Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  As soon as the R4 broke free of the strong gravitational pull of Beangagarrie, the two girls had Brad take the controls and chart a course for the small blue planet they had been shown on their way to the Gecko World, as they so politically incorrectly referred to Beangagarrie. It was a short flight, and within an hour they could see the little blue ball growing closer. Katelyn had Lucy retrieve the data from the exploration drones they had released into the small planet’s atmosphere before proceeding on their journey. Soon they had both video and atmospheric readouts from the drones. The little planet was really a beautiful place. As they had observed before, it had two major continents and maybe 100 islands. The mountain ranges on both continents ranged no higher than 16,000 feet. There were polar icecaps and plenty of thick lush forests. Rivers flowed everywhere and there seemed to be no desert of even poorly watered areas on the planet, but that could be a seasonal thing. The life-form censors detected a wide variety of living creatures living in an oxygen rich atmosphere with a slightly higher oxygen level than Verron. It was definitely a place capable of sustaining human life. No cities or advanced technology was detected anywhere on the planet. Then, as the video showed one of the drones flying along the shore of half a mile wide river, they saw a fortified city surrounded by a crude wooden wall 20 feet high. In a dozen places the wall had been breached. The drone flew low over the city and even swept up and down the narrow streets between a variety of wooden, mud and stone buildings. It appeared to be a city of maybe 5000, completely deserted and from the looks of it, abandoned for a few years. The two couples had a bad feeling about what they saw and Brad mumbled, “Volvs.”

  As if by accident, the drones flew by a cliff across the river from the city and, barely perceptible, there was what looked like smoke coming out of one of the caves. Brad commented, “Looks like some survived. Think we can get near them?” Tala looked around and replied, “Certainly not in this. I think Katelyn and I should sort of just drop in on them, free of body armor and weapons. If they’ve met the Volvs, then men in body armor will be no comfort to them.” Katelyn and Tala donned their commando grays and double checked their force-fields, light sabre and daggers. Then got a coordinate on the cave and made a jump from their cloaked ship to where they hoped there was a cave of friendly survivors.

  When the two small girls arrived out of nowhere in the entrance of the home to forty people, pandemonium broke out and everyone but the smallest of children grabbed crude weapons. It appeared that they might have been as advanced as maybe the bronze-age from Earth. They did have metal weapons, but they were very roughly finished and didn’t look very sturdy. They also had bows with metal tipped arrows and knives. Dressed in almost rotted fabrics and animal furs, it appeared they had been in hiding for a while. Both girls held their hands up to show that they were friendly and unarmed. It soon became obvious that this was a male dominated society and the two biggest men were going to claim the new women for their own. Not conforming to conventional dating protocol, they came at the women aggressively to grab them and do as they please. It didn’t take long for these men to find out that these women were not exactly like the ones they were accustomed too. After three attempts each and every time finding themselves on the ground, they finally went back to their weapons and decided if they couldn’t have sex with them, then they would kill them. After thrown spears and numerous arrows bounced harmlessly to the ground or ricochet off the cave walls, the entire group stared in wonder at the two women. That is when they reverted to the most obvious solution to their problems; they got on their knees and began to worship the two goddesses in front of them. Tala, remembering the little Lyncardi, responded to her sister, “I hate it when they do that.” To which Katelyn replied, “This sort of thing happen to you often, does it?” Tala smiled, and informed her sister, “I just seem to have this effect on people.”

  Katelyn observed the fire pit where the cave dwellers were trying to get a fire started to cook some scrawny little antelope looking things. She couldn’t resist and tossed a small fireball into the wet wood and grinned when the worshipers looked on in fear and amazement. Tala shook her head, saying, “Oh great. Now we’ll never get them to believe we are just normal people.” Katelyn reminded her sister, “Dear sibling, tell me exactly when you have ever been normal.” Tala walked over and racked the skinny antelope onto the skewer the people had awaiting their meal and placed them over the fire to cook. Several of the teenage girls hurried to assist and began to throw what appeared to be some root or maybe even potatoes into the coals of the fire. Another went to the edge of the cave and lowered a rough looking bucket down on a rope to retrieve water. Katelyn looked at her sister, and asked, “You bring any water purification tablets?” Tala shrugged. She continued, “Don’t drink or eat anything. These people may have all kinds of parasites.”

