The Solarian Celebration: Book 3 of the Alliance Conflict (8 page)

Now, his hesitancy to expand his company’s borders was going to be a huge benefit.

They reached the supercenter and went shopping.  They purchased enough bedding, clothing, toiletries, entertainment consoles, furniture, food, drinks, and beds to comfortably house 16 people for the 11 day journey to Conron.

At the last moment, Crista put a large mirror into one of the shopping carts.  Victor looked at it and said, “Why do you need that?  You can simply order any of the monitors on the ship to simply create a reflective surface.  Plus, those can magnify several times.  This one cannot.”

Crista gave him a look in response that implied that she understood the limitations of the human mirror.  It also implied something else.

Victor recognized her look and replied, “You know, I changed my mind.  I think the mirror will be a great conversation starter.  It will look great in our apartment.”

They loaded everything into the truck, then waited rather impatiently for the store employees to load the 10 sets of mattresses and box springs into the vehicle.  Victor wanted to purchase 16 sets, but there were only 10 in inventory.  He figured that the humans would have to share beds or take turns sleeping or something.

Victor was rather scared that they would be caught and questioned for such a large purchase, but the employees didn’t question them at all.  However, just as he was closing the doors, one enterprising employee asked, “What are you going to do with all of the beds?”

Crista replied, “We are going to test their firmness in outer space.”

That seemed to mollify the employee, so they locked the doors and got into the truck.

Crista said, “Wait, we forgot towels.”

They walked back into the store and purchased 2 towels for everyone.  Towels were a critical item during close quarter space travel.  They certainly didn’t want the new recruits to wander around the ship without their towels. 

Fortunately, an employee found 6 more mattresses.  They were a different size, but would work.  Victor thanked the employee and indicated that he needed help getting them into the truck.

They drove the truck back to Victory Games.  Instead of parking the truck back in its spot, Victor pulled it into the hangar and directly into the main hold of the
Vista
.  Victor carefully parked it against the bulkhead.  This effectively blocked the doorway leading from the main hold to the control room.  Victor set the parking brake and chocked each wheel. 

They didn’t have the time or the desire to unload the truck and set up the sleeping area.  They were simply going to take the truck with them to Solaria.  However, Crista did take the mirror out of the truck and put it in their cabin.

Victor imagined that an actual truck from Earth would make an excellent attraction in Human Town.  They could park it next to their archery range and charge people admission to sit in the driver’s seat.  Victor locked the doors to the cab and grabbed the keys.

They walked through the secret passageway linking the hangar to Victor’s office.  Victor sat at his workstation and linked his communication pad to it.  He said, “Computer, list all employees of Victory Games that are single and have scored a minimum of 10,000 points in the fighter pilot simulation.

…Calculating.  There are exactly 16 Victory Games employees that meet the requisites…

Wow, 16 candidates.  That was far more that Victor was expecting.  He realized that he had forgotten to request their relative world ranking, so he said, “Computer, show the list again, this time with the pilot’s rankings.  Limit the list to the top 6 by ranking.”

The rankings were higher than Victor expected.  They had numbers 24, 199, 420, 1,222, 1,963, and 3,044.  Good enough, Victor thought.  He was certain that they could improve their rankings if they practiced more.  Victor sent each of the 6 employees an email requesting that they come to his office at precisely 8:30 am.

He said, “Computer, create a list of employees that are single and have qualified as an engineer or crew member in the simulation.”

…Listing.  There are 358 employees that fit the description…

Victor realized that he had set the parameters too broad.  He started over and only asked for people with technical or mechanical ability.  He found two factory maintenance workers that met all of the requirements.  The two mechanics also received emails.  He was below goal on crew members, so he would have to make up the difference with engineers. 

He requested a list of employees that had an engineering or science degree, were single, and had qualified as an engineer in the simulation.  His list now contained only 92 names.  He then broke the list of engineers down by function. 

He scanned the list and picked candidates in different fields of engineering.  He chose 3 electrical engineers, 2 computer science engineers, 2 mechanical engineers, and 1 industrial engineer.  These individuals also received emails.

