The Solarian Celebration: Book 3 of the Alliance Conflict (5 page)

Solear wanted to respond ‘You don’t understand’, but the problem was that they did understand.  During the 2
nd
battle of Influenla, Admiral Dolen had chosen to surrender in order to save the lives of all beings – Alliance and Hiriculan.  Further, he did it with the full understanding that he would become a prisoner of war and that his (and everyone serving below him) military career was effectively over.

Solear responded, “Admiral, the Hiriculans knew our operational details.  That information was only known by the Alliance Senate and your staff.  Someone close to you leaked the information.  You must find the source.”

Olova said, “Perhaps the release of information was inadvertent.  Maybe the Hiriculans have our headquarters or computer systems bugged.  We will need to do a thorough review and check everyone and everything.”

Admiral Dolen said, “Solear, I am sorry that it turned out this way.  If you hadn’t rescued us, Olova and I would be forced to retire and you would probably be the one leading the Navy.  I know the situation seems rather ironic.”

Solear responded, “I understand.  I will send you the equipment and personnel list very soon.”  He turned and continued back to his transport shuttle.

……………………

Ella docked the
Jackal t
o the
Sunflower
.  She told Jack to stay on the ship because she was only going to be gone for a few minutes.  Ella extended the tube transfer and verified it was connected to both ships.  She then swam across and disappeared from Jack’s view.

Paul was waiting and caught her when she landed.  She noted that the entire caribou corridor was filled with humans.  They were standing along both walls.  Paul set her upright and everyone began clapping.  Ella hugged several of the people beside her and thanked everyone for the warm welcome.

Ella then proceeded to the bridge.  The reunion on the bridge was brief, but very emotional.  Clowy immediately started crying when she saw Ella.  Lexxi approached and Ella insisted on hugging both of them at the same time.  She even gave Putat a small hug.

Ella asked, “Where is Captain Solear?”

Lexxi responded, “Captain Solear took a transport to the flagship.  I assume that he has to give a report about the battle.”

Ella sighed and said, “I have seen too much death and destruction.  I am ready to retire.  Please excuse me while I pack.” 

She started walking toward the electro lift and stopped.  Her bags were already packed and sitting beside the electro lift.  Her picture viewer was sitting on top of them.  There was another set of bags to the left of hers and two sets on the right.

Ella asked, “What is this?”

Clowy said, “What is what?”

Ella responded, “The bags.  Thank you for packing my bags.  Why are all of your bags packed as well?”

Putat responded first, “I have been reassigned to the Conron Naval Supply Depot.  My shuttle is arriving in a few minutes.”

Clowy responded next, “Both Lexxi and I retired the moment that we reached Conron.  We were hoping that you would give us a ride to Solaria?”

“Why?” Ella asked.

Lexxi twirled and said, “Because apparently the entire planet is throwing a gigantic party and Clowy and I are the guests of honor.”

It was Ella’s turn to say “What?”

Lexxi continued, “We received official invitations to the celebration from the Solarian government.”  Lexxi opened the invitation on her communication pad and showed it to Ella.

Lexxi: “Remember, we were part of the team that shot gravity tracking missiles through hyperspace and found Old Solaria.  The team included Lorano, Carank, Clowy, Solear, and myself.  Solear and I traveled to the actual system and got some pictures and long range scans, but were unable to land on the planet due to the high radiation.

Clowy said, “Hopefully, Jack has room for two more.”

Ella responded, “Oh, I am sure he won’t mind having you as guests.  Solaria is only a two day journey from here.”

……………………

Jack watched Ella swim through the passageway onto the
Sunflower
.  He could see several humans standing there waiting for her.  He knew that his evidence of humans in the Alliance was good, but he wanted unquestionable proof of their existence.

Jack waited until most of the humans had cleared and decided to swim across.  He was just about to enter when he realized that his skin was white.  Although the white skin was perfect for trying to fit in as a human on Earth, he knew he couldn’t fool a tightknit group of humans.

Jack painted his face blue and then put on a pair of gloves.  He attached a hidden camera to his vest.  He realized that he didn’t have much time; the visit to the ship would have to be quick.  Jack swam across the connector tube and landed feet first on the
Sunflower
.

There were two humans still standing the corridor.  They turned and faced Jack immediately as he landed.  Jack said, “Hello, I am Jack Dogbarks.  I am Ella’s friend.  I was docked at the Spindle Station when it was attacked.”

Jack wanted to say that he had given Ella a ride from the station to here, but he realized that the statement was obvious.  Instead, Jack said, “Pardon the interruption, Ella told me that her father painted the hallway and I wanted to see it for myself.”

