"Well, it's pretty cold out here, so not surprised at that."
"Yes, Lieutenant."
After a few minutes, Powell leaned in close to the techs. "Did you ever notice how in the movies everything happens fast? What's taking so long?" he cried.
The crew laughed a little, releasing some tension.
Hughes leaned towards David and spoke in her best loud whisper, "Did you ever see the one where the little blonde girl kicks the smart ass across the Bridge?"
"Uh, no. That is, not yet. Ma'am." This brought him more snorts and smirks from the crew. After this light exchange, there were a few minutes of quiet, casual conversation.
Then, Chief Allen spoke up. "Visual is starting to fill in, Lieutenant."
They looked at the display to see an image that was not much more than a shadow, but it was clearly cylindrical.
"Is that battle damage?" Powell asked, pointing to some gaps in the image.
"Too soon to tell, but, maybe."
"Chief, do we have the location and course worked out?" Hughes asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
"OK, radar off."
Dan Smith came on to the Bridge as they were talking. "OK, so what do we have?"
"It's a ship, sir, for sure. An enemy ship. About four hundred thousand klicks."
Smith looked at the image. "That thing looks like shit, Powell."
"Thank you, sir."
Dan smiled and turned back to Hughes. "Can you tell the type?"
"No, the orientation stinks right now. Hard to see the dimensions. We'll know before we get there."
"Fine. We'll close in on it slowly. Don't forget that we just shined a searchlight in a dark room. Make sure we're keeping our heads up for any company."
"Yes, sir, will do."
"For the record, if they show up in force, we're bugging out, clear?"
"Yes, Captain," Maz replied.
Dan turned to David. "Do we know yet if the sphere is still there or not?"
"We don't, sir. It would be on the other side of the star by now, and we've made locating the wrecks over here the priority."
"OK, understood. You're not curious?"
"Oh, sure, I am. My guess is that it's gone, but the only way to be sure is to go looking, and we don't have the time for that right now."
Dan nodded. "We'll see how this goes. If there's time I want to go take a peek, anyway."
Crossing the four hundred thousand kilometers to the wreck would take a full day at the modest speeds Dan was willing to use. Once they got there, they'd decide how to exploit it. They had two shuttles and the six fully maneuverable EVA suits FleetIntel had sent. Tomorrow, Dan would have to decide what to do. Until then, he would hold the decision for when he had all the data he could get.
In David's mind, however, he was already crawling through the holes he'd happily punched in the side of the enormous relic. After his late evening shower and before turning in, he pulled out his journal. It was past time to put something down for Carol.
Carol —
We found one of the ships that hit Sigma — one of the bastards that killed Paula and John and Lisa and Leah and even that jerk Boyd.
So, tomorrow, I think I'll be heading out there to see what I can find. Maybe find a dead one to punch in the face? A useless gesture, I know, but it keeps playing out like that in my mind.
Despite certain questionable violent fantasies (see previous) I'm doing fine. The job is what I've needed and the crew is great. Melinda Hughes is really fun — a great banter partner. Almost as good as you. Almost.
Be safe, my girl, please be safe out there with the dead culture.
Death and death and more death. I really really REALLY hate these bastards.
But I love you. I hope you can feel it from here.
—D
Antares
Big Blue
Thursday, October 12, 2078, 1800 UTC
Every sunset at the Beta Hydri towns, Antares would drop from high synchronous orbit into a much lower fifteen-hundred-kilometer orbit to map the rest of the planet and keep up surveillance against any new enemy presence. This had been their practice on the first visit and was resumed when they returned.
Jack Ballard spent several hours reviewing in detail the latest results from these 'mapping' orbits, and at the post-Sol 57 review discussion, he felt his nagging doubts could no longer be ignored.
"I need to address an issue with the mapping orbits."
The room became quiet, and Terri Michael turned to him.
"Go ahead, Jack."
"We're covering these two other continents, but always doing it at about the same time of day."
"So, you're concerned that we could be missing something?" Harris asked.
"Yes, sir. Let's say, just for fun, that there are survivors down there. I mean, that tunnel must mean something. Or, the enemy. If we're never overhead when they're visible, obviously we'll never see them."
"We have to cover the exploration teams," Terri Michael pointed out.
"Actually, ma'am, I think they'd be fine. A shuttle can find us anywhere in orbit. If something happened that they needed to get back, they could still do that."
"You've had no unusual results so far?" Gabrielle Este asked.
"No, Gabe, none. And we have the best overhead photographic interpretation software that American, British, and Israeli intelligence could give us."
"So, what's the problem?"
"So, if I keep feeding it the same old stuff it's going to keep not finding anything. We need to get imagery that has more variety."
"OK, Jack, what is it you would like me to do?" Terri asked.
"I'd like us to get as low as we possibly can and stay there for a week."
"A week? Wow."
"Yes, ma'am. People, and cultures, have patterns. We don't know what behavioral patterns a 47-hour day creates in an advanced species, but it's likely to be something. To be able to see the pattern of anything we want to observe, we have to lose our own patterns of behavior. We have to get to where we see something like a random sample."
