by Paul Phipps
“In the short term it just might, but in the long term… no. It’s going to take time to overcome the social inertia of countries and individuals to change. And you must admit we are a big dose of ‘change’.” At which statement everyone grinned or chuckled softly.
“Moving on now, I’m going to step on Major Vasquez’s and Captain Johansson’s briefs a bit. I have decided to task Captain Llewellyn, his crew and the Huntress for a new mission that they are admirably suited for.
They are going to be hunting a new type of pirate. These pirates don’t take ships so much as they take people. Children specifically; using newly developed intelligence we now know that the Quarn mother and her minions have had to search outside of Indonesia for more children to feed off of. They are tasked at discovering how it’s done and how to stop it.
I do expect that there will be some combat involved by the way and I have also decided that any vessel carrying abducted children will be impounded by the TSN. I plan on putting them into orbit, my chief fabricator Jerry has come up with a nice little package that attaches to the keel of a ship and surrounds it with a good sized bubble of air and water. It will also give the contents a nice one G field to sit in. I figure an orbit of one hundred twenty miles will give the world a nice view of our prizes and perhaps a sense of caution will infect the various ship owners to monitor their cargos more efficiently.”
“What about public relations backlash from the media and the various governments?” Admiral Webster inquired.
“Right after this meeting I am meeting with Ms. Roberts to see if we can get a reporter and news crew assigned to the Huntress so as to document what we are doing. Secondly I am meeting with our new Advisory Council and informing them of what we are about to do. Who knows, maybe they’ll volunteer some Seals or Royal marines to ‘assist’ us. In any case they will be notified of our intentions vis-à-vis this effort.”
“Very good then, anything more?” The Admiral asked, he received a headshake and then said. “Captain Thomas?”
“Good Morning Sir, The Comfort and her carried vessels are still doing a booming business with our humanitarian efforts. Today however I want to concentrate on five areas, Galileo City, our genetics collection effort, Rani, the crew of the SF-003 and the Zombie Drug.
Galileo City, will be completely functional in two weeks, currently the Astronomical observation arrays are working at 100% and Academician Lermontov is in firm control of the civilian contingent using them. The University side is also coming along nicely, we have an advertising campaign prepared and will start it this week so I expect a boatload of applications to be arriving shortly.
We have also lined up several people to serve as our civilian board of directors and to handle the various duties of department heads. There was a bit of consternation though when they were told that the focus of G.U. was the hard sciences and that the social sciences would only be available as round–out courses and not as major’s in and of themselves.
The next city to be constructed in our Deep Space Observation Network will be called Archimedes Station and it will be in the lead position at the two-light minute point beyond the forward Heliopause ‘bow-wall’. The associated university there is tentatively being called,” ‘Ahem’ she coughed, “The University of the Voyagers” in honor of the first French Explorers and settlers of the North American continent.
Continuing on then, the official Genetics Collection project is slowly moving along. Mostly that is being held up by the various national entities as they want detailed plans about what is to be collected. We are leaving that entirely in the hands of the Icelandic Ecologic Institute.
Our own efforts though are doing quite well. Through our private buyers, we are purchasing various animals world-wide. I’m truly surprised at how easy that is actually. In the case of endangered species we are surreptitiously stunning or tranquilizing specimens and taking genetic samples directly and will clone the various animals for our habitats.
Plant matter on the other hand is much easier to collect and our efforts there are coming along nicely. We will have a workable biosphere collected in another three weeks or so and a near complete one in another two years. The hold up there interestingly enough is the ocean flora and fauna. There’s just so MUCH of it! We probably are going to have to add on an ARK just to hold it all.
Now then I have an interesting announcement to make, I had made the wish or maybe it was an request that our Medical A.I.’s develop an Artificial Womb. Well… That’s just what they have done. We now have a Uterine Replicator that we can offer to women world-wide as an alternative to abortion or Rape related pregnancies.”
“Very interesting Captain.” Admiral Webster said approvingly, “I can see some good uses for the technology, especially if we can get the fetuses signed over to us. It would become another way of getting humanity off of Earth and away from the Quarn.”
“I thought of that as well, it will also have a good impact on our female personnel as an alternative to going through a full-term pregnancy and the impact of that on their duties especially if those duties are of a hazardous nature.”
Now I want to discuss Rani and her aura problem and how that relates to the feeding method of the Mother Quarn. Rani is doing well in most ways, what worries her physician’s is that her aura is still so fractured and torn.
As an aside here, I have noticed that all of us are now becoming so used to how fast things get done here in the TSN that we think of this as our ‘normal state’. I had to intervene and remind them that natural healing takes time, sometimes years of time.
