When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony (6 page)

“So, what did
Arges mean by ‘heroes’?” asked the Secretary of Commerce.

“
He tried to explain it to me, but I still don’t get it,” answered the president. “He said that every time societal upheaval has happened before, there have been some sort of leaders, he called them ‘heroes,’ that came to the forefront and led their civilizations back from the brink of anarchy. He thinks that some of the members of Calvin’s platoon are these people reborn.”

“So, from some cosmic sort of perspective, it’s preordained that we’re going to win?” asked the Secretary of the Air Force, with a look of hope in his eyes. “The good guys always win?”

“No,” replied the president, “even if you believe this whole hocus pocus magic that some sort of heroes show up when needed, Arges said that good doesn’t always win. In fact, they used to have some sort of box that allowed them to see into other universes. In many of these, the ‘good’ civilizations have won and are still in existence. But in others, the ‘bad guys’ won. Arges also said that in one universe, the Milky Way didn’t exist anymore.”

“What?” asked the
science advisor. “What do you mean, it didn’t exist?”

“I mean that it
was completely destroyed,” answered the president. “It was just gone. 300 million star systems, all just gone.”

“That’s impossible...” said the
science advisor. “What could do that?”

“They don’t know,” said the president, “but
Arges said that he would greatly like to avoid that happening in this universe.”

“
Yeah, me too,” muttered the science advisor.

“So, what’s the deal with these heroes?” asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I don’t know,” said the president. “Arges was very vague. He just said, ‘they rise.’”

“Do you believe that?” asked the Chairman.

The president shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounds like wishful thinking to me. Arges believes it, though, as do the other two Psiclopes. They all believe that there is an all-powerful being or force that watches over us.”

“God?” asked
science advisor.

“It could be,” said the president. “I asked the same question.
He didn’t want to say ‘yes,’ but he also didn’t want to rule it out, either. But he did say that the being wasn’t entirely focused on ‘the good guys always win;’ in some universes, the bad races won in the end.”

“I would personally like to thank everyone for coming today,” welcomed
the German Luftwaffe general, Heinrich Gottlieb. Calvin looked down the long table that held the personnel review board. In addition to the German that was the board’s chairman, there was also a representative from all of the original members of the world government: the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Chile, India, Australia and the host country of Nigeria. This was the second board for all of them, as the same admirals and generals had met several months previously. The
Vella Gulf’s
squadron had sustained a number of losses on its first mission and they had met to fill them. “I would also like to thank Lieutenant Commander Hobbs for making time in his busy schedule to be here today,” Gottlieb continued. “I know his experience will be able to add much insight into the selection process.”

Today’s
board would probably be more challenging, Calvin knew, as many of the new nations were also in attendance. He expected all of them to jockey for positions in both the squadron and in the platoon. Russia would certainly expect to be compensated for its support of the process, he had been advised, and he knew that the Israelis would expect to be included, as well. It was one thing to say that the new government would be inclusive in front of the media; Calvin expected that it was going to be much harder trying to get the nations to actually work as one. He sighed, wishing he could be anywhere else. Preferably off planet, several stargates away.

“I would also like to thank the Government of Nigeria for allowing us to use this wonderful facility today,” General Gottlieb continued.
The new Terran Government Headquarters building was not complete yet, but the government couldn’t wait for it. The new government had a multitude of issues that it needed to resolve so, in the interim, the president of Nigeria had allowed them to use the National Assembly Building, located close to where the new headquarters was being built.

“As most of you are aware,
” Gottlieb advised, “this is the second meeting of this personnel board. We met one time previously to fill the losses the squadron sustained in combat. The purpose of this meeting today is to expand the manning of the space fighter squadron and to fill in the losses sustained by the platoon.”

Calvin thought back to the first mission. It had been a difficult one.
Not only had they lost three space fighter crews (and their precious ships) in action against the Ssselipsssiss, they had also left a shuttle and a crew behind on Epsilon Eridani to help the ambassador there. Half of the crews that had initially been implanted were no longer with the squadron. As more of the shuttles had been built, it had been necessary to select new flight crews, or they wouldn’t have been able to fly half the number of shuttle missions that they currently were. It had been decided at the first board to allow the countries to replace their losses in the squadron and to expand the squadron to 10 flight crews, adding a Nigerian crew, an Australian pilot and a German weapon systems officer.

The Russian general raised his hand
, and Calvin sighed again. They hadn’t even started, and it looked like the jockeying was starting. “I assume that we will be filling the positions based on the populations of the contributing nations?” asked the Russian. Of course he would assume that, Calvin thought. Russia was the only one of the 10 largest nations in the world that didn’t have anyone in either organization. If selection was done by size, they would be able to fill most of the open positions. Nations like Israel, ranked 96th in the world in population, would be effectively shut out of the discussion.

