“It would honor me greatly” responded Inman. “When is the rehearsal dinner?”
“I will send you an invitation with all the information in it” offered Elizabeth.
“Perfect, I look forward to it” Inman declared with a smile, “you are marrying up there Stockman!”
“Yes sir, I don’t know what she sees in me” declared Bo.
As Will Inman turned to walk out the room he turned to the young couple holding hands “she sees the best of what she remembers about her father” Will offered.
Elizabeth felt tears coming to her eyes over the suggestion as she leaned into Bo’s side.
“Wow, smart, sensitive, loving and an obvious overflowing of respect for her late father. Reminds me of Evelyn” Will thought, “I remember the little red head at the memorial for her father, I held her hand as I gave the eulogy for her father. Now I will be holding her hand again as I have the honor of giving her away to a man who has big shoes to fill. Young Bo Stockman Jr. was just the guy.”
“He probably does not remember” Elizabeth recounted to Bo as they walked toward the porting departure bay, “commander Inman held my hand as a young girl at my dad’s memorial service. He made sure I had a support system around me. He took care of me, and now he is giving me to you. It seems somehow this is as it should be.”
“How could something so perfect fall into place,” Bo thought as he pondered his great fortune to have captured the fancy of this amazing red haired genius who had captured his imagination and heart.
The fleet had spent many years in space so their arrival in the Andromeda galaxy brought great elation from everyone in the fleet who could remember what outdoors was.
Within a week of Bo and Elizabeth’s wedding Commander Inman stopped the fleet at the first planet, they came to which would support life. A mostly water covered planet with several small continents which would support life.
The planet was very close to the size and gravity of earth with many beautiful features sure to thrill its visitors. Pictures started to circulate through the fleet as crews readied to depart to the surface.
“Executive team to the conference room” commanded Inman. “Joseph Blume to the conference room please.”
Within minutes Inman’s staff had arrived accompanied by young Joseph Blume.
“Joseph, I want to start with you. My status updates from your team tell me you have the sensor probe jukebox operational.”
“Yes sir, on a limited basis we do. There are only a few sensor arrays operational at this point, 50 to be exact, but we can send and retrieve them and access the data almost instantly.”
“Can we send them somewhere and trigger their return only upon seeing activity?” queried Inman. “I want to know if any ships are leaving the Milky Way headed this way. Can you send half of the probes set in a mode to respond when the detect ships along the most probable routes to our current location? I want as much notice as we can have. I also want you to work with Cerro to establish sensor protocols to be implemented which will alert us to incoming dangers; I do not want to have to worry about surprise attacks again.”
“Yes sir, we can have those arrays set and deployed by late this afternoon.”
“Cerro, I don’t want anyone on the surface until we have the probes in place watching our backs. I have talked to Bo and his fiancée Elizabeth and if the coast is clear their wedding is going to be the first outdoor wedding since we left Earth.”
Everyone in the room was elated with the news.
“Now to change the subject, Cerro, I want shuttles patrolling the skies all over this planet the entire time we are here, which could be quite some time. We have some experiments that will be deployed a week after the wedding, and I want to make sure everyone on the surface is safe. Let’s make sure we can get everyone on board and safe in case of an emergency. I want the number of people on the surface at one time limited to the number we can get back aboard quickly; everyone should be wearing body armor until we know it is safe.”
“Yes, sir” Cerro replied.
Bo and Terry Stockman made an all-out effort to make sure the wedding of their oldest son went well, Terry adored her new daughter in law and seeing things went flawlessly became her obsession. From the time Will had agreed to give Elizabeth away, Terry had enlisted both Will and Evelyn in the planning and preparation of a spectacular wedding for the two newlyweds.
All the preparations were complete, the cakes, the flowers the pictures the wedding party, all of it planned, prepared and carried out to perfection. None of the details were left to chance as the resources of the entire fleet seem to come to bear as the wedding came to be a symbol of celebration of the dramatic arrival in a new galaxy 2.5 million light years from earth.
An entire symphony of the fleet’s finest musicians took their seats at the front of the wedding procession and began with soft background music written by earth’s master’s centuries earlier.
Native plants surrounded the wedding platform bedded in a sea of local flora all manicured for the occasion. The beauty of the natural surroundings highlighted the synthesized crystal flower arrangements on either side of the podium which shimmered in the spectacular light given off by the binary suns their temporary visitors enjoyed.
The minister stepped into his position alongside the groom as the wedding party started down the aisle to a lively rendition of Elizabeth’s favorite music.
Suddenly and predictably the music faded, and the familiar Bridal Chorus burst forth from the entire orchestra sending chills into the audience but especially into Bo Jr. The sight of Elizabeth appearing at the back of the audience in the most magnificent dress he had ever seen made him weak at the knees and made him start to tear up as Will Inman slowly but surely led Elizabeth up the aisle toward him.
