Emerson joined the school’s boxing team and learned to fight. In wrestling season he joined the wrestling team. He went to public summer school and spent most of his time in the gym. Being at school was better than hanging out at the orphanage with nothing to do. Each day he became a little stronger and a little faster. He planned his travel to and from school to avoid the boys who had attacked him before. On the afternoon of the second Shogun Memorial Day following his mother’s death, on their way home from a particularly emotional rendering of the holy texts, the bully boys jumped him as he came out of church. Having driven all the Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists out of the neighborhood, the only ones left were the Swordsmen and they needed someone to relieve their pent up fury over the brutal killing of the soldiers who had died defending the Shogun’s honor throughout the Church’s history. Lacking a better victim, they vented their pulpit inspired anger on Emerson. In the ensuing fight, Emerson laid two of the four on the ground before a strong hand grabbed his jacket collar and lifted him off the ground.
“Where are your parents, boy?” the assistant pastor demanded.
“Ain’t got no parents.” Emerson kicked the man, hitting him in the knee.
The man spun Emerson around and grabbed the front of his collar with both hands as he held the squirming boy well off the ground. “Don’t lie to me, boy!”
“He’s an orphan!” One of the boys teased. “Orphan! Orphan! Nobody wants a runty orphan!”
Emerson stopped squirming.
“Is that true, boy?”
Emerson hung his head. “Yes, sir.”
The man backhanded one of the bully boys across the face. He pointed to the two on the ground. “Pick up that trash! If I see any of you fighting again, I’ll kill the lot of you.”
The two still standing picked up their friends and escaped from the man’s wrath. Still holding Emerson off the ground, the man stormed around to the back door of the church. He threw open the door to the kitchen. A dozen women and girls were preparing the evening’s meal. The man dropped Emerson in a chair. “Wash him and feed him. I want him in my office in an hour.”
One of the older women motioned for two of the teenaged girls to attend to Emerson. Slightly frightened of this small bloodstained creature that had been dumped in their midst, the girls scurried to do as they were told. They took him upstairs to their rooms and pointed him in the direction of the shower. When he emerged, they had fresh clothes for him. The clothes were several sizes too large, but they were clean and smelled nicer than he could ever remember clothes smelling before.
The girls led Emerson back to the kitchen where they served him meat loaf, potatoes and vegetables. The milk was fresh and sweet unlike the old milk they gave him at the orphanage. When he was finished eating, they took him to the assistant pastor’s office.
“What’s your name, boy?” the big man asked from behind his monstrous desk.
“Emerson, sir. Emerson Winthrop the third, sir.”
“Emerson, do you have a nickname? What do your friends call you.”
“Don’t have no friends, sir. My dad used to call me Runt.”
“Well, Emerson, sit down. Tell me about your dad.”
“He was a Swordsman Marine, sir. Helicopter pilot. He died in the battle at Homestead.”
“Damn Jews. Jews and perverts. They’re worse than the Muslims.”
“Excuse me sir?”
“We lost almost our entire space force in that battle to a bunch of Jews and perverts.”
“Sir, I know what a Jew is, but what is a pervert?”
“Someone who doesn’t believe that marriage is just for a man and a woman. There are lots of different kinds, but they are destroying the moral fiber of the human race. Their sinful ways are going to bring the wrath of God down on all of us. We will die for their sins! We must stop their evil.”
Emerson could see that the man’s face was getting red from anger. “I see, thank you, sir.”
The man calmed down and said, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“The boxing and wrestling teams at school, sir.”
“They taught you well.”
“Yes, sir and I worked hard.”
“I can see that. Where do you live?”
“At the city orphanage, sir.”
“Wretched place.”
Emerson sat in silence.
The man stared at him for a long time.
“Emerson, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Emerson blushed and looked down.
“I promise not to laugh,” the man said gently.
“I want to go to the Federation Space Force Academy and learn everything they can teach me. Then I want to join the Swordsman Space Force as a fighter pilot and kill the people that killed my father.”
The man sat quietly for a moment. “What does your mother think of this?”
“She committed suicide the night we found out about my father.”
“Ah, that’s right, you’re an orphan.”
The man thought for a second and pressed a button on the comm unit on his desk.
“Yes, father,” a female voice answered.
“Please make up the guest bedroom. Mr. Emerson Winthrop the third is going to be staying with us for a while.”
“Yes, father.”
“But…” Emerson stammered.
The man held up his hand. He put through a call to the orphanage’s superintendent. After identifying himself, he said, “My wife and daughter will be arriving this evening to pick up Emerson Winthrop’s belongings. Please have them ready.”
“Yes, sir, most assuredly sir, will they be authorized to sign the receipt for him?”
“Yes, my wife will. We wouldn’t want you in trouble with the inspectors would we?”
“No sir, thank you sir, right away sir.”
The man turned back to Emerson “That man is an idiot. If he wasn’t the governor’s cousin he would be sorting recycles out of the trash where he belongs.”
Emerson stared at him not knowing what to think.
