Chronicles of Jake 2: The Invasion Begins

by Peter Lewis Atkinson

  Hera said, “Can you help me? I do not know who else to turn to. I am in touch with three other houses who are in the same predicament.’’

  “Did the pilots disable the cargo ship by cutting the cable loom from the control console to the main computer?’’ I asked in hope.

  “Yes,’’ replied Hera.

  I replied, “Then I can help.’’ Turning to Alenna I said to her, “It is now all down to you to arrange things, but remember you are setting the conditions if any.’’ I then whispered in Alenna’s ear just before leaving the room with Lumi to go and see her mother, “No extra wives,’’ just to make sure she knows where I stand on the matter.

  Lumi and I went and sat with her mother and some of the other mothers and children in their garden. The children were full of questions about Earth. I then noticed that those two sisters of Lumi who had tried to get me alone that time before on their cargo ship, they had just entered the garden. They did a double take when they saw that I was there, then they starting talking to each other, as they stared at me.

  “Lumi,” I said, “look at those two, they have not learnt their lesson. I think they are hatching a plan to get me alone.’’

  “Don’t worry about them,” Lumi replied. Lumi then whispered to her mother who then whispered to their mothers in turn. They were then both forced to stay next to their mothers during the whole time we were at their residence. Lumi now seemed unconcerned, but I would not be leaving her side, so as to be on the safe side that is. After some time Alenna and Jenna emerged from the meeting that they had held with Hera. Lumi and I accompanied them, as we now had to return to our residence.

  Alenna now gave me the whole details of what had been arranged and what was to happen next, “I have been in communication with the prime wives of the other three cargo ships and I have agreed that you Jake will attempt to repair their ships as well. As for the Hera and her House of Tinter we will be offering our assistance as a favour as we going to require a favour in return from them in the near future.” Alenna then looking straight at me confirmed, “Oh Jake, not to worry, as I have not sanctioned any additional wives; this is a straightforward business deal. What will happen is four members from each house will accompany us to Kelder, Jake will then repair each ship in turn then each house will pilot their own cargo ships back to the port from which they operate. Hopefully everything will run smoothly.’’ We were putting aside our next frigate delivery as sorting out the cargo ships was now top priority and we busily prepared to be ready to leave the next day.

  Alenna started giving orders to everyone saying, “We have to use four of the cabins for guests from the other houses, so Lumi you will stay behind on Alkarr with Rachael to help assist you. Both of you will have to look after all the children. Lara will help when she returns in in the early evening each day. Ellie, you are needed as a co-pilot so you may come. Yarkeli do you wish to come or stay, it’s totally up to you?”

  Yarkeli quickly replied, “I want to come with you please.’’

  Alenna continued with, “Perri and Luka please empty the children’s cabins except Ellie’s as we will be using them for our guests and Jake, make sure you have everything you need with us to do the repairs. Jenna and I will stock up on provisions. So let’s go to it. There no time to waste. We must be ready for departure early tomorrow morning.’’ We had never actually been to Kelder. All we personally knew about the planet was what we had heard from others or had read about. This planet will be interesting to see, though I did not expect us to land on its surface.

  My daughters Jessica and Rachael were a little miffed at being made to stay at home and after a short time the pair went to plead with Alenna to let them go with us.

  As Alenna was Rachael’s mother she elected to do the begging, “Mum please can we go as well?’’

  Alenna then gave a snap answer, “No!!’’

  Rachael continued with, “Oh please mum it’s not fair that Ellie can go and we can’t.’’

  Rachael then tried some psychology on her mother, “You always went everywhere with your sisters Jenna and Minty when you were young. What would you have done if you had to stay at home and they were both were allowed to go on a trip without you? Oh please Mum let us come!’’

  Alenna looked at them both and her mood changed. She then said, “You’re right, I did go everywhere with them, you can come, but expect to spend a lot of time doing chores.’’

  Rachael now smiling just said, “Thanks mum.’’

  The pair skipped off to inform Ellie that they could come too. The next morning the other houses started arriving. I was to stay on the bridge with Perri until summoned. First our guests were shown to their cabins to unpack and when they were ready they were to make their way to the galley. This is where Alenna was to formally welcome everyone on board and full introductions would then be made. It was time for me to be escorted to the galley. Once everyone on board had entered the galley introductions started. We had prime wives with three others mothers from each house. These were from the following houses. Lumi’s mother’s house is of course the House of Tinter, though Lumi’s mother was not with them. The other three houses were Caleron, Heckton and Rolker. After introductions, friendly discussions started in a bonding sort of way. Most had never meet before and a strange sort of thing was happening. Three discussion groups had formed. Alenna was in one that consisted of the prime wives, Jenna in another group, all these turned out to be navigators and then the larger group that made up of everyone else. I on the other hand was making myself useful by providing refreshment and snacks to everyone. This did not go un-noticed by the other houses.

