Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 34

Chapter 34 Earth Versus Flying Saucers

It was saying a lot for me as an "earthling," to think of trips to Falth as routine, but I was now an experienced space traveler. Kevin was completely blown away when he saw the jump gate, and even more so with his first view of Falth, not to mention Cluria. Had he not been with me, we could have landed at Akdor, but he needed to pass through security and obtain his ID card. Both Branak and Jeff were contacted to vouch for him. Neither actually knew he was coming, but confirmed him anyway, knowing that I was looking for another team member.

I was anxious to go down to Akdor and see my new flying saucer, Carman told me it was sitting on the tarmac at Akdor but never had the chance to get there and at least get a picture. I had to touch bases with Moreck concerning the latest shipment, so we would be staying in Cluria at Drolugi's. So far, the sights and sounds of Cluria, as well as Drolugi's really put the zap on Kevin's head, he was behaving like a hick's first trip to the big city, however with my teams help, we got him settled down. Dori had stayed with the ship, overseeing the unloading, and transfer of the coffee and peanuts to Moreck's warehouse. In the meantime Branak and Darjonic Fennra, along with my guys all showed up to meet the new team member. As expected, Kevin took a lot of good-natured ribbing over his having been in the army, but after awhile, they all welcomed him on board.

While we were waiting for our food to come, I asked Jeff,

"Carman tells me you guys got in a fight with some Falthian marines?' This brought gales of laughter,

"Don't worry sir," said Gerry, "Everything's cool, we were all sitting around drinking and you know how things like this start, somebody says something and then it's off to the races." Jeff then added,

"Wow! Those guys are really tough, no one told me they were actually stronger than we earth people, but we beat 'em, we actually beat them." Everyone produced evidence of faded bruises commenting on the brawl.

"I suppose we've all got a reputation now," I replied.

"Oh no sir," quickly added Jeff.

"They were quite impressed with us, I can't prove it, but I think as Kagorians we earned a lot of respect from those guys, I'm sure word will spread, Oh and hey, we've already run two units through the training village already." I had so much on my mind I had almost forgotten about that.

"So how did they do?" I asked. Everybody grinned,

"Pretty bad at first sir," said Gerry, "But once we sat down with them and gave our honest evaluation they straightened right out. One thing we had to correct on and change a few things are their weapons. A regular weapon like we use fires bullets, and you can usually spot the smoke, these Omma rifles they use are really laser weapons, you can see where the rifleman is, but man! When you get hit with one of those beams you damn well know it."

"They actually use them in training?" I replied.

"Oh sure," said Jeff, "They turn the power way down it won't hurt you too much, just feels like someone slugged you, pretty cool really. Anyway, we made some corrections, and I think everything is going great now."

Darjonic Fennra then explained,

"Jeff was explaining to us how your marines and army all use blanks and training rounds, we on the other hand, use pulse charges specially designed for the Omma's. Like Mr. Dornan said, when you get hit you know it, keeps everyone on their toes. Jeff then showed me his phone camera,

"Check this out sir." The pictures were of my flying saucer. It was everything you'd expect an honest-to-god flying saucer to look like. A convex body with a domed cockpit in the center supported by four small landing struts. The craft appeared to be two shades of gray with what appeared to be alien markings on the round surface. Jeff and the other guys were standing next to it waving at the camera, from the picture, it looked as though the main body of the craft began about waist high, Jeff and the others added further details.

"I received an alert on my d**k Tracy wrist communicator," explained Jeff.

"It was a message from the field manager at Akdor informing me that an Amulian cargo ship had landed at his field disrupting traffic and two surly Amulians were demanding he authorize permission to leave the spacecraft they had brought on the tarmac. Well I knew what it was, so I gave him permission to sign for it, and let him know I'd be down there shortly, oh by the way, you're being charged twenty "creds" a relfa for storage, I had it moved over to where the Giuffrida parks so I guess Moreck is getting the bill."

I immediately contacted Moreck who hinted that the extra fee would come out of my salary.

"That's fine with me Moreck," I replied, I'm going down there to check it out and try to make other arrangements." He was curious about this strange craft, and told me he would be down a little later.

