Con-Red: Recourse Read online

  The whole world collapsed after that moment. The last thing he felt was the thunderous earthquake move through the entire habitat.

  51 Years Prior

  SS-824 Star System, Uncharted Sector Six

  Hand-in-Friendship FEDC Consulate

  “There it is again,” Laria sighed to herself with a hint of annoyance as her fingers pushed against the earpiece just a little harder. “Every two days now for the past two weeks. I still have no idea what’s going on and neither does the computer.”

  Her entire body existed in a tense state as her mind stormed with frustration. Try as she might, Laria, the chief communications expert on the ball of floating rock that they called the Consulate, couldn’t make heads or tails of the noise coming through the station’s sensors. For the most part she could only tell that the origin was somewhere within the dead solar system. Its exact location, however, was totally illusive for the time being. The static-like transmission always came in second long microbursts and didn’t seem to have any known pattern, except for the sole fact that each series sounded alike.

  “Same static as before?” came a question from behind her, causing Laria to turn quickly towards the room’s entrance.

  In the entrance stood a man leaning against the door frame with a clear cup of dark fluid cupped in his hands. He let out a small smirk at Laria’s fright and blew off some of the steam coming from the top of the cup before taking a sip of the strong coffee. The man was above average in height with a strong lean build and to Laria, a handsome face. His short cut hair could have caused him to get mistaken for a military man, but that was not the case at this junction in his life. At one time he had been a Colonel in the Federation Marine Corp, but he had left that life behind him and instead decided to pursue a career of making peace instead of war. Only a series of wrinkles around his eyes and forehead betrayed his otherwise youthful appearance.

  Laria smiled a little at the man as she calmed down from the surprise and turned back towards the front the Communications and Control room. The ComCon was a relatively small room with a number of monitoring stations crammed together. With completion of the facility having been on such a short timetable there were multiple compromises and design flaws in the layout with the ComCon being one of them. There was nothing anyone could do about the problem and complaining wouldn’t help so they all lived and worked in the confined conditions, usually taking shifts.

  “Same as before, Boss. My gut says it’s not just an anomaly, it just can’t be, but I can’t prove it.” She ran her hand through her long blonde hair and leaned back in her chair slightly, while looking at the rotating holographic image of the SS-824 star system.

  At the center of the projection was a glowing round mass, representing the system’s white dwarf. Around this small star rotated two planets, both rocky and barren, with an asteroid belt spread out between them. Unlike many other asteroid belts, however, this one was fairly miniscule with only a few dozen large planetary chucks and a few hundred small asteroids spread thinly around the star. One of these larger rocks, technically a planetoid, was marked with blue. This was the Hand-in-Friendship Consulate built within what was anticipated to be a neutral star system in the hope of establishing contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. The consulate facility, constructed on the planetoid in the event that any of the planets were previously claimed, was a completely unarmed civilian project that broadcast a message of peace without pause. It also invited these alien beings to come out and establish diplomatic relations with the United Planets Federation.

  There were a great number of Federation citizens that didn’t think diplomatic measures should have been pursued and they weren’t shy about expressing those feelings. After the events that took place at the Odyssia Dig Site, where almost every individual of the expedition disappeared. Search and rescue teams had found only the collapsed and buried remains of the Odyssia facility and a handful of dead. Those recovered bodies were determined to have perished before the destruction of the site and complete disappearance of the rest could not the explained. Suspicions of alien involvement were on the table from that point and finding of trace amounts of foreign particles in the vicinity of the incident only confirmed the hypothesis.

  The military had strained at the leash from that point on. Odyssia, while mostly a civilian site, had been under overall control by a military entity and the military didn’t take kindly to an unprovoked attack against their people. They had started to prepare for war before the civilian government came to the decision of taking a more diplomatic approach in the resolution of the crisis. It didn’t go over too well with the Federation military forces, but they had to follow orders and kept as backup should diplomacy fail. Such was the reason why Hand-in-Friendship was built.

  “Could it be some sort of language?” The Boss, RJ Deckler, responded as he slowly walked into the room and moved towards the small kitchenette area built into the wall.

  “Anything is possible. Maybe if it’s some sort of computer language?” Laria guessed as she keyed in a series of commands and watched the holodisplay change as multiple blinking dots started to appear, one by one, all around the solar system. “It just seems to random Boss. Why would someone trying to communicate do it in that way? Doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  RJ smiled and let out a small laugh as he set down his coffee cup on the countertop and opened one of the hanging cabinets. “Maybe it doesn’t have to make sense to you Laria. We most likely aren’t dealing with begins similar to ourselves. They most like do things their own way, know what I mean? It could be that they don’t understand what we are doing. You remember how apprehensive the Tin’koans were when we showed up out of nowhere and decided to scout their homeworld.

