The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict Read online

  Carank left and headed for a shuttle that would take him to the research facility a few kilometers from here. Lorano had to go to a different part of the spaceport. There was a shuttle waiting that would take him to an Alliance Navy cruiser bound for Altian-1.

  Chapter 14

  Lorano waved goodbye to Carank and looked at his assigned landing platform where the shuttle was waiting for him. The pad number was 149.22.2. He had arranged a transport to take him there, but he realized it was only a few platforms away from where he was standing next to the Vista. He craned his neck to try to see it, but could not.

  Lorano skipped the transport and just walked to the other pad. He thought it was odd that the pad was in the 149 series. This series was typically reserved for mini-freighters with interstellar cargo. Shuttles generally did not land in this area. Then he realized that the traffic control must have recognized his name and parked the shuttle as close as possible to accommodate him.

  He thought about thanking them, but decided against it. That was their job after all. Lorano approached the platform and saw a white Solarian standing next to a mini-freighter. He double checked the pad number. This was pad 149.22.2.

  The Solarian must have seen Lorano’s confusion, for he said, “Are you master scientist Lorano?” That wasn’t his title, but Lorano supposed it was close enough.

  Lorano simply responded, “Yes.” He briefly considered saying ‘Hello human’, but the joke somehow seemed stale to him after spending time on Earth.

  The Solarian said, “Hello. My name is Jack Dogbarks and this is the mini-freighter Jackal. The Alliance Senate didn’t want to waste your time by transferring you to a different ship in orbit. I am going take you the entire way to Altian.”

  Lorano thought the ship’s name sounded familiar, but couldn’t immediately place form where he would have known it. However, Lorano was pleased with the private ship. It certainly made sense he thought.

  Lorano said, “Excellent. Is anyone else coming?”

  Jack replied, “Just you and me. The two main holds are filled with sea-moss balls.” Sea-moss balls are something of a delicacy on Altian. Lorano considered them more of an acquired taste that he had yet to acquire.

  They entered the Jackal and Lorano noted that it was laid out exactly like the Vista. The ships looked the same age and Lorano suspected that they were probably the same model and series. They were definitely the same vintage. Lorano chose the middle guest cabin and opened the door. He was surprised to see that his baggage had already been placed in the room. He was becoming too predictable he thought.

  Jack sat down in the control room and said, “I have to perform the preflight checklist. Can you check the 3rd hold?”

  Lorano walked to the third hold. He looked inside and saw all of his lab equipment from the Earth mission neatly stacked on three large shipping pallets. The pallets had been tightly wrapped in a static sheath that held the load together and protected it from radiation and external contamination. Lorano gave the pallets a brief scan. Again, the diagnostic computer and the flight simulators had been taken by the minor bureaucrat and returned to the Advranki Navy. The piles contained everything else.

  Lorano returned to the control room and sat down. Jack received approval from traffic control and launched the freighter. He cleared the launch pad and switched to automatic navigation. Jack said, “We were given a very good route through Advranki airspace.”

  Lorano replied, Oh?”

  Jack showed their route on the monitor. He said, “Four hours to get to the Altian hyperspace lane, 6 hours in hyperspace, and 3 hours from the lane to the planet. We will touch down on Altian-1 in 13 hours.”

  Lorano looked at the outlined path and realized they had in fact been given a really good route. The 13 shipboard hours technically translated into 2 days, 19 hours in real time. Lorano went ahead and corrected Jack.

  They traveled the first two hours in uneasy silence. Lorano finally realized where he had heard of the Jackal. Jack Dogbarks was one of the Solarians that monitored Earth communications with Victor. In fact, Jack had been in Earth orbit when they arrived at the planet. He and Carank had hidden in the Vista’s space garden to avoid detection when Jack scanned their ship.

  Lorano broke the silence by saying, “Jack, I have heard Victor Bullpeep mention you a couple of times. You and he were friends correct? You were one of the Solarians that monitored Earth.”

