Breakfast had been tense as everyone knew they’d be jumping into the Mewtal system to find the signal source. Zander had the pilots stay on ready status in the dining room, ready to get to the mecha if needed. Lozat had security in the office, ready to gear up and respond if the situation required them. At the moment, though, most of the tension was on the bridge.
“We’re ready, Captain,” Ping said from her place at navigation.
“Vorsa?” Veldiami asked.
“System is ready to go live if we detect a single threat,” Vorsa rumbled, smoke drifting from his mouth.
“Very well, let us see what we find. Navigation, open the portal to Mewtal.”
“Jump in 3…2…1…Jumping,” Ping counted down, then the ship glided through the opened portal connecting them to the outer edge of the Mewtal system. The moment they were through the portal, the ship was bombarded with transmissions, and every system on Dreams stuttered. The sheer information overload caused even Dreams to stumble while trying to process everything.
“Dreams?” Veldiami called out to her AI.
“Please give me a moment, Captain,” Dreams said tightly.
“Surprised the scout managed to handle this,” Maker added.
Zander sat forward in his seat. He was on the bridge watching the screen. At the moment, he could see the planets in the system ahead of them and the sun's dot. Somewhere closer in, though, was the problem.
Maker, Zander asked her silently, how bad is it?
Terrible, Maker replied. Think white noise, with faint bits of jumbled phone lines beneath it, all in different languages. It is enough shit that it really does jam up an AI's process as it demands attention. And that bit is the most important part. This has Antecedent coding in it.
That made Zander sit back in his seat. Anything Antecedent-related would be big.
“Captain, we’re drifting out of the system,” Ping said as she watched her station. “I didn’t give a command.”
“That’s Dreams,” Maker said. “We’re seeing if some distance helps.”
“Keep an eye on things, Ping,” Veldiami said.
“I hope it’s not hostile because my station is not functioning properly,” Vorsa murmured.
“Captain,” Gravtemo’s voice came over the comm, “energy output has increased by 25%, and I haven’t touched anything.”
“Dreams is trying to stabilize what she can, just monitor and react if you feel there is a danger,” Veldiami replied.
“Understood.”
“Zander,” Crish’s voice connected via his comm array, “Maker is asking for all of our AIs to help. Is everything okay up there?”
“At the moment, yes. It’s just tangled and loud, according to her. She likely wants to help offload some of it to help sift through things.”
“Copy that.”
The tension had ratcheted up as the AIs struggled to deal with the signal. But slowly, the stations on the ship began to clear. Ping’s was first, then Vorsa’s, and then one by one, every part of the ship reported in that things were fine. Engineering never reported a problem, aside from Dreams pulling more energy.
“Captain, we’ve managed to pin down the frequencies that were being the most disruptive,” Dreams finally announced. “We can report that there is a clear indication of Antecedent technology behind it.”
That got Veldiami to lean forward slightly. “Do we have anything more than that?”
“Not yet,” Maker said. “You may want to gather the officers, Captain. By the time they are with you, we should have made slightly more sense of what we’ve got.”
“Very well,” Veldiami said. “Dreams, please inform them.”
The officers on the bridge stood up, and their subordinates took over the stations. Gravtemo, Lozat, Sage, and Gravtina would have to come up to the briefing room. Zander stayed seated for an extra moment; the only reason he could see for calling the officers up was to contain something. Dreams and Maker could explain things to everyone on the ship as easily as they could in the briefing room. It would just be the holographic table that was missing, which made him think what they wanted to share was big news and potentially dangerous.
Getting to his feet last, Zander followed the others. He took a seat at the table as they waited for the other officers to arrive from across the ship. They arrived one by one, with Gravtemo being the last one in the door.
Dreams started explaining the moment he sat. “We are certain the signal has Antecedent origins. But what we’ve been able to untangle makes no sense. The signal was a jumbled mess that took time to skim the pure noise out of. Honestly, Maker and I think that the comm array being used is damaged.”
“That is what makes the most sense considering the sheer static and unintelligible noise,” Maker said. “What is unnerving is that under that noise are at least a dozen other signals. All of them are broken, so we’re only getting bits and pieces of what is being sent.”
“Can you piece any of it together?” Gravtemo asked.
“Not enough to give us anything solid, not yet. If we go closer and listen, we might catch more and be able to start puzzling them out.”
