January 9, 2141, Jerr, Tau Ceti system

The time had finally come.

Once again, Captain O’Sullivan sat on the bridge of the Wałęsa, with Special Agent Oliveira at her side. Once again, she felt apprehensive.

The Sunguard Command Ship was about to jump sunward into Jerr orbit, leaving the rest of the 12th Army behind. The remaining ships would stay in the outer system, waiting and watching undetected, like silent sentinels ready to be activated. Hopefully, that would be all they would ever have to do.

But if the Jerrassian nuclear weapons program had reached the point of producing functional missiles, and if they intended to use them, this was the moment when the Sunguard would find out—the hard way. The Terran Federation was not here with malicious intent; it did not intend to impose its will on the world ahead. However, if push came to shove and it came down to a choice between Jerrassian lives and the lives of Terran Federation citizens, the Sunguard had a duty to protect the Federation.

Special Agent Oliveira had ordered the 12th Army to ignore any attacks by the Jerrassians using conventional weapons. But should a successful nuclear detonation be detected, the Army had its standing orders. They would immediately jump into low Jerr orbit and deploy their space bombs, targeting the three known plutonium refinement facilities and the launch sites of any detected missiles. Once these sites were annihilated by the antimatter bottles the War Cruisers would drop from orbit, Sunguard troops would descend and pacify all military bases previously mapped during the survey phase of the mission.

But that was the worst-case scenario, one Captain O’Sullivan fervently hoped would not come into play. Ideally, the Sunguard should be able to protect both Jerrassian and Terran Federation lives without having to choose between them. It was a sentiment she knew Special Agent Oliveira shared as well.

Despite this knowledge, she felt apprehensive.

The jump clock ticked down to zero. Before her, the universe suddenly shifted. What had less than a moment before been only stars on the blackest of skies was now the radiant globe of Jerr hanging in space before her, its indigo seas and blue-green continents clearly visible behind the scattered orange clouds hovering above its surface. She felt a little bit queasy but knew this would soon pass. The gravity gradient here above Jerr was different enough from that in the outer system to mess with her vestibular system, wreaking havoc on her sense of balance.

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The Wałęsa drifted in its low transpolar orbit, carefully orchestrated to maximize exposure to the nations below, ensuring the Terran Federation’s presence was known to any and all living on the planet. The altitude was low enough that the large Command Ship would be visible as a shining point of light even during the day; anyone with a moderately powerful set of binoculars should be able to make out its shape.

Her bridge crew carefully monitored the radio chatter from the planet below. The reaction to their presence came almost instantaneously—first in the form of a prominent dip in radio traffic as the various speakers on the ether went silent in shock, then as a rising cacophony of excitement when the people of the alien world began to realize what was happening. After that came the inevitable attempts by radio hosts, ham radio operators, and the occasional prankster to make contact with the Wałęsa. All of them were ignored.

After four complete orbits of the planet, the time had come. It was early morning in the alien capital when the Sunguard ship began broadcasting its signal across all the commonly used Jerrassian radio frequencies, using the same modulations the aliens employed. With the power of the fusion reactors onboard the ship, the signal drowned out all local radio transmissions, preventing any government below from censoring the message and ensuring the Terran Federation’s transmission could be heard by anyone on the planet with access to a radio.

She spoke with her clear, bright voice into the microphone.

“Good day, people of Jerr! My name is Jenny O’Sullivan. I am Captain of the Sunguard Command Ship Wałęsa, representing the Terran Federation, a civilization consisting of races from three worlds working together. We have come here from the stars you know as A Atore-rem and C Fovram-tar to learn about you and your world and, if asked, assist you if we can. We hope our presence is welcome here.”

The message was intended to be short and easily understood. Perhaps it oversimplified some things, but this was just the first step. Further contact would involve more complex communications, and the more complicated the first message was, the greater the risk of it being misunderstood.

The message had been spoken in the official language of United Jerr. Special Agent Oliveira had briefly considered sending the first greeting in the most obscure language he could find, to prove to the people of Jerr that the Terran Federation wasn’t, as he put it with that wicked smile of his, “space communists coming to help their United Jerr comrades.” But that would have prevented the three billion regular men, women, and children inhabiting the planet from understanding the first message. No matter what language they had chosen for their first global communication, some listeners would have felt left out, and since the Sunguard had to choose one, it made more sense to pick a language that could be understood by most of the population.

In any case, the Terran Federation had introduced itself, and now the ball was in the People’s Council’s court.

But the People’s Council didn’t answer.