CHAPTER 19 – PUTTING ON A SUIT
13:28 (Washington Time)
Friday, June 25, 1999 ‘C’
The East Wing, The White House
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
‘’And here you are, dear CNN viewers: the most famous and also the most decorated soldier in American history is living her last day in uniform. General of the Army Ingrid Dows is now retiring after serving 57 years in an American uniform. General Dows started as a very young fighter pilot with the Filipino Air Corps in 1941, fighting the Japanese in World War 2 and quickly becoming the top American fighter ace in history before being accepted in American service in 1942. She then formed, trained and led the first ever American female combat unit, the famous 99th Composite Group, nicknamed ‘The Fifinellas’. In turn, the Fifinellas quickly became one of the most effective air units in the Pacific and even fought on the ground against marauding Japanese troops trying to take their airfield in Guadalcanal. When World War 2 ended, then Colonel Ingrid Dows had accumulated over a hundred air victories and was by far the deadliest fighter ace on the Allied side. After studying aeronautical engineering after the war, she then was recalled to active service and led the Fifinellas, now a full-sized wing, during the First Korean War. She and her female unit again distinguished themselves with great success despite the odds and despite the often-poor performances of the other American units in that war. After that war ended in defeat for the United States, Colonel Dows was recalled to Washington, where she became an advisor for Interim President Joseph Martin and was also put in charge of directing the development of new aircraft for the American forces as we entered the Jet Age. In that task, she performed brilliantly, leading and often contributing personally to the development of many new planes which proved to be far in advance of the planes developed at that time by other countries. Those new planes were then put to the test in combat during the Indochina Conflict, when General Dows led an American expeditionary force in Vietnam that stopped cold attempts by the Soviet Union and Communist China to invade and take over the country. Furthermore, she showed remarkable diplomatic acumen by convincing the Vietminh to cease its hostilities and to even help American and French troops to repel a huge Chinese invasion force. It was during that conflict that another extraordinary aspect of that remarkable young woman was revealed: her ability to remember her past incarnations and her possession of a number of fantastic paranormal powers, including telepathy, the ability to fly by herself, touch healing and super-strength. From Indochina, General Dows then flew to Palestine with part of her air wing, where she commanded the American Interposition Force there and helped create peace between Israeli Jews and Arabs. Her next assignment was in Western Europe, where she took command of our air units based in Germany in 1955. Again demonstrating extraordinary talents of leadership and military strategy, she devised on the spur of the moment a winning air plan that stopped cold the surprise invasion of Poland and of the Baltic States by the armies of Stalin and inflicted a stinging defeat on the Soviets. After her tour in Europe was completed, General Dows was posted back to the United States, accompanied by a little Vietnamese girl she had adopted in Indochina. She was again put in charge of developing new American aircraft and also of initiating a national space program. Again, she fulfilled those tasks brilliantly and became the first person ever to fly in orbit around the Earth. From there, the American space program kept growing in leaps and bounds, culminating into the landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon in 1959 and the building of a permanent Moon base. In 1971, General Dows took command of our first ever interplanetary spaceship, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION, and flew to Mars for a space mission that went on for two and a half years and during which the first Humans set foot on Mars, where they discovered life forms there. After her return to Earth, General Dows fought in the China-Taiwan-USA War, then in the Second Korean War, where she personally dropped one of the few nuclear weapons the United States then employed to put an end to the North Korean regime and the war. By now in charge of the newly-created U.S. Space Corps, General Dows again left Earth orbit in 1980, in command of the spaceship U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, and headed towards Jupiter and Saturn on an exploration mission. During that nearly five-year space mission, the crew of the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS found alien life forms on the moons Europa, Enceladus and Titan. During that long space mission, General Dows also gave birth to a girl she named ‘Nancy’. However, little Nancy proved to be no ordinary baby as, according to her mother, her father was in fact an angel, thus making her half-Human and half-Celestial, with superpowers to go with that. Those superpowers were subsequently revealed publicly when little Nancy, now five years-old, saved a young school comrade and friend from gangsters who had kidnapped him. Jumping forward to 1993, General Dows, after spending five years on reserve status, was recalled to active duty by President Perot, promoted to the rank of General of the Army and put in charge of all our fighting units. Three years later, in 1996, General Dows commanded the American forces in yet another war, the Caucasus War, fought against the Caucasus Islamic Republic, and personally flew combat missions during that conflict. Only a month after winning that war, General Dows fought a war against Communist China, which had committed acts of terrorism against American civilian airliners. Again, the United States was victorious, in great part thanks to her strategic military leadership. Finally, in the last war to date to be fought by the United States, General Dows directed our counter-piracy operation against the pirates operating from Somalia. Now, after 57 years of service, including fighting in seven full-scale wars and two regional conflicts, this extraordinary woman is now retiring for good and turning to civilian life.’’
