Explorations: First Contact

by Isaac Hooke

  She didn’t mind. She seemed rather amused by it all, and her reticence, unfeigned though it was, to talk about that day, only served to make the Ambassador’s second-hand account all the more valuable.

  And so they settled in for the remainder of their visit. Jacob and Hoho discussing Indul’s long-dormant dabbling in the science of interstellar communications, the woefully underprepared Dr. Moon trying to comprehend some measure of what the Indulakans had been cooking up since, and Nathan in the middle, happy with his special relationship.

  Stephen Moss Bio

  Stephen Moss was born in England, but spent time as a child in wildly diverse places, including several years in Brazil, Belgium, and Malaysia.

  He eventually settled in New York, but still travels avidly, something he uses as inspiration and input to his writing. Stephen is a fan of Hard SF by masters such as Iain M. Banks, Peter F. Hamilton and Orson Scott Card and the many fantastic writers creating masterpieces every year.

  His first series, The Fear Saga, combined his passion for Hard Science Fiction with his passion for travel. The three-part series takes place across the globe, from London to Brussels, Africa to Antarctica, the Hindu Kush mountains to the back streets of Tel Aviv. The few places in the books which Stephen hasn't been to in person he researches avidly, wanting to put his characters into the reality of their surroundings, and knowing that the settings for a story are as important as the individuals you then paint into them.

  For more information on books by Stephen Moss, and to hear about future releases, you can find the author on Facebook, or email him directly at thefearsaga@gmail.com

  Look for new titles from Stephen Moss in 2017, including The Similar Infinites, a new series that explores the extent of our infinite universe, and the boundless differences and similarities we can expect to find if we ever discover a way to properly explore it.

  Also look for Fear's Orphans, a new story in the Fear Universe that explores the fates of Banu and the orphan pilots, and humanity in general on the damaged world we now call home.

  Also look for the Explorations Series, a set of anthologies I have been working on with such greats as Ralph Kern, Jacob Cooper, and Richard Fox. The first book, Explorations: Through the Wormhole, is out now and its got some amazing stories in it.

  Thank you for reading, -Stephen

  Harbinger

  By Josh Hayes

  ONE

  Captain Carol Farris craned her neck to look over the mass of people to see what everyone was so intent on seeing. Outside a wall of windows, past several station tugs and maintenance shuttles, Exploration ship Darklady pulled silently out of her slip. One of many expeditions setting out from Horizon Station over the next several days, her own included. Hers, and that of the man sitting across the table from her.

  “Look,” she said, sliding her fingers through Brad’s. “You’re going to be a long way from home, and I know how you feel about war, but—”

  He cut her off, pulling his hands away, crossing his arms across his chest. “You’ve made it clear you think I’ve turned into a damn hippy.”

  “Well, not quite. I know you’ll do what you need to do out there, but…” But how to tell him without violating her oath? Sharing classified information was grounds for court-martial, expulsion from the service, even incarceration. Was Brad Cunningham’s life not worth that?

  “Look,” she said, finally. “All I’m saying is be careful, okay?”

  He cocked his head, considering her for a moment with those deep blue eyes Farris knew so well.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  Farris let her gaze sweep across the sea of people in the packed bar, chewing on her lip, knowing she was about to step over a very fine line. A line from which there was no return, and a line that she had no choice but to cross.

  “Have you ever heard of Babel?”

  Cunningham arched an eyebrow. “Babel…” he trailed off, thinking, then his eyes went wide. “Not that—”

  “Easy,” Farris cautioned, raising her hands. “Keep your voice down.”

  Cunningham checked over both shoulders, then whispered, “Not that psychic stuff that went around a few months ago? Carol, come on, don’t tell me you believe in that bullshit.”

  “Not rumors, Brad. The military’s been experimenting with them for years.”

  “The way I hear it, they lock those poor saps up in some kind of stasis tube and never let them out. I remember seeing something on the news about it, those Human First bastards claiming that keeping a person in suspended stasis like that was inhumane. Personally, I never really believed the whole mess.”

  Farris pursed her lips, trying to decide how much he would be able to digest. Finally, she decided that she’d already given him enough to get herself in trouble, so telling him the rest wouldn’t cause her any more problems. “They are real, and the military has them. They’ve been using them to scan the Sphere ship’s computer core for more information, gleaning out more information that anyone thought possible. They’ve found some pretty scary shit in there. Some of those aliens out there aren’t friendly, Brad. Some are downright evil.”

  “You’re talking about the Star? We already know about that, the Sphere ship warned us about that right out of the gate.”

  “No, not the Star, but equally dangerous, if not more so. And from what we’ve been able to glean through the psychics, we’re nowhere near as prepared to fight a war against them as we thought. Even with all these missions to find new tech, even if we build newer, more advanced ships, they aren’t going to be enough. We need allies. Alien allies.”

  “So, you’re going to take a warship to ask for help? Isn’t that sort of sending mixed signals?”

  “No,” Farris said. “We’re taking a warship to show them we’re serious. Frankly, there are way too many missions being sent out with little to no defensive capabilities, and that worries me. We don’t know anything about these races, nothing.”

