The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict (35 page)

Chapter 16

Punsno’we stared out the window at the beautiful blue sky. It was a gorgeous day in Solaria City; warm, low humidity, and a light breeze. The day’s work shift was almost over and he was going to meet his wife and newborn son and walk through nearby Solar Park before dinner.

“Son,” he said to himself and smiled. He still had newborn father jitters. Just this morning, he had spent almost 10 minutes just watching him sleep before coming to work. His son turned 4 weeks old today, so Punsno’we felt that he was old enough to take him out to eat. His wife had been cooped up in their apartment and needed a break, or so he was told.

His son was something of a local celebrity. He was the first non-Solarian to be born on Solaria. Usually, ambassadors, diplomats, and other off-worlders would return home before their children’s birth, but that hadn’t been possible for Punsno’s wife.

Well, technically, it had been an option, but not a good one. Approximately 3 months ago, Punsno’we (or Ponwe in Alliance basic), Ambassador Bline, and Ambassador Lone had made a presentation to the Solarian government and won the right to build a new office building.

His wife, already pregnant, had traveled with him to Solaria. After they received the bid, it was clear that Ponwe needed to stay on Solaria and begin design work immediately. His wife could have traveled back to Hiricula by herself, had the baby, and returned. The problem was that at best commercial speed; it was a 25 day one-way voyage in real-time. His son would have been over a month old before Ponwe met him.

So, she had made the easy decision to stay and give birth here. Physically, it had been easy, but there had been several unforeseen political issues. For instance, the Solarian government and the Hiriculan embassy were still negotiating / defining his exact citizenship.

He was born to Hiriculan parents so therefore he was Hiriculan. He was born on Solaria, so he was a Solarian citizen and also an Alliance citizen. However, by definition, if he was a Hiriculan citizen he couldn’t be an Alliance citizen. The latest suggested compromise was to give him two names and two separate identities, one Hiriculan and one Solarian.

Further, deciding upon a name had also turned into a minor crisis. Because he was born on Solaria, he had to be given a Solarian name, or at a minimum, at least a Solarian sounding name. There weren’t very many Hiriculan names that even remotely sounded like Solarian ones.

Punsno’s name further compounded the situation. His name was somewhat unique in Hiriculan naming vernacular in that it ended with a vowel sound. Probably less than 5% of the population had that sound. The majority (about 70%) of all Hiriculan male names started with a consonant sound, then transitioned to a vowel sound, then ended with a consonant sound, (i.e. Loid and Fruid). The remainder had an additional consonant sound in the middle (Bligfot).

Ponwe’s father had been very successful and had earned the extra syllable for his son. Ponwe had also been relatively successful, enough so that he had earned to the right to name his children with two sounds if he chose. And why wouldn’t he give that advantage to his son.

Ponwe’s wife had searched the Solarian dictionary for possible names. She had really liked both Frogbag and Bigfoot; well, provided it was shortened to Bigfot. Ponwe recalled that conversation. He had patiently tried to explain to her that Bigfoot had a negative connotation and that Frogbag was more of a last name than a first. She hadn’t taken it well.

In fact, she had thrown up her hands, raised her ear stalks, and announced that she could care less what their son was called. Well, he laughed, her language had been rather more colorful than that. He wound up selecting three names (Lucas, Mason, and Logan) and let his wife choose her favorite. In the end, their son was named Lucas Frogribt.

One of his coworkers caught him staring out the window and casually said, “It is a beautiful day out there. Almost quitting time.”

Ponwe pulled his gaze from the window and looked over at his coworker. At this point they were the only two in the room. He said, “Yes, Jenlid’wa and I and are going to walk through the park this afternoon and then try taking Lucas to a restaurant.”

He paused for a moment, and said, “How about you Loid, what restaurant are you going to this evening?”

Loid’pe responded, “I don’t know yet. I will probably meet some of the other workers and run the obstacle course before deciding. What one are you trying?”

Ponwe remarked, “We haven’t decided yet either.”

