Adventures of the Cosmic Woman

Chapter Twenty-Six

'Siiiir...' Lieutenant Colonel David Mostert answered. His eyes swam with questions. Mouth hung agape. Face flushed red as though he was just told he was being fired. '... Sir....'

'Something wrong, Lieutenant Colonel?' Courtman asked from across the vast oak desk. He sat back in his chair. Mostert looked down into his hands where they were wedged between his knees. Thinking looked painful.

Fucking Armoured Corps

'Well...'

'You don't like it?'

'I don't like this idea of retirement, sir,' Mostert managed to say. 'With all respect... and with no objection, sir... but since you ask, sir... I... I...'

'You're amongst you friends here, David,' Courtman said.

'Well, this feels a bit like retirement, sir,' Mostert said. He looked at Courtman again. Face flushed. Eyes almost teary.

'You've got experience with this... woman,' Courtman said, waving off the word woman. 'And your boys did an absolutely stellar job bringing her in. I told you that.'

'No, you did sir.'

'Well, there it is again. I'll expect the secretary's request for their medals tomorrow morning.'

'Of course, sir.'

'That's why it has to be you,' Courtman said. 'Has to be.'

'But deployment in Africa...'

'It'll be handled by the Australian Defense Force and the United States Armed Forces in a joint operation that you and your men will luckily get to sit out in the comfort of your brand-new barracks, David. Since when are Armoured the first to deploy anyway?'

'I...'

'Come on, talk to me.'

'I don't think that's what any of my men signed up for. You said she was contained by... you said it was contained by the Pine Gap research thing.'

'Research from the Pine Gap Space Force Research Facility.'

'Yes,' Mostert said. 'That. Well... She won't get out then.'

Courtman leaned forward and clapped his hands together softly. 'Do you have that much faith in the academics at Pine Gap? I didn't know.'

'You think she will?' Mostert asked.

'If she did - how would we look if nobody was there to stop her but a bunch of eggheads and prison guards?'

Mostert nodded quickly with his eyes squeezed shut like a child.

'Most importantly, the public might think she will escape,' Courtman said with a finger raised and eyes squinted. 'The public. You're our PR force, David. People don't want to see men stalking around with machine guns. They want to see artillery. Heavy weapons. They want to know they're safe. And it's not just Cosmic Women. They're niggers in those prisons just like there was Spicks when we headed over to South America. You know we had neighborhood watch groups and armed citizens wandering around the communities near prisons when they started rioting? People genuinely thought a bunch of Diegos were going to climb over the walls like their monkey grandparents and run rampant.'

'I remember they showed the executions on television...'

'And that was good. But there's a fucking superhuman in there now as well. If the niggers riot like the spickos did then people are going to be even more edgy. I don't mind a lynch mob. But it doesn't look good for us.'