Executive Teal H. Harah

  As soon as the Gate opened, the two stations were in communication with each other. Our side sent the fleet’s protocols, procedures, objectives, and logistical information to her sister. The other side takes that, sorts through all the information it has gathered over its journey, and doles out personalized packets of information to every member of the fleet, and all the ships’ databases.

  Engineers get the station’s performance and diagnostic records, scientists get sensor information useful to their research, and I get any information that may be useful in making decisions that affect this fleet. Potential hazards, station failures, stability of the wormhole, meteor showers, or other hostile celestial bodies. Anything else far from what is expected. I set my protocol to send my packet only if the station detected something dangerous that might affect the jump through the Gate.

  I stood on the bridge, watching galaxies and stars and centuries pass by with my very own eyes. Nothing to disturb me. Nothing to distract me. How many of these galaxies may have supported civilizations at one point? Dying out before they could leave something to attract our attention? What if we were passing by a people so advanced, they could cloak themselves from us? They could be watching us right now, tracking our progress, deciding what to make of us. I smiled and waved at a passing swirl of brilliance, just in case.

  And there I stood for hours, imagining all the possibilities and impossibilities alike. Eventually, I left the bridge. No one seemed to notice. As I entered my quarters, Nambiene delivered my packet. Part of the packet glowed and vibrated like sunshine and lightning. Exciting, not dangerous. I sent it to the bottom, covering it with a blanket encryption. Work first.

  The far station had countless of minor damages and failures due to micrometeorites, radiation, wear and tear, and, in general, things not working as expected. Nothing was near optimal, even by its own outdated standards. This was to be expected. It could have taken much more of a beating and still done its job adequately. Nothing in the sector was a surprise. The scientists would have the detailed reports of all the local celestial bodies. I didn’t need them.

  I scrutinized every report at near subconscious speed and was done in nearly two seconds. I could have done it faster, but I wanted to be thorough. Finally, I arrived at my blanket encryption. The big surprise.

  I took a breath and released the encryption.

  By the time I released the breath, a meeting had been called. The Executive Officers from all six Major Fleet Divisions are to meet me on the Gate Station as soon as they cross over in a few days. Some things had to be handled in person. Implant communication isn’t the same as communicating by thought, as people often believe. People have too much control over what implants actually transmit for it to work like that. I will always trust my eyes over what people decide to send me over an implant. No matter how much technology advances, you can never beat face to face.

  Technically, the other ships could dock with the Nambiene, even inside the Bridge. We could have had the meeting immediately. But Bridges have always been this sacred place. Attempting any maneuvers like that simply wasn’t done, barring emergencies and test runs.

  Days later, the Nambiene eased its way out of the Gate and curved around to dock with the Station. As it did so, I choose a conference room and shielded it, setting the Station’s AI to block all incoming and outgoing signals from the room. Two reasons, first, I want everyone at their best, and we didn’t need any distractions. Second, I don’t want a leak. This information will be handled my way.

  There were three doors to this square room, two on the back wall, and one center of the front wall. A circular table in center. Soft glowing white walls, ceiling, and floor. I took the seat farthest back and facing the front entry. I will be the first thing everyone sees when they walk in.

  What color to set the room?

  Alert and focused. Blue seems right.

  The room tinged blue. Parts of the room glowed brighter than others to break up any clausterphobic feeling to the room. A light pattern resembling sconces lining the side walls. Darker in the center, shooting cones of lighter blue from the center of the walls, to the ceiling and floor. It made the room look longer than it was wide. The floor was a darkened blue.

  The door slid open and Firat Arthur walked in. Light grey trousers, grey jacket, light brown waistcoat, and a white shirt filling the V-cut of the vest. My Executive Officer of Operations. Fancy title for HR.

  “Ma’am.”

  We exchanged nods. He eased his way down in the seat to my right. Hands slightly wrinkled. Hair greying. Still wearing his handlebar moustache with his goatee. I was old enough to be his mother. I looked young enough to be his daughter. He is part of the dwindling populus not from a genetically modified family tree.

  Next was Adermeran Collier, Executive Officer of Engineering. He was in his black duty jump suit. Straight back, shoulders square.

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  “Ma’am.” To me. A nod to Arthur.

  He strode three steps and took the seat off center and to the left of the doorway. Another minute and in entered Daemont Press. Logistics Officer. Tall and broad. Black beard and long black hair in a ponytail. Hands strong and tanned. White trousers, short sleeve black shirt, brown jacket hanging over his arm.

  “Ma’am. Gentlemen.” He sat to my left, covering the back of the seat with his jacket. Gaetan Arberaire, Administration. Lanky, blonde, red long sleeve shirt, black pants.

