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Autocannon fire raged towards the unarmored infantry and the hypervelocity explosive rounds tore through soft flesh and exploded at the optimum time delay for maximum damage in a human body. The human wave was shredded by the 55mm GU-11 cannons held as rifles by the armored humanoid bodies of the United Nations Rapid Deployment Force Valkyries of Viper Squadron. The two VT-1A's and the VT-1J mecha were dispatched to quell an armed incursion into India by a breakaway province of the Middle Kingdom. China had cast the deciding vote knowing that with tacit UN approval, any and all measures could be undertaken without any dissention within the UN Security Council.

700 miles south of the peacekeeping operation, a drug deal was being finalized. The Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza lieutenant handed over three certified credsticks to a devil in human form. The vampire merely smiled and nodded. With a curt wave of his hand, the vampires’ thralls began unloading the 36 tons of heroin from the backs of locally produced trucks. The mobster was pleased, the vampire was pleased, but more importantly, their secret masters were pleased.

In Philadelphia, a rain storm provided excellent cover for the hit. Marciano DeLuca walked slowly from his car and towards the apartment where his mark layt sleeping. Once under the awning at the front of the apartment building, DeLuca smiled at the concierge disarmingly. Waving a key absently DeLuca smiled and muttered, "Hell of a night" and the concierge nodded in sympathy for the wet and miserable looking hitman. DeLuca entered the elevator and hit the button for the 34th floor. Plenty of time, he thought. Leaning back against the rear wall of the elevator, DeLuca concentrated and felt the power begin to build in his arms and his hands.
Stepping out of the elevator, he walked to suite 3467 and his upper body began to be surrounded by a smokey nimbus of crackling energy. Touching the wooded door, DeLuca gave the merest shove and the door seemed to explode in slow motion and without sound. Silently, he entered the well furnished abode and walked into the bedroom. Anthony Arriaga rolled over and opened his eyes just in time to see Marciano flash his perfect teeth in a smile. Tony's body came apart in a slow shower of blood and viscera. It was slow and painful.

Another Romulan D'deridex class warbird exploded soundlessly in the hard vaccum of interstellar space. The Tirolian Overlord Government's dreadnought Penance and her half dozen escort ships were breaking the blockade imposed on Moridian III by the Romulan Star Empire. For the last four years the tensions between the two largest governments in the Milky Way had been simmering over a small, but mineral rich planet. After the RSE declared it sovereign property and had instituted a protective blockade, TOG rerouted an invasion fleet from an operation against the Invid threat for a small demonstration of force. The two remaining D'deridex class ships decloaked, one center line ventral , the other center line dorsal of the Penance. The two ships began laying on a devastating barrage of photon torpedoes into the Penance and her escorts. Two Zentraedi destroyers were quickly rendered down into component atoms, but just as quickly, a Quiltra Quelial Landing Ship, heavily equipped with missile weaponry for orbital fire support spun along it's long axis and began rapid firing all 90 of it's heavy missile launchers. The combined onslaught of serveral thousand megatons of explosive power overloaded the sheilds and instantly the non attenuated heat and radiation lanced through the duranium hull of the D'deridex, slaying man and machine instantaneously with it's deadly presence. The ship exploded. The last of the four Warbirds, engaged it's warp engines and began it's journey home. Already notified by subspace communications, the Romulan Star Empire was preparing for war.

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