Explorations: First Contact

by Isaac Hooke

  Twelve standard days earlier…

  Captain Jena Morrison-Diablo took her time with the systems checks—computer diagnostics represented with graphs, charts, picture arrays, keyboard vibrations, and concise lines of meaningful text.

  The FCF Darklady is fully operational. Power cells charged. Radiation shields online. Cryogenic life support units functioning. Navigation correction not needed at this time. Sphere ship Displacement Drive (SSDD) synchronized and operating on the mark. The ship appreciates your intense personal sacrifice, Captain Jena.

  She shivered as she drank hot tea and smiled. Goosebumps expanded across her form as the thrill of exploration coursed through her body. Her only conscious companion was a semi-organic android named Greg whom she sent to his charging station as soon he checked her bio systems and helped her dress. Greg’s standby mode was what she and her sister called display mode, because the android looked like a physically perfect version of her husband—purely by coincidence, she was sure.

  Company protocol required daily review of Commander Susan Skarsgaard’s mission notes.

  Jena didn’t feel the need, wasn’t compelled like most exploration candidates at the Center of Sphere ship Training. During the COST preparation for this mission, her instructors had analyzed, critiqued, and recreated every scene in the first contact mission with the Sphere ship.

  Safety required preparation for the anomalies the SSDD could bring.

  Feeling the need, being compelled, worrying about losing touch with reality was for other people. Jena did the right thing every time, and the right thing was perfect preparation. Zero defects. Perfect attendance. Teamwork. Sacrifice.

  No one was awake to witness her speed reading the mission notes fourteen times before reviewing the video of Skarsgaard’s crew coming away from the first stomach-tumbling encounter with the alien technology.

  I love my job.

  She sipped her tea, swirled her captain’s chair, and stretched one hand toward the ceiling. Held the pose. Shook out her hand. Lowered her arm.

  Private time was the captain’s prerogative. She was psychologically qualified to be awake—not prone to panic, not likely to shut down CPP pods of people who pissed her off during her previous life or claimed publicly that the Oakland Raiders deserved to win the last six Super Bowls in a row. And she enjoyed a steaming cup of tea in the unexplored regions of space.

  Cryogenic Preservation Protocols resembled life and death. What came before could have been a very long time ago. In this instance, the FCF Darklady had won a Sphere ship contract to one of the fourteen systems, the only system that Doctor Valerie Cook believed contained Usable Dark Matter, or UDM. There was a lot of darkness in the galaxy, substances untouched by anything in the ultraviolet spectrum. There were other corporations and governments exploiting the natural resources of space, but Valerie Cook’s UDM took things to a different level.

  Most of the dark matter was junk, according to Doctor Cook. Much of the scientific community disparaged her claim that UDM might have an organic base and thus be usable by certain life forms. None of that mattered to the corporate officers. It was academic and uninteresting.

  The Klekemac system held all the wealth of the universe that could be realistically obtained and converted to usable energy. Exotic matter, especially UDM, was high on the bucket list for each exploration group. As far as Jena knew, Cook was the only scientist with solid formulas for manipulating any kind of exotic substance beyond the current understanding of humans. UDM was going to make Darklady Enterprises disgustingly wealthy, so rich that not being rich would be little more than a theoretical improbability.

  The Darklady crew would be well compensated, so long as everyone did their job and they found their way home. She had everything needed to complete the mission: a brilliant science crew and a state of the art ship, complete with a Marsupial Class Fighter Wing (MCFW) and six crack marines with Jack Boot Battle Armor (JBBA) and bad attitudes.

  Three other people on Jena’s crew had made voyages using Cryogenic Preservation Protocols (patent pending) prior to this mission. She would wake them first: her husband, her sister, and Doctor Cook. Not that she needed Cook awake until the end of the outward voyage. It just seemed appropriate; and wouldn’t it suck if she didn’t travel well. How usable would the UDM be then?

  Jena finished a second, more thorough system check without putting on shoes or fixing her uniform to military regulations. “Wakey wakey, Greg. Please mark this day as Casual Friday, Day One.”

