As the others arrived to take a detailed look I then asked the Prime Minister, “Have you decided whether you wish to accept my invitation for a trip into orbit and back?’’
He replied, “Yes please and if possible I would like to take along the base commander and two pilots.”
“Great,” I replied. The first thing I needed to do now was to go over some basic information with them. The two pilots were listening intensely, while the Prime Minister was more interested with what surrounded him.
“Right,’’ I said, “Do not be alarmed about anything and yes it can be a little bit daunting on your first trip into orbit, but this will soon make way towards excitement. Now are you all strapped in?’’
They were, so I spun up the pods and made for orbit. Soon the sky turned from blue to black and the stars could be seen. Once in orbit I turned the ship to face the Earth. Gasps from my passengers were heard as they gazed on Earth from orbit for quite some time.
I now said, “As you can see, getting into orbit is easy with Alliance technology. Now as three of you are military men, we will move to the weapons! Let’s shoot at the moon as a target.’’
I turned the ship to face the moon and moved to one of the beam weapon consoles, I had never fired a weapon though I had spent much time reading about and going over the controls and targeting screen. I was eager to try out the beam weapons for myself. I powered up one of the smaller beam weapons and targeted the moon. Then fired. There was a little kick and we moved out of position slightly. I quickly stabilised us. We watched as the energy beam made contact with the moon a little short of quarter of a million miles away, we could see some dust kicked up from the impact.
I now said, “Not bad for that distance. Let’s now try the main beam weapon.’’
This produced even more of a kick back, but only this time I had been expecting it and had allowed for it in advance. As the beam hit the moon a large cloud of dust was forced up before gradually falling back onto the surface.
I explained, “That was only a demo, you just would not normally fire the weapon from so far away. So much energy would have dissipated over that distance, you need to be within one thousand miles or less for best results. I will demonstrate the weapons more comprehensively when I train the pilots after we deliver the next ship.’’
The Prime Minister replied, “I will let you all in to a secret… I had not told my wife that I was to go into space and I do not know what she will say when I tell her.’’
I laughed and said, “Don’t be so concerned, this will become an everyday event even for the general public. It won’t be long before there will be a travel company offering trips to see other planets in the solar system, you mark my words. Next time I return to Earth I will bring with me a sales brochure of civilian space ships that can be purchased by Earth, for you to ponder over.’’
He now opened up as he considered me a friend of his and said, “Life has changed now on Earth due to the fact we know that we are not alone in the universe, I am so looking forward to meeting other races.’’
I sighed, then replied, “Unless you are invited to go to their planet you will not meet a Relnorian and it is very unlikely that a Grocka or a Flitten will ever visit Earth but on the brighter side you may find that you receive a visit from a Gregg or a Ballar, though the latter would need a very good reason to visit Earth. It’s more likely you will see Alkarrens and to a lesser extent Lusianians.’’
He then stated, “I would love to go and see other planets.’’
Again I said, “That would be very possible as a leader of your country. You would have to make a request, but if you want to visit Alkarr that may be different story, but again not impossible, although the government of Alkarr has decreed that no other male from Earth excluding myself could set foot on Alkarr. This may be bent for an official such as yourself and it would also require a very good reason for you to go there, such as a trade deal. Also you would essentially need to have a chaperon or two with you. I suggest your wife along with your eldest daughter or sister if you have one to assist her. This would suffice, It would be very important that they stick to you like glue while on Alkarr.”
We now returned to Earth. I then sat the frigate down where I was instructed to as before. But before I shut all the systems down the base commander asked me, “Would you be kind enough to put the frigate in the hanger that is open in front of us, please? This I did.
I now informed the Prime Minister and the base commander about the spare parts; “Right, I have on board four crates of spare parts. These are not for UK use only! I have to be fair and you may store them in the UK but if any other country requests a part you should not restrict them from obtaining it. If a part is not available then I can obtain it from Relnor on our next trip there.’’
“When will you be able to provide some training to pilot these frigates,’’ asked the base commander.
I replied, “On my next delivery, you must arrange for experienced helicopter pilots, one from each of the eight countries that are going to purchase these frigates to be available. The Lusianian girl Pooky and I will spend a few days training them. I will take men only whereas Pooky can take male and female pilots. All must be able to speak English well. Pooky although she is young has obtained her pilot’s certificate. I would expect her to be considered the captain of the frigate she is in command of and respected accordingly. She is extremely knowledgeable and experienced for her age.’’
The Prime Minister now said, “I now need you to come inside the commander’s office so we can make payment for our first frigate.”
Alenna, Jenna and I accompanied him and others there, to which the transaction was concluded. I now said as I handed over a copy of the manuals for the frigate and a full inventory of the spares, “Here, please read this and in the crate I have marked seventeen you will find a number of fuelling nozzles, take one and have it fitted to a hydrogen, oxygen, and helium gas supply as that will be needed to refuel the frigate. All the details are in the manual. Oh and please do not attempt to fly the frigate by yourself as you will only crash and burn, it’s not as easy as it looks to fly one.’’
