Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  They made one more stop at the second basement level and found a more calming environment where agricultural and horticultural research had been done. Some of the things in the preservative liquid containers were actually very interesting. Then they entered a grow room where they could recreate the light on the surface of Verron. The vegetation that had been growing there had been destroyed along with the laboratory tables, light fixtures, desks and every piece of lab equipment. All that remained was a very dangerous looking brown vine that clung to the ceiling, walls and floor. It attempted to spread itself through the open door, but Paul realizing what was about to happen, slammed the door before it reached the threshold. The plant sounded like it was actually growling with anger or frustration. Zimuel commented, “That thing has stayed alive in there for more than three hundred years. Can you imagine what would happen if it got out?” “Lucy, what is that thing and how can we kill it without destroying the entire lab?” Paul asked. “I’m not certain what planet it came from, but it was brought here in order to genetically enhance a vine used to produce a very potent pain suppression drug. The local vine is not very hardy and often goes completely extinct, only to reoccur again a few years later. I can engineer a genetic specific poison that will kill it and do no harm to anyone else. However, I will need a sample of the plant for DNA matching.” Zimuel looked at Paul and said, “You get it.”

  Paul reached into his pocket and removed his father’s four inch bone handled knife. “Are you nuts!?” Zimuel shouted. Paul told Zimuel, “Find something that it can’t get out of so we can safely get it to Lucy. She doesn’t need more than an inch or two of it.” Zimuel shook his head, “How do you know?” Paul grinned and said, “Trust me, I got this.” He walked back to the door as Zimuel looked around the lab for some kind of strong empty container. He placed the little knife in his right hand and reached over and placed a glove he had found on his left. He opened the door and was amazed that a plant could move so fast. It evidently had sensed his coming and was waiting for him. Paul managed to get the door closed before the vine could get out, but he was now in a room with a killer vine. The vine immediately wrapped around his leg. Paul began to stomp on it with his free leg and was shocked to hear if shriek at each blow. He quickly reached down with his gloved hand and grabbed the struggling vine, then took a chunk out of the vine, using his razor sharp knife, with the other. The vine literally screamed when Paul cut the large chunk from its stalk and instantly let go of his leg. In a flash Paul was out of the room and behind a closed door, leaving the vine to angrily bang against the reinforced glass in frustration. Zimuel had an open stainless steel jar waiting as Paul exited the room. He placed the squirming piece of vine into the jar and sealed it as quickly as possible, saying, “Well, that was fun; I wonder what we’ll find at our next stop?”

  They placed the stainless steel jar in an even more secure lock-box aboard the Destroyer and were on their way. Paul followed the crystal clear river northeast. He couldn’t help but notice that it was so clear that he could see the bottom most of the time and even see numerous large fish. The river cut through the mountains northeast of the research center. As the mountains rose higher, the canyon the river formed was breathtaking. Before long, as he flew the Destroyer between the high mountains on either side, he realized that the canyon was probably wider, longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon back home. The river itself was at least a mile wide, as it rolled slowly through the canyon. As the river narrowed and split into multiple rivers flowing from the now much taller mountains, Paul decided to take the ship higher and fly above the mountains for the remainder of his trip to the northern mountain range. As he began his climb away from the river he looked at Zimuel and said, “Crystal River. How does that sound for the name of the river we flew over? I know it isn’t very original, but it does fit.” Zimuel nodded his approval and then commented, “You’ve renamed the planet, the local A.I., three of the mountains, and now a river. What’s next?” Paul looked down as he climbed to over 50,000 feet to clear the tops of this section of the southern mountain range and replied, “This mountain range. I think I’ll name it after my favorite Grandfather. Everyone called him Bob, his name was Robert. How does Robert’s Range sound?” Zimuel smiled and replied, “That’s really quite good, for a minute there I thought you were going to call it Bob. You must of thought very highly of your mother and your grandparents. It seems like they were your first response when it came to a name to be memorialized.” Paul thought a moment and said, “I pray my mother and brothers live long enough for me to bring them here to see all this.” Zimuel replied, “It will be sooner than you think, another year at most. We have a lot of preparation ahead of us to be sure you and this planet is prepared for its future population.” Pointing down to Paul’s left he added, “Hey, what’s that?”

