Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen The Clurian Coffee Company

In no time at all we were back home and saying goodbye once again. Robarik and his daughter had taken Angelika up on her offer to run them back to Mars, Branak had decided to go as well and then return with some people who could evaluate the training program I had in mind.

"I"ve got a couple in mind," explained Branak. "Commander Armun mentioned something about using her old ship, but I"ll speak to her more about that on our way back to Hyach 3. There"s something else Jake, and that"s the probability of you and your team coming to Falth for what"s termed "educational enhancement. Basically it will increase your ability to read and write our language, understand our customs, religion and general way of doing things." This sounded very suspicious to me, but Branak assured me it was perfectly normal, and used on people who suffer from certain brain traumas and loss of memory.

"I don"t know if you"ve been around we Nuel that much Jake but we are Telepathic. Often times you can be in a room with a group of Nuel and not hear us speak a whole lot, believe me, we are. Our minds work on a different pattern and wave length for lack of a better word than you Kagorians, that"s why it"s very hard to speak telepathically to you people. The point I"m trying to make is that when your brains are set up differently you"re more apt to suffer from more diseases of the brain, hence all that effort to develop the Brotenga serum. Anyway, that"s the long explanation for what must seem to you as an attempt at thought control."

"Well the thought had occurred to me," I replied. Branak laughed, This process only works on basic things, however there"s a similar process university students studying for exams use, kind of like learning while you sleep, but it"s something you Kagorians might not be able to handle. If we can get all of you able to read and write our language we can make some real headway with putting together a good training program based on all of these training materials you"ve shown me."

The Draaka"s were worried about being absent from duty for this long, and were anxious to get word back to the naval command concerning their absence. Angelika came up to Dori and I with a smile on her face, then hugging Dori.

"You two take care of each other, Dori, you"ve got a good man here, Jake, you take care of my friend." Then her voice lowered as she gave Dori another quick hug.

"Live a good life you two, if I don"t see you again Dori always remember the life and fun we had, those were the days, weren"t they? Jake, my husband and I are going to be out and around this end of the universe for the next five or six years, if we find ourselves nearby, we"ll be sure to stop. There"s one more place we have to visit, and that"s your moon where we"ll leave a small repeater station that will send back our signals to Hyach 3 as well as certain band widths coming from here on Kagor. Oh, one more thing, I"m thinking of letting captain Draaka, as well as Branak use the Giuffrida, so don"t be surprised if she show"s up here."

We watched with sadness as Angelika and the Kor" Math slowly rose into the dark wintry sky,

"There goes one classy lady," I said, Dori sniffed, and nodded as she watched her old queen disappear.

"We"ll see her again, she"ll be back," said Dori before we went back inside.

We were on our own again, now the business I was entrusted to would begin. First up was converting the gold and precious metals into cash, then acquiring a building to serve as an office as well as a small warehouse. Converting metal to cash proved to be the hardest; I thought it was just a matter of taking the gold to a buyer and getting cash. Ha! Easier said than done. These guys were used to dealing with old jewelry fourteen, and eighteen karat gold, not one ounce bars of pure gold, which weren"t exactly one ounce, since Falthian weights and measure were slightly different. I always got hit with too many questions, and complaining about giving me proper payment. In the end, I was forced to deal with a firm over the internet that bought these metals. Through e-mails and phone calls, I finally got an account set up, eventually; I started selling my gold to them as well. Once I got through all the "fees" everything went straight into the company account at the bank. Dori and I thought about a good name for our company and in the end chose the "Clurian" Coffee Company.

For the next three weeks right up until Christmas, we worked like rented mules fixing and cleaning up our little warehouse, which was about all Dori could do since she couldn"t read or write in English. I got her a popular learning program that taught her how to speak English which seemed to work for her, working in the proper way to write and read it as well. The program was set up for different levels requiring over 250 hours to really learn the language, plus more to read and write it, so every evening, we"d sit down for an hour or so and study.

