* * *
The monolith had collapsed in on itself once the charges were detonated. The group made it back to the Grey Mouse with Richard Pierson’s body and their alien companion. They left the planet, flying back into orbit where they looked for a clear trajectory to make their jump.
Everyone on the bridge kept stealing glances at the alien, who was still cradling Johnson against his chest. The alien’s cat-like eyes darted sharply back and forth amongst the crew. Dryer had stationed men close-by with rifles trained on it.
Jax was returning to Earth having solved the mystery of his father’s disappearance, proving the validity of N-wave technology, and having made first contact with an alien species… and yet, he did not feel it was a victory. Something troubled him. It was the look in his father’s emerald eyes when he reached out to grab his chest that Jax couldn’t get out of his mind.
Jax eyed the way the alien had its fingers dug into Johnson’s chest. Had his father meant to do that to him? Did Richard Pierson have something he had been desperate to communicate? Had Jax been too blinded by grief to have realized it?
He glanced over to Li Ying, who was still obsessively pouring over the recording she’d made of the signal. Slowly, the hum of the N-wave engine began to rise, signaling it was ready to engage.
“All systems are go, Captain,” Sarah said.
“Everyone, brace yourselves,” Captain Vance said. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
With that, he gave the order to engage.
The second N-wave jump was just as rough as the first. After it was over, Vance ordered the external cameras turned on. When Earth appeared on the screen, the bridge erupted in a cheer.
They’d made it.
“Well done, everybody,” Vance said. “Li, let Earth command know we’ve returned.”
Suddenly, Li’s eyes grew wide as she turned to her screen. “Oh, no…”
Jax looked at her, concerned. “What is it?”
“The signal,” she said. “The computer finally isolated a track… in English.”
Jax looked at her screen as she played it. Richard Pierson’s voice echoed throughout the bridge.
“I was wrong. The secret must be kept.I was wrong. The secret must be kept…”
Jax’s mind raced. He thought of the drawings he’d seen. The videos his father had made.
This planet… it is meant to deceive us. There is a secret here… one that the signal’s creator wants kept safe.
“The signal,” he muttered, his mind piecing things together. He turned to the alien. “My father didn’t fail to destroy it. He discovered that it needed to be protected! Why?”
The alien made a noise that could only be interpreted as a laugh.
“The signal… kept us from traveling…” it said. “Prevented my race from conquering… I was sent… to destroy it… but you… did our work… for us…”
“CAPTAIN!” Sarah screamed, looking at her console. “Multiple N-wave readings! Ships are… inbound!”
Everyone looked at the screen as fearsome starships, just like the ones etched into the monolith’s walls, jumped into Earth’s atmosphere, ready to attack. Jax looked at the alien in horror.
“The signal was meant to stop you,” he gasped. “And we led you… right to us…”
The alien gazed at Jax, loathing in its large eyes.
“We shall… once again… conquer.”
His father had figured out the warning. His son had once again failed to live up to his standard. Jax had silenced the signal. He’d exposed the secret.
And now, the whole galaxy would suffer.
The End
EXPECTATION
Michael Barnett
Lara awakes to the hum of the engines, as she does every morning. There is no sense of movement, so this is the only clue they are moving at all. Lara taps her wrist bracelet with her other hand, and the alarm vibration against the back of her wrist stops. She opens her eyes, throws off the covers, and swings her legs off the bed as she moves to a sitting position. Lara looks upon her one-piece suit, which she always wears, except when she goes through decontamination each day. After decontamination she gets to don a new set, and how different these clothes are from the ones her ancestors wore. She is so weary of white: why can’t she wear the multi-colored dress, or the jeans of her ancestors? As her feet hit the floor, sensors turn on the viewers stretched across each wall. Scenic views of long-ago places she has never been appear; mountains, rivers, plains, and oceans. Lara has no connection with any of these scenes, but likes looking at the serene colors, and imagines being in these places. The clouds are her favorite, having a magical and somehow unreal quality.
“Why do you always wake up so fast?” her brother Lani asks, with a tinge of anger, from his bed on the far side of the room. “At least tell me you’re awake and the viewers are coming on, so I can cover my eyes.”
“You are such a complainer! You know we are to be at the nourishment center in five minutes, then on to history and science lessons.”
“I despise those classes! Why does any of it matter?”
Lara stands and walks to the bulkhead viewer and waves her hand. The scene of a mountain river with waterfalls is replaced by a real scene of what is beyond the portal: parsecs and parsecs of vast space. She and her younger brother share the same distaste for this view, since what they see hardly ever changes. They always see swirls of stars, and objects which could be planets or asteroids, but at this distance, they can’t be sure. She has decided she must tolerate this view to teach her brother another lesson.
“This is our world, where we are now,” she says as she waves towards the view. “History tells us where we—our ancestors—originated. That is our past.” She waves towards the panoramic views from Earth, and notices a detail she has always missed on a view of a meadow with a majestic mountain in the distance. Hidden in the grass is a small rodent, peering up at her. She scans her memories and remembers they called this a gray mouse; funny how she never noticed it before.
Lara turns and faces Lani, who is now sitting on the edge of his bed. She gives him her sternest look as she says, “Science and mathematics prepare us for our future.”
“How many hundreds of times will you give me this speech?” asks Lani.
“How many hundreds of times will you ask the same dumb questions when we arise each day? We have no idea what to expect once we reach our destination. We need to be prepared for any possibility. I need to be confident you will be a valuable member of our team, not a liability.”
“I will,” Lani says to his older sister, with the confidence of a brave warrior. Lara knows better, since she knows him better than he does himself.
“Let’s go, we can’t be late,” Lara says as she walks through the holodoor into the ship’s interior. Lani hurries to her side as they board the anti-gravity cart, and grasp the handles.
Lara tells the cart, “Nourishment center,” and they fly out over the main room, far above the terrarium. The height doesn’t scare them, and both love the high speed in which they travel, since this adds excitement to their mundane life. Nobody else is coming from their rooms to join them, and they see that the other carts are missing outside the other quarters.
“Late again!” Lara says to her brother, sudden anger in her voice.
“Set your wake up alert for earlier. I never make you late.”
Lara favors her brother with one of her disappointed looks, and shakes her head.
“You’re moving your head back and forth as our ancestors did again. You are so impressionable,” Lani says, with a mischievous grin.
Lara decides to face ahead, since she is tempted to push Lani from the cart and let him see if he can learn to fly before hitting the garden.