They were more than a year into their satellite maintenance run. There were quite a lot of satellites needed to try and keep the vast galaxy connected. It was repetitive work, with no real opportunities for bonuses, so there was a large backlog of non-critical repairs that they were slowly working through. They had recently stopped for a resupply at Regulus, conveniently timed to coincide with Braddon's final formal psych assessment. He had passed, being reinstated to full active duty with no mission restrictions, and was now back on the 2 year check in cycle that all active brainships were subjected to. It was a weight off his mind, something that had been stressing him out in the weeks leading up to it, but in hindsight, it really hadn't been worth worrying over.
Since leaving Regulus things had been going smoothly. His dreams had even been pleasant of late, a rare blessing. Xanther had her regular routine of work, exercise, and entertainment. He had picked up a fresh entertainment data pack at Regulus, and they had been working through the action films seeing who could spot the most technical errors. Xanther was fast asleep in her room, and Braddon was starting to wind down, getting ready for his 2 hours of deep sleep. He ran a final sensor sweep, set the wake-up-bot and slowly shut down his sensors.
Braddon was at the beach, salty waves lapping at his ramp, Xanther floated by in the calm sparkling water on an inflatable ring wearing a pressure suit without the helmet. Her eyes were closed, body completely relaxed. Pol sat on the sand, she was wearing a long flowing sundress and a large straw hat. Grains of white sand stuck to her smooth bronze skin. "Have you ever been to the beach?" She asked.
"What do you mean, I am right here?"
Although it had just been full sunlight, it was suddenly dusk. Stars twinkled in the dark reddish sky, the sun having already drifted below the horizon. The stars didn't match any of his charts, he needed to go up and take a closer look.
As he thought this Braddon realised that he was up in orbit. Paddy was floating beside him in a full golden suit, pointing an old fashioned toy telescope at the stars. Braddon searched his charts but still couldn't find a match.
Help.
"Paddy, that you?"
"Not eye, my guy." Paddy pointed to his eye and chuckled warmly spinning around his telescope like some sort of slow motion spinning top.
Please help…
Braddon woke up, confused, was someone calling me? He checked all the comms links, nothing. He sent out a pulse on the brainwave, however no other ships were in range. That was a little unusual for this sector, but no cause for alarm. He cycled through all of his internal and external sensors, but couldn't find anything that might have been calling for help. There were no intruders on board, no known distress signals, no recent ion trails within a million clicks of his current position. Weird he thought with a mental shrug. Dreams are weird. He drifted back to sleep.
Braddon was coming into dock at the SSS-900 but when he tried to talk to Simeon, Cindy was the one who replied. It made sense, dreams always made sense while you were in them, Simeon had moved on, Cindy was the new station brain. She had 15 brawns all working for her simultaneously, and had to whittle them down to two good candidates by the end of the month. She had demanded two brawns, to work in shifts, due to the large station size. Perfect sense. As he came into dock, the airlock grew and grew, or maybe he shrank, either way he fit completely inside.
"Oh Braddon, you're inside me!" He knew it was Cindy speaking, but it had come out in Pol's voice.
Please help
"Cinders, you hear that?"
Cindy/Pol was too busy giggling "You're so tiny!" Indeed he was continuing to shrink until the smooth floor of the airlock seemed like a mountainous valley of an unexplored rim world.
Help, running out… trapped
Braddon woke up again, frustrated, something was off, he frantically re-checked all the comms. Everything was the same. No one was talking to him, there were no active lines, all of his contact buttons were accounted for and switched off. There were no brainships in range. He peeked into Xanther's cabin, she was fast asleep with a little piece of drool running down her cheek, there was no way she had been awake just minutes before whispering into the comm link, messing with me, no way… but he didn't have any logical explanation. The most likely option was it was just a dream, dreams were weird, and for some reason he was having a semi-recurring dream about someone calling for help. Option 2: Xanther was messing with him, or maybe testing him? It still seemed like a particularly cruel test, and he couldn't figure out the motivation… Option 3: he was hearing voices. He quickly dismissed option 3. He started running a complete diagnostic on all of his computer systems, maybe a software bug… He spent some time looking through his telescope while he waited for the diagnostic to complete. There was a system over to the port side that was a perfect viewing angle for FTL travel. It intrigued him because of a strange green hue that was being emitted. After 23 minutes the diagnostic returned: 'No errors found on critical systems'. He wasn't surprised, but also a little disappointed, for that would have been a convenient explanation. He decided to try sleeping once more. It took him longer to fall asleep this time, but eventually he managed.
Braddon was looking through a contact button, a suited figure was panting as they struggled to wade through a thick muddy swamp.
"The air is clean, you can take off your helmet." He commented.
"But it smells." Pacifica answered.
"Everything smells."
"Yeah, but this swamp smells bad!"
