The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (2 page)

The Alliance fleet had a distinct advantage with the ion cannons though. They could fire three shots while their opponent could only fire one. Of course, that shot would be twice as powerful. A direct hit from the destroyer’s ion cannon would blow a hole in the side of the ship. The bridge would be fine because it is in the center of the ship and is independently shielded and armored, but the crew stationed in engineering and the missile bays could be exposed to space. And if the emergency pressure system failed, the results would be catastrophic.

“Clowy,” the captain said evenly, “Signal
Protector
and
Justice
and have them move to attack pattern Gamma.” This pattern would spread the Alliance ships far enough apart that the enemy destroyer could only hit one of the three ships with the ion cannon, but they will still be close enough to coordinate missile defense.

“
Protector
and
Justice
are in position,” Ella reported.

The enemy ships had continued on the same path over the last 2 hours and were now in near real-time communications range. The captain was expecting a message at any…

“Incoming message,” Clowy said smiling.

Captain Solear was senior to the captains of the other two cruisers and was therefore acting commander of the taskforce. It was his decision whether to fight or flee. More pressing though, it was his responsibility to respond to the incoming message.

“Put it on speaker and pipe it to the other two captains.” Captain Solear replied. He immediately regretted the decision when the bridge was blasted with an incomprehensible language. He was certain that the enemy commander knew the Alliance basic language and had intentionally not used it – probably as a sign of superiority that he no longer had to follow Alliance fleet communication protocols.

“Computer, translate message,” Arean, the first officer said. He had just returned to the bridge with the weapons officer and beat the captain to the command.

…Estimate translation at 99.4% accuracy…

…Alliance vessels, you are in violation of section 41.8.19, sub-paragraph 14 of the treaty that was signed and ratified by both the Alliance and the Hiriculans. Retreat immediately or be destroyed…

“Computer, remind me what sub-paragraph 14 of that section 41 something is?” Captain Solear asked.

…Treaty section 41.8.19, sub-paragraph 14 states that when Alliance vessels are traveling through Hiriculan space, they must lower shields, close missile bays, and identify themselves and their destination. They must then wait for confirmation and an escort before continuing…

Clowy said, “We aren’t in Hiriculan space, we are in the Opron system

The captain thought of multiple responses to her comment. The most obvious was “duh” to the less obvious but equally effective “well, duh.” He rejected each one for fear of another emotional outburst and finally settled on, “Clowy, search for the current territorial status of the Orpon system.”

Arean added, “Computer, the Opron system should considered neutral territory, has there been any updates to the treaty with respect to this system?”

Solear received both responses at the same time –
…no…
and “neutral.”

“Clowy,” the Captain said, “Record and send the following message. Hiriculan fleet, we are in neutral space; the section of the treaty that you quoted does not apply. Please redirect your vessels away from your current intercept path and proceed elsewhere.”

“To whom should I send the message?” Clowy asked.

Breathe, sigh, breathe, no yelling. The captain counted fully to 10 this time and responded, “If you can identify the enemy ship that originally sent the message, then send the response to that one. If not, then send it to the destroyer.” He thought the instruction was fairly clear, but he tensed and waited for the follow-up question. Fortunately, it didn’t come.

“Captain, message sent.” Clowy waited a precious moment and added somewhat nervously, “Also, we have received a priority hail from our engineering section.”

The captain wondered why, if it was a priority hail, that Clowy hadn’t simply answered it. He looked at her face. Her dark gray eyes that took up nearly a quarter of her face were unreadable, but her gray skin looked flushed. It might be his imagination, but she appeared to be trembling ever so slightly. Either way, it was clear that she didn’t want to answer that hail. Then, he suddenly remembered who was hailing and knew that he didn’t want to answer either.

“Carank, answer the incoming priority request,” ordered the captain.

Carank responded, “Captain, the message is garbled. There must be something wrong with our communications gear. I have taken the system off-line while the computer performs a full diagnostic check. It will be back on-line in just under 15 minutes. We can still send messages, but we won’t be able to receive them.

