Interstellar Incident: An Alicia Jones Novel 02 Read online

  Interstellar Incident

  An Alicia Jones novel 02

  Author: D. L. Harrison

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

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other books by D. L. Harrison:

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

  I sighed, “Yes mom, I don’t see the point in hiding anymore. You don’t like my purple eyes and spots?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. Guilt would be my greatest weapon.

  I’d decided on the way back to Earth there was no point in hiding, the entire world had seen my photos side by side and would recognize me as Knomen either way I appeared. I’d considered the idea of an all new face, but that didn’t appeal to me at all. I liked my face, the way I looked, and it was who I was. None of my friends minded, and that was good enough for me. If anyone did mind, they weren’t worth my time, I wouldn’t apologize for who and what I was.

  Apparently my mother thought I wasn’t being very smart however.

  “But isn’t that dangerous Alicia? Earth isn’t universally happy about alien contact and joining an empire you know. You could be…” she trailed off.

  I shrugged carelessly. Actually I had some of the same worries, but I wasn’t going to let my mom know that, she’d smell blood in the water and go for the kill if she thought she could change my mind. I’d only been home a couple of days, and came here right after debriefing with General Denton. Officially I was a civilian again, thank god, and I’d come straight here to visit. I’d promised to do so a while back and then one thing after another delayed me. Perhaps I would change my mind about it later, but I didn’t believe I was likely to be attacked.

  The fact that Nathan thought my purple eyes, and the markings on the side of my face and neck were hot, had nothing to do with my decision at all. At least, I was pretty sure of that anyway.

  I smiled confidently, “I think I’m safe enough, I’m working on a personal force field device of sorts too, so that should help once I get it right.”

  It was the truth, but I was having trouble with it as well. The prototype I built was rather… bulky. And ugly as sin. It looked like a bullet proof vest, but even more bulkier. It would however absorb energy attacks such as lasers or plasma, but as far as guns it wouldn’t handle the really big ones unless I had the anti-mass field at a high level. Still, I was fairly sure I didn’t have to worry about snipers though, and I refused to live in fear so… I didn’t plan to wear it very often. Call me vain, but I liked the way I looked, and didn’t want to wear the bulky and shapeless vest.

  She sighed and pulled me into a hug.

  There was a lot I couldn’t tell her about all that had gone on, classified and all, but I’d managed to get the highlights across to her over the last couple of days. Despite being out as an alien, she’d thought at first it was just for my visit, it wasn’t until this morning that she realized I would always look this way now.

  “Are you and Tina getting along?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Sure mom, I mean I don’t think we’ll ever be close, but we haven’t argued or anything.”

  She sighed, “I suppose that’s all I can ask for.”

  I spent the rest of the day with her, and stayed for the night since my dad was off working for the day, and I hadn’t gotten much time to spend with him this visit. But I needed to be in Vegas tomorrow morning for my dissertation defense, so I planned to leave early the next morning. I wasn’t worried about not getting there, I had my shuttle with the latest designs for EM and anti-mass fields on it right outside in the driveway. Which meant it would take me about a minute to get from Dallas to Vegas, even if I went there via going east.

  Overall it was a good visit, they might not have been my birth parents, but in every other way they were my mom and dad.

  Chapter 2

  I was pretty excited, and a little nervous about it as I headed toward Vegas, I’d gotten used to my professor being confrontational in his questions, but I wasn’t so sure about a roomful of people ganging up on me and doing the same. It shouldn’t be that big a deal, I knew and understood every word of my dissertation, the thing was more than memorized, it was permanently etched in my mind after all the hours I’d put into it.

  I also had other things on my mind that morning. I hadn’t given up on the idea of forcing sub light-speed fights, and I also had that anti-gravity manual to go through that I’d picked up from Tressia on the way back to Earth. Add in the business I wanted to build, buying a home in Monument, and still waiting for that third date with Nathan, and I had more than enough going on.

  I landed in the parking lot taking up two spots with my extra long but about van sized as far as width and height went, shuttle, and headed for the door. I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face when I saw Kristi at the door. Kristi had a lot more faith in me than I did, she was designing some sub-light weaponry, because ironically if I was able to succeed, the Earth didn’t have any weapons that didn’t go faster than light either.

  I hugged her and kissed her cheek. She looked gorgeous as always of course, constantly overshadowing me, though to hear her tell it, the shoe was on the other foot, though I’d never believe it. I had on a professional looking blue dress with white designs on it, and two inch heels on. She was dressed in a business casual gray skirt that came down to her lower thighs, and a nice pearl white blouse.

  “What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were coming.”

  She snorted and shook her head, “Of course I want to watch you become a PhD. I had to use the other shuttle to get here though, you didn’t even think of calling me did you?”

