The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict

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Prologue

Captain Hone, we are now entering the Influenla system, said Nikol.

Hone said, Start both active and passive scanners. We need to know what the Hiriculans are doing way out here.

Nikol started the scan. After a moment she said, Scan shows that the Hiriculans put a brand new space station near the edge of this system. It is roughly 12 minutes from here at .05 light.

Hone replied, Niko, set course for the space station .03 light. Let’s just go say hello, shall we.

Nikol, the pilot of the Advranki cruiser Justice, adjusted course and speed. The Justice was approaching the station when they were hailed by the Hiriculan cruiser Intolerant.

The Hiriculan spoke in his native language. Hone said, Computer, translate message.

…Reverse course immediately. This is a civilian station. According to the treaty Alliance warships are not allowed here…

Hone was not deterred. He said, Nikol, plot a course around the cruiser. This is a neutral system. Let’s see if they try to stop us.

Nikol made the course change. They proceeded on the new course for a moment when Nikol announced, The Hiriculan cruiser is firing missiles.

The missile travel time was currently 4 minutes. Hone said, Fire 10 shield buster missiles, then 10 defensive missiles. Continue on our present course.

Four minutes later Nikol announced, Our defensive missiles only stopped 8 of the in-coming missiles.

Captain Hone sent a ship wide communication, All hands brace for impact.

Two shield buster missiles impacted the Justice. The impact almost caused Captain Hone to fall out of his seat. He said, Nikol, what is the status of our offensive missiles?

Nikol replied, The Hiriculan cruiser has stopped all 10 of our offensive missiles. Also, we are being hailed again.

…Retreat immediately or the next volley will damage your ship."

Captain Hone realized that he couldn’t win this battle. The Hiriculan cruiser apparently had a significant advantage in missile technology.

Hone said, Nikol set course for the Influenla – Opron hyperspace lane.

Chapter 1

Lorano’s communicator buzzed yet again. This was the 3rd time in the last hour he had received a hail from the hangar bay. Lorano sighed in despair and answered it.

Lorano, we need your help on the assembly line. The electronic boards are not passing the final test, said Jim Donovan.

Lorano heard another voice in the background say, I think it is the pressure transducer. The pressure tube isn’t aligning properly between the housing and the board. He heard a third voice say, No, it is definitely the solenoid connection. I think we should be soldering the joint instead of relying on a press fit.

Lorano started to answer and realized that the humans had already broken the connection. He would have preferred to stay in the control room and try to fix the issue via the com panel, but he realized that he would have to personally go down there.

Carank said, Well, the humans are starting to re-design the gravity missiles. That doesn’t sound good.

Lorano placed his palm on the weapons cabinet and said a password to unlock it. He took a beam weapon from the cabinet and handed it to Carank. He took a second and tucked it under his shirt. Carank saved his latest project on his work station, grabbed the weapon and stood up. Lorano said, Let’s go.

They walked carefully around the large piles of equipment that were waiting to be installed and exited the control room. This equipment would be used to track the missiles once they were fired into hyperspace. The priority at the moment though was properly assembling the missiles that would be used to chart hyperspace.

Lorano contacted the Sunflower and said, We are going to the landing bay and interacting with the humans. Please have Lexxi monitor us.

Lexxi responded directly by screaming Aaaahhh! She continued, Do you think I have nothing to do but sit around and monitor you? Just squirt mustard on your head and go in there.

Lexxi put her giant headphones over her ears and broke the connection without waiting for a response. Realistically though, she really didn’t have anything better to do.

Lorano laughed at her thinly veiled joke and said to the closed communicator, You are welcome to join us and bring the condiments.

The Sunflower was on a little-known mission. It wasn’t exactly a secret mission, but very few beings knew where the ship was or what it was doing. The ship had been assigned to assist scientists Lorano and Carank in their search for Old Solaria.

