Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Prologue After more than 15 Earth years after what the Earthers have started to call "New Armstice Day" - the day when the Detterex surrendered and the official cessation of all hostilities between the allies, the Detterex and the Tirosians was declared - life had gone back to normal, or what passed for normal in the Greater Galactic Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, and an unexpected peace descended on the people. But there were those in the Federation that felt they wanted the old status quo back, and only Princess Mia, the lord admiral of the Elyran navy as well as the admiral of EarthForce's Fifth Fleet, her wife, Duchess Sahsha, diplomat and fellow Earther, and her other wife, Queen Tasha, the new ruler of the Elyrans, were the only ones who stood in the way of the Dravidians and the so-called Tirosian mutiny fleet.

---

 

Prologue: Early Morning TV

 
Interview Room 10, Royal Elyran Communications Institute, Elyra City, Elyra Prime

“Our guest this morning on ‘Elyra Today,’ is Mr. Gerry Anderson from the Earther Embassy here in Elyra City,” Jem said. “Thank you for giving us your valuable time, sir.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. ummm, Tevan-Losira,” Jem’s Earther guest responded.

The Elyran interviewer giggled. “Just call me Jem,” he said, “everyone does. By the way, thank you for the translators. This will allow me to expand our show and allow us to interview more Earther guests.” He turned profile to the camera so that the little translator device stuck in his ear like an old-time hearing aid could be seen.

“My pleasure, Jem," his visitor responded. "But not just Earthers – these are some of our multi-language units. They will also translate Tirosian, Deamon, Dravidian, Kembel, Dixx, and several other languages, and, of course, Elyran and Detterex. We sent your office, ummm, one and a half eights…”

“It’s all right if you say one ‘dozen.’ I am familiar with the word.”

Anderson smiled. “Thanks. I am somewhat fluent, as you see. No need for a translator with me. Anyway, if you have problems, just contact the embassy and ask for me. I’ll get you replacements. By the way, please try not to tamper with them – there’s a protection device in each one, and you might damage them beyond repair if…”

“I understand, Mr. Anderson. The rumors that we‘ve heard about people tampering with Earther devices...”

“Apologies, Jem.”

Jem waved it away. “It’s not a worry. No one has been hurt so far, although I’m sure there are a lot of frustrated people who are mad that they’ve lost their translators and other devices.”

The Earther shrugged – a gesture that Earthers, Elyrans and Detterex shared. “I’m sorry about that. The Earther-made appliances were specifically designed to prevent tampering. They have multiple warning labels saying so. Nevertheless, they were also designed not to harm people.

“Earth government’s list of proscribed technologies is remaining in effect, I’m afraid, and this is one of the ways we’re able to keep them from unauthorized hands.”

“I have a, what do you call it? A ‘cell phone.’ Is Phase-Wave communications still part of the proscribed list?”

“Yes, but I’m sure your phone isn’t a Phase-Wave phone. It’s probably just one of our handheld radio transceivers, only fancier. But even so, it probably still has a protection circuit - many manufacturers of products meant for off-world use also build in protection circuits basically to prevent people from tampering and, hence, damaging them.”

 
Recoding Lab, CETI Institute Building B, Triton, United Satellites of Neptune

“I have so much work to do,” Marjorie thought. But when Professor Phil McIntyre asked for help, she dropped everything and rushed over. And she wouldn’t be complaining aloud anyway, especially with the professor in the room. There were so few internship spots in the Cultural Studies Department of the CETI Institute, and there were too many applicants. If Phil heard she was complaining about the workload, the other interns would only be too willing to replace her.

ET Studies was the hottest college course at the moment. That was what everyone called it, though it was considered politically incorrect to refer to it that way because of the derogatory connotations. The full title was actually the “Galacticl History, Economy, and Social Studies Programme.” In fact, the number of undergraduates for that course in her particular university accounted for a third of her university's entire undergraduate population. Princess Amelia’s popularity was such that everyone wanted to follow in her footsteps, and ET Studies was the easiest way to do that. Well, that and enlisting in EarthForce.

Mia’s effect was similar to the effect of Alexander “Lex” Braveheart ,who was responsible for the negotiations that ended the Asteroid Wars and created of the New U.N., or Charles Lindbergh and his pioneering solo flight from New York to Paris, or John F. Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corp and the US Space Program, and many others in Earth’s recent history. Mia had stirred the hearts and minds of Earth’s youth, and they were ready to answer the call to service and civic duty.

And Marjorie was one of these idealistic young people caught up in the wonder of the newly-opened galaxy and Princess Amelia’s call to service.

But more than that, Princess Amelia’s story had special resonances for Marjorie. At the moment, Marjorie was one of over two hundred and fifty thousand doctoral candidates (her area of academic specialization was Elyran and Detterex culture, as most ET Studies undergraduates were). What made her different from these thousands and thousands of young, new academics was that she was also one of the known few that suffered from Gender Dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder.

GID was a very, very rare condition in 24th Century society. Nowadays, everyone was allowed to be what she or he wanted to be. For the few citizens who genuinely suffered from GID, in the emancipated society of present-day Earth, this had no stigma attached to it, and GID-diagnosed citizens could happily live as the gender they needed to be, and society didn’t’ really make a big deal of it. Still, the few that wanted it could undergo GCS but it wasn’t something normally done anymore even if current Earth medical science could do it relatively easily and safely. Marjorie was already under hormone therapy, but was was also scheduled for gender confirmation surgery as soon as she hit eighteen, but she was actually thinking of skipping it.

But when the aliens were "discovered," and the popular press made it known that Princess Amelia (at the time, she was still Dr. William Steele, and he was far from royal) had undergone a complete FFP procedure just because she wanted to help and be part of First Contact, even though, as far as everyone knew, she was a cisgender male, this convinced Marjorie to push through with her own GCS (GCS and a few plastic surgery operations was what all she and her family planned for since an FFP, or a “full feminization procedure,” wasn't something that she and her family could afford (it wasn't covered in the government's "Unicare," or Universal Health Care, plan) - it would have cost them something in the order of five million American Federated Dollars – roughly equivalent to 100,000 21st-century US dollars. Most everything was easily available to Earth citizens nowadays, but those things that were extremely uncommon were extremely expensive, which included an FFP procedure.

- - - - -

Currently, she and Dr. McIntyre were reviewing the latest episode of the long-running “Elyra Today,” an early-morning Elyran talk and home information show hosted by Jem Tevan-Losira, the famous Elyran host and presenter.

“So, why are we watching this again?” Marjorie asked her professor.

“We’re watching this because part of CETI’s mission is to maintain an updated profile of foreign cultures,” Phil McIntyre, the current head of the CETI base in Triton, and Marjorie's course adviser, answered. “And part of that is keeping up with current events, and popular trends and topics. This show is one of the most popular shows on Elyra. We’re watching it to try and pick up on these things.”

“Doesn’t seem too different from the morning talk shows we have on Earth.”

“True.”

She watched the program for a while and turned towards Phil. “Sir, what’s with this protection circuit thing? What is it and why are the Elyrans so obsessed with it?” She asked.

“Well, Phase-Wave is one of Earth’s proscribed technologies, like this guy, Anderson, said. None of the other races have Phase-Wave. With instantaneous communications and virtual galaxy-wide GPS, Phase-Wave is something that they desperately want, but Earth Government doesn’t want to give up our one big tactical advantage.”

“I know that,” Marjorie said a little irritatedly, “…sir.” She added the “sir” a little belatedly.

Phil laughed. “Sorry for the lecture. Anyway, the main component of most of the electronic devices we manufacture that use proscribed tech, usually called the “prime circuit,” are now manufactured using conductive plastics instead of semiconductors, and the entire circuit is coated with several chemicals in an emulsion, and the rest of the device is flooded with a gas and sealed. When the specific characteristics of the gas inside of the device changes, or even if there's a minute pressure change, the emulsion is designed to break down and separate into its different chemicals, one of them being ascorbic acid dissolved in water. The acid is pretty weak and harmless to any of the known races, but the prime circuit is designed to break down in this mild acid.”

“Isn’t ascorbic acid Vitamin C?”

“Yes.”

Marjorie giggled. “That’s funny. How about x-rays or other similar…”

“Any kind of electromagnetic radiation that penetrates the device’s shielding will instantly change the properties of the gas, too, just enough to trigger the effect. And even if they did get a signal back, the plastic circuit is completely transparent to most EM radiation. Furthermore, there’s a fake aluminum foil decal over it so what they would see in an x-ray or whatever would be the outline of the decal that looks like a circuit board, which makes the inside of the device look like a regular radio circuit or some other common device.”

“How about opening the device in a pressure tank or something, pressured to the same pressure as the device, and filled with the same gas?”

“Well, when the seal is broken – it triggers the emulsion breakdown. And even if they get past that, they don’t know what the exact gas inside is. When the factory fills a device with the gas, they don’t know the exact chemical formula of the gas in each device because they randomize it a little bit every time. And once the circuit acclimatizes to the gas, then it’s set. Even the manufacturers can’t open the device themselves. In fact, the standard way to fix a broken phase-wave device is to replace the entire prime circuit.”

“How about freezing the thing first, or opening it in a vacuum or…”

“Same thing.”

“Wow…”

“And we do the same thing with all the appliances and portable devices that are similarly proscribed.”

“The Elyrans must be very frustrated.”

Phil laughed. “They sure are. Okay, unpause it and let’s listen to the guy in the show…”

 
Back in Interview Room 10 of the Royal Elyran Communications Institute

Anderson, the Earther being interviewed, shrugged. “I’m sorry about that, Jem.”

“Not a worry. Let’s continue on. We’ve asked our viewers to send in their questions for you. I hope that’s all right?”

“Absolutely. I’ll do my best to answer.”

“I’ll begin with a question of my own…”

Mr. Anderson laughed. “By all means.”

“In previous interviews we’ve had with Earthers from EarthForce, I was told that recruitment is heavily skewed to prioritize females instead of just a normal kind of recruitment. Is that unusual for Earth? And can you elaborate?”

Anderson nodded. “Yes. That is correct - it is unusual. If I may be so blunt…”

Jem waved that away. “Please – feel free.”

“Just before the arrival of the first Federation expedition, EarthForce had just been newly-constituted, and they were just starting a large recruitment effort to build up the new unified armed forces. Since they were just starting recruitment, the powers-that-be thought it an opportune time to tailor the recruitment to address certain things: one of these was that, since many of the Federation races that EarthForce would likely be interfacing with were… predisposed to more matriarchal, matrilineal and matrifocal customs and traditions, it was decided to increase the quota for female recruits, and to shuffle around existing staff so that there would be a higher female-to-male crew ratio.”

Jem laughed. “Were Earthers thinking of Elyrans at the time, Mr. Anderson?”

He shrugged and laughed. “I'm sorry, Jem, but I'm afraid so. But Elyrans were just one among many others. It was our way to try and establish a commonality with our neighbors-to-be.

“Anyway, the armed forces didn’t want to disrupt current crews or commands so the rule only applied to new crews, recruits and commands. That’s why Captains Okonkwo and Dupont and their crews were mostly unaffected, although that didn’t apply to any additional crew assigned to them.

“This policy didn’t extend to the rest of the government or the rest of Earth, however.”

“But are you saying Earther culture is patriarchal and patrifocal?”

“Oh! No, no no! Not at all! Present-day Earth is closer to an egalitarian society – Earther society isn’t predisposed to make distinctions in roles and reponsibilities based on gender anymore. This… special arrangement was specific to recruitment for the armed forces only, and the assignment of new crew.”

“Is the policy still in effect?”

“It was only a temporary thing, and was in effect only until the emergency situation normalized. Almost immediately after the New Armistice Day... I mean the day of when the Detterex Empire gave their conditional surrender to the Federation, this policy was rescinded. However, a larger number of women than men continue to sign up.” He shrugged. "With all due respect to the men of EarthForce, I guess Earth's women have been encouraged to join because of the examples of Princess Amelia, Lady Sahsha, Captain O'Connel, and all the other brave women of EarthForce. In fact, we've had a few non-Earthers try to enlist. Most have had to be turned down since EarthForce is primarily to help protect Earth, her planets, colonies and people. A prerequisite is, of course citizenship. After all, if push comes to shove..."

"Excuse me, Mr. Anderson - 'push comes to shove?'"

"I'm sorry, Jem. That's an Earther idiomatic expression. It means, when the situation is critical or urgent, or when the time has come for action, and a person has to make a choice."

"I see... please continue."

Anderson nodded. "Well, as I was saying, if push comes to shove, it would be problematic if an EarthForce soldier is forced to make a choice between, say, defending, say, Elyra or defending Earth. It would be a... crisis of loyalty or a crisis of conscience - does he fight with EarthForce or for his original home planet or colony?"

"I see..."

Anderson nodded. "Yes. The concept of one's homeland is an important thing, and we do not want to put a Federation citizen in such a situation. One's homeland, Jem, is an important thing."

Jem nodded soberly. It was lucky that many of the physical signals are common between Elyrans, Detterex and Earthers. "I agree," Jem said.

"In any case, CETI and EarthForce's BuPers and the ATAC have come up with a method to find out whether someone who has voluntarily enlisted can be expected, where such a... 'crisis of conscience' will compromise his oath to EarthForce."

"Some kind of... magical Earther device yet again, I'm sure."

Anderson laughed. "Oh, no, not at all. It's just a series of one hundred questions... ummm, I mean one hundred forty-four in Elyran Base-Eight. And it works for Earthers, Elyrans, Detterex, Dixx, Arachnians, Telcontari, Daemons and, oddly enough, Tirosians."

"This... questionnaire - it's been proven?"

"Indeed. Enough that the armed forces of all the races I mentioned are using it, or variations of it, for their own recruitment activities."

"How about the Erocii, or the Dravidians or Star-453?"

"Sadly, it only works for certain races. It ultimately depends on the person's concepts of home and loyalty. Those that I have mentioned utilize similar paradigms and modes of thought, that the questions are able to elicit the appropriate responses."

"Goodness... well, let's get back to our topic" Jem said. "About Princess Amelia's enlistment - we heard rumors that the Princess was actually a man, and that the Princess had, ummm, changed genders in order to comply with this, ummm, policy, just so she could be part of the Seeker crew. Is there any truth to that?”

“Well, actually, yes, that’s completely true. But it wasn’t a secret. Most of us Earthers think very highly of her - that she would be so selfless as to do that to herself all for the purpose of helping Earth. Prior to her becoming Captain Amelia Catherine Steele of EarthForce, and then later an Admiral, and then a princess of Elyra, she was Dr. William Charles Steele, a famous and well-known scientist, doctor, a decorated veteran of our Asteroid Wars, and, incidentally, the inventor of Phase-Wave.”

Jem looked looked both shocked and awed. “By the prophet... She is all that? and I never thought there was any truth to that rumor… Tell me, do all Earthers have this… power to change genders?”

Anderson laughed. “Oh, no! Humans don’t have the ability to switch genders at all! It was done at a hospital, with medical intervention.”

“You seem pretty casual about it.”

“Well, I don’t know about Elyrans, but there are a few humans that are born with a psycho-medical condition called GID, or Gender Identity Disorder. Such individuals believe they were born with the wrong gender. Usually, this is diagnosed early in their youth, but sometimes a few escape diagnosis. As soon as detected, however, medical intervention is scheduled if necessary. So, though very uncommon and not at all routine, our medical institutions can do this fairly easily. Lady Amelia doesn’t have GID but asked the procedure nevertheless. Her particular procedure was called an FFP instead of the more common GCS. An FFP is a complete physio-chemical change, making the subject a full-fledged female in all functional physical aspects, but it is extremely expensive. But, as you know, she is very rich.”

"And all to help us Elyrans..." Jem looked awed and humbled. “But now that the emergency is over, why doesn’t she switch back? Can’t your technology switch her back?”

“She can be switched back. But that’s not the thing. She hasn’t asked to be switched back. I think she’s happy the way she is now.” Anderson chuckled. "Love tends to do things like that."

“Love…" Jem sighed (as Marjorie did as well while she watched the program).

"Do you think Princess Tasha knows?” Jem asked.

“I’m sure she does. But they are apparently happy with the, ummm, current status quo.”

“Would you have a picture of Princess Amelia from, well, from before?”

Well, let me see.” He took out his CC and after a few moments of searching, he found a picture of Dr. William Steele, from somewhere on the so-called "galactic internet." He handed the CC over to Jem, and Jem had the camera focus on the picture on his CC.

“So that’s the Princess Amelia as a man…” Jem murmured.

“I didn’t know you were going to show that to the audience. Let me do something…” Anderson took back his CC, did something, and pointed the narrow edge into the air in between them. In a few seconds, a sharp, though transparent, 3D image started floating in the air in between the two. He made a few more adjustments and the image solidified.

“This is a video of Lady Amelia, I mean Princess Amelia, when she was still Dr. William Steele. This was taken when he was making his announcement of the first Earther recording of an extraterrestrial transmission ever recorded.”

“You can definitely see the resemblance,” Jem said.

“Well, it is the same person, after all,” the Earther said.

“And she was as handsome as a man as she is a woman,” Jem said.

 
Back in the Recoding Lab in CETI Institute Building B

Phil sighed. “That’s going to be a problem,” He commented.

“Huh?” Marjorie said. “What is?”

“What that fool Anderson did.”

“I don’t get it? What did he do?”

“Well, he said Earthers can change genders at will.”

“No he didn’t!”

Phil shrugged. “Well, yes, he didn't. But the Elyrans will hear what they want to hear. And guess what they heard?” He sighed again. “At least Anderson was able to do us a favor.”

“Which was what?”

“We’ve been trying to figure out a way of breaking the story of Lady Amelia’s change of gender. I guess Anderson did it for us.”

“What are you going to do with the rumor?”

“It’s not yet a rumor. I think we’ll just cross that bridge when it does become one. But we're going to need to have an official biography of Mia ready, and official statements from the British Home Office and the Regent's Office of the Northern Kingdom as well.” He thumbed a button on the wall.

"Yes, Dr. McIntyre," Phil's secretary answered.

"Sammy, get me Sir Arthur Weasely from the British Home office, and Dr. Ben Tevann-Areeyah from the Regents' Office at the Royal Residence."

"Ummm, sir, I take it you mean at the Alwahri Taryn Eloisha Seraphim at the Elyran Northern Kingdom?"

"Yes, Sam, I do. But no one really calls the castle by its full name. They just say the Seraphim."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, call me as soon as Ben or Sir Arthur call back, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

 
Back in Interview Room 10

“So, Mr. Anderson,” Jem said, “what is it that you do at the Embassy, exactly?”

“It’s fairly boring, actually,” he said. “I’m the chief commercial attaché for EarthGovernment to Elyra.”

“And what exactly is a commercial attaché?”

“A commercial attaché is a person posted to a foreign embassy to promote the economic interests of his country, or in this case, the people of the United Nations of Earth.”

“Ahhh.”

“I basically provide information to the various Elyran government units about Earth commercial and business trade matters. Part of that is the sale and trade of Earth-made products and goods, and other matters that could affect trade between Earth System and Elyra.”

“That accounts for your in-depth knowledge. Tell me, are there new things we Elyrans can expect?”

“Indeed, yes! As you may know, New Copernicus, EarthForce’s main shipyard, as well as several eights of civilian shipyards, have been constructing new interstellar civilian ships. These will soon be plying the normal Federation commercial routes and destinations. A handful of them are even now flying the established Elyran, Dixx, Arachnian and Daemon commercial routes, as well as some of the other major routes.”

“But you are saying that there are even more coming?”

“Yes, there will be around two hundred-fifty, or rather three hundred-seven commercial ships, in Elyran Base-8, flying out there in about a month.”

“Why so many, and why so sudden?”

“Well, these ships have been in construction for a while now, and those already running have been plying routes within the eight planets since EarthForce declared a shipping and travel ban because of the Detterex and Tiros emergency, but since the Outbound Travel Alert level has been downgraded from black to yellow, or completely lifted altogether in certain areas, the travel restrictions have been lifted in most Federation planets and destinations.”

“How about to Detterex and Tiros planets?”

“EarthGovernment is following the lead of the Federation on that. For now, travel to Tiros and Detterex destinations are under Threat Level Red, while there are a few which are under Threat Level Black.”

“What are these threat levels?”

“Well EarthGovernment maintains an ‘Outbound Travel Alert’ System, and there are four alert levels – Black indicates a ‘severe’ threat and requires all citizens to avoid travel to these destinations. Red indicates a ‘significant’ threat and non-essential travel to such destinations should be avoided. Yellow requires caution, while no threat level means it’s basically safe.”

“I see.”

“In any case, most of the commercial traffic will be tourist travel-connected. We’ve alerted most of the probable destinations of a large, impending influx of Earth tourists and travelers starting shortly.”

“Sounds terribly exciting.”

“Well, all I can say is that I hope all of your fellow Elyrans will be patient with a lot of gawking and noisy tourists invading your planets,” he laughed. "As revenge, you and your fellow Elyrans can also travel to Earth System as well and be as noisy as you want."

Ren chuckled. “Are all the planetary governments fine with this?”

“Most were fairly excited about tourists, as it would be good for their economies, but many have imposed quotas so that the local economies would not be overwhelmed and would be able to take the load. We have also exchanged life detector readings and we have established that we are able to visit all the Federation planets without worry, and no Federation planet need fear us causing a biological crisis. And we have also imposed some regulations on all Earth travelers to minimize the impact of Earthers to the local ecosystem.”

“That is a relief.”

“So everyone should stock up on tourist trinkets and other souvenirs. You know how tourists are,” he laughed.

“But surely they’re not going to be all tourists?”

“There will be others, to be sure. For example, a lot of academics and scientific types have made a beeline for the capital planets, and many of your local corporations have contracted several of our cargo and freight companies to deliver goods for them. DHL Galactic, UPS and Fedex Space to name three, and for larger cargo, there are Orient Overspace Container Line, Lloyd, the Maersk Group and several others. A lot of them are expecting a long business partnership with their Elyran, Dixx, and Arachnian counterparts. Telcontari companies are still in negotiations but it seems they are unable to put together competitive packages, but we're working closely with them to find solutions. ”

"What's the difficulty? Is there a language barrier or..."

"Oh, not at all! Telcontari are a joy to work with. But, as you know, they are the farthest from most Federation planets, and the cost and logistics are quite problematic. EarthGov has given instructions to keep all agreements equitable. At the moment, Telcontar is paying through the nose to have Dravidian freight ships ferry their cargo, and only Dravidian ships have the sustained capacity to bring their cargo directly to their destinations. Their only other choice is to transship their cargo, which will be even more costly and potentially damage their goods or incur spoilage or losses."

"Sorry, but what does 'through the nose' mean. Sounds... painful."

Anderson laughed. "Sorry! It's an Earther idiom which means to pay more than something is worth, or to pay an exorbitant price."

Jem smiled. "Ahhh! Now, I understand. Hmmm... The history of that idiom must be fascinating."

Anderson nodded. "Many many centuries ago, when my people used to travel in sail-powered ocean-going ships, governments would do a census by, ummm, counting noses, which would be the basis for taxation. To increase taxes, the, ummm, value of a nose would be increased..."

Jem smiled. "Fascinating, indeed. But let's get back on topic."

Anderson nodded. "Okay." (That was one Earther word that didn't need translation - it was one of many Earther words and phrases that had been co-opted by Elyrans, and they used them constantly in regular conversation)

"Well," Anderson continued, "so the problem with Telcontari cargo, at the moment, is that Telcontar is so very far away that shipping their cargo is too expensive. Our only choice would be to charge them quite high fees, and our government feels that we need to find a reasonable compromise between what Earth cargo companies need to charge and what Telcontar can afford."

"I see."

"And their only choices, at the moment are between Dravidian freight forwarders or our cargo companies."

"Quite a dilemma."

“We know our ships are legendary for their speed, range and endurance, and I’m sure this was the main reason the Telcontari contacted us. Truth be told, Earth’s interstellar civilian ships are not as fast as EarthForce military ships, but they can definitely give any other ship a run for its money.”

“Why is that?”

Mr. Anderson shrugged.

“Proscribed tech again?”

He smiled apologetically and shrugged again.

“How about the influx of non-Earthers to Earth Prime…”

“We don’t really call it Earth Prime. Our system is the Solar System since our star is called Sol, and Earth is just the third planet of eight orbiting Sol.”

“Sol… I didn’t know that...”

“You do have a good question, though. We are expecting seventy-seven million extraterrestrials to visit us this year. Excuse me, I mean…” he pulled out his CC and did a quick calculation. “…445,566,500 in Base-8.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

“Well, it’s staggered over the year, and it’s from different planets, not just Elyran ones. Earth economists and scientists have pegged the maximum number of visitors to Earth to 170,000,000 per Earth calendar year. Sorry, I mean 1,210,377,200 in Base-8. That’s in total, which includes government representatives and personnel. So five hundred million is very acceptable.”

“That reminds me. I am very curious about where our people can stay on Earth and the other Earth planets.”

“Well, there are many hotels, restaurants, inns and other establishments that are certified to be able to accommodate Federation citizens, as well as a few on the other Terran worlds. I am sure the embassy can provide you with a list. But the Chamber of Migration and Peerage have classified Earth and all of its colonies as ‘High Habitable,’ which means that all surface locations are totally safe to almost all Federation citizens regardless of their species or place of birth. That means, any place you can find accommodations is fine. Be warned, however that Earth itself has a stronger-than-normal gravity.”

“Thank you, but I was actually curious about the Isles of Scilly…”

Anderson laughed, and Jem looked at him in friendly curiosity. “Princess Amelia prefers to call her Duchy the Sciollian Isles," Anderson said, "and most of us call them that now.”

“Any reason…”

Anderson laughed again. “Well, here’s a bit of history. The Isles of Scilly was named after the Celtic Goddess of legend, Sulis Minerva. And with the Norse suffix ‘ey’ for island, the name became Scilly. The problem was that there is an Earther homonym to the name, which translates as humorously foolish or absurd, or ‘silly.’” (Anderson used the Earth word.)

“Really…” Gem giggled.

“So, I don’t blame Princess Amelia for wanting to call it the Sciollian Isles… Besides, they’re her islands – she can call them whatever she wants. Another alternative name is ‘Sylian,’ as the nearby Cornish folks would call them."

“Did you bring pictures? I hope?”

“Indeed I did.” He did that trick with his CC again, and projected some 3D pictures of the islands in the air.

“Here you see the main embassy buildings on St. Martin’s Island and Tresco Islands. Each building is self contained, and there are accommodations for up to one hundred, I mean, 144 in Elyran Base… Darn – I should stop that.”

“That’s all right. If you prefer, we can activate a translator. You were saying? 144 accommodations?”

“Umm, no need for the translator. But, yes. In several seven-story buildings scattered throughout these two islands. But more visitors can be accommodated if they're willing to double up in their rooms.

"As for the other seven islands, a few contain meeting facilities, medical facilities and a few plants used for environmental systems, refuse processing and filtering, power generation and other things. A large reclaimed area off of Bryher Island was made to be a dormitory for additional embassy personnel and accommodations for short-term visitors. Two islands, St. Agnes and Gugh were entrusted to the Earth Government to be made as parks full of native indigenous Earth flora and fauna appropriate to the local weather and conditions, and I heard they've been seeing heavy use by our visitors.

“In case meetings need to be conducted with Earth officials, EarthGov also maintains a small regional office near Bar Point on St. Mary’s, and in the few times that they need to attend meetings and events at the UN or other locations, there is a handful of ballistic shuttles reserved for their use, and an Airbus A300-1000H Hypersonic ballistic airliner is permanently parked in its own hangar, ready for use.” Anderson switched the picture to show the new hangar.

“Goodness. They all look very futuristic and advanced… what’s the Earther phrase for it? They look very ‘high tech.’”

“Indeed, they are.”

“What’s this?”

“Ahh, that’s the island of St. Mary’s - the largest. Princess Amelia has not included the island in the lease, and has retained it as her home. Many of its structures have been recovered and maintained, and the old castle called the Star Castle, which was a fort that was made into a hotel, was converted again, and is now the official residence of Princess Mia.

“The Federation leasehold, the castle, as well as the nearby St. Mary’s Airport, has been refurbished and upgraded. The Airport has now been upgraded to a class-three spaceport so it can handle Airbus Hypersonics.”

After Jem got his fill of the pictures, they continued with the interview.

“Now, ‘changing topics,’ as you Earthers would say… Going back to your mention of business partnerships - wouldn’t it be difficult to conduct any kind of business transactions between the Federation and Earth?”

“What do you mean?”

“There is no common currency that our governments use, so wouldn’t that make things difficult?”

“Yes. But given the turmoil in many Federation financial systems, EarthGov is still not amenable to establishing a mutually recognized monetary system yet. Transactions will still be strictly barter-trade. Although a temporary system is being set up to allow visitors to be able to purchase Earther goods and services using vouchers. It's actually patterned after the voucher system EarthGov and other governments have established. As soon as this is firmed up, I am sure the information will be disseminated through channels.”

"How will this work?"

"Vouchers will be given to Elyran and other governments in exchange for shipments of Cerium, Lanthanum, Europium, Erbium, Neodymium and other so-called 'rare earth' minerals. Ummm, I'm told you will translate proper nouns?"

Jem giggled and nodded.

"Anyway," Anderson continued, "each voucher will have an equivalent to the local Earth currency, and this will act like virtual currency."

“But no real money, yet?”

“No, but these vouchers can be used to 'purchase' for any goods or service on Earth, and will be accepted in any Earther establishment.”

“So, that would be like money?”

“Yes. But it would be the equivalent of fiat money instead of fiduciary or commodity money in that the value is fixed by EarthGov. And since it’s not supposed to be circulated like money, the vouchers will be destroyed immediately after use, and will have a ‘use by’ period.”

“How long would…”

“I have been told that the period would be roughly three Earth months from issuance, which EarthGov believes is long enough that people will not feel pressured to use them right away. This is to prevent hoarding more than anything, and to prevent them being traded or used for off-Earth transactions.”

“I have to get myself some of those vouchers!” Jem said, humorously rubbing his hands together.

Anderson laughed. “I heard the first shipment of rare Earth minerals just arrived at Lunar Station One, so they will start issuing them within the month.”

