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At the conference table, I looked at the officers. Most of them were smiling. So was I. Our first battle with the sphere had gone our way. If we kept that streak going...
“Ladies, gentlemen, do we know any more about the sphere now than we did when we started this mission?”
“Only a few more facts, major, but some important facts,” Tek said. “The sphere itself remains as mysterious as ever. It’s like a lumbering giant. It just rolls along, nothing seems to bother it. At its current velocity it would enter the nearest habitable solar system in about two years.”
“Which gives us a little time,” I said.
“Yes and no. It could speed up. We shouldn’t assume it will keep this velocity forever. But we do see an entrance to the sphere. A small portal, which looks roughly like a door, that we can open. We use a tunnel of air to get over, then close it again. We easily match the speed of the sphere so we shouldn’t have any problem, at least in traveling over there. What we find when we get there is another matter.”
I nodded. Tek could have gone into a lengthy, say twenty minutes or so, explanation of the ‘tunnel of air’, which is obviously a layman’s explanation. We fly alongside the sphere, at precisely the same speed, and extend our tunnel. It’s not really of air. The material is almost as solid as the sphere’s exterior. But it works. That’s all that matters.
“We are guiding alongside the sphere now,” Geneva said. “Give the word and we can attach the tunnel.”
“Any sign of any type of defense?”
“No. It’s like ‘Old Man River’: it just keeps rolling along.”
A few other officers gave her questionable gazes. She shrugged. “I grow up on the Mississippi. In Missouri. Old Man River just keeps flowing along. Never heard that song?”
“Yes, tired of living, scared of dying,” said Weapons Officer Murdock. “Good song. I sang it at a high school musical.”
“You can give us a rendition later,” I said. “You detect no type of weapons on the thing?”
“No. Whatever it used to destroy the planets is not showing up. I’m guessing the builders of the ‘thing’ didn’t think about any space combat. They figured no one would be foolish enough to approach it.”
“Guess that says something about us.”
“Not the first time we’ve been foolish,” Rab said.
I grinned. “Tek, you said there are five chambers inside?”
“Yes, but that comes with a coda. This close to the thing our scanners do work, but there is interference, which I can’t pin down. The scanners are working, but not at a hundred percent. Readings could be off. And we can’t tell what, if anything, is in the chambers. The final one may be the control headquarters. When we get there we may be able to commandeer the sphere.”
“Good, then that’s our goal. But I don’t understand one thing. If this is a weapon of war, which it clearly is, why build chambers into it that doesn’t enhance its capabilities as a weapon? They’re totally extraneous and, for that matter, useless,” I said.
“The builders might not have your relentless, logical mind, major,” Geneva said.
“Or your astonishing sharp wit,” Rab said.
I laughed. “We’ll soon find out. Rab, get the squad ready. We go in full battle gear; take every weapon we can. If we don’t know what those chambers hold, I want to be prepared for anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If all goes well, in thirty minutes we cross over.”