Alien spaceship from Ross 128.
CHAPTER 14 – THE ROSS 128 INCIDENT
05:08 (Universal Time)
Tuesday, September 21, 2320
Command bridge of the KOSTROMA
In deep space, some six light hours from the Ross 128 System
‘’Jump completed to correct coordinates, Tina. Ross 128 is presently to our nine O’clock, at a distance of 6.3 light hours. Now changing course to adopt interception vector.’’
‘’Good! Passive sweep on sensors. Keep electronic silence for the moment.’’
‘’Aye, Tina!’’
Tina then looked to her left and examined the small red dot of the red dwarf star known to Humanity as Ross 128, situated some 10.9 light years from the Solar System. This time, intercepting the SHANIZAR should be much easier than when catching the SHUNDAR. The SHANIZAR was presently on the last leg of its 361 year-long interstellar trip and should now have decelerated to a speed of 0.04 C, if it had followed its original flight plan as calculated prior to its departure from Shouria. Now, her KOSTROMA would just need to fly along a long curve to the left, to adopt a direct course towards Ross 128 that would loosely parallel the calculated course of the SHANIZAR, then would accelerate to match speed with the Koorivar starship, until the SHANIZAR would pass by the KOSTROMA. Next, Tina would only need to adjust slightly her course and speed in order to join up with the other vessel. All this promised to be relatively easy to do, but Tina was still extremely apprehensive. With what she had found on the SHUNDAR, her fear was that the SHANIZAR would also prove to be a derelict ship with failing multiple systems due to age, failures that could have affected its precious cryogenic sleeping pods.
Tina was twisting her head to look at Shanandar, again sitting with Gerald Holmes in V.I.P. seats behind and to one side of her own command chair, when Patricia O’Neil shouted a warning, concern in her voice.
‘’AN UNKNOWN SPACESHIP HAS JUST CROSSED OUR PATH AT HIGH SPEED SOME 280,000 KILOMETERS AHEAD OF US, HEADING TOWARDS THE EXPECTED POSITION OF THE SHANIZAR!’’
Ingrid Holtz, manning one of the other sensors stations, then spoke up.
‘’Ingrid, the Ross 128 System is proving to be a major source of electronic noise and signals. There is an advanced civilization in that system.’’
‘’What? But, that’s impossible! Ross 128 is only 10.9 light years from Earth and has been watched and listened to by astronomers and radio-astronomers for over three centuries, with no artificial radio signals ever detected from the system.’’
‘’Well, I can’t explain it right now, Tina, but that system is radiating about as much electronic noise as Earth does today.’’
‘’What about that spaceship that crossed our path? Was it emitting electronically?’’
‘’Uh, wait one!... Yes, I am now detecting spillover from some kind of directional electronic signal from the spaceship in question, pointed towards Ross 128. It sounds to me like a directional communications beam containing mostly data exchange. Maybe the people in the Ross 128 System are using exclusively directional communication beams. That could explain why we didn’t hear a thing on Earth for all those centuries.’’
‘’Hum, that’s a possibility, but that would also entail that those people would have been careful during all those years not to transmit in the general direction of our Solar System. That sounds pretty paranoid to me. Start analyzing that directional signal, along with the other signals from Ross 128 and don’t be afraid to ask for Spirit’s help to start deciphering their language. And please, let’s stay in electronic silence mode.’’
‘’Aye, Tina.’’
‘’Tina, do we still adopt our original intercept heading and speed?’’
‘’Yes, Dana! We still need to do that in order to eventually join up with the SHANIZAR. Continue on our planned course.’’
Tina was straightening up in her command chair, now truly worried, when Gerald Holmes spoke to her from his chair.
‘’Tina, this business of having a high technology civilization on our doorstep, barely more than ten light years away from Earth, will have tons of implications for the Spacers League and Humanity, especially if that civilization has been actively hiding from us for centuries.’’
‘’You can bet the farm on that, Gerald. It certainly doesn’t augur well about the attitude of that unknown alien race towards Humanity. However, while I will certainly be very cautious about them in the hours to come, I have no intentions to show hostility to them, unless they attack us or the SHANIZAR without provocation. Shanandar, if we assume that the SHANIZAR is still fully functional and operational, what would be the reactions of its automated programs to detecting the approach of another spaceship?’’
