TSN: The Best Laid Plans (Terran Space Navy)

by Paul Phipps

  “Yes, but the Life force will live on since it will become a part of the ‘Whole-of-us-all’.”

  “Are Humans your preferred source of Life Force.” Sarah asked.

  “The relationship between humans and their many variants and the Qua-harn is a complex one. Which one came first and how long ago is forgotten. However your answer is yes, Humans provide the best life-force for us.

  Hurry now, last question!” Dame Meredith’s voice said.

  “Can more than one Mother Qua-harn be on a world at the same time?”

  “Yes… However our nature is such that we would each fight for supremacy and much life-force would be lost. Lose too much and the world can never be a part of the ‘Whole-of-us-all’. “ Dame Meredith wheezed and Sarah watch in horror as she dissolved slowly at first and then quickly into reddish dust.

  The room began to swim around Sarah’s head and she felt so…. tired. She watched her hands and legs start to dissolve and then there was nothing more to think about.

  Sometime later Sister Donnelly entered the room where the two humans had sat facing one another. She stared wonderingly at the small pile of glittering pieces of metal and crystal that were scattered throughout the dust where Sarah’s body had been. Strangely enough even the clothing was mostly gone to dust too. The cleaner would be in soon enough and all would be as it should be in her world once again.

  The Mother’s directive had been to the point, so she picked up the valise that had been attached to the Master Chief and left with it. Shortly it was in the parcel post and on its way to the Terran Space Navy’s P.O box that she had gotten from the Internet.

  * * *

  “I hate things like this Ansel. Just saying I’m sorry isn’t enough.” Fleet Admiral Webster said sadly.

  “I understand Uncle Carl, Sarah and I discussed this fully between the two of us and Peter, Tanya and Harum. We all knew that this meeting was very dangerous; we also knew that she HAD to go. The information we needed was much greater than the personal cost to any of us. She told me of most of her safeguards and I agreed to them and she was correct for the most part. In the end it was only her at risk and none of her crew or Helen were casualties.

  “I have to agree with you Ansel, But still….”

  “Yes Sir, I’ll grieve for her later, now though we must decide on what we are going to do with the information we have gained.” Ansel said firmly.

  With a shake of his head to clear it Admiral Webster said, “You’re right, so what are your initial thoughts?”

  “Captain Fuller and I have discussed this and we think that the TSN needs to accept this ‘deal’ of the Mother Quarn. It gives us ten years to evacuate nearly six hundred and forty million people away from Earth. It also gives us ten years to come up with any plans for operations and/or resistance strategies.

  The primary key here to success is that we MUST keep things quiet. If word gets out there will be wholesale panic with the accompanying loss of life. That means that for every person that dies stupidly in a panic situation is one less human we can save. This also means no Wars, police actions or what-have-yous.”

  “I agree! We need to accelerate our colonization program to accomplish this. We also need to bring our advisory council up to speed and get their buy-in.” Admiral Webster stated.

  “What if we don’t get their buy-in?” Ansel asked.

  “We will just go around them, Seeker and I have an alternate plan that we feel will work quite well even without their assistance.” At that point he went on to describe it for Ansel.

  “I like it! And the best part is that nobody can say it isn’t entirely voluntary either.” Ansel said with a grin.

  “Now then… The Advisory Council. I trust the current members but… they’re politicians. They won’t always be around and the probability is that their successors will not be as trustworthy.

  “You have a good point Admiral.” Ansel said thoughtfully and then with a smile said, “Let’s throw it out to them as to how they think their successors should be handled? Knowing politicians they will have a good time scheming and talking about it and maybe they’ll just leave us alone?”

  With a bark of laughter and a grin Admiral Webster nodded his head.

  * * *

  Admirals Staff Meeting

  “Good Afternoon everyone, I assume you all have had a chance to think about the information that Command Master Chief Cavendish gave her life to acquire for us?” Admiral Webster said in a grating tone of voice. After receiving in turn the acknowledgements he expected he then said.

  “We, that is, I and the Command A.I.’s of the fleet did not expect the sort of deal that the Quarn Mother has offered us. On the surface it appears to give us a chance to at least evacuate a large portion of the Human Race before the Quarn go on an eating spree of this planets population to harvest its ‘life force’.

  The TSN has also been given this unsolicited advice by Captain Fuller’s latest recruit to accept this deal. Here is the recording of his message:”

  Johan/ Comm mode: “Captain Fuller, I have a request from the Med Center at Camp Heinlein. A new recruit who is in the process of being rejuvenated has done something quite amazing. He has apparently pushed himself to consciousness and is asking for you specifically.”

  Captain Fuller/ Comm Mode: “Johan, that is Gary Geary, also known as GeeGee. He is to be given immediate access to me whenever he asks.”

  Johan/ Comm Mode: “Yes Sir, I have made a note of that. I am completing the contact now sir.”