  Jack smiled at the recognition. He said, “Yes, I was. Well, until the Alliance fired me anyway.” Lorano assumed he meant that the Alliance had decided to discontinue the constant monitoring of Earth.

  Jack continued, “I don’t know if I would call Victor a friend. I think co-worker or colleague would be a better description of my relationship with Victor.”

  Lorano nodded and said, “I see.”

  Jack asked, “How did you two get to Earth? I didn’t see you when Victor and Crista arrived.”

  Lorano realized that he would have to lie quickly and convincingly. The true reason for the trip to Earth was still a secret. Lorano said, “Victor and Crista came a little early to relieve you. Didn’t your sister win a wedding or something?”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  Lorano waited for a moment, but Jack remained silent. Lorano said, “I, and another scientist named Carank, followed a week later in a corvette. We probably passed you in hyperspace.” Lorano smiled to try to sell the lie.

  Jack snorted in derision at the word hyperspace. Lorano realized what must have happened. He said, “You must have been in route when the hyperspace lane was accidentally closed.”

  Jack responded, “It wasn’t an accident. The Alliance intentionally closed the hyperspace lane to Earth and left me to die in it.”

  Lorano wasn’t going to debate the point with Jack. His independent review of the accident had led him to the same conclusion. The Alliance had intentionally closed the lane. He chose a different tactic. He said, “If that’s true, then they left me to die on Earth as well.”

  Jack looked at Lorano for a moment. It was clear from his expression that he hadn’t considered that. Jack said, “How did you get home?”

  Since Lorano had already introduced the corvette, he decided to continue using it in the narrative. He also skipped the gravity missiles. He said, “We had really good gravity readings from our trip to Earth. We decided to jump to the start of the gravity anomaly. Then we carefully micro-jumped around it.”

  Jack shook his head in understanding, so Lorano continued, “We put the corvette on autopilot and had it jump ahead of us. It would constantly send back gravity readings. After making it around the gravity anomaly, we thought we were safe. We decided to stay on the freighter to complete the report, so we continued to send the corvette in front of us. The corvette struck a boulder from the wayward asteroid and was destroyed. That is how we knew to bypass the end of the hyperspace lane.”

  Jack responded, “You were lucky to have the second ship. I had to do it with only one.”

  Lorano realized that Jack desperately wanted to tell his story, so he asked, “How were you able to return from Earth?”

  Jack said, “Well, I was about 2/3 of the way back, just past the gravity anomaly that you were discussing, when I suddenly get blown out of the hyperspace lane by a massive gravity burst from the anomaly. It felt like the star in the unknown system must have gone nova or something.”

  Jack continued, “I was asleep at the time. I jumped out of bed and checked the hyperspace unit. It wasn’t damaged, so I dropped out of hyperspace. Some of my other systems were fried. I knew that I had traveled well away from the hyperspace lane. I was unable to pinpoint exactly where I was.”

  Lorano responded, “Yes. It is very difficult to plot a hyperspace jump if you don’t know exactly where you are.” Lorano realized that he couldn’t have gone that far off the lane in a few short minutes. He should have been able to estimate his location with a good degree of accuracy.

  Jack said, “Exactly. I sat there
for a day, trying to scan for a familiar location. It came back negative. I was truly lost in space.”

  Jack paused for effect, and then continued, “I finally made a decision to try to jump to Solaria. I just set a course toward Solaria, plugged in an approximation of where I thought I was, and jumped for one hour. I figured I was dead anyway if this didn’t work, so it was worth the risk.”

  Lorano said, “A fair assessment.” Lorano thought that Jack was correct. Jack could have sent a distress signal, but he would die of old age long before it would be detected.

  Jack continued, “After exiting the 1st jump, I scanned again for a day, tried to refine my coordinates, and made another 1 hour jump. I repeated several more times. It was a slow and arduous process, but eventually I made it back to Solaria. I was lucky that I didn’t hit anything.”