“The best plan we’ve come up with,” Dreams took over again, “is a slow, steady approach with both myself and Maker focused on one signal at a time. We’re talking the slowest crawl into the system that we can manage, just in case the signal gets loud again. This way, we can back off again and scrape away more useless static, if needed. Whatever is sending the signal is powerful.”
“Are we talking about a base on a planet, a station, or some kind of massive ship?” Zander asked.
“It has to be something of substantial size and power,” Maker said. “Any one of those three is possible. This isn’t anything like a cruiser drifting in space.”
“And it’s damaged?” Vorsa asked.
“With how degraded and unstable the signal is, I’d think so,” Maker said.
“We should stay on at least moderate alert the entire time while we close with whatever it is,” Vorsa said.
“You have a solid point,” Veldiami said. “At the same time, if we’re going in slowly, I don’t want to burn our people out. Pick subordinates and have them go rest. Blurb can give them light sedatives to enforce the rest. It might be best to have them in medical so Blurb and Gurgle can help them sleep and then wake them when needed.”
The others nodded, but Zander’s eyebrows went up at that. Medically induced sleep and wakefulness were just oddities to him, especially being ordered so casually. He kept his mouth shut on it, though, as it wasn’t his place and his people weren’t included in that order.
“Zander, your pilots can stand down for now,” Veldiami went on. “Lozat, same with security. Have the normal rotation start again.”
“Copy that,” Zander said.
“Understood, Captain,” Lozat replied.
“Gravtina and Sage, both your departments can be eased back to normal readiness.” The pair gave her acknowledgements before Veldiami continued. “Dreams, is there anything else we can do to assist?”
“Not at the moment, Captain. Maker and I are still working on things. If I need extra help, I should be able to ask for it, not just take it now. I do apologize to Ping and Gravtemo for that.”
“You were doing what was needed,” Ping said. “I won’t fault you for keeping us safe.”
“It was disconcerting,” Gravtemo said, “but it didn’t trigger any alarms. I was just watching the board and saw the change. A little warning would be appreciated, though, so we know it’s intentional.” His eyes were crinkled slightly; he was not as okay with it as he said he was.
“I will do my best on that count,” Dreams said.
“Then until we have more news, let’s get back to work,” Veldiami said.
Everyone got up to head out, but Zander stayed seated, thinking about what had been said. Veldiami also didn’t go when she saw him still seated. She waited for a minute before she walked over to lean against the table beside him, which finally pulled his distant gaze to her.
“Problems?” Veldiami asked.
“Maker,” Zander said slowly. “When we chatted before, you said it sounded like a dozen voices in different languages under all the static. Is that still the case?”
“Yes,” Maker said. “I’m trying to isolate the strongest of them and dial in on it. If we can get one of them clearly, I hope it’ll give us a hint of what is going on. It is Antecedent-based. The background signal, while damaged, still pings me. It’s a verified signal according to my code. The fact that it is damaged makes me worry about what caused the damage. This should be too far into the held regions to be Entoma. But if something damaged whatever this is…”
“Fun times,” Zander said as he stood up. “Entoma or something else, we’ll deal with it once we know what the fuck is happening. Are there any records of scouts through this system before?”
“Two, with nothing reported,” Maker said. “I did check. The last was thirty years ago. There was nothing here to warrant interest in the system. Both were quick scans at the edge of the system.”
“So this signal is new, or something happened, and it started broadcasting.”
“I don’t think either of those is ideal,” Veldiami said.
“If whatever is sending came into the system, it means it has propulsion,” Zander said. “Making it a ship. If it were here and started broadcasting, something would have happened to it while it sat there silently. Out of the two. I’d rather something new than something that woke up.”
“Because if it was something that was content to sit silently that recently woke up, whatever happened was catastrophic to make it begin signaling,” Veldiami said.
“The joys of sci-fi horror stories,” Zander chuckled darkly. “Either way, we’ll likely be finding a clusterfuck. The only real questions become, how dangerous is it, and can we handle it?”
“Neither of which is a pleasant question.”
Zander shrugged, then pulled her into a hug. “We’ll handle what we have to. I have a mission to complete beyond this one.”
Veldiami held him as she exhaled softly. Zander’s drive to kill the Entoma was steadying in its own way. He would claw and scrape a path through anything to see it done. That determination helped settle the unease she’d felt.
“And Dreams will be with you the entire time,” Veldiami murmured.
“And her captain, and our family,” Zander murmured, then leaned back enough to tilt her head so he could kiss her.