Intersexed Ch. 02 - Recruitment

"Can we jam the signals?" Tank asked. "And if we can, do we have time to work our way along the fissure, disabling whatever else is in there?"

"I hate to say it," Sergeant Anter replied, "But I think we need to abort tonight and rethink our strategy."

"How do we get Angelina and Coltan out? They were supposed to exit with the rest of us through this fissure."

"We'll send the hover in after 0200 when activity within the camp should be at its lowest," Anter decided.

Nodding, Tank tapped his throat mic and asked, "Captain Genet, have you been listening and monitoring?"

"Caught it all," Genet replied. "I agree with your assessment. That fissure needs further investigation before we send your troops in there. Lieutenant Angelina, Specialist Coltan, find a hole to hide in. We'll send the hover in to get you a little after 0200."

"Yes, Sir," the snipers replied.

"Do we return to the ship?" Tank asked.

"I think we can tough it out here for at least another day," Sergeant Anter replied. "We'll get Genet to plug us into the US military satellite system and look for another entry point. It's only our ingress and egress point that needs to change." Anter thought some more. "Actually," he added. "Artur's a specialist at sneak attacks. We'll send him into the ravine at first light, looking for any mines, traps, or monitoring devices."

Artur returned an hour after he'd slipped off to investigate the ravine. Stripping off his stealth camouflage suit, he took a massive gulp of water before saying, "Your instincts were right, Lieutenant. That ravine's a nest of explosives, mines and cameras. They start no more than five steps past where we stopped last night. The first trap was a nylon string set at ankle height attached to a chest-high antipersonnel mine. We'd have been lucky if any of us had survived that first trap. I cleaned up all signs we were there and returned."

"Any way to clear the fissure out and still make our attack?" Tank asked.

"If I had a week and a team of specialists, maybe," Artur replied. "Even then, I'd doubt we'd get them all."

"Did you catch that, Captain?" Genet queried.

"Yes," Genet responded. "The satellite feed should be on the hover's screen now."

The squad watched the feed, and each pointed at a place they thought they could approach. However, either Tank or Anter nixed every suggestion, saying if the base's commander was smart enough to lay traps to protect the ravine, then he'd be clever enough to do the same with other wooded areas that came right up to the fence.

"We got Angelina and Coltan in and out without the camp seeing or hearing us," Tank mused. "Can we get the squad dropped behind the knoll where they were? Then, four of us will sneak down the hill and take out the dump guards. The rest of you can continue to the storage building to set up the ambush. Once we've executed that, we can high-tail back over the knoll, jump in the hover, and fuck off."

"The hover could come under heavy fire until we can engage its stealth mode," Landen, the hover's pilot, argued.

"Explain," Tank requested.

"The hover has two camouflage modes," Landen explained. "When it's stationary, I engage reflectors that bend the light around the craft, rendering it invisible to anything except infrared. In flight, we have stealth mode that prevents any kind of tracking radar from seeing us. Even guidance systems like those in your planet's surface-to-air-missiles can't latch on. Unfortunately, the invisibility system doesn't work when the hover's moving and the stealth technology doesn't work under sixty kph."

"Can the hover take rifle fire?" Tank asked.

"They'd need a fifty-millimetre cannon to damage us," the pilot stated.

Tank looked at his sergeant. "According to every photo and map we have, the firing range is the only thing at the back of the sniper's knoll. If we get the hover to land at the base of the hill, we should be in the air before they can see us to fire on us, and by the time they crest the hill, we'll be gone."

"So, instead of going in at dusk, we go in at 0200?" Sergeant Anter queried.

"Sounds good to me," Tank answered, "Squad, any queries or objections?"

"None, Sir," the team responded.

"Rest and grab some shuteye. Looks like we're stuck in here until the sun goes down."

Space on the hover craft was severely limited, so the team took turns lying on the hover's floor and stretching out. Only two at a time would fit, but the carbon fibre composite floor wasn't exactly forgiving to sleep on, so the fighters rotated regularly.

Night fell, and glad to be out of the craft, the team took their MREs outside to eat. Anter walked away from the rest until he could hunker down between two bridge supports. Then, after looking around carefully, he lit a cigarette.

Tank worked his way through his Shotokan Karate Katas, loosening his cramped muscles. Ophetia, the only feminine presenting Providian on the team, approached him.

"I heard you give lessons," Ophetia stated.

"I do," Tank replied.

