Five days had passed after the second E.X.T.I.R.T operation….
But the whole world was not shaken because of the supposedly third time the aliens visited mankind on Earth.
It was instead because of the wiping out of more than one hundred North Korean elite soldiers, all of them returned in only body parts to their families, forcing them to demand for justice.
While on the other hand, Russia was putting the full blame on North Korea for unauthorized military operation on their soil led and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Kim Dae Yeon of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force.
To make it worse, his body together with the scythe spear and the Vulture stealth aircraft was nowhere to be found, even when Russia conducted a full-scale search operation on every edge of the archipelago.
The result was nihil….
E.X.T.I.R.T, on that matter, could not explain much to the North Korea as they were lacking in evidence about prove of an extraterrestrial invasion, save for the beam trident halberd and the Phoenix Gunship; both of which were then in the save hands of E.X.T.I.R.T, and absolutely only military officials representative from the US, Russia, Japan, and Germany who could look at the technologies.
It was because by the time they had wanted to approach the supposed location of the alien voyager, there was literally nothing there except for a vast ocean on the edge of a tiny island….
…because the voyager had been far gone back to the outer space by the time Zonatyan and Yeon was duelling to the death by using the halberd and scythe spear.
Due to the lack of more proves, Yeon's uncle released a statement to the Supreme Leader that they had the right to sue and issue an official military response.
Although showing support, the Supreme Leader himself had yet to make his final answer regarding the statement.
With everything that had been going on, the relation between Russia and North Korea turned sour all of a sudden. Talks about how Russians living and working in North Korea should be returned and vice versa were getting more and more attention with each passing day, completely not helping in suppressing the ever-rising tension between the two countries.
.
Meanwhile, back in E.X.T.I.R.T Southern Hemisphere Headquarter located in Kalimantan Island, Indonesia.
Four men in their fifties; Rear Admiral Gabe Quentin of the US Navy, Major General Gillian Girsang of the Indonesian Army, Lieutenant General Uriel Diatrich of the German Army, and Colonel Dmitriy Pavlov of the Russian Army were in the middle of interrogating five men related to the plans and executions of both stealing alien technology from E.X.T.I.R.T, and sabotage of the second operation.
Those five men, were Vice Admiral Mickey Stone who had been captured by 1st Lieutenant Ryan Ming two years earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Eustachy Adamowsky who had been captured and his left hand severed by Colonel Pavlov, Colonel Adamowsky's last remaining soldier who had been captured by 2nd Lieutenant Alek Ganzov, the Surgeon Doctor who had been admitting Zonatyan's wounds prior to the second E.X.T.I.R.T operation, and a Brigadier General in the USAF.
All five of them had been beaten, injured, and cut rather badly by the four men who, unlike most interrogation procedures leaving the whole process to the hands of an expert interrogator, they decided to do the deed themselves; not only they could barely trust anyone else outside of E.X.T.I.R.T, they also came to understand that there was even no guarantee that their colleague from long ago would not hesitate to stab them in the back while the whole world was shaken by an extraterrestrial threat.
So, they just had to hear the spilled information through their own ears, and not from the mouth of the others.
"Alright, let us get back to eight years ago, one more time, okay?!" Colonel Pavlov said just before he hooked-punch Colonel Adamowsky, the one behind the deaths of his twenty-three soldiers in the Gdynia incident.
"Gharkg!!" Colonel Adamowsky yelped, continued by panting as he could hardly breath.
"Now, say it very clearly." Colonel Pavlov pointed his micro recorder right in front of Colonel Adamowsky's mouth.
"With whom do you have the deal with back then to steal the prototype enhanced Havoc helicopter, forcing my men to be your collateral damages, and supplied the pirates with a few spares of Strela rocket launchers?"
"Urgh… it was… ngrh… Brigadier General… Charles Ingram." He answered with the very last breath that he had in his lungs.
Turning off the micro recorder, Colonel Adamowsky stepped back and patted General Girsang's shoulder, giving him the recorder and signalling him that it was his turn next to interrogate the other four.
But, of course, he went for General Ingram since he must clarify something related to his special forces' operation in wiping out the last radical organization in his country.
Stopping right in front of him, General Girsang showed him a couple of pictures.
"You recognize the man in these pictures, right?" He raised his eyebrows.
General Ingram did not give out any words of response from his swollen lips.
General Girsang mentioned about how a very young officer together with only a few men managed to storm inside the last hideout for a specific radical group in his country, and eliminated him for good. The man shown in the picture was the leader of that group.
