Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  The day had finally arrived. Tlase took charge of Robin and Dr. Meese oversaw Tim, as the two were removed from the rejuvenation chambers. Robin couldn’t believe how hungry she was, but it was to be expected since she had not consumed any food for six days. After a double shower to get the slime out of her long thick hair, she finally stepped out of the shower to face herself in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall. For years she had hated to see herself in the bathroom mirror, but now she almost felt self-conscious as she couldn’t stop admiring herself. Tim entered from the adjoining dressing room and she gasped in embarrassment when a strange man walked in on her naked in front of a mirror. Then she realized the lean and muscular man with six-pack abs was Tim. They both stood and looked at each other in mutual admiration. Then Robin began to cry, saying, “This is simply too much. I never expected anything like this. How can we ever repay that man for giving us back our lives? No one has ever done anything like this for anyone before that I know of.” Tim shook his head and disagreed, “Don’t forget Admiral and Director Sullivan, he now has a leg and no diabetes. They both look great and Paul Verron is the reason why.” The two embraced and Tim was about to get frisky, when Robin said, smiling, “Later, we have plenty of time for that. I want to get dressed and go see Paul Verron to thank him. We have to leave for home tomorrow, wait till they get a load of me at CNN” she said, as she twirled around for Tim’s perusal.

  Someone had thoughtfully laid-out a new wardrobe for both of them. When they exited the dressing room Tlase and Dr. Meese were standing beside Paul; all three whistled and applauded the handsome couple. Tim did a muscle flex and Robin did her best Miss America runway turn. She had never felt so giddy. A sixteen ounce steak, a Main Lobster, twice-baked potato and a fresh salad followed by Strawberry Cheesecake later, the couple actually began to feel the full potential of their youthful bodies; it was a rare feast for the vegetarian Robin Meade. Paul left them to shop at the mall and told them he’d see them back at the Mansion for supper, BBQ T-Hog. Robin couldn’t believe that after all she had just eaten she was already looking forward to dinner.

  The next morning Robin and Tim felt like newlyweds when they woke up. They took a bit longer than usual getting out of bed and then took a long shower, together. When they finally made it to the kitchen it was only an hour before they were supposed to leave. King Verron had made arrangements for the two to be transported to Atlanta in a Verron aircraft stationed in Mississippi. The two joined Paul in a Kinfu omelet filled with leftover BBQ T-Hog and drank a Diet Coke. Robin had always been a Pepsi girl, but since visiting Verron couldn’t imagine drinking anything but Diet Coke. The conversation was light as the couple joked and chatted with King Verron like he was an old friend. They both felt closer to him than many people they had known for years. Robin realized it was because he was so transparent. There was no pretense in anything he did, she couldn’t imagine him doing anything but what he said he would do and never would he do anything that wasn’t honorable. It was refreshing after being around so many phonies on Earth. Paul personally drove them to the Travel Center and received a big hug and a kiss on the cheek from Robin and a gracious handshake from Tim. Just before they left, Paul handed Robin a box, saying, “You know that diamond and emerald necklace you sometimes wear on CNN, well I thought you needed a real one, compliments of the Lyncardi.” As the couple stepped through the gateway home, Paul turned to help an older lady with three small children carry her baggage to the Klelta Palace Shuttle, he refused the two dollar tip; he was paid enough already.

  When the small Verron transport landed in Centennial Park, right in front of CNN, there was a flurry of excitement when someone wearing a diamond and emerald necklace, that looked a lot like Robin Meade, stepped out of a spaceship. She and Tim waved goodbye to Daniel Verron and briskly crossed the street to the Lobby of CNN. At first the receptionist didn’t recognize the twenty-year-old woman who claimed to be Robin Meade, but the deep sort of raspy voice was very recognizable. Robin swiped her ID card at the security point and easily passed the retinal scan. She proceeded directly to the Producers Office to explain to him and show him why she had taken an extra week. Robin Meade was about to begin a whole new career, only now she was going to entertain 100 billion people. She held in her hand the last thing Paul Verron had given her inside the jewelry box, an exclusive right to be the head of Earth News for the Allied Nations of Verron. No other network was invited, just Robin Meade. Robin and Tim would soon realize there was something different about them besides their new-found youth. Tim had already noticed he felt stronger than ever, he accounted it to the rejuvenation. What they didn’t know was that King Paul had authorized a Level One Enhancement. Robin and Tim now had twice the muscle density and twice the brain density of their norm and would also have more than double the life expectancy; King Paul wanted Robin Meade to handle the Earth news for a long time.

