

### Unusual 1st Contact Stories

By Stephen Brandon

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Copyright 2017 Stephen Brandon Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Books Table of Contents (BToC)

The Soldiers

Children of Arth

Fairie

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Author's Notes

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, incidents, and dialogue are from the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or other persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Real and fictional locations are used for background only.

Corrected copy #2.

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About Stephen Brandon and his other books.

{My claim to fame, written by someone else. Thanks.} As an earthbound retiree, Stephen writes mostly science fiction and short stories. He is a voracious reader and has written for a few years, publishing his stories on Smashwords.

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Acknowledgments

My wife has put up with me for over forty seven years. Without her support and love I don't know who, what, or where I would be, so I thank her from the bottom of my heart, and I dedicate all of my books to her!

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The Soldiers

By Stephen Brandon

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

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Chapter 1

"Dr Lange, we've finally done it!"

"Yes, Dr Wilson, we finally did it. After a hundred and seven attempts we succeeded. I wonder if it was your idea or just luck. Get that research intern in here."

"Miss Allen, I need you to research the complete history of an object."

"Yes Sir Dr Lange. What is it?"

"The object is an old painting by Van Allen of his mistress painted in the early 19th century."

"But Sir, that's not the kind of research I've been doing. A painting?"

"I know, but I think it may tie into our project."

"Yes Sir."

"Dr Lange, here is what I could find on that painting you requested."

"Thanks, just put it on my desk." Later he picked it up and read.

The painting of Van Allen's mistress was actually painted by an little known artist named Stilton. It was one of two portraits he painted that later became famous. Stilton was commissioned to paint it by Miss Calhoun in 1913 as a birthday present for Van Allen. It was presented at a public birthday party on his fiftieth birthday on 12 June 1915. She disappeared two years later and he died six years later.

One art critic that saw the picture commented that it rivaled the Mona Lisa. It was sold at an auction in 1922 to help settle Van Allen's estate debts. It sold for $300000 dollars to Jenkins Oil company. It was placed in their entrance way along with several other paintings in their London office. When Mr Jenkins died in 1931, the board of directors closed the office and sold the paintings. They were bought by several collectors.

The next time the painting was recorded was in 1939. It went up for auction in New York in 1940 and was sold for $495000 to a Mr Callahan. He had a reverse of fortune, and auctioned it two years later where it sold at auction for $1.1 million to the grandson of Van Allen. He put it on display in the museum he built to honor his grandfather.

The museum was vandalized in 1949. During the apprehension of the art thieves by the police a fire started. Six of Van Allen's pictures were partially destroyed. Miss Wilson's portrait and one painting by Van Allen were completely burned. The only portion of Miss Allen's painting recovered was a small triangle of the lower left corner. This corner was still in the frame held by three brass tacks.

A picture of this portrait was found in Lost Art by a Stephen Flanagan published in 1951. A copy of page 301 attached.

The next morning Dr Wilson called Miss Allen into his office.

"Jennifer, Your report was excellent. I have another research project for you."

"OK Sir."

"I want you to use Mr. Flanagan's book and pick two missing pieces of art. One should be something that can't be burned, like a statue or something. Then find me five more recent objects that were documented to have disappeared, the circumstances, and their last locations."

"But Sir, what does this have to do with the project?"

"Follow me." Entering Dr Lange's office he walked her over to the closet.

"Sir something smells burnt."

With a smile he opened the door and lifted out a rectangular object covered with a drop-cloth. Removing the cloth, he turned the object around.

In shock Jennifer took two steps back and fell backwards over the couch in front of Dr Lange's desk.

Dr Lange and Dr Wilson were both smiling when she recovered.

Dr Wilson commented, "Well Bill, looks like our accidental acquisition has a shock value greater than expected. When she recovers, we'll have targets to aim for."

"Yea, and this time everything will be documented completely."

Three months later Jennifer handed Dr Wilson the finalized list while Dr Lange calibrated the machine.

"Ready yet Tim?"

"Calibration complete, enter the first coordinates minus fifteen seconds. I want to check the time sequence against the time we pulled the first portrait. Then we'll back it up and pull Van Allen's portrait from the wall beside the other one. If it works we'll try the statue, and then the commemorative plate."

"Focus off a little, the smoke looks thicker than last time, adjusting."

"Bill, I got it! Give me a minute to get it out of the chamber. - - - Clear."

"Target two acquired. Retrieving."

"Got most of it Bill. Looks like the right arm didn't make it."

"Putting system on standby. Jennifer, help him get it out of there."

Minutes later. "There's the plate. What's that in front of it."

Jennifer screamed, "Its an arm. One of the firemen stated in his report that he thought someone ran into the building, but no body was ever found after the second explosion."

"The wall is collapsing Bill."

"You can't let him die Sir."

"We're not ready for people."

"It's laying on him, he'll be crushed."

"Tim, expand the horizontal to six feet from center and depth to three feet."

"Reacquiring plate. There's blood on it. Dropping vertical one foot.

"There's a face. Shifting focal center two feet at 130 degrees. Focal depth 1.5 feet.

"He's completely visible along with the plate. Energizing."

"Jennifer, call the clinic and tell them to get someone up here with a trauma kit."

"Bill the fans are on, get the door open while I shut down."

They managed to get part of the wall off the individual and found that he was still alive.

The clinic nurse kept him alive until help arrived to lift the wall section. Then they discovered that he was a she. Several ribs were broken and one lung penetrated. She was coughing up blood while the doctor struggled to restore breathing.

The next morning Dr Lange and Dr Wilson were in the board room. The chairman wanted to know who authorized pulling a human being from the past, and demanded to know who she was and her ancestry and descendant line.

Jennifer arrived as the chairman was winding down. "Sir I have that information."

"Well, what is it!" he screamed.

Dr Lange held up his hand and stated, "First things first. You will listen to the report and watch the video of the test. After you watch the video you can make a judgment whether her retrieval was warranted. Then Miss Allen will give you the information on the female that we retrieved.

"Seal the room. Tim, start the recording."

"See this oil portrait here. We researched and found that it was one of two that were destroyed in a museum fire. The one beside it we accidentally retrieved last month during a scanning test. After researching it, we found that one other portrait disappeared. We have both of them. Miss Allen researched and found several hundred physical objects missing. We selected half a dozen and did in-depth research. This second portrait, a small marble statue, and the commemorative plate were the three we chose to run this sequence of test on.

"The portrait and statue we retrieve with no problem, except one arm was missing from the statue.

"As we zoomed in on the plate we noticed what looked like an arm in front of it, as you can see in this section. Observe the wall as it buckles out and over the plate and arm. Adjusting the horizontal and vertical focus we located the person being crushed under the wall. See the blood on the shoulder and neck. I made a decision to retrieve the plate and person in one try. The research did not mention any missing persons, or any bodies retrieved by the emergency services. It did however mention another explosion that collapsed the building causing damage to two adjacent buildings.

"Now, would any of you turned your back on an injured person that you could probably save?"

"The chairman looked around and then mumbled, "I guess not."

"Jennifer, read the research you did on the person we retrieved."

"Yes Sir."

The person retrieved was thirty-eight years old with one teenage daughter. The daughter was in school, and reported her mother missing two days after the bombing of the historical center by a terrorist group.

The female retrieved was a member of an anti-terrorist group working for Homeland. Official reports and other documents revealed that four members of that organization investigating that terrorist group disappeared that week, and no bodies were ever recovered. There are also related documents that are still classified after two hundred years, those I could not access.

Her husband, a veteran, received a letter of condolences from the head of Homeland, and an additional pension until his death five years later. The daughter continued to receive a half pension until her death in the line of duty eighteen years later. She had three children that went into government service. There are twelve adult descendants of Mrs Henson still living. Seven are in the space arm of the military, three are retired, and the other two are in college. I did not include the minor children of the twelve descendants.

The plate she was trying to save was a presidential citation awarded to the unit her husband was a member of. There were two survivors from the unit at that time.

I also have copies of the personalized letters sent to the family of every member of that unit. That was also the only time I could find when eighteen CMH were awarded in one ceremony to the members of a single unit.

The chairmans face paled as he asked, "Is there any evidence that the government is looking in our direction?"

Jennifer answered, "Not yet sir, however the hospital did an identity search which listed Mrs Henson as an unknown person. I expect that the government identification office will start searching past records. If we notify them it will probably be better for the company. Also our present investors are approaching the saturation point. Addition funding from the government will allow us more in-depth research and experimentation. Unfortunately strings will come with that funding.

"I talked to Mrs Henson. After giving me her information, I asked her to refrain from giving anyone else her information until I got back with her. I explained what happened, and why she was retrieved. After thanking me for saving her life, she agreed to give me a few weeks."

Dr Lange stood, and addressed the board of directors. "I suggest that someone make the motion to furnish GovID and Homeland the details of Mrs Henson, and our experiments before they seize the company and arrest us all."

The chairman said, "Sit down doctor. Who makes the motion and second." Picking up his phone he told his secretary to get the highest ranking individual from Homeland she could reach on the phone.

Within a minute his phone rang. Punching video call he asked who he was talking to.

"This is agent Paul."

"OK agent Paul, are you in front of a computer."

"Yes sir."

"Enter in all caps, FLASH TT50971254."

"Shit, don't say another word until I get the director. Are you on a secure line Sir?"

"No I'm not. I'm sure he'll have a secure line delivered to me within the hour, unless you want to bring the equipment to my location."

"I'll call you back Sir."

Punching a button on the table he called security. "I want a full lock down on this building and the labs.

Punching another button he said connect me with IT. When they answered he simply stated, I want the computers isolated from all outside access."

"Sir, I have my guys blocking a hack attack right now."

"I don't care if you have to physically cut the cables to the outside. Get it done now, then call me back.

"Miss Allen, how much of this information is on the main computer?"

"Do you think I'm an idiot Sir? None of it. The test recordings and video's are on an isolated computer in the lab, and it's powered down. Its also tagged for maintenance as having operating system problem. The research was started on my portable, and after Dr Lange gave me the second assignment, it was all done hardwired at the Public Archives. I pulled three hundred years of names, and set a program to research each to todays descendants. A random selection of descendant tags the ancestors to be researched for details of their lives. I got the first batch of a thousand back just before I came in here. The summery shows six people out of the thousand disappearing without their bodies being recovered.

"Everything critical is under triple encryption. One key I got off the mainframe and reversed it. Another I copied from the café by the Public Archives, and the third is mine. One was padded to 256 characters, and I have the only handwritten copy of the pad. Hopefully, even a quantum computer will take several hours to figure out the keys. That will give us time to pull the memory drives, if we need to."

"Why aren't you working in IT?"

"I was hired as a researcher, Mr Chairman."

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Chapter 2

Hours later the building was evacuated and sealed. There were guards guarding the guards guarding the fifteen foot fence that was being erected around the grounds housing the corporation headquarters and research labs. The board of directors, Dr Lange, Dr Wilson, and Miss Allen were isolated and flown to another location. The investigators watched the presentation given to the board several times and questioned them to exhaustion.

Dr Lange and Dr Wilson were questioned on every aspect and construction principle of the machine. Miss Allen was simply isolated, because she was a lowly intern researcher, until someone noticed an entry on her personal communications device. The message simply stated that if it didn't receive a reply within eight hours all files relating to Dr Lange's work would be overwritten a thousand times. The message was three days old. They managed to trace the message back to the corporation main frame.

None of the computer investigators had noticed the background activity. When they tried to access parts of the memory they were filled with garbage, although the file names were all there. Then they had their hackers check her personal computer. It only took the military quantum computer fifteen hours to crack the three encryption passwords. Finding all the same file numbers, but only garbage in the files, they finally turned the interrogators loose on her.

The answer to all the questions they asked the first day was, "When do I get to talk to Mrs Henson? I promised to get back to her within the week."

When the interrogators started on Mrs Henson, her answers were, "I promised Jennifer not to say anything about my past until she talked to me. After all she saved my life."

Mrs Henson was transported under medical supervision to the site. The next morning Miss Allen was escorted into her room. After several hours of chatting about girl things, Jennifer finally said. "Betty, I release you from your promise. They've got the machine. I just hope they don't screw up and pull someone out of the time-line that would have influenced history, through their actions or the actions of their descendants."

When the chief interrogator heard those words he grabbed a communications device and called the investigators at the corporation site and told them to shut down all investigations and test they were running. When they asked why, he told them, "A mistake could change history. That machine is a Pandora's Box!"

The scientist testing the machine then informed him that they'd retrieved some coins from Fort Knox. The coins were radioactive, which puzzled them.

He screamed at them to cut power and vacate the building. They took their time, and they all died within two hours from gamma radiation exposure.

In the meantime he called the president and started interrogating Dr Lange again. Finally Dr Lange stated that he'd instructed Miss Allen to secure the files, and machine's plans to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

When he informed Dr Lange about the garbage files that were labeled as the machines plans and test data, he collapsed. Then the chief interrogator told him about the investigating scientist, and the fact that they were all dead after retrieving several coins.

Dr Lange recovered and demanded that Dr Wilson and Miss Allen be given all the information and data that those imbeciles accessed. He also told the chief investigating officer that he should evacuate everyone within fifty miles of the machine.

When the investigating officer questioned him why that was necessary, he simply asked him what a gamma burst of radiation would do to living tissue. Then he added the thought, those coins may be unstable and break down in a reaction like a nuclear explosion. Your people didn't think the process through before they started using a serious machine like a toy.

As soon as the chief investigator got a conference room wired, he had the two scientist and the researcher moved to it.

"Bill, why is everyone in such a panic?"

"Tim, those morons retrieved some coins from the old Fort Knox."

"You mean they didn't research the coins first?"

"Evidently not. They used the viewer like a toy and now they are all dead from gamma radiation."

"Oh shit, how far has it spread?"

"I don't know. Jennifer, they told me that all the files on the machine were turned into garbage by your security programs."

"Yes Sir, I set them to self destruct, rather than fall into the wrong hands."

"When you get a computer, give me the complete situation around ground zero. With the amount of gamma radiation needed to kill someone within hours of exposure, I'll hazard a guess that everything electronic within a mile is cooked.

Looking at the ceiling, Dr Lange said, "Hey chief, get Miss Allen a computer and she'll need full access to all data from around ground zero, and the military satellites monitoring the area from space. Tim and I will need a full electronics crew and equipment to build two time viewing machines. Got that, the clock is ticking."

A speaker on the wall announced, I'll relay the request.

"You better take it straight to the top. Like I said the clock is ticking. Your people can verify that. I estimate the gamma radiation levels will increase one percent per day."

You're wrong doctor, the levels are increasing point three percent per twenty-four hour period.

All Dr Lange replied was, "Tick Tock Tick Tock."

Looking at Dr Wilson he stated, "Our memories better be good enough to rebuild the machine." then he looked at Jennifer and raise his eyebrows.

She nodded and smiled.

"Jennifer, as soon as you get a computer, I want you to research every file they accessed and all the data those imbeciles recorded before they died. I hope they transmitted their data off-site as they played with it.

"Hey chief, I need to talk to the president and the commander of all the military forces, both ground and space. Handle it."

The worried voice of the chief interrogating officer announced from the speaker on the wall, "That's impossible."

Dr Lange simply said, "Tick Tock Tick Tock. Ask their scientific advisors what will happen to Earths atmosphere when a gamma burst happens. You needn't bother them with the fact that the coins may detonate with the force of a million super bombs, or the fact that gamma radiation penetrates earth and rock. Just get them on a conference call so I can talk to them. I suggest that you start monitoring gamma levels across the continent and compare them with previous recorded levels.

"Where is a computer for Miss Allen, and get us some food and coffee in here."

The Homeland director and the President were sipping coffee in his office when the call came in. "What is you progress Chief?"

"Mr President, please listen to these excerpts from the last hours recording. That Dr Lange is either the smartest man alive or a raving lunatic."

After listening to Dr Lange's tirade the president and director both grabbed their phones.

An hour later the ground forces chief of staff was sitting in the presidents office. Also were several nuclear scientist and an astronomer. They all looked worried.

"Dr Lange, this is the President. In my office is the director of Homeland, the chief of staff of ground forces, two nuclear scientist, and an astronomer. There are teams remotely monitoring the corporation site where your machine is located."

"That's fine Mr President, but I also need to talk to the commander of the space force. We'll need to build a time viewing machine on the back side of the moon, and have a rocket programed to transport those coins out of the solar system."

"Why not dump them in the sun doctor?"

"Mr President, our sun is a balanced nuclear reactor. Would you like to be the one to destabilize it?"

"Dr Lange, from what I've been told your machine is inaccessible. The radiation levels even destroyed hardened robots the military sent in."

"Aha, you're beginning to get the picture Mr President. By now the coins have probably melted their way down to bedrock, and there is probably an ion cloud over the site. Am I correct?"

"Partially correct doctor. The ion plume is visible at night extending over fifty miles in altitude."

"Interesting, but that doesn't solve the problem. Why haven't your people gotten Miss Allen a computer?"

"Dr Lange, her computer was still in the lab."

"Mr President, Miss Allen is a top notch researcher. All she needs is a high end computer with lots of memory, and direct access to a class three mainframe like the one at corporate headquarters. I have faith that with several hours work she can give me a parts list of all items we used in building the Time Viewer. Hell, she might even have squirreled away the latest blueprints somewhere. Your guys can copy everything she researches, but I must warn you. If they manage to build a Time Viewing machine, they better follow my protocols, or they'll repeat the mistake those idiots made creating the problem we have now."

"I understand Dr Lange, one moment while I issue the orders. - - - Dr Lange, she'll have a class three portable within the hour and access to the class four mainframe at your site. A question has been raised. Would it be more efficient to build both machines on Earth and transport one to the farside base being set up now, or build one machine on the moon?"

Turning to Dr Wilson, Bill asked, "Tim, from the moon can you calculate the movements fine enough to snatch those coins?"

"Bill, I believe any computer that can calculate three dimensional orbital positions to ten positions should be able to calculate and lock the viewer on target."

"Did your man understand that requirement?"

"Yes Dr Lange, my astronomer advisor acknowledged that there is one on farside at present plotting the solar system, and aha it is capable of twenty position calculations with future orbital forecast."

"It's four days to the moon, as soon as Jennifer gives me the parts list we can start. We'll build the machine en-route."

"Doctor, would it be possible to go back in time and prevent this incident from happening?"

"No Mr President, our protocols were ironclad to prevent any time paradox. The disappearance of those coins is recorded somewhere in the past. They are now part of our present. Basically, our protocol demanded that objects must be completely unaccounted for in the past, with no logical explanation. That is the only reason we snatched Mrs Henson. She was not recorded in our research as being present, and no body was ever located by the forensic teams exploring the site after the explosions. In other words, to the world at that time she was not there. Otherwise she'd be just like the coins, a gamma radiation generator set to overload and self-destruct. As soon as the machine is built and calibrated, all observation, recording, and data collection on the incident must stop. We can only transport it if there is no recording of it from a point in time forward. Otherwise we will simply duplicate the mistake those idiots made."

