FIVE HOURS LATER

'More coffee?' said Yuya, offering a steaming thermos towards Jarreck.

'No – I think I've had enough.'

'Oh I don't know, I need something to calm my ravaged nerves.' said Yuya, taking a large gulp for himself.

'And coffee's just the cure.' quipped Jarreck with sarcasm. 'Buckle down, let's get this thing locked into the landing grid.'

The two men were seated in the cockpit, at the console looking at several screens piloting screens. There were no overhead lights that illuminated the room because the reflective light from stars and such outside were sufficient to do so. At first glance, the cockpit seemed small, with a mass of objects cluttered together emanating a feeling of tightness and sometimes even claustrophobia. But on second glance, one could see that the room was in actuality, relatively large. The cluttered feeling arose from the several instruments situated inside that were used to monitor the large craft.

Yuya put aside his thermos, and flipped a few switches above him. He stared ahead at the large planet before them, watching the light from the sun illuminate a small side of it, like a glowing blanket being pulled over a huge ball.

'So what do you think of the new cavalry?' he asked.

'What's to think? They're the passengers, we're the crew. Same as always.'

'You know, as strikingly intelligent as Dr. Omitsu is – she frightens me. And the other guy, Regan? What's all that sci-fi crap about predicting the future? I think they even managed to creep out our hardy fellow, Mash.' persisted Yuya.

Jarreck paused for a few seconds, reading the monitor before him. 'Get on the intercom and tell 'em we're touching base in about an hour, would you?' he spoke, ignoring the question.

'Jarreck. Cut the crap and admit it. I know you don't like it any more than I do.'

Jarreck turned his attention from his instrument panel and towards Yuya. 'There's nothing to like. But I'm just doing my job here. We land, get whatever data we have to get and then leave. That's all there is to it.'

Yuya sighed, acknowledging defeat and pressed a button to his right. 'This is Captain Kirk from the bridge – would all cabin crew please get to their landing stations in approximately thirty minutes. I repeat: cabin crew to landing stations.'

Jarreck laughed despite himself. 'You know something, man? Every time-' his words were suddenly cut short.

'Every time – what?'

'Hey, turn on your screen would you?' said Jarreck, not lifting his eyes from his own.

Yuya punched a couple of keys on his console and watched in anticipation as his monitor flickered to life. 'What am I looking for?'

'Um...try to zoom in on a hundred kilometer radius in quadrant B12. Three sectors away.'

A few seconds later, 'I don't see anything.'

'It's a tiny blip – here, wait...I'm zooming in further.' said Jarreck.

Yuya acknowledged the observation. 'Yeah...I see it. You think we're picking up some cross signals from somewhere else?'

'No, I checked it out already. We're on 95% enhancement. It can't possibly be anything external. And unless that's an asteroid emitting electromagnetic signals of its own – then I'm stumped.'

Yuya leaned closer and squinted. 'That's no fucking asteroid. It's a ship.'

'What?! It's too big to be a ship...' exclaimed Jarreck.

'Say what you will, man, but that looks like a ship to me. Look at the contours – it's too perfect to be a bloody rock.'

'A moon maybe?' suggested Jarreck, refusing to believe his friend.

Yuya leaned back into his chair. 'Like hell. What do we do now?'

Reuban stood in a small kitchen, similar to a narrow corridor, fixing himself one last pot of tea before they touched down. He touched the pot lightly to sense if it was warm enough to consume and then sighed. It was still quite cool. They always had problems with heating up things externally. Of course he could place it in a much larger heater – similar to the microwave heaters of old, but more efficient – but that was specifically constructed to tend to large amounts of food. Not for one stupid cup of tea.

He turned around and leaned against the kitchen counter. He heard the sound of footsteps grow louder.

'Dr. Reuban,' said a female voice from the kitchen entrance.

'Dr. Omitsu...' acknowledged Reuban.

She glanced from him to the pot of tea. 'I see I'm not the only one in need of a refreshment. Coffee or tea?'

'Neither at the moment. The damn thing's taking eons to heat up.'

'I guess I'll pass.'

Reuban nodded but said nothing.

Omitsu continued to speak. 'I must say, this is one of the shortest trips I've been on. Two months – round trip.'

'Well, we're not going very far from home base.'

Omitsu crossed her arms over her chest. 'How's your niece taking to this?'

'All right, I suppose. It's her first trip out...her mother was slightly concerned, so I decided to ship out with Helen on one of the shorter journeys. As her for her opinions of our exploits so far – I'm not so certain.'

