The Alliance in Peril

by Peter Lewis Atkinson

  I just said, “I now know what that noise is. We have all been frightened over nothing. It is only the vacuum pump to the toilet. Its bearings are dry and when it starts up it is that which makes the screeching sound. If you don’t want to hear it anymore, just don’t use the toilet in the ready room.” They all had an embarrassed look on their faces. River started to laugh it off and the others then joined in with her.

  “Let’s go for some food,” said Luka.

  Jenna had bridge duty. I said to her, “Don’t worry, we are not far away, I will be back with your meal as soon as it is ready.”

  As we entered the officer’s galley we stopped dead. The lights were not on. I said, “What’s wrong with this ship? The lights are not working in here now.”

  Yarkeli let out a chuckle and replied. “Jake you are so silly.” She then spoke out in Lusianian, “Qwe-draa.” The lights then came on. I did look a fool. Yarkeli chuckled and said, “The lights on the ship are voice activated you just have to say, lights on, in Lusianian.”

  Now I knew that I was willing to resume my exploration of the ship. River though was not so eager. Who should I take with me instead? I knew Ellie would wish to look over the interceptors. Ellie was wondering how she would spend the journey and agreed to accompany me, so after my next stint of bridge duty, it was time to proceed. Again we reached the area of dim light so I just said as clear as I could “Qwe-draa,” and the bright lights came on along the entire corridor. That was easy, what about that gymnasium? We had reached the door and peered inside. It again looked spooky. Ellie grabbed my arm until I again said, lights on, in Lusianian at which point the room lit up. Ellie at once rushed in, eager to look at various exercise apparatus, Ellie tried out a running machine. It all looked like pointless hard work to me. I would rather enjoy exercise, playing games or going on a hike. Time to move on. We reached the observation room to the hanger deck and again the lights came on when asked. But the lights in the hanger did not. I had to go onto the hanger deck. I wanted to anyway, but getting there from the observation deck meant we had to descend more floors. After studying the deck plans we found the nearest lift and soon were outside the airlock to the hanger deck. As the hanger deck was pressurised at this time it was just an easy task to pass through the airlock. I said the magic words, lights on in Lusianian and nothing happened. I tried again a little louder and again nothing happened. It was only when I shouted really loud that they came on. This flight deck was so large that my voice could not be heard by the sensors unless I shouted. Ellie rushed up to the first interceptor before walking around it. They were of a later design than the ones I had sold to Earth, but still very old, as were the three shuttles.

  Ellie climbed aboard an interceptor. I was a little concerned, so shouted to her, “Don’t touch anything Ellie.” I was not that confident that she would listen to me, so I climbed up onto its wing and looked into the cockpit to make sure she did not touch anything other than the control stick, which she had now grabbed hold of.

  “What’s this button for?” Ellie said, reaching to push it.

  I almost screamed at her, “No Ellie don’t touch anything. You don’t know what the buttons will do; they are labelled in Lusianian. That button could fire something and poke a hole in the ship and we would then be sucked into space. Do you want that?”

  Frightened at my suggestion, Ellie retracted her finger, then scanned the label into her pid to translate it. She then said, “It only activates the deep space scanner. No way will that poke a hole in the ship.” Ellie without any hesitation pushed the button and nothing happened, because the ship, after all, was not powered up.

  I had to prise her away from the interceptors. We continued our exploration. The next nearest port of call was one of the generator rooms. As we approached we could hear a turbine. There were four reactor rooms with four generator rooms adjacent to them. They were located in different parts of the ship, so as not to put all your eggs in one basket. If the ship was damaged in one area it wouldn’t affect other generators. This room alone was much bigger than our generator room but just as noisy. Next door was a repair workshop. To my surprise, all the equipment for repairs had been left behind. It was like a time capsule as if one shift had just finished, awaiting the next. Half-finished repairs of various items littered workbenches. I wondered what those on Earth would make of this room. I scanned many pictures into my pid. Another thing I was eager to look at was gun port control areas. This was a battlecruiser, its armaments were many. Plasma cannons and beam weapons adorned its sides. Two fusion generators were used exclusively to power weapons. These produced many gigawatts of power. We reached a corridor that had several gun ports. We tried to enter. Unfortunately, the door was locked as were all the others in this corridor. I had not given up, I would try others on higher decks.

