The Forgotten Planet

“Um, why don’t I see a big blue planet?” Adan asked from the entrance to the bridge.

“I set the navigation coordinates to put us about 400 light-minutes away from Sol,” I answered. “I wanted to be sure we’d be clear of the systems Kuiper belt.” Escaping from a massive space battle only to materialize inside an asteroid would have been anticlimactic to say the least.

“Ok,” Maxine said, “but I don’t even see a star within three light years.”

It was four point five to be exact, but I didn’t think that she would appreciate the distinction.

Vee asked, “Are we at the right coordinates?”

“Yeah,” I answered glumly. “I’ve already triple checked.”

She walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen Tiger, you just had a successful field test of one of the greatest inventions of all time.”

“Yeah, congratulations broheim,” Adan said. “Honestly, I never thought it would work.”

“Are you kidding me Adan Castell?” Max asked. Adan shook his head. “And you still went along with all this?”

“Sure, it was bro’s dream.” Adan peeled himself away from the wall and plopped down in the captain’s chair. “If you think I’d say no to that, then you don’t know me very well.”

Maxine didn’t have an answer for that, but she also didn’t look mad anymore. Women are confusing. I was just glad Adan wasn’t looking at me right then, because I had to swallow hard to keep from breaking down. Honestly, he’s the best big brother ever.

Vee took my face in her hands and wiped my eyes with her thumbs. Then she kissed me, and when she pulled away, I was breathless. She whispered, “That’s a taste of what’s to come later.” Then louder she said, “Hey Captain, why don’t you and the first mate get to work on those engines.”

“Sure, good idea,” Max said. She stood and motioned Adan to follow. “Come on, number one.”

“Wait, if anyone’s the captain here, that’s me,” Adan said. Their argument continued as they left the bridge.

“Ok, what now?” I asked. I was tired and my brain felt like a flooded engine. I didn’t feel in any shape to figure out what went wrong. Luckily, I now had a better half.

“If you wanted to hide a planet, what would you do?” Vee asked me.

“I’d use a laser beacon to mask the star’s light intensity signature,” I answered. Most planets are found by watching a star and seeing if the light intensity fluctuates, which is a sure sign that one or more planets are passing in front of it.

“Sure, but that only works over galactic distances,” Vee answered. “What could mask a planet from us, here and now?”

“Theoretically?” She nodded. “I mean, a Dyson Sphere could. But there isn’t enough metal in ten solar systems to build a shell around the sun and the inner planets.”

She smiled, “I agree, but...”

“A Dyson bubble?” I asked.

“There you go, Tiger.” She leaned in and bit my left ear. I shivered involuntarily. “See, now we have a hypothesis. How should we test it?”

“Where have you been all my life?” I asked.

“Waiting for you to find me,” she answered.

We kissed for a little while.

After a few minutes I said, “I’ll check for radio noise in the area.”

“Then I’ll check the thermals,” Vee added.

It didn’t take us long to start finding anomalies. We found slight elevations in both EM background noise and infrared radiation a little over a parsec away. The readings were so slight that we likely wouldn’t have noticed it if we weren’t specifically looking for anomalies. It wasn’t long after that we discovered four gas giants that appeared to be orbiting absolutely nothing other than the center of the anomalous region.

“Did you have any idea about this?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We knew about the laser beacon, but not this. They’re not only hiding behind a network of solar sails, they’re using some sort of cloaking tech to project a backdrop of stars in real-time.”

“The sails would have to be solar collectors,” I said. Vee nodded her understanding. That way they would have the power to continually run the cloak. “Hey, did you notice that Max and Adan are outside the ship repairing damage?”

Vee’s eyes twinkled and she flashed incisors in a predatory smile. “Fire a probe towards the anomaly Tiger, and then meet me in our room. Earth won’t go anywhere in the next thirty minutes.”

...

“Why are you all sweaty and rumpled?” Adan asked when he returned to the bridge with Max.

“Science is hard work,” I answered, and I heard Vee giggle into her hand. The look on Adan’s face appeared doubtful.

I never realized just how much I relied on the ’Seven to keep my hyperactive sympathetic nervous system in check. Vee had done all the proverbial heavy lifting, but I was still sweating like a pig ten minutes later. Obviously, it was time for a replacement, but that wasn’t really an option in our current position.

“Well, I hope your science paid off,” Max answered, “because we were busting our asses out there patching the engines.”

“I think we found the Sol System,” I said, “and its right where the record said it would be.”

“Ok, so why does it appear like we’re, you know, in the middle of empty space?” Adan asked.

I have to admit, I was drawing out the suspense a bit. Vee and I looked at each other and smiled.