 
Back in the Recoding Lab in CETI Institute Building B

“Is that true, Professor?” Marjorie asked. "Vouchers?"

“I’m not sure. Although this Anderson character probably knows more about it than us given he’s connected to EarthGov's State Department. But it’s true – there'll be problems that will surely be encountered with regards the current barter-trade system that we’re using. Taking payment in kind for the transactions that we currently do is starting to become unweildly. These vouchers might turn out to be the solution.”

"Aren't you worried that the vouchers will be counterfeited?"

Phil spread his hands. "Hey, these are Earther vouchers. Do you think the aliens can counterfeit them?"

Marjorie nodded. “Right. Is there anything else we can do? Are there other ideas?”

“Well, there is nothing CETI can do, except to note these ideas down, and forward them to the authorities.”

“But what about what CETI’s done in the past?”

Phil looked at the young transsexual. “That’s a very naïve thing to say. CETI is a research and academic institution. We have no say in influencing the government in that way.”

“Well, I don’t know about that…”

He sighed. “You are a doctoral candidate, right? One of the bright young stars of Georgetown, I was told.”

“Well …”

“Give me a précis, a quick summary, of what led us to this point.”

“That’s not easily done.”

“Try.”

Marjorie sighed. It was like she was always reciting in class or taking a test.

“Okay,” she said. “Here goes…”

 
A Quick History Lesson

A little under eighteen Earth years ago, near the end of the 24th century, the famous Doctor William Steele, foremost proponent of cutting-edge science and a decorated military veteran of the Asteroid Wars, made an announcement at the UN. He announced his discovery-slash-invention of Phase-Wave and, through the application of that new technology, he was able to record a short alien radio conversation. And, with that unprecedented recording, the doctor was able to start the ball rolling for the development of Phase-Wave.

In less than a year, the new technology supplanted all other systems that made use of radio and EM technology – from video and audio communications, to radar and other technologies. Communications, navigation, mapping, weather detection, electronics, and many other systems were revolutionized. Phase-Wave also made the super-expensive and power-hungry Seren Stations, the cornerstone of Earth’s communications with the other planets in the Solar System, obsolete.

With the retirement of the Seren stations, hundreds of thousands of megajoules of power were freed up, changing the economy of the entire system, making Earth the richest single system in the known universe.

Doctor Steele was also responsible for organizing CETI, the Center for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, a government-funded private agency whose one goal was to discover and understand as much about Earth’s new interstellar neighbors as was possible via Phase-Wave audio and video communication intercepts. The technology allowed CETI to accumulate enough information to get a profile of most of the races in what they found was called the Galactic Federation of Free Races, as well as learn how to speak many of their languages.

Along with all this information, they also got good data about the Federation’s FTL technology. With this data, and the work of Dr. Marta Running-Stream’s Propulsion Research Commission, or PRC, EarthGov was therefore able to finalize Earth’s first real FTL ships. These became Earth’s first-generation Type-One and Type-Two military spacecraft. And the new tech also influenced the redesign of their new Eagle strike fighters and Cobra shuttles.

But aside from this, the CETI intercepts also gave information that showed the Federation was on the brink of war with a neighboring system called the Tiros/Detterex Empire.

From all that they knew, the Tirosians were a brutal race that had conquered and enslaved all the races and civilizations that they had gone up against, with the exception of the Detterex. At the time, the Tirosians and the Detterex were in a tenuous kind of alliance, but both were only a few years away from a showdown with the Federation.

It was the opinion of the CETI analysts that Earth would be caught in the crossfire between these two galactic superpowers, and it was in the Earth’s interest to be allied with the Federation and develop some allies of her own before this war eventually broke out.

To make this happen, Dr. Steele therefore had a kind of ‘hello’ message transmitted to the Federation planets as a kind of invitation for them to visit Earth, with the eventual goal of actually negotiating for membership in the Federation. (Though Phase-Wave made this possible, it was a strictly a one-time thing given the basic two-way incompatibility between radio-based and Phase-Wave-based tech.)

Of course, the Federation people heard the message, and the bird-like Dixx, the spider-like Arachnians and the human-like Elyrans sent an expedition. The problem was that the Empire heard it too, and sent its own expedition as well, with the goal of putting down the Federation expedition.

With Phase-Wave, the humans knew this, of course, which those in the know used as a pretense to finally put together a united Earth army and navy, cementing all the various armed forces of the Earth and her colonies into one, and it was decided that the new “EDF” was to send its own reception committee. Intercept squadron 41/18, made up of a couple of the new Type-Twos plus an old, refurbished battlewagon was dispatched to meet them.

Steele didn’t want to leave this potential powder keg in other people’s hands, so he demanded to be part of intercept 41/18, and preferably to be the one in command. The new head of the EDF, Admiral Silverman, would have had no problem with that since Dr. Steele’s military credentials, though not widely known, made him eminently qualified. But there was a new policy.

Analysis of the information that CETI had been gathering showed that, inasmuch as all the alien cultures within the Federation were, at a minimum, at least a thousand millenniums old, they were not as liberal and evolved as the humans thought they’d be, but then again human civilization was not even 50,000 years old, so what did they know? Compared to the aliens, humans were barely more advanced than their simian cousins. Who were they to pass judgment?

But from all the data the humans had gathered, they knew that most of the important races had a feudal kind of society. Dr. Steele’s best friend, Dr. Marcus Bidwell, said they actually felt downright medieval.

Their societies’ model had a striking resemblance to the Europe of the Middle Ages. Back then, a ruling class held most of the land and property in Europe for the de-facto government, in exchange for military protection and civil services for the locals. The "lower classes," in turn, became tenants of the nobles, or worked for them and gave them homage, notionally in exchange for the noble's patronage and protection. This was, in fact, how one could describe the state of Elyran society.

Not all of the aliens were like that, but many of the influential races were, and since the rest of the Federation took their cue from them, the entire Federation was slowly turning toward that model. In fact, CETI expected the others to adopt the same socio-political model in a couple of hundred centuries.

But one of the major differences they had with, say, a stereotypical 13th-century baronage in Europe was that they were mostly matriarchal - that their society was dominated by their females instead of males, the opposite of Medieval Earth.

It was largely because of this that made Admiral Silverman issue a fleet communiqué that said, in part, the following:

“It shall be the responsibility of all commanders whose units will come in contact with non-terrestrial personalities, entities or units, to insure two thirds of their units shall be under the command of a female officer, and this shall be maintained in all command structures, from platoons or wings up to fleet-size forces.

“Units under a female commander are the only units that can be assigned missions that will expressly engage non-terrestrial forces.

“These general directives shall be strictly complied with, and shall be in force until the current xenological crisis has passed.”

Silverman issued this directive in an effort to establish a commonality with the aliens, and therefore help humans find acceptance with their new neighbors. After all, it didn’t really matter to him – 24th century armies didn’t really make distinctions between male and female soldiers anymore, so it was just a matter of assigning the proper crew to the appropriate ships.

In typical William Steele style, Dr. Steele engineered things so that he could join Taskforce 41/18: before the task force’s departure from Triton Station, he was able to join them as their commander, but not as the academic, Dr. William Charles Steele, but as Captain Amelia Catherine Steele...

In the 24th century, GID was a rare condition, but it happens from time to time, and medical science was able to chemically and surgically change the gender of anyone who wanted it, through cloning compatible tissue, performing the appropriate surgery and administering the appropriate hormones. Dr. Steele made use of this technology to switch his own gender, which cleared her to be re-enlisted and be assigned as 41/18’s commander.

The decision to change was not exactly an easy one, of course. Given who he was, he could probably have pulled some strings and didn’t really need to have a GCS and FFS, but because of his high visibility and the fragile nature of the new new EDF, he couldn’t openly flout Silverman's directives and therefore leave him open to doubts about his command, and thereby jeopardize the fragile coalition.

During the month that 41/18 took to travel to and rendezvous with the aliens, Dr. William Steele, now Captain Amelia Steele, labored to successfully adjust to being a new female, and did her best to be a credit to her new crew.

And when they did rendezvous with the aliens, she and her new command was put to the test when the worst scenario came to pass: upon emerging from light speed, the two groups of aliens started firing on each other.

In the mind of the new Earth captain, she had already decided to throw their future in with the Federation, so she helped defend the Federation envoys and fight off the Empire invaders. The death of one of her pilots at the hands of the Empire expedition gave her a convenient excuse to do so.

After an epic battle, they were successful in turning away the Tirosians and Detterex, allowing the Dixx, Arachnians and Elyrans to continue on to Earth.

On the month-long sub-light trip from the outskirts of the solar system to Earth (Mia and her fellow "Earthers" had to accommodate the slower extraterrestrials, who needed this time to properly decelerate), Taskforce 41/18 again engaged the Tirosian invaders twice more, decimating the Tirosians and Detterex in the process, although one ship escaped to raise the alarm in the Empire about this new, upstart and quite dangerous and aggessive species - the humans.

Upon arrival on Earth, Mia finally got to meet the Elyran Princess Tasha and Prince Ren, the Dixx Admiral Dax, and the Arachnian First Ambassador face to face instead of via Phase-Wave-slash-radio. Little did Mia know that these would become four of her best friends.

When the Federation representatives arrived on Earth, the Dixx, Arachnians, Elyrans and the “Earthers” (as the aliens liked to call them), anxious to sign an alliance, wasted no time and established the beginnings of what would eventually be known as the Earth Alliance - the unofficial name of the alliance between Arachnia, Daemon, Dixx, Earth, Elyra, Star-453 and Telcontar (though, at the time, it was just between Arachnia, Dixx, Earth and Elyra).

To say that this was unprecedented was an understatement: though Elyrans looked very similar to Humans, the Dixx looked more like upright birds and the Arachnians looked like friendly cartoon tarantulas with hard, crab-like, shiny, orange-and-white exoskeletons. One thing that "Earthers" would realize, as many in the Federation already know, was that, whatever one looked like or where one came from was inconsequential - people are people, whether they be covered in fur or feathers or chitin.

Though Earth wanted immediate admittance to the Federation, their visitors couldn’t guarantee that. Therefore, Mia’s taskforce was assigned to bring their new friends back to Colossus, the headquarters of Federation government, and personally present Earth’s petition to the Federation Council and the Federation Chamber of Migration and Peerage.

So the remaining Federation ships, along with Captain Steele’s three ships supplemented by four new ones (Mia’s squadron was now rechristened Earth’s Fifth Fleet), made their way to Colossus, and, in two months, they were at the seat of Federation government.

Politics and intrigue were never unique to the “Earthers,” and they had a crash course in alien race relations as Mia and her people were forced to deal with Federation personalities and priorities. Nevertheless, they were making headway into their petition when the Empire sent ships to Colossus as well as to Earth again. Earth was ready for them this time, while Mia and her people did their best to assist Colossus personnel in repelling Empire ships.

Initially, the Federation forces did not trust Mia’s EarthForce people, but their total ineffectiveness in repulsing the invaders left it to the Earthers to save Colossus. And save it they did, in spectacular fashion. Back on Earth Admiral Silverman was also successful in repelling his own invaders.

It could be said that this was instrumental to the Federation approving their application, but whatever it was, Earthers became the newest members of the Federation, and were rapidly acquiring reputations as doughty warriors, brilliant politicians and people loyal to their friends.

The Earthers couldn’t rest on their laurels, however, since their latest Phase-Wave intelligence indicated that the Tirosians and Detterex were gearing up for an imminent invasion. With the help of the Fifth Fleet, Colossus sent messages, and the Federation prepared for war.

Mia and her people joined the ships that were on the way to the Elyran homeworld since Phase-Wave showed it was the next targeted for invasion.

Upon their arrival at Elyra Prime, Mia and the others helped the Elyrans to start preparations for the arrival of the enemy. And, using a well-planned defensive strategy, the enemy, which turned out to be just made up of Detterex ships, was defeated.

But the Detterex didn’t go down without a fight. At the last moment, a small group of the invaders were able to land on Elyra Prime and, in a desperate final move, headed off to the capital, broke into the royal castle and kidnapped the Elyran queen - Ren's mother, and therefore Tasha's mother-in-law.

Tasha, Mia and a small contingent of their people joined the Elyrans in the rescue of the queen, and in so doing, killed the leader of the invasion, who happened to be the heir apparent to the Detterex throne.

This latest defeat got back to the Tirosians and Detterex which, needless to say threw a monkey wrench in their plans. Their forces, which they were consolidating preparatory to an attack, were sent back to the Tirosian and Detterex homeworlds.

This gave everyone in the Federation a little breather, and gave them a little more time to continue consolidating their own forces. Mia decided to return to Colossus to help organize from there. However, they didn’t count on a Detterex spy-saboteur masquerading as an Elyran (Detterex looked exactly like Elyrans, after all).

This spy’s scheme to sabotage Colossus was thwarted by Mia, but not before Prince Ren, the husband of Princess Tasha, the heir apparent to the Elyran throne, was killed.

In her grief, Tasha went into a suicidal rampage, but Mia and Sahsha Delyer, Earther diplomatic administrator, and Mia’s girlfriend, were able to stop her. And through the efforts of Earther and Federation officers, more Detterex spies were unmasked and allowed them to proceed making plans for defeating the Tirosians and Detterex unhindered.

Many things happened from that point on: Federation forces were able to take the fight to the Tirosian homeworld. In that engagement, through the use of something called the "Curtain of Light" and the continuous bombardment of the planet by "kinetic energy bombs" - essentially inert rocks fired at the planet at great speed - the Tirosians had no choice but to surrender.

But the Tirosian character could not take the humiliation of defeat, and close to ninety-five percent of the population committed suicide - the Tirosians virtually wiped themselves out. As for the Tiros fleet in orbit, half of the fleet served notice that they have, in essence, mutinied, and just quietly departed.

As for the Detterex, before the Federation sent their ships, they opted to surrender rather than face what the Tirosians faced, and the Federation, under the leadership of the Earthers, proceeded to consolidate all three political entities - the Federation, the Tirosians and the Detterex - into one single alliance, with the Earthers acting as the unofficial enforcers of law, and defenders of the people.

Many other things happened, like Mia's friend, Dr. Jennifer Priestly becoming the new apprentice of the Keeper of the Heritage, the unofficial spiritual and religious leader of most of the peoples of the Federation; or that Mia, Sahsha and Tasha, the heir apparent of all Elyra, got married; that, upon the death of the queen, the three became the new Elyran Royal Family, with Tasha becoming the new monarch, and her Earther wives as her royal princess consorts; and that with her appointment as the Steward of the Realm of the Elyran Northern Territory, Mia became the second most powerful person in Elyra.

And the people of the galaxy lived happily ever after.

- - - - -

"That's very good, kid," Phil nodded. "Expertly done. Excellent concatenation of the major events in the past fifteen or so years."

Marjorie blushed. "Thank you, sir," she said.

"I could have done without the 'happily ever after,' though," Phil laughed.

 
Getting To Meet The Princess

Phil McIntyre listened with pleasure as this new grad student, Marjorie, succinctly boiled down all the important information that he asked for into a short ten-minute lecture.

Of course, she did cut out a lot of important details, and he quizzed her on those, and she comported herself expertly. What's more, Phil had interviewed her in fluent Elyran, Detterex, Tirosian and Dravidian. Though she struggled with Tirosian and Dravidian, she was extremely fluent in Elyran and Detterex (Detterex was largely like a dialect of Elyran so, if one knew Elyran, one knew Detterex as well).

This pleased Phil very much - after interviewing a dozen interns, this one was, by far, the best and most knowledgeable. And she demonstrated an attitude that went beyond just wanting a degree and a career. This one had real passion for the material, and truly semed to have the same views that he and the people of CETI had. This might be the one that Mia had asked for.

After they finished making notes on the program, he took the youngster to CETI Station Seventeen's best coffee place, which was not that big a deal since there were only eleven of them, but this one had had Saturnian Coffee.

He asked Marjorie her plans after graduation, and she said she was unsure. But then she said she wanted a diplomatic career, perhaps a posting at one of the embassies, preferrably the one at Elyra Prime, or as one of the volunteers in the various missionary and oureach expeditions to the so-called "orphan worlds" of the former Tiros Empire, or perhaps volunteer for the "First Wave" missions that the Federation regularly launches to recent interdiction or military intervention events to help speed normalization. Failing that, perhaps the consulate at Detterex Prime.

"Detterex! Whatever for?"

"Well, Professor," she said, timidly, "it's where we're needed - to find a way to speed up the integration of Elyran and Detterex societies."

Phil laughed. "And you said you were unsure."

Marjorie smiled and giggled nervously. Professor McIntyre had a reputation for a dry and sarcastic kind of humor that has made many an undergrad run from the lecture hall crying. Marjorie was determined that she won't be one of those.

"I guess I've thought about it a bit," she said bravely. But the professor seemed to take that in stride.

"Well, here's a question," Phil said, "how would you like to meet the Princess Amelia Liaran-Kerr-Steele?"

She looked at Phil slack-jawed.

"You're pulling my leg," she said.

Phil chuckled. "Nope."

Marjorie looked steadily at Phil. "What's the catch, Professor?"

"No catch. You and seven other graduate students from four other universities have been selected, and will be part of a little ceremony and reception party to meet with the Elyran Royal Family at the Federation Embassy on St. Mary's Island."

Though Marjorie was almost beside herself with excitement, she tried to appear calm and collected. "What's the ceremony about?"

"It's something that CETI and the ATAC people from the military have cooked up, in cooperation with the Royal Family and the Arachnians, Telcontari, Daemons, Dixx and those from Star-453."

"Isn't that courting disaster? What about the Dravidians? The Erocii? Won't they protest or something, that they're left out of this... whatever it is, and upset the current uneasy status quo in the council?"

"Very good, my dear! None of the others thought about that."

"Thank you, sir."

"Well, to answer your question, yes, you're right. The delicate balance of power in Colossus has not improved much since we were admitted. Many will say it's the Dravidians that are causing all the instability in the Federation's power structure, and I, for one, agree. Dravidians have enjoyed their privileged status for more than ten millenia. I doubt they would think kindly of an upstart like us 'Earthers,' and our incredible impertinence of rescuing the galaxy, grabbing the Federation's hearts and minds and, in so doing, making them almost inconsequential to the Federation.

"Because of which, the Telcontari, the current administrators of Colossus, have bent over backwards just to keep the Dravidians happy and in the loop, despite the fact they had resigned their positions as administrators of Colossus, and resigned all their posts in all committees and councils. Their pride wouldn't let them do otherwise.

"Telcontari are smart, smarter than any of the Federation people give them credit for. Knowing this of the Dravidians and other races with a similar perspective, the Telcontari made this new project of the Princess totally open and above-board. Many wanted to participate, but did not have the means. As for those that did have the means, only the Elyrans, Arachnians, Telcontari, Daemons, Dixx and us Earthers agreed to participate."

"The Dravidians didn't participate? That's unexpected."

"I thought so, too, but in hindsight, given the substantial materiele, resources and personnel they were expected to contribute, they backed out quickly. I don't have to tell you that Dravidians are legendary penny pinchers. Do you agree?"

Marjorie giggled and nodded.

"So... you want to meet the Princess and her new family?"

"Of course! But... what's the project about? Do you need me to do anything?"

Phil waved that away as if that wasn't important. "In that case, get your stuff together. We're leaving on a military halo flight in a couple of days, and make sure you tell friends and family you will away for at least six months. I don't want to hear any of your professors say you skipped class or dropped a course or something."

"What? What halo flight? What..."

"A halo flight is what they now call ships that land directly at their passengers' destination straight from their point of departure at super speeds."

"Ahhh. One of those! They call those flights 'concordes' nowadays. Don't ask me why."

You learn something new everyday, Phil thought. He waved Marjorie away. "Go on. Skeedadle." And Marjorie nodded.

Despite looking a little perplexed, she picked up her things preparatory to leaving.

"Marjorie!" Phil said.

"Ummm, yes, sir?"

Phil smiled broadly. "Good work."

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter One Marjorie Quinn was given the opportunity to meet her hero, Princess Amelia, one of the princess consorts to the Elyran queen, Queen Tasha Liaran-Kerr, and also the person who engineered the victory over the Tirosians and the Detterex and therefore made the peace that the Federation was currently enjoying possible. She was going to ride one of EarthForce's new so-called "halo flights" that would take off directly from Triton Station and then, in mere days, would land directly on Earth. From there, she'd get to meet Mia, and maybe even Duchess Sahsha and the queen! She couldn't help wonder what this new project of hers was, but it must be big if it involved CETI. Meanwhile, Mia, Tasha and Sahsha were working out some family concerns even as they worried about Federation-related concerns...

---

 

Chapter One: Strange Political Bedfellows

 
Many things had happened since that heady time of what the Humans called New Armistice Day, although Humans were more universally known as “Earthers,” now. In fact the Humans themselves have started using the term.

"New Armistice Day" was the day when all hostilities between the Galactic Federation of Races, the Tirosian Empire and the Detterex Star Empire officially ceased. It was also the day when the conditional surrender of the Detterex to the Federation was signed.

During the same year of New Armistice Day, the Elyran Queen's health had started to decline. There was nothing to be done, really - Her Royal Highness was just old. But by that time, though, she had started to pave the way for her daughter-in-law to take over the throne, along with her daughter-in-law's Earther wives: the "warrior queen" of Earth, the Lady Amelia, now Princess Amelia; and "she-who-saves," now Duchess Sahsha the Earther diplomat.

In the royal conclaves that were called, Tasha's claim to the throne was never challenged and her path to ascension was quite smooth and painless. It's the queen's command, after all.

But many of the... less educated in Elyran and Detterex society would question the validity of a non-Elyran becoming part of the Royal Family. Still, they could easily be silenced by arguments like, " but the two Earthers had royal names and must therefore be of royal lineage and worthy of the throne!" (The names "Amelia," "Mia" and "Sahsha" indeed sounded very phonetically close to classic Elyran royal names.), Or something like, "given what they have done for the people and the galaxy, they just have to be Elyran," or, for the more paranoid among these less enlightened citizens, it would be something like, "Shhh! Don't say anything, or Earther soldiers will come and take you away!"

Needless to say, these were all the musings of uneducated minds. For the more enlightened, they knew any alliances that would be formed from this marriage would be enormously beneficial to the people, and besides, they owed these two, as they did all Earthers, a debt that was unrepayable.

- - - - -

Mia and Sahsha were nothing but normal humans. Extraordinary, above-average humans, to be sure, but very much normal, and very apolitical and indifferent to power.

In fact, these very qualities were what sustained their appeal with the Elyran and Detterex people, and engendered a kind of trust and faith that very few in the Elyran and Detterex royal families ever had.

And when the queen eventually died, Tasha's ascension to the Elyran throne was quick and without incident. The pomp and pageantry accompanying such a world-shaking event was there, of course, but there was no protest among the people. And after the traditional year to mourn the passing of their liege, Tasha would be free to take over the throne.

A couple of years before that, of course, Mia had her own investiture ceremony, when she assumed stewardship of the Northern Kingdom of Elyra - one of the most powerful kingdoms in all Elyra, second only to The Great Plains Kingdom of Tasha's. There were a few grumblings, especially among the higher echelons of the Royal Peerage, but the fact that Mia was only the steward and not the real monarch of the great Northern Kingdom made suspicions that the Liaran-Kerr family engineered the consolidation of their power base with the Dorian-Kerr family of the Northern Kingdom less than idle gossip.

Nevertheless, it was with relief to the people, and to the rest of the Federation, that the rulers of the five other kingdoms of Elyra, and the sixteen off-world kingdoms announced their unanimous support for her claim to the throne. Even the Detterex queen expressed her full support of Tasha and sent a delegation to Tasha's coronation.

This trust was justified when, in the intervening years, Tasha, Mia and Sahsha wielded their enormous influence, power and wealth with benevolence, generosity and unquestionable fairness. Besides, their taking over resulted in prosperity and peace throughout all of Elyra and her colonies, especially for the Great Plains and the Northern Kingdom. It would be hypocritical if they would question their governance of the kingom. There was an Earther saying that was very apropos: "Do not bite the hand that feeds you."

But it couldn't be denied that, with Mia being the almost-monarch of the Northern Kingdom, and Tasha being the Queen of All Elyra as well as the reigning monarch of the Great Plains, the power that they wielded was something to be respected, indeed, for some, even to be feared.

Over the years, however, the three became adept at this game of Elyran politics and monarchy, and, together, made sure to keep government running smoothly. They knew, however, that, though it was a temptation to try and get some Earthers on-staff, they avoided that at all costs so that they couldn't be accused of conflicting loyalties. The only Earthers that were ever seen around Tasha, (except for Mia and Sahsha) were, occasionally, Fifth Fleet personnel.

They did the next best thing, though, and hired as many non-Elyran consultants that they needed, especially Dixx, Arachnians, Daemons and Telcontari. Other sophonts, especially Dravidians, cried foul, of course, and accused the Elyran monarchy of favoritism and preferential treatment for members of the unofficial "Earth Alliance."

They even brought the matter up at the next economic conference on Colossus.

Mia represented Elyra and Earth during that conference, and even that was another point of grievance for the Dravidians, but Mia was able to turn the tables.

"Friends and fellow sophonts," she began after being recognized when she pinged, "I come here in place of Queen Tasha, to represent the people of Elyra and her colonies.

"As one can plainly see, I am not Elyran - I am an Earther. And Elyra and Earth, along with Arachnia, Daemon, Dixx, Star-453 and Telcontar, are part of the so-called Earth Alliance.

"One can therefore find reason to accuse me and my beloved Sahsha of divided loyalties, of whether we are properly representing the interests of Elyra. However, the Federation believes in the principle of Benevolent Intent, where people of all races are assumed to have benevolent intentions in their dealings with fellow sophonts. After all, without it, misunderstandings brought on by differing cultures, traditions and points of view would be inevitable.

"As such, Federation law says it is up to the accuser to prove that the intent of any sophont is other than benevolent. This is similar to an Earth legal principle of Presumption of Innocence, where an accused is presumed innocent of a crime until an accuser is able to prove that she is guilty.

"I come before you now with the expectation that I and the so-called Earth Alliance are presumed to have no nefarious intent, that I come representing Her Highness, Queen Tasha and the entire Elyran people, challenging those that would accuse us of unfair dealings.

"I therefore exercise the privilege of the Supplicant's Prerogative, that our accusers be compelled come forward and show the particulars of their grievance, and allow us to defend against or refute these allegations. I therefore call out Cor, the former Councillor of Dravidia Prime, to come forward and face me!"

There was consternation in the Dravidian delegation. They were counting on the embarassment and the turmoil that the mere accusation of impropriety would cause, as it always did in the past, and the other party would rather engage in negotiations in exchange for the accusations to be dropped.

Cor and his people were therefore caught flat-footed. By the rules, they had one full rotation of Zeos to provide the council en-banc their verifiable evidence, or what the council calls their attestations. Truth be told, Cor didn't have any - only accusations, suspicions and innuendo - but he would drag out the process in the hopes that he and his people would think of something. So, hopefully in one Zeos day, they'll be ready.

Since Mia had one day before she was needed again in the conference, Mia took the opportunity to spend some time in their Embassy, and said hi to Nick, who was now Earth's permanent ambassador to the Federation, to check with the Elyran embassy and touch base with the staff, and to renew acquaintances with her remaining friends in Colossus. Though she would find that many of them had retired or accepted other posts - eight years in Colossus was a long time, after all - she was glad many were still there.

That reminded her - in a couple more years, it would be time for the greatly anticipated Raffle, where the schedule of tenure for the different administrators and their apprentices for the coming millenium would be raffled off, and that the truncated tenure of the Telcontari as Colossus' current administrators would end, likewise Earth's equally truncated tenure as Colossus' current administrative apprentices.

During the Telcontaris' time as administrators, many changes had been effected onboard the planet-sized station. Telcontari and Earthers were in great evidence throughout the station now, and the benefits of their management, and the manner of operation of Colossus, were continually being felt. It was amazing how big a difference they made compared to when the Dravidians were in charge. In the whole history of Colossus, the Dravidians, when they were the Administrators, were shown to be the times with the least activity for the Federation government, and when the Dravidians were conspicuous by their ability to enrich themselves using the enormous influence that being administrators gave them.

- - - - -

Mia's close Telcontari friends, Mumu, Pinpin and Chi-Chi had been promoted, with Chi-Chi, and his new partner, Timtim, as the new Directors for the Office of Protocol, and Mumu and Pinpin as the new Chamberlains of Colossus.

Mia visited her friends in the Chamberlain's offices - the previous Dravidian Chamberlain's old offices - where a boisterous welcome party was spontaneously organized by Mumu and Pinpin - a party full of hugs, stories, laughter, Krahhng wine and the special Telcontari pastry that Earthers and Elyrans alike have shown a preference for, which was called "floofy" (even now, after years of enjoying the special pastry from Telcontari, Mia still couldn't say the name without breaking out in laughter).

And Mia got to know Timtim, though, in Mia's opinion, the young Telcontari seemed to be too young to be one of the directors of the Office of Protocol, and that's saying a lot given that she was a Telcontari. But, to be fair, her age also made her much cuter than any of the Telcontari Mia has met so far. No wonder she was quite popular among her male peers and had bowled over most of the Elyrans and Earthers that she dealt with on the station. But talking to her, Mia found her more than competent, and totally fit for the job. She never doubted that, of course - after all Mumu, Pinpin and Chi-chi vouched for her, and Mia trusted and valued her friends' opinions.

Mumu, Pinpin and Chi-Chi were disappointed that Tasha and Sahsha weren't with her, but Mia said that they would see her spouses a couple of months later during the reception for the new project that they were kicking off in a couple of months at the Federation Embassy on St. Martin's Island on Earth. Mia contacted Nick, asked him to set up a meeting of the people that are part of the project and invited him to the party.

Nick agreed and said he'll be there in twenty minutes.

- - - - -

The following day, despite being tired and a slight hangover, Mia showed up at the Economic Conference at the appointed time.

