Episode 62

Chapter 272

Reverend Black

9:09 pm, November 5th, 2006

2:09 pm, November 6th, 2006 (local time)

Lou and Carl assisted Jacob to the ground.

Jacob slowly worked his way down to the place his family told him was right. I really hope they were not getting my hopes up about that weird treatment they did. Lazy people might not like walking, but they'd miss it too after too long in a wheelchair. The next design change I will make will make Density Force handicapped assessable.

His parents split up. His dad went ahead.

His mother stayed behind him.

Eventually the three of them made it to the site.

All of the density ships present landed.

Then what looked like over a hundred teenagers exited the various ships. They arrayed themselves at a respectful distance to the Stones.

Only the crews of the ships stayed back. They stayed near their assigned ships.

Rear Admiral Bright ran over the set up with a practiced eye. The four ships were parked in such a way as to provide maximum coverage. He walked over to one of the teenagers. "Excuse me. Who are you?"

"Abe, Sir."

"Well Abe, you might want to tell the people running the show to have lookouts. It looks like all your crews are out of their ships at the moment."

General Smith overheard this as he came to check up on the Admiral. "True. Maybe there are those whose faiths are not comfortable with this. We are close to Iran after all."

"That's a good point." Abe went to tell another teenager.

That teenager walked over to the other crowds of teens.

Eventually four teenagers well selected. They were told what they had to do and were let in the ships.

Chapter 273

Chaplain Hepster, USN

9:30 pm, November 5th, 2006

2:30 pm November 6th, 2006 (local time)

(A/N: I have most likely butchered the funeral service for military personnel. This is through ignorance. There is no subtle message about it. No matter the thoughts held about what brought them to their death, we should all respect the fact that they

believed strongly enough to lay down their lives.)

The funeral went smoothly enough up till now.

Just as I intended.

Just as I intend now to shake things up.

Moving to the makeshift podium, I waited for quiet. "Greetings and Blessings in the name of our God Given President and his angels in our government, the Association For An Almighty America."

The entire lot of them went silent at that.

Good. I'm the voice of God in their midst. They have no right to talk as I'm talking. They have no need to think about what I say either. If I say it, it must be true. I work for God after all.

There was some fidgeting in crowd of teenagers.

Who cares? Their next home will be in Hades.

The Stones had not moved. They did not so much as twitch or blink.

That's good. Absolute attention to what I say might save them.

Maybe.

Then I turned and looked directly at Jacob Stone. "By the grace of god I am here to talk to you. This funeral is for Sgt. David Stone, USMC. He entered hell recently. There may be those among you who think that is harsh. But it is not. While alive, he could have turned his brother from the evil path he chose. While it is true that he died for his country, he did not serve it truly. When the Association's recruiter came to his unit, David turned him down rudely."

Now nearly everybody was fidgeting.

The looks on the older Stone's faces were best suited to promises of slow, painful and creative death.

"Enough." Jacob's voice was quiet, but its tone sent shivers down the back of nearly everybody present. "By all that was ever worshiped on this pathetic dust ball you presume to call a planet, I said enough!"

Chapter 274

Jacob

9:41 pm, November 5th, 2006

2:41 pm, November 6th, 2006 (local time)

I was annoyed at the moment. No, annoyed does not begin to cover it. The upper scales for anger measurement had to be shattered by the rage going through me right now.

I had to take a few minutes to remind myself that burning people alive was kinda of pushing what could be gotten away with.

Even for me.

"Who are you to interrupt the voice of God?" Hepster demanded.

"Shut the fuck up."

Shocked muttering came from the members of the Density Force.

My parents were too upset with the chaplain to be annoyed by my cursing.

"As for who I am. I am Jacob Jehoooooooosephat Stone. A twitch of my littlest finger can command more power than you can possibly grasp. And the only reason I do not have you buried alive is because you would contaminate the ground."

My anger was so great that I was surprised I was not giving off steam at this point.

I raised my voice. "Remove this ass while I try to come up with a fate disgusting enough."

Several members on the Density Force were already running in the cleric's direction. They grabbed him roughly.

"God will protect me!" Hepster shouted. "Nobody can protect you. The Association will destroy you in this life. Hell will deal with you in the next life."

"Somebody silence that slug shit!"

Kevin slammed his fist twice into Hepster's mouth.

Rear Admiral Bright stepped forward. He steeled himself and addressed me. "I want him."

"Excuse me??"

Again I expect the scales were exceeded. This time they were the scales of disbelief.

