“That creature is clearly intelligent,” said Genevieve, raising her voice to be heard throughout the room.
Zhu immediately shook his head. “We can’t know that for sure.”
“Aahana is holding hands with it. What more proof could you possibly need?”
“More than just that,” he replied, then bent over slightly to depress the radio key. “Miss Agarwa, I want you to determine if the creature is intelligent.”
The wonder that’d been present in Aahana’s voice disappeared, replaced by a nervousness that seemed to be normal for her.
“...Okay, but…w-what should I do?”
Zhu turned to Ioane, obviously looking for help, but Ioane simply shrugged.
“Try waving to it?” he suggested.
“Try waving to it, Miss Agarwa.”
Aahana carefully pulled her hand back, which the tentacle seemed to allow. She began to wave the same hand in the direction of the eye. After a few moments of watching Aahana’s hand movement, the tentacle began to mimic her, waving back and forth.
A burst of loud excitement erupted from the crew pit. Aahana laughed once again, and as she did the tip of the antenna she held in her right hand accidentally dipped into the water.
The tentacle abruptly retreated, and the rest of the creature disappeared into the depths—a brilliant flash of light blue against dark.
“Aw, she scared it!” Ioane instantly complained.
Aahana gasped. “Oh god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“Finish taking your samples, Miss Agarwa, and return to the Vanuatu,” Zhu interrupted impatiently. “Quickly.”
He then scanned the bridge with a look of deadly seriousness Henry had never seen from him before.
“This information doesn’t leave the bridge. Surrender your phones.”
The crew pit immediately exploded into protest, with Genevieve being the loudest of all.
“No way!!! You have no right to do that!”
Zhu ignored the cacophony, raising his own phone to his ear and speaking into it over the noise.
“Sergeant Sato? This is Admiral Zhu. I want the QRF sent to the bridge immediately.”
“Quiet down already!!!” Ioane roared over the ruckus.
“Hold your phones up in the air!” Zhu added.
The clamor died down a bit, but Genevieve’s outrage did not diminish.
“This is an unlawful order!” she cried out. “You can’t—”
“You can surrender your phones willingly or you can wait for the marines to come and hogtie you,” Zhu barked. “Either way, you will be separated from them.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” Genevieve shouted. “Do you honestly believe this is something you can hide?!”
“We’re going to get guidance from Sol before we do anything else. And I promise you, I will enforce the orders they give us to the letter.”
“Listen to me!!! This is something we need to talk about first, you can’t just unilaterally deprive us of our means of communication!”
“I assure you that I can, doctor. But you’re correct about one thing—this is something the senior staff needs to discuss immediately. And until we do, no one is going to leave this room.”
The door to the hallway opened behind Henry. Two tall marines, a light skinned man and woman, rushed onto the bridge, almost hidden beneath their bulky combat armor. Both held carbines at the low ready. They realized almost immediately that no threats were present and visibly relaxed, looking somewhat surprised at the intensity of the attention they were being given. The female marine looked to Zhu, clearly hoping for directions.
Well that was quick.
“Post guard on that door,” Zhu told her. “No one is to enter or leave the bridge without my express permission.”
He then turned to Genevieve, who looked positively furious.
“Please. Don’t force me to do something none of us wants to see happen.”
Genevieve glared at him in silence for several long seconds, then pulled a phone out of her pocket and held it aloft. Kaya imitated her, and soon afterwards the air above the crew pit was filled with phones.
Zhu then held his own phone aloft.
“Major Ioane, please collect everyone’s phones and bring them to the captain’s station.”
“You got it,” Ioane replied, then turned towards Henry.
“Not him,” Zhu said quickly. “He has something important to do with his, first.”
Ioane turned back towards Zhu with a somewhat irritated expression and took his phone. He then moved down into the crew pit, collecting phones as he walked between the stations.
Zhu turned to Henry. “Send a text to Sevchenko. Tell him to get here immediately.”
“Sir.”
Henry pulled his phone out and dutifully sent the message. When he was finished, Zhu unceremoniously pulled his phone out of his hand and placed it onto the captain’s station.
“We have another message to send,” Zhu said, gesturing towards the communications station.
Everyone’s eyes were glued to Henry and Zhu as they marched towards it. Upon sitting down, Henry hit the button to unlock the terminal. Zhu leaned over his shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice.
“Send the following message verbatim. This is Admiral Zhu. Per your updated instructions, I have dispatched a science team to the surface of alpha one alpha. Upon arrival, the team made contact with what appears to be an intelligent form of alien life.”
Henry waited helplessly for the terminal's word processor application to warm up as Zhu continued.
