by Jeff Sims
After the captain parked the manufacturing ship in geosynchronous orbit around Solaria last year, he really wasn’t needed again until it was time to leave. Therefore, he had had to make a choice: live on Solaria for a year, live on the ship for a year, or be frozen in a cryostasis chamber for a year.
He really didn’t want to sit on this ship for a year and also didn’t feel like going out to eat every night for a year. Therefore, he had taken the latter choice – and if a momentary tingling in his hand was the only repercussion then he felt that he had made the correct decision. The first officer had made the same choice, but had set the computer to wake him up 8 hours before the captain.
He gave it one final shake and said, “Computer, contact the first officer.”
Although the ship was large, it was a civilian ship and very lightly staffed compared to its military equivalent. At the moment it was extremely short staffed – the only crew members were the captain and the first officer.
During the construction phase of the new government building, there had been30 additional crew members aboard. They were construction workers and had rotated assignments back and forth with the workers on the planet. The ship had been used to process raw material like steel and glass into finished products like beams, doors, and windows.
Now that the construction project was completed, the ship was returning to Hiricula. Those 30 construction workers were remaining on the planet, but he was supposed to have 7, no 8, passengers returning to Hiricula with him – 4 older workers, Punsno’we, his wife, and their two children.
The first officer finally responded, “Are you fully de-thawed yet captain?”
The captain held up his tingling hand and made a gesture in response. That particular hand gesture was not part of the traditional Hiriculan greeting.
The captain responded, “The passenger cabin only shows 4 beings. Who are we missing?”
The first officer responded, “Apparently the office manager is staying. We have everyone on board that is going.”
Captain: “I performed the pre-test and simulated a start on both engines. They show completely operable. Did you see anything in your physical inspection?”
FO: “No, they both physically look okay. I am going to run another status check and manually verify the polonium and deuterium levels in the reaction chamber. I will return to the control room afterwards. “
Captain: “How long?’
FO: “Best guess, we should be ready to leave in an hour.”
The captain used the extra time to physically inspect the cargo holds. The large ship’s holds were practically empty. Only one indicated that it contained any cargo. He walked to that particular hold and entered it.
He saw two huge objects that were each size of small ships. They didn’t seem to have a propulsion system or any other identifiable features. All that he could see was that the sides seemed to be made out of hull grade steel. There may be features on the top or bottom, but the captain couldn’t see them.
There was a sealed door near one end of each object. He pressed the palm pad beside them. Neither door opened. He reread his instructions and shrugged. If the High Council wanted them delivered in the middle of nowhere, then he would deliver them to that exact location. He just barely beat the first officer back to the control room.
They gave the controls a final readout and decided that they were ready to leave. A few minutes later the big ship’s plasma reactor ignited and the ship slowly pivoted and headed to the Solaria – Conron hyperspace lane.
They received clearance almost immediately and jumped to Conron. Eight hours (3.3 days in real time) later the ship exited hyperspace in Conron. The captain contacted traffic control and sent their proposed flight plan through the Conron system to them.
Traffic control responded, “You are going out a little farther out of the gravity well than you need in order to micro-jump around the system.
The captain responded, “I know, but this ship has been turned off for a year. If it fails, I don’t want it to explode near any population centers.”
Traffic control: “Understood, your route is approved.”
The big ship performed a micro jump to the very edge of the Conron – Advranki Prime hyperspace lane. They were sitting just outside typical scanning range of the system. The ship opened the hold door that held the objects and slowly accelerated in the opposite direction.
The careful acceleration allowed the two objects to fall out of the hold. The ship then closed its hold door and continued on its trip back to Hiricula.
………..…………
Jack Dogbarks couldn’t believe his good fortune. Ambassador Lone’s sensitive cargo only filled an eighth of the main hold and wasn’t very heavy. Jack scanned the shipping manifest and the contract a second time to verify that everything was there. It was.
Jack really didn’t want to go back to the Spindle Station, but the new shipping contract was very enticing – too good to turn down. The new shipping contract was only for one load to the Spindle Station, but it paid triple the standard shipping rate. After this contract Jack would have enough money to retire in style if he so chose.
Further, Ambassador Lone had asked for nothing in return. Jack didn’t have to lie, or cheat, or collect any clandestine information. All he had to do was haul cargo from point A to point B. He wondered if Ambassador Lone had somehow messed up the negotiation. Oh well, Jack thought; that wasn’t his problem.
Jack made the loading crew put the Hiriculan cargo in the tertiary hold. He still had the better part of the day to fill the entire primary and secondary hold. Jack didn’t hesitate this time. He marched directly to the mercantile in Solaria’s space port and purchased enough Advranki sea moss to fill the entire main hold. He ordered enough fresh vegetables to fill the secondary hold.
The cargo was delivered to Jack’s ship and the loading crew neatly stacked it into the two separate holds. Jack hated the fact that he had to pay a crew to load it, but the Hiriculan ambassador had given him a very strict schedule. Ambassador Lone even demanded that he fly through the Conron system in real-time instead of micro-jumping around it.