  Lorano said, “That was amazing thinking. You must be quite skilled to pull off that feat of navigation.” Lorano figured he could have manually calculated that route with a toothpick and one of those boxes of sea-moss balls in the hold.

  Jack apparently missed the sarcasm in the compliment. He said, “Thank you. Do you know the worst part?”

  Lorano thought the worst part was being forced to listen to this story. He said, “No, what?”

  Jack said, “The worst part was that nobody from Earth Alliance Monitoring had even recognized I was missing. No one cared. Not one person. I hate the Alliance for that!”

  Lorano replied, “Not even your sister?”

  Jack said, “Well yes, she was concerned when she heard the news that the hyperspace lane was closed and I wasn’t back yet. I missed her wedding.”

  Lorano said, “That’s too bad. I am sure you can still get the happy couple a gift though.”

  Jack said, “I would, except the Alliance gave me a severance package worth next to nothing.”

  Lorano sighed in mock empathy. He recalled hearing Victor say that all of the members were given a sizeable severance package when the program was cancelled. Lorano considered mentioning that to Jack, but decided against it. He certainly didn’t want Jack to take out frustration with perceived pay inequity or the Alliance in general while he was aboard.

  A few hours later they exited hyperspace in the Altian system. They had spoken on and off about the Alliance, Hiricula, and other current events. Each conversation topic eventually returned to Jack’s sense of being of being wronged by the Alliance. Lorano began to feel uneasy about Jack motives.

  Lorano stopped for a moment to recap all of his lies, falsehoods, and outright fabrications. He was getting them confused in his mind.

  1. Told to the galaxy – they had followed the published route from Earth to Conron. They succeeded in missing the asteroids because Lorano had manipulated time to allow the ship to pre-detect gravity fluctuations.

  2. Told to Frank and Korno – a hyperspace route is nearly impossible to calculate manually, which is true for most beings he thought. The navigation system can have coordinates entered manually, which is completely true, but not widely known.

  3. Also told to Frank and Korno – there are corrected coordinates for the last two jumps that are stored on the Vista. The correction is necessary to bypass the asteroid.

  Lorano thought to himself, time for lie number four – or more possibly. He had probably forgotten some by this point. He said, “Jack, I will tell you a secret, the route we published is just a little bit false.”

  Jack had been lost in thought, but he suddenly straightened up and stared at Lorano. Then he tilted his head to the side, pointed at his ear and said, “I’m all ears.”

  Lorano told Jack to bring the freighter to a full stop. They were only traveling at .01 light, so this didn’t take long. When they were completely stopped, Lorano told Jack to calculate a micro-jump about 200 kilometers away.

  Jack looked at him like he was silly. He said, “Do you want me to do it manually or use the navigation computer?”

  Lorano said, “Use the computer.”

  Jack calculated the jump, double checked the numbers, ran a simulation, and locked the coordinates in the navigation system. He then looked at Lorano. Lorano leaned over to the navigation computer and retyped the number sequence. The last two numbers had been 21. He retyped them as 12.

  Jack looked at him questioningly. Lorano ignored him and pressed the engage button. They jumped approximately 170 kilometers to the location indicated by the 12, not the location 200 kilometers distant that had been locked into the navigation system.

  Jack performed a quick scan, realized his ship’s position, and looked at Lorano in stunned disbelief. He said, “I reviewed your last two jumps on your published route from Earth to Conron. They didn’t make any sense. If you had actually followed them, you would have crashed directly into the asteroids.”

  Lorano said, “Well, you definitely seem to be able to read a star chart. I am impressed.”

  That is what you did, isn’t it? You manually reversed the last two numbers on your final two jumps,” Jack said suspiciously.

  And now lie #4 was complete. Lorano raised his arms in mock ignorance. He said, “I would never intentionally enter false coordinates into a navigation system. I believe that is illegal.”

  They continued on their journey through the Altian system. The system consisted of a single star that produced nearly the same heat and luminosity as the Earth. Jack said, “Hey, the Altian system has 9 planets just like the Earth system.”

