I looked round at them all, and the girl was still frowning at me. I asked her if there was a problem. She then kicked off and started asking why I was in charge. She then turned to Alenna and told her that she should be in charge as men could not be trusted to take responsibility, and if Alenna didn’t take charge then she would. Alenna, shocked by her outburst, however, defended me, stating that she had full confidence in my ability. The other officials were totally flabbergasted at what she was demanding and they knew she could not do that as it would be mutiny. She was going the right way to bring shame and dishonour to her house.
I had heard enough from her. I asked her, ‘‘What is your name?’’ But she would not answer.
I then asked another official who obliged and said, ‘‘Her name is Lara.’’
I replied, ‘‘Thank you.’’ Turning to Lara I said, ‘‘Come with me please.’’ She then folded her arms in defiance. Then I did something I did not like doing as I had to be seen in total control. I went up close to her and with a very stern and loud voice said, ‘‘You will come with me know!’’ She was thrown back a little, but to my relief she got up.
Alenna, Rachael and I led her down a floor until we were outside my man cave. I said, ‘‘Why do you have a problem with men Lara?’’
She responded by saying to me, ‘‘Men can't be trusted, they break promises.’’
I said, ‘‘If for instance I showed you what was in my man cave, would you promise not to tell anybody ever and would you keep that promise not to tell anybody?’’
She replied, ‘‘Of course I always keep promises.’’ To her, Alenna’s and Rachael’s astonishment, I opened the door and ushered them in, instructing them to sit on the thinking couch.
I then said, ‘‘After you have had a good look around I want you Lara to tell Alenna and Rachael what your problem with men is, I will be back later.’’ I then called Perri to collect me from the man cave as I now needed to get those new scrubbers up and running before co2 reached a level where we would all be poisoned.
I waited by the door until she arrived. I shut the door and left with Perri, and as I walked onto the bottom level of the cargo deck, our passengers who could be noisy heard as we approached then suddenly went silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Perri and I went through the mesh gate and proceeded to connect up the two scrubbers. Luka, who was attending the passengers came over and remarked, ‘‘Its suddenly all gone quiet.’’
I said, ‘‘It's my charm. They all just stare at me with amazement.’’
Luka and Perri just sniggered and Perri said, ‘‘You wish.’’
I just laughed and finished the wiring and as the fans started on the scrubbers I stated, ‘‘There now it's not so quiet, anyway it won’t be long before we are back again to change the filters again.’’
I asked Perri to escort me as I wanted to return to the man cave, which she did, but she would not leave; in fact, she was a little miffed at me for being alone when she had collected me and tried to give me a ticking off. I said, ‘‘Hold on I was not alone.’’ Opening the man cave door, ‘‘go inside,’’ I proclaimed, ‘‘I’m sure you would like to.’’ I did not have to ask her twice, as she peered around the door she could see Alenna Rachael and a stranger. I said, ‘‘We are sorting out a small problem and as you can see I was not alone so you can now leave without worrying.’’ She did have a good look around before she left pointing out the pictures of the family on the wall. I just replied, ‘‘Yes you are all with me even when I am in the man cave,’’ aiming the following statement to all of them, ‘‘don’t think I am going to make it a habit of this and that its most unlikely you will ever be allowed to enter the man cave again.’’
After Perri had left I turned to Lara who I could see had been crying, and asked her if she was OK. She just nodded. I asked her if she was able to tell me anything. Lara looked at Alenna and nodded again to her. Alenna told me that Lara was the oldest daughter of a prime wife and when Lara was fourteen arrangements were made for her to meet a boy from another house on regular occasions. They would sit, talk and play board games together at one side of the room while their mothers would chaperone them by sitting on the other side of the room. Lara was promised by the boy that he would take her as his prime wife when they reached marrying age, but when the time came the boy married another girl, probably at the persuasion of his mother to a more influential house. Lara was devastated as a promise is regarded as a contract; so after that she never trusted a man again. One small comfort was that Lara’s house had become more influential than the other girl’s house by a long way. I turned to Lara and said, ‘‘I am sorry for you and if I promised something I would keep to it. I promised to take my sister with me when I next visited Earth and I did.’’ Turning to Alenna I asked her, ‘‘Please do not do any business with that male’s house or his mother’s as I feel they are dishonourable.’’
Alenna replied, ‘‘Don't worry we won’t.’’
Lara then humbly said, ‘‘I would like to apologised to you and I am very sorry for my outburst.’’
I replied, ‘‘We will forget it, but now we all need to attend those on board and perhaps you would like to assist us Lara.’’
After wiping a tear from her eye she enthusiastically said, ‘‘Yes please.’’