"I want him. I want to punish him. He's in the Navy. As the highest ranking officer of the Navy on the site, I must take responsibility for his punishment."

"And what's left of my self control is losing the battle to have him burnt alive. If his is an Old Testament faith, then he should be delivered to his god in an appropriate manner."

Captain Stone stepped over to where my chair was perched. "Jacob. Calm down. Please. Remember what you said about ground pollution? Burning him would put a foul pollution in the air too."

"That saved him. That and I really did not want to order any deaths today. Take that thing to the Vice Admiral."

Kevin made a gesture and changed where they were dragging their prisoner.

Bright made a few gestures of his own.

A couple of surplus military personnel took over the prisoner.

Fred escorted them to the Princes of the Universe. There they got to break in the ship's brig.

Bright turned to face me. "Thank you. I will be placing the chaplain on report. He will be stripped of all privileges and held in confinement until his trial for sedition can take place."

Mike interrupted. "I think we might have rope on one of the ships."

"Oh, good. Get it. Then find out where your friends took him. Tell the guards I assigned that they can tie Hepster up while they are at it."

Meanwhile dad was talking to Reverend Black.

Chapter 275

Reverend Black, USMC

10 pm, November 5th, 2006

3 pm November 6th, 2006 (local time)

I shifted my feet as I waited. This mess had the potential to go badly or not. I would not want to be the bookmaker responsible for determining the odds for the second choice.

Major Stone went over to his youngest son. "Jacob, you remember Reverend Black?"

"Indeed. One of the few religious figures not to tick me off constantly. Why?"

"He offered before to run the ceremony. He offered this before your friends went to the carrier."

"That's what has me wondering a little. Who could be stupid enough to consider this guy the right person to send? On second thought, don't answer that." Jacob raised his voice enough to carry over to me. "Reverend Black, can you come over here?"

I hurried over as quickly as I could. "Yes?"

"I remember our talks. Do you?"

"Yes."

"Then you may go ahead."

"That's it?" I could not help my surprise. I knew teenagers tended to go from one emotional extreme to the other, but that was too easy.

"Yes. There are two reasons for the simplicity. First, my parents vouched for you. Second, you saw what just happened. You do not strike me as a stupid person. So it is safe enough to accept you to finish the ceremony."

"Thank you." I told him.

Okay. Talk about no pressure.

May God help me to say the right thing, lest I meet him face to face for saying the wrong thing.

I moved to the spot next to the grave. "May the blessings of God be upon you." I made sure to say that last sentence as kindly as I could. The blessings of God are not meant to be forced upon anybody.

Nobody started shouting.

Good. Now to continue. "Only one thing right was said in what was spoken before. The idea of life being made up by choices. This idea was not treated in the depths it should have been. So, with your indulgence, I would like to go into this. But first I want to make it clear that we are not here to judge him for him choices. David made his choices while he was alive. We cannot change them. We can only remember that he chose because of what he believed in. He wanted to make the world a better place. My talks with the family have told me that he would have made an excellent businessman. Yet he chose to serve."

Jacob's head snapped up.

"I can see Jacob is not too happy with those words. To be honest, I cannot conduct a funeral without talking about that. It's not that I like being jingoistic. It is because I'm honoring the choice he made. Remember, he cared enough about this country to run the risk of death. He paid that ultimate price. Why should not the country pay tribute?"

Jacob nodded slightly. "Go on. Perhaps by denying that I am not giving him the honor he deserves. Please continue."

"As I said before, David chose to serve. Again, I am going to go against the Stone's habits. I've known the family longer than some of the audience has been alive. They are not into self glorification. Yet Sgt. David Stone deserves his achievements described. He joined the Marine Corps a few days after his 18th birthday. Before then he divided his time between school and martial arts. Since a young age he had won tournaments and contests. He almost got kicked out of the corps because his automatic reactions took out a drill Sergeant who grabbed him without warning. It took six other marines, two of whom were hand to hand combat instructors to stop the scene. After explanations, he became one of the few recruits to take the base prize two weeks later." I gave a slight laugh before continuing. "In fact, they tried to make him a combat instructor within hours of his finishing basic training. David practically demolished the desk of the personnel officer. What he said made the rounds of the base before nightfall. He said, and I quote, 'to hell with that. Send me to fight. I did not join the Marine Corps to play it safe.' A deal was worked out where he agreed to help the unit he was assigned to with practice in the field. The way he died showed just how much he cared for his friends. At any of a dozen points in his mad counter attack he could have escaped easily. He chose to fight to save all his friends."