The Alien Creator
Author, Time Folds
Michael W. Miller
Space Explorers
Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them.
Star Wars
*************
Michael Miller Books LLC
Other Space Adventures
Time Folds
Intergalactic War
Second Earth, M-104
Revelation 21:4 1st Century
And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.
Cast of Principal Characters
Alvin Beck, Army Delta Captain
Billy Goddard, Weapons Engineer, Global Space Co.
Bobby Rafferty, Senior Telemetry Engineer, Global Space Co.
Charles Brody, Chief of Staff
Eshan Gupta, Satellite Engineer, Global Space Co.
Jack Wilford, President of the United States
Jim Franks, Director National Security Administration
Joe Mettars, Lt. U.S. Navy
John Myers, Lead Engineer, Global Space Co.
Ray Thompson, Lt. U.S. Navy
Richard Jacko, Navy Seal Commander
Richard Metz, Technical Leader Area-51
Robert Covelli, Director CIA
Willard Big Bear, Secret Service
William Bull Greer, Secretary of Defense
Andromedans
Creators, Andromeda Leaders
Cyborg, Bio-Mechanical Supreme Being
Zote, Android Navi Commander
Prologue
Somewhere in the Milky Way
hip commander, an emotionless android built to survive many decades upon routine maintenance, component swap-outs, and software and middleware updates from home base, decides time is nearing when a critical decision must be made. As two supreme bio-cybernetic hybrids lie dormant in distinct isolated frozen cryogenic chambers three levels below the bridge, the commander's cadre of minions, small robots and androids with specific duties and absolute subservience, continue collecting data about the alien solar system entered several years earlier. Input suggests the new system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter has countless useless bodies without life-sustaining atmospheres, although recent discovery of a remote communication probe makes the commander curious about prospects for future colonization somewhere in this huge, partially explored galaxy. Questions accumulate in its main artificial intelligence processor about origins of the complex device. Who built and launched it? What kind of species made it? Where is its creator? Is the communication device lost in space or is it still operational collecting data? Should the probe be captured or be destroyed? By destroying it, would its creator seek retribution or would destroying the orbiter arouse more attention that helps find its creator inside this vast barrel-shaped alien galaxy? Either way, it is ways of finding these cosmic creatures, if they still exist.
Dictates from Creators, the biological beings responsible for the android's existence, are to unfreeze one of two supreme commanders if a new host planet is found among the majestic space and stars. The highly functional and deliberate industrial-strength robot reviews duties and procedures for that long awaited occasion. Not an easy decision given extremely shorter life spans for hybrids due to organic complexity, the cryogenic process putting them into dormant states can't be reversed if thawing is premature or wrong. Sensing time may be nearing the end of his lengthy service given this new space object the powerful and intelligent machine ponders its fate. Half a Centon (about 48 Earth years) since leaving the desolate and dying home planet, where home has a certain and calculable end, he understands the discovery means retiring, an honor and milestone for guiding the spacecraft to the right location in an endless universe where time and direction are meaningless. Perhaps, it'd be useful to the hybrid commander, though precedence orders mothballing even if this new planet is a bust. In that case, the punishment would fit the misdeed leaving one frozen commander as last hope for Creators. Service to Creators is all that matters in its world of advanced machinery and organic hybrids where superior configurations and advancing technology determine winners and losers, not kindness, friendships, or pacts. However, without home providing software and hardware design updates, he'd been discarded long ago like spent cargo, defunct machines and retired robots released into the cosmos.
Approaching carefully on the tiny dark probe more than a quintisect ahead (roughly 95,000 Earth miles), the solid android orders grid searches to locate the tilted, oblate sphere continually communicating with it using odd binary coded signals. Based on evidence, the commander decides this remote device is from intelligent creatures due to intricate design, advanced circuitry, performance, and unnaturally dense casing of synthetic materials. Not yet understanding any of the modulated digital waves upon careful scans and analysis, the cautious robot assigns linguistic minions to begin decoding, assimilating, and mastering this foreign computer language. While they've experienced odd, random signals before from unknown locations, estimated as radio bursts caused by collisions of neutron stars or eroding black holes, this is the first time definitively manufactured signals inside the foreign galaxy are regular, systematic, and traceable. Perhaps by intercepting, learning, and conversing with these intergalactic beings, fewer will need destroying at some point.
Once the alien probe is modeled and simulated using complex 3-D design software then analyzed by a diverse cadre of scientific lab minions, the commander guides the behemoth multi-level ship closer. When the dull black spaceship's protective cloaking device shuts down allowing unfettered access to space, leapfrog technology based on electrical photon and particle interaction defeating known tracking signals, the android commander preps to engage the small orbiter at safe distances. Tentative not understanding the species that built and launched this sophisticated device, the robot decides instead to capture it, though not before sending significant jolts testing tensile strength and potential offensive capabilities.
