Chapter 26

Before John could pose any questions, the humanoid man said.

“I am Iver Glyde, captain of the Mentack of the Nibirian Space fleet and member of Her Majesties Royal Space Corp.”

Captain Glyde stopped there as if John should be impressed by his title. Instead, John took advantage of the silence to introduce himself.

“I am Fleet Admiral John Whitmore. I am the commanding officer of the Sol System Guardians.”

Whatever Captain Glyde had expected to receive by giving his full title, he did not get it, and he glowered at John before continuing. Apparently his need outweighed whatever anger he felt over being slighted, and he composed himself so he could continue.

“My crew has made repeated attempts to fire the maneuvering thrusters, but it comes back to the problem of power ... or in this case, the lack of it. If I fire them using what little power we have, I risk losing life-support. I will not sacrifice my crew in such a way. I must ask if there is anyway you can assist us further. Do you have, perhaps, a portable power generator? Something that might be adapted to our system?”

John’s response was immediate.

“Is your computer online? If so, can you send us a schematic of your ship and the technical data output of your main reactor?”

Captain Glyde gave John a withering glare that John was sure made many underlings heave to. However, John had suffered worse from his own mother, this guy didn’t intimidate him at all.

“First of all, Admiral, we are barely able to maintain this transmission. Bringing up our computer is out of the question. Even if I could ... Let me ask you this, Admiral.” He said, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice. “If the tables were turned and I was asking you for technical data on one of your ships, would you give it?”

John moved closer to the screen.

“Captain, I’m not the one that attacked an unknown without first trying to ascertain who they were first. I’m not the one that that had the ass end of my ship blown off by a ship one hundredth its size. I’m not the one with barely enough power to keep my crew alive, Captain. So if I were you, I would share everything I could. Especially if the people in question were about to attempt to adapt an alien power source to my ship. After all, how are the technicians to know where to attach the power leads. They could very well power up your ship’s self-destruct mechanism, and where would you be then?”

The Captain paled considerably, which told John what he needed to know ... There was such a device, and his people would have to be extremely careful. The captain did counter with the offer to have a technician talk one of John’s people through the process and to be there via video link so that the power generator could be adapted and connected to the proper ports.

In the end it took five hours to adapt, mount, attach, and power up two of their largest power units. John had listened to the entire exchange, but had watched the video feed on only the last two hours. After assuring himself that repairs were going ahead as needed, John went straight to the kwoon. It took nearly twenty minutes of quiet meditation for John to find his center, after which, he went into his tai chi-like type of form practice.

Finding himself on a hilltop in his grassy meadow was not unusual. Finding that he was not alone when his wives were not practicing with him, was. Sitting under a tree, as though waiting for John, was a man with ginger hair and flowing robes. John approached him, curious as to his presence.

“Well, young one, it would seem that I was mistaken when I said that our previous conversation would be our last. It would seem that you are in need of my counsel.”

John knew the voice. He had heard it in his head for months, giving guidance when he needed it. He was surprised at Sifu’s youthful appearance. How he came to be here, in this place, was beyond him. Still, John knew that his time was limited.

“You are right young one, our time is limited. I will explain this. This is what many would say is my self-image.”

The image aged and the hair grew thin and white just as the figure shrank upon itself until an ancient being set before him.

“This is how I looked when I left my body behind.” The more youthful image returned. “This is how I have always seen myself. As for how I got here, Kiri still does much of her form practice. In the process, she somehow brought me here with her. Now let us talk about what is bothering you, before your body exhausts itself.”

John walked out of the kwoon toward his quarters. He was sweaty and slightly tired, but definitely more at ease with his recent and past decisions. Lighter in fact. His time with Sifu had lifted a burden from his shoulders and John intended to put much of the advice into action. He could not continue to carry the burden for everyone. Even though he had done much to relieve himself of some of the burdens, he had more to do. Delegation of authority, militarily speaking, was at the top of the list. He was determined that his lack of attention to detail because of having so much on his plate, was not going to cause harm to the people under his care, again.

After a shower and a return to his office, John watched the video feeds of what was going on, while making notes for the things he intended to have done. He was creating positions in his command staff, but other than suggestions for people he thought would do a good job, which he made notations of, he did not designate anyone for any particular position. Not until after he held a meeting of his advisers and got their opinions as well.

It was during one of the near missteps on the connection of the second power unit that his door chimed. John, growing weary of always saying ‘come’ to an empty room had an interface added to his implant. All he had to do was think open and the door obeyed. It was Sam and John didn’t give any immediate thought to her having chimed his door for entry. Even though something told him that there was something different about her, he wanted to get his thoughts and ideas down while the focus was still fresh.