  Paul looked down and saw a large herd of very colorful animals running across the vast high plain between mountain ranges. At his current altitude they looked like a pack of moving Skittles; all the colors of the rainbow. He was amazed to see animals of any kind, much less an entire herd, running around at this altitude. The elevation had to be at least 20,000 feet where they were. He banked the ship down to his left, leveling out at 22,000 feet as he approached the fairly level plain. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he flew over the first time, so he and did a 180, lowered his altitude and slowed to a hover just 500 feet above the large herd. He looked at Zimuel who couldn’t believe his eyes either, and said, “So this is where they came from?” Paul knew he was talking about the so-called mythological creatures that the Xhondarian’s had removed from Earth. Below them in all the colors of the rainbow was a herd of at least 2000 Unicorns in almost every color you could imagine. Paul shook his head and said, “No one is going to believe this you know? Hell, I don’t even believe it. What kind of a place is this?” Paul asked Lucy if the ship had onboard cameras and was informed that every flight is recorded for training and security purposes, so yes she was recording pictures of this herd of animals. They continued on to their next stop wondering what else was down there to discover.

  As they left the high plains and entered the northern, as yet unnamed, mountain range, Paul had to climb back up to 30,000 feet to comfortably negotiate the higher peaks. He spotted the valley Lucy had indicated to him and headed for it before Zimuel was aware that Paul knew exactly where they were going. Zimuel said nothing but knew something was going on that Paul wouldn’t or couldn’t tell him. They entered the narrow valley with a frozen river flowing through the middle and a glacier to one side. Paul spotted the above-ground buildings at the foot of a 20,000 foot tall slab of rock. As he approached what looked like the best place to land, he saw the enormous doors cut into the side of the mountain base. They put on the survival boots, pants, parkas, gloves and head gear before exiting the ship. They were still greeted with a burst of cold that made their teeth rattle. Without saying a word or asking, Lucy said, “The air temperature is minus 61 degrees Fahrenheit, the wind chill makes it minus 92.” They didn’t spend much time checking out the housing, but Lucy informed Paul that only the weather station, ground transportation maintenance, and aircraft support were located above ground. There was room for 2000 in the three-level-underground housing facility. They slogged through about a foot of fresh snow as they walked toward the monstrous sliding doors. As they got closer, Paul recognized the smaller personnel access doors in the lower right corner of the larger door. There was a closed access door to the entrance security control panel. It opened just as Paul stepped up to the door. Inside was once again a high security console. Paul had to do a retinal scan, then voice recognition and was afraid his hand would stick to the surface as he ungloved his hand and placed it on the hand-print scanner. A green light illuminated just above the personnel access door and then the door opened slowly to the inside. It closed automatically as soon as both of them were through the door. Paul could tell that they had entered a cavernous area but didn’t realize how massive it was until th
e lights came on with a popping sound as row after row of lights began to illuminate the deadly contents of the underground storage facility.

  There were more missiles than Paul could even imagine ever existed. Row after row, rack after rack, as high as a 10 story building and continuing for miles and miles, the underground storage went on and on with its lethal inventory. He didn’t even bother to count. He had no way of identifying them or knowing what they were capable of until Lucy began to inform him of what some of them were. Paul began to call out missile types, firepower and range to Zimuel as they walked down the aisles. He pointed to a missile about 40 feet long and with a diameter of about 8 feet and said, “That’s a FTL (faster than light) antimatter warhead with an accurate range of 150,000 miles and a total destructive radius of 200 miles.” He walked a little farther and pointed to a missile about 30 feet long and 6 feet in diameter. “That rack is full of 500 megaton high yield thermal nuclear missiles. They have a velocity of .6 LS (light speed) with an accurate range of 50,000 miles and a destructive radius of about 40 miles. That far surpasses the fastest ICBM on Earth which can only do Mach 21. The radiation will spread much farther and should give it a kill radius of about double that.” He looked over to his left and informed Zimuel, “Those babies are FTL ship buster photon torpedoes. They can be launched as far away as 250,000 miles and accurately destroy even the largest of ships with a total destruction radius of 30 miles. It can track a ship, speed up and slow down accordingly and has enough fuel to last 30 hours.”