He couldn't argue with that, having never experienced smell first hand. She kept plodding away and he turned his attention to the bubbling gloop that was probably causing the stink. Bubble, bubble pop! He liked the moment when it popped.
"You think you could film one of those bubbles for me?"
"Working!" She yanked on a small leafy plant, and eventually fell over as the roots gave way, Braddon's view was briefly filled with the wriggling root which looked like a small child, covered in dark sludge.
Help me. He knew the voice was not coming from the plant, it didn't have lips for starters.
Pacifica screamed "Ah! Disgusting!" and threw the plant away, the child like root wriggled and dug itself back into the mud.
Please help.
"You don't hear that?"
"Gross gross gross! What? You should be comforting me, not babbling about nonsense."
Running out… trapped.
He awoke again, the voice definitely wasn't coming from his dream, every time he heard it he felt a pull back to reality, and then woke up. This is really starting to be a bother. He ran all of his sensor sweeps again, and again found nothing. I need to wake up Xanther, I need another opinion, something feels off. Oh boy, I hope she doesn't think I've lost it, just after passing my psych exam too! He fretted and ran another sensor scan while he built up the courage. He opened a comm link to her room.
"Xanther, sorry to wake you, but I need to ask you something."
She stirred and started rubbing her eyes. "Braddon, what time is it?" Oh it must be so bizarre not having an internal clock!
"3:22am"
"Having trouble sleeping?" She had pulled herself up into a half sitting position, at least this time she hadn't fallen out of bed and panicked like the world was about to explode.
"Um, well sort of? More having issues with the staying asleep part."
"What?" She had scrunched up her face in a way that said, I want to be giving you my full attention, but I just woke up from a deep slumber.
"Um, I know this is a pretty silly question, but you weren't like, calling out to me just now?"
"What?" Her face had changed into more of a 'This better not be a joke' type of look. "I was asleep." She gestured absently.
"Yeah, I know, sorry, you don't sleep talk or anything do you?"
"No, I don't think so," she paused, "you heard me calling?" Good, she was waking up enough to start forming complete sentences.
"Well, it didn't sound like you, but there is no one else around."
"Were you dreaming?"
"Well, yeah, I was."
"Someone called out to you in a dream, so you felt you needed to wake me up?"
"Well, not the first time."
"What?" Ok, so we are back to that.
"Look, please, let me try and explain. I was dreaming and then this voice just pops into my head out of nowhere saying 'help me'. It doesn't fit with the dream at all, the other people in the dream cannot hear it, and do not react to it at all. It feels like it is coming from outside of the dream, it makes me realise I am dreaming, and well, then I wake up. I am a light sleeper, if anyone calls me I wake up. I can't hear so much as a whisper on any of the com channels, so I write it off as a weird dream thing and go back to sleep. It has happened three times now, each time it didn't fit with the dream at all, it was the same voice asking for help, but when I wake up, nothing! I have checked my sensors probably like a million times, run a diagnostic, it is like a terribly frustrating itch that is just out of reach. I'm sorry to wake you for something so trivial."
She was fully sitting now, cross legged on the bed. "Thank you for waking me."
"What?" two could play the single worded response game.
"Thank you for trusting me. Hmmm, it was asking for help? Could be a distress signal, so if the voice is real, well it could be very important to find out what's going on." He thought it over. If being the operative word. "And if it is just a weird dream thing, I am still happy that you sought my guidance, I don't want you working yourself into a frenzy if there is something I can assist with."
He let out an audible sigh of relief. "Thanks." They sat in silence for a moment.
Eventually Xanther spoke, "It is kind of like the story of Samuel."
"Samuel? I don't think I know that one."
"It is an old biblical story about a child who hears God calling to him in his sleep, he goes and wakes up his master mistakenly thinking his master was calling him. After three times his master figures out what is going on, and tells Samuel to listen and respond to the voice directly."
"You think God is calling me?"
She chuckled. "Unlikely, but I definitely wasn't."
"Wait, so you think you are my master?" He spoke teasingly.
"No, no, of course not." She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Did you ever try to talk back, instead of just waking up?"
"I tried talking to others in the dream, it didn't sound like the voice could hear me. It sort of pulled me back into reality, I didn't exactly choose to wake up."
"Hmmm." She sat and thought. "Sorry if this is a stupid question, but, well I don't fully understand how your brain um," she grimaced, while winding her hand in little circles, trying to find the right word, "interfaces? With all the comms and what not." He wasn't sure what to say to that, so he continued to listen instead. "Is there anything in the way that you process the signals that would make you able to hear something in a dream, but not when you were actively looking for it?"
He mulled it over. "So, you think the signal is still there even now, but I just can't hear it?"
"Well, that is one idea. I highly doubt the voice is only choosing to call in the few small windows in which you have been asleep." That made a lot of sense.
"But, I have checked all my comm channels like 100 times each! There's nothing out there!"
