This entire tale is taking on more of a life than I thought it ever would. Maybe I should get it a birth certificate and start claiming it as a dependent.
The Noah ship was picking up faint
signals from the assembled device they had left behind on Earth so
many centuries ago. There was no coherent message, but the fact a
signal was being broadcast was encouraging. The communications
panels were double staffed on all shifts in anticipation of the need
to send messages back and forth between the ship and the planet.
This meant personnel had to be diverted from other duties. The
captain and other officers all agreed that, given their location and
situation, it was deemed sufficient to have one individual cover both
sensor scan reports and engineering monitors. Both systems were
expected to be a low priority for some time. The engines were in a
low power cruise mode until a response from Earth prompted
acceleration to a higher speed for the rescue effort. Since the
Drag'kon weren't expected to arrive for some time, there shouldn't be
any changes in the reports from standard system scans. Unfortunately
this meant a series of ionic fluctuations passing near Saturn were
missed by someone who was looking at engine temperatures at that
moment.
The politicians were doing what they
seemed to be experts at, arguing. Their entire responsibility was to
compose a message from all the peoples of Earth. In quick order,
they had agreed to accept whatever help the Noah had to offer.
However, the issue of a planetary evacuation would be tabled until
such a time as the presence, or even the existence, of the Drag'kon
could be proven. It was the composition and content of the message
that was being thoroughly discussed. Each figure felt writers from
their homeland should be featured in the message. Initial sections
and passages were developed and compromises made. Later segments
would be introduced, and accepted only if words that had been agreed
upon earlier were changed. This entire process was repeated and
repeated until it was the subject of numerous comedian monologues and
bets were being placed with Las Vegas odds-makers. If any of them
knew the importance of information that was only now coming to light,
they would put their differences aside and urge the Noah to hurry and
save all of humanity.
Darryl had finally sorted through most
of his personal emails despite numerous interruptions from scientific
inquiries regarding his discovery of the alien device's nature.
While he couldn't offer any additional technical insights, it was his
ability to recognize patterns and familiarity with the Noah's
broadcast that made him a celebrity around the frozen base. Now that
he finally had a few minutes to himself, he could see what his cousin
was so interested in that she felt he should know about it and not
her superiors at NASA. The message was rather brief. She had picked
up something strange in the data relays from robotic probes on Mars.
The bulk of the email was attachments of data files and transcripts
of the data streams with the strange interruptions. Darryl's cousin
just asked if it was possible he could share the information with one
of the scientists on the base. She had no idea how many of them
would be willing to look at pretty much anything he put before them.
Behind their stealth tech and
maneuvers, the Drag'kon were monitoring the Noah closely and
positioning themselves for battle. Shield generators were charged
and ready to be activated. Photonic energy weapons were primed.
Electromagnetic pulse devices were loaded into their tubes for
launching into the Earth's atmosphere. Attack patterns and
contingency plans were formed and entered into the combat computers.
All of this was accomplished as Saturn's rings shrank in the view
from behind the fleet and Jupiter grew before them. The level of
excitement from the pending battle, regardless of how one-sided it
seemed, was on a constant rise.
Leave a comment and let me know if you think, once the story is done, it should be developed and edited into its own book for publication.
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