Stories of the Confederated Star Systems (12 page)

“Señor Gomez, take my ship home. Wait for Cabrillo, but you need to leave as soon as he’s aboard,” Alberto said as he continued to walk into the gap.

* * *

Cabrillo hurried back to the waiting shuttle, and felt the thrusters engage as soon as the outer airlock door was closed. He hurried to cycle the lock and moved to the passenger seat to look out the viewport.

Alberto had reached the bare metal of the alien hull and was engulfed in blue light. He turned as the shuttle lifted off and raised one hand in farewell, then a door opened and he went into the hull. The asteroid stopped spinning abruptly just a few moments later, sending accumulated space debris sliding off into the void. Cabrillo watched as the surface of the asteroid seemed to liquefy, then a great cloud of debris was ejected in all directions. Rocks and boulders, sand and dust, the accumulated asteroidal remnants that had been captured by the ship’s gravity over who knew how long sped away from the ship as its systems came on line once again.

The shuttle returned to the
Guadalajara
on its own, and Cabrillo hurried to the bridge as soon as he could. “What’s happening?” he demanded.

“Take a look for yourself, Señor. That ship is powering up.” Gomez was using the ship’s optics to project a picture of the alien spacecraft on the main view screen. The ship was of a design that no human mind had ever conceived. There were no sharp angles. Few straight lines. And somehow it still looked—right. It was currently shrouded in a blue nimbus of energy, and the glow at one end was intensifying. Then the ship streaked away, accelerating at a rate that no human could survive.

“All hands prepare for acceleration,” Señor Gomez announced. “Señor Cabrillo, take a seat and strap in. We need to get back to New Hispaniola as fast as we can.” Turning, he caught Isabella’s eye. “Did you get all of that on disc?”

“Audio and visual,” she confirmed. “Multiple backups as well as the original digital signals in the computer.”

“Well done. Course set, engage when ready.” The
Guadalajara
accelerated away from the asteroid belt on a least time course for the planet.

* * *

The ship was inert when Alberto entered its control center. The last living crewmember had shut it down just minutes before she died. Now the newest crewmember pushed the proper sequence of controls to send the ship on into the eternal night of intergalactic space. Alberto had one instant to realize what was happening before the acceleration killed him, freeing his soul yet trapping it within the hull. He floated free of his body and found the spirit he called Minerva beckoning to him, welcoming him into her eternal embrace.

“Minerva” © 2006

The CSS
Pristine Virgin
stories were just for fun. I get tired of serious, life-or-death drama all the time. First contact doesn’t have to mean first fight.

L
IEUTENANT COMMANDER ERIC (THE RED) CARLSON
sat at the command station on the bridge of the CSS
Pristine Virgin
, SSH 1303, contemplating his fate. The
Virgin
was not so pristine any more, not since they had been denied dry-docking at Hampton’s Planet the last pass. After sixteen months even the cleanest of crews could leave a ship looking shabby. And this, (sigh), wasn’t the cleanest of crews. Like the submarines of ancient Earth, deep space scout vessels such as the
Virgin
tended to be crewed by a special breed of sailor. Special, but not clean.

“Officer of the Deck, long range sensors are picking up something, Sir. Considerable delta-V,” the sensor operator reported, boredom clear in his voice.

“Ship?”

“Unable to determine at this distance, Sir. We may be able to pick up something more definite in three or four hours.”

Carlson sighed. “Very well, keep me informed. Does anyone know what’s for . . . what meal is this anyway?”

“Lunch,” the starboard pilot answered. “Roast beast in vinegar. I think that they call it sauerbraten.”

The port pilot laughed. “I’ve had sauerbraten, and that ain’t it. I wish the culture tanks could produce something else for a change.” He held up his hand to forestall any comment from the officer about healthy food. “I know, I know.
‘Better than real.’
But real what?”

Carlson let it pass. If the worst thing he heard today was bitching about the food, he’d count himself fortunate. “Weapons, run a diagnostic. Keep it low power. If that’s a friendly, we don’t want to alarm him.”

