Explorations: First Contact

by Isaac Hooke

  She knows this is the only way to survive.

  If she uploads her whole being, she could survive as long as there is power and, by tapping the weapon she carries, the trickle of power she needs to keep the AI alive would last forever.

  She lies on the device, attaches the connections and begins the process of changing her existence.

  Anastacia’s mind clouds over; a strange twilight world descends. Slowly her sense of reality returns, but it is a changed reality. She can see and hear everything. She sees electromagnetic waves, she hears the background radiation of the universe around her. No, not around her. Around the ship. The ship is an extension of her own consciousness. The ship has tracked Vaka as it encounters the Sphere ship, has watched helplessly as it attacks and watches as the Sphere ship flees. With purpose, Vaka sets off in pursuit. A pursuit Anastacia realizes will end in Vaka finding Earth.

  ***

  Anastacia’s eyes snapped open. She recognized the bridge of the ship and the commander who lay prone beside her, with his body partially wrapped in the receding fine yellow mist. She realized only seconds had passed since the warmth took over her body, and she struggled to understand what had just happened.

  As she turned her head, a wave of dizziness swept over her; she instinctively closed her eyes and the taste of bile filled her throat. God damn it! Anastacia, control yourself! Urging her eyes open, she saw Dawson grappling the thick strands of psychotronic energy and his hand reaching for the blood red handle at his side. The trigger for the fusion device.

  The thought barely entered her mind when a razor-thin line of yellow flashed out of the globe and cut through the cable connecting the trigger to the weapon.

  A voice filled her head. “You must not destroy this ship or yourselves. I have waited such a long time to complete my mission and I shall take my revenge.”

  ***

  As quickly as the attack on Dawson began, it ended. The restraining limbs of yellow retreated to their source, the gently spinning, glowing orb at the center of the room. Dawson warily followed their progress and his eyes widened as he came upon the figures of Anastacia and the commander, now free of those unearthly bindings.

  Discarding his useless pulse rifle, Dawson reached for his holstered pistol. As his fingers found the grip he hesitated, remembering the neatly sliced pieces of rifle, a glowing testament to the futility of his weapons against the power of the yellow globe.

  Instead, he stepped forward and helped the commander to his feet.

  “Hey, Commander, are you okay? I was sure for a second there…” Dawson’s voice faltered, and he took an involuntary step back when he saw the man’s eyes through his clear face plate, a yellow spark flashing behind the steady gaze. His involuntary step became two steps as he sought to gain distance between himself and his commander, but by doing so he bumped into the now upright Anastacia. His head swiveled straight into the yellow-tinged eyes of the Russian.

  “Time for you to leave, Dawson. We have a new mission.” Her words sounded oddly emotionless. She reached out her left hand, caressed the nearest smooth white panel and the bulkhead door slid open.

  The unflappable Dawson nearly jumped out of his suit as the commander placed a light hand on his shoulder before addressing him in the same emotionless tone. “Leave the device, Dawson, return to the Seeker and tell Heinz…” The commander hesitated. “Tell Heinz to get home safely.”

  Lost for words, Dawson slipped the small pack off his back and held it at arm’s length. Anastacia relieved him of the pack and set to work opening the rear access panel. Dawson, an expert on fusion weapon design, recognized her movements as she bypassed the defunct dead man’s switch and activated manual mode.

  Manual mode? Jesus! Dawson spun and bolted from the room, running as fast as his cumbersome suit allowed. Blood pumping, his breath misting his face plate, he re-traced the path which led them to the fateful encounter with the glowing yellow orb. Bouncing off the last corner, he expected the airlock to be closed, but instead he found both the internal and external doors open. The inflated shroud connecting this ship to the Seeker beckoned him. Sprinting through the airlock, his feet barely touched the walkway when his comms light went green. Without slowing, he keyed his radio.

  “Seeker, this is Dawson, prepare for emergency separation as soon as I’m aboard!”

  “Dawson, this is Heinz. What the hell is going on?”

  Dawson skidded to a halt at the Seeker’s airlock and punched in the access code. “Just fucking do it!”

  “Negative. I will not separate until you explain where the Commander and Zuchov are.”

  When the outer airlock door opened wide enough, Dawson squeezed through and lunged for the emergency close override. Less than halfway open, the outer door complied and began closing. Dawson broke the seals on his helmet as the door clunked closed and repressurizing began.

  Cycle complete, Dawson yanked off his helmet. The inner door opened. Carol Chow stood before him, a questioning face blocking his path into the suit room.

  “What the hell is…” Dawson pushed past her and headed for the suit room door and the command deck beyond. The violently vibrating floor forced Dawson and Chow to brace themselves while the deafening emergency alarm whooped. Too late. Dawson jammed his eyes closed and waited for the inevitable nuclear destruction.

  As the moments passed, realization dawned. I should be dead by now! Instead of a nuclear explosion, the vibration throughout the ship peaked before subsiding to a mere tremble. Dawson unclamped his eyes and saw Chow clinging to the ship’s wall. “Dawson, what the hell is going on?”

