Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  About that time Brigadier General Lawson and Major General Johnson entered the room among the screams of Tala’s outrage and the pleas of the pilots for her not to hurt Cruz. They were backed away from the angry teen and Katelyn was at her side trying to convince her to let the man go. When Lawson screamed, “Tala, you’re killing him!” Cruz suddenly dropped to the floor taking big gulping breaths. Johnson immediately asked, “What’s going on here?” Katelyn jumped in before anyone could speak, “Just a little misunderstanding, Sir, nothing that we can’t handle without your help.” The General looked at the young Major and was about to treat her just like he would any other subordinate who spoke to him like that, then he remembered that these girls were not just officers in the Verron military; they were members of the royal family. He turned to Lawson and commanded, “Handle it General” then turned and left the room. A hush fell over the room as the dumbfounded flyers looked at this demon child who had almost killed one of them without laying a hand or a weapon on him. Tala broke the silence, asking, “Are you OK? When someone bigger than me comes at me the way you did, my first instinct is to defend myself. We are taught by King Verron to never let anyone touch us first, because then they have the advantage. No one had ever come at me so aggressively, even if you were joking.” Lt. Cruz slowly climbed to his feet, using the wall for support, and replied, “Sorry. I would have never touched you, Mam. I guess the joke got a bit out of hand.” Tala extended her hand and told him, “No hard feelings.” Cruz shook her little but surprisingly strong hand and replied, with a smile, “I’m afraid if I had any bad feelings you would beat them out of me. How did you do that?” General Lawson took command and answered, “Officer, this is Area 51. Home of all things secret and all things Alien, you have just experienced both. How it was done is classified.”

  General Lawson looked around the room and knew there would be no point in Tala and Katelyn trying to instruct a class, there was way too much tension in the room. He turned to the two girls and asked, “Would you mind postponing class until this afternoon so I can have a little talk with my pilots? Tala didn’t want to get the others in trouble and replied, “It’s alright; we’ll be fine.” Robert looked over at Cruz still rubbing his neck and 23 others trying to digest just what happened and told her, “I know that, it’s not you I’m concerned about. Go prep the ground crew on what you’ll need and meet me for lunch at 1200. We’ll continue this afternoon.” Both girls gave Robert a half-hearted salute and headed for the door. It was dead silent in the room as 24 of America’s top pilots quietly seated themselves in their correct seat and waited for the hammer to drop. General Lawson stood and looked at the confused pilots and spoke in a subdued tone, “I think there is something you people need to see.” He left the room and walked down the hall to his office, grabbed a 100 Terabyte flash-drive he had received from Amber and returned to the classroom, still completely silent. No one said a word when he entered and walked to the computer console and prepared to show them something on the big 85 inch UHD Curved Screened TV. He then turned to face his subordinates. After staring at them quietly for a moment, he said, “I am more than a little disappointed in you. You’re supposed to be more than our best pilots; you’re supposed to be mature and responsible adults. Lieutenant Williams and I share something in common with these two young ladies, we both have advanced far beyond our age and had to deal with what you are doing to these visitors from Verron. Think about this, Major General Johnson is about 10 to 15 years older than anyone in this room. What if he looked down on us the same way you are looking down on the girls that are about the same age difference. They have earned the respect of everyone on Verron and are not used to, nor are they going to get used to, being treated like they were this morning. I think before you receive instruction from Major Verron and Captain Verron it would be a good idea if you knew something about your instructors, other than that they are the nieces of the King and their father runs their spaceship factory. Area 51 is the most highly classified compound in America. What I am about to show you is so classified that the people here and at the Pentagon have not yet seen it. If the public saw what I am about to show you there would be wide spread panic of the worst kind. What you are about to see is not to be discussed with anyone outside this room, with exception of Major Verron and Captain Verron.

  He hit the play button on the remote control and the big 85 inch screen came to life. Robert smiled along with everyone else when the title shot came into focus. In big red childlike print was the movie title, The Little Pink Speeder, with a drawing done by Tala when she was only ten. Her voice began the narrative, “My name is Tala Verron. I produced this as a project for school, so I really don’t have such a big ego that I did a movie about myself, even if I am sort of the star, but it is really about the pink Speeder I got when I was ten. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and was just like any other girl my age. I had a knife collection, a child-sized crossbow and a pink twenty-two rifle. We always had dirt-bikes and go-karts around the house and me and my older sister and brother had lots of friends. He sang and played in talent shows, went to parties and spent a lot of weekends with our Grandpa Kary. One night we were all playing bluegrass music together and Uncle Paul was at the door. I hadn’t seen him for a long time and although he was ten years older than Grandpa, he looked younger than my Dad. Our life has never been the same since that night. He told Grandpa and Dad that he had an entire planet named after the family, Verron, and he wanted us all to move up there to help him build a country.”

