Marsha did recover, and Jake Cain felt greatly relieved that Marsha was okay with hir transformation, though Marsha also made it clear that she intended to remain human. Jake didn't argue, as for the moment there were bigger issues to deal with. Shi waited quietly at one of the airports in the the Washington DC area waiting for one important guest. As shi waited she soon spotted him coming out of a terminal.
"Would you mind explain why I've been asked into all of this?" Raul Herroud asked as he approached the Hyenakat, "I was in the FRENCH army and am over six years out of direct service... Most of what I knew about American military procedure was within the confines of the NATO alliance and is probably out of date."
"Yes, but you've also had the most experience with regard to handling the outbreaks, and the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the generals put in charge of the possible campaign in Cuba feel your input on that would be invaluable," Jake explained, "Since they have the Virus... and likely provided the base from which the North Korean sub sailed from before the East Coast Outbreak... we could face a potential army of Kats..."
"I'm not sure on how much I can really help there," Raul answered, "what is likely to come will be a real WAR, not an outbreak. Kats are surprisingly tough in that they can recover from many injuries... gunfire is not one of them. Yes, having two hearts can protect against an instant kill if one heart is damaged... but the ballistics of modern military rifles would be so destructive to the internal organs that a Kat could take a round in the chest and their upper heart would be turned to mush and couldn't regenerate and the spinal cord would be snapped... the Kat or the Taur would then be paralyzed and its second heart would still be pumping blood through the body..."
"And it would bleed out where the bullet entered," Jake nodded, remembering news reports from the Paris Outbreak where potentially aggressive Kats had been killed by the French army and police in self defense. "But at the same time, they could be given body armor that could protect them..."
"Maybe, but the use of the Virus works best in a chaotic atmosphere, you don't want to unleash chaos on a battlefield that could potentially affect your side as much your enemies," Raul said firmly, "Unless any Cuban Kats are pre-vaccinated before going into battle... if they get close enough to bite, claw, or rape a soldier... that soldier will also become a Kat and since not pre-vaccinated, the new Kat would be lust filled... either to mate or to eat, and there is the great possibility that the newly transformed Kat would still go after either Cubans that aren't Kats already or might try to eat the Kat that turned them. Some of it might work if they launch it as a short range weapon at the landing area... but not in the front lines..."
The two began to slowly walk out and boarded a specialized car that would take them to the Pentagon. Their discussion continued as they rode along.
"It's why we've been making repeated orders for the Wise Vaccine to issue to the troops and to build up large stockpiles in Miami, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Mobile, and New Orleans," Jake commented, "and inquiring as to the progress on the Dead Vaccine..."
Raul then sighed. He was never really much of a scientist and couldn't explain that, and wished that he could have been allowed to bring Maurice or Snowy to this meeting. As far as he knew, the Wise Vaccine was replacing the Foxkat Vaccine, but they were still needing a vaccine to prevent humans from being transformed, and the idea for that was the Dead Vaccine. In theory that vaccine was to be produced the way most vaccines were produce, by killing the virus and then introducing the dead virus into the potential host. With the virus dead, it couldn't infect the person, but their immune system would still identify and react to the virus as if it were alive, thus killing it again. The person would then be immune to the virus. The new Wise Vaccine was likely to be the starting point for the creation of the Dead Vaccine, but Raul didn't know how far along Snowy and Maurice were with that. Jess, Ronnie, Mina, Daniel Streigt, Elise, and possibly even Kathy were helping with that, but with increased orders for the Wise Vaccine, research and development on the Dead Vaccine might be delayed.
"I'm afraid you'd have to call Janace for that," Raul finally said after a few moments.
Jake looked to the Foxtaur and then sighed. The whole thing was a mess, and had delayed hir official resignation, and as far as shi knew, Raul Herroud had also officially resigned his official post to be with is Kat wife and Taur child. The only thing that might prevent it would be a surrender by the Cubans, but apparently whatever they had been promised by the North Koreans, or something they had been given gave them additional confidence that they could win, and nothing like that had seemed to happen.