  I blushed and shook my head. Of course she had full access to my ship, so it wouldn’t have been hard for her to have the ship’s A.I. fly down one of the other shuttles. I didn’t see any of the saucer kind around, so I assumed she sent it back to the ship when she got here. It’s what I would have done rather than take up four parking spots, two were bad enough.

  “Sorry, I should have, since I’m planning to go to yours.”

  She grinned, “You better, you look fantastic by the way, are you ready? Lunch is on me later.”

  “I’m ready, let’s get this over with.”

  She snickered at my nervousness, and we went inside.

  The dissertation defense wasn’t as bad as I’d expected it to be. It was thorough and professional, and although one or two of them did act aggressive and try to trip me up, I was able to stay calm, mostly due to my heritage. Suppressing my nervous emotions wasn’t hard, and I had the knowledge. When I left, I was officially done with schooling, and it felt a little strange to me, I’d been in school for one form or another for the last eighteen years.

  For just a minute, it di
dn’t feel quite real yet.

  Of course, I wasn’t a typical PhD just getting started. With my invention and royalties, I was also on my way to being a multi-billionaire and about to start my own company, so really I just needed to suck it up.

  Kristi and I had lunch on the strip, and we discussed the business and made up some plans. Our home would be in Monument, our business close to Colorado Springs, and we also had plans to make a claim on one of the larger asteroids, and set up our own large scale fabrication there. The idea being we could continue playing with ship and weapons designs, and use it for manufacturing any inventions we or one of our researchers, which we had none of yet, created.

  Our own fabricator would be cheaper, as it could use those raw resources to build most anything, and we could get the hydrogen for the fusion power for free by scooping Jupiter for it. When we left the restaurant, I noticed a high end A.I. store and pulled Kristi inside. Al was pretty good, but very limited, and the visor I had was hardly high end. Until recently I couldn’t afford anything better.

  I figured now was a good time for an upgrade since my A.I. would have a lot more to look after. I also convinced Kristi as my business partner to let me buy her one, as a business expense. She’d never accept charity, but this was a part of doing business and she’d need it to do her job.

  I knew I was kind of geeking out, but I couldn’t help myself. I bought a mini-mainframe for Al to run off of, and I got the latest implant tech. Basically it meant I wouldn’t need a visor anymore, the tech hooked directly into my optic and auditory nerves with medical grade nanites. On top of that, the implant was connected via three hundred quantum entangled particles, there was literally nowhere in the universe I could go and not still be connected to Al, the internet, and have the ability to make phone calls or send text messages.

  So now instead of seeing an overlay through my visor, or a video call, it would all be in my head. Without the visor I could overlay a call, a television, even listen to music, all without anyone knowing I was even using an overlay. It also had other cool features, like facial recognition for people that were bad with names, it would pop up an info box near a person or business contact they knew if requested, with whatever information they wanted, but of course I didn’t need that part of it, my memory was eidetic, I never forgot a name or face. They did the insertion right in the store, it took very little time.

  We walked back to the shuttle and I asked, “When do you want to look for a house?”

  “We could do that today, I don’t have anything until Monday college wise, we could probably look for an office building as well.”

  I looked through the listings quick and found one that was a little bigger than I was looking for, but it had something we kind of needed. I ported it over to her A.I.

  “How about this one? I know the five bedroom and three baths are probably over the top, since we only need two, but it has…”

  She interrupted with a laugh, “Two double wide garage doors, with four bays, which would fit two shuttles perfectly. The price isn’t bad either.”

  I nodded, “Even the smaller shuttle I built is a bit too tight a fit for a standard garage. What do you think?”

  She grinned at me, “Looks good to me, so we’ll have a few guest rooms, that won’t be a bad thing.”

  “Alright,” I contacted the real estate agent, and they said they could be there in a half an hour to show it.

  We took the shuttle over, it only took a couple of minutes to get there, and most of that time was getting on the shuttle and sitting down. There was also the fact we couldn’t exceed the speed of sound below ten thousand feet without causing a serious ruckus, such as blowing out windows. Still, that distance was easily covered in just ten seconds leaving a comfortable gap under the sound barrier. From ten thousand feet up, to low orbit took a fraction of that time.

  So while we waited we also looked at some office buildings, but none of them had what we needed.

  Kristi shrugged, “We might as well just buy one and then refurbish. We need what… a handful of offices and some labs?”

  I nodded, “I’d planned on starting with three other researchers maybe? Maybe a building manager slash human resources person to watch them when we aren’t there. So let’s say eight offices, and eight labs so we have room to grow another three in the short term.”

  She sighed, “Alright, there’s a small office building for sale, it used to be a doctor’s office. It has the right amount of square feet for what we need.”

