Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  Zimuel began, “Paul, you and your exploits have been the main topic of conversation for a couple of days now. It’s been discussed with our wives, discussed with Yadvega and even over a telecommunication link with Elder Mahala and the council. At first Bhlani and I were shocked by the lives lost and the brutality of your methods. Then after reviewing the data on lives lost to terrorists and the intercepted security information, we began reluctantly to change our minds. Then in the conference call with Elder Mahala he pointed out that you were doing exactly what you were chosen for and trained to do. He then reminded us of what Xhondar had done on Earth over a period a few thousand years. Agents of our government went to Earth for the sole purpose of removing those who threatened the peaceful existence on that planet. Many of the Elders did in fact kill or remove people from Earth. From what we’ve observed on the news, security intercepts and statistical data, it’s much worse now than it was when we were involved in policing our own people whom were causing problems on Earth. You really are faced with monsters all over your home planet. I recall you once quoting Nietzsche, ‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.’ Paul we know that you must be ruthless, forceful, and let these people know that there are consequences for what they do, please be careful that you don’t become a monster. Dalhia fought as a fighter pilot in Xhondar’s civil wars and two brutal wars with other star systems. She is the most decorated fighter pilot in the history of Xhondar and knows what war is all about. The Elders respect her opinion like no one on Xhondar. She is your strongest supporter and agrees that in the same situation, she would do the same as you have done. In fact she went as far as to say she would follow you into war without a doubt of your ability to lead. She also called you King Verron when she spoke to the council. Yadvega has been involved in diplomacy all her adult life, attempting to bring peaceful solutions to every war fought for over 10,000 years, she is aware that some conflicts do not have peaceful solutions. We all agree that many of Earth’s conflicts do not have peaceful solutions, otherwise by now they would have come up with alternatives to what’s going on there. Paul, in the near future, you are going to be faced with enemies that do not know the meaning of peace or negotiation. Do whatever it takes to prepare yourself and your new country to deal with these enemies. You have our blessing and complete support”

  Paul was honored that his friends and the Elders were standing by him in his decisions. He thought a few minutes and replied. “There are millions of men on Earth who would have willingly put their life on the line to do what I did. Most, like the Seals, Delta Force, all branches of the military and even law enforcement, do it every day. That Seal Team the other day, over 36 men, were going to put their lives on the line to save two hostages. These are all men with honor and integrity, the only difference between me and them is that I have abilities none of them possess. There is no way I could sit back and see good men get killed for doing the right thing, when I have the ability to prevent it. When I was a teenager, our high school chorus sang a song named “To Dream the Impossible Dream.” It was a very idealistic song, I don’t remember all of it, but one line has stuck with me for over 50 years and has become my personal theme, “… to fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause…” That is exactly what I plan to do with the abilities that I have been blessed with and is the philosophy I hope to instill in every man, woman and child in the Nation of Verron.

  After sitting silent for a few moments and digesting everything that was said, Bhlani broke the silence, “So how do we open a motorcycle dealership on Xhondar I?” Zimuel looked at his friend of over a thousand years and as he shook his head and said, “Bhlani, will you never grow up?” Paul laughed and told him, “You only say that because you were to chicken to ride the Triumph when I offered and now Bhlani and Dalhia are riding it all over your home planet.” He turned to Bhlani and said, “I’ve been giving it a good bit of thought since you arrived and actually have a pretty good plan to pull it off.” Zimuel shook his head and replied, “You mean to tell me that over the last few days while we and the entire Council of Elders were trying to decide if we could trust the fate of the universe to your abilities, you were working on a plan to export motorcycles to Xhondar?” Paul gave him a snide, yet serious look and answered, “You wanted a leader that was capable of multi-tasking, so, I multi-tasked.” Zimuel got up from the table as if disgusted, but turned as he entered the Mansion, asking, “Anybody else want some more cookies or another drink.” He got unanimous nods and headed for the kitchen.