One of the Humans said, “Hello, I am Jim Donovan and this is Paul Smith.”

Jack reached out and shook the hands of both men.  Jim said, “I am impressed, few people seem to know that custom.”

Jack laughed and replied, “Thank you.  I have watched many Human movies.”

Jack walked a few paces down the hallway and the same number back.  The caribou painted on the walls dutifully leaped beside him.  Jack was amazed.  The painting was really something to behold.

Jack turned so that he was looking directly at the humans.  He wanted to ensure that he got a great picture of them.  He said, “Ella was right.  This corridor is a true masterpiece.”

Jack reached the connector tube and swam back to the
Jackal
.  He saw that there was a message blinking on his com pad.  Jack said, “Computer, play message.”

…The message is from Ella Birdsong.  Jack, I have some good news.  My two friends and fellow bridge officers also just retired from the Navy and are going to join us on our flight to Solaria.  We will be there in a couple of minutes.  Oh, please paint your face blue, I don’t want to confuse them…

Jack wondered if he could detach the transfer tube and leave before they arrived.  He turned back around and saw that Ella was already swimming through.  He caught her and set her on her feet. 

Ella whispered, “That was quick.”

Jack realized that she was referring to his blue face.  He held up his hands to reveal his gloves and whispered back, “I only had time to do half of the job.”

Ella introduced Clowy and Lexxi as Jack caught them.  Jack then showed them the two spare cabins. After they placed their belongings in their respective rooms, Jack said, “Please ladies, let me give you a tour of the mini-freighter.”

Clowy responded, “What freighter?”

Jack showed them the main hold and discussed that he was carrying detailed components for the new office building on Solaria.  Jack downplayed that the cargo was from Hiricula.  He guessed that they may still be upset about losing a few humans during the rescue operation.  However, he now knew that they were apparently fairly easy to replace.

Finally, Jack led them into the entertainment room.  He showed them the workstation and helped Ella hang her picture viewer on one wall.  Jack then showed them his extensive collection of human movies.  He asked Lexxi, “Well, what do you think?”

Lexxi looked around disdainfully and said, “That suicide is an option.”

Jack was about to comment further when the three females started an in depth conversation about the spas available on Solaria.  Apparently their first priority upon landing was a complete hair and nail make-over.

It was going to be a long three days – even if the 10 to 1 time dilation meant that he technically only had to spend 15 hours with them.  It was his ship and if he wanted to exaggerate time for effect, he was certainly allowed.

Jack looked longingly at the two cryostasis tubes.  Those two were the lucky ones, he thought. Perhaps he should unfreeze them and get in one of the tubes himself.

“Anything?” Lorano asked for probably the 10
th
time that day.

Carank was in hearing range, but didn’t bother to respond.  He hadn’t responded the last 6 times either.

Lorano stood up and walked around the control room, looking at the various tracking devices.  They were in the Waylon system, stationed on a hyperspace charting platform. 

The Waylon system consisted of an average star with five planets.  The system was unusual in that all five planets were clustered very close together and were very high in raw materials such as iron ore and polonium.  It appeared that at one time the five planets were probably one giant asteroid that was struck by a meteoroid and splintered.

Carank and Lorano had arrived in the Waylon system approximately three months ago.  Their assignment was to use the hyperspace gravity missiles that Lorano had invented to try to find the missing home-world of the Solarians, affectionately called Old Solaria. 

They were initially accompanied by the
Sunflower
, but it left on a high priority mission a few weeks ago.  The two scientists had been alone on the station since.

They were currently sitting in the control room of their hyperspace charting platform.  The fancily named hyperspace charting platform was in reality simply a drilling platform and its corresponding control sphere and living quarters. 

The drilling platform wasn’t being used; the scientists were located in the control sphere.  The conversion from mining control sphere to hyperspace charting platform had been straightforward – the Navy had simply dragged the structures to the Waylon system and changed their name.

The
Sunflower
had fired 3 batches of 2,000 missiles each into hyperspace in three different directions.  The missiles constantly sent back their gravity reading.  If the gravity spiked, it meant that the missile found a source of gravity.  This method was much faster and far more economical than the previous method of charting hyperspace lanes.

The first set of missiles had been fired missiles from Waylon toward Dunron and Hepitila.  These missiles found a gravity anomaly exactly where Old Solaria was supposed to be.  Captain Solear and Lexxi flew there and found a system exactly where Old Solaria was supposed to be.  However, severe radiation limited their ability to scan the planet and prevented them from approaching it.

