The Feminist Queendom Charlie’s War 46 © Beverly Taff

Chapter 46
List of Characters.

Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Dawn Charlie’s armoured spaceship.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.
Margaret Thomas ‘Failed’ police security guard.
Sally. 1st Oz Special forces trooper
Jacky 2nd Oz Special forces trooper.
Juliet Charlie’s Mal engineering assistant.
Laura The second mate of the Second Dawn
Kate The castrated Australian defence minister.

Chapter 46.

It was raining as per the forecast when the group gathered at the parliament building.

The Prime Minister was and the defence minister were waiting as Charlie arrived late with Chloe in tow.

“You’re late Mr Sage,” Kate the defence minister charged as Charlie arrived with his copy of the white paper in hand.

“Late night reading I’m afraid.” Charlie waved the white paper. “It seems okay; I only had to endorse a couple of items but It seems okay to me.”

“What! You’ve read it all?” The surprised Prime Minister looked askance.

“Of course. You don’t think I’d commit to an act of war without first checking that document do you. By the way, why are there cameras here?”

“That’s my fault I’m afraid Charlie.” Katie confessed. “We’ll need evidence; - firstly that our government has at last taken action against the intruders and secondly, I need evidence to show I was a party to that action. Proving my loyalty to the government so the feminista can’t stab me in the back.”

It was Charlie’s turn to look askance at the Prime Minister.

“Were you aware of the accusations laid against Kate?”

“By the feminista wing of our party? Yes.” The P.M. admitted. “But she knows her stuff when it comes to defence and her knowledge is invaluable to me. It’s called political infighting Mr Sage. We’ve got plenty of extreme feminista takers for my job. I’m deemed to be the liberal wing. I only cling on to my job by dint of a diverse assembly of opposition that keeps my personal majority intact.

Charlie caught Juliet wagging her head slowly.

“What are your thoughts Julie?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if this is a trap, an inside job. Are those incursions really foreign planes or a gang of feminista militants just aiming to unseat the P.M.?”

“Their planes are better than anything Australia’s got.” The P.M. protested. “I don’t think any government with ambitions to attack us would let such sophisticated weapons fall into the hands of a militant bunch of rebels. Afghanistan taught everybody the folly of that.”

“I suppose so,” Juliet conceded. “Anyway whoever they are they’ll get short shrift from us.”

“You bet!” Charlie assured the whole assembly on the lawn as she added. “Anybody trying to stymie the universal human rights bill will have me and Dawn to contend with.”

There was a clear rumble of agreement throughout the group so Charlie stepped up to his spaceship Dawn.

“Let’s be getting on with this. Where were the last reported incursions?”

“Around Darwin.” The PM confirmed as she passed some reports to Kate. “You’ll have seen most of these, but the top one only arrived about fifteen minutes ago.”
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“We can read those en-route, let’s get going.” Charlie urged.

The four needed no further encouragement and moments later the Spaceship Dawn was sky-bound.

“Are your harnesses secure?” Charlie asked everybody.

“The chorus of yesses came back so he reached into a locker and produced four tight-fitting helmets with special ear plugs that fitted somewhat uncomfortably into each crew-member’s ears.

“Are all your helmets and ear-plugs tight?” He checked again and a second chorus of slightly impatient ‘Yesses’ erupted.

“Come on Charlie, what’s this about?” Katie demanded.

“Just watch and hold on!” Charlie replied as he switched off the gravity.

A moment later, Dawn immediately produced a series of violent rolls followed by flips, dives, turns, climbs and bone-crushing slews before finishing with a rapid series of spins that left Charlie’s crew stunned, but unharmed and above all still balanced. Only Katie, who had occasionally flown fast jets during her military career, realised that something special had just happened.

“How the hell did that just happen!? After those spins, we should be as dizzy as hell!”

“Just a little by-product of my gravity research.” Charlie confessed.

