The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (27 page)

He said, “The humans need the ability to communicate with other crew members. Please enable all of their com pad functions except the one that controls the force fields.” He waited a moment and said, “Is that understood?”

Clowy nodded her head and said, “All communications have been reestablished.” She then said, “They are currently allowed to send messages off of the ship. Is that okay?”

Solear said, “Perhaps you should review each one to ensure there is nothing inappropriate in them.”

Clowy asked, “What would be inappropriate?”

Solear said, “You will have to go on a case by case basis. I would think that an attachment containing the ship’s schematics would qualify as inappropriate.” Solear hated to say this, but he continued, “If you are unsure, just ask for clarification.”

Ella said, “The passive scan is complete. There is only one ship in the system. It is an Alliance corvette – the
Informer
.”

The cruiser was stationed at the mouth of the Opron – Conron hyperspace lane. Its primary duty was to monitor the Opron system. If it detected a Hiriculan force, it would immediately jump to Conron. This would give the Conron system at least a 2 ½ day warning that an enemy fleet was approaching.

Captain Solear exchanged pleasantries with the captain of the
Informer
. The
Informer
told them that hadn’t seen any Hiriculan military vessels in the two weeks that they have been on station. They were going to be relieved by a different corvette in six days.

The
Sunflower
traversed the Opron system over the course of the next three days. Solear ordered the cruiser to .15 light, about 75% of the ship’s maximum speed and maintained this speed throughout the Opron system. It was a bit of a strain on the power generator, but well within the operational parameters of the cruiser. The journey across the system normally took 4 days, but the increased speed cut over a day from the trip.

The increased speed would not make the hyperspace jump from Opron to Netron faster. Travel through hyperspace took the same amount of time regardless of the entry speed or mass. Therefore, a loaded freighter traveling at .02 light would take the exactly the same amount of time to traverse a hyperspace lane as a corvette traveling at .18 light.

However, the ship maintains roughly 90% of its initial velocity when it exits hyperspace. Having a higher initial speed will make it nearly impossible for the contingent of Hiriculan ships guarding the entryway to Neto to catch the
Sunflower
before it reaches the hyperspace lane to Hepitila.

They approached the traffic control station. This station was not manned. It was simply a guide beacon. Solear hailed the beacon and said, “Please give us a priority jump to Netron.”

This wasn’t very difficult to accomplish since they were the only ship requesting permission to travel the Opron – Netron hyperspace lane. The beacon sent the coordinates of a safe lane and the
Sunflower
made the relatively short 6 hour jump to Netron.

Ella announced, “Exiting hyperspace now at .13 light. We are in Netron.”

Solear said, “Clowy, scan the area. What is out there?” He then turned to Ella and said, “Ella, set course for the Netron – Hepitila hyperspace lane. Decrease our speed when we approach the lane. I want to reach the lane at .06 light.”

Ella laid in the course and speed for the two day journey. They would travel at 1.3 light for the next 1 ½ days and then slow down to the required speed over the remaining ½ day. Ella announced, “Course and speed set. We will reach the hyperspace lane in just under two days.”

The Netron system consisted of a single star and 7 planets. This system was unusual compared to other uninhabited systems because it contained a planet that was almost capable of supporting life. The planet was covered in water and had an atmosphere that contained oxygen. The primary problem with the world, though, is that it is too close to its sun. The water temperature averages 140
⁰
F (60
⁰
C) and there are no polar ice caps.

The planet has frequent hurricanes and huge waves. For centuries Alliance engineers had discussed pulling it into a better orbit, but to date there have been no attempts. Lately though it has become a political hot topic. Each race would like an additional planet, but none really want any other race to have it. The Hiriculans certainly don’t want any Alliance race to have an occupied planet this close to Hiriculan space and the Alliance doesn’t want Hiricula to have another planet.

Clowy said, “Scan shows multiple Hiriculan warships in the system; including two battleships, four destroyers, and eight cruisers. All of the ships are near the hyperspace lane to Neto. There is also a corvette sitting at the hyperspace lane to Hiricula. None of the ships can catch us before we reach the hyperspace lane to Hepitila.”

