by Kumar L
In the meantime, Commander Ryan had been working on preparing detailed reports on every aspect of the KifrWyss technology and society. Dr. Lian, head scientist was preparing dossiers on the planetary systems they had visited and supplementing them with copious amounts of images and samples. It would take years for the best researchers on Earth to run through all the data being brought back and form a comprehensive understanding of the Alpha Centauri star system.
The head of engineering, Madhavan and security in charge, Major Rawat, were devoting their time analysing records of their military engagements against the KifrWyss building up a database of their ships and weapons systems. The KifrWyss technology was different from that of the Earth ship. Their propulsion system had enabled them to achieve similar FTL (Faster Than Light) speeds. But instead of longer Jumps, the KifrWyss relied on ‘skips’, as Madhavan had taken to call them - interspersed FTL and cruise speeds of durations shorter than that of Antariksh. Madhavan was hoping to find a way to combine the two technologies to increase the sustained Jump time for Earth ships.
Surprisingly, however, the KifrWyss were using nuclear reactions with an unknown element that provided adequate energy along with matter-antimatter reactions. But they had not explored making weapons of mass destruction using fusion or fission reactions. However, their method of producing energy left behind deadly radiation. Their reptilian physiology made them somewhat immune to it. But for humans, even short-term term exposure to this radiation would be fatal.
There was, however, one common theme running throughout the ship – the crew’s desire to get back home and hear the voices of their loved ones. They were eagerly looking forward to being able to access messages stored in the communication buoys as they neared Earth.
2118, The present day
M anisha was sweaty and tired, despite the controlled environment of Ops. She had pain in the back despite the comfort of the adaptable seating. She knew she’d have to call the captain sooner or later, but she needed to have something concrete to report. Three hours had passed since she’d started trying to lock onto the weak signal detected by the ship's sensors.
Then, suddenly, her hours of work bore fruit as there was a muted chirp from her console, and the lines on her display firmed up. Finally, she thought, time to call in the cavalry.
“Ops to the captain. Ma’am, we’re receiving a message,” Manisha said over the intercom, interrupting Anara’s planned morning routine of yoga and calisthenics.
“Anara here, Manisha,” the Captain acknowledged, somewhat surprised. “Are we in range of the signal buoys already? I thought we were still a couple of weeks away.”
“No Captain, we’re still not in range of the signal buoys. I... I think you’d better come up to Ops. I can’t explain it over the intercom.”
Why was Manisha being mysterious about a message transmission? This was good news, right?
“Okay,” replied Anara, believing the Lieutenant would have a good enough reason to interrupt her morning routine in this manner. “I’ll be there in a minute. Better call Ryan and Rawat too.”
Anara rapidly packed away her kit. As she exited the exercise room, she ran straight into Ryan.
“What’s this message Manisha was referring to?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea, Ryan. Do you think ISC has found a way to reach radio signals this far out in space?”
Ryan shrugged. “They’ve been working on it for a long time. They might’ve cracked it by now.”
The door to Ops opened, and they entered together. Manisha looked up from her station.
“Captain, I’m sorry about disturbing you. But I can’t make sense of it.”
“It’s alright, Manisha, let’s take a look at what you’ve got,” said Anara as she walked over to Manisha’s station. “Walk us through.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” she said pulling up a display. “A few hours ago our system detected electromagnetic signals directed towards our general position. But it was not something we use to communicate in space. The wavelength is too long and the input time is prolonged. I’m only able to get one letter every minute or so.”
Anara and Ryan examined the display closely.
“Okay, go on. What’s the source of the signal? Earth?”
“No, Captain. It’s from the opposite direction - Proxima.”
Anara raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Let’s see what you’ve retrieved so far.”
The central main display screen came alive and as each letter came in it was displayed in a sequence.
“Narada, resolve the message please,” Anara instructed the ship’s artificial intelligence.
“Working. Now displaying on screen 2.”
The letters formed words - This message is for Captain Anara on Antariksh from …
“That’s all we’ve received so far.” The anticipation in Ops increased exponentially as the next word was revealed.
This message is for Captain Anara on ‘Antariksh’ from … RyHiza.
“Wha…!” exclaimed Anara, completely caught by surprise. The last thing she’d been expecting was to hear from the leader of KifrWyss. “How did they manage to send a signal so far? And what the hell is this all about?”
“There are more letters coming in, Captain,” Manisha called out.
The screen continued to present the message letter by letter, arranging them into meaningful words. It took several minutes before the entire message was downloaded and then the signal started repeating all over again.
This message is for Captain Anara on ‘Antariksh’ from RyHiza. Very important. War on KifrWyss. TrueKif have attacked the capital. We are defending, but situation is not good. One ship with enemy is on its way to Earth to destroy. I cannot help you. I ask you to save our friendship. Save me. Save KifrWyss.
There was a stunned silence in Ops as the crew absorbed the meaning of these words.