As per the rules, the Dravidians' case was one of the first on the day's docket. So when the council chairman, or rather chairbeing, Mia thought humorously, called on Cor to present their case, Cor was a bit reluctant to step up to the lectern. Despite having a whole day to marshall his arguments and organize his attestations, he and his people have basically come up with nothing.

So, he called up all of his legal expertise and everything he knew about Federation jurisprudence, and tried to bluff his way through this.

"My friends and colleagues," he began, "thank you for summoning me to..."

A pinging interrupted him. It was the Alluwerean delegate. She was wearing her environmental suit, as most aquatics do when they were onboard Colossus.

"I beg forgiveness for interrupting," the aquatic being said, in Elyran, via the voder of her suit, "but honored Dravidian Cor is mistaken. You are not here because you were summoned, Cor. You are here because you demanded that your case be included in this year's conference."

Dravidians were known to be pedantic. But so were Alluwereans. Cor has met his match.

"But the illegal, immoral and disonorable behavior of the Earthers demanded action!" Cor replied. "They have forced my hand! Their predations on the economic body of the Federation demanded redress! Their..."

"Elyrans!" The normally mild-mannered Alluwerean exclaimed. "You do mean the Elyans, do you not, and not Earthers?"

"Ummm, yes, I mean the Elyrans..."

"This ill-founded, thinly-veiled vendetta of yours against the Earthers must stop, Cor! At each and very turn you and your cohorts have tried to block their activities - activities which have immeasurable value to the Federation. Your blind anger and unending greed, your need for revenge for being disgraced and humiliated - it is hurting the people! You must stop!"

Cor smashed his claw-like fist on the lectern. "No!" he cried in his native Dravidian.

The delegates gasped.

The Earther translators built into the walls translated it into the Federation's lingua franca - Elyran. Even that small thing was like a dagger in Cor's heart. "Other people's speech should be in Dravidian," he thought.

"No!" Cor repeated. "I will not live in a universe where that Earther" - he turned and pointed at Mia - "where you are exulted and I am humiliated! I will not live in a universe where... where you are loved... and I am not... I will not..." His voice faltered.

Mia stood, breaking protocol. She didn't even ping.

She walked to the lectern, and to Cor.

"Cor," she said, and reached out to him.

"No!" he cried and swatted her hand. "I will not be pitied by you!"

Mia rubbed her bruised hand, and looked at the alien. Her heart bled for the hurting Dravidian, and she wished she could turn off the video system so others won't see this and help preserve his pride. She longed to say "shut up, Cor, for your sake," but she couldn't.

"Please, Cor, please..."

"Please, what, your royal highness," he said sarcastically, "hero of Elyra, hero of Colossus. Am I such an embarrassment to you? Where is your mongrel wife and your Earther tart? Did you leave them in your wondrous castle on Elyra?"

"Cor!" a large Dravidian, larger even than Cor, approached him. "Do not speak anymore. Do not shame your house further. Do not shame our people."

"I do not have to listen to you anymore, brother," he said. "I am not a child anymore!"

The bigger Dravidian backhanded Cor, much in the same way that Cor slapped Mia's hand away, but this Dravidian's slap had more English to it, and it rocked Cor backward, almost making him fall.

The new one yelled something in some Dravidian dialect the translators didn't know and half a dozen Dravidian soldiers came over to take Cor away.

"Wait!" Mia said. "Stop!"

She took hold of the arm of the lead soldier. "Don't, please," she said to the soldier. The Dravidian looked at Mia, and then down to where she was looking - he was holding the handcuffs that he was about to put on Cor. He looked to their leader, the big one who hit Cor.

The big one looked at Mia's pleading face. "Please. Let him keep some dignity," Mia whispered urgently. "Let him walk out of here on his own."

The Dravidian continued looking at her, and he understood her - finally, he understood the heart of this Earther woman. This alien was indeed worthy of her reputation. Lar, Cor's older brother liked this Earther, and appreciated her compassionate heart.

He barked a command to his soldier, and the handcuffs were put away. He barked another command and the soldiers stepped away from Cor.They waited, and Cor stepped away from the lectern and walked out of the room on his own, head held haughtily high, and his patented insousiance back again as he walked away.

Once Cor and the soldiers had vacated the hall, the big Dravidian slowly, reluctantly, stepped up to the lectern.

"Councilor Cor and the Dravidian delegation officially withdraws our motion, and beg the honorable delegates' forgiveness for taking their time."

He stepped down from the lectern and turned to leave, but when he faced Mia, he stopped.

With his fist over his heart, he bowed to Mia in the Elyran manner, in the way one acknowledges royalty.

"Your royal highness," he said. "Thank you."

"What do you..."

Before she could say more, the Dravidian straightened up, and without any more comment, left.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Two Drama, as there always was when the former councilor of Dravidia, Councilor Cor, was on the scene, and this time was no different. Cor, trying to break the so-called Earth Alliance's growing influence in the Federation, made claims that the Earthers' influence on the Elyran and Federation economies was detrimental to the people, especially to the Elyrans, so he therefore filed a motion with the economic council to intervene on behalf of the Elyrans. But even before a discussion of his motion could ensue, Mia called him out and demanded to see evidence to prove his accusations. But he didn't have any. His idea was, as it almost always happened, that the mere accusation would make the accused party capitulate and begin negotiations. But Mia didn't. So the Dravidians pulled their motion. It was yet another reason for the Earth-Dravidian feud to continue. When the case was canceled, that meant Mia's trip to Colossus was for nothing... Still, there was some good news - since Mia didn't need to stay, she just might be able to make it to Earth in time for the start of the conference she was originally scheduled to attend. In fact, she might even arrive earlier than Tasha or Sahsha.

---

 

Chapter Two: Quoting Sherlock Holmes

 
A new language

"Hi, honey," Mia said to Tasha. Mia was currently on a Phase-Wave call to Tasha, who was currently onboard the Elyran royal flagship, the Talon, with Sahsha and their royal entourage. They were currently on their way to Earth. Planetfall was three weeks away for them. But Mia, onboard EarthForce's 5th Fleet flagship, the Shepherd Moon, was confident she could make it before then, but she wasn't saying that to Tasha so as not to get anyone's hopes up just in case she was a little late.

"T'chahn, my love," Tasha replied. "I heard the Dravidians dropped the case?"

"Yes. I was shocked, myself. But it seems Cor didn't have any of his attestations ready." Mia referred to what Earth courts would called demonstrative evidence - exhibits or documentary material that would prove or support Cor's claims.

Tasha sighed, smiling. "Typical of Cor. I suppose he was counting on you giving up and negotiating."

"Most likely."

"So I suppose you can leave for Earth now?"

"Yes. Within the day, actually. I just need to say goodbye to Mumu, Pinpin, Nicky and the guys. I have Ben going around and getting all of the things we need done completed. Hopefully we won't be too late getting to the shindig."

"Well, no need to rush too much. The secretary-general has said she can delay the opening ceremonies..."

"No! Tash, don't let her do that. We want to get this locked down right away..."

Tasha chuckled. "You worry too much, my love."

Mia scrunched her face. "I know, I know... Where's Sahsha, by the way?"

"As usual, dear heart is still in bed." The two of them laughed. Sahsha was not known as an early riser, and her two spouses kept on making fun of that.

"What time is it there, anyway?"

"It is mid-morning ship time."

"Hmmm... that's late, even for her. So what were you guys doing last night? Hmmm?"

Tasha blushed, which confirmed it for Mia. Mia chortled.

"Hush, Mia!" Tash said, but her tone couldn't cover the hidden pride in her love and affection for her spouses, and she blushed so prettily.

Mia sighed. "I wish I was there with you."

"I, too, wish we were together. But it's all right. We'll be with each other soon enough. This is important - we need to do this."

"Yup, yup. 'kay. I'll leave you to your queenly stuff, and I'll call again this afternoon." Mia laughed.

Tasha smiled in exasperated resignation at that lame, well-worn family joke. "All right. I'll leave you to your admiral stuff. I know just how much you enjoy bossing people around."

Mia stuck her tongue out at Tasha. "Talk to you again later, my love."

And they switched off simultaneously. It's like they read each other's mind, although it was, in reality, just them knowing each other so well that it was almost like reading minds. To Mia and Sahsha, they were very surprised at this meshing of the minds, but to Tasha, it was just something that happens to bridges. But, regardless, the three of them were very happy.

If someone were there eavesdropping, she would have been amazed that the two understood each other so well. After all, Mia was talking in heavily colloquial Earther English, while Tasha was talking in highly contextual posh Elyran. But in the Kerr-Steele-Delyer family, they switched languages without even noticing. Over the years, Tasha and Sahsha had become extremely fluent in each other's native tongues, and Mia, already fluent in both, just refined her understanding of both languages. Their family was a polyglot family and, as such, the three had started to develop a kind of intermediate family dialect, which was a mixture of standard English, standard Elyran, standard Federation, New York English, posh Received Pronounciation English, contextual Royal Elyran, a mishmash of Dixx and Telcontari phrases, and punctuated by Arachnian glyphs (these were the physical signals and arm gestures Arachnians used to express emotion).

The people in the royal staff have had to learn a bit of this pidgin language just to keep up with the three. The best among them was Ben, of course, because he was Princess Mia's right-hand man (in Earther terms, he was the Queen's Hand), and was the confidant of Sahsha and Tasha. So he was exposed to a lot of this pidgin Elyran-slash-English. Still, even he wasn't quick enough to keep up sometimes. It sometimes got so thick, the royal staff and the 5th Fleet crews referred to it as the secret royal language. It was one of Ben's secret projects to actually document it. He was actually getting to grips with it, and it was his intention to finish the book he was writing soon, which he was calling "The New Language of the Northern Kingdom," as a birthday gift to his liege, Princess Mia.

Celebrating one's birthday was yet another common thing between Earthers and Elyrans, so it was only natural that Mia's birthday was going to be celebrated, and naturally, celebrated in royal fashion. In fact, a delegation of sixteen Elyrans from from Mia's royal household staff was currently billeted at the princess's official home on Earth, Star Castle, on St. Mary's Island - part of the Sciollian Isles, which her duchy, after all. They were there to help Mia's staff prepare for her birthday fete. It was a big deal because it was her first royal birthday to be celebrated on Earth in years, and it was going to be done as a mix of Elyran and Earther traditions. And all of Mia's, Tasha's and Sahsha's people, both Elyran and Earther, were determined to make it an epic one.

- - - - -

In the 19th century, the medieval castle and garrison on St. Mary's Island was converted to a luxury hotel, but after the war, it had essentially been abandoned, as were the entire Sciollian Isles. But during Recovery, everything was refurbished, including the castle. It was Mia's home now, and it was where Mia stayed when she was on Earth - about two out of every twelve months.

The castle was in a bastion fort or trace italienne fortification style - a style of castle-building that evolved when cannons started dominating the battlefield in the fifteenth century. The design evolved to resist cannon attacks - its thick sloping walls would resist cannon fire, and its distinctly star-shaped layout, with bastions filling "dead zones," so achers and infantry wouldn't have to any areas to hide in along the fortification's walls.

This style gave the castle, and all of the others that used the same design, a star-shaped layout. The locals, as expected, called it the Star Castle, and it had been known by that name ever since.

- - - - -

The book Ben was writing was going to be a grammar book, and though it began as a joke book, because of Princess Mia's encyclopedic mind, Queen Tasha's pedantic and meticulous nature, and Lady Sahsha's linguistics and philology disciplines, this pseudo-language really was shaping up and looking like a legitimate language more and more - with the princess' encyclopedic knowledge of Earther, Elyran and Federation languages, it ended up using words and ideas that the three were cherrypicking from existing languages that were appropriate, while the duchess was able to identify and adopt the appropriate language forms and language rules to fit what they were trying to communicate, and the queen, most importantly, insisting on consistency, forcing Mia and Sahsha to stick to their invented rules, allowing the three to perfect it. This was all done unintentionally, but just as a byproduct of their own preferences and predelictions. All Ben really had to do was to just document it.

Several weeks ago, he approached the duchess and the queen, and informed them of his project. He showed them what he had, and he said that he was about a month away from finishing his book, which would make it just in time for Mia's birthday. He asked if it was all right, as he may offend the royal family or something. The queen delightfully said yes to the project. As for the duchess, she took all of Ben's material and shut herself in the royal bedchamber for three straight days.

At the end of the three days, Sahsha summoned Ben, and when he came over, Sahsha gave back his book and other notes, and the two of them talked it over.

Ben knew the duchess was extremely smart, but when in her own element, she was an absolute genius.

What she did for him was to organize his work, applied lingustics standards to his amateur work, and retooled many of the sections he had written into a full-fledged language reference, both in the Elyran style and the Earther style. She also identified the missing language elements and identified the remaining areas that Ben needed to concentrate on.

Ben was looking at his friend with mouth agape.

Sahsha looked at him. "What's wrong?"

Ben continued to stare at her. "Well, whatever it is," she said, "just get back to work. Go, go! Finish the book!" Sahsha shooed him away, and he scurried out of the royal bedchamber. In the back of his mind, he had always assumed Sahsha as the weakest link in the family, but he was utterly mistaken. Sahsha was more than equal to the other two, and was shamed for so thoroughly underestimating his friend, the duchess.

In any case, his book was almost done, and, after finishing his ship's inspection round for the morning, he'll go back to his cabin and work on it for a couple of hours. But only after he checks in with his princess, and see if she had other things for him. Which was all but an inevitability.

He had met only a few people like her, smarter than all the people around her, driven to do what she thought needed to be done, and was the worst overachiever that he knew, and she assumed everyone was like her, too.

It was hard to dissuade Mia of that conceit, simply because she didn't know it was a conceit. After all, she surrounded herself with superlative individuals like the dearly departed Prince Ren, Queen Tasha, Admiral Dax and the First Ambassador, Secretary-General Romarkin, Admiral Silverman, Dr. Running-Stream, Captain O'Connell, Swordmistress Reena, Ambassador Andros, and so many others. Even the Earther Queen Margaret. All of them were smart, driven people just like her. So how could Mia know?

Ben has had to do double-time just to remain at par with them. Never in his life had he worked so hard just to keep up. But Ben wouldn't have it any other way. His liege trusted him so he must prove worthy of Mia's trust.

But in his first year as the queen's hand, he was often on the verge of tears - his work was so demanding. But Sahsha would always be there to comfort and commiserate. But when she offered to tell Mia to slack off, Ben said no. Sahsha respected her best friend's wishes and didn't say anything to anyone.

But in that year, Ben found reserves he didn't know he had, and he didn't just cope but actually thrived as Mia's right-hand man. And everyone in the castle - the Alwahri Taryn Eloisha Seraphim, or just Seraphim for short - came to know Ben as the most capable person in the castle despite his being what was referred to as a "submissive bridge," and was the highest person in authority next to Princess Mia. And, in the fullness of time, he became one of those capable and driven people he so admired.

After that first year of hell, Mia invited him to dinner on the Seraphim's open-air rooftop lounge, where he and Mia dined in grand royal style, but yet conversed in the casual and intimate way that Mia preferred. Tasha and Sahsha was conspicusously absent, so he, naturally, started to worry. He feared that he was about to be fired, and tried to compose himself.

But, instead of firing him, Mia instead presented him with a jeweled, silver Phase-Wave cellphone as a token of her gratitude and esteem. And Ben was shocked.

To an Elyran, such a gift was priceless. The few Phase-Wave phones that circulated in Elyra were valued at over twenty million crowns, and were considered close to family heirlooms by now. Very few tried to break open their phones because their built-in seemingly foolproof Earther protection circuit prevented any tampering. So the secret of Phase-Wave remained a secret.

But these Phase-Wave phones were drab affairs - though smaller and sleeker than their Elyran radio-based equivalents, they were still quite functional-looking, just like the Earther non-Phase-Wave cellular phones that were, by now, in general use in the Federation.

The Phase-Wave ones that the royal family used were sleek, too, but, in keeping with Elyran royal sensibilities and aesthetics, they looked more like pieces of jewelry. Tasha's and Sahsha's phones were hand units that they kept in their vest or trouser pockets on the end of unbreakable jeweled silver chains (as a guard against pickpockets, for even the royal family was prey to such criminals, although in their case, the pickpockets were actually Elyran royal relatives or their retainers). Their phones were like pieces of crystal sculpture that were functional tools as well, and small enough to readily fit in the palm of one's hand.

Their phones doubled as CCs, or "comm-computers," - those devices that Earthers used as a phone, a small computer, a timekeeper and calendar, a recorder, an entertainment device and an electronic concierge.

As for Mia, her own Phase-Wave phone-slash-CC was designed to look like a carved, crystal bracelet, and she wore it on her left wrist. But depending on the setting that she would select, the bracelet would change its predominant color - to either ruby, amber, silver, gold, emerald ebony, chocolate or its default transparent crystal color. It was a function Mia specifically asked for - something she said she needed given how Ben was so insistent that her clothes and accessories be tasteful, and that they match.

As for Ben, Mia gave him something similar, although his was more like a carved silver bracelet that could transmute at will to look like it was made of gold instead of silver.

Aside from that, it looked just like Mia's, which marked him as part of the royal family. Unbidden tears stinged his eyes, and he looked at his princess with gratitude and love.

"I'm so glad, dear Ben, that you passed through this year with flying colors," she said. "I knew you could do it, and I am so proud."

He looked at her. "You knew, princess?" he asked.

"Tasha and I knew that you had it in you, but you needed to know it for yourself as well." She reached for his hand. "I'm sorry, my dear, for putting you through such a year. Others in your place would have surely given up by now, but it was the only way for you to truly know your capabilities."

"My princess?"

Mia pulled him close and gave him a hug. "I'm sorry, but it was something that needed to be done. Especially for family," she said.

And Ben broke into tears.

- - - - -

Back to the present - as predicted, Mia had a couple of dozen last-minute things that she wanted Ben to take care of because she had some business in Colossus, and couldn't take care of them herself. These were pretty easy, and he had them sussed out within the hour, giving him most of the day to work on his book.

He worked through lunch, and had his meal brought to his quarters. Just before the evening shift was called, Captain O'Connell gave him a call, saying that Mia was now onboard. Ben acknowledged and asked that the captain get underway.

O'Connell acknowledged and Ben felt the slight movement that signified that the Shepherd was already on her way to Earth.

"Shepherd Moon," he thought of himself, marveling at the sheer poetry of the name.

 
What is a Shepherd Moon, anyway?

As Ben made his way to Mia's cabin, he thought of the ship's lyrical name. Formerly called the Seeker, the Fifth Fleet's flagship was renamed the Shepherd Moon, after it came back from rescuing the Federation's first expedition to Earth.

It was a lyrical and magical name to him, with the touch of the romantic and the legendary.

Originally, Ben thought the ship was named after one of the historical Earther figures from the early days of space exploration. Rear Admiral Alan Shepard was one of the first humans to ever go out into outer space, but the ship's name didn't come from him - that should have been obvious, given that the spelling was not at all the same.

Then he researched the word "shepherd." He knew, of course, what it meant, based on the Elyran translation, but he was looking more for the etymology of the word, which came from two words - sheep and herd - shepherds were those people who were in charge of herding and managing sheep - domesticated animals raised as a food source and a source of something called "wool" (he wasn't sure what wool was, yet, however).

So "sheep" plus "herder" became "shepherd," and the term was made to apply to the herding of other domesticated animals, not just sheep. As to how this applied to spacecraft, he didn't know.

He also read about a religious figure that was called a "shepherd of men," but that confused him so he decided to look for other material.

Eventually, his research showed that the ship was named after a "shepherd moon." A moon or other planetary satellite that orbited near planetary rings have the effect of repelling the material of the rings. This effect confines the rings to certain formations. And, sometimes, two of these moons would work together and confine the ring particles to a narrow band between them. A single would-be ring would then be divided further into separate rings on the same plane because of the actions of these "shepherd moons." A spectacular example of this was Saturn’s multiple rings. This effect could also be seen on the other two ringed planets in the Sol system – Uranus and Neptune, though their rings were paltry affairs compared to Saturn’s. Astro-scientists call these satellites shepherd satellites or shepherd moons, because they metaphorically were herding the rings.

People from Earth's NASA and ESA suggested this as Seeker’s new name and EarthForce approved it.

This little datum was far from poetry, but, for him, it added to the romantic aura of the Shepherd Moon - the ship that guided the people of the galaxy to a new, undreamt-of future.

He continued down the passage and came to Mia's cabin door. He nodded to the two EarthForce marines by the door, and they saluted him. He went straight in and found Mia at her desk. On the screen was the image of a young Earther.

"Ahh, Ben!" Mia said. "Ben, let me introduce you to Phil McIntyre's latest protege - this is Mr. Bernard Dietrich, a doctoral candidate from the Humbodlt Univerrsity in Berlin. Mr. Dietrich, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Ben Tevann-Areeyah.

The young man turned to face Ben.

"Good evening, Dr. Tevann-Areeyah," the Earther said in fluent, though very accented Elyran. Since there was no echoing English equivalent, Ben knew he wasn't using a translator - that and his attrocious pronounciation. "I am so pleased to meet you. I have heard so much about you."

"Good evening, Herr Dietrich," Ben replied in Earther German.

"Anyway," Mia said, "thank you for your call, Mr. Dietrich. We will see you on Earth in a few weeks."

The man nodded. "Thank you for your time, my lady. Doctor. See you then." And then Mia cut the call.

"What do you think, Ben?"

"About that boy, my lady?"

"Yes."

"Well, I just met him - I wouldn't have enough..."

Mia smiled. "I know. I was actually looking for first impressions."

"Well..." Ben hesitated, "If we're talking first impressions... I don't like him - he seems very officious and very... " He shrugged. "Plus that atrocious accent!"

Mia laughed uproariously. "You are a snob, my dear."

Ben laughed. He was always pleased to make his princess laugh. "What may I do for you today, my lady," he asked.

"Well," Mia said, "I'd just like to go over everything we're supposed to be doing before we land on Earth. I don't want to miss anything."

Ben took out a paper pad. Mia had always found that a little quaint, but it seems a lot of Elyrans still used pen and paper to take notes.

"Well, my lady," Ben said, "one of the more important things is thatt we need to contact the Federation Garrison and Star Harbor at Elyra Prime, to tell them that we will be pulling out the Fifth Fleet..."

"And EarthForce, of course," she said.

"Darn," Ben muttered. "Of course, my lady." He made a quick note and moved down his list.

"Next, we are to negotiate for three of the old Seren stations... You haven't told me which ones, though."

Mia shrugged. "It doesn't matter which. But I suppose... maybe we should negotiate for the ones on Phobos, Luna and Venus. At least the logistics would be easier. Dismantling them and loading them on ships would be easier if we can do it planetside."

Ben nodded and made some more notes. "We then need to contact the Telcontari regarding their solar farm technology."

Mia nodded. "Maybe Mumu, Pinpin and Chi-Chi would know. Ask them."

Ben nodded. "Then there are the terraforming people. Per my Federation contacts, the best are the people from Star-453 and the Kembels. But they charge a lot."

"Oh. Then we have to look for others."

"I'm sure EarthGov can negotiate for lower..."

Mia shook her head. "No, we can't. We can't be beholden to anyone. This project needs to be completely independent of anyone but the consortium."

"In that case, I don't know anyone anymore, my lady."

"Contact the First Ambassador. I seem to remember he was talking about a terraforming project that the Arachnians were working a few years ago. They might be able to help"

"All right, my lady."

"All right. I guess those are the big items. Now, let's tackle the rest."

"Of course, my lady," Ben said, and he started going through the list.

"There's the reception, the logistics for the expedition, recruitment..."

And the two worked on through the night.

 
Going to a party

Marjorie hated her name. It sounded, well, it sounded old-fashioned and funny. But that's the name that her mother saddled her with. Prior to her GRS, when she was selecting her femme name, she could have found a nice one, but her mother over-rode her. "Marjorie" was her great grandmother's name, her mother said, and great-gran was very beloved relative, and besides, it was the name that she would have used for Marjorie if she turned out to be a girl.

Marjorie respected her mother and father, so she acceded to her mother's request. So that's how her name was changed from William Bernard Quinn to Marjorie Beatrice Quinn.

And now that her new name was official, she planned to use the much better-sounding nickname of "Trixie" on a day-to-day basis. Her brother said that was too cutesy, but she said it's her name so she can call herself whatever she wants.

So, though she tried to use Trixie as often as possible, her family still called her Marjorie.

Oh, well.

But if this whatever-it-is is the start of something new, it was her opportunity to start using her Trixie name again. She can start with the people at the party.

- - - - -

Walking around the big ship gave Marjorie time to think, but not enough as she would like. The Halo Flight she was on was extremely fast. In less than a day, they would be making planetfall. But, befoe then, she thought of this mystery project. There were rumours about what Princess Mia was planning, that it was her intention to establish another colony - this time at the very edge of Federation space. Everyone had wondered why. At present, there were now thirty-nine Earth colonies outside of the Solar System, although each colony world only had between fifteen to fifty thousand colonists, since the minimum number of permanent residents requred, per the Federation's Chamber of Migration and Peerage, was 12,288 colonists (an oddly specific number, but not not so odd to the Federation, because 12,288 was 30,000 in Elyran), each was therefore a legitimate colony, and was registered with the Chamber as such. Earth now had more colonies than any single race in the Federation - the race with the next highest number of colonies were the Dravidians - they had 24 - though that number was in doubt. In fact, it used to be 25, but the colony status of one of them was revoked - the first colony to lose its status in several millenia.

The Chamber had wanted to perform colony inspections for a while now, to verify if they were legitimate colonies. After all, a colony was entitled to Federation protection as well as commercial rights, prospector's rights and shipping right-of-way in their system, so the legitimacy of a colony was an important thing.

Many races have made false claims of colony status in the past, but the Chamber didn't have the budget, nor was the technology available, to perform snap inspections. But now that the Earthers were here, the Chamber had made inquiries if EarthGov can provide travel facilities to the Chamber, hopefully at rates lower than the normal going rate.

Of course, EarthGov readily agreed, and offered the Chamber the use of one of their new "Type One" interstellar cruisers, fully-crewed and ready to go, at no cost to the Federation.

The Chamber jumped on this offer, and made their first inspection trip in millennia. Randomly, they selected one from the list of colonies that they wanted to inspect, and this happened to be a Dravidian colony.

When they got there, the "colony" turned out to be a fake one. The planet itself was actually uninhabitable. But the Dravidians wanted rights to this sytem because of the heavy deposits of minerals and other compounds that many of that system's planets had. These were considered vital resources to the Federation, and the Dravidians were making an awful lot of money from them.

When the Federation's "inspectors" arrived, they were able to ascertain that the so-called colony was actually an automated Dravidian mining outpost, and there was no permanent population on the colony planet, save for about 512 miners (1,000 in Elyran Base 8) who worked in the system on one-year tours of duty to keep their automated mining ships and plants running.

The net effect was that the "colony's" status was revoked and the Dravidians were charged with an enormous sum- what the Chamber called "back taxes," and penalty fees. The Dravidians were appealing these fees since it was nearly impossible for them to pay the gigantic amount - an amount that was almost equivalent to the total GDP of Dravidia Prime for one solar year.

So while the case was being litigated, the Federation dispatched a small flotilla of warships to the former colony to make sure that no more mining operations were being performed.

This case was well known in the Federation, because it set a kind of precedent. Since the case was filed, many ships lifted off from their home worlds bound for their colony planets, with new settlers to beef up their colonial communities. And a few colony planets were actually "abandoned" and was registered with the Chamber of Migration and Peerage as such. No one wanted to be charged fees like the ones that the Dravidians were charged.

- - - - -

Marjorie thought of all of these things, as well as the fact that Earth didn't need another colony. She could barely manage the 39 she already had. So why was the princess thinking of establishing a new colony?

This particular rumor had been going around Triton Station for a while now. And she had been on enough of Dr. McIntyre's secret meetings with the princess to know that this rumor was more than just a rumor.

And the day before, just as they were about to leave for the spaceport and board their flight to Earth, Marjorie found one of Dr. McIntyre's briefcases in his office. She thought he'd need the case so she took it with her with the intention of giving it to him later.

But he was busy with the pilot and, after that, had to take some calls from Queen Tasha and with Admiral Silverman, so she was only able give the case to him a little while ago.

But, before she gave it to him, she had a peek at the documents inside. She justified her... spying by the fact that the doc didn't lock the case. If he didn't want anyone reading his secret documents, he should have locked it. lol

When she returned the case, though, she was considerate enough to lock it. You never know who would want to have a peek at his secret stuff.

"Oh!" Phil said. "Thank you, Marjorie! I've been looking for that the whole day - where did you find it?"

"You left it on your desk back in Triton, sir," she said. "I knew you might need it so I took it. I was trying to give it to you since we boarded but you were busy."

"Sorry about that. Thank you."

"No problem, sir. And if you need me, I'll just be in my room."

- - - - -

Anyway, from the documents that were in there, she figured it out. Mia and the Elyrans, the Dixx, the Arachnians and the Telcontari were working with EarthForce. Their plan wasn't just to establish a colony out in the edge of Federation space, but to actually make the planet for the colony - three of them, actually.

This ludicrous idea was so beyond what any race had ever done before, but the proof was there. Still, how could it be true?

Then she recalled something she read when she was a child.

She was a big fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, specifically his Sherlock Holmes stories.

She remembered something that Holmes once said in the Sherlock Holmes short story, "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier." The famous quote was, "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

And though this one, this preposterous idea of making a planet just so Earth can have another colony when there were literally millions out there just waiting to be colonized, seemed so far from the truth. But given all that she now knew, then it must be the truth.

She was excited, to say the least. But there were so many questions. She couldn't wait for the reception, and meet Queen Tasha and Princess Mia. And maybe she'll find out what all this was all about.

Though it was still a day from planetfall, she just knew she wasn't going to be able to get a wink of sleep.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Three To the public, the upcoming event that the Elyran Royal Family will be hosting on Earth was just another of those events that they had from time to time, but even these events were of great interest, simply because of Mia, the famous "warrior queen of Earth." And having one of these events on Earth was just just a normal byproduct of Mia being from Earth. For the Earthers, though, this was a pretty big deal. It was doubly exciting because it was Mia's birthday a few days after this event, and the preparations being done at the Sciolian Isles had been the subject of continuous coverage by the Earth media, and it just ramped up the excitement factor day-by-day. What everyone knew about the event was it was one of Queen Tasha's, Princess Mia's and Duchess Sahsha's pet science projects - some sort of exploration thing. But what Marjorie discovered showed that it wasn't really any ordinary project, and was something more mysterious than what the royals were telling. In any case, Mia was racing from Colossus, whereas Marjorie and her fellow grad students were onboard a special flight from Triton, and Tasha and Sahsha, onboard Talon, were already near Earth.