The Sunflower had been stripped of all crew members save Captain Solear, his first officer Clowy, weapons officer Lexxi, and 20 human fighter pilots. The remaining crew members and recently promoted Captain Arean had transferred to a new cruiser called the Dandelion. Ella Birdsong, the pilot, had remained on the supply depot in Conron.

This was technically against an Alliance regulation requiring a minimum of 30 beings to be on board before starting a mission. However, Captain Solear had secret orders that allowed him to temporarily break the regulation.

The planet Solaria was not the home world of the Solarians. They had been forced to abandon their home world approximately 4 millennia ago when it was struck by a severe band of cosmic radiation. The system’s general location had been recorded by the evacuees, but the exact location and name of the planet was lost. The Solarian council had ceremoniously named their home world Old Solaria.

When the Solarians joined the Alliance, they requested that the Alliance Navy try to find their original home world. The Alliance Navy had been searching for the planet on and off for the last two decades. To date though, the search had been fruitless.

However, the outlook had recently changed when Lorano invented a new way to chart hyperspace lanes and search for cosmic bodies. The new method was far, far cheaper and quicker the previous method.

The previous method made use of hyper charting missiles. These were enormous missiles about the size of a fighter that were capable of jumping into hyperspace by themselves. The method was to launch a missile, have it jump to hyperspace and travel to a specific location, chart that location, then open a tiny hyperspace window and send the information back. These missiles were hugely expensive to produce and could only be used one time. Thousands or even tens of thousands of missiles were required to chart a hyperspace lane.

Lorano had created a new type missile that could continuously send back gravity readings as it traveled through hyperspace. From this, they could then create a map of the gravity fluctuations throughout the missile’s flight path. The gravity information wasn’t nearly as good as a detailed scan, but a ship could follow a missile’s path with a high degree of confidence that it wouldn’t smash into anything.

Using Lorano’s method, the same area could be effectively charted using only hundreds of missiles instead of thousands. Plus, each missile was significantly cheaper since it didn’t need a hyperspace generator or advanced communications gear.

Lorano’s idea for locating Old Solaria was to inundate a particular location with gravity reading missiles. The result should be a chart showing areas with high gravity and their relative width and breadth. Once identified, they could follow-up with hyper charting missiles or actual visits to these locations for exact scans.

During his brief stay at the Conron Depot, Lorano reviewed all of the legends and stories about Old Solaria and made note of any that gave a spatial location. The task hadn’t been as arduous as it sounded. There were only a handful of stories that gave a general location of the planet and only one (the monument on Solaria) that gave actual coordinates.

Carank had also been busy. He reviewed all of the previous Alliance Navy searches. He created a multi-layered chart that showed the known astronomical objects such as stars, planets, and meteoroids against the gravity profile of the regions in question. He was searching for any area that had a high gravity spike without a corresponding identified object.

Their research hadn’t yielded any new information or insight, but Lorano had identified four potential areas that he thought were promising. According to the star chart, the obvious place to search for Old Solaria was Trilon.

The old historical records suggested that there may have been a hyperspace jump path between the two systems. Although there is mention of a path, it doesn’t list actual jump coordinates or actually mention Trilon by name. This was strange because Trilon had been discovered before Old Solaria had been evacuated.

The Navy had conducted multiple searches from Trilon and could find no evidence of a previous path to Old Solaria; nor were they able to chart a new one. Every conceivable direction from Trilon was blocked by gravity disturbances and/or cosmic radiation.

The Navy next tried to find a way around the radiation field by starting in Uselon, Waylon, and Dunron. If they couldn’t find the planet by going right to left, perhaps they could stumble upon it by going left to right. They made several, unsuccessful searches from each location.

Since the Fleet had left a hyperspace charting platform in the Waylon system, Lorano agreed with Carank’s earlier assessment that Waylon was the most logical place to begin the new search. Lorano and Carank had boarded the Sunflower in Conron and had made a relatively short series of jumps from Conron to Uselon, and then on to Waylon.