  Captain Fuller/ Comm Mode: “Thank you Johan. GeeGee you need to follow the Med-Centers directions Man!”

  Recruit Geary/ Comm Mode: “I had to get ahold of you Bob.” Came the soft straining voice, “Don’t attack her Bob! Don’t mess with her food! Not yet anyway… She’s aware of you now and she will destroy you if she can.”

  Captain Fuller/ Comm Mode: “Who? The Mother Quarn?”

  Recruit Geary/ Comm Mode: “Yes, she’s the one. You’ve made her angry and upset her plans. She’ll make you an offer. Take it.” And the voice faded away at that last statement.

  “The interesting thing is that Dr. Geary’s warning came to us before we had received the demand from the Quarn Mother to meet with her as presented by the late Dame Fowler. Dr. Geary I understand has a history of pulling stuff like this out of his hat and has not been proven wrong yet.” At that point the Admiral looked at Captain Fuller for confirmation.

  “That is correct Admiral Webster, Dr. Geary has done this sort of thing before. He doesn’t know how he gets the information but he does it anyway. I’ve thought for some time now that he has a pre-cognitive talent that manifests itself as intuition.” Captain Fuller said gravely.

  “So we’re at that point again where our plans are being pummeled by events in the real-world.” The Admiral commented wryly. “So then let me lay out our options at this time.

  1. We go ahead and continue on with our plans to eliminate all known Quarn and hope and pray we get them all.

  2. We accept the offer of this deal and back off from the Quarn and try to save a large core group of humanity and move to a new world. From what the Quarn mother says this is how this earth was populated by humans. Anyways that brings us to point three.

  3. Do a combination of our first two options and hope that the Quarn make a mistake we can capitalize on.

  So then, I’m opening up for discussion and comments.” With a hand motion from Evana he directed attention to her. “Go ahead Captain Thomas.”

  “Thank you Admiral, from what I can see, the Quarn and the Quarn-Mother’s abilities are eerie and in most ways quite frightening, from the ability to near-instantly parasitize a human being, to the ability to eat our life-force, our very souls. Then we have them being able to form mass minds and take over our Quantum computer cores and subvert our A.I.’s and even our body-sims and Telefactors.

  One thing really jumps out at me though, the Quarn Mother really doesn’t want any rivals. She stated t
hat their biological imperative would ensure that they fought for supremacy if there were more than one to a world. Now then, we theorize that the Master is very close to becoming a Quarn Mother himself. If that’s true that is most probably the reason why she wants him to come to her so desperately, she needs to eliminate a rival. One of the questions I have is why is she drawing all of her children to her now? And can we exploit that somehow?”

  “Exploit Captain?” asked Colonel Cottrell.

  “Yes exploit, What if we did a kinetic strike from orbit on Weh Island and Banda Aceh? Or perhaps place the whole of the area or even Indonesia under a Heavy Duty Jammer Field and let them starve for lack of Human beings to eat. The Mother might even have to resort to eating her own children.

  The major risk would be if some of the Quarn slaves or even Q-Mots were left outside of the field and they became Quarn Mothers and started the whole cycle all over again. Or she might be able to fashion a large enough mass-mind from her assembled children to penetrate a Heavy-duty Jammer field. These are unknowns and possibly fatal ones.”

  “You are correct Captain Thomas those are potential fatal unknowns and there are probably others we don’t even know about yet.” Admiral Webster stated. “How do you feel about the ‘deal’ Captain?”

  “I think it is workable, we can probably evacuate the eight hundred and forty million humans in ten years. Doing without a panic is probably not going to happen. Just letting the politicians in on it almost guarantees that happening. On the other hand I do have an idea that might assist in that effort.”

  “And what is that?”

  I propose that we just land a combination TSN recruiting station every few miles in human occupied zones. It would have scanner arches, medical treatment and uterine replicators for those women who want or need to abort their fetuses. We would claim the fetuses and bring them to term and save their lives. We would also take genetic samples from all of those who would use the facility and obviously those who want to be recruited would be readily available and assigned to either the TSN or the colonist program.”

  “Hmmm, yes… I can see where that would be a workable idea. Seeker, Commodore Webster and I had discussed something quite similar to that” he said with a slight smile.

  With that as a beginning the other officers started to contribute ideas and a basic strategy began to take shape. It was decided that they would go with a combination of taking the deal and saving as many humans as possible with the option of fighting back if an opportunity arose.

  * * *

  Civilian Advisory Council Meeting

  The Civilian advisory council’s two full members, (The American President and the Israeli Prime Minister), were sitting by themselves in the virtual reality conference room. The associate members who headed the nations that were in the process of approving either working relationship agreements of full formal treaty’s between their respective nations and the Terran Space Navy were not present for this portion of the meeting.

