The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (8 page)

“Yes.” Victor was focused on the preflight checklist and didn’t feel like going through the whole spiel again.

Lorano changed subjects. “Has everything I requested been loaded on the ship?”

Victor looked up and answered, “I think so, but I really don’t know for certain. I would really appreciate if you two could check before we leave. We will be a long way from the nearest resupply depot.”

Lorano and Carank took a tour of the mini-freighter. The freighter was long and narrow and laid out roughly like a cruiser – though much smaller. The power generator and hyperspace control unit was in the back of the ship. The holds were in the front. They were currently in the middle of the ship, in the control room. To their left and right were hallways and straight ahead was the gangway through which they had just entered the ship. It was still open, letting natural light flow into the control room.

They chose left, to the front of the ship. There were three holds in the front, all packed with equipment. The first two holds were literally packed from floor to ceiling with equipment. There was no room to enter, let alone walk through or take inventory.

Carank looked at Lorano. He said, “Well, since we can’t tell what is here, can you tell me what should be here?”

Lorano responded, “The large hold is filled with manufacturing equipment. We can make any component in the flight simulator.

Carank nodded and said, “Good.”

Lorano continued, “The second hold contains bedding for the humans, a habitation enclosure, and an additional life support unit. It also has an additional food processor, additional waste facility, backup equipment, and 4 complete fighter simulators.”

Carank could see the flight simulators as they had been the first things loaded in the second hold and were right by the door. He responded, “Nice.”

Lorano continued, “We will have to make significant modifications to the life support systems for the journey home. As you know, the normal crew for this size ship is between 4 – 8 people and we will be carrying 24. Plus, apparently we need to barter with precious metals, so there are four tons of gold in the hold.”

Carank responded, “Solear told me about that. I thought the Senate only gave us 1 ton?”

Lorano said, “Well, there was some confusion about the actual quantity. Eventually, it was interpreted as one ton for each person. Victor said the total is about 160 million US dollars.”

“Is that a lot?” Carank asked.

Lorano responded, “I have no idea. I don’t know how much lawyers charge.”

The third and smallest hold had some room to enter. Carank began scanning the room with his eyes, focusing on one piece of equipment and then moving on to the next.

Lorano said. This hold should have enough electronics and computer diagnostic equipment to build the…”

Carank spotted it. He interrupted Lorano and exclaimed, “I can’t believe they gave you a Model 345.22.14 diagnostic computer! We can analyze anything with that.”

Lorano responded, “Yes. As soon as we get underway we should turn this into a working lab.” Carank nodded affirmative. They returned to the control room and told Victor that everything that they needed was loaded.

They next checked the center of the mini-freighter. There were 6 cabins immediately behind of the control room. Carank noted that three of them had been converted into a single living area. There were three empty cabins on the other side. Lorano’s personal effects had been unceremoniously dumped in one cabin and Carank’s in another. The cabin nearest the control room was unoccupied.

Well, technically the third cabin was occupied, but not by a living being. The floor was filled with seven defensive missiles. The missiles were not very powerful and did not have enhanced electronic capability, meaning they would not be able to hit another ship with even rudimentary defensive systems. Their primary use was to clear the mini-freighter’s path if it was blocked by an asteroid.

Just after the cabins was the galley, entertainment area, and exercise facility. Just beyond this was the engine room. They entered and performed a quick check of both the hyperdrive unit and the power generator. Everything appeared to be in perfect working order.

They returned to the control room and sat down. Lorano said to Victor, “I like the missiles in the bedroom. Did you let Crista decorate?”

Carank snickered. He had noted that Lorano had been much better behaved since Crista had punched him. He made a mental note to practice that particular response.

Victor also laughed. He said,” The missiles are normally stored in the small hold. They are fed through the wall and into the slot (pointing down) here when fired. I loaded one missile into the tube launcher. If we need to fire any more, we will have to roll them across the hallway.”