  “We didn’t have Extraterrestrial Diplomatic Corp at that time,” RJ bellowed a laugh and shook his head, “I remember reading the literature. They had to throw out most of the first contact doctrines and start from scratch. Improvisation is the key in these sorts of situations. The rule book had to be almost completely rewritten since that day. We got pretty lucky with the Vsskari, though. I doubt we will meet a more welcome and accepting race anytime soon, but you never know. Of course it helped that their ancestors told stories of visiting beings from the stars. The Kari were pretty much expecting us.”

  He paused to laugh once again and looked over the rows of cups sitting on the induction shelf before pulling out a dark brown one, “this signal could be nothing of course, but keep at it if your gut is telling you it’s something important. If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”

  RJ turned on the nearby facet and filled the brown cup almost to the brim with water. Once full, he turned off the water with a hand gesture and ran a fingertip across the bottom edge of the cup. With his free hand RJ picked up the coffee cup he had set down. In these few seconds the water inside the new cup was already starting to steam and swirl slowly. As he walked towards Laria’s station the top fifth of cup slowly turned transparent as the dark chocolate powder within the cup was infused into the heating water. By the time he set it down beside Laria the cup, which had seconds before been filled with just water, contained a perfect hot coco.

  “Thank you so much. It’s just what I need.” Laria smiled and looked up at her boss while cradling the cup in her hands as she took a sip.

  RJ pulled a chair over and sat down beside her, watching her body relax finally. He had known Laria for years, but this was their first time actually working together. In didn’t take long to get impressed by her work ethic, but she had a strong tendency to overwork herself to the point of exhaustion. As her superior it was his job to keep her in peak performance and that meant helping her relax and focus.

  “Did you hear about Frederson? They caught him sleepwalking again.” RJ finally expressed as he looked over at the revolving holographic image in front of them.

  “Really? That’s what, his third time now? What was he doing?”

  “He was going through the archives, can
you believe that? Just standing there flipping through Earth history. They say he started from the very beginning of civilization and was up to the Sino-American War when they pulled away. Must be the stress or something. My guess is that others will start to express symptoms over time as well. Being cooped up in a floating hunk of rock under continual stress is bound to make people uncomfortable and perhaps a little stir crazy.”

  Laria took another drink of the steaming hot chocolate and turned towards RJ. “Some have been talking about the possibility that this place might get attacked as well…like Odyssia was. Do you think that could happen?”

  “Well, anything is possible Laria.” RJ gave a little shrug as he turned back to her and leaned back into his seat. “I doubt it would happen though. There could have been any number of factors that precipitated the Odyssian incident. I’m inclined to believe that an advanced culture wouldn’t simply attack others for no reason. Diplomacy is in the best interests of both parties.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We aren’t even a threat to them in this region anyways.” Laria said as she looked away for a second, speaking the words more for herself than anything else.

  “I’M NOT sure what happened. I’ve never had problems with sleepwalking in the past, doc.” Valeri Frederson expressed as he slowly sat up on the examination table.

  He crossed his arms nervously across his chest and watched the scanner retract back into the wall behind the table. Val was nervous and anxious to get the results back. Over the past week he had gone to bed only to be awakened in some other part of the consulate by a fellow coworker with no memory of getting there. This lack of control over his own body was frightening to the usually control centric personality of the man.

  The doctor, a young physician only a year out of his residency, sat across from his in a low chair and studied PCD that he held in his left hand. “Well, good news is that all your tests came back negative, Val. All your neural pathways are firing normally and there is no evidence of any sort of infection or drug in your system.”

  Pausing for a moment, he lowered the PCD and looked up at Valeri. “The only thing I found was indications of stress and anxiety, which are completely normal under the circumstances.”

  “I’ve been under stressful situations before, though, and nothing like this has happened.”

  “Every situation is different, Val. You’ve never been on a floating asteroid in the middle of nowhere trying to contact what could be an alien civilization before. Especially one that could be aggressive in nature.” The doctor lifted his PCD back into his lap and started to tap commands on the screen.

  “But what if I do something bad when I sleep walk again. What if I hurt myself or god forbid someone else? I can’t control myself when I’m sleepwalking. I can’t even remember what I was doing during it!” He let out in a shout before controlling himself, breathing fast for a minute as he tried to calm himself.

  “Val, I completely understand your concern. The nature of sleepwalking is that patients almost never remember doing anything, so it’s no surprise that you don’t either. We will try to work through this and solve the problem, I promise you.” He reached out and gave Val’s hand a little squeeze before getting up to walk towards a cabinet.

  The doors opened for him automatically and he produced a small packet. He ripped it open from the top and pulled out a fingertip sized round patch.

  “With your permission, Val, I’d like to have you wear this monitor device for a few days so we can record your brain during its sleep state.” He waited for the other to nod in agreement before moving to his side and pulling his earlobe back just a little and applying the patch to the skin behind it.