We immediately de-camped Drolugi's headed for the landing field on the outskirts of Cluria, for a quick flight down to Akdor. All my guys, Dori, Rek, (who called a friend of his from Andara, and asked him to meet us there.) Branak and Darjonic, and of course Kha'Mak. Sharla had to get back to the university to study for an exam, but the Giuffrida was full. As Kha'Mak brought us over the landing field, I could see the craft sitting off to the side; Kha'Mak set the Giuffrida down right next to the saucer with room to spare. As we crowded around the little craft, I thought to myself,

"So you're what got all the hubbub started back on earth." The craft was naturally circular, I guessed roughly eighteen to twenty feet in diameter and six feet high from the ground to the top of the silvery looking cockpit bubble.

No one else had ever seen or even read of anything like this, when I asked Rek about it, he replied shaking his head.

"I have no idea as to how this craft would fly, nothing like it on Grocyra, maybe if Angelika were here she might have an idea, she told me once that a couple of her relatives were spaceflight scientists."

"Well Kha'Mak," I asked, "What do you think?" Without a trace of expression, he replied,

"So this is what people on Kagor were seeing in the skies?"

"Apparently," I replied, "We certainly got in a lot of trouble for drawing our impressions of 1950's photo's and sci-fi flicks." Kevin then asked me,

"What's the deal here, how come these guys don't know anything about this?" I then detailed to him the whole incident that put myself and the others in hot water with the Amulians.

Shortly afterwards, a "flyer," not unlike the one Harrison Ford used in Blade Runner dropped down from the sky and set down not far from us. Rek went over and talked to two figures that stepped out of the vehicle. One looked about Rek's age, but was a Nuelian, the other guy was also a Nuelian, but looked a little older and rather distinguished. You had to be careful judging a Nuelians age just by their physical appearance, since they could live to a hundred and fifty they didn't show age like we humans.

Rek introduced his friend as Braikal Lorash, a systems tech he worked with, Braikal then introduced Garath Lyrosk.

"When Rek told me of this strange craft, I knew of only one person who would know what it was, I'd like you to meet Garath Lyrosk." We shook hands as he explained,

"I was fresh out of the navy having served as crew chief, when I received an offer from Andara, back then everybody did. Anyway, I went to work for them, been with them ever first project they put me on was what they called the "Starbird" project." Pointing at the saucer, he added,

"That was the project."

He then stood back and studied the saucer for a moment, then said,

"I worked on flight controls, then one una I found myself transferred to an entirely different project, never heard another word about it again, we built several of these, as well as three or four the size of the Giuffrida but this is the first one I've seen in a long long time Where did it come from?" Once again, I related the story I had just told Kevin.

Garath slowly inspected the ship once more. As he ran his hand over its surface, he spoke to no one in particular,

"These craft were very difficult to build, in fact as I recall, the disks were actually manufactured in space because they needed the zero gravity environment. They were very hard to fly as well, nobody ever crashed one but some came close."

"I want to look at a coupe of things," he suddenly said, "Braikal, Rek, would you two give me a hand." Using some metal storage boxes from the Guiffrida, Rek and Braikal assisted Garath in removing a couple access panels, as well as opening the cockpit bubble which flipped back to reveal the seat and controls. Garath crawled up to the cockpit, bent down and poked around for a moment.

"Well they removed the harmonic balancer, and the fusion cell, this craft certainly isn't going anywhere even if anyone knew how to fly it." Looking into the tiny cockpit, he added,

"The models we worked on all had full size cockpits, but as I recall, it was all one assembly, and could have been easily changed, and from what you just told me it's obvious these craft were destined for someone else anyway."

I then asked him,

"Nobody seems to know anything about what we on earth would call a "flying saucer," much less how it would fly." Garath gave me a curious look.

"Flying saucer eh," chuckling to himself, he said,

"Quite to the point isn't it." He then motioned us over to where he was sitting next to the open hole where the rear cover had been. Pointing downward, he began,

"See that large disk down there?" Looking downward, below the superstructure and part of the cockpit basket, I saw what looked like a shimmery glass with black plugs about the size of a CD disk spotting the glass disk.

"That shiny plate you see is actually a series of twelve, or sometimes sixteen similar plates made of salicate glass."