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Chapter 3

Two and a half weeks later on the moon Dr Lange did a final check on the machine. "OK, now we move the acquisition chamber to the rocket, and run a few more test. Jennifer, I need a target object from Earth."

"I have two doctor. We can check both and then pick one."

"Tim what is the status of the corporation headquarters."

"Bill, they stopped all observations of ground zero. Everyone is concentrating on the class five hurricane that is centered on that area. It extends over three hundred miles of the coast and the only thing preventing it from spilling over into the central plains, is the mountains. There are reports of saltwater rain falling as far as Harrisburg Pennsylvania."

"Jennifer, do we have the target coordinates for target one."

"On your computer Sir."

"Target one acquired and tracking. Good track still centered.

"Move to target two. Good track, green light.

"Snatch it."

"Cameras show acquired. No radiation."

"Tim, now for the coins."

"Ground zero acquired, no coins."

"Enlarge scan area to five hundred feet."

"No coins."

"Scan downward in four hundred foot increments so we have some overlap."

"There, I see molten material."

"Keep tracking, I think we're getting close."

"There, I've got one coin. Recording coordinates."

"There are the other two."

"Coordinates for all three locked in with projected locations. How are we going to do this? We've never snatched from multiple locations at the same time."

After several minutes of thought, Dr Lange called the commander of the space forces. "Admiral, we have a complication. The target coins have separated."

"Well, what's the problem?"

"Admiral Smith, if we put them in close proximity, I'm concerned we may create critical mass. Do you have a second rocket we can use?"

"No Dr Lange, I can have a second rocket here in six hours."

"OK, we'll move the two coins closest together to the rocket. Be prepared to launch at my mark."

"Tim, as soon as you have the green light move the two coins to the rocket and notify the Admiral to launch."

"Admiral, this is Dr Wilson, I have a lock. Transfer in progress. Transfer completed. Launch rocket now."

"Tim, local instruments recording a gamma radiation increase."

"Jennifer, do you have a visual of launch."

"Yes Sir. Altitude increasing. It appears to be running true solar north. There is another blip on the radar on an approach trajectory."

"Admiral, this is Dr. Lange. We are recording another blip on radar on an intercept trajectory."

Over the open link they heard in the background, the unknown is increasing velocity. We have solar escape velocity. Intercept thirty seconds.

Set self-destruct to match intercept.

Signal sent, it will arrive at intercept plus 1 second.

"Dr Lange, the rocket has escape velocity, but we sent a self-destruct signal. It will reach the rocket one second after the unknown spacecraft intercepts our rocket. Visual tracking station reports the unknown is unidentifiable."

"Any ideas."

"No Admiral."

Sir, our rocket self-destructed, second spacecraft appears damaged. Interceptors on the way.

Sir, one interceptor destroyed.

Weapons free, weapons free, destroy that thing!

Admiral, two other interceptors destroyed, multiple missiles launched.

Multiple impacts on unknown spacecraft. Visual confirmation of debris.

Communications reports data burst in microwave range prior to impact. They're trying to decode now.

Admiral, the President is on the line requesting conference call.

"Mr President, what you observed was an unidentifiable spacecraft intercepting our rocket. It opened fire on our interceptors. I ordered it destroyed. It got off some kind of signal. It appears to be an alien spacecraft. I suggest that we prepare to defend the solar system and Earth."

"Admiral, Dr Lange, any idea why the unknown spacecraft was trying to intercept our rocket?"

Dr Lange replied, "It's just conjecture, but if it was truly an alien spacecraft, then they either detected our machine or the gamma radiation. If they were friendly, then there was no reason to intercept our rocket. If they were unfriendly, then they may have been trying to stop the rocket so they could drop the coins back on Earth.

"Admiral, We need to relocate the Time Viewer to a more secure location immediately. One that can be defended.

"Tim, Jennifer, back up everything and think about building remote acquisition retrieval locations. Jennifer, also do a frequency search to find any transmissions from the machine. Even a small watch transmits.

"Admiral, can you have the second rocket have a proximity detonator in case there are other alien spacecraft lurking?"

"I'll get it done doctor. Mr President, we're going to need more that just our country's resources and manpower to defend the Earth. I'll leave the politics to you Sir."

A month later there was a successful snatch from Earth to a receiver located on a satellite in orbit on the other side of Earth from the moon.

Jennifer had discovered several peaks recorded by the gravitational wave detectors on Earth that corresponded in time with the Time Viewers use. There were also several other unidentifiable blips. One partially overlaid and continued from the machine's usage until the rocket self-destructed.

The board of scientist put on the gravitational wave detection problem returned their suggestions. Three or four more LIGO stations be built. One on the moon, one on Mars, and one in the asteroid belt. Also the new stations should be capable of measuring variable wavelength gravitational waves. After all, the three on Earth were each varied in length by less than a meter, so they detected best slightly different length gravitational waves. All the LIGO stations should be tied together so exact locations and tracks could be determined.

A year later the first remote Time Viewer snatch was successful to a targeted location without a receiver. The third test was a twelve ton block of concrete transferred to the location of a blip detected by the LIGO stations. It was located almost two light hours from Earth. Two hours later the results of matter trying to occupy the physical space of existing matter became visible as a flash of light. The Admiral now had a new weapon to defend the solar system.

Jennifer had identified over two hundred soldiers and airmen that disappeared under mysterious circumstances, their bodies had never been discovered. Six were tagged for the first series of test for retrieval. Four were green lighted for retrieval, the other two were so badly injured the board determined it would be better to let them die. Their bodies final locations were recored for conventional retrieval and proper internment in the future.

Nineteen months later, the LIGO stations confirmed twenty moving gravitational blips with no apparent sources.

The Admiral called Dr Lange's crew in for a war conference. "Doctor, can you transfer nuclear warheads into their moving spacecraft."

"It's possible Admiral, provided they don't have some type of blocking device activated, or they may have the technology to redirect any transfer."

One of the scientist raised his hand and then asked, "If you transfer a fast moving object like an asteroid, would it maintain its velocity and direction of travel? Also, is there a size or mass limit to your transfers?"

"I see you are using your brain, good questions. We haven't had any requirement to test those parameters. I'll set up a test immediately, but I would hazard a thought that any civilization that could travel the velocity those ships are traveling would have some kind of shield to prevent damage from rouge objects in interstellar space. That's something you might want to work on, a way to penetrate any type of shielding that they might be using."

Another quipped, "Well tell us what kind of shielding they might be using."

"Miss Allen, can you give him some kind of answer?"

"Yes Dr Lange, from research in our literature, writers have listed several ways to shield and protect interstellar spacecraft. One is physical shielding. Two types come to mind, one being ice asteroids which you astronomers theorize make up the Oort Cloud, or or large rocky asteroids mounted or held in front of their spacecraft. The second type is artificial shielding. They can be electronic directed energy, magnetic, or gravitational in nature. The third system listed in literature is using collision avoidance radar to redirect the spacecraft or use of missiles or energy beams to destroy any object on a collision course. The last is the simplest, build the spacecraft inside an asteroid of sufficient size to protect it during the voyage. You'll need a team to work on this problem because none of us are knowledgeable in this area of expertise."

When he closed his mouth, he then asked, "Where did you get that information Miss."

Smiling Jennifer answered, "I like to read for relaxation. One genre is ancient science fiction. Many of the ideas put forth in those books later became science fact as technology advanced. For example, the space stations built in the twenty-second century were described by several authors in the 1940's, long before the first rocket entered what they called outer space. Get some of your researchers to check it out. You'll be surprised by the inventions described in those old books."

The Admiral shook his head and then stated, "Ladies and gentlemen, There are liaison officers waiting outside in the hall. For the survival of the human race, all ideas and solutions need to be funneled through a central point for implementation. Dr Lange, would your team please remain, I have a few more questions."

After everyone else left, the Admiral looked up and asked, "May I call you by your first names?"

Dr Lange answered, "Yes, mine is Bill."

"OK Bill, Miss Allen, I mean Jennifer put that egghead in his place. I appreciate that, but I need pilots. Would it be possible to find and snatch a few hundred from the past. My training section claims that it is possible to train a pilot trained to fly in atmosphere to fly in space faster than taking an untrained person."

"We'll add that to our list of projects Admiral."

"You've worked well with the liaison officer you presently have, but I'm going to assign two more to your team. One will be a senior sergeant and the other a young ensign from the exploration section."

"Darn Admiral, one more and we'll be outnumbered. However, Jennifer could use some help it you can find a top notch researcher and a computer wizard. You might warn them that she is friendly to a point, then she starts breaking fingers."

"Sounds good to me Bill, how is the mixed civilian and military construction team working."

"I haven't the slightest idea, the first day I called them together and told them that the only problem I wanted to hear about is technical, otherwise I'd have them staked to the front of the first interceptor headed toward the enemy. They had all heard about the mistake those idiots made. It seems like none of them are in charge, but I have noticed a pecking order, and it isn't separated by military or civilian. I've also noticed that when they seem to have some slack time, they are cross training each other."

"Well Bill, another suggestion came up the military chain. It strongly suggested that we need several dozen Time Viewer stations spread around the solar system for redundancy.

"I see and agree, however we need to figure out the requirements. Training won't be to hard."

"Bill, another nice to have would be a portable machine capable of transferring a spacecraft from point A to point B, etc. What I mean by portable, is one that can be mounted inside the spacecraft. The congress has authorized building three super carriers, like the old Earth aircraft carriers."

~ ~ ~

Chapter 4

In the next six years three super carriers were built. Dr Lange's core team had expanded to include a gravitational scientist, and a mechanical genus.

~

I remember the summer grandpa got hurt. It took us five hours to drive from Atchison to his farm just north of Vermillion. The doctor told him he was dieing. He made Pa promise to take over the farm. Mom always loved the farm, and said she was ready to get out of town.

Dad's young brother Dave got mad and they got in a fight. Dad didn't want to be a farmer so they settled it. Dave would run the farm, mom and us kids would move into the old house, and dad would come home often. Dad had a good job and his boss didn't want him to quit. A year later he bought an airplane and learned to fly. It was a Curtis Robin. Dave loved it, and also learned to work on it, and fly.

I learned to fly when I was thirteen and Dad let me fly him to work in the summers, and I got a job at the company. I never told Mom I didn't want to be a farmer.

I was a senior in high school when the war started in Europe. Dad's boss told me that I didn't want to be drafted, I should go to college and then volunteer for the Army Air Corps. He knew people and got me enrolled that summer. When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, he came and got me and had me fly him to Topeka where he got me enrolled as a Aviation Cadet.

Mom cried when I left a week later for Texas to be trained. When we landed an army guy told me to park the plane with the others on the side of the field. Dad raised hell with him and some officer until they allowed him to fuel up and fly out.

The first plane they stuck me in was a newer Curtis. After checking it out I told my trainer to grab the rear seat and hang on. After one flight he wrote me up so I could solo.

Several days later I was jumped to the head of my class, and they gave me my wings. Orders were cut for me to go to California and shuttle plane to Montreal. They stuck me in a twin-engine bomber. I was getting ready to jump on a plane back to California when a captain grabbed me and told me to report to operations. They typed my name on the bottom of some orders and told me I was headed for England. It seems the pilot had twisted his ankle.

Four hours out my wingman radioed that my right engine was leaking oil. Minutes later it quit, then the left engine started spluttering. We radioed for help and bailed out. I was looking at my copilot when he disappeared. Then I woke up in a strange room, and knew I was dead because I floated above the bed when I sat up.

The nurse that caught me told me that I would have died if they hadn't rescued me. After a history lesson, training started the next day. I was baffled by the rockets, until one old sergeant took a balloon and blew it up. When he let it go it flew all over the room. His explanation told us why they worked, but I still wanted to know how.

Days later we were put in cockpits of fighter rockets. It was similar to the planes I'd flown, except there were a lot of more gages. The yoke felt like an old friend, until the window in front of me opened up and I saw the Earth. It looked like my teachers globe, but brighter and it had clouds. The radio told us which switches to flip in what sequence, and then I felt like I was moving. Each step was explained, and things moved around outside the window as we maneuvered. I could see little rockets spray every time someone maneuvered. One guy lost it and went into a spin. The radio instructed us to turn around, and we watched as he hit the moon and exploded. No one goofed off after that.

We trained and trained. One day they grabbed five of us out of class and stuck us in another class. I thought it was strange that the next morning we went to the trainers. I loved the trainers. After about five minutes my radio came on and the controller said, "Daniel, it's time to give these new recruits a lesson. Act like you're loosing it, go into a spin, and crash into the moon."

"You mean the other guy didn't die?"

"You got it. Execute the crash maneuver."

"I hit full throttle, started twisting in a corkscrew until I was facing the moon, and then cut power except for the maneuvering jets. I managed six flips before my trainer went dead, and a lieutenant popped the canopy and slapped me upside the helmet and said, "You're a showoff. Now get back to class and keep your trap shut."

Ten pilots from my class were assigned as trainers. I was assigned one of the wing leaders in detachment AB206 in the asteroid belt. We had fun weaving in and out of the asteroids during patrols for almost a year until the alien ship appeared.

It started transmitting some kind of message. We were ordered to destroy it. Two wings were launched before it destroyed our asteroid base. We got it though, although we lost four more fighters. One of the new carriers picked us up. It just appeared behind us. They retrofitted our fighters with the new gravity drives an added more weapon systems.

We were dropped off near Saturn and told to head for the base to report in. Approaching Titan we found a battle going on. There were two big alien ships and they had a dozen fighters each. Phil and I are now the only survivors AB206. Two of the guys ran out of rockets and rammed one big ship at full speed. When it blew, the one other took off. It took hours before the tugs picked us up and hauled us to Titan station. Only half of it was still operational. The rest was mangled. Phil and I congratulated ourselves on surviving until we found out that we were two of the thirteen surviving fighter pilots at Titan station.

Phil and I were on patrol in the inner ring when an unknown spacecraft jumped into the system. The weird thing we discovered about the gravity drive is that we could accelerate faster away from a gravity well than toward it. We'd just crossed the horizon and spotted the spacecraft when we were told it was a battleship from Earth. We shot past it so fast it was just a blur. We decelerated and circled back around. It looked like a picture of a battleship from my time that had been cut in half lengthwise and the tops of two put together. The gun turrets were almost as big as our fighter.

We were informed that some VIP's were coming to tour the war front. It turned out to be the Queen on England. We all knew this was a publicity stunt to make everyone at home feel better. The only problem was, the enemy found out. They arrived in force the next day. I was returning from patrol when three large ships, two smaller ones, and many fighters appeared. This time one opened and hundreds of space suited soldiers directly jetted toward the station. I unloaded every weapon I had in their direction. Then I ducked around the back of the station to let my energy weapons recharge.

I heard Phil over the radio directing some guards.

Keying my radio, I told him where I was and asked if he could get another fighter out?

"Daniel, any way you can get in the backside and rescue the Queen?"

I replied, "Yea, make for the auditorium."

All I heard was "Wilco"

Turning my lasers to lowest power I burned through the station wreckage until I was near the center. Then I fired a brief burst and shoved the nose of my fighter against the remaining wall. Miscalculating it shot through the half melted wall into the auditorium. Immediately hitting my maneuvering jets I turned my fighter sideways and let the air rushing out slam it back against the wall. I opened the airlock just as the port to the corridor opened and the Queen was ushered in by Phil and another man.

Phil ushered her into the airlock and yelled for the other man to hurry. Instead he stepped into the corridor and slammed the hatch. Phil shook his head and said, "We've got to go."

As soon as the Queen was strapped down in the navigators seat, Phil jumped in the copilots seat, as I hit the maneuvering jets to aim the nose at the wall. A burst of laser, and the wall melted. Working our way out through the wreckage I accelerated toward Titan. Just before hitting atmosphere I turned the nose toward Saturn and pushed the gravity drive to maximum. The Queen had started to scream as she saw Saturn fill the forward screen in less than a minute. Looping Saturn I turned the nose toward the sun and maxed out the gravity drive again.

Ten minutes later an alarm went off. Phil immediately announced, "We've lost lock on Saturn. I'll find us another."

Throttling back the gravity drive I turned and said, "Your Majesty, are you alright?"

I knew I was in trouble when Phil started laughing and she calmly said, "Phillip told me you were crazy. We are happy to find out, that is a good crazy."

"Bogey on our tail. I'll gravity lock it. Ready? Locked!"

As he started saying locked, I slammed the gravity drive throttles to the stop. All we felt was a brief kick. Throttling down I mumbled, "Anything left back there?"

Phil gasp and said, "All I'm reading is debris."

"Good, I hope they didn't get a location off. Set stealth mode, then switch seats with the Queen. I need you on long range navigation."

"Phillip, move quickly now. He is the Captain."

"Yes cousin."

"Phil, you're royalty! Ha Ha, no wonder you never laughed at my colony jokes."

"Daniel, those jokes were old when you were born."

"Phil, I never told you when I was born. It was in 1922."

"You mean, you're one of the pilots from the past."

"Yeah, I should have died on the way to England in 1942."

"Daniel, I've head several good jokes about the snatched ones. I'll tell you later. I can get an angle on several good size asteroids, but we'll end up near Venus."

"No problem Phil, I never did like driving a straight line. Any radio traffic from there or Earth?"

"Nothing yet. ETA Venus, eight hours. We've got a lot of velocity we've got to kill. The instruments indicate we are over ten times solar system escape velocity."

~

"Sir, that UFO we tracked out of the Saturn system just changed direction. It's now headed toward Venus at slightly over a tenth the speed of light.

Scout report is in. Titan station, total loss. One alien troop transport and a dozen fighters floating among an estimated hundreds of ground troops. The debris field is in orbit around Titan. No active signals from any source near Saturn.

Sir another alert, six asteroids just change their orbits. Tracking section calculates that there's a 50% chance whatever it is is using gravity drive. Correction Sir, UFO is now on impact course for Venus in six hours. Shall I notify Admiral Smith.

"Admiral Smith please. Impact flash warning."

"This is Admiral Smith."

"Sir this is tracking control. Situation background, Titan station attacked in force and wiped out. Three major alien ships totaled along with hundreds of ground troops KIA. UFO headed toward Venus on impact trajectory at slightly over a tenth the speed of light. It has changed course twice."

"OK, forward all data and updates. Also send me trajectory coordinates with time stamps starting in fifteen minutes, out."

Picking up another phone the Admiral said, "Jennifer, tell Bill I need information on a UFO on impact trajectory for Venus traveling over a tenth the speed of light. Data packet will be on your computer as soon as I get it."

Minutes later Admiral Smith's phone rang. "Smitty, It is one of ours. The occupant in the copilots seat is a female. The pilot is one of the snatched ones. The navigator is a modern. Want me to bomb them or try to snatch them?"

"Bill, I don't think a snatch will work. The tracking section and Venus control are both tracking them, plus they are on an impact trajectory."

"Admiral, we just lost them."

"Wait one." Looking at his computer the Admiral saw that tracking control indicated that they were decelerating and changing trajectory toward Earth. "Bill, they just decelerated and changed trajectory toward Earth. Did you get any ship identification, Bill?"

