by James Rosone
And just like that, our electronic blackout has been broken, Royce thought. Fleeters…
“That’s a good copy, Voyager. Stand by for data feeds,” Sergeant Royce replied, trying to hide his frustration and contempt.
“Corporal Coy, set up your equipment and see what you can find,” Royce said over their squad net. No sense in hiding their radio traffic if the Voyager was going to communicate directly with them. The truth was, the NLs were still kind of a pain in the butt to use. They sometimes transmitted random thoughts if the users weren’t careful, which could be embarrassing.
Corporal Coy lay on the ground fifteen meters away. He pulled his patrol pack off his back and started grabbing pieces of equipment out of it. In a matter of minutes, his little suite of electronic wizardry was up and running.
He looked at Royce, letting him know he was ready to turn it on. Once he did, it would begin an intrusive sweep of the area, looking for any electronic transmissions, no matter how small. It’d scan the entire electronic spectrum and light their position up like a Christmas tree, which was why he looked for verification first.
Royce shrugged and then nodded. If that’s what the higher-ups want, then that’s what they’ll get.
A couple of minutes went by before Corporal Coy said, “I found something, Master Sergeant. Take a look at this.” Coy passed him a file with the electronic analysis in it over to the HUD built into his helmet.
Rolling over on his back, Royce sought to get a bit more comfortable on the ground. He opened the file and examined it on his HUD. No wonder we didn’t spot any signals. They’re operating on an extremely high frequency—one we don’t ever check, he thought. They appeared to be transmitting whatever data they sent via a short microburst. But why haven’t they detected us? he wondered.
They forwarded the data up to the Voyager and continued to observe the camp.
As Royce listened to the big blue aliens, he had to admit, he was having a hard time trying to distinguish their speech from other noises they appeared to be making. It was a lot of odd clicking, popping, and almost barking noises they made when they interacted with each other. The human-looking creatures spoke differently. They’d interact with the guards and sound pretty similar to them, but when they talked amongst themselves, they sounded almost…human. Royce couldn’t quite place what they were speaking, but it seemed somewhat familiar. He was sure the super AI and the scientists on the Voyager were already hard at work trying to understand the language.
As Royce sat observing in silence, a slight crackle came over his earpiece as he received a transmission, their second direct electronic transmission since landing on the planet. “Master Sergeant Royce, this is Commander Johnson from the Voyager. The scientists are asking if you can have the rest of your squad focus their parabolic equipment on collecting speech from the human-looking prisoners. They’re telling me if you can get us a few hours of conversation from them, the AI may be able to give us a translation of what they’re saying.”
The radio transmission ended, and Royce’s anger rose again. He wasn’t mad at the request—that part made sense. What angered him was that his squad was sitting a few hundred meters from this base camp, and no one knew if these aliens had the ability to electronically detect them and then eavesdrop on what was being said. The Voyager was supposed to transmit to the Osprey—then someone from the Fourth Squad babysitting the scientists would relay the message via their NLs so they’d avoid using their radios near the aliens.
Depressing the talk button, he replied, “That’s a good copy. Out.” He hated doing that, but he couldn’t just ignore the Voyager’s XO either.
He passed the word along to the rest of his team, and before long, he had thirteen guys with their mics focusing only on collecting audio from the human-looking creatures.
Royce watched the prisoners again. Although they were a bit unkempt, it would have been difficult to distinguish them from any other human he’d met. Deep down, though, he knew there must be something different about them. It was a bit odd to think that there could be humans exactly like him living somewhere else in the galaxy.
Five hours passed with his squad observing what was going on in the camp. The entire time, they were feeding voice and video data to the Voyager in orbit above them. They’d collected hours’ worth of data for the super AI to crunch. Eventually, they were directed to start doing the same thing with the bluish aliens.
While the Deltas carried out their observation roles at the alien base camp and at the mine, the two groups continued to collect information, hoping that at some point, their supercomputers would decipher the languages of these two groups. Once that happened, they’d try to make contact with them and hope for the best. The waiting, however, was killing them. The whole place around them was so strange, so different. If some critter was crawling on your armor, you didn’t know if it was deadly. That was hard to deal with and also maintain noise discipline. Everyone wanted to talk and share what they were seeing.
Eventually, they’d been in their hide positions for so long that the sun had finally shifted in the sky enough that it looked like it was starting to get dark. The work gang of prisoners was now on their way back to the camp, presumably to eat and catch some sleep.
*******
RNS Voyager
Science Deck
Professor Audrey Lancaster looked at the computer analysis of the language. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
This has to be a mistake…
The Deltas on the surface had provided her with nearly twenty hours of conversation between the human-looking people, so it wasn’t an error on their part. It has to be a computer error, she surmised as she ran a diagnostic on the program. When the system check came back as normal, she put the headphones back on and listened to the speech again.
This can’t be right…
“You have a sour look on your face, Aubrey. Does that mean you found something, or was it my offer of a nightcap last night that offended you?” Dr. Milton joked, his British accent making his suggestion sound less crass than it otherwise might have.
