No More War
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The ships continued to Saturn Region and the SF ship Queen Ann’s Revenge split off and the Bashers that were not assigned to them, departed from their bay. The Javelins that had been left behind would take their place and they would return to Earth with the rest of the fleet. They were hardly a fleet really, only three ships, and now the Bashers, but they certainly could handle themselves in a fight, as they had just demonstrated.
The SF Team members that had stayed behind would be happy to have their ship back, since they had been sleeping in one of the Javelins. The cargo bay was not bad but it wasn’t what they had gotten used to on their ship. The SF Team Commander was told to await further instructions and just support whatever operations the Alliance SF Teams might need them for. They were feeling pretty good about the damage they had done to the Gamma Faction network and didn’t expect much trouble from the remaining agents that might still be out there. Never the less they would be ready should the SF Teams be called to deal with a Gamma threat. In the mean time they would enjoy the down time if possible and get some well needed rest after their hard earned victory over Gamma Faction and their base.
The rest of the ships returned to the home base on Earth. For Michael and Megan it was time to face the music, they had completed a mission to destroy the enemy base without the permission or knowledge of the High Council. As Michael had learned over the course of his career there was nothing like success to help mend the hurt feelings of your superiors when you finally had to come clean to them about missions they may or may not have sanctioned had you asked for permission. He didn’t think this situation would be any different. Especially, since they had given them a certain amount of autonomy in conducting operations with regard to missions and tactics. They wanted them to use the RT troops to do damage to Gamma Faction and they had certainly done that.
By the strictest interpretation of that charter this mission would not fall under that category. However, since they had successfully pulled it off, they were not too worried. Had the mission failed it would be a different story. Of course had the mission failed they probably would not be coming back to face the Council anyway. Had the mission failed they would more than likely be destroyed with all their ships based on the strength of that base and its defenses.
The next morning Michael and Megan went to the Council Chamber to bring them up to speed. It was going to be a long briefing since there was a lot they did not know. Also they had a lot of footage to go over with them.
As Michael had predicted there was a certain amount of hand slapping and promises not to do something like this in the future. Fairly easy to agree to, since there probably was not another enemy base out there that they needed to take down. In the end the Council was happy with the outcome and even having a hard time being mad as they showed them the battle footage captured by the surveillance drones.
Unfortunately, that also meant that they had to come clean about the new ships they had created as well. More indignant reprimands for not keeping them in the loop, but general approval of the new functionality the ships provided to them. How could they not be impressed with the combat capabilities of the Bashers and the new ships that the Teams were using. They asked if they had a feel for were the attack left Gamma Faction at, in regard to their threat to Delta Faction. They answered honestly, that they were not sure, it certainly limited their capabilities for the foreseeable future and most likely eliminated the threat to Earth. However, they were not sure of the remaining strength of the Faction as a whole. They would just have to wait and see that was all they could do. Ship was not as happy with the results as the rest of the council because it knew that Jonas had escaped the attack. The surveillance drones it had left in the area had picked up some movement in a debris field and later a ship leaving a nearby asteroid but they had not been able to tag it so there was no way of knowing where it had went.
Ship urged the council to not become complacent now that the military threat seemed to be greatly reduced for the moment, it informed them that they should focus all of their attention to the financial structure of Gamma Faction. Emma’s father and his team had made a lot of head way in finding the funding of Gamma Faction and they were working on ways of funneling the funds into accounts that Delta could use, and exposing the accounts that they could not hack or gain access to because of security measures or some other roadblock, to the government authorities so they could go after them.
Ship knew that now that most of his forces were destroyed Jonas would try to rebuild and he would need funds to do that. By attacking his funding sources they could derail his efforts for a while. Using information obtained by Emma’s father and information from its surveillance network ship was able to track some illegal arms deals and other nefarious operations that Gamma Faction was conducting on a regular bases to raise capital. Most Ship was able to disrupt with a few well places shards to the heads of the Gamma Operatives. There were a few though that might require a bit more help. He contacted Joan and discussed the situation with her. So you want to use David’s team to take out these groups and you don’t want to draw attention to your surveillance operations she asked.