"Only the fact that it is one of the larger fighters. A glance at the controls showed an old Y yoke and a lot of red lights on the dash. I hope thats enough to identify the ship. I'm going to try to snatch some of the Titan station crew so notify medical."

"Will do Bill."

"Daniel, we have another bogey, focusing gravity drive. Locked."

"OK throttling down, what's back there?"

"Not much left of it Dan. You realize of course that you'll get a reprimand for using the gravity drive as a weapon."

"Phil, I'll worry about that in my next life. Stay sharp."

"Tracking control to Admiral Smith. UFO trajectory change and speed. There was another UFO behind it for sixteen seconds before it disintegrated."

"Bill, did you get that."

"Yes Smitty, Tim mentioned that someone would eventually figure out that the gravity drive could be used as a weapon. Smitty have the surface evacuated, and damage control teams suit up. At his velocity it he tags the moon we'll have moon quakes. If he tags the Earth he'll start blowing holes in the atmosphere and probably cause quakes. Jennifer identified the female, it's the Queen of England. She was on tour of the asteroid belt stations as a public relations booster. How she got to Saturn, no one knows."

"Dan reduce power now."

Sliding the gravity drive throttles back he turned, "What the hell Phil, we're still ten million miles out."

"I just picked up a planet wide broadcast. It stated that extreme weather was forecasted to start within the hour and everyone should immediately report to underground shelters. They know we're coming and I think our gravity drive is the cause of the weather alert. Should I put the safeties back on?"

"No, I'll just keep it throttled down.

"Anything unoccupied in our line of sight?"

"We got Jupiter six degrees off center."

"OK, tight beam and lock on it. I hope there are no ships in the way."

"Only a few asteroids, and they'll probably be turned to dust. Jupiter locked."

"Throttling up, as soon as we're down to a safe speed let me know."

"We'll pass the Earth, moon orbit in ten minutes."

"What's our velocity."

"Still way to high, I think another half hour and we'll be at a safe velocity, but we'll need to kill it and then accelerate back to Earth orbit."

"OK Phil, when we land lock down all ship functions including the computer, and secure them with your security code. Also, red tag the ship and seal the hatch until we get to talk to Admiral Smith. We'll take this right to the top."

"Dan, we are ten minutes from the security zone. Turning of ship ID and friend foe transponder.

"Dan, we've been ordered to dark side base four."

"Got it Phil. Now that I know you're royalty do I have to kiss your a--- ring. Sorry Ma'am."

"Daniel, a simple bow to me will do, and I recommend that you and Phillip continue as you were. No one needs to know he's is my cousin until he assumes his post at the castle."

"Yes your Majesty."

As they entered the hanger Dan stated, "Ugh, I think we're in trouble."

Phil looked out the side view port and commented, "Everyone's here except a traffic cop, and they're loaded for bear."

"Dan, there's half the pilots from Saturn. What the hell."

As they exited the airlock the Queen commented, "They even managed to rescue a few of the royal guard."

Dan stepped up to the Captain in charge of the security detail and saluted, "Captain, this fighter is red tagged, and no one should enter until after I talk to Admiral Smith."

The Captain replied, "Sir, you are red-tagged. My orders are to secure the fighter and escort all of you to Admiral Smith and Dr Wilson."

"Your Majesty, Phil, we need to follow the Captain. Lets go."

"Phillip, take my arm and we'll follow Daniel."

As they took a seat in the conference room Dr Wilson commentated, "She's not military and shouldn't hear this debriefing."

Admiral Smith turned to him and stated, "She was aboard the ship and Titan station. She has also seen the results of your and Bills work. She stays.

"Your Majesty, I make one request. When we've retrieved all of your escort personnel possible, please insure that they don't divulge any of our technology secrets. The worlds militarizes may be loosely combined for defense, but the political backstabbing continues between the governments. Otherwise humanity will fall and the human race will just be a side note in their alien history."

"OK Lieutenant Daniel Blacksmith, what exactly happened." After he finished, Dr Wilson asked one question.

"Did you know what would happen, and how did you removed the gravity drive safeties?"

"My Dad taught me to fly, and his brother taught me how to maintain our airplane. I've studied everything I could get my hands on about our fighters, and when I was assigned the new one I checked it out completely. The schematics list a power governor, I bypassed the board when the first alien ship was reported in Saturn orbit. I knew I didn't stand a chance in hell of surviving, so I was going to ram their biggest ship at full speed. Fortunately, I didn't have to."

Dr Wilson commented, "I guess I'll have to change the maintenance manual."

"Sir, I think that a complete briefing and warning to all pilots that have access to gravity drive ships should be sufficient."

"Lieutenant, did you notice any problem with the normal junk in space traveling at high velocity?"

"No doctor, I didn't even consider it. I guess we were lucky."

Another woman entered the room and stated, "These yahoos locked everything down. I can't even get the computer to answer me."

"Jennifer, let me introduce you to Lieutenants Blacksmith and Jenkins. You of course know the Queen."

"Of course I do. The access code lieutenant."

"Sorry ma'am, if I give you the royal code, you'll have to spend the rest of your life in the castle dungeon."

"Don't bull shit me fly-boy. I'll transport you back to Saturn so fast you won't even have time to squeal."

The Queen turned her head and said, "Young lady, you will not address the Captain of my ship, nor my cousin in such derogatory terms. Are we understood."

Jennifer's eyebrows shot up and she replied, "Yes your Majesty. I'll wait by the fighter until the lieutenants are released." After a curtsy she turned and left.

When they got to the fighter Jennifer waited until they got inside and stomped her foot. OK Prince Phillip Benson Windsor, please unlock the ship. Lieutenant Daniel Blacksmith, you can tell and show me how you bypassed the safeties on the gravity drive.

Daniel stepped back into the corridor and lifted a floor panel. Pulling a computer board from the instruction manual bag he asked, "Shall I just plug it back in or do you want to check it out first?"

Reading the number off the board, she checked her computer and stated, "This isn't a gravity drive board, it's a fly-by-wire controller."

"I know, but it limits the controls by an algorithm determine by the ship velocity. That prevents pilots from over correcting. That's not all, it also acts as a velocity limiter where control signals are transmitted. Do you now understand?"

"Yes, but..."

"Pulling it also disabled this series of boards that allow the ship to be remotely controlled."

"You can't know that, that information is only available to fleet commanders."

"Miss, I didn't know that, all I did was read the schematics and trace the control circuits. I'd think that anyone interested in how their equipment worked could figure that out. Now do you want me to replace the board or not?"

~ ~ ~

Chapter 5

Betty was finally released by the debriefers. She was surprised at some of societies changes and dismayed at others. The cultural shock wasn't as bad as her trainers originally estimated.

The six months she'd spent in the hospital and therapy left her with a new zest for life.

She was given her descendants information with the condition that she did not tell them she was their ancestor. Her first stops were the graves of her husband and daughter. After a year of tours and observing her descendants, she called the number she was given. She was offered a chance to work for the Earth Defense Force or retire.

After her orientation on the moon she requested to see Dr Lange, Dr Wilson, and Miss Allen. When they finally met, she thanked them again for saving her life, and asked it there was any job she could do for them.

It was decided that she could be the liaison between their team and the others snatched from the past. Infiltrating the units of soldiers and airmen snatched from the past wasn't hard using her past training. Discovering the similar problem they all had, cut her to the heart. They were motivated to defend the Earth, but lacked absolute personal motivation.

Bringing the results of her investigations to Jennifer, they quickly decided upon a plan. Starting with a small unit she revealed to each of them their families from their disappearance forward. Included were pictures their families graves and survivors. The test groups motivation increased by over a hundred percent.

When the first one died in combat the team had a wake. A month later the pilot was returned to his unit and moral was boosted to a new high. AB149 renamed themselves the Hammer of Earth. Even after their first irretrievable loss they continued to have the highest moral and kill ration per mission.

She was on AB151 in the asteroid belt when the alien ship entered their area. Watching the young men launch into battle saddened her. All the personnel remaining put on their space suits and evacuated. The aliens pattern was to destroy the bases as well as the defense fighters. SOP required required that a rescue vessel be dispatched to recover all survivors before the snatch team started their recovery operation.

For minutes she first watched the fighters weaving back and forth fighting the alien fighters. Her rescue capsule drifted further and further, soon she could only see the flashes when a ship exploded. Soon there were no more flashes. She knew Bill's team would do their best to snatch her pilots from the jaws of death, but she still cried for them.

Watching her oxygen meter approach zero she suddenly spotted a spacecraft she didn't recognize. It was systematically firing on every asteroid. She realized it must be an alien. The fear of death gripped her heart with an iron fist. As it turned her direction she knew she was about to die, then a flash of light.

Opening her eyes she was looking at two faces. She knew Jennifer, but the man was strange. He asked, "Mrs Henson, may I call you Betty?"

Croaking "Yes" she tried to move her hand to reach for Jennifer.

"Betty," he said, "I need to know everything that happened."

As she recounted the series of events his frown got deeper and deeper."

"The Admiral will be apprised of this new battle plan they are using."

After he turned and left she managed to ask, "Who was he Jennifer?"

"Betty, he is one of the originals. Rest now, your job resumes in earnest as soon as you're back on your feet."

"Bill, Admiral Smith, the aliens have changed tactics."

"Well, how bad is it?" asked the Admiral.

"Interviewing five of the survivors, I theorize that they are now not only targeting the fighters and support bases, but after the battle systematically searching for and targeting all the escape capsules. That explains why only half of the personnel were recoverable. From Betty's information, they are putting the escape capsules under direct observation before firing on them. They must be recovering the bodies."

"Bill, do you think we need to go to phase four of the defense plan." asked the Admiral.

"Smitty, we're still not sure we can penetrate their defenses with the machine."

"Admiral, we've lost five asteroid bases with over fifty percent unrecoverable losses. We are up against an unknown enemy with unknown resources. We are at present still in one star system with a finite population capable of fighting.

"They've taken Saturn and Jupiter from our control. If they widen their control of the asteroid belt, Mars and Earth will be within their reach. Once those industrial bases are destroyed, a direct bombardment of Earth will mean our extinction. Any other plans we can implement."

"None that have been developed." mumbled the Admiral.

"Admiral, one thing I don't understand about the aliens. With their ability to jump their ship from point to point, why haven't they directly attacked our industrial base and major military targets, or even directly bombarded Earth with hit and run tactics. They seem to be escalating the attacks as we find a counter to their last tactic."

Jennifer and Betty entered and Jennifer stated, "Smitty, Betty has an idea that could explain their change in attack implementation."

"Sit down ladies, explain."

"Admiral, first we detected them, then they attacked and ran. Then they attacked our units and destroyed the fighters. They progressed to destroying the support bases along with the fighters. Now they are also targeting the survivors in the escape capsules, and holding territory. Am I correct so far?"

"Keep going Betty."

"If you look at the steps in their attacks, they are allowing us time to build and change the way we defend the solar system. Each time we come up with a better defense, they ratchet up their invasion. I used to read a lot, and this goes against every invasion procedure ever written. My intuition that tells me they are trying to teach or test us."

"What, that's crazy."

"Aha, Admiral, but we've never been able to recover any of their ships or bodies. We couldn't penetrate the Saturn system until they'd remove all the debris and bodies."

Jennifer interrupted, "Remember Bill, we were recovering our soldiers. When we located the first alien and started to recover it, the whole area became unaccessible for several hours until they were gone. Even our men's bodies were then gone."

"Now they are targeting our escape capsules. I was lucky to be recovered before they got to me. Only the occupants of six other escape capsules were recovered. Only fifteen crew in the station were recovered before you lost contact with the area. I am guessing, the next step will be an attack, and just after the alert signal is sent we will loose contact with the area.

"As soon as we figure out how to penetrate their blocking signal, I'm hazarding a guess that we'll be contacted by a supposedly different alien race."

"Bill, I'm going to steal Jennifer from you for awhile. Jennifer get your assistant to develop this theory of Betty's step by step. I want you to analyze every bit of data starting with Saturn. Find us anything that will give us a lead on how they are blocking the Time Viewer's access."

The next attack started two days later. Dr Wilson had the preprogrammed locations of thermonuclear devices ready. As soon as the alien ships were located, the bombs were transferred to their locations. The first two exploded inside the alien ships, the third outside its shielding. The fourth and fifth outside the boundary of the attack area.

Bill was only able to view the area for sixty-three seconds from the start of the attack before it was blocked out. The data Jennifer recorded told them what the aliens were using as a block. It was amazingly simple.

A Time Viewer using a different frequency. Fifty minutes later they had a view inside the blanked out area. There were hundreds of alien ships there.

Bill carefully focused his machine while Jennifer recorded every detail. They got their first view of the inside of an alien ship, and an alien. He was talking to what appeared to be a human in uniform.

Jennifer tagged his image and transferred it to the identification section. He was one of the first ranking officers not recovered.

The Admiral almost had a stroke when he watched the recording.

Within hours Bill's machine was modified to retrieve using the new frequency.

The Admiral had a detainment area set up and ordered Bill to snatch the officer and alien. Seconds later the Admiral was looking at them in the detention area. "Colonel Jones, do I have your and the aliens attention?"

"I assume I am addressing Admiral Smith."

"That you are, now that we know how to penetrate your friends blocking signal, give me a good reason I don't transfer portions of the sun into his fleet."

"After a brief discussion the alien turned to the view screen. "Admiral Smith, we have recovered seven hundred and thirty-four of your missing personnel. Our interstellar alliance has several requirements for a species to join. First, they need to leave their home world.

"Second, they need to develop a form of time travel. The signals from your time travel devices allow us to locate them.

"Third, they must not have destroyed themselves by using their time travel devices. That was easy for us to verify.

"Fourth, they must demonstrate a certain level of ruthlessness and ability to adapt. You skipped one step in the normal escalation of hostilities.

"Fifth, they must detect us on their own. You surprised me by your ability to kidnap me from the bridge of my ship.

"As soon as I notify my Fleet Commander, he will arrange for the transfer of our prisoners to a location you designate in groups of fifty.

"Step two will be a face to face meeting with an officer designated by you to arrange cessation of hostilities."

"Step three wi--"

"Sir we have signal penetration of the detention area. Unable to block it."

"A group of three aliens appeared."

The alien turned and raised his hand. "May I introduce my Fleet Commander, Admiral Zling. Sir, I am talking to the Earth Admiral Smith, he is viewing us using that communicator."

Admiral Zling turned to face the view plate and calmly stated, "How nice to meet you Admiral Smith. I've ordered my fleet to stand down. May I suggest you do the same. We need to sit down and discuss your species passing the test. If your species does not wish to join our alliance, we will return all the soldiers we captured and depart your star system. Your star is located one hundred and nine light years from the border of our alliance, so our children will meet again either as friends and allies, or fight as enemies.

"If we can come to a successful solution, then we can get what you call your politicians involved. However, experience has shown that unless we have a very firm agreement, they will twist around until the only path left will lead to renewed hostilities."

A moment later the door opened and Captain Blacksmith announced, "Gentlemen, follow me please." Taking seats in conference room three, they waited for Admiral Smith to arrive.

Two months later the Earth Defense force calculated that they had and agreement covering all the areas that the politicians could counter. Bill and Jennifer both insisted that it include the statement that no technology transfer would occur for fifty years. And a trading company be set up with joint ownership of alien and human, supervised by the Space Force at this end. Profits would be fed back into that company for fifty years. Only then would the transfer of faster than light propulsion technology become public.

# (BToC) #

The Children of Arth

by Stephen Brandon

~ ~ ~

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Children of Arth

Chapter 2 Susan

Chapter 3 Jimmy

Chapter 4 Mission to Arth

Chapter 5 Options

Chapter 6 A Hand Shake

* * *

Authors Note

Computers are great, someday we'll have artificial intelligence computers. Do we dare let them handle to much without proper supervision.

* * *

Chapter 1 The Children of Arth

The primitive exploration satellite detected, and identified exploration ship TY-833 as an alien spacecraft. It transmitted the information back toward its home system. The Captain of exploration ship TY-833 realizing that they'd been detected and reported, backtracked its trajectory to an 8 planet star system.

Intelligent life on third planet was identified as at 0.8 level civilization. Believing the ships stealth shielding sufficient, he ordered a low orbit survey. BIO sensors were deployed for exploration and cataloging all life on planet.

The ships survey team wasn't the first to notify him of the approaching manned rockets. It was the communications officer on duty that realized that they'd been visually identified and their orbit determined by the two rockets that appeared on intercept trajectories. Accidental 1st Contact had been made with an intelligent life form.

As the Captain was ordering the pilot to break orbit the communications officer broke in and informed him that there was a massive amount of radar locked on the ship, and what appeared to be targeting radar from the two rockets in orbit. The Captain made an instant decision, he ordered the pilot to turn on all marker lights, drop the stealth field, and power down the main drive.

Indirect 1st contact had been made. He then ordered the communications officer to initiate direct radio contact with the planets inhabitants.

Hours later the translation software had enough samples to cobble together a message of greeting from the exploration ship, and the native spacecraft were alongside. The original two rockets had been replaced by five that launched from the ground.

As communication continued the tension slowly relaxed a bit, and the Captain offered to come to the surface to talk to the government. It was then discovered the differences in language weren't caused by territory, but by different governments. It was finally decided that he would address the world's trade organization.

The hundred and ninety-three members were pleasantly surprised when he entered the assembly room the next day. He looked almost like them, except his skin had a greenish tint. His technician set up the translation machine. The Captain introduced himself and gave a quick briefing on the Thoriate Empire. It was decided that the trade organization would allow the Captain's crew visit many locations on the planet, and collect samples.

Several weeks later one of the specimen robots reported that it had detected olfactory scents that were registered in the criminal database. Since the report was of low priority it was shunted to a backup AI. The backup AI forwarded the criminal olfactory database to all the specimen robots in that area. This update overwrote the basic criminal database, and reset the mission priorities of the collection robots. Within hours two of the specimen collection robots reported back to the shuttles with prisoners.

The first alert came from the local law enforcement. The report was that one of the alien robots had invaded a school and kidnapped a child from a classroom. Structural damage was listed as one outside wall damaged, several school desk, the teacher injured trying to stop robot, and dozens of students injured in panic.

While this information was working its way up the chain of communications, the Captain received word that several of the specimen collection robots had been fired upon, along with a shuttle.

He ordered all collection robots to return to their shuttles, and return to the ship in orbit. He was headed toward his shuttle when the governments security personnel attempted to stop him. The weapons fight between them and his security personnel was one sided.

As he was lifting off his pilot received a message from the government that his robots had kidnapped several persons from the planet. He forwarded the message to the ship in orbit. The ship AI upon receiving the message queried its subordinate AI's and received word that two class 4 criminals had been apprehended on the planets surface, and were in locked cells in the specimen collection area. As listed in it shipboard protocol files, it sent the data on the criminals to the transmitting station. This included the olfactory data used to identify the criminals.

