After the talk with Sue, Mona made an inspection of the uppermost cargo hold. She was inspecting the marine life, a regular marine menagerie, being transported to Ceres along with a large team of biologists. Their intention was to aquaform the enormous interior ocean or sea of Ceres. This was no small task. The planetoid’s interior contained an amount of water in excess of all the fresh water found on planet Earth. The key to this enormous task was the formation of a self-sustaining ecosystem. That meant finding microorganisms that could live off the inorganic mineral base of Ceres or the small thermal vents inside the planetoid. That part had more or less started and been successful. The next aspect would be to introduce the next step up the food chain—various species of crustaceans and cnidarians (jellyfish) that would eat the microorganisms. What they really wanted was a species capable of bioluminescence, so the scientists could generate some organic light within Ceres’s internal sea.

Mona was stunned by the beauty and the amount of blue-green light coming from many of the holding tanks in the upper hold. The scientists had also brought a few genetically enhanced dolphins to assist in their efforts.

The World Alliance was desperate to find a safe and unreachable haven for refugees and survivors in case the worst-case outcome based on multiple computer modelings occurred.

They had decided that if war was coming, the World Alliance was helpless to stop the Atlantis Alliance. Ultimately, running and hiding was the only possible strategy to guarantee some chance of survival.

Mona was going over the flight plan to Ceres. The most efficient launch window to Mars opened only once every twenty-six months, so if Leviathan made the launch window, which it looked like she would, and used a rapid-transit flight path, she would be at Mars in twenty-six days, averaging seventy-eight thousand miles per hour—the high midrange of Leviathan’s ion drive capability. Once the WAMS Leviathan slung off of Mars at 0.523 AUs from Earth, the transit to Ceres should be eighty more days, for about a 3.5-month one-way trip, Ceres being 1.77 AUs from Earth.

Even if Leviathan made an emergency return trip, Mona calculated at best an eight-month round trip. Plus, if she needed to wait for the next best available launch window, it would require a round trip of one year and two months. Mona thought, The voyage gives me a good amount of time to think about a bunch of issues, so bring it on!

• 

• 

Excerpt from my upcoming book “The Honest Alien”

My name is Honest Al and I am an Honest Alien . . . not to be confused with undocumented aliens, dreamers, legal ethics or military intelligence which are all very confusing and contradictory concepts.

I am from the Planet TrollShill, My Planet is the original member of the TrollShillian Collective and is in the Andromeda Galaxy. My galaxy is 2,538,000 light years from Earth. I have been here for 2 billion years. An interesting factoid, It took 3,000,000 years for me to get here.

I am a low level civil servant and in my mid career. I have been waiting for promotion or relocation (rotation) for the last 200 million years and I am presently 10 million years behind on my pay raise.

As you can imagine I am rather frustrated and bored with this assignment.

Also, TrollShillians are not creative at all! We take others’ creations and call them our own!

Because of this fact, I am blowing the whistle on this whole operation! So to get things started here are a few things you can chew on!

Wars, catastrophes, disease, money, politics and organized religion are just tools to keep humans upset, desperate and energized. By keeping you constantly in turmoil we make you more creative. We thereby maximize creativity in the shortest time possible, it is fun for us, not so much for you.

The true age of the Universe is around 13 Trillion years as far as we know, but since no one is still alive from that era who the Hell really knows or even cares for that matter.

The important thing; however, is Sentient life first arrived on Earth two Billion years ago . . . If you remember that is when I arrived . . . not a coincidence.

Before me there were only automated drones and Satellites sent to survey and evaluate the potential for advanced sentient life forms . . . which is somewhat of a contradiction . . . because sentient and advanced don’t always equate.

We did service these surveilling machines from our observation post in your solar system from a planet between Mars and Jupiter which is no longer there. Big foul up that one.

