by Paul Phipps
“Ok Gunny, what’s going on?” General Cappielo asked pointedly.
“Well General, frankly it’s not very good.” Recruit Tufuga began carefully, and then went into a quick explanation of what had occurred to the Mentor while the rest of them were in the VR Briefing.
“So we have three officers and two civilians that are missing and presumed dead because they in turn attacked this vessel and tried to commandeer it. You were losing to them and had to eject the compartment they were in to save the ship. Correct?” General Cappielo summarized the event.
“Pretty much General, but I don’t think they are dead or missing. Or you could say they’ve been dead for some time now and have just had the parasite that had taken over their bodies decide the bodies weren’t required any more. But we are tracking the ejected compartment. And have some communications still functioning at least enough for visual reception anyway. So they aren’t missing in that way either.” Tufuga told him.
“And now you need to figure out how to tell all of the people here that we, that is the Earth, is now under a covert Alien attack. And oh by the way you won’t be seeing General Johns, Colonel Hamm, Captain Dieter, Ms. Harris and my office Manager Mr. Williams anymore as they were a part of the attacking force along with the Secretary of Defense.” General Owens said in a half sarcastic half worried manner.
Tufuga smiled at the Air Force General and said, “General Owens I knew you had to be smart to get to the General Staff. Yes sir, that’s it in a nutshell.”
General Owens looked at the TSN Marine in shock that he would be talked to that way. Admiral Caparelli stepped into the conversation then and asked. “Where is Commander Webster and why didn’t he brief us?”
“Well Admiral, right now he is in the Med-Center with Command Chief Cavendish. She was the closest one to the Quarn-Slaves when they pulled their Hive mind trick. He is making sure that her mind wasn’t tampered by the Quarn.”
“And if her mind was tampered?” General Cappielo asked carefully.
“Sir, depending on how bad it is, he might have to put her in suspended animation until we can repair the damage.” Tufuga told him carefully.
“Well! I must admit that I really never considered being attacked while on board a vessel of the Terran Space Navy.” General Elam said out loud in a somber manner. “Now what do we do? And more importantly I think, what do we tell the Secretary of Defense?”
The five men looked at each other contemplatively and as General Owens was about to say something Commander Webster appeared at the Trans-Portal. He had a very serious look on his face and nodded to the U.S. Officers as he walked through them to the five men at the head of the room. As he came forward he told Recruit Tufuga through his Comm link to let him in to the Jammer Bubble.
“Gentlemen.” He said immediately after the Jammer was back open. “As recruit Tufuga informed you we have been attacked. Admiral Webster and the Command A.I.’s have come up with a plausible cover story to tell your remaining personnel and Secretary Anderson in particular.”
He went on to describe it and with concurrence of the four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States they set it in motion.
Pentagon, Monday, 1530EST, January 4, 2026
The Four Joint Chiefs of Staff and The Undersecretaries for the Air Force, Army and Navy were in Secretary of Defense Anderson’s spacious office at his Mahogany Conference table telling him about the tragedy on board the Mentor.
“So…..” Secretary Anderson drawled out, “You are telling me that five of our people and three of the Terran Space Navy’s personnel are now dead because one of our people had a suicide bomb capsule set that caused them to blow-up and destroy a large portion of the vessel you were on?”
“Yes Sir, that’s correct,” Undersecretary Watkins told him, “The TSN A.I.’s estimate that the force was equivalent to ninety-seven pounds of plastic explosive. All personnel on the Observation deck were killed instantly when they attempted to do CPR on Captain Dieter and his musculature reached the proper explosive consistency.
“And does the TSN have an explanation as to why they didn’t detect the Bomb Capsules earlier on when Captain Dieter came aboard?” The Secretary asked in a low tone of voice.
“Yes Sir, they believe that the first two capsules had already been activated and destroyed before the Captain reached their vessel and their systems didn’t recognize what was occurring. They are now looking into reprogramming the necessary systems to prevent an incident like this in the future.
Also they have instructed me to inform you that they do not hold the Department of Defense or the Government of the United States responsible for this attack on one of their vessels.”
Secretary Anderson jerked up straight and a very strange look crossed his face at that. He had never even had the thought cross his mind that he and the Government might have been held responsible.
“Well that’s damn white of them!” He barked out.
“Yes Sir, it is.” Admiral Caparelli told him seriously. “They told us almost two months ago about these Suicide Bomb Capsule sets and we haven’t done a damn thing to examine our people for them. And now we know that there is someone close enough to the Pentagon that can trigger them.”
The Secretary sat back carefully and looked at the men surrounding him at the table. None of them had a ‘happy’ face on. He needed to reorganize his thinking. ‘Damn… It’s hard thinking like a human at times. The Master needs to know about this.’
“Very well, we need to come up with a story for the press and the family members. I’ll brief the President myself.
