by Doug Farren
“Turning on the lights.” Melissa said speaking just loud enough to be heard.
Captain Mingyu leaned forward and cycled one of her screens from one probe to another. All of them were black. “Why can’t we see anything?”
Melissa made a few adjustments, rapidly flipped through a few screens, then announced, “The hull is either made of dark matter or a material that closely resembles it. It absorbs electromagnetic energy, making it almost impossible to see. I spent three months on Ashnib trying to unlock the secrets of the crashed Akuta ship. I learned very quickly not to stare directly at the hull. The darkness is so intense your brain has a hard time dealing with it. If we run the lights at full intensity and utilize a light magnifier, we should be able to see enough to allow us to get an idea of what it looks like.”
“Is that why most of the other sensors are claiming there’s nothing there?” George asked. “I thought there was something wrong with all of our probes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the probes,” Melissa replied. “I’m moving probe three in to make contact with the hull. It’s equipped with a quantum field analyzer that will help me confirm if the hull is indeed made of dark matter.”
George made a few adjustments on his console and a moment later one of Mingyu’s screens began to show a dim view of the hull. It was rendered in green as the light amplifier worked to extract some type of image from the meager number of photons being reflected off the surface of the hull.
A green light appeared on Melissa’s console and a screen to her left began displaying a complex waveform. Her fingers played a staccato on her keyboard as she stared at the new data. “Confirmed,” she said. “The hull is made of dimensionally altered dark matter. The underlying field structure is different than what I saw on Ashnib, but it’s definitely the same material.”
“I thought ADM was unstable,” George said, using the acronym the scientists had coined to refer to altered dark matter.
“It is,” Melissa replied. “That means this is either a relatively new ship or the slight change I found in the internal field structure is enough to make it stable.”
“How long before the entire ship is scanned?” Captain Mingyu asked.
“Because of how little energy is reflected off the hull, I’ve had to slow the probes down to a crawl,” Melissa replied. “At this rate, it’s going to take at least nine hours to map the entire ship—and that’s just the exterior. There’s no way we can scan the interior through that type of hull even if it’s only a few millimeters thick.”
“Very well,” Mingyu replied. “Cynthia, you just woke up so you get to watch the bridge. Everyone else, secure your consoles, get yourself something to eat and get some rest. We’ll assemble back here in eight hours.”
Melissa turned to her console and began tapping in a command. “If it’s alright with you, I’ll- - -”
“No you won’t!” the Captain interrupted. “Tired people make mistakes and we’re not going to make any mistakes today. Get some rest!”
There was a flurry of tapping sounds as everyone locked down their consoles then began filing out of the room. The Captain waited until everyone except Cynthia had left, then said, “If anyone so much as sticks their head in here before I get back you’re to call me—understood?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Good. I’ll be back in seven hours. If that ship wakes up, sound the alarm.”
Six and a half hours later, the freshly showered Captain stepped into the ship’s mess. Melissa was already there, a half-eaten bagel and an empty coffee mug sitting to the right of a large tablet propped up on the table in front of her.
Looking up, Melissa said, “Before you ask, I slept for five hours.”
Mingyu took a ham, egg, and cheese breakfast burrito out of the freezer. “What’s on the tablet?”
“The assembled data on the alien ship. I thought I would look it over so I could brief everyone when they’re done eating.”
The Captain pulled an insulated cup out of the cabinet, set it under the coffee machine, and told it to brew a large cup of dark roast. “Good idea. Anything I need to know about before then?”
Melissa picked up her bagel and took a tiny bite. “Only that I think I’ve found a way to get inside the ship.”
The microwave dinged and the coffee pot gurgled and hissed as it finished its brew cycle. “I suppose you want to be the first inside?”
“I’m the best qualified.”
“For what?” Andrew asked, stepping into the room.
Melissa licked her fingers then picked up a napkin. “To be the first to enter the ship. I think I found a way in.”
