It's Hell to Choose Read online

  “Put them on the bodies, ADAM will contact the local authorities that can be trusted. We will have to hope they get here first. Maybe with the guns on the bodies, it will cause even more problems for the terrorists.”

  >>Bethany Anne, we are getting reports from the Polarus that a large attack ship is approaching rapidly followed by three support and what looks like a command ship staying way back. Captain Thomas is positioning the Ad Aeternitatem and Polarus to block access to the Consanesco. He suspects enemy action.<<<br />
  “Gott Verdammt!” she spit out. “Akio, make it quick, we need to get back to the Ad Aeternitatem.”

  >>News from your Father. He says Darryl and Scott are with the children. None of them has a scratch. One team member is confirmed dead, the other wounded was a Wechselbalg, so she may be alive but was left for dead where the bus was hijacked. There is a team enroute to retrieve and provide assistance if possible.<<<br />
  “Thank you, Michael.” Bethany Anne murmured. She whistled to Ashur, who ran over. The area around his jaws was bloody. “Got your own bites in, I see.” Her Black Eagle came down, and she grabbed Ashur and dropped him in the back, “Hey!” He looked at her. “Keep the blood off the seats, or you're cleaning it up!” He chuffed at her.

  “I don’t care that you don’t have opposable thumbs, don’t make a mess!” She groused back.

  John rolled his eyes at the casual display of understanding between the two. He looked one more time around the area and then waited for Bethany Anne to get in her Pod and then followed her actions.

  Soon, ten Pods cleared out, leaving more clues than she cared to leave behind, but time was more important than confusion, at the moment.

  —

  Down in the engine room of the Polarus, the speaker squawked, “Rodriquez, this is Captain Thomas.”

  Chief Engineer John E. Rodriquez hit the speaker button, “Rodriquez here, Cap. What do you want?”

  “Please make sure our second set of engines are prepared and converse with navigation and high-topside to take us outside of existing air travel lanes if and when we go,” Captain Thomas requested.

  “Will do, Captain. Will discuss and confirm with navigation and topside to make it so.” Rodriquez replied.

  “Do you believe we are going to do it?” John’s second, Barry, asked him from the desk beside him.

  The Engineering room on the Polarus had been more commercial than Rodriquez was accustomed to on Navy ships. He had made it a point to provide additional protections and make sure everything was in a place that could be tied down in the case of substantial movement. He had confirmed the Chief Engineer on the Ad Aeternitatem had done the same upgrades, and his input had been requested for the Consanesco during the ship's outfitting.

  “Possibly” John admitted. “If this is a legit attack or boarding effort, then I believe we will be testing them significantly more.”

  “Well, if we do, we are going to have a lot of the super-rich wanting our upgrades!” Barry chuckled.

  —

  The Consanesco was close enough to the Polarus and Ad Aeternitatem that Mark Billingsly and Sia could see people running around on the deck in the early light and hear the ‘aaahwooga - aaahwooga’ sound come rolling over the water towards them.

  “Sia, are you shooting this?” Mark asked, not taking his eyes off of the two super-yachts. He felt a hand tap him on his left shoulder so he turned to see Sia with her camera on her shoulder. “What do you see?” he said.

  “They are taking covers off of some of those taller structures…” she commented. “Mark, those are guns!” she exclaimed.

  “What?” Mark stepped around behind Sia, who pulled out the little four-inch video screen that would show Mark what she could see.

  “Damned, that is Navy precision,” Mark supplied. He looked up, “We have something coming at us from the Southwest.

  “How can you tell?” Sia asked, not moving the camera from what she was filming on the Polarus.

  “Because I see the Ad Aeternitatem has turned hard and is setting itself between us and something from that direction. The Polarus has moved some, but not much. I’m betting they know something bad is coming from that direction.” He supplied, pointing. “Plus, I see a couple of the sailing vessels that hang with those ships are getting out of the way and coming near us, now.”

  “Wow, fair weather friends they are,” Sia grumped.

  —

  Peter Silvers finished suiting up. He was wearing full ballistic protection when Todd clapped him on the shoulder and told him “Remember, no going furry today. Too many witnesses.”

  “Why aren’t we just dropping them?” Peter asked Todd, “Seems easier.”

  “Too little proof” Todd answered. “We are in International waters, but that doesn’t get us a free ride on shooting anyone down until they prove, on tape, to be asshats.”

  Peter drew the two much bigger rail pistols he and the other Wechselbalg on the team carried. They had enough power to throw .50 caliber penetration-specific bullets out of their pistols at over two-thousand joules. That was around one-thousand five hundred ft-lbf (foot pound force), better than a .44 Magnum and equivalent to a .50 American Eagle. It wasn’t the most powerful, that would be the .50 S&W Magnum which had a two-thousand six hundred ft-lbf. Smith & Wesson wanted the 'most powerful handgun in the world' label and were fighting hard to keep it.

