Date: 2016-02-08T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd. At just twenty three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation. But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results. Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race. Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told. Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned

First Contact

An Alicia Jones novel

Author: D. L. Harrison

Copyright 2016.  This is a work of fiction.  Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Afterword:

About the Author

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

Book Description

Prologue

My name is Alicia Jones, and I am different from everyone else I’d ever met.  I always had been for as long as I could remember.  While growing up I had come up with many bizarre theories but the truth of who and what I was eluded me.  I could do things that other humans could not.  Was I the next step in evolution?  Something even stranger?  I’d never found anyone, outside of fiction, that remotely came close to my… otherness.  This is the story of how I found out what I was, and believe it or not, I am not the strangest thing in it.

Despite my differences, I’d never really been an outcast.  Mostly thanks to the fact I’ve hidden those things that made me stand out.  I was only six years old when I figured out I was different.  Up until then I’d assumed everyone could feel what I felt, and do what I could do.  I could look at my parents, my adoptive parents since my biological parents died in an accident when I was just an infant, and I’d see in them what they were feeling at that moment, I could also see that they were good.  Most importantly I could see they loved me.

This was instinctual.  I just… knew.

I couldn’t read minds or feel emotions like a telepath, or empath like in some story.  The closest thing I can compare it to was the concept of reading a person’s aura.  But not really that either.  It’s more like a vibe, or a gut feeling.  Regardless, I’d figured out I was different when my mother and father introduced my new babysitter.

I was shocked at what I felt from this new person my parents were entrusting me to.  It took me a few minutes, but I realized my parents had no clue what type of monster they were allowing into their home, and to watch me.  It was the first time I knew I was different.

There are other things that make me different, but I’ve been able to hide them as well, in no small part because of my ability to read the people around me.  It’s made it very simple to… fit in.  Fit in yes, although feeling as if I belonged… that was another story entirely, because I didn’t… belong that is.

My story starts in my twenty third year, in my post graduate studies in experimental physics.  The year was twenty forty-eight and the world’s technology has grown in leaps and bounds the last thirty some odd years.

Chapter 1

“What the hell is going on,” I asked myself out loud as I looked up at the ceiling in my lab space.  I felt confused and unsure.  This result had not been anticipated.

My A.I. who I’d creatively named Al answered me in a dry even voice, “Unknown.  Running scans, this could take several hours.  Reminder, you have plans with Kristi in forty minutes.”

I sighed.  A night out sounded fun, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the lab in light of this… result that had my mind spinning.  Still, Kristi was my roommate and best friend, my only friend really, and if I cancelled on her she’d probably give me grief, track me down, and drag me out anyway.  Plus, I really didn’t need to stay, Al could stay interfaced with the equipment from anywhere, and even shut it down if something went wrong.  Or I should say, more wrong.

My theory was so promising, and now… this.  Whatever this was.  Technology was booming, as was the race to get out into the solar system.  Cold fusion, superconductors outside of very low temperatures, ion drives that required very little reaction mass, personal AIs, all these things and more had been invented over the last thirty years.  Space was in our grasp, but shielding from radiation in space outside the Earth’s EM field was still unreliable at best, an energy hog at worst.

My experiment involved a miniature fusion reactor directly feeding energy into a superconductor shaped into a spiral.  Nothing new or groundbreaking about that, it should create an EM field capable of stopping radiation from reaching anything enclosed within the spiral, it should also shield any side reactions from the reactor as well.  The entire device was about two feet in diameter and a foot in height.

The actual breakthrough was in the materials used, it should be extremely efficient and reliable.  Yet, when I turned it on an hour ago, once it reached ten percent power it started to rise off the table.  It only took a few seconds, and it was flush against the ceiling.  For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the cause could be.  Hopefully when the scans were done the data would give me a clue.

I thought about shutting it off, but the reactor was steady, the power measurements were as expected.  It even measured the EM field that I had anticipated.  The only problem was… it was on the ceiling, defying gravity.

Floating, for no apparent reason that I could determine.

I remarked as I walked to the door, “Al, keep an eye on it, if anything changes before the scans are done inform me please… and seal the lab.”

It wouldn’t keep out my professor, but it would keep out just about everyone else.

I jogged over to the edge of campus to the apartment.  I was running late so I wasted no time and jumped in the shower.  I should have been clearing my mind of work, getting ready for night out, but it wasn’t quite that easy.  I wondered if maybe it could be some type of EM drive, maybe I was getting thrust that way?  It didn’t sound right, but I really didn’t see another possibility offhand.

I finished up and glanced at the clock and winced.  Luckily it didn’t take me all that long to get ready.  I dried my hair which came out light blonde and wavy and put on a light touch of makeup around my eyes and got dressed.  The local college bar was a casual hangout, pool tables, dart board, small dance floor, large bar with televisions usually tuned in to sports.  I pulled on a pair of skin tight jeans, a casual cotton shirt and some low heeled sandals.

I considered myself attractive most days, but neither did I attract every eye when I walked into a room.  I couldn’t help the smile on my face as I walked out to the living room, Kristi was waiting for me and I could feel she was impatient, and a little jealous of my looks.  Which made no sense to me, it never did.  Kristi was gorgeous.  She had long curly golden blonde hair, pouty lips on a heart shaped face, her nose was adorable, and her eyes were a hypnotizing stormy gray.

We were both shapely, but she had larger… assets.  In short, she had no reason to be jealous.  That wasn’t all I felt from her of course, she was my best friend and had a bright generous soul.  Being around her was like… standing in sunlight on a cool day and just enjoying the warmth soaking into my skin.

I winked and tried to suppress a smile, “You ready to go?”

Kristi snorted, “Yes, and I hate you.  How do you get ready so fast?  It takes me time and effort to reach the perfection standing before you.”

I shrugged, “Magic.”

For all I knew that was true, but I doubted it.  There’s no such thing.  Outside of my senses however all of my… talents, were focused within.  I was fairly normal outside of the fact that I had a great amount of control over my own body.  I didn’t want to have bad hair days, or problems with my complexion, or catch a cold, or gain weight.  Unlike normal people however, for me that was enough, I simply didn’t have to deal with those issues.

Kristi, my brilliant friend and roommate, stuck her tongue out at me before heading to the door.  I smiled and shook my head as I followed her out.  She really was brilliant, but she always told me she encouraged her inner bimbo so she didn’t wind up chasing all the men away.  Sadly enough, her approach worked very well.  I wasn’t sure if that was proof intelligent women scared most men away, but it was clear that ditzy women did not.

It was a warm spring evening but still cool enough to feel refreshing as we walked to the campus bar.  Inside it wasn’t too crowded yet, we grabbed a table close to the dance floor and ordered some drinks.  Thank goodness my weirdness had no effect on the way alcohol affected my body.  I relaxed slightly as I felt the pleasant tingle of the mixed drink go down my throat and warm my stomach.

I wanted to share the oddness of my experiment with Kristi, but I knew better than to bring up work when we were on fun time.  I could feel everyone in the bar, but it wasn’t overwhelming.  Like I explained earlier, it was more like a vibe, their emotions couldn’t touch mine despite my knowledge of them.  It was a little like tuning out the din in a loud crowded room.  It would take something unexpected to get my attention.

Kristi gave me a sidelong glance and said tentatively, “Joe is coming tonight, he might be bringing a friend.”

I frowned and she cringed a bit.  Joe was her on again off again boyfriend.  Of course, what made me frown was that apparently she was trying to set me up… again.  I liked men, and I’d be the first to say I could get a little over focused on my goals and testing scientific theories, but I hated blind dates with a passion.

I took another drink before replying in exasperation, “Did you have to?”

She glared at me and nodded, “Yes, you need to loosen up and have fun.”

I wanted to reply science was fun, but I knew how sad that would sound, even to me.  Even if it was true, or perhaps especially because I’d have meant it.  I could swear I saw her eyes grow vacant and her IQ dribble out of her ears as she looked over my shoulder, Joe must be here.  A second later I could feel him getting closer.  The vibes I’d get from people were like fingerprints.  Part of it was transitory, how they felt at that moment, but a lot of it was simply the core of the person, who they were.  Yes, that could change, but not quickly and not all at once.

I felt someone walking next to him.  Some would say it was unfair of me.  I didn’t even have the guy’s name yet, but I could tell he was nervous.  Deeper than that, he felt solid and dependable.  That didn’t mean much except that he would probably say what he meant.  After all, you could describe a serial killer as solid and dependable from a certain point of view.

My talents didn’t tell me everything, all it told me was I could believe what I observed from him tonight.  Not at all a bad place to start.  From Joe on the other hand, I felt a wishy washy center, sort of why he and Kristi were on again off again.  He wasn’t a bad guy, just indecisive.

As they got closer I turned and we all said hello.  Todd was my blind date, and unfairly or not, I could tell he liked what he saw.  I’m not really that vain a person, but I did look good, it is another thing I can control although it’s not something I can change without suspicion, I’ve had this level of looks for six years since I have been coming to college.  You could almost describe it as shape changing, but it was limited in scope.  I could change almost anything about myself, as long as I stayed humanoid, and of course I had to remain the same mass.

I used to stand out more in high school before I realized being a ten was not as desirable as I thought it would be.  Luckily I was still growing so I managed to turn myself into an eight by the time I went to college.  Seriously, being able to feel the emotions of all the men around you when you’re a ten is not a good thing.  When it came to the older men when I was still a teen it was downright creepy at times.  An eight can turn some heads but it’s a much happier place.

Todd was tall, I’d say about six foot two.  He looked to be in good shape as well but it was hard to tell in his loose jeans and shirt.  He had a square jaw, short blond hair and blue eyes.  The rest of his face was proportional and he looked good.  Really good.

When the introductions were over, they sat down we got a round of drinks.  We talked for a bit, the normal awkward nice to meet you, what do you do and all that.  Todd was a chemistry major doing graduate studies as well.  The more I figured out that he had more than two brain cells to rub together, the more attractive he got.  I was also smiling at the look of panic on Kristi’s face every time I said something intelligent.  Of course, she didn’t have the same advantage I had.  Most men were intimidated by smart women, Todd wasn’t one of those.

The local band had since gotten started, and when we finished up our drinks Todd asked, “Dance?”

I stood in answer and he grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor.  My heart sped up and I found his hand holding mine to be pleasant.  I know a few different dances; I love to dance actually.  I don’t want to sound immodest, but as someone who can control her own body as much as I can, dancing wasn’t very hard at all for me at all.

All in all the blind date went surprisingly well.  I had my AI send my contact info when he asked for it at the end of the night.  I wasn’t a prude, but I wasn’t easy either and said goodnight to Todd at my door.  Hopefully he’d call me.  My AI indicated the scans were done, but I was tired from a long day and fun night dancing and drinking.  It could wait for tomorrow.

Chapter 2

I was up early for breakfast and then headed over to the lab.  I was beyond curious what the scans would reveal and had AI open a window on my visor.  It was… confusing.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t an EM drive.  The internal scans showed the mini-reactor output at eleven percent as well as the EM field.  The internal sensors could see outside the field, but the scans of its surroundings were off.

The external scans were beyond strange.  It could see the object in some scans, but some came up blank.  Specifically, the scans that related to measuring mass.  According to the lab sensors, there was no mass.  Anti-mass had been postulated by science as a possibility, but it had never been proven or disproven.  But it made no sense, there was mass inside that field, I knew there was.

When I got to the lab I turned on the mass sensors and put up a view on my visor.

“Al, reduce the reactor power in increments of .1 percent every two seconds please.”

I watched the reactor slowly back down from 11.2 percent.  As soon as it hit 9.2 percent power I saw mass readings appear.

“Stop!”

Al replied, “Reactor holding steady at 9.2 percent.”

The experiment started to slowly lower down.  I was reading a minimal mass with an estimated weight of .02 ounces.  It was slowly falling back to the table like it was a feather instead of a fifteen-pound package.

Somehow, in my attempt to create a more stable and dependable EM field by joining the reactor and superconductor, I had created an anti-mass field.  It behaved much like a theoretical anti-gravity field would work, except that’s not what it was.  Anti-mass would be pushed away by gravity, much in the same way gravity attracts normal mass.  Also, it seemed when the field reached a certain thickness, or cohesion, it cut off the mass inside of it from the rest of the universe.

I just had no idea how.

I needed to figure it out fast, and get a patent submitted.  In a surge of paranoia I took all the data and encrypted it, I didn’t want anyone else to see this before I figured it out.  I could see endless applications for this.  Anti-mass would enable lifting tons easily to orbit simply by using gravity.  I was also fairly sure it could break the light speed barrier.

After all, light speed was impossible because it would require infinite energy to accelerate any mass at the speed of light.  But no mass?  That law just became meaningless.  Inertia, acceleration, force, all required mass in the equations.  What would happen with anti-mass?  I considered relativity as well, without mass going the speed of light would not cause time dilation.

Of course, this was all just my mind spewing thoughts, it needed to be tested.  I resubmitted my plan to the fabrication machine but added a few extra’s.  A small ion drive with propulsion ports in each side, better sensors, and in the middle a globule of hard gel in a specific matrix.  No sense in testing without also testing the stresses it would cause in the human body.  In theory inertia should still exist for things inside the device, but not in relation to the universe outside of it.  If I was right, the gel should be perfectly intact after testing.

Even if the probe I was building actually did go to light speed I wasn’t worried about losing it.  There was no indication of losing the quantum entangled communication and interface device when the anti-mass field was active, so that shouldn’t be an issue.  I almost cringed at the cost of the device, but relatively it wasn’t that bad, these were all common components.

I just hoped my professor didn’t call before I had something to tell him.

While that was building I went over all the data and specifications again, trying to come up with an explanation of why the particles were being created.  I completely powered down the experiment and did a molecular level scan.

The first thing I noticed was the superconductor material.  I had built five microns thick on the interior of the spiral, it was now four point nine six microns thick.  I checked on the build, it hadn’t started yet so I paused it.  I checked the internal scans again.  The EM field surrounding the superconductor and reactor would shield anything outside the spiral.  But the spiral itself was being bombarded with radiation and side reactions.

The data showed the new superconductor material being slowly eaten away by the radiation.  I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I wondered if that was what was responsible for the anti-mass field.  I did some more testing with Al’s help that led to data backing up my conclusion.

I frowned, that meant the superconductor material was, for lack of a better term, the fuel for the anti-mass field.  The mini-reactor could run at hundred percent for fifty years.  Based on my calculations one micron of thickness for the superconducting material would last for about fifteen days, at eleven percent power.  So about a day and a half at a hundred percent power.

How much anti-mass would that generate though?  I over planned and made changed the design on the probe to be fifty microns thick and told it to start building, that should get me through the testing I wanted to perform, and give some good baselines.  At that point, I should have enough data to work out the math involved.

After all, there really wasn’t any math for anti-mass yet, at least not beyond theory.  I probably had enough to submit a patent, but I wanted to verify the applications first.  A working device always makes that process easier.  I resubmitted the build request.

My mind started to spin at the possibilities.  FTL travel would change everything.  If I was right…

I only ever needed four hours of sleep a night.  I could even function pretty normally on two to three as long as I didn’t go for too long without a full four hours.  I considered it one of my lesser oddities and went with it.  Regardless, when Al woke me at three in the morning to tell me the build was finished, I jumped up to start my day.

I had Al submit a flight plan to space on the walk over to the lab.  As far as beyond that, I wasn’t worried about running into anything.  I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and felt… furtive.  Like someone would jump out and stop me, or steal my IP, or… something.

It was ridiculous of course, there was no one around, not close enough to sense anyway.  Plus, I hadn’t told anyone yet.  I picked up what I hoped was the first light speed ship.  It was about forty pounds and the size of a medicine ball, although it was more oval.  Two tall to be considered a saucer, but it wasn’t a ball either.

I took it outside and had Al turn it on.  This one was a bit bigger, more mass, and it didn’t rise from the ground until it reached twelve point four percent power.  I grinned.  It literally fell toward the sky.  The scans showed it as zero mass when it had reached twelve point three seven two.  It took a while for it to escape the Earth’s gravity field and I was feeling a bit impatient by the time it was ready.

“Al, set the reactor power for zero mass.”

Al replied, “Done.”

I blew out a deep breath, “Set course perpendicular to the plane of the solar system and engage the ion drive at one percent.”

I wasn’t sure what would happen if it hit anything, I figured there was a lot less to hit outside the plane of the solar system.

“Done.”

I asked tentatively, “Current speed?”

Al replied in a flat voice, “one C.”

I felt a little dizzy and sat on the grass.  One C was the speed of light.

I asked, “Are the clocks still in sync.”

“Yes.”

I sighed.  It was incredible, but that would still be four years to the closest star.  Fast but not really all that impressive.

“Increase to two percent on the Ion drive.”

Al replied, “No change in speed.”

I nodded, I expected that.  The probe reached one C immediately.  No mass makes acceleration infinite; it took off at the speed of light.

“Increase power to the EM and anti-mass field in point one percent increments.  Keep an eye on the relationship between speed and the field strength.”

I spent the night working on it.  Adding anti-mass did increase the speed past one C, but there was an acceleration curve involved.  The ion drive was a consideration as well once anti-mass was introduced past zero mass, although that seemed to have the least impact on speed.  Once I had enough data, I pointed it toward Alpha Centuri.  With both the field and drive at fifty percent it accelerated to and maintained over fifteen hundred C, which translated to somewhat less than a day’s travel.  I figured I’d run some scans when I got there, and then have the probe come back.

So far there were no indications of forces that would harm a human, inertia didn’t seem to be an obstacle.  Of course, there would be no gravity either.

I ate breakfast while staring at my visor and working out all the math involved, creating equations out of the data points we’d gathered.  I let out a big breath and had Al compile it all to be submitted for patent.  A lot of tension left my body when I pulled the trigger on it and sent it in.  The college would get the lion’s share, forty percent.  The professor and I would share thirty each.  Now I just needed to work on a paper for submission.

I may be weird, but I was about to be very rich.

Maybe I’d work on a full sized craft design as well.  For the probe it was fine, but for the future the design would need to have backups, at least two.  It was clear to me that if for any reason the anti-mass field failed while travelling above the speed of light, the craft would most likely explode as its mass converted directly to energy.

Chapter 3

Lira was barely awake at her post.  She was dedicated to the ideals of the Knomen Empire, but this had to be the most boring posting she’d ever been in.  Her record had been spotless, until the day she was running to her post on one of the Empire’s warships, and she’d bowled over that admiral.  Admiral Stenz.  Even worse, she’d been carrying a drink at the time… which wound up all over the admiral.

She’d been horrified of course, but that hadn’t saved her from the worst duty post this side of M87.

So she was staving off boredom by reading up on the latest technical advances, not that she’d ever be assigned to an engineering post on a ship again, not if that admiral had anything to say about it.

The console beeped breaking her concentration.  She looked up in annoyance but that expression turned to surprise.  She was getting an alert from a probe in beta quadrant.  It was on the edge of the empire and she brought up the report.  The probe had detected an FTL ship from a planet under watch that didn’t belong to the empire.  She sat up a little straighter and went over the navigation data to verify it tracked back to… the inhabitants called it Earth.  She snorted in wonder, might as well call it ball of dirt.

They were a pre FTL society but advanced enough that this breakthrough wasn’t that big of a surprise, or even unexpected.  Although according to the data, it might have been better if they’d grown some more before this discovery.  Earth wasn’t rated as inimical, but there were some reasons for caution.  They were somewhat on the line, and the Empire’s sociologists were split on if this civilization would bring war or peace to the stars.

She shrugged, it wasn’t her decision.  She compiled a report with the data and sent it up the chain of command.  Someone else would decide if the humans could be trusted and peaceful, or if they needed to knock them back to the Stone Age and give the human species more time to grow up.

She pursed her lips and looked at the data again.  It wouldn’t be the first time…

She shrugged and picked up her data pad and got back to the technical paper.  Who knew, maybe someday she’d make it back on a ship someday.  The old bastard couldn’t live forever…

I was a mentally exhausted and things felt a little unreal.  I’d worked on the paper that same day, I couldn’t help how excited I was about the discoveries.  I submitted it last night before going to bed as I had my weekly meeting with Professor Daniels the next day.  I’d been sitting here for what felt like hours as he questioned me in a confrontational manner.

I didn’t really like when he did that, but I understood the technique.  Everything had to be questioned and proven beyond a doubt.  Still, I kind of hated him right now.

I knew the probe had gotten to Alpha Centauri and ran some scans and was on the way back, I was curious to see the data.  There was a possible life bearing planet in the system after all.

The gel seemed to be in perfect shape, as if the accelerations didn’t matter and inertia didn’t exist.  I wasn’t entirely sure of that aspect of things yet, but I had the theory the field was insulating it from the effects of the outside universe.  Relative to the field the ship doesn’t move at all, and that was all that counted for some reason.

Daniels said with a shake of his head, “It’s well thought out Alicia and you seem to understand it.  But I’ll need to go over your results more thoroughly, perhaps experiment with different configurations.  We want to make sure we have it right before we submit we submit it for publication.  Have you updated your dissertation?”

My eyes widened a little and I felt wide awake.  I hadn’t even considered that.  This kind of discovery, leading to a new math and understanding of how things worked was more than enough to wrap up my dissertation, even the point of the experiment, a strong EM field, had proven out.  I hadn’t really thought in that direction before, I was actually trying to figure out how to build a ship and go.  I was fascinated with the idea of exploring the galaxy, something that had been impossible until yesterday.

Still, a more realistic approach would be to build a bunch of probes, then go if they find something, like a planet that humans could live on, or visit if they had intelligent life.  A viable ship would be… expensive, and rather large.  Just the gravity requirements for health reasons would make the ship as wide around as a football field, and at two RPM’s that would only create about half a G.  Although higher forces were possible in smaller diameters it could cause dizziness or disorientation if the RPM were too high.

Maybe I should just focus on designing a better probe.  Although I wasn’t too sure how I could improve it.  Beyond putting in redundant systems that is, especially for the anti-mass system.  But not tonight, I wanted to go out and celebrate.  Not too hard though, the probe would be back around two am and I didn’t want to retrieve the first FTL ship in a drunken stupor.