  Paul began at once, saying, “Ok, so here’s my idea. First we find a dealership that handles Triumphs and maybe a couple of other brands. I’m partial to Honda, but they want Honda only dealerships and want to regulate way too much of what goes on and how you do business. However, I bought my Triumph from a dealership that sold Ducati and BMW motorcycles as well. If we find a place like that and buy it, then we will have access to everything we need; we’ll build a carbon copy of it on Xhondar. I’m sure that whatever brands we end up with, the manufacturers will wonder how we sell so many motorcycles, but with the volume divided up between three motorcycle manufacturers, it will definitely be much less obvious. If it later becomes too much to deal with then maybe by that time we won’t have to keep it a secret anymore and can negotiate building a plant on Xhondar.” Bhlani reached over and shook his friends hand and stated, “You have been multi-tasking haven’t you? When do we start?”

  About that time Zimuel returned and delivered beverages and decided to just bring the whole box of cookies. Bhlani asked, “So, you want to be a part of my new motorcycle business?” He shook his head and replied, “I’m afraid I’m going to be much too busy with my wholesale wheat venture. I already have pending orders for several billion bushels.” Paul and Bhlani looked at him in surprise as he smirked, “I too, have been multi-tasking.”

  The three sat there a while and discussed how Zimuel had already begun establishing contacts on Xhondar I, II and III to handle the huge quantities of wheat, cotton and one day in the future, other agricultural products. Bhlani jumped in, “Cotton, no one said anything about cotton.” Zimuel held his hand about two feet above his head and replied, “This tall, at least. I described it to a friend of mine and without seeing it he guesstimated with the acreage planted and the size of the plants we should get maybe 90 million bales a harvest, but we should get two harvests per year on Verron. I’m estimating 30 billion cronz per harvest. Paul that would be very close to the same for Earth dollars, give or take a couple billion. Rest assured Xhondar is going to be your best market. Earth already has production levels that are pretty high. The three talked about business for a while and decided to go their separate ways and relax for a while. Paul went back to his suite and played his guitar, attempting to play along with some Stevie Ray Vaughn and then some Eric Clapton and soon realized it was time to buy a good electric guitar, his acoustic wasn’t cutting it on blues and rock. He switched over to some Classical Grass and soon found himself playing along with some of the best bluegrass he had ever heard. He thought, “These guys are incredible, I bet either of my brothers could keep up with them.

  He began to get homesick for his family. Everyone back home played or sang; most did both. He began to sing a few of the songs he wrote while in prison. Soon he was singing his own personal versions of his favorite hymns. He felt like he was having his own private church service right there in his room. “Church”, he thought. “I really miss church and singing and preaching.” The people of Xhondar are some of the most faithful believers he had ever met, they were even dedicated to having a weekly Sabbath, but they worshipped differently. He realized how he was having church withdrawals. He sang a little longer, but couldn’t stop crying long enough to finish a song, he finally put his guitar away and spoke a short prayer, “Lord, establishing churches on this planet will be my first priority. This planet will be dedicated to serving You
and serving others. Help me get it right.”

  That evening at dinner Yadvega pulled a fast one on Paul. With the help of his friends, she had arranged for everyone at the table to speak a different language and to switch languages as often as they liked. It was a real trial for everyone. Paul knew he had been had, all along thinking he was going to avoid her testing him on his language skills by keeping her busy with 99. To his amazement, 99 was jabbering nonstop in Cronari and everyone at the table understood him except Paul. He realized he had let his little buddy down by not taking the time to at least learn some of the language, he promised himself he would master it this week. Paul couldn’t believe that these people could speak so many Earth languages. They primarily focused on the languages he would soon be using as he began to interact with his home world. The people of Xhondar struggled to understand how in their world of 70 billion people on three planets everyone spoke the same language, yet on Earth, with a population of less than 10 billion people, there are over 6000 languages spoken. With half of the Earth’s population speaking 13 languages, Yadvega primarily focused on drilling Paul in those, but fully expected him to learn more. It actually became a lot of fun. The rule was that if someone spoke to you in one language, you had to reply to them in another. With a group like this, that loved to talk, it never let up, and certainly the 13 primary Earth languages were used most frequently, however, Yadvega would often throw in one of the more obscure languages like Urdu, Farsi, Cuban and even Somali. He couldn’t believe she knew so many languages and that the others never seemed to be stumped by any of them. When supper was over, Yadvega told Paul, we’ll review some of the languages spoken by your neighbors before I leave. I have no doubt you’ll be meeting some of them soon, it will be beneficial on your initial contact to speak their language.

