Part 0: Introduction 1289 NDV, 2029 AD
“Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
Chapter 1
An Icepick removes small bits of ice still clinging to the strange metal. The rest of the team watched while Bojek stood up breathing heavily and said, “What? Do you want me to do this all myself?” in his characteristic Czech accent.
“You’re almost done, plus, I was here yesterday and got most of it off anyways” Graham said. Bojek grumbles something in his mother tongue as he finishes off the last bits of ice.
“There” he said, standing up and then looks over at Madison. She was looking intensely into what looked like a panel of some sort. She notices him after a second and then looks over to Graham “Can I-“?
“Go ahead”.
Madison starts pressing what looked like buttons, all of which had no effect. The two stood there watching her trying to figure the alien panel out, occasionally exchanging glances. “It’s getting pretty cold out here” Graham said to encourage her to speed it up.
“This is a totally different language than I’ve ever seen, it’s not Indo-European or part of any other language family I’ve ever seen”!
“Fascinating, but if we can’t get in you know Andre’s team would love to have a try”.
“I know I know, just give me a minute”. She tries to brute force the buttons, thinking that they are some sort of keypad, trying all the different combinations. Bojek notices a button that Madison had not seemed to notice and reaches around her to press it. A medal panel slides down revealing a screen with the outline of a hand. “Woah, how did you- “.
“This button here” Bojek says pointing at the button he pressed. Madison reluctantly puts her hand over the outline, just hovering above the screen for a second, and then slams her hand down on it expecting something to happen. Nothing does, and it is silent for a second as the team look around for any changes. “Maybe you didn’t press a button first”. Madison presses a button, but before she can put her hand on the panel, Graham takes his glove off and puts his hand on the panel. Immediately there is a slight rumble as the door opens.
The team were frozen still, all of them looking into the dark passage, but not moving. Graham put his glove back on and took a step to the entrance, but did not go in. He took out his flashlight and shined it in the narrow passage now illuminated. Inside the strange looking medal continued, with small emergency lights dotting the corners. “This is … something”.
“No shit” Bojek said.
Madison then turned on her flashlight and stepped in front of Graham eager to get inside. She stepped in testing the floor. She cautiously took a step followed by a couple more until she was confident the floor wouldn’t fall out under her. Graham soon followed her. “Maybe we should send a drone” Bojek said still outside.
“No way I’m letting a drone steal all the glory” Graham said becoming more confident passing Madison still quite cautious. Reluctantly, Bojek turned on his flashlight and quickly caught up to the other two. The three made their way through a maze of corridors, coming upon many doors. Each time they did, they tried to open them like they did with the outside door, but with none of them opening. “Maybe we should mark them” Bojek said.
“They all seem to be locked” Graham said confidently “Let’s keep going until we actually find something”.
“Alright, just don’t blame me when we get lost” Bojek said nervously.
The team weaved their way around the facility, with Madison stopping them whenever they came across any writing. They would remove ice for her to attempt to read it but like the writing on the outer door, she could not gleam anything from it. Eventually the found a large room with center console, what seemed like stations, and multiple doors some blocked with ice leading to different areas of the facility. They take a moment to admire the construction. “This is incredible… “ Bojek would say, being immediately interrupted by Madison “This changes so much about what we know, history I mean. There must have been some advanced civilization here much earlier than we ever thought. I mean, think of the consequences, If this was here, something must have happened to them. Was it climate change, I mean we are in Antarctica after all. I-“
“Ok we get it” Graham interrupted her “Can you figure out a way to turn this stuff on” he then asked Bojek.
“I don’t know if that’s a great idea”.
“Why not?”
“We have no idea what any of this does, I’d like to know what I’m turning on.” Bojek says while Madison is pressing the blank screen of many panels. While Bojek and Madison are playing with the dead controls, Graham continues to look around the room, his attention finally settles on the object in the center of the half-circle room. He askes “What do you think that is?” pointing to the obelisk looking contraption. “Beats me, maybe some sort of computer?” Bojek says while only glancing up for a second.