The gunner’s mate, an anachronism in an era of gamma-ray lasers and hyperdrive nuclear torpedoes, straightened marginally in his seat. Switches flicked under his knowledgeable fingers as he watched his display. Then he snapped to an upright posture. “Sensors, check target. I’m showing an eleven AUH delta-V, course set to intercept.”

The sound of chairs creaking and keyboards being rapidly tapped all but echoed in the control room. The sensor operator’s voice, bored just moments before, was excited now. “Sir, the target has changed course. Sensors show an eleven Astronomical Unit per hour closing speed.” The operator swiveled his chair to face the officer. “Sir, that’s greater than the speed of light.”

“I am aware of that, Livingston,” Carlson replied, quickly moving to look over Livingston’s shoulder. The numbers were right there, in defiance of Einstein’s Theories. Reaching behind his head, he pressed a button for the ship-wide announcing system. “Captain to the bridge, XO to the bridge.” Eric stepped back and muttered, “Let them figure this out. It’s above my paygrade.”

Captain Andrew Corban and Commander David Steinman arrived within moments. “Let’s have it, Mr. Carlson,” the captain said, moving to look past the Officer of the Deck.

“Sir, we have an unknown contact moving toward us. Delta-V is, well, you can see for yourself, Sir. We indicate an eleven AU per hour closing rate.”

“That’s impossible,” Steinman snapped, glaring at everyone in range. “Check calibration on the sensors.”

“Done, Sir. Weapons array verifies the solution. We have someone out there who’s never heard of Albert Einstein,” the gunner’s mate answered with just a hint of humor.

“Well, damn-it-all anyway. Battle stations,” the captain said softly, and klaxons began shrilling through the ship. “Sensors, range to target.”

“Range is still rough, Sir, but estimates are twenty-three AU. Intercept at present velocities…”

“…Two hours,” the captain interrupted. Reaching above his head, he pressed the button for the ship-wide address system. “People, we have an unknown contact closing with us at greater than C in normal space. By definition, that makes it an alien. All weapons are to be slaved to the bridge. We will not fire unless there is no other way to save ourselves. If there’s someone out here who can prove Einstein wrong, I want to meet ‘em.”

The next two hours were nerve wracking for the crew of the
Virgin
. Then the intruder began to slow. “Sir, target is slowing, speed dropping almost as fast as we can detect it. We also have a course change indicated. Target is turning away to the ecliptic north, angle on the bow approximately twenty degrees.”

“Noted,” the captain and XO said almost simultaneously. “Engineering, slow us down. All hands, I want this ship ready to jump out of here if there’s trouble. All systems on hot standby.”

A chorus of, “Yes, Sirs,” echoed in the control room and from the speakers that had taken the captain’s command to the rest of the ship. With the slower speed of the target, the captain felt confident enough to send his men to eat. Men ate quickly and quietly, and returned to their stations to await the coming encounter. The two hours had stretched to seven before the contact came within range of the ship’s most sensitive instruments.

The sensor officer, Lieutenant DeBaren, was standing over his men, watching everything that happened. “She’s big, Sir. Easily eight hundred meters. Girth is an average of sixty meters, plus and minus ten. Shape seems to be almost random. She bulges and squeezes in some really interesting places.”

“Not meant for planetfall,” the captain said softly.

The XO nodded his agreement. “I’d love to see their engines. How much power do you think it takes to push a ship that big at high velocities?”

“Who cares about that?” DeBaren said excitedly. “I want to know how he managed C-plus in normal space. Even allowing for our apparent velocity, he was still greater than C. And, allowing for
that
, we shouldn’t have been able to detect him. Our normal space sensors are limited by the speed of light.”

“He’s maneuvering, Sir. Coming along side, matching course and velocity,” the senior sensor operator said in a soft, calm voice.

“Communications, are you receiving anything?” the captain asked, not bothering to look away from the sensor plot.

“No, Sir. We have everything wide open, but no one’s broadcasting,” the answer came softly, with a hint of disappointment.

The captain pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded to himself. “I am making an assumption here, people. OOD, begin flashing our running lights at two second intervals. He’s illuminated, so we can assume that he sees at least part of the same spectrum that we see.”

