Second Contact: Part 1 (Patreon)

I did a writing prompt in the middle of last month, and I ended up with a short story that I am still adding onto. I figured since I took a week off from Magpie Wizard, I'd give you all something to read. (The time to charge my batteries was much appreciated, so thank you all for being supportive). Magpie Wizard updates will continue on the 9th. Sometime tomorrow, I'll post a "state of the Patreon" update where I talk about my plans for 2021.

If you would like to see the original prompt, you can see it here: (1) [WP] You’ve just completed your facial recognition software. It puts a box around your face and reads— Species: Human, Age: 25-30. Your quirky friend walks in and it reads— Species: unknown, Age: 1000-2000. : WritingPrompts (reddit.com)

Without further ado, here are the first three chapters of Second Contact!

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Chapter 1

Politicians are a class of magicians, when you think about it. A wizard waves his wand, says abracadabra, and makes a rabbit come out of his hat. A president signs a sheet of paper approved by the legislature, and bam, a shiny new space station orbits Jupiter.

Not that magic exists, of course. The magician uses subterfuge and preparation to hide the rabbit until the time comes. The magic of politics is taxpayer money and the labor of thousands of experts. Checkpoint Alpha was an enormous undertaking, but the United Earth Federation spared no expense. First contact had changed many things about humanity, but vanity wasn’t one of them. We still felt the need to impress the Tralingans with human knowhow and engineering. It was a bit like putting out the good china for the guests, only with a lot more math.

That sort of thing was beyond me, though. I like to tinker, but I’m no rocket scientist. The UEF Space Force hired me for my brawn and my military experience, and I’m fine with that. They needed somebody who could crack a head if a Tralingan got out of hand. Not that they had in my two years on the Checkpoint. They’re a polite species, even if they look like angular octopuses designed by the devil himself. It made me feel a little useless sometimes.

Ah, well. I just threw that onto the pile of things that good ol’ Gene didn’t need to worry about which, if I listened to Chief Scientist Polgar, was anything that wasn’t written on my job description. It seemed like a waste of a guy with programming experience, but that was also above my paygrade. I was happy, though. Centrifugal (or was that centripetal? I always forgot) force made sure I didn’t float out of my bunk at night. It also made sure that, unlike back on Earth, that bunk didn’t cost two thirds of my paycheck. I even had enough left over every month to squirrel some away into savings for the first time in my life, and indulge in some side projects. That all changed that morning, though.

It’s amazing what you can get used to. I’d dreamed of space travel as a child, but life on Checkpoint Alpha had started feeling rote. Not much happened. The ship was mostly full of scientists and a few of us security personel. I only had to bust out my impact rifle when a Tralingan ship wanted access to the inner planets, which was twice a month at most. The rest of the time, we went through our daily checklists. I always made sure to get through mine quickly, so I could get around to my tinkering.

Wednesdays were my turn on the hydroponic gardens. We got regular supply shipments from Mars, but fresh vegetables and oxygen were always appreciated. Garden duty was my favorite. The circular station was made up of dozens of nearly identical rooms in the same, sterile metal and plastic siding. It was always a relief to see some green.

The pneumatic door hissed behind me as I washed the green stains off of my hands. “Evening, Sarge,” said Junior Scientist Sanchez.

“Hey there, Joseph,” I replied. “What have you got there?”

He handed me a cardboard box. “Your package arrived. Too bad, really.”

I cocked my head at him. “How do you mean?”

“The Chief Scientist said to stop working on your little camera project last week, yeah?” Sanchez had a jovial nature about him, even when delivering bad news. “You ordered it months ago to get it shipped from Earth, and now it’s a waste of time and fuel.”

I shrugged. “What Polgar doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I don’t know what her deal is, but I’m not giving in this time.”

“I wouldn’t set her off,” he said. “She’s always been a hardass, but she’s been in a snit lately.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” I muttered, remembering how she’d chewed me out for how the last batch of yams had turned out. I wasn’t the one who’d insisted on picking them a week early. “I don’t see what her deal is. You all get to waste your time on that SETI nonsense. What I do on my off time shouldn’t concern her.”

“Searching for new alien species is not a waste of time!” His voice was heated, but it was undercut by his broad smile. This was an old game with us.

“Sure it is,” I replied. “We found ‘em. We and the Tralingans have explored dozens of systems, and there isn’t any life that we didn’t put there ourselves. It’s just us in this patch of space.”

“You keep saying that. I’ll find that stray subspace signal that proves there’s more than humans and Tralingans out there, and then I’ll be famous.”

“Oh yeah? Who was the second guy on Mars?”

“Camilo Freixa,” he responded without missing a beat.

So much for my point. “Sure, you know that. You live for space travel. You ask twenty people living on Mars today, though? They only know Randall Simmons, and that’s ‘cause they named the capital after him. You’re not going to get famous for discovering a second alien species.”

He shook his head and smiled wistfully. “We’ll see about that. I gotta get back to my post. Have fun with your toy. If Polgar gets pissed at you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I can handle her,” I said. I hope, I didn’t add.

