CHAPTER 53

PETER

CONTACT

Peter stood in a specially built docking ship. He was streaming in from one of the twenty spacecraft currently in orbit around the Atua and Penquin world.

The docking ship was one of seven specifically built hubs for the rest of the team to communicate. They were treating the threat of being hacked seriously. None of the spacecraft had a direct link to any of the others. Any communication between the various warships had to be done via one of these docking ships. This ensured that no virus that the Atua infected any of the spacecraft with could propagate to the others.

The docking ships worked almost like a sandbox within a sandbox. Each of the twenty warships was connected to an independent hapticgraphic projector inside of the docking ship. These hapticgraphic projectors had computer systems that were firewalled from the others. And each of the warships had to independently confirm the other warships had not been compromised before any connection would be initiated. It meant the only way to communicate with the others was to have a conversation on the docking ships.

There was no sharing of digital information between spacecraft, either. They had the ability to have secret conversations by occupying one of the seven docking ships while others weren’t around. But otherwise, there was no way for any of the warships to infect any of the others—or at least any virus would only spread slowly.

Peter stood there waiting for the others to join. He was in one corner of a metal room that had ten chairs all facing one another in a circular pattern.

Peter walked over and took a seat on one of the chairs.

In popped Angelique, who looked over at Peter and smiled. No avatars could touch one another, so there was no hugging. “How was your trip across?”

“Besides seeing Atlas light up the sky when he used the weapon, it was uneventful,” Peter said. “We changed our playback speeds, so it felt like I only saw you five minutes ago.”

“Same.” She paused for a second. “It’s a bit concerning how quickly the Atua knew we were here. And how comfortable they are with us coming into their system with these weapons.”

Before Peter could respond, Trillion arrived, followed by Hezekiah, Unity, and Ariana, who all walked over and jumped onto one of the available chairs.

Then Atlas and his Ship walked through the door. They were the only two with separate connections to the Starnet, enabling both of them to communicate with the others at once. On all the other spacecraft, only one of them could cross into the sandbox at once.

Atlas looked around the room. He looked sad, as if he wasn’t too comfortable with what he’d done. “I’m not going to be the one who pulls the trigger. I can’t be.”

Peter studied the faces of everyone in the room. He noticed something he hadn’t quite noticed before. Everyone was a bit apprehensive. They looked like something bad was about to happen. Peter suspected it had to do with the fact that they’d all decided to go on this mission while they were emotional. They were all angry at the Atua. They wanted revenge.

But revenge wasn’t a dish best served cold in this case. Because of the many years it had taken for the team to execute this plan, it calmed the emotions. Everyone knew that eliminating an entire species was a path that couldn’t be undone. At the time, Peter had capitalized on everyone’s fears. He’d mobilized everyone into action. Even before the attack on Icarus’s world, Peter was sure that the Atua would attack. Even though he suspected it might happen, he still wasn’t happy when they attacked. And this, to Peter at least, was the clearest sign they wouldn’t leave humanity alone until they understood humanity was a threat not to be messed with.

Peter decided to calm the group’s fears. “Look, we all know what the Atua are capable of,” he said, reminding everyone of the tragedy that had brought them all together. He didn’t say Icarus’s name, but everyone knew what he was referring to. “I started this beta-explorer mission to discover life. To find out what was in the universe. I know each of you are here because you wanted to explore the galaxy, not because you wanted to get into some intergalactic war.” He looked at Atlas first. “If we use this weapon, it’s not on you. You don’t need any of this on your conscience.”

Peter turned his face to the rest of the group. “We’re here to tell them we don’t want to fight. That’s all. We’re here to make sure the Atua and Penquins leave us alone. If we don’t show them strength, then they will walk all over us. And then the next time we have a conversation with them, it might be over the death of another world. We’re here to tell them we don’t want to fight. But we’re also here to tell them that we will fight if we need to. We’re here to tell them that a fight would be a one-sided affair.”

Peter looked at Unity next. He knew that she believed the only reason the Atua attacked was because Icarus had done something bad on their planet. She believed that it was a form a self-defense from the Atua. “What they did to Titan was not right. It was a more than a retaliation. It was a vindictive attack. I believe strongly that if we don’t nip this in the bud, our two species will end up in a protracted war of attrition. They have shown time and time again they aren’t willing to leave us alone. Earth is still under their grasp. Humans on Earth are still locked in a simulated reality that they designed. Don’t be under any illusion that the previous attack was the conclusion of their dreams to conquer us all.”