I snorted.  Who was I kidding?  I’d design a ship too, even if I probably won’t get permission to build it.  The ironic thing was it would be in the shape of a saucer, sharp corners would seriously warp the field in some places and may even interfere with super conduction.

I nodded slowly, “We have patent pending, do you think the university would support building more probes?  We could make small changes and see what worked better and to improve understanding.  But I was thinking other groups in the college might have ideas on where to send them and what to gather.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Like what?”

I shrugged, “FTL is just the tip of the iceberg.  We can cancel gravities effects completely in a field.  That opens up a lot more opportunity.  It means we can drop a tanker ship inside Jupiter to gather hydrogen, or even get a ship in close to a black hole to do research.  FTL requires a drive, but we can use the same concepts and just use gravity to fly around Earth.

“Obviously this technology needs to be locked down to A.I. controls the same as fusion devices, the potentials for destruction are very high.”

I felt a shiver go down my spine, after all, the little probe I built could quite easily cause incredible damage to the Earth, not only an extinction level event for humanity, but the potential to destroy all life.  I was a little surprised the government hadn’t sent an agent yet, but then maybe they just didn’t understand the dangers inherit in the technology yet.

Daniels nodded, “Most likely, why don’t you think up a few more designs, but hold off on building until we get some feedback, could be there will be special requests.  In the meantime, you should celebrate and start thinking about how to spend all that money.”

I smiled.  I realized the whole point of getting my doctorate was to find a good paying job and hopefully work on cutting edge things.  All that was probably moot now, but I still wanted that piece of paper anyway.  I thanked the professor and went back to my apartment while I sent a message to Kristi.  It was time to celebrate.

Chapter 4

Carl looked at the scans and frowned.  It hadn’t been a ship, just a probe.  They were following it back to Earth to determine who built it and make contact.  It had been apparent when reading the briefs on Earth that the higher level government people were isolated and well protected.  Most likely contacting them directly would cause problems.

In cases like this, it was recommended to contact the inventor, and then get an introduction to the people that would be making decisions for this world.  They’d had people on the planet but their reports had stopped coming in a little over twenty years ago, and replacement agents weren’t sent, probably got lost in the red tape.

After that it was fairly straight forward, he would need to extend an invitation to join the Empire.  It was important to keep the races with space travel under watch.  Millennia ago when the Knomen race invented FTL travel, there had been a few species that were too grasping.  They were simply too dangerous.  After they were attacked, the aggressor civilizations were eventually tamed.

Of course, that only accounted for a small area of the galaxy, the Empire ran from Earth toward the central core, but the core worlds of the Empire were in the same arm of the galaxy that Earth resided.  It was considered prudent to expand slowly.

After that war, it was determined that any race entering the space age within their sphere needed to be… vetted.  If they didn’t comply they would simply not be allowed to expand.  Some argued the repression of these civilizations was wrong, but the fact was allowing them to build up to become a threat would be even worse.

Carl hoped with every cell of his being the Earth would agree to the laws and become part of the Empire, but he wouldn’t hesitate to stop them if they were too aggressive.  He didn’t like the idea, but at least it wouldn’t be genocide, the humans would have the chance to grow and maybe get it right the next time.

The laws weren’t that complicated.  Any planet with intelligent life or a high probability of producing intelligent life needed to be left alone.  Weapons on ships were permitted, but should never be used outside of defense.  The problem was, a lot of races had a strong survival instinct, this would push them to claim other planets aggressively, in some cases even planets occupied with intelligent life.

What was ironic was the Earth itself would have been invaded five hundred years ago if not for that law, and the Empire’s protection.  Of course it wasn’t all based on benevolence.  The Empire feared the cost of meeting another aggressive civilization in war, it simply made sense to stop the threat before it got to that point.  He’d often wondered if the reason for that law was more to salve their conscience than any moral superiority.

That didn’t mean humans couldn’t colonize other planets, it just meant it would be harder and take more time.  They’d have to find those planets on the edge that could be terra-formed with a lot of work, and patience.

He looked into the mirror and concentrated.  His hair changed to black, his eyes shifted from purple to green.  His spots slowly disappeared as his skin changed from blue to a dark tan.  It wasn’t his intention to deceive, just to reduce the chance of a panicked reaction when he met the human who invented FTL for their planet.

He looked back down at the data on the planet Earth.  Last time they’d grown in technology to join the interstellar community was seven thousand years ago.  He hoped they’d grown sufficiently since that time to be welcomed.  He thought about his wife and daughter, steeling his heart just in case they hadn’t…

I got to the field the probe would land in thirty minutes early.  I’d had some fun dancing and drinking but had been wishing Todd had given me a call.  We’d had a great time two nights ago and I’d been considering breaking the three date rule.  It had felt like a bucket of ice over my head when I saw him there kissing another woman.

I was just glad I’d said goodnight at the door the other day.  It was apparent his dependable meant he could be depended on to sleep around as much as possible.

I sighed and brought up my visor.  I designed a probe with three redundant EM and anti-mass systems, basic sensors as well as gravity sensors.  Gravity sensors were unique in that they worked faster than light, sensitive enough to see anything large enough from far enough away so it could be avoided.

Normal stellar dust and micro-meteorites weren’t a concern, the anti-mass and EM shielding would push that stuff out of the way.  I also designed a small fabricator that could replace the superconductor material using nanites to deliver it while the reactor was shut down.  That meant the probe or ship could still fly with one backup system while the second was being refueled and even repaired.  The Ion drives were also standard.  I also set up the communications and A.I. protocols.  Outside of that I did nothing else except design extra space for other requested equipment.

I designed a larger ship as well, but it would probably never be built.  It was remarkably similar to the probe.  The only difference being the artificial gravity which would be strongest around the edge of the craft, and life support systems.  I laid out crew quarters, dining halls, and exercise rooms on the outside laying on one side, so the edge of the craft would be down all the way around.  The bridge and engineering would be at the center of the craft in zero G, which was fine.

Just having gravity for sleep cycles and work outs would prevent the loss of bone mass.

Arrayed around the bridge and engineering would be multiple lab spaces, recreation, life support systems, medical, storage, and fabrication rooms.  I was sure I was missing something, but I couldn’t think of what.  I was so distracted by my planning that the probe startled me when it landed fifteen feet away.  It was completely silent.

I picked up the probe, “Al, download all the data and prepare the lab to run a comprehensive scan of the probe.”

Al acknowledged the order and I felt at loose ends when we got to the lab.  Alpha Centauri B did have a world in the goldilocks zone, but there was no life.  I considered going through the data but thought better of it.  I needed some sleep.  Besides, the data most important to me would be from the scan.  I needed to see if the probe was degraded in any way before we built more.

The other stuff was just… interesting, and fun, but unrelated to what I should be working on.

I heard a deep voice behind me.  He sounded both angry and shocked.

“What have you done!  Identify yourself.”

I turned slowly and stared at the man before me.  He was tall with black hair, deep green eyes and he looked more than in shape in the form fitting outfit he was wearing.  His face was hard and unforgiving.  That wasn’t what was shocking though, it was what I was feeling, the vibes I was getting from him.  He was… like me.

I shook my head in useless denial.  Meeting another like myself, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I wasn’t the next level of evolution, or some strange genetic experiment, or even magical.

I was an alien.

I’d considered this before of course, but had rejected it as absurd as my magical theory.  What did it mean?  Had my parents been spies or something?  Or had they been criminals hiding out on another world.  Or?

I sat down in a chair, “My name is Alicia, maybe you can tell me?”

I felt his anger turn to confusion, and mistrust.

“Carl, I’m,” he said something incomprehensible.

I frowned, “Try that word again in English?”

He shook his head, “Ambassador, facilitator, but more than that too.  Who are you?”

I snorted, “Raised human.  My parents died when I was a baby.  I always knew I was different, but not how or why.  Like I said, maybe you can tell me?  And what are you doing here?”

He seemed unsure now, but that was much better than angry.  I was a little unsure myself, what would he do to me?  Anything?  I was pretty much already over the surprise, maybe I’d always known deep down I wasn’t human at all.  It explained my oddness, but I was still nervous.

He coughed, “We generally… not spy but keep an eye on a civilization when it gets close to discovering FTL.  We’ve found it works better meeting new races on the ground rather than a random encounter in space further down the road.  Now that you can go FTL, there is no point staying hidden any longer.  We haven’t gotten any reports from here in over twenty years, that must have been your parents.”

I nodded slowly but my mind was turning over every word.  He was honest, but at the same time I could feel his evasiveness.  He wasn’t telling me the whole truth.

“So… you’re here to?”

I asked him about his mission, but I was really worried about me.  I knew that was a little selfish but…  Would he want me to leave with him when he went?  I might not be human but I was… human.  This was my world.  I was afraid to hear the answer to that question.

He shrugged, “Our Empire ranges from here to closer to the core of the galaxy.  Maybe twenty thousand light years across.  You could say my mission is to contact the Earth’s leadership through you.  There are currently six space faring species in our realm of influence.”

Our empire?  I ignored that for the moment.

“So, to what end?  Good neighbors?  Join the Empire or die?  A happy middle?”

He chuckled, “Yes and no.  We wouldn’t get involved in how Earth is run, or even care.  That would go for any settlements you create as well.  We would prefer Earth to join the Empire, but the bottom line is we want to be sure you can…  What did you say?  Be good neighbors.  That includes respecting other life forms and non-aggression.”

I know I probably sounded inane, but I said, “So, you’re like the police?”

He shrugged, “More like mediators.  We keep this world safe from other races as well, not that it’s come up recently but…”

I interrupted in a soft voice, “What about me?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know, I don’t think there is a precedent.  In a way you’ve violated our laws by giving Earth technology.  That really isn’t what you’ve done though, because you were born here and you invented it.  As for what now, well I supposed that’s up to you.  You could stay here, or leave with me when my mission is done.  You may even have family out there somewhere.

“In the meantime, we need to start the process of sending a message to the Earth’s leaders.  Your future isn’t something you need to figure out right now, this will probably take some time.”

I nodded while I collected my thoughts.  I got the idea he wasn’t sure how to treat me, as one of his or as a human.  His speech seemed to indicate a little of both for now.  I couldn’t blame him, I imagine he was also feeling my freak out.  I felt… violated knowing he knew what I was feeling, and I knew exactly how hypocritical I was being in that moment.

I blew out a breath, “I need some sleep.  I’ll send a note to the dean.  Not sure how fast things will happen.  I imagine once he’s convinced he’ll contact a senator, then… well you get the idea.”

I walked out the lab and sealed it after he followed me out.

He said, “I’m heading back to my ship,” he handed me a handheld device, “You can reach me on that when your dean is ready to meet me.”

I dropped it in my pocket and left after an awkward moment.  I fell asleep quickly despite the turmoil in my mind.  Perhaps I was just paranoid, but I felt like I needed to worry more about what he hadn’t said than what he did.  Considering my abilities, it wasn’t a baseless feeling, I just didn’t know how bad it was.  I was also worried about how others would take the fact that I was just as alien as our visitor, physically that is.

Chapter 5

I woke up to sound of the hair dryer and rolled out of bed.  I’d slept a whole five hours, which was a lot for me, and went out into the apartment to grab some coffee and wake up.  I was sending the dean an e-mail, while I wondered how quickly the padded wagon would show up after I hit send.

“Al, send my ship designs to Kristi please, I know I’m missing something, but I can’t think of it.”

I smiled a few minutes later when the hairdryer turned off and Kristi came into the kitchen and grabbed her own coffee.

“Is this a joke?”

I shook my head and said deadpan, “Nope, I invented FTL, met an alien, found out I was an alien, and now I want my own spaceship, so can you read that over?  I’m forgetting something.”

Kristi’s mouth dropped open in faux shock, “You’re an alien?  Oh… My… GOD!  That explains so much.”

I snorted, “No really, I am.”

She nodded wisely, “I know, weren’t you listening.”

I looked at her trying to figure out if she was pulling my leg, she wasn’t, at least not completely.  I couldn’t help but feel a little offended.

“Explains what?” I asked sullenly.

She snorted, “You never have a bad hair day, don’t watch what you eat, and I’ve never once been able to lie to you.  You even knew I wasn’t a ditz the night we met, right away.  I’m not that bad an actress, so… can I come visit your planet?”

My mouth dropped open, “This is my planet, I was born here, natural born citizen.  My parents on the other hand may have been… illegal aliens.”

She snickered, “You did not just say that.  Oh, what happens when you’re in orbit, and you just have to get to a Macy’s sale?”

I shook my head at the obvious, it might be hard to find a landing space for a saucer with the diameter of a football field.  It was scary how smart Kristi was that she could figure that out while bantering with me, about me being an alien no less.

“I forgot the hanger, for a shuttle, anything else?”

She shook her head, “Nope, everything else looks good.  I see you have weapons, if you’re worried about attacks you should increase the anti-mass/EM shields to five or six.  Three is good for a happy universe.  Here, I fixed it, but you have to design your own shuttle, make it look cute.  Maybe pink, the military would never shoot down something pink…”

I shook my head in amusement at her babbling as she went back to her room to get dressed and checked my e-mail.

Kristi said loudly, “Don’t forget, take me with you.”

I giggled, “Don’t worry, I will!” I shouted back.

I couldn’t believe how well my best friend took it… it was almost like she’d already known.

The dean had replied to my e-mail threatening action if I tried to perpetrate a hoax.  Great, I sent my professor an e-mail, maybe I started to high, and at least he already knew about the FTL thing.  I got up and went in the shower.

While showering I had a thought, “Al, prep the probe and send it towards the galactic core, stopping at all G type stars that could support life on the way, but don’t go further than twenty thousand light years.”

Al replied in his emotionless voice, “Done, speed?”

I thought for a minute, and realized I really didn’t trust Carl.  The more I thought about it the more the… our empire comment and his comment about good neighbors following the rules and being respectful felt off, as if those words weren’t a very complete description.

“Try eighty percent power, how fast is that?”

Al replied, “Approximately one light year per hour.”

“A hundred percent?”

Al replied, “One light year per five minutes.”

She frowned, that was fast.  At least until she ran the numbers in her head.  Still, at twenty thousand light years, that was a hundred thousand minutes.  That meant… sixty-nine some odd days to cross the entire empire.  Of course, the probe wasn’t just cutting across space, it would be cutting angles all the way into the core to hit all the G types.  Hopefully there was a civilization close.  If it didn’t find anything in a week or two, I decided I’d fabricate one of my new probes.  It wouldn’t be as fast as the ship, but it would cut that sixty-nine back to about twenty-five days.

I wondered if I should redesign, but I did the math.  If my ship had six anti-mass/EM systems, and the speed seemed to be on a logarithmic scale with added power to the anti-mass field, I estimated in my new ship it would only take about three days.  That was with all my coils online however.  If even one failed it would go up to two weeks, another failure six weeks to make the trip.

Of course, with fabricators on board I could repair the coils on the go.  As long as they all didn’t fail at once, if that happened I’d be energy.

I got out of the shower and got dressed.  I checked her messages, nothing.  So I worked on my doctoral dissertation for the EM field and FTL, not that I’d need it, but damn it I’d worked hard for the thing, I wasn’t going to throw it all away.

“Where are you going today?” I asked, feeling Kristi behind me.

Kristi asked, “How did you know I was here?”

“Alien mind powers,” I giggled.

Kristi asked curiously, “Really?”

“A little bit yeah, I can’t read your mind, more your… presence, or aura.”

Kristi sighed, “I hate you.  I have to go meet Joe.”

“Any other questions?  I really didn’t know until last night by the way.”

Kristi nodded, “No… I’ll let you know if I think of more.  Hey, you should try to tune your field.  I bet the speed is based on the cohesion of the field as much as the power you put into it.  The better it blocks the internal mass and all that.”

I frowned, she was so damned smart, “That’s possible, I tuned it for the EM field, this other one was just a secondary effect.  I’ll do that, thanks.”

She kissed the top of my head and headed for the front door.

“What was that for?”

She snickered, “I never kissed an alien before,” and she closed the door.

I shook my head in disbelief, and got back to work.  It was a few hours later when I thought I’d optimized it.  It had been pretty close already, but the curve was a little better now.  I was about to get back to my thesis when AL let me know I had an incoming call.  I got up as I answered it, to get more coffee.

“Professor?”

Professor Daniels replied, “Is this e-mail a joke?”

“Nope, I got approached by an alien when my probe came back.  Apparently, he followed it, and he wants to talk to our world leaders about joining their intra-galactic community.”

Professor Daniels coughed, “Really?  Community?”

I nodded even if he couldn’t see it, “Yup, think empire… plus condo association with a lot of red tape.  I sent an e-mail to the dean, but he didn’t buy it, so I thought…”

Professor Daniels sighed, “Alright, you know this will make people panic.”

I nodded slowly, again, like an idiot, and said in a deadpan voice, “I know, I hate red tape too.”

He snorted, “This is no time for joking.”

He was right, I was letting Kristi rub off on me, “Sorry,” I said with laughter in my voice, not much of an apology I guess.

He replied, “I assume you can… reach him or her?”

“Yes, he left me an intra-galactic phone, and believe it or not, his name is Carl.  No… that wasn’t a joke.”

My professor’s first name was Carl too.

“Alright, I’ll meet you at the Dean’s house in two hours, and I’ll try to get the mayor here, hopefully we can get to the President quickly.”

I sat back down and sipped my coffee.  “Alright, I’ll see you then.”

The next few weeks were crazy…

I’m just going to summarize, because it was a lot of get out of my office, followed by I’ll have you arrested, followed by prove it, followed by holy crap dear mother of god, followed by more panic, and finally up to the next person to talk with, which started the cycle all over again.  During these boring weeks, I also found two life bearing planets with ships around them, so at least I had a destination if I could get my ship built.

I did manage to get a few other things done, my paranoia about Carl… the alien Carly, not my professor, continued, so I developed missile weapons.  It wasn’t hard, it was basically a probe that would get close to an enemy ship, hitting it wouldn’t do anything, with the anti-mass fields the missile and ship would just bounce away from each other, but if it was close, all the probe missile had to do was override the safeties and disengage the anti-mass field while moving at a rate of many thousands times the speed of light.  At that point, the probe or missile, would be converted to energy.  A lot of energy.

Hopefully enough to overcome the EM field around the target.

At any rate, outside of creating a weapon that could scour all life off the face of the Earth, it was a rather boring three weeks.  Things picked up again once I got Carl in touch with the Secretary of Defense, and at that point I was shown the door.  College girl and inventor, no longer required.  I might have been insulted, if I wasn’t so relieved to escape.  Of course, that did make it hard to keep an eye on Carl.

He had a very large advantage when dealing with humans, I should know since I had them as well.  Speaking of that, I’d also managed to keep my alien origins a secret except for Kristi who I trusted not to tell anyone.

Kristi startled me when she plopped down at the table, while I was finally finishing up my thesis paper on anti-mass as it relates to faster than light travel.

Kristi asked, “Why don’t you trust Carl?”

I frowned, and really thought about it.  I’d heard Carl explain the basic rules so many times it was easy to tell Kristi about them.  If Carl had foibles, lack of patience wasn’t one of them.

“It’s the rules.  They sound so… Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but I don’t buy that.  Hmm, don’t attack anyone, only use violence for defense, don’t interact much less sell technology to civilizations without FTL, don’t settle somewhere life may evolve, terraform a planet instead.  Those are actually the ones that don’t bother me, and even make sense.

“But the rest… first he says we don’t have to join the empire, but if we don’t we can’t trade, or enter the solar systems in their space, or even talk to them.  Obviously that’s pressure to have us join this empire right?  But if we join the empire… their worse than a condo association.  You pay taxes supposedly for protection, but then we also have to agree to use at least ten percent of our space navy for the mutual defense clause, so we’d be paying from both ends there.

“The empire is multi-species, but its rulers, and the name of the empire, is the Knomen empire.  Knomen captains always take precedence and can give orders to any vessel, can interdict any Earth or other non-Knomen vessel without a reason once they leave Earth’s solar system.  Ship designs and captains need to be approved before they can legally captain a vessel outside our solar system.  Captains even need to take a course and pass a test.  I know those last two sound reasonable on the surface, it’s like an intra-galactic DMV to make sure everything is safe, but it feels like an excuse to get a look at our current technology for weaknesses, and an opportunity to create evaluations of our top officers.  You know… it has that just in case we have to fight those Earth people vibes on it.”

I took a deep breath and paused in my rant before continuing.

“There’s also a whole thing on protocols, and if there are inter-species disagreements, a Knomen must be summoned to settle it, and if your found at fault you get fined.  Fined for breaking protocol, in other words, for not being a good neighbor, not for violence, simply for being… impolite.  If a captain is fined three times their license to operate a starship in Empire space is revoked for life.  It’s… insane.  Political correctness gone wild.  Then they also limit exploration to five light years a year.  So if we want to visit a star twenty light years away outside the empire, we need to file our intent and then wait four years… seriously.”

Kristi frowned, “So… the red tape really bothers you?”

I snorted, “It’s not just red tape, it’s a form of control.  They control everything basically outside our solar system, and will know all our capabilities.  The system might have started out alright, but I can see in Carl’s eyes and feel that it’s corrupted beyond all reason now.”

Kristi tilted her head, “So what’s your plan, it honestly doesn’t sound any worse than our own government.”

I shrugged, she kind of had a point there.

“As soon as the university sells the licensing rights, which I’m told is being bid on as we speak, I’m going to build my own ship, and go visit someone in the empire, find out the real scoop.  You’re probably right though, it’s just another government bureaucracy, but I wonder if its more than that.  I just got a bad feeling about it.  Besides, our own government won’t fine us if we aren’t nice to someone, it isn’t quite that bad.  I believe we’ll find the Knomen bureaucracy a lot more, heavy handed.”

She snickered, “Fine, I actually do really trust your feelings, just let me know when we’re going.”

