Maria was laying in her bed reading a romance novel. She heard the station AI requesting her presence over the speaker in her room.
“Admiral Maria Aurelius, please report to Pluto Orbital Defense Station command and control as soon as possible.”
Maria sighed marked her place in the soft cover and put it on her desk. She zipped up her jumpsuit, pulled on her boots and walked to C&C as it was often referred to by the lazy military types that inhabited the station. She pulled her long black hair into a ponytail and walked through the automatic doors. She looked to her executive officer who was sitting in her chair.
“What’s up commander, another corporation looky-loo?”
“No ma’am, you put a special alert in the system for unidentified gravimetric waves detected inside the solar system, Station AI flagged it and called you in.”
Maria’s brow wrinkled as she walked to one of the unoccupied holo-consoles waved her hand over and started typing into the holographic keyboard that flickered to life. Her eyes scanned the data read outs. She started spinning the map of the solar system that appeared and traced the source to the South American Glacier.
“Once our orbit allows for it, I need comms to send an encrypted message to WTO HQ, directly to the Chairwoman. It’s already in the system. And please: Tell our satellite relay technicians to get those relay satellites back up and running. These four-hour comm black outs every sixteen hours are not acceptable.”
“Aye ma’am. Should we be on alert? Are we expecting an attack?”
“No.”
“Well excuse me for asking ma’am, but why do we care about gravimetric waves.”
“Every time we fire up the device, we create them here. So, it means someone is doing these experiments on Earth. Or someone created a portal there. So, do we need to be on alert? No. Do we need that message to get to Earth as soon as possible? Yes. So, get those satellites up and running ASAP.”
“Aye ma’am.”
Maria frowned and walked out of C&C and back to her room. She opened her book and closed it. She stood up and walked to her observation window which looked out into interstellar space beyond the solar system. She folded her hands behind her back and frowned.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Janus please display a full scan of all gravimetric waves generated inside our solar system for the last five hundred years. Include all of our data along with any salvaged from twenty-first century sources. Use my window.”
“Processing your request Admiral.”
Maria looked out at the sleek WTO flagship that was being built at a higher orbit. The orbit to the interstellar space side of Pluto gave the crew a bird’s eye view of the construction. It had been a year and a half in the making.
“Displaying information now Admiral. Please show me 2026.”
“I have two points for 2026. Both match the old GPS coordinates for Narford, England.”
“Show me 2027.”
“I have thirty-two data points for 2027.”
“Thirty-two?”
“Yes Admiral, would you like me to display them?”
“Yes.”
Maria spun the globe. Most of the hits were in Edmonton and Rome. She quirked an eyebrow. Some outliers were in Southern Utah, Moscow, Russia, Blaine Washington.
“Do any of the 2027 incidents match the signature detected on Earth today?”
“Processing your request Admiral.”
The hologram changed to two three-dimensional wave forms overlapped showing points of intersection.
“No exact matches. There highest correlation is a sixty-seven percent match. Nine of the thirty-two events.”
“Highlight those events.”
Maria looked at the events three in Rome, four in Edmonton, two in Utah.
“Compare those with journal entries by Enid Aurelius mentioning Ezekiel.”
“Nine of Nine matches.”
Maria tapped the windowsill.
“Limbo. They are all from Limbo.”
“I am not familiar with that location Admiral.”
“Janus, based on current generated data from our experiments, what are the chances that the recent event is from the same source dimension, but is a different entity?”
“Unable to make this comparison. Insufficient data. No datapoints available match datapoints from Project: Black Hole.”
Maria sighed and waved her hand on the hologram clearing it. She paused.
“Janus, show me the gravimetric wave form for the event on December 29th, 2027.”
“Displaying now Admiral.”
Enid looked the display and tapped her chin.
“Janus. Would it be possible to determine a set of dimensional coordinates that would cause our activation to duplicate this gravimetric wave form?”
“Processing Admiral. This may take some time.”
Maria folded her hands behind her back and paced. She glanced at the time. Still three hours of the comms black out left if the satellite relays are offline.
“Admiral, I am unable to process that calculation. I lack sufficient core memory.”
“Thank You, Janus. Add that to our data dump when comm traffic resumes. Request WTO Tokyo Supercomputer time to have the calculation completed.”
“I have added that to the comm request list Admiral.”
Maria sighed and looked out at the shipyard once again.