  “And a warship is going to make you seem what, nicer? More approachable?”

  “We’ve got Babel,” Farris said. “The most advanced AI the Navy has ever produced. We’re hoping it will aid us in communicating. The top linguistic minds of the world have all touched the project in some way or another.”

  “Do you know how it works? Do you know anything about it other than they say it works?”

  Farris sighed. “No, I don’t know how it works. The project is highly compartmentalized.”

  “So, what, you let them just hardwire some new secret technology into your ship and you’re going to trust it to build a bridge between humanity and an alien race?”

  “It isn’t exactly…” She paused, searching for words. “Hardwired in.”

  Cunningham stared at her for a moment, then his eyes went wide with realization. “You’ve got one of them on board. A psychic?”

  Farris shook her head, grinning slightly. “That’s Classified.”

  “Carol, you can’t be seriously entertaining the idea of taking one of those things on board. That’s dangerous shit you’re messing with.”

  Farris held up a hand. “Shhh, easy. It’s not like I had a choice about it.”

  “That’s ridiculous, everyone has a choice.”

  “It’s already done. And besides, it does work. I think Babel will be our best hope of contacting someone who can help.”

  “Yeah, and what about that poor sap in the tube?”

  Farris sniffed, remembering the long transparent coffin, the naked, almost skeletal man floating inside. Had it not been for the biometric data scrolling across the glass, he could have been a corpse. Several wires floated around the body, connecting the man to the artificial intelligence core on the other side of the room. A mask covered the lower half of his face, connected to a tube that ran out to the oxygen filter at the base of the enclosure.

  A flash of light beyond the enormous bay windows drew Farris’s eyes away from her glass, and the memory. She watched with the rest of the patrons as the D
arklady disappeared in a brilliant explosion of light, one of many missions to save humanity from the terror of the unknown. She watched until the glowing contrails of the displacement drive faded, then turned back to Cunningham. “We all have to make sacrifices.”

  TWO

  Carol tossed the towel on her bunk, then padded over to the sink, running hands through her damp hair. Even after three washes, she still hadn’t been able to rid her long brown hair of the residue left over from the cryopod. The green suspension fluid she’d spent the last five years sleeping in had sipped her bronzed complexion away, leaving behind pinkish, almost baby-like skin.

  Ten years.

  She had closed her eyes in Sol, and opened them near a star system never touched by humans. Ten years away from everything she’d ever known. Ten years away from her husband. She thanked God; Gary had been so understanding.

  She pulled a second towel off the rack next to the sink and as she went to work drying her hair, the soft chime of the ship’s intercom sounded.

  Farris signed, looking at the rat’s nest that was her hair, wondering if it would ever be free of the oily residue, and keyed the acceptance button.

  “Farris.”

  “Commander Able, ma’am,” her executive officer said.

  “How’re we looking, XO?”

  “All systems operational, Captain. Level one diagnostic returned only one irregularity, which is being addressed appropriately.”

  “Yes?”

  “Delta Tube Bravo showed a slight fluctuation in the gravity assist sled, I have crews inspecting now.”

  Only one issue, Farris thought, not bad for a journey of just over twenty light years. In truth, she’d expected more, a lot more. Hell, there was a part of her that hadn’t expected to wake up at all.

  “Very well, Commander. What’s our ETA for translation?”

  There as a slight pause, then Able reported, “Eighteen minutes, Captain.”

  “I’ll be up in ten,” Farris said, then killed the connection.

  Nine minutes and thirty-seven second later, Captain Farris adjusted the tension straps around her waist, snugging up her jumpsuit’s excess material, then stepped onto the Harbinger’s bridge. Commander Able called the room to attention, but she waved the crew back to their seats before they’d had a chance to stand. There was a time and place for protocol and ceremony; however, this was not it.

  “As you were,” she told them, crossing to the command station in the center of the circular chamber.

  Commander Able stepped aside, giving the Captain access to her seat. He tapped a key on the station as she slipped into the padded chair and a holographic display appeared in front of her.

  “All crew are accounted for, all systems operational. Bravo Tube’s sled has been repaired and displacement drive is functioning at optimal levels. I’ve got a flight of Deltas in the tubes, with another four on standby. Fire control is up and weapons are warmed up.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” Farris said, using a finger to scroll through the data in front of her.

  To her right the ship’s astrogator, Lieutenant Liam Shea, looked up from his terminal. Despite never actually having been to Ireland, his accent was thick and only barely audible. “Translation to the Graphine system in eight minutes, Captain.”

  “Very well,” Farris said, running another hand through her hair. Residue from the protein gel covered her fingers.

  “Remind me to shave this all of this off before we go back under,” she said, rubbing the residue onto her pants leg.

  The Commander chuckled, shaking his head. Before he could speak, however, another voice spoke up.

  “Gary wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

  Farris grinned, turning as Paul Grayson, Harbinger’s civilian linguistic expert, floated around the edge of his station, gravchair gliding smoothly across the deck. The custom built chair wrapped around his useless legs, giving the impression that he was just an upper body fused with the floating mechanical unit. The air shimmered underneath, like heat off pavement.

