A Sword Into Darkness

14: “FIRST CONTACT”

August 16, 2046; USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1), 0.48 light-years from Earth, 2.0 light-seconds (600,000 km) from alien formation; Mission Day 529

Alone in the vast darkness, a sword of light slashed across the void. So far from the life-giving radiance and warmth of Sol, the only star mankind had ever known as more than an abstract point on the matte black canvas of the sky, there was no real illumination other than what the brilliantly lit vessel produced on its own. The blade of this rapier-like ship was crafted of light itself, a long contrail of focused energy, so strong and so fiery that its very emission was enough to drive the ship through the night. The sword’s hilt, the source of that shining blade, was a tiny thing lost in the vastness, a warm, dully glowing construct of metal, carbon, and unflinching will.

Abruptly, the blade of light vanished, shutting off its driving radiance after seventeen months of near-continuous operation. The USS Sword of Liberty coasted through space, lit only by the dull reddish glow of the radiator panels running down the middle third of her length. Her forward third—a maul-like hexagonal wedge of dark gray crystalline armor, antennas, radar panels, weapon emplacements, and missile hatches—flashed with lances of blue-white light, smaller, but no less brilliant than the illumination produced by her main engine.

These pulses of radiant thrust slewed the ship around and then arrested her traverse, such that she was now pointed bow-on toward the only other artifact in their small bubble of space—a bright spark of violet with a forward leading contrail of blue brilliance all its own. This, the quarry that had driven the crew to build their amazing little ship, was a constrained sphere of plasma, a star-in-miniature that the visitors somehow used as their drive. And circling about this angry, roiling ball of gas were four constructs, invisible to the naked eye from this distance—the enigmatic alien ships of the Deltans themselves.

The Sword of Liberty was not limited to the naked eye, though. Telescopic cameras dotted her hull and combined their data in phase, effectively giving the destroyer a virtual lens as large as the ship herself. The ship channeled the resulting image to the very interested parties in her Bridge Control Room, buried at the center of the forward mission hull.

And within that Bridge, Commander Nathan Kelley, Captain and Commanding Officer of their far flung expedition, looked at the magnified image with an intensity that had built itself steadily over mile upon impossible mile of their journey, until it seemed strong enough to blast through the screen and through the hull, strong enough to reach out to the Deltans and reveal their mysteries all by itself.

Alas, no matter how hard he looked, he was only human, and no such capability existed. Nathan shook his head, and frowned. So close and yet … .

He looked around the starkly silent bridge at his officers and crew. All of them were suited up in slender, form-fitting vacuum suits, and each one watched the steadily growing image of the Deltan formation as intently as he had been. All of them, that is, but Kris, who appeared less concerned over their journey’s resolution than she was over the state of the man leading it. She looked back at him with compassion, worry, and love shining from her eyes as brightly as the thrust from her engines.

He reached out to her and grasped her vacuum-suited hand with his own, drawing her floating figure close. As her face came up to his, he ran his other gloved hand through her short, silver-white hair and locked her into a long, emphatic kiss. It was a simple thing, a familiar intimacy, but this time, with all that lay behind them and all that still remained, this time it was special.

As he kissed her, and as she returned it with equal fervor and insistence, all the months of impatience, dread, petty annoyances, and fatigue began to fall away. Now, on the doorstep to discovery, the voyage’s slow-building weariness—a weariness which had even begun to strain the two of them—seemed to fade. It had dragged all of them down for week after endless week, but now it passed, leaving them both with a renewed sense of wonder and purpose.

Kris pulled back slowly, languidly, and favored him with a smile that suffused her whole face, her whole being. “Better, mon Capitan?”

“Oh yes, CHENG,” he answered, with a grin all his own, the first he had genuinely felt in some time. He let her go reluctantly. As she drifted off, he found that the rest of the bridge crew had also turned away from the frustratingly close enigma of the Deltans and were looking directly at the two of them, most with half smiles on their lips.

Dave Edwards, strapped into the Chief of the Boat’s seat to his left, patted Nathan’s arm and said, gently, “You know, Skipper, if you two are having a moment, we can put this whole first contact bullshit on hold. After a year and a half of waiting, I’m sure the crew won’t begrudge you a quickie with your main squeeze.”

Nathan turned to him with an expression gone from serene to baleful. “COB … .” he said menacingly.

