The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (9 page)

Lorano checked the results from the Model 345.22.14 diagnostic computer and smiled. He said, “Yes, now let’s see how her control collar works.” After studying it for an hour, they had worked out its essential functions.

Carank said, “So, it really isn’t intelligent, it is merely responding to input. Victor must have a monitor attached to his heart and nervous system. Any pain that Victor feels is amplified by the collar and sent to Crista’s corresponding nerve. It also has a failsafe that if it can’t detect Victor’s heartbeat it will kill Crista.’

Lorano nodded in agreement and said, “I wonder what the range is?” They couldn’t tell, even with the diagnostic computer.

After 4 boring days, they had finally reached the Earth hyperspace corridor. As they made the final approach to the lane, two large asteroids came into view. The asteroids were positioned on each side of the hyperspace lane.

The asteroids had been converted into a weapons platform and boasted an impressive array of missiles and ion cannons. One cannon was strong enough to vaporize a fully shielded battleship and the two asteroids combined had 16 of them. The asteroid also had 80 missile launchers and could automatically reload 10 times.

They were hailed by traffic control. Technically, they were hailed by the automated defense system that was guarding the entry to the hyperspace lane to Earth. After the unfortunate incident, the Alliance Senate had declared that travel to Earth was off-limits to nearly everyone.

…Ship registered as
Vista
, you are not cleared to pass. Please reverse course. If you approach any further, you will be vaporized for your safety…

Victor responded, “This ship was recently renamed. This ship was formerly the
Victoria
, and is on the list of ships allowed entry to Earth.”

…Ship registered as Vista is now allowed to pass. However, ship scans show unauthorized persons aboard. If you approach any further, you will be vaporized for your safety…

Victor responded, “We have been sent with orders directly from the Alliance Senate allowing the new crewmembers to pass.” He forwarded the orders to traffic control.

…If you approach any further, you will be vaporized for your safety…

Lorano suggested, “Let our computer try.”

Victor said, “Computer, try to convince the traffic computer to let us pass.”

…Now attempting. Estimate 75.6% chance of success…

… (Ship) Hey, what’s up…

… (Control) Just hanging out, no big thang, thinking of blowing some loser mini-freighter out of existence…

… (Ship) Cool, whatevs, but hey, we like totally need to pass…

… (Control) No can do little bro. I have specific orders from the Alliance council to only let white Solarians pass…

… (Ship) Hey, were cool! We have some really rad orders from the Alliance council sayin we can go to Earth and shit…

… (Control) True that. Just go. See if I care…

The
Vista
passed by the forts and entered the lane for the hyperspace corridor. The Alliance did not monitor this lane, so they received no further instructions from traffic control. The jump from Conron to Earth is easily the longest registered jump in Alliance charted space. It will take
Vista
just over 33 hours to traverse, roughly 14 days in real time.

Crista was again seated at the pilot’s chair. She entered the coordinates for Earth, double checked for accuracy, and ran a computer simulation of the flight and checked the status of the hyperdrive unit. She was confused by the results and asked for help.

All three men looked over her shoulder and stared at the results of the simulation. It said there was a 41% chance that the Vista would not make it to Earth. Victor stated, “Yes, that is normal. It always gives a high percent chance of failure.”

Lorano answered, “High? A high chance on failing a charted corridor, statistically speaking, is around .00034%. That percent chance is astronomical!”

Victor answered, “Yes, it is always high, but you are right, it does seem to be getting higher the last few times through. What would cause it to go up?”

Lorano entered lecture mode. He said, “More than likely the corridor is being impacted by a new source of gravity, or a change over time in the location of human system, or a degradation due to asteroids, or a wrinkle in the space-time fabric from a black hole. When was the last time that the coordinates were updated and re-charted.?”

Victor responded, “It hasn’t been updated since the incident 60 years ago. However, I travel the corridor at least twice a year. It’s safe. We can proceed.”

Crista interpreted that as “Engage hyperdrive” and squished the button, thus ending the debate. There was no way to turn around in hyperspace. They could feasibly exit hyperspace and turn around, but the risks of exiting prematurely were almost as great as staying the course.

