Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  “Vostonchny Control confirmed. Good to hear from you. We are at minus forty-eight for lunar orbital insertion, and Moscow has been dark,” Gregori came back.

  “Understood, Gordust. Proceed with primary mission protocols until orbital stabilization and then switch to protocol bravo three, acknowledge.”

  “Bravo three, acknowledged,” Gregori said, clearing the channel.

  Yuri wondered what bravo three entailed. All trans-space protocols were designated with the alpha prefix, while the lunar surface team protocols were bravo based. What exactly bravo three referred to was beyond him.

  “Gregori, what is bravo three?” Yuri asked nonchalantly, wondering if the man would tell him. He hadn’t been cleared for it and didn’t understand why the secrecy, so he forced the gambit to see what he could glean from the lunar commander.

  There was a long pause before the man spoke. “Yuri. The Chinese have made it to the surface before us. Alpha one approach stays the same, but we will be more . . . aggressive on the surface. Just get us into orbit. We detach after the first orbital confirmation.”

  Olga gave Yuri an interesting look. Obviously she didn’t expect to hear that much information either. Yuri keyed his mike. “Copy and understood. Be advised that the readings we’re receiving from the surface are stronger than our reconnaissance satellite has relayed. Recommend we send one of our passive recon probes first to ascertain more data points.”

  “Negative, Yuri,” Gregori replied somewhat informally. “Protocol calls for an immediate detachment and landing.”

  Yuri didn’t like the new procedures, but if that was what the mission called for, he’d do his duty. “Confirmed. Ready your team, then, Commander Antov, and I’ll call mark at minus ten minutes.”

  “Affirmative,” Gregori replied, seeming not to notice the formality from Yuri.

  “What’s going on earth-side?” Olga asked after Yuri had cut the com link.

  “I have no idea, Olga,” Yuri said, focusing now on their insertion in less than forty-five minutes. “Go to infrared and track all orbital bodies. See if you can get a reading from the surface when we come around, and make sure we can track Commander Antov in the Ruski Zvesda.

  “Are you really going to allow them to detach before we confirm orbital trajectory?” she asked.

  “You’ve seen the orders from over a month ago. Commander Antov is in charge of all lunar activity. We just fly this big pig,” Yuri said, looking sideways at his copilot and allowing a smile to cross his face.

  The Gordust wasn’t even remotely aerodynamic looking, but it didn’t matter. Pig was as good as any description for the station, which had several modifications made to it. A hundred years earlier in the lexicon of U.S. Americana, it would have been called a jalopy. As long as it responded to his input commands, Yuri didn’t care.

  “Yes, but you’re in charge until they do detach. Can’t you delay for even one orbit so we can get an accurate fix on our trajectory?”

  “I’m afraid not, Olga. Kto ne riskuet, ne pyot champagnye. He who takes no risks, drinks no champagne.”

  “I was afraid you’d say something like that,” Olga responded without looking at Yuri. It would be a very intense trip.

  23 The Moon

  People’s Republic Space Command

  Beijing, China

  In the near future, Day 46

  * * *

  “Coming around now, sir,” Lin said, tracking the orbiter as it started back around the dark side of the moon. “Cameras activated, coms ready.”

  “Try to raise Colonel Sing,” Hun ordered.

  “Beijing Control to Crimson Glory, do you copy?” Lin said, taking over the radio communications from the fairly inexperienced prior technician who stood next to Lin.

  The reaction was immediate before they could even receive the video feed. “Glory, do you read me?”

  “He must have been transmitting earlier,” Lin said, looking at her display.

  Hun knew it would take two and a half seconds for their signal to reach the moon and get back to them, so Sing was already trying to raise them. “Get the visual onscreen as soon as you can,” Hun said.

  The moon was full as seen from the earth, so the far side was facing away from both the earth and the sun. They would have their cameras searching for the device as well as Sing on the thermal band using infrared.

  “We read you loud and clear,” Lin said, her eyes darting from console to screen and back. “Can you give us a report?”

  Sing’s voice sounded calm, and for some reason, there seemed to be almost no static despite the constant barrage of radio waves coming from the alien device. “Crimson Glory went long. Location unknown. Equipment status unknown. Personal status inoperable. Broken legs, broken pelvis, and possibly broken spine, over.”

  The room once again was hushed as Lin looked to Hun for guidance. Hun nodded at her to say something. Lin opened her mike. “Report received. Standby, Crimson Glory.”

  “Get me his location.” Hun barked the order.

  Chon and three other technicians were pouring over the video feed and widening the search when the first five kilometer block came up with no heat signatures. The actual alien device glimmered a pale orange as it put off heat, but not anything intense, and it was still currently localized to the one location.

  After what seemed like minutes but was only seconds, a technician nearly shouted, “I have him. Grid twelve, longitude delta.”

  “Delta twelve,” Chon said, pulling the picture up and streaming it to the main console on the wall.

