When in Rome

“Lord Zonar we approach the Arcevar system.”

“Yes Taskeven” replied Zonar “did not our sources tell us that this system is part of the Dicon Galactic Empire?”

Being the captain of the fastest space ship in the fleet was both a blessing and a curse to Lieutenant Commander Karen Baxter of the UNRV Dillingham.

“They did what?” yelled Zonar.

“They brought the object aboard my Lord Zonar.” said Tobaz.

“Why?” asked Zonar.

“Outer marker D9 is moving.” said Lisa.

“I thought you said you lost the signal to it?” asked Karen

“The tachyon pulse signal is gone,” said Lisa “I am now just getting the position update from standard radio signals.”

Tobaz entered the room, bowed before Zonar and said “My Lord Zonar the fighter crews have found out something concerning the device.”

“Have they found out what it is trying to say?” asked Zonar

Down in the fighter bay Tobaz was noticing the fighter crews and a group of technicians working on the device. It was slightly smaller than one of their fighters and it was something that he never saw before. One of the technicians came up to him and said “Are you sure Lord Zonar wants us to disassemble the device and reassemble it in where?”

Taskeven could tell that Zonar was not pleased with Tobaz as both Tobaz and he were in front of Zonar and to make matters worse was that Cor and Hor were in the back of them, holding blaster rods. Zonar pointed to guard in the room and said, “You bring me this idiot technician here.”

“Wake up old man” said the guard.

“Is he dead?” asked Tobaz

“I don’t think so, he just tends to sleep longer than the rest of the trash here.”

Under normal circumstances Lieutenant Commander Delilah Hendricks would be outright thrilled that the UNRV Woodlawn would be this far out in the solar system, as the only professional astronomer in command of a deep space ship of the United Nations Space Fleet it was a dream that had come true since she was a little girl, always thinking of flying through space in a starship like in those “Star Trek” TV shows and not in a former Los Angles class submarine converted for space travel.

Tarn was looking through the window of the shuttle as he, Tobaz and three others made their way back to Zonar’s flagship, which was leading the fleet to a planet that was growing bigger.

Lieutenant Valentina Lysenko the executive officer of the UNRV Dillingham pondered what the new guys where thinking about the various course changes that the Dillingham was doing. During her shift of the last seven hours she made five course changes that was meant for the Dillingham to end up at the one of the sides of this fleet or flanking them. This fleet countered each move by turning their fleet to meet the Dillingham head on.

Aboard Zonar’s flagship Tarn was observing the movement of the device from the fighter bay to the main chamber. The group of technicians had to remove the doors from the fighter bay and the main chamber, it was the only way the device could fit through the opening between the fighter bay and the corridor.

Lieutenant Commander Victoria Yamada of the UNRV Dole didn’t like being out here, on the other side of the solar system away from the action.

“I got it connected, try it now” said the technician who was on top of Joo-Nine, they even got a fighter in the main chamber to help prop up Joo-Nine, since it was meant to operate in space the makers of Joo-Nine didn’t think it need legs to stand inside of a starship.

“Hey Karen” said Lisa “The tachyon pulse unit on Outer Marker D9 is working again.”

Tarn was wondering what happen to the fighter pilot. The fighter managed to climb on top of Joo-Nine using the fighter craft that was brought in to prop up the device from Arcevar Nover. He had hope that fighter pilot was doing okay, he felt he had made a friend of the fighter as well as the technician that still has not come back from getting a recording device. He too had hope than nothing went wrong with him.

Making the second attempt to climb Joo-Nine was slightly easier than the first time, mainly because Wub wasn’t carrying his tools on this attempt. Of course even on the first climb he didn’t need this tools to reconnect a loose cable that he found on Joo-Nine’s tachyon pulse unit.

Tarn, Tun and the three ground troopers walked around the edge of the bottom of Joo-Nine. Tarn attempted to impress the actual sound of what the Arcevar Nover called Joo-Nine, which sounded like a cough in their language. Tun tried many times to do the sound, but he could never do it right.

“No response from camera number 1” said Carolyn

“Camera failure?” asked Karen

“No, something is blocking the door, so the camera can not leave the housing.” replied Carolyn. “Switching to camera number 2.”

Tarn, Tun and the three ground troopers moved over to where the fighter craft was propped against Joo Nine. Tarn figured if it were Wub and the unnamed fighter pilot that yelled his name more than likely they would have exited Joo Nine at the same place they went up in. He did not think the two would jump down from the outer marker from the Arcevar Nover.

“Oh my god!” said Tim

“What is it Lieutenant?” asked Delilah

“The video image feed from Outer Marker D9 via the Dillingham.” replied Tim

“Incoming images from Outer Marker D9 via Cougar 1 on tachyon pulse.” said Janet. “Starting to record these images and feeding it ship wide on channel 3.”

“Greetings!” said Wub to the box. There was no response from it.

Wub had the urge to say ‘We come in peace!’ just to see what the box would do but he figured he would put the rest of the group in trouble with Lord Zonar. If he was the only one effected it would have done it, but not to risk the other six in the group. He didn’t even share a meal together with them but yet he felt great respect from them even though the group consisted of a prisoner, a starship crew member, a fighter pilot and three ground troopers who normally do not get together for anything else. Lacking anything original he said “Greetings!” again.