Thirty minutes passed.  Victor couldn’t believe how nervous he was.  It was now 8:27 am and a group of people were approaching.  Apparently, they had collected in an office down the hall because all 16 entered his office at the exact same time.  Victor couldn’t believe the stroke of luck.  This was going to be easier than he expected.

Victor introduced himself and shook everyone’s hand.  He hadn’t realized it at the time, but he had chosen 8 males and 8 females.  Oddly enough, all of the fighter pilots were male.

He said, “I know that you are all wondering why I invited you here.  Your job performance the last few months has been exemplary.  I have selected you to join me for a special recognition breakfast.”

Crista opened the secret panel and revealed the corridor to the hangar.  Victor said, “The passageway leads to my private dining area.  Please, follow me.”

Victor led the way down the corridor and to the ship.  He stood at the entrance to the ship and waved each of them into the main hold.  As soon as the last one entered, Victor closed the hold and activated the sleeping gas canisters.

Crista locked the door to Victor’s office.  She turned off his work station and office lights.  Finally, she entered the secret passageway and closed the door behind her.  She walked down the corridor and joined Victor.  Together, they entered the mini-freighter via the personnel gangway.

Crista entered the secondary hold and then walked to the adjoining passageway to the main hold.  She peeked through the doorway to verify that everyone was still asleep.  Then she activated the kitchen and restroom units and left. 

She locked the doors to both the primary and secondary holds and activated the force field.  Unlike last time, they no longer had the steel cages to block the doors.  Crista ran her hand against the field and watched the red shimmer.  It didn’t feel very strong to her.  She hoped that the humans wouldn’t try to break through. 

Victor went to the control room and began preparing the mini-freighter for flight.  Once ready, he switched to blimp mode.  Specifically, he activated a special electronics package that made the mini-freighter look like a blimp on all human electronic tracking systems. 

If someone were visually looking in correct spot at the correct moment, they would be able to see that it didn’t look like a blimp.  However, the odds of visual detection were low and Victor really didn’t want to wait 11 hours to leave.

Crista reentered the control room and activated the electronic jamming package.  There were 6 settings and Crista chose setting number 4.  This was much higher than they had used previously, but they thought it was best to err on the side of caution.

Victor opened the hangar doors, engaged the sub-light engines, and launched.  Once they exited the Earth’s atmosphere, Victor increased the freighter’s speed to .07 light and set a course for the edge of Earth’s gravity field.  The computer indicated that the trip would last 13 hours.

Normally, they would micro-jump from the back-side of the moon to the edge of the system.  However, during their last trip they had been detected by Earth’s fledgling monitoring system. 

Victor didn’t want to risk getting detected because he didn’t want the Earth police to link the disappearance of 16 more humans to an extra-solar sighting.  There are enough conspiracies about the other 70 they had kidnapped.  He didn’t want to add polonium to the reaction.

During their first visit to Earth, Lorano had configured a portion of the Victory Games email server as secretmission.gov.  He programmed the hyperspace communicator located near Mars to send and receive emails on a weekly basis using that email address.

Victor spent the next couple of hours creating email accounts for the 16 new recruits and composing emails to the next of kin listed for each employee.  He may not be able to create as intricate a cover story as Lorano, but he could at a minimum say something to explain their disappearance. 

Victor created Solarian websphere accounts for the 16 humans and then linked them to their .gov email accounts.  This would allow them to send and receive emails.  Next he created a form letter and sent it to the next of kin listed for each employee.  It read:

Dear (Insert Next of Kin),

I have decided to participate in an experiment to study the effects of outer space on a human body.  I will be traveling to the jungles of France for several months.  I won’t be able to talk you, but I can send and receive email. 

My email account is (insert name)@secretmission.gov.  I am sorry that I couldn’t discuss it in advance, but it is a secret mission.

Love,

(Insert name here)

Finally, he wrote a goodbye email to Amy Weisman.  Crista demanded to proof read it. After reading, she declared it ready to go.  It read:

Dear Amy Weisman,

Crista and I have decided to take another extended vacation.  I understand that the timing is rather sudden and I apologize for not saying goodbye in person. 

I want you to know that I remain comfortable leaving the company under your capable guidance.  As before, please continue sending your weekly email update.

