Sholan Alliance Ch 04

I am editing this series due to some typo's, spelling errors, and mixed up dialogue. Once I am done I am going to repost them and that should clear up the chapter order. That was an epic fail on my part but should be cleared up shortly.

I also had a volunteer editor, Captain Siren, review the first chapter in the Silver Moon series and she made some very good suggestions. With her help I am going to be revising all the chapters to remove some glaring inconsistencies. They will be posted as we smooth each chapter out.

The last thing I have to say is that there are only a few detailed sex scenes in this series as with my other stories. I find, this is a personal opinion, that having a sex scene in every chapter of a story gets boring after a while. I have come across some very good stories that keep getting broken up by one sex scene after another. That makes it hard for me to follow the plot line.

*

Now that he had been up checked they had quickly packed the clothing they needed. He was thankful that the bed in the captain's cabin was large enough for the two of them. Billy had replaced the original for a larger more comfortable bed since he did occasionally have a female share it with him. Loading the ship took the rest of the day to make sure they had everything they needed including a number of supplies from Satasha's ship.

They were finally done and though he wasn't comfortable with Sally coming with Satasha had explained why she needed to. "Jenna, Sandi, thank you for all of your help and once we are gone if you get questioned be honest about everything except Satasha. I will deal with that when I come back." He gave both a good hug and stepped aside and let Satasha give them a hug.

Satasha gave both a good hug and just for good measure a good kiss. "When I make it back one of these days I might have Yilly take out that cute Ensign and you can cook me a meal and we can have a bit of fun." She looked over her shoulder at Billy. "I know for a fact that Yilly likes robbing the cradle... Must be the taste of young flesh."

Billy turned beet red and growled something about a kitty skin rug for his stateroom. "Let's get going. I don't want to give the space corps any reason to delay us or have some engineer arriving to pick my brain and try to figure out the equations."

Sally didn't let him off that easy. "So just how old are you Satasha? From your comment you are much younger than my father."

Satasha grinned at Billy's discomfort. "I would be about 28 years old by your years." Everyone stared at Billy and then started laughing.

He growled again. "Anyone not onboard in about 5 seconds gets left behind." He turned and stomped up the ramp into the Ship. The two coming with were still snickering when they walked aboard and he drew in the ramp and closed the door. He stalked towards the command center and took the captain's chair. "Sally navigation for now and Satasha engineering."

They ran a number of checks and he finally slid the roof of the slip open and typed in some commands and the Ship engaged the n-space engines and lifted out of the cradle. The nose lifted up and headed for the sky. He was taking it easy on the lift off to give the engines a test and to keep from drawing attention from the take off. Lift offs from the surface were rare enough since it was usually small ships that were personally owned by wealthy idiots.

As they were leaving he passed the 3C space station and was signaled. "Damn. He activated the voice only mode. "Hey Mack got the old girl back in shape and doing a test run to Atlas. How's tricks for you?"

"Good to see but what happened to your video?" Mack checked and his side was working fine.

"Damn it I forgot about this. I have a loose connection, give me a moment." He waved for Satasha to leave the bridge which she did very quickly. Once she was gone and the door was closed he thumped the console and then activated the video. "A good thump usually does it but I was busy enough with the other repairs I completely forgot about it. I would love to stay and talk but I need to skedaddle and try and make up the money loss I had from the down check."

Mack laughed and then noticed Sally. "Hey Sally how are you doing? I see you took after your Mother which is a good thing. If you had taken after your father I woulda felt bad for you." He winked at Billy when he said that.

"Mack you are too old for her so no making passes at my not so little daughter or I might have to challenge you to a duel." He was grinning as he said it. "Besides she is way too smart for the likes of you."

Sally snickered. "But Pappa since you like younger women maybe I like older guys." He turned and glared at her and she laughed.

"I will talk to you later Mack and ignore the silly girl in back. There was a cute young ensign who was checking me out and invited me to dinner during the up check." He scowled at Sally. "Well I will talk to you someday and have a good one." He turned the view screen off and accelerated away from the station.

~~~

He did the diagnostics and tests that he had promised and even did a couple of micro jumps that went wonderfully. He pausing near the edge of the solar system and stood down the engines other than the power plant for life support. Billy hurried through the upgrades and had Satasha follow behind to verify the connections and do a diagnostic on them.

Once they were done he grinned and rebooted the systems with the new software. "Now we get to see if I am the mad genius everyone calls me." He fired up the n-space engines and surged forward fast than the old tub normally could and the moment they reached his estimated speed needed he turned on the hyper drive and Billy damn near shit a brick when the changeover was almost instantaneous and his instruments stopped reading. "Drat, I need to recalibrate some of the instruments and sensors." He slowed the ship down till they started reading again and he was grinning like it was going out of style.

~~~

In the solar system there were a number of ships close enough to get fairly quick readings on Billy's ship. The sensor techs who were watching almost lost it with the power signature for the n-space engines. When he went to hyper their sensors went off the scale. All of them sent copies of the recordings to their respective governments.