Wub had a bad feeling about this, here he was in the command chamber of the flagship of the fleet and in front of him stood Lord Zonar, Taskeven was on Lord Zonar’s right, then Cor was to the right of Taskeven. Hor on the other hand was on Lord Zonar’s left.

“Any change in the images coming from Outer Marker D7?” asked Karen

“All I see are the little ones with the sticks” replied Carolyn “I also see movement in the far background that looks like some sort machinery that is moving, but no changes since those 2 groups of beings left the view of D9 about 20 minutes ago. You think they are on to us now?”

“Optical message from Cougar 1.” said Tim “They are going to red alert now and we should be prepared for anything.”

“Very well Tim.” said Delilah “Ken is the Dillingham doing?”

Karen wanted to record an entry to the ship’s log with the events that just transpired with in the last hour but somehow she felt that something was amiss. The Woodlawn broke off from the informal formation with the Dillingham about thirty five minutes ago and headed for what it appeared to be Saturn. If this was so then the Dillingham’s job was to stay away from Saturn at all cost since it seemed that the Woodlawn was heading there, which more than likely to hide and await further developments whatever there were.

Lieutenant Stanley Cook came in to the ship’s mess. In the room he found Captain Hendricks, Lieutenants Tim Brown, Ken Ishii and Lyle Shane having lunch. Lester McPike entered the room a few seconds later, getting some coffee.

Author's note:

If you are reading the on-line version of this novel I had to break the flow of the story up so that I could concerate on the action of our characters on the planet Earth and still finish with the 50,000 word target for the end of this week. While I finished hitting the goal of 50,000 words, the novel is far from over. So for the time being I am going to post the rest of the novel as we fast forward sometime between 4 to 6 days in the future.

Don't worry about missing anything during that time because it aint written yet.

The van pulled up to the curb on South King Street just pass Richards Street. The driver of the van said “Okay gangie this is where the Customs Office stay,” he pointed to one of the buildings to the right “you can not miss it.”

“How much we owe for the ride?” asked Karen

Zonar looked around this place that the five captured Arcevar Noveren referred to as the city of Honolulu, what he could not understand as to why they also referred to it as the state of Hawaii, then again he could not understand why they simply could not refer to the place as Arcevar Nover. The one called Karen Baxter explained earlier that the planet Arcevar Nover was a world that held many residents and many different types of life forms. The people of Arcevar Nover never expanded to other worlds in the galaxy, mainly because they never had the technology to visited other worlds, but Karen Baxter sort of said that she had been to other worlds, she did not say how that was done but he suspected it was the work of the Fodani or the Dicon Galactic Empire.

Lisa and Taskeven managed to get to the Custom’s Office with no incident even through it was a very short walk from where they had left Edna, Jackie, Zonar, Cor, Hor and Tobaz.

The two police officers dropped Karen and Carolyn at the Waikiki location of the United Nations Space Fleet on Seaside Avenue. To most of the members of the United Nations Space Fleet who had ground assignments being posted at this location, which was called Seaside HQ by the ones who worked here is a good thing.

Lisa ran down the stairs, she could not catch up with the tumbling Taskeven who managed to land face down on the bottom of the stairs, she finally got to Taskeven and screamed “Oh my god Taskeven are you all right?”

As a fourth Arcevar Noveren was approaching the group consisting of Zonar, Tobaz, Cor, Hor and the ones called Jackie O’Neill and Edna Cruz, Zonar turned to Tobaz and said “We must greet this approaching Arcevar Noveren with our hand gestures on the other arm.”

Lisa and Taskeven left the Forms Office from another exit. This exit had a ramp leading up and around to the ground level. Lisa did not want chance Taskeven to go up the stairs since he had problem going down those stairs a few minutes earlier.

“Are you Task Even?” asked Judge Ann Caine to Taskeven

“Yes I am!” replied Taskeven.

Karen was not very happy from being removed from the United Nations Space Fleet, not this way anyway. It was one thing to leave the fleet to do other things in one’s life or be removed from it if one truly did something wrong. Karen did not think she did anything wrong.

Jackie walked down the stairs, while Zonar continued to tumble down the stairs, he then managed to land face down on the bottom of the stairs, she got to Zonar and said “Hey Zonar are you all right?”

Since this is a novel, this means that this piece of work is total fiction, which means it is totally made up (really it takes place in 2010 but that could change too). It does however make references to the various places on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii. Please do not use it as an actual guide to navigate on the various streets of Honolulu otherwise you might just end up in the Ala Wai Canal and trust me you do not want to go there unless you have a strong desire to make the local newscast.

The text below is the second half of Chapter 37 (with some additional text to make it interesting) and parts of it is in my entry to the NaNoWriMo web site. It is repeated here so that one would have a feel to what the novel is about. If after you have read this section (that is only 5 pages long) only and are totally confused by it then my job is done.

While the novel itself is not done, it is past the 50,000 word mark that NaNoWriMo considers as a valid winner (just in terms in the number of words) but it will answer some questions as to why the events in the excerpt happened.