Back Home – The Dual War
by Warringer
Chapter 37
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Tenchi leaned back and sighed as the holo-com powered itself down. He was grateful for this little thing from Nathans storage, that way he could have a video conference with the heads of the national space fleet without much problems.
For a moment he closed his eyes. The Doranians were a real problem. He knew their psychological profile by heart, but he never thought that they would go this far. Sure trying to stomp the Dilgar he could understand in parts, but why where they invading the Narn with so many other problems? He shook his head as he answered that question himself. They thought that the war with the Narn would be over quickly, but Tenchi knew the Narn far better. Even if the Narn would be defeated by the Doranians, they would fight back with even more and eventually free themselves.
And than there were the Centauri. With Kartagia on the Centauri throne, it was very possible that the Centauri would attack the Doranians just to prove their point that the Narn 'belonged' to them, after the Doranians had broken the Narn resistance and move in on the Narn themselves, only to get their asses kicked yet again.
Ryan had been on his way to one of the GDI meetings in Paris, invited by Jacques Chirac, much like the other heads of the single GDI nations. Tenchi knew enough about politics to know that they would be in for some very intense hours of talking. But hopefully they would end up with the proposal of military alliance of the GDI with the Narn and the protection of the Dilgar.
Sure they couldn't send many ships to the Narn, but they could send military advisors.
As he had constantly talked, first with the Admirals at Shabazza and later with President Ryan, he had failed to notice another female newcomer materializing before he had a begun to talk to Ryan, nor had he noticed that his grandfather had arrived.
"You are helping the Dilgar?" the woman finally asked and glared at Tenchi from her spot next to his grandfather.
Tenchi turned his face to the unknown woman. For a few moments he wondered why he thought that he had seed her already, before he remembered. He had seen her face in one of the CIA reports he and most of the other higher ups of GDI had gotten when the CIA went through the Galactic Files and compiled threat assessments, psychological profiles and others reports.
The woman was Airi Masaki, chairwoman of the GP Academy and as far as he knew the wife of his grandfather, something that seemed to be an open secret. That also made her his grandmother. The CIA had made a psychological profile of her from the informations available. So far they were describing her as being conflicting. Sometimes she had a short temper, was a tease, but very professionally when it came to her job.
And than there was the fact that she was a master of the Neo-Academy fighting style, a martial art often employed during discussions and negotiation. The techniques involved consisted of mainly slapping the offending party silly, as well as employing a cold, hard stare.
"Yes," Tenchi said a little tiredly." Its the right thing to do. By the way, nice to finally get to know you, grandmother."
In the blink of an eye she was standing in front of him, staring him down.
"Don't call..."
She stopped and her eyes crossed to look into the barrel of a small PPC held by Tenchi, who gave her a disarming smile.
"The Earth Force debating style or Gunboat Diplomacy as the Americans call it. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Works most of the time."
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"Jack you..."
Jack was hit from behind, letting him loose one of his two pulsers as he was thrown to the ground. He had just taken care of most of the remaining Doranians, but this was unexpected.
"Shit," he cursed and rolled to his left only to evade a heavily amored fist impacting into the ground where his head had been a moment ago.
"Okay, why does this remind me of that one time in Iraq?"
He tried to bring his remaining pulser up and against the unknown assailant, but said assailant ripped the weapon from his hands.
"Defiantly Iraq."
That was the first time, he was able to get a sowhat good look at the one attacking him and he was very surprised to find out that it wasn't a Doranian. Okay, the attacker was wearing a blue Doranian Heavy Powered Armor, but neither wings nor that thick tail were really belonging to a Doranian.
His attacker used the very short time where Jack did nothing to try and stomp at him with the heavy armored digitgrade boots of the blue powered armor.
"Not so fast, buddy," Jack said, his voice relaid through his suits speakers and caught the boot with two hands.
"Okay," he than muttered to himself," This was a god damned movie cliché."
His opponent didn't react to the threat as he simply ripped the leg out of Jacks hands only to stumble back a little. Jack used that to get back to his feet. He didn't bother with saying anything as he simply charged at his opponent, just to be grabbed and thrown over his opponents shoulder. Both his new enhancements and the suit was all Jack needed to land safety on his feet.
"I'm glad that we both don't really like the clichés," he said and charged at the other guy again.
From there the fight became a very intense display of martial arts training, with Jack using the military Hand to Hand style he had learned in training and used several times to save his bacon. His opponent on the other hand was using a strange style, that reminded Jack of Wire Fu movies, but this was Real Life.