The jump made everyone queasy. Lorano thought, or perhaps felt, that they were passing too closely to stars on a couple of occasions. The length of the trip, combined with the queasiness and the sensation that they would hit asteroids and/or stars made this the worst hyperspace voyage he had ever undertaken. “Never again,” he thought to himself. Then he corrected himself and thought, “Only one more time.” He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he would return to Earth.

Meanwhile, Carank had managed to get the flight simulator closest to the door operational. They were a few hours from Earth when Carank gave everyone the bad news. He said, “Does anyone know how to fly an Alliance fighter?”

“No. I don’t know how to fly a fighter,” said Victor.

Crista and Lorano intoned that they also didn’t know how to fly a fighter.

“I don’t know either,” said Carank. He added, “Now I know what we forgot. These flight simulators are brand new, the latest model, and are still in the box. They have never been used.”

“Okay,” said Lorano.

Carank said, “We don’t have a profile of a pilot taking the test. We have no way to judge good or bad. The simulator gives a score, but it is meaningless without a comparison. We may deliver humans that are so far below the standard that can’t even compete with the Netos.”

“Wait, I have it,” Lorano added, “We will simply use ourselves as the baseline. Each of us will try it and we should be able to construct a representative score from there. They all took a turn at flying the fighter through the simulation. Victor did the best, clearly aided by his experience as a pilot. Overall, though, none of them made it through the first obstacle.

“Ug,” said Victor.

“Wait, I have it,” Lorano added, “We will simply lie. Or more succinctly, we will find human pilots that can pass the test, then we give them a final grade of pass in the official system and conveniently omit their actual score.”

“Great,” said Victor. Everyone else agreed with the plan.

They exited hyperspace on the outer edge of the solar system, on the back side of Uranus. The initial planners of this route had chosen it because it was far from the gravitational pull of the sun and it was virtually undetectable from Earth.

Victor motioned to the scientists and said, “It is time to hide.” There was another Solarian vessel in the system that was currently monitoring human communications. They rotated every six months or so. Victor had arrived much earlier than expected and he knew that the other captain would be suspicious. Fortunately, he had thought of a cover story for his early arrival.

Unfortunately, Victor didn’t exactly trust the person he was relieving. He was concerned that if he exposed his true assignment, the other Solarian might simply land on the planet and grab some humans at random.

As a result, he had to hide the two non-Solarians from the other ship’s inevitable scan. The scanning systems on mini-freighters were relatively good; there was no way that the other captain would miss the Advranki and Altian aboard and surmise that something had changed.

Since Victor couldn’t hide them on the ship, he chose the only spot available. He hid them off of the ship. Specifically, he buried them in the dirt in the space garden between the two hulls. His associate wouldn’t think to scan there as that space is normally empty. Plus, the dirt will cover the passive scan that occurs when the scanner passes from the outer to the inner hull.

Crista calculated the next jump and executed it after the proper checks, double checks, computer simulation, and a verbal okay from Victor. This was an in-system micro jump. The jump only lasted a few minutes but cut off nearly three days of real time in-system travel.

When the
Vista
exited from the jump, it was immediately scanned and hailed by the aforementioned mini-freighter. Victor, with Crista by his side, answered the hail with a firm, “Hello Jack-ass.”

Jack Dogbarks, the captain of the
Jackal
, responded back, “Hello Victorless, what brings you back here so quickly? I wasn’t expecting you for another few months. Also, the name of your ship has changed, and I see that you have someone with you. Quite a few irregularities.”

Victor said, “Hey, I have some big news. First, this is Crista, my wife. We just got married on Solaria a few weeks ago.”

Jack interrupted, “Ah, now I understand the name change of the ship.” He continued, “Hello Crista, nice to meet you. I really like your necklace.”

Crista answered, “Thanks, I got it as a wedding present and I just can’t take it off.”

