Chapter 17

Five weeks after the Enterprise departed it returned. Once again no effort was made to prevent the ship from being detected. This time it was attacked while still in the upper atmosphere using a nuclear missile. Once again, the shield prevented damage to the ship. Unfortunately, the shield did not prevent damage to many pieces of delicate electronic equipment on the ground from the EMP. Neither did it prevent the fallout from contaminating many square miles of land. Thankfully, most of the worst fallout fell into the Atlantic ocean. Of course, there was no way to know how much damage it would do to marine life.

Larry tracked the missile and had his gunnery officer destroy the entire launch site in retaliation. Of course, the explosion of a nuclear weapon did not go unnoticed by the world. Shortly after the news media picked up the story, Larry fed his news release into the internet and feeds from the media giants. He fed the entire video record made by the Enterprise from launch to explosion of the missile and the retaliation made on the launch site. After the video played Larry made a statement. He said, “As I stated when we left on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise, we will not tolerate further attacks on our ships or compounds by any source. I promised we would meet force with force. Today, the United States saw fit to attack our exploration ship with a nuclear missile. The missile did no damage to our ship and we retaliated by destroying the launch site and base from which the missile launched. If we are attacked again, we will destroy the attacking force and the base from which they come. I grieve deeply for the loss of life caused by the government of the United States.

“Now, on to more pleasant news. I am proud to announce the maiden flight of the TSS Enterprise was flawless. All equipment worked perfectly. We are now able to voyage to the stars safely and rapidly. Those of you hearing this announcement are invited to apply for colonization to another, new world. In addition to colonists, the Terra Corporation needs workers here in our earth headquarters. We need almost every specialty known to man. We are accepting applications for all positions. If you are interested in becoming a colonist or an earthly employee, simply go to our web site https//www.TerraCorporation.com and follow the prompts to complete your application. We will be in touch to set up interviews for those individuals and families we feel will be an asset to our endeavor. We will not discriminate based on race, age, sex or national origin. Neither will we discriminate because of religion, however, we will not accept any person or group of persons who are or who might become a dangerous or disruptive influence on our society.”

As the recruiting picked up steam it became very difficult to weed out spies from the various nations of the world and terrorists trying to infiltrate so they could destroy the Terra corporation from within or steal their technology. Fortunately for Larry and his crew Lander’s technology was fully capable of identifying those who were threats and excluding them from the population.

Every time a spy or terrorist was identified they were not only rejected, they were revealed to the world. Several of the failed agents were summarily executed by the various organizations of the world when their failure became known. The military continued to surround the compounds and continued to routinely fire weapons trying to breach the shield. The area around the shields looked like the pictures of the WWI No Man’s Land. Since the government had moved the landowners off the land surrounding the compounds and then trashed that area Larry had no problems with slowly expanding the compounds as they needed more land. They moved the protective shields outward, reclaimed the damaged land, and returned it to production or built new buildings on it.

After three expansions of the Florida shield the government tried a new tactic to gain access to Larry’s compound. They buried several large boxes of explosives and weapons and three Green Beret A Teams. The Berets were rotated regularly. It was hoped that after the next expansion of the shield these teams would be able to find the controls for the shield and shut it off. When that happened, the forces surrounding the compound would move in and capture it and the technology contained within.

Unfortunately for the government the Terrans knew about the buried men and equipment. As soon as the shield was expanded security teams and ‘bots first secured the weapons and explosive containers, then, as the Berets exited their container, they captured them.

These men were placed in cells and treated humanely until Larry was positive they had all the intelligence available on their plans and instructions. After that, the information was broadcast to the world and the three teams were taken out of the compound on board one of the new ships. They were released in the middle of the Mojave Desert near Ft. Irwin, CA to find their own way to safety.

The next attempt to gain clandestine entrance to a compound failed miserably, however, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back as it were. Since the infiltration failed, a nuclear device was buried near the outside boundary of the Georgia compound. It was on a timer that could be reset hourly until such time that it was safely inside the compound. After it had been taken into the compound, the timer simply would not be reset. The resulting explosion would destroy everything inside the compound, thus eliminating the perceived threat. This, of course, to the government was a measure of last resort because if the compound was destroyed, they could not capture the technology they so desperately wanted.

The atomic device was attempted because the President’s advisors convinced him if they lost the space port and their ships Larry and his misguided followers would surrender and deliver the remaining tech base to the government. Of course, this attempt failed also. As soon as the decision was made to annex more ground in Georgia, Lander placed a small shield around the hidden device and one of the smaller shuttles carried it into space where it was placed on a trajectory toward the sun. It exploded a few minutes afterward with no damage to anything.

Throughout this expansion, not only was the government using military forces to attempt to capture Larry and the new tech, they were waging constant cyber attacks also. Unfortunately for the government, Larry’s technology was so superior they had exactly zero successful hacking attempts.

Recruitment of new employees and colonists continued unimpeded. When a person or family were accepted for inclusion in the Terra family, as it was now being called, they were picked up with any possessions they wanted to keep and moved into one of the compounds. Those who wanted to immigrate to another world—and there were more than a few of those—were given the training needed and shipped on to their new home where they were given jobs as promised. All jobs within the Terra Corporation or on the colonies used the new technology exclusively. The standard of living was orders of magnitude higher than that on earth.

No one would ever admit starting the rumor that ended up causing the final split with the United States and, indeed, all the earth governments but someone began calling Larry the Emperor. Soon, at first, tongue in cheek, he became known as Larry the First, Emperor of Terra. His people felt as if this was a fitting title since he not only held complete control of several hundred thousand acres on earth, but he owned two earth like planets with a total of thirteen settlements divided on them. These two colony worlds now had a population of almost three million people scattered over them.

When his new “title” became known to the earth governments they became even more rabidly antagonistic and redoubled their attacks against the compounds. More and more of the gross domestic product from all the nations was thrown into research in an attempt to develop both a way to successfully attack Terran ships and compounds and a way to develop comparable space ships.

As the funds were expended on research, taxes were raised on the population of the various nations. Internal programs and non research, non military budgets were cut. The poor became poorer, they became the new destitute class. The old middle class was taxed almost into oblivion, becoming the new poor. Infrastructure deteriorated and was not repaired. Of course, the uber rich did well, in most cases becoming even richer from all the research money flowing into their coffers.