Upon arriving at the ship the Captain was informed that several missiles were targeting the ship from the surface. He immediately ordered the shields up, main drive spun up, and the pilot to evade the missiles, and retreat from the planet. Then the radar operator reported missiles inbound from the space stations and moon. The Captain ordered the defensive weapons brought on-line. Part of the AI's protocol was to remove the ship from the danger area, so it activated the jump drive.

One of the side effects of jumping within a star system, is disruption of objects by the gravity waves that are generated by the jump drive.

The space stations and spacecraft within line of sight were ripped apart. All ionized particles and radiation was propelled away from the ships location at close to the speed of light. The moon and planet experienced earthquakes. Some asteroids in the asteroid belt were knocked from orbit. One of the moons on the 4th planet was even knocked out of orbit. The star reacted with explosions of solar flares and plasma ejections away from the ships location. The exploration ship entered jump space without a destination and traveled for ten minutes before the pilot managed to shut down the pilot AI, and reentered normal space.

Navigation took several hours to identify their location and plot a course back to the Thoriate Empire.

The prisoners were automatically designated a low priority as damage to the ship was cataloged, and priorities set for repair. A few repairs required an orbital ship repair facility. Travel time at reduced speed was calculated at three weeks to the border of the empire, and another week to the facility.

The specimen storage area AI was tasked to maintain all specimens, and the prisoners matching the olfactory signatures of the criminals. Under normal circumstances the specimen containment area AI would clean all animal cells daily, however its low priority reduced the cleaning cycle to 19 cells per day. The AI recorded the changes in olfactory markers in all the specimen containment cells as the days passed. Two weeks later the prisoner's cells were scheduled to be cleaned. The cleaning solution also cleaned the prisoners.

Several hours later when the AI checked the cells, it recorded that the criminals olfactory markers were gone. It sent an alert to its supervisory AI reporting the escape. SOP listed several steps. The first was to place the specimens food in the cell, then open the door so the escaped specimen would be attracted back into the cell. The prisoners ate the food, and then left their cells to explore the containment area. Later when they exited the specimen containment area, another ship AI detected two intruders, and sounded the intruder alert.

Tracking them, the security personnel located them in the crew mess trying to open food containers. Stunning them they were transported to the medical section, and the ship AI notified the Captain. When the Captain arrived he immediately realized that the two intruders were children from the planet that had attacked them.

Ordering his AI to backtrack their movements from their apprehension to entering the ship, the horror of the mistakes made by the AI's compounded his hunch that the planet, from their viewpoint, had justification to attack his ship.

From medical, back to the mess, back to the corridor outside the specimen holding area. The the report from the specimen containment area over the last two weeks.

Then the reports filed by the collection robots indicated that one class 4 criminal was apprehended at a building being used to educate children. The specimen collection robot record entering the structure through an outside wall damaging the building and some internal structures. One adult injured and minor injuries to several children. Lling a male class 4 criminal indited for genocide was apprehended and transported to shuttle for transport to exploration ship.

The second class 4 criminal was apprehended outside the capitol city of one of the more industrialized states on the planet. The specimen collection robot recorded the following sequence of events:

Olfactory signature coming from location behind what planetary individuals call a home.

Said home had guards.

Robot was ignored until it entered the back yard of home.

Guards then ordered it away.

Robot AI confirmed BIO signature of small sentient being in back yard of home matching 98% with class 4 criminal Tei Fghrn, that escaped from planetary prison after killing several guards.

One guard grabbed Tei Fghrn and tried to remove him from vicinity of robot. AI interpreted this as an attempted escape, and reclassified guards as criminal body guards. When several pulled weapons they were dealt with by stunning until the robot received damage from their weapons and then automatic routines were activated allowing it to use lethal force on remaining guards. Tei Fghrn was apprehended and returned to Exploration ship.

Both class 4 criminals were placed in specimen analysis cells under AI supervision as apprehended criminals.

The science officer assigned one of his female assistants to care for the children.

She, realizing that the children could harm themselves accidentally through ignorance of the ship, she ordered the medical officer to give them implants.

The medical officer installed Exploration Implants in the children and set the limiters to minors 0.8 because that was their civilization level. That would allow the assigned science assistant to monitor and control their actions. The implants also allowed the ships AI to lock them out of dangerous areas, and sound an alarm if they were in dangerous situations.

Sector Exploration Headquarters after analysis of ships logs realized that the ship had probably caused irreparable damage to star system 654235 planet 3, and bumped all data to galactic headquarters. Orders came down ordering the ships Captain to transport them to galactic exploration headquarters for evaluation. Meanwhile a military stealth ship was dispatched to evaluate the star system and planet's inhabitants.

During the two months it took to get to galactic exploration headquarters, the assistant science officer educated both children in language, history, and the culture of her home planet. Jimmy, being curious and the son of a lawyer managed to get the learning machine to give him an aptitude test, and he scored well in several areas. He then took the junior introductory galactic law course, and managed to pass it, the educational AI tagged his file for a possible career in law. Susan always wanted to be a nurse and managed to pass the aptitude test, and then the junior introductory course in medicine, so the AI tagged her file for a possible career in the medical field.

Jimmy and Susan matured realizing that they had a position no other from their planet had. With the preparation that the assistant science officer gave them to enter galactic society, they planned to help their planet. With that motivation they prepared a plan to gain citizenship, and then sue the Exploration service for false imprisonment, and then any damages done to their home planet.

The Thoriate government declared them wards of the Empire, which gave them citizenship when they reached adult status. They were separated, but allowed to communicate with each other.

* * *

Chapter 2 Susan

Nine years later Susan completed her education and qualified as an exobiologist. This allowed her to gain her citizenship in the Thoriate Empire.

All citizens were required to serve the Empire for ten years as repayment for their education. She was assigned to Exploration ship TY-1298. She sent a message to Jimmy informing him of the requirement, and her assignment.

Within a year Susan discovered additional education aboard the ship was free. She took advantage of it, and was now on the career path to become a ship officer without any hidden strings, or requirements.

A year later, at the ships first port of call she sent a message to Jimmy informing him of her discovery.

Her travels aboard the exploration ship were boring and exciting at the same time. Most planets only had primitive life forms, and most of them were harmful to alien life. Her expertise gained her recognition within the Empire.

With only three years of her required duty left, she was called to Exploration Headquarters, and offered the chance of a lifetime. Finally the Thoriate Empire had discovered indications of another star empire.

The mission had a four year requirement. Along with her accepting the assignment, she would be given a promotion, a hefty bonus, and her choice of next assignment.

Recognizing this as a possible chance to return to Arth she accepted and sent a message to Jimmy.

The year of travel to another quadrant of the galaxy was boring beyond belief. To save her sanity, she completed the educational requirements for a starship officer, and was allowed to pull duty on the bridge of TY-1298. Many of the crew had been replaced, and this was their shakedown. The new Captain had only been in command on one other starship.

The Captain one evening finally admitted to her that this was a mission with no future. The 1st contact had occurred in open space between two exploration ships. The alien crew had been infected with a pathogen picked up on a planet they'd explored. They were dieing when TY-916 found them.

From their reports, the pathogen had the capability to breach level 5 isolation. Luckily, they mapped its DNA and transmitted the code before they died. TY-1298's mission was to locate that planet, and secure a sample of the pathogen. The new level 6 isolation protocols and equipment were supposedly capable of containing any pathogen.

After months of studying the DNA code, Susan came to the belief that this microorganism was only one of the infective organisms from that planet. Building a replica using her seven years of experience, she came to the conclusion that this was a link organism. The replica exhibited characteristics that brought her back to the Captain's table in absolute secrecy.

Her message back to Exploration Headquarters outlined her discoveries. The microorganism acted as a link between several organisms, a telepathic link. She had laboratory proof, and biopsy proof that it worked between different alien species. It had linked several alien species of laboratory animals. When presented with only one species it continued to multiply attempting to gain enough strength to contact another species, hence the destruction of the brains of all previous contacts.

Her theory was that this organism tied every life form on its planet together as a single unit. The more intelligent, the more control that alien had over the less intelligent members of the unit.

The single species crew that discovered the alien exploration ship signed its own death warrant by being the only species available for infection.

Her question to the Exploration Headquarters was, how many species were aboard the alien ship discovered? The Captain also sent his decision to suspend further exploration until his ship was furnished a crew that contained of aliens.

The Captain received orders that he was to hold position until a zoological ship arrived. He was to put the ship in orbit around the nearest star without planets, and remove the in-system and star drive. Upon completion of the experiment he was to insure the ship entered the star for complete destruction. Susan also received orders that she was to insure the ship was disabled, and then release the pathogen aboard the zoological ship. Several species from different alien planets were included. Also a semi-intelligent animal would be included. She was to study the results remotely, and then report. An old cargo ship would be modified and should arrive within a year.

The data files Susan received indicated that the aliens were reptilian. The questions about whether they were warm or cold blooded was not answered, not their intelligence level. Nor the environment they came from.

A suitable star was located and its location transmitted to headquarters. The TY-1298 took up its station in orbit around the star.

After several months the radar operators started reporting intermittent ghost contacts. The navigation section started plotting the ghost contacts and showed the Captain the pattern. They were being observed by an unknown spacecraft. When the pattern showed an optimal chance of evading detection, TY-1298 launched two probes to match orbit with the ghost ship.

The ghost ship turned out to be a probe of unknown origin transmitting to another spacecraft further out in the rubble zone surrounding the star.

When the Captain held his meeting outlining his plan to send a shuttle to intercept the probe, Susan bought up her major concern.

"What if the probe is from a spacecraft that is infected with the microorganism. Whether the spacecraft occupants survived because of a mix of alien species or not, if we make physical contact, the shuttle occupants cannot be allowed to return to this ship! If the unknown spacecraft is from the alien empire, they may be aware of what happened to their other ship. They will not allow any of our crew or equipment to make physical contact for fear of contamination."

"OK, Lieutenant Susan, what do we do to make contact?

"Our probes are detection devices. What we need to do is sent an active probe that has the capabilities to initiate communications with their probe. Depending on their probe, they may also have to send a different type probe for two way communication. We won't know until we try."

"Communication, prepare a 1st Contact package. Engineering, prepare a 1st Contact probe. We'll launch it in several hours. Navigation, program it so it will approach, but it must stand off the other probe to prevent any physical contact."

In the following months, radio contact was established. Lack of physical contact limited the communications. Both spacecraft Captains were paranoid about physical contact. Finally the language contact experts considered the language sufficient to allow the biologist to enter the conversations.

The first request Susan received from them was their genetic code. She sent the code of one of the Thoriate home planet primates, and requested the code of one of their primates. After several exchanges, she felt comfortable with sending them the real code. Setting up a recorder in her lab she recorded taking a sample from a crew-member, running it through the equipment and transmitting it live to the aliens. She was careful to remain out of recording range. They didn't need to know that she was a different species than the main crew of the Thoriate crew. Their biologist duplicated the sample taking sequence, and she started studying their code.

Days later the converted zoological ship arrived. The engineering crew immediately started removing the star drive and in-system drive systems. Only the maneuvering thrusters remained on the zoological ship. Susan and the alien biologist named Ooreth both agreed that a test was needed.

Ooreth admitted that several of their laboratories had to be destroyed because they could not contain the alien pathogen.

Susan then sent him the DNA code she had, and asked him if it was the same as what his people had? When he replied with a positive, she sent him the code from the pathogen she'd built, and the self destruct sequence she'd built in.

He was amazed that she'd dared build the pathogen and more amazed that they'd built a containment system that worked.

After surveying the zoological ship she was shocked that the so-called semi-intelligent animals they'd furnished were actually primates that were using primitive tools, and one pair had even managed to build a fire within it's containment area.

When she pointed out this fact to the Captain, he was also disgusted. He fired off a message to Headquarters.

Their reply was that Exploration Headquarters and the Thoriate Assembly had made that decision because they needed a test that would be definitive. He was ordered to have Lieutenant Susan go ahead and run the test with special attention to the two sets of primates. If she refused, he was to confine her and have one of her assistants continue with the test. They were running a similar series of test using other primates captured along with criminals condemned to death.

After consultation with the alien biologist they finally agreed that the pathogen was a microorganism that could destroy both civilizations. He admitted that his Captain had orders to destroy their spacecraft if there was any contamination. They still had not located the planet that was the home of the microorganism. Their military considered it the weapon of final resort against any enemy.

Susan then pointed out to him that if it was used against an enemy, and the enemy survived, then the enemy as a telepathic unit would be more efficient in waging war.

He replied that he was sending that theory back to his superiors.

What Susan didn't inform him of, was the fact that she'd created a serum that would kill the microorganism.

After recording her protest with the Captain, she started the experiment.

The experiment went as she'd theorized. The primates survived and banded together to control the animals. Her remote intelligence test soon indicated that they'd combined their intelligence level and surpassed projected estimates. Then they took over the zoological ship and attempted to escape.

The Captain wanted to use a missile to destroy the ship, until Susan pointed out the probability that even the ships atmosphere floating in space would probably contaminate any spacecraft or planet it came in contact with.

Susan forwarded the data that showed the test subjects surviving, but not all the intelligence testing results.

The Captain, after consultation with the engineering and and probe sections put together a plan to slow the zoological ship using a modified probe. The thrusters could be used by the experiment to try to regain orbit around the star, but they should not be able to. To everyone's surprise several hours later the thrusters fired accelerating the zoological ships speed toward the star.

Navigation then reported that the zoological ship was attempting on Oberth maneuver by accelerating at its closest approach to the star.

That was countered by using the modified probe again to slow the zoological ship. This had to be repeated twice more before the probe ran out of fuel. The probe section wanted to return the probe to the ship for refueling.

Susan immediately stopped them by asking them if they could guarantee that no contamination had traveled from the ship to the probe when it was in contact with the ship. Another probe was prepared with extra fuel tanks. The amount of fuel was calculated to insure neither the probe or the zoological ship could attain escape velocity. It was then launched.

The alien exploration ship watched their fight to insure the zoological ship entered the star, and when it finally did along with the two probes, they called again. Their question was simple. Why was it so difficult to crash their test ship into the star?

They were shocked when Susan, against the Captains request, informed them that once the experimental subjects became a telepathic unit, they functioned as one to defeat their destruction. She then explained that they had enough different subjects that it was similar to a cross section of a planet. An easy way to safeguard spacecraft was to have a planetary cross section. However, any ship contaminated could never make contact with any location that could be compromised such as a refueling station, supply station, or planet. If anyone ever tried to use this as a weapon, it would result in their destruction.

The best plan should be, if the pathogens home planet was ever located, it and all the planets in its star system should be sterilized and then quarantined.

Their Captain and the Captain of TY-1298 both agreed to furnish their supervisors with the facts demonstrated by the zoological ship experiment, along with the warning. They then traded information about their empires.

Susan then started working on a method of detecting the microorganism without direct contact.

* * *

Chapter 3 Jimmy

Jimmy graduated, got his citizenship, and was assigned to MI-1774 as a law officer. However, he quickly found out that on a military ship, everyone was first a soldier.

His first message to Susan informed her that nothing he'd ever experienced prepared him for this assignment. The troop commander had been among the most decorated in the last military action and was determined that every soldier he commanded would live up to his personal standards. As the only non-Thoriate crew member on the ship, they were having to build him a special set of battle armor. His sergeant informed him that he had six months to get in shape so he could operate it. It was a combination of mechanical levers and hydraulics without power assist. It became second nature to pump up his hydraulics at every opportunity. This design was preferred because it could not be disabled by any battlefield weapon without killing the operator. The breastplate alone could withstand a one inch rail gun projectile without shattering, however usually anything larger than a three-quarter inch rail gun projectile delivered enough shock force to kill the operator.

Jimmy's first six months were, in his opinion, pure hell. The special diet they had him on helped him build muscle mass, the exercises tore it down and compressed it, the space training first in a regular space suit and then in his battle armor kept him exhausted.

After eighteen months, on an actual deployment, his sergeant handed him a new device to attach to his battle armor. The sergeants evil grin was only offset by the fact that it was a self contained motor to keep his hydraulics pumped up to the correct pressure.

The rebels had the advantage, weapons and manpower. As soon as they landed, they came under fire. Jimmy was terrified. It was the first time anyone had tried to kill him. He ducked and took a position against a wall. When it exploded, he was so close that the projectiles didn't have time to gather speed before impacting his suit. It simply threw him a hundred feet, however it warned the others of the lethal booby traps.

He regained consciousness before the battle was over. Having been left behind, he saw a group of rebels moving a heavy weapon behind the solders. Opening fire he managed to kill most of them and break up the attack from the rear. When he reported the rear action, his sergeant told him to secure the weapon and report any other movement.

Removing the weapons power pack, he located the tunnel they'd used. Having no explosives, he set the power pack to self destruct and lobbed it into the tunnel, then took off running for cover. The explosion threw him again. Coming to his knees he could see the line of destruction from the tunnel entrance all the way to the rebels defensive position. The rebels were stunned and now disorganized.

They were quickly eliminated.

After the battle the sergeant berated him in front of the squad for trying to hide behind a wall, then chewed him out for improper use of a weapons power supply, and then slapped him on the back for saving some lives with his quick thinking. As the sergeant stomped away one of his comrades commented, "I don't think the sergeant can make up his mind whether to kiss or kick you."

Back aboard the ship the sergeant was again his miserable, mean, demanding, tyrannical self. He didn't have a good word for any action during the engagement. Everyone grumbled, because he worked them harder than ever, demanding perfect performance during every drill.

Their next major engagement was at the request of a police ship that had half of its officers killed or wounded by a criminal gang.

Three police ships and two other military ships answered the call. No one was surprised when the sergeant told the officers from the other ships to go back to their ships and the sergeants would mop up the mess. The police set up a perimeter around the gang area and the military did a shuttle drop right on their suspected headquarters. Fighting from building to building was something Jimmy had never even thought of.

The police perimeter stopped and held anyone trying to escape.

The sergeant set one ships men as a reaction force and the other two to go back through. Jimmy thought, _This ain't to bad._

Then the sergeant briefed everyone. "All the civilians should be out of the combat zone. Boring charges are being brought down. Each three man team will carry five. You will enter each building and set a charge. Once outside set it off. Your instruments will tell you if there are any underground chambers or tunnels. Any located will be swept by the team after notifying the reserves so they will know where to support you.

"Police intelligence cannot account for all the known gang members. Your job is to kill or capture them. If they resist, don't worry about brining them out alive. Any questions? Good, draw your charges."

The first two buildings Jimmy's team checked collapsed as soon as the charge went off, but no tunnels. The third building partially collapsed, but their instruments indicated two chambers under the subbasement, and a tunnel going off toward the east. As soon as they notified the reserve, they were told to stand fast. Minutes later more soldiers arrived with digging equipment. Within half an hour they'd cleared the rest of the building and blown a hole in the underground chamber. Three teams dropped into the chamber. Jimmy's team headed for the second chamber while the other two teams secured that chamber and the tunnel. Turning the corner into the chamber they spotted several gang members loading weapons. Calling for more backup they eliminated the gang members, and took positions where they could observe the six tunnels leading out.