  Medical Officer Katerina Odama and Science Officer ‘Mad’ Ellie entered together, greeted everyone, and took their seats.

  Here we go.

  I sent them each a copy of the report. I could see some of them reading and rereading the report even as they buzzed their thoughts about the room.

  “We all know what this means. What are we going to do about it?” I spoke, rather than use my implant, to give everyone time to think.

  “Same as before.” Arthur said, “We practically knew this planet had life on it. It’s not the first planet discovered with plantlife, after all. We guessed it could host intelligent life. Now we know it does.”

  “Exactly, we know. It’s no longer a possibility.” Mad Ellie interjected, her raven black hair making with her pale blue eyes seem alight with feral lust. “This is the biggest discovery ever made in the universe! This will shake the Web to its core!”

  Collier has something on his mind. He let nothing pass his implant.

  “Collier?”

  All eyes went to the short man. He looked everyone in the eye before he turned back to me and spoke.

  “We need to handle this carefully. We have an unprecedented problem on our hands. If word gets out, it will attract a lot of attention. People will assemble fleets from all over the Web and come here. When that happens, we lose control of the situation, slowly maybe, but we will lose control. And we can’t predict what people will do. Some people, yes, but we can’t foresee what every single person will do or what interests they have at heart, and what factions will rise up to push their agendas. We all know humans can be just as barbaric as benevolent.”

  The room erupted into two kinds of conversation. On the surface we talked to each other, a slow and primitive form of communication. Deeper down, we transmitted our thoughts, our knowledge, our experiences to each other. Eventually, the room physically fell silent as implant activity rose to a raging torrent. Everyone was exchanging ideas, problems, solutions, everything we knew about history, science, and human nature at the speed of thought, putting our heads together to predict how the rest of the sectors would react.

  If they were ready to hear the words, we are not alone...

  One idea grew to dominate the room.

  The Fermi Paradox. The age old theory why we haven’t encountered any intelligent life yet. There were several possibilities. All of which involved The Great Filter: the point a civilization becomes space faring.

  First possibility, intelligent societies advance too hard, too fast, and self destruct before they reach the Filter. Leading to self extinction or setting society back so far, they build back up just to break apart again. This looked to be true following the first two World Wars of Earth, and the age of cynicism it lead to. But lost popularity in the following centuries as people left the age of Globalization and entered the Quantum Revolution: nation-states relied on more indirect conflicts. More global interference discourarged aggressive actions by other nation-states. Shortly after the creation of the First Internet, the world economies and politics became so intertwined that total war became more and more impractical.

  Nation-states relied on more and more indirect methods of controlling other nation-states and their own populations. Diplomacy, mass media, propaganda campaigns, economic manipulation, misinformation, data-mining, electronic warfare, standardized education, and every other form of manipulation and indirect coersion imaginable.

  Finally, capitalism and nation-states started dying shortly before the Quantum Revolution. Education, technology, and quality of life soared across the planet; slowly dissolving class, cultural, and political divides as people gained more power to fight for themselves, eradicating the need for control and coercion, thrusting us straight into the Space Age. The idea that intelligent societies inherently collapsed was almost laughable at this point, if you forgot about the history of capitalism and nations and climate change.

  Second possibility, we are simply alone in the universe, another unpopular theory.

  Three, all civilizations are simply too young and we are the only ones to reach the Filter so far. This was the dominate theory at the dawn of the Space Age.

  Lastly, the Super-predator Theory. The idea that one species will or has made it past the Filter, and to avoid any competition, they destroy or dominate any other civilization that approaches the Filter. This is what we fear, that we humans will become the first super-predator. Humans became the dominate species on our planet by out-competing or outright killing everything in our way, including each other. We became the super predators of our planet, ushering in a mass extinction in our wake.

  But we grew up, so to speak. We advanced technologically and as well as culturally. We became more than simply the sum of our parts. We may have violent origins, violent instincts, that’s no excuse for taking a violent path.

  That can all change. The progress humanity has made can still be undone. It takes constant diligence and effort to build something up, and one temper tantrum, one lapse of judgement, one strike out of fear, to break it down.

  The people in this room have one mission now. Prevent humans from becoming the first Super-predator.

  The solution was simple. We came up with it quickly enough, but we spent hours thinking through every possibility, and looking at every angle. Including the advantages of eradicating the Piets and indeed becoming the Super-predator.

  We needed to keep this quiet. Not from the Fleet, of course. It would be too difficult and risky to hide this from them, anyway. But this doesn’t make it past the Gate. We keep it hidden from the rest of the Web while we gather as much information as we can. And when we are ready, when we are confident the rest of the Sectors are ready, we tell them. We even had the idea of orchestrating the widest spread social movement in history to generate the right attitude in the Web.

  One step at a time. That would come later, if need be.