To his right, Christopher Wright spoke up, his tone as professional and serious as ever. “Captain, we’re at two light-seconds from the objective, zero thrust, and bow on. Estimate a 015 by minus 20 relative target angle to the formation and opening. No reaction by the aliens, sir. Ready for your orders, Captain.”

“Thank you, XO.” Nathan turned back to the main panoramic screen forward of them. He touched the trackball control mounted to his armrest and scrolled around the image, highlighting and magnifying target tracks as he continued to speak. “All right, this is it. We are currently about ten times further out than the Promises were when they were programmed to initiate comms. We know that the first probe was safe up to this point, because she wasn’t taken out until she was almost on top of them. As for Promise II, it’s a wash. We don’t know if she either never made it this close, or if she made it closer but got smashed before she could reconfigure herself for communication. Either way, we haven’t been schwacked yet, so this is probably a safe range for the moment. This is our last chance to alter plans if we need to. After this, we’re committed.”

Nathan had highlighted and set off into inset windows of their own each of the visible ships that made up the Deltan convoy: the Control Ship, the Polyp, and the Cathedral. The Junkyard, in its quasi-Lagrange position on the far side of the Control Ship, was occluded by the drive-star, but the slow orbit of each of the vessels around the axis of thrust would soon bring it into view and obscure the Polyp in turn.

Nathan looked at the crew seated and floating around him. Along with Dave Edwards and Christopher Wright representing his command staff, and Kris here for Engineering, he also had Mike Simmons from Operations Department and Ivy Cho from Weapons Department, his other department heads. Also seated were four “enlisted” watchstanders at their Bridge stations for Helm/Maneuvering, Ops/Communications, Weps/Sensors, and Aux Engineering, but they kept their eyes on their duties and did not interject themselves into his powwow with the senior officers.

The Executive Officer held up a hand. “I don’t see any gains made in changing things at this point. I just want to reiterate that we have only one chance at doing this peacefully. Once we shoot or shoot back, we’ll have set the course for the whole planet, so I want to again urge caution and patience. What happened to the probes might have been either hostile or inexplicably benign. We cannot be sure how an alien intelligence would view our physical visitations to them or their reactions to that visitation until we understand their culture. Even if the Deltans take action that could be construed as hostile, I’d prefer to hold off counterfire until it becomes our last possible option. Maneuver defensively, continue attempts at communication, and hope that we can get through to them before they leave us with no other choice.”

Edwards shook his head. “I will never be able to get you straight in my head, sir. Gruff Army guy one moment, and pacifist diplomat the next.”

Wright smiled tightly. “Your experience in the Navy ranks might be different, but I’ve found that many of the best soldiers and the bloodiest warriors I ever worked with were, at heart, the truest of make-peace pacifists … something about preferring to argue over a conference table rather than over the sights of a gun, at least while the conference table is still an option.”

The Master Chief considered it and nodded finally. “I suppose so, and it’s not a bad attitude to have, especially for the guy leading our negotiations.” Edwards turned to look at Nathan. “Still, my druthers would be to set off a warhead or six in their path and let them start the talking. We’ve tried to observe the niceties twice already, and all it’s gotten us is two dead chunks of hardware.”

Nathan shook his head. “We’ve been over that, COB. All our simulations indicate that showing off our weapons tech before we use it decisively gave us zero advantage, and like the XO said, it pretty much closes off the diplomatic option. I’m hoping we can still chalk up the probes to a big misunderstanding.”

Edwards shrugged. “Hey, you asked. And, besides, you have to allow for the fact that those sims were all made in a vacuum—literally and figuratively. Just like we don’t know their motivations in torching our probes, we don’t know for sure that a show of force would give them an undue tactical advantage.”

Wright leaned back to look at the Master Chief past Nathan’s head. “That’s true, COB, but it’s also an unnecessary violation of operational security. Right now, they don’t know that we’re even armed. Why release that info and let them see the exact nature of that armament unless we’re positive it will give us an advantage? Those simulations may have been done in a ‘vacuum’, but they weren’t done with a lack of common sense.”

Edwards held up his hands. “I’m not arguing with either of you gents’ logic, I’m just a little more sure about our visitors’ disposition than you or the CO are willing to be. It’s part of my job description: keep the sailors—spacers, whatever—under control and advocate the hell out of the devil, so you at least have one voice of dissent when the pair of you get to agreeing too much.”

