Chapter 60: Meeting New Friends

Earth Date: Friday, June 12, 1987

Max POV:

We just broke out of Hyper-warp in the relative proximity of Mars. Earth was less than 2 hours away using our impulse engines and, the crew and I were all experiencing a wide range of emotions. Anxiety, nervousness, excitement, ambivalence and relief of actually making it this far being chief amongst them.

Then we ‘heard’ from Darren and Monte.

Darren told us that, while he wasn’t watching us ‘live’ at the time, he HAD seen our entire encounters with both Captain Pootami and the Gromorik spaceship’s Captain, Dover. He said that he, Ed, Monte and Ibera were all proud of us and were also stunned that we were now ‘legends’ in the worlds of both the Gromorik’s and Greyzarian’s High Commands!

Monte chuckled, “The way you guys handled the problem on that planet impressed the hell out of me. Because of that, you just insured that there’s no way in hell I am ever going to let my organization know your ship even exists. At one time, I even considered turning it over to the Greyzarians, but, I quashed that idea the first time I saw the way you guys could handle that ship. However, I do want to incorporate some of the Shallock’s advanced technology that your ship has into the new ship that the Greyzarians are helping us build as a joint venture. Tell me, is Lonnie around where he can hear me?”

“This is Lonnie, what can I do for you Agent Monte?”

“I’d like to know if you might be interested in joining the group of scientists and Greyzarians working on that project?”

Lonnie’s eyes lit up and he gasped, “Wow! Heck yeah, I’d love to. Will I be working alongside you?”

“No, I’m afraid not. But, you would be working right alongside another member of our family by the name of Glenn. He was one of the builders building our hacienda before he got, well I guess you could say, ‘educated’ nearly the same way you did. And I must say, if you know everything that he does, you and he will end up leading some of the most brilliant scientific minds on the planet. Is that enough to convince you?” We heard him chuckle.

Lonnie couldn’t believe it, “Absolutely! Will I get a chance to meet this Glenn guy?”

Monte chuckled again, “Absolutely! Now that we know you guys will be landing today, hopefully we can get the whole family together to welcome you. Just how far away are you guys at this moment?”

I grinned, not that he could see me, “We’re about two hours away from Earth using 40% impulse power. I do have just one question though, while no one will be able to see us, this ship does make a somewhat loud whirring noise as we land. Linda tells us our landing spot isn’t all that far from your trailers and the construction site. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Hmmm, it could be?” Monte mused for a second, “we really don’t want the construction crew to hear you land. Mainly because none of them even know your ship is going to be here. Could you delay your landing for say, three or four hours?”

“No problem, even though we’ve all been chomping at the bit to get out of this ship for a while! One and a half months is a very long time to be cooped up in this tin-can.”

We heard a new voice, whom we discovered was Ed, one of Darren’s friends. He chuckled, “You guys don’t know what I’d give to be in your place right now. I’ve been with Darren on every one of your adventures. You’re not just legends, you’re also my heroes.”

“JB just told me that you know him? Well, I’ll tell you what. When we make a pass over Earth, JB will give you a telepathic holler, then, why don’t you just teleport directly in front of him!? That way we can take you on a small joyride of the solar system? What do you say?”

We heard Darren chuckling, “I think our friend just passed out! Max, guys, you just made one of his dreams come true. Trust me, we’ll make sure he’s conscious and ready when you call him, okay? Oh good, he’s awake!”

Linda giggled, “Eddie? Why don’t you go and get with Gracie so she can come too? I miss my pixie, blonde girlfriend and you know she’d be upset if you got to do this and she didn’t, don’t you?”

We heard Eddie gasp, “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Gracie’s with Jamie and Charlene right now watching the kids. My ass is already gone and the rest of me is just trying to catch up!”

We heard some chuckling in the background when Monte came back, “Just so you guys know, Eddie does know practically everything that you guys do. Therefore, feel free to show him, and Gracie too, for that matter, any and everything you can. While Gracie hasn’t been ‘educated’ yet, I think all you guys are going to fall in love with her.”