‘’Well, the first thing it would do then would be to awaken the standby duty bridge crew. That is especially true now that the SHANIZAR is so close to Ross 128. If fact, planned crew awakening was due to occur about one day from now. Also, the automated program would awake the central AI computer of the ship, Shiry, something that would greatly help the capacity of the SHANIZAR to deal with any unplanned encounter in deep space. However, Shiry was programmed with the same pacifist values and moral ethics as we Koorivars have and the ship has zero weapons. If those aliens decide to damage or destroy the SHANIZAR, then there is very little that either its crew or Shiry could do, except maybe try to flee.’’
‘’But flee where?’’
‘’That’s the problem: the SHANIZAR’s secondary destination, if Ross 128 proved unsuitable for colonization, is Luyten’s Star, some fourteen light years away from Ross 128. However, that trip would entail a further 180 years of deep space travel. From what we know now from the misadventures of both my VEON SHOURIA and of the SHUNDAR, I will say with certainty that the SHANIZAR would never be able to complete such a trip without becoming a dead, derelict ship.’’
‘’So, it is either Ross 128 or bust for the SHANIZAR, correct?’’
‘’Correct! The problem here is that I doubt that these unknown aliens will be very sympathetic to demands from the SHANIZAR to be allowed to settle in their system, especially in view of their apparent paranoia towards Humanity. At the worst, we could see the kind of hostile reaction that the SHUNDAR encountered at the hands of the Vorlaks in the Gliese 581 System.’’
‘’Captain!’’ suddenly interrupted Germaine Brown, occupying the central communications station on the bridge. ‘’We are now intercepting a directional video signal from the spaceship that passed in front of us, sent towards Ross 128.’’
‘’Aaah, excellent! That should tell us more about those aliens. Put that signal on my display number two and send it also to Spirit, Captain Shanandar and Mister Holmes.’’
‘’One moment, please.’’
Some twenty seconds later, an image appeared on one of Tina’s command chair display screens. One look at it made her shout in shock and surprise at the same time that Shanandar and Gerald Holmes did the same.
‘’A GORDO?!’’
The alien she was now looking at while he spoke to some interlocutor on Ross 128 was a big, gorilla-like being with two pairs of muscular arms attached to its torso. It took Tina long seconds before she could recover from her shock.
‘’But…but, the Gordo we found on Gliese 625, some 25 light years away from here, died some 6,000 years ago. If they could travel around the stars then, how come that they never visited Earth? In fact, they could have conquered Earth while we were still in the Neolithic Age. And why hide from us for over 400 years?’’
‘’I will agree that all this makes little sense, Tina.’’ said Gerald Holmes. ‘’Could I suggest that we ask Doctor Koomak to study that question?’’
‘’An excellent idea, Gerald. Shanandar, contact Doctor Koomak and explain to him what we just saw. My question to him is: if the Gordo could travel among the stars some 6,000 years ago, how come that they never manifested themselves to us in the last few centuries?’’
‘’I’m on it, Tina.’’
With that done, Tina sat back in her chair, fresh worries and questions on her mind. What the next minutes and hours could bring could well precipitate some interstellar crisis between Humanity and the Gordo. Now was definitely not the time to act brashly or impulsively.
Some seventeen minutes later, with her KOSTROMA now on its final parallel intercept course and accelerating on gravity sails to match speed with the SHANIZAR, Tina got a call from Doctor Koomak on one of her command chair displays.
‘’Aah, Doctor Koomak! I am really curious to hear your opinion on the mystery we are facing concerning the Gordo. So, what are you thinking?’’
‘’That the Gordo can’t travel through interstellar distances.’’ answered the old Koorivar scientist, his expression most serious.
‘’Uh? I don’t understand, Doctor.’’
‘’Actually, it makes a lot of sense, Tina. I have spoken with your ship’s psychologists and they agree with my theory concerning the Gordo, especially in view of their apparent paranoia about hiding from Earth. Basically, what I think is that, some 6,000 Earth years ago, the Gordo started an experimental program involving a new interstellar drive technology. Now, don’t ask me what that technology is, as it would be pure speculation on my part. My best guess is that the Gordo ship we found destroyed on Gliese 625 was an experimental ship which failed catastrophically through either faulty design or flawed basic working concept. If that ship was on its first initial test flight to another star system, then the Gordo never could learn about what happened to it, or even where it ended, if their basic concept was really flawed. Not knowing what happened to that prototype meant that they probably never manage to find and correct whatever was wrong with their design. Now, you know as well as me that such experimental scientific programs could become hideously expensive and swallow huge amounts of efforts, resources and time. If they tried repeated attempts and ended up losing every ship they sent out, then they may very well have decided that the game wasn’t worth the candle, with them terminating the program in disgust. Before you ask, I must say that the idea for my interstellar drive came completely out of the blue, triggered by a scientific presentation unrelated to space travel. Ally to that the fact that we Koorivars had also invented an easy way to create and use anti-matter and you get the two main ingredients which allowed me to invent and perfect my drive in record time and at little cost. The chances for the Gordo to accidentally stumble on both of those ideas are infinitesimal indeed. Without wanting to brag, my interstellar drive is probably unique in this galaxy, and I mean our whole Milky Way Galaxy. Now, while the Gordo probably never managed to solve the problem of interstellar travel and were not ready to go the slow route of cryogenic sleep at subluminal speed, they had millenniums after that to develop their other technologies, which means that their present technology is most probably highly superior to Human or Koorivar technology, save maybe for some specialty niches that would not have interested them as much as they did with Humans or Koorivars.’’