Well played, thought the captain. Fifteen minutes is about the amount of time it will take for his message to reach the opposing fleet, them to craft a response, and the response to travel back to the ship.

He thought briefly about Lorano, the person everyone was working so hard to avoid. Lorano was a chief design research specialist at fleet headquarters and had been responsible for overseeing the construction of
Sunflower
. He was aboard for its maiden flight to ensure that everything was functioning properly. The Altian was brilliant, one of the top minds of his generation, but was very, very difficult to deal with. He had a propensity for belittling and a knack for annoying. Even Carank, the closest to Lorano’s intellectual equal in the taskforce, had not wanted to talk to him.

Captain Solear said, “Commander.”

“Yes Captain,” Arean replied instantly.

Arean, the first officer, was also an Advranki. Unlike the other bridge crew members who had joined the staff when the
Sunflower
was launched, Arean had been with the Captain for over two years. Since the first officer was also the commander of the wing of 20 fighters aboard, Captain Solear often referred to Arean as Commander.

Fleet policy required that every being be able to speak to each other in a common language. Fleet linguists had developed a language that all species, including their enemy, could speak. Although the computer could translate between the languages almost instantaneously, Fleet psychologists felt it was better for beings to interact directly. This included the pronunciation of being’s names.

For instance, Arean’s given name was Audarreai Redkavinaini. Like nearly all Fleet personnel though, his name had been shortened to a combination of letters that all three species could easily pronounce. His particular combination was Arean. The first officer had insisted though that it be pronounced air-e’-an instead of the universally accepted A-rean.

Solear said, “We need the fighters to launch in about two hours. You should probably head down there and give them a speech.”

Getting the fighters to launch was an arduous task. The automated fire control systems of the enemy fighters were so good, that if a battle ensued, very few of his fighters would return. Of course, their automated fire systems were also very good, so the enemy fighters would take heavy casualties as well.

This fact had made all previous battles save one consist only of posturing, fleet maneuvers, and angry communications. Neither side really wanted to lose a large contingent of fighters or worse yet a cruiser. If one side was outmatched, they would simply jump into hyperspace before the other could engage. A ship that got trapped inside the hyper limit generally surrendered before getting destroyed.

Since Carank, the weapons officer, was currently off of the bridge, the pilot was responsible to watch both stations. Captain Solear started to talk to her, but Ella seemed to be consumed by her duties.

Ella was a Solarian, the third species in the Alliance. Like all other Solarians, Ella had beautiful, light blue skin, a slight frame, and was a centimeter shorter than the other two species. She was often the butt of well- intended jokes because of her species’ physical resemblance to humans. The standing joke when she messed up was, “Don’t worry; after all, you’re only human.”

Ella (or any Solarian) could pass for a human if she wore make-up or had her skin bleached. She would appear shorter and thinner than most, around 15 centimeters (6”) shorter than the average human female.

Solarians were generally the exception to the pronunciation rule because their names were pronounceable by both the Altians and the Advranki. Therefore, Ella was her actual name, not a combination of letters.

Since she looked busy, Captain Solear decided not to bother her. He then reconsidered and said, “Ella, can you tell me the weapons status?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ella replied, “The ion cannon is fully charged and all 10 missile bays report ready to fire. All 20 fighters are fueled and ready for launch.”

The ion cannon is the ship’s primary offensive weapon. The weapon is huge – the muzzle runs from the stern to the stem of the ship. It fires a concentrated beam of light so powerful that one blast will destroy an enemy’s shields and knock out main power. A fully shielded ship would be rendered unprotected and unable to move. A partially shielded ship would be disintegrated.

The main drawback to the cannon is that it requires a tremendous amount of energy to fire.
Sunflower
will only get one shot during this engagement because it takes four hours for the batteries to recharge. Further, the ion cannon shares energy reserves with the hyperspace drive. If the ion cannon is fired
, Sunflower
will be stranded in this system; unable to jump to hyperspace until the energy reserves are recharged.

