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"Would you care to join me on a walk Brian, I have something else for you to see, something that I haven`t even seen myself." Tyler asked.
"Whatever is it Tyler, a little green man maybe?" Brian replied facetiously.
"Not a little green man Brian, just one of his space ships, well according to our city computer." Tyler told Brian of his conversation with the ruined city computer, and by the time that Brian had managed to catch his breath they were entering into a large barn of a building on the outskirts of the ruined city.
There before them was not a broken space cruiser of which they had many on Orion, but a gigantic fully functioning Heliot space cruiser. The two men stopped and looked upon it, the pinnacle of Heliot engineering and all that they could muster to say between the two of them was 'oh my!' Just then, a voice called out to them from outside of the giant hanger.
"Where are you two boys?" It was Caroline, she was with Tracy Goddard, and they had seen their men walking on the far edges of the city and had come to find them. Tyler went to the door of the hanger and looked around to ensure that no one else was around before calling them over.
"Over here quickly, Darling for I am just about to unwrap our early Christmas present."
The two women looked at one another puzzled by Tyler`s words, and then they entered into the large hanger.
"Oh my!" they both said together. "Is that a Heliot space cruiser; one that is not broken in two?" Caroline asked.
"And are there any of those large and savage Heliot troopers anywhere about?" Tracy asked nervously.
"No we have it all to ourselves; it is a present to us from the ruined city computer." Tyler then explained all that had happened since he had landed back on Genesis.
"How come you two women are walking around here in the ruined city anyway?" Tyler asked.
"Tracy has been doing some work for Charles and Peter, and having finished was on her way to look for Brian when she bumped into me. George was flying Morgana and me back to the township when he saw the Defender over in the landing area, so he landed alongside of it to see if you had returned to Genesis. Paul Divine said that you had gone in to talk to the city computer, so I came to find you. George had a few things to take care of concerning the plane, but he should be looking for us just about now. Don`t you miss me anymore Tyler, you haven`t even kissed me, you have just looked lovingly at your present?"
Tyler immediately took Caroline into his arms and kissed her.
"Of course I missed you, it is just that we are with the minions."
Tracy Goddard thumped Tyler on his arm. "It is lucky for you that Appolon has been giving you all of those unarmed combat lessons Tyler, or I would have had Brian do that." She complained, but then she smiled. "It is good to see you too Tyler."
The first task to complete was to move the giant computer. Tyler and Paul Divine assisted Brian and Tracy Goddard to disassemble the large computer, and with some extra help from the crew of the Defender, they soon had managed to fit it into the hold of the ship, spreading it around the powerful Heliot Phaser. The Defender had moved from its previous landing area to within the ruined city itself to facilitate the loading of the computer into the ship, it now didn`t matter if the ruined city collapsed, as long as it stayed up just long enough for them to load up the computer. They would then head back to Orion so that Brian and Tracy Goddard could install the computer inside of the old science building. Even so, as Paul Johnson lifted the Defender away from the ruined city, parts of the remaining buildings began to fall down because of the air pressure pushed out by the ships engines. He had with him only one of his ship`s engineers and two new recruits. One was to work on the bridge to operate the radio and anything else up on the bridge, while the other worked in engineering. The remainder of the Defender crew were aboard Tyler`s early Christmas present, trying to find out what made it work.
George Masters had been due to return to Orion today but there wasn`t enough room left in the ship`s hold for his Miles Finch aircraft, even with its wings temporarily removed so as to enable them to store it within the small hold of the Orion Defender. For not only did the hold have a large Heliot Phaser taking up much of its room but it now had the super computer as well as its service robots. On the next trip made by the Defender, Tyler had decided to dismantle the large Phaser weapon that the city computer had used to attack his ship, and take it back to Orion for safekeeping. The people of the planet Genesis would not be able to use it without a lot more technology than the planet possessed.
"Tyler this certainly turns a new page in your future, although for the moment I cannot quite read it." George Masters said when he saw the space cruiser.
"Yes, I am not quite sure just how to proceed from here." Tyler agreed. "I think that we should fly this space bird back to the red plains of Orion for safe keeping. We can use our new ship for flights that don`t require us to carry a large cargo, such as your aircraft George, and use the Defender when we need the space of its hold, even if it is a little smaller than it originally was."
"Will you inform the people of Genesis about it?" Morgana asked, for she was interested to see whether this mega expensive gift had affected the heart of a man so many people had come to respect.
"That is an interesting question Morgana and I think the answer must be yes, of course we will tell them. We will tell them when we land the ship at their township on the way back to Orion. The ship is no use to them anyway, none of the locals has ever seen a starship before, not until we came along, let alone could operate one. The ship was not theirs anyway, but the property of the super computer after the natives finished of the Heliot crew. We will also have to tell them about the removal of the super computer to Orion, and how the threat of destruction no longer hangs over their heads, and that should cheer them up." Tyler replied.
"Do you think that the removal of the threat will affect the way that the colonists help with the development of the original owners of this planet?" Morgana asked.
"Hopefully not, but if they start to renege on the agreement then we will have to insist that they keep to the bargain that we agreed to." Tyler said.
"And how will you do that, by the use of force?" George asked.
"Good lord no, they are Christians and superior to myself, and also to their charges, I would appeal to their hearts, their minds and their morals. If that didn`t work then I would threaten to publicise their disgraceful treatment of the native population, which should do it." Tyler said partly tongue in cheek but very serious regarding the threat of exposure.
"And if that doesn`t work then we would use force." Caroline said vehemently. "All people are created equally according to the churches` teachings, and we would treat them as they treat others."
"Quite right Caroline, we must insure that the native population are not trodden upon." Morgana agreed just as vehemently.
"Well now that we have that settled, tell me, just how large a crew will you require to fly this ship back to Orion?" George asked.
"The same amount as the Defender has, that should be enough I would think, at a pinch anyway, although if we can get the promised crewmen from Earth we might be able to man it with a full complement of crew. Anyway, the Defender is returning in a week to collect your aircraft, and it is bringing along a couple of extra crewmembers to help pilot this ship home. Paul Johnson will pilot the Heliot ship with me as co-pilot and on weapons and communications, and with Tracy to handle the computer. In engineering, we will have Craig Stevens, Caroline, Brian and Paul Divine. We will also have a couple of our trainee space men to help if required. The Defender will be flown by Colin Freeman with Frank Mason and Richard Smith to act as his crew; they will also have a couple more of our trainee spacemen to complete their crew." Tyler replied.
"How are your trainees getting along with their training?" George asked.
"They are getting along just fine, we will soon have two fully trained crews so that our people won`t be constantly torn away from their ow
n jobs and their families, and as I just mentioned, it will be even easier to do once we get the extra crew from Earth, as our good President promised."
The next fourteen days were extremely busy ones, when Tyler and Caroline were not on board their new starship with Colin Freeman and Brian and Tracy Goddard, they were all taken up with the task of the development of the native population. Regarding the operation of the Heliot starship, with its computer now working in English it happily supplied them with whatever information they needed to make the behemoth fly, and fly through the skies of Genesis it did, like a bird.
They had all stripped down and reassembled so much Heliot technology while turning a small freighter into the Orion Defender, that operating the Heliot space cruiser with a computer that operated in the English language was not such a jump that many would have thought. That is why Tyler had no fears about taking it on a test flight to the colony on New Earth. He hoped that the trip would be peaceful, and a quiet period back on Orion would give them enough of a working knowledge of such a powerful starship to get them by until the promised crewmembers arrived from Earth.
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