The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (38 page)

Ella, Clowy, and Lexxi departed the bridge. When they had left Arean said, “Captain, I have an idea. I know what we can do to start evaluating the human fighters.”

Solear looked up. He was clearly interested. Solear said, “Please tell.”

Arean said, “We have a flight simulator aboard. Let’s have one of the humans take the final examination. Then we will have a clear comparison of their performance to the baseline.”

Solear and Arean left the bridge and hurried down the main corridor to the hangar. The caribou painted on the walls were leaping to keep up with them. They noticed the force field on the main hallway was down. They walked through into the fighter bay to find every single person from maintenance and engineering scrambling over the fighters.

Arean caught one by the arm and asked her what they were doing.

She said, “The humans nearly wrecked the fighters. I don’t know how some of these things made it back.”

Solear asked, “Were they hit by enemy missiles?”

She answered, “As far as we can tell, no. Most of the damage occurred from performing maneuvers and the rest from their horrendous landing.’

Arean asked, “How bad is it?”

She said, “We have the spare parts to fix all of them. Mostly though we just need time to repair, recalibrate, and in two cases resuscitate these fighters.”

Solear said, “Resuscitate?”

She said, “Two of the fighters have burned out their ion power generators. The whole generator will have to be replaced.”

Solear asked, “How long?”

She answered, “Two days. Three days at the most. Please don’t fight any more battles like that one for a few days.”

Solear and Arean politely chuckled and thanked her for the information. They proceeded to the humans’ living quarters. Solear lowered the force field, walked through, and reanimated it after Arean had stepped through. Solear took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was going to happen.

Just like the other times, one of the humans noticed they had entered, immediately yelled, and all of them came running toward them. The stopped in two straight lines and held their right arms to their heads. Solear noted that the humans running toward him made him scared, but he was now somewhat accustomed to the two lines of motionless beings. He looked over at Arean and noticed that he had backed all the way to the force field when the humans had started running.

Solear yelled, “At ease.” He waited for a moment for the humans to switch to the other position. He still had no idea why they stood there like that. However, he supposed, at least the humans notice me when I enter the room.

Solear said, “I would like to thank each and every one of you for your outstanding performance in the recent battle. You saved the ship and everyone aboard.” He paused for a moment to allow them to say something. No one did, so Solear said, “Again, thank you. Return to your duties.”

All of the humans save one left the area. Jim Donovan walked over to the two officers. He said, “Thank your for the recognition.” He waited a moment and then said, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Solear responded, “Yes. As a matter of fact, there is something. Please come with us.”

Solear turned and disabled the force field long enough for the threesome to exit the quarters. They walked across the hangar to the main hallway. Solear noted that his crew was paying attention to him now. He could feel all of the maintenance personnel staring at him – or more likely staring at the human walking next to him.

They walked down the caribou corridor and into the bridge. The bridge was empty as he had dismissed the three lieutenants. Solear pointed out a few aspects of the bridge section, such as the secondary generator and the double shielding. Solear noticed that Jim kept looking around, so he said, “You seem to think something is missing.”

Jim chuckled and said, “Is it that obvious?” When Solear nodded, Jim continued, “I was looking for the bridge crew. Are they hiding?”

Solear smiled and said, “No. The ship is currently on autopilot. I gave the bridge crew a break after the long battle.” This seemed to mollify the human, so Solear said, “Let’s continue.” He led them across the main bridge area and to the electro-magnetic lift.

The lift was in use though. Lexxi, Clowy, and Ella rode it up and got off back on the bridge. Solear saw their eyes widen when they saw the human. Solear said, “Ah, here is the bridge crew.” The three carefully stepped off of the platform. They could do little else. There was nowhere they could go without looking rude.

Solear said, “This is Lexxi, our weapons officer.”

Jim put his hand out. Lexxi looked at him like he was an idiot and he quickly put his hand back down. Jim said, “Lexxi, it is nice to meet you. You are the first Advranki female I have met.”

