Interstellar Incident: An Alicia Jones Novel 02 Read online

  I’d also managed a couple of more dates with Nathan, and the wonderful nights in his arms that followed them. He hadn’t gotten any more passes, but I was welcome to be on base with my inactive rank, so whenever he was off-mission and off-duty, but still required on standby, we made that happen.

  I hadn’t really thought of anything new to focus on for research yet, I was just supporting the other four in the company, and every once in a while I messed around with a new end product. I built an unarmed mini-shuttle that looked like a normal street car, which I decided was more prudent to fly around Earth in, instead of a combat shuttle. I made other new toys as well, but nothing really groundbreaking new, just a twist or new application on work I’d already done.

  Kristi’s dissertation defense was scheduled a couple of months from now, in early September. She was working on her own research, as well as helping me with the others.

  The only other significant change over the last month was Joe. He’d found work in Colorado Springs, and was currently living with Kristi and I. He had his own room, mainly to keep his clothes and stuff in, but most nights he could be found in Kristi’s bed. I had a feeling he would propose soon, his core feelings felt a lot more solidified to me now, and less indecisive. It was interesting, I could almost gauge him changing day by day, maybe he was just finally growing up. Either way, I was very happy for my roommate, but selfishly wasn’t looking forward to the day she moved out so they could have their own place. She could certainly afford it.

  I also spent a lot of money that month. Holding on to it in the bank wasn’t good, I could stir the economy by pouring some of it back in. It was actually coming in at an alarming rate, I got a small piece of every EM anti-mass superconducting coil built, and there were a lot of ships going up and each one had a great many of them. Car manufacturers were starting to use them, as well as industrial loaders to move heavy equipment. There were almost an unlimited number of applications for the anti-mass field, and that initial billion was growing obscenely fast.

  I invested in a number of businesses, sometimes just short of a controlling interest so I didn’t get bogged down in management. I just made sure good and smart people were making the decisions. I also donated to charitable organizations, and some of the science programs in good colleges. I also set up a number of scholarships. Even with my business, the house, and all that, I was still making more than I could spend. I’m not complaining, but illustrating the money itself was becoming a full time job, so I did some research on investment groups and financial managers, and put them to work.

  I liked having money well enough, but I didn’t want it to become a big part of my life as far as time went. I’d much rather be doing something more in science.

  The biggest investment I made was the taxes on claiming three fairly large asteroids, and I went to Tressia for an afternoon to pick up three of those large advanced fabricators. I didn’t have that much to make yet, but I was selling some things already, especially the armor suits and non-lethal gravity weapons, so I decided to go big on production.

  Toward the end of that month, I started to get bored as everything equalized. I still hadn’t figured out something to research, it wasn’t like there wasn’t a lot out there, it’s just none of it had interested me nearly as much as what I had just done. Maybe I was just jaded, after all, my original dissertation was about making a stable strong EM field without ridiculous amounts of energy. That in itself was a worthwhile and important discovery, but hardly as exciting and world changing as what had grown from that through serendipity.

  Then the rest of it had come and… yeah, I was definitely jaded. I needed to get over myself and pick one of those other fields soon, or I’d go stir crazy simply reviewing the daily progress of everyone else. Either that or turn into a party girl billionaire and tour the world. I almost laughed out loud at that ridiculous thought, I’d rather die… I needed to do something more. Hell, without Kristi dragging me out a night or two a week I’d probably be a hermit. Even if it turned out to be something small, I needed something to sink my teeth into.

  Chapter 8

  I was thinking of maybe doing black hole research, with anti-mass and gravity fields generation I figured I could get some probes pretty close. There was a problem with the idea of course, because then I remembered the Seltan empire was between here and there, and who knew what lay past them? I assumed that the closer to the core, the older the civilizations would be, if they survived long enough to reach space.

  I was still considering it though, maybe if I went the long way around, send it perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy into the void, and came back in right by the black hole. Kind of like going around the block instead of through a neighbor’s yard. Yeah… I’ll do that. Galactic center was about twenty-seven thousand light years from Earth. That only left seven thousand light years from the edge of the Knomen empire, which kind of implied the Seltans were the closest to the core, unless they were mashed between us and someone else, which could be why they seem so desperate to expand.

  Still, it was only another day of travel at top speed. To be safe I’d need to go perpendicular for a day, about seven thousand light years, so that would make the entire trip for the probe only six days. Actually, that was wrong. I had made that trip across the empire in three days with the old shields, it would take closer to four days with the new tech to make it all the way to the core even with the detour.

  Incidentally, there was another twenty-seven thousand light years of the galaxy to explore opposite the core from Earth, toward the rim. So we had tons of breathing room, assuming we weren’t mashed and just hadn’t met the other neighbor yet.

  “General Denton is calling,” Al reported in his even voice.

  Thank god, I was really bored.

  “Answer it Al… Good morning sir, what can I do for you?”