JB was just grinning and nodding his head in agreement with Monte. We were glad that Monte added one more thing, “Oh yes, just so you know, at least the Greyzarians are constantly monitoring everything around Earth for any and all alien spacecraft. There have been several sightings of UFOs recently that we’re pretty sure were not either the Gromoriks nor Greyzarians. Once you pick up your passengers, why don’t you do a sweep of the entire solar system with your scanners on max range, just to check it out for me? Okay?”

“No problem, Monte. Our cloaking device was engaged the second we dropped out of hyper-warp. We made that standard procedure, mostly at Tumrik and Braitak’s suggestion. Tell me, is the family prepared to meet our two Gromorik friends?”

Monte chuckled, “Our immediate family, yes. Our extended family? Not exactly. Since the sun will still be up, they may want to wait on the ship until after sunset, anyways?”

Braitak and Juules were nodding and smiling. Braitak said, “I’m looking forward to meeting you, Agent Monte. I understand you’d like to have Juules’ and my help with a few things?”

“I sure would. Tonight, I’m going to introduce you to my two friends whom you’ll be working closely with. Their names are Rex and Jeremy. They too have been dying to meet you guys. Oh yes, and their girlfriends, Joni and Sheila can’t wait to meet you and especially Juules, too. I hope Juules isn’t too bashful?” He chuckled.

Braitak laughed while Juules began blushing like crazy, “My lady is a bit shy. But, she and her girlfriend, Leena are no strangers to getting ‘better acquainted’ with females of your species! If that’s what you mean?”

That had Monte laughing, “It is! Well, Eddie and Gracie should be ready anytime you are, so go ahead and give them a shout out and we’ll see you guys in a few hours?”

I told him we’d do that and ended our conversation.

It was only a few minutes after that when we moved to go around Mars that our sensors went off. It was alerting us that there was an unknown spacecraft near the vicinity of Earth.

This was most curious. I’m sure Monte didn’t know about this, so we scanned to see what type of vessel it was. It turned out to be Greyzarian, some type of older, smaller warship. It was about 250,000 miles in front of us and on roughly the same heading as we were.

So, we decided to follow it, planning to ‘call’ Eddie as soon as we got in close enough proximity of Earth.

Tiny activated the pilot’s battle chair while Annie was at the Comms Station with Braitak at the Weapons Station. Braitak had Annie program in all of the known Greyzarian communications channels so we could listen in on anything that might be said. We were somewhat surprised when it made the turn to loop around Earth, just like we were planning to do.

We made the call to Eddie and the second he and Gracie appeared on the bridge, we quickly explained what was going on and what we were doing.

His eyes were like baseballs, certainly not expecting this much excitement right from the giddyup.

JB pulled the two of them aside and quietly tried to explain what Monte had told us and what we now felt was going on. Suddenly Eddie’s little joyride had turned a lot more suspenseful than he ever imagined.

Although to us, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. We didn’t want to make contact, but, after it began heading back toward Mars we started wondering just what the hell it was doing? We followed it as it began heading out toward Jupiter. It had increased its speed and headed toward the asteroid belt that was between Mars and Jupiter. The next thing we knew, they began taking pot shots at asteroids with their laser weapons.

JB chuckled, “So these clowns are just out here doing what, getting target practice? Turning the big rocks into little rocks?”

Braitak chortled, “I’ll bet these fools are doing some kind of patrol around the galaxy. According to our sensors, this ship they’re on is one of their older ones. Since they’re not cloaked, they’re obviously not expecting any trouble. They also don’t appear to have any shields up.” He laughed, “If we simply showed ourselves, their Captain would probably shit all over himself!”

You have no idea just how hard it was for us not want to just have some fun with these guys.

Annie managed to tap into their intraship communications and we could hear the Captain giving orders to his fire team. They were having target practice! And every time they missed Braitak was laughing like a hyena.

Finally, when the fire team was told to target this rather large asteroid and the fuckers missed, Braitak couldn’t hold back any longer and let loose one of our, much more powerful laser beams and blew the thing to smithereens.

The ship’s internal communications went nuts. Their Captain had already recognized that his team had missed, then freaked out as his monitors showed the asteroid literally exploding in front of him.

Immediately an all channel communiqué was sent out, “Unknown spacecraft, unknown spacecraft, this is the Greyzarian’s warship ‘Old Dog’ show yourselves or we will have no choice but to fire upon you!”

