Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  Paul and his team loaded Jesserrica, Linsarius and baby Iris into the Destroyer the next morning, after saying their goodbyes to Hon, his wife and his son. Hon had people out all evening patrolling the streets for those who may assault humans and cleaning up the mess already left behind. As they rose above the palace wall they could see massive crowds of Klelta cheering them for their new found freedom. For the first time Paul had a chance to notice the planet as they departed. It was a pretty place; unusual in that it only had two very large continents. It was probably covered with 50% oceans, had several snowcapped mountain ranges, but nothing like Verron. The forests were lush for thousands of miles inland from the oceans, but the middle of both continents were stripped bare from mining and quarry activities. Along the edges of these vast rock pits were dozens of steel mills; all sitting idle. Paul intended to change that as soon as possible. As they left the Klelta upper atmosphere, Paul looked over at the former queen. There were tears of fear in her eyes as she held her infant daughter and gazed out the window. Paul sat beside her and said, “I spent over 60 years as a regular citizen and was perfectly content with my situation and had to get used to being a King. I promise you that you will find Verron the kind of place where you can put your past behind you and be the person you want to be. You are now in control of your happiness and your destiny. I’ll do everything I can to make certain it goes well for you. On Verron you are simply Jesserrica, one of hundreds of thousands who are getting a new start in life. It will be what you make of it for you and your children.” He turned to her little boy who looked terrified of his first spaceship ride. He later found out it was Jesserrica’s first time to ever leave the surface of Klelta. Rubbing the little boys head he asked, “Do you know what a dragon is?” He shyly shook his head yes. “Would you like to pet one?” His big brown eyes grew huge as he looked for his mother’s approval. It was the first time Paul had seen Jesserrica smile.

  Paul decided to make a brief stop on Xhondar I to see how the oil transfer bunker was working out and to make certain the preparation was on schedule for shipping the automated equipment. He also wanted his brother, General Z and Justice to see Xhondar I. Benny was sitting by the window trying to entertain Linsarius as his mother stared in amazement at this unbelievably huge city. Paul got clearance from the Elders to land on their building and was greeted by Mahala and two other Elders as he exited the ship. He introduced his officers and his brother and was escorted to the Elder’s council chamber so he could fill them in on what had happened on Klelta. Mahala knew who Ares was and asked Jesserrica if she had met his brother and sister. She told them she had met them at their wedding, but only briefly. Mahala confidentially told Paul, “The brother and sister are worse than Ares. Try to find out where they are if you can.” Jesserrica had no idea where they were from and had never spoken more than a few words to her King in the five years they had been married. She was there for his pleasure, not to be his friend or companion. Anxious to get home, they made a gateway as soon as they cleared the Xhondar security grid. As they reentered Verron airspace Paul thought, “It sure is great to be home.”

  When General Zarman placed the skids on the floor, a panicked Katelyn raced to the door before it even opened all the way. He looked past her and saw all kinds of commotion and people racing around the hanger. Then he saw it and laughed and half wanted to strangle his Dragon Guard. He tried to contain his smile and firmly asked, “How did that get here?” Just as he finished his question and was being followed off the Destroyer by Justice, a 300 pound Tree Bear Cub raced by, being chased by Hunter and Daniel, as they tried to herd it toward a waiting Chase and Tala. It easily bowled them over and continued to happily race around the hanger having the time of its life playing with his human friends. Justice, being a farm-boy from Mississippi, yelled at the Guard, “Stop chasing it! All he wants to do is play and that’s what he thinks you’re doing.” General Zarman and the former queen were looking on in amusement. Little Linsarius was laughing with a three-year-olds contagious laughter, having the time of his life. Justice finally gathered the Guard together by the Destroyer and asked for an explanation, giving the cub a chance to calm down. Chase spoke up first, “It’s my fault. I’ve been going out with Daniel and Tala and we’ve been feeding the cubs. They love whole coconuts and whole pineapple, especially pineapple. Well, we went out there this afternoon to feed them and play with them. They aren’t afraid of the ships anymore. So when we left the rear hatch of the transport open, Ben sort of walked right in. We had to take the transport, the 100 pound bags of pineapple and coconut won’t fit in the Speeders.”

