The First Colony Project 2

[kennethstrickland]

THE FRIST COLONY PROJECT CH. 2



The President was furious.
Braanon and his hated predecessor made him look like a fool again. And his edict that those who left Earth without permission was completely ignored. Suddenly, all his biases were out in the open again. Blacks and aliens were working together to pull this off. Now the fake news media was gloating about how easy it was to pull anything off without his knowing about it.
Worse, was the amount of money coming back to the families of those that went? It was small for now. But what would happen as the amount grew larger? That could be millions for however long it lasted. He was looking worse as this went on.
What about the payout of the colonies to Braanon Mark? One colony had finally stopped the payments last year, and the government hadn't got anything. Then again, they had no skins in the game. Braanon did not trust the president to manage any business affairs. It was bad enough it was said Braanon was interested in buying his personal companies. If that were true, he would be out of everything. Wait...it wasn't the businesses themselves; it was the debt. Own the debt, you own the man.
Own the man by owning the debt.
Own the debt.
Braanon could easily make a call to Russia and pay them enough money to buy the note he owed the Russian banks. It was the same for China. Even worse, he could offer them something they could not resist like their own colony world.
What were his hotels and golf courses compared to that?
Absolutely, completely nothing; they were specks of ground on one little world. Mere acreage that was paltry in comparison.
The president sat down, defeated. He knew about the calls to the Russian banks. He knew about the deals Braanon made with all his former, cheated contractors. He knew about the calls to banks he'd cheated by declaring bankruptcy and getting out of debt. Mark paid them all off, with interest. It was hard to beat a man who can buy planets. For once in his life, the President felt small, insignificant.
He had to make a deal. Somehow, someway, he had to make a deal. But he had the feeling that any deal he struck with Mark, meant his deal would be one with a devil, one that would be held to, because if he reneged or tried to declare bankruptcy, that would be the end of him and his organization. His children would be the ones that lost out. They would have nothing, and all the pretension would mean nothing.
It would be blood on the floor, his blood and his families' blood. Mark would come out smelling like roses. He would not.

Braanon stepped onto the suborbital for Beauville. He got out of the meeting with Russian President, and as much as he didn't like the man, made the deal. They had the rights to a colony world. The caveat...? No wars for expansion until they paid off the money used to get them there. Rubles would be worthless. They would have to use credits. They had ten years to get one million people to the new world. Braanon would supply the plans for ships if they cared to build their own. Otherwise, he would build the ships and send the people.
The Russians sent people to the ship building tesseract. They sent them everywhere so they could learn to build everything. The Russians were determined to know how to do everything, therefore they needed to make copies of every plan and tool they were allowed to use. This of course infuriated many who thought America should build everything. Braanon did not care. With all the objections to his being here, with all the hue and cry about aliens in general, Braanon felt little loyalty to cowards. The courageous worked for him.

The first of the Russian ships, built strictly to the standard plans Beauville had, rolled out onto the private airfield in Beauville. The media was there, and they were all over the ship, reading the specifications to the audience. Today was the first day the ship would have a shakedown run with the newly minted Russian star pilots.
The jealousy from the Americans was palatable. They also knew as long as they kept crying scared, they were in the second place of their own making. No, make that third, after the rest of the world.
The Russian ship would take off from Beauville, make several circuits around Earth and then land in Russia. But first, it would be tested.
The ship made it around the system with no problems. There were no terrorist attacks on it. The ship landed in Russia to the cheers of a crowd lined up to see it. The Russian state media broadcast every step of the journey. As they sped past the planets of the system, they sent back live shots. Even the US got to see the broadcast via CNN. The President, whose opposition to every move Braanon and his company made was legendary, tweeted furiously against the ship and its crew. What he got back was quite a few "just shut the hell up!" tweets he did not expect from Russia, said politely. Those were broadcast via the news media he did not trust even when they were at a gathering he controlled.
The Russians were now taking the tech they were learning and taking it back home. They decided to be smart about it all and let the building of the main ships be done in the tesseracts they and the Chinese and other countries now had access to. They also set up small places where they could build the smaller equipment. The EVA suits got massive upgrades, and they learned to contract to get equipment from the same companies Mark Industries did. In short, the Russians followed his footsteps closely. What they could buy, they did, what they could build they did.
The Chinese did the same.
If the president only knew, Americans across the country were to the best of their ability, doing the same. Small, private companies, many of whom teamed up, were building their own versions of a star ship. They knew the technology was proven. Many of them were copying a local long time stranded alien's ship. Often out of pure frustration, they might stumble onto a neighbor who was gruff and uninterested in the discoverer. But, if they managed not to get on the bad side of the alien, they would help. They would learn all they could. For some, the trick was to copy and translate, if they could, the language and the schematics of the ship. One teenager, a boy managed to get the complete language matrix of an alien neighbor's ship.

