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Sindrae science vessel

Science officer Soiessa Ny'rae floated through the bulkheads leading to the bridge in quick succession. As she passed the last opening, she caught a glimpse at herself in the reflection off of the paneling, sighing as she saw her crest feathers in disarray.

Upon her entrance she caught the attention of two other officers. One of them practically jumped at her with excitement. "Soiessa! You're just in time. We were just looking over the signals we retrieved from our destination." Her scales twitched a bit in anticipation. "How exciting!" She grabbed onto a nearby consol to stop herself. "Has Thokin been able to analyze them yet?" Thokin chimed in after hearing his name. "Well, I only know that the signal is making controlled changes in amplitude, but I haven't tried to demodulate the signal. Why don't you take a seat and stay for a while?"

Soiessa gently pushed herself toward an open seat and positioned her tail to curl around into her lap as she sat down. Meanwhile, both Thokins and Neeris were fiddling with the computer. Thokin managed to put a segment of the signal into a program and was playing around with it as Neeris displayed the virtual workspace on Soiessa's monitor. She really had no idea what was going on, but nonetheless was watching her screen intently.

Thokin had started to play around with the program. "See, this looks like a fairly simple encoding," he said. "Basically all that is going on is some simple amplitude changes to embed a signal. So! All I have to do is outline the envelope..." At this point, the shape of signal on Soiessa's screen had been highlighted. It still looked like a mess of zigzagging lines to her, though. "... then we assume the envelope to be the base signal and create a new waveform with that shape. Now we filter out the higher frequencies and, assuming there is sound encoded in the signal..."

He pressed a key on his keyboard and suddenly white noise emitted from the speakers embedded in their seats. However, through the static several faint, but distinct voices could be heard.

Neeris grinned at both Soiessa and Thokin. "There's still more signals to analyze, but it's incredible isn't it? Two years in this cramped up ship and now we're actually hearing our new friends speak. I've even already started to ping the radio so they can notice us." Soiessa's crest rose slightly at his last remark and she cracked a smile. Thokin laughed and said, "I wonder how ugly they'll be. Hey! What if they have, like, five arms coming out of their heads?" They all started laughing.

Soiessa tapped on her screen and the navigation panel was displayed. "Only a little while longer, now. The ship should be making the course change in a couple hours." She got up from her seat and started to leave. "I'm off to the gym to do my daily routine. I'll see you both at our next meal." Both Neeris and Thokin nodded and went back to work. While passing through the bulkhead Soiessa accidentally bumped into another crew member.

"Sorry, Colonel." As she apologized he glanced back at her scowling, but said nothing. "Damn hard-heads," she thought to herself as she made her way down through the corridor.

---

Earth

"Hey Steve, the data on one of the objects has changed. It's showing an abrupt change in course and the computer says its path is coincidental with Earth's orbit." A technician was currently nose-deep into a computer screen. Steve Valere, the only senior scientist on duty, looked at the woman and took a slow sip of his coffee. "Probably just a collision. Which object is it?"

"Object MRZ2511. It's about 300 meters in diameter; should I tag it?" Steve wandered over to her computer terminal and leaned in for a closer look at the data. "No, don't bother. Just make a note of it. If it even gets close enough we'll take another look at it." Steve sipped his coffee again and glanced around the room.

About 5 more technicians were working at their desks, each with a special title associated with them. They all worked for the Near-Earth Object program (NEO), a very small division of the local space program that monitored objects in space that could pose a threat to Earth. There was a big screen in the middle of the room that showed a map of the planetary system and the 10 closest threatening objects' relative positions and calculated trajectories. Each of the closest objects had a color code associated with them; a green tag indicated low threat, and currently all of the objects showed green.

Suddenly, a new object suddenly flashed on the screen, blinking red. Everyone in the room started shifting as the object data appeared on their screens. Steve immediately started to coordinate everyone. "Show it on the map, guys. I want all of the info on this one before I make a call to the higher-ups." Almost instantaneously, numerous attributes of the rogue object appeared on the screen. The object was estimated to be between 1.4 to 1.8 kilometers in diameter moving at roughly 18 kilometers per second. The object was heading right for the planet. The technicians were frantically making calculations and writing up reports. A bit of sweat traced Steve's cheeks and forehead, and he made an announcement. "That's a plausible impact in about 8 months. I'm calling it in." The action paused as he made a call using his terminal phone.

The voice on the other side was laughing, almost hysterically. Steve stood confused for a bit. Then the voice, through breaks between laughter managed to say, "Start loading up the bunkers, we've got a big one this time!" Steve became frustrated as he recognized the voice on the other line. "Son of a bitch! Jesse, I should have known you'd do something this stupid." Jesse was obviously amused with his prank. "Yeah, you should have, ha ha! Did you even look at the object ID?" Steve glanced at the screen and looked at the text that the "threatening" object was listed under. The identifier read 'M-O-O-0-0-0-0'. "Very funny. I'll kick your ass later, but right now I need to calm everyone down." Steve hung up the phone and told everyone it was a prank. There were a few uneasy laughs and a lot of banter until the object disappeared off of the big screen. After about a minute, things got quiet again and everyone was back to their normal routines. The next day a call came to Steve's desk and he swiftly picked up the phone.

"Hi, Steve Valere? This is Kaylee Henners from the nearby radio observatory. We just detected a radio pulse and we were hoping you could see if it's coming from something or it's just an anomaly."

"Well, we only deal with asteroids and such, but give me the origin's wherabouts and I'll see what I can do." Steve got out his notepad and a pen, writing down the source coordinates as Kaylee gave them. "Ok, I'll see what we picked up in the area. Hang on." Steve set down the phone and checked the coordinates with his own list of objects. "Yeah I have one hit near that location."

"Oh! Maybe it's extraterrestrials coming for us!" Steve could hear Kaylee chuckling on the other side, but wasn't in the mood for any jokes after yesterday's commotion. He paused for a bit, tapping his pen against his cheek while reading about the object. Suddenly he noticed the comments section. 'MRZ2511. 2138-02-13T23:59:58: abrupt course change noted; probable cause: collision'.

"Hey, about how long ago would the pulse have been started?"

"About a day ago," she answered. " Why?"

Steve set down his phone and his heart started racing. He could faintly hear Kaylee beckoning him through the phone speaker. Nervously, he picked up the phone again. "Sorry, I have to make a few calls."