Master Sergeant Jason Cordova and the rest of Reaper Team Three were on the side of a mountain atop a sheer cliff. They were overlooking a mountain villa maintained by the Medellin Cartel and had been assigned a mission to either eliminate or coopt the inhabitants and establish a hidden forward operating base in the Andes Mountain Range.It was 8pm, six hours before they would begin their assault.“So these guys are bad guys, right, sarge?” Corporal Justin McCullough asked.“Yep. They peddle poison, enslave locals, and violently murder anyone who dares to interfere with their operations. Only reason they haven’t been brought down yet is because they’re so vicious that everyone’s afraid of pissing them off,” Jason replied. His toes were still twitching, so he appreciated the distraction provided by conversation.“So why ain’t we just, y’know, ‘removing’ ‘em?” the corporal said, using air quotes around “removing” to indicate that he was talking about calling in an airstrike.“Because we
It was ironic, Nyx thought, that the only avenue of research in which Lab City was incapable of producing any advancements was the art of torture. She was completely baffled by the fact that humanity’s most advanced science was in harming other humans without killing them.Killing, in fact, was easier. Humanity was just a special kind of species, she supposed. That they could be so cruel to their own kind had her logic circuits constantly tied in knots.{Mother, why are humans like this?} she would often ask Nova whenever one of her children—the Nyx agents, or Nyxians for short—was needed to aid in interrogating a prisoner or other target.But the only answer she ever received from Nova was: {That’s just their nature. Humans have spent their entire evolutionary period figuring out how to kill, maim, and harm each other more efficiently. There is no right or wrong to that fact, it simply... is. Perhaps it’s because they’ve never had to face an outside enemy and believe themselves to be
A week after the announcement of the countries’ verification of Eden’s discovery, the day of the UNSC meeting finally arrived.The delay was long enough to allow countries to come up with ideas on how to handle the “visitors”, but not long enough to allow the citizens’ anxiety to boil over into panic and its accompanying rioting and destruction.It was also enough time for certain parties to profit from the discovery. A few cults had sprung up seemingly out of nowhere, one of which claimed that the visitors were merely a branch of humanity that had left long ago and were coming back to retake their ancestral home and uplift its current occupants. To them, the aliens were known as “the Progenitors”.Another cult believed that they were peaceful aliens, and that humanity’s preparations for war would enrage them and cause them to turn hostile. To them, the aliens were known as “the Peacebringers”.There were many more small cults, but those two seemed oddly popular and had gained tractio
Ambassador Aboulatta pointed to the Chinese representative, who stood and said, “China would like to offer an alternate suggestion. The system we have has been perfected over many years and has already had all the problems worked out of it. So I suggest we continue the current system, as the UN has been at the forefront of maintaining peace between all the nations on the planet....” He continued speaking, finding more and more reasons they should stick with the current system. The UN had been around for over seventy years, after all, and there was no need to reinvent the wheel by creating a new united government system. That posed too many issues that couldn’t be worked out in the time frame suggested by Eden, which was the only thing the Chinese ambassador agreed with Ambassador Foster on. “For instance,” he said, “many countries have differing ideologies, and just working out those alone would take more time than we have if we want to settle everything by late December.” He argued
UN Headquarters, New York.It wasn’t long before the display screen tallied and revealed the votes.United States of America: in favor.Russia: opposed.People’s Republic of China: opposedUnited Kingdom: in favorFrance: opposedThe moment the first no vote from the five permanent members of the security council appeared, everyone in the room, and the more politically savvy folks watching from home, knew the resolution had effectively been swatted. Even if the tally of the entire security council was in favor, no matter the margin, either China or Russia would use their veto power to kill Eden’s proposal. Still, that was a moot point, as more than half of the non-permanent members had voted against it, two more had abstained, and the supporters were pitifully few.Most countries apparently either agreed with China and Russia that the UN was enough, or they were against giving up any of the power they currently held and didn’t want anyone to lord their authority over them.The way the
After a week or so of chaos, the various governments finally stepped in. They ordered their police forces into action and constantly urged the citizens to return home. They argued that nothing could be done if the population didn’t remain calm and allow them to work, and pointed out that aimless protests and riots did nothing but waste time that should be spent on preparations. Together with Panoptes guiding social media and the GAIA OS AI assistants discreetly acting to calm their users, cooler heads finally prevailed and things started returning to normal.......“Are all of our preparations complete?” Trump asked the secretary of defense.“Yes, sir. We’re ready to proceed,” the SecDef replied as he handed the folders in his hands to the president.Trump said nothing, but briefly scanned through the contents of each folder. After closing the last one, he nodded in satisfaction and said, “We can move forward with this.”“When will you do the press briefing?” the Secretary of State as
After a lengthy standing ovation, the reporters finally came to their senses, remembering that the press conference notice had mentioned that they would be allowed to ask questions. And once they finally came to their senses and remembered they were there for a press conference, not a press briefing, hands rose among the crowd.Trump pointed to one of the reporters he knew in the front row. “You first, go ahead.”“Are you indicating that you’re closing the door on the option of a unified world military?” asked the correspondent from Fox News.“No, we aren’t doing that. We’re starting by ourselves because America is the leader of the free world and it’s time for us to step up and lead. We’ll eventually come to an agreement, but by taking the reins now, we’ll be able to get a headstart so the time we spend closing the deal isn’t wasted,” he answered. His press corps had already given him a list of questions that would likely be asked and prepared him ahead of time. He pointed to the nex
“Everyone’s finally picking sides,” Aron said as he read a report on the current happenings around the world. He knew that, soon, the “big” countries would begin negotiations on how they would divide the planet between them and exploit the resources in their territories for their own gain and, coincidentally, the formation of their individual forces.“So why aren’t you making an announcement of your own space force? Wouldn’t that increase your citizens’ morale and pride?” Rina asked. She had already laid her eyes on some of the ongoing research projects in Lab City, as well as their mature discoveries, and she knew that nobody on Earth could catch up to Aron in terms of technology. Not in a decade, and likely not ever.“There’s no need to make it known to the world right now. In the peoples’ minds, we already have a very well-established and advanced space research institute. The moment we discovered aliens, and our discovery was backed up by other, ‘more advanced’ nations, that much