Jane, along with Colonel Mbuwe and Lieutenant Colonel Chang were in the main conference room of the Fordham , on Deck 23.
They were not alone.
The Mount Olympus of the starship’s hierarchy was present as well.
This included Captain Yarrum, her first officer Commander Voss, the chief tactical officer, Commander Dell, and the chief scientific officer, Dr. Zimmer.
Beyond those high-ranking individuals, also present were representatives from the xenomorphic studies division of the science department, and the ship’s head of linguistics…people Jane had never even seen before.
Earlier, after returning to the Fordham , Jane had been hurried to Sabre Squadron’s ready room where she had given a brief synopsis of the contact to Colonel Mbuwe and Lieutenant Colonel Chang, both of whom grilled her on exactly what actions she had taken while interacting with the unspac.
When she was done, Mbuwe and Chang had looked at each other for several moments. It had seemed like they were able to communicate silently with one another, a phenomenon Jane had noticed many times before. She supposed that’s how tight the relationship between a commanding officer and her second-in-command needed to be.
Eventually, they turned back to her.
“Okay, listen to me,” Mbuwe said. “I can understand why you wanted to break up the monotony by flying around that asteroid again, okay? Trust me, I’ve been there. These patrols are boring. But when they …” She pointed upwards. “…ask why you returned to that asteroid, you tell them it was because you wanted to practice motion-screening maneuvering. Got it?”
Motion-screening was when a starfighter used a relatively fast-moving object such as an asteroid as a screen for their ship. It required the pilot to match speed with the object, as well as keep an eye on its trajectory. It was a useful tactic for a variety of scenarios, not the least of which was hiding from enemy vessels.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jane had replied. “But…begging the colonel’s pardon…I didn’t do anything wrong, ma’am. I was still within my patrol sector, and all of my scanners were operating. I also feel as if the unspac would have noticed me even if I hadn’t moved.”
She was certain of that. Based on her scans and her own eyeball assessment of the alien craft, that spaceship had sufficiently advanced hardware to be able to detect any other ships from quite a distance.
“I’m not suggesting you did anything wrong, Belivet,” Mbuwe had said. “I just don’t want to give them… ” Again she pointed upwards. “…any opportunity to claim you did. You know how sensitive the Unitary is about first contact situations.”
It was at that point when the overhead speakers in the ready room spoke.
It was the captain requesting that Mbuwe, Chang, and Jane report to the main conference room in fifteen minutes.
“Get out of your jumpsuit,” Colonel Chang had instructed. “Fix up your hair. Be back here in five minutes.”
Now, Jane and her two immediate bosses were in the conference room, seated at the glossy black table with the others.
The captain had just ordered a course change at maximum speed, evidently performing her own zigzag maneuver.
“Meg has accessed your Spacehawk’s camera recordings,” the captain said, referring to the Fordham’s AI. “She has also copied that transmission you received. However, before we get to those, tell us all what happened, Lieutenant.”
So, Jane told the story again, this time mentioning motion-screening when she got to the part about revisiting the asteroid.
When she was finished, the captain stared at her.
“And this unspac just…appeared?” the captain eventually asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jane answered. “Out of a plus-C jump. My AI recognized the space-time distortion.”
“Thoughts?” the captain asked, looking around the room.
Commander Dell spoke first.
“I’m wondering why that ship was there, at the exact moment Lieutenant Belivet was,” she said.
“Are you suggesting it wasn’t a coincidence?” Commander Voss asked her.
Dell face-shrugged.
“I’m suggesting that from a tactical standpoint, we have to at least consider the possibility,” she replied. “Besides, that’s a mighty big coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps the lieutenant was detected from further away,” Voss suggested. “We don’t know the scanning capabilities of these beings. It’s also possible the lieutenant triggered some kind of perimeter buoy or perhaps a device on the asteroid itself.”
Jane bristled.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” she said, “but I didn’t detect any devices in that sector or on the asteroid.”
Scanning for any indication of technology—other spacecraft, satellites, probes—was a standard part of a routine patrol. She didn’t like Voss’s implication that she hadn’t done her job.
Voss looked at her.
“You didn’t detect any devices your instruments could detect,” she stated simply.
Jane felt herself blushing. She also felt like an idiot.
The commander was right. They all had to assume that there were countless unknowns at play when it came to these beings and the technologies they employed.
The captain then ordered the footage from the Spacehawk’s forward camera to be run, and asked Jane to provide a running commentary as it did so.
On the conference room’s vidwall, the video began playing, in ultrasharp detail. Along the bottom edge of the image was a series of data points indicating things like the three-dimensional attitude of the Spacehawk, its speed, and distance from any objects.