Victor had completed the pre-flight check sheet. He also answered the corresponding six question pre-flight survey (his answers were fast, neat, average, friendly, good, good). He closed the door, signaled to Advranki control that he was ready to launch, and sent a warning beep through the ship.

“Mini-freighter
Vista
, this is Control. You are cleared to leave. Remember to use automatic guidance until you pass the outer edges of the planet.”

The automatic control system engaged and they gently lifted from the planet. For some unknown reason, this made Lorano cry. Carank had been around Clowy enough to know that Altians often had mood swings and tended to cry for no (or little) reason, but he hadn’t seen Lorano do it before this. His mandatory diversity training had taught him to just let the Altian cry and not to ask what was wrong. If Lorano wanted the others to know, he would mention it.

Victor must not have noticed, for he didn’t comment either. He gave the controls one final look and said, “Okay, we are going to be on autopilot for the next 14 hours, so you may as well get settled in.”

Carank noted it immediately, but Lorano responded faster, “14 hours? Isn’t that a little long.” Lorano had stopped crying almost as fast as he had started.

Victor responded by bringing up the planned path on the monitor. It showed that they had to bypass several ships and installations. He said, “This is the typical route for freighters.”

Lorano nodded and said, “I forgot we are not on a military vessel.” He pointed to the map and said, “Normally we get to go through this area and it only takes 4 - 6 hours.”

Carank asked as sarcastically as possible, “Well Lorano, do you want to call traffic control and see if they will give us a better path?”

Lorano briefly considered it, but they were trying to stay fairly incognito. Demanding a better route through the system would be a good way to draw unnecessary attention to their mission. He shook his head no, ending the conversation.

Lorano and Carank spent the next 14 hours organizing their cabins and starting to turn the 3
^rd
hold into an electronics lab. The rooms had been easy, the lab had been far more difficult. Everything in the lab was brand new and still in the box. Items had to be moved out into the hallway, unpacked, checked, initialized, moved back into the hold, and then organized into a cohesive unit. Victor had helped by removing boxes and clearing pathways.

They even had their first meal together. It consisted of the usual preserved packets, but Crista had surprised everyone by making a salad from fresh vegetables. Victor took a lot of pride discussing the salad. His main hobby is gardening, and he had planted a large garden between the inner and outer hulls. After dinner, Victor gave everyone a tour and discussed the finer points of space gardening.

They had reached the hyperspace corridor linking Advranki to Conron. The letters ‘ron’ is a shortened version of an Advranki word meaning transit station. The letters ‘con’ are from the name of the explorer who found the system.

The Altians had discovered Uselon and Waylon and had followed the Advranki custom of naming new systems. However, they changed the ‘ron’ to ‘lon’, which has no meaning in either language. Researchers today believe the reason for the name change was racial pride – the naming convention was close enough to the Advranki standard, but different enough so that everyone would know who discovered it.

The Hiriculans also have a similar naming convention for uninhabited systems they discovered or control. The system is named after the discoverer and the letters ‘la’ are added to the end. A rough translation of the suffix ‘la’ in Hiriculan would be ‘aggressively taking things’ or simply ‘warrior’.

The
Vista
received a hail and Victor immediately answered it. “This is traffic control. Please align your to ship to the attached coordinates. You may jump when you are ready.” Victor made the final course adjustments and hailed Crista to the control room. This made Carank and Lorano take a break and also head there.

Crista sat down at the pilot seat and Victor told her, “Set course for Conron.”

Making a jump into hyperspace is relatively easy. One simply types in the coordinates of the place in space to which they want to travel and engages the drive. The drive then uses time to curve space (without folding it) and allows the ship to travel along the peaks. Imagine the upper half of a sine wave or a humped camel. The ship travels from peak to peak (or hump to hump), bypassing everything in between.

