Aliens

And idiots

“Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy”

—Donald J. Trump, President, United States of America

You know how when you wake up from a lengthy bender and all the lights are too bright (especially with these eyes), and your brain feels askew, and your maw is glued shut with the crud that can only be generated by a night of excess. Yeah, it’s like that. Only ten times worse.

Buttressed by a strong dose of Seversol, rBlat4 was dreaming of the cloud brothels of her home world. When she lay down in the travel chamber, she expected to sleep right through to the end. This did not feel like the end.

The first thing she noticed was the sounds of the systems booting up. She sifted through her vision filters until she found the right one for the conditions. The date on the display was much too early for them to have reached their destination. They were no longer following the Prime Order. She wondered which of the Secondary Orders had been implemented.

A green blupe crawled into the pod and disconnected the nutrition stents. It then oozed over the entirety of her body assessing it for wounds and other matters of concern. It left a slick of mild healing gel in its wake.

A sense of “Satisfactory Health” entered her mind and the blupe promptly died.

rBlat4 exited the chamber. She stretched her limbs. Everything ached. She picked up the expired blupe and tossed it in the recycling chute.

Let’s see what’s going on.

The majority of the other travel chambers remained occupied. In fact, the only other chamber that was open was the commander’s.

There must be a navigation error.

Since most of the ship’s systems were in hibernation mode, she took the ladder up two levels to the command level. The hatch to the navigation deck was open. Inside two blue blupes labored.

One of the blupes was at the main navigation station. She walked over. It looked at her, well, as much as a blob of blue goo could. It made a noise. An actual noise. Like a wet fart. Gibberish filled her head.

Maybe that’s the problem.

“Try that again,” she croaked. This was the first time she had tried speech and it was raspy. She cringed. She would need real nutrition to bring her voice back.

More gibberish.

She scooped up the blupe. Slapped it against the bulkhead, gave it a little shake and asked it again.

Nothing.

She tossed the blupe in the recycling chute.

She picked up the other blupe.

They are all broken

She turned to see the red blupe emerging from beneath the command console.

The blues, they’re all broken.

She looked at the blupe in her hand, shrugged, and tossed it in the recycling chute.

“Where is the commander?” She asked. Her voice was coming back. She moved to the nutrition station and plugged in.

Engineering, or what’s left of it.

The sweet nectar hit her bloodstream.

Shit, she thought.

Still sucking nutrition, she called up the external visuals of engineering. Half of engineering was missing. It was as if something had taken a bite out of ship.

I shut off the fuel systems to prevent a catastrophic event.

“Good call”, she said.

Reviewing the navigation data she discovered they were off course. Dramatically off course.

“Have we missed a burn.”

The burn is four weeks overdue.

“Crap.”

Yes.

“Why did you wait so long to wake us up?”

I took me quite some time to generate a working blue. The memory of the blues seems corrupted.

“The downside of specialization.”

Perhaps.

She scrolled through the navigation predictions. Nothing but empty space though there was a star system which might have enough resources. She called up the information on the system.

G2V system. Structurally stable. Gas megastores in the outer zone. Abundant debris belt. Inner zone of heavy metals. Biosphere anomolies. Unexplored.

They needed a burn to adjust course. They’d also need a deceleration burn to get into orbit.

“I’m going to see the commander.”

I will continue my work to reboot the blues.

Engineering was down three decks and then a long walk to the main propulsion nodule.

About halfway there, she met the commander coming back.

“How bad is it?” She said.

“Bad, but I think we can salvage the maneuvering engine.” He said, “I have the bots stripping gear from the landers to find enough parts to cobble together a stable fuel system. If we need to we’ll send them outside to see if anything else is salvageable.”

“Mind if I have a look.” She asked.

“Suit yourself.” He said. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

She continued to the engineering bay.

Inside several engineering bots were working on the fuel system. A pile of piping and other equipment lay on the deck. The bulkhead shared with the primary engineering space was patched with large plates. The patches looked ad-hoc but stable. The lights surrounding the hatch to the upper engineering space blinked blue, indicating a vacuum on the other side.

“How long?” She asked.

“A couple of days.” Said the bot.

“A couple?”

“2 days. 13 hours. 47 minutes. Not accounting for problems or the discovery of new damage.”

rBlat4 returned to the navigation system and informed it of the status of the engines and the delay in thrust application.

The system calculated a solution for solar orbit in the nearby system, not too close, out near the fifth planet. She fired off four probes to race ahead and gather system information.

…

It took five months for the burn to adjust course and stabilize the orbit. The fifth planet’s satellites together with the debris belt provided sufficient resources to begin repairs on the hull. The bots were hard at work.

The plan was to build additional fuel storage so the less powerful maneuvering engine would have sufficient resources to allow the journey to continue.

The gas giant was unsuitable for harvesting even though it had abundant fuel sources. The gravity well was too strong for the bots’ simple propulsion. The moons’ resources, however, could be harvested relatively quickly and turned into fusion fuel. It would be slow, but possible.

Meanwhile, the commander had taken an unhealthy interest in the inner planets. Everything they needed could be found in the outer zone. Yes, it was rather dull, but there was no need to mess with the gravitational and electromagnetic forces of the inner system. Boredom was the siren of adventure.