Now the scenario with Rani is that she really was on the verge of being eaten alive, we calculate that one or at most two more feeding sessions and she too would have died and turned to dust. Cellular examination reveals that her cells are showing telomere degeneration. The TSN Med-centers do have a treatment for that and we will apply to her once her diminished aura returns to cover her whole body.
Her mental abilities on the other hand are now stabilizing and she is a wonderfully cooperative subject on our study of them. The hope is that we may be able to learn how to reproduce them in other TSN members.
Next is the crew of the SF-003 and what we have learned from their deaths. First off the negative knowledge; they are dead, truly irrevocable dead, we grew clones bodies of each of them and then tried to download their last engram from their ‘soul-bank’. They appeared to be normal when we attempted to revive them but they couldn’t revive the bodies, just laid there. Let me tell you this; there were a whole bunch of very spooked out medical scientists and A.I.’s!
And then while running our medical tests a disturbing thing was noticed. Not one of the three had a Kirlian Aura! This fact has convinced all of the Physicians on the Elizabeth Rich that the Kirlian Aura is a manifestation of the human soul. And without a human soul, the body is just flesh, it needs both parts to be a Human Being.
“Amazing!” Breathed out Admiral Webster, “So if I am hearing you correctly, we now have proof that Human Beings have a soul.”
“Yes, quite definitely.”
“And do we know that the soul lives on after the body dies?”
“Yes, I think so. We have had two such instances occur on board the Comfort. We had received two different cases where only the cloning of a new body and the transfer of the recorded Engram of the dying patient was the only ‘treatment’ available. In each case the clone was activated normally after the death of the original body and the patients did have a vital Kirlian Aura. Each was discharged and is now home doing fine.”
“Hmmm.” The Admiral hummed as he thought intensely. “Have you brought this up with any of our chaplains?”
“Not yet, do you want me to do it or would you rather have someone else do it?”
“I think that I will have to do that, Politics and Theology appears to be my job more than leading the fighting men and women.”
“I do want to point out something here Admiral.” Captain Johansson int
erjected.
“Go on Captain.”
“I think that we need to let our people know the truly real danger that the Quarn do represent to each and every one of us. If the Mother can actually eat our souls through this weapon or ability of hers then the thought that we all have, if only in the far back of our minds, that we can be revived in a new body if our original one dies in combat is one that must be addressed. I and Colonel Cottrell have both noticed that some of our people are pulling unreasonable risks in the combat sims because of that idea.
Loss of some our troops in combat is a given, but having that loss occur though because they think that they are immortal and taken unreasonable risks is unconscionable to me!”
“That is an excellent point there. Thank you for telling me. I am going to have to do something about it and probably today and at the latest tomorrow.” Admiral Webster said decisively.
“Very good points there and the Zombie drug? What have you come up with there?”
“Ahhh yes, the Zombie Drug.” Evana started off with a smile, “I have some news on that, I’m not sure if it is good news, but I do have news. Alessandra my chief researcher has come up with a detection method. The primary problem that I see with it is that it is very overt when in operation. You see the Zombie drug will cause the human skin to fluoresce when illuminated by a very, very specific shade of green. It has to be at least five hundred watts though in intensity. Therefore it will be very obvious in operational usage.
Secondly she has come up with a potential antagonist and a potential tranquilizing agent that would be specific to humans under the influence of the drug. I say potential in both instances because there is a relatively high chance of death or permanent loss of cognitive ability in the person under the influence of the Zombie drug if administered either of these agents.”
“Hmmm, what’s a relatively high chance?” Asked Captain Johansson.
“Twenty to twenty-five percent.”
“And what do you mean by antagonist, Captain?”
“The Antagonist agent is designed to counter-act the Zombie-drug. Its effects in the laboratory on Rhesus monkeys is to cause immediate loss of consciousness in the subject. That is followed by a period of between twelve and forty-eight hours before recovery or death.
On the other hand Alessandra thinks that in time she will be able to tune the Antagonist so that the percentage of death or loss of Cognitive capability will decrease to less than five percent.”
Admiral Webster was nodding his head slowly as he heard Evana’s report, when she was finished he directed her to transmit the findings on the detector to all fleet units. He then directed that all personnel be tested for the Zombie drug immediately. He had the hope that that order would restore some of the lost trust that his people had been feeling when working with each other.
And those who were found to be under the drug’s influence would be asked to volunteer to test the Antagonist drug. Now it was Captain Johansson’s turn.
“Good morning Admiral, The first thing on my list is the Redhawk SSTO. Fabrication is now complete on the unit we are delivering as a demonstrator. A second demonstrator was requested and we and the contractor personnel are now fabricating that one. Initial delivery will be tomorrow at Edwards Air Force Base after we test it out with our own test pilots. The second vehicle will be delivered on or about April 4th barring unforeseen difficulties and the entire set of tooling will be delivered to the Boeing/LockMart facility in New Mexico.