Jack even worked out a small deal with Victor Bullpeep to haul a human toilet from Conron to Solaria on the return trip. Victor had been forced to abandon the restroom during their previous trip to Hiricula. Jack smiled; it was going to be an easy trip this time.
Everything was loaded and the crew waved and left. Jack entered the ship and closed the main and secondary hold doors. He then searched the entire ship for anyone that may be hiding. He did not want to get surprised a third time.
The ship was empty and Jack left exactly on time.
………..…………
Robert Eaglefly was sitting at a control station, halfway through his shift at the defense ministry. Anna Foxprowl was sitting next to him.
After being captured during the battle of Spindle Station, both Robert and Anna had been released by the Hiriculan government as a gesture of goodwill. They had been frozen in cryostasis tubes and returned to Solaria aboard the mini-freighter Jackal. Upon returning home, they were both discharged from the Alliance military and reintegrated into the Solaria defense force.
Robert said, “Did you go to the opening of the new government building?”
Anna replied, “No, it was just after our shift ended. I was tired and went to sleep. However, I did walk through the plaza. It is really nice how they connected the greenspace between the two buildings, made a nice park, and left the obstacle course. You?”
Robert answered, “As a matter of fact I did attend. I took a tour of the new building. It is beautiful. It has lots of windows and is very tastefully decorated.”
Anna: “Must be nice. They get a brand new office and the defense force is stuck next door in a windowless basement.”
Robert knew that Anna was mostly joking. He doubted that the defense force would add windows to the most secure building on the planet.
Robert wasn’t si
tting at just any control station; it was the control station. Robert flexed his fingers and pretended to press the big red button.
Anna looked over, feigned alarm, and yelled, “Stop!”
It was just a playful game on both of their parts. They needed some diversion to relieve the boredom of mid-shift and the monotony of performing the same job every third day. Further, they both knew that he couldn’t actually activate the global EMP weapon like that.
There were several safeguards in place to keep someone from accidentally frying every electrical circuit in the entire Solarian system. First, both individuals had to press independent buttons located on opposite sides of the room to arm the weapon.
The arming buttons were specifically coded to each person’s palm print. Both buttons needed to be pressed at the same time and each button had to be pressed by the person assigned to it. One individual could not activate the weapon by him or herself.
(Yes. It is theoretically possible that one person could press both palm buttons if they had the severed hand of the other person and a really long pole. But hey, maybe the palm scanner is intelligent enough to scan for a heartbeat. Maybe there is a camera that scans for detached limbs. At any rate, please rest assured that the control room doesn’t contain a pole long enough to perform the stated activity.)
Second, they required an activation code to arm the weapon. Without a code, they could press both buttons simultaneously to their hearts content and nothing would happen. There was a safety override though; if the EMP building were ever to come under attack, they could request an emergency override code.
Once they activated the code and armed the weapon by pressing the buttons one opposite walls, the EMP weapon was active and could now be fired. Now when Robert (or Anna) pressed the big red button on the control board something would happen.
Before firing though, they could adjust the strength of the weapon. It was capable of being tuned from a few blocks to the entire planetary system. They could also adjust the location of the blast. And once armed with the firing code, they could fire the EMP weapon as many times as needed.
Of course, many other things would happen at the same time. First and foremost, massive blast doors on the lower level of the building would slam shut, trapping those inside the control room inside the control room. However, the point wasn’t to keep the control room workers at their jobs, it was to keep the would-be intruders outside.
As an added precaution, the control for the blast doors was located inside the control room. There was a separate control for the doors, but it was never used because the closing of the doors was interlocked to the activation of the EMP.
Robert could reach out and touch that button from where he was sitting if he so desired. Of course, it wouldn’t activate either without an appropriate activation code or an emergency override. When the doors closed though, they were sealed and could not be opened from the outside.
Further, the 6 story building – two aboveground, four below - was made from heavily reinforced steel and concrete and had a separate shield surrounding the building. The control room was located on the lowest level. Robert and Anna were basically sitting in the basement of an impenetrable fortress.
It was impenetrable because if anyone tried to penetrate it, Robert and Anna could simply activate the EMP. The EMP would then pull excess magnetized plasma from the planet’s core and convert it into a massive electro-magnetic pulse.
The assailants’ weapons would be rendered instantly useless. Any electronic component not plugged into the worldwide grounding system would also be destroyed, but at least it would stop the attack. It would take 5.2 minutes for them to recharge the EMP weapon, but there would really never be a reason to fire it a second time.
In fact, the EMP was so strong that it could even knock out ships in outer space. They could effortlessly thwart any attack before the enemy even reached their planet’s atmosphere. As a result, they were in very little danger while they were sitting in the defense building. First, it was unlikely that anyone would attack them. Second, it was unlikely that anyone could reach them.