Please stick around for a while; I may need you to explain fully to him what has occurred. So go on back to your offices, I’ll get back to you shortly.”
* * *
“Master, five of us are gone, and the last two Q-Mots I had available are also.” Secretary Anderson was explaining to the ‘Master’ aka The Great leader, aka the President-for-Life.
“And how did this happen?” came back the deceptively mild voice.
The Secretary told him of the tour of the TSN’s training facility and how the five had been killed by a bomb capsule that one of them had been implanted with.
“I knew of the excursion to the Terran Space Navy’s,” he spat out the last three words, “training facility, my Quarn-Slave Harris was keeping me notified of what was happening at the Pentagon on a regular basis before this Allah be-Damned wall of theirs was erected. She contacted me on an Emergency number and I instructed her to see if the vessel could be captured or if members of the TSN could be implanted with Q-Mots. It is a pity that my hosts other program would impact us like this.
This is a serious setback for us Secretary Anderson, how many more of us are still at the Pentagon?”
“I only know of two Master, Colonel Zorn and Captain Fortnoy.”
“Yes, that’s who I thought were still there. Have Colonel Markham transferred from his post at the training center and promote him into General Johns position. “
He paused and there was an audible swallow, “Contact Jilna al-Salaam at the Indonesian Embassy. Tell her the Following phrase. ‘The Mother’s shadow is deeper than darkest night.’ She will respond with ‘The Sun’s radiance illuminates all.’
Tell her that you need as many Q-Mots that are available. Once you have them, use them on President Richardson and his cabinet and as many members of Congress as you can.”
“Yes Master I will do that immediately.” Secretary Anderson told him servilely.
“Don’t fail me Slave. Or you too will end up like that Icelandic failure.”
* * *
“Ok Johan, please decrypt that Sat-call as fast as you can. I want to hear the other side of that Conversation.” Lt. Commander Fuller told the Command A.I. of the Companion.
He then kicked back in his swivel chair and mused about all of the help he had had once upon a time. He swung around and started a query on his workstation. At a few minutes he smiled and ask
ed Johan to connect him to the telephone number on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Tom Cat this is Mouser I have some catnip to share with you.” Albert Fuller said carefully as he enunciated each word.
“I don’t care for catnip I prefer…” The deep male voice came back.
“Mouseburgers.”
“Exactly. What do you want Mouser?”
“We need to meet.” Albert Fuller told him.
“Just me?”
“No… I need the seven Mouseketeers. Tomorrow night at the Drive-in.”
“That might be hard to do, Mouser. What is the flavor of the day?”
“Camembert, extra stinky.”
“If you say so… Time?
“Second Showing”
“I’ll be there, I’ll tell the others.”
Lt. Commander Fuller disconnected the call at that point.
Companion, Tuesday January 5, 2027
The weekly Staff meeting that Fleet Admiral Webster has instituted is underway with a new member in attendance.
“Congratulations Lt. Tufuga on your promotion.” Admiral Webster began off with.
“Thank you Admiral, it feels great to be out of basic. But I must admit it feels very weird to be an Officer.” The broad Samoan answered back.
“Well, you know how it is Lieutenant, you do a great job and you’ll be expected to keep it up. And that’s even more true here than in the U.S. Marines.” Ansel told him with a smile.
“And now you tell me.” Lt. Tufuga growled back.
“Moving on then!” Admiral Webster said with a slight smile, “The first item is the attack on the Mentor yesterday. Thanks to your and Lt. Harrison’s quick actions the Mentor and the Humans on board were saved. And as we now know another attempt by the former President-for-Life to get out of the IUR has been thwarted.
Lieutenant Harrison has been assigned to Captain Johansson’s ship the Johnny Reb and is assisting him in retrieving the former Port Observation Deck. Which I understand is proving to be a bit difficult.” He finished by looking at a hologram of the two officers.
“Yes it is Admiral. I hate to admit it but I really didn’t believe in the historical record from the Gho L’Gamesh about the Quarn’s telepathic and telekinetic abilities. But I do now! The five unit Mass mind has an effective range of four point seven miles. None of our current TSN technology that is necessary for an A.I. to function is safe inside of that range.
We are going to have to research why that is so but even more importantly we need to come up with a different Distributed Computer Network scheme. The Quantum level processors are very sensitive to the Quarn’s abilities. This means that only the Human Members of the TSN can operate within that sphere of the Quarn’s influence and we can only use equipment that does not utilize Quantum Level processors and control devices.
So it’s back to IC’s and multi-surface processor’s for now. I have my fabricator’s on Johnny Reb researching the historical database to see what other technologies were created on the other Earth Analogues.
Lieutenant Harrison here and six more recruits I had pulled from Basic are using newly created vessels that require at least three men to operate efficiently and contains a DCN that isolates the on board A.I. as soon as a Quarn influence is detected.
