Chapter 5: Family!

John’s Mother’s ancestry line: 11th Great Grandfather was King James 1st/6th of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland.

John’s Father’s line: 32nd Great Grandfather Emperor Charlemagne by way of his daughter Rotrud then son, grandson, and great-grandsons to the surname established as Taillefer in France. This held until about 1150 AD when parts of the family moved with William of Normandy to England in 1066 and changed their name to Taylor in Kent about 100 years later.

The family arrived in Virginia around 1635 AD. John’s line moved to West Virginia before the Revolutionary War in 1776. Moved to Upton, Ohio onto Bounty Land around 1836 then onto the goldfields of California in 1849. Oregon Homestead in the 1870s.

John’s Grandfather died in a logging accident in 1913 on the Columbia River. The major wall in the trail until DNA proved the above connections in 2016.

Talking to the Family! “Does everyone remember when I told you of being the many Great Grandsons and daughters of Charlemagne?” John asked. They were waiting on going back to Omak after the battle with the Nanux. John was meeting with his family in the middle of the 665 called Tito.

Lucy nodded, and Willy shook his head no.

“John how many greats?” Seth asked.

“I believe I am the 32nd so the kids would be the 33rd Great Grandchildren. Gaia and Matt too. Willy when we get home, I will tell you the story again.” John got agreement all around, so he proceeded, “Once upon a time there was a great leader, and his name was Charlemagne. He lived in the 800’s so that was 1200 years ago.

He had a daughter named Rotrud and she had a son who had a son and so on. One of the Great Grandsons made himself a sword. His name was Willy too only in French. This sword protected his land so well that the family’s name became Taillefer. It means “hewer of iron”.

William Taillefer was the Count of Angouleme. The ancient story that, Amen Bible has, tells of a family named Taillefer that leads a backward planet to glory, and it brings the Rule of Law to the Galaxy.” John took a breath, “There’s more, within the family is a very special birth.”

Jenny whispered, “GAIA!”

John looked to Jenny and nodded his head, “They have a major battle, their grand appearance to the galaxy, and no one on the Taillefer side dies.” John shared, “They were up against enormous odds, but won anyway.

“Today!” Seth said.

John looked at Seth and nodded again, “What do you think and feel?” John asked.

“John, why did you put my son in the Captain’s Seat?” Inga asked.

“Because look around you, we accounted for 71 of the little ships and your son had a major effect on all five of the capital ships. If I saw that monster ship in a dream, I would call that a nightmare. Those of us that have experienced more than your son can list the number of minutes of that experience doing battle on two hands.” John held up his fingers to make the effect more real.

“Now we need some toes!” Willy said.

“Yes Willy, we now need all of our toes, too,” John said, and everybody laughed.

“So, my son is going to be an Admiral James T. Kirk Type?” Inga laughed and looked at her son.

John nodded, then looked at his family, one by one, “What do you think?”

“I could be a doctor on a big spaceship.” Lucy said, “My husband Brien and I could take our babies and go exploring.” This brought a smile to Brien’s face. His Champion Lucy wanted him as a husband.

“Daddy, how many ships like this are ordered?” Ben asked.

“Forty like this one!” John answered, “We also got twenty-four coming with the number 775 that will fly at light speed or faster.”

Inga asked, “How fast will this ship fly?”

“A million miles per hour!” John shared, “Boys and girls there is no right or wrong answer to my question. Let’s talk more in the days ahead. This is more about what you feel and what you want.”

“Thanks, dad. It is a bit of a shock. We’re just getting a handle on Earth with you as President and the subject has changed to the Galaxy and space.” Tony and Willa were both nodding their heads.

“I know. I think this has been coming to our world for a long time and the Powers in Charge have kept it hidden. I’m going to talk with the President of Lockheed.” John said as he got up.

John went over and sat down and turned to Mary Kennady, “I should have had you there in the meeting.”

“It will be better to wait until Sam is there with me.” Mary blushed, “He’s taking me to dinner.”

“He settled the score for the loss of his sister. It no longer feels like an unfinished quest. He can move on now. He saw his chance as a way forward and he took it. He may be ready for marriage. I think that little strafing run needs to be taught to our young Space Program.” John said.

“I concur Mr. President.” Mary smiled, “I’m happy to share that the 29 ships that followed Sam were all of our top guns.”

