by Rod Galindo
Pearls gasped. "Oh, no. If they discover those…"
Bouchard took a deep breath. "Hopefully they're advanced enough to realize what they're for."
"Here's to hoping," Jack muttered.
Bouchard turned back to Scalia. "Glad to hear you've joined us on the E.T. Team, by the way."
Scales pursed his lips into a tight smile. "When faced with facts…"
Bouchard nodded, then turned to face his station. "Looks like we're still cruising along at just over 210,000 KPH, same as before the attack. Scales, can you tell if they're matching it? And does anybody know yet if we're still on course? My screen here is still returning an error."
"Looks like it," Jack replied. "The speed-matching, I mean. Navigation-wise, your station is still configured to my busted-up nav system. Let me check on the status of Shuttle Two's nav computer. Last I checked, it was still in the process of booting up."
"Roger, Jack."
"Their rate of advancement has slowed drastically," said Pearls. "They seem to be inching up to us. They're sitting currently at just over fifty kilometers out." She looked at Don. "You know what that means, don't you? That means they've got their engines in reverse, and they're still moving faster than we are, and without any help from a planetary gravity assist."
Bouchard sat back and let what she said sink in. I hadn't even thought of that…
Adrienne turned to him and spoke softly. "What do you think they're like? Do you think they might really be little green men?"
Don chuckled. "No. I don't have the capacity to guess."
"I'm hoping for squat little guys with glowing hearts and long necks," said Adrienne.
Bouchard narrowed his eyes when she turned to face him.
She smiled. "Hey, you're the one who mentioned E.T."
He nodded. "That I did."
Scalia broke in. "Long as they're not nine feet tall with two mouths and acid for blood, I'd call it a good day."
Bouchard turned towards Pearls and Scales simultaneously. "You both know about every alien from the old films, but you miss almost all my other references. How is that?"
Jack shrugged. "Everybody knows all about aliens and monsters. That's what keeps every kid up at night. Kept me up, anyway."
Don turned back to the cockpit windows, cocked his head to one side, and stared at the alien ship. It now accurately resembled a tiny lump of pitch-black coal, silently edging in their direction. "Maybe they want something?"
The pilot snorted. "What could we possibly offer aliens who have mega-fast stealth craft and laser beams?"
"I don't know. Information? Knowledge of Earth culture? History? Medicine?"
"Live specimens from Earth," offered Ray Isley.
Silence filled the cabin.
"They haven't destroyed the ship," the android continued, "so it logically follows they mean to keep us alive for some strategic, economic, political, or scientific reason."
"As long as it's not to keep their food fresh." This from Scalia.
"Okay, stop." Bouchard shivered. "You're scaring the women."
Adrienne glanced his way.
"Meaning me."
Pearls' beautiful white teeth shined brightly again.
"Well," Bouchard continued, "they haven't taken another 'pot shot' at us. Yet. Maybe if we play our cards right we might actually see another day."
"Should I hail them again, Commander?" asked Ray over the speakers.
"Sure, X-Ray, go ahead," Don said. "Matter of fact, just set the preprogrammed greeting to broadcast on an infinite loop. You know, the one we got from NASA that says 'hello' in fifty-eight languages? Perhaps they simply don't speak English?"
"You think?" Scales snipped, with more than a subtle hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Unless they have a universal translator, or have been watching our television broadcasts since the 1950s, we're probably screwed."
"Enough with the sci-fi references, Jack. That's my job."
Adrienne sat up straight. "Even if they don't understand it, maybe they'll get sick of listening to it and decide to respond?"
"Or get sick of listening to it and blow up the thing making all the racket," offered Scalia.
Bouchard gave him a look that said, with no uncertainty, You're not helping.
Scales shrugged and turned back to his console.
"Open up VG circuits two through four, Ray. Give us the best chance of getting though."
"Yes, Commander."
"And while we wait for our friends to… do whatever they're going to do, I guess I'd better put together a quick report to Mission Control. While I still can."
