by Jeff Sims
Lorano activated the hyper communication satellite and set it to send and receive to all known locations. Now Earth could communicate with anyone in the galaxy on a regular basis. Although there was little fear of detection, Lorano forced the communicator to only make contact with Conron, Uselon, Solaria, and New Earth. Any messages to the rest of the galaxy would be routed through the hyperspace communication device located in Conron.
There was an older style hyperspace communication satellite still hidden somewhere in solar system. It was pointed directly at Solaria and could not be automatically directed anywhere else. It continued to send television programs to Solaria, but now would no longer be used for communication.
Victor flew the Travesty the now not so short distance back to the space station. He chose to dock the mini-freighter on opposite side of the station from the Sunflower. He could have forced himself to park next to it, but decided that that parking on the opposite side would be nice to bring a sense of balance to the station. Besides, it was extremely unlikely that anyone else was going to park beside him.
Victor noted that there were both cargo and passenger bays open. It would be easier and faster to dock at a passenger bay, but they would have to swim across an inflated tube in zero gravity every time they wanted to enter or exit the ship.
The other option was to park against a cargo bay. It was more time consuming to dock and undock the ship, but when parked the main cargo bay would form an airtight seal against the space station and they could simply stroll in and out of the ship whenever they wanted.
Victor chose a cargo port and carefully aligned the Travesty’s main cargo bay to it. By this time everyone else had joined he and Crista in the control room. They gathered their immediate belongings and left.
Carank asked, “Do you think that they will do the weird stand in a line thing?”
Lorano replied, “No. I think we convinced last time not to do it.”
The doors opened into the station and they looked out; hoping to see an empty boulevard but mentally preparing to see a hundred or so humans standing at attention. They were pleasantly surprised by what they actually found. There were only two humans waiting for them and fortunately they were not standing at attention.
Lorano breathed a sigh of relief at the small reception. He had not been particularly excited about being surrounded by humans. He immediately recognized both of the humans and mentally named them – Jim Donovan and Russ Brand.
Jim said, “Again, welcome to Earth. My plan is to have the four of you remain on the space station for the time being. I think that people need some time to get used to the whole idea that aliens exist. We plan to show pictures of you four working and living on the station.”
Carank said, “That certainly makes sense. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to going directly to Earth.”
Lorano responded, “I agree. Even if everyone we meet refrains from killing and possibly eating us there is still the overabundance of questions like – how does it feel to be an alien or can you point to your birth planet.”
Clowy asked, “Where is your birth planet? Can you point to it? She smiled brightly.
Lorano pointed in a random direction and said, “Yes, I can point to my birth planet. Altian-1 is that way.”
Clowy asked, “What about Altian-2?”
Lorano adjusted his finger slightly and said, “It is that direction.”
(If one actually followed where his finger was pointing they would wind up at the Walmart™ off of route 3.)
Jim continued, “Eventually, I believe that people will become accustomed to you. Then you will be able to visit the planet.”
Lorano said, “Thank you. There is no rush, but I would like to investigate the Pyramids of Giza. I have a sneaking suspicion that Altians may have helped in their design and construction.”
Victor said, “What about us?”
Jim responded, “You can do whatever you like. Your fake identities are still intact. Russ and I are the only ones that know you are Solarians.”
Victor asked, “How is that possible?”
“Amy Weisman and the people at Victory Games think that the aliens landed on Earth and then contacted you; either by random happenstance or some type of pre-arranged communication.”
Victor said, “So if we want to return to Earth and live as Humans we can. We just have to make up some story about how Lorano and Carank initiated contact with us.”
He paused for a moment and said, “Thank you for not telling anyone. Your generosity in keeping the secret is admirable.”
Russ spoke for the first time, “It was a calculated decision. We need Victory Games to be successful. It is uniquely positioned to provide most if not all of the electronic components that we need for our new navy. We can’t afford for there to be any legal issue with the ownership of the company.”
Crista said, “You can’t imagine what it means to me to be able to return to Earth and live there indefinitely.”
Jim wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to Crista. So he didn’t. Instead he slightly switched subjects and said, “We took the liberty of finding you living quarters on the space station.”
He continued, “We set an entire section aside especially for you. There are 3 luxury suites in the section as well as a kitchenette, a lab, and an entertainment / exercise area. The section is palm print encoded. You six will be the only ones who are authorized to enter or exit.”
Carank said, “Thank you for your efforts on our behalf.”
Jim said, “Lorano, Carank, when you get settled in please come to CTC. We need to talk about our situation.”
The six new arrivals took the main electro lift to their section. They each pressed their palm against the outer door and identified themselves. They then locked the control; preventing any new palm prints from opening the door.
Carank stepped into the area and said, “This is a very nice section. It must be one of the nicest on the station.”