"Can anyone join in?"

"So far, it has only been my permanent team," Tank answered. "But I don't see why not."

"How does one get on your team?" Ophetia asked boldly.

"Request a transfer from Captain Genet, I assume," Tank replied. "After all, she's in charge of the enhanced soldiers."

"Oh, come on!" Ophetia scoffed. "Everyone knows you're the one really in charge."

"Chain of command," Tank said levelly. "Perhaps you've heard of it? Besides, why would I want a team member so readily prepared to break the rules to suit her own agenda?"

"Because this team member would show her gratitude eagerly," Ophetia said, seductively smiling at Tank.

"Fraternisation between squad mates is frowned upon, Private Ophetia," Tank said coldly. "Fraternisation between officers and common soldiers is a court martial offence." Ophetia opened her mouth to object, but Tank held his hand up. "I will speak no more of it, Private Ophetia. We have a mission to complete in only a few hours. Let's rest up now and prepare for it."

"Yes, Sir!" Ophetia snapped a salute, turned on her heel and marched away.

''Shit,' Tank thought. He turned and saw Julie standing and watching. 'Double shit,' he added. "Did you catch all of that?" He asked.

"I recorded the whole thing from the moment Private Ophetia approached you," Genet told him through his earpiece as Julie nodded. "If she tries to cause trouble, we'll have the proof of what actually happened."

"Can I talk to you, Tank?" Julie asked. "Captain, may we have some privacy, please?"

"Of course," Genet replied, and Tank's earpiece went dead.

"What's up?" Tank queried.

"I'm scared," Julie explained. "Shooting a man for a movie is not the same as shooting him for real. In the movie, when the director yells 'Cut!' the man you shot stands up and walks away. There's no standing up after a sniper's bullet has exploded your head."

"I'm terrified, too," Tank admitted. "Shit! I'm a brainbox and an actor, not a stone-cold killer."

"What do we do?" Julie sniffed.

"What we've been trained to do," Tank told her levelly, holding her eyes with his. "Look, I'm still unsure about these Providians, but this cause is just. You saw the reports. These guys are responsible for over one hundred black deaths. They killed for no other reason than the ones they murdered were black. They are a scourge on the American people we can and will eliminate."

"Ready to roll?" Anter asked from behind Tank.

Tank raised his eyebrow and replied at Julie's nod, "Yes. Let's do it."

Aryan Supremacy Camp near the Tennessee/North Carolina border, USA.

Meanwhile, fifteen miles away at Camp Confederate, the Aryan Supremacy Militia's commanding officer, General Nathaniel Butler, couldn't sleep. Nathaniel, an ex-US Army Green Beret who could trace his ancestry back to the Aryan Supremacy's founding father, felt uneasy. General Butler marched into the monitoring station.

"Anything?" He barked.

"All monitors and sensors show green," the soldier watching the screens replied. "The closest we've had to anything was that brown bear outside the northern fence."

"The government's out there," Nathaniel growled. "I can feel it in my bones. They're planning an attack. I know it! Did you send men to recheck the fissure?" General Butler questioned. "You noted a slight disturbance at the outermost sensor last night."

"No signs of anything moving in there," the watch sergeant replied. Then he considered what he said. "No signs of anything," he repeated musingly.

"Sergeant?" Nathaniel queried.

Sergeant Rick Bedford, whose father insisted he was related to one of the Ku Klux Klan founders, hummed as his mind raced. "No signs whatsoever. Shouldn't there be something? Rabbits? Foxes? Deer? There should be some animal signs, surely?"

"Get a squad over there now!" General Butler commanded. "Sound general quarters. I told you I could smell the dirty fed bastards!"

Before Bedford could respond, explosions rocked the camp.

"What the fuck was that?" Butler snarled.

"Unless I've missed my guess," Sergeant Bedford calmly replied. "It was the fuel and ammunition dumps going up."

The sound of small arms fire swiftly followed the explosions. Men screaming, followed by the crump, crump of RPGs exploding were next. Another round of small arms fire ensued before the only noise left was men screaming in pain.

"Let's find out what the fuck is going on," Nathaniel growled before taking an M16 from the gun rack and following his watch sergeant from the room.

Snatching the door open, Bedford and Butler ran into the street, racing for cover. All around them was bedlam. Every building, except their command structure and the concrete food storage one, was on fire or destroyed, and men lay dead or injured everywhere Nathaniel looked. He spotted Tyson Atticus, his captain. "Captain!" He shouted. "Is the attack over? Where are the feds? What the fuck is happening?"