The Waylon system consisted of an average star with five planets. The system was unusual in that all five planets were clustered very close together and were very high in raw materials such as iron ore and polonium. It appeared that at one time the five planets were probably one giant asteroid that was struck by a meteoroid and splintered.

They had arrived in the system approximately two days ago and docked with the hyperspace charting platform. The Sunflower made a complete scan of the system while it was traveling to the platform. The system was unoccupied. They also queried the traffic control buoy; it showed that no traffic had been here since the Navy stopped looking for Old Solaria almost a year ago.

Well, official traffic anyway. Lorano and team had flown the mini-freighter Vista around the outskirts of the Waylon system roughly four months earlier when they were forced to find an alternative hyperspace path from Earth to Conron because the existing hyperspace corridor was ‘accidentally’ damaged and was no longer viable.

The fancily named hyperspace charting platform was in reality simply a drilling platform and its corresponding control sphere and living quarters. The drilling platform wasn’t being used; the team was located in the control sphere. The conversion from mining control sphere to hyperspace charting platform had been straightforward – the Navy had simply dragged the structures to the Waylon system and changed their name.

Lorano and Carank reached the hangar and saw the Sunflower. The Sunflower was docked to an exterior bay right beside the main hangar. It was connected to the station via an airlock. Carank waved at Lexxi as they passed. She couldn’t literally see him, but there was a camera in the corridor and he knew that Lexxi was monitoring it despite what she had said.

The last two days had been productive. They had landed on the station and found an unmarked corvette stored in the main hangar with a completely clean transponder. They moved the corvette to an exterior docking bay and cleaned the main hangar.

The humans then unloaded the cruiser and transferred everything to its correct position – the assembly line in the main hangar and the monitoring equipment in the bridge. Lorano and Carank focused on setting up the assembly line. It was the priority because they needed roughly 1,000 gravity missiles to conduct an adequate search of a particular area.

Lorano took a deep breath and prepared himself for his upcoming encounter. He noted that Carank was doing the same. They had no inherent force field protection here should the humans turn violent. They could have removed the sleeping gas canisters from the Sunflower, but the hangar bay was too big. The gas would dissipate before it would cause the humans to fall asleep.

Lorano fingered his beam weapon. He had been in the bay several times before, but with only 1 or 2 humans. This time all 20 were there. Individual humans hadn’t bothered him, but he felt the weapon was a necessary precaution this time. Basically he thought it was better to have a beam weapon and not need it then need one and not have it.

They walked in. One of the humans saw him and they immediately came running toward them. The humans lined up in their eerie twin lines. Lorano forced himself not to turn and run. Instead he held his breath and waited. Captain Solear had informed him the correct greeting was ‘dismissed’ or ‘return to your duties’.

Lorano said, Dismissed.

Eighteen of the 20 pilots returned to whatever they had been doing. Jim Donovan and Russ Brand approached them. Lorano noted that it was normally these two humans that discussed technical issues with him. He wasn’t sure why those it was always those two, but then he hadn’t really given it any thought.

Jim said, The machine is rejecting too many parts. The circuit board won’t fit into the housing.

Lorano responded, I imagine it is simply user error. Is everyone following the work instructions I created?

Jim didn’t answer, so Lorano reviewed the assembly process. The prototypes that he had built by hand to check the design had fit perfectly. However, now that it was being assembled on a relatively high speed machine, the circuit board was slightly rubbing against the housing and causing the issue at final test.

Now that Lorano had diagnosed that the problem was that the components weren’t fitting together properly, he quickly changed the design. He angled his body so that no one could see the monitor. He quickly made a small adjustment to the length of the circuit board. Then he announced, Everything looks good, let me try.

Lorano started the machine and it produced a perfect part. He said, It seems to function properly. Perhaps you simply need some remedial skills training.

Lorano made a production of showing the human how to run the machine. Then he stood back and allowed the operator to continue making parts. Lorano decided to wait beside the machine and pretend to watch the human work.

