Chapter 19

SUNDAY May 18

The light projecting the time on the ceiling read 4:33. I’d never been much of a morning person and wondered if it was a by-product of the neural growth formula or just the stress of everything that was happening. Even as carefully as I tried to sneak out of bed, Vonna and Valya woke up and joined me in the bathroom. As Vonna initiated yet another girl in proper aiming techniques while helping me pee, I considered finding a much larger toilet.

Valya let me know that she had no intention of letting me out of the shower before she got another turn like last night and was beaming happily when we got back to the bedroom. I kissed the women who were awake or partially awake before heading out to see what happened overnight and to get ready for the trip to Russia.

I smiled when I saw Kateryna asleep in the reclining seat she used in Bumblebee Control. The dozen women sitting at consoles around her were very busy and didn’t notice me for a few minutes. I watched and listened as raid after raid was successfully planned, executed, or cleaned up after, astounded that these women so professionally directed each raid were only recently removed from a similar hell of their own.

I surprised one of them, after she leaned back to relax at the completion of a raid. “Tell everyone I’m impressed with the job they’re doing, and to please make sure Kateryna is awake by oh-seven hundred. She has to be on a ship by oh-eight hundred,” I told her.

“We know. She left a wake-up call for oh-six hundred,” she said, adding, “The Inquisitive is loaded and ready to go. It’s parked in front of Battle Group ECUADOR. The loaded cargo container ship is next to you in front of Battle Group FRANCE. They’re the two that are going with you. All of the medicine is loaded on AT 3031 DAVID RUGGLES with Battle Group ECUADOR.” I thanked her again and left to see what intel was up to.

As surprised as I was to find Kateryna asleep, I was just as surprised to find Serena at work. “We did go to bed pretty early,” she protested after giving me a hug and kiss.

“But did you go to sleep early, too?” I jibed. After an appropriate blush, she assured me that they had, indeed, gone to sleep not long after I left them alone.

The eleven night raids as well as another fourteen so far this morning had all gone off without a hitch. The new “mantis arms” had worked well in the raids where they were used. The 25 raids from last night and this morning had saved 2311 captives, netted 1857 pirates, 149 ships, 1402 temporary houses, and 117 cargo containers. The 20 Bumblebees that had been backups for the original 20 Battle Groups were now the lead Bumblebee of their own Battle Groups. We currently had 40 Battle Groups, and were now concentrating on producing Bumblebees.

Intel had completed the scans on earth. The 38 shields belonged to 30 pirate bases, three estates, three baby factories, and two baby farms. Nine of the underwater shields were pirate bases, two more were settlements like Marco’s sister and parents had lived in, four were hidden Russian military bases, and four were military bases for other countries. They found six Pirate bases we hadn’t known about in space.

All told, there were 127 pirate bases. We had raided 64 of them so far, and had the rest scheduled to be raided in the next 30 hours. There were 621 estates, including the five baby factories and baby farms. None of the spy androids came from those five facilities, but Serena had a cloaked and shielded shuttle observing each of those five estates. Using the back door I left in the OS programming, they hacked into their computers.

There were three main Russian military bases, one outside Novgorod, one outside Yakutsk, and the central base outside Bratsk. There were nine other bases outside of each of the nine biggest cities, and a company-sized military contingent in each of the 20 next largest cities, along with the four undersea bases. They had also identified two baby factories and a baby farm inside Russia. One was next to each of the three biggest military bases. They had scanned the two Russian towns we were going to today, found no military activity, and left shuttles watching them.

Serena had warrants ready to be signed for 200 estates in the SE Asia Union, and 60 of the Chinese estates. Details were complete on about half of the Chinese estates. Warrants and details for the final estates should be done by noon Monday.

I thanked her for the excellent work, and in return, she thanked me. “I’ve never seen Gwen as happy as she is here. Aside from you letting me do what I enjoy doing without having to constantly watch out to see who’s trying to stab me in the back and take credit for what I’ve done, seeing how happy she is working for you and having sex with you, means a lot to me. Thank you ... for everything,” she said emotionally, and kissed me again.