The response was immediate. The intruder began blinking its lights at the same rate. “That’s enough Mr. Carlson. Mathematical progression now. One, two, four, eight.” The intruder matched the sequence immediately. The captain once again nodded. “Communications, broad band normal space broadcast. I want clicks, same numerical sequence.”

“Aye, Sir.” The communications tech complied, making clicks by the simple expedient of tapping the side of his microphone with a stylus. The response was quickly received.

“Oh, now you’re being silly,” a soft, melodious voice said from the speakers. “Please identify yourselves.” Every eye in the control room widened as the voice, slightly feminine and in impeccable English, continued. “I have been monitoring your internal communications. Are you from the species that calls itself ‘human’?”

The captain swallowed several times before answering. “We are. I am Captain Andrew Corban, commanding officer of the CSS
Pristine Virgin
, SSH 1303. We are a deep space scout vessel from the Confederated Star Systems, operating under the authority of the Research Directorate.”

“I am Velvet Rabbit, if I correctly understand how my name translates into your language. I also am a scout, seeking other inhabitants of this arm of our galaxy. I have encountered your electromagnetic emanations for quite some time now, though I have never before encountered one of your ships.”

“You have a very good command of our language, Velvet Rabbit. Are you willing to exchange information with us? You are quite a surprise to us.” The captain’s voice held just a hint of his awe that the intruder spoke English.

“I should not be. There are many species in this galaxy.”

“We had theorized that, but we’ve never encountered anyone before.”

The voice laughed softly. “You have explored such a small portion of the arm. There are nine sentient species within six hundred light years of your Confederation. Six of them are space-going races, and three have some form of faster than light propulsion.”

The captain looked sharply at his XO, and Steinman nodded, pointing at the red light that was flashing on the control room recorder. The captain nodded and returned to the conversation. “Velvet Rabbit, when we first detected you, you appeared to be traveling in excess of the speed of light. Our best theorists have declared that to be an impossibility.”

“How can that be? You travel at greater than light speed, though you do so clumsily in another dimension. If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.”

“That is beyond the limits of our physics, I’m afraid. The hyperspace drive works on principles that even its designers don’t fully understand. Can you explain it to us?”

There was a pause, then Velvet Rabbit answered. “No. I use a different form of propulsion than you, and it would seem that I understand physics differently as well. FTL travel is something that a species must work out for itself, in a way that the species can survive. I have been analyzing your physical makeup while we have been talking. You are a frighteningly fragile species. Your bodies would dissolve under the stresses that my propulsion unit exerts.”

“Well, maybe that’s a place to start. Our life form is carbon based. We exist in an oxygen rich atmosphere…”

“I am aware of your physical makeup, Captain Andrew Corban,” Velvet Rabbit interrupted.

“Then perhaps you would be willing to share the details of your physical makeup with us. You are obviously very different from us.”

Again there was a pause. “There is little to share. I am what you see. My creators are a silicon-based life form. I and my sisters were made for the purpose that you and I share: We explore. At regular intervals, one thousand, eight hundred thirty-two of your years, we report back to the homeworld and download what we have learned.”

“Then you’re not alive?” a voice asked from the back of the room, earning the man who spoke the nastiest look that the captain could manage.

“I am as alive as you. I am sentient. I am self-aware. I am self-perpetuating. I am, like you in your limited form, an independent being.”

“But you’re not a biological life form,” another voice said before the captain could silence his men.

“I could say that you are a primitive life form that has not yet evolved into your ultimate non-biological form. Biology, my limited young race, is not the limit of life. It is only the beginning.” The channel clicked and Captain Corban looked at the visual sensors just in time to see Velvet Rabbit streak away, accelerating at a rate that would most certainly have been fatal to a human crew.

Turning toward his men, the captain glared. “That was first contact, gentlemen,” he said in a soft voice that carried his fury more clearly than any shout. “First contact, and one of you morons had to insult it because it isn’t a biological life form. It said that its creators were silicon based life forms, and that it had to report back. They probably are biological life forms, but
we
will never know.”