by Max Jager
"Dad, it's the name of the spaceport on Tattoine you know, the cantina. Brand and Clath turned the old Neistrian Island into a spaceport and umm, er, cantina so I suggested they might as well call it Mos Eisley since I changed the name of the planet to Endor. It's all legal and everything."
"He explained it all to us," added Brand, sounded fine to me so that's what we call it. It's the reason we're here. I think you remember the last time we were here we shipped out a whole freighter of liquor. Right now, it's very popular and soon every drop we took home with us will be gone. Some other bar owners besides my self are exploring the possibility of distilling our own liquor on Endor based on earth liquor. Right now it's all in the exploratory stages as we need the exact type of grains, which don't grow in our solar system."
"That's right dad," injected Matt, "We've got to sit down with Mr. Janson to see about getting some experts, maybe it's all for naught but we have to find out."
"So, is this your first visit to earth Mr. Ti'Korvo?" Asked Mrs. Grainger
"It is, however I'm not sure how much time we'll have to look around our main objective is to try and get some idea on the feasibility of distilling liquor on Endor."
"I told him we'd at least make a stop at the Little A'Le Inn over in Nevada," said Matt, "It's become a tradition."
He hen added,
"Mom, dad, could you guys order a couple DVD collections for me? One is Starhunter, and Starhunter 2000, Space Rangers, along with Killjoys. They deal with intergalactic bounty hunting and I thought Brand might be interested in them."
"We'll be glad to do that for you, by the way, do you want me to contact the local wholesale liquor dealer, I imagine you will be heading back with more like last time?"
Yeah, I guess so," replied Matt, "Don't forget though, all payment comes out of NASA which is to say the government, so we'll have to talk to someone first. Oh, one more thing dad, I wasn't able to get holograms from Patricia and Justin, they are on Ruddoria training with Kaitlyn."
"I'll be happy to speak to their folks and tell them what I know."
"Well, here's a list of everyone's phone numbers," said his mother, "This is a copy, so go ahead and take it, call them later."
Matt then looked at his friends,
"Well everyone, guess we'd better head for the Cape. Mom, dad, we'll stop back before we leave so tell the people at the wholesaler this might be on real short notice."
Before leaving, he hugged his parents, and once again reassuring them that he was fine, and doing well.
Dawn was just breaking over the San Juan's when they lifted off heading back to Florida. Pointing to a spot on the scanner Matt informed Brand.
"Right about there is where the ghost town of Coryville is located, that's where Clath's people kidnapped the whole town over a hundred years ago." Brand replied,
"Interesting, I guess I was never really aware of how this all tied in together."
A little over an hour later, they were over the Florida coast when Matt contacted
Mr. Ellsworth. Amber moved to where he directed them to land, and like before, it was at an isolated part of the base where special decontamination trucks and crews were waiting. Brand chuckled,
"Do they realize we have already landed here on earth without all this?"
Matt shrugged,
"Yeah, probably, but I think it's kind of a "Don't ask, don't tell," sort of thing. Don't say anything to these people about landing out in Colorado or they might freak out."
"Understood," replied Brand
It took a couple hours before the decontamination people were satisfied the Nora-Lee wasn't bringing deadly alien virus's or microbes to earth. They were then directed to move to a more secure location closer to the main offices.
Janson and his staff all trooped on board where Matt handed him a bag containing reports and pictures from the NASA team. There were also plant specimen's rocks and dirt samples from Endor to keep NASA busy for quite some time. Matt and Brand then explained to Janson exactly what they were after causing him to frown.
"Let me get this straight, you are looking for people with experience distilling alcohol?"
"That's the idea," replied Brand. "As it turns out, you earth people can really brew a batch of liquor, while we already have our own, for some reason, people in our galaxy can't get enough of the sort of thing you people brew up. And while we plan to take as much back with us as possible, we also are looking for people who are experts at distilling to go with us to help set things up."
"Well I don't know," replied Janson, "The US government really isn't in the distillery business."
"We know that," replied Matt, "However we were hoping you could you know, maybe call a bunch of distilleries and have them send some of their executives down here along with some folks from the ag department."
The actual meeting didn't take place until the following day, however after Janson made a few phone calls execs from all the major distilleries showed up. There were even a couple people from Jameson's. Brand's appearance certainly caused a stir as none of them had ever encountered an honest-to-god alien before. After the initial introductions, Brand stood up at the podium and spoke.
"I hope all of you will forgive me, I'm not used to speaking before large groups such as this." Everyone laughed as well as offering encouragement.
"Well anyway, let me first say that your products have become very popular out in my galaxy. While we do brew our own spirits for some reason the alcohol coming from earth has proven to be quite popular, so popular, in fact that the freighter load we took back on our last visit has grown dangerously low. Now, while we do plan to take as much back as we can, this will not solve our problem. What we are seeking are people who could travel back with us to Endor where we plan to establish a couple distilleries. We need people who are experts at distilling and producing the same kind of liquor on Endor as is done here on earth."
