Teep

Victoria watched Aaron run out of the room and looked at her son, "Do you think we should follow him?"

"I'm not sure, his clan was holding that meeting in the next room if you remember," James leaned over the arm of the chair to see if he could see anything and really could not see past the door.

"I too am curious, but not to the point to anger our host," Chairman Woo thought back at what happened when the Dragon Lords were angered, something he never wanted directed at him.

They sat in silence for several minutes trying to figure out what was going on and they all jumped as the screens around the room flashed before going dark, only to be replaced by the picture of a Dragon rearing before an alarm started to sound. Startled and more than a little worried they started for the connecting door to find out what was going on, but stopped in the middle of the room as the screens changed to show Aaron with his Clan behind him, and the other members of the Clan looked frighteningly pissed, Jens thought.

Aaron stared into the pickup as his image was being broadcast to every part of the Empire; he gave people a moment before he spoke, "A day we had thought would never come approaches. A day we thought we had avoided by changing and coming out into the open to nudge humanity in a different direction is before us, half an hour ago, Mark was confronted in the United States, by a group proclaiming they were a platoon of the Army of God."

All over the empire people stopped to watch Aaron's emergency message and hearing those words, they flashed back to anger and fear, but above all they quieted and moved closer to the monitor to listen.

"This brings into play our highest law as guardians of humanity." Aaron looked more imposing and regal as he stared at the pickup, "At this moment, the Alteran race is at war."

Victoria's indrawn breath startled the others and she almost missed the chair as she fell into it.

"All military personal, report to your duty stations for assignment by 0800 hours tomorrow morning," Aaron was unblinking as he prepared his people, "Shaolin.Left hand of the Dragon, the day you have prepared for, for four thousand years has arrived. I had hoped this day would never come, but had prepared and planned nevertheless.Elders of Clan Shaolin.Report to my office immediately to make preparations."

"This cancer that is the Army of God will be eradicated, every single one of them shall be examined for information and by our highest laws, their DNA shall be removed from the gene pool. All those sixteen and under shall suffer the death of personality and they shall be altered and retrained and brought up correctly, if the taint goes too deep though, they too shall suffer the death of DNA.There will be NO Quarter and NO Mercy. We will invade and cleanse the United States, tomorrow at 1400 hours." Aaron looked at Fred, "All Trauma bays, prepare for incoming injured and sick, Wolf 359 Station prepare to be relocated to Sol Orbit to receive sick and injured."

Aaron turned away from the pickup and looked at his lovers, "Xon, Pete.Go, the resources of the Clan are at your disposal; take who you need to finish quickly." Glancing around the room, he frowned, "Kevin, Pat." looking further he settled on, "Brian, tomorrow the three of you have core duty. The rest of you, If you don't have duties, I expect you to be in the Core," Aaron's face told them he would except no argument.

"As soon as I get back with Wolf 359, we will meet in the large conference room.the situation room, at the end of the hall.," Aaron opened his arms and hugged and kissed all his lovers one by one before pulling Edward into a hug, after kissing him, he whispered, "Go back in my office and escort our guests to the end of the hall."

Seeing the scared looks on Ton and Alexi's faces, he pulled them into a hug, glancing David's way, he smiled, "Bring the prospectives back up to Sol Station, David, get them settled in and try to answer some of their questions to assure them they are safe, I'll be back in half an hour at most." Giving one last look at the determination that had replaced the rage and anger Aaron smiled and ported out.

Edward walked through the bathroom slightly shaken, followed by Kevin who knew there were questions that needed to be answered before some of what they had seen would sink in and be accepted. "Hello, for those that I have not met, I am Kevin, Kevin Stranton, or as the Core identifies me one of the fathers of the heir to the empire," Kevin sat on the edge of Aaron's desk and tried to come up with a cover story that would hold.

"Almost four hundred years ago." Kevin stopped and looked at the group critically, "let me restart that, one of the rarest gifts my people have is precognition. some call it the ability to see the future, others call it the gift of seeing possible futures so we can avoid them, those that carry the gift call it a curse and before we found a way to control it, a death sentence."

"I have no idea how it works, nor do I care to, as it is too scary to even think about," Kevin sighed, "Almost four hundred years ago a reoccurring theme started to show itself in those with the curse," Kevin snorted, how to spin this he wondered, before the silence could be taken as something other than gathering one's thoughts he started up again, "In this future we had a warning of," that works he thought, "Five years from now actually the government in the U.S. had changed for the worse, a religious government that eventually became intolerant and homicidal to everyone not of their beliefs, they started a war that devastates the world, their soldiers were called the Army of God."

"Chyort poberi!" the Russian President muttered, "The shadow government."

Kevin looked over and nodded, "Yes the shadow government, and Aaron hoped by taking the steps he had it would make them impotent, that he could save the world from destruction," Kevin looked out the window and saw the Wolf Station appear, "We should go to the larger conference room," moving towards the door, Kevin told them, "I'm just glad we developed a non lethal way to deal with them, otherwise I don't think Aaron would have wanted to survive if he killed off hundreds of millions of people just to save the rest of you."

Walking into the conference room, Kevin looked around, he had not been in here before and he found it was set out almost like some of the collage lecture halls he had seen, and like the lecture halls of popular professors this one was packed, standing room only. Spotting Kenny shoving energy donuts at Aaron with a serious frown on his face he wanted to laugh, the scene was more than cute, instead he went over and accepted the kiss from his lover and saw the determination behind the haunted eyes. Leaning close he whispered, "It will be alright, I know it."