  One prime wife named Ellen saying to Alenna, “Oh your husband is working hard, I wish I could get mine to lend a helping hand now and again. Does he do this often?’’

  Alenna replied, “Can’t stop him even if I wanted to, which I don’t, Jake is always busy and he will cleans toilets as well, I bet you are surprised at that!’’

  “Cleans toilets!!! I have never known a male do that, ever!’’ said Ellen in astonishment. There were gasps from others who had overheard. “Does your husband do other things?”

  Alenna now explained, “As you know he is human and not Alkarren. Males on his home planet Earth have to work. Though many would rather not, I am very fortunate, Jake has a very good work ethic. He is also our pilot to Kelder.’’

  Another in Alenna’s group replied, “I heard about that. Wasn’t it Jake who bought up the requirement of extra carbon dioxide scrubbers for cargo ships that time when we had to go to the city for a meeting about the evacuation of Alto?’’

  “Yes,’’ Alenna answered proudly.

  Ellen asked, “You mention that he is the pilot, err, is he good?’’

  By now everyone had turned their attention towards Alenna to hear her reply. Alenna then said with confidence, “The best!’’

  They were now going to find out for themselves as it was time to leave Alkarr and head to Kelder. We all assembled on the bridge and our guests were then seated. They now all had their gaze on me as I sat in the pilot’s seat. Once I felt comfortable in my seat I put my captain’s hat on and turned round to grin at them all. Most did not realise with the exception of the house of Tinter that I was also the captain as well. They looked at Alenna in disbelief. Alenna turned her palms up and nodded, as to say, so what. I got on with my job of taking us to orbit, during which time I glanced round and I could swear by the way they were holding the arm rests of their seats they were not that comfortable with me piloting the ship. Alkarren women are so used to men not doing anything, so much so that when one does do something they feel very uncomfortable with the situation. Perhaps I should check the seat arms later for any nails embedded in them. Anyway after entering orbit Jenna made the calculations to star d
rive. She was over cautious checking her calculations three times. Was this because we had not been to the planet before or as I suspected she did not want to make any errors due to four other navigators on board? Anyway as soon as we had entered star drive they all started leaving the bridge.

  One prime wife commented to me as she was about to leave, “Jake I think you’re good at piloting!’’

  My human side was about to come out in a cocky way. I would not normanly answer anyone, especially a prime wife in such a way but I said, “Good!! No not good… I am brilliant!!!”

  My wives and my three children started laughing though Alenna tried to keep a straight face. Then Jenna said, “Take no notice of Jake, his human side comes out now and again, he not being rude, just trying to be funny.’’

  I looked at them and decided to do the right thing saying, “Sorry about that, I can’t help myself sometimes.’’

  A number of the others joined in with the laughter while they continued to make their way to the corridor. My family followed and as Alenna left she shook her head and tutted at me. I was left with Perri as my chaperon and we both had a good laugh and giggle about it after they had all left.

  As the journey time to Kelder takes about four and a half days I had to come up with ideas to keep our guests entertained during this time. I said to them, “How would you like to try some human sporting activity? We have an empty cargo hold. My family usually finds it quite entertaining. Are there any takers?’’

  I think a lot of them were quite intrigued to see what human sport involved. They soon took to badminton and volley ball, but were not too keen on football, after getting their shins kicked a few times. Time soon passed and we arrived at Kelder. The planet appears very white due to it being almost entirely covered in ice and snow. I could see a volcano and one lake near the equator but we were not here to spend time studying the planet, we had to sort those cargo ships out. All these cargo ships had been left in orbit around the planet and we soon located the first one. I came alongside and docked onto one of the airlocks and prepared to leave the bridge.

  Jenna who had glanced up a monitor that was displaying another airlock shouted, “There’s a shuttle docking on one of our hatches!

  “What!!!” I looked and alarmingly said, “Quick go and lock yourselves in your cabins all of you and that includes you Alenna. I believe we are being boarded by pirates!’’

