The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict

by Jeff Sims

  Victor smiled sweetly and said, “Okay, but don’t go too far.” Someday he would have to tell her about the distance thing.

  Crista saw a gun store beside the women’s clothing store, became curious, and walked in. She asked the clerk, “What do guns do?”

  The clerk answered, “Well, you use them for protection.”

  “Really?” was her response. The clerk showed her several models and took her to a shooting range in the back of the store. She tried several pistols, but found she could only control the recoil of a .22 caliber pistol. She also eyed the selection of knives and throwing stars. She walked out of the store wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, a hoop skirt, a western blouse, a pair of knives in her boots, and two pistols strapped to her legs. She was excited to show her new outfit to her comrades.

  Oddly enough, they were not as excited about her new look.

  Victor presented Carank with his long anticipated human technology. He said, “We did a lot of research and there appears to be competing systems for video games. Our game will have to work on all of these systems.”

  Lorano was looking at the pile and read the names, “An Xbox® 360, Xbox® 1, Playstation® 3, Playstation® 4, Windows® computer & tablet, Apple® computer and tablet, and a Wii U®.”

  Crista set-up a shooting range in the hangar and started practicing her aim with the pistols. Lorano distributed the Alliance weapons and they all took turns practicing with those as well. The Alliance weapons were small, hand-held beam weapons with two distinct settings. The first setting would render a human unconscious and the second setting would inflict pain in their nervous system, but not actually harm them. Victor’s friend had copied the gun’s technology for Crista’s collar.

  …………………………..

  Two productive weeks had passed. Carank and Lorano had created a video game version of the flight simulator. This task had turned out to be easier than expected. They quickly realized that they human equipment wasn’t fast or powerful enough to run the program, so they duplicated all of the necessary controls and electronics into a flight panel that looked roughly like a keyboard and left the flight helmet exactly as it was.

  Victor had filed 18 patents with the lawyers and had worked out an agreement with all four major game producers to distribute the game. They had moved the manufacturing equipment to a nearby building and hired several humans to begin producing the game. The game came with a disc, a flight helmet, and the aforementioned panel.

  Victor (and Crista) visited the law firm every day. He now had a team of 7 lawyers working full time on his affairs. They hired an advertising firm and created an advertising campaign with ten commercials. Victor authorized $60 million to be spent in an advertising blitz over the next few weeks.

  The main issue though, was production capacity. The machines that they had brought from Advranki could only produce 20,000 units a day or 140,000 units a week. While this sounds like an impressive figure, the initial demand was at least 10 times higher. The result was a rush on stores each time a shipment was made.

  Crista solved the problem. She had heard the scientists complaining (again) about the lack of production and said, “Why don’t you have the human companies build the sub-components?”

  Lorano responded, “Well, we would basically be handing advanced technology to the humans and showing them how to use it.”

  Carank asked, “Are there any directives from the Alliance Senate preventing us from doing that?”

  Victor shook his head. He said, I don’t know. Computer, are there any Alliance directives preventing us from giving decades or perhaps centuries advanced technology to the humans?”

  Human technological discovery was happening at a much faster pace than Advranki or Altian advance. In fact, both older races seemed to have reached a plateau and had made few innovations in the last few decades. That said though, the two cultures had invented hyperspace drives over 5,000 years ago, so they still maintained a sizeable lead over the humans.

  …Scanning Alliance laws. There is a law severely limiting travel to Earth and prohibiting communication with humans. There is another that says care must be given to ensure that technology doesn’t accidentally fall into human hands…

  Carank said, “Ah! That law must have been introduced as a result of the incident. Humans were able to learn quite a few new technologies from the wrecked ship.”

  Lorano asked, “What about intentional transfer via a complex patent usage agreement?”

  …One could induce based on the two other laws that intentional transfer is illegal. However, there is no directive from Advranki Prime that specifically forbids it…

  Lorano loved the idea. Well, to be fair, he loved the idea because he realized it would shorten the time he had to spend on the planet. He was getting tired of living in the hanger.

  The two scientists created actual designs and manufacturing processes that the humans could duplicate. They paired the new technology with companies that were potential suitors.

  Victor again headed to the law firm, this time to meet with a few companies. He signed several patent licensing agreements and technology transfers. The basic agreement was that they would supply the components needed for the simulator with the initial capacity, then they were free to use it the technology for other applications provided they paid a royalty. Victor hadn’t cared about the latter half of the agreement, but the lawyers had insisted.

  The meetings were highlighted by a visit from top executives from a company that made computer chips, one that made wiring, and one that made storage devices. When the executives arrived, they were shown to large conference room that the law firm had set-up for the meeting. Everyone introduced themselves and Victor was pleased to learn that a director of technology from each company was in attendance. However, the room was full because all three guests had brought body guards.

  As a compromise, all four (Crista included) body guards were sent to the conference room next door. Victor showed the remaining guests his chip design. He described that each bit could have four states, e.g. yes, no, probably, and perhaps. He also described his new method for storing and retrieving large amounts of data. One executive said, “These designs are years ahead of anything we have invented or researched. How were you able to design these all by yourself?”