"Jack," he than heard Daniel." When I tell you, give him a right hook."
"What?"
Yes, Jack was irritated. For a moment he wondered what Daniel wanted from him.
"Trust me."
Now Jack was a little concerned.
"Now!"
Jack didn't really continue to think about that and threw a powerful right hook with all the power of his enhanced body and the Powered Armor behind it. The hook got through the defenses of his opponent and connected to his helmet. There was a sharp sound of ripping metal as his head was thrown to the side and Jack could see how the helmet detached itself from the rest of his opponents armor and his head, flying away in a neat arch.
Jack blinked as his opponent froze for a moment, a pair of reptilian brown eyes staring at Jack for a moment, before he collapsed slowly like a huge tree.
"That is a Shin'bi," Daniel noted," I guess he is or was a slave to one of the Doranians here. Some sort of loyal bodyguard or something along those lines."
Jack blinked at the fallen Shin'bi and than looked at his fist, wondering just how much power he had behind his movements now.
"Don't Shin'bi normally have hair?"
"No idea," Daniel gave back." We only know of less than a dozen, so we can't really tell. He's still alive, by the way."
Jack breathed in deep and dropped his hands.
"So we got a nice prisoner."
He just wanted to grab his pulsers as he stopped.
"Does that mean that I have to carry him?"
"Well, I certainly can't carry him."
Jack just groaned.
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Tenchi breathed in deep as he put away his PPC.
"I'm sorry," he said," But I'm currently a little stressed out."
Airi crossed her arms.
"I take it because of the Dilgar."
Tenchi nodded and sighed. He knew what would come next. The Jurians had already protested, as had the Centauri and the Minbari. The Narn on the other hand hadn't done so much as protesting.
"They are savage beasts," Airi said and glared at Tenchi." They have killed many billion intelligences in a war to expand."
Yep, exactly the thing Tenchi had awaited to hear. He all but raised an eyebrow as he heard Dark Knight whisper in the back of his mind.
"I take it you say that mostly because they were using biologic and chemical weapons, not civilized forms of sterilizing a planet. Like orbital bombardments with beam weapons or mass drivers."
"Yes."
"So there is a difference between killing billions with orbital bombardments and killing billions with biological weapons?"
Airi stopped and became slightly pale. Tenchi shook his head and sighed.
"I think we shouldn't talk about politics of military strategy. I would like to know how you came here and why? As far as I know there hasn't any non-GDI ship arrived in the last days."
Airi closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deep.
"Long range teleporters," she answered." And I'm here because of something important. Or rather your sister was, but she was waiting too long."
With that she directed a short glare at Tennyo. Tenchi raised an eyebrow.
"And what is so important?"
"Your new fiancée."
Tenchi stopped breathing for a moment. His eyebrow twitched slightly and he could feel a cold anger boil up in him. The same anger he had felt when he found out about Shadows and Vorlons and how they had manipulated just about everything in the EA universe. Back than it had been a hot anger, but it had cooled down over the years.
He breathed in deep.
"And who set this fiancée up for me?" he asked, not allowing his boiling anger to show, he even managed to control his twitching eyebrow.
"Lady Seto, the mother of Empress Misaki," was the answer he got.
The anger boiled a little higher and became warmer, but Tenchi didn't allow himself to act on it and derate Airi. He simply stood up, grabbed his holo-com and walked over to the door to take his bag.
"I don't think it would be the best if I got to know her these days," he said." Like I said, I am rather stressed out with organizing the defense of Vega against the Doranians and had a few problems with the Dilgar situation."
Than he breathed down.
"Maybe it would be better if I take the GDI offer and take an apartment in Brussels. I heard that Europe is nice this time of the year."
He bowed slightly before putting on his shoes.
"I hope we can deal with this later when I'm a little more relaxed."
He looked over to his grandfather.
"I believe you have my cell number."
With that he left the house and walked toward the gate. It was better if he could get some real peace. It wouldn't be possible at the Shrine between Ayeka and the new fiancée.
After a moment he took his cellphone from his jacket and dialed a number.
"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki, ID Three-Foxtrot-Charley-Four. I'd like to request any available data on a Jurian noble, Lady Seto Jurai."
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Mary Pat looked at the man in front of her and waited. The man on the other side of her desk, that of the Deputy Director of Operations of the CIA, was Chester Nomuri. He had played a role during the Japan mess a few years ago. Now he would play a role again, through this time it would be a little bit different.