At this time we are using them to maneuver the Quarn to a gravity neutral point for use in observing it. Additional power supplies are being provided by RTG’s and we are keeping the temperature at a constant thirty four degree Fahrenheit. According to the historical record the Quarn can survive that temperature and we are hoping it will degrade its mental abilities as a side effect.”
“That sounds like good news, do you have any more?” Admiral Webster asked.
“Actually… Yes, we do. If we can believe the video we are getting from the deck, then a Quarn Hive-mind of this size cannot absorb, convert or eat inorganic materials. Let me show you.”
A hologram appeared over the table. It showed the interior of the former Observation Deck. The five human bodies that had housed the Quarn Slaves were gone. They had been apparently absorbed into the slowly pulsing mass that looked like red cotton candy mixed with oatmeal.
What was also of interest was that the Telefactor that Command Chief Cavendish had been occupying had also been eaten at least the organic portions had. The ceramic-metal skeleton and inorganic electronics were in a pile where she had been sitting last.
“Well Chief”, Commander Webster murmured to her, “I see you left an impression there.”
She in turn glared at him and then whispered in his ear, “I have Ariadne’s permission to take you to the Gym and beat you silly on the mats.” Then with a twinkle in her eye she added, “But you are correct, I do leave an impression wherever I go.”
Ansel in turn grinned and thought, ‘Thank God she’s OK.’
Admiral Webster glared at his nephew, “If you are through Commander?”
Ansel in turn assumed a sober expression, “Ahhh, Yes Sir.”
“Very well then. Now to continue, the actions of Lieutenant Tufuga and Lieutenant Harrison in the crisis were exemplary. The follow-up of the crew of the Mentor also was along the same lines. This is good, very good! It shows that the training regime instituted by Commander Webster and Command Chief Cavendish is not only effective but the results are outstanding men and women derived from it.
My heartfelt congratulations to both of you.” He finished up with a beaming smile.
“Now let us continue, Captain Johansson anything else of note for last week?”
“Yes sir, the A.I.’s assisting Professors Li and Anagnostis have reported an interesting correlation. Mind you the two Professors have not passed this on yet. I think they are a bit too conservative and want to make sure they have all of their ducks in a row.
But anyway the A.I.’s are reporting that they are researching something called the zone of silence in Mexico. They are interested because the tablets they uncovered in the Iraq province reference a place called the ‘Place of Silence’ and specifically say that a ‘Guardian’ was left there to insure that the ‘Gate to the Stars’ would be kept sealed against the demon.”
“Interesting… So what do you want to do?” Admiral Webster asked.
“Admiral, I have already sent several IGD’s to the ‘Zone of Silence’ in Mexico. As soon as they get into the zone they stop functioning in a normal fashion and all communications cease. It’s a mystery and I think we need to explore it.” Captain Johansson told the group at large.
“Very well then, come up with a proposal and present it at the next staff meeting, Captain.”
“Yes Sir, We’ll do that.”
“Anything else?” The Admiral asked with a raised eyebrow and with a head shake of ‘No’ he moved on. “Captain Thomas?”
“The Comfort is now averaging four thousand Critical care patients a week. That is translating into a lot of goodwill toward us and I hope to see a lot more people looking to join the TSN. Especially since each critical care patient comes with two people from the hospital that asked for our assistance. We are finally starting to see some applications coming in now from former participants to that program.
“Excellent!” The Admiral said with a grin.
“Thank you sir, in the meantime I am now concentrating on acquiring first responders. Israel in particular has sent over fifty for training in our methods and in turn has been a major boost in training our A.I.’s in their methods. That is going to be a win-win I believe.
Now if I could only get them to volunteer for the TSN.” She added looking over to Commander Webster and Command Chief Cavendish.
“We’ll come up with something, Captain Thomas.” Ansel told her with a respectful look.
“Colonel James was given a complete briefing about the Quarn and the incidents with Homeland Security and the President-for-life’s involvement.” Evana continued with her summation, “She has accepted my offer of the position of Commanding Officer for the U.S. Mil
itary Medical Contingent on board the Comfort. After discussing my request for her services with the Army’s Medical Material Command and with General Elam I expect that they will ratify her appointment quickly.
I am handling most of the Civilian temps right now with assistance from my four ‘apprentices’,” She said with a chuckle and grin toward Captain Johansson, “Gelya has turned out to be quite a hands on manager. It’s amazing when I sit back and think about it. How much talent is being wasted in these backward tribal areas? “She finished with a shake of her head.
“Let’s see now… Oh yes, Galileo City is coming along nicely with its initial construction. Seeker has assured me that we can have the initial group of Civilian Astronomers there in twelve days. It will be a couple of month’s though before all construction is final. And that will work out nicely I believe.”
