CH35
It is now one month later: (Late October)
It turns out that they need four additional rooms to handle the one single and three married couples that have said yes to the invitation. Each are given a single room in the same Sandy Lane hotel. Each is 867 sq. ft. in size, has a single queen size bed, a separate seating area with a small dining room table that has two chairs. The bathroom has a large soaking tub, separate stand-up shower, double vanity and a separate room for the toilet and bidet. Each room has an ocean view.
It is a bright and sunny day on the beach with a forecast of a high of 86-degrees. With it being this early in the day it is still in the mid 70's with a promise of no rain.
There are chairs for everyone that had cushions as requested. Jenn and L are first down the aisle holding their babies in their arms, wearing nothing but a bikini with a full wrap flowing from their shoulders, tossing flower pedals that would need to be policed later.
Kate and Natalie are sitting far forward sporting wide smiles as they are both dressed similarly and are watching as their husbands walk Alexis and Amanda down the aisle side by side.
Natalie sees the girls who are beautiful but she also sees her husband who still looks a lot like he did when he showed up all those years ago and called her a secretary. It is still too soon after giving birth but that doesn't mean she and her husband aren't going to have some fun tonight. It wasn't too soon to look down on her baby girl that is in her arms and kiss her forehead as she looks up into her mother's eyes. Crystal Star Douglas.
Kate isn't interested in Jim's muscles, since what she sees is a proud father that is shining as his first girl is being escorted down the aisle to her future as Alexis leans up against Rick drawing strength from him.
Kate kisses Rick quickly as he moves away from his daughter and strokes the head of his newest daughter. Kate is thankful that Abagail (Abby) Johanna Crystal is smiling and blowing happy bubbles which earns Abby a kiss to her forehead from her mother.
Alexis and Amanda's Ceremony
Hello, and welcome to the celebration of the unique and magical union between Alexis and Amanda. Today, in front of friends and family, they honor their commitment to not just gazing at one another, but to looking outward together in the same direction. Today Alexis and Amanda proclaim their love to the world, and we rejoice with them and for them.
Alexis and Amanda, in presenting yourselves here today you perform a remarkable act of faith. This faith can grow and mature and endure, but only if you both are determined to make it so. A lasting and growing love is never automatic, nor guaranteed by any ceremony.
If you would have the foundation of your union be the pure love you have for each other, not just at this moment, but for all the days ahead, then honor faithfully the statements and commitments that you bring here today. Faults will appear where now you find contentment, and wonder can be crushed by the routine of daily living. But today you resolve that your love will never be blotted out by the commonplace, obscured by the ordinary, or compromised by life's difficulties.
Stand fast in that hope and confidence, and believe in your shared future just as strongly as you believe in yourselves and in each other today. Only in this spirit can you create a partnership that will sustain all the days of your lives.
Alexis and Amanda, we are here to rejoice with you and to recount with one another that it is love that guides us on our path, and to celebrate as you begin this journey together It is in this spirit that you have come here to today to exchange these vows.
VOWS
Alexis, repeat after me:
I Alexis take you Amanda to be my partner for life
I promise above all else to live in truth with you
and to communicate fully and fearlessly
I give you my hand and my heart
as a sanctuary of warmth and peace
and pledge my love, devotion, faith and honor
as I join my life to yours.
The same vow is repeated for Amanda.
RINGS
Wedding rings are made precious by our wearing of them.
Your rings say that even in your uniqueness you have chosen to be bound together. Let these rings also be a sign that love has substance as well as soul, a present as well as a past, and that despite its occasional sorrows, love is a circle of happiness, wonder, and delight.
Alexis, take Amanda's ring and put it on her finger, and repeat after me:
Just as this circle is without end
My love for you is limitless.
Just as it is made of indestructible substance
My commitment to you will never fail.
With this ring I take you to be
My best friend, lover, and partner for life.
Repeat this vow for Amanda.
