I doubted it as the temperature in this region can vary from minus five centigrade during the night to plus fifty centigrade during the day. Not many plants could tolerate that wide difference. The Plenngy like most plants would release oxygen and if some of the carbon dioxide was converted to oxygen the greenhouse effect may be reduced. If it did that may also cause problems. The night would be colder and as the gravity is lower on the moon some oxygen may be lost to space, but I don’t know enough about the subject so I can’t confirm that.
I just replied to her, “You will have to do some research. Also you will need to inform the moon’s regional administration about this, as they may not want the moon to be contaminated by strange plants.’’
We returned to the safety of the dome and after saying our goodbyes to everyone, I flew our shuttle back to Alkarr. On arrival Pooky ran up to me. She was much exited as she had received the information she had been longing for.
Pooky almost screamed at me, “Uncle, my application been accepted, I am going to the Alliance defence training academy on Lusianian. Isn’t that just fantastic?’’
I replied, “That is great news, when do you go? And how is your mother taking it?’’
Pooky replied, “Mum is not happy at all and keeps crying and I will be leaving in three months’ time, where I will be joining the next intake.’’
I entered our residence where my first job to do was hand Alenna my list and photographs. Alenna then carefully copied down everything onto her master copy. Now Lumi came hurrying in with beams all over her face and wanted to see and talk to me alone. We went and sat in the garden.
“Lumi you look very excited about something, what’s up?’’ I asked.
Lumi could hardly hold her excitement and said, “I have been for a scan and guess what… I am having twins, not only twins but boy twins.’’
I was now ecstatic and hugged her before saying in very excited manner, “That is fantastic news. Have you told your mother? Have you told Alenna? Does anyone else know?”
Lumi replied with beams all over her face, “Not yet, as I wished to tell you first.
I replied in a stammering voice, “You know what this information will bring about. We need to gather everyone together to tell them all at the same time and a party will be expected. In reflection perhaps we should just tell Alenna at this time, so she can organise everything without others knowing.’’ I was just as excited at this news as Lumi.
I quickly led Alenna into the garden where she said, “What’s happening?’’
Lumi now in a high emotional state said to her, “I am expected twin boys!!!’’
Alenna also could hardly hold back her excitement and agreed to arrange a party without telling anybody else at this time. Though understandable Lumi was dying to tell her mother and I was not overconfident that she could keep it a secret from her for very long, so the party would be tonight. Alkarrens having twins is rare enough but having twins that are both boys is extremely rare. My gut feeling was that it was down to my human genes being dominant on this occasion and we had been to Earth. Lara informed us that she was arriving back late that afternoon and that she also had some news for me, but would not discuss it until she had returned in person. Alenna gathered the family and announced that we were to have a party tonight and that it was important that everyone attended. A number of guests from other houses were also invited such as Lumi’s mother of course. My sister had also invited Sabrina and Alenna and her sisters had invited their mothers. There was a lot of guessing to what the party was in honour of. No matter how much they pestered Alenna for an answer she would not let on even to her sisters. During the afternoon everything was coming together, all the wives had been assisting Alenna with the exception of Lara, as we were expecting her imminent arrival at any time now. I was in the garden when she arrived. After first seeing Alenna she and Alenna came looking for me.
Alenna said, “Jake, Lara has something important to discuss with us, in private, please come with us to our bedroom now.’’ I followed them there.
Lara spoke to me, “Do you want the good new or bad news first,’’
I replied, “I hate bad news so please tell me the good news first.’’
Lara explained, “The good news is your request to buy the planetary defence frigates for Earth has been approved. The council was also impressed by the way you had filled in all the details so well.’’
“Great news!!” I said. But now I have to find out about the bad news, so with some hesitation I asked, “Err… what is the bad news then?’’
Lara now reluctantly informs me, “You know the Silka are on course to arrive at Earth in around five years’ time?’’
I curiously replied, “Yes.’’
Lara now spilt the beans, “I am sorry to tell you but Alliance have detected an advanced party or two Silka ships that are just over a year from reaching Earth and before you ask, you know how difficult it is to detect ships of any form when they are in star drive.’’
I sat in silence comprehending the seriousness of her news before replying. “Yes it is difficult to detect ships in star drive, the more in a group the easier it is to detect the bubble that surrounds them.” I do not blame the Alliance in any way or form and in-fact I was pleased that they had at least detected them. “Alenna,’’ I said, “It’s now imperative that we turn our attention to concluding the deal to buy these defence frigates and then transport them to Earth.’’
Alenna knew how worried I was about this imminent invasion of Earth. Alenna without any hesitation went about clearing her log of future transport contracts, with the exception of a few rice transports to Lusiana. Alenna spent the next hour just giving these away, to Lumi’s and her mother’s house. This was astonishing. She expected no payments at all for doing this. All the payments for transport would go to them.