  Victor replied, “Simple, aliens accidentally gave me the designs when they probed me.” Close enough to the truth Victor thought. Carank and Lorano had asked Victor many probing questions during the trip to Earth.

  The same executive looked at him incredulously and shook his head. Finally, he gave a polite chuckle and said, “Aliens aside, I just don’t think the technology is viable. Can we see it work? Perhaps we could have a race between it and our best chip.”

  Victor gladly obliged. Lorano had foreseen this and had created a math problem consisting of 30 million calculations. Lorano and Carank had built a computer that looked roughly like a human computer, but ran the four-state processor and upgraded RAM/ROM.

  Victor loaded the problem into the company’s computer and everyone waited for 10 minutes until it completed. It spat out the answer 4.27, which secretly was the date the four-some had landed on the planet. They discussed the answer and Victor agreed it was correct.

  Victor loaded the program into his computer and started it. Within six seconds it spit out the same answer, 4.27. The chip makers were unbelievably impressed and signed the patent agreements to begin producing the new technology.

  Crista had a much more difficult time in the adjoining conference room. She was stuck in a room with three large alpha males and she felt extremely nervous. She walked to one of the corners as far away from the other three and stood behind a small end table. The three talked amongst themselves, but after a few minutes, one of them approached her.

  The man was large, not nearly as tall as the man in the bank, but thick. He had a solid waist and had huge arms. His arms seemed bigger than her waist. She wanted to scream and run, but she was e
ffectively trapped in the corner.

  He said, “Hey sexy cowgirl, you seem awfully small to be a body guard.”

  “Go away,” she yelled.

  The man put both hands down on the table and leaned down and toward her. He responded, “No, I really like girls from the wild, wild west. You are my kind of woman. How about we go on a date?”

  Crista had no idea what to do. She was slightly shaking and didn’t know how to respond to the question. She knew this man could kill her simply by hitting her, but at the moment she didn’t care. She was angry that he wouldn’t leave her alone. She brought her right boot up to her hand and pulled her knife out of it. She grabbed it with both hands and shoved it as hard as possible straight down through his hand and buried the tip into the table.

  He yelled out in pain, but not nearly as loud as Crista expected. In fact, he quickly recovered and started smiling. He grabbed the hilt of the knife with his right hand and pulled it out of his left. His left palm was bleeding profusely.

  Crista had never seen that much blood in her life, except perhaps in a human movie. She thought that the amount of blood loss would have killed a Solarian, but the man didn’t seem to care. He removed his tie and wrapped it around his left hand, never dropping her knife from his right.

  Now, he pointed the knife directly at her and sneered, “I have your knife, now what are you going to do?”

  Crista had already palmed her .22 pistol. She aimed directly at his chest and fired an entire clip into him in a staccato fashion. The man fell down on the ground, but he didn’t release his grip on the knife.

  Crista rounded the table and approached the man. She stepped on his right wrist and forced it to open. Then she bent down and retrieved her knife. She wiped it against his leg to remove the blood.

  As she was finishing, he sat up. She couldn’t believe he was still alive, let alone conscious. He looked at her. She could tell that he was very angry; his entire face had turned bright red. He looked at her and yelled, “You little bitc…”

  At this point the other two bodyguards were approaching. Crista pulled the alien beam weapon from under her skirt, quickly slid the bar to max and fired it point blank at his neck before he could complete his expletive. She then jumped away as the other two men got close and retreated back behind the table. She kept the beam weapon in her hands, positioned just below the table.

  The man started flopping on the floor and convulsing uncontrollably. He was moaning in pain and his eyes rolled back in his head. The other two grabbed him under each arm and dragged him to a chair on the other side of the room from her.

  After a few minutes, the man stopped shaking. After another few minutes, he got up and left the room. The other two bodyguards sat back down, this time in chairs that were significantly closer to Crista, but still a safe distance away from her.

  One of them said to her, “That was comical.”

  She replied, “What?”

  He said, “Shooting him directly in his bullet proof vest with a small caliber pistol.”

  The second said, “Yeah, you could tell it really pissed him off.”

  She said, “Well, he wouldn’t take no for answer. I had to give him a more creative one.”

  That made both of the men snicker for a moment. Then one of them asked her, “Cool stun gun by the way, where did you get it?”

  Crista responded, “A friend gave it to me.” Friend, she thought to herself. She supposed she really couldn’t say a pompous gray alien called an Altian gave it to her. Or that she thoroughly disliked him and his condescending manner. At the moment though, she would rather spend an hour listening to Lorano drone on about some random subject than continue this conversation.

  He continued, “What does it do?”

  She could feel her anger dispersing and the adrenaline with it. She was starting to shiver. She answered, “It’s like a stun gun, but instead of stunning the nervous system it over-excites it. I am told it is extremely painful.”

  He answered, “Yes, it didn’t look like your victim enjoyed it.”

  She felt the fierceness return momentarily and said, “Well, he was bugging me.”

  The man responded, “Fair enough, what else do you have under that skirt?”

  She said in a sarcastic tone, “You’ll never know!”

