Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  At Mach 10, it didn’t take but a few minutes to reach her destination. She did back off the throttle as she approached the small opening and quickly tilted the Fighter wings-up so she could fit through the narrow pass, blasting through at Mach 4. She held that speed all the way through the narrow canyon to the exit over the glacier at the other side. She smiled as she cleared the mountains and decided, “I’ve outgrown the Speeder. I wonder if Uncle Paul will let me keep his Fighter?” She landed at home to be greeted by Tigger, wondering who was in the strange ship landing on their lawn. After a short scuffle with the big cat, she headed inside for another shower, still feeling like she was covered in gel residue. She prayed before going to sleep, thanking God for delivering her from what would have been certain death had she not been in the ship she was in and wondering how many other people had crashed at Mach 3 and lived to tell about it.

  The next morning Marcus woke her for breakfast and told her to come to the Space Ship Factory after she had her meal and did her chores around the house. It was mid-morning by the time she finished cleaning up after Tigger, cleaning her room and doing her own laundry. Danyel refused to do all the work around the house when her children were bigger than she was. When Tala landed Uncle Paul’s Fighter at the factory she was greeted by her smiling Uncle Paul, whose first comment was, “You took it through the Needle didn’t you?” Tala shrugged her shoulders and grinned, saying, “At Mach 4; faster than anyone has flown through it so far. I had to prove I could still do it.” Paul gave her a hug and asked, “You want to keep the Fighter? You can have it but you can’t paint it pink. Sorry, I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.” Tala kissed him on the cheek and told him thanks. Then asked, “Can I have a new helmet; I don’t think I’ll ever get the goo out of my old one?” Paul tossed her the helmet in his hand and replied, “I saw the old one and had your Dad dig this up for you.”

  He continued, “I have the video from your Speeder and the others, plus everything from the troop transport if you want to look at it later.” He then turned and headed into the factory door, adding, “Your Speeder’s here and your Dad and Amber are taking it apart to inspect for structural damage. I’ve decided that regardless of what they find that I will use your Speeder to run some tests. You hit a mountain at Mach 3 and your reactor core or power supply unit did not explode. If it had, with that much whitematter, you and half the mountain would be gone right now. What I want to know is, just how much can the system take before it explodes.”

  The four of them spent the next several hours going through everything inside and outside the little Speeder. Lucy ran complete computer diagnostics on everything and they found two bolts partially stripped that held the antigravity unit in place and one of the latches on the canopy that was slightly sprung and didn’t align like it should. They then had Daniel join them and begin installation of remote controls and had Lucy remove the restrictors that limited top Speed. Based on the size of the ship and the reactors, they felt that it should be capable of Mach 20 or 30. The day was pretty much shot by the time they finished working on and inspecting the Speeder. Tala almost cried to think that she wouldn’t be able to fly it anymore, but realized that she could always take out one of the other Speeders, since Hunter, Amber and 99 rarely used theirs anymore. In fact she realized suddenly that she didn’t use hers anywhere near as much as she used to. Amber told Tala, “Be sure and get here early tomorrow morning. We will be running the tests on the Speeder and I want you to fly it; even if it is by remote control.”

  As soon as she got home and parked her new Fighter, she changed clothes and headed for a Mountain Bike ride. Daniel saw her getting ready to head-out and quickly got his bike and joined her. They had both become avid Mountain Bike riders; often riding 50 to 60 miles in an afternoon through the low Mountains surrounding the valley.

  The next morning she showed-up at 0800 and saw her Pink Speeder being loaded into the cargo bay of one of the smaller R4 units. She still wasn’t certain just what kind of tests they planned to run, but quickly climbed aboard the departing ship. It wasn’t long before they were orbiting Verron’s black moon. Amber turned from her pilots command seat and informed her, “You can operate the remote controls directly from the co-pilots seat. Lucy has connected the Speeder controls and the R4 controls so that you can fly it while sitting right here. What I want you to do is bring up the speed to Mach 10 and fly the Speeder into the moon’s surface. The object is to see if that speed is enough to make the whitematter unit explode and just how much damage it will do when it does.” Tala cringed at the thought of her little pink Speeder exploding, but understood the purpose of the test. I didn’t take long to maneuver the Speeder free of the recovery bay and she immediately accelerated to Mach 10 and aimed the Speeder at the side of one of the many five thousand foot mountains on the black moon. The Speeder hit the mountain so hard that it split several large boulders in two and then began to bounce around the mountain like a steel ball in a pin-ball machine. Finally coming to rest buried under a wall of rocks that had covered it when it finally hit something it didn’t break or bounce off of. The crew put on their survival gear and headed for the moon’s surface to assess the damage. Every step of the test was carefully filmed for documentation. The cameras were still rolling as they uncovered the Speeder and discovered that it looked no worse than it did when Tala had crashed it in the Needle. To everyone’s amazement, on Colonel Amber’s command, Daniel took over the controls while sitting in the R4, flying the little Speeder back to the recovery bay, while Amber and Tala stood next to the ship moon-side. No one could believe that the Speeder just crashed at Mach 10 had not exploded or been badly damaged.