The various governments almost freaked out since very few ships could match the power signature. That was unless they were a combat vessel and this didn't read as one. It took some time for all the governments to identify the ship and who it belonged to. Once that was happened calls started going back and forth. The idea of the American Principality having that level of technology scared the daylights out of them.

~~~

On the Combat vessel they detected the ship powering down and were wondering if they had somehow been detected. Just to be on the safe side they went to general quarters though they didn't run out any weapons since that could be detected. "Keep an eye on that Ship and let me know if she does anything different. By different I mean anything like turning back changing directions, hell if you hear a fart from it I want to know." He had just been ready to go off watch but with this he was going to get something to eat and a quick shower and change of uniform.

The commander was back on the bridge within an hour. So far the ship hadn't done anything but maintain station keeping and was giving off very low power readings. Eventually he started rotating crew to get something to eat and a few hours sleep. Once the ship was gone he would go back to what he had been doing. In a few days he planned on moving slowly into the depth of the system and try to contact the missing scout ship.

Right as he was getting ready to take his turn the scan tech turned and informed him that the hyper drive was powering up as well as the n-space engines. "Vartra's bones look at those power readings." He routed the data to the commander's chair. They were below what the Sholan's could generate but from a Ship of her size they were almost shocking. As he was scanning the ship jumped forward and vanished into hyper space. "Sir I have never seen readings like this before. They do not match any readings from any of the ships we have been scanning."

The commander was already sitting up and leaning forward. "Follow it and send a message to the Mother Ship that we have encountered a foreign ship and are going to see where it is going." They moved out of the radiation field around Saturn and started towards the entry point.

"Commander just reminding you that if we jump this close we will be detected even if they can't see past the stealth." The navigator was programming in an estimated course for the Ship and once in hyper and they got a fix on it they would adjust as needed.

"Understood but we don't have a choice. That could be some sort of emissary to this world from the enemies. The signature isn't the same but is closer than any we have detected. Program the course and jump as soon as possible."

~~~

As Billy whooped at what the modifications had done the other two were staring at him. "Genius you said Sally? I think you were aiming just a bit low on the scale. This is pretty close to what some of our ships can do. With upgraded scanners and shields if he pushed her she would definitely run as fast as some of our fast passenger ships. Part of it is the ridiculous engine this thing has but some of it was the mods your father made to the engines." Satasha's eyes were almost round as she was talking.

"Sally leave the cabin please. Tasha is going to program in the course needed and you don't need that information. I can't leave since I have to approve it but I am not going to look." Sally nodded and left the cabin. "Tasha punch in the course we need as best you can. If needed we might be able to detect her trail and find her that way." He turned his screen off and once the accept indicator flashed he pressed the touch screen and after a few moments the Ship altered course and he set the auto systems.

He hated using them but as a one man crew he had to have down time and the chances of encountering something in hyper space was so slim it wasn't funny.

~~~

"Well let's go get something to eat. Secure from GQ and return to normal rotation. Note an order to inform me even in a sleep cycle of what the ship is doing." The commander left the bridge after turning it over to one of the other crew members.

~~~

"I am going to get something to eat and then to bed. Since this is crewed only by me normally I have an extensive control station in my suite." He headed to the galley and almost kissed Sally since she had started cooking something. "Hun you might just get a cabin upgrade for this." He grinned since she was already in the nicest cabin other than his.

Sally snorted and finished cooking and served everyone and fell on her bowl of stew like she was starving as well. Now this type of cooking he could do since it was mostly packaged food and he usually purchased some of the best unless he had passengers and depending on what type they were he would go down a notch or three.

Satasha had originally estimated 3 or more weeks to reach the Mother Ship but at the speed they were doing she lowered that to 2 weeks or less. Billy was doing constant diagnostic checks on everything but it kept coming back clean. One part he was worried about he might have to redesign when he had a chance. It was a power circuit and it was showing a tiny bit of overheating and power loss. He kept a very close check on that item in particular.

~~~

When the Sholan ship entered hyper space the other ship was already a goodly distance away and they were initially able to only follow it by its hyper wake. Eventually they caught up to it and stayed right at the edge of their sensors and they were pretty sure that the other ship hadn't detected them yet. The Navigator was keeping a close eye on the ship and after a few hours he was frowning. Due to the commanders orders he opened a link to his cabin. "Commander I have been tracking the other vessel and it appears to be headed to one of the rendezvous point with the Mother Ship."

The commander growled since it was the middle of his sleep cycle. After putting on his uniform he stalked to the bridge and over to the navigation console. It was in 3-D mode and it showed the estimated position of the Mother Ship and the other nearby ships. The one they were following did look like it was headed in that direction. He scratched his chin. "Very carefully scan the ship and see what sort of weapons it might have. Send a message to the Mother Ship requesting orders on how to proceed. Contact me when you get a reply." He left the bridge and rolled back into bed.

The reply didn't take that long and informed him to gather as much sensor data on the ship and simply follow it as they were. There were a few more orders that he had rather expected. He informed the bridge to inform each watch of the new orders till everyone knew about them.

~~~

They had been underway for just under 2 weeks when he got a massive return from the forward sensors. He dropped out of hyper immediately. Once in N-space he shut down the hyper drive and powered down the n-space engines to station keeping mode. Right as he was doing that two ships decloaked in front and one dropped out of hyper behind them. A broad spectrum transmission was detected and he opened both the audio and video channels.

