New Neighbors
Chapter 13

After Amy had finished sending the message to the PDF she asked Ted and Jake to join her. She explained what had happened in the Alpha sector and what had been done. Then she asked both of them if they thought that they should ask Earth if they wanted to send people to the Alpha sector to settle. Both Ted and Jake agreed that if Earth were to send people, those people would need to be checked closely to prevent trouble. Some of the countries might try to send their undesirables just to get rid of them. And they sure didn't need any criminals being sent. It was decided that Ted would make a trip to the UN again and make the offer. They could handle about 500 people, preferably families with older children, nobody under 12 or over 45 years old. Ted said he would leave in a couple of days, he needed to try and recruit more officers to command the new ships being produced anyway. 

It was three days later when Ted met with the Secretary General of the UN and explained the offer. He wanted to get the Secretary's opinion before making the offer to the world. The secretary said that the science community would probably jump at the offer, and that he agreed with Ted that everyone should be checked closely to prevent just what Ted was afraid of happening. Ted would make the offer public in three days, so to allow the maximum number of representatives to attend. In the mean time Ted would visit some of the centers that had been set up, just to see what was going on and if they needed anything.

The first place Ted went was to the navel base in Richman, Virginia to see who was due to retire and who he might be able to recruit. The next place he went was Andrews Air Force Base to try and recruit some pilots and aircraft mechanics. From there he went to Fort Bragg. He had a small amount of luck at each base. He recruited three navel officers, five pilots, three RIOs, three mechanics, and the equivalent of a whole platoon of Rangers (mostly sergeants). He went to the moon base for the night.

The next morning Ted went to the Great Lakes area to recruit and then to the center in that area. He didn't have much luck in that area so he headed to the west coast to see what he could find. The west coast didn't have much to offer either. He left the USA and went to Europe, Russia, and Asia spending a small amount of time in each area and visiting the centers in the areas also. These areas were not productive either. He had avoided the Middle East and Africa do to the unstable situations in each. He returned to the moon base once again for the night.

The next morning Ted went to the UN to make his offer public. Once again, he required the news services to provide full live coverage of his announcement. This time there was not any trouble with the broadcasts.

"Gentlemen, I have returned to Earth to offer your people the chance to help settle a couple of planets in Alpha Centauri. We have already put a team there and have several people who elected to help settle the area, but we need more. We would prefer families, no one younger than 12 or older than 45. The reason for these limits is because the areas are not suitable for the real young or the elderly. Anybody who volunteers will of course be checked out closely to make sure that they aren't running from justice, severally ill or unstable. Volunteers will be living and working beside aliens that are not very different from the people of Earth. Anyone who gets to go must be willing to work, contact with Earth will be limited for a while until we have enough people to take care of the communication needs there and here. We will take a maximum of 500 people. The skills needed include farming, building, studying the local wildlife, and engineering. Please pass this invitation on to your people and have any volunteers go to or contact the nearest center. Any questions you may have can be directed to The Secretary General for relay to me." Ted said.

As Ted stepped down there were many questions being shouted, but he ignored them for the time being. Ted's announcement had caused much excitement throughout the world. As he left the building he was besieged with questions from the press, when one of them got too persistent that person was removed from Ted's area by a security member. Ted hoped that the governments wouldn't interfere too much with his plans. But right now he needed to get his recruits started towards the moon base for processing.

As Ted was just about to board the shuttle he was approached by a Marine captain who said he had a message for him. It seems that the powers that be were inviting him to visit Groom Lake, Area 51, in Nevada to see if he could offer any help with the artifacts and research at the secret base. Ted decided to accept the invitation, just not right this moment. He told the captain that he would be in touch later with his reply.

Meanwhile back on Mars, the Iberians had sent another group of ships to find out what was happening to all their ships that came to this section of space. This group which included three very large battleships, managed to destroy a couple of the perimeter drones before Amy's ships arrived. This battle was not the easy one, Amy's forces lost several fighters and one cruiser was damaged before they could get the upper hand. The battleships had very good shields and their weapons were much stronger than Amy's forces had faced before. It took several hits from the big guns to break through the shields and cripple the battleships enough for the fighters to get in close and work on the smaller ships.