She looked up in disgust. “No, Jonathan. It wasn’t your inappropriate offer for a nightcap. I think I may have deciphered at least one of the languages being spoken.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Dr. Milton walked a little closer to her, invading her personal space as he did. “Why is this not a good thing, Aubrey?” That irked her more.
My name is spelled with a d, not a b, jerk, she thought angrily.
“Because it doesn’t make any sense,” she shot back. “Here, look at this.” She pointed to the language being spoken down on the planet, then cross-referenced it against a variant of the Chaldean language.
The British scientist crinkled his eyebrows. “Did you run a diagnostic of the system to make sure it wasn’t computing an error?” he asked, skeptical of the results.
Audrey nodded. “I did. It’s Chaldean. Or at least a variant of an older version of the language. There are no two ways about it. What I can’t understand, though, is how could there be a group of humans on a planet twelve light-years away from Earth that speaks one of our oldest languages.”
Dr. Milton opened his mouth to say something, then closed it as his mind began to wander. He eventually returned his gaze to her. “I don’t know how this is possible, Aubrey. But right now, we have to work on the assumption that these human-looking aliens down there are, in fact, humans, or at least a close derivative of our own species.” He paused for a second before adding, “The language piece puzzles me. That said, if we’ve managed to decipher their communications, then we need to integrate that into the universal language translator and update the ground force’s systems with it. They’ll need to use it to make contact with them. Do you want to pass this along to the admiral?” Dr. Milton asked with a crooked smile that said he was doing her a favor.
With a look of surprise on her face, she replied hesitantly, “Me? I would have thought you’d want to tell the admiral
we deciphered this.”
Dr. Jonathan Milton was, if nothing else, a pompous little man who loved to take credit for discoveries his subordinates had made. It surprised her that he would let her be the one to make this announcement.
He shrugged as if to say it wasn’t that big of a deal.
“You’re the linguistics specialist, Professor. It only seems right that you should make the announcement.”
He winked at her. He’d probably continue his unwanted advances in earnest now, feeling that she owed him for allowing her to make this discovery.
“Very well, Jonathan, and thank you.”
*******
New Eden
Planetside
As the Deltas continued to collect information, the AI computer on the Voyager had finally made a breakthrough. A message was sent down to the ground units that the human-looking aliens were, in fact, speaking a variant of Chaldean.
Once the computer had pieced that much together, it began to sequence the rest of the words they were using and then analyze the contents of what the prisoners had been saying all day. With all that information, the AI was able to provide the Earthers a translation of what the prisoners were saying with better than ninety-seven percent accuracy, and the ability to communicate with them through the use of their universal translator.
Granted, they could now understand the prisoners, but what they were talking wasn’t all that interesting. Their conversations were mostly about the work they were being ordered to do. Some of it was about food, some of it just generalized complaining.
The shipboard computer was having a harder time piecing together the spoken language of the bluish aliens. It was attempting to extrapolate, from what the human prisoners were saying in Chaldean, what they were saying in that clicking, almost barking language back to the bluish aliens. The AI was deciphering a few words here and there, but they needed more interactions between the prisoners and the aliens to make it work.
Looking at the clock his internal PA displayed for him, Royce saw they had been on the planet now for thirty-one hours. He was getting tired, and he knew his troopers were as well. He needed to start cycling them through some sleep. Royce broke the squad up into two groups: one on, one off. They’d take four-hour shifts and start getting some shut-eye. Once the darkness fully set in, they’d have thirteen hours until dawn. If they were going to make contact with these aliens, then it would happen sometime in the morning. He needed his guys rested before that happened.
Royce rolled over on his back and racked out a meter or so away from his coms specialist. The man was going to take the first four-hour watch while he slept, then Royce would stay awake the rest of the evening and into the morning. He had some administrative work he needed to assign his AI PA to handle for him, but other than that, he just wanted some sleep.
Before he tried to join dreamland, Royce studied the sky above him. He couldn’t see anything. The double canopy cover of the forest blocked his view of the stars and the moons in orbit. He did hear a lot of strange-sounding critters and animals moving about. He just hoped none of them decided to make him or his men their dinner.
Master Sergeant Royce! Wake up! came an urgent tone through his neurolink. It was like something was buzzing inside his head. It pulled him violently out of his dream. Royce had forgotten that the neurolink had the ability to wake him, even out of deep sleep, if the proper command code was sent.
This is Master Sergeant Royce, I’m awake. Who is this, and what’s going on? he managed to foggily say through the NL, not bothering to check who had sent the message.
This is Captain Hopper. The Voyager was finally able to decipher what those big ugly aliens are saying. About an hour ago, the fleet detected a transmission from the base camp to a communications relay at the other end of the system. The message was then sent on to some other location outside the system. In light of that, Admiral Halsey has given us a FRAGO. She now wants us to move forward with making contact with the blue aliens at dawn instead of later in the morning.
