Chapter 11

“Really? Melted diamonds?”

“Yes, the pressure and the carbon and the heat have created an interesting phenomenon.”

I sat there still and quietly thinking ... for a long time.

“Mick?” Angel sounded concerned as she drew out my name.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“Can you get some of that melted diamond?”

“Yes, I have the ability to take samples of any surface material.”

“Ship, it would be wonderful if you could get some of that melted diamond and form it into a ring for Angel.”

Angel spun on my lap with her eyes wide and her mouth open.

“Yes, Mick, I can do that,” Ship said.

“Angel, married women on the Earth are given a wedding ring by their husbands. Usually, the ring is gold and has a diamond on it. I would like to give you a diamond ring that is all diamond. If the ship can make one, would you accept it and wear it as my wife?”

Angels hands moved from her mouth to her eyes as she wiped away her tears of joy.

“Yes, Mick I would proudly wear it.”

“You know that you would be the only woman on Earth with a REAL diamond ring, right? Every other woman would have a ring with diamonds on it.”

“I would, wouldn’t I. Oh thank you, Mick,” More tears and several kisses followed.

“Ship, please make the ring for me and when you have collected the diamonds, please move to the next planet.”

“Very well, Mick.”

We watched the 360 degree viewer as the ship landed on the hot side of Mercury and an android left the ship, under cover of Ship’s shadow, to collect some of the melted diamond. The android returned to the ship and we moved away from Mercury and on to Venus.

“The ship can’t use FTL speed inside the system, Mick.”

“Let me guess, once Ship gets up to speed, it takes too long to slow down.”

“Got it in one! I guess those physics lessons took.” Angel hugged me and tried to stick her tongue down my throat.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“How long until we get to Venus?”

“I can make it in a day and a half if I go at full non-light speed.”

“Good, let’s do that. In the meantime Angel and I are going to our room.”

I slid Angel off my lap, and we walked, hands on the other’s butts, to our cabin, where we experienced zero-gravity love making for the first time. During our first time, I kept thinking of the Lionel Richie song “Dancing On The Ceiling”. We found out that a weightless cum shot looks really strange. Almost as strange as a very pregnant faerie floating through the air trying to catch it in her mouth.

When we got to Venus, we flew into the gas clouds and saw the dead dry mountains on the surface. I can’t begin to describe the colors in the atmosphere from the different gases. We made love on the flight deck with the 360-degree viewer on and the gravity turned off, surrounded by the colors and the swirling clouds.

Later the next day, we flew off to our moon. We flew to the sites of the lunar landers, and I found out that ship could make an atmosphere under the cover of the ships body. Angel and I walked out onto the dark side of moon and I drew a heart in the lunar dust with an arrow through it and the initials ‘AO’ on one end of the arrow and ‘MO’ on the other before we went back inside. I wondered if anyone would ever find it and what would they think.

Two days later we landed on Mars and found the NASA landers that were still rolling around the planet’s surface. I had a crazy idea.

“Angel, wouldn’t it be fun to walk out and wave at the cameras and freak out the folks on Earth?”

“Let’s not draw the attention of any Earth governments. We still have to go home and live there.”

“I guess you’re right. It would have been funny though.”

“Yes dear, it would have ... you big goof!”

I reached down and pinched her butt causing her to squeal and give me a loving smack on my shoulder. We flew to the asteroid belt and I asked the ship to stop.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“Our scientists theorize that this was once a planet, do you know if that is true?”

“I do not have any data to prove that one way or the other. There is enough mass that it could have been a planet. It would have been about the size of Earth.”

“Ship, what could have caused the destruction of an Earth sized planet?”

“There are several things I could theorize. There could have been an internal eruption. It could have been struck by another asteroid. It could have been struck by a weapon.”

I marveled at the force it would take to destroy a planet. Then it hit me.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“Are there creatures out there that could have used such a weapon and done this to the planet?”

There was a beep.

“I’m sorry, Mick. That is information that I cannot give you.”

I looked at Angel and she smiled and pulled me into a hug.

“Some things we just cannot know yet.”

“Do you know, Angel?”

“No, Mick. I don’t know anything about this.”

