The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (21 page)

Solear approached her and gently removed the earphones. He said, “Hello, I am Solear, the captain, this is Ella, the pilot, Clowy, the communications officer, and Arean, the commander. What is your name?”

The girl made a giant huffing sound and gave her Advranki name of Lexocougti Illenoutee. Then she said in Advranki, “Why are you speaking in Alliance basic?”

Solear responded in Alliance basic, “So that all crewmembers can understand you. Also, Alliance basic is the official language of the Navy.

To her credit, she responded in perfect Alliance basic, “My Alliance name is Lexxi, with two ‘x’s and no ending ‘e’.”

Solear said, “That spelling is unusual. Shouldn’t it have been spelled L-e-x-i-e?”

She replied, “I can spell it any way I want to spell it.”

Solear smiled and said, “Well, I suppose you can.”

Ella fortunately interrupted the conversation. She said, “All supplies are loaded and we have priority clearance from traffic control. We are ready leave.”

Solear nodded and Ella began guiding
Sunflower
toward the Advranki Prime – Conron hyperspace lane. With the priority clearance they would be ready to jump in 3 hours - versus the 14 hours it had taken the
Vista
to navigate to the same location.

Solear thought about the weapons officer position. The role was possibly the most difficult of the three lieutenant roles (navigation, communications, and weapons). The primary responsibility was to guide the duties of the maintenance crew. This included creating work schedules, prioritizing maintenance tasks, ordering spare parts, and keeping the fighters and the ship in perfect shape. During battle, the weapons officer is responsible for firing the missiles.

Navigation was more straightforward. The primary duty was to pilot the ship, both in real time travel and hyperspace. They had a simulator on board for practice, so it was feasible that they could teach Lexxi how to fly and how to calculate hyperspace coordinates. The secondary duty was to supervise the engineering crew. Engineering ensured that the power generator, secondary generator, hyperspace drive, shields, ion cannon, and the fighter’s plasma reactors were functioning properly.

Communications officer was the easiest of the three roles. This officer literally handled all of the ship’s communications including incoming and outgoing mail and filing all necessary paperwork. All other miscellaneous roles were usually handled by this officer as well. They could probably quickly train Lexxi to perform at least some parts of this role, but Solear had doubts that Clowy could learn the weapon’s officer duties.

This left him with a quandary. They could continue doing what they had been doing for the last four months, e.g. Solear was personally handling the supervision of maintenance and Arean was manning the weapons console when required. Hopefully, they find some role that Lexxi could perform and possibly more important, was willing to perform.

Solear said, “Clowy, can you take Lexxi down to the officer’s quarters and get her settled into a spare room. Then, get her dressed into an appropriate uniform. Afterward, we can begin her training.”

Clowy led Lexxi down to the officer’s quarters. She was about to give Lexxi a grand tour of the area when she noticed that Lexxi had donned her headphones again. She led Lexxi to an empty room, tapped her to get her attention and said, “This is your room. Please come back up to the bridge area when you have completed unpacking. There are uniforms in the closet.”

The uniforms were smart fabric. They could stretch and contract nearly three sizes and the fabric was able to regulate the temperature of the wearer. If the person was cold, the uniform would trap body heat. If the person was hot, the fabric would breathe and allow cooling. The uniform was two pieces, a pair of pants and a shirt that fit together seamlessly when worn.

The secondary function of the outfit was to protect the wearer from decompression and loss of oxygen on the ship. The outfit, combined with gloves, boots, and a helmet, was essentially a light weight version of a space suit. The helmet contained compressed air canisters and could provide 20 minutes of air. There were special plug-ins spaced throughout the ship that crewmembers could plug into that would provide air to the suit. So, it was feasible that a fully suited, plugged-in crewmember could survive indefinitely in a decompressed section.

Oddly enough though, the gloves, helmet, and boots were uncomfortable, so they were seldom if ever worn. Also, for further comfort, there was a short sleeve version of the shirt. The short sleeve option could not protect against atmosphere loss, but it was really comfortable so the tradeoff was well worth it. The crew called them skin suits.