  After a workout with Gljarne and Xhing Li using no weapons, Paul took a swim to cool off and relax then headed for his room to watch his evening news and intelligence report. To his surprise, as he was preparing to sit down and go over it with Lucy, his door opened and Bhlani, Gljarne, Zimuel, Dalhia and to his surprise Yadvega, came in and asked if they could join him. He asked, “How do you know what I’m doing?” Zimuel smiled and answered, “We can talk to Lucy too. We asked her to inform us when you were about to review the news and security reports. We have lived in chosen ignorance for too long. We want to know what’s going on.” Paul looked around and realized he needed a couple more seats and went the study to get them. He looked at the people gathered in his private quarters and decided that if this continues he would start holding these briefings in one of the conference rooms down in the executive offices. He told Lucy to run the news networks first and the security briefing after that. The news opened with Robin Meade, “So this is the girl you’re so crazy about? She is cute!” exclaimed Bhlani. Paul gave him an odd look and replied, “Lucy.” Bhlani’s response in return was, “Unless you tell her it’s a secret it is not a secret.” Paul made a mental note to tell Lucy that anything he said or did in private is to be considered confidential.

  As Lucy started showing the news on his large monitor, the lead story was once again in Iraq. It seemed ISIS often dominated the news. They had invaded the small town of Atrush in north central Iraq. The town was not all that significant except there were Shiite Muslims who lived there and none shared the hardline ISIS political views or Sunni beliefs. The news coverage was of a video with several hundred of the town’s residents lying lined up on the ground and the brave men of ISIS shooting them with AK-47s. They had taken the younger women and left the widows to fend for themselves. Of course there was the usual stock video footage of masked ISIS terrorists parading through the streets proudly showing off their power. In other parts of Iraq, ISIS had stepped up its suicide bombing activity in and around Baghdad. Dozens were killed and nearly 100 injured when a bomb went off at a mosque occupied by Shiite Muslims. ISIS was taking credit for the bombing. They have a zero tolerance policy for anyone that even slightly disagreed with their brand of Islam. The problem was so widespread throughout Iraq that Paul knew, at this time anyway, he could do nothing about it.

  There was a human interest story on the British journalist who had just been beheaded by ISIS. He was a young man of about 36 and had been working in Iraq for over five years. He was loved and respected by everyone who knew him, except for ISIS. They had dragged him unexpectedly out of his motel room. His security man had been killed and he was taken hostage. The actual beheading was available on the internet. None of the major networks would broadcast it, though Al Jazeera didn’t seem to have a problem with a redheaded white man from England having his head cut off on their broadcast. There was a big debate going on at the U.N. They showed aerial photos of both, Farlibaax, Somalia and Thamud, Yemen and the unbelievable destruction of part of a town in the case of Somalia and a villa and training camp in Yemen. The liberal press and the governments of both countries were especially protesting about the assassin style murder of 50 people near Thamud. Those two countries were blaming the United States for the destruction and were demanding U.N. sanctions against the U.S. As the footage rolled Gljarne commented, “Well, it looks like you made the world news already and you don’t even have an army yet.” Dalhia reached over and touched Paul’s arm and asked, “What the hell did you use?” Paul answered, “A new model of a plasma grenade that was in the armory downstairs.” She immediately responded, “We do have other weapons that could get the job done without taking out half a town; that is unless it was your goal to take out half the town. Let’s take a tour later and see if we can’t find something a little less lethal.” Paul nodded his agreement and actually appreciated Dahlia’s input. She had after-all fought in three wars compared to his none.

  When, what Paul liked to call, his “security briefing” began, everyone was impressed with Lucy’s ability to completely control every satellite in Earth’s orbit, interface with even the highest security computers, and translate every piece of encrypted data being used. No government on Earth had a secret from Lucy if it was even remotely connected with computers or communications equipment, she could control it. The world security agencies were also in an uproar over which country possessed these new secret weapons and had the ability to arrive on and depart from a ship in the middle of the ocean in the blink of an eye. MI-6 and the CIA had actually teamed up since both their countries were involved in operation “JUSTICE.” They couldn’t imagine someone running around with the ability to teleport in and out of virtually any location and deliver such dynamic destruction, but they were glad that whoever it was appeared to be on their side. France, Germany, Israel and their other allies were in a buzz trying to find out how and where this technology was developed. Meanwhile, the only scientists allowed on the scene of the two bombing sights were Islamic and some of their Russian and Chinese allies. Everyone looked at Paul as Bhlani jokingly said, “Well, what’s next Baghdad?”

