Skywave

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “Wow,” Morgan said. “I can’t believe he did that.”

  “Oh yeah, he did,” Ajay said. “And it started an avalanche. We’ve been watching the news. All kinds of ‘NASAyers’ are coming forward now…talking about UMOs and Cetus Prime.”

  “That’s amazing,” Morgan said. “What about the CUBEs?”

  “No news, unfortunately. We’re still trying to get back up and running here,” Dante said. He told Morgan that while the company’s tracking satellite was no longer jammed, the military had severed the Mayaguana center’s antenna and dish cables. “Our tech guys are in the process of reconnecting the cables, so Ascension center is still running the show. We just got off the phone with Dr. Rashid. They pinged CUBE-11 but haven’t gotten a return ping yet.”

  “I see,” Morgan said. “Well, it’ll be interesting to see CUBE-2’s data given what we’ve discovered here.”

  “You mean you were able to connect with Cetus Prime?” Kiera asked.

  “Roger that,” Morgan said. The sound of high fives and a chorus of hoots burst out on the Mayaguana end of the line. Morgan smiled.

  “What have you found? Do you know how they got there?” Kiera asked.

  “What about the structure? Did you get the cameras to work? Have you seen any aliens?” Ajay asked.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Morgan said. “We haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  He filled them in on what they’d discovered about the ship’s systems and the crew’s last actions, including the bizarre EVA data. “We’re about to go through the log registry. You guys have email service?”

  “Through our cell phones, yes,” Dante said.

  “Okay. We’ll send you all the zipped downlink files. When you get them, call back and we’ll go through the registry together and pick out the entries we want to downlink first.”

  After hanging up, Morgan had Chu email Dante the files and the phone number for the office where they were gathered. He returned the cell phone to Amato’s pilot and gave him the news about Amato. “I’d touch base with HQ, see what they want you to do. If you need to go, no worries. We’ll find everybody here another way home. If you can stick around, we should be done here in a few hours.”

  Then, he went in search of Carillo. Jimenez, the only other person left in the main room of the control center, told him Carillo had led the contingent of sleepy researchers and telescope operators to another building on the observatory grounds to brew coffee and raid the refrigerator. As he walked across the dewy grass toward the building, Morgan checked his watch. It was almost 6 a.m. Their time with the telescope would end in another hour.

  When he entered the building, he found the group huddled around a television watching the news. The creak of the door opening caused Carillo’s head to turn. She waved for Morgan to join them.

  “That’s all right, I know,” Morgan said. His voice attracted the attention of the rest of the group. As they turned in his direction, Morgan said to Carillo, “Got a sec?”

  Carillo joined him and they stepped outside. Carillo asked, “So, what’s your plan? You guys gonna pack up and head back to Mayaguana now?”

  “Well, honestly, I’d like to stick around here for a couple of days to downlink every file we can access, but I know that’s not going to fly with your people. But if you can grant us two or three more hours with the scope, I’d like to at least downlink a few of the crew log entries before we clear out. We’ll finish the rest when we get back to Mayaguana,” he said.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “What about the embargo? The gang inside is itching to get their cell phones back. They’re anxious to get the word out about your…their…our discovery.”

  “Yeah, I imagine they are. Tell you what, I need to make a phone call first, but as soon as I’m finished, embargo’s lifted as far as I’m concerned,” Morgan said.

  “Deal.”

  “Great. You wouldn’t happen to know Dennis Pritchard’s cell number, would you?”

  “Nope. But I can get it for you. Shouldn’t take but a phone call or two.”

  Dr. Dennis Pritchard’s residence

  Bethesda, Maryland

  November 2, 2018

  Carillo began with a predawn phone call to the home of a friend who worked at NASA headquarters. That friend texted around her circle of coworkers looking for anyone who knew the cell number for Pritchard’s assistant. Her text: “Skywalker needs to speak with Dr. Pritchard re: Cetus Prime. Urgent.” One of those friends texted Pritchard’s assistant directly and a half hour later, the assistant called Carillo. Pritchard wasn’t answering his home number or cell phone, she told Carillo, so she was on her way to his house. Twenty minutes later, Pritchard called Carillo’s cell phone and she handed it to Morgan.