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“Are we simply provoking them again?” Unity asked. “If they reacted that way to Icarus sneaking onto their planet, what’s to say they don’t turn around and do something worse to us again?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Peter replied. “None of us know. We also have no idea whether not replying to their attack is a sign of weakness and a sign they should attack us again. We also don’t know whether their original attack wasn’t already planned a long time ago, and they lied to us about the excuse. To be perfectly honest, I think it’s likely that us coming out here will be a show of strength. From what I believe of the Atua, I think they’ll see this as a sign we are no longer to be manipulated.” Then Peter shrugged. “I might be wrong, though. We don’t know enough about the Atua or the Penquins. And at the very least, I’m hoping we’ll know enough about them after this negotiation to better predict how they will act in the future.”

“I agree with him,” Atlas said. “If we’re going to coexist in this universe together, then we need to better understand each other. Maybe we can even set up some trade with each other.”

“So what next?” Angelique asked.

“We have about ten minutes until we open a discussion line with the aliens,” Peter said. “And two minutes until the others join. I wanted to make sure, Atlas, you were still on board with us threatening the alien with this weapon? I know we haven’t spoken about this in years.”

Atlas nodded. “I hope we don’t get to that. But I trust you, Peter, to make the right decision.”

The team went back and forth for a little while as they waited for the other twenty in the war fleet to arrive.

Once everyone was there, Peter addressed the team. Walking into the meeting, Peter had planned to convince everyone to let him speak directly to the alien on everyone’s behalf. But he kept playing the message the other person on his ship had said. He didn’t know enough about the Atua. But they knew a lot about him.

The Atua had most likely studied the behaviors and decision-making processes of all the beta explorers. How Peter responded to any question was probably already well understood. He was the one who’d sent the message off to reply to the Atua. So some AI was probably being trained to better predict how he would respond.

Peter looked around the room. He knew of everyone except one person. A woman named Rose sat on one of the chairs quietly listening to everyone. He didn’t know her because she was from one of Angelique’s secret systems. She was from one of the worlds that definitely didn’t have any trace of the Atua technology on it.

“Rose, do you mind if you speak on our behalf?” Peter asked. “To the Atua, I mean.”

Rose looked up; she showed a bit of concern, as if she wasn’t qualified to be everyone’s representative. “Why—why me?”

“Because the Atua don’t know who you are. I think they’ll have a very good understanding of what I or most of the others in the room will say. Can you pretend you’re the leader?”

“You want me to act?”

Peter nodded.

“I can do that.”

“Thank you. We’ll all be there with you. It’s mostly an information-gathering exercise. We just need you to explain our demands. Then we’ll be able to regroup and decide what to do as a collective.”

Rose nodded in recognition.

Peter explained what he wanted her to ask and explained the types of questions it would be important for her to gather responses to. He stressed that it was important for her to seem as if she was the leader of the group and that she had the ability to order the destruction of their home world if she didn’t like the answers they were providing.

Peter reminded himself that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Peter was about to see how things would progress once they touched down.

They had followed the Atua’s instructions and entered the atmosphere, touching down on a specially designed docking platform in the middle of the ocean. It looked like a twenty-meter-by-twenty-meter metal structure surrounded by the sea. It was made of some sort of concrete that had been worn down by the ocean waves.

The team attempted to scan the immediate area, but they quickly realized all their sensors were being overloaded with signals. They weren’t able to capture any useful measurements of the area around them.

It didn’t take long for an alien submarine to arrive. It was sitting beneath the waves one moment, then the next, it was above them.

It was long and pointed; it looked like it was designed to race through the water at great speeds. The surface of it was all white and completely sealed off. Peter didn’t see any windows or markings on the outside of it.

They tried to use their radar on the submarine, but whatever it was coated in was not letting any of their radar signals see it. From their vantage point it was invisible to everything except visible light. Peter was sure it had the capability to go invisible even to visible light when under the water.

There was an anticipation in the air as everyone waited for something to happen.

“We just received instructions to come out,” the Ship of Atlas said to the team.

Everyone nodded, and the front door of the docking station opened up with an audible hiss. Stairs appeared, too. And standing in the middle was a congregation of twenty-one of humanity’s representatives.

Peter looked at Rose and gave her a subtle look that said, You’re up.

Peter knew a common symbol of a person in power in human culture was for the leader to walk in front. He knew that the Atua and Penquins would be expecting this.

Rose walked down the platform, followed by the rest of the team.

When the whole team was down on the platform, they watched as several hidden arms rose up from the sides of the floating platform they were on.

“We’re being scanned,” Ship confirmed.

Everyone stared at the alien submarine. Then everyone saw a subtle light shimmer in front of them. It was the aliens’ hapticgraphic projectors turning on.

Moments later, they were standing in front of a Penquin. It wasn’t a Penquin they had seen before. Peter scanned its chest and noticed the protrusion that signified that an Atua was inside of its chest.

It walked toward the others and spoke. “I am Nukchuk. Why are you here?”