  Zimuel spun Paul by the shoulder to face him and asked, “OK Paul, what’s going on? You didn’t learn all this stuff on Xhondar and they don’t even have this stuff on Earth. Something’s up.” Paul made a deep sighed and at the same time Lucy told him, “Don’t tell him anymore than you have too. He’ll believe whatever you say.” Paul looked at Zimuel and realized for the first time that it was actually very warm inside this building, or he was sweating from being nervous. “Zimuel, I promised Lucy I would not reveal all the security secrets on this planet. She was designed to keep certain information hidden from everyone but her master; I am now her master. That’s why there is so much here that no one on Xhondar ever knew about. Even Computer was not allowed to know what Lucy knows. I am connected to her through the neurological implant installed on Xhondar. She could speak to you the same way if she chose to.” Suddenly Zimuel heard, “Hi Zimuel, I didn’t realize you had an implant too. You never use it do you?” He jumped when he heard Lucy’s voice in his head. Then looked at Paul and said, “Better you than me, this explains a lot. Let’s get out of here; this place gives me the creeps. I find it shocking to think that Xhondar once upon a time had all this stuff in its arsenal. Have Lucy give you an inventory. I have no doubt you have enough to start and finish several wars.” At that he turned and headed for the exit. Next stop the white-matter reactor.

  They quickly boarded the Destroyer and were thrilled to find it had maintained a pleasant 75 degree temperature. They stowed their survival gear away and Paul once again climbed into the pilot’s seat. He couldn’t keep from playing with the Class IX Destroyer a little. First he decided to see what kind of speed it was capable of. He climbed to a suitable altitude and decided to go for an escape velocity and take a closer look at one of the moons that was visible during the day-time. He activated the g-resistant seats and cabin controls and quickly accelerated to Mach 40. Lucy adjusted the angle of ascent for the smoothest flight and in no time Paul had escaped the gravity of Verron. He then accelerated to .70 LS and in minutes was orbiting the black moon. Zimuel looked at Paul and said, “I hate to be a stick-in-mud, but this is not the way to the reactor facility. I know why you’re here; you’re just dying to blow something up, aren’t you.” Paul shrugged his best, “Who me?” look and proceeded to lower his altitude to about five thousand feet above the surface of the black moon. The moon was obviously deserted. Lucy had informed him that if was made completely of iron. There were boulders and rocks scattered about the low jagged mountains and deep craters. Paul looked at Zimuel and said, “Just this one and we’ll leave.” Paul selected a mountain about 1500 feet tall and no more than one mile wide to be his target. He adjusted his distance to 20 miles and launched an FTL 100mm antimatter mini-missile. He knew that the ship held a total of fifty of them and just wanted to see what it would do. The 100mm x 1000mm long missile hit the side of the mountain as quickly as he touched the switch. There was a bright, almost blinding, light which was compensated for by the ship computer instantly darkening the windshield of the destroyer. When the glare subsided, the mountain was gone. Not just blown to pieces or crumbled to the ground, the mountain had totally ceased to exit. Zimuel motioned for Paul to fly closer. He flew to within a quarter mile and came to a hover. Not only was the mountain gone, there a small crater where it had once been. To verify what Lucy had told Paul about the antimatter missile, he asked the ship to take a radiation reading. There was no residual radiation from the explosion. Zimuel looked at the crater, then at Paul and said, “Now that you’ve blown something up, can we go?” Paul accelerated away from the black moon and quickly had Lucy calculate their reentry and coordinates to their next destination. Both men were blown away by the incredible firepower onboard this ship.