  The humor ended soon as they saw aerial photos shot from a Predator drone showing four men being kidnapped by Islamic terrorist in Baghdad. The word had not been released to the news agencies as yet, but the four businessmen from Germany were abducted from their guarded convoy. Their security men were killed and at least one of the hostages had been wounded. The encrypted communication from a CIA operative said it was ISIS that had kidnapped them and they were certain demands would soon be made. There were some Chinese communications on their activities in the China Sea and Sea of Japan. They were becoming more aggressive as they attempted to expand their areas of control. The Chinese were also trying to figure out where this new weapon had come from. There was some high level intelligence on North Korea and its nuclear program, but by far most of the world’s intelligence time and money was being consumed in dealing with terrorist activities on nearly every continent. As Lucy was about to complete her briefing Paul asked, “How are you coming on locating the ‘Most Wanted’?” “It depends on whose list of ‘Most Wanted’ you are referring to. There are several countries
with one and you are now on two of them.” Lucy answered. Paul smiled and replied, “How ‘bout we start with the MI-6 and CIA lists for now.” Lucy informed Paul that she had a positive location on 4 of them. Paul let her know he’d get with her on them later. When the briefing was over, those present looked almost ashen from seeing just how much violence and death was on this little blue planet. Yadvega summed it up by saying, “For as long as I have known them, those people never seem to change. Is there any hope for them?” They rose to leave, and as they were, Dalhia pulled Paul aside and told him, “I’ll get with you tomorrow to go through that armory. You need to be prepared. I have a feeling you are already thinking about your next mission. We want to help you in any way we can.”

  Paul got up early the next morning and headed out for his morning freestyle run in the mountains before anyone could interfere with his much beloved run. The run to the falls and back had been pleasant for him, but not much challenge. He did a jump to one of his favorite locations and took off. There was something about the thinner mountain air that really tested his endurance. There were several kinds of mountain goats and Elk-like creatures roaming the mountain heights and he used to get strange looks from them as he invaded their territories. By now they realized he meant them no harm and a few of the younger goats would follow him; that is until he would leap several hundred feet from one rocky face to another. He would sometimes look over his shoulder to see a goat standing at a cliffs edge and looking across the vast divide at him. He decided to return to Mountain City by way of the terrace to see if Zeus had returned. As he approached his usual spot, Zeus was just finishing his second Hzki. He didn’t know quite how to approach a 100 ton dragon about his eating habits. Zeus was in a good mood and so Paul just decided to get it over with. “Zeus, I need to speak with you about something and I don’t want to offend you.” Zeus looked at Paul and said, “Go ahead.” He moved his huge snout closer to Paul as Paul said, “OK, here goes; we need to find another place for you to eat or some way to keep this area cleaner.” Zeus moved his eyes back and forth and couldn’t help but see several animal carcasses spread around his eating area. To his surprise Zeus replied, “I see; where would you prefer that I eat and who will clean this mess up?” Paul was relieved as he said, “There is a small clearing just over that rise about 100 yards away; it would be perfect. I intend to build you a shelter there so you don’t have to stay in the hanger. I know you prefer to be in a high position. And, I’ll clean up the mess. Zeus, to be honest with you, I hadn’t noticed the mess until it was brought to my attention. Soon there will be other people living here with me and frequent visitors, so I really do need to keep the place looking as clean, neat and odorless as possible. Please don’t take offense, your one of my best friends and I don’t have all that many. I like having you here.” Zeus gave him a nudge and told him, “I just told my friends and my offspring about you and informed them that I am bound to you and will be living here from now on. So the shelter will be nice since I have no intention of leaving.” Paul turned to leave and told Zeus, “I can’t wait for you to meet my Mom. She’ll be the first to appreciate the cleaner terrace. Thanks!”