Wright grunted. “I appreciate your fervor in that role, Master Chief, but sometimes you enjoy being the contrarian a bit too much.”

“Hey, just because I’m contrary, doesn’t mean I’m not also right. Provable hypothesis or not, I’d be approaching this official first contact a bit more aggressively, and I think that position’s more than justified.”

“Which is why I’m in the lead for this, and not you!”

“All right!” Nathan snapped. “Enough. Points are made, and while I have a depressing certainty that we’ll be unloading our ammo out the barrels versus the magazine trunks, we’re going to stick with the diplomatic plan. No changes.” He broke out a crooked smile and looked around at his department heads. “Unless you three have anything else to add to the XO’s or Chief’s deliberations, that is?”

Ivy Cho, Mike Simmons, and Kris all looked at one another, panicked, and only too quick to shake their heads. Kris, who was constitutionally incapable of remaining quiet, said, “Screw that! It’d be like putting our feet into a bear trap on purpose. I don’t know, but you guys seem a little touchy for some reason today. I wonder why … .”

They each tried to hide their relieved smirks, except for Nathan, who smiled at her warmly. “Okay, that’s it. No sense putting this off any more. XO, set General Quarters, Bravo Stations for contact. Let’s do this.”

Wright turned to his chair’s panel and made the necessary selections. The stern, unidentified feminine voice of the ship sounded from every speaker aboard. “General Quarters, General Quarters. Now set General Quarters, Bravo Stations. The ship may engage in high g maneuvers or lose pressure without warning. All personnel will don vacuum protection and move in an orderly fashion to their General Quarters stations. All personnel will secure for maneuvers and minimize internal transit unless specifically authorized by the Commanding Officer.”

The already suited crew on the bridge looked around at one another and put their helmets on. Sealing rings clicked in rapid succession, and then the three department heads, whose GQ stations were off the bridge, went around to each of the seated, strapped in crew, performing seal checks, verifying internal air reserves, and ensuring they were all hooked properly into ship’s air.

Kris checked Nathan last. When she finished, she squeezed his shoulder and touched her faceplate to his, so her voice would conduct through the helmets. “I love you, babe.”

He smiled and reached up to squeeze her arm in return. “I love you too, Kris, but you probably should have turned off your helmet’s amp if you wanted that to be private.”

She turned red inside her helmet and whirled around when Edwards gave her a familiar slap on the side. He grinned and said, “Honestly, you two kids are just the sweetest things.”

Nathan shook his head, and he and Kris released one another. She left the bridge, headed down and aft through the long radiator shaft to the reactor and Engineering Central Control. Ivy and Mike followed suit—she headed forward and up to the Weapons Coordination Center, and he left for the relatively close Combat Information Center, where they would individually oversee the orders commanded from the bridge.

“XO, report when all stations are manned and ready,” Nathan ordered gently.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Though originally from the Army, the Navy lingo was second-nature to him at this point.

Edwards made some selections on his panel. “XO, Bridge is manned and ready!”

“Very well.”

Around the ship, each of the various stations reported in. Including Nathan, Edwards, Wright, and their four watchstanders on the bridge covering the Helm, Ops/Comms, Weps/Sensors, and Aux Engineering, there were twenty-two more crew aboard the USS Sword of Liberty in a number of different individual monitoring, control, and coordination posts. From the forward most portion of the ship, there was Navigation Path Clearance and the ship’s Railgun Control. Then came the Port and Starboard Missile Module Monitoring stations, Laser Monitoring and Control, and the Dorsal and Ventral Radar Rooms, all of which reported to LT Cho in the Weapons Coordination Center.

In the after half of the mission hull, Operations Department held sway, led by LT Simmons in the Combat Information Center. Reporting to him were the individual combat controllers in CIC who would make use of the weapon systems Ivy Cho’s people readied and maintained, should that prove necessary. Outside of CIC, there was the Communication Systems and Signal Exploitation Space—known as Radio to one and all in a nod to the traditional Navy—as well as the Hangar, Flight Ops, and Network Server Control.

Kris, stuck way back in Engineering Central Control between the Reactor Room and Main Propulsion, owned five spaces up forward—the four Aux Propulsion Rooms beneath each RCS pylon, and Damage Control Central which was the aft-most space in the mission hull. She also owned the entire radiator spine amidships, arguably the most critical and vulnerable system aboard, as well as the aforementioned Reactor and Main Prop Room. In terms of real estate, Kris was in charge of just over two thirds of the ship, while Cho and Simmons split the remaining forward third, but her role, and Ivy’s for the most part, was simply to support Mike in actually fighting the ship. And all three departments were there in unquestioning support of Nathan and his command team on the bridge.

