Cha'Nara's Gift

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Uncharted Territory

When I returned to the ranch Emily and Cha'Nara were no longer in the craft so I went to the house, Mrs. Carter said they were in Emily's old room. I found Emily lying on the bed, and Cha'Nara hovering over her. "What's wrong, why are you lying in bed?" Emily groaned, "Cha'Nara did another one of her Vulcan "mind-melds" on me, I got a splitting headache." I started to say something to Cha'Nara but Emily stopped me. "Don't get mad at her Deak, I agreed to it, she thinks I'll be able to understand more, to get a better handle on their systems, I took some Tylenol just let me rest a bit, why don't you go see about fixing up something around her spaceship to hide it." Now there's an easy one, "To hide it!" Cha'Nara insisted on remaining with Emily, so I went out to the barn to look the situation over.

I walked around the spacecraft and thought "What would disguise this thing, yet allow us to work inside and be safe should someone come "snooping" around. While I was thinking, I noticed a bunch of wooden crates stacked up on the other side of the barn, I walked over to them and examined them. They were large packing crates; some indicated they held machines, other's parts. Some were marked farm equipment; I wondered why Mr. Carter would have all this stuff in his barn. At supper that evening, I asked him, "Oh there's nothing in them, a friend of mine scavenges them, I was going to use them for the wood, but they've been sitting there for over five years now, I don't think I'll ever get around to doing anything with them, why?" "I was thinking we could build a "wall" around Cha'Nara's craft, to hide it, add a secret door and install some lights in there so we could see, and anybody looking around would just think there were a bunch of crates stacked there." Mr. Carter thought it was a pretty good idea, Cha'Nara wasn't sure what we were talking about, and Emily was still lying down. After supper, I sat down with Cha'Nara, and had her explain, and draw diagrams dealing with this converter thing. We made a little headway, Cha'Nara was even able to tell me what one would have to be made with, but I was concerned what her description of materials would translate into as far as things we could lay our hands on.

We decided to make the guest room Cha'Nara's room Emily said she'd round up some old stuff of hers the alien girl could wear, Emily was even debating dying Cha'Nara's hair and cutting it a bit to disguise her some. I slept with Emily, but her tossing and turning kept me awake most of the night. Sometime in the early morning hours, she must have fallen asleep, and when we woke around seven, her headache was gone and she claimed to be feeling much better. After breakfast, she located an old pair of jeans she had worn before going into the Marines, some t-shirts and a couple bras, Cha'Nara refused to wear the bra's claiming they were uncomfortable and itched, but agreed dying her hair would be OK, as long as it wouldn't permanently color her hair, apparently that light grey color was very desirable. Emily also found a pair of cowboy boots Cha'Nara could wear. Emily also insisted that Cha'Nara wear her pink Harley headscarf that covered most of her hair along with sunglasses to hide her eyes. After all this, Cha'Nara looked rather cute and a bit "hip although when Emily commented on her appearance, it went right over her head.

We went out to the barn to plan the disguise of the spacecraft, before we started to move the crates; Emily sat down in the pilot's seat and asked Cha'Nara to turn things on. When the systems came up and information started appearing on one of the screens, Emily squealed, "Oh my God! I can actually read this stuff, Deak, I know what the computer is telling me," she looked at Cha'Nara and reached over to hug her. "Oh thank you, Cha'Nara, I can under stand as well as you can, now we have two people to try and fix this thing, can you give Deak one of your "mind melds"? I started to protest, but Cha'Nara said, "No, it would not work, he is a male, I could do it for you because you are female, only a male could do it for him." "Ahaaa!" Saved, for the fact we were a little short of Vagan males at the moment. Emily gave me a funny look then continued to scan the data coming across on the screen, although I would never be able to understand Cha'Nara Emily would.

With the help of Cha'Nara's little "toy" we were able to move the crates, and place them around the spacecraft, while Emily and Cha'Nara dismantled some of the crates, I was able to construct a single crate made to look like a stack of many with a secret door. After a couple days of work, we really had something,, Emily had the idea of moving some old pieces of farm equipment into the barn around the crate to further disguise it, some hay scattered around in the right places capped it all off. I ran electricity into the crate for lights and a power source for any tools we might use. I built a cleverly concealed door on the side facing the barn wall so no one could see us enter or leave. As for Cha'Nara's disguise, Emily decided to leave her hair alone and ordered some skin make-up online, it would hopefully make her skin seem normal, and the light grey hair would be explained as "punk" Instead of bright orange or red, it would be grey.

Once we were finished with the crate project, Emily and "Pip" as we were now calling Cha'Nara, threw themselves into the converter project. One of the first orders of business, was to have Pip re-calibrate the computer to accept Emily's hand, it was harder than it sounds, the whole process took most of the day, through trial and error, and basically "fooling " the computer, in the end, we were successful, and Emily could now operate the alien computers. Not long after we achieved this, Emily stumbled over a program on the systems computer. "Look at this, lover," said Emily, pointing at the screen. I couldn't make any sense out of the video and audio coming across, but Emily said, "It's the owners manual for this thing, she chuckled, then went into her "thinking mode" which she had to do to operate the computer. A video of the proper method for changing the power cells appeared. The top power cell turned with arrows showing the proper direction to rotate it, then it slowly rose in the air disappeared, and a new one appeared and dropped into the slot and turned. "The audio is telling us to replace the cell before it runs out completely," said Emily. She described the whole operation of changing the cells; it also showed the cells being swapped but a red tint appeared on the screen while an operation was being attempted.

