Preventer Central Office Building,
Luxemburg City, Luxemburg

For yet another period of her seemingly ancient life, a simple phenomenon shattered all of Director Une's illusions of destiny. Like a team of petty wallet-stealers, her group of information specialists robbed the raw feed of a global news provider only minutes before broadcast. They were too impotent to suppress the airwaves, and that was just the latest reminder of her current status in comparison to complete nobodies called the "free press."

She examined dead or dying Africans, flailed about much like the cement rubble. Some camera feeds were intimate ground-level video, and a few others were aerial shots capturing the wider devastation.
Her knees stiffened, so she sat, and dragged herself from her fit.

'That overhead strongly resembles the aftermath of a massive earthquake in an underdeveloped city, so I have to set the ballpark casualty estimate as high. That means as many as thirty thousand people will die from this in the next five days. That's not much less than the estimated casualty count for the other terrorist scenarios. Those we could've handled, but how could our agency have prevented this?'

"Dispatcher," she pointed, "patch me a line to the relief agency, and put them on right away!"
The dispatcher hand signaled "ok," and performed her magic. A Nordic man came online.

"Deputy Director Erickson, my department lost an important struggle in the capitol of Somalia tonight, and the innocents of Mogadishu are now suffering the cruelty of terrorism. They need a massive humanitarian airlift to sustain life to an estimated seventy-five thousand residents in the next six hours, and they need the precious alert teams by the next hour. Can you rally the troops?"
Erickson's Valhalla-bound spirit sank.

"I issued the automatic alert. So what happened?" She blandly summed up the events.

"A group of unknown terrorists restored the integral functions of the Noventa Cannon, and spent a cluster shell into the populated districts of the city. My strike team is defusing the installation, so your assist teams should be safe from another incident. The runway is damaged, and I've received reports of local militias taking advantage of the situation. You are of course welcome to any of our electronic intelligence satellites and overhead photos. Our low orbit photo lab is passing over in fifty-one minutes, so you'll have great high-resolution shots- or better yet- just turn on the Earth Sphere news."
Erickson concealed himself to share a few words to an aid.

"Yes, Ma'am, we're rolling out. Erickson out." Une reclined and exhaled.

(To herself) "What I would do just for the Purgatory of BS-ing junior department heads like him, but I can't put off the man himself," (more audibly) "oh Dispatcher, you get to press the big red button now." She complied.

"Mister President, your worst-case from the morning briefing came true; we have mass casualties in Somalia."
Oh boy.

"It, you were actually tackling it this time, so how on God's green Earth did you allow that #ing D cannon to blow it's freaking lid this time?"
Hmm, he mixed his two F words, must be trying to quit.

"I'll try to explain, sir. We operated an attack plane over the cannon, so the terrorists would have to switch out their most dangerous ordinance in order to shoot down the plane-"

"I think I get it, go on."

"Well it worked, and the cannon fired an anti aircraft shell into the Indian Ocean, then Rashid fired his rockets for the kill. For whatever reason, he failed, and the cannon fired two more shells of the same variety. One at the fighter plane as it ran for the airport, and one at the beach, where Rashid's artillery piece was located. He, by the way, can't be contacted."
They both paused, then the President addressed his Director.

"You did good, Kid, especially the brave pilot and gunner. I understand those shells could have been binary nerve gas into Brussels and Bremen, had they neglected their jobs," he laughed, "but the people will decide someone in charge deserves more than one anus for a mess of this proportion, and my rival faction will be more-than-willing to tear me a few. Can I count on you to entertain the rabble on a tireless PA circuit?"
Nuts! She swallowed the same words he'd used, but said:

"You can count on me to smooth this out, Sir."

"Good Girl." He cut the connection, only dangling the dreaded hook.

"(Sigh I need sedated. I could use a cocktail of drugs right now."