The Solarians were perfectly safe from any outside attack - and had been for thousands of years.
Chapter 6
Admiral Solear was sitting in the large entertainment area on the battleship Discoverer. The Discoverer was the lead vessel for the Advranki-2 home fleet. This particular battleship was a magnificent … example of a poorly named ship. It had been built in the Advranki-2 and had never been out of the system.
Admiral Solear dropped Shole, Kolvak and the other Advranki engineers at the Conron Naval Supply Depot and Shipyard and briefly briefed Admiral Wertak concerning Waylon’s status. The basic status was that the humans should be able to keep the station functioning without hurting themselves or blowing it to pieces.
Solear completed all of his outstanding tasks, crew evaluations, and miscellaneous paperwork from his last few missions. He struggled mightily on the psych evaluation section of the crew evaluations because there weren’t enough choices in the dropdown boxes to properly describe humans.
He entered a ticket into the navy’s information technology department to correct the issue by adding more terms (e.g. violent, anti-social, aggressive, strong), but he doubted they would complete the work before he retired. At any rate, all of the humans received the same evaluation – passed diversity training, reevaluate in 12 months. He doubted that anyone would do that either.
A month later, Admiral Solear hitched a ride with Captain Arean on the cruiser Dandelion. The timing worked out perfectly because the Dandelion had just received orders to leave. It was being permanently reassigned from Conron to Advranki-2.
During the journey, Solear enjoyed spending some time with Arean, his former first officer and one of his few friends still remaining in the military. They discussed whether they should release the actual footage of the battles that Arean had modified to make them more palatable. In the end they decided to leave the originals on a lone flashdrive cube and continue to keep them a secret.
They arrived a few days before the annual Advranki 2 – Advranki 3 war game. Admiral Solear had been given command of the entire Advranki-2 home fleet for the course of the upcoming military exercise. It was an honor for his 60 years of dedicated service and the fact that he was going to retire upon completion of the yearly competition.
“What’s the plan Admiral?” asked one of the captains in the Advranki-2 home fleet.
Solear thought that the captain had said the word ‘admiral’ a little disrespectful. He looked over, but couldn’t tell. Solear looked around the room. There were 42 captains and 42 first officers sitting in the large room, one for each warship in the Advranki-2 home fleet.
Solear could have had the conference via computer monitor, but there was little point. They had plenty of time and it was fun for everyone to get together in the same room to make personal contacts and strategize.
Solear responded, “What did the Advranki-2 fleet do last year?”
A different captain responded, “Last year it was our turn to simulate an attack on the Advranki-3 system. We jumped as one large fleet to the edge of the system, then broke into 6 sub-fleets and attacked from 6 different directions. It caught them totally by surprise.”
Solear asked, “How did it work?”
Another captain responded, “Poorly. Even though they were caught off guard, they stayed together as a group and defended the planet. The sub-fleets weren’t strong enough to attack the main fleet directly. They were able to pick us off one at a time.”
Another captain continued, “We regrouped and attacked in masse, but we were already down a few ships and were outgunned and eventually defeated.”
Still another captain said, “Whatever we do, we need to win the annual fleet battle this year and return the sea-moss cup back to Advranki-2.” Everyone cheered to that.
Yet another captain asked, “Admiral, I have heard rumors that the Humans do unusual things in battle.
You spent 6 months with the Humans; what would they do in this situation?”
Solear said, “They are deceptively smart and think in ways that we do not. Further, they find ways to use their great physical strength to their advantage. I am sure that they would devise an innovative defensive strategy for this year’s tournament.”
The same captain lamented, “You should have brought a couple. We could have used the help.”
The comment was followed by nervous laughter. Another commented, “Diversity is great, but not at the cost of being eaten.”
Solear responded, “I am positive that we can devise a winning strategy; even without their help.”
Solear faced both an opportunity and a challenge. He knew that the Advranki-3 fleet contained exactly 42 ships. Therefore, many of his opponent’s options were limited since he would instantly know if his opponent tried to hide ships or perform some type of flanking maneuver.
However, this wasn’t very helpful since his opponent also knew that the Advranki-2 fleet contained exactly 42 ships. The opposing admiral would be able to immediately identify if he was trying to hide some of his ships. Despite new strategies by both sides, the last few battles had inevitably been decided by sheer force. One side eventually wore the other down.
They continued to discuss several options. Eventually, they had narrowed the suggestions to two possibilities. The first was to keep the entire fleet bunched together well inside the gravity field. The opposing fleet would be forced to stay together as a single group. There would be almost no strategy; the entire battle would come down to execution. Whoever fired straighter and got lucky hits would win.
The second strategy was to split the fleet into three equal sub-fleets of 14 ships. The first group would stay at the edge of the gravity field. When the opposing fleet arrived, the other two sub-fleets would jump in and flank the enemy. This option involved a considerable amount of strategy and an even higher amount of coordination. If one of the three sub-fleets was late, the other two would be quickly overwhelmed.