  My family, and our guests started getting hysterical. Alenna saying to me, “What are you going to do?’’

  I replied, “Never mind what I am going to do, but you must all do exactly what I say. Now go and lock yourselves in your cabins and do not come out and show your faces until I say so. Now move!!! You only have a minute or two before they arrive at the bridge.’’

  They hurried to their cabins as I watched the monitors. Three Zill entered our cargo ship. Good I thought, they are going to the cargo bay first, they are going to be very disappointed and somewhat miffed, as there isn’t anything of value in there. I left the bridge to quickly make my way to my man cave. I entered grabbing one of the energy discharge rifles of the wall. Then I removed a draw form my desk to reveal the two power packs. I grabbed one and inserted it in the rifle which made the weapon come alive. I needed to move fast and by this time I was shaking and trembling as I made my return to the bridge. Now there I adjusted a monitor so I could see it from the place I was going to hide. The monitor was displaying the corridor approach to the bridge, I ducked down behind the rear row of seats and waited, scenarios were running through my head as to what I should do next. Checking the setting on the rifle I then waited, I was still shaking and trembling. The waiting seem to be an eternity the seconds seemed to take minutes. Then two figures could be seen at the far end of the corridor the approach to the bridge. I held my weapon ready. I held my breath as they entered the bridge and then they went up to and stood in front of the control console. They were looking forward away from me. It was now or never. I jumped up aimed my rifle at one of the Zill and fired, hitting her in the centre or the back. The Zill then fell forward across the console before slipping down it and hitting the floor. The other Zill let out a terrible screeching noise as she turned round and as she did she reached for a weapon from a holster by her side, but I did not hesitate firing the weapon again, hitting the Zill in the side. The Zill fell forward, first onto her knees then sideways ending up on top of the other. Her weapon then fell from her hand. I picked up the hand weapon then removed the one from the other Zill’s holster and hid them both in a locker. I had a problem now. There were three Zill that had entered the ship where was the other one? I checked all the monitors but was unable to locate the whereabouts of this Zill. ‘Think Jake think,’ I said to myself. I turned up the sound to all the monitors and listened. Nothing at first. Then I heard a crash sound as if something had fallen and it had come from the corridor where the store rooms were located. I then noticed one storeroom was open. Holding my rifle ready to fire I made my way there, careful not to make a sound as I approached the door. By now I was full of adrenalin which probably helped as I felt more confident and had stopped shaking. Another crash was heard coming from the store room, I checked my weapon again then slowly peered around the corner, I pulled back having spotted her looking in a storage box. Crash! as it fell to the floor. I counted in my head one two three and rushed into the room firing the weapon as I did, hitting the Zill in the arm. She screeched at me and turned red. The shot had partly disabled her but not completely. She tried to reach for her weapon with her opposite hand. I hesitated for a second, and luckily she had difficulty taking the weapon from its holster with the other arm. I fired again hitting her in the chest. She then fell backwards onto the mess that she had created on the floor. I then removed her weapon from its holster. I needed now to check if there were any more Zill on their shuttle. I made my way to the hatch; all the airlocks were open! How did they manage that? I thought. They should not be able to open all the airlock doors at the same time, at that moment I glanced across to the airlock control panel I noticed a strange key had been inserted into it. That is how they had overridden the safety protocol. I proceeded to enter the shuttle peeping round the corner. It was empty to my relief. I pulled the key out of the airlock control panel as I passed making my way back to the bridge.

  Time for me to call up the Authorities on Kelder, “Kelder control, this is the Alkarren Princess.’’

  A reply was received, “This is Kelder control how can we help you?’’

  “I need to speak to someone about pirates can you put me through to right person please,’’ I asked.

  “Oh no not again, you are the fifth one to be attacked by pirates in the last month. What was the cargo that they stole from you?’’ was the reply.

  Quickly I said, “They have not taken anything from me. I have captured the three pirates that had boarded my ship. I wish to hand over the pirates to your authorities and I do not know who to contact directly, so please can you help?

  The person at Kelder control said excitedly, “You captured them you say!!! I will put you through to security. They will deal with the problem and well done. I believe there is a reward offered for their capture. Anyway hold on a moment while I contact them.” Just over a minute later control said, “Putting you through now.’’

  “This is security. We have just been informed you have captured three pirates. We have been after them for the last three months. We are going to dispatch a shuttle to take them into custody. Well done, there is a reward of five thousand credits for each one captured. We will be with you soon.”