Andrew went straight for the coffee pot. “You won’t get any arguments from me.”
Gabriel was the next to arrive. He stopped and looked over Melissa’s shoulder at the tablet. “Find anything interesting?”
“Let’s wait until everyone else is here,” the Captain suggested.
One by one, the rest of the crew arrived. Melissa waited until everyone was seated with their breakfast then got up, put her dishes into the washer, made herself another cup of coffee, and then walked over to stand against the wall next to the large monitor hanging there. With a swipe of her hand, she transferred the image of the ship to the much larger monitor.
“Cynthia, are you seeing this?”
“I am,” Cynthia replied. A small picture of her sitting at the helm on the bridge appeared in the top right corner of the wall monitor.
An image of the cigar-shaped ship was slowly rotating on the monitor. “The bulk of the ship has been scanned by our probes at least once,” Melissa began. “A few areas are being rescanned to ensure we don’t miss anything. As you can see, the vessel is cigar-shaped with a length of 953 meters and a central diameter of 477 meters. The hull is composed of dimensionally altered dark matter, otherwise known as ADM.”
A hand gesture caused the image to expand, allowing the crew to see that the hull was covered in small bumps. Melissa illuminated one of the bumps with a red laser pointer. “There are 46 of these bumps spaced evenly around the entire ship. The tops are 1.5 meters above the hull. I would also like to point out the absence of heat radiators, reaction engines, and other external equipment normally found sticking out of a spaceship’s hull. The only other ship remotely resembling this one is the images Captain Zak took of the Ba’Rutu vessel he encountered a little over four years ago.”
The image zoomed in again to reveal a close-up of one of the bumps. “The surface of these domes are smooth with no discernible seam.” The laser drew a rough circle near the edge of the bump where it appeared to rest on the hull. “A very close examination of the interface between the dome and the hull has revealed the presence of a small lip measuring 2.4 centimeters high. The design of this lip indicates it might be some type of shield protecting the tiny gap between the dome and the hull. I believe the dome is designed to roll into the hull to expose whatever is inside to space.”
“Weapons,” Frank said through a mouthful of pancakes.
“Or reaction engines, stardrive pylons, and sensors,” the Captain added.
“Possibly,” Melissa replied, nodding her head. The image slowly panned away from the dome and came to rest on a small round object attached to the hull. The perspective changed until it looked like the probe taking the image was touching the hull only a few centimeters from the object. From this angle, it looked like something sitting under a tiny umbrella. The object under the umbrella was crystal clear and rendered in exquisite detail.
“I’m almost positive that this is an external sensor,” Melissa explained. “There are over a thousand of these or ones similar to it scattered all over the hull. The small protective dome over the instrument is made of ADM. The instrument itself, however, is made of standard materials allowing our scanning devices to analyze them in great detail. Based on the design of this particular sensor, the computer believes it to be a passive EM antenna.”
“Let me get this str
aight,” Frank said. “The entire hull is made of this modified dark matter stuff that’s about as close to an indestructible material as we can imagine. The ship’s sensors are also protected by this same stuff. Am I right so far?”
Melissa rolled her eyes and replied, “Yes.”
“It’s pretty clear to me,” Frank said. Pointing at the screen, he added, “That thing’s built to take a beating. It’s a warship! And a damn powerful one at that.”
George shook his head. “A warship would need a very large power source. Nothing is 100% efficient and a large power source will generate a huge amount of heat. Look at the size of our own heat radiators. Take more than one out of service and we’re forced to limit the power output of our reactor. Take three out and we’re in serious trouble. That thing has nothing to radiate away the waste heat.”
“They don’t need heat radiators,” Melissa said.
“Explain,” George demanded.