On the screen was the moment Jane had brought her starfighter about to face the unspac and had activated her cameras. There was a frisson of excitement as everyone else in the room got their first glance at the alien ship.
“Small bugger,” one of the women from the xenomorphic division murmured.
“As you can see,” Jane said, “the ship appeared approximately five kilometers from my location. But it quickly advanced to one-thousand meters and then held its position. I raised shields and initiated passive scans. I also instructed my AI to plot a zigzag.”
“Meg, pause playback,” Commander Dell said.
The video froze.
Commander Dell looked at Jane.
“But you didn’t initiate the zigzag right away,” she pressed.
Jane shook her head.
“I determined that since this was an important encounter, it would be best to stay where I was and record as much as I could,” she said, meeting Dell’s gaze.
“Standard protocol gives starfighter pilots a certain amount of leeway in these situations, Commander,” Colonel Mbuwe added.
“How else are we going to learn about other spacefaring species we encounter if we turn tail and run each time we spot one of their ships?” the same woman from the xenomorphic department said. “The lieutenant did the right thing.”
“In hindsight, yes,” Dell replied. She tilted her head towards Jane. “Our pilot made it back safely, she managed to get a lot of data, and she apparently avoided starting an interstellar war. But we need to always remember that starfighter pilots are not trained contact ambassadors. Next time, we might not be so lucky.”
“We’ll worry about next time, next time, Jeanne,” Captain Yarrum said. “Meg, resume playback.”
Eventually…
“You backed up,” Captain Yarrum stated when the video reached that part of the encounter.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jane confirmed. “Fifty meters. I wanted to further indicate I wasn’t a threat.”
The captain nodded but didn’t say anything else. Jane decided to accept that as proof that she had done the right thing.
“Look!” the linguist suddenly said. “The other ship mimicked the maneuver!” She looked at the faces around the room. “That’s a good sign. It is one of the basic ways to communicate with another species. It’s also usually an indication of at least a willingness to be friendly.”
“Be that as it may,” the captain said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Dr. Xeric.”
Suddenly, everyone except Jane gasped when they saw the alien spacecraft start blinking its lights.
Jane noticed that Dr. Xeric—a thin, middle-aged woman, with lustrous silver hair—had a look of child-like wonder on her face. She was also trembling with an apparent excitement she could barely contain.
“Were those…?” the captain began before trailing off.
“The first three prime numbers, ma’am,” Jane answered. “Once I realized that, I ordered my AI to flash my lights with the next three primes.”
Dr. Xeric looked at her.
“Well done!” she exclaimed.
Jane gave her a small smile and a short nod.
“It was at this point that the ship sent its transmission,” Jane went on. “My AI immediately quarantined it.”
“Did you send a transmission of your own?” Commander Dell asked.
“No, ma’am,” Jane replied. “Before I even had a chance to consider what to send, the unspac departed.”
She tilted her head to the vidwall. Sure enough, the alien ship was seen zooming away. Eventually, the burst of light Jane had witnessed appeared.
“Fascinating,” Commander Voss said. “I wonder what kind of engines they use for their jumps?”
“If they even jumped,” Dell said. “For all we know that was just a light show, and the ship stayed around hoping to follow Lieutenant Belivet back to us.”
Jane was used to senior officers in all branches of the military having a healthy dose of paranoia. She figured it was part of their job. But Commander Dell took the prize.
The chief tactical officer looked at her.
“Good job not assuming that the unspac had left,” she said.
Jane gave her a short nod, surprised to get a compliment from that woman.
“Thank you, ma’am,” she replied.
“I want to expand on that,” Captain Yarrum said. “Overall, Lieutenant, you handled this contact very well. Our mission here in Andromeda will undoubtedly bring us a lot of surprises. It’s good to know we could rely on you to act with a cool head and to follow your training. Great job.”
Jane wanted to beam, but even on a starship commanded and crewed mainly by women, military decorum needed to be observed. This meant that she needed to not give any indication of how happy it made her receiving praise from the most powerful person on the Fordham .
Instead, she sat up even straighter, gave yet another curt nod, and said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and left it at that.
The captain inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement of the gratitude, and then looked around the table.
“Now…” she began, “…let’s see what message your new friend sent you, Lieutenant.”
***
“Meg, report on the transmission Lieutenant Belivet received, please,” the captain said.
“Yes, captain,” Meg replied. Jane had always wondered whom the AI’s voice was modeled after, because it was very nice.
“The transmission,” Meg continued, “does not pose a threat to the Fordham . Nevertheless, I will keep it isolated by storing it in the non-interfaced data node.”