  My last words before signing off, “Thank you.’’

  I could now tell Alenna and all the others on board that it was safe for them to come out of their cabins now. Alenna was first to enter the bridge. She could not believe what she was looking at. The two
Zill lay in front of her and I was standing over them with my weapon by my side.

  Alenna screamed alarmingly, “Jake!!! What have you done? You killed two Zill!!!”

  By this time the others on board were now pouring onto the bridge where they stared at both the Zill spread-out before them before staring at me in a very suspicious way.

  I replied to Alenna, “Dead!!! No they are not dead, just stunned. They will be knocked out for at least an hour. We should be receiving a visit from Kelder security soon; they will then deal with them.’’

  Still a little worried Alenna said, “Oh Jake I thought you had killed them. I am relieved you did not. I do not know how I could have lived with you if you had done that. They do look dead though. Are you sure they are not, they do not seem to be moving?’’

  I replied, “Look very closely at them. Their chest is moving in and out every ten seconds. According to what I had read about stunning your victim the frequency of the breathing will give an idea of how long they will be knocked out for. The only alliance species you cannot stun are the Flitten as the shock would kill them. Anyway who in their right mind would want to shoot a placid defenceless Flitten, not me!’’

  The others were now also relieved. They also all believed I had killed them. I am not callous. I would not kill a Zill unless it threatened the life of my family.

  I now said, “There is another in one of the store rooms, by the way. She has made a complete mess in there.’’ I continued with, “Alenna there is a reward for the apprehension of these pirates. I will speak to you later about that.’’ Turning to my daughters I said to them, “Sorry girls but you three will have a tidying job to do later in the store room’’

  I now needed to remove the pirate’s shuttle from the docking hatch. Now this shuttle would no doubt have been stolen by these pirates and I felt it was now my duty to seek out the owner and return it to them, so I stored it in our cargo bay for now. It was not long after that when we received a visit of four security personnel from Kelda. They turned out to be Lusianian. Well they do tend to be the best race for the job. Yarkeli was eager to greet them and soon struck up a rapport with the one in charge as the other three restrained the Zill ready for when they woke, before first loading them on to stretchers and taking them to their shuttle. The threat of pirates attack had not been diminished entirely, just dented a great deal. Out there somewhere was a cargo ship that they had been using to offload their pirated spoils, but for now we were safe. At last I could get on with the job we had come here to do and very soon the first cargo ship was repaired and on its way back to Alkarr. The next ship was Lumi’s mother’s ship. This also proceeded without a hitch and it too was sent on its way back to Alkarr. The next ship was not going to be so easy. The pirates had not only cut the loom from the control console to the computer but had also sliced through a low power, high ampere cable. The end of this cable had touched the steel bulkhead and in doing so had welded itself to it. I tried to brake the weld but this proved impossible. The copper in the cable had been truly melted and fused to the bulkhead so I had no other option than to cut through the cable. This left a little stub on the bulkhead, it did not look pretty but then it was also not a concern. I first tried to join the ends of the two cables but now I had the problem that they did not reach together, having now been shortened by that tiny amount attached to the bulkhead. I would need to replace the whole length. I needed some high ampere cable. Where could I obtain some from? I thought for a while, what circuit uses high current cable but is not essential? Got it, heating! I could remove the supply cable to one of the heaters. As the cargo bay was now empty I would remove a length of cable from one in there. The cargo bay has seven other heaters, so one out of action would not upset anything just be an inconvenience only. The House of Rolker who owned this ship would need to get the cable replaced at a later date. Having removed a length of cable I started fitting it. This was done quite simply by unscrewing a terminal block at each end before removing the old severed cable and installing the replacement piece. We were done! Well at least I thought. It wasn’t going to be that easy as another problem came up. This ship was beginning to get me rattled. There seemed to be no power at all. That wire welding itself to the bulkhead had knocked out the power supply. I needed to find out where the power came from, so I went to my man cave on our ship to fetch that analyser and soon had it plugged in. It reported, check circuit breaker located in cabinet seven. I had seen that cabinet on our ship but I never had a reason to open it. The location of this cabinet was in the ship’s generator room, so of I went there. On opening the cabinet there were many circuit breakers but only one had triggered. I pushed the reset button and it stayed in so after shutting the cabinet I returned to the bridge. We had power! At last the House of Rolker were now also set to return to Alkarr. One more ship to do. Luckily this repair was again a straightforward one, so finally they could also set off for their return to Alkarr.