Graham continues to look around the room, while the other two do the same, trying to find some way to activate the facility. Graham walks edge of the room, and after walking half the perimeter he finds a button similar to the button on the outside door that activated the panel. He presses the button, and just like the outside door, a screen with a hand outline is revealed. Without thinking he ungloves his hand and presses his hand on the screen.
Immediately the center obelisk starts to glow and hum. Bojek and Madison stop what they are doing and look up at it. Bojek looks at Graham, with his hand still on the screen, and says “What did you do!” He says nothing entranced by the obelisk, when suddenly the lights in the room come on.
They are startled but say nothing as the screens on the stations turn on, and announcements are heard in some unknown language, probably warnings or start up procedures. The Oblisk stopped its ever-growing hum, and settled down into a low, barely noticeable hum. Graham takes of his jacket after noticing that it is much hotter, and he has started to sweat.
“What are you doing?” asks Madison, only then noticing the heat. She then takes her own jacket off, soon followed by Bojek.
“I must have turned on the heat” Graham said jokingly.
“You turned on a lot more than just the heat” Bojek said while quickly switching his gaze at multiple panels.
Madison noticed that the ice blocking one of the entrances had started to quickly melt, and she got out her icepick and helped dismantle the blockage.
A fox, operating sensors on the Eckzahn listening post on Europa is bored out of his mind listening to music, is startled by an alert. He scrambles to turn off his music and put on his headset. He looks at his screen and is alerted to a unique energy signature coming from Earth. The computer flagged it as it was considered out of the capabilities of Earth. He activated his headset and asked his supervisor in an unintelligible language “Major, I have some weird sensor readings coming from Sol 3, nothing I’ve seen before”.
An older Wolf came into the room and leaned into the screen. The fox points the reading and says “ That is weird, are the sensors working properly?”
“Yes, I think so” He runes a diagnostic on the sensors, and everything comes back normal.
The old Wolf sat down to investigate further at another station on the listening post leaving the fox alone, but alert.
Madison kicked the edge of the melting ice away, leaving just enough room for her to squeeze through. As she did she let out a quick scream. Graham and Bojek both quickly ran over to help. “Are you ok?” Graham asked leaning into the hole that she made.
“Yes, I just got startled”. Graham looked over to what she was looking at and noticed the skeleton on the floor. He attempted to squeeze in, but was much bigger than Madison so he had to work a bit harder to get in. Once he did he walked closer to the skeleton, providing confidence for Madison to get closer. Bojek went back to the stations and attempted to glean any knowledge from them.
“I think he’s dead” Graham said.
“Really?” Madison sneered back.
“Looks human to me” Graham said.
“Yeah, but so do a lot of hominids if you don’t look closely enough.”
“You think he’s not human?”
“I don’t know yet, considering how old this place might be, he might as well be a Homo Erectus”.
“We should get back to base, take some pictures, and bring one of his bones” Graham says as he attempts to squeeze back into the main chamber made easier by the ice melting rapidly. Madison meekly grabs one of the skeleton leg bones. “Sorry, I’ll give you this back … eventually” she says while leaving.
“Alright, we’re leaving” Graham said.
“What? Why? We just got here.” Bojek said.
“We’ve been gone longer than we were supposed to, and probably pressed too many buttons”.
Bojek angerly puts his jacket and other winter clothes back on and meets Graham at the door, while Madison was still looking around while she slowly put her jacket on.
“We have to go, we’ll be back tomorrow”. Graham said. Dejected Madison hastened her suit up and the three navigated back to the entrance. This time with the power on. They were temped to try the doors, but Graham stopped them. At the entrance, the radioed back to back, and started their climb down.
Samuel, the leader of the base set up at the base of the mountain was there to greet them. “I heard you struck gold” Samuel said as the three finished their descent.
“Just so you know, Graham turned it on, not me” Bojek said not wanting to get blamed for the facility being turned on.
“What happened in there? What is it?” Samuel said enthusiastically as the four fought the wind walking back to the base.
“It’s some hidden base, we don’t know what for yet” Graham said leaning into Samuel as he said it.
“The panel at the entrance, was there more inside”?
“Yes, there were dozens of rooms each with their own, and there was a big control room in the center, tall roof. I may have turned it on.”
