“Stations,” ordered the captain without so much as a turn of her head. Peter McMillan glanced at the comp on his wrist. It was 0800 sharp. A rush of excitement filled him. Having a duty station for First Watch on Magellan was the best way to impress the captain and to put his skills on display. It was, of course, also the best way to screw up and doom his career to Second Assistant Mess Officer, but risk was part of the job, as they said. McMillan approached Ensign Correli at Astrogation and relieved her. For the next eight hours, the station was his. “Mr. Correli,” said the captain, “before you go off duty kindly disable your navigational array.” The ensign obliged then saluted and turned Astrogation over to McMillan, who had already begun to sweat. What was the captain doing?

“Mr. McMillan, I require our position,” she said. Ah, hell, he thought. The computer did this automatically, of course, but this was a test. Stellar reckoning, as old as navigation itself. McMillan composed himself and sat at the station. This was just a test, the latest in a long series going back to childhood. He cleared his mind of the distractions around him – the stare of the other officers, both junior and senior, the lights and noise from the other computer stations, and his own heartbeat. Although the computer would not navigate for him, the same stars it used to calculate position were still there. He fixed on three, Sirius, Canopus, and Procyon, then added in Rigel for good measure. In the back of his mind, he noted that the bridge had fallen silent, except for someone humming. With a sickening start, McMillan realized that he was the one doing the humming. Kwan at Sciences was snickering.

“A pleasant little tune, Lieutenant,” said Captain LaCroix. “Would you care to enlighten us with its name?”

McMillan swiveled in the chair, red faced and sheepish. Thankfully the captain looked amused rather than irritated. The rest of the bridge crew struggled to keep the laughter in. “It’s, ah, Beethoven, ma’am.” He swallowed hard. “Fifth Symphony, first movement.”

“Please excuse Lt. McMillan, ma’am,” said Kwan, his best friend on Magellan. “His music tastes are frozen three hundred years ago.”

“Is that so, Mr. McMillan?” LaCroix almost smiled.

“Actually, more like four hundred, Captain.” He didn’t seem to be in trouble and became a bit bolder. “People will still be listening to the Fifth in another four hundred years too. I doubt the same will be true of that atonal stuff you – “

“Thank you for the musical education, Lieutenant. I believe you were providing us with a location fix.”

McMillan blushed again and turned back to his work. He fed the star positions into the computer – thank God the captain at least wasn’t demanding he do it by hand – and quickly double-checked the answer. “Captain, I make our position 115 million kilometers from Jupiter orbit, thirty six degrees from solar north, even with the ecliptic.” He sat stiffly for an agonized moment.

The captain smiled slightly and said, “114.2 million kilometers, but close enough, Lieutenant. Nicely done.”

“Thank you ma’am.” McMillan sat down, engaged the navigation computer, and only then truly exhaled.

The vast majority of daily activity on a space ship was dull. Space was, by definition, almost completely empty. That Magellan existed at all was explained by one of the most ancient human reasons of all – protection. As long as roads had existed, there had been highwaymen. Oceans had bred pirates, and space was no different. Trade was brisk between Earth and the asteroid belt, the outer colonies, and all points in between. And so Magellan escorted ore ships, delivered medical supplies, brokered colonial disputes, and did a little exploring on the side. It was like being a sheriff in one of the old stories from the American West, but duller most days.

McMillan kept navigation solutions current for every planet in the Solar System and every asteroid of any size. To be safe, he also calculated the best rendezvous point with the other five ships that made up Earth’s fleet. The captain was notorious for suddenly asking for time and course to random destinations. Uranus and Mars, and Earth itself, were on the far side of the Sun from their current patrol and had been harder to solve, but the plots were there if he were to be asked.

A chime sounded overhead, followed by the pleasant neutral voice of the ship’s computer. “Realtime data squirt from Fleet Central, Priority Red.” All activity on the bridge stopped immediately. McMillan had never even heard of a Priority Red message before and had not really realized that there was such a thing.

“Display,” said the captain.

The screen changed from the typical forward view to white letters on a blue field. The borders of the field pulsed red. The calm female voice read along with the message, although more slowly than any of the eight pairs of eyes scanning the message. “To UNS Magellan: Unidentified object detected by deep tracking, confirmed by multiple sources. Inbound twelve degrees, crossed Neptune orbit at 0616 standard at .8c and decelerating, likely heading Earth.” Holy mother of God! Eight tenths light speed. Their own top speed was .1c. “Magellan is ordered to intercept, identify, and initiate contact. Necessary defensive measures are authorized.” The voice spoke as dispassionately as if it had just informed them of weather conditions in Chicago, but every person on the bridge knew exactly what this message meant. Nothing natural or terrestrial moved that fast, leaving only one possibility.

“Lieutenant!” the captain shouted. It took McMillan a moment to realize that she was shouting at him. Fumbling with the computer controls, he plotted their course. The computer had already taken into account the speed and heading of the contact, Magellan’s best possible speed, and the likely current location of the contact. In his haste he mishandled the controls and had to double check his final answer for fear he had made a mistake along the way.

Whatever it was, it was practically on top of them.

“General quarters,” said the captain. Her voice was calm, and the crew seemed to feed off of that, despite the alarm klaxon and the computer voice calling the crew to quarters. “Mr. Kwan, any sensor information you can provide would be most appreciated.” Kwan fairly flew over the readouts at his station. While he worked, more crew entered the bridge by ones and twos. McMillan handed Astrogation over to Lt. Commander Schumacher, idly noting the man’s unshaven face and disheveled uniform. McMillan’s battle station was the bridge, so he staid put and awaited further orders.

“Captain,” said Kwan, “I have the object bearing six degrees, 700,000 kilometers.”