“How did you stabilise our inner ear tubes?”

“Don’t ask.” Charlie warned, “it’s another gravity by-product I discovered.
The induced extra gravity in the tips of the earplugs helps stabilise the fluid in the vestibular labyrinth much faster. You recover your balance and orientation almost immediately after any violent or rapid series of perturbations. It means fighter pilots can withstand much greater centrifugal, and gee forces yet stay functional. Welcome to superman world.” Charlie grinned.

“Bloody hell!” Katie squawked as she tested her hand-eye-foot, co-ordination.”

“That’s bloody amazing!”

“Right, let’s get to it then. Chloe can you do the usual honours with the radar and scanners?”

“Right with you darling.” Chloe agreed.

“Julie, up beside me in the co-pilot seat please and monitor the radios.”

“Right away boss,” Juliet complied; - ecstatic to be a vital part of the team. “And Katie, because your not fully au-fait with Dawns equipment, can I ask you to stand by at the navigation table. “When we knock these arseholes out of the sky, we’ll need to know the positions of any pilots that have bailed out. If they are alive, I wanna' catch them.”

“Gotcha’ Charlie.

With no more to be said the Dawn streaked through sub space then started loitering initially around Darwin. With Chloe peering into the ‘lookdown’ radar, it wasn’t long before they detected some suspicious activity over Nhulunbuy in the Gulf of Capentaria.

“Within minutes they had their target and started to investigate.”

“There’s four unidentified targets, speed four hundred knots, course one seven five degrees just approaching the coast.” Chloe reported.

Charlie immediately accelerated to a rendezvous point approximately ten thousand metres above the targets. Then advised Katie.

“Make sure your harness seat is securely fastened to the floor then just note the positions where we ram the target. Julie, keep tabs on any radio calls from Darwin control hailing the targets to identify themselves. If they don’t identify themselves I ram them.”

After a brief confirmation from Darwin, the targets were identified as unidentified bogies and Dawn was instructed to identify them. If they didn’t respond to instructions to land, Dawn had authority to intercept them.

“You all heard that team.” Charlie confirmed. “Licence to kill, - if necessary.”

As each of the team paid strict attention to their tasks, Charlie asked Katie to reveal when the targets crossed over the Australian coast.

“Why wait until then Boss? Katie wondered.

“I'd like to force at least one or even two of those bastards to bail out over land, but
I don't think they'll consider a peaceful surrender. So, when they try to skedaddle for wherever their home is, I hit them over the land first then the sea as they run for home - wherever that is. They’ll possibly have epirbs and we’ll soon locate them dead or alive.”

“You’re going to knock all of them down?” Juliet asked.

“Why not? They might be able to get a distress signal back to their base, but they’ll have no idea how or where they got hit. Our impact speed will exceed two hundred knots as I match speed to ram from behind.”

“One of them is bound to see you.”

“Once we see them from up here, I descend to their level without any radars, then I approach from below their sterns at very high speed and shove that sharp tungsten-titanium point up their engine nozzles and rip their engine to pieces. At first, he or she’ll think it’s engine trouble but I’ll have backed well off by then, probably several miles astern. They’ll be more concerned with their crony’s engine. While they mill around offering what support they can while focusing on their crony bailing out, I ram another one up the arse. Don’t forget, rear view in a high-speed fighter, is quite limited and I can travel much faster than them.

By then they’ll know they are the targets; - the prey as it were, but they still won’t know how the first or second one was hit and they’ll be looking for a missile attack. Once again, we will have ascended to a height above the atmosphere, where their missiles can’t fly.

“They’ll start to panic by then I hope and as they will have turned for home, they’ll be over the water. We strike from above and behind so we’re bound to get a third. Even if they see us, he or she cannot escape for they cannot out manoeuvre us.

“What if the fourth and last plane get’s a missile off down on the deck?”