He would glance up at the screen displaying the feeds from the five men beginning to power up the units. They were doing it slowly for two reasons. To be certain they didn’t overload any of the already damaged systems of the ship, and to be certain they hadn’t wrongly connected either of them. It was a good thing, too, as the Nibiru ship’s technician began shouting to shut it all down. The way the tech had acted John wondered if they had really connected it through the self-destruct system. He paid close attention until he heard it was causing a back feed threatening to short out what few systems the ship had functioning.

John continued to glance up at the screen and Sam kept coming into his peripheral vision. Each time the nagging feeling told him something was different.

Sam watched as John would glance up at the screen and then over to her. She knew his mind was telling him something was different, but she remained her normally stoic self until John figured it out. Kiri and Julie were waiting outside for a signal from her that John had caught on. Mora and Penny wanted to be here too, but they were still on patrol and weren’t certain they could make it back in time. This, according to Kiri, Penny, Mora and Julie was an important event for the family.

When John stood from the desk his attention fully focused on her, Sam believed he had finally figured it out. Still, she forced herself to stand there in her normal manner. Her resolve was tested when he moved close enough that she felt John’s breath play across her skin. She maintained, barely. She even resisted closing her eyes when he reached out and touched her cheek, though only just.

“You’re here ... You’re ... real ... How?” John stammered.

“John,” Sam began grabbing his attention. “I have always been here for you and I have always been real. I do however now have a physical body. The how of it is a long story so I will summarize. With my archived information and Kiri’s knowledge of the cutting edge cybernetics, we still didn’t have enough to create what’s before you.

“The creation of a body was the easy part. All we needed was a bit of genetic material from the woman on whom you based my likeness. She was good enough to provide that on a visit to Atlantis 2. But growing a clone would have done us no good because our attempts to create an onboard mainframe were failures. We needed one that would not only operate the body, but be able to interface with my original mainframe.

“It was Paulie who provided the final piece of the puzzle. His mainframe is organic, as is all of his being, what we think of as a ship. With Paulie’s help we were able to create one that would do everything we needed and operate on the current generated by the human body.”

“So, you’re all flesh and blood?” John asked, at a loss for anything else.

Sam laughed, “Almost John, 99.6% is flesh and blood, I did need some devices we couldn’t create organically. These were the ones I required so I could interface with my mainframe and exchange regular updates.”

There were a hundred questions that John wanted to ask, but all of them seemed unimportant. He pulled Sam into his arms and without hesitation gave her a kiss. It didn’t have as much passion as he would have like to give it as there were pressing matters. But there was a promise of passion in the kiss. Kiri and Julie Joined them in the room, Penny and Mora made a mental link and shared their love.

This brief respite and the time in the kwoon was just what John needed. Though he did make a mental note to find out just how this was going to affect Sam.

He put that on the ‘To Do’ list as there were many more pressing problems to be resolved. The moment was broken when the lights dimmed and began flashing red with the claxon sounding. John also saw that he had an incoming message. Sam was quietly focused then turned to John.

“Tammera says the weapons systems on the ship are coming online. Should we open fire?”

“Not yet,” John said as he opened up a link to the ship, the origin of the incoming message.

The scene was filled with ordered havoc, as people moved from one place to another. John also saw that a claxon of sorts was sounding in the background as well.

“I’m sorry, Admiral,” Captain Glyde with what sounded like true worry and remorse. “Our weapons were on, and active, when we lost power. Even though you ordered us not to power them up, we could not shut the systems down until we had power, again. My crew is shutting them down as quickly as we can. Perhaps I could prevail upon you to withdraw your people just a little further, so that no accidental discharges take place.”

John realized that the man was being a bit of a diplomat, at least in the way he worded things. But he also saw the wisdom in the precautionary actions. He gave the order to widen the perimeter around the ship and to withdraw the crew that had installed the power units. Kiri was busy forwarding orders to pilots and Sam was busy with Tammera standing down Ares Landings automated systems.

Julie looked lost. John walked over to her and whispered a few things into her ears and she went immediately to his desk. While Sam and Tammera were busy Julie sent an all channels message to everyone on the base explaining why the alarms had sounded and that there was no danger.

John hoped he was reading this captain right. Even if he wasn’t his people aboard Ares Landing were safe. The shields were now up constantly. They were tuned to his ships IFF and would only permit them through unless they allowed it.

