by John Coon
A ship with a triangular nose and a v-shaped body appeared from behind the far side of an icy planetoid dead ahead. The Confederation vessel mirrored Xttra's scout ship in size but bore a sleeker design than his older model spacecraft.
“They're hailing us.” Lance turned to Xttra. “What do you want to do?”
“Everything except speaking to their pilot comes to mind,” he said. “The Confederation of Northern Tribes has zero jurisdiction beyond Lathos.”
Xttra drew his ship inside the other vessel's sensor range. Then, at once, he veered away on an angular trajectory. A new louder beep reverberated throughout the length of the bridge.
“What in Ahm's name do you think you're doing?” Sarianna's voice climbed higher as she connected the dots. “You can't expect to drag that vessel behind us.”
Xttra glanced over his shoulder at her. He answered with a slight nod and his self-satisfied smirk returned.
“Looks like I can.”
Xttra refocused his attention ahead as he turned the ship back onto its original flight path.
“Relax,” he said. “They won't dare fire on us while caught in our magnetic net. The blast would take them out right along with us.”
Lance dug his fingers into both armrests on his chair as his breathing quickened. Sarianna fidgeted with a small scarlet bracelet, woven from shaved pieces of senosa wood, circling her right wrist. Atch kept his eyes locked on the navigation holoscreens and mumbled a few choice words.
Xttra noted their reactions in his peripheral vision and simply shook his head.
“You all worry too much.”
“They're hailing us again,” Lance said.
He glanced over at his assistant pilot.
“I expected as much.”
“Still not going to answer?”
“Not a chance.”
Only three more minutes passed before Calandra's probe finally popped into view. Xttra gave a low whistle when he laid eyes on the alien object. She had not exaggerated one bit. It looked unlike anything he had ever come across in his missions with the Stellar Guard. Xttra recalled seeing a few images of ancient probe designs in a class at the Academy. This one looked even more primitive than those others did.
The alien probe resembled a massive silver sphere hemmed in by a broad square sail on every side. Space dust clung to the sphere's metallic surface. Sensors showed it traveling toward the inner solar system at a brisk pace. Zeroing in on the probe's position without overshooting it required careful maneuvering. Xttra needed to pull off the retrieval while dealing with an added wrinkle of keeping the Confederation vessel off their tails.
A shock wave rippled through the length of the ship. Sarianna and Atch fell from their seats to the floor. Safety straps kept Xttra and Lance from tumbling forward into the helm console. Xttra latched onto an armrest as his right knee banged against the steering control.
An alarm blared throughout the bridge.
“Are they really firing on us?”
Xttra shot a look of panicked disbelief over at Lance as Atch and Sarianna scrambled to their feet. Lance leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes as he surveyed new data on his holoscreen.
“Looks like the Confederation vessel tried to destroy the alien probe,” he said. “They nicked an asteroid instead and sent it spiraling into our outer hull.”
Atch's eyes widened. “Do we have a breach?”
The same thought crossed Xttra's mind at that same moment. He glanced at the hull monitor. It showed some minor outer hull damage. No penetration through the inner hull.
“The asteroid left a serious dent,” Xttra said. “No breach. Praise Ahm.”
Repeating beeps now replaced the alarm.
“Guess who wants to speak to us?” Lance said.
Xttra rolled his eyes.
“Put them on the main holoscreen.”
An image of a stocky man with curly black hair rose from an arca vox embedded in the helm console. The image hovered along the upper edge of the console. His uniform bore a pilot's rank on the left breast. An emblem of 17 stars forming a circle around a perfect sphere decorated the right breast. Xttra instantly recognized the uniform emblem as the Confederation of Northern Tribes national symbol. He pursed his lips and glared at the Confederation pilot.
“Care to explain to me why you persist in attacking my scout ship?”
“What is a Ra’ahm military vessel doing out here in the Ice Belt?”
Xttra clenched his jaw at the other pilot's response and cast his eyes down at the ground. His right hand dropped down and instinctively formed a fist. After taking a calming breath, Xttra relaxed the fist and looked up at the holoscreen image again.
“We don't owe you an explanation for anything. This isn't Confederation space. Never has been. Never will be.”
“You stay away from that probe!” The Confederation pilot slammed a fist down on a helm console inside his own vessel. “This is your only warning.”
Xttra signaled to Lance to end the transmission. The holographic image vanished a second later.
“I'm releasing the magnetic net,” Xttra said. “Let's see how he deals with a barrage of small asteroids.”
Once he switched off the magnetic field, asteroids scattered in multiple directions. Several floated right into the Confederation vessel's path. It blasted some into tiny fragments. Others reached their target. Space rock pelted the outer hull like giant pieces of hail, forcing the vessel to turn and retreat to the original icy planetoid from where it first appeared.
“Now we can retrieve the alien probe and fly out of the Ice Belt before that pile of ebutoka droppings shows up again.”