Lara had bottled up what had happened to her for years and now she had spilled out this resentment by telling others she felt better for it. Lara’s attitude completely changed towards me and now I was like a friend. Later when on the gantry changing the filters she was there with Alenna, Rachael and me, she waved at a group of people who were seated on the deck. I asked if they were her family and she responded by saying yes, so I stood next to her and waved at them and then made a gesture that their daughter was great, which was a bit like putting thumbs up and pointing at her. Apart from the wave Lara had not noticed what I did; now her family would be wondering what I meant to her. Alenna said she would have a job explaining that one. Just then Jenna arrived so Alenna took the opportunity of going with Lara to meet her family as Jenna could now chaperone me.
The changing of all filters around every two hours took up a lot of my time during our return trip and I was shattered by the time we arrived back to Alkarr. I had hardly slept other than a few minutes grabbed here and there, so as soon as we had touched down I asked if I may be excused and escorted to the man cave for a few hours. This duly happened. However, a few hours later a knock on the door awakened me. Come on lazy bones was heard outside the door. It was Perri; she said I should come to the galley with her. I quickly combed my hair and accompanied her there. Alenna and some of the others were there including Yarkeli and the children as they had also arrived. I sat down and asked, ‘‘Where is Minty.’’
Alenna said, ‘‘She is busy and you will see her soon.’’
I replied, ‘‘I hope we are all now back to normal and don’t suppose that we would see Lara again. I was a bit rude as I did not say goodbye to her due to being so tired. I could not help but like the girl.’’
Alenna then said, ‘‘As you know a lot of Alkarrens are going to share their residences with the evacuees, well we are letting Lara's family share ours until they can obtain their own so you will be seeing more of her, in fact Minty and Jenna are at this moment sorting out sleeping arrangement to who has what rooms.’’
I thought for a second and in replying to her, ‘‘I suppose I will need to share my man cave with her father.’’
Before I could say anything else Alenna replied, ‘‘I was going to ask you if he could. Perhaps you can sort it out with Rory when you see him later.’’
I had no problem with sharing the man cave at the residence. Rory would probably use it more than me as I was only there to use it between cargo runs. Later in the day I s
howed him into the man cave and let him have two of the walls to hang whatever he wished on, also the important code for the door. Cargo runs needed to resume immediately so we spent one day only cleaning the ship after all those people we had transported before going on our first run to Molk. Nowadays we visited the planet often without any incidents.
The two original scrubbers we had been supplied with were taken to the collection point at the port, but I had no idea what to do with the two we had acquired on Alto, so we asked Lara to find out what was to become of them. As the oldest girls were being trained by myself and Lumi as pilots, I always took one of them with us when we visited Perri's mother and family on the moon, so they could get some good flying practice in by taking to the controls of Calypso. Another thing you recall I delivered those other two ships to the surface for them. Well what became of them you may ask. The one with the reactor which would not start was indeed scrapped while the other was still in good condition only requiring a new pod. That was easy, one of the good removed pods from the scrapped ship was fitted in its place and the ship was then sold on and put back into service. They still have some pods for sale should I ever need one and as family I would expect to obtain one at a good price.
Chapter 7
Scary Happenings Are Afoot
I was receiving rumours on the men’s only forum of a build-up of defences on the planets facing the trillion frontier. Now beyond this frontier was Earth at the nine o’clock position and some non- inhabited worlds between the one to two o’clock positions. I was curious to know why they would be building up defences. There was no possibility of any threat from Earth as humans had only primitive space flight capability so I decided to investigate further. Now there is a race known as the Silka. They live in a region some distance in the two o’clock position. The Silka are what nightmares are made of; they are intelligent but do not recognise any other species other than a food source, and any attempt to contact or reason with them has resorted in disaster.
When I looked deeper into those uninhabited worlds I discovered that three of them had been visited and decimated by the Silka. These planets did have intelligent beings living on them. Two planets now had ghostly cities with no inhabitants; the third was a more primitive society and it was believed that none of the inhabitants of these worlds had survived. That was until an Lusianian expedition surveying one of the cities noticed a newly cultivated area, so some careful attempts were made by Lusianians to show whoever was doing the cultivation that they were no threat to them by leaving food and gifts. Then two Lusianians hid next to this cultivated area and appeared to the inhabitants when they came to tend the same. After the initial shock, contact was made. They numbered only around five hundred. They had hidden below ground, the only survivors of a planet of billions. Now they live under the protection of the Lusianians.
The Silka – as far as I could find out – were not a serious threat to the Alliance as their weapons were no match for the advanced weapons of the Alliance. It would be suicide for them to try. What they did have though was a primitive star drive in that they could travel a distance in one year that light would take ten to cover the same distance in. Over the next few months I was keeping my ear to the ground and finding out as much information as I could about them. Then out of the blue we received another government contract. This was not from the agriculture ministry but from the planet defence department. We had been commissioned to ferry three planetary defence frigates from Relnor to the Lusianian home world Lusiana.