The scan of the assumed location of Old Solaria revealed only the triangular tip of what appeared to be a being-made structure.  They were unable to verify whether it was the top of a pyramid or simply a large stone that had been oddly weathered. 

Despite this, the team announced to the universe that they had found Old Solaria.  Their reasoning at the time was that the planet was in the correct location, suffered from severe radiation per legend, and had some proof of earlier habitation.  The Solarians rejoiced when they received the news and invited the scientists to be the guests of honor in a worldwide celebration. 

Lorano chose an interesting target for the next batch of missiles.  The first 1,000 missiles were targeted directly at the planet Solaria and the second 1,000 were targeted just below Solaria.  This set was intended to find and chart the exact location of the gravity anomaly that had bothered their navigation system during their original hyperspace jump from Conron to Earth.

This batch of missiles did indeed locate a gravitational anomaly.  Lorano was convinced that it was an undiscovered system and was anxious to go there and investigate.  However, they couldn’t leave until the experiment concluded.

Lorano decided to essentially waste the third and final set of missiles.  He programmed courses that would send the missiles in a broad arc away from all known systems.  This area of space to his knowledge had never been explored. 

He set the self-destruction timer on the missiles for 50 hours.  After 50 hours, the signal would be so faint that the equipment would have severe difficulty tracking the missiles.  Further, 50 hours was well beyond the range of a ship’s jump engine. Lorano doubted they would find anything, but thought it would be fun to try. 

The missiles were 33 hours into their 50 hour hyperspace journey.  Although they only had seventeen hours of flight time remaining, because of the 10 – 1 time distortion in hyperspace, it would take another 170 hours (or 7 days) to finish tracking them.  Further, it had ceased to be fun a long time ago.

So far, the missiles had found nothing in this particular direction.  However, that failed to change over the course of the day. 

Lorano summarized, “The last batch of missiles appears to be a complete and utter waste of time.  It seems we spent the last 14 days here for nothing.”

Carank responded, “Yes.  However, no one has ever looked in that area of space before.  It was certainly worth a try.”

Lorano nodded.  They had had this conversation many times over the course of the last two weeks.  He said, “Let’s cut the experiment short.  We have just enough time to investigate the mystery system before we head to Solaria.”

This wasn’t the first time Lorano had suggested this course of action.  By Carank’s count, it was the 27
th
.  He had said no the 26 previous times, explaining that they had to finish the research and delete all of the programs before leaving.  They couldn’t let the computers and/or the results of the searches fall into unscrupulous appendages.

This time though Carank changed his answer.  He replied, “Let’s download all of the information we have gathered thus far to our personal com pads.  Next, we will delete all of the files in the main computer.  Then we can turn off the automatic data recording.  If one of the missiles detects anything during the last 17 hours, we will have the computer send the information to the navigational beacon.  No one would look for the information there.”

Lorano asked, “What about the hardware?  What if someone arrives in the system?”

“Simple,” Carank responded, “If the navigational beacon detects a ship in the system other than the
Buzzkill
or the
Sunflower
, the computer will wipe its operational code and reboot.  The hardware is useless without the tracking software.”

They took just under 3 hours to write the necessary programs, pack their luggage, and load the corvette
Buzzkill
.  Lorano set the course for the nearest point outside Waylon’s gravity and engaged the plasma drive.

It took 6 hours to fly to the nearest point where they could jump out of the system.  It was also the location they had used to launch the hyperspace charting missiles and the location where Solear and Lexxi had departed for Old Solaria.  Therefore, they weren’t too concerned about jumping from there. 

Lorano had become rather adept at manually calculating hyperspace jumps.  He typed a false set into the navigational computer, ran a simulation, and confirmed them.  Then he typed in the correct coordinates for the 6 hour jump to the uncharted system and engaged the hyper drive.

They exited hyperspace and Carank activated the passive scanners.  Since nothing of interest had happened in the system for the past 8 hours, or for that matter the last 800 years, the passive scan was able to build an accurate picture of the system relatively quickly. 

The system’s sun was classified as a G3, about the same size and luminosity as the Earth’s sun, but just a touch cooler.  The system contained 7 planets total, 5 solid core planets spread out fairly close to the sun and two gas giants farther out.

Lorano exclaimed, “There’s a ZOKAJA!”

Carank wasn’t thinking very clearly at the moment and responded, “What is that?”

Lorano entered lecture mode and responded, “The acronym, my uneducated partner, stands for circumstellar habitable zone.”

Carank interrupted his lecture and said, “Wouldn’t that be CHZ?”

