Read Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3) Online
Authors: S. H. Jucha
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Alien Invasion, #First Contact, #Space Opera
Cordelia cleverly laid the three individuals into a threaded matrix, much like two strands of DNA would entwine, except this was for three strands. She laid them out in a time sequence allowing Alex and the SADEs to identify that when one particular individual spoke, all other individuals were quiet. Alex labeled that individual the group’s leader. The other individuals Cordelia had mapped had responded to the leader at different times.
Edouard, who had been on bridge duty for two and half hours, was startled by his Admiral bolting out of the command chair and racing off the bridge after having been sitting absolutely still the entire time.
Having seen this level of intensity before from his friend, Julien did two things. He intuited where Alex was headed and sent messages to individuals along the route to clear the way.
At least our people aren’t panicked anymore when they see their Admiral sprinting.
He sent a second message to Renée.
Renée stepped into a ship suit and boots and left her cabin for the meal room, calculating the number of volunteers she would need to wake to feed a hungry group of New Terrans and Méridiens, not to mention Alex. She had once joked to Alex, seemingly a lifetime ago, that she would fabricate a special half-meter meal plate for him.
Perhaps I should have had a good ten or twenty of them fashioned
, she thought.
Alex found only two techs in the suite, asleep at their benches, and he paced back and forth, waiting for the return of his senior people. When they did arrive, Alex stared at their bleary eyes and hastily donned ship suits and realized his error. He raised his hands out in an apologetic gesture, but Mickey interrupted him.
“You needn’t bother, Admiral. We can sleep when we finish saving the universe, or at least this corner of it. What do you need from us?”
Alex looked at the people assembled before him, Mickey, his flight Chief, and the techs they had woken up, who wore expectant faces. He shrugged and accepted his guilt, tucking it aside. Alex sent Cordelia’s woven matrix to them, demonstrating the interplay of conversations. He explained the frequency scale with its notations for modulation of the notes that was the heart of the matrix. Alex could see by the silence that greeted the revelation that it was too much for them to absorb. No intuitive leaps were going to be forthcoming.
“People,” Alex explained, “we need to start a dialog … a dialog at the most fundamental level. First, we must get them to understand that we want to communicate and learn from them.” He looked at their faces, and it dawned on him that as a people, New Terran or Méridien, they were technicians not linguists. Worse, for each society, there had been only the one common base language.
Alex began to pace again, thinking fiercely. His people watched him pace the room and waited.
“Okay, we start with the universal language, mathematics. Mickey, I want to ping the hull with one ping, pause, two pings, pause, three pings,” Alex requested.
“Can do, Admiral,” Mickey replied, happy to have a definitive direction.
He and the techs spent a few moments setting up the process. Claude selected a clear, clean tone from Cordelia’s matrix and had Julien load it in the monitoring instrument. Meanwhile, Julien opened channels to Cordelia, Z, and Mutter to relay all future data from the silver ship. Then Claude programmed the sequence the Admiral had requested and sent it to the audio pickup on the silver ship’s hull. Moments later, the audio pickup relayed the sounds of tapping on the ship’s inner hull, repeating the sequence they had sent.
Mickey and Stan gave Alex huge grins, ecstatic with their success, but their smiles faded when they saw the frown on Alex’s face.
“Claude, send it again,” Alex ordered.
Again, they received the same tapping response. Alex waited until he thought he had made the point he wanted to make, then ordered Claude to repeat the signal. This time there was no immediate tapping. Alex held his breath, hoping he had gotten through to the aliens. Over the audio speakers, they heard three clear, different notes.
“Yes!” Alex said, punching the air. “Claude, send a set of three more pulses with four pings, pause, five pings, pause, six pings. Every time you get a successful response in audible tones, increment the pulses until you reach one hundred. Change nothing else.”
“Understood, Admiral,” Claude said, realizing what Alex had been trying to accomplish, a simple dialog.
Mutter took a brief tick to reorder her protocols that governed communication with the Admiral. Her comm protocols were now changing regularly after rarely changing in decades. She found the process invigorating, an uncommon sensation for her.
<“First,” Admiral,> Cordelia said excitedly.
Monitoring the Engineering Suite, Julien picked up a view of the Admiral and relayed it to his fellow SADEs. They saw him sit heavily in a chair, clap his hands together, and break into a huge smile. Then they watched his smile slowly fade to be replaced by a frown.
Cordelia’s idea was borne of her art.
When Alex closed his comm to direct the building of a laser projector, Julien sent a quick message to Renée that the engineering staff was building again and Alex was free of comms.