---

 

Chapter Three: An Appointment With The Doctor

 
"At your peril..."

Sahsha made her way to Talon's main deck, and, as usual, she was surrounded by a bunch of males, and they were all gabbing at her a mile a minute.

For whatever reason, a female submissive bridge royal was such a novelty that many of the Elyran males onboard Talon, who were all submissives, wanted to be close to her and be her friend. But it wasn't necessarily an attraction that they felt, per se, but, because they were all submissives, it was like they wanted her to be part of their clique (or to be part of Sahsha's clique - it didn't really matter), or what an Earther would say, her gang.

It was sort of like on Earth, where all the girls in school wanted to be friends with the prettiest and most popular girl. Sahsha has turned out to become the popular girl onboard with the males. But, being so physically attractive as well, the Elyran men were also physically attracted, too. But they would never make a move on her - she was one of the wives of the queen herself, after all, and to do so would be treason. On Earth it would have been called "lèse-majesté," a French Earther term first used in the 15th century that meant "to do wrong to majesty." Of course, they wouldn't have minded if it were Sahsha that made the first move.

As for the female Elyrans onboard, since most were dominants, most had less respect for Sahsha than they would have had for her otherwise. It was roughly similar to what an Earther male from the middle ages would have felt for a fellow male that acted... less than masculine. But not in any majorly negative way - she was one of the queen's wives after all, and was the one known as "she who saves," besides.

And she was just as impressive and capable in her own way as the other two royals, but she was routinely underestimated, which Elyran women tended to do. And it was only after working with her for a time that they would realize, to their detriment, that they were wrong. There was a saying inside Seraphim, the home of the Northern Kingdom's royal family, which was now Princess Mia's and Lady Sahsha's official home as well. The saying that the staff used often went, "trivialize our lady at your peril" - "our lady" being Sahsha (the Northerners felt very propriatary towards Mia as well as Sahsha). In fact, the same saying was now becoming a common mantra for the staff of the Royal Castle in the Great Plains Kingdom as well - working with Sahsha was an education in itself, and one would walk away from their first encounter with the duchess with a new perspective and new knowledge.

What's more, she was an incredibly powerful bridge - a powerful submissive bridge, which, for any dominant bridge, was powerfully attractive, so, despite her being female, and despite same-sex relationships being fairly uncommon in Elyran society, Sahsha nevertheless had her share of female admirers. But, because she was one of the queen's spouses, no one dared act on their feelings.

 
Sex Kitten

Once Sahsha got on the command deck, she left her... admirers outside.

"Good morning, Swordmistress Reena," Sahsha greeted Talon's commanding officer.

"Good morning, Duchess," Reena said with genuine pleasure. It was always nice for her bridge crew when Sahsha comes and visits.

"Pardon the commotion outside," she said. "You know how men can be." Reena chuckled.

Sahsha didn't like this type of deprecating, sexist kind of humor Elyrans consistently made about males, but she had to assimilate so she tended to echo it sometimes. She was constantly trying not to, of course, but sometimes she forgot. In any case, she knew she couldn't be an advocate for Elyra's men because she wasn't an Elyran native, plus she also had to labor under a different, though similar kind of prejudice herself. Yes, she was a woman, and that should have made it easier, but she was a human in a world of Elyrans. Nevertheless, she was still a woman, so that should have given her a leg up in Elyran society, but she was also a submissive, and she found her opinions were taken less seriously, despite being a woman.

But, by virtue of her being physically attractive, and of her being a very powerful submissive bridge, everyone, even fellow submissives, were ready to jump to do her bidding. But she found it becoming tiresome after the first eight months of her stay on Elyra, and frustrating, too, because she never needed to explain, or show her competence - she just needed to be there and be beautiful. She would say something or express an opinion, and everyone around her will agree automatically and scurry to do what she said, and whether or not she was correct, or had an intelligent idea or position was immaterial.

And everyone wanted to be around her and to shower her with gifts. All the time.

It was frustrating. And she couldn't really confide in Mia or Tasha - though they were the only two that knew her true abilities, she didn't want to burden them with her seemingly-paltry problems, especially when they had such enormous burdens. She closed off that part of her from them, and even though they were each others' bridges, Mia and Tasha didn't have an inkling of her problems.

So, instead, she'd spend time unburdening herself to Ben, her closest friend on Elyra, but, though Ben would commisserate with her, he wasn't really listening, since he was smitten himself, and he would just agree with her and offer a shoulder to cry on, but really not listening to the substance of what she was trying to say, and not really understand. And she would cry all the more because of that.

So Sahsha found herself spending hours every night on long, Phase-Wave calls to her other close friend, Nick Andros, and unload the frustrations of a bird trapped in a gilded royal cage.

Nick, trying to be a good friend to Sahsha, would try to reserve time during his busy day just for Sahsha's almost-nightly calls, regardless of his busy schedule as Earth's ambassador to the Galactic Federation.

"My dear," he said, during one of their long-distance night-calls, "you are a victim of what they used to call the Marilyn Monroe Syndrome."

"Who?" she asked.

Nick didn't bother to explain who Marilyn Monroe was. After all, he was probably the only 20th Century movie buff in a thousand parsecs, and no one else would know about Marilyn Monroe.

"I mean, the Sex Kitten Syndrome," he said instead, using yet another archaic 20th Century reference. He hoped she'd get what he was saying. He was sure she would, from context at least.

"You mean..."

"Yep. What can I say, kid - you're a stone-cold babe, and everyone has the hots for you. So, of course, everyone around you would lose their minds! They can't help it." Curiously, Nick, in his way, appreciated these calls. Because, when can he be more like himself? The rest of the time, he had to be the proper gentleman from Earth - Ambassador Nick Andros. Most of his associates in Colossus would probably be scandalized if they heard him talking this way.

"Nick..."

"Sahsha," Nick sighed. "I've always said you're one of the smartest people I know. It's time for you to use some of those brains."

"Nick, I don't know what you mean!"

"Sahsha, you can't can't get rid of that sex kitten thing of yours, so, since you can't get rid of it, you might as well accept it, and use of it to your advantage!"

Sahsha sort of understood what Nick was saying, and from then on, she used what Nick called her "super-feminine superpowers" to get her way, and make people stop and listen, even if she had to order them to stand there and pay attention, and make them realize that there was actually a brain in her head, and over the years, she won over her people, and made them realize that she wasn't the designated bimbo in the royal family. And pretty soon, she'd regularly hear a phrase spoken behind her back - "trivialize our lady at your peril," visitors to the castle would be told. And Shahsha did her best to uphold her people's belief in her.

 
A Doctor's Appointment

"I was wondering, Lady Reena, how far we are from planetfall." Sahsha asked.

"We are actually at the last stages of our deceleration, well within ship maneuverable speeds. We are perhaps twenty-one Earth hours from planetfall."

Sahsha took a peek at the plot computer. "I see. For the rest of our escort, approximately thirty hours?"

Reena's eyebrows rose. "I will need to stop underestimating her," she thought. "You are correct, my lady," she replied to Sahsha.

"Would we have any shuttles prepped?"

"Unfortunately not. One of the Shepherd Moon's mud turtles may be made ready in short order, however. We have two of them aboard. What are you intending, my lady?"

"Her royal highness and I intend to make our way to Earth ahead of the fleet. We need to pay a short visit to the hospital before the beginning of the royal itinerary."

"Is there something the matter, my lady? Are you or her highness feeling poorly?"

Sahsha laughed, and her laughter made Reena feel good, as it always did.

"Oh, no. Not at all. But we have a... secret appointment." Sahsha made that Earther gesture of a finger over both her lips, signifying that it was a secret.

Of course, the entire bridge crew heard her, but they were the crew of the queen's flagship, and they would never betray the royal family.

"You can trust your crew's discretion, my lady."

"I know. You ladies know of our trust in all of you. Also, can you slack off deceleration by..." Sahsha paused and had a look of intense concentration... "by five percent? That way, you and the rest of the ships will arrive in Kennedy at the same time?"

Reena gave the pilot a look, and after a few seconds of calculations using the plot computer, the pilot looked surprised. "My lady is correct!"

Reena sighed. "Of course, she's correct," she said. How Sahsha was able to compute that in mere moments without a computer was totally beyond Reena, but she rationalized it by just saying to herself it was Sahsha.

"Execute Lady Sahsha's instructions, pilot." She then gestured to her communications officer. "Contact the other ships and inform them that we shall be reducing deceleration in order to synchronize with them for planetfall. Also contact the landing deck and to prepare one of the Earther mud turtle shuttles. Have her crew on standby. Also muster the queen's ready squad. The queen and the duchess will be conducting a clandestine mission down on Earth. The guard will be escorting their highnesses and provide security."

"Destination on Earth, mistress?"

"Tell the pilot and the ready squad that it will revealed after departure."

"Yes, mistress."

"Thank you, mistress," Sahsha said. "Now I have to go and wake up the queen. I am afraid she is still asleep," she sighed theatrically.

Everyone within earshot laughed. The queen was known to be very cross if she was woken up. They could only assume that she was tired from another bout of... late night calisthenics.

Tasha nodded to everybody and proceeded to their cabin.

 
Taking a walk

Several hours later, Sahsha was with Tasha, as well as a dozen (or fourteen in Elyran) of the best of the Queen's Royal Guard, and all of them in casual Earther civilian attire walking in the streets of Bethesda Maryland, in the Federated United States, one of the major nations on Earth.

All the queen's guards, as well as the queen herself, wore their swords in plain sight, in scabbards hanging from their belts, but it wasn't that strange anymore to see Elyrans walking the streets with swords. In fact, it had become a kind of fashion accessory among Earthers now, to wear swords and other similar accoutrements. But, like with any weapon, they had to be registered, so many wore realistic-looking rubber "costume weapons" instead, as you would wear costume jewelry in place of real jewelry. Sahsha herself wore one of these rubber swords (and Tasha was merciless when she made fun of her for this), but she did wear a jeweled foot-long dagger that she had hidden under her somewhat long blouse - a gift from Tasha.

As for sidearms, everyone in their party wore one, but kept them concealed.

Everyone in their party wore dark glasses. Tasha and Sahsha had to wear them in order to maintain anonymity, so their guards wore dark glasses as well.

So, although they were anonymous, they still attracted attention simply because they were a group of nine Elyrans and one beautiful brunette walking down the sidewalk as they made the short walk from the private military airport near the outskirts of town to the Bethesda Military Medical Center.

Before landing, Sahsha and Tasha called Dr. Isabella Puerrot. They were actually expected, so the doctor told them to go directly to the hospital and look for the base commander.

So, at the security gate, Sahsha brought out her expired and long-unused UN staff ID card. The MP commented on the fact that it was expired, but she said to just tell him that they had an appointment with the base commander. (Apparently, there were still a few people that didn't know her by name.)

The MP was a bit dubious, but the fact that the girl had nine Elyrans with her, he gave her the benefit of the doubt, and called the main office.

Wonder of wonders, security told him to ask them to wait there, and in less than five minutes, a large van was dispatched and Sahsha, Tasha and their companions were whisked to the base commander's office.

Tasha whispered to Sahsha that she was unused to all this.

"What do you mean, my love?"

"I am not used to this kind of treatment... no ceremony, no pomp, no unending line of dignitaries."

I'm sorry, Tasha. I..."

Tasha leaned over and gave her a kiss. "It's not that, dear," she said. "I kind of like it. It's refreshing, actually. It makes me feel like I'm a regular person."

Sahsha laughed and looked at her in civilian attire. Tasha made a very attractive "regular person," actually, and it confirmed something for Sahsha: even without the royal trappings, Tasha was still Tasha, and that Sahsha loved her wives regardless.

The base commander came over with his adjutant and Dr. Puerrot by his side, and saluted.

"Good morning, your royal highnesses," he said, and saluted them again in the traditional Elyran greeting - a slight bow with his fist over his heart. "I'm General Sam Fieldstien. I am the hospital commander. I'm sorry. I was only told about your impending visit just this morning, and wasn't able to properly prepare for your arrival. Is this connected with your event at the UN later tonight?"

"Good morning, General," Tasha said in perfect, if slightly accented Earther English, and shook his hand Earther style. "No need to worry. This was sort of an unscheduled visit. Thank you for accommodating us on such short notice. We would appreciate it if our visit is kept confidential. The admiralty has been informed of our visit, and they have acceded to our request. No doubt you would get the same request though channels shortly."

"Of course, your highness. Is it a medical emergency? How may I help, you?"

"Well, I suppose it is an emergency of sorts. Would it be possible for Sahsha and I to talk with Dr. Puerrot privately?"

"Of course." The two of them were escorted to a conference room while they and Dr. Puerrot started getting to know each other.

 
A doctor's appointment

After getting them settled in, the general left them after making sure to leave some snacks and drinks. The queen had a couple of special requests, though - she asked for genuine Maryland crab cakes and perhaps some champagne. Sahsha and Dr. Puerrot asked for fresh, unfermented Krahhng (the zero-alcohol citrus-type drink has become a popular breakfast drink among Earthers, plus it had the benefit of, if you leave a bottle out in the sun for a few days, becoming the best-tasting substitute for orange-flavored vodka).

The general's staff was aghast to see their commander actually fetching snacks for their unseen visitors, but were afraid to ask or to actually offer to help. If they did, the answer would have been that it was a top secret matter - something that people in the hospital rarely encountered nowadays.

In any case, the three got down to brass tacks pretty quickly.

"First of all, Doctor," Sahsha began, "I would like to thank you for letting us know about..."

Isabella Puerrot smiled depracatingly, and waved Sahsha's thanks away. "In all honesty, Lady Sahsha," Isabella said, "I was actually trying to contact Princess Mia. But, in any case, all's well that ends well."

"Well, I for one, am glad that for the mistake. Since the queen and I were able to... discuss things beforehand, before Mia found out."

Tasha nodded. "Indeed."

"So, I take it you haven't told the princess about it yet?"

The two looked at each other. "Well, no... not yet." Sahsha replied, and looked down in embarrasment.

The matter at hand was about Isabella's discovery.

During the intervening period, from Mia's GRS and FFS procedures (the surgical and chemical procedures that allowed Mia to be medically altered into the closest version of a female that current Earth science was able to) up til the present, Dr. Isabella Puerrot was assigned as the hospital's official medical case manager of Admiral Dr. Amelia Catherine Kerr-Steele, aka Princess Mia of Elyra and Earth.

As such, any medical matter relating to the princess was to be referred to her. And several months ago, she was informed that some genetic material from Mia's operation, which was kept in medical storage, per the hopital's GRS policies and quarantine procedures, were about to be disposed of. And, as a matter of procedure, Isabella tried to contact Mia prior to their disposal, to ask if the princess would not object to that.

However, as it happened, Sahsha mistakenly answered the call. After which, Mia and Tasha became part of the conference call. The subsequent discussion resulted in Mia granting permission for the disposal of the "material," which were basically miscellaneous tissue samples, some organ components, half a kilo of skeletal material, half a liter of blood, liposuctioned material and blood vessels, and several hundred ounces worth of dermal tissue.

But this also included Mia's... male reproductive... parts.

After they had finished the conversation and hung up, and Mia left on some errand for the Northern Kingdom, Sahsha called the doctor back, with Tasha listening.

Sahsha asked if it was possible for the doctor to have the organs harvested for Mia's sperm.

One couldn't say that Isabella was shocked. After all she had seen the worst of the human condition, as well as the best. This, to her, was almost inconsequential.

Naturally, the only conclusion was that Sahsha wanted to be impregnated with Mia's sperm. Isabella said there were probably some preserved sperm but not much. In any case, she would start the harvesting procedure, but actual impregnation will require Mia's full knowledge and consent.

Sahsha promised to get it, and Isabella said she will wait for Mia's answer. Meanwhile she would proceed with the harvesting.

However, Tasha, who was listening silently the whole time, suddenly spoke up, and said she wanted to be impregnated, too.

Firstly, Isabella was very surprised to hear this. Not so much because of the request, but because the queen was so naive and so... uninformed that she assumed that this was even possible.

"Your highness..." Isabella began.

"Oh, stop giving me that look, doctor!" Tasha said. "You, too, Sahsha! I am not completely ignorant! But it was my dream, to be able to bring a child of mine and our beloved Mia into the world. But it was a forlorn hope. She is human, after all, and no longer male..."

"Not being male is less of a factor nowadays," the doctor interjected. "It's rarely done, but egg-cell fertilization was now possible without the need for actual sperm, with the proper medical intervention." She shrugged. "At least with humans, that is..."

Sahsha hugged her beloved wife. "Tasha..."

Tasha hugged her back. "I want you, my dearest," Tasha said, "and you, too, doctor, to look at this." She brought out her Phase-Wave phone/CC, and sent them a small electronic folder.

Isabella perused the material inside the folder from her CC, and Sahsha did likewise. In that folder were several dozen articles that Tasha had collected over the years.

The first article was an Earther scientific article on panspermia, and on the unmistakable similarities of most of the species in the Federation, such as the fact that almost all of them were carbon-based, most were oxygen breathers, most had two arms, two legs and a head, that they perceived the world through senses of sight, touch and sound, had stereoscopic vision and stereo hearing that perceived EM radiation and vibrations in the atmosphere, and at similar ranges, too, and so many others similarities.

This article was followed by several other similar articles from people of many different species, all of them speculating about some sort of common biological source of life in this part of the galaxy.

And as Isabella and Sahsha read one article after another, by checking the sources, they found that they weren't written by crackpots but by legitimate scientific authorities.

The last few documents were excerpts from news articles, which talked about the many cultural similarities between Earthers and Elyrans/Detterex, especially in things like language (there were literally thousands of individual phrases and words which had the same meanings and connotations to all three) and common aesthetical preferences (ideas of beauty and so forth), that, for totally different species separated by thousands of light years, such inexplicable parallelisms could not be explained away so easily. There was one Elyran article where the writer openly speculated that Earthers might actually be related, biologically speaking, to Elyrans/Detterex.

After over half an hour of reading, Isabella cleared her throat.

"This is all very interesting, your highness, but..."

"Yes, yes," Tasha said. "There is no incontrovertible proof. With the current state of the art in medical sciences, this is easily acquired, but no one has tried to do so. The idea of cross-species fertilization is a preposterous idea, after all, right? Much more that that, are there ethical or moral considerations to trying to find out? Isolationist elements and racial purists in both societies would surely decry the... mongrelization of our races, and the danger to our racial purity. So would Elyran society allow it? Would Earth?"

Isabella nodded sadly. "You are right, your highness. It's sad to admit it, but you are right."

"I have, at my beck and call, the resources and technology of the entire Elyran race, and it would be easy or me to command them to do so, but then I cannot since, to some elements in Elyran society, it would put into question my sanity or my morality, and this may jeopardize myself and my family, and, by extension, the entire Elyran race..."

"So, what is your highness asking of me?"

"I am asking, Doctor, if you can do it for me."

Isabella looked at Tasha.

"Queen Tasha," she said, using Tasha's title deliberately, "I do not..."

"Please, doctor. You can do so in secret, whereas I cannot risk it. Find the answer for me. Please."

Isabella looked at Sahsha. Sahsha looked back inscrutably.

"I suggest you look at the last document in the folder," Tasha said, and they complied.

"What is that, Tasha?" Sahsha asked. The last document only contained one photograph.

"That is a picture of a sculpture carved from the hard granite wall of the subterranian catacombs underneath the Royal Castle. Historians have said it depicts a day in the life of an Elyran family from ancient times."

The sculpture depicted what presumably was the figure of a mother holding hands with a shorter male, presumably the father. The features were dulled by rough, corroded details the result of the passage of time, but one can tell which was the mother because of the sword and the armor - though the sword blade was missing, the sword hilt was still there, and though the detail was very rough, the woman was clearly wearing armor. Standing in front of the couple were a small girl and boy. Though interesting, Isabella and Sahsha were wondering why they were looking at this.

"Tasha, why are we looking at this?" Sahsha asked.

"Look at their hands."

Sahsha and Isabella zoomed in on the hands, and they saw that the hands of the little girl and the hands of the father had five fingers, while the mother and the little boy had the expected four.

"Oh, my god..." Isabella murmured. She sighed. "All right. I will do it."

The following day, a sample of Queen Tasha's blood was put inside an Earth-made cryogenic mini-freezer unit the size of Sahsha's purse, and disguised as a royal Elyran diplomatic pouch. It was then loaded onto an Elyran courier ship, and it traveled the interstellar void on its way to Earth.

 
All about DNA

At the present time:

"So," Dr. Puerrot said, "first things first." She brought out a cryogenic mini-freezer similar to the one that held Tasha's blood samples.

She slid it across the conference table to the two, and Sahsha eagerly grabbed at it.

"Inside are sixteen individual injectors in deep freeze, for use in impregnation. A small instruction pamphlet is also included. Given the scarcity of the harvested samples, each injector only has one tenth of the genetic material in a normal fertility injector, so you have to follow the instructions to the letter to maximize the chances for fertilization. Wait the maximum six weeks before trying again. Remember, this is all that we have. Be careful with it. Don't waste it."

"If it doesn't work?"

"Well, if it doesn't work, we can always resort to EECF. It'll be hit-or-miss, but at least you will have a chance."

"EECF?"

"EECF-SCPI, actually. It stands for 'electro-chemical egg cell fertilization via somatic cell polar body injection.'"

The two looked at her with incomprehension. "It's the procedure of fertilizing an egg cell without using sperm," she explained.

"Ahhh..."

"Thank you, Doctor," Tasha said. "Now, what about me?"

Isabella nodded. She brought out a little thumb-drive. "This contains the documentation of all that we have found when we analyzed your blood and other samples." She slid it to Tasha this time.

"It runs to several thousand pages of technical material," Isabella said, "but it does have a... layman-friendly short version at the end. But, for now, let me summarize our findings. Your highness, I suggest you turn on your translator in case I use terms you might not be familiar with.

"Based on the material that Earth was given during our first encounter with your people, we knew that almost all the organs and organ structures of an Elyran were mostly the same as in an, ummm, Earther. But that was the extent of our knowledge.

"But, having analyzed your samples, it seems that Earther and Elyran cell structures are also the same, unlike the cells from all the other species in the Federation. Also, the basic genetic material are the same stuff. So, both of our species have the same type of cell structures and, more than that, they work off the same components and the same mechanisms of DNA and RNA, and made up of the same chemical elements.

"In fact, they were so similar, the lab people assumed it was blood coming from some Earth mammal instead of an alien, pardon the term. They were so similar that they were able to perform DNA analysis straight away. If you think about it, that's mind-boggling, right? Two completely separate species that are from different planets...

"But let's leave that for the moment, and let's go to the details, which I'm sure is what you want to know about.

"First off, all Earther creatures are based out of a mechanism that centers around DNA, and form what we call genes. These genes are contained in what are called chromosomes, and these chromosomes, which come in pairs, are within the cell nucleus. The chromosomes are what provides the blueprint for the Earther. And it seems Elyrans have the same thing.

"For us humans, we have twenty-three base pairs of chromosomes, which differ to our most closely related cousins, the gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. They have twenty-four pairs. But that's because, sometime in our genetic past, two pairs fused together, and became twenty-three.

"Anyway, you also have chromosomes, but you have twenty-five base pairs."

Tasha's face fell. "That does mean we are incompatible with Earther..."

Isabella shook her head. "Non. It does not follow that you may be incompatible because of that. What may be is the percentage of shared DNA.

"Way back in the early part of the 21st Century, we found that humans shared 99.9% of their DNA with each other, and the zero-point-one percent difference is what accounts for the differences of each individual with each other, as it is for other Earth species, whether they be cats or cows. That zero-point-one percent difference is no barrier to compatibility nor procreation for a species.

"However, the species which is closest to us, which are the chimpanzees and the bonobos - we share an amazingly high percentage of our DNA - about 98.7%. But it's not just the percentage of similarity: they're about which genes are shared - the bonobos share 1.6% of their genes with humans and not with the chimpanpanzees, while chimpanzees have a different 1.6% that they share with us and not the bonobos. And the actual location of genes in the DNA chain also affects things. Humans, bonobos and chimpanzees do share most of their genes but a significant number are in different locations. All of this makes the three species genetically unable to interbreed."

Tasha and Sahsha's foreheads were wrinkled in concentration as they listened.

"Here is the thing," Isabella said, "the percent of similar genes between humans and Elyrans is a little over ninety-six percent. That figure shook me, actually. Sure, that figure essentially means humans have more in common with a chimp than with an Elyran. But that also meant we have more in common with an Elyran than with a cat or a cow. Which should have been impossible. And that is incredible. The fact that we are made of the same stuff, and have the same genetic mechanisms is mind-blowing already. But the fact that we are over ninety percent the same - it sends chills up my spine."

"But, Doctor," Sahsha said with some impatience, "what does that mean!"

"Are you familiar with dogs, your highness?"

Tasha looked confused a bit but answered gamely. "Yes, I am," she said. "Sahsha and Mia have shown me pictures, and I am actually hoping to get one as a pet. A golden retriever, in fact, because they looked the closest to Elyrans. But I fear that I might not find one that will take to me, or that I might not know how to care for one properly."

Isabella noted that in her mind, and would call someone who can help the queen with that, but later.

"The reason I mention dogs," Isabella said, "is that, most people think of the different kinds of dogs as different species, but, speaking from a genetic point of view, given their difference is minor, dogs and wolves are actually the same species, and are more appropriately defined as different breeds only, and can therefore procreate with each other without problems."

"Wait! Are you saying Elyrans and Earthers are the same species? That we're breeds of the same species?"

"Oh! No, no, no! We are clearly different species. But, if I may continue?"

Tasha blushed in embarrassment. "Of course, Doctor." She turned to Sahsha who was giggling at her little snafu. "Quiet, my dear," Tasha said in queenly tones, and gave her a kiss on the cheek for good measure.

"As I was saying," Isabella continued, "dogs and wolves are the same species, so they can breed true. Have you heard of horses and donkeys?"

Tasha sighed again. "Yes, I have seen horses. They're like our own Ro'an but larger and more powerful. I do not know of donkeys, though."

"Here, my love," Sahsha said, and offered her cellphone/CC. She had a picture of a typical donkey displayed on its screen.

"That looks like a horse," Tasha said, "with minor differences - the ears are longer, and the snout is shorter... Are you saying horses and donkeys are the same species?"

"Not at all. They are different. But horses and donkeys can actually interbreed. Their offspring are called mules and hinnies. A mule is the offspring of a donkey father and a horse mother, while a hinny is the opposite. And this is despite the fact that they have substantial differences in their DNA. Roughly speaking, the difference between a donkey and a horse is almost like the difference between a human, a chimpanzee and a bonobo."

Tasha looked at Isabella with wide eyes. To help, Sahsha showed her pictures of mules and hinnies.

"These... mules and hinnies, doctor..."

"Oh, there are several thousand of them, and most of them are fine. Each take characteristics from both species and make wonderful beasts of burden, if beasts of burden were still in use. Nowadays, breeding mules and hinnies is more like a hobby, and are bred for their novelty.

"There is one problem, though - mules and hinnies are sterile, as you would expect, because they are unable to produce sperm or egg cells. They have trouble making sperm or eggs because their chromosomes don't match up well."

"But other than that..."

"They're fine. But I'm sure you have your equivalents of mules so you would know..."

Tasha shook her head. "No. None."

"Oh..."

"So you're saying, Doctor..."

"I'm saying that, perhaps humans, I mean Earthers, can breed together with Elyrans. But we need to see, and if there is indeed a child but everything doesn't go well, the offspring could be developmentally damaged or autistic or... well, the range of genetic problems is limitless. Being sterile is the least of it."

"Oh no..."

But Sahsha was looking at the doctor. "But you don't think that will happen," she said to the doctor.

"Well..." Isabella hesitated.

"Please be frank with us, Doctor."

"I mentioned bonobos and chimpanzees, that, despite the high percentage of the same genes, their locations in the genetic map make them incompatible. But looking at the human 'blueprint' and the Elyran 'blueprint,' those genes that are the same seem to match up in the blueprint. It's like god took the human DNA, and randomly took out a few pieces and replaced them with other pieces to make an Elyran. Or vice versa."

"So, what does that mean?"

"I am not sure, of course, but I think the chromosomes will mostly match up, and the resulting offspring will be viable."

"But you're not sure..."

Isabella shrugged. "No, I'm not sure. But to have a one-is-to-one match, except for that pesky three-plus percent, is too much to believe!"

Isabella was quite excited, but she took a deep breath to calm down.

"All right," she said. "Naturally, of course, we wanted to find out what that three percent difference was all about. The state of the art in DNA and genetics is woefully not current, since a lot of information and technology was lost during the war, and it was never as important at the time as reclamation, nuclear decontamination, food production and power production. But we do have some 21st century data.

"So we used data from the old Human Genome Project, as well as the old genome-wide association studies, or GWAS studies, which was aimed to assess whether certain genetic locations are related to specific traits. GWAS studies screen the genome of people in a group of volunteers that carry a certain trait of interest. This was then compared with the genomes of people without that trait.

"Anyway, we used this data to identify the areas with the three-plus percent variance, and they seem to be related to three general traits - muscular development, cognition and eyesight. We'll probably identify more as we continue analysis. So...

"Sixteen locations on the human genome which are supposedly related to muscle strength and muscle density are part of that three-plus percent variance. Some of these locations, or 'loci,' are situated within or near genes known to be important to the biology of muscles. These genes include ACTG1, which is related to skeletal muscle fibre structure and function, and three genes called PEX14, TGFA, and SYT1, which are all important for muscle cell communication with the nervous system. Three other genes - namely, PEX14, LRPPRC, and KANSL1 - are also known to be involved in severe muscle conditions. What that implies, I don't know.