“Emerson,” the man started, “I have no sons. I have four wonderful daughters, but that leaves me no one to pass on my teachings. The great father of our church, Shimazaki Tanaka said it is a blessing and an honor to care for the son of a fallen soldier. I will take you into my home and raise you as my son. I will help you with your schoolwork and see that you get into the Academy. When you get out of the Academy you will transfer to the Swordsmen and seek your revenge not only on the people that killed your father, but all the Jews and perverts that the Federation loves so much.”
“Yes, sir, thank you sir.”
“Don’t thank me now. You’ll hate me soon because you will earn your keep.”
“Sir, I am not afraid of hard work.”
“Good, oh, and one more thing, if you make one improper move toward my daughters, I will castrate you on the spot.”
“Yes, sir, I understand sir.”
“Can you sing?”
“Not very well, sir.”
“You’ll learn. Go out that door and down the hall, second door on the right. See the choirmaster. Tell him I sent you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Emerson rose and quickly headed out the door. Who could have ever imagined that almost getting the daylights beaten out of him could change his life for the better?
ERETZ - CHAPTER THREE
THREE MONTHS TRAVELING in hyper drive is a long time. Even a family as close knit as the battle hardened Solomon family would be hard put to make the trip peacefully. To say they got on each other’s nerves would be putting it mildly. There is only so much physical and mental training one can do in a day without burning out. Fortunately they each had their own rooms and the ship was “awake” around the clock so that when the others became too much to bear, they could retreat into isolation either physically in their rooms or temporally by adjusting their sleep schedule. Even so, by the end of the journey, they were glad to see the system
they would call home gradually expand in their displays.
As they approached the system, Greg called them together. “We believe we are approaching a friendly system, but we don’t know that. Even if the system is friendly, there might be hostile ships around the perimeter conducting espionage activities. I have programmed the computer to transition out of hyper drive far enough away from the system that we can be detected. We can detect other ships in the system, but not close enough that we should be in range of anything that might want to shoot at us.”
Avi nodded. Their approach to the system had been the subject of lengthy discussions.
“After we drop out of hyper drive, Avi, Rachel, Wendy and I will separate the ships. While the four of us are out doing that, Rose please stay on the flight deck and monitor the scans for any signs of hostility. Once we have the ships separated, Rachel and Wendy will return to command this ship and head straight for the spaceport. Avi and I will take flank positions and respond to any threats we might encounter. Everyone understand?”
Rose looked at Rachel and asked, “Why are we not going straight in?”
“This is a classic scenario out of one of Dad’s combat simulator games,” Rachel replied. “We are approaching a system we believe to be friendly. Several things could happen. We could get there and find no defenses and no one knows we’re here until we knock on the front door. That would be nice, but Dad doesn’t consider it very likely. We could drop out of hyperspace and find a defensive system that is aware of our arrival and greets us with directions to our dock at the spaceport. This is the most likely scenario, or at least the one we hope is most likely. Perhaps we could drop out of hyperspace and find a defensive system that is not aware we are coming. We pass messages and protocols back and forth until we get clearance to proceed to our dock at the spaceport. This is the second most likely scenario. The third most likely possibility is that outside the friendly defensive perimeter are hostile ships involved in monitoring and espionage activities. We may be forced to deal with the hostile force before we get through to the friendly ones. Finally, the least likely and most hazardous, is that the planet has fallen to the enemy without our knowledge, and as soon as we drop out of hyper drive we find ourselves being attacked. By dropping out of hyper drive well away from the system, we put ourselves outside whatever is happening long enough for us to arm our systems and repel any force that might wish to attack us.”
“That makes sense.”
“Everyone needs a good night sleep. Tomorrow promises to be a long day,” Greg cautioned.
The ship dropped out of hyper drive, and the teams quickly separated the three ships. Rose sat at the cargo ship’s console monitoring the sensor displays. Greg’s ship was away, and they were still working on Avi’s ship when Rose called them. “I have an unknown vessel headed in our direction.”
“Can you identify it?” Greg asked.
“It’s too far way, but the computer makes it as a possible Swordsman.”
“Transmit coordinates,” Greg said.
When the coordinates had been displayed on his console he said, “We have time.”
He transmitted a set of rendezvous coordinates to Avi’s ship. The point he had chosen was half way between the cargo ship and the advancing unknown vessel. “Avi, meet me here.”
Rose interrupted, “The computer is saying it is definitely a Swordsman in a Valiant 105 scout.” She paused. “It says standard armament on a 105 is two forward firing tubes with eight missiles each and four forward firing lasers. Four more lasers only fire aft.”
The girls returned to the ship before their parents jumped into hyper drive. Rachel took the pilot’s seat. Wendy took the co-pilot and Rose sat in the flight engineer seat. No sooner had Wendy taken her place than her hands flew over the controls. Within seconds she announced. “Lasers armed.”
“Lasers?” Rose asked. “I thought only the little ships were armed.”
“Nope,” Wendy smiled. “Brownie put these in a long time ago. We never needed them so we never mentioned them.”
“I miss Brownie,” Rachel commented.