“What did you turn on?”
“A computer, I think, or some power source, we don’t know. But when we did the lights came on and did the heat.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it was a balmy 80 degrees in there, or at least it felt like it”.
“Fascinating”
“Madison found a skeleton, human, nothing but bones. She took his leg. There’s still a ton left to explore; we need to go back tomorrow.”
“Agreed”.
The four reached the base, the American flag flapping harshly in the wind.
The old Wolf dialed her superiors on an unknown planet “Sir, we’ve picked up an odd energy surge coming from Sol 3, the inhabited planet, to me it looks like a fission reactor. To our knowledge the inhabitants of Sol 3 should be nowhere near that capability. On top of that it is located near on of the poles, there is no permanent population there it’s frozen over.”
“Very intriguing, what is your plan?” said the graying Wolf in his office.
“I want to send a team of marines to investigate”.
“So eager to violate the no-contact policy? What if it’s just a misinterpreted reading?”
“The location of the energy surge has no population; we wouldn’t be risking much if we investigate.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Do you know that for sure?”
“Well, not quite, but-“
“I see your point, you can send a team, but I urge you to keep it subtle. If there is indeed a population there, you must make sure you leave no trace. And survey the area first, you have to know what you are going into.”
“Yes sir”
The graying Wolf ends the transmission.
The Major turned to her Marine counterpart and said, “I want you to get all your boys ready.”
“Yes ma’am” he says and promptly leaves. The Major then asks a young officer “Send a probe, make sure it’s got life sign and energy sensors”. The young officer nods and gets to work programing the probe’s mission.
At the Antarctic base Madison excitedly analyses the bone she took with the base’s doctor. “It’s human” he says to her. “You sure?” She says somewhat disappointed.
“Yeah, I mean it could be a very close relative, but genetically it’s Homo Sapien”. The doctor says.
“Alright” she says while reaching for the bone.
“Oh, could I run a few more tests overnight? I might find something I missed the first time.”
“Oh sure, I just promised him to return it”.
The doctor laughs “I’m sure I’ll get the tests done by morning”. Madison turns to leave and says “Thanks”.
Graham, Madison, and Bojek climb back up to the entrance the next day, this time joined by two others. Keon the doctor, and Alan, Bojek’s partner. The three lead the two new arrivals into the main room. There Bojek and Alan go straight to the consoles and attempt to work out what they do. Madison brings Keon to the skeleton. The ice around the door had completely melted so they had no trouble getting through the open door. Madison returns the skeleton’s bone, and Keon kneels beside her, “Yeah, looks human to me”.
“How do you think he died” Madison asked Keon.
“No way to tell, he’s been dead for a while”. They both stand up and look around at the multiple empty passageways. Keon continues “Seems pretty empty, maybe there was an emergency, and he didn’t make it out with the others”.
“Maybe there are others who didn’t make it” Madison says as she walks down a hallway.
Bojek and Alan begin to argue about the function of each console “We have no idea what that does, don’t touch that” Bojek says to Alan.
“Right so you can touch whatever, and I have to listen to what you think these things do”.
“I’m saying, do not touch anything until we are certain that they do.” Alan grumbles and continues to touch the screen at random.
Keon catches up to Madison as they walk down the hallways not finding anything but doors, and unreadable signs. She tries many of the doors, but they remained locked even with the power on. Eventually she rounds the corner and sees more bones just around the corner at the end of the hallway. She calls to Keon “I found another one.” Keon turns around and follows her. As she rounds the corner she steps back, and freezes.
Keon notices her face and hurries up, there he asks “What’s wrong” as he rounds the corner and sees the skeleton, obviously not human. They stand there in silence as they both stare at it. Keon squats down taking a closer look at it. He reaches for the skull.
“Don’t touch it”! Madison says.
“It’s dead” Keon says as he renews his reach for the skull. He grabs the skull and stands up inspecting it closer. Madison leaning over his shoulder says “It looks like a cat’s skull”.
“Yeah, it does…”.
“But look at the rest of the bones” she kneels down to the skeleton and uses her flashlight to poke around “They look almost human.”
“Some of them do, especially the ribcage”.
“What is it?” Madison asks.