"Also, part of the three-plus areas with variation included seventy genomic loci significantly associated with cognition, which affected three hundred-fifty genes underlying cognitive ability. Also, the GRM3 gene, which relates to conditions of schizophrenia. The implications of that, again I don't know.

"Genetic ophthalmologic researchers have evidence that the most common vision problems among human children and adults are genetically determined. This includes strabismus or 'cross-eyes,' amblyopia or 'lazy eye' and refraction errors such as myopia or 'nearsightedness,' hyperopia or 'farsightedness,'  and  astigmatism. And the three-plus percent areas where we found of variances includes areas that are associated with these conditions, as well as, amusingly, eye color.

"It's all very intriguing, actually."

Sahsha and Tasha looked at her.

"Wow," Sahsha said.

"What does that all mean, Doctor?" Tasha interjected.

She shrugged. "Like I said, I don't know. But since most of the areas of variance we have currently identified are not in locis related to basic life functions, cross-species offspring may be viable."

"Damn it! You haven't told me what I wanted to know! Can I have a baby or not!"

"I am devastated not to be able to give you a definitive answer, your highness... I do not know for sure... but I think you can. Do you remember that picture you showed us before? The one in the catacombs? I did some research. The piece is called 'Stronger Together,' I believe."

"Yes?"

"It seems that it was supposed to have been created before the time of the Prophet, and scientists have confirmed that it dates earlier than even the earliest beginnings of Elyran civilization hundreds of thousands of millennia ago."

"Yes. There are dozens of such carvings in the catacombs. There are even carvings of proto-Elyran glyphs, which is believed to be the beginnings of the Elyran language..."

Isabella's eyes popped at that. "I need to visit the catacombs!"

"Doctor..."

"Sorry! My point is, the five-fingered man and little girl in that sculpture strongly suggests that sometime in Elyra's distant past, five-fingered humanoids and Elyrans coexisted and procreated. The implications of that is so far-ranging! I can hardly stop my imagination from running wild! But... to keep our discussion pertinent to your question... although I have no definitive science-based data, I believe that it is possible."

Tasha looked at Sahsha with hope.

"But, your highness," Isabella continued, "even if your offspring survives its birth, there may be many genetic problems... reduced fertility or even outright infertility, genetic disorders, asymmetry in limbs and facial features, high infant or child mortality, stunted growth, absence of immune system functions, cardiovascular diseases, mental disorders..."

Tasha started to cry. Isabella rushed to her side and gave her a hug. It wasn't her place, and she was the queen, but Isabeella felt responsible for the queen's sorrow. She may be breaking dozens or protocols, but all she knew was that the queen was hurting, and she was the cause.

"Your highness, what can I do?" she asked.

Tasha sniffed. She was a bit ashamed that she was crying. "I apologize, Doctor. It's hard when you find a dream will never be..."

"Ma'am, that's not necessarily so."

"But all that you said..."

"Yes, but I am not sure, remember? So it is by no means impossible. Unfortunately, it's a gamble. Perhaps the family should discuss it."

"She's right, my love," Sahsha said. "Let's talk it over with Mia."

"All right..."

- - - - -

Isabella and the general watched them leave.

"They're just walking?" the general asked.

Isabella nodded. "Yes," she said. "They're trying to stay under the radar. If they asked for transportation, then it would be all over the news."

The general nodded. "Perhaps I should have sent some MPs with them, at least..."

"No need, general," Isabella said. "See the Elyrans with them. They're part of the queen's fabled Honor Guard. Instead, feel sorry for anyone who'd bother the queen. They'd be cut to ribbons before their bodies touched the ground."

"Oh..."

Tasha, Sahsha and her party got back to the private military spaceport where their pilot was patiently waiting, and in a while, they were on their way back to the Talon. And to the rest of the world, it was like they never left the Talon, much more visiteed Earth ahead of everyone.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Four Tasha's and Sahsha's "mission" to Earth and their short conference with Dr. Isabella Puerrot answered many of their questions about being able to have a baby. For Sahsha, it was almost a sure thing, and she would be able to have a child by Mia through standard AI, or if that didn't work, she could still try for one by using the process known as EECF-SCPI, or the process where a human egg cell is fertilized without the use of sperm. As for Tasha, even with the blood and tissue samples she provided, the doctor's analysis showed it was not a sure thing. After all, Tasha was an Elyran and Mia was an Earther. Common sense would tell anyone that this was an impossibility. But Tasha had collected evidence that it might actually be possible, including a photograph of an intriguing Elyran sculpture many millennia old. But all that was put on the back-burner. At the moment, they had some things they had to take care of.

---

 

Chapter Four: Trooping of the Color

 
Her name is Via

Marjorie was feeling tired as she walked towards the airport bus.

"Man, I feel so tired!" Elmo, one of her fellow grad students, groaned. "It's only been three hours since we landed, and we were sleeping on the halo flight most of the time!"

They stepped in and the bus started for New York City, to a visitors' residence facility near the U.N.

"You should have kept up with your exercises," Octavia said as she straddled one of the benches and the others found seats. "Being in a low-G environment for long stretches of time affects Elyranoids when they go back to a higher-G one." Her Earth-made translator gave a very passable likeness of a young Earth woman's voice.

This only earned her razzberries from her fellow grad students-slash-interns. This didn't make her angry. In fact, she did that nodding and spinning-arms thing that Arachnians did instead of laughing - Arachnians couldn't really do subtle emotional gestures like most races. Smiles, frowns and laughter were out, given they were mostly covered in chitin, and couldn't really make the vocal noises most others could. So Arachnians and the few races like them made do with large arm and body gestures to communicate emotional subtleties.

Octavia also wasn't really her name. It was just a nickname that Marjorie made up for her. Her real name was "Eighth Terran Studies Student." Which was awkward for her fellow students to say, much more use. So Marjorie started calling her "Octavia," or "Via" for short. Which Octavia loved, because it sounded very close to "Mia."

About three Arachnian years ago or so, Via was a rising diplomatic candidate in the Arachnian diplomatic corps, but then the Earthers burst upon the scene and she was captivated by the noisy, brash, curious, loud, brave, brilliant and honorable race of Elyranoids, or rather "Humanoids," saving the Federation at least three times, and was instrumental in defeating their biggest enemies. And from there, they started instituting Federation reforms that she thought were long overdue, started several philanthropic programs that benefited everyone, but mostly the less priviledged parts of the Federation. And then there was all the tech, the instantaneous communications, their faster-than-the-fastest interstellar spacecraft, and the largest and most powerful single military spacefleet in the alliance.

To Via, though, all the tech, hardware and military didn't matter as much as the other things did, and she told her clanmothers that it was for those reasons that she will be petitioning the hive masters.

And though it was rather late in her cycle, because of the Earthers, and Mia, and Queen Tasha and the brave Sahsha, she decided to make a new life choice and re-dedicate her life. She wanted to change careers, which Arachnians very rarely did. Arachnians were almost always the best in their field because, once they chose a profession or a career or a vocation, they dedicated their life to it. That's the main reason why their names reflected their professions.

And it was extremely rare that something would change in their lives that they would actually contemplate changing careers. But Via's imagination was caught up in the whole Earth Alliance thing, and the promise that the Earthers brought with them. And she felt she wanted to be part of that. It was a kind of calling that she never felt before. And though the hive masters never allowed such changes, they made an exception for her.

In fact, they had such high hopes for her, and what she could do for Arachnia and the Federation, she was immediately assigned to be the First Ambassador's apprentice, provided, of course, that the First Ambassador concurs, and she does well in her Earth exchange program. This upcoming reception and her first meeting with the Elyran royal family would tell the hive masters if they were wrong or not.

There were already several who had gone into Earther studies - in fact there were already seven that were on the cutting edge. But Via was very driven, and did well in the evaluations. She became the eighth. And the hive masters crossed their fingers (an expression borrowed from the Earthers, of course) that she would do well in this next event of hers so she would be allowed to continue on.

- - - - -

As they walked to the quarters assigned them, Via continued.

"You endoskeletal types are so affected by your environments, I can't believe how much the environment affects you. You don't see us having the same problems." She did the nodding, arm-spinning thing again, showing that her words were wry and humorous instead of hurtful or insulting.

Her Earther friends, and Maio-Maio and Shu-Shu - the only two Telcontari in the program - laughed, although the Telcontari's laughter was more like a cross between snickering and chuckling.

Miao-Miao, or "Meow" to her Eather companions, was the more bold of the two. "We can't all be as lucky as you exoskeletal types, who're practically immune" she said. "But then, we don't have to molt every five years." Which was greeted with more laughter

Via made the complicated gesture which was an Arachnian's equivalent to a sigh. "Don't remind me..."

"When is it again?" Marjorie asked with some sympathy, "your molting party?"

"Sometime next month. I'm dreading it."

Marjorie hugged her Arachnian friend around the shoulders - a gesture that wasn't too common among Arachnians for obvious reasons, but was as natural as any cross-species gesture could be.

"I know you're far from home," Marjorie said, "but we'll be there to help you through it. I've been studying up on it. I think I'm ready."

"Thank you, Marjorie." Via said.

"Well..." Elmo grumped, "I'm still tired. One G really takes it out of you."

"You should have kept up on your exercises, like the manual says," Ivan Ogilov, their exchange student from Russia said. "Look at Marjorie - she isn't worse for wear."

Marjorie smiled and flexed her biceps like a bodybuilder. "Yep. You shoulda kept up with the exercises, dude" (although, inside, she felt as tired as Elmo sounded, probably even more). Everyone laughed - Marjorie's muscles were puny, just like any sedentary female who rarely exercised. "But having a nap, and staying horizontal for a while should help."

When they got to their temporary quarters, she found that she was sharing her room with Meow and Shu-Shu. She sighed - this meant she won't be able to get much sleep. Telcontaris have a reputation for being chatty, and Meow and Shu didn't really dispel any of that reputation.

"But they're good kids," she thought, unconsciously falling back to the tendency of most Federation citizens to think of the Telcontari as young children, but these two were not as young as thay appeared to non-Telcontari - true, both were barely older than Marjorie, Elmo or Ivan, but that made them adults already.

"C'mon, guys," Marjorie gestured, and allowed the two to proceed her into the room. Naturally, the two picked the bunk bed and jumped on the beds to try them on for size, Meow naturally picking the top one, of course.

Marjorie laughed and, more sedately, put her bags on the other bed near the window.

"So, guys, what do you want to do? We have twelve hours before we have to be at the reception."

But the telltale snorring, which sounded more like purring, told her that the two had fallen asleep already.

She checked, and, yes, the two were out cold. Seems it wasn't just Elmo.

"Oh, well," she giggled.

 
Formal Attire

Mia had decided to wear her Class A EarthForce admiral's uniform, though Tasha preferred her to wear her Elyran Royal Admiral's uniform, and it was a very loud debate. As usual Sahsha brought the argument into better focus when she said that they were on Earth, after all, and it would be better if she wore her Earth uniform.

Tasha looked at her, and after a moment - "You think you're so smart, huh?"

And the three of them burst out laughing.

"Girls," Mia said, "the Shepherd's currently about thirty hours behind you, but we've already called in for a rapid deceleration approach to Darkside. And if Earth Control gives us the go-ahead, then we'll be landing in Kennedy at the same time you do. I'll call back as soon as we know."

"All right, my love," Tasha said.

"Seeya soon, Mia," Sahsha said.

Mia gave them a flying kiss and signed off. She turned back to Captain O'Connell. "Any word yet, Beth?"

O'Connell looked to Comms.

"Aye, sir," the duty comms officer responded. "Fleet Command, care of Earth Control replied just a second ago. Inertia deceleration maneuver approved for the dark side of the moon at our discretion."

"Ahhh, good. Acknowledge, please, and then inform Yamato, Musashi and Shinano that we shall be executing the maneuver as planned."

"Aye, Skipper."

"Plot, did you hear that?"

"Aye, sir. Executing maneuver in ten minutes, per instructions."

By law, only EarthForce ships had the inertia conversion systems which converts inertial energy to light energy, allowing any of them that were currently traveling anywhere between 0.3C to 0.99C to brake to an effective standstill, converting all that energy to light energy, which could then be dissipated as such.

But because of extraterrestrial traffic and assorted visitors within the Earth system, all fleet traffic were forbidden to use their inertia systems unless they were cleared and were in the proper navigational corridor to prevent observation by any aliens.

There was one such corridor, which EarthForce captains called the darkside approach, because that involved the ship coming in and braking at exactly the area matching the line from the earth to the moon, since that side of the moon perpetually facing away from Earth was called the Dark Side. And because no aliens were allowed on the Dark Side, that aproach was the best one to hide a ship using their "inertial brake" from any observers on the Earth or the moon.

Of course, random observers on the other planets might still see them, but the distance and the secrecy with which they kept the "Darkside Approach" made that risk negligible. What concerned EarthForce Command more, though, were random ships in the vicinity, which was partly why ships needed to be cleared first before making such a deceleration maneuver, to make sure that no ships were in visual range or position.

EarthForce was not naive enough to assume these precautions would work forever. Sooner or later, someone would see something they shouldn't, but the Admiralty was adamant to postpone that time as much as possible.

In any case, the Shepherd and her escort of the three K-One clipper class "corvettes" of the Fifth Fleet - DSC Yamato, Musashi and Shinano - almost simultaneously slacked off deceleration and got back up to 0.9C. In less than two hours, they were near the moon. They then fired their inertial converters and stopped less than a thousand miles from the dark side.

In less than thirty seconds after braking, they fired their sub-lights and made for Kennedy Spaceport. Otherwise, they'd already start falling towards the moon.

The Shepherd and her ships made their way towards Earth, as did the Talon and her escorts. Earth Control gave them clearance, and Talon, using techniques that Reena and her crew deveoped primarily for showing off, made their flashy entrance.

Fire and smoke emanated from her emergency retros, and Talon rode down on pillars of fire. Ground crews were aware that something like this was going to happen, so the Elyrans were cleared to land at the large, all-purpose empty tarmac at the south side of the spaceport, and all crews had taken shelter.

Minutes after they had landed, the Shepherd and her three small escorts that looked like smaller versions of the Shepherd made a similar maneuver. The escot ships landed at the edge of the tarmac while, with great precision, Shepherd landed in the space that the Elyrans made for her, and only Shepherd's legendary crew could manage landing there without damaging the ships around her. To the regular people watching, they would ooh and ahh at the pyrotechnics, but to the people who knew, like spacers and pilots, they were probably more impressed by the Talon's and the Shepherd's precise navigation.

After a few minutes, obviously synchronized, the Talon's and the Shepherd's forward ramps extended down, and Tasha, wearing her Elyran finery, and Sahsha, wearing an Earth equivalent, walked down the Talon's ramp arm in arm, with the Elyran Royal Guard surrounding them, twenty-four carrying the flags of Elyra's ruling monarchies - the eight kingdoms on the mother planet, with the Great Plains and the Northern Kingdoms being the richest and most powerful among them, and the sixteen Elyran colony worlds.

Tasha didn't wear her well-worn battle sword with her elegant dress as she usually did, but wore the duplicate that was designed by Mia and fabricated by Chief Engineer Haskell onboard Shepherd Moon. It was Mia's wedding gift to her.

Though it was her first time to wear it at a public event, everyone knew about it already, of course. It looked just like her real sword and felt the same in her hand, except this one had a tempered glassite blade, as strong and as sharp as her real sword's blade, except this one had a laser edge (most Elyran battle swords had straight-edged triagular-shaped blades similar to Italian Cinquedea swords, which made them well suited to being adapted to laser conversion), and, when the blue laser was switched on, it could cut through almost anything. Tasha had yet to use it in actual battle but given how she performed with it during tournaments and practice matches (the sapphire laser turned off, of course), she was confident that she'd do well.

Tasha, as well as Sahsha wore the appropriate headdress, as dictated by Elyran royal ettiquette: Tasha wore a simple circular crown encrusted in precious jewels while Sahsha wore a silver tiara with what looked like dozens of clear white diamonds. Sahsha took it upon herself to pick whch crowns they would wear. Among the three, she was the most fashion-conscious and the other two left it to her. And her choice of crowns matched their clothes well, especially their swords.

Like Mia's "cutter" sword, Tasha's looked like the blade was made of crystal, but when switched on, the transparent glassite blade shone with a bright sapphire blue color, a color Mia had deliberately chosen to match Tasha's eyes - a quality that everyone commented on.

Not wanting Sahsha to feel left out, Mia had a crystal sword specially made for her as well, using Sahsha's preferences as a basis. So Sahsha became the owner of her own deadly crystal sword. It was shaped in the likeness of a curved, medieval-age Indian Talwar, as Sahsha specified. The talware was a kind of scimitar, but lighter and thinner and more elegant than most scimitars - though hers was shorter than a regular Talwar - about twenty inches long. But since it was curved, her glassite talwar blade couldn't have a laser edge like Mia's or Tasha's. But the transparent metal blade was specially tempered and hardened, and was so sharp, it cut throug most things effortlessly. Sahsha was actually a bit scared to carry it around so she'd wear her rubber sword when she was just going out, and only wore her crystal sword when she had to.

And since this was a special occassion, Sahsha wore it this time.

Tasha had switched on the light function of her sword, so Sasha copied her and switched her own sword on as well.

Since Tasha's sword was blue, and Mia's red, Mia didn't want Sahsha's to duplicate those colors. Mia could have made it glow green - the other primary color, but, instead, Mia made Sahsha's sword emit a faint light that shifted through the entire spectrum of whatever ambient light Sahsha was currently in, sort of duplicating the effect of a diamond, refracting and reflecting the light that was shined upon it. And since it was a fairly faint light, Sahsha's sword didn't need much power, So Mia put in solar cells that used the ambient light around it to power itself, and to accumulate enough power to charge up its small battery so it could function even if the current ambient light was too faint.

 
Inspection

Sahsha quelled her rising nervousness and took strength from Tasha as they walked down the ramp.

"Don't worry, my love," Tasha whispered to her, "I am with you."

As for Mia, she switched on her "cutter" sword and set it to its lowest setting, and only made it glow faintly. Unlike Tasha's and Sahsha's, her sword didn't really have switches but more like a dial, which adjusted the power strength setting. One of these days, she'll have to have that changed.

She wore the dress uniform of an EarthForce admiral, with a few additions: it was still the same navy-blue coat with gold trim and epaulettes that had hanging braid fringes, a stiff, gold-trimmed high collar with her fleet and admiral pins, and with gold braid strips near the cuffs of her coat sleeves to signify her rank as a fleet admiral. She wore the tight, stretchy short white skirt with tall riding boots instead of the white leggings because Sahsha said she had incredible legs and she should display them as often as she could. She also had her sidearm in a holster on her right hip and her glowing sword in its transparent glassite scabbard on her left, both hanging from the belt around her waist that was covered by the red sash of the uniform. All the gold buttons on the double-breasted coat gleamed and emphasized her very noticeable bosoms.

What was different with her uniform was, on the sleeves, just above the admiral's stripes on her cuffs, were two circular devices, one in gold and one in metallic blue, which showed her to be the admiral and commanding general of the Querubin - the Elyran Northern Kingdom, as well as the commanding general of the Great Plains of Elyra. Among the medals and devices just above her left breast that showed all of her military honors were a few miniatures that were honors bestowed upon her by Elyra and other Federation governments, and she wore around her neck the Blue Heart, the large blue diamond that was the symbol that she was the rightful ruler of Elyra's Northern Kingdom, and she also wore a simple silver circlet on her head, as dictated by Elyran royal etiquette (Mia picked the simple silver hoop instead of any of the more ornate crowns available to her because it was the most plain and most simple).

She looked to her left and noted Ben in his EarthForce Uniform. He had the braids and insignia of a lieutenant, and wore more Elyran miniatures than Earth ones on his coat, and he also had a red ribbon around his neck that meant he was an Elyran citizen. He also wore the standard sidearm and a short dress sword. Aside from that, his uniform was pretty conventional.

Of course, he wore an aguilette that hung from his right shoulderboard. The aguilette was made of four different cords wound around each other - one in red, one in blue, one in silver and one in gold. This meant that his duties as Mia's adjutant was far-ranging, indeed, because it showed that he rendered official service across three military services - EarthForce, Elyra and Elyra's Northern Kingdom.

This also made him the most influential Elyran around, save for Tasha and some of Tasha's royal peers - an unusual position, to say the least, especially since he was an unmated Elyran male bridge.

"Can we go now, Ben?" Mia whispered to him.

"In a few more moments, my princess," Ben said. He was listening to the drum-beats of the royal buglers and signallers. And when his count reached the appropriate number, he nodded.

"Now, my princess," Ben said.

Mia raised a fist in the air and smartly brought it down. "Execute," she said crisply, and she and the rest of her company marched down the ramp.

Immediately behind her and Ben were two marines - one carrying the Crystal Staff, the official sigil of her position as the Northern Kingom's ruler, and another carrying the Fifth Fleet's colors. Behind that pair were two other marines, one carrying the UN flag, and the other one carrying the EarthForce flag, and behind these two was another pair - one carrying the pennant of the Elyran Republic and the other carrying the pennant of the Northern Kingdom.

As their group and Tasha's group met, Mia, along with Ben and Captain O'Connell, marched to the front, and Mia took her place beside Tasha, while Ben stayed behind Mia and beside Lena, Tasha's lady-in-waiting, while the royal staff's chief maid, who acted as Sahsha's lady-in-waiting during official events stood on the other side of Lena and behind Sahsha. Captain O'Connell and Lady Reena took their places behind them, while all of the color bearers arranged themselves behind O'Connell and Reena.

As for the rest, they executed what they called the "pincushion maneuver," an extremely complicated maneuver that allowed both both groups to integrate themselves into one and marched in step and in formation behind the color bearers.

"Brigade ready!" shouted the lead sergeant in English. Part of Tasha's Royal Guard, she was the one put in charge of this important ceremonial detail. As such, she was in the very last column in the formation, and her vantage point would show her if the formation was ready. And her shout said that the formation was now ready to move forward.

"Execute!" Mia barked, also in English, and the group started marching in "time-and-a-half," which was fifty percent faster than normal marching. This allowed them to reach the group of dignitaries arrayed at the edge of the tarmac fairly quickly.

Among these dignitaries included Queen Margaret II of the United Kingdom and her husband, Prince Stephen, UN Secretary-General Alexandra Romarkin and her husband, Admiral Benjamin Silverman, the commander of EarthForce, and his wife, the current head of CETI, Professor Phil McIntyre and several of his students from Triton Station #17, the former head of the Propulsion Research Commission, Dr. Marta Running-Stream, and several other Earth luminaries.

As for the extraterrestrials, there was the First Ambassador of Arachnia and his Erocii colleague, the famous Dr. Autumn-Sun-Rising-In-the-East (or just "Autumn," for short), Admiral Dax from the Dixx Space Defense Force, Ambassador Foal from the Detterex Empire, who had a personal escort and guide assigned by the American State Department (actually an EarthForce marine currently undercover, whose assignment was to watch for any untoward behavior by the Detterex politico), the famous Elyran actor, Rom, and his current partner, Arda, Ambassador Fal of Elyra's First Colony and her husband, and Ambassador Lulu from Telcontar. There was even a representatative from Dravidia, a Mr. Coll (no one knew his title, but he was sent by the Dravidian central council itself to represent the Dravidians in this ceremony). A squad of marines, supposedly to serve as an honor guard to Coll, was also there, although everyone knew it was to guard the Dravidian himself.

As the Earther/Elyran ceremonial formation approached, they executed yet another maneuver, and in short order, their entire contingent was arrayed in front of the grouped dignitaries, with Mia, Tasha and Sahsha at the very front, with Queen Margaret, the secretary-general and Admiral Silverman directly in front of them.

The tricky maneuver was done smoothly and without error, and everyone was amazed.

"Formation, halt!" Mia barked, and the entire group stopped with a synchonized stomp that made it sound almost like one gunshot.

"Parade rest!" Mia said, and everyone fell into a stance that Earther military people called "parade rest."

"Display Colors!" Mia said. The color bearers all raised their flags and pennants and the entire formation, with the exception of Tasha and Sahsha, saluted.

Applause rained down, and the three broke formation, and greeted their friends.

After that little time-out from protocol, Mia "invited" Fleet Admiral Silverman to inspect the troops, an Elyran variation of the Earth tradition.

So Mia and Admiral Silverman "walked the line" and Silverman did an inspection, much in the manner that he usually conducts such ceremonial inspections.

Though it was largely ceremonial, Silverman would occassionally stop in front of an EarthForce spacer or ensign to ask a question, usually something personal but also casual, but he would more often stop in front of an Elyran warrior and have a longer "chat."

Mia was a bit familiar with this habit of the admiral's, because, over fifteen or so years ago, she used to be under Silverman under the old Allied armed forces, when many of the volunteer soldiers of the Allies were deployed to counter the threat of the short-lived but disastrous "satellite wars." And "he" i.e. Mia before her sex change operation, had to endure a couple of these inspections.

Silverman stopped in front of one of the Elyran warriors who was carrying one of those Elyran shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile launchers, and asked the warrior to break down her weapon.

The warrior was surprised, but only for a moment. With great skill and precision, she broke down her weapon, and then put it back together on command even more rapidly.

Silverman nodded in appreciation and continued on down the line.

The Elyran was breathing a bit hard, because rapidly breaking down and then reassembling such a large, heavy and ungainly weapon wasn't easy. Also, because she was nervous, having to do it for the Earther supreme military commander.

Among Elyrans, the stories that Mia and Sahsha told of their lives as Earthers were always of great interest, and for anyone assigned to the 5th Fleet, the Royal Staff or to Seraphim, it was one of the fringe benefits, and such stories were recounted by word of mouth, from warrior to warrior. Of course, like chinese whispers, these stories got exaggerated over each retelling. So, by the time the warrior heard these stories, especially the ones about the Admiral, it had raised Silverman's reputation to near legendary status. Her nervousness was therefore very understandable.

But more than that, Silverman was quite attractive, and his aura projected an image of a very powerful submissive bridge, almost as powerful as the Lady Sahsha's aura.

Mia, who was trailing the admiral, leaned towards the warrior as she passed.

"You must really have impressed the Admiral," Mia stage-whispered to her. "Good work, warrior."

The warrior grinned from ear to ear, but pulled herself together when she saw her platoon commander giving her the evil eye.

 
The Air Show

After the inspection, Mia and the admiral returned to the front row of the VIPs, preparatory to dismissing the company. (Because of the late hour, the itinerary for the day excluded any speeches, truncating the usually long ceremony.)

In lieu of the speeches, a fancy flyby and aerial show was scheduled, to be performed by the Silver Arrows - the Fifth Fleet's air demonstration squadron composed of a mix of Shrike and Eagle fighters, the Turtleheads - the Fifth Fleet's combined elite Electronic Warfare & Detection wing composed of a mix of Cobra and Mud Turtle shuttles, and the Elyran Twelfth Wing precision flyers. The Silver arrows and the Twelfth Wing fighters made fanciful and intricate maneouvers in the air as they trailed multicolored smoke, and the Turtleheads fired several volleys of noisy, multicolored fireworks, making the gathered crowd go ooohhh and ahhh.

It was quite a spectacular ending to the ceremony, and everyone was making a move towards the exits as the fighters and shuttles flew away.

But just as the crowds were getting up from their seats, what looked like an old-style Tirosian fighter zoomed high above. It was flying faster than any Tirosian fighter has ever been observed flying in atmosphere, and trailed a rocket and vapor trail tinged with blue instead of the yellow and orange that most Federation ships were known for. In fact, it was clocked as flying faster than even an Earther, Telcontari or Arachnian fighter ever flew in an Earth-type atmosphere. The sonic boom was loud as it overflew the crowd, and made a large sweeping circle as it flew back for another pass.

The Flying Arrows and the Twelfth Wing fighters wheeled around, apparently intending to "engage" this "enemy fighter," and as they raced back, while the lone Tirosian ship turned around and seemed to positioning herself to fire her weapons at the crowd below.

She fired her energy weapons and twin red beams instead of the expected white shot out, and the crowd gasped in terror. But the beams were stopped short, seemingly by an energy shield similar to what spacecraft were fitted with.

The crowd laughed in relief and cheered this wonderful, though monentarily scary, display.

The fighter then zoomed faster, like it meant to fly right into the crowd. But at almost the last moment, it fired a missile and veered upwards.

Somewhere from the soldiers at parade rest, one of the Elyran Royal Guardswomen fired her surface-to-air missile, and took out the incoming weapon. The missile exploded and disintegrated in the air, making a spectacular cloud full of fire and smoke. The crowd cheered at the wonderful aerial pyrotechnics.

As the "enemy ship" pinwheeled back, as if trying to make another run, something happened.

Something at the back of the Tirosian fighter exploded, and it tried to pull back up, but it couldn't. The best it could do was to soft-land and skid on the grassy part of the spaceport beyond the tarmac.

Moments after it had skidded to a halt, two new rockets came down near the downed fighter, and something like a soap bubble enveloped the little fighter. Seconds after that, several other rockets landed around it, and exploded. Judging by the thick billowing white smoke that started to surround the little fighter, these rockets were actually smoke bombs.

As the smoke started to spread, it completely obscured the fighter.

Overhead, over two dozen marines leaped out of several mud turtle and cobra shuttles, deployed six-foot collapsible wings as they fell, and glided the rest of the way down to where the fighter was - it was EarthForce's version of the 20th century paratroopers of World War Two.

As soon as all the paratroopers landed on the smoke-obscured ground, and were swallowed up by the white smoke, they fired signal rockets trailing red, yellow, green and blue smoke trails, and it made the white smoke look like some kind of enormous flower, or something like that. The crowds cheered this last bit of showmanship.

Soon after that, someone announced on the PA that the ceremony was over, and everyone dispersed to go home or to party, while the VIPs made their way to one of the large hangars nearby redressed to be the location of the reception party that was scheduled next.

On most of the television (and equivalent) entertainment channels, the media that was present recounted everything that happened in rosy, excited tones, for it was an exciting event. In fact the extraterrestrial mediapeople kept on saying, if this was typical of official Earth events, then they needed to cover more of these things.