The bulk peanuts came first, roasted and unsalted in fifty pound bags, ten of them to start. We decided on Brazilian, and Columbian coffee"s, nothing fancy, just good tasting coffee judging from the samples we tried, however there was a Hawaiian Kona blend Dori really liked. I had hoped to buy coffee in fifty pound sacks as well, but we ended up having to settle for twenty-five pound un-ground bags and five pound ground freeze-dried bags. All I knew was that I found myself humming Sinatra"s "They"ve Got a Lot of Coffee in Brazil," a lot lately. Dori and I spent Christmas with my folks, I had fun showing her what the whole thing was about, she helped mom bake cookies and slowly became closer with her.

Christmas Eve I got calls from Jeff and Gerry, who asked how we were doing and talking about the story the media was in a buzz about. As I said to Gerry,

"Someone in Judith must have seen the picture of Angelika posing with Beth the store clerk and started squaking."

"This isn"t going to catch us is it?" He asked.

"No," I replied, I was careful to hide my face from the store cams." The news reports all showed Beth with her mother holding an enlarged picture of her and Angelika standing in front of the counter. Corporal Robert Butler of the Montana Highway Patrol described the incredible vehicles we were riding in that caused him to go off the road from all the snow we whipped up. He must have had a dash cam trained on us, but there wasn"t much to see other than something that looked like two strange looking cars moving out well ahead of him, then…Nothing, just a lot of snow. As usual, there was no comment from the White House, or NASA for that matter. CNN ran an interview with some UFO crank who thought that Angelika was probably skiing at Aspen, having a good laugh on everyone.

Before he said goodbye, Jeff said,

"LT, I got a call from Corporal Walsh, you know, Carman, sounds like she"s down on her luck a bit, maybe we could use her?"

Carman had been our supply specialist, working in the company admin. She had left about a month before I did under a cloud which no one seemed able to talk about, or wanted to for that matter. All I knew was that she had always done right by me. Jeff and I talked about her with him adding,

"I"ve got her number sir, want me to give her a call?"

"Let me think about it a little Jeff, give me her number, I"ll call her if I think we can use her." It wasn"t until shortly after the Holidays that I gave her a call.

"Is this Corporal Carman Walsh?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"Lieutenant Jake Gandrigg, from the old unit."

"Look, lieutenant, I"m out of the service now, all that is behind me so…"

"I"m calling you corporal because sergeant Dornan asked me to, he thought you could use a little help."

"He did eh, why; you got something I might be interested in?"

"Perhaps, however I don"t want to talk about it over the phone, where are you living now?"

"Uh well isn"t that a little private sir."

"Your right, it is, listen, I"m looking for someone to handle my office while I"m gone, do all the ordering, deal with the local situation, that sort of thing, Jeff thought enough of you to pass your name along to me, I"m taking him at his recommendation, and offering you a chance, it won"t be much at first, but I"m located out here in Deadwood South Dakota as the Clurian Coffee Company. If you"re not too far away come on out, we"ll talk, if you don"t like the situation, I"ll cover all your travel expenses OK?"

I gave her a few more specifics, then hung up thinking I"d done my part, when in actuality I really did need someone who could run this thing when Dori and I were gone.

Three days later, Dori and I were working at our "office," when a beat-up Honda Civic pulled up in front and a girl I didn"t really remember stepped out.

Carman Walsh was a tall brunette, which was surprising since I would have remembered someone like her. Her hair was pulled back in the way the military prefers females to wear their hair. She was rather good looking, something I"d have to be careful about around Dori, even though she wasn"t completely up on American slang, or mannerisms.

I had told her I had invited an old unit member out to interview for a job and that that member was a female. Dori had said nothing so I had assumed she wasn"t concerned about it. Apparently Carman had driven all the way from Fort Wayne Indiana which indicated how desperate she must have been

"Uh is this the Clurian Coffee Company?"

""Yes it is," I replied, "Can I help you?"

"Um, my name is Carman Walsh, we spoke on the phone." Then it dawned on me, who this woman was,

"Oh gee I"m sorry, yes, well Carman, welcome to our little business." I watched as she cast her eyes around the old gas station office which Dori and I had cleaned up and made to look like something a little more professional.

