Breach

fiction by michael werneburg

2002.07.26

Lieutenant Ilyana Marl stared at her console in dismay. There were an astonishing number of warnings here, more than she'd ever seen when inspecting one of the Corporation's toxic waste repository planets. Aliens had gotten into their repository. "10:23; I'm engaging the subtime engine," she announced. "Going down to 97% of the speed of nominal time."

She dragged a slider and let her console read her thumbprint. A faint shimmer passed through the ship as the subtime field was established. Any outside observer would have seen nothing but now might be astonished to see them suddenly move a great distance away in a heartbeat, or disappear altogether. On the other hand, if they moved to supertime, an outside observer might see them moving only very slowly. Trying to work out what was happening when parties were moving through time at different speeds sometimes took concentration. She chose subtime to give them more time to react and gain an advantage over any hostiles.

She glanced at it as the Ensign in the chair a meter to her right and saw him observing his screen with a similar look of concern. She gave him a warm smile, and said, "Let's not panic just yet."

With a wave at a folder in her heads-up display, she opened a report template and a pre-intervention checklist and sent both of those from her console to the main display with a gesture. She realized she was going to have to submit a report that would bring a lot of attention from Command and eventually all of Corporate. Everything she did now would matter, from following protocol to maintaining a positive and constructive atmosphere among the staff. Moreover, everything she did today would be scrutinized afterward, potentially leading to unforeseen ramifications. All of this with her Captain on leave and the unsuitable Prince aboard as a 'guest Captain'.

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and called out to the ship's AI. "Mother, please start populating the report as the figures come in," she asked.

The ship's neutral voice said, "Of course, Lieutenant." The two humans watched the report's various columns and boxes start to fill, and some written English begin to take shape.

"Concise language, please," she asked it. "And lean toward formal rather than informal, but not too stuffy, please. Approximate my written style where you can."

"My pleasure, Lieutenant."

Now; keeping the staff engaged and positive. She turned to the Ensign and told him, "We're going to have to get the entire checklist done. With this much red on the dashboard we're almost certainly doing an intervention. Our initial report alone is going to attract attention, let alone what happens if we intervene. These things must be taken seriously, but Ensign I want to be clear, we shall not panic, and we shall not suffer as a result of this. This will be challenging, but let's uphold our dignity."

"Understood." He nodded once, then to her surprise quoted the Tenets: «Let even hardships teach us.»

Her hand going to her heart, she said, «Why, Terrence, that's perfect!»

She admired him for a moment. They were from the same sect, and she had agreed to have him on her shift to ease his transition to the space-faring way of life far from their cherished community and traditions. He had a youthful, slender build and a stiff, conscientious demeanor. His surname, Hiram, was of note because in their sect it was occasionally given to orphans. As he worked, the Ensign was sitting very straight and stroking the edge of his console absently as if stimulating himself to calm himself.

When he didn't add anything else, she stood, did some simple stretches, took a deep breath and looked around the deck, taking stock. The cramped deck of the Virga had three chairs, including the Captain's chair behind them. Each had a console before it, and the curved hull before them was at once transparent and a display. The scuffed white deck and worn rear bulkhead with three doors showed signs of years of use. Willing herself to calm, she drew a breath through her nose but paused briefly halfway only to then completely draw the breath. She then exhaled through pursed lips.

She reached for the touch screen on her wristwatch and executed the command she'd prepared. The two other crew members that completed the ship's complement would be woken by the lights in their cabins gradually coming on, and a soothing set of natural sounds like water running and bird calls.

That done, she resumed her review of the bridge. Most of the light on the bridge came through the transparent hull before and above them. Dominating the view was a large planet, equally covered in land and water. Its alien beauty contrasted with Marl's growing misgivings about what might be happening down there. They were now parked in the planet's shadow, but the atmosphere was refracting plenty of light from the system's twin suns. The tall young Ensign had wiped a cloth on the transparent hull to deal with the moisture, that the air system couldn't quite eradicate. His effort had worked but had left some faint smears that made it clear where the hull was. He'd surprised her with that despite her previous warnings. She forced herself to ignore it and focus on the matter at hand, reminding herself that small distractions could lead to larger, very real, failures.

Ensign Hiram, looking up from his console, said, "10:25. From the pattern of lights visible on the planet’s surface and the discovery of a small number of artificial satellites, it is clear a type I or possibly type II civilization has found planet designated Downspin 458, Rimward 178, North 47."

He was reading into the log. Marl nodded her approval. A type II civilization was one that could harness all of the energy emitted by its star. She didn't see any kind of superstructure around the solar system that suggested that, but they had to bear in mind that this might be nothing more than a fledgling colony by the standards of this race.

"Lieutenant, protocol states that we must now inform our superior officer."

"Yes. I've just triggered Xin and Eisberg to be woken. As for superior officer, well, our Captain's been reassigned to make way for our royal charge. Waking the Prince will have to do."

Taking the hint, he stood and said, "It is 10:27. I am rousing Prince Tensom."

She watched him head for the bulkhead doors before turning to her console. After two years of working with the Captain, she regretted their sudden separation. The Captain had maintained a good atmosphere and balance among the senior crew members, who had all made Lieutenant and who could between them butt heads in his absence. The Prince, with no field or space experience and seemingly no prior job, would need managing along with the ship.

The barely audible white noise from the console went dead for a second or two, which it always did prior to the AI initiating conversation. Sure enough, Mother had made contact with autonomous systems at the repositories. All but one were intact, though there were signs of alien activity near some of the intact ones that normally would cause concern. But one repository had actually been opened. Like most repositories, it contained toxic industrial waste carefully maintained by Waste Control.

Regarding the planet, she decided she needed to know more about events on the ground. "10:28. Sending the probes to the planet's surface," she said, and entered the sequence and authorization into her ocular heads-up display. Each probe would be safely hidden from detection within its own subtime field. With time passing more slowly inside the field, they would be practically invisible and any radar hit would be faint, dilated, and nonsensical to any observer that lacked similar subtime technology.

Behind her, the Ensign knocked on the Prince’s bulkhead door a second time. The Lieutenant was sure, some drama would ensue. She liked young Hiram and admired his youthful discipline. But she suspected his by-the-book ways might not survive long exposure to the likes of the Prince.

As the Ensign tried to rouse the Prince, Marl continued through the checklist. Knowing that they would have to send word back to the Corporation within minutes, she also warmed up the long-range communications equipment.

"Mother," she called, again. "Please add a standard coded message to indicate our intent to intervene."

"Commencing," said the androgynous voice from hidden speakers around the bridge.

As the AI busied itself with that, the Lieutenant started to surveil radio and television signals emerging from the planet. She already knew what she'd find; it was clear from the pattern of lights around the planet that a colony of hundreds of millions of aliens had sprouted since the Terra Corporation had left its waste here.

The open channels filled with a chaotic mix of voices and music. She spun up some low-level AI analyst sequences to hunt for facts among the cacophony. But something caught her ear, and she brought a certain signal to the fore. It was music that sounded for all the world like a pop tune that had hit the charts when she was a young woman. To lighten the mood, she turned up the volume, turned to the face the Ensign, and said, "You old enough to remember this?"

"Um, yes," the younger man said, still waiting for the Prince. "My brother had that album."