  “I haven’t time to explain!” Dawson headed for the command deck.

  Less than a minute later, a panting Dawson skidded to a halt beside Heinz. Fernandez was at her console, desperately trying to retain some semblance of control of the Seeker’s destiny. “Heinz! Why the hell aren’t we detached?” Heinz didn’t acknowledge him immediately. Instead he remained transfixed on the navigational computer.

  “That’s why,” said the German, just loud enough to be heard.

  Dawson recognized the familiar red shifting stars of faster-than-light travel “My God! That’s a direct route to Earth!” As he spoke, he followed Heinz’s gaze, and his breath stilled, the readouts spun at an incredible rate. “That’s not possible… Is it?”

  Heinz shook his head slowly as he spoke. “Up until a minute ago I would have said no, but now… We’re travelling faster than a displacement drive can muster. By these readings we’ll reach Earth in minutes, not years.”

  Carol Chow arrived out of breath, her eyes growing large as she looked from the readouts to Heinz, who indicated for her to take her position at the helm despite having no way of influencing their current course.

  “If we detach from the alien ship, at this speed, there is no telling what damage we may cause to the Seeker. Or if we would survive the separation attempt,” Heinz said, and Dawson could only nod in agreement. “I suggest we strap in and wait to see what happens.”

  Dawson sluggishly settled into his seat, securing his straps not a minute too soon, as the heavy vibration returned. The forward display screen filled with red shifted stars regaining their normal white contrast. Well, wherever this is, we’ve arrived! Dawson thought, the vibration shaking them in their seats beginning to wind down.

  As the vibration subsided altogether, the Seeker and its giant companion reentered normal space. The German did not waste a moment. “Fernandez. Emergency separation. Carol, standby the displacement drive on my command.”

  Explosive bolts fired and the walkway linking the two ships fell away under the momentum, freeing the Seeker to navigate. At the helm, Carol maneuvered them clear of the leviathan and as she did so, a single star blossomed and shone more brightly amongst its uncountable number of companions almost directly in front of them. Its surface moved like the swells of an ocean, dark spots forming and dissipating as if breathing. A nagging itch formed at the back of Dawson’s mind only for
Fernandez to shape it into words first.

  “Jesus! It’s the star. The one the Sphere ship encountered…” cried Fernandez, panic barely hidden in her shrill voice.

  “Get us out of here, Carol.”

  “Commander, the drive isn’t at full power, I can only do a short hop!”

  “That will do, punch it!”

  Carol engaged the displacement drive and the Seeker fled the star. One second…two seconds…three seconds… A mere ten seconds later the drive disengaged.

  “That’s as good as it gets, Heinz.” Carol ran her eyes over her readouts. “4.5 billion kilometers traveled. Seven minutes to full charge. Hopefully that hop has got us far enough away to allow the energy banks to recharge and bring the drive to full power.”

  Heinz tapped a control and the main screen changed to show a view back to the star. A brief flare of intense light caused the automatics to dim the screen. Dawson recognized the distinctive flare of a nuclear device exploding close by the star.

  He continued to watch, and thought for a moment his eyes were deceiving him. The point from which the nuclear device exploded wavered as, from the star, a whisker thin line of yellow reached out to touch something unseen. The whisker curled and thinned further to form a spiral. More of the sparkling corona detached itself from the main body, forming an even larger spiral, like water draining down a plug hole; its center remained a resolutely black void. Within a few moments the corona was stripped away completely. Now star stuff itself was coming away like wool from a ball, faster and faster; the star was being ripped apart by some unseen force. There was only one thing in the known cosmos powerful enough to do such a thing.

  “A black hole!” whispered Dawson into the silence of the command deck. “The weapon they carried was a goddamn black hole and they needed my nuke to initiate it.”

  Heinz spun on him. “Dawson! What the holy hell happened over there?”

  Dawson did not turn to face him, the man’s eyes fixed on the slowly dying star. “They protected us from something which would have killed us all. They completed the mission.”

  PP Corcoran Bio

  Paul P Corcoran is the author of several books, including the Amazon best-selling science fiction Saiph Series: Discovery of the Saiph, Search for the Saiph and most recently Hunt for the Saiph.

  Paul grew up in the British Army having joined at just 17 ½ years old and spent the next twenty plus years there while devouring any and all science fiction he could get his hands on. Post army he stayed in the security and intelligence worlds and with more time on his hands put his military skills and his experiences to good use by combining them with his lifetime love of sci-fi to create stories of space marines, space battles and fantastic technologies for reader’s enjoyment (and his own).

  With the success of his début Saiph series Paul has turned his one-time hobby into a job and now concentrates on writing, much to the horror of his wife who puts up with him at home on a full-time basis.

  Most books are available as ebooks, paperback and audio books.

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  The Last Command

  By Nick Bailey

  08:51 ship time

  “What the hell do you mean our comms are offline?” demanded Nylund.

  “It isn’t just comms, Captain, all our systems are shutting down,” said Nakamura, the Autumn Song’s first officer. As she spoke, darkness briefly descended until the emergency lights came on.

