Chapter 73: Setbacks, Complications and Resolutions

JB POV: August 15, 1988

These last 3½ months have been an exercise in frustration and even a few very heated arguments between several Family members.

Only the kids seem to have been immune to them!

Like for instance, Marcus’s agent did get him traded to the Cardinals! But ... Ryan’s agent somehow got him traded to the damned Cowboys! This caused Claire and Joe to disagree on where they should try and get jobs. Claire was closer to Marcus and Laura, while, Joe wanted to stay with Ryan and follow him to Dallas.

To further complicate things, Steve and Cindy are still undecided about where to go now, since Marcus and Ryan have been separated. Steve, the Dolphin’s talent scout, isn’t sure he wants to leave Florida while Cindy is torn between wanting to stay with Marcus or Ryan. I heard that she may even leave Steve, saying she’s tired of his waffling about wanting then, not wanting, to get married!

My gut feeling is that they will most likely both leave the Family and go their separate ways. (They did not opt into the Family Charter for reasons that they haven’t shared with anyone.)

The cops, Tom and Terri Birch, both landed jobs with the Maricopa County Sherriff and have already moved out here. Oh yeah, and Terri just gave birth to my third child, a darling little boy we named Anthony Royce Hornsby-Birch, ‘Little Tony’. after Terri’s dad and Monte, whose middle name is Royce.

Another thing that caused quite a bit of angst and disagreement had to do with, of all things, meals!

As you might imagine, with over 40 adults now living together, settling on a menu was becoming more and more difficult with nearly everyone (except our builders) complaining they weren’t getting their ‘favorite’ foods often enough. And many of the ladies wanted to cook at least once in a while.

Breakfast and lunch weren’t really a problem since our cooks fixed whatever anyone wanted every day from a very big ‘short-order’ menu.

Dinner, however, was the problem.

Greg POV:

For the past several weeks, the ‘what are we having for dinner’ has been causing many internal arguments amongst many of the family members. And, at the same time, many of the family members have been choosing not to have dinner with the rest of us.

I realize that with a group this large, and as diversified as all of our jobs are, getting everyone together at night for one big ‘family’ meal wasn’t always going to happen. That being said, I set up a big white board with everyone’s names so they could mark down, preferably before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, when they weren’t going to make it. At first it seemed to be working quite well, but then, it’s like everyone kept forgetting, or waiting until the last minute to tell anyone they weren’t going to be here.

The chefs were getting upset with so much food going to waste. Left-over meat wasn’t too much of a problem, since things like meatloaf sandwiches, leftover chicken, turned into chicken salad, could be used the next day for lunch. However, things like mashed potatoes, extra cooked vegetables and things like that, weren’t always practical to serve as leftovers. Then, when I began fielding complaints that some people felt they weren’t getting enough of their favorite foods, I had everyone put down their favorite food, that they had been missing, and we would make a point to get it into the menu as soon as possible.

That’s when the chefs and I began fielding many complaints that certain people’s ‘favorites’, sometimes were things that many of us didn’t like, and shouldn’t really be on the menu. Especially, since many couples or small groups began going out to eat a few times a week. So, it was suggested they should go to their favorite restaurant and order what they had been missing.

Which brings me to last night, when four people, whose names I won’t mention, asked for corned beef and sauerkraut! Now, while I don’t mind corned beef and cabbage, I detest sauerkraut! Thankfully, the chefs prepared both sauerkraut and cabbage! However, when none of the four who requested this particular meal showed up, many in the family were up in arms asking why we had to eat this, when the ones who wanted it didn’t even bother to show up?!

I had to agree and decided that all this complaining and special menus needed to be dealt with by the whole family. Even our chefs confided in me that they were getting upset with so many people complaining, that they were considering looking for other employment!

So, I called a family meeting for the next day.

Then, I asked Jamie, Linda, JB, Gracie and Ed what they thought of the idea.

