Intersexed Ch. 03: The War on Terror. Part 3.
From Part 2.
Tank grinned at him. "To rewrite our battle plan for the slaver encampment. We'll only need around a thousand troops, I'd guess. We'll take two to be sure." He grinned laconically. "Or, given it's Ireland, maybe that should be three, argh, to be sure, to be sure!"
Continued...
"What?" Major Tenerife asked Tank's departing back, totally mystified. He stood to follow him.
Ten minutes later, Genet, Angelina, Bennett, Alban, Roque, and Envet poured over Tank's new plan. Pointing at the enormous tower and the shielded bunker at its feet, Genet stated, "The key is to destroy the communications array first. Taking that out strands them on Earth and gives us plenty of time to take them out."
"Unless their cloaking systems are better than you're aware, and they already have ships orbiting the Earth, too," Julie pointed out. "Historically, the Aridians collected their slaves every two to two hundred and fifty years, right? But now, they take smaller numbers more often, which means they either have an interstellar capable ship stored on their base or one circling above. Also, according to the reports, they're due on Earth about now."
"Ain't you just full of happy news," Brian grumbled. "Always seeing the bright side of things." He considered before adding, "With the improvements we've made in worldwide communications, the slavers can't get away with ransacking and killing entire villages anymore. Nor can they leave behind a few dozen murdered people they didn't want. Instead, they randomly grab two or three people from many places worldwide. That means there has to be a holding cell somewhere on their base."
Roque added, "For sure, if our attack breaks them open, they'll fall back to the cells and use the prisoners as hostages."
"You're right," Tank admitted. "We need Tenerife's techs to scan the planetary system to ensure we're the only ones out here, then pray the Aridian's cloaking systems haven't outfoxed our scanners. I'd risk an active scan rather than doing it passively because that ensures we find everything. But given we're in no position to pursue them if they flee, we cannot afford to warn the Aridians we're here. His techs also need to find where the Aridians are holding the people they've taken."
He looked around, "We agree this is workable, then? Better than trying to sneak ten thousand warriors onto the ground and launching a full-scale attack?"
"I'll get the techs started immediately," Major Tenerife stated when everyone nodded.
"We need to get representatives from Britain, Ireland, Russia, China, and America on board the ship so we can start revealing what the world's facing," Tank pointed out to Tenerife.
"Why only those five?" the major queried. "Won't we need to inform every leader from all countries?"
"Britain and Ireland because the raid is in Ireland and close to Great Britain, and we don't want them to interfere. The other three are the superpowers. If they're on board, they'll bring most of the rest of the world with them. When we've dealt with the Aridians on Earth, we'll bypass the Islamic leaders and get the Grand Mufti's onside. They'll bring their governments into line with them."
"Putin and Xi Jinping are already aware we're here, and we've dealt with them both. America is their 'lame duck President' stage. Do we get Biden, Harris, Trump, or all three? President Trump knows we're here because we spoke during his first term. We avoided the other two because they seemed incompetent, and we didn't trust them to keep our presence hidden. We dealt with President Trump because we saw him as a loose cannon, and we couldn't predict how he'd react if he discovered aliens orbiting his planet. We decided his knowing was better than him finding out himself."
"President Senility Biden, Vice President Hillary-Light Harris, or President-Elect Pussy Grabber Trump, what a grand choice!" Tank muttered before glaring at Lieutenant Bennett. "How the fuck, with 335 million people to choose from, do your people end up with these three running your country?"
"Beats me, too," Brian shrugged, "But it's not like the ones before were that much better!"
"Who is the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?" Tank asked.
"General Charles Q. Brown Jr., USAF," Major Tenerife answered.
"I've heard of him," Brian stated. "He's good. Level-headed, intelligent, and unafraid to recommend force if he thinks it's required."
"Bring him, then," Tank said emphatically. "Don't worry about the other three. Better bring the top military leaders of the other countries, too."
"Putin and Xi are effectively their respective country's military leaders, too," Tenerife pointed out. "But we can fetch the UK's and Ireland's Chiefs of Defence, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin and Lieutenant General Seán Clancy, easily enough."
"How do you typically meet with these people?" Julie asked.
"We make an appointment, of course," Tenerife smiled. "We have exclusive encrypted phones that allow us to contact them directly. Then, we use specific code phrases so they know when we want to see them, and then we use the teleporter to place us where the Presidents tell us to. It's to a place that has no cameras and is clear of security, of course." Tenerife thought momentarily before adding, "I assume you want to come with us this time?"