Captain Glyde was as good as his word and one by one the weapon systems went down. Shortly the maneuvering thrusters began to fire and in a matter of minutes after that, the ship was static.

John sent a hail and waited for the Captain to answer. After a moment with the communications officer the Captain came on the screen. John wanted answers and the best way to get them was going to be a face-to-face meeting. Captain Glyde resisted not only the meeting, but also the limitations John put on the number of security personnel he could bring with him. That was, until John reminded Glyde that he had surrendered unconditionally. Then and only then, did the Captain agree to John’s terms.

Sam, for reasons unknown to John, suggested that they have the meeting in the Atrium. She said that the People calling themselves the Nephilim, would be more comfortable. John didn’t question it, Sam had always given him good advice. Perhaps he would have saved himself a bit of shock if he had asked her.

Prior to the meeting Paulie contacted John and asked him to come on board. John, although he had many thing to do, set aside some time. Paulie never wanted to speak with him privately, unless it was important. John closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and told Paulie he could transport him. John was extremely surprised when he opened his eye and he was already there. He hadn’t felt so much as a tingling feeling.

As it turned out it was very important. Paulie had some how managed to tied into the Nibiru ship and was monitoring the conversations between the Nephilim.

“John, it is fascinating,” Paulie said once John was comfortable. “These people are using a language that I have in my data systems. It is unchanged from the time it was first discovered. That in and of itself is unheard of. Languages change with time. This one has stayed constant. There have been the addition of words that I have no definition for, but it is the same.”

John found this all to be fascinating, but he was unsure where this was leading. He chose the wise course of action and remained silent.

“John, I know that you are going to meet with the Nephilim Captain and I think it would serve you well to know their language.”

“Paulie, in other circumstances I would agree with you, but I don’t have the time for even a short nap today.”

“I know John. Even though your teaching system is quite effective, I have another technique in mind. I believe that the connection that you and I have, will allow me to give you data in a different way. If you are willing I would like to give you what you think of as a data dump of the Nephilim language. This is the reason I asked you to come here. I needed access to my technology, here, to manage it.”

John’s initial response was ‘sure, do it’, but then his rational side kicked in. Paulie was suggesting an experimental procedure that had never been tried. He also had to take into consideration that this involved his brain.

He had, since he first started taking them, learned more about the teaching method of the enhanced sleep. It operated on a trickle effect, well in his case a fast trickle. What Paulie was suggesting was a direct insertion. In the end, John realized it came down to whether he trusted Paulie or not. After the briefest moment of consideration, he knew that he trusted Paulie with his life.

The table came out of the floor, just as before, and Paulie instructed John to lay on it. John was glad he had checked his watch before he lay down. To him it felt like he just lain down, and then Paulie was rousing him. For him it was like lying down, closing his eyes, and then opening them. In that short time he had learned a language he hadn’t known before. Granted, he was used to learning such things overnight ... but he looked at his watch, and a total of ten minutes had passed since he entered the ship that was Paulie. He hadn’t timed his and Paulie’s conversation, but whatever Paulie had done, couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.

Paulie said something to him in the language that twenty minutes previously, he wouldn’t have understood. John had understood him perfectly. The problem presented itself when John tried to answer in the same language. He managed, but he was clumsy with the foreign grammar, and his pronunciation ... his ‘accent’ Paulie told him ... was terrible.

“It’s amazing that you managed as well as you have, John. It will take time and practice for you to be able to speak their language fluently. The muscles of your mouth have to get used to the new ways in which you are using them. In the mean time, understanding the language will give you an advantage you didn’t have before.”

John thanked Paulie, and explained that he wished he had more time simply to chat, but he had things to see to. Paulie in turn let him know he understood and had seen all of John’s obligations while he was inserting the language. The ease in which Paulie could look into others minds made John glad that he had no ulterior or nefarious motives. A feeling Paulie shared about John.

John returned to Ares Landing, his head feeling like it was stuffed fuller than normal. So far that was the only side effect he had noticed. It definitely wasn’t something he wanted to do very often.

John busied himself the rest of the afternoon, waiting for the evening’s meeting with Captain Glyde. He had met some resistance from his wives about meeting Glyde without any kind of security presence. That was until he explained he was going to meet with him, with just his family present. Mora and Penny got a glint in their eye that he had seen before.

Looking at them he stressed, “Personal weapons only ladies!”

They both nodded their agreement all too readily and that made him worry all the more. Surely they wouldn’t show up in their bio-mechs and claim that they were their personal weapons. Thinking about to whom he was referring, he decided he needed to be very specific as to what they could bring.

