Mysterious Mission Star Map Draftsman I: Federation War

There were only two people in the conference room. One was looking down at his papers, and the other, a young man, was staring in the direction from which Rodney Cruise’s trio had entered, but his eyes were not resting on the trio.

The lights in the conference room were turned on extra brightly, and the three men, who had just come out of darkness mode, squinted and walked to the table. The man who was looking down at the documents did not look up; all they could see was the top of his white head and the glasses that were about to fall to the table. The uniform he was wearing was the same as that of an ordinary aerospace engineer, nothing special. As for the young man standing next to him, if the United Nations had not long ago banned the production of humanoid robots, they would have taken him for a low-level artificial intelligence, standing there as mute as a machine on standby charge. The hologram on the wall of the meeting room was not on, and there was no extra information about this meeting. The three stood in a row in front of the old man, waiting for him to speak.

“The three engineers have worked hard.” The older man looked up, his eyes peering over the top of the frames to eye the three, and he finally rested his gaze on Rodney Cruise and continued. “I’m the head of aerospace engineering, General Quentin.”

General Quentin, whom no one had ever met, was the initiator and chief of the space program. He alone made all decisions related to extraterrestrial activities, no organization had the authority to interfere with his program, and there were even rumors that he had invented the heat-resistant silicon-based materials for the spacecraft. General Quentin closed the paper file in his hand, raised his left hand, and the “robot” standing beside him walked out past the three men.

“No one knows about today’s conversation except for the four of us.” General Quentin handed the document in his hand to each of the three, and when the three took it, the cover showed a level one mission. A level zero mission had the highest authority, and no one had taken a level zero mission so far; even a level one mission was rarely seen. The three opened the file suspiciously and started to look through it from the beginning.

“To save time, I’ll just tell you the conclusion.” General Quentin leaned against the table and took a hard breath, a big one for a man his age.

“We noticed a large meteorite in the Kuiper Belt in 1997. It appeared out of nowhere, and the observatory spent ten years monitoring it. By 2007, we had sent three satellites one after another to look at that meteorite, to confirm whether our guess was correct.” General Quentin shifted his weight off his left foot, which had been supporting his body, and onto his right foot.

“It wasn’t until 2038 that the third satellite managed to get there and see up close what that suddenly appearing meteorite was. In fact, it was a spacecraft beyond our comprehension. The satellite sent back pictures, and after consulting with the country, we started a lunar project and also established a Mars laboratory.” General Quentin lifted his right hand, which was supporting his body, and pointed his index finger to the sky as he continued. “All of this, everything you struggled for, was because of that ship.”

General Quentin pushed back with both hands and stood up with both hands at his waist, trying to keep himself balanced. He walked up to the three men, took the file from Rodney Cruise’s hand, skillfully flipped to a picture in the middle, and pressed the file back into Rodney Cruise’s hand. He pointed to Dawn Lucius and Kenny Jr. Clooney respectively, and then to the picture in Rodney Cruise’s hand, indicating that the two should turn to the corresponding picture. The three could not say a word. The ship, the ship called “Sane ship,” really exists, floating there. When did this ship appear? Who drove it there? Why didn’t it go further? How big is it? What was driving it? A whole lot of questions lingered in the minds of the three of them, and they had no more information than the photos.

“A week ago, the observatory detected a signal in a new frequency band. It was audio. We couldn’t understand what was in it, but it was definitely the language of some kind of creature, and the source of the signal was none other than the Sane ship,” General Quentin said as he turned around. He rummaged under the papers on his desk and pulled out a black object, a rectangular box only the size of a finger. He cupped the box in his hand and pressed a round button in the middle with his thumb, and a burst of static noise began to flow out, like the noise that appears when tuning an old radio, monotonous and even a little grating. “ooh zee, kee, ooh ......” A thick sound came out of the player in General Quentin’s hand, like an old cow mimicking some sound, and before the three could figure out what was going on, an intermittent gasping rang out from the player. The speaker sounded as if badly wounded, or perhaps choking on the loss of a loved one.

General Quentin put the player in his hand back on the table.

“This voice has only been heard by a handful of top acoustic and linguistic experts.” General Quentin began to cough. He beat his chest hard, and the accompanying pain made him bend down. Rodney Cruise rushed forward to support General Quentin. After spitting out a mouthful of old phlegm, he breathed deeply and said softly, “I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who heard the voice. Just an hour after we listened to it, the rival spacecraft took off from Earth, with much media coverage, as I’m sure you already know. As the four of us are talking at this very moment, they are igniting in Mars orbit, and they are about to get their first slingshot gravitational acceleration.”

