Gray Panthers: Earths Revenge (10 page)

Arizona Space Ship Cornucopia in lunar orbit

23 August 2128

James “Jimmy” Brewster painfully opened his eyes as he felt he was not alone. The door to his station was open and it was filled with the bulk of Chief William “Guns” Wright. “Chief, why did you poison me last night?” He barely croaked out from his hangover as he felt another presence. He slowly cautiously reached for the top of his sea bag when a furry weight landed on his stomach. Looking up he saw an orange six legged cat weighing at least 80 pounds looking down from his chest adorned in what looked like a blue uniform. “What the hell is this, Chief?” He started to holler as the cat belched a noxious fume as Jimmy pushed it to the ground jumping up to avoid the lethal cloud. Guns was fighting back the tears as he finally got his breath back to reply. “Jimmy meet Tabby, our new crewman, Tabby this is Sgt James “Jimmy” Brewster.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, may I call you Jimmy?” The orange ball of fur asked.

“Nice trick chief, have a speaker box in his little uniform?”

The cat plunged his claws into Jimmys legs as he said, “I am right here sergeant please don’t disrespect me again or you will wake up dead! Do we understand each other?”

Between the pain of the claws and seeing the cat's lips moving, he sat down in shock. “Sorry there, Tabby you’re my first talking cat.”

“I am Short Blade of the Clan Claw of the Jacka race. From the start of known time my people have been the deadliest mercenaries the galaxy has known. I have been contracted to help you learn about this ship. I have been part of the ship's crew for five years and consider this ship home. I hope we can serve well together.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to call you "Short Blade," where did the name Tabby come from?"

“Your Chief thought it was a funny joke, though I do not understand the humor in it.”

“I’ll explain it to you later, Short Blade. How about we get you settled in and you can give me a tour of the ship and what you know about it. I’m guessing you have a translator built into your skull like they did for us?”

“I will show you where I stayed on the ship then show you what my duties were. I was the only Jacka in the crew, the rest were all Libra. The chief engineer originally wanted me because of my size since I could get to parts of equipment without having to tear things down. He said he respected that I always worked hard and he took pleasure in teaching me new things since I respected his knowledge. He also looked after me with the rest of the crew. The majority of the crew were draftees, or could not find any other type of work elsewhere. There was much theft and dereliction. The Captain was always hitting the bottle and did not care about anything other than leaving the ship and going back to their home world. Members of my race are usually hired to be what you call cannon fodder, they are never hired to command or crew ships, although some let themselves get hired out with their own ships. I hope one day to afford a ship of my own.”

Gray Panther Housing, Arizona

25 August 2128

The sky was overcast and seemed the world was gray. No building was left standing and smoke seemed to rise from the Earth itself. Smoke from the buildings and cars was thick but not strong enough to cover the smell of burning flesh that was so dense it could be tasted in every breath. No person seemed to be free of injury as everyone either walked in a daze or just stood where they were waiting for someone to either help them or tell them what to do. Dan, was having trouble fighting the bile as it rose in his throat when he heard the soft scrape of footsteps dragging behind him, turning he saw Juanita walking awkwardly towards him, her clothing had been burned off and the left side of her face was melted as her hair had also been burned off. She continued towards him then simply fell to the ground and began to combust into flames. Dan tried to go to her and could not move, looking down he saw he was melted from the waist down into the concrete of the street. Loud vibrations from engines seemed to echo from all the ruins as huge black ships started to descend down from the clouds. Looking directly up a ship was coming down on as Dan tried to run even as the ship began to crush him underneath it as he welcomed his release.

“Dan, Dan, wake up you’re having a nightmare.” Juanita continued to push on Dans chest trying to force him to wake. In a blur she found herself suddenly under Dan as he grasped her by the throat with both hands and squeezed. Scratching at his face she started to feel light headed from suffocation as he finally awoke.

Looking down on Juanita, Dan released his grip as he pushed himself off her and tried to make it to the bathroom before he fell to his knees retching up the contents of his stomach. Rolling over on his back Dan felt exhausted as his face and torso dripped sweat onto the carpet. Getting up he turned and looked at Juanita, after seeing she was alright he continued to the shower to clean himself. The cold running water did nothing to wash the images from his nightmare away as he finally got out and quickly toweled himself before joining Juanita and apologized. He could not bring himself to explain his nightmare and simply said it was the war, letting her think it had been one of his recurring nightmares of the Iran war. Looking at the clock and seeing it was only 0300 hrs, Dan simply donned his sweats and tennis shoes and said he was going for a run. Opening the door was like entering a sauna as he sprinted out into the dark. Running all out, the pain in his chest and muscles progressed to a numbness as he continued to run all out. An hour later he found himself outside his headquarters building. Entering the building the pair of guards sitting at the reception desk watching security monitors glanced up at him for a moment then jumped to attention after realizing who it was. Dan just ordered them to carry on as he headed for the elevators. Exiting in sublevel twenty Dan stood in front of a nondescript door for a moment until it opened for him. Opening to a long tunnel, he hopped into a truck and drove the ten miles until the tunnel ended. It appeared to just end until Dan walked up to the wall then passed through it. A huge cavern materialized as Dan once again marveled at the size of the space ship. Walking towards it, a six foot tall hairy apparition appeared before him.

“Daniel, how many I help you?” Grub asked, while trying to analyze why Dan would be here dressed the way he was at this time.

“Grub, what are the odds of us surviving a war with the Libra? Best and worst scenario?” Dan asked softly.

“If an aggressive offense is initiated before they can get to our solar system, there is a good possibility no loss of life or damage will be inflicted on Earth.”

“What do you consider an aggressive offense Grub?”

