The Cosmic Bullet: The Enigma Series, Part One Page 2

  “Same,” Achilles said. “I’ll be disappointed if it’s just a long, thin space rock going at breakneck speed.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Chris said. Drew took a pen from the breast pocket of his white flight suit, held it in front of his face and let it go, to distract him from his nerves. It turned slowly. Drew pretended it was the speeding Enigma as he thought about all the time he had spent playing with toy spaceships as a child. Those were his happy times, when his and Storm’s father was out of the house.

  Suddenly, the windows showed a stunning portrait of a star studded black sky. “Dewarp successful,” Chris announced. “Astral bearings and gravitometry are in sync. We’re right on target, 842,237 miles ahead of the Enigma on its trajectory.”

  “How long to match its speed?” Achilles asked.

  “Four hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

  “Right.”

  “Go to engage thrust?” Holly Gray, the ship’s pilot asked.

  “Go,” Chris replied.

  Drew felt himself pushed back in his seat. He inhaled deeply to counteract the pressure on his chest. The force leveled off at about one gravity.

  “Can’t wait to get a close look at that thing,” Achilles said.

  “Set the front to glass,” Drew said. A long section that wrapped around the two crew in the cockpit appeared to go clear, revealing a star field.

  “The Sun just looks like any other star from here,” Drew said.

  “If the Enigma’s an alien ship, surely they would have just warped here instead of spending tens of thousands of years taking the scenic route?” Chris said.

  “You’d have thought so,” Holly said. “Although, maybe they don’t have warp drive capability?”

  “Could be.”

  “I don’t want to get closer than 10,000 miles.”

  “What? How are we gonna do spectroscopy from there?” Achilles grumbled.

  Holly shrugged. “That’s as close as I’m comfortable with getting for now. We can at least get a good picture of it.”

  “Hmph,” Drew grumped.

  “I know you science guys want to get up close, but I’m responsible for the safety of the Sigma and everyone on it.”

  “Fair enough,” Achilles said.

  “In fact, I’ll level with you,” Holly said. “I don’t even want to be here. Yeah, I fly warp ships for NASA. Sounds great, right? Very glamorous. But, I’m sick of the astronaut business. I just want a quiet life. Plus, why do you think they only sent four of us?”

  “Damage limitation,” Chris said.

  “Exactly. If this thing wipes out the ship, they only lose four people. That makes me like this mission even less.”

  Not cool, Drew thought. I am going to be the first person to visit this thing up close. I might never get a second chance.

  ****

  The entire cockpit was taken up by a picture of what appeared be a vast silver Zeppelin; its surface completely smooth.

  Drew took shallow breaths as goosebumps formed all over his arms. Achilles’ hand clasped on top of his on his seat’s armrest. The silence could be cut with a knife. Even Holly’s poker face was broken as she stared with wide, tear-laden eyes and a hand clasped over her mouth.

  “Well, good God in heaven,” Chris said at last. “It’s of alien origin. We’re not alone in the universe.”

  “So… dimensions?” Drew said through a dry throat.

  “Um… let me check it against the magnification. Length: 3,920 feet, width 775 feet,” Chris said.

  “Holy cow!”

  “It’s immense! It dwarfs anything built by man,” Achilles said.

  “Do you think anything or anyone could still be alive in there?” Chris asked.

  “They’d have to have survived tens of thousands of years,” Drew said. “I can’t wrap my head around how far it’s come and how long it’s been en route.”

  “It can’t be a coincidence that it’s headed into the inner Solar System,” Holly said. “Space is just too vast for it to be coincidence. So, whoever built it did so for a purpose. It’s just a matter of what that is.”

  “Unless they’re dead,” Drew said. “Hard to see how any living things could survive a voyage that long.”

  “Any civilization advanced enough to build something like that would surely have thought it through, and made provisions to survive.”

  “Or, maybe it never contained life at all,” Achilles said. “It’s just a gigantic robotic probe.”