  While the women were busying themselves to prepare a meal, the men began to clean and gut some more animals they had killed. Several of the smallest children toddled toward the animal innards lying on the cave floor and began to eat them as if they had never had a meal. Several of the older boys pushed them away before they could even enjoy a few bites. At first, the girls thought they were simply preventing the toddlers from getting sick on the raw meat. But when they began to eat it themselves and continued to kick and taunt the little ones, Katelyn decided she had seen enough. The four older boys found themselves flying backwards into the cave wall and knocking over several of the men that had been looking on and laughing. Tala couldn’t help but notice that none of the mothers rushed to the aid of their children. Neither girl knew exactly what to do with such prehistoric mentalities.

  Katelyn reached into her utility belt and removed one of the very nutritious and now much better tasting survival bars. The new product, actually formulated by the people of Alpha Centauri, was as thin as a wafer and the size of a small club-house cracker. One wafer could supply the nutrition required for an adult for one full day. An entire weeks-worth took up no more space than one of the old Xhondarian energy bars. It tasted like a graham cracker with peanut butter on it. She handed one to each of the little children and they raced away from the others to protect their meal. The older boys at first were prepared to take the treat from the weaker and smaller children, until they saw the look on Tala and Katelyn’s face. The toddlers caught on fast and retreated behind the two goddesses. Katelyn looked around and decided, “Sis, we are getting nowhere with this bunch. I say we bring down a few men, so they won’t be standing around in awe of the two women. Maybe in this male dominated society, Brad and Bart or Captain Greer could make more headway.” There was no other way to do this but how she did it. Right there in front of the staring group, Tala vanished. A few minutes later she came through a gateway with Brad, Bart, Captain Greer and two of the biggest Marines neither of them had ever seen. They were out of their body armor so everyone was dressed in identical commando gray. Except for the three Marines, all of them were unarmed. Verron Marines did not go anywhere unarmed. Now the men were looking very uncomfortable. They realized that they were no longer the alpha male of the pack.

  Soon the boldest men came forward to look at the weapons. They had evidently seen advanced weapons when they were used against their people by the Volvs. They had never seen humans with this kind of technology. Before long, the Marines had made friends with the leaders of the cave people and even demonstrated the weapons for them. The girls looked on in disgust at the male bonding. Tala laughed and told Katelyn, “Well, we may as well assume our proper places.” She then turned and picked-up one of the dirty little toddlers.

  Before long things began to loosen up a bit and the tension between the cave dwellers and their visitors lessoned, primarily due to the quick thinking of the Marines. They were always prepared and with many of them having experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Vietnam, they always brought along extra rations. By the time the two big Marines unloaded their backpacks filled with foods that actually created a good tasting and well bal
anced meal, the entire group were surrounding them looking for handouts. They sent Tala back to the ship for more, so the stronger people would not be the only ones to get the food. With everyone well-fed and the cave dwellers now certain the visitors meant them no harm it was time to attempt communications with them. It appeared only the oldest of the group were capable of language. Bart decided that the oldest ones were just children when the Volvs invaded, so the others were no more than toddlers or infants then. Even the oldest males were never well-educated or had time to develop extensive vocabularies. With the aid of the portable translator designed by Lucy and Yadvega, they were soon getting fragmented details of how the Volvs had rounded up the people and put them on a big flying boat and taken them into the sky. It appeared to have happened approximately 8 years earlier.

  Katelyn looked around and realized that every girl there old enough to bear children was either pregnant or nursing a child. None of the little ones looked all that healthy and she knew they probably had a high infant mortality rate. They had to do something to help these people who had been hidden by their parents during the Volvs invasion. The oldest male and obvious leader was named Zok. He had actually stabbed one of the Volvs with his crude sword when he was only 15 years-old. He then leaped into the river and was swept away with the current. Volvs evidently did not care for water, no one chased him. When asked if there were others, it was determined that there were numerous small packs of survivors who warred with each other over food and women. He was only aware of the ones nearby. It was obvious to the people from Verron, there were probably other survivors scattered across the small planet.

