Chapter Two Fifty-Four Intervention (Patreon)

September 12th, 065 SDE:

Xau adjusted the telescope, and commented, “You’d think with them so close we’d be getting a radar return on their vessels.”

Berxi sighed, “You’d think, but for some reason, we can only observe the alien vessels with good old-fashioned optical telescopes; the new radar arrays just don’t work.”

“I’ve noticed, but I can help, wondering what they are doing? This is the ninth vessel to arrive this week,” she said, watching the alien recovery ship entering orbit. Only it wasn’t recovering anything, after a moment it did what the other vessels had been doing, its dorsal bay opened and it deployed a large object into orbit. The alien object was identical to all the others, measuring 24.8 meters long with a circular span of 16.2 meters. Similar objects had been spotted all around the debris field of Mau’sar but they still had no idea what the object was. Some kind of satellite but they had no idea of its purpose. For all they knew it was some kind of weapon, but if it was, why deploy it now? Over two years after they got here? What had changed?

Berxi shrugged, “No idea, it would be nice if they’d answer our hails, but so far they’ve ignored our radio transmissions.”

Xau was well aware, “Enigmatic and elusive, makes one wonder what goes on in alien minds?”

Xermon poked his head in the room, “Observing the aliens again?”

“For the most part, I was watching Observer One for a bit, but things haven’t changed since we confirmed they made orbit. The aliens haven’t paid the capsule any attention in the six hours since it made orbit.”

“Excellent, then we can move forward with the launch. The general is breathing down my neck to get those warheads in the air.”

Xau didn’t know what to say. Berxi shuddered then sighed, “Well, let's get them in the air.”

The observer adjusted the equipment; they were one of several observers tasked with recording the first hits, but they had by far the most interesting view. She looked the other way for a moment. She couldn’t see them, but if she used the telescopes, she’d be able to see the alien satellites in a higher orbit; much higher than they could reach.

The radio crackled, spitting out estimated time to target, the first warhead was expected to strike in mere moments, so she double checked the positioning of her cameras and started recording to film. A moment later a spot on the surface flashed brightly, she blinked even as other observers were confirming the hit. A second flashed as she was confirming the first hit, and then suddenly a bright blue streak zipped past her vision.

In a mere instant that streak penetrated the atmosphere leaving a brilliant trail of radiant orange and blue in its wake before unleashing a bright flash, orders of magnitude greater than the nuke. “Alien warhead! Detonated, coordinates...” she paused double checking her equipment and readings, “twenty-one degrees east, 41 degrees north, altitude ten thousand kilometers.”

The radio crackled, just as planned warheads three and four went off in the same general area. All confirmed hits. A strangely flat female voice filled cabin, “Nuclear detonations detected in the north-eastern hemisphere, decontamination sweep initiated, do not be alarmed, these missiles are not armed with standard warheads and pose no threat to the general populace. They serve only to decontaminate nuclear radiation from all sources.”

She frowned at the unfamiliar word and glanced out at the alien sats, just in time to see a second blue streak hurtling toward her small pod. Before she could blink it ripped past without so much as a sound and slammed into the atmosphere with the same brutal wake as the first. Clearly they didn’t care about a little friction either. Yet the way they moved also left her with many other questions. The bright flash of the second alien detonation burned in her retinas even as she reported it, a third did not occur even as the alien messages repeated.

Countryman walked down the hall. Their plan to deal with the radiation was well underway, but how the locals would respond to it remained to be seen. In the meantime, he had nothing to do at the moment. Ruri was busy with another warp test, while Vera was up in her lab with Richards working on the X-1205-B. All his paperwork had been dealt with for the moment, and until Commodore Dykes finished her latest wargames scenario, there wasn’t much for him to review.

With all that in mind, he figured he’d find some time to relax. Reaching the end of the hall, he stepped through the door and stopped as he took in the observation lounge. It seemed he wasn’t the only one to consider some skywatching, although it seemed most of the people here were really just sunbathing.

Naked young women and a few men were sprinkled about the room, lounging on laid out mats and enjoying the sunlight streaming in. He’d heard the activity was quite popular these days. Not for a tan though, during their time in the storm, they’d lost the genes responsible for skin tanning, and darker pigmentations had gone with them. Leaving only the paler pigmentations in their genome, which blocked less light. That was critical since they’d gained a very efficient form of photosynthesis, which he figured was why they enjoyed sunbathing so much. Perhaps too much, as the case might be since they were used to weaker light sources.

Someone came up beside him and commented, “You know when I see this I wonder if finding a new homeworld is a good idea? How about you Daddy?”

He turned to see his Daughter Rika standing behind him wearing nothing but a pair of light blue panties. While her blue hair was secured with a ribbon. Yet he couldn’t help looking at the swell of her belly, a physical reminder that he had another grandchild on the way. Sometimes he tried to forget how large his family had become, but large families were becoming rather normal. He sighed, “Lose your clothes again?”

“I was thinking of enjoying some sun, care to join me?”

