by Tom Germann
Two started speaking. “We have news of a new alien race that has just appeared on the scene.”
There was dead silence. I don’t think anyone was even breathing at that point.
Two continued. “Let me enhance this. I should have done that earlier, but there was no time. . . .”
Two fiddled with the controls and the image started clearing up. Suddenly it was in focus. Whatever the alien was or wherever it came from, it looked sort of like a human.
The image was of an alien that appeared similar to a primitive version of a human. There was no scale attached to the image. I was thinking that it seemed to be a little shorter and squatter than a human. It had hair and blunt features. Like it hadn’t been finished when it was made.
I didn’t know where that thought had come from. But it looked like an unfinished clay statue of a human.
I stopped thinking about the picture and focussed on what Two was saying. I had missed only a bit. “. . . And the ASSA had some sort of contact with the race. It appeared not to have been a good situation as the newbies came along and attacked a small mining outpost on a moon in a dead system. The entire site was destroyed but the ASSA likely had offsite storage set up for their recorded data. This is one picture that was handed off to us. There may be more information back on Earth, but likely not much. After the attack, when the ASSA collected their data and evaluated it, they made every effort to contact the OOng and communicate with them. Their initial thoughts appeared to be that we humans had done this; as you can see, the aliens look a bit like us. Being aliens, they don’t see the large difference between us—at least not without more research.”
Two paused again and sipped more water. “They were talking to the OOng to find out more about us. Apparently the mining outpost was wiped out in brutal close-combat action. That region of the moon is now useless because of contamination. They will not continue mining there for a very long time now.”
A schematic of a planet with a mining facility on it came up. It looked like a big project. We zoomed in; this was one of the largest mining facilities I had ever seen. It was like a town, and really was more like a colony than a simple outpost. There were mining vehicles moving across the surface, and then everything started exploding. Everything moved quickly; the time frame must have been accelerated, but even after the attackers owned the site it took a long time to move all the processed material. They must have had a ship as big as or bigger than the one bulk hauler Earth has, Mama Pig.
Finally the movement stopped and then there was a large explosion and a gigantic dust cloud. There had to be a close-to-Earth-normal gravity on that planet.
The last image was much farther away again, likely from the same distance as we started. There was no more mining facility, and no more vehicles. There was a huge red zone, though. That red shape was roughly circular and indicated the contaminated zone. The angry red slowly dulled down the further away it moved from the centre. The contaminated area had to cover tens of square kilometres, if not more.
Two kept talking. “The OOng were upset. However, they have seen us more and likely have more data than the ASSA had access to. They evaluated the data and let the ASSA know that they determined this act did not appear to be committed by humans. In fact, when they went digging they found out that the race is one that they had run into a few generations ago and had left alone. Humans have gone out and raided other sites. We have never done anything like this, though. When the OOng first met us they cautioned us against extremist acts, and told us how many races would come together if we did not work within parameters. We had no problem with that.” Two looked out over us, catching and holding the eyes of each one of us for a second to drive the point home. “We understand the rules of war. To destroy something that size so completely could permanently damage a star system.”
She looked down and I could see her hands gripping the console. “The ASSA have been badly hurt and their initial thoughts were that they would be facing extreme hardship for a long time. The OOng have passed that on to us after assuring the ASSA that we were not guilty and that we had followed the rules. Also, the planet in question is right at the very edge of our reach and we tend to be a bit conservative when traveling, so it helped to reassure them.”
“This information came to us through an OOng courier ship that was coming this way to trade some technical specs for new drill heads and mining equipment. The Corporation had done a survey of the planet in question and had found another point on the far side of the planet that looks like it has access to a smaller portion of the mineral wealth under the planetary crust. The Corporation also made a decision and has sent plans for earlier versions of our automated sentry guns AND also sent some plans for small-scale automated mining machinery. From analysis, our AIs have deduced that the ASSA are still doing things by muscle power. With the information we pass on, they should be able to set up a much smaller mining establishment that will be able to dig out as much as they had been previously, and relatively quickly.”
One put his hand up. “Excuse me, Two?”
She nodded at One to continue.
“Why did Earth help these guys out? It’s every race looking out for itself out here. That info cost billions to develop, and we just gave it away?”
Two eyed One with a flat, expressionless face that revealed nothing. After a few seconds, One started fidgeting.
Two let him sit there for a few seconds longer, just watching him, until her eyes swept over each one of us again. I felt like I was looking down the barrel of a heavy laser.
She took a slow breath. “The Corporation takes a long view. It does not think about today or tomorrow or past costs. It is looking at the future and what we have to spend to get out there. This race was attacked, and they think it was us. We are going to fix the bad feelings now, before the animosity can grow. We gave them plans to equipment that will help them develop and expand. For most of that, it is old data and will get us a stronger trading partner when we really get in range of them with our ships. That planet? It’s too far out on a logistical chain from ‘our’ space to utilize anyway; it’s much closer to the ASSA. We will help as we can. Future allies are important.” She looked around and no one else said anything. One looked at his hands.
