Chapter 1

Friday 5:30 PM
Winthrop Home
Maryland

“Sarah? We got it! Call the clan; Extended Version. I need to call to confirm for tomorrow with Maggie and Mei Ling.”

“OK, now that we are all here, I think we should introduce ourselves to the four ‘almost members’ of our family. They each only know about half of us.” There were six adults and eight teenagers, evenly divided male and female, sitting around the dining room table of the Winthrop home. The littler kids had been farmed out to a neighbor for a sleepover for the evening.

“I am Major General Fred Winthrop, retired. I am also the Assistant Director for the National Security Agency. Giving you those titles isn’t really bragging, as it is important that you realize where I am getting some of the clout to pull this off. Those titles are two of the three things that helped. This is my wife, Sarah. The identical twin redhead is her sister, Rebecca, who just happens to be married to my little brother, John, who is sitting next to her. He’s retired from the army as a Colonel. Our little sister Elizabeth over here is married to and sitting beside Franklin O’ Neil. My son Mike, my daughter Jackie, John and Rebecca’s son, John Jr., usually called Johnnie, and lastly, Liz and Frank’s daughter Cynthia, who just turned fourteen two months ago. OK, kids, could you introduce your dates and give us their ages please.”

Mike, at seventeen, the oldest of the teens, went first. “This is my prospective fiancé, Susan Bellows. She is sixteen and a half. We’ve been going together for eighteen months now.” Mike looked like a younger, slimmer version of his father, medium height, neat, light brown hair worn short and he had intelligent, hazel eyes. Susan was a bit taller than the average girl, slim, but not skinny, with a very nice figure and long, dark hair.

Chestnut haired Jacqueline, at fourteen and a half, jumped in next. “This is my boy friend, Don. Donald Rasmussen. We have known each other forever, but have only been seeing each other for about a year. He is fifteen which is good, ‘cause I like older men.” Everyone laughed at that except Don, who blushed like a beet. His pale complexion showed even the slightest flush. You could see his blush through his blond hair.

Johnnie politely stood up and held his hand out to his girlfriend, who stood up somewhat demurely, considering her size. Sandra was as tall as he was at five foot eight, and she had a large frame. She made you think ‘healthy farm girl’ in a good way, whenever you saw her. The pretty face, blonde hair and blue eyes just made the rest of the package that much better. “This is Sandra Lee. She’s sixteen years old, the same age as me. In fact our birthdays are only three days apart. That’ll be handy. My birthday will remind me that I need a gift in three days.” The couple sat down again to chuckles and knowing glances from the married ladies. Johnnie had the family’s medium build, brown hair, intelligent eyes and basic good looks.

Cynthia piped up and introduced her boy next. “This is Pat Michaels. He is fourteen and a half. About the same as me.” Cynthia was barely five feet tall and only about ninety pounds. She was slim to the point of skinny, but that was despite her appetite. She just burned it off as fast as she could stow it away. Pat was more solid that her. He wrestled and played football as a tight end. He was five feet nine inches tall and weighed one hundred sixty lbs. They both had dark brown hair, hers was straight, and his was curly but short.

“Welcome to all of you.” said Fred. You may have noticed that I said “almost members of the family” earlier. Well, that is because a unique situation has arisen. Our kids have decided on you. They have each told us that you have directly confirmed with them that you want to spend your lives with them. If that is incorrect, I am sorry for the embarrassment, but please let us know now. If so, we will have to ask you to leave as this is a somewhat private family meeting.” There were a few glances around, but no one got up to leave.

“All agreed? Great! For your information, we parents have agreed on your inclusion in each case. And that is after I used all of the government resources at my command. I ran a complete background check on each of you and your families. I looked at all of the privacy protected sub-categories on your CAP scores and anything else I could think of. Now hang on! You may think that was a bit intrusive and actually I would normally agree with you. However, this is a special situation. This is the third thing that helped. I think it’s time we laid our Cards on the table.” With that, he pulled out his wallet, took out his CAP card and dropped it on the table in front of him. Then he watched as his wife, brother, sister, son and the rest of the people related by blood or marriage dropped theirs also. The four young guests were a bit surprised, but then they each hauled theirs out. Fred slid them all in the direction of the newcomers.

It was obvious from the relaxed attitudes that all of the Winthrops and O’ Neils knew what the cards said, so it was only the four “almost family” that started looking through the cards.

