I had some priorities to arrange; get a builder to knock two bedrooms into one, arrange a decorator and when he or she had finished we would require new carpets for all the bedrooms and entertainment rooms. Finally, we needed a new kitchen. All to be sorted before our next return to the residence, which would be in just over four months’ time. We would be spending Christmas on Earth complete with all the celebrations that Rachael and I had so missed.
The family wanted to walk all around the smallholding. I said, “Keep to the tracks and paths. Don’t go walking in the long grass as there may be snakes. Fine if they are grass snakes but not so if they are adders. Just be sensible and take a cautionary approach.”
I wanted the small holding to make a little income just to cover costs such as the yearly rates and any fuel required for the tractor. We could use some of the fields to grow crops and there was always a market for hay. Then there is the stable block. It had ten loose boxes. We technically only required one for the Roberts daughters’ pony. I wished to keep one extra, just in case. We would have eight stalls available to hire out as self-service livery. I was sure there would be some demand for them. I would make available two paddocks that were adjacent to the stables. I had no intention of keeping livestock for food; it was not what Alkarrens do, and Alkarrens never eat meat apart from the very few who eat hoopers. I have lived with Alkarrens for so long that now I eat as they do. There was about an acre and a half of woodland with a small pond at its centre. I wanted to keep this area exclusively for the wildlife that had made its home there. There was a bridle path that goes close to the pond, but it was not a public bridle path, so I was fine with that. In fact, the bridle path went all around the smallholding, a perfect ride to take a pony or a horse without road traffic. One thing I wanted; any food that is grown must be organic, so no chemicals to be used. As for fertilizer, this must be the same, so there was what the occupants of the stables produced, natural organic manure; horse dung. I could have stopped at our new residence for longer, but that could never be. So soon it was time to leave. Just before we left orbit, I was amazed to notice not only that the Horizon had returned and was circling Earth, but no fewer than five newly constructed battlecruisers of an Earth design were there also. Earth had surpassed my wildest dreams and had designed and completed new battlecruisers in under three years, faster than Relnor or Dregg.
Chapter 9
Everything Happens So Fast
No sooner had we returned to Alkarr than Lara informed us that we had a summons, this time we were given some details. All contracts had been suspended unless they were for a life or death situation. We were to report to an office in the city. There had again been a meeting regarding evacuations. Not a colony from a single planet, but many colonies on umpteen worlds, which we had missed during our absence.
I said to Alenna, “Here we go again. I not sure which worlds we need to evacuate, but it looks like we have our work cut out for some time to come.”
Alenna replied, “Let’s not speculate what will happen. I will call the office concerned to inform them that we are on our way.”
As usual, Alenna, Jenna and I went to the city to find out what we were required to do. I now knew something was getting serious regarding the Silka. My suspicions were confirmed at the meeting. We were to join in the evacuation of no fewer than forty small colonies. This was just the start. Luckily most of the colonies were small with under fifty-thousand inhabitants. We were given a list of the priorities. I looked down the list, I got near the bottom and my heart sank. At number thirty-six was one of my favourite worlds, Molk! The Alliance must be truly worried; they would not give up these worlds without a good reason. The only reason I can see is they didn’t have enough military craft to protect them all. Due to being away, we had missed the first three evacuations. We had to start at number four, a small settlement on the planet Fremma. I had been there before. It was halfway to the trillion frontier. The sun was an orange dwarf, much like Alkarr’s sun. The planet was a little further out in the star’s habitable zone, as a result only the equatorial region had been settled. Ice covered one-third of the planet. Wood was its only export. There was wood similar to walnut and mahogany, this wood was used for making beautiful furniture. We had a cabinet made from wood sourced from this world, the pattern of its grain was so outstanding. Although it was urgent to evacuate the inhabitants of this world, they still had time to bring with them their most prized processions. Another thing, we had to also use our old cargo ship. If we had not returned when we did, it would have been commandeered. Luckily we arrived home three days before it was due to be taken. Again we would be splitting the family up between our two cargo ships. The younger children would be staying behind. Minty as always wanted to be with the children. With a little persuasion, Rachael and Sabrina would also stay behind to help her. As Ellie, young Rachael and Jessica were now regarded as adults they were to come with us to help. This meant Jasper would also be coming with us. I also persuaded Alenna to allow Jett and Misty to come along, they would be on our old ship, the Alkarren Princess. Jenna would be in command. She would also be the navigator, and Lumi would of course, be the pilot with both Misty and Jett being backups for each position. Luka and Perri would also accompany them. As for the Albion Princess, I would, of course, be the pilot and captain with Emily as navigator. This also left Alenna, my older daughters along with Jasper, River and Yarkeli to accompany me. We had our work truly cut out.
After the fiasco last time, we were to be supplied with extra carbon dioxide scrubbers. We would hope to leave tomorrow. The wives had not seen their families for four weeks and were not at our residence on our return from the city, apart from Perri. Perri pleaded with me to take her to the moon to see hers.
