It seemed that I was to be the servant for the day making sure everyone had a drink when they required one and handing out the food from the hamper. All the wives plus Rachael and Yarkeli spent most of their time on the recliners and under the parasols. Now I decided we all should have an ice cream each. The older girls begged to go with me. As I could not go by myself Alenna asked if anyone would like to go with me. She received no takers other than Lumi, so Alenna just told Luka to accompany me, which in a way was an order that she went with us as she could not refuse. As we went towards the car park near the beach I apologised to Luka for dragging her away from her recliner. She was fine and accepted it was her duty to do so. One of the officers had also accompanied us. As we approached the car park we could see that there was a crowd watching a large monitor screen along with a box on hydraulic rams that was jumping and jerking all over the place. It turned out to be a simulator; in fact, a space simulator where you pilot a space fighter and try and knock out the mother ship, but first you must defeat its protection fighters. The cost to play was high at ten pounds. However, the winner would receive two hundred and fifty pounds as prize money. It seemed that no one was lasting long and it became more difficult the more the game proceeded; in fact, no one was getting past taking out two protection fighters.
Pooky wanted a go. She pressured me into giving her the entry money, so I reluctantly obliged. Pooky then joined the short queue. Soon it was her turn, and now a larger crowd had joined as they wanted to watch her performance, most probably out of curiosity. Talk about being ruthless she was taking no prisoners, mastering the controls in no time and was taking out the fighters one, by one. She seemed to have no difficulty at all. Each time she destroyed one, the crowd roared which brought about even more onlookers. It took her a very short time indeed to take out all the fighters. Now she had to defeat the mother ship by hitting a plasma vent leading to the main engine. This was of course made up; there were as far as I was aware, no plasma vents on any real spaceship. Anyway, under a hail of fire power from the mother ship she targeted this vent and fired one then another missile at the vent. The first impacted on the entrance, but the second went in dead centre. It seemed like ages with nothing happening then the ship just blew up to a very loud roar from the crowd. Pooky emerged from the simulator to even more cheering. She gave a little wave before going up to the attendant for her prize money. Pooky held out her hand and asked for her prize money. The attendant was very reluctant to pay out the prize money and was trying to get out of paying her with various excuses, which was until our police officer who had seen everything spoke up, telling him to hurry up and pay the girl, which he grudgingly did, placing the money in her hand. Pooky then turned to the other three and said, “Shopping money,” waving it at them to their delight. I told them that they would need to speak to Auntie Rachael about taking them shopping, while telling Pooky not to wave her money about on Earth, as it may get snatched.
We then went and purchased the ice creams which was what we intended to go for in the first place. After doing so, we made our way back to the others. I had brought extra ice creams as I wanted to give one to each of our police officers as I appreciated their service, plus one for each of the girls’ two friends who had accompanied us. Afterwards, I tucked into mine, which was now starting to melt, but I enjoined it anyway. Up to now we have only had a steady stream of onlookers just wanting to see us out of curiosity, families spending their day on the beach. Our diversionary tactic that we were going to the north-west seemed to have worked up to now. I also believed the sight of the police officers with guns also kept a lot away. But now things were changing. A crowd was beginning to assemble and had almost doubled in the last fifteen minutes. One of the officers called me over, so I went up to her along with Jenna. She informed us that they had reason to believe a large number of people were heading to Camber just to see us. She believed that it would be in our best interest and safety if we left very soon. We informed Alenna who acknowledged it was time for us to leave and informed the children that we had to return to the shuttle. Reluctant at first, the children got ready to leave.
I informed Pooky to go and prepare for take-off. I had two things to do before we left; one was to make sure we had not left any litter. I could see the headline: “Aliens visit beach and leave it littered.” So, after picking up everything even if we had not left it there, I did the final thing I had to do which or course was to thank our police officers for protecting us. They had done a grand job having been there in that heat without any shade all day. Once we were all on board Pooky spun up the pods and we lifted off. Pooky then waved at the two girls they had met who were watching us leave. She then performed a one hundred and eighty degree turn of the shuttle before shooting off at great speed in the direction we came. I told Pooky to slow down; we all wanted so see the sights as we passed over, and not to view them as a just a blur.
After landing back at our ship Jessica asked, ‘‘Could I put the shuttle away in the hanger please dad?’’
I replied, ‘‘No we will be using it first thing in the morning to go to the United Nations meeting but you can fly us there if you like.’’ If she liked, of course she did and jumped excitedly at the chance. In a quiet moment I said to Pooky, ‘‘You did well on that simulator. What were you thinking at the time? You seemed so ruthless.’’