“What has happened on that damn planet since we left? It hasn’t even been six months,” said Anara angrily, breaking the silence. This was a direct appeal for help from the KifrWyss. What can I do about it? What did RyHiza mean about the ship destroying Earth? Was that even possible? Why? This was madness. What am I going to do about the enemy ship? Chase it across the solar system and blast it into space? Yeah, right! She remembered how the last two encounters had ended. Antariksh had turned tail and ran away at full speed.
“It looks like the situation has changed dramatically since we left, Captain. The message must be a few weeks old at least. I wonder what the state of the planet is now?” Ryan wondered.
“That is a huge understatement, Ryan. This is a complete disaster! Even before we have managed to cement our contacts, our friendship seems to be under threat. And you know what? I’m pretty sure that somehow we are the cause of this mayhem.”
“Do the KifrWyss have ships powerful enough to get to Earth? I thought they had only three ships and the space exploration program had been deliberately slowed down over the last many years,” Ryan looked at the team for confirmation.
“I thought so too but it looks like we were wrong. On KifrWyss, RyHiza clearly stated that they had only three ships, one of which it was using. The TrueKifs had stolen one and the last had been recovered by us. Where did this fourth one come from?”
“I guess we will find out when we do find the ship. What are the chances that this signal is a fraud?” asked Anara.
“We’ve no way of knowing that, Captain. Except for the fact that it’s addressed to you and RyHiza’s name is attached, there are no other identifiers. Someone could have taken over the radio telescope on HuZryss and may well be sending us a false signal,” replied Ryan.
“We must proceed on the assumption that the signal is genuine, Ma’am,” said Rawat. I’ve had enough of these games. If the TrueKif want a fight, we should give them one. “If the TrueKifs have become bold enough to attack the Discat, they must have some powerful people behind them. It is possible that they’ve managed to build a vessel in secret that is capable
of reaching Earth.”
“Humph. Too many ifs and buts. There’ll be more than enough time for speculation later, people. Let’s focus. We need to make a decision now. Do we go back to Centauri to help RyHiza, or do we continue back to Earth; to safety - ignoring RyHiza’s plea for help? Or do we start searching for this ship?” asked Anara.
“It’s pretty clear to me - we must get to Earth. We’ve got to warn people and prepare to protect the planet. We won’t have much time,” said Ryan.
“No. We must search for the ship and destroy it before it even reaches anywhere near our home. Once it enters the solar system, no one can predict what they’ll do,” said Rawat. And after that, we will go to Alpha Centauri and seek out the cowardly TrueKif.
“No way, Major. We must get to Earth as fast as we can,” repeated Ryan. “However much we try to pretend, we’re not a warship, dammit. We can’t go gallivanting across space to search for one ship. Where would we even start?”
“We cannot go back to Earth, Ryan! Don’t you see what is at stake here? Two planets will be at war if we don’t act now and do something about it!” Rawat was livid. How could they run away from a fight? “We’ve got to find that ship and then maybe we can go back and help RyHiza.” Rawat’s position was clear, and he was itching to pay back the TrueKifs for having kept them captive for so many days on HuZryss.
“I know you’re gunning for a fight with the TrueKif, Major, but this is not the time. You may be a soldier, but a majority of the crew of this ship isn’t. And tell me, what guarantee is there that there will be anything left to save by the time we do manage to reach Centauri? Huh, Rawat? What’s the guarantee? It’ll take us months to get there, and we are only one ship. We are one ship against god knows what the TrueKif would have brought to the fight. Going back would surely be suicide for Antariksh and the crew. And for what? Your pride or your bruised ego?” pushed back Ryan.
The major glared at him, his hands balling into fists. Then he took a deep breath and allowed his hands to relax. Ryan’s logic was sound.
Amara was torn between her desire to help RyHiza and trying to prevent a mercenary attack on Earth and the consequence of a full-blown interstellar war. She was shocked at how fast the whole situation was unraveling. She had another concern – so far only Antariksh had this vital information. Without it, Earth would be caught off guard; unprepared. Billions of lives depended on her decision as commander of the mission.
She shook her head closing out the exchange of words between her senior staff - ending the argument before it could go any further. Her two deputies were poles apart, though both of them were making valid points.
“All right!” she said, raising her voice. “I hear both of you but do we really have a choice? We can’t be playing superheroes, can we?”
Anara reached her decision. Her path was clear. “The crew is tired; Antariksh is not designed for this mission. We’ll only get ourselves killed if we go back now. We have to get to Earth and warn them about the danger. Then we’ll leave it to the professionals to handle the situation. We are astronauts, not soldiers. So let’s behave like it.”
She looked around Ops and ran through a mental checklist. “What we need right now is to find a way to reach Earth as fast as we can to deliver the warning. Let’s concentrate on that.”
********
“What did RyHiza mean when he said ‘destroy Earth’?” wondered Ryan as Antariksh prepared for the next Jump. Over the last week, the ship had been pushed to its limits. The Jump cycles were getting longer, and the crew had been stretched - both the team and the ship’s systems were rapidly reaching their breaking points. Half the status boards across Ops were in the red or amber zone.