  I was patient for a couple of minutes, and she sent me a floor plan of what it would look like when we were done. It had an office up front for the building manager behind a welcome desk, and then a security door to the rest of the building.

  Past the security door, there was a blank wall with a hall leading left or right. Along the sides of the buildings were three offices with windows on both sides, in the center across from each office was a secured lab space, one each for each office. The main hallway ran in a square between the offices and labs on the sides, the front office in the front, and along the back wall, there was a break room, bathroom, large conference room, and an emergency door.

  She’d even put in a counter and coffee maker.

  She shrugged, “Simple, but more than enough for our starting needs, what do you think? I’m guessing if we send in some of the portable fabricators they can redo the current floor plan in a couple of days.”

  “I love it, thanks Kristi.”

  I called the number and indicated an interest to buy, and scheduled an appointment for later on this afternoon. I also had Al submit paperwork for our company and had him set up business accounts, I wanted to buy the building under the business name.

  “Do you like the name Divergent Technologies Research?”

  She tilted her head back and forth, “Yup, it’s kind of catchy, and accurate since we’ll have a number of things going at once that don’t necessarily relate.”

  I smiled, “Just what I was thinking.”

  The house real estate agent pulled up and we got out to meet him.

  My tastes ran pretty simple, I could afford a much larger place than we were even looking at, but would have felt more comfortable with something even smaller. Despite that though, I fell in love with the place when we took a tour. Outside of the three bathrooms and five bedrooms, the kitchen was huge with stainless steel appliances, and plenty of cabinet and surface space to work with. The living room and den were large, and both had fireplaces.

  There was a third large room as well that I wasn’t sure what to call. We could probably make it some kind of game room, or knowing how I was possibly an at home office. Out the back door by the kitchen was a large deck. There was a second back door in the den as well, that led into an enclosed sun room which was made up of mostly glass, but also had a number of panes that could be opened with screens. Most importantly there was a large Jacuzzi in the sun room, it was relaxing just looking at the thing.

  Kristi said quietly, “I love this place, it is big, but it’s also… warm.”

  I nodded and made sure the real estate agent wasn’t close enough to hear, no need to advertise how badly we wanted the place.

  “I agree, it’s just on the right side of small enough I think. I don’t get that cold impersonal feeling about it like really large houses. We can decorate it cozy right?”

  Kristi grinned, “That’ll work, I don’t want antiques I’m too afraid to sit on either.”

  I returned her smile and took another look around, I felt excited about it.

  I got the ball rolling on getting it inspected, and had Al fill out the initial paperwork. If the inspection passed, the house would be ready to close fairly quickly. I still had time to get out of my college apartment, but I was eager to get started with my new life suddenly.

  It probably had to do with feeling disconnected. I was never an idle person, always moving from one thing to another. I didn’t like to just… stop and smell the roses as they say. In
a way, figuring out things and how the universe worked, was my roses.

  Later on, Kristi and I toured the old doctor’s office, and it seemed to be in a nice area and was just what we needed. I worked on closing that one too, but I’d be buying it under our business name. There were no checks needed, or anything to fill out for loans, I would be buying both outright with cash. It would just take a day or two to get the inspections done, although things like a broken foundation were easily fixable in this day and age, it was still the smart move to wait.

  The two of us went back to our apartment then. Luckily my fifteen minutes of fame were up, because the building was no longer surrounded by people. There were a few people that snapped my picture, but no large crowds. Still, I sent the shuttle back up to my ship rather than leave it in the parking lot. It could be back here in minutes after all, so better safe than sorry.

  It was a Friday night, so we had some dinner, and Kristi talked me into going to the campus bar. I had a good time of course, and of course Kristi did her best to embarrass me by announcing my doctorate. I’d been given so many free drinks I could never have finished them all.

  There was nothing new about it though, I always have a good time even if she has to drag me out the door. I just wished Nathan could have gotten some time off, if something there didn’t break soon I’d have to either look elsewhere, or officially join a convent.

  Chapter 3

  Artificial Gravity gave me a headache, figuratively speaking. It wasn’t just a hard math; it was a completely new math with concepts that were hard to grasp for us three dimensional beings. Kristi and I were going through the book, had been all weekend in fact. It was Sunday just after lunch, and I was finally getting a handle on it. Gravity required mass, mass bent space time, and the bent space time allowed gravity to… seep into to our dimension, for lack of a better word. Obviously that’s a simplistic explanation for what was really happening.

  Artificial Gravity skipped the mass part, and simply bent space time directly with a field. Actually, there was nothing even remotely simple about it, but that’s in essence how it worked. More than that though, gravity was an ever present field itself, it didn’t move, or radiate out from the center, it was just there where the bends in space time existed. The key to artificial gravity was bending space time in a specific and limited area in a specific way. That was about the best I could describe it without going into a multi-dimensional math breakdown.