Captain Atticus, who was naked except for his army shorts and rifle, jogged over to his general. "Fucked if I know, Nate," Atticus responded. Tyson and Nathaniel had served together in the second Gulf War. "They blew up the fuel and munitions storage depots, shot the fuck out of us when we responded, launched RPGs at every building except the one they hid behind, and then disappeared."

"Feds?" General Butler asked.

Atticus shook his head. "They wouldn't hit and run," he pointed out. "If it were the feds, they'd be pouring through the gates in SUVs."

"ATF?"

Captain Tyson shook his head again. "Same story," he explained.

"Which way did they go?"

"Towards the firing range," Atticus replied.

"You have men pursuing them?"

"No," Atticus answered. "We had our best trackers following their spoor, but it simply ends at the bottom of the hill behind the dumps."

"What do you mean 'ends'," the general asked.

"I mean, it's there, and then it isn't," Captain Atticus clarified. "I'd guess a helicopter extracted them, but no one heard or saw one, so fucked if I know."

"So," General Butler said, as his butt clenched, imagining the call he now had to make. "I have to report to leadership that their multi-million dollar training camp has been destroyed by spectres that appeared out of and disappeared into nothing?"

"Maybe we can find something more in the daylight," Tyson suggested, knowing it was a forlorn hope. A helicopter was the most obvious escape route, but why hadn't a single militia soldier seen or heard it?

Atlanta, Georgia, the following day.

"Hey, Benjie?" Special Agent Richard Charlesworth of the Atlanta division of the FBI asked his partner, Benjie Paxton. "Did you see this report on the explosions in the Aryan Supremacy camp up near the Tennessee/North Carolina border? Isn't that the group of assholes you think is responsible for kidnapping and killing those black students from Mountain City?"

"Who took them out?" Benjie asked.

"Wasn't us," Rick answered. "Maybe the ATF? They trafficked speed, so it might have been the DEA."

Benjie shook his head, "The dumb pricks would have announced the raids beforehand."

"Forty-nine dead," Rick read from the report. "Maybe someone from either of those two departments fucked up."

"Wouldn't be any of the alphabet agencies then," Benjie denied.

The televisions in their offices flickered before a talking head announced the directors of the FBI, DEA, NSA, and ATF would make a joint statement shortly. Seconds later, all four agencies denied any knowledge of how the Aryan Supremacy base had been destroyed, and they categorically denied their department's involvement.

"You realise," Special Agent Benjie Paxton mused. "That we're going to be sent up there to investigate this attack, right? It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of cunts, but the director will demand to know what the fuck happened up there."

"Assuming they file a complaint," Rick observed.

The talking head from earlier announced that they had a statement from Aryan Supremacy's leader, Jeremiah Percy. Supreme Commander Percy denied any attack on the North Carolina base, saying that a burning fuel spill had gotten too close to some incorrectly stored munitions. The resulting explosions had severely damaged a large part of the camp, but everything was under control now.

"We have reviewed our storage and emergency response procedures to ensure nothing like this will reoccur," he assured the viewers. "In the meantime, may we have some space and respect until we contact and inform the families of the victims of their loved one's demise?"

General Zaha's debriefing room on the Providian Starship later that morning.

Genet, Tank, Julie, Tenerife and Anter sat in a debriefing room discussing the raid with General Zaha.

"Any comments or problems?" Zaha queried.

"From a tactical perspective," Tenerife replied. "There were no problems. I monitored the various world governments' spy systems and satellites, and none mentioned an unidentified craft anywhere on Earth. There is universal confusion amongst the world's military as to what happened at the camp we attacked."

"Captain Genet?" Zaha asked.

"It was pretty much a textbook in-and-out mission with no deaths or injuries on our side," Genet explained. "We encountered less resistance than we expected, and we were able to destroy the entire camp within the time allocated. We counted forty-nine dead enemies with at least that many more injured."

"Changes needed, Lieutenant Zaffra?"

"We were nearly wiped out before we even got near the base," Tank growled. "We relied wholly on the satellite and spy footage. That was a mistake. We need to get eyes on the ground to get real-life reconnaissance before we attack another camp."

"Sergeant Anter?"

"I agree with the lieutenant," Anter responded. "Luckily for us, Lieutenant Tank had a 'bad feeling' and aborted the mission before we walked into their trap. When we go after the next terrorist base, I say we get feet on the ground to examine the camp first."