  Lorano considered correcting him. Scientists had recently reclassified the 9th planet in the Altian system as a dwarf planet. The former planet, known as Otulp, was one of several large astronomical bodies orbiting in a large belt beyond the 8th planet. The classification was important because now it could be laser mined. They looked at the monitor saw a large mining platform slowly arcing across the dwarf planet.

  Lorano replied, “Yes. That is an interesting observation.”

  Unlike the Earth system though, there were 3 planets in the system with atmospheres that were in the habitable temperature band. The middle planet was the Altian’s home world. Life had originated here. The Altians colonized the outer planet next and decades later colonized the inner planet.

  The Altians changed the home planet’s name from Altia to Altian-1. They named the second planet to be colonized Altian-2. The final planet was named Altian-3. This naming convention has created friction between the naming purists and the astronomical purists for thousands of years.

  The astronomical purists hated the fact that the planets were named in order from the sun Altian 3, 1, 2. They wanted to rename the planets Altian 1, 2, 3 starting from the closest planet to the sun. However, each time they proposed the change, the naming purists would block them. The people on Altian-1 did not want to lose a number and become Altian-2 and those on Altian-2 certainly did not want to be Altian-3. The astronomical purists even tried to compromise by naming the planets 3, 2, 1, but that was also blocked.

  They were approaching the atmosphere of Altian-1 and Lorano asked Jack to circle the planet once before they landed. Lorano loved looking at his home planet from outer space. They flew over the city, over the countryside, and over the oceans. Altian cities were pre-planned and were a compromise between nature and civilization. Altians tried to create a synergy with nature. Their buildings were designed to enhance the nature around them, not subdue it.

  A city section started with a primary building. This central building was huge by any standard. It normally 204 stories tall and was octagonal. The building was also extremely wide compared to Advranki skyscrapers. Each side of the building was typically 170 meters long. There is a large green space around the building in every direction.

  The next skyscraper was exactly 840 meters away from that one on a direct line of sight. This means that looking out of any window; a being would only be able to see one other building. The central area was filled with grass, agricultural crops, trees, or sometimes wildlife.

  In the large cities, the central area
will be filled with buildings, but the buildings extend down, underground and their roofs are covered with grass. As a result, the city and countryside look exactly alike from overhead. This simple symmetry pleased Lorano.

  They had passed over the ocean and were approaching Lorano’s favorite part of the planet. The government had left one section of the planet exactly as the ancients had lived thousands of years ago. Lorano looked down and saw the steel buildings and the large stone pyramids.

  In ancient days, the pyramids used the motion of the planet to create electricity. This involved having the stone in the base of the pyramid capture tectonic motion from the planet. This was then converted into sound waves and funneled into narrower and narrower passages. It was then passed through quartz to convert the sound into electricity. Piezoelectricity was the Altian’s primary source of generating electricity until the invention and commercialization of deuterium based fusion.

  They circled around the rest of the planet and back to the major spaceport just outside the capital city of Artum. After landing, Lorano thanked Jack and exited the Jackal. He wondered what Jack would do with the equipment in the 3rd hold. Lorano didn’t particularly want the stuff and had given Jack no instruction on its storage or disposal. Lorano boarded an underground transport headed to the Academy of Science building.

  Each skyscraper was linked to the one next to it via an underground transport. However, they really didn’t need to be connected since each skyscraper was designed to be a habitation unto itself. The lower levels typically contained shops, restaurants, and offices. Some even contained light manufacturing and fabrication. The upper floors were strictly residential.

  Usually, an Altian lived in an apartment located in a residential floor above where they worked. Very few commuted in general, and those that did rarely traveled more than two buildings away. It was possible for an Altian to live his / her entire life in one skyscraper without ever leaving.

  Although the exterior was carefully planned, there was no central planning for the building’s use. Some buildings contained an eclectic mix of shops while others seemed to be focused on a particular component or industry. There were two large restaurant chains that had a restaurant in every building. That was the only similarity.