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

  “Got it. You are approved for landing on pad 149.15.2. You can set your navigation system to those coordinates and have your ship automatically flown there. Please note that as you pass the station your craft will be scanned. You are in no danger from any type of radiation from the process. Have a great day. Control out.”

  It wasn’t a request. There were so many craft in the surrounding area it would very difficult to fly the freighter to the destination on manual. Victor set the ship to automatic and felt it take off on its preprogrammed flight. They were looking out at the area on the viewport monitor. There were no actual windows on the Victoria Vista.

  Christa stared at the monitor as they flew through the system and oohed and aahed nearly everything. At one point she said to Victor, “There is so much here, so many craft, so many space stations, so many ship building facilities, it is unbelievable.”

  Victor answered, “Well, Solaria has a population of 800 million and Advranki Prime has nearly 14 billion on the planet and several million more on the stations and orbital platforms. Remember, we are a very young race compared to them.”

  The Vista landed and Victor and Crista exited their mini-freighter. A helpful hoverbot was waiting for them and led them to the secondary Senate chamber. They had two seats just off of the main floor waiting for them, right beside an Advranki officer and an Altian civilian.

  Christa sat next to the Altian and said “Hi, I am Crista and this is my husband Victor.” Victor noted that she had said husband without hesitation and only a little anger. That was definitely an improvement. He couldn’t blame her too much though; because from her point of view he had drugged her, kidnapped her, bleached her skin white, forced her to marry him, dragged her off-planet, and put an control collar around her neck to keep her from hurting him.

  The man beside her said, “Hello human, my name is Lorano. I would say that I pleased to meet you, but we would both know I was lying.”

  Crista responded, “Oh no, we’re not humans, we’re Solarians. We just had our blue skin bleached white so that we would look exactly like humans.”

  Too easy, Lorano thought. That was way too easy. He responded, “What is the difference between a Solarian with her skin bleached white and a human?”

  Crista said, “What?”

  Solear grabbed Lorano and pushed him gently aside. He said, “Hello, my name is Solear, captain of the Alliance cruiser Sunflower. What brings you two to this meeting?”

  Victor answered, “I am an expert on humans. The Alliance Senate asked for me to testify on human culture and technology.”

  Lorano couldn’t help himself, so he said, “Hmm, if you look like a human, talk like a human, and know everything about humans, you must be a…”

  “Human,” Crista answered helpfully.

  Crista tuned beet red with anger when she realized she had been the butt of the joke. Despite the two races physical similarity, they were nothing alike. She was just about to do something when she heard a commotion behind her.

  ……………………….

  The Ceremonial Master entered the chamber and said, “All rise, the Senators are entering and the session is starting.”

  Frank entered and took his seat along with the other seven senators. He smiled to himself. He was really going to enjoy today’s Senate meeting. He took out his pad and activated the application the mystery man had mentioned. The app was connected to the humidity control in the room. Slowly, the humidity level in the room started increasing. No one would notice, he hoped, at least not until it was too late.

  The Ceremonial Master said, “We are here today to discuss several bills, but most noticeably bill 179.44.18, allowing humans to join the Alliance military.” Please note that any and all discussion about this bill must remain a strict secret. Any questions on that point?” The ceremonial master looked around the room, his gaze stopping at each person until he received a nod or a verbal yes.

  We have some special guests with us today, and we will start today’s meeting by hearing the report of the recent conflict with the Hiriculans from the captain in charge of the mission.”

  Captain Solear stood and walked to the podium. He knew that he had to tell the story carefully. He had rehearsed it several times, so he should be okay provided no one asked too detailed of questions. He turned to the Senators and said, “Respects Gentle beings.”

  They all nodded or muttered responses so Solear began telling his story. “Let me begin by showing you the computer reenactment of the battle.” The video had been edited for length and content and only showed the enemy launching fighters, Captain Solear ordering the Alliance fleet to respond by its launching fighters, the battle, and then the enemy breaking off and returning to their ships after the first pass.

  Solear said, “After the battle we all thought the enemy’s maneuvers were suspicious. Clearly, in hindsight it is obvious to anyone watching that the enemy wanted to test their fighters against ours in a limited engagement. This made us suspicious that they were testing a new material or weapon. So, we had some of the remains of their fighters brought aboard one of the ships and examined.” He was intentionally using ‘we’ to avoid saying who did what. “The initial examination turned up a biological substance that should not have been there.”

  “What was it?” asked one of the Advranki Senators.

  Solear responded, “Well, I will turn the podium over to Lorano. He led the investigation to determine what the substance was.” Solear sat down and gave the podium to Lorano.

  Lorano said, “Respects Gentle beings,” and waited for the obligatory nods in response. “The substance was blood. Specifically it was blood from a Neto.”

  “A Neto?” interrupted Senator Figur, the same Advranki Senator that interrupted a moment earlier.

  Lorano responded, “Yes. The tests were conclusive. There is no question that a Neto was piloting at least one of the fighters in the skirmish. I would guess that Netos were flying 20 of the fighters.