Lexxi smiled at him and said, “Correction. I am the best Advranki female you have ever met.” She was surprised how big and tall he was compared to her. He didn’t seem to be attacking her, but she stepped back anyway. She gradually put Clowy between herself and the human.

Solear continued, “This is Clowy, our communications officer.”

Jim again said hello. Clowy asked, “Am I the first Altian you have met?”

Jim replied, “The first female Altian anyway. There was a male Altian on the freighter that took us from Earth to the rendezvous.

Clowy asked, “Who was he?”

Jim thought that was odd question. There must be billions of Altians in the galaxy. The odds of her knowing him were astronomical. However, Jim said, “I believe his name was Lorano.” Jim noted that everyone groaned at the mention of his name.

Clowy answered, “We know him. He was on the
Sunflower
for a short time. He isn’t a good representative of our species.”

Jim responded, “He seemed nice enough. He was very helpful the times I talked to him.”

Clowy said, “Wow, Lorano finally found a species that he can’t intimidate or insult.”

Solear said, “Finally, this is Ella, our pilot and navigator.”

Ella had watched some human movies and knew what a handshake was. She stuck out her hand and said, “Hello.”

Jim reached out and shook her hand. Jim said, “You are the first Solarian I have met. The similarities between us are incredible. You look human.”

Ella shook his hand. Her hand was small compared to his and almost disappeared in his grasp. She thought it must be similar to a child shaking an adult’s hand. The shake was over as quickly as it had started, but she had felt the strength in his hand. He could have crushed her hand if he had wanted. She responded, “Yes, our two races look strikingly similar.”

Jim asked, “Are we the same biologically?”

Before Ella could answer, Lexxi said, “Must be nice. You meet one human and you get asked out on a hot date.”

Ella felt her face flush and her cheeks turn a little red. She watched the human. He had the same reaction. However, when he flushed, his cheeks turned much redder than hers. She figured it must be that the white skin showed more color. The embarrassment was broken when everyone started laughing at the joke.

Solear led them onto the platform and they lowered down to the bridge crew quarter level. They walked to the crew’s entertainment room. There was an Advranki female standing next to a flight simulator. She introduced herself as Jetlag, the senior medical technician on the ship.

Jim tried his hardest, but couldn’t stop himself from giggling. When she looked at him questioningly, he said, “I am sorry. Your name is a word in my language.”

Jetlag said, “Computer, translate the human word jetlag into Alliance Basic.”

…99.9% jetlag…

Jetlag said, “Computer, define the Alliance Basic word jetlag.”

…Jetlag is the word used to describe feeling very tired when one travels to a different time zone and is awake in that time zone when he should to be asleep in his original time zone …

Arean smiled at her and said, “You must be very tired.”

Solear turned to Jim and said, “Jim, I would like you to retake the final pilot’s exam.” Solear thought that Jim suddenly looked shocked and possibly worried.

Jim said, “Did I do something wrong?” Jim wondered if they had evaluated his performance and noted that it was just slightly below that of the other pilots. Jim was preparing several excuses, including the difficulty in both flying and leading the team.

Solear answered, “No. Quite the opposite in fact. Your performance was extraordinary. We just want to see you take the test so that we can compare your performance to the Advranki baseline. Also, we will be able to watch your performance on the nearby monitor.”

This made Jim more nervous. They were going to watch and evaluate the entire obstacle course. Jim answered nervously, “I did pass the test. All of the human pilots passed.”

Solear answered, “Yes. We saw that you passed. We just need a comparison.”

Jim responded, “Perhaps I should get our best pilot so that you can get a more accurate comparison.”

Arean said, “No. That will not be necessary. I am sure that you will do fine.” Arean did not want to march all the way back to the pilot’s quarters and repeat the entire process.

Jim climbed inside the flight simulator. He noted that it was a newer one, exactly like the model that was on the freighter. He sat down, settled himself as much as possible, donned his cap, and started the simulation. He noted that he more nervous now than when he was facing the Hiriculans in the battle.

Jim began negotiating with the Advanki female at the start of the simulation for a change to his missile package. He knew better than to call her Karen this time. Eventually, he succeeded in trading his ship buster missile and one shield buster missile for the gravity missile and the hyper communication missile. He launched his fighter from the cruiser and proceeded toward the obstacle course.