Lorano followed him into the hallway and said, “This station was designed as a commercial station. I think that this section is part of the ambassadorial / senior executive wing. I think the only reason they gave it us is that it already had the palm print verification. Oh, and it is in an out of the way location.”
Victor and Crista took the first suite on the left. That left Lorano, Carank, Clowy, and Lexxi to argue over who got the remaining two on the right. They argued for a few minutes and eventually decided upon their sleeping arrangements.
Carank summarized, “I think that we all agree that it will be easier to split the sleeping arrangements by race than by sex.”
Carank smiled. His secret plan to gain Lexxi’s affection hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but still seemed to be working out quite nicely. He had initially thought that they would be stuck together on a small mini-freighter in an uncharted region of space.
Now though, Lexxi was considered a fugitive and could never return to the New Alliance for fear of immediate arrest. Further, she was stuck on this space station orbiting a planet filled with hostile aliens that could easily kill her and potentially eat her.
Even further, he was the only Advranki male around for a dozen light years and was now sharing a suite with her. One additional further (or further on top of the previous further), no other Advranki in the universe knew the secret route to Earth.
Carank whispered, “I still like my chances.”
They entered the foyer and the door whisked closed behind them. The suite was spacious. There was a living area, a kitchenette and dining area, and a den. There were two bedrooms, one on each side of the living area.
Carank put his bag down beside the doorway. He watched as Lexxi upended her bag and dumped the contents in the middle of the floor. He saw that she was reaching for her giant headphones so he knew that his window for useful communication was rapidly closing.
He said, “I have to go talk to the Humans. Perhaps you could get the rest of our belongings from the mini-freighter and
start decorating the suite.”
Carank hoped that she heard him, but wasn’t entirely sure. If not, he supposed that he could do it after the meeting. He collected his communication pad and returned to the corridor. Lorano joined him and together they walked to traffic control.
Jim greeted them and said, “Thank you for coming to Earth. We really need your help. We need you to make a full assessment of what our present manufacturing and scientific capabilities are. Then, like you did with the video game, we need to know what new technologies we can implement relatively quickly.
Jim continued, “Based on those capabilities, we need you two to design a series of warships that we can actually build, fly, and maintain. We need to focus on function, not form. They don’t have to look beautiful like the Sunflower. They can look unappealing as long as they are effective in battle.”
Carank and Lorano spent the next few days performing a full review of Earth’s technical capabilities. They started by assessing the required sub-components. They found a company on Earth that already made a similar type component and assessed what technology improvement(s) it would require to allow that company to produce that sub-component.
They listed all of the designs that they needed - fighters, warships, specialized supply ships, corvettes, freighters, transports, and stationary forts. They then created a rough draft showing how many of each type of ship was needed to sustain one 7-ship fleet. The numbers were daunting.
The most difficult assessment was the infrastructure to build ships. Conversely, it was also the easiest assessment because the infrastructure basically didn’t exist. They only had one old Altian space station and it was grossly undersized for the task of building a fleet of warships.
The station had 12 external bays, but only 3 internal ones. That meant the humans could only build 3 ships at once. They could gain some time and efficiency if they moved the ship out of the bay the moment the exterior was completed and finished the interior at an external bay.
Even so, that still meant that they could only build 3 ships every 3 months. That averaged to one completed warship every month or 12 total per year. By comparison the Alliance could easily build 60 ships a year.
The Hiriculans could more than likely duplicate or even surpass 60 ships a year - especially now that they had just taken possession of several former Alliance military space stations. They more than likely doubled their capacity, so they should be able to build 120 ships a year – 10 for every 1 that humanity could produce.
Plus, the three internal bays were undersized compared to more modern structures. In addition, they were designed for maintenance, not construction. As a result, they would not be able to build anything bigger than a cruiser inside the bay.
However, that number of 12 per year was predicated on the humans only building warships. If they decided to build a freighter, the number would be reduced accordingly.
Finally, they reviewed the necessary raw materials, especially iron ore. The solar system contained several suitable asteroids and even a couple of moons and even a few planets that were high in iron ore and polonium. They should be able to find every raw material that they needed.
Fortunately, the humans had taken the laser mining drill and raw ore processing station from Waylon. This type of drill operated by an experienced Advranki operator should yield enough steel to build 10 ships a year. They would have to work some overtime or a second shift to reach the 12 per year bogey, but raw materials shouldn’t be an issue.
They were sitting in the lab in their suite. They had moved all of their equipment off of the Travesty and relocated it here because the humans would soon need the mini-freighter to haul goods and equipment around the system.
Carank said, “I think we are done with the assessment. We need to review our report with Jim Donovan and start on a cruiser design. This should prove to be a unique challenge.”
Lorano said, “That is putting it politely. The final answer is that the Humans simply don’t have the technology to perform fusion welding on the vast scale needed to build a ship. They will have to rely on existing Earth welding technologies like electron beam welding and arc welding.”
