Captain
Calhoun stepped into the conference room.
“Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen.” He walked to the head of the table.
The
conference room had representatives from the mining consortium and each of the
individual mining companies as well. The
compartment was full with much chatter between those present. The companies may be competitors but on a
space station everyone depends on everyone else.
“We have an
extraordinary situation here.” He looked around the room “The asteroid we are
working with right now is artificial … and we didn’t make it.”
The room
exploded with chatter to the point that it was all incomprehensible.
The captain
let them chatter so they could get it out of their systems. Then he interrupted “Calm down… Calm Down!”
he raised his voice “We can’t have anyone panicking here!”
The room
slowly calmed down.
“We knew the
day that we would discover absolute proof of alien intelligence would
come.” He cleared his throat “We have
been getting signs for centuries and it was really our own arrogance that
didn’t allow us to understand those signs.
Well now we have proof and we have to deal with it.” He let that sink in for a minute “We have no
idea who made this thing, when it was made, or what it does. What we do know is that it can be dangerous
and that we have to dig it out in order to get a better idea of what it
is. As a bonus it is encased in ice that
is either pure or nearly pure water which will be perfect to replenish our
supplies. That means longer showers and
better coffee.” There was some small quiet laughter at that. “On a more serious
note we really do need that ice. We
should be able to top off our tanks and drag some extra along as a
reserve. So that means this is both an
artifact recovery operation and an ice extraction operation. You won’t be getting paid for the minerals
you extract, but the pay for this operation will probably be better than what
you got from the last couple of operations.
The rate sheets have been distributed.”
Everyone in
the room checked their tablets and murmured a bit.
“Now down to
the serious problem.” He paused a moment
“We have to be careful about how we communicate this find, not just to back
home but how we deal with it on the station as well. I don’t have to point out that this could
cause a lot of panic. This is going to
seriously disrupt some people’s beliefs.
Nobody is more astutely aware of this than I.” He looked around the room “But you have to be
aware of it too.” He paused again
“Effective immediately all transmissions except official military channels have
been suspended and all communications with the transports have been set to
automatic encryption. All of your
communications with your home operations will have to go through my office.”
There was
some uneasy murmuring around the room.
“I don’t
give a dang about your trade secrets.
Please understand, we have to be very careful about how this information
is released to the public. It could
cause all kinds of trouble if not handled properly. This blackout shouldn’t last long, but we
need some more information first. So
let’s get busy with the task at hand so we can get this cleared up and back to
regular operations.” He looked around
the room again “Thank you all for coming.
I’ll send out some official statements to help you dealing with your
crews.”
The captain
walked quietly to the door and left the room.
Beginning of Story
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