As they stopped in front of the platform Will whispered in her ear “your mom and dad raised a girl who is the pride of the entire fleet!”
Elizabeth turned to a teary eyed Will and quietly thanked him and Evelyn for making this the special day it was.
The rest of the ceremony was flawless as the day wrapped up with Will and Evelyn back on the Titan checking status reports retrieved from the incoming probe arrays.
“Everything ok?” queried Evelyn Reeder.
“Nothing is coming from the Milky Way at all; maybe we shook the Silirc and Indo. I sure hope so, we need some time here to rest and get everyone some solid vacation time, and everyone is travel weary. Regardless of how much effort and time we have spent trying to make the fleet feel like home, there is nothing like the fresh air and beauty of a natural planet.”
“The wedding was beautiful, Bo Jr. and Elisabeth are getting a great start in life. I know Bo and Terry are excited for them. Didn’t Terry do a great job, and the music, I cannot believe how beautiful the orchestra sounded, no sound reinforcement, nothing, just the instruments and a conductor, wow.”
The only way to have a friend is to be one. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter Ten – Friends
A year on the planet had delighted the crews and civilians of the fleet. The weather was a little brutal to deal with given the unpredictable storm patterns generated by the binary star system to which the planet was captive. Long days and short nights were common, and much of the possible land mass to explore had been explored, written about and cataloged by the resident historians and photographers.
The time dimension calibration project overran its initial scope by a month but the team had completed the process, and it was now time for departure.
Inman called his team together to analyze the results and get everyone’s impression of how to implement the technology, if at all. The consensus was to allow further testing of the possible repercussions of messing with a theoretical time travel paradox but to allow exploration into the future guided by a strict highly controlled time travel charter administered and managed by the executive team and enforced by Cerro’s security team.
The three primary doctrines gover
ned the time travel charter. First, travel into the past could not take place unless fail-safe mechanisms built into the time travel device could assure changes to the past were not possible. Secondly, time travel into the past would be educational only. Third, time travel to the future would allow interaction of travelers with future species incognito, overruling the charter was at the pleasure of the executive committee only. Fortunately, Joseph’s team had provided for a means of communication between time travelers and the executive committee.
“Executive team to the conference room please” commanded Inman.
The entire executive team ported in except Will Inman and Evelyn Reeder; they walked in from their suite located next to the conference room.
“Bo, I wanted to get everyone aboard and accounted for by midnight our time” commanded Inman. “We leave as soon as everyone is ready.”
“Sounds good” Bo responded.
“The Jukebox sensor array has located what appear to be some very friendly and advanced civilizations about a month’s distance from here at full speed. The JRay has also spotted some hostiles located within two months and on a direct course to intercept them. The peaceful ships appear to be lightly armed sub-light exploration oriented ships unable to defend them. I would like to meet these seemingly peaceful people and see if we can find a way to keep them out of harm’s way. We have a month to contact them and try to communicate; possibly we can gather more information about them and develop some strategies to help them.”
“Is this necessary, seems as if we might be putting civilians at risk on this mission” replied President Bo Stockman.
“Yes, Commander, we need to assure civilians are in no danger” responded Aaron Logan.
“I agree we should keep all civilian ships and half the battle fleet with the civilians. The Eagle will stay behind and escort the civilians once we have an all clear. The shuttle fighters stationed on the Titan will accompany us on the mission, the transport shuttles will stay behind with the rest of you.”
“Why can’t we stay here on the planet until you return” queried Bo.
“We have established a penal colony on the planet on the far side. There are several hundred hardened prisoners we are leaving there with all they need to start over.”
“Wait a minute, are we leaving them to die?” questioned Bo.
“No Bo, these are very bad people, they have all either committed one or more murders, and I do not want them in the ship's brig any longer. Several of them have killed other non-violent prisoners, and I am not about to allow them to kill any others. As murderers are convicted, they will be ported to the planet to fend for themselves. It is the best we can do under the circumstances and much better than any of them deserve.”
“I suppose you are right; no one feels safe with them on board.”
“Ok, let’s get ready to depart.”
Joseph Blume's team and especially Elizabeth Murphy Stockman were initially frustrated by the executive team’s directives on time travel. Within a few days, however, they came to believe it was for the best as they scrapped their planned rebuttal when they failed to find a better way to handle it.
Initial attempts to communicate with the peaceful aliens who identified themselves as a species known as the Woles was difficult until the universal translator finally started coming online. The translator technology Bennett and Reeder had observed when they encountered the Indo’s fascinated both of them so much they gave the project to some promising linguists who had come forth with ideas on how to make a universal translator of their own.
The process of building the translator involved the display of primal information such as a black bear, a stick, a fruit and different actions involving each one. The human word for each was audibly output to the other species, and their response was received and recorded by the artificial intelligence engine built into the translator. Once an alien identified an item with audible sounds, it was used as a building block to go to the next level.
