by Greg Remy
Suddenly, a proximity warning covered the entirety of her console, signaling an enormous mass was about to impact the bow of her ship. The alert disappeared, reappeared, and then disappeared again. Zoe was quick on the controls, ready to burst-fire her ship’s thrusters, but she didn’t see anything in front of her.
“What the hell?” she said. At that moment, a bright white light flared up right in front of the cockpit window. Zoe jumped in her seat and covered her eyes. The light pulsed several times, sending blinding flashes throughout her ship.
“Damnit!” she shouted. “What the hell is that?!”
Just as soon as the light began, it disappeared, along with the proximity sirens. As Zoe’s vision returned, she dared to look out again. Suddenly, at quite a distance away, the same light reappeared, near a large CF vessel. It pulsated several times before disappearing again. Then the light appeared again, this time off to her portside. Then two appeared. Then three. Zoe’s heartbeat quickened.
She overlapped all her scanning programs, synced them to the cadencies of Dr. Saknussemm’s algorithm, and gasped at what was revealed onscreen. There were more than blinking lights emerging into existence.
“Darious, something is coming. A lot of somethings.”
Chapter 50
The Watchers
Another bright light ignited just off Zoe’s starboard bow. The radiance lit up her cockpit with brilliant whites and blues. Zoe’s muscles tensed, and she saw Darious grip the armrest tight. Then a new blinking light appeared to their portside. Right after, three more sparked into existence.
“Zoe.”
She didn’t respond. This was a lot to process and it was time to put the processing power of her computer to work. She had to understand more about what was happening around them. More intense surges popped into view. The metallic hulls of CF ships glinted and flashed as light-points continued appearing around them. Zoe squinted her eyes to properly see her projection console.
“Zoe.”
“Darious, I’m tracing out hundreds, no thousands of…”
“Of what?” he asked.
“Oh shit,” she said in a breathless voice.
“Zoe, Zoe what is it?”
“A node has begun here. It’s centered right on us.”
Zoe knew what she had to do.
“We must move away!” uttered Darious. He leapt out of Zoe’s chair toward his station.
“No, Darious, it’s all around us. I think I can enhance the Saknussemm Field. If they don’t know we are here, they will soon.”
An illuminating haze began to fill the cockpit. Zoe took a quick glance around them. It was like a creeping fog, expanding throughout the cabin and working its way toward the main chamber. As Zoe typed on her console, her virtual keyboard started to evidence a sort of halo effect, very much like the helical statue.
“Zoe.”
“Thirty more seconds Darious.” She chanced to look out and saw that space had filled with the flashing lights. She gasped. They were growing! The lights now looked like contained bubbles of radiance expanding into one another. Zoe continued typing as fast as she could. “Come on. Come on,” she whispered to herself.
The illumination within the cockpit was becoming unbearable. Zoe could barely see her own hands. Come on! She was attempting to synchronize her Z-Pulsers with the foreign transmissions and send back a message of her own, simply stating ‘Welcome to the galaxy.’ Finishing just moments later, Zoe closed her burning eyes and pressed enter.
As every bit of surrounding outer-space was enveloped by the refulgence, as the white fog completely permeated Zoe’s ship, as she and Darious both exhaled one last time, their reality exploded. In that moment, pure achromatic light completely overtook Zoe’s spaceship, quenching every shadow with intensity beyond the fathomable. Just as soon as the extreme light began, it ended, and all illumination evaporated. Zoe was blinded.
“Darious, Darious where are you?”
“Here, Zoe.”
She felt her way up the seat, finding his hand and firmly gasping it. Zoe’s vision slowly returned, at first only granting a blurred view of her surroundings. She squinted her eyes and stared out from the cockpit. All the lights were gone. She could only make out the nearest ships from the CF fleet. She rubbed her eyes.
“Zoe, what happened?”
Still holding Darious’ hand, Zoe stood up to face him, only to freeze as soon as she made eye contact.
“Zoe? Zoe what is it?”
‘It’ was inside the ship.
“Zoe?”
“Darious. Darious slowly, slowly turn around.”