Kenny stared at Kevin, really wanting to believe him, but he was worried, that was until Kevin pointed out, "Look over at Friedrich; he pulled the limiter off completely, if we had a problem, a major problem, he would be on the floor convulsing right now."

Kenny looked around Kevin and saw the blue limiter on the table top next to Friedrich's P.A.D.D. and relaxed before nodding to the rest of the Clan to get their attention and pointed at Friedrich, he smiled as they all relaxed at seeing Friedrich pain free.

Finishing the last of his donut, Aaron stood and kissed Kenny in thanks before taking a glass of juice over to the head table and sitting on top of it, "Before we start, I have to ask if the visiting heads of state are willing to abide by the total information blackout that I am imposing, if you don't think you can keep this strictly to yourselves, including keeping it from your military commanders, if you decide to make preparations to defend yourselves. I would ask you to leave now, no hard feelings as this is probably above and beyond our joint venture," Aaron waited several minutes as he looked at each of them until they made their decision.

"Alrighty." Aaron saw the pickup was active and smiled, "We are going to approach this problem in three waves," Aaron held up a finger, "The first thing we are going to do involves demanding the unconditional surrender from the government of the United States, we will interrupt every transmission tomorrow at 1330 hours and I will lay everything on the table, well most of it, I will explain to the American people about the shadow government and the attack on Mark by the Army of God, at 1400 hundred exactly, we will start by using the recycler technology like we did in Iraq and start removing every manmade object, hospitals and treatment centers will be left until last until we have removed the patients to one of our facilities." Putting two fingers up, Aaron took a sip of his juice, "The second wave will include blanketing the country with Weapons Drones, thousands of them. Which leads us to the third wave; we will go in and ferret out every last member of the shadow government and Army of God."

"Now if the government cooperates and surrenders, we will skip the first step, unless we meet resistance, at the first sign of resistance, the area will be blanketed with both the recyclers removing everything in sight and the weapons drones which I have a feeling will have gone quiet by the time the recyclers get done." Aaron sat his empty glass down after draining it and smiled as Kenny refilled it for him, "No matter how you say it, we are planning to utterly destroy a country tomorrow, the only thing is, how much damage to the infrastructure we do."

"Tim, your security forces might be a little stretched thin over the weekend, they will have to blanket their state, I'm sure there are hidden sympathizers that will try to disrupt what they can. So make sure they are prepared, let them know around 1300 hundred hours, until then a surprise preparedness drill in the morning seems likely." Aaron looked over to the Marine commander, "Otto, I'm sorry to do this to you, but your Marines will not be involved in this at all, instead, make preparations to subdue the Middle East and several other countries, like France. The Shadow government is too well connected, and too many lies were spun about the Middle Eastern states for me to be comfortable with them not being involved."

Eyes falling on the officer next to Otto, "CAG any trips to drop off patients to the U.S. tomorrow you need to."Aaron frowned searching for the right words, "Tell them they are going to be delayed until after lunch because of an emergency. Which means." he searched for the face he knew was there, "Kyle you need to be prepared to move hard and fast if any of the Americans give you the slightest hint of a problem."

Standing, Aaron approached the section with the Shaolin sitting serenely, "Shaolin.of Clan Shaolin, it is a sad day that I have to ask you to pick up and become, in truth, the left hand of the Dragon. For four thousand years you have hidden and built the army for the day it would be needed, all the while hoping it would never be called." Aaron looked at them sadly, "I.When I agreed to become the guardian of humanity, I knew this day might come, but in my heart I had hoped it never would, I had hoped that what I had done had changed the future in a way that this day would never come." Sneaking a glance at Friedrich who was sitting pain free, Aaron straightened his shoulders and stood tall, "Shaolin.It is time to take your rightful place at my left hand, tomorrow your duty will be to lead my armies into the U.S. and secure and eliminate all Army of God believers and supporters."

Walking back to the desk, Aaron looked out at the shipyard for a moment before facing the assembled leaders and commanders, "If I give the word to evacuate, there will be no hesitation, you will port out immediately. I can assure you that one minute after giving that order, there will be nothing left of the United States. Canada will be beachfront property.my people come first, remember that, and also remember that no team goes anywhere without a weapons drone to oversee the security of the area."

Facing the window again Aaron's voice got soft, "I'll leave you to your preparations, we will meet back here at 0800 hours." As his people started to leave, some porting out, Aaron called out, "Friedrich, stay please."

No one in the room but the Clan and Friedrich, Aaron spoke up, "Friedrich you took off your limiter."

"Yes Aaron, I did," Friedrich walked over quietly so he could stand next to his King, "And I've felt nothing." Friedrich told him as he purposely placed his hand on Aarons arm to make sure, waiting a moment he dropped his hand and smiled, "Still nothing," moving away Friedrich nodded his head to some unheard comment, "I'll let you know if something happens, I'll see you in the morning otherwise."

--

Kenny slowly got dressed in the space suit, it had been a hellish two years and he was the last, no one else would come near him in the beginning as he was the only one not sick, but even they did not survive long, and after that day he was alone. Alone for so long, wiping the tears away again he sealed the suit, and now that he had come into his gifts and could port he could do his duty, he could set things right.

--

Aaron was sitting alone on the bridge of the shipyards, Xon and Pete had ported the RS003 over to the asteroid belt, he sat there watching the shipyard building another one of the replication ships at a fantastic rate, for the most part the ships keel was being laid and the decks only to the point of supporting the fusion generators and replications suites, once those had been finished the replication suites would be powered up and the ship finished at a fantastic rate, a matter of hours.