Two continued. “So the OOng think they know this race.” The image of the planet faded away to be replaced by a star map. I recognized Earth and some of our outposts. I saw the OOng symbol on several planets, and I saw two symbols for the ASSA. A third symbol showed up just to the side on what was ‘unknown’ space. On an old Earth seaman’s map it would have pictures of monsters, as no one knew what was there. The symbol looked closer to Ipswith, our colony planet, and Earth was just a bit farther away than the ASSA mining colony had been. I was not getting a good feeling from this. “The OOng surveyed the system around the time that they were making first contact with us. They were quite open when they communicated with Earth. They sent images and some other data. This information has been in Corporate hands for almost six months now being evaluated and then sent out in secure packets to all Corporate Marine units as well as every site and ship captain. We just received it. It would be nice if we had a communication system that reached across space. Until then, we will continue to receive information via courier boat.”
Two paused and took another drink of her water, then put the mug down and continued. “The alien race is not named yet. The OOng surveyed their system a long time ago. They were less technologically advanced than we were, but they were very aggressive and had limited space travel. They had two planets relatively close together and both support life. A twin planet is rare, and to be life-bearing? A miracle for them.”
The strange symbol on the map zoomed in until we were looking at a system. A large sun and seven planets. Two of those planets were large and close together. There was also an asteroid belt a bit farther out. The two planets close together were highlighted, as wa
s the planet next to them. “They were less technologically advanced than we were at contact, but they were already on their twin planet and had a large outpost on the next planet out. The OOng noted that they were very aggressive and that they seemed to have a unifying purpose. What they called it we couldn’t translate. The closest thing that we could come up with is that they are religious. Moreover, they know their place in the galaxy as ‘the chosen.’”
Two paused and took another drink. Her mug clicked as she put it down and the bottom mag-locked to the table. “The OOng then turned around and left without making contact. They felt that the race would be a threat at this point and they would go back and check up on them later—in, say, a hundred years. There are still a few more years to go, and now this race has developed star drive and attacked another race using some very advanced weapons.”
Two paused and looked at us. I thought she looked puzzled, but wasn’t sure. “The OOng have never been very straight with us regarding the range and speed of their ships. They don’t lie; they just never tell us. The Corporation and the bigwigs understand that we are at the edge of explored space. There is something past us, but no ships have the range to go there. At least not yet. The OOng also sort of let us know that there is nothing past this new race. So the big question is, where did they get star drive technology? How did they advance so far? They are a race that is aggressive and highly religious, so human analysts at least believe that they should have had a schism or something and that would have the potential to cause a civil war. It hasn’t happened. The OOng have also indicated that they are not going into that star system as they do not know what other surprises they may find. Last we are aware, they were dispatching a courier boat to do some passive long-distance scanning. We don’t know when this is happening or if they will find anything. We may not have that information for years, if ever.”
Two picked up her mug and then the carafe of water. She topped her mug up before putting the lid back on and drinking. She put the mug down and started manipulating the controls, and the picture changed back to the alien.
She looked at the image and then nodded her head at it. “This is what we know. They are humanoid and look similar to us. We have no idea about the star system or their biology or how they are organized. Their war-fighting capabilities? Completely unknown. They must be smarter than us as they are almost on par with what we have today and no one came along and gave them star drive technology as far as we are aware. We do know that they successfully found the mining colony, conducted some sort of reconnaissance of it, and then prepared and launched an assault. They took the facility over quickly and spent a great deal of time removing all the processed ores and some of the technology that they found. They then detonated a very dirty bomb, making sure that the ‘owners’ of the moon would not be able to mine there for a decade or longer unless they were in heavy radiation suits.”
Two looked around again and I felt like she stopped longer at me than anyone else. “The last thing that was passed on is the AI evaluation of this new race. They are trouble. Somehow, they have made tremendous advances and are too aggressive to have done so without destroying themselves. There are several theories being worked on but until much more is known, those are nothing but theories. The most believable theory from the OOng is that some other race has come along and given these aliens the technology that they currently have. The only problem with that theory is location.”
Two pointed at the map with the single star system in the upper area. “We know, or at least understand, that there are no systems in reach to the one side of us. We have empty space on two sides of us. That system should only be able to receive assistance from ‘below’ and the OOng can travel farther than we can and believe that no assistance to these aliens is within reach. We all ‘know’ that nothing is in reach of us on the far side of those gulfs. We cannot even send a ship out there as there are no options for mining.”