I’m moving First and Second Squads to join you at your location to assist in the operation, Captain Hopper continued. Send some coordinates for where to position them so they can head there while in transit. I want you to detail off a fire team to head back to the Ospreys. They need to collect our first contact team and bring them to your position. Once the sun starts to come up and we’ve got a good visual of the area, then the ambassador will move forward and attempt to make contact. I need your squad ready to extract them if something goes wrong. Is that understood, Sergeant?
Royce thought about that for a moment as a plan formed in his mind. Yes, sir. We’ll get the rest of the platoon sorted over here. I’ll coordinate things with our diplomats when they arrive.
Royce smiled, excited to put his plan into action. Using the neurolink, he plotted some positions on a topographical map of the area their drones had helped to create. He identified several places where he wanted First and Second Squads to set up. He still preferred the idea of snatching some of these guys and trying to make contact that way, but the higher-ups felt that’d give a bad first impression. Still, Royce didn’t like the idea of the ambassador walking down to greet an unknown alien force without knowing how it was going to go.
The next couple of hours went by quickly as everyone moved into position. Sitting against one of the towering trees, Royce was finishing up some breakfast when Sergeant Wagner approached him with the first contact team.
“Master Sergeant Royce, this is Ambassador Nina Chapman and her assistant, Justin Ramseur.”
Royce stood up and walked up to the ambassador. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Master Sergeant Brian Royce. You can call me Brian if you’d like. Would you like me to go over some aspects of your security and the path we’d like you to walk down and approach the aliens from?”
She smiled and shook his hand. “Hello, Brian. Yes, that’d be great,” she replied, her British accent making her sound even more impressive to him. “We’ve been watching the videos your men have been collecting and listening to the AI translations. It’s been fascinating to say the least.”
He nodded. “It has been interesting, that’s for sure. OK, so here’s the skinny on the camp. It’s actually a pretty large facility, but spread out. We believe there are roughly five hundred people inside. The camp itself seems to be broken down into a couple of functions: a group that heads out to the mine and brings raw ore back, and a second group that works what we believe are a couple of advanced smelters used to refine the ore.”
Royce spent another twenty minutes going over some additional details of the camp. He wanted her to see some buildings and where they were located. If the initial greeting went well, then chances were she’d be invited into the camp. Next, one of Royce’s men gave her a small surveillance kit. It consisted of a micro camera in the form of a contact lens and a two-way radio that would fit just inside her inner ear, transmitting everything she heard back to them. She already had a neurolink, so communicating directly with them wouldn’t be a problem.
“So, what’s the plan if things don’t work out with them?” Nina asked. “Do we just run for it?”
Her assistant looked nervous but held his tongue.
“Hopefully, that won’t happen,” said Royce. “If it does, then our first course of action will be to show ourselves. If they see us and realize you have protection nearby, it may deter them from doing something rash. If that doesn’t work and they do opt to fight—well, this is something we train for, ma’am.” He spoke matter-of-factly, almost clinically, but the implications were not lost on her.
Nina sighed and nodded. “I guess we should get this rodeo going.”
*******
Captain Jayden Hopper looked at the disposition of his soldiers on the map; he felt good about their setup. Lieutenant Crocker had a squad positioned on the northwestern side of the enemy camp, putting them in a position to provide Ambassador Chapman with good cover should Master Sergeant Royce and his team need
to extract her.
“Captain, we’ve got the M91 set up, along with both of our SAWs should things go south,” one of the squad leaders announced.
Hopper nodded in approval. “Good job, Sergeant. Let’s hope we won’t need any of them, but I’m glad we have them.”
The M91 or HB was the infantry’s heavy blaster weapon. It was the equivalent of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun. The M91 was similar to the SAW but fired a much larger-caliber blaster. There was typically only one assigned to a company. They required a three-man crew to operate, but if they were going to be in a knock-down, drag-out fight, it was a nice weapon to have.
Hopper looked over at Royce as he gave some final instructions to the ambassador; he felt good about having Royce on this mission. While they were all Deltas, Special Forces, Royce had spent ten years with Joint Special Operations Command. The Unit, as they were called, were the elite of the elite. They were a small cadre of the best regular Army, and Special Forces soldiers in the military. There wasn’t a lot known about them other than they did a lot of black ops work for the Agency and other types of jobs when the government couldn’t be officially involved.
This whole first contact mission was something none of them were really ready for, but Hopper had a suspicion that this was right up Royce’s alley. Hopper had been glad to let Royce run this part of the mission—he knew what he was doing, and the men in the platoon trusted him.
Sensing Royce was probably close to being done explaining things to Nina, he made his way over to them.
“Do you feel you’re ready, Ambassador? Is there anything more we can do for you?” Hopper asked.
The ambassador turned to face him. “I think I’m about as ready as I’m going to be, Captain. I guess I should start heading down there now?”
Hopper nodded. “Yes, as soon as you’re prepared, we can get started. We’ll be ready to help you should you need it. Master Sergeant Royce here will be your guardian angel. We’ll get you out of there, ma’am.”