  Hun looked at the Crimson Glory in false infrared color. “My God,” he exclaimed, looking at the lander from what appeared to be a side shot even though the camera from the main orbiter was farther overhead. It looked like it was lying almost completely on its side. Two of its four support legs were broken and strewn across the landscape along with smaller pieces of the craft.

  “Thirty seconds,” Lin said, referring to the amount of time they had to communicate with Sing. They were already bouncing the radio signal off of one of the older Indian communications satellites that they had contracted the use of after losing their primary one.

  “Inform the colonel that we’re working on the problem and will get back to him on the orbiter’s far side,” Hun said, referring to the fact that coms would be reestablished once the secondary module cleared the far side of the moon and was once again within the visual arc of the earth. There were two short periods on either side when this occurred for only a few moments each hour and a half. They would have to work quickly to save their mission. Colonel Sing had his death warrant signed once he separated the lander and destroyed the docking collar. Now the question was would his death be in vain?

  General Wang watched the events as they unfolded from his military command and control room outside of Beijing. The space technicians thought he was in their building, but that was only true half the time. He had a complete surveillance system installed in the space control center and monitored their progress remotely.

  He picked up the phone and asked for the premier. After a heated discussion, he hung up and looked at his chief aide, Major Jiayang. “Initiate Operation Steel Fist. Load the nuclear warhead immediately.”

  Major Jiayang began relaying orders via her command and control console to various military assets. If the Chinese couldn’t obtain the alien device, then no one would.

  General Wang hoped this wouldn’t start a world war.

  NASA Space Center

  Houston, Texas

  In the near future, Day 46

  * * *

  “Any luck so far?” Rock asked, poking his head in through the doorway where Marge and Jack worked together in a side room off of the main control room. The control room had less than half the normal contingent of operators for the mission as the main crew was off duty in preparation for the lunar arrival.

  “Not yet,” Jack said, peering at a string of code displayed on their small laptop.

  �
��You’d think they would give us a larger view screen,” Marge chimed in.

  Rock nodded as he entered the room and pulled up a chair. “State security and all,” he said.

  “Something like that,” Marge said without looking up again. “What’s so odd is that from the data stream, all the NSA analysts, as well as the super computers they have working the problem, seem to be focused on a mathematical solution.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Rock asked.

  “Well, nothing really, Rock, but so far we’ve had access to the data stream for a few weeks now and not even one part of the information has been decoded, deciphered, or translated. It makes me wonder if we’re barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.”

  “Didn’t your SETI principles state that the foundation for any communication with extraterrestrial life would most likely be based on mathematics as a form of universal communication?” Rock asked.

  “They did, but I’ve gone over the data, and between the NSA, academia, and quantum super computers, they pretty much covered every mathematical formula of any import known to man.” Marge looked at Rock.

  “So Marge had an idea,” Jack said, a grin across his face.

  “Doesn’t she always?” Rock smiled back at Jack.

  “Go ahead, Marge, tell the man,” Jack prompted her.

  “Well, if it isn’t a mathematical equation, then I am led to believe we have to look at three other areas. The first would be chemical compositions,” Marge said, punching up a spreadsheet where she had started to track the variables relating to the data. “The next would be genetic information relative to all lifeforms, and the final one would be cosmic geography, so to speak.”

  “What the hell do you mean by cosmic geography?” Rock asked.

  “It would be like a road map where the ETs left a way to track their location to save their home planet,” Marge said.

  “Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?” Rock asked, scratching the back of his head and leaning against the table with his elbow. “I mean, ETs? More like an artifact of some sort of ancient civilization, wouldn’t it?”

  “Who knows?” Jack said. “My money is on the roadmap, ET-phone-home kind of thinking.”

  Marge nodded her head. “I’d agree with Jack or go with a chemical blueprint along the lines of the periodic element chart. You know, hydrogen, helium, and so on. The building blocks of all complex matter. This would be just as viable as a mathematical blueprint.”

  “All three including the biological theory would be possible,” Jack said.

  “So what’s the catch? I mean, what is the key to unlocking this code from the device?” Rock asked.

  Marge and Jack looked at one another for a moment before Marge responded. “The primary issue would be how any information would be conveyed. The data itself could be clear and understandable to us, but not if the way it’s presented is confusing, and that is where we are at right now. No one understands how to interpret the data in order to fit it into a structure or language that would make sense to us.”

  Rock leaned back, removing his elbow from the table and interlocking his fingers behind his head. “So would having a linguist on board be beneficial?”

  “It could be,” Marge replied, “but it doesn’t mean there would be a break through if the language was, for example, mathematical instead of phonetic.”

  “I can ask Mr. Smith for one of those linguistic experts from the academia crew if either of you two feel it’s worthwhile,” Rock said.

  “They already have a large group working on that end of things, looking for a way to linguistically decode a mathematical code, not to mention all the processing power they have working the problem,” Jack replied.