He was startled out of his fascinated musing of watching the ship literally grow in front of him when the deck went dark, looking around he noticed right away something was very wrong, and it had to do with an image of an older Kenny staring at him and a glowing Isolinear chip on a small pedestal where there was only clear deck moments ago. "Kenny." Aaron whispered in fright as he looked at the haunted and gaunt face.

"For so long Aaron, I cursed your name for locking me in that section of the Core before removing the air from the rest of the Core so the virus would not spread to where I was at, you promised me you would find a cure for the plague that was killing every living thing that breathed."

Aaron stared at the tears streaming down Kenny's face and felt a heavy pressure building in his chest as he fell back in the chair.

"Then I was able to finally hack into the system enough to find out why no one had come to talk to me for months, you were all dead," the image sobbed for a moment before pulling itself back together, "You died before making love to me for the first time, and for that I can never forgive you."

Aaron was openly weeping as he realized this was a reset occurring.

"There is hope though, Love, when I found out what had happened, I planned, I found every scrap of information I could and found out why the reset never occurred without being told to. "Your heir changes everything, according to Core programming and since the children were locked into the incubators, during all this time, the rise of the empire protocols were still in effect. Aaron you need to change those damn things, even if some of us would have survived, we would not have as a race, I saw pictures of our children and Aaron they were deformed because of being in the incubators too long."

Aaron heard a sigh as the future Kenny started again and the image pointed down, "That Isolinear chip has every bit of data on it I could find on the plague and how it started. The warning came too late, the limiter Friedrich and a few of the others wore allowed them to subconsciously create their own internal limiter, so tell him to discard the damn thing it is no longer needed."

"I had all these things I wanted to tell you, all these things I wanted to curse you for, but you did the best you could, now I need you to pull yourself together and destroy every location listed on the Isolinear chip. You have to use the MCA's and only the MCA's; for some reason when you found the sites after Friedrich warned you, the planet busters you used mutated the viruses and blended them into something that minutes ago, I found out is killing every living thing that breathes in the universe. All the alien visitors that came to investigate the power signatures of our empire died out as the virus did its job of killing."

"Use the chip, the Core determined that a ten mile radius from the center of those locations and a mile deep was needed. To make sure you see," Kenny tried to smile, "One last thing before I die, my love, I know I will as I have been exposed to the virus, even after years of hard vacuum it is still deadly. Don't hurt me anymore by not showing your love, you taught us a different way so we could enjoy ourselves with you without pain and then pushed us away because of our age.Promise me love, the only way you can make it up to me, even though this me is no longer alive and all that time travel shit, make love to me, all of me and all of you, make us complete and I will forgive you."

"Don't stop to try to figure this out, I tell you three times Aaron this has to be done and it must be done right now, without delay."

Aaron stared at the image heartbroken, before reaching out and grabbing the chip off the pedestal, causing the image to disappear. Staring at the chip, Aaron quickly went over to the command chair and inserted it into the slot and brought up the data and locations. Staring at the data and the recommendations from the core, he almost faltered as three of the locations were in populated areas and a lot of innocents were about to die.or would they he wondered as he thought the livestock transports.the transporter buffers. "Xon, Pete, how many of the scout ships did you outfit with transporters and buffers?"

Porting groups of MCA's with their MRB's to the locations on the chip sent back in time Aaron quickly inserted the master chip into the command console, allowing him to do a system wide override for organics. Unlocking the full capabilities of the MCA's, instead of a recycler they were now a weapon without a single known defense against them.

Touching another panel, Aaron brought up the alarm options and activated all of them sending every station and ship to battle stations Empire Wide.

"Aaron, what." Pete started before the ship he was in started to blare out the battle station alarms.

Porting over with Xon, Pete almost stumbled over the pedestal in the middle of the deck, "What the hell, where did that come from and why is it in the middle of the aisle."

"Pete.Xon.Please listen to me this is important; how many of the scouts are fitted with transporter buffers, in two minutes, I am about to unleash a weapon on parts of Earth there will never be a defense for and kill a lot of innocents, unless you focus." Aaron pleaded as he ported more of the MCA's to their locations and the monitors came to life with the faces of captains of the ships in earth orbit.

Blinking, Xon stepped forward, "All of them are outfitted with transporters and large buffers, what do you need them to do?"

"Aaron." Pete sounded confused and lost.

"Pete, I'm sorry to be harsh, but we have minutes.Xon, that map," he pointed to the console to his left, "All the people in areas 13, 53, 79 start in the center and start transporting them into the buffers. In ninety seconds the MCA's will be unleashed and anything left will be destroyed." Aaron took pity on Pete and pointed at the pedestal, "Pete listen to me love, this is a reset, we have minutes before the bio-weapons become a danger and kill everything in the universe including us."

Glancing around at the screen and the ships' commanders that were listening in Aaron's face was grim, "You have six minutes from now, to get as many of the people in those three areas into the transporter buffers. After that, there will not be any atmosphere in there worth breathing and shortly after that, there will not be any matter living or otherwise in the target area, the new lakes will end up being a mile deep." Aaron sighed, "The buildings marked in red, no people are to be transported out of them, those are the people working on those damn things and they will not be saved."

Pete, grim faced, looked back at the pedestal, picked it up and saw a lopsided image of Kenny before dropping it in shock, after it rolled away to the wall he pathed out in shock to the rest of the Clan waking them up, "EMERGENCY WE NEED ALL OF YOU TO COME TO THE SHIPYARD IN SOL."

