The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict (25 page)

The fighters were stored in an elevator or a vertical garage. There were four sets of elevators in a row in the exact center of the hangar. They were aligned perfectly with the launch bay opening; the first one was aligned with the left edge, the second one with the left middle, the third one with the right middle, and finally the fourth one with the far right.

Each elevator had five slots and would go down all the way to the floor, meaning when the fighters were completely put away, the top of the elevators were even with the hangar floor. The hangar was tall enough to expose three rows of fighters above the hangar floor. When the bottom two rows of the elevator were above the floor the top two spots extended into the ceiling.

When they were ready to launch, a plate would appear behind the fighter. This served two functions; first it was a temporary shield protecting the back half of the bay. Its primary function though was a gravity plate. The plate creates a strong gravity field that repulses the fighter. It pushes the fighter forward hard enough to give it an initial velocity of .02 light, far higher than it could have achieved without a push. The net effect of the gravity plate is similar to drawing a rock back a slingshot and releasing it.

When the fighter lands it goes back into the elevator parking spot. If a fighter were to land from the same bay it left, then it would be facing directly opposite of its initial position. Therefore, the next time the fighter launched, it would be launch out of the opening on the other side of the hangar. If required for some reason, the fighter could be removed from the storage bay and manually turned around.

Jim Donovan climbed down the ladder beside the elevator to the first level. He found his fighter, climbed in, and started the pre-flight check. Everything was okay, so he donned his flight helmet, fastened it to the suit, and listened to the flight computer whisper to him.

Jim waited for the other 4 pilots in his elevator to get to their fighters. The pilot on the second floor decided to climb down to his fighter as well. The other three slid down the side of the ladder to their level. Jim wondered why the aliens had devised such a simple, manual solution to get the pilots to the correct level. He thought they should have been able to create some kind of anti-gravity plate that would whisk them down to the correct level. Oh well, he thought, perhaps he would ask Arean sometime.

All of the pilots were in their fighters, so Jim called Arean and said, “Commander, all fighters are ready to launch.”

Arean said, “You are clear to launch.” Arean had planned a big speech for the event, but decided against using it because this was only a training run.

Two of the four elevators rose up one level, exposing two fighters, one facing starboard and the other facing port. Jim activated his plasma reactor and blasted out of the hangar. Jim banked left and slowed down to allow the others to catch up. He was followed 8 seconds later by Russ blasting out of the other side. Russ veered right and also slowed.

Now, the second and fourth elevators took 14 seconds to rise up one level, exposing two more fighters, again one facing port and the other facing starboard. The gravity / shield plates moved into position. This was critical. If a fighter launched, its exhaust would destroy an exposed fighter sitting directly behind it. Blaze blasted out and veered left to follow Jim. Eight seconds later Ace blasted out and turned right to follow Russ.

In total, it took 50 seconds to launch the first level of 4 fighters (2–14 second elevator moves and 4-8 second launches). This was repeated four more times, so 50 seconds times 5 levels equals 250 seconds or 4 minutes 10 seconds to launch all fighters.

Arean announced, “All fighters have launched exactly on schedule.” That was a good start, he thought, they were actually able to launch on time and create a standard formation.

Jim checked his controls. The board was green. The computer was whispering flight control information to him exactly like the simulator. He was surprised how realistic the simulator had been. He really could not tell a difference between being in the simulator and being in the fighter.

All 20 fighters had launched and had moved into formation. They maintained this basic formation and flew in a left turn, then a right turn, then in a wide loop. The flight path that Arean had established was very basic. The fighters went through another two series of turns and changed from the box (4 X 5) to the line (10 X 2) and back to the box formation. Ace open communication to all fighters and asked, “CAG, should we go ghost?”

Ghost was the name they had given to switching off the flight computer and flying the fighters in manual mode. No one was sure exactly who had coined the phrase, but it somehow seemed fitting. Jim responded with a simple “No.” There was no point, the maneuvers were basic and the formations were spaced widely apart.

They had completed all of the assigned maneuvers and lined up into two single file rows of 10 to return to the cruiser. They spaced themselves out and began landing on the cruiser. Each fighter was spaced 50 seconds from the next, so one fighter landed every 25 seconds. All 20 landed perfectly in the elevators in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

Solear said, “Commander, how did the fighters do on their trial run?”

Arean answered, “They actually did rather well. They launched successfully, followed the flight path exactly, and landed correctly.”

Solear said, “How do they compare to Advranki pilots?”

Arean answered, “It’s hard to tell. They did okay. They met all of the mission parameters, so they performed about as well as Advranki pilots.”

Solear said, “Well, that is a good sign I suppose. Now, I wonder if they will launch when called upon.”

Arean said, “I hold little hope, but hey, you never know.”

Ella said, “We are ready to make the next jump.” Captain Solear motioned okay and Ella engaged the hyper-drive. The
Sunflower
made a micro jump that placed the ship at the entryway to the Opron – Conron hyperspace lane.

“We are being hailed by traffic control. Clowy said.”

Solear responded, “Place it through the com system.”

Someone from traffic control said, “Traffic control here. Please state your business.”

Captain Solear answered, “We are headed for the Opron system. Please give us the first available hyperspace launch window.”

Traffic control responded, “You are clear for immediate passage. The entry coordinates are being submitted to your computer.”

Captain Solear settled into his captain’s chair and instructed Ella to engage. The
Sunflower
jumped into hyperspace for the 11 hour journey to Opron. He decided to use spend the time reading a novel he had been neglecting. He began reading, but only made it 5 pages when his three female officers began an in depth conversation about hair-care products.

