We requested the four girls to come to the bridge during a quiet moment. On their arrival they looked a bit concerned. Immediately, I told them not to worry, insisting that they were not in trouble. I asked if any of them were interested in learning to become a pilot or a navigator. Without any hesitation, they told me they wanted to be pilots. I could see Jenna was a bit taken back with that. She had hoped her daughter would have a least wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps as she did hers. After the girls had left I spoke to Jenna and asked her, "Why don’t you get our younger daughter Jett to watch what you do," continuing with, "She may then become interested in learning to be a navigator.''
“I can but try,” she said.
Chapter 6
An Unfolding Disaster
A few months later Luka had settled in well and was getting used to our cargo runs. She had only been off world once before on a pleasure trip. Strange I thought how you do not want anybody else to join the happy family, of course baby’s exempted, but after a short while they are part of your life and you would not want to be without them. It does not matter who you meet, Alkarren women are always polite and never ever swear. Everybody abides by the law and you can let your children out without having to worry about them. If a small child gets lost and distressed, adults will swarm around them to offer comfort and to make sure they get home safely; in fact, there are very few police. Their main duty seemed to be reuniting lost children with their mothers. This is all down to this shame and honour system and didn’t it work well. You may ask can’t genetics and medical procedures produce more male offspring; my answer to that is probably, but it’s complicated and not just down to the male, but environment and Alkarren DNA. Besides that would alter their way of life and nobody wants to change something that has worked well for a millennium.
There are a number of things that have not progressed; for example robots. The Alkarrens are very capable of making these to do everyday jobs but it was decided that was not the way to go as they had pride in their work; they only use them in manufacturing doing mundane tasks which would drive anybody crazy and things that are dangerous to do.
Everything was running well; we had a good supply of transport contracts to fulfil. It was not unusual when we came out of star drive on our return to Alkarr, each trip for the wives to be on their communicators to the mothers. However, on this occasion, it seemed that they were all very concerned and distressed about something.
‘‘What’s up?’’ I asked Alenna.
She replied, ‘‘There is an ongoing disaster on one of our colonies, the planet Alto. Its sun is going unstable and sending bursts of ever increasing solar radiation. The order has been given to evacuate the planet. That means around one million inhabitants have to be off lifted and returned to Alkarr. That's not all, as every able ship complete with their crews have been commandeered for the task, that also includes cargo ships.’’
I was somewhat concerned, ‘‘What about contracts we have to fulfil them?’’ saying to Alenna.
She replied, ‘‘It’s alright the government has suspended all contracts till after the emergency has passed. We will have to attend a meeting later today for further details.’’ In fact we had to go to a main city some distance away where all the owners and captains of ships were to meet.
On landing a government official was waiting to serve us notice of our ship being commandeered and a summons to attend the meeting. This was a real emergency; you only heard from the government personally if you were lucky to get a cargo commission. The government was made up from elected prime wives of other houses and as such all laws were for the good of the house system. Getting a summons was a rare thing but attending was mandatory (and we are back to the shame and honour again). It would of course have brought shame on your house if you did not attend without a very good reason (an example would be if you were very ill).
Going to the meeting will be Alenna, as she would be expected to as the prime wife, I as captain along with my hat so everyone would know and Jenna as I always need a chaperone and two wives are the norm in public. We were ready to take the public transport to the city. We left our residence and proceeded to the zone and waited for it to arrive. As we waited my in-laws from Alenna’s and Lumi’s family plus others from the port arrived. I remarked, ‘‘What’ no other men!’’
One replied, ‘‘My husband would only get in the way. He’s not like you.’’
I then said, ‘‘I will take that as a compliment.’’ In fact, as we entered the venue for the meeting I could not see any men. Although I was recognised at our port, this meeting was also for others from around the globe and I seemed to be attracting a lot of attention.
I could see people nudging each other to look: “There’s that human male and he is wearing a captain’s hat.” Anybody speaking to me would receive a polite if not vague answer.
The meeting began. First, they talked about the star liners and how many passengers they would hold for each journey, before moving on to the cargo ships. They expected us to squeeze in six hundred per run. We would be doing these runs nonstop until all had been evacuated. The journey time was twenty-three hours in star drive. It was becoming clear that they had not considered an important issue. As people were putting their hands up to ask questions I decided to do the same, putting my hand up, Alenna asked me what I was doing. I told her to trust me.
A man was about to ask a question and you could see everyone looking and thinking what a man could ask that was important. I stood up as they called me to ask, I said, ‘‘This question concerns cargo ships. You are saying we have to transport six hundred persons. Cargo ships are not designed to carry people and this is the important thing. The carbon dioxide scrubbers on cargo ships would not cope with that amount of people breathing out co2. We would all be suffering co2 poisoning within an hour. Have you taken this into account? At best we would require two high performance portable scrubbers capable for the task in hand. Are you going to supply us with them?’’ I then sat down waiting for a reply, all those with cargo ships realised that I had brought up an important issue and were applauding me.