I smiled, “I will, promise.”

Chapter 6

It was two days later when the university’s offices called me, and I reported at the requested time.  I wasn’t surprised to see the dean, or my professor in the room when I arrived.  There was another man in the room, who I recognized as the universities patent lawyer, Sal Angelo.

The dean said, “Welcome, take a seat miss Jones.”

He handed me a packet of papers when I sat down, I was curious to look inside but waited.

Sal opened the packet and we all joined him.

Sal said, “Take a moment to look through the contract, it’s a standard university patent contract.  Forty percent to the university, and the rest is split between you miss Jones, and your professor.  The license to manufacture and sell has been sold for thirteen point five billion dollars.  That means the two of you both get four point zero five billion dollars.  You will also gain a royalty, thirty percent each of the three percent per part fabricated for the next twenty years.

“It’s not guaranteed of course, but the university believes that will be in excess of another billion a year for the next twenty years.”

I think I just read the same paragraph of the contract ten times, and didn’t absorb a word of it.  I knew it would be worth money but… I was in shock for the rest of the meeting, and it was kind of a blur, but I did manage to verify the contract was correct.  I even had Al check it too just in case.

Now that I had money, I submitted a request to rent one of the very large industrial fabricators.  It was expensive as hell, but it would build my ship in just a few days.  It would even build the two shuttles at the same time it built the landing bay.  And the probes when it built the probe storage room, I couldn’t exactly label it weapons storage, but that’s what it came down too.  I let Kristi know we were leaving in a few days, notified the professor I’d be leaving for a while, and then went back to Kristi’s and my apartment.

I felt a bit manic since I literally had nothing to do, at least not until I got out in space and learned the truth, so I decided to clean.  When Kristi got back she took one look at me, and declared we were going out drinking.  That actually sounded like a great idea for once, and I took a shower, slipped into a little black dress, some red high heels, and put on some makeup.

Kristi looked great as usual, she had on a dark blue dress on that was quite possibly illegal, black high heels and a touch of makeup.  We both looked pretty great I thought, but as usual she looked better, and as usual she thought the opposite, which was ridiculous.  We were ready to hit a club, way too dressed up for the local college bar, when there was a knock at the door.

I opened it, and there were two men wearing suits, they flashed their badges and asked, “Miss Alicia Jones?”

“Yes, what is it?”

He said, “Please come with me miss.”

“Why?”

He replied in a dead serious voice, “Classified, so I have no idea, I’m just to bring you to the local base.”

I wasn’t all that happy about this, “Can I change?”

He shook his head, “Time is of the essence.”

He was full of crap, he just wanted to ogle me, the bastard.  I grabbed my purse and found Kristi following me.

“I’m coming too,” Kristi said stubbornly.

I was surprised when the men didn’t object, and my night out turned into a ride in the back seat of a government vehicle to a nearby military base…

The room we were brought to was probably the nicest interrogation room I’d ever seen.  Although to be fair, most of the ones I’ve seen with the dirty walls, large tacky camera, metal table, and crappy chair were on a television show.  The only thing familiar in this room was the large one-way mirror on one wall.  The rest of the room looked like a corporate conference room.  There was a light brown oval table, several comfortable office chairs, and a credenza… unfortunately there was no coffee or snacks.

I fidgeted a bit, and bounced my feet.  I had a lot of energy and had expected to go dancing.  I also felt ridiculous in my little black dress instead of hot, it just didn’t fit here.  I’d already tried to fill the space with conversation, but Kristi had shushed me twice, apparently she thought we were already being recorded or something.  She was probably right.

It felt like we waited forever, but it was probably only twenty minutes or so when the door opened and a four-star general walked in.  He was in his late fifties at a guess, and the main vibe I got off of him was that was a straightforward blunt person, and right now he was… curious and concerned.

“Miss Jones, Miss Wilder, I’m General Denton.”

I asked, “Can I ask what this is about?”

The general nodded and sat down, “The president put me in charge of our security in regards to the Knomen empire, just in case things go south.  The reason I called you in was I’d like to know exactly what you intend to do with your ship.  I know you’re a smart woman, you invented FTL after all, but I can’t have you going out there and causing an incident.”

Well, at least he hadn’t told me I can’t go… yet.

“I plan to take a look at one of the systems in the Knomen Empire, and see if I can find the truth behind the words.  I don’t think Carl has exactly lied… but I also don’t think he’s told the entire truth.  There is also a matter of technology, I’m hoping I’ll be able to pick some up.”

The general grunted, “What kind of technology?”

I shrugged, “I won’t know until I see it, although specifically I’ll be looking for artificial gravity, and any weapons that might be available.  Thanks to the device Carl gave me to call him, we at least have translator technology now, and all the Empire’s languages, so we’ll be able to talk to them.”

He nodded, “I happen to agree with you, he’s holding something back.  On the other hand, it could just be caution about our world on his part.  I’d like to know though, why should I let you go, and not send a team of my own?”

I frowned, “Well, I just spent a lot of money to build a ship to get my own proof, which means I’m motivated to find the truth.  I also want the opportunity to go out there, so I made it happen on my own.  There’s more though, I am an American citizen, but my parents were… immigrants.  I suppose I want to make it clear that this is my home.”

His eyes furrowed, “What are you saying exactly?”

I sighed, I couldn’t keep it a secret forever, and if I waited, tried to keep it a secret, it would just get worse when the government found out.

“My parents came here to learn about Earth since we, the Earth, was so close to FTL technology.  They died in an accident when I was a baby.  I thought myself human growing up, and still consider myself a native, but I found out a few weeks ago that I’m actually Knomen.”

The general didn’t say anything, so I babbled on a bit.

“I believe that would also come in… handy when we got where Kristi and I plan to go.  Technically, I don’t believe anyone else from Earth could buy technology, or even visit an Empire world, not until the U.N. agrees to join it anyway.”

Kristi elbowed me, and I shut up.  I couldn’t believe how silent and calm she was, it was so unlike her.

The general blew out a breath, “So you’re an alien orphan raised human.  I swear I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

Kristi snorted a laugh, “It’s not that bad, of course I was used to her when I found out.”

The General frowned, “I can see the advantage of course, but we’re still talking about sending a civilian with no government connection to another star, to not only spy but find military knowledge while at the same time representing our entire planet.  How would you feel about a small team joining you?”

I frowned, “How small is small?”

“Five.  Their job would be to make sure your safe, and to make sure you don’t start an incident.”

I shook my head, “I’ll bring them, and they can watch out for me and be your trusted eyes on site, but I’ll be in charge.  My ship.”

The general smiled, “Very well, I can work with that.  I’ll have them ready before your ship is finished.”

He stood up and she asked, “Can I have access to my A.I. please, I’d like to pass you some data.”

He nodded toward the window, and someone brought in my headset.

“Al, send the general my missile plans.”

The general tilted his head, “Missiles?”

I nodded, “Just in case, I’d build a lot of these if I were you.  Hopefully I’ll come back with something better but these can do some serious damage.  I’d also advise building them off planet.  There are built in safeguards to make sure they can’t explode anywhere near the Earth, but sometimes stupid finds a way.  I figured it would be better if they aren’t ever in the atmosphere.”

Outside of the hundred or so being built on my ship, but I didn’t mention that part.

We left then, I was fairly sure they wouldn’t try to detain me, although I’d been a little nervous telling the truth.  A month ago they might have put me in a lab for being an alien, but I was sure the general had seen the implication of detaining a Knomen without cause right off.

It was around half past ten, so we wound up going to the club that night anyway, for an hour or two, and I was able to burn off some of my nervous energy…

Chapter 7

“Are you nervous?”

Kristi smiled, “Yes, but a good nervous.  I’m more excited actually.  I so win at having the best roommate of all time.  I love this suit too.”

I snickered, of course she did.  The suits we had for onboard in case we lost air were body conforming.  Truthfully I liked how I looked as well, the material actually shrunk and hugged every part perfectly.  Although the helmet and gloves hanging on my left hip kind of ruined the look.

The ship was ready, and we were just waiting for the special forces team to show up before powering up.  We even had the hold full of gold, platinum, and other rare metals, I just hoped it was something the alien race would take as currency.

Kristi and I’d met the mission team for the first time yesterday when I gave a virtual tour of the ship.

The officer of the team was Lieutenant Alex Ledner.  He was about thirty, with short blond hair and hard gray eyes.  I thought I’d have the most trouble with him, his vibe was… challenging.  I was sure we would be butting heads before the mission was over.

Master sergeant Barbara Cooper was the ranking non-commissioned officer, and she had a take no prisoners’ attitude, but was respectful to both Kristi and I.  I actually really liked the woman.  She was in her late thirties, with short curly brown hair and brown eyes.

Sergeant Bill Alda, no relation to Alan, but the soldier still fancied himself a comedian.  He was thirty-four, a towering six foot two, and was probably the most relaxed in the bunch.

Sergeant Elise Naughton was thirty-one, and really uptight.  She had blonde hair and blue eyes, was petite and quite frankly, cute.  I figured that’s why she was so uptight, and she must be a badass to have made it this far looking so harmless the way she did.

Sergeant Nathan Smith was the youngest at twenty-nine.  He had black hair and blue eyes, and was extremely polite.  He was also kind of cute, and had an obvious attraction toward me, but I wasn’t planning on going there.

I said wryly, “Is it weird I’m more worried about our chaperones than visiting an alien planet and flying a thousand light years?”

Kristi giggled, “Maybe a little, I’m sure it’ll be fine though.”

I agreed as I heard a car coming, a jeep actually.  Five people got out and walked over.

Lt. Ledner said forcefully, “We ready to go?”

I bit my tongue, the prick was already trying to take charge.  I looked them over, they all had their space suits on under their uniforms and their helmets clipped.

“Looks like it, let’s go.”

It felt a little weird walking on the wall next to the ladder toward the bridge.  The bridge would always be at zero G, but once the ship started to spin, the gravity would be orientated down in every direction from the center, so it looked sideways.  Of course, the ship would probably never land on the ground again.  It was good enough, and we would have to do it this way if we couldn’t find anything better than using spin for artificial gravity.

We got strapped in, inertia might not be a problem but no gravity would be, if we kept floating off every time we hit a button.

“Al, power up the ship.”

My A.I. interfaced with the ship and turned everything on.  Most of it was automated, Kristi and I could take care of anything that might come up that wasn’t covered.

“Status?”

Kristi replied deadpan, “All systems optimal Captain.”

I rolled my eyes, and I heard Sgt. Bill snicker.

“Power up our anti-mass field to five percent and give me a status.”

Al replied over the speaker, “Done, ship mass yields a weight of eight hundred pounds.”

Ledner asked, “Why stop there?”

I turned my head, “If we were at zero mass, the wind would throw us around, better for us to have a little weight while in atmosphere.  Not that we’d feel it, but if we were blown into a plane, or a city, that would be a problem.”

All the systems looked good, so I ordered Al to take us up.  The ship could be flown manually, and probably would be if we got into a fight, but for now it was better to let the computer handle it.

We barely felt the G forces of it, they were greatly lessened by the field even if some gravity and inertia was getting through.  A few moments later Al announced we’d made orbit.

“Kristi, can you start us spinning?”

Her reply a few seconds later was a little strained, “Done.”

I looked around and saw white faces, and one green.  So far no one had thrown up from weightlessness.  I felt… perfectly fine.

“We should have half G gravity at the bottom of the ladder, if anyone wants to… take a break.  But if you can you should tough it out, it will take a few minutes for your bodies to become accustomed to it.”

I had Al set a course for the solar system the probe had found life in.  I wouldn’t know the name of it until we got there.

None of them took me up on the offer, but then I wouldn’t expect special forces to retreat from a little stomach upset.

“Al, bring up the field power to eighty percent, and engage.”

Kristi snorted, “You’ve been dying to say engage, haven’t you.”

Well… I was a bit of a geek at times.  But I refused to admit it…  According to the sensors we were already going fast enough to make our destination in just a little over three hours.  It was a little bit anti-climactic, I didn’t feel a thing.  It seemed like were simply weightless and still, and not hurtling across the universe thousands of times faster than the speed of light.

The lieutenant seemed to be less confrontational than I’d feared he would be, but I knew if I did anything he thought was suspicious that things would get tense.  I wasn’t planning on doing anything of the sort, but I worried about his judgement in the matter.  Regardless, he’d been quiet during the journey for the most part while the rest of us talked intermittently during the trip.  It was exciting, sort of, we were in space after all, and going to visit a new race.

I just wished there were windows.

Master sergeant Barbara Cooper asked, “Are you expecting trouble?”

“I’m not sure.  I don’t expect it from the people were going to visit.  Depends on if we run into any Knomen ships.  Although even then I’ll probably just get a fine for not registering as a captain before going anywhere.”

Barbara nodded, “I hope so too, but we’ll keep an eye on you.”

I smiled, “Thanks.”

Bill asked in a sarcastic tone, “This thing got a radio?”

I laughed, “Al, some music please.”

Kristi took off her straps, and kicked off into a spin as the music came on.  I was torn between maintaining a professional bearing and having fun, but finally gave in.  What was the fun of zero G if I didn’t get to bounce around the bridge a little bit?

The Lieutenant’s scowl of disapproval perversely made me feel better about it, but after about ten minutes of playing in zero G I returned to the chair smiling and a little dizzy.  I’d noticed Nathan had hardly taken his eyes off me, while I was spinning around in my skin tight suit, but I knew getting too personal with any of them during the trip would be a mistake.  I spent the rest of the trip just chatting with Kristi, Barbara, Bill, and Nathan.

Alex was silent because he was an ass, and Elise was just… uptight, and was too focused on her job to relax.

Chapter 8

We were just a few minutes out from the solar system when Kristi said, “We’re being hailed.”

I giggled, “And how long have you been wanting to say that?  Let’s hear it.”

I wasn’t the only one that liked old science fiction shows on Netflix.

Kristi stuck out her tongue at me and the view screen changed to show an alien, “Unknown Earth vessel, this is Administrator Telmun on the space station in orbit of Tressia.  You are in violation of Knomen law and must leave our space until you are a part of Knomen Empire, acknowledge.”

Tressian’s were blue with white hair, but otherwise looked almost human.  I shouldn’t have been that surprised, the Knomen were humanoid as well, the only differences were that I should have had darker markings, like very large freckles, along the sides of my face and neck.  I should also have violet eyes.  I’d been hoping to avoid it, I knew Kristi and the others with me knew I was an alien.

But I was worried if they actually saw it, with their own eyes, it would… change things somehow.  But I didn’t have a choice, not if I wanted to succeed in my personal mission to make sure my birth people didn’t… I wasn’t sure yet.

I could feel my skin ripple as I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I looked at the man through purple eyes.  Kristi did a double take, but otherwise just looked… jealous.  Silly.  The others hadn’t seen my new facial features yet, as they were seated behind me.

The Tressian however, widened his eyes.

I said lightly, “I am Alicia Jones, and this vessel may have been built on Earth, but it belongs to me personally.  Is there still a problem with us entering your solar system?”

Telmun’s face changed to a lighter shade of blue, his voice was a little panicked, “My apologies miss Jones, for any offense I might have inadvertently caused, you’re free to make orbit at your leisure.  If this is your first visit to our world, we have a guide that can help you find whatever you need.”

I smiled politely, showing none of the conflict I was feeling on my face.  To me this was proof already that the empire was corrupt and everyone not Knomen was a second class citizen, and I wondered what a normal Knomen would do to someone who had merely followed what he thought was the correct procedure, because of perceived insult.  The man looked terrified and I had no doubt he believed I could end his career without effort.

“That would be acceptable, please have them contact me.”

Kristi disconnected the call at my signal as we approached the planet and dropped to sub light speed.

I looked around the bridge, and no one seemed freaked out, about me at least.

Kristi said, “We were sent a set of planetary coordinates to land at, by someone called Nora.”

I nodded, “Well, it’s why we came, let’s head out.”

Lt. Ledner ordered, “Bill and Elise, stay with the ship, the rest of us will accompany Miss Jones.”

I got up and floated over to the ladder leading to the small hangar deck and started climbing down.  The shuttle was a saucer about ten yards in diameter, and could seat eight and had a good sized storage area.  There were only five of us, so we piled on and I had Al take us out of the ship, and down to the coordinates.  I’d have to learn how to fly soon, but now wasn’t the time.

According to the scanners, the world was comparable to Earth’s atmosphere, and the gravity was just over point eight G, so we were all a little lighter.  Our Tressian guide Nora, was waiting outside our craft, or at least, it was who I assumed was our guide.  Now that I could see one I could tell that the Tressian people were of comparable height as well.

Nora greeted us with a tentative smile on her face when we got out of the shuttle.  She was a couple of inches taller than my five foot six, had light blue skin, amber eyes, and long white hair.  She nodded her head low to me before she spoke in a happy yet respectful voice.

“I’m Nora, I can help you find where you need to go?  What brings you to Tressia?”

I took in a deep breath and tried to relax.  I couldn’t believe I was standing on an alien planet.  I mastered my face, but my voice came out a little excited.

“A few things actually.  I was hoping to learn about Tressia, is there some kind of history we could purchase?  I was also curious about your other space related technologies and may want to purchase some.”

It was kind of vague, but I wasn’t even sure what technologies were available.

Nora smiled, “I can help with that.  In fact, one moment,” she got a thoughtful look on her face for a moment, “I’ve transferred the knowledge you wanted to your ship, it should be in its database now.  Someone named Bill received it.  Space technology sales… I know just the person.  He can be a little… odd.  But he’s the best, is that okay?”

I nodded, “That works.”

I felt a moment of guilt as I followed Nora off the landing pad and into a luxury vehicle of some kind.  I wondered how the Knomen would feel about me using the inherent authority of our race on behalf of another world, a world not even part of their empire yet.  I hoped these people wouldn’t get in trouble for it.  Hopefully the Knomen would never even find out, as far as I could tell there weren’t any in the system right now.  Still, my priority in this was Earth, so it was worth the risk.

Nora asked, “How long were you planning to stay, do you need help with accommodations?”

I shrugged, “I’m not sure until we talk to your odd friend.  If we can get everything we need we’ll be leaving today.”

Nora looked startled, but just nodded.

“Is that strange?”

Nora shook her head and looked down uncomfortably.

I wasn’t reading very well between the lines, but apparently people didn’t visit for just an afternoon, or… something.  I could tell she was nervous and worried about something, but had no idea what, and with the missing cultural references couldn’t even hazard a guess.

The city was impressive, the buildings must have been thousands of floors high, and there were different traffic levels.  We were flying along with lines of cars both above us, and below us, and of course on the same level we were.  The drive, or flight, took about twenty minutes.  Nora seemed uncomfortable, and I was afraid to show my ignorance, afraid I had done so already, so it was a very quiet twenty minutes until we landed.

The place looked like a flea market.

Nora led us to a small building and brought us inside.  There were models of all different types of technology and I browsed around.  I saw three things I wanted right away, including the artificial gravity systems.  I was dying to see how that worked.  It also meant my ship which was less than a day old was now obsolete.  Still, I could reconfigure the inside and add gravity much more cheaply than building a new ship since it would only require fabricator time, and very few new materials.

I could see Kristi drooling over by the other wall and walked over.  It giggled lightly when I saw it was technical manuals.

I joined Nora over by the counter, the man behind the counter was dressed in a haphazard way, and his hair was sticking out.

“Hello, I’m Jarnud, at your service.  Did you find what you’re looking for miss?” he asked showing deference.

I smiled, “Yes, could you tell me the accepted forms of payment please?”

His eyes narrowed and he shot a list to Al, I read through it quickly.  Gold was on the list, so was every other metal including tin and copper.  Gold did have one of the highest exchange rates though, so that worked.

“Okay, I need a fabricator template for artificial gravity plates, the anti-mass particle weapon, and a Meddoc.  How much for all of that?”

I added to Nora, “Could you send updated star maps of the Empire to my ship?”

I’d realized that was probably easier than waiting for the probe, plus it would have all the race and system names in it.

She nodded and I turned back to the peddler, he seemed to be adding it all up in his head.

The first item I wanted was for gravity of course, we wouldn’t have to spin the ship anymore.  The second item, the anti-mass particle weapon, wouldn’t harm an enemy ship, but the anti-mass particles moved at FTL speeds, and would warp and weaken the anti-mass field on another ship by unbalancing the anti-mass particles.

It’s stated use was to force a ship to drop from FTL, but I also thought it would be a good precursor to one of my missiles.  Soften the shield, then slam it with energy.  I was also pretty sure, that despite what it said it would cause a ship to blow up if they didn’t drop below the light threshold before the anti-mass field completely destabilized.  The third item, a Meddoc, would heal just about anything for any species, something that might come in handy out in space, or even back home in a hospital.

There were other systems of course, but we could already do everything else on our own.  I had no doubt there were other advanced technologies, and perhaps weapons, in the Knomen empire, but this guy sold out of a shack at a flea market, so I wasn’t surprised he didn’t have too much we didn’t.  Also, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn only the Knomen had the best stuff.

Jarnud licked his lips nervously and his offer sounded like a question, “Five hundred pounds of gold.”

I frowned and the man flinched, “I meant two hundred, did I say five?”

I smiled, “I’ll give you three hundred, if you throw in one of those advanced fabricators.”

His eyes looked up for a moment, then he smiled, “Done.  One moment.”

He went into the back and came out with a small black cube about the size of a Rubik’s cube.  He handed it to me, and sent the plans for the three objects to my A.I.

“Where should I deliver the gold?”

He waved that away, “I will have a shuttle come up to your ship in one hour.  Does that meet with your approval?”

I nodded, “Good day Jarnud,” and walked toward the exit.

That was entirely too easy.  Nora looked… relieved.  So her nervousness hadn’t been because I’d said something wrong, but must have been out of worry for her friend.  Were the Knomen the fashion police as well?  The guy had been fine outside of his interesting wardrobe and unkempt hair.  The ride back was a lot more relaxed.

On the trip up to the ship, the Lieutenant cleared his throat.

