LT Simmons responded. “CIC, aye, sir. Deploying pod now.” The Sword of Liberty had a total of 96 missile cells, but did not actually carry 96 missiles. They had replaced the one missile they had tested at the beginning of the journey, but that still only brought them up to 86 Excaliburs. The remaining ten missile cells were taken up with more diplomatic and scientific cargo.
Eight of the non-missile cells contained subprobes for close inspection of the Deltan vessels, while the other two cells carried retransmission pods, essentially an Excalibur missile frame with the warheads changed out for communications gear. This automated comms probe would monitor the rendezvous and transmit its feed to Earth, as well as re-transmit the telemetry and monitoring data that the Sword herself sent back. It was an insurance plan, to make certain that what happened here, however it might turn out, Earth would know.
There was a clack of a missile hatch opening, and then a gentle bump as the re-trans pod was expelled from its tube. Nathan watched video from the hull on a secondary screen, as the hatch swung shut and the pod fell away, left behind by their acceleration. Moments later, the pod’s own engine lit off and it moved toward its own holding position and unfolded an immense dish antenna.
“Bridge, CIC, re-trans pod deployed. We have a good link. We’ll begin transmitting on your order.”
“Bridge, aye,” Wright answered. “Captain?”
Nathan nodded, then realized the XO could not see that with his helmet on. “Very well. It’s your show now, Christopher. You can begin any time.”
“Yes, sir. Weps/Sensors, commence long-pulse radar and lidar surveys of the alien formation.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Yvonne Clark, a former telecom engineer long in Windward’s employ, powered up the dorsal and ventral sensor blisters and began sending ranging pulses out toward the Deltans.
Wright turned to Nathan and Edwards. “We won’t get much more than range data at this distance, but it ought to be a friendly enough wakeup call in case they’re sleeping. And we’re still far enough out that we should be fairly safe from any direct fire weapons like they used on Promise.”
Edwards smiled. “So, there is a cynical old warrior in there after all. I was worried you’d gone all touchy-feely on us, sir.”
Wright laughed. “Just because I won’t let myself assume they’re hostile, doesn’t mean I’m not open to the possibility. I’m cautious, not stupid, Master Chief.” He turned back to the main screen, watching the imperceptibly approaching alien formation. Range data and some surface features began to augment the picture and information displayed for each contact. “Radar and lidar are good … but no reaction from the convoy.”
Nathan shrugged. “That’s fine. Considering the success of the last two visits, I’ll take no response over a bad one, for the moment at least. Let’s go ahead and start sending telemetry back home. We’ll let them be frustrated right alongside us.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Ops/Comm, lock the main dish on Earth and begin continuous transmission of the tactical log.”
“Begin continuous stream to Earth, aye, sir. Transmitting now.” Pauline Rivera, a Windward satellite data-systems tech right out of college, hit the appropriate icons on her panel and the largest antennas on the sensor blisters each slewed around to aim at the distant pinprick of Sol and the invisibly distant Earth. What happened now would be picked up in slightly less than six months back home.
“Very well. CIC, Bridge, enable your link to the re-trans pod and start backing up our broadcast home.”
Simmons voice sounded promptly. “CIC, aye.” Auxiliary antennas on those same blisters slewed around to lock onto the ever more quickly receding shape of the retransmission pod. It, in turn, pointed its own dish to Earth as well and began transmitting its own stream back.
Wright checked on the status of everything set into motion upon his screen and nodded in satisfaction. “All right. Both data streams are going out. Everything after this is on the official record.”
Nathan grinned. “Smile nice and pretty, boys. We’re on primetime now.” He nodded toward the main screen, his smile dropping for an expectant, demanding gaze. “That goes for you too, friends. What do you have to say to the good peoples of Earth, Mr. Deltan? Come on, come on. Talk to us. Why are you here?”
Silence met his questions. For a moment, however ludicrous it might be, everyone on the bridge almost anticipated an answer. Nathan grinned and shook his head. “Seems we need to knock a bit louder, XO.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be starting with primes on a number of frequencies, just like the probes were programmed to do. Between each sequence, though, we’ll be transmitting the plain language greeting in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. Hopefully, they’ll pick up on one or the other.”
“Go ahead. Once again, this is your show.”
Wright ordered Pauline Rivera to do as he briefed. Seconds later, a pair of pure tones was transmitted in a number of frequency bands. Then, three pulses were sent, followed by five after a brief pause. Then seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, counting up and up through all of the base-10 primes from two to 137, a decidedly nonrandom sequence that it was hoped would prove their intelligence and hopefully lead to a mathematical standard which could then be used for translating between two wildly disparate species.
After a hundred and thirty-seven pulses and a correspondingly longer pause, Gordon Lee’s original message went out, slightly altered by computer, his voice haunting the void long after his death. Hearing it again, Nathan sighed, knowing that Gordon should have been there.
“Greetings to you, our unknown visitors from a nearby star. We welcome you to our solar system in the name of all the free inhabitants of Earth. Please allow this ship and crew to make peaceful contact with you, such that we might form some bridge for open and enlightening communication between our two species.”
Again, a brief pause, and then the same message went out in the other, most-prevalent broadcast languages of Earth. Nathan held his breath. With the Promise, the Deltan convoy had reacted immediately to the transmission of primes. This time … .
“Nothing. No response.” Nathan slapped the armrest of his acceleration chair, disappointed beyond measure.
Wright tried to assuage him. “We’re still really far out, Nathan. And Promise only began transmitting after doing an extended flyby and survey of the formation. They may still be dormant. It’s possible that they’re in some form of suspended animation and takes them a while to come fully out of it.”
Edwards grunted. “Yeah. And it’s also possible that they want us to get in effective range of their weapons before they light us up.”
“Master Chief—” the XO said, a warning tone coloring his voice.
“No,” Nathan broke in. “You could both be right. And there’s no need to tiptoe around my dashed expectations. It’s been a year and a half. Hell, it’s been years longer than that, and I really expected them to say something or do something after we came all this way. But … they’ll do whatever they’re going to do, regardless of what I want. Let’s just stick to the plan. Continue transmitting, continue closing, and keep both eyes on them.”
He pointed at the images of the orbiting formation on screen. “And you, whoever the hell you are, wake up. We’ve come calling, and you have some shit to answer for.”