  “It seems our Mr. Smith has covered all their bases, then.” Rock nodded.

  “All but these,” Jack said, nodding at Marge’s theories and spreadsheet on the data input. “I’m not so sure they know how to think out of the box.”

  “Perhaps, but if anyone could apply logic to this, it would be you guys,” Rock said, smiling at his team members.

  “Nice of you to say, Richard,” Marge responded formally. “I’d feel better if I knew which area to concentrate our efforts on. It’s hard enough working just one theory, much less three, and add to that the fact that we don’t know how the information is being conveyed, and we are as lost as the NSA.”

  “For now,” Jack said, placing a hand on the laptop and tapping it lightly.

  “I see your point,” Rock replied, looking up at the ceiling and letting out a long sigh. “Well, keep at it in your spare time. We’ll have another day and a half before we start getting busier, and I’ll need you both at the top of your game for the lunar mission.”

  “If there will even be a mission,” Jack said.

  “I doubt we’ll send them this far just to sit it out.” Rock nodded.

  “Perhaps, but if the Chinese or Russians get ahold of the device first, there won’t be much to do on the surface except to inspect an empty box,” Marge said.

  “I take it that was metaphorical?” Rock smiled at Marge.

  Marge smiled back and started to work on the data from the laptop again. Jack looked at his boss for a moment before pulling out a notepad and jotting down a few ideas. Rock took this as a sign that their conversation was over, but he sat for a minute longer and watched his team at work. Marge looked up at him once and smiled. Rock returned the smile and then got up and returned to the control room. He’d leave in another hour or two, just in time to have a late dinner with Sally before catching a few hours of sleep and then getting up before dawn and returning to do the same routine all over again.

  Crimson Glory Lander

  Surface of the Moon

  In the near future, Day 46

  * * *

  Hen Sing set his glove down beside him next to his helmet and took a deep breath. The entire area was now dark as he had powered down most of his equipment and turned off the exterior lights. It had taken a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but even on the far side of the moon, there was enough starlight shining on its surface for him to make out a few details.

  He fingered the plastic cover for a moment and then flicked it open. The red button simply had the two Chinese characters on it for “interlock” and “override.” Sing closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. He had given his last reports on time despite the constant pain and waited for instructions.

  He knew it was a one-way trip once he detached and landed. Well, one way in the sense that he had planned to return to the orbiter and place the alien device in one of its small equipment bays and then steer clear in his lander and watch the orbiter boost and return to earth without him. He figured he’d orbit the moon for decades before someone finally came to retrieve his body, and his coffin would lie in state, a hero to his country for his duty and sacrifice. What greater honor could he have hoped for?

  Now he would die within kilometers of the prize, and it would all be in vain. Sing sighed again. Not just kilometers, but fifty-two of them, to be precise, now from the radar data fed to his console. He had really overshot his mark despite his best efforts.

  He had recorded his final transmission to be sent to the orbiter once it passed overhead. He was finished, and a simple push of the interlocking override button would open the hatch on the lander, expelling his small atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen onto the moon’s surface and exposing him to the vacuum of space. His death would be quick and the pain would be over. He didn’t want to focus on the humiliation of defeat and failure.

  Just when he was about to press the button, he heard the faint call from mission control. It was Commander Hun Lee himself. “Do you copy, Colonel Sing?”

  Sing moved his finger away from the override and keyed his mike. “Crimson Glory here. Repeat your message.”

  “Can you monitor and report on the signal data from your lander? Is it functional?” Director Lee said, his voice full of static in the small cockpit of the lande
r.

  “Affirmative, I can transmit the signal data to the orbiter for relay if you wish.” Sing thought for a moment. Could it be that his life may just have a few more days of usefulness to his beloved country? Could he redeem himself in some small way? What was the mission team thinking to keep him alive if not?

  “Commence transmit and repeat data stream flow every ninety minutes. Confirm.”

  “Confirming orders.” The military part of Sing’s mind took over. He pressed a series of buttons on his console to collect the data into several time packets, and then he pressed the transmit button on the communication’s console to encrypt and beam the information to the orbiter overhead.

  Sing sighed and then made one final reach for the medical box mounted on the side of the wall. He could reach both sides from his seat, so he didn’t need to move. He could wiggle his toes, so he knew his spine was intact and perhaps hadn’t broken his back, but his legs were another matter. He could deal with broken legs with a little help.

  In one motion, he brought out the vial of morphine and opened a new syringe. There were only three more left, so he’d have to reuse them, not that he worried about living long enough for infection to take over. He filled the syringe and then plunged it into his exposed wrist. The drug started to work instantly, giving his entire body a tingle at first and then slowly dulling out the pain that was throbbing from his legs.

  Next time, he’d plunge the bloody needle into his neck if the pain continued to be this intense.

  24 Russian Pride

  Gordust Space Station