General Quentin slowly turned around and pulled out a piece of paper from his desk: a picture of the rival ship, which must have been taken when the ship passed the moon. Dawn Lucius guessed that the ship was only half the size of the Dawn ship, with a speed of only two hundred kilometers per second. The letters on the ship’s hull showed that it was the Trailblazer ship, built in North America in 2041. General Quentin put the photo in Rodney Cruise’s folder and poked it with his index finger. He wanted to add something, but when the words reached his mouth, he swallowed them back together with his saliva.

The old man turned and ambled back to the table. The blue light was cold, and where it shone on the old man’s white hair, the silvery light was like starlight in the vast universe, emitted millions of years ago and, through time, reaching Earth as a twinkle. He bowed his head and sighed as his back sank. Rodney Cruise and the other two still found no reason to speak; they did not know what to say at this point. What could they ask? They couldn’t ask, “General Quentin, are you okay?”

“I have no right to demand anything from you.” The old man said, turning to face the three men, his eyes full of tears as he raised his head. “But I am going to ask you now, not as your superior but as an Earthling, to board the Dawn ship in twenty minutes and sail to the Kuiper Belt.” Dawn Lucius’ heart beat faster. He was going to open his mouth to ask why it was so urgent; he had only told Stacean Lucius he was going to the moon, not to the edge of the solar system. Dawn Lucius still had many questions, and he did not know what the other two thought. Dawn Lucius eagerly glanced at Rodney Cruise, but at this moment Commander Cruise was looking down at the papers in his hand, or looking down to avoid General Quentin’s eyes. Only Kenny Jr. Clooney, his eyes following General Quentin meekly, seemed to be waiting for one more command before he could set off on his own in the Dawn ship.

“I have to apologize to you. You don’t have time to explain to your families now, and you can’t explain to your families. If the Dawn ship suddenly departs, the PR media on Earth have a response plan, and with the military maintaining order, society will not fall into turmoil. As for your families, the space agency will give them explanations and support. In addition, I have signed a special citizen order, so your families will enjoy all the preferential rights in society.” General Quentin was weary, and his face had the simple expression of an old farmer who had been busy all year only for his crops to fail. He turned around and brought out the transparent device underneath the paper document. The device was close to the size of a sheet of A4 paper. He shook it and the screen lit up; the device recognized General Quentin’s bio information and automatically unlocked, and the screen showed a paused video of the Sane ship.

“I’m getting old. I’m still not used to high-tech stuff.” General Quentin switched the contents of the screen with the fingers of his other hand, and a document with a “Level 1 Confidential” label appeared. The content could be viewed on any device that could log into their own accounts.

“No one can guarantee that competitors will use the technology for all of humanity if they get priority access to the contents of the Sane ship, and for now, the think tank’s predictions have come out badly.” The old man waved his hand. Tension and doubt had run through the late night, the two emotions mixing and fermenting into exhaustion. He propped both hands on the table and continued after easing up a little. “The think tank predicts that everything we know will disappear, and that the other side’s army has long been eyeing the moon.” The old man pointed a backhand at the door.

“I have a regret.” The old man pulled out a photo from his jacket pocket of a smiling middle-aged man in a baseball cap next to an 11- or 12-year-old boy holding a four-wheel-drive model rocket with a shiny gold medal hanging on his chest. “My son always wanted to be an aerospace engineer. He is my pride. He said .......” Tears slipped down the old man’s cheeks and lingered at the corners of his mouth, their converging pull drawing him into a whirlpool of memories in which a boy said he wanted to go on a space voyage with his dad through the stars and seas. “He went to another place where I couldn’t go, and when he left, he made me promise him to protect his favorite planet, Earth, which was his home.”

The old man took a deep breath and put the photo back in his pocket. He pressed down hard on his clothes, trying to press the photo into his heart, and he put his hand back in the pocket and touched the photo to make sure it was still there before he took his hand out.

“Earth is a fragile home, where it’s warm, peaceful and, most importantly, where we have people we love. In a child’s eyes, we are their heroes, and they believe that no matter what the odds, their heroes will protect them, as we fathers always do.” The old man breathed a long sigh of relief.