The scan that Clowy was looking at was technically 10 hours old. The Hiriculan ships could have moved since then, but it was unlikely. This was still a neutral system and Solear doubted that the Hiriculans would stop them even if they could catch them.

The next two days were extremely tense, but ultimately uneventful. The Hiriculans hadn’t moved to intercept the
Sunflower
. In fact, they had completely ignored the ship and its crew. They had not bothered to hail the ship or even ask where it was going. The Hiriculans may try to stop them when they return, but they certainly weren’t interested in them now.

Captain Solear had made progress with the humans. Maintenance had agreed that the pilots could choose their weapons and had returned the carts. The humans stopped running multiple status checks on the ships. They even worked out a schedule to allow maintenance access to the fighters whenever they needed.

Ella announced, “Our current speed is .06 light and are ready to make the 6 hour jump to Hepitila.” There was no traffic control here; not even an automated beacon. The Hiriculans felt it was unnecessary and did not put them in the systems they controlled.

Captain Solear said, “Jump.”

Chapter 13

Victor breathed a sigh of relief. The humans had just been successfully unloaded and the mission was almost complete. When he broke off communication with Captain Solear and undocked from the
Sunflower
, the computer said:

…Messages and official orders have been received for all crew members…

Victor said, “Computer, are there any ones marked urgent?”

…One message from Amy Weisman marked high priority…

Crista immediately looked over Victor’s shoulder just as he was opening the message. It appeared to Victor that Crista a little overly interested of Amy Weisman. Was that possible? He liked the idea that messages from other women made her a little jealous.

Victor (and Crista) read the message. All was going well and sales were up, but there was a small problem with the simulators; they were periodically overheating after hours of use. Her letter ended, ‘we are looking at adding super cooling units, but they are very expensive. Do you know an economical way to cool them down?

Lorano didn’t seem to notice, he was still fiddling with the Earth calculator. Victor looked over at Carank and reread the message to him. He said, “Can you make something that would work?”

Carank said, “Yeah, no problem. I can create a small box that will hold ultra-cold atoms. It will form a chemical process that will give off extremely cold air. I can put a regulator on it to control the speed of the reaction.”

Victor said, “So you would literally just slap it to the side of anything hot and it will become cold.”

Carank said, “Yes.”

Lorano looked up for a moment and said, “Be careful, the atoms may experience a quantum phase transition. You wouldn’t want the thing blowing up or creating a new state of matter.”

Crista asked, “Will the humans be able to build it?”

Carank said, “I will have to create detailed instructions on how to create the holding chamber. But yes, in the end it is just a powerful chemical reaction. Humans should be able to combine the required materials in the correct amounts without killing themselves.”

Lorano looked up for a moment and said, “What is the difference between creating a stable process to supercool atoms and a stable process to superheat atoms?”

Carank waved at him dismissively. Lorano had asked such a simple question – one that any first year quadra-physics student could answer. Carank looked up and saw that Lorano had put down the calculator and was staring at him and waiting for an answer. Carank finally sighed and said, “Duh, there is no difference. You know that.”

Lorano seemed pleased with the answer. He then asked, “What is the key element to making an ion cannon?”

Again, this was an easy question. However, Carank finally understood the real meaning behind Lorano’s question. He said, “The key element is the manufacture of super-heated atoms.”

Lorano finished, “So, if we teach them how to build a super-cooler, we will by default also teach them how to build an ion cannon.”

Victor said, “Don’t worry. The humans will never figure that out. Plus, there are other things needed like deuterium and polonium.”

Carank finished the design and forwarded it to Victor. Victor wrote Amy Weisman a nice email and attached the ultra-cold atom device. Crista was again watching him as he typed the letter. He gave Crista a compliment by naming the device the Ice Crystal Maker. At the last moment he offered a second name, the Ice Crystal and told Amy Weisman she could choose which name she liked better.

He briefly considered telling her not to try reversing the process and creating superheated atoms, but decided to leave it out of the message.

