Two days and six light-years later, Earth’s ambassadors to the galaxy reemerged from hyperspace. Magellan and the Bucephalus fell into formation and arched toward a mystery that had caused sleepless nights among astronomers for three hundred years: the Twinkling Star.
It’s true that when looking up through a turbulent atmosphere, stars twinkle. This one was different; it twinkled even when seen through space-based telescopes. To make matters worse, it had only started twinkling in 2049, causing many astrophysicists to go hoarse and bald from the fits of angry shouting and hair pulling.
Half a dozen hypotheses were tested to failure, including debris from a planet cracking up, a wobbly accretion disk, and that it was just a star with a busted thermostat. This continued until 2073, when they all got epically wasted at a conference in Oslo and voted to just call the damned thing a miracle and be done with it.
This interim solution persevered until Magellan launched for Solonis B in 2285. It was hoped that from the relatively short distance of six light-years, some new insights about the mystery star could be gleaned from her powerful, multispectrum telescope.
Now, from a distance of barely six light-minutes, not even the telescope was necessary. Floating between the system primary and the Earth ships was a field of gargantuan, opaque membranes. Kilometers-long streamers jutted from their centers, pointing toward the outer system like wind socks. The canopies themselves were vaguely circular, but featured a divot to one side, making them slightly asymmetrical. A person could be forgiven for thinking they looked remarkably like giant—
“Lily pads,” Ensign Prescott said in astonishment.
Allison whistled. “If those are the lily pads, I’d hate to see the bullfrogs.”
“Or the gators,” added Chief Billings.
“Gators? What the hell kind of ponds did you have growing up?”
“The Gulf of Mexico. Everything’s—”
“—bigger in Texas. We know. Maggie, what does your spectrograph say?”
“The sails are comprised mostly of simple organic polymers and are less than one millimeter thick along greater than 90 percent of their surface area. The tail structures are made of similar materials, but contain higher concentrations of metallic elements.”
“You said organic. Are they alive like the crystal plankton around Proxima Centauri?”
“Unknown, although both the chemical makeup and internal structure of the objects are significantly less complex than any terrestrial or exosolar life yet cataloged.”
Allison rubbed her hands together greedily. “We should get a sample.”
“How?” asked Billings. “Those things gotta be over a thousand square kilometers.”
“Do you bring home the whole set of curtains or just a swatch?”
“Curtains? My cabin don’t even have a window.”
“Very funny, Steven. I meant a small sample, like a square meter. Prescott, put Lieutenant Dorsett on the line, please.”
* * *
The Bureau of Frontier Resources cutter shot through hyperspace in a flash. D’armic’s intuition had been confirmed a few moments ago as the echoes of a high-space portal appeared in the Okim system; the only system along the human ship’s heading for almost five thousand larkims.
D’armic took a moment to consider his good fortune. While he’d been too late to save Culpus-Alam, Okim was already a dead system. There were no inhabited planets to destroy. Not anymore. Despite their head start, it appeared he would make the apprehension before more lives were lost to this fresh menace.
He swung the little cutter about and triggered a hard deceleration. D’armic set the controls and returned to his cabin to brew a pot of tea and to meditate on the confrontation to come.
* * *
Once Jacqueline had collected their sample, the two ships sailed with purpose toward the single planet sitting inside the Twinkling Star’s Goldilocks zone. At least it had been.
“It’s frozen solid, Captain. Snowballed. CO2 is pretty high, though, almost two thousand parts per million.”
“That’s weird. Where did the carbon come from, volcanoes?”
“No recent volcanic activity. The albedo is too uniform.”
“Any methane?”
“Only in parts per trillion.”
That wasn’t surprising. Without a geologic or biologic source to replenish it, atmospheric methane broke down faster than a person afraid of public speaking forced to give a commencement speech, naked, while juggling chainsaws.
“Maggie, would this planet be in the liquid water zone without the lily pads?”
“Yes, Captain. It would be largely tropical, with a fourteen-hundred-kilometer supertropical equatorial band.”
“And how long have the lily pads been here?”
“Insufficient data. I would need to know more about their rate of reproduction to estimate—”
“Captain, look!” Wheeler shouted from the navigator’s station.
Allison’s eyes snapped to the main display. A hole formed dead ahead, the black dot growing against the stark white surface of the planet like spilled ink.
“What the hell?”
“It’s a hyperspace window, ma’am.”
“From Bucephalus? What’s that cowboy doing now?”
* * *
Felix had to shout above the confused din permeating Bucephalus’s bridge. “It’s not us, Captain. The capacitors are still cooling off from the last transition. I couldn’t open a window right now if I wanted to.”
“Then who is it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the anomaly following Magellan around?”
“Tactical, anything on the other side of the window?” Maximus asked.
“I don’t have a good angle on it yet, sir. Should I launch a probe?”
