Aria was fuming on her way to her office. “I need to see the ship’s shrink? The Captain needs to see the shrink if he thinks I’m not fit enough to handle the work!” She slammed her door behind her.
She thought it was unwise for the Federation to ignore the human capital before them and instead treat them like a savings bond that had little to no benefit for possibly hundreds of years. Instead, she believed the Federation should be accelerating the progress of these underdeveloped civilizations and bringing them into the fold before the possible return of the Quillian alien race in Federation territory.
“Too primitive to send a text,” she grumbled. “They’re smarter than everyone thinks.” She dismissed several reminders on her main screen and brought a custom linguistic program to the forefront. A wondertool she designed as her final project in the Academy, this now ubiquitous software helped ships all over the galaxy communicate with new neighbors in a fraction of the time it used to require when establishing initial diplomatic relations.
She realized during her linguistic studies that all Terran-like humanoids across the galaxy developed structures of language in only one of a few ways. The languages of the home world, Earth, were an excellent case study of what once seemed infinitely varied and complex was actually interconnected and simple when analyzed with the power of dark-matter computing.
She opened the source code of her program and made a few changes to accommodate Planet 747-B’s specific natives. Maybe she should have been an academic. She was starting to think she was better at research than command. This made her sad.
She plotted on-screen several soundbites from their probes on the planet surface. What her officer colleagues mocked as grunts and whistles, she knew to be the seeds of an emerging complex language possibly only generations away. With the proper inspiration, these people could start communicating via body language and signs long before they developed the idea of intentional verbalized syntax.
Her software went to work and began searching for signs of consistency in their guttural noises when sirens from the ceiling began blaring. Her starport shade closed in response to an emergency. Her heart began to race and then the Captain’s voice spoke through an intercom. He sounded distraught.
“Pantel, sensors are blowing up in response to a small, unidentified vessel about to exit hyperspace into our orbit. Navigation is recommending we treat it as a threat until we know more. Get over here and help me prep incognito mode.”
As second to the Captain, she was desperately needed to assist during emergencies. This was her time to shine when there were nothing but tasks before her and eager crewmates to follow her lead. She clutched her datapad to her chest and rammed through her door. While dashing down the hallway, Hansel caught her scent and hustled alongside her.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “I was walking by your office and heard the Captain say something about a threatening unidentified vessel?”
“Please get out of my face. I don’t know anything.”
“I just want to know if I should shut down my lab and enact combat security protocols.” He dodged out of the way of security personnel running in the opposite direction. While they moved out of the way for Aria, they would have plowed right through Hansel if he stayed the course. “You don’t think it could be Quillian, could it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There aren’t any Quillians in Federation space.”
“How can you be sure?”
He was being utterly annoying so she pushed him out of the way and burst through the bridge’s door.
There was chaos on the floor. Tinsdale rushed past her with a fearful look on her face. Aria consulted a monitor near the group of Navigation officers and then turned to the Captain. “Sensors are picking up the ship’s radiation degradation field. We have about ninety seconds to put a blanket over us.”
“Get it done!” he said.
Aria paced through the room and directed the specialists.
“I-I can’t believe Quillians are here,” Officer Gregory Talfats said as he rerouted the ship’s power. “Haven’t they been missing for fifteen years?”
She strode to his side and grabbed his shoulder, swinging him around in his chair. “I don’t want anyone spreading fear on this bridge, am I clear?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Besides,” she said as she swiveled his chair back around, “we don’t know the identity of this ship.”
“But look at the light-bend signature...um, sir.” He pointed to a tiny string of numbers on his screen. They quantified the light distortion caused by the other ship as it shot through hyperspace.
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Aria read the numbers. Talfats was right. This hyperdrive was not Federation hardware. “Oh god.” She pointed at crewmates across the room. “I want us cloaked in thirty!”
She dropped into her seat and glued her eyes on the stars on the external monitor. She did not want to show it, and she desperately hoped her face was painting a picture of composure, but the very idea that the Quillians may have returned made her heart race. She half expected her insides to jump out of her chest and run for safety across the tops of the computer consoles. From somewhere she could not see, someone clanked a cup across metal bars. A stranger cried. She recognized these sounds. They were in her head.
The Captain opened a communication to the entire ship. “Mandatory level 3 radio silence in t-minus ten seconds. Power down on three...two...one…” The primary lights of the bridge went dark and security beams illuminated the emergency exits. Everyone watched the monitor with bated breath as a spot in the blackness of space rippled unnaturally. A flash and a pulse made way for a curiously shaped hourglass vessel.
It did not look Quillian so far as Aria could recall, but the last time anyone had seen one had been many years.
