Travels of the Orphan (The Space Orphan Book 3)

by Laer Carroll

  Thus she called the hyperspace communication number she'd been given to talk to the Guardian in charge of the region in which the Solar System resided.

  The screen cleared to reveal Anna Prince, but in disguise. The image looked like a cousin to Prince rather than Prince herself.

  Sitting, she wore a close but not tight bodysuit of lime green. Piping of gold seams and braid decorated the suit.

  "General Kuznetsov. I am Heyalna, the Guardian for this region. It is about time we talked."

  "I am here primarily to act as a go-between with the local authorities. I imagine you know the threat we face. We'd like your assistance in meeting it."

  "You will have it, under the right circumstances. The policy of the Human Interstellar Confederation is hands off each system unless the local authorities cannot handle a problem. There is a practical reason for that. The Galaxy is huge and Guardians and other Confederation resources are spread very thin.

  "Police like myself concern ourselves mostly with looking for threats from outside the Confederation, not those within that can be handled by local authorities."

  "So just what help can we reasonably expect from you?"

  "I have been taking a vacation here on Earth and so am available to stand by you during your confrontation with the Frog incursion. However, I will remain in stealth mode until it seems they will choose war over a peaceful coexistence. Then I will drop out of stealth mode."

  "If they've launched a preemptive strike that might not be enough to halt the momentum of the Frog's war effort."

  "It should be. My vessel is the size of a small moon and contains over three thousands lesser vessels. I've destroyed entire armadas of aliens and the Frogs will know that.

  "And if they disregard me I will show them the wisdom of caution."

  Jane was silent. She did not doubt that Anna Prince--Heyalna--was telling the truth.

  The Prime Minister took advantage of Jane's silence to speak.

  "That sounds like all we could possibly hope for, General. Guardian, I am the--"

  "Please pardon me for interrupting you, Your Excellency. I know who you are. I have the greatest respect for what you've been doing in the Empire."

  "Thank you. I was just going to say that perhaps we should quit bothering you and get on with our immediate concerns. May I contact you in future?"

  "You personally are always welcome to phone me on this channel. That goes for the other heads of state of China, the US, and Russia. No more. And no subordinates. Please spread the word to your counterparts."

  "I will. General, do you feel the way I do?"

  Jane considered, agreed, and said so. The three broke their consultation with polite Goodbyes.

  "Sorry for butting in, General. But we'd sealed the deal. I was afraid further conversation might unseal it."

  "No, it's fine. I'd come to the same conclusion."

  <>

  The news that in any confrontation with the Frogs would have a Zone Guardian as backup spread explosively. Even in the poorest and most backward countries plenty of people had a smartphone or knew someone did.

  Reactions were mixed. Most were on the positive side; most people were concerned about a possible Frog war. Others, however, worried because the Guardian had been living on Earth for "a few decades" (whatever that meant). What had the Guardian been doing all this time? Had Earth been corrupted by alien interference?

  Many people felt Earth could relax and not spend so many resources building up the planet's space war effort. Many more, however, felt insulted. Were the people of Earth poor relations pitied by the Galactics? Looked down upon? Needing protecting by a big brother (or sister as the Guardian had been discovered to be)?

  Those indignant individuals talked about their indignation, especially to others who felt the same way. The heat of their feelings fed on itself, burning brighter and spreading. A movement flared into existence. By God, we're not going to outdone by some haughty Galactic or Galactics!

  A push for accelerating the Earth Defense war effort grew first in those two diverse empires, the British and the Chinese. The push was quickly followed in the US then in the Russian Federation. It spread to South America, especially in that wealth country Argentina with its own space program. Africa was next, led by Nigeria the Black Pearl of the British Empire. Arabs and Persians separately declared jihads, each trying to outdo the other in the fervor of their passion.

  Jane viewed this movement with alternate comic dismay and concern that it would warp the war effort in unhealthy ways. She buried her concern in renewed efforts to support the effort.

