The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (29 page)

Frank said, “Hmmm. Well, that solution was certainly innovative.”

Lorano responded, “Thank you. Trust me when I tell you that it beats spending years trapped on Earth.”

Frank chuckled and nodded in agreement. He asked, “Can you travel back to Earth?”

Lorano noted he had been lying quite a bit lately; and it was all concerning Earth. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to protect the route to Earth, even from the Alliance Senators, but he felt it was necessary. They four crew members had all agreed that they would continue the lie as long as possible.

Lorano responded. “Well, yes and no. The
Vista
can retrace its steps and go back at any time. However, no other ship can follow the path.”

Frank was intensely curious at that statement. He asked, “Why only the
Vista
?”

Lorano answered, “Only a few people know this, so I recommend that you never repeat it. There is a way to bypass the coordinates entered in the hyperspace computer. We calculated the coordinates for the last two jumps without the aid of the navigational computer and entered the coordinates into the system manually.”

Korno asked, “I didn’t know anyone could manually calculate coordinates. That is amazing. Why did you bypass them?”

Frank answered for him. He said, “I know. You realized that the hyperspace lane was corrupted and you didn’t want the transponder to advertise a new route to Earth immediately after the old one was permanently closed. That was really smart.”

Lorano said, “Thank you. We suspected that the hyperspace lane getting closed wasn’t an accident and that you would want to keep the new path to the planet a secret. The reason that the
Vista
is the only ship that can make the jump is that the corrected coordinates are stored on it. Anyone trying the published route will die.”

Korno asked, “You are saying that anyone could manually by-pass coordinates. What is keeping everyone from using different routes than what they publish?”

Lorano thought that question was way too close for comfort. He often discounted politicians as talking heads, but he had to remind himself that most politicians (and these two in particular) were rather intelligent and had a knack for thinking during a conversation. If he had known the Earth term ‘thinking on his feet’, he probably would have used that to describe them.

Lorano responded, “It is extremely difficult to calculate a route manually. Calculating the first one is easier because you know the exact location from which you are jumping. After that, you don’t really know where you are or where you are going.”

Frank studied Lorano intensely. He could tell that Lorano was lying about some part of that story, or at a minimum, withholding information. Oh well, he thought, I know the most important fact. The hyperspace lane to Earth remains closed, but we can get a ship to Earth any time we need.

The four left Frank’s Senate office and returned to the spaceport. Carank summarized everyone’s feelings by saying, “Well, that was quite an adventure.”

Lorano, Crista, and Victor all nodded in agreement. Crista asked, “Do you think they will ask us to return to Earth to get more pilots?”

Lorano answered, “If the first batch do well, I would almost guarantee it.”

Carank looked at Victor and said, “Where are you headed?”

Victor said, “We plan to spend a few days on Advranki Prime visiting all of the tourist sites and going shopping. After that, we will return to Solaria for a month or two. Crista wants to see the stars on Opron, so we may head there as well in the next few months. After that, who knows?” He then looked at both of the scientists and said, “I hope your research goes well. We will probably need some new weapons if we actually have to fight the Hiriculans.”

Both Carank and Lorano thanked them. Then Carank said, “If you ever have any more questions from Earth, please don’t hesitate to call. I will help if I am able.”

It was a kind gesture, but Victor knew that help would be less forthcoming now that the recruiting mission had officially ended.

Carank left and headed for a shuttle that would take him to the research facility a few kilometers from here. Lorano had to go to a different part of the spaceport. There was a shuttle waiting that would take him to an Alliance Navy cruiser bound for Altian-1.

Chapter 14

Lorano waved goodbye to Carank and looked at his assigned landing platform where the shuttle was waiting for him. The pad number was 149.22.2. He had arranged a transport to take him there, but he realized it was only a few platforms away from where he was standing next to the
Vista
. He craned his neck to try to see it, but could not.

Lorano skipped the transport and just walked to the other pad. He thought it was odd that the pad was in the 149 series. This series was typically reserved for mini-freighters with interstellar cargo. Shuttles generally did not land in this area. Then he realized that the traffic control must have recognized his name and parked the shuttle as close as possible to accommodate him.