The information about the fighters should have come from the commander, but he had already exited the bridge. Solear was pleased that Ella had realized this and commented, “Thanks Ella, nice job including an update on the fighters. How are the shields?”

The shields were at full strength. The Captain could easily see the status from his command chair. However, it was the most subtle way he could find to remind Ella that a shield status should be included in the weapon status.

Ella replied, “98.8%.” The percentage was announced and understood as measure of strength; but it was also technically a measure of efficiency and an inverse measure of volume. The higher the percent of shield strength meant that the coverage envelope around the ship was smaller. A smaller envelope provided a better barrier against missile attack.

The enemy reply came back in exactly 15 minutes and was not helpful. The enemy had stated that the Opron system was recently annexed by the Hiriculans and that the Hiriculan ambassador at Advranki Prime had filed all necessary paperwork. Therefore, this was Hiriculan space until the binding arbitration panel reviewed and ruled on the application. The fact that the paperwork violated the treaty and would be summarily rejected by the panel was omitted from the response.

“The enemy is changing speed and bearing,” exclaimed Clowy.

The Captain barked, “Computer, analysis.”

…The enemy fleet is increasing to a speed of .05 light and is adjusting course. The ships will curve toward and then away from us on an elliptical plane. Time to intercept is 18 minutes…

“The enemy has outmaneuvered us,” said Arean.

“True,” said Captain Solear. “Options anyone?”

The enemy’s curved flight path meant that they will shrink the missile engagement envelope to only a few seconds and will stay completely out of ion cannon range. Each group will only get one missile volley before the ships are out of effective, powered missile range. However, the Alliance fleet has to fire its missiles in the next few moments to hit the enemy ships while the enemy could wait another 4 minutes before firing. The log will show that the Alliance fired first and the Hiriculan fleet had no choice but to defend itself.

Solear could order his fleet to begin chasing the enemy to increase the weapons engagement window and bring the ion cannons back into range. However, the enemy could simply increase speed as well. With the enemy’s initial velocity advantage, his fleet would not catch them. He decided not to fire the missiles. He would not be the one to initiate the conflict.

It was at this point that Ella did something, by all accounts, dumb.

She had seen a hail that appeared to be from another ship, answered it without thinking, and was greeted by Lorano leering at her through the screen.

“Hello human,” said Lorano.

“I am not a human,” Ella responded.

“Well, you look like a human” responded Lorano.

“Do not,” Ella retorted. At this point though she knew she had lost the argument.

Lorano responded, “Humans have white, black, brown, and yellow skin. Some are as short as you. Who’s to say there aren’t blue ones we haven’t observed yet.” He was smiling broadly and clearly enjoying the exchange.

“I was born on Solaria, not, not … Human world,” Ella responded. She felt silly for having forgotten the name of humanity’s planet. “Have you even ever met a human?”

“Yes, I am looking at one now,” Lorano sneered.

Ella became visibly upset and shouted, “Well, you look like an Altian, but you are clearly an ass!”

The upcoming battle momentarily forgotten, Captain ordered Ella off the bridge to compose herself. Clowy graciously volunteered to accompany her. He mentally counted to twenty while they exited. Arean walked over and stood next to the Captain, who then addressed Lorano. “What can I do for you?”

Lorano responded, “I command that you move
Sunflower
behind the other two ships.”

“Why?” asked the Captain; though he already knew the answer. He just wanted the personal victory of hearing Lorano say it.

Lorano made no point to hide his intentions. He simply stated, “Because I’m aboard.” He must have realized when the words were spoken aloud that they sounded insensitive, so he added, “Really, it’s simple Captain. I am worth more than the lives of everyone else aboard either the
Justice
or the
Protector.
”

Captain Solear ran his green fingers through his hair. Per current Advranki fashion, he was growing it long – just above his ears. He knew that if he outright rejected the request that Lorano would file a complaint with fleet headquarters. He answered, “It is too late to change formation. If only you had told me 15 minutes earlier we could have changed our attack pattern to accommodate your request.”