The human ran one part, then two, then three. All of the parts were now fitting together properly. While watching, curiosity finally overcame Lorano and he asked Jim, Why do you line up in two rows when people come into the hangar?

Jim replied, "It is a sign of respect for superior officers.

Lorano asked, So you don’t do it if lower ranked officers enter?

Jim simply replied, No.

Lorano smiled in anticipation of winning an argument. He asked, What about civilians?

Jim replied, No. Lining up for review is reserved for superior officers.

Lorano replied, Well, Carank and I are technically civilians. Does Earth have civilians that work for the military? Lorano had spent a couple of months on Earth to design an Alliance flight simulator that the humans could use. He already knew the answer.

Jim said, Yes. There are many different types of civilians that work for the military. Generally, we refer to them as government contractors.

Lorano asked, And would you stand in honor for them.

Jim said, No. He paused for a moment, now understanding Lorano’s line of questioning. He said, I assume that means that you don’t want us to line up for you or Carank.

Lorano said, Correct. Please reserve that for Captain Solear and First Officer Clowy. Lorano figured that Solear still deserved the eerie two line treatment.

Now that the entire assembly process was running again, Lorano decided to watch each station to ensure the process was being followed correctly. The line consisted of three separate stations. The first used a large stamping press to create the shell of the missile. The second manufactured the electronics package, and the last station was assembly and final test. This time there were no rejects at the final assembly station.

The line was finally running at 1 missile every 90 seconds. At that rate, they would be able to produce 45 missiles every hour. This was well below the peak rate the line could achieve of 60 per hour, but there was no real reason to go that fast. The humans planned to divide themselves into three teams of six and each team was going to run the line for 4 hours a day.

Providing the line continued at this pace, they would have the 2,000 missiles required for the first launch in a little less than four days. The humans certainly could have worked more hours per day, but there was little point. Lorano estimated that he needed that much time to assemble and test the monitoring equipment.

One set of monitoring equipment could only track one launch of 1,000 missiles to one location at a time. Fortunately, they had brought two sets of tracking equipment, so they could track two locations at the same time. This meant they could fire two batches of 1,000 missiles, then wait up to 3 weeks for the missiles to complete their hyperspace journey, and then repeat for the next two locations.

Lorano stepped over to what appeared to be a hastily assembled break area. There were a few chairs surrounding shipping crates that had been converted into tables. He noticed there was a chess board set up on one of the tables. He looked closely at it and was convinced it was the board that he and Carank had used when they were stuck on Earth.

Lorano looked at it and asked Jim, Do you play chess? He immediately regretted the statement. It was a human game after all and the board was set up. Obviously, the humans played chess. There was a clock beside the board that he was unfamiliar with.

Lorano could see Jim staring at him questioningly. Jim responded, Would you like to play a game?

Lorano shook his head yes and sat down on the white side. Jim sat on the other side. Within a few seconds, the game had drawn a fair crowd of on-lookers.

Jim said, I assume you are familiar with the game.

Lorano answered, Yes. But I haven’t seen the clock before. What does it do?

Jim said, You agree on how many minutes you want to play, and then the person that runs out of time loses. We use it speed up the game. Chess can take a long time if each person spends several minutes thinking about each move. Jim set the clock on floor.

Lorano made the first move, sliding the pawn over his black bishop up two places. Jim countered. Each made several moves. Jim seemed to focus on moving his pawns, forcing Lorano to expend his pawns removing them. Lorano saw his opening. He moved his queen down the board and captured Jim’s rook.

Jim then slid his queen directly in front of Lorano’s king and called checkmate. Lorano looked at the board and saw that Jim’s pawn was protecting the queen. Lorano couldn’t move his king and his queen was out of position to trade.

Jim said, Good game. He put his hand out, but pulled it back just as quickly.

Lorano was stunned. Losing to Carank sometimes was one thing, but losing rather quickly to a human was quite another. Lorano said, Yes. Good game. I didn’t expect you to be quite so competent. Lorano stood up.