“I don’t know”.
“Take a picture of it, and let’s get out of here.”
“Not yet, I want to see if there’s more” Keon says as Madison groans.
“What I thought you were an anthropologist?”
“Yeah, that means humans, not … whatever these things are”. Keon turns to her and says “They aren’t going to hurt you, it looks like they are already dead. You were so interested when you were talking about last night.”
“Yeah, I just- OK fine” she says walking briskly away.
Back at the control center Alan continued to push every button he could find. Everything was silent as Graham watched him and Bojek attempt to figure out what everything did. “This shit has to be broken” Alan said frustrated with his lack of results.
“Maybe if you figured out what the buttons do before you pressed them you know in which order you have to press them in” Bojek responded.
“We have no idea what any of these symbols mean, and our anthropological expert has wandered off”.
“She already said that it doesn’t belong to any language she knows” Graham said, “Your guess is as good as hers”.
“Don’t encourage his guesses” Bojek said.
“You haven’t gotten anything to work either so, he can guess if that means he gets something to wo-“Graham is interrupted by a holographic display starting up.
“HAHA, something is happening” Alan says as Bojek and Graham look up at the display. Alan presses another couple of buttons, and the display loads a map, first of the solar system. They all look up in awe taking it all in before Alan looks back down and presses another button. This changes the display to zoom out for a view of whole galaxy, with dots on multiple stars.
“What is this” Graham asks.
“It’s a map”. Bojek answers.
“No shit” Graham says not looking away. Alan reaches for another button, but Graham stops him “Wait, we should keep this up, document it.” Bojek reaches for his camera and takes a few pictures as Alan and Graham continue to look at the holographic map.
Meanwhile at the base Samuel is walking between buildings when he sees two dots move in the sky. He stops to look at them. He then turns around and heads to the base’s helipad thinking that the week’s supplies are being delivered early. He stops Shepard, the base’s security officer, and points out the two dots, and asks him if he sees them. “You see those helicopters?”
“Yeah, I though we get supplies on Wednesdays.”
“We do, maybe they sent us more personnel, after that report we sent out last night”.
“Maybe” Shepard says as he walks away. Samuel continues to watch the helicopters as they get closer. Soon they are close enough to make the shape out. But he is confused, he doesn’t recognize the airframe. In addition to that he sees no rotors. He is approached by one of his subordinates after he sees Samuel looking out somewhere, he asks him “Do you see those helicopters?” and points at the two.
“Yeah … I’ve never seen that design before.”
“You think the government sent us some people from some secret project of theirs?”
“Maybe”. The helicopter’s V-TOL engines rotate as they start landing, far from the base.
“Don’t they know we have a pad here” Samuel says point at the helipad next to the two. He sighs as he starts walking to the landing helicopters. As he is half-way, the landing ramp of the helicopters is thrown down, and several well-equipped baggy silhouettes rush out. Some lay prone angling themselves at the base, while others rush forward trudging through the snow. Samuel is confused but determined to reach and greet them.
Samuel’s subordinate has gathered a small group of people also watching the helicopters at the base from a distance. “Are they Russian?” one asked.
“Not like any hive I’ve ever seen” said one security officer.
The silhouettes are finally finished exiting their helicopters as one group advances while the other stays on the hill providing cover.
As a small group of 4 approach Sam he is horrified to see that they are not human. He freezes as the raise their guns and bark orders that he does not understand. Instinctively he raises his hands, and they throw him to the ground and search him.
The small group of staffers look through binoculars that one provided and are horrified to see their boss get thrown down. They ask the man with the binoculars “Who are they?”
“Oh god”. He hands the binoculars to the security officer and says, “I don’t think they’re human”.
“What?” the security officer says as he looks through the binoculars at the group approaching the base. He sees 20, what look like dogs walking on two feet, wearing military looking gear and white camouflage and pointing guns at him.
“Oh shit!” He drops the binoculars to the other, grabs his rifle and runs. The dogs stand Samuel up and march him to the base. He is flabbergasted and unable to say anything. The overwatch group get up and leapfrog the initial group advancing towards the base after they see no initial resistance. An alarm is pulled and alerts the dogs. They speed up their advance. As the last of the base staff take cover inside, Adrian organizes the 4 base security officers for a defense.
