Date: 5/29/2440 Time: 7:01 AM EST
“Talk to me, Ed.”
General Leonard Octavius Wood dropped into the chair beside the tracking officer, voice sharp, posture tighter.
“We’re refining the data now,” Ed replied, eyes locked on the shifting display. “Objects entered from the far side of the system—thirty-three degrees below the ecliptic. Current speed’s just over thirty million kilometers per hour. And… the beacon network’s lighting up all over the system.”
Leonard’s brow creased. “The beacons? With active transmissions we can actually detect?”
“Yes, sir. Full cascade over the entire EM spectrum. Locally, the lunar node triggered first, then relays from Mars orbit to Europa. Something woke the whole chain.”
The general didn’t swear—but he wanted to. The so-called Beacon Network had been Earth’s biggest cosmic mystery since the ESA tripped over it 85 years ago. The corporations poked it, got it to blink, and sometimes chirped back and forth. But no one really understood it, and most people forgot it even existed.
Until now.
“Are we finally being invaded?” Leonard asked, for the first time really believing it could happen in his lifetime. The Fermi Paradox said life should exist. The beacons were proof that someone long ago had space flight. The Modern Fermi Modeling also suggested alien invasions were not just stupid sci-fi tropes, but also a hopelessly backward way of thinking. Almost any resource you could need from another planet could usually be had far more cheaply, far closer to home, without needing to fight anyone for it.
Ed didn’t look away. “I don’t know. Wait—update. Eight contacts. They’re decelerating hard.”
“General!” another tech called from comms. “Moon beacon’s broadcasting. We’ve got an incoming transmission.”
Leonard didn’t hesitate. “Put it on.”
The speakers hissed, then resolved into a calm, melodic voice—clear, steady, eerily composed.
“I am Captain W’ren Th’ron, senior officer of this refugee convoy. We came under attack by pirates outside of your system. We were forced out of FTL and off course. We cannot complete our journey and are left with no choice but to divert here. One of our ships is critically damaged with propulsion systems offline. It has fallen under Progenitor control, what you call the beacon network. Their systems say the beacons will land the ship somewhere on your world within the next planetary day and a half.”
Leonard stiffened. “So… are we being invaded?”
“Unknown, they obviously know our dominant languages. This says they have studied us. It was broadcasting in ten different languages. My guess neither China nor the SAC are trying to talk to it yet,” Ed murmured, tapping furiously. “Trajectory confirms. One ship’s on course for Earth in thirty-two hours. The rest arrive seventy-two hours after that.” He brought up the mass data on the schematics that had been sent as an attached data packet. “Sir… the damaged one isn’t small. Five hundred meters high and wide, one and a half kilometers long. Before the attack, it carried one hundred and thirty-five thousand colonists plus prefabricated housing, power systems, and industry modules. It’s a bulk freighter refitted as a colonial transport—meant to break itself back down into a freighter, with the stripped modules rebuilt into the colony’s infrastructure.”
Leonard exhaled hard. That was no ship. That was a city falling out of the sky. “Get everything you’ve got ready. I’m taking this to the board.”
He stood, jaw tight—then paused. “Tell me we’ve already got a containment protocol on that message.”
The tech winced. “No, sir. It’s bouncing across the entire beacon lattice—radio, microwave, laser. Multilingual. Public. Every node’s forwarding it across civilian comms. It’s going viral.”
Leonard gripped the railing. “Goddammit.”
He hesitated, then turned. “Can we respond?”
“We can try. The signal includes reply pathways—standard high-end commercial encryption. Looks like they knew who’d be listening.”
Leonard dropped into a vacant seat, dictating fast. He didn’t want them talking to China or the South Asian Confederacy.
“Greetings, Captain Th’ron. I am General Leonard Octavius Wood of the Amazon Corporation. On behalf of humanity, welcome to the Sol system. Please enter into a safe orbit around Sol Three—the planet we call Earth—upon arrival. Further instructions to follow on this frequency.”
He nodded at the comms tech. “Loop it. Send until acknowledged.”
A chime sounded. “General, incoming response. Directed to you.”
“Understood, General Wood. Please note, we no longer have control of the damaged vessel. These are civilians, many in need of medical attention. My sister is aboard as chief medical officer. She reports no bio-hazards, but recommends minimizing exposure to crowds upon landing. Your atmosphere is compatible.”
Colonel Niels, silent until now, spoke up. “Where’s that ship now?”
He was already running numbers in his head. “If the moon beacon exchanged full data across the network in under twelve seconds—with alien ships out beyond Jovian orbit—we’re looking at a two-way propagation system that breaks every model we’ve got.”
Leonard didn’t respond. He just stared at the main screen as the unknown vessels slowed into an organized approach.
The beacons had always been outwardly quiet. Leonard like many others suspected they had been transmitting since the first time some lab monkey on a PhD quest decided to do a conductivity test on the one in their lab.
Now they knew the system was awake and answering to someone else.