“Meaning that you know about other things.”

“Mick, I come from the future, I know a lot of other things.”

I thought about that for a bit and understood that I didn’t need to know. A few days later we had moved on to Jupiter and flew into the big red storm. It was a powerful thing and it shook the ship, even with its advanced inertial dampers.

“Angel. Mick. You might want to hang on. The atmospheric density is changing rapidly, the winds are wildly variable, and it appears that the gravity field is also changing.”

“Let’s get out of here, Ship. If it is shaking you up, we don’t need to be here.”

In a flash the ship shot out of the Jovian atmosphere and we began to move towards Saturn. A few days later Angel and I were making zero-G love on the command deck again as we watched the beautiful planet approach. Saturn is a beautiful color, but as we got closer the rings seemed to lose their mystery. Soon they no longer had colors and I could see that they were just rocks.

“Ship, our scientists think that the rings used to be a moon. What do you think?”

“That is a possibility.”

“Is it possible that the creation of the rings and the asteroid belt are related?”

“If you are asking if whatever destroyed the moon also destroyed the planet, it is highly unlikely.”

“Angel, I just thought of something.”

“Does it have to do with what is getting hard against my butt?”

“No, that is all your fault, my faerie. I was thinking does the ship detect any lifeforms on any other planets in our system?”

“Ask it.”

I paused. Did I want to know?

“Angel? Remember when I told you about my favorite Arthur C. Clarke quote?”

“Yes, the one about being alone in the universe or not being alone and either idea was awesome?”

“Not the same words, but the same idea. I don’t really know if I want to have the knowledge.”

I stood there, with my erection pressing between Angel’s tiny buttcheeks and looked back at Saturn as we moved away. As we moved farther away, it was beautiful again.

“Ship, where is Earth?”

“There, Mick.” A bright yellow circle surrounded a small bright light in the darkness behind us.

“Ship.”

“Yes, Mick.”

“I want to go home please,” I said with sadness.

“We won’t be able to land yet.”

“I don’t care, Ship. I want to go home.”

Angel looked and me and hugged me tight.

“Homesick?”

“It’s lonely in outer space.”

“Rocket Man?”

“Yeah. I understand it better. The farm is my home because I’ve never known anywhere else. I’ve never traveled. But to know the farm is just a dot on a dot on another dot, it makes everything seem so small, like if I don’t cling to it, it will go away.”

“Can you understand now why I joined the Angel Corp. New Earth is just a small dot in a small system in a small galaxy in a huge universe. It’s my home. Saving it is ... I don’t know ... everything? Sometimes I feel selfish because I want to save it for me and not the generations to follow. It’s MY home.”

“Angel, I do understand. That’s how I feel about the farm. The Earth. You.”

I held her to me, understanding that in the all of existence, the love between two people is the strongest force in the universe. She must have felt the same way because her hold on me was tighter and tighter.

“Angel? Mick? Would you like to go home?”

“My home or hers, Ship?”

“Ours, Mick. Ours.” Angel wrapped me up again and kissed me.

“Before I return, would you like the ring?”

“Yes, please.”

And android entered the bridge and handed me a sparkling clear crystalline ring. I held it up to see the way it refracted light. I’d never seen anything so delicate or beautiful. I took the ring and thanked the android. I don’t know why, it is a machine and didn’t answer. I turned to Angel and took a knee.

“Angel, on Earth when a man asks a woman to marry him, he usually gets on one knee and asks. So, Angel would you please be my wife forever?”

“Yes, Mick, that’s why I traveled over time and space to be with you.”

I slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her.

“Ship.”

“Yes, Mick.”

“Please take us back to the farm now.”

A couple of days later. Ship glided back into orbit behind the moon so as to not panic anyone. Angel and I spent the time having a nice meal and watching the television coverage of the “Miracle From Space” as they were calling it. “The Day” seemed to become the common reference to the event.

When the atmosphere was mostly clear of asteroid dust, Ship brought us into geosynchronous orbit above the farm. At the darkest point of the night, and using a tech I didn’t even ask about, the Ship began a huge thunderstorm that spread out for dozens of miles in all directions around the farm.