  They proceeded toward their next destination while a team of inspectors took readings from the test instruments that had been placed on the Speeder and double checked the ship for any hidden structural damage. This time, they did notice one broken bolt in the seat strut. About an hour later, Tala realized where they were going. There were several asteroid belts in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The one they were approaching had numerous larger asteroids; ranging in size from football field sized to nearly as large as Earth’s moon. Tala and the Air Force constantly used the asteroids for target practice and the Marines trained on them as well. Amber picked a big blocky; almost rectangular asteroid for the next test. The big chunk of solid iron was 20 miles long, 15 miles wide and over 12 miles high. Amber brought the R4 to a holding pattern about 200 miles from the big rock. Once again Tala took the controls and was told to bring the Speeder up to Mach 20 and aim directly for the middle of the orbiting asteroid. Tala took the little ship out beyond the R4 so that it had plenty of time to build speed to the Mach 20 and to give the Speeder the most direct angle of impact to the solid wall of rock. The explosion was phenomenal. The control room window instantly darkened to prevent damage from the bright flair of light; when the blinding light disappeared, so had the asteroid.

  Tala began to shake at the thought of her being in the Speeder when that happened and was thrilled to know that it took somewhere between Mach 10 and Mach 20 for the whitematter reactor to sustain enough impact to explode. What really became a reality check was the fact that a Speeder had the smallest amount of whitematter in the entire Verron fleet and was also the slowest ship in the fleet. Tala, Amber and Daniel watched the video in slow motion several times as they returned home to Verron. Daniel was already planning his next FTL Missile prototype. So far they had never made a missile with more than a fraction of the whitematter used in the Speeder. He planned to change that before they ever ran into another enemy like the Jhxunka. As he planned, he thought, “Uncle Paul asked for more firepower after that war, I’m going to give him what he wants. I can’t wait to show him this video.”

  There were several meetings held over the next few days. All of them began with thanks being given for Tala’s sacrifice of her Speeder. Then a close review of the incredible damage done to the asteroid. It was finally decided to build three prototype missiles. One would ha
ve a whitematter designed warhead with a quantity about the size of a marble; just like the Speeder. The second would have a quantity about the size of a baseball; almost identical to the reactor in a Class X Fighter. Last of all they would build one with a load nearly as large as a soccer ball. This would be equal to about what is used in one of the twelve reactors in an R4. Building a missile that large was a bit more difficult than the usual small missiles carried by the Verron ships; only the larger ships would be able to carry the largest of the missiles, but if things worked out well, the Fighters and Light Destroyers would carry both of the smaller sizes. It was also decided to study the structural design of the little Speeders more carefully and attempt to incorporate that same structural integrity into even the larger ships.

  Paul and General Zarman were enjoying themselves so much redesigning and designing weapons systems and ships for Verron, they were almost caught by surprise when Michael reminded them that it was now time for them to make a trip to Mississippi and begin the first phase of the Verron Treaty, building the oil tank farm and refinery. Paul sat back in his chair looking like a deer caught in headlights and asked, “Are you ready?” Michael smiled and replied, “What would you do if I said no.” Paul gave him a dirty look and answered, “I guess I’d give you my job and take over your job myself.” Michael immediately let him know that everything was ready to go and all he had to do was check it out first, and that he didn’t want his Uncles job. He looked around the room and commented, “In fact, I don’t think anybody in this room would want your job.” Paul looked around at the agreeing faces; General Z, Dalhia, Hunter, Amber, Tala, Kary, Joe, Marcus, Daniel and Chase. What surprised Paul most was the fact that he knew that not a one of them was lying. None of them wanted to do what he did.

  He then turned to Hunter and Amber, saying, “When do you think you will be ready to relocate? I plan to get with General Dorsey and DIC Sullivan as soon as we get to D.C.” Hunter and Amber looked at each other and then looked around the room at their friends and family. Neither had given it much thought, but suddenly realized that they would soon be living on Earth again after five years on Verron. Hunter spoke for both of them, saying, “The sooner the better. I know we both are anxious to get it over with.” Amber nodded her agreement. Paul felt like he was pushing them into something they didn’t really want to do, and replied, “If you two don’t want to do this, I’ll not make you. It’s only a good idea if you personally want the experience.” Amber spoke up, saying, “We love it here and feel so comfortable with everything here, it will just be rough to deal with all the changes, but we’ve both talked about it and agree, it should be a beneficial experience for both of us.” Paul smiled, saying, “Good, just remember. It will be easy for you to come home anytime you want. It’s the end of December on Earth and new classes for both of you will begin after the first of the year, so start getting yourself ready to leave.”

