Chapter 17: War of the Worlds

The dream January 13, 2019

John woke with a start. The dream had to do with his adopted daughter Sally who was going to be 16 soon. The Devil had her or she was sitting in the Devil’s lap laughing as if she was enjoying the attention. They were sitting in The Chair that had been Lucifer’s before the sun. John was watching from the railing on the west side of the sun.

Demetri was there with a Gladiator’s outfit on. Sword in one hand Spear in the other, “John, I won’t let him win this time. She is my wife to be.”

“Demetri, she’s, my daughter. Back me up on this and let me battle this evil.” John suggested.

Demetri nodded, “As you wish my Lord.”

John had the ancient sword of the Taillefer’s of a thousand years ago, “Why are you here Devil?” John asked.

“This is my realm, John. What a fool you have been. To think that evil could be wiped out on one little planet in the Universe. A Thousand Years of Peace? Heaven on Earth? What jokes? You as Able argued for death for all of mankind so their would-be growth. Now you argue the opposite. Time does not change things. You are starting to learn that time is a variable like all things. Don’t mess with a good thing John.” The Devil Satan laughed, “You cannot win this time.”

“When I was Able, millions of years ago, mankind was so incredibly young. Like a child, not knowing the dangers and running into the street. Mankind has matured, it has learned the many lessons and is ready to take on the next step.” John argued.

“So, you want to put me out of business? When you destroyed Lucifer, I got this realm. I hate cold, so this is really nice and HOT for me.” The Devil Satan laughed again, “John you have become Cain and I have become Able. Heaven forbids me, to become you John in a million years. You sound like a hypocrite.”

“You know those people in your life that tell you not to do one thing then they do it believing they can get away with doing it without you finding out. Parents do this all the time. Oh, darling daughter, don’t have sex. The proof of the parent’s having sex is in the very existence of the daughter or other siblings. Such hogwash.”

“I appeal to our Father God. I ask all of the saints that have ever come before or are here now or will be in the future to be my advocates in this matter.” John shouted from the railing before the sun.

The next scene in the dream was standing before God, “John, why have you come before me?” John felt like he had awoken God from a good nap. His tone was not pleasing.

“Father, I believed I was doing your service. Please advise me.” John laid face down flat before God. He could hear laughter he did not like.

“John when you face the enemy alone you are not doing my service. When you look behind you and see enough family, friends, and neighbors standing behind you to win and you did not ask them to be there, it is then that you are doing MY WORK. You will struggle when you create hypocrisy in your life. Both you and your wife had sex before you were sixteen and yet you think nothing of asking your daughter to wait until she is such. You go to a bare planet and dream of helping to create a garden and yet what have you done for your planet.”

“When bigger ships are built with bigger weapons, you applaud. I have given you the tools to take mankind to a new and different place. One where the only discernment you must make is “Has this person in front of me been to God?” “If the answer is “yes”, then you have a right to treat others as you have been treated. If the answer is “NO!” then bring them to me.” God paused then asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”

John realized the laughter was his. It wasn’t the devil after all, “Thank you, Father. I love you!”

“John, A wise man said to keep all things simple, and life would be simple. Oh, that was you!” God laughed when he was done, “My son when the enemy comes knocking simply answer the call. Do unto others as they want to do to you. Watch the 7-pound cat take on the 140-pound dog and see the dog run off in fear. I gave you a little dog that when she saw a cat, opened her heart and only wanted to play. What did the cat do? It either played nicely or ran off in fear.”

“Your right father, all the cats always ran off in fear unless they were willing to play nice,” John remembered his little 55-pound Golden Retriever, the runt of the litter, but had the heart of a champion that was also full of love and play.

John looked at the clock. It showed 2:43 A.M. He turned and put his feet on the floor.

“Where are you going?” Jenny whispered.

“I’ll be back.” John whispered, “Too much water.”

John drained his bladder and went to the kitchen, “What are you doing up?” He asked Sally.