Sincerely,

Victor and Crista Tyrano

They reached the edge of Earth’s gravity.  Crista programmed the hyperspace navigational computer, double checked the coordinates, and ran a simulation.  She looked over at Victor and said, “I am ready, I guess.”

Victor slapped his ears.  Crista’s control collar activated and she winced in pain and grabbed her ears.  Victor slapped the top of his head and Crista winced again.  After the pain subsided she verified that the control collar had indeed activated and sent the hidden coordinates to the navigational system.

Crista said, “Ready to go.”

Victor replied, “Launch.”

Crista moved her finger toward the button and suddenly stopped.  She looked at Victor and said, “Uh oh.  I forgot the electro cart in your office.”

Victor shook his head and said, “Don’t worry about it.  The Humans will never find it.  Even if they do, they won’t be able to figure out what it is.”

Crista replied, “Well, the user manual shows 4 languages.”

Victor said, “Computer, can you connect to my workstation on Earth, then link to the electro cart?”

…Connection established, but there is a considerable delay from this distance...

Victor said, “Now, change the default language to Alliance basic.”

…Language default setting has been set…

Victor said, “Problem solved.”

Crista pressed the button and the ship jumped into hyperspace. 

“They are ready for you,” stated the guard.

Supreme Admiral Fruid’la didn’t like to be kept waiting, even by the High Council.  Someday, he thought, he wouldn’t have to report to this outdated group of nitwits.  Someday, he would be in charge and they would be irrelevant.  But unfortunately, that day was not today.

Fruid’la mentally reviewed his plan for the meeting – accept full credit for everything that went well and deflect blame for everything that did not.  This process had served him well in the past and he saw little reason why it wouldn’t work now.

Fruid’la entered the chamber and gave the traditional Hiriculan greeting.  He over exaggerated the final two moves.  This was supposed to convey humility and respect, but Fruid’la was literally going through the motions.

“We read your initial report, please tell us what happened in your own words.”

Fruid’la squinted to see which of the 12 council members had spoken.  However, he was unable to tell; primarily because the council sat on a raised dais about 1 meter above the rest of the floor.  Further, there was a ray of light shining from an overhead skylight.  It entered behind the council and was directed toward him. 

The effect was supposed to awe and intimidate visitors, but Fruid’la thought it was silly and made the council look weak.  When he seized power and disbanded the council, he would remove the dais from the chamber and close the skylight.  He wanted his subjects to be able to clearly see him.  On second thought, maybe he would leave the dais.  It couldn’t hurt to have his subjects looking up at him.

Fruid’la replied, “Is there any particular subject for which you seek my enlightenment?”

“Let’s start with Influenla.”

Fruid’la knew what the council was really asking.  They wanted to know how the Alliance prisoners escaped and also how they only needed one ship to do so.  Fruid’la decided that he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of a straight forward response.

He replied, “My plan worked brilliantly.  I started by repurposing an asteroid into an ion cannon base and placing a space station next to it.  I then leaked to the Alliance that there was a new space station in Influenla.  They sent a cruiser to investigate and I sent a Hiriculan cruiser to stop them.  This made the Alliance think that there was something of value on the station.  ”

He paused for a breath and continued, “Next I allowed two spies to discover that there was a secret military base on the station.  Then the Alliance sent an entire fleet to investigate.  They were so focused on the station that they flew right past the asteroid.  They were defeated at that point and didn’t even know it.”

Fruid’la: “I summoned my two hidden squadrons and we successfully delayed the Alliance fleet until they arrived.  The squadrons followed my battle plan exactly and we were able to maneuver the enemy fleet into the range of the ion cannons.  Then I sprung my trap.  It was perfect.  The entire Alliance fleet was completely boxed in between my two squadrons and the ion cannon.  They were forced to surrender.”

“Yes Admiral, well done.  Perhaps I should have been more specific with my question.  How did the prisoners escape?”

Admiral Fruid’la responded, “They were rescued.”

“Please tell us the complete story of exactly what happened.”

Okay, Fruid’la thought, play time is over.  His strategy was going well so far.  He had taken credit for what went well, now it was time to deflect the blame for what had not. 