The whole station was a kilometer in diameter, so it didn’t take me long to get back to my room. I set up my mobile console on my desk and plugged in the new camera. It didn’t look like it should have cost half a month’s salary, but it had a few tricks up its sleeve. I opened up my text editor and started playing with my code.

Tweaking hardware, optimizing software, and imposing order on chaos. That was when I felt alive. I hadn’t been able to get into school for it, but when I was in the middle of creating, the rest of the universe faded away. All that existed was me and the problem to be solved.

I was so intent that I missed the sound of my door sliding open. “Gene! God moaning.” The wet slurp behind me could only be the voice of Septivus, our resident Tralingan translator.

“That’s good morning,” I said without looking up from my display. “At least, it would be if it were morning. This’d be evening.”

I could see his inky black face in the reflection of my monitor as he clacked his beak together twice. The gesture was the equivalent of our shrug. “Evening, morning, is space, yes? Is all relatively.”

I didn’t grin at him. Tralingans tended to take smiles badly. They interpreted it as a threat display. Septivus knew better, but I didn’t see the need to irritate my buddy. “Sure, but I’m too tired for it to be morning.”

He swayed on his six tentacles, his version of a nod. “How is going the project?”

“I think I’m getting somewhere. This full spectrum camera is the real deal.” I held up my new toy, being sure not to accidentally unplug it from my console. “We wouldn’t need this if you didn’t all look the same.”

He let out an annoyed belch. “Is not our failing that you humans is not seeing in ultraviolet. We is beautiful when you eyes is working.”

I covered my mouth with a hand to avoid offending him. It was an old argument, and one that I only brought up to make conversation. “I think I’ve finally got it working. Watch this.”

I tapped a few keys, and the camera let out a high-pitched whine. An instant later, an image of my face appeared on the screen. Angular text read:

SPECIES: HUMAN

SEX: MALE

ESTIMATED AGE: 35-45 TERRAN YEARS.

ENTRY #1 CREATED.

“I is think you is twenty-nine?” Septivus asked. “We is doing birthday last week, correct?”

I sighed. “If you ever do a Planetary Guard tour on Mars, bring moisturizer. They say it’s fully terraformed, but there’s something off with the atmosphere. That place’ll ruin your skin.”

He swayed again in agreement. “I see. Is that what software is for? Is surprise humans not already inventing this.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s just to make sure it’s still doing it’s main job. It’ll be able to tell who I am once I connect it with Checkpoint Alpha’s security database, but that’s a good sign. Here’s the real test. Hold still.”

The camera whined again. This time, my mobile console took longer to load the data, but it eventually spat out:

SPECIES: TRALINGAN

SEX: MALE

ESTIMATED AGE: 40-75 TRALINGA YEARS

ENTRY #2 CREATED

Septivus’ face was displayed beneath the readout. He was right; my eyes saw black, glistening skin, but the camera revealed overlapping whorls of colors, the ultraviolet patterns of his species translated into the human visual range. It was beautiful, in its own way.

Septivus let out a raspberry with his breathing hole that splattered the back of my neck and jumpsuit. “Slandering! I is only forty-one!”

“Then it’s in the range,” I said, covering up my smirk at his vanity. “The old camera didn’t see you at all. It thought you were a black void.”

“Are you still wasting time on this?” groused Chief Scientist Polgar.

“Nice of you to drop by,” I said, leaving out the word “unannounced.” I turned in my chair and looked up at the brunette woman. She was dressed in a white Space Force jumpsuit just like mine, though her badges marked her as my superior. Of all the women to drop into my room unannounced, she was the most disappointing I could think of.

Dad always told me a winning smile always cuts the tension, but I held off. She tended to take it as badly as a Tralingan when she was in a mood. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She pointed at the console. “I thought I told you to cancel this project.”

“You approved it originally, remember?” I stood, looming over her. Not that she was the type to be cowed by a physical display, but the foot I had on her gave me more confidence.

“Then I disapproved it. It’s a waste of resources when we have Septivus to tell other Tralingans apart.”

“We can’t just rely on him for that,” I said. “He has to sleep sometime. That crew last month showed up while he was in his weekly torpor. We had to load him up with energy drinks to just get through it!”

“Was bad torpor. Is having too much caffeine,” said Septivus. “Was grouchy all week.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, her angry glare fixing me in place. “This is an order. Drop it.”

“With all due respect, I don’t see what your malfunction is.” I held up the camera. “I bought this myself and I stopped working on it during working hours after you got all bent out of shape. And it works! See?”

Her eyes flew open, and she grabbed for the camera. My superior reach kept it out of her grasp. “No, don’t…”

A moment later, the results displayed on the screen.

SPECIES: UNKNOWN

GENDER: UNKNOWN

AGE: UNKNOWN

ERROR. NO ENTRY CREATED.

I dropped the camera, and I could hear something in it break. I didn’t care. I was too distracted by the pale, white monstrosity that appeared on the screen.

“What in the hell is-”

I didn’t get to finish before she lashed out, knocking me to the ground. How in God’s name was she so strong?

“I is thinking is not software bug,” said Septivus.

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That's the end of the free sample of Second Contact. I will update this post with the Amazon Kindle link shortly.