Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  After dealing with the problems of crime and security, Paul next needed to meet with his people at Certified Grocers. Questions were being asked about the increase in volume of food being sent into the restricted section of the warehouse, but never coming out. Paul had made arrangements to purchase a few other food related businesses and now needed to make certain he did address the issue. In the meanwhile, it was decided to ship from four different warehouses spread out across the U.S. and Canada. Leona and Donald were zeroing in on the J.C. Penny acquisition and needed to verify that the purchase price was O.K. A part of Paul wanted to handle it, but he deferred to Michael to make that decision and negotiate any deal. He didn’t want people running to him every time a decision needed to be made. He may be able to keep up with it all now, but a time was soon coming when he wouldn’t have time to be involved in every business decision. He loved instigating the idea and even setting the plans in motion, but preferred that someone else take care of the details. He told Leona and Michael that if they wanted more than $30 billion to forget it. He also told them that he planned to make no changes in the near future to the management, but did want to have Michael placed on the Board of Directors.

  Gina’s brother Zirtouni had just decided he and his wife would follow Gina to Verron. At 68 and a typical German chain smoker, he was spending his retirement attached to an oxygen bottle while enjoying the view from his apartment in Munich. He and Paul had been fairly close friends when he was married to Gina and he knew that he was someone he could depend on. Zirtouni had managed the Bavarian District for H&M Retailers. After he and his wife completed their time in the rejuvenation tanks, Paul was going to work with him in a plan to purchase H&M. Hennes & Mauritz had 3500 stores spread out across Europe and Asia. If he could pull it off, he could then ship goods from all over Earth to Verron in a much less conspicuous manner. He had promised Zirtouni that he would have complete control of the store he planned to build in his mall. He would even name the department store Zirtouni’s. He figured he would be able to acquire H&M for somewhere between 70 and 100 billion euros. A bit more expensive than J.C. Penny’s but it would be a great source for him to import from and later would be a worldwide network for him to distribute products made on Verron.

  Paul decided to contract with a couple of headhunters, executive recruitment specialists, to find some of the more specialized skills he was seeking. He knew there were plenty of unemployed and under-employed highly skilled people out there. He just needed to find them. He had them searching for Managers of Plant Engineering, and Plant Managers specializing in Steel Mills, Mining Engineers, Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineers, Sawmill Operations Managers, Concrete Plant Managers, Chemical Engineers with Refinery Experience, and Heavy Equipment Manufacturing Managers. He knew the people were out there since every one of those industries had experienced law-offs and plant shut-downs. At first he got some grief from the recruiters when they were told that candidates for the jobs had to be white and Christian or willing to live by Christian based laws. They proceeded to inform Clark and Ken, who were contacting the recruiters, that it would be illegal and violate equal rights labor laws to specify those stipulations. They then informed the recruiters that the jobs were not in the United States and U.S. laws were irrelevant in Verron, and taking the position would require a long-distance relocation. Agency recruiters were so hungry for fees during these hard times, they were not about to complain. The manager of the recruiting firm was a black man, but he was not about to let his political convictions interfere with a big paycheck. Within days, resumes began to pour in.

  Paul finally found a breathing spot and managed to go for an early morning run. The weather had cooled off in the mountains and snow was falling at the higher elevations. When he returned to Mountain City, he decided to go have that conversation he had neglected to have with Zimuel and Xhing Li and the others. He knew that the Dragon Guard would be in Jxansa Gha right then, so he headed for the workout room. When he entered, he couldn’t help but be amused and a bit impressed. The Guard was dressed in identical charcoal gray commando uniforms, and had advanced beyond his expectations in their fighting skills. While Chase and Hunter were fighting unarmed in a match that would have left an unenhanced and unshielded opponent dead, Tala and 99 were engaged in a dagger fight and moving with such speed and intensity that Katelyn couldn’t help but stop practicing her sword kata and watch. Amber and Daniel were fighting with a sword against a staff. They all stopped what they were doing when they noticed Paul. When they came over to say hello, Paul couldn’t help but smile at the slightly modified uniforms. Amber’s pants had the right colors but appeared to be made of skin-tight stretch material and her boots came to just below the knee. Katelyn’s was perfectly tailored, but still looked like a commando outfit. His grin widened as he took a closer look at Tala. She had on a perfectly tailored commando suit, with a pink belt, pink buttons and pink knee high boots. The color coordination was perfect. When she saw him looking, she of course had to twirl and model her outfit. Amber immediately jumped in saying, “We’re not in the Army and weren’t about to go marching around looking alike.” She reached behind her back to pull her cap from her belt and put it on. She added, “But the caps look great with the outfit.” Hunter shook his head and said, “How many times do I have to tell you not to call these outfits. You girls may wear outfits, but we guys wear uniforms.” Paul couldn’t help but laugh as the others put on the caps to give him the full effect.