We left the commanders office and walked back to our cargo ship. During this short walk I was told about an agreement that had been reached to pool command over defence of Earth.
The commander said, “We have all sort of come up with an agreement where we would each take turns of command, although each frigate would be stationed in their respective country, but when ordered they would all group at a rendezvous point in orbit and proceed from there.”
“Well I suppose that would do,’’ I replied.
After unloading the crates of spare parts it was time for us to leave and go to Lusiana to transport the next frigate, so after wishing all well and giving our departing words we returned to our cargo ship and soon we were on our return journey back to Lusiana. I was a little worried in that twenty frigates were to be all that stood between Earth being defended or annihilated… it wasn’t going to be enough! I did not want to be seen as an arms dealer but I was going to have little choice in the matter and would be looking into ground based plasma cannons. There must be some old versions of these around somewhere. Even if I found some it might be awkward to acquire them as Alenna would have to be involved. I knew how much she hated weapons of any type, or could I have used the services of Yarkeli?… on second thoughts I would not want to involve her as she would be uneasy about getting involved and wouldn’t go behind Alenna’s back anyway. I will make inquiries on the men only forum and see if I can receive a reply or two, I would do this as soon as we return to Alkarr, whenever that would be. On the next trip to Earth I would ensure that the crate with the analysers is loaded but before I did, I would remove one and keep it in my man cave. It just turned out to
be the same type as was used to diagnose the fault with our thruster and you never know if it might become useful in the future. This left three analysers for those on Earth to share between them.
I had not yet informed Pooky that she was to train some pilots from Earth to fly the Frigates. I knew how excited she is going to be so I said to her, “Will you be ready captain Pooky?’’
She replied, “What’s this captain Pooky about? Ready for what?
I now said to her, “Now take deep breaths and hold that excitement… You are going to train four pilots in how to fly the frigates, and this is going to please you… who will be in charge of the frigate you are on?
Pooky was now getting very excited and could hardly contain herself saying, “It’s me! It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”
I just replied, “Yes captain Pooky, You are leaving us soon so this will give you some good experience of command and you will also be able write it down in your resume that you had taken charge of a frigate. I will let you borrow my spare captain’s hat for the duration of the training?”
Pooky in her excitement just said, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’’
Finally I said “Well, just don’t let all that power go to your head.’’
We were not selective in which frigate we collected next, just taking the nearest in line. When we entered this second ship we were surprised to find it had been decorated with hand drawn and painted pictures. Pooky said they were very good. So not long after we had departed Lusiana with the second ship, we then invited Yarkeli and others to enter the frigate, which was now in our cargo hold. Yarkeli on seeing the pictures was taken back as she loved many aspects of Lusianian art, proclaiming that whoever the artist was who created the pictures, that they were indeed very talented. Personally I did not know what to make of some of the pictures which seemed very abstract comprising strange shapes, objects and colours. Yarkeli was emotionally moved by some of these pictures though.
I said to her, “Why don’t you take them and hang them in your cabin if you like them so much.’’
Yarkeli replied with a slight snivel, “Thank you, I will do just that.’’
I later asked Alenna and especially Minty, being a very good artist herself, what they thought of the pictures. Both of them shrugged their shoulders and said they thought that the pictures were very strange indeed and that they did not know quite what to make of them, just as I had concluded. So art is looked at differently by other races, though I do like Alkarren art as it is not dissimilar to that from Earth. The family had been away from Alkarr for just over two weeks and were missing their mothers so all were eager to return there as soon as possible. Alenna decided that we should drop off there for a few days after this delivery, as by then another two weeks would have passed. The family did not like very long intervals of being away from home and get quite fidgety. I suspected that we would have do this after every two trips we make to Earth until we had concluded the delivery of all the frigates.
During this trip I had to go over a number of things with Pooky especially regarding the weapons and went through a number of practice sessions with her, though she seemed to know what to do.
I said to her, “How come you know so much about what to do?’’
Pooky replied, “I have been studying the training manual and have memorised a lot of it.’’
I then said to her, “I did not realise that you had been doing that. Well done anyway.’’
This second frigate was to be purchased by the USA, though I will be delivering all the frigates to the UK. We had soon arrived at Earth and we had to land at the very same military base as last time, only this time there were a lot of officials from the US. After landing we were again greeted by the base commander who then introduced us to those officials along with eight helicopter pilots made up from all the nations who were going to acquire a frigate, which we now had to train. These were all standing in a line. The good news was they had their names on the front of their flight suits. Pooky was standing next to me with my spare captain’s hat on. I introduced Pooky and informed the pilots that four of them would be trained by her. Quite a number of the pilots were somewhat concerned.