Greg, too, was at work when I stopped by. He’d only been able to get 15,000 sets of the vaccines. Realizing that many of the girls who grew up on the baby farms would not have received the vaccines, he had considered putting in orders for another 30,000. However, buying so many doses would draw too much attention to us, and would start tongues wagging because the only place that could possibly need that many doses at once would be Russia.

Instead, he’d ordered the equipment to manufacture our own. It would be set up today in one of the underground bunkers where the temperature and humidity were easier to control and maintain. Everything would be calibrated, sterilized, and ready to begin production by late tomorrow. We should have our first doses five days later, and should be able to manufacture 25,000 doses a day at peak production. Li’s blood work showed that she had not had the vaccines so she would be getting hers today.

While I was thinking about it, I asked Greg to start a DNA file for every captive we rescued, as well as each of the pirates, estate owners, and their guards. I wanted to cross-check the DNA of every captive to see if we could find any separated family members, and to find out if we could determine the father or mother of any of the children we rescued. Greg liked the idea, and was glad that he’d taken blood samples from all of the pirates we’d captured. Evidently, many of the former captives had taken their revenge on their captors yesterday, and today we had about 1500 fewer pirates than we would have had otherwise. Janine also had a lot more fertilizer for her fields.

We had seventeen more newborns in our population. The last day had been a busy one in labor and delivery.

James was harder to find, but I finally tracked him down. They had set up several hangars at Holloman to refit the new shuttles that were coming in regularly now, along with more power supplies and hatch covers. The AIs from the newest batch of used androids had been removed and checked for spies, and most of them had new AIs already. The rest would be complete soon. Bree had the android factory running at full capacity, delivering 500 new “brainless” androids every day. We currently had 23 additional Bumblebees aside from the eighty assigned to our forty Battle Groups, giving us a total of 103 Bumblebees and eighty Attack Transports.

My military masterminds were huddled together over breakfast. The younger Pulver had been busy tracking down the leads he had on women leaving the UN and other military groups, women who had been dissatisfied with the way they were treated. He had recruited another 83 and they were undergoing Bumblebee training as we spoke. We also had more former captives volunteering every day. Six more were going to start training in Command Control, nine more in Bumblebee control, 27 were starting Bumblebee pilot training along with the former military personnel, and 319 applied to join the Black Widows. Pulver had rounded up another 400 Legion quality troops from various militaries besides former UN forces and they would be arriving in groups during the next three hours.

Jeff reported that the cables for the saber heads had all been laid out and connected and a quarter of the heads on the outer defensive ring were installed. The shielding was all in place and calibrated. There was a level 3.3 shield ready to be turned on at 75.00 miles in the event of an imminent attack. An enemy would be able, with enough firepower, to breach that shield in about five minutes. That would give us plenty of time to piggyback their larger ships. Once the outermost shield was breached, the next shield would be our main 7.0 shield, which had been reset at 70.00 miles. Once they reached that shield, a second 7.0 shield would be turned on at 75.00 miles, trapping the bulk of their forces between them. The saber heads would make quick work of any ships or cold fusion fighters. Our tanks, as well as and vacating the oxygen inside the two outer shields would take care of any ground forces.

Evidently, Kevin, who was in charge of non ship-based weapons, had taken Jeff’s wish that the tank shells were more destructive seriously and designed two new shells. One had a much more potent explosive head, about five times what the old shells were designed for. In addition, the targeting computers on the tank could automatically make a last second adjustment to the shell before it was fired, altering its blast pattern to focus the blast in the smallest area possible, or to extend the blast radius to 100 yards. They could even make a straight blast pattern, spreading the blast into an almost rectangular pattern 500 yards wide, five yards high, and 125 yards deep. A blast like that could take out thousands of ground troops at once.