It was small. Talfats confirmed that it was a class 5 scouting vessel, but the occupant’s affiliation was still unknown. “No armaments detected. Hardly something to be worried about.” He and many of the crew sighed with relief. He let out a strained chuckle.
“That ship isn’t what I’m worried about,” the Captain said drearily. “It’s the one that comes after if it finds something it likes.”
The energy in the room dissipated. Aria feared the loss of precious morale, so she stepped close to the Captain and whispered in his ear. “Sir, our cloaking measurements are all within safety parameters. We should be completely invisible now unless it decides to physically ram into us. I think a little bit of optimism would be appropriate for the crew.”
He grunted. He reopened a ship-wide communication. “We are currently hiding from a curious ship that, at this time, poses no threat to the Century. However, the officer team is still accessing its capabilities so I require everyone to continue their vigilance until this state of emergency is lifted.”
“Sir,” Tinsdale said as she sent video to the large monitor, “the ship is descending into the planet's atmosphere.”
“The natives,” Aria gasped at the Captain’s side. “We have to warn them...protect them!”
“Keep your mouth shut, Pantel,” the Captain muttered quietly. “I need unity right now.”
“You’re right, sir. I’m sorry.”
They watched the ship fly down toward the surface at about the general area that Aria believed her settlement of interest to be.
“That is out of the question, Pantel!” the Captain said. He and Aria stood toe-to-toe in his office. Neither of them were willing to budge.
Aria’s chest was still filled with anxiety. She felt like she needed to take action, take some step to reconcile this threat. “Sir, with all due respect, these natives...erh, the planet and all its resources hold a significant strategic advantage to the Federation's long-term efforts. We can’t turn a blind eye as a possible Quillian decimates an investment! I know this is against E-1 protocol, believe me I know, but I am suggesting we send a boarding party down to the surface and...”
“We are not at war, Lieutenant!”
She flinched. He felt it necessary to remind her of her rank. He directed her to a chair with a remorseless finger. She reluctantly sat and he did the same in his imposing high-back throne of sorts.
He turned on his wall mounted monitor and displayed a map of Federation territory. There were notably no Quillian marks along the borders. The war had made sure of that. “This is a time of peace and we are a peaceful survey vessel. We won the war and sometimes it feels like an ancient memory I can barely recall. And yet, there are times I’m smack dab in the middle of it again.”
Aria had never heard the Captain speak like this before. Did he too feel the presence of those wartime ghosts behind his shoulder? There was no way this strong pillar of a man wasted an ounce of his intellect on the mistakes of the past. That was the hallmark of a broken person and he was anything but.
“It’s taken me a long time to confront my demons, but I wouldn’t have made it this far if I hadn’t.”
What was the Captain saying? Had he seen a shrink? When? And how did he bring himself to do it? She had so many questions, but he left her no time to ask.
“I think,” he continued, “we all knew that the Quillians had been off somewhere licking their wounds. It was only a matter of time before they took another swing at us. Whether or not this is one of them, that’s not for us to investigate.”
Her chair screeched as she stood up in defiance. “Isn’t a Quillian presence justifiable cause for our involvement now? This vessel’s job is to observe and document. Let’s get down there and see who and what they’re up to! The intelligence could be invaluable to the Federation! Give me the order, Captain!”
“Don’t hold your breath. Engaging in deliberate counter maneuvers against an enemy species without direct orders from Central Command is the last thing I’d want us to do.” He terminated the viewer program and a screensaver, featuring pictures of his family, began to play. He was holding his daughter up in the air, her smile brighter than the sun, with his husband sitting behind them on a blanket on a green hilltop. The Captain looked so happy, so content.
He knew better than anyone, even her, what was at stake if the Quillians were back. Aria understood that if he could order her to investigate, he would.
Realizing they were on the same team, she smirked and leaned herself against his desk. “That’d be your last order? So, you’re saying there’s a chance.”
His frown was like gravity and pulled his wrinkles toward the floor. Then, he cracked a smile. “Ha, ha, ha. You always know just where my edge is, don’t you?”
“That’s my job, sir.” She grinned as she looked self-consciously toward the floor. She liked what she and the Captain had. It was a balance of challenge and respect and she always felt like she could speak her mind. As long as they were honest with each other, the frontier of space did not stand a chance.
He tapped his finger upon his desk. He deeply sighed. “Okay. Listen. I hadn’t decided this until just now, but I’m going to send an emergency communique to Federation dispatch and get us a combat vessel, carrier class or better. It’ll escort us from here to our next port. I don’t think that little UFO is going to give us any trouble, but, just in case, I’d like to waggle a little firepower in front of it for insurance. If, when they get here, they want to go down and take a look around, they won’t hear any objections from me.”
She gazed out the starport behind him. “I understand.” But to herself she thought: what if they’re too late?