“Save it.” Maximus spun to face the com station. “Call Magellan. See if they have a better view of what’s coming up the rabbit hole. And tell them to go radio black; QER coms only from this point on. Helm, scoot us over to get a better look.”
* * *
“Bucephalus is on the line, ma’am. They say it’s not them and that they have no sensor coverage into the window. Captain Tiberius is requesting a QER data link to our sensors and a radio blackout between us.”
“Do it. Then raise Earth and apprise them of our situation.”
The radio blackout made sense—no use risking an eavesdropper—but the sensor feed would eat up most of the bandwidth of even their advanced QERs. Communication between the two ships would be limited to text.
“Contact!” Wheeler erupted. “We’ve got a contact forty-five clicks inside the window. It just moved into line of sight.”
“How big?”
“Tiny, less than a hundred meters, provided our sensors aren’t being tricked by stealth systems.”
“They aren’t stealthed,” Commander Gruber said. “They can become the next best thing to invisible. Why go halfway?”
“You think it’s the fuzzy anomaly, then, Marcel?”
Gruber shrugged. “I think it’s a safe assumption. We know we’re being followed. They probably decided to make the first move.”
“Captain,” Wheeler said, “Bucephalus is maneuvering toward the window. We need to match them to maintain safe clearance.”
“Why are they crowding us?”
“Probably trying to get a better view,” Gruber said.
“Very well. Mr. Wheeler, match Bucephalus’s movements. Prescott, put me through to the alien vessel.”
* * *
“Magellan has a contact. It’s not very big.”
“Neither were PT boats.” Maximus smirked. “Designate contact as Bogey One on the plot. Set Condition Two.”
“Captain,” the helmsman said, “the window has closed. Bogey One is matching our movement. It’s keeping behind the Magellan, relative to our position.”
“Our blind spot.” Maximus laced his fingers together and theatrically cracked his knuckles. “Which is exactly what I would do, if I were preparing to attack. Tactical, got to active scans. Bring the CIWS up to ready status, and warm up my birds. I want a firing solution on Bogey One. We may have to swat a bug.”
“Sir,” the com officer injected, “Magellan is hailing Bogey One.”
“Oh, this should be good. Call the mess and have Cookie send up some popcorn.”
* * *
A soft blue light pulsed in the upper left corner of D’armic’s vision. The humans were sending a signal, doubtless stalling for time. Truth be told, they weren’t alone. He’d managed to get his cutter ahead of the intruders, but the ship’s power reservoirs had been emptied to do it.
It would take the reactor several fractions more to replenish them. Until then, his cutter’s EM cannon, its singular weapon, was little better than ballast. D’armic needed to do some stalling of his own.
Human video encryption was well known; they’d been squawking away to anyone with a receiver for hundreds of cycles now. It was a simple matter for the cutter’s signal filters to clean up the transmission. An image of the human ship’s command cave formed in his mind. It was angular and hard-edged, with holographic interfaces flickering at every seat. At the center of the light storm was a familiar face; the same light-haired woman whose image had been captured on Culpus-Alam.
“Unidentified vessel,” she said, “my name is Allison Ridgeway, captain of the AEUS Magellan. We are on a peaceful expedition of exploration and discovery. We request that you identify yourself and state your intentions. Please respond.”
Her voice was calm and friendly, hardly what one would expect of a mass murderer. You never can tell, D’armic thought.
“Allison Ridgeway Captain. My name is D’armic Ytol ev Shamel, a frontier manager of the Bureau of Frontier Resources. It is my intention to bring you and your crew into custody, to await judgment for the geocide of Culpus-Alam.”
* * *
Allison and the rest of her bridge crew sat dumbstruck as the mottled gray alien continued to speak in even, measured English.
“I will allow you five of your minutes to explain the situation to your crew and make the necessary preparations. If you do not surrender into custody at the end of this period, I will have no recourse but to fire on your vessels to force compliance. Your time begins now.”
Allison’s wits were not prepared for this turn of events. All she could think to say was, “Please hold.” She looked at Prescott and made a cutting gesture at her throat.
“Channel closed, ma’am.”
“Well, at least he was polite about it.” Allison looked at the solemn faces surrounding her chair. Scared as they were, her people held their composure. “All right, any guesses what he’s on about?”
* * *
The Bucephalus’s bridge sat in grim shock as the eerily familiar alien face issued its ultimatum. Everyone, that is, except Maximus. He clapped his hands together and grinned, causing everyone to wonder if he had been watching a different video.
“Finally, some excitement.” Maximus rubbed his hands greedily. “Set Condition One.” Red strobes flashed to life, while a klaxon bleated like an amorous sheep.
“Tactical, unlock missiles one through ten, and start feeding them telemetry on Bogey One.”
“You’re firing on him?” Felix called out.
“Not just yet, Mr. Fletcher. I intend to give him just enough rope to dig his own grave.”
“Don’t you mean enough rope to hang himself?”
“I don’t know. Do I look like an undertaker?”
* * *
“Time to deadline?”