  “The leading two wings,” interrupted the same Advranki Senator. “Those two wings took all of the casualties. I recall from the video that they lost 18 fighters from those two wings.”

  Lorano looked at Solear, who nodded in agreement. He said, “Solear could answer that question much better than I, but basically yes. We both believe that the reason the enemy took such high casualties is that they intentionally blew up their damaged ships to prevent us from finding out that Netos had piloted them.”

  Senator Figur said, “Netos are a very ‘young’ race, to put it politely. Last I knew they had just invented electricity. How could they have the mental capacity to understand complex computer systems and fly fighters?”

  Frank looked over at Senator Figur. He desperately wanted him to be quiet. Everything depended upon proper timing, and Senator Figur was wasting it by asking pointless questions. Frank said, “Senator Figur, perhaps we could let Lorano finish his story.”

  Lorano nodded at Frank in private thanks. Lorano continued, “Well, they don’t; or at least they didn’t. It is clear from the biological sample though that the Hiriculans have been tampering with them. I don’t think the Hiriculans have been altering the Neto’s DNA, but they certainly have been engaging in selective breeding, advanced training, and more than likely drug therapy.”

  Senator Figur interrupted Lorano and said, “Are you sure?”

  Lorano hid his first response to the question and simply said, “Yes.”

  Figur said, “Computer, can you compare the performance of the possible Neto pilots to the Alliance pilots?”

  …Calculating….

  Solear stood up joined Lorano at the podium. He said, “Let me answer that. This computer probably isn’t tuned for that complex of a task. We had the battle computers at fleet headquarters calculate the relative performances.”

  Senator Figur said, “Computer, cancel request. What was the result of the fleet analysis?”

  Solear answered, “They performed poorly. All of the Alliance pil
ots in the battle were Advranki. So, using their performance as a baseline of 100%, the pilots tentatively identified as Hiriculans performed at 95% and those identified as Netos performed at 67%.”

  Senator Figur exclaimed, “Wow! That is actually pretty good, isn’t it? It seems much better than I would have expected.”

  Lorano replied this time. He said, “There wasn’t much hardware for us to recover, but what little we did get seems to indicate that the Hiriculans may have tried to compensate for the Netos mental shortcomings by modifying the flight helmet and the corresponding controls to have the computer perform more functions.”

  Senator Figur interrupted, “Aren’t the fighters almost a symbiotic link between pilot and ship? We have experimented with fully automatic fighters in the past. They don’t work. You need the interaction between pilot and computer to have an effective system.”

  By this time the humidity in the room was very high. Frank observed everyone. Several people were fidgeting. One observer in the back had started to fan himself. Frank figured the room had reached the target humidity level so he turned it off and deleted the application from his pad. He mentally hoped that Figur would stop talking.

  Solear responded, “I have personally never flown a fighter, but yes, you are essentially correct. An individual Neto may not be a threat to an individual Alliance fighter, but if the Hiriculans can put enough of them into fighters, they will have a clear advantage.”

  “Why is that?” said Senator Figur.

  Frank looked over at him in clear contempt. Figur was the Advranki Senator from Advranki 2. The man was a career politician. He could talk for hours it seemed about nothing. He was the type of person that started talking before their brain had decided what it wanted to say. However, Figur had an amazing speaking voice and people enjoyed listening to his endless prattle. Personally, Frank detested him.

  Solear responded, “Well, it is a numbers game. As terrible as it sounds, the Hiriculans may be willing to sacrifice two Neto pilots to kill one Alliance pilot.

  This brought an awkward silence to the room. Even Senator Figur was mysteriously silent. The Ceremonial Master stood and broke the silence by saying, “Let’s hear from Victor Bullpeep. He is one of the foremost authorities on humans.”

  Victor walked to the podium and paid his respects to the Senators. Since he didn’t have a prepared speech, he simply asked, “What would you like to know about humans?”

  Frank beat Senator Figur to the first question. He asked, “Will they eat us?”

  Victor answered, “That may have been a bit of a misunderstanding on our part…”

  He was about to continue when he got interrupted. Senator Figur said, “What about the incident 60 years ago when the humans ate an Altian that had crash landed on human world?”

  Victor continued, “Earth. The name of their planet is Earth. As I was saying, when a human dies and the reason for his death is not immediately obvious, a specially trained physician cuts him open to see if he can determine the cause of death. Humans generally don’t eat their dead and I don’t think they ate the Altian pilot. I think they were trying to determine why he died.”

  Victor had to stop at this point because his comment had started many shouts and side conversations. Finally, order was restored and Frank asked, “Really, humans cut open their dead just to see what’s inside? I am not sure if this is better or worse than eating Altians.” This caused the entire gallery to chortle. He noticed one person was beginning to sweat. He hoped he hadn’t overdone the humidity. He needed this session to conclude as quickly as possible.

  Senator Korno, Frank’s rival, finally joined the conversation. “Okay, so if the humans don’t immediately kill and eat us, do you think they will be civil enough to actively participate in the Alliance Navy? Do you think they will listen to us, take orders from us, and not rebel?”

  Crista fingered her neck and thought of a way to control the humans. Fortunately, she kept it to herself.

