Chapter 8: Recruitment!

Colonel Boyd Mathews got both the Ship Bell (445) and Ship Patricia (775) as his ships. On Sunday at lunch just after the battle, Boyd’s Wife Jan sat down next to Jenny. Boyd and his sons were across from John and many of the Generals from the class. Ceca and her parents were also there.

“Jan, it is nice to meet you. Welcome to our family. God says you are going to join our ever-growing family.” Jenny said as the two women touched their hands together. Next to John was the Commandant Frank and next to Frank was a happy Gaia. She had apologized to her parents and cried her eyes out as she had given both heartfelt hugs. Jenny got up and sat in John’s lap, “I need a massage. I can’t believe how much I have come to depend upon them. Please forgive me too.”

Gaia had her head in the lap of her mother who was sitting in her dad’s lap. All was as it should be. Frank was there watching the family coming back together. He too had a wash rag and he had wiped his own eyes a few times. John too had many tears of happiness and just let them fall as he thanked our father.

“God is telling us to make you a captain Jan. When you have your first certification come back and we will swear you in.” When the family was coming back from Venus, Jan asked what the oath was she would be swearing to. Her youngest repeated it word for word.

That Sunday after lunch Boyd’s wife flew the Patricia most of the way to Venus. She and her sons learned how to do maintenance on the big ship. Billy then flew the rest of the way to Venus and about a third of the way back to Earth where Junior took over. The ship now has sixty seats where once stood bedrooms for twenty-two. The captain now had a ready room and the Men’s, and Women’s rooms and showers were still there. The two bedrooms at the end had been combined to make one room for the captain. Patricia’s Brain had been upgraded and now there were five haloes Patricia’s available for staff and guests.

When lunch on Sunday was finished Rowland and Delilah and the Macon Cadets were about to fly off. John took the two aside and let Delilah understand what happed to her mom, “The spiders got her. She had no defenses and her anger made her completely vulnerable.” John said.

“Would it have happened if we went and got her before the wedding?” Delilah asked.

“She called you from her cell phone?” John asked.

Delilah nodded.

“I get she died within seconds after she hung up from you.” John groaned, “I see her closing the phone and turning because of a noise and got a tenacle through the heart. It was quick and fast.”

Rowland’s aunt hugged Delilah as the two women cried. Rowland put his arms around his two closest family members. The other members of the family also got close to comfort.

Paul and the other brothers all felt more grown-up but were still at a loss as to what to do for crying women. He whispered, “De’s mom?”

Rowland nodded.

Paul looked to his brothers and nodded. They all grimaced as they realized De’s mom was dead.

John stood back a little with Gaia in his arms and Jenny hugging the two. Bert must have felt the emotional loss as he stood on shaky legs hugging his mom’s leg.

“We need to say something.” John saw Rowland, “Can I make an announcement?” Gaia got down and ran to the microphone and brought it back to her dad.

John turned the mic on and gave it a tap, hearing it come from the speakers. “Attention, please. Our Spiders got the mother of Delilah. The sense I have is worldwide, we have lost around a hundred to the spiders. Thank you, Cadets, for the loss of so few, it could have been 10s of thousands. Delilah, we will have a memorial when you are ready.”

Delilah stood squaring her shoulders, taking a deep breath of air, “Thank you, Father John.”

“General Rowland, you are going to find a very large mess when you return to Macon.” John said with the mic to let everyone hear the news, “We also need to send a recovery team to Australia to recover around 40 black boxes. Rowland, you will find around 20 in Macon. There would have been more except your teams blew up several.” John looked around, “Keep your ears and eyes open, there may be a hundred Black Ships around Earth. We need to get all of them to Lockheed with a few to the Fifth Division.”

Jeffery looked around, “Can we put one next to the Little Grey’s ship in the parking lot?”

That changed the energy of the shelter, “Thanks Jeffery, we will take that into consideration.”