“Even if it hit’s us, it’s unlikely to penetrate our hull. Air to air missiles are designed to knock down thin-skinned jets and finely tuned jet turbines, not armour-plated flying tanks.” Even our anti-grav spheres are located inside the armour.”

“And that last plane?” Katie asked.

“We order him or her to land, if he or she doesn’t we ram him or her out of the sky. That sharp point at the front of the glacis is not just streamlining.

“This, I’ve got to see.” Katie grinned.

“Here goes,” Charlie called as Chloe gave ranges and speeds.

“Ah! I can see them!” Chloe declared, “four of them, large as life and just as deadly.”

“Good, switch all radars off love. We wouldn’t want them to know we’re here would we.”

Chloe understood that their own radars would alert the intruder’s detection equipment so she did as requested. Dawn was now electronically silent as she started to descend rapidly to ground level behind the intruding jets. Once in such a seemingly impossible, disadvantaged position, Charlie accelerated to an extreme speed and brought the Dawn’s hardened nose into violent contact with the engine turbine blade up inside the fuselage.

Just as the nose entered the flame stream, the forward visor came over the screen to protect the super toughened glass then there was a deafening crash as the screaming jet turbine blades smashed themselves to destruction and the engine bay simply burst apart as thousands of dislodged, shattered turbine blades erupted out through the engine bay walls.

For an instant the noise was deafening as screaming, rending, turbine blades and heavier, engine pieces hammered themselves to destruction on the Dawn’s hardened nose. Then there was total silence as Charlie reversed the Dawn’s nose out of the engines of the jet and the plane immediately tipped into the tropical forest below.

“There you are ladies,” Charlie smiled with evil satisfaction, “just a nudge is all it takes at this level. He dived straight into the trees. No time even to alert his or her mates.”

“He got a shout off before he went down. It was some foreign Asian language and it was a man’s voice.” Juliet remarked.

“Did anybody see a parachute or ejector seat?”

A chorus of noes’ confirmed the kill as Charlie declared.

“One down, three to go; hold tight again.”

The three remaining targets were still just in sight and beginning to separate so Charlie accelerated again and the spaceship Dawn swiftly embedded her long sharp nose into the ‘tail-pipe’ of the hindermost fugitive. The results were identical and the Dawn’s crew watched the plane slam into the coastal salt flats as they overshot the flaming wreck.

“Did you tag their locations Katie?” Charlie asked the defence minister.

“Yes. Just a simple GPS, label.”

“That’s all the authorities will need. Can you still see the other two Chloe?”

“I’ve still got one but they separated. The other one seemed to head north. The one I’m watching is literally skimming the waves.”

“They know we’re here now. You might as well turn your radars back on, otherwise we might lose the last one. Make sure your harnesses are tight, it becomes a fairground ride from here.”

“They’re screaming blue murder over their intercoms.” Juliet turned to Charlie and held out his headphones.

“Great,” Charlie grinned wolfishly, “just make sure your recording.”

“Of course.” Juliet concurred, “every bloody word.”

“Do you know what language it is?”

“I’ve no idea.” Juliet returned the predatory smile as he replaced his headphones. “It sounds like a central Himalayan dialect to me.”

“No matter,” Charlie replied, “we can leave it to the authorities to sort all that out.”

“Just look at him trying to dodge and turn, I believe he’s fired a missile.” Chloe warned. “No! He’s fired two.”

“Hang on tight,” Charlie called out as he accelerated towards the missiles then side-slipped violently as they approached.

Their combined approach speed was too fast and too close for the missiles to respond with aerodynamic control and they watched with relief when the two missiles streaked past and exploded simultaneously exactly where the Dawn would have been had she not side-slipped so agilely. For a moment the three team members stared at the smoke from the explosion then Charlie had to call their attention.

“Ahem! Ladies we’ve still got some shopping to do. Lets get to it.”

They needed no further encouragement and turned their attentions to the fugitive dodging and twisting all over the sky.
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