I did not like the idea of flying us to the moon on one reactor. I said to the girls that I would fly this one alone and that they should both return to the shuttle. However, they were adamant that they were staying with me, so we took our seats and I spun up the pods. All were working fine this time, so we called Elma to say that we were on our way.
Gingerly, I took the ship out of orbit. All the way down I was watching the working reactor display for any signs of failure. Perhaps I was overreacting as these fusion reactors were very reliable and when they failed it was usually because they have not been used for a long time. I was glad when we had landed, shut-down and had left. Now it was time to go to our ship. What would we find? I wondered. I hoped it was not like the last one. We should not have worried as on entering it was only a little dusty here and there.
We made our way to the bridge and soon had the power up and running. No sooner had Alenna and Jenna removed their helmets and gloves, than they left the bridge. The pair wasn’t going to waste any more time having now gone to explore our ship, which left me to do the wiring repair while they went on their rummage. I had finished before they had retuned and after starting the second reactor and spinning up the pods I had to call them to come to the bridge, finally arriving back to take their seats. I asked them, ‘‘How did you get on?’’
Alenna said, ‘‘You would be surprised at what we had found. Amongst other things, there were several environmental pressure suits on board so we would not need to acquire any new ones.’’
I replied, ‘‘Well, when we have landed on our nice newly acquired landing zone on Alkarr, you and the others can spend as long as you wish on your rummage. By the way, everything seems to be working well according to the instruments.’’ I now flew the ship to Alkarr and set it down on our own landing zone. As soon as we had landed I thanked Elma and Elka personally although Alenna would have done this as well. I suggested sending them a small gift. Alenna said she had invited them out for a meal and also intended to get two tickets to a concert that they would enjoy.
Shortly after we had landed, the rest of the family had excitedly arrived to look at our new pride and joy, and even though it was over seventy years old it still had a lot of years left in it yet. I wanted my own man cave. This ship was of the same design as we had been used to and I knew that there was a small room at the front of the ship just below the bridge. When I went to look, I found it had a code lock on. I could not get access at this time so I just pinned a note on the door which read, “Man cave keep out.” I would have to sort out getting into the room later.
Another thing unlike on Earth where ships have a name, cargo ships only have a serial number. Star liners do have a name but it’s simple and it would be like calling a cruise ship on Earth Bob. I was going to change that having read about Alkarren history. I had decided without telling anybody our ship was going to be called the Alkarren Princess. Alkarr used to have a royal family, but due to a disaster on the scale of the Black Death, the line was wiped out around two thousand years ago. I intended to have a picture painted of an Alkarren princess in a Japanese animated style with two long ponytails and wearing a tunic, her head band which the modern one is based on, the original worn by a princess of the time is encrusted with diamonds. In one hand will be a sword and in the other a dagger with the slogan, ‘Defend the Honour.’ This does not infer her honour which I am quite sure she herself is quite capable of defending with those weapons but it actually refers to the honour of the house.
Now I knew of one very good artist; my very own Minty, so I let her in on the idea. She thought it was great but said we should tell Alenna. I said that Alenna did not have to know everything we did straight away, but we would show her the layout sketches when we were ready. Perri was due to arrive soon along with Lidier. Alenna would then hand back the logs for the other two ships and pay her for our ship at the low scrap value and at that point the contract would be concluded.
After Lidier had departed having left Perri with us, it was only a very short time before she was crying and being comforted by the other wives who had all rallied around her. It was a big step going to another house; the emotion had got to her and I was not sure if she was sad or happy but suspected a bit of each. We all now went to the galley on our ship where we then all mucked in with the cleaning. Jenna in particular was trying and succeeding in getting Perri to laugh, probably at my expense. I bet she had told her about the time I emptied the sewage tank and the outlet being blocked; oh yes, I unblocked it alright and it emptied all over me. I had stood there like a scarecrow, a very stinky one at that, which the wives found very amusing. I had to take three showers before I felt clean again.
Now, every ship needs a captain. This is nearly always the pilot, so I decided it was going to be me. I got hold of a captain’s hat, which looked similar to a baseball cap but with three circles on the front in gold. I asked all the family to go to the bridge where they all gathered. I then put the hat on and proceeded to the bridge myself. On entering I pronounced, ‘‘Attention captain on the bridge,’’ but this only succeeded in sniggers and laughing. So the next ploy I looked stern at them saying, ‘‘I was being serious and that the ship needed a captain.’’ The other wives were pointing at Alenna. I said, ‘‘Alenna had enough to do, when on the ship and off world. I am the captain but when on Alkarr Alenna is the admiral.’’
Alenna smiled and said, ‘‘Fair enough.’’
To the surprise and dismay of the others, ‘‘Now,’’ I declared, ‘‘we need a co-pilot,’’ looking at Lumi. ‘‘That's you as you have had piloting lessons.’’
Alenna said, ‘‘I was not aware of that.’’
