Darkworld: Earth

Diego walked nervously onto the bridge. He was a bit of a grunt aboard this ship, and he knew that. His most technical skill is that he was able to pilot the shuttlecraft. Mostly, he was there for basic labor and maintenance. Like everyone else, he was extremely excited by the sudden shift in the mission’s purpose and goals, but he doubted his name was going to go down in history with Gabriel Nguyen and Captain Ji-eun Moon.

But he was also pretty certain that he’d never have to buy a drink with his own money again, once they returned to Earth.

“You asked to speak with me, Captain?” he said as the technical specialists and scientists and officers reviewed their data and spoke with each other. Nobody payed him any attention except for the captain, who held up a finger while she finished typing a sentence before turning her attention to him.

“Sergeant Cruz, there’s a project which requires your input,” she informed him.

“Yes ma’am, I’m willing to help however I can,” he said.

“The aliens have launched six probes. They are broadcasting to the craft and the craft are repeating the messages. They appear to be flight instructions. We’re adapting the program we use to control our own probes to take control of the alien probes by sending the proper transmissions. We’d like you to be the one to pilot the alien probes once they’ve been hacked.”

Diego took a second to process the instructions. It was true that he was already familiar with flying the probes by remote control, so the instructions made perfect sense to him. He was one of six individuals who was trained and skilled enough to pilot the probes into the docking position during recovery.

“Okay,” he said. “Although I’m a little surprised you picked me for this. I’m not complaining, happy to play my part.”

“I’ve selected you because you’re also our shuttlecraft pilot, Sergeant,” she explained.

“Oh,” Diego said. He was quiet for a moment. He understood the implications. Once they were able to agree with the aliens on how the probes could be flown, then they might see if they could program their navigation system on the shuttles to work together. “Are we certain that this is a good idea, ma’am? What if the aliens take offense to us hacking their systems?”

“It’s a calculated risk,” she admitted. “But we’re reasonably certain that the probes are a method of attempting to communicate. We believe that they’re designed to be hacked. If the aliens start showing any signs that they don’t like what we’re doing, we’ll back off.”

“Right. Okay.”

Over the next twenty minutes, he was shown the modifications that had been made to the drone control program to make it work with the alien probes. The controls hadn’t changed much, but the alien probe had slightly different capabilities than their own versions. It would take some time to discover the differences and calibrate the program to the accuracy and precision that was required for remote control flight.

~~~

Eolai just happened to be watching the toys as they flew in their tesseract like flight path when it happened. One of the toys suddenly jerked out of position. He smiled, having been expecting, hoping for this. He immediately sent the signal for the Rockata to immediately stop broadcasting on the frequency that controlled that particular toy, consigning its control over to the guests.

He watched the guest play with the toy over the next few hours, occasionally reassuring the Topokans that everything was under control and that this was the desired response from their guests.

It looked at first like the guests were just flying the toy in random circles, but Eolai quickly noticed patterns to the play. Each thruster would fire for controlled amounts of time at various strengths. He understood well enough what was happening.

He approved. He wished that it hadn’t taken the guests so long to figure out the gift that he was trying to give them, but once they had understood they proceeded quite quickly.

After several hours of learning to control the toy, Eolai watched as they flew it to their spacecraft and docked it inside an airlock. He smiled as the airlock closed behind it. He immediately cut power to the toy, so that it would not accidentally damage the interior of their ship. They were taking quite the risk by bringing that on their vessel, and he wondered if it was bravery, ignorance, or innocence that they used to justify it.

~~~~

“So, we’ve had the device for twenty-four hours. What do we know about it?” Captain moon asked.

“That it’s basically a flying brick, for one,” Rebecca, one of the lead technical specialists said. “We have no idea how the control system works. It looks superficially like the probe we gave them, except for the polychromatic skin, but the technology is completely, well, alien. We don’t see anything that looks like a power source, or circuitry, or anything familiar, really. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen it flying around on the screen I’d think that it was just a big chunk of ceramics, plastics, and silicone.”