“I think we will all miss them. They are four wonderful women,” Rose added. “I still find it hard to believe that five women drafted your father into carrying them to his secret planet. Your father has a stubborn streak that’s impossible to get around.”
“We noticed!” Wendy laughed.
Rose continued reminiscing about the women they had left behind on Homestead who had been so instrumental in changing all their lives. “Katherine was such a pleasure to be around. Strong-willed, resourceful, she was my favorite of the group. Little Sam loved her with all her heart. She would do anything Katherine asked. Sam had the most amazing recipes. She could whip up a meal in no time with the most wonderful ingredients. Blondie was brilliant in a fragile sort of way. That woman was a fire storm on a good day. Certainly exciting to be around. Brownie was every bit as brilliant, but so focused on her ships.”
“Brownie could fix anything on a ship,” Wendy said softly.
“We can’t forget Myra,” Rachel added with a tear in her eye.
Rose smiled, “Myra. Goodness! That was the most masculine woman I ever met. I used to swear testosterone flowed in her veins instead of blood. Destroying that battleship at the cost of her own life saved us all from being killed.”
“I don’t know anyone else that would have done that,” Rachel commented.
“You and Dad almost did,” Wendy challenged.
“No, we didn’t hang around like she did. She could have retreated after the second volley of missiles instead of firing the third.”
“But it was the third volley that detonated the reactor.”
“The ship was dying. It just would have taken a little longer.”
“Can you be sure? Look, Rachel, you and Dad hit the battleship you were fighting with a nuclear bomb embedded inside an asteroid and it lived. How many tons of rock hit the ship’s armor? It kept on firing.”
“It was damaged and having trouble maneuvering.”
“But it wasn’t dead. You had to jump behind it and blow it from the pipes to finally kill it.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Myra saw what happened to you and knew that she had to hang around until she was sure the battleship was dead. She had no choice.”
“I guess. I will miss her.”
“There are many people we will miss for a very long time,” Rose said. “Our job is to see that they did not die in vain. Our mission is to stop the killing.”
The two warships dropped out of hyper drive and appeared on the cargo ship’s displays. They broadcast their ship identification and recognition codes on open frequencies so that the Swordsman ship would have no doubt as to who they were.
“I’ll bet that Swordsman pilot needs to change his pants right about now!” Rachel laughed. “A single 105 against two P I’s! Run baby! Run!”
The Swordsman ship abruptly changed course and at what appeared to be a crushing 10 G’s of acceleration quickly transitioned into hyper drive.
“Bu Bye!” Wendy chuckled.
“What’s this?” Rose pointed to a notation on the display.
“Well, now what have we here?” Rachel asked. She keyed the com. “Dad we have a bogey dead ahead holding its place in orbit. It does not appear to have changed position since we arrived.”
Rachel paused, perplexed. “Um, Dad, radar does not see it. I am getting readings from an energy source. We can see it on visual. It looks like a V1 buzz bomb. Why would a space craft have wings like that?”
“I’m on it!” Greg answered. He relayed the coordinates to Avi and they jumped toward the unidentified ship.
Seconds before their arrival, it jumped into hyper drive to escape.
“Did anyone get an ID on the ship?” Greg asked as he watched it disappear.
No one could identify the ship. “That is not a comforting thought,” Greg mused aloud.
Detecting no further threats, they re-
docked the P I ships and continued toward the system’s only inhabited planet.
ERETZ - CHAPTER FOUR
EMERSON FOUND HIS LIFE in the church a mixed blessing. He was eating better and gaining weight, but he was working harder. In addition to his schoolwork, The Reverend, for that was how Emerson was to refer to him, piled him with religious studies. Emerson read the authorized histories of the church and was forced to read Mark Stonebridge’s unauthorized history. Emerson spent an hour each day in strenuous physical activity. In the summer he learned to swim. In the winter he shoveled the snow off the church driveway and sidewalks. The Reverend taught him chess and introduced him to war game simulations. Emerson studied all of Greg’s games since, by now, their interrelationships were common knowledge.
The Reverend maintained an intense regimen for Emerson, and Emerson rewarded him by working as hard as he was asked. Emerson continually met the expectations of him even when the expectations changed. As Emerson’s background in religious literature expanded, the Reverend recruited him to help write sermons. Emerson led church history study classes first under The Reverend’s direction and then on his own. The Reverend was clearly proud of him, continually encouraged him, but never relaxed the intensity of Emerson’s training.
The only time Emerson was ever punished and the only time the Reverend apologized to him was when the Reverend thought he was getting too close to one of his daughters. The Reverend’s second daughter, Harumi, had a passionate love for small animals. She was continually bringing something home to be tended and nursed back to health. She had picked a litter of starving kittens out of the snow, but they kept squirming out of her grasp. She asked Emerson to help her carry them back to the kitchen. The kittens became balled up in Emerson’s coat. He was trying to hand them over to her when the Reverend saw them with their heads together and their hands looking suspiciously like something untoward was going on. Furiously, The Reverend raced across the kitchen and backhanded Emerson across the face so hard he fell to the floor. Crying kittens scattered everywhere.
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