He had also designed an anti-matter shell. There was one anti-matter particle in each shell, and each shell would vaporize anything within half a mile of it when it exploded. Kevin made those shells with tiny grooves the length of the shell to give it a different feel. The grooves also allowed the shells to be fired about 500 yards farther than traditional shells. These would even take out a shielded ship of any size. They had to be careful not to use them too close to our shields or they would damage our shields too. All of the targeting computers were programmed to detect our shields, and not allow any of the antimatter shells to be targeted within a mile and a half of our shields.

Jeff finished by commenting, “Mike, we know what forces the Russians have, but even if they had 100 times as many, they couldn’t get into this base. This base is as close to impregnable as it gets.”

“What about tunneling in? Do we have any shielding below ground? Can we invert a couple of three plus shields to warn us if anyone tries? Are there any caverns out there that straddle our 75 mile shield they could use to sneak through?” I asked.

“We did a scan of the perimeter. There are no tunnels or caverns anywhere near our perimeter. The fastest tunneling machines will only go 50 to 150 feet in an hour. We’ll keep scanning for tunnels and shielded tunnels, and put two inverted level 3.5 shields a mile apart at the outer perimeter to warn us if anyone tries tunneling in,” Jeff agreed.

Gwen reported that 316 black widows had been cleared physically and emotionally, and had each killed one of their former captors with no more emotional consequences than any of her regular troops the first time they killed someone. Greg had started their “nutritional” supplements. Today, the DIs were forming up Black Widow platoons 1-10 and were beginning training. Many of the platoons wouldn’t be fully filled yet, but they were broken up by non-pregnant, and pregnant, the latter broken up even further by how far along the women were. She had successfully integrated another 8,000 androids with her other troops into Alpha Battalions 2, 3, 4, and 5. Jeff reported that the 2000 troops he had were more than enough to meet any threat posed to the base.

Then they got to Serena’s report about the estates. They agreed that one Bumblebee was more than adequate to deal with each estate in the western hemisphere with twelve exceptions. That meant we could take all of the estates in the entire world in six sweeps. Their estimate was that each set of raids would take two hours at most, probably less. The Bumblebees would get an update from Serena after each raid giving them their next target. They would need five to ten minutes to scan the target and verify the information from Serena, and up to half an hour to plan their attack.

Each Bumblebee would have an assigned contact in intel, and the second the shield was put in place and the raid was begun, their contact would be notified and would take control of the estate’s computer system, shutting down all alarms and automatic defensive responses. They would remain in control of the estate’s computers until our attack on Russia started, hoping to keep anyone from figuring out that there was a coordinated attack underway.

Nobody outside the estate would know that a raid was taking place, or that a raid had taken place until we wanted them to. There was one android currently assigned to observe each estate to learn their patterns, passwords, nuances, strengths, and weaknesses. One shuttle was currently assigned to each estate to watch their daily routine and keep us aware of any changes to the usual routine. An Attack Transport would do the mop-up at each estate, securing the family and guards until transports arrived to take them to the base. They would release any confined captives and provide medical help, food, and clothing for the captives until they could be transported to the base. Then, they would begin searching the compound for intel and weapons.

Li insisted on sitting in my lap at breakfast, even though it was a quick breakfast. I’d talked away the morning and barely had time to eat. The girls were excited about their planned shopping trip. I was glad I wasn’t going since there were almost four hundred of them going. Helga’s double was ready to go, and the rest of our doubles were working with Serena in intel.

Everyone was waiting at the Inquisitive when Helga and I got there. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” I teased Kateryna. Sven and Marco were waiting, too. After checking with command control, we left for the city of Sumy in Ukraine to meet Kateryna’s family.

Twenty minutes later, still cloaked and shielded, we landed on the mostly empty roof of the housing complex Kateryna’s family lived in. Kateryna and her shielding android exited the ship to find and talk to her parents. She felt they would take the news that their family secret was no longer secret better if she told them alone. She promised to stay in her grav chair and not walk, and to call us as soon as she convinced her parents not to kill her.