"Cultural Attaché?" he asked and blinked again.
Mary Pat nodded. The position of the Cultural Attaché in any human embassy was that of the head intelligence officer in a country and Mary Pat and any other high ups in any Earth intelligence angency would be damned if that would change in the new interstellar age.
"Yes," she said with a nod.
"On Jurai?"
Again Mary Pat nodded.
"You have worked in Japan before and we know that Jurai had a mostly Japanese like culture, so iot shouldn't be much of a problem to work there."
Numori breathed in deep. The position of a Cultural Attaché was not such a difficult position as the position of a filed agent, like he had been in Japan.
"There are a few thing through," Mary Pat said with a sigh." The orders are from the higher ups. You are going to get a few assistants on this operation through. Sergey Ivanowich Sachalin, of the SVR, Marek Daniel of the BND and David Weissblum of Mossad. I want that you work together like professionals."
Numori closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.
"Oh joy..." he muttered.
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"That beam comes over there!" Jack Rily screamed before ducking under the heavy steel beam swinging from a crane just a few feet above his head." OVER THERE!"
The crane operator nodded sheepishly as Rily glared at him. As the beam swung over his head again Rily shook his head and headed towards the large hangar where this entire operation was based in, several containers outside of Mojave, CA. This entire project was based on Scaled Composites and the Mars Society. And what they build behind them was large, but it used rather classical technologies.
It would be the prototype of an independent Colonization Module the Mars Society wanted to use on Mars. These days it was much easier and faster to get to Mars than four month before. Hell, last month the NASA had asked the US Navy to transport some of their scientists to Mars. They had worked for two week there, before returning. But it didn't turn into the Media Spectacle NASA had hoped for.
Rily shook his head. The rumor mill in the scientific community talked about the fact that NASA would be down-sized, maybe even rolled up. Well, it would certainly free a good amount of good engineers and a whole lot of money the government was spending on the NASA. Normal boosters wouldn't have much of a future now, nor did the Space Shuttle or any other project of the NASA.
But still, for some time, at least until the first companies would build their own shuttles on EA designs, boosters would be the only thing to get satellites into space for reasonable cost. But most aircraft companies, Scaled Composites included, were already working to build their own shuttles. And from what he heard Burt Rutan had had a really insane idea for a shuttle.
He looked back at the Colonization Module they were building. It would be an ugly, cheap but working block of metal, foam, carbon and plastics. In essence both Burt and Zurbin had taken six hundred standard containers, like they were used in international trade, put them together in a way that they were ten containers long, ten containers wide and six containers high and welded them together, while many people were currently busy to build stuff inside the containers, like sealing them airtight, making airlocks between the containers, installing life support systems and a Ferron fusion reactor, others filled the rooms between the containers with foam, as isolation, and build a large structure that would make it more stable. The finishing touch would be the large windows in the housing units, labs and work containers as well as the grey hull that would make it more like a single block.
This was the first prototype and while they were building the Mayflower carrier vehicle and the two other Colonization Modules, it would be tested up on the moon, with one of the freighter Monsoons getting it there.
Rily hoped that it would work the way it was intended to. Mostly because the Military as well as others were starting to be interested in variants of the Module.
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Miles Kantors eyes boogled as he stared at the computer screen.
"Okay, now they really started to go insane," he said out loud.
It really was Psychosama who had made a very insane suggestion on the SpaceBattles General forum.
'Lets design a real Big Space Battleship and show the design to the GDI,' was essentially what he had suggested. Of cause the debating had started and many of the people in the forum were jumping into this head first. Some of them were already talking about the weapons they would add to it, others debated what would be the best hull design, with the Trekkies ans Warsies duking it out already.
The best thing was that the threat wasn't even a day old and it had already gotten the better of two hundred replies.
Than he blinked again as he reached the last page of the thread. It seemed that the moderators had just created a new forum for idea like this as sub-forum of The War Room of all things. But the longer he thought about that, the more he saw how realistic that was. The entire technology that was going to be used was RL after all...
He sighed and for a moment he feared for his mortal soul and his sanity. But than again, wasn't the motto of SpaceBattles 'Ye who enter here, abandon all sanity' or something along those lines?
Maybe his superiors would like whatever came out of that 'little project'. It could only be big and armed to the teeth with large weapons and be able to 'Ram they 'til they give up'...