John, Kiri, Julie, Mora, Penny and Sam, were waiting in the atrium when they saw the shuttle approach. Mora and Penny were armed with their melee weapons only. The shuttle carrying the captain and two security personnel docked right beside the point where John had the meeting area set up. John’s reasoning was he didn’t want the captain to see anymore of the technology present than necessary.

John stood up so he could greet his visitors. He wanted answers, but he felt no need to be discourteous. The three stepped out and John noticed a couple of things. The first was size. The captain was the tallest of the three and he towered over John’s six feet. If John were pressed he would guess eight to eight and a half feet. The male security was maybe eight foot even and the female seven and a half.

The second was their uniforms. They were like a cross between ultra modern and Roman Empire. The Captain wore a suit that looked like medium blue spandex with breastplate, cuisse and vambrace. The armor pieces looked to be made of gold. While the security had similar pieces of armor over their tan spandex, they appeared to be leather. The two security personnel also had the addition of a belted holster that held a sidearm.

They were within a couple of meters when the apparent leader leaned closer to the male security guard and said in Nephilim, “If I had known that we were beat by furlheimit, I would have let our ship crash into the planet rather than surrender to a puny furlheimi.”

The guard laughed at this. John didn’t. He initially didn’t understand the word the captain had used and reflexively he reached out and pulled the information from the captain’s mind. He was appalled at what he found. The word was every derogatory term used for what they considered lesser humans, all wrapped up into a single term. Just learning the word left a foul taste in John’s mouth.

In this case, more advanced did not mean more enlightened. John hated prejudice in any form, whether race, creed, color, religion or sex. Getting the full effect of the word straight from the captain’s mind made it worse. John found himself in motion before he even realized what he intended to do.

Taking a step from chair to table he launched himself the short distance toward the Nibirian captain. With the side of his closed fist his he struck the captain in his temple. He saw his eyes start to roll up and knew he was going to go down he used the captain as a stepping-stone and walked up him. This served a dual purpose. It forced the captain down to the ground faster, and enabled him to launch himself from the captain’s shoulder.

The male guard almost had his weapon out of his holster when John reached him. To an observer it would have looked like the dotrez had simply appeared in his hand. John didn’t even extend the blade and brought it down on the guard’s wrist. Twisting his body he was able to strike the security officer again before he touched the ground. This is where he figured he was in trouble. There was still the female security guard.

However, his concern turned out to be pointless. She was on the ground with Mora and Penny standing beside her looking sheepish. John shared a smile and told them to get a security detail to get their visitors to the med-unit. They snapped salutes at him and giggled as they hurried off.

Kiri wasn’t any better, when he returned to where she was standing she asked, “Does this mean we aren’t having dinner with our guests?”

Then she turned serious and asked, “Is it an Earth custom to knock a visitor unconscious before negotiation begin, or is this a custom you just instituted?”

Although Kiri was serious, Julie burst out laughing. This caused the furrow in Kiri’s brow to deepen further. It was then however, John realized he had been the only one to understand what had been said.

John took a deep breath and let it out. He started by explaining that he had learned the Nephilim language. Then he did his best to relate what he had heard and just how unclean the word had made his mind feel.

John was relieved when he got some assistance from Julie. She helped explain how some of the races and religions were treated on Earth. She went on to relate how a single word could carry with it all the hatred and prejudice that a person felt.

By the time this was done Penny and Mora were back with security and medical personnel. They loaded the unconscious bodies onto anti-gravity gurneys. That was not easy as even with the upper bodies supported their feet drug on the floor. Even so they were taken to the med bay for treatment. Little drones were following behind cleaning the heel marks off the deck.

John followed behind while Julie and Kiri filled in the dynamic duo on the reasons behind his actions. From the sound of it Penny and Mora wanted to rough them up a little more before they got to med bay. John didn’t have to say a word. Julie diffused the situation for him. He had to admit. He took her in to honor a promise, but over time he had grown quite fond of her perhaps even loved her. Not to the point of taking her as another wife, at least not yet, but he did enjoy having her around and he would miss her if she moved on.

John sat in the med bay with two men from security he either hadn’t met or didn’t remember. Considering how good his memory was now, he was betting on the first option. He wasn’t worried about protection, but slowly they were putting in security protocols. Somehow he rated two security personnel in situations like this.