Last of the MCA's in the target area, Aaron hesitated for a second longer before laying his finger on the section of the terminal that would activate them. One by one the MCA's started doing their job of removing all matter while the MRB's created a shield around the target area, an energy shield to keep the rest of the world out of the area.

Eyes haunted by what he had witnessed and what he was doing, Aaron heard the footsteps behind him and spotted Kenny, rushing over, Aaron picked him up and hugged him tight before truly kissing him, releasing his lips reluctantly Aaron looked deep in Kenny's eyes, "I do love you Kenny, never doubt that," he whispered before kissing him again.

Xon stared at the scene for a moment and then the pedestal and put the clues together, as soon as Aaron released Kenny, he was there to pick him up and kiss him, whispering in his ear, "I also find I love you, Kenny, and I will show you the physical love you so want as soon as the crisis is over, no more will I deny you from my bed.you or Doug," Xon glanced over at Doug who was wide eyed.

Kenny, not being slow by any stretch, looked around in confusion at the three almost frantic people reaffirming their love for him and saw the pedestal near the wall and the clues started to add up, slowly he walked over to Aaron who was in the process of tying in to every Emergency Broadcast System in the world, "I'm not that person, I really don't know what he went through, but I forgive you Aaron, even without us going all the way, I still love you and know you love me," yanking on Aaron's arms he pulled him down so he could kiss him. "Do you hear me Aaron, I FORGIVE YOU!!!"

Smiling sadly Aaron took in the rest of the clan standing behind him they had figured it out finally, seeing the monitor clear; Aaron faced it after activating the override signal.

All over the world as the alarms went out, people woke up and flocked to their radios or television sets to find out what was going on. Edward looked at his grandmother as they rushed into the family room after being woken by several aides, this could not be good.

"Mr. President, you are needed in the situation room, Sir this is a bug out," the secret service agents were not kind as they rushed the bedroom where the President was reading over the speech he was planning to give the next day, glancing at the clock the President noticed it was only ten o-clock and he had a feeling this was not going to be good, nothing that interrupted him after nine was ever good.

After the three minutes of warning, Aaron activated the pickups and addressed the world, all the leaders that had attended the meeting that afternoon wondered what had changed to cause this to happen early, "People of Earth.And because this problem is one that would kill off all life in the universe, I feel justified in addressing this to the people of the Earth."

Aaron glared before picking back up, "As of this moment, a state of war exists between the Kingdom and Empire of Altare and the government of the United States and the shadow government there, including the so called Army of God. This shadow government has come out into the open and not only has it endangered the good and decent people of the United States, but the Universe itself."

"Ten minutes ago, proof was delivered to me, undeniable proof that the shadow government not only planned to enslave the world and cleanse all those that did not profess their faith to their twisted version of one true faith, but they had developed biological weapons that had the capability to destroy all breathing life forms in the universe." Aaron paused, "This shadow government had ninety eight hidden labs and bases all over the world where they developed this perversion, I am in the process of destroying them to the last atom. Energy barriers have been erected, and in one minute there will not be any living, breathing life forms left alive within these areas, my weapons will destroy everything inside those containment barriers."

"At this time, I demand the unconditional surrender of the state, local and federal governments of the United States, failure to surrender will cause me to unleash the first wave of my assault and there will be nothing man made left before my Armies appear.you have ten minutes." Aaron touched the terminal and turned off the pickup.

Friedrich ported onto the command deck looking confused, "I don't understand, shouldn't I have gotten a warning?

"It seems I outsmarted myself with that limiter I gave you, and you setting it for six hours Friedrich," Aaron sighed as he turned to look at Friedrich, "Your mind, in a sense, built an internal limiter on your gift and it is permanently set at six hours; I was told you could do away with the one I provided you."

"Oh." Friedrich looked lost for a moment before remembering why he was here, "Victoria and the others are assembling in the situation room, Otto and the Shaolin are also setting up, waiting for you to give them their orders."

"I'll be over in a few minutes," Aaron went over to the controls and let his fingers dance over the controls, tying this console into the one in the situation room, smiling sadly at his lovers, "I have the feeling this is going to be a long night, once we port over to Sol Station you might want to build that giant bed in the middle of my conference room so you can get some rest." Motioning Kenny over one more time, Aaron pulled him into a long kiss putting all his love into it, he had a second chance now and he was not going to waste it, nodding with a tired smile to the rest of his lovers as they crowded around Aaron ported all of them to the situation room.

Looking around and spotting all the people working and watching the built in terminals on the desktops, Aaron smiled sadly at the five world leaders in various stages of dress, "I'm sorry to drag you away from your beds, but this development could not wait, not if I wanted to keep from destroying this whole system to keep the virus from spreading."

Turning to glance at the wall behind him, a wall divided into many different sections, each representing a part of the United States. The three sections he had been most worried about flashed from yellow to red, "Report how many of the people have we rescued?" Aaron's voice was tense as he waited.

Xon looked over the data and sighed; they did better than he had hoped they would, "We were able to rescue ninety four percent of the people in the containment zones."

Aaron let the tears flow freely as he looked over at his lovers grouped together to offer support, "Contact the President."

"Aaron.Love we saved more than I thought we would be able to," Pete moved close so he could hug Aaron.

"I know, and we would have lost those thousands if we did not have the wonderful technology you and Xon developed," Aaron hugged Pete back as the side screen lit up with the President's face in it.

"Missile detonation, I have multiple missile detonations."

Aaron stared at the President who looked shocked and frightened, "Location?"

"Location United States. Kansas and Tennessee.Correction we have missile detonations recorded in France and the interdiction barrier around Israel has come under attack."

