TSN: The Best Laid Plans (Terran Space Navy)

by Paul Phipps

  Next is the locale for her construction, Seeker has informed me that there is a proto-planet in the Kuiper belt that will provide most of the material that will be processed by Nano-machine construction methods into the Musashi. Currently this proto-planet is being disassembled and the materials will be available when we are prepared to begin construction. Construction will also begin at that location.

  If there are no questions, that concludes my initial report.”

  “Thank you Commander Kurita, Concise and quick, I appreciate that.” Admiral Webster acknowledged. “Captain Thomas?”

  “Good morning Admiral. The Comfort and her carried vessels are in nominal condition and are carrying out their assigned tasks in an exemplary fashion. Of note for this report is the Elizabeth Rich, They have received thirty live Q-Mots for study from Commander Webster. I note that the incident was in his written reports but I see he left it up to me to orally report our findings.” She said with a deadpan look on her face while Ansel just gave her a devilish grin in return.

  “Go on Captain.”

  “Yes Sir, Dr. Vaughn reports that although Q-mots use ingestion as their primary means of Parasitation they can also work though skin touch. Please let me show you this quick video.” And after getting the Admiral’s agreement showed:

  A small dish is being placed into a howler monkeys cage. The monkey is curious and puts its nose close and sniffs. It recoils a bit as if the smell doesn’t agree with it. Next it touches the Q-mot with one finger and then almost immediately a facial change occurs on the monkey. It is hard to describe but it’s as though the monkey loses control of it facial muscles and they all relax at once. With a slow unsure movement the hand is raised up to the mouth of the monkey and the Q-mot is swallowed. Within fifteen seconds or so it was over, the Monkey appeared normal and the Quarn detector started to pick up Quarn Exudates from the monkeys breath.

  “Hmmm, that’s not good for us, anything else?” Admiral Webster said humorlessly

  “Yes Sir, The Elizabeth Rich has been moved to five light minutes beyond the Heliopause. There are significant findings to show that the Q-Mots are telepathic amongst themselves. So they have removed all of our Quarn-slave Captives and the Mass-mind as far as they thought necessary to keep telepathic communication from occurring with the Mother.”

  “Very Good Captain Thomas. Very smart thinking on your crew’s part.”

  “Thank you Sir, I’ll be sure to pass that on to them. Next up is the TEPCO cleanup. The Prime Minister and his cabinet have agreed that we may proceed with our plan to clean up the TEPCO site in the Fukushima prefecture. We will be starting on Thursday of this week and we estimate that it will take three weeks to do the cleanup.

  The Japanese government has been warned and they have acknowledged those warnings that this is a dangerous procedure and that it must be conducted under strict quarantine measures to prevent any of the Nano-Machine swarm from escaping. As a protective measure on our part the Nano-machines are programmed to disassemble themselves once they no longer can find any radioactive materials to disassemble.

  Now, onto the Emergency Disaster Training Drill. We started it yesterday and so far all is going well. There is somewhere around six thousand volunteers that are simulating the wounded and trapped citizens in and around the Fukushima Tsunami Memorial. The drill is scheduled to continue through Friday and then next week is devoted to analysis of the participants and what they did that was correct and what was wrong.

  And that’s it for this week’s report sir.” Evana finished up.

  “Commander Fuller?” Admiral Webster asked.

  “Good Morning Admiral from Mars.” She began, “As you know from my written reports the Companion has had an ‘interesting’ week. There have been some very rough spots as well as some good ones. Let me start with the first of the bad spots.

  Of our Six twenty-four inch rail-guns two failed after firing ten rounds, one of them catastrophically. There were no casualties among the crew and the failures became a real world incident rather than a simulation. Damage Control was prompt and efficient at putting out the on-board fires. We found that Mar’s low pressure atmosphere with its deficiency of oxygen helped us out there. If this had happened on station at the Strait of Hormuz the damage would have been worse.

  Post incident Damage Control and the Weapons Fault Correction Team quickly found the root cause of the failures, salt corrosion of key wiring connections to the Capacitors and rails of the barrel. Daily testing of a full charge and then slow discharge failed to discover these faults earlier as they only become apparent under the Quick discharge of the weapons capacitors through the circuitry and the Barrel’s rails. And that only after several rounds are fired.

  We took these findings and examined the six inch self-defense rail-guns for similar problems. There were none found and this is attributed to the Self-Defense Gundecks being sealed in their protective shells most of the time.

  Part of our corrective actions was to re-design the main gun turrets so that the barrels may be depressed into deck mounted enclosures so as to protect the barrel assemblies from the elements. Also all of the Rails and quick discharge capacitors have been retro-fitted with corrosion resistive alloys that will function at close to the same efficiency as the original ones.

  These finding have also been transmitted to the Epiphany for her to use in examining her own weapons for salt corrosion damage.