PRONOUNCEMENT
Alexis and Amanda, Your lives and spirits are joined in a union of love and trust. Above you are the stars and below you the earth. Like the stars your love should be a constant source of light, and like the earth, a firm foundation from which to grow. As you have consented in this ceremony in the presences of friends and family to be partners for life, I now pronounce you married and bound together body and soul.
Everyone hits the water including the babies for a few minutes while the caterer sets up the food. It's noon by the time everything's ready. Soon everyone is sitting on towels on the beach eating.
Kate steals peeks at Alexis and Amanda who spend lunch feeding each other while stealing kisses.
The entire process feels so much better than the wedding with Ray. These two are not at all bashful in displaying what they feel for each other and it only makes Kate's heart grow bigger.
Rick reaches out and brushes away a tear that escapes Kate's eye and makes its way down her face. "Everything alright?" Rick wonders if it is just wedding tears.
"Everything is fine, I'm just remembering where I was when I showed up at your front door all those years ago. I never dreamed it would lead me here." Kate never dreamed her life would be blessed with 5 of her own children plus two more. Or that she would even come close to living this long. So long that she and Rick had already talked about the need in a short number of years to change their name again and start over again. Earth just wasn't ready for people to live as long as her family was going to.
Even the Douglas clan was going to have to do the same at some point soon. That was likely going to hurt Jim and Natalie the most. Being Marines was in their blood: those two just didn't know anything else.
"We've come a long way and have a long ways to go yet." Rick smiled and leaned over to kiss Kate with passion.
"I wish we could have brought the dogs." James moans as he plops down next to Kate on the other side of Rick. Kate ruffled the top of his head. "This is your older sister's day and the dogs are fine, Lucile is keeping an eye on all four of them. We'll be going home just long enough to feed them. Besides your brother wants to swim for a while." Kate leans over to kiss his head.
Rick is up helping the boys and himself get seconds from the caterer, when Natalie with Crystal in her arms sits down. "It was gorgeous, I don't think there was a dry eye on the beach." Natalie offers.
"It was unconventional and lovely, and I loved the ceremony itself. Alexis and Amanda have obviously been talking." Kate had loved it.
"And if those two over there get any more mushy we're going to get run off the beach." Natalie was watching with Kate as Alexis and Amanda were still feeding each other, except now they were doing it while kissing, and chuckled a little.
"Their hands aren't doing anything wrong so we should be fine. But it makes me happy to see Alexis and Amanda this happy. After Ray I was really worried for her." Kate has to admit.
"And the Silence sent Amanda." Natalie couldn't help but wonder.
"So it would appear, but it wasn't the Silence that got them to fall in love." Kate pointed out, getting Natalie to nod her head.
"How goes construction?" Kate changes the subject.
"We'll have two fighters and two bombers to put through their paces in two months. The boys and the bomber pilots are itching to get their hands on them. The simulators have given them a taste of what is to come, but the real thing is just different." Natalie has been hearing it from her boys for weeks now.
"And then just short of a year before we have a flight wing." Kate understood the schedule, since she had asked Lucile. "What about those boarding ships?"
"We'll have five constructed in that time, along with all of the Earth orbit satellite warning system. Getting the system set up out in the asteroid belt will take a little over 2 years." Natalie had done the math along with her husband. They are behind schedule when it came to that.
"18 fighters divided into 3 flights along with 12 bombers divided into 3 flights and 5 breaching pods and 12 satellites." Natalie lists off what they will have if they have the time.
"A fraction of what Rick's people have built." Kate points out. "They have ships that could blow past us with ease if they send one." Kate is thinking of just one of those fleet carriers that Lucile has shown them.
"We need to pray that they don't send one yes, however we are going to do what we can. This is what Marines do Kate, we don't give up and we don't back down." Natalie is going to fight them till she couldn't anymore.
"Lucile mentioned once that she thinks there is another series 4 AI just like her in China. Should we be seeking out their help? This is their planet too." Kate wonders.