“The objectives of this mission are all in the document I just sent you. In five minutes, the three of you, please board the ship.” The old man turned around shakily and bowed to the three, the top of his grizzled head stopping in front of them. He paused, propped both hands on his knees and continued to bend down. The old man felt dizzy; the years of exertion plus the thoughts growing wildly in his heart overwhelmed his aged body. The old man’s body collapsed forward, and six hands suddenly held him in place. He slowly raised his head, and eight eyes crowded with tears looked at each other. No one said anything. When the old man stood firm, the three saluted. After adjusting their breathing, Rodney Cruise turned around, Dawn Lucius and Kenny Jr. Clooney followed, and the three walked out of the conference room. More than thirty people were already waiting for them outside, and they began to applaud, the applause like a triumphant cannon salute, especially piercing at midnight.

“Commander Cruise, we’ll be involved in the Dawn ship mission.” A slightly chubby man greeted him, his face white even at night, with a black fleshy mole on his left cheek like a chocolate crumb accidentally left behind by a glutton. He pointed backhandedly at the men behind him and continued. “They are all experts in various fields. Unfortunately, we can’t join you three on board, but we will keep in touch with you from the base. The Dawn ship’s data is synchronized with the base, and we will be the first to help you analyze it and give you feedback.”

Before the trio could say anything, five men in military uniforms were standing behind them, the lead one trying to reach for Rodney Cruise’s suitcase. Rodney Cruise pulled his hand back, and the lead man in military uniform took a half step back and mechanically and politely raised his right hand. “Please board the ship.” And with that, the trio got into a larger tour bus. Dawn Lucius’ mind was full of worry for Stacean Lucius; he feared that his son would be disappointed in him, or angry with him for leaving without saying goodbye. The most important question in his head now was: are we coming back? Or, when will we come back?

The sightseeing car headed toward the back of the conference room, the circle of yellow lights outlining it flashing like a glowing firefly, and drove into another stretch of darkness. The darkness was covered by silence, and even the gradually increasing sound of the engine was like an old lady’s breathless rambling. Dawn Lucius grabbed the seat belt in front of his chest, his thumbs over his heart. He could clearly feel as if a beast was crashing inside his chest, bang bang bang ...... He missed the earth, missed Stacean Lucius, missed his fleshy little palms, missed his unsteady standing when he was happy. On this mission, all they knew was to drive a ship to another ship; as to what to do there, and whether there were other missions, he knew nothing. The tour bus sped off and came to a gate marked as a security exit. The man in military uniform in the lead got off and walked straight to the door of the locker on the left side where the spacesuits were kept; only he had the authority to open the door. Clean starlight was shining through.

When they arrived at the launch site, the engine of the engineering vehicle used to build the Dawn ship had already been started. These engineering vehicles are similar to shuttle boats, except that the engineering vehicles have more tools and also come with their own robotic arms. As the trio entered the engineering vehicle, the voice of the man in the military uniform in the lead came through the headset. “Take care.” When the trio looked back, the people in military uniforms were saluting in unison, and Rodney Cruise’s head bowed slightly forward to them in return. Dawn Lucius glanced at Rodney Cruise’s face, which still maintained the firm qualities of Commander Cruise. The mechanical arms of the engineering vehicle slowly retracted and folded against the bottom of the body, and the engines shot out blue light; from this moment on, they would be farther and farther away from Earth.

As the engineering vehicle rose, the darkness was left on the ground. A dark red began to appear on the lunar horizon, then an orange-red, and the sunlight lit up areas like the fields Dawn Lucius had seen in the mornings as a child. The engineering vehicle had risen to deceleration height, and the sunlight struck the specially treated glass; Dawn Lucius felt a soreness around his eyes. The Dawn ship floated before his eyes, looking like a joyous cruise ship, the searchlights around the hull turned up to their brightest, yet lifeless. Dawn Lucius looked at the flexible device in his hands, set the photo of Stacean Lucius as the first screen and whispered in his mind, “Daddy loves you.”

The engineering vehicle drove to the E area at the front of the Dawn ship’s hull, and the door of the isolation bay was pulled upward. The engineering vehicle delivered the three into the Dawn ship, and they stepped onto the thick metal floor of the Dawn ship. The engineering vehicle slowly backed out of the isolation bay, and after getting about thirty meters from the ship, it accelerated toward the moon base and fled: no handshake, no goodbye, no official thanks. After all, it was only a primary artificial intelligence, with an artificial and particularly restricted body. Out of the isolation bay, the real face of the E area appeared in front of the three. Four double landing modules were fixed in a row, with four corresponding toolboxes on the wall behind them; transparent glass hung in front of the tools, and the large red fire extinguishers were the most conspicuous. Opposite the landing modules there were sixteen aviation chairs, used to protect the engineers’ bodies from injury under acceleration overweight; when the engineers needed to carry out alien landing operations, they could also temporarily sit here.

