Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  “Confirm, Houston, we’ll retransmit the inbound digi-sig upon arrival. What frequency do you want it on?” Julie asked.

  “Set it to ninety-eight point three, the same as the device’s midrange signal that they’re using to transmit on.”

  “Craig, set up the transceiver to rebroadcast from the main digital channel to ninety-eight point three.”

  “I’m dialing it in now. What are they up to?”

  “No idea, but we’re going to find out.”

  The seconds ticked by slowly, and Julie tuned to the same frequency and listened in. It sounded like the same pulsating static, but she recognized the end pattern and realized that NASA was timing their retransmission to coincide between one of the endless loops of the alien signal.

  “Retransmitting now,” Craig said, and Julie heard their own pulsating signal as it blipped like a machine gun on automatic. The result was immediate.

  “It stopped,” Craig said over the intercom system.

  Julie looked at the suite of detection devices and suddenly noticed the many detectors had dropped from near red-line levels to all green and all zero. There were no further alien signals being transmitted, including the harmful ones. “Did we break it?” she asked to no one in particular.

  It took two and a half seconds for this to register and to have a response from Houston. “Blackjack, this is Houston. We have signal interrupt. Please confirm, over.”

  Julie keyed her mike. “Houston, we have nothing down here. The alien signal just stopped, do you copy?”

  “No wait,” Craig said over the main channel. “I got a new illumination on the obelisk. I repeat, there is a circular illumination at the midpoint of the black obelisk. Are you guys copying me?”

  “Blackjack, this is Houston. We copy. Can you describe?”

  “I got an idea,” Craig said, moving one of the robotic arms toward the lit circle.

  “I don’t know about this, Craig. Maybe we should wait—”

  Julie never finished her sentence. The ground behind the rover erupted in a cloud of dust as the lunar soil was violently ejected outward and momentarily obscured the rover’s lights, dimming the entire area and temporarily blinding them from seeing anything.

  “Jesus,” Craig said, his voice alarmed.

  “What the hell just happened?” Julie asked, now thinking that their seating arrangement was no longer ideal as she was facing away from the action, unable to see what was happening just behind their rover.

  “I think I just rang their doorbell,” Craig came back.

  “Well, next time give me more warning. I nearly pissed my suit up here,” Julie said, her voice conveying her annoyance.

  The dust settled, and Julie couldn’t see what was happening till Craig spoke. “Ah, Jules, you may want to notify Houston about this.”

  Julie could only see a dark area at the base of the obelisk through her limited view via her side mirror. She really could have used a rear camera. Why didn’t they have one that would feed live and not just take pictures? “What is it?”

  “Like I said,” Craig’s voice said, “I think I rang the doorbell. There is a stairwell back here. What do you want to do?”

  Julie paused for a moment before keying her mike. “Houston, this is Blackjack. Be advised that there is a portal to the base of the obelisk. We are going EVA to investigate.”

  “Roger, Blackjack, authorization for EVA granted. Be advised you have sixteen minutes TOS. Be safe. Houston out.”

  “Ah, what did you mean by we?” Craig asked.

  “Let’s see what’s inside. Are you suited up?” Julie asked.

  “Same as you, got everything except my gloves and helmet on,” Craig said.

  Julie knew it was easier to operate the rover and for Craig the robotic arms without gloves on, and of course, no one wanted to wear a helmet unless absolutely necessary. The rover was double compartmented so that either of them could exit the rover without exposing the other cabin to the vacuum of space. This is why they had to use the intercom system when communicating one with another.

  “All right, I’ll go first. You keep an eye on the opening and let me know if you see anything,” Julie said, pulling her helmet on over her wireless headset and securing it and then reaching for her gloves.

  Once suited, she hit the pressurization button, forcing her cabin to evacuate the mini atmosphere that she was breathing into a small storage tank. Once her internal cabin pressure dropped to zero, equaling the outside lack of pressure, she opened her side door and stepped out onto the lunar surface.

  The rover was now coated in the grey lunar dust as it was still settling, and Julie walked to the rear, seeing Craig for the first time in a couple hours as he gave her a thumbs-up sign with his left arm, and using his right, he raised the robotic arm so she could walk underneath it. She saw what looked like a dark ramp that protruded a half foot above the lunar surface. The ramp-way was pitch black, much like the obelisk, and she couldn’t see how far down it went.

  “You actually going inside?” Craig asked, his voice now sounding perfectly clear as there was a lack of interference with their signal.

  Julie looked up from the ramp to the large diamond shape that no longer glowed nor pulsated. It seemed inert now. She turned to look at Craig, who was finishing latching his gloves to his suit, his helmet already on. She stepped onto the ramp-way, not waiting for Craig to exit the rover. The ramp-way suddenly became illuminated from small white glowing orbs set just above it at ankle-level height. “Now that’s just spooky.”

  There was a pause before Craig spoke, touching her on the shoulder. “Did you do that?”

  “Jesus, Craig,” she said, turning to look at him. With the vacuum of space, there was no sound transmitted as he exited the rover and approached her, startling her with his touch. “The lights came on when I stepped on the ramp.”