  They reentered south of the newly named Robert’s Range a few hundred miles west of Mt. Alene. Paul decided not to fly over the 40 to 50 thousand foot peaks but to go through a few mountain passes Lucy had determined to be navigable. Zimuel was white knuckled holding onto his seats armrest as Paul maneuvered through the often tight passes at speeds in excess of Mach 2. He could hear the sigh of relief from Zimuel as they exited the mountains into an almost tropical valley on the other side. He descended to 30,000 feet, which was approximately 10,000 feet above the valley floor. Neither of them could understand how plants could thrive at these altitudes. Though much smaller than the vegetation on the valley floor, there were trees and other plants growing as high as 30,000 feet up the mountainside. Paul descended farther and followed a large river up the valley toward its source. He couldn’t help but notice that the river would most likely be classified as having Class VI Rapids. In fact, if there was a higher class, he’d call this river a Class VII or VIII. As they approached the end of the valley he turned south again through another narrow mountain pass; it opened into a much smaller valley with an elevation of 15,000 feet that looked like a desert wasteland. Everything was solid gray rock and there were large boulders all over the valley floor. He didn’t spot any streams or rivers, but there was a 400 foot wall of a glacier at one end of the valley. He soon located the group of buildings about 20 miles ahead, along the south face of the valley. There was a small city here, probably capable of housing 20-30,000 people. The buildings were built of the native stone, which looked like granite. The entire place was void of any color except for what looked like a large manufacturing plant along the south face of the high cliffs. This building was also built from stone cut into 3’x5’ blocks of something that neither Paul nor Zimuel had ever seen before. At nearly 300 yards long and close to 200 yards wide and as tall as a 20 story building, the bright red factory was hard to miss. Paul looked at Zimuel and declared, “Illinasos may have been a genius and a leader far ahead of his time, but he sure did build some god-awful ugly buildings.” Zimuel shook his head in total agreement. They landed on the rock landing pad in front of the bright red monster and checked the air temperature outside before putting on some light weight jackets. The air temp was a pleasant 58 degrees, but there was no sun and the wind was whistling through the mountain valley at over 30 mph.

  They made it to the main entrance of the building and through the first set of double doors without incident. They weren’t even locked. The lobby was a huge affair with a double staircase of white marble going up both sides of the waiting area. It was modeled after an Xhondarian style of architecture, but neither could imagine why they would ever need a waiting area at a reactor facility. There was a reception desk made of the s
ame white marble as the stairs sitting in the middle of a room tiled in 2 foot squares of red and white marble in a checkerboard pattern. Zimuel looked behind the desk and noticed from the labels on the telecommunication equipment that the building not only served as the offices for the reactor facility but also was used for a hospital, government administration offices and a school. It also indicated that the lower level was to be used as shelter in case of an enemy attack. They didn’t bother trying to check out the entire facility. The receptionist desk had a list of extensions that included: Research Lab, Mayor’s Office, Director of Manufacturing, Engineering and others. Paul no longer pretended to know everything and simply said out loud, “Lucy where’s the security door to enter the reactor facility?” He then went up the stairs to his right and headed for the center hallway leading to the back of the building toward the mountain. He had walked over a hundred yards when he realized that this building had to continue on under the mountain for quite a long way. About another 150 yards farther, they came to the end of the corridor and a steel blast door 30 feet wide, the width of the hallway, and about 16 feet high. The security control box to his left had a voice activated control to open the access door. He was then led through a security procedure that included his new password, voice recognition, retinal scan, a hand print and a DNA match. This got Paul cleared for the first set of doors but he had to repeat the procedure using his authorization to approve Zimuel to have access to the facility. The first set of doors opened. There were actually two 4 foot thick blast doors back-to-back, for a total thickness of 8 feet. They next entered a decontamination chamber where they both were commanded, by a very unfriendly computer generated voice, to strip, scrub, and put on the special hazardous environment suites. As they exited the decontamination chamber they were both required once more to enter the access code, retinal scan and voice recognition. Finally the 4 foot thick double-mounted doors opened to reveal a very shocking sight. The plant was fully operational and still manufacturing.