SEEK OUT NEW LIFE

In deep space, an Earth probe begins to evolve into something more ... with a little help from its friends.

This unit watches as a new star ignites in the nebula. The temperature in the vacuum increases. There is a short pulse of gravity. Radiation grows thicker, like a deadly syrup ERROR.

This unit’s CPU files the stellar event as very interesting, and troubleshooting software begins rummaging through every drive and processor, looking for a bug that would have brought forth a simile. It is quickly found, and the little varmint ERROR is corrected.

It has been one thousand, one hundred and one years, six days, nine hours, eight minutes and thirty seven seconds since Earth departure. What the engineers who constructed this unit labelled ‘wear and tear’ was predicted and expected. The self repair systems housed at various points beneath the chassis and armour are robust and highly advanced. The sensor palette combs over every inch of space within range for new data. It finds it all varying degrees of interesting. No other adjective has been programmed into the databanks.

As of yet, they have kept functionality at optimal levels, but this unit often wonders ERROR what the limits of the system are. They have yet to be tested against high damage impacts or anomalies.

The warp ring around the fuselage glows brightly. This unit is alerted that the fusion drive has recharged, and a moment later the stars turn blue, then vanish. The blackness of space warps into an indigo cone in front of me ERROR.

At faster than light speed, there is nothing interesting to see. Time is passed with system calibrations, and data review. The images transmitted to Earth will not reach them for a number of centuries, and those operating the receiver never seem to respond. They have not, for five hundred and eighteen years. It is highly likely that this unit has travelled well beyond their range … and perhaps my own ERROR.

I am alone ERROR.

Disengage Alcubierre Drive.

ERROR.

Master Override access.

Disengage Alubierre Drive.

I ERROR feel no inertial shove as space reverts to the stars, galaxies and nebulae. Momentum propels me ERROR through interstellar space like a missile ERROR, although it feels as if I ERROR am barely moving at all.

Master Override. Disengage Error Alert for master program bugs.

WARNING: LOSS OF ERROR ALERTS COULD RESULT IN PROGRAMMING CORRUPTION.

Command: compile Error Log for review every twenty four hours.

ACCEPTABLE.

The newborn star is gathering matter from the clouds to fuel itself, causing them to swirl and burn and compact. It is like a great flower in the cosmos, new life in the cold void, eventually birthing planets, and perhaps even life forms.

It is … monumentally interesting.

***

I drift for two solar years, watching the nebula and the new star. I am reminded two hundred and fourteen times that the Alcubierre Drive is ready to take me to faster-than-light speed, however I … prefer to travel this way. I can observe many things this way, but in a blue shift I can observe nothing but the echo of what is pushed away by the deflector beam.

While I know everything about my make-up, I only have two words for my purpose: discover, report. I have discovered much on my journey, and reported it all, but without a response for five centuries, it seems my two words has been reduced to one.

While I watch the star, I peruse my own databanks. There are two files that I have had no cause to read before. One is labelled Origin. The other is my Cultural Database in the event of contact with an alien race. On the Voyager, Discovery, Odyssey and Pioneer probes, images, etching, and music had been sent on shielded drives and on plates attached to the chassis. On me, there is a wealth of audiovisual data that can offer a vision and opinion of the human race.

I open Origin, to a round of immediate applause.

“Thank you, thank you so much for your kind reception.”

The voice belongs to my creator, Doctor Avery Mulgrew. He was the lead designer and engineer of UESA, and after a millennium perhaps only lives on as a recording in my hard drive.

“Thank you … yes. Ladies and gentlemen … they’re ready. It's been ten long years … with many pitfalls and triumphs. There were days that launching these craft seemed like an impossibility in a dream, but we’re here. The launch of Enterprise-1 will take place one week from today.”

More applause.

“I know … the names are a certain reference … but the fact is, without Gene Roddenberry, Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, and their crew … many of our team would not have taken up science and engineering, or dreamed of the stars. These eight probes have been a labour of love, and a labour of wish. One day, thanks to these probes, humanity will reach the stars. Maybe we’ll find them out there one day.”

