“Good morning, Captain MORGAN! It is currently 6:00 UGT. You have “0” high priority alerts, “3” notifications, and “2” low priority notices, awaiting your input. It is-”
Joshua groaned in relief as the insufferable morning reminder died off, hand still stretched out for a moment before he slowly dragged it across his face.
“Just 3 more decades, Joshua. 3 small decades, tiny, inconsequential decades, and you’re home free to the planet of your choice.”
Very much not thinking about the odds of the UNEA refusing his retirement demands, and just sticking him in this junker until his death, the captain got up, quickly making his bed before grabbing his uniform and taking the three steps needed to reach his sonic shower.
As he quickly undressed, he decided to bite the bullet early this time. Getting in the cleaning unit, he roughly cleared his throat as he got it started, feeling the unit wind up with a low whine.
“Alice, can you list off my notifications and notices?”
“Of course, Captain. First notification arrived at 20:28 UGT, from Lead Engineer SWATHSON. it is as follows:
“Hey, Captain. Not to be a Scragger, but you’re probably going to have to check out last night's report. We’ve noticed a flying, metallic object on the radar. Will keep you informed as we get closer ; it’s still too far to make out much, except that the form is a bit strange for an asteroid.”
Frowning thoughtfully at the synthetic reproduction of his oldest engineer’s voice, and feeling the shower finally start to shake off all the dust and oils off his head with its sonic waves, Joshua let the waves go past his head before asking A.L.I.C.E.
“ Are the next two notifications from Gregory? Play them out if so.”
With a quiet ding and a brief flash of light in the shower, Alice smoothly continued, adding an holographic text this time.
“Of course, Captain. Lead Engineer SWATHSON added the following messages:
* At 23:47 UGT, Saturday the 19th: “Captain, we’ve got some more data on that peculiar object. You’re probably going to have to file a MISP-714 report ; it looks like an old space probe. Like, old space probe captain. I don’t think we have made any like this in at least 200 years. Hell, I’m surprised we can still detect any electronics on this thing. We should have a visual in approximately 6 hours, I’ll keep you informed as we get more information from our scanners”.
This is going to be a pain, I can already tell. They’re going to ask me to file it up ninefold, for each branch involved, aren’t they? Urg. Some days, it doesn’t pay to get up.
As Joshua stepped out of the shower, as clean as he was ever going to get out here in space, he put on his suit, and gestured at his assistant AI to keep going.
* At 2:22 UGT, Sunday the 20th: “Captain. There’s something wrong, and hopefully it’s with our sensors, but that thing I scanned? It’s not just an old probe. There’s way too much electronics signals coming out of it for it to be just digital ghosts. We’re also getting some radio signals, but there’s gibberish mixed with the signal, we can’t understand a word that’s getting out. Very guttural, sounds Scandinavian or something? In any case, it doesn’t make any sense : I know for sure we haven’t made anything like those in literal centuries. Yet those signals imply it’s brand new, or close enough to be fully functional. We’re estimated to have a full visual on it in a little less than 4 hours, so I’ll-”
Joshua flinched as the bright red light of a high priority alert suddenly blinded him, his frown turning into an outright scowl as the alert was read out by A.L.I.C.E.
“Alert from Lead Engineer SWATHSON:
Captain! Joshua! We need you on the bridge right fucking now, we have visuals on the probe! It wasn’t a sensor error. I repeat, this was NOT a sensor error. We have a genuine Xeno probe in front of us, and it doesn’t match any of the ones in the database. Hell, we finally managed to isolate parts of the radio waves, and they’re speaking in Data Age English, along with another language we can’t identify at all! This is so far out of what we expected we have no fucking clue how to proceed, especially considering we may have been spotted on their monitoring systems.”
Joshua couldn’t help but put his head in his hands. What the fuck?! This was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission! Find some nice asteroid belts, or a planet rich with minerals, perhaps even some viable terraforming worlds, but there wasn’t anything to suggest that… that there would be some unknown Xeno civilisation, out in the middle of fucking nowhere! Or is that a pod that tried to go off on their own and had to develop this thing from scratch?
As he heard another ding from the alert, still waiting to be addressed, Joshua took a deep breath. Slowly. Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled.
