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  The Captain could hear the room’s door slam as she reached up to turn off her microphone.

  Mark Taversty looked over his shoulder from the readouts he was reviewing, "I thought the Queen wasn't going to be here for at least an hour?" The Captain winked at him with a smile on her face.

  She called to the ship’s E.I., “Sphaea? You should probably let the Pod Bay know that they have two incoming vampires, and those two will likely be running.”

  —

  Down on earth, a small group of military trucks, tarps across the equipment they were carrying, were traveling down Highway 64 through the Jicarilla Apache Nation Reservation heading towards the location where an explosion happened.

  Two black attack helicopters passed over them heading North.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Docks Meeting Rooms

  Bethany Anne, Ashur, Matrix and General Lance Reynolds appeared in the Outer Docks Transport Room. Meredith opened the doors allowing the four to leave the chamber. Once they had walked out, the E.I. confirmed nothing was inside then closed and locked the doors behind the party.

  While no one had yet transferred through the Etheric into space already occupied, the computer simulations which ADAM had run calculated a substantially large explosion. Since energy and matter were transferable, the simulations showed solid items occupying the same space would cause some of that matter to transfer back to energy.

  Neither of the objects would appreciate the explosive result.

  It was Meredith's responsibility to make sure that didn't happen for the Queen or any of those who traveled with her. Reynolds, the military E.I. for the Meredith Reynolds, was her backup and confirmed her results every time.

  Finally, ADAM would triple check their results every four hours to make sure nothing seemed amiss with any of the sensors Meredith or Reynolds used.

  The two humans and the two German Shepherds walked about forty feet down the hall before entering a room which had a table, eight chairs and two video monitors on opposing walls. The video screens were nothing but white paint on the walls for the projectors that were affixed to the ceiling. Meredith could use the projectors in the rooms to create 3D holographic images should it be necessary.

  Bethany Anne and Lance had barely sat down when they heard a loud knock, and the door opened. Scott, who had gone ahead of them earlier to fetch her errant research and development team, stuck his head in and winked. He opened the door a little wider, and Bobcat stuck his head in.

  His face, which usually had some form or fashion of humor, smiled at her, “Yes?” he asked, but he didn’t step further into the room.

  She raised an eyebrow, "Oh, do come in Bobcat, just one of the three men I'd like to see at the moment," Bethany Anne purred.

  Scott inclined his head, and Bobcat walked into the room. He came in with all the willingness of a man told he’d be walking the plank.

  He was followed by William and then Marcus. All three of them swallowing heavily and looking back and forth at each other. Bethany Anne waved to the chairs, "Take a seat gentleman. We are all adults here, and we should accept the responsibility of those actions that adults take, no matter how long ago that happened, am I right?”

  Bobcat had pulled out his chair and slowly sat down on it, "Well, Boss, I think we have all learned great lessons in the past, and we do not need to rehash those lessons whatsoever." He finished by pasting a wide smile on his face, turning up his boyish charm.

  William, already sitting down, smiled. "I completely support Bobcat’s assertion. I feel I've already learned big lessons in life myself and…”

  Bethany Anne rolled her eyes, "Oh, do shut up guys. If I wanted to tear you a new asshole, after I did it the last time, I would've just come down to your lair and done it again. I want you to understand what we have tried to accomplish since the three of you helped destroy an unknown alien base on the moon.”

  Marcus interrupted, “To be fair. We didn't exactly destroy it. We were caught in the web like an insect and were working our way to get back out of the web. It wasn't through diabolical or devious intentions that said base was destroyed.”

  Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow, "So, I am to understand that the three adult males in front of me have decided that the 'kids did it' defense is now retired, finally, and we are going to the ‘we were running for our lives’ defense’?”

  "I don't know," William answered, a gleam in his eye. "Are we on trial here? Has anyone ascertained precisely why we are here before we tried to defend ourselves? I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves, and making assumptions? It isn't like I can claim innocence and say 'we weren’t on the moon at the time' since, well, we were. Can I say I was at home and would that make any difference?”

  Lance looked over to three men, "No.”

  "Well, shit,” Bobcat replied. He looked over at his friend and held his hand out. “Well, we tried. Nice knowing you William." He looked around William to the other best friend Bobcat had ever had, "Nice knowing you, too, Marcus.”

  Bethany Anne put her hand to her head, ”Would you stop being so melodramatic? It’s like I have three young girls in front of me. You aren’t on trial here.”

  Bobcat spoke up, "Not to put too fine a point on this, boss, but have you seen your face in the mirror lately? It's not like we don't know when you're angry.”

  Bethany Anne looked over at her father and raised an eyebrow. He lifted up his hand and twisted it letting her know that she was exhibiting extreme annoyance, not quite to a mad stage.

