Bernhard was surprised when he felt sadness at the understanding that it likely would not. So much of this mission was supposed to be shrouded in secrecy, after all. If everything went according to the way the Air Force intended, his participation here would likely stay hidden for a long time. And again, to his surprise, he felt a little resentment at that. Not so much that he would be a silent player in all this. He could accept that part. He’d been a quiet part of many tasks and missions as part of Spec Ops and it had never bothered him before. Secrecy was part of the job, and if his country wanted him to sacrifice some of the glory, he would gladly do it.
But Bernhard wondered about his daughter. Was she down there on Earth somewhere, staring up at the Visitor? Would she ever know that her father had been a part of this? Or would she always just believe that he had once again neglected to call her, that she meant nothing to him, that other things in his life came before his actual flesh and blood?
Bernhard looked over to see Johnson staring at him again. He tried to ignore her.
“So what have we got?” Bernhard asked, making sure that his personal body camera was recording not just what he saw but everything he said.
“All digital attempts to view or record the Visitor are still being confounded,” Zersky said. “We’re going to all have to make sure we describe what we see, in case it doesn’t get picked up on the recordings.”
“It looks very flat,” Teng said. “Like it is just a wall hanging in space.”
“If it’s a ship,” Johnson said, “then whoever designed it has a very different concept of what works and what doesn’t than what we do. Aerodynamically, it doesn’t look like it could move.”
“Look at the far end, though,” Xiang said in English this time. “That might be some kind of thrusters. A method of propulsion.”
“All of that’s well and good,” Bernhard said. “But what we really need to find is a way in. There has to be some kind of airlock. That’s our first priority.”
“Details are a bit fuzzy from here,” Zersky said. “We’ll have to get closer to actually search it.”
“Hey!” Dufresne called from the back. “When do we get a chance to see? We came all this way, so we have a right to science, too!”
Bernhard looked to Johnson. “Those two are going to be lucky if I don’t throttle them before any of us get back to Earth.”
Johnson patiently patted him on the shoulder. “Go easy on them. Houston is a brilliant engineer and Dufresne is one of the foremost botanists on the planet.”
“Yeah, about that,” Zersky asked. “Why the hell did we bring a botanist, anyway?”
“Because we don’t even have the slightest clue where we’re going to need to begin with this thing,” Johnson said. “The Visitor might be some kind of ark for alien plant life. Or it might be a very high-tech message in a bottle, some way for the aliens to test out if there’s anything out in the void.”
“Or it could be a warship,” Bernhard added.
“Or an intergalactic advertisement for orange juice!” Dufresne called back. “You guys do know I can totally hear you talking about me, right?”
Bernhard stopped talking. This was going to be a long first contact.
Chapter Four
Even up close, the Visitor continued to resist any and all attempts to record it. Even their individual body cameras, when pointed in the direction of the mysterious alien object through the window, would start to whine with interference.
“That might cause a problem when we get inside the Visitor,” Bernhard said.
“If we can get inside at all,” Teng said.
“Look over there,” Xiang said, pointing at a point about halfway up this side of the Visitor. “There is a depression in the side. It might be a door.”
“Zersky, get us closer to it and see if we can get a better look,” Bernhard said. He turned around and called back to the others. “Houston, get up here. This might be where we need some engineering skills.” Teng, likewise, had his own mechanical engineering expert, a woman named Li, come up and join them. It was starting to get rather crowded in the cockpit, but then there was nothing to help it. These kinds of problems were exactly why the scientists were here, after all, so Bernhard needed as many of the big brains working together on this.
“Is the Visitor giving off any kind of signal?” Li asked as they got closer to what they hoped was the main entrance.
“Nothing that our instruments are reading,” Bernhard said. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“There might be some kind of call and response,” Houston chimed in. “That’s what you’re alluding to, right?”
“Correct,” Li said. “I thought it might be waiting for some kind of code in order to open.”
“Maybe there is a signal, but just not using any wavelength or technology we recognize,” Johnson said.
“Zersky, see if this thing is emitting something else other than radio waves,” Bernhard said. “Check radiation, maybe.”
“Negative on radiation,” Zersky said.
Xiang seemed to be interested at that. “You mean no radiation being intentionally sent out, right?”
“No, I’m mean I’m not picking up any radiation at all,” Zersky said. “That’s what we want, isn’t it? I know I sure don’t want to get on that thing and suddenly get enough of a dose to start growing a third testicle.”
“Gross!” Johnson said. Li, on the other hand, gave Zersky an appreciative look like she might want to see that.
“It would not make any sense for there to be no radiation,” Xiang said. “Wherever this thing came from, it has traveled a great distance, likely through space. Even if it managed to skip through all that space through something like a wormhole, it should still show slightly higher than normal radiation purely for being out here for as long as it has.”
“Let me run another test and see,” Zersky said. “Uh, no. Nothing. You’re right. I’m not even picking up the slightest background radiation from it.”