With a final shake of his head, Captain Morgan straightened out. As he rushed at a fast walk towards the bridge, opening his door, he was met with the sight of an Apprentice, hand close to the pad of his room. As they both stared at each other for a moment in surprise, he dimly noticed that it was a new addition to the crew ; the lad must be in his fifties at the very latest, which means either an impressive record or well connected. The Recruit snapped a salute after a moment more, which he brisky returned.
“Captain! I don’t know if you already-”
Morgan bulled straight ahead, merely gesturing with his head forward.
“Yes, yes, the probe, I know, let’s get to the bridge already, lad.”
As he heard the Recruit scramble to follow, Morgan, not the first time, was thankful that space was such a premium in any space worthy vessel ; that meant that it only took them a few minutes to actually reach the command station.
As the reinforced doors opened to allow them entry, Morgan ignored the feminine “Captain on deck” that went up and instead gave a long look at the room. It wasn't hard to see that everyone present was spooked ; the communication officers were trying to reach what looked like all the bases in a jump radius, and more than a few that weren’t. The Petty Officers on board were squawking between each other, clearly trying to reach a consensus on something, and just as clearly failing. Meanwhile, most alarming of all, Gregory was right in the middle of that conversation, wide awake after a 30 hour shift, a tower of empty cups next to him the likely culprit. He hated the stuff, and barely tolerated the other officers on a good day.
As they all startled at the alarm and stood up to salute, Captain Morgan strode up to Lead Engineer Gregory, barking out a quick “At ease, return to your post!” with a salute of his own. As he reached the engineer, he took in his worried frown.
“That bad?”
The second most senior officer, war veteran and one of the most unflappable men he ever met, rubbed his jaw for a moment.
“It’s not so much it’s bad, Captain. It’s just very much outside of anything we’ve been expecting for this mission. The probe”- And here, he pointed out with his mechanical hand at the window on the frontside- “ is… rough. Rudimentary, even. Hell, anyone that graduated from his formation and has the slightest bit of experience could do better with only his survival kit and a bit of ingenuity. The design is ancient even for our great-grandparents, lacking anything more sophisticated than a basic radio and an unprotected data cash.But the design… it’s human made, or human inspired.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
He let the word resonate for a few moments. Morgan pinched his nose, but went along with the theatrics.
“What makes you say this, Swathson?”
He gave his fellow veteran a mirthless smile in answer.
“I won’t point out the obvious difference in aesthetics whenever we meet Xeno vessels. But this thing… just look at it Captain, you’ll get what I mean.”
A bit nonplussed, Morgan took a few steps towards the window, spotting quickly a metallic, dish shaped object. As he get a proper look, his jaw dropped.
“What the… Swathson, how in hell is this possible? This looks straight from the history holographs?!”
Gregory shrugged.
“We have no idea. Good to know it wasn’t just me losing my connectors, since no one else here had any idea of what I was talking about. But it’s not why I sent out that alert ; if that was all, it could have waited. It’s emitting a signal, Captain, a radio signal that we’ve confirmed to be in old English. We’ve narrowed it down to between the 20th and the 24th century, so it’s at least 200 years before the First Galactic War. And if that flying saucer is actually identical to the original model…”
Captain Morgan swore in his mind.
“The First Gen Voyagers had an imaging system! If that’s the case, and it also has any kind of planetary communication system, we’ve already been beamed right into their data centers on their world.”
Mind racing, the captain tried to remember if he had ever seen any situation like this. What could be done…
“Considering you haven’t opened it with it, I’m guessing it was impossible to disconnect that probe or isolate its signals?”
The old engineer regretfully shook his head at that.
“If we were expecting to find a probe in the first place, and honed in with stealth? Sure. In full exploration mode? Not a chance. With how many kinds of waves and signals we’re emitting, they must have spotted us nearly as soon as we spotted them, even with that rusty bucket.”
“Of course, it would have been too easy otherwise”, Joshua muttered out. He straightened his back. “Have you managed to find out where that signal is going? At least that way we’ll know which way to look at before they start opening fire on us right out of a Light Jump.”
