Don't Cross This Line Read online

  It had cost China considerable effort to support the new President during the elections, without getting caught. The race was close within a month of the vote. Then, an unnamed source or sources dropped a significant amount of email and other documents that changed the election. With so much content to wade through, no one questioned who could have shot the two small video clips showing the President with questionable people that swayed the remaining holdouts and pushed the victory from close to a landslide.

  “So how do we stop them?” she asked, “They abide by the rules not to land in our countries, but our people go to other countries.”

  “They just used that rule to filter out those who weren’t serious,” Emeka retorted, “the U.S., so far, allows them to take people from their country. They purchased land and use it for a space terminal. The US hasn’t shut them down so far.”

  “The decision to change that could be close, I understand,” Zhou interrupted. All heads turned to him, “The present President is not as much a fan as the previous one was. Right now, the most that has been done against TQB is to require them to fill out flight plans which allows the U.S. to test their radar and other defensive location and target acquisition capabilities.”

  “A lot of good that does us,” Billony added.

  Zhou shrugged, “It isn’t like our people couldn’t leave and go to the U.S. anyway so they would have to admit they are stopping their whole ‘land of the free’ nonsense if they do otherwise. I know they are stinging from some significant drops in military, science, and advanced technology resources themselves.”

  “Now they know how it feels,” Billony replied, “to have your people go to another country and stay there, not coming back to help your own country do better with their new skills.”

  Many around the table nodded sympathetically. The U.S. was now receiving the rewards for having done the same to all of them, and many other countries around the world for the last hundred years. No one here was going to shed a tear for the Americans who lost some of their own people to TQB.

  Mind you, none wanted to admit they might have a country or a government people didn’t want to come back to or support, either.

  “How many are they taking, now?” Ambassador Franklin asked.

  Ambassador Emeka flipped through a couple of pages in front of him, “It is slowing down. They have added approximately five thousand to the list of those immigrating for each of the last three months.”

  Franklin pointed to the paper from across the table, “If you believe they place all of the names on the list, it could be fifty thousand, and we wouldn’t know.”

  Zhou spoke, “We don’t know it isn’t fifteen thousand people leaving Earth for her group. We don’t know they aren't forthright with us in this one area, so perhaps we give them the benefit of the doubt? If the number is two-hundred and fifty thousand to date, and each person would live to be fifty years old on average, that is many, many years of advancement and resources the world is going to do without.”

  There was an epitaph from the end of the table. When everyone turned, Ambassador Jameson’s face grew red, “Sorry, just did that math. That’s twelve and a half million years of support they are stealing.”

  Zhou, noting the perfect opportunity to stab when it looked like he was nice answered, “Well, we can assume they would not be that useful before twenty, so we are probably looking at maybe seven and half million years’ worth of help.” Ambassador Jameson’s face looked at Zhou and raised an eyebrow. Zhou smiled and put up his hands, “Sorry, you are right. Seven and a half is still too much time to allow TQB to steal away.”

  Zhou turned back to the table, “It seems we are in agreement here, yes? It is time for TQB to return payment for what they have taken from our world.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  QBS ArchAngel en route to Earth

  Bethany Anne, dressed down in jeans and a white sweatshirt, nodded to the two guards in front of Jean Duke’s weapons development area entrance. “Gentleman,” she said to the two guards. She hadn’t met either one of them. Not an unusual situation now that they had allowed almost four hundred thousand people to come and join her kingdom.

  “I’m sorry, but we will need a pass, ma’am,” the first one told her. Bethany Anne heard a snort come from Eric standing behind her. Eric then grabbed his collar and started talking softly.

  “I need a pass?” Bethany Anne asked the two men, looking back and forth between the two of them, confused.

  “Yes ma’am,” the second guard explained. “Guardian Peter would have our ass…ets if we admitted anyone without the proper credentials.” The second guard nodded his agreement.

  “Right,” Bethany Anne put up her hand and turned it palm towards her, raising her middle finger and flipping them off.

  “Ma’am,” the first started, then his eyes grew large as a three inch, exceedingly sharp nail extended itself out from her middle finger, and her eyes turned red.

  “Now, what pass does the Queen need, exactly?”

  At that moment, the four of them could hear the rapid sounds of running boots clopping on the floor and a roar of “That’s the Queen you IDIOTS!” as Peter turned the corner. His glance took in the two men, eyes aghast, and Bethany Anne’s hand flipping them off with her red eyes staring at them, as well.