Jim smiled and said, Thank you, I think. Most of us play chess. You are welcome to come back when you have free time and want to play.

Lorano assured him that he would return for a rematch when time allowed and turned toward the exit. Carank joined him and they walked back to the control room. They entered the room and activated the power lock.

The control room was independently armored and shielded, similar to the bridge of a warship. They were safely sealed inside. It would take an Alliance Armored Unit (AAU) to break inside. Even then, it would take hours to break through the force field and the armor.

Lorano turned to Carank. He said, What is going on? You have been smiling non-stop since the chess match.

Carank didn’t answer. He just kept smiling.

Lorano looked at him and said, I thought Altians were the only ones that were emotional. I didn’t think the trait was shared by the Advranki.

Carank kept smiling. His grin increased slightly.

Lorano said, I know, I know, you can’t believe that I lost to a human.

Carank continued to smile. Finally, he said, Yes.

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. The humans completed assembling the 2,000 missiles required for the first test. They transferred the missiles to the Sunflower and loaded each of the 20 fighters with a full complement of 20 missiles each. The fighters would have to make multiple trips to launch the required number of missiles.

The two scientists installed the monitoring equipment in the control room. They ran multiple tests to ensure everything was functioning properly. They ran a simulation by having the corvette make a small, in-system micro-jump. The jump verified two things; the tracking equipment was ready and corvette was space worthy.

Next, they focused on fitting the Sunflower with the equipment necessary to extend the hyperspace window away from the ship. They started by carefully sticking the nose of the ship into the station’s hangar and then securing the opening with flash sealant so they could re-pressurize the hangar. If they had simply activated the force field that normally protects the hangar bay opening, it would have severed the front of the ship.

Jim argued that they could just put on spacesuits and do the work in outer space, but Lorano was insistent that it was too dangerous. Lorano said, Working in deep space is simply not done, anywhere, for any reason. The risks of death from exposure are simply too high.

Once secured in the hangar, Carank installed a series of hyper enhancers along the bow of the Sunflower. The additional enhancers were required to extend the field beyond the immediate vicinity of the ship. Typically, the hyperspace drive was designed to create a window only around the ship. Now, the hyperspace window could be extended to include a greater volume of space or moved to a location a few kilometers away from the ship.

Like shield strength, hyperdrive efficiency was measured and compared among the fleet. The goal was to create a window exactly big enough to fit the ship and nothing else. Hyperspace efficiency was measured as the volume of the ship divided by the volume of the field that was created times 100 to give a percentage. Generally, a percentage above 94% was considered to be acceptable for a freighter and 96% for a warship.

Finally, Lorano installed a program to control the location of the extended field. These modifications were essentially a replicate of what they had done to Victor’s mini-freighter Vista when they were trapped on Earth.

Solear complained on more than one occasion during the modification process that making significant, possibly unauthorized, modifications to the Sunflower was very risky. What if we are in battle and the thing goes haywire and creates a field in wrong spot? was his primary argument.

Lorano allayed his fears and eventually was able to assure Solear that the extensive modifications to his ship would not have an adverse effect on the performance of his hyperspace drives. Lorano summarized, Maybe you can entertain your friends by moving your hyperspace field around.

Finally, the missiles had been built, the monitoring equipment assembled, and the Sunflower was appropriately modified. It was time to launch the missiles. Carank boarded the Sunflower. He planned to oversee the missile launching operation from there. Lorano stayed in the control room to verify the monitoring equipment was working.

Lorano activated his communicator and called Carank aboard the Sunflower. He said, Are we ready to start?

Carank quickly answered, Yes. Everything appears to be in order. Let’s begin.

Carank was sitting in the weapons chair and Clowy was in sitting at the communications station. With every work station occupied, Lexxi was left with first officer’s seat. However, she was markedly unhappy when she discovered that the first officer’s chair couldn’t rock back and forth. Ace, one of the human fighter pilots, entered the bridge and sat at the pilot’s chair.