“I’d like to apologize miss Jones, I thought you were just an opportunist who’d bought your way in with money and a bullshit story about how indispensable you were.  I have to admit, we couldn’t have even gotten into the system without you, much less gotten three new technologies, and a navigation chart of the empire out of the deal.”

I smiled, he was still a jerk, but at least he apologized, “Accepted Lieutenant.”

From what I understood, the advanced fabricator would build itself, I planned on putting it on one of the larger asteroids in the belt.  In less than a day it would be ready to start building whatever we wanted.  It wasn’t really any better than an Earth fabricator, except it had built in gravity tech which would speed up some aspects of construction.

The anti-mass particle weapon was fairly simple in concept.  It created an anti-mass field in the barrel of the weapon, the barrel was a containment field of sorts, except the bottom of it which had a small artificial gravity plate in it.  Basically, it would load the barrel with the particles, then the plate would activate, and the intense gravity would repulse, or fire, the anti-mass particles down the barrel and at the target.

The artificial gravity… was beyond my knowledge to really understand, I should have bought a manual.  That didn’t mean we couldn’t build it to spec and use it though.  Some other time.

The special forces team was loading gold into the shuttle while Kristi and I were chatting on the bridge.

“I know it’s arrogant, but we should design a battleship for the military, and get started on them right away when we get back.  If the military wants to change them, then so be it.”

Kristi grinned, “I agree, why don’t you build the ship, I’ll design support craft.  I have a really nasty idea that I think both you and the general will like.”

I snickered, “Alright, I’ll make it like this one, but bigger, with gravity, and of course the anti-mass particle weapons.”

Kristi added, “Alright, but it needs two hangers, one that will fit at least twenty of those shuttles, and one that will fit ten or fifteen.  I’ll need that much space for my ideas.”

I started to work on that until the team came back up and said we were clear.  I had to tell Al to take us home, and specified coordinates in the asteroid field.

We didn’t make it very far out of the solar system when we were hailed and I had to halt working on the ship a second time.

Kristi cursed and then said, “It’s a Knomen ship.”

“Onscreen.”

Kristi glared at me for another Star Trek reference, and then put them on screen.  I’d have been laughing if this wasn’t so damned nerve wracking.

“This is facilitator Barnes, please identify yourself.  You aren’t in the I.D. system.”

I replied respectfully, “My name is Alicia Jones, and this is my ship, can I register with you now?”

He looked at me for a moment, “Send me your craft designs and designation.”

I sent my designs knowing they would actually change soon, and said, “My ship’s designation is Athena.”

I just made that up, I hadn’t even thought of giving it a name before now, but the goddess of wisdom and knowledge seemed like a good name for its purpose.

He smiled, “Very well Alicia, don’t forget next time.  Have a safe journey,” and he disconnected.

I chuckled.  I thought we were in trouble, but apparently only if I was another race.  More proof things weren’t quite so equal in the Empire.

I got back to work on my design.

First I actually changed my ship design, adding the particle weapons, gravity plates, and turned everything right side up since the sides of the ship wouldn’t be the floor anymore.  I also took out all the ladders.  That only took me about fifteen minutes.

For the military ship, I called it a battlecruiser class.  I started with my ship, the new one that I’ll convert to, and built it out by another two thirds in diameter, making it over one hundred and sixty yards across, and I also raised the height of the ship by ten yards, enough to add another level.  I added another fabricator and more room for raw materials, so the ships could create their own missiles.  I greatly increased the size of the landing bay and also added a second hangar as Kristi asked.

On the new level I put in twenty rooms for officers.  A full bridge compliment would be four, a captain, navigation and weapons officer, communications and scanning officer, and the helm officer.  There was also a separate console for the engineering officer to keep an eye on the systems.  I figured that was enough for three bridge shifts, plus the engineering officer and visiting officers.

The rest of the space would be split up into rooms for the crew.  Some for maintenance personal, although most of the ships systems and maintenance would be automated some things took human intervention.  The rest of the rooms and large bunk rooms would be for both marines and pilots.  We hadn’t talked about it, but I was sure Kristi was designing fighters and troop carrier shuttles in addition to whatever else she was doing.

Since I had more room, and I was a sci-fi geek, I added a flag bridge, more storage area, a ready room off the bridge, and then not able to think of anything else, I extended the hangar even further.  Even with artificial gravity, it still needed to be a saucer shaped for the EM and anti-mass field to work correctly.

Nathan asked, “What are you up to?”

I looked up at him and then smiled, “A present for my favorite general.”

He looked awkward for a second, “You might want to… we’ll be back soon.  Your purple eyes are pretty but…” he trailed off.

I blushed, “Right, I should get rid of those spots too huh.”

He nodded wordlessly, “They don’t bother me, but the people at your college might freak out.”

I sighed, relaxed, concentrated for a second, and my skin rippled, “Better?”

He shook his head and winked, “Just different.  I might even prefer the purple eyes.  I was wondering, would you mind if I called you sometime?”

I peered up at him and all I felt from him was sincere respect, interest, and attraction, “I’d like that,” and I ported him my number through Al to his own A.I.

He added, “I guess we’ll be back soon, I’ll let you get back to work.”

I was about to tell him it wasn’t necessary, and that I’d love to talk more, when I got pinged by Kristi.  She’d sent me her designs to look over, and wanted to look over mine, probably a good idea before we started producing the things.  So I just nodded and sent the battlecruiser design to Kristi while opening her designs.

The fighters were impressive, they were about the size of a shuttle, six yards across, but instead of storage, they were packed with missiles, and had two anti-mass particle weapons on the front.  The weapons were just as powerful as the ones I had on the battlecruiser, except of course they didn’t have as many.

The troop shuttles could carry up to sixty ground forces, it was basically a shuttle that was fifteen yards across, but it had no storage, and there were six doors, so all sixty could disembark in seconds.

What she’d designed for the second hangar blew my mind, it was awesome, and it made my missiles seem like toys…

Chapter 9

The Lieutenant wasn’t pleased we stopped at the asteroid field without consulting him, but whatever.  We took some time to get the fabricator started.  We loaded it with the four designs and used our space suits to place it in a good spot.  Basically the little cube would turn into a fabricator that could handle the battlecruisers, but before it did that it would build three more smaller fabricators, to take care of the shuttles, fighters, and the last object Kristi had made.

The instructions included AI computers that could automate any of the crafts completely with human oversight, so when a ship was completed it would literally be able to fly itself to Earth to wait for its crew.  It would also protect itself from being stolen unless the right access codes were granted, which only I knew, and soon I’d pass those to General Denton.

We sent the General all the information over quantum secured communications, but stayed long enough to make sure it was working before heading back.

Kristi came over and sat by me, or floated by me…

“Did you read any of that history yet?”

I shook my head, “No, not yet, was too busy with… never mind.  What did you find out?”

She sighed, “It’s worse than you thought.  They fine new worlds to death, probably to get most of their gold.  But worse than that, saying no to joining the Empire is… theoretically possible, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I tilted my head, I could feel her agitation, “Why?”

She shrugged, “You see, if the civilization is considered too violent to be allowed in the interstellar community, they bomb the world back to the stone age.  According to this history, even though it’s by Knomen law a valid option to stay independent, every single civilization who tries to go their own way has been judged to violent, or unsuitable in some other way.”

I felt a chill go down my spine, but I wasn’t all that surprised, I knew Carl was holding back something catastrophic.  I really hoped the General was churning out missiles.

She added in a quiet voice, “It gets worse.”

I looked back up, “What?”

She sighed, “According to the Tressian history it’s already happened to our world twice.  Atlantis, old high tech civilizations in Earth’s far past, not so much a legend anymore.”

Well… crap.

My ship was locked up so to speak, only Kristi or I could get back in as we took a shuttle back down to Earth, to the base to meet General Denton.  I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation, and although I felt like one, and related to humans, I also felt ashamed at the legacy I’d just inherited from my birth parents.

I got the idea behind it.  Species that couldn’t get along at all should probably be kept on the planet to cook a little longer, they aren’t ready.  No matter how horrible it sounds, it would be less death than a war in space.  But to… use that concept as a thin excuse to push back those civilizations that simply want freedom and a choice to go their own way, wasn’t even close to alright.  The Knomen didn’t want partners, they wanted weak followers or none at all.

Well, I wasn’t one of them.

Kristi must have read my mind, because she said softly in my ear, “It’s not you, it’s probably not even most Knomen citizens, just the ones in charge that fear losing their power.”

I smiled weakly in thanks, she was a sweetheart.  I’d be okay but damn.  It was like finding out I was related to a serial killer or something.  I shivered.

We landed the shuttle right on the base, close to the building I’d been in before, and we all piled out.  The team all waved and said farewells and we split up at that point, I was sure they would be heavily debriefed elsewhere while Kristi and I met the general.  We didn’t have to wait at all this time, he was actually in the conference and interrogation room when we got there, along with a couple of middle aged men in lab coats.  Uh oh.

I smiled, “Hi General Denton, a pleasure to see you again.”

He snorted, “Sit, you aren’t in trouble so lay off the sugar coating will you?”

The scientists gazed at each other, clearly in disagreement with the General’s statement.

We sat and the general grunted, “Okay guys, ask your questions.”

Huh, they didn’t even introduce themselves.  Maybe they’re NSA scientists.

One of them asked, “Why are you building the support ships separately, it would be more efficient to build them while the ship is being built.”

Kristi snorted, “Because my friend, bureaucracy meet loophole.”

I snickered, “What Kristi means is, when we take those ships out of the solar system, we will need to upload our ship specs to the Knomen.  Right now they’ll learn the capabilities of our missiles, anti-mass particle weapons, how fast we can go, how smart our A.I. is, how many missiles it can build per hour, and all sorts of other things.”

I took a breath and held up a hand when he was about to speak.

“I think a part of that purpose is so they can gauge our strength, right now as is, it shows two empty hangers for support craft.  They won’t know how good any of those ships are.  If we built it as part of the battlecruiser template, they would know.  In short, it’s so we can tell the Knomen less, but still be in compliance with their laws.”

The scientist frowned, “I didn’t take tactical reasons into account, and you’re right.”

The second guy asked, “I found it odd that the engineering section is simply a console on the bridge, can you explain that?”

Kristi giggled, “We watch star trek.”

He furrowed his brow at Kristi and looked to me for translation.

“Do you watch star trek?”

He nodded.

“So how often did the engineer call about EPS conduits blowing and cutting off power to deck eleven, sections fifteen through whatever.  Or my personal favorite, main power is offline.  It makes no sense to design a power system that complicated, and all from one place.  There is no specific engineering section because we don’t need it.  Main power will never go down because there isn’t any huge reactor to power the ship, there is no main power.  There are literally hundreds of smaller cold fusion devices, and all located right next to the systems they power with quite a bit of overlap.

“No power lines to get cut, if one part of the ship gets harmed and we somehow survive, the rest of the ship will have power.  Centralizing is a bad idea, especially when the fusion devices will last for many years without service.  The only exception to that of course is the EM anti-mass field generators, we have no choice but to have those circle the ship.”

He frowned, “But…”

I smiled gently, “I know, it’s cool to have engineering, but not at all necessary.  All we need is a way to keep track of all the different independent systems, which is why there’s a console on the bridge, and that’s done through quantum connections, so still no lines to cut,” I shrugged sheepishly.

“Any other questions?”

The scientists shook their heads, but one commented, “Just to say the Shield missile system is incredible, what made you think of it?”

I turned to Kristi, “Well, what did make you think of it?”

Kristi blushed at the attention, “Well the fighters enhance our offensive capability without the Knomen finding out, I figured we needed something defensive, but not part of the ship.”

He frowned, “But it’s offensive as well.”

She shrugged, “Offense is the best defense.”

The general asked, “How does it work?”

Kristi explained, “Basically they are just missiles.  They are bigger of course, about half as big as a fighter, and they have hydrogen storage tanks instead of a cockpit.  So you launch about fifty of them, and they surround the ship, syncing to the ship’s movements.  So if an enemy launches a missile at you, the closest shield missile will automatically intercept and absorb the attack.  It has very robust shields.  At the weapon officer’s orders, it can also attack a target ship.  It has a built in one shot anti-mass particle weapon that will fire at the enemy ship, then jump to light speed, and then drop its own shields.  The mass of the missile, plus all the compressed hydrogen, will instantly turn to energy and strike the enemy ship in the same spot as the particle weapon.”

Kristi shrugged like it was no big deal, “Oh, and the hydrogen is free, it’s programmed to make a run to one of the gas giants after its built, then come back and wait to be assigned a ship.  That’s about it really.  The hard part was building the A.I. control for the defensive and formation flying.”

General Denton said, “That’s enough, you guys can go and work on your own designs.”

He waited for the men to leave, and then smiled, “I’m glad I didn’t fight it, because it seems you did an excellent job.  Will you go over what happened in detail?”

It was about an hour later by the time we finished debriefing the General, including about our Knomen friends.

The General shook his head, “What would you do?”

I shrugged, “Make sure we join, and then build up overwhelming forces, and then tell them we changed our mind.  I wouldn’t pick a fight, just get to the point we could fight and do a lot of damage, and they’ll hopefully tolerate us as an independent if the cost of fighting it is too high.  Then we can claim all the stars we want away from the core and make new friends.  The trick is, you can’t tell anyone that is dealing with Carl what we know, or that its only temporary.”

The General shook his head, “I don’t think I followed that.”

I explained, “Carl will know if we’re being at all deceptive.  If we plan to pull out later after a buildup, we can’t let him know that, even the people making the decisions.  I know that complicates things, but it’s how it is.”

General Denton asked, “Can he read minds?”

I shook my head, “More like reading an aura, he’ll be able to tell if someone is deceptive, or holding back the whole truth.  Basically you need to read in people that won’t see Carl at all, and have them convince the leaders to accept entry into the Empire for other reasons.  Then later on in a year or two, when we have enough to defend Earth, you tell the leaders the rest.”

He shook his head, “I can’t hide this.”

I shrugged, “Neither can they from Carl, and if he learns the Earth wants to be independent, he’ll destroy all our technology and knock us into the stone age.  They’ve done it before.  You can’t lie to or trick a Knomen, the only way it will work is if the leaders really believe the Empire is a good move.”

He sighed, “I can’t argue with your plan but…  What you’re talking about is called conspiracy and fraud, and against the whole Earth no less.”

Kristi said, “Sort of.  We aren’t deciding to pull out, maybe once they learn the truth the world leaders won’t care one way or the other, and will decide they love bureaucracy.  You’ll simply be giving them the other choice and the ability to make it happen if they wish.”

He snorted, “Well, we’ll see what the NSA thinks of that sophistry, since no doubt they’ve heard every word.  I also think… well you don’t need to know that.  Thank you again, can I contact you again if needed?”

I nodded, “Sure, I’m not going anywhere.”

We went home then, I hoped my apartment complex didn’t complain, my shuttle took up six spots.  I had second thoughts about that halfway to the building, and I sent the shuttle back to the ship, no point in asking for trouble.  I also scheduled the upgrade with the large fabricator to reconfigure my ship.  Kristi gave me a hug before she left for Joe’s place, and then it was time to sleep, it’d been a very long day.

The next day was boring, but that was to be expected.  It was hard to top going to another planet, buying advanced tech, and meeting blue people.  Designing ships of mass destruction had been kind of fun as well to be honest.  I wasn’t a bloodthirsty person or anything, but who doesn’t like explosions?

Still, I had my coffee, and I attempted to figure out a way to dump the saucer scheme.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get the field to work in anything but a circle without compromising the integrity of the EM and anti-mass fields.  As far as I could tell, the only other option was a cigar shape.  I could make that work by running the superconductor in a spiral along the whole thing.  So still round, but instead of circling horizontal it ran vertical.

Which mean… I could build something that fit in a parking space.  I wasn’t sure how important that would remain however, it depended where the car company designers took it I supposed.  I designed the rest of it out, I made it to seat six, put in a restroom, and a small storage space.  I also fit in two missile launchers, and a particle beam weapon.

I probably didn’t need it, but if I ever wanted to visit somewhere close, like Tressia, it seemed kind of overkill to go in such a big ship for a three-hour trip.  Didn’t it?  Although, it would be safer, my larger ship would have more firepower than a family shuttle would.  I saved the design, but decided not to build it yet.

Kristi wasn’t back yet, so I figured she was still shacked up with Joe after our little adventure.  It was toward the afternoon when things got interesting.  The news broke that aliens were real, and we’d been invited to join an interstellar Empire.  The reactions were mixed of course; most people didn’t panic but there were outliers.

I’d had fun designing, but got to work on something I’d been putting off.  I had to deal with my finances, I had more money than I knew what to do with at the moment, I’d have to research some charities, and perhaps buy a house or two, perhaps invest the rest of it.

Al said, “You have an incoming call, Nathan Smith.”

“Answer it Al… Hi Nathan.”

I was a little surprised he called, but it was a pleasant one.

“Hi Alicia, didn’t want you to think I forgot you.  I’ve got a night off tomorrow if you want to do something?”

I smiled, “Yes, what did you have in mind?”

He replied, “It’s a surprise, wear comfortable clothes.  I’ll pick you up at seven.”

I told him I would, and we disconnected.  Holy crap, I had a date.  I didn’t figure he’d really call since he knew I was an alien.

I watched the news for a little bit, I could still feel my mind working on the issue of shape and integrity, while there were several riots, people preaching the end of the world, and of course people who thought we should worship the aliens.  It took all kinds.  Luckily, most of the world seemed to take it in stride.  They also announced an upcoming summit for world leaders.  Apparently the ambassadors at the U.N. just couldn’t get anywhere on their own.

To be fair, that was probably more about their instructions than anything else.  Leaders could afford to compromise and change their minds, ambassadors were limited to their instructions.

Kristi came home a little after dinner, and she wasn’t in the mood to go out either, so we watched old shows on Netflix for a while and talked.

“What do you plan to do when you graduate?”

Kristi shrugged, “I don’t know yet, why?”

I grinned, “Because I already know you’re smarter than me, if you want to form a company with me… or, I don’t know, need money for a research grant, you don’t have to go very far.  I know I want to go exploring at some point, see what we can turn up as far as tech in new worlds.”

Kristi wrinkled her nose, “I’m not smarter than you.  But yes, I’d love to work with you, for you, and follow you around when you hit alien planets.  Next time we’re getting the damn manuals, I couldn’t figure out the gravity plates either, I need to see the math, not just the circuits.”

I nodded glumly, “I forgot.  I was so excited we got all we wanted.  I won’t be around tomorrow night by the way, got a date with Nathan.”

Kristi grinned, “He’s cute, and completely smitten with you already, you should go for it.”

I shook my head, “Three date rule.  Sometimes I hate it too, but then when I miss out on getting used by cretins like Todd it’s worth it.”

Kate laughed, “Cretin?  People don’t use that word anymore.”

I shrugged and pointed at myself, “Alien,” I said shamelessly as an excuse.

She snorted and shook her head, “You’re helpless.”

I redirected, “How’s Joe?”

Kristi smiled, “Good, he’s my keeper I think.  It feels different this time, like he doesn’t have a one foot out the door.  He even knows I’m intelligent, but he enjoys when I play bimbo.”

I giggled suggestively, “I just bet he does.”

She threw a couch pillow at me, and I decided it was time for bed…

Chapter 10

I looked in the mirror, my outfit was definitely comfortable.  I had on a pair of blue jean shorts, and a red shirt that showed just a little midriff and was tight over my breasts, but didn’t show any cleavage.  I walked out to the front of my apartment when the doorbell rang and opened the door.

Nathan looked good in uniform, but it was a pale reality to his attractiveness in a pair of black jeans, a blue shirt that was a little too tight, and a large smile on his face that reached his deep blue eyes.

“You look great, are you ready?”

I nodded and wondered where we were going.  When we got downstairs I followed him to his ride which was a thirty-six Mustang, and he opened the door for me.  We talked for a bit on the way, and I smirked when he pulled into the parking lot for a pool hall.  I’d always been really good at it, and of course… now I knew why.

We went inside and I grabbed a table, as Nathan went to pick us up a couple of beers.  I found out pretty quickly he was very good at the game too, which made it more fun for me.  We didn’t have that much in common job wise, he was a soldier, I was a scientist on my way to getting my PhD.  So we talked a lot about music, movies, books, and other hobbies.

He didn’t seem to be intimidated by my intelligence, or the fact that I was an alien.  Granted, I looked human, but he knew what I was.  By the fifth game and third beer I as feeling very relaxed, but put my pool cue on the table and excused myself for a restroom visit.

When I got back to the table I froze as I looked down.  The back of my mind itched as I stared down at the table.  He’d put his cue down as well, and it was placed about two inches away from the other one perfectly parallel.

“Something wrong?  Yours is on the left.”

I shook my head, shrugged and picked them up so I could take took my turn.  I had a really good time with him, and outside of that moment I froze, I was focused on having a good time with him.  I was having too much fun.  It was rather late when he dropped me off at the end of the night, I let him kiss me, and regretfully didn’t invite him in, no matter how much I’d wanted to.  It was rather tempting though, and I wondered if I could consider our trip to Tressia as the first date so that next time…

Well, I changed and got ready for bed, then went to sleep.

I may have forgotten the pool que incident, but my mind hadn’t, and it hit me like a ton of bricks the next morning.  I brought up my interface and designed a new ship, this one looked like… a shuttle out of star trek.  It was about the size of an extended van, without wheels of course which mean it had all that extra space on the bottom.

I ran some simulations and… it was a lot tougher and faster than even the bigger ships.  The clue had been the cue sticks lined up next to each other.  The hull contained a number of straight poles about two inches in diameter that ran the length of the ship, each one separated by four inches.  The superconductor was coiled around the poles, in circles as required.  The fields overlapped between each pole, which made the EM field as well as the anti-mass field more… dense.

I estimated the shuttle would take up to ten of my missiles, where a battlecruiser would fail at four or five hits.  It would also be harder to disrupt with the anti-mass particle weapon, because instead of the craft being surrounded by one field, it was covered by a separate field generator every five inches.  At nine feet tall and eight feet wide, that was forty independent generators.

