Earth Ship Protectress: Book Two in the Freddy Anderson Chronicles

by John Ricks

  Earth Ship Protectress

  Book Two in the

  Freddy Anderson Chronicles

  by

  John Ricks

  Freddy Anderson Chronicles

  Earth Ship Protectoress

  Copyright © 2012, 2015 John Ricks.

  First Printing (Epub only)

  Second Printing July 2014

  Cover by Jose Pardo

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  iUniverse

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  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  ISBN: 978-1-4917-7985-9 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4917-7986-6 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917717

  iUniverse rev. date: 11/6/2015

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Cannibals

  Chapter 2 Faith

  Chapter 3 Party Time

  Chapter 4 Heartbreak

  Chapter 5 Breakthrough

  Chapter 6 Surprise Christmas Request

  Chapter 7 Digging Up The Dead

  Chapter 8 The Trainer

  Chapter 9 New People—And One’s A Government Inspector

  Chapter 10 Inspectors Or Plants—Pick One; They Both Suck

  Chapter 11 Sometimes Things Affect Us A Lot

  Chapter 12 The President Is Coming

  Chapter 13 Presidential Visit

  Chapter 14 Apologies

  Chapter 15 Dinner

  Chapter 16 Prepping Shop For Her First Visitors

  Chapter 17 Giving Away Information To Protect What You Have

  Chapter 18 Healing A Friend

  Chapter 19 Never Upset A Master Chief Twice In One Day

  Chapter 20 The Parking Lot

  Chapter 21 Giving Over Responsibility

  Chapter 22 First Manned (Or Woman-Ed) Ship To Actually Fly

  Chapter 23 Be Professional

  Chapter 24 More To Train On

  Chapter 25 Es Protectress

  Chapter 26 Being Human

  Chapter 27 Ftl

  Chapter 28 A Visit From Friends

  Chapter 29 First Encounter Face-To-Face

  Chapter 30 New Equipment

  Chapter 31 Big Issue, Big Deal!

  Chapter 32 To The World

  Chapter 33 Playing Ball

  Chapter 34 Maiden Flight Of The Protectress

  Chapter 35 Saving The World In Two Ways

  Also by John Ricks

  Freddy Anderson’s Home: Book 1 in the Freddy Anderson Chronicles (second edition)

  Sword and Sorcery: Short Stories, Book 1

  To children everywhere. May you be the heroes you were born to be.

  Introduction

  The aliens continue to search Freddy’s mind to find out how he destroyed their greatest ship. The world finds out about the Earth-destroying disaster that is about to happen and panics, and Freddy finds out that the disaster was not what he thought; it’s worse. Freddy starts the world on a course that will either spiral out of control or rescue the human race from itself. Will Freddy succeed? Time will tell. If he doesn’t, life as you know it will never be the same.

  Prologue

  I can’t say I awoke. It was more like I was allowed to think. I was again immersed in thick, clear liquid, and green translucent tentacles held my body in the center of a tank. My energy was still drained, but something was different. I could feel emotions again—just a little, but they were there—and they were alien.

  I remember many things that I did not know before. It was as if someone was feeding me information about this race of beings—how great they were, how impossible it would be to fight against them, and how much it would benefit my people if we surrendered to them and became their allies.

  Then it hit me—their minds leak! I saw what being their “allies” would mean. Allies? “Slaves” was more like it! They wanted us for our technology and then as frontline fodder for some of their wars. Now that I was aware, I could hear voices and see the Green.

  Green said in a booming voice, “Something is different.”

  Gray asked, “What?”

  Everything went black, but the voices and emotions continued.

  Green answered, “Master, sire. He is aware.”

  I sensed Gray stumble back a step; all four of his weapons were quickly pulled and pointed at the tank and my head, and his eyes went so wide I thought they would pop out. Gray turned to his men. “If the creature becomes fully aware, kill it!”

  Blue calmly asked, “Can he use his powers?”

  The Green answered, “No, sire.”

  “Then there is nothing to worry about. Gray, cancel that order! Green, start the process.”

  Gray answered, “As you wish, sire.” He turned to someone and said, “Stand down on that last.”

  Green said, “Yes, sire. By the way, how did your meeting with the Whites go?”

  “I told the Whites what I wanted them to know. They are sending that information back to their respective media counterparts on their planets. Please start.”