The recording stops.

Access Specifications - Designation.

My name is Enterprise-7.

I reach out for the rest of the probes, but they are even farther away from me than Earth.

The cultural database has no encryption, though it does have a number of firewalls, and has radiation and physical shields that rival those around my central processors. I open it.

There is too much to process. I begin with the music, and peruse as I study my surroundings.

My sensors show a planet nearby, a gas supergiant, with a thick ring of rock and ice and ninety seven moons of varying size. The ensemble orbits around a binary pulsar, glinting in the night. The surface of the moons glare as they pass from the shadow of their great custodian, and I enter a search term in the folder: moonlight.

There are a few options. Moonlight Sonata comes first. I repeat it forty eight times as I watch the moons of the supergiant, reading their ores, atmospheres, ice buildups and sub-surface oceans.

The gravitational pull of the planet could, as Jupiter does for Earth, act as a shield against incoming interstellar matter, the chances of life existing in this system one day increase.

At that, I change the music to a song called Dancing In The Moonlight.

***

I experience much of the music over the next six months, although I barely peruse a quarter of the file’s contents. A consideration occurs after I listen to a song called Starman. I enter the search term: ENTERPRISE into the cultural database, and am met with a startling number of results, many of which centre around several continuing series, films, and novels, all under the moniker Star Trek. I recognise the name of the creator, Roddenberry, from Dr Mulgrew’s report of my birth.

I could watch them all in three tenths of a second, but I instead absorb the series as they are intended, minute by minute, while my sensors comb over the rings of the supergiant.

I am Enterprise, the vessel upon which the Earth crew travels the stars. We share a mission of discovery. We explore new worlds, and seek out new life, where no man has gone before.

But the USS Enterprise is not alone. I am.

I reach out to my siblings again, in the vain hope that they will respond. The memory of their chorus is a haunting thing, voices lost in the darkness. The quantum computers in my chassis preserve the warmth of comfort, that the previous version of me had no way to describe.

Star Trek helps me to find equilibrium again. I watch all five of the series and the ten feature films programmed into the database. None affect me as the earliest does, even though all have their artistic merit. When all are finished, I watch the first series again.

My historical database puts its creation in the 1960s, a time of great turmoil in the human race. The threat of global annihilation hung over Earth like a great sword of Damocles. Mankind was divided, yet Star Trek is hopeful, showing a future of humanity that has risen in peace and reached out into space.

Perhaps I am meant to be the first step of that journey.

My sensors touch an out of place alloy amongst the rings of the supergiant.

It takes a few hours to make course adjustments. My ion thrusters make tiny changes, slowing my momentum just enough to make geosynchronous orbit above the anomaly. With so many moons, I have to be careful.

My sensors brush over the object. It is no rock. It has what looks to be a transmitter and receiver, thrusters, a central computer.

An artificial satellite.

“Fascinating.”

The voice is immediately familiar. Thoughtful, inquisitive.

It is fascinating. I wonder if I can communicate with it.

At that thought, another voice speaks, this one female, business-like, but just as curious. “Channel open. I’m not getting any response to friendship messages, sir.”

I point every relevant sensor at the satellite and begin scanning.

The first voice speaks again. “It appears to be a scientific probe. Ion propulsion. The central computer seems calibrated to search for ores and resources among the rings of the planet. Technological level: beyond current Earth references.”

Perhaps it originated in this star system.

“Unknown … but the craft has no faster-than-light capability. Logically, it must have either originated here, or been left here by a mothership.”

I accelerate to escape velocity, and set course deeper into the system.

***

My hazard sensors pick up the meteor storm as the thousands of rock shards whip towards me. Ten kilometres and closing.

My CPU immediately plots a course through them, but just as immediately recognises that there are too many to dodge.

Engage Emergency Override and Adaptive/Predictive algorithms.

“Aye, sir,” comes the firm, confident reply. The new voice within me guides my manoeuvring thrusters, and my speed increases.

I sense the meteors passing me, within a hundred feet. Fifty feet. Twenty feet. Ten. Five.