  ****

  Half an hour later, Drew turned his gaze on Chris. “Do the honors, please.” Chris adjusted a small video camera as Drew flattened down his hair, and addressed the billions who would watch the broadcast several hours later.

  “Behind me is a telescopic image of the Enigma. As you can see, its surface is completely smooth and symmetrical. The inescapable conclusion is that it’s of alien design. We are now beginning other studies to see if we can gain more clues as to its nature.”

  Achilles, floating near the left side of the cabin, waved his hand and a display appeared. He touched several virtual buttons, and a portion of the screen showed straight horizontal lines. After another touch, they bent into waveforms. “Monitoring on all radio frequencies.”

  Drew worked at a similar panel on the right. The image at the front changed from an elongated egg lit from above to solid black punctuated by stars around a long oval outline.

  Drew exhaled deeply, and frowned. “Not a darn thing on infrared. It’s completely cold.”

  Holly’s eyes traced the silhouette. “That lends credence to them all being dead.”

  “Check for radiation,” Achilles said.

  “On it,” Drew replied. He worked the display a few more seconds. “Nothing. Scanning the rest of the spectrum. This’ll take a couple minutes.”

  “We should try contacting it,” Chris said.

  “You mean… just talk to it?” Holly asked.

  “Yes. I’m not sure what the interstellar frequency or call sign is, though.”

  “Ha.”

  “Well, here goes.” Chris mentally commanded the ship’s communication display to appear in front of them in the air, and then keyed in several numbers.

  “This is the ship Sigma, calling the occupants of the adjacent vessel. Do you acknowledge?”

  Chris bit his lower lip as his eyes met Holly’s, and then Drew’s. Behind him, Achilles had turned around to listen.

  “I repeat, this is the Sigma, a ship of planet Earth, calling the occupants of the vessel entering our solar system. Do you acknowledge?”

  “Crickets,” Holly said, after a long moment.

  Chris sighed. “Well, I’m going to record the message and keep playing it ad infinitum.”

  Drew nodded. “So far it’s as inert as a lump of rock, which only deepens the mystery. Holly, I’d like to get close enough to lase the surface and find out what it’s made of.”

  “How close are we talking?”

  “A hundred miles.”

  “What? No way.”

  Drew looked past Holly to Chris, his eyes saying, help me out.

  “Holly”— Chris began.

  “You can’t do it from further away?” Holly snapped.

  “Not and scan the whole thing. Even 100 miles won’t give us much angular resolution.”

  “Won’t one or two data points do? For that matter, can’t you just go off reflected sunlight? Then there’s no need to illuminate it at all.”

  “I would if there was any. It’s almost starlight this far out.” He sighed. “Okay. How about approaching it, but keeping the warp machinery warmed up so we can escape in a hurry?”

  “Wouldn’t help if they suddenly turn some kind of particle beam weapon on us, having seen our laser as an act of aggression.”

  “Holly, there’s nobody on board. It’s dead as a doornail. It’s less than one degree Kelvin in there.”

  Holly pursed her lips as she considered. “Fine. A hundred miles closest approach.” Holly turned to fa
ce the ship’s nose. One mental command later, Drew drifted to the ceiling and then towards the back of the cabin and was held there by a gentle pressure as the Sigma changed course.

  “I’d recommend you take your seats, guys. We’ve got a significant distance to cover.”

  ****

  A rising and falling tone sounded. “Anna’s ringtone,” Storm said. “Gimme a minute.”

  “Sure thing.”

  As the others exited Storm’s office, Storm withdrew his phone from his pocket and put it on the faux-wood surface of his desk. A two-foot wide window opened in midair. “Hi, baby!”

  Three seconds went by as the emotional connection rode the wave of bits from one world to another and back again. “Hi, Dad! Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I placed first for all-around in the conference!”

  “Did you really? That’s fantastic, honey!”