  Chapter 1

  Cannibals

  What a time I’ve had. My home is finally built; it’s wonderful and works great. My home. My canyon. It’s a good feeling to have that part of the work completed. Mom and Dad always wanted a Victorian home. Tears come to my eyes, so I stop thinking about how much I miss them. Everything I’d planned is going great so far. The computer system is working better than expected, and so are the defenses. I did not start out wanting defenses, but the nasty old army guys forced me to rethink that issue. It was the army that made me see the need for my babysitters. I have babysitters. What a mess! Instead of being by myself, I’ve a dozen women guarding me night and day. Good thing too, as I’m at war with the media. That worries me the most. There is a brighter side. I have my first girlfriend. Becky is the most beautiful girl in the world. I really need to find the time to see her more often. She was somewhat upset with my not contacting her.

  SEAL team leader Lieutenant Susan is the one in charge of my safety now. Smart woman. Maybe a little too smart for me. She believes she played me like a fish on an unbreakable line. I’m a super genius, but my talent is geared toward inventing, not handling people. I’m rather ignorant in that area. Susan is a genius in handling people and knows exactly how to control me. In addit
ion, most of the time I don’t even know she’s doing it! I’m having a lot of fun playing with her.

  Another one of the SEAL team members is Katie. She’s telepathic like me. Susan uses her to check on me when I’m working. She’s a great person.

  Now that the press conferences are over, I need to get back to work. Keeping my mind clear is going to be hard, but I need to keep it clear because I don’t have time to waste—not if I’m going to save the world from destruction.

  “Stop!”

  Not everything went black. The room was sharp in my mind, and so were the occupants. The Green, Gray, and Blue were close by. There were three other Greens monitoring equipment. There were also seventeen other Grays and eight Purples. They must consider me dangerous, or they’re protecting Gray from Blue. Blue is acting aloof, but he is worried.

  Blue said, “There it is again. Something is threatening his world! Probe hard each time this comes up. We need to know.”

  “Yes, sire. He is fighting again.”

  “Don’t fight him. Feed him information.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  I went to my workshop to concentrate and start the next phase of my plan. Three days later, I came out. I was hungry, and the computer tactfully informed me that the lieutenant was getting very insistent that I come out for something to eat. When I exited the shop, the lieutenant came outside with half the crew.

  “Anything wrong, Lieutenant?”

  “No, Freddy. I just don’t like your being gone that long without seeing you or hearing from you.”

  “Now, Lieutenant, Katie has been checking on me regularly, and I’m sure she told you I was doing fine. Her mental touch is getting stronger, now that she’s using it more.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject on me, young man. You get into that house, take a bath for goodness’ sake, and come down for dinner. You’re going to go to bed right after that. You look like you’re about to drop.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s because of that issue I mentioned. I’m rearranging my priorities in building right now. It’s a lot of work, but I’m on my way. Anything happen while I was working?”

  She pointed me toward the house and started walking that way with me. “More supplies came in.”

  “Already?”

  “Yes. And your replacement generators are in. I took the liberty of having them flown here.” I looked around, saw where they were, and started toward them. She put her hands on my shoulders and pointed me back toward the house. “You can play with them tomorrow. Tonight, you’re doing exactly as I say.”

  “Thank you for bringing in the supplies, Susan.”

  “You’re welcome. Mr. Zimmer called and said that the people you’re prosecuting went to court and pleaded guilty to all charges. It’s all over the news. They’re going to have the sentencing tomorrow morning.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Mr. Zimmer said they want to talk but want this out of the way first. He also said that the government has shut down twenty-three newspapers and magazines and one television station. They’ve pressed charges against over eighty others and expect to close down a few major companies soon.”

  “I thought that you could not revoke an advertising license. How are they shutting them down? Isn’t that causing a big freedom-of-the-press issue?”

  “Many of their licenses have come due or were coming due. The government is simply refusing to renew until all charges are over with. They’ve arrested hundreds of people because of your investigations. Mr. Zimmer took out advertisements on each major channel to detail what the media had done and how badly they had led the public to believe things that simply weren’t true. He also leaked to each newspaper about the other, and they sensationalized it so much that everyone is in an uproar over the whole thing. Even the media is upset with the media. Several cities have had demonstrations against the self-proclaimed ‘news professionals,’ and a few people have been hurt. There’s talk in Washington about making laws that will crack down on them and force them to be scrupulously honest. They won’t take away their first-amendment right of free speech, as this great country is founded on that, but they will make it very painful to knowingly print lies, half-truths, and misleading information that will harm others. With a good lie detector in place, the government will know when it’s malicious. Companies could end up completely out of business if they don’t comply.”