Linda said, “Jamie and I approached our chefs about the possibility of us helping in the kitchen once in a while. To be honest, many of us ladies actually miss fixing meals for everyone! However, I don’t believe they took it very well. I got into their heads and realized they thought that meant we didn’t like their cooking! So, I tried to explain to them that it was more just the fact that many of us missed cooking once in a while and not to take it personally. Do you realize our chefs haven’t really had a day off since the day we hired them?”

“I wonder if they might be suffering a little burnout? How about this, what if we were to give them one or even two days a week off so they could have some time to themselves?”

Jamie nodded, “That might be a good idea, Huggy Bear! That way, several of us ladies would have to fix dinner, or we could all go out, or order pizza, or something like that?”

JB chuckled, “I think that would also solve the issue of not fixing one or two people’s favorite foods, that it seems many of us don’t really care for. Like last night’s corned beef and sauerkraut! I can’t tell you how tempted I was to mark down I wasn’t going to be here and take Wanda and Annie out for some Chinese, since none of us likes corned beef!”

I sighed, “Tell me about it Buddy! Oh, yeah, JB, I understand from what Ed was telling me, you guys had a pretty rough couple weeks or so, out in space?”

JB groaned loudly, “Aaaarggh! You can say that again! Talk about wasting nearly 3 weeks of our time that we’ll never get back. As you know, we went out trying to find two Bargantuan spaceships that we’re afraid are still headed toward Earth. Amy and Glenn programmed this great ‘sniffer’ program into our computer so that we could hopefully track where those two groups of cannibalistic assholes might have gone.

“Talk about frustrating! First, we decided to test out their little program by getting behind the seven Bargantuans spaceships that were, thankfully, still headed toward where we told them. We discovered that the program worked great and we picked up their trail nearly a full ‘light-week’ before we actually got right behind them. So, armed with that knowledge, we set up this special ‘spiraling flightpath’ to see if we couldn’t find the two renegade spaceships.

“We programmed in our course, based on where our calculations figured they broke off from their comrades. Then, programmed our speed in at hyper-warp factor one. We spent nearly 3 days combing the path that we figured might lead us to stumbling across their nuclear power trail. When we got to the point that we suspected we were probably ahead of them, we slightly readjusted our course and did another spiraling path back to where we suspected they split off. Again, our sensors never picked up anything.

“We were becoming frustrated so, Monte and Maggie ‘joined up’ with Amy and Glenn to see if they might possibly be able to tweak their program to pick up something we were missing.

“That’s when Amy asked the ‘$64,000 question’, ‘Um, guys, is it possible that your sensors weren’t able to pick up their scent because you were moving faster than the speed of light?’ I swear, Greg, I felt like such an idiot having never considered that possibility! So, to test Amy’s theory, we had to go back and get behind the Bargantuans armada, once again. And, when we got within a light week of them, we turned on our sensors and sure as shit, we didn’t detect them until AFTER we dropped out of hyper-warp! Then, the second we exited hyper-warp, our sensors went off like crazy! Amy told Monte that she had a sneaking suspicion that since we were in a different dimension, when using hyper-warp, even something as slow as hyper-warp factor one, it rendered our sensors inoperative.

“Now we had to completely rethink our tactics for trying to find those clowns again. After a full day of recalculation, we decided to give it another try. The problem of traveling sub-light is that we would never catch up to them if they were too far ahead of us. So, we decided to program in a series of short hyper-warp factor two ‘bursts’, then turning on our sensors the second we were sub-light. We then resumed our spiraling flightpath, hopefully picking up their trail at some point. After another three or four days of going back and forth, using this method, we were all becoming extremely frustrated that we hadn’t gotten even one beep on our sensors. We even flew back toward their home planet, using this method, trying to see if Tumrik’s initial thoughts that they might be headed home, could be true.

“Again, after another three days of using our new tactics, we knew we were farther than they could have gotten and still, not one beep out of our sensors. We even tried checking our sensors again on the way back, using the Bargantuans armada, and discovered our plan really should have worked! So, we decided to mentally connect with Amy, Glenn, and even Lonnie to see if they could come up with any new suggestions. The only thing all of us could come up with was if for one reason or another our original hypothesis for how they might be approaching Earth had to have been completely wrong.