"So they would attack while we are busy, hoping we were distracted," Aaron's gaze on the President never faltered. "Otto, who sent the launch signal to the French nuclear weapons?"

"Iran or Libya the signal originated almost simultaneously from those countries' capitals," Otto replied slowly.

"Remove the French military, Otto, send in your Marines and secure the President of France , he has answers that we need," Aaron glared at the screen with the President on it, he still had to surrender, "Xon bring the SE003 into orbit and the Middle East is yours, remove everything but the hospitals."

"YOU WHAT!!!" Tim screamed out angry, facing Aaron he spat out, "The state of Kansas just declared war on the Kingdom. They did it in the name of the North American Holy Land!"

Walking over to the desk, Aaron traced his log in ID on the table top and the terminal came to life, making an adjustment to the controls, he nodded as he activated the MCA's along with the transporters and started to transport them around the capital of Kansas the moment they rematerialized they started to remove all manmade structures. Glancing back up at the President, he coldly told him, "Kansas will be gone in twenty minutes, suffering the same fate as Iraq, do you want to continue this or surrender now?"

Not getting any response, Aaron stared intently at the President and wondered why he had not made any comments; in fact he was not moving at all. Confused, Aaron made another adjustment to the terminal and brought up the inside of the white house situation room and noticed all the bodies lying on the floor. Deactivating the cloak on the SE110 he moved it around and saw the bullet hole on the side of the President's head and sighed, he was not going to get that surrender any time soon, it looked like.

Victoria shook her head sadly, "Sid, you always did have the best intentions, but you were so misguided."

Directing the feed into the world wide broadcasts, Aaron set the controls to rewind the video feed from the last hour in the SE110's memory core and fast forwarded it to the point there was yelling to get the President, hitting play, Aaron watched and listened to what happened.

Rushing in the door, Sid looked around at the panicked faces, "What the hell happened now?"

"Sir.Several minutes ago the Alteran's attacked with the same weapons they used in Hawaii, they have chosen several sites outside of our borders but the majority they have attacked are inside the United States."

Confused, Sid moved closer to the map, "But these spots for the most part nothing is supposed to be there.Right?"

"God Damn them to hell for this blasphemy," the President's wife swore as she saw the sites being attacked, they were all their most important labs and bases.

"Gloria!!!" Sid sputtered in shock, looking at his wife as if it was for the first time.

"Shut it you gutless wonder," Gloria signaled one of the guards who pulled out a silenced pistol, took aim and fired several times around the room, killing the staff. "You should have never consorted with those demon spawn." Pulling a small 22 caliber pistol out of the folds of her housecoat, Gloria aimed it at her husband and sneered, "By the order of the North American Holy Land and the Army of God, I sentence you to hell you unclean soul." She pulled the trigger.

Aaron watched them move the bodies and leave the room, the only one left was the officer by the communication console, and once he had accepted the request for a connection with him he slipped out of the room.

Looking at the pickup Aaron sighed, "So the United States federal government is no more, I give the states of North America ten minutes to contact me and surrender. If you have not done so already, this is your only chance to not find yourself in the morning back in the Stone Age." Touching the control, he killed the replay and looked around the room, settling on the Shaolin, "Send in the Shaolin, blanket every state that has surrendered with your troops. As we did in New York and California exam the police and emergency service personal, then the rest of the government, remove all military as you go, make sure you have the WD758's with your teams, I want no casualties on our side."

Aaron went around the desk and sat down heavily in the chair placing his head in his hands as he tried to control his emotions.

Edward looked round as people worked and softly gave reports to each other or members of the clan, and he looked at Aaron with his head bowed, face in his hands, spotting the plasma screens with the world news on it, and seeing that what was happening in this room was still being transmitted as reporters speculated Edward stood and slowly made his way to Aaron's side and knelt down next to him, glancing back at the grandmother and the other leaders he touched Aaron's arm, "Come the morning, so many will condemn you, while others will tell the people of the world you had no choice, right here right now, having the full knowledge of what we faced and what would have happened if you did not take action. I am telling you Aaron Stranton, you had no choice, I thank you for saving the world, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the courage and humanity to save my people and grieve for those who you could not save this night."

Chairman Woo stood and followed his Russian counterpart to the main desk, he was followed by the emperor and the King of Denmark, bowing formally Woo told Aaron knowing this was going out live to the world, "The armies of the Peoples Republic are yours to command, Great Dragon."

"As are the armies of the Russian Nation," President Gorbivonovich told him also bowing respectfully.

"We owe you a debt of gratitude for saving the world," Morimoto bowed low, "Our armies are not large, but they are yours to command."

"As are mine," Jens smiled, "More importantly we will start gathering relief supplies to those who will need it, so they do not starve."

"Tell us Aaron," Victoria moved behind her grandson, "Tell us what we need to do to help."

"Nothing can be done right now, Go home and try to get some rest, tomorrow, tomorrow we can figure out what happened and what needs to be salvaged and fixed, hopefully the other states are not as foolish after seeing Kansas sent back into the stone age," Aaron smiled tiredly.

"Come on Love, let's go in the other room, I'll give you a massage to help relax you," Kevin smiled as he offered and pulled Aaron up from his chair.

Grabbed by Kenny and Doug, Aaron relented and allowed them to lead him out of the room.

Half an hour later Kevin walked back into the room and Pete looked up, "Where's Aaron?"

"I finally got him to sleep; I left him snuggled up with the rest of the Clan, I figured we five can take care of most of this and when he wakes up in the morning we can get some sleep," Kevin smiled as he took the desk Aaron was at half an hour ago.