  Among those efforts was thinking about the utility of 3D printing in manufacturing. It was now used in everything from do-it-yourself hobbies to heavy manufacturing and large-scale food production. But wasn't there a better way? Galactics used transmutation instead, turning air and sea water into anything unliving whatsoever.

  After months of thought and observation of how Robot used transmutation she came up with a theory of how TM could be done. Her first experiments on a remote location on the Moon failed but, through analyzing the failures, she came up with a way to transmute simple elements, then a safe way to do that.

  The TM devices were huge but effective. The war effort accelerated more.

  The biggest bottle neck, however, was personnel. Anna Prince, in a get together with Karen and Kate and Klaus (whom the Guardians knew and trusted with their secret identities) had a suggestion.

  They were in one of Prince's LA residences, the top two floors of the tallest building in West LA just outside Beverly Hills. They had just finished a meal prepared by Karen via transmutation, it being her turn to provide food and drink. They were sitting on the enclosed balcony with night time Beverly Hills glittering below them outside huge picture windows.

  She sipped from her wine glass and said, "You know that Karen has a computer/communicator in her brain. I have something similar, a hypercom link in my brain to my warcraft's robotic controller."

  Jane had seen an image of that vehicle. It looked like a thirty-mile long asteroid, which is what it had been created from, and was parked in Earth's orbit around the sun but several million miles behind Earth.

  "You have to come up with something similar to enhance the brains of your recruits."

  Kate said, "We already do something similar with our vears and their links to our smartphones. But I suppose what you mean is to improve those in a major way."

  "More likely major WAYS," said Klaus. He was a software engineer as well as a space pilot. "Efforts like that are never simple. And don't look at me and the rest of our research crew. We need to issue a contract to some big software company."

  Kate said, "I could work up a Request for Innovation and circulate it among defense contractors."

  Jane said, "Do it."

  She smiled at Anna. She knew this was the way the Guardian had bypassed Jane and effectively given Jane's two top helpers an order.

  The woman looked back at her with wide puzzled eyes. Karen snickered but hid it with a sip of her own drink.

  <>

  While Earth put its war effort in overdrive a new concern roiled the waters of Earth society.

  Jane first heard of it when Space Defense Force's SpaceWatch program reported a spaceship departing the Saturn region bound for Earth.

  She studied the reports coming in from SpaceWatch. The vehicle was a ball a couple of thousand feet through and its mass was fairly low. This suggested that it was passenger vehicle with a lot of empty space.

  When it was hailed at the five million mile distance from Earth the vessel identified itself as a passenger craft chartered by a group of humans from the Human Interstellar Confederation planet which Jane had recently visited. An individual named Susuki wanted to talk to General Jane Kuznetsov.

  It was 3:00 am at the time but Jane was automatically notified whenever any of the Defense Force satellites had important events to report. She refreshed herself in her bathroom, threw on a bat
hrobe, and answered the videophone.

  One of the several Space Defense Force officers always monitoring sentinel satellites and their accompanying orbiting fortresses was on the screen.

  "I have a Confederation passenger vessel here, General. One of its passengers says she knows you. Her name is Susuki, no surname."

  "I know her. Put her on, please."

  The view screen showed the woman with white skin, short black hair and dramatic eyebrows, and flowing sleeveless (lime green) pants-suit Jane had met on that distant planet.

  "Hello, Jane. I apologize for calling you during your night time. When the officer I spoke to told me the time where you are I said I'd wait till later. But she told me you had left orders that meant I should be put through to you now."

  "She was correct to do so. Don't worry. I need less sleep than most people. It's one of my augmentations. What are you doing here?"

  "A bunch of your friends wanted to see you again and also wanted to see your planet!"

  The pale woman was almost vibrating with excitement.

  A head poked into the view area, pushing Susuki aside. It was on the body of the black man, Waymon. He wore an outfit similar to Susuki's but a shimmering white. He seemed excited too if less so.