“It was at that point we decided that enough was enough and came home.”

I chuckled, then apologized for laughing but asked, “Do you think it’s possible that those two spaceships might have simply gotten lost, and are now headed so far off course that you might never find them?”

Poor JB! His shoulders slumped and he smacked his forehead the palm of his hand, “You know, Greg, believe it or not, that thought never even occurred to us! And, as extensively as we searched, that is certainly one thing that could’ve happened that would explain why we never even picked up their scent.

Ed was shaking his head, “JB, I’m sorry I didn’t mention this when we were out there, but at one point, I wondered that same thing! Unfortunately, I figured that was such a dumb question I was afraid I’d look like an idiot for even saying it?”

JB chuckled before patting Eddie on the back, “I know you haven’t had much experience as Max, Lonnie and I, but in the future, remember this, the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked! I’ll be honest, depending upon when you had that thought, you could’ve saved us days or even weeks of frustration! Not that it would have helped us find them, but sometimes even I forget the Bargantuans are not nearly as advanced, technologically-wise, as we are now. It never even occurred to me that when they broke off from the rest of their armada, they may have been in such a hurry to get away, it’s possible they did get lost!”

Just then, Monte came into all of our heads, “Ummm, guys, especially you Greg, we ... Amy, Glenn, Lonnie and I have been listening in to your discussions, sensing something was wrong. First off, I want to apologize for Bruce, Diane, Maggie and myself for blowing off our ‘special dinner’. It’s just that, last night something big came up just as we were about to teleport home and we got completely distracted.”

I rolled my eyes, “Did you guys get the situation handled, or do you need some help?”

Now it was Monte who moaned, “I don’t really know how you could help, since the problem has to do with our project here in Nevada. However, I want you guys, especially JB and Ed, to know that it does have to do with the damn Bargantuans! You see, just as we were about to leave here last night, somehow or another Amy picked up the fact that somebody, somewhere, had made contact with the Bargantuan’s broken spaceship!

“After our failed endeavor to track down the two renegade ships, we felt this needed to be investigated, immediately. Amy was somehow able to determine that there were, in fact, two separate attempts to communicate with that ship’s computer. One was purely telepathic while the other was telepathic, but boosted electronically. She is trying to get that derelict ship’s computer to spit out some coordinates as to exactly where those two communications originated from. JB and Ed, we may need the two of you along with Max to ready our spaceship for another flight! Amy just told me, telepathically, that the boosted transmission came from a part of space that we were nowhere near! She is now attempting to find the one that came from here on earth somewhere.”

JB smiled at me, “Which contact are you guys going to try and investigate first, Monte?”

“The one here on earth, most likely. We won’t need the spaceship for that, but just be ready in case we decide to try to find those spaceships again.”

I know he couldn’t see me but I was shaking my head, then asked, with a chuckle, “I take it you guys won’t be here for dinner tonight, either?”

We all felt the four of them, or maybe it was more, laughing. Then Monte groaned, “That is correct Buddy, and please, accept our apology for last night and whatever you and the rest of the family agree to doing about the meal problem just know that you have all of our agreement too, okay?”

All I could do was sigh, “Will do! I just hope I can make our chefs forgive us for all the grief we caused them, and don’t decide to leave us!”

I felt Monte giving me a mental ‘bro hug’, “Greg, I also want to thank you for the way you’ve been trying to deal with all of the family’s problems of late. Like me, I know you miss Charlie, Bob, Mary and CJ a heck of a lot. I just want you to know how proud he would be of you for managing to hold all of us together the way you have been. I hate that our jobs have such a high priority right now that we seem to be away more than we’re home. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is right now. I don’t think Charlie could have foreseen any of what’s going on right now. Or just how much bigger the family is than the one he left! So please, except our apology and know that we will do everything in our power to take some of the burden off of you, okay Buddy?”