The Israeli general immediately raised his hand. Seeing it, the chairman said, “Let us try to remember that the future of our race rests on the two units that we are manning. The entire
human race
depends on our decisions.” He raised his voice. “
I will not allow this board to descend into partisan politics.
We must be above it! We will select the best people for the positions, not because they come from the right place, but
because they are the best!
Am I understood?” Calvin hid a smile. There’s nothing like a pissed off German for getting control of a meeting, he thought.

Both the Russian and the Israeli put their hands down and looked a little chastised. Calvin
didn’t think they’d stay that way, but it was at least a start.

Time
to throw them a bone, thought Calvin as he raised his hand. “I am happy to announce that it looks like we will have a full squadron of spacecraft for the next time out,” he told the board. “We need to increase the squadron’s manning from 10 crews to 16, so there should be room for all of the assembled nations to participate.”

Gottlieb nodded in appreciation. “This is how we will make the initial selections,” the German explained. “
As you were previously notified, we will start with the pilots, and each representative will have one minute, and one minute only, to tell the board about that nation’s top candidates, and why they should be selected for inclusion into the squadron. A nation may nominate up to three. After each presentation, the board will make a secret vote and give the candidate a confidence level score between one and 10 on whether or not he or she thinks that candidate would be a good choice for inclusion. After all of the pilots have been voted on, we will narrow the results down and then determine who will be selected. Then we will do the same for the weapon systems officers and then the members of the platoon. Any questions?”

The Russian representative raised his hand again. “Will we be determining the crew of the space ship today, as well?” Calvin shook his head. He had heard that there was an effort among some of the nations to rename the
Vella Gulf
to something more representative of the planet in general, not just one nation. By addressing it as ‘the space ship’ rather than by its name, obviously the Russians were behind it. Really? Didn’t they have better things to worry about?

“The manning of the
Vella Gulf
will be decided at a meeting next week,” replied the chairman. “Any other questions?” Seeing none, he looked at the U.S. Air Force General sitting at the opposite end of the table from Calvin. “General Simon, would you please brief your first candidate?”

General Simon smiled as the first U.S. candidate, a navy lieutenant, appeared on the screen. “I’d be happy to,” he replied. “Our first candidate is Lieutenant John Turner. Lieutenant Turner is a veteran of
our last war and our ‘Top Gun’ fighter weapons school...”

“How bad was it?” asked
Calvin as Night and Bullseye walked into his office. Although space was at a premium in the lunar habitat, Calvin had staked out a small cubicle to hang his space suit, flight gear and other personal paraphernalia. It had a desk and a file cabinet and two chairs for guests. Calvin felt so cramped in the office most days that it felt like he had to go outside just to change his mind. He couldn’t wait to move back aboard the
Vella Gulf
. He had a much larger space there that he would previously have only considered to be ‘minimal.’ It now seemed palatial in comparison.

“It was as brutal as we thought it would be,” replied Night, who attended the entire selection process that
filled out the ranks of Space Fighter Squadron One and the first platoon of what the leaders had decided to call the ‘Terran Space Marines.’ As the purpose of the platoon was to attack a nation from its base onboard a ship, Calvin could understand the analog of using the wet-navy Marine Corps. Calvin had to leave the selection board after the first day for consultation meetings with several of the national leaders. “About the only thing that they agreed upon without too much argument was to let the countries that lost platoon members fill their spots. That was one of the first things discussed; after that it got hard.” He looked at Bullseye.

“We ended up with the 16 crews that we wanted,” Bullseye reported. “In addition to the Nigerians that you already kn
ow about, we got two Russians, two Indians, a Ukrainian, a Spaniard, a Kiwi, a Turk, a Saudi, an Israeli and a female French pilot that I already caught Lieutenant Simpson trying to stake a claim to.” He shook his head. “If she wants to steal secrets, there’s probably going to be a line forming to give them to her.”

“Good thing we don’t have any secrets then, huh?” asked Calvin.

“Yeah, pretty much,” agreed Bullseye, “but don’t tell
her
that. I’ve probably got a secret or two of my own that I need to share.” He winked. “In any event, we have a wealth of experience in a wide variety of aircraft types. The Russians and Ukrainians only nominated fighter pilots, but some of the other countries nominated helo pilots and a number of different types of weapon systems officers. Overall, I think we ended up with a pretty good mix of aviators.”

“Good,” said Calvin. “Thanks for suffering through that.”

“You can pay me in beers,” replied Bullseye. “A
lot
of them. Think in terms of cases.”

Calvin laughed. “I’ll get right on that,” he said.

“Good,” replied Bullseye. “Oh, there was one other thing. Some of the nations were finding it difficult to mix the navy ranks with army and air force, so the Terran Space Force is going to go to only using navy ranks.” He smiled. “I’m a Lieutenant Commander now, too.”

The three men shared a laugh.
“Did they convert you over, too?” Calvin asked Night.

