Sholan Alliance - AU Bk. 03 Ch. 08

Since it was a day to the edge of the system once they were beyond orbit he stood down most of the crew. "Set up the three team rotation as planned. Get some food and get some rest. I expect to be relieved in six hours."

Now it was mostly up to the computers to take charge of the main portion of the flight. If this had been a Sholan ship they would have simply slaved the flight systems to the lead ship. Since it wasn't the instructions were being sent to the Sholan system and had to be entered manually. There were a number of ships going to Terra along with a number of combatants. The last thing they wanted was for the convoy to be ambushed. Most of the ships were not armed or if so were light weapons.

~~~

Billy settled down at the head of the table in his impromptu engineering room at the embassy. He had set it up so he could keep working on his ship designs with Z'Marl's help. There were a few engineering students who had been given an internship but the NDB was there now as well. Sandi had organized some food and Illios and Lycos were both standing by for tech support. Both were actually very good at their jobs and very knowledgeable with their jobs. It was just if something went wrong it was usually rather spectacular.

So far they had been doing a very good job and actually made some major improvements to the computers systems. One thing they had very strongly suggested was to get some Toubin's working the systems. Partially this was to make sure they had the best tech but also to start to merge human tech with Sholan. Billy had to take some time to consider that suggestion. He had eventually ended up talking to the head of Alrel. There had been some serious negotiations involved but they had finally worked out a deal. They could study the human tech but if they learned something they had to talk to Billy and AlRel to get it cleared.

As he was contemplating the Toubin's the others from the NDB walked in and Billy stood and greeted them. "Welcome to the Embassy and please get something to eat and have a seat. As you know my main assistant is Z'Marl who is also going to be our Triad partner. I have asked her to sit in to help me explain what I have been doing." He glanced at the older female and gave her a wry look. "Well that and to hopefully minimize any headaches."

She snorted at him and just for good measure hissed. "Impudent Terran..." She came over and held her hand out to him. "I am pleased for you and Triad? I take it your bondmate is your Leska? Congratulations on that as well Ambassador." Once he had touched her finger tips she turned to Z'Marl and did much the same before sitting down.

Billy accepted the thanks and greeted the others as well. "I wish we had time to sit down and actually talk but as you know both my world and your worlds are under threat of some enemy we don't know much about. I was asked to consider returning to earth to work with the engineers and tech's on the alien ship. I have declined this because of a number of issues. That and I have a feeling as much as the Terran's might want to keep the ship there it is going to end up here. You have the tech to do more with it than we do. I have sent a message to the various governments saying this. Now down to business. As all of you know I have been working very hard at redesigning the engines aboard my ship. Even though this was originally aimed at my ship it can be applied to a number of ships." He paused to see if there were questions.

One male did twitch an ear. "One thing I would like to know is what if any tech of ours have you potentially incorporated into your designs. Much like you said in the beginning if we found any of your designs of use you wanted final say in how it is used."

Billy faced him and gave him a slight nod. "Thank you for asking and the simple answer is not much. This is mostly due to the fact your manufacturing abilities are so much more advanced. I simply do not have the knowledge or time to figure out how to, say, merge your molycirc's with our hardware. Now there are a few things I have studied which I have applied but based on the current tech level of my world." He took a sip of his coffee.

"First though I did come up with this on my own is the re-crystallization of tubes. Yes Satasha asked me why we didn't do that but that was all she said. Even after reviewing my equations and thoughts she offered very little in the way of help as you know. The one other main item I have decided to study and run with are incorporating the various controller runs in the actual structure of the tubes and to an extent the engines as well. This is a tech we have started to work on but till now was either experimental or too expensive to implement. When I say to expensive it is for all but the military. Today I will show you what I have been working on as time permits. I will also provide you with full documentation of the designs and what could potentially be considered as coming from you."

He turned to Z'Marl and nodded the end of the room behind him darkened and a hologram of the Sandi appeared. "Now to the fun stuff, as you can see this is a projection of my ship. I am going to take this in several steps. First what she started with, what I modified on Earth, and what I have come up with since..."

It was a good five hours later when he was done. Z'Marl had been replaced by one of the interns at some point and the food and drinks had been replaced as well. "Now considering my ship is essentially a lightly armed fast supply ship the changes have been to the engines. Once I receive the Pirate ship I will be planning on a complete redesign from the ground up. I need it as my test bed and it should be here in a few weeks. Does anyone have any questions?"

The NDB were rubbing their temples again and the female sighed. "Not for the moment and thank Vartra I brought some pain pills. Yilly you have a very interesting mind and I am going to talk to the rest of the board. I think it would be a very good idea to bring you on board for a number of reasons. I am considered very good with hyper engines and shields but listening to you I feel like a kittling just out of school. I don't even want to consider what you might be able to do for all of the Alliance including Earth."

Billy gave her a helpless shrug. "I wish I could give you some better explanation than my brain works funny. It always has and I rather like it this way. I love the flow of the equations which define hyperspace, I love thinking outside the box, and I love... Well I just love learning and knowing things." He shrugged again. "You are very good as well and some of the questions all of you asked were very valid. I am at heart a theoretical hyper physicist. There are times my ideas can get pretty out there and I do need the grounding of a regular hyper physicist as well. Now if you don't mind I am going to go home and visit my bondmate and make plans for our temple wedding."