I smiled and said, ‘‘She has not been with us long enough to know every detail about our Lumi, but in time I am sure we will.’’ Now looking at Perri and saying to her, ‘‘Do you have any hidden secrets you would like to divulge to us, if so you can tell me later,’’ winking at her. She just blushed. I think what she was thinking was not what I meant, perhaps I should not have winked so I left it at that and moved on.
A few days later Minty had finished her sketches of the Alkarren princess for our ship. That evening we unveiled it to all the others. Alenna said to Minty, “So that’s what you had been up to.” She had noted Minty doing some drawings but every time she had got close to look Minty covered them up. Anyway the idea went down well so the very next day Minty set about her task of painting it on the ship.
Now Alenna had a new job of getting us cargo transporting contracts apart from the few odd ones at first, most of our work was subcontract from the house of Motok and Tinter. However, at least we were earning a living. Now that man cave, I had to gain access so I unscrewed the inspection plate on the key pad, located the relay that activates the door bolt, shorting it across to the power rail momentary made the bolt retract so I could open the door. On the inside there was a manually operated lever to prevent you from getting locked in. As I entered I just stood there. I could not believe what I was looking at. This room was already a man cave; there were personal items everywhere. Now I wondered why they had not been removed. During my rummage around I opened a drawer and inside was a deputy wife head bangle with the house of Pelmon engraved inside along with ear rings and other jewellery. I decided to find out who this stuff belonged to and reunite them with it, if it was at all possible. I removed all the pictures from the walls and boxed them up along with all the other personal items. I would take them to the galley later and see if Alenna could try and shed some light on what happened; after all, one would have expected it to have been taken away by the previous owner before the ship was sold as scrap.
I now had to make the man cave my own. The door had a peep hole that had been blocked off. I reopened it and attached a picture of an eye on the inside so if you looked through from the outside you would just see an eye staring back.
I thought this would be a good gimmick; in fact, it was. The three oldest children found this quite amusing, daring each other to look through the peep hole. On one wall I had pictures of the family including my sister Rachael. On another wall I had made a map of the planets that we transported to. I had also included the Earth, which was at the nine o’clock position. I had added their distance in the hours it takes to travel in star drive to them.
The man cave already had two comfortable seats, a thinking couch and a desk. Mounted on the wall were two weapons, which were energy discharge rifles that could stun or kill depending on their settings. Both were missing their power packs so at this time were inoperative. As I had not located them, I intended to add more things as time went by.
Later that day I took all those personal items to the galley where Alenna and the other wives were. On showing them Alenna said the only reason she could see that a man would have a head bangle in his possession was that it had belonged to his late mother. Jenna started to initiate a search to see if the previous owners and their house correlated with the house name on the head bangle. Jenna was good at finding out what we needed to know and came up with the following: the house registered as the former owners of the ship was the house of Beldon and the male of the house did come from the house of Pelmon; not only that his mother was a deputy wife and she had passed away. Jenna came up with some information that threw some light onto why the items had not been removed.
The male of the house of Beldon, Todd, had got involved when the pirates had boarded the ship and was seriously injured spending some time in a coma at a medical centre on Alkarr. By the time he recovered enough his prime wife had disposed of the ship and acquired a new one. We had a contact address now, so Jenna arranged for an appointment to see the prime wife of this house whose name was Jada. Our appointment made, Alenna, Jenna and I took the items with us. On our arrival we were met by Jada and I asked if we could see Todd as we had some personal items for him, explaining that we now owned their old ship and had found them in the man cave. Jada was aware that her husband had been upset over the items being left. He was then summoned.
When he appeared I opened the box containing the bangle and jewellery enough for him to look inside. His expression said it all. I had not seen a male Alkarren cry or show any real emotion ever, but he could not hold it back as he was so moved, so much that the emotion was welling up inside him. He then invited me into his man cave we both carried the items in with us. He thanked me and told me all about what had happened to him. He was so happy to get especially his late mother’s items back. That was my good deed done and I felt great for it.
A few weeks later we had purchased our shuttle so now our ship was complete. Over the next three years we were increasingly getting more direct contracts, which meant larger fees for us. This helped, as our family was steadily growing and we now had nine daughters. Out of the blue Alenna was given a very lucrative government contract to return to Earth for more seeds. I had seen that tomatoes were now available at food stores and those cucumber seeds, I had personally been sent a cucumber by the ministry so they would soon be on sale. As for this contract, they wanted us to get a selection of seeds and had specially selected our house as they were aware that I helped last time and that I had the best chance at getting a wide selection. They had been sending people to Earth occasionally over many decades. The potato was widely available on Alkarr for instance. I do like fracken and chips. Fracken by the way is a fish almost identical to cod and is from Molk. This time I had intended to bring my sister back with me; however, unfortunately I no longer had any money left. Having given what I did have to Rachael, I now needed to rely on her to provide it, but I did have a backup plan after all. I still had some money in my account on Earth so I could always withdraw that.