  I reached the end of the corridor. There was only one room left. This door was on the opposite side of the others, facing into the ship. I opened it. Again it was dark but before I could shout for lights an unbelievable stench overwhelmed us. We both held our noses.

  Ellie squawked out, “What is that smell? I think I am going to gag!”

  I had to see what was causing it. I shouted for lights. It turned out to be the waste recycling room for toilets and showers. The floor was covered in effluent. Several pipes ran across the ceiling, one of which was leaking its contents. It looked heavily corroded.

  I said to Ellie, “I am sure you don’t wish to stay here? Let’s go, before we step in anything.”

  We quickly shut the door and left the area swiftly. We returned to the lift and went up two floors. The crew’s galley; it was large and had windows, but you could only have a limited view of space along one side. It was very basic, no nice seating, just benches. We walked on, more doors to crews quarters. Then we came to a plasma cannon control room. The door was not locked this time. It opened towards us and would shut automatically behind us. We entered; the lights were on. The room was as expected, a screen with targeting for the operator. The plasma cannon could be directly viewed from the room, through a small porthole. The double cannon was mounted externally, on a turret. As we exited the room I noticed the door was quite substantial with an airtight seal. The reason for this was if the room was hit and compromised then the vacuum of space would prevent the door from being opened. We decided to end our exploration for now and made our way back to the others.

  Yarkeli had been doing her art and had finished yet another picture. She had drawn a picture of the bridge. I looked at the picture, none of us had been included in it. She had again drawn Pooky in it, though only this time as the captain, sitting in a commanding position. All her pictures have one thing in common, she always draws Pooky in them. A few days passed and everything had settled down. This had another problem; everyone was starting to get quite bored with the exception of Yarkeli, who now was quite willing to venture off on her own. She was hoping to find something or other to paint. I suggested to her that she should try the hanger deck. You see none of the others had brought enough entertainment items for the duration of the trip. River, along with Luka, were also willing to partly explore the ship together as some form of excitement, but they did not venture very far, sticking to the top two levels. Ellie was missing her sisters and was fast turning into a very bored teenager. Jenna was fairly happy reading. I was, well, mind-numbingly bored. I only had my pid to entertain me. I thought perhaps now would be a good time if the ship made another strange noise, but it never did. It may have helped the boredom if it had.

  Time for another exploration I thought. I wanted to see what if anything was in the main storerooms. These were on the lowest level of the ship. Ellie was now more than willing to accompany me. She needed something, anything, to pass the time. We took the lift down and exited. The first storeroom was almost empty, just a few boxes littered the floor. I opened on
e. It had some jars of what looked like pickles in it, but due to age were disintegrating into a sludge at the bottom of the jar. Next room, this looked more promising, piles of what turned out to be co2 filters. I did not need them at this time, there are only six of us on a ship designed to hold up to three hundred. So the filters would last weeks or even months. Other maintenance items including fluids for hydraulic systems, various replacement lights, gate valves, motors and pumps, these filled the shelves. The next room had food, all of which was way past its sell-by date. Sacks of rice, looking all mouldy along with vegetables dried out and turning to dust, I wondered why they had been left here. There were a number of freezer cabinets. No way was I going to open any of them. The power had been off for thirty years. Whether there was anything in them or not would have to remain a mystery.

  A thought crossed my mind, there must be an armoury somewhere on this ship. The easiest way to find it was to translate the word armoury from Alkarren to Lusianian then try and locate it on the deck plan. This we did. There was one. It turned out to situated adjacent to the training deck. We made our way there. The training deck was where drills and marching took place and almost covered the same floor area as the hanger bay only not as high. Finding the armoury was straightforward, accessing it was not. It had a code lock on the door, not dissimilar to the one I had trouble getting into my man cave that time. I would try and enter the same way. I just needed some tools. The workshop was the place to find them. Ellie was just as eager to look inside the armoury as I was. We took a different route than before to the workshop. I wanted to look inside a number of rooms as we passed, but Ellie was in a hurry and did not stop when I did. She knew that I would not leave her alone, so took advantage of the situation. If I stopped in one place too long, it was only seconds before she was almost out of sight and I had to run to catch up with her.