The Sword of Liberty was a complex machine, many times more complicated than her schematics alone showed. Bulkheads, cableways, and equipment enclosures were only part of the destroyer, and the lesser part by any reasonable standard of measure. The people involved, the people who had built her, who had trained and sweat and bled for the last seventeen months in space, who had fought against all the odds to see their vision realized—even to the extent of stealing her outright—they were the soul of the ship, the driving force behind her presence here.

They were the vital cogs in the machine, finely engineered and lovingly intermeshed. As reports of readiness rolled smoothly in, Nathan closed his eyes, savoring this penultimate moment, sensing much as any ship’s captain had down through history the bright spirit of his crew that gave their ship life, that had come together to achieve the impossible.

Now he just had to see their sacrifice and hard work justified.

“Captain, all stations report manned and ready, vacuum gear verified. GQ-Bravo Station is set.”

Nathan opened his eyes, serene and satisfied. “Very well, XO. Shut all internal pressure barriers and button us up.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Wright touched a few icons on his screen and then keyed his intercom. “DC Central, Bridge, verify all GQ pressure fittings and hatches closed and sealed. Verify all atmo sections independent of one another.”

Ensign Al-Salaam answered over the speaker from Damage Control Central immediately. “DC Central, aye, sir. Wait one.” Silence filled the circuit for a moment and then, “Bridge, DC Central, pressure board is green, all atmo boundaries shut and on independent recirc.”

The XO nodded. “Bridge, aye.” He turned to Nathan as far as his helmet and seat straps would allow him. “Captain, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

Nathan nodded back and blew air out into his helmet in a long low whistle. His momentary serenity vanished, putting him back on edge. “Roger that. Helm, take us in at one g, and close to 100,000 kilometers, parallel course.” At that acceleration, it would take almost four hours to close, hopefully enough time for them to assure the Deltans they were friendly and ready to meet, and hopefully to ascertain the same thing about the aliens.

“Helm, aye, sir. Thrusting at one g for a zero relative velocity rendezvous at 0.33 light-seconds. Estimate four hours till in position.” Andrew Weston, an enlisted Ops Tech and a former Air Force fighter pilot, went to work on his helm console. Weight quickly returned to them all, pressing them down into their seats once more.

The return of a normal sense of up and down was a welcome comfort to Nathan, and he marveled at how spoiled he had become from Kris’ engine. No longer did space and weightlessness go naturally hand-in-hand. He smiled wryly and keyed his intercom. “CIC, Captain, launch the retransmission pod.”

LT Simmons responded. “CIC, aye, sir. Deploying pod now.” The Sword of Liberty had a total of 96 missile cells, but did not actually carry 96 missiles. They had replaced the one missile they had tested at the beginning of the journey, but that still only brought them up to 86 Excaliburs. The remaining ten missile cells were taken up with more diplomatic and scientific cargo.

Eight of the non-missile cells contained subprobes for close inspection of the Deltan vessels, while the other two cells carried retransmission pods, essentially an Excalibur missile frame with the warheads changed out for communications gear. This automated comms probe would monitor the rendezvous and transmit its feed to Earth, as well as re-transmit the telemetry and monitoring data that the Sword herself sent back. It was an insurance plan, to make certain that what happened here, however it might turn out, Earth would know.

There was a clack of a missile hatch opening, and then a gentle bump as the re-trans pod was expelled from its tube. Nathan watched video from the hull on a secondary screen, as the hatch swung shut and the pod fell away, left behind by their acceleration. Moments later, the pod’s own engine lit off and it moved toward its own holding position and unfolded an immense dish antenna.

“Bridge, CIC, re-trans pod deployed. We have a good link. We’ll begin transmitting on your order.”

“Bridge, aye,” Wright answered. “Captain?”

Nathan nodded, then realized the XO could not see that with his helmet on. “Very well. It’s your show now, Christopher. You can begin any time.”

“Yes, sir. Weps/Sensors, commence long-pulse radar and lidar surveys of the alien formation.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Yvonne Clark, a former telecom engineer long in Windward’s employ, powered up the dorsal and ventral sensor blisters and began sending ranging pulses out toward the Deltans.