When she had finished she just said to me, “We are leaving for Lusiana in the morning and after that we will go direct to Earth.’’
But for now our attention turned to the party. The children were dying to get stuck in to the food but had to wait like the rest of us. Very soon our guests started arriving. As soon as Lumi’s mother arrived Lumi started grinning at her and even though her mother asked her what she was so happy about, Lumi managed to refrain from telling her. Finally the moment came, Lumi stood in front of everybody and announced the news. Her mother screamed with delight along with most of the adults, though my daughters were not so impressed. You see young males tend to get far too much attention. In the mothers’ eyes they can’t do a thing wrong. I was glad that I would soon have two sons but as I was human, in no way would I treat them any different from my daughters. I intended to bring them up to respect their sisters as equals. Having male offspring is seen as a status symbol to Alkarrens and as its twins, I had no doubt that the announcement of the birth would be broadcast on the news network when the time comes. All the other wives and Lumi’s mother fussed around her all that evening, like mother hens.
The next day dawned and we were ready to travel to Lusiana to collect our first planetary defence frigate. During our trip, each time Lumi tried to do a chore or anything like cleaning, one of the other wives said they would do it and that she should put her feet up.
Lumi soon started to get fed up with this and stated, “I am not helpless and I just can’t stay sitting down all day like this, it’s so boring. I need to do something, anything.’’
Alenna then said, “I will put you on a light duty. How about nursery duty and I will also assign Perri to help assist you. If that helps.’’
Lumi replied, “Thank you.’’
After arriving at Lusiana Alenna and Jenna left the cargo ship to seek conclusion of the deal to purchase and pay for the frigates. It was g
oing to take twenty trips to Earth before we were finished with this business, as we could only take one ship at a time. Unless… unless we could arrange to fit in a trip to Relnor after the first ten deliveries, we could then purchase my dream ship. After all we would have earned enough money to buy one by then. As these new cargo freighters could carry two frigates at a time that could halve the time taken to deliver the rest of the frigates, five trips to Earth instead of ten. I have only ever hovered a frigate into our cargo bay. This is not the same as actually flying one. The controls were very similar to our cargo ship but the layout of the buttons etcetera that control everything, were not in the same place. This was not a problem last time as everything was labelled in the Zeln language. I did not think this would be a problem this time even though these ships were labelled in the Lusianian language, which incidentally I found impossible to read though I could just get by with speaking the language a little, mainly due to what I had picked up from Yarkeli and Pooky. I would have Pooky with me and she would be more than willing to assist me should I need translation if I become confused with anything. Once Alenna had returned it was time to load the first ship. Pooky and I entered the first frigate.
“Wow!” said Pooky, as she jumped into the captain’s seat.
“That seat suits you, captain Pooky,’’ I replied.
Pooky now gave me an order, “Power up the ship, pilot.’’
“Yes mam, err captain,’’ I replied, before we both had a good laugh about it.
We hovered the first frigate into our cargo bay, before we went about securely strapping it down. Unlike our cargo ship the Relnorians provided full service information in Zeln, as they did not undertake repairs on frigates. This work would be totally down to the alliance defence league technicians and engineers. Earth would have to learn. It looked like Pooky and I were going to be very busy on the trip to Earth. We would have to translate everything into English that not only included labelling all the controls on the frigate but also translating the service information. There was one thing that concerned me though, fuelling the frigate. A special nozzle was require to fill each of the liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks. Helium was created on board from the fusion though there was a top up tank that also required the same special nozzle. Now to the crates of spares. Luckily there was a full inventory of all the spares in the Lusianian language and to which crate they were in. Pooky went through the lists to find the nozzles and also to see if there were any fault locating analysers as they would also be needed.
After some time Pooky shouted to me, “Found some nozzles! They’re in crate seventeen and as for the analysers, they are in crate eight’’
“Right,” I said, “We can take four crates with us and we must make sure that crate seventeen is one of them. We will hold on to crate eight for now’’
It was important that Earth receive these nozzles on the first delivery as they would have to install them to the hoses that carried the gases for fuelling. They also have many safety features to ensure they were connected correctly during fuelling. I had a problem on a single occasion where I could not fuel our shuttle. This turned out to be due to some contamination in a nozzle jet. Finally we were set to go to Earth again and I did like going to Earth, after all it was my home world. Even though I did not mention it to anyone, I could even after being away for many years still feel a little homesick at times. With help from especially Jenna and Pooky we managed to translate the service information from Zeln into English before we had arrived at Earth. We entered Earth’s orbit where I made contact with the Prime Minister. I then at first gave him the good news in that approval had been granted for Earth to acquire the defence frigates before telling him that we had the first shipment of one of these on board. I now had to find out from him where I should land the cargo ship. I was to land at a military base which did not surprise me at all and after some discussion it was decided this first frigate was to be paid for by the British government. I would have to wait for a while for the Prime Minister to first contact the defence department who in turn would contact the base to let them know I was coming. I would then be given a frequency and pass word to contact the airport tower for permission to land. It was at this point I gave the Prime Minister the alarming details of the advanced pair of Silka war ships detected and that he should inform the other most influential world leaders. I also suggested to him that the general population should not be told at this time due to the possible panic it may cause. He then informed me that he would be at the base in person to greet me as he wanted to see the frigate for himself.
