Translation of the Signal

Posted on Wed Jan 8th, 2020 @ 12:34am by Captain Gary Alexander & Karina Tell & Lieutenant JG Talia Flowers

898 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Mission 2 - Encounters of a First Kind
Location: USS Horizon Bridge
Timeline: 2168/07/27 1230

Gary sat on the bridge. He could see from the monitors that the shuttle had landed. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be amiss at the moment. But something seemed wrong. Why would any species abandon a colony? That made no sense.

He turned to Flowers and asked, "Any luck on that translation, yet?"

Talia listened carefully to the signal; now they were closer, she didn't have to boost it as much and the garbled sounds and rough cadence started to slowly unravel.

"It repeats," she murmured, mostly to herself, realizing this with a sudden joy. "The signal is some sort of message that requires repetition..."

Wracking her brain she thought of many things that repeated... old type commercials from the distant past of their homeworld... a welcome message... a warning of some sort...

But which one?

"I'm getting there Captain, but nothing definitive yet." There was something in her demeanor that had changed. Something that had given her a sudden concern about what unknown situation their crew would be getting into. Oh if it were like their last port of call... but somehow it didn't seem possible.

There was some interference nearby, some sort of energy field that distorted the signal a little; it lessened now that they were closer to this... beacon? Whatever it was, that was for Science to figure out. She was head deep in the sounds of another world.

The consonance, the dissonance... war-like, intimidating... maybe it wasn't the tone of the voice so much as the subject of the message.

Another layer peeled away...

"Give me what you got, Flowers. I need to know what we're dealing with. I've got a bad feeling about this."

To be honest, so did she. "Well," she began and after a scathing look from his personal bulldog, Flowers grudgingly added, "Captain." At least that Yeoman's pursed lips eased up a bit.

"The signal repeats." She replayed the signal and listened to it closely. "The tone is..." she searched for the right word as her brain still worked on a brand new language. "Cautionary but firm."

A word popped out. "Warning." She listened to the message with her eyes closed as though shutting off all but her sense of hearing would help her with understanding. And somehow, discussing the possibilities of what it might be, that first word welcomed itself into her expanding vocabulary.

She paled slightly as a second phrase began emerging. "Stay away... avoid..." she listened harder and began connecting the pace of the language to similar cadences in their own. Her lips parted as she realized the word that was emerging...

"Beware..." She looked up, eyes wider.

"Beware of what?" Gary demanded urgently. "We have people on the planet down there. Does it have to do with it?"

Talia shook her head almost imperceptibly. How could this message have to do with anything BUT the planet below? "It's here for a reason, Captain," she said softly, knowing that what she was going to say wasn't going to be the easiest to hear.

Her mouth wrapped around each alien syllable she had memorized. The rhythm was urgent. The authority was real. And so was the danger.

"Danger." Beware. Warning. There were people down there, unwary, ignorant people, and she was the only person who stood between them and... "Oh. My. God."

She blinked as the words began flowing from her lips, "Warning to all vessels. Beware of planet below." No definite or indefinite articles... this communication was too important to waste time on insignificant words. "Danger to life. Stay away."

Her face paled as she finally understood the rest: "Danger prisoners below. Do. Not. Land. Here."

She looked up as the clarity continued. "And then Captain," she whispered so softly some might strain to hear, "it repeats."

"Get them up," KAT whispered. "Captain..." her eyes were pleading as she turned to him.

"What do you want me to relay, sir?" Talia said, somber as she cursed herself for not figuring it out earlier, faster... before they had been sent down to the surface. There could be recriminations later. Now? They had to get their people back.

Looking at KAT sympathetically and concerned, Gary reassured her, "This is likely an old recording. We saw no intelligent lifesigns down there. The structures can't hold anyone in them, right? It is like what the English did to political prisoners, right? Sent them somewhere to live their lives but not kill them, I suspect."

A ghost of a smile touched KAT's lips and she nodded gratefully.

He told Talia, "Perhaps it is best that we should convey this information to the away team. Let them know what this was. It might help their search."

Without delay, Talia opened a channel. "Horizon to Away Team, please respond Commander." There was an underlying urgency in her voice.

An old signal didn't necessarily mean that it was no longer needed. In fact, it might be needed more. If anyone understood the evolution of organisms to adapt to their present environments over long periods of time, it would be her.

Without waiting, she continued. "I've translated the signal, and am sending you the message now..." Her fingers trembled a little as she relayed it. And hoped to hell that someone on the surface was still alive to receive it. Or that she was simply overreacting. She wasn't easily rattled, but this? Yeah. This... was different.

 

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