Wright turned to Nathan and Edwards. “We won’t get much more than range data at this distance, but it ought to be a friendly enough wakeup call in case they’re sleeping. And we’re still far enough out that we should be fairly safe from any direct fire weapons like they used on Promise.”

Edwards smiled. “So, there is a cynical old warrior in there after all. I was worried you’d gone all touchy-feely on us, sir.”

Wright laughed. “Just because I won’t let myself assume they’re hostile, doesn’t mean I’m not open to the possibility. I’m cautious, not stupid, Master Chief.” He turned back to the main screen, watching the imperceptibly approaching alien formation. Range data and some surface features began to augment the picture and information displayed for each contact. “Radar and lidar are good … but no reaction from the convoy.”

Nathan shrugged. “That’s fine. Considering the success of the last two visits, I’ll take no response over a bad one, for the moment at least. Let’s go ahead and start sending telemetry back home. We’ll let them be frustrated right alongside us.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Ops/Comm, lock the main dish on Earth and begin continuous transmission of the tactical log.”

“Begin continuous stream to Earth, aye, sir. Transmitting now.” Pauline Rivera, a Windward satellite data-systems tech right out of college, hit the appropriate icons on her panel and the largest antennas on the sensor blisters each slewed around to aim at the distant pinprick of Sol and the invisibly distant Earth. What happened now would be picked up in slightly less than six months back home.

“Very well. CIC, Bridge, enable your link to the re-trans pod and start backing up our broadcast home.”

Simmons voice sounded promptly. “CIC, aye.” Auxiliary antennas on those same blisters slewed around to lock onto the ever more quickly receding shape of the retransmission pod. It, in turn, pointed its own dish to Earth as well and began transmitting its own stream back.

Wright checked on the status of everything set into motion upon his screen and nodded in satisfaction. “All right. Both data streams are going out. Everything after this is on the official record.”

Nathan grinned. “Smile nice and pretty, boys. We’re on primetime now.” He nodded toward the main screen, his smile dropping for an expectant, demanding gaze. “That goes for you too, friends. What do you have to say to the good peoples of Earth, Mr. Deltan? Come on, come on. Talk to us. Why are you here?”

Silence met his questions. For a moment, however ludicrous it might be, everyone on the bridge almost anticipated an answer. Nathan grinned and shook his head. “Seems we need to knock a bit louder, XO.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be starting with primes on a number of frequencies, just like the probes were programmed to do. Between each sequence, though, we’ll be transmitting the plain language greeting in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. Hopefully, they’ll pick up on one or the other.”

“Go ahead. Once again, this is your show.”

Wright ordered Pauline Rivera to do as he briefed. Seconds later, a pair of pure tones was transmitted in a number of frequency bands. Then, three pulses were sent, followed by five after a brief pause. Then seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, counting up and up through all of the base-10 primes from two to 137, a decidedly nonrandom sequence that it was hoped would prove their intelligence and hopefully lead to a mathematical standard which could then be used for translating between two wildly disparate species.

After a hundred and thirty-seven pulses and a correspondingly longer pause, Gordon Lee’s original message went out, slightly altered by computer, his voice haunting the void long after his death. Hearing it again, Nathan sighed, knowing that Gordon should have been there.

“Greetings to you, our unknown visitors from a nearby star. We welcome you to our solar system in the name of all the free inhabitants of Earth. Please allow this ship and crew to make peaceful contact with you, such that we might form some bridge for open and enlightening communication between our two species.”

Again, a brief pause, and then the same message went out in the other, most-prevalent broadcast languages of Earth. Nathan held his breath. With the Promise, the Deltan convoy had reacted immediately to the transmission of primes. This time … .

“Nothing. No response.” Nathan slapped the armrest of his acceleration chair, disappointed beyond measure.

Wright tried to assuage him. “We’re still really far out, Nathan. And Promise only began transmitting after doing an extended flyby and survey of the formation. They may still be dormant. It’s possible that they’re in some form of suspended animation and takes them a while to come fully out of it.”

Edwards grunted. “Yeah. And it’s also possible that they want us to get in effective range of their weapons before they light us up.”

“Master Chief—” the XO said, a warning tone coloring his voice.

“No,” Nathan broke in. “You could both be right. And there’s no need to tiptoe around my dashed expectations. It’s been a year and a half. Hell, it’s been years longer than that, and I really expected them to say something or do something after we came all this way. But … they’ll do whatever they’re going to do, regardless of what I want. Let’s just stick to the plan. Continue transmitting, continue closing, and keep both eyes on them.”