"100 rushed looks by the same person in the same state of mind are going to miss the same things." She was walking to the main console, and started bringing up the public comms channels. "We are going to go through these one by one, slowly and methodically. I think, the signal is probably very faint, it is likely that we only just entered the functional range, it might get stronger as we continue. Even something very small, a bit of repeating static, could give us a hint."
Braddon felt relief wash over him, she is taking me seriously, she is choosing to help me with this wild goose chase rather than go back to bed! He was already feeling significantly calmer knowing she was there supporting him, and It felt good to have someone else in control for a bit. "Where should I start?" He asked. "Should I go over the same channels as you, compare notes?"
She thought for a moment before answering, "No, I need you to focus on the shell-person private comm link. That is the one I won't be able to double check, and well, that is the one I am most worried about." The thought of a shell-person stranded out there somewhere was very unsettling indeed.
"Oh, right, sure thing."
"Now I don't want you to just take a quick look, I want you to give it your whole attention, focus on it, meditate even. I want you to be calm and still, as close to sleep as possible, and to listen carefully for the tiniest of whispers."
He sighed, this was going to be tedious, but hopefully ultimately worthwhile. "Thanks Xanther, I'll do my best. I'm going to turn down my sensors, but the wake-up-bot will come get me if you speak my name."
"The wake-up-bot?" she sounded surprised.
"Yes, the wake-up-bot, a number of things such as system failures, incoming messages, and people speaking my name have been programmed into my personal alarm clock."
"Ok, well, good luck. And try not to actually fall asleep ok?"
"Sure, sure."
He turned down his sensors and focused on the shell-person comm link. He sent out a pulse, a blip asking if anyone else was in range, and as expected got nothing in reply. He continued to listen, for the booming voice of Simeon, the warm laughter of Sam, the kind words from Cindy, the calm presence of Amik. He missed them, he wished there was another shell-person he could ask about this, maybe they would have had a similar experience? Unlikely. He thought about how the signals from each of his friends felt, what it would feel like if they were calling out to him. He listened, but silence surrounded him. Wait no, there was, something, like, well, he wasn't sure how to describe it, like scratching in the bottom corner of a display, like a background hum from his engines, but one that wasn't quite at the right pitch. It was so small, and quiet, completely alien, yet somehow familiar. It sounded nothing like a transmission from another shell-person… a thought clicked into place, WAIT, what if it is not a shell-person but someone else using the shell-person frequency?! Illegal? Yes. But possible? Absolutely. He focused in on this strange whisper, amplified it, saved it, listened to it. It was looping every 22 seconds. The format was wrong, it was like opening an image in a text editor, a jumbled garbled mess. Whoever was sending it didn't know the standard format for shell-person communications. It didn't sound like a voice, but if he could figure out the format, and well, hopefully it wasn't encoded, there was something so damn familiar…
"Oh my stars!" Braddon exclaimed loudly on the main cabin speaker. Xanther jumped a little in her seat. "Oh, sorry! I found something, it is a pressure suit! Short range comms from a pressure suit are somehow being transmitted, very poorly I might add, through the shell-person comm channel!"
"Wait, what? It's not a shell-person? No one else should be transmitting on that channel…"
"No, they shouldn't, but they are! Listen." He played the short crackly transmission over the speakers.
"Help me. Please help. Running out… *garbled* trapped. Find me, please. Not much time. Help." The voice sounded young, tired, possibly injured. The panting breath in between the words more or less proved it wasn't a shell-person.
Xanther's eyes were wide. "Is that it?"
"Yeah, it's looping."
"Can you track it?"
"No, not easily, it is designed as a broadcast system, we could play hot cold with the signal, but not sure how much that will help, it is incredibly weak and the signal strength is frequently fluctuating as it is, probably due to a faulty power supply."
"Can you respond?"
"Well, I can try, but it is a looping message, so I don't know if I will be able to get someone on the other end, and I need to parse my response in the correct format so I can give this fool the best chance of actually being able to understand me. It's like, trying to walk on my hands."
Xanther snorted, "I can do that!"
After a bit of code wrangling Braddon was finally able to send out a reply, asking for a location, asking if they were ok, asking if they could hear him? He got no response, the message just continued to loop, a haunting, frightened cry for help.
"Braddon, I just had an uncomfortable thought."
"What is it?" Xanther was sitting in the pilot's chair holding a steaming cup of stimulant.
"Do you need the right bit of tech to talk on the brain wave? Or can any old comms unit manage it if you tweak it just right?"
He had been pondering the how himself. "Most standard issue comms units on general ships would not be able to handle the frequencies needed. And there is no way you could hack a pressure suit to do this directly."
She sighed. "Great, that is what I feared. So the most likely situation is that our sender has got their hands on a legit brainwave unit?"