The sun had set in relation to the farm and with the storm, it was truly a dark and stormy night. Ship descended through the clouds and when it got over the hole, it hovered for a bit and then lowered itself into the hole like it had when it arrived, only now it needed to go deeper because of the seven additional ships stacked together.

I sat in the captain’s chair, with Angel, and watched via the 360-degree viewer, as the dirt rose around us, finally obscuring the thunder storm above us.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Mick.”

“I was thinking that if I created a large body of water above us, that it would provide better cover. We could tell anyone who asked that when you took off, an underground river was opened and filled the hole with water.”

“I can do that.”

“I hate to lie to people Ship. At some point I, or one of my sons, will tell a contradictory story.”

“Not if I DO hit an underground river and it DOES create a large lake. You can call it Space Ship Lake.”

“No, it will just be a reservoir that we can use to irrigate crops, instead of piping it in from the river. I don’t want to draw a lot of attention to it with a name like that. No, let’s just keep it simple and in the future the family can use it to swim in and we can stock it with fish. Angel, I never asked, do you know how to swim?”

“No Mick, I never learned. Will you teach me?”

“Of course, then we can skinny dip.”

“What is skinny dip, Mick?”

“Really?”

My grin was truly epic.

I was hoping that we would not be bothered too much by people or governments after the asteroid was destroyed. To help insure that, I did do one last broadcast.

” People of Earth. People of Earth. Please excuse me for bothering you. As you know from the news and the vision in the sky, the asteroid has been destroyed. The Earth is safe again. I would hope that this event causes many of the worlds governments to come together for the betterment of the people. I know some won’t and if they don’t and they continue to treat the people of their countries badly, well, that will be the fault of the people of those countries.”

“There are more people than there are governments and if the people force the issue, governments will change. In the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, the founding fathers of the United States said that sometimes it was necessary for the people to rise up and overthrow a bad government. One of our Presidents referred to our government as being “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. But that is the business of the people of this planet and is no concern to the people who destroyed the asteroid.”

“This is the last time you will hear from me. I am going back to being a simple farmer, if the government and the people who live around me will allow it. The ships are gone and have left nothing behind. Again, I’m sorry to interrupt you. The people who saved the Earth will be waiting for the day that we meet them among the stars. Good bye.”

“Mick, I think that was about the best you could do without making peace seem like an enforced threat. Now we just sit back, raise corn and sons and enjoy loving and living.”

Eight days later Ship called me to come to it and when I walked into the basement, an android led me to what looked like a hospital room.

“Mick?”

“Yes, Ship.”

“Angel is going to give birth to your sons.”

“What!? Where?”

“In the room next to this one. Do you want to be there?”

“Yes! Why would you think that I wouldn’t?”

“I have been monitoring the goings on here on your planet and it seems that many men do not want to be present.”

“I do. I know it is going to be messy and all, but I see it as a miracle and the greatest gift that a man and woman can give to each other. How do I get in there?”

A door slid open and there was my Angel on a normal looking birthing table. An android was placing her feet into stirrups.

“Hello, husband.”

“Hello, wife.”

“I’m glad you chose to be here with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Even the other stuff?”

“What other stuff?”

“The stuff I have been studying.”

I had no idea of what she was talking about, so I went along with her.

“Yes, Angel, even the other stuff.”

The android looked between Angels legs and then up to me.

“Mick, she is about ready.” It said flatly in the same voice as Ship.

We had taken birthing classes in the ship and I felt ready to do my part. I stood next to Angel and was holding her hand, when all hell broke loose.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!” Angel screamed at the top of her lungs.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

My eyes almost bugged out of my head at the change in my faerie.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

She screamed again.

“YOU COCKSUCKING PIG FUCKER!”

Wow, the language! My Angel was losing it. The pain must be tremendous. Her tiny frame must be tearing apart from the size of my sons.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh! YOU RAT BASTARD, MOTHER FUCKING, PIECE OF SHIT!!!”

My God, my son’s birth was killing my wife. I looked at the android in fear for hope, but the faceless automaton gave no indication of alarm or concern or fear. I looked at Angel and in a tiny, scared voice, I spoke.