Terri looked over at Ron Harris. "Admiral?"
"I understand what Jack is saying, and from an Intel point of view, his logic is solid. Surveillance should be at different dates and times if at all possible."
"What about the risk to the surface teams?"
"He's also correct that a shuttle can get back to Antares from anywhere on the planet. But, I'm far more concerned about being out of communications with the surface teams."
"If they need us, we'd be out of range much of the time," Carol said.
"You're sure you need a week?"
Jack looked around the table, thinking. "OK, Captain, maybe, instead of a week let's call it three Sols."
"That's really not much less, Jack."
"Yes, ma'am. But if we want to be confident about survivors or enemy presence here, this is what we need to do."
"Captain Barnes, you're most directly responsible for the safety of the exploration teams. What about it?"
Barnes looked at Ballard for a second. "I agree with Lieutenant Ballard, ma'am. We'll need to keep in mind that we're on our own when Antares is out of range, but we'll be fine."
Terri took one last look at Ron Harris, decided to sit on her reservations, and nodded.
"OK, after we drop the next AM team, we'll get down low. Alex, what do you think?"
Navigator Alex Williams was ready for the question. "Yes, Captain. We've been using fifteen-hundred kilometers for the mapping orbits, but I think we could go as low as two-hundred-fifty. That would mean an orbit about every ninety-seven minutes."
"OK, then, two-fifty it is."
Alex raised one eyebrow. "OK, Captain. We'll be able to smell the flowers from that altitude."
"If there were flowers…" Carol answered.
Antares
Big Blue
Friday, October 14, 2078, 1800 UTC
The Sol after they found the library, Gabrielle and Greg spent s
everal hours back in the portrait house. That visit turned up several books that appeared to be primers, long on pictures and less dense with text. The new books matched some of the entries in the picture book they had retrieved earlier, and now, the previously implacable facade of the alien language was starting to crack. Greg was beginning to think he could recognize patterns in the language. He was now able to look at a page and see the words, his mind editing out the word separators. As that happened, more, deeper patterns began to come to his attention.
It started with the original picture book. He suggested 'teacher' as the meaning of the word under the cartoon. That didn't work, so he tried 'parent,' taking the suggestion from Joe Bowles, whose grandchildren had simple books that he frequently read to them. Greg fed that hint into the Swadish software and let it keep working on the text.
They couldn't be sure what they were reading, whether a book was technical, historical, or fictional. They just kept collecting the text and feeding the inference engine. Even now, with no real translation, it was telling him about the language. He thought he could see 'root' words with suffixes. There were many five-letter words that had one of a set of eight different suffixes. That looked suspiciously like verb tenses to Greg. But the idea that every verb would be five characters seemed very unlikely. There were some characters that appeared on their own. One was a circle with a dot near the top, one looked like a 7, and another that looked like a backward 7. They didn't appear in every sentence, and sometimes they were at the beginning and sometimes at the end. That smelled like punctuation to Greg, but he could not yet be sure.
It was late Sunday evening as he and Gabrielle sat talking about the language and what they had each seen on the surface.
"There's some serious weirdness in here," Greg said quietly.
"Weirdness?" she asked, shifting in one of the wardroom lounge's comfortable upholstered chairs.
"The five letter words..." Greg let the subject drop, slumping deeper into a recliner with an ottoman.
"The ones you were saying might be verbs?"
"Yes. There are characters that only appear in the second and fourth places. And others that appear in the first, third, and fifth places never appear in two or four." As he talked, he drew the words in the air.
"Do they appear elsewhere?"
"Oh, sure, they turn up in other places, not usually together."
"Does the same one ever show up in both the two and four positions?"
"Not much, but yes, they do."
"How many are there of these two-four characters?"
"Twelve."
"So, you're still thinking these words are verbs?"
"From my very provincial point of view, yes. I think they're regular verbs. But, like, anal retentive regular. All exactly alike."
"You don't ever find that in human languages?"
"Not that I can recall. Farsi has the regular endings but not the fixed length. Beyond that, I can't think of any that do this."
"And the characters, maybe those belong to a class, like vowels or consonants?"
"That's what I believe. I know I'm assuming that their writing is like ours — speech on paper. But I suppose it's possible that writing is just writing and they wouldn't speak it."
"Well, that sounds unlikely." She changed the subject slightly. "Since you named the system 'Swadish,' I read a little about the Swadish list. It's supposed to be for measuring similarities between languages?"
"Right, but it also lists a set of more or less universal ideas that most any language is going to include. I did have to trim it, though."
"How?"
"Well, our body parts for one: nose, tongue, breast, navel, stuff like that. Those might exist for an alien, but I thought they might be more confusing than helpful."
"What else?"
"Earth-specific stuff, like ant, louse, or fish."
"Louse is a universal word?"
Greg smiled, "Yep, a universal word for a universal annoyance."
"You'll get it, Greg. I know you will."
His smile disappeared and Greg was suddenly serious. "Doctor Este, I am grateful for your confidence. I just hope you're right."