The way the anti-mass particle weapon worked was destabilizing the field by raising the anti-mass particles on one part of it which would destabilize the field, raising the power in that case wouldn’t do anything to fix it on the old ships, but if one of the forty fields suddenly spiked from an attack, the computer could temporarily raise power in the other thirty-nine, evening out the field.

Because the field was much denser, it would also mean a significant speed increase, and I was pretty sure it would hit negative mass at less than one percent power instead of nine or ten percent.  I ran some calculations, and realized in a shuttle like that, it would only take about forty minutes to get to Tressia at eighty percent power.  I went ahead and generated a full sized ship as well, and the numbers looked even better, though it would take hundreds, if not thousands of poles to cover the thing.

I gave it some thought, and I had Al submit the build for the shuttle.  I didn’t even need a large commercial fabricator since the shuttle was only van sized.  In fact, the fabricator in my shuttle bay could handle it, so for now it was still a secret.  The top of the shuttle had the main compartment, restroom, and a small storage space for food and other emergency supplies.  The bottom of the shuttle would be stuffed with missiles, a small fabricator to make more, and an anti-mass particle weapon.  The ironic thing was I’d have to keep it in my shuttle bay if I ever left our solar system… at least for now.

I contacted the General and set up a meeting for later, and then made some breakfast.

It was early afternoon, and I was in the General’s office, which seemed to be a step up in trust.

General Denton asked, “So what have you done now?”

I smiled, and explained my new design, and the added stability and toughness.

The General nodded, “So, what’s the problem, I can tell by your tone you think there’s one.”

I nodded slowly, “Sir, if you build these ships, and send them out, that gives the Knomen more powerful ships.  Admittedly, they may already have this design, perhaps it’s arrogant to think I discovered something completely new when they’ve had the tech for millennia… but all I saw out there were round ships, with one field.  Even if they do have them, that means they’re holding them back.  I think if they find out they no longer have an edge, they might panic.”

He cleared his throat, “So what do you suggest?”

I frowned, “I don’t like it, but I think we should build these and hide them.  Keep them for defensive purposes.  I’d advise building three of the carriers, with six huge hangars with their own fabricators.  Four hangers for the attack shuttles, and two for the Shield system.  Maybe create, build, and hide a new battle cruiser design as well, but just leave them in storage until we need them.  I don’t know, but I know we don’t have to send them our design if the ships never leave our solar system.  Or at least, not until we decide to tell them tough crap, you can’t have it, we’re free.”

He shook his head, “I understand, and it makes sense.  But it means if we support an action and come to the defense of another system with ten percent of our ships… we won’t be sending our best tech with our soldiers.”

I sighed, “That’s why I don’t like it.  I came to that same conclusion.  I’m glad I don’t have to decide.  That said, you could make the attack shuttles, leave them in the landing bays, and tell the captains to use in case of emergency.  But they should understand if they do use them, they’re probably volunteering the Earth for war.  Then again, I could be overreacting and paranoid.”

He laughed, “Join the club, it isn’t easy to prepare for a possible war for freedom while appearing to be helpless enough that they won’t start one early.  We’re putting out six ships every three days right now, we have more fabricators going up as well.  Next time don’t come to me with headaches, only solutions.  Understood?”

I snorted and smiled wryly, “Yes sir.”

The next couple of weeks went pretty quietly, I had my attack shuttle stashed in my ship which was finished with its own rebuild.  Once more just in time to become obsolete, but of course I couldn’t go anywhere on a ship with the new design either.  I was hesitant to go anywhere in search of new tech… or just to go see, until Earth had decided to join the Empire.  Technically what I’d done on Tressia was illegal, I’d used my standing as a Knomen to buy and give technology to a race not in the Empire.

Simply put, I didn’t want to press my luck in case it got things started too soon.

I hadn’t seen Nathan since we went out to play pool, because he was out on a mission, but he did manage to call me almost every night, and we were both looking forward to our next date.  I wasn’t sure about having a man that was away so much, but on the other hand he was a good one and I didn’t want him to get away.

The world had calmed down when people realized it wasn’t ending.  Of course, if they knew the real truth behind the Knomen Empire it might have been a different story.  Still, things were calming down, and the world leaders were at a summit hosted in Europe.  It might be a cliché, but it felt like the whole world was holding its breath for the outcome to see if we’d join the Empire.

When things finally broke, it did so on a number of things at the same time.  Some good, some very bad.

Al said in his usual dry tone, “Alicia, you have a call from Professor Daniels.”

I told him to answer it as I shuffled over to the coffee, and said, “Good morning sir.”

Professor Daniels had a smile in his voice, “Good morning, your doctoral thesis has been preliminarily accepted and I have your schedule for the examination, or as I like to call it the dissertation defense.  I’ll port that over to you, I just wanted to call and say good luck.”

“Thank you professor,” I said softly, disbelief shading my tone.

He chuckled, “Your welcome Miss Jones, have a good day,” and hung up.

I was a little in shock, I’d been working on my dissertation or thesis a long time.  Originally it was just about the EM field, or perhaps it could rightly be called a shield at the densities I’d established more recently, but I’d had to update it at the last minute with the discovery of anti-mass particle fields.  I brought up the data he sent me, and it looked like I’d be going to Vegas in about a month to defend my dissertation to a roomful of my soon to be peers, hopefully.

Kristi walked into the kitchen and looked at me like someone kicked their dog.

“News, now!” she said with a tinge of worry in her voice.

I raised an eyebrow, Kristi was never in a bad mood.  Serious on occasion, but never disturbed.  I had Al turn on the news, I brought it up on the wall instead of my visor.  They were talking about the summit, no, the summit was over, they were talking about the fact we were now card carrying members of an interstellar Empire.  It went on to say we’d be a probationary member for thirty years, whatever that meant.  I felt… relief actually.

But then it rolled over into the next story.  A human interest piece, and I had to put my coffee down before I spilled it when I started shaking.  I could have suppressed the reaction, if only I’d been able to concentrate at all.

I’d been outted, so not good.  Even worse, they had two pictures of me somehow, how I looked now, and how I looked with spots and purple eyes.  The second picture was taken on Tressia, I could tell from the background, luckily there were no Tressian people in it.  That meant it couldn’t have been anyone except the special forces team, or someone in the government that had access to our mission files to Tressia.

Kristi looked worried, “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, “Was it the government, or did one of our special forces team leak it?”

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.  I tried to take a sip of coffee, but the cup was shaking.  I closed my eyes and stilled my mind with some effort, and then finally took a sip of the life giving elixir that is coffee.

Kristi shrugged uncomfortably, “I don’t know.  I don’t think any of them would have without orders, not even the lieutenant.”

I shook my head, “Me either, those guys wouldn’t have given me up, I don’t think the general would have either.  Must have been some idiot in high office that was briefed.”

Kristi deflated, “Probably, I’m sure they think it would calm down people, make them think that aliens are people too.  It might even work a little, except for all the nutcases who might come after you now.  I think you should get out of here, I’m surprised the reporters aren’t here yet.”

The door knocked giving Kristi’s statement the illusion of prescience, and my eyes widened.

Kristi snorted and ordered her A.I. to connect to the door peep camera, and then drew in a sharp breath.

“It’s not the reporters, it’s Carl… alien Carl, and two other people are with him.”

I walked over and opened the door.

“Come in,” I said shortly and moved to the side, the last thing I needed was my neighbors seeing him show up.

But then, that probably didn’t matter anymore did it?

Carl smiled pleasantly, “I have some people here I thought you might like to meet.  This is Elira and Jorl, your grandparents.”

I turned and looked at them both.  They looked just a couple of years older than me, and it wasn’t computing until I saw their eyes.  I saw the age in their eyes and understood.  I knew I aged slow compared to most, at twenty-three I still looked about twenty, but Knomen didn’t age slow enough to explain how young my grandparents looked.  But then the obvious hit me, with control over my body like I had, specifically my facial structure, that meant I could always look young… at least until I died.

Except for the eyes.  Elira and Jorl looked about forty in the eyes… which meat they were at least as twice as old.

I just stared though, not sure what to say, I might have been going into shock.  Too much had happened this morning.  My dissertation, Earth joining the Knomen Empire, I was outted to the media, and now my grandparents were here.  My… family.  They didn’t look like the monsters I’d imagined, they had smiles on their faces, and looked… welcoming and hopeful.

Elira said tentatively, “It’s a miracle to see you.  Our daughter was pregnant when they left for Earth on that scouting mission.  I never imagined when they were reported dead by their implants in such a violent way that you had survived.”

I said in shock, “I was thrown from the car before it exploded.”

Jorl winced at my bluntness, “When facilitator Carl called us about the news, we came as soon as we could.  I know you have a life here, but you have family back home, an Aunt and Uncle, and a ship full of cousins.”

I giggled, and they looked at me strangely.  What?  Ship full must be their version of boat load.  It struck me as funny.

“Sorry, cultural thing.  I appreciate that, and I think I would like to visit sometime in the future, but my life is here.”

Carl cleared his throat and said delicately, “Do you think that’s wise considering the recent news?  You’ll be in danger.”

My mind made all the connections.  This wasn’t coincidence, and it wasn’t the government who’d leaked my picture and identity as I’d assumed.  For some reason Carl wanted me off Earth and back home, and he’d leaked the info and brought my grandparents here to get the job done.  I turned and glared into his eyes.

“You manipulative piece of shit,” I’m ashamed to say my vocabulary got even worse after that, I recapped my thoughts aloud interspersed with creative cursing, name calling, and then demanded, “Get out of my home!”

Kristi had her hand over her mouth, and my grandparents couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d pulled out a gun and shot Carl.  Oh, right, being a bad neighbor was about as bad as murder in the Knomen Empire.  It wasn’t often that I lost it, but the jerk had just put my life at risk, he was lucky I didn’t deck him.

Carl made a disapproving noise, “Be polite, I’d hate to have to fine you for showing such disrespect to a facilitator.”

“Then please do as I asked.  You are not welcome in my home.”

Carl nodded and looked completely unconcerned with my uncovering his manipulations.  As if it simply didn’t matter.  He clearly believed I would wind up leaving anyway.  While it was true I wouldn’t stay here out of spite, I wouldn’t be manipulated into leaving either, I still had no intention of going to the Knomen home world.  I could weather a media storm, hell, after the school sold the rights to make and sell my invention I could buy an island fortress if I needed to.

Actually, that might not be a bad idea.

Carl left and I slammed the door and took a deep breath.

I turned and smiled, “Well, that was… not fun.  Jorl, Elira, meet my best friend and roommate, Kristi.  Kristi… my grandparents.”

They were very polite when greeting each other and looked at me warily wondering if I was done with my tantrum.  Perhaps I’d gone a bit far, but I thought Carl’s slimy scheme had called for it.

I forced my smile to remain on my face and tried to switch from angry crazy person to gracious hostess, “Anyone else hungry?  I’m starving,” and I led them all into the kitchen and started to cook breakfast without waiting for a reply.

It turned out Jorl and Elira were somewhat important in Knomen society and I learned a few things.  Facilitators were not only ambassadors, and around to help other societies join the empire.  They were also judges of a sort, and in many ways spoke with the Emperor’s voice.  It made me regret cursing him out, I should have just tossed him out on his ear, but politely.

Jorl and Elira were not facilitators, they were more… agents that looked into other civilizations that were on the verge of FTL, and in some cases even sooner to evaluate how violent a society a planet had.  It seemed Knomen tradition was that children followed in the parents’ footsteps, kind of born into their jobs.  If I left and went with them, I would no doubt be educated and trained to integrate into other societies as an agent.

Agents were well respected and paid well in Knomen society, but weren’t nearly as important as the facilitators who were their bosses.  They also had no say in rules or laws.  The Knomen were very class conscious as well, it was an empire in every sense of the word.  Of course, it was a very modern empire, there were no starving peasants, even the lowest Knomen rank in society had all they could ever want and more, and still had a higher standing than even the highest of another race.

The classes were about social and governmental power, not riches.  The Earth was approaching the same kind of state, ever since fabricators were invented, there really weren’t shortages of things.  If you wanted to own something, you simply bought the design, and went to a store and had it fabricated.  There were still store fronts, people liked to touch and see things in person before they bought, but things didn’t run out.

I knew they could see the distaste in my eyes, and I actually felt a little guilty about that.  My grandparents were actually good beings, or at least that’s how they felt to me.  They were just stuck in a system that had long since gone rotten.  What’s that saying?  I didn’t make the world the way it is; I just have to live in it…

The only thing that really bothered me was the way they treated Kristi.  They weren’t rude or mean at all, on the contrary, they were exquisitely polite.  But then most people that own dogs don’t kick them either.  I didn’t even know where to start that argument, or try to explain how wrong it was, they were steeped in their tradition and beliefs.

I liked my grandparents, and I promised I’d visit them sometime on Knomen.  I even exchanged quantum connections so we could call each other, but that was my limit.  Thanks to their visit, and open honest dialog, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate living on Knomen.  I grew up living on Earth, and my freedom to choose my own life was too precious to me to ever give up.

Earth was my home, and humans were my friends, neighbors, and family.  Even if some of them tried to kill me over the next few days, which wasn’t a certainty, it wouldn’t change that fact.  Either way, by the time my grandparents left at the end of the day I was more sure than ever about my decision to stay.

Chapter 11

The end of the day also brought crowds of people, reporters, and lots of cameras outside my apartment.

“Huh, I’d had the idea of moving to a private island in my head earlier as a joke, perhaps I should reconsider.”

Kristi snickered, “They’ll go away soon.”

I nodded, “Still, I have my dissertation defense next month, and then I’ll be done with school.  I’ll need a place to stay since this place is post graduate only.  I don’t want to live on an island but… any suggestions?”

Kristi shrugged, “I’m not too far behind you.  I don’t have any solid plans, I’d planned to just go home and look for a job, get an apartment once that happened.  But… since you suggested us working together, we haven’t really defined that yet.  I don’t want to work in isolation on an island either.”

I nodded, “I’d planned on a small company to start with, just doing research.  We can hire a few people to run it while we and perhaps a few other hires work on space tech.  I was hoping actually you’d help me plan it.  Although where just isn’t that important, we could build a research ship and have it in orbit, and still shuttle down to Earth every day.  Not that we’re doing that, I was thinking a small building in an office park.”

I rethought that a moment later, “Still, we should have a lab in orbit for the more dangerous experiments, I’d rather not blow up anything important, like Earth.  But not as a permanent office.”

She snorted, “Destroying Earth would be something to avoid.  Do you care where?”

I shrugged.  Maybe it was sad but outside of Kristi I didn’t have all that many friends, most were just acquaintances.

“Let’s do some research, figure out the best place to open our business.  Then I can look for a gated community or something remote enough to keep the reporters away.”

Kristi agreed with that, and we wound up staying in that night, since our building was surrounded.  I wondered what campus security thought about it all, although technically we were off campus by fifty yards or so.

For various reasons we decided to set up in a business park by Colorado Springs.  It was going to be a research company, so I wasn’t expecting to do more than lose money at first, but that wasn’t an issue right now, and I guessed not anytime soon.  I also did some searching of real estate for a home in that area that was either gated or in an isolated area.

Kristi hadn’t liked that idea at first, but considering places like New York City, and Paris were now less than a five-minute flight by shuttle, she caved rather quickly about not living in the city itself.  I was sure she’d eventually get her own place, but we figured it would be good to be roommates until one of us got a family.

I was betting she’d be first.

I wasn’t at all interested in big houses or servants, so I looked at some of the listings in Monument, which was just North of Colorado Springs.  They had some really nice houses on very large lots for under three hundred thousand.  There was also an excellent view of the Rocky Mountains in that location.

Kristy agreed, and now that we had plans made, we stepped back from it.  I still had a month to go assuming my dissertation was even excepted, it wasn’t quite time to move on it yet.

It was getting a little late when Al said, “Incoming call, it’s your mother.”

Oh crap, my mother, adoptive mother, could be a little high strung at times.  I should have called her when I was revealed to the world so to speak.

I cringed as I said to Al, “Answer it…  Hi mom, what’s new?” I asked with false nonchalance.

She snorted, “Nice try, are you hanging in there?  Me and your father are so worried, are you safe?  Tina’s worried too.”

Tina was my younger sister, also adopted.  We didn’t get along so well, but she was still family.

“I think so,” I couldn’t really be sure of course, but I didn’t think the villagers would show up with pitchforks and torches.  At least, I hoped not.

She hesitated a moment, “Will you be able to visit soon?  We haven’t seen you in months.”

I frowned, “Mom, you don’t seem very freaked out, I expected you to be freaked out.”

There was a profound silence on the line.

“Well dear, we knew of course.”

It was my turn to hesitate, “You knew?”

She laughed, “Of course, you learned to hide it, but not until you were ready for school.  Did you know when you were a baby, your eyes used to change to our color whenever we held you, between my brown and your father’s blue depending on who held you at the time.  That stopped when you were a toddler, but there were other signs after that.”

I opened my mouth, and then closed it.  I wasn’t sure what to say to that.  I’d thought I was perceptive but I’d never guessed they knew.  But then by the time I’d developed that way they were probably over the shock of it.

Finally, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighed, “Well we didn’t know you were an alien exactly, we just knew you were different.  We decided not to make a big deal over it, I didn’t want you to think it mattered or make you feel set apart from us.  When will you visit?  It’s been a few months.”

I replied, “Soon?  I’m almost done with school, and have a lot going on right now.”

She laughed, “I bet.  Alright, but don’t wait too long, if you have time to go visit an alien world, you can get your skinny butt to Texas.”

I snorted, “Yes mom.  Tell Dad and Tina I said hello.  Hey, you want a ride around the solar system?  You know, in my alien space ship.”

Sure, it was created here on Earth, but it’s my invention, so… alien space ship.  I thought she might have been freaked out by the idea because the silence was dragging on.

My mother finally replied, “We can talk about it when you get here, which will be when?”

I frowned not really sure, “As soon as I can put a couple of days together.  It won’t be long.  How are things there, is the press bothering you?”

She replied, “No, not yet.”

We talked for a while longer before hanging up.  I was about to call it a night when Al let me know another call was coming in.  It was Nathan, and he said he could get away tomorrow night, so we planned another date.  He couldn’t pick me up with the mess of people outside, so I planned to have a shuttle pick me up from the roof.  I wondered how that would play out on the news, but didn’t really care.  While I fell asleep that night I debated if I would count this as date number three or not, I was tempted…

Lira looked at her screen and read the rejection notice for her latest transfer request.  Admiral Stenz, may he burn in hell, still hadn’t forgiven her for the incident.  She was good at her job and with that one exception of knocking down the Admiral, had been an exemplary young officer expected to advance quickly by her superiors.  This post was killing her with boredom.

The sensor alarm went off and she rolled her eyes.  She wondered what minor annoyance it was now and took a quick look at the data, and all the blood drained from her face.  She immediately forwarded the data to command with urgency.  She couldn’t believe her eyes, the Seltan had returned once again, and in force…

I was awake at five in the morning.  That wasn’t strange or anything, since I didn’t need all that much sleep.  Although I tended to go to bed later most nights, at two or three, and sleep in until six or seven in the morning.

What was odd, is someone was knocking on the door.

“Al, who’s at the door?”

Al said in his emotionless voice, “There are two agents outside the door, the same ones that brought you to General Denton the first time.”

I shook my head and got up from the table and opened the door.

“Yes?”

One replied, “Good morning ma’am, if you’d come with me I’d appreciate it.  Oh, if you have any sweats or workout clothes you might want to change.”

I furrowed my brow, “Why would I do that?”

Two smiled, “No idea Miss Jones, classified orders.”

“Huh, alright, give me five minutes.”

I figured Kristi would want to be in on this, but she wasn’t home, she was spending the night at Joe’s place.  I didn’t really have sweats, but I pulled on a pair of stretchy yoga pants, and a loose t-shirt that was large enough to cover my ass, and a pair of running shoes.  I couldn’t think of a good reason for this outside of lab testing, but I doubted that was what it was about.

I was probably missing some critical information here, because I couldn’t make sense of the request.

I went back out and followed the agents down.  It was five in the morning, and still dark, so there weren’t all that many people outside right now.  They hustled me over to the car quickly and we’d escaped before I could be accosted by reporters, fans, or worse.

The base was quiet this early in the morning, and I was brought over to the track and field.  It was pretty much deserted, except for one person.  Master Sergeant Barbara Cooper was there in gray shorts and a gray army t-shirt, with a clipboard and a whistle.

Sometimes my life is really strange, but today was setting new records.

I got out of the car, “Hey Barbara, what’s going on?”

She grinned, “Classified, the general told me to ask you to play along for now, and he’d explain later.”

I frowned, not liking the idea of getting the explanation later, but I nodded anyway.  The General had treated me well, and seemed to trust me.  It bought him a little slack.

She said, “Good, and it’s good to see you, now get down and give me some pushups until you have to stop.”

I raised my eyebrow in question, but she gave me a military stare as if to say we’d already covered this, and I should get on with it.

I dropped down and did pushups.  I got to about ten before my arms started to hurt, so I used the ability to control my body to increase my endurance and strength.  She hadn’t told me not to, so…

I was up to ninety or so when she told me to stop, and she marked it on the clip board.  Her eyes were appraising me differently now, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake by showing that ability.  She didn’t look worried though… just intrigued.

“Okay, sit ups next.”

She stood on my feet while I did them, although I was almost sure that was the wrong way to do it, and once again she stopped me when I exceeded a hundred.

Next, she had me run around the track eight times, two miles.  It occurred to me on the second lap I was doing a military PT test.  They used it to make sure their soldiers were up to minimum standards of physical fitness.  Of course, that didn’t answer my questions, it only made me have more of them.  I ran the two miles in just over eleven minutes, which apparently was a little too fast.

“So… how’d I do?”