"All of us at your place on Wednesday so we can add Lucile?" Natalie offers, since they are only here for 3 nights, with today being Sunday.
"You listening Lucile?" Kate calls out. "Indeed I am Kate. It would be beneficial to have help and I believe I know just where it is. It was part of the information that Scout found. It also found something else that we need to talk about." Lucile thought they should know, not that there was much any of them could do about it.
"Is it important, really important?" Kate thought she detected a tone in her voice.
"Possibly, just not immediately." Lucile didn't think it was anyway.
"Go find Jim, I'll get Rick and meet you at the house. I'll get the girls to watch the boys." Kate got up with Abby and went in search of her husband.
Each group used the inside of one of the changing cabanas that were on the beach to open a transmat wall for home, with Kate and Rick arriving last, since they stopped to talk to the boys and get the girls to watch them.
They were in the living room. "Ok Lucile lets here it, I could hear it in your voice that you were downplaying whatever it is, so talk." Kate asks of Lucile after Lucile shows herself.
"There really is nothing you or I can do about it, so it's not really important." Lucile really didn't want them to worry.
"Lucile, we've been through a lot since you were built and turned on when the house was built. And in case it has escaped you, you are family, so tell us what you found." Rick wanted to know.
Lucile hung her head low. "I'm sitting on a bomb." Lucile tells them.
"If I remember correctly, you are literally under the basketball floor downstairs. There are maintenance panels so we can reach you if needed. So when you say you are sitting on a bomb..." Lucile interrupts Jim. "It was installed before they ever built me years ago. Before Rick and Alexis ever moved in." Lucile tells them.
All of them fall into the kitchen breakfast bar stools or end up sitting on the floor, since their knees were giving out.
"How, … how big?" Jim asks.
"It will easily wipe out this house and everything in roughly a six block radius. The house, me and anyone in it will be vaporized in the blink of an eye. The resulting crater will be at least as big as Meteor Crater in Arizona." Lucile informed them.
"How, … who, … why?" Kate couldn't believe it. "Silence." Rick whispers out with venom in his voice. "As for why, think about how powerful Lucile is." Rick adds.
"They couldn't let Earth get their hands on her, since Lucile is light years above anything we could build for countless years. Lifetimes even." Jim can see the fear of what could happen.
"Couldn't they just download her somewhere and then fry what was left behind?" Kate didn't see why a bomb was necessary.
"It's likely not just what she can do, but how she was made. The components that make up what she is are likely just as important. We are building breaching pods in the hopes of getting one of their ships and reverse engineering it. The same reasoning applies to Lucile. Even how she is made and what materials she is made of could be important." Jim comments.
"You agree with this bomb?" Kate couldn't believe it.
"Of course not, but I'm also a Marine, and information is power. If we can capture one of their capital ships, we could end up with a functioning faster than light drive. Maybe their computer systems are better than anything we have now, just hopefully not on a par with Lucile. The weapons that they use. Their medical knowledge, the materials that they used to build their ships. Plug in Lucile to its system and let her strip in clean. It might be just the thing we need to survive.
If someone like Bracken had gotten his hands on Lucile, …" Jim lets them think that one through.
"How do we get rid of it?" Kate wanted it gone, they weren't taking Lucile from her, … them.
"We don't." Lucile didn't see a way.
"We could dig." Natalie offers. "Dig a tube down to below her level and dig over to it and gut it somehow."
Lucile however was shaking her head. "It's not a bomb like you understand a bomb. Think of it as a very large sheet of steel that is the same size as the house. To remove it you would need to remove the entire sheet.
Plus even if you did, they could just open up a transmat wall under me and do to this house what was done to Bracken's house." Lucile reminds Rick and Kate what had been done years ago.
"I'm assuming this bomb could be blown by remote control, meaning sending a signal. Could we not block it?" Rick tries.
"That still leaves the transmat wall." Lucile offers, since she had already thought of that and was working on a counter measure even now.