  This made first one, then both break out in laughter. She noticed that the one that had made the comment was looking a little sheepish, so she assumed that he was the butt of some joke. She didn’t understand why what she had said was funny, so she made a mental note to ask the computer for clarification.

  The two men left her alone after that, or made polite conversation while maintaining a safe distance. It became silent for a moment and Crista could hear the conversation in the hallway.

  Voice 1, “Here are some band-aids from the first aid kit. Let me see it.”

  Voice 2, “I can’t believe she stabbed me, just for harmlessly flirting with her.” Crista recognized this voice as the man who had bothered her.

  Voice 1, “You need to go get that hand stitched. It won’t heal with just a band-aid

  Voice 2, “Hey, I’m in a law office. I should sue her!”

  Voice 1, “I can’t wait to see the trial when you have to admit that you were stabbed and then shot 11 times by two different guns by a woman who stands maybe 5’ 0” and weighs 95 pounds soaking wet.” (152 cm and 44 kg)

  The meeting ended and Victor came into the adjourning conference room to get Crista. As they were leaving the office, she told him about her frightening experience.

  Victor hugged her tightly for several moments and told her that must have been awful. He said, “You were very brave standing up to that cruel human. I am very proud of you.” He kept his arm around her waist the entire walk back to the ground car.

  Crista noticed that she actually liked Victor’s embrace.

  Chapter 6

  Frank checked himself in the mirror. Looking good, he thought. He combed a stray hair back into place and checked one final time. Perfect, he thought. Frank glanced at the time on his communication pad and quickly exited the bathroom attached to his office. He sat down at his desk just as the doorbell to his office chimed.

  He pressed a button on his pad to unlock the door and said, “Please enter.”

  Korno entered and sat in one of the chairs opposite the desk. He said, “Hello Frank, always a pleasure.”

  Frank noted Korno’s forced smile. He could normally tell when other beings are lying and he could clearly tell Korno didn’t find this meeting pleasurable.

  Frank briefly considered the topic. Most Alliance politicians had to lie on some level, even if it was just a casual smile and a less than heartfelt greeting. However, Korno, in Frank’s humble opinion, was a career liar. He was the type of individual that spoke a lie so many times that he began to believe it.

  Frank, on the other hand, felt that he had a steady grasp of the actual truth, and only lied when he was forced to do so. This upcoming meeting was certainly going to be one of those times.

  Frank asked, “Korno, have you heard from the crew of the Vista?” There was of course no way for Korno to have any update from them after they had made the jump to Earth.

  Korno smiled and responded, “Well, they successfully made the jump to Earth. I am sure they are doing great things on the planet and should return soon with human volunteers.”

  Frank responded, “I hope you’re right. It would be great if the humans are capable of flying fighters.” He enjoyed making completely truthful sounding comments like this one. However, he still believed that since the humans were so far behind technologically that they would unable to comprehend the subtleties of flying a modern fighter. Oh well he thought, maybe they can at least do as well as the Netos.

  At that moment the doorbell chimed again. Frank again unlocked the door with his pad and told the person outside the door to enter. Korno stood and spoke first. He said, “Hello Ambassador Bline, always a pleasure.”

&nbs
p; Frank noted that Korno’s greeting to the new guest was just as false as his first greeting. Frank, not to be outdone, puts on his best smile and said, “Ambassador Bline, you honor us with your presence.”

  The Hiriculan ambassador entered the room and sat in the empty chair beside Korno. He was shorter than the other two, but his ear stalks were pointing up, making him appear several centimeters taller.

  Both Lorano and Frank had used the Alliance letter combination ‘Bline’ to greet the ambassador. Since the Hiriculans were not in the Alliance, they technically should have tried to pronounce the ambassador’s real name of Blifgot’ne. The slight was intentional, of course. If the ambassador wanted to talk to Alliance personnel, he would have to acknowledge his Alliance name.

  Bline responded in perfect Alliance basic, “Always a pleasure to meet with you fine senators. Hopefully, our conversation will prove fruitful.”

  Korno said, “What can we do for you ambassador.”

  Bline responded, “I have heard reports that you are sending a mission to Earth.”

  “Yes, yes,” Frank said dismissively, “We send a mission to Earth every 50 years or so. This one is no different. It is well documented that the last one ended in disaster for the crew and apparently dinner for some humans.”

  Bline asked, “Did the humans really eat the crew that crash landed on the planet?”

  Frank could have given several answers, including the most recent information that the humans probably just had a doctor cut open the bodies to see what had killed them. Instead, he hesitated for a moment and said, “Yes, I am afraid so. However, each time we go to Earth and check on them, they seem to be a little more civil than the last.”

  Bline pushed the subject a little. He said, “What made you decide to have them evaluated now?”

  Frank said, “Well, we haven’t checked on them in 60 years. That is a decade past when we normally go. The Senate just felt it was the correct time, despite what happened during our last visit. Why the sudden concern?”

  Bline looked directly at Korno, then at Frank and said, “My sources told me that you are recruiting human pilots for the Alliance military. They say that you intend to fill your ranks with these humans. That way you can man your ships with a disposable life form and save both Advranki and Altains from any conflict. Is this not so?”