Chapter 24
Edit by BobMc and Rav
Captain Sharone had been easy to talk into flying back to The Fortress, as long as he didn't have to land, and he wasn't flying a military plane. This time, his flight plan listed him as a charter out of LA taking some corporate bigwigs to Rio (with a stop-over in Las Vegas) in an extended range Lear.
Close inspection of the plane would have revealed an odd-looking door in place of the rear storage compartment, but no one really paid that much attention. Ben and Kathryn took the time to make sure all their gear and weapons were stowed in the sleek-looking black gliders inside the small plane. There was room for four gliders, but presently there were only two. With their checks complete, they cuddled together on one of the couches and tried to get some sleep.
"Are you nervous, love?" Kathryn asked softly.
"A little, but excited too. I just wish there were less people to hurt. You do know that even after we get rid of Solms, we will have to go around and clean up all the little messes he created," Ben replied.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that. I mean, eventually they will die out on their own, but in the meantime, thousands of people will be killed or abused by his little pet projects. Have you seen how many there are? Terrorist organizations, drug dealers, prostitution, slavery, not to mention his 'legitimate' stuff like the casinos, and oil companies. Carol was salivating to get her hands on those," Kathryn said, chuckling.
"Well, with luck, we'll be able to give her a present then. How do you think John and the rest took our message?" Ben asked.
"John is either pissed or worried that we won't make it back. Jenna is probably pissed we didn't bring her along, but will make her argument in bed when we get home. Justine is worried, but hopeful, and Tabitha will be our wife even if we never offer her the place in the family. She knows, beyond doubt, that we will be back. I doubt she knows why she knows this, but accepts it fully. How a woman as beautiful as she is can make it as long as she has and still maintain her virginity is beyond me."
"She has a very specific idea of what she wants in a relationship, and is willing to wait for it," Ben said. "Are you sure we're what she wants?"
"Almost exactly, if we had another male it would be her dream. However, for some reason, she thinks of me as almost male, and so substitutes me in her fantasy as the other male. I've only peeked on her a couple of times, mostly because I couldn't help it. She projects like she has some ability, and damn, does it have an effect on those she is projecting about. The other day Melissa and Chris bumped into her and I near the vehicle shed. Tabby was already fantasizing about me fucking her pussy when the girls came around the corner looking for me. Her fantasy didn't even miss a beat. In her mind, Melissa started tonguing her asshole while Chris sat on her face. The two girls were so turned on by the images that they forgot what they needed me for, and quickly excused themselves to go fuck. Tabitha just smiled at them as they all but ran from the shed and said, 'Gee, I wonder what that was all about?' like she knew exactly what she was doing," Kathryn said.
Ben had gotten hard listening to Kathryn and his dick was pressing against her belly. He slowly pulled the zipper down on her jump suit. "Perhaps she knows exactly what she was doing, and was trying to get us interested in her. Of course, if she had any ability at all, she would know that we most definitely are, even without all the teasing. Which, from the sound of it, is exactly what she's doing — teasing. The ancient and time honored method to let potential mates know you are interested."
"Is that what you're doing to me, now? Teasing me to let me know you're interested?" Kathryn said playfully.
Ben gave her a soft, short kiss on the lips. "Nope! I'm not teasing at all, I'm absolutely serious about what I want."
"That's good, because you're about to absolutely get what you've been asking for," Kathryn said, breathing deeply in arousal. She struggled to pull his jump suit down until he rose up to help her.
Once she got his suit down to his knees, she abandoned it, and threw one leg over him to position herself for entry. She slowly lowered herself down on him since she was still one of the tightest of their family. She stopped when she reached bottom, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to his.
Without moving, she let him feel her love for him, and through him the rest of their family. For a brief few moments, the link was reformed to their mates as Kathryn made sure she was fertile.
Ben felt the love flowing from her and through her from the rest of the family. He felt the women's approval when Kathryn prepared an ovum for insemination. The emotion built quickly as he realized what was going on, and without moving, both Kathryn and he reached orgasm from the emotions alone. It was a moment as beautiful and perfect as either could imagine. The child they started was conceived in love and shared with the whole family.