It seemed I started a craze because it looked like everybody was now naming their cargo ships. First our in-laws decided to do same to their ships, then slowly at first everyone else at the port had done it also. But it did not stop there; other ports cottoned on and now it was very rare to see a cargo ship without a name and here are a few examples: Alkarren Queen, Alkarren Warrior, Alkarren Empress. In fact, the Alkarren part features in most but not all that I have seen. This gave me another idea; I would name the shuttle as well, just something simple. I named it Calypso. I was interested to see if others copied that one as well.
Chapter 5
I am coming for you, Sister
We were all set to return to Earth. For Perri and our daughters it would be their first time to see my home world. I had worked it out that it was the early April on Earth so hopefully there would be no snow on the ground. This was quickly confirmed on our arrival; we again took a very high orbit to make us less conspicuous. Now, to contact Rachael; it was mid-afternoon and as I told her to keep the communicator by her bed I decided to call her later when hopefully she may well be in her bed. I just hoped she wasn’t living it up and staying out late. After all she was now twenty.
I pinged it to check where it was. I was relieved to see it was at our aunt and uncle’s flat so now I had to wait. I viewed the area where we were going to land. I hoped to use the same field as before, but that field we used last time now had sheep in it. I checked the one next to it. I could not see a problem with landing in that field, so we selected that spot to land on. I checked the garden centre watching it for some time and it had been getting a trickle of visitors. As before, we hoped to go to it early, as soon it opened.
The only thing now was to wait until it was time to call Rachael. The rest of the day seemed to drag, which was usually the case when waiting for something. Eventually the time had arrived for me to call her. I activated my pid call button and waited with anticipation: five seconds then ten seconds. I thought it was never going to answer then at around twenty seconds I heard a voice that just said, “Hello,” only that was all I needed to hear to recognise it was Rachael. I said that I was coming for her. She just screeched with excitement saying she was ready, in fact she had been ready since I had left last time.
I now had to confirm a couple of things with her. First, I asked her if she was alone and had no ties, which she confirmed was the case. Next, I asked her if she desired to have a relationship and a family of her own. She responded by telling me that she had no interest in having a relationship with a man and therefore I didn’t need to enquire any further. I now asked her about supplying the money so I could buy the seeds and to meet me at the garden centre the next day at the same time as before. She said she would withdraw the money from a cash machine on her way in the morning. I then reminded her saying don’t forget to leave a note thanking our aunt and uncle for what they had done for you, that is if she was not going to tell them in person that she was going away with me. I was still being the big brother and telling her what to do; I had to remember she was an adult now and let her think for herself.
Mandy was also in the room and was listening to her answer my questions so Rachael was going to have to say something to her but not let on where she was going to. I finished by telling her that I would see her the following day and to bring her communicator with her. I definitely did not want that left on Earth for anybody to find.
The next day was dry but overcast at the landing site; going down this time was Alenna, Minty, Lumi and I. As Lumi now had her pilot certificate she would be flying us down in calypso, then staying with the shuttle until we returned. As we came into range of the landing area we did a scan for humans; two were located nearby, one in a field a little further away and one next to the gate of the field we had landed in last time. I wondered could that be Rachael waiting for us to land.
Lumi sat the shuttle down and Alenna, Minty and I left the shuttle and proceeded to climb over the gate to the field. I looked down the lane to the gate where the human had been standing and I could indeed see it was Rachael. I shouted to her,
and as soon as she saw me she started dragging two suitcases towards us. We ran to help her, and as we walked back to the shuttle. I introduced her to Minty as they had not met. We lugged her cases towards calypso. They were heavy, which made me wonder how she had managed to get them this far by herself. As we loaded them on board the shuttle I remarked to her about Lumi who she had met the last time. After they had exchanged pleasantries we then proceeded to the garden centre.
Rachael by now just could not stop talking especially to Alenna as last time they seemed to have a lot to talk about. We were soon at the main road. I said to Alenna and Minty, ‘‘We have to walk on the grass verge this time if a vehicle comes. Don’t worry. If you prefer to stop until it passes that’s alright.’’ On our way several cars did pass including a lorry. Rachael and I held on to them keeping ourselves between them and the traffic. They were relieved when we had entered the garden centre.
We went inside the main building. I asked, ‘‘What seeds should we get?’’ There were carrots, beetroot, onions, peas, parsnip, swede…in fact, a number of others as well. However, I was adamant that I was not going to introduce, garlic on Alkarr as it would be considered unsociable-that stinky breath-and chilli peppers as they would find them far too hot for their palates. I did not want to be accused of bringing either of these back, but one thing a lot of humans dislike I will take back with me, sprouts, In fact I personally love eating them. Alenna and Minty were starting to feel uncomfortable as there was a number of men walking about the garden centre. We made our way to the till, and on the way we passed some garden games on display. I picked up a badminton set and a ball as I had come up with a brilliant idea of where to use them.
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 6