Yes, as you know the Council is still a bit touchy about such things, and may be even more so based on our recent skirting of their authority. I think I can bring Bill into our little group and use him to funnel the information to the Council, Joan said. That way they will think the intel is coming from his efforts alone and they will not know about our involvement, she continued. That would be very good, Ship acknowledged. “Yes, I am sure we can trust him to keep us out of it, he has been my husband for many years and had to do similar things for me during my political career. He understands the need to placate politicians for the greater good”, she said. Let me bring him into our meeting then, ship said, after a quick check on his location and confirming he would not raise suspicions if he suddenly went into a mental meeting.
Ship drew him in to their meeting introductions were made, but Bill had been aware of Ship for some time, so it was not a big surprise when he was introduced to it. They explained the situation and as Joan predicted be understood the situation and was willing to help wherever he could. As Joan’s husband he didn’t have any good feelings towards Gamma Faction and was determined to bring them down. They had tried to kill his family and almost succeeded with his wife, he was out for blood. He also understood the delicate nature of how they had come about getting the information and how it would present a problem for the Council. He had been working with Delta Faction for the past few months and had an understanding of their repulsion to government oversight and surveillance. Therefore, they came up with a plan to make the information seem like something he would be able to uncover through his operations.
He was now a part of the team and for better or worse, would help them in the future when they needed to impart sensitive information that could not be presented in a normal fashion. With that mandate and a firm understand of the plan and how to present the information, he reported to the council and explained the cover story. They in turn responded with a little prompting by Ship, in the way that it wanted them to, and David’s Team was summoned to the council chamber.
They were still using the old school method of physically being in the room so David, Megan, and Michael had to go to the Delta Faction Command Center to attend the meeting. They explained the situation and asked them to come up with a plan to deal with it. It was fairly straight forward the teams would go to each of the locations and take out the Gamma Operatives and any other hostile forces that may be involved. There was five locations all together, and they were spread across the solar system, two sets of two that were close enough together or at least within range that a squad could split into two groups to take them out. The main location presented a unique challenge because they were co-located with a large group from a criminal organization.
It was decided that the Alliance
and everyone else in the solar system would not be adversely effected if the criminal organization suffered the same fate as the Gamma Faction Operatives. Red One and Ship would handle the larger target and each of the ships and RT Squads would handle the other targets, using Bashers and Javelins as needed to achieve their mission. They wanted to hit them all at the same time or at least on the same day, so they could not go to ground when they heard of an attack on one of the other operations.
This was going to be another test of the interface a coordinated attack by several groups with the expanse of the solar system between them. They checked out the interface and determined that it should handle the situation with no update required, so they started making plans for the attacks. It wasn’t difficult just made a little harder by the distance between the operations. Only two of the targets had to happen at a precise time the rest could be at any time as long as they happened relatively close to the same time.
Two of the targets were in the Saturn Region the reduced law enforcement operations had made it a hot bed of illegal activity, the military contingent that was supplementing law enforcement could not spare the extra manpower to handle all of it so it went unchecked. The Saturn Region had become the wild west of the Planetary Alliance, and criminals were taking advantage of it. Alpha squad was going to take care of these targets. The other two targets were in the Jupiter Region and Bravo Squad was going to take care of them. The last Target was on a Station near Venus. The Teams setup their attacks based on the surveillance they had around the areas of the meets. They would be taking out both buyers and sellers, when they attacked. Unfortunately, for the buyers they were getting to pay the price for guilt by association.
The ships departed from the Earth base with basic plans in place the rest they would setup as they docked with the space stations. Alpha Squad had split into two groups with one group using two Javelins and a Basher just in case. The other group stayed on their ship, and they each docked with their space stations that they were responsible for. The group with the Javelin was going to Saturn Station 5 and the other group was going to Saturn Station 10. The Javelins docked and the teams entered the station they put one guy to guard the ports from the inside with four gun emplacements and ten robots to help. The Basher took up a position between the two ships facing out toward any threat that might come their way from space. The ship had it easier, it only needed one port and it could provide its own cover as far as space was concerned. The team did leave the same coverage on the inside of the port though, so they could guard the ship and their escape route.
With the ships and their exit strategy in place the teams used transports to take them to the meeting spot. They had a staging area setup close by each site. They dismounted and dismissed their transports, and then took up their positions awaiting the Gamma Faction Operatives and their buyers.