The link was slowly relaxed again and allowed to dissolve. It would be reforged again soon, this time forever. Ben and Kathryn made tender love until they drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.
Many miles away, in her room, Tabitha dropped to her knees and tears flowed from her eyes from the strength of the emotions she had just shared. She was just starting to regain her breath when there was a soft knock on her door. She pulled herself to her feet and managed to get the door open to admit a softly smiling Amanda. No words were shared between the two as the shorter Amanda flowed into Tabitha's arms and kissed her. Tabitha picked the smaller woman up in her arms and carried her to her bed. They took each other's clothes off and made love continuously for an hour. As Tabitha drifted softly to sleep holding Amanda in her arms, Amanda gently activated the powers in the woman's mind and wasn't overly surprised to find them almost active anyway. After all, she had joined that last link all on her own; no one had pulled her in. Amanda kissed the firm breast of the women holding her, and gave her the knowledge of the powers, and saw that Tabitha already had the strength of character not to allow them to go to her head.
In her sleep, Tabitha smiled tenderly as she felt the kiss. "I love you, I love all of you."
"We love you too, Tabby. Rest now; from now on you sleep with us," Amanda answered her.
Tabitha pulled the woman tighter to her breast. "I finally belong; I've finally come home."
"One minute to drop, sir," the co-pilot's voice said over the intercom. "Captain Sharone wishes you the best of luck, and godspeed."
"Thank you, Wills. You two have a safe trip as well. Cabin depressurized. Drop doors opening," Ben replied.
"Drop status is green, twenty seconds to drop," Wills said.
"Pod two, call out the list. Flight control," Ben said.
"Flight Control green."
"Navigation."
"Green"
"Deployment chute."
"Set to stand-by."
"Ten seconds to drop. Good luck, Commander," Wills said.
"Stealth systems and ECM," Ben said.
"Both active," Kathryn replied, ending the checklist. "Pod two dropping!" she said as the counter on the dash reached zero.
"Pod one dropping!" Ben echoed scarcely two seconds later. He was thrust forward hard against his straps as the deployment chute pulled the pod out of the plane. Out the windscreen in front of him he watched as the plane sped back up and continued on its course as if nothing had happened. Ben watched his airspeed indicator rapidly drop to a speed safer to deploy the craft's wings. When he had slowed enough, he cut the deployment chute loose, and extended the wings to the halfway position. They were still moving very fast, and dropping like rocks, but they had dropped high enough that they would be able to cruise for quite awhile and cover the almost three hundred miles in lateral distance to The Fortress.
Ben looked out his window to the right and saw the black outline of the other pod against the darkening evening sky. The Nav computer informed him that they were perfectly on course and glide slope for their destination. Estimated landing was in an hour and forty-five minutes.
He resisted the urge to reach out to Kathryn or Amanda; until they knew for sure, they had to assume that their telepathy could at least be detected. For now, that lack of the comforting touch of his lovers' minds in his own kept them, and him, safe. He wondered if he had ever been this bored, or felt this alone, before.
"Al called in and said he dropped them two hours ago. They should be on the ground and moving toward the objective. I want broad spectrum sweeps of the entire area around The Fortress; if we can see them, so can the enemy," John said tersely. "What's the status of Alpha and Bravo teams?"
Jenna's voice replied over the speakers in the room. "Alpha is deployed for perimeter security. No one will get in or out, Sir."
Tabitha's voice called in next. "Bravo is geared up and ready, Sir. However we do have a small problem."
"Now what?" John mumbled.
"I have about a hundred girls out here that would like to draw weapons to support the defense of their new home. They are very... uh, insistent on helping us sir," Tabitha said.
"Have seventeen of them report to me here at the house, and split the rest between Alpha and Bravo teams," Amanda suggested.
"What would you use seventeen girls for?" John asked.
"Corpsmen if we start taking fire. They can retrieve the wounded, freeing us up to care for them," Amanda said.