Susan stacked them up and reading the scores out loud. “Sarah has a 9.2? And Rebecca has a 9.1, John a 9.5 and I knew Mike had a 7.6. Johnnie has a 7.3 and Jackie has a 7.2. Elizabeth has an 8.4, Franklin a 7.3 and Cynthia has a 7.1. That’s compared to ours. Pat has a 7.3, Sandra a 6.6, Don with a 6.5 and my 6.8. You know, I felt like I had a great score until I saw all of this. Oops, the general’s was on the bottom. A 10.0!” She sounded shocked and a bit depressed.

Mike leaned over and gave her an affectionate, comforting hug. “You do have a great score, Honey. Only about one guy in ten gets a 6.5 at my age and only one girl in thirty. Our family is a really weird fluke, but we, all of us, picked you four as the best choices we could find. There were some higher scores in our class, but none of them were right for me.”

“I know, really. It’s just a shock when you see these all together like this. Ok, I’m good. Please go on, General.”

The General picked up the universal remote and pressed a couple of buttons. “For what it’s worth kids, higher scores seem to come with age, so I have no doubt that you would all do better if you retested several years from now. If you will all look at the TV screen, I have some video to show you. This is my new planet. Our new planet. It’s not a pleasure planet at all, but it will get better. It is called Gerat by the Confederacy and it’s in the Geratat system. We are going to call it Vulcan. It’s not named after Spock’s home planet, but after the ancient Roman god associated with fire, volcanoes and the working of metal. As you can see, there are lots of volcanoes on the planet and it is tectonically very active. Volcanoes and earthquakes with some pollutants in the atmosphere from the volcanoes, but some work is already being done to fix that by way of a few catalyst stations that bind the pollutants to various soil components. We should have much cleaner air within a year. It looks like the more stable areas have better air already and the AI tells me that it is currently not really harmful. It’s mainly smelly and good for spectacular sunsets. The other reason to call it Vulcan is that we are going into manufacturing in a big way as soon as we can.

“There is one small moon, Caeculus, which is named after Vulcan’s son. It’s a lot like our moon, Luna, but smaller. Caeculus is only about four hundred fifty miles in radius. Luna has about a one thousand mile radius. There also small rings around both Vulcan and Caeculus, probably from a smaller rocky moon that broke up eons ago. Vulcan has a large axial tilt. Almost 30 degrees compared to Terra’s 23 degrees. That means there will be rougher weather and a lot of variations in temperature as the seasons go by. We will need to site our colony carefully.

“OK, today I had a session with a Confederacy AI. I had some negotiable demands for the Confederacy, as represented by the AI. Unfortunately I got everything.”

“Wait!” Don was not the only one looking confused, but he was the one to speak up first. “Why ‘Unfortunately’? He stressed on the “un”.

“It shows how badly the Confederacy feels the evacuation and colonization efforts are going. Pick-ups have almost stopped in the US. Currently, you are actually a lot more likely to get picked up during a two-week vacation to Europe, than during the rest of the year in the US. And when you realize that we, the US that is, have more trained troops and combat veterans than the entire EU, well ... Also, as near as I can tell, the Confederacy seems to have not realized that it would take this many ships. The Darjee seem to be compelled to finance the whole operation alone, which is why they are giving us the ability to make our own ships. They can’t make them fast enough and it costs them too much to tie theirs all up doing the evacs. They’re merchants and they need to use the ships to make money.

“So, here is what I asked for and what I got:

“First. I wanted a planet, suitable for colonization, with me in total control as military governor. I got Vulcan and Caeculus. The Navy may be putting an orbital base that I will also have under my command, but if they start putting any capital ships in-system, they will bring in an admiral to command the fleet.

“Second. I wanted authorization to raise and train up to a Division. I got that. I actually have gotten authorization for more if I can swing it. Basically, I can have as many troops as the colony can support.

“Third, I asked to set up manufacturing facilities to make ourselves self-sufficient, with the ability to make up to Bengal attack shuttles, A20 close support craft, F50 fighters and other non hyper craft that can be made planet-side, as well as the ability to make our own pods. For some reason, that was a slight sticking point, but I pointed out that a lot of the pods are being made by the Confederacy, which was a drain on their resources. Some are currently being made here on Earth, but between the zealots and the Sa’arm we can’t count on that production for much longer. Also, I found that some, but not all, of the evacuation liners, including ours, are making three legged trips, not just two legs. They start in the Confederacy, pick up a load of pods, take twenty days to get to Earth, take a week to three weeks to load the volunteers. Then, they take a month to get to the colony, mostly to let the people adjust their thinking, get used to their new bodies and each other. Then it takes two to five days to unload the Pods two or more at a time depending on the ship and its tenders. Add another week or so to get back to Confederacy space and it’s taken two months for the trip.