"Now, there are a couple problems here, one of them is that we don't have the basic grains used in your products. We don't have corn, wheat, rye or malted barley. I've brought samples of the grains we use to distill what we call Tiso, which is very similar to your whiskey Bal Mok, and Sabak, which is akin to your vodka. Our other alcoholic beverages are closer to wine and not what we are looking for. I brought Prokra, mundu, and dreeda for you to examine. We've also brought several soil samples from Endor for you to examine as well in the hopes that the soil on Endor will grow earth grains."
Then one of the men stood up,
"Mr. Ti'Korvo, distilling in itself isn't all that hard in itself, of course, proper ingredients are extremely important, but so is proper aging, as well as what the product is aged in. Are you asking us to send you people who are experts at all this?"
"Yes," replied Brand, "They would live and work on Endor setting up, and training others to take over as this would not be permanent. I'm thinking two, possibly three years. I the whole thing proves unworkable, then obviously the time spent there would be much shorter."
"So you want us to send our chief distillers to some planet thousands of light years away?" Came one of the questions.
"No." replied Matt, "We want people who can pick up and live on Endor for a few years running our distilling operation, help us set it up, then train people to take over. There's got to be plenty of retired guys who are still up for a little adventure.
What we are looking for are people who know how to make good bourbon, Irish whiskey, sour mash whiskey, Vodka, rum, stuff like that. Like Brand said, there's liquor available in our galaxy, but we can't continue to keep coming to earth to load up with earth liquor."
Finally, the exec's understood what Brand and Matt were seeking, however there were still questions about manufacturing liquor under the various brands and trademarks. Questions involving payments and currency were still up in the air.
Chapter 164
Titan Stand Chapter 164
Brand and Matt also had meetings with people from the Department of Agriculture in
which they gave them samples of seeds for study along with soil samples. From the way things were shaping up it was starting to look as though they might be here awhile. Janson and his people were poring over all the reports the NASA team had sent back along with their own soil samples, and requests for more supplies. While they waited for answers, Brand submitted to a battery of medical tests, physical exam, blood and DNA testing, along with just talking with NASA medical personnel who treated him like a king. Janson knew better than to antagonize him over something like this. Later, Matt asked him about the tests.
"Oh they poked and prodded me but everything was very relaxed. I'd just sit and ramble on about my customers, life in general, and why we are here. They even treated me to an incredible meal."
"Well I was afraid they'd get carried away and piss you off," worried Matt.
"Brand chuckled,
"After all the things I've been through in my life this was minor. Besides, I think the doctors and nurses were so awed by my presence and to actually be talking to me they went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable at all times."
At the same time, Gandric and Amber sat and talked with a group of robotics experts, a couple physics professors and math genius's trying hard not to make them look like fools. They too were treated like royalty as no one had ever really met fully independent androids before. Matt flew back home to spend more time with his folks as well as talk to people in the Durango area. While he was there, he spoke on the phone and in person to parents of kids who went with him to Endor.
Both Patricia Clark and David Coulson's parents wanted to know how their children were doing since they had had no letters from them.
"I'm sorry I wasn't able to see them," explained Matt. "Both are currently in training on Ruddoria in the diplomatic office. Kaitlyn Parkinson is also with them so I wouldn't worry. When they finish their training and stewardship's your kids are really going to be something, dealing with all sorts of different races and cultures." He then had to explain about Ruddoria, and its people further easing their minds. Matt also visited Fort Lewis College where Ellen's sketches were on exhibit and causing quite a stir. He also found himself with two more "Volunteers" ready to go back with him. Jenna Abbot was biology major, and Dillon Fells was a robotics/computer science major. He really didn't want to take them because he had no idea how many people the distillers might come up with, but not wanting to piss off the college he told the two.
"there are several others going with us so it's going to be pretty crowded aboard ship. Take only two bags and I'd suggest one of them be like an army duffle bag."
"I'm sure each of you has a computer, however, in the end, you'll be using alien equipment. Dillon, you are really in for a life changing experience, you are too, Jenna, but the Nora-Lee's engineer, and captain are both androids, fully independent droids that are unlike anything you could imagine. Actually, I've been around them so long I think of them as human. Oh, and be careful what you say about robots, both Gandric and Amber take pretty dim views of robots. One more thing, things are pretty wide open on Endor, I don't know if all that freedom will scare you or not but everyone is free to cut their own deals. We've got kids training in the diplomatic corps on Ruddoria, one's working as a doctor's assistant, got a girl on the queen's court on the planet Denedra."
"So there's no one really telling us we've got to do this or do that, getting on our case all the time?" asked Jenna.
