Encounter

Jonathan Hays, Captain of the Earth-Star Voyager, keyed his access code into the keypad set into the doorway before him. The door slid open for him with a beep, and he stepped through the open portal onto the Bridge. Pausing to close the door behind him, he glanced around at the expansive room before him. The Third-Watch crew were just surrendering their stations to the Prime-Watch crew, so he kept quiet while the two crews carried out their rituals of greetings and updates. He knew that any distractions could result in vital information being missed, or misinterpreted, so he tapped the shoulder of his own counterpart. The young man stood up and greeted Jonathan with a stiff salute. "Nothing to report, Captain," he said, "Still on course for Demeter, all systems fully operational. Ready to surrender command to you, Sir."

Jonathan returned the salute, more informally than the one he had been presented with, and gave the man a grin. "Thank you for the update, Mister Thomas," he replied, "but there's no need to be so formal in the future. A simple update is fine, salutes aren't necessary, and you don't have to call me 'Sir'."

"Yes, Sir. I'll try to remember that," responded Thomas, his face slightly red. "I switched over from Second Watch to Third, and Lieutenant Mahmoud insisted that I follow protocol precisely."

"Oh – he did, did he?" Jonathan deadpanned, "I may have to have a talk with the Lieutenant about excessive strictness." He smiled at Thomas again. "Thank you, carry on," he told the youth, who promptly spun on his heel and strode towards the door. The rest of the Third-Watch crew, taking their cue from their commander, followed him out.

Sliding into his flight-seat, he looked to both sides and found that everyone else had taken theirs and were typing away at the consoles before them. "Good Morning, everyone," he said cheerfully, "Updates, please." He looked to his far right to begin their sequence. "Communications?"

Lani Miyori, back to her station after spending over a year in her sabotaged cryo-sleep tube, spoke first. "Communications all quiet, Captain," she reported, "Nothing to report on scanners."

"Very well," Jonathan acknowledged. "Propulsion and power?"

"Baumann Drive and fusion reactors operational," answered Jesse 'Beanie' Beinstalk, "SIR," he added playfully.

Curling one corner of his mouth, Jonathan didn't take the bait. "Thank you," he simply said, causing Beanie to frown in disappointment. "Navigation," he then said, turning his head to look to his left.

"On course for Demeter," called Huxley Wells, "Estimated arrival time – eleven years, four months."

"Good," Jonathan told him. Finally, he addressed the final station. "Medical?"

"Crew is doing well," responded Doctor Sally Arthur, Medical Officer for this expedition, and the one person on this ship that Jonathan still felt somewhat uncomfortable talking to. "No injuries or illnesses to report."

"Thank you," said Jonathan for the final time. "Ship status update complete, begin standard watch." Now that the rituals were out of the way, he typed a series of commands on his own console that would formalize and log the change-of-watch.

Leaning to his left, Huxley whispered in Sally's direction. "Another eleven years of this?" he muttered, "I think I'm going to die of boredom before we get halfway to Demeter."

Shaking her head, Sally whispered back to him "I'm sure you'll be able to find something that will hold your attention during that time."

"Maybe you could help me with that?" he said pointedly, leaning closer to her at the same time.

"Don't even GO there!" she told him harshly, pushing him away from her and back to his station.

A new voice interrupted their teasing. "You didn't ask me how I was," echoed through the bridge.

Looking up, Jonathan gazed at the massive viewscreen before the six seats. "I'm sorry, Priscilla," Jonathan said quietly, "How are you today?"

Unnoticed, the door behind them opened to allow Jake to step onto the Bridge. Jake Brown, former Captain of the Vanguard Explorer, picked up as a castaway two days into the voyage, had become a de-facto advisor to just about everyone on the ship. He could go anywhere, talk to anyone, and had provided a great deal of advice about how to cope with long space missions. He walked up behind Jonathan as Priscilla, the voice of the ship's main computer, offered her report.

"All systems are fully functional, Captain," she started, "but I'm picking up an anomalous reading from twenty million kilometers ahead of us."

"Are we close enough for a visual?" Jonathan asked.

"Not yet," Priscilla told him, "but I can offer an enhanced outline, if you like."

"Please do," Jonathan requested. Almost immediately, a wireframe cylinder appeared on the screen.

"The object is approximately five kilometers in diameter by twenty kilometers in length," Priscilla explained. It is rotating on its long axis at a rate of zero point six revolutions per minute. It is composed primarily of nickel-iron, with some basalt and other rocky components mixed in."

"So it's a stray asteroid," Huxley yawned. "There's got to be millions of them out here – what's the big deal about this one?"

"Look at the density reading," Beanie chimed in, "it's one-tenth the mass that something that size should be, if it were just a rocky asteroid." He turned to Jonathan. "You know what that means, don't you...?"

"It's hollow," Jonathan said with a nod. "That means it's been engineered, and THAT means..."

"It's full of Little Green Men?" Huxley smirked, baiting Beanie over his ideas about alien life.

Sally poked him in the ribs with her elbow. "Be nice," she hissed at him between her teeth.

Jonathan glared at the pair, who quickly returned to looking at their stations. "Any signs of life?" he asked.

"None that I can detect," Priscilla answered. "If there is an interior cavity, the surrounding rock is too thick to allow my scans to penetrate."

"It bears a closer look, anyway," Jonathan decided. "Huxley, match courses with the object, and bring us alongside."

"We're already on a parallel course," Huxley responded, "It's moving in the same direction that we are. We'll intercept in three hours."

"CAPTAIN!" Lani suddenly cried out, "We're receiving a transmission from the object!"

"Holy crap," Huxley muttered, "it IS Little Green Men."

"Priscilla?" Jonathan said simply.

"Transmission confirmed, Captain," she answered. "Audio only, but quite clear."

Jonathan glanced sideways at Jake, who simply shrugged. It's your decision, Captain, was the unspoken inference that Jonathan read from the gesture. "Let's hear it," he said.

Lani punched two keys at her station, and a voice echoed through the room. "Attention, unknown vessel approaching from our aft quarter – you are being targeted by heavy weapons. Identify yourself, or be destroyed."

"Doesn't sound very friendly," Jake finally muttered.

Jonathan ignored him. "Priscilla, are we close enough for a weapons-scan?"

Green lines passed over the image on the screen, indicating the status of her scan. It only took a second before she answered, "No surface weapons evident, Captain. No sub-surface weapons detected. From what I can tell, they have no combat capability at all."

"Thank you, Priscilla. Lani, transmit on the same frequency, please."

Lani pressed more keys. "Ready, Captain," she announced.

Taking a breath, Jonathan spoke at the screen. "This is Captain Jonathan Hays of the Earth-Star Voyager. Our intentions are peaceful. I would suggest, however, that if you're going to bluff – make sure the person you're threatening can't determine that you're unarmed beforehand." He turned to Lani and told her "Let me know if we get a response."

He didn't have to wait long...

The screen went blank, then displayed the image of a man wearing a green shirt with the number 3 emblazoned on his chest, seated at what appeared to be a typical starship bridge. His brown eyes stared directly at Jonathan.

"What the devil...?" Jake whispered...