Klon volunteered. Such a good sport! He made his own calculations and decided to side with the humans and their Mek allies. With Klon on our side, we won’t fail. The Board of Supervisors discussed the issues, and then put their participation to a vote among the crew.
The Trakennad Dor decided to go to Earth on Kitty’s recommendation and negotiate entertainment business with the Nameloids. Scientists and intelligence experts would be hidden in plain sight as fighters and crew to collect useful information. Specifically, they desired details regarding planetary protection, intelligence about whether the Nams had any kind of defense against E.M. attacks, and if so, what could be done to disable these.
The Trakennad Dor wasn’t anything like the Odok ships, but a regular vessel with typical fuel-burning engines, traveling in real time. The vessel couldn’t get anywhere near light-speed, much less ignore it, unlike our alien Odok ships.
Earth was a long, long way away. Humans had scattered to the farthest omega destination on their maps by the time the infection was discovered. Recently they’d gathered around KekTan and several other planets, and even an artificial station created in empty space, so as not to make too easy a target of themselves. The idea of amassing on one planet alone had died forever. That was not the way to survive in the Infinite. Humans from the three surviving self sufficient planets were being encouraged to join the services of humankind, explore space, and to disperse their gene pools. Outsider humans have been invited to settle on the self sufficient planets. Humanity will do alright.
Klon’s ship underwent outfitting with scientific equipment. He’s very pleased with himself, and eager to set off.
The question then became, how to get them to Earth? The Space force performed tests to see if they’d be able to use an Odok ship to carry Trakennad Dor to the arm of the Milky Way in which Earth resided. A crew in an empty fighter ship was slaved to the Harald Sundaramoorthy. (You may have noticed the interesting names of the Space Force’s ships. Names and ancestries have gotten mixed up since my time. Racial and tribal bigotries became a thing of the past a while ago, because when you begin dealing with aliens, a human being is a human being, no matter their skin color, the shape of their eyes, or their differences in language and dialect.)
The Harald Sundaramoorthy bounced locally. It worked! The slaved ship transported along with the Odok ship to the egress destination. This was history making stuff. Suri and her team chewed holes in the data. How did the Odok ship expand the field to include the fighter in the phenomenon? They wanted to know.
They tried the same trick with a ship closely approximating the mass of Trakennad Dor, filling it with volunteers to see its effect on the passengers. Success again! The game was on.
They finished tricking out Trakennad Dor with every piece of equipment they thought they’d need to collect data on the Nameloids and their technology. They slaved Trakennad Dor to the Harald Sundaramoorthy. The plan was to get Klon and Company close enough to Earth so he could motor in under his own power, contact the Nams, and negotiate his services while the scientists and soldiers surreptitiously collected data. The military chose an egress point in the selected galactic arm. The Harald Sundaramoorthy would bounce both ships in, set Klon’s ship loose, and wait for them to return. Then they’d re-slave the Trakennad Dor, and bounce back through several points which were not located near any human inhabited planet, just in case of the slight possibility the Nams could follow.
The Nameloids were sluggish, but they were also highly advanced technically. I hoped their defenses would be surmountable with human technology and cunning combined with the element of surprise.