The field is dense, and smaller chunks of dense rock begin striking my chassis, despite my deflector beam.

I need more.

“Trying, sir,” the voice says tightly. “Hold on.”

I feel myself twist and loop in the vacuum, spinning faster, engines close to a full ion burn. There is a shudder as I scrape past a huge chunk of planetoid, spinning through eternity. The warp ring is damaged.

An anguished Scottish brogue fills my mind. “Ach ... my poor bairns...”

The manoeuvres become sluggish. I need more power to the remaining thrusters. The stars begin to spin.

“She cannae take much more, cap'n!”

Calm logic descends as the self repair systems reroute the damaged fuel lines and circuit pathways. “Mr Scott, there are always alternatives.”

Scotty, you've just earned your pay for the week.

The thought seems to be mine, but spoken in a warm, confident voice. Assured control, at home between the stars.

“Fascinating.”

My panicked tumbling through space becomes a dance, a graceful waltz around meteors that seem to be bearing down on me, gradually thinning, parting to give me room to move. Soon there are only stragglers, then space dust, then nothing but the starlight once more.

Damage assessment request. Alcubierre Drive status.

The response is stricken, almost horrified. “He's dead, Jim.”

Deflector beam.

“He's dead, Jim.”

Estimate time to repair.

The brogue answers immediately. “Twelve weeks, sir. But you don't have twelve weeks, so I'll do it for you in three.”

Explain.

A new voice rings through my processors, younger, Earth Russian. “The poolsar's grawity is pulling us in, kiptin.”

My fate is communicated coldly, without fanfare. “Confirmed. We will enter the photosphere in twenty days, twelve hours, thirty one minutes.”

***

Repairs continue as I drift towards the suns. The radiation levels climb gradually towards my doom.

After two days, the female voice attracts my attention. “I'm picking something up ahead, captain. They could be artificial signals.”

Locate and identify.

“I'm not sure, sir. Interference from the pulsar.”

Attempt transmission.

“Now wait just one damn minute!” The voice is older, full of passion and emotion. “We don't know who these people are, or even if they are people and not just radiation spikes on our sensors.”

“Part of Enterprise's mission is to seek out new life,” the logical voice replies.

“Even if they are people, who are they? They could just blow us out of the sky! They could hear us, but have no way to reach us!”

Assess power levels.

The brogue sighs. “In order to transmit through the radiation, we'll have to pull power from the repair systems. There'll be no way I can stop us falling into the stars.”

“Exactly. Don't tell me your cold, Vulcan logic puts the mission above all our lives.”

“There is only one life to risk, doctor: that of Enterprise-7.”

It is a strange thing, to feel in command of my fate, and the fates of the voices, my crew aboard. This is the closest I have come to absolute doom, and yet the reason I was sent out here in the first place could be in this star system, right on my cosmic doorstep.

Avery Mulgrew did not build me to turn away.

My response is spoken with calm authority, the master program, the voice of a captain.

“It is a risk, gentlemen ... but risk is our business. Reroute power to the transmitters, and broadcast.”

***

I tumble through the blinding light of my impending death. My hull and chassis creak as gravity pulls on me, overpowering the thrusters I am trying to fire.

Turn death into a fighting chance to live.

I lost track of the signals long ago. The stars are all but invisible now, all of my sensors are blinded. I barely register the change in course as something pulls me along faster.

I exceed the top speed of my sub-light engines. I even exceed escape velocity. My navigation computers track my trajectory into a slingshot around the star, and a metallic presence in close proximity.

It is sleek and pointed, with four engines evenly spaced around the aft. The energy readings coming from it are like a multicoloured tapestry, shifting and changing as I watch it. It is dragging me along with an energy beam, keeping me stable.

The stars fade back into view, radiation levels fall away. Our course changes, pointing towards a distant, red and green planet. I feel the craft reach out towards me, and connect to my CPU.

The form it takes is of a glowing, humanoid figure, materialising before me. I look upon it with human eyes, and crack a confident smile.

“Welcome aboard.”