She let go of his hand and cautiously moved past him to the entryway of the central chamber. In the middle of the room there was a dark shadow in the form of a tall, slender figure. It had specks of light shining throughout it, like glinting diamonds strung up and turning in a breeze. Zoe took several quick glances around the room. She then entered inward, never blinking; her full attention focused on the curious umbra. Very carefully, she edged around it until she had completed a full circle. She could not spot the source of the shadow. What was more eerie than that, as she had turned around the object was that, it seemed to have a rigid three-dimensionality to it.
“Amazing,” Zoe said.
It was a confined visual obscurity, like a nebula in a bottle, yet it remained contained without the bottle. Darious came into the main chamber, just past the entry but no further. Zoe lifted a finger to touch the shadow.
“What are you?”
She carefully felt it with her fingertip and quickly withdrew her hand. The digit felt as though it had pierced through a partition of cold mist. She examined her finger, but it did not look damp in the least. Zoe sharpened her eyes, staring at the mirage-like figure. Its shadowy presence imparted an ominous impression but its lack of motion eased Zoe’s nervousness. Her mind was in full gear, going through every stored memory for a cue or a clue as to what it was. Nothing.
“Hmmph,” she said, peering in closer at the enigma.
Zoe lifted the same finger to prod it once more. As she slowly raised her arm, the shadow began to branch out, perpendicularly lifting a limb from its middle section, exactly mirroring her motions. Zoe yelped and jumped back but was quick to step forward, keen on maintaining her standing rank, and stared intently at the specter. It had put back down its appendage and was once more still. Zoe repeated her same movements and again the shadow copied them. She then put her hand forward and closed all her fingers except her pointer finger, slowly extending it toward the ethereal mass. It continued to match her gestures. The end of shadow’s limb lengthened, becoming a fine line, as if it were outstretching a finger of its own to meet hers.
Their digits connected at the tips. Zoe gulped. A thought suddenly sparked in her mind, outshining all others. The shadow was alive. That was in fact a finger touching hers. She remained still, her hair on edge. Though not human, the figure was shaped to similar, albeit taller and slimmer, proportions. There was a definite, distinct intelligence here on her craft. The thought sallied Zoe’s consciousness, resounding in her mind. Non-human origin—alien. She suddenly felt light on her feet as if she would swoon and faint. Zoe shattered through her self-hypnosis and did her best to shake off the remaining pieces. She straightened her shoulders, placing her arms at her sides, ready to test her hypothesis.
Zoe sidestepped the figure and brought out her lightcard. She raised it up to the shadow, which once more had become motionless, yet now, she felt as though it was watching her. Zoe’s lightcard lit up with the scan results and she smirked, still in a half-baked state of mind.
“It seems, my non-human friend, you are not wholly here.” Zoe suddenly felt an epiphany dawn on her. “Shit! You’re not wholly here!”
She scrambled past an awed Darious and was quickly at her main console typing. She returned to the main chamber momentarily, shoulder-to-shoulder with Darious. Staring at the shadow, Zoe spoke to Darious, “I’ve set the Z-Pulsers to fire a sm
all energetic node at our guest.” Zoe pressed enter on her lightcard.
The figure suddenly became very sporadic. Sections of it lightened while others deepened in tone. Within the shadow, it looked like a complex series of woven lines. Streaks of pointed light shot out across the room. Zoe held Darious’ hand as Dr. Saknussemm’s algorithm, fed into the Z-Pulsers, detangled the entity from its offset vibrations. The phantom began pulsating, flickering in and out of sight, though becoming darker each time it flashed back to reality. Zoe looked at her lightcard and cranked up the energy output of the Z-Pulsers. Energy arced across the shadow as if it were a Tesla coil. The figure began to solidify; the cloud surrounding it was fading and a definite hominid form was beginning to take shape. Zoe’s jaw descended lower and lower. A lifeform was coming into existence before them.