  Eric grinned as Peter tried to hide his frustration as he slowed down to a jog and joined them. “Sadhi, Ken, didn’t you two pay attention to the most important pictures list?” Peter’s grimace was enough to jolt the men from their stupor.

  “But sir,” the one on the left stated, “The Queen was in all black, and… and…” Sadhi licked his lips, his eyes flicking back to Bethany Anne whose hand had dropped, the nail back to normal and her eyes looking towards him without the scary red eyeballs.

  Peter turned to Bethany Anne, “Obviously, we have a few holes in our training, Bethany Anne, my sincere apologies.”

  She patted him on the shoulder, “I applaud the effort, and even if they didn’t recognize me when I’m dressed down, they might have paid attention to Eric’s shoulder badge.” It amused Bethany Anne to see both men’s eyes follow her thumb to Eric’s Bitch patch and then quickly checking to see the same patch on their boss’s arm. Ken’s eyes slowly closed in the classic ‘how could I be so dense’ move.

  Sadhi, on the other hand, seemed to want to argue some more. Peter reached over, picked him up by his shirt into the air with one arm and hissed, “Don’t say a word, are we clear?” Sadhi looked down at his boss and nodded his head.

  “ArchAngel, open this door,” Bethany Anne spoke, and the ship's voice came out of the speakers near the door, “Yes, Bethany Anne.”

  Sadhi looked down as the doors opened and the two walked through them. He turned to look at his boss who still hadn’t dropped him.

  “If you should ever be stupid enough to argue with the wrong people, trust me when I tell you that Bethany Anne and her Bitches have a rough way of teaching.”

  Peter opened his grip, and Sadhi dropped to the ground. “Now, you two grab your tablets and open up the book on important people.” He told the two men, “I want you to write up your story on what just happened and maybe a few ideas on how to make damn sure you can tell when the Queen comes knocking, got me?” he growled out.

  “Well,” Ken admitted, “the scary as shit red eyes are a unique characteristic.”

  Peter chuckled, “You should be happy. Usually, she isn’t in such a good mood when those fuckers show up.”

  “That was a good mood, sir?” Sadhi asked, his hand trembling some as he pulled up the documents Peter told him to review.

  “Fuck yeah that was good,” Peter told the two as he turned around, calling out his statement over his shoulder as he walked away, “your ass would be dead otherwise.”

  His answer seemed to hang in the air long after he had turned the corner, his steps receding down the hall.

  Schwabenland, Antarctica

  Dr. Abesimmons credentials passed al
ong with those in his group. He looked around at the large cave mouth, cleaned and hosting different types of vehicles. Some built recently to go outside the cave, some looking as if they had been built during World War II.

  Some of unique design, but made a long time ago. Abesimmons wished he could go take a look, but his job was clear.

  Get in, take notes, ask questions, go back to his job in Washington D.C.

  The Schwabenlanders were all looking older, fit, but definitely older. Hell, if his group waited long enough, they would be able to come back after they all died within the next couple of decades and take what they wanted.

  Or, considering how strong one of the guards looked, perhaps they were not so frail.

  Half of the group was ushered into a tiny waiting room, and the door clanged shut behind him. Abesimmons noticed the guy behind the glass.

  “State your business.” He asked, his Germanic accent heavy. Their main lead, J.J. Aspens spoke up.

  “U.S. Delegation to meet with Ms. Orsitsch.”

  “I understand you have twelve in your group, Dr. Aspens?”

  “Yes,” J.J. responded, pointing down the group, “We have another six outside waiting.”

  “Makeup of the group outside?”

  “Two ladies, four gentlemen.”

  “Understood, Dr. Aspen. Welcome to Schwabenland.” The door on the other side of the small room unlocked as a buzzer went off.

  Abesimmons walked out with the rest and a minute later, the others in their group came out of the chamber.

  “Doctors?” A middle-aged woman spoke from Abesimmons’ right. He turned, and she continued, “If you would all follow me?”

  The group started out after her as she called out in a pleasant voice, “Please don’t leave the group, that is very dangerous.”

  Abesimmons nodded his head in understanding. They had been told of the potential havoc awaiting those who went sightseeing in the base without permission.

  The results were often deadly.

  Abesimmons guessed there weren’t too many lawyers in Schwabenland and if they had any, to begin with, their curiosity had been fatal.