  “Sorry, Jules, I was watching my own step getting out and didn’t see them go on. What now?”

  Julie looked at her chronometer on the outside of her wrist showing it approaching the fourteen-minute mark. “I’m going in. We have little time. Are you coming with me or staying here?”

  Craig stepped to her side to peer down the ramp-way and then looked around the area. “We should both go, but I can’t bring myself to leave them like this.” He appeared to nod ever so imperceptibly at the prone, unmoving figure of one of the Russian cosmonauts.

  Julie tried to nod back, the bulkier helmet and suit not conveying body motion very well. “All right, you do what you must up here. If you don’t hear from me in five, come get me.”

  “Right. Just stay in contact while you’re down there,” Craig said, walking and half hopping in the much lighter gravity over to the prone figure.

  Julie turned back and took a deep breath, stepping completely onto the ramp-way. It felt more than solid enough. In fact, it felt as if it had one of those no-slip safety floors that she had seen around the NASA pool training area. She walked slowly at first, feeling the light effect of the reduced gravity and not wanting to propel her helmeted head into the ramp-way’s ceiling.

  “I’m reaching what looks like a door—” she began, and then gasped again, startled as the mass of black separated and revealed what looked to be a large chamber with a center console and illuminated depressions and icons all around the outer edge. “Definitely spooky now. A door just opened and I’m going in.”

  “Roger that, Jules, be careful,” Craig said over the radio.

  Julie Monroe stepped into the chamber, wondering if she would be stuck there, and turned to look at the doorframe to see if there were any symbols or icons she could recognize. She practically held her breath waiting to see if the doors would close. They didn’t.

  She turned back and scanned the room and then stepped toward the center console. She reached it in five steps and looked at the flat console top and the strange markings glowing on a panel facing her, a small, flat, clear glass slide sticking out above what looked to be a glowin
g green icon. She decided she would press the small glowing green depression and reached for it and then realized that just because it was green didn’t mean it was safe. In fact, it could mean the opposite.

  Her hand froze above it, her gloved, rubber-tipped finger hovering near it when suddenly the console lit up and the most detailed, most beautiful hologram she had ever seen was displayed above the flat console top. There, in exquisite detail, was the unmistakable shape of a double-sided helix twirling slowly in a circle pattern, the universal symbol for life itself, DNA.

  “My God,” Julie said.

  31 Atomic Arrival

  NASA Space Center

  Houston, Texas

  In the near future, Day 48

  * * *

  “What did you send them?” Vice President Lee asked from the floor of Houston’s control center.

  Rock nodded and Marge spoke. “The alien signal now appears to be half the genetic code for Homo sapiens. We simply took the other strand, coded it to match their pulse rate and frequency, and shot it back at them.”

  An aide tried to give the vice president his secure radio phone, but the man waved it away. “That’s it? All this time it was a biological message?”

  Marge looked to Rock, and he knew he’d have to run interference since he authorized the return signal in the first place. “Not a message, Mr. Vice President, instead it was more of a query, a way to ascertain if we were of the same genetic coding or not.” Seeing the confusion on the man’s face, Rock explained, “It was more like a password on a computer system than anything else.”

  Lee looked at Rock and then reached for the phone. “Sorry, Gloria, just getting some details on what transpired down here. It seems our NASA team sent a radio reply back to the device.”

  There was a pause, a nod, and then, “Are you sure? NORAD has updated the track? All right, I’ll inform them immediately and then we can debrief. All right, goodbye.” Lee handed the receiver back to his aide. “Mr. Crandon, it appears that the Chinese rocket has accelerated. Impact will be fifteen minutes earlier than our previous estimate. Get your team out of there now.”

  “Jesus,” Tom said from the other side of Rock’s console.

  “Jack,” Rock said, practically screaming over the top of the murmurs from the NASA technicians and the vice president’s aides. “Call abort immediately. Have Craig and Julie evac the area now.”

  Jack didn’t hesitate as he called to their astronauts over a quarter million miles away.

  “Will they have enough time, Marge?” Rock asked, following her to her console a few steps away as Marge sat and started to pound on her keyboard, entering new data and details into her Gant charted spreadsheet.

  “Taking off fifteen minutes exactly?” Marge asked, looking at the vice president, who nodded. Marge made a last couple of clicks and then looked at Rock and shook her head.

  “I repeat, immediate evac NOW!” Jack did scream, though it wouldn’t help as the electronic signal was digitized and put back together at the correct decibel level, though perhaps the tone of his voice would convey the urgency of his message.

  “How bad, Marge?” Rock asked.

  “They’re already a minute overdue, add reaction time, and they’ll be at least two to four minutes down depending on how quickly they leave the area. Any chance that the yield on the nuke will be less than we factored for?” Again, a look to the vice president.

  “Most likely we were being conservative in the first place,” Lee said, his voice now getting harder to hear.

  Everyone turned to Jack, who looked up from his console and took his headset off. “They’ve been notified and are evacuating the area now.”

  Silence engulfed the normally noisy control center.

  Alien Device

  Surface of the Moon, Mons Crater

  In the near future, Day 48

  * * *

  “What the hell do you mean we have to go now?” Julie asked, somewhat annoyed at Craig’s relay of the NASA message.