Two teams immediately returned because they found digging machines within the tunnels. The other four teams followed their tunnels to other tunnels and chambers. Two of them called for help. Jimmy's team went to help one. When they got within a few yards of the tunnels end they could hear the firing. Reporting in they continued into the chamber. It was built up like a small town. The fighting was furious until the gang started receiving fire from the other end where another team of soldiers entered from another tunnel.

Some of the gang members tried to run, and were shot down. Others simply threw out their weapons and surrendered. Three days later the sergeant called everyone together for an ass chewing because he thought they should have completed the operation in two days. The military casualties amounted to two wounded, and one hospitalized when he entered a chamber and the roof collapsed.

Jimmy's main legal paperwork for his first seven years was handling request by crew members for divorces, marriages, wills, etc. No one aboard the ship was courts martialed because the Captain had the habit of simply giving them to the sergeant for punishment, including other ships officers.

Then they were put on alert, because there was another star empire discovered.

Jimmy had never seen the sergeant happy before. And a happy sergeant meant that their training doubled. Not only were they run through all the weapons and tactics they knew, but the sergeant found more somewhere. Then there was also ship training where they all learned the ships weapons and how to fight the ship, plus a new job called damage control.

After five years of torture Jimmy knew that the sergeant would never be happy, until he had a chance to kill something. _And the more dangerous, the happier he was._

Then he was ordered to report to Exploration Headquarters. The Thoriate Empire had been monitoring his home planet. His home planet was swarming its star system, and was building an war fleet. The Empire assembly realized that it was their actions that turned the Arth to war and wanted to know how to defuse the situation.

Jimmy asked them to recall Susan because she was in a better position to influence certain of the Arth leaders than he was. He claimed he would need her help to defuse the war effort.

* * *

Chapter 4 Mission to Arth

Long range sensors and observations gave the Thoriate Empire a good description and capabilities of the Arth ships.

The Exploration ships records were nineteen years out of date, but the space observations helped.

Jimmy and Susan approached the outermost planet in their replica ship, hidden in the hull and other hidden compartments were their modern sensors and weapons. They were challenged at the outermost gas giant planet. One officer boarded their ship and demanded their papers. They didn't have any so they subdued him and got the information directly from his mind. After removing all his recent memories, they sent him back to his ship with orders to make them the required paperwork and return it to them. It almost worked. As soon as he was back aboard his ship, they opened fire. The ballistic rounds bounced off their ships hull armor. When they retreated, Jimmy realized that they would launch missiles, and he activated the star jump engine to retreat.

From outside the system they watched the area where they'd been challenged. When the light arrived they saw themselves jump out, the Arth patrol spacecraft destroyed by a gravity wave, and two nuclear explosions from missiles. They thought, _Well the infiltration plan one didn't work._

Plan two was to contact a patrol craft and initiate communications with someone in a command position, and then the Arth government. They hoped it would work, because plan three involved a full blown invasion, and sequestering the government.

On the other side of the system they found a larger spacecraft. They tagged it with a communication laser until they got a reply. "Arth spacecraft, this is Susan Hudson aboard spacecraft Bluebird. Reply please."

"Unknown spacecraft, this is Arth military, state your business, you are in a restricted zone."

"Arth military spacecraft, as I said I am Susan Hudson. I need to speak to your Captain, or higher ranking military officer."

"Unknown spacecraft, I state again you are in a restricted zone. This is the last warning I'm giving you."

"Hold a minute Susan, I'm going to boost the signal strength and then we'll see if that bonehead will call his Captain." Then Jimmy turned the communications laser from two percent to fifty percent power for a few seconds. "Hey military spacecraft, is your communications still working or do we need to find someone that isn't a bonehead?" .

"Unknown spacecraft, this is the 1st officer of the warship Lincoln. Identify yourself."

"This is Jimmy Ransom aboard spacecraft Bluebird. I need to speak to your highest ranking officer."

"Spacecraft Bluebird, you are in a restricted zone. If you don't exit immediately I'll send a few fighters to escort you to the brig. Am I understood."

"Listen up 1st officer, you should have gotten a report of two nuclear explosions and the loss of a spacecraft on the other side of the system. They launched missiles at us and we defended ourselves. If you send any fighters after us, you'll just be killing them for no good reason. Now get the Captain on the radio. AM I UNDERSTOOD!"

Shortly a different sounding voice called them.

Jimmy answered and asked him if he was the Captain of the warship Lincoln.

When he answered yes, Susan took the radio and said, "Captain, this is Susan Hudson. About twenty years ago an alien exploration spacecraft visited our world. Jimmy and I were mistaken by their specimen collection robots as criminals due to our smell. When we were kidnapped, the Arth military fired upon the exploration spacecraft, and their computer responded by initiating a hyperspace jump from orbit. I don't know what happened after that, but I imagine the collateral damage from the jump engine was immense. Under normal circumstances the jump engine is not activated within ten light minutes of any star or planet. Now, I need you to relay this conversation to higher headquarters. We will wait for a reply from someone that has the authority to negotiate with the government of the Thoriate Star Empire."

"Spacecraft Bluebird, state your mission please."

Susan replied, "Certainly Captain, I am Susan Hudson and accompanying me is Jimmy Ransom. This mission is to make peaceful contact with the Arth government and relay all conversations to the Thoriate Empire assembly. They realize that the previous 1st Contact was a series of mistakes, and desire to straighten the record."

"I see," stated the Captain, "would you like to come aboard my ship?"

"Captain, as much as I'd like to see one of my own kind, I was instructed to not make any close contact because of the differences in pathogens that the different planets have. I've been on over fifty alien planets, and some members of the exploration crews died before we could even identify the microorganism that made them sick. I dare not even breath your air for fear of contamination in both directions. We will wait here."

Several days later they spotted another spacecraft approaching. The radiation bloom from its engines blanketed all the radio and radar frequencies. It slowed to a stop several miles from the Lincoln.

Susan called Jimmy to the cockpit and showed him the record of its arrival.

Jimmy stated, "Damn that's big, and I'll bet it has some heavy firepower. To bad it would be a sitting duck for the sergeant in battle armor with an antimatter missile."

"Alien spacecraft Bluebird, this is Admiral Hawk aboard the warship Patton. State your business with Arth."

Susan replied, "This is Susan Hudson and accompanying me is Jimmy Ransom. We were kidnapped about twenty years ago by robots from the exploration ship. This mission is to make peaceful contact with the Arth government and relay all conversations to the Thoriate Empire assembly. They realize that the previous 1st Contact was a series of mistakes, and desire to straighten the record."

"Well Miss Susan, are you stating that the Thoriate government admits that their ship screwed up."

"Sir, I don't have the rank or authority to make that statement of fact. If they didn't, they probably would have come into your star system when you started building your war fleet and pounded our species back to living in trees."

With disdain in his voice the admiral gruffly stated, "They might have been able to ten years ago, but now it would cost them to much."

With the radio open to transmit, Susan said, "Jimmy, you've trained as a soldier for almost ten years, please tell the admiral how you've been trained to deal with enemy warships."

"Admiral, this is Jimmy Ransom. I was the other child kidnapped. In exchange for a free education all members of the Thoriate Empire are required to serve the government for ten years. I was trained as a lawyer. When I was assigned to a military ship as the law officer, I was then trained as a soldier. To me it was hell for the first two years until I could handle the battle armor. This battle armor is operated by brute strength for all training and simple deployments like boarding pirate ships. It is self-contained like a spacesuit. To attack two warships, I would simply put on my battle armor, propulsion pack, and grab two antimatter missiles. I'd launch them from about twenty miles distance, and hope the secondary explosions and fragments didn't damage my battle armor before I got back to my pickup point. That's the standard operating procedure, but I'm not trained in special operations."

When the Admiral keyed his radio they could hear officers in the background giving orders. "Jimmy Ransom, do you have your battle armor with you on that ship?"

"No Admiral, I don't. We were sent to open communications with the Arth government, not strike a first blow. That's why they sent us, because we are you. We are expendable and our ship is rigged in case we are disabled."

"Mr Ransom, are you allowed to answer questions, such as how their military is set up?"

"Yes sir, they allowed that in the mission briefing. I can only tell you about my experiences. There was a platoon of soldiers on the ship I was assigned to. The platoon sergeant ran everything and his lieutenant only came down when he had orders for us. My sergeant was an unhappy man, unless he was given orders where he had the chance to kill something. One operation that is burned into my memory was against a planetary criminal gang. They killed half the police sent to capture them. Three more police ships and three military ships were sent to break them up. We dropped from orbit on their main headquarters. After wiping out everyone on the surface that didn't surrender, we went through the city again. The second time we planted cratering charges in each building and used instruments to detect underground chambers and tunnels. When they were detected our three man teams went in with orders to kill anyone that resisted. I was lucky, as one of the three military law officers on the planet. After a week I was assigned to be one of the judges of the few that surrendered. Our ship sustained three killed by heavy weapons and one injured when a cavern roof collapsed on him. His armor kept him alive, and he was medically retired to a non-combat assignment."

"Mr Ransom, if it's allowed, what kind of weapons killed your three comrades?"

"Admiral, one was a stolen military plasma cannon. The other two were by rail gun impact."

"What size rail gun rounds?"

"I wasn't privileged to that information, the battle armor chest and backplates will withstand a half inch round without penetration, and dissipate the shock. Larger rounds penetrate or kill by impact shock."

"Jimmy, have you ever been shot with a rail gun?"

"No Sir, I have been blown up a few times by bombs and thrown. Each time I woke up I felt like the time my sergeant decided I wasn't moving fast enough and stomped me hard enough so the other platoon members threatened to report him. He then had everyone suit up and run laps on the outside of the ships hull until he got hungry."

"Jimmy, have you ever fought a military force?"

"If you consider a planet in open rebellion, yes."

The Admiral hesitated and then asked, "What happened?"

Our ship got there after their space force and planetary defenses had been destroyed. We ended up pulling security in space while other units bombarded the surface with asteroids until the atmosphere got so polluted that planet was effectively dead. One expert said it would be resettled in a thousand years or so."

"Well Jimmy, it sounds like your empire has lots of internal problems."

"Not really Admiral, I only saw two major operations in ten years. Between chasing pirates and training I managed to get two more educational degrees free. The only thing good about the ten year requirement for citizenship is that more education is free. If I hadn't been sent on this assignment, in another year I'd have qualified as a field medical technician.

"Admiral, is the civilian government still in charge or did the military takeover."

"Jimmy, for your information, there are two governments on the planet, one built the military, and got us established in space. The other one wants us to isolate ourselves after arming the system to prevent any more attacks. Outside the atmosphere, the military rules. I'll inform my superiors, and the two planetary governments. I'm sending you an identification code. Contact any ship in a month and they will tell you whether the governments will talk to the empire government.

"By the way, we finally located your ship about 6 light seconds out. At least my radar chief thinks that patch of ionized gas is where you are located. Captain turn this ship around and head in-system. Someone will talk to you in a month Jimmy."

* * *

Chapter 5 Options

The month back home was a headache for both of them. The Thoriate Assembly was still arguing about the terms of surrender. There were two main groups, one wanted to invade the Arth system and pound them to dust. The second varied from quarantine to allowing them to join the empire. The assembly finally came to four options.

They had several passengers on the trip back.

Susan was worried by the four options they were to present to the Arth government.

Transmitting the control code, they were answered within minutes. They were instructed to proceed in-system to the vicinity of the fourth planet and rendezvous with the Wasp. Stopping ten miles from the Wasp, Jimmy picked up the radio.

"Wasp, this is Bluebird."

"Wasp to Bluebird, this is Admiral Hawk. Back your spacecraft off to approximately 100 miles distance, I'll wait."

After moving the ship, Jimmy replied. "What next Admiral."

"Bluebird, I have several representatives from the civilian government aboard. They demand a demonstration before making a decision to open negotiations. They are here in the command and control center watching the screens. They don't believe the Thoriate military can destroy our military."

"Admiral, I have a similar problem. We have several passengers aboard. The assembly was split between annihilation of the Arth, to allowing them citizenship. I apologize, what you hear in the background is one of them laughing in amusement. What kind of demonstration is demanded?"

"Jimmy, one suggested a fight between your ship and the Wasp. The others simply want a demonstration of your ships weapons. Personally, I don't want either ship destroyed."

"Well Admiral, arm your personnel with projectile weapons and bring your ship to war status. I'll think it over and let you know my decision by tomorrow." He then pressed the stealth system control button and activated the anti-gravity thrusters to move the ship. Leaving the cloud of ionized gas from the hydrogen thrusters he maneuvered the ship several times until he was solar south of the Wasp. "Susan, keep moving the ship every half hour or so in random directions. I'm going to put my armor on and grab some nonlethal weapons and board the Wasp. I'll signal you when I've succeeded."

Nine hours later Jimmy found an airlock that didn't seem to be guarded. After attaching a box labeled antimatter bomb, he returned to the hatch and opened it. After pressurizing the airlock he entered a dark corridor. Cutting his way through several interior walls he entered another corridor and was immediately attacked by a patrol. Tossing a flash bang grenade he immobilized them. Moving at combat speed he traversed several more levels before detecting more defenders setup in an intersection. Noting the location of the interior power runs he then proceeded to cut through interior compartment walls until he stumbled upon an armory full of soldiers. A flash bang immobilized almost all of them, and the remainder he stunned with his blaster.

Picking up one of the soldiers mobile computers he located the command and control center. It was two compartments forward. One was listed as a barracks and the other as a communications center. Pulling another flash bang he punched a hole and tossed it in. Following it with his blaster set on stun he traversed the barracks and cut a hole in the corridor wall. Tossing a flash bangs in both directions he entered the corridor and ran up to the command and control door.

Pulling his cutter, he cut around the armored door and pulled it into the corridor. Stepping through the hole as he held another flash bang above his head and demanded. "Where is Admiral Hawk and by the way, raise your hands so I don't have to drop this."

The military officers present froze. Several individuals in civilian clothing turned and demanded to know who he was, and why he broke in.

Calmly Jimmy replied, "I am Jimmy Ransom, now where is Admiral Hawk?" As some bullets started impacting the back of his armor, he tossed the flash bang over his shoulder into the corridor. Turning he stepped out and disarmed the soldiers and then told them to go get Admiral Hawk.

Stepping back into the command and control center he faced a dozen officers with weapons pointed at him. "Gentlemen, if you fire those weapons in this enclosed space, the ricochets will probably kill several of you. Now put them away and get Admiral Hawk down here. He's waiting for an answer to the last question he asked me." Then Jimmy stepped aside so his back wasn't to the opening into the corridor.

A few minutes later a tough looking sergeant stepped through the hole and faced Jimmy. "You are under arrest for destruction of government property."

"Sorry sergeant, but I have diplomatic immunity. Ask Admiral Hawk. He invited me over from the Bluebird."

"That's crap, the Admiral would never invite an enemy combative into his warship."

Jimmy reached into a pouch on his armor and pulled another flash bang and handed it to the sergeant. "Hold this sergeant. When your hand gets tired and you release it, it will prove to the Admiral that I was here. I'll just head back to the Bluebird and call him on the radio."

"MR RANSOM, take back your toy and grab a seat, I'll be down in a few minutes. What shall I tell the explosive team about that box on the hull labeled antimatter bomb?"

"Admiral, tell them to get a can opener and use. It's a food container from the Bluebird mess."

"Sergeant, clear the corridor and inform your security team that Mr Jimmy Ransom was asked to provide a demonstration, and he did. Also get repair teams on the ship damage."

"Yes Sir Admiral!" Then the sergeant turned to Jimmy and stated, one day you and I will get to tangle."

Jimmy replied, "Sergeant you scare me, I think I'll let my sergeant take care of the heavy lifting."

The sergeant grinned and stated over his shoulder on the way out. "Glad to hear that there are a few good sergeants on your side. I love a good fight."

Everyone snapped to attention as the Admiral walked in. "Jimmy, you're about an hour early. And where in the hell did your ship disappear to?"

"Sorry about being early Admiral. Susan is probably getting dizzy moving the ship around only using the thrusters."

Over the command radio everyone heard, "I'm not dizzy. Admiral, tell your team that if they press the A on the box, the lid will pop open, and I want my cooler magnets back so don't loose them. Are your people ready to record the options that the Thoriate Assembly sent. I can transmit them anytime."

The Admiral turned to the three men in civilian clothing and asked, "Inform your governments that the military will put up a decent fight if ordered to, however I don't expect us to win. This soldier left his spacecraft about a hundred miles out, entered this warship, and forced his way from the hull to here. Shipboard security reports over a hundred men incapacitated, and damage on fourteen decks. It looks like he only has a few scratches on his battle armor. Ask if we really want a war we can't win?"

An ensign handed the Admiral a hard copy and he just whistled. Reading it he mumbled, "Your assembly looks about as screwed up as ours.

M M M

Options to Arth government:

Option 1:

  * War

  * The Thoriate Empire will attack at its leisure and destroy the Arth military.

  * Then the Thoriate Military will either subdue the Arth home planet, or render it unable to sustain any lifeforms above microorganisms.

  * Any surviving Arth citizens will either be executed or rendered incapable of resistance. A breeding population will be maintained and offspring educated in the Thoriate system as future citizens.

Option 2:

  * Unilateral Surrender

  * Thoriate Empire will be allowed to establish one Embassy on Arth home world. This Embassy will be Thoriate Empire property and must contain a small spaceport. The land location may be selected by Arth government and will be a minimum of 50 miles on each of its four sides. This is to ensure that Embassy personnel can travel in and out of Embassy without interference of Arth government.

  * Any citizen of Arth desiring to emigrate to Thoriate Empire will apply at Thoriate Embassy. Immigrants will not be allowed to return or communicate with any person or agency within the Arth system.

  * The Arth star system will be quarantined, the border will be one hour light from their star. Any Arth spacecraft or materials beyond that limit will be destroyed.

Option 3:

  * Unilateral Surrender

  * Thoriate Empire will be allowed to establish one Embassy on Arth home world. This Embassy will be Thoriate Empire property and must contain a small spaceport. The land location may be selected by Arth government and will be a minimum of 50 miles on each of its four sides. This is to ensure that Embassy personnel can travel in and out of Embassy without interference of Arth government.

  * Any citizen of Arth systems desiring to emigrate to Thoriate Empire will apply at Thoriate Embassy. Immigrants will not be allowed to return or communicate with any person or agency within the Arth system.

  * The Arth star system will be quarantined, the border will be one hour light from their star. Any Arth spacecraft or materials beyond that limit will be destroyed. . The exception is a 45 degree wedge starting at the Arth home star. The direction of this wedge will be away from the Thoriate Empire, and its exact border to be determined by diplomats. This wedge from the Arth home star will be open for Arth civilian government use as colonies, mining, etc.

  * Within this wedge the Arth government is recommended to establish military pickets and bases to prevent incursion by pirates and other undesirables.

  * If any intelligent lifeforms are discovered within this wedge, the Arth government will report their star location to the Thoriate government before making any contact. No intelligent life forms will be directly contacted. As the Arth and Thoriate governments have discovered, contact with a less developed society is fraught with dangers and misunderstanding. The Thoriate government is determined to prevent any repetition of the misunderstanding and damage caused by its or any other exploration spacecraft.