  General Denton replied in a serious voice, “Come down to my office as soon as possible, wear something professional.”

  I almost teased him, but decided to hold my tongue, “Yes sir, now? What about Kristi?”

  He grunted, “Now would be just fine Alicia, for future reference when a four-star general says as soon as possible, it means now if not yesterday. No Kristi on this trip but you can tell her all about it when you get back home. I’ll see you soon.”

  He hung up then, and I sighed. I couldn’t help but hope he had something for me to do, yet at the same time I hoped it wasn’t something bad. I was already in the office, I had on a fairly conservative black dress that went from my neck, with a steep V cutout at the top that didn’t even come close to showing cleavage, and the hem tickled the top of my knees when standing. I was also wearing black three inch heels. It should do.

  I shot Kristi a note and headed outside. My ride nowadays looked like a sports car, without wheels of course. I know, I was such a geek. I jumped in and had Al take me to the general, I could fly manually, but it takes me much longer. There was a lot involved. He took me straight up to orbit, and dropped me back down, the car settling an inch off the ground in the parking lot by the general’s office before it settled to the deck. It had taken just under thirty seconds.

  I got out and walked into the building, the general was talking with the lieutenant.

  He looked up at me and smiled, “Let’s go, you’re driving.”

  I tilted my head, thought better of asking him if I was a taxi service now, and just nodded. I was missing too much information to form any conclusions, especially a negative one, but being in the dark annoyed me.

  He followed me out, and got in the fake sports car.

  “Is this thing safe?”

  I grinned, “It’s unarmed, but it’d take ten missile hits before it went down. Where are we going sir?”

  He replied, “White House, please land at least ten miles from there, and drive in the rest of the way.”

  Huh.

  “You heard him Al, make it so.”

  The general tightened his grip on the dash b
oard when we were suddenly surrounded by outer space ten seconds later, and just as fast we were back on the ground.

  “How does this thing not burn up in re-entry?” he groused.

  I grinned, “I just told you it could take the equivalent of ten nuclear explosions before its EM field failed, surely re-entry is just rug burn to the shield in comparison.”

  He grunted noncommittally as the car started to fly a couple of inches off the ground in traffic. It was a good thing I’d installed real lights to make it look real. I hadn’t really intended to use it this way, it was just camouflage for a parking lot. Granted, there were no wheels, but I was always surprised at what people miss. Al was doing surprising well in traffic.

  “I suppose you did at that,” he finally commented, about the shields.

  “So what is this about sir?”

  He peered at me a moment, “You’ll find out, all I can say is some people want to meet you.”

  I stayed silent for the rest of the ride, we were waved quickly through the gate after the general showed his identification. I told Al to park and then followed the general to the entrance where we were met by two secret service agents to escort us. There was a tense moment, when I set the scanners off.

  They both pulled out and pointed guns at me before I could even start explaining.

  I held up my hands, “It’s my powered armor, I have the same setup the President does. No doubt the small reactor in my heels set off the sensors.”

  They still didn’t lower their guns, until the general barked at them to do so. They looked at me warily as I put my hands down, and we waited while one of them touched his ear piece for instructions. After a couple of minutes, they’d apparently gotten me cleared.

  “This way,” one of them said, still not looking all that happy.

  We followed them to a large conference room. There were seven people in the room besides the general and I, and one was the vice president.

  The general introduced everyone and we took a seat, but I was still a little lost after he’d finished.

  The general had said, “This is Adrienne Fournier of France, Jonas Baum of Germany, and Gerald Anderson of England, they are here to represent the European Union as a whole. Nadia Avdonin is here to represent Russia’s interests. Similarly, this is Li Lei to represent China, Gorou Kimura to represent Japan, and of course Vice President William Tanner to represent the United States.”

  There was a moment of silence before one of them spoke.

  Adrienne leaned forward in his chair, “It is a pleasure to finally meet you miss Jones. I know you haven’t been told anything, so allow me to catch you up as you Americans say. We, the group of people across from you, are in charge of the Unified Space Fleet Service. I’m going to refer to it as the USFS from here on out because it’s quite a mouthful.

  “The USFS is responsible for anything that happens out in space, our intention is to keep the bureaucracy as small as possible, but we have a few goals we are sure of. One, to get free of the Knomen empire. Two, we will create a joint military navy, it will be responsible for protecting Earth from her enemies, and protecting any colonies that are formed. It will also be responsible for protecting any pre-FTL civilizations from our citizens who go out in the galaxy to trade. It will also be the only military arm allowed in space. All countries with fleets will combine them into one service.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment, “We will all work together and create these… laws and doctrines for space. Of course, the civilians who go out to trade, and even settle will not be a part of our charter, as long as they follow the rules we set, they are free to expand or not for their country, or establish an independent colony nation of their own.”

  He took note of my confusion, as did a few others. I just had no idea why he was explaining this to me.

