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The trip to the Portal was finally ready to be underway. The Oregon Trail can cover all our cargo movements for now. The Goodnight-Loving will be ready next week. That frees up the Winchester to accompany the Nautilus through the Portal. Ariel demonstrated yet again the Winchester has teeth by bagging that destroyer and MiG. If I didn’t say so before ‘Well Done’. Right, Bill and Alicia as the Oregon Trail pilots with four of the Motu boys as security. Gabriela and Jerry as the Winchester pilots with Cida and that new Motu tug captain along to train. Our new MD, Ferguson, right? He will be along. Only God and the devil knows what is over there. Dorney stays at the moon base.
Jed you and Dr. Lee will be carrying on with the reactor trials.
“I want to go” Jed quickly responded.
“We have gone over this. You and Dr. Lee are too important to the world right now. We can’t afford to lose you. The Portal is an unknown. Next time I promise. Get us a reliable reactor and you will be a hero of humanity, no joke.”
“But what if something happens to you?” he mumbled.
Al synchronized the acceleration profiles of the Nautilus and Winchester, so they arrived together at the Portal. Fearing someone might get stranded, multiple openings and closings were performed by each ship. Finally, the Winchester went through empty with Al at the controls. He closed and reopened on the other side. The Nautilus went on through and started harvesting some random asteroids for samples. The Winchester went to the second planet to pick up samples to see the concentrations of helium 3. They rendezvoused at the second Portal. The barge that had stayed in this system had mapped the accompanying asteroid to very high definition. There had been no disturbance on this one. The only anomaly was the fact that in a system where asteroids were in clusters nothing was near this one. Which would be good for a transit point. The area of strange particle radiation had not moved relative to the asteroid. It would not open using the same technique as the first.
“Never fails. We leave Jed and Dr. Lee behind and now we need them,” Babs whined.
“Quit your whining and call them on the Q comm hologram,” Oliver chastised.
Babs gave him a dirty look which morphed into embarrassment when she realized her oversight. Then a look of glee came over her. “It is the middle of the night. We get to wake them.”
“You are too easily amused,” Ariel said with a chuckle.
When the hologram chimed, Jed and Merry Lee were sitting in the kitchen with coffee and donuts. “Hey guys. Let me guess. Portal won’t open?” Jed asked a little too smugly.
“Al, told you we would be arriving about now, didn’t he?” Babs said with irritation at having her fun spoiled.
“Yeah, he did. Didn’t want my junk on display in the conference room. Something about slagging his memory chips.”
“Alright children, we speculated something like this might happen back on Motu One. You were there Babs. I think you suggested trying music as a key. There is a program in the magnetic field generator controller folder titled Key to the Kingdom. Execute that but pay attention to which opens the gate. It is not automated up to your standards Babs.” Dr. Lee instructed. They let the program run twice over the period of an hour. Three separate combinations opened the Portal to three different starfields. Jed became more and more excited with each opening.
“I want to know the frequency content of the different electromagnetic sources in each system. I think there will be a relationship to the way we modulate the magnetic field to open the Portal to each specific system. Knowing where we are going, we may not have to travel in straight lines.”
“Wait a minute!” Ariel said loudly. All stopped and looked at her. “How come the first Portal opened? We did not have any music on that one.”
“Uhm, actually we did. Every time the magnetic field was turned up only a little bit it sounded like fingernails screeching on a blackboard, so I modulated it with Flight of the Valkyries.” Al said sounding sheepish. “I didn’t correlate it until Ariel spoke up.
“It’s okay Al, you are still learning like the rest of us. Time to send the barge through. Now comes the tedious part,” Oliver said. “Jed, how many Q comm crystals does the barge have and where is its twin?”
“It has two. Their twins are on the Nautilus and the other here on the moon base. They are quite reliable now. Depending on where this next destination is, we may get an idea of their range. We are solid at thirty-five light-years,” Jed replied.
“Let’s see what is behind door number one,” Babs said as she slid the barge through and shut the gate down.
“Al, how is the data feed?”
“The moon base is solid, good instrument readings. The Nautilus is reading perfectly. Give me a few minutes and we will know where it is and what’s there. It came out in an asteroid field with a large asteroid nearby with a K type star. Consistent so far.” Ten minutes ticked by before Al came back, “There are two rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone approximately earth size, one with a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, the other CO2/ nitrogen.”
The crew gave a little cheer for the one looking viable. They waited another hour before Al came back with a location. “72 Herculis, forty-seven light-years from Earth and in a similar vector as here. This leads to a hypothesis that the system we are in is a transit point, but data is very sparse. No non-natural electromagnetic emissions.”
“Ok Al, start your one-day basic survey pattern concentrating on that planet for possible human habitation and possible Portals. It’s time for us meat sacks to hit the sack. Guys go back to bed. The database will be updated as it comes in.” Oliver said.
Jed agreed, “Very exciting but I am ready for more sack time.” Dr. Lee just nodded as they disconnected.
∞
Eight hours later Oliver and Babs were in the mess getting a specially prepared breakfast. The crazy hours they now kept didn’t synchronize with the ship. The cooks were very understanding and gave their best effort even though they were in the middle of preparing the next meal for the crew. They whipped out two servings of bacon, fried eggs, hash browns, and toast in ten minutes.