It was the captain that came around first. His injury was only a minor concussion. He of course demanded to know why he was attacked and who had fired upon him. He would not believe that he had only been stuck once, and by someone he considered inferior. John had the video feeds from the atrium fed to a screen in the med bay. The captain watched the same scene from multiple camera angles showing him taking one blow, and going down. Even the words he had whispered to security was picked up.

“As for why you were attacked,” he said, and then switched to plausible Nephilim before adding, “perhaps you should make sure your host does not understand your language, before you insult him in it.”

The captain’s eyes went wide. He had watched the video and the sound on them was crystal clear. The man before him had heard the insult and had acted upon it. More impressive was that he was successful. He had easily downed two Nibirian officers and came up looking for more.

Iver was just as impressed with the female furl ... He stopped himself in mid-thought. These people were not what he was expecting when he first saw them. This admiral was impressive for any species. The way he saw it even though it was a painful lesson he was glad he had learned it. This was a man he could respect and deal with.

Anyway the female was impressive as well. Even though she wasn’t nearly as tall as the Admiral, she had taken out his security officer as easily as one would a child. The other female who was slightly taller, looked disappointed that there was nothing left for her.

“How are my security officers.?”

It was then that John realized something that had been that had been nagging at him since he met these new people. They were speaking English. For the most part he and everyone around him uses Galactic Standard. It was just easier and standardized things so everyone acted as one instead of adding more reasons to separate peoples.

“Your security officers are healing well. They are both being kept in an artificial state of sleep so that their injuries can be healed more easily. The male should be waking shortly. The female, I’m afraid it will be a bit longer for her. My wife wasn’t nearly as gentle as I was, and her injuries are more extensive.”

“Your wife? From what I know of your people, you don’t normally bring your women into a potentially dangerous situation.”

John chuckled. “My wives were there because it was a potentially dangerous situation.’

“Wives?” Iver asked again. “That too seems to be contrary to everything we know about your race.”

“Captain Glyde, I would suggest you set aside all that you think you know about us and start learning what we are truly like. You have already found through a couple of rather tough lessons that underestimating us is a mistake.”

Glyde looked thoughtful. Everything this admiral had told him was true. They had underestimated these people at every turn because of their belief in their own superiority. He now had to make a choice. He had no doubt that even without boasting, the admiral could easily destroy him and his ship. Perhaps some sort of deal would be better. They were, after all, running out of planets from which they could obtain the Gremblum. Not to mention the repairs his ship needed.

John and Glyde continued to talk while his people recovered. They covered many subjects, including the continued need for something Glyde called Gremblum. John again had to do a search of the man’s mind, and was surprised at what he had found. He couldn’t believe that something as simple as a certain type of pond scum had become so important to their culture.

Not only was it used on their ships to produce oxygen, but it was a food supplement, if supplies ran low. Regardless of how little it meant to John, or the people on Earth, to the Nibiri it was highly valued. Therefore he would have to receive a high value for it.

John thought of this because while going through Glyde’s thoughts and memories, he found that it would be unlikely the Nibiri would ever align themselves with John and his people. Their prejudices were simply too ingrained in who they were. However, he found that they would not be opposed to a trade partnership.

Later, after Glyde’s people had recovered fully, the three of them and John’s family were sitting in John’s office talking business. Well, they were supposed to be talking business. Captain Glyde and his security officers Tempra Fonx and Appro Geen had discovered the joys of the food replicator. More importantly the Earth food produced by the replicator.

Glyde, by himself had already polished off a large pizza, with pepperoni and sausage, a full order of General Tso’s chicken and fried rice, and eighteen large tacos with sour cream. In between bites (which gives you an idea of their table manners ... or the lack thereof), Glyde filled them in on many things John hadn’t found in Glyde’s mind.

For instance the race had been coming to Earth for over twelve thousand years. Before the pyramids were built. This was before their space technology had reached the state it was now at, and many times crews from ships barely space worthy had been forced to live amongst the peoples of the planet for five to ten years until another ship could pick them up.

Some of these stranded crews, liked it so well that they stayed even after a ship came to extract them. It was Mora that wondered out loud if that was where all the stories of giants had come from. Glyde laughed spraying out bits of food before washing the mouthful of food down with beer from his tankard. Of course only John and his family knew that all beverages coming from the replicator were non-alcoholic. The last thing he needed was three drunken Giants on his hands.

Glyde seemed to think that there was a good possibility that the stories originated from his people. He explained that with the technology his people had at the time it was an eight year round trip. Many times, it would be decades before anyone noticed that one of their kind was influencing the planets natural course, and would be able to act to correct or stop the influence on natural evolution.