Pulling to within a tenth of one quintisect, the towering robot instructs an engaging mix of service and science robots with specific duties to construct a limited firing solution. Wanting to disable the communication orb without destroying it, the delicate calculations of sufficient power are estimated using the object's mass and hardness. For now, science laboratory minions will stand by for detailed inspection once the disabled orbiter is onboard. Perhaps, it will lead to the right rock, among billions, in this vast, endless galaxy.
Chapter One
Global Space Headquarters, Arizona
nside a secret massive granite mountain complex in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, a private Government-contracted company's bunker is flooded with new deep space activity as delayed feedback from one of their probes, trillions of miles away, trips alarms throughout the multi-level facility. While few employees understand why the annoying claxons are blaring in middle of the night, a brief announcement comes over loudspeakers that this particular warning isn't a drill. Everyone must shut down external personal communications and proceed to respective workstations. As orbiting company and subcontracted re-tasked military satellites provide more feedback from the heavens, engineers scratch heads when the hardened nuclear powered probe, at far reaches of the galaxy, finds and begins tracking a distant object closing in on their coveted asset.
"What's that ahead?" the Space Director yawns and snarls while pointing at the probe's latest digital feed. "Is it moving closer?" Dr. John Myers, the elderly senior designer and engineer, presses his team. Though normally asleep during the skeleton crew's graveyard shift, this particular evening, by chance, he's in the control room with computers suggesting they have an unidentif
ied entity approaching a valuable classified asset endless miles away.
As graveyard staff, now joined by day shift employees, study a myriad of technical data using non-commercial high-speed IBM and Cray multi-million dollar computers, they're confused by odd arrays of unorthodox digital intermittent patterns emanating from the large object more than ten parsecs from the orbiter. Prior to the sophisticated probe's last CDMA orthogonal signal, the robust Volkswagen Beetle sized craft, operating in far reaches of the Milky Way, indicated the new object is closing at decreasing rates.
The newest team member, recent engineering graduate of California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, offers an out-the-box conclusion nobody wants to contemplate this early in the event, though most have similar eerie feelings this particular contact is different. As the long hair, late blooming dirty blond teen whiz kid offers an initial assessment, other more experienced probe, rocket, and satellite engineers quit working to hear what the purported genius, some think is overrated, has to say.
"It's an alien spacecraft navigating closer to inspect the probe," he says after setting down a colorful expensive antique comic book with fantasy pictures of alien spaceships and robots on its cover. "Size and shape suggest operational integrity unlike any catalogued vehicles."
"Out here; come on, Billy," the boss snarls, "Russia or China couldn't have penetrated deep space without us knowing about it. This is Indian-territory, kid. Nobody is out here except us."
"Right, but this footprint indicates transient power surges, Dr. Myers," Billy Goddard announces authoritatively as older staff members wonder how the normally quiet colleague figured out that important technical detail, "and it's maneuvering."
"Get closer images," Myers tells the probe's operator. Once typing instructions, the full team waits as the main overhead screen narrows scope on the lone object by increasing light collecting capabilities, though still too far for detailed inspection.
"Holy crackers," Myers and team gasp at once as enlarged images and dimensions become clearer. "It's a big sucker; probably rock debris. Why didn't we see it before now? What's the distance, Bobby?" he says to an older electromagnetic telemetry specialist working a colorful Datatek monitor and scientific keyboard indicating interstellar gases at varying wavelengths.
"It's more than a million miles from the probe but closing at rates of ten-thousand miles a second," the operator replies while the team marvels at improved views from the large formatted spy camera tracking the strange entity. "It's definitely slowing."
"Slowing?" the gray hair boss barks. "How can it be slowing if it's a rock?"
"Roger; miles per second are definitely less than a few minutes ago," Bobby tells colleagues. "And it's emitting a wide array of low scanning signals at various frequencies. I believe this intelligent rock is studying our probe," he adds facetiously.
"Alter directions five degrees and see if it follows," Myers says passively, not yet convinced by the input.
"Ten seconds," Bobby responds after the coded command bounces off high elevation satellites in Earth's thermosphere. "It should be changing direction in three, two, one…."
"The probe is changing paths," another telemetry understudy in the control room confirms.
"Let's see if the object follows," Myers rubs a stubbly chin after pulling down black glasses.
"Not yet," Bobby answers studying the probe's feedback as radio waves capture the moment.
"The object is starting to glow like a hot light bulb during reentry," Myers observes based on probe feedback, moments before images from the coveted asset suddenly cease.
"That's wasn't light, Dr. Myers," Billy chimes. "Our probe was hit with power overages of less than a half-cycle, perhaps less than ten femtosconds," the new kid on the block explains reading complex system feedback flowing down a screen. "It shot the probe."
"How can you be sure, Billy?" Myers asks the brainy newcomer. "Perhaps the probe's signals are being jammed with electro-magnetic pulses," he adds shaking his head at the teen's high top black sneakers, messy hair, beard, and set of collector comic book piled at his console. "Or maybe, it's on the fritz."
"No, I don't think so; it was destroyed. The last feed from the probe suggests rapid surface temperature escalation exceeding thousands of degrees in a matter of picoseconds. It was instant death. I think it exploded into untraceable bits."