“I’m not sure, Ryan. A super-weapon or mercenaries would be my guess. This is out of my league. I’ve started realising that there’s much more to being a starship captain than simply flying this bucket of bolts,” replied Anara, ruefully. “Just look at what we’ve been through in the last year: we’ve made contact with an alien civilisation, been shot at, held hostage and escaped by the skin of our teeth. None of the training scenarios prepared us for this, right? And now we have a new threat - a ship aiming to destroy Earth. At the very least this will create an atmosphere of mistrust and fear. That would play right into the xenophobic hands of the TrueKif. What troubles me even more is - how the TrueKif even expect to carry this out? I mean, besides whatever they would’ve learned from us and the Voyager probe, Earth is unknown to them. How do they even expect to survive there?”
“I agree that it seems impossible. Even the mere thought is farfetched. We ourselves took two decades to advance this far,” said Ryan. He suddenly seemed to realize something and turned towards Rawat. “Major, did we detect any attempts to access the ship’s records while we were on HuZryss?”
“You mean unauthorised access? I don’t think so. We have multi-layered protection across all systems. There’ve not been any alarms. I’d assume that it would be beyond their capabilities.”
“Have you already forgotten Major,” said Ryan drily, “that we broke the codes on the telescope and turned it against the KifrWyss?”
“I’ve not forgotten anything, Commander,” said Rawat acidly, “and thanks for reminding me again.” He, however, recognised the truth behind the question and nodded grimly. “I’ll ask the Narada to examine the records again. Maybe we should also check with the crew if they left any data behind.”
“Won’t hurt to ask,” agreed Ryan.
Anara observed the exchange between the two men. She understood that their mutual respect was still in place - notwithstanding the heated exchanges and sarcastic remarks. The ship was in good hands. Now if only she could get her message across to Earth to prevent a catastrophe.
The Prime Minister’s Office, New Delhi
D irector Srinivas was concerned. The PMO had summoned him for the second time in two weeks. This was unexpected and had not happened for many months, ever since Antariksh had left on its journey. He’d been providing regular, monthly updates to the PMO, but with nothing new to report, the updates had become routine if not downright mundane. But not this time. He wasn’t sure what was to be discussed this time even though this was, undoubtedly, his mission. As the head of the ISC or Indian Space Command, he was the person who had worked on sending India’s first interstellar mission to Alpha Centauri on the ship called Antariksh. Now, as he waited outside the cabinet room, he felt like a disobedient child being called to the principal's office again and again.
There was still no news from Antariksh. While this was understandable, given the light-years of distances involved, he was beginning to get worried. He’d expected to receive some more alien signals from the planet Proxima in the intervening time but the GMRT telescope had reported no new incoming transmissions. The cosmos was quiet.
He berated himself for not having pushed harder to get the faster-than-light radio-transmission project team delivering on its promise. Without FTL, he had no means of contacting the ship. Antariksh was just too far away, and standard radio signals would take years to travel to the ship and back. The scientist in him understood the real problem. While a ship travelling at FTL generated enough power at the local level to shatter the FTL barrier - a communication signal could be boosted only once - at its source. There was no way enough power could be pumped into a signal, enabling it to cross the light speed barrier in the emptiness of space.
The earliest he now expected to hear from Anara would be when she returned and reached the Oort cloud. There was a signal repeater in that system. Once Antariksh came close enough, Anara could use the repeater to transmit signals to Earth. Those signals would bounce off other stations across the solar system before reaching him soon after.
As he entered the cabinet room, he couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive for not having anything positive to report. He knew there would not be any recriminations or judgments, but he was the head of the premier space research agency in India. It was his job to
keep the communication lines with the spaceship open.
“Good morning, Mr. Prime Minister,” he said, while also acknowledging the presence of the others in the room. Surprisingly, the defence and home ministers, along with their senior bureaucrats, were also present today. This was unusual if not unexpected.
“Namaste, Sriniji,” the Prime Minister answered using the honorific 'Ji'’. “Sanjoy was just informing us that there is no fresh information. I assume you and your team must be feeling low-spirited - not having any news from your most advanced ship.”
Srini smiled at the characteristic way the PM understood people and their emotions and made them feel comfortable around him. “You’re right as usual, sir. It’s disconcerting not to have any news to report. But we’re hopeful we’ll hear something soon. The journey was supposed to take around eighty weeks, which have now passed. Even giving them enough time to explore the system, I admit, they are overdue from our planned schedule.”
“And I’m confident they will be safe and sound. We’ve given them the best protection possible, and a skilled crew mans the ship itself,” said Balraj, the minister of defence. Srini wondered if there a hint of sarcasm in the minister's voice.
“Anyway, that is not the purpose of today’s meeting, Directorji. How is work coming along on Antariksh-2?”
Is that what this meeting is about? Good thing I came prepared. Srini called up some charts on the display before speaking. “The project is on schedule, sir. Since we don’t have to tackle basic problems like the effect of FTL on humans in space, the timelines are shorter than that for Antariksh-1. We’re working on increasing the power available for both propulsion and weapons. That’s taking some time to match up with the size of the new vessel.”