Aaron rolled over and opened an eye, he did not remember falling asleep, yet here he was in the middle of the cushion bed someone had made surrounded and entangled with most of the Clan. Carefully untangling arms from around him he looked around and the only way out of the pile so he could go to the bathroom was by porting, chuckling softly he ported to the bathroom and took care of the morning needs including his shower before dressing and making his way to the kitchen where someone had been busy it looked like, rolls and other assorted goodies were all over the counter and several warmers were powered up, peaking inside he saw them full of eggs and sausage. Fixing his plate he quickly ate so he could find out what had happened while he slept, though how in the world he fell asleep was still puzzling.

Damp washcloth to wash his hands in one hand, giant sticky cinnamon bun in the other Aaron walked into the situation room and noticed the dark Shift crews were still here along with two of his lovers, moving over to where they were working he kissed Kevin with his sticky mouth, "Good morning love, I thank you for the sleep, though I have no idea how or why you would let me sleep like that."

"MMM, cinnamon bun," Kevin giggled tiredly as he licked Aaron's lips and then grabbed the bun out of Aaron's hands, "Most of what happened last night did not need you hovering about, but this morning when the sun rises in the states, you will need to be fresh and on top of things, we left detailed notes for you to go through and ordered everyone to get a few hours sleep around three." Biting into the bun Kevin smiled, "I remember several Shaolin walking towards the kitchen not too long ago, and they have been great making sure we had food and enough to drink, anything we needed really."

"Once things settled down we made Tim, Pete and Fred go get sleep," Xon raised an eyebrow as he looked at Kevin who was giggling, "I plan to get nourishment then sleep, the three RS003's are finished to Alteran standards and in orbit while the MRB's finish the merging of technology, they will be fully complete as designed by," Xon looked up at the clock, "1000 hours station time. After this crisis is over I wish to modify the building timetable for the new fleet, incorporating the replication suite early on gives a tremendous boost to efficiency, also."

Aaron stared at Xon through the explanation before stepping over and kissing him to stop his explanation, "Love your rambling." letting out a soft laugh at the incredulous expression on Xon's face he shook his head in amusement, "Go on Love, go get something to eat and get some sleep," glancing back at Kevin he couldn't resist so he gave him another kiss before asking, "What time did you tell everyone to be back for an update meeting?"

"Seven thirty," Kevin smiled before pulling Xon over so they could get food and sleep, "If you need us we will be camping out in your office."

"Thanks Kevin, alright you two best go get at least some sleep," Aaron watched them walk out before turning to look up at the map. Starring at it, he realized that someone had placed the map he had originally envisioned with the spilt of the country above another which showed the actual way things ended up. More states had surrendered than he expected, on the other hand, he snorted, they were too scared to do otherwise, the real question was what the hell did he do with them now that he in a sense, captured the country.

Ten states had refused to surrender, Kansas down to Texas and then east to the coast, Florida was the hold out in that swath, it was in yellow, meaning it had surrendered and was in the process of being examined. Glancing at Kevin's meticulous notes he smiled they had been working overboard on producing weapons drones; hundreds of thousands of the drones were patrolling the United States. Reading further down he saw that they had come up with a bracelet they locked on the wrists of the telepathically cleared police officers that would keep the drones from removing them as a threat because of their duty weapons, someone was being creative.

"Did you ever imagine doing something like this, Aaron?" Edward had moved up next to Aaron quietly.

Staring at the monitor as one of the states went from yellow to green, "Truthfully.When I started out into the world, exploring and rescuing kids, I had a very narrow mindset. I was going to release some old technology to the world, to give myself a face to the world so my agents could continue rescuing kids; I had a plan mapped out." Sitting down on the desk he smiled in greeting at Edward, "This plan I came up with even included eventually opening a hospital as another means of getting my people more visible and accepted, giving us a cover for our rescue work. I had an intense mistrust of outsiders, those people who were not gay; who persecuted others because they were different than they were, then I met your Thomas."

"Me your Majesty, what did I do," Thomas had followed Edward up from the visiting dignitary quarters was confused.

Smiling, Aaron glanced over at Thomas, "You did the unthinkable in my mind; you were willing to go to another country and face jail just to hand me several pieces of paper. Granted, you had been ordered to do so, even if it was worded as a polite request, and you used every contact and resource to make sure I got that folder. Do you have any idea of the significance of you kneeling before me that day truly meant?"

Seeing the grim look on Thomas's face, Aaron smiled, "You did, didn't you; I had to wonder if you knew that you had just placed your life in my hands to judge you.you see, I happen to know that kneeling in front of a monarch is not the custom in the outside world. You see Edward; he could only have known what to do by viewing the recordings of the treaty signing all those years ago, Where the King of Altare stood in judgment of those refusing to sign the treaty to leave my kingdom alone."

Staring at Edward as the young king to be's father and grandmother walked in, "Edward, that was a defining moment, here was someone from the outside world willing to be judged, all so I would look at the papers in that folder. He was willing to die by my hand if it meant I would open that folder. It opened my eyes, and it let me think in other directions past just taking the best and brightest off the planet and leaving all of you to your doom. Up until that point Edward, every plan and contingency I had built involved swift death to the persons breaking the original treaty, I even had over four dozen different ways to destroy the United States, because of the fact that it was the home to the government that would eventually destroy the world."

"Edward, these stations are not only the travel hub for a planetary system, as we proved last night we can quickly move them from one system to another. And in an emergency we can put almost a million people on each of them," Aaron saw the stares being directed his way. "It had always been the plan Edward, that if the Army of God surfaced we would bring every station into Earth's orbit and remove every person under the age of sixteen we could get our hands on, and as the last station left Earth's orbit we would destroy this solar system, so the plague of insanity would never have a chance to go out into the universe."