  Chapter 21

  Paul Verron, Marcus Verron, and General Zarman, along with Jon Morgensson and an entire team of engineers, were in body armor/survival suits as they toured the mammoth Volvs mother ship. There were probably a thousand people from Verron onboard the ship cleaning-up the mess left behind and assessing the damage to the ship. Paul knew that he could learn more about his enemy by studying this ship than he ever could from his previous analysis of a few downed fighters and autopsies of dead Volvs. Jon Morgensson had seen a few pictures his wife had shown him from her biological studies of the Volvs, but seeing their ship and the hundreds of thousands of dead Volvs all over their massive vessel was a bit overwhelming; when the group split-up, Jon was escorted along with a dozen other engineers to the reactor rooms. King Paul’s battle plan of crippling the Mother Ship had worked so well, they were now in doubt about whether they could restart the devastated ships reactors. It was Marcus Verron’s intention to place the 20 mile-wide, 30 mile-long and 1 mile-high oval-shaped ship in Verron’s orbit for a thorough analysis of every component. Jon was about to get sick watching the stacks of Volvs bodies being hauled off the ship for incineration. It would take weeks to clean out the gore from the walls and floors, he looked up, and ceilings. After several hours of assessing the damage to the very uniquely designed antimatter reactors, that were the largest ship-board reactors any of the engineers had ever seen, Jon called Marcus to let him know that there was no way to get the ship moving under its own power. There were holes ten feet wide blasted through four of the six reactors and the other two were complete meltdowns.

  Kary Verron had been climbing all over the inside and the outside of the Volvs ship looking over the impressive weapons systems. Although heavily damaged, almost all of them could be repaired. He was most impressed with the missile feed system that allowed the Volvs to rapid fire missiles like an Uzi. He was also leading a group of computer and systems designers who were trying to understand how such a large ship could arrive completely unnoticed by the best sensors available. It would take a while to reconstruct the sensors, antenna’s and jamming towers that had been on the surface of the ship, but what was really going to make a difference was the completely intact ships computer system. Under the direction of Lucy, John Graham and a team of 200 computer geniuses were hard at work looking at every circuit in the ship. After realizing that there was no way to complete any work where the ship was located, Paul ordered that it be towed by his R4s to Verron’s orbit. A ship like this was never designed to be built or landed on a planet surface. In a few days the ship would be abuzz with Beriya-Haven drones, cyborgs and robots conducting repairs. Before he left to head back to Verron, Paul had already decided to update the reactors with whitematter units, install Verron anti-gravity and forcefields and add the big ship to his fleet. It would take years to build one for his self so why not take advantage of the one he had. He turned before boarding the Dragon Wagon saying, “Please make sure you clear out the dead Volvs and the body parts before towing it home. I don’t want dead Volvs to be floating around the orbit of Verron.”

  It
took 20,000 Marines, 500 technicians and 1000 service and maintenance cyborgs from Beriya-Haven three more weeks before the ship was deemed ready for transport to Verron. While the cyborgs made repairs to the outside breaches to the hull, the technicians brought the artificial gravity and environmental systems back on line in the damaged areas. The ship was pretty remarkable in its design. Only the areas where there was actually a hull breach were without gravity and oxygen. The ship was so well compartmentalized and well-engineered that the undamaged portions still maintained both artificial-gravity and a breathable, properly heated environment; even with the six main reactors disabled, the auxiliary power reactors kept the rest of the ship functioning. It took a long time to thoroughly search thousands of square miles of rooms and corridors. With as many as 400 levels in some areas of the ship, there was fear that Volvs may well be hiding away in some obscure area, but one thing the Marines soon came to realize, Volvs do not hideout. Every Volvs onboard raced to repel the boarders during the battle, leaving the center of the ship vacant with the exception of the small number of sentries left behind to watch their 1,000,000 captives.