“Almost like it’s absorbing the radiation,” Johnson said.
“All of this is very fascinating, I’m sure, but does anyone have any ideas on if this information will help us actually get in?”
“Wait, look!” Teng said, pointing out the window. As they got closer to the depression in the side of the Visitor, they got a better sense of scale. The huge size of the mysterious alien object had made it difficult for them to tell from far away, but the closer they got, the more they realized this wasn’t merely some small door or airlock. This was big, like the open door of a hangar. Bernhard’s mind immediately went back to McGinnlas Air Base, where a huge hangar inevitably meant fighter jets. He couldn’t think of any reason why a ship on some kind of mission of peace would need a hangar door that size.
He thought back to the nuclear device, quietly hiding away in their cargo along with the rest of their gear, where it was inside a lead-lined box. Thinking of an invading army of alien fighters, he made sure to mentally go over the codes for the bomb one more time. Just in case.
But that wasn’t even what had caught Teng’s attention. Again, because of the scale, Bernhard hadn’t seen at first. It had simply looked like there was a dark line painted at the bottom of the door. It wasn’t until he saw the line thickening that he realized it was opening.
“Stop the Ambassador,” Bernhard said. “Don’t get any closer.”
“What, are you crazy?” Houston asked. “That’s exactly what we’ve –”
“Shut up,” Bernhard said. “As much as you people want to act like this is some kind of amazing vacation, all of this is still a military operation, and I am in command.” He looked back at Zersky. “Maintain a safe distance. Wait until the door is open all the way, then do further scans and tests. For all we know, that could be some kind of Death Star super laser, and if we try to fly in, it might fry us all.”
“Affirmative, Captain,” Zersky said.
“You don’t really think that’s what it is, do you?” J
ohnson asked.
“No. But it doesn’t matter what I think it is. We are going to do everything proper and by the book up until we know for sure. And Johnson, just because I like you doesn’t mean you can question my decisions, do you understand?”
“You like me?”
“No. Go back to your seat.” He nodded at Teng. “What you want your people to do is up to you, but as mission leader, I highly suggest getting anyone you think is non-essential for this part strapped back in and prepared for the possibility of something coming out of that door.”
Teng nodded. “Xiang, go on back. Li, you stay.”
Fifteen minutes later, Bernhard was forced to admit that his caution was unwarranted. None of their instruments picked up anything out of the ordinary, except for the curious continued lack of background radiation. Bernhard kept note of that, then instructed Zersky to approach the hangar door. Still, he didn’t have them go in.
“Whatever kind of stealth or jamming technology this thing has,” Zersky said, “it seems to be worse inside. From the outside, it was giving us scrambled visuals. But all cameras are pointed to look in and picking up nothing at all. Just blackness.”
And everyone in the cockpit could see very well that the hangar was, in fact, well lit. There were lights running along the walls, illuminating what appeared to be hundreds of boxes hanging from the ceiling. The floor, on the other hand, looked empty.
No, Bernhard realized. That wasn’t the floor at all. That was the ceiling. Drifting here in space, it was easy to get disoriented compared to other objects. To them, the Visitor almost appeared to be upside down, but really it was the other way. Those boxes hanging from ceiling were actually on the floor, which implied…
“There’s gravity inside there,” Bernhard said.
Houston pointed outside the hangar at the Visitor itself. “The Visitor isn’t rotating or anything like that.”
Bernhard looked at him. “And why do you seem to think that’s significant?”
Li spoke up. “When we put something into space, if we want to simulate gravity in a weightless environment, we would have the object rotating. The spin would seem to act in the same way as gravity to anyone and anything inside it.”
Houston nodded. “But if the Visitor isn’t doing that, then that means the gravity we’re seeing inside this hangar is generated in some other way. We’re looking at true artificial gravity. That right there, all by itself, is a new technology that could completely change the course of the human race.”
“How so?” Bernhard asked.
“To start with, it could be used to minimize the effects of atrophy on anyone we send into space,” Houston said. “If we all sat in this shuttle for long enough, our muscles would begin to suffer from not having to deal with gravity all the time. If we had this tech, it could make it more feasible for humans to be part of long-distance space travel, even without any kind of long-distance traveling device. It would theoretically be able to give us –”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Bernhard said. He didn’t need to know all the theoretical ways this technology could change the world. All he needed to know was that it was valuable, and every major nation and corporation throughout the world would want to get their hands on it. “Zersky, I guess that means that if we’re going to try to land in there, we’ll need to flip the Ambassador to orient with it.”
“Is that the official order then, Captain?”
“It is.”
“Okay. Then just to let you know, these old space shuttles weren’t built for that kind of landing. It’s designed for a long stop, just like a jet. There’s no vertical take-off or landing ability.”
Bernhard understood what that meant. Shuttles were supposed to dock with objects in space, not land on them. Not only would it be difficult and strange to set the Ambassador down inside, but it would be even harder for them to leave again without any kind of runway.