“Colonel Mathews. I have had almost a dozen close calls in my life. You feel responsible for purposing a path that hindsight has proven the wrong path. Ask God for guidance not only for current steps but for past and future steps also. I’m the one who proposed that children be allowed to fly spaceships. I have looked at that proposal on many occasions wondering where on Earth did that come from. Then I remember that long ago I asked God for guidance in all things. All of us are precious to our father. The children of our world simply were waiting for an opportunity to prove to society their value. Society in the know, now calls them young men and young women, and rightly so, they have earned it. There will be a metal for all those that have participated in the battles against the spiders.”

“Thank you, Father John!” Boyd said for all to hear.

At table #3 sat Jerry Taylor with Nevaeh and Isaac. He had them fill out applications. He had gone through the applications. Nevaeh had produced the paperwork stating she was legally independent and the guardian responsible for her brother. Jerry had jumped up and made copies for both her application and Isaac’s. Jerry looked to the number one table, the seats across from John and Jenny were empty, “Are you ready?”

The three went and sat down across from John and Jenny.

“Hi, Nevaeh! So very nice to see you again. Your Mom and Dad came to see me.” John smiled and squeezed Jenny’s hand, “Gaia and Jenny, I knew this young lady when she was your age, Gaia. Her name is Heaven spelled backward as Nevaeh. This young man was just a baby. A happy little boy. I watched the Seahawks win the Superbowl with them. We experienced the Oso Slide. Some of our neighbors died in that land slide.” John had tears in his eyes.

“You are doing carpentry again Uncle John.” Nevaeh looked around, “The place looks great. Jerry said you guys had over 1,100 people here when Seattle got 14 feet of snow. What ever happened to that house up at Oso?” Nevaeh asked.

“The county bought it and tore it down along with the place your family was in.” John said, “Jerry did you find rooms for these friends?” John asked.

“Yes, father,” Jerry said.

“What do you want to do?” John looked at Nevaeh, “You too Isaac.”

“I want to fly spaceships,” Isaac said.

“335/6, 445/6, and model 775 makes the most sense,” John said.

“I want both of them to do that along with the 885/886F.” Jerry had proposed the Fire Tanker be designated as the 886F.

“Nevaeh?” John asked.

“Both Isaac and I want to go to college. I’ve taken the GED and was shown the Washington list of Champions. That’s what my counselor called it. I notice a lot of Taylor’s on it. Names such as Lucy, Frank, Jerry, and a young man named Curtis along with several others.” Nevaeh’s smile was from ear to ear, “I think I’m in good company. I want to be Jerry’s administrator’s assistant. Is it possible to get into the University?” Nevaeh asked.

“What do you want to major in?” Jenny asked.

“I’m good in numbers and science. Do you think I can get into Aerospace?” Nevaeh asked.

“Those Taylor’s are now working on their Ph.D.’s by building a major Spaceship for exploration of the Universe.

“Is it too late to join the program?” Neveah asked.

Gaia Giggled. Frank had his head in a thick book about Ship Architecture. He put a book marker in the book and said, “What?”

“Can you answer a few questions?” Nevaeh asked.

“Frank, this a friend of mine. We lived next to each other when Nevaeh was four & five years old. The Oso slide missed both of our homes by less than a hundred feet. Nevaeh and Isaac, this is Frank Hansen Taylor, possibly the smartest man I know.

“Frank Taylor is listed as #1 on the GED List of Champions. It is my pleasure to meet you sir.” Nevaeh said.

“Sir, it is my understandings you were an orphan. Our parents got burned up in a fire. Nevaeh and I were saved by a spaceship raining down lots of water on our side of the house. We then watched as our parents walked out of the fire and said goodbye to us but not before they told us to come here and find John Taylor again. They took us to ... God for a few minutes ... They said Uncle John was the Christ now. You must be Jesus then. I’m Isaac again.

“Nevaeh, and Isaac where are your parents now?” Frank asked.

“They are in the fifth dimension. They have completed the third and fourth. I believe they had to go through the ascension process before they could continue.” Neveah turned to her brother and the two passed a communication of being careful, we still don’t know them very well. But mom and dad believed we did not get hit by the slide because of Uncle John.

“Father John and Jesus have been together many times in the past.” Isaac said, “Usually when something important is happening.”