[SIDE NOTE; John Howard Steinhauser

John Howard Steinhauser was all of eighteen. Graduated from the technical high school his parents sent him to when the regular school was boring him to the point of tears and sleeping in class, Steinhauser was curious, and explored a lot. He was a "tech head" as some of his neighbors called him. He'd gotten hold of plans to build a floating skateboard. His mother, Alice, lost it severe when she saw her son on the finished piece. She even threatened to have him arrested if he got on it again. John Howard showed her she was not going to get him to stop. The most he did was to wear a helmet and padding and to keep the board only a few feet off the ground when he was near her or the house. He was normal by any standards, looking like any typical blond, brown eyed kid.
But his love of technology had him ignoring most typical pursuits and he was roundly mocked for it. When his mother asked why he didn't have a girlfriend, his answer was vicious: "what, try to find one around here without an STD? Please!"
His mother broke down into tears at that. But at least one friend reminded her that his head was not about getting married. She had to wait and deal with the fact at the very least he wasn't getting girls pregnant and denying his actions, or getting an STD. She had to let it go or go crazy.
Then, he found Tomak Ralk. Black haired, red skinned when he wasn’t using his image inducer to look like a typical American citizen, he lived on the edge of town near the old factory area, which bordered a junk yard. If any paid attention, they would have seen some of the junk went missing. Ralk rarely left the area with the junk yard. He had a small forge where he smelted metal, fusing it into what he needed.
John Howard was riding his small motor bike he built from junked parts when he spotted Ralk working. Curious, he parked his bike and walked into the open work area. He stopped and stared at the sight of the workspace. It was huge, bigger than it looked from the outside. John Howard watched as Tomak lifted a piece of metal from a mold and dunked into another metal bin. The steam rose as the metal was pulled out and inspected. Pronouncing he was satisfied, Ralk began to pound the metal into shape.
John Howard approached Ralk slowly, carefully.
"What do you want, boy?" Ralk gruffly asked as he struck the metal.
John Howard stopped. "I was just wondering what you were doing." He was still a few feet away from the man who did not turn around.
Ralk stuck the metal back into the fire before bringing it out and working it again. But he took a moment, turned and looks at John Howard.
John Howard stared at the shape that was a few feet in the dark. It looked to be the size of a DC-8 airliner. He took a few steps further. "That's a real starship!" he blurted.
"Almost finished, then I can leave this planet." Ralk said, "I never thought I'd have to do this. Fortunately, your people are too dumb to know when you got aliens around them."
"I know of at least one...."
"Aye, he's in that village on the coast." Ralk said as he put the piece of metal on the anvil and began to strike it. “I know of it. Vicharian, but his people and mine are in a state of war. I don't need the headache. Why are you here, boy?"
"I saw the door was open. I wondered what you were doing."
Ralk stopped and looked at him. "Obvious, isn't it? I’m working on my ship. I want to go home. When I'm done, I'll leave."
"Aren't you worried about me telling?"
"Not if I kill you and dump the body." Ralk said.
"Seems a little harsh to me..."
"Not to me." Ralk stopped and wiped his brow. "I don't mean any of your people harm, and I don't really give a damn about this place. All I want to do is make sure the ship is secure and goes home." He stopped and took a drink of water. "There is nothing I want from the people of this planet. I got food stores, pulled some hydrogen from the local water supply and compressed it. Another few weeks, I will be good to go."
"Go where?" asked a voice from the door.
Ralk cursed knowing he should have secured the door.
"Relax," the man said, holding his hands up. "Not here to cause trouble." He reached into his jacket and flashed a badge. "Arch Meadows, Bureau of Alien Affairs..."
"You led them here, boy!" Ralk snarled.
"No, I didn't!" John Howard said frantically.
"He didn't," Meadows said. "We got metal sniffers, and it took us time to find you. Your ship is disassembled, and you are making repairs. This tells me you are not trouble. If you were, it would be an old-fashioned Earthman versus the alien shoot out, and no one needs that."