“I was more here for watching the stars than the sun.”

“But it’s such a nice one, I can enjoy it for hours.”

He chuckled, “So can everyone else.”

She giggled, “You have a point there.” Then she paused and looked around, “And I guess the place is rather packed at the moment and we both know how people get when disturbed.”

Countryman knew exactly what she meant. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to lose track of time while sunbathing and unless threatened or disturbed, they were pretty passive in this state. Unfortunately, when someone tried to disturb someone in this state there was a good chance they’d receive a full voltage discharge right in the face. The good news was that they found out that whatever they are now, they are much more resistant to electrocution. But that much electricity was still enough to incapacitate someone for a few hours, acting much like a stun bolt on the body. “Maybe we should go somewhere else?”

She sighed, then brightened, “Right maybe the game lounge? We don’t get to bond just the two of us.”

He turned to leave the room, “Sounds fun, but only if you wear something.”

She gave him a look, “Maybe I should just go naked instead.”

He shook his head but didn’t bother to dignify that statement with a response. Rika just pouted after a moment, “You aren’t any fun, you know that?”

“Learn the game, you’ll have more fun then.”

“You say that a lot, but what does it even mean? Learn the game? What game?”

“The game of life,” he replied, “It’s a lot more complicated than people think, even today I’m still learning things, but I have a better grasp of it than most.”

She blinked, “Now that’s a scary thought.”

“Oh?”

“You learning? When you can’t even accept the way I chose to dress?”

“Accepting and liking are two different things. I accept that you have your mother’s modesty, that doesn’t mean I like it.”

Rika paused in the corridor and turned back to look at him, her arms crossed under her chest, “Semantics, my sisters and I aren’t the only ones with mother’s modesty you know? Most girls these days don’t really care about things like that. Breasts are breasts, genitals are genitals, there is nothing intimate about looking at them.”

He muttered to himself, ‘We grow more alien with every passing day.' Then again, he thought to himself, they weren’t human anymore. Genetically, physically and even mentally, they’d diverged from what it meant to be human. Yet no one could agree on a new name for their species. The only thing they largely agreed on was that they were the People of Sol, sure some of them didn’t come from Sol but most of them did. Not to mention they all called the Enterprise home and over the decades, they’d become one people.

Rika sighed, “I guess we are less human every day, but they will always be part of us.”

“Did I say that outloud?”

“No but you were thinking it loud enough that I could hear it.”

Countryman smiled wryly and focused on shielding his thoughts better for a moment. He was usually a bit better about shielding his thoughts. Sharing thoughts was one thing everyone young and old considered especially intimate. There was no hiding when you shared your thoughts; every facet of who you are was revealed, even the darker things you’d rather not acknowledge. The sheer level of intimacy was what made mind rape so heinous; the damage it did to its victims was far worse than traditional rape. Which is why the punishments for it had only been made more severe in the years since the crime became possible.

 Yet they’d also found numerous benefits to their abilities, especially when it came to the pilot corps. People with especially high talent were able to sense the intent to attack, which added whole new layers to dogfights. They’d labelled their new telepathic senses to be a new sense, alongside their other newfound perceptions. While humans had five traditional senses, they had eight which combined to make them very deadly aerial fighters. Two of those three extra senses had proved very useful in the storm, letting them detect threats even before their ship sensors found them. Specifically, an ability to actually sense gravity and another for electromagnetic fields. The very world around them looked different these days, especially when you were more intimately aware of the ground you walked on and every power conduit running under every wall. 

Even people seemed different since there wasn’t just their smell, sound and feel to know them by, but their very presence both psychic and electromagnetic. “You may have a point but you basically grew up as... whatever we are. I didn’t, when I was born Humanity hadn’t really left its cradle, space travel was young. Manned landings were a big deal, the moon hadn’t even been colonized yet. I was a young man when they finally colonized the moon, part of a big program to put men on Mars.”

She frowned, “Right, Mrs Samantha made a big deal about that in history class.” She paused for a moment, “I think you are talking about the first expedition which failed due to the program’s funding being embezzled by corrupt politicians.”

“So it did, it was a common theme until the demon president, although a couple years into the program there was someone who showed some promise. Unfortunately they were willing to be the villain the world needed.”

“Needed?”

“One thing you learn is that sometimes villains aren’t the bad guys, sometimes they are a force for positive change, even if at the time the world doesn’t agree.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” she said as they entered the game lounge, where she finally found a top, clearly hers and obviously left here earlier. “Now what do you say we resume our campaign from the other day?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Xau listened to the alien transmission again, there was an unfamiliar word in there, perhaps from the alien tongue. Xermon commented, “So any of you science types have a clue what they are talking about?”

Someone she didn’t know, one of the specialists who worked on the warhead, spoke up, “We did notice that the warhead produced a number of particles after each blast. That’s the radiation they speak of, but I’m not sure why they feel the need to ‘decontaminate’ the blast zones.”

He looked around but no one had an answer. Xau sighed, “We might have to ask, the only question is will they answer?”