“I couldn’t sleep so I sent Demetri a text telling him, I would fly out with you and transfer to his ship as soon as we met.” Sally said, “Demetri sent back okay, love you!”

“I apologize for being a hypocrite,” John said.

“This ought to be worth the price of admission,” Jenny said as she came into the kitchen.

“Mom, am I still asleep?” Sally asked.

“Why do you ask?” Jenny asked.

“I’ve never read in the “How to be a kid! Book for Dummy’s” that if your parents catch you up after 2:00 AM texting your boyfriend that they will apologize for being a hypocrite.” Sally smiled, “I must be asleep.”

The two turned to John to explain, “In my dream, God told me, Jenny and I were hypocrites. We are asking you to do something that neither of us did before we were sixteen.” John said, “Although I don’t remember having sex until after I was in college.”

“But you wanted to have sex?” Jenny asked.

“Sex was like a new gun or new car or new toy. My memory is that I was never at the right place at the right time until I was in college away from home.” John answered.

“I didn’t have a choice. I guess if I step back and look at the overall picture, I needed to go through what I did to get here. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I love being here now.” Jenny said.

“Mom and dad, I am having so much fun as a single attractive young lady. I have an extremely attractive young man head over heels in love with me. I think it became very “Okay” for us when I became Demetri’s Angel in that last battle with the Nanux. That went Nationwide all over Russia. For me, the daughter of the President of the US risking my life in their spaceship saving Russians has made me a Russian Celebrity.

Everybody I meet calls me Demetri’s Angel. Demetri and I kiss when they do, and I acknowledge that I am. That has even gone on TV. We have been asked on TV when the wedding is, and I am pleased to show my ring and say the day after I am 16.”

“You are helping to tie this world together. For it to be in Love is as beautiful as a spring flower.” John shared.

“This has not been planned, has it?” Sally asked.

“Not by me. I don’t think I have been 100% okay with this until right now. Maybe this is why God was upset with me. I even, though it was small, doubted in my mind towards the two of you.” John said, “Even though I did believe you two like Tony and Willa decided to be together somewhere in this life long before you came in.” John answered.

“I think for me when I saw you learning Russian then I knew you would do anything and everything to make this work for you,” Jenny said.

“It’s hard. But Yelena when she interviewed with me said my Russian was getting good. She asked her audience and they clapped. She wanted to know how long I had been studying as a healer. How many times I had gone to God? How many times I had healed someone? I told them I had interned with my mother in our clinic since the first days of its opening. October of last year.”

“Yelena then turned to her TV audience and told them, if this is your dream to become a healer then this is a very good example of being the best. Realize Sally Taylor has also gone to school, helped with many brothers and sisters. Learned Russian and learned to heal. Yelena then asked me what my dream was. I told all of Russia I wanted to be Chief Medical Officer on an Inter-Galactic Spaceship with my husband Demetri. I think the audience fell in love with me.”

“They kept me on when Vid and Demetri came out. Both gave me a big hug on National TV. Yelena said later over 250 million people were watching. Vid and Demetri shared the action along with some of the clips from the spaceships. I just sat there and looked pretty. Demetri credited me with saving the ship when we got hit hard with two big energy weapons at the same time. The ship blinked then continued as if nothing happened.”

John stood. A glass of water in his hand, “Sally, I toast and recognize the adult you have become. You are making great decisions and I see an exceptionally good head on your shoulders. You make me immensely proud. You represent this family and this nation very well. It will be exciting for me to see you married.” John and Jenny both raised their glasses of water and toasted Sally.

“It feels like I just accomplished something,” Sally said.

“You have. Your dad and I just recognized you as an adult.” Jenny said.

“That’s really cool Sally,” Ben said.

John looked and laughed, “Who else is up?” John kept seeing someone peeking around the corner.

Ben looked at John real hard.

“You are doing fine Ben. You are on the right path. Got more to learn.” John said to that hard look.

“Like what?” Ben demanded.