Smiling and in a lighter tone, Aaron saw the stunned looks on the world leaders' faces, they had followed Victoria in and heard the end of his story, "Your Thomas got me thinking, and then your grandmother did the unthinkable, well at least to my mind that is. She gave me the Letters of Marque, you might know what they mean up here Edward," Aaron touched his finger to Edwards forehead before placing his hand over Edward's chest. "But in here, they mean I hold the right to judge every single person in your country when it comes to your children and their future happiness, in here Edward," Aaron tapped his hand against Edwards chest. "In here it meant so much more, it meant throwing out every single plan that had been created over the hundreds of years and rethinking everything."

"As an experiment we opened ourselves to you three, the next royals in the line of succession, and not only did you meet every expectation, but you surpassed them, showing us true love, even going as far as your cousin and your brother marrying into our family. And still you shined by your own rights, taking my Clan's Motto to heart and living it, when that happened Edward, it opened up the possibilities of letting the rest of the world join us in space. It allowed me to decide to prepare and open five of the sixty five worlds in my empire for the good and decent people of the Earth to move to," Aaron laughed as Edward was embarrassed and nearing information overload. "To answer your question Edward, did I ever expect that," Aaron pointed over his shoulder at the plasma with the maps on it, "No Edward all I ever imagined before meeting up with your family was creating large lakes on the planet below us or destroying it completely."

"Death and destruction is easy Edward, what is happening now is something totally different and even though some people lost their lives, and more than a few are hurt and injured, it is not the hundreds of millions of dead I had planned on," Aaron pulled Edward into a hug before giving him a chaste kiss on his cheek, after all this was being broadcast to the world. "Since everyone is here early, let's get started, then I can decide what to do about the ten states that we sent into the Stone Age overnight."

"Before we get to the United States, Otto, what happened with France and the Middle East?" Aaron sat behind the desk and looked to the world map where Otto moved to.

"If you don't mind your Majesty I will start with the Middle East and leave the arrogant son of a whore until last." Otto looked at his P.A.D.D., "Pakistan, Jordon, Syria, Iran and Turkey have had all manmade structures removed, Libya started lobbing nerve gas and biological weapons at everyone it could target before we intervened. And Xon ordered the sterilization of the country, to ensure the disease riddled corpses did not infect the rest of the world. I guess I should mention that when we had the Screaming Eagles attack, there was no one living left in that country, their leaders had already killed off their own people with the nerve gas. Libya is now part of the Mediterranean Sea."

Aaron looked at the stunned world leaders as Otto zoomed in on the northern coast of Africa and took in the new shape, "What is the chance of survival of those in those countries now that the infrastructure is totally gone?"

Glancing back at his P.A.D.D. Otto shrugged, "Without outside intervention roughly half will die."

Frowning as he looked up, Aaron thought about it for several moments, "If any of the neighboring states want those countries and people, and can come up with a workable way to integrate them let them, if after a week no one steps forward, place them under an interdiction barrier, one powered for a thousand years and they will no longer be anyone's problem." Making several notes of his orders in the system he also added a note to rescue any and all gay people and children that needed it before the barriers went into place, he also noted they would have to pass mind healers scans before being allowed out. "And the French problem?"

"Ah the arrogant one," Otto told him as he touched the terminal changing the screen, "We removed France's ability to field a military, and after speaking with their President who was quite upset that their nuclear missiles blew up in his silos as they launched, and the surprise that they were in fact not nuclear. It was all I could do not to slap him silly, he was still ranting when I left, as a country they are intact. As a military power they are powerless. They still have the manpower but would have to build new weapons to be anything but an annoyance."

"Well than I will be happy for the French people, and glad for the world that we removed all nuclear weapons worldwide then," Aaron gazed into the pickup, seeing Tim and Fred he smiled, "Good Morning loves, did you have a chance to eat?" chuckling at their nods and half eaten rolls they waved at him, "Yes well, unless your offering, watch how you wave those rolls, they might get snatched up like mine was."

"I'm sure there are a lot of leaders that frankly, are scared shitless this morning as they found out what happened last night, so we are back to the problem child again," Aaron looked at the plasma and frowned in thought. "Tim have you started to release those we rescued last night, the ones from the towns built on top of the bio-weapon labs?"

"Um." swallowing his mouthful of cinnamon bun Tim giggled as he looked at his sticky hands and ported in a wet towel to wipe them with, "Well we had to be careful after starting to release them from the transporter buffers, several of them had small vials of those germ weapons on them. We changed to scanning them during rematerialization; actually we moved to finishing the transport with putting them through the filters and removing anything not part of or attached firmly to their bodies."

Fred chuckled, "Yeah we had a few tense moments after several parents found out we removed their kids braces, the kids were happy until they found out they would have to have them put back on."

"Anyway, all of them except the one hundred and twenty scientists of the North American Holy Land involved in creating those weapons are out of the buffers; we transferred all those scientists to the Reliant's buffers until you tell us what to do with them. Of the rest we found out that ninety percent of them were part of the Army of God in some way and all of the kids under seventeen years old have been taken into custody. Of the five thousand some people we saved, nine hundred were released after passing telepathic scan verifying they were not part of the enemy. I wasn't sure what to do with the rest so I had them moved to the bottom of one of the craters where the bases once were, I figured they would not be able to get out of a one mile deep hole with smooth straight sides."