  “Thanks. Here’s the videos.” Anna’s face shrank into a box in the corner. The picture showed her standing pensively in her gymnastics leotard at the edge of a forty-foot blue square. At some unseen signal, she raised her arms, smiled, and assumed the sitting, chin-back starting position of her floor routine. Some pounding pop music echoed through the gymnasium, and Anna flipped, danced, and twisted through it to the yells and encouragement of her teammates. Storm’s smile radiated love as he was transported to that time and place.

  “That’s my girl!” he said, as the routine ended and the video cut to a scoreboard showing 9.45. “Awesome! High-fives from the Moon!”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s everything else going?”

  Anna’s face fell. “Mom’s got a new boyfriend.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He’s called Terry.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s great to Mom, but not very nice to me.”

  Storm frowned. “What did he do?”

  “He and Mom were watching TV, and I was in the kitchen getting a snack. It was like 9:30. He came in the kitchen and said, ‘Go the eff to bed, little girl, your mom and I want some alone time.’”

  “He seriously said that to you?”

  “Yeah.” Anna sighed.

  Storm’s eyes narrowed as he was flooded with hot rage. “I’m gonna get you out of there as soon as I can, baby, okay?”

  “Please do, Dad.”

  “Did you tell your mom?”

  “Yeah, but she was just like, ‘He’s a good guy, I can’t believe he’d say something like that to you.’”

  Storm’s nostrils flared. “She didn’t believe you?”

  “No.” Anna’s shoulders sank.

  “I’ll come and get you just as soon as I can. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Dad.”

  “Do you have video of the beam, bars, and vault?”

  “Yes.” Storm’s heart flooded with pride again as he watched Anna perform.

  The call ended. He reflected as he looked, unfocused, through the space where the display had been. I have to find a way to make enough money that I can move to Earth, and save her.

  ****

  “We got another job,” Dmitry said to Storm in the small break room, thrusting a tablet into his hand.

  “Oh great,” said Storm, looking it over before handing the device back. “Another let’s-play-chicken-with-re-entry job. This is what we’ve been reduced to: shadowing satellites that’re about to deorbit, and then trying to catch them before they turn into balls of fire.”

  “It’s not much of a living,” Desira said, sitting at an old, round table, nursing a cup of coffee. “With spaceships built more reliable than ever, there just aren’t abandoned carcasses we can strip down for parts anymore. There’s so many failsafe systems to still bring them home, even without a crew. The writing’s on the wall. Maybe a couple more years left in this business.”

  “So, about that Enigma…” Dmitry said, smirking slightly.

  Storm turned to him. “Don’t be too quick to joke about that, my man. I’ve been thinkin’ about that thing. It has to be an alien spaceship. They’re saying on TV that it has to be at least 40,000 years old if it came from even the nearest star, given its trajectory. If anybody was ever on board, they’re probably long dead. Any valuable materials in there would be up for grabs.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Dmitry said. “Let’s not make plans to go salvage it just yet.”

  “Look at it this way, though,” Desira said. “The first person to get there will be able to claim ownership. Nobody else will get a look in. Call me crazy,” she continued, a glimmer in her eye, “but I think we should go for this.”

  “Well, there are still a few practical problems…” Dmitry began.

  “Like the power required to reach it and match its speed?”

  “Correct.”

  “There’s no way we can do it with ZPR drives alone. We’d need 404 miles per second of delta-V for the round trip. There’s no ship around that’s capable of that, especially our dear old Eris. So I’m proposing we trade her in for a warp ship,” Desira said.

  Dmitry’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Our own warp ship? That’s about like a neighborhood scrapyard buying a private jet! You’re out of your mind!” Dmitry full-on belly laughed, and Desira glared at him. “Besides, girl, how are you going to fly such a thing?”

  “They’re automatic when in warp,” Desira snapped.

  “Cool it, Dmitry,” Storm grunted. “She’s right, of course. Even when the Enigma’s relatively near Earth it’ll take just as much power to make a round trip to it as it does now, given its enormous velocity. And that won’t be for a year. So, warping is the only way.”