Lexxi sat on the bed and opened her bag. She proceeded to dump the entire contents of the bag into the middle of the floor. She made no further effort to organize anything and put her headphones back on. Clowy went to the closet and laid out an appropriately sized uniform. Clowy said as pleasantly as possible, “Please get dressed and I will show you the rest of the bridge.”

Lexxi responded with a rude hand gesture. She then kicked the uniform on the floor next to the pile, grabbed her communication pad, and began intently studying it.

Clowy returned to the main bridge. Captain Solear asked, “How did it go?”

Clowy responded, “How did what go?”

Solear said, “The tour; how did the tour go?”

Clowy answered, “I think Lexxi may need a little extra time to unpack.”

Ella said, “We have arrived at the entryway to the hyperspace corridor. The coordinates to Conron have been entered and confirmed. The simulation shows green and the hyperspace generator is ready. We have clearance from traffic control to leave.”

Solear said, “Proceed.”

Ella pressed the hyperspace button and the
Sunflower
effortlessly transitioned into hyperspace and started the 8 hour journey to Conron. Ella verified the countdown clock was correct and set the ship in autopilot. It was possible to steer in hyperspace, but it was very, very dangerous because a sudden change in direction could shear the ship apart.

Captain Solear said “Clowy, all-hands.” When she established the connection Solear said, “This is the Captain. We have been assigned to not one, but two secret missions. Please meet me in the hangar bay.”

The officers left the bridge and walked down the main hallway toward the hangar. Captain Solear watched the caribou running beside them and the sunflowers waving in the breeze. He had been yelled at by Admiral Dolen for going way over budget on his repairs. Solear had given the Admiral a tour of the corridor and Dolen had eventually agreed that the effect was stunning. Ella had told him that shortly after the tour, Admiral Dolen had contacted her father, Fletcher Birdsong, and requested he paint
Guardian’s
main corridor.

Solear scanned all of the faces gathered. The three officers were standing in front as they had entered the bay with him. He then counted the crewmembers and confirmed all were present. All 25 were Advranki: 18 males and 7 females. He spotted Lexxi standing in beside the other Advranki females. He hoped they would be a good influence for her.

Captain Solear said, “Please, sit down and get comfortable.” Most sat on the deck floor. He continued, “Now, this is not a joke, so try not to panic. First, we are going to Conron to replace our fighter pilots with a new wing. The 20 new pilots are real, living, breathing humans from Earth.”

Solear stopped talking and observed the bridge crew. One of the crewmembers still standing almost fell and had to be caught by the two standing next to her. Nearly everyone reacted with shock and grumblings about not wanting to be someone’s dinner.

Solear waved his hands to quiet them down. When there was near silence, one crewmember asked, “How are we going to protect ourselves? The humans will kill us if they get a chance.”

Another yelled, “Whose idea was this?

And yet another said, “Humans aren’t even in the Alliance. How are they allowed to join the Navy?”

Solear waved his hands for silence again. When he could speak he said, “I believe that the humans are going to be given temporary Solarian citizen status.”

Someone else said, “No one is going to believe they are Solarians.”

Solear said, “Well, no. They are just going to be given citizen status so that they can join the Navy. We aren’t going to try to fool anyone into believing that they are Solarians.”

The first crewmember that spoke repeated his question, “What about our safety?”

Solear answered, “We are going to construct force fields at every junction of the main corridor. We are also going to move the pilots’ quarters, washroom, and galley to the entertainment area. This way the humans will never need to leave the front of the cruiser.”

One of the engineers asked, “Okay, but how are we going to enter the hangar to work on the fighters or unload a transport?”

Solear answered, “There will be a force field separating the human’s living area from the hangar. When we need to use the hangar, we will tell all of the humans to vacate it and lock them in their living area.”

The engineer followed with, “What if they won’t move or we somehow get trapped in the same room with one?”

Solear answered, “We are going to install sleeping canisters throughout the main areas. If you are trapped with one you can simply release the gas. You will both fall asleep, but you will survive.”

The engineering and maintenance crews started installing the force fields and making the necessary modifications to the entertainment area immediately after Captain Solear finished his speech. They made this their top priority. Well, technically it was their only priority. Solear was personally supervising the installations. He thought that the crew had never worked this quickly on any other task before.

When the ship exited hyperspace the crew had the force fields in place and functioning. Each force field was uniquely numbered and labeled. Each crew member had recorded the words ‘Computer, x force field now’. When the computer heard that command it would verify the voice against the prerecorded voices and would activate the force field only if the command was given by a valid crewmember. It would not respond to any other voices, i.e. the humans. The computer would activate all force fields on the command ‘Computer all force fields now’.

The gas canisters had also been placed throughout the main corridor, all rooms directly off of it, the hangar, and the soon to be pilots’ quarters. Like the force fields, a crewmember could give a verbal command to the computer to activate the canisters in an individual room or all of them.

The canisters and force fields could also be activated on everyone’s communication pad. The pad had an application that showed a schematic of the ship and the location of the canisters and the force fields. A canister / force field could be activated by pressing the relevant icon.

The
Sunflower
was hailed by traffic control. The traffic cop recognized Solear from his last escapade in the system and said, “Welcome back Captain Solear. Hopefully, you aren’t planning on doing anything as crazy as your last visit?”

Solear said, “Possibly crazier. We’ll see. I need priority clearance through the system to the Conron – Earth hyperspace lane.”

Traffic control responded, “Yes captain, please use the course I am forwarding to you.” He added, “The lane remains closed, no ships have come or gone from it since it was accidentally closed.”

There was still too much debris in the system for the cruiser to safely micro jump through the system. As a result, they would have to fly from the Advranki hyperspace lane to the Earth hyperspace lane on ionic power. The trip normally took 4 days. However, Captain Solear ordered the ship to .2 light, effectively cutting a full day from the trip. They would arrive at the meeting point exactly 21 days after Lorano had sent his message.

The maintenance crew completed remodeling the entertainment area into a functioning living area for the humans. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the quarters in the rest of the ship, but it would have to do. The sleeping area was laid out oddly similar to that in the
Vista
. It consisted of 10 sets of self-sealing bunk beds and 20 closets in a separate walled off area with independent lighting. The wash room, living area, kitchen, and dining area were similar as well.

By the time the
Sunflower
had made the three day journey across Conron, all of the required modifications were complete. As they were approaching one of the two stationary forts guarding the Earth – Conron hyperspace route, Lexxi appeared on the bridge and sat down at the weapons station. They had made some progress at teaching her where to sit and how to aim and fire the ion cannon and the missiles.

Lexxi was wearing a new outfit; an approximation of the smart fabric uniform. It appeared that she had a talent for modifying clothing because she had significantly changed her skin suit. She had chosen the short sleeve version of the top, but had cut off the bottom portion of it, exposing her midriff. She had chosen a pair of pants that were four sizes too small and had proceeded to cut off the legs, creating a pair of shorts that hugged her bottom.

Captain Solear wanted to send her back to her quarters to put on an appropriate outfit. However, he hesitated because she had finally taken some interest in the bridge operation. He decided to ignore the non-regulation clothing and said, “Lexxi, please perform a weapons status check.

Lexxi replied, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Oh well, Solear thought, at least she had responded. It was progress.

Ella announced that they had arrived at their destination. Captain Solear responded, “Ella, bring the ship to a full stop.”

Ella replied, “The ship is stationary. What do we do now?”

Captain Solear said, “We wait.”

Chapter 11

The human fighter pilots were running the battleship simulation again. They had discussed Lorano’s words at length and had not been able to make any progress. As the 20 fighters launched from their cruiser and flew toward the enemy destroyer, Jim Donovan again said, “Guys, There has to be someone out here who will help us. The alien basically said so.”