John laughed with Mary, “I truly like what you said: We live by the book, until the first shot is fired then we fight to live.”

“Mr. Lock calling White Eagle.” The radio squawked.

“Mr. Lock, White Eagle here!”

“It’s working. The last 335 is working. All ships are green-lighted. Let’s go home.” Kevin Humphreys was extremely excited.

“You and I can talk on the ride back,” John suggested.

“Will do. Let me get off so the real people running the show can get us underway.” Kevin Humphreys said.

“When we both get underway and you get a chance to sit down, give me a call. 10/4.” John suggested.

“Will do, White Eagle.”

“White Eagle to Mother Bear. We are going home.”

“Let’s do this White Eagle! We will have the lights on and wait for your call on Friday. Mother Bear out!”

“White Eagle out!”

“Admiral, please take us home,” John said.

“Will do sir!” Mary Kennady said.

“Attention, All US Ships, let’s head for home. Let’s go as a group and maintain 25,000 MPH. Admiral out.”

“Tito, head for home. Maintain shields. Tito, please verify that everyone has pulled in behind us.” Admiral Kennady called the action.

“All ships accounted for sir,” Tito reported.

“Please do a damage assessment on all ships. Make up a report and send it to my e-mail account Tito.” Mary directed.

The two boys and Lucy were watching and listening intently.

“What did you learn today?” Mary asked her students, “You too Ben. We will start with Willy.”

“A lot of people are not going home.” Willy said, “War is not nice.”

“God says we have a right to protect ourselves. You do that very well. Are you a good shot?” Mary asked.

“Very good.” Willy said, “We fly home.”

“Willy, a good solder wants no more war. Because often someone dies. Sometimes friends, sometimes family.”

Willy looked to Lucy and Ben and nodded his head, “Yes sir!”

“Calling White Eagle, this is Mr. Lock.”

Mary handed the mic to John, “White Eagle here.”

“White Eagle, what an amazing day. We learned a ton of stuff and we may need to run the ships through our plant in Texas to make the modifications to them. Certainly the 335’s and the 445’s for sure. How many times did your 665 get hit?” Kevin Humphreys asked.

“Bull Dog says 34 times,” John answered as he counted the fingers from Mary.

“Did you notice anything like the dimming of the lights or flashing?” Kevin asked.

“No, we did notice a minor vibration each time, but it did not interfere with shields, cloak or lights or Tito.” John replied, “My stomach telling me I was hungry rumbled more.”

“On two occasions we got hit twice at almost the same time and we got 2 or 3 seconds of shutting down then a quick restart. We need a way to ground the bursts from the energy weapons.” Kevin shared.

“We need a bucket of wet sand with a lightning rod connected to it,” John said.

“It may be that simple. Or something we can store energy in, then tap into when we fire back. It would always be of help if our energy weapons had an extra 10 or 20% kick to them.” Kevin was thinking aloud.

“How does the 665 takes so many hits and we hardly feel a thing, where the 445s or 335s get knocked out?” John asked.

“John, the energy plant for the shields and cloaking on the 665 is as big as an entire 335.” Kevin laughed, “That’s how that’s possible.”

“Then we need to figure out how to make the energy plants smaller,” John stated.

“We’re working on that John.” Kevin laughed, “Question, would you want them half as big or twice as powerful?”

“For the ships, we have, twice as powerful. We may face an enemy where they have continued to make progress and are thousands of years ahead of us instead of being frozen at a level of advancement for whatever reason for, tens of thousands of years ago.” John stated.

“You noticed that too. That big ship was for show and as a little dog we didn’t know enough to leave it alone.” Kevin shared.

“We have to remember, your 335s and 445s can sink battleships 10 and 20 miles away. Those capital ships were not hardened as they should have been. A very good lesson for us to remember.” John said.

“The way we are building is the 445 has 6 times the power of the 335. The 665 has 100 times the power of the 445. The design on the 775 is 100 times more power than the 665 and yet it will have room for only twenty-five crew.” Kevin shared, “It is being designed for long-range.”

“Will it have a seat for me?” John asked.

“Only if you are going exploring around the Galaxy.” Kevin laughed.

“Anything else to add Kevin?” John asked.