It was a fairly quick talk as thirty minutes later she commed us. It took us ten minutes to get to their home from the roof. Sergiy and Tetyana Repin, Kateryna’s parents, met us at the door, jumping, surprised, when we uncloaked in front of them. They introduced us to Yuliya, Kateryna’s younger sister, and Anton, her younger brother. Anton had just graduated college and was engaged to be married in two weeks.

They agreed to join us on the estate, but were worried about Inga, Anton’s fiancée. I suggested that Inga’s family also move to the estate for now, so Anton and his mother headed for Inga’s home. Fortunately, it was in the same complex. We sent androids with them to guard them. Kateryna headed back to the Base and her command, her little sister in tow. We called for a freighter to help the family move, and I had the DAVID RUGGLES drop off 20 android troops to help guard and move the household while the rest of the ECUADOR Battle Group watched the area. We took Sergiy, Katerina’s dad, with us, along with Battle Group FRANCE, to Malino, the small town in Russia his family originally called home.

Sergiy directed our cloaked and shielded descent as the Bumblebees and Attack Transports each took a point of the compass around the small town. Sergiy estimated fewer than 800 people lived in the town, about 200 families, all related to each other. It looked like the small, rural towns we saw in Columbia when we were returning our first group of captives. The asphalt-paved streets were in serious disrepair, and many streets were gravel or dirt. There were no shuttles, and only a few cold fusion automobiles and trucks, most in serious need of repair. Everything for miles around the town was farmland. We landed in an empty field about 100 feet from the house where Sergiy’s parents lived.

Sergiy made the walk, cloaked by an android. We let him explain to his parents, alone, before he got us involved. Half an hour later, Sergiy and his father approached us and boarded the ship. Sergiy introduced his father, Gennady, the Gregorovich family patriarch. “You’re sure Derevenko’s ships can’t see you here?” he asked suspiciously. I explained about all of our successful raids on the pirate bases and how we could see all of their shields while they couldn’t see ours. He wanted to know what our plans were. Sergiy nodded that it was safe to tell him.

I explained that we were taking down all of the pirate bases, and should be done by late tomorrow. After that, I intended to capture all the estates trading in illegal slaves throughout the world. Finally, I knew I would have to fight Derevenko and his forces as he would be looking for me and anyone connected to me after that, hoping he could rebuild what I’d destroyed.

“How sure are you that you can beat Derevenko?” Gennady asked.

“I’m positive that we can beat him. My concern is to beat him with minimal or no casualties to anyone but his troops,” I explained.

“I can help get you tens of millions of troops,” he offered. I thanked him explaining that we worked with small numbers of troops. I estimated we would use 1000 troops in the attack on each of the three main bases, 100 for the attack on the nine smaller bases, 25 for the attacks on the 20 cities that housed a company of Russian troops, and ten in each other city.

“How can you expect to beat Derevenko if you are so badly outnumbered?” Gennady asked.

“Want to watch?” I answered.

Gennady agreed excitedly so I commed Bumblebee command. I wasn’t too surprised to find Kateryna back at her console. “Commander, say hello to your grandfather,” I said in Russian.

The video screen flashed on immediately. “Pappa?” she asked excitedly. They animatedly exchanged greetings before I asked her if they had any action starting in fifteen minutes plus travel time.

“How about twenty minutes and ten minutes away?” she countered.

“Sold,” I replied, and seconds later, we were underway. On the way over, I got an update from the hovering ships and translated for Gennady. It was a large base, over 800 pirates and 47 ships.

As I explained to Gennady what they were going to do, one of the shuttles from our accompanying Bumblebee docked with us. We transferred over and when we arrived at the pirate base, we dropped in on and docked with Bumblebee 23. Mere was surprised by our company, but after telling us to make ourselves at home, ignored us, and returned her attention to her job.

