Alien People

by John Coon

  ALIEN PEOPLE

  John Coon

  SAMAK PRESS

  ALIEN PEOPLE

  Copyright © 2020 by John Coon.

  Samak Press

  ISBN: 978-1-7324871-4-7

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or aliens, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Author’s Note

  No other novel I ever write will match the joy I feel in bringing Alien People to life. This is a true culmination of a writing journey that started as a teenager – a journey that has shaped my adult life.

  I wrote the original rough draft for Alien People over the summer before starting my freshman year at the University of Utah. I tried to get a summer job after graduating from high school, but I did not own a car at the time, so I had limited employment options. I decided to spend that summer writing a science fiction novel. I concocted a clever story idea and cranked out a 400-page story in only three months.

  The early version of Alien People put the rough in rough draft, but it held storytelling promise. It also held a special place in my heart as my lone novel that my Mom read before her death. I tinkered with the story through the years and finally developed and refined it enough to send this novel out into the world in 2020. I love Calandra, Xttra, and the other wonderful characters who populate this fictional universe and hope you will feel the same way as you get to know each character.

  I am indebted to Jefferson Keyes, Spencer Durrant, and Sandra Coon for valuable feedback that helped me refine this story and bring it to life. I am also grateful to Micah Marquez and the design team at 100 Covers for the beautiful cover they created for this novel. – JC

  For Mom, who encouraged me to reach for the stars and discover my own new worlds.

  1

  A broad smile burst across Calandra's face as the ramifications of her discovery became clear in her mind. This was no ordinary probe.

  The observatory telescope revealed a simple object no more remarkable than a random asteroid to untrained eyes. Her instincts led Calandra to a different conclusion as she studied the probe. Laying eyes on a holographic image of this satellite aroused excitement inside her. Peculiar details immediately surfaced in the probe's design. It felt like someone ripped an object from the pages of a historical text and set it before Calandra.

  A broad square sail boxed in a central silvery sphere on all sides. The sail divided into four triangular sections. Rods extended from each section boundary, forming a partial x shape, and fused into the central sphere. A clear material composed the sail and reflected the sphere's coloring. It reminded Calandra of a gigantic mirror.

  One thing seemed certain. This strange orb resembled nothing she had ever seen launched from Lathos. And this simple fact alone created a mystery that made Calandra's heart skip a beat.

  “You need to look at this.”

  She tugged on the sleeve of a dark-haired man seated at an adjacent workstation and coaxed him toward the telescope. He squinted at the same three-dimensional image floating above a holocaster connected to the telescope and studied it. A perplexed expression soon washed over his face, mirroring Calandra’s internal reaction when she first noticed the small probe.

  “This can't be one of ours. The shape is all wrong.” Her colleague pressed down on a panel on a display screen in front of the telescope. “This probe doesn't comply with our standards, Confederation standards, or any other standards I'm familiar with.”

  “That's what I thought too.”

  "And the trajectory is much too distant and on an odd angle. I know of no authorized orbital paths so far away from our sun. Or any so elliptical."

  He cast his eyes at Calandra and ran his fingers through his curly blond hair.

  “Who do you think launched this thing?”

  The young astronomer answered with a shrug while pondering his question.

  “No clue. I think we’ve got a mystery probe on our hands, Dal.”

  Calandra cross-checked coordinates on the telescope — down to the minutes and seconds — a second time and a third time. Dal's first observation proved correct. This probe showed many irregularities both in distance and orbital path. Enough were present to rule out a launch from the surface of Lathos. These irregularities signaled a point of origin entirely outside their system.

  She pursed her lips and glanced back at Dal.

  “If the probe didn't come from Ra'ahm, or Confederation territory, then where did it launch? And who launched it?”

  He did not answer Calandra. Dal studied the rotating image above the holocaster. Ports on each side of the square pad emitted lasers. These struck the pad simultaneously and formed a small light field to recreate a scaled-down image of the probe. It showed how the observatory telescope viewed the probe in real time. The holocaster light field cast an ethereal green glow across his face. His eyes settled into a half-squint as Dal traced the contours on a triangular section of the square sail.

  “I’m guessing the probe operates on solar power,” he said. “The sail looks a bit primitive in construction, but each section appears to be designed to collect and store solar energy.”

  “Maybe we should get the Stellar Guard to send someone up there and take a closer look.”

  Calandra wanted to follow her suggestion with another that included her going on the spacecraft commissioned for this purpose. She realized before saying a word sharing such an ambition would lead nowhere. Stellar Guard officials would never sign off on bringing a civilian astronomer along for the ride.

  Especially not one with her history.

  Dal glanced up at her and shook his head. He slid back over to his workstation and leaned back in his chair. Calandra almost expected him to prop his feet up amid the gadgets cluttering the surface.

  “That won't happen.” Dal barely restrained a laugh as he pinched his eyelids shut. “Our beloved Delcor is only interested in space missions when he thinks Ra'ahm will gain a political or economic advantage over the Confederation. Investigating a simple probe doesn't rank high on his agenda.”