  Their rail-pistols did, however, have a twenty-five round capacity because it did not need the cartridge to fire the rounds. That provided eighteen more shots than the .50 AE.

  “Just remember” Todd told Peter, “not to shoot the ship with that cannon.”

  “The decks have been reinforced” Peter replied, “I spoke to Jean Dukes about it myself.”

  “Yeah, but I still don’t want to run around hoping that the steel plates stop one of the bullets from one of those beasts.”

  —

  “Boss, we have cameras on us” Jean Dukes heard as she looked through her binoculars.

  “That’s ok, Captain’s orders. We are to look impressive, to see if they will back down. Cat’s out of the bag anyway. We have been attacked in the U.S., and they used the railguns to cut down the efforts pretty damned substantially. So showing them something from these two isn't going to surprise anyone, now.”

  “It’s just going to make them want our rides even more” he grumped.

  Jean pulled the binoculars off of her face and turned to her man sporting a vicious smile, “You know when they can have these boats? When they pry them out of my cold, dead, rail-gun holding hands.”

  He returned her smile as she went back to looking through her binoculars.

  —

  “Captain, Comms say Bethany Anne is screaming back this way, but that she won’t be here for the first dance. Unless we leave these other boats behind, we have to stay and fight.”

  “While I doubt our visitors are pirates” Captain Thomas remarked, “I don’t want to leave the civilian craft behind. Prepare to repel boarders. Let the first verifiable aggression happen on their side and then we will drop their boats as necessary into the deep dark. Please confirm Captain Wagner is issuing the same commands.”

  “And their main ship, sir?”

  “Just keep the door closed to attempted landings on any of our ships. If someone tries to attack the Consanesco, then Puck them. Bethany Anne will deal with the main ship.”

  “Yes sir!” the specialist turned back around to relay the commands.

  Captain Thomas spoke into the intercom, “Defense, release the quarter pound Puck Defense Shield if you would.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.” Dukes voice came back to him.

  Space-Station-One

  “Jeo, I have reviewed the requirements provided by Dan and Jeffrey.” Samantha’s voice filled Jeo’s suite as he packed.

  “Ok, what do they need?”

  “We need to build up capabilities for manufacturing and defense. The problem is with the timeframe.”

  “Let
me guess; they want everything yesterday?” Jeo asked, amused. His ability to get the process moving with the mining platforms was congratulated soundly. But then, he found out that his amazing results were now considered the 'new normal’.

  “No, but within seventy-two days” Samantha answered.

  “Hmm, what are they up to?” Jeo asked as he placed socks in his bag. “Samantha, throw our present manufacturing schedule on wall three and the proposed requirements next to it.” The two scheduling Gantt charts were up side-by-side, and Jeo walked over to view them.

  “So, I have to take away from …wait a minute.” Jeo studied the proposed project, “Samantha, what are ‘Puck Destroyers’?”

  “They are modified twenty-foot shipping containers housing strong defensive and offensive weapons using Pucks ranging from one kilogram to four kilograms. They are unmanned units.”

  “And these Puck Battle-Carriers?”

  “Those are military units comprised of twenty-seven, forty-foot long shipping containers. The container in the middle is a full E.I.; the surrounding units hold Pucks from 1 through 20 kilograms in weight.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve missed the memo on ‘E.I.’?” Jeo asked.

  “Electronic Intelligence. TOM coined the phrase for any ADAM constructed AI unit” Samantha answered.

  “Why not just call them AI’s?” he said.

  “There is a differentiation between AI and EI. AI are designated as self-aware, EI’s are constrained to deal with specific tasks, allowing a significant portion of their computing power to be focused only on those particular tasks.”

  “That would make them pretty damned focused on their role, that’s true” he mused aloud. “How much computing power is in one Battle-Carrier?” Jeo requested.

  “I’m sorry, but that information is not available at this time” Samantha responded.

  “Well, I could hope to know but no reason for me to know.”

  He turned around to sit on the bed and stare at the two project plans again. “So, they’ve taken something we have a lot of and started crafting temporary defensive platforms using Pucks. Different weights and speeds provide different offensive and defensive abilities. Since we are out here in the middle of no-air, we don’t have to worry about wind and aerodynamics. I wonder if they can use rocks …Aw, shit. We can’t pack them efficiently unless they are manufactured a certain way.”

  Jeo got back up and went into his tiny bathroom, “Samantha” he called out, “bring up the schematics on the Puck designs that go on the Destroyer, please.”

  He came out of the bathroom brushing his teeth as he viewed three models. A cone, a round ball and a Puck, the standard hockey puck design. The cone had the tip ground down, probably for ease of racking and stacking.

  Jeo considered what he needed to build and walked back into the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste.