They eventually made it into the Pentagon building, the headquarters of the United States Military in Arlington, Virginia, and were greeted by a couple of soldiers who saluted and let them past. Part of Raul was intrigued by the pictures that lined the halls. While he generally had a problem with what was called the "ugly American" who tended to approach everything with an uber-patriotism that lead them to deride anything and everything that wasn't American, he did have great respect for those that respected others and he also respected the American military and its history. There were pictures of units of the "Air Cav" in Vietnam, an M4 Sherman shooting at something in Europe during WW2, a painting of John J. Pershing in Paris, and Ulysses S. Grant overlooking the siege of Vicksburg. It all made for an interesting history, which played to Raul's own personal history and interests.
They eventually made their way to a conference room where the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, three Generals, and an Admiral were also present.
"General Herroud, we thank you for coming to provide your expertise with regard to the various outbreaks in terms of dealing with the present issues with Cuba," the President said slowly.
"I'm not sure anything I can contribute anything that would help much," Raul said slowly, "As I told the Vice President, what you'll be facing is a war, not an outbreak. Kats are still vulnerable to bullets and neither Cuba nor North Korea have the technology that could deal with the weaponry your country has."
The others nodded but Raul noticed that their faces still carried some look of hope that something Raul could say would be helpful. Raul only sighed and let the meeting commence.
"Has there been any development on the diplomatic front?" the President asked to the Secretary of State.
"From Cuba, no," the Secretary of State answered, "Venezuela has protested against our blockade of Cuba, BUT they've stated they wouldn't take any military action... Russia and China have agreed to stand by, considering that they used the Kat Virus in their attack..."
"Thank goodness the virus froze to death," the President sighed, referring to the attack that Midnight tried to prevent and had been aimed at Toronto.
"So it looks like we will have to use military force to get the last scientists in Cuba and get control of what facilities they have," the Secretary of Defense commented.
"Will you ask for a declaration of war, sir?" Jake asked to the President.
"No, I think that would risk igniting an immediate war with North Korea and would hurt our relations with Venezuela and other states in Latin America," the President answered, "this will remain a "police action" and will only use a small portion of our military... but mostly our aircraft and navy."
"And in the past few weeks we have gathered three divisions that we have placed at Guantanamo as a security force," a US Army General, whose name plate read "Yaun," reported, "and a further four divisions are in Miami waiting to move."
"Two Marine Corps Divisions are in New Orleans, also waiting to move," a Marine Corps General, whose name plate read "Matthews," added, "all should be effective for dealing with the Cuban military..."
"The Canadians are also promising a division since the missile that was launched landed near Toronto and could could have been targeted there or at us..." the Secretary of Defense added.
"So we have the ground forces needed," the President nodded, "but the Kat Virus remains the elephant in the room."
"I do know that Maurice and Snowy have been delivering new stocks of the Wise Vaccine and that Charlie and Brent Wise have both been making donations of their venom for the Wise Vaccine," Raul spoke up, "If they use the Virus as a weapon against you in the field... you should have enough to deal with any members of your forces that they infect... and with regard to their Kats... I've said this before... but they can be killed with bullets..."
"And if they're armored?" the Secretary of Defense asked.
"Body armor won't completely stop bullets all the time... and would be useless against heavy weapons... tank rounds might be overkill... but if pushed... you could turn to them," Raul said slowly.
The present military personnel all nodded. They clearly did know what they would need to do to deal with Kats if it truly came to killing them, which further made Raul wonder if he was truly needed there. Maybe it was just to give the men there some confidence.
"And how does the blockade go?" the President asked to the Admiral and the last General, an Air Force General.
"Cuba has no stealth aircraft and our JSFs and Raptors have easy control of the sky," the Air Force General, whose name plate read "LeMay," reported, "all civilian aircraft have been forced back onto Cuban airfields and all outside aircraft outside of Cuban airspace. The scientists with the virus won't escape... and when the war begins we can quickly destroy their radar and communications facilities... allowing our aging B1-Bs and Army A-10s to pound them..."
"Make sure you don't hit the spot where the missile was launched," the President instructed, "that is the likely spot where their lab is... correct?"