  Katelyn was the impatient one today asking, “Uncle Paul, what did you decide?” Paul looked over at Xhing Li and asked, “I suppose they have already talked to you and the others to try and wear you down, what to you and the rest of their teachers think?” Xhing Li responded, “As long as they practice somewhere where they cannot hurt anyone or burn down a house or a forest like you almost did, they should be OK to start learning the basics.” She looked at the Guard and continued, “We had to bring King Verron here to practice so he wouldn’t accidentally destroy Xhondar I.”

  Paul couldn’t help but appreciate their enthusiasm and asked, “What is your training schedule for this afternoon?” Daniel jumped in with an excited answer, “We’ve been helping Papaw and Colonel Hall test weapons in the armory. We’re supposed to help again after lunch, but we have plenty of time after that.” Paul had almost forgotten that he had asked his brother, who was one day going to be in charge of manufacturing the weapons, and Justice, who would be responsible for training his soldiers on how to use them, to begin familiarizing themselves with the weapons and their capabilities. It was a good chance for them to learn, while at the same time teaching their children and grandchildren how to use the high-tech equipment. Paul nodded his approval and asked, “Mind if I join you?” He got unanimous nods and yes’s. Then he couldn’t resist being a part of their training, saying, “I was watching you guys and to be honest you’re all doing far better than I had hoped.” Smiling he added, “Even 99, but even though I have never seen people move as fast as you guys are moving, you have become so familiar with what each other are going to do, you end up matching blow-for-blow in a battle of self-defense. The object of fighting is to kill or render your opponent helpless, not simply block everything he throws. I think it’s time for you to begin fighting the droids. They will continually change their style every time you think you know what they will do next. If you get a strike in on a droid, it’s because you out thought him or out maneuvered him. Your skills on reading and adapting to your enemies strength and weaknesses will improve as you fight virtually unlimited styles.” Xhing Li was nodding her agreement and seemed to have no problem with Paul offering his instructions.

  After the Guard consumed everything eatable in the Mansion’s kitchen, and got hugs from Grandma, they headed down to the security level and the armory. Kary and Justice were already there setting up targets in the indoor range. They had also laid out a variety of weapons to be tested. Paul realized that they had chosen the weapons carefully; making certain tha
t their children could handle them. He was thrilled to see them taking an interest in their development. Chase and Daniel were the first to begin checking out the weapons, followed by Hunter and then Tala and the last three. After they had each fired several rounds from various weapons, Paul could tell right away that Chase was truly gifted in his ability to hit anything he pointed a weapon at. He simply did not miss. Daniel and Hunter were about equal and both were still exceptional marksman. He could tell 99 didn’t much care for shooting, but wasn’t really all that bad, but he showed no enthusiasm like the others. Amber was definitely the best of the girls, but she was also larger than both the others. Katelyn and Tala were about equal. Even though Katelyn was larger and older she didn’t seem to desire being good at it like Tala did. Paul could tell that as the smallest of the bunch, she had become fiercely competitive and determined to out-perform her older peers. In fact, with the smaller weapons, she could shoot about as well as Daniel and Hunter. Paul couldn’t resist doing a little harassing of the troops and asked, “Who wants to test the body armor?” Before anyone had a chance to think, Chase jumped right in and volunteered and Tala was asking if she could do it then Hunter held his younger companions back and asked, “Excuse me sir if I didn’t completely understand your question. Do you want a volunteer to shoot at the body armor or to wear it while others shoot at them?” Paul knew the boy was smart; none of the others got it until he asked. Suddenly there were two fewer volunteers than before.