  Paul looked at Hunter and Amber and asked, “Where were you two?” and quickly got a response, “Home studying languages with Yadvega.” Paul was starting to smile now, he couldn’t be mad at them anyhow. He remembered bringing home snakes, possums, raccoons and once he managed to set a trap and capture a turkey vulture and had no idea how to release it from the snare without getting himself ripped to pieces. These were just kids being kids. Finally, Justice had everyone leave the hanger except for himself, Chase and Daniel, who seemed to be “Bens” favorite people. Amber went to the food storage warehouse and got the last bag of pineapples. They left a trail into the back of the transport and a pile of pineapple in the middle of the transport floor. Ben was obviously hungry from being chased all over the hanger and quickly headed for his favorite treat. Chase closed the tailgate and Ben was safely delivered home to a waiting mother, brother and sister. No doubt ready to tell his siblings about his adventure. No one got in trouble, but Paul decided to start keeping the pineapples and coconuts under lock and key, as soon as he had any to lock-up.

  While Ben was being taken home to his mother, Paul delivered on his promise to let Linsarius see the dragon. At first he was standoffish, but then Tala walked over with him to pet the dragon with him. Tala adored the little guy and even volunteered to babysit if Jesserrica needed one. Paul had to explain what a babysitter was and Jesserrica cried and asked, “Why is everyone so good to me?” Before long she was escorted away by Paul’s mother, Tlase and Tala, carrying a tired but excited Linsarius. She was given a suite upstairs until Paul could get Renee to resettle her. She was a beautiful woman, Paul told himself not to get to close. He didn’t have time to even think about a complicated relationship at this time in his life. He sat in the kitchen and drank himself a Diet Coke and ate almost half a bag of Kettle Cooked Potato Chips and French Onion Dip. Ninety-Nine joined him and finished the other half. It was the first time he had been alone with Paul in a very long time. Paul asked, “How do you like being a Dragon Guard?” Ninety-nine smiled his toothy grin and went on for the longest Paul had ever heard him talk about how much he had changed his life. How he had been alone for hundreds of years with nothing but the wild animals to keep him company. Now he had a family and a purpose. He lived in a palace, flew a space ship, was part of the Dragon Guard and had people who loved him and that he loved. Paul had never really thought about how drastically he had changed 99s life, he just knew that he had been given a chance to be everything he desired to be, so why shouldn’t he do the same for someone else. Paul thought a moment and told 99, “You understand that Hunter, Amber, Katelyn, Chase, Daniel and Tala are blood relatives and titled as Prince or Princess?” He shook his head yes. Paul then asked, “How would you like to be a Duke?” Ninety-nine didn’t grasp the concept of a Duke, so Paul told him, “Duke is the highest member of the royal family. It is a title given to family members of the King and is considered a royal title just like Prince or Princess. So I guess that makes you an official member of the Verron family.” He did that stupid little goat/monkey dance again, smiling the whole time. He thanked Paul profusely and headed out to tell the rest of the Dragon Guard. Paul was about to clean-up and saw that Ninety-nine had finished the dip as well; he decided to let the drones get it. It had been a long couple of days. He headed for bed, still smiling about the craziness of life as King of Verron; a goat/monkey, pet tree bears, an
d giant blue/gray men. All of a sudden, the rest of his family didn’t seem so crazy.