These two vehicles will allow the Great Leader’s plan to follow his proposed timeline of his departure on April 7th. The stealth capabilities of the Redhawk are really quite amazing now that we can actually touch one. The engineers on E00002 were very efficient and capable people, it’s a true loss to humanity that they didn’t survive the bugs.”
“Will we be able to keep track of the Redhawk?” asked Ansel.
“Yes, but only because we built in some of our own technology into the very frames of the ship. Even by stripping out the interior and replacing everything won’t stop us from tracking these two SSTO’s.” Captain Johansson said confidently.
“Excellent work there Captain. Anything else?”
“Yes there is, as you know we put out a general call to the Marines for ideas that might give us an edge over the Quarn.”
“Yes, I remember that. And….”
“It was very well received, so well received that I have had to establish a flight and field test squadron based out of the Dedicated Fabrication and Construction ship, Thomas Edison. We have a little over four thousand new vessel designs to examine and build evaluation test-beds of, three thousand new or modified weapon systems. And of course the seventeen thousand different protection systems against the Brain-Buster weapon of the Quarn. Mind you there were only four thousand or so duplicate suggestions with that last one which are not included in the total that we need to investigate and test for.” Captain Johansson finished up with in a very dry tone of voice.
“I see….. They’re pretty worried about that one aren’t they?”
“Yes Sir, very worried. Our people will do their very best in fighting the Quarn, but they are a bit spooked over that weapon.”
“If you need to increase the number of test pilots and evaluators then get with the Commodore and he will get them transferred to where you need them. Also make sure that each and every person that made a suggestion gets recognized for doing so.”
“Aye, Aye Sir! I’ll get right on it.” Captain Johansson replied with a grin.
“Commander Fuller?” The admiral said with a nod to indicate it was her turn.
“Good morning sir, the Companion is at 100% function and manning. We currently are continuing training and preparations for the upcoming IUR attack that is to be the diversion for the ‘Great Leader’s’ escape. The Ayatollah Al-Quds has been in daily contact with the Great Leader to inform and reassure him that all will be in readiness by April 7th.
In addition an opportunity presented itself this last week at the Pakistani Missile base to infiltrate some of our RC ‘bugs’ into the missile silo’s containing the missiles with the Shaitan’s Breath Warheads. Those ‘bugs’ have given us the opportunity to destroy the Shaitan’s breath weapon by an onsite constructed sterilizer. The question is do you want us to do so at this time?”
“Yes, I think that we do. You and your people have done well in taking the initiative there. Please make sure that they are notified that their initiative is recognized.” Admiral Webster stated. “Do you have anything else?”
“Yes sir we do, the ‘Great Leader’ has left the villa he has been staying at for the last few weeks. He is in transit at this time for a new undisclosed location. He also is using five duplicates of himself to try to cause confusion about his whereabouts. We believe that we know which one is the real one, however we are tracking all of them as well as keeping a watch on the villa in case he didn’t leave after all.”
“Any idea why this is occurring now?”
“I think it’s because his actions with the children have infuriated the local populace and he’s decided to move to a quieter location. My Intelligence Section on the other hand is speculating that he needs to go do something only he can do. In any case we are keeping a tight watch over him.”
“Very well then, don’t lose him!” Admiral Webster told her. He then turned to look at Major Vasquez and with a nod indicated that it was her turn.
“Good Morning Admiral Webster, we have managed to identify a little over six thousand humans that have been identified as Quarn-Slaves and assign small groups to shadow each of them. This is by no means all of them, we are currently estimating it as 98% of the total numbers. There are a few in Siberia for instance that we have detected by Quarn Exudate in the atmospheric samplers of our IGD’s but have not actually found the individuals in question.
We are also tracking forty-seven aquatic Mammals that appear to be parasitized by the Quarn. What their purpose is however unclear at this
time. They are wandering across the globe following the traditional whale migration routes.
Now the interesting thing about the patterns we have developed tell us that the Quarn are very politically minded in that they tend to parasitize those who either control or influence policy. This is true in every nation that they are found in. Now with this in mind these Quarn-Slaves are in an interesting position. They just can’t leave their positions or their homes on a whim. Everything must be scheduled with their human job in mind. That in turn gives us an idea and possibly an edge in determining where they are going to be at any time.
In this instance there are four, FOUR mind you, international Conferences going on in Indonesia the Week of April 5th. This also means that close to 100% of all the known Quarn-Slaves are going to be in Indonesia that week.”
“Six thousand Quarn-Slaves?” Colonel Cottrell murmured from his place at the table. “All in Indonesia at the same time?”
“Yes Colonel, that’s what we think based upon the known travel plans of these people since they are announced fairly early when these sort of International Conferences are arranged. We also have access to the various hotel and resort reservation systems.”