“Not yet,” replied Night.
“The ground forces are still keeping their national ranks, for now, as the high command couldn’t agree on which branch’s ranks to use, even though they decided to call us Space Marines. I have a feeling that they’ll eventually go with the Marine Corps ranks, too, but there’s no way to know.”

“All right,” said Calvin. “
How did the platoon’s manning end up? Did they get it figured out?”

“
Yeah,” replied Night, “they were able to work out the manning, and we ended up with a lot of experience. The only problem is going to be getting everyone to work together. I don’t think that there will be a lot of problems with the aviators, but the platoon is going to have a number of nationalities that are traditional enemies working in close proximity to each other.” He shrugged. “If we can make it work, we’ll hopefully make it easier on the ones that come after us.”

“As you probably heard,” he continued, “
Iran, North Korea, and China are still boycotting, so we didn’t have to worry about any of them. With the exception of those three, just about every other major nation in the world is ‘in’ and thinks that their special forces are more special than those of any other country. Overall, I think we did really well. If we don’t have the best people in the world, they’re all still in the top 1%.”

“The Space Force had more casualties than the Ground Force last time
out,” commented Night, “so it absorbed more of the newbies, even after we moved Mr. Jones and Ms. Rozhkov to it. First off, Master Chief will be happy to know that we picked up another U.S. Navy SEAL, in addition to a Saudi Navy SEAL, as well. We also got an Israeli from the Shayetet 13 naval commando unit. You may not have even heard of it, as the unit is one of the most secretive in the Israeli military. They are really good.”

“
As a matter of fact,” continued Night, “we’ve got several new members from units that we have heard mentioned in whispers, but never were able to confirm. Countries are confirming them now to get places in the unit. The next recruit, a Russian combat frogman, is one of these. He is from their Naval Spetsnaz unit called the ‘Barrakuda’ group. This is the group that killed ‘Buster’ Crabb. If you don’t know who Crabb was, he was the British spy that was the inspiration for James Bond. The guys in Barrakuda are ghosts; we’ve never been able to confirm their existence.”

“In addition to them,
” Night said, “we also have a French Naval Commando, an Indian Marine Commandos (MARCOS) and a Norwegian Marinejegerkommandoen (MJK) operative. The French commando is from the Commando de Penfentenyo brigade, whose specialties are reconnaissance and intelligence operations behind enemy lines. MARCOS does all sorts of maritime special operations like counter-terrorism, special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and hostage rescue. This unit is one of the few units
in the world
qualified to jump into the water with a full combat load. They specialize in maritime operations throughout Kashmir and often conduct counter-terrorist operations in the area. The MARCOS operatives are widely feared among the terrorists, who call them the ‘Bearded Army’ because they all disguise their identities with flowing beards. The MARCOS soldiers have been known to carry out a wide variety of operations on foreign soil. The last member of the Space Force is a member of Norway’s MJK. He is trained as a sniper and a forward air controller and also has some field medical skills.”

“The additions to the Ground Force are equally skilled,”
said Night, looking at the list. “The first of these is Sergeant Alka Zoromski from the Polish Operational Maneuver Response Group. That group is an elite counter-terrorism unit that fills a variety of special operations and unconventional warfare roles, including anti-terrorist actions and projection of power behind enemy lines.”

“In addition to the Russian
Naval Spetsnaz frogman, we also got a Russian from the ‘Lynx’ unit of their Special Rapid Response Unit. Since the unit was established in 1992, it has participated in almost every known special operation in Russia. They are usually tasked with Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT)-type special operations, including apprehension of dangerous criminals and high-profile raids. He will bring some interesting skills in missions that are outside of normal special ops.”

“Cool,” said Calvin. “You never know what we’re going to need.”

“Our other Israeli is a member of their elite Sayeret Matkal unit,” Night continued. “You may not recognize the name of the unit, but this is the one that conducted the raid on Entebbe, where it rescued more than 100 Air France passengers who were being held by terrorists. Although everyone here is good; this group is one of the best.”

“Our final operative
is the one that I am the most worried about,” said Night, looking down again.

“Why is that?” asked Calvin. “Did one of the nations stick us with a ringer?”

“No,” replied Night. “He is from the Special Service Group of Pakistan’s special operations forces. I’m not worried about his skills, as this group is considered one of the top special forces groups in the world. They can do anything you’d like, from unconventional warfare to foreign internal defense to hostage rescue. What worries me is that he is a Pashtun from the Afghan/Pakistan border. I don’t know him, so he wasn’t someone that fought with us against the Afghan insurgency. I don’t know if that means he was helping the insurgents, or just happened to be stationed in another area while I was there. If he was in another area, it’s likely that he was in Kashmir, and may have run afoul of our Indian operative that would have been there. I have a lot of questions that I want answered before I take him into combat.”