As that drew a snort from one of the petty officers, Morgan gave that little group a look.
“I’ll get to you in a moment. Just trying to get a full picture of the technical side, so unless you have pertinent information…”
As his voice drawled out without further interruption, he tilted his head to Gregory.
“We’ve got a direction, yes, though we have nothing more for now. We’re expecting to be able to triangulate the coordinates once the message reaches its destination, but it’s still in transit. If we were to use one of our own, light jump able probes…”
Morgan stiffened at that. He chewed thoughtfully on his lower lips, before decisively nodding.
“Do it. I’ll take the blame if it comes to it, but we need to know more if we want to get out of this alive, nevermind in one piece and without more debts to our names.”
As the peanut gallery added a muttered “If only!”, he decided to wrap this up quickly.
“Keep me informed as the situation evolves. And… try to get some rest, Swathson. Even for us, staying awake 48h straight is still nasty.”
“Bah! Just like old times, I say. And,” he took a big gulp out of his coffee cup, “I’ve got the same old crap to keep me going too.”
Smiling faintly, the captain then turned towards the, still in parade rest, petty officers.
“What has been done so far? I’m guessing you’ve tried to contact homebase?”
Master Chief ZURKOY took the lead, answering for her division.
“We decided to try and follow the first contact procedure. It’s… far from a standard case straight out of the simulation, but it seemed the most logical action. However… we are getting nothing back.”
“Nothing? What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly this, Captain. Our signals are not getting scrambled, interfered or mixed up in space white noise, as far as our sensors can tell. Yet we’re getting nothing back. It’s less as if they’re not answering, and more as if they’re not there at all.”
“... Do you have any idea of what’s causing this, officer?”
She hesitated a few moments, before shaking her head.
“None that makes logical sense, Captain. My apologies.”
Ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut, Morgan shook his head.
“Keep trying to reach homebase then. Hopefully the signals have just been mixed up with all those space radiations. Officer THAIX, how far along is the translation process?”
“Ah, well, I’m waiting on our B.A.I.T to finish up the last spot we haven’t found in our language database. It should be any minute now.”
“Good, keep me informed too. And how is our weapon -”
“Ah, Captain! I just got the translated message. I’m sending it up to you as we speak.”
Pressing a digit to his ear implant, Morgan listened intently to the synthetic voice that was speaking.
“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization. We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe”
What the FUCK?! This is from Earth? Our old homeworld?! How?! It’s a burned out husk, nowadays! To boot, there is no way anyone, or anything, could have constructed this without our knowledge!
Wait! This message, is this… is this the actual Voyager 2? This makes no sense!
Taking a deep breath, Captain Morgan looked as stoically as possible to the Scientist Officer.
“Is that all there was to this radio message, officer?”
“Ah, no, there’s a few more languages that are still being translated, but we’ve already identified them as other human languages of the same time period. We’re expecting them to be identical messages, broadcasted in different languages in hopes of showing cultural diversity.”
As Morgan started to feel a headache coming up, Lead Scientist THAIX continued.
“Though I’m still waiting on the full analysis, Captain. Perhaps there is more to it than the first scan would suggest?”
“Please do so, and keep me informed.” Turning to the last officer, Morgan asked bluntly.
“Anything more to add, Officer Sùn?”
“Nothing urgent, though I sent you two minor notices that we’ve traveled through unknown radiations during the night. It was a never seen before combination, but it seems to have merely bounced off our shielding. I logged it and sent it for analysis, just in case.”
“Again, keep me up to date on anything that’d come out of it. It may explain why we’re not getting our signals through.”
Or why we’re in front of a relic that looks brand new
A sudden head movement from Officer THAIX caught his attention, and he received an alert a few seconds later.
“Captain, I’ve sent you another message that was just translated. It looks like there was a Xeno language in that package, though it looks remarkably similar to that outdated form of English.”
“Greetings, habitants of Earth! We, from the planet of ASHLER-KELL, have received your message. We share -”
As Joshua listened to the Xeno’s speech, he couldn’t help but think to himself that it was the first time he’d be happy to merely be dealing with a First Contact case.
Wait… First Contact Protocol… Oh fuck. There goes his retirement for the next century…