Lorano finished his study of the calculator and said, “Crista, come here, this is very important.”

Crista stepped up beside Lorano. Victor and Carank also leaned in close. Lorano disassembled the calculator, pulled a chip out of it, combined it with another chip, and deftly assembled it into Crista’s control collar. He said, “This circuit I just installed contains the coordinates to Earth. You are going to have to carefully follow these instructions if you want to retrace your steps back to Earth.”

Crista rubbed her neck and asked, “How does it work?”

Lorano said, “You punch in the false coordinates into the hyperspace computer, double check it, and run the simulation. This will record the flight path in the ship’s transponder. When the transponder reports to traffic control, it will show that you took the exact same fake path that we just reported.”

Victor said, “If we do that, we won’t be able to verify the route or run a simulation.”

Lorano responded, “No you won’t. On the other hand, you won’t be able to return to Earth without broadcasting your exact path and exposing our discovery of the Earth – Waylon hyperspace lane.”

Crista asked, “Why can’t we just do what we did last time?”

Lorano answered, “Because once we return the diagnostic computer to Advranki Prime, you won’t be able to hack into the transponder and modify the course. This manual override is the best solution available.”

Crista said, “Okay. Then what do I do?”

Lorano continued, “Well. It’s complex. As you recall the humans use a binary system for electronic calculation. They have two states, either yes or no, represented by a 1 for yes and a 0 for no.”

Victor replied, “Yes, our electronics are far more advanced. We have four states, yes, no, maybe, and probably. We can even combine maybe and probably in advance computers and get a fifth state called perhaps.”

Lorano continued, “Binary math is straightforward. If you add 1 plus 1 you get 10 – pronounced 1 0, not ten. The first digit on the right is 1, and then the next one to the left is 2, then 4, then 8, then 16, and so on. So, if you see the number 1110 in binary, what does it equal?”

Victor said, “Well, starting from the right, it would be 0 + 2 + 4 + 8 or 14.” Victor smiled broadly; he was clearly proud of himself.

Lorano said, “Correct. Now, here is where it gets tricky. Crista’s collar has a built in astronomical positioning system, or APS unit. This means that it knows where it is within a few astronomical units.”

Victor said, “Okay.”

Lorano continued, “The circuit that I put in the collar converts the APS location to binary and adds it to a value stored in the memory chip from the human calculator. Then it converts it back to an APS location.”

Victor repeated, “Okay. So, if I understand you correctly, the collar will only calculate the correct next jump point if Crista is physically located in the correct beginning point.”

Lorano smiled and said, “Exactly, well done. However, that may still be able to be stolen, so I put another security feature in it.”

Victor said, “Okay. What is that?”

Lorano said, “Well, the device needs some method to activate it. So, unfortunately, the only way you can get the collar to calculate the coordinates is by slapping yourself.”

Victor said, “Okay.” Then he thought for a moment and said, “No, not okay, what?”

Lorano continued as if Victor hadn’t interrupted him. He said, “The collar needs a trigger to activate and make the calculation. That is how the collar functions. It sits idle until it receives a signal from you. It needs an input signal to function.

Victor said, “Okay. I understand. That sounds correct.”

Lorano finished, “So, there is a third variable in the calculation, the location that you slap yourself. If you slap yourself in the wrong spot, you get the wrong location.”

Carank said, “Impressive, what is the combination?”

Lorano said, “Right cheek, left cheek, forehead, top of head, nose, chin, repeat.” He slapped himself lightly in that combination. Then he said, “Now, you try it.” He had little doubt that Victor could remember it without trying it; he really just wanted to see Victor slap himself.

Victor very lightly slapped himself in the correct combination. Nothing happened to Crista. Victor said, “I got it. Thanks.”

Lorano said, “No. You have to slap yourself a little harder to activate the collar. We need to test it to ensure it works.”

Victor slapped himself six times, this time with a little more panache. Crista writhed in pain as the collar activated. Lorano pretended to check the readout and smiled. He then said, “Perfect. It works and it is foolproof.”