Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (44 page)

Mike chuckled and looked out the window as they drove to the airport.  He wondered how much joking was going to be going on in the coming year.  He figured people better laugh now while they could.

Chapter 51

February 11
th
, 2043

Elpis Geosynchronous Orbit

Colonel Pierce watched his instruments like a hawk as Second Lieutenant Jason Greco, his young co-pilot, settled the David Honstein into geosynchronous orbit over the planet Elpis.  The Colonel had drilled his crew continuously since they had performed a swing around Earth’s moon and entered a trajectory to reach orbit over Elpis as it swung around the sun on its own initial orbit.  He was very satisfied with his crew.  Out of twenty crew members, six had been straight from the space academy.  Six had been pulled off of the Lunar Tugs and the other ten had flown at least one mission on a Montgomery class ship.  The first three weeks had been very nerve racking and frustrating, but finally
, in the last two weeks the crew had started clicking as one team.  All in all, the crew did not look too bad.  The other young Greco twin, Second Lieutenant Allan Greco had been working on his simulator for the Elpis lander and robots since they had left Earth orbit.  It was about time to make this mission worth its cost.

Lt Jason Greco, intensely aware his commander was watching every move he made, sat back in his seat.  “Colonel, we are in geosynchronous orbit above the target area.  The plateau is directly below us.  We have burned thirty seven percent of our inert fuel since leaving Earth orbit.”

“Very well, Lieutenant.  You did a good job getting us in orbit.”

“Comms, this is Colonel Pierce, please signal Alpha Station that we are parked in GSO above the target area.  Inform them we will be conducting a radar sweep of the plateau around the target zone to find the best place to put the lander down.”

He pressed the ship’s intercom button and announced, “All ship personnel, you may secure from maneuvering stations.”

“Lieutenant, you have the con.  I want to talk to the sensor team before we stand down.  I want to be absolutely certain there is nothing in orbit up here with us that could threaten this ship that was not detected from Earth.”

Colonel Pierce unbuckled his seat harness and pushed up and over his seat and pulled himself down the handrail to the operations level just below the pilot station.  Specialist Martin was already conducting a radar sweep of Elpis orbit.  Colonel Pierce leaned over him to look at his display.  “Martin, if there is anything bigger than a grain of sand anywhere near an intercept course with us, I want to know about it.  As soon as you finish the sweep of orbital space, you can start the scan of the plateau around the target area.  We need a nice flat area for that lander to set down on.”

The Colonel floated over to Specialist Ashworth who was deploying and focusing the ship's telescope imager on the target area.  The display was showing nothing the bright cloud layer of Elpis.  “Any luck seeing through those clouds, Ashworth?”

“No sir.  For the past two weeks, the entire planet has just about been socked in with clouds.  All that water vapor from the ice melting is mixing with colder air from the Polar Regions and then encountering the warming water around the equator.  That is really cranking up the fog.  I am glad I won’t be the one to have to be flying a lander into that soup.”  The Colonel nodded his head.

The Colonel pushed over to the center handrail and pulled himself through the habitation and mess area down to engineering.  He found second Lieutenant Allan Greco running diagnostics on his lander.  “Well Lieutenant, as soon as we find you a landing area you are going to get a chance to fly that thing for the first time for real.  Let’s hope the simulator is like the real thing.”

Lt Greco just grinned.  “Sir, you find me a flat piece of dirt as big as a football field and I will get her down in one piece.”

“Lieutenant, let me give you some advice.  As much as we train, as much as we plan and try to envision everything that could possibly go wrong, nothing ever goes totally right.  Take my word for it.  When I was on the mission to try out the thrust control pods on a real asteroid, the engineers had ensured us that they had planned for everything.  If it had not been for my mission specialist riding them down like a cowboy on a wild bronco, they would not have worked.  Your lander is a prototype, it was never meant to actually fly on an alien planet. The crawler and airship have also never been used except for some basic concept trials on Earth. They are supposed to work, but let’s withhold judgment until they are actually on the ground and giving us data.”

“I am sorry sir; I am just excited to finally be able to do what I have been training for.  It about killed me when I was not chosen to be a ship’s pilot. Instead, someone at headquarters decided they wanted me to be a remote craft pilot.  Until now, all I have been doing is practice, practice and more practice.  I am not cocky sir, just anxious and ready to do my thing.”

“You’ll get your chance in about eight hours’ time son.  Just make sure that the lander is ready to go.”

Colonel Pierce was getting ready to drop down to the engineering deck when the ships intercom clicked.  “Colonel, this is Martin, I think you need to get up here to operations right away.”

Remembering what he had just told Lieutenant Allan Greco, Colonel Pierce groaned and grabbed the handrail and pulled up the rail for operations.  When he got there, about half of the crew was standing behind Specialist Martin.  They parted for the Colonel as he floated over and one of the female engineering specialists grabbed his arm and steadied him until he grabbed the back of Martin’s seat.

“It started about five minutes after I started scanning the plateau, sir.”

“What do you have Martin?” the Colonel asked.  Specialist Martin reached over and touched a blinking indicator on his control panel.  The intercom system starting sounding a sequence of chirping beats.  The sequence completed and then went silent, then started repeating itself again. 

“It seems to be some sort of beacon sir.  It is playing the same sequence over and over,” said specialist Martin.

“It could be some sort of automated beacon from the alien ship,” said Lt Allan Greco as he arrived behind the Colonel.

Specialist Martin shook his head.  “Maybe, but look at this, the transmission is on the exact same frequency as our radar.  That is too coincidental.  Whatever is sending this, has analyzed our radar frequency, and then started sending the pulses out on the exact same frequency.  It is almost like it is trying to get our attention by using our own pulse frequency.”