  The other bad spot was one of the Fusion Reactors had a misfire on start-up. This particular one had not been started since the Companion took up its station. We are now instituting a weekly start-up on all of our back-up reactors. It is anticipated that these problems will be ameliorated by these procedures.

  Now on to the rest of the training the Companion has been undergoing this week. Main gun accuracy was amazing both on the planet and at the in-space firing range. Accuracy increased even more with a Forward Space Controller relaying targeting information.”

  “What were the ranges you were firing at Commander?” Captain Johansson asked.

  “Between ten miles and fifteen hundred mile on the Martian Surface. And the In-space range was thirty-two million miles for our long range targeting. We can obviously fire from longer distances, accuracy will vary of course as to the target’s maneuverability. I understand that the Fabricators are working on munitions that have a terminal guidance system for the Larger Rail-Guns.”

  “Yes, they are Commander, Anything else?” Admiral Webster prodded.

  “Yes Sir, our Scalp-hunter squadrons were able to exercise their vessels and practice maneuvers and tactics they had only been able to do in Virtual Reality prior to this training exercise. All in all this was excellent training for the vessel and crew.

  We found some problems, we then fixed them so that the likelihood of them reoccurring is nil. We exercised all of our equipment in a situation that was just short of actual combat. I am pleased with the results but I think that we need to do this again within a few months’ to keep the crew’s training up-to-standards.”

  “Good Report Commander,” Admiral Webster told her, “Lt. Commander Fuller?”

  “Good Morning Admiral, while the Companion was off station undergoing Live-fire Training, I and my intelligence operation transferred over to the Susannah. There was no apparent disruption in our gathering and analysis of data.

  For this report I have three things of interest pertaining to the Quarn. Item #1, the two last known vials of Shaitan’s Breath are both now located at the Peshawar Missile base in the Province of Pakistan. The Great Leader ordered that the one that failed to get out before the Blockade Shield went up be moved to the missile base. We thought about intercepting the shipment and substituting a doctored one of our own. However their security was too tight to do that undetected so we declined to do so.

  Communication intercepts indicate that these two vials are to be launched on different missiles with the intent that they release the spores once they clear the Blockade Shield wall.
We of course will prevent that. To that end with Seeker’s and your assistance four of our fighters are to be in that vicinity at all times to stop or shoot down any such launch of those missiles.”

  “Excuse me Lt. Commander Fuller, But why don’t we just take the vials once they’ve been placed in the missiles before they can be launched?” Commander Kurita asked.

  “We could and perhaps we should do that, however as an intelligence officer I have this tendency to want to know how all of the pieces of an enemy’s plan are supposed to work. In this case too, if we do take the vials too early it will alert the Great Leader and his people that their operation has been compromised in one way or another. We could then miss a vital piece of intelligence that we may absolutely need later on. Therefore we must weigh the worth of our actions versus the loss of future intelligence.”

  “Thank you for that explanation, Lt. Commander.” Commander Kurita told him.

  Now on to the next piece of Quarn information. Thanks to Commander Webster inviting that Indonesian orphan Harum to visit with his apprentice’s we have now placed one of our documents with listening capability into a Quarn stronghold. In addition we have also placed a Trojan virus into the Orphanage’s computer system via an HDVD and it is spreading quite nicely. We are now identifying Quarn-slaves world-wide with one exception. We still don’t know where the Mother Quarn is located at. The others never discuss her whereabouts. It’s always referred to as the Home of the Mother.

  One of the first things we have discovered is that we are also not the first to note the depopulation of children from Indonesia. At least two NGO’s are investigating this and have or will have investigators on the ground in Indonesia shortly. This is a good thing for us, as they are official and we are not. So we will just shadow them and if they get in trouble we may need to rescue them. So far that hasn’t happened but we will remain vigilant.

  Also they, the Quarn that are more in the Mother’s camp versus the ones in the Master’s camp are now getting interested in the TSN to the point that they are actively trying to parasitize some of our members. We will need to keep our guard up so that doesn’t occur.

  And lastly on the political side of things, the state of Israel’s recognition of the Terran Space Navy and the authorization for a working agreement with us has been greeted with dismay by the various Muslim dominated countries worldwide and surprisingly in Europe with the exceptions of England, Ireland and Germany.

  The remainder of the former European Union nations either view us negatively or neutrally at best. They have their own problems of course and look more inwardly than at the rest of the world currently.

  That concludes my report for this week sir.” He added after a pause for questions from the others.

  * * *

  New York City – FOX/CNN Building

  “Good morning to you, Commander Webster.” Mary Roberts, News Director for the North American division of the network said pleasantly.

  The two of them were sitting in the same break room they had used several weeks earlier at a memorable recording of Sean’s show, Hardball Redux. Only this time there were several others in the break room listening closely to the two of them.