Life existed in two places in the system. On the second planet, microbial life eked out an existence under crushing pressure and blistering temperatures.

The biosphere of the third planet held a carbon-based life form like themselves. The probes classified them as late Class 3 thought they didn’t fit neatly into the category. They had recently discovered fission but weren’t using it in any material manner. They lacked any spacefaring ability. Vast areas of their major population areas were scorched by conflict. Analysis indicated there was a roughly equal chance of systematic destabilization or a leap to space travel.

The commander would take a lander and disappear for days. It was easy to track his jaunts to the other planets. Contacts with alien species was forbidden for a variety of health and safety reasons. This was especially true for lesser life forms.

Eventually the commander’s travels focused on the third planet. He’d spend days orbiting the planet gathering data. He was especially fond of their audio transmissions. Mostly entertainment but there was some intelligence that could be gathered from “news”.

…

“Red has gotten the blues functional again. They can take care of operational matters while we’re gone,” he said, “and the bots just run themselves. Come on!”

This was the latest in the commander’s entreaties to join him on a trip to the third planet.

What he said was true. Most of rBlat4’s time was spent studying the stars. Nothing new was discovered; this part of the universe had been explored generations ago. All the worthwhile systems had been deeply explored.

She stared at the commander mulling it over. This was against regulations, but she was not the commander. She was just following orders, right?

“Let’s do it.” She said.

Apprehension and excitement combined to generate mild enthusiasm. Perhaps she had been looking at this all wrong.

The flight to the third planet took the better part of a day. They skirted by the “red planet” though there was not much to see. Probes had classified it as a dead rock with sparse resources. Only an idiot would aspire to go there.

The commander approached the third planet from behind its sole satellite.

“Are we avoiding their surveillance?” She asked.

“No,” he said, “they have no such capabilities. It’s just more dramatic if I unveil it to you in this manner.”

And, boom, there it was. He was right. It was a beautiful symphony of colors. As they got closer browns and greens joined the blues and whites. The sharp edge of nighttime revealed a galaxy of hamlets where the carbon-based lifeforms settled.

The commander switched comms to the correct wavelength and the panoply of their entertainment streamed through the audio link. It was strange and beautiful at the same time.

The commander gave her a tour of the things he had seen. The altitude was too high to see details but they could make out a great variety of large settlements, expansive oceans, and frozen ice caps. She was glad she came.

The blue blupe died without fanfare. One moment it was quietly going about its business of managing various automations and the next the automations went offline.

The commander failed to notice for a few minutes as did the red blupe. Without automations, the controls of the craft became sluggish. They were still manageable but required great attention. Unfortunately, that attention had been absent too long.

The red blupe stepped in and restarted the automations. The commander applied thrust to the main engine. Neither of them were quick enough.

The landers, despite their name, were not designed for atmospheric landings. They excelled in the vacuum of space and on low atmosphere locales. Asteroids and small moons were where they worked best. When they encountered the thick air like the third’s atmosphere, they became just another space rock screaming across the sky.

The lander was almost totally destroyed on impact. The commander’s side hit first and most of his body had been abraded away as they skidded and tumbled across the planet’s surface.

rBlat4’s side of the ship suffered less but eventually she was thrown clear as the structure completely disassembled. When she came to, she was still strapped to her seat. A short distance away a white, four-legged life form nibbled at some vegetation. It looked at her, said “Baa”, and went back to its dinner. rBlat4 lost consciousness.

…

When she came to next, it was to the mechanical sound approaching. She unbuckled from her seat and rolled off onto the ground. A short distance away, sat the red blupe.

This is bad, it said.

“Yes.”

The mechanical sound belonged to several wheeled vehicles. Many bipeds emerged from the vehicles.

rBlat4 stood up and waved. The bipeds froze and then retreated back to their vehicles. rBlat4 stood in the full sun of the day. Its warmth was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Home World was so much dimmer. She added extra filtration to her eyes.

Eventually they approached again. They seemed to want to her to join them so, lacking any alternative, she did. The rest of the bipeds began searching the wreckage. The remains of the Commander were carted off.

Sand stuck to the red blupe, camouflaging it against the barren land. It slithered away at top speed disappearing, unnoticed.

Good luck, said the blupe.

This is the end, she responded.

…

It was not the end.

For decades, rBlat4 lived in the cold, sterile environment of her containment. She learned to understand their language but not to speak it. She communicated through a keyboard.

She shared her story. Left parts out that she thought might be too risky for these carbon sacks to understand.

These humans wanted the secrets of fusion propulsion. She was not a rocket scientist, she was an astronomer. She could explain the stars, but not how to get to them. What they really needed was access to the crew, but she wasn’t sharing its existence.

For all she knew they continued to orbit the fifth planet. Or maybe, the bots and blues got them going again and they were on their way to the Galactic Core. The ship never really needed a crew. It was just habit at this point. The machines could do everything.

…

New visitors were rare. On a random day in the depths of her containment a new visitor arrived with great fanfare. Accompanied by many other humans clothed in something other than the standard lab smock, this visitor approached the window.

“Look at this guy. Tremendous head. Big brain. Probably a very smart alien, maybe the smartest. People came up to me, scientists, big scientists, tears in their eyes, saying ‘Sir, we’ve never seen anything like it.’ But I knew. I always knew there was something out there.”

Idiot, she thought.