"And I'll keep working on a way for you to actually get it to where it's going," said Jack.
"Thanks, Scales." Don opened up a comm window on the screen in front of him and stared at it.
"What are you gonna tell them?" asked Adrienne.
The cursor on the screen blinked again and again, taunting him. "Haven't got that far yet."
* * *
Five minutes later, Adrienne pointed a finger toward the transparent ceramic window in front of her. "Someone tell me those are antennae and not gun turrets."
Bouchard looked up. The speck of coal that had been inching toward them was about the size of his outstretched fist in front of him, and now had a definite shape. But it wasn't one he could have described. It was lumpy in some spots, jagged in others, and looked nothing like a spacecraft in even Hollywood's history. "Well, if you're talking about the spiky things jutting off the midsection there, I don't think those are antennae."
"That's what I was afraid of," Pearls said softly.
"I wonder how many more of those things that aren't antennae are pointed at us?" asked Scalia.
"Okay, I've got a rough draft," Bouchard interrupted. "How does this sound? 'Mission Control, blah blah blah… 7 May, 2177. At approximately 1830 Zulu Time, Explorer Two was hit with unknown radiation or possibly projectiles, apparently emitted from a non-natural source. No casualties, four of six ion engines offline, other damage to ship is minor. Commencing repairs. Non-natural source is on intercept course. Will transmit an update in one hour.' And then the usual sign off."
"No mention of our casualty?" asked Perle.
Bouchard's fingers danced on the screen before him. "One… fish…"
"Two fish," said X-Ray. "Red fish…"
"Blue fish," finished Pearls.
Bouchard ignored the playful banter between his pilot and science specialist, and read aloud his edited manuscript. "'One casualty: one male fish in our two deep-space marine reproduction experiments.' There, happy?" He scanned the report once more and then said, "Go ahead and send it, would you please, Mister Isley? They'll get it in, what, fifteen hours at this distance?"
"Closer to sixteen, actually," Ray replied. "I'll send it right away, Commander."
As if in response, the comm circuit crackled. Bouchard jerked his head to his left, to see Adrienne staring at him with wild eyes.
"What was that?" she whispered.
Bouchard's heart quickened. "X-Ray, was that feedback from the VG-1 circuit, or…?"
Ray's voice sounded even and calm. "It's them."
THREE
The alien ship that now filled most of the forward-facing windows of the cabin had appeared to come to a complete stop, but Bouchard knew this wasn't the case. It was backing up at over 210,000 kilometers per hour, and had exactly matched Explorer Two's speed and course after their gravity-assist boost at Neptune. The thing seemed close enough to wave hello. So Don Bouchard did just that. No one waved back. Or if they did, he didn't notice it. He couldn't even make out any windows or hatches or much of anything else on the ugly lump of charcoal.
"Does anyone see any windows?" Pearls asked, as if reading his mind.
He studied the alien vessel for a "bridge" or something that might house the people or creatures that commanded the clunky-looking spaceship. Nothing jumped out as an obvious command and control center. It could be buried deep inside, especially
if this was a military craft.
Bouchard let out a deep breath. "Perhaps—" He was cut off by a blue light that bathed the command cabin completely. He shaded his eyes from the glare.
"What is that?" Scales asked. "A weapon of some kind?"
Bouchard looked down at himself, then tried to cup the light with his palm to see if it inflicted any pain. "I don't think so. It doesn't hurt or anything."
"They seem to be scanning us with a particle-like beam," explained Ray. "It's engulfing Explorer Two in its entirety."
"Right," agreed Adrienne. "It's like when the police come up behind you and shine that bright light in your—" Her eyes became large. "Woah! We're slowing down!"
Bouchard checked the gauges on his console. Sure enough, their speed was decreasing. Soon he felt the forward pull of inertia. Like Pearls was putting on the brakes. But she wasn't. The pull became stronger, and Don was glad he had strapped himself in. He jammed his finger into the ship-wide comms switch. "Everyone hold onto something! We're braking. Hard!" As he grabbed a handle off to his right, he heard a clickety-clack sound behind him, which he was sure was Scales scrambling to get into his own restraining harness. Explorer Two creaked and groaned around him. Softly at first, then more violently.