  I said to her, “You have got to stop when I do. No arguments, I am your father. Please do what I say.”

  Ellie replied, “Sorry dad, but I am so excited at what we may find in the armoury, aren’t you?”

  I said, “Yes, but be patient. Anyway, I want to look in on Yarkeli. She is on the hanger deck. I want to see how she is getting on with her latest masterpiece.”

  Ellie with a moan said, “Can’t we do that later?”

  I replied sternly, “No Ellie! Yarkeli is on her own. It’s my duty to check on her; it won’t take long.”

  Ellie reluctantly accepted my wishes and we did look in on Yarkeli. She was happy painting and at the same time listening to some Lusianian opera playing from her pid. Yes, she had included Pooky in her picture, as a pilot, about to board an interceptor. With Ellie tugging on my arm, I had to continue to the ship’s workshop. I soon found the necessary tools that I required to unscrew the key plate, adjacent to the door. I was then almost dragged back to the armoury by Ellie.

  I proceeded to unscrew the keypad faceplate with Ellie saying, “Hurry up dad, you’re taking forever.”

  Tutting, I replied, “Ellie you have to learn patience. If you ever have the opportunity of becoming a prime wife you will need the skills for that role, which include, but are not limited to, patience!”

  Ellie had wanted to ask me a question about a suitable husband so asked, “Do you know of any males that are the same age as me, dad?”

  I shook my head and replied, “Sorry Ellie. The only male I know of, you would not want as a husband. He is worse than your uncle Tyrone in his behaviour and manners. I will have a word with Alenna on the subject if you wish. You never know, Alenna may know of a male that may be considered suitable, but you would, without a doubt, face stiff competition from others.”

  Ellie said, “Thank you dad, please have that talk with Alenna and don’t forget to talk with mum as well.”

  I turned and smiled at Ellie, before saying “I will see what I can do.”

  I was ready to short the live rail to the relay that activated the door bolt. I pulled the door towards me as I did. This door was very substantial and took some effort to pull open. I had not even managed to open it more than a foot before Ellie pushed her way through the opening. By the time I had wedged the door fully open and entered myself, I found Ellie facing towards me with a very glum face indeed. The reason became evident with a quick glance around the room. It turned out to be completely empty!

  I said, “Ellie you can’t win them all.”

  Ellie now started to laugh and replied, “You’re so right, dad, I won’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed. But hey, what would I do if it was full of weapons? I would not want any of them anyway.”

  I smiled at Ellie, “You are right. We would have no need of them. It was just the excitement of hoping to find the room full. Let’s return to your mother. I am hungry and I bet you are as well.”

  Eventually, we reached Earth. Where I was challenged, “This is Earth defence, you are about to enter a restricted zone. Please identify yourself?”

  I replied, “This is the Horizon inbound from the planet Fraylar. Captain Jake in command, requesting permission to enter an orbital position?”

  A reply came back, “Permission granted captain, and we have been expecting you.”