“ADM is one of the strangest materials we’ve ever encountered. Under normal circumstances, dark matter can’t be seen or felt because it doesn’t exist in the dimensional space we can perceive. We knew it existed a long time before we developed the technology to actually detect it because it interacts with normal matter gravitationally. Somehow, through a process we’ve yet to even hypothesis, the Ba’Rutu and the Akuta can alter dark matter so it can be formed into materials we can touch and feel. But the altered matter still retains a connection to where it originated. It has the ability to funnel energy from our dimension to another. I’ve put my hand on the hull of the remains of an Akuta ship that’s been baking in the desert sun on a day so hot we needed to wear an ice vest to remain outside for more than a few minutes. It felt cool. The entire hull of that ship is a phenomenal heat sink.”
“That explains why we haven’t detected any thermal radiation from it,” George said, staring into his coffee. “We know there’s something operating inside. There could be an entire crew in there watching us right now and we wouldn’t know it.”
“Doesn’t ADM decay?” Captain Mingyu asked.
“It does,” Melissa replied. “It’s a very slow progress but one we’ve been able to measure with high precision on the hull of the Akuta ship on Ashnib. That’s how we’ve been able to date it so accurately.”
“So how old is this ship?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s brand new.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Andrew said.
“The quantum field signature of this ship’s hull is slightly different than the ship on Ashnib. Since we know hardly anything at all about this material, it’s possible that this slight change has made a significant difference in how fast or even if it decays.”
“What else do we know about the ship?” the Captain asked.
Melissa tapped a command on her tablet then transferred a new image to the screen. This one showed what appeared to be a smooth section of the hull with a round ring imprinted on it.
“This ring is similar to the one near the edge of the domes except it’s on a smooth section of the hull. A close examination of our probe data indicates it’s most likely protecting the interface between the hull and a hatch. There’s eight of these located around the hull, mostly clustered near the ends. This is the largest measuring 3.4 meters in diameter.”
“Is that how you plan on getting inside?” Andrew asked.
“No. There are no external controls and we don’t have anything that would even scratch the hull so cutting our way in is out of the question.” Melissa tapped her tablet and another image appeared. This one showed a similar ring on the hull with a small rectangular box nearby. The image expanded until the box was the only object displayed.
“This is the only hatch with a box like this next to it,” she explained. “The ring measures just under a meter in diameter and the box is not shielding a sensor. I can only hope that this is some type of personnel hatch and the controls to operate it are in that box.”
“And you want to go out there and pick the lock,” Frank said.
“Don’t you?”
“Hell no! If that’s a warship, you might trigger some sort of automatic defense against unauthorized entry.”
“You’ve been reading too many of your space operas,” Andrew told Frank. “What makes you so sure that this is a warship? We’ve never needed any and neither have the other races we’ve come to know.”
“Look at that thing,” Frank said, gesturing towards the screen. “It’s covered in impenetrable armor and doesn’t have a single hatch large enough to be useful for anything other than exposing a missile tube. The Akuta and the Ba’Rutu fought a war with each other. Maybe all super-advanced species have fleets of warships.”
Melissa shook her head and rolled her eyes. “An advanced race wouldn’t leave a warship drifting in space,” she said. “Armor can serve other purposes like protecting a deep space exploration vessel. Regardless of what it is, it hasn’t reacted to us or any of the probes. I’m willing to take the chance and try to gain entry.”
Melissa turned her attention to the Captain. “What about it Captain? We’re not going to learn much more about this ship unless we can get inside.”
The Captain picked up her coffee and rolled the cup between the palms of her hands. She looked at George and said, “Power up the hypercom. As soon as we have a link to Earth, send them everything we know about the ship and then tell them I want to speak directly to Mr. Santho. If anything goes wrong, I want him to be the one to take the heat—not me.”
George drained his coffee and began gathering his dishes. “You’ll have to make it quick. We can only run the hypercom for 20 minutes before it will automatically shut down on over temperature. It’ll take it at least ten hours to cool back down.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to send the data first. Melissa, load what you need into a beetle and find a second person to go with you. I’ll let you know if you have a go or not.”