“Like one of those ‘do it yourself collector’s items,’” one of the other specialists said. “It comes apart easily enough, and it goes back together just as easily. But we have no idea how it functioned prior to it entering the airlock, when it stopped responding to our controls.”

“Right, exactly like that,” Rebecca agreed.

Captain Moon sighed. “The other probes? Are they still functional?”

“The two that we attempted to take control of are responding to the control program perfectly,” Diego said. “We have left the other three in the holding program that the aliens set them into to get our attention in the first place.”

“So, what have we learned?” she asked.

“It’s unclear that whether or not these were intended as gifts or simply a method of communication,” her XO said. “They could have designed it to be slagged the moment it came under our power in order to prevent us from retroengineering their hardware. We remain completely unaware of the alien’s technoligical capabilities, although I believe at this point we should assume that they are significantly more advanced than us.”

“The objects were completely sterile, biologically. No fingerprints, oils, bacteria, stray hair, anything,” another specialist pointed out. “That’s not terribly surprising though. We should assume that despite allowing us to control the devices they retain the ability to override our commands, so they let us take it on board. If they know anything about germ theory, and its safe to say that they do, they took precautions to avoid infecting us with anything.”

“We’re still fine tuning the program that controls the drones remaining in space,” Diego said. “The drones are responding identically and perfectly to our commands. I’m fairly certain that the aliens are aware of our efforts to calibrate the software we’re using and are cooperative. We should assume that, if they didn’t want us playing around with these things, they would have taken some action other than ceasing to broadcast to a drone once we took control of it.”

“Right,” Captain Moon said after the summaries were completed. “How are we on the software for stage two?”

The team exchanged glances. Diego cleared his throat.

“So, basically, I’m ready to go whenever,” he said. “I’m just waiting on you scientists to finish with the software stuff.”

“We’ve set up the shuttle to repeat all frequencies on the frequency we’ve selected for this mission. That’s the easy part,” one of the computer specialists said. “The hard part is to translate the flight-plan software to accept the codes that we’re using for the drones. The best solution we have at the moment is to broadcast our codes and the translated codes at the same time. The shuttle software won’t be able to interpret the alien code, which is probably a good thing. But hopefully we’ll be able to teach them how to file a flightplan with us.”

“I’m just worried that they slag our shuttle the same as they slagged our drone,” the XO put foreward.

“That is a risk,” Captain Moon agreed. She turned to Diego. “It’s your life on the line, Diego. Are you willing to accept this risk? I’m not going to order you to complie if you feel that--”

“I’m in,” Diego said. “Like I said, whatever you need me for, I’m happy to be here.”

~~~~~

“The vessel has launched a shuttle craft,” the Topokan speaker informed Eolai. Eolai, who had been grooming himself, nodded.

“What is the shuttle craft doing?”

“It has only just launched two minutes ago. Do we fire upon it?” the Topokan asked.

“Absolutely not!” Eolai rebuked harshly. The Topokan’s ears went flat against its skull and it fled the room. A moment later its replacement came into the room and waited silently. This Topokan was older and Eolai recognized her immediately. She was one of the matriarchs, which meant that she wasn’t scared of him and that the Topokans were absolutely taking this latest development seriously.

“The guests have thus far shown no hostile actions and a willingness to communicate. Observe all emissions between the primary spacecraft and the shuttlecraft. Under no circumstance is either spacecraft to be harmed by our actions.”

The matron nodded – a human gesture, not a Topokan one – and went to relay his orders.

Eolai concluded cleaning himself and dressed. Fresh shaven, clean, and feeling spry, he had a little spring in his step as he returned to the bridge. He observed the hologram of the shuttlecraft flying around the primary spacecraft for a few moments before bringing up the analysis of the communications between the two.

He smiled. As he’d suspected, there were two different frequencies in use. One of them was pure noise as far as the computer was concerned. The other translated quite well with the commands that the guests had been establishing to control the toys that Eolai had designed for them.

“You clever little children,” he commented.

He had spent some time preparing for this possibility. He synced the control program that he had been using to control the toys to the frequency that was being used to ‘control’ the shuttle. It was very clear to him that the shuttle was not being remote controlled, but he was curious to see what the guests would do when he attempted to control the shuttle as they had the toys that he had given them.

