3.
Diego Cruz was halfway through his lunch when Gabriel came into the mess, floating over to the refrigerator and pulling out a tube of turkey surprise. Diego chuckled.
“You know, the surprise is that they use turkey buttholes for that paste, right?” Diego asked.
“It’s entirely artificial. So it’s artificial turkey butthole surprise,” Gabriel answered.
Diego chuckled. Complaining about the food was always a conversation starter. “So, how goes the communications with the ET’s?”
“Exhausting. The moment our light hit the planet all of the frequencies literally exploded. There’s tens of thousands of messages arriving every moment from hundreds of different sources throughout the stellar system. They’re trying very hard to talk back to us, but it’s hard because we have no idea what either side is really saying,” Gabriel explained.
“Yeah, I get that,” Diego said.
“Talking to our escorts is starting to get easier though,” Gabriel commented. “Everything coming from the planet is basically noise, but if we isolate the signal to just the ships, then it becomes much easier. We’ve got a basic file transfer protocol in place, and we’re actively exchanging data packets.”
“Uh-huh. So it’s like the internet with a large latency spike?”
“Yeah, except we don’t really know what any of the files are for. We’re running them all on virtual machines, but even though they’re in binary, they must use a completely different architecture for their computers. We can’t get any of their files to run,” Gabriel explained.
“Huh. So, here’s a dumb question from one of the grunts,” Diego said. “But why not give them a computer? They’re obviously at least as advanced as us, so they should be able to reverse engineer an operating system if we give them a working model, right?”
Gabriel was sucking on the ration tube as he considered the suggestion, then, abruptly, his eyes went wide. “Of course! We can send them one of the probes!”
“You’re welcome,” Diego said as the other man leapt out of the mess hall, leaving a half-eaten ration tube behind him.
~~~~~~~
“The enemy ship has launched what appears to be a missile at us,” one of the Topokans growled, interrupting Eolai’s slumber. He frowned, turning on the light and looking at the blue-furred creature. It wasn’t one that he immediately identified, which meant that it was a younger one who was probably being hazed by its elders, like the one who had suggested opening fire on the vessel when they arrived.
“Are you certain it’s a weapon?” Eolai asked calmly.
“It is the human belief that any tool is a weapon if you have the desire to use it as a weapon,” the Topokan pointed out.
Eolai nodded. It was a sound argument. He sighed and pulled himself out of his bed, putting on a shirt. He waved his hand and began requesting information from the computer, and received the images of the projectile that had been launched from the ship three minutes ago.
He couldn’t immediately discount that it was a weapon. It had a moderate energy signature, a large charge stored in what appeared to be a capacitor of some kind. Enough energy that it could be translated into various energies which might be lethal.
On the other hand, just because that energy could be used as a weapon didn’t mean that the device was one. It would have to be within a few thousand miles to be effective, and the shielding on the Topokan’s fleet of security vessels was more than adequate to deflect or absorbe any sort of radiation that was sent from the vessel.
There was another factor to consider. The device was broadcasting on the Rockata frequencies. The scans of the device didn’t show any interior compartments that were not exposed to vacuum, so Eolai discounted the possibility that it was a vehicle.
Eolai wanted to believe that the device was innocent. It was broadcasting on the Rockata. But he also knew that such an action might not mean the same thing to the guests as it did to him. He sighed and reviewed the data for a while longer before issuing his orders.
“Fire upon it with the Kitara beam and then bring the wreckage aboard for study.”
He would not risk his ship nor the lives of his crew for anything that had such a significant energy signature. The Kitara would cause the energy to disperse. He was uncertain what that would do to the strange device, but hopefully it would be salvageable.
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~~~~~~~
“We have lost contact with the probe,” her XO announced. “We detected a massive energy spike and then it stopped broadcasting on all frequencies. It is not responding to navigation instructions. It’s dead in the water.”
“Has it been destroyed?” Captain Moon asked.
The XO put it up on screen. The telescopes, made for examining astronomical distances, easily focused on the melon sized device.
“There,” One of the specialists said. “Scorch marks. Something caused it to blow all of its fuses at once.”
“Alien weaponry?” the XO suggested.
Captain Moon frowned, but the idea that the probe might be fired upon had crossed her mind, as well as how to respond to such an action. “We don’t know that it was a weapon or a hostile act. Not for certain.”