"Well have a seat and well get started," I said, "Carman this is my wife Dori, Dori, this is Carman Walsh, who was our company supply clerk and general all around get things done girl. Carman rolled her eyes at that one, but I simply couldn"t remember her too well.

"Carman, here"s the deal, I"m going to need someone to run things for me, right now we"ve got a couple different things going on here, one, is the buying of coffee and wholesale peanuts for our employers who you will meet sometime within a month or two. Another is the purchasing of training materials, TM"s, field manuals, anything concerning the kind of Marine Corps training we went through." I then carefully detailed every aspect of the job with the exception of who we were actually working for.

"I realize that what I"ve told you about must seem rather rinky-dink Carman, but I assure you it isn"t, there"s a part of all this I can"t tell you about until you meet our employers. And no, we are not doing anything illegal, of that you have no worry, however once you meet these people everything will suddenly fall into place. Above all, we need someone who can keep their mouth shut, no dealing with social media of any kind, this is a very high security operation, and again, I say there"s nothing illegal about it. There will be times where Dori and I will be gone for long periods of time and we need a responsible person to take complete charge of things here. I can"t start you out with much at first, but believe me when I say that an opportunity like this comes along perhaps once in a lifetime maybe even a couple, so what do you say?"

She sat there studying Dori and I, before fixing on Dori"s hairstyle and tattooed head.

"That"s certainly a very unusual tattoo and way you"ve got your hair cut."

"Oh it"s nothing very special," replied Dori, "It"s rather common back on…? She saw me make a face and quickly shut up. Carman caught it but let it pass.

"Um, I"d like to get a room somewhere and think about this sir, if you don"t mind."

"Certainly," I replied, and like I told you, if you change your mind, and want to pass on this I"ll understand, I will reimburse your travel expenses."

After she left, I told Dori,

"I"ll be mighty surprised if she goes for it, but we"ll just have to see."

Later the next morning, Carman was back, I was fully prepared for her rejection of my offer, but instead she said.

"Sir, I laid awake half the night thinking about this, I called Jeff, as well as Gerry, both told me I was a fool if I didn"t go for this. They know something about all of this but wouldn"t tell me other than to say that I should take your offer, so I guess that"s what I"ll do."

"I"m very glad to hear that," I replied."However Landecker, and Dornan are only involved in the military training part of this, the coffee business is an entirely different part, but in some ways very connected, it"s also the part of this position you"ll be spending the most of your time with."

So it was "official," former corporal Carman Walsh was now "onboard." I told her that she was welcome to stay with us and claim one of the rooms at my great grandfather"s old house.

"The property out there figures in on this deal as well," I added, "You"ll see." I then got all her tax information, social security number, all the BS the government needs to steal from you. For the rest of the day we just sat and talked about what we were trying to do, the training mission part of the deal, and especially my wife. I kept noticing Carman looking at Dori to such a point that I felt compelled to ask,

"Carman, I keep noticing you staring at Dori is there something wrong?" Clearly embarrassed, she could do nothing but admit what she"d been doing.

"I"m so sorry, but there"s something about your wife I can"t put my finger on. I"m sorry sir, I can"t really say but there it is."

I knew what it was she was looking at but couldn"t say. Smiling, I replied,

"I think I know what it is you"re seeing, but again, the truth is going to have to wait, and believe me Carman it will all be worthwhile. She seemed frustrated by this but there was nothing I could do.

"Have Jeff and Gerry met this boss of your"s?" she then asked.

"Not the people involved with this coffee thing, but a Mr. Branak Narshu who first purposed that I put together a training program. Branak was, and for all I know still in the marines where he"s from, but they don"t have any training of the sort we all went through, such as urban warfare, street and house clearing, sniping, dealing with improvised explosives, that sort of thing, that"s what we"re going to help them with."

"Um is that legal," she asked. "I mean aren"t you supposed to have some sort of clearance with the Pentagon or the State Department?" She had me there; all I could do was admit the truth.

"Technically yes, and I suppose we could get into a lot of trouble but again, don"t make any judgments until you have all the facts, and believe me, they will be forthcoming."