Arean said, “I have never seen anyone be successful in trading missiles. Also, the selection is very odd. He just gave away the only missile capable of doing any damage to the enemy cruiser.” Arean shook his head. Clearly, that was a blunder.

Solear noted, “Jim is turning off his automatic controls and switching to manual.”

Jetlag said, “There is the spike in his brain. It looks the information is starting to overload his brain.” She continued to watch his vital signs for another few moments. Then she said, “Wait, wait, he is calming down. He is calming way down. The spike is gone. He is now calmer than his baseline.”

Jim switched to manual. His felt the onrush of information and momentarily couldn’t find yellow. He could tell that he was nervous. He forced himself to focus and finally found and linked yellow. Then he linked green, then blue, and now they all fell into place. He felt the ship linked directly to him now and was calm and ready to continue.

Jim flew through the maze with ease, making each turn look easy. He approached the final turn, fired his gravity buster missile, and rode the gravity wave through the 90 degree turn and out of the maze.

Arean couldn’t believe it. He had never seen someone fly that smoothly through the course and had never seen anyone attempt, let alone make the final turn. He said, “Well, now we know why he wanted a gravity missile.”

Jim flew to the single fighter. He fired a guided missile, watched the enemy bank left, and fired a dummy missile at that location. He then dodged the oncoming missile and headed for the next challenge. He knew the enemy fighter had been killed, but he checked his sensors anyway.

Arean said, “Wow, no dogfight, nothing. He simply fired a missile and hit the Hiriculan fighter.”

Solear said, “The second missile wasn’t guided. How difficult is it to hit an enemy fighter with an unguided, straight-line missile?”

Arean said, “I would have told you that it was impossible if I hadn’t just seen him do it.” Arean continued, “Oh well, let’s see how he does now that he has to face 3 fighters.”

Jim saw the three enemy fighters rapidly approaching. He did a juke down, then a barrel roll back up and over the on-coming fighters. He continued toward the next test. The three Hiriculan fighters turned and started pursuing.

Arean said, “Wait, he didn’t even engage them.”

Solear said, “I thought the humans always fought everything. This seems an advanced strategy for them to choose running when facing overwhelming odds.”

Arean said, “I have never seen anyone try it before. However, now there are three fighters behind him and a cruiser in front. Rather poor odds I would say.”

Jetlag said, “The human is still as calm as before. Nothing seems to rattle him.”

Jim began his attack run on the Hiriculan cruiser. He evened his shield between front and back and dove toward the engine room. He juked left, then left, then left again, each time narrowly avoiding enemy fire from the cruiser and his pursuers.

Jim fired his remaining shield buster missiles and opened a hole in the cruiser’s shields. He then fired his hyper communication missile containing his homing beacon. Jim flew past the cruiser and began a tight 6 gee loop around it. The three enemy fighters locked onto the homing beacon and fired all of their missiles, including the three ship buster missiles.

The Hiriculan cruiser exploded in a huge cloud of dust and Jim targeted and killed the remaining 3 enemy fighters with his last three missiles. He noted that the he had gotten three kills. He leveled off and began slowing. He flew to the waiting Alliance cruiser and landed.

Arean was stunned. He simply couldn’t believe that the cruiser and all three enemy fighters had been destroyed. He said, “That was incredible. He used the enemy’s missiles against them.”

Solear said, “It was surprising how similar the attack on the two destroyers looked to the attack on that cruiser. Now I understand how they knew exactly what to do.”

Arean answered, “No Alliance pilot has ever thought to try that in the simulation. It is an original, human solution to be sure.”

Solear said, “Commander, look at this.”

Arean looked over and saw the human’s final score on the simulation was 11,230. The score was almost 10,000 points higher than the Advranki pilots’ baseline. Arean started to say something, then stopped, then restarted and stopped again. Finally, he said, “Captain, now I know why their scores weren’t in the system. I believe they were intentionally deleted.”