Making the connection to the Reliant's computer core, Aaron ordered the system to clear the buffers, finger poised above the activation key he sighed, "All those that would create biological weapons, weapons that would destroy life everywhere in the universe, well we are better off without them," touching the blinking square, Aaron bowed his head, "So executed, may their souls rot in hell."

Glancing back at the map Aaron noticed several states go from green to blue, the Shaolin had been busy, and thankfully because of their numbers he had the option of not destroying part of the world.

Victoria followed Aaron's gaze up to the monitor and saw the last state in yellow turn to green as the reports came back that government services had been cleared, she almost missed it when Aaron started to speak, so soft were his words.

"Well what to do with you now." Aaron thought out loud as he stared at the screen, "Of course we already know the best and brightest will be hounding us to immigrate off world, so what to do with the rest of you. Food and water will need to be set up and some areas to get the people out of the elements." Staring at the map as he thought, "we can rebuild the farms and houses, that part is easy."

Spotting something as he was scrolling through the images on the terminal, Aaron looked over at Pete, "Is there a reason there is this section of Arkansas still standing, and to the point you went and installed a power generator so they had power and services?"

Tim looked over at the screen and shrugged, "Oh yeah, that is Bixby County, they surrendered to you the other day remember, so we left them alone, there should be a few other counties and communities scattered around those ten states that early on surrendered, we left them alone and figured we could rebuild out from there."

Reconfiguring the map to show the ten states in larger detail he noticed all the green islands among the red, "All right that will work then, we'll reclaim them from the outside in and from these islands of sanity out, for now Alteran Law is the law of the land, once all the states have been cleared of the shadow government the governors of each state shall meet and come up with several options for the people to vote on, including being allowed to be one of my territories I expect that meeting to take place in a week's time." Finding several notes from Chris he looked around the room, "Chris you had a problem to report with the U.S. naval fleet and bases."

"Yes Prime, the shadow government.Hell can I call them by what they call themselves without you scowling daggers at me every time you hear the name?" Chris sighed chuckling at the slow and deliberate nod he got as an answer, "Fine, it seems the Army of God had infiltrated the navy and other branches to a high degree in the past few years, almost a third of the naval fleet was sunk by internal sabotage on what had to be orders from the higher ups in their holy government of some such stupid long name. These ships would have been loyal to the true U.S. government, so they booby trapped them and blew as Pete is fond of saying, 'huge honking holes in them', we sent some sub fighters to investigate why they disappeared and found the holes."

"What is more disturbing are the ten large aircraft carriers that went dead in the water, our scans indicate that the crews succumbed to nerve gas, as such I have highlighted them for recycling, the quicker the better in my mind in case nerve gas was not all they used, "Chris made his point before moving on , "All bases outside the confines of the United States are under lockdown on the orders of their base commanders and I would like to know what you want to do about them, including the embassies?"

"Pete if you would port the MCA's over to those ships and take care of them," Aaron smiled at him as he activated the MRB's around the ninety eight holes he created last night, filling the bottoms with new bedrock, he would fill the holes until there was only four or five hundred feet left and then turn them into lakes, making an adjustment to the instructions when he got a warning flag for one of the holes, he reset the MRB's around section 79 so they left a small one mile deep hole in the center, the section the prisoners were in.

"Alright we have a timetable, a week from now the people will vote on a new government, and hopefully in two days time we will be totally out of the country except for those ten states," Aaron glanced at the terminal screen as he read reports and started thinking out loud again, "Okay so if I keep those ten as territories, by rights of conquest.I suppose I could.no I don't think so, if I am going to the trouble to rebuild them then they are mine, if anyone doesn't like it they can move."

Nodding Aaron looked up at the pickup and raised his voice back to normal, "If I am going to rebuild what we removed, those ten states are mine, if the people are so against it I will not lift a finger to rebuild or help them, I did not start this shit but I ended it." Looking over at the Shaolin he smiled, "Move the armies into those states, talk to and examine the people, if they do not want to live under our rule then send them to one of the other states. Those that want to stay allow them to choose from the designs we will use on the colony worlds and if they need help rounding up their livestock give it to them. I will station RS003 A through C above those ten states, use them to rebuild houses and barns first, businesses and cities last."

"As you command, Great Dragon," Elder Sung bowed as he closed his eyes to pass along the orders.

"While we are rebuilding those states, Pete build three of the Immigrations centers there," Aaron glanced over at the five world leaders sitting watching and smiled, "I might take you up on your offer of food and water so we can deliver them to those ten states, while you are up here if you want to tell Pete where you would like the immigration step off centers built in your country we can get those out of the way at the same time." Standing after closing down his terminal, "For the most part I think the crisis is over and I thank you for your support, now I think a short break and say after lunch we can finish meeting about the colonization project."

Editors' ramblings

RadioRanchers note: My goodness, that was quite a wild ride!

I must say that I kinda thought the US would suffer to some degree or another. It is going to be quite a task.

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher

A/N

The reset is courtesy of the evil editing staff, so blame them, LOL. Actually Darryl was telling me it would be pretty cool to have a slight reset and after placing the fifth chapter in the out take file for destroying the US to early I finally went through with it, but this time with the least amount of bloodshed.

I finished this chapter as I posted chapter 9 to nifty and this caused me to go all the way back to chapter 9 to tweak it forward so I could catch any plot threads left hanging unintentionally.

Remember folks you're talking about the person that can and does take 35 chapters to tie a thread back in and close it out.Well.J not really as I still have not showed you how Jordy reunited with Adam and his brothers now have I, maybe another 15 chapters I will consider it LOL.