Option 4:

  * Unilateral Surrender

  * Thoriate Empire will be allowed to establish one Embassy on Arth home world. This Embassy will be Thoriate Empire property and must contain a small spaceport. The land location may be selected by Arth government and will be a minimum of 50 miles on each of its four sides. This is to ensure that Embassy personnel can travel in and out of Embassy without interference of Arth government.

  * Any citizen of Arth systems desiring to emigrate to Thoriate Empire will apply at Thoriate Embassy. Immigrants will not be allowed to return or communicate with any person or agency within the Arth system.

  * The Arth star system will be quarantined, the border will be one hour light from their star. Any Arth spacecraft or materials beyond that limit will be destroyed.

  * The Arth government will establish and Embassy on the Thoriate home world. Transportation will be furnished by the Thoriate military. Construction of Embassy will be by Thoriate engineers, however the Arth government will design and supervise construction. A land location will be cleared by the Thoriate government consisting or a rectangle of 50 miles per side with room left for a small spaceport.

  * The Arth government will start integrating its civilian government functions into the Thoriate civilian government. This will include education, and the Thoriate 10 year service requirement.

  * The Arth government will draw up plans to integrate the Arth military into the Thoriate military. The Thoriate military will take command and assign rank structure to the Arth military personnel. All Arth military spacecraft will be upgraded and maintained by the Thoriate military until Arth personnel can be trained and certified. All Arth military personnel, spacecraft, and bases will come under authority and command of Thoriate military personnel. Arth military personnel requesting release from their military duty contracts should be released as soon as possible. Any Arth military equipment, spacecraft, or bases not turned over will be destroyed. This should be accomplished within five years. The Arth Fleet Admiral will supervise and certify compliance.

  * The Arth government will pay to the Thoriate government a tax of one percent the gross star systems product yearly until it dissolves its functions and merges with the Thoriate Assembly. The timetable for accomplishing this is estimated to be 7 years. At that time all citizens of the Arth star system will become citizens of Thoriate Empire upon completing educational and citizenship requirements. Arth citizens over the age of twenty years, as of this date, will be exempted the citizenship service requirements upon swearing an oath of allegiance to the Thoriate Empire. The quarantine will end.

M M M

"Personally, I like prefer option 4. Ensign, give each representative a copy only after they've send their initial message back to their government. Tell security that I'll be accompanying this young soldier to the officers mess for coffee, and insure we're not disturbed."

"Yes Sir!"

In the officers mess, the Admiral sat down and asked, "Can you take your helmet off, or would that risk contamination."

"Sorry Sir, Susan warned me that either of us may be carriers of pathogens that may be fatal to the other."

Flipping a screen around on the table, the Admiral stated, "Fleet Admiral, before you stands one of the two children kidnapped from the planet about twenty years ago. You've seen the recordings and the damage from his entry. What do you think?"

"Hawk, you know I can't comment on that until the governments make their wishes known. I'll broadcast fleet wide that the spacecraft Bluebird and its occupants have my protection plus their diplomatic immunity until the civilian government makes a decision."

Jimmy snapped to attention and said, "Thank you, SIR!"

There was a knock on the hatch. "Enter" said the Admiral.

The sergeant stood in the hatch and held out his hand. "This is what they found in the Antimatter bomb box. There's an airhead aboard that ship Sir."

With a laugh the Admiral stated, "Those must belong to the young woman I talked to. Give them to Mr Ransom. She sounded irritated that he took them. Any analysis on the box?"

"Yes Sir, it was a tin box, similar to the ones we pack cereal in. They isolated a few crumbs inside, and are analyzing them now in the class 4 containment lab."

* * *

Chapter 6 A Hand Shake

A year later between the orbits of the third and fourth planets.

"Wasp, this is Bluebird."

"Bluebird, welcome back. All the samples turned up no pathogens that would cause any problems for us."

"Same here Wasp, Is the Admiral going to be present at the official signing ceremony."

"He said he wouldn't miss it for the world. His security sergeant will also attend, because he wants to tangle with Jimmy."

"Well let him know that Jimmy got promoted, and is bringing his sergeant too. We'll be over in an hour with the Assembly members for the formal paperwork signing."

As soon as the hanger deck was pressurized, the Admiral, his sergeant, and the government representatives walked out and took their seats.

Jimmy and his sergeant in full battle armor led their precession out to the table set up with the ornate hard copy.

Everyone looked good in their finest uniforms and fancy clothing. The news media recorded everything and transmitted it to both the Empire and throughout Arth system. After the signing was completed, Fleet Admiral Nelson stood and gave his welcome speech, and drew his ceremonial sword. Cradling it in both hands he approached Susan and stated, "My pride prohibits me surrendering my command to a military officer that hasn't defeated me. However, it does not prevent me from surrendering to a beautiful young woman."

Susan stood and flipped the ornate hood to her robe back. Raising both hands she fluffed her feathered crest. Holding out both hands she accepted the sword and asked, "Fleet Admiral Nelson, would you object if I pass this symbol of Arth's military might to a mere sergeant of the Thoriate Empire. After all he is my favorite soldier, and our situation was the catalyst that built your military organization."

With a nod Nelson stated, "My Lady. As you desire."

Susan turned and said, "Sergeants."

Jimmy and his first sergeant both removed their battle armor helmets. The first sergeant ran his fingers through his short hair as Jimmy straightened his feathered crest. "As a citizen in the Thoriate Empire, a member of the Thoriate Military, and now a military advisor from the Thoriate Empire, I accept this symbol of the Arth Military. After combining the Thoriate and Arth military into one, we shall find no adversary we cannot overcome. Thank you Susan, Fleet Admiral, this is an honor I shall always cherish."

The Admiral's sergeant stepped up to Jimmy's sergeant and stated, "You trained this boy good. You should be proud of him. He deflected a challenge from me by saying you handled all the heavy lifting. After we get done with this, you are invited to the Sergeant's mess as my guest. Bring the boy so we can teach him how to do some heavy lifting."

Jimmy's sergeant pulled off his armored gauntlet and held out his hand.

After a moments hesitation, the Admiral's sergeant grasp it. A member from each military shook hands for the first time.

# (BToC) #

### Fairie

### Double First Contact

By Stephen Brandon

~ ~ ~
Fairie

Double First contact

~ ~ ~

Table of Contents

Prehistory

Liang

Tug

Axial

A New Radio

Detected

Hawk

Aboard the Diamond

First meeting

The Outer Moon

The Captains Meeting

~ ~ ~

Prehistory

Before man began farming to live, hunters disappeared in the forest, men that domesticated animals found their goats eaten, and other mysterious events presented themselves. Magic was rampant in the world when mankind was in its youth.

Practitioners of magic realized, magic was loosing its power as humans multiplied. They used their magic to manipulate portals to other worlds. Those that left, realized to late, that their magic was tied to their planet of birth.

Some had stayed, and most died as their magic weakened. A few villages remained out in unexplored areas hidden by the little magic remaining. The mysteries of the dark and unknown slowly disappeared along with proof of its existence. Only myths remained.

~ ~ ~

Liang

Liang was only eleven, but his skills rivaled those of an adult hunter. As a minor he couldn't be punished severely for his shenanigans, but his father still brought the strap out when he broke to many rules.

He'd discovered that the puff balls growing on the reeds in the swamp, when soaked in goats milk made everyone sneeze. He'd just finished collecting another two dozen and preparing them. His only problem was how he was going to avoid the teams of striplings and adults that were combing the Forrest and swamp. Moving out of the other side of the swamp to the meadows would expose him.

Watching the rushes move in the breeze gave him an idea. Taking one of his prepared puffball reeds he slapped it against a tree. Three tries and all the puffs were airborne. Then he moved closer to the Forrest and started slapping the second against another tree. In the distance he could hear the sneezes of the hunters.

Slipping quickly into the edge of the Forrest he ran. Suddenly he saw a rail fence and jumped. In a panic he remembered this was an off limits area. Glancing around he realized the Forrest was gone and metal walls surrounded him.

"Well well well Liang, you've finally done it. Your mother will cry tonight, and probably for many days. Your brothers and sister will be told the Trolls got you."

"Where am I?"

"You are in an off limits area. I've sent a signal to your father, and the Captain."

"Where are you?"

"Ho ho ho, I'll not fall for your chemical weapons. Just sit down and relax. You are dead to the world above. However, now you will have to grow up fast. No more games, and no running wild in the Forrest and swamp."

Sitting on the cold metal for several hours made Liang sad, because knew it was past dinner time. Suddenly one part of the metal wall moved.

In walked his father followed by an elder with white hair. His father snatched the bow and quiver from his shoulder. "Son, you've chosen your path. The Captain was going to give you another few years, but you entered on your own. Now you belong to him. Good bye."

Turning his father walked out.

"Liang, you've entered a forbidden area of the ship. There is no returning to the carefree youth you've enjoyed. Henceforth, your actions can save or kill others. Follow me."

Entering a large room with dozens of people, Liang froze.

The Captain banged on a table and announced, "Liang here is our latest recruit. He entered through the Forrest air port. Lucky for him, Wiggs managed to close the fan ports, otherwise some of you'd be working overtime cleaning and repairing them.

"Trig, get him through the chow line and show him around. He'll be bunking with you until we get another room open tomorrow.

"Liang, don't wander. There are many places down here that will kill you."

"Liang, my name is Trig. Follow me and lets get some food."

It actually took two days to clean the empty bunk room, and move in.

He was assigned to training class, and was the youngest. He only recognized one boy from the village. The other five were from villages he had never visited.

In the second week of class, when the instructor was covering environment, one of the boys asked a question. The instructor didn't reply, he just told them to follow him.

Several corridors later he opened a door and they saw giant fans. This he explained moved the air around the ship, and through the environmental systems. Then they followed him several miles to another room. He warned them that this room could kill them if they touched anything.

As they entered, they all crowded together. The room was very large and huge pieces of metal sat around on the floor and walls. The instructor told them that they were spaceships as he led them to a smaller room and closed the door. Then he spun a wheel mounted on the door. Flipping a switch on the wall, he told them to turn around and look out the window in the opposite wall.

All the boys commented that it was so black outside, yet there were millions of points of light. Then Liang noticed a small stream of something by one corner outside the window, and asked the instructor what it was.

With only a glance, the instructor told them to open the door and get out of the room.

Two of the boys jumped to the door. After turning the wheel, they couldn't push it open. The instructor joined them and they managed. As soon as everyone was out of the room the instructor spun the wheel on the door and then pushed the button on the box by the door. "Attention all personnel. Broken seal on view port, level 12, room 95. I have sealed the room, and am evacuating my class from the hanger."

Back in the classroom the instructor informed everyone that Liang may have saved their lives with his question. He then explained that on the other side of the window was open space. There was no air to breath in space. The reason it was so hard to open the door was the pressure difference between the room and the hanger. The hanger was the large room with the spaceships in it. Each small room they'd traveled through, that had two or more doors with wheels on them, were called airlocks. The doors with the wheels on them were airlock doors designed to be kept closed, otherwise the air in the ship could leak out, and everyone would die. Tomorrow he would show them a diagram of the ship.

When the alarms started, he told them to go to the mess, grab an early meal, and then go to their rooms and study.

Years later he was sent to different village to find a wife. She always complained when he vanished for days on end. Their first son was named Liang Jr. As he grew, his mother realized that he was just like his father, disappearing into the Forest for days on end.

~ ~ ~

Tug

As each student looked through the telescope, they wondered how the mountains floated in the black sky. Their instructor told them that they were millions of leagues away. Turning the telescope towards their greenish moon, he told them about the riches found by the first crew to walk its surface.

~ ~ ~

Jong double checked his work suit. Looking over his crew he remembered what his great grandfather had told him. " _Using the mountains in space will allow us to find our past._ " He'd always wondered exactly what he meant, but now his crew had one more task to accomplish before the families would be brought up.

Ten power generators, each five time the size of his uncle's ship, still could not move the colony ship much faster than light. His children would see the new planet that the second exploration ship found.

The first ship back, had startled the government. The secrets it found were still not talked about. However the outer levels of the colony ship had been redesigned with more layers of shields and weapons. As chief engineer, he'd seen the design changes, but given no explanation.

His first wife's children had split, most joined the military and just two the engineers.

Ferg, was the last child was born of his second wife. With his curiosity and mechanical skills he'd quickly become bored in engineering. He'd then joined the scientist on the command crew.

As the last survivor of the original crew his request had finally been answered. Ferg wheeled Jong into the Captains office. "Jong, you've served the ship well. We are only a few years from the new planet. I'll tell you the secret, because the others will be told within the year. The first exploration ship found another planet with intelligent life on it. That's what caused the redesigned and acceleration of the ships construction. The explorers thought, but weren't sure, that the people they found were the ones our ancestors fled. If you remember the legends, they said we used to be able to special things that we can't do now. The new planet is where the archaeologist figure the others will stop first. We are to make first contact."

"Captain, what if they are not friendly?"

"That's why more colony ships were planned. We are the first line of defense."

"Is that why the clans were split and told they were assigned to different ships?"

"Yes"

Turning Jong said, "Son, I've never told you, but you've always been my favorite. Do your best to protect the family. My great grandfather always said to us that ' _Using the mountains in space will allow us to find our past._ ' Now I understand something else he told be on his deathbed. One of the devices he built received wavelengths above our communications wavelengths, and picked up other strange signals. He said that it almost sounded like people talking. A copy of the design is in my papers. Build it. The other plans there are for some of the other things he build. Check them out."

"Yes father."

"Captain, there are also recordings. My son will give them to you. Have some of your people try to figure out the language. These kids are much smarter than I am."

"Yes Senior Chief Engineer. It will be done. Thank you for your service!

"Ferg, bring all the papers to me in the morning. You will oversee the project."

"Yes Captain.

"Father, are you ready to go home?"

"Yes son, but I want you to include your brother Tug, from my first wife. He knows a few of my secrets that you don't. He has also been hiding secrets from me for decades."

~ ~ ~

Axial

"Captain, the engine field is flaring again."

"Has Axial been able to get into the engine room yet?"

"No Sir, he's halfway to the rear airlock."

"Shit, I hope he can blow the pressure seal. If we don't reduce the pressure soon, the hull will rupture."

"Captain, I just hope that when he blows the hole in the hull it doesn't open up like a zipper. Anderson just reported that there is coolant leaking around the inside engine room hatch seal."

"Attention all personnel, Hazmat 4 conditions. Suit up. In two minutes I'm flushing the atmosphere and opening all airlocks.

"Captain Allen, it's been a pleasure working for you."

"Vent the cargo hold and open it's airlock."

"Corridor clear, hold vented, opening outside and inside airlocks. Sir the corridor cameras show the engineering section hatch bulging."

Axial heard the announcements over his suit radio. When the hatch to engineering blew he figured he'd feel something. As the coolant blew out the the cargo hatch he realized he'd been thrown off the ship. His helmet display blanked as the ship accelerated away from him. He thought, " _Well Sergeant Axial Keeper, there's one record unlikely to be broken soon. Abandoned in interstellar space!_ " He watched as the ship turned into a fireball brighter than any star around."

He didn't feel the shock wave hit him.

~ ~ ~

A New Radio

Liang felt the floor shift slightly as he stood in line in the mess. Looking at the water glasses, he saw ripples crossing their surface. Putting all he'd learned together he realized that one of the powerful engines that propelled their world must be broken.

In horror he watched the doors to the mess slide out of the ceiling and start to close.

One of the cooks dropped a pot and yelled, "Pull those chairs out of the doorway!"

Liang and one other boy jumped and grabbed the chairs.

Engine room two to Bridge.

Go ahead two.

The power buss is completely melted. Throttle down remaining engines and make sure we don't start to tumble. Don't cut them off. If you do we'll loose gravity.

Wiggs looked around and instantly realized the design error. The power buss was in the engine room. Gold and silver coated everything except behind where the crew had stood. The crews shadows were on the walls and floor.

Something had pulsed and immense amount of power into the room. His pocket radio started wailing. Pressing the receive button he heard. 'Brace for impact, shock-wave and debris. Something blew up behind us. Closing all pressure doors.'

Wiggs watched as doors slowly dropped from the ceiling at every corridor entrance. He heard another announcement telling the shuttle crews to prepare to launch and check for outside damage.

His crew was still scraping and peeling the electrum off the equipment when he heard another announcement. 'Shuttle 19 to bridge.'

'Go ahead 19.'

'We have located an alien in a pressure suit. We brought it aboard. It is unconscious, but alive.'

'We'll notify medical to set up quarantine. Transmit all data, especially atmospheric requirements.'

'Bridge, we'll need to go into quarantine also. We tore its suit brining it in. It shows no distress breathing shuttle atmosphere.'

'19, I'll notify the Captain and medical. Secure the alien so it cannot damage itself or the crew, and continue survey mission.'

'Understood bridge, will comply.'

As Axial regained consciousness he heard people talking. Their language was strange. As he cracked his eyelid, he realized they were strange, and he could feel the ship changing directions. He knew he wasn't aboard the Eagle. They had to be aliens. As he gasp one turned and rushed over to him placing its hand on his forehead.

Looking up he knew it wasn't an it. It looked similar to a woman, chest and all. She started saying something he didn't understand. Her voice sounded like she was singing.

A lower voice answered her and then the familiar sound of a keyed radio with another voice. At least she wasn't gray with big black eyes like the old UFO stories. He relaxed and took a deep breath. The smell in the cabin reminded him of a pine forest.

She removed her hand and started putting a strap across his forehead. Twisting his head, he realized she was wagging her finger from side to side like his mother used to do when she meant no. As he quit struggling, she fastened the strap and smiled. She had flat teeth under that beautiful smile. As she turned, he saw what he thought were wings under her suit. _Damn, I've been rescued by angels._

Axial was treated kindly and stumbled over their language for years.

He hid his combat skills, but used his engineering education to win a place in the crew. Once he started working in one of the engine rooms, he could see lower frequency problems before the monitoring equipment alerted the other engineers. He even rebuilt one of their radio's to receive the human frequencies. Many times the Captain questioned him about his world. As they approached their destination the Captain had him on the bridge more often.

Entering their destination star system he saw for the first time another planet that looked similar to Earth. The only problem was that navigation reported a rouge asteroid headed on an intercept course for the planet.

~ ~ ~

Detected

Captain, navigation reports detecting another drive field.

"What?"

"Sir, on the other side of the system. It's as strong as ours."

"Captain, I'm picking up ultra high frequency radar. We've been detected."

Pressing a button on his console, the Captain alerted the rest of his ship, and ordered the military detachment to weapons positions. "What kind of ship is it?" he asked the navigator.

"Sir, I notified the star watchers. They replied that the only thing in that sector is an asteroid headed in system.

"Sir, it is changing course and decelerating."

"Git Signals up here on the double." yelled the Captain.

"Sir I'm here. Give me a minute to check all frequencies."

"Captain, nothing being transmitted from the target location, but I'm picking up weak signals from the planet."