"It's telling the owner to use the systems power cell to fuel the propulsion system only in an extreme emergency, and to immediately return to Vaga IV or Alos, whatever that is, or the life support will fail and you'll die, sweet! Right to the point." chuckled Emily. "What's Alos, Cha'Nara?" asked Emily. "It's a habitable moon, Vagan's go there for pleasure, or as you say, "Vacations" It's close enough so that most "unit's" can travel there." She and Emily did some calculations on a pocket calculator and the ships computer, after a lot of mistakes and swearing on Emily's part, Emily finally spoke up and said, "Earth is 238,855 miles from the moon, from these calculations, Alos is 7646 miles closer to Vaga IV than the moon is to earth, I'll bet they have some interesting tidal situations, I can see some beautiful coastlines in my mind Deak, they don't appear to have as much water as earth does, more landmass, but the visions "Pip's" mind melds allow me to see reveal a very beautiful planet, Alos is even more beautiful, I wish I could put what I see into words, it's very frustrating not to be able to describe for you the things I see Deak."

Emily continued to peruse the "Owners Manual" menu, "Oh s**t! I think I've found something, look at this." The video showed an empty power cell being re-charged from a machine that she said was a cell re-charger, the video showed a converter being added, next to the charging device, and cables appearing, between the charger and the converter, then to the power cell, which turned a bright green as what I guessed was a clock indicated the amount of time it took to charge up a cell. Now we knew what we had to build. Emily then started looking at the navigation screen, showing strange symbols and data, Cha'Nara said, "That's the coordinates from where I left from to here, all I have to do is reverse that and hopefully I can go home."

"Well dear," said Emily, " I guess that's the easy part, but why are these two programs not coming up, I keep getting the Vagan equivalent of "Not Authorized to Access" when I try and open them." Cha'Nara suddenly got a worried expression on her face, "Let me try that," she placed her fingers on the touch pad. After several moments "Pip" began to get more and more upset then bursting into tears and sobbing. Emily tried to comfort her, "What's wrong, why are you crying?" Still sobbing, Cha'Nara burst out, "My father must have lock out the full navigation program, without it I can't return home, and now I think I know why I couldn't make the control there, work right." "Just calm down "Pip" said Emily, "Is there some sort of password that you enter into the computer to access the whole navigation program." "I think…I-I don't know." "Let me check something real quick," with that, Emily returned to the Systems computer and started accessing the "Owners Manual" again. Data appeared on the screen with audio coming from a speaker. "s**t! I thought so, Dammit!" Swore Emily, "It's telling me that for security the navigations system can be locked, their equivalent of a key lock on a car, I'm amazed you could go anywhere, for some reason you were thrown into a parallel universe and ended up here, the telemetry data I'm reading, and don't ask me how I know this crap, is telling Cha"Nara she's still in her own galaxy, but she's not, she's in ours." Cha"Nara checked the navigation computer again, then went to the systems comp and did some checking there. "The data on this computer says this is possible but only a theory." I looked at "Pip" and said, "Well girlie girl, it looks like theory just became fact, can you get back even if we somehow get this thing charged up again?"

She thought for a moment, then slowly said, "I-I…Yes, if the navigation data is simply reversed, it will take me home, but the whole system has to be working." "Well, we're gonna hafta find some way to hack into this computer, or figure out what the password your father used," added Emily. "Well, just add that one to our "to do" list along with figuring out how to build a converter," I glumly said. "Pip" started to sob again, I got up and left, going back to the house, nothing to do here, might as well do something constructive. I sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee Mrs. Carter had poured and worked on our laptop, I had to get some banking business out of the way first. I entered the password and was told it was incorrect, I tried another, this was a new account and I couldn't remember if I was using an old password or a new one. That was wrong also, I then opened my wallet to find what they tell you never to do, and that is write your passwords down. I started to pull the little piece of paper out, when it hit me, I immediately rushed from the kitchen out to the barn "Pip, Pip, I think I know what your dad did!" I reached the spacecraft, but only Emily was there, still fooling with the computer. "Where's Pip?" "She was just here, didn't you see her?" "No!" I turned around and headed outside, I looked around and finally spotted a distant figure walking towards the openness of the ranch. I ran towards Cha'Nara who appeared to be sitting now.

When I reached her, Cha'Nara was just sitting on the bare ground sobbing, and looking up at the blue sky. I couldn't think of anything to say that might comfort her other than some words from a song I used to know.

"Everything is gonna be All Right, Rocka-Bye, Rocka-Bye"

"Everything is gonna be All Right, Rocka-Bye, Rocka-Bye"

"Everything is gonna be All Right, Rocka-Bye, Rocka-Bye"

I gently hugged her, "C'mon Pip we may still be in the game yet." We walked back to the barn, and the "Unit" as Cha'Nara called it.