  Nadia took over, “In short, we can set the rules of law by this committee, and give instructions to who controls the fleet to carry out our orders. The one thing we haven’t been able to agree on is who should be top Admiral, too much politics at that level in the military, in all our services. However, when we reviewed all you had done. You went out and found new technology, maps of the Knomen empire, proof of their duplicity, and designed the strongest ships in space that we have, that are now protecting Earth. You even went to battle to prevent brave American space navy ships from being used as fodder by the Knomen Admiral in command.”

  She looked me in the eyes, “You did all this without asking for anything, and simply to protect your adopted planet. Yes?”

  When I nodded, she continued to my dismay, I knew what was coming and it was like watching a car crash. Boredom wasn’t that bad, was it?

  “You are a complete non-entity in the political arena, yet completely qualified and trusted by everyone in this room. We, the entire board, would ask you to serve as commander of fleet for the USFS, to protect the Earth, protect our future colonies, and enforce our laws. Eventually, once the fleet is cohesive and can act as one, we can retire you and promote one of the other Admirals in the service. We are asking for a five-year commitment.”

  I asked, “How much autonomy would I have as far as fleet resources?”

  William Tanner asked, “What do you mean?”

  I sighed, “If I agree to this, we need the fleet to be uniform, which means I want all the specs from all the different ships. I’ll pull out the best of each, and then throw it back together to be space fleet ships. Also, all military building for the separate countries needs to stop, or at least start building them to the exact specs I specify. Shape doesn’t really matter, the technology behind it does, but still, there is an inherit ‘we are different from them’ if the ships don’t look alike, we should avoid that if possible.”

  William asked skeptically, “So you want to give everyone the stronger weapons and shields we have?”

  My eyes widened, “Sure, but perhaps Russia has a better A.I. and France might have better scanning technology. China may have even more efficient reactors. Those are all speculative guesses, but you get the point. All my work has been on shields, speed, and weapons, those aren’t the only edges out there. I’d want the best for everyone under my command, and not just for one country and allow the rest to get by.”

  William raised an eyebrow, “I’m not sure that’s possible…” he trailed off when I stood.

  I said with finality, “Call me when your serious, I’ll give it some thought as well,” and I walked out the door feeling annoyed, and a little pissed off.

  If they couldn’t share technology, and be one service, then the whole thing was a joke and bound to fall apart as soon as the danger of the Knomen passed, assuming it would pass at all… Regardless, I wasn’t sending in people barely armed with the basics, I wouldn’t use fodder.

  The general caught up, “What was that about?”

  I explained my reasoning, he just grunted.

  A secret service agent stopped us, “Please wait here a moment.”

  A minute later The Vice President along with Jonas and Gorou came down the hall.

  William held up a hand and smiled, “I apologize for that, but it was a test, I didn’t mean that at all. The U.S. has no intention of keeping necessary technology to keep all our people safe in space.”

  Jonas spoke, “It was my idea I’m afraid, and I asked William to play along. Although you seemed to act to protect all of Earth, you’re still a U.S. citizen which brought up a few doubts for me and Gorou. We thought if you were the right person for the job you’d dig in your heels and argue, we weren’t expecting you to get angry and storm out. Either way, the job offer is still on the table if you want it, and we will all be sending you all the specs and real data on our systems.”

  I nodded, a part of me just wanted to leave, go do my black hole research, and be a scientist. There was also a part of me though, that actually missed that short time I was an Admiral, and was doing something very important. I remembered being scared, and upset, but there was also a certai
n… satisfaction to it. Yes, I’d lost the one ship, but I’d saved a great number of lives that otherwise would have died, and not just Earth human, or Terran lives.

  “Alright, I’ll do it. Do I need to go back in there? Or can you just send me the current… charter and laws, along with any current orders, and the list of specs along with all my resources? Also, do we have a uniform yet? We need a common one along with our common ships.”

  Gorou bowed, “We can do that. And yes, common uniforms were discussed.”

  We talked for a few more minutes, and then I got out of there. I hated meetings, just send me the work please… I had the feeling though, I’d still have plenty to go to.

  Chapter 9

  When I received the data I dove in. My first week was insanely busy, and I hadn’t been happier in a while, outside of my dates with Nathan that is.

  I used my pull to get Kristi on my staff first thing, because she probably would have murdered me in my sleep if I didn’t. But also because I valued her insights and creativity.

  The list of laws was very short right now, and pretty much exactly what Adrienne had told me. My only current orders were to get the fleet up to spec, and protect Earth. We weren’t ready to face the Knomen yet if they decided to attack when we pulled out.

  I made my personal ship, which could go toe to toe with any battle cruiser, my flag. I did that because after some thought, I realized joining any other current ship while they were still split by country by looks and perception, could be construed as political or showing favoritism. I made a few changes on it, added enough rooms for a small staff as well as the rooms already there for me and Kristi. I also added a large conference room for the day when I’d be talking to all the admirals. I also needed a bigger hangar deck to accommodate more than just a few shuttles.