The officials chairing the meeting were now talking to each other. I had put the cat among the pigeons with that question. Now they did not have an answer for me at this time so the chair woman said she would get back to me before the end of the meeting. Alenna said to me, ‘‘Don’t look so smug. Those officials are not used to a man putting them in an awkward situation,’’ Alenna then saying, ‘‘You should have got me to ask that question.’’
I replied to her, ‘‘It did have more impact when a man asked though.’’ Anyway jokingly, I said, ‘‘They need a bit of stress to get them going.’’ I could now see two of the officials on their communicators. The rest of the meeting was uneventful that was until near the end when they got back to me with an answer.
The chairwoman said that we would be getting those high performance scrubbers and they would be delivered to each ship. I stood up and thanked her but made a comment saying, ‘‘Oh and please ensure we have enough filters and no square filters for round holes or the other way round,’’ which brought laughter from those attending. But I did not want to embarrass anyone; after all, they were from other houses so I gave a respectful bow to the chair and her officials before sitting back down.
Alenna said, “Well-done,” yet informed me that I had sailed close to the edge of causing embarrassment to them and us. I said I was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again, but I did have my fingers crossed.
There was no time to waste. We had to start making arrangements as soon as we got back to the ship. The children would not be coming with us and Minty would also stay because she was expecting again. We decided also for Yarkeli to stay to assist her. We made sure we had enough food and drink, cups, plates and bowls. They w
ould be roughing it by sitting on the floor of the hold as a family group with walking space between them, so some blankets would be provided to help cushion them. We would also have three levels as the floors can be positioned to accommodate them. Now toilets would be a problem as there were only two in the cargo hold. As we only required two of the cabins, the wives and I had the large cabin and Rachael had her own, which left six cabins. We could empty these; the toilets would then be available for the evacuees, not forgetting the one off the entertainment room, nine toilets for six hundred people- I could foresee that there was going to be queues.
We wondered how long it would be until those scrubbers arrived. I had planned to install them on the gantry so I could change the filters when required without our passengers being close around me. The scrubbers finally arrived and we loaded them on board. I checked to make sure they had included sufficient filters of the right size, but for now we just strapped them down as I intended to install them as soon as we had gone into star drive.
We were ready to leave. We said our goodbyes to the rest of the family who were staying behind and soon we were on our way. Installing the scrubbers was simple; they only needed connecting to a power source then switching on. A fan sucked the air through the filter and any co2 was removed. They had a gauge that read out their efficiency, and when it dropped off, the filter was changed, Simple.
I was not sure what we would find on our arrival at Alto; we had been there before on a number of occasions. The sun was behaving normally then. As we came out of star drive, oh my, the sun had huge sun spots and looked like a rough sea. Our radiation detector went off right away. The atmosphere on dark side of the planet Alto was glowing. Its magnetic field was doing its best to protect the planet, and all the inhabitants had moved to the equatorial region as the poles were now being radiated. We made our way towards the port where the evacuation was taking place. We had arrived at night, and we were also instructed to land on the illuminated pad and another three ships could be seen loading their passengers. As we landed and powered down I remarked to those seated to look out of the window. A line of evacuees was already making their way towards the ship, Lumi and Jenna stayed on the bridge while the rest of us hurried to the cargo bay.
I opened the door. Alenna and I then took a position ready to welcome them on board while Perri, Rachael and Luka directed families where to sit. An official came up to Alenna and gave her a list of the families along with the house name of those boarding and asked if there was anything we needed. Alenna thanked her and said we were alright for everything this time. She then had a conversation with her for a while. I continued welcoming them on board. I did get a lot of strange looks and a number of children commented to their mothers about me being the captain. I usually mentioned the pilot as well, which I am sure would have worried some of the women as they were just not used to a man being in an authoritative position…let alone a pilot, who they were now going to have to put their trust in.
It took quite some time to get them all on board, but at last I could close the door. I then waited till all the safety locks had closed; it could not be opened from the cargo deck alone. I did not want any children playing with the mechanism so I also closed the mesh gate to keep them away from the door. Alenna and I returned to the bridge. I powered up the ship and soon had the pods spun up. I had to take a gentle angle to orbit; if too step everyone would roll into each other and that would not do.
It took a little longer than usual to make orbit and as we moved away from the planet I spoke to our passengers on the internal intercom. First, I welcomed them on board the Alkarren Princess and informed them that we would be taking groups of children at a time to our entertainment room for them to have some activities like board games, drawing and playing with toys. They would also get something to drink and eat. Finally, I gave them advanced warning that we were about to star drive and that they should inform their children about the strange effect and that it would not last long. I did have to change filters every two hours; filters came in their own bag that was airtight, which you opened by sliding a zip. They varied in size depending on the type and were white when taken out of the bag. Spent ones had turned black and were returned to the bag and sealed; these were collected at the port before being transported to the Alkarren moon, removed from their bags and just dumped there. You may think it strange not disposing of them another way, but it was thought out; these filters were full of co2 and they released this back into the atmosphere when the filter was broken down by sunlight. This was good for the moon as it needed more co2. There’s not a better way of getting rid of them and they would have turned to dust in just six months.