Major Tenerife added, "We didn't go after any of the humans in the area who carry the same DNA profile as Lieutenants Zaffra and Genet. I propose we combine our next raids with recruiting some humans for our 'super' program."

"Major Tenerife, have you selected the next target?" General Zaha asked.

"Colonel Tangran and I are at loggerheads over that, General," Tenerife replied. "Colonel Tangran is insistent that we go after the Aridian base next."

"He thinks we're ready to do that?" Zaha questioned.

"I don't think he cares," Tenerife answered. "I don't know what's up his butt, but he has the hots for that camp."

Tank mused, "Colonel Tangran leads the group opposed to using we humans, General, correct?" Zaha nodded. "He has many of your fellow officers on his side?"

"Some," Zaha admitted.

"If these raids are successful, then it undermines his position that we're undisciplined mutagenic monsters with anger issues. With every successful attack, we prove he's wrong and deny his group their wish—to kill Lieutenant Angelina and me and harvest our DNA for your clone programs."

"Makes sense," General Zaha conceded.

"So, if you stand Angelina and me down from the subsequent raids and use only Providian mutagen gas-enhanced soldiers, you take away that fear, and he should allow the planned raids without further complaint or objection. If he continues to object, you'll know it's more than just objecting to Julie and myself in play."

"I understand what you're saying," Captain Genet objected. "But if we stand you down, Colonel Tangran will spread rumours that it's because of discipline problems during the first mission. There's already a rumour that Lieutenant Angelina froze and couldn't do her part as overwatch."

"Ophetia," Tank spat viciously. "Has to be. Can't get at me, so she's undermining Julie."

"Another rumour suggests that Ophetia has joined Margraine as one of Tangran's lovers," Sergeant Anter offered.

"We're not here to deal in rumours and innuendo," Major Zaha said icily. "Unless you have proof of this or their fraternisation, let's move on to the next targets. Lieutenants Zaffra and Angelina, you will continue to be part of these raids until I decide otherwise. Your presence in the recruiting parties will ease the chosen humans' fears and make them more likely to listen to our proposal."

"There's not a red-blooded male on the planet who would turn Ms Angelina down," Tank teased, grinningly.

"And how many women would turn down 'the thinking woman's sex symbol', do you reckon?" Julie returned.

"Many more than who would turn you down," Tank riposted

"If we're finished with the mutual admiration society," General Zaha said dryly. "Can we continue? Tenerife, Zaffra, Genet, and Angelina. Put your heads together and plan the next raids. Let's try coordinating three separate attacks spread across the continental USA." Zaha stood, which caused the others to stand, too. "Dismissed," he said. The officers saluted and filed from his office.

"How many of these re-entry craft do we have?" Tank queried as they walked down the corridor, away from Zaha's office.

"Around fifteen hundred," Major Tenerife replied. "Ranging from large enough to carry four of the hover ships you were on to as small as the one we used to get you in and out. The former is used for invasion missions. The latter for stealth ones."

"Can we insert three separate craft without anyone noticing?" Tank asked as he entered the cafeteria that he and Julie usually attended. "Or do we use one of the bigger ones and bring all three hover ships into Earth's atmosphere at once?"

"The larger re-entry vehicles don't have stealth capabilities," Tenerife explained. "We use those when undertaking a full-scale invasion of a planet and don't care if we're seen. But, to go back to your original question, if we enter the atmosphere close together simultaneously, there's a good chance for some of that time, we'll be visible to the naked eye. However, if we split the attacks across the entire USA, there will be enough gap between the entering craft to keep all three invisible."

The four picked up the folder Tantin had created and began examining sites.

"I'd like a crack at this one," Tank mused, pointing to another Aryan Supremacy camp near the Californian/Oregon/Nevada borders. It's in California but so close to Oregon that its northern boundary fence crosses the border."

"There's another Christian Fundamentalist camp rumoured to be a Ku Klux Klan front up near the Washington border with British Columbia, someway west of Bellingham," Genet suggested as a second target.

"Then there's the White Supremacist camp near the Texas/Mexico border below San Antonio," Tenerife added. "It's rumoured to have executed many Mexicans crossing the border illegally. That one has the advantage of being close enough to San Antonio to take our first volunteers. There are over twenty people in San Antonio with DNA profiles that match our requirements."