention?” Evana asked seriously.
“It’s strange you ask that of me. I used to think that I did know what would. But today? No, I don’t know what would truly work. A baseball bat to the side of the head works for a few minutes. But I truly don’t believe that they ‘think’ anymore. They just ‘feel’ and have pre-programmed responses drilled into them depending on what happens around them.” He breathed a gentle sigh, “I also believe that any true thinkers that they used to have are now long gone and dead or next to it.”
“So do you think they are sociopaths now? That is, social chameleons until they explode in anger and destruction around themselves. Or is it something else?” Evana asked in curiosity.
“I don’t know Captain, what I can tell you is that I am deathly afraid that we Israelis both Jew and Arab are becoming the same way. Too many today don’t think, they emote and just react. It is like we all here are becoming less than human but still greater than simple animals.
If it wasn’t for our historical heritage here… I would just… “He paused and blinked the tears from his eyes, “I would just wish that we or they would leave and never bother each other again. Then the fighter in me stands up and says, ‘You wish us dead and gone! Then do your damnedest we will see who is the last one alive and standing!’
Think about it though, with the weapons we now possess, there probably would be no one left standing and only the sand fleas would rule this land.” He finished somberly.
Evana listened to him and watched his eyes as he spoke, then nodded her head at the last word from him. Then she spoke aloud. “Two and three release your IGD’s and search for possible hostiles employing MANPADS or other weapons with the capability of attacking an aircraft.
If such hostiles are detected then inform me immediately.”
“Two confirms” came the voice the from MARS unit two.
“Three confirms”, MARS Unit Three echoed in the enclosed space of the Command Capsule.
Evana started to explain to the Colonel beside her. “The acronym MARS stands for Marine Assault-Reconnaissance-Search and rescue. These particular ones accompanying me are optimized for Search and rescue. We do have some weapons on board but nothing like an assault configured unit would.
But still, if there are any hostiles, we should find them.”
Evana turned to look at the screens showing the outside. “It’s time to go; from the pointed looks they are waiting for us, or probably me to escort Dr. Davis and his family to the Louis Pasteur.”
“Louis Pasteur? I thought you were the Captain of the Comfort?” Colonel Guderian asked in confusion.
“I am the Captain of the Comfort, The Louis Pasteur is one of her Carried Vessels. Capable of operating independently but also designed as an integral part of her Mother Ship. The Louis Pasteur is the vessel that came to my ‘rescue’ last week.”
“I see… Yes, I do see now why the Government would like to ally with your organization. Would you accept Citizens of Israel as members of the Terran Space Navy?”
“Yes of course, anybody who ca
n meet our qualifications is welcome no matter what nation they come from.” Evana told him with a large smile. “In case you were unaware our prime directive is: ‘To Nurture and Protect the Human Race.’ Everything else we do flow from that. And sometimes in rare instances it means protecting the Human Race from itself, like we are doing in the Iranian Unified Republic.”
She opened up the Command Capsule and led the way outside. Shortly thereafter she and the Davis family were leaving Israeli Airspace with nothing being discovered and no attacks attempted. ‘Now if only everything else goes as smoothly’ Evana thought to herself as the Louis Pasteur came into view.
* * *
“Gunnar! It’s good to see you again!” Evana told her friend from the Epiphany. “I’m glad you could come here in person.”
“It’s good to see you again too, Evana.” Gunnar Johansson said with a grin. “But I’m on a short leash, so tell me why you needed to have me here in person.”
“We’ve had a breakthrough of sorts here with our prisoners with those artificial glands I was telling everybody about. The first part is that we are in the process of attempting to get a decent Engram recording off of one of them. The second is a bit more disturbing. Between Alessandra and Dr. Davis’s work we have discovered that these individual all give off an ‘exudate’ Alessandra calls it. It’s in their body odor and on their breath. It’s totally unique to them too.”
“Really? That’s interesting and disturbing news. Only the people with these glands have that… What did you call it ‘Exuwhatsis’?” Gunnar said with a crinkled brow.
“Exudate. And yes, only they have it. In any case I have asked to have all of our Scanner-Arches and IGD’s to be configured to look for these exudates.”
“All Right Go on then.”
“Okay, then a very quick, very superficial check shows some concentrations of these Exudates.” She then called up a HoloMap of the region of the IUR. These three locations show a definite presence. The Governmental Palace in Tehran, this villa and the area around it. That’s where the Great Leader is hiding out today. And this section here in the Province of Pakistan. This is a former Missile Field and Developmental facility.
Not too bad eh? Only three sites. Ok, this is a super quick look-see at the globe. Here, Washington D.C., not too surprising though, that was the President-for-Life’s power base. Here, New York City, and in particular the United Nations Building. Not too surprising again I suppose. There are instances in nearly every Capitol city of every nation. Most of those are small concentrations.
But here! This is Indonesia. It’s RAMPANT here, well… in comparison at least, and in the surrounding waters. Wherever there are sea-going air-breathing mammals there is this exudate. Mind you it’s not worldwide yet but it’s occurring in larger concentrations there.”
“Yes, I can see why you are concerned. All right then, what do you suggest?” Gunnar asked her.
