Wonders From Beyond the Sky

Chapter 1

Wonders From Beyond the Sky

A Lords of the Stars Short Story

Mattias von Schantz

October 4, 2140, Europa orbit, Jupiter, Solaris system

It was a historic day.

Jenny O'Sullivan, captain of the Sunguard Command Ship Wałęsa, looked out through the large window in front of her. Outside, in the emptiness of space above Europa, floated the 12th Army of the Sunguard. Of course, she couldn't really see the ships-even the largest War Cruisers were just pinpoints of light moving across the starry background, but she knew they were there. Two hundred thousand soldiers, ready to embark on what could be the most important mission since the ground invasion of Kelar.

For the first time in sixty years, the Terran Federation was about to make first contact with an alien civilization. And the last time they had done that, things had not gone well.

She glanced around the busy bridge and smiled as she counted three Kelar officers working beside her. Well, she thought, initially it hadn't gone well, but it had turned out all right in the end.

The last first contact had been only five years after the initial encounter with the Etarians around Alpha Centauri A. That, on the other hand, had been a first contact that went well. The Etarians had turned out to be fully aware of the Terrans' existence, even to the extent of having already deciphered a handful of major Terran languages from leaked radio transmissions they had intercepted. They just hadn't been particularly interested in making contact. When the Terrans suddenly arrived at Etar in their first hyperspace-capable ship, the Etarians greeted them politely in passable English, invited them to land and look around, but also made it clear they had no interest in diplomatic relations.

It had taken considerable effort on the Solar Council's part to coax the Etarians into cooperation, but eventually, they had seen the benefit of working with the Terrans. In the end, it was Terran engineers who sealed the deal.

The Etarians had a technologically advanced civilization, roughly a century ahead of the Terrans in terms of scientific discovery. However, they were culturally predisposed to dislike wasting energy and resources. To a Terran, the Etarians could sometimes come across as a bit naïve or perhaps even obtuse. They most certainly were not, but they often had a tendency to reason more literally than Terrans. This literal mindset extended to their industry: to avoid wasting energy, they simply consumed as little energy as possible, which meant they didn't need to produce much energy either. Minimal energy production equated to minimal waste. Their industries were quite advanced but not abundant.

The Terran engineers saw an opportunity. "What if," they asked their Etarian hosts, "you started to produce more energy-but still used all of it within your industries? That way, you still wouldn't waste much energy, but you'd get much more work done." It was a line of reasoning that only literal-minded Etarians would find novel, but it worked. The Etarians were impressed by the energy efficiency Terran engineers coaxed out of their industrial systems, even while expanding them to operate continuously.

The Etarians enjoyed a rapid transformation through industrial efficiency and, in return, happily shared their more advanced science and technology with the Terrans.

What the Etarians never disclosed was that they were not the only intelligent species in the Alpha Centauri system.

Three hundred years earlier, the Etarians had made contact with the Kelar around Alpha Centauri B. At that time, the Etarians had only recently begun space exploration, while the pinnacle of Kelar technology was still the windmill. The first manned Etarian expedition to Kelar was conducted with a spacecraft propelled by nuclear thermal engines. After a 16 AU journey from Alpha Centauri A to B, lasting six years, the massive spacecraft entered orbit around Kelar, deployed unmanned probes, and eventually sent down a manned lander.