~ ~ ~

Hawk

"Captain Norris, Sir, long range scans indicates two asteroids on impact trajectory with the planet. The strange thing is that they are approaching from different directions."

"OK, Ensign. Keep an eye on them and let me know when they're two hours out so we can get everyone back aboard safely."

"Captain, I've got some disturbing news." stated Johnson. "One asteroid changed direction by five degrees, and the other is decelerating."

"Running Deer, notify everyone that's on the planet to get back up here ASAP. Then tell the marine OIC I want him on the bridge now."

"Yes Sir."

Minutes later Lt Fredericks and Sergeant Killjoy reported to the Captain.

"Bill, I think we have a big problem."

"In what way Sir?"

"Sergeant Killjoy, you need to pay attention also. Bill, radar located two asteroids entering the system from different directions. Both have maneuvered under their own power. Engineering reported that they were picking up gravitational waves indicating engines similar to ours, only much more powerful."

The Lieutenant scratched his head, then turned to Sergeant Killjoy, "Alice, check status on all weapons. As soon as your team is back aboard, I want ten torpedoes launched ballistic into high orbit. Also launch two probes toward the asteroids, passive mode."

Just then Ensign Thurman yelled Captain.

"What do you need Ears?"

"Sir, both asteroids are transmitting, but at opposite ends of the radio spectrum."

"What are you saying Ears?"

"What I'm saying Sir, is that they have incompatible transmitters. Plus the fact that one has a guttural language, and the other almost sounds like singing. I think we got two different kinds of aliens Sir."

"Ears, send them both the first contact communications package you have, then retransmit their inquires on the frequencies they transmitted on.

"Lt, can your probes receive on one frequency and transmit on another like a relay?"

"Yes Captain. Killjoy, get those probes programed and launched. If either of them are aggressive, then we'll help the other."

"Hold on Lieutenant, if they start fighting, we'll just slip out of the system and report back. From the size of those spacecraft we're out gunned. Our first responsibility is to insure headquarters knows about them."

"Captain, both ship have changed course again. Both are headed here. ETA, about three hours."

"OK Bill, keep monitoring them. Ensign Phillips, contact all ground teams and inform them of the situation. Tell them I want them aboard as soon as they can lift off, with or without their equipment."

"Yes Captain. Huh, I'm picking up another transmission on the spacesuit band, it's in English."

"Put it on the overhead Phillips."

'Attention Earth ship. This is sergeant Axial Keeper of the exploration ship Eagle. Over.'

"Acknowledge him Phillips."

'Earth ship, I was lost when the Eagle had an accident. I was rescued by the faerie generation ship Fern. We will be in orbit around the second planet in less than three hours.'

"Sergeant Keeper, this is Captain Norris of the Earth exploration ship Hawk. Have the Captain of your ship put it in a orbit at this planets outermost moon. Ask the Captain if he has any idea who is aboard the other asteroid ship. Over"

'No Sir, no one here recognizes the language. The first we heard of it was when you retransmitted it on our frequency.

'Sir, Captain Tree wants to talk to you as soon as they figure out the contact program. His communications people are working on it.'

"Sergeant Keeper, I'll have my people send over the computer translation program. You can run through it with them and match up the pictures with the words from their language and then; hell you should be familiar with it. Handle it Sergeant. Out.

"Ears, send them the basic primer."

"Will do Captain."

To himself the Captain thought, _Now what the hell do I do with the other ship, and who the hell are they? I hope they are reasonable creatures. Their language didn't even sound like something a human throat could reproduce._ "Lieutenant Fredericks, what is the defense status of the ship?"

"Captain, half my personnel are back aboard and manning weapon stations. Sergent Killjoy has detected scanning attempts from both alien ships, but no weapons locks yet. She is handling the scanning. She also has the weapons locks computer setup using the scans so she can immediately lock on."

~

_Damn it, I need something to get my mind off the possibility of a fight._ "Ears, get over here with the contact primer. I want you to explain it to me like I was an alien."

"OK Captain, let me grab a portable and load it. As you can see, it is loading a parallel or virtual operating system. From here it is automatic. See the first screen, it has one geometric shape, a circle. Notice how the number 1 is drawn in below it, then a blank line with blinking empty square. That is the best prompt for requesting them to enter their numeral 1."

"Suppose I enter the old roman numerals."

"As you can see, it accepted it and now you have two circles on the screen, the number 2, and a blinking empty square on the line. Continue.

"OK, we've got to nine, now watch what happens. The programmers figured that aliens might have more than ten digits and use a different base. Enter your nine.

"Notice how we now have ten blocks across the top of the screen with two hands drawn with the number of digits extended under each numbered block. Watch block number 10. See how it is fading out and two hands are appearing with no digits extended, and an empty box to the left. Watch the zero drawn in with a diagonal slash through it. As soon as an entry is made by them the box on the right with a 10 will appear."

"That's weird, Ears."

"Now watch below the hands." Several hands appeared, some with four digits, some with six, seven, or eight. "Now Captain, the program waits until they identify which number of digits their hands have. That is the best way to determine what base they use to count by."

"What it they indicate that they have seven or eight fingers, huh, I mean digits on each hand."

"The numskulls that wrote the program originally went and use the alphabet to add numbers up to sixteen, then someone with half a brain designed single character numbers from nine to 15. Select the hands with five digits." That will set up the base 10 number system."

Immediately the other hands disappeared and now there are ten more boxes with 11 to 20 circles and numbers in our script and also theirs.

"Ears, what happens if they screwed up and didn't enter the correct number base?"

"Captain, the next section that'll come up in a minute is an addition test. If any character not previously entered is entered, then it gives one more problem and goes back to the number blocks from 0 to 10, and adds several extra blocks for them to enter characters up to 16. If that doesn't work, then the program goes into binary using an open switch and a closed switch to go through the number system again. If it gets good replies, then after getting to binary 16, it puts both the base 16 and binary up on the screen beside each other for them to compare. The brain kids figured that if they have more than eight fingers per hand and use anything bigger than base 16 for their numerical system, their brains are wired differently than ours are. In that case, establishing communication will be a problem."

"OK, assume they work on a base 16 or less numerical system. What's next?"

"From there, a simple program to give them our names for elements from hydrogen to potassium. It also has places for them to enter their names for the elements. Then a stick figure is drawn, and a spacesuit drawn around the figure, then the figure exits their their spacecraft and pictures of hooking the computer up to an antenna with waves going away from it to another spacecraft. If that works then the other spacecraft is shown broadcasting a signal to the antenna and computer. We have almost a hundred modules, and some are in color. Those color modules attempt to read the screen of computers and adjust the color frequencies to match. However, modules twenty through fifty are the most critical."

"Why?"

"Captain, starting with module 20, actual pictures of Earth animals and plants are displayed. Any of those pictures may instigate a fight or flight reflex in the aliens. That's why we are heavily armed. One group has the theory that aliens are predators like ourselves. If so, they reason that merely seeing a picture of an actual alien, from their viewpoint, will cause them to immediately attack. That is also why actual physical contact, if possible, will be made first by Sergeant Andrews. He is a special forces expert, and has been programed to make no aggressive moves, only to defend himself. There is in a special instruction file attached to every module after module 19. At least on one of those alien spacecraft, we know that they aren't extreme xenophobes, because that sergeant from the Eagle is still alive. Sorry about having to keep that secret from you Captain."

"Now I'm worried. What other compartmentalized information is on this mission that I wasn't briefed on? I'm afraid to even ask."

"I wouldn't worry to much Captain. There is a whole section of briefings in the computer that you will see as situations develop. You need to go and see the 1st contact protocols now before they manage to decipher module 1. It will automatically trigger the first briefing. You, the XO, or Fredericks will have to sign off before any other modules or steps can be taken. Only the fact that that sergeant from the Eagle is on that spacecraft allowed me to sent it the first module."

Ensign Phillips interrupted Ears and stated, "Captain, you didn't specify sending it only to the ship Sergeant Keeper was on. It went to both ships because of the probes repeaters."

~ ~ ~

Aboard the Diamond

"Captain!"

"What is it Signals?"

"The ship at the planet is transmitting a large amount of data to the other ship. I'm picking up their transmission on our frequencies and in the frequencies we use for radar."

"Isolate that file and check it for anything harmful."

"Yes Sir."

~

"Sir, the file seems to be some kind of operating system and a data file with multiple links to subfiles."

"Signals, put it on a shielded isolated computer and see what it is."

~

Captain, it wrote a new operating system on the computer. Then it started putting pictures up requiring a reply before going to the next. I ran through a dozen screens and it appears to be a learning program for mathematics. It is written to ascertain the numerical base we use and compare it to theirs. It started with a base 10 system. I first used a base eight for ours to test it. Then I made a mistake it reset, so I used a base 12. When it caught a base 12 mistake, it reset again so I came to report to you."

"So exactly what are you saying."

"Sir, I think we should give the scientist a chance at the program. Maybe they can learn to communicate with these aliens. If they are friendly, maybe they can become allies."

"Call Digger up here, he'll know who to assign. Brief them on what you've found."

"Yes Sir."

~

Digger walked up to the Captain and said, "Sir, my team has gone through the program to the end. It is now indicating that it needs to be connected to an antenna to transmit data back to its origin. It also indicates that more data will be received. The program indicated that an isolated outside antenna could be used. Shall I arrange it, or hold it?"

"Let me think on this. In the meantime get all the scientist departments together, including the military. Notify me when you have contingency plans. I will attend and make a decision."

~

The Captain stood up and addressed the assembled scientist and military, "Alright, I can see that you started with our original mission and developed four scenarios from there. The only item I believe you missed is if the aliens start fighting amongst themselves or have a major break. Feed that possibility into the scenarios.

"Scientist Digger, have your team design an efficient antenna and run a shielded line to it from the computer the alien program is on. I know that you all are aware of the maneuvering we had to do to finally convince the aliens that we were peaceful. They wouldn't let us take a higher orbit. All three ships are now in equal-distant orbits around the planet forming a triangle high enough in orbit so each can see the other two. The other two alien spacecraft have been in communication with each other putting us at a disadvantage. Digger, I want your team to run through the learning programs as quickly as possible and develop a full profile of each alien species. I also want the group to pick a volunteer to make physical contact as soon as we have a working communications program."

"Yes Sir, we'll get both task completed quickly."

~ ~

"Captain Tron, Digger just reported that they've completed nineteen of the alien training modules on the computer. The last module contained what appeared to be an audio testing program to determine our hearing range. Our instruments detected frequencies above and below our normal hearing range. It is now in an audio phase repeating the numbers and what appear to be words from the previous eighteen modules. Our volunteer is an engineer that moved to the scientist command group by the name of Ferg. He is the youngest son of the last chief engineer.

"He also discovered that there is a section of module nineteen that allows us to reply to each word, thereby letting the aliens learn our language. That wasn't expected.

"We found a linguist and he is now building a vocabulary dictionary. The linguist claims that this can only be a basic foundation to communications, because there are many parts of communicating a thought cannot communicate without some common background. He theorizes that the next module will contain a more complex language structure."

"I follow Diggers thoughts. In other words, communications is approaching a critical phase.

"Have engineering prepare a transport. The outer moon is close. I want them to construct a clear dome on the surface where face to face meetings can be arranged. There should be an three airlocks. Instruct them that if either of the aliens approach to observe the construction, they are to ignore them and continue working.

"Find a reliable individual to record all actions of the construction, and the aliens if they appear. I will personally brief him."

"Yes Captain."

~ ~ ~

First meeting

Aboard the Hawk.

"Captain Norris, the aliens with Sergeant Keeper have completed module 19. I suggest you view the briefing for module 20 so I can transmit it to them."

"Alright Ears. While I'm doing that, see if you can make arrangements for Sergeant Keeper to come over to this ship. I want him debriefed, and checked by medical."

Aboard the Fern.

"Captain Tree, we have a communications from the small alien spacecraft. They are requesting that we transport Axial to their ship."

"Copper, would you volunteer to escort Axial to their ship and act as an observer. I know that you two and Penny have formed a family group. I'd ask her, but she knows to much about the location of our planet. I need someone that he trust, and that trust him. I will not minimize the risk. They may take you and examine you like we would any strange life-form. I'm hoping that his friendship with you can prevent any extreme interrogation or harm, after all we did rescue him, and save his life.

"Talk to Axial and see what he thinks about my suggestion?"

Axial and Copper approached the Captain. "Sir, I appreciate the fact that you suggested Copper accompany me back to the Hawk. However, what they will do when I get there is part of their standard operating procedure. Anyone that returns from an alien environment is quarantined. Then they are medically examined. Then they are debriefed to determine what they learned and observed. If Copper accompanies me then she will be treated the same. I need to communicate with Captain Norris to ensure that anyone accompanying me will be treated in a civilized manner."

Aboard the Hawk.

'Sergeant Keeper, I see that you are accompanied. The quarantine section is through the left airlock door. Remove your spacesuits and hang them in the lockers provided. Disrobe, shower, then put on the paper suits provided. The next chamber is a medical examination room. Wait there. By the way, are there any special dietary requirements for the alien?'

Copper turned to try to locate the speaker. Not spotting it she said, "I resent be referred to as the alien. Please use my proper name, it is Copper in your language."

'OK, we will refer to you by your proper name. Sergeant, would you please accompany Copper through the quarantine process.'

After removing their spacesuits and clothing the observer asked, 'Sergeant Keeper, is the alien, I mean Copper a female alien?'

With a wink to Copper, Axial replied, "Yes, Copper is a female of the Fairie species that left Earth hundreds of centuries in the past. I expect your medical personnel to treat her with the same respect they would any female."

'Copper, may I inquire as to your age?'

"Yes doctor, our physicians determined that I am very close to being the same physical age as Axial. I have both his and my medical files, if you wish to examine them."

'Continue through the decontamination process while I notify my supervisor and Captain Norris.'

Doctor Forge approached the Captain and requested a conference in private. "Captain, we have a situation. I don't know if Sergeant Keeper has been compromised. The reason for my concern is the fact that he is accompanied by a female alien. He informed my medical observer that the aliens are Fairies, and they left Earth centuries ago. My observer reported that he was more embarrassed than either of them after they disrobed, and he realized that Copper was a female. She has a good grasp of our language."

"Crap, that explains his questions and request for assurances that the alien that accompanying him would be treated in a civilized manner."

"What language are they using in quarantine?"

"They are using a mixture of English and her language."

"OK, Doc. Lets do it this way. Have a female present when she is examined. I'll expect a separate report from your nurses observations. In fact it might be interesting to see his reactions, so keep them together as much as possible. I want everything recorded including how many times either of them scratch their butts. If they clear quarantine, then I want a full briefing by you and your medical team before allowing them out."

"Sir, I've already gotten one complaint from them. They complained that the food was bland."

"Hell, let them pick from the ships diet. That way we can determine what the aliens like to eat."

"Can do Sir. I'll get the mess to furnish them a daily menu. The aliens name is Copper and she claims that she has her and Keepers medical records. I need a portable computer with a translation team to analyze them to determine their medical capabilities."

"That's interesting Doc. Give Ears your requirements."

"Captain, I've run across a problem."

"What problem Ears?"

"I sent in a standard crew portable computer. Copper, err the female alien checked it and then informed me that it wasn't sufficient to run her medical program. I told her to load it anyway. It bogged down. My observation link indicated that a level 2 scientific computer would be barely adequate."

"So what's the problem Ears?"

"It will be easier and faster to isolate a class 3 computer than upgrade a class 2. I need your approval before doing either."

"Is there any hazard to the ship if you use a class 3?"

"None apparent Sir. But I'll have Phillips monitor every byte, and install a kill switch. Evidently their computer technology is more advanced than what we have available."

"I understand. I see I'm going to have to talk to them sooner than anticipated."

"Sergeant Keeper, this is Doctor Forge." Standing behind and looking over his shoulder was Captain Norris.

"Yes Doc."

"The aliens, err I mean the Fairies medical records are extremely detailed. However, I still need to run detailed test to verify all data before you can be released from quarantine."

After a brief mixed language discussion between Copper and Axial they she agreed that further test would be acceptable provided all results were made available for transmission to her ships medical personnel.

Doc looked at the Captain.

Norris nodded OK. Then he spoke. "Axial, I have a personal question, and would appreciate an answer."

"Am I speaking to the Captain?"

"Yes. You don't have to answer my question, but I would appreciate an honest answer. Have you engaged in sexual relation with any of the Fairie?"

Doc's eyes got wide as he observed Axial and Copper. "Damn, I think she's blushing. That's the first physical reaction I've seen from either of them."

"Captain, Doctor, I would appreciate if you kept my answer confidential. Yes, after they did a complete physical from my genotype up I was cleared for any activity I desired, and given free access to their ship. I wasn't looking, so it was several years before I was invited into a family pair. The Fairie form family pairs or groups, and are extremely private in their sexual activities. Even though everyone assumes when they form a family group they go all the way, some do and others don't. Parts of their culture are more rigid and other parts less rigid than human culture. The penalty for forcing oneself on another is punishable by death."

"Axial, the reason I asked was to make a decision whether you might be compromised by your stay aboard their spacecraft. One more question, do you have any offspring aboard their spacecraft?"

"Yes Captain, and my little girl is in excellent health."

"Damn it Axial, I'm sure you've broken some regulation somewhere."

"I understand Captain, however I was marooned with no expectation of rescue after the Eagle exploded."

"Is Copper the mother?"

"No Sir, although she is part of the family group."

"Doc, after you finish your test, I want them escorted to my office."

"Yes Sir."

"Reporting as ordered, Captain."

"Damn it Sergeant Keeper. Your actions after your rescue put me in a ticklish position, and have ramifications far beyond our lifetimes. Analysis of our DNA and the Fairies DNA is identical. She even has similar junk DNA to ours. I was afraid I would have to charge you under an old regulation concerning bestiality. However with the doctors analysis of both you and Copper, that is no longer on the table. I am positive that upon our return to Earth, someone will think up some reason to make some distasteful regulation.

"Now that you are aboard my ship, you come under my command. I an assigning her the status of ambassador from her people. You are assigned as her liaison. You will control your and Coppers contact with the crew.

"Now we have the problem of the other spacecraft. Any suggestions?"

"Sir, I am not that familiar with the 1st contact protocols, so I see no reason not to follow them."

"Talk to Ears, he'll bring you up to speed. Now Ambassador Copper. I want you to also familiarize yourself with our 1st contact protocols and inform your ships command structure.

The other alien ship. Crap, you're not alien are you? The other ship had started construction on the planets outer moon. My surveillance team is documenting the dome they are building. It is being built with three airlocks. My command team assumes that they want a three way meeting.

"Sergeant, you are aware of the communications modules. So far the Fairie have complete 32. The unknowns have completed 19. Modules 20 and above present the possibility of instigating instantaneous aggression depending on the culture of the aliens. Xenophobia is not confined to just humans.

Ambassador Copper, does your spacecraft have sufficient weapons to survive an attack by the unknown spacecraft?"

"I believe so Captain, however I must consult with Captain Tree."