"Everyone considers me the leader on Endor," explained Matt, "However I certainly don't feel like one. We've got on-going projects, which I might assign someone to and everyone is expected to pull their weight but like I said, you find something you want to do¾go for it. Once you get there and talk to people, you'll see what I mean. The pioneer spirit is alive and well on Endor, you'll see."
"I'm kind of a sci-fi guy," said Dillon, "Will we be able to meet a lot of aliens?"
Matt laughed,
"Dillon, you're gonna meet more aliens than you can shake a stick at. I'm here with one right now. He's over at Cape Canaveral meeting with liquor execs about getting a bunch of people together who know all about distilling. Brand is his name, ex-military, retired bounty hunter, now owner/operator of Mos Eisley the big cantina on Endor. He's a Golian. His partner looks a lot like Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy."
"How come all these places you talk about all have Star Wars names?" Asked Jenna. Matt shrugged,
"Well when we established Z'ha'Dum as a human planet, the Loridian Trading Company which is a sort of de-facto planetary government told us we could change the planet's name we did. Since Endor is an awful lot like the same planet from Star Wars it seemed like the perfect name. Of course we don't have Ewoks running around it still works. Same with Mos Eisley. Brand has seen Star Wars, liked the name, so there it is. Look, we won't be leaving for at least a week so you two get your affairs in order then show up at my folks place here's the address, it's just a little north of town on 160, see you then."
He kept in constant touch with Brand through Mr. Janson with the Golian telling him,
"This Janson fellow is really staying on top of things as far as these distillery people go. I've already spoken with some of them and have well over half of the liquor I plan to take back."
"Well I've spoken to the local distributor out here," replied Matt, "He's already spoken to Janson and got payment squared away so we'll be loading that up tomorrow or the next day."
"That's great," replied Brand, I'll let you know when things are ready to move."
On one evening, Matt went out to dinner with his parents along with Liam's folks as well. Because he was now a celebrity they reserved a private room, still, everyone wanted his autograph. Naturally, Mr. and Mrs. Trent wanted to hear all about their son.
"What can I say?" He responded, "Liam is my right hand, he's good at organizing things, actually better than I am."
"Well we've watched that hologram he sent several times," replied Liam's mother,
"It's simply amazing the technology you have available to you."
"Well he's going great, we all are," said Matt, "I know you guys worry a lot, but I wish you wouldn't. We've got a lot of really great friends and a lot of respect. Oh, by the way, mom…dad, I've been so busy I forgot to show you this patch on my jacket."
"I noticed that," replied Mr. Grainger, "And was meaning to ask you about that."
Matt grinned,
"I'm a pilot now, I'm qualified to fly class two transports, shuttles, and personal craft, I passed my qualification exam a little over a month ago, in fact I flew the Nora-Lee half the way here. Amber taught me the basics, with others showing me tips and tricks."
"I'm proud of you son," exclaimed Mr. Grainger, "Even though your mother and I miss you so much, we're very proud of your accomplishments. We're always being stopped by people asking about you, as well as complements on what you've done for not only the community but the whole state."
By the time he was ready to leave Matt had a large box full of mail and other items parents were sending to their children. Hours before he was due to take off, four twenty-six foot cargo trucks showed up at his parents house along with a whole crew to unload them. Each truck was full of various types of alcohol, Bourbon, Tequila, Scotch, whiskey, Irish and rye, as well as Rum and vodka. As they watched the liquor being transferred to the Nora-Lee, Matt's father asked him.
"You aren't by any chance drinking any of this?" Matt laughed,
"No dad, I'm a beer guy, although once in awhile I might have a little rum. No, this is strictly Brand's department. My only interest is the tax money we'll get out of any distilling operation. We're kinda short right now on a good tax base, if we can make a go of alcohol, distilling it will go a long way towards solving our cash flow.
"So do you think this Endor of yours will be able to grow all the grain you're going to need." Matt frowned,
"I'm not sure dad, you've seen the pictures, Endor is just like it's namesake, mostly trees at least around where
we are. There are some big savanna like areas but they are too far from us."
It took close to four hours to unload and properly stow all the cases of liquor making sure to make room for the other half of the load. During the loading process, Matt made sure small "rooms" were created so passengers would have places to sleep. Matt's mother, along with Liam's, and Ellen Macy's mother all pitched in to help by grocery shopping picking up food items.
Matt instructed them what to get, and in what quantities. Since the Nora-Lee only had a limited amount of freezer and cold storage, everything had to be carefully measured. Since it stored better, freeze-dried took precedence over fresh which often-needed refrigerator space. While a limited amount of fresh milk was taken, most of it was powdered. Canned goods and jugs of water were also taken aboard. When everything was loaded, there wasn't a nook or cranny aboard ship that didn't have a box of food in it.
