Fiction Fragment Friday (Snowed-in Saturday)
Ok, this week comes late, but I’ll just blame the holidays for it despite them having nothing to do with it.
I have been fascinated by the anomolies surrounding 3i/Atlas. Everytime they think they have it figured out some new strange occurance brings it back into focus. With the UN currently focusing the Earth Planetary defenses on it and the International Asteroid Warning Network dedicating time tracking it I can only imagine the scientific discoveries that will come from the next two months. These efforts are part of what inspired this story.
Forty-nine hopeful systems explored in two years and zero planets capable of supporting human life without enclosed habitats. With colonies on the Moon, Mars, and orbital space stations, we have the technology to survive just about anywhere. If the colony can’t be completely sustainable on its own, there really isn’t any point in building it outside our own solar system. As we jumped into the last system on our list, ship morale was at an all time low.
Just because the systems were not useful as colonies didn’t mean the jumps were not valuable. Our ship had gathered enough data to keep scientists on Earth busy for years. That was not our primary mission, though, and none of us liked the idea of failing in our goal. Forty-nine straight disappointments had left me feeling hopeless. That was my mindset as another new starfield filled the main screen. What had been a moment of pure excitement at the beginning of our mission had come to be a moment of dread.
“Launch probes and start the system scans.”
“Woah try to contain that enthusiasm, sir. You might hurt something.” My first officer tried to bring a bit of levity to the situation.
“You’re right, Lucy. Sorry everyone. It has been a long string of disappointments, but that’s no excuse.”
“Sir, I’m picking up notable radio emissions in this system.” I could not tell if the tone in my sensor operator’s voice was excitement or alarm. Perhaps it was a bit of both.
“Natural?”
“No sir. Narrowband radar sweep. Same frequency every thirty seconds or so.”
“Is it similar to anything you’ve seen before?”
“Honestly, it looks a lot like our own planetary defense radars. The asteroid watch system. Same narrowband pulse, consistent repetition interval, and a long-range sweep pattern. It’s unmistakably artificial.”
“Could something like that detect us?”
“I don’t want to guess at capabilities, but yes easily. We would stand out not just as a new discovery, but one that doesn’t move like anything natural.”
“Great. Well, we shouldn’t assume we’re in a first contact situation quite yet. How long until the probes return data from planets in the habitable zone?”
“A little over a week to get first scans, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long.”
“Explain.”
“Well sir, I’m detecting carrier leakage from tight beam radar between the fourth and eighth planets. We should have some solid data from the eighth planet in the next day.”
My first officer had been quietly shifting attention between the two of us, but with that, spoke out. “Sir, I recommend we classify this information to the three of us until we have something more solid. I’m afraid of causing a panic.”
“Recommendation noted and rejected. That’s not how we operate on this ship. There are only twenty of us, and I don’t plan on keeping anyone in the dark. You never know where a brilliant idea might come from.”
* * *
A day later we got our first answer and far more questions. The eighth planet had a technological satellite in orbit. While the design was completely unfamiliar to us, the principles behind its function were not. The satellite was a space telescope with communication functionality. It was in an extreme state of disrepair, but the fact that it was still functional at all proved to be a feat of engineering genius. Our teams were studying the satellite and trying to reverse engineering the communication protocol for weeks.
Two weeks after our arrival, we got the next wave of answers. The orbit around the fourth planet was littered with space debris, including a handful of functional satellites. The planet itself showed signs of devastation from what we determined to have been a violent war a little over a hundred years prior. There were indications of nuclear detonations along with something far more devastating that we had thankfully never achieved on Earth. Our first signs of life in another solar system and it had destroyed itself just one hundred years before we could make contact.
I walked into the conference room and sat at the head of the table. My science team and first officer were already gathered and waiting for me. “Ok folks, let’s hear some theories and assessments.”
Doctor Havish cleared his throat and spoke first. “We have two theories about the weapon that devastated the planet, and I have evidence supporting the use of both. First, some of the crater sites have perfectly concentric blast rings and actually exhibit less radiation than the surrounding areas. This would indicate an antimatter blast. In other areas, the scars on the planet are deep enough to have penetrated the crust. For each of these types of gorges, there is a depleted area of ozone in the atmosphere. This leads us to to the conclusion that relativistic weapons were also used. Obviously, neither theory can be confirmed without exploring the planet ourselves.”
“That’s not happening on this trip, but I suspect we will be returning with multiple teams for further investigation. What is your initial assessment of habitability?”
“Possibly after another couple hundred years of recovery. At the moment, we would need self-contained environments for any long term stay on the surface.”
“Noted. Get your final reports ready. We leave for Earth in twenty-four hours. The probes can stay gathering data so get any last orders in for them. Dismissed.”
I watched as the room slowly emptied of everyone except my first officer. When we were alone, she finally spoke. “I can’t help but think this could have been us. Earth was so close to the final war for almost a century.”
“I was having the same thought. Fifty systems and fifty failures, but at least we haven’t failed as badly as those poor bastards did.”
“Only you could see finding proof of intelligent life as a failure.”
“It wasn’t our mission goal. Even so, if they were still alive, I would have seen it as a huge success.”
“Would you really want to meet a race capable of doing that to their own planet?”
“I fear we already have in ourselves, and now finding new homes just became that much more important.”