"Please inform your Captain to review the modules and advise me of his assessment, and ships status. Good, as soon as you do, then I will release module 20 for transmission to them."

Aboard the Fern.

"Captain, transmission from Copper. It is encrypted."

"Go ahead Copper."

"Sorry about the lack of communications. They have very strict quarantine procedures. I was checked as thoroughly as Axial was when he first came aboard. Captain Norris, the captain of the human exploration spacecraft has assigned me status as ambassador from my people to his. He strongly suggest you review their learning programs number 20 and up.

"Some people back on Earth are afraid that some aliens out here may instantly attack once they actually see someone alien to them because of their culture. He also has a question for you. It is about the Fern. Are there sufficient weapons to stand off an attack by the unknown ship? His ship is well armed. He ask for you to evaluate the learning programs and ships status, and inform him before he releases any more training programs to the unknown spacecraft."

"I will give you an answer in several hours. Inform him now that from what our sky watchers can see of the construction on the planet's moon, we think they may be trolls. The star watchers managed to get several half decent pictures."

"Captain, what do the archives say about trolls. I know mothers still threaten their children with bedtime stories about them. Will they be friend or foe?"

"We don't know. There are few references in the archives. One, did reference a treaty, but no details. We lost so much when we left Earth, including something that was referred to as magic."

Aboard the Hawk.

The next morning Copper approached Captain Norris. "Sir, I have several points that we need to discuss in private. Captain Tree thinks that his ship can withstand an attack from the unknown ship with your assistance.

"His sky watchers have been observing the construction on the planets moon. Several pictures were taken that seem to indicate the race of the individuals. Our archives only mention them a few times and not in detail. Our mothers still mention them to terrify their children into being good. He believes they are trolls. There is not enough information to estimate their society or possible reaction.

"For your information, the archives also mentioned something called magic. The reason the Fairie left Earth was because it was slowly loosing its power. The archives have several legends that reference it, and report that it quickly lost its strength on the new planet we settled. So much was lost in those early years."

Getting up and pacing for a few minutes, Norris finally sat down. "Ambassador Copper, we have legends also. Some concern Fairies, the other concern Trolls. Your people may have reason to hate humans. Human legends tell about fairies stealing children, eating our animals, making hunters disappear, and pulling pranks on humans. They don't mention humans hunting fairies, but it is possible. Now for the trolls, legends indicate they hid under bridges and waylaid travelers. They also pulled pranks and stole children. Some tell that they mined the mountains of anything of value, and stole items of value from humans. I imagine they caused enough mischief that humans may have hunted them. I don't remember if the trolls had magic. Magic, if I remember correctly, was the power to cause things to happen without physical contact.

"I'm going to have Ears transmit module 20, and the rest as they complete each. I shall put the safety of all three ships in the hands of fate. I hope all three races have matured to the point we can live together.

"You are free to inform your Captain of this conversation. If you want to return to the Fern, make your arrangements."

"What about Axial? Is he allowed to go to the Fern?"

"A good question, would he be safe there after your people learn that we are the humans of old Earth?"

Aboard the Diamond.

Signals approached the Captain, "Sir, another one of their learning programs has arrived. Digger informed me that it is not like the others."

"How so?"

"Captain, it is color pictures of plants and animals. Digger told me that many are similar to those on our planet."

"Tell Digger to go through them quickly and then come to me."

Hours later, "Well Digger, what have you discovered?"

"Sir, I went through the learning program and as soon as I finished it another loaded. I only looked at a few pictures and identified them. The program also gave a word in their language for each picture and requested our word. There are to many that are almost identical to our world. My conclusion is that they are either Trolls that went somewhere else, or they are from the world we fled thousands of years ago."

"Well cough it up, exactly what is your conclusion?"

"From the legends books, there were three major races on the old world.

"Humans that hunted us because of the valuables we gathered from our work and stole from them.

"Fairies that practiced their magic in the forest. They helped our ancestors escape when they themselves were fleeing because their magic was fading."

"Well Digger, is there any way we can tell who we are facing before we meet them in person?"

"No Captain, if they are fairies, then we can hope they remember the pledge our king gave them that our race would help and shelter them. If they are human, then they may be here to hunt us, or they may have forgotten the past. Dare we let them escape if they are human."

"Digger, continue with the programs. Have your best research the Book of Legends and brief me on everything from the old world."

Aboard the Hawk.

"Ensign Running Deer, prepare a communication probe and have engineering install a gravity drive. I want yo to get Ears to load all the information that we've gathered and load it on the probe. I am going to take one of the landers and travel over to the Fairie ship. Inform engineering to launch the probe to Earth as soon as they determine that the unknown ship is distracted. I will have a separate message for you to load.

"Lieutenant Fredericks, you will be in command of the ship until I return. Your orders are to insure the safety of the ship. However, I am forbidding you to fire upon the Fairie ship. If the unknown ship fires upon this ship you are to evade, and only return fire as a last resort. Fire to disable, not destroy. I am going to make a treaty with the Fairie ships Captain and government. You may start evacuating all non-essential personnel to the planets surface after I depart.

"Ambassador Copper, please inform Captain Tree that I am coming over to his ship with a small team for face to face negotiations. As soon as he approves, we will depart.

"Anyone have any questions or suggestions?"

No one answered, so the Captain dismissed them to complete their task and he started his report with the first lines reading. Before recorded history the Fairie race moved from Earth to another planet, I am going to make a non-aggression treaty with them....

Aboard the Fern.

"Permission to come aboard." announced Captain Norris.

Captain Tree granted him permission and clasp him on the shoulder. "Captain, Copper told me that we needed to have a very important discussion. Follow me."

Sitting in a room, Captain Norris started. "I want to make a treaty between my people and your people. I understand from your legends and my peoples legends that in the far past our people didn't live together peacefully. Together we can cover the past with a new future together."

"What about the Trolls, if the unknown ship is Trolls?" asked Captain Tree.

"Captain, if matters not if the occupants of the unknown ship is Trolls or another alien race. If our two races can agree to live together we will set an example that I hope will influence them. Was it luck that you rescued Sergeant Keeper. Was it luck that Axial was accepted into a family group. Was it luck that Axial, our people, and your people are the same genotype. No, I think that fate had grand plans for our races and those that join us."

Captain Tree pressed a button on the table and stated, "Penny, make a hard copy of one of the treaties of joining peoples from after the last great war.

"Captain, I enjoy reading my peoples history and the treaties of joining after the last great war are very strict. A member of each leading family is to join in a family group. When the first child is born, that child's life becomes the bond between the people of each group. Axial, when Penny brings the treaty, I want you to read it completely including the penalties. Captain Norris, my people will abide by the treaty. It will be up to your people to accept and abide by it. Axial and Penny will sign and list the child's name, then we will sign as witnesses. It will be our responsibility to safeguard the treaty with our lives. Captain Norris, are you willing to put your life on the line for your people?"

Standing and making a slight bow, Captain Norris stated, "I pledge my life to protect the treaty for the good of joining both our peoples."

After signing the translations of the treaty the Captains withdrew to make plans to greet the occupants of the unknown ship.

~ ~ ~

The Outer Moon

Aboard the Diamond.

"Sir, the frame for the dome is up, airlocks installed, and air comparable for us and the aliens."

"Good, now something else to add to the plan. Question your wife and have her locate a plant person."

"But Captain!"

"Engineer, I know you are thinking about the balance the planters maintain. What I have in mind is two of the fancy plants in containers, one on each side of the airlock door that we will use. Tell the planter that I want two like plants, one strong like men, the other delicate and beautiful like our women."

Aboard the Hawk.

"Communications, prepare a transmission to the Fern. "Inform Captain Norris that two of the exploration sites have been turned into villages and the probe is good."

Aboard the Fern.

Captain Tree handed Captain Norris a piece of hard copy. "To Captain Norris from Lieutenant Killmead. Exploration site 1 by the inland sea, and site 3 a hundred miles upstream have been set up as reinforced villages. We report a good probe, and sufficient supplies to withstand the estimated winter storms. END"

As soon as Captain Norris finished reading it, he tossed it on the table. "Norris, you know I monitor everything on my ship just as you do on yours. Communications and messages can transfer information that is not as the words indicate. Those thirty-five words state one thing but are angled so they convey other messages."

"Yes you are correct Captain Tree. The contents inform me that the two task I left the ship officer with are accomplished. We had science exploration teams on the planet when you were detected entering this star system. My crew is spit in thirds and they've gone down to two of those villages and fortified them. They are prepared to survive being stranded and have weapons to resist invasion. The comment about a good probe informs me that the communications device launched from my ship is safely away. It has all the data observed and messages to the Earth Exploration Command. It tells of your rescue of Sergeant Axial Keeper, an explanation of what happened to the exploration ship Eagle, and his impression of your people. I'm sorry to admit than when we first made contact, I had my military officer do an instrument evaluation on your ships weapons. That report is on the probe along with the one he did on the unknown ship. I ordered my military officer to not fire upon this ship no matter what, and he was to try to evade any weapons the unknown ship fired at him, and return fire on them only to disable not destroy. My report tells about the communications and friendship that you extended toward my people and includes a strongly worded request to my superiors that they abide by the Joining Treaty that we signed."

"I see, I've done something similar including sending a rocket back to my world telling them of the situation and treaty."

"Well, since we now have a friendship, there is something that Axial mentioned that I didn't think of earlier. The range of our vision is slightly different than yours. He mentioned that he could see heat problems when he worked in your engine room before the instruments indicated a problem. He told me that some of your engineers laughed him off. From the program modules your people completed, my people came to the conclusion that the Fairie can see colors of higher frequencies than our blue color. The unknowns can see further into the heat or red colors than my people. That gives you and me a slight advantage over the unknowns in what they can see, although instruments will detect those advantages."

'Captains, the unknowns are active again in the dome.'

"Sky watchers, report."

"Sir, they placed collapsible furniture, tables and chairs, in the dome. They placed containers containing what appear to be plants on either side of the airlock they use. Our on site observers approached the plants and started taking pictures. However when one approached to take a sample, one of the aliens stepped between him and the plant, and held up a tool like it was a weapon. Our observer backed off, then the alien backed off. The pictures and scan data obtained are being analyzed."

"Thank you Sky Watcher. The human Captain and I await your reports."

Captain Tree, I see that your sky watchers are very thorough. They even identified the plant without a physical sample, and typed the plants as a male and a female of the same genus. The unknowns are making a statement with these plants."

"Norris, we've got to quit referring to each other as Captain when we're alone or working with a team. They are stating that they are male and female, that's a given. They brought their plants with them so they were or are planning to colonize the planet like we were. Had you reported this planet available to your superiors as available to colonize?"

"Yes Tree, we did. I sent people down. I need to contact them and warn them of the unknowns."

"Wait, would your superiors allow my people to colonize?"

"Tree, are you asking for my permission or the attitude of my superiors and government."

"Both Norris."

"How soon can you have ten or twenty family groups ready to join my people on the surface, and can some of them be military?"

"Two or three rest periods. Because your people are prepared for surviving on their own I shall instruct my people to do the same, including plants to provide food."

"Captain Tree, sorry, I need to contact my ship and the people on the planet and instruct them to make your people welcome. The majority of my people are male. I must include the rules of you family groups in their briefings. You will need to brief your people about human rules and laws also. We don't want them to violate each others customs and start fighting."

"I understand Norris. If they are living in peace when your superiors send ships here, it will be easier to support the Joining Treaty!"

Several days later two Fairie landing ships departed for the planet.

~

Several days after that a landing craft from the Hawk, and a landing ship from the Fern landed on the outer moon and started setting up. The second thing each did was bring plants into the dome and set them on either side of their airlocks. One species for the humans and a second species for the Fairie. The Fairie plant scientist had been working feverishly to grow a new plant from the two species of plant, and succeeded.

The plants were left unguarded for three days to allow the unknowns a chance to observe, take pictures, and samples if they wanted to.

Using the knowledge acquired by the 1st contact modules a face to face meeting was set up. That evening, the Fairie team moved another three plants into the dome. One large one from each of species representing the Fairie and the Humans. The third plant was barely above the soil in its pot between the other two. A copy of the Joining Treaty was placed on each table. A best guess translation was also place on the unknowns table. An observer watched as an unknown entered took more pictures and took the Joining Treaty from their table.

The next morning the Fairie and Human representatives sat at their table waiting.

Only one representative from the unknown entered the dome. He walked directly to the three containers between the Human and Fairie airlocks and stood in front of them. Slowly he pulled some papers from his spacesuit and compared them with the paper mounted on the containers.

At his table he made three stacks of papers. Pulling the center stack to him he stated, "You put me and my spacecraft at a great disadvantage. All of our exploration spacecraft are made within large rocks, asteroids to you. One was attacked, fired upon by an unidentified spacecraft. It escaped and returned to report. This colony ship was sent to set up a colony in what my government considered the direction the enemy would come from. When we entered the planetary system we find one spacecraft in orbit around the planet, and a second entering from an unexpected direction. Are either of you the enemy? Was the attack on our exploration spacecraft an accident or deliberate?

"My plant people tell me that the plants you brought in earlier are not the same at each of your airlocks. Yet you bring in during the rest period, their copies and a new plant that is between them indicating that it is an offspring of the two. I questioned what you meant my that, until I read the paper you placed on my table last night.

"My people spent most of the night deciphering it. Then one recognized something and brought out the Book of Legends. Part of the wording is similar to what our King and a Fairie Queen stated in a treaty they made many centuries ago when her people helped our people flee the young race that declared war upon our people. As an investigator of my peoples history, I know that my people from that time, were partially guilty in starting that war through their actions.

"The treaty from the Book of Legends very specifically stated that if my race were to ever encounter the Fairie race again, they were to be fast friends and brothers! We were also to assist them in any manner they requested! We were to offer them shelter and any protection they needed without thought of payment!

"Taking off his spacesuit helmet he pointed at each of them. "Now I must determine which of you is Fairie, and whether the other is the young race that went to war with my race. If one of you is of the young warlike race, then my decision is to inquire the desires of the Fairie. My race is known as Trolls."

Both the Human and Fairie representatives stated, "We know of you from our legends."

The Human representative stated, "Our legends tell of your thievery and making hunters disappear in the woods, but nothing about a war between our people."

The Fairie representative continued, "Our legends tell of your pranks, but nothing about a treaty. We lost so much when our magic disappeared. Our mothers still tell about trolls stealing children when they don't behave. I suggest that we allow our experts in the legends reread our legends and make a combined history of that period. I will instruct mine to make no judgments, just evaluate and combine the legends. Then the Captains of all three spacecraft will meet and discuss the combined legends. Decisions will not be made until then."

The human agreed, and they both looked at the Troll representative. He nodded and stated, "My legends people will be here after a rest period."

Axial was the human representative. He had accumulated the stories about Fairies and Trolls, but had no book of legends to refer to.

The Fairie and Troll experts worked for days.

~

When the days turned into weeks, Penny often visited and sat with Axial letting him play with their little girl. Even the Trolls were fascinated by her.

~ ~

The legends were finally combined filling in some and raising more questions about others. The Captains studied them, and then set the time for the meeting.

~ ~ ~

The Captains Meeting

Captain Tree, removed his helmet first and said, "OK, what order do we go in, first in this system, or by biggest ship?"

Captain Norris announced, "I'll go last since I was here first and also my team had the least to add since we don't have a Book of Legends, just oral legends."

"Captain Tron why don't you go first, and since it's just us three captains why don't we just use our names if we need to address someone."

"OK, Norris. As I mentioned earlier, centuries ago our King made a treaty with your Queen to help the Fairie at any time. All you have to do is ask. Since our people combined our Books of Legend, we now have a slightly better idea why we left our birth world. We antagonized the humans until they attacked and started a war with the Trolls. However, you Fairies were their victims because of your magic."

"Very true, but we decided to leave mainly because our magic was loosing its potency. One mention in your book was a comment to your King, that our Queen thought it might be because the humans were imitating our magic. However, our magic faded away within a short time after we left the birth planet."

"That's a good guess, but not confirmed."

Norris then said, "Is it possible that you just grew out of your magic? Our people use to be great hunters, but now we're not. I still don't see how humans could have caught Fairies, you could fly. Humans could never fly."

With a smile Tron replied, "That's immaterial, it's just commented on in the Book of Legends."

Tree also smiled, "Well we don't have to worry about that anymore. We lost our magic and became a technology based race. In fact all three of our races are technology based, and just about equal.

"I think that we can all agree that our peoples made mistakes in the past and maybe we should learn from those mistakes.

"Tron, the humans and us signed a Joining Treaty, and are biologically mated so we are on even footing. The Trolls have not been checked to see if they are biologically compatible with either us or the Humans. If you are, then we can sign a Joining Treaty with the Trolls. Your decision."

"Tree, I'll send over some people for your doctors to analyze, if it's OK with Norris."

"That's fine with me and I'll go with the results. Now we need some kind of treaty, because with travel time I expect my superiors will have a war fleet here any day now to rescue my ship and people. We have a Joining Treaty with the Fairie, and you have your old treaty with the Fairies.

"If we write up and sign a treaty to peacefully share the planet below, then that should make them happy. None of us are diplomats, so what we need is something in plain language outlining our cultures, privileges, and responsibilities along with a court system to enforce any violations that individuals make. We all have people that do stupid things at the most embarrassing time. Do you agree?"

"Norris that sounds good, but we will also need some common laws and punishments. I must have protection for my family groups. Even we have had people go insane and molest others, the victim usually dies within days from the violation. That is why we have the death penalty for that crime."

"Tron, are there any death penalty laws that you have?"

"Only deliberate murder."

"We have that law also, so we'll start there. The judge system for any trials across race lines will probably need three judges. One from the victim and one from the aggressors race and the third from the other race to be in charge, because he will not have a reason to see either prevail. Is that agreeable?"

"Then all we need is a brief on our cultures to complete the treaty. We'll get our people to write it up. I'll notify my people on the planet to expect more settlers and you can send a few families down to each settlement."

"We prefer to live underground in the mountains."

"Some of your families will need to live in the village, otherwise my superiors will think them unfriendly. They can build any type house they want, and if it looks like a cave or cavern inside that's all right. Human houses are built with brick and metal. The Fairie houses look like a thicket to us, so to each their own.

~ ~

Nine days later an Earth fleet of seven warships dropped into the system. What they first saw was the Hawk docked with the Fairies spacecraft in low orbit. As they closed in they saw one of the Hawks landing craft coming from the planet and dock with the other alien ship that also looked like a small asteroid.

They we spotted and hailed from the Diamond. When they replied, they were told to wait. Within minutes a crew member from the Hawk was on the radio.

When the Fleet Commander demanded to speak to Captain Norris, he was informed that all three ships captains were on the surface for a celebration. The ensign then stated that if he wanted transport down, all he needed was time to refuel and he would transport him and a few of his officers down.

Lieutenant Fredericks then introduced himself and stated that he was on the Fairie spacecraft. He informed the Fleet Commander that if he allowed any of his personnel down for shore leave that they had to go through orientation first. This was to prevent cultural misunderstandings just like shore leave in any foreign port.

# (BToC) #

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