  The patch changed color from beige to a light blue within seconds of skin contact, indicating a stable application. The doctor raised his PCD once more and pulled up the monitoring program, which instantly recognized the patch and displayed the image of Valari’s skull. As he watched, small particles emerged from the patch and drained into Val’s system before quickly moving up into the brain. These nano-monitoring devices would attach to the proper cerebral structures and network together to broadcast a clear picture of neural firings throughout the brain.

  “I’m also going to give you some medication to calm your nerves and help you sleep. I’m sure a full night’s rest will do you wonders.” The doctor continued as he reached over for his injector and a small cartridge of medication. He snapped in the cartridge and pressed the tip of the injector against Val’s carotid artery, on the side of his neck, before pressing down on the trigger. There was a barely audible hiss as the drug entered the patient’s bloodstream.

  Almost instantly Valeri relaxed and uncrossed his arms as his breathing went back to a normal resting state as well. “Thank you so much doctor. I really hope this helps.”

  Touching the man’s shoulder, the doctor smiled. “I hope so as well, Val. If you need anything, though, even just to talk, please come see me.”

  Once out of the infirmary Valeri started to feel tired, the lack of sleep and the injection were catching up with him. He reached his room without incident, pausing only momentarily to talk with a few coworkers that still wondered the consulate hallways. Locking his door for privacy, Val stumbled towards his bed. His body suddenly yearned for sleep like never before, almost as if something within him was taking control.

  It seemed that no sooner than he hit the covers on top of his bed that his eyes opened. The only difference was that he no longer felt tired, in fact, he felt nothing at all. Val felt as if he was in a dream when his body slowly swung out of bed. Everything around him looked the same, but felt completely different, almost unreal. He wanted to get back into bed, but his body would not follow his commands. Instead it silent rose from the bed and moved towards the door.

  In the corridors there was no one around and Val knew it must be the close to midnight SET, Standard Earth Time. Slowly he walked towards the closest gravlift that led to the engineering room and waited for the doors to part for him. Once inside his hand reached out and touched the control panel. Inside his own body Val tried to shout and fight his body, but the lift descended deeper into the planetoid nonetheless.

  The doors opened once more after only a moment and Val recognized it as the corridor he always took to his work station. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing there, but as he watched through his own eyes, the body that used to be him stopped in front of the yellow restricted access door. Val’s hand pressed against the scanner and it quickly slid aside for him.

  As his figure started to punch in command at his work station, he finally understood what was happening and it terrified him completely. The job he was tasked with at the consulate was monitoring the base’s power generators and he watched his hands were completely shutting down the safety protocols built into the system. These measures were in place to prevent the overheating of the reactors and controlling power flow through the station. With them disabled the reactors would overheat in minutes and their internal monitoring systems will have no choice but to shut them down completely.

  There were backup generators, of course, but as Val looked on, unable to stop what was happening, those were being disabled as well. For a second Valeri thought he heard shouting and the sound of feet running, but that dissipated quickly and the hands in front of him never ceased working. All of the sudden he saw another pair of hand reaching around him and pull him away from the computer console. His body broke free somehow and moved back towards the workstation, plugging in the last of the commands, which brought up a red flashing screen on the floating display.

  Val didn’t even get a chance to finish reading the warning when pain shot through his body. The dreamlike state vanished as his entire being seized for a second before going limp, dropping him to the ground instantly. Voices came to him in pieces, all of them muffled, as he lay on the floor with closed eyes. Finally he opened them, almost as if for the first time. The world around him was blurry and the colors all seemed w
rong. He was staring at the ceiling when a young face appeared open him. A face that he recognized as that of his doctor. The man seemed to be yelled at him as two other individuals ran towards the station he had just occupied. They both seemed to be frightened as nothing they did seemed to stop the red flashing message. The last thing Valeri Frederson saw was the console shut down just before the rooms lights powered off, drowning them all in darkness.

  9 Days Later

  SS-824 Star System

  “Hand in Friendship, repeat, this is the Gallant coming in on final approach. Requesting docking instructions.” Captain Colver Hindo called out once more into the comm.

  The Gallant has just returned to the system from a supply run within the Fringe. After over two weeks cramped in the small transport his crew of four were ready to disembark and relax on the Consulate base. Since their reversion into the system minutes ago, however, they had been unable to contact the consulate traffic control. The weirdest thing of all was that the ship’s sensors no longer register the presence of the Hand-in-Friendship IFF beacon, a beacon that was never supposed to be turned off and was designed to work even without power.

  “We’re on the proper vector, sir. The base should be just ahead of us.” Confirmed his second in command, Olivia Rendolf as she watched the sensor readout in front of her. “But I’m not getting any readings.”

  Their ship had arrived right on schedule and in a position to catch the consulate as it completed this portion of its orbit around the star. It should have appeared on their scanners, but the only objectors in the vicinity were other asteroids.

  “Friendship TC please respond. We come baring gifts.” The Captain tried again referring to the crates of Glashoff Whiskey he had acquired for his friends on the consulate, but his stomach turned just a little as he began to get a bad feeling about the situation.