“Do you want to do the honors?” I asked.

“It’s okay Tiger, you can,” she answered.

“God dammit you two-” Max started, eyes ablaze.

I held up my hands defensively. “Okay, all right,” I soothed. “The sun and inner planets are obscured behind a Dyson bubble.”

When I got blank stares from the couple, I went on to explain the basics of the bubble and how we found it.

“Alrighty, so how do we get their attention?” Adan asked.

“We probably already have it,” I answered. “They may just be hoping we’ll repair our ship and go away.” I didn’t add that if they saw how we arrived they would probably either commandeer our ship of atomize it.

“Can we fly through that bubble of theirs?” Maxine asked.

“Yeah, pretty easily, but I’m not sure they’d take too kindly to that,” I answered.

“We could broadcast a short-range signal,” Veesil suggested. “State our intensions.”

Everyone agreed to that one. I opened a channel. “People of Earth,” I started then stopped because it sounded like a bad movie line, “Uh, Earth government… how’s it going?”

“Let me handle this sweetie,” Veesil said, gently nudging me aside.

“This is Commander Pax of the Servine High Command. We are here to resume diplomatic relations with the Terran military leadership.” She looked at me and smiled. “You always lie a little in diplomacy, right?” That got nods all around.

“She’s in charge of communications from now on,” Adan said, and I didn’t argue.

Suddenly the space around our ship filled with light fighter craft. Not incoming ships. These craft were parked all around us. I knew instantly that they’d developed cloaking technology similar to my WaveWrapper®. The ships were sleek little triangles brimming with full payloads of weapons.

“Unknown craft,” a voice said over the open channel. “Keep your weapons powered down and prepare to be scanned.

A look of shock crossed Adan’s face. “Shouldn’t we cover our unmentionables with lead or something?”

I shook my head. “It’s not that type of scan.”

Adan didn’t look convinced. He crossed his legs tightly and patted his thighs a few times. “Poochy, come.” Poochy untangled himself from Adan’s ankles and climbed onto his lap.

“Really?” I asked.

“Better safe than sorry brozilla,” he replied.

“You’re clear to proceed. Power up your engines and prepare for escort. Do not deviate from the path of the lead ship, or you will be fired upon.”

We all exchanged looks.

“At least they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later,” Maxine said.

Max got behind the controls, powered up the engines and started accelerating to the stated coordinates.

“Take it nice and easy Max,” Adan instructed.

“I know how to fly, Adan,” Max snapped back. “Don’t back-seat pilot me.”

Veesil raised her eyebrows and raised her hand to cover the “O” on her lips. Adan just smiled. He was already used to dealing with one difficult personality.

“Match our lead-ship’s speed of 1C for a distance of point-nine parsecs, and then drop back to subluminal.”

Maxine nodded without looking up.

“Roger that,” Vee replied over the channel.

We followed the trajectory of the lead ship, while the rest of the fighters formed up behind us – all the better to open fire on our vessel if we started acting squirrelly. At the designated location, a patch of satellites folded in on themselves, allowing us and our deadly little chaperons to pass through. It was as if a door had opened in a dark room, allowing light from the sun to pour in from the illuminated interior. The matte-black satellites were practically invisible though, even at point blank range.

We were now close enough to the Sun that it and Earth both looked roughly the same size. The lead escort ship instructed us to accelerate towards Earth. I couldn’t help but smile as its mass slowly filled our viewscreen.

“So, how are we going to play this?” I asked he room.

“I for one don’t want to be stuck in a detention area for the next decade,” Max answered.

“We have to warn whoever’s in charge that the Salarians are on to them,” Vee added.

“Thanks to us,” Max added.

“Right, but that’s beside the point. My people need help immediately, or they’ll be overrun,” Vee replied. “But yeah, maybe don’t lead with ‘our fault’ part.”

“We have information and technology to offer,” I said. “That should be enough to convince them that we’re legit.” At least I hoped it would. I kept that doubt to myself.

“We’re offering that technology for a price, right?” Adan asked. My brother – always the capitalist.

“That price might be our freedom,” I answered.

“That’s crap,” Adan answered. “I had freedom before this little adventure.”

“The truth is, because of us, a lot of people are probably going to die,” Maxine said. “My advice is we secure our freedom first, but after that we aid the war effort any way we can.”

“I agree,” I said, and Vee and Adan nodded as well.

Secure our freedom, aid the war effort and maybe make a profit – and we had intel and the greatest invention in the last century to trade. I sat back in my chair, closed my eyes, flipped on some Miles Davis and let my brain wander where it may.