The chatter irritated him for some reason and he closed the reader application on his com pad. He briefly thought what would happen if the Navy brass replaced Arean with a human female. At this point he wasn’t sure which was worse; that the human female would attack the other 3 or join in the conversation.

Solear realized he hadn’t left the bridge area in days; not since he addressed the human pilots. He decided to take a walk through the cruiser. Arean was in his quarters, so Captain Solear announced to the three ladies that he was leaving the bridge and touring the ship. They were in a spirited debate about the effects of pre-rinse and didn’t look up or acknowledge him.

Solear looked back at Clowy. She was now standing and showing the other two how she prepared her long light blue hair before stepping into the sonic shower. The irony of the scene made him chuckle to himself. Altians are naturally hairless; at least on their heads or faces. He couldn’t remember from diversity training whether they had hair in other locations on their bodies.

When long(er) hair became the fashion trend for females on Advranki Prime, the new look was immediately copied on Solaria. The Altians must have felt left out, for they invented a method to grow real hair and implant it onto their scalps. The process involved conditioning the top of the head; then taking a growing head of hair similar to wig and fastening it to one’s head. It was quick, painless, relatively inexpensive, and continued to grow after application.

Captain Solear turned and left the bridge. He turned right and decided to visit engineering. He strolled down the corridor, admiring the caribou running alongside and the sunflowers blowing in the breeze. Walking through the corridor made him smile and temporarily forget whatever was bothering him. He supposed that was the point of the mural.

Solear reached the end of the corridor and watched the caribou jump through the doorway and disappear. He entered the power generation room. There were two engineers working at their stations. Neither noticed his entrance. Solear went to an empty station and looked at the system’s status. The hyperspace drive was performing within nominal range in every key area. He finally approached one of the engineers and said, “How is everything?”

The engineer looked up and said, “Hello Captain, I didn’t see you enter. Everything is going well for the most part. The ion cannon is okay, the hyper-drive is performing well, shield generators are fine, and both the primary and secondary power generators are good. There are no real ship issues.”

Solear responded, “You said for the most part. Is there a problem?”

The second engineer had approached and joined the conversation. The engineers looked at each other and finally the first one continued, “Well, we are having some problems tuning the fighters’ engines.”

Solear asked, “Why is that?”

The engineer responded, “Well, the humans are constantly performing status checks on the fighters. They perform about 20 checks a day on each fighter. That is over 400 checks that maintenance has to review for mechanical function and then we have to review and approve for engine readiness. It is creating a lot of unnecessary work.”

Solear said, “Okay.”

The engineer became rather loquacious. Now that he was finally talking and being listened to he seemed to have more issues he wanted to discuss. The engineer continued, “Plus, now maintenance is being strange. They are limiting access to the fighters. We can only work on them during the evening shift.”

Solear asked, “Why is that?”

The engineer responded, “Because maintenance has to be present to assist us with engine test and calibration.”

Solear answered, “Yes, I know that. I meant why is maintenance only working on them during the evening?”

Both engineers shook their heads. The second one said, “Maybe they are overwhelmed, I don’t know. What I do know is that we had to assign the other 3 engineers to evening shift to handle the increased workload. Well, let me correct that. It isn’t really an increased workload, just a reduction in the amount of hours available to do the job.”

Solear said, “Have you asked the humans why they are running so many checks?”

The engineer suddenly turned laconic. He simply said, “No.”

The second engineer continued the conversation. He said, “Well, we walked down there one time. There was a human on the other side of the entryway to the hangar. He was just standing there with his face about ten centimeters from the force field.”

The first recovered his speaking voice and said, “He was staring down at us, daring us to lower the force field. I could tell he wanted out. I think he wanted to tear off my arm and beat me with it.”

Solear asked, “What was he doing?”

The second added, “He was staring at us. It was really creepy.”

The first said, “He was holding a com pad in his hands. He was pointing to it. We thought he was trying to use it to break through the force field.”

Solear said, “You two designed that. You know that he can’t lower the force field.”

The second said, “True, but I didn’t realize how big and strong they are. This one towered over us. I bet he could have walked through that force field if he tried.”

Solear asked, “What did you do?”

The first said, “Simple, we gassed him to sleep and ran back to engineering.”

Solear asked, “Have you tried sending them a message?” The engineers shook their head no. Solear then said, “Well, did you contact Arean and see if he could resolve the issue?”

They both said, “No.” Then the second continued, “Yes, we probably should have contacted Arean and had him look into it. Basically, we have just been ignoring it.”

Captain Solear walked out of engineering and ducked his head into the infirmary. The room was dark. There were no patients present in any of the four beds. Battleships had a full time doctor, but the smaller class ships like destroyers and cruisers did not. The
Sunflower
had two medics that were trained in first aid and contagion containment.

Solear walked back into the caribou corridor. There were six doors, three on the left and three on the right. The doors were spaced evenly down the corridor and perfectly aligned across from each other. Solear suspected the design was less due to functionality and more to the fact that Lorano must have liked the simple elegance of it.

The three doors on the right led to the crew quarters, kitchen and dining area, and new entertainment area respectively. The three on the right led to maintenance, the bridge, and missile storage.

Solear walked nearly the length of the corridor and entered the third doorway on the left. He entered the missile storage room. To his right was a large door that connected missile storage to the hangar. To his left was an identical large door that connected the missile storage room to the maintenance area. He was currently standing in a large, empty area that served as a corridor connecting the two doors.

The large doors were used to move supplies from the hanger into maintenance and also to move missiles from storage to the fighters. Both doors were currently closed. They didn’t put force field over these doors because of their large size and ability to be physically shut and locked. There were force fields on the two person-sized exits to the room.