“Plot an intercept course.”

“I don’t think we need to ma’am,” said Kwan. “It’s heading right for us and slowing. Intercept in twenty seconds or so.” The bridge went quiet again. All McMillan could think of were aliens – the theoretical ones he had learned about in the Academy, the false ones from vids and stories, and the purely imaginary from the games he had played as a child. Something was here, really here, and not from Earth.

LaCroix stood. “Visual when you can.” The screen stayed black for long seconds, then something appeared, slowed, and gracefully positioned itself just a few kilometers off Magellan’s bow. “My God,” the captain whispered, clearly audible over the silence of the bridge. It looked as if half a dozen snowflakes had been pressed together and were rotating against the black void of space.

To his credit, Kwan was still working. Idly, McMillan wondered where the senior Science officer was. “Ma’am, that thing is putting off energy that our instruments can’t even read. Awaiting spectroscopy.”

“I want to see a full –“ the captain was cut short as the ship shuddered and she nearly fell. Through the viewscreen, McMillan could see the snowflake spinning slowly. Had it just attacked them? Another shock hit Magellan, and McMillan fell to the deck plating, striking his head in the process. “Charge the weapons. Notify me at fifty percent power. Prepare to fire on my command.” This was First Contact, thought McMillan, and it wasn’t going well, not like what they had been taught at the Academy. His hands and face lay against the cool metal deck plate. He could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines. No, not the engines. They were still. Something else. Vaguely familiar. He had felt this before. Where? “Any response on comm channels?” asked LaCroix.

“None ma’am.”

“Weapons at fifty-three percent and charging.”

Again they shook, even more violently. Sparks showered from somewhere above McMillan. He wasn’t really hurt, at least he didn’t think so, but he still lay on the deck, feeling the odd pulsing rhythm through the palms of his hands. Was it a rhythm? The engines were not rhythmic, at least not normally.

“If we can’t talk to it, we have to kill it before it kills us. Structure report.”

“Crystalline, captain, mostly silicon composition. I’m guessing the main array will smash it.”

“Weapon status?”

“Eighty-six percent, ma’am.” The weapons, thought McMillan. Pulsed particles. Mass-energy. Could crush a polymer-hardened steel hull at several hundred kilometers. Still he felt the pulsations in the deck. As his head cleared, he rose to his hands and knees, still feeling the deck beneath his fingertips. “Charged and ready captain.” He had felt this before. No, that wasn’t right. He had heard this before.

“Fire!”

“No!” McMillan yelled. “Belay that order!” All eyes turned to him and he barely kept his feet as another wave struck Magellan. “It’s not an attack. “It’s… Bach.”

“Explain, Lieutenant.”

“No time, ma’am. May I, please?” Captain LaCroix was not one to turn over control of her ship to a junior officer lightly, but neither did McMillan believe she was one to let First Contact go horridly wrong. She nodded. “Match the frequency of the energy that’s hitting us. Prepare to transmit on my command. Computer, play from my personal media files, Bach, Brandenburg Concerto number 2, first movement.”

“There are two files. Do you wish to hear the London Philhar-“

“I don’t care, just pick one!” Instantly the bridge filled with the sounds of violins, with cello and harpsichord playing the figured bass line underneath. It was the same pulsation he had felt, he was certain. “Broadcast this, use whatever frequency they were hitting us with.” The violent shaking eased, attenuating to a mild vibration. “Convert whatever they’re sending at us to acoustic. Match up the waveforms if you can.”

It was Bach, no mistaking it. The crew sat and just listened for a moment, then the music faded into static. A screeching noise came over the speakers, followed by a tinny but unmistakably human voice singing.

“Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans, way back up in the woods among the evergreens, there stood a log cabin made of earth and wood, where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode…” The voice faded and more music came through the speakers. McMillan couldn’t identify it. It sounded oriental.

“Power down the weapons,” said the captain. “Get another music file to play at them. Something soothing, preferably.”

“Computer, link personal media file, ah, Beethoven String Quartet number 13. Play directly into the current transmission frequency.” Violin music filled the bridge. McMillan found it hard not to hum along. Their speakers crackled again. This time it was a woman’s voice, high and lilting. The crew sat transfixed.

“Now what is that?” asked the Captain.

“Mozart,” said McMillan. “It’s from The Magic Flute.”

“Explanation?” McMillan could only shrug.

“I may have one, Captain,” said Kwan. “Pete, is that the ‘Queen of the Night aria’ she’s singing?”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

Kwan stood, a triumphant look on his face. “Captain, I had the computer cross reference this music. These are all pieces that were on the Voyager record.”

“What’s a Voyager record?” asked LaCroix, clearly irritated that she did not know.

“The Voyagers were late twentieth century robotic space probes, ma’am. The designers included a pressed gold disc that had recorded sounds and greetings from Earth. There was also a sampling of music.”

“Are you suggesting that our visitors here found that probe?”

“It seems so,” said Kwan. “They must have deciphered it. The record also contained a diagram of how to find Earth. They followed our map back to us.”

“McMillan, get a list of what was on that record and find something else to play for them.”

“Already on it, ma’am.” McMillan had called up the list on his screen. He smiled. “Play personal media file, Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, first movement. I don’t care which performance.” Through the screen, the alien vessel seemed to pulse, rotating in the void as the soaring chords filled the bridge.

“Isn’t that what you were humming before, Mr. McMillan?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And to think we almost destroyed it,” said the captain in a low voice as she stared at the stark loveliness of the alien craft. “Send a message to Fleet Command. Hopefully, someone on Earth can figure out how to talk to this thing. Until then, I guess music really is the universal language.”

Copyright 2009 Richard Justin