"Alien vessel keep your engines where they are now and drop your shields or we will be forced to fire on you." It took a few moments for the video conversion to kick in and when it did he found himself face to face with a Sholan in a black suit and what looked like a helmet attached to the chair he was in.

Billy had been practicing his Sholan with Satasha and had a reply ready. "This is Captain Billy Madlax of the star ship Sandi. I am dropping my shields now and as requested my engines will remain at the power levels they are currently at." He checked a few readouts and then looked back at the male. "I do have weapons onboard but they are inside their hatches and locked down. I am here to return a missing Sholan to you. Lt. Verzilon crashed on the planet I come from near my house. We couldn't repair her ship but was able to repair mine. Here she is if you wish to verify what I have had to say." He moved out of the command chair and Satasha sat down.

The Sholan on the other ship was more than startled when the alien started speaking Sholan. It was a little difficult to understand but he did understand the message and raised an eyebrow. He was about to demand her presence when she settled in the seat the other climbed out of. "Identify yourself."

She sat there in her command suit and sat up straight. She had nothing to be ashamed of. "This is Lt. Satasha Verzilon commander and only crew aboard the SSS Tail Chaser. My authentication code is..." She reeled off a long string of numbers and letters. "While approaching the solar system Captain Madlax is from my navigation molycirc fried. I set course for the system knowing that I had sent, or so I though, the location of the planet. I was simply going to keep in a station keeping orbit and acquire data. As I was approaching the planet my n-space engines started malfunctioning and I was forced to land. I still had shields and they were up. During the descent I lost all power when another molycirc block malfunctioned."

The commander who had been talking to her listened and then contemplated on what she had just said. "Why did you contact the aliens?" That was one item she might be held accountable for.

"The contact was unintentional. Capt. Madlax was on the porch of his house and since I was on emergency power I directed all available power to the shielding while diagnostic ran to see if I could do repairs. Since the use of the sensor suite would have used up power I chose to open a hatch to find out where I had landed. I didn't know where I was because I was knocked unconscious during the landing. When I opened the hatch and looked around I discovered that I was close to a house and a large building. I do have my personal recordings of that time."

The commander slowly nodded his head. "Are you capable of sending the data over?" If she could he would forward it to the Ship for review.

"I am sorry but our technologies are too different. Yilly tried to come up with a conversion so data could be transferred when and if we made it to the Mother Ship but the software is vastly different. If he had more time he might have been able to but we decided it was more important to get me back to the Mother Ship." She looked at Billy and he nodded. "Yilly is willing to have one of the ships dock with his ship and show you around and at that point I can give you the data. Aboard there are a total of three of us. Yilly, his daughter Sally, and myself. Sally is an empath but has no training since they don't believe in psychic talents on their planet. I think Yilly might have some talent as well."

That got the commanders attention. "Interesting and we will have to see. Illuminate the docking ring and we will see if we can actually dock. I will bring on two of my warriors and we will inspect."

Billy nudged her out of the seat and sat down. He tapped some controls and the ring was illuminated. "I am also shutting down the bridge. I do come in peace to return Satasha to her people and for no other reason. You can ask her later but I did not contact my authorities at all and as of now to the best of my knowledge there are a total of four of us that know of her existence." He added a code that would lock the controls down unless it was entered by him. "I will be at the ring and my daughter will remain here to ensure we have ongoing comms." He stood and walked out of the bridge and down to the docking ring.

As he arrived he felt a slight bump and then the hiss of air being sucked out of the locking ring on the tube. There was a slight hum as well but he didn't bother asking. Billy's daughter contacted him and informed him that they had a solid seal.

"Opening outer doors." He punched in a command and the external doors opened and once the three Sholan's entered he shut the hatch, made sure the pressure was equal and then opened the inner door. "Welcome aboard the Sandi and as you see Satasha is with me and you can check and make sure she is who she says she is."

One Sholan pulled out a scanner and ran it over both of them while she handed a data crystal over. "Sir she is armed with a standard stunner. I do not detect any electronic signatures of a weapon on him though he does have something in his shirt pocket."

Billy blinked for a moment. "Oh sorry, those are my VR glasses. I am going to slowly take them out and show you." He reached into the pocket and pulled them out and put them on and then put them back in the pocket. "I figured we can start at the front of the ship and work our way back. I have six berthing rooms, a decent cargo space and the engines. As we move towards the back I will show you the weapons and that they are locked down."

The commander nodded and the one warrior was scanning the entire time. Billy showed them the bridge and his daughter nodded at them though she spoke no Sholan at the moment. After that he showed them the staterooms and when he opened his door he could tell that they scented her in there. "Why is her scent in your room?" His voice was harsh and demanding.

They had discussed this and decided to be honest about it. "Because she is my companion and yes she willingly became my companion and yes I know what that means." His voice was calm and collected as he spoke. "We care a great deal for each other which is why we became companions. Mind you that didn't stop her from keeping any classified data from me. I didn't ask and she didn't talk about it."