He pointed at the images of the orbiting formation on screen. “And you, whoever the hell you are, wake up. We’ve come calling, and you have some shit to answer for.”

Four hours later, and still answerless, Nathan fumed. They reached their hold point at 100,000 km, calling out to the Deltans and dutifully reporting back to Earth, but they had nothing to report other than the continued indifference of the aliens.

Overriding Wright, who wanted to hold at that distance for another 24 hours, Nathan ordered him to carry on with the second phase of the contact. The Sword of Liberty moved in again, this time angling ten times closer still.

At 25,000 km, they flushed four more of their non-offensive missile tubes, these carrying recon drones—sub-probes similar to those launched by the Promises. Each one would make a close approach to a different one of the Deltan ships, and make detailed radar, lidar, thermal, and visual surveys of each, transmitting that data back to the Sword.

Finally, at 10,000 km and holding, Nathan popped his helmet and set it in his lap. He breathed deep of the cool air filling the bridge. After five and a half hours strapped into his chair, confined to the gradually more pungent environment of his sealed suit, Nathan was hungry, sore, and frustrated beyond belief. He glared at what he now thought of as his adversaries.

The constrained drive-star blazed huge upon the main screen, casting the bridge in shifting hues of lurid purple, red, and blue. At each corner of the screen, bracketing the angry sphere of plasma, detailed windows of data described the four alien ships. They knew everything they could about the outsides of those vessels, short of landing upon them and ripping up hull-plates for analysis, but they knew nothing more of the Deltans themselves than they did before leaving Earth.

The XO unsealed and removed his own helmet, casting a concerned look at Nathan. He had tried every ploy he could think of to make contact with the Deltans. They had been through countless iterations of the prime number sequence, and the multilingual greeting as well. He had tried transmitting short, pulse-driven arithmetic lessons, photos of famous works of art, and video streams in a number of different encoding formats, hoping to pick up on something, anything that the aliens would find compelling. He had even launched off a visual display—fireworks especially designed for shooting out of the railgun. Despite their best attempt at a 4th of July celebration, though, the aliens had continued on unperturbed.

Wright laid a hand on Nathan’s rigid shoulder. “Captain, we didn’t hold at the 100-k point. Everyone’s been at their stations going on six hours now, and I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to stink inside this thing. It might be a good idea to break for chow and a change. If you like, we can move back out to 100,000 km, or we can do it from here.”

Nathan glanced back at him and shook his head. “No, Christopher. I know we should have held back, and I agree we should probably break off for now, but, damn it, we shouldn’t have to. They should have responded in some way by now! We’ve been hailing them for hours longer than the probes ever managed. We’re closer now than Promise II ever got, and we’re inside the perimeter where Promise started broadcasting her prime sequence.”

Edwards took off his helmet as well. “Yeah, but we’re still outside where the convoy reacted to the probe and began its attack on her. They could be seeing how close we’ll get before we get skittish and back off. At this range, the lightspeed time lag is only 3 hundredths of a second, and the tactical reaction delay is under a tenth of a second. Depending on fast we jink and weave, and how fast they can shift their aim, we’re potentially vulnerable to the beam weapons they demonstrated before. If we move out now, they could take it as their best chance to fire on us.”

Wright’s eyebrow peaked. “So, does that mean you’re recommending we move back or that we stay here?”

The Master Chief grinned and shrugged. “Neither. I tend to just flap my jaws continuously. I often surprise myself with what comes out.”

The XO grunted and tried desperately to hide his slight smile beneath a scowl.

Nathan’s gaze had stayed glued to the main screen. “No. This isn’t working. It’s all canned, automated. We haven’t done one unpredictable thing yet. For all they know, we could be just another, bigger probe. We haven’t made contact yet, so why should they bother with responding to us.”

“Well, Captain,” Wright began, “all other things being equal, predictability often equates to being safe and friendly. If we attempt to surprise them or shock them into making a response, it could be seen as overtly aggressive.”

Edwards nodded. “Which is what we really are, XO. Skipper, we’re monkeys, animals barely come down out of the trees. We fight with ourselves and when the unknown encroaches on our territory, we lash out at it. If these guys haven’t figured that out yet from monitoring our TV shows and news, it’s high time we made them aware of it. Permission to launch one across their bow, sir?”

