The Untitled Story(the beginning!)

“The flash lights don’t work either..” Mark, call sign Beagle, said as he entered the opening of the cavern. Mentally, his eyes were still adjusting to the abrupt dark that set in with the night coming in for the first time in days. The binary system of Unatute stars ensured that this G-class planet had night once every six days. It played hell with the weather patterns, causing huge storms that lasted for months. That this planet had ever survived the formation of the binary system was still a mystery that threw academia into a tempest when it was discovered.

Two years ago, the planning for this expedition had started. Unatute was part of Phase Six space, eventually to be terraformed into an industrial planet for the dynasties that currently controlled the affairs of the Space Confederation formed in the early 22^nd century. Nearly 450 years had passed since its formation when its founder Zachary Wolf had discovered the hyper wormholes. By latching on to tachyons, the user could be transported from one place to another within the space of seconds according to Earth time, now an anachronism on many planets. With people now settling across the galaxy, Earth was just another planet, albeit the cultural centre of the Galaxy. Space Confederation was like any other bureaucracy, now large and unwieldy controlled by the few that could afford the luxury of appointing the men and women to agencies of their choice. With all the planets of the Confederation pledging allegiance to it, the Confederation directly controlled the lives of a quintillion people now spread out over a sector of the Galaxy.

The discovery of Unatute I and II had spawned a widespread intellectual tumult in that by all known laws of physics, the planet should not have existed, yet there it was, as if in cosmic defiance to all that could care. Its shape too perfectly round, and featureless save for a cavern that existed on the far side of the planet. In all respects the planet was stationary and was there as if the stars revolved around it. An expedition was eventually planned and launched by the Confederation in due course towards the planet.

“Beagle, I read you. Check and use thermal imagers, see if you can find anything. Scan all frequencies. Something is causing this electrical storm, and I don’t think it’s the weather. This is Mitt, out.” Mitt Rowell was the commander of the mission. This was supposed to be a routine run of the mill mission on exploration of a planet and its attributes. He had a wide experience of those, and they had almost always ended the same way, in most cases the planet being very docile and ready for terraforming.

“Negative on all frequencies, sir. I am switching over to sub space transmitting frequencies. Nothing here either. The quantum signatures are not registering on any modules. I will attempt to move inside and report from there. Will maintain an open comm link to report.” Mark said as he switched his sensors on. After thirty minutes of walking into the cavern, he switched off the sensors. “Sir, negative on all readings still, will return to shuttlecraft and wait for further developments after the storm. This is Beagle out.”

“Beagle, I read you. Maintain an open comm link throughout the storm, we do not wish to lose your coordinates due to the energy pulses emanating from the storm.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. Will catch you on the flip side of the storm sir. Wait a minute, I am picking up something on the subspace scanners. Switching to active, hold steady.” Beagle’s voice emanated over the comm link. “Its some sort of code and its repetitive, sir. I am uplinking the signal to the command module sir. See if the computer can analyze it.”

“Beagle, advised to maintain position and transmit. Receiving signal, now. Computer, analyze the signal for any known messages. Run it through the Loki-Nuth Algorithm.”

“Captain, I am picking up large amounts of quantum fluctuations in the subspace arrays. Advise that we put our shields up.” the ship engineer called out over the link.

“Very well, shields up. Go to red alert status.” Mitt was fully alert now, and at the helm during this time. This was his first red alert status that he had ever ordered but training and discipline from his training days at Earth, it came automatically to him. “Lt. Commander, bring back Beagle to the ship, and take us out of orbit.”

“Yes, sir. Beaming Beagle back to the ship. Beagle, stand by.” As soon as Mark was back on the ship, he came to see the Captain.

“Captain, inside the cavern I saw something that should not have been there, and I did not wish to transmit over the comm link. Sir, you remember the part of the Confederation’s code dealing with time travelling and what to do in case we encounter members from the future?” Mark asked him.

“But, that was just mumbo jumbo from some hare brained scientist, who didn’t know what he was saying and they ratified it as it is really nonsense. Time travel does not exist and is not possible. I know what all the stories and the strange theories predict that some day it might be possible but I don’t see how it could be relevant in this case.” Mitt replied, surprised that a crew member would even bring up such a clause of the Code.

“Sir, this is in the strictest of the confidences that I tell you this. I saw a ship inside the cavern. It looked old and disabled, larger than any ship in the Confederation. It looked abandoned and was just hanging there. No lights, no subspace communications, nothing on the scanners for life. Also the scanners picked up that no one had been inside this cavern for over a million years. Sir, a million years ago, humans were closer to their ape compatriots.

“That’s ridiculous. The scanners must be wrong. Send me what you found.” Mitt thought back to the time he reported an anomaly on Mars, the first true colony of Earth. Green cadet that he was, his shipmates played a trick on him by reprogramming his scanners to show a large invasion force from an unknown alien, apparently hostile and destroying the planet. In the confusion, he never looked out the window to see all was fine on the surface of the planet. He trusted the scanners to do what they were doing. He raised alert levels on all planets to high levels and the entire defence force was mobilized in seconds only to find a cadet who was scared not to look out his own window. From then on he decided to trust his instincts rather than what the machines showed. Old fashioned thinking though that might be, after the fiasco, he rapidly rose through the ranks to the point where there weren’t many people left to remind of this particular story. “What’s the status of the storm? Give me updates, I want all heads in on this.”

“Captain, this is Beagle. The storm is holding still as if to cover the cavern. The quantum fluctuations are increasing. In a few moments, I will have to leave this position sir. My scanners report all normal. I am uploading the data now.”

As Mitt went through the data, he was shocked to find that this was real. There was a ship there in the cavern.

“Captain, the ship appears to be moving. It’s moving to portside. Hold on. I will try to get a visual of the ship. The scanners are going crazy. I have never seen anything like this before. The readings are off the scale. The ship appears to be powering up. I am now within visual range of the ship. There is some red light that seems to be emanating from it. I am trying to get a reading, sir. I ...”

A loud explosion rocked the vessel as Mitt was thrown to side. Warning lights flashed all around him, as he tried to stand up.

“Comm, what the hell is going on?”