  Paul and his staff assumed that with the Christmas holiday beginning the week after his six country tour, that it would be a while before people began to show interest in Verron and the possibility of actually living there. It was the first time that everyone on the King’s staff had been wrong. The website that Joshua and John Graham had set up was getting millions of hits every day. It seemed liked the people of Earth were obsessed with their neighbors from outer space. While most of the inquiries into Verron were simply people wanting to learn more or just satisfying a curiosity, the number of applications for citizenship and resumes sent to Renee and her department was staggering. Renee immediately had to double her staff. The process of sorting through the millions of inquiries and getting them to the right people was a major undertaking. Marcus Verron ended up with 200,000 applications for employment at the Marcus Verron Space Center. Kary Verron received close to 250,000 for his weapons plant, General Zarman had over 1,000,000 soldiers from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, numerous countries in Europe and Australia making inquiries about serving in the Verron Air Force and Marine Corp and Clark Kidd suddenly had farmers from all over the world seeking to relocate to Verron. Altogether, with only 10 days passing since their trip to Earth, there were now 7 million serious requests from people who wanted to call Verron home. There was almost double that number of hate mail, threats and negative commentaries.

  Poor Princess Renee had the job of sorting through both the good and the bad. The millions of negatives were simple enough to deal with; they were forwarded to Glenn Park, Princess Marie’s husband, the head of the Verron Security Police, to determine if any were legitimate threats to the safety of those from Verron who would soon be spending time on Earth. Paul had little concern for the people of Earth posing any threat to the Nation itself. Of those seven million, only about half qualified for Verron, based on the strict guidelines established since the Nation began. Though most simply did not understand King Verron’s reasoning for his decision, there were others on Earth that instantly labeled the King a racist and a bigot. Paul knew that his people who conducted business on Earth or lived there out of necessity would no doubt be dealing with a great many angry people, who refused to accept that Verron was extremely focused on its objectives and was never established to be all things to all people.

  On January 5th, the first Monday after New Year’s Day, Earth was about to start their week with what looked like an Alien invasion. The Nation of Verron showed-up in six different countries, with construction crews prepared to begin construction of crude oil gateways into each, but none were as overwhelmed as the community of Success, Mississippi. It was near this small town in northern Harrison County, positioned just off Highways 67 and 605, and only a few miles north of Biloxi that King Verron and Benny Barry had selected to build the Verron Oil Tank Farm and Import Export Center. The residents were terrified when they exited their residence at 0600 in the morning to have the sun almost blocked-out by six R4 spaceships and four large transports. One of the transports landed in a field just off Highway 605 and established itself as an employment office for any who wanted construction jobs on the new facility. Joshua had made arrangements to have the employment opportunities announced on the local television and radio networks and the morning newspapers. The highways leading in and out of Success were soon flooded with traffic. Many were simply curiosity seekers, but thousands were there to seek work.

  As the large ships hovered overhead, heavy equipment was lowered to the Earth’s surface by tractor beam; huge bulldozers, equipment for harvesting timber, several completely assembled buildings and a power plant large enough to provide electricity for millions. No one could believe the efficiency of the Verron construction crews. By the time it became dark on day one, there were overhead lights turned on from the hovering ships that lit the construction site like a baseball field. It was close to ten o’clock at night when the day was finished. No one could believe that before them were six concrete slabs measuring 2000ft x 3000ft; 36,000,000 square feet of future warehouse space. None could comprehend how a foot thick concrete slab could be poured on Verron then transported to South Mississippi and lowered to the ground in perfect condition. All that had to be provided was a flat level area. They hired over two thousand locals that first day. They were tasked with helping clear trees and brush, loading the timber haulers that had arrived to remove the free timber they could transport, and transplanting new trees to replace those who had just sacrificed their life for the Verron Center.

  The next day, crane companies from Biloxi, Mobile and Jackson were on site with cranes used to tilt up the prefabricated concrete walls for the warehouses. They sat and stared in wonder as the sections of wall were tractor-beamed to the surface, each displaying a large number, indicating its proper location. Construction workers were going to use conventional Earth methods to erect the walls and roofs of the massive warehouses, but not conventional building materials. It could have all been done cheaper and more easily using the Verron techniques developed by Ken Verron and a few thousand Klelta, but Paul wanted to use as much local labor
as possible. Dozens of men were selected to operate the massive bulldozers brought to the job site by spaceship. The locals soon found that their operation was simple and their ability to perform beyond belief. They were even more amazed that the big machines ran all day without a single fuel stop or smelly diesel fumes. Several crews of heavy equipment operators were tasked with site work for the tank farm. When finished, the first phase would exceed Cushing, Oklahoma, as the largest tank farm in America, with a storage capacity of 100 million barrels of crude and able to distribute more than 2 million barrels per day. It would grow from there. None knew that the components for the refinery were already being manufactured on Verron and Xhondar I.

  By the end of the week, the transport being used for an employment office was replaced by a 50,000 square foot ten-story office building lowered from an R4 unit. Local crews did the parking lot, drives and landscaping. Local utilities provided water, but the sewage and electric power were Verron designs, no one wanted to be accused of polluting the local environment, there was already hundreds of environmentalist protesting the cutting of the forests, there was no point in adding to the problem.

  Smaller but similar projects were taking place in France, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and Israel. The locations chosen for these countries did not stir-up the emotions of the environmentalist as much as southern Mississippi, but there are always those who aren’t going to like progress of any kind. Once again, locals were used to do every phase of construction, even more so in these other countries, since their locations were not going to be anywhere near as large as the one in the United States. The greatest concern in these locations was going to be the security of the pipeline-gateway. All the locations would be well fortified and guarded with Verron Marines.