I said to Perri, “I understand, we will make a very quick visit. You will only have two hours there; it’s the best I can do.” So off I went with Perri, leaving the others to do all the preparations for our task when they returned from seeing their mothers’.
When we had returned from the moon we found everyone busy loading provisions. Four portable scrubbers had been delivered, two for each ship. I still had those two from the last evacuation of Alto. Talking about Alto, it was also on the list at number forty and was the largest settlement to be evacuated. I felt for those who had already returned and would now need to be re-evacuated yet again. My job was to connect up the scrubbers. I made sure Perri knew when and how to change the filters on our old cargo ship. I, of course, would do this vital task on our new cargo ship. Lumi left a few hours ahead of us, but due to the higher efficiency of our star-drive, we should arrive around the same time. I did arrive first, but only by twenty minutes. After landing we were processed and allotted our now so-called refugees. We would be taking them directly to Alkarr even though there were Dregg among the inhabitants. What struck me most was not the families who live there, but the single inhabitants who tended to live in bunkhouses. These were lumberjacks, tough and somewhat rough individuals, living their life the same way. They spent their day felling trees and their evenings drinking and making merry. I found it hard to imagine how they would adjust to life after being taken away from what they were used to. The only possible work they could now find was in the military, though they wouldn’t get the freedom to drink all night. I thought it best to put these independent souls on a separate level, away from the families. I must say they were not at all happy being forced to leave the planet. We only had to do two trips to this planet, as there were so many other ships involved in the evacuation. We had just over a two-day journey to make before reaching Alkarr. I had my doubts that we could complete the journey without any trouble from these individual souls. My suspicion soon came to fruition. Ellie was helping along with Jessica and Jasper to provide food to the lumberjacks and when one started the others sort of joined in.
One lumberjack started teasing Jasper, “Look at him, h
e’s all skin and bone, you’re not much use to anyone. Where on earth did you find him? Anyway, you should have left him there.”
Compared to them, Jasper was indeed slim, but that is no excuse to insult him. Ellie said, “Stop it! He is my husband and works hard. Please be more respectful.”
One of them repeated, “Be more respectful,” in a very sarcastic way. This made most of the other lumberjacks laugh loudly.
This brought Ellie close to tears. She then did the sensible thing, and she left with Jasper and Jessica. As she was leaving one shouted, “That’s it go, and don’t come back until he has some muscles on him.”
Ellie came to me with tears in her eyes and she then told me what had happened. I wasn’t going to condone their behaviour, so I said to Ellie, “Don’t take it to heart. I know they are rude, but it is probably their normal behaviour, to tease each other. You don’t have to tend to them any longer if you don’t want to. It will be best if you just look after the needs of the families. At least you will receive respect from them. I will get River to assist me, she will take no nonsense at all from those lumberjacks, mark my words.”
I had downloaded a library of documentaries from Earth, I intended to let River watch one each day just to keep her from getting bored. I can recall seeing something regarding the life of a lumberjack listed. I would play it on a monitor in the area where these lumberjacks were being accommodated. It might entertain them for an hour.
I went with River, and as soon as we entered one said, “Fresh bait has arrived. And by the looks of it, he could do with some more muscles on him.”
I was not such a pushover, I replied, “And you could do with your mouth being sewn up.” My comment brought laughter. They now knew I was perhaps not such a pushover. But before they could say anything else I said, “Right sit down, I have a small treat for you. On my home planet we too have lumberjacks and if you behave yourselves I will let you watch what they do.” They were now very intrigued and all sat down to see what would happen next. I played the documentary, even though they would not be able to understand what was being said, due to the language being English. I had them watching with curiosity and interest. All went quiet so River and I left them to it, though River wanted to watch the documentary. We did look in again twenty minutes later and they were riveted to the screen, only now they made the odd comment every so often about any difference between what they did and what they were watching, such as the use of chainsaws on Earth compared with laser saws, which they use.
I said to River, “You can watch that documentary on our outward journey to the next planet we have to evacuate. How about if we show another documentary for the family groups. There’s one on making chocolate biscuits that might be of interest.”
River replied, “Great, perhaps we can linger a while and watch it?”
I smiled knowing full well River would want to watch it, so I said, “You can, but I will need Emily or Alenna to chaperone me while you do.”
We had soon completed our task of returning the refugees to Alkarr. Over the next two months, we steadily went through the motion of evacuating each planet on the list in turn.
Up to now, we had not encountered any Silka, only coming across the odd frigate or gunship guarding a planet, but that situation did not last. As we arrived at the planet Gulldy, which was planet twenty-nine on our list, we encountered two Silka craft of a type not seen before. These ships were small, small as a frigate. They were lightly armed as they seemed to be some sort of reconnaissance craft. They did though, have star-drive capability. They had been taking pot-shots at any ship arriving at Gulldy. We found out later that they had inflicted some minor damage on two cargo ships. The occupants of one of these we knew quite well, as they shared the same port on Alkarr as we did. Their attention soon turned to us, believing we were not armed and made a path towards our freighter.
