e-Ghosts of Rogue Planet

Chapter 11

I sat down at the command station and began looking at the present Helio-Sat system status. “COMA, could we send a message back to Earth Control by sending it to Helio-4 and then have it relay to Helio-3?”

“That is possible, Ryan.”

“Hey everyone!” I yelled. “I’m going to try and get a message back to Earth Control.”

Several minutes later, the others joined me at the command station.

“How are you going to do that?” James asked.

“I’m going to have the Helio-Sat system relay it around the sun.” I gave them a teasing smirk. “Okay people, look professional. Begin the recording, COMA.”

“Yes, Ryan.”

“As you can see, we are all in good health. We are reporting our progress with the exploration of the rogue planet. We have made a successful landing and have found the remains of an artificial intelligent species. They had created a technologically advanced civilization but are no longer here. However, their digital presence is still here. We will now send you all of the data that we have collected so far. We would appreciate it if you could inform us about our future course of action. Over.”

“That sounded like a lawyer’s deposition,” James said.

“You have to be careful about what you say in these transmission,” I said. “We don’t want them thinking that we’re suffering from space madness.”

“Space madness is an alien disease,” James said, grinning.

I chuckled. “Indeed.”

“How long until we get a reply?” Alisha asked.

“Probably an hour or so,” I said. “That’s allowing them time to go over our data before they reply.”

She got up. “Come on, Marie. We can go get some coffee.”

James and I watched Marie get up and then walk away with Alisha.

“I’m concerned about them,” I said. “We almost lost them.”

“That’s true, but all of us realize that exploring the unknown in space is dangerous,” James said, sounding serious. “Death is a constant threat.”

“Believe me, Marie and I are well aware of that. We almost bought the farm on several occasions. This situation is different. This planet is not supposed to be here. There’s something weird about it, something that I believe makes it more dangerous, and I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

“We’ll figure it out,” James said.

I hoped and prayed that he was right.

The transmission came back after an hour and a half. We sat at the command station fully realizing that what we heard might seal our fate.

The person on the other end was Dr. Kensington himself and he looked grim. “We have evaluated your data and agree that the civilization that produced the city and the devices was an artificial intelligence. However, we came to the conclusion that this intelligence is the product of a carbon-based species. What we want you to do is get more information, recordings, images or artifacts that could help us establish the identity of the genesis species. We await your next transmission. Over.”

“We will contact you when we have completed your order. Over.”

I sighed. “Well, that’s it, people. They want us to go down and explore some more.”

“That’s what we were sent here to do,” James said.

“I think that we should take a Data-Bridge down with us this time,” I said. “Maybe we could locate a signal and intercept it.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” James said. “It might allow us to locate the computer brain that controls the city. What about taking a bot down with us to see if it could communicate with the e-ghosts. I would think that the RU-101A repair bot could be modified to communicate with the alien system.”

“That might be a good idea,” I said. “But, I have reservations about the possibility of the e-ghosts taking over COMA. They could destroy any chance of us going back home.”

“Yeah, you have a good point there,” James said. “The risk is too great.”

The girls didn’t have much to say about it. They were still trying to get over being confined in the alien cell.

I could see a hidden fear in Marie’s eyes. She was not happy about what was going on here because it was beyond her experience. The problem is that it was beyond any our experiences.