Carank replied, “Yes, their ships will certainly look distinctive with weld lines on every panel. We will have to stand inside boxes to enhance our thinking abilities and find a creative solution to this issue.”
Lorano was about to respond, but suddenly paused. He looked at Carank and said, “Do Humans really do that, think while standing inside boxes?”
Carank nodded affirmatively and said, “Yes.”
Lorano shook his head and said, “I fail to see how that will stimulate creativity, but I guess we can try. At any rate, even if live inside these boxes we still won’t be able to construct powerful enough computers to run the ships properly.”
Carank said, “They will have to compensate by putting more people on board to do many of the routine functions currently handled by the computer.”
Lorano said, “The station isn’t big enough to build both fighters and warships. Jim isn’t going to like hearing that he will have to build the fighters on the planet.”
This time Carank had no positive spin. He simply answered, “No he won’t.”
Lorano stared at the overhead monitor for a few minutes. It was programmed to show background pictures of the solar system. It scrolled through pictures of the planets, the sun, the moon, Freedom Space Station, the mining drill and control station, the Sunflower, and even the mini-freighter Travesty.
Carank looked over and saw that Lorano was crying silently. He watched him for several long moments. Lorano was crying longer and harder than he had ever seen before. Carank patiently waited for Lorano to stop.
Lorano eventually stopped crying and noticed that Carank had been staring at him. He said, “They have nothing, absolutely nothing. No technology, no manufacturing, no infrastructure, nothing. They have absolutely no chance of building a navy capable of fighting the Hiriculans.”
Carank submitted the report.
…………………….
Admiral Solear was busier than a one-legged being in a contest designed exclusively for beings with two legs. He finished realigning the hyper drive coil on ship number 33. He checked his communication pad for the next issue.
The next issue was a communication problem on ship number 48. He returned to the hangar bay, entered his transport, and flew to that ship. He landed in the hangar bay and walked to the bridge proper. He ran a diagnostic check on the communication equipment. The diagnostic was negative; the computer believed that there was no problem with the communication system.
He used his communication pad to send a message to the ship. He then verified that the ship received it. He then sent a response back to his pad. Nothing. The ship could receive messages, but couldn’t send a response. Suddenly, he had an epiphany.
Solear took the electro lift two stories down to the bottom floor of the bridge. This was where the actual hardware for the communication system was located. He found the backup transceiver and unplugged it. He counted to ten and plugged it back in.
He went back to the bridge proper and repeated the test. This time he got a verification email on communicator. Now that was issue was repaired, he returned to the battleship Discovery for a late dinner with Captain Arean.
Arean served them a fresh sea moss stew. As they ate it each gave a report of the things that they had repaired and the items remaining before they could attempt to jump again. The last jump had caused 14 separate issues that needed immediate attention.
All of the issues were routine and easily corrected. None of them would even have been reported to the admiral’s level in a normal fleet action. The crew of the respective ship would have just corrected the problem.
However, that wasn’t possible in this case. Solear had a fleet of 84 warships, 6 supply ships, a small space station, and a drilling platform. He had the second largest fleet in the galaxy and a grand total of two beings to crew it.
Captain Arean said, “I fixed the plasma inverter on ship 12. It was inverted. I had to uninvert it and then reinvert it. It should be fine now.”
Solear said, “I fixed the communication problem on number 48. It was refusing to communicate.”
Arean responded, “We can’t maintain this fleet by ourselves. We can make two, maybe three more jumps before the number of issues that need attention overwhelm us.”
Solear said, “I agree. Although each issue so far has been minor, it is extremely time consuming to travel to the ship and fix it. I think I spent more time flying between ships then I did repairing them.”
(For the record he hadn’t, but that shouldn’t stand in the way of a good complaining session.)
Arean said, “Well, the good news is the fleet is now well hidden in the middle of a hyperspace lane. It would be impossible for anyone to find it without knowing the exact coordinates.”
Solear said, “Yes. After we finish the immediate issues, we should be able to just leave the ships here until we can find adequate crews.”
Arean responded, “I was hoping that more of the personnel from the Advranki 2 and 3 navies would follow you after that wonderful speech that you gave. I still can’t believe they all chose to resign.”
Solear sighed loudly and said, “They didn’t want to go. Living under Hiriculan occupation was preferable to abandoning their homes and families and becoming interstellar terrorists.”
Arean responded, “From what we have witnessed so far, the Hiriculans have treated the Advranki, Altians, and Solarians with dignity and respect. They devised a completely new governing system that seems fair and just.”
Arean continued, “They are now in the process of holding elections to staff the new Alliance Senate. I heard that Baxter Bunnyhop was elected on Solaria and Korno was nominated from Altian. The changes that the Hiriculans have imposed so far have been fairly benign.”
Solear snorted in response.