Panther and Giraffe

  PANTHER

  and

  GIRAFFE

  alien first contact

  ©Gregory David Anderson 2017

  1

  Beyond the farthest reach of the Perseus Arm lay the gray nebula and from the closest planet the view was desolate, foreboding and barren of stars. That last planet of charted space was called Edahni and contained a sizable mining colony that until recently was largely unnoticed by the rest of the occupied worlds until they discovered Azurite. Edahni was a barely habitable world with a thin atmosphere and average temperature of forty five Fahrenheit including a weak sun that meant for limited crop growth and only a few strange indigenous animals. Settled by a mixed group of humans and hegmons and run in a corporation format Edahni was a productive and stable planet that essentially traded minerals for food and a few luxury products.

  Humans and hegmons are very similar beings in stature and emotion with both laughing, crying and smiling at the same things despite having no way to vocalize each others language. Physically, hegmons have wide set eyes and prominent upper front teeth and are covered in hide with thick, short fur and wear just enough in clothing to cover private parts. While eating the same vegetables as humans, hegmons do not like red meats at all but do enjoy fish. Other than wearing translators the two species are socially the same, sharing work, play and raising families in equal measure. After enough time both on Edahni have learn to understand each others language and are able to converse freely with out any translator aids. When the news came out that Edahni discovered Azurite the rest of the worlds paid little attention, waiting to see if there would be enough proved production, except for the Federated. When the the smell of real credits came up these guardians of the fringe worlds took great interest. One of the rarest known and valuable minerals Azurite cannot be found with any scanning equipment and only found on two other planets so the people of Edahni were on the road to great wealth as long as they could hang on to it.

  Federated normally kept the shipping lanes safe and free from pirates and other riffraff around some of the furthest worlds. Most worlds or groups of worlds had there own governments and forces to protect them but on the fringes and far reaches groups like Federated, often no more than pirates themselves demand goods, services or fees to provide “protection”. When Federated came calling, the people of Edahni said no, not seeing any reason to share the soon to be wealth. So Federated blockaded the planet with ships and jamming buoys. Three ships tried to make it out and were destroyed and no form of communication could get out either, Federated would starve them into compliance. Not many traders ventured all the way out to Edahni because there was very little value in shipping groceries and trading for metals readily available on closer worlds but for Zak Johns and the CS Panther it was 'on the route' and just what they did, perhaps just because very few others would.

  The sentient specie of the know galaxy are mostly bipedal humanoid types and captain Zak Johns was from one of the light planets, as in gravity, so at seven feet tall and lanky he was just average and was looking down at his hegmon navigator, “Stop chittering and just stop, none of the crew is going, it is way too dangerous.” Zak said. Navigator Hart frowned and said, “But we have friends there who are depending on us.”

  “I will not risk the crew on a suicide mission, that is why I have to do this solo again.” stated Zak while shaking his head in exasperation. The crew would be staying on Colusis Two until he got back, hopefully staying out of trouble, some of the hegmons were too open and curious for there own good.

  The CS Panther was named after that mythical creature of legend who was nearly invisible in the dark and although small was absolutely deadly. As a container ship, she was an old T class design, atmospheric capable and drop capable but obsolete in today's galaxy. The kind of ship being only useful on some those planets that were lightly populated, which meant no credits to be made so few ventured out to these 'minority' worlds.

  Panther had a few things very few people knew about like that she started life as a military, super armored and shielded troop ship plus all the added things like the jump drive which had never been part of the original designs. Not only was the CS Panther nearly invisible to the eye but also to scanning and radar systems. And, if necessary the modified and over sized ion thrusters as well as the docking landing thrusters made her as fast and maneuverable as most more modern ships out there. Despite being over a quarter mile long and a century old.

  There were no signs of guns or canon visible all being discretely covered. The exception being the rail guns running the entire length of the ship which, as everyone knew, was a failed and never used design.