  Chapter 18

  It had been two days since Paul and the others had returned from Klelta. Everyone was still talking about the bear in the hanger. It seemed everyone had pictures of the incident and Chase and Daniel didn’t get in as much trouble as they thought they would. The first day back Paul got up and spent the day training with the Dragon Guard. They did a harder run than usual and to his surprise they kept up. He could still outrun them, but Hunter had become a fierce competitor and Amber wasn’t about to allow her big brother to show her up. It seemed like there was one set of competition going on between Paul and his two grandchildren and another set among siblings and cousins. Ninety-nine just loved to run in the mountains, he knew he could outrun most of the humans, but usually brought up the rear to push the people in front of him. It was unusual for Paul to go through the entire days training with the Guard, but he really enjoyed watching the kids improve the more they were challenged. He made a point of bragging on Chase and Daniel and the Rapture Round they had developed. Jim had video footage of the entire incident, from rock quarry to destroyer battle, and Paul knew it would be reviewed by not only the Dragon Guard but by a select few of General Zarman’s officers and NCOs.

  The second day Paul had a lot to prepare for before he returned to Klelta. He did an early run by himself and spent the rest of his morning connecting with his leadership to get progress reports and discuss just how they would utilize the Klelta that chose to come to Verron. General Zarman was working out the plans for any military training of the Klelta and deployment of troops and ships to their planet. Hunter and Amber had been leading the Dragon Guard regularly on their runs and Power training exercises. The two of them had found another remote location where they could train, at the far western end of Robert’s Range. The valley was much larger and covered with boulders, but it also had some trees and other vegetation, a couple of lakes and a good sized creek running through the middle. There was even some wildlife in the area. After they had watched the surveillance video of Klelta, with the battle between Paul and Ares, and the kidnapping of Al-Zawahiri, they were anxious to see if they could do some of the same things they had seen Paul do. So far, Hunter, Amber and 99 could control the minds and bodies of the local wildlife, the others mostly scared them away or made them angry. Kzki are one of the most skittish and timid animals on Verron, but somehow Tala had managed to make one mad enough chase her instead of running away like they normally did. The 150-pound Kzki was gaining on Tala as she ran from it when Chase lifted it off the ground telepathically and managed to place the animal back with the small herd it was trying to defend. It was a very confused Kzki.

  The seven of them were in the middle of the valley in a large flat area surrounded by trees, low hills and plenty of large rocks and boulders to practice with. They were doing something like skeet shooting. One of them would hurl a large rock into the air and someone else would either knock it down with a flying boulder of their own, or shoot it down with a plasma ball. Chase, Daniel and Tala were standing by the creek about 25 yards from a row of large boulders, preparing to use them for target practice. Daniel had just lifted a large boulder into the air, only to reveal a fur covered alien with pointy ears aiming a blaster of some kind directly at them. Before they could respond, it fired a glowing energy ball directly at Chase, who was struck hard enough to be knocked to the ground. Seeing her brother hit by the blinding blast of energy, Tala impulsively released a plasma ball that hit the armed intruder, blowing a fist-sized hole directly through his chest. The others immediately responded to the situation as they saw two more of the furry armed creatures running from behind the other boulders and headed away from the scene. Hunter ran to the top of a short rise and saw they were headed for a small landing capsule on the opposite side of the shallow creek. One turned and fired at Hunter as he ran away, but it was so wild it never came near him. Amber was beside him now and hurled a smaller stone at the closest fleeing alien and knocked him to the ground. The orange colored furry alien in the lead was almost to the landing capsule as Hunter made the ground erupted beside the capsule. They looked on in amazement as the unstable landing capsule swayed a moment and fell to its side.