Nathan smirked and laid a restraining hand on Edwards’ forearm. “Not quite yet, COB. Ops/Comm, shut down whatever you’re currently broadcasting to the aliens and give me an open mike.”

“Captain,” Wright began warningly, “these first contact comms were diagrammed out a long time ago by men a lot smarter than you or me—and vetted by Gordon Lee himself. Are you sure you want to upset that plan?”

Nathan looked exasperated. “Damn it, Christopher, the Deltans weren’t at those meetings and they aren’t cooperating with our freaking plans. I respect Gordon more than you can possibly know, but he—and you—both know the maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Now, I’m not prepared to fully classify the Deltans as my enemy, but they for certain aren’t trying to be our friends. Now, I’m going to call them up and ask them, essentially, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Are you behind me on this plan or not?”

No one said a word. Finally, his eyes cast downward, Wright answered. “I’m with you, Nathan, every step of the way.”

Nathan turned back to the main screen and pulled a flexible mike mounted to his chair’s intercom panel closer to his mouth. He looked at the Deltan formation. Currently, all four vessels were in view, the Junkyard at the bottom of the drive-star, closest to them and preparing to go behind the drive in its orbit. The Control Ship was at the top and swinging down, preceded by the organic form of the Polyp. The Cathedral had just emerged from the limn of the drive. The Sword’s recon probes beside each vessel were invisible at this distance and magnification, but they were there nonetheless.

Nathan pressed a button for the radio circuit and spoke. “This is Commander Nathaniel Robert Kelley, of the USS Sword of Liberty. To the beings in charge of the alien ships now approaching our solar system and world, I greet you in peace. To us, your arrival has been anticipated and dreaded for over twenty years. So much so, that we have done what was deemed physically impossible. We built this ship and climbed within her, and we made the long journey to meet you. We are here, and we only wish to speak with you, to make whatever contact we can.

“You are an enigma to us. You show off a vast technological advantage. You have traveled for twenty light-years over seven decades to reach us, to come to our world physically, yet you have made no attempt to contact us, to let us know why. We are not a people for whom peace comes naturally. It is something we must all work at, and when it fails, through either a lack of trying by one side or another, or in response to a deliberate aggressive act, it is a sad, terrible thing to behold.

“Right now, you, the people we refer to as the Deltans, are a worrisome reality … either a potential threat which must be dealt with, or a potential friend that we do not want to strike unjustly. I don’t know if you understand me, or even if you can hear me, but we are here to resolve that question, and we aren’t going to leave until you make contact with us.”

Nathan and the bridge crew stared at the main screen. All over the ship, the other crew looked at their own screens as well, following the long attempts at contact with nervous, worried anticipation. Back in Engineering Central Control, Kris held her breath.

Nathan let the silence stretch out. The Deltan formation continued to revolve sedately about. Shaking his head, he pressed down the radio key again. “Please. Please give us some sign that you’re alive, that you understand us, that you acknowledge our presence here. Please give us some sign of how things are going to proceed between your people and my own.”

The formation suddenly stopped revolving, held in place by unknown, unimaginable forces. Aboard each alien vessel, heat surged to the surface. Before Yvonne Clark at Weps/Sensors or Mike Simmons back in CIC could tell the bridge and Nathan what was happening, beams lashed out from the vessels.

Three of the recon probes were struck down, reduced to slag and vapor by lasers from the Polyp, the Cathedral, and the Junkyard. The Control Ship also fired, but with the silvery beam it had previously used on Promise. As before, the recon probe wavered, becoming indistinct, collapsing into fine, brilliant dust. This cloud of dust then maneuvered of its own accord, streaming into unseen vents between the lobster-like overlapping plates of the Control Ship, rendered and captured as some scintillating prize.

Nathan’s gaze turned hard and he released the radio key. Without a word, he put on his helmet and began to check the tightness of his straps. Following his lead, the COB and the XO did the same.

Now speaking over the suit-to-suit circuit, Edwards observed wryly, “As signs go, that one’s pretty damn unambiguous. You in agreement there, XO?”

Wright said nothing. He simply turned to lock eyes with Edwards and gave a single curt nod.

Nathan saw it and nodded back. “XO, prep for battle. Ready all weapons for release, evacuate the hull, and shift to Charlie Stations. Let’s send them a message of our own.”