Chapter 27 snippet (brand new writing)

The small craft penetrated the invisibility screen of the base. Slowing to a hover, it awaited the hanger bay doors to open up. Once they did, the pilot lowered it until it touched down. As the engines shut down, the entire base slipped back below the snow and ice.

Inside the hanger bay, the brilliant fluorescent lighting banished all shadows. He looked at the array of fighters lined up in the huge room. Reaching as far as he could see, he felt a smile cross his lips. Fleet Command had given him plenty of firepower and security this time, he reflected.

Even if Almir managed to find this base, he told himself, the chances of her survival are slimmer then nil!

He watched a group of men approach as the ramp dropped down from his craft. Stepping down it, he nodded as they saluted him. It was refreshing to be back in charge again, he told himself, especially after the previous four years. Now if one Katherine Almir were dead, then he would be pleased with the world again.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said.

Feeling the solid ground under his feet made his smile grow wider. After spending so much time in rehab and on a ship, it was a reminded of how his life was returning to him. Now, all he had to do was to finish this task and
everything they wanted would come to pass.

He looked at the man to his left, whom had been in charge before his arrival. With Almir’s arrival in the sector, he had personally been sent out to keep things on track. However, the replacement of the man from being in command wasn’t due to anything he did. No, it was being done because he had experience dealing with Almir and this time he would eliminate her.

“What is our status, Mister Young?”

Andrew Young swallowed hard as he felt the man’s eyes bore into him. Everyone knew the reputation of the man before him or her, and his intolerance of failure. If he didn’t give the right answer, Young reflected, there was a good chance he would die right here and now.

“The project is proceeding on schedule,” Young said. “Everything is exactly as we expected.”

“You are aware of Almir’s arrival in the sector?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. That is why we have increased our production in the past few days.”

“The powers-to-be,” he said. “Want me to personally oversee the operation of this project. Does anyone have a problem with that?"

No one spoke up, as he expected him or her to. While everyone involved in this might be cutthroat in advancing him or herself, they also weren’t fools. To cross him, he reflected, smiling, was something that would have made their lives very short.

“Now that we have that taken care of,” he said, starting to walk past them. “May I see the results?”

The other three men fell in with him as they crossed the cavernous hanger. Each of their footfalls echoed sadly in the building. While there was plenty of military on the base, none of them were in the hanger bay at the moment. It gave one the impression, if they didn’t know better, that the entire base was abandoned-which was the effect they were looking for.

“Each of the batches we’ve created,” Young said. “Continues to be superior to the one before it.”

“Are they on par with what we know Almir is capable of?”

“The last three batches have been,”

“That is good,” he said. “Since she’s managed to defeat everything thrown at her, making them superior to her will make them unbeatable.”

Or at least that is the theory, he thought, keeping it to himself.

The four of them entered a waiting lift. As it whisked them down from the hanger bay, he sighed. None of this would even have been necessary if Almir had died on Ireland! If that had happened, she couldn’t have interfered on Irwin or survived the mercs that were sent after her on Selvior.

A perfectly good ambush went to waste there, he thought. I had her dead to rights and she still managed to live!

He let his mind drift back in time. This wasn’t the first time in his life he had been tasked with providing weaponry. The first time Carver approached him, he wanted Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s). Using a medical factory on Irwin for cover, he had busied himself with providing the deadliest form of Ebola he could create.

However, he gritted his teeth, which was where Almir came in. Somehow Intelligence had infiltrated the operation, and at a level where Johansson had no clue about. Sending her out on Presidential order, Reyes was determined to take down the operation.

And take it down he did, he snorted. Five years of work went up in the explosion of a fusion reactor. In one night, the bitch Almir had been able to wreck everything! Not to mention what she did to him later, he reminded himself.

Now, four years later, he was back, and she was going to pay. It was no secret that she was in the sector, he told himself, and Anderson was a more then competent Commander. However, he had hatched a better plan then Beatty had. He wanted her to come here, and find the base. This icy globe would be her final resting place, and that of the democracy in the Alliance too.

The lift drew to a stop and the doors slid aside. They stepped out of them and down a corridor. Lining the walls were armored glass windows, allowing for them to peer into several large barracks. He stopped at one and examined the people moving on the other side.

“Are they capable of following orders?” he asked.

“Fully,” Young said.

“There is no questioning of anything anyone asks?”

“Zero,”

He turned around to look at the men beside her. Grinning from ear to ear, his continence changed. While he had been concerned about possible failure when he arrived, now he was feeling confident. It appeared, he reflected, that his confidence in Doctor Andrew Young had been well founded.

“Doctor,” he said. “I am impressed. You shall go down in history as the man who created the perfect army.”