“Gunnar, I am afraid I am going paranoid over this. I want you to take all of the data I and my people have gathered, run it by Johnny Reb, Lucky, whoever! Then if I’m wrong to be paranoid then tell me so. Otherwise I am going to go on the assumption that we have really been invaded by aliens from outer space.
And…” She choked up, “And Gunnar I’m scared that we may have to evacuate the Human Population. These people are not visually dissimilar from a normal human being. They eat, drink, make love but they don’t THINK like a normal human. And it can be passed along by the ingestion of something. We saw that with the Ayatollah Al-Quds.”
“That might be a little extreme there Evana, what else do you know or think you know?” Gunnar asked gently.
“I asked Seeker to send a copy of her history data to the Comfort. Although she isn’t fully operational there is more than enough computational capability that would normally be dedicated to medical research and other medical requirements available to research that GINOURMOUS amount of data the Gho L’Gamesh gathered over all of its years and fifteen thousand plus versions of Earth and the Solar System.
You heard Seeker at the staff meeting discuss the Quarn, well the Quarn have showed up over eleven hundred times. So have several other aliens that have the same invasion profile but not as often as the Quarn.
Gunnar, in at least two of those invasions they were still there when the Gho L’Gamesh arrived in the solar system after breaching the dimensional wall. In one of those occurrences the Gho L’Gamesh apparently was attacked. How is not recorded; only the effects were recorded.
He was coming in on a fairly high speed pass of the planet so as to get decent data. Mind you this was before he developed a really decent IGD. He lost all consciousness, Gunnar! He only recovered when he was several million miles past the Earth. His independent recorders and instrumentation worked fine and gathered data during the pass. He and all of the activated AI’s were knocked unconscious.
Seeker herself was one of them. Why she doesn’t directly remember the incident is even more disturbing to me.” Evana finished up and looked away to hide her expression.
“Well now, you do have something for me to dig into and the other earth analogue? What happened there?” Gunnar said in approval.
“Nothing, but that’s because the Gho L’Gamesh never came very close to that version of Earth. He used a very early version of the current model of the IGD to investigate it. It didn’t have an A.I. capability just a nice dense package of sensors and mobility capability. It also used a laser and radio communications system unlike the Synced Crystals we use today.
A whole lot of data was gathered there that is of use. In many ways the two analogues were identical. The Quarn appear to be a BIO-Adaptive species in that they come in and take over or absorb whatever has a central nervous system or potential for what I call intelligence and reasoning. Humans, Whales, Dolphins, Orcas, Chimps, Gorillas or Orangs, anything like that.
Then they modify that group when a critical mass of central nervous system tissue, intelligence etc. reaches a point where a mass mind can be achieved. This mass mind is extremely powerful with telekinetic and projective telepathic capabilities.”
“I’m not sure what that really means,” Gunnar said, “But I can tell you don’t like it at all.”
“What it means? I’m not really sure either. The data is inconclusive to say the least. I can say that if the Quarn is here on Earth and we don’t take it out before it reaches the Mass Mind stage then another Earth Analogue has been lost. And any human still on the planet when that occurs is lost too.”
“Right! ...” Gunnar stopped and thought and Evana gave him time to come to grips with what she had told him. “About the other types of Aliens who have invaded in a similar manner, are they as bad?”
“Yes and no. There was one called the Fleer by their Humans. They were easily detected as they modified their hosts into a variety of Forms. They were also easy to kill with modern weapons. They won and assimilated the Human race because they weren’t recognized as a danger until it was too late.
Another one had no name so the Gho L’Gamesh used its U’Tarn identifier for it. You might be familiar with it actually. Ever see the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers?” She paused and swallowed nervously. “That’s them.”
“You know if we weren’t where we are, safe within our ships, I would be very, very depressed right now.” Gunnar told her soberly. “Ok, have Comfort send it all over to Johnny Reb and Companion. I’m going to get Albert Fuller involved. He’s got the training and the disposition for this sort of work.
Thanks for getting me involved and trusting me with your worries.” He finished up.
“No, thank you Gunnar Johansson for coming here in the middle of your ‘night’, it means a lot to me that you did.”
Tel Aviv, Israel Monday December 14, 2026
Fleet Admiral Webster has been meeting with the latest Israeli Prime Minister Gamal Almarakh, who amazingly enough was an Israeli of Arab descent. His Cabinet was a mix of both Jew and Muslim and Admiral Webster wa
s pleased to see that they all had respect for their prime minister.
Once the TSN Truth Verifier was explained and all were confident of its ability to discern the truth a combination of ease and preciseness of speech was evident by all.
“Mr. Prime Minister that was a delicious luncheon, would your chef mind if I asked for the recipe for the glazed lamb?” Admiral Webster asked once they had returned back to the Cabinet meeting room.
“I will ask him, like most men of his profession he does like to receive compliments.” The Prime Minister said with a nod and a smile.
“Now, we have all had a bit of time to think about the others position. If you don’t mind I would like to try a method of negotiation that I find quite useful. I would like to present your side of the negotiations and if you would, please take mine.” The Admiral told his host.