  The crew did not think it would be wise to reveal their ship to the superstitious locals, but did feel like they needed to do something to help these victims of a Volvs invasion. They had some more Marines off-load the rations they had onboard, along with the bottled water and even some clothing that fit the older adult-sized children. The Marine medic came along and did a quick medical scan using the diagnostic wand invented by the scientists from Beriya-Haven. A quick analysis revealed dozens of parasites and gross vitamin deficiency in almost all of them. After a lot of protest and terrified looks, the medic was able to give pills and/or injections to everyone that would soon purge their systems of their uninvited parasites. Katelyn and Tala wanted to take the smallest of them home and give them a bath, but were discouraged from the idea by the Marine commander who felt it would be to frightening if they took people away just like the Volvs did. They both realized that the Captain had a valid point. Realizing there was not much else they could do at this point the group from Verron took a gateway back to the R4 and sent out 30 exploration drones to scan the planet specifically for human life-forms.

  They remained hovering above the planet for 12 more hours until the last drone had returned with its information. There were 30,000 survivors on the small planet, scattered from one end to the other. They actually discovered one of the smaller fortified towns still functioning. Before the ship headed for home, there were downloads of the drones information and video of what they found in the cave, along with a complete report and a request for immediate assistance for the planet in desperate need. Before they landed back on Verron, humanitarian aid was being loaded on two large freighters and fifty Marines were on standby to accompany the workers. By the next morning, help would be on the way to the little planet that would soon be the newest member of the Verron kingdom. Over a thousand aid workers would arrive with food, clothing and medical help for the handful of survivors. When Paul Verron heard what was discovered by his nieces, he was onboard his Light Destroyer leading the convoy, accompanied by Tlase, Zimuel, Yadvega, Lydia, Tala, Brad, Katelyn, Bart and the Queen Mother.

  It took over two months of hard work to locate and then convince the 30,000 survivors of the Volvs invasion that the humans on their planet meant them no harm. It took most of that time to convince them they did not have to fight other tribes for their food or their women. An entire mobile city was constructed using prefabricated structures similar to those used on Molnar, Mars and most other remote locations. The top priority was medical aid and food, followed by decent housing and education. Paul knew they needed some stable citizens to occupy the planet to help rebuild, but he did not want the locals to be taken advantage of by better educated and better armed humans who he knew would be glad to take up residence there. There were actually eleven people on the planet who were adults at the time of the invasion. With the help of Yadvega, a common dialect was established and soon spread among the other residents. Paul assigned four teams of six people each to assist the locals in identifying where they came from and made certain each of the 30,000 had established property rights on the lands they selected as their own. He then assigned Colonel Dumas as a temporary Governor General and two of the locals as Lieutenant Governors. Their assignment was to rebuild the communities and build an infrastructure that would include proper defenses against any future attacks.

  Paul often had an indifferent attitude toward most things and did not allow himself to get emotional over bleak circumstances, but even he shed tears when he saw the horrid conditions these children were living in. Hundreds of children ranging from infants to teens had no parents or caretakers. If they couldn’t take care of themselves they died and many had already done so, he was not about to allow any more to suffer. The orphanage was filled in days by the unclaimed children who needed help. Paul and the others prayed that the people who began to filter into this ravaged planet would adopt these children when they came, and he knew they would come. Based on the responses on Darsai and even Molnar, he knew there was no shortage of pioneers looking to settle off of the Xhondar system. Tala and Katelyn named the planet after the first Verron settlement established on the little blue ball; Hope.

  Chapter 29

  Most of the people on Earth, when they think of Islamic Terrorists, immediately picture those of Middle-Eastern descent, Arabs, Iraqi, Iranian, Afghans, Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian, Nigerian, Somali … others are aware that Indonesia is actually the most highly populated Islamic area, but few think of Bosnia or even Russia. There are actually over 20 million Muslims who live in Russia. Over the years since the fall of communism they have exerted more and more influence on the laws and morals of the Russian people and have even become a powerful political influence in Russian politics. Like every place else on Earth, there are people of the Islamic faith that are good, honest, hardworking people of faith that want to live their lives, serve their god and raise their families, being a terrorist is not even in their thought process. However, wherever Islam is, there are going to be radical members of the Islamic faith that give the others a bad name.