  “At first we were all board and Uncle Paul let Hunter, ‘cause he was older, start flying us places. Then Uncle Paul told us that if we would help my Dad build spaceships, he would let us have the Speeders we built. Hunter already had one and so did 99. Anyway there were more of us than there were Speeders and since I was only nine, they told me I had to wait for one. No one knew it, but I was better than any of them on the simulators and one day I found a ¼ scale fighter in the prototype shop and finished building it.” Robert paused the film and interjected, “Keep in mind that Tala is only 9 ½ at this point and builds a mini-Fighter on her own by finishing what was started by Aliens 300 years earlier.” He turned the film back on; it showed Tala flying through the valley surrounding the spaceship factory in her mini-Fighter with Hunter chasing after in his Speeder.

  The movie continued on with a few stunts performed by Tala in her mini-Fighter and then Tala continued, “Since this is about the Pink Speeder I guess I better tell you about it. Everyone else had Speeders and I was getting mad. I got tired of sneaking out Hunter’s Speeder when he was gone and 99 always knew it when I had been flying his Fighter, even if we are the same size.” The film showed Tala and 99 side-by-side and Tala climbing into the cockpit of a Class X Fighter before she was 10 years-old. Tala’s narrative continued, “The happiest day of my life was my 10th birthday. After getting all kinds of cool stuff from people, my Dad finally took me to the hanger and gave me my very own Speeder, in my favorite color. I even got a matching helmet.” The next few frames showed Tala and the Dragon Guard out flying their Speeders. The aerobatics and precision flying was impressive even by Blue Angel standards. When it showed them playing Catch Me If You Can through caves and canyons at speeds beyond Mach 3 everyone was on the edge of their seat. Tala continued, “Me and that Speeder spent a lot of time together. I learned to fly Fighters, Destroyers and everything else on the planet, but I had the most fun in my pink Speeder. But, all good things must come to an end, I hate it when my Dad says that, but it was true about my Speeder. About a year ago me and the Dragon Guard were having fun racing each other through the Robert’s Range and my little Speeder saved my life.” The video showed the camera footage from Tala’s, Chase, Daniel and Katelyn’s Speeders, when Tala hit the Needle and crashed at over Mach 3. There were gasps and “no’s” when she went spiraling out of control and Robert heard a sniffle or two when the avalanche buried her alive.

  Robert looked at the shocked faces as he stopped the
video again. The pilots were saying, “No way.” “You really had us going there General, nobody could survive that.” “Great special effects Sir.” Robert simply said, “No trick, just truth. These people from Verron build the best aircraft in the universe. Now it really gets interesting. Here’s where you get to know a bit about the kind of family these kids come from. He started the video again as the Transport/Rescue ship was headed for Tala’s crash site. They watched in anticipation as the transport searched the ravine for the buried Speeder. Then, when it came to a stop over the right spot, the Transport began to turn 90 degrees to a nose up angle and stay there. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Robert paused the film one more time, saying, “I’ll let you watch this to the end but I want to tell you what you’re looking at. The pilot of that ship is King Verron himself. He is holding a ship completely stationary in a valley with 120 mph winds whipping through it at an altitude of over 20,000 feet. You’ll see what I mean when the rescue team repels out. But let me tell you who they are. The men your about to see dangling over a 6000 foot deep ravine in 120 mph wind in 60 below temperatures are Marcus Verron, Tala’s Father and manager of the Spaceship factory, decorated veteran of Iraq, also Kary Verron, her Grandfather, runs the weapons manufacturing operation and a veteran of Iraq as well, Michael Verron, her Uncle and chief financial manager of Verron, and Dr. Joe Verron, King Verron’s older brother and an accomplished outdoorsman. They are doing a rescue that no Earth rescue team could perform.

  He rolled the film again. There was a cheer from the officers when Tala emerged from the Pink Speeder. The film continued through Tala’s testing of the Speeder crashes and the explosion of the Speeder into the huge asteroid. The Little Pink Speeder film ended and General Lawson said, “That’s not all. This next part I have shown General Dorsey along with the Joint Chiefs and CIA Director Sullivan. What you are about to see would absolutely devastate our Earth; I know, because it terrifies me to see what the military of Verron has been doing.

  He selected another file from the flash-drive and showed them the battles fought over the past couple of years by the Verron Air Force and Marine Corp. He started with the battle of Klelta and pointed out, “Both Tala and Katelyn were awarded the Flying Ace for over 15 kills each; actually Tala had closer to twenty.” The pilots were closely analyzing the number of enemy ships and the massive size of the Battle Cruisers. He then showed them satellite footage of the ground battle. No one had ever seen anything as violent in their entire military career. He next ran the incredible battle against the Jhxunka. There were deep breaths and gasps of excitement as they watched over a billion seven foot tall insectoids cling to Fighters and breach the hulls of huge Destroyers and Battle cruisers. They couldn’t believe their eyes when body armored Marines and Cyborgs joined the battle on the outer hull of the ships to repel the Jhxunka. Then Robert explained how the battle was finally won. He showed some, but not all of the helmet-cam shots of Tala, Katelyn and Chase as they fought their way through guardians of the Queen to set their explosives. He commented, “The Dragon Guard didn’t even bother to keep count of all enemy ships they shot down during that battle. Tala told me one day that after the first 1000 or so you sort of lose count.”