He thought about thanking them, but decided against it. That was their job after all. Lorano approached the platform and saw a white Solarian standing next to a mini-freighter. He double checked the pad number. This was pad 149.22.2.

The Solarian must have seen Lorano’s confusion, for he said, “Are you master scientist Lorano?” That wasn’t his title, but Lorano supposed it was close enough.

Lorano simply responded, “Yes.” He briefly considered saying ‘Hello human’, but the joke somehow seemed stale to him after spending time on Earth.

The Solarian said, “Hello. My name is Jack Dogbarks and this is the mini-freighter
Jackal
. The Alliance Senate didn’t want to waste your time by transferring you to a different ship in orbit. I am going take you the entire way to Altian.”

Lorano thought the ship’s name sounded familiar, but couldn’t immediately place form where he would have known it. However, Lorano was pleased with the private ship. It certainly made sense he thought.

Lorano said, “Excellent. Is anyone else coming?”

Jack replied, “Just you and me. The two main holds are filled with sea-moss balls.” Sea-moss balls are something of a delicacy on Altian. Lorano considered them more of an acquired taste that he had yet to acquire.

They entered the
Jackal
and Lorano noted that it was laid out exactly like the
Vista
. The ships looked the same age and Lorano suspected that they were probably the same model and series. They were definitely the same vintage. Lorano chose the middle guest cabin and opened the door. He was surprised to see that his baggage had already been placed in the room. He was becoming too predictable he thought.

Jack sat down in the control room and said, “I have to perform the preflight checklist. Can you check the 3
^rd
hold?”

Lorano walked to the third hold. He looked inside and saw all of his lab equipment from the Earth mission neatly stacked on three large shipping pallets. The pallets had been tightly wrapped in a static sheath that held the load together and protected it from radiation and external contamination. Lorano gave the pallets a brief scan. Again, the diagnostic computer and the flight simulators had been taken by the minor bureaucrat and returned to the Advranki Navy. The piles contained everything else.

Lorano returned to the control room and sat down. Jack received approval from traffic control and launched the freighter. He cleared the launch pad and switched to automatic navigation. Jack said, “We were given a very good route through Advranki airspace.”

Lorano replied, Oh?”

Jack showed their route on the monitor. He said, “Four hours to get to the Altian hyperspace lane, 6 hours in hyperspace, and 3 hours from the lane to the planet. We will touch down on Altian-1 in 13 hours.”

Lorano looked at the outlined path and realized they had in fact been given a really good route. The 13 shipboard hours technically translated into 2 days, 19 hours in real time. Lorano went ahead and corrected Jack.

They traveled the first two hours in uneasy silence. Lorano finally realized where he had heard of the
Jackal
. Jack Dogbarks was one of the Solarians that monitored Earth communications with Victor. In fact, Jack had been in Earth orbit when they arrived at the planet. He and Carank had hidden in the
Vista
’s space garden to avoid detection when Jack scanned their ship.

Lorano broke the silence by saying, “Jack, I have heard Victor Bullpeep mention you a couple of times. You and he were friends correct? You were one of the Solarians that monitored Earth.”

Jack smiled at the recognition. He said, “Yes, I was. Well, until the Alliance fired me anyway.” Lorano assumed he meant that the Alliance had decided to discontinue the constant monitoring of Earth.

Jack continued, “I don’t know if I would call Victor a friend. I think co-worker or colleague would be a better description of my relationship with Victor.”

Lorano nodded and said, “I see.”

Jack asked, “How did you two get to Earth? I didn’t see you when Victor and Crista arrived.”

Lorano realized that he would have to lie quickly and convincingly. The true reason for the trip to Earth was still a secret. Lorano said, “Victor and Crista came a little early to relieve you. Didn’t your sister win a wedding or something?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

Lorano waited for a moment, but Jack remained silent. Lorano said, “I, and another scientist named Carank, followed a week later in a corvette. We probably passed you in hyperspace.” Lorano smiled to try to sell the lie.