She looked reluctant to answer, but said, “You exceeded the requirements to score a hundred on all three tests, even for the male fitness chart.  Before you ask, I have no idea why the general ordered me to test a civilian.  You’ll just have to wait.”

I nodded and got back in the car with the two agents at their urging, who I still had no names for, and was brought to the infirmary.  They escorted me inside, where someone seemed to be waiting for me.  I knew something serious was going on, because the Army was known for hurry up and wait, not waltz in and we’ll be ready to serve you.  It was… bizarre.

“Miss Jones, I’m Captain Ellers, I’m here to give you a physical.”

I nodded and followed him.  The next hour or so I was poked and prodded as my temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and a number of other things were checked, including the arches on my feet.  They didn’t take blood, but I was asked to fill a cup and shown the restroom.

When it was finished, I was feeling a bit annoyed, and violated.  I would have liked to understand why and had the opportunity to decide yes or no before having this morning’s activities thrown at me.  It was only my respect for the general that kept me there.

Doctor Ellers said, “Thank you, were done here.  Good luck.”

Good luck?  Good luck with what?

I went for gracious but my thank you came out grumbly, and I headed back outside where my two escorts awaited me.  I was relieved a few minutes later when the car pulled in front of the building where the General’s office was.  At last I’d be getting an explanation for this morning’s events.  The two men insisted on walking me to the General’s door, even though I explained I knew the way.

He wasn’t in his office, so I took a seat in one of the guest chairs and waited.  I was taking care of my e-mail and checking on Facebook, the latter of which was clogged with hello alien and die alien messages, when General Denton swept into the office and sat down.

I raised an eyebrow in question, “General?”

He grunted, “Last night at eleven forty Eastern, Carl contacted us in regard to the mutual support clause.  Right now only the U.S. and China has interstellar space ships so far, although Germany, Russia, Japan, England, France, and a handful of other countries should have their own ship designs being fabricated soon.  The point though, is that we have thirty-one ships now including yours.  The U.S. has eighteen, with the fourth batch of six starting a few hours ago, and China has twelve.

“The result of that, is they expect us to send at least three ships, I was considering sending double that however.”

I nodded, “What does that have to do with…”

He raised a hand cutting me off, “Read this,” and he ported me three pages of text.

I read over it as quickly as I could.  The first two and a half pages were a synopsis of the times Tressia was required to provide ships and the battles that followed.  As soon as the ships arrived on scene they became under the control of the highest ranking Knomen that was present in their military.  It looked like they were always put in a hot spot, in addition to the other member races of the Empire.  They were treated as expendable troops, sacrificed on the tip of the spear, however it was said… it was an ugly thing.

According to the reports the Knomen ships always took the least amount of losses.

Then I got to the bottom half of the third page, where it explained the Empire’s rules.  Apparently a Knomen admiral couldn’t take control of the ships under the command of another Knomen, unless they were specifically within their chain of command.  It seemed to me as if it meant that if a captain from another fleet happened to join the battle, they could fight where they pleased.  It didn’t mean they couldn’t coordinate, but…

I looked up, still confused, “What does this have to do with…” and I trailed off as it suddenly made a sort of absurd sense, “Oh for goodness sake, you’ve got to be shitting me.”

He shook his head, “Watch the language… Admiral Jones.”

I shook my head in denial, “That’s insane.  I’m a scientist.”

He laughed, “It really is insane, but it was my idea so we’ll just pretend its genius.”

I added, “It’s also illegal, it takes twenty-five to twenty-eight years to be eligible for Captain in the Navy, or Colonel in the Army.  Much less to make Admiral or General.”

He nodded, “It’s all moot if you say no… but listen for a minute.  I don’t want to throw away all those men, and with a Knomen in command of our ships they won’t be used as fodder, so I won’t have to.  I was impressed by your leadership and how you handled the Lieutenant in Tressia.

“Experience isn’t as important as you’d think for this, because we don’t have any at all in space battles.  An admiral in the Navy needs years of experience to control and understand the limitations of ships and subs on and under the ocean.  But in space a kid with an Xbox has more experience in space battles than a full admiral.  In a way your inexperience might be a plus, the book for space battles still needs to be written.

“Add to that, you designed all our ships, and know better than anyone what they are capable of.  We have to make it real of course or it won’t work, you would be in command, but you’d have a Captain on your flag ship, and commanders on the other five ships ready to offer advice during battle planning.”

Did he really trust me that much?  Or just not trust the other Knomen that much.  Probably a little of both I’d guess.

“What about the illegality, there are laws about rank promotions.  Even the president can’t wave his hand and poof someone to Admiral.”

“Poof?”

I blushed and gave a series of one-word clarifiers, “Sorry, defense mechanism, humor, silly, sir.”

He sighed, “No the president can’t do that… but have you heard of Brevet ranks?”

I nodded, “Yes, it was a temporary promotion, it was used a lot during the revolutionary and civil wars, but was done away with shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, and replaced with awards and medals.”

He smiled as if pleased I’d known that, “Exactly, and the reason it was discontinued was because being a hero, or doing something heroic, wasn’t a good substitute for experience and time in.  Except we’ve already covered that, experience on a battlefield, urban combat, in a sub, or an aircraft carrier won’t mean crap out there in space.  So here is what the plan is.”

He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts and said, “Basically if you agree to help us, you would sign on to the Navy as a Lieutenant J.G. which is their 0-2 slot.  Then the president and congress will Brevet you to Rear Admiral for the duration of the mission, after which you’ll revert to a Lieutenant again.”

I frowned, “But then when I get back… I’ll be in the Navy.  I have plans to…” was that selfish?  He was asking me to make sure his troops weren’t used as fodder.  I’d already done a lot to ensure the freedom of the world I grew up in to remain that way, was I going to balk now?  I still thought it was a crazy idea, me lead people?

He slid a piece of paper across the desk, and I picked it up.  It was basically an executive order excusing me from military service when I got back from the mission.  Apparently he’d expected that question.

I looked up, “Okay, this time I’d be volunteering, but I’m guessing the President can reactivate me at any time in the future without my okay?”

He frowned, “Yes but… do you think we want to piss you off?  You’ve done more to help me put this planet on the path of freedom than anyone else.  Than any country or company…  I also expect that the improvement you showed me the other day to the FTL field won’t be the last, we want you where you can make a difference, not in charge of mopping the deck of a ship.

“I imagine if we made you too angry, you’d just jump on your ship and go home.  Consider this a personal favor asked by me, and your president.  We know you’re a research scientist, but your also so much more than that.  I see leadership qualities in you, hell, I’ve done almost everything you’ve suggested to me over the last week.  I wouldn’t be on board with this idea if it was only because of your race, and needing to not let the other Knomen throw human lives away”

I shook my head.  I was a scientist, and a geek that watched old sci-fi shows on Netflix.  Not… military minded at all.  I just didn’t see what he saw in me.  Then again, I couldn’t be much worse than a Knomen admiral would be, they’d just use the Earth ships as fodder to charge the wall so to speak if Tressian history was accurate.

“So the PT tests?”

He shrugged, “Everyone in the military needs to pass a physical exam and the PT tests to be on active duty.  You did much better than I expected.  If it makes a difference I’m going to assign Cooper, Alda, Naughton, and Smith to be your personal guards.  They are not there to watch you; they’ll be there to watch out for you.  There have been… threats against your life.  Okay?”

I nodded.  I could have taken more time to think about it but I knew what I would decide.  I’d already put myself on the line for my adopted planet, almost begged to be allowed to do it, why wouldn’t I do it again?  I signed my name to the paper, and the General swore me in.  That last part made the craziness of the day feel… real.

He stepped out of the office for a few minutes and came back with uniforms and a duffel bag.  The old coot… I mean the general must have been sure of himself if he’d already fabricated my uniforms.

“Put on the BDUs over the space suit, the rest can go in the bag.  You can use my office, afterward there’s a shuttle outside ready to take you to your ship.  Welcome to the Navy Admiral.”

That… was just crazy, I wished he’d stop calling me that.  He ducked out before I could reply, and I mechanically changed my clothes.  I had enough forethought to call Kristi, who was pissed off and wanted to go with, I wondered if my best friend was crazy.  Then again she had to be a little off, because my quirks usually chased off most of the people that tried to get close to me.  She’d never had a doubt about our friendship.

I decided screw it, I kind of wanted her there.  Selfish maybe, but she wanted to go, and it wouldn’t hurt to have another scientist that was intimately familiar with the technology and designs along for the ride.  I told her to put on her space suit and meet us on the roof.  It probably broke some rules, but screw it, I was an Admiral.  At least until the mission was over anyway.

I didn’t need to call Nathan to cancel my date, I was pretty sure he was in the shuttle outside.  He was one of the four the General had set to guard me after all.  I was also happy the Lieutenant hadn’t been named, I supposed I was their superior officer for the duration.

I put the rest of the uniforms in the duffel and headed for the door…

Chapter 12

“I can’t do that ma’am”

I probably looked like a kid playing dress up, but the Lieutenant flying the shuttle was pissing me off.

“I gave you an order, get this ship to the roof of my apartment.  I’m bringing a scientist with us who has volunteered her expertise.”

Nathan and Bill weren’t helping, both of them were laughing at me with their eyes.  Even the overly serious Elise looked amused, perhaps she’ll loosen up without that ass Ledner around.  Barbara managed to keep a straight face though, but I could still feel her amusement.

The pilot said in a voice that didn’t sound sorry at all, “I’m sorry, I’m under orders to fly you directly to your ship ma’am.”

I asked, “Who’s orders?  Do they outrank mine?”

He cringed a little, “Yes ma’am, the general was quite specific.”

I nodded, “Very well Lieutenant, when you fly you’ll take us straight there, in the meantime, just sit back and relax.  Al, take control of the ship and fly us to my apartment building’s roof.”

Bill snorted with laughter, even Barbara was fighting a smile now, as the Lieutenant yelped when the shuttle took off on its own.  A few seconds later we were settling down on the roof.

Kristi jumped in and I asked, “Are you sure you want to do this, it will be dangerous, we’re going to war.”

Kristi nodded, “Life is never boring with you around, I’m not getting left behind.”

I shook my head, she was nuts.  But then, I was here too and in an Admiral’s uniform.  Clearly I was the crazier of the two of us.

“Alright Lieutenant, take us directly to the ship.”

He was smart enough not to glare at me, and took the ship up into space.  The ships going were stationed near the asteroid field, and it took us about a half a minute to get there.  The Lieutenant was a cautious flyer.  He put us down in the hanger without a bump.

“Thanks Lieutenant, nice flying.”

He replied, “Thank you ma’am.  I’m to show you to your quarters before we go to the bridge and disembark for the rendezvous location.”

The six of us followed him through the ship to the officers’ quarters.

I said, “Miss Wilder will need quarters as well, and my soldiers.”

The Lieutenant said, “The room next door is open, and the special forces team has bunk space in the army room.”

I nodded, that was fine.  I went into my quarters, it looked roomier than I’d expected, even if I designed the thing.  Probably because there wasn’t much in it, just a bed, dresser, and end table.  I dropped my duffel on the bed and went back out.  We waited a moment for Kristi to do the same, and then all went up to the bridge.

Kristi was just in the space suit again, and she was getting a lot more looks this time since it was a full ship.  People stared at me too, but I think that was because I was a young alien woman wearing an admiral’s star on my uniform.  I had to admit, it was a lot nicer and roomier than my ship, although I hadn’t gone anywhere on mine since it was reconfigured.

A man turned around with a silver bird on his collar, I assumed he was the captain.  He frowned as he took us all in.

“Who are you all, and why are you on my bridge.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Captain, surely you were expecting me?”

He looked me up and down with disapproval, “Yes, but I wasn’t expecting a young civilian woman in nothing but a ship suit, or four Army grunts, get them off my bridge.”

“Ma’am.”

He furrowed his brow, “What?”

I said politely, “Get them off my bridge… ma’am.  Or do I not outrank you?  They are with me, and go wherever I go.”

He shook his head, “You can’t be serious.  You’re here to make sure that Knomen Admiral doesn’t get my men killed, that’s it.  Did you actually think I’d put my men in your charge?”

Considering I knew when people told the truth, of course I did.  The general was quite clear that I was to be in charge, not just puppet to trick the Knomen… who would see right through that sort of thing.

“As a matter of fact, you don’t have a choice Captain, that’s how it is.  I don’t know where you got your information, or what you expected, but I am in charge, and if you pursue this course I’ll have you charged with insubordination, mutiny, conduct unbecoming an officer, and have you returned to Earth where you will face a court martial.  I’ll remind you how serious those charges are since we are literally in a state of war per our responsibilities after joining the Knomen Empire.”

He growled, “Mutiny?  Are you insane?”

I shrugged, “I am in command of this task force, you just told all your bridge officers I was just a puppet, and stopped just short of telling me to go play with my dolls.  I’d say mutiny describes your actions perfectly, you are attempting to wrest control of this mission from me without cause and directly against your orders.  You also keep forgetting the ma’am at the end of your sentences captain.”

I could feel his anger rising, and I was pretty sure he was xenophobic.  I wasn’t going to be able to talk him into being reasonable.  I thought he might even take a swing at me, but I wasn’t sure.  He wanted to badly, but he was also a Captain in the Navy and held all the self-discipline that rank would imply.

“Barbara, please escort the captain to a shuttle, I want him off the ship.  Al, send a copy of the conversation since we entered the bridge to General Denton.”

I had no idea what to do here and wondered if I’d overreacted.  If I backed down I’d lose command, and the Knomen admiral would pick up on it and ask all the wrong questions.  But if his crew was loyal and took his side, it could cause the same results to happen.

Barbara said, “Yes ma’am, my pleasure.  Come along sir, Naughton with me, Alda and Smith stay with the Admiral.”

The Captain turned to one of his officers and opened his mouth.

I said in a soft deadly voice, “Don’t.”

He ignored my warning, and ordered his communications officer, “Call the marines, get this bimbo and her entourage off my ship.”

Bimbo?  I thought I looked pretty good in the uniform… but more sophisticated and sexy rather than… bimbo.

The officer looked at me and I shook my head, I hated putting the other officers in that position, and I really wished he wouldn’t have done so.  Now he really was guilty of mutiny, I was pretty sure during times of war he’d get shot or hung for that one.

Barbara said in a cold voice, “Sir, I’ll ask nicely one more time, please accompany me to the shuttle.  I will not ask a third time.”

The room seemed really tense for a moment, and then four marines came into the room with rifles.  I wondered how they knew to come, since the communications officer hadn’t touched his console.

The Captain ordered, “Get these people off my ship now.”

The marines raised their rifles, but not at me which came as a pleasant surprise, the weapons pointed at the Captain.  One of the Marines spoke.

“Sir, you’ll come with me now.  I have orders from General Denton, you’re relieved of command and are to immediately desist, if you don’t I’ll shoot you… sir.”

The Captain stalked past me and off the bridge, the marines bracketed him as he walked down the hall.

“Barbara, you and Elise don’t need to follow.”

I took a deep breath and relaxed, and let my spots and purple eyes come out.  I looked around the bridge and saw shock on a few faces, among a few other things, but no hate or disgust.  I brought up the ship’s roster and memorized the names and faces of the bridge officers quickly, there were only a few officers on board.  I also took a moment to look at the files of the other commanders for the other five ships.

I turned to the Communications officer, “Lieutenant Simpson, connect us to the bridges on the other five ships.”

I waited a moment until the view screen was filled with five other commanders before speaking.

“Alright, we need to get going or we’ll miss our rendezvous with the other races, and will be fined very heavily.  I’ll get to know the rest of you on the way, it’s a three-day trip to the core side of the Knomen Empire’s border.  Needless to say I’m in command of this ship now that the Captain has left us, in addition to the task force.  I’ll be depending on the five of you, and my bridge crew for advice, but you will all be taking my orders, is that clear?”

I heard a yes ma’am from everyone.

“Very well, let’s get going.  We want to end up a thousand light years on this side of the Leira system.  Have your navigators sync the destination coordinates with Lt. Peters.  Tammy, do you have a course laid in?”

Lt. Tammy Peters was my navigator and weapons officer.  Lt. Jerry Simpson was on scanners and Comms, and Lt. Commander Barry Nichols was on Helm.

Lt. Peters replied, “Yes Ma’am, and all helms are synced for all six ships.”

I nodded, “Thank you Lieutenant.”

I felt satisfied and intensely relieved.  No one else had objected to my being in command, but I wasn’t feeling nearly as confident as I hoped I appeared to be.

I nodded toward Barry, “Commander Nichols, get us moving, eighty percent power.”

I looked toward the screen, “Commanders, feel free to contact me if you have a question, otherwise we’ll speak later.  Apollo out.”

Apparently I’d started something calling my ship Athena.  The battlecruiser I was currently on was the Apollo.  The five full commanders running the other ships were Cam Benson on the Ares, Amy Teller on the Artemis, Jerry Johnson on the Hermes, Ella Ayers on the Hades, and Paula Martinez on the Poseidon.

I sat down in the command chair and tried to look relaxed.  Okay, it was more than that actually, I forced my body to relax.  I didn’t know much about command, but I knew a nervous wreck wasn’t someone people followed with confidence.  So while deep inside I wanted to go back to my room and hide there, and maybe have a few drinks with Kristi, instead I sat there as if racing toward battle wasn’t a big deal.

I considered talking to the bridge crew, but I dismissed it.  I wasn’t here to be their friend, I had to win their confidence, not their approval.  I had Kristi, Nathan, and to some extent Barbara, Bill, and Elise to chat with if I wanted.  I really didn’t have much room to complain, they say command is lonely, but those four weren’t strictly in my command structure, and Kristi definitely wasn’t.

As long as I was stuck on the bridge for another five hours, I brought up the rest of the personnel records for my ship and memorized them all, and then read some military manuals.  That wouldn’t turn me into a brilliant task force commander, but maybe it could help me not do anything too stupid or mess up protocols.  Hopefully the general knew what he was talking about when he said I was a natural leader, I didn’t see it, but so far with the exception of the captain when we boarded, everyone was listening.

I could also tell the crew weren’t as resentful as I’d expected them to be, perhaps the Captain hadn’t been well respected?

While I was doing all that, it looked like Kristi was studying something on the spare science station.  She seemed to know instinctively not to be chatty with me up here, which was a good thing.

The bridge was set up for three eight hour shifts.  Eight to four was the first shift, then second shift was four to midnight, and third shift was midnight to eight.  When the second shift arrived I turned over the ship to a lieutenant, and then returned to my previously assigned quarters for my bag before taking over the captain’s quarters.  It was bigger and had a private dining area…

Chapter 13

“What do you think?” I asked Kristi while taking another bite of my steak.

Kristi frowned, “Slug fest.”

We were sitting in the conference room in the captain’s suite, and the other five commanders had shuttled over.  We’d had to stop for a minute, but it wasn’t a large delay.  Launching a shuttle in FTL was more than possible, but landing in one of the ships at FTL was a whole other story.

The General had mentioned writing the book on space battles, so we were all discussing it.  If the Commanders were surprised that I’d involved a scientific genius, that looked more like a sexy model for space suits than anything else, they weren’t showing it.

Commander Paula Martinez had just gotten finished explaining a formation where we would approach in two rows of three, kind of a rectangle, with the Shield defense missiles arrayed in front of us.

Amy crinkled her eyes at Kristi and asked, “Why do you say that?”

Kristi explained, “Formations are meaningless when at the speed of FTL an enemy can get behind you in a couple of picoseconds.  Speed, the defensive capability of each individual ship, and firepower.  That’s what matters.  Any kind of formation that works in a ground war, or even in air combat with jets, won’t work here.  An enemy could fly around back and shoot before the defense missiles could respond.  The Shield system should always be used as a globe formation around the ship or it will most likely fail.”

Commander Ella Ayers blew out a breath, “So you’re saying we should just slug out one on one?  That seems like a… really bad idea.”

Kristi shook her head, “Defensively there is almost no choice, if you’re targeted it’s a single ship’s defense against what the enemy does.  That still leaves a lot to do though offensively.  Two or more ships can combine to attack a target.  For instance, it would take five missiles to take out one of these ships, and all hitting within a second or two, or two Shield system missiles, or a particle beam hit followed by two or three missiles, or two particle beam hits at the same time followed by one or two missiles immediately after.

“But who knows how strong the enemy ships will be?  Right now if our battle cruisers went up against each other, it would probably come down to who fired first considering they each have eight missile launchers and eight anti-mass particle beam weapons.”

Jerry asked with a raised eyebrow, “Probably?”

I smiled and got in the conversation, “Well consider if a missile hit while you’re in FTL and you change course before missile two through five hit.  You’d outrun the blast wave.  Really, at FTL, the missiles depend on the attacked ship not changing course too quickly.  That’s what she was talking about with patterns, if we continually move and change direction randomly, the enemy computers will have a harder time hitting us with missiles.

“Of course, if we choose to fight at FTL, and get hit with a bunch of particle weapons and lose the shield before dropping below light speed, we’re dead that way.  I sent a message to the Knomen to get data on how the Seltan fight, surely they have readings of past battles.  We might be able to figure out how to fight better once we see how they fight, and how strong their weapons are.”

Paula asked, “So what was the point of this conversation now?”

I raised an eyebrow.

She added grudgingly, “Ma’am.”

“I wanted to explain the difficulties, and why old tactics won’t work.  Space battles can happen in FTL or normal space, and the different combinations of things that can kill us no matter what approach we use, make it extremely complicated.  I wanted you all trying to think outside the box when the data gets here.  For all we know the enemy doesn’t use the same weapons we do.  Secondly, I wanted to get to know you all a little bit, before we get into battle.  Any other questions?  They don’t even have to relate to the upcoming battle.”

When it was silent for a few minutes I added what data I did have.

“Here is what we do know as of now, the Leiran system has one planet in the goldilocks zone with three moons.  There are two gas giants, and one other rocky planet even further from the sun.  The Leiran’s themselves are extremely peaceful, but will defend themselves.

