Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

“Criminal operations — and I include mass spamming in this — and terrorist operations are completely banned,” Wilhelm added. “I’d prefer not to get into a legal tussle over what defines a criminal act, particularly as we don’t have a working legal code yet, so everyone who sets up a website on one of our servers has to accept the user guidelines. Anyone who breaks them afterwards can get a hammer dropped on him.”

“Good work,” Steve said. “What else do we need to know?”

“There are millions of requests for lunar accommodation, if not citizenship,” Wilhelm said. “I’ve had to hire new staff just to work my way through them. So far, anyone who might be useful to help build the colony has been forwarded to Charles, while everyone else is being examined on a case-by-case basis. We’ve got several hundred requests from authors who wish to live on the moon and work there — and they can, as long as they have access to the internet. Once we have the accommodation blocks up and running…”

“Quarters won’t be very nice, at least for a few years,” Kevin commented.

Wilhelm shrugged. “I don’t think that matters,” he countered. “They want to be part of something great. And they also want to get their foot in on the ground floor.”

He smiled. “Speaking of which, we have several hundred thousand requests for tours of the Apollo landing sites,” he added. “If we charged them each ten thousand dollars, we’d have much more cash to spend on Earth. Hell, give us a few months and we would probably drag the world economy back out of the dumps.”

Steve understood. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to go take a look at where Neil Armstrong had set foot on the lunar surface either. The human tech looked primitive, compared to the technology they’d captured from the Horde, but it had been built without alien assistance. That, according to the databanks, wasn’t entirely common in the galaxy. A large number of races had bought or stolen spacefaring technology from other races. Not all of them had mastered it for themselves.

Us too, I suppose , he thought. But we will figure out how the technology works and how to improve it .

“Keep working on it,” he said. “Maybe we can detail a shuttle to transporting tourists to the moon.”

“We should,” Wilhelm said. “We need ready cash, Steve. Right now, we don’t have as much as we will need in the future.”

Steve rolled his eyes. By any standards, his government was the most powerful one in the entire solar system. But they were also among the poorest, at least for the moment.

“Kevin, I want you to work on Captain Perry ,” he said. They’d renamed one of the captured starships, as its original name sounded thoroughly absurd to human ears. “Ideally, I want you ready to depart within the week.”

“I understand,” Kevin said. He sounded both excited and terrified. Steve couldn’t blame him. Neil Armstrong had stepped onto the moon, but Kevin would be flying well outside the edges of the solar system. “I won’t let you down.”

“Just remember that you’re representing humanity,” Steve warned. “Don’t let any of us down.”

Captain Perry , Earth Orbit

“You don’t look a bit like Captain Kirk,” Carolyn Harper said.

Kevin rolled his eyes. A week of hard labour had cleaned out most of the starship and allowed the human crew to move in, leaving them all tired and irritable. Edward Romford and his men would provide a security team, but Carolyn and her fellow scientists had their own role to play. If they were lucky, they might be able to understand the theoretical basis of the alien FTL drive and then start working out how to duplicate it.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Who do I look like?”

Carolyn considered him for a long moment. “Truthfully, I’d be hard put to say just who you looked like,” she said, finally. “That fake Native American from Voyager ?”

“ Thank you,” Kevin said, crossly. He’d only watched a handful of Voyager episodes, the ones that had featured the Borg. Discovering that alien technology could easily create something like the Borg Collective had led to a few sleepless nights. “I don’t want to act like him.”

He snorted, then pretended to examine Carolyn. “You look like…”

“Shut up,” Carolyn said, without heat. “I’m not the one playing starship commander.”

Kevin had to smile. Carolyn looked, in no particular order, young, pretty and nerdy. Her blonde hair was tied up in a shapeless bun, but he had the distinct impression that she would clean up nicely if she ever let her hair down. But from what he’d read of her file, she’d probably deliberately cultivated the nerdy look to ensure she was taken seriously at her former company. Like most of the others, she’d had one look at the alien technology and practically begged to join the team. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I suppose,” he said. Perhaps, during the month they would be spending in transit, he would make a pass at her, just to see how she responded. Or maybe it would be unprofessional. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have plenty of other entertainments. “But you’re playing Mr. Spock.”

The banter came to an end as Commander Rodney Jackson entered the bridge. He was a Royal Navy submarine commander, recently retired after thirty years in the navy. Kevin, looking for someone with experience of long voyages in completely isolated ships, had snapped him up like a shot. Once Jackson had checked with the British Government, he’d accepted the post of XO without hesitation. It too was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“We have everything stowed onboard, sir,” he said. If he resented reporting to someone who wasn’t even a naval officer he kept it to himself. Like most submariners Kevin had met, he was short, stocky and permanently calm. “And the starship appears ready for departure.”

Kevin nodded. Like Shadow Warrior , Captain Perry’s systems were largely controlled through the interface, but there were also command consoles on the bridge. It was astonishing just how many training programs there were, programs that had allowed the human crew to practice operating the ship time and time again until they were far more capable than the Horde’s pilots. Kevin had long since lost his astonishment at just how ignorant the Horde really was of such matters. But it was an advantage the human race desperately needed. The Horde still possessed far more starships than their human enemies.

“Very good,” he said.

Choosing potential trade goods had been tricky. The alien captive — currently in a cabin on the lower decks — had recommended weapons, particularly ones that could be reconfigured for non-human hands, so Kevin had loaded the starship with hundreds of different weapon designs. They had also picked several items of human technology, various movies that might be worth selling and a handful of food and drinks. And they’d even taken several bottles of maple syrup.

But there was no way to know what, if anything, they’d be able to sell them for.

They had recovered some galactic currency from the Horde, but it was difficult to say just how much it was actually worth . The alien rate of exchange fluctuated constantly, while the more isolated planets seemed to prefer trade goods to currency that might be worthless by the time it was shipped to somewhere it could actually be spent . Kevin knew that, if they failed to make some sales, they might have to start offering human mercenaries, purely to build up a stockpile of galactic currency. But that offered its own risks. What if one alien power chose to take its irritation with the mercenaries out on Earth?