She replied, ‘‘I saw myself as a pilot defending the Alliance and that it was the Silka I was shooting at.’’ She then confided in me saying that she would love to be a captain on a defence frigate, or better still, a captain on a battle cruiser. The scary thing was that she may get that chance the way things were going.
I went looking for Ellie as she had to fulfil her punishment; she was indeed making herself hard to find. However, I eventually found her cowering in one of the younger girls’ rooms, pretending to be helping them with reading. I told her that she had a job to do so to get on with it. Some of the younger sisters started giggling at her, so I warned them to stop or they would be doing the same. I really did not like punishing any of the children; Alenna always said I was too soft with them. She was right of course. Anyway, when Ellie had finished this task, I would conclude that she had been punished enough. I considered taking her on the journey with us the next day to cheer her up. Further information on our diversionary tactic, the TV news reported that record visitors had gone to Blackpool that day. I just wondered what they must of thought when we did not turn up. I was feeling so guilty of deceiving them; perhaps I should have been the one who was punished.
The next morning the final tally of who would accompany us was announced. Alenna, Lara and I had to be there. I had already told Jessica she would be flying us there, so I informed Ellie she could come, much to her delight. Alenna decided on the others, which was to be Jenna and my sister Rachael, the others would stay with Minty in charge as expected.
Chapter 10
The Big Speech and Alarming News
We did not want to hang around so we set off early to give ourselves enough time to get there. I had re-connected the battery on the transponder earlier and not given it another thought. Soon we were over the sea heading west; we expected to arrive at our destination in around three hours. Jessica was flying and as we were well below any flight path for aeroplanes all she had to do was keep us on course. All of us were reading, talking or generally relaxing. I read for a while before getting tired and found myself drifting in and out of consciousness.
Over an hour into the journey had passed, when I was suddenly awakened by the proximity alert sensor sounding. At the same time Jessica let out a scream. I looked out and could see six jets surrounding us. At first I presumed they were our escort, but their intentions became clear when they contacted us, they wanted us to fly to another destination than where we were supposed to be going. This alarmed us and I did not think the president had anything to do with it. They then
warned us that they would shoot us down if we tried to deviate at all. Alenna now wanted to take command and reason with them. I replied, ‘‘No Alenna on this occasion for all our safety I will continual to be the captain, I want all of you to buckle up and use the head restraints.’’
Alenna said ‘‘What are you going to do? You heard what they said, they would shoot us down.’’
I said, ‘‘I have couple of options.’’ But before I told her I had Jessica slide out of the pilot seat so I could sit in it. After she had buckled herself in another seat, I warned them that they were going to experience some high g-force.
First I told them of our easy option. ‘‘I could send out an electromagnetic pulse by creating an imbalance in one our reactors; this would not be good for that reactor as it was likely to sustain damage. The rest of the ship would be shielded so it would not damage us further but they would all fall out of the sky. This I would only use as a last resort as I did not want to damage our ship or fly on one reactor. Not only that, it would mean the certain death of the pilots as they would not be able to summon a rescue. It would be almost impossible to find them in the middle of the Atlantic.’’ I was not callous; after all, they were only obeying an order from their superior officer.
Now the shuttle was equipped with motion negation dampeners, which cancel a large amount of g-force that you would receive in a fast turn or were to stop or accelerate suddenly. Although not as advanced as on our cargo ship which would cancel out one hundred percent of the force, the system on the shuttle was set at fifty percent. However, I could increase this to around seventy-five percent for a short time without any permanent damage being sustained to the shuttle, which I did. I had also been recording what was happening as I wanted to confront the president of the USA later. It was at this moment Lara commented on something none of us knew about. She mentioned that about fifteen years ago three mothers with their three young daughters disappeared on a mission to collect seeds on Earth. The most likely scenario was that they were captured. While I was very intrigued to ask more, I said that I would discuss this with her later as first we had to resolve our current predicament.
Just over ten minutes had passed since our encounter had begun with the military planes. Alenna now was getting very anxious and vocal. She was not used to situations being out of her control and was starting to insist to me that she would now take over. I sternly said, ‘‘No, I am the best person here to resolve this matter!’’
‘‘But you have not done anything yet to resolve this matter!’’ she proclaimed.
Replying, ‘‘I am doing something. Have you not noticed there is now only one plane behind us? The other two which were behind us have now moved alongside. My plan is working.’’
‘‘What plan?’’ replied Alenna.
