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Acquisition, our King would have our heads.” The Captain opened up the display on his right side to note his command.

    “Send the ping,” he spoke the command as he documented the command in his log. He looked up, “Melorn, make sure we have all been updated with the basic language node for this … location.” The Captain completed his command, trying to keep an even keel on what had been, so far, a rather unimpressive scouting trip.

CHAPTER FOUR

    QBS ArchAngel

    Bethany Anne looked out across the representatives and smiled, “Now, I am open for questions.”

    The immediate merging of ten different voices caused Bethany Anne to put up her hand, “Please, I can’t do this with all of you shouting at once.” One of the men that had arrived with her suddenly turned and walked out of the room.

    “Until Eric gets back, I will go from my left to my right. So, I will answer the question from the President of the United States first.”

    “How long do you believe they have been in our system?” he asked.

    Bethany Anne replied, “Seven weeks.”

    Spain, next to the United States, asked the next question, “Do you know if they are friendly or unfriendly?”

    Bethany Anne shrugged, “While we do not and cannot confirm they are unfriendly that is our position at the moment. The assumption is, based on information we have, most star-faring races should be considered unfriendly until you have negotiated a treaty with them. Or, your reputation is such that they do not immediately attack you.”

    She put up a hand to stop Spain from immediately asking a follow-up question, “Sorry, one question each pass.” At that moment, Eric came back in with a handful of pens and notecards. Bethany Anne turned and retrieved them from him and started walking to the group and passing them out. “We are going to do this the old-fashioned way. Please write down any questions you have here on these cards and we will pick them up. I will answer a couple of more questions while you do this. Remember, we still have to get you guys back to Earth in a reasonable amount of time. We will have further discussions with your duly appointed representative tomorrow.”

    She turned back and walked to the table and then nodded to Mexico, “I see that the Netherlands has not requested a question so Mexico it’s your turn.”

      “TQB has stated on multiple occasions that you are not interested in using your technology to accomplish goals near earth. What is TQB’s goal then?”

    “Good question, the short answer is our effort is focused on protecting the Earth from,” she used her thumb to point toward the video shot of the alien spacecraft behind her, “them.”

    This caused a furious amount of writing on notecards from everyone there.

    She nodded to Japan.

    “If your effort is focused on protecting the earth from aliens, how long have you known that aliens have existed?”

    “Years,” She replied and then nodded to France.

    “Is your technology advancement based on alien information?”

    “Yes.” Bethany Anne put up a hand, “I am not going into the background on how this occurred, so you can save a lot of writing on the notecards. Suffice to say, that I am completely convinced there is a group of inimical aliens who wish to overtake the earth and use it for their personal gain. This is something I am devoting my life to stopping. However, I have no desire to police the earth, or make it better for human kind. That is your responsibility, not mine. My job, and my teams job, is to make sure you don’t have to worry about invading aliens while you fix the shit on earth at the same time.”

    Spain leaned over to the president of the United States, “She is kind of blunt, isn’t she?”

    “Actually, she is being rather restrained I think,” he answered back.

    Spain leaned back and murmured to himself, “I’m not sure I want to hear what blunt is, then.”

    —

    Bethany Anne retrieved the notecards with all the