Discussing restaurants had become the commonplace conversation between the Hiriculans working on the new office project. It was similar to discussing the weather or yesterday’s sporting event. After two months, every Hiriculan had tried just about every restaurant in town, so rehashing favorite menu items, wait staff, and clientele now passed as normal conversation.

The Hiriculans could have stayed in their apartments and cooked their own meals, but they had been strongly encouraged by the Hiriculan government to support the local economy. In fact, the government gave each worker a sizeable stipend each week and expected him/her to spend it.

Ambassador Lone, the Hiriculan ambassador to Solaria, had explained the stipend and expectation as such, “You are the first Hiriculans other than myself, to spend a considerable amount of time on this planet. Obviously, your first priority is to construct a building, but the second is to let the Solarian citizens get to know you. Think of yourselves as goodwill ambassadors.”

At first everyone had been excited about trying new restaurants and different entertainment. Lately though, the workers seemed to struggle to be enthusiastic about eating out all the time. Ponwe was privately happy that the birth of his son had given him a temporary pass from the spending policy.

Ponwe doubted that Loid’pe would actually make it to a restaurant tonight. After the obstacle course, he would probably just grab a couple of Advranki sea moss balls to-go, extravagantly over-tip, and eat them alone in his apartment.

Loid tended to be a loner, very humble and quiet. About the only activity he did was work on the building and exercise. Every morning he would lead all of the construction workers through calisthenics before work. On weekends he would organize 3 kilometer runs, and of course he spent many evenings after work at the obstacle course he had built.

Ponwe knew very little about Loid’pe; the man rarely talked about himself. The one thing he did know was that Loid’pe preferred the name Loid versus his true name of Loid’pe or his Alliance name of Lope. He said that Loid sounded like the Solarian name Lloyd and he had simply dropped the ’pe as part of being a ‘goodwill ambassador’.

Ponwe snorted. That may be technically true, but it wasn’t the real reason. Ponwe knew that Loid used to be a warrior and had the cherished moniker Loid’la. However, he had clearly done something horribly wrong because he had been thrown out of the navy and forced to design sewer systems.

They had stripped the ’la from his name and replaced it with ’pe. The letters la at the end of name mean warrior and is used by members of the military. The letters pe translate roughly as punishment or those who are no longer respected in polite society. It is reserved for those very, very few who screwed up really, really badly.

Ponwe decided to try to continue the conversation. Perhaps this was this was the day he could get Loid to talk about himself. Ponwe said, “The new design is really innovative. I didn’t think there were any advances left in sewer systems, but you have managed to find one. I am really impressed.”

“Thank you,” answered Loid somewhat hesitantly.

Ponwe could tell that Loid really didn’t like being acknowledged for his work. Ponwe didn’t blame him too much though. Designing the best sewer system in the world is still a shitty job.

Ponwe continued, “I especially like the way that you connected this building’s sewage and water system to the six buildings next to it. The Solarians will have a much more robust system with less overall evaporators to maintain. Nice.”

“Yes, the key is to gain economy of scale through combination.”

“Does the pipe have to be that big though?”

“The math is pretty easy actually. The bigger the pipe, the more water, or anything else for that matter, you can push through it. If you need to move 20 cm of water, you could use a 20 cm pipe. However, it flows better through a 40 cm pipe.”

‘Better’ was a curious word for Loid to use, Ponwe thought. The math describing water flow through a pipe is fairly complex, but basically the speed of flow is inversely proportional to the square root of the pipe’s diameter. Therefore, the same quantity of water flows faster through a small pipe and slower through a large pipe. It never flows better.

However, there was little doubt that Loid’s new sewer system was innovative. Normally, each building had a collector and an evaporator to treat water and waste. These systems are very expensive and typically operate far below capacity. Loid had designed a system to link six nearby buildings together via large, underground pipes. Then, the waste water will be treated by one evaporator unit much more efficiently and economically.

Ponwe realized that he had been thinking for a moment and had stopped talking. He responded, “Yes, but the underground pipes are so big that you could almost walk through them.”