“Do you know how to make cookies?” John got a yes. “Do you know how to cook like spaghetti?” John got a no on that.

“But I know how to Bar-be-Que,” Ben said.

“Yes, you do. Do you know how to change a diaper?” John asked.

“No,” Ben said.

“Do you know how to stop the Nanux next week?” John asked.

“Yes, I do!” Ben lit up like a Christmas tree being plugged in. John had heard the kids working on a plan.

“Come on in Chuck.” John said, “Anybody else out there?”

In came Bobby, Willy, Lucy, and Beth along with the twins, Teri, and Fannie.

“Cookies and Milk?” Jenny asked. When John laughed, “Come on Ben. You know how to make cookies better than I do.”

When the replicator put out two dozen freshly made chocolate chip cookies that went down so particularly good with milk, “Okay Ben, how do we win the battle next week?”

“If there are 120 of those big battleships then we assign 4 to 10 of the 335’s and 445’s to each one. They go in like bats out of hell and take out the big guns. The 555’s, 665’s and 775’s blow a hole in their windows eliminating their primary controls. Then we turn on the little guys and wipe them out. Thirty to forty minutes should be all over. Chuck, Willy, and Lucy helped me on this by talking and them asking questions until we felt we had it right.”

Ben took a deep breath, “We presented it to the girls, and they also helped by asking a lot of difficult questions. One question did come up, why not just cut a 2’ hole in front of the controls and let all of the air out? We all agreed with that offensive procedure. Faster, and easier.”

“Good question on the control. I’d change the low-end time to twenty minutes. If we are flying at our potential, then there is not going to be much time in this battle. What if there are only 100 battleships present?”

“We need a force set up to return to earth to counter that possibility as soon as we know,” Ben said.

“Makes sense.” John agreed.

“Then squads 1 and 2 hit them next. Our big ships keep working down the line up to 120. The important thing is the little ships start on the left end knocking out the cannons and our bigger ships start on the right end eliminating their controls. I’m looking for every battleship being damaged either by loss of guns or by loss of control within the first ten minutes. We arrive at that point then it’s just a matter of cleaning up their little ships.”

“I say it is just as important to take out the battleships first. Our 335’s start on the left end and our bigger ships go to the right.” John nodded his approval, “Keep it simple.”

“Dad, we think you need to present it,” Ben said.

“Okay on one condition. We pull this off, the credit is going to come to me, and I am going to shift that credit to you guys.” John said. Jenny smiled big.

The next day Jan 14th:

“Admiral, it looks like we have a total of 754 ships if we leave the 5 on the western carriers and have 6 on the planetary guard. The number does not include the seven LD’s that the Chinese are building but do not have completed yet.” Tony said, “And I’m not counting the one Poncho has.”

“Thank you, Tony. Sure, you guys don’t want something with more firepower?” Admiral Mary asked. Two 775s and four 445s, undermanned with not a lot of experience?

“All of us took all day Saturday and Sunday watching the tapes. Poke all of them in the eyes, then hit the secondary control on the big ones. We are not here to go toe to toe with them. We’re here to fight dirty and win.” Tony laughed, “If we get in trouble and part of the Golden Boys Brigade can join us with the 6” lasers then I think we will be okay.”

“Tony, you want your brothers and sisters with you?” John asked.

“They were with us watching the tapes Saturday and Sunday.” Tony thought for a second, “If we face even three battleships, our odds of winning are less than yours’s dad.”

“Your brothers and sisters have all worked hard to be in this battle.” John said, “Their eyesight is excellent and have shown how good, time and again that 20 miles with a 6” laser is easy for them.” John thought for a second, “I would say they are worth one or two battleships all by themselves.”

“I see what you’re saying. Yes, add them to the guard.” Tony said, “Tell them I had choices and I requested them.”

“Thanks, Tony, I will,” John said.

“What else is there, dad?” Tony asked.