I know I was getting misty- eyed, during my big friend’s heartfelt apology and words of encouragement. “Thanks Willie! The ladies and I have a few ideas about how to fix the meal issues. I think we can convince the chefs to stay as long as the rest of the family is in agreement with our plan. You will be missed at our family meeting, but I understand what’s going on now and will mark you guys down as not being here tonight. Never be afraid to keep me posted on what’s going on, just in case there might be something I can help you with, okay?”

I felt Willie chuckling, “You got it, Buddy. Believe me, I’d gladly bring you with us on some of these missions if I could! But, I honestly don’t think the family could survive if you were to be gone very long!”

At this point we disconnected. A lot of the angst that had been building up in my gut seemed to vanish after the discussion with my big friend and fellow family member.

Now, I just hope the meeting with the rest of our family has just as positive an ending as this meeting had!

Max POV:

We’d all teleported to the Bargantuan ship that Amy just told us had received a message from someone ... or something.

When we arrived, we found Master Sergeant Murphy leaning out of the open door and frantically waving for us to come on board.

That’s when Amy giggled, “Peter is the one who actually told me that something was going on. We sent him over here to grab one of the nuclear fusion batteries so we could reverse engineer something that would help us on our new ship. He noticed that the computer was running and telepathically told me something weird was going on. He knew that the last time we left, everything had been shut down.”

Sergeant Murphy continued, “That’s correct, Monte. However, Amy is the one who figured out that somebody or something had been trying to communicate with the ship’s computer! She was looking through my eyes and told me to think to it, requesting information on who was trying to communicate with it. That’s when we discovered this was actually the second time it had received a message of some kind. I’ll let her tell you the rest.”

Amy then went into group mode and ‘thought’ to the computer to give us the coordinates of both of the messages’ senders. It was interesting that we could almost feel the computer trying to resist her request. That’s when our little sweetie appeared to get very angry and mentally ‘yelled’ at the computer, “COMPUTER! Reveal to me, right now, who sent these messages and the exact coordinates of where the messages originated! Do you understand!?”

To our amazement, all the information suddenly appeared on the now active communication board, above the console. Two names appeared, Jasper and Gomer, followed by ‘silently’, then, followed by a distance of 120.6 miles, and a direction of 143 degrees, 27 minutes, 16 seconds southeast.

Next was the words ‘Colonel Ketch’, Starship Number Three, followed by very precise astrological coordinates!

Amy then called up a star chart so we could visually see where that was. Initially, it didn’t really do us much good until Amy told it to also display two more sets of coordinates, those were near the area we had been previously searching. That’s when we could all see why we never found the bastards. Their current coordinates were nearly at a 60-degree angle and over three light-months away from the area we had been searching.

That’s when Amy grinned and told the computer to replay that exact message. The message read that Starship Three and Starship Five had become disoriented and lost and were requesting coordinates that would bring them here! Which, unfortunately for us, were correct. However, because of their navigational snafu, they were now even farther away from us than they had been when they first separated from the rest of the Armada.

That’s when we decided that Monte would teleport home and try to obtain a couple of those special helmets that Charlie and Bob were given when they first learned how to fly.

He knew Greg would be there as just an hour earlier he had a somewhat long conversation with Greg, JB and a few other family members.

When he reappeared, a few minutes later, he had Greg and JB with him! He had his arm around Greg’s shoulders and chuckled, “While my friend has never actually used one of these before, he has graciously volunteered to go on this mission with us! I’ll let him explain how these three helmets work!”

That’s when it was decided that Monte and I would go with Greg after he explained to us everything we needed to know about how to use the navigational elements of these helmets.

I have to admit; these helmets were really cool! Besides showing direction down to the second, it had two different telescopes, night vision and even elevation readouts. The only thing we had to determine would be the distance that we had to travel. Greg broke out a very detailed topographical map of Southern Nevada and Northern Arizona along with a scale. We were easily able to apply a rough location where our two, supposed Bargantuans were located.

And that was, someplace in Laughlin, Nevada.

Our problem now was, were they still in this same location? But, Greg asked a question that slammed the brakes on this whole plan!