Loid laughed and said, “Well, I suppose you could walk through the pipe. You would have to walk hunched way over and wade knee deep through fecal matter. The smells would be horrific. It’s not my idea of a Sunday stroll, but hey, to each his own right?”

Ponwe laughed too. It was the first time he had seen Loid laugh since he arrived in Solaria. Ponwe psyched himself up a little and asked the question that had been wanting to ask for the last month, “How did you wind up here designing sewer systems?”

Loid stopped laughing, but a trace of the smile remained. Loid said, “As you probably already guessed, I used to be in the military. My career was going well. I was the navigation officer on an admiral’s battleship; a rather prestigious position.”

Loid paused for a breath and continued, “We were passing through Hepitila when we came across an Alliance cruiser that had just destroyed two Hiriculan destroyers.”

Ponwe sucked in his breath, making an ‘ooooh’ sound. Ponwe, like everyone else, had seen the video of the battle. Ponwe said, “The Alliance ship was the
Sunflower
, and that means you must have been stationed on the
Avenger
.”

Loid neither confirmed nor denied the assertion. He continued, “We were a little late arriving and the cruiser was able to clear the gravity well and jump to hyperspace before we could stop it.”

Ponwe encouraged him to continue by saying, “Yes, two seconds to spare.”

Loid said, “I failed to track the ship when it jumped away. Then, we had a blockade in Netron to stop it, but again it took an unanticipated trajectory and escaped.”

Ponwe answered, “I thought it was impossible to track a ship in hyperspace.”

Loid nodded in agreement this time and said, “It is. But there are certain clues if you look closely. As I am sure you already know, a ship can only jump through hyperspace in a straight line. So, if you record the course the ship was traveling just before it jumped, you could then plot potential courses.”

Ponwe said, “Sounds reasonable, but there are still a bunch of unknowns.”

Loid responded, “True, but I failed to know the one known that I should have known.”

Ponwe: “Meaning?”

Loid: “Meaning that the cruiser made a last second course change and I failed to spot it and use that information in my calculation for where the ship went. I just guessed that the cruiser jumped back to Netron instead of trying to research its true course. Basically, I failed.”

Ponwe tried to be supportive. He said, “Detecting a last second course correction and making complex calculations in a moment’s notice is very difficult. It wasn’t a fair request to make of you.”

Loid: “Yes. You are correct. I argued the same thing at my discipline hearing. Basically though, the Hiriculan high command needed a scapegoat for their abject military failure and I was the convenient selection.”

Ponwe asked, “What happened?”

Loid: “In the end I was given the new name and a choice, go to a penal colony or come to Solaria and design sewer systems.”

Ponwe almost asked him which one he chose, but stopped himself just in time. Since he was sitting here talking to him, the answer was obvious.

Ponwe smiled and said, “Well, at least you have a path to redemption I suppose. Someday they may call you the best refuse management engineer in history.”

Loid pointed to the location where the waste is collected just before being fed into the evaporator and said, “Look, they are already building me a monument.”

Ponwe responded, “Well, I am certainly thankful to have you on the team. I have another question though, the battle was already over, so why did the Alliance cruiser destroy our supply of steel? That seemed rather cruel of them.”

Ponwe was referring to the two enormous steel plates that the Hiriculans had painstakingly created in Hepitila. The plates were intended for new construction projects, including this one.

Loid: “I don’t know. Maybe they just forgot about the missile. Either way, the Alliance reprioritized its schedule and got us the necessary steel.”

Ponwe was about to respond when the Solarian government made an announcement that they were going to test the world-wide EMP system in 5 minutes. Ponwe sighed and plugged his communication pad into a wall socket. He watched Loid do the same. The government tested the system at least once a month at random intervals.

The planet Solaria was unique among inhabited planets. It has a rather large magnetic core. Early settlers had used this core to create a system-wide electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bomb. At a press of a button, every electric / electronic device inside the hyperspace limit would short circuit. Enemy cruisers would immediately lose power and be unable to move or fire.