  The semi-organic android stepped away from his charging platform. “The calendar is currently synchronized as Final Waypoint, Day Fifteen,” Greg said, standing at a respectful distance and speaking in a strong, soothing voice.

  Jena put down her tea, noticing for the first time that the gravity was slightly heavier than she preferred. “Who started the calendar and configured the ship gravity?”

  “Science Master Kevin Morrison-Diablo,” Greg said.

  A sour glob wiggled in her gut, feeling as amorphous and unsubstantial as it was undeniable. “Greg, who else is awake?” she asked. “And security code this conversation to my biometrics.”

  “Science Officer Tiffany Morrison has also been awakened,” Greg said.

  “For how long?”

  “Do you need a sedative, Captain?”

  “Absolutely not. Now answer the question.”

  “Slightly less than fifteen days. Fourteen days, twenty three hours and forty-five minutes, to be exact.”

  “He woke up my sister fifteen minutes after he woke up two weeks early?” The question fueled her doubts about taking the CPP option, even though it wasn’t strictly necessary for her. If she had been awake, she wouldn’t be playing catch-up.

  “That is correct.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Science Master Morrison-Diablo is in the galley preparing an alcoholic beverage,” Greg said.

  Jena waited. She wasn’t sure Greg’s personality software was going to work for her. Dry sarcasm and covert social judgment wasn’t her thing.

  “Science Officer Morrison is presently located in the gymnasium,” Greg said. “Would you like to finish putting on your uniform?”

  The decision was harder than she thought it should be for a captain with her diagnostic capabilities. Wandering the control bridge, thinking, and dressing proved inefficient and unrelated activities. She had no experience with this level of distraction.

  The walk to the gymnasium was…different. All her life she had been steady, determined, full of dreams that were to be acted upon and achieved, not used as pathetic ‘someday’ excuses. Data suggested a serious relationship confrontation was inevitable. She refused to accept the idea even as she physically approached the battleground.

  She stopped at the door, hesitating for three seconds as she stared straight ahead. Strategic and tactical considerations now came like faithful companions, despite having avoided her moments before, when she attempted to force answers from the revelation of her husband and sister’s two weeks spent on this ship without her awareness. Kevin Morrison-Diablo was a good man; that was why she married him. Her sister was too cute for her own good, prone to a horribly naïve decision making process that belonged in a princess fairytale, but also a genius of engineering unlikely to let a man distract her for long.

  Neither of them were the type to fool around. There was a 99.9 percent chance they were geeking out on the mass quantities of science and state of the art technology aboard the FCF Darklady. I am missing something, she thought. Purposely forgetting is not my style, never was, never should be. I am what I am.

  Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she decided her suspicion and jealousy were misplaced. Until now, Jena’s biggest worry about her sister was that she would get tangled up with one of the fighter jocks or a jarhead. The alpha males on this ship definitely had competed to impress her during earlier waypoints. She relaxed slightly, which allowed her to remember a real problem. Security Chief Ophelia Denton
(Semi-organic Android (SOA), patent pending) was on board despite Jena’s protests through official and unofficial channels.

  It was good to focus on crew problems that didn’t involve her husband and sister flirting.

  Why wouldn’t they flirt? she wondered. Anger at this stage was irrational. Healthy men and women in the prime of life flirt by the billions. What exactly is my problem?

  She concentrated on threats to the mission.

  No one with Ophelia Denton’s uncontrolled gambling debts belonged on an expedition to claim the most valuable raw material in the known, or recently discovered, galaxy. There was no procedure, medical or otherwise, that could fix core personality traits.

  If Ophelia were prowling about, that would be a problem. She had combat skills and the charisma to turn her team into the most dangerous pirates out here. Only a true criminal mastermind could steal anything in the darkest depths of space between sleep cycles, but it could happen—especially if murdering people in CPP wasn’t off the table. Mission planners and the SOA team had asserted that Ophelia Denton was now beyond such vices as wealth or fame.