13:35 (Washington Time) / 18:35 (Universal Time)
Bridge of the Imperium ‘C’ time cruiser CROWN PRINCE WILLIAM
Landed on the surface of the Moon
Commander Lara Beltram, captain of the Imperium ‘C’ time cruiser CROWN PRINCE WILLIAM, ended the video recording of the American televised reporting from the White House and looked at her senior officers sitting around the table of her ship’s conference table.
‘’Comments, anyone?’’
Her second in command, Lieutenant Commander Arthur Murray, was the first to speak up.
‘’This Ingrid Dows is certainly a formidable opponent and a woman worthy of respect. One cannot but admire her courage and her command abilities.’’
‘’I agree with you on that, Arthur.’’ said Lara, a typical Imperium citizen measuring over two meters and with six digits per finger, while the total absence of body hair had made her bald from birth. ‘’I wouldn’t mind meeting her, even though I would still end up having to kill her. You all know too well by now that we are the only ship of the Imperium to have been able to escape the vanishing of everything we knew, including our families, comrades and our whole world we knew as the Imperium, all that thanks mostly to the actions of this Ingrid Dows. By her military prowess and her influence on American politics, she made the United States the preeminent power on Earth in the 20th Century, and this at the expense of the British Empire. In turn, that caused the decline of the British Empire and prevented it from eventually becoming our own Imperium through a nuclear war that was supposed to destroy the United States and eliminate it as an opponent of Great Britain.’’
‘’But why center our efforts at recreating our Imperium on killing that woman?’’ asked Lieutenant Commander Janet Holt, the ship’s chief-engineer. ‘’She may be a formidable woman but, surely, she could not be the sole cause or even the main cause of the vanishing of our Imperium. We shouldn’t forget that this damn Time Patrol has been pursuing us and trying to catch us for over two years now, forcing us to stay in deep space in order to avoid detection. Even when we jumped back to World War 2, the Time Patrol was somehow able to detect our jump and pursue us. We then escaped only because we jumped to a position far away from Earth.’’
‘’Which proves to me that the Time Patrol has some kind of spacetime jump detection network in place around Earth, with stations hidden from our sensors by their damn cloaking technology.’’ added Lieutenant Commander Charles Latham, the ship’s science officer and also a doctor in applied physics. ‘’Whatever we will do next, we will have to avoid jumping spacetime around Earth’s orbit. We will need to jump spacetime only when we are at least beyond the orbit of the Moon.’’
‘’I agree with you, Charles.’’ replied Janet Holt. ‘’However, my primary objection to killing Dows stays. We should find another, surer way to return our Imperium to existence.’’
‘’Like what?’’ objected the ship’s weapons officer, Lieutenant James Robertson, his voice showing some irritation. ‘’It is evident by the effusive report on Dows’ retirement ceremony that she has indeed been central to most of the military and strategic successes of the United States during the second half of the 20th Century. We just need to quickly kill her before she could become a factor of importance, then hide in deep space and wait to see if that will be enough to allow the Imperium to reappear again in the future. Our best clue about that will be if the British Empire survives this century intact and in a dominant position in the World.’’
‘’I would agree with Lieutenant Robertson on this, Captain.’’ said Lieutenant Elizabeth Turner, the ship’s sensors officer. ‘’May I remind you all that by now our food reserves are dangerously low, due to our need to constantly evade detection by the Time Patrol. We need to act, and quickly.’’
‘’I cannot agree more with you, Elizabeth.’’ replied Lara Beltram. ‘’We need to act quickly and that is what we will do, by killing this Ingrid Dows before she can help lead the United States to World preeminence. We only need to decide when, where and how to do that, all while evading Time Patrol detection. I am awaiting your suggestions, ladies and gentlemen.’’