  It turned out they knew that the ship was coming to Earth, not from Alenna, who we found out had arrived a day and a half ago, but from Erika who went back and forth from Earth every few months. Earth had done a deal with the alliance council. She had briefed the details to Earth regarding this battlecruiser. It was a gift in lieu of Earth not asking for any further military assistance. I wanted to leave the ship in orbit, it was not to be. They knew the ship would require overhaul and they wanted it landed on Earth. I was to land at the very same military base where I had delivered all those frigates. This was a moment I dreaded. Landing is always more difficult than taking off. I was virtually shaking as I slowed my orbit before entry. I would take it one step at a time. Normally we would enter the atmosphere at around two thousand miles per hour. I was being over cautious and re-entered at around half that speed. It was not long before I was experiencing a great deal of buffeting due to air friction on the hull. I did not experience shaking when taking off from Fraylar, but Fraylar does have a tenuously thin atmosphere. I was missing something. I remember writing out a label marked ‘stabilisers.’ I found this control; it was marked in percentage increments. By this time the ship was being quite firmly buffeted and the family were getting somewhat concerned. I moved the control to twenty percent with little effect. I tried again at fifty percent. Now, there was some reaction and the buffeting decreased greatly. I found the best position to be seventy percent. Now the ship was performing much more like my cargo freighter. The reason for needing these stabilisers that protrude from the ship like wings was all due to those gun turrets. They create a lot of drag and upset the air flow causing the buffeting in the process. My cargo freighter had been constructed with a smooth surface, also air flowed over it with very little resistance. As we approached the UK we were given a military escort. They had learnt not to use planes. Four helicopter gunships had now come alongside us. I was not at all perplexed about this. I believe they were there to give some assurance to those viewing us from below as we passed over. I was only around eight hundred feet above the ground. This ship would be awe-inspiring to view at that distance. Due to the ship’s length, I could only land in one place; on the runway itself. It would take up almost half its length. I hovered the ship so it was almost stationary above where I wanted to land, then deployed the stanchions, watching a screen as I did. Each stanchion would indicate a green light as it deployed and locked. It was quite intriguing to watch. They did not all show green at once, but were random in the time it took each to lock. When they had all deployed I had to land. I had a large audience watching. It looked like the entire base had turned out to witness my landing. This put me under som
e pressure. I needed to do a perfect landing. So I tried to think that no one was watching as I landed this humongous ship. It was not the best landing I had ever made, but then again it was not my worst. I believed it was good enough not to draw any criticism. I was eager for Earth to keep the ship’s name. I could not guarantee that, but I would give it a try. Ship’s manual was my easiest ploy. It was an electronic manual in the shape of a computer tablet. I had attached a sticker to the front in bold letters: ‘The Horizon’ At least they would know what the ship was called. I also did the same with the picture in the captain’s cabin, labelling over the Lusianian writing. The only thing to do now was to gather up our belongings and exit the ship. As we exited we were greeted by the base commander, the one we already knew. I passed him the ship’s log to take care of. Almost straight away a number of military personnel entered the ship. This party was made up of high ranking military officers and engineers from a number of nations. We now had to wait until collected. Lumi would be arriving soon with the shuttle. We had done our part and it was now out of my hands. Lumi, Alenna, along with Jessica and young Rachael arrived. What a reunion, they were all crying. Strange, we had only been away from them for a week. Our cargo freighter was at the cargo port, so our destination would be there.

  Chapter 6

  The Long Journey

  Back to business. Alenna had surprised me. She had phoned the Prime Minister to arrange collection of the gunship. She reported that it only took two hours from letting him know before two pilots arrived and hastily boarded. They then flew the gunship away. As for our consignment, the bins for the ore were stacked in our warehouse. I wanted to check how good they were. First I looked at the fasteners, normally there are two, and these had three. I then checked the seals on the lid; again normally there was one compression seal, and these had two. My conclusion was very positive. These containers were, without doubt, the best that I had come across. I don’t think they wished to take even the slight chance of contamination from an alien species of insect escaping on Earth. Now the bad part, the locusts. Although other races trade with the Grocka, using insects as payment for the ore, we had not actually delivered any, we had only collected the ore. They tended to hire a specially adapted cargo ship for the purpose. This ship could hover just above the treetops, before dumping its entire load onto the ground. Waiting below would be a thousand or more Grocka. Once the Grand Grocka has had her fill and fallen to sleep, it was then the turn of her subjects to have a chance to engage in a free for all. I had not witnessed this spectacle, but I was told the Grocka got worked up to quite a frenzy, almost fighting each other to eat the juiciest looking insects before the others did. In the end, when they had eaten all they could, they collapsed to the ground where they were, to sleep off their gorging habit. That is why it was so important to have your containers loaded with the ore before the Grocka feast. We would be going straight to Grimda after leaving Earth. The Locusts were due to arrive the day after next. In the meantime, I wanted to delay the loading of the empty containers aboard the cargo freighter, as it was imperative that the locusts were stored at the back, with the ore containers in front of them. Now, we had a whole day to spend doing whatever we wished. As such, the first thing I wanted to get over, was to phone the Prime Minister. I wanted to inform him of the good news, which was that I could now supply Earth with that classified ore that was so critical for star-drive construction. I was given an order straight away. The name of the ore in question was stronilium. As this ore came from Lusiana or Dregg, payment could be made with alliance credits. As which planet I actually acquired it from, I would leave that decision for now as it would be down to which planet we made our next delivery.