  The others nodded. “How are we gonna raise the money, besides the trade in?” Desira asked. “All I can think of is a very big bank loan. Do we even have good enough credit for that?”

  “For a warp ship! That’s a good one!” Dmitry laughed as he shook his head.

  “I’ll start looking around at ships for sale,” Drew said.

  “Don’t forget the thorium!” Dmitry said.

  “Yes, I know. Running costs aren’t cheap, but this is our chance to strike it rich and stop being the bottom feeders of the space junk business. Who wants a shot at this?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Desira said.

  Dmitry nodded. “Yeah, despite my great reservations.”

  “Then I’ll start trying to find a suitable ship, so we’re ready to go if NASA says it’s safe.”

  “But what are we going to do with such an expensive ship if it turns out we can’t do it?”

  “I’m believing, guys,” Storm said. “It’s a roll of the dice, but I’ll do just about anything at this point to make some real money.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The lights flickered on, illuminating the brushed metal interior of the cylinder, coated in a thin layer of frost. The ship was about as wide as a small house and four stories high. It was covered with screens, knobs, handles, and equipment of various kinds, all encrusted with ice.

  The ship was much colder than liquid nitrogen, just above absolute zero. Unseen heating elements came on and, over several days, warmth began to seep back in. The frost cleared up as the cylinder became inhabitable.

  At one side of the interior were two glass doors about the size of those on a large terrestrial chest freezer. Behind those doors were two long brown blobs with wrinkled surfaces, each about the size of a small adult human. They very slowly began to turn dark blue at one end. This color began to move down as hours ticked by in the ghostly silence. Then a brighter blue began to spread down them, followed by various shades of green. By then, a barely perceptible orange aura had begun to surround each creature. It grew stronger until the soft glow extended several inches from their skin.

  Slowly, the exterior of the blobs turned white while their auras remained intact. The end of one morphed into a tentacle and it clicked open a latch on the inside of the door of its chamber. The door swung outward and the mysterious creature stret
ched out into the cylinder, moving like a globule of molten wax inside a lava lamp.

  Presently, the remaining creature followed the other out of its cocoon, propelled itself over to its companion, and they morphed into snakelike forms and intertwined. The weightless embrace lasted for several silent minutes. Then short bursts of high-pitched white noise echoed as they communicated.

  “We made it!”

  “I really thought I would never see you again. I had no idea our technology would keep us alive this long.”

  They uncoiled and drifted a few inches apart. A louder burst of white noise came from the cylinder itself. “Welcome, Quuru and Ineete. You are located in the target star system. Your interstellar voyage is almost complete. Your course will take you to the target planet in 480 microrevs”—forty days. “All systems are nominal.”

  “How much time has passed?” Quuru, the leftmost life form, asked.

  “1,680 revolutions have passed, the equivalent of 38,825 stellar revolutions on the target planet.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Yes it is,” Ineete, the other being, replied. “I wonder what happened to the home world?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready to find out, yet.”

  “Me neither. Right now I’m hungry, tired, and sore.”

  “Computer, please draw mineral and nutritional baths.”

  “Will do.”

  “Also, train the telescope on the target planet.”

  A midair display cut across the cylinder halfway down. It showed a marbled blue planet, with brown landmasses beneath swirling cloud patterns. It was somewhat fuzzy due to the great distance.

  “Computer, analyze its atmosphere.”

  “Analyzing now.”

  “I can’t help thinking it’s a beautiful planet,” Ineete said.

  “Yes it is. It clearly has a turbulent atmosphere. It may be greater in splendor than the home world.”

  “It seems to be mostly water,” Quuru said.

  “Yes, but there is also a lot of land. Computer, what is its diameter?”

  “Approximately 1,200 units.”

  Quuru and Ineete were quiet for a time as they contemplated the blue and white marble depicted in front of them.