  “Good morning to you also, Ms. Roberts. And how is the news today?” Ansel replied with a slight grin.

  “As usual I suppose, it seems like we report the same things over and over again and sometimes the names and places change but the content? It’s pretty much the same from day to day.” She replied with a dejected shrug.

  “Well then, I have something new to offer you then.” Ansel told her. “The Terran Space Navy is offering FOX/CNN an exclusive of our upcoming goodwill trip to England. Interested?”

  “Hmmm, an exclusive? In what way would it be exclusive?”

  “Your camera crews and talents would be present on board the Huntress as she leaves Asimov City until her arrival. You would be given access to the crew and her Commanding Officer as well as any family members who agree to be interviewed by your people.”

  “That is interesting… Why?” Ms. Roberts pressed.

  “I believe that is time for us to open up a bit on what it is like to live on board one of our ships. The Huntress is also an experiment too. Her complement will be mostly composed of former Royal Navy and Marine personnel that have volunteered to serve with the Terran Space Navy.”

  “I was aware of those facts, I assume you know that the BBC and SKYnews have pretty much frozen us out of any of the welcoming ceremonies. Don’t you think that they will be… Let us say, less than happy at us having this sort of access to the TSN on an approved visit to England while they don’t enjoy the same sort of access?”

  “Confidentially I don’t give a damn at what they feel, happy or sad with the TSN giving you this sort of access. After the level of vitriol they have levied against the TSN and our ‘Piratical’ actions vis a vis the Iranian Unified Republic they are quite frankly, far down on my list of reliable or accurate reporters of the news.” Ansel said composedly.

  “How refreshing… Total candor with a member of the media.” She beamed at Ansel, “I like it and will have three crews available later on today for transport to your space city.”

  Ansel in turned smiled at that then said, “If Mr. Sparks is interested I would like him to come along too, also if you have a good sports reporter available, I would like him or her to also come along.”

  “Why? I mean I can understand John Sparks, but a Sports Reporter?” Ms. Roberts said confusedly.

  “Well,” Ansel said a little sheepishly, “the kids and the Marines have come up with two new games they are just crazy about. I was asked to ‘pretty please’ have a reporter come and see them play first hand.”

  “Really? And what makes you think that a kid’s game might be news worthy?” Ms. Roberts asked with a gleam in her eye.

  Ansel just smiled and from his briefcase pulled out a holographic projector. “Let’s just watch a home movie of the kids playing and then you tell me what you think.”

  Above the projector a scene appeared, there were figures flying rapidly in patterns that were confusing. Soon it was obvious that there were two teams, one was dressed in Blue and Gold the other was in Green and Black. A large white ball reminiscent of a soccer ball was moving rapidly from one end of an air borne field to the other.

  Ms. Roberts and the others were entranced at the fast pace and the flying players. After twenty minutes Ansel reached out and stopped the play back. A sigh and a murmur of “No, don’t stop now’s.” was heard quietly in the break room.

  Ansel just watched and kept quiet as he watched Mary’s face as she thought furiously. Finally she said, “Yes Commander, that is indeed news worthy. And what was the other game?”

  “The other one was invented by some of our Marines after watching the kids play Dragon Ball.”

  “Dragon Ball?” interjected an older man who had been watching the video avidly.

  “Yes, Dragon Ball,” Ansel said looking straight at the questioner, “The flight packs the players were wearing are called Dragon Wings because they look and operate quite similarly to a Dragonfly’s wings.

  The other game though is much tougher to play, it’s called Gravball. The play is on a variable sized playing field that again resembles a Soccer field superficially. The play is also similar with two exceptions. There are four fifteen minute quarters. The first quarter starts out with the playing field being in two gravities, the next quarter is one gravity. That’s what the Earth’s gravity field is. And then the third quarter is in one-half Gravity with the final quarter being in zero gravity.

  If the score is tied at the end of the final quarter a single overtime quarter is played with a randomly chosen gravity that varies from two gravities to zero gravity. It’s very difficult to play because of the varying gravity field from quarter to quarter and how that effects the unconscious calculations on how the ball will react in the different gravity conditions. Injuries are common and each team has triple the no
rmal complement of players because of the expected injuries.” Ansel finished off with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Mary Roberts nodded her head in appreciation and looked over at the man who had questioned Ansel a few minutes earlier. “Well Jim, this might be up your alley. Would you like to cover it?”

  “Yes Ma’am, I most certainly would! Ever since the legal insurrection against the National Football League over concussions and injuries that game has just been unwatchable. Who wants to watch a game where the players are forbidden from touching each other accidentally or on purpose?”

  “Very good then, you have it. “ She then looked to Ansel, “Commander Webster, I would like to introduce you to Jim Thorpe. He is an avid Sports fan of all types and has been in the Sports Journalism business for almost twenty years.”