  The Panther could handle any of the old style containers including the special droppers with their own landing thrusters, all smart controlled.. Since very few of T class ships were in use anymore thousands of containers of all types were virtually free for the taking. Zak had many stashed on moons all over the galaxy, especially the habitable self contained colony arks plus a few dozen self landing military surplus cans. While there had been no galactic wars for over a century there was always the possibility and of course, chasing around the fringes of known space was never totally safe from pirate elements. The extensive modifications and tech upgrades made it possible for one person to operate essential systems on the Panther. But still, a person would have to be insane to do it. Many thought Zak and his crew were insane to deliver food and essentials to colonies on the fringes with little of value for trade or exchange. Zak was from a prominent family on one of the oldest core worlds Cyrillium One and he did not have to do anything at all. With a crew that demonstrated a loyalty that was beyond compare it was especially hard to see their captain go off on the kind of suicide mission he was about to attempt again.

  It was the seventh successful container drop to the beleaguered planet. Blockaded for whatever reason was no reason, captain Zak Johns thought, for people to starve. The CS Panther normally operated with a crew of thirty six but today it was just Zak with all controls slaved to a single bridge station, he was busy boosting out of atmosphere. “Oh lord!” Zak exclaimed. “It just can't get any worse.” As a Federated destroyer appeared on radar simultaneously firing it's guns. Despite the having four huge ion thrusters the Panther was not going to be able outrun the destroyer. And indeed, everything went bad, very bad in short order. The Panthers engines went off-line one after another, the emergency overrides did not work, the bulkhead doors did not close and a missile was headed directly for the bridge. “I am so dead!” said Zak while checking his suit and closing the face shield.“Not yet, not yet!” He screamed. With only a split second to react he hit the aft landing thrusters putting the Panther into a slow cartwheel so the missile missed the bridge but instead punched a hole in the empty crew quarters sucking atmosphere out.

  On the bridge the vacuum pulled a large display panel loose but just before it smacked Zak on it's way out the open bridge door, he hit the button on the arm of his chair and initiated an emergency jump, light years into the void of uncharted space.

  2

  When Mindy McCord was thirteen two things happened, first, she graduated all schools with a degree in astrophysics and second, she started growing and did not stop till she reached six foot ten inches. By the time Mindy stopped growing she had also acquired additional degrees in computer sciences and engineering. And as she grew only one nickname stuck 'giraffe' not only because of her height but also her intellect. Mindy 'Giraffe' McCord was not only all that, but her looks, the brilliant emerald eyes and deep red hair that draped down her long elegant neck. All these blessings did bring about one apparent drawback, men were so intimidated that romantic relationships just did not happen. But then, as Giraffe often said, �
� I'm just too busy with so many things that there is simply no time for that stuff.” As a fact, even in this twenty third century some men can not deal with smart and strong women.

  Mindy 'Giraffe' McCord was fifteen days out from earth station three on the way to service the monitor buoy on the far reach of space past Pluto. It had been argued early on that a buoy beyond Pluto was a waste, as much of the time all that was out there was a gray void. The old shuttle systems read one hundred percent. When she checked the controls and there was plenty of reserves for the return trip so she went back to working on her current obsession, FTL or 'faster than light' theory. She sincerely believed that someday man would be able to jump light years to galaxies far away. The Alcubierre warp drive would some day be a reality when a big enough power source was found. Currently she was plotting theoretical 'jumps' to and from the buoys and space stations. Because she was six foot ten it was a little cramped in the small space but at least she was alone. She had purposely left despicable Henry Wadlow behind. Most people she worked with called her Giraffe and that was OK but Henry called her freak, mutant and other hateful things so she departed early. She did not want to spend thirty plus days alone with the obnoxious tech, besides, she could do his job better the he could anyway. Despite a few threats from the station captain they relented in letting her continue the mission solo, knowing that she was more than capable, even though it was clearly against the rules.