“Excellent,” the captain stated. “Display the transmission, please.”
“The transmission contains a component which is a basic image file,” Meg said, “and another which is composed of a tremendous amount of what appears to be text. Which would you like to see first?”
“The image,” the captain decided for the whole group.
Jane, her heart racing now, eagerly turned her attention to the vidwall…
On the screen, the image she had been sent materialized, and her mouth dropped open.
For several moments, silence filled the conference room.
“Is that a…ship?” Colonel Mbuwe eventually asked.
It sure seemed like it to Jane.
Essentially, the image being shown was a simple monochrome line drawing of what looked like a spacefaring vessel. Whatever it actually was, it was long, and widest at its midpoint.
Like the unspac which Jane had encountered, the hull of the craft had many ball-like sections, some smaller than others. Additionally, there was a large ball-shaped structure at one end of the craft, and four such structures at the other end. Her human mind wanted to designate the end with the single ball as the bow, and the other end as the stern, but she reminded herself not to make such assumptions.
In fact, for all everyone in the conference room knew, this wasn’t a ship. It could literally be anything.
“If it is a ship,” Commander Voss began, “I can’t tell how big or small it is.”
This was true. Jane couldn’t see anything included with the image that would give a sense of the object’s scale. This… thing could be as large as the Fordham , or as tiny as her forefinger.
“Okay,” Captain Yarrum said. “Meg, send copies of this image to all relevant department heads. Mark it Eyes Only . Attach a message stating they are not to share it with anyone without authorization from me.”
“Understood, Captain,” Meg replied.
“Show the rest of the transmission, please,” the captain ordered.
Instantly the vidwall began displaying a dense block of green textual characters on a black background.
The…script was truly alien, however Jane noticed that—as in the scripts of several Milky Way species—certain characters coincidentally mimicked characters of other, unrelated races.
In this case, her eyes were instantly drawn to familiar shapes in the text…
One of the characters looked remarkably like the letter B . Another one was a perfect uppercase W .
“This is one screen’s worth,” Meg announced. “There are over five-hundred screens remaining.”
Dr. Xeric blew out a breath.
“One or five-hundred,” she said, “we won’t make sense of it like this.”
“Meg?” the captain said. “Can you do anything with it?”
“No, Captain,” the AI responded. “Dr. Xeric is correct. It would be impossible to perform a translation without a primer.”
Now the captain blew out a breath.
“I figured.”
“However…” Meg said leadingly.
“Yes?” the captain prodded.
“I have detected what I believe to be certain mathematical patterns in the text,” Meg told the group. “If I am correct, it might be possible—upon further analysis—to determine if those patterns translate into something intelligible by us.”
“Do it,” the captain said.
“It will take some time, Captain,” Meg replied.
“Understood,” the captain said. “Please make it a priority.”
“Well, at least we know they’re not stupid,” Commander Voss said. “They know enough to realize math is the only way they could possibly communicate with us.” She looked at the captain. “What do we do now?”
***
A couple of shiphours later, Jane was back in her quarters on Deck 5.
“Fuck, what a day,” she muttered.
Her quarters consisted of a small living area, a kitchenette, and a bedroom area that wasn’t quite its own room. Rather, there was a partition that stretched from the upper bulkhead to the floor, but didn’t join with any other wall.
She immediately went into her bedroom area and stripped naked. She then took a shower. Once she was done, she instructed Holly to increase the heat in the room so that she could just lay naked on her bed.
She had the rest of the day off…all she had to do was figure out what to do with it.
She considered that having a girlfriend would be nice now. After the day she’d had, she wanted to be fucked senseless, and then be held the rest of the night.
She had an arrangement with a sexy pharmacist, but part of the arrangement was that neither of them spent the night.
And Jane wanted someone to spend the night this time.
Oh well…
If she felt like it later, she’d masturbate. If not, no biggie. Right now she was content just lying on the bed and not having any responsibilities.
“Jane,” Holly said, using the overhead speakers, “you have a mail message from Lieutenant Junior Grade Veronica Vale.”
Jane frowned.
“Who the fuck is Lieutenant Junior Grade Veronica Vale?” Jane asked.
And why on Saturn’s rings would a lowly JG be mailing her?
“The lieutenant is primarily a helmsbeing for the Fordham ,” Holly answered. “Her service record indicates that she is in the Bridge Officer Training Corp and was recently promoted from ensign.
Jane rolled her eyes.
An ensign ?
She and Lieutenant Junior Grade Veronica Vale may be in separate divisions of the military, but the fact remained that the difference in rank between herself and a recent ensign was vast. Normally, ensigns—and JGs—needed a very good reason to contact someone like her out of the blue. And it helped if that reason was to offer to bring her coffee.