“Ah, correction. Make sure that’s peaceful contact.”
The application finally opened, and Henry nodded, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
“We are still analyzing the data, but currently we believe the creatures bear at least partial resemblance to ocean-going squid. More information will follow as we acquire it. Miss Aahana Agarwa was the first human being to make physical contact with one of these aliens.”
Art called out from the opposite side of the room. “Admiral Zhu! Sir!!! There’s something you need to see!”
“Tell them her first words after making contact,” Zhu told Henry hastily. “And finish off the message with a request for further instructions.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Yes sir."
Zhu gave him a reassuring slap on the shoulder before moving off. When Zhu was out of range to hear it, Henry let out a quiet, exasperated sigh.
Fucking hell. Is he really going to try and hide all this stuff from the crew?
He finished the message and placed it into the encryption queue. Moments later the terminal indicated that the process had been completed and the message was being sent.
A new ruckus suddenly erupted from behind Henry, and he turned about, startled. Sevchenko stood in the doorway, nearly being lifted off his feet by the marines who’d both grabbed him by the collar.
“Hey, what the—!”
“Release him, Sato!” Zhu shouted from the other end of the room. “I summoned him.”
They released him, and Sevchenko straightened out his uniform in a huff.
“Geez!”
“Sorry,” the male marine said. The female marine made a show of dusting off his uniform around the collar.
Henry waved Sevchenko over, and he marched over towards the communication station, still in a huff.
“What the hell is going on?!”
“You probably don’t want to know,” Henry said, regaining his feet. “I think Zhu wants you here to monitor the terminal so I can go to a meeting.”
Sevchenko replaced him at the terminal. “What—another one?”
“...Yep,” Henry frowned. “If you get any messages just bring it to us in the staff meeting room.
“Alright, sir,” he replied, scowling.
Zhu gained everyone’s attention by raising his voice.
“Senior staff to the meeting room. Everyone else needs to remain here. We’ll get this resolved as soon as possible. You won’t be detained for long.”
Detained, Henry thought as he followed Zhu and Ioane off the bridge. That’s not a nice sounding word at all.
----------------------------------------
Everyone took the same seats they’d been in only an hour or so before.
Henry shook his head as he sat down, frowning deeply. Ugh. Deja Vu.
“Before we begin," said Zhu, "Mister Chukwu has something everyone needs to see."
Art passed a thin stack of what looked to be photographs across the table to Zhu.
“The shuttle’s rear belly camera was submerged when Kotel made, uh…landfall. Waterfall? Anyway, it happened to be aimed at the aliens as they approached the shuttle and, well…look for yourselves.”
Zhu glanced at each photo before passing them one at a time to Ioane.
“So there was more than just the one?” Ioane asked, scanning them. “How many were there?
“I’ve counted six others, but the water gets pretty murky past twenty meters or so. It's definitely possible there were hundreds, thousands—maybe even millions more of them just out of sight.”
Ioane passed the photos to Genevieve, who studied them intently in silence for a few moments before speaking up.
“They almost look like…tulip bulbs.”
Kaya leaned over to look. “...Hm. Yeah, I see the resemblance. Though the upper part of the body looks almost like a cigar.”
Zhu looked to Art. “Where did that tentacle come from?”
He shrugged. “No idea, honestly. It's not visible on them in any part of the video.”
“It could be from within this lower area of their body,” said Kaya. “Perhaps it opens up like a flower?”
“It’s pretty much impossible to say at this point,” Art replied.
“Can I see them?” Henry asked impatiently.
Genevieve passed the photos to Kaya, who dutifully passed them on to Henry. A quiet involuntary shudder left him when he set eyes upon the deep blur of blue-black water at the bottom of the photos. Kaya noticed his reaction and instantly shot him a questioning look, which he ignored.
The pictures showed the aliens floating at a good distance away from the shuttle, giving Henry the impression they were probably acting with a certain degree of caution. The camera’s awkward angle on the shuttle’s belly didn't seem to be showing any part of the alien Aahana had interacted with, but it was clearly just out of sight to the upper right.
Even at a distance the aliens seemed to be quite large. Henry guessed them to be about twice as long as an average sized man was tall. Their appearance was strange, very unlike any ocean creature Henry had ever seen or heard of, and he quickly found himself in agreement with Kaya and Genevieve’s assessment. The folds comprising the bottom half of their bodies were bulbous and smooth, tapering somewhat towards the end. Their top half was much more slender and ended in a smooth, rounded point. Their singular massive eyes were located roughly a meter above the natural seam connecting the “bulb” and “cigar”. Each eye was clearly focused on something just out of sight in the photo’s upper right, where Aahana and the other alien had been interacting.