Columbia
Enemy Wreck Near GL 876
Saturday, October 14, 2078, 2100 UTC
They arrived after thirty hours; their cautiously slow approach dictated by the expectation of finding more debris near the main part of the wreck. They now had a very close view of it and spent several hours examining the derelict in detail from a few kilometers away. The Bludgeon holes were obvious, but the largest opening was aft, or at least, what they thought of as 'aft.' Both sides of the ship had a hole something like a hundred meters across, with edges bent outward. That, they decided, was likely the massive IR plume that David and his Intel crew had seen from Sigma. They couldn't be sure which ship this was, and Sigma had scratched three from the enemy's inventory.
The enemy ship was rolling slowly, about once an hour along its long axis. There was no way they were going to stop that, so it would just have to figure into their planning. As his officers gathered in the wardroom, Dan started the discussion.
"OK, folks, this yapping little puppy has finally caught up with the big fancy car. Now what?"
"We're already documenting the wreck externally with hi-res photography," Melinda Hughes began. "We should be done with that in a few hours."
Katch spoke up. "My guess, sir, is that these ships are mostly gas tank and weapons. I think we should start up front and see if there's a way to get inside to whatever passes for a crew compartment."
Dan nodded. "Based on how brittle they are, I agree about the general design. But we should be looking to explore that as well. But, first things first. Our first trip over there is to install the Comm repeaters FleetIntel sent us. That way we can talk even if you're deep within the wreck."
"Clark and I can do that, sir," Katch offered.
Mike Clark suddenly sat up. "When do we leave?"
Dan waved them off. "We'll get to that. Melinda, what does the photography say about the openings in the forward end of the ship?"
Melinda flipped through some images and then settled on one to show on the wall monitor.
"Windows, sir. A couple are blown out, as you can see."
Dan turned to his Weapons officer. "Victor, get both rotaries loaded, a balanced load of half Spartans, half Bludgeons."
"Not fooling around, Captain?"
"No. If we need to shoot, we're gonna shoot fast and hard, and then we're going to run."
"Yes, sir. I'll be ready."
"OK, back to the windows. If there are windows to look out of, there must be someone on the inside to do the looking." He turned back to Melinda. "How large are those openings?"
"You mean, are they large enough to get an EVA suit through?"
"Yes."
"I think so, but we'd have to inspect them, get rid of anything sharp."
"Fair enough. We'll drop a comm relay in one of those on the first sortie, and whoever does that can get the exact dimensions and get us photography of the condition. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," Katch responded.
"Anything to add, Doctor Scranton?"
"We're looking for remains: whole, partial, skin, organs, whatever you can find." She turned to Katch. "But I can also use anything you can tell me about the inside. Chairs, switches, hatches, whatever might tell us something about this species."
Dan looked around the table for a moment. "We all want to get these bastards, I know. But remember we need to live to do that. Stay calm. Stay cautious. If we need to go back later, we'll go back later. We've got plenty of consumables this trip, and all the time we want to take."
"Katch, you and Clark go place the Comm relays. Stef, you can fly them out."
"I'll go, sir," David offered.
"Nope. If Katch goes, you stay, and vice versa. Same goes for all of you. I only have two of you for each division, so I'm going to cut my downside by keeping one aboard at all times."<
br />
As the briefing broke up, Dan gathered the small exploration crew together, along with David and Melinda.
"OK, Katch, only low-power VHF comms."
"Right."
Dan turned to Katch and Mike. "Watch out for each other over there. I can see a lot of lovely battle damage that could still bite you in the ass. Am I clear?"
"Yes, sir," Katch answered, "We'll be careful."
"OK, then, get going,"
The small cargo shuttle was pulled from its storage and positioned just inside the hangar from the ShuttleLock. For this trip, seats were placed in the cargo bay for Mike and Katch to get in and out of their EVA suits.
David Powell and Melinda Hughes walked with them to the hangar deck. They talked about the approach, how to set the comm network nodes, but mostly they walked in silence.
Once at the shuttle, Melinda took one more look at her tablet, then looked up at Stef.
"OK, we're abeam the wreck, forward of the BGH."
"BGH?"
"Oh, sorry. Big Giant Hole. Anyway, you have the placements for the relays in your suit displays. Set up all eight and we should be good to go."
"Fine. Thanks for the escort but I think we know the way from here." Katch opened the hatch, and he and Mike Clark followed Stef through, slamming the hatch behind. David and Melinda glanced at each other, sharing a hope that this would all go well, and turned to head back to the bridge.
Katch and Clark moved through the shuttle cockpit and into the cargo bay. The EVA suits were waiting for them. Stef wore a flight pressure suit, and her small frame made it easy for her to slip into the left seat and strap in. Mike and Katch loosely pulled on the EVA suits and strapped themselves into the seats.
Stef clicked the intercom. "You boys ready back there?"
"Yes, mama, are we there yet?" Clark whined.
Stef laughed as she waved to the hangar crew that they were ready. They moved into the ShuttleLock, and in a minute were outside the ship.
"Holy shit," they heard Stef say.
"What?"
"It's, like, huuuuge! It takes up the whole sky up here."
"Just get us over there, Stef, so we can see it for ourselves."
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