“The Navy computer modeling says we are going to experience a 23% loss of our ships.” John looked incredibly sad, “If you guys get hit with 4 or more battleships with support fighters, then you also may see some losses.”

“Dad, we have shown this computer estimates wrong before. I trust God, I also trust US.” Tony looked sure of himself.

“I hope your right son. I defiantly hope you’re right.” John smiled.

All the ships that were in the pipeline in the US and Russia were completed. It would be after the battle before another ship was made to fly. China was the exception, they had seven of the Light Destroyers partially built. Between Kevin at Lockheed and Vid in Russia, China had put over ten thousand people on their Space program converting them from their Aeronautical Industry.

When they got the Light Destroyer and were asked to build them, they were ready, willing, and worked 24/7 to do just that. Lockheed had taken delivery on two new Chinese LDs and the one that Iceman flew had also been returned. Lockheed ran the three LDs through all the tests and all of them passed.

Iceman had joined the Omak Camp and claimed the right to fly the LD. He was being brought up to speed. For a Top Gun, that only took Iceman three blinks and a heartbeat once he caught up on his sleep.

Sid the lead testing engineer went to sign off on the three. His intuition was screaming at him. He looked at the Chinese Tests and compared them with their tests. He shook his head and went to sign off again. He just couldn’t even lift the pen. What could be the problem? He went through the power needs everything tested okay. He checked everything else. He’d sleep on it and sign the dam things in the morning.

The next morning, while Sid was taking a shower his mind for the third time, went to the Accumulator. Then a question came to his mind, “When does the Accumulator draw power from the Primary Power Plant?” Of course, the answer was after you fire, but we tested for maximum power usage. “NO, WE DID NOT! We never fired twice.” Sid screamed bringing his wife to see what the problem was.

After firing once then both the gun and the Accumulator would be drawing a lot of power from the Primary Power supply. The Primary Power Supply would be putting out 120% and they only tested for 100%.

Two hours later:

Sid was one of those that if the boss were alone and the door was open, he could come in and sit down if he had a problem.

Kevin Humphreys was busy working up the many hours spent on spacecraft. It looked like they were going to make a profit last month, even with all the overtime, “What do you have Sid?”

Sid placed the cable with a magnifier on Kevin’s desk, “I need to order some new cables for the LDs. These cables we got from the Chinese are bogus.” Sid said.

“How bad?” Kevin asked as he looked at the end of the cable. The wire ends all looked like little donuts with a layer of silver on a copper core.

“We took it out to the testing range this morning. We put one of the Chinese LDs under load, raised it a foot off the ground, and fired 15 times. We hit the ground hard. Hard enough to knock fillings loose. What’s worse the computer believes the primary power supply is still good, so we have life support only.

I flipped the switch to the primary power to off and the computer then flipped the switch to the secondary power supply to “on”, so we would have power to the floaty thing and engines.”

“Floaty Thing?” Kevin asked.

“I picked that up from those dam jet plane engineers. I’m talking about the Antigravity Stabilization Unit. I got my degrees from ASU, and I don’t plan on calling it ASU anytime soon.”

“I kind of like the name “Floaty Thing” myself.” Kevin laughed.

“I do to when it’s working.” Sid also laughed.

“How much does the cabling cost?” Kevin asked.

“There is about $40 per inch or two ounces per inch of silver in that cable. It retails for about $50 per inch.” Sid said.

“How much per ship do we need?” Kevin asked.

“Fifty feet of the cable would be equal to 600 inches, so we need 1200 ounces of silver per ship.”

“How long to get?” Kevin asked.

“Two to three weeks. If we put a rush on it.”

“We don’t have two or three weeks. Can we make our cable?” Kevin asked.

“We do have a cable machine; we need silver though,” Sid said.

“Come with me. Don’t say a word until we are back out of the room with the door closed.” Kevin led the two into a very secure room. Inside was a strange man, “Hal, I need five boxes of silver.”

“Okay, Mr. Humphreys just sign on the line and state purpose and the amount at the end,” Hal said.