* * *
Renee woke a few people to help her deliver food and drink to the engineering team. Her message raced through the crew, waking most from their sleep, and she was surprised by the number of volunteers. Everyone wanted to watch the historic event unfold in person—humans’ first communications with aliens.
In a rare adoption of their cousins’ trait, Pia broadcast to the entire crew, except those in engineering, sending,
The SADEs kept their ships’ Directors, Captains, officers, crew, and passengers apprised of the engineering team’s progress. Tomas, Lina, and Captain Cordova were so entranced by the event that they listened on the
Freedom
’s bridge, as if being away from the immediate vicinity of Cordelia would lessen the event’s reality. There were two special guests on the
Freedom
’s bridge, as requested by Renée. Tomas had contacted the young Librans, relaying the directive,
Both had been overcome by the personage of a Co-Leader recognizing them, children of their people. Eloise had replied,
Amelia and Eloise now sat in crew members’ chairs, marveling at the enormous bridge display, a sight neither had expected to see for many years, if ever. That Ser had requested their presence still baffled them, but the manner in which they were treated made them feel special.
Eloise recalled the final words of her great-grandmother, “Keep him close.” Fiona Haraken had always been a powerful presence among the Librans, and Eloise intended to honor her great-grandmother’s final request, which she found came easy to her. She was proud of her Admiral. He had liberated her people and he had kept them close, accepting them as his responsibility. Now, even though he was frightening many of the Librans by communicating with their great enemy, it was his supposition that was being proven correct—the inhabitants of the silver ships would speak with him.
Captain Lazlo Menlo, First Mate Ahmed Durak, and Commander Sheila Reynard hovered around the
Money Maker’s
bridge speakers, following Mutter’s every transmission. Captain Menlo felt very proud of the role his elderly SADE was playing. Her penchant for ancient symphonic music was reaping great rewards, and every time Mutter added progress to the investigation, Lazlo playfully punched the arm of his First Mate. When Mutter equated the number “one” to the title of the fighter’s leader, which Cordelia recognized as “First,” Lazlo swung his arm out only to find empty air. When he looked around, Ahmed was standing on the other side of him, smiling politely at him.
The Libran flotilla watched the events aboard the
Rêveur
unfold in real time, which gave Julien the idea to take the Admiral’s concept of keeping the people informed one step further. Every three hours, following the capture of the silver ship, Julien edited a summary of the events into a tight vid package and sent an FTL comm to New Terra. The first comm arrived at New Terra’s FTL station ten days later.
The SADEs aboard the
Unsere Menschen
, the three liners, and the freighter were the first to pick up Julien’s transmission. It had been twenty-five days since the flotilla had left for Arnos. The SADEs distributed the vids to the Director and Captains, who wasted no time approving them for broadcast to the crew and passengers. Every three hours, work on the ships would come to a halt, food utensils would be set down, and children would crowd around vid displays to watch the newest vid.
When the first vid was distributed aboard the
Unsere Menschen
, arriving in the middle of the work day, the New Terran contract workers were bewildered by the Librans who literally froze in mid-motion. Z, who now had many of his sensory systems in place, saw the confusion on the part of the contract workers and recalled his lessons from Julien and Cordelia. He sent the vid to every screen in the ship, and the contract workers and Libran children gathered around to watch and listen. Upon discovering that the vids would arrive continually every three hours, many of the contract workers stayed after work hours to watch the latest installments.
Making one of his most adventuresome decisions, Z contacted President Gonzalez in her office when he received the first compressed vid.
Maria smiled to herself. She was acquainted with Z and Cordelia from her communications with Julien. Z was as advertised. “Z, you’re already speaking with me,” Maria replied. She couldn’t help but enjoy each and every contact with a Méridien SADE again. She missed Julien … and Alex.
“Z, if I may interrupt, you may address me as ‘President Gonzalez’ or ‘Madam President,’” Maria replied.
“Have we lost ships, Z?” Maria asked.
“Six!” Maria exclaimed. “But Alex only took four ships.”
Maria sat back in her chair, deflated.
Alex is losing
, she thought. She had hoped with all her might that Alex would prevail over the silver ships. “Z, I’m not sure a vid of the loss of the Daggers would be something I would like to see, nor my people come to think about it.”
Z explained, wondering why the President would think he should have it.
“You don’t? Then what are you offering me, Z?”
Alex speaking with the aliens ... Maria processed the phrase several times before she started laughing and kept laughing until she started choking. Concerned staff rushed into her office, one carrying a glass of water. She waved them off.