  "We want to hear real Earth music and dance Earth dances and buy Earth crafts. We have Earth credits and can stay on the surface."

  Jane wondered how Galactics had gotten Earth money but she had more important concerns.

  "How many of you are there? How long do you plan to stay?"

  "About seventeen hundred. And not long, just a decade or two."

  Laughter bubbled up inside Jane at the "not long, just a decade or two" but she kept a straight face.

  "You'll have to be patient. There'll be formalities to go through before you can come down and do all that dancing or whatever, but I'll do what I can to speed it along. Now let me talk to the captain of your ship."

  "Thank you!" and "Thank you, and here she is."

  The "she" was a Cat in glittery gold body suit who answered to the name of Clio. It turned out that she had been in the system Jane had recently visited and free to take a contract.

  "You'll need someone to vet you, Captain, and escort you to a parking orbit. I'll take care of that. Expect the arrival of an official within a few hours."

  "Thank you, General. But there's no hurry. I've been contracted for a year of service."

  Jane called for a Lyft robocar and got dressed in jeans, tennies, and a tee-shirt. She threw over her clothing a light jeans jacket as nights were cool here in Colorado Springs despite it being high summer. She didn't need it because her gene modified skin could handle extremes of weather even if she didn't have Robot's force-field skin to protect her. But if she met anyone on the way to her SuperScout's hangar it would look odd to be lightly clad.

  By a little after 4:00 she was in her FarReach and powering it up from Standby. She sent off two text messages, one to General Willoughby and one to Kate. Both reported the arrival of the Galactic humans and that she was on her way to meet them.

  To the General's message she added a request to put into play a plan unneeded till today to launch various organizational actions planned for this contingency. This included United Nations procedures to allow aliens to take up temporary residence on the Earth. These were already in use for Lizards and Cats, so Jane hoped (she thought possibly optimistically) would serve for Humans as well.

  She was in contact with local traffic control to pave the way for a takeoff when she was interrupted by a videophone call from Kate.

  "What the Hell, Boss? You're leaving without me and Klaus?"

  "I figured you needed your sleep. This is just routine."

  "Fuck that. We're on our way." With that Kate ended her call.

  Ruefully Jane went back to local traffic control. That conversation done she switched to near-space traffic control.

  Kate and Klaus were entering the SuperScout when she got a vidcall from her boss.

  "Why is the arrival of this group of visitors urgent enough for you to handle it personally?"

  "I'm concerned that mixing Galactic humans with the general population could cause some major problems. Cats and Lizards don't meet with all that many people, and mostly ones already predisposed to be favorable to them such as financiers.

  "But these people are going to want to go one-on-one with everyone on the planet. They are here to experience 'the real primitive life.' I can foresee all sorts of conflicts. At least I can get the influx of Galactics off to a good start."

  "OK. But keep me in the loop. Closely in the loop."

  "Aye, aye, Ma'am."

  When Kate and Klaus were dressed in spacesuits they came into the control cabin.

  "I can't go anywhere," Jane grumbled, "without you two nuisances tagging along. Strap in."

  Klaus said cheerfully, "You know you'd miss us, Boss."

  Kate said nothing, busy as she was bringing up her control console to backstop Jane's actions and send off messages to the other Space Force personnel under Jane at Peterson Air Force Base.

  Shortly all was in order for the departure of FarReach. Jane had it lift off and plunge straight up into the twilight sky above Colorado Springs.

  Fifteen minutes later the SuperScout was over a hundred miles high, effectively in space. Jane gave the command for a jump through hyperspace to where the Cat passenger ship awaited her five million miles away.

  They traveled less than a minute through utter blackness before star-studded blackness was suddenly around them.

  "So that's the alien starship," said Klaus.

