by Jeff Sims
Bline continued, “Well, we actually do have several packages and mail bound for the Influenla station.”
Jack replied, “Do you think that is wise? What if the other person reads through it?”
Bline responded, “It is fine if they do so. There is no official correspondence in the boxes, this stack is only personal gifts and letters from the embassy staff to loved ones back home. I was planning on chartering a corvette at some point to deliver them. However, since you offered, I think it will be perfect if you deliver them. The mail will certainly help sell your cover for coming here.”
Jack hand carried the boxes out of the Hiriculan embassy and loaded them onto a waiting robo-hauler parked next to the building. Ambassador Bline had refused to let the robo-hauler into the embassy for fear that it would it would spy on them. Jack took a public people mover back to the spaceport and met the robo-hauler at his mini-freighter. He unloaded the packages into a spare bedroom and prepared the ship for interstellar flight.
Jack contacted traffic control and requested a vector to the Advranki Prime – Conron hyperspace lane. He wasn’t surprised when he got an unfavorable route. He would have to spend the next 14 hours on autopilot traversing completely around the military ships. “Figures,” he said.
The computer recognized that Jack was talking and interpreted his statement as a request for information.
…Currently, all holds are full. The main hold is loaded with 10,284 metric tons of Advranki sea moss. The hold is completely full by volume, but only 36% by weight…
Jack said, “Stop,” interrupting the computer’s recitation. He said, “Thank you. I just wanted to verify that the sea moss had been loaded in my absence.”
…Verified…
Exactly 100 hours later the Jackal docked with the Conron Alliance Navy Supply Depot and Shipyard. Jack entertained himself by thinking of new acronyms for the station. He tried CAD and CANS and even stretched a little bit to get DASSY. Eventually, he gave up in failure. He hadn’t been able to top CANDY.
Jack shut down the primary power generator and exited the ship. He had sent a message to Ella the moment he had entered the Conron system, so he wasn’t surprised to see a Solarian female standing in the docking area.
Jack said, “You must be Ella Birdsong, I presume. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Ella responded, “Yes. And you are?”
Jack said, “My name is Jack Dogbarks. I am the captain of the mini-freighter Jackal.”
Ella responded, “I was surprised by your message. It was very cryptic.”
Jack had sent Ella the following message – please meet me at the landing bay with all of your possessions except your military uniform. Jack really didn’t think the message was that difficult to understand. However, since she is a decorated officer, he decided he would not underestimate her.
Jack said, “My apologies for the secrecy. I have your new orders. I felt that there was no reason to broadcast them to the universe.” Jack handed Ella the information packet.
Ella quickly scanned the package. She said, “Now I understand your message. When do we leave?”
Jack said, “Well, right now.” He grabbed her two bags and returned to the ship. Ella grabbed her picture viewer and followed him.
Jack said, “There are three empty quarters to your left. Please choose whichever suits you.”
Ella chose the one closest to the control room and Jack dropped her bags on the bed. Ella carefully placed the picture viewer against the wall and activated the mounting switch. The frame ignited small lasers and fused itself to the wall. Ella turned it on and displayed her father’s latest painting.
Jack looked at the painting and said, “That is marvelous, a real masterpiece. It looks like the work of that famous Solarian artist Fletcher something.”
Ella replied, “Yes. Fletcher Birdsong.”
Jack noted the pride in her eyes when she said his name. Suddenly, he remembered her last name and put together the possible connection. Jack said, “Are you related to him?”
Ella responded, “Yes. He is my father.”
Jack was duly impressed. He said, “Did you inherit his artistic ability?”
Ella shook her head and said, “Unfortunately, no. I can mix colors and paint stick figures; that seems to be the extent of my talent.”
Jack gave her a quick tour of the freighter; showing her the engine room, control room, and the holds. He made sure that she knew the main hold held sea moss and the secondary hold carried Solarian manufactured goods. He even showed her the mail bound for Influenla station.
Jack had no clear idea why he showed her these items. He wasn’t boasting or trying to impress her. He just felt that she needed to see that he was hauling innocuous cargo on a routine journey.
They went into the control room. Jack gave Ella a quick lesson on the ship’s controls and let her pilot the freighter. Ella undocked the ship and flew it clear of the station’s gravity. She plotted a series of micro-jumps that will take the freighter around the outskirts of the Conron system’s gravity well and to the Conron – Opron hyperspace corridor.
Jack looked over at Ella and noticed that she was staring at him. He said, “What?”
Ella responded, “Your face. It looks like you are wearing make-up.
Jack was wearing a long sleeve ship suit. He released and raised the midsection, exposing white skin. Jack explained that he was part of a team that monitored Earth and had his skin bleached white. Jack was surprised that Ella asked almost no questions about Earth or humans. Most people usually asked him multiple questions about humans’ behavior and their resemblance to Solarians.
Ella simply asked, “Did the bleaching process hurt?”
Jack shook his head more in disbelief about the question than anything. He answered, “No, but being loaded into the coffin-like bleaching unit was traumatic experience. It was very scary. I was as white as a sheet when they pulled me out.”
Ella then asked, “Did it work?