Annie giggled, answering in their language, “And just how in the heck are you going to do that? If you dummies can’t even hit an asteroid that big, what makes you think you could ever hit our spaceship, even if you could see it?”

There was silence as it became apparent to this ship’s Captain that Annie had answered them in their own language.

It was funny as Ed had to explain to Gracie what was just said, since she was the only one who didn’t understand the language. Gracie was still giggling when the Old Dog’s Captain came back, “Um, well, as you can see ... Ma’am, that is why we’re using this asteroid belt for target practice. Are you in one of those new ships we’ve heard about? I didn’t think the first one would be ready for a couple more Earth years?”

I chuckled, “We were just sent here to check up on you, Captain. Don’t worry, we’ll keep your sorry ass shooting to ourselves so as not to embarrass you. How much longer is your ship going to be on patrol of the solar system?”

“We only have about three Earth-hours left before a shuttle will relieve our crew. I hope what I heard is true, that this new ship they’re working on will be able to take off and land without rocket assist?”

I saw Lonnie’s eyes light up as we just got confirmation of what Monte had asked him to be a part of.

Without further communications, we followed them until we were sure they were headed beyond Jupiter toward Saturn before we turned back toward Earth. I just knew that if Monte found out about what we just did he’d probably freak out. But, we also knew we had to tell Monte about this ship and what we determined it was really doing up here. We were all sure if Monte was aware that the Greyzarians were patrolling the solar system with a spaceship he would’ve said something to us.

When I looked over at Ed and Gracie they were both talking with JB, Wanda, Juules and Lucy, not believing all this really just happened. I couldn’t help but notice that Gracie couldn’t take her eyes off of Juules. It occurred to me that this was the first real alien she’d probably ever seen in person.

Even though I’d only known them for a few hours, if they were anything like the rest of this family, I couldn’t wait to meet them all.

Linda helped guide us to their property and we noticed there was a big red X painted on the ground. Once Monte gave us the all clear, Tiny did a great job of setting us down right on that ‘X’. We killed the engines right away, switching to internal batteries that would power the life-support systems and the cloaking device.

As we all prepared to teleport to this huge canopy covered area, Braitak and Juules agreed to stay behind until the sun went down.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Ed and Gracie volunteered to stay behind with them. Ed said he didn’t feel it was right to abandon our Gromorik friends on their first visit to Earth.

Like I said, I had really good feelings about this family we were about to meet!

Monte POV:

I was glad that our construction friends weren’t here when our spaceship landed. While it didn’t make an obscene amount of noise, the whirring or whining sound it made would’ve raised more than a few questions.

I’m also sure that everyone was glad we set up these misters and large fans that made being outside in the 108 degree temperatures at least bearable. It was funny watching Lonnie laugh at his friends who definitely weren’t used to Arizona’s summer heat. That’s when it occurred to me that even JB had yet to experience an Arizona summer.

Also, watching Wanda’s wide-eyed expressions at everything she saw made me realize just how ‘out of her element’ she was. She seemed more amazed at our three different trailers than she had been about the spaceship she’d just traveled here on!

I heard her ask JB, “Are those like your house, on our island?”

JB chuckled and nodded, “Actually, my house was designed to be somewhat like those trailers. You see the wheels near the middle of them? We have these big vehicles, called trucks, that we can hook up to them and move them wherever we want. We call them travel trailers.”

“Oh! I love all the different colors on them, where yours is all white.” She giggled, “Um, what is a truck, anyway?”

Greg heard them and came over to say hello. “Hi, my name is Greg. And you must be Wanda? I heard you asking what a truck was. Well, tomorrow I was planning on going out and buying myself one since my old one got destroyed not too long ago. Would you like to come with me, perhaps?”

Wanda giggled, “You use funny words, Greg? What does ‘perhaps’ mean?”

JB was fighting back a chuckle at the look of bewilderment on Greg’s face. Wanda had caught him completely off guard with that question.

Greg popped one eyebrow then said, “You know, cute lady, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to define that word before? I guess ‘perhaps’ means, maybe yes, maybe no?”

Wanda giggled again, “Then perhaps, maybe you wouldn’t mind if I gave you a kiss?”