I could see where she was going with this and everyone else could as well. It seemed like the temperature in the room was dropping rapidly and I could feel my hair standing on end.
She nodded. “So you all see it too then. Something or someone else may have the reach on the far side of that gulf. If something is out there, it’s hostile. There is no way an alien race could reverse-engineer so much advanced technology and incorporate it into their culture in such a short time. The worst and most likely answer is that the other aliens are hostile and have been training this race.”
There was nothing but silence in the room for a minute while we processed that.
Then Two laughed at us. “We live this life protecting Earth, the solar system, and humanity. Any alien race out there may end up killing us as we try to defend our people or as we try to take from them. We likely won’t see any serious action out of these new aliens for two or more years. Remember the distances and the logistical support necessary to do anything in deep space.”
She chuckled to herself as she manipulated the controls and the tension in the room was broken. She was right. We had so much time to prepare for a potential new enemy that we could run every scenario. We just needed information on them. I relaxed and sat back. I realized that I had only had the one sip of the juice, so I took another sip before putting the mug down and preparing for the briefing from Two.
The image of the humanoid alien reformed again. The image was crystal clear this time and there were reference markers and data streams to the side of the image. The aliens were almost a foot shorter than a human, but they looked a lot like us. They seemed to have hair and they wore clothing. The one thing that I noticed was that they only had three fingers and a thumb. They also looked much more muscular than a normal human.
The picture dissolved and then there was another picture of a similar being, but one that was clearly different. They wore clothing that was very unusual, but everything looked functional and they operated in large family-type groups.
The image dissolved and reformed again and there was an alien in some sort of space suit with weapons.
Two began talking. “The previous pictures were taken by the OOng during their first surveys of the planet. They were able to extrapolate a great deal of information on how the aliens work, as well as make estimates on their culture.”
The image slowly rotated around so that we could see it from every angle.
Two continued. “The rest of the information was passed on by the ASSA. This is the surviving footage of the attackers. There are some large differences and interesting things noted. Pay attention as I go through this and read the data streams.”
The image changed.
I paid attention throughout the rest of the brief. There wasn’t a lot of information in the file, but there was some old video footage. The colours looked off, but the recorder had caught a shuttle landing and several of the aliens unloading. They were obviously armed with projectile weapons of some sort. With the bad footage they did sort of look like humans.
There were no real reference points for size but I had the feeling that they were smaller than a normal human. Also, their equipment looked primitive in comparison to what I was used to. They also appeared stronger than us, as one of them was moving with a multi-barrelled support weapon and a huge ammunition box on his back.
The alien stopped and turned before firing a long burst. The weapon looked like it had a tremendous kick, but the alien kept it under control.
The video footage ended.
Two took us through some statistical data that may or may not have been accurate.
I tuned it out and looked at some of the earlier data that was still up from the beginning of the brief.
As I sat there, I kept looking at the star map that Two had put up after finishing the brief. I could see it. Could anyone else? Were they even looking at the map, or were they working on processing the data that we had been given?
Everyone else was flipping thr
ough the smaller table-mounted screens.
I put my hand up and waved. “Excuse me, Two?”
She looked at me. “Eight, this isn’t grade school. You’re not back on Earth, on course, asking for permission to go to the washroom. If you want something, ask.”
Everyone else around the table was smiling, Four, Six, and Ten were laughing and One and Five were both smirking at me.
I ignored them and pointed at the star map. “We just came out of that system there where something had destroyed everything. Right?” I kept going before anyone could say anything and interfere. “That is really close to the new aliens. Could they have made it to the system and done all that damage?”
Everyone was looking up now and Two was nodding. “That theory has been put forward, but they are not following that for now. The aliens appear to be just too primitive and even savage to have made such a large technological jump in so short a time. They seem to prefer to come to grips in close-quarter combat, not stand off in space and drop rocks. The technologies that have recently been used are too advanced. The analysts are saying that this is one of those rare instances of coincidence.”
I kept staring at the map. “Pretty good timing for that coincidence. Maybe they found the tech in a raid, or someone gave it to them.”
Two looked at me appraisingly and answered. “Maybe, and that’s good that you are thinking. But we need to move on. We were scheduled to do this routine check on the star system and missed the data that was supposed to get to us earlier. It caught up to us just two days ago at our last rendezvous. The last thing in the data was a request from headquarters to evaluate the data and see if there was any sign of the new alien race. This is the nearest system to their system and could be in range of their ships. Most of the passive sensors that were in-system picked up some sort of ship. We just do not know what type, as they weren’t set up to record that type of data. I believe that the aliens did find the system and did the damage. I don’t think they are remotely friendly. I’m just hoping that they aren’t religious fanatics that have had their view of themselves in the universe shattered and are now going to start a holy war to destroy all other life.”