  She worked to calm herself a little, and the red glare of her eyes diminished slightly. She apparently wasn't over the fact that these guys had been the adults partially responsible for the destruction of a previously unknown Alien base.

  They were supposed to be advising and teaching their first class of Academy students, not letting them run amok over the face of the moon. She sighed, no, that wasn’t true. How do you let people become adults? You give them freedom and then help them figure out the mistakes.

  It was just damned unfortunate the mistake was so much lost opportunity.

  By the time anyone understood that there had been an alien base on the moon, the team had already triggered a self-destruct sequence on their way out and it was all over but the digging through the debris.

  Having received probably one too many ass-chewings due to the kids, Team BMW probably over-reacted on trying to keep the mistake of losing their students on the moon a secret until they could fix the problem.

  Barnabas, having tracked down some rumors, informed her of the errors and Bethany Anne had gone into team BMWs laboratory and ripped the three men new assholes for over fifteen minutes. Meredith had confirmed, that Bethany Anne had not once duplicated the same combination of curse words the whole time.

  She did not expect them to make that mistake again.

  "Let me allow the general to take the next part of this conversation." She told the men while she worked a bit harder at retaining her irritation.

  They did not need another bitch session from her. She didn't feel like it was appropriate when the only reason she was mad was having to review the findings after the fact.

  No matter how bad she wanted to vent more frustration.

  The General spoke up, "Unfortunately, a lot of the locations you talked about, the research lab with the Russian and other remains were unreachable. We believe that that the whole floor got crushed. We were able to drill down through the regolith and enter into another couple of locations in the base. The team encountered and destroyed a couple of the robots, and we were able to acquire examples of the technology which allowed TOM to understand which area of the galaxy they came from. So far, the teams are reviewing the data, and it's questionable whether or not we will be able to break into the data since the systems seem to be in the areas that were demolished as you guys left the base. However, what I would like to know is if you’ve had any more thoughts based on the exhibited behavior of the security and
operations droids you ran across?”

  It took a moment for one of the guys to answer. "Some," Marcus admitted. "Frankly, the programming seemed to focus on continued support and enhancement of the operational facilities of the base, or the security. Occasionally, I've wondered whether or not the two of those directives were crossed or merged in some fashion. If they have been, we believe the base has been there a substantial amount of time, and therefore those commands got crossed. If true, then whoever set the base up had expected to come back and based on the dating TOM provided, the base is over a few thousand years old.”

  "So, this might have happened three, four or even ten-thousand years ago?” Bethany Anne got out before Marcus finished.

  Marcus paused a moment before answering, “We think this might have been a base from ten-thousand or perhaps even twenty or thirty-thousand years ago," he admitted.

  Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow, “That long?”

  Marcus shrugged, “Well, no one has any good explanations for the Egyptians and many of their advances. We can’t even confirm the age of the Sphinx accurately. If our guesses are right, this base might have been a location for aliens working to facilitate their knowledge using the Egyptians.”

  "Well," William said as he scratched his neck, “I guess Ancient Aliens are going to be pissed if they find out we destroyed their proof.”

  "Interesting that you should mention the History Channel show,” ADAM spoke through the speaker system. “It seems we have a group from a small YouTube show, called Alien TV Podcast researching the Dulce, New Mexico Base at the moment. They have entered one of the cave entrances and are following the cavern towards what is left of the XJ-12 base.”

  Bethany Anne threw a hand up in frustration, “Can't this shit just leave me alone for two damned weeks?" She asked out loud, “Just two weeks. After that, it's the world's fucking problem. Okay, ADAM, give me an update. What is going on and who is doing what about it?"

  "Presently, Captain Jakowski has Richard and Samuel heading toward New Mexico to ascertain what they know and perhaps extract the alien hunters themselves,” ADAM replied.

  Moments later, Bethany Anne agreed to let her team's near Earth deal with the Alien enthusiasts.

  ADAM had reminded her she had a date with the ex-President and his family. This was the third meeting. She had rescheduled the previous two appointments to show him and his family around the Meredith Reynolds and was refusing to reschedule it once more. No matter how much other stuff got in the way.

  Sometimes, it was about the relationships, not the bigger picture.

  She left the general with team BMW to finish the discussion and excused herself. She opened the door and nodded to Scott who closed it behind her. She, Asher, Matrix, and Scott then walked towards the Teleport room where she needed to take an Etheric short-cut back inside the Meredith Reynolds to meet the President’s family.

  Because, the two of them had teenage daughter problems and Bethany Anne thought she might be able to help.