“If it was a weapon, then that means they have the ability to disable or destroy our technology,” the XO pointed out. “If they fire that weapon on the Seeker, then we’ll be dead in the water.”
“I’ve considered that fact, thank you,” Captain Moon said, frowning. She sighed. “Warm up the Tunnel-Drive. All non-essential personnel are to prepare for emergency translation. We’re not jumping yet, but put every civilian under anesthetic until further notice. I’m ordering Night shift to the hibernation bay as well. Day shift military personnel will remain with me to observe the situation. I’ll have my finger on the jump button until further notice.”
~~~~~~
“They are warming up their FTL drive,” Eolai noted.
“They are preparing to flee,” the Topokan speaker declared. “We must disable their ship before they--”
“Fleeing is an entirely reasonable response in their situation. Disabling their ship is an unnecessary escalation of force and an unacceptable action. Calculate their destination. If they flee, we will send a single ship to pursue them and attempt further communication,” Eolai declared. “They have displayed no hostilities up until now.”
“They have fired a missile at us,” the Topokan objected.
“We don’t know it was a weapon. We won’t know what it is until we have analyzed it,” Eolai pointed out. “Stand down. Broadcast my instructions to all ships.”
The computer clicked that his broadcast had been sent, and he watched as the Topokan shuttle made best time for the wreckage of the ‘missile.’
~~~~~~
Captain Moon observed as the shuttle craft dispatched from the lead alien ship. She and three other officers were the only ones awake abord the Seeker of New Discoveries. She watched, nervously, as large shapes in vacuum suits got out of the shuttle, spacewalked over to the ruined probe, and spent some time examining it. She breathed a sigh of relief when they dragged it back to the shuttle and returned to their mothership.
“That’s right,” she said. “It was a gift. I can understand being a little jumpy. We’re jumpy too.”
~~~~~~
Eolai watched as they placed the relatively small device onto the deconstructor. The damage caused by the destruction of the capacitor and the vast energy which had been released had slagged many of the components of the device, but it only took Eolai a few minutes to determine what it was.
It was a space telescope. Not a weapon. The large capacitor was there to fuel the miniature FTL drive, which used the same subspace technology that the larger ship employed. Aside from that it had a few small ion thrusters. The majority of the device was dedicated to lenses and mirrors.
It was probably one of these very devices that had noticed the emissions from the Rockatas and caused their guests to investigate.
“You Topokans are rubbing off on me,” Eolai complained to his crew. “They sent us an example of their technology and I respond by shooting this beautiful piece of engineering out of the sky. I wish that I was too innocent to know for certain that I made the right call.”
“Was it a weapon?” the Topokan speaker inquired.
“It could be used in war,” he admitted. “But only for spying. If it was parked far enough away from a civilization their defenses might not notice its arrival. After that it could sit in silence and drink in the light of their society. But it is also a scientific instrument and a method of exploring the universe. I choose to believe in the innocence of these people, and that this was a gift of cultural exchange which we, in our paranoia, have interpreted the wrong way.”
“If it was not a weapon, have we done wrong?” the Topokan asked, growing more nervous.
“Yes and no,” Eolai said. He sighed, and began working with the computer to design a device. It was very similar in size and even function to the gift from their guests, but without the large capacitor and FTL drive. It was unfortunate that the majority of the technological pieces of the device were destroyed, but it only took a few moments to create a functional prototype using Yonohoan technology.
He specified that its ion engines would be controlled by a very simple program. One which could be operated by a Rockata. He reviewed the specifications of the device – a toy, really – and ordered the material printers to create six of them.
“Launch this towards their ship at a very slow speed,” Eolai instructed. “And we will play together until they see that we will cause them no harm.”
~~~~~~
“Motion from the lead ship,” the petty officer observing their escorts declared, putting the telescopic image up on screen. A small flashing device was speeding away from the ship, heading vaguely in the direction of the Seeker. Like the primary ships it was flashing through various spectrums, giving it a prismatic appearance. It was no larger than the probe that had been destroyed hours ago, although the resolution of the telescope, the size of the probe, and the distance between prevented Captain Moon from getting a very good look at it.
“Two more devices have been launched from the lead ship,” the officer announced, entering a few keystrokes that sent the images to Captain Moon.
She watched as the colorful little objects bounced around in space, firing their little ion engines. She relaxed, and took her finger off of the emergency translation button. “Wake the crew up. Move from Red Alert to Yellow. They’re still interested in talking to us.”