Jack gave her a strange look, so Ella continued, “Did the bleaching process work?
Jack replied, “Um, yes. It worked. I am white.”
Ella smiled at the misunderstanding and said, “What I mean is, did you ever land on Earth and interact with humans? And if so, did the bleach job fool them?”
Jack laughed and said, “Yes. I did land on Earth a couple of times and I met several humans. And yes, the bleach job worked. Trust me; I would not be alive if the humans had suspected I was an alien.”
Jack paused, waiting for her to ask how humans were like. She didn’t, so Jack asked, “Aren’t you curious about the humans?”
Ella suddenly realized that she should be more inquisitive about Earth and humans. The human pilots stationed aboard the Sunflower were still a highly guarded secret. Very few beings knew the project existed. She realized that she needed to hide the fact that she had had several conversations with humans.
Ella covered by saying, “Sorry. I have watched many human movies. I guess I just thought the humans were exactly like how they are pictured in the videos.”
Jack responded with a relatively long winded story about when he rented a car on Earth. He had accidentally given the agent his Solarian identification and had do some fast thinking to convince the agent that Solar City was actually in France.
When the conversation came to a natural pause, Jack said, “Computer, please give a rough approximation. How long will the trip to Influnla station take?”
…It will take 19 days if we maintain our current speed while in real-time and micro-jump around Opron without issue or delay…
Jack quickly calculated 19 days there, plus 2 at the station, plus 19 back. Hmm, he thought, we will go around the galaxy in 40 days.
Chapter 4
Lorano watched as the humans removed the final piece of armor from the forging press. They carried it to the middle of the hangar bay and attached it to the waiting suit. Lorano walked to the suit and gave it a thorough inspection. Fina
lly, he declared the prototype was fit for trial.
One of the humans that Lorano didn’t know began putting on the newly designed powered suit. Well, he was technically fastening the suit onto himself. Lorano quickly realized that he would completely have to redesign the attachment / assembly process. It wasn’t practical for the wearer to take over an hour to assemble the powered suit.
Lorano compared the new human suit to the Alliance Armor Unit (AAU). They were almost nothing alike. The AAU was heavily armored and extremely heavily shielded. It had mighty arms and legs. It had a powerful beam weapon. The unit stood 3.4 meters (11’) tall. It had smooth lines and a graceful curve to its armor. It was a majestic, yet ominous suit.
The human inspired suit meanwhile, was none of those things. It was extremely lightly armored, minimally shielded, and did not have a beam weapon. It appeared to be a tangled mess of sharp angles and joints. The unit was only 2.4 meters (8’) tall and looked pathetic standing next to its bigger brother.
The human suit did have a couple things in common with the AAU. First, its main power generator was in its back. However, this generator was significantly smaller and lighter. It provided minimal shielding and would only withstand 1 or possibly 2 direct hits from an AAU before yielding. The generator’s primary use in the human version was to power the arms and legs.
The second similarity was both suits had a generator in each leg. The generators in the AAU powered the legs. The generators in the human version were used for propulsion. There were powerful electromagnetic thrusters in the bottom of the feet. This allowed the wearer to semi-gracefully leap across the air and made its movements left-to-right lightning fast.
Lorano spotted Jim Donovan and Russ Brand working beside an asteroid they had somehow dragged aboard. He walked over and joined them. Lorano noted that they appeared to have two of the shield generators from the Sunflower. He asked, “Why are you installing a shield generator on a rock?”
Jim replied, “Simple, we don’t want to destroy the AAU when the human suit attacks it.”
Lorano said, “Do you really think that is a possibility?”
Jim nodded affirmative and completed the installation. He stood back and activated the shield. The rock was now fully protected.
Billy Blaze had finally gotten into the suit. He started by performing a complete systems check. Then he started walking around the hangar. Then he moved his arms up and down, left and right. The suit enhanced his movements perfectly and gave him incredible strength. The inertia dampers were working properly; keeping Blaze from tearing his limbs out of his sockets.
By this time Carank and Captain Solear had joined the humans in the hangar bay. Solear quickly dismissed the dozen or so humans who had lined up for his benefit and walked over to the human suit. The new suit was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was, in a word ugly.
Blaze seemed to have learned how to move in the suit. He took 5 giant power boosted steps across the hangar, turned and took 5 leaps back. He picked up the giant sword and began swinging it back and forth. Each swing became less and less awkward and eventually he could wield it with some skill.
Jim said, “Everyone, please get behind the barrier.”
When everyone had complied, Jim motioned for Blaze to attack the rock. He swiftly walked over to the rock and took a few practice swings. He then carefully lined the sword up even with the top of the rock and swung as hard as he could.
Lorano gasped at the result. He didn’t even need to check the readings from his communication pad to see the result of the swing. The top of the rock was missing. Well, not exactly missing, the top of the rock was still intact, it was just lying about 5 meters from the rest of the asteroid.
He yelled stop, waived his hands, and walked from behind the barrier to the now shortened rock. Everyone else joined him. Lorano checked the shield generator. It was still intact and operating at full power. The suddenly smaller rock was still entirely protected by an energy shield.
