Opposite them, Tor Klyce and Baldron Landaker downed their fifth cup of coffee.
Jaycee, decked out in his armor exo-suit, sat with Bonnie at the foot of the table.
The door to the hub slid opened.
Wool ar-Ban walked in and rubbed her hands together. “Sorry I’m late, Daryl.”
“Wool, during debrief I am Captain, if you please.”
“I’m sorry,” Wool took her seat next in between Jaycee and Bonnie.
“It’s nothing personal. It’s more for the minute-taking and data point notes.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Okay,” Katz snapped his fingers, beckoning Manuel over. “Manuel?”
“Yes, Captain,” the holographic book flew over and flipped through its pages. A blank sheet appeared, followed by a hovering transparent pen. “Ready when you are.”
“Don’t minute this part, Manuel.” Katz approached the conference table and pressed his finger on the glass surface. A diagram of Space Opera Alpha appeared in front of the crew.
Manuel’s pen clicked off. The pages flipped shut, forcing the book over to the captain.
“Until twenty-four hours ago, we thought Saturn Cry was transmitting from Enceladus. It wasn’t.”
“No?” Tor took a keen interest in the revelation. “So where is it coming from?”
“Here.” Katz pointed at the radio transmitter on the bridge of Space Opera Alpha. “It seems like Enceladus is using Opera Alpha as a beacon to send the message.”
“Alpha is present?” Bonnie asked.
“Yes, Dr Whitaker. She’s orbiting the dark side of Enceladus.”
“Do we know if the crew are alive?” Baldron asked.
“We don’t know anything, yet. We’ve tried to communicate with Alpha’s Manuel, but to no avail.”
“What are you suggesting, Captain?” Tripp asked, knowing the answer already.
“I am recommending a change of course. We dock with them, establish contact and rescue any souls on board.”
“What if no-one survived?” Haloo asked.
“Then there’s nobody to rescue. We continue our trajectory to Enceladus and conduct our inquiries.”
Tripp stood up and pointed at the holograph of the ship. “It makes sense to investigate. Enceladus itself can’t possibly be sending the signal. It’s just gas and ice. It’s using Opera Alpha’s comms to transmit the signal, that much we do know.”
“Hold on a second,” Bonnie stood up, giving as good as the crew were getting. “Alpha goes off-radar for five years. Missing.”
“Yes.”
“And now it’s suddenly reappeared?”
“Well, I’m not sure if—”
“—And you want us to go and check it out?”
Tripp interrupted the feisty woman. “Let’s review our situation, Dr. Whitaker. Our mission to Enceladus is to investigate the source of Saturn Cry.”
“Right.”
“And we know it’s using Alpha to transmit that signal. I mean, that’s just plain fact, now.”
“How do we know?”
Tripp pressed his finger to the glass. “Manuel?”
The book floated over to the screen and opened up. “Yes, Commander?”
“Configure point A on Opera Alpha radar and broadcast, please.”
“Configuring now.”
Manuel beeped three times and tuned himself into the holograph on the screen. The radio transmitter flashed red, and threw its connection to the speaker on the book.
A hissing noise fired up, followed by three strings of an electric guitar.
“Ugh, we’re fed up with hearing this thing, already,” Tor shook his head and nudged Baldron in the ribs. “We’d rather go back to sleep.”
“Don’t be funny, Tor,” Tripp said, encouraging the crew to listen to the message play out.
Whump-whump-whump… hiss…
“Sounds different?”
“Twelve seconds in,” Tripp held up his hand to halt the chatter. “Shh.”
A warbled thud followed by a high-pitch squeal, like that of an injured lion, streaked across the audio.
“You hear that?”
“Yes,” Jaycee said, “Sounds different to the one we’re used to hearing.”
“We’re closer to the signal, so the quality is better. Pause playback, Manuel.”
“Yes, commander.”
The hissing stopped. Everyone’s attention turned to the diagram of Space Opera Alpha.
Katz walked up to Tripp and addressed the crew. “As far as Commander Healy and I can see, we have two options. One, we establish a Task and Finish protocol to rescue whatever we can of Alpha.”
“What’s the second option?” Bonnie asked.
“We ignore Alpha entirely and continue our course to Enceladus proper.”
“In other words, we do what we’re supposed to?”
Katz sighed. “I need to report back to USARIC and notify them of our unanimous decision to investigate Alpha. For that, we need consent from every soul aboard this ship, as per The Infinity Clause.”
Tripp looked at each crew member. Most seemed to be on board with the rescue attempt – all except Bonnie.
“Can we, in good conscience, ignore Alpha? Can we continue our mission to Enceladus knowing that we ignored our colleagues and left them for dead?”
Katz interjected. “Dr. Whitaker, can I ask you what the problem is?”
Everyone turned to her for a response.
“Sure,” she said. “We don’t know what state the ship is in. We don’t know what happened to Alpha. What if they’re all dead? Or something has happened to them? We could suffer the same fate.”
“The fate of being hidden on the dark side of Saturn’s sixth moon?” Tor suggested, somewhat sarcastically, “That we were okay all along and went missing, only for our friends to come poking around and ignore our cry for help?”
“That’s the point, Tor,’ Bonnie interjected, ‘Alpha isn’t crying for help. They’re just there. You seem very keen for us to board and investigate,” Bonnie said, turning to the holograph of Space Opera Alpha. “Opera Alpha isn’t reaching out to us. If they were alive they’d be yelling at us to rescue them.”
Tor ducked his head and folded his arms. He didn’t have a response.
“What if they’re unable to reach out for help, Dr. Whitaker?” Katz attempted to balance the odds. “If, somehow, they’re unable to communicate for whatever reason?”
“Then that’s a bunch of six souls on board a spaceship I don’t want to go anywhere near.”
“So you’re saying no, Dr. Whitaker?” Katz asked, disappointed. “We discover that Alpha is there and don’t investigate?”
“I’m not saying no,” Bonnie said, looking around the table. “Come on, am I the only one here who’s concerned about this change of course?”
Tor and Baldron looked away.
Jaycee couldn’t look Bonnie in the eye.
Haloo, Tripp and Katz, on the other hand, had no compunction in demonstrating their desire to rescue the ship.
“What’s the first rule?” Bonnie asked. “Be skeptical. Question everything. My question is this. Why did Alpha go missing? Why is it back? Why is it being used by a moon to transmit a message.”
“We don’t know, Dr. Whitaker,” Tripp said, “Are you saying you don’t want to find out?”
She shot him a look of disdain, knowing full well that her superior was correct.
“Ugh.”
“Okay, all those in favor of diverting course to check out Alpha raise your hand. Ayes?”
Everyone’s hand rose into the air. Everyone, that is, except Bonnie’s.
Tripp gave her a smile, keeping his hand up. “Dr. Whitaker?”
“Fine.” She sighed and caved in, raising her hand. “But I want it on record that I’m not happy with this.”