Fruid’la lowered his ear stalks in an apparent sign of humility and said, “We tried to reassemble the events as best as possible.  However, there are still some gaps.  What we know for certain is that one lone Alliance cruiser, the
Sunflower
, viciously attacked the system.  They had no regard for life, property, or civilized behavior.  It was the most ruthless and underhanded attack ever.  It was in a word unimaginable.”

“Agreed.  This ship’s attack demonstrated a level of cruelty and viciousness that we did not think the Alliance possessed.”

Excellent,  Fruid’la had already managed to place much of the blame on the Advranki ship’s harsh behavior.  Surely he couldn’t be held accountable for not being able to predict the motivation and sheer callousness of an unpredictable enemy. 

He continued, “Clearly, the cruiser
Sunflower
is a rogue ship and its crew is without basic dignity.  The captain and crew need to be brought to justice.  I am sorry that I was not able to provide that justice.”

“Where do you think this behavior is from, Advranki, Altian, Solarian?”

Fruid’la responded, “I don’t think this behavior represents any race from the Alliance.  I personally believe that the ship was acting alone and without authorization.  However, I want to refocus the discussion for the moment on the battle.”

“Yes.  Please proceed.”

Fruid’la said, “The cruiser somehow managed to capture a meteoroid and accelerate it to well above .11 light and launch it through hyperspace on an exact trajectory.”  He paused to allow interruptions. 

None came, so he continued, “The gravity of our defensive asteroid forced it to return to real space.  The meteoroid traveled for only one second and struck and destroyed our asteroid, killing all 100 beings stationed there.”

“That was a horrendous action.  The tactic gave those people no chance to surrender or even escape.  That was cold, calculated murder.”

Fruid’la noted that the light and dais was having an effect.  Not being able to determine whether he was talking to one council member or all of them was making him uncomfortable.  He continued, “Then the
Sunflower
appeared in the system and launched 2 squadrons of fighters in less time than a normal ship takes to launch one.”

“How did they accomplish that?”

Fruid’la: “Admiral Plev’la and his research team still don’t know how the Alliance cruiser carried 40 fighters let alone launched them.  Further, he cannot even envision a method to duplicate the feat.” 

Fruid’la smiled inwardly as he managed to deflect the blame for the failure to the research and development department.

“Did you learn anything from the captured ships?”

Fortunately, Fruid’la had ordered a cursory inspection of every captured ship.  The inspection had been little more than a search for the ship’s name and recent jump locations, but hey, it counted.  It was again time to blame someone else.

Fruid’la said, “I was short of personnel because my people had to guard the prisoners, so I asked station commander Plot’ko to search all of the captured Alliance ships, including the 9 cruisers.  None of them were modified in any way to either store or launch more than their standard complement of fighters.”

“What about your hand-picked captain Clap’la.  His frigate was destroyed without a fight.”

Fruid’la had been worried about this question.  His normal response would be to throw Clap’la under the proverbial personnel hauler, but he knew that since he had personally selected him for a promotion, he couldn’t do that. 

Fruid’la responded, “Clap’la had less than twenty seconds from the time the first missile hit until the ship was destroyed.  Again, the fighter attack was brief and brutal.  The Alliance fighters did not give the frigate a chance to surrender.”

He paused for effect and continued, “After the asteroid exploded, Clap’la and the valiant crew of the frigate
Bloodlust
set a course for the asteroid to try to rescue any survivors.  The Alliance fighters used the confusion from the blast and the limited sensor range from the corresponding dust cloud to sneak up and obliterate him.”  Fruid’la pretended to sniffle and wiped a fake tear from his eye.

“Tell us about the fighter battle.”

Fruid’la: “The first 160 pilots that launched were Netos.  They were largely undisciplined and scattered instead of following my directions to attack in a formation.  That was the reason they were able to be defeated so easily.  I believe that Admiral Doak’la needs to review his training regimen for the Neto pilots.  Their performance was unsatisfactory.”

Scored another point, Fruid’la thought.  There were only 10 tier-1 admirals in the entire Hiriculan Navy and he had just successfully blamed two of them for failures.  The interview was going better than expected.