So I said to them, “I am now going to assign you to the ship you will be on.’’ There was only one female so I said to her after checking her name first, “Lieutenant Lucy Wright, you will be going with captain Pooky and the other three going with her will be… you three to the left of her.’’
They gave me a strange look, so I said to them, “Do you have a problem with that?’’
A little shocked at my stance and commanding manner they all replied, “No sir!’’
“Good’’ I said, “We don’t want any problems. Now, none of you will be taking control and attempting any flying today. I will be issuing each of you with a flight manual for you to study this evening. Sorry if you had other plans but is essential you read it today. Now you will go and line up next to your assigned ship and wait.’’ Directing each group by pointing to which ship they had been assigned to.
Pooky and I waited and after we both had said, “See you later,” to Alenna, we then made our way towards the frigates. As we walked towards the frigates I whispered to Pooky, “Be commanding but fair. It’s essential that they obey you.’’ Finally saying, “Good luck,’’ as we separated towards our ships.
I showed my four pilots into the frigate and instructed them were to sit. I demonstrated how to start the two fusion reactors and soon had both of them fired up. The next three hours was spent going over all the controls and monitor. At this time I was not going to discuss weapons as this would be the last thing I wished to demonstrate. I now called up Pooky to see if she was ready to fly to orbit for a demonstration of how the ship performed. She was ready. We both spun up our pods and as soon as everybody had strapped themselves into their seats, we made our way to orbit. Once in space I performed what I love to do, some fancy flying with fast turns along with fast acceleration and various other manoeuvres. It’s just not possible to perform these moves with our cargo ship. It was even better than our shuttle by miles. I was enjoying myself perhaps a little too much. Looking round at the pilots I could see that they had never done anything like that, as helicopters do not do such high g turns or very fast acceleration and a couple of them looked a little sick. I did not want them throwing up so I resisted and steadied the ship in a stationary orbit. I then showed them the other parts of the ship, before returning to Earth with Pooky following close behind. With my first day over, my final words to these so called trainee defence frigate pilots was to study the flight manual as you they would be each taking turns at the helm the next day.
On our way to our cargo ship for the night I asked Pooky, “Well, how did it go for you.’’
Pooky replied, “Quite well uncle, though I did have one very rude and cocky pilot. Not only did he show disrespect to myself but also to Lieutenant Lucy. He said that women should stay at home, do the cleaning and look after the kids. I first turned down the motion negation dampeners including especially those on his seat and then I showed him. By doing some very tight turns with very high g force, I had him screaming in his seat. He was then sick all down the front of himself. Though some of the others were somewhat queasy they managed to laugh at him. Just goes to show the more big mealy-mouthed they are, the more childish they behave. He kept tight lipped after that.’’
I chuckled and said to her, “So you had a fun time. Well we will need to be up early in the morning, so we should have an early night.’’
“I will lay in bed and think of ways to humiliate that pilot further,’’ replied Pooky.
“Steady on Pooky,’’ I replied “I know you’re angry, but see if he behaves himself first before you do anything else. He may be unstable of something. I don
’t want any incidents.’’
Pooky finally agreed with me, “You are right of course Uncle. I will see if he’s learnt his lesson first before I attempt to punish him any further. I do have a nickname for him though, Lieutenant Victor the Vomit! Or just ‘Vicky Vomit’ for short.’’
I laughed and said, “Giving him a girl’s name as well, good one Pooky.’’ These were my last words to her before we separated as I needed to go to the bridge to see Alenna, who had been watching out for our return.
I made my way to the bridge to talk with Alenna. Jenna was also there. They informed me that the US delegation who had accompanied their pilot to the base, had now paid for their frigate and that they did hope to fly it to the States after I had trained their pilot. I did expect him to be able to fly it there after training. He should quickly get used to the controls. After all, piloting of a frigate should not be dissimilar in skills that are required to pilot a helicopter. You use foot controls and hand controls much the same. The next morning I was up early I needed to replenish the hydrogen tanks on both frigates. The base had not yet completed the task of fitting the nozzle to a hydrogen tanker so I was going to have to use the supply line I used for our shuttle. It’s not long but will just reach outside. I would need to move each frigate and sit it down next to the ship. Pooky, Perri (as my chaperon) and I made our way over to where the frigates had been left the day before. They were being guarded by a number of soldiers, who then challenged us and also pointed their weapons towards the three of us. They would not let us enter either frigate so I had no other choice than to find the base commander, not easy as again we were stopped from entering his office building as well. I wanted to be ready for an early start but this is turning out to be very troublesome. As I turned away I caught a glimpse of a solider I had meet the day before just coming out of another building. He was a major and so hopefully he could sort out my problem. He was coming our way and when he noticed me he come over, he made a friendly greeting, so I took the opportunity to ask if he could help me.
Chronicles of Jake 2: The Invasion Begins Page 6