  Victor thought for a moment before answering, “Probably. However, we would need to take several safeguards to ensure their compliance, like limit their access on the ship and possibly arm ourselves.”

  Senator Korno said, “Do you think that humans can fly Alliance fighters at least as well as the Netos?”

  Victor simply answered, “Yes. Probably better.”

  Senator Figur must have felt the conversation had gone on long enough without his input, for he asked, “Well, which is worse, the enemy we know or the potential ally we don’t know?”

  No one provided an answer, so it was time to vote. Each Senator pressed a button on their personal pad. The Ceremonial Master announced the results, 3 votes for the humans, 4 votes against. Everyone stared at the Ceremonial Master as he started checking to find the missing vote.

  Frank stood up. It was time. He looked directly at Korno and said, “I haven’t voted yet. Unlike the other times we have discussed this bill, the information presented by our esteemed guests have made me believe that we need to act. If I vote yes, the bill will partially pass and need a sponsor. Korno, will you personally sponsor the bill?”

  Korno immediately answered, “Yes. I will sponsor the bill.”

  Frank said, “Then I vote yes. Let me say from this day forward that I am a champion of humans. Let us go together and inform the press.”

  Super Figur interrupted, “Wait, how are we going to get the humans?”

  Victor answered, “Well, most young humans enjoy playing video games. We could design a game that emulates the fighter training simulator. The game could be designed to make the pilot pass the final examination. We could also add on-line gaming modes. We will then take the 20 top scorers from the video game for the test program.” He neglected to mention that this wasn’t entirely his idea; it had been the plot of a human movie he had recently seen5.

  Frank asked, “Can you do this?”

  Victor answered, “No, I need help. I need someone to redesign the flight simulator to work on human technology. We also need marketing agreements, licensing agreements, patent rights, beam weapons, and a whole host of other things.”

  Frank asked, “What do you really need?”

  Victor answered, “I really need a technical genius to write the video game and design the necessary hardware interface. I would also need money to hire human law firms to handle all of the other business issues that arise.”

  Frank said, “Lorano, could you do it?” This might turn into a wonderful day. Lorano was one of Korno’s fiercest supporters. Getting rid of Lorano for a few months would make Korno upset; and making Korno upset always made Frank happy.

  Lorano answered dismissively, “Yes, of course I could reprogram the software. However, if we wanted to do it quickly, I could use help designing the corresponding hardware.”

  Now it was Korno’s turn, “I have heard great things about Carank and you recently worked with him aboard the Sunflower. I am sure that he could assist you.”

  Lorano responed, “Yes, together we could do it. But that doesn’t solve the money issue.”

  Frank asked, “Do the humans still value precious metals like gold and silver?” Victor nodded affirmative and Frank added, “Then take a ton of gold with you6.”

  6A metric ton (1,000 kilograms) is worth approximately $38,000,000 USD.

  All issues had been resolved and the Ceremonial Master adjourned to meeting. The senators headed down the secret passageway to the main Senate building. Frank had notified all of the major news networks and they were waiting on the steps of the building steps for the big announcement. The senators exited the passageway and met the press. There were over 100 journalists and television personalities. Each had brought a crew and their own set of cameras and lights – hot, bright lights.

  The humid senators stood in front of the lights and nearly melted - well, their hair and makeup at least. Korno was especially affected; his hair was an utter mess! It was all up on one side of his head and looked terrible. The on-lookers started gi
ggling at the appearance of the senators, but continued snapping pictures and filming.

  Frank still looked terrific. The special hairspray had worked perfectly. He addressed the crowd and used his loud public speaking voice, “I am pleased to announce that a breakthrough has been made on the bill allowing another expedition to Earth to determine whether the humans are still (slight pause) antisocial.”

  This brought a few chuckles from the crowd. Frank continued, “I would also like to say that I personally changed my vote and now consider myself a champion for humanity.”

  One TV anchor shouted, “Senator Korno, any comments? It must have been a hair-raising discussion.” This brought even more laughter from the crowd.

  Another one shouted, “Can you give us the details of the agreement? It appears this must have been a make-up session.” This brought still more laughter.

  Senator Korno felt like he was going to cry. He and the other six senators quickly exited the press conference and retreated back into the Senate building. They raced to the restroom to try fix their appearances.

  This left Frank all alone on the steps. He smiled to crowd, really enjoying the limelight. He stood just a little taller and said, “Next question please…”

  Chapter 4

  Captain Solear exited the Senate building and headed back to the spaceport. Arean was waiting for him at the dock with a shuttle. Arean, a former fighter pilot, still enjoyed occasionally flying when his duties permitted. Arean started the engines and requested permission to leave.

  “Shuttle, this is Control. You are cleared to leave. Remember to use automatic guidance until you pass the outer edges of the planet.” The Sunflower was parked quite a way from the actual planet, so Arean would get a chance to disengage the automatic control system and actually fly the shuttle.

  They landed on the Sunflower without fanfare. Arean located the flight deck maintenance worker and told him to check the shuttle. “I will be leaving shortly, so please get it ready for another flight.”