  “The nuke is going to show up early. We have been ordered to evac now. Come on, Jules, we have to get out of here.”

  Julie Monroe stood looking at the intricate dance the DNA strand made as it glowed and slowly twirled in the air, seemingly to float right in front of her, and felt a strange sadness at having only now discovered the alien technology, though there was no sign of alien life. She took only a split second to make her decision, but it felt like an eternity. Julie grabbed the flat, clear slide that was protruding from the center of the console and tugged on it, expecting resistance. It came out easily, and the holograph disappeared. She placed the clear slide into her Velcro-lined outer pocket and pressed to seal it securely.

  She heard the faint static pulsing of the alien signal again as it reactivated. Julie turned and ran toward the doorway, bumping her head off the ceiling of the chamber as she forgot about the effect of lesser gravity.

  Without much grace, she tumbled, bumped, and ricocheted off the walls of the ramp-way, exiting onto the dark lunar surface illuminated by the rover’s powerful overhead lighting array and a bright pulsating light coming from the diamond-tipped obelisk, which was now active again.

  “Get in, quick,” Craig’s voice came over the radio channel.

  Julie squinted only slightly as the lights from the rover were much brighter than the chamber’s illumination, and she noticed the robotic arms seemingly curled up in a prayer-like position over the suited forms of two humans lying in the large caged storage bin at the rear of the rover.

  Reaching for the door, she opened it, stepping onto the lone step, and pulled herself inside. Before she could shut the door, the rover lurched once and then suddenly took off, crashing her suited form into the robotic arm console and nearly cracking her faceplate. The outer door swung violently from its hinge, and Julie struggled to right herself.

  “Slow down, Craig, you nearly cracked my skull,” Julie said over her voice-activated mike.

  “No time, Jules, we may be too late as it is,” Craig said, the rover suddenly veering to the west, barely missing the Russian lander.

  “You’re heading too far south; must go west,” Julie said, trying to get back to the rear seat and failing miserably in the process.

  “Must go southwest, Jules. I’m heading for the higher and closer lip of the Mons Crater. We need to get out of the area’s LOS,” Craig shot back, his voice back to the usual static that she remembered as the pulsating alien signal continued.

  Julie noticed in the fading light that there were drag marks and footprints from the Russian lander back toward the alien device. Looking through the rear window viewport, she saw the figures of both cosmonauts. Had Craig really retrieved the other one from the lander?

  The rover hit an outcropping, and Julie was hurled into the top of the rover. She heard a cracking sound, which could only mean it was her helmet. The rear compartment was still not pressurized and sound would not carry if it was the rover that had cracked.

  Landing on her stomach and across the chair, she lifted herself with great effort and sat in the same spot Craig had used on their trip to the device. Quickly strapping the safety harness across her torso, she inserted the safety clips into their reinforced holders and felt the harness restrain her as the rover hit another outcropping. Julie unconsciously pressed her gloved hand across her breast pocket and felt the reassuring presence of the alien slide.

  Reaching for the door just to her right, she pulled it shut, feeling the door secure as the sidebars locked it into place and the rubber seals compressed, hydraulically securing her rear compartment. She punched the white pressurization button and felt the air tanks releasing their nitrogen and oxygen.

  “What did they tell you?” Julie asked, a sigh escaping from her as she watched the interior cabin status display go from red to green.

  “What they always do. We are t-plus two minutes, thirty-five seconds from our new timetable courtesy of the Chinese.”,

  Julie flipped the com link in t
he console, activating the relay into her suit which had deactivated during the rush to evac the area, and she heard the update from Houston in midsentence.

  “—nutes, advise you expedite. Concur with the course modification.”

  “Roger, Houston, this is Blackjack. Proceeding at maximum speed for Mons grid three one bravo. ETA update on the new visitor?”

  “Negative, Blackjack, ETA remains the same. Recommend higher rate of departure than what we are seeing on the telemetry feed.”

  Julie heard a click as Craig shut off the main channel for a second. “No shit, are they kidding me?”

  Grasping the seriousness of the situation, Julie also muted the main channel and spoke, using her intra-com voice activation. “Craig, turn the control lever as far as it will go to the right and then push up at the same time,” she said.

  “What?” Craig asked, confusion evident in his voice.

  “Just do it,” Julie said, “far right and push up hard.”

  There was a pause, and then Julie felt the rover lurch forward as the sudden inertia tried to throw her from her seat and back into the console. Her safety harness kept her in place.

  “Where did you learn that?” Craig asked, his voice sounding gleeful.

  “You can thank Tom McClain for that one,” Julie said, watching as the lunar soil was hurled into space behind the rover’s large all-terrain wheels.

  “You can’t be serious. How would the old man know?”

  “Well, he didn’t know about this, but he pulled me aside and told me he rigged it for extra juice just in case we had to beat the Ruskis.”

  “Now that sounds like the man,” Craig said. “Hold on, bump coming up.”

  Julie felt the straps again hold her from colliding with the roof as the rover actually became airborne. Well, space-borne would be a more accurate description, she thought to herself, hearing the call from Houston again.