They are not enthused, and one asks if they are going to surrender.
“We are not going to give up until they give us no other option”.
“There’s like 40 of them, were no match” said one officer.
“Fine you can leave, but whoever wants to stay, get in a doorway, set up a crossfire.” The officers set out but are noticed by the dogs. They bark more orders at them to surrender but are not understood. The dogs group up and slowly start to clear the buildings one by one. One squad was sent up the mountain to the entrance of the facility. They first clear the main building, finding multiple scared staff members. They heard them and sit them down in the open, leaving 3 to guard them while the rest leave to clear out the rest of the buildings. As they exit, Adrian opens the door on an adjacent building and fires his m16 into the exiting dogs. He hits two, one just in the armor, stopping the slug, while he hits the other in the leg causing him to fall down the stairs into the snow. The dogs are quick to return fire even as Adrian flees back into the building, they shoot their blasters through the walls striking Adrian multiple times. A team quickly enters the building dragging Adrian, who is quickly bleeding out, along with two other staffers who were struck.
A Wolf medic tends to his comrade’s wounds while Adrian and the two staffers are ignored. 4 more uninjured staffers are escorted out and clumsily instructed to drag the injured into the main building. Where all the other staffers are being held. Inside the main building one staffer tries to treat her injured friends but is unable to prevent Adrian from dying. She asks for help from the guards “Are you going to help or just watch?” The guard stares blankly back at her not knowing what she said.
She is able to prevent the other two from bleeding out no thanks to the dogs just watching. After hearing Adrian’s attempts, the other security officers surrender, when confronted by the dogs. They are all rounded up and hauled into the main building.
Madison and Keon walked down another hallway to find an open door. Madison peeks in and sees a skeleton in a pile next to what looks like a bed. Keon steps around her and walks in first. Inside he finds what looks like living quarters, there is a barely recognizable kitchen and furniture. Madison steps closer to the bed and notices there is another skeleton tucked inside the covers of the bed “Keon, look”. Keon looks over as Madison lifts up the blanket revealing a small pile of bones. She gently sets the covers down and looks at the bones at her feet.
“That one looks like a canine” Keon says as Madison steps away.
“We should get back to the main room” she says nervously.
“Yeah” Keon says as they both walk out and return to the main room without saying anything. They return to Graham trying to contact the base with his radio with no luck. He says “What did you guys find, you look live you’ve seen a ghost”. Madison looks to Keon to answer.
“We found some more bones”.
“Alright” He turns away about to ask Alan to diagnose his radio when Keon cuts him off.
“They weren’t human bones”.
Bojek stops what he’s doing and asks, “What do you mean”?
Madison speaks up saying “We found what looked like a large cat’s skull in a pile of human bones, and two more in a room. One of them was smaller, in a bed, with a bigger pile next to them, But they both had canine skulls.”
“Like pets?” Alan asks.
“No, they had human ribcages and other bones” Keon says, “here I took pictures”. Graham, Bojek and Alan group up, and Keon shows them the pictures he took. They then realized the implications of their finds.
“What were they?” Bojek asked.
Keon answers “We don’t know, we took samples. We should get back to base.”
“Agreed” Graham said “Alright pack up, the radio’s not working we’ll just have to tell them in person.
The five make their way back to the entrance in silence, each thinking about what happened. As they were approaching the outer door, they heard something. Graham whispered “get behind something” Each attempted to get behind a pillar separating sections of the hallway but couldn't provide enough concealment to hide them. After a few stressful seconds they saw flashlights. It was the squad sent into the facility, they saw them hiding and yelled at them commands they did not understand, but they knew they were caught. Graham went out first, he slowly raised his hands and stepped out. He was blinded by the flashlight and couldn’t see. The rest of the group soon followed.
As the dogs approached, they were terrified stiff, unable to move, one reached for Graham’s holstered pistol, and he asked “Who are you? We’re sorry, we didn’t know this was your base, we can leave if you want us to no problem.” They didn’t answer, not knowing what he asked. They then pushed them towards the entrance. Graham asked again “Who are you guys, where are you from?” He was hit with the butt of a blaster, and he got the message to shut up. They climbed down the mountain and were escorted into the main building of the base.