Xttra reactivated the magnetic net once the scout ship reached a safe distance from all the small asteroids. He positioned their vessel over the alien probe as it drifted into the magnetic field. Once it aligned with the lower hatch, Tressek opened the hatch door and lowered a grappling hook. It banged against the surface of the sphere, rocking the probe from side to side a bit. Tressek threaded the grappling hook through a small opening wedged between the sail and the sphere and drew the probe inside.
“We've got the probe,” Tressek said, his voice crackling over the internal speakers. “It sure is one strange-looking thing.”
Xttra leaned back, glanced over at Lance, and cracked a relieved smile.
“It will be fun figuring out who sent it here.”
7
Calandra paced back and forth inside the communications room. She struggled to chase away anxious thoughts attacking her mind with the tenacity of a swarm of ictus bugs. Static interference from multiple Ice Belt objects disrupted long-range communications. Xttra's last words before they failed gnawed at her. He mentioned their sensors detected a nearby Confederation vessel. Their presence only spelled trouble.
No doubt existed in her mind that Confederation astronomers also detected the alien probe. Their leaders would be equally eager to get their hands on it before anyone else. Calandra heard plenty of stories concerning how ruthless Confederation ships could be away from the orbit of Lathos. Their reputation for crippling other spaceships only elevated her concern for Xttra’s safety.
Calandra fidgeted with a small black ring on her left hand and gnawed on her lower lip. Her eyes remained glued to a nearby monitor. Staring at the screen did nothing to ease her mind. No new data popped up revealing the scout ship's current location. Each minute that dragged on without receiving an update felt more like an hour to her.
At last, a short ripple crossed the length of the screen as the monitor reset and new tracking data popped up. It now showed a scout ship exiting the Ice Belt and heading back to the inner solar system.
“We're getting a signal again,” a technician said.
Her heartbeat quickened. Calandra focused an anxious stare on the technician. What happened with the Confederation vessel? Did Xttra get injured? Was his ship damaged? Did they recover the probe? Hearing even a single word from him would end the onslaught of troubling
questions and ease her mind.
“We brought the alien probe aboard. We are headed back to Lathos now.”
A wave of relief washed over Calandra when the long-range communicator picked up a voice again. The voice sounded like Lance, but heavy static made it difficult to know for certain.
“Understood.” The technician's dull tone matched her bland uniform. “We await your return.
A radiant smile burst across Calandra's face. She clapped her hands together and closed her eyes. Everyone was safe. The alien probe was now in their possession. Finally, she would see it up close for the first time and answer a swarm of questions bombarding her mind.
Calandra lost track of how many hours passed before Xttra's ship touched down on a landing platform inside the shipyard. Imagining what she would discover once she touched and handled the probe consumed her thoughts right up to the moment he returned.
Calandra sprinted out to greet the scout ship as a ramp descended and settled on the landing platform. A small gasp escaped through her lips upon seeing a caved-in section of the outer hull near the belly of the ship. Lingering concerns about dangers the crew encountered in the Ice Belt fled when Xttra emerged from the cargo bay and waved to her. She embraced him at the bottom of the ramp and planted a kiss square on his lips.
“I'm so relieved you're back here safe,” Calandra said. “When we first heard about the Confederation vessel and then lost contact, I feared the worst.”
Xttra held her hand tight against his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Nothing I couldn't handle.”
Calandra let her gaze drift over his shoulder and up the ramp. Her thoughts centered on the probe inside with equal speed. Xttra sensed what occupied her mind when he saw her eyes looking past him.
“Brought back a little gift for you.”
Calandra beamed at the news and darted up the ramp. Inside the cargo bay, a sight she dreamed of seeing for many days greeted her. The probe hung suspended from a huge grappling hook right above the lower hatch door. Multiple ropes wrapped around the sphere to keep it immobile while the scout ship remained in flight.
The alien probe appeared smaller than Calandra predicted. No larger than the metal desk forming part of her observatory workstation. She traced her fingers across the sphere. Traces of cosmic dust clinging to the surface coated her fingertips.
Visual and audio equipment were embedded into the sphere's surface. Calandra brushed away dust particles from a visible lens.
“This must be a primitive image recorder. Do you think the probe can send data back to its home planet from here?”
Xttra approached the probe and studied the same lens as Calandra. He looked over at her and answered with a half-shrug.
“Maybe we should record a message on the probe and see what happens.”
“How are we supposed to do that?”
“I have no idea.”
Calandra brushed her left hand down the surface of the sphere, searching for a port to connect recording equipment, so they could try to send a message. She soon felt a popping sensation under her fingertips. Calandra pulled her hand away and a small drawer opened. It held two objects. One resembled a golden disc with a medium-sized hole in the center. The other was a rectangular device matching the size of her thumb.
Their purpose stayed a mystery to her.
“What in the world are those things?”
She glanced over her shoulder as Lance sidled up next to her. He reached inside and removed both objects from the drawer.
“I've never seen this kind of technology before now.” Lance turned both objects over in his hand. “I wonder what purpose these gadgets serve.”
Xttra and Tressek circled the probe and stopped on the opposite side of the sphere. Xttra reached up and brushed away more dust with his fingertips. His eyes grew wider and his mouth dropped open. He craned his head around the side of the probe and glanced at Calandra.