  FarReach was sunward of the spiderweb array of the detection machinery and the hulking grey block of the Space Defense Force fortress with its many spiky weapons emplacements. Thus the SDF equipment were in full sunlight. Beyond it shone the shiny golden ball of the Cat passenger craft.

  Jane was in cyborg mode using the crawling milliseconds to absorb the data on the starcraft from the detection array and from her SuperScout's own surveillance systems. This included the specialized equipment Jane had had installed when it was built to extend Robot's esoteric senses.

  A subjective hour later SHE was convinced the starcraft was unlikely to contain any dangerous surprises, including biological ones. She dropped back into her biological body.

  "...ello General Kuznetsov. We're honored to see you out here."

  The voice was the officer of the day commanding the Defense fortress and detection array, an impossibly young-looking Arab man in the light blue uniform coveralls of Defense Force personnel on duty.

  "I'm honored to be here. I've just completed a review of all the duty you and your people have collected about our new arrival. Things look good so far. I'm about to go over and visit them."

  "Do you want any of us along?"

  "That won't be necessary. It happens that I know a lot of the people in the vessel. I just want to double-check matters with them before I clear them to travel to a parking orbit near Earth."

  "Yes, Ma'am." Jane closed the communication link and let the comm screen go blank.

  Klaus said, "You want us with you?"

  "You'll stay here and keep an eye on things. Kate, you'll come with me."

  Her two subordinates acknowledged her orders. Klaus turned his attention more fully to his controls and displays. Kate got up from her seat as Jane did so.

  In the hall outside the bay dedicated to the half dozen local-space shuttles the two astronauts closed their helmets. For a few seconds the air Jane and Kate breathed was cooler than the surrounding air and smelled faintly of ginger, a side effect of the chemicals which balanced the humidity of the spacesuits' air.

  The shuttle which Jane picked at random was little more than a framework around the environmental and propulsion and detection modules of the vehicle. The living module was pressurized but occupants were required to depend on their spacesuits as backup for air and such.

  As the shuttle moved slowly away from
FarReach under the power of its space jets the full intimidating majesty of space seemed blacker and its contents brighter.

  Kate said, "It always awes and scares me to be out here. Five million miles of freezing/burning vacuum separate us from Earth."

  "We're safe. If you haven't figured it already, I'm heavily augmented. I was designed, birthed, and built to thrive in space. This spacesuit is just camouflage to me. I could get us home without it or FarReach."

  Kate chuckled. "You're right. I figured out long ago that you were a superhuman."

  "Augmented human, luv. Just a little more than you."

  "Yeah, riiight.

  "So, you know some of the Humans in that spaceship?"

  "That spaceship" was coming up pretty fast. Jane had upped the power to the shuttle's space jets as she and Kate talked. She braked the shuttle, gently then a little more vigorously.

  An oval door in the side of the golden ball before them opened up. At first black within, the room behind the door bloomed with yellow light.

  Jane brought the shuttle smoothly into the cavern and docked it at the round accordion surfaced tunnel extending from one side of the big room. A thump and a barely audible hiss signaled the tunnel sealing itself against the airlock door in the side of the shuttle.

  Jane and Kate unplugged their suits from the air and electrical outlets on their seats and stood up. There was local gravity and it was oriented so that its Down matched that of the shuttle.

  At the airlock door Jane automatically checked that there was air in the tunnel beyond and entered the currently pressurized lock. She double-checked the tunnel pressure. Even though it was still had air pressure she closed the faceplate of her suit and went onto suit air. Kate followed suit.

  They stepped through the outer door to be met by a Cat and a Lizard.

  "Well met," said the blue-furred Cat in unaccented English. "I'm Clio, the captain of this ship."

  The green-skinned Lizard said, "I'm Elegy, the executive officer of the ship. We are honored by your presence."

  This was the first time Jane had seen Cat-Lizard teams, but she had heard that Cats and Lizards worked well together. The effervescent optimistic Cats were balanced by the serious pessimistic Lizards.