"Nope," Tank grinned. "Major, can you get General Zaha to meet us here?"
"Sure," Tenerife replied. "He'll want to know why."
"Tell him we're about to kick over an ants' nest, and he'll want to know why."
Tenerife flicked open a communicator and woke General Zaha up. After a shouted exchange from Zaha's end, Tenerife closed the communicator and said Zaha was on the way.
A few moments later, General Zaha stormed into the cafeteria. "This had better be good!" He snarled.
"I think Julie and I will visit four presidents, one prime minister, and three heads of military and ask them if they'd like to visit space with us," Tank said calmly as if announcing what he wanted for breakfast. "Of course, whether they say yes or no, they'll visit space anyway," he smilingly added.
"You cannot abduct five heads of state and their top military leaders without the world exploding!" Zaha thundered.
"I can and will," Tank stated. "We've been pussy-footing about, trying to stay unknown. But with what's coming, we need to announce our presence loudly and immediately. I say we do it now with overwhelming evidence of our ability to take over the entire world, which we won't do because there's an alien invasion coming, and they need our help. Simultaneously, we'll get you to broadcast to the world again, telling everyone what's happening and what to expect. Before that broadcast and as soon as we inform the presidents and prime minister of what we're about to do, we hit that Aridian base."
"The Aridians will demand help from their Armada as soon as I announce we're here," General Zaha pointed out.
"I'm guessing they would have already informed Aridia of a possible Providian presence on Earth when you made the first broadcast," Tank explained. "But we can cause confusion for long enough by having you announce that the abductions and attacks on the Irish base are the work of WOLF. Then, by the time they realise we're Providian, we'll hopefully have destroyed their ability to communicate with their home planet."
"There's a lot of 'ifs' and 'buts' and 'wishes' in there, Tank," Brian growled, "and shit in one hand while you wish in the other. See which one fills up first. What if there's an Aridian ship already circling close enough to see and hear what we're doing, and it hightails it back to Aridia or warns them?"
Tank shrugged before saying, "I guess we'll find out if forty-thousand Providian regular troops, twenty-thousand enhanced Providian soldiers, thirty superhuman ones, plus whatever Earth's divided militaries will send, is enough to defeat eight million Aridian slavers, won't we?"
"We're fucked, in other words," Genet said cheerfully.
Everyone laughed despite the tension built up in the cafeteria.
"Why can't you do it surreptitiously as we have in the past?" General Zaha asked.
"There's too much time difference between Moscow, London, Beijing, and Washington," Tank explained. "Beijing is thirteen hours ahead while Moscow and London are eight." Tank thought through his plan and spotted a potentially disastrous mistake. "Shit!" He exclaimed. "If we take the other leaders but not America's, everyone will assume it's an American-led coup to topple the world, and they'll all attack the US!"
Julie chuckled, "This whole 'taking over the world thing' is much more difficult than you'd think, huh?"
"We need time to arm and train Earth's fighters, and we must give Major Tenerife and his people time to enhance more of our soldiers and the human volunteers." Tank considered his plan. "Yeah, we have to grab Biden, Harris, and Trump, too. Then we'll make the leaders contact who they must to prevent the world from exploding into World War Three as we bring them up-to-date with what Earth is facing."
"Can't you just clone the enhanced soldiers you already have?" Brian queried, asking the obvious question.
"No," Tenerife explained. "I've tried and created nothing but mutated monsters every time. An enhanced warrior's genes hyper-react to the cloning process and mutate uncontrollably."
"Which brings me to another point. Perhaps a final one for you," Tank stated menacingly. "Do you have anything to do with keeping the monsters your mutagens occasionally create imprisoned on level three instead of having them killed as we agreed?"
Major Tenerife's face turned white as his eyes exploded wide. "There's what?" He bellowed. "I turn them over to Colonel Tangran as per doctrine. He was to kill them, burn their carcasses to ash, and sterilise everything. You're saying they're all still alive?"
"They were until a couple of hours ago," General Zaha growled. "However, miraculously, they all seemed to fall out of an open airlock shortly after Captain Zaffra confirmed they existed. By the number of prison cells, I'd guess there were close to two hundred of them."
"That's the number I had restrained and sent to Tangran," Tenerife stated.