 
Behind the scenes

What the public and the media (and many of the VIPs present, including Queen Margaret and her entourage) didn't know was the last part of the ceremony wasn't really a scheduled event.

It was actually a literal attack on the gathered luminaries, but one that was so skillfully managed, no one was the wiser.

Actually, Mia and the Admiralty already suspected that such an attack was being planned, and though they didn't know the detials, they prepared as best they could - that's why there was a shield over the crowd, and Mia's people were able to manage so well when the Tirosian fighter came upon the scene.

Postmortem on the attacking fighter showed it to be a genuine Tirosian ship, its markings showing it to be one of the recovered hulks from the swamps of Tiros Prime. But it was fitted with Dravidian chemical rocket engines. That was why its rocketfire was tinged blue instead of yellow or orange.

Most Federation, Tirosian and Detterex rockets used liquid chemical or solid fuel that had trace amounts of sodium, which made them burn with a yellow or orange flame, though a few, like the Dravidians, had engines that made use of fuel that was laced with copper, which made them burn with a bluish light.

But the enormous thrust the outsize Dravidian engines provided was apparently too much for the tiny Tirosian fighter to contain, so after about fifteen minutes of full thrust, the engines burned through their surrounding cowling and exploded.

As for the energy weapons used, based on their serial numbers, the weapons were Earth-made, and were from salvaged energy pulse weapons retrieved from some metal reclamation facility in Taiwan before they could be scrapped, which accounted for the red bolts that the Tirosian ship fired.

As for the rocket that it launched, it was a fairly standard anti-ship missile of a Dravidian design. And it was knocked down with the use of one of the ground-to-air missile launchers carried by one of the Elyran Royal Guards who was part of the parade. Mia had actually rushed down to the nearest one while everyone's attention was focused on the incoming Tirosian fighter, and instructed the warrior to set her launcher on automatic. And, as soon as the missile launched from the fighter, her missile automatically fired as well, and exploded the enemy missile.

As for the enemy pilot, she was captured alive.

After the fighter crashed and skidded to a halt, one of the mud turtles overhead fired two EM suppression field missiles, more popularly known as the "curtain of light," but these missiles only generated small fields - just big enough to surround the ship and effectively shutting down all of the fighter's electronics, and any booby traps (especially the atomic kind) were rendered inert.

After those two missiles, several of the other shuttles then fired off smoke bombs to obscure any of their or the enemy's activities, and as the "paratroopers" landed, because of the smoke and the curtain of light, they had no comms so they fired off signal flares instead to show that they had reached their target, each color-coded to the ship where they came from - red for Yamato, yellow for Musashi, green for Shinano and blue for the Shepherd Moon.

Of course, when they broke into the cockpit, they found the pilot knocked out and they were easily able to bring her out of the plane.

The pilot was an Elyran, and was wearing one of the Elyran Royal Guard uniforms. But after an antigen test, they discovered that the pilot was actually Detterex, and the uniform she was wearing was actually fake - a poorly tailored imitation at that.

Because it was a Detterex, many wanted to detain Ambassador Foal, but people from the Alien Threat Assessment Command nixed that idea - they said they'd probably uncover more information if they just put the unsuspecting Detterex ambassador under surveillance.

The Detterext pilot-spy was then passed on to the American CIA and FBI - their interrogation abilities almost legendary in the Earth intelligence community - and soon enough, without hardly any effort, they were able to break the spy down and get at the truth.

Apparently, the spy was hardly a spy - she was just one of the many destitute citizens of Detterex Prime, and was easily coerced to do the bidding of a group of Dravidians who promised wealth and material comforts for her and her family.

Obviously, the Dravidians selected a Detterex, specifically one of the "throwbacks" who looked very similar to Elyrans, especially in their height, so that their spy could travel to Earth without much suspicion, and the Dravidians wouldn't be implicated immediately if their scheme was somehow uncovered. Of course, the Dravidians also had a contingency plan - a self-destruct device onboard the fighter - but it wasn't triggered because of the EM suppression field.

The Detterex spy was unable to tell her FBI and CIA interrogators who these Dravidians were, but from her descriptions, it was obvious that the ringleader was none other than Mia's favorite Dravidian, the ex-councillor Cor.

So, though the Detterex ambassador Foal was not a direct suspect anymore, she was still considered a person of interest, and undercover surveillance was still initiated.

As for the Dravidian "observer," Coll, he was called in for an interview with Earth's Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. And it was not surprising, however, that Coll did not report for that interview. And as Mia's Tasha's and Sahsha's reception was concluding, a manhunt was initiated for the the missing Coll.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Five After Mia's, Tasha's and Sahsha's people landed, they commenced the Fifth Fleet's version of a pass-and-review or a trooping the colour, but just before its conclusion, what looked like a Tirosian suddenly came upon the scene, and commenced an attack run. With expert management, though, Mia was able to disguise the attack as if it was just part of the elaborate air show. The pilot was caught and an interrogation was started, but Mia couldn't help because they just started the reception for the conference.

---

 

Chapter Five: Reception

 
Threatcon Bravo

Mia, Sahsha and Tasha stood about twenty feet from the bottom of the stage that was at the end of the hall (actually a converted hangar), which was the ideal position to greet their guests. That was because guests would have to cross the length of the hall to get to them, thereby requiring them to walk through the crush of guests, and make them interact with everyone. It also had the benefit of delaying any well-wishers so that the hosts wouldn't have to deal with a steady stream of people.

When Mia explained this to Queen Margaret, or "Meg" as she insisted Mia and Tasha call her, the queen said that might be a good innovation to add to the royal protocols for royal events and such.

Mia told the queen she could hardly call her "Meg," as it would be too familiar.

"Nonsense," Queen Margaret responded. "After all, we are peers now," she explained, "and it suits my casual and familiar manner." Her self-styled "familiar manner" was a departure from all other previous British monarchs, but she wasn't as casual as she thought she was.

The three noticed that she didn't extend the same invitation to Sahsha, so the queen's "casual" manner apparently had limits. In any case, Sahsha made sure not to call her "Meg."

Tasha took to it right away, of course. After all, among the members of the Elyran family, clan and peers, it was actually permissible to call each other by their personal names, with the exception of the queen, of course. By Elyran tradition, the only ones to whom it would be allowable to be familiar with her were the royal parents, spouse, siblings or children. Everyone else, even relatives, had to be formal with her.

Mia tried to accede to Queen Margaret's request, but it was an effort for her because she would instinctively call her "your highness," or "ma'am." Nevertheless, "Meg" didn't take it against her, and just let it ride.

This particular gimmick of the royal hosts of standing at the farthest point from the door was a common party trick among Elyran royals that was used a lot, and the few Elyrans present recognized this gambit. For the others, though, it was a bit of an annoyance, but they wouldn't show their annoyance to the three royals, of course, and would just grumble a bit about "yet another darned Elyran custom" when they were out of earshot.

While they waited between people coming over, Mia, Tasha and Sahsha talked about what had happened during the parade.

"So. Can you talk about it now, Mia?" Sahsha asked.

"I'm sorry, Sahsha," Mia said, "I wasn't authorized to tell anyone, even you and Tasha. But, yeah, I can talk about it now."

They paused as a couple of people from Secretary-General Romarkin's office came over to pay their respects. Though they knew Sahsha personally, they tried not to be too familiar now, though they warmly shared hugs with her.

As soon as they left, Mia continued.

"Phil said CETI had been getting some Phase-Wave intercepts that indicated some kind of Dravidian or Detterex plot or conspiracy. But Phil said the aliens clearly suspect that EarthForce can intercept and pick out individual communication signals so they've been encrypting their messages."

Mia stopped as a group of people from some branch of government they didn't know very well stopped to pay respects.

As soon as they left, Sahsha pulled on Mia's sleeve.

"So what else did Dr. McIntyre say?" Sahsha said.

"Well," Mia said, continuing, "Phil then contacted the Alien Threat Assessment Command, and provided them copies of the messages. But because of the sketchy nature of the signals, they couldn't come to any definite conclusions about what these people were planning, except they were sure that it wasn't anything good. All they could do was send out an alert to the Earth Alliance - namely, our friends onboard Colossus, and in Telcontar, Arachnia, Elyra, Daemon, Dixx and Star-453, and that there was something afoot in Dravidia and Detterex."

"Why not send out a general alert?"

"I think the ATAC people," Tasha said, "didn't want to tip off the conspirators, so they limited it only to our friends, who they were probably thinking were the targets, anyway."

Sahsha nodded, and waited for the latest batch of well-wishers to leave before continuing.

"So what else did they do?" Sahsha asked

"Well," Mia said, "Admiral Silverman had all EarthForce installations upgraded to Threatcon Bravo, while the other governments followed our lead. I myself heard about it just after I left Colossus. So I made sure everyone that joined the parade were all on alert, and all their equipment and weapons were loaded with live rounds and fully charged."

"Was that how our people were able respond quickly?"

Mia nodded.

"What's Threacon Bravo, anyway?"

"Wait a moment," Tasha said. "I'm looking that up..." She had her CC out. "Threatcon Bravo... 'this condition applies when an increased and more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists. The measures in this THREATCON must be capable of being maintained for weeks without causing undue hardship, affecting operational capability, and aggravating relations with local authorities.'"

"Oh..."

"And the moment we arrived in orbit," Mia said, "the admiral upgraded all installations in the North American Command to Threatcon Charlie."

"Ahhh... Thank goodness."

"Truth is, we didn't know what would happen and where. As it was, that missile almost got us. Thank goodness for our Elyran warriors and their anti-missile weapons."

"Thank goodness you were there to get them to fire off one of them when it was needed," Sahsha said.

"I've always wanted to ask," Tasha said, "who is this 'Goodness' person anyway, and what has she got to do with anything, that we have to keep on thanking her?"

Mia and Sahsha burst out laughing, and the next group that came over next looked at the three quizzically as they laughed themselves silly.

 
Asha

"So," FBI Agent Booth said as he talked with the Detterex pilot that tried to attack the VIPs at the parade, "anything you want to tell us?" Agent Booth was fully fluent in Elyran so he didn't need a translator.

The pilot gulped. She was so nervous, she was about to soil herself. A couple of days ago, she had pigged out on the food she bought from the countless street vendors on Times Square, and had a bout of indigestion, and spent a large part of that afternoon in what the Eathers called a "restroom."

And with this interrogation, she feld she needed to visit a restroom again.

Going without was something she was so used to - poor people usually were, but when let loose out on the streets of New York, with a pocket full of money, she couldn't help herself and bought these scrumptious things called "pretzels," and she was in heaven. She then followed that up with something called a "falafel" and a "shawarma," and then, after a while, she tried something called a "Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich." (She avoided drinks because she heard that Earther liquor was really strong, and didn't want to risk it.) The mysterious but tasty yellow substance that dripped out ruined her blouse, but she didn't care. Eating for a starving woman can be almost orgasmic, and things like a few stains on her clothes hardly mattered.

She had also tried "roasted peanuts" and popped each savory pebble-like morsel in her mouth, as she walked around the incredible Earther city. When she had finished the bag of peanuts, she then tried something called "ice cream," and that was the most incredible eating experience she had ever experienced. Nothing in her life came close to ice cream. But then, her stomach started to rumble, and rushed to the nearest "bathroom" or "rest room."

She lamented that Detterex's capital city, Amber, wasn't like New York City. Not even close. But with the current economic crisis the Empire was in, and the poorest of the poor were barely able to hang on, how can the government even think of spending on the city's infrastructure.

She and her family would do anything just to be able to eat regularly and put a roof over their heads.

That was why, when she heard from the neighborhood loanshark that a mysterious Dravidian from the Federation was looking for recruits, she and many of the people in her enclave (though "slum" might have been a better word for their neighborhood) checked it out. The Dravidians were looking for a specific type, and she was the only one who fit the bill. Apparently, they were looking for people who closely resembled Elyrans, and she thanked the prophet that she was short enough and looked close enough to an Elyran to pass. And even though it was for something... nefarious, she didn't care. However, she made sure that the Dravidians gave her the money that they promised first, which she than gave to her mother. It insured that her family would be taken cared of for a few years, and maybe even find a better situation out in the mountain strongholds overlooking the city, and for that, she didn't mind that she had essentially sold herself to these criminals.

After a week of training on a "simulator" (which was nothing more than a big shipping box with a folding chair inside, a broom handle for a control stick and a portable computer to simulate cockpit controls), she was declared ready, and she and several Dravidians left Detterex Prime and made their way to Earth.

They rode in a decrepit old Kembel freighter that was bringing a load of what the Earthers called "rare earth" minerals, as well as several hundred tons of Kembel handicrafts and pre-packaged foods and instant pastries that Earthers loved. It was small as far as interstellar cargo ships went, and only had room for them and this relatively small shipment of Earth-bound cargo. In fact, she had to share one stateroom with seven smelly and enormous Dravidians for over a month.

She did her best to keep busy, so she would roam the largely deserted ship often. She found the Tirosian "fighter" she was supposed to fly, and it was more like a pile of junk. She asked the Dravidian in charge about it, and he said that there was still work to be done on it, but he promised that it would be ready on time.

- - - - -

By the end of the trip, she was praying to the gods already, so desperate was she to escape from the ship.

But when she thought she couldn't take the cramped situation and the loneliness of being the only Detterex aboard anymore (she actually wouldn't have minded if there were anyone else other than Dravidians onboard - even an Elyran would have been welcome), they eventually arrived at Newark International Spaceport.

She and the Dravidians, as well as their equipment, were overlooked by the port inspectors - they hid on the cargo ship until the customs people left.

Once their ship was towed into one of the spaceport's ship hangars by one of the spaceport's tiny but powerful towtrucks, and parked beside a large FedEx Express Interspace ship, they waited for the FedEx ship to unload cargo. And as the FedEx cargo pallets were unloaded and towed out, they unloaded their "special" cargo as well and surrepticiously joined the procession of shipping containers being towed out of the spaceport.

Having escaped the spaceport authorities, they then moved into a large rented warehouse just beyond a large reclamation facility in New Jersey (a place the Earthers called a "junk yard").

After settling in, two of her Dravidian compatriots crossed the street to this facility, and returned an hour later with several crates of "junk." Later, she would see that the "junk" included the components of what she knew were "lasers" as well as a lot of parts for what she believed were Dravidian rocket engines.

Since the Dravidians said it would take them at least three days to re-assemble "her" Tirosian fighter plane, she was allowed to roam around the Earther city until it was ready.

And she got to know the place a bit and indulged in some of what the city had to offer. Not much, actually, since the Dravidians only gave her a little Earth "pocket money," but it felt like a fortune to her, and was able to enjoy some things - like watch a "movie," or go to an "amusement park," or take a "carriage ride" around the city's enormous Central Park, but the best was the street food, of course. City tour personnel told the "Elyran tourist" that pre-war New York City was considered dangerous, but the present was very safe, and she was free to roam with full confidence. She took them at their word, and she had no reason to complain.

 
Interrogation

While Agent Booth was asking her questions that she wann't answering, another Earther, an "Agent Aubrey," came in.

"Got some data from the lab boys, finally," Agent Aubrey said.

"Lemme see," Booth demanded, and he took the folder Aubrey gave him and started reading.

"Ahhh," Booth said, and turn back to her. "Seems you're not really an Elyran, after all," he said, shifting effortlessly to Detterex (although Detterex wasn't really much different from Elyran). "It says here you're actually Asha Terisa, from Detterex City."

The Detterex spy, Asha, gulped. "They found out!" she thought. "But how?"

"We have access to records of most Detterex citizen, as provided by your government under the cease fire accords. We used your fingerprints and iris to identify you.

"furthermore, the Royal Bureau for Travel and Immigration of Detterex City had recorded a citizen leaving Detterex Prime in the company of seven Dravidians on a Kembel ship bound for Earth."

Asha moaned sub-vocally. She was so scared, she couldn't stop from trembling.

"Asha," Agent Booth said gently, "don't be scared. You won't be harmed, nor will there be any retribution on your family back home." Booth put a gentle, placating hand on her arm. "We guarantee you will be provided full opportunity to explain and defend yourself. We just need to know."

Asha looked up at the big Earther. "I promise," the Earther said, and smiled gently.

For some reason, she believed him. An Earther that gentle and kind was worthy of trust. She knew what she was feeling was partly because this Booth was a bridge, a powerful one at that - a gentle submissive bridge, but she believed it wasn't just that. In her heart, she knew he was being sincere. So she decided to trust the Earther.

Before she started to talk, though, the Earther gave her a form - it was a standard Detterex/Elyran parole form, and it showed to her how well Earthers understood them.

In her presence, he and Agent Aubrey signed the form, and she signed it as well. Now she was assured she and her family wouldn't be hurt.

And she recounted everything that happened to her, starting from the time she first met the Dravidians.

 
Meg

One of the last groups that Mia, Sahsha and Tasha had to shake hands and say hello to was Queen Margaret and her retinue.

"It's indeed a pleasure, your highness," Tasha said, and gave the English monarch a buss on the cheek. It wasn't according to Earth royal protocol but it was part of Elyran protocol, so Queen Margaret nor her people had reason to complain.

"Your, highness," Sahsha said, and curtseyed. She knew it was okay to address the queen already since she had already spoken to her.

"Sahsha, my dear," the queen replied, and bussed her on the cheek as well - something quite unprecendented, even for a queen who behaved as casually as "Queen Meg."

"Your royal highness," Mia said when it was her turn. As she was bending to curtsey, Meg playfully hit her on the top of her head.

"Oh, stop that, Mia," Meg said. "I suppose I should be relieved that you didn't say 'my queen' or 'my liege,' or something equally inane."

"Ahhh, for me, that would be Tasha, your highness. Or Sahsha. No disrespect intended, of course."

Everyone laughed.

"Of course," Meg said, smiling.

"Sir," Mia saluted Prince Stephen. Nominally, as part of the British royal house, Meg's husband, Stephen, was someone that she saluted or curtseyed to, since she was supposedly part ot the British royal family as well. She took the "military" option, though, to make a distinction between the queen or the prince. Besides, Prince Stephen was, after all, the honorary commander of the entire British forces, and she was just a fleet commander.

Prince Stephen took her seriously, though, and saluted back.

"Good afternoon, Admiral," Prince Stephen said.

"Sir," Mia replied in a very reserved, British way.

As they were making pleasantries, Phil McIntyre came over with his grad students. Yet another break in Earther protocol.

"Phil!" Mia said in obvious pleasure.

"Mia!" Phil said, and returned the spontaneous hug. "Oh!" Phil said with a small, mischievous smile. "Apologies, Princess," he said, and bowed.

"You!" Mia said and playfully mock-punched him in the gut.

Mia took it upon herself to formally introduce him to her spouses, and to Queen Margaret and her party. Phil knew everyone already, of course, but followed protocol for the sake of his proteges, so he'd have an opportunity to formally introduce them.

"Your highnesses," Phil said in his best formal tones, "Madam Secretary-General, admirals, ambassadors, and everyone, I'd like to introduce to you the first batch of the CETI Exchange program.

"First, I'd like to introduce to you Doctor Ivan Oligov, a graduate of the Kissinger Diplomatic Program from the famous Moscow State Institute of International Relations, or MGIMO. He is currently pursuing his second doctorate under the Galactic History, Economy, and Social Studies Programme, or GHES."

The tall, blond Russian stepped to the front of the group, politely bowed to the VIPs, and stepped back.

"Next is Elmonte Oliveira, an undergraduate of Universidade de Sao Paolo's veterinary program, and was a late enrollee to the GHES. But he is one of our most promising students, and has actually helped improve our medical knowledge of extraterrestrial anatomy - he has authored several monograms on non-terran anatomy and physiology. Everyone calls him Elmo, by the way." That made the Earthers smile.

Elmo stepped forward, and bowed, just like Ivan, and said, "T'chahn, honored gentlebeings" in perfect un-accented Elyran.

"Next from my team is 'Eighth Terran Studies Student,' the current rising star of the First Arachnian University for Government and Law, Everyone in the program calls her Octavia, or Via for short."

Via stepped, and didn't say anything. Rather, she made the complicated Arachnian gesture for greetings, respect and a polite expression of happiness.

The First Ambassador moved and touched the tips of his antennae with hers, and had a quick conversation with her in native Arachnian. Quickly, though, both stepped back to their groups.

"I just told Via," the ambassador said via his Arachnian-made voder, "that I was very proud of her, and told her that all Arachnia is behind her."

"Next in the exchange program is Shu-Shu and Miao-Miao, from Telcontari's Allura Institute of Higher Learning, and is the first of the graduates of their own version of Earth's GHES program."

The two moved forward, almost giggling in both excitement and nervousness, and tried to ape their fellow students by bowing politely Telcontari fashion.

"And the last of my interns is Ms Marjorie Beatrice Quinn, the top undergraduate from the School of Foreign Service of Washington DC's Georgetown University. She prefers to be called 'Trixie.'"

Marjorie blushed in embarrassment when Dr. McIntyre said that. But she swallowed that, stepped forward, and then bowed like the others.

"So you're Marjorie," Sahsha said.

Marjorie looked at her with a bit of surprise and a lot of worry. "What do you mean, my lady," Marjorie asked politely.

Sahsha didn't answer, and exchanged looks with Mia and Tasha instead. They then looked to Phil, who nodded slightly. Marjorie and her fellow interns saw all this, and they wondered what it meant.

"Oh, nothing," Sahsha said. "So you want to be called Trixie?" she asked, trying to change topics. "Any particular reason why?"

"Ummm, not really, ma'am. I just like the sound of it."

Sahsha nodded. "I see," she said with a smile. "Then we're pleased to meet you, Trixie."

Marjorie... "Trixie" smiled shyly. "Thank you, ma'am. I'm pleased to have met all of you, as well, ma'am." And she stepped back to her group.

Queen Margaret's entourage was the last group, as befits the queen (after all, royalty had to be the first, but if they cannot be the first, then they would be the last, so as to have pride of place in the queue).

Admiral Silverman made his excuses, however, saying that he had things to take care of, but left his wife, Allison, with the Secretary-General. Mia, Tasha, Sahsha and the Secretary-General knew he had to take care of the recent attack, but everyone else didn't know anything about it.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Six The plot that was behind the attack was slowly being unraveled, and it was revealed that it was a Dravidian plot, with an unwitting Detterex citizen as their instrument to carry out their plan. Not too much detail of the plan has been uncovered yet but any betting person will say it was most probably another one of Cor's conspiracies. Ever since the "Earthers" so noisily burst upon the scene, Cor, Dravidia's then-ambassador to the Federation, rubbed the newcomers the wrong way from the beginning, especially then-Captain Amelia Steele. No one could blame the Earthers, though, especially with the high-handed, patronizing, and condescending way that Dravidians treated everyone. The only advantage that everyone else had over the Earthers was that they were used to Dravidians and just let them be. But Mia didn't stand for it, and put them, especially Cor, in their place. Which began Cor's slow downfall from grace. And ever since, Cor has been trying to undermine the Earthers at every turn. But this was the first time that Cor had actually tried this kind of thing. Could it be the precursor to war? Who knew?

---

 

Chapter Six: "Hic Sunt Dracones"

 
What this was all about

So, after all the ceremonies and all the preliminaries, they started the actual conference.

They convened the following day. It was a tribute to Ben's efficiency that all the biological clocks of all the delegates syched up so that everyone was at the conference room at the appointed time: 9:00AM, Eastern Standard Time.

Ben had made sure that the conference room assigned to them - Conference Room 1 - was ready: chairs and saddles were set up, translators were available in the models that the delegates could use (Earther/Elyran earpieces, the tinier Telcontari version, Arachnian torque-types, Dixx headbands, Star-453 audio jacks, and the Daemon hairclip type), a large non-3D projection screen (per the request of the Star-453 delegates) was ready, and refreshments that the delegates liked were available in one corner of the room (everyone had to serve themselves - no one else was invited into the room because of security concerns).

Ben also made sure the appropriate flags and banners were set up, and all the "nameplates" were on the appropriate tables. He also checked with the UN security, as well as their security, that kept the room locked down.

Ben had no choice but to use CX 1 - it was the only conference room in the UN that had Level One security, and was outfitted for use by extraterrestrials as well.

After all his helpers (staff from Seraphim and some of Mia's house staff from Star Castle) signalled that everything was ready, and the lead warrior signalled that the room was now locked down and secured from electronic spying, he nodded to his Duchess.

Sahsha, seeing Ben's signal, banged the gavel on the podium, to signal the start of the conference.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and gentlebeings," she said, "I am Duchess Sahsha Liaran-Kerr-Delyer, formerly of the United Nations, and current cultural and govenment representative to the United Nations for the Republic of the Free Peoples of Elyra. But I suppose I didn't need to introduce myself."

Everyone laughed at her joke, and Mia and Tasha felt a glow of pride - Sahsha was such an expert at these things, it was a shame she wasn't able to showcase it more often.

"I now cal the conference to order.

"We are here under the auspices of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management of the United Nations, and the office of the Secretary-General," she said, and, in behalf of EarthGov, welcome to Earth, and to the United Nations."

Everyone in the conference room applauded.

"I will be chairing the conference, and will make sure that our work goes smoothly and constructively.

"Meaning no disrespect, as we only have five Earth days to complete our conference, I beg leave to dispense with introducing everyone, except to introduce the various groups represented here, and those who lead them. So...

"The chair recognizes the Daemon delegation headed by Daemon's Ambassador to the Federation, Aorgar-Aor." Mia was amazed that both Tasha and Sahsha could remain straight-faced. She herself was struggling not to giggle at the mention of the ambassador's name, which sounded like a lion clearing his throat. Which was appropriate, she supposed, given how Daemons look.

Sahsha continued. "The chair also recognizes the delegation from Star-453, and headed by Councilor Rowan, from the Federation's Council of Custodians." Councilor Rowan stood his full nine feet, and the robot-like extraterrestrial bowed to the assembly Earther-style.

"The chair also recognizes the delegation from Telcontar, as represented by Yun-Yun and Nim-Nim, the directors-extraordinairy appointed by the Telcontari Planetary Government to this special council." The two stood up quickly, bowed shyly, and sat back down

"We welcome the delegation from Arachnia Prime, under the leadership of the First Ambassador of Arachnia." And this was greeted with the most thunderous of applauses as the ambassador, ever the showman, waved his arms in intricate patterns. Via studied them and realized it's in the glyph language of the First Clan - aside from very intricate, ornate and a showstopper, these glyphs were only known and used by descendants of the First Clan, which would make the ambassador the closest Arachnian equivalent to royalty.

Via faced him and gestured the glyphs for respect and admiration. The ambassador gestured back his thanks, still using the royal glyphs.

"We also welcome the Dixx delegation," Sahsha said, "headed by Grand Admiral Dax." Purely for theatrics, Dax stood and spread his wings, and everyone oohed and ahhhed (or the equivalent). Though impressive, these colorful Dixx wings were practically useless for flying anymore, as they have grown more and more spindly and underpowered over the millenia, and Dixx bodies had grown heavier. Nowadays, these impessive wings and their bright, colorful plumage were only used for courtship (and for showing off, as Daxx did) or to fly in environments like Colossus' central core or in domed living spaces with gravities less than normal, such as most of the domed communities in the outer planet colonies in Earth's Sol System.

In recent decades, though, Dixx commercial ships were now being designed to accomodate passengers that want to use their wings to move around them, and various commercial and entertainment facilities have been cropping up on the Dixx colony worlds and stations, and on Dixx Prime itself, where the gravity was deliberately lowered to allow winged flight within these facilities.

"We also recognize Dr. Philip McIntyre," Sahsha continued, "the director-general of the Center for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or CETI, and the first batch of doctoral candidates for the UN's Galactic History, Economy, and Social Studies Programme, or GHES." Phil and his students stood an aclnowledged the applause.

"And, lastly, I would like to introduce Her Most Royal Highness, Queen Tasha the Forty-Third, heading the Elyran delegation, and Her Royal Highness, Lord Admiral Amelia Catherine Liaran-Kerr-Steele, Princess of the Elyran Great Plains and the Great Northern Kingdom of Elyra, Duchess of the Sciollian Isles of Earth, and Admiral of the Fifth Fleet of Earth. She's here leading the Earth delegation."

This was greeted with the loudest and most sustained applause.

Sahsha smiled and sighed in mock exasperation as she waited for an inordinate amount of time for the applause to die down.

- - - - -

To begin the conference, Sahsha called on Mia to summarize the purpose of the conference.

"Dear friends and gentlebeings," Mia began, "by now everyone in the galaxy is aware of the Earth tech we call Phase-Wave, and though EarthGov has not allowed the technology itself to be shared..." Mia shook her head, indicating the policy will continue.

From the sidelines, Dax crisply said "snap!" in colloquial English, and did the popular side-swipe finger snap Earth gesture, and everyone laughed. For a moment, the non-Earthers were hoping that Earth had rescinded its policy of proscribing Phase-Wave tech.

Mia laughed. "I'm sorry, everyone - no such luck." Dax shrugged, another Earth gesture. "What I was saying, though," Mia said, "was that, though the tech hasn't been shared, everyone has been able to share in the benefits that it provides, such as instantaneous galaxy-wide communications, navigation, weather detection and control, medical systems, advanced detection and advanced electronics.

"One of the things that most of the galaxy's scientists have been saying was that Phase-Wave can actually extend our knowledge and, in fact, see practically to the ends of the universe. It is the slowness of our compilation efforts of all the data that we have been receiving through our Phase-Wave network that we haven't been able to do much but map and catalog our small part of the galaxy.

"As you know, the repository of all this data that CETI has been laboriously collecting, interpreting, cataloguing and compiling is Memory One - our galacting mapping center based on Crystal Shoals, the so-called 'planet at the center of the known universe,' and is available for the asking by any Federation-accredited organization.

"However, there's something new..."

Almost everyone involuntarily leaned forward in anticipation.

"Yes, we've received radio transmissions and long distance images of other previously-unknown civilizations beyond the Federation, The Detterex Empire and the Tiros Empire, and though this is exciting news on its own, this is CETI's area of responsibility and not this group's. CETI will be managing this in their own way, using the protocols and procedures that they have developed over the years. Some material on this will be provided at the end of the day, and everyone is free to contact their governments if they would wish to be part of this effort.