Captain Solear said, Ace, proceed to the designated coordinates, .02 light, and bring us to a full stop when we get there.

Ace responded, Aye Captain, proceed at .02 light to the coordinates listed on the navigational system and bring the ship to a full stop when we reach them.

Captain Solear sighed. The humans made a point of repeating every order given to them. He didn’t particularly like the habit, but he supposed it was nice that he knew his orders were understood. It was certainly preferable to hearing the word ‘what’ after giving an order or wondering if the orders would be followed correctly.

Ace had recently completed the simulation training for piloting a cruiser. He had received the highest score ever in the graduation simulation. This was his second time actually piloting the vessel.

Ace donned the pilot’s cap. The cap wasn’t needed to fly the cruiser, but Ace preferred wearing it. The cap transmitted information concerning location, speed, and direction directly to his brain. He also received a limited amount of the ship’s diagnostics and performance. The cruiser’s cap didn’t transmit nearly the same amount of information as the fighter. Also, it wasn’t possible for him to switch to full manual control to pilot the ship.

Ace engaged the sub-light engine and eased the ship away from the hyperspace charting platform; or at least appeared to do so. He had actually launched the ship into motion at a frenetic pace, but the take-off felt as smooth, or possibly smoother, than a normal launch.

He quickly brought the ship to .02 light. They were traveling at 3,720 miles per second (6,000 km/sec), but in relative terms they were crawling. The ship was capable of going at least 10 times faster, but there was little reason to speed up just to have to slow back down again.

Ace set a course for the nearest point that was outside of the system’s gravity band. A ship had to be a significant distance away from the gravitational pull of all objects before it could create a hyperspace field.

It was quiet on the bridge. Clowy, Lexxi, and Ella normally broke the monotony by chatting, but without Ella the other two seemed to have lost the desire to converse. Solear looked over at the human piloting the ship. If it had been a little odd to have a Solarian pilot the ship, it seemed insane to have an actual living, breathing human now flying it.

Solear decided to lighten the mood. He said, "Carank, how does it feel to be back aboard the Sunflower?"

Odd, Carank replied. Very odd. The battle with the Hiriculans in Opron seems like a lifetime ago.

Solear answered, It is a shame we didn’t have the humans aboard for that battle. It certainly would have gone differently.

Carank replied, "Yes. I saw the simulation from the battle. The humans did very well. They won all 12 fighter battles. You were very lucky that the two Hriiculan destroyers turned into the on-coming missiles.

Carank was reciting from the doctored video of the Sunflower’s last battle. Solear suddenly realized that Carank didn’t know what had really happened during that battle. They had been outnumbered two to one, but the human fighters had destroyed the enemy fighters and launched a devastating attack against the destroyers. Solear had modified the video record of the battle to minimize the humans’ role.

Precious few beings knew the truth; just the Sunflower’s bridge crew and the human pilots. Solear knew that Lorano and Carank had trained and evaluated the humans. He remembered the report that Lorano gave stating the humans were slightly better than the Advranki baseline. He wondered if they had also lied about their evaluation of the humans’ flying abilities.

He also wondered if he should show the scientists the actual footage of the battle. Then, they could have a real discussion about the humans’ uncanny performance. He knew that he should do this before he had an entire crew of humans aboard. He fingered the file on his communicator pad and almost pressed play. He stopped himself though. Another time perhaps, he decided.

Ace announced that they had arrived at the appointed coordinates. Solear was surprised. The transition from motion to full stop had been so smooth he hadn’t noticed it. Solear said, Thank you Ace. Nice piloting. Please return to the hangar and tell everyone it is time to launch the fighters.

Ace walked down the caribou corridor to the hangar. He climbed into his fighter and performed his pre-flight check. The other 19 humans were already loaded into their fighters. Ace completed his checks and signaled that he was ready to launch.

Jim Donovan opened the channel to all fighters and said, All fighters, launch now on normal pattern.