Within hours of starting the process, both commands handed off the tedious process to linguists who loved the process and found it engaging. Within a week the translator was fully online, and Commander Inman made his first formal call to “Loken, the Commander of the Woles people.
“Commander Loken, this is Commander Inman of the Titan. We are a friendly species called humans from your neighboring galaxy we call the Milky Way; we bring you greetings.”
“Very nice to meet you Commander Inman” replied Commander Loken. “We are startled to meet another species, we have never seen proof of aliens, and so you can imagine our surprise and utter disbelief when we encountered your first communication, especially when your communication device appeared out of nowhere on my bridge!”
“Sorry to have startled you, Commander. Are you receiving a clear image on your end?”
“Yes, we are Commander Inman. May I ask if I will have the pleasure of meeting you in person?”
The Woles were humanoid. Their skin color has a slight reddish tint, much like the Asians of the earth. Their eyes were a little further apart than most humans. They had very curly bright red hair cropped up on the top of their heads and cut short on the sides. Their ears and nose appeared very human. Will Inman could see a curious female in the background seemingly anxious to get into the conversation.
“Of course Commander, we are on our way to rendezvous with you now; we will arrive in about two weeks.”
“I am sorry Commander, the time interval you gave me is not translating well.”
“There are twenty-four hours in our days and seven days in our weeks.”
“Ok, thank you we now understand.”
“Tell me Commander Inman; do you have a specific reason to contact us?”
“Yes, I am afraid I do not have good news for you. Our sensors scanned the nearby star systems searching for other species to develop diplomatic relationships. We discovered many species, and yours is a peaceful species we believe are compatible with ours. Unfortunately, our sensors also discovered a species headed directly toward you who appear to be a very heavily armed and hostile species.”
“We are not armed Commander until now we believed we might be the only intelligent life in the universe. We will change course immediately.”
“We understand, in our not too distant past we had the same belief, it is startling at first. We found out very quickly we had to turn our technology toward weapons systems we could protect ourselves with.”
“Should we turn our ships back toward our home world?”
“Commander Loken, I am sorry, but a change of heading will not help. The Predators headed toward you have faster than light capability; they have detected you from many light years away. From what we can tell your ships are not FTL capable. Turning toward home will lead them right to your planet. It appears you have one large ship and several smaller ones?”
“We are a small contingent Commander Inman. Tell me, Commander; is it possible the other species is listening in to our conversation?”
“No sir, we are communicating via a direct dimensional link; there is no physical distance between us.”
“I am sorry, but your answer is not comprehensible Commander Inman.”
“I understand, and we will have some time to explain once we meet in person.”
“Commander, we are quite alarmed. Our armament was designed to help us mine asteroids; we are not in a position to put up much of a fight I am afraid?”
“I would like my security officer to spend some time with one of your officers to exchange information about our life support requirements and make sure our environments are compatible before we arrive, would it be possible for our Dr. Cerro to communicate with your specialist?”
“Of course, please communicate with us again when you are ready.”
“I will have Dr. Cerro contact you again in twenty-four hours. Commander Loken, I look forward to meeting you in person, goodbye Commander.”
“Good bye Commander Inman.”
> Over the next two weeks, Inman and his team were startled at how naive the Woles people were. Not only were they not armed, but they were also very resistant to harming anyone no matter what their intent. Another alarming fact was the proximity of their home world which was very sparsely populated, only a few thousand people in total were on the home world.
The JRay sensors had found the enemies home planet and found an aggressive military people who had enslaved many species on their planet to work at the pleasure of their military complex. The two species could not be further apart in ideology or purpose.
On arrival at their destination, Inman’s team prepared a welcome for their visitors in one of the recreation halls on the Titan. Guests were ported to the arrival bay on the Titan and escorted to the recreation hall by Dr. Cerro who had become quite taken with the Woles communications officer he had worked with for the last two weeks.
Dr. Cerro made the introductions, and everyone sat down to a light lunch which included both human and Woles favorites ported over with their guests.
The Woles foods were all vegetables nuts and fruits, they appeared to be vegetarians, but upon further inquiry, it was discovered the Woles ate vegetarian at their midday meal, only meats at their morning meal and both at dinner. The Woles were surprised at the appearance of the human food, the vegetables were strange to them, and the meats were fresh, something they had not seen in the many years since they had left their home world.
“Commander Inman, would you like to try some of our foods, they are not quite as fresh as yours appear to be, we reconstitute all our foods from a dried state, but we very much enjoy them.”
“Yes please, try some of ours as well; we grow them on our civilian ships.”
The taste of the first radish-looking veggie was somewhat like a cross between a carrot and celery. Inman offered Commander Loken a carrot and stick of celery to sample.
“Yes, just like our zokolie you just tasted!”
Battle Group Titan: Beyond Warp ((Battle Group Titan Series Vol 1)) Page 12