John thought about it for a second and reached a decision. "Tabby, send seventeen up here to report to Amanda in the infirmary. Send the rest over to the quartermaster to get outfitted, then back to you to get armed. Send a detachment of twenty to each of the teams, including Charlie and Delta, understood?"
"Wilco, command," Tabitha answered.
"Now, Justine, what's the status of your part of this little party?" John asked.
"We are on schedule, sir. Most of the information will 'leak' from a secure NSA mainframe that will 'accidentally' be exposed to the internet until someone catches on and shuts it down. By then most of the information will have been spread all over the world, via the newsgroups and IRC servers. If any of it doesn't make it out, we have several back-up plans, including emailing the information to all major news agencies from the office of the director of the NSA. None of the separate data worms are traceable back to us, and most of them are written as to appear native to the original system. There will be other events to occupy the intelligence services during all of this; for example, most of their firewalls will collapse. Some of the protected data like deep cover agents that serve a real need will be either erased or otherwise protected from release. That's actually what's taking the longest to get set up," Justine explained.
"So, you'll be ready to go tomorrow night then?" John asked.
"Yes sir, we could actually go earlier, but I'd like to do one more round of redundancy checks; we really don't want this to come around and kick us in the ass," Justine said.
"Speaking of getting kicked in the ass; has the analysis section evaluated the amount of chaos we are about to unleash on the world?" John asked.
Susan smiled at her husband. "Honestly, there are so many variables that it is difficult to say with any certainty what will happen; however, you can just about count on the stock market crashing. In our worst-case scenario, the government itself may follow once the amount of corruption is exposed. Martial law will certainly be imposed due to a skyrocketing crime rate, but for how long, we can't tell. The effects globally will be more subtle, but nonetheless damaging. All the countries that have been holding back from attacking their neighbors will no longer have the deterrent they had before. However, most of those countries have been put in those situations by Solms or something Solms has done. We estimate at least a month of open hostilities between nations until the smoke clears and people wake up.
"Our biggest concern is China. China may see this weakness on the part of the US as an opportunity to attack and seize the country. They need our food production to feed their still growing population. The silver lining there is that they will hesitate to go nuclear since that would destroy what they are trying to capture. With no one here in control of our arsenal, we are worried that a rogue general will initiate a full strike against mainland China if they attack the US. We can only hope that the US administration can maintain authority long enough to control the military. If they cannot, the world may very well end."
John sighed. "This is a hell of a gamble to be making, just to kill one man."
Diane stepped up to him. "John, it's not to kill one man. It's to kill the nightmare he is forcing on the world. Simply killing Solms will not stop what is happening to this planet. His whole command structure has to be removed and the rest of the dissidents either killed or controlled somehow so they don't start this mess all over again.
"The information release serves as more than a cover for Ben and Kathryn; it wakes the people of this world up to the fact that they are being used and manipulated for the insane purposes of a group of madmen. It gives them the choice to continue to serve as slaves, or to claim their freedom. To delay in this would only make matters worse, and may very well make it impossible to achieve."
"I know! I know! I agree with you, but it's still a hell of a gamble! If the worst happens, and it usually does, we are talking about World War Three. If anyone survives that, I suppose they will at least have the knowledge that they are free," John groused.
Diane cocked her head to one side and looked at John. "What's really bothering you, John? This nit-picking and worrying isn't like you."
"I'm just not used to working with these stakes is all; one little fuck-up on our part, and we lose the whole planet. But mostly I'm pissed because I don't know what's happening in Mexico!" John spat out. "I'm pissed because I'm too damn old to have gone with them!"
Ben had been in the 'Imperial Palace' for almost twenty hours, and he had yet to find Solms. He was posing as a security guard and had 'convinced' them to have a bracelet made for him. He had poked around, and planted charges at various places like the main computer complex, the power plant, and the defense control room. He still had plenty of charges left to plant, but he was running out of places to put them. There just weren't a whole lot of targets in the palace. He had found and placed charges in the area that was supposed to be Solms bedchambers, but the whole place felt unused to him.