Solear closely inspected the asteroid. It was still completely shielded. Solear said, “Absolutely impressive; the blow’s singular, directed force overwhelmed the AAU’s shields and allowed the blade to pass through. Your theory was correct.”
Even though Solear had witnessed it firsthand, but still couldn’t believe that an AAU, or an enemy HAS for that matter, could be felled by a single stroke. Even more amazing was that the shield generators were undamaged. The sword had sliced right through the energy portion of the shield and had disabled the generators for a second, but once the blade passed the generators resumed as if nothing had happened.
Lorano looked at Jim and said, “Apparently your assumption about penetrating a shield was minimally…okay.” Lorano had almost used the word correct like Solear had, but stopped himself just in time.
Carank added, “The theory of using a thin, sharp blade to overstress the shield in a singular point seemed plausible, but seeing it happen in real life was impressive.”
Jim simply said, “Thank you for designing the suit.”
Captain Solear said, “What are you going to call it?”
Lorano answered, “How about an Armored Personnel Enhancer?”
Jim said, “A – P – E. Hmmm, it has merit. We could then call the wearers a bunch of apes. Does anyone else have a suggestion?”
Solear offered, “Human Armored Suit?”
Jim replied, “That might get confused with a Hiriculan Armored Suit.”
Ace tried, “Power Booster Suit or Armored Power Booster.”
Jim replied, “Send out an APB because PBS is missing.” This made several of the humans giggle.
Carank said, “Well, the suit really isn’t armored, so I suggest we drop that word. Let’s replace it with mobile or mechanized. That means we should call it a Powered Mobile Suit, or PMS for short.”
Both Lorano and Solear nodded in silent agreement. However, Carank watched as all the humans had a weird, scrunched up look on their faces. He wasn’t very good at reading human expressions, but it was clear that they didn’t like it.”
Jim said, “Carank; that is a great name. Unfortunately, that particular acronym has another well-known use in the English language. We cannot use it.”
Russ said, “Let’s just call it a Mobile Powered Suit.”
The computer effectively ended the conversation by announcing:
…Gravity anomaly detected by missile 1242 and confirmed by missiles 1241 and 1244…
Lorano said, “Computer, did missile 1243 also read the gravity signature?”
…No, missile 1243 did not detect the anything abnormal…
Lorano said, “Is 1243 still broadcasting?”
…Affirmative. That particular missile is still broadcasting. The missile appears to be functioning properly. Update, now missiles 1240 and 1245 are detecting the same gravity signature…
Solear turned to Lorano and asked, “What does it mean?”
Lorano answered, “I set up the system to monitor for any large gravity masses and warn me when one was found and verified by another missile.” Lorano glanced momentarily at his communication pad and continued, “Based on these readings, I am confident that we found something.”
Lorano and Carank returned to the bridge of the space station. Solear decided to join them. Once there, Lorano intensely studied the gravity data from the five missiles. Carank concluded, “It certainly appears that we found a new star.”
Lorano corrected, “Or possibly an old one.”
Lorano asked the computer to display the star chart on the main monitor. He then instructed it to show the relative location in space that missiles 1240 – 1245 were traversing.
Lorano said, “According to the historical records from Solaria, this certainly appears to be a possible location.” He pointed to the chart with his finger and said, “It is a little to the left of the previous searches by the Alliance Navy. This particular area has never been explored.”
Carank said, “It does look promising. Maybe we actu
ally found it.”
Solear asked, “So why did missile 1243 fail to find the gravity source?”
Lorano answered, “I still don’t know. It should have found something. Although its systems appear to be working, the missile may be malfunctioning. We won’t know until we physically travel there and investigate.”
Solear said, “Who is going to go? In what?”
Lorano already knew the answer. He tried to delicately lead the intended victim to the proper conclusion. Lorano said, “Carank and I can’t go. We have to continue to monitor the remaining missiles.”
Carank must have also figured out the final solution because he added, “We can’t send the humans by themselves. The humans can’t be trusted to complete a mission of this importance.”
Solear said, “So, I have to go.”
Lorano simply answered, “Yes.”
Solear said, “I guess I will load the humans onto the Sunflower and take it to investigate.”
Now the tricky part. “You can’t.” said Lorano. “The humans have to stay here to defend the station if necessary. More importantly though, the next batch of missiles need to fired soon. We will need both the humans and the Sunflower to accomplish the task.”
Solear finally understood that he had been suckered. He said, “So, the only option is for Lexxi and I to take the corvette to investigate the new system.” Solear intentionally failed to mention Clowy. She could be Lorano’s problem for a few weeks.
The next day they had the corvette fully provisioned. Carank ran a full diagnostic on the power generator, the hyper drive, and the navigation system. He declared the ship ready for a long hyperspace jump.
Solear and Lexxi boarded the ship and Solear gently and methodically undocked the ship. Solear was forced to pilot the corvette himself. Although he had been a certified cruiser pilot early in his military career, he hadn’t flown a military ship in decades. Solear took the ship to .02 light and passed the gravity well of Waylon’s sun.
Solear looked at Lexxi and said, “Before we jump to hyperspace, we need to register this ship’s name for the transponder. What do you think we should call it?”