Ralk did not relax. "Then why are you here?"
"I just heard you say you want to go home. We can help with that." Meadows said.
"Why would you help me?" asked Ralk.
"We help you. You tell your people we aren't as bad as they think." Meadows said. "Besides, this is a karma payment. We get in trouble; you can help us, or at the least not be afraid to."
Ralk thought about it. The planet was primitive true. But to have a place where they might find help and supplies? That was worth the risk. Ralk relaxed a little. "What do you want?"
"Spec on your ship. All-star maps and point of origin and destination. DNA samples in case we have to treat for injuries. Sample of any medications you got." Meadows replied.
"Hum, that's all?" asked Ralk.
"Most important, your language matrix, and you pronouncing your tongue," Meadows said.
"That's all?" asked Ralk.
"That's all." Meadows said. "The best part of the deal is you get help repairing your ship. We get a look at it. We might even be able to make parts. All in all, you get to back to Desaruion in one piece."
Ralk's eyes went wide. "How do you know?"
Meadows smiled. "My dad was badly injured. The ship could not take care of him, four others and the ship. The lightly wounded were taken back. He needed more care than the ship's doctor could give him. They left the wounded beside a road and were found the next morning. They got taken to an army hospital. It was touch and go for a while, but my dad and the others recovered. They were weak as kittens though and stayed under care for a long time. They were finally allowed free. But they had nothing they could use, and building a ship to leave was not possible. So, they decided to work for the government. They got to the point where they could tell who were from off world. After that, when they started to build the equipment, they needed to find aliens like you, the government put it to work. To their astonishment, they found aliens that managed to blend in or hide. They also found ships. The big jackpot, which I wasn't in on, was the discovery of Beauville and Braanon Mark, nee Mariukichan and his base.
The bigger problem was that Braanon had been off to his home world and back, taking several of his employees with him. They told what life was like for each of them and then came back home. The general consensus when the stories got out where no one should expect their people back alive, if they could treat their own like they did." He sighed. "It took a lot to get my superiors to not go in with guns blazing, but we managed. Now, at least with some cooperation on both sides, everyone comes out of this alive."
Ralk pulled the metal out of the fire. He raised his hammer. "Am I a prisoner? Because I would like to finish this part…"
Meadows smiled. "Mr. Ralk, you and I know you aren't going anywhere soon. I'd say you are a prisoner already. Why compound it? Besides, I'm leaving a couple of people here to make sure you are not disturbed. Young man, you are going to have to come with me."
"Why? I haven't done anything!" John Howard said.
"Maybe not, but you have seen. Right now, I want to know what you have seen." Meadows said.

[jayphailey]

The President was furious.

Braanon and his hated predecessor made him look like a fool again. And his edict that those who left Earth without permission was completely ignored.

Sorry, there seems to be a clause missing here

What did the President's edict say ABOUT people who left Earth without his permission?

I can almost hear Alex Jones "The Aliens are working with the Blacks and the Jews!"

[jayphailey]

The Russians sent people to the ship building tesseract. They sent them everywhere so they could learn to build everything. The Russians were determined to know how to do everything, therefore they needed to make copies of every plan and tool they were allowed to use. This of course infuriated many who thought America should build everything. Braanon did not care. With all the objections to his being here, with all the hue and cry about aliens in general, Braanon felt little loyalty to cowards. The courageous worked for him.

That doesn't read as well after the Ulkrain invasion

[jayphailey]

Then, he found Tomak Ralk. Black haired, red skinned when he wasn’t using his image inducer to look like a typical American citizen, he lived on the edge of town near the old factory area, which bordered a junk yard.

Huh! Interesting