Kathryn had gone to the space facility and was supposed to be doing the same thing Ben was doing, but he'd had no contact with her at all since they'd parted on the plane. Now it was time for him to head for the space facility as well, link up with her, and get the hell out of dodge before the charges started going off. Ben had spotted a nice cabin cruiser yacht down at the harbor and was planning on using that as their escape. But he still couldn't find Solms. The people here that he'd read had no idea where the Emperor was, only that they had to maintain the palace as if he were in attendance at all times.
Ben was getting frustrated because none of the people here were of high enough rank to know much of anything. Ben climbed into one of the carts that was used to traverse the two-mile-long tunnel between the Palace and the Facility, and was accosted by several other guards requesting a ride as well. It seems he was in time for a shift change.
These particular guards were Caucasian, and from the sound of it, used to be mercenaries before signing up with Solms as private security. They were all happy about it; they had excellent working conditions, all the teenaged pussy you could fuck, and no one stupid enough to try to shoot at them. They thought they had made the deal of a lifetime. When they tried to question Ben, he claimed a hangover from too much tequila and they laughingly left him alone for the duration of the trip.
When they arrived at the security station, the sour looking chief that greeted them assigned the morose looking Ben to the Hydrogen production facility. Ben was pleased because that was where he was supposed to meet Kathryn anyway. However, Ben grumbled because he was expected to, and getting directions from the chief's mind, waved a farewell to his new 'friends' and left for his duty assignment.
When he arrived at that security checkpoint for the Hydrogen facility, he had to 'convince' the guards that he had turned in his guns and backpack for the stun stick that was the only weapon allowed past the checkpoint. He placed his guns in the backpack and hefted the stun stick. Once through the checkpoint he got his first look at the enormous ship housed in the facility. He could really only make out the rear of the ship where six thruster cones protruded from the curved stern. He noted a strange smell that he couldn't identify in the air and decided it must be part of the fuel system for the huge craft. He walked around like he was familiarizing himself with his new area of responsibility when an official looking man in the uniform of the guards walked up to him.
"What's in the backpack, trooper?" the man asked.
Doing a quick scan on the man to see what would be an acceptable answer, Ben replied. "Some kind of monitoring gizmo the eggheads wanted me to wear today. They said they needed readings taken from all over the area in here, sir."
"Fuckin' eggheads. You'd think they'd at least ask first! Is it heavy?" the man asked.
"Not really, no. I figured if I started getting tired, I'd just sorta kneel down like this..." Ben dropped to one knee and leaned forward in an alert resting position. "... for a couple of minutes. But really, sir, I don't think I'll even need to do that." Ben stood back up.
The man nodded in approval when something caught his eye. He turned and yelled, waving. "Dr. Slocum! Could you come over here a moment please?"
Ben scanned the approaching man and was stunned to realize he was a captive scientist and was terrified of the kind seeming guard captain Ben had been dealing with.
"Dr. Slocum, what's with the backpack, can't you damn scientists take your own fucking readings?" the man asked.
Slocum looked confused for a few minutes, and looked about to deny any knowledge when he stopped and looked at Ben. "Oh, yes, the readings! I'm really sorry about that, Captain. It was a very last minute detail we needed to check. We need to make sure the Hydrogen ventings are not building up in any of the isolated areas. I do apologize about not clearing it with you first, but night shift thought there was a problem, and you know what would happen..."
"Yes, yes, doctor, thank you. You can go back to work now. I understand and will note it in my report as a standard safety precaution." He turned back to Ben. "You're sure you can carry that thing your entire shift?"
Ben nodded, "I don't see a problem with that, sir. But perhaps I should find out from Doctor Slocum exactly where he needs this thing to go? I'd hate to miss a spot because I was an idiot."
"Good thinking, trooper. Carry on. Let me know if they have you doing anything too stupid. I'll be in the command center," the Captain said.