“Three minutes, fourteen seconds, ma’am.”
Allison straightened her tunic, then ran her hands over the fabric to smooth out any wrinkles. “Maggie?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Prepare yourself for enemy fire. Seal all airtight doors, prime all backup systems, and decompress all unoccupied compartments.”
“I have made the necessary preparations, Captain.”
Allison smirked. “Forgive me for doubting you. Com, open the channel, please.”
Prescott activated a virtual dial and nodded to her captain.
“Frontier Manager D’armic. As I have already said, we are on a peaceful expedition. We have not harmed anyone, as our sensor logs can show. I offer to transmit our full, unedited data logs so that you may—” The screen split, moving the alien’s image to the side to accommodate a new face.
“This is Captain Tiberius of the Bucephalus, and I’m going to cut to the chase. We will not be surrendering to you in three minutes, three days, or three years. Furthermore, your threat against our vessels will not be tolerated. You are ordered to stand down and withdraw, or I will be forced to give that cute little yacht of yours more holes than a chain-link fence. You have two minutes to comply.”
A full second passed before Allison realized her mouth was hanging open like a barn door torn off its hinges. She gestured for Prescott to cut the channel.
“Channel closed, ma’am.”
“Get Tiberius on the line, now.”
“What about the blackout, Captain?” Gruber asked quietly from behind her right shoulder.
“Use the laser com. We can risk that.”
Prescott pulled up a new menu on the com interface. “Laser link established. Bucephalus com is challenging … codes sent … codes accepted. Q5 encryption active.”
Allison had to work not to grind her teeth together as Maximus’s face appeared.
“Captain Ridgeway, how may I help you?”
“Drop the act, Tiberius. This isn’t the time to start a pissing contest with that ship. Our sensor records will straighten this out peacefully. The last thing we need is for first contact to end with explosions, on either side.”
“Oh, please. That ship has been following you around like an obsessed ex-boyfriend for years. The only planet we’ve visited was Solonis B, and he was there. Don’t you see? He’s setting us up, probably to cover his own tracks.”
Allison’s mind ground to a halt. Maximus’s theory fit the evidence like a pair of skinny jeans. All right, he’s got some cunning hiding in there. “I admit that’s possible, but we can’t be the ones to take the first shot. Let me try to sort this out.”
“I’ll remind you that military decisions are mine to make on this expedition, Captain. And I doubt you can do much talking in a minute.”
“Not much, but I can do twice as much in two minutes.” Allison looked at her com officer. “Ensign Prescott, cut our sensor feed to Bucephalus.”
Prescott pushed a virtual button and smiled. “Feed cut, ma’am.”
“What are you doing?” Maximus fumed. “You’re the one in line of sight. We can’t get target locks without that feed.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’ll be shot to pieces without cover fire!”
“Perhaps, but it’s my ship to risk, isn’t it? If you’ll excuse me.” On cue, Prescott cut the laser link and reopened the channel to the small cutter.
Allison put on her best hostess face. “I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Darmic, was it?”
“D’armic, actually. The inflection is of some significance. Without it, my name changes meanings from ‘Gazes at stars’ to ‘Inappropriate self-touch while looking at pictures of celebrities,’” the small gray alien said with the utmost seriousness.
“Ah, D’armic it is, then,” Allison said, very precisely.
“I should remind you there is one minute and thirty seconds remaining, Allison Captain.”
“That gives us some time to talk. I have … temporarily inconvenienced Captain Tiberius. He will be unable to fire on your vessel before your deadline expires. But I should warn you, should you attack Maggie—I mean the Magellan—he will do whatever he can to destroy you.”
“It will not matter in one minute, fifteen seconds. Speak quickly, if you wish, but I must tell you that I am disinclined to believe the claims of someone suspected of geocide.”
“You’re talking about Solonis B, the planet six light-years from here covered in human tribes?”
“Yes. We call it Culpus-Alam.”
“We did not destroy it, and I think you know that. We saw your ship, Mr. D’armic, sitting deeper in the system, covered by some kind of stealth system. So, tell me, why are you trying to frame us for killing our own people?”
“Another vessel was present?”
“Yes, hiding three light-minutes closer to the system primary. Do you deny it was yours?”
“I do deny it. I arrived in the aftermath.”
Allison put a hand on each side of her chair and sat down with a calm grace she most certainly was not feeling. “Then we are both being played.”
Silence hung in the air like a thick fog. D’armic’s features would be familiar to anyone who had seen a low-budget alien abduction movie in the last four hundred years: gray skin, dark eye slits, small mouth and nose. Allison tried to read his expression, but his countenance remained sedate.
Finally, D’armic broke the quiet. “Perhaps, but we will have time to sort this out afterward. Your deadline expires in, three.”
“No, wait! We can—”
“Two.”
“You don’t nee—”
“One.”
Allison hit the button for the ship-wide intercom. “Brace for impact!”
“Do not worry. This should be painless.”
D’armic fired.