Uh oh.
If and when a breaking maneuver was required, the ship was designed for "easy" slow-downs over the course of days or weeks. She wasn't designed for the kinds of G-forces the alien ship was exerting on it now. Saint Dominic, Don prayed silently, hold her together!
A small notebook flew past Bouchard's head. He heard a cracking sound to his right. His gaze darted in that direction just in time to see a small line appear in the corner of one of the six-inch thick, Fifth-generation Aluminum OxyNitride windows. Bouchard swallowed.
Oh my God.
AlON5 was a polycrystalline transparent ceramic material—"transparent aluminum" to science fiction aficionados—designed to deflect hoards of small meteorites speeding in at up to five hundred thousand kilometers per hour, should any happen to make it through the ship's far-reaching magnetic field. In very public tests back on Earth, a mere one-inch-thick sheet of AlON5 deflected a cannon ball, a tank round, and a missile fired at it. Don had chuckled at the time; as powerful as those projectiles traditionally were, they amounted to not even 1/100th of the sheer speed of objects Explorer Two might experience beyond the orbits of the dwarf planets Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake. Not to mention the other three-dozen known objects roughly the same size of Pluto that orbited the sun out past Neptune, most of which had been detected or verified by Ray Isley and Explorer Two's telescopes over the last two or three years. But such displays made the general public—which understood little to nothing of such things—feel good about the safety of Bouchard's crew, who had a whopping six inches of the miracle material between them and the evils of outer space. The cockpit windows were arguably some of the strongest "walls" on the entire ship, hence why they were allowed to be so big and nearly wrap all the way around the command cabin.
And one had just cracked.
Bouchard realized then why the entire ship wasn't made of the stuff, like he and the crew had often joked. Its windows aside, the Explorer Two, mighty as it was to make it all the way to the edge of interstellar space, would have been barely stronger than aluminum foil and tissue paper in the atmosphere of Earth. The alien ship bearing down didn't need Buck Rogers-style "laser guns" to destroy her; she would be crushed with nothing but inertia.
Can't the newcomers see we are falling apart?
A loud bang came from Adrienne's side of the cockpit, and a crack spread halfway across the window before her. Red lights sparked to life all across the console in front of them, and alarms blared.
This is it, thought Don. We made it eleven billion miles from home, but this is the end of the road. Will the aliens recover our mutilated bodies? Or simply fly off, their job complete? Will future astronauts be allowed to retrieve us? Should such a mission even be attempted? Because the same thing might happen to anyone who—
A voice over the comm system interrupted his macabre thoughts. Bouchard froze and stared at the alien ship. Was it his imagination? The chaos around him was deafening, and he couldn't tell. Until he heard it again.
It began as jibberish. Clicks, chirps, groans, growls. Then a word he recognized.
"STOP."
He looked at his crewmates. "Did you guys hear that?" he shouted over the din.
"I heard it," yelled Scalia.
What did it mean? Is the voice telling us to stop? Why, when the blue light is doing a good job of that already? Or could it possibly be, Bouchard dared to dream, the alien captain telling his crew to stop, because they realized Explorer Two couldn't handle the stress? On cue, the light surrounding the ship dimmed, then winked out. The violent groans ceased, as did most of the forward tug on his body, but the creaking and the alarms continued.
"Did they finally figure out they were about to rip us apart!?" asked Scales.
"Let's hope so!" Bouchard replied over the squealing alarms. He looked down at his station. The ship's speedometer read 94,672.34 kilometers per hour. "Let's get these alarms shut down!" he hollered at the others. He silenced as many as he could at his station, and saw Pearls and Scalia doing the same, but the chaos continued. "Bypass what you can! Switch on all auxiliaries!" Don threw switches and heard others around him being thrown, which had the effect of finally quelling the klaxon, and turning some of the red flashing lights green or amber. The cabin now quieter, he could speak in a normal voice again. "Let's hope we didn't lose any air."