  To his amazement, Justice stepped forward and said, “I guess I’ve been hanging out will all those “Jarheads” too much lately, but somebody needs to do it, and I don’t believe you would put your soldiers in anything that didn’t work.” Paul, Kary and Justice headed to the armory to find a suit that fit Justice properly. Justice had not been trained on the suits capabilities and was amazed after putting it on just how light it felt. When Paul reached over and showed him how to activate the exoskeleton, his eyes lit-up. Then he explained briefly the other capabilities and decided right then, telling his friend, “Justice, after we play with this a while, I want you to take this one and one more with you to the training center. Live in it a few days. Lucy will be able to instruct you in everything it can do through the uplink built into the headgear. We need to be comfortable and confident in these and you will be teaching me and everyone else how to get the full potential out of these things.” Justice literally felt weightless as he walked effortlessly to the target range. No one seemed willing to shoot their father or their best friend’s father, so Kary stepped up and pulled his own personal .44 Magnum from his belt and fired six perfectly placed rounds directly into the chest. Justice didn’t even feel the impact. Paul then shouldered a laser rifles and fired three twenty round bursts, and got the same results. Hunter walked over and picked up a shoulder mounted plasma cannon and walked to the firing line. Justice laughed, “I know I was a lousy father, but I never thought it was that bad.” The blinding light and sound were absorbed by the energy absorbing walls. The body armor didn’t even appear to have been scorched. Chase was going to go get a Plasma grenade, but Paul reminded him that although the room and the armor would probably not be hurt, they on the other hand would be burned to a crisp. Justice laughed and told him, “Come out to the training camp next week, I promise I’ll let you try one.” Chase grinned and the others replied they wanted to join him.

  Paul took the fighter, everyone else but Tala had Speeders, but she was determined to lead the way. They knew where the valley was where they could practice. Hunter and Amber had shown them the places Paul had leaped and jumped and blown-up things and they had flown over it several times. Tala wanted to show Uncle Paul her favorite shortcut, through The Needle. Hunter and the others knew where they were headed as he saw the face of the mountain approaching fast. Paul had never been this way before and decided to let them lead the way. He watched closely as he approached the narrow slit between two mountains. It began at about 12,000 feet and wasn’t more than 10 or 15 feet wide until if reached about 20,000 feet. It then opened into an oval shape, like the eye of a needle. It closed up completely above the eye and was a solid wall of rock for another 15 to 20,000 feet. He had no idea how they had found this literal ‘needle in a haystack.’ He saw Tala blast through at close to Mach 1.5 with the others following single file behind her. Paul knew his Fighter was considerably wider than the Speeder and had to go through perpendicular to the side walls of the opening. He really didn’t want to know just how close he had been to the walls, but he wasn’t about to let this bunch out fly him. The canyon on the other side was narrow, but he could see the others actually racing through the narrow canyon. After twisting and turning and going perpendicular several times, they exited out over the high plains. A short distance west and they were at their practice grounds. Paul had to admit, it was a pretty decent short cut.

  The Dragon Guard looked like a precision drill squad as they landed end-to-end in the narrow space big enough to park their ships. Paul had to hover almost straight down to squeeze his Fighter into the space that was left. By the time he climbed out of his Fighter they were all lined up from tallest to shortest at attention, looking good in their almost-uniforms. He suddenly noticed that Tala was now just a tiny bit taller than 99, thinking, “When did that happen?” He began by starting with something easy. He laid out seven stones of approximately the same size and instructed them to concentrate on moving the rock from 15 feet away and making it come to them. He had never seen so many squinted faces, weird shaped lips and staring eyes. Ninety-nine was the first to accomplish the task. He was beaming with pride. Paul instructed the others, telling them, “99s moved because 99 didn’t doubt that it would. You must use your imagination and depend on faith in your ability to do the impossible. Sort of like in the Bible where it talks about walking by faith and not by sight. If you are thinking about how hard it is, or how impossible it looks, you will never do it. You have to believe you can, before you can. Now take your time and concentrate. Right now you’re thinking like the old you; the you that had 10% control of your brains ability. It’s the last 50% of your brain that allows you to overcome the laws of nature, the laws of physics and the laws of gravity and be able to control the elements around you. Get creative, dream, imagine, fantasize, but never, ever doubt you can do what your mind is thinking. Now try again.” Once again 99 was first, then Tala, Hunter and Chase lifted and moved their stones, but suddenly Katelyn, Amber and Daniel’s stones flew past the others. Paul thought, “Good, God, these kids are even competitive at this.”