The fighters launched one at a time from each bay. There was no reason to hurry the launch or deviate from regulation. They were flying in computer assisted mode; there was no reason to switch to manual for this activity. Each fighter flew to a predetermined position and waited.

Carank engaged the hyperspace generator and adjusted the effective envelope so that the field was directly in front of the ship. When he had a stable window in space, he told the fighters to begin firing the missiles.

The fighters lined up in two rows of ten. The fighters in the first row took turns launching one missile at a time into hyperspace. It was an arduous process because each missile had to be programmed with exact coordinates and properly aligned before going into hyperspace. Once the missile entered hyperspace, it had to fly in a straight line. The missile would be sheared to pieces if it tried to adjust its trajectory in hyperspace.

After the first row of fighters shot their 20 missiles, they returned to the Sunflower to reload. The next row of fighters replaced them and fired their payload of 200 missiles. The first group reloaded and shot another 200 missiles. They repeated this process until all 1,000 missiles had been launched. Carank then adjusted the hyperspace field to a new location and the repeated the entire process a second time until an additional 1,000 had been launched.

The fighters returned to the Sunflower and the Sunflower returned to the hyperspace charting platform. The ship smoothly transitioned from dead stop to nearly .02 light and then back to a dead stop. Solear didn’t realize that they had docked until Ace announced it. Solear again noted how smooth the cruiser performed when Ace piloted it.

Carank returned to the control room of the hyperspace charting platform. He asked, Is everything working?

Lorano responded, Yes. We are monitoring gravity readings from 1,890 missiles. Ten were destroyed immediately after launch and the other 100 are not sending gravity information.

Carank said, If it creates a sizeable hole in our chart, I guess we will have to re-launch them.

Lorano nodded in agreement and said, At the moment, I don’t think it will be an issue. We should be fine.

Carank looked at the monitor and said, I guess we just have sit and wait now.

Yes, Lorano replied simply. There is very little to do for the next 14 or so days.

Carank smiled and said, Well, it sounds like you have time for that chess rematch.

Lorano’s reply was drowned out by the computer’s message.

…Warning, large weapons fire detected in the main hangar…

Carank said, Computer, specify, are really large weapons being fired or are there a large number of weapons being fired?

…Warning, a small number of very large weapons are being fired in the main hangar…

Lorano responded, Can you be more specific?

…The fire appears consistent with an Alliance Armored Unit. Based on the rate and dispersal pattern, there appears to be two AAU’s firing. There is no other fire. You are now being hailed by the Sunflower…

Lorano told the computer to put the call on screen. Carank headed to the weapons locker and retrieved four beam weapons. He figured that they would both need an extra.

Captain Solear was on-screen. He said, We are detecting weapons fire. Did the humans attack you?

Lorano responded, We’re fine. The weapons fire is isolated in the hangar bay and we are safely sealed in the control room.

Clowy was listening and responded, Why are you firing at the humans?

Lorano said, We’re not.

Clowy was not to be deterred though. She said, Then why are the humans are firing at you?

Lorano yelled back, They’re not!

Clowy asked, Then who is firing at the humans?

Lexxi instructed her monitor to show the feed from the cameras located in the hangar bay. She studied it for a moment and said, The humans appear to have found two Alliance Armored Units.

Carank, Lorano, and Solear shouted in unison, Here?

Lexxi said, Yes. I was able to access a camera in the hangar bay. It appears that two of the humans are wearing the armor and are firing at each other. The other humans are hiding behind a bunker.

Solear said, Clowy, contact those suits and find out why they are firing.

Clowy answered, What suits?

Solear said, The two Alliance Armored Units that are currently trying to kill each other in the main hangar.

Clowy scanned the hangar bay and quickly found the identification of the AAU’s transponders. She hailed both of them at the same time.

The two suits temporarily stopped firing and answered the hail. Clowy said, Why are you firing at each other?

One of the humans responded, Boredom, I guess.

Clowy responded, Oh, okay and broke the connection. She looked over at Captain Solear and said, "They said they