UNEDITED
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.
QBBS Merideth Reynolds, Docks Meeting Rooms
Bethany Anne, Ashur, Matrix and General Lance Reynolds appeared in the Outer Docks Transport Room. Merideth 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 a 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 results.
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 Merideth 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 looked a little concerned this time.
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 in it, “Well, Bethany Anne, I think we have all learned a great lesson in the past and we do not need to rehash it at all.”
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 again, after I did it the last time, I would’ve just come down to your lair and done it. 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 were on the moon at the time’ since, well, that was true. 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 scientist, “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, “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 in helping destroy a previously unknown Alien base on the moon.
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 triggered a self-destruct sequence on their way out.
Having received probably one too many ass-chewings due to the kids, the guys 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 mistakes and Bethany Anne had gone into team BMWs laboratory and ripped the three men new assholes for over fifteen minutes. Merideth 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. 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 core 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 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 how old the Sphinx is 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 is going to be pissed if they find out we destroyed their proof.
FROM MICHAEL >>> Well, it sucks to say I’m going to be pushing the release of NEVER SUBMIT out to February 2nd (Thursday here in the States). Frankly, I didn’t get the writing done in time, is the long and short answer. While I was Words Complete on Saturday, that just isn’t enough time to allow the Beta Editors / Editor / my review / JIT process to happen.
Note, that isn’t an Australian Thursday, just so you know ;-).
Here are the dates we are trying to hit for the next books in the Series:
02/02/2017 – NEVER SUBMIT – The Kurtherian Gambit #15
02/06/2017 – Nomad Unleashed – The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles #03 (With Craig Martelle) (Click To See #1)
02/16/2017 – Judgement Is Falling – Reclaiming Honor #03 (With Justin Sloan) (Click To See #1)
02/27/2017 – Nomad Supreme – The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles #04 (With Craig Martelle) (Click To See #1)
Feb/Mar – Book 01 – New Series “The Lost Years” (situated between books 13 & 14) Natalie Grey / Michael Anderle
Mar 2017 – Alpha Class 02 – Etheric Academy (With TS Paul) (Click to See #1)
April 2017 – Gavin – <CURTAIN>’s Rangers 01 (Working Title) (PNR – With Holly Dodd)
AUDIO BOOKS WAITING APPROVAL TO GO LIVE (Just waiting on Approval)
Death Becomes Her (The Kurtherian Gambit 01) – Emily Beresford
Justice Is Calling (Reclaiming Honor 01)
AUDIO BOOKS IN PRODUCTION
Queen Bitch (Tentative Early March) – Emily Beresford
Claimed By Honor (Tentative Late March) – Kate Rudd
Nomad Found (March / April) – Kate Rudd
Alpha Class – (?? – Need to find out) – Emily Beresford