“A fleet of at least a hundred ships of the same size as either Nike or Bia. They would need to make a maximum demonstration of their power or the Libra would counterattack in force themselves. Their invasion fleet must be totally destroyed followed by a strong warning. Anything less could include the total destruction of Earth.”

“Grub, speculate, what if we share totally our technology with the government what would be the results?”

“Massive thermo nuclear war that would encompass the entire Earth, no region would be left untouched, including those cities protected by beamers. The combination of distrust and fear from other countries combined with the government feeling invincible would make it inevitable.”

“Thank you, Grub. Please give me a list of twenty countries that have the ability to modify sea-going ships to spaceships with our assistance. Those countries must be democracies that you do not think would abuse the power. Give me the list in an hour, I do not want any countries that are superpowers, or could be construed as puppets of the United States.” Dan turned to return to his office as his nightmare once again crept into his thoughts. He would not fail, he was going to make sure he got all the help he needed, but he had to look at it as a world problem and not just for America. He also had to worry about the world after the war.

Dan made the same offer to the governments of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Finland, Gabon, Ghana, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Spain, South Africa, Sweden,
Taiwan, Thailand, and Viet Nam. If each country converted five ships to space ships with full technical assistance from the Gray Panthers and pledged to use them in support of Earths defense under the Gray Panther leadership, they would receive the same protection and unlimited power for their main cities. Immediately, worldwide, outrage was expressed not only by the American government, but especially by China who felt targeted by its little neighbors. Ordered to report to the state capitol, Dan went to meet with the governor.

Arizona Governor Residence Anthem, Arizona

27 August 2128

The approach to the mansion was tense as Dan had decided to use his shuttle. When he was ten miles out from the Governors residence, the shuttles avatar warned he was being painted by targeting radar from a four ship of fighters, and then was challenged. Once he verified his identity, he was ordered to land a mile from the mansion and he would be met with transportation. Before landing, he contacted his staff and ordered them to go on full alert and lock down all facilities.

The party that picked him up reminded Dan too much of the agents of DHS he had experienced run-ins with during the past. After entering the mansion, the first person to greet Dan was the first lady.

“Dan, thank you for coming. I asked the boys to let me greet you before you got down to business,” the first lady said as she hugged Dan.

“Why does that scare me, Barbara?” Dan smiled.

“You have a lot of people scared you know, my husband and son in particular. There’s even talk of disbanding the Gray Panthers and absorbing it into the military under emergency war powers.”

“Thanks Barbara, I guess I better reassure them before I’m forced to relocate everything to my alternate bases overseas.”

Grabbing Dan's arm Barbara escorted him to the library where the president and the governor sat waiting.

“Thanks for coming, Dan. Can I get you a drink?” the governor, Sigmund Jr. asked.

“Fosters, if you have it.”

“That’s an Australian beer, isn’t it Dan?” The president asked.

“Yes, Mr. President. I prefer it to Russian Vodka,” Dan replied bitingly after recognizing the snipe at him for planning to build ships in Australia.

“Boys now we’re here to play good,” Barbara said pleasantly as she handed Dan a long neck bottle of beer while everyone took a seat.

“Dan, what the hell are you doing giving all the technology to the third world countries? The congress is already hollering for your head. I don’t think I can veto them if they try. The very least it will make me a one term president!”

“I’m sorry for your political career Siggy, the only alternative is if I arm the US I will have to arm the Soviets and the Chinese equally. With the third world having the ships there is no chance of World War III after we beat the aliens. Grub ran the different scenarios, if the US is the only country with the ships it will be war, from a dozen different possible scenarios. Don’t worry about your friends in congress, there’s less than a hundred that I don’t have enough dirt on to impeach. I cleaned house once, I can do it again, or I have alternate locations to move to overseas. I will give you a bone; you can release units of the Army and Navy to be absorbed into the Gray Panthers. When everything is over those units can return to US control with their equipment issued by the Gray Panthers, including shuttles. After the war is over the ships built by the new alliance will be disabled, and I will compensate them. It’s in the contracts they signed for the technological assistance to build the ships. I’m also going to offer city power units with beamer batteries to the Soviets and Chinese in turn for destroying their strategic arsenals."

Sigmund just sat for a moment then got to his feet, “Who the hell elected you God to make the world over in your image?”

“That was pretty much you after I gave you the white house. You give me a better plan to defeat the aliens and avoid world war three and you’ll have my undivided attention. Just don’t give any consideration to those suggestions from your agencies with three letters. My plans stuck in the craw initially for even my own staff, but they are onboard and will follow through if something happens to me with the only caveat being the US will be totally left out if that were to happen, to include disabling beamer batteries protecting American cities. I do have my insurance, Mr. President.”

“I’d call you a traitorous bastard if I didn’t know you any better, Dan, I’ll get my think tank boys and girls working on options. If nothing else you did manage to scare the hell out of the Chinese with all their neighbors getting the contracts with you. Ha ha ha.”

Sigmund Jr. excitedly added, “The American Volunteer Group! We release volunteers from our military on the condition they can return to their careers with no penalties if they join the AVG portion of the Gray Panthers. Everyone knows you do things your way and do not take orders from the US government and few from me, your boss, the governor of Arizona. Few even realize any more that your sole legal existence is based on the fact that you are the Arizona Militia.” Dan and Sigmund Sr. looked at each other and each nodded their heads slightly in agreement to Sigmund Jr.s idea.

“This is wonderful boys now let's all have another drink, and put the war and politics to the side,” Barbara gushed, as she already had a tray of Jack Daniel shots ready.

“Dan picked his up smiling and started a toast, “My country, right or wrong...”

Junior continued, “if right, to be kept right;”

Senior finished the toast, ”...and if wrong, to be set right.”

The three took their shots and felt again their camaraderie.