‘‘My plan to lure them into a sense of false security. They think they have us wrapped up now. Those jets would not be able to go as fast as us.’’ At that moment I told them to hold tight. Bending down I pulled the plug to the battery on the transponder, which I believe was the way they had located us in the first place. Then I decelerated hard, with the shuttle almost coming to a stop. I dropped height a little at the same time, which made the plane behind overshoot above us. Before they could react I switched on the illusion field generator, performed a ninety-degree turn to starboard, and at that moment I opened up the main drive. Within seconds we were accelerating towards three thousand miles per hour, going away from them and to safety.
This all happened in around ten to twelve seconds. Alenna asked, ‘‘What just happened, all I could recollect was that I was pushed by the g-force into my seat.’’ Lara, Jenna and Rachael were also unaware of what had happened. Only Jessica and Ellie knew as the pair had been observing everything that I had done. I told them all that I had performed some fancy flying. However, Ellie butted in, and started explaining everything that I had done. I was not sure if they understood, as to them it all happened in flash; one second we were in danger and the next we were safe. I was only grateful that none of the wives on board were expecting so I was able do those manoeuvres. Now that the adrenalin had worn off there were tears from Alenna and some of the others. I had not seen Alenna cry for years; she was shaking a little from the stress, which I put down to the situation being beyond her control.
I now slowed us down and had Jessica take control again. I went up to Alenna and gave her a hug then whispered in her ear that I was sorry for being so forceful in keeping command and that I had no intention of stepping on her position of power as the prime wife. I told her she could now understand why I had to keep command; giving her a long kiss on the lips, Ellie seeing this cringed, and said, ‘‘Yuck, don’t do that Dad.’’ Which caused all the adults to laugh. This helped to ease some of the stress of what we had been through.
Now I wanted to find out about those missing Alkarrens. Unfortunately Lara had already told us all she had known. Her pid did not have any information on the incident as she was barely into her teens at the time, so did not work for government then. ‘‘No one on our ship would have had that information,’’ replied Alenna. I then asked about our ship’s mainframe in that it may have been in there as the previous owner may have been warned about not going to a certain destination on Earth should they ever receive a commission to go there. Lara said this was a good idea and then called up Minty back on our cargo ship and asked if she and the others could do a search and let her know if they found anything.
We continued on our flight to the UN conference, only this time I had not reconnected that transponder. We still had the illusion field generator on, so this enabled us not to be seen visually entering USA air space. To add to this, our shuttle was blind to radar so we couldn’t be detected that way either. We had our landing coordinates so we knew where we were going. I took over from Jessica again to fly the final part of the journey. I was soon above the coordinates given but could see a number of soldiers doing a drill where I was supposed to land. Turning off the illusion generator brought about a response. They then cleared the area in double quick time, so I deployed the under carriage struts and touched down. The soldiers all formed a line like as though they were on parade about to welcome a very important person. Well they were, my family of course. They would have to wait a while before we went outside as we had two hours before making the Alliance speech. I had to confront the president about the kidnap attempt first. I would do it now while I was still angry enough. I called up the president and told him in blunt words about what had happened and that I wanted to discuss the matter with him urgently. By the tone of his voice he was very upset, saying that he would see me as soon as he arrived, which would be in an hour’s time. To his credit he was sincerely apologetic and would find out who had done this, as he saw it as a blatant act of treason against his authority.
We were about to have our lunch when we were called up by Minty who had some information for us. They had found reference to the disappearance of these Alkarrens. It was very sketchy, but it did give the coordinates to where they had disappeared. I looked at them. Something in my head rang a bell. I had seen these before; they were in the same area as that military base that had persistently tried to contact us were from. I wondered if it was the same base where those military jets had originated from too, which would make more sense if it was. I did not have to wait too long to find out. The president called to say he was five minutes away. I informed him that we would wait for him at our shuttle.
His limo pulled up and he got out along with his military chief. We opened the door. The soldiers had two lots of VIPs to contend with, forming a line either side or the door standing to attention with their rifles held in front of them vertically. The president approached our shuttle along with his military aide. We invited them in and closed the door behind them, saying this was for our privacy. I wanted to ease the tension so I joked, “It’s no
t to kidnap you.” He smiled as he could see I was trying to ease the situation. After asking them to take a seat, I replayed the recording I made at the time. First of all they were impressed by the projection which gave them the impression they were actually there, but the seriousness of the situation cut in, when they looked at the jets their identification numbers could be seen on the ones closest. The president asked the military aide to what base they were stationed at; the aide then checked on a tablet he had with him. Then holding it up in front of the president to see, the president told him he wanted every officer above the rank of captain arrested there, and to see to it immediately. The military aide was intrigued to know how we had escaped. I said that their primitive jets were no match for my unarmed shuttle and although he insisted that these were some of their latest hardware, I responded by telling him they had little hope of preventing an invasion.
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 14