She sighed.
“Read the message from Former Ensign Veronica Vale, please,” she instructed Holly.
“Message as follows…” Holly said. She then began reading…
Lieutenant Belivet:
My name is Lieutenant Junior Grade Veronica Vale, ma’am. I am a bridge officer, primarily on the helm. I am also in the BOTC, under the mentorship of First Officer Commander Voss.
As part of the continuous training of myself and my fellow BOTC candidates, I would like to invite you to speak to us about your first contact scenario, experienced while you were on patrol today. I believe having the opportunity to hear about it directly from you, and for us to ask you questions, would provide us valuable lessons for our continued growth as bridge officers.
I have presented my idea to Commander Voss, and she has given me permission to make this request. She has also instructed me to tell you that you should feel under no obligation to respond favorably.
I hope to hear from you soon with your decision.
Thank you for your time, ma’am.
Jane groaned.
Ensigns were annoying enough…now she was being asked to talk to a roomful of them?
And she knew there was no way out of it! Former Ensign Veronica Vale had been sure to name-drop Commander Voss in her message, which Jane had to admit was a cunning move on Vale’s part.
Technically , Voss couldn’t order her to do anything if it wasn’t directly related to the operations or safety of the Fordham . Only Captain Yarrum had that kind of goddess-like power.
However…
In her brief career, Jane had been on enough starships to know that it was always a good idea for Air and Space Defense to curry favor with Navy senior officers.
If Voss was mentoring these ensigns, it would certainly buy Jane some credit with the second most powerful person on the Fordham . And since Voss was close to the captain, at least a little bit of that credit would trickle up to the very top.
Besides…Voss was hot .
Tall, lithe, redheaded…and with long fingers…
The first officer had been the subject of many sapphic conversations between Jane and the other gay women in Sabre Squadron—with the exception of Colonel Chang, who would probably not approve of such discussions being had about high-ranking officers…even Navy ones.
In any case, Jane’s active imagination was now conjuring up some steamy scenes involving herself and Commander Voss—who of course would want to show her appreciation for Jane’s willingness to be nice to Former Ensign Veronica Vale.
She chuckled to herself.
Even she knew how unlikely such a dalliance was.
But a girl could hope…
She shook her head briskly to knock away thoughts of having sex with the first officer and refocused herself on the matter at hand.
Sighing, she reached for her all-in-one tablet, which was on the shelf-like windowsill of the bedroom window.
With a few taps, she pulled up her calendar for the next shipweek.
It was populated with her usual agenda items: simulator training, squadron meetings, ship maintenance, astrocartography classes, and—a recent addition—guard duty in Hangar Bay 1.
She wondered now how much this agenda might change as a result of her encounter with that unspac. She had gotten the impression that her contact with whoever was piloting that other ship, as well as the mysterious transmission she had received, might shake things up for the Fordham , schedule-wise.
Her free time on her calendar was indicated by blocks of green…
Usually, she occupied herself by either staying in her quarters and relaxing, going for a run around The Ring, meeting up with friends at one of the Fordham’s several lounges, or by availing herself of any one of the many diversions found on the starship.
She also dated. She may not have a girlfriend now, but…
The Fordham was an Earth-registered starship, meaning it had been built in Earth’s solar system at the Armstrong Naval Construction Yard between the orbits of Earth and Venus. As such, it was mainly crewed by humans and carried human passengers. And because the population of Earth was mostly female—a circumstance which had its genesis when more girls than boys started being born over a thousand years ago—there were quite a lot of women for Jane to choose from.
Her most recent girlfriend—a civilian—was someone she had started dating soon after she had first boarded Fordham in orbit above Aquila Prime, a planet in the Milky way. Unfortunately, Iris had determined that she wasn’t cut out to be the girlfriend of a military pilot.
Jane had understood that, and harbored no bad feelings towards her ex. She was well aware that dating a starfighter pilot—particularly a pilot in an elite squadron like Sabre—meant that whoever she was with had to make a lot of allowances and compromises.
After examining her calendar, she decided she would be willing to sacrifice one hour out of the eight that she had free in a couple of days. She didn’t know what Former Ensign Veronica Vale’s schedule was like, nor did she care. She expected Vale and all of the other ensigns who wanted to attend this gathering to ask their superior officers to rearrange their roster duties.
She instructed Holly to send a short message to Vale, offering her the time slot she had chosen, and leaving it at that. It would be up to Vale to do whatever it took to make it happen.
With that done, she resumed doing nothing on her bed…