  Calandra gasped. Her green eyes darted around the room to see if anyone else heard what he said.

  “You shouldn't speak so carelessly about our chief sovereign. He does so much for our nation.”

  Dal's eyes popped open again and his hand abruptly sprang up.

  “Of course. Of course. What I mean is he won't be persuaded to commit resources to investigate a random probe unless he sees a useful strategic purpose behind it.”

  Calandra flashed a confident smile.

  “I have ways of persuading him.”

  “Really? How?”

  “You'll see soon enough. When I lay out my case to our chief sovereign, he will beg me to take a scout ship up there myself.”

  Dal shook his head a second time and fiddled with a fist-sized relay beacon monitor bolted to the edge of his workstation. More than a hint of a smirk crept over his lips this time.

  “My odds of taming a feral russakin are better.”

  “You're talking to the granddaughter of a first minister here.” Calandra stood a little taller and raised her chin while sharing that fact. “I guarantee I can obtain an audience with our chief sovereign at his palace.”

  Dal rolled his eyes and allowed a snippet of a laugh to finally escape his lips. He scooted his chair
over to the opposite end of his workstation and began pretending to enter data into a small terminal.

  “A former first minister,” he said, correcting her. “I'll believe it when I see it.”

  Dal turned away to conceal a full-fledged smug grin now pushing against the corners of his lips. He failed. Calandra wanted to mop that grin right off his face. Still, he raised a valid point, and she could not deny his point. Their chief sovereign did not concern himself with satisfying a lone astronomer's curiosity.

  It fell on her shoulders to discover a valid reason for him to care.

  Calandra planted herself in front of the telescope again and studied the probe in greater detail. Her eyes traced it end to end while the probe’s image floated above the holocaster. This object owned an uncomplicated design so distinct and unique from a Confederation or Ra'ahm probe. At first glance, it struck her as being modeled upon an ancient blueprint. Calandra ruled out that possibility right away. No probes launched by the once-mighty Wekonn Empire still circled above their planet. The last ones fell back to Lathos and burned up in their atmosphere more than a hundred generations before her time.

  “Tell me who sent you here.”

  Calandra mumbled that order at the probe as though she expected it to speak and answer her. She sighed and buried her chin inside her hand.

  “Where do you come from?”

  The probe's image flickered. It stood as a virtual statue atop the holocaster, staring ahead and matching the silence Calandra imagined enveloped the probe while it journeyed through space.

  Silence.

  This random thought struck her mind with the force of a clap of thunder. Of course. It made sense.

  Calandra sprang to her feet. A jubilant smile reemerged on her face. Why did she not think to check the relay beacons earlier? Those beacons kept detailed data on all activity at the edges of their planetary system. Perhaps at least one beacon out there gathered specific data that held the key to shining a light on this mysterious probe.

  She pressed a panel on the nearest relay beacon monitor. A holoscreen filled with rows of data and graphs appeared before her. If she wanted her questions answered sooner than later, this was the right place to uncover those answers. The holoscreen laid out every single thing those relay beacons charted while watching their solar system. Each beacon covered vast ground.

  A series of beacons occupied orbital paths exactly one-hundredth of a parsec apart from one another, starting from the innermost planets and extending out to the boundaries of deep space. These beacons acted as early warning systems for comets, asteroids, and other objects posing a potential threat to Lathos or the planet's twin moons. Calandra originally suspected a relay beacon would not differentiate between a probe and other natural space bodies. Now a different thought sprang into her mind.

  If the probe passed near a beacon, chances were strong that the beacon's sensors culled electronic data from the object. Sifting through a massive volume of beacon data presented a daunting task, but Calandra embraced the challenge. If her theory proved correct, the data would show definitive proof this probe came from a point far beyond Lathos.

  Calandra slid her hand into a small black scrolling glove. Glowing circular spots, equal in size to a standard Ra'ahm coin, adorned each fingertip. She scrolled through rows of recent data on the holoscreen with her index finger. Her eyes narrowed and her lips mouthed names and numbers as she puzzled over information from the relay beacon.

  Binary numbers started showing up after she sifted through data for a while. These numbers stood out from what she expected to find in a typical report on a passing comet or asteroid. Binary numbers functioned as a type of universal language. A perfect vehicle for sending a message out into deep space.

  Each binary number set formed a distinct pattern. Calandra saw those patterns unfold in her mind's eye. The first set counted basic numbers, going from one to 10. A new set appeared behind it and revealed atomic numbers for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus. Other patterns followed. Nucleotides. A double helix.

  Two final patterns popped on the screen. Calandra's brows shot up and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes grew as wide as plates. These latest patterns left no doubt concerning the probe's origin.

  The first one resembled a humanoid figure.

  The second pattern cataloged a solar system. It held a larger number of planets than those cataloged within her home solar system.

