Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth (18 page)

“Mars colony,” I said once more addressing the people there.  “We will be in orbit around the planet in about 2 hours and 45 minutes.  Our ship is quite large, and you should be able to see us from the surface without use of a telescope.”

“You’re… you’re for real?  What was that language you were speaking a minute ago?”

“That was the official Federation Language; I was asking my captain how long it would take to reach Mars from here.”

“You’re going to make it from Saturn to Mars in 2 hours and 45 minutes? But how?

“I’m no scientist,” I said, "however, we have some here who will gladly discuss it if you like.”

“You said you’re from Earth but have been living in this Federation for some time.  How did you escape from Earth?”

“It’s a long story; I left Earth over 60 years ago your time, though for me it’s only been about three years.  Look, I’ll explain it all to you in a little while.”

“Hold on-- the base commander would like to talk to you,” The Russian accented voice said.

“This is Captain Slater of the Allied Earth force speaking.  Who am I addressing?” spoke a new voice of authority.

“My name is Thibodaux James Renwalt. I am originally from Earth, but I am now a citizen of the Galactic Federation some light-years from Earth.  We’ve been monitoring transmissions from Earth and recently learned of the asteroid that seems to have impacted the Earth.  I came to see if I could offer any assistance.”

“Assistance?  What kind of assistance can you provide?”

“I don’t know, what do you need?  Food, water, transportation, medical treatments?  If you like, I can take all of you to some place better suited for life than Mars.”

“Son, there are 143 of us here.  There were 181 but 38 have perished over the past from accidents and disease.  You got enough room for 143 people on your ship?”

“Captain we have room for 143, and a lot more besides.”

“That must be one hell of a ship you’ve got.”

“Captain, I’m sure we can accommodate all of you without any difficulty.”

“Tibby,” Stonbersa called from the side.  “Could we talk a minute in private?”

I was feeling pretty excited and happy about finding survivors from Earth on Mars, so I was taken aback by the gravity of Stonbersa’s tone and look.

“Excuse me Captain Slater, can you hold a minute while I talk to one of my officers?”

“Certainly, we’re not going anyplace down here,” the Captain said.

I turned to the Stonbersa, “Certainly Commodore, shall we use the briefing room?”  The Commodore nodded at me and led the way into the adjacent room.”

“What’s on your mind?” I asked, as I entered the room and the door closed.  “Tibby, I don’t know much of your language but I know a little from listening to the songs you’ve taught Kerabac and it sounds to me like you are planning to bring these people aboard the
NEW ORLEANS
.  I know these people are from your home world, but what do you know about them?  It’s been 60 years since you left Earth; do you know what ideals these people support or anything about their nature?  How do you know they won’t try to take over the ship if you bring them aboard?"

The Commodore’s words sobered me for a moment. I knew the world had been involved in a global war and truly I had no idea what these individuals on this planet were like.  I was so happy to find survivors that I just assumed that they would be friendly.

“I see your point, but we just can’t leave them here.  Without external support and supplies their likelihood of surviving much longer are very limited.”

“I’m not suggesting you leave them here, but I am suggesting that you not bring them all aboard at one time and that you move cautiously and evaluate their political agendas.  I would suggest you bring only a handful of their senior people first for a meeting and then move slowly from there.”

“Point taken, Commodore.  We’ll allow a few of their senior officers to come aboard for a meeting and check them out.  I also want to have some of our people visit their facility and look it over as well.  Before we take any of them aboard as passengers, I want them all given our standard loyalty test, and if we do take them on as refugees, they will have restrictions from certain portions of the ship until we can assess their individual motives.  How does that sound to you?”

“Good, but I would also like to have heightened security aboard and guards at the entrance to the bridge and engine room.  If your Earthlings question it, I would suggest you simply tell them it’s standard operational procedure on this ship.”

“Ok, I’ll agree to that, but it feels strange to me treating my fellow Earthlings like this.”

“Tibby, I have seen some of the reports on your Earth’s history from the Federation recon satellites, and from the looks of it, your planet has never been at peace.  Countries were always spying on each other and trying to steal each other’s technology.  I find it hard to be very trusting of people who harbor such an aggressive and warlike nature.  Frankly, I am shocked to find you come from such a planet, because you hardly fit the image that I get from the broadcasts I’ve seen.”

“Honestly, Commodore, it’s not really all that different on Earth than it is in the Federation.  The only thing is you have it all condensed on one planet and over several countries instead of over a galaxy and hundreds of planets.  I suspect our broadcasts make it seem a lot worse than it actually was.”

“I just realized I’m probably the only one on the ship who knows enough English to communicate with the Mars colony, and I’m assuming that they all speak English.  After all, it is an international colony.  I wonder if when Cantolla performed the brain scan on me for the learning band, it recorded my language?  If it did, she can use the learning band to teach it to some of the crew before we bring visitors aboard.”

“Tibby, I know for a fact that she did, because Commander Wabussie contacted her for a copy to use in training the FSO agents who have been scanning broadcasts from Earth. I have used it myself, so I could view some of the transmissions forwarded to me by Wabussie.”

I quickly contacted Cantolla and asked her to use the learning band to teach as many of the crew English as she could in the next few hours, starting with my senior staff first, and then the housekeeping staff that would be encountering them.  Cantolla said it would not be a problem, as she could download all the data into the main ship's computer, and that each crew member had their own learning bands in their quarters, accessing and learning English (as I knew it) in about 20 minutes.  She said it was so simple a procedure that she had made the download while we were talking.  Once I ended my conversation with her, Stonbersa issued an order to the entire crew to use their learning headbands at their earliest convenience before the Mars crew boarded the ship.”