He asked, “Do you guys know what they look like now?”

I gulped, looked at JB, Monte and Amy, “Damn! We don’t have any idea, do we?”

“You are aware Laughlin is pretty highly populated, right? I know there’s at least 10 major casino hotels there!”

That’s when I suggested, “Instead of us trying to find them right now, why don’t some of us just wait here and intercept them when they get closer? When they get within 75 miles or so, they will be past Las Vegas and be on roads that will make them much easier to find! Especially, since we don’t know what they look like!?”

Monte nodded after exhaling loudly, “Max has a point. As much as I don’t want them to find their ship, they’re going to have to communicate with it a few more times to even get close. They obviously don’t know, yet, their ship is 15 stories underground in a fortified bunker!”

Amy asked, “So, you don’t want me to shut the computer down by removing the power cells?”

Monte chuckled, “Not yet! Tell me, my cute, diminutive genius, is there any chance you could hang out here with some of us and intercept their next communication and possibly ‘impersonate’ the computer? Then, help us set a trap!?”

“Sure! But, could I maybe get Sheila or Maggie to assist me? They’re much better with this mind control / mind reading thing than I am.” She giggled.

Monte was still grinning and nodding when suddenly Maggie showed up next to Amy and kissed her playfully!

Then Maggie giggled, “Amy, I’d love to show you everything I know for the chance to get into that pretty head of yours! We haven’t had many chances to really get to know each other. And, I need all the help I can get to try and beat Sheila and Jerry at Scrabble! Not to mention I’d really enjoy tasting that young pussy of yours!”

Our cute genius was now blushing like crazy as she embraced Maggie in a super-hot Sapphic kiss. “Talk about a deal I can’t refuse! My whole life I’ve always been intimidated by those ‘in charge’ of me and my services. The way that you aren’t intimidated by ... ANYONE is something I’m hoping to also learn from you!”

Both Monte and I broke down, laughing!

Especially when Maggie added, grinning, “Sister, with friends ... and lovers like Monte, Max, Lonnie and even Peter, women like us are always protected, but, I know what you mean! I was just like you until that wonderful, fateful day Monte stood up for me and liked to break this guy’s arm when he tried to slap me! The guy was MY boss as well as Monte’s and my man didn’t hesitate for a second!”

She giggled again, “and, I hadn’t even kissed him for the first time yet! As a matter of fact, I’d been hoping the big lug would work up the nerve to ask me out on a date, which he had just done! And that was all before Monte had any psychic abilities whatsoever!”

Monte grinned, “The guy that Maggie is referring to was named Marek. The guy had just been put in charge of our section of the CIA and was a total asshole. Everyone in our department knew that he’d been treating Maggie like shit, for what reason none of us knew. However, my sweetie was wrong about my not having any abilities yet.”

Monte seemed to be getting teary-eyed, “While I didn’t know it at the time, I had been given one new ability ... from my favorite little buddy, CJ, Charlie’s son. I’d just told him that morning I was about to go on a mission that was probably going to be dangerous. He put his little hands on my cheeks, looked into my eyes and said, “I help you, big Willie!’ I felt this amazing little tingle, that I now realize was him conveying to me, ‘Power-multiplier’ that made my physical strength 10 times stronger than it previously had been.”

Monte wiped his eyes on his sleeve, took a deep breath and continued, “Since I didn’t know exactly what my little buddy had done, that morning I just about crushed three guys’ hands, just greeting and shaking hands with them! Then, when I saw Marek go to slap Maggie my reflexes were like lightning and instead of just catching his hand in mine, I did it with so much force I broke his freaking arm!” He chuckled again, “Then, later that morning, I commenced to running a quarter of a mile in less than 20 seconds!”

That made Maggie giggle, “Amy, there’s a lot more to that story that I’ll tell you all about later, when we have some time alone. My point being, that my confidence has nothing to do with my psychic abilities. All of the guys here and back at home, would never, for a second, tolerate anyone giving any of us ladies any shit! That’s where my confidence really comes from, and yours will too!” She giggled even louder, “Especially when I teach you every trick that my mentor or ‘ment-tress’, Mary, Charlie’s wife, taught me!”