Zoe turned the energy to max and a shockwave burst out from the entity, knocking both Darious and her to the ground. The main chamber was instantly filled with smoke. Zoe coughed as she stood back up. The haze was too thick to see anything. She slowly started to move forward with an outstretched arm, feeling her way. She stopped cold as her hand encountered something unidentifiable. It felt warm, strong with a dense, complex structure underneath yet soft to the touch. In her mind’s eye the only thing she could picture was skin stretched over tightly interwoven muscles of an arm, but it was not Darious’ arm. Zoe breathed heavily. She dared not move. The mysterious limb slowly retracted in the presence of her fingers. It was sliding backwards, becoming smaller and smaller until it was something different altogether at her fingertips. Zoe’s hand was shaking. She could feel a profile of skin and bone slowly work its way into her hand. Once it was at her palm, it began blossoming with singular digits, opening her hand with it. Zoe could feel long, thin fingers unraveling opposite hers. Her whole body trembled. The fingers straightened, extending beyond Zoe’s, and their fleshy palms connected. The entire hand felt warm to her, warmer than that of a human’s.
The ship’s filters worked rapidly. The hand—and the being connected to it—emerged from the fog. Before Zoe stood a tall figure, very thin with stringy limbs. Its skin was brown, a deep Earth-1 tone. She could not tell if the entity was wearing some sort of body suit or was simply nude. If it was the latter, it was completely hairless and without any semblance of sexual organs. Elongated ribs shown along the being’s chest. Tightly wrapped around its neck were connected rods of celestial blues with a single pendant hanging down from them that looked like a dark planet with specks of silver. Zoe looked up at the face; it was humanoid, but also very much elongated. Her heart dithered as she gazed at the eyes. They were so large; they too looked like black worlds.
With a long graceful movement of its torso, the alien closed its hand around the ornament it wore and bowed to Zoe and Darious. Zoe was in complete amazement. It then stood straight, towering over the pair. In an odd tenor, elongated like its physical body, the being spoke.
“Welcomme to the galaxy.”
Zoe marveled at the alien. All she could manage to say was, “ha.”
The being turned in a smooth, flowing motion and picked up the halo statue from the table. With superlatively graceful movements, it bent to one knee and presented the offering to Zoe with its head bowed. Zoe gulped. She slowly stepped forward and carefully took the statue, bowing her head, and then looked at the alien.
“Thank you. I shall put it on my mantle.” Zoe immediately wanted to smack her forehead. Mantle? Really?
The alien stood and in a single fluid stride, as if gliding on a cloud, stepped past Zoe to Darious and bowed to him. Darious, who hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time, attempted to reciprocate with a bow of his own, though his body remained rigid and his arms were stuck at his sides, thus transforming his gesture into more of an awkward bending kink than a cordial courtesy.
“Friennd, welcomme to the galaxy,” the alien spoke.
“Si-r,” said Darious, nearly tripping over the single-syllable reply. He held out his hand to the alien. Zoe, still in a sidereal bewilderment, couldn’t help but smirk at Darious’ manners. However, to her surprise, the alien put forward its own long hand and grasped Darious’, giving it a single oscillatory shake. The being then strode past the pair, making its way to the cockpit and coming to a stop before the window to space. Beyond lay the awaiting CF fleet. Zoe followed at a couple paces behind and too stared out at the view.
The being pointed an elongated finger to the armada of destroyers, cruisers, and warships.
“Welcomme themm to the galaxy,” it said.
Zoe understood. She snuck under the arm of the tall individual and took to her captain’s seat. She began typing on the projection console, swiveling the Z-Pulsers back out and loading them with the same settings which had brought their new friend onboard. She enlarged the field of dispersion to cover the entirety of space around them. Darious had carefully made his way past the alien and was at the back of Zoe’s chair, looking over her shoulder. The Z-Pulser modifications were quickly set up and Zoe pressed enter, sending out Dr. Saknussemm’s signal to the stars.
“Resonance for the masses,” said Zoe.
Looking out, she could see a shift in the eternal darkness, like fleeting shadows in a moonless night, and then it was as if knots of space began trembling around them.
“Oh my…,” breathed Darious.
Unseen vessels about the region started to register on the ship’s sensors, fully becoming in sync with reality. They were everywhere. Twisting nodes of filamentary light became the first hints of physical structures and soon entire alien ships emerged. They gleamed with halo bands, illuminating space with a fuzzy, yet gentle glow.