  So help she would.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds - Active Participation Area

  “Beware the Wechselbalg, they bite…” Shun read aloud the sign in front of the first set of doors. The three men could hear the practice, the shouts, the cursing (in multiple languages), the occasional bark, growl and scream coming from the other side of the doors.

  Zhu looked at his two friends, “You remember the time we got attacked in the early morning?”

  “Which time?” Shun turned from the sign to look at his friend, “We were in so many of those damned attacks it became commonplace.”

  “Right,” Zhu agreed, “now, both of you, close your eyes,” he told them, speaking in Chinese. His friends did as he asked, not needing to know where he was going with this.

  “Go back to one of the hard ones, the times where we heard our men screaming, the cats attacking from under the brush, or from above. The feeling in your heart, your mind, your muscles when we meshed. The commands we spoke to each other, the knowledge that we weren’t three, but we were one in defense of each other. The ability to sense what the others knew…”

  Jian’s mind took him back to the darkness, the smells, the screams of pain and the screeching of the cats in the night. The smell of gunpowder, and the occasional pain if he or one of his friends were hurt.

  Then, all three felt it again, the calmness in turmoil, the connection.

  Their connection.

  The reason they were best together, never apart. When the leadership made them separate, they pulled apart the best group, hoping that the three could teach others.

  Unfortunately, it never happened.

  When the three opened their eyes again, they weren’t the three friends standing outside of the APA. No, they had been transported back to the constant training in the fine art of staying alive. Zhu stepped back, and Shun stepped between his two friends, strong-arming the door and stepping in.

  His two friends right on his heels.

  In another area of the battle station, both E.I.s Meredith and Reynolds reviewed the video of the three men outside the APA, noted their conclusions, and labeled it a priority for Peter to watch.

  —

  “And I’m telling you,” Dwayne told Craig as he pushed up the two hundred twenty-five pounds for a quick set of twenty before resting, “that there is no fucking way we will be going back to Earth. So, you’d better start practicing your ass off Craig, or Peter is going to…” Dwayne rolled his eyes when he noticed his friend not listening. Someone had come in, and his friend had used that as an excuse to ignore Dwayne’s recommendation to train harder.

  It wasn’t that Craig was out of shape, or out of training, but Dwayne felt Craig’s ego was a little too large when they had yet to actually test themselves against a non-human enemy. Craig and his Marine team had easily taken out a two Yollin attack group just two days previous, and Dwayne was shocked to see Craig able to get his bulbous head inside the training area now.

  It had grown so large from his ego puffing it up.

  “Fresh meat…” Craig muttered loud enough for Dwayne to hear.

  Making sure his weights were locked correctly, something Craig was supposed to be doing for him, the ass, Dwayne turned his head to note the three Chinese men who had stepped in. Looked like Marine material to Dwayne, so he grabbed his barbell once more and prepared to start another twenty. He preferred ten sets of twenty, and then three sets of three hundred pounds for ten reps and a final effort comprised of five reps at five hundred pounds.

  “Yeah, you keep saying that,” Dwayne mumbled. There was something about the three men that caused Dwayne’s hackles to go up slightly. He wasn’t worried they would do anything, but if he had to spar with them, he wouldn’t dismiss them.

  “Craig!” a voice shouted from the opposite direction.

  Dwayne smirked, Craig had just been caught by Peter. Seems like Craig’s all-knowing awareness was just caught with its pants down.

  “Sir!” Craig turned around to see the Guardian’s top commander and Queen’s Bitch bearing down on him, Peter’s brows furrowed in a way that made Dwayne wince in sympathy for his friend.

  His friend was going to get a verbal ass chewing he would feel for the next week.

  Peter slowed down, and made a point of nodding to the three new faces in the training area before he turned to face the Wechselbalg, “So, not helping your team member here, I see.” Peter stated as he nodded to Dwayne.

  Craig turned to look down at Dwayne, remembering he was supposed to be spotting his friend but had started yapping his mouth off as his friend continued his reps.

  Thus, his friend had set his ass up.

  Dwayne raised an eyebrow to let Craig know he was guessing what Craig would like to say and wouldn’t accept Craig trying to blame him for his present predicament.

  Well, shit.

  Craig looked back at the commander, “Sir, was watching the fresh me…ah, the ahh possible new recruits for the Marines.”
<
br />   “Yes,” Peter looked over to the three men. There weren’t any Chinese yet on any of the teams. Peter’s eyebrows furrowed, “Thank you for volunteering, Craig. I’ll note that next time I’m upset with you, that volunteering for something is your preferred way of making things right.” Peter stepped beside the man, who was trying to mentally catch up with what his boss had just said.

  He had, however, caught the one word that meant shit was coming his way, “Volunteer, sir?” Craig’s head turned as Peter finished stepping around him.