‘’Specialty niches? Like what, Doctor?’’
‘’Like war and weaponry!’’ replied rather bluntly Koomak, a smirk on his face. ‘’You Humans have a history full of wars. In fact, your history is nearly nothing but a long, uninterrupted string of wars, massacres and violence. You have a level of racial military instinct and experience of war that is probably unequaled in this quadrant of the galaxy. Even those Vorlak brutes proved no match for you, not only in terms of military technology, but also in terms of tactics. Another niche technology of yours is computer technology and programming. While most of your other technologies have proven good but somewhat behind Koorivar technology, your computer technology, as exemplified by your Spirit, has proved very close to equal to ours. Even more, you adapted much of your computer technology to military purposes, something we Koorivars never did. Now, I have no way to know what are the technological strengths and weaknesses of those Gordo, but my advice to you is this: don’t act as if your ship is in an inferiority situation when facing them. If those Gordo are the kind of frustrated, paranoid types I believe them to be, then showing an inferiority complex would only encourage bad behavior on their part. Felt personal superiority too often brings arrogance and contempt for others.’’
‘’Doctor Koomak, you should have gone into psychology.’’
Her words changed his smirk into a grin.
‘’I did, Tina! You think that I hold only one diploma? I am a genius, after all!’’
‘’You certainly are, Doctor Koomak. Thank you very much for your advice and opinions.’’
Tina actually felt much better and more relaxed after that conversation. She also promised herself to act with maximum caution while keeping a façade of assurance. Six millenniums could get the general technology of a civilization very far, to levels hard to imagine. Tina was an avid consumer of old science-fiction stories and films, of which many had been preserved over the centuries by repeated copying on the newer recording technologies available. on top of devouring old military history books. She could remember many stories and video productions covering the theme of Humans confronted with advanced aliens. Right now, there was one simple thing she could do to improve significantly the safety of her ship and crew.
‘’Frida, pivot the ship around by 180 degrees, so that we put our bow shield between us and that Gordo ship, but continue to increase speed towards Ross 128 on gravity sails.’’
‘’Pivoting the ship now! We should match the calculated intercept speed in less than twelve minutes, Tina.’’
‘’Thank you, Frida. Patricia, do we have any images yet of the SHANIZAR?’’
‘’Not yet, Tina: it is still too far and we can see only the drive flare of its main engine as it is decelerating towards Ross 128.’’
‘’Very well! Stay on passive and silent mode: I want the Gordo to find out only at the last moment possible that we are here. The drive flare of the SHANIZAR should in fact help us in this, by blinding the optical and thermal sensors of that Gordo ship.’’
Tina next looked at Shanandar, whom she had been treating for months as her second in command, on par with Dana Durning.
‘’I certainly don’t want to initiate any hostilities with those Gordo, but I believe that we should take all possible precautions in advance, in case the situation sours up. Remember the old saying: don’t look for a fight but be ready for one.’’
‘’I agree, Tina. Go to battle stations!’’
‘’If I can place my modest input in this,’’ added Gerald Holmes, ‘’I would also say that it would be the prudent thing to do, Tina.’’
‘’Thank you both. Too bad I can’t do like the ship captains of some of my favorite old science-fiction stories and order ‘Shields up!’ now.’’
On that quip, Tina switched on her ship-wide intercom.
‘’Attention all hands! This is your captain speaking. We are about to intercept the SHANIZAR, but an alien spaceship seemingly beat us to it, with their intentions unknown. While I am hoping to keep things on friendly terms, we will exercise maximum caution. I am thus calling the ship to battle stations. All airtight doors are to be closed immediately and power and life support systems switched to local systems. All non-essential personnel and passengers will return to their quarters and put on their emergency spacesuits, but with their visors kept opened until further notice. Power up all our flywheel capacitors and deploy all our weapons turrets. I want our fighters to stay in their hangars but be on cockpit alert, ready for launch on short notice. That will be all for the moment.’’