Victor added, “We came back early for you. Your sister won an all-expense paid wedding package at the Solaria Hotel. The package was for a certain weekend in just under a month. My wedding present to her is to relieve you early so that you can make it back to Solaria in time to attend.”

He forwarded her the revised wedding announcement and wished Jack a safe journey home. The free wedding had been a request to the Alliance Senate and had been readily approved. Immediately after the
Jackal
jumped to Uranus, Victor unearthed his colleagues.

Usually Victor and his counterparts stayed in high orbit around the planet, but on the few occasions they had to land, they had an established method for doing so. Victor turned on his electronic sensor array and set it to the lowest possible setting. The electronic array disrupted and/or absorbed all electronic signals. This package isn’t standard for a freighter; it was specially installed for Earth reconnaissance.

The array should hide the ship from human radar, but visual detection was still possible. An astute human closely watching his/her monitor might detect an absence of a signal and ascertain that something is hiding from electronic scans.

Victor said to no one in particular, “It is getting harder and harder to sneak into Earth. Soon, we won’t be able to make it undetected.”

Lorano felt the need the answer. He said, “Well, hopefully our mission will be a success and soon we won’t have to sneak back here anymore. Have you tried to pretend you were a human before this?”

Victor responded, “Yes. One time I landed and took a vacation. I went to a place called Thailand and went oyster fishing.”

Now curious, Carank asked, “How was it?”

Victor responded, “Well, one night in Bangkok I looked up and saw a triple rainbow. It was interesting evening to say the least.” Victor paused and smiled, then continued, “I caught a fish. But I haven’t been fishing since.”

The
Vista
made it through the upper atmosphere undetected and set a final course to the planet. Victor slightly re-configured the ship. Now, anyone looking up from the ground would see what appears to be a blimp. The Alliance secretly leased an abandoned building on Earth that was big enough to hold the freighter and Victor guided the ship directly to it.

Lorano asked, “Where are we?”

Victor answered, “We are landing in an old, abandoned hangar designed for dirigibles. The place is called Akron, Ohio.”

Carank asked, “Victor, what is a dirigible?” Victor shook his head that he didn’t know, so Carank said, “Computer, what is a dirigible?”

…Scanning Earth references, estimate 92.3% percent accuracy. A dirigible is a giant balloon about 2/3 the size of this freighter that was filled with hydrogen. Humans used to fly around in them, but they are not used today. They have been replaced with blimps and hot air balloons…

The computer showed a video of humans riding in a hot air balloon. Carank said, “So humans fly around in tiny basket supported by a big ball of hot air. That is insane!”

Crista thought it might be fun to try.

Chapter 5

They began unpacking the first two holds into the hangar and organizing into three large piles. The first pile was the manufacturing equipment, the second was the equipment needed to modify the freighter for the return trip, and the third was the pile of gold.

Victor had been on the planet before and knew that he needed to convert the gold into money. Usually, he would go to a local pawn shop, but this time he knew he needed to establish himself properly. Victor had Lorano hack into the government database and create false identities for he and Crista.

Victor had insisted using an alias. He changed their names to Victor and Crista Tyrano. He reasoned that if the humans ever connected to the database in Solaria, they wouldn’t be able to discover that he was actually a Solarian citizen. Armed with convincing passports and Ohio drivers licenses, Victor loaded a few bars into two backpacks, handed one to Crista, and said, “Well Crista Tyrano, are you ready to start a new adventure?”

Crista asked if she could remain in the hangar. She didn’t feel like going.

Victor answered, “No, you have to go. We are inseparable.” He neglected to mention that this was because he had no idea how far away he could get from Crista before her head exploded.

Crista desperately wanted to kick Victor, but she restrained herself. So, instead she said as sarcastically as possible, “I can’t wait to get eaten.”

They exited the hangar and started walking to the nearest bank. It was about a kilometer to the west. They made small talk and Crista tried to speak in English. In an interesting twist, Alliance basic is a simplified version of English. Since she could speak Alliance basic, she could already speak passable English, but several subject/verb agreements were different. She sounded like a foreigner.