“Has the sequence changed at all?” asked the Colonel.

“No sir, just a quick blurt of pulses, then a second higher number of pulses, then it goes back to a lower number but one higher than the last.  Finally, after a series of ninety two pulses followed by two hundred and thirty eight pulses it starts over again.”

The Colonel stared at the display trying to determine how this changed his mission parameters.  He figured he better get on a secure channel to with Earth.  The time delay was going to make it a bitch to hold a conversation with Alpha Control.

“Hey Martin, print out that complete sequence of signals for me,” Specialist Nunn from engineering said.  Martin reached over and activated his printer as the sequence started over and printed it out.

Specialist Nunn took it and read it aloud thoughtfully; “1/1, 2/4, 3/6, 4/9, 5/10, 6/12, all the way up to 92/238.  Finally, his face brightened and he said, “Whoever designed that beacon signal was pretty smart.  It was definitely meant to get someone’s attention that was not particularly looking for it,” said Nunn with a grin.  This is high school stuff.”

Everyone turned and stared at him.  “What do you mean?” asked Colonel Pierce.

“Oh, well, sorry sir, I just thought it was a real clever and simple way of saying I am here and I have a reasonably advanced brain.  That beacon is transmitting the periodic table sir.  See it starts with hydrogen.  One proton is hydrogen.  Then two protons and two neutrons for an atomic weight of four is helium.  It runs all the way through the periodic table until it gets to uranium, the last naturally occurring element with ninety two protons and an atomic weight of two hundred and thirty eight.  It’s really quite simple and very clever at the same time.”

They all just stared at him dumbfounded.

“Well, it is!” he exclaimed.

“I’ll be damned,” said Colonel Pierce.  “I believe you are right.”  He shook his head. “Comms, get Alpha Control on a secure channel for me.  You just earned a promotion, Nunn.

…

Robby Tully came running down the hall and crashed into Peter’s office.  “Probe, signal, artifact,” he blurted out and went running back down the hall toward the Elpis Probe control center.

“What the hell?” said Peter.  He went into the hall to see Robby crash into two women in the hallway, shout an apology, and then disappear around the corner.  Peter shook his head and started toward the Elpis probe control room.  He made sure that he walked calmly, as was expected of the JPL director, but he could not help but wonder what had gotten Robby all worked up.  As he arrived in the control center, he saw the whole team was animated and talking among themselves.

“What the heck is going on?” he asked one of the technicians.

“Sorry sir, we are receiving a signal from Elpis.”

“From the probe or the David Honstein?” Peter asked.

“Neither sir, the signal is from the planet’s surface.  We can just barely pick it up here with our ground based antenna, but the probe is relaying the signal and I am sure the Honstein is doing the same.”

Peter walked over and pulled Robby away from a discussion with one of his technicians.  “Can you please explain to me what the heck is going on?  Has the Honstein already sent their lander down to the surface?”

Robby looked at him as if he was a bug on the wall.  “Peter, the Honstein has not sent out their lander yet.  This signal is from the surface and is originating in the area of the artifacts on the plateau. Listen to this!”  Robby reached over and turned up the volume of an instrument.  A series of pulses could be heard; a series of short ones and then longer ones, the pulses seemed to keep increasing in number.  After what seemed like a minute or so they stopped and went back to a lower but still increasing series of pulses.

“Anyone have any idea what they are?” asked Peter.

“They are repetitive.  Could they be a sensor or targeting pulse?” asked Peter.

“No way, they are not a sensor pulse, the signal is too random,” said one of the technicians.  “Sounds more like a beacon to me.”

“Could it be a targeting system?” asked another technician.

“No way,” some else said.  “It is definitely some sort of beacon, unless I am mistaken, the frequency is exactly the same as the David Honstein’s ground mapping radar.”

“When did this signal start?” asked Peter.

“About an hour after the Honstein arrived in orbit. We are not sure, but it probably started about the time the Honstein would have started their ground mapping radar.”

“Is this some sort of coded signal?” asked Peter.

“I am not sure,” said Robby. “It is too repetitive.  It is like a repetitive message is being sent, but we have no idea what it means.  Maybe it is a welcome to Elpis message, from the artifacts.”

“Or it could be a keep the hell away from our planet warning,” replied one of the technicians.

Peter raised his hand.  “Everyone quiet please.  We don’t need wild guesses here.  We need information.  Someone get a linguist in here, and try and see if the computer can identify any type of algorithm in the signal.  Our first priority is to determine if there is a threat to the David Honstein.  There are twenty people on board that ship.  Robby, get those people working on figuring out this signal and find out where on the planet it is coming from.  That planet has been frozen for thousands of years.  I want to know why we are getting this signal now and not before.  I am going to borrow your office in the back here and talk to mission control up on Space Station Alpha and see what the hell is going on up there.”

…

Colonel Ellis walked over to General Seale in the operations center on Space Station Alpha.  “Sir, I have Doctor Rockwell and Doctor Banscott on a secure video conference feed.  They ask that you join them.  I have relayed it to a monitor in a secure room here in the back sir.”  General Seale nodded and went to the back of the operations center and sat down in the secure communication room Colonel Ellis showed him to.  A technician typed a few codes into the control panel there and nodded to the General and left.  The General motioned for Colonel Ellis to stay.

The monitor blinked on showing a split screen with the head of JPL and NASA.  “I assume Doctors, that you are calling to explain the signal we are getting from the artifacts that we were told have been frozen for thousands of years,” General Seale said.

“Obviously, they are not as dead and abandoned as we believed General,” said Mike Banscott.  “We are trying to sort out what the signal is, where it is coming from, and what it means.  We have several linguists and our computers analyzing the signal now.  We believe it is some type of coded beacon.”