Space Chronicles The Beginning

Chapter 11

I come from Iowa. I only work in outer space.

            - James T. Kirk - 

Despite General Wilson's macho warrior expression, he was concerned about this new revelation of an alien presence. He knew down deep in his gut that these aliens were building up for a full scale attack and the forces under his command were not prepared to defend against it. His only hope lay in two retired Air Force combat pilots.

"It is of utmost importance that we locate the aliens' home world. We cannot repel a full scale attack and it will be some time before we can."

Translation: we're screwed.

"We can't search every candidate star," Marty said. "It would take years."

"I agree, but we have some new clues as to its possible location. SETI has been monitoring traffic with the new array. They've narrowed it to a half dozen stars. I'll let Arthur give you the intel on that." He turned to glance at Arthur who was standing to his right. "I do want to commend you both for your efforts to locate the alien staging location. We've sent the X-1001 out to check it out."

Arthur came forward. "You reported that the alien saucers were on the planetoid Eris about 50 AU out. There is the possibility that more aliens are on smaller planetoids beyond Neptune’s orbit."

"We really couldn't check other planetoids," Marty said. "It would have required firing forward engines, which would have revealed our presence."

"We understand," Arthur said.

"What is our next destination?" Angie asked.

"You're going to HD10307, which is an older, more luminous G class star in the Andromeda constellation. It's 42 light years away."

Marty raised his hand. "Why are we going there instead of one of the hundreds of other candidate stars?"

"SETI has picked up a signal from that system. At first it resembled background hiss, but the computer has delineated organized segments in the signal and there is reason to believe that it constitutes language. I realize that these signals are forty-two years old, but they indicate the possible existence of an intelligent species on a planet in this system."

"Has Lia looked at these signals?" Angie asked.

"Yes. In fact she and Dr. Lindgrin were instrumental in recognizing the possible intelligent nature of the signal. They're currently working on a translation."

"When do we go?"

"In two weeks. The X-3001 is not quite finished and it is not supplied well enough for a long mission. Besides, Lia will have more time to come up with a workable translation."

Marty and Angie exchanged confused looks. What did he mean by a long mission?

###

When Marty sat next to George at the Space Port's bar, he gave both Karl and him a knowing glance before summoning the bartender to order a beer. NASA and the military had created heaven in the heavens as far as he was concerned, but this can't be heaven. There's beer here.

"So," George said. "When are we going back out?"

"According to Arthur, two weeks. What do we know about this system?"

"Not much," Karl said. "HD 10307 is a G2 star with a temperature of 5800 °C and it's 41.22 light years distance. It's more luminous than Sol by a factor of 1.44, larger by 1.2 and older. It's just another possible location for habitable planets."

"What about this signal that contains a language?" Marty asked.

"Lia claims it does," George said. "She and Brigit are working on a translation algorithm."