  “Yeah, well, he doesn’t have to live with it. Besides, it’ll grow back.”

  “That’ll be one hell of a sight to wake up to after ten years.”

  “If he knows what’s good for him, he’d be happy no matter how I look.”

  He pulled a set of thick-rimmed glasses from his nose and smiled. “Indeed.”

  “How is our…” Farris paused, trying to find the words. “Guest?”

  “Who, Vac?” Grayson asked, rubbing his glasses with a cloth from his pocket. “Oh, he’s fine. Vitals are good and his core interface is stable.”

  Commander Able raised an eyebrow. “Vac?”

  The linguist slid his glasses back on, nodding. “The designation Fleet gave him seemed a little underwhelming, so I took a little… liberty. Though, technically a Hindu goddess, I figured he wouldn’t complain.”

  Able chuckled. “Yeah, I guess he wouldn’t.”

  Their translation into real space wasn’t as spectacular Farris had expected, and she couldn’t help but feel slightly let down. Experienced from the bridge, the event was marked by a simple alert chime and status icon flashing on the Captain’s display. With something as momentous as this, she would have appreciated some sort of fireworks or fanfare or something besides: TRANSLATION COMPLETE.

  “Displacement shield shut-down sequence starting,” Lieutenant DeAndre Benton reported from the engineering station across the bridge. “Deactivation in five, four, three…”

  A hologram of Harbinger’s spherical hull, surrounded by an orange hue, floated in the center of the chamber. Status windows opened, connected by lines that pulsed out from the Harbinger to the transparent boxes. When Benton’s countdown reached zero, the orange hue surrounding the ship vanished.

  “Okay, people,” Farris said, standing. “Let’s get to work.”

  “Launching sensor drones now, Captain,” Lieutenant Presley said. Her platinum blonde hair was only slightly out of regs, her ponytail having almost a hand’s width past the collar of her jumpsuit. The extra length seemed to fit her well, however, and as long as it didn’t affect her duties, Farris was one to let it slide.

  Several panels appeared, displaying data coming in from Harbinger’s extensive sensor network. One hundred and twenty drones shot away from the ship, streaking into the system at almost two hundred kilometers a second. Data populated the displays around the bridge, giving the crew real time information about this new system.

  The Graphine system, a relatively small system compared to Sol at only six billion kilometers across, began to materialize in the huge stellar chart in the center of Harbinger’s bridge. Even so, it would take almost a month to scan the entire system. The Harbinger’s long range sensors were good, but generating a hyper-accurate map for stellar cartography was one of the missions.

  “Everything seems quiet,” Able said.

  “Too quiet,” Lieutenant Presley said. “I’m not picking up any system traffic at all.”

  Farris tapped some commands into her console, frowning. “There has to be something.”

  “Nothing on multiphase, the IR band is quiet, hell, I’m not even picking up any UHF.”

  “Is it possible they operate on a different spectrum?” Farris asked, scrolling through the data on her own console.

  “Possible, not probable,” the tactical officer said, shaking her head slightly.

  A terrifying thought hit Farris like a tsunami. “Astrogation, are we in the correct system?”

  “Constellations are matching, I’m running an extensive sweep now and double checking system tracking.” Shea paused for a few seconds, while the data compiled, then nodded. “Coordinates confirmed, we’re in Graphine, right where we’re supposed to be.”

  Slowly, Farris let out a breath. It was possible they were just too far out to receive any data. “Very well, set course for the inner system and continue scanning.”

  An hour later, after a steady stream of absolutely nothing
to report at all, Lieutenant Presley looked up from her station. “Captain, I’m getting something.”

  THREE

  “Do you think Neil Armstrong was this nervous?” Lieutenant Ricks asked, his voice slightly distorted through the Harbinger’s bridge speakers. The feed from his helmet cam was projected alongside four others in the center of Harbinger’s bridge.

  “Nervous?” another voice asked. Private Carter, one of two armed security guards with the scout team, sounded like he was on the verge of going full-auto on anything that went bump in the night. “Scared shitless is more like it.”

  “Stow that shit, Carter,” a third voice, Sergeant Linton, ordered. The far left image rotated, stopping on a tall, armor-suited figure, the golden chevrons on his breastplate. A mirrored visored helmet shook back and forth.

  “Hey, Sarge, you can’t tell me you’re not getting the willies here,” Carter said.

  Farris turned away from the holoimages, stomach twisting at the jarring feed from the private’s helmet camera. She turned to the three dimensional map of the alien outpost and watched the scout team’s icon move slowly through the corridors. Harbinger’s sensor droves had spent several hours mapping the station’s exterior, and as best as they could tell, the interior. A large network of corridors intersected and snaked around the interior of the flattened ovoid shape, most leading to a central chamber they all assumed was the station’s command center.

  “Atmospheric levels are consistent so far,” Ricks informed them. “Forty degrees Celsius, almost ninety percent humidity.”

  Carter laughed, slapping his armor’s breastplate. “Man, I love these enviro-controls. Feels like it’s a nice fall day in this thing.”