  “Paul, before you say anything, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “There’ll be time for that later, Dennis. Right now, I need a favor from you,” Morgan said.

  “Anything, name it.”

  “We were able to connect with Cetus Prime. We’ve already downlinked a good amount of data and we’ve got more in the works.”

  “You did what? How?”

  “Again, time for that later,” Morgan said. “Point is, word’s gonna start leaking out about it shortly, and I don’t want anyone trying to mess with our downlinks. We’ll cut NASA in on all our findings after we’re finished analyzing the data, but until then I don’t want anyone at NASA or Space Command or the Pentagon trying to make things difficult for us or any attempts to wipe the ship’s computers.”

  “Paul, I’m persona non grata now. I’m not in a position to promise anything on the administration’s behalf, let alone NASA’s.”

  “I know. I heard about your statement,” Morgan said. “I’ve got a different idea in mind.”

  “What?”

  “I imagine you have an army of reporters outside your house right now, all anxious to talk to you?”

  Pritchard pushed back his office curtain and looked outside. “A mob would be a better description.”

  “Good. I need you to go talk with them and have them deliver a message to the White House for me.”

  22: DECOMPRESSION

  Room 201, Heart Health Institute

  Orlando, Florida

  November 8, 2018

  Morgan exited the elevator and approached the room directory on the opposing wall. As he scanned the map above the directory, Mark called out to him. Turning in the direction of his voice, Morgan spied him waving at him from the far end of the hallway. Morgan waved back as they began to walk toward each other. After meeting halfway, Mark escorted Morgan toward Amato’s room.

  “How’s Augie doing today?” Morgan asked.

  “He’s very tired…and cranky,” Mark said. “He can barely keep his eyes open.”

  “Hmm, maybe we should push this to another day then? I don’t want to stress him.”

  “Personally, I think that would be a good idea, but my vote doesn’t count,” Mark said. “He was insistent. He wants to see you. He wants to know what you’ve discovered.”

  When Mark pushed open the door, Morgan found the room dark save for a light above Amato’s inclined bed. Hooked up to various IVs and diagnostic instruments, Amato looked toward Morgan through half-closed eyes. In a hoarse whisper, he said, “Skywalker.”

  Morgan smiled as he walked up and took hold of Amato’s hand. He squeezed it gently while taking in the array of tubes and cords. “Looks like you’re prepping for an EVA, Augie.”

  “I wish.” Amato smiled. His voice was weak and speech slurred. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Mark came alongside Morgan and said, “Can I get you some water, Mr. Amato?”

  In slow motion, he waved his head back and forth.

  “Okay. Do you need anything else?”

  “No,” he mouthed.

  “All right, well, I’m going to leave you two alone,” Mark said. He turned to Morgan. “Take it easy on him.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  After Mar
k left, Morgan pulled up a chair next to the bed. Seated facing Amato, Morgan rested the laptop he’d brought on his lap.

  “Sounds like you all had quite an adventure,” Amato said.

  “Same with you. I hear you charged a platoon of Marines.”

  “Not my brightest move,” Amato said with a thin smile.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Morgan said.

  “Mark told me Chief Eller’s out of intensive care,” Amato said.

  “That’s great news. I’m sure the crew at Mayaguana will be relieved to hear that.”

  “We’re both very fortunate,” Amato said, his voice trailing off. He closed his eyes and sighed. Morgan looked up at the monitor displaying Amato’s vital signs and watched his heart rate and respiration inch downward. Just as Morgan became convinced Amato had fallen asleep, the old man’s eyes fluttered open. “What happened to them, Paul?”

  A loaded question, to be sure, Morgan thought. “They had quite an adventure, too.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, there’s a lot to tell. Are you sure you’re up to talking about it now?”

  Amato closed his eyes again and asked, “How’d they survive the UMO attack? The second one.”