Tina then switched to a private channel used only between her and Spirit and spoke quietly.
‘’Spirit, you remember when we had to prevent some undercover agents from the Sverdlovsk Group from kidnapping Shanandar and Shoumak?’’
‘’Of course I do, Tina: I directed firefighting robots to them and had the robots spray those agents with cryogenic nitrogen, which immobilized them without killing them. What do you have in mind?’’
‘’Well, as you know too well, we have very few armed security officers aboard, thus could not oppose much resistance if those Gordo ever decide and manage to board us. I would like you to strategically disperse our firefighting robots right now around the ship, outside of their storage alcoves and ready to react in an instant. Concentrate them especially in the key locations of the ship. In particular, I want a few of them prepositioned here in the bridge complex, located in discreet corners, and in the engineering control center. I will let you a free rein about how to handle them in case of an emergency, and this without needing to ask my permission first. Do you understand what I have in mind, Spirit?’’
‘’I do, Tina. You will have a ‘Plan B’ if things ever sour inside the ship.’’
‘’Thank you, Spirit. I have full confidence in you.’’
Tina was barely finishing to speak with Spirit when Germaine Brown spoke up from her communications station.
‘’Captain, I am intercepting another video message from the Gordo ship, sent towards Ross 128.’’
‘’Switch it to all the command and V.I.P. chairs, Germaine.’’
‘’Aye, Captain!’’
The video image that appeared on Tina’s armchair display a few seconds later first showed the head and torso of a Gordo she presumed to be the captain of his ship, speaking to a camera facing him. After some fifteen seconds, the image changed, showing an external space view, while the voice of the Gordo captain continued to be heard. Tina’s heart jumped in her chest when she saw the nearby outer hull of the SHANIZAR, filling over half of the viewing field of the Gordo camera and with inscriptions in Koorivarese on its hull centered in the camera’s field of view. Shanandar was also moved by that image.
‘’By the stars! To see it after so many years… WAIT! Did that Gordo actually say the word ‘Koorivar’?’’
Shanandar, like Tina, Gerald Holmes, Dana Durning and Renée d’Argenteuil, punched at once the ‘rewind’ button of his viewer and raised the sound volume, listening very carefully to the words pronounced by the Gordo captain. To his utter puzzlement, his first impression was confirmed.
‘’Hell, he did! How could he know the proper name of my race, if he never met us?’’
‘’Allow me to answer that, Captain Shanandar.’’ Cut in the voice of Spirit. ‘’Simply said, on top from hiding actively from Earth during all these centuries, the Gordo most probably listened to the radio and electronic traffic spilling out of the Solar System. They also probably listened as well to the radio signals spilling from Shouria, before its destruction. Before the brown dwarf struck, your government emitted a number of high powered messages destined to warn all your space installations and ships inside your system about the incoming catastrophe. The Gordo must have intercepted those emergency messages, so they most probably know already about Shouria’s destruction.’’
Tina had to nod in agreement to that, while feeling some frustration about this.
‘’Great! They know about everything about us, but we know next to nothing about them: not exactly my favorite situation. So, we have a nosy, paranoid neighbor next door to the Solar System, a neighbor who has also been actively hiding from us for the past few centuries. That can’t be very good. I… Wait! I see four small craft approaching the SHANIZAR. What the hell are those Gordo planning to do?’’
Renée d’Argenteuil, who was manning the main weapons control station, spoke up after a couple of seconds.
‘’Tina, those craft look furiously like our own flying space repair pods. I suspect that the Gordo intend to either force open one of the access points of the SHANIZAR or to cut a hole in its hull so that they could enter it.’’
‘’NOOO!’’ exclaimed at once a horrified Shanandar. ‘’That could explosively depressurize one of the cryogenic sleep pod storage sections and kill hundreds of my people. We can’t let them risk damaging the hull integrity of the SHANIZAR.’’
‘’We certainly can’t.’’ replied firmly Tina, who then gave orders to Frida Skarsgard.
‘’Frida, push towards the SHANIZAR and that Gordo ship at maximum gravity sail power. I want us to get close to the SHANIZAR…fast!’’
‘’Reversing course now! Gravity sails on maximum power!’’
Next, Tina opened a link with the ship’s security office, getting Bill Morrison on the line.