Once the dogs confirmed that they had gathered all the base’s staff, their commander turned on his translator. Because a full sentence has to be spoken to translate, there is pause between sentences. “I am Captain Amot Erichsohn of the 4th Marine Division of The Eckzahn Union. You are being arrested for suspicion of Conspiracy against the Eckzahn Union. You will not be harmed if you do not resist”. The captain turns to one of his men and asks him without using the translator when the Major is arriving. He says, “any moment”.
There is an awkward moment where everyone stares at each other for a few seconds until the door opens, and the Major comes in. She asks the Capitan “Everything in order?”
“Yes, ma’am” he replies.
She then asks the crowd of scared base staff “We detected an energy source with a much more powerful signature than your civilization is capable of here. Are you developing a new technology?” No one answers her question. She then shifts, asking “Who is the leader of this outpost?” Samuel stands up. She then asks him directly “What is the purpose of this outpost?"
“To explore and research a structure uncovered by melting ice.”
“Thank you, now is this structure capable of producing high amounts of energy?”
Samuel looks at Graham, then back “We think so”.
“Did you build it?”
“The structure? No, we found it on a satellite scan, and set up this base to research it, we don’t know who built it.
“You have been in it, no?”
“I haven’t, but we sent a team into it”.
“I would like to see inside”.
“Ok…”
“Who was on that team?”
Samuel motions for Graham, Madison, and Bojek to stand up. Still speaking with the translator, she tells the Marine Captain “Give me 4 of your men, and we will go in, you stay here and watch them”
“Yes, Ma’am” The Marine captain selected 4 of his men and had them escort Bojek, Graham, Madison, as well as the Major and her assistant into the structure.
Once inside the major quickly took of her jacket realizing the heat was on. Madison noticed and said, “This place was filled with ice, until we turned it on.”
“How did you turn it on?” the Major asked.
“There’s a control room up ahead, Graham just put his hand on a panel, and everything just turned on.” The Major acknowledged her but didn’t say anything.
They reached the control room and the 4 Marines spread out while the Major and her assistant focused on the holographic map. They were talking but had turned off their translators. The assistant seemed very excited and was pointing at things. The Major seemed skeptical but indulged her assistant’s questions. They seemed to be talking about the galactic map with the Major’s assistant point at the highlighted dots and explaining something to the Major. Madison asked “What is this place?” The Major turned and turned on her translator. Madison asked the question again “What is this place? Is it yours?"
“It’s not ours”.
“I saw skeletons, with canine skulls, are they your people?” This seemed to pique the Major’s interest.
“Where did you find them?”
“I’ll show you, it’s down one of the hallways”.
The major brought a marine, and the three of them headed down the same path Madison had gone down before. They found the open door again, and the Marine went inside first. After he confirmed that it was safe, the major went inside. Madison pointed out the skeletons, saying “There are two sets, one on the floor, and another in the bed” She lifts the covers revealing the smaller set. The major took a sample from both, and then started to head back. Madison soon followed.
When they returned the Major’s assistant was scanning the room. She asked him “Did you get everything scanned?”
“Yes Ma’am”
The Major said “Alright let’s go” and started to leave. Turning off the translators, her assistant talked nearly the entire time on the way back, seeming excited about their find. They climbed down and returned to the base. As the entered the main building the Major stayed outside and talked to the Marines’ commander. Once everyone was inside, she addressed everyone, “You all will be transported off-world and held until you can all be properly processed”.
At this news the base’s staff whispered amongst themselves asking each other what exactly they were going to do with them. As the marine’s commanded them to stand Samuel asked “What exactly are you going to do with us?”
The Major stopped just before she was going to exit the building and said “That is not determined yet, but you can’t stay here”.
She continues walking but Samuel speaks up “Are we prisoners?”
“For the moment yes”. This stirred up the crowd as they were escorted outside. They were forced to make a line and were marched to the transports the marines arrived on. Once everyone was abord they took off and flew back to the listening post on Europa.