This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Many-Database1292 on 2024-11-03 05:43:34+00:00.
The year was 3377 when the signal was detected, until that moment we still thought we were alone. All across the Sol system our radios screeched to life emitting a piercing rhythmic sound. The Sol systems greatest eggheads were on the case right away, It didn’t take long to figure out the signal was coming from deep in intergalactic space, and that we weren’t going to enjoy drive time radio for a while. Every Head of State in the United Coalition of Interplanetary Nations waited with bated breath to see it what it could mean. It’s the turn of the millennium now, y4k, and we still haven’t learned a damn thing.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
I can hear it, the signal, every second I can hear it drilling into my brain. I wasn’t around back in '77, it only started a few months ago, I think. It was real distracting at first, I really hated the noise. But soon, after I got used to it, I started Listening. I thought, if I pay close attention, maybe something will click. Maybe, I can figure out what it’s trying to tell us.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
I know it’s stupid. All the smartest pencil pushers on all our worlds has been wracking their brains over this for decades. How is an uneducated daydreamer like me supposed to solve what they can’t. I don’t know, I just…
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK “WAKE THE HELL UP”
There’s someone outside my pod.
“Did that neural plug of yours fry your brain? We’ve reached the target, get your ass out here Cole!” Her speech is nearly too fast for me to follow, and its dripping with impatience. I take a deep breath and muster all of my will to press a single button on my wall, and the habitat pod hisses open.
“Good morning Nor-” “Don’t you ‘Good Morning’ Me” She interrupted “We have been idling in position next to this asteroid for THIRTY minutes, if we run out of fuel and get stranded out here I will KILL YOU. Get to your station, yesterday.”
“Right, sorry…” Is the most I’m able to say before Nora has stormed off back to the cockpit. I start my march to the control chair.
The echoed clanging of my boots against the grated metal floor almost drowns out the signal ringing in my skull as I go into the depths of our ship. Nora was mad, rightly so I think. It didn’t feel like 30 minutes had passed though. Still, she’s the best pilot I’ve worked with and we have a job to do here. An interstellar object no larger than a man is on a collision course with a research station orbiting Neptune. Naturally, the two of us were hired to take our Zariman Class Freighter all the way out to the edge of the solar gravity well to intercept it. It seems fishy, Doesn’t it? That damn signal is so. Loud. Maybe this is… no that’s stupid.
“-le, Cole. What are you standing around for, Jack in already.” Nora’s voice crackles over the intercom.
Oh, I’m already here. I sit down on the uncomfortable steel chair and a moment later I feel the familiar thud of the neural plug, and in an instant I am the ship. I take a second so stretch my awareness and settle into my role. I’m moving parallel to the asteroid, perfectly positioned. The freighter’s right manipulator arm gently reaches toward the rock as I run a scan of it’s makeup. That’s, odd.
I blurt out “What is this thing?”
“It’s a rock” Nora says harshly
“No it’s weird, nothings coming up on the scanner.”
“Ohhh it must be a ghost rock.”
“Be serious! what if whatever this is is dangerous to bring on board.”
“Or, your crappy old ship’s crappy old scanner is broken and its a normal ass rock.”
She had a good point.
When my manipulator grasped the asteroid I felt a jolt of electricity through my whole being, coursing into all of my ship systems then through the neural plug into my brain stem. And suddenly It’s quiet, I cant hear the signal anymore. What. Is this? I compose myself and pull the asteroid into the right cargo bay, before unhooking the neural plug. I breathe a deep sigh of relief being back in human form. I still can’t hear it.
“Nora, I’m going to check it out” and I start moving to the right cargo bay.
“Have fun poking a rock scaredy cat.”
What happened back there? something big Could that have been real? Why has the signal stopped? Is the asteroid related to the signal? my mind is racing trying to make sense of what’s going on when I reach the cargo bay. I open the door, ass I enter I see it. From the door it almost looks like a sarcophagus but as I come closer I see it for what it really is, an 8 foot long asteroid. Its unmistakable pocked stone exterior leaving no question. This is a normal asteroid, right? I’m walking closer, I reach out and I touch it. It feels warm.