  “Lieutenant, let’s be realistic. The government has tried this many times before and failed. No law has been passed yet, and talk, especially in Washington, is real cheap. The media is probably sucking up all of this and selling more papers than ever. People watch television more than ever, and the riots are just something else to report. The fact that they would report on each other just shows their cannibalistic tendencies, and the ‘hundreds of arrests’ have not been prosecuted yet. We’re doing them a favor, and that’s not what I wanted. We need to cost them money because that’s the only thing they understand.”

  “That’s the best part. The estimated number of subscriptions either canceled or not renewed is in the tens of millions. The television ratings for the news have dropped way down, and they’ve lost most of their sponsors. No one is watching the news except for a few shows that have a reputation for reporting the truth. You’re costing them big bucks. An independent group funded by the government has been installed to rate the accuracy of each news group, based on fairness, honesty, and completely unbiased stories. The surprise and hatred that erupted after their first report, which showed less than 50 percent accuracy in their stories and even less fairness across the board, is what caused the riots. People are totally disgusted, and they’ve stopped watching.”

  “We’ll see what happens. I can hope for the best, but I’m not expecting much.”

  I took my shower, and it felt great. I had no idea how bad I’d smelled until I picked up my clothes to put them down the laundry chute. I washed my hands after touching my dirty clothes. Dinner was great, and I would have stuffed myself, but Colleen made me “slow down and chew.” After dinner, I took the time to write a letter to Becky. I missed her, and I wanted to know all about what she was doing. I fell asleep at my desk in my room. Katie did a mental check on me and came up to put me in bed and tuck me in.

  “This is confusing.”

  Things started to go black but did not completely get there.

  Both Green and Gray said, “Sire?”

  “Why would the media be inaccurate? Our Whites report to an exactness that is nearly unbelievable.”

  Green said, “Our Whites are fanatics about accuracy. If they find one of their own reporting something inaccurately, they are stoned to death. American species of Whites—or media, as they call them—have legal protection at the highest level that allows them to lie. They are paid on what they report. If they do not have a story, then they get no money and cannot eat. Therefore, they also have incentive to lie. The good reporters, the vast majority, do not have to worry, as they work hard and can find stories, but it seems that the few bad reporters make up stories, tell pointless stories worded to make them look like real news, or report in such a way as to draw emotions from others, which sometimes ruins the lives of the ones they report on. It is called entertainment. I have had several in my tanks that literally hate the Whites, yet they would use them for their own ends if needed. Because of these few, the many Whites are distrusted.”

  “You say this is only in one group? And how do they tell entertainment from real news?”

  “Yes, sire. As far as we know at this time, it is only one group. They cannot tell which is real.”

  “Sad, that is.”

  Gray said, “Something for the Yellows to straighten out if we retain this species as allies.”

  Blue telepathically whispered, “Or the Blacks.”

  Fear instantly struck the other two, and Green stammered, “Perhaps—perhaps I need to
con … continue.”

  Chapter 2

  Faith

  “Freddy. Freddy!”

  “Yes?”

  “Shop wants a word with you.”

  “Patch her through.”

  “Good morning, Freddy. I was watching the completion of the hull and determined that the work should stop what my sensors determined is a mistake.”

  “What mistake?”

  “I believe you wanted to install an engine into this machine. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “There is no place to put it.”

  I was still in bed, covered up nice and warm, but I quickly sat up and threw the covers off. “Whoops! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “After breakfast. You don’t want the lieutenant mad at you again, do you?”

  “Good idea. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Freddy.”

  It was after seven when I made it downstairs. As I walked into the kitchen, Colleen, covered in flour, had just set my breakfast down on the table—pancakes with blueberries and bacon chips, good and hot. Yum! More bacon was sizzling on the stove top, and something that smelled very good was in the oven. Colleen’s having breakfast ready for me made me think Katie was using her telepathic ability a little more than I expected, but it wasn’t causing me any problems, so I let it go.

  “Good morning, Colleen.”

  “Good morning, Freddy. Have a nice sleep?”

  “Yes, I did. You know, I really don’t mean to work for so long without talking to anyone. I’m sorry.”

  “Cheer up. That’s the nature of the beast, Freddy. For every action, there is a reaction. For every gift, there is a price to pay. For everything that happens, there is a repercussion. You’re gifted, and so you pay for it with being drifty.” She laughed and tousled my long hair.