They didn't seem to have mouths, at least from the angle of the photos, the realization of which Henry found somewhat disturbing. There were also no signs of where the tentacle might've come from. After glancing through the remaining photographs he passed them across the table back to Art.
“At least now we have an idea of what we’re dealing with,” Ioane mused.
“They’re really weird looking,” said Henry. “Not what I expected an alien to look like at all.”
His statement drew frowns from Genevieve and Kaya.
“I think everyone should keep in mind that we are the aliens, here,” said Kaya. “This is their planet. Just try to imagine what we must seem like to them.”
Silence briefly settled across the table as everyone absorbed her statement. Henry, Art and Genevieve eventually nodded in agreement. Ioane shot Kaya an irritated frown.
“Alright,” said Zhu. “Now that we’ve all seen them, it’s time to discuss our next steps. Until—”
Genevieve seemed to sense that her chance had come. She interrupted him, moving straight into the attack.
“You have been dishonest with us since before we entered hibernation! I want to know the truth about why we are here right now, and then I want you to release the bridge crew who you are illegally holding in captivity!”
Zhu sounded defensive. “As I said before I didn’t—we didn’t know anything about this.”
“Then why the heavy hand?” Genevieve snapped. “If you’re being honest then no one told you to silence us or detain us, you’re just doing it for no reason!”
“No reason,” Ioane scoffed. “If Congress didn’t tell us about what we were going to find then they definitely had a good reason not to.”
“Well, I don’t share your faith in them. And I don’t understand why you feel more allegiance to people who are trillions of kilometers away than to the people who are right in front of you.”
“The Vanuatu is a vessel of the Union State Fleet,” said Zhu, frowning. “No amount of distance can erode our obligations. We are duty bound to obey the directives we’ve received from Congress, whose members, I’d like to remind you, were all democratically elected. We will discharge our duties in full accordance with the oaths of allegiance we all swore to the Union.”
Genevieve paused for a few moments before replying, unable to hide her frustration.
“Your duty is to the people of the Union,” she said. “And we are members of that union. You have a responsibility to us to disobey an unlawful order, even one you haven't been explicitly given yet! We have rights—”
Ioane shook his head and spoke loudly over her. “Not true! If all this secrecy is on account of the SAIs then we have every right to take any measures we deem necessary to ensure operational security. Your aliens don’t take priority over our safety!”
Genevieve looked around the room helplessly, obviously seeking support. When she made eye contact with Henry his gaze dropped to the table before him.
I think what Zhu is saying sounds correct, but she has some good points, too. He’s in charge, but…I dunno.
He looked up, glancing at Art and Kaya. Art looked troubled, and he seemed to be avoiding eye contact with Genevieve as well. Kaya had a complicated mixture of frustration and anger on her face, and she glanced back at Henry when she noticed his gaze.
“They won’t keep us detained permanently,” Zhu offered. “They’ll understand that we need our bridge crew.”
Genevieve let out a frustrated sigh. “You don’t seem to understand how significant this is. What we’ve just found is the most important discovery in human history, Zhu. This is a gigantic leap towards understanding why we are here in the first place. It’s—it’s the first clue, the first step onto the theory of life itself. The crew—no. Everyone. Deserves to know what we’ve just found. And you can’t keep this under wraps. This ship simply isn’t big enough to contain that kind of secret.”
Zhu absorbed what she said for a few moments before replying.
“I see no evidence that any of the orders we’ve been given so far are unlawful. As such, we will continue to discharge our duties in accordance with the oaths we’ve taken. We will remain in self-detainment until Sol clarifies the situation.”
Genevieve shook her head incredulously.
“I understand the significance of this event, doctor,” he continued. “But duty doesn’t end the moment something comes along that rattles it. We have to continue doing our jobs. It’s not just the people aboard this ship who are depending on us.”
“Your duty,” she scoffed angrily, then nodded to the pile of photos on the table sitting before Art. “For their sake I hope your duty doesn’t involve you putting them in detainment as well.”
“C’mon. You think we’re robots, or something?” Ioane asked, offended. “We understand how important this is just as well as you do. Better, actually.”
She looked between Zhu and Ioane, shaking her head once again. “This is going to get out. It’s inevitable. Sooner or later everyone is going to know. And when they find out that you tried to hide the most important news in human history from them….”
Silence fell across the table, and for the first time Henry realized that he completely disagreed with an order he was expected to follow.
She’s right, he concluded. Everyone deserves to know.
He looked across the table to Zhu, who returned his gaze, and for the first time ever spotted traces of uncertainty in his expression.