Jack snorted in derision at the word hyperspace. Lorano realized what must have happened. He said, “You must have been in route when the hyperspace lane was accidentally closed.”

Jack responded, “It wasn’t an accident. The Alliance intentionally closed the hyperspace lane to Earth and left me to die in it.”

Lorano wasn’t going to debate the point with Jack. His independent review of the accident had led him to the same conclusion. The Alliance had intentionally closed the lane. He chose a different tactic. He said, “If that’s true, then they left me to die on Earth as well.”

Jack looked at Lorano for a moment. It was clear from his expression that he hadn’t considered that. Jack said, “How did you get home?”

Since Lorano had already introduced the corvette, he decided to continue using it in the narrative. He also skipped the gravity missiles. He said, “We had really good gravity readings from our trip to Earth. We decided to jump to the start of the gravity anomaly. Then we carefully micro-jumped around it.”

Jack shook his head in understanding, so Lorano continued, “We put the corvette on autopilot and had it jump ahead of us. It would constantly send back gravity readings. After making it around the gravity anomaly, we thought we were safe. We decided to stay on the freighter to complete the report, so we continued to send the corvette in front of us. The corvette struck a boulder from the wayward asteroid and was destroyed. That is how we knew to bypass the end of the hyperspace lane.”

Jack responded, “You were lucky to have the second ship. I had to do it with only one.”

Lorano realized that Jack desperately wanted to tell his story, so he asked, “How were you able to return from Earth?”

Jack said, “Well, I was about 2/3 of the way back, just past the gravity anomaly that you were discussing, when I suddenly get blown out of the hyperspace lane by a massive gravity burst from the anomaly. It felt like the star in the unknown system must have gone nova or something.”

Jack continued, “I was asleep at the time. I jumped out of bed and checked the hyperspace unit. It wasn’t damaged, so I dropped out of hyperspace. Some of my other systems were fried. I knew that I had traveled well away from the hyperspace lane. I was unable to pinpoint exactly where I was.”

Lorano responded, “Yes. It is very difficult to plot a hyperspace jump if you don’t know exactly where you are.” Lorano realized that he couldn’t have gone that far off the lane in a few short minutes. He should have been able to estimate his location with a good degree of accuracy.

Jack said, “Exactly. I sat there for a day, trying to scan for a familiar location. It came back negative. I was truly lost in space.”

Jack paused for effect, and then continued, “I finally made a decision to try to jump to Solaria. I just set a course toward Solaria, plugged in an approximation of where I thought I was, and jumped for one hour. I figured I was dead anyway if this didn’t work, so it was worth the risk.”

Lorano said, “A fair assessment.” Lorano thought that Jack was correct. Jack could have sent a distress signal, but he would die of old age long before it would be detected.

Jack continued, “After exiting the 1
^st
jump, I scanned again for a day, tried to refine my coordinates, and made another 1 hour jump. I repeated several more times. It was a slow and arduous process, but eventually I made it back to Solaria. I was lucky that I didn’t hit anything.”

Lorano said, “That was amazing thinking. You must be quite skilled to pull off that feat of navigation.” Lorano figured he could have manually calculated that route with a toothpick and one of those boxes of sea-moss balls in the hold.

Jack apparently missed the sarcasm in the compliment. He said, “Thank you. Do you know the worst part?”

Lorano thought the worst part was being forced to listen to this story. He said, “No, what?”

Jack said, “The worst part was that nobody from Earth Alliance Monitoring had even recognized I was missing. No one cared. Not one person. I hate the Alliance for that!”

Lorano replied, “Not even your sister?”

Jack said, “Well yes, she was concerned when she heard the news that the hyperspace lane was closed and I wasn’t back yet. I missed her wedding.”

Lorano said, “That’s too bad. I am sure you can still get the happy couple a gift though.”

Jack said, “I would, except the Alliance gave me a severance package worth next to nothing.”

Lorano sighed in mock empathy. He recalled hearing Victor say that all of the members were given a sizeable severance package when the program was cancelled. Lorano considered mentioning that to Jack, but decided against it. He certainly didn’t want Jack to take out frustration with perceived pay inequity or the Alliance in general while he was aboard.