  The rest of the Guard was racing along the same path as the intruders. Just after the ground exploded and the capsule began to tilt, the remaining alien turned to fire at his approaching adversaries. Before he could get a shot off, Tala finally got the freeze move right and the armed fur-ball was immediately motionless. Hunter and Amber joined them by the capsule and saw two more of the creatures trapped inside, since it had fallen onto the hatch side of the vehicle. Then they smelled it. They had not been around liquid fuels in a long while, but the eye-burning sent of some kind of rocket-fuel filled the air as it began to pour onto the ground. Those trapped inside were screaming and beating on the window of the capsule and drew Daniels attention to a fire that was building in the thruster section of the small ship. They raced to the aide of the trapped crew and could find no way to get them out. Tala pulled her two daggers and handed one to Chase, saying, “They told me they could cut through almost anything, let’s hope so.” The two of them began cutting around the metal frame that held the observation window. Using their enhanced strength, they were soon able to remove the heavy window. One of the aliens looked like he had an injury and couldn’t climb out on his own. From out of nowhere, Hunter reached past them and easily lifted the injured alien from the craft. They all took off running. Daniel grabbed the frozen crew member and threw him over his shoulder as he ran by. They were no more than 100 feet away when it happened; 1000s of pounds of rocket fuel exploded, throwing fire and flying chunks of sharp metal in every direction. Hunter barely had a fraction of a second to create a shield for protection, but he had made it. The others hadn’t even thought about it, and would have been burned badly, if not dead. The intensity of the heat was tremendous and the four remaining aliens made no attempt to flee from their rescuers.

  When the flames died away, there was nothing but a melted husk where their landing vehicle had been. There were scattered shards of metal for hundreds of yard all around, and every tree and plant was burned to ashes. Now realizing that their rescuers intended them no harm, the four aliens sat on rocks along with the Dragon Guard and looked at the burned rubble that was their only way off this strange planet. Hunter and the others, for the first time had a chance to study these alien creatures more carefully; which, no doubt, they were doing as they stared at six creatures of one species and one that was completely unique from the others. The four crew members were feline in appearance and varied in color. All had very short fur covering what part of their body wasn’t clothed in a flight suite. The facial features reminded Amber of the people dressed up like cats in a Broadway play that she had once seen, except these features weren’t done by a make-up artist. About the same height as any human, they had pointy ears, the nose and slightly extended jaws, where almost identical to the snout of an Abyssinian she once had. Each had different color eyes and one of them had a green one and a blue one. They had teeth that were definitely cat-like, but had no whiskers. Amber looked at their hands; they had five fingers and opposable thumbs, but were equipped with claws at the end of their fingers. She realized they looked like what would happen if a human and a cat could mate. She wondered if they had been a genetic experiment like 99.

  Katelyn finally spoke and asked, “Hunter, what should we do now?” They tried to converse with those they rescued, but only managed to get strange stairs as they attempted to speak in Xhondarian, English, Cronari; Daniel even tried French and German. Hunter looked at the burned out lander and at the terrified aliens, as he responded, “If we had flown here, we could all load-up on a ship and fly back to Mountain City. None of us has tried to jump while transporting another person. I’m going to try a gateway.” The others looked at him like he was crazy. All of them had been attempting a gateway with no success. H
e looked at Amber and asked, “What if we try it together.” She nodded her approval and rose from her stone and stood beside her brother and held his hand. Hunter told the others, “If we should accidently make one, I doubt it will be for long. Make sure you hurry through. Carry them if you have too.” He said, as he nodded toward the four fury charges.

  The Dragon Guard stood-up, indicating to the aliens to do the same, and moved close to Hunter and Amber. The brother and sister agreed to concentrate on a place that was very familiar to them both, the hanger floor at Mountain City. As they held hands and concentrated, at first nothing happened, then suddenly they could feel a surge of power rush through them like nothing they had ever experienced. They had just doubled their available Power and it was sensational. Unexpectedly, and to the amazement of everyone, especially the aliens, a perfect gateway opened and they all rushed through. If the furry felines had not been in shock before, they were definitely overwhelmed now as they stared at a massive hanger filled with more than a dozen ships of various sizes, ranging from Tala’s pink Speeder to the Kings personal Light Destroyer. There were also a half dozen people who had just exited the smaller transport used around Verron. As Paul, Zimuel, Tlase, Michael, Kary and Colonel Justice stared at the sudden appearance of the Guard, Justice smiled and said, “Amber, remember what happened the last time you brought home a stray cat, your mother had a fit.” Amber rolled her eyes at her stupid father and Hunter laughed. The rest approached the strange creatures among them and tried to put them at ease. No one could communicate with them, so they sent for Yadvega.