More sounds came across the open comm channel. One was an unmistakable but raspy order. It said simply, "GO."
Don held his breath.
"Was that them?" Adrienne asked.
Bouchard looked her way. "That wasn't the voice of anyone on this ship."
"Go?" she asked. "Does that mean they want us to leave?"
Another English word followed in the same raspy, scratchy voice. "EARTH." Then more chirping sounds. Then silence.
"Well, I don't know about you two," said Scalia, "but the message is pretty clear to me."
Bouchard nodded. "You may be right, Scales. But if they're expecting us to return to Earth, they're in for a disappointment." With a mere thought, he activated the microphone on the implant near his ear. "Mag-Lev. Any luck with that ion drive?"
"Not yet, boss," came the reply. "We've barely even assessed the damage. Hey, what's going on up there? Are you done tearin' up the ship? What just came over the comm system? Was that a garbled communique from Houston?"
"Unfortunately not. I suspect it was an order from our new 'friends'. One I can't follow even if I wanted to." He addressed his science specialist. "Patch me in to their frequency, X-Ray."
"Done," Ray announced over the loudspeaker. "You're on."
This was it. The moment Bouchard had dreamed of nearly his entire life, but never thought might actually happen. Stick to the script, he told himself. This will go down in the history books just like Neil Armstrong's first words from the Moon, Elwin Ransom's when he stepped foot on Mars, and Rupert Chang's broadcast from the icy surface of Europa. Don took a deep breath. "Greetings! My name is Commander Don Bouchard, in command of the International Spaceship Explorer Two. We are peaceful explorers from the planet Earth!" He paused then, so as not to overwhelm whoever may be listening. "I am pleased to meet you, and hope my people and yours can live in harmony, and benefit from a peaceful sharing of knowledge." He then waited for a response.
None came.
He waited some more.
"Did they hear us?" Adrienne asked.
"I've boosted the signal, Commander," announced X-Ray. "I've also spread the frequencies as far across the radio spectrum as I can. We're now broadcasting from thirty Hertz up to thirty GigaHertz. Please try again."
"Okay." Bouchard raised his voice. "Greetings. We are peaceful explorers from Earth. My name is Commander Don Bouchard, in command of—"
Bouchard looked over at Pearls, who was staring at him with a face that appeared frozen in time. He turned back to the lump of coal, swearing to himself that he would not be scared off so easily. "Alien vessel. This is Commander Don Bouchard, we would like to meet you. This is an historic occasion for us. Our people have never met any—"
"GO!" the voice repeated. Then a new word followed. "NOW."
Bouchard sighed and looked around at the others. Every eye was on him. "I understand you, sir. But we cannot go back to Earth. Our engines have been damaged by your weapons. We need time to enact repairs." He thought adding the fact they would need to perform a 180-degree spin, plus request a boost toward the sun, would add too much to the conversation at this point.
More strange noises came then, from what sounded like multiple creatures. Bouchard listened with fevered intent. Do they understand?
"Sounds like they're arguing," said Adrienne.
Scalia added, "Probably about whether or not to help us or kill us."
"Let's hope it's the former," Bouchard said, and leaned back in his seat.
"You guys are so calm," said Perle. "I'm totally freaked out over here!"
"Pearls, calm down." Bouchard reached over and grabbed her hand. It shook in his. She's serious. "Adrienne, it'll be okay. I need my pilot right now. Okay? Adrienne?"
She looked up. Her eyes glistened.
"Adrienne, I know you're scared. You don't think I'm scared? Look at me, my hands are shaking, too."
She looked down. "No they're not."
"Well, that one's not." He held up his right hand and shook it all over the place. "But I run the ship with this hand!"
This made her giggle.
"Look at Scales. You don't think he's scared?"
"I pissed my pants," the man behind them admitted.
Bouchard hoped he was joking, but he honestly couldn't tell. "See?"