  The ship was literally a small city. The housing units were not elaborate and there was no sign of things you would see in a typical Marine barracks, like photographs of friends and family, books, magazines or music players. It was obvious that the commanders lived a better life. They all had individual residences and an ample supply of fresh meat in their refrigeration units. It was a grueling task, after cleaning-up the dead Volvs, to go back through the ship and look for the human meat stored onboard the ship and put it through a nuclear garbage disposal system. There were tons of things onboard that the Marines wanted to pretend were not human remains.

  Deep in the heart of the ship was a discovery that the Marines wanted to isolate and use a plasma grenade to destroy. But wisdom prevailed and a medical team from Verron and Beriya-Haven were summoned instead. The Chikondi of Beriya-Haven had been reproducing as clones for thousands of years and was far more advanced than even Tlase and her team of scientists from Xhondar, but even they were impressed with the cloning chamber with a capacity to clone 5000 Volvs at the same time. From what they could make out from the computer analysis done by Lucy, the Volvs were capable of cloning those 5000 in 90 days. After cloning was completed the neurological downloads were made. Their minds then became exactly like every other mind in the massive army. With two brains, they had remarkably high intelligence and were constantly being loaded with more advanced programing. At the present time there were 1000 fresh Volvs ready to be completed in less than 90 days. Someone had to decide exactly what to do with them. The Chikondi declared that until they received their neurological downloads they would be harmless and what they would be capable of after the brain was programmed would be dependent upon what they were programmed with. John Graham shook his head and muttered under his breath, “Garbage in – Garbage out.” The Chikondi scientist had never heard the expression, but Tlase understood completely what the man from Earth was saying. After a teleconference with King Paul and General Zarman, it was decided to conduct any research into creating a human-friendly Volvs on the ship, and that if continued, it was to be relocated to a planet well isolated and very secure. After disconnecting with Tlase, Paul looked at General Z and commented, “What’s your honest opinion Jim, do you think they can be turned into an ally?” Jim asked, “You ever hear the story about the rattlesnake?” Paul nodded, Jim continued, “I feel like they will be what they are created to be no matter what we attempt to program into their two brains. I hope I’m wrong, but one thing’s for certain, I want them as far away from Verron and as tightly secured as possible while we do the research. That orbiting monster of a ship a few thousand miles above Verron is too damn close for me.”

  It was the last day of preparation before the ship was to be towed by tractor-beam by four R4 ships. There would be a large gateway formed to exit in a perfect orbit at 4200 miles above Verron. One of the Marines hit the emergency panic button which summoned the entire Marine contingency onboard to level number 75, deep in the middle of the ships hold. What they found appalled them all, it was the breeding chamber where they kept the reproductive females they had captured and the male sperm donors used to artificially inseminate the 10,000 young women in the herd. The men were lobotomized and isolated away and strapped to machines that kept them alive and periodically harvested their sperm. There were dozens of operating tables in the area where the women were artificially impregnated, but what really disturbed the men were the thousands of infants and toddlers walking around like starving animals, dirty, hungry and covered in their own body waste. These women must have been second or even third generation breeders, not a single one understood human language. They cringed in fear when the Marines entered the huge chamber and began to scream liked caged animals. Soon Tlase and the medical team she had onboard arrived to witness the horror of the Volvs meat breeding operation. Tlase was actually sick enough to leave the room and throw-up, returning a short while later with tears in her eyes as she looked at the thousands of children being neglected by the women who were no more than baby makers. She didn’t see any of the women trying to protect the young. Generations of abuse and oppression had removed even a hint of motherly instinct.