"We need what keeps us out of the Evergreen." Kate whispers.
That got all of the others to brighten up, there was a way. "Not to burst anyone's bubble but those things are likely not just lying around and will need to be manufactured. As well as protected by this new 5th or 6th generation AI unit." Lucile points out some flaws.
"We got nanites out from under its nose, we can do this too." Natalie wasn't willing to just give up. "How many of these things do we need?"
"If my understanding of them is correct, … four, one for each corner of the house." Lucile answers.
"So we need eight." Natalie offers, getting her husband to start smiling since he knew his wife. Rick and Kate however looked like they had just been left in the dust.
"Two 4th generation AI units are smarter than one 6th generation." Jim was still smiling.
"If Lucile has a bomb under her, so does the one in China and he or she likely doesn't know." Natalie points out, still impressed with her husband.
"We need to find it and the people that are working with it. Maybe he can come up with his own design and start construction of fighters and bombers. Maybe they will have prototypes completed by the time we have our first flight wing.
We need to fight like my planet does. … We fight as one planet otherwise we are fighting them and us." Rick offers.
"I'll get started on trying to find him." Lucile offers.
"And we need to get back to our wedding and guests." Kate offers, just as Abby started to put up a fuss, which got Crystal to start. "Right after I feed her." Kate heads for the sofa followed by Natalie.
"We need information." Jim points out. "Lucile, how is your little spy doing?"
"The Evergreen is huge. It is miles long. It would help if there was more than one of him." Lucile points out.
"Good thing I'm rich." Rick had footed the bill for Scout, now he was going to foot the bill for a couple more.
"I don't think we've thanked you for all of your help." Jim and Natalie now have a lot more money than just their military pay would give them. Rick and Kate had gotten them into the company that was making the LIDAR units for all of their fighters and bombers.
"You're family and you two have almost as much access to Lucile as Kate and I do." Rick points out.
"Just the same, thanks." Jim tells him.
Kate and Natalie soon join Rick and Jim after the guys feed the dogs. They all go back to Barbados.
Once there they find their guests from the two zoos talking with Alexis and Amanda so they went over to Jenn and L with their growing like a weed boy and girl.
"Where are the boys?" Kate asks, since she doesn't see them. Her daughters point out into the ocean, where Kate could make out Levi streaking through the water while her other son just sort of floated around.
The caterer still had food out so Kate with Natalie right behind her go over to get a snack. "I shouldn't be eating this if I'm going to lose all this baby weight." Kate moans as she takes a bite and then leaves the rest.
"It's the catch 22 of being pregnant. You need to eat for two early on and still need to eat for two to help generate the milk for your baby. Just not as much." Natalie points out.
"At least the cravings are over. … I'm even gaining some interest in my husband again." Kate admits knowing that they couldn't do everything just yet.
That has Natalie chuckling. "I was thinking that while watching Jim walking Amanda down the aisle, which makes me happy. I was so afraid that after the baby I really wouldn't want him to touch me again." Natalie could feel herself looking forward to tonight and having a little fun.
It has Kate grinning since she is planning on having a little fun with Rick tonight too. "It still amazes me. By rights in a normal life I should be dead of old age by now, not only half way through my life and still having babies. I mean I only have just so many eggs." Kate points out.
Natalie is spared making a comment when Alexis and Amanda join them.
"How are you two doing?" Natalie was curious.
"It still feels like a dream somehow. I fear I'm going to wake up and find my parents still gone and still all alone in life." Amanda couldn't believe her luck. It was just a trip to get away from Montreal for a little while and see Italy for a few days. Instead she comes home with someone that she marries.
"Well you're not dreaming and you're not all alone. And for these 3 days and hopefully years to come, life is a beach. Filled with sunshine and love." Kate offers smiling at what has become yet another daughter.
Her own life was filled with sunshine and love, something far different than what her life was like countless years ago when she showed up at Rick's front door.