For that young officer, it was his personal vengeance for his deceased little brother.
But for him, it was a revelation that the radical group had back then recently received an amount of firearms supply. Tracking back its route, and through countless assistances from his close friend, Vice Admiral Quentin, he found out that the firearms had been actually some of the retired weapons coming from the USAF.
…and the one responsible for managing those weapons back at that time, was Major General Charles Ingram.
"I… was… under deep threat." General Ingram had his left eye slowly turning to General Girsang's.
"From who?" General Girsang had the recorder on his right hand.
"Vice Admiral… Mickey Stone." He turned his head weakly to the mentioned man.
"You assho- ARGHKK!!"
"It is not your turn to talk yet… Mick." General Diatrich said as he calmly kneed the Vice Admiral's stomach with his left leg, effectively cutting off his words.
Coughing out blood for the fourth time, Vice Admiral Stone had even less energy to speak out any words by then. As it was finally General Diatrich's turn, he received the recorder given to him from General Girsang's hand.
"Now. Straight answers only Mick." General Diatrich said as he slapped the already weakened Vice Admiral with the back of his left hand.
"The alien's technology. You wanting to take their weapons, it was all for your agenda in finalizing the Direct Energy Weapon was not it?"
"Heh… and you lot just blow the plan up to hell… you assholes!" The admiral spitted to the General's shoe.
Lieutenant General Diatrich did not lose his composure, unlike Colonel Pavlov. He simply delivered another knee kick to his groin, forcing the Vice Admiral to submit again.
"You even dared to threaten both Lieutenant Travis Burners and 1st Lieutenant Billy Mubarak to submit to your plan, while considering them as a mere collateral damage?" The Lieutenant General sighed.
"You do realize that there is no way for you to escape death penalty if you are going to the trial, right?"
"What do you know, huh? No one will be able to take down a-"
"Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in U.S. Department of Defense?" General Diatrich cut the Vice Admiral's unfinished words.
Rear Admiral Quentin then approached the Vice Admiral, not saying any words, and just showing him a letter issued directly by both the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the US Department of Defense.
The content? It was about their decision to dishonorably discharge Vice Admiral Stone from his position.
"What!?" He immediately used what strength left in him to look at the letter once again.
But nevertheless, he was not mistaken.
"B-but-"
"And considering your old age, Mick… I believe you are now just an ordinary retired Navy Officer." General Diatrich concluded and chuckled.
Rear Admiral Quentin took a step back and unholstered his Smith and Wesson 27 before pointing it at his forehead, point blank range.
"N-NO!!"
Pulling the trigger, the bullet went straight though his forehead, and to the wall right behind him, splattering the blood from his brain and killing him instantly.
Right after that, the surgeon doctor who was tied right next to him yelled out as loud as he could, begging for his life to be spared.
"W-wait!! No more! Please! I was under order from that man to observe and make sure Major Xenov would not return from the operation alive!" He screamed out.
"Yet, you failed, doctor…" Rear Admiral Quentin responded short.
"P-please…" He sobbed.
"Have mercy on me… spare me."
Rear Admiral Quentin turned to General Diatrich for a moment, who just raised his shoulders as a response, signalling him that the doctor's wish should be granted…
…by a bullet to the head, saving him from further fear and torture.
It was General Diatrich's turn to put the second guilty man down. Taking out his Mauser 1914, he quickly took the doctor's life by shooting him in the head from behind, as a mockery of himself in trying to kill a high-ranking officer in a dirty and very painful yet slow way.
After that, both Major General Girsang and Colonel Pavlov proceeded to also fire their Browning Hi-Power and Tokarev handguns to the guilty men in front of them to the head, as they then had all of the direct confessions from the guilty.
And with that, only the Polish Army soldier left alive….
He had both of his eyes closed, his lips trembling, and both his legs shaking uncontrollably.
There was a moment of silence inside the room, before Colonel Pavlov decided to set him free by cutting off the rope tied around his hands.
"You were just following orders." Colonel Pavlov patted his back.
The soldier looked very surprised; he thought that it would be his turn last to be killed the exact same way like the rest of the four men before him.
"But no looking back, son… who knows if either of us suddenly changed our mind."
Upon hearing that, the soldier immediately ran away with his life, without looking back to either of them anymore.
"Oh, on second thought…." Colonel Pavlov suddenly aimed his handgun towards the fleeing soldier.
"I just remembered; Sergeant Major Murkowski, you were also involved in that incident eight years ago, right?"