Lorano laughed and continued, “Yes, in Alliance Basic it would be CHZ I suppose.  Sorry, I used the Altian acronym. Anyway, the habitable zone is the range of distances from a star where a planet’s temperature allows liquid water oceans.  The ability of a planet to create and sustain water as a liquid is the key to its habitability.”

Lorano paused and continued, “Well, one that doesn’t require significant terraforming that is.”

Carank began studying the scan.  He said, “The planet sits .98 astronomical units from the system’s sun, or just about the same distance that Earth is from its sun.  Further, the planet appears to have an atmosphere.”

Lorano corrected Carank by saying, “.2 astronomical units is roughly 3,000,000 kilometers.  All things being equal, the temperatures on this planet should average 3- 5 degrees warmer than Earth.”

Carank was thrilled.  The odds of finding a planet in the habitable zone was about 1 in 4.  Finding one with an atmosphere and possibly capable of supporting life is much, much smaller, about 1 in 328.

Carank completed his review of the passive scan and said, “We can’t learn much else unless we get much closer and actively scan the planet.”

Lorano replied, “We still have time, provided we take a more direct route we take from here to Solaria?”

Carank: “Meaning?”

Lorano: “Meaning that we have the navigational data required to jump from here directly to Solaria.  If we go directly there, we can shave just over 10 days from our journey.”

Carank added, “That also means that we now have the ability to jump from Solaria to Earth.  We have essentially created a new hyperspace lane.”

Lorano said, “True, we will have protect that information.  We will have to be careful when we announce that we found this system to only give it in relation to Waylon.” 

Carank: “Do you think that is wise?  Perhaps we should give it in relation to either Conron or Solaria or even Uselon.  I don’t know if we really want beings in Waylon.”

Lorano: “True.”

Carank was a touch surprised by the succinct response.  He said, “Switching subjects, what do you think we should call the system?”

Lorano: “Well, we have something of a conundrum.  By standard naming convention, we should name it Lorlon after me or Carron after you.  Or we could combine the letters and get something like Localon or possibly Caloron.”

Carank said, “Hmmmm…” for a moment and replied, “I like the sound of Caloron.  It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” replied Lorano.  “Localon is my favorite so far.”

Carank: “I suppose it doesn’t matter.  If the system has a habitable planet, then the system will be named after the race that gets possession of it.”

Lorano put his fingers up one at a time and said, “Altian 4, Advranki 4, Solaria 2, and Earth 2.  Maybe we could split the planet 4 ways.”

Carank:  “Yes, we could take one letter from each race’s home planet and average the numbers.  Let’s see…”  Carank thought for a moment and continued, “I guess that would make it Asea 3.”

Lorano said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t count our planets before they are habitable.”

Lorano plotted a hyperspace course to the planet.  The planets were roughly aligned at the moment and the planet in question was in front of the others.  It was similar to a runner in the third lane of a circular track being in front of his competitors. 

This planetary configuration allowed them to plot a hyperspace course that let them to avoid the gravity waves of all of the other planets.  The net result was that they were able to micro jump almost the entire way to the planet.

He announced, “We’re in luck.  There is a clear path to the habitable planet.  We can make an 4 minute micro jump and only have to travel 20 minutes at .02 light to reach the outskirts of the atmosphere.”

Lorano engaged the drive and the corvette
Buzzkill
made the brief jump to the outskirts of the planet.  They continued at .02 light until they reached the outer atmosphere.  Lorano activated both the passive and active scanners.  He immediately noted that they had jumped the light because the passive scanners still showed the
Buzzkill
on the far side of the system.

Carank looked over and said, “You would think that the computer would have the sense to recognize itself and adjust accordingly.  It shows us as being in two places at once.”

Lorano responded, “Perhaps that can will be subject of your next research project.  I could put in a recommendation for you at the Academy of Sciences. 

The computer must have interpreted the comment as a command them because the shadow image of the
Buzzkill
suddenly disappeared from the scan several minutes before it should have.

Carank laughed and said, “See, problem solved.”

The
Buzzkill
began a detailed scan of the surface.  Lorano checked the navigation systems and said, “It will take the ship about 4 hours to complete the full rotation around the planet.”

Carank responded, “Computer, display the first set of pictures and scan readings on the main monitor.”  Both Lorano and Carank turned their attention to the scans. 

Lorano said, “Computer.  Please give an initial summary.”

…The planet has a diameter of 6,272 km (3920 miles).  Its mass is 97.2% of the intergalactic standard mass of Advranki Prime.  The planet has one moon, located 368,000 kilometers (230,000 miles) from the planet.  It has a diameter of 1,638 km (1,024 mi)…