“I’m going to borrow your hand truck. I promise to bring it back today.” Kevin said.

“Okay, Mr. Humphreys. Have a nice day.” Hal said.

They loaded the five boxes of silver onto the hand truck. The door closed and locked again, “Does Hal need some WD-40?” Sid asked.

Kevin laughed at the referral of the Wizard of OZ and the Tinman, “I hope not. Our guy that does the programming for the holograms brought him. He is an Industrial Mobil Robotic AI. He said Google and Amazon had orders for thousands of them before the Earth Changes.

“He didn’t even see me.” Sid said, “What’s that all about?”

“Not enough RAM. The same thing happens in our Spaceships. Both Patricia and Virginia are there until the 775 ship gets underway then they just disappear until the journey is over.” Kevin said as they headed for his office. Once they got there Kevin gave Sid the control of the hand truck, “Bring it back to me today please or Hal may have a meltdown.” Kevin laughed.

“Hal needs a bath in warm soapy water.” Sid teased.

“Please leave Hal’s hygiene to me.” Kevin laughed, “I’ll get him some brute aftershave.”

Twenty-four hours later Sid the Engineer signed off on the three LDs. An e-mail and a blow-up picture showing one of their wires with the copper core was sent to General Chang of the Spaceship Division of the Chinese Army telling of the 80% copper core of what was supposed to be 100% silver wire used on the LDs.

Later that day three men were arrested for committing fraud on the Chinese Military. General Chang got the opportunity to take the three men to God. The case closed with a note the men would never be available again to sell to the Chinese Military.

Flight training and classes were going 16 or more hours every day.

The Battle of Worlds:

The day started at Midnight (Moscow time) at the beginning of January 20th, 2019. The 335s all had a portable potty in them. All the 335s and 445s had been upgraded to withstand bigger charges. All the known problems with wiring had been resolved. The Golden Jets all had been upgraded along with a 6” laser added to their arsenals and painted a golden yellow.

The final numbers for earth were the 728 ships plus the Golden Boy’s Squadron of 79 for a total of 807 ships leaving 16 ships in reserve, fifteen 555’s, and one Golden Jet. Against Earth were 120 Battleships with 3,011 black jets for a total of 3,131 ships.

Three 555s took off as a group towards Venus. The brain trust (Presidents John, Vid, and Admiral Mary) decided 5 million miles from Earth was close enough. That was just past the first battle sight with the Nanux. All the Earth’s ships had black boxes in them and had been tried out. The favorite trip was around Pluto.

Even with the black box, a 335 could only travel 13.4 lightyears per day. A 445 could do twice that at 26.8 lightyears per day. Five million miles was a drop in the bucket compared to a light year.

Iceman was out in the LD. Lockheed had given it the once over. It appeared to be a sound vessel. The Admiral hung the rank of Major on him. He called back to Earth (Lockheed) that 14 of the Battleships with support had broken off and made a different heading that could still lead to Earth. Kevin at Lockheed called up John and passed the information on.

Admiral Kennady went to Plan B1. She called up Major Si and passed the plan change onto him. Si sent the second and third companies to join the Earth guard. Both companies had a way to go, they were halfway to Venus. The Admiral also contacted Tony letting him know about the 14 battleships and 40 to 50 support ships coming at them.

No one knows why, but one of the battleships fired off in the direction of the three 555s. They were out about 20 miles Un-cloaked, but with minimal energy being used. The screens were at 50%. When the battleship fired, the screens automatically went to full. At twenty miles the big guns simply tickled the 555s. What it did do was show the number and size of the 555s to the Nanux that they were all alone. They sent six of the black Jets out.

“555s, I am Major Iceman. On my mark fire at those 6 black jets.” Iceman let the black jets get halfway, “Fire until they are junk.” Nineteen lasers, six energy canons, and the anti-mater gun on the light destroyer fired. In seconds, the six black jets were junk.

About a mile behind the three 555s a body of ships showed up.