  In Russia, Bosnia and Hungary and other areas of Islamic influence, it is more difficult to spot a Muslim. The stereotype of an Islamic terrorist that comes to mind in the U.S. and most of Europe does not apply in Russia. The Muslims there are of European or Slavic decent and date all the way back to the Ottoman Empire in their faith. Even when Paul and Hunter came up with the idea of the Terrorist Elimination Unit they were guilty of this same stereotyping, so they focused their attention in the Middle East and Africa where the most visible and obvious problems were. Terrorists are sort of like weeds. When you pull them up or kill them in one location, they inevitably spring up somewhere else, in this case, Russia. Terrorist organizations found a safe-haven inside the Russian borders because it was widely known that Russia was the only country where the Terrorist Elimination Unit was not active.

  In Moscow alone, there were over a dozen al Qaeda cells in operation, all plotting acts of terrorism for Europe and Russia, and even their home countries where there were those who did not follow the strict fundamental laws they preached. After Russia took over Ukraine and Hungary once again, it then set its sights on adding Bosnia and Herzegovina. People had grown so accustomed to Russia reclaiming its old territories that the world paid little attention to a few million Bosnians who were protesting, while the other
half of their citizens were embracing the Russian intervention into their country. The majority of the protesting Bosnians was of the Islamic faith and did not want to lose the rights, power and privileges they had fought so vigorously to gain, that is why they had been plotting for over a year to get President Vladimir Putin’s undivided attention and this was the day they intended for the world to know who they were and what they wanted.

  On the outskirts of Moscow is a very exclusive and modern residential area. The Skolkovo Park Residential Compound is a premium class neighborhood developed in 2015. Over the preceding years, additional phases were added expanding it into a large community of the wealthier and more elite Russians, as well as business men and women from all over the globe. One of the major drawing cards for the neighborhood is the school system. Atlantic International School is without a doubt the best school in not only Russia, but probably ranks as one of the best schools in Europe. With a gated and well patrolled neighborhood and a premier school district, it is no wonder that Vladimir Putin’s daughter lived there and her two children attended the Atlantic International School. The Russian Secret Service, much like the Secret Service that protects the United States President and his family, maintained protection for Mr. Putin’s family, including his daughters and grandchildren. The presence of armed Secret Service at the school made everyone who had loved-ones attending there feel more confident about the safety of their children.

  No one on the security detail could have imagined that Fyodor Gibazov was a Muslim; not that it mattered in modern day Russia, many people had adopted the Islamic faith. Fyodor did not act like a Muslim, talk like a Muslim and had even been seen eating pork and smoking cigarettes in the presence of his fellow agents. It was however, all a cover. He was raised since his youth to fit in with the civilization around him. He was well-liked and well-respected by those he worked with as the supervising officer on the Presidential protection detail assigned to protect the President’s grandchildren and the students at Atlantic International. It was for that very reason that it was so easy for him to clear the way for the invading force of 37 terrorists. One by one, Fyodor shot the men he had been working with for over three years with his specially designed PSS silenced pistol loaded with the unique 9 x 18 silent bullets. The Russian weapon, designed for clandestine operations of the Spetsnaz, was beyond quiet. No one heard a sound, as one by one he killed the 12 members of his team. In moments, the entire school was taken over by the masked Islamic terrorists. Doors were welded shut, blinds drawn, explosive charges were set throughout the school and everyone was moved to the inner-most section of the school to avoid prying eyes of snipers and other surveillance. The local soldiers assigned to the residential compound who ventured to close were immediately shot by the hostage takers and four of the teachers who tried to resist were shot in front of the students and the other teachers to make sure it was clear that they better not attempt the same thing. Soon five hundred students were bound at their ankles and wrists by plastic ties and pushed to the lunchroom floor in the center of the school. Teachers were placed around the outside of the students so they would be the first to die if there were any problems; each teacher was given a nice new explosive vest to wear, loaded with Semtex and ceramic ball-bearings.