“Unfortunately, they were overwhelmed by Seltan attack force of one thousand ships.  The system is on the border of Empire territory, and from what I could glean, the empire has been very unfriendly neighbors with the Seltan Empire for a long time.  They apparently clash every few decades but so far all-out war has been avoided.

“I don’t know if that’s changed, or if this is just an attempt to gobble a single system and go no farther.  I suppose that’s as far as we can get without the rest of the data.”

We talked a bit longer, but didn’t really accomplish anything, except maybe I knew them and they knew me a little better, and Kristi and I had managed to open their eyes to the issues.  I wondered though if there was anything that could be done strategically, or if it would just be a slug fest, I hoped so but I kind of doubted it.  The fact the Knomen used their allies as the initial sledgehammer that broke both sides seemed to lend credence to the slug fest theory.  Those with the strongest weapons and defenses wins, and does so quickly.

No long drawn out battles.

If that was true, then we’d have to figure out a way to change that.  Maybe some kind of countermeasure to confuse their sensors and missiles.  Easier said than done though…

I didn’t get much sleep that first night but I didn’t have any bright ideas either.  The sensors could measure both mass and energy.  The mass sensors worked by measuring gravity, or an objects impact in space time, and was used only to avoid running into something for the most part.  After all, our ships were covered with an anti-mass field, so those sensors couldn’t see our ships at all.

The way ships were seen were through finding energy particles.  There was no good way to hide that, even if we weren’t using Ion thrusters, the ship was loaded with mini-fusion reactors.  I supposed we could create dummy ships, just a small probe that would read as another ship, but we already had that with our Shield defensive missile system.  I wasn’t sure if any other countermeasures were even possible.  We were long past the days of LIDAR and radar.

I tried to think of something else that might give us an edge, but my mind only seemed to want to go down avenues already dismissed.  I was under a lot of pressure.

It was probably selfish of me, but I kept thinking about Nathan as well, there was no way we could get together during this mission.  The regulations were clear about officers and non-commissioned having a relationship, we couldn’t.  Maybe when we got back and I wasn’t an admiral, or on active duty, we could try again for date number three, but for now I had to keep my distance.

I gave up on sleep and grabbed some breakfast, it was about four in the morning and I still had four hours before I had to work… which meant sitting on the bridge for eight hours looking relaxed and alert at the same time.  Still, that was better than the alternative, which would be something exciting happening before we even got to the battle.  I decided to focus on something different, let the back of my mind work on the technical problems we faced, and dug up some more military manuals to read.  There were a lot of those in the ships computer…

It was midmorning on the third day, a few hours away from the rendezvous when I finally received a data download from the Knomen.  I had the ships stop long enough for the commanders to come to my ship, we probably could have done it over video but I wanted to evaluate their responses in person.  The leadership manuals said that was important and I couldn’t disagree, I’d already come to that conclusion long ago.  In my case it was even more important, since I would know what they felt if they were in the same room.

The data on the battle was even worse than we had expected.  We watched as two groups of ships approached each other.  The sensors showed missiles and anti-mass particle beams being fired from both sides, the latter observed by shield fluctuations on hit ships.  At least that was one bit of good news, the enemy had the same weapons and nothing we didn’t.  But we watched as ships simply started to explode as the missiles and beams were traded back and forth.  In the end, there were just a handful of Knomen ships left.

There was no skill to it, the human mind couldn’t work fast enough to target missiles or beams at FTL speeds, it was all computer targeted and fired after the weapons officer picked the target or targets.  It was… as Kristi had said, a slug fest.  The computer also dodged away from missiles turned to energy, but this again, took no skill.  It was a programmed response, and mostly unsuccessful.

It literally was a free for all, and the remaining ships survived because of luck, not skill.  There were no clever battle tactics, or ingenuity.  It was… a slug fest.  It would be luck as well, since our survival would depend on an enemy picking a different target.  Sure, it was possible to withstand a barrage, but unlikely.  Also, we’d watched it in slow motion to comprehend what we were watching, the actually battle took less than five seconds.

“Comments, thoughts?”

CMDR Benson cleared his throat, “It seems we’ll have the advantage.”

“In what way?” I asked, curious.

He replied, “The Shield missile system.  They didn’t have anything like it.  It seems to me there’s a good chance they’ll target one of those instead of the ship behind them, especially since it must be computer automated, and we’ll have fifty of them surrounding each ship.”

I nodded, “That’s true, what about tactics?”

CMDR Martinez replied, “There aren’t any really, except to be prepared and not enter a one sided battle.  The only other thing I can think of is to get them to chase us, but since we’re invading I don’t see how.  If they chase us we’ll have time to nail their missiles with the particle weapons, make them explode early.”

CMDR Johnson added, “Good idea, also it seems we shouldn’t hold back.  If we have enough Shield missiles to send four or five at each enemy ship, we should do so.  As far as other tactics beyond the obvious, I don’t see any, unless there’s a way to remove FTL from the equation.  Force them to fight without it, and then we can bring in more tactics.”

I smiled, “I’d like that too, and I’ve been trying to think of a way to do that, but so far nothing.”

Kristi nodded, “I don’t see any way to do so either.  Right now the only viable tactic seems to be superior firepower.  I liked Paula’s point, to slow down the battle a little and add skill to the equation by dumping most of the speed into a chase, but I doubt they’d chase us, they’re defending.”

Huh, I wondered when Kristi had gotten on a first name basis with CMDR Paula Martinez.

CMDR Teller asked, “Are we sure we want to give up our Shield system advantage here?  Once the Knomen see it…” she trailed off.

I nodded firmly, “I’m not sacrificing any of our lives to keep it a secret.  They very well may come up with their own version of it after our battle, but that’s how the game is played.  Kristi, the military scientists, and I will come up with something new eventually.  Any other ideas?”

I thought it was bad enough that we didn’t have the greater shield power.  There was no way I was holding back on Shield.

CMDR Martinez smiled wryly, “Not for this battle, but if we can’t figure out how to make people fight below light speed, then a missile boat wouldn’t go amiss.  If overwhelming firepower becomes the only tactic, we might as well not hold back, put hundreds of missiles out at once.”

“Alright, I’ll send a recording of this meeting to the General back home when we’re finished, that is a good idea.  Unless anyone has anything else, we should get you back to your ships before we make the rendezvous.”

Teller added, “I know you mentioned formations can be defeated, and they can.  But in the simulation they didn’t do anything like that, they simply stood toe to toe and killed what was out front first.  I’m guessing that’s why the Knomen always get the back of the formation, since the front is pretty much suicide, even if the enemy is highly outnumbered they’ll have time to launch one strike and take out most of the ones in the front line before being blown to dust by overwhelming fire power.

“I guess what I’m saying is, maybe forming the missile defense in front of us wouldn’t go amiss in this first battle.  They might figure it out, and jump behind us in the future, but this first time they should be a victim to their protocols and how they have their computers prioritize targets.”

I frowned, “You’re right, if we could depend on this one simulation as the way it always goes anyway, but we can’t depend on that at all, if we’re wrong it could backfire.  They’ve been in the system now for days, and could have defensive systems in wait to come online after we pass, or a bunch of other things.  I think we can thin out the missiles in the back first, when we send fire their way, but I don’t want to leave us completely undefended on our backsides.”

They all nodded thoughtfully, and there were no further comments.

We broke up the meeting, Kristi stayed behind and held her tongue until the commanders had all filed out.

“You hanging in there?  You seem really confident, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were career military.  It’s kind of eerie actually.”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

She snickered, “That’s better.  No really though, are you hanging in there?”

“So far so good.  I’m stressed of course, but handling it.  I’m honestly terrified of people dying because I’ll do something stupid.  In a way though, this FTL combat takes a lot of that away.  On the other hand, if I could think of a way to destabilize anti-mass fields in a large area… but I can’t.  The commanders also had a lot of good ideas, more than I’d thought of, and we do have an advantage thanks to your Shield system.  Ask me that again after the battle.”

Her gaze was penetrating, and I could feel she was worried for me.  It was true I wasn’t used to the burden of command, but I did have the advantage of being able to suppress my body’s stress responses.  I was still worried of course, but at least my body wasn’t sweating, shaking, or flooded with adrenaline.  I got up and filled my coffee mug, it was time to get back to the bridge.

Chapter 14

I guess we came in last, because there were no other ships heading this way on long range sensors.  It kind of made sense, since we were the farthest away from our destination.  There were only six hundred and thirty ships here, and only twenty of those were Knomen.  I wondered at the numbers, surely the Knomen had more than two hundred ships, Earth had thirty and it wasn’t more than a few weeks since we’d gotten the technology.

Hell, in the three days’ time it took to get here the U.S. alone had added another six ships alone, I was sure the Chinese were catching up while the other countries were just getting started.

Maybe they didn’t have to match the ten percent the other races did?  I didn’t like it, we had less ships than the enemy did.  Last count showed they had seven hundred and twelve left from their invasion, which had started with a thousand.  The Shield system would make a difference, but we only had three hundred of those split between six ships, that wouldn’t do more than even the odds.

Hopefully next time we fought we’d have some of those missile ships.  I wanted to figure out how to prevent FTL, but until then overwhelming firepower was a place we could go to now.  We just didn’t have the time to get there before we needed to fight.  I made a note to myself to suggest higher numbers of Shield missiles in addition to the missile boats, carriers, and upgraded shields.  I couldn’t believe an Empire the size of the Knomen Empire couldn’t scrounge up more than six hundred some odd ships.

According to the scans, all of the ships were comparable to what we had with us, none of them seemed to have the stronger and more stable shield system that I’d developed and talked the General into hiding.  Of course, other races could be doing the same thing, so I supposed it didn’t mean all that much.

Lt. Jerry Johnson said, “Ma’am, incoming message from the Knomen flagship.”

That hadn’t taken long, we’d only arrived moments ago.

“On screen Lieutenant.”

Admiral Stenz glared at me, perhaps angry I was here and leading the human contingent.  He didn’t say anything about it though, and was quite short with me.

“This is Admiral Stenz, shuttle over to my ship for a briefing, bring your second in command.  Stenz out,” and he disconnected.

Well… that wasn’t very polite.

Paula Martinez had the most time in rank and was second in command.

I stood, “Jerry, inform Paula to shuttle over, and that we’ll head over to Admiral Stenz’s ship together.”

Barbara followed me off the bridge, apparently I wasn’t going without an armed escort.  It took a couple of minutes to make our way down to the hangar deck, and another minute before Commander Martinez’s shuttle arrived.  Barbara and I hopped on and took a seat.

Martinez ordered, “Take us to the Knomen flagship Lieutenant.”

She nodded at me, “Admiral.”

“Commander, what do you think about this fleet?”

She grimaced, “There’s over fifty races out there, and only six hundred ships.  The most I’ve seen of one race is twenty.  Makes me wonder why they have so few.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I got that too.  Maybe they keep the ship numbers down to avoid heavy losses, all things being equal the Empire will protect them too so they may view having a large navy as a bigger risk…”

I knew as I said that, it was a cynical thought, but it was probably the right answer.

Martinez nodded soberly in agreement.

It wasn’t a pretty idea, but I couldn’t imagine why else the numbers would be so low.  I’d had the similar idea of using less humans protected by stronger shields with more firepower to cut down on the losses we were surely facing ahead.  That was a much more palatable alternative however.  It was too bad A.I.s weren’t really up to making independent decisions yet without supervision, or I’d send unmanned craft in to fight.  They were good with instructions and protocols, and absolutely essential for aiming, but a human needed to be on site to give those variables depending on what was faced.

The ship we were heading to was huge, easily ten times the size of the Apollo.  It also had a lot more missile launchers and anti-mass particle weapons mounted on it.  However, the shield strength wasn’t really any stronger.  The other Knomen ships were smaller, but still twice as big as ours were.

The flight took less time than walking down to the hangar deck, and we got out of the shuttle the moment atmosphere was restored.  There was a young Knomen officer ready to escort us to the briefing.

He bowed his head, “Welcome aboard, I’m ensign Larn, please follow me and I’ll take you to the Admiral directly.”

I could feel his curiosity about me, but he didn’t say anything.  I was curious myself as I looked around at all the people with spots and different shades of purple eyes.  I felt like I was… surrounded by aliens, and let out a low chuckle at myself, since I had the same spots and eyes.  Still, it was disconcerting.

The room I was led to wasn’t so much a conference room as a lecture hall.  It looked like a huge college classroom with a great number of seats in a semi-circle around a raised dais.  Of course, with hundreds of aliens, two or three from each species in the room, it made using a room like this necessary.  We wouldn’t have all fit in a normal conference room around one table.

As I looked around, I started to believe the seeding theory as the origin of life.  I was surrounded by… humanoid beings of every imaginable color, and they had one or two things different, like ridges on the top of their nose, or blue hair, or stripes on their skin, but they could have been humans dressed up in only makeup for a sci-fi convention, no masks would be required.  There wasn’t any really alien looking species.  No cat people, tails, antennae, fangs, arachnids, lizard people, or anything strange like that, just… very human shaped humanoids.

That seemed… wildly implausible, unless of course this section of the galaxy had been seeded with life long ago, similar DNA with an almost programmed evolutionary track.  As a matter of fact, if I’d seen a sci-fi movie with beings like the ones in this room, I’d immediately reject it as ridiculous, but yet, here they all were in real life.

The room fell silent and everyone sat, when there was a low pleasant tone to gain everyone’s attention a moment before Admiral Stenz walked in the room, and headed for the dais.

A hologram of a formation appeared behind him.  It ships were broken up in a rectangle of sorts.  It was three ships tall, six ships deep, and thirty-five across.  That made a hundred and fifteen in each wave, a three by thirty-five formation for six waves.

Admiral Stenz started the briefing, “We’ll be going in with this attack formation, your slots are being sent to your ships now.  To give us the best chance of success, we’ll open fire with everything when we get in range with our anti-mass particle weapons, and then peel off.”

He waved behind him, and the front row of a hundred simulated fire, and then the lines turned perpendicular to the direction of the enemy, and moved away at top speed.

Admiral Stenz said, “We all know war is ugly, it’s the price to keep our Empire safe however, and any sacrifice we make will ultimately save more lives and bring Leira back into the fold.  This formation will work for some, not for others, but running after unloading your missiles should give you a chance to shoot down pursuing enemy missiles, it will also mean the most minimal time to be in range of the enemy’s anti-mass particle weapons.”

“Any questions?” he added.

There was dead silence in the room.  It wasn’t an awesome plan, but it did mean any ships not targeted in that brief window had a good chance of surviving, at least until the regroup and follow up attack, so it was better than nothing.

The Admiral cleared his throat, “Very well, we move out in twenty minutes, your assignments are awaiting you back at your ships, it’ll be a three-hour trip per the slowest among us.  If you have any questions, make sure you contact my ship before the last hour, or don’t bother.”

I was curious to meet some of the other races, but departure in twenty minutes didn’t leave much time so we headed back to the ship’s hangar and took our shuttle back to our ships as quickly as we could.

I didn’t have time to meet in person with my commanders after the briefing, and we wouldn’t be able to stop once the formation was on the move.  So I was in my room off the bridge and connected to the other five ships.  I didn’t like teleconference, but I was fairly confident in the commanders by now and I didn’t have a choice.

“Alright, this battle is going to happen fast.  We are in the last wave on the bottom.”

No doubt he had placed us there so I wouldn’t object.  It was a neat way of solving the issue of asking where I was going to serve, since technically he couldn’t command me to do it.  It would make any changes I made seem… petty.  So I decided to just go with it.

“On one hand I’d like to kill as many as fast as I can, on the other I want some shield missiles left to protect us when we peel off before our second run.  I was thinking we all keep back twenty to surround and protect us for the peel off, and send thirty at the enemy while firing everything else we have.  In total that should be a hundred and eighty Shield missiles, forty-eight regular missiles, and forty-eight shots with the anti-mass weapons.  The missiles have a much greater range, so we should be able to shoot another forty-eight missiles every couple of seconds after reload while were moving away.  Does anyone object to that plan, or have a better idea?”

None of them had a comment.

“So here is what I want, we don’t know how powerful their shields are.  I want targeting plans for cases where it takes one missile to destroy an enemy, all the way up to ten.  When we get close enough to read their shield strength, we can choose the attack plan that will kill the most ships.  We should know about fifteen minutes before we get there, but I want the plan we’ll use before then, so I need options.  It’s probably good to have it in the computer anyway, for future battles, just pull up the right settings.”

CMDR Cam Benson asked, “Is ten likely?  It would only take two of the Shield missiles, and maybe five of smaller ones to take down any ship in this fleet.”

I shrugged, “My prototype shuttle with the next shield type would take ten shield missiles before going down, and it might even survive that if it can dodge well enough, so we can’t make assumptions.  That said, you’re correct that it isn’t very likely, but why take chances.  I want it figured down though, if three Shield missiles is overkill, but two won’t do it, we need to target with two, plus one of the regular missiles, or with one of the ships anti-mass weapons.  We have enough of a mix not to waste anything I think.”

Kristi cleared her throat, “I can build an algorithm for the ship A.I.s to use, based on the shield strength scan it could spit out the optimal combinations of the available ordinance.  Give me… half an hour.”

Cam smiled at Kristi and said, “I love you.”

Kristi laughed and winked at him, the rest of us chuckled too.

“Any other questions, comments?” I asked.

No one had any, so we ended the call.  I grabbed a coffee and made it out on the bridge and tried to look attentive, confident, and relaxed.  I was in fact, fairly confident with shield missiles we’d be able to make Admiral Stenz’s strike and flee plan work, but I wasn’t so sure about the rest of the fleet.

Chapter 15

We only had about an hour to go when Lt. Jerry Simpson said, “Ma’am, I’m picking up power signatures behind us, twenty, they weren’t there a moment ago and are now in pursuit,” then louder, “Missiles incoming!”

The only reason we had a warning at all was because they were chasing us.

Tammy said, “Ma’am, the computer has a solution on shield strength, two Shield missiles, or three regular missiles and a beam, or two beams two missiles, or three beams one missile.”

I ordered calmly, “Two and two, fire now.  Tammy, connect your console with the rest of the fleet so we don’t double up on targets.  Jerry, pass on the order to open fire on the commander’s channel and leave the channel open.”

I let a bit of the stress through, fear was good, it would help keep me alive.  But not enough that I started to shake, or couldn’t project confidence.

Our ship fired eight missiles and eight anti-mass beams, blowing up four of the ships.  The other five ships fired a second later right after the enemy fired a second salvo.  We didn’t really have time to deploy the Shield missiles, we were an hour away from the battle and completely surprised.

Regardless, the other five Earth ships had fired and so did a few others, the remaining sixteen disappeared in flashes of light.  But there were still two rounds of eighty missiles incoming.

Tammy said, “Permission to open fire ma’am, each missile will take two beams to destabilize… I think.”

“Fire,” I ordered, both to her and the five listening commanders.

The six ships fired forty-eight beams, destroying twenty-four of the missiles as their anti-mass field disintegrated and they turned to energy before they were even close enough for that to damage anyone.  The Knomen fired as well, taking another twenty-four.  But as we recharged for another shot, the thirty-two remaining missiles tore into the formation.  None of the Earth vessels were hit, the ambushers seemed to be going specifically after the Knomen ships.

Ten of the missiles hit Admiral Stenz’s flagship, erasing it from existence, the last twenty-two were split between four ships, destroying those as well.  I tried hard not to think about the fact that all the people I’d just met over there were dead.

“Fire at will on the last eighty as soon as they’re in range,” I ordered.

More of the thirty-five ships on the back line had woken up, although we were down to thirty now, and took out the entire second wave of missiles.

Jerry looked over at me, “Admiral, communications is… erratic.  Everyone is talking at once, a lot of them asking who’s in charge and if the attack goes forward without Stenz.”

That was a really good question, I took a sip of my coffee and relaxed into my chair, I reminded myself the ambush was over, and there was no need to panic.  I didn’t have to just act relaxed, I could be relaxed.  I could let the horror out over the deaths later, for now I locked it down in my mind so I could think.

My voice was curious when I asked, “Are any of the Knomen ships responding?  There should still be fifteen of them.”

“One moment ma’am,” and he turned back to his console.

Lira looked at the scanner in shock.  Admiral Stenz was dead…  Admiral Stenz was Dead!

She brought up a transfer request form on her station and started to fill it out, she was positive this one would be accepted…

Jerry looked up from his console and said dubiously, “Ma’am, they’re all talking to each other, but I don’t know about what.”

Hmm, they’re probably over there arguing about who’s taking charge.  Typical bureaucracy, no one wants to take responsibility if it all goes to hell.  We are also more outnumbered now, seven hundred twelve to six hundred twenty-five, instead of six hundred thirty.

“Open a video frequency to the fleet, use the same frequency Stenz was.”

Jerry hit a few buttons then nodded over to me.

“This is Admiral Alicia Jones on the Earth flagship Apollo, the attack is still on, we already have a plan, and order of attack.  The Leirans are depending on us, Apollo out.”

A moment later Jerry reported, “The Comms are clearing ma’am.”

Kristi walked over from her station and whispered, “Did you just take over the fleet?”

I shrugged, “Maybe.  I didn’t really take command, I just told them what to do.”

Kristi started laughing, “Umm, Alicia, I’m afraid that means you took over.”

Right…  My logic was pretty weak on that one.

I’d decided to activate Shield at the last minute, I wanted the enemy to have the least amount of time to scan them and try to figure out a counter.  We were only a three minutes away when I gave the order.

“Jerry, put me on the commander’s channel,” I waited a moment, “Launch Shield now, keep back twenty as discussed, but move the hundred and eighty to the front formation.  At these shield readings we should be able to knock out ninety before any of the waves take return fire, more ships will escape that way.”

It wasn’t a bad way to start, we’d hit them with the numbers a lot more even, we’d even have three more ships than they would at that point.  I just wished we had more of them.

“Jerry, open a fleet frequency,” and waited for his sign, “We are launching some… smart missiles, stay in formation and just ignore them.  Some of them will be joining the first rank.  Apollo out.”