"It is possible to create one from scratch, none of the parts are restricted or difficult to obtain, but I don't understand why a non-shelled person would want to create one. It is not particularly useful without the encryption codes. No, the most likely outcome is it is a legit unit." He said the last phrase solemnly. The unspoken logical conclusion was that someone was salvaging brainships. If there was a brain attached to that comm unit, he would have someone to talk to and the mystery would be solved.
"But why wouldn't they just send out a distress beacon? There has gotta be a better way of calling for help!"
"Maybe all the comms were damaged?"
"Even the distress signal? That is designed to transmit when damaged. And if all the comms were out, then why do they have a functioning brainwave?! Ugh, I just can't figure this out."
"Hopefully the satellite will have some answers."
"Can you get a link back to CenCom?"
"Sure, I can bounce a tight beam off the satellite, you think we are headed into a trap?"
"Something seems very off. We should let them know our whereabouts and plan of action, as well as asking if there are any missing brainships in the area. Or failing that, missing ships in general."
He warmed up the tight beam and was quickly in contact with operations officer Foley.
"This is the XB-1070 reporting an unusual distress signal in sector G-6. Requesting information on any missing ships in the area, particularly any missing brainships."
There was still a 3 second delay, even on the tightbeam.
"Roger that Braddon, can you please explain what you mean by unusual? Do you suspect that a brainship is involved? I am requesting information and should have it for you shortly."
"Thanks. The distress signal is a compressed audio loop from a pressure suit that is being sent through the shell-person communication network. I believe the communication device being used, may have been, er, salvaged. Although there are a number of other possibilities."
The pause on the line was longer than three seconds.
"Yeah, ok, huh, that is definitely unusual. There are no ships that are currently classified as missing within that sector. However there are a couple of freighters that passed through that quadrant within the last 2 months that have not shown up at their stated next port of call. This is not that uncommon with privately run craft. They change plans all the time, or even deliberately put in bad data to prevent ambush."
"No brainships?" Braddon felt a touch of relief.
"Wait, the YJ-812 was heading back from a long term scouting mission and was due to pass through that sector about a week ago. They are late for check-in, but again that is not particularly unusual, especially with that team."
The relief vanished. "Please send me all available course data on the freighters and the YJ-812. Are there any other brainships that should be within comms range? I am getting no local communications traffic."
"Well, that is odd. The YJ-812 should almost definitely be in range. Sending course information now. As of now your current mission is on hold and you are advised to proceed with caution, investigate this transmission, and report all findings directly. The nearest fleet vessel is currently a good 4 days from your current position and will be deployed if you find evidence to deem it necessary or if we lose contact with you for over 48 hours. Please acknowledge."
4 days? That was closer than he had hoped, but still too far to put him at ease. "Requesting fleet deployment after 24 hours of lost contact, we are concerned about ambush."
"Your request is noted, however the fleet vessel is on a mission where a fast extraction may not be possible. We need to know more about this signal, you are to proceed with caution, as you are undoubtedly aware there are no other capable vessels in your area."
"Understood, we will check in after 12 hours."
Xanther had been watching the entire transmission, but kept quiet, arms crossed, brow furrowed, still trying to piece together this unusual puzzle. Braddon severed the connection. Now instead of being on a low priority maintenance mission they were on an all haste rescue op. Braddon didn't feel prepared, or properly qualified, but all of his training urged him to continue. If the YJ-812 was out there and needed help, he couldn't not go to them. So much for my sufficiently dull mission.
They continued towards the Satellite as that was the direction they were headed when they first discovered the signal, it had been slowly getting stronger, but Braddon had so far been unable to triangulate its location. Satellites kept a log of all ships that came within range, like a traffic counter. They would request ID from the vessel, but it was not mandatory to advise, and many were logged anonymously. He could request basic navigational data and NET access from the satellite, however to access the detailed logs he needed to provide their security access code. Once he was in range the satellite pinged him and he provided the ship's info. It would be good to have it on record exactly where he had been, a trail of crumbs for the fleet ship to follow, although he hoped it would not be necessary. He requested navigational info for nearby stations and settlements and got a garbled response. Huh.
"Xanther, we are in range of the satellite. It might be damaged."
"What makes you say that?"
"I asked for basic navigational information and it just sent nonsense. The ping was normal though, so hopefully it has been tracking ships OK."
"Can you access any of the logs from here?"
"I sent my access code multiple times, but am not getting a response. It isn't rejecting the code, just not acknowledging it. We might have more luck with a direct link."
"We'll just have to wait and see. ETA?"
"8 hours, nine minutes. Feel free to get some rest, I don't think anything exciting will happen in the meantime."
"You wake me with even the slightest bit of news ok?"
There wasn't a lot Braddon could do either so he spent some time observing the green hued Burnilli system to the port side. He could just make out a ringed planet, oh how he liked rings.