“I asked for two of the big ships for ten trips each and one of the smaller ninety-six or similar sized ships for at least one trip immediately and preferably permanently. What I got was two big Star Class ships for six months. The little ship we might get later, but we do get one early, but only for only one trip. I will get to that in a bit.

“I asked for an experienced company of Marines. I got them. We will use them for the extractions, then for assistance in setting up the training battalion as well as for cadre. Also, I had reports that there were several Independent Companies that were actually committed to combat well before the general public was even aware of the Sa’arm threat. Some of them should have been in combat for four years now. However, there didn’t seem to be a lot of data on them. I talked the AI into giving me one of these. There apparently were originally a dozen, but now only six are left. It’s just a gut feeling, but there seems to be something about them that the AI felt I didn’t need to be told. I should be talking to their commander in ten days.

“My next request was a bit more difficult. I wanted to talk to the Darjee. Specifically, I would like to negotiate with the Darjee, through an appropriate AI interpreter. I realized that they are staying at arms length as much as possible, but they are apparently bearing the brunt of the financial expenses of our colonizations and I believe that I may be of some small assistance to them. We got that too, kind of. The ninety-six-pod ship is one that is being run by the Darjee doing material supply runs. Usually they have very little contact with us, but with stipulations, we can and will get the ship for one trip and we can negotiate for the duration of the trip.

“The last request was that I wanted more people. I would take them in three ways. Firstly, mother figures. After some discussion, they agreed. All volunteers will be allowed ONE extra mother figure that has a minimum of five child years of experience. Which means, one five year old, or a four year old and a one, etc. They also need to have carried a baby to term, to have a minimum CAP of 3, a parenting sub score of 5 and the volunteer involved has to take all of their available children to qualify. I’ve already checked. All of the mothers on your lists officially qualify as mother figures. The second method of getting additional personnel is that I will be extracting trained, prior service military people and other needed personnel that meet certain minimum CAP sub-scores and offering them a Sub-citizen status that is still above the Concubine status. They will be need a minimum CAP of 5.5, they will be limited to service on that one colony, will be required to be members of the planetary garrison and they will be trained in a manner similar to but more intensively than our American National Guard troops. Full Marine initial training to start with, then weekends and full weeks several times a year. They will be allowed two concubines only. No bonus mother figure. They will also be working at regular colony jobs such at agriculture, research and manufacturing. The AI ‘s agreed to this as well, after some logical argument and negotiation. I mentioned that Demeter is already freeing some of their concubines on the condition that they join the garrison, complete their training and serve a certain minimum period. Five years I think. I told the AI that I could just pick prior service personnel, get them to the planet, release them to garrison duty and then come back for replacements, again and again. They gave in. Lastly I got the ability to award Bonus Concubines. These will be the only real reward system other than recognition and rank. I will have to clear each one with the AI on a case-by-case basis, so I expect to use them sparingly.

“So, as you see, we’ve gotten everything except the total commitment in ships that I wanted. We old fogies in this family have been making plans for a while now, but you guys need to know what is going on so that you can help and not hinder due to not being briefed. Mainly, you have to keep all of this secret. There are people out there who would kill to get on a ship and there are people who would kill to keep us from getting on a ship. Some of them are the same people.

“We are extracting next Friday. P-Day. P for Pick-Up. That evening we will hold a private party in a local restaurant. “Frank and Paulo’s” We are renting the whole place for the evening. It was scheduled to close this Wednesday due to declining business. If everything goes as planned, we will take every person in the place. Frank, Paulo, wives, waitresses. Everyone. We should have about one hundred adults and about half that many kids. Frank, his wife Angela and Paulo, his brother, are all volunteers and they and I are handpicking their staff for that night. There will be a couple of extras, but our Marines will be also all be allowed to use the new rule about mother figures, so they actually need about one hundred fifty more concubines to fill up their rosters. You youngsters have a small job to do after that. Some of us will be going with the Marines for a few extractions, so we would like you to keep track of our people while we are off ship. I think that since we are pre-picking people and letting them think about it in advance, we should not have any real problems for a while.

“The six of us have already got jobs assigned. I am Military Governor which means I command the colony, the bases AND the troops. Sort of like the President commands the Armed Forces, as well as the cabinet and all of their departments. Sarah has had a lot of executive experience with the foundation as well as being a general’s wife during our army days. Lots of work to that which the non-military public never sees, organizing the various unofficial support groups, etc. She is going to be the Colony Administrator, sort of like a combined mayor and city manager. John is going to be the primary field commander of the troops. We’ll call it a regiment for now, so he is still a colonel. Rebecca will be the head Civil Service commander and will also be setting up the Education system.”