  “Samantha, talk with ADAM and see if we can procure the first hundred thousand of each design through existing means. Provide the option to exchange twice the raw material for the finished product if appropriate, and also a small amount of gold, start with five percent of total spend on the purchase order. Route ADAM’s review through Jeffrey and get his input and report back to me.”

  “Understood, Jeo.”

  He looked at his working schedule. “Take off two weeks from the existing program plan assuming this idea works.”

  He puttered around his room for fifteen minutes, trying to decide if he wanted to take anything else to go out to the asteroid belt or not, when Samantha spoke again, “Jeo, Jeffrey is calling.”

  “Please move down the two schedules and place his video above” Jeo answered Samantha and turned to the wall again.

  Jeffrey’s face appeared above the projects on Jeo’s wall, and he looked around Jeo’s room before smiling, “I see you are almost packed. Ready to go out to the Asteroid Fields?”

  Jeo shrugged, “To be honest, this moving around in space is so… ‘basic’ now, that it feels like a special trip, but not a ‘unique’ trip. Does that make sense?”

  “I understand. It is amazing how quickly we become accustomed to what was before considered impossible.” Jeffrey turned his head to the side, nodded to someone off the screen and turned back, “So, I have this report from ADAM. Not a bad idea, but why are you requesting this?”

  “It’s that schedule you guys want. I figure that the offensive and defensive pucks are pretty generic. It isn’t until you add the gravitic engines to them that they become so damned destructive. If we can either buy existing parts or get them manufactured right now, then we can have something available sooner rather than later.”

  Jeo paused for a moment, then continued, “To be fair, it was the use of the containers as defensive and offensive platforms that made me think about this. We are just duct taping this stage of our defense together, right? So, I didn’t believe that we had to be pure asteroid manufacturing just to get ready sooner.”

  “Why are you providing twice the raw materials and some gold?” Jeffrey asked, “I think I understand, but let’s make sure I’m not guessing.”

  “Off the books” Jeo replied. “Nothing we need is very complicated so we can go to countries with a low tech but solid manufacturing ability and trade versus spending cash. We are going to be raw material rich, but cash poor if we don’t figure something out about banking. We need to create partners where we can to sell off some of this stuff without much fanfare.”

  “Ok, Bobcat wins the pot and might I say you are a devious son-of-a-bitch. Glad you are on our team” Jeffrey finished.

  “Glad to be here, too. Now, if you could just make it a bit easier to meet people, we might get something going” Jeo added.

  “Yeah, well, I think you will appreciate the QBS Crew Quarters that will be on station soon. So, don’t get too comfortable on the Hephaestus; you won’t be on it for too long.”

  “Oh? What can you tell me about the Crew Quarters?” Jeo asked, surprised that another ship was coming out to the cloud with them.

  “Nothing much, right yet. But, I think you will like it. Your project is approved, but make sure you have the metals to trade with our suppliers, ok?” Jeffrey told Jeo.

  “I will, ciao!” Jeo held his smile until Jeffrey cut the line.

  “Samantha, drop both project plans and pull up the designs for the manufacturing station.” A 3D wireframe of the station was projected on his wall. “You know what, display this holographically.”

  Jeo turned around to find the manufacturing facility MF01 design he had been working on, using structured girders manufactured on site. “Samantha, let’s see what we can source and stick in those forty-foot shipping containers instead of constructing components ourselves. We only want quality components from smaller countries whose currencies are weak against the U.S. dollar.” He turned the model around with his hands and then pulled his arms apart increasing the detail and the size. After thirty minutes, he asked Samantha, “Can you get William on the line?”

  “Unfortunately, no. It seems that the Polarus is under attack, so we are not permitted to communicate at this time.”

  Jeo turned back to the wall, “Bring up satellite 221 and view,” He saw nothing but white. “Shit! Clouds.”

  He dropped to the bed. “Guys, I hope you get through this ok” he muttered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Outside TBQ Base, Colorado - USA

  The afternoon sun was waning as Michael and Boris screamed towards the base. “Lance, we will be arriving in twenty seconds.”

  “Michael, can you take care of the group still outside? Eric has been shot three times, but he and the Guardians inside still have them blocked. They can’t get any further, but we don’t have anything available for the outside response at this time without opening more holes inside. Kevin says he would rather not do that” Lance responded.

  “Understood, Lance” Michael replied.

  “Do we attack as people or not?” Boris asked.

  Mic
hael started smiling.

  “Uh oh. You are smiling, I’m not thinking I’m going to enjoy this much at all” Boris grumped.

  “Oh, trust me, you will enjoy this, my old friend. Very much, just wait. ADAM, take us in at a thousand feet, then open the doors” Michael commanded.

  “Vat!” Boris turned in alarm towards Michael, “You taking me down? Because I don’t see any parachutes in dis Pod.”

  “I’m going to drop you a few yards inside the main entrance, change to a bear and attack those inside from the rear. I’ll grab those outside.” Michael smiled, “This will be enjoyable, I promise!”