An alert chimed from Zoe’s computer. Though this time, it was not due from missiles being fired, or some other impending disaster.
“The CF—they are powering down their weapons,” Zoe said. She typed into her console. “Information is being sent back and forth between CF ships and the alien ships.”
Zoe opened her communication ports. Messages of peace and welcoming from both sides pervaded through the speakers of the small cockpit. Zoe looked over at the being standing next to her. It tilted its long head down in her direction. She couldn’t tell if it was smiling or not, but she somehow got the feeling that everything was finally going to be okay. Zoe looked up at Darious and smiled.
Chapter 51
The Age of Enlightenment v2.0
“Just this afternoon, the newly appointed ambassador for mankind signed the first draft of a galactic treaty with the Vasherasnew—which linguists tell us translates to the ‘Watchers,’” said the female news anchor, standing on the steps of the massive building bearing the Copper Force logo. “This comes after the revelation, just two days ago, that mankind is not alone in the galaxy. It is now known, through initial diplomatic meetings with the newcomers, that they have been occupying a higher reality of our shared space—a previously unknown higher island-of-stability form of matter and energy. They are now ready to join in everlasting, mutual unionship with humanity. Renewed excitement is abounding throughout the galaxy as new concepts are being exchanged, new technologies are being pursued together, and new friendships are being cultivated. Undoubtedly, we are at the dawn of a new age for mankind.
“This comes alongside the exposure of government corruption at the highest levels. Earlier, the recently promoted Admiral Vere of the CF gave the following statement:”
The video feed cut to an earlier recorded press conference, where a distinguished Admiral Edward Vere was standing in front of a podium addressing the media.
His gaze was set past the reporters as he spoke, as if he was truly speaking to an audience beyond the horizon. “The CF has concluded its investigations into the violations of galactic rights by senior diplomats and has arrested those at fault. The Magistrate official, commonly known as the ‘Grandeur,’” a photograph appeared on the screen of the large green man with his ostentatious gems, “took his own life when the arrest warrant was issued f
or his particular crimes. Charges against the Grandeur include: intimidation, bribery, murder, and gross abuse of granted powers. Additionally, the CF has discovered that the Grandeur had been a prior leading body of Pantheon Industries and used his diplomatic influence to aid the company by illicit means. Raids and supplementary arrests have been conducted at Pantheon Industries and investigations are currently underway as to the depth of corruption within the company.
“We now know that the common material, Kapteyn, exclusively sold by Pantheon Industries and its subsidiaries, was never actually manufactured by them. This space-faring technology has, in fact, been stolen from the Vasherasnew for possibly thousands of years.
“Immediately, conveyance of apologies and regret for the on-goings of Pantheon Industries were extended to our new allies. The Vasherasnew have been more than amenable to all that has happened and have agreed to bilateral trade and technology accommodations. Humanity will continue to flourish among the stars.”
Admiral Vere paused for a moment and then continued.
“Pantheon Industries had undertaken a massive campaign to conceal its many illegal activates. Current charges against the company include: bribery, large-scale price collusion, blackmail, murder, and the systematic altering of records from galactic informational repositories, including government databases.”
“The CF has uncovered evidence that the Grandeur and his past family lineage, under the banner of Pantheon Industries and its former headings, had been waging a secret war against the Vasherasnew.” Admiral Vere now turned his attention directly to the cameras facing him. “I must apologize on behalf of the CF. We had been fooled. We have let down the galaxy and all its citizens which we are sworn to protect. We now know the Grandeur and company had concocted a scheme to eradicate an entire intelligent species for the sake of amassing Kapteyn unimpeded. This would have been xenocide on the grandest of scales. I must again offer our sincerest apologies to the Vasherasnew. They have shown supreme restraint throughout the entire ordeal. For many centuries, Pantheon Industries has been tracking and stealing Vasherasnew material property. The Vasherasnew had responded only by peaceful means—by redirecting their reserves and safely sabotaging the ongoing thievery. Their composure and strength of will is most commendable.