We had been seeing a lot of Lara lately. I often found her sitting with the wives or Rachael on our ship when in port. Then one day when I was in the ship’s man cave I overheard a conversation outside the door. Although I could not catch all of it, one bit I did catch though was about Lara, Perri asking Minty, ‘‘When is Lara joining us?’’
Minty replying, ‘‘When Alenna gets the right moment you know what Jake is like.’’ I had a good idea of what she had meant and as I opened the door the two went quiet.
‘‘Now what are you two up to?’’ I asked them both.
Minty replied, ‘‘Dear husband we are not up to anything.’’ I started to make my way to the galley and they both accompanied me.
We entered the galley where we found Lara talking to Alenna and Rachael. They did not stop talking, so it probably did not concern me, but I did overheard Rachael, she was talking about her friend who lived a short distance from our residence. We were leaving in a few hours to go and to fulfil our contract to transport these frigates. One just fits in our hold so we would be making three trips between our collection and delivery points.
The whole family was now back on board for our runs, entertaining the children which helped pass the time. We were curious to see what was at our collection point and as we approached our designated landing area we passed over a line or these frigates. Not only that there were three battle cruisers under construction. They were huge in size, and they had the latest weapons such as plasma cannon and of course star drive to take them where needed. Anybody wanting to take on or trying to mess with these had little chance of surviving.
We collected our first frigate, as these were just for planetary defence. They did not have star drive capability so have to be ferried to where needed, as we were about to do. To transport these ships they just needed to be very gently hovered into our cargo bay before being well strapped down, as that was one load I definitely did not want shifting.
We were then on our way to Lusiana. Yarkeli and Pooky were excited that we were going to their home world. We intended to stay there a few hours for them to visit some relatives. Again as we came to land we could see all those new frigates, which had been delivered already along with the older series that they were to replace positioned in lines. I got a chance to speak with one of the ground crew and during our conversation I discovered the old frigates were for sale but at the time I did not give them any further thought. I did not know of any planet that would want an old type series. I also brought up in the conversation if they were expecting an invasion or something with all these new frigates. The reply was somewhat vague, just in case they change direction and come our way.
After Yarkeli and Pooky had returned from visiting their relatives we made our way back to Relnor for our next ship. As usual I spent some time in my man cave during the trips, only this time I was looking at my map on the wall and wondering about the Silka and what that Lusianian said. If they came our way, then suddenly oh no they can't be, it’s not the Alliance that was under threat, it’s Earth! I needed to talk with Lara on our return to Alkarr to see what or anything she knew about what I had concluded. However, at this time I was not going to worry Rachael by informing her that I believed the Silka were possibly planning to invade Earth until I had some more proof. I asked Yarkeli if she could find out anything more about the movements of the Silka on our next delivery to Lusiana. She later reported back to me that it was rumoured that they were crossing the frontier at some distance; the direction she gave me was definitely towards the vicinity of Earth. At their estimated position and the maximum speed they could travel at would put their arrival at Earth within the five- to six-year-time scale.
I decided to let Alenna in on my concern. So I would not be disturbed discussing it with her, it would have to be in the man cave. I managed to draw her to the door and with a gentle shove pushed her inside and closed the door. She at once said, ‘‘Now what are you up to? This is the second time I have been in here.’’
But before Alenna could say anything further I interrupted, ‘‘Sit there. I have something of grave importance to discuss with you.’’ I asked her what she knew about the Silka. Before giving her all the information I had gathered, using my map on the wall I showed her their predicted path across space towards Earth. Apart from saying I had been busy, which seems to be her catch phrase to me when I
had, she was also very concerned and we both agreed we needed to talk to Lara on our return to Alkarr to see if she could shine any more information on what was going on and what she knew. It seemed for now we would not be informing the others.
I mentioned to Alenna, ‘‘Do you think the alliance will stand back and see Earth wiped out?’’
She replied, ‘‘I don’t think so, all those battle cruisers are being built for a reason.’’
Then I remembered those old frigates that were for sale, saying to her, ‘‘Do you think earth will be offered probational membership of the alliance?’’
She replied, ‘‘I very much doubt it, but it’s not up to the likes of us to make that decision.’’
I then asked, ‘‘Please find out how much those old type frigates are to be sold for on our final delivery to the planet, because in the unlikely event that earth is invited to join we could make a very big profit selling them to Earth.’’ I hesitated for a second or two before saying, ‘‘Enough for us to obtain a galaxy class cargo freighter.’’
Alenna nodded before saying, ‘‘Nice though that amount of profit would be distasteful.’’
I replied, ‘‘Remember you would not be dealing with our usual clients. Earth is different; big profits are the norm. If we do get the chance please let me do the earth end of the deal, I would leave the Lusianian end of course to you.’’
In reply she just said, ‘‘I will think about that one.’’ Alenna finally mentioning as she left the man cave, ‘‘I see you still have those two weapons on the wall that you should have disposed of.’’
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 9