"But, as I said, this is not what this conference is about."

Mia took a deep breath. "Several years ago, a research team from the University of Cambridge in England decided to experiment and find out the limits of Phase-Wave. They were granted exclusive use of Triton Station Fifteen for almost six months and discovered that Phase-Wave does not actually cover the entire universe. And, in fact, not even close. Ben?"

Ben obliged and switched on the 2D projector.

What was seen was a recognizable image of the galaxy as seen from "above," and the arm that they occupied in the center of the picture. But around that was a broken outline.

The outline wasn't a smooth circle or some smooth ellipse, but it was jagged, like the edges of a pane of glass that fell on the floor, with spikes and sawtooth edges randomly radiating away from the arm.

"What is that!" Rowan, from the Star-453 group, exclaimed.

"That, sir," Mia said, "is the edge of the, I guess, 'field' of our Phase-Wave." Mia waved to the observation deck. "Ben? Can you please spin the image?"

Ben made the image rotate slowly, and as the galaxy rotated, so, too did the Phase-Wave "field" with it. And, from any angle, the three-dimensional field was not regular in any way.

"What does this mean?" Rowan asked.

"I don't know," Mia said.

- - - - -

"Here's the thing," Mia said, "regardless where you are, the boundaries and edges are all constant, or as constant as is possible in a dynamic universe. This has been proven by DSC Mikasa and Earthship II from the Fifth Fleet - they have been exploring the possibility that these boundaries are not 'fixed.' It turns out they are."

Mia used a red laser pointer and indicated one of the longer "shards" - a long, sharply-pointed part of the boundary relatively near Telcontar.

"Mikasa and Earthship II traversed this part of our arm, emerging to ship-maneuverable status almost forty times, and, at each point, the "boundary" had remained consistent. They continued on until they reached the "point" of this part of the boundary. Last year, they crossed the boundary at the that point and, as soon as they did, we lost contact with them."

There were murmurs in the room.

Mia shrugged. "What did we expect? After all, that was the boundary of our area of detectable space. And we lost contact with them for over six months as our two ships explored that uncharted area. It was hard-going for them, relying on old-school radio-based navigation and detection, but there was nothing within one light-year of the tip of that point, except for one planetary system. And it's this system."

 
"Here be dragons"

As Ben flashed the pictures, everyone leaned forward. But it was disappointing. It was a "dirty" planetary system full of rocks and asteroids moving around a very Earth-like yellow dwarf star. Several of them had started to coalesce, and there were three clumps of rocks and asteroids moving around in the same orbit, but the system was still dirty with other rocks still flying around. Mia said, if they had time, they'd probably be able to map each of those rocks' orbits, but they haven't yet.

There were also several planets, about ten of them orbiting on the same plane, this new system's plane aligning with the galaxy's own galactic plane.

"EarthGov has registered this new system with the Chamber of Migration and Peerage," Mia continued, "for colonization purposes. It is classified as 'low habitable' given that none of the planets fall within the normal ranges for habitability. The closest to being habitable are these three planets."

On the screen, an animatic illustration showed the new system with the near-circular orbits of the various planets and the three "clumps" of rocks in neon circles. Discounting the orbits of these clumps, there were eight remaining orbits, in positions roughly the same as the orbits of the Solar System's planets. But if there were ten planets, why were there only eight orbits?

And as Ben zoomed in on one particular orbit, the third orbit, the reason for this discrepancy became apparent: there were three planets moving in the same orbit, equidistant from each other!

Modern planetary mechanics would have said such an arrangement was impossible, or at least, very, very improbable, but clearly they didn't know enough, because here it was.

"Presently, these three planets in a trinary orbit are the most habitable, although all three are locked in a frozen state at the moment. Why this is so, we don't know, because their orbit is in what Earther scientists call the 'Goldilocks Zone,' which is the zone where conditions for life were optimal.

"On these three planets, we believe we can survive on and, with a bit of planetary engineering magic, I think they can be very comfortable planets indeed."

Mia looked at the projected image for a moment.

"I don't know about you," she said, "but for me, knowing what this system is - one at the edge of the universe that we know, seems wonderful and mysterious.

"We have decided to call the system Ultima Thule, and if I can explain - Thule, in ancient Greek and Roman maps, is the farthest northernmost known island. And in classic literature 'Ultima Thule,' or 'the farthermost Thule,' has acquired a metaphorical meaning - the land at the edge of the known world. In Earth's twenty-first century, a Trans-Neptune asteroid in what we call the Kuiper Belt, was named Ultima Thule for these particular reasons, and so we are calling our new system Ultima Thule as well."

This was greeted with applause.

"The system's new primary is, of course, going to be called 'Thule,' and the names of the planetary and other bodies of the system are still being thought up. The IAS, or the International Astronomical Society, are supposed to provide final approval for the major planets this afternoon, and Ben will let us know as soon as possible. However, these three planets already have been given names.

"Two of them, we are calling 'Tau' and 'Omega,' which are the last letters in the Hebrew and Latin or Greek alphabets, which we thought was appropriate because these planets are in the very last known system. And the one among the three with the highest albedo we are calling 'Terra Dracones,' which is latin for 'the land of the dragons.'" Mia smiled. "But why dragons, you may ask?

"In old Earth, there is a phrase which is supposed to have been put on the edge of maps, and that's the phrase, 'here be dragons,' dragons being mythical creatures that, according to legend, destroyed oceangoing ships. By putting this label at the edge of their maps, cartographers were saying, in a metaphorical way, that this is the edge of what they knew, and beyond it, no one knew what's there and therefore is a perilous place, and because the sea is a perilous place, for those who don't know it, there might as well be dragons there."

Mia smiled a little. "Of course, this practice isn't strictly correct - ancient cartographers didn't really put that phrase on their maps. There were actually only two recorded instances where the phrase was actually used in maps, but the idea behind it, and the phrase, has caught the imagination of us Earthers ever since, and this erroneous information gained legendary status. So we thought we'd indulge a bit and call our new planet the Land of the Dragons. I know we're going overboard with Earther legends and literature, but I think it's all very appropriate."

Everyone applauded.

The Daemon ambassador, Aorgar-Aor, raised a furry, paw-like hand.

Mia nodded in his direction. "Yes, Ambassador?" (She was avoiding calling him by name so she wouldn't embarrass herself and laugh.)

"My lady," he began, "this is all quite interesting, and I am quite intrigued, as we all are, but you haven't touched on the reason for the conference. I..."

Mia raised a hand, stopping the furry alien.

"My apologies, sir," she said, but let me tell you what we found under the ice on Dracones." She nodded to Ben, up in the observation gallery, and he changed the picture again...

to be continued...

 

click here to read my old Working Girl Blogs, click here to read all of my blogs, click here to read my stories in BCTS, and click here to see my profile & know more about me.

 

Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Seven The conference had started, and, everyone got to know everyone else. There were representatives from the Arachnians, the Dixx, and, of course, the Elyrans. Humanity's newest friends, the bear cub-like Telcontari, had also sent representatives, as well as the Daemons, the ones that look like lions with their long, thick manes, but what was not expected were the people of Star-453 sending representatives. These particular aliens were considered the most technologically advanced race in the Federation - all their citizens were completely cyberneticized at birth, and all that everyone sees are their roboticized outer shells. If people didn't know any better, they'd probably assume these were actually sentient robots. And, of course, there were the Humans. The conference was all about the discovery that the Earthers made - that, apparently, Phase-Wave wasn't as never-ending as they thought, that there was an actual border to it. And, at the border where Phase-Wave ended and the unknown part of the galaxy started, the Fifth Fleet's Explorer-Class DSC Earthship II, and their most advanced Type-One ship, DSC Mikasa, discovered a new planetary system. The new system was weird, to say the least, but what was discovered on one of its planets held the promise of new knowledge and something that was indeed world-shaking.

---

 

Chapter Seven: The Land of Giants and Dragons

 
Giants Under the Ice

At sixty-four, Captain Sylvia Esteban was unusual in that she was the oldest active serving captain in EarthForce currently in command of one of EarthForce's capital ships. Aside from that, the captain was also unique in that she was actually not a military person, but was essentially a scientist (specifically, a level four physicist and engineer) that was part of the team that designed Earhship II, and was assigned as her commanding officer in Earthsip II's original incarnation. After the ship was recalled, she was given a field appointment by Mia (so she became a bona fide captain with EarthForce instead of just a civilian captain), and given a six-month training course in Fort McCain for civilian professionals transitioning into Earthforce. After which, she was again reassigned to command the upgraded, now-FTL-capable "Explorer-class" Earthship II.

And for almost ten years, she commanded Earthship II with distinction, and, with her science crew, always at the vanguard of the Fifth Fleet's exploration missions, and has more than held her own in skirmishes during a few encounters with rebel Tiros and Detterex ships. Still, her main calling was her scientist side, and she had helped survey and explore almost all thirty-nine planets that Earth had claimed and had started to settle. She thought of her time as Earthship II's captain as the height of her career, and felt sad that she was facing mandatory retirement next year or, if she took the option, a teaching position at the academy or other non-line position.

But she still had a year, and it was her intention to get as much out if this last year. Anyway, she was currently exploring, or trying to explore, this weird planet in this newly-discovered planetary system.

Despite being less than a hundred million miles from its primary, this planet, and its two sister planets in the same orbit was in what Earthers call the "Goldilocks Zone" - right there, the planet and her "sister planets" were already very weird - but aside from that, were also ice-locked. How that's possible, Captain Esteban didn't know.

From what they could see using non-Phase-Wave systems like sonar, radar and lidar, the three planets' gas enevelopes had been turned to ice. For this particular one, it had a base layer of frozen water over a thirty thousand feet thick in a few places, and over that a smooth, frozen nitrogen layer about a hundred feet thick, and then over that a thinner oxygen layer about twenty-five feet thick. What froze them, and what keeps them frozen, the Captain didn't know.

Cutting through these layers were rocky outcroppings that could be like mountains and such, which would have well been within the planet's atmospheric envelope if the gases weren't frozen, and if ever her frozen layers were to transform to to their gaseous states, these outcroppings would be the equivalent of Everest, K2, the Himalayas or any of Earth's tall mountain peaks. But at the moment, these outcroppings were just dry rock exposed to space.

Some of Captain Esteban's crew, and Captain Nobunaga's of the DSC Mikasa, were on several of the taller outcroppings doing tests. So far, what they've found was that the mountains held evidence of fossilized remains of the planet's former flora and fauna, but were completely mineralized, with no active or hibernating organic structures on, or in them. In other words - totally inert. Again, that was impossible - no matter how hostile the environment, there would have been some remaining life, or at least hibernating bacteria, viruses or their equivalents. How it was possible that these rocky remnants were completely dead, no one knows. This also showed that the planet wasn't ice-locked before, and had an atmosphere and, probably, liquid oceans.

As for Sylvia Esteban, she was investigating another weird outcropping - this one in the shape of an enormous dome. Sonar and lidar detected that the structure was actually a giant, hundred-fifty foot tall sphere that was resting on an otherwise flat plain, with ninety percent of it still underneath the ice layers, and only the top ten percent was sticking out of the ice in what looked like a dome.

It would have been nice if they could have hacked the oxygen ice and investigated the sphere further down, but she nixed that idea - by doing so, a substantial chunk of the ice could sublimate into pure, gaseous oxygen, which could actually combust if given half a chance, putting the total oxygen layer in jeopardy, maybe even the entire planet.

In fact, she was already worried that trace amounts of their body heat could actually warm up the sphere enough and transmit the heat to the ice, so she ordered everyone with her to wear insulated boots and gloves over their skin-tight environmental suits.

So she and her breakers clambered over the smooth surface of the "dome," and noted seams running down it equidistant to each other, radiating from a point about thirty degrees from the top of the sphere. It was like the sphere was tilted thirty degrees. In any case, after a few days of exploring or investigating, they couldn't get anything else: their detectors couldn't penetrate the material nor could they take any samples of the material - all their instruments couldn't nick, crack or dent the ceramic-like surface. But then, one of her breakers found something: He found a slight surface anomaly at the top-most part of the sphere, and it seemed to be a kind of window, made of some transparent, smooth, vitreous material, and as they brushed the snow-like frozen material off the "glass" and shined a light inside, the marine holding the light exclaimed "bozhe moi!" and fell down. He quickly turned over and kneeled instead so that only his insulated boots, kneepads and gloves were in contact with the sphere.

What the soldier saw was an upturned face - a seemingly-normal face of a man, what looked like an Earther man given the hair and other features - looking up and out the "window," but in dimensions that made him to be around thirty feet tall. Subsequent investigations with more lights showed that there was another face right beside him, this one a female, and one that looked like an Elyran - the hair and certain features being giveaways. But the lines and modeling of the faces seem curiously smooth, and the eyes were blank. They were obviously statues. But another thing was that the two had the palms of their right hands open and displayed, in a frozen gesture like a casual wave. But the first thing that one noticed were the fingers. The humanoid man's hand had four fingers, and the Elyranoid woman's hand had five fingers!

"Oh, my god!" the captain said, echoing the sentiments of the marine. "Giants! Human and Elyran giants! But the hands!"

 
Day One

"So," Mia said, as she flashed a last picture of the window, and the figures that were illuminated within, "needless to say, we saw fit to conduct a thorough investigation of the planet.

"Looking further into the window, the team glimpsed many intriguing things, like tables, chairs and saddles suited to us and our dimensions, and banks of what looked like deactivated control panels and other things. Besides the enormous figures of the humanoid man and elyranoid woman with the switched-around hands, we also glimpsed what looked like a dixx and an arachnian statue, and a proto-entity from Star-453, or perhaps a Telcontari, but they were several dozen feet away so it's hard to distinguish more features." (A "proto-entity" is what the citizens of Star-453 were called prior to full cybernation - in other words, what a Star-453 citizen would be upon birth, and if it weren't roboticized. A "proto-entity" looked much like a Telcontari, in terms of general features and stature, except that, instead of looking like chubby polar bear cubs, they were like bear cubs that had been on a crash diet, with long, thin limbs and somewhat gaunt faces.)

Mia continued. "Dr. Esteban asked Captain Nobunaga and the Mikasa to fly back to a region of space where Phase-Wave was active, send back all of their reports and other material, and ask for general instructions.

"I asked her and Captain Nobunaga to not disturb the sphere further and avoid increasing the ambient heat inside of the sphere by flashing too much light into the window - we don't know if the heat would disturb or destroy what was inside. In fact, Captain Nobunaga had the window covered with carbon soot scraped from the insides of the Mikasa's three utility chemical maneuvering rocket bells, and that arrested any further increase in temperature inside the sphere.

"Because the sphere was off-limits now, they started to investigate the rest of the planet, as well as the other two that were in the same orbit. Subsequent exploration, using radar, sonar and lidar, showed that the other two planets were very, very similar to the first one, except that they didn't have a sphere or other similar structures. Presently, Captain Esteban, Captain Nobunaga and their crews are continuing their exploration as we speak, expanding the scope of their activities to include the rest of Ultima Thule, and they have been sending daily reports. All of these reports will be available to everyone here, but we shall be holding everyone to the confidentiality contracts that you signed prior to this conference. I'm sure you see the reason why - the question of the Phase-Wave matter, and the admittedly world-shaking discoveries that have so far been made must be evaluated further and understood before being released to the general public.

"It is good that Councilor Rowan, from the Council of Custodians, is here, and may vouchsafe us in terms of the ethical considerations for keeping this from the public. Councilor, may I ask you to comment?"

Rowan stood to his full nine-foot height.

"The fact that the Earthers have invited us all here speaks well of them and their intentions," the influential extraterrestrial said. "It is regrettable that the other major races have seen fit not to respond to this invitation, since they thought it was just another exploratory expedition, but the fact that the Erocii and the Dravidians were also invited shows the Earthers' sincere and earnest desire to inform the Federation and all its people regardless of their own political leanings. A question, though, Princess Mia - why were your invitations limited to the major-power races?"

"If I may, my love," Sahsha said to Mia before Mia could respond, and turned to the tall alien. "Councilor Rowan, it was judged by the Earther and Elyran leadership that these sensitive matters could not be disclosed to all citizens, as it may lead to erroneous conclusions that may lead to, ummm, discord among the populace. Avarice, xenophobia and panic being the foremost concerns. And, further, in order to fully secure the system, EarthGov has claimed it as a colony."

"Thank you, my lady," Rowan said. "I thought as much." He turned back to Mia. "Princess Mia, I am in full agreement with you about keeping this matter confidential, and I am sure that the entire Council of Custodians will likewise agree. I hereby vouchsafe this project in the name of the Council of Custodians, and the Federation. I do, however, make one caveat - that all investigations be concluded as soon as possible, so that whatever findings we make can be disseminated as quickly as possible."

Sahsha banged her gavel. "So noted, Councilor. A motion has been put forth. How say the delegates?" Everyone in the room responded with a resounding "aye!"

- - - - -

The planet with the sphere, Terra Dracones, and her sister planets, Tau and Omega, were extensively mapped using a combination of radio telescopy, radar, sonar and lidar, and based on Captain Esteban's figures, all three should roughly have the same kind of atmosphere and gravity as most Federation planets, but closest to Elyra Prime, if ever they were unfrozen. Except that all three would be inert in terms of organic life - they would essentially be sterile, dead planets, but will be able to support any life deposited on them, if they could be unfrozen, that is.

So, if they can kickstart the three planets' internal "motor" and get some geothermal activity going, that might thaw them out. The reason for them being ice-locked was still a mystery, though, and that should be one of the areas for investigation. After all, the three seemed to have fairly large ferrous-bearing cores, and being exposed to cosmic and solar rays, this should have induced some thermal variances as they spun on their axes, and got some geologic activity going. But there was nothing.

And if the thaw happens, the planets would develop oceans and an Elyran/Dixx type of atmosphere, leaving the planets ripe for seeding with the appropriate flora and fauna, and this could happen in a minimum of ten years.

Because they were officially Earth colony worlds, everyone agreed that, if ever, seeding should be carried out using Earth biologicals, and this would be the project of one of Phil's interns, Elmonte Oliveira, and a hand-picked crew of Telcontari, led by Phil's two Telcontari interns, "Shoo" and "Meow," since Telcontari were recognized as the Federation's foremost terraforming and solar-power-generation experts.

As for interfacing with the rest of the Federation, not to mention planning for dissemination of the information they will be gathering, another intern, Ivan, will be put in charge. It was the intention of Phil and Mia for Ivan to be the spokesperson for the project, and and therefore the face of the team to the rest of the Federation.

As for the work of unravelling the mysteries of Terra Dracones and the rest of Ultima Thule, that would fall to Via, Phil's lone Arachnian intern, and Trixie.

- - - - -

Most of the rest of the first day was taken up by follow-ups and by the various delegates spontaneously breaking up into various groups according to their areas of specialization, with Shahsha and Ben like a tag team moving among these groups, coordinating and keeping the ideas and work flowing and running in a coordinated manner.

Tasha and Mia just looked at each other sheepishly - there was \virtually no work for them - Sahsha and Ben having everything humming along. From time to time, though, one or another of the delegates would have a clarificatory question and Tasha and Mia would answer, and that was how they found their niche in this conference.

At the end of the day, the individual groups submitted their working notes, and Ben had his staff collect and collate them, and start putting them in proper working-paper formats, to be made ready for dissemination and discussion the following day.

Before the end of the day, Mia had a small announcement: it seems the IAU had come to a decision on the names of the other planets of Ultima Thule: in the order of their orbits, starting from the one nearest to Thule, their primary, there was Tethys, named after the Titan with the winged brows; Phoebe, named after the Titan goddess of the moon; the trinary planets Tau, Omega and Terra Dragones orbiting in the same orbit; Themis, named after the Titan goddess of law and order; Cronus, the king of the Titans for the largest one; Theia, the Titan goddes of heavenly light for the one with lots of prominent planetary rings; Rhea, the mother of the gods; and Mnemosyne, named after the Titan goddess of memory.

As for the three proto-planetary groups - the three groups of rocks and asteroids that were starting to coalesce into planets - they named the group nearest the star the Hyperion Group, named after the Titan god of heavenly light. The group that had an orbit perpendicular to the system's plane was named Coeus, named after the Titan god of the North. As for the least-coalesced group, which looked like a long stream of rocks moving along the same orbit, it was named Oceanus, named after the Titan god of the Earth-circling river called Okeanos.

Ultima Thule, like almost all systems, also had its own equivalent to Earth's Kuiper Belt. It was a region of space beyond the orbit of Mnemosyne that was full of icy rocks, and the IAU named it the Crius Belt, named after the Titan god of constellations.

As for the rest of the bodies, the IAU had mandated a simple naming convention, and that was basically to name them numerically in the order of discovery. So, for example, if there was a the tenth object identified, it would be named "Ultima Thule 10," or UT-10, and the next one "Ultima Thule 11," and so on.

Mia promised that, by tomorrow, she would have all documents revised to reflect the new names.

Soon after that announcement, Sahsha adjourned for the day, and they would reconvene for dinner and fellowship at the Four Seasons, where EarthGov had them billeted, and then return the following day to continue the conference.

Because of the presence of so many luminaries from the Federation, plus the attraction of Mia, Tasha and Sahsha, the dinner was like the cast part of the opening night of some famous play or the premiere of some new Hollywood movie. The papparazi was out in force, both Earth media and non-terrestrial media. Later in the evening, Secretary-General Romarkin passed by and it became an even bigger deal.

Everyone asked for details of what the conference was about, but no one gave much detail except that Earth was embarking on its fortieth colony, or fiftieth in Base-8, and the people that Princess Mia called in were going to help in setting up the new colony.

This was, of course, very unusal. Historically, each race undertook the colonizing of a new system on their own, but this one had some unique concerns and EarthGov had asked for help. Though unusual, it wasn't against any rule of the Chamber of Migration and Peerage. But Sahsha said to the BBC reporter interviewing her that she was disappointed that only a handful answered Earth's invitation.

 
The Admiral and the Spy

Conspicuous because of his absence was the Admiral of the Fleet, Benjamin Silverman, but the press was told that the admiral was supervising a very delicate matter that needed his personal attention. Which was totally true, after all: he was supervising the investigation into the attack.

He came into the cell that the Detterex woman, Asha Terisa, was being held, and woke up the prisoner.

The small, Detterex woman woke up with a start. She sat up from her cell's bed and looked at Silverman in terror. She looked very much like an Elyran, but Silverman could tell right away that she wasn't.

He looked at the painfully thin, almost emaciated Detterex, and he knew this wasn't some invader.

"T'chahn," he said mildly, and the woman started crying.

Silverman came closer, hoping to calm the woman down, but she scrambled back to the end of her bed, and covered her head with her hands, as if protecting herself from blows, and huddled against the wall whimpering.

It broke Silverman's heart, that this woman was reduced to this. He approached, but was worried that the girl might jump out of her skin or something. He wanted to comfort her in some way, but didn't know how.

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he did it, but he ended up touching her head, like he was calming a skittish pet dog by petting it, but he didn't want that. He didn't want to be condescending.

He resisted patting her, and just kept his hand on her head.

"You have no reason to be scared," he said in his best Elyran (he didn't know how to do Detterex). "You are with Earthers. We don't hurt when we can avoid it. Be at ease, young lady. Believe."

He turned back and walked out of the cell. He gestured at someone - a social worker sent by the the government.

"Better get in there," Silverman said to the man, and the social worker hurried inside the cell.

Silverman beckoned to one of the lieutenants hanging about. "You were looking for me?"

The navy man saluted. "Aye, sir. We were sent down to brief you."

Silverman nodded. "Lead on, then," he said, and followed the lieutenant.

"That poor woman," he said. "I can't believe the Dravidians picked her..."

The lieutenant nodded agreement.

In a minute, Silverman was ushered into a small conference room. Two people in the room stood up.

"You are?" Silverman asked

"FBI Special Agent Booth, sir," the taller one said. "This is my partner, Agent Aubrey. We're the agents assigned to this case."

They shook hands and sat.

"So," Silverman said. "What have you got for me?"

Booth nodded to his partner.

"Sir," Aubrey began, "we have determined that the person that was flying that Tirosian fighter ship was the woman you just met. She is a Detterex citizen, a Miss Asha Terisa. She's from a large residential area in the Detterex capital city, called the Pollux District. Pollux is in the poorer area of the city, and is nothing much more than a slum, actually. Crime is rampant in that district, and it is full of desperate, poor people. Ms Terisa lives with her parents, as well as several siblings and their children in a ramshackle hovel they call home, which we now know is typical in that district.

"We have determined that a large group of Dravidians visited Pollux recently. The reason we were able to determine this was because non-Detterex visitors to Detterex Prime are very few, so it was easy to identify and track them down.

"From Ms Terisa's account, a dozen of these Dravidians visited her neighborhood, looking for, ummm, 'throwbacks.' That is to say, they were looking for Detterex that look like Elyran, and they found her. From then on, she was trained to pilot a Tirosian fighter, and then she and this same bunch of Dravidians illegally boarded an old Kembel cargo ship bound for Earth, bringing with them a large load of their own cargo, which turned out to be an old Tiros fighter plus a lot of electronic odds and ends. We are currently trying to corroborate her story, but we have no reason to doubt Ms Terisa's account at the moment."

"Did you trace the ship that was used to attack the parade," Silverman asked.

"Yes, sir," Booth said. "The spaceframe numbers and other serial numbers show that this was one of the thousands of fighters that were downed during the battle of Tiros. This particular one was recovered from one of the many mangrove swamps on Tiros Prime. It was waiting to be recycled until a Kembel business person bought it, as well as several other pieces of junk from the war. At the time he purchased it, the ET said he hoped to use the material for an art installation that he was commissioned to do, which was meant to be put up in the permanent museum on Colossus.

"We checked, and the art piece is still being constructed in the artist's temporary studio on Detterex. He's still there, still assembling his piece. Needless to say, the fighter wasn't part of the material he had on hand - he had pieces from other fighters and other junk from the war, but not the fighter used to attack the parade. But to be fair, he had thrown away a lot of what he got. So the junker ship could have been part of what he threw away, and someone else got it."

"Is there any reason to suspect the Kembel artist?"

Booth shook his head "No, sir. The Kembel artist has a spotless record, and is known to be an upstanding and loyal citizen of the Federation, and is famous for his sculptures and art installations. Our Elyran covert agents on Detterex are trying to get more information about him, and we'll update you as soon as we get something."

Silverman nodded. "Continue, please."

"We have also checked out the other material we recovered," Aubrey said. "The ship was equipped with Dravidian chemical rocket engines and not the normal Tiros engines. That was the reason the ship was disabled - the power generated by the outsized Dravidian engines was too much for the tiny ship, so after a short period of full thrust, the engines burned through the exhaust bell, and then through the shielding, and exploded. What was left of the engines wasn't enough to be traced.

"As for the energy pulse weapons, we found that they were Earth weapons, and their serial numbers showed they were retrieved from some metal reclamation facility in Taiwan, and it was scheduled for scrapping.

"As for the rocket that it launched, it was a fairly standard Dravidian air-to-ground missile. Again the remaining material was not enough to trace."

"What about the Dravidians?" Silverman asked.

"We traced them to a warehouse in New Jersey. Apparently, that's where they rebuilt the fighter, and where they launched it from. This is based on reports from the neighbors. An hour after the fighter was launched, the Dravidians scattered, and moved to other locations within the state. We didn't pick them up, however, and instead we had them put under surveilance, with the hopes of them leading us to new spies in the area.

"A background check revealed that these twelve Dravidians are actually part of the Dravidian criminal underground, and are known for industrial espionage and sabotage. White-collar criminals, if ever there are such criminals. Dravidian warrants are out for their arrest actually. All except one - one of them is a family retainer of Cor's clan. He is considered a staunch supporter of Cor and his family, and has been caught and charged several times for small infractions of Dravidian law, mostly to do with petty bribery and forging government documents. So far, these charges have been dropped, mostly because he's a known associate of Cor's very political and influential family. Dravidian authorities, however, suspect he's involved with other more serious cases, but so far they haven't been able to gather sufficient evidence to charge him."

"I see."

"Admiral, I would like to ask, is there a way to protect Ms Terisa in some way? She already signed her parole, after all. But as FBI, we're a bit constrained. Would you, perhaps..."

"Leave it to me, Agent. By this time tomorrow, it'll be known that an Elyran citizen was found dead, the body being that of the pilot of the bogus Tiros fighter. The Dravidians should therefore leave her alone."

"Thank you, sir."

(Later that night, through confidential channels, a query was sent to the Elyran government - that EarthForce officials found out the pilot of the rogue Tirosian fighter was an Elyran, and that they were trying to identify who she was, and what was she doing piloting the fighter in the first place. It also said that the body of the Elyran as well as the Tiroisan fighter were so badly compromised by the fire that there were no means of identifying either. Pictures accompanying the query showed a badly-burned body that could have been anyone, and a completely destroyed fighter.

(Both Earther and Elyran authorities were confident that the query would be intercepted by known Detterex spies on Elyra within the hour, and, in that way, it was hoped that Ms Terisa would be safe from the Dravidians since they would believe she was dead already.)

Silverman then drafted a report that had all the details of the investigation, which he then transmitted to the Secretary-General, Mia and Tasha. He then arranged with the director of the FBI, the and the chiefs of police of New York and New Jersey, regarding the surveillance of the twelve Dravidian... illegal aliens (Silverman had a private laugh at the term) - that he be updated constantly, and that the Dravidians not be arrested.

After that, he asked to talk with the Elyran ambassador on Earrth about the possibility of Ms Terisa's resettlement on Elyra or on one of her colonies, much in the manner of the old "witness protection program" of 21st century America. Despite the hour, the ambassador hurried to the Admiral's office.

He found out that there was such a program on Elyra, and Asha could be enrolled in that program, giving Asha a fair chance of living out the rest of her life better than the life she was presently leading. The ambassador did say that some minor plastic surgery might be needed, though, so that Asha could be made to look a bit different so that Detterex or Dravidian operatives won't be able to identify her, and to make her look more like an Elyran rather than a short Detterex, and allow her to easily integrate into whatever community she would end up in.