"If right, Billy, it means this object is a hostile threat regardless of its source. What do our other assets tell us about it?" the boss utters softly looking for useful support from puzzled team members. Is this going to be their first bona fide experience with UFOs, he wonders privately? "Why aren't we seeing it anymore? Where did it go? Have we lost it on all scanners? Can anyone tell me what the hell's happening?"
One surprised telemetry engineer exclaims, "It's gone, boss; the signal dropped off my screens. The grid search shows no activity. It vanished."
"How on God's green earth can it appear out of nowhere and disappear without trace? Where can it hide in deep space? What's going on with our telemetry, George?" he snarls at the chief design engineer.
"Telemetry is fine," the top expert replies stroking a long black untrimmed beard. "I can run diagnostics but nothing indicates system issues. The probe is gone."
Billy adds his analysis as others ponder potential answers. "Cloaking technology is the only way for it to hide. I suspect it's diffusing or scattering signals over a broader spectrum. It could be meta-materials bending electromagnetic radiation giving the appearance of not being there. It's works like microwaves; the spaceship is still there but we simply can't see it with existing radar."
"You've been watching too many David Copperfield performances," Myers whines. "Besides, I don't know what that means in practical terms. I wanna hear engineering and physical logic, not reckless comic book speculation. How does your explanation square with common sense data, Billy?"
"It's gut feel, sir. I suggest we find it another way because we're under attack," the teen answers sending chills down spins. "Cloaking, like you say isn't magic, but the secret isn't being invisible to the naked eye but rather being invisible to radar waves. It's tricking us. If closer, I'd bet we'd still see it if the probe were still out there."
"Transformation optics is impossible science, Billy. In the real world nothing that big can disappear."
"Not for these guys, boss; they've figured out how gravity warps space and time. Electromagnetic pulses are bending around the object to make it seem invisible. It's there; I can feel it."
"That's premature Hollywood hype, Billy. I want initial focus on how to see and find what's out there? Get data and facts, then we'll decide if it's a spaceship or an anomaly. It could have been a meteor or rocket debris hitting the probe, a random sequence never to be repeated."
Billy ignores the illogical explanation given its ability to change speed and course. "I'd guess they had to uncloak before firing energy at relatively close range which means we'll have pictures in the probe's last data feeds. Consequently, the best way of spotting them again is by maneuvering the high orbit KH-series satellites into their path. That way we can test the latest surge protection and deflection shields, test alternative tracking signals, and perhaps get off our own kill shot."
Myers thinks the kid is jumping the gun, but gives him a little room for speculation. "This isn't OK Corral, Billy. If we lose those assets, we might as well close shop," Myers whines. "DOD would ream me if we lost one. Besides, why risk KHs at this point? Each one cost ten billion and largely why we get funding."
"If I'm right, sir, nobody will get funding if we let them waltz in. This stealth vessel is, no doubt, alien origins with weapon systems we haven’t faced. Consider that it entered the Milky Way undetected by advanced scanners whether Earth-based radio telemetry or deep space astrometrics. Then, it found and maneuvered next to a relatively tiny object in the scheme of things after likely light years of travel. Finally, it blasted to bits a revolutionary communication probe with the hardes
t surface known to man. I'd start with the sliver of data after they uncloaked."
"All right all ready," Dr. Myers gripes. "Enough speculation for now; let's split the workload. Billy, you study that sliver of data, if it exists, while the rest of us look at the next assets in this sector. Meanwhile, I'm calling the White House to tell them what's happening."
"Dr. Myers, we have an updated probe about half a billion miles behind on the same trajectory. Why not wait to see if the first hit was a fluke?" the probe operator reasons looking at his blank screen. "If they found the first one, this one should be like neon signs saying I'm here."
"Finally somebody with a good idea, Bobby," Myers grumbles more than usual. "All right, let's wait and see what happens before getting the swamp involved."
Meanwhile, Billy continues contemplating aloud what's inferred so far. "Fellows, this invisible force entering our galaxy, one more than a hundred-thousand light years across, found our probe and destroyed it," he reasons. "Needle in the haystack doesn't even come close explaining what just happened. Why shoot it unless whoever is out there doesn't want to be tracked and why does it need cloaking? Who else is watching or hunting them that led to that kind of technology? That infers at least two other species or entities besides humans are out there. Keep in mind, the probe was a microscopic speck in eternal black space. On top of that, it's made of Wurtzite boron nitride wrapped around graphene mesh. To destroy it, the weapon must have generated at least three-thousand degrees centigrade," the calm youngster deduces. "That isn't a natural phenomenon, rock, or rocket debris. It disappeared without trace and deep space collisions always leave sizeable forensic trails like any explosion unless remnants are microscopic bits."
"I know what it takes to burn the probe, but I'm still not convinced it's destroyed. Let's not jump to conclusions and offline doesn't mean it's dead and gone," the boss vents. "Maybe, our system was hacked."
The Alien Creator Page 1