The E section is about 100 meters long, and the area near the head of the ship is empty. This space may be reserved for maintenance of the landing module, or, in the original plan, for parking more landing modules. The tablet device in Dawn Lucius’ hand showed that it was Area F, the main flight control room and watchtower, and as they approached the door, there were two cleaning robots in the right-hand corner, with yellow lights indicating that they were charging. Are these the only things that move on this ship?

The three stood in a line in front of the door, waiting for the AI to open the door after recognizing their biological information, but after they had stood for a long time, the door still did not respond. Rodney Cruise turned his face to look at Dawn Lucius, and found that Dawn Lucius was consulting the information on the tablet, trying to find the reason why the door did not open. Rodney Cruise turned his face to Kenny Jr. Clooney and found the other man staring at the door. Commander Cruise lifted his arm to see if the flexible device on his wrist contained instructions for opening the door. According to the rules of human-computer interaction in the space sector, the way to open the door would be displayed on the engineer’s accompanying device once they were a certain distance away from the door. When General Quentin synchronized the documents to the three people in the conference room, he should have synchronized the secret key to open the door.

“Whoa.” Rodney Cruise shouted; he realized they were actually wearing space suits indoors. Attracted by his voice, Dawn Lucius and Kenny Jr. Clooney looked at him, only to see Commander Cruise fumbling to remove his helmet. Before the two had worked out what was happening, Commander Cruise spoke again. “We didn’t take off our helmets.”

The other two understood. People indoors do not need to wear space suits, and opening the door required identifying their faces and eyes; through the helmets, the artificial intelligence could not identify their information, which was why the door would not open. After the other two took off their helmets, the three first looked at each other, then they could not help but laugh, and the heavy gloom that had built up in them finally lightened a little. The artificial intelligence opened the door, and the sunlight from the bow glass window poured in. The watchtower was bright and empty, and after laughing, Dawn Lucius felt a little sad instead.

The Dawn ship’s bow has two glass windows with a total area of about one hundred square meters. They are glass from the floor all the way to the top of the cabin, so one can see directly outside. Outside the glass there is a metal shroud that can be closed; when the ship passes through open space, the shroud can be opened to observe the situation outside, and at this time the shroud was open. Below the glass window there are eight stations, each with two monitors in front of it, presumably for different functional positions. Two or three meters behind the stations there is a larger stool, and next to the stool there is a small table with three small screens on it. Below the leftmost screen there is a place to put your palm, which looks like it is used to unlock some advanced permission. There is a raised circular table in the center of the watchtower, and in the center of the table there is a hexahedron, which looks like a hologram player. The furnishings here are very simple, and there are camera matrices placed in each of the four corners of the room, which must be used to record the work logs of the watchtower. At the same time, all the actions here will be synchronized to the moon base, and the cooperating engineers there will also make decision suggestions based on these records.

“It’s really like a zany new luxury car!” Dawn Lucius exclaimed as he looked at what was in front of him.

“No, the second most expensive luxury car in the history of mankind.” Kenny Jr. Clooney said as he walked toward the glass window, tapping all the keyboards on the desk in an attempt to start the computer.

“Come over here, you two, and let’s watch the mission briefing.” Rodney Cruise had walked over to the hologram table and was clicking on the file in the flexible device on his wrist. The two walked over to the table, and the three stood in a triangle. At that moment, the hexahedron lifted upward some distance, and after hovering and stabilizing in the air, each side of the hexahedron began to light up, and the flight path map of the Dawn ship was displayed in the air, playing like a movie. The image showed the first slingshot acceleration point of the Dawn ship, and finally the Dawn ship would rush into Neptune’s gravitational descent orbit, using Neptune’s gravity as a brake for the Dawn ship.

Rodney Cruise raised his left hand and the hologram paused as he spoke, “On this mission, there will be just the three of us on the Dawn ship.” After he fiddled with the files in the flex device, a diagram of the cryo-bunker appeared on the projection. After reading the contents of the diagram, Dawn Lucius felt a chill down his back, and his heart clenched as if it were being squeezed hard by the thing in the diagram; he clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. As for Kenny Jr. Clooney, his earlier confidence had disappeared, his mouth hung open like a black hole, and his face was white.

“This, this is our mission.” Rodney Cruise said, pointing to the image.