Since we have two more barges let’s open to other destinations and get basic surveys going. Which tune do you prefer?” Oliver asked around his hash browns.
“Beethoven gave us a K type star. Let’s see what the Beatles get us. I think it was Hey Jude that opened one.”
Thirty minutes later the Nautilus crew had launched another barge and it was standing by the Portal. Just for fun, they played Beatles tunes while setting up. Hey Jude routine was executed and the Portal open. Babs got it through and shut down in three minutes. Practice makes perfect.
“A G type star, seven planets and one Earth-sized in the Goldilocks zone that has Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere and a pale blue color.” Al called out after five minutes, “Wait one.” A couple of minutes of silence went by before he returned with, “There is a non-natural emission coming from Goldilocks. Before you ask, I have no idea what they are saying.”
“I choose to be cautious. Al, go into Sneaky mode,” Oliver directed.
“Al has a Sneaky mode?” Cida asked.
“He does now. Minimal movements until we know more, mainly if they have ships and how much and widespread are the emissions.” Babs commanded.
“Aye, Aye Captain. Sneaky gear engaged.”
“Folks let’s go sit on our hands down in the mess. I need some more coffee and a donut.”
“What do you mean sit on your hands? How can you eat a donut then?” Cida was puzzled.
“My father was a pilot and he always said if a problem pops up at you, the first thing to do with your hands is nothing. Think it through, work the problem before you start throwing switches and making wild maneuvers. Don’t do something just to be doing something.” Oliver explained a little bit nostalgic about his father.
“We always said put your thumb up your ass. Same sentiment.” Gabriela added.
The crew trooped down to the mess to put their thumbs up their collective ass or get a donut. Soon they were building burritos, tacos, and dagwoods, even Oliver and Babs who had just eaten.
“Gabriela, be ready to haul ass over to the Winchester and undock if we get movement toward the Portal,” Oliver said.
“I was already thinking just that. If this runs long, I will sleep on board her with my crew,” she responded.
An hour later, Al gave an updated report on the system. It sounded remarkably like the Sol system with a Jupiter and Saturn analog, an asteroid belt and a small rocky airless planet in an orbit like Mars. In the Goldilocks zone, there was a planet of Earth’s size and gravity showing an atmosphere light spectrum almost identical to Earth. Then Al gave them a real shock.
“There are some tiny gravity fluctuations that suggest a very large ship station keeping in a geosynchronous position and smaller ships shuttling between it and the surface. The big ship for want of better words, mothership, is about fifty times the size of the Nautilus and the shuttles about the same size as us. All the signaling is occurring between the mothership and a single location on the surface.”
“So, no advanced civilizations on the surface. Maybe a freighter doing trade with an unsophisticated folk?”
“That is one possibility.”
“See if you can sneak in closer’” Oliver directed.
“Already coasting in. I took advantage when that smaller moon occulted the activity to give the barge a good boost,” Al replied. “Wait a couple of hours and I will stack some photos together to improve the image. Then we can get a good look.”
The two hours dragged on to four when Al gave a ping like a toaster oven.
“Here is the mothership. The shuttles would not hold still long enough to get a good image,” Al said as he displayed on the hologram.
“Put it up throughout the ship. That is the cheesiest looking UFOs I have ever seen,” Oliver said in wonder.
The image that appeared pulled everyone over for a closer look. I was a classic flying saucer out of a bad 1950’s movie. A highly flattened sphere capped by thin domes top and bottom.
“Let’s send that to the Roswell UFO tourist souvenir shop down on Main Street as a poster. I’m serious,” Marco said which had everyone suppressing giggles which finally escaped into a full-blown laugh fest. The image was just too classic. The Earth had obviously been visited before.
“From the laughter, which I do not understand, you are serious about sending this image,” Al said with a bit of irritation.
“As a title, how about, ‘Greetings Earthlings, now quit sneaking around’” Gabriela suggested.
“Perfect and cc the Space Force tip line, but make it look like it is coming from that nut case who gives UFO Landing Site tours to the tourists,” Oliver said and which renewed the laughter.
“You’re evil Oliver,” Babs said.
“Joking aside, that make and model craft has visited the Earth before. We really need to know who these jokers are and what they are up to.” Marco stated.
“Those shuttles are not returning to the surface. The last one is almost to the mothership,” Al informed the crew who were growing serious again.
“Did they see the barge?” Marco asked.
“They gave no indication,” Al replied.
“Maybe they are finished trading?” Babs suggested.
“We should wait to see if they leave and go check out where they have been,” Marco said.
“Yeah, prudence is better until we know what we are dealing with. I want the first contact on our terms when we are ready. These could be good or bad people, violent, or passive. We just don’t have enough information,” Oliver said. “Marco, when we go to the planet, I want a full military response available. We are not going to walk into a situation singing Kumbaya. We can do that later if the situation calls for it.”
“You got it,” Marco replied. “I’ll get us set up then rest. Just like the Marines. Work like hell then wait. Ariel you with me?”
“Same ole same ole, let’s go.”