Silverman therefore made arrangements for the FBI to transfer custody of the would-be Detterex spy to the ambassador, and the ambassador started to arrange things on her end as well.

 
Babies, Fingers and Toes

It was already one in the morning by the time Silverman was done, and decided to go straight home instead because he knew that Day One of the conference would have wound down by then - they did have to reconvene again at nine the following day, after all.

By that time, Mia, Tasha and Sahsha had also retired to their suite at the penthouse floor of the Four Seasons, and tried to relax and absorb all that had happened since the morning.

As Mia half reclined on the couch that was facing their suite's big picture window, and leafed through the report submitted by Ben's staff while taking down some notes, Tasha and Sahsh approached her with trepidation.

Tasha reached out and timidly tapped Mia on the shoulder.

Mia looked up. "Oh, hello girls," she said in Elyran. Nowadays, the three of them would randomly lapse into colloquial English or high-born Elyran, shifting into each language without seeming to notice. Their fluency in both languages was such that both languages saw frequent use in their household.

"Ummm, Mia, my love," Tasha said timidly. "Can we talk with you about something?"

Mia looked up. She sensed the seriousness from Tasha's tone. "Of course," she said, and put away the report and sat up.

Tasha and Sahsha sat on the coffee table in front of her, and in nervous and quiet tones, they took turns to talk about the meeting that they had with Dr. Puerrot.

Mia didn't know they wanted babies, and she felt so guilty that she didn't.

She looked them and their sorrow and embarassment.

"Sahsha, my love," she said. "You should have told me. I know I don't have the necessary equipment anymore, but we can still have a baby. Have you heard of EECF? it's not done often, but there's a three out of four chance to conceive via EECF. EECF stands for..."

Sahsha nodded. "Yes, Dr. Puerrot explained it. I didn't now about it, but if I did, we probably wouldn't have gone to her in the first place. Except for..." She looked significantly at Tasha.

Mia looked at Tasha. "Tasha," Mia said sadly. "Dearest - I understand what you're feeling. But how could you even have thought it was even possible -"

"I'm not ignorant, Mia," Tasha said, "but I did some research. Look at this."

Mia accepted Tasha's CC where Mia could swipe through the pictures and documents that Tasha got.

Mia read through the files in her usual rapid clip, and, after she was done, she sighed.

"Tasha... these documents don't really tell me anything. They're speculation at best, and at worst..."

"Did you see the picture in the last file?"

"Yes, but what was the significance of..."

Tasha then told her to look at the hands of the statues, and then explained where they're from, and what they were.

Mia's eyes grew round, and looked at Tasha and Sahsha in wonder.

"Just like the giant statues in the new planet..." she muttered.

"Here's some more, Mia," Sahsha said, and handed the folder Dr. Puerrot gave them.

Mia got the folder and read the contents from cover to cover. Afterwards, she stood and went to the suite's balcony. She stood out in the cool air while the mild New York breeze whipped her long, blonde hair around her face, and she stared across the city's skyline.

Tasha and Sahsha looked at each other. After a minute, Tasha took a deep breath, stood up and started walking to the balcony. Sahsha put her hand on Tasha's arm.

"Want some company?" Sahsha asked.

Tasha leaned down and kissed her gently. "I'll be fine."

Tasha knocked on the door leading to the balcony, and opened it.

"Can I come over there?" Tasha asked.

Mia looked to her. Mia's hair swirled around her face like a halo, lighted by the stars and the moon. She looked like an angel, and it made Tasha's heart skip a beat. Tasha thought, even if Mia wasn't her bridge, she'd still love her Earth princess.

Mia was trying to smile, but just wasn't able to. She opened her arms, and Tasha came over, allowing herself to be enfolded in Mia's soft, gentle embrace.

"Mia... what are you thinking?"

"My love," Mia said, "I feel your pain. I know your longing to have a child. I want it, too. But... Dr. Puerrot's findings were amazing, and the implications... But even her findings couldn't guarantee a normal, even a safe, birth. What if we try, but our child is born damaged, or defective, or... I don't think I can live with myself if that happens. It's not just us here, dearest, it's also the life of an innocent child. Are we all right in possibily condemning her to a life of..."

Tasha reached up and put a finger across Mia's lips.

"I know," she said. "My love, I know." Tasha was crying. "But..."

Mia sighed. "Then what do you want to do?"

"Even with the risk - I want to try. It's selfish of me, but..."

"I think I understand. But, Tasha..."

"But! ... but... if our child is born imperfect, know that I will love her... or him, as much as I have ever loved anyone, and will never abandon her."

Mia tightened her arms around her. "I know that."

"How about you - what do you think?"

"I think my opinion is moot at this point. But I will support you all the way, and whatever will happen, I will love our child just as much, and I will love you as much as I always have."

Tasha cried melancholy tears, and they stayed like that out in the balcony for a while.

As they stood there in the crisp air, they felt a pair of arms wrap around the both of them.

"Are you guys okay?" Sahsha asked.

"Yes, my love," Tasha said. And the three of them stood there for a while, just like that.

to be continued...

 

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Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Eight Far, far away, at the edge of known space, an EarthForce expedition makes the incredible, unbelievable discovery that could rock modern Federation life to its foundations: apparently, the Earthers' magical Phase-Wave technology wasn't infinite nor universal, which puts into question a lot of the assumptions that Federation science had made about what the universe was, and how it works. Also, beyond the boundary of Phase-Wave, the same expedition finds a weird new planetary system, which included three planets which were in what Earthers called the "Goldilocks zone" of the system - the area of space around a star that had just the right conditions for life to flourish. There were two problems with these planets: the three went around their star in the same precise orbit. And they were all frozen. And they shouldn't have been frozen. And then, on the one they called Terra Dracones, they find an ancient structure under the ice that contained Earther and Elyran statues.

---

 

Chapter Eight: Timeline Chicxulub

 
Care Package

On the planet that the Earthers had named "Terra Dracones," the EarthForce expedition made up of the crews of the Fifth Fleet EarthForce warships Mikasa and Earthship II, continued to explore it and its sister planets that Earth had named Tau and Omega.

These three planets of the system they've called Ultima Thule circled their primary on the exact same orbit, and remained equidistant from each other - something that current astrophysics say is impossible, or at least highly improbable. Also, another troubling issue was that all three planets were ice-locked. They shouldn't have been, especially because they were in the Goldilocks zone. And given the composition of the three planets, tectonic and other geological effects that should have been induced by their yellow primary they've called Thule, as well as other things like their rotation and the effect of other bodies in the system (distant though they may be) should have made the internals of all three planets active and therefore given them active magnetic fields as well as triggered thermal variances. In short, these planets should not have been ice-locked, and should have been vibrant worlds full of life.

Because they didn't know what was causing this, the explorers did their best not to let their presence on the three planets affect their equilibrium lest they trigger or unbalance something, so the crew went to the extent of wearing insulated suits to minimize heat dissipating into the surrounding ice and changing the temperature of the areas where they have been exploring.

So far so good, though - the temperature increases they've caused were extremely negligible - around 0.01 of a degree Fahrenheit within a ten-meter area, which dissipated into space as soon as it was night-time.

Although, for all their exploring, all they discovered were the fossilized remains of some small creatures that curiously resembled certain Earther and Elyran insects. Further analysis could perhaps show what these insects were exactly, but with the theory of Panspermia, they could very well be, or be very similar to, Earther and Elyran lifeforms. But that had to wait when they had the equipment for it.

But that's about it. All the data that they gathered, and the tests they did with all the samples they got showed that the three planets were totally inert - no life at all, not even any hibernating or deep-frozen bacteria or viruses, even in the fossils: all three planets were totally lifeless balls of rock covered in ice, and although they weren't lifeless now, as shown by the fossils, sometime in their past, they did have life.

Using time-dating protocols on the fossils they found, Esteban and her people were able to ascertain that whatever happened to cause them to be ice-locked and, presumably cause all life on all three planets to die off, happened at the same time on all three planets - specifically, about sixty-six million years ago - which would have made it about half a million years before the start of the Galactic Federation of Planets, give or take three or four hundred thousand years (that was the error threshhold of their dating protocols).

But aside from that, there was nothing of note on all three planets. Captain Esteban of Earthship II, sent this exact frustrated message back, when Mikasa went to the Phase-Wave boundary to send and receive updates and information.

But then they discovered the spherical structure on Terra Dracones, and its... unusual contents.

Now they had something to explore.

However, everyone had to wait to continue exploring that sphere for now. Right now, they were to take delivery of a "care package" from Earth.

- - - - -

"So," Captain Esteban said to her bridge crew, "has our package from home arrived yet?"

Presently, they were orbiting Terra Dracones, as instructed, while Mikasa was orbiting Tau, and a bunch of their Cobra and Mud Turtles were parked in orbit around Omega.

"Not yet, sir," her comms officer said. "Oh, wait, we are now getting a long range message from incoming ships - they are about a day away.

"Ahh! Right on time. Acknowledge the message, and say 'welcome to Terra Dracones.'"

"Aye, sir. Coding now."

"Thanks... Oh, god, I miss Phase-Wave..."

 
Earth Calling

In a few weeks' time, they had reassembled the Seren station components that were shipped to them via EarthForce's entire Fourth and Fifth Fleets. They could have gone commercial and had them shipped by commercial cargo carriers - there already were cargo companies with FTL cargo fleets ready - but the Secretary-General nixed that idea. That meant it was EarthForce who got the dirty end of the stick.

It was just as well, since this also meant there were a lot of skilled EarthForce people with enough skilled hands to undertake the reassembly quickly.

What took longer to set up, actually, were the Telcontari-designed solar collectors. But they were able to get that done, as well. So in a period of a little over two weeks, they were back in touch with Earth, with almost the same efficiency of Phase-Wave (except there was about a fifteen-minute delay).

The way it worked was that communications intended for Earth or anyone in the Federation was relayed by the Seren station orbiting the planet to one of the other Seren stations orbiting the other two planets (whichever was in the best position), and then relay it to another Seren station outside of the clutter of the Ultima Thule system, tethered to a modified Type Two cruiser whose main job was to keep that Seren station parked at that point in space as stable a manner as possible, and to provide sufficient power to its Seren station (the cruiser could continue this role for five years or so before it needed to be refueled or, most likely, replaced by another cruiser - after all, it would be like the cruiser was constantly running and traveling in FTL for five years. That kind of wear and tear would be hard on any ship).

This station would then relay the communications to yet another Seren station similarly powered and tethered, and parked within the Phase-Wave-active part of space. From there, the communications would be conventionally broadcast to their recipients via Phase-Wave. And any messages meant for Ultima Thule would be sent in the same way, except in reverse.

It was lucky that all five of the Solar System's old Seren stations weren't destroyed or given away (actually, there were no takers - that was because what everyone really wanted was Phase-Wave).

But after the revelation that Phase-Wave was limited, plus the discovery of the technology they called "the curtain of light," the Earthers were again expanding upon Seren technology, just in case they needed it. And they began this by re-commissioning Earth's old stations for use in Ultima Thule.

In fact, the five Seren stations that were "appropriated" for this had been upgraded and improved with new wormhole technology that was developed over the ten years since the stations were last used. The upshot of it all was that a one-way message from Terra Dracones, Omega or Tau would "only" take about fourteen or fifteen minutes to get to the outermost Seren station, and vice versa.

- - - - -

After everything was set up and ticking over, and the ships that brought the Seren stations had departed, they tested the system by first sending messages to and from the three planets. It took less than two minutes to send and receive messages from any of the three planets. They then sent messages to the other two Seren stations. And when they knew that everything on their end was 100% functional, Captain Esteban's comms officer nodded to her.

"Relay to Earth is now ready, Captain," the officer said.

Esteban nodded. "EarthForce Central, this is Captain Esteban of Earthship II," she said into the officer's comm pickup. "Come in." But no reply came back. Esteban sighed and sent another message.

"Hello, hello - EarthForce Central, this is Captain Esteban of Earthship II, on test Seren relay broadcast from the Ultima Thule system. Please come in."

Her comms officer cleared his throat. "Ummm, sir?"

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Remember, sir, this is a Seren relay, not Phase-Wave."

"Oh... Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I forgot. How long again?"

"About half an hour for a round-trip message."

Esteban nodded. "In that case, I'm going to have a bite. Page me after twenty minutes."

"Aye, sir."

Esteban sighed as she stepped off the bridge. "Damn, I miss Phase-Wave," she muttered.

In less than twenty minutes, though, she was back and, like everyone else, her attention was glued to the overhead speakers, waiting for a reply.

Pretty soon, though, the static cleared and they heard a familiar voice.

"Hello, Earthship II, hello, Earthship II," Princess Mia said. "This is Earth calling..."

And everyone onboard Earthship II and Mikasa broke into applause and cheers.

 
Here They Come

It had been weeks since the Seren stations were activated, and things went more smoothly though not quite normally. But everyone adjusted pretty quickly to the delayed responses from the outside. They were just thankful that it didn't take days anymore, requiring the Mikasa or Earthship II to go to the edge of the Phase-Wave boundary just to send out reports.

In any case, things went apace, and by the time the Shepherd Moon was supposed to arrive, Earthship II and the Mikasa had mapped most of the system, including the asteroids and other flotsam that the new system seemed to have more than most other systems. They had also completed a level-1 study and analysis of all ten planets of the system, with great emphasis poured on the three sister planets Tau, Omega and Terra Dracones.

The layers of ice made it difficult to study the three, but using radar, sonar, lidar and other non-Phase-Wave technologies, they did a fair job of mapping them.

The names that the IAU approved for the system and her planets were pretty conventional, using Greek and Roman names from mythology, and, after a while, everyone got used to them. But as expected, over time, they started using more conventional sounding and shorter versions.

For example, everyone was now informally calling the system "Ultima" instead of "Ultima Thule," since the star was already "Thule;" the pet name for the first planet, "Tethys, was now "Tiny;" and Terra Dracones was now called "Dracones" or "Draconis." All unofficially, of course.

Princess Mia, as did Queen Tasha and Duchess Sahsha, knew this, and everything else Captain Esteban, and Captain Nobunaga of the Mikasa had been sending in their reports - something that Esteban, Nobunaga and their explorers appreciated.

Eventually, the Shepherd pulled up beside Earthship II, and the Admiral's gig, plus dozens of other shuttles coming from the other ships that came with the Shepherd (not all of them Earther ships), started for Earthship II.

"Captain, we have visitors coming," the ship's detection officer said. "No advance comms, I'm afraid."

"I can see that, lieutenant," Esteban said. "Probably a gimmick of the duchess. Among the three, she's the one who likes doing things like this. How many shuttles?"

"All in all, sir, twenty-four."

"Damn. Get me the landing bay."

After a moment, someone responded. "Main landing bay. This is the duty officer, Corporal Jansen."

"Good morning, Corporal Jansen, this is the captain."

"Sir! What can I do for you, sir?"

"Jansen, twenty-four shuttles are about to descend on us, some of them alien. Do we have space to accommodate all of them?"

Jansen was surprised that the captain herself called. And she wanted him to figure this out. And by her tone, she wanted him to figure it now.

Jansen flipped on the main plot computer's feed, and saw the incoming vessels. Using ship recognition tables, he figured out the size and requirements of each, and the amount of space in the bay needed in total.

Actually, after a few seconds of mental calculations, he figured out that there was enough space to accommodate all of them, though barely. But knowing what was probably going to happen, they were going to need more space. Lots more.

"Sir?" he said into the terminal.

"Yes, Corporal?"

"Would it be possible to conduct a flight-worthiness test on our cobras?" the young soldier asked.

Esteban paused. In a moment, she figured out what the corporal wanted.

"Of course, dear. Which ones?"

"All of them, Captain. Squadrons one through eight. That'll leave squadron nine, just in case we need shuttles."

"Of course. But the incoming shuttles are minutes away..."

"I understand, sir. Recommend we use evacuation protocol alpha."

Esteban looked at the image of the young soldier on her screen.

"Evacuation? Are you sure? Regulations say emergency evacuation is only to be executed as a last resort..."

The corporal shrugged nervously.

"Ahhh. Of course," she said. The corporal was right - there was no choice. She turned to one of the bridge crew. "Lieutenant, make what the corporal said happen."

"Aye, sir."

In seconds, a klaxon sounded through the main bay. "All cobra squadrons one through eight are away!" the bridge speaker announced via the ship's PA. "Cobra squadrons one though eight are away! Evacuation Protocol Alpha in effect. Flight crews to your cobras! Flight crews to your cobras! Cobras away!"

As with most Fifth Fleet crews, Earthship's crew was well practiced and drilled. In under a minute, the entire crew complement of the bay had taken shelter, and Earthship II started spinning on its long axis. Once the ship was spinning with sufficient speed, the bay's atmosphere was evacuated and the entire bottom of the bay swung open like enormous bomb-bay doors of some enormous World War 2 bomber from Earth's Twentieth Century. It was something that was only done in an extreme emergency.

As soon as the doors were fully open, Cobra shuttles fell away and vacated the bay, radiating out from Earthship II in all directions, like glowing blue fireflies. As soon as they were at a safe distance, they started making for a point about a thousand kilometers away from Earthship II, as per evacuation protocols. If Mia were around, she would have applauded at the quickness and preciseness of it.

The cobra crews were a little confused as to why they had to do this, however.

"What's this, Ethel," Squadron One's lead shuttle pilot said to his copilot. "Earthship II seems fine. Why the evacuation? And there's no one here." He gestured at their empty cargo area. "Who are we evacuating?"

"I don't understand it either, boss," Ethel replied. "We're just following orders, after all."

"I think I know, skipper," one of the other cobra pilots said over the radio. "Look at your screen. See the shuttles approaching Earthship II? There must be more than twenty of them. And half of them aren't from Earth."

Squadron One's lead pilot looked. "Ahhh," he said, finally understanding the situation. "I guess the captain needed the space in a hurry. Okay, team. let's follow orders and form up at the coordinates mandated by evacuation protocols."

"Aye."

 
Mirror, Mirror...

"This is the first time for me to see Earthship II," Tasha said as she looked through the front window of the Admiral's barge. They were minutes away from the Earth cruiser. "She's beautiful."

"Yes, it is," Mia said, her arm around Tasha's shoulders. "But I think Shepherd looks better."

Tasha giggled. "Of course, she is."

Sahsha pointed. "Look!" From their vantage point, they could see little pinpoints of blue light, like stars, moving away from Earthship II. It somewhat had the effect of a 21-gun salute or something like that, presumably in honor of their arrival.

"Cobra shuttles!" Tasha exclaimed. "Beautiful."

- - - - -

Mia's little fleet was made up of twelve capital ships - the Shepherd Moon, the Yamato Squadron made up of the three relatively-small, K-One clipper-class ships Yamato, Musashi and Shinano, the Elyran Flagship Talon and her sister ship Blazing Star II, and one ship each from Dixx, Arachnia, Telcontar, Star-453, and Daemon.

Mia and her people, which included Dr. MacIntyre's specially-chosen interns, had come to supplement Estaban's explorers in investigating that spherical structure on Draconis, and help establish a working colony. The first big step, of course, was to see if they can trigger the three planets' world engines and start melting the ice.

The cyborgs of Star-453 and the Telcontari had ideas about that, but they agreed that the best and easiest solution was putting enormous solar mirrors into orbit around all three planets, and directing solar energy onto the planets' night side, and gradually raising the surface temperature that way, allowing the planets natural rotation to distribute the energy evenly.

With the introduction of an increasing thermal level, this might kick off enough geologic activity and start something - maybe even switch on the three planets' magnetic fields, and make the internal heat generation self-perpetuating. Granted their solution might take hundreds of years to activate the planetary engines (maybe even thousands), at least they would melt most of their ice in less than a year and provide the planets with a breathable atmosphere. And, with that, it would allow them to start colonizing activities down on the ground.

But even that would take about a year. So while that was happening, they planned to up temporary orbiting habitats. To that end, the New United Nations of Earth donated a couple of dozen of their so-called "legacy ships" for use as temporary living platforms: "legacy ships" are what EarthForce calls Earth's old pre-FTL spacecraft. After all, these ships had only been quietly rusting away, in a manner of speaking, neglected and unused.

Most of them were parked on the surface of Luna, waiting for the day they would find purpose again, even if just for spare parts. So becoming orbiting habitats around Earth's latest colony planets was surely a better destiny for these aging battlewagons.

The three largest cargo companies - Lloyd, the Orient Overspace Container Line and The Maersk Group - already had interstellar cargo fleets. So they had been contracted to tow thirty of the larger legacy ships from Luna to Ultima Thule. In fact, they were now more than three-fourths into their trip, and in a few weeks or so, there would be at least ten ships in permanent orbit around Tau, Omega and Draconis each.

But all of that was in the future. For now, Captain Esteban was preoccupied with her incoming visitors.

She hurriedly ordered as many of her command crew, and as many of the landing bay crew into dress blues, and she and her people rushed down to the bay.

Esteban had her people form up in a ragged line, two deep, some of them still tucking in shirts and fixing their belt and sashes, and waited while all twenty-four shuttles to arrive.

After the last shuttle cruised in (a large one from the ship from Star-453), the doors swung closed, the bay sealed and flushed with a neutral gas and then evacuated again. Afterwards, a mixture of standard Earther atmosphere was then piped in.

Life detectors indicated that everything was all ready, and Esteban and her people stepped into the bay and formed up.

Their visitors arrived, but not in any formal way, although all of them were in formal attire. Princess Mia, in her Admiral's dress uniform, flanked by Queen Tasha and Duchess Sahsha approached. Around them were luminaries from the Federation, like the First Ambassador of Arachnia, Fleet Admiral Dax, and several others. And around them was the queen's royal guard.

Sylvia Esteban was unfamiliar with royal protocol so she made her best guess. She bowed to the queen, shook the hand of the duchess, and saluted the admiral.

Mia smiled. "Well done, Captain," Mia said to the captain after returning her salute.

"Sir?"

"Took me a while to learn all that royal stuff myself, too, but you're doing okay."

"Indeed," the queen said sotto voce, and Sahsha winked.

Esteban sighed in relief. "May I introduce my command crew?" She turned to her people and introduced them. The last in line was someone she wasn't familiar with, though. But given the single stripe on his shoulder...

"And this, Admiral, is Corporal Jansen, the man who made it possible for your flight to fit in my tiny little landing bay."

Mia grinned delightedly. "Sorry about that, Captain. Blame the duchess - it was one of her last-minute bright ideas, and we didn't have time to let you know..." Mia turned to Sahsha, who cleared her throat in embarrassment, turned and looked the other way while whistling nonchalantly.

Mia reached out and shook the young corporal's hand.

"Quick thinking, Corporal," Mia said. "You are to be congratulated."

"Uhhh, thank you, princess," the corporal said through his nervousness, "Oh! I mean, Admiral! Thank you, Admiral! Sir!"

Mia chuckled, and lightly socked him on the shoulder. "At ease, son. You're fine"

- - - - -

After the short little ceremony was completed, the crew got themselves sorted out, and the Ultima Thule Expedition started work.

One of McIntyre's kids, Ivan Oligov, joined Captains Esteban and Nobunaga, along with Tasha and many of the Ultima Thule leaders, and barricaded themselves in Earthship's largest conference room as they started planning a comprehensive communications plan on how to properly communicate the information that the Ultima Thule expedition had been gathering to the rest of the Federation. Their team was joined by several representatives from EarthForce's ATAC, and the Elyran Royal Bureau of Information.

McIntyre's two Telcontari interns, Miao-Miao and Shu-Shu, or "Meow" and "Shoo" as they preferred to be called, started working with the Telcontari contingent and commenced assembling the first of three enormous solar mirrors, while Elmonte "Elmo" Oliviera, started inventorying the sample seedlings and other biologicals that they would use to seed the three planets once the ice had melted away and there was an atmosphere. But everyone knew this might take time, so Sahsha worked closely with the crews of the Yamato Squadron to prepare for the arrival of the legacy ships.

As for the Arachnian "Eighth Terran Studies Student," and the Earther, Marjorie Beatrice Quinn (i.e. Via and Trixie), they joined Mia, the First Ambassador and several others down on the surface of Draconis to continue studying the mysterious sphere and its mysterious contents.

- - - - -

Starting with the planet they called Tau, Meow, Shoo and their Telcontari engineers switched on one of their ginormous mirrors in orbit, and started Tau's slow global meltdown. It started with the upper layers of ice, of course, and pretty soon, in a matter of days, Tau had started sporting a decent layer of Nitrogen, Oxygen and CO2 gases (as well as other gases). From afar, the planet had started to look like a big cotton-candy stick, with lots of smokey layers of gas. And soon, the lower parts, which were mostly water ice, started melting already.

Meow and Shoo reported to the Admiral and the other expedition leaders saying they were months ahead of schedule. They did not anticipate this would happen so quickly. At the moment, the water ice had started to break up as well, and much of it was now slushy ice water with lots of gigantic floating icebergs grinding against each other and stirring up the silt and other particles at the surface crust of the planet.

It was pretty stormy on Tau right now, with lots of lightning and gigantic storms, hurricanes and hundred-mile-an-hour winds whipping around the planet, but this should stabilize eventually, and maybe in a month they'll start seeing the first islands rising out from under the ice.

Meow, Shoo and the Telcontaris were very perplexed as to why this was so quick to happen. It wasn't as if it wasn't a welcome development, but it shouldn't happen, at least not this early. Mia asked what their recommendation was for their next step.

"My Lady," Shoo began, "We are so far ahead of schedule that I do not know. I suppose all we can do is to assemble the next mirror and start thawing one of the other planets?"

Mia nodded. "Which would you suggest?"

"Maybe Terra Dracones?"

Mia shook her head. I think not yet. Why not start with Omega?"

"Yes, My Lady. We will commence immediately."

And, in short order, they also had the other mirror working, and had started thawing out Tau's near-duplicate, Omega, and, following the pattern of Tau, Omega's ice-locked status started to change to something more normal, just like Tau.

In less than a month, the two planets started showing an Elyran-like or maybe more of an Earth-like biosphere, though their surfaces were still too cold and far too stormy for any surface expeditions. Still, Elmo's team were able to get high-atmospheric samples and readings, and he delivered his verdict in their next meeting.

"My Lady," Elmo began, "it is all that we expected. Tau and Omega are ripe for seeding, once they've stabilized that is."

"When will that start happening, Shoo," Mia asked as she looked to her Telcontari team.

"My Lady," Shoo began, "the weather conditions on Tau have started to normalize, and there are recognizable Telcontari-like weather patterns emerging. We believe that discernable weather systems will start developing. We have seen several land masses already sticking out of the Taureean oceans, and more and more of them are starting to emerge. If what Earthship's and Mikasa's reports are saying are correct, we can expect fifty percent of Tau's surface to be made up of land, and the rest oceans. And based on the rate the ice is melting, almost all of the expected landmasses should be discernable within the month. As for Omega, it is showing the same pattern as Tau, though it is, of course, a little delayed. Per Earthship's and Mikasa's data, we can expect a four-to-six balance between landmasses and oceans."

"Good. What are the next steps?"

"My Lady," Elmo said, "I think we should send for our biologicals already. Also, the Copernicus Shipyards have also said the three bio-injectors are already completed. Perhaps we can have those shipped now as well?"

Mia nodded, and gestured to Ben. With Ben on the case, she knew it would be taken care of within the day.

"What else?"

"I suppose, My Lady," Meow said, "we can start on Draconis next?"

Mia looked to Via and Trixie.

The two shrugged at each other.

"I guess we have to cross this bridge sometime," Trixie said. "We have done all that we can from the outside of the sphere. We literally have nothing else we can learn. And..."

"Do you think if we start melting the ice, it'll damage the sphere?"

"I don't know, My Lady. I don't think so - from all that we know, the sphere is pretty much indestructible. But who can tell? But, like I said, My Lady, we have to cross this bridge sometime. Now may be as good a time as any..."

"Via," she turned to the young Arachnian. "What do you think?"

Via gestured in polite deference. "My Lady," she said via her translator-voder, "I completely agree with Ms. Quinn. This is the next logical step. It boots nothing if we avoid taking the step."

"Very well." She turned to Shoo and Meow. "Start assembling the next mirror."

The conference room's intercom buzzed.

Ben pressed the button. "Yes, bridge?"

"Relaying a message, Doctor."

"Please proceed. Lieutenant."

"Dr. Areeyah..." one of the officers from the lone Deamon ship began (the Daemons, along with some of the other ships, were currently assigned to monitor the conditions on Tau).

"That's Tevann-Areeyah," Ben corrected the officer mildly, "but that's not important. What can we do for you, officer?"

They waited the prerequisite one minute as Ben's message was whipped to them via Seren.

"I apologize, Doctor. We're getting some weird readings from Tau."

Ben looked to Mia, and she nodded.

"I see," Ben said. "Please send your telemetry, so we can see here."

"Yes sir. Sending the transmission signal now."

So, though they knew that the signal was delayed by about a minute, it was better than nothing.

And what it was was that they were detecting several tiny tremors in the equatorial area, and in the main landmass, they could detect some small landslides - nothing major - just some shifting of the topsoil.

"What is it, Shoo," Mia asked. "What's happening?"

The two little Telcontari were looking at each other, jaws agape.

"My Lady," Meow began tentatively, "it's tectonic activity. Very, very mild, but..."

And everyone knew what this meant - Tau's planetary engine had been "switched on." Everyone in the room cheered and clapped each other on the back. Somehow word got out, and everyone, even those on the other ships, started to cheer as well.

But Mia, Shoo and Meow shared a worried look. "How is that possible," Shoo whispered to Meow. "Something's gone wrong..."

And then they got similar reports from the Arachnian ship, which was part of the group monitoring Omega. "Even Omega," Shoo said. The two went to Mia.

"My Lady," Meow said. "I... I don't know how this can be possible."

"I agree with you, my dear," Mia said. "Something we don't know about or understand has started."

And then they got similar reports from Earthship II. Seems, even Draconis' planetary engine had been switched on as well.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Meow whispered to Shoo.

"I've got the same feeling, too, my dears," Mia whispered to them as well.

to be continued...

 

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