By the time I returned to the bridge, we were entering orbit around Mars.  “Open another channel to the colony,” I said to Verona.  By now A’Lappe had joined us on the bridge and was busy at a control console monitoring scanners that were reading things on the surface.

“Tibby, you should know they have a weapons system and have it tracking our ship.  It’s very primitive by Federation standards and not any real threat to us, our Reverse Magnetic Force Field can handle anything they might use to attack us; but if our shields were turned off, they could do some minor damage to the
NEW ORLEANS
."

I nodded to A’Lappe and then began speaking as Verona activated the com link to the planet.  “Mars colony, this is Tibby Renwalt on the space yacht
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, are you reading me?”

“Roger that, did you say
NEW ORLEANS
?  That was the name of an Earth City!”

“NEW ORLEANS
is where I was from on Earth, I named my ship after the city.”

“Excuse me sir, but is that YOUR ship that we are seeing on our screens?  The one in orbit now?”

“Unless there is another ship up here, it is.”

“You call that a ship?  It’s HUGE.  Your ship could carry hundreds of the ships that brought us here.”

“If you think this is large, you should see a Federation star ship; they're several times larger than this ship.  Is Captain Slater there?”

“Yes sir, one moment sir.”

“Mars colony, do you have vision transmission capabilities?  We’re picking up sound but no visual images.”

“Yes sir, we do, but we’re not picking up anything from you, either.”

I turned to A’Lappe.  “Could you look and see why we aren’t picking up each other’s visual images?”   A’Lappe turned back to his console and began to look at various readouts while making several adjustments to the controls.  Suddenly an image appeared on the screen of a small room with electronic gear in it and a man in his early 30’s; he had light brown hair and wore a khaki colored shirt and matching slacks.  “We have your image now,” the young man said.  As he spoke, an older man who appeared to be in his late 40’s stepped up to the screen.  He too was dressed in a khaki colored uniform, and I noticed captain bars on his shirt.

“This is Captain Slater, he said.  That’s quite some ship you have up there.”

“It’s even more impressive inside, Captain,” I replied.  “I would be pleased to have you and a few of your senior staff join me this evening aboard my ship for dinner and to discuss the events that have transpired since I left Earth over 60 years ago.”

“We’d be honored to accept your offer, but I’m afraid we have no means to reach you, as we no longer have any craft capable of achieving orbit.”

“That is not a problem, Captain.  We have ample means to transport you to the ship.  Just let us know where we can land a craft and how many of you to expect for dinner, and we’ll come down and pick you up.

“Could you give me a few minutes to consult with my staff and determine how many of us there will be, and let me get back to you in about 30 minutes?”

“Certainly Captain, we’ll keep the link open on our end, just notify us when you are ready.”

I saw the captain nod to someone out of camera view and then the screen went blank.

“What do you suppose they are doing now?”  Kala asked me.

“I suspect he is doing just what he said; contacting senior people in various departments, trying to decide who should come and who should stay and maintain things until they return.”

“How many people do you think will come up?”  Kala pondered.

“My guess would be no more than ten, most likely six.  I imagine that their food selection on the planet has been very limited, and I’m betting they have little to no meat at all, so I’m hoping we have enough fubalo steaks onboard to give them a real treat.”

Kala laughed.  “You’d do anything to have fubalo steaks as often as possible.  It’s a good thing we don’t have several cases of Lyonian wine, or you’d insist we serve that too.”

“We still have the bottle that we received from the maître d' at
Tezu Lagong
.  We never drank it since we were there.”

Kala gave me one of those looks that indicate disbelief.  “Tib I don’t think one bottle would be enough for your staff and your guests from Mars.”

“I wasn’t thinking of them, I was thinking of you and me.  It would make for a nice evening before the fireplace listening to some soothing jazz.”  I wiggled my eyebrows as I said the last.

“Sounds wonderful, but we're going to need to wait for about seven months before we can do that.”

“Seven months?  Why do we need to wait so long?” I said with some dismay.

Kala gave me a quick stare and then looked down at her abdomen.  Suddenly, it hit me; I had forgotten for the moment that she was pregnant.  “Oh, you’re right!”

Just then Captain Slater appeared on the com screen. “
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, this is Captain Slater, I’ve spoken with my team here, and there will be seven of us accepting your offer to visit your ship.  There is a small landing pad on the one side of our facility; we’ll turn the landing lights on so you know where to land.  I’m hoping you have a craft small enough for our pad.  I am afraid there is no place here large enough for your ship to land.”

“We have a number of ships aboard of all sizes, so that won’t be a problem.  The
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never lands; it’s much too large to land and always stays in space.”

“Might I ask a favor for myself and those accompanying me?”  Slater began.  “We have a bit of a water shortage here on Mars, and as a result we've had to ration rather strictly.  We’ve been restricted to bathing once a week and only for a very brief time. I fear we might be somewhat unpleasant to be around.  Would it be possible for us to shower on your ship before we dine?”

“Most definitely, Captain.  We have an ample supply of water and even have several swimming pools aboard the ship.  The ship has numerous cleaning units that can clean your clothing while you bathe.  How soon would you like for us to pick you up?”

“Give us an hour, and we should be ready.  I’ll make sure the landing lights are on at the landing pad, and you can send your transport craft down at any time.

“Kala, could you get with Piesew and have him arrange for some facilities for our guests to freshen up, and Marranalis, could you see to a shuttle to bring our guests up?”