  Once again a call went out to King Verron. After listening carefully as Tlase explained the situation, he made a gateway directly to the Mother ship to see for himself. It was moments like this that he didn’t much care to be King. He felt utterly helpless in this bazar situation. He hated that everyone was looking to him to make a decision on just what should be done. He realized and hated to admit, that the women themselves were at this point in their lives, not much more than animals. It would take a lot of work to bring them around into being normal functioning humans, but there was hope for the infants and toddlers. Their minds and bodies were unspoiled as yet and there was a very high probability that with love and nurturing they could grow-up into good solid adults. He decided to see just how attached the women were to the young. He turned to Tlase and commanded, “Have your medical team begin removing the children from the room. I have a gut feeling there will be no resistance or concern from these loving mothers.” He had been absolutely right. Not a word or sign of protest was heard as the people from Verron moved in to retrieve the children. Most of the children acted like a scared kitten, unsure exactly what to do; others reacted warmly to the kind embrace of an adult. Zimuel had arrived at the request of his wife and entered the room shortly after Paul had arrived. Paul turned to him, saying “We need to make a public announcement on Verron that there are thousands of homeless children available for adoption. Offer an incentive for those who will take these children in. Take them to the Medical Center to have them thoroughly examined, cleaned-up, inoculated and fed. We’ll have to provide temporary housing for them there until they can find homes. We don’t have an orphanage so we’ll have to improvise.”

  He turned to his Marine Commander, saying “For now we need to bring as many of your female Marines as possible on board to watch over these women. We can’t have a bunch of men looking after a room full of naked women. Secure a large area on this floor and allow them freedom to move about. It will take them a while to adjust to being free. Find showers and I’ll arrange for clothing to be delivered as soon as you’re in Verron orbit. I would love nothing more than to simply set these women free, but that would be as big an injustice as keeping them locked-up. Little by little we will allow them the run of the ship. I’ll send up a medical team and some linguists to establish a language they can quickly comprehend. Hopefully before long they will be ready to adapt to society, but it will take a good deal of preparation to get them ready. Does anyone have a better idea? I’m sort of thinking on my feet here and open to suggestions. It’s not like this is an everyday situation.” Zimuel was proud of his protégé and placed his hand on his shoulder and said, “In the words of a great King – that’s why they pay you the big bucks. Leave it
to us Paul; we will also be playing this by ear as we go along. I believe you may underestimate the ability of these women to quickly adjust to their freedom. We’ll do everything we can to prove you wrong.” Paul smiled before he left the room, patting Zimuel on the back as he left, commenting, “And those words of wisdom are why I keep you and your lovely wife around. Thanks. For once I pray I am completely wrong and you are right.” Laughing, he looked at the surrounding Marines, and said, “As hard as it is to believe, I do occasionally make a bad decision,” then left the ship.

  He stepped into the sitting room after his return and informed the Queen Mother, “Mom, I have a special project for you. How would you like to find a home for about 20 to 30 thousand orphans, all infants and toddlers? Head down to the Medical center in an hour or so, if you want the project, it’s yours.” Smiling he told her as he turned to leave, “It’s about time you started earning your keep around here.” He knew he would probably get no banana pudding or peanut butter fudge for a year after that comment, but he still had fun saying it. He knew his Mom would immediately fall in love with those babies and soon forget his sarcastic sense of humor.

  When the call went out over the Verron and Xhondar I news that there were thousands of orphans available for adoption, the response was unbelievable. Suddenly families all over both planets were adding a child to their family. Verron had the shortest existence of an orphanage in history. In a little over 60 days there was not a child left to be adopted. Paul knew that Verron was a family friendly place and expected a good response, but Xhondar had traditionally been a low population growth society. There were so many people on the planet already that most chose to have very few or no children. But with new options for residence on Verron and now Darsai, the people of Xhondar I were seeing hope for a future with the children they had always desired. Paul was told by Governor General Abarnikov that over 500,000 people from Xhondar I had already applied for residency on Darsai. He had no doubt that many of those adopted children would one day be residents of a planet the Volvs had almost destroyed. With the little ones out of the picture, Paul turned his focus from his other affairs and made a trip up to the orbiting ship to receive an update on the status of their technical discoveries and the plan for housing 1000 Volvs ready to come out of the oven. Zimuel had been spending a lot of time on the ship. He was a determined and focused man on a mission. Paul knew part of his motivation was to prove him wrong, but deep inside, he knew that Zimuel was one of the most compassionate and caring people alive. He truly desired good things for these poor women and refused to see anything but their potential. He had recruited Yadvega and her assembled group of linguist to teach them to speak the English language. Marianne Uschelbec had taken time off from her busy schedule as the Director of Education on Verron to spend her time educating the women who had been nothing more than breeding stock a few months earlier.