  “So let me get this straight, Admiral Webster. This alien invader, the Quarn Mother, has given your organization an ultimatum and the offer of a ‘deal’. The summation of which is ‘Don’t screw with us anymore and I’ll give you ten years to evacuate a tenth of the human population.’ Is that correct.?”

  “Yes, Mr. President in a nut shell you are correct.” Admiral Webster answered back.

  “I see and if you don’t accept the ‘deal’? What then?”

  “She and her children who are in very strategically placed political positions, worldwide I must add. They will declare war on us and accelerate their plans to consume all of the human life force on this planet.”

  “Hmmm, and you don’t think you can stop them from doing that?” Prime Minister Almarakh asked numbly.

  “It’s possible we could, but honesty forces me to say probably not. All historical records from the Gho’ L’Gamesh’s travels indicate that wherever the Quarn was or had been it had won that conflict handily. The records from E00342 and the evidence found in the Zona Del Silencio and in archaeological dig in Iraq indicate that survivors from that analogue of Earth escaped the Quarn present there to come here. They appear to have had only a few thousand humans that managed to escape.

  The primary problem with the Quarn as far as the TSN is concerned is their Biology. True their mental abilities are quite amazing and it some instances terrifying in their effects, the mind-bomb being the primary example there. But their biology is such that if we eliminate the Mother Quarn and not all of her ‘children’ at the same time we will be faced by multiple Quarn Mothers and not only will they be fighting us but also each other.

  Their primary fuel is human life-force and they will be consuming it as fast as they can to win against us and each other. The end result is a dead planet in short order if there isn’t a clear winner quickly. So once again it comes down to how many humans can we save? Our prime order is to Nurture and Protect the human race. As we see it the best way to do that now is to evacuate as many as we can to zones of safety. And then fight if the opportunity arises.”

  “And do you have any idea how you are going to evacuate Eight Hundred and forty million people without causing a panic?”

  “We have some ideas Mr. President but nothing firm yet, when we do we will be sure to let all of you know what they are.” Admiral Webster said.

  Shortly thereafter the full council was meeting and this time there were several additions, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, India and Viet Nam had all joined as associate members.

  Admiral Webster brought everyone up to speed with their operations aboard the Happy Peddler and the Wu Lung. The children were all currently on the M1 Moon Base with the sole exception of a young Japanese-American who had been re-united with his parents and were currently located in an unnamed facility being interviewed by professional Law Enforcement from the FBI, Chinese MIS and the Japanese Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office.

  There were several questions about the IUR and the search for the “Shaitan’s Breath” Bio-weapon. Admiral Webster answered all questions and after a subjective time meeting of four hours all participants were satisfied and had agreed to meet again in two weeks.

  * * *

  Edwards Air Force Base

  Lt. Colonel Finn was attempting a vertical landing for the second time that day, his first attempt on manual controls had found himself being shunted aside as the flight computer took control to avert a crash. After going through the on-board simulator to detect and learn how to correct the errors he had introduced in the landing sequence he found himself once again in a sub-orbital jump to ninety miles and the controls were functioning perfectly. The Redhawk was the finest aircraft he had ever flown and his smile of satisfaction was never far from his face.

  “Ok Jim, here we go. Deploy wings to thirty-two percent.” He said in a normal tone of voice, his co-pilot repeated his command and they both felt the bite of the wings almost immediately. The flight engineer kept up a running commentary on critical engine and airframe readings.

  Soon the wings were at full extension and the Redhawk was making a steep approach with the intent of a stall at 100 feet over the designated landing target. The Belly thrusters kicked in perfectly and the Redhawk settled down with the wings retracting fully just before touchdown.

  Lt. Colonel Finn, sighed quietly as he released the tension he had unconsciously acquired. He turned over his controls to his co-pilot Captain Jim Lewis and watched as the Redhawk was directed back to its Hanger for the post-mission maintenance check. He in-turn worked frantically to complete the mission-debrief checklist for Lt. Colonel Mitchell’s approval. ‘What an asshole.’ He thought to himself. ‘Push, push, push and God help you if you make a punctuation error. Goddamn PowerPoint Pilot.’

  Three hours later Finn was in Mitchell’s office and was receiving new orders. “Finn, in two weeks you are going to have the most important mission of your life. Here is the flight profile you will most likely
be using. Your mission is parameters are simple, fly the Redhawk to a certain airfield and pick up a Very, Very Important Person and his associates, you will then take them to another airfield after a short sub-orbital flight. You will be under total stealth conditions for the entire mission with zero emissions.

  Once you have delivered your passengers you are to return here as if you had only been on a longer than usual training exercise. You are to discuss this with no one other than myself, your crew will be briefed Enroute to your first destination. Any questions?” Lt. Colonel Mitchell asked in a tone of voice indicating that there had better not be any.

  “Not right now sir, perhaps after I have gone over the briefing materials and flight plan.” Lt. Colonel Finn replied.