Ben saluted as was expected of him, and moved after Slocum. The Captain smiled and thought about how to keep that trooper in his command. Dumb soldiers were in an abundance around here; the smart ones were a rare find, and worth ten of the others. Suddenly it dawned on him that he had no idea who that soldier was. Rather then make a fool of himself by going after him to ask, the captain headed for the security command center. He could always simply pull up the security file on the man. That should give him all the answers he needed.
Two levels above, a female trooper watched the encounter with interest. She smiled at the smooth way her lover handled the guard captain and arranged to make contact with Dr. Slocum. She continued to read the man's thoughts while he walked away, and was not happy with what she saw. Ben didn't have a security file, and it was far too early for the enemy to know they were here yet. She closed her eyes, and concentrating on the man walking below, isolated a small blood vessel in his brain, and squeezed.
The man's collapse was noticed immediately of course, and medical personnel immediately took him to the infirmary, but there was little that could be done for him. Of course, by this time, Kathryn had already forgotten about him. She was on her way to Slocum's office to meet with her husband. He wasn't going to like what she was going to tell him, but he had to know.
She knocked lightly on the door to the office, and was immediately invited in. Ben took a small device out his pocket and activated it. "Now, we can talk freely. What have you found out Kathryn?"
"I've found out we have a problem. We need to evacuate about forty scientists and their families before we blow this place to hell. Which, by the way, is going to be a lot easier than originally planned," Kathryn said.
"Fuck! This was supposed to be a hit and run! We could take five or ten people, but forty families?" Ben ran his fingers through his hair. "We'd lose half of them before we ever made it to the gate! The worst part is, I can't find Solms. He wasn't in the Palace."
"Isaac Solms is terrified of you. He moved his personal living chambers over here as soon as he knew you had grown up. Of course, we had no idea about you, so we didn't know what he was so afraid of, but now that I've met you, I can see why. The pair of you are the most powerful beings we have ever seen. You are genetic impossibilities; you should not be able to exist," Slocum explained. "No one should have power over another's mind and body."
"Normally doctor, I'd agree with you. However, I don't think you know even half of the evil Solms has done to this world. We have only one purpose; to stop him and any like him," Ben explained.
"I can understand that, but who is to stop you?" Slocum asked.
"If we harm no one else, why would we need to be stopped? Neither of us desires power, nor do we desire to rule over others. All we want is to end this with Solms, and to live our lives peacefully and raise our children. We have no right to determine the destiny of others," Kathryn said.
Slocum looked her in the eyes while she spoke, then looked Ben in the eyes. "You both truly believe that don't you? Neither of you wish to rule over us or others."
"No, we don't. We would like to see this planet returned to its own path, while we sit on the sidelines and wait for it to catch up to us. Thinking about it logically, there is no reason to hurry it along. We all have plenty of time," Ben said.
Slocum nodded to himself. "Then we must use what time we have wisely. Solms has a flight crew for the ship. The ship itself has been ready to launch for the last fifteen years, but we've managed to sabotage it enough to delay the launch this long. If one of you can uh, convince, the flight crew to help us, we should be able to get all our families on board, and we can simply fly out of here. The defenses are all keyed to identify the ship as 'friendly' and won't fire on it. By the time they get them reprogrammed, we should be far enough away for you to detonate your explosives."
"How far is far enough?" Ben asked.
"Upper atmosphere, or at least twenty miles horizontal displacement. Any closer and the shockwave will give a small starship like this one troubles," Slocum explained.
"Okay, so how do we get to the flight crew?" Kathryn asked. "I would assume that Solms has them undergoing constant obedience training."
"They actually live on the ship. To get to them, you have to get
through the rest of the watchdogs. I don't know how he did it, but that
ship is almost full of young girls. But they are not your normal young
girls; if they even think you're doing something wrong, they will beat
you senseless, and drag you off to a cell until you can explain what it
was you were doing. They are naked at all times, so it's very
distracting. We lose about three techs a week because they get
distracted by them and they haul him off to a cell. If you can get past
those, and convince Solms' loyal flight crew to fly us out of here,
we'll make it. Otherwise, I don't see how any of us are going to get
out of here alive."