The second Greg grinned and opened his arms he found himself holding onto a giggly, playfully kissing Wanda. I think Greg was somewhat surprised when he heard Wanda in his head, “I really like you Greg. I hope I have not embarrassed you too much, being like this?”

I watched Greg hug her a little bit tighter, “No my sweet little wizard, it takes a lot more than this for me to be embarrassed. Welcome to our home and I hope to get to know you a lot better as soon as possible, okay?”

“How did you know I was a wizard? Is this not the first time you’ve seen me?”

Greg gave her a sweet kiss while thinking, “I see I’m going to have to take you up to see my good friend, Miss Ibera. Some friends of mine and I have been watching you ever since the first time you met Mister Chen. I am actually quite fond of you and glad to see that Mister Chen did not corrupt you.”

“Me too! He tried, but my friends Max and JB rescued me from his evil clutches.” She giggled, “Are they going to have to rescue me from your clutches too?”

Just then I watched as Greg gave her a super sexy, tongue twisting kiss. Just then JB chuckled, “Wanda sweetheart, you got yourself into this predicament! Not to worry though, Greg is a good guy and I trust him with my life. Go ahead and have as much fun with him as you’d like.”

“Ooh, thanks JB. I really like Greg. He kisses wonderful too. He just told me I can go with him when he buys his new truck, tomorrow, will that be okay?” Giggle, “even though I have no idea what a truck is?”

JB grinned, “Greg, where Wanda’s from, their sun is nowhere near as strong as ours. So, make sure she uses sunscreen and see if you can’t maybe find a hat for her?”

Greg nodded, “Good idea JB. Since Wanda’s about the same size as Linda, I’ll make sure I find her a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt and a slouch hat, if nothing else. I don’t want my new little girlfriend getting sunburned!”

JB added, “And Wanda, you’re going to see many things you’ve never seen before.” He chuckled, “Perhaps, if you don’t wear him out with too many questions, he can stop at this ice cream shop, called ‘Cold Stone Creamery’ and give you your first taste of ice cream?”

Wanda smiled, “Do you mean like Naomi and the girls were trying to make? Naomi did tell me to be sure and try some American ice cream. She said I should try chocolate first?”

Greg grinned, “Chocolate is one of my favorites too, but I also like when they mix marshmallow in with it. We can get one of each so you can try them both, okay?”

While they went on about Wanda and Greg’s upcoming adventures, I moseyed over to talk to Lonnie.

Lucy was hanging onto his arm, still not sure about all these new people she was surrounded by. I wished Maggie were here, but, she was still at home, waiting on Glenn to return from work. I Introduced Lucy to Rex and Joni who wasted no time pulling her aside and making her feel at home.

Lucy and Wanda were the two people who we were going to have to find something to do with.

While both of them had psychic abilities, neither one of them had any real education that could be useful, either. While they did know some things about the spacecraft, it was just enough to keep them busy and give them something to do. They were both here because they were JB, Max and Lonnie’s girlfriends.

I’m just hoping they don’t get bored and do anything stupid.

I’m not really worried about Wanda, though, because that girl seems to be very eager to learn everything she can. And, from what I can tell so far, is a lot of fun to be around. Not to mention, I don’t think she has an evil bone in her body. Lucy on the other hand, with her not so distant criminal past and now with psychic abilities, we’re going to have to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t revert to her old ways.

Anyway, I could see the relief on Lonnie’s face as it appeared Lucy was making two new friends. I smiled at Lonnie, “So my friend, I assume you want to get settled a bit, but I’m wondering when you might want to start working for me?”

He shrugged, but smiled, “As soon as possible, I guess? I’d really like to meet this guy, Glenn, you told us about. Is he around here somewhere?” He asked, looking around.

“He should be here in just a bit. My girlfriend, Maggie, is back in DC waiting on Glenn to get home from work. As soon as he does, they’ll both teleport out here immediately. The only problem I foresee will be getting you vetted. Because of your criminal past, we may have to set you up with a whole new identity. Luckily, I’ve already been checking into that and think I have found a perfect match for what we need you to be. Several years ago this guy named Ronald L Smith, a graduate of MIT died of a heart condition. He had no family to speak of so it wouldn’t take much to ‘bring him back to life’, so to speak. And because his middle initial is an ‘L’, we can even tell everyone his middle name was Lonnie, and you prefer to be known as that. What do you think?”