Omitsu nodded. There was a brief period of silence and then she chuckled. 'This is so awkward isn't it?'

'I'm sorry?' said Reuban, not comprehending.

'The segregation here – the NASA crowd versus Weyland Yutani's henchmen – isn't that how you see it? And then we make all this pathetic small talk to reduce the tension...it's hilarious.'

Reuban turned around and touched the pot again. The damned thing wasn't heating up fast enough. 'If you say so.'

'Oh come on, Reuban. Looking in from the outside – that's what makes it hilarious. This little hierarchy thing we've got going. You look at us and think we're the mad scientists. We're the Mr. Hydes of science while you represent the more demure Dr. Jekylls.'

Reuban remained still with his back to Omitsu. Trapped in a cramped kitchen with a brilliant woman who spoke her mind. Perhaps if he suddenly were to demonstrate his illustrious tap-dancing skills, the topic would be changed. Or perhaps he could throw back some of his own. He turned to face her.

'Alright, Ms. Hyde – so we're looking at each other from opposite sides of the mirror. What do we do?'

'What do most beings do when they disagree?'

Reuban laughed nervously. 'I would hardly say this is a disagreement...it's just a conflict of interest.'

'Makes no difference to me.'

Reuban frowned, finally frustrated. 'Look, are you trying to say something of importance here? If so – I suggest you better just-'

They were both jolted out of the heat of the moment by a rather anxious voice over the intercom. "Dr. Reuban? I think you'd better come up on deck for a bit. We're going to have to hold off our vacation plans."

Reuban pressed a button situated on the wall, and spoke into a speaker adjacent to it. 'Be right there, Yuya.'

He walked hurriedly out of the room, with no word to Omitsu.

'So it's a ship. So what?' Said Jakob Reuban with his hands on his hips. He was still smoking from the confrontation with Dr. Omitsu a few minutes before, and this new information was taking its time to settle in.

Jarreck sighed, ran a hand through his cropped hair and let Yuya do the talking. 'We thought so too, so we tried to lock onto a signal. Something that could let us identify its company ID number. But we couldn't get any identification.'

'So what makes you think it's even a ship?' asked Reuban.

'I said we couldn't identify it – I didn't say we didn't get any signal,' said Yuya. He pressed a key on his console, and watched as a massive flow of data flooded the screen. He pressed the button again, which made the information pause on the screen. 'Maybe it'd be easier if you just take a look for yourself,'

Reuban leaned forward and looked at it. 'A code?'

'Possibly. Or maybe it's just one of their methods of communication – like we used to use binary.'

'I'm sorry – "they"? said Reuban with his eyebrows raised.

Jarreck interrupted. 'It's nothing we recognize. So our next best guess is that it's of non-human origin.'

'Can we zoom in further on this thing?' asked Reuban.

'Not unless we get physically closer to it.'

'How far away are we from it?' asked Reuban as he considered the thought.

'Pretty far,' Jarreck paused, rubbing his chin. 'If you wanted to get near it so that you're about a couple kilometers alongside of it – it'd take you about another one or two weeks. Keep in mind that this sector covers uncharted territory. No one sails out here unless they're asteroid surfers.'

'Any suggestions?' said Yuya looking from Jarreck to Reuban.

'We're going to obviously have to wait – discuss this with everyone else.' replied Reuban.

'You know what the outcome of that decision's going to be. This ship's full of scientists – they're not going to pass up the opportunity to investigate a potentially intelligent life-form.' said Jarreck.

Reuban let out a large sigh. 'I guess I'd better gather the pack round anyhow...' He turned around and made ready to exit the cockpit.

'Jakob,' spoke Jarreck suddenly from his seat. Reuban halted as Jarreck continued. 'We're offline. Not connected to any network right now. You want it to stay that way?'

Reuban smiled. The kid was always one step ahead of the game. They'd both had experience with company tactics. He knew that if any of this got back to company headquarters – they would send an immediate order to deviate from their current course and change the objectives of this expedition. And that would mean risking the lives of the crew and passengers aboard with this attempt at dealing with the unknown. Reuban's thoughts went back to Helen and he closed his eyes momentarily. He'd try his best to convince the others that such an expedition could be postponed.

'Yeah,' said Reuban, agreeing with his younger friend, 'let's cover their eyes.'

Yuya watched as Reuban left the room and then turned to Jarreck. 'What was that all about?'

Jarreck shrugged as he continued working at the console. 'Oh you know...probably nothing.'