Firing off a bullet and hitting the fleeing soldier right through his heart, a loud thud shortly followed as his dead body collapsed to the floor almost instantly.
"And now…" General Girsang sighed.
"Time for us to do the whole cleaning."
"Still very much easier than cleaning the whole department of defense in each of our own countries, Gill…." Rear Admiral Quentin chuckled.
"Now, I wonder on how we can explain to Poland and North Korea about all these… thing that happened." General Diatrich gestured both of his hands towards the corpses of the corrupted and wicked men.
"I believe I can do at least pull a few strings to Poland." Colonel Pavlov cleared his throat.
"They still owe Russia an apology, after all. I am quite sure that the recording we made just now should more or less be enough to restore the relation between us, at least back to neutral."
The other three just nodded in silence, realizing full well that they could count on the Colonel.
As for North Korea… Lieutenant General Diatrich concluded that they would have to expect one hell of a tension especially to Russia, US, Germany, and to an extent maybe Indonesia too….
"There is just a never-ending drama to all these matters, is there?" Rear Admiral Quentin ended.
.
Back to E.X.T.I.R.T Northern Hemisphere Headquarter, inside one of the VIP hospital rooms….
Major Zonatyan Xenov had made it back there alive with the assistance of Colonel Pavlov right after what had happened five days earlier in the Franz Josef archipelago.
Although his condition was not as bad as it had been five years earlier, he had to spend eight hours in the operating room to close the severe wound caused by the beam scythe spear through the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Kim Dae Yeon.
But there was no need for him to worry about anymore; as all surgeons and doctors had been all checked and re-verified to make sure that they were not under orders from someone else to incapacitate an active E.X.T.I.R.T personnel.
Together in his room, were Lieutenant Travis Verelli Burners of the US Navy and 1st Lieutenant Ryan Ming of the US Army visiting their best friend who had been severely injured in the last E.X.T.I.R.T operation.
They were also waiting for 1st Lieutenant Billy Mubarak of the Indonesian Army and Dr. Jessica Evangelia, a young professional archeologist from Indonesia who had just earned her PhD degree less than a month before.
So, while they were waiting, they had been watching the news channel from every part of the world, with each of them showing the current rising tension between Russia and North Korea and that E.X.T.I.R.T had yet to give any official statement.
"It has been five days, and yet every news channels just keep on showing more of these recaps of everything that has been told from the first day." Ryan shook his head and sighed.
"Look at the bright side; for once, every domestic political issue in all countries have been replaced by these discussions." Travis, who was holding the TV remote pointed it towards the TV.
Zonatyan only closed his eye shut, trying to not spend any unnecessary energy out of his body. Since he could still barely move and talk in the first place.
Shortly after that, three knocks were heard from the other side of the entrance door.
"Just a second." Travis responded as he was approaching the door.
Opening up the door, Jessica immediately embraced his love interest tightly and proceeded by giving him a short pecking kiss to his lips.
"Wow you are both earlier than expected…." Travis could not contain his happiness upon seeing his girlfriend and his best friend able to move and walk again, despite his permanent and horrible scar on his back.
Holding his left hand, Jessica followed Travis back to Zonatyan's bedside while Billy closed the door shut behind him.
"Major Xenov, it is my honor to finally meet you in person." She suddenly was at loss for words upon seeing the bedridden young Major right in front of him as she instantly shook his right hand gently.
"I uh-"
"Just Jon, please…." Zonatyan smiled gently with his right eye completely welcoming her to the bunch.
Billy also finally had the chance to officially meet with him, and although he somehow managed to keep his cool, he was actually very nervous to be able to see the legendary young military officer who could endure and withstood a mortal attack from an extraterrestrial weapon not once, but twice, albeit still with a severe injury as a result.
With all five of them who had experienced and witnessed directly the extraterrestrial invasions that had taken place all around the world, Zonatyan finally showed them the reason behind his personal request for them to come to him.
"Here, help me get up…." Jon said to both of them.
"I need to clarify something."
"What are you going to do?" Travis asked him as he frowned while gently helping him to sit down on his bed.
"I will make three letters with the same content; Travis, Ryan you both will each hold one. Gabe will hold one too." Jon continued short.
"I need you both; Billy, Jessica, as witnesses that can confirm these letters are indeed of my own handwriting."
"What will you write about?" Ryan was still confused.
"What I need to write… to the people in the whole world." Jon began to take the papers and ballpoint on the table right beside his bed as he started to write his message meant for the people around the world.