“You mean like introducing space to Planet Earth?” Curtis had been quiet until now.

“Yes, or understanding the next step in our process to return to God,” Isaac said.

“Have the two of you been to God?” John asked knowing they had been there only once.

“Yes, after mom and dad were burned up, they took us to God but only for a few minutes. It did not make sense because we didn’t lose any time when we were with God.” Nevaeh said.

“There is no time penalty when we are with God.” John smiled.

“You mean I could raise my cup of tea, visit with God for an hour and return to sip my tea and it would still be hot.”

“Yes!” John smiled.

“Can we go visit with God please?” Neveah asked as she tightened her grip of Jerry’s hand.

When they got to God Nevaeh turned and looked at John. Mom said he was now the Christ. So that is what a Christ looks like. It could be anyone and we would just pass them by. Mom said I told her once I was going to grow up and marry him. Maybe I knew then he was going to be the Christ. He still looks at me with love and he knew me as soon as I sat down. Oh, there is Mom and Dad again, “Isaac here is mom and dad.”

Rowland in Macon, Georgia:

Rowland asked Paul to fly them home. Their brother Ron would be his assistant. They had all the ships assigned to them along with the ships that were assigned to The Watchers. The other ships would go to the school while Heather and three of the 336s would go with them to Delilah’s Mom’s home. As they got near, “Does anyone see any signs of life?”

“This is Watcher 1a. None, Sir.”

“This is Watcher 1c. None, Sir.”

“This is Watcher 1b. Sir, I’ve tried every position on the scanner nob. Nothing moving, nothing appears to be alive down there.

“We’re going to land. Keep your eyes peeled.” Rowland said. Paul looked at Rowland and he nodded.

Delilah was up, behind the gunners. The ship touched down, “Okey Tom, let’s join the General with half of our forces on the ship. Father John had been right. There were many black boxes all around them. They still had two hours of daylight left. From the scanner, the number of black boxes appeared to be 12 or 13. Tom and Delilah ran through the door and set up a defensive perimeter for another twenty to follow. With no action, they enlarged the circle with thirty side by side. The last batch had twenty more along with Rowland. They stopped, looked, and listened.

“Anybody have anything to report?” Rowland asked. After five minutes, “Spread out go in groups of four. Front two look forward the back two watch behind.” There were many tens of thousands of spiders of all sizes lying down. Nothing appeared to be moving.

Just outside the ship, Delilah had a group of ten, “No sign of mom yet Sir.”

“Do you have your list of the things you want?” Rowland asked.

“Yes Sir.”

As they walked on the sidewalk there was a crunching sound as their feet stepped on hundreds of little white spiders.

As they approached the open door, Delilah pointed to scratches on the door frame that were new. Some might think a bear caused the scratches. Two went through the door and kept their backs close to the inside walls stepping out of the way for others to follow. When they had entered everyone noticed seven or eight small spiders maybe one foot tall laying down, not moving, “What do you think sir?” Jeffery asked.

“After seeing tens of thousands lying about outside, I get the sense Earth may be toxic to them.” Rowland said, “Father John felt they were third-dimensional critters and wouldn’t thrive on a fourth-dimensional world.” Rowland had everyone put on a pair of latex gloves before they left the ship. On the thought, the spiders may all be dead, but the bacteria in them may still be harmful.

The ten stayed together moving throughout the house. Delilah picked up her father’s wedding band from his nightstand. Also, his set of keys for both cars and bank account information. She had one of the lieutenants pick up a small safe that was behind his desk. She checked the key to open the safe was on her dad’s key ring. She reached under the bed and pulled out a 12-gauge Remington shotgun. Next came a Monster box of 500 gold coins and another one with 500 silver coins. She also pulled out a box of a hundred rounds of buckshot.

Next, she found her dad’s most cherished gift that he had ever received, two guns and a double holster set up. John had seen this at another time. The guns were Smith and Western 929s with pearl handles. There was a small metal box big enough to hold a birthday cake. When Delilah removed the lid, she smiled. There must be a thousand rounds of 9mm ammo with a hundred moon clips and a reloader with a pistol cleaning kit.