  He then told them, “This next battle was against a 2000 soldier invasion force on the planet Tramlaw. It was fought by a handful of Verron Marines and Chase and Daniel Verron. These aliens are called the Volvs and are the fiercest creatures you never want to meet.” The film, like the battle, was not very long, a couple of hours, but the 24 pilots who never saw fighting up close and personal were disgusted, especially seeing the human bodies hanging from meat hooks prepared for the Volvs next meal. Last he showed them the film from Tala’s front and rear view camera as she races through the Robert’s Range in a contest against 10 Qualoc Fighters. These experienced pilot began to shout, “I gotta get me one of those” when Tala fired FTLs from the rear of her Fighter. Then the 3 against 150 Dogfight began. No one had ever seen anything so amazing as those three girls flying. Last, was what Robert described as his personal favorite, saying, “I was actually in the Light Destroyer that fired what they refer to as a Two Tap Gut-Bomb; I was on the dispensing end of the weapon and it still gave me chills.” The room was silent when they realized the debris floating around outside the 15,000 foot long ship was bodies and parts of bodies. He closed with, “These two young women have more flying hours, more combat experience and more kills than all of you put together. There is quite honestly no one on this planet that can do what they do. Now, you think you can show a little respect for them this afternoon when they start your instructions.” They gave a resounding, “Yes Sir!”

  Katelyn and Tala had spent the morning with the much more polite ground crew, teaching them how to service and load the Interceptors. They were enjoying the air-conditioning in the mess hall while they waited for General Lawson to join them. Instead, 24 pilots entered the room and sat at the tables with the girls. Cruz was the first to speak, informing them, “Whatever you do, don’t eat the hamburgers served here. I think they are made from Armadillo road-kill and the fries are some kind of processed low-cholesterol crap. The BLT and the Philly Cheese Steak are much safer. Major Susan Brown spoke to the girls for the first time, saying, “That stuff goes straight to your hips girls. You can’t go wrong with the Tuna on whole-wheat or a nice chef’s salad.” While she was describing her choice of food, “Bad Brad” was poking his finger down his throat making gaging sounds.” Tala thought it was cute, Katelyn thought it was stupid. The girls suddenly realized why the change of attitude when Major Brown looked around to be sure no one was near and asked Tala, “What was that thing you were using on those giant bugs when you were going after their Queen?” Katelyn looked at her sister and shrugged, as if to say, “They’ve already seen it so what’s to hide” look, just before Tala told her, “Well this is Area 51 so all things Alien apply. What you saw us using was a laser sabre. I know it’s hard to comprehend, but true. You should have seen my older brother Chase when he found out that Uncle Paul was going to give each of the Dragon Guard one of their very own.” A Marine Lieutenant Colonel, who was probably the oldest of the group, asked, “Captain Verron, what exactly is this Dragon Guard?”

  Katelyn took over at that point, saying, “We are King Verron’s hand-picked leaders and his most highly trained and skilled warriors. We are taught many skills that others do not possess, like what Tala did this morning. Most of us are family, but not all of us are human. He has selected others from our allies to become members of the Guard. We each swear our loyalty to King Verron and report directly to him. The rank on our sleeve is automatically two grades higher than anyone else with the same rank. Tala would have more command responsibility than a Lieutenant Colonel, I would rank as high as Colonel and if it comes down to a final decision, Princess or Prince outranks anyone on Verron except General Zarman, but he outranks us only in military matters. We are direct representatives of the King. He will stand behind any decision we make. It’s sort of scary to have that much responsibility and power, but Uncle Paul has been teaching us leadership skills for years now. He often tells us that one day we will be the leaders of Verron.” She reached in her utility belt for her com unit and showed them a picture of the Dragon Guard. It didn’t take much effort to see who was a Verron and who was not.

  The afternoon class was considerably different than the morning session. Katelyn and Tala actually spent more time explaining Verron technology and the things the pilots had seen in the videos shown by Robert than they did about the Interceptors. When these pilots realized that the two ships in their possession could hit speeds of 60,000 mph inside the Earth’s atmosphere and almost ½ the speed of light outside, they really didn’t know how to respond. They suddenly realized that by the time these girls finished training them that they would no longer be simply Fighter pilots, they would be astronauts. These new ships now had a sense of awe to them. Tala let them know that each ship had the same safety features as he
r Pink Speeder and could keep them safe in crashes under Mach 10. She added, “We make no guarantees for what may happen at higher speeds, I guess General Lawson showed you the asteroid?” They indicated that they did. She added, “Be careful not to crash within a few thousand miles of a populated area, or it won’t be populated anymore.” Katelyn then inserted a flash-drive that described and illustrated the features and weapons systems on the new ships. When the pilots realized that there was enough firepower on one ship to destroy an entire country they became very aware of what a huge responsibility the Pentagon had placed in their hands. They would soon be the most powerful pilots on Earth.