So, theoretically, anyone could jump from any point to any other. However, bent space is particularly sensitive to gravity. This is why ships have to leave the gravity field of a planet and be far enough away from a star to jump. Further, since shields create a gravity field, they cannot be used in hyperspace. If a ship in hyperspace were to approach too closely to a body of gravity, it would ripped from the peaks and shoved back into real space.

Usually, one could then navigate around the gravity source and re-engage the hyperdrive. Sometimes though, this can damage the drive and strand the ship. Worse, the gravity source could be filled with asteroids or cosmic debris. Hitting debris while in hyperspace is deadly.

As a result, the Alliance was formed primarily to chart courses between systems and constantly monitor them to make sure they are safe. They also control traffic within the lane to ensure that no two ships are on the same path. The odds of hitting another ship in hyperspace is infinitesimal, but not zero.

Victor had found during their journey from Solaria to Advranki Prime that Crista enjoyed plotting courses and engaging the hyperdrive. This had been the first thing she had been truly interested in, so he gladly gave the navigation duties to her.

Crista entered the coordinates for Conron, double checked for accuracy, ran a computer simulation of the flight, performed a status check on the hyperdrive unit, and declared that they were ready to leave.

Victor said, “Engage the hyperdrive.” Crista could have easily just pressed the button after the status check, but somehow hearing the command to press the button made sense to her. Crista pressed the button and they disappeared from Advranki Prime.

Travel through hyperspace travel isn’t instantaneous. Time passes, but at a much slower pace than in real space. This phenomenon has led Advranki fiction writers to surmise that if one could find a way to stay in hyperspace without moving, one could live for three thousand years. So, the people on the ship felt like the jump had lasted 8 hours. However, in the rest of the universe, 80 hours (just over 3 days) had passed.

They exited hyperspace in the Conron system and updated their shipboard clock, downloaded any news feeds and warnings, and scanned the system. They set course for the hyperspace lane that leads to Earth. Victor contacted traffic control and requested clearance to micro jump to the Conron – Earth hyperspace lane.

Traffic control responded, “Sorry, your request for a micro jump is denied. Unfortunately, there are several loose asteroids and two comets in the system at the moment and we can’t risk jumping. You will have to take the long way through the system.”

It was a four day journey through the system at .01 light. Victor could have requested to be allowed to traverse the system at a faster speed, but he didn’t ask because he felt that this request would also be denied.

The Conron system has a large star with three gas giant planets. Each planet has several moons and there are abundant asteroids. Two of the moons are large enough to be planets in their own right, but they orbit the gas giants and not the sun. The Conron system, like the Opron system, has no planets, moons, or large rocks suitable for habitation.

Unlike Opron though, there are approximately 4 million Advranki living in the Conron system. Several of the moons are very rich in trace minerals, especially iron ore and copper. As a result, there is a thriving mining operation located here. There is also a commercial ship repair facility and a large space port.

The Alliance Navy maintains a small fleet in the system – usually one battleship, two destroyers and four cruisers. In addition, there is an Alliance Navy space station. The station is heavily armed and armored and helps protect the mining operation and the space port. The station only has two bays for ship repair, but it contains a massive fleet depot.

The
Vista
passed close enough to one of the mining operations that Carank and the others could watch from the monitor. The giant mining sphere rotated about the moon in a controlled, slow pattern. A giant laser was gently zapping the surface, throwing up debris that was collected by a large air scoop. The particles were then sorted, with useful items converted in raw materials and useless dust sprayed back toward the planet. The light viewed through the laser and the dust was remarkable. It looked like a cosmic rainbow.

Carank and Lorano used the time to finish the lab and were anxious to get started. Carank asked Victor for probably the fifth time, “Are you sure you don’t have any human electronics?”

At one point Lorano had a devious idea. He asked Victor, Carank, and Crista to help him move a large table a meter to the left. This was the first time Crista had entered the lab or shown any interest in the two scientists. After they left, Carank asked, “Lorano, did you get the scan?”