After being assured that, despite her youth, she was quite competent, Gennady continued to watch the raid unfold, asking occasional questions. Mere directed the shuttles as they raided each house, unleashing fireflies into the open ones and punching holes in the closed ones to release the fireflies. We watched as she choreographed the pre-raid logistics. “Raid begins on my mark in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 ... go!” she called out as she pressed a large orange button in the middle of her console. As she directed the shuttles releasing the gas, and then the landings and cleanup, Gennady watched hawkishly.

I asked Mere’s pilot about the orange button on the console. “It’s one of her improvements. It sets the shield around the base, signals all of our ships in the area that the raid had begun and opens a priority feed to Bumblebee Control simultaneously. All the Bumblebees have now been fitted with them,” he explained.

After I congratulated Mere for a job well done, Gennady asked what happened to the pirates and to their prisoners. Mere grinned. “I am one of the former prisoners,” she answered proudly. Gennady looked stunned at the news. I grabbed one of the butterflies on the way to our shuttle and asked her to go with us and explain to Gennady what we did with the pirates and the women we rescued. She let her commander know where she was going to be, and we took off in our shuttle for the Inquisitive. On the way back to his home, Lalia explained about all the services and opportunities available at the base for the girls, about the trials held daily by the World Court Judges, and about the sentences for the convicted pirates. We made a quick side trip to the base, performing a low altitude fly-over so he could see the facilities.

He told me on the last leg of the trip that he wanted to remain in Russia to help coordinate the effort there. He could help us set up cells in the cities we chose to put troops into, as well as help keep the everyday citizens out of the fight once it started. His biggest concern was that once they realized the attack had begun, millions of citizens would show up with nothing more that rocks, sticks, and Molotov Cocktails to help fight Derevenko, getting in our way, and being needlessly killed by Derevenko’s troops.

I suggested setting up a command post there in Malino, with the ability to shield the entire town if Russian troops approached the area. He liked the idea, but warned me that someone in the town was spying for Derevenko, and they hadn’t yet been able to figure out who it was.

Comming Gwen I asked if she could spare two squads of Special Forces troops to secure a town and train civilians as a defensive force. I gave her quite a list to bring with her, including medi-docs, medi-vets, weapons containers, computers, food, medicine, com units, two-passenger and ten-passenger shuttles, a fly-eye assembly, and 144 ag androids. I asked Sven if he had any problems with what I’d just done.

Sven answered thoughtfully. “Considering that it’s the prelude to the downfall of Derevenko, I guess it means that, technically, we are now in an undeclared state of war, so whatever you do in Russia is okay, as long as you follow the same standards you are expected to follow in all of your other operations.”

I gave Gennady a com unit programmed with numbers to reach Gwen or me, admonishing him to use it only in an emergency. There would be troops here shortly to secure the town. We were sending food and medical supplies, as well as doctors, vets, agricultural androids, and weapons. I was going to initiate a shield around the town and we would track down any radio signals, signals which wouldn’t be able to get out. Hopefully, Derevenko’s spy would notice all of our activity and try to warn him. When they did, we’d have at least one of Derevenko’s stool pigeons. From what I’d learned about him, I was sure he’d have at least two, if not more. He’d expect them to report on each other as much as on the town.

Gwen and Jeff arrived with Savina and Naila, the latter two with their squads. I explained that we’d be using this town as our base of operations for setting up and coordinating defenses for the Russian cities when we finally attacked Derevenko. Jeff motioned Sven, Gwen, Gennady, and I to one side and had an android shield us. “Let me preface this by saying that I am extremely honored with the trust you placed in me when you put me in charge of the defenses at the Omega Base. However, the base is practically capable of defending itself. With all due respect, I request that you put my son in charge of the base defenses. I can tell him everything he needs to know in an hour or less, and can give him an android assistant to help him.”

“Is something wrong?” I asked, worried that I’d done something to upset the General.