‘’Bill, I already gave instructions to Spirit to disperse our firefighting robots around the ship, so that they could stop any intruder coming aboard our ship. Know that we are presently facing the Gordo, a member of whom we found on Gliese 625, killed 6,000 years ago. We don’t know how far their technology has evolved since then, but they could very probably have a few nasty surprises for us if they decide to play mean. First, I am ordering your officers to shoot on sight and without warning any alien intruder which could get aboard our ship. Let’s not play nice and by the book, as that could allow them to overtake us in a flash. Second, I want our reserve of pistols distributed around to our personnel manning the critical points of our ship. Pass the word then that lethal force should be used on Gordo intruders with no hesitation and no prior warning. Third, please send Michel to the bridge with enough pistols to arm me and my bridge crew, and this pronto!’’
‘’You will get your pistols in six minutes, Tina.’’ Promised the veteran security officer.
‘’Thank you, Bill! Shanandar, the SHANIZAR is a Koorivar ship, thus you will speak on its behalf if and when we will communicate with the Gordo ship. Do you see any acceptable reason to possibly let the Gordo enter the SHANIZAR?’’
‘’None, except if I would myself guide one Gordo inside it to prove that it is an unarmed refugee ship, but then that Gordo will have to leave the ship afterwards. The SHANIZAR is legally Koorivar sovereign territory and I will never relinquish that status nor will I accept that someone enters it by force or tries to impound it. Also, the KOSTROMA is on a mission of mercy to save and retrieve the SHANIZAR and the Koorivars carried on it. I will consider any attempt at preventing the KOSTROMA from retrieving the SHANIZAR as an unfriendly act towards us Koorivars.’’
‘’Well said, my friend! Be warned that the Gordo will probably play hardball, since we are close to their home star system. If you hit a bone with the Gordo, then don’t hesitate to ask for my assistance.’’
‘’I’m certainly going to take any help from you on this, Tina.’’
As Shanandar prepared himself mentally for the upcoming verbal exchange with the Gordo, Tina reviewed the status of her ship on her chair’s computer terminal and was satisfied by what she saw: her KOSTROMA was now as ready as it could be. A couple of minutes later, Michel Koniev entered the bridge at a near run, pushing in front of him a small anti-gravity cart loaded with pistols, gun belts and spare ammunition magazines. He himself wore both a pulse pistol and a stun pistol at his belt, plus had a pulse rifle slung across his back. Distributing his weapons, holsters and ammunition around the work stations, he soon came to Tina’s chair and handed her a gun belt supporting a semi-automatic pistol and four spare magazines before bending down and kissing her on the lips.
‘’Good luck with the Gordo, Tina. Don’t give them an inch!’’
‘’They won’t get a millimeter from me, my dear husband. Where is Misha right now?’’
‘’At the crew’s daycare center, with the other kids of our combat crewmembers. Don’t worry: Bill has assigned Jennifer Biddles to guard the daycare center during this crisis.’’
‘’That does reassure me: Jennifer is a tough woman.’’
‘’That she is! Well, I have to fly: I am going to stand guard at the damage control center. Again, good luck!’’
‘’You too, Michel.’’
Tina sighed as Michel left with his now empty cart. She then saw that the transmission from the Gordo ship towards Ross 128 had ended, something that made her swear.
‘’Damn! Now we won’t know what the Gordo are doing to the SHANIZAR. How long before we get to the SHANIZAR and to the Gordo ship, Frida?’’
‘’Less than four minutes, Tina.’’
‘’The signal from their radar is now approaching detection strength, Tina.’’ announced Patricia O’Neil. ‘’They will soon know that we are approaching.’’
‘’Let them know! At least it could possibly make them back off temporarily from the SHANIZAR.’’
05:31 (Universal Time)
Bridge of the Drazt space cruiser MURKAN
On a parallel course with the Koorivar ship SHANIZAR
Deep space outside of the Ross 128 System
Shipmaster Lem Doz was finishing reading what his ship’s databanks could tell him about the race that built the ship he had accosted in deep space, when one of his bridge officers spoke up in alarm.
‘’SHIPMASTER, AN UNKNOWN SHIP IS APPROACHING FROM THE DIRECTION OF ROSS 128. IT IS NOT RESPONDING TO OUR AUTOMATED RECOGNITION SIGNALS.’’
‘’What? All our ships are equipped with recognition transponders. It should answer our interrogation signals.’’
‘’It’s not one of our ships, sir: it is much bigger than any of the ships that we have.’’
That left Lem Doz puzzled for a moment before he asked a question to his sensors officer.
‘’How big is that ship?’’
‘’About