Now Maggie’s eyes began tearing up, “I can’t wait till the day Mary is able to rejoin us. I know everyone misses her, but Mary is like my big/little sister. She and Charlie both helped Monte and me become as close as we are today. She and Charlie actually taught Monte and me how to make love, the right way!”

She finally giggled lightly, “and Mary showed my lover, everything he knows about eating pussy!”

Monte put his arms around Maggie, smiled at her and added, “and that’s the truth, Amy! Before that night when the four of us first got together I was so ignorant about a woman’s sexual anatomy that I honestly didn’t even know what a clitoris was! That sweet, loving lady was so patient with me and without insulting me in any way, told me that I wasn’t the most ‘sexually’ ignorant man she’d ever been with!” He chuckled, “Mary then added that was because I was at least smart enough to admit I didn’t know shit!”

The look on Amy’s face was incredulous. Not that the rest of us were any better, I don’t think anyone, besides Greg, had never heard that story before. It made me fully realize another reason why everyone in the family missed Charlie, Mary, Bob and CJ so much.

Now, I just hope that when they finally return, Charlie will find some way to forgive me for having tried to kill him! I should’ve known Maggie might’ve been in my head when she giggled, “Don’t worry Maxie, once Charlie learns about all the things you and your other ‘Changelings’ have done and gone through, I have no doubt he will accept you! And Amy, before you start thinking strange thoughts, when Linda and the other girls tell the three of them all the things you’ve been doing for their kids, I have no doubts they are all going to fall madly in love with you too!”

Amy and I were still open mouthed, staring at each other when we both started chuckling.

Then, all of a sudden, Amy’s eyes lit up and she told everyone, “The computer just fired up and we’re about to receive a message from someone! Come on Maggie, join with me so we can try to figure out who this message is coming from! You can help me out with what to do, okay?”

It was funny watching Amy’s face as they joined. Somehow Maggie must’ve put us all in group communication mode. We were all listening when a strange, hillbilly like voice was inquiring how much further they had to go to reach their ship. Suddenly, the display board lit up as the computer told them they only had about 50 some miles to go and gave them a new bearing.

Since we were now all joined together, Monte told Maggie and Amy to try to get the unknown ‘messagee’ to reveal what mode of transportation they were using to get here. They did. Then, there was a bit of a pause before his reply came back, tentatively, “um, we are driving an old, white pickup truck. Why do you ask?”

It was funny the way Amy seemed panicked while Maggie was trying to stifle a giggle, “I want to look out for you since you will not be able to see me from the road. The bearing that I gave you is in a straight line, and if you’re in an earth vehicle you’re going to need further instructions.”

I could tell that Amy was just as amazed as I was, since those communications were all said in JB’s ‘hillbilly’ voice! Maggie had already had JB join them, knowing that the computer was using a man’s voice. That seemed to put our Bargantuan at ease, at least somewhat. Then, Maggie/JB added, “let me know when you pass an Indian casino on your right. I will give you further instructions at that time.”

We all heard, “Thank you, computer, I will do that.”

Now it was Monte who looked slightly panicked, “Damn, okay, JB, you stay here with Maggie and Amy. Peter, I’m going to need you to arm yourself and stand guard by that gate that’s halfway up the dirt road. The rest of you guys come with me. We’re going to intercept these guys shortly after they turn onto this gravel road. Greg, it’s up to you if you want to join us, stay here, or teleport back home.”

Greg chuckled, “I’m not going to abandon you now, my big friend! It seems to me you saved my bacon not that long ago, it’s time for me to return the favor, if you don’t mind having me here, that is?”

Monte grinned, putting an arm around Greg, “I don’t think the four of us should have any problem with these two guys. Max, Lonnie, I don’t want to kill these guys because, who knows, we need to get all the information from them that we can. I’m going to teleport to the spot on the road where we’re going to make this happen, so give me a few seconds and then all of you pop in right behind me, okay?”