  Jena’s husband and her sister were annoying and needed firm guidance, nothing more. Ophelia needed monitoring like she was on parole.

  “Greg, where are Kevin and Tiffany currently located?”

  Semi-organic androids were not supposed to hesitate slyly before answering. His delinquency went on her list of today’s irritants. Impatience frustrated her and presented cognitive incongruence with her self-image. Which was annoying, causing her to ask the next question before receiving the answer for the first.

  “What is the status of Ophelia Denton?” she asked.

  “Both individuals are in the gymnasium,” Greg said. “The swimming area, according to their rather elevated biometrics and positional telemetry.”

  Jena exhaled forcefully.

  “Denton remains locked down in the Barracks Vault until needed.”

  “Thank you, Greg. Please put yourself in standby mode,” she said.

  Greg stood near the SOA charging station without a word. The door closed silently behind her. She smoothed her uniform as she walked, thinking of Security Chief Ophelia Denton’s greed and Doctor Valerie Cook’s brilliance—anything but the image of her sister in a bikini laughing at her husband’s jokes.

  Waking the doctor up now would be the smart thing to do. The entire mission depended on the doctor’s knowledge and skill.

  Exotic dark matter gave Jena nightmares, which she thought was unfair. Facing down the disturbing visions was both a distraction and a calming ritual. She definitely needed to revive Doctor Cook for a chat. Her theories regarding UDM, while incomprehensible, were soothing.

  She stopped at the entrance to the gymnasium. Stationary bikes, rowers, and skiers occupied most of the first sub-section. Weight machines lined the walls of the next area. She passed the pristine new equipment in the half-light of ship energy conservation, following the sound of laughter to the pool.

  Water was an extremely difficult and extravagant feature of the FCF Darklady. As she understood the science, it wasn’t water at all, but an ionized collection of microparticles the computer controlled. The how of the technology was nearly as baffling as the why. Her best guess was a rather cynical view that a civilian contractor had a sugar daddy on the company research and development committee.

  Magnet water, she had called it, earning patronizing chuckles from her husband and her sister. She wiped the memory because her husband and sister had been standing too close together.

  Other members of the crew had mocked the idea from the start and complained it would cause testicular cancer or early onset baldness. Jena had not thought much about it during COST preparation for the trip. How could she have known her heart was going to be ripped from her body at the poolside in space?

  Kevin and Tiffany laughed from the magnet water. Jena swallowed hard, willed herself forward, and found she had not moved at all.

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Kevin said. “Not exactly honest, but she succeeds where others fail. We should warn Jena when she checks on us.”

  Tiffany laughed, prompting splashing and answering laughter from Kevin.

  Making a mental check-mark on her list of assumptions and concerns about Ophelia, she braced herself for the worst, most emotional confrontation of her life. Betrayal, she found, was a hot emotion and felt like bourbon going down, spreading heat through her chest and into her limbs. Her husband and her sister? Couldn’t they have played out this drama before the most important, most lucrative mission in human history?

  The laughter stopped as the sound of water sports ebbed. “Jena won’t have a problem with Ophelia and her marines to back her up. After that, it will only be a matter of retaining cooperation sufficient to collect and safely store the UDM,” Kevin said. “Doctor Cook will do the right thing with enough pressure.”

  Tiffany Morrison, unseen but heard moving in the pseudo-water, stopped laughing.

  “You know what a ball breaker your sister can be,” Kevin said.

  The conversation continued in low tones.

  Jena took a step backward, hating herself for retreating and amazed at how quickly she grasped at the excuse. If Dr. Cook was a danger to the mission, it violated her assumptions of everyone on the ship. As the captain, she had to know and understand her personnel. She cursed herself for mistrusting Ophelia Denton and blindly trusting Dr. Valerie Cook.

  She put her hands over her ears and pressed as hard as she could to block out the sound of lovemaking in the pool.