“Excuse me, Sir, but what is Civil Service? Like the Government clerks and postal employees?”

“No, but that’s a good question, Don. The AIs will actually be handling most of that stuff. Someone realized that we have no one to keep track of spare concubines ... We have got to come up with a more comfortable name for these people than that. Anyway, there was also no one to set up the various social services such as education, recreation, etc. It’s the kind of an undefined job that Becky loves to just grab onto and run with. Rebecca, we may be able to use the AI to assist with schooling. They seem to be doing something like that on Demeter, but I am not sure how. The amount of processing power needed does not seem to match up with the little that we know of their capabilities.

“Next, John and I are trained to destroy things, but Elizabeth is a civil engineer who builds things, so she knows a lot more about town planning and such than the rest of us. Therefore she is in charge of that and also of the initial colony placement, geological surveys, etc. Franklin has been running various factories for years and his corporate bosses are constantly having him go to assist with new factory set-ups. He also is our best trade negotiator, which is why he and Elizabeth are going on the small ship to negotiate a trade deal with the Darjee, get to the colony first, pick a site and get the colony core set up. The power plant, the AI core and a couple of other items are already en-route in a special modified ship.

“The basic light manufacturing setup will take twelve pods. The major facilities that are included are a four-pod remote manufacturing facility that can make most un-powered devices and a similar three-pod assembly that will make the equivalent of electronic circuit boards. Also we will have a five-pod assembly that makes self-contained power supplies. All of these facilities are remote controlled by the AI and therefore will get by with a minimum of staffing requirements. The assembly of these items is where we will need both some trained and untrained labor. Additionally, we will need another four-pod set-up to make major structural members for pods and for other large structures, similar to hangars and warehouses. We will need them to build and house the pods, shuttles and fighters. Also another pair of pods will apparently be needed to make some specialty parts like wing structures and such for the shuttles and fighters.

“All told, that is eighteen pods used, plus four for the two of you and your people. You get allocated one pod per five or fewer adults. Franklin, you have four plus a mother, plus yourself. Liz, you get six plus one, plus yourself. So you will each get two pods. You can keep them separate or one big happy family. That leaves seventy-four pods for your teams. The AI has a lot of data available, but you need geologists, meteorologists, biologists and agronomists to interpret it. Try not to build the colony in a flash flood zone under an alien Vesuvius, OK?

“Franklin, I think you said you had your teams almost worked out. Trade negotiators, supply chain managers, etc?”

Franklin had a very composed face with a look of quiet, self-assurance. Even though he had the lowest CAP score of the adults, he knew he was more competent than 95% of the rest of the male population. He also had a rugged face, which tended to let the floor workers and foremen on his crews think that he was a tough customer. He rarely had people problems with other competent people, though. “Yeah, with the AI’s to handle most of the paperwork and limited actual contact with any of the other colonies, we really don’t need many of those people. We just need a few who really know the job, mainly to set it up correctly at the start and to look for innovations as we add new manufacturing capability. I am bringing some of my old senior employees who can train the relatively small workforce that we will need for the assembly work and such. Also, we need a couple of people to help with factory line layouts for the areas with people, mostly ergonomics people. I think I will need about twelve pods. How about you Liz?”

“I need a big biology, agronomy and chemistry team to see what crops we can use for recyclable biomass. The more edible the starting crops the better the replicator food will taste and the healthier it should be. Also, we intend to take some small quantities of our seed stocks and such and see how they grow on Vulcan. Especially, we will try spices coffee and teas. Also specialty fruits and such. Replicator food is ok, but if you make replicated grain foods from real grain it’s a lot better, and you don’t need the highest quality grains either. Even grass is better than a tree, for example. Also, we need several meteorologists and a dozen geologists. The thing is, I am planning to grab some people from a few colleges. For example, I found one husband and wife, both volunteers. He teaches meteorology and has a special upper grad level class with a dozen students. She teaches Biology and has been teaching a special project series on Xenobiology. Their students are generally also high CAP people. I am still looking for a few more people, but I think I can get all I need in twenty pods. My only problem is how to get the volunteers to pick the right people. I think that I will just grab entire classes and somehow arrange for a couple of extra volunteers to be around to pick up those that their classmates and teachers don’t. Anyone have any ideas?”