Escape, if they needed to do it, would be tough.
“Your concern is understood and noted,” Bernhard said. “Do what you need to do to land us in there. Everyone, back to your seats. You don’t want to be floating in the air when we cross over into that hangar and gravity returns.”
Bernhard went back with the others and took his seat, but not before he once again checked his weapons and equipment. No one else had noticed, or at least mentioned, it yet, but considering that the door had opened for them with no outside input, the implication was that something else had done it for them. Despite the total lack of communication they’d had so far, there was someone or something in there that was aware of their presence. The opening of the door for them could be a friendly overture, or it could be the setup for an ambush. Let the scientists hope for the former. He and his men would prepare for the latter.
Chapter Five
Dr. Johnson did this thing when she was nervous where she bit her lip. Bernhard found it cute, which annoyed him.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Johnson said.
“And I still agree with you,” Bernhard replied. “Why are we still going over this?”
“Because you’re the commander of this mission. You can make an order and have it done differently.”
It was exactly the same conversation they’d been having for the last fifteen minutes, just with different words each time. They were all preparing to exit the Ambassador, and Johnson had been voicing her disapproval of this the whole time, although at least now she had the decency and courtesy to stop questioning him in front of the others. She’d pulled him aside into the now-empty cockpit for this. Bernhard found it funny that she, with all her talk back on Earth about needing to explore the possibilities of the Visitor before passing judgment on it, was the one saying they shouldn’t go out and explore it now.
Granted, she had a lot of very good points. They had done a test of the air inside the Visitor soon after they’d touched down in the hangar, and it had come back as perfectly breathable for humans, with no trace of hazardous gasses or chemicals in the air. Again, that was a bit weird, in that there were none at all even when there should have been at least something in minute traces. But her main argument, and a very good one, was that just because they had searched for hazards that they knew about didn’t mean there wasn’t something that could hurt them that no one had ever considered before. Most specifically, there was no way to test for alien viruses or bacteria.
Those points, however, were also moot. Plain and simple, they didn’t have enough space suits. In any other mission, this would have been a grievous oversight that would get someone fired. In this instance, they had just been some of the many things that they both hadn’t been able to get enough of in such a short period of time and also hadn’t had the room for. The shuttle had already been dangerously overweight with the things they had no choice but to bring, and decisions had needed to be made quickly. Enough space suits had been packed that someone would have been able to do an extra-vehicular inspection of the Visitor if they hadn’t been able to get in. Now that they had made it inside, though, the only way they could use the space suits to guard against hazards was if only a few people wore them while everyone else walked around without, and that was just ridiculous.
Johnson, knowing this was an argument she would never win, eventually went out of the Ambassador with everyone else. Bernhard stayed behind long enough to check in on the nuke. It was a small device, relatively low yield, but enough to, if not completely destroy, then at least permanently cripple the Visitor if it came down to that. Bernhard armed the device, then set up the remote detonator he’d been given and hid it on his person. He would be able to activate it from a distance, probably from anywhere within the mysterious alien structure, but it would take a code that only he knew to first turn on the detonator, then another to activate it. While that made it difficult to set off in an emergency, he would rather that be the case than have it possible for him to accidentally bump the detonator in his pocket and blow them all to little radioactive bits.
&n
bsp; He walked down the Ambassador’s stairs to find that his men, both Army Rangers and Air Force Spec Ops, had done their job and set up a perimeter that they could defend in the event of a sudden attack. Teng’s forces had done the same, although Bernhard did notice that the Chinese and the Americans seemed to be keeping their distance from each other. He would have to speak to Teng about that. There might be the occasional tensions between their countries on Earth, but up here everyone needed to remember that they weren’t from the US or from China. They were from Earth, all from the same species, and they had to act like it.
From their current vantage point, Bernhard now had a much better idea of the size for the hundreds of boxes in the hangar than he had on their approach. Scale had been difficult to determine then, but now he could see that each box was slightly smaller than the Ambassador. They were gray and completely featureless, each of them about fifteen feet high and thirty to forty feet on a side. Zersky had landed the shuttle as far as he could from them, but it was obvious to Bernhard that these had to be the first things they investigated.
“Stroebel, Sorensen, and Hatch. You’re with me. Zersky, Hodges, McNeil, stay back for the time being and keep guard on the civilians. Teng, stay back and keep command here, but give me two of your fighters that have a good command of English.”
Dufresne immediately started to complain that the scientists should go first when investigating anything regarding technology, but Bernhard had already taken to tuning out every single word she said. Teng, in the meantime, ordered Ngai and Yeow to join up with Bernhard. The two of them fell in easily with the Army Rangers, adapting to their formation and complimenting it with their own, although again they kept their distance. Bernhard took the lead and, with his rifle firmly in hand, they went out and came up to the first of the strange boxes.
Alpha Contact Page 3