  It took the group about five minutes to walk to the meeting room. Often through hallways that had nothing interesting to see. Abesimmons, usually good with underground locations, suspected they were close to the entrance and their starting point. However, they must have planned the trip to skip certain areas.

  Interesting.

  Jean Dukes R&D Lab

  “Hey boss,” Jean Dukes called out from the back of the room. She was hunched over, pointing to a design hologram that one of her engineers had projected just above his desk.

  “No, don’t push the envelope right here. The gravitics will warp at that juncture, and we will have a problem. Trust me, we went through this issue years ago when we built this ship. It drove Marcus and TOM nuts.”

  “Don’t want that to happen again, do we?” her guy said before beginning subvocalized commands to the computer running the design software.

  Bethany Anne walked up and nodded for Jean to step away.

  Jean winked to Eric, “What’s up hombre?”

  Eric winked back but didn’t answer. He continued looking around her room and at her people. Jean had a long conversation about trusting her people with John a while back. She finally realized that none of the Bitch’s assumed anything bad about her people, but what about mind control?

  With aliens out there, and what she had been told about Bethany Anne’s abilities, it was a possibility.

  Jean turned back to Bethany Anne, “Boss?”

  “Just checking in and finding out how we are doing with the projects,” Bethany Anne replied.

  “Ah, management by walking around,” Jean stated. “Ok, Project T113,” she jerked a thumb behind her, “is slightly ahead of schedule if we can fix this gravitic issue that buzzkill back here…”

  “Hey!” the engineer called out and then decided to focus really hard on his project when both ladies turned and stared at him.

  Jean turned back to Bethany Anne, “As I was saying before buzzkill rudely interrupted me. Project T113 is on track, if slightly. Trying to push this much metal and skipping through the etheric is giving everyone migraines.”

  “What about TOM’s engines?” Bethany Anne pressed.

  “TOM doesn’t know exactly how that works. He was a pilot…”

  “Not an Etheric Fusion Warp Drive Scientist,” Bethany Anne finished for her, “he reminds me of this fact all of the time.”

  Not all of the time.

  Every time I ask a question related to your engines.

  I push the buttons, calculate the accuracy of the location based on the Kurtherian Pulsar and Gravitic Wave information in the database and select my next target. Then, hit the button when there is enough power, and reserve, in the engines and cross my fingers.

  It’s that ability to cross your fingers and hope that made you a pilot, TOM. Bethany Anne replied. An unusual characteristic in your people.

  True.

  So, I know you are aware of a bunch more. I think you just might have a little Kurtherian Rocket Scientist in you, yet.

  Bethany Anne could feel TOM considering her comment. She needed TOM mentally in the game. If she could just get him to admit that he might be able to contribute to this project, as a real skill and not a hack, it might help their game some.

  Maybe.

  Satisfied her project working with TOM was on track, Bethany Anne continued with Jean Dukes.

  “So, we come to project Gauntlet,” Jean started.

  “That’s the Guardians most favorite. I’m surprised Peter wasn’t in here and only had two of his lackey’s outside.”

  Jean made a hmmmm sound, “That explains why we didn’t have as many interruptions as before.”

  Bethany Anne asked, “You didn’t know you had two guards outside?”

  “Well, yeah, I knew. However, I hadn’t put two and two together that Peter did it because he noticed how many random people would come in and interrupt our efforts to finish Gauntlet.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Well, yes,” Jean turned towards another workstation. It was stand-up desk height and was three feet on each side. Wood on the surface, it was all computer encased inside metal underneath. The wood top provide a place for those standing around a place to set their tablets down as they talked.

  Bethany Anne walked up and took a second side of the desk as Jean pulled up the computer and started going through the complicated login procedure before Gauntlet came up in the hologram. There were three sizes. One fit a huge, seven-foot tall humanoid, one fit a robust male and another fit a strong female.

  “These suits allow the Wechselbalg or the Guardian Marines to jump in, suit up and empower themselves to be a one suit walking badass.”

  “The biggest one?” Bethany Anne could guess, but she wanted Jean to answer.

  “Uhhh,” Jean smiled, “Well, Peter, Nathan, and Ecaterina wanted something they could use if they were Pricolici.”

  “What’s the backup if they go rogue and won’t change back?” Bethany Anne stuck her hand out and rotated the mech-suits in front of her.

  “The suits internals have been calibrated to ascertain if we have a mentally competent being inside the suit, or not. If they won’t change back, it can be recalled back to the ship, or it will lock up, and one of them will be pissed off when the override opens the suit.”