Raul remembered being asked by Casey, Ryles' mate to look at some satellite imagines shi had after the Midnight reported the missile attack. The missile operated like a US Tomahawk cruise missile from the 90s to the early 2000s and 2010s... though that was now more than twelve years previous and the US had adopted a new cruise missile that was supposedly even smarter. The images showed at least two missile platforms and three warehouses, which was a clear weapons base, but the scarier thing was that there was what looked more like a laboratory like building near the missiles. It was smaller that the other areas but didn't look like a barracks or anything else. Raul was fairly certain that that was the laboratory. It could be blown up, but there was the problem that they might accidentally cause an outbreak in Cuba in doing so... not unless it was hit with massed incendiaries, but Jess and Sally had both stated that they wanted trials for the scientists launching the attacks, which would mean catching them alive.
"We believe so and would ask that the facility be taken in tact so that we may know that we've made sure that no one gets away to launch future outbreaks," Raul answered.
"We're generally of the same opinion," the Secretary of Defense agreed, "but should anything go wrong..."
"Our stealth bombers based in northern Florida are equipped with four tons of fire bombs," LeMay answered, "if the place can't be captured, we will make sure the virus burns up and we'll identify the people by whatever records and intelligence that can be gathered after."
"Do we have anyone that would know the names and faces?" the President asked.
"There is the scientist who was involved in the Vatican outbreak," Raul reported, "since his action was more from an admiration of Kats... he has defected and is working with CI and the UN's offices for vaccine production."
"Daniel Streigt?" the Secretary of Defense asked, "He's seen the other scientists?"
"We believe so... though I doubt he could be used as a spy, given that we made his apology public and televised it," Raul warned, "but he should be able to identify people."
The President nodded accepting that. He then turned to the Admiral who had no name plate on his blue uniform.
"The blockade at sea has also gone well," the Admiral report, "the only major "threats" that have approached us have been two French frigates, one British cruiser, and two Egyptian destroyers which have actually asked to join the blockade... given that the French and British are NATO allies and the Egyptians... particularly after the Cairo Outbreak have been key in fighting Muslim extremists and what remains of Al Qaeda... however little it may be... I didn't see any reason to turn down their help."
Raul nodded. Much of the later had been explained by Anubis. Like most Egyptians, Anubis was still a Sunni Muslim, and hir adoption of a name based off of Ancient Egyptian mythology was more a respect for hir cultural and historical identity and the fact that shi was a Jackat. And after the Cairo outbreak, Anubis had apparently been involved in various efforts to relook over how Muslim religious leaders interpreted their own texts. The rules hadn't really changed, but the interpretations of those rules had. It actually lead to many religious reforms in the Middle East which was making it tougher for extremists to take advantage of people there. It was a strange positive that had come out of an outbreak, but that wasn't really an issue at the moment. Though he supposed any help would be good.
"As anyone tried to sail out of Cuba?" Jake asked.
"We caught a few rafts and so forth, and presently have them detained, but I really can't say as to who they are or not," the Admiral admitted, "Many of them claim to be refugees... but given everything... we really can't be sure. No one has gotten through, though."
"Where are they being held?" the secretary of defense asked.
"We've transferred them to frigates not directly participating in the blockade and have taken them to Houston, Texas," the Admiral answered, "we have a sort of internment camp there."
"Can we gain access to these camps?" Raul asked.
"I suppose... why?" the Admiral wondered.
"Because the scientists might try to flee disguised as refugees," Raul commented, "This is where Daniel Streigt could help. He could identify them or notice if any of them have had facial reconstruction surgery to disguise themselves. If we have the scientists..."
"We can hopefully figure out where all the Virus labs are in Cuba and burn them," the Secretary of Defense answered, "I'll get you all the cards and clearance you'll need."
"Thank you," Raul nodded.
"In the meantime, when will you want the main attack to go, sir?" the Secretary of Defense asked.
"One week," the President answered, "we'll give the Canadians time to get their men to join up with us..."
"From there, the Marines will land near Havana in the Bay of Pigs and will take the capital city and will hold while the army reinforces those at Guantanamo and then moves inland and toward Havana from the other direction," General Yaun spoke.
Raul sighed and sat quietly. Things were advancing quickly and was looking more explosive...