He grinned and nodded, “I think that’ll work. I was wondering what you were going to have to do about my past. I never even considered that we also would need to explain my sudden ‘advanced education’, since I just barely graduated high school! Oh yes, and I wanted to ask, can we possibly find something for Lucy to do so she could be around me most of the time?”

“Getting her into the organization will be rough since she has no real skills. Does she know the Greyzarian language?”

Lonnie shrugged, shaking his head, “No. I see what you mean. Maybe we could find her something to do around here? So she doesn’t get bored?”

I nodded, “That’s possible. Wanda’s in the same boat. Now that I’ve been vetted and it appears I’ll be taking over Major General Hendershot’s position, I have a lot more freedom now. Oh, did you guys happen to pick up any signs of alien spacecraft on your way in?”

Lonnie waved JB and Max over, then said, “Hell yeah! We ran across an older Greyzarian warship, ‘patrolling’ around the solar system! Did you know they had a ship out there, doing that?”

I was shocked, “Hell NO. I just got started on my ‘Above-Top-Secret’ briefings and all I’ve been told so far is that they’re ‘monitoring’ the area! So, they actually have a ship up there?”

JB and Max joined us. JB chuckled, “Yes! The crew must really be green, though? We followed them as they looped around Earth, then headed to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter for ‘target practice’ on asteroids! They couldn’t shoot for shit!”

Suddenly, all three of them started laughing, making me wonder, “Ummm, and what did you three jokers do?”

Max chuckled, “Well, they’d just missed this huge asteroid, about the size of Texas, and Braitak couldn’t resist, so, he targeted it and blew it to kingdom come! The Captain freaked out, obviously knowing his guys missed it, and started broadcasting for the ‘unknown ship’ to respond, threatening to blow us out of the sky!”

Lonnie laughed, “Then, little Annie responds, in Greyzarian, that if his band of dummies couldn’t hit that huge asteroid, how in the hell did he think they’d ever hit us, even if they knew where we were!?”

Now I was laughing. I hung my head slightly squeezing my eyes closed, fearing what they were going to tell me next. When I looked up and opened one eye, Max said, “The Captain got all humble and asked if we were flying some new spacecraft. He thought we were Greyzarians and were checking up on his crew!”

“Ohhh Goddd! Man I wish I could have been with you guys!” I exclaimed, a tad enviously, “So, that fool had no idea you guys were in an alien ship!???”

JB shook his head, grinning, “NOT A CLUE! He was just glad when we told him if he didn’t say anything, we wouldn’t tell everybody what a crappy shot his crew was!”

I was floored, “You guys are really amazing, do you know that!? Did Eddie freak out?”

Max chuckled, “A little at first, but, JB was talking to him and Gracie, assuring them we had everything under control and that we were in no danger, whatsoever.”

Just then, Glenn and Maggie showed up and were both laughing.

When I asked what was so funny, Glenn chortled, “Oh Monte, you would have died laughing! Captain Teapod had just returned from patrol duty and was talking to a bunch of the Greys’ fighter pilots. They didn’t know I understood their language, so I overheard the Captain asking which one of them was following his ship!? They all swore his was the only ship out there today. Then, I guess his Commander overheard and wanted to know what he meant! He confessed that some ‘unknown’ spacecraft had blown up an asteroid his crew had missed. Then, that the ship’s Captain, some female, had made fun of his fire-team’s shooting, communicating in perfect Greyzarian!

“The Commander guy scoffed, “Are you an idiot!? You KNOW we don’t HAVE any female Captains! Did you at least get the ship’s transponder code?”:

Captain Teapod looked terrified, “Ummm, no, it was cloaked! Are you saying that wasn’t one of our ships!???”

The Commander was fit to be tied, “NO! You guys were supposed to be patrolling the solar system! WHY didn’t you call this in immediately? Whoever that was could have blown your ship to pieces! That could have been one of those UFO’s we’re supposed to be watching out for, you FOOL!”

Glenn grinned at me, “I about couldn’t stop myself from laughing. all I could think of was you saying your friends might be coming in today! Do you think that ‘unknown ship’ could have been them!?”