Garath demonstrated the various actions of the plates with his hands trying to make the technical description as simple as he could. "What look like plugs are made from a fibrous metal called Talminite," he added,

"Those talminite plugs are set in such a way on each plate that none ever sit over another. Each disk spins in an opposite direction from the one above it, now do you see those shutters underneath, well, the speed and height of this craft can be controlled by those shutters depending on how wide the pilot opens them. What is actually happening is an anti-gravitational field is being created. This is where that harmonic balancer I told you about comes in. It's actually a very complicated computer that controls each disk its direction, and how fast it will turn. Now, does everyone see those collectors around that outer ring?" Well, those collect Skada particles which are them introduced to the spinning plates where they "excite," the Talminite disks creating the effect that makes this thing fly." As we peered into the open access ports Garath continued,

"Although I've tried to make all this understandable, what takes place between those plates, the collectors, and the fusion drive is extremely complicated, we're talking about not only chemical and physical changes, but a form of advanced physics I do not believe your race could even comprehend. In that regard, I'm not surprised that the Harmonic balancer, as well as the fusion cell are missing."

I then asked about larger versions of this ship since craft of that size had been reportedly seen on earth as well.

"Oh yes," replied Garath with enthusiasm.

"The craft you see here is the ideal size, but ships the size of your ship over there were built as well. Now, because of their size, three, and sometimes four separate plate pods were used spaced evenly around the bottom of the craft. The Skada collector was also different, built right into the sloped angle of the ship's body." He formed an angle with his hand and explained how that part of the ship would rotate and collect the Skada particles.

Ethan then made the comment,

"It's rather interesting to realize that at the same time Chuck Yeager was breaking the sound barrier, these things were tear-assing around the skies." He then said to Garath.

"Supposedly a couple of these things crashed in our country, one in New Mexico, but I can't think where the other one did. Then it's possible some might have crashed in China or Russia, of course they would have never said a word if that had happened." This perked up Garath's ears,

"You say some of these "saucers," as you call them actually crashed on your world?" Ethan nodded,

"When I was a kid, one of my friends dad was big into all that UFO stuff, he'd collect pictures, newspaper articles, even had a copy of the bluebook report. I swear that every time I went over to my friend's house they were watching "Close Encounters."

"Well if any of these things did crash there wouldn't be much left, those plates would shatter into "kellums of pieces, it would be near impossible to figure out how this craft actually flew," said Garath. About this time Moreck arrived in another flyer, then being drawn to the strange craft in front of him, Fresh introductions were made all around, as he too became very interested in the saucer as well. Jeff then asked,

"I don't see any wiring down in there, how does electricity get passed to different circuits and devices." It took a moment for Garath to understand what Jeff was referring to.

"Information and energy transfer is done through what we call emissaries and embroidered circuitry; it's all built into the very structure of the craft. What little exposed circuitry there is around components are called comrac circuits, have I answered your question?" Jeff still looked confused, but didn't ask any further. According to Garath, this form of propulsion was termed star drive, not quite the speed of light, but close. We had a real gathering around this little saucer, I also noticed that the domed canopy had a metallic sheen on the outside, but from the inside, was clear as glass, again Garath said that it was old technology. Moreck then asked me,

"What are you going to do with this?" I shrugged,

"I'm really not sure just yet," overhearing our conversation, Garath and Braikal said,

"If you are interested in selling it let us know, this may be the only example in existence, possibly the only one here on Falth, we are certainly interested," said Braikal. As I looked at this craft, it dawned on me that Garath had just given me a briefing I'm sure the president doesn't even have high enough clearance to get. It was then I had another one of my crazy ideas, I then asked Moreck.

"Does your father by any chance know anybody in the government connected to a department that deals with this prime directive business?"

Moreck thought a moment then replied,

"Maybe…father knows all sorts of people in the government; do you want me to ask him?"

"Please," I replied, "Ask him if it would be possible for me to speak with someone concerning the prime directive, someone who knows what they are talking about."

"I'll ask him," said Moreck, "What do you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure yet, however I've got a couple ideas I'd like to ask someone in the government about."

Finally towards the end of the day, the access covers were put back on, and a cover thrown over the little ship, as we all adjourned to a nearby pub to eat and drink…and talk about my flying saucer some more.