He paused for a breath and continued, “The final 80 pilots were Hiriculans.  They attacked using the standard over/under formation.  They would have destroyed an entire Alliance squadron in one pass, but the second Alliance squadron snuck up and destroyed the formation from behind.”  He emphasized the word behind to show his clear displeasure with the Alliance’s dishonorable strategy.

“Let’s discuss the command carrier
Retribution
.”

Time for the next scheduled personnel hauler, Fruid’la thought.  He responded, “As the council knows, the
Retribution
was a prototype.  There was only one level; the rest of the ship between the hulls was just empty space.” 

He let the words sit in silence for a moment and continued, “Therefore, when the first missile hit it, entire hull sections started falling off of it.  Once the damage was spotted, the Alliance offensive missiles did a remarkable job of avoiding our defensive measures and hitting the ship.”

Fruid’la continued, “Further, because it was a prototype, it wasn’t fully manned.  This lack of a proper staff was the reason that it performed so poorly during the battle.”

Unlike his counterparts in both the Alliance and the Hiriculan Navy, Fruid’la felt it was unnecessary to have a duplicate command staff aboard his ship.  Therefore, he served the role of both captain of the
Retribution
and fleet admiral.  His bridge officers therefore were also his command staff officers.  Further, he believed that the concept of a first officer was pointless. 

Overall, the concept worked okay for him because Fruid’la was a tireless leader that could grasp the big picture and focus on a small detail at the same time.  Therefore, he could operate the same size fleet as his enemies with significantly fewer people. 

Although the personnel savings was nice, Fruid’la liked the structure for another reason.  The streamlined structure ensured that there was no one aboard highly ranked enough to challenge his authority.

Unfortunately, just before the attack Admiral Fruid’la left the
Retribution
so that he could personally oversee the transfer of the Alliance prisoners from the Spindle Station to the return fleet.  To further compound the situation, he had taken all of the HAS soldiers and a large portion of the crewmembers from the ship to guard the Alliance prisoners.

As a result, when the battle occurred, the command carrier was significantly understaffed and there was a sizeable power vacuum in the command structure.  The weapons officer was technically in charge, but he had no experience with actual command.  The
Retribution
had underperformed and underwhelmed.

“So the next command carrier will have a proper command staff?”

Fruid’la knew that the council member wasn’t really asking.  He was in essence telling the admiral that from this point forward his command carrier must be properly staffed.  Oh well, this was expected, he thought.  He was certain that he could find some way to diminish the authority and influence of this new captain. 

He responded, “Yes.  The finished product will have a proper staff.”

“What was your final opinion of the new ship?”

Fruid’la: “There were several plusses.  I liked was the semi-independent sections.  When the missiles struck, the heavy hull plating between the sections directed the blast out the side of the ship instead of laterally throughout it.  This dramatically lessened the internal damage.  I have created a modification to the new design that will build upon this concept and make the production ship even better.”

“Good.  Tell me about the attack on the station?”

Fruid’la: “The station attack was in many ways more ruthless than the space battle.  The Alliance Armored Units (AAU’s) killed everyone in their path, rather horribly.  In some cases we had to perform DNA tests to piece the dead bodies back together.”

“Please explain.”

Fruid’la: “The AAU’s destroyed the control room and unfortunately the station commander did not have an off-site backup.  As a result the video record of the battle was lost.  My team tried to reconstruct the battle as best they could.”

Fruid’la: “They were able to determine that the Alliance utilized at least two new weapons.  The first was simply a long length of steel.  The AAU’s weakened the Hiriculan Armored Suits (HAS) shields. Then they shoved the length of steel through the armor and killed the occupant inside.”

“If the shields were down, why not just ask the HAS surrender?”

Fruid’la: “We just don’t know.  This attack was vicious and far more deadly than it needed to be.  The second weapon was some type of incendiary device.  It blew both a door and 5 unarmed and unarmored workers to little pieces.”

“Why didn’t they just electronically override the door using the passkey from the fallen HAS soldiers guarding the door?”

Fruid’la: “Again, we simply don’t know.  Once again, the battle broke with all traditional doctrine.  It was far, far deadlier and more gruesome than normal convention would dictate.”