~~~~~

Diego concluded the flight plan that the Seeker had sent, bringing him around to the starboard side and facing away from it at approximately eight degrees towards the star. He carefully cut thrust to end in as close to the assigned position as was possible. It was only fifty minutes since he’d launched. Normally flight plans were much longer than the short two minute maneuvers that he’d been doing so far, but the idea was to put a show on for the aliens. Make it clear for them what was being communicated while maintaining a non-threatening position.

He was waiting for the next flight plan to come in when Captain Moon came on the radio.

“Diego, do you read?”

“Crystal clear, Captain. What’s up?”

“The lead alien ship just attempted to take control of your shuttle,” the captain informed him.

Diego blinked. “Well that was quick,” he commented. “What do I do?”

“Hold for a moment. We’re translating the data burst from the aliens into a flight plan. We’re having to enter the data by hand, so it might take a bit,” the captain informed him.

“Right,” Diego said. He wrinkled his nose, wishing that he could scratch it, but with the visor on his vacuum suit down that was an impossibility. “File flight plan when ready. I’m in no hurry.”

~~~~~

It took nearly thirty minutes, but the shuttle craft had stopped moving almost immediately after the commands had reached it. Eolai had waited patiently to see what his guests would do in response. There had been a brief communication between the ship which was, at first glance, indecipherable.

Then, a packet of data on the indecypherable frequency from the mother ship, and finally the hologram displaying the shuttles true position began moving to the position where the command program that Eolai had put together for it said it should be.

“Very good. You are learning,” Eolai said. “Let’s see if you can do this.”

He poked around at the hologram and moved the shuttlecraft to and froe. Then he waited, and a few minutes into his wait the shuttle began following the instructions that had been sent, once again after an indecipherable message from the mother ship. He smiled, and figured why not, and he dragged the shuttlecraft into the docking bay of his own Topokan vessel.

~~~~~

“Diego, do you read?” the captain asked over the radio.

“Yeah Cap. Waiting on the next flight plan. What’s up?” Diego responded, scrunching his nose, which iched like crazy.

“The lead alien vessel wants you to dock with them.”

Diego’s eyes opened in surprise. “Say again?”

“The instructions were pretty clear. Very clear, actually. We were expecting it to take their computers longer to figure out the thrusters on your shuttle, but according to the simulation it has you flying right into their primary hangar,” she said.

Diego’s throat went dry. “Orders, Captain?”

“I’m not issuing any orders at this time, Sergeant,” Captain Moon stated clearly.

“So, what are you not ordering me to do?” Diego said. “I’m not too keen on the idea of being disected, if you know what I mean.”

“I understand. I’m not ordering you into the alien’s custody, Sergeant Diego Cruz,” the captain said.

Diego nodded. The implication was clear, however. “Say I’m a gambling man,” he said. “Say I’m willing to risk it.”

“Then I’d say that you’re old and intelligent enough to understand the risks,” the captain answered. “But to be one hundred percent clear, I must inform you that once you enter the alien’s custody, there is very little chance that we can force them to return you to ours. Our ship is unarmed. They have technology which appears to far outstrip ours. We have no way to communicate with them at present except for indecipherable radio broadcasts. There is a very real chance that you may not be allowed to return.”

Diego swallowed. His nose itched. He was vaguely aware that he was going to have to pee pretty soon. “Captain, I, Sergeant Diego Cruz, volunteer to board the alien spacecraft. I understand that if the aliens have hostile intentions that my life will be in jeapordy and there is very little chance that I will escape their custody unharmed. I am currently unarmed, and the shuttlecraft I am piloting contains no weapons with which I can defend myself. It contains only a small supply of food and water. I will be at their mercy.”

The conversation continued for several moments as Diego answered several questions to establish and confirm his identity, his state of mind, and his intentions. There were several code words and phrases buried in the messages, both pre-arranged and just issued beneath the veneer of the official communication.

In the end, he received authorization.