His answer was slow, emotional, and deliberately worded. “Twenty-two years ago I was given an assignment. I was to assist the civilians in southwest Kashmir in protecting themselves against the warring armies from India and Pakistan. I supervised the area around Uri, at the northern end of the Kashmir Valley. For three months, three million soldiers fought their way back and forth through the valley, with artillery, grav-tanks, and aircraft obliterating each other and the civilians I was assigned to protect. In those three months, I watched 80,000 civilians ... men, women, and children ... that I was supposed to help protect, die.

“After three months, the leaders from the two biggest cities I was trying to protect came to me for help. They were tired of hiding and watching their friends and families die. They intended to attack the Indian and Pakistani armies. When they died making the attack, it just meant they died sooner than they would otherwise, but they would die with honor, not like rats hiding in a hole in the earth. I spent hours trying to dissuade them, but their final decision was that they were going to attack, with or without my help.

“I agreed to help provided they never tell anyone about my involvement. I was astounded at the arsenal they had collected. After every battle, they would pick through the battlefields and gather up everything they could, even damaged weapons and uniforms. They had taken apart two or three damaged weapons if need be to make one good one. There had been plenty of good weapons and ammunition left by their enemies, too. Women and children had picked up every loose cartridge they could find, and every empty or partial magazine they found. They definitely had enough ammo for a major attack.

“They had over 100 functioning mortars and over 3000 shells for them. They had over 400.50 caliber machine guns with enough rounds to fire them nonstop until long after the barrels melted down. The older children had spent countless hours putting one round at a time into the belts or canisters to fill them as well as filling every empty magazine, one round at a time.

“They had dragged off a small artillery piece that they had about 100 rounds for. The kicker was the five vehicles they had repaired, three Indian and two Pakistani, each with a .50 caliber gun on it as well as a pulse ion cannon. They had also taken pulse ion cannons from jeeps that were too damaged to remove from the battlefield and had those mounted on ingenious tripods that could be wheeled on two wagon wheels and then set up on a stationary tripod to fire.

“I taught a group of the men to load, aim, and fire the artillery piece. We could only practice during nearby battles that would cover our explosions. I taught men, women, and older children how to use the .50 caliber guns as well as the standard hand-held battle riles, many of which were multi-function guns.

“Since they only had seventeen pulse ion cannons, I didn’t need to train as many people to fire them, but I trained four people for every gun we had. There was no telling just who would survive until the battle.

“For 30 days I trained about 8,000 civilians how to use their weapons and how to find and make cover on a battlefield. Finally, they felt that they were as ready as they would ever be. We could tell that there was another large battle imminent. Both sides were gathering forces and posturing. We guessed where we thought the battle would take place and devised a strategy. For two days, they moved their arms into place, everything except their one artillery piece. It was too big to move without being seen from the air.

“They carried weapons on their backs, pushed and pulled them in carts, and had donkeys pull and carry weapons. Thirty people were injured seriously and four died just hiking the mountainous goat trails with their weapons. I suppose that some of them also smuggled weapons and ammo onto my shuttle while I flew them around the area, landing and looking for new places to hide a civilian population.

“All of the early morning activity in the army camps let us know the morning that the battle would occur. 5247 men and 2381 women between twelve and 80, and 893 children under age twelve waited, camouflaged, and poised in ambush on that scorching and humid August morning.

“The battle started shortly after eight a.m. and the Free Kashmir Army watched the two armies kill each other. Every man, woman, and child in the Free Kashmir Army had a hand-made Free Kashmir flag with their name embroidered on it sewn on their makeshift uniform, under their battle armor. It was to help identify their body after the battle. I reviewed the strategy with their designated leader, and after hugging him goodbye, left to make a quick visit to my commander with an overdue situation report. I made one last call to them just before I entered his office. They were ready and it was time. I said the pass code to start the ambush; ‘May your God watch over you today in your endeavors,’ turned my com unit off, and walked into my commander’s office.

“I was in the middle of explaining some of the new areas I’d been searching for places to hide the civilian population when one of his adjutants came running in, telling him about the huge battle taking place in my sector, and that my civilians were kicking the Indian’s and Pakistani’s asses. The general glowered at me and asked if I was involved.