Excerpt from the Book

The Black Magicians were furious. They could not believe that the weak and stupid WA could pull of such a well-planned operation right under their noses—especially when they had their inner-sphere entities informing them of their dark knowledge through their extrasensory perceptions. The first strike was on SpaceJump City and their launch facilities.

Mona was walking into her personal quarters, which she now shared with the ship’s chief medical technician, Commander Linda Smith, owing to the overcrowding on board.

Mona had a searing pain in her chest and stumbled to the bulkhead. She recovered, but an immediate odor and flash subdued her once more. She knew now with certainty that it had started. The war to end their beloved civilization had been initiated.

The AA thought that once they obliterated SpaceJump City, the WA would capitulate immediately. They sent commando teams to selectively breach the walls of the habitats and take control of the prized assets. It did not go as planned for either side. The WA didn’t get their strategic first strike, and the AA didn’t get the habitats.

The enormous destruction escalated with each miscalculation by the AA. They would not have expected the WA to have made or to have kept their sacred oath “to live as free men or die, and to die in freedom’s defense without surrender.”

Several hours after Mona’s chest pain, she saw the first image received on the daily intelligence brief from Earth. It was as devastating as her chest pain. It was the same image she had seen when she was selected as captain of the Leviathan. She now knew without doubt that she had seen the future exactly as it was to happen several months ago. What were the chances of it being a coincidence? Why had she never had these visions before? What could be their explanation?

• 

• 

Excerpt from the Book

Mona settled her stomach and cleared her mind, but before she could logically proceed to her next plan of action, lightning flashed through her optic nerve and the familiar odor overwhelmed her other senses. What she saw next was a vision more disturbing than any since that night hiking in the wilderness. The image that was assaulting her was the sight of a mushroom cloud rising over an otherwise peaceful tropical lagoon. Then she saw one of the near-Earth habitats being destroyed!

Mona is an exceptional pilot and her ability to rendezvous with space objects is amazing. Her love of space is obvious and her superiors are anxious to get her behind the controls of the next highly anticipated technical marvel. The WAMS Leviathan is the next prize available.  It is the first ship to have a quantum computer fully integrated into its operation and cybernetic connectivity available to allow simultaneous and instantaneous communication with the human captain.  Coincidentally, the computer for Leviathan was designed and constructed by Mona’s parents Doctors Ben and Peggy Lisa.

Excerpt from the Book

As Mona was ending her voice transmission with Dr. Sue Grammar, another communication appeared on Mona’s console. This one was from World Space Alliance Headquarters. There were data and image files attached. Still stunned by her conversation with Sue, she hesitated to open the new transmission, fearful of what she might find.

The transmission header stated, “Official orders for Captain Mona Ann Lisa of the World Alliance Mother Ship Leviathan.” Mona was shocked because the apprentice designation was missing. Is this what I think it is? raced through her mind.

Her hands shook as she pressed the icon that opened the transmission. The first file to open was the mission designation: the initial launch and shakedown cruise of the WAMS Leviathan. The mission statement and destination was next: “Launch from Orbital Habitat Six Deep Space Center within two months from today, resupply mission to Ceres fuel depot. Pick up existing mineral cargo, and crew due for rotation back to Earth. All other mission requirements will be communicated after launch.”

When Mona saw the encrypted images, she almost lost her breakfast. The first image was expected; it was the landmark on Ceres normally used to establish alignment and orbital synchrony with the massive asteroid. However, the second image shocked Mona. It appeared to be a target grid laid over the central plain of a well-known crater on the far side of the moon. There was also another overlay in blue on a feature; she could only guess at its purpose. Mona immediately wondered if her parents might know something about this image.

Nevertheless, Mona had to be on cloud nine; not since the Gold Medal ceremony at the World Games had she approached such heights of accomplished recognition. At barely over two hundred years of age, Mona had just become the youngest official captain of an off-world ship of any size or mission. If only she felt happy about her phenomenal accomplishments; however, all she could feel was nauseating apprehension.