~~~

The hyper drones from the destroyed ship had waited for several days till they were out of the system. Once they were out of the system they activated their drives and with a flash vanished from n-space. When that happened a number of ships had been sent to try and find out what had caused the translation wave. Several of the ships were Terran and several were Sholan. By the time they had reached the entrance point the drones were long gone. They still did their best to trace the direction they had gone.

As far as the direction the enemy ship had come from several Sholan ships had been dispatched but eventually they had returned since the trail had faded. That had been frustrating since the needed any and all information on the enemy as possible. Even now they knew very little other than they were of a similar tech level as the Sholan's. Anything else was being kept from the public since at the moment they were dealing with the loss of the habitat and so many people. It was true that loosing close to three million was barely a drop in the bucket compared to the twenty billion or so in the system. It was the single largest loss of life in several generations.

As far as the enemy ship the Sholan mother ship had scoured the region of space and collected as much debris as possible. The Terran's were helping as much as possible but much of the system resources were involved with the habitat. One thing the Sholan's had gladly accepted was Terran assistance in starting to learn about the ship and the enemy. Any number of bodies and body parts had been collected and they needed the help. One entire hanger bay had been converted into a morgue. Both Sholan and human Coroners were involved with dissecting the remains.

One of the very first discoveries was they were some sort of reptile. All the bodies aboard the ship were males as far as they could tell and they were bleeding chemical factories. They had far more chemicals running through their systems than a human or Sholan. Beyond that it was way too soon to tell what else they might have both going for them and weaknesses.

As far as the ship a space going transport ship was enroute to Earth. It was going to collect what remained of it and take it back to Shola. That had entailed some serious negotiations between the Clan Lord who had arrived and the major polities of the planet. Ultimately it had ended up with a number of human scientists who would be returning to Shola to study the ship as well. That had generated a message to Billy to ensure he knew about what was going on.

~~~

When they hyper drones reached the system the Valtegan's ships were in it had cause a major reaction from the General. He had almost flipped out and started frothing about ensuring anyone related to the crew of the ship was turned over to the priests. To be honest he was scared about how the Emperor might react. It wasn't about the loss of the ship since they had plenty more as well as crews. It was about the enemy potentially learning about them. As of now the Valtegan's were escalating their war production to ensure that they could take out the others.

His driving need to punish the ones who had screwed up hadn't lasted but a few days before he ended up having an 'aneurism'. The General's first in command didn't last but a day after taking over before the second had grabbed power. When he did he kept it since he had close ties to the assistant to the former General. Once he took over he started issuing commands. As of now they were going to move to a different system. Once there they were going to take a very intense look at what had happened in both systems. He knew additional vessels were enroute to increase their fighting ability and to replace what they had lost. If the two of them played it right they would soon be high in the Emperor's favor.

*****

A/N: Read, vote, comment and NO FRIGGING NITPICKING!! Rofl, couldn't resist the last part. If you nitpick post an actual comment as well.