  “They played dead. Avery and Christine switched off all the ship’s circuit breakers before the UMOs swarmed the ship. It was the only thing they could do. They had no control over the ship, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to outrun the UMOs.”

  “Did it work? Did the UMOs leave them alone?”

  “No, unfortunately not. They destroyed the engines. We hadn’t noticed that in the Nuada photographs with all the ice around the ship, but the data we pulled from the computers confirmed it.”

  “My God. They must have felt helpless.”

  “Ironically, they didn’t feel helpless at all. They were too pissed,” Morgan said. “Here, I’ll show you.” While he opened the laptop and loaded a video file, he explained. “This is an excerpt from Christine’s log. She recorded it the day after the UMO attack.”

  He turned the laptop for Amato to view. On the screen was a frozen image of Mission Specialist Christine Baker. Her mouth was open and her freckled face was locked in a snarl. She held a fist toward the camera. In the background were instrument consoles. Before Morgan pressed the play button, he said, “This is about ten minutes into the log entry. The part beforehand is mostly a string of f-bombs.”

  “…fucking bastards! You led us to slaughter like we were fucking cows! How could you do that to us? We sacrificed everything for you! We did everything you asked...”

  She pounded the table in front of her, over and over again, jiggling the camera. Her voice cracked. “…You didn’t listen to us! It wasn’t necessary…I told you that…the UMOs are harmless if you don’t fucking provoke them…and now…now we’re totally fucked!”

  Christine wiped tears from her cheeks. “But you know what? You’re not as smart as you think! None of you motherfuckers are! Avery rebooted the main…got us back control of the ship. And you know the first thing we did after that? We fucking cut comms so you couldn’t take control again. And if I were you all, I’d be very afraid…we may not have engines, or enough food to get us home, but it doesn’t matter…we’ve got a plan. You’re not going to get away with what you did to us!”

  Morgan stopped the video. “Pretty much sums up the rest of the entry. Made me sick to my stomach when I first saw it. They thought we were in on it, Augie.”

  Amato, wide-awake now, said, “But I thought you told me they were happy in their final transmission.”

  “Oh, they were happy all right, but not for the reasons we all thought back then,” Morgan said. “We were sure they were happy because they’d been able to get their UHF antenna to work, that they’d found a way to send a message to Earth. Even though it was garbled and the bit about a VLF antenna didn’t make sense, and the message came from so far away, we all thought they were happy to have found a way to connect with us.”

  As Morgan dipped his head and sighed, Amato asked, “That wasn’t the case?”

  “No, not by a long shot.” Morgan looked up at Amato, tears welling in his eyes. “They went through hell, Augie. Out there, all alone. Thinking their lives had been sacrificed for no good reason.” He turned the laptop back around and pulled up another video. “This one’s from Avery. A few days after Christine’s.”

  He played the video for Amato. Avery was in the crew quarters at the table they used to gather for meals. The room around him was dark. Avery wouldn’t look at the camera. With his head lowered, he rubbed his neck and talked to an imaginary listener in the dark.

  “I feel like I’ve always been the kind of officer who followed orders, who did as he was told. Yeah, I didn’t always like it, and sometimes, I’ll admit, I thought the orders were moronic, but I always said ‘yes, sir’ and did what needed done.”

  He looked up at the camera, his almond eyes blazing. “But you never gave us, gave me, the chance. That was wrong, bro. You should have trusted us. But you didn’t. So, we get it now. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest. You gave up on Nick, you gave up on Christine and me. But we’re not giving up on each other.”

  The clip ended. Amato’s face was beet red. The vital signs monitor started to beep, his blood pressure vaulting up to dangerous levels. Morgan said, “Whoa, Augie. That’s not good. We should stop. This was a bad idea.”

  “Don’t you dare stop!” Amato said, yanking the blood pressure cuff from his arm. “I need to know. I have to know what happened to them, Paul.”

  With the screen frozen on the image of Avery glaring into the camera, Morgan said, “Something remarkable…amazing…unbelievable.”

  “What, God damn you,” Amato said, his hands trembling.

  “Look at the video, Augie. What do you see? Strike that. What don’t you see?”