Bravo Squad followed the same protocol and they were setup on Jupiter Station 15 and Jupiter Station 6. Their attack was on a drug lab in the business district of the hub, so they advanced and waited for the next shipment from the supplies to arrive. Through surveillance they had seen that the supplies usually arrived around the same time each day. It would be during this delivery that they would attack, thus upsetting the suppliers and any possible future deals that Gamma Faction might try to make with them. The teams knew they couldn’t time their attacks at exactly the same time due to the nature of the different situations. However, they could time them close enough that they wouldn’t have time to worn the others. If for some reason they didn’t get everybody in the attack and they contacted Gamma Faction.
David and his team made it to Venus Station 9 and after setting up a similar defensive perimeter around the inside of their port with Alex standing guard from inside Ship, they went to the shopping area the criminals had converted into their base of operations. From the outside it looked like a few shops in a section of the shopping district. However, nobody went near them and they had too many burly looking guys standing around them looking menacing and generally unfriendly.
They were going to have to take out the sentries and make their way inside without raising an alarm. They sent a surveillance drone up to look for other spotters other than the guards outside. They found two spotters up in the buildings across the street. They took them out with a trusty shard to the head trick. In a move that David had never tried before, they sent robots in behind the guards and grabbed them and snapped their necks at the same time, then pulled them back through the portals with them. Everything that was organic matter was instantly disintegrated, not the best way to go, but certainly no worse than being hit by any other weapon that they may have used on them, and far less noisy, as well as less messy.
With all the sentries taken out, they made their way into the building the entrance came out on a balcony overlooking the area below. Once inside they saw the stores had been converted and setup as an illegal weapons storage facility as well as offices for the criminal boss, his men, and their Gamma Faction Cohorts. There was at least twelve guys sitting around the place and a few guards, guarding the entry points and providing security for the operation.
They set their robots up for the attack and waited for execution, they were going to do it at exactly the same time the last Alpha Squad team took out their targets. Then Bravo Squad would just have to wait for the suppliers to show up and they could take out theirs as well. They didn’t have to wait long team one of Alpha Squad indicated that the buyers had just showed up. Alpha Squad team two said they were still waiting. Since the buy was going down with the first group, they launched their attack and made their exit off the station upon its completion.
About twenty minutes later Alpha Squad two had their buyers show up, Alpha Squad made a few last minute adjustments and setup their attack. The execute command was given and all of the enemy targets were taken out. The Alpha Squad team returned to their ship and rendezvoused with the rest of Alpha Squad. David’s team made their exit as well, they waited to return to base until the Bravo Teams had a chance to take out their targets. They wanted to be ready just in case they needed them. About an hour later the suppliers for both sites had shown up at the locations so they executed their attacks.
Bravo Squad returned to their rendezvous point and they started heading toward home. With all the targets taken out the teams returned to base and debriefed and filed their after action reports. The next morning the High Council was briefed, after the briefing David and his team returned to their house and started the long awaited RR they had been needing since the base attack.
Now that they had a chance to relax for a while David decided it was time for him to do something that he was not looking forward to, but he knew it had to be done. He went to find Emma, she was in the break room of the headquarters talking with Gordon when he found her.
Gordon can you give us a moment please, I need to talk to Emma for a moment, he said. Gordon said, sure, and got up to leave the room. As soon as he left the room, Emma said, I know what you are going to say, I am not stupid you know, I have seen the way you guys are together lately. I am sorry Emma I have been wanting to tell you, but I didn’t know how to say it, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, David said. So you finally noticed that I care about you and it is too late, she already has you, Emma said, as a tear rolled down her cheek. I have loved you most of my life and all that I wanted was for you to notice, now that you have I want it to go back to the way that it was, when I still had a chance, she said. Emma I will always care for you and even love you, just not in that way, he said. I know, she said, I have always known I just wanted it so much that I was fooling myself. I still want our friendship to be the same, he said, can you promise me that won’t change he asked? Yes, she said, holding back the tears. Then she stood up and hugged him and said, I just need a good cry that’s all, and left the room as fast as she could without running.
She went to her room, and cried into her pi
llow, after a while she was just lying there and Ship reached out to her. Are you alright Emma, Ship asked? Yes, I just needed some time to cry, I have known for a while now, it just is more real now that he has told me that’s all, she said. You know one thing I have learned from you humans is that love is a funny thing, David loves you but not in the same way that you love him. Gordon loves you in the same way you love David, but you love him in the same way that David loves you. What do you mean Gordon loves me, she asked. Yes, I have noticed it in the way he looks at you lately, Ship confirmed. But he never said anything, she said. Did you ever say anything to David, Ship asked. No, but that’s different, she said. Oh, how is that different, Ship asked, it seems the same to me. Emma didn’t have an answer she was suddenly thinking about the time she had spent with Gordon lately, could she have been that blind that she didn’t see it right in front of her face.