No sooner had I delivered that heads up, when the Shield missiles flew themselves out, twenty of them forming a sphere of protection around each ship, the remainder racing past the ships in front of us.  Around twenty seconds before the first line would enter enemy anti-mass particle weapon range, they shot forward even faster, pairing up on the Seltan ships.

They were stationary, so didn’t get more than one shot with their anti-mass particle weapons, but they weren’t ready, so most of the missiles got through to fire their own particle weapons into the ships as they dropped their shields.  Eighty-one of the ships exploded, and nine of them took damage from the one missile that got through, but were still in the game.

“Tammy, coordinate fire with the other ships, Barry, be ready to peel off on our vector.”

There wasn’t really time left for more orders than that, the battle itself was ridiculously short.  Time went by fast at FTL, all six waves had a second between them, I watched the plot, and the destruction in so short a time was horrific.  It was so mindless, and at the moment we sped away, we lost two of the twenty protective missiles from enemy fire, I was more motivated than ever to figure out a better way to fight.

“Report,” I ordered a few seconds later.

Tammy’s voice was strained, “Ma’am, six hundred and seventy-seven of the enemy ships were destroyed, there are thirty-five remaining, three of which are damaged.  Our losses… five hundred and one destroyed, including the Hades, we have a hundred twenty-four left, ten damaged but moving at reduced speed.

I suppressed the storm of emotions boiling under my control and kept my face still.  The Hades, CMDR Ella Ayers along with seventy others.  I wondered in that moment if it would have made a difference launching the fighters.  I’d held them back because they would have been slaughtered, but more died than would have with the Hades getting blown up.  I was definitely going to suggest upgrading the shields on all fighters, shuttles, missiles, and the large ships, carriers, battlecruisers, and missile boats when we had them.

I knew I was second guessing my decision to hide it, but it was a much harder concept to swallow in the face of all the death I’d just seen.  At the very least everything but the large ships, which meant everything that didn’t require us to hand over the specs.  Either that, or it was time to tell the Knomen to screw off, but I knew it was too early for that, we needed a couple more months at least.

Tammy corrected a moment later, “Thirty-one enemy ships remaining, our farewell volleys took out four more.”

“Jerry, channel to the fleet please.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he responded.

I let none of my sorrow enter my voice as I ordered, “This is Admiral Jones aboard Apollo, all ships swing around and finish them off.  If they run for the core, let them.”

If anyone had an objection to that, they didn’t say so.  The bastards fired off one more volley before taking off, but lost another ten in the exchange and only two of ours were lost.  So twenty-one Seltan ships escaped back toward their Empire, and out of the six hundred and thirty ships we’d started with, we were holding this system with only a hundred and twenty-two ships.

“All call Jerry, and the commander’s channel.”

He nodded a moment later.

“This is the Admiral, the battle is over and what remains of the enemy is fleeing in defeat.  I want pilots and Marines out in the shuttles now looking for survivors.  I’d also like the enemy debris searched for useful intel and prisoners, but only after taking care of our own.  Excellent job everyone, Jones out.”

I was crashing pretty hard, and needed some food.  Acting, or should I say, being forcibly calm in the middle of battle took a lot of energy and mental focus, I’d never had to work so hard to continually control my body’s emotions.  It didn’t help that it was a damned slaughter, the losses were ridiculously high on both sides.

But I stuck it out, determined to stay on the bridge until rescue operations were complete.  It was the least I could do for those out there waiting to be rescued.  At least I had a whole ship under my ass, I had little cause to complain or run to my room.  Other ships in the fleet joined in on the effort of course, and fifteen Leiran ships lifted off the planet to assist as well.  I didn’t blame them for waiting until the end of the battle if that’s all they had left.

So it only took an hour or two to comb all the wreckage.  We recovered two humans, fourteen Tressians, and sixty-two others of various races.  We didn’t find any Seltans alive, or any intel.  That was kind of disappointing, I wanted to know what their beef with the Knomen Empire was, were they just a conqueror species, or a species like humans who just didn’t want to be told what to do?

I said to Tammy and over the Commander’s channel, “Fleet, bring in the remaining Shield missiles, have the engineers build more to replace what was used, I’m replacing the template, we should be able to fit twice as many now, a hundred each.  The normal missiles as well, replace them I mean.”

I sent the design I’d made with the improved shields.  They wouldn’t actually do more damage, but they would move much faster than the old missiles, and would pretty much be immune to the anti-mass particle beams.

Jerry said tentatively, “Ma’am, someone on the planet wishes to speak to the Admiral fleet.”

“Put them on screen.”

The screen popped from the view of the outside to the call.  The Leiran race was tall and thin, kind of looked like a stretchy human.  According to the scans, Leira had a low gravity compared to most, just point five two of Earth’s gravity, maybe that made the difference?  He had ochre eyes, and bright red hair, pale skin, and a neck that looked an inch or two too long.  Otherwise they looked human like all the other races I’d seen.

“Admiral, I thank you on behalf of Leira, I am Alnot, ruler of this world.”

I replied gravely, “On behalf of my crews and the ships in the fleet, I accept your thanks.  What can I do for you Alnot?”

I was trying not to laugh, because all I could think of was I guess he wasn’t Al.  Stupid and silly under the circumstances, but I was getting a bit punchy, I needed to get something to eat soon, and operations were finally at the point I could leave the bridge.

Alnot replied, “Would you join me for evening meal?  In three hours?  I would like to discuss the situation, and discover how long your fleet will remain?  It will take some weeks to recover and rebuild our fleet and defenses.  Please limit your party to eight.”

I nodded, “Send your coordinates to my ship, three hours, Apollo out,” I was still getting a snack and two-hour nap.  Oh crap, I’d have to dig out the dress uniform…

I ordered, “Jerry, get second shift in here to relieve us.”

Chapter 16

“I hate you,” I said with venom.

Kristi beamed at me as if I’d delivered a compliment, and I suppose I had.  I was in my military dress uniform, and Kristi was in a stunning red cocktail dress that flowed down her curvy body, merely giving hints at what lay below.  She was also in a pair of black high heels.  She looked really good.

I scrunched my eyes suspiciously, “Did you bring that?”

She grinned, “Nope, I sweet talked one of your engineers into fabricating it.  All I had to do was bat my eyes and promise to model it for him.”

I shook my head, “Your terrible.”

She grinned wider, “You look good too…”

I glared at the evil woman who was my best friend, and headed out the door where Barbara and Elise were in dress uniforms as well, apparently I needed to take two guards with me.  My face fell as I remembered there was enough room for two of them because I was short a commander.  As far as I knew Benson, Teller, Johnson, and Martinez were waiting down in the hangar bay for the rest of us.

We walked down to the hangar bay and over toward the shuttle, the four commanders were standing by the door, and when the saw me they came to attention and saluted.  It’s hard to explain, but I felt like crying right then.  I had no idea why they were doing that, honoring me when I’d failed, messed up, and gotten Ella killed.  There was anger there too, as if I were mad at them for honoring the fool that got Ella killed, like they were betraying her somehow in accepting me.

I should have launched the fighters, we had a hundred and twenty… twenty in each ship, a two fighter team could have taken a ship each, which meant those last thirty-six enemy ships could have been killed almost twice over in the first pass before we broke perpendicular, and the Hades had been shot in the back.

I sucked it up though, suppressed the feelings and returned their salute.  After all, Admirals don’t cry in public, and I wouldn’t dream of throwing it in their faces.  Despite my ambivalence, and wanting to shed angry tears, the moment filled me with pride as well.  Which… really didn’t make all that much sense.  Afterward they smiled and waited for me to board the shuttle before following us inside.

Somehow I’d won their respect despite my failure, and I didn’t understand why.  I’m sure they’d seen it, I had and they were all better tacticians than I was, it was obvious in hindsight.  I smiled lightly and did the best I could to let it go on the shuttle ride down, I could figure out my conflicting emotions later, maybe I was still just a little strung out from the battle.

The coordinates we arrived at were to a private landing pad in what sort of looked like a palace.  I say sort of, because it had the grandeur, and look of importance to it, but it looked nothing like a palace anywhere on Earth.  The architecture was completely alien.  The stone was some kind of blue marble, and there were statues of large animals, I supposed it would be this world’s version of the gargoyle.  The arches for the doors, eaves, and every other corner and rounded tower had very intricate designs.

Ironically, it was nature that was familiar.  Right behind us going the other way looked like a forest of redwood trees.  I was sure they weren’t redwood, but it would take a DNA analysis to prove it.  The grass was green, and while the flowers looked different, they also looked the same.

A very tall skinny man in some kind of servant’s outfit walked out to us and bowed.

“Admiral Jones, you and your party can follow me, I’ll take you to the sitting room.  Dinner will be served in eighteen minutes.”

He bowed again and turned before I could acknowledge him, and we all followed him into the place.  The inside was as impressive as the outside, although the idea of living like this wasn’t appealing, it was a nice place to visit.  There were paintings, sculptures, and flowers, placed on pedestals set up in nooks on the way to the sitting room.

Inside there were a few chairs and couches, what was obviously a bar, and the floor seemed to be made up of that blue marble, just like the walls.  In fact, I hadn’t seen anything to indicate any walls, floors, or ceilings in this place were made from anything else.  I suppressed a laugh when I took a seat on the couch, it was a little too tall, just like our hosts, and my feet were dangling an inch or two away from the floor.

We talked lightly until someone came in.  It wasn’t the servant, I recognized Alnot and got up while trying not to look to awkward about it.  It wasn’t easy.

“Alnot, your home is amazing.”

He beamed at me and bowed, so I bowed back hoping it was the right thing to do.  I knew nothing would get me in trouble as fast as cultural misunderstandings.  I stood up straight when he did.

“It is very nice to meet you, and I thank you and your people again for coming to our aid.  Please follow me and we can share a meal and speak to what is needed.”

I smiled and nodded, I could tell that last part was a ritual phrase, I just wish I knew the responding words.  He didn’t seem to take offense, and gestured for me to walk next to him as we moved a room over.  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it looked like his immediate family, not other government workers.  A very tall woman smiled at him as we walked in, and there were three children and one teenager.

I should have done some research before coming down, but I’d needed the nap too badly.  It looked to me like Alnot ruled period, otherwise I was sure he’d have more people here.  We took a seat, and the table settings were nice, but much like I’d have expected if I’d ever been invited to a state dinner.  Maybe forks, spoons, and knives were the true universal constants.

He didn’t seem inclined at all to discuss business during our dinner, he asked me a few questions about Earth, and I’d returned the curiosity about his own home.  He was essentially like a king, but still had all the power, unlike the kings back on Earth.  They’d been a part of the Knomen Empire for almost two hundred years, apparently that was when the Knomen and Seltan Empires started to butt heads and the Knomen stopped trying to expand toward the core.

He also verified that his wife and children were the ones dining with us.  The food itself was very good, spicy like a good Indian or Creole dish, but at the same time the flavors of the spices were different.  About all that was similar was the five alarm fire on my tongue.

Eventually dinner was finished, and some kind of after dinner drink was brought out along with a sweet confection.  The drink reminded me of brandy… just different.  It wasn’t the differences that surprised me though, it was all the similarities that were startling.

He asked, “How long do you plan to stay?”

I replied carefully, “I’m not entirely sure.  I’d be happy to stay until you get your defenses back up, and I did command the fleet for the battle, but they aren’t mine to keep here either unless I misunderstood something.  I took command after Admiral Stenz lost his life and ship, do you know how long you’ll need?”

He nodded, “I think I understand your confusion, the Earth is brand new to the Empire and you were raised there yes?  The fleet action isn’t over until you announce it is so.  The fleet is yours until you formally release them, or a higher ranking Knomen comes and takes over the fleet personally.  As far as your question, I have every facility on the planet working on building new ships and defenses.  In a week I’ll be up to my old numbers in ships, platforms, and missiles.  In two weeks I’ll have enough to be able to repel a similar attack with ease.”

I wondered why they hadn’t been at that level in the first place, but perhaps the attack was unprecedented.  Plus, a large military needs to be fed and clothed, I was glad the Earth was used to that expense, because we needed a big space navy to ensure the Empire didn’t strip our independence and wealth with spurious corrupt claims in the future.  I also held my tongue because I didn’t want to insult him.

I replied, “I don’t think two weeks will be a problem at all.  As long as another Knomen Admiral doesn’t come to collect, I can hold the fleet that long.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with that, and the subject changed again.  Eventually I did ask if there were books or information on his cultures, traditions, and manners.  He was delighted by that, and his wife promised to send me the information.

I actually had a really pleasant time, it was both odd, and familiar.

Chapter 17

The next two weeks were interesting and productive.  Out of the fifty races that had joined us, there were still thirty different races left.  Mostly because they were all grouped together in their rows, and at least a few in each row escaped.  So for the next fourteen nights I invited two of the captains to get to know their race a little better.  I took notes down afterwards, and my thoughts.

It wasn’t that I suddenly turned into a political animal, but it wasn’t lost on me I might have to face one of these races in the future, or invite them to resist the empire’s strictures along with us.  It would help to get to know them and their world a little.  It would also give humanity a real face with them, so if the time came and the Empire wouldn’t let us withdraw peacefully, they might have second thoughts about fighting us.

The rest of the time, when I wasn’t on the bridge, I worked with Kristi on updating all the designs we’d created with new shields and with a new squared but streamlined appearance.  Even the new smaller missiles, as well as the Shield missiles, would be more square instead of a saucer.  Things fit better that way, there was less wasted space.  We also increased the throw weight of the cruisers to sixteen missiles, the width of the missiles was so much smaller than before that we could easily double the missile launchers from eight to sixteen.

We also designed the missile boat, which would be able to fire two hundred missiles every few seconds.  Outside of a cockpit, and three small crew rooms, the boat was nothing but missile launchers on top and bottom, with storage for missiles in the middle, and a large fabricator that could build a block of two hundred missiles in just over an hour.

It was during the second week while I was scowling at my pad, trying to figure out a way to restrict FTL, to destabilize anti-mass fields in a large area, a very large area, like say Earth’s solar system, when Kristi had it out with me.

Kristi growled, “Stop,” and grabbed my pad.

I frowned and snapped, “What?”

Kristi rolled her eyes, “You’re obsessed, your acting crazy, I don’t think you’ve even slept in the last three days.  Why are you so obsessed with this?  You don’t have to do everything, what’s going on?”

I shook my head, as I didn’t even know how to explain it.  I tried to, how I thought the way the fighting was done was insane, a random bloodbath without skill.  How much it would help if we could take things at a normal speed, outthink and outfight our opponents, what Earth’s military and humans were used to doing and extremely good at.

Overwhelming firepower had its place, but it was a poor substitute for a good strategy.

She frowned, “It’s not just up to you Alicia, you can’t save the world on your own.  This isn’t about just theoretical plans… you were trying to solve this before the battle, but you weren’t crazy about it.  This is about the Hades isn’t it,” she accused, “you think it’s your fault and now you’re trying to save everyone else.”

I yelled, angry and hurt, “It is my fault!”

Kristi peered at me for a moment, and then shrugged carelessly and said dismissively, “It is, and?”

I stepped back in surprise and… shock.  She’d sounded cold, and uncaring.

Kristi said bluntly, “You’re an Admiral and you were in command.  That doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, or that you won’t get people killed.  It just means you should lead with confidence, make those tough decisions, and learn from it when you make a mistake.  Trust your commanders, they know that already, it’s why they respect you.  You kept your cool, your people had confidence in you, and you probably saved more lives overall than you cost.  Learn from it and let it go, don’t become this… whatever this obsessed mania is.”

I opened my mouth but she put her hand up and shushed me.

“Don’t say it.  Just go to bed, and think about what I told you.  I miss Ella too, I got to know all of them over the three-day trip, and I grieve for the lost crew, but this is war.  Hindsight is to learn from, not to form regrets.  Go… bed, now.”

It was taking all my self-control not to scream and punch her face in, which kind of clued me in that there was a problem.  Still, it wasn’t easy to hold in what I wanted to say to her, but a part of me knew I’d regret it if the words passed my tongue.  So I did as I was told, and went to get some sleep.  Maybe it would make sense in the morning…

When I woke the next day, I knew she was right that I had to let it go.  The problem was, I couldn’t just turn it off like a switch.  Before I could let it go, I had to let it out.  The anger, sadness, and helpless impotent rage I felt because nothing I could do would fix it.  So I curled up on my bed and wept…

When the two weeks were up, I released all the ships in the fleet with my thanks, and I set a course for Tressia.  None of their ships had survived, and I still had the fourteen we’d rescued aboard ship.  I also wanted to pick up that manual which explained the artificial gravity plates and how they worked.  It bothered me I couldn’t understand it at all based on the actual devices.

It took two and a half days to reach Tressia, I wanted to just drop them off, pick up the manual and get home, but Tressia had other ideas.  Telmun, the port and space station administrator, insisted we join him for a dinner in our honor on the surface for rescuing Tressian lives, where we met any number of government functionaries.  I just wanted to go home, but I had a good time anyway, despite myself.

When we left Tressia behind, it had been a day over three weeks since we’d left home, and I knew I had a lot to do.  I had my dissertation defense in a week, had to learn about gravity just because I wanted to, needed to buy a home in Monument, just north of Colorado Springs, and get a business set up.  I would also have to debrief with the General, and I was prepared to argue about the upgrades to the current ships, the new ship designs, as well as the all new ship class for missile boats.

Plus, there was also the shadow of possible war with the Seltan Empire, and working toward being strong enough to win free of the Knomen Empire, hopefully without war.

Last, but certainly not least, I wanted my third date with Nathan.  It was driving me crazy being so close to him the whole trip but not allowed to touch or show familiarity, being an Admiral sucked.

Kristi had been right, I had been obsessing about the past, I had more than enough to work on and worry about, without crucifying myself over an error in judgement.  Commander Ayers had given her life in duty, for her fellow soldiers, her world, and in defense of others.  I wouldn’t cheapen that anymore.

I looked at the clock, we had just two more hours before we arrived at Earth, and before I could turn over command of the ship to Lt. Commander Nichols and say goodbye to the Admiral uniform.  I could hardly wait to get back to my life as a scientist and researcher.  But I wasn’t done helping, I had lots to do, and I may not be able to do it on my own, but I knew I was making a difference for my adopted home.

In the end, that’s what truly mattered.

Epilogue

Carl slid through the secret door into the Emperor’s study, and stepped as quietly as a cat over to the desk.  The Emperor’s assistant had no record of this visit, nor would it be recorded anywhere else.  The usual recorders in the room had been switched off, using a hidden switch in the secret passage right outside the room.  Some things just shouldn’t be recorded, and a meeting between the Emperor and one of his Facilitators is one such thing.

He bowed, “It is done.”

Neman frowned, “Good, I can’t believe those cowards let her take command without a peep, we’re better off without them in command of our ships.”

Carl nodded, “Sire… if I may be blunt?”

Neman looked up and raised an eyebrow, “Go on.”

Carl sighed, “The humans were sincere about joining the Empire, and following our laws.  But the speed they are building up ships is… unprecedented, and also makes me nervous.  Those smart missiles they built are ingenious according to the scans I have.”

Neman growled, “We can’t do anything, that damn girl made the Earth people popular, and they’re following all the rules so far.  My hands are tied.  Besides, they don’t match our true power, just the ships we… advertise.”

Carl shrugged, “Yes Sire, but the humans are ambitious, and Alicia shares it being raised there… she isn’t satisfied with the status quo, and nothing is ever good enough.  She’s focused, incredibly smart, and creative.”

Neman nodded, “Does she have any idea who?” the question trailed off.

Carl shook his head, “I don’t think so no, I ordered her grandparents not to tell her anything if she didn’t return home.  She sees herself as human, and there in lay her loyalty.”

Neman frowned, “And that other issue, did you find the proof of her misconduct?”

Carl nodded slowly, “Yes, two Tressian witnesses.  A guide named Nora, and a trader named Jarnud.”

Neman waved a hand, “Very well, deal with it when it’s convenient, if nothing else it will take the luster off of Earth and our wayward citizen.”

Carl recognizing the dismissal, bowed, “Yes sire,” and then turned, walked without a sound, and went back out the secret door.

Afterword:

I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did please leave a review.  Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would appreciate greatly any constructive feedback or opinions.  This story ending was a struggle for me.  I finished up the major plot for the book, but obviously there are two major plots left unresolved that make up an Arc in the series, not to mention character development and inventions to create.

I really don’t like cliffhangers and I felt guilty when I typed out the Epilogue, but the Space Opera genre lends itself to cliffhangers, it’s more an ongoing story type genre, and more complex than the two suburban fantasy series I have going, which are more complete standalone stories for each book.  So all I can say is I plan to have a big plot point introduced and cleaned up in each book, but there will be big loose ends as well.  The loose ends won’t last forever however, they will eventually be buttoned up and replaced.

About the Author:  If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at dlharrisonauthor@gmail.com  If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.  I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison

Other books by D. L. Harrison:

http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison

The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.

Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over.  After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.

Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.

Celia Winters Novel Series

Witch’s Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1

Celia Winters was raised by her single mother, and her earliest memories are of the store her mother owns and the nearby coven, who have always been her family’s close allies and friends.

She grew up believing her magic was weak, but she was satisfied with her life, and happy.  She was a midwife, healer, and supplier of surrounding covens.

Then her mother died, and she’s about to discover she isn’t who, or what, she believes herself to be, not completely.  She will learn that her entire life up until now was a lie.  She’ll need to figure out her place, who she is when she no longer recognizes herself, and try to hold on to her closest friends as she gathers enemies for the simple crime of her existence.

She’s stronger than she believes, but will it be enough?

Power of Air Series:

Just a Psychic: The Power of Air Book One starts off this series.

Ben has grown up with missing memories of his early childhood.

He has known he was a psychic since his earliest memories, seeing the future and gaining knowledge with his gifts.

Is it possible he isn't just a psychic?

Ben's world is about to be turned upside down as he turns twenty-one, all is not as it seems.

Book Description

Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd.  At just twenty three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation.  But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results.  Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race.

Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told.  Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned.