The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (3 page)

“Well, what I am to do now?” questioned Lorano.

The Captain responded, “Come to
Sunflower’s
bridge. It will be sealed for battle. You will be safe here even if
Sunflower
is struck by the destroyer’s ion cannon.”

Solear thought it was odd that Lorano wouldn’t have thought of that since he had basically designed the ship.
Sunflower
may not fly after a direct hit from the destroyer’s ion cannon, but the bridge would certainly be intact and functional.

“Thank you Captain,” Lorano responded. “However, I want you to know that I did in fact try to signal you earlier.”

“The message was garbled and we didn’t receive it. Something may be wrong with our communications gear. You can diagnose it yourself when you reach the bridge. No time for further discussion,” said Solear. “Go now!”

Fortunately, the communications equipment was located in the lowest section of the bridge, keeping Lorano away from the main section and the bridge crew. Hopefully, the task of reviewing the communications gear would keep Lorano busy for quite a while.

The cruiser is the second smallest designation of ship in the fleet. There are three other classes: corvette, destroyer, and battleship. In relative terms, a battleship is twice as big as a destroyer which is twice as big as a cruiser. A corvette is tiny in comparison and is used primarily to shuttle officers or important communications.

Fighters are technically the smallest vessel, but they are considered fighters, not ships. The final category of fleet vessel is a transport. A transport is just bigger than a fighter and can dock in a cruiser. It is considered a boat.

In literal terms though, a cruiser is really big. It is 100 meters long, 10 meters wide, and separated into five main areas. The bridge, located is in the center of the ship, is separately armored and has its own power generator. It is almost a ship within a ship. This generator serves as the backup power supply for the ship.

The back of the cruiser contains the main power generator, the hyper-drive unit, engineering, and crew quarters. There is also a small infirmary here. The front of the ship houses the fighter bay, maintenance area, missile storage, and the crew exercise / entertainment area. The ion cannon fills the entire lower section of the ship and the 5 missile launchers are spread evenly along each side of the hull, just above the cannon.

Each cruiser was manned by 50 people; 5 officers in the bridge, 5 people in engineering, 20 fighter pilots, and 20 for all other duties. During battle though, the 20 would split into 10 teams of two and man the missile launchers.

By this point the enemy had reached the engagement window and had launched all 60 fighters. They had changed course again and were now going in a large circle that would bring them back to weapons range in 25 minutes.

Fighters were a real problem for a capital ship. Because of their small size, they were difficult to target with either point defense lasers or missiles. Further, a fighter will fire a missile from a very short range, almost ensuring a hit. A direct hit on a shield generator node could destroy it and make a portion of the ship unshielded. Several fighters could then follow and target the unshielded area. The fear was that a coordinated fighter attack could damage the ship enough that it would not be able to jump into hyperspace.

Arean had signaled for the two females to return, verified Lorano was safely inside, sealed the bridge, and ordered the crew to battle stations. He then looked at the Captain and asked, “Shall we launch?”

The Captain nodded. Arean ordered the fighters to launch. Captain Solear contacted the other ships and ordered their fighters to launch as well.

“Proximity alert,” announced Clowy. “There is an object just off our port bow.”

Wait for it, thought the Captain. Calmly now! Just wait. No reason to respond.

“I have identified the bogey. It’s our fighter!” exclaimed Clowy.

A cheer went up through the bridge. It had only taken 5 minutes from the time the launch order was given until the first fighter was launched. One really never knew when or if the fighters would launch. He did notice though that the
Protector
had beaten the
Sunflower’s
launch by 20 seconds.

The enemy fighters had moved into their favorite configuration, the rectangle formation. There were three even rows of 20 fighters, with the top and bottom rows just slightly behind the middle row. The enemy fighters were the same shape, size, and configuration as the Alliance fighters. There were several minor cosmetic changes though. The atmospheric wings were swept back a little more, the coloring was different, and the fighter boasted a slightly different weapons package.

The original Alliance had included the Advranki, the Altians, and the Hiriculans. All was fine initially, but the Hiriculans became unhappy with the nearly everything. They argued about the best method to build ships, fleet training, Alliance space versus territorial space, breeding rights, and especially how the Alliance should be governed. After several years, they left the Alliance. After several more, they decided that they wanted to re-organize the Alliance with themselves as the ruling race and all others as “equal” (translation slightly lower class) partner races. The Solarians joined the Alliance shortly after the Hiriculans left.

All 60 Alliance fighters had launched and had set course for the enemy. They aligned into a straight rectangle formation of three rows of 20 fighters. This formation would limit the effectiveness of the enemy formation and basically create a situation of every fighter for himself. There hadn’t been an actual dogfight in the 38 years since the Hiriculans left the Alliance and Captain Solear doubted there would be one today.

He was wrong.

The enemy fighters in the lead group launched attack missiles. The two trailing wings launched counter attack missiles and prepared to loop. The loop was a classic maneuver. The upper fighters swoop up and then down and the lower fighters swoop down and then up. This aligns the nose of the fighter with the body of the opposing fighter and gives the pilot a devastating shot.

Commander Arean couldn’t believe the enemy had actually launched missiles. He was stunned, and for a moment couldn’t move. Fortunately, he remembered his training and said, “All fighters you are free to engage the enemy. Attack at will.”

The Alliance fighters launched an initial barrage of missiles and split formation to avoid the on-coming loop. Counter missiles sought missiles, missiles sought fighters and fighters tried to establish a lock on enemy fighters. The enemy fighters had broken past the initial engagement. Since both sets of fighters were facing each other during the initial pass, they were for the most part, now tail to tail. As the Alliance wing was turning for another pass, the enemy fighters had a choice – turn back toward the Alliance fighters or continue toward the Alliance cruisers.

Captain Solear tried to influence the enemy’s decision by ordering a full round of anti-fighter missiles to be fired. The enemy fighters turned away from the Alliance cruisers and up and away from the remaining Alliance fighters. It was clear the Hiriculan fighters were leaving.

The Alliance fighters easily had the range and speed to catch the enemy fighters before they rendezvoused with their ships. He considered ordering his fighters to pursue, but paused a moment. He said, “Computer, analysis.”

…The enemy fighters are retreating, but retain full combat capability. The Alliance fighters can engage them, but will be unable to do so until they are in range of the enemy’s capital ships. There is an 85% probability that our fighters will suffer nearly 50% casualties in a second pass…

That decided it. “Clowy, signal all fighters to return. Launch the recovery shuttle.”

“Should I directly signal the fighters to return?” she asked.

“Yes,” he responded, then said, “Carank, do you have a count on the fighters.”

Carank said, “Not yet. We are still receiving telemetry. I can confirm though that there are several life pods that need to be retrieved.”

As the fighters neared the cruisers and prepared to dock, Carank had finished the tally from the battle. The pass had literally decimated the Alliance fighters - six planes had been destroyed; their pilots dead. Eight more fighters had been destroyed, but their pilots had ejected in time. Eight others had been damaged to varying degrees, but were still flyable.

The enemy had fared much worse. Eighteen of their fighters had been destroyed, with no surviving pilots. Three others had been lightly damaged and were able to return to their fleet. The destroyer and the two cruisers picked up the remaining fighters and headed back toward the hyperspace lane that led toward Hiricula.

It was a tradition for the weapons officer to give a formal account of the battle when all surviving fighters were aboard. Carank stood and the other four crew members on the bridge joined him. He broadcast throughout the ship, “Today we launched 20 brave and noble fighters. They fought valiantly, scoring a total of 7 hits and 6 kills. Fourteen fighters returned and three additional pilots were recovered in life pods. Three were killed in the battle.”

After a moment of silent reflection by the bridge crew, Clowy announced, “We are receiving a hail from the
Justice.
”

“You’re welcome,” answered Lorano as he strode onto the bridge. “I have fixed the communications system. It was the secondary by-pass router.”

“Wait,” asked Clowy, “Why would we ever need to by-pass the secondary system?”

Lorano laughed and answered, “It doesn’t do that. The secondary by-pass router is technically the button you push to use the emergency back-up system. It had created a small feedback loop that was causing the issue. I had never seen one fail like that, it took me quite a while to diagnose it.”

Captain Solear looked over at Carank, who simply smiled back and winked knowingly. The Captain mouthed a thank you to Carank and said, “Clowy, please answer the hail.”

“Captain Solear,” said Captain Dalan, the captain of the
Justice
, “I had some of the debris from the enemy fighter brought on board. We found something unusual in the wreckage and really don’t know what it means. We need help analyzing it.”

Captain Solear was angry at himself for not thinking of inspecting the debris. The enemy had certainly acted strangely and there may be clues in the wreckage. From the sound of the message, the answer may be in the debris. He answered, “What is it, a new metal or type of weapon?”

“No. It is a trace of a biological fluid,” answered Dalan. He continued, “At least we think it is. We ran some standard tests and had the computer analyze it. We know that it isn’t a known coolant fluid from a fighter and it doesn’t appear to be Hiriculan blood.”

Captain Solear looked over at Lorano. He was sitting at a spare panel; his large, aqua eyes were focused on a minor detail of something. Solear gave a brief sigh, pulled in a new breath of air and said, “Lorano, we really need your help on this one. Please transfer over to the
Justice
and see if you can identify this fluid.”

Lorano answered, “I can’t Captain. My primary duty is to ensure that there is nothing wrong with
Sunflower
. If something goes wrong with the ship while I am away…”

‘I will feel terrible about it’, the Captain mentally finished the sentence.

“I will get a blemish on my record,” Lorano said.

“Lorano,” said the Captain, “You know that you are the only one in the taskforce with the skills and intelligence required to solve this problem. If the Hiriculans have developed a new technology or ability we don’t know, it could change everything. The situation could go from a dispute to a shooting war. Further, I promise I won’t move
Sunflower
until you complete the analysis.”

“Fine,” said Lorano, clearly making it sound like the request was a huge sacrifice.

Lorano left the bridge and headed for the shuttle. Engineering was kind enough to collect his gear and have it sent to the shuttle so that Lorano didn’t have to return there. About 15 minutes later Clowy announced that the shuttle had left
Sunflower
.

The captain said, “Ella, Clowy, you two go get some rest and maybe a snack. Not much is going to happen for the next few hours.”

They took the electro lift down a level to their crew quarters and went straight to the galley. Meals were mostly self-serve. Enter a selection and a preserved packet would be automatically heated to the correct temperature. Fortunately, both Altians and Solarians could eat the majority of Advranki foods, so they had a good selection. They each got a snack from the galley and went into Ella’s quarters.

There were six available rooms in the officer’s quarters, but only four were occupied. Ella and Clowy were on one side and Carank and Arean were on the opposite side. Fortunately, Lorano had chosen to stay in the engineering section.

Ella’s room was dominated by a large holographic picture viewer. Currently, it was showing a painting that featured a bird flying above a majestic rock canyon. Each week, Ella’s father would send a picture of his latest masterpiece and Ella would display it on the viewer. This was the third picture Ella had displayed since the voyage began. Ella’s father was a renowned painter and sculptor on Solaria. His work had even been chosen for the Alliance Senate chamber on Advranki Prime.

Clowy looked at the painting on the monitor and said, “Did your dad paint that one?”

“Yes,” Ella answered, “This is his latest painting. He titled the work
Bird Flying Over Canyon
. He traveled to the unpopulated area in the southern zone of Solaria to paint it. The military accompanied him to guard against wild animals and they had to tie everyone to the ground to ensure that they didn’t fall of the cliff. It was an exciting adventure; well to hear him describe it anyway.”

Clowy responded, “Wow, it is really beautiful.”

“So, do you like Lorano?” Ella asked Clowy.

“He’s okay,” she responded politically.

“No, I mean do you like, like him? Would you ever see yourself liking him?”