  He continued to have them practice using progressively larger stones. In about a half hour or so they were up to rocks that weighed at least 100 pounds. Paul then had them attempt throwing or projecting the rocks into a stationary surface about 60 feet away. Their confidence was building the more they practiced. Paul knew that soon they would burn-out. All of them accomplished the 60 foot throw and Hunter’s and 99s were impressively hard throws. After almost an hour and a half, Paul gathered them together and said, “I think that’s enough for today. It’s very easy to burn out and then you’ll just get frustrated and begin to lose your confidence. I promise we’ll come back tomorrow.” They were disappointed and asked for more, but Paul could tell it was more a desire than the ability. They looked drained. He held up his hand and said, “Alright, we’ll try one more thing, and then we leave.” In his opened hand there appeared a low flame. He told them, “When it comes to fire, you must learn control. Bigger is not always better. Sometimes just a spark will do. I had a hard time controlling mine. That’s why I had to practice in a place like this; Xhondar didn’t want to fight any high-rise fires. Now you try it. Think, match sized spark, not dragon sized flames.” Once again, 99 was the first to do it, with a flame even smaller than a match. After all, he had never seen a match. It didn’t take long for the others to make flames of various sizes. Tala’s kept leaping out like a small flame thrower. The rest ranged from match sized to softball sized. Then Tala couldn’t re
sist, she had watched way too many movies with witches and sorcerers in them. Her flame shot across the opening to strike the target wall 60 feet away, disappearing on impact. A couple of the others tried, but only 99 succeeded in doing the same. Paul knew they were drained. It was time to go home.

  It had been just over six weeks since the Dragon Guard had returned from their enhancements and it was going to be a momentous weekend; Tala was going to be 10 years-old. There were other little girls on Verron her age and she had made some fairly close friends in the short time the new kids had been there. They knew she had been there a lot longer than most of them. They even knew that her Uncle was King Verron. No one ever referred to her as Princess Tala, except her Dad. They decided to have a party on the terrace at the Mansion. It wasn’t just a kid’s party, but there were still almost 20 of them there and every aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent and great-grandparent she had. King Verron and 99 were the grill cooks and cooked up 100s of burgers and hotdogs. Her Papaw Kary and the rest of the family provided a wide variety of music and Zeus was the hit of the party. Only Verron family members and a few guests had been around Zeus, so with 20 children between the ages of 8 and 12 gathered on the terrace, Zeus was getting petted, sat on, photographed and talked to. Some of the kids were upset because he didn’t blow fire or take any of them for a ride. They did think it was cool that they could talk to the dragon. There was a table full of gifts and a few of them actually weren’t pink. There were tons of clothes and several pairs of shoes. Someone got a pink snowboard and matching pink North Face and Spyder ski-wear. They even found pink Salomon T1 ski boots. Paul realized that his brother and wife, who were avid snow skiers had obviously scoped out some of the better places to ski. Why not, a shuttle flight to the top of one of the mountains or glaciers and a person could ski for hours. He may even dig out his 40 year old skis and give it a try. There was no shortage of sporting goods purchased; soccer balls, tennis gear, a small shotgun, from her Dad, a four-wheeler from Uncle Michael, he knew that the kids would be riding it, and a small dirt-bike from her Grandpa Kary. Needless to say, the child was just a little spoiled.