  Giraffe had audible alerts set so she could sleep without worry but never expected the buoy emergency beacon and the shuttles proximity warning to go off almost at the same time. “Shii,-damn-ouch!” She screamed as she woke and smacked her head. “This is impossible,” She muttered. Killing the alarms she opened the earth com channel while ordering full sensor scans. “No- way-not-even-can-not-be.” She exclaimed. The radar showed something long and moving end over end she and impossibly, it was easily twice as long as a earth defense battle cruiser. It was so close! Looking out the port window she almost did not see the all black ship that appeared to have no middle and a glance back at the sensor readings, showed energy readings both fore and aft and a single life sign. Keying the mic on all frequencies, “This is Giraffe in shuttle six, Giraffe in shuttle six out of earth station three, to all stations, repeat all stations, I have alien contact repeat, I have alien contact!” The signal would take a little over 14 hours to reach anyone.

  When the euphoria diminished Giraffe piloted the shuttle closer to the tumbling space ship and started to take a closer visual inspection and found holes that must have been made by some sort of missiles or rockets.

  When the apparent front came rolling around she discovered a blast hole just behind what must be the bridge and checking the infrared scan, a tiny heat source right where the bridge must be. “I have to go in!” She said to herself, “Someone or thing may be alive.” But docking manually with a fixed ship was difficult enough and the thought of docking with this moving behemoth would be near impossible. “No, not impossible.” She said aloud, “Just takes a little bit of computer assistance, hmm, time to try out my new auto-docking application.” Several years ago Giraffe had developed an auto docking application with the thought that in the event of a crippled or impaired pilot remote command could let the ship land itself. But the EDF or Earth Defense Force rejected the idea and it was never tested. This would be an unauthorized extreme test of the program. After loading the app and confirming the thrust controls she set it to target the hole near bridge. The shuttle slowly started to tumble, matching the ship and then, started to slowly close distance as Giraffe held her breath, “You realize girl,” She said to herself, “If this goes bad you could be dead.”This was a stark reality as she let out a long breath and looked out the window. The shuttle and ship were in perfect sync as the untested docking app slowly brought the two together.

  At one hundred yards the proximity alert started blaring and then the collision alert added to the noise. This was something she forgot to factor in writing the program but hardly a critical thing. At twenty yards all thrust shut down and the alarms shut off and then, almost imperceptibly, the magnetic docking clamps engaged and the two were mated.

  The hole in the ship turned out to be just a little smaller than the airlock door and while there could be no true “air lock” there was a solid connection between the two providing a secure passage. For the first time in earth history, a human, Mindy 'Giraffe' McCord had docked with an alien space ship and it had a life sign aboard!Was there atmosphere in the ship? Was the being dangerous? Could she even get to the bridge? Was the crew dead and floating about? These and more questions ran through Giraffes mind as she suited up and started to assemble her gear. When all was ready and checked she started the recording and stepped into the air lock. The air slowly evacuated, the airlock door opened into the alien ship and, into the cold vacuum of space. It was obvious that that the hole was caused by a rocket as that rocket was lodged halfway through an inner bulkhead. Giraffe kept up a running commentary as she examined the ships multilayered hull. “There appears to be at least three layers of steel and also several layers of mesh material and three more of a thick plastic all total about two feet thick. Up ahead is a bulkhead door only partly closed, obvious signs of explosive decompression.” Any one in this part of the ship would have been sucked into the void and it saddened her as she carefully moved through the door into a corridor that was surprisingly tall but not overly wide. “The ceilings are quite tall suggesting that the species could be quite tall, up ahead is another open bulkhead with a ladder which goes both up and down, now going up to what should be the bridge deck..” The upper corridor ran fore and aft, she chose to go forward to the open bridge bulkhead. “Now entering what appears to be the bridge, oh my god!' She exclaimed as she looked over three high back chairs at multiple glowing monitors.“This ship is still alive at least in some fashion.” And as she walked around and turned. “And the captain appears to be alive!” She stated in wonderment. Stepping closer she looked into the glass front of the captains helmet gasping as she looked at the face of what could only described as the face of a mythical Nordic warrior. “The captain appears to be humanoid but unresponsive with some blood on the face and seems like he suffered some trauma to head and right shoulder.” Giraffe considered her options, to help the alien somehow or to restrain him in case he was hostile and in the end decided to do both.