“Found a metal plate over here. Near the base of the sphere. A short message is inscribed on it.”
“An engraved message?”
Calandra could not conceal a rising excitement in her voice as she and Lance both scrambled over to the other side of the probe. They joined Xttra and Tressek in front of the plate. Traveling through interstellar space tarnished the surface. Engravings on the plate dulled with age and exposure but still stood out enough to display a short message.
The symbols used to compose the message bore no resemblance to any written language on Lathos. Numerous symbols strung together to form random patterns. Calandra stared at each symbol inscribed into the metal with fascination. She had no clue what a single symbol meant at first glance. If these dashes and dots formed words, she did not understand what those alien words were supposed to mean. Nothing on the plate corresponded with her own language.
Calandra was not alone in feeling perplexed while trying to decipher the message.
“I have never seen this language anywhere else in my travels.” Xttra tapped the plate with his index finger. “This is definitely a message here. No idea what any of these symbols mean.”
“We should be able to translate the message at some point,” Tressek said. He rubbed a thick tuft of hair adorning only his chin. “Our translators can crack even the most primitive ancient languages here on Lathos.”
Lance glanced over at him with an uneven smile and snickered a bit.
“This is an alien planet. Who knows if their language even comes close to resembling any words spoken on our world? They could communicate with grunts, growls, and gestures for all we know.”
Tressek answered him with an icy stare. Calandra did the same, although she silently admitted Lance raised a valid point. Deciphering an alien language from symbols completely foreign to their own frame of reference bordered on impossible. On the other hand, the alien language must have at least a few words that shared meanings with words from their own language.
Calandra recalled the simple message she pulled from the binary numbers. These probe builders successfully used one method to communicate across the stars at a most basic level. It convinced her they would soon decipher their language and learn to communicate with this alien race at a more complex level.
Lance could not dampen her optimism.
“An extractor can map the probe and help us translate,” Calandra said, keeping her eyes locked in a glare at him. “We have one over at the observatory. If this probe is outfitted with an internal computer, and we can interface with the alien technology, we will recover the data we need to decipher their language and learn more about these aliens.”
Xttra stood and answered with an approving nod.
“Makes perfect sense to me,” he said. “Let's get an extractor over here.”
Calandra contacted Dal on her arca vox and asked him to bring over the extractor. He arrived at the shipyard within the same hour. During that time, the group transported the probe from the cargo bay into a smaller research room inside the south control tower. It now rested on a small flatbed cart parked near a terminal. Dal scrunched up his face as soon as he laid eyes on the alien probe.
“Where did you dig up this piece of junk?”
Calandra flashed a weary smirk and rolled her eyes at his effort to be sarcastic.
“You already studied the probe's image we captured from the telescope. Were you expecting to see something different now?”
He shrugged. “I expected more advanced technology for an interstellar probe.”
“It's wonderful we found this alien probe in the first place,” Calandra said. “I'm not going to critique their design aesthetics.”
Dal carried the portable extractor with him. He clamped it on the exterior of the central sphere and pressed a pair of oval buttons on the screen. Bars illuminated across the entire screen as the long rectangular device glided over the face of the sphere. The extractor emitted a low continuous hum and a pulsing yellow light while extracting data from the probe's internal computer. Calandra's
eyes shadowed every movement. Once the extractor crossed the entire sphere surface, it stopped moving and emitted two rapid beeps in succession.
“That took less time than I expected,” Dal said. “Let's see what we have here.”
He plugged the extractor into a terminal port at an adjacent workstation. Rows of data appeared on a holoscreen above the terminal. Calandra focused her attention on a small box in a bottom corner of the screen. It displayed a set of unusual numbers. She wondered if these numbers were the alien probe's home coordinates. None correlated with familiar units of measurement Calandra used to map star charts at the observatory. No other theory on what purpose these numbers served sprang into her mind.
She tapped on the box with her index finger.
“Take a look at these numbers. I think they could shine a light on the probe's origin.”
Xttra and Lance both hunched over the terminal and gazed at the numbers in question. Surprise washed over Xttra's face. He twisted his lips and scratched his head.
“Those are too large for star chart coordinates.”
“I suppose the numbers could measure distance the probe traveled,” Dal said.
Xttra squinted at them again for a moment and then straightened up. He shot a puzzled stare at Dal.
“Exactly what unit of measurement is being used here? These numbers don't offer an obvious clue for a point of origin — at least not to me anyway.”
A distinct image of a relay beacon popped into Calandra's head. She knew those beacons recorded a wealth of data on every passing object. That data had to hold the answers to their questions.
“I have an idea of how we can find out,” she said. “We already have what we need. We just need to know where to look for it.”
Calandra shifted her attention over to a relay beacon monitor at the other end of the workstation. She retrieved the data culled from the probe when it first approached their solar system. Calandra scrolled through multiple rows of data until spotting a string of numbers like ones the extractor recovered. She jabbed her finger in triumph at the holoscreen and wheeled around to face the others.