  “She’s right, Captain, the helm has gone too,” said Larry Hercules, the helmsman, holding his hands up in dismay.

  “What about life support?” asked Blake Winchester, breaking the silence that had spread over the bridge.

  Blind, defenceless and powerless, the Autumn Song was tiny against the backdrop of the gargantuan vessel that had disabled her.

  Twenty-three hours earlier, 09:47 ship time.

  The hum of the Autumn Song’s systems changed pitch as her displacement drive began to power down.

  “Twenty seconds to insertion in Delta Pavonis orbit,” said Larry Hercules.

  “All stations: secure for displacement. Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. This is the scary bit,” Nakamura said, across the ship’s communications net.

  The crew were tense, Nylund knew. After almost three years travelling, if anything was going to go wrong, this was the most likely time. The Autumn Song’s crew of seventy souls had rotated in three month patterns of cryosleep, but it had still been a long journey with little to do except care-take the ship, and everyone on board must have been anticipating this moment with the same measures of hope and fear that their captain was. All they knew was that there was intelligent life somewhere in this system. Nothing more.

  Nylund leaned forward slightly in his chair, “I want the drive spooled back up as soon as humanly possible once we drop out of transit. We’ll be vulnerable until it’s hot again.” His crew were competent and would have done so anyway, but with tension running high, it was always best to be sure.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Hercules, making a cross symbol on his chest. “Orbit insertion in five, four…”

  The crew were silent and still, except for the helmsman counting down.

  “…Two, one.”

  The bridge’s portside screens filled with light as they arrived just over one AU from Delta Pavonis, a star similar to Sol that had featured heavily in science fiction through the decades; ironic that it was indeed one of the systems known to bear life.

  A second of silence was all it took for the crew to get it back together and start doing what they had been trained to do.

  “Orbit insertion successful, welcome to Delta Pavonis,” said the helmsman. “Engineering report that the displacement drive is spooling, Captain, she’ll be hot in five minutes. Fusion engines are coming online now.”

  “Mister Winchester, begin a broad spectrum sweep, maximum range.” Nylund nodded to himself, unbuckled his harness and stood up. “I want to know the moment you detect any significant energy readings, and if anything starts moving towards us, shout.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Winchester got to work.

  11:35 ship time.

  The crew were on their feet, silent. The only sounds on the bridge were from the holopanes displaying the drones’ transmissions from Delta Pavonis’ fourth, and only habitable, planet. The video feed was delayed by a few seconds due to the distance between the planet and Autumn Song. Ancient cities passed below the drones; once-majestic towers and megalithic structures dwarfed the smaller buildings by orders of magnitude. But it was dead. Long, long dead. Indigenous jungle vegetation had long ago claimed the cities. The buildings had, for the most part, fared well; the alien structures must have been built using advanced materials and techniques to have been built so tall. Fragile-looking towers had outlasted their builders by what must have been thousands of years. Signs of widespread catastrophe were visible to the drones’ sensors; huge craters, overgrown with vegetation, were spread across the landscape. The areas around the impact sites had been flattened for kilometers.

  “My dear God.” Hercules was the first to break the silence that had descended when the images started relaying to the bridge crew. He crossed himself subconsciously, and slowly lowered himself into his seat.

  “Blake,” began Nylund, all formality forgotten for a moment. “What else are the drones picking up? Any energy readings or transmissions of any kind?”

  “Negative, Captain. There doesn’t even seem to be any animal life larger than a mouse down there.” Winchester resumed his position at the science station, pulled some holopanes into his field of view, expanded one, then a second, then swiped them all clear with his hand. “Whoever built those cities is gone, Captain. Long gone.”

  �
��Durand,” Nylund said.

  There was no reply from the French communications officer.

  “Durand!” he said, again, raising his voice.

  Geraldine Durand looked as though she could start crying at any moment. “Yes, Captain?”

  “Pull yourself together, please. Keep broadcasting. We don’t know if anyone is out there yet, it’s possible there’s another settlement in-system. Something we’ve missed.” Nylund knew it was unlikely, but he had to get his crew back on track. “Even if there isn’t anyone left here, there’s still a mountain of things we can learn. We know the atmosphere is within short term tolerance for humans, maybe colonization is a possibility.”

  This had been a long journey; the crew needed something new to focus on instead of being a first contact mission if there was no contact to be made. And it was true; there was still a vast amount to learn from this new world and its history, even if whoever had lived here was long extinct. Nylund couldn’t help but feel incredibly disappointed, however, and he knew his crew must be feeling the same.

  “Launch another two flights of drones,” he ordered. “Let’s get this planet mapped.”

  16:56 ship time.

  The holographic display table showed an area of land, three thousand square kilometers, in high detail relief. In the center was the largest crater they had so far discovered. The impact basin was close to eight hundred kilometers across, dwarfing anything on Earth.

  Nylund paced around the table. “Are we assuming this was the extinction event that caused the collapse of civilization here?” he asked the room’s only other occupant, Blake Winchester. As the Song’s science officer, it was Winchester’s job to work out what had happened in the system.