  In space moving the man was easy, as everything was weightless but she still was careful when moving him to a jump seat near the bulkhead door. Then strapping him in as well as taping his arms to the arms of the seat just in case. As she looked into the helmet his eyes opened! She was so startled that as she tried to back away, which is hard to do in a vacuum, her arm swung out past his head and slapped the bulkhead by the door. Several things happened at once. The bulkhead door made a grinding noise and slammed shut.. And a whirring and hissing noise started. The man groaned. And she almost passed out. Zak opened his eyes and focused on the face of a ethereal goddess that suddenly swung an arm at his head but missed, instead hitting the bulkhead right where he would have, to get the stubborn bulkhead door to shut and the thing actually did shut. The satisfying sounds on the cabin pressurizing and heating were life saving sounds as he groaned and drifted off again.

  On the alien ship Giraffe was recovering from the shock of the live alien and the bridge slowly becoming habitable as she slid into the captains chair and the chair fit like she was made for it, unlike every other chair she ever sat in. It had been just over seven hours since sending the alien contact message and she thought hard about going back into the shuttle to send another message. “But what should I say?“ she mused out loud. “Should I tell them all is well, there is no threat?” “Why not just send a message from here if I can figure this thing out?” Giraffe was nothing if not curious so she set about studying the myriad of control panels before her. Some of the graphic symbols were familiar and gave her a basic understanding of what controlled what but the language s
tumped her until she came across what looked like backwards letters and numbers.

  “Ahh!” she exclaimed, “Cyrillic, Russian,“ As she turned to look at the ships captain in wonderment and confusion. “vy, kak vy, ruski, ne mozhete sekretirovat' tot uroven' tekhniki, kto vy?” She stated in Russian. and then almost freaked when he opened his eyes and answered. “Not ruski, Kirillitsa, vy khorosho govorite, no commons - eto vash yazyk?” Zak said tiredly, switching to commons. “Commons is what you are speaking but you may call it something else perhaps?“ They both just looked at each other, wondering about a whole lot of things including a strong physical attraction and after a minute Giraffe took a breath and said, “I am Giraffe and welcome to the sol system and the planet earth”

  3

  Zak replied , “I am Captain Zak Johns from the core world of Cyrillium and could you please stabilize the ship as I am quite dizzy.” And just like that, it was like they had known each other for a long, long time. Giraffe looked to a panel that had a graphic of the entire ship and just as a guess touched a finger to what looked like maneuvering thrusters and the display brought up a set of manual controls much like on her shuttle. She took a visual fix out the window and slowly brought the huge ship to a stop, pointed directly at earth. Zak had not said a word as she manually brought the ship to a total stop, a feat only a well seasoned pilot could do. He wondered why she had not used the auto command. “Why not use the auto-stabilize command or are you trying to impress me?” He said. She responded ,“Not sure where that is.” Then glancing at another panel, “ But it looks like the bridge is just about up to temp so we can take off helmets, but I am not sure about turning on the gravity until we can take a closer look at your injuries though.”

  Giraffe had decided to assume that the ship had all the advanced tech that was only theorized about on earth, things like artificial gravity, artificial intelligence and FTL drive. It was time to take a closer look at this captain that she had restrained and determine if he was any sort of threat. After verifying that oxygen and temperature were at acceptable levels Giraffe slipped off her helmet and secured it to the bracket on the captains chair. After releasing the seat belts she drifted up and turned to Zak, “Lets see how bad you're hurt and then we can discuss why you dropped in on us.” As she lifted off his helmet she sucked in a breath, there was an attraction there that could easily get in the way of being professional and doing her job. Looking up into her impossible emerald eyes he realized that he would have a hard time being objective. “Could you release my arms please.” Zak said, “I would like to evaluate my ship.” With a sad look on her face she replied. “Sorry about your crew, there are no other life signs aboard and several holes in the hull, who were you running from?” Zak noted that she had been looking at him with a clinical detachment just like his medic would, she was a medic as well as pilot? “Could you release my arms now? “ He asked again. As she gently felt around his shoulder she replied, “Something must have hit you really hard, your shoulder is dislocated so we have to keep it stabilized till it can be properly treated, do you have a med bed of any sort on board?”