I had to act fast, I shouted to Ellie, “Take the helm, Ellie!” At the same time I was moving towards our weapons console, I at once started to charge our plasma cannon.
I didn’t expect Alenna to stay quiet for long. She was concerned and said, “Jake we need to turn, run and activate the illusion field”
I replied, “That is an option, but what about our friends and relatives, should we not think of them? What if your mother’s ship arrives and they fire on her ship, do you want that?”
I had Alenna where I wanted, she thought for a second and screamed, “No! Jake do what you have to.”
The Silka came straight towards me. I aimed the cannon at the first ship and fired. Its pilot was not expecting that. I hit the craft full-on, blowing it to smithereens in the process. The second craft hesitated as if the pilot was in shock. Just as I fired again it had started to turn. I clipped one side of the ship sending it into a spin towards Gulldy. It tumbled into the atmosphere of the planet and as it did, it turned into a fireball. Just like a large meteor streaking toward the surface of the planet, only it did not hit the surface as it burned up well before. I was strangely pleased with myself, in fact, I had no remorse at all for what I had done. It was simply them being destroyed or us. I chose them. We now landed at the specified port on the surface of the planet to a most glorious welcome. Standing on the planet were no fewer than twenty-three ships of various types. They were afraid to try and leave. They had seen us arrive and swiftly deal with the problem of the Silka. We, or should I say I, was undoubtedly their hero. I didn't expect the hero’s welcome that I received. I just pronounced with pride, “I am with you all the way!” Alenna was even proud of me. After this situation, a great many of those ships that were involved in the evacuations wanted to arrive at whatever planet we needed to evacuate at the very same time as we would arrive. We did our best to accommodate their request. I would arrive in orbit first, before waiting for the other ships to arrive. They would land in turn. This left our ship last to land and last to leave orbit. But we still arrived back at Alkarr before they had, with three exceptions. There were another three galaxy class freighters involved in the evacuations, though they didn’t have a plasma cannon fitted. Although there were no further encounters with the Silka, I believe it gave those families running the other ships some comfort in knowing that there was someone watching their backs.
We finally had the displeasure of evacuating Molk. Saying I was not at all pleased to do this was an understatement. Now, all these evacuated refugees would, of course, need accommodation back on Alkarr. We had been purposely holding back sharing our residence up to now. We would, of course, offer our residence to Jasper’s family. Our offer was taken up without hesitation, well, we were now related after all. Crying, yes there was a lot of crying, not just from Jasper’s family but all the families aboard our freighter. Though the younger children, many had never been in space, viewed it as a great adventure. We gave Jasper’s family the privilege of being alone and away from the other refugees during the trip. We did this by letting them have exclusive use of the large entertainment room during the return to Alkarr. I hardly saw Jasper during this time as he spent it with his family.
Like Lara’s family before, when I shared my man cave with her father, I had to share my man cave with Jasper’s father. As I already shared it with Jasper, it was not a problem. We would hide in the man cave. I experimented, trying several Earth made films on them. Most were not to their taste, I tried something different, old westerns. You know the type, the early ones that never showed any blood when being shot. The pair became hooked on them, I could not quite fathom out why. Anyway, there were many of these made, to keep them happy for some time if I restricted the watching of them a little. I now used a special fast translator. I fed the audio into this and it came out in Alkarren, not perfect, but it worked, well sort of, there was this annoying time lag where the speech is out of sync with lips moving. Of course, the watching of these westerns came along
with the almost compulsory alcohol based drink. I had a good supply of the drink known as ‘Nectar of the Moon.’ Jasper was quite sensible and did not get drunk, only merry, unlike my daft brother-in-law Tyrone.
Finally, we had finished evacuating the last planet on our list. Alenna announced, “We will be going to Earth in two weeks’ time. First, we need to do a run to Relnor with a cargo of rice. I have been reliably informed there had been some rationing of food during our absence. We will need to pack our cargo ship to the hilts with rice containers.”
Relnor was an industrial world and as such had somewhat neglected its agriculture sector, so much so that it now grew insufficient food to feed its population. Relnor had to rely on imports to make up the difference. I did manage to view the construction yards from a short distance away. It looked as if they were in a hurry to finish what ships they were building. It looked crowded with Relnorians frantically working hard, way past the usual time Relnorians knock off for the day. After returning to Alkarr we had some downtime, before our trip to Earth. We would spend two weeks at our new residence; two weeks over Christmas. I planned to do it right with the help of my sister and River, as River had joined in Christmas celebrations many times before. River and her family had been introduced to Christmas during the time they were being held in captivity on Earth, and she was excited and wanted desperately to help. River was especially looking forward to television programmes over the festive period. Christmas would not be complete without all the family being present. I insisted that Lara came with us. I would have thought about her all the time if she hadn’t, and that would have spoilt Christmas.
The Alliance in Peril Page 20