The Solarian Celebration: Book 3 of the Alliance Conflict Read Online Free PDF

instructed the computer not to record the conversation.  Since there was a 2 minute and 33 second delay, she recorded a message instead of trying to establish contact.  She actually preferred the delay because she had plenty of time to compose her thoughts before speaking.
    She said, “Hello Sunflower .  This is Ella Birdsong.  My AAU was damaged and I was knocked unconscious.  The hangar explosion woke me up and I was able to escape before the Hiriculan reinforcements arrived.”
    Ella stopped there.  She really didn’t want to say any more.  However, she took Jack’s advice and added, “There are two other Solarian officers aboard, Robert Eaglefly and Anna Foxprowl.  The Hiriculans released them to Jack Dogbarks as an apparent gesture of goodwill with the orders to return them to Solaria.  I am officially retiring from the Alliance Navy when we reach Conron.”
    She left Jack’s quarters and returned to the control room.  She verified the coordinates were correctly entered into the hyperspace navigation system and ran a simulation.  She pressed the button to jump without waiting for a response to her message.
    Jack saw what she was about to do and blocked her by putting his hand over the hyperspace button.  He said, “Ella, you know that we have to wait for the response.  It is important, if only for closure.  Besides, it has already been 3 minutes.  I think you can wait another couple of minutes for a response.”
    Jack gently, but firmly guided her back to the workstation.  He verified that she was sitting and waiting and said, “I will leave you to it.”
    A minute later Ella received a reply.  Solear, Lexxi, Clowy, and even Putat crowded around the monitor.  Clowy was visibly crying and smiling at the same time. 
    Solear said, “Ella, we are all thrilled that you are alive.  The marines want you to know they feel terrible that they left you behind and that it wasn’t their decision to do so.  Congratulations on your planned retirement.  You should know that both Clowy and Lexxi are also retiring.  Please join us for a ceremony when we reach Conron.  The crew will be thrilled to see you one last time.”
    The sentiment made Ella tear up slightly.  She replied, “Thank you.  I will rendezvous with you in Conron.”
    She returned to the control room and said, “Jack, if it isn’t too much trouble, I would like to rendezvous with the Sunflower for a few minutes when we reach Conron.”
    Jack responded, “I will be happy to accompany you.”
    Ella shook her head and said, “No.  This is something that I have to do alone.”
    Jack thought, in other words there is something amiss aboard the Sunflower .  Jack retreated back into his quarters and started searching his room.  After a couple of minutes he found a flashdrive cube that contained with six human movies from Earth. 
    These movies were the big guns in his arsenal and this was the first time that he had broken them out.  Each movie was a romantic love story about a down-on-her-luck human female who somehow became a princess.  Jack personally could not stand these movies, but he knew that they should entertain Ella for hours.
    Jack returned to the control room and said, “You’ve had such an emotional day; you should relax and take your mind off of the battle for a little while.”
    Ella replied, “I don’t think I can.”
    Jack smiled politely and handed the flashdrive cube to Ella.  He said, “Here are some Human movies that I forgot I had.  Let’s go watch them on the monitor in your bedroom.  I think you will like these.”
    “I have had enough of Humans for a while,” Ella responded.
    Odd response, thought Jack.  She didn’t say human movies, she said humans.  He was more certain than before that there must be a group of human marines on the Sunflower .  He really wanted to review the data from the computer request and listen to Ella’s message.
    Jack replied, “Trust me, I think you will really like