The more she thought about it the more she wondered if she could feel that way about Gordon. They had a lot in common and they worked really good together. Maybe there was something to what Ship was saying. After a while, she said, thank you Ship. Your welcome, Emma I hope it helps, Ship replied.
Later Ship met with Joan, and Bill, and they assessed were the financials of Gamma Faction stood with the latest attacks. Bill said he was confident that with illegal activities curtailed and his work in capturing their bank accounts, they were not looking good for money. The government was seizing all the other accounts and any assets associated with them. Ship was happy to hear that, though it knew that Jonas would have some money stashed somewhere and would be able to rebuild his wealth through his abilities to read peoples thoughts, and manipulate them to his will. For the moment they had hurt him badly, and it would take time for him to come back from that.
Mordeck was in a foul mood, he had seen his bases destroyed and all of his plans ruined. He had received word that they now were attacking his finances, if not for his black market stashes he would be completely broke. It was going to take a very long time for him to rebuild his forces and he was going to have to start much smaller than he had planned. He was going to have to make it to one of his safe houses in one of the space stations. The only problem was he was not sure which ones might be compromised. He would just have to take a chance, and hope for the best. He had greatly underestimated the threat, it would not happen again, the next time he would be ready. He would have his revenge no matter how long it took.
To be continued.
Index
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Amberlin
See A.M.B.E.R.L.I.N
A.M.B.E.R.L.I.N
Artificial Magic Biosynthetic Enhancement Retro Linking Interface to Nano-agent. Used to augment the non-gifted and allow them to use shields and hide their identity when passing through security checkpoints.
AI
Artificial Intelligence
augmentation
Augmentation to the brain or to enhance the implant
clairvoyance
Used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception.
communications
communications device built in to the implant, augmented with advanced encryption by Delta Faction. Virtually imposable to trace by other agencies
comms-device.
Communications specifically designed to be untraceable since it did not use the normal communications frequencies
Delta Faction
Group of agents with telepathic and or telekinetic powers not anti-government wish to co-exist.
Gamma Faction
Group of agents with telepathic and or telekinetic powers anti-government wish to dominate normal humans.
HUD
Heads Up Display. The later versions of the suit display a HUD like interface on the wearers optic nerve.
implant
Mental implant used to extend the brains function and connect to inter planetary network.
M.E.R.L.I.N
Magic Enhancement Retro Linking Interface to Nano-agent
Merlin
See M.E.R.L.I.N
nano-agent
Liquid filled with Nanobots
Nanobots
Tiny robots that manipulate mater at the nano scale
Nano-Technology
Technology at the nano-meter or less scale.
neuro-linguistic programming
Connection between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic") and behavioral patterns learned through experience ("programming") and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. Skills of exceptional people are "modeled" using NLP methodology, then those skills are acquired by anyone.
neuroplasticity
Concept of synaptic pruning, the idea that individual connections within the brain are constantly being removed or recreated.
pattern recognition
Is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes.
planetary alliance security force
Covert intelligence agency
Pre-cog
Pre Cognitive abilities. See clairvoyance
S.E.R.E.I.N
Surveillance Enhancement Recognition and Evaluation Interface to Nano-agent
search algorithms
an algorithm for finding an item with specified properties among a collection of items.
security force.
See planetary alliance security force
Security Service. See planetary alliance security force
Serein. See S.E.R.E.I.N
surveillance drone
Small Tenis ball sized device can fly over the battle field and identify cloaked objects
telekinetic
The movement of objects by scientifically inexplicable means, as by the exercise of an occult power.
telepathic
The transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction.
Titan
Moon of Saturn
wetware
interfaces and augmentation to the body through nano-tech.
white phosphorous
Is a material made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer, illumination and incendiary munitions. White phosphorus is used in bombs, artillery, mortars, and short-range missiles which burst into burning flakes of phosphorus upon impact.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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SinJin Bane lives in Upstate New York where he is currently conducting research for his next book. SinJin has a background in computer science and software engineering and as a hobby has done some research into nanotechnology and other fields of biotechnology. He has worked on several projects for various companies in the software engineering industry including some that involve artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as avionics and advanced workflow applications.
Other Books By THE AUTHOR
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MagTech The Escape
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