The 775 will have six 6” lasers pointing forward that can be controlled by one or more people that will reach out 30 to 40 miles.” Kevin added.

“Thank you, Kevin, I’ll sleep better tonight.” John laughed, “I’ll talk to you again soon. Oh, by the way, when will we see the 775?”

“We have been waiting on seats, so we could finish our testing, White Eagle. We hope to have that little issue resolved ASAP.” Kevin said.

“Let me know if there is anything, I can do for you?” John said.

“Is it okay to take someone to the sun and throw them over the handrail?” Kevin laughed.

“Probably not a good idea.” John laughed.

“Okay, we will think of something else then.” Kevin also laughed, “10/4 White Eagle.”

John sat there for a minute holding the mic thinking.

“You think we went up against old technology?” Mary asked.

“In a way yes. Can you imagine your F-18 built on a Wright Brothers concept? That mankind did not advance after they died either because of no funding for research or somebody in power thought what we had was good enough? Where would we be today? Look what the old government did in squelching this very ship that we are in. I think that is something that happened to the Nanux.

That Dreadnaught should have had a canon that when fired, it would have knocked ten or twenty of our ships out of commission and possibly killing everyone on board all of them.” John stated.

“So, it was no big thing winning this battle today?” Mary was frowning.

“Willy, have you hit a ball with a bat yet?” John asked.

“No daddy! I’m still too little.” Willy said, “I’m still learning how to throw.”

“Mary, we’ve been to bat twice, once in Antarctica where we hit a home run. Then today we hit a grand slam. What I am asking is what are the chances of Willy hitting two home runs in his first two at-bats?” John laughed, “We have our work ahead of us to prepare for the next time we have, to bat. It may not be pretty.”

“You are concerned that not all of us may come home?” Mary asked.

“You are getting close; my concern is the next bad guy out there may do to us what we did to the Nanux today. That dreadnaught had many times the weight and should have had many times the firepower of everything we had in space today.” John looked around at a lot of white faces.

“Willy, what would you do if you hit two home runs the first two times you got up to bat?” John asked.

“Cookies and ice cream! Party?” Willy said very enthusiastically.

John looks to Mary, “Thank you for our lives today. You get an A triple-plus from this boss!” John smiled, “Now are there any cookies left?”

Willy reached out with a plate with one cookie on it.

“I don’t want to take the last cookie,” John said.

Brien showed him another plate with five cookies on it.

“Okay, I’ll eat this last cookie.” John looked around. Everyone was at the windows in the little jump seats. They were eating cookies and drinking something and enjoying flying through space and talking to those still around them. John looked up, “Thank you, Father, for our survival today.” He heard, “You’re welcome, Son!”

Mary and Jenny were talking. Jenny asked a question, “Your thinking of the Enterprise on Star Trek?”

“That level of technology for sure. The Nanux should have been there, but something stopped them. The people in charge likely felt they had good enough equipment and wouldn’t spend any more money.” John thought for a minute, “It also may have been because people could get anything, they wanted without working.” John and Jenny locked eyes. The money would become obsolete in two years or less. The question was would people still show up and do the jobs needed? They certainly did today.

The only paid space people were Mary Kennady and the 29 Top Gun teachers and students from the Navy. John laughed; he was certain that the 29 Top Guns had followed Sam on his wild stunt of cutting the dreadnaught up would have done that for free any day of the week.

Jenny started laughing. Mary asked, “First Lady, what is funny?”

“John was thinking that all the people that were here today were volunteers except for you and the 29 students and teachers at the Top Gun School. Then he thought those crazy Top Gun Guys would do that any day of the week for free.” Jenny giggled, “Mary too!”

“I agree, me too First Lady.” Mary giggled.

We made it back and all the ships were put into their proper place. Omak time was 4:35 PM. John realized the Marines needed to be fed. Sam and Mary Kennady were hugging and kissing. I think Sam impressed her. They gave John a look, a salute, and headed off.

“Listen up, anyone that would like to join us, we will be at Sou’s at 5:00 PM for dinner at my big table in the southwest corner.” John announced, “Anyone that needs transportation back to town, gather around me. Everybody here, take a big deep breath of air. The transport happened. The natives noticed but, there were many big eyes from the newbies looking around wondering how in the hell did that happen.