“I’ll go,” Gabriel spoke up. “If there’s a crew over there, I’m the best choice anyway.”
The Captain stood up and the others quickly followed her lead.
Chapter 6
A blast of hot humid air engulfed AJ as he fitted the translator into his ear. By the time the door of the shuttle was all the way open, every sweat gland he had was wide open.
“Did the Ba’Rutu purposefully choose the hottest part of the planet in the hottest season of the year for their initial meeting?” AJ remarked. Even though he was dressed in shorts and the lightest short-sleeved shirt he owned, he was sure he could feel his insides beginning to cook from the heat.
“I told you it was going to be hot,” Heather said. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a light tube-top that covered up all the appropriate places. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun on top of her head. A droplet of sweat formed on her brow and started running down her nose.
“The meeting will take place inside an environmentally controlled building,” Ambassador Matusik said from behind them.
Turning around, AJ was shocked to see that the Ambassador was dressed in a formal suit. “You’re going to pass out from the heat in less than five minutes,” AJ told him.
“Quite the contrary,” the Ambassador replied. “This is a Nitnicki cool suit. Guaranteed to keep me comfortable for up to four hours in this level of heat.”
A large vehicle resembling a flat bus pulled up to the end of the ramp and stopped. The side door slid open and a creature looking like a giant spider got out and stood at the bottom of the ramp. “Welcome to Ashnib!” he said.
AJ took two large steps and stopped in front of the new arrival. Holding out his hand, he said, “It’s good to see you again Councilman Goeglict—or, it is Ambassador now? I hope that bus is air-conditioned.”
Goeglict’s six-fingered hand grasped AJ’s in a firm grip as the two old friends shook. “It is good to see you again as well. I’ve not forgotten about your species’ dislike for our warmer days. You will find the air inside the
bus to be more to your liking.” Turning to Heather, Goeglict dipped his head and said, “Heather, how have you been?”
Heather extended her hand and the two old friends shook. “Very well. How’s the population transfer going?”
“We’ve moved about a quarter of our population to Keldanon. Creating an infrastructure to support an entire planetary population from scratch has proven to be quite difficult.”
Even though he desperately wanted to get out of the heat, AJ turned and said, “Councilman Goeglict, this is Ambassador Aleksandr Matusik.”
The Ambassador stepped forward and without any hesitation, shook Goeglict’s hand.
“Actually,” Goeglict said as they made their way into the much cooler bus. “I’m no longer on the council. As of a few weeks ago, I now carry the title of Ambassador. I will be returning with the Ba’Rutu as part of the ambassadorial exchange. Since the Ba’Rutu insisted on your coming to this meeting, I’m surprised you’re not making the trip as well.”
AJ shook his head. “I’m quite happy to be doing what I do right now. I still have no idea why I was invited to this party.”
After all the passengers were aboard, the bus smoothly accelerated away from the shuttle and headed across the concrete landing pad. Everyone was forced to stand as there were no seats. AJ’s head nearly touched the low ceiling.
“You performed an excellent job as your planet’s first ambassador to my people,” Goeglict replied.
“I became hysterical and fainted. That’s not what I would call making a good first impression.”
Four years ago, during his first encounter with the Keldans, AJ had woken up in a Keldan hospital with one of their doctors leaning over him. At the time, he had been extremely arachnophobic and the sight of a giant, spider-like creature standing over him had caused him to faint.
The bulk of a Keldan’s body is contained in a large, central, ovoid-shaped section to which six legs are attached. The entire body is covered in coarse hairs averaging eight centimeters in length. Their large head is connected to the main body by a thick neck. Located behind each of the two eyes is a short, furry antenna below which are the small ear diaphragms. Positioned on either side of the mouth are two 15-centimeter long feeding appendages that terminate in a three-clawed gripper. Two arms are attached to the main body just below and to either side of the neck. Keldan hands have six digits.