“Would you like to have a spin into orbit and back?’’ I asked him.
He was a bit surprised and replied, “Thank you for the offer but I will have to take some time and advice to consider that prospect, I will let you know later.’’
I then replied, “No rush, I could also take three others that you may wish to accompany you. The only stipulation, they must be all males.’’
Finally he said, “I must hang up now as I will need to arrange for your payment in gold on delivery of the frigate.’’ After our goodbyes, the call was then terminated.
While I had been on the phone to the Prime Minister, Alenna had started listing those public transport shuttles and all the other goods onto our website. It was no time at all before she was receiving enquires about various items but especially those transport shuttles. Anybody that was fortunate to acquire these to replace for example helicopters would quickly find that they had a great advantage over their competitors who flew helicopters as a public transport business. They were quiet and used very little fuel compared to helicopters. In fact with a full tank of hydrogen they would run for a couple of days and the most important thing that they had going for them, was that they were very safe and reliable. Unlike helicopters they did not use rotors so they did not create any down draft. This made them ideal for use elsewhere. They could also easily be converted to be used for instance as an air ambulance or used in various rescue situations. Alenna was going to have to do business with males on Earth so any face to face contact would require my presence. I expected that I would not be allowed to get involved with any negotiations over the business deals other than military hardware for governments where I would insist in being in charge of negotiations. I would accompany Alenna on civilian deals only as a sort of chaperon for Alenna, though that would work both ways if a female was present. It might be a few months before we could start transporting anything else as the priority was going to be these defence frigates. I would also have to give flying lessons. One advantage is that any willing participants would already going to be highly skilled pilots, so hopefully they would quickly adapt to the different controls. I would be asking Pooky to assist in this assignment and she was going to be so very excited indeed. Pooky would have to be considered as the captain of the frigate that she was in charge of, I just hoped the power didn’t go to her head. What I had not counted on was that we were inundated with requests to purchase not just the shuttles but those old goods transport shuttles from various governments. I had been somewhat naive expecting them to be used for civilian use only and now suspected they wanted them for some sort of military purpose.
“Alenna,” I said, “Please be careful who you sell anything to on Earth. Don’t trust anyone until you do a little research on the prospective purchaser first, and here.’’
I had given her a list of countries she should not attempt to do any business with because they were either corrupt, or were controlled by a repressive dictatorship or those without any form of law and order. One request we did like, this was from the New York fire department. They wanted to convert a shuttle for rescues from burning high rise buildings. Perfect idea, I thought. These shuttles could just hover up against an outside window and a fireman could then break the glass and those being rescued could then just step on board. I definitely approved
of that use for them. So one was reserved for the New York fire department.
All I had to do now was to wait for a call from the Prime Minister. This did not happen until the next day when I was informed that we could not deliver the frigate just yet. I had to wait another day. I was not very happy about this delay, but diplomacy meant I kept a tight lip over it. Finally the time arrived. We broke orbit and headed towards this military base where I was supposed to land. On approach I was instructed to land where a bright flare could be observed and as I touched down we were surrounded by military vehicles and soldiers. The family were somewhat concerned, as was I. Though it turned out to be for our and now the arriving Prime Ministers cavalcade’s protection. Alenna, Jenna and I exited the cargo ship where I shook hands with the Prime Minister, the base commander and several other officials. While I was meeting them, Luka and Perri were opening the cargo bay doors. Every one gathered around to take a look, there was a lot of interest and discussion began between the officials. Luka and Perri in the meantime had removed the restraints holding the frigate down and when they had finished Luka gave me the nod. Apart from my wives there was also a number other females present mostly in military uniforms.
“Ladies and gentleman,’’ I said, “I will now hover the frigate out of the cargo bay so please… you will need to step back somewhat for safety.” Turning to the base commander I asked him, “Where would you like me to put it?’’
The base commander replied, “Just over there.’’ There was a little delay before he said, “Please.’’ He was so used to giving orders that he had forgotten his manners. But nothing was said about it.
Lumi, Pooky and I entered the frigate where we fired up the fusion reactors before spinning up the pods. Gently I hovered the frigate from our cargo bay, and once clear of the cargo ship I gained a little height and slowly moved it towards the area where he wanted it, then gently sitting the frigate back down on the ground. I opened the hatch and exited with Lumi and Pooky.
Chronicles of Jake 2: The Invasion Begins Page 5