  Calandra glanced over at Dal again.

  “We've got an answer on the probe's origin,” she said. “And I guarantee our chief sovereign will care about it.”

  Dal slid his chair from his workstation a second time and sidled up next to Calandra. His reaction soon mirrored her own as he surveyed the same data on the holoscreen.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “It does.”

  Calandra’s heart thumped faster while she pondered a deeper meaning behind what she uncovered. Discovering a new alien race attempting to make first contact did not happen every day.

  2

  Tracking the distress beacon to this small asteroid only confirmed Xttra's worst fears.

  A crashed ship.

  Multiple questions flooded his mind as he maneuvered closer to the asteroid. One question fought through the crowd and cast a giant shadow over the others. It gnawed at him with a tenacity rivaling a cala digging sharp teeth into fresh prey.

  Did anyone survive?

  Xttra feared the answer. Lance piloted the scout ship now lying in a heap amid the jagged terrain below. Much of it had become crumpled beyond recognition. He did not want to picture his friend's body in a similar broken state. His mind refused to stop conjuring up those gruesome images.

  “Are you picking up any life signs?”

  “Faint signals from the surface.”

  Xttra cast a quick glance over his right shoulder at the source of the voice — a petite woman with short-cropped black hair. Her troubled expression mirrored his own inner turmoil.

  “What type of signals?”

  “It's such a jumbled mess,” she said. “Tough to get a reading on if the signals are organic or merely ship systems that haven't failed yet.”

  “Let's hope for the organic option, Sarianna.”

  She gnawed on her lip and gazed upon a holoscreen at her station.

  “That option doesn't appear probable.”

  Xttra frowned. Concern flooded his dark blue eyes. Lance lay somewhere amid the wreckage below. Sarianna possessed great skills as a medical officer, but she needed to work on her bedside manner. She should not be reacting to the situation at hand with such a cold matter-of-fact attitude.

  “I don't want to hear it,” he said. “Let's assume the best until we find solid evidence revealing something different.”

  The scout ship circled the asteroid while surface scans continued. Finding a safe landing spot anywhere on that jagged space rock would prove tricky. Xttra drew in a deep breath and exhaled again at a deliberate pace. He needed to keep his emotions in check. It did Lance no good for him to panic. The same with his crew. Xttra had to concentrate his energy on maneuvering his ship down to the asteroid without endangering anyone on board. Who would come to their rescue if their ship suffered a fate mirroring what befell Lance's vessel?

  A small, forceful beep signaled the completion of the surface scan.

  “What do you have for me, Atch?”

  This time, Xttra glanced over his left shoulder at a stocky brown-haired man seated at the navigation station. Atch pressed a small button on the console before him and then spun around to face the helm.

  “I won't lie — this landing site isn't the best,” he said. “We'll need to touch down a short distance from the wreckage and climb over rugged terrain in our zero-gravity gear.”

  Xttra pressed a square orange button on the helm console. A suggested landing trajectory appeared on a holoscreen before him.

  “Whatever it takes,” he said. “If Ahm wills it, we're
not leaving this rock until we've recovered every last person from that wreckage.”

  Their scout ship broke orbit and dropped toward the asteroid's northern polar region. Xttra performed every standard maneuver — and added a couple of his own — to reduce speed on descent. Slamming into a crater, or an outcropping of rock, stayed an ever-present threat as their altitude decreased and no flat area appeared where the ship could safely touch down.

  Xttra steered toward a rocky plain they found a moderate distance from the crash site. Clad in zero gravity gear, he estimated their rescue party would take 15 or 20 minutes to reach the other ship from the plain. He wanted to land closer. Piles of loose rock heaped in so many random locations did not allow for that possibility.

  Plumes of dust shot up as landing gear pressed into rocky terrain. A relieved sigh escaped his lips. Xttra mashed a triangular black button on a small rectangular console running parallel to the right side of his chair. This console controlled the internal communications system.

  “Any updates on our medical capsules, Tressek?”

  “Loaded into the cargo bay and ready to go.” Tressek's gravelly voice produced a slight echo while patching through the ship's internal speakers. “I'm decompressing the bay now.”

  Xttra released the button and sprang to his feet.

  “Gear up. Every second matters.”

  He turned and glanced at his assistant pilot.

  “Grull, stay here with Tressek and monitor our ship. Everyone else will join me in searching for survivors.”

  Xttra donned a zero-gravity suit over his stellar guard uniform. He rubbed his hand over the length of the flexible fabric while searching for leaks or tears. Tubes circulating water and oxygen bumped up against his fingertips. Everything seemed to be in prime working condition. An earlier system check revealed the suit was fine, but Xttra never put 100 percent trust into what automated sensors told him. He snapped on a helmet outfitted with a tinted visor. Data popped up on the visor once he secured the helmet to the rest of his suit. It displayed environmental readings gathered by nanotube sensors embedded within the suit.