  Amato’s eyes darted all around the scene presented in the paused video. “I see a man who’s angry to the core.”

  “Look to his right…in the shadows. What do you see?”

  Amato leaned forward and snatched the laptop from Morgan. Raising it within a foot of his face, he squinted at the screen. “Nothing. Just a table.”

  “That’s not any old table, Augie. That’s a gurney. The gurney they strapped Nick Reed to after the first UMO attack.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He didn’t die, Augie,” Morgan said. “Nick Reed came back. I don’t know how, neither did Avery or Christine, but he woke up two days after the second attack.”

  “What?”

  “You have no idea the effect that had on Avery and Christine. They’d been told by the flight surgeon to suit Nick up and shoot his body out of the airlock. Dead weight. Useless. A burden. And then he fucking woke up! And Nick saved their asses!”

  Morgan told Amato that after Nick regained consciousness, Avery and Christine filled him in on all that happened since he’d been knocked out. “You have to understand, Augie. Nick knew that ship inside and out. And something weird happened to him when he was zapped by the UMOs. He said more than electrical shocks passed between him and the UMOs.”

  “What did he mean?”

  “I don’t know. In one of Nick’s logs, he tried to put it into words. He said it was like the kind of feeling that passes between a dog and his person. You can’t really communicate, but you understand each other.”

  Amato handed the laptop back to Morgan. “They talked to him?”

  “Who knows, but whatever happened, Nick used it to his advantage. There’s a gap in the logs, so I don’t know when or how they went from point A to point B, but Nick used his engineering knowledge to make a VLF antenna,” Morgan said.

  “So, we were right. They used VLF waves to attract the UMOs,” Amato said.

  “They did, but I don’t think they initially envisioned the antenna as a substitute for their engines. That turned out to be a side benefit. I think they made it to attract the UMOs for a different reason,” Mor
gan said.

  He pressed an icon on the laptop touchscreen and pulled up another video for Amato to view. “This is the full video of their final transmission to NASA. It’s amazing how we assumed so much from the eight seconds’ worth we recovered…and how wrong our interpretation was.”

  Before playing the clip, Morgan refreshed Amato’s memory about the crew’s final transmission. The eight-second snippet featured Christine and Avery. They were smiling as if happy. Christine was the speaker in the clip, saying “…VLF antenna…don’t know…taking us…” According to the date stamp on the video, Morgan told Amato, it had been recorded on June 10, 1995, seven weeks after NASA lost communication with the ship.

  Without further preamble, Morgan pressed play. On the screen, the three crew members stood arm in arm. Avery was the first to speak. “Greetings, fellow Earthlings. We speak to you from the spaceship U.S.S. Cetus Prime, as we fly through the asteroid belt. I am your captain, Avery Lockett. To my left is the not-so-dead Nick Reed, flight engineer extraordinaire. To my right is the equally stupendous Christine Baker, mission specialist and rhino tamer. What are we doing here, you ask? Well, it’s a long story but it comes down to this. We came. We got screwed. We decided to take matters into our own hands, with a little help from our new friends — well, Nick’s new friends. Where are we headed? Couldn’t tell you. All we know is, Nick went out for another EVA and asked his friends to take us home and, instead of heading for Earth, they turned the ship toward the asteroid belt. Christine, take it away.”

  When Avery finished speaking, Nick disappeared from the camera’s view and Christine took center stage. Morgan paused the video. “Pretty sure they were nine sheets to the wind when they made this.”

  He pressed play again. Christine saluted Avery, “Aye, aye, Cap’n,” and then turned to face the camera. “It doesn’t make sense to dwell on the past, so we’ve made a pact to focus on the future. And to speak ONLY with you, our brothers and sisters. Fuck NASA, the government. For all we care, they can all rot in hell. They sent us out into space to die — and almost managed to succeed — but good ol’ Nick came to the rescue. He slapped together the ugliest VLF antenna you’ve ever seen. I don’t know how he got it to work, but he did. And now our little friends are taking us for a ride through the solar system. Isn’t that right, Nick?”