  Think. Do your job. Complete the mission. She ran checklists in her mind as fast as she could, building contingencies, analyzing data, reviewing the big picture and focusing on the parts that mattered. This is my purpose. This is what I volunteered for, knowing the cost, understanding every detail and possibility.

  Her scientists were brilliant, sheltered, and insecure. Her soldiers acted like immature boys at a frat party to conceal their primal need for conflict. She knew from her father and grandfather that soldiers struggled to mingle with civilians, fearing they might break people they considered both fragile and unstoppably biased against men and women capable of intentional violence. Scientists like her husband, sister, and Dr. Cook were brilliant behind their walls of passive-aggressive arrogance. The soldiers were bold, isolated, and insecure behind their juvenile pranks.

  Jena massaged her temples with both hands. Do not fall prey to these stereotypes. You’re missing something important.

  “Captain,” Greg said as he approached from the end of the short hallway. “I thought you could use my help.”

  “Since when did you start turning yourself on and off?” she asked.

  He smiled and shook his head just enough to be noticeable.

  Part of his programming and a relic of who he was, Jena thought. She paused, standing still as a statue to gather her thoughts and reorganize her lists.

  “Fine,” she said. “Come with me.”

  They went to CPP storage and stood at the open vault door. When closed and sealed, the CPP area could withstand a nuclear strike and serve as a lifeboat in space for hundreds of years, as the ship around it expanded in a cloud of debris particles.

  Rows of pods slept in the gloom; the only illuminations were green light-emitting diodes on the lock boxes of each CPP control panel. Two unoccupied units continued self-cleaning and safety checks as she and Greg watched.

  “Why are we here, Jena?” Greg asked.

  Not wanting to admit she had made a mistake, she glared at the perfect physical embodiment of her husband. “I do my job, you do yours. That is how it works.”

  Greg did not respond, but waited patiently.

  Jena left the CPP Vault and went below decks, climbing ladders with the strength, speed, and confidence of an Olympic athlete. Greg kept up without a word of protest.

  She pressed her palm to the security panel of the Barracks Vault, waited for authentication, then stepped back a
s another incredibly thick door slowly opened to release a musical cacophony of simple melodies and inane lyrics.

  Inside the poorly illuminated Barracks Vault were tubes similar to those in the CPP Vault.

  Security Chief Ophelia Denton sat at a work station drinking hot tea, reading from a screen and listening to old rock music. A computer terminal illuminated the woman’s red hair and accentuated her muscular shoulders and tapering waist. In uniform, she was not. Combat fatigues and a tank top was all the Chief needed—no shoes, belts, jewelry, or shits given.

  Jena walked up behind her and saw the woman was playing blackjack on the computer.

  “It calms my nerves,” Ophelia said.

  “You never had a problem with nerves before the mission,” Jena said.

  Ophelia smiled without looking away from her game. “That almost sounded like a complement.”

  “I have an issue with Dr. Valerie Cook. She may be exploiting the mission and the acquisition of the UDM for her personal gain.”

  “What is the source of your information? Is it probable cause or your personal bias against people who desire wealth?” Ophelia asked.

  Jena considered her source, but not for long. She didn’t want to relive the scene at the pool. Part of her old self cursed her cowardice and screamed for her to march into the gymnasium and demand a reckoning.

  “It is within my mission parameters to interview crew members at my discretion,” Jena said.

  “An interview and an interrogation are two different things,” Ophelia said, swiveling her chair to face Jena.

  “Yes, of course. I will not jeopardize the mission by relying on Dr. Cook if she is holding something back.”

  Ophelia stared at Jena without blinking. Greg waited to one side, silent and obedient as always.

  “You read the entire brief from the Sphere ship, the one warning about the Dangerous Star?” Ophelia asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You read the internal company analysis of this system?” Ophelia asked.

  Jena systematically calmed herself. “Our CEO and the company analysts do not believe the Klekemac solar system to be associated with the Sphere ship warning. There are low-level probabilities that entities from the Dangerous Star, or their exploration devices, may have reached and influenced Klekemac.”