I laughed, pointing at Lonnie, Max, JB and Annie, “Glenn, meet part of my crew of interstellar hooligans! This is Lonnie, Max, JB and Annie, the ‘female Captain that doesn’t exist’! I’m glad you didn’t say anything. But, I will have some fun tomorrow! I didn’t even know we had a ship up there till these guys relayed the exact story you just told us! Guys, this is Glenn Brunson. Glenn, Lonnie is going to be joining you in the Research and Science section. He has been asking about you, so, why don’t the two of you get better acquainted?”

I smiled as Lonnie and Glenn exchanged a friendly handshake. It made me feel good that they both seemed glad to have finally met each other. I figured Glenn had gotten a bit lonely not really knowing anyone in his department yet. And I felt that Lonnie was a bit anxious, also not knowing what he was getting into for sure. Now the two of them would have each other to confide in and conspire with. Greg showed them where the liquid refreshments were. Then the two of them found a quiet spot so they could talk.

When I went to introduce Maggie to Max, JB and Annie, Max chuckled, “I’ve already met Maggie! I do have to say, you’re much prettier when you’re not a 10-foot-tall witch!”

Maggie giggled, and pulled him into a nice, welcoming kiss, “Oh Max, you say such romantic things to a lady!” Giggle.

Linda had joined us and giggled, “He is a silver tongued devil, isn’t he?”

Maggie grinned, “So Max, are there any other interesting things you can do with that tongue of yours? Hmmm?”

Max winked at me then said to her, “The list is long and highly erotic, my lovely lady. I can only imagine the pleasure that I would derive smelling the wonderful aroma of everything my tongue could do to pleasure your lovely, soon to be wonderfully wet and wonderfully odiferous, pussy.”

Maggie shrieked, placing both of her hands on her moist mound, “Oh my God! Max, I am sooo envious that Linda got to spend almost 2 months with you! You just made me so wet with just your words. Now, I’m going to have to beg Monte to let me spend some time with you, too!”

I chuckled, patting Max on the back, “Don’t worry my love, over the next few weeks we’re going to be spending a whole bunch of time together. Maybe we’ll even spend a few nights with them on their spaceship? And if you’re a really good girl, maybe I can get Max, Tiny, Annie and JB to take us on a little space flight of our own?”

Joni, Diane and Sheila all overheard that and asked, wide-eyed, “You’re not going to forget us, are you?” Joni moaned, “and I know that Bruce, Rex and Jeremy would give anything to experience something like that!”

I held up my hands, shaking my head, “Trust me, at some point in the near future, every one of our family members will get to experience the wonders of streaking across space in their marvelous ship. JB, just how many people could your spaceship carry?”

JB grinned, “Well, knowing the way this family sleeps together, there would be room for say about 40 of us to sleep. If we’re just doing a one-day trip, we could probably take up to 60 or 70 people. So, to answer your question, there’s more than enough room for the entire family to go on even an extended trip, if you so desire? I’m beginning to get the idea our ship is not just going to stay here parked, is that right?”

I chuckled, “Originally, I was just planning on leaving it parked here, yes. However, what the hell good would it do to have the fastest car on the road and never take it out of the garage?”

Max grinned at his crew, “I told you guys, I had a feeling this thing wouldn’t stay parked for very long. As much as we all couldn’t wait to get here, now I almost can’t wait to start showing our friends with that baby can do.”

Rex and Lucy had just joined us and asked, “Just out of curiosity, how long would it take us to go to the moon from here?”

Tiny chuckled, “Well, it would take about five minutes to safely navigate out of Earth’s atmosphere, then maybe another two minutes at maximum impulse power to get to the moon! Oh yes, and we could be to Saturn in just under 25 minutes at that speed.”

Rex was dumbfounded, “Holy shit! It took the Apollo spaceship over three days to get there!”

JB nodded, “Yes, but they were not under power the whole way. They didn’t have the fuel to do that, so once they got going on the right trajectory, they just coasted the rest of the way to the moon.”

Rex was still shaking his head, “And that’s another thing, how in the heck do you navigate over that kind of a distance? Obviously you guys know how to do that, or you would never have been able to get here from where you were.”