We did get a few volunteers to help us pass out the food and drink; I can honestly say I had never seen so many Alkarren men in one place. They seemed to have all been seated in the centre of their house groups. The only thing the people had brought with them were some small hand luggage; they had left all their worldly goods on Alto and they were going to need somewhere to live on Alkarr. This was where Alkarren hospitality came in. Alkarrens would help those in need anyway they could, including sharing their residence with another family, which could cause some problems. For example, the men had to be chaperoned in their own home and extra beds obtained along with more children having to share a room together.
We finally arrived back at Alkarr and disembarked our passengers. I was surprised by how many thanked me directly. I hoped I left a good impression on them and that not all men were contented to sit back and do nothing. As we had to return in just a few hours we made a short visit to check on Minty, Yarkeli and the children before returning to empty the waste tanks, top up the water tanks and remove the spent filters from the ship, along with loading some more provisions. As soon as we had finished, we were off again on another run to Alto. We made another twenty runs and on a number of occasions there were star liners loading. I had not been close to one before as our port was cargo only, then on another occasion there was my dream cargo ship. This was one of the new galaxy class cargo freighters; its cargo hold was twice the size of ours and had the latest star drives that could reduce travel time by up to fifteen percent. In addition, its facilities for family entertainment were much improved with a sports hall plus a hologram room that could make you feel like you are on Alkarr.
We had one more trip to do and had been informed we were the second to last; the final ship would be arriving the following day and this would be to take off all the officials and their families. Each time we had been going to Alto the sun had been steadily increasing in its violent behaviour and as we came out of star drive our sensors went off the scale. We detected an enormous solar burst heading towards the planet. A previous one, much smaller in intensity, had stripped some of the atmosphere from the planet; this one on the other hand was ten times the intensity of that one. We estimated it would hit the planet in just under three hours.
On landing several officials came up to us and pleaded for us to take all the remaining children on top of the six hundred, as they had also detected the burst. I asked how many would be left on top of our quota. One official said around three hundred, which was a lot. But I could not live with that on my conscience, as anybody left would almost certainly be killed when the solar burst hit. I asked if they had any portable co2 scrubbers at the port. One official got on her communicator to find out. In the meantime, we had begun getting the evacuees on board. After about half an hour we were informed they had located two. Immediately, I told the official to bring them to me with the correct filters and I would take, not only the children, but everyone left. Talk about sardines in a can; we had people everywhere. We had even opened the internal door to the shuttle bay so a number of families could go in there and sit around the shuttle, which also gave us an idea. We opened the door to calypso so that was an extra toilet that could be used and stationed an official there to make sure no children played with
the controls of the shuttle. The two scrubbers arrived and we stationed them between the cargo doors and the mesh gate along with the filters for this model of scrubber. Time was moving on and we had just over half an hour left before the solar burst would hit.
At last the final officials came to the ship and said that there was no one left. So, as soon as the last official had boarded, Alenna and I closed the door along with the mesh gate. I would need to come back as soon as we were in star drive to connect and get the scrubbers running. We now had a number of officials around us. Alenna said to them that they should follow us to the bridge and we could then discuss their duties during our trip back to Alkarr. We instructed them to sit down on the seats that our family usually sat on.
I powered up the ship and spun up the anti-gravity pods and soon we were heading towards orbit. I glanced round to look at these top officials; there were about thirty of them. Many would have been sisters or mothers from the same family as this is how those who work for government are made up. They were all looking at me, which did make me feel uneasy; I tried to ignore it, but one in particular in the front row caught my eye and while most had the look of curiosity this one was frowning at me. At that moment in time I did not know why; however, I had a job to do. As we pulled away from the planet I asked Jenna to program and deploy our one and only information buoy. The last ship would already have left Alkarr and would be on course to arrive a few hours after we had departed orbit. We needed to inform them that all the inhabitants had now been evacuated. We also asked them to return our buoy, while giving the house name.
Jenna plotted the course back to Alkarr, feeding the information into the computer. At the same time I was giving my welcome speech but missing out the part about children being taken to the entertainment room, as I was not sure at this time if we could accommodate them due to space limitations. We had the planet in view with our rear facing cameras and could see the solar burst hit the planet; it was indeed stripping the atmosphere away. However, how much would be left would be anybody’s guess. But now it was not my concern. As Jenna said, “Ready,” I engaged the star drive and we were on our way.
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 8
