Author’s Note:

  This episode is published here up to the 75% mark.

  The remaining chapters—including the climax and aftermath—are available in the complete episode on Amazon.

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0GCBV6R12

  Thank you for reading and supporting the series.

  ###

  Commander John Drayton was about to make the headlines of every news station across the solar system.

  Two months ago, a high powered telescope discovered the Meridian Gate in the Oort cloud which lay beyond the Kuiper belt. It wasn’t human. That was obvious. The ring orbited around a chunk of asteroid the size of Rhode Island. They sent drones to investigate; they brought back strange pictures, but not much else.

  They tried drilling into the ring, but every time the drill bit connected with the strange metal the circuitry fried and killed the drone. Data collection seemed impossible. After two months of failed observation techniques, the United Earth Federation funded a mission led by Commander John Drayton to inspect the Meridian Gate. Their orbital telescopes were missing something. Either way, they were out of options and were forced to send a human to learn anything of consequence about the alien technology.

  The mysterious ring looked small in front of the backdrop of space. In reality, the ring measured ten miles in diameter. It was shaped like a wedding band and covered in circuitry-like glyphs of unknown meaning. Someone built that ring and placed it there—that was John’s first thought when he saw it. The design was too precise and logical. But why was there a giant ring floating in the Oort Cloud? The entire situation was illogical because no human had the capability to not only design something like the Meridian Gate but to somehow transport it to the Oort Cloud without UEF scanners pinging movement? That was impossible.

  Scientists analyzed trace deposits of micro-particulates and interstellar dust collected from the ring’s outer shell. It was the only thing they could safely do with the drones before the ring zapped them and destroyed them for getting too close. By comparing the dust layering patterns and isotopic composition to known models of Oort Cloud particulate drift, scientists estimate that the Meridian Gate has been exposed to its environment for at least 150,000 years.

  Admiral Valentine’s voice chimed through John’s comms, gruff and excited. “John, you’re live on every news station across the solar system. Behave yourself. Billions are watching.”

  John grew a pensive smile.

  He was famous.

  When he was younger, John shot low budget commercials and a few action flicks until he was kicked out of Hollywood for getting into a fist fight with a co-star. That was twelve years ago when he was eighteen. Out of embarrassment and the desire to live a different life, combined with the craving for excitement and adventure, John enlisted in the United Earth Federation as a marine and served four years in the infantry fighting insurgents on Mars before transferring to pilot training. By his estimation, that was where the real heroes were.

  He could have stepped away from the military eight years ago, but John grew into the routine of a full-time patriot. It paid the bills. That was good enough for John.

  “Commander Drayton?” Valentine said. “I think we lost connection. John? What are you seeing?”

  “Oh…Uh—Yeah. I’m here Mark,” John said. “Are you seeing the ring? My cameras should be broadcasting.”

  “You went silent. Just keep drifting. How are your instruments?”

  “No anomalies.”

  The navigation computer chimed. “Ten thousand meters.”

  The ring grew closer.

  The navigation computer chimed. “Eight thousand meters.”

  A streak of purple lightning erupted from the inside of the ring; it streaked across and struck the opposite side. The lightning struck again and again. Then the ring did something it’s never done before. It started to spin. John’s shoulders tightened. He pressed himself back into his chair. His adrenaline spiked. “This isn’t right. What’s it doing?”

  “John? Maybe you should get out of there.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “No. I just don’t want any accidents on live television.”

  “It shouldn’t be doing that. Why is it spinning? What’s the deal with the lightning? This is really freaking me out.”

  “What does your computer say?”

  The navigation computer chimed. “Five thousand meters.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  John tapped the screen. He slowed his approach and hovered in place. He maintained his distance at roughly four thousand five hundred meters from the ring. He didn’t want to travel an inch closer before knowing more about what he was dealing with.

  “I’m running diagnostics. I need to know if this is some kind of…” He stopped. He wanted to say alien. He wanted to say what everyone was already saying. But for some reason it felt wrong and he stopped himself from speaking that word to the world. Aliens? Could they actually be real?

  The UEF’s private policy was deny, deny, deny. John couldn’t deny the alien artifact in front of him, though. It reminded him of some kind of weapon. “I know a lot of you are watching,” he said, trying to establish a connection with the ring. “Emily, if you’re watching, I love you babe. What a time to be alive.”

  “President Carthage is watching,” Valentine said. “The entire Federation is watching.”

  John’s fingers trembled over the console. He tapped into the fighter’s diagnostics suite. The dim blue light on the screen painted nervous lines across his face. He blinked away the sweat from his eyes. He forced himself to breathe slower.

  John thumbed through a cascade of error reports. “Come on…Come on. Tell me something.” There was a power flux and overload warnings, then a partial system blackout. Half of the words on his screen blinked red. What was that about? Half of the reports were totally corrupted.

  He pulled up the signal analyzer.

  The ring was broadcasting…that was clear. He wondered how the equipment on his ship could intake the data when so many drones were unable. It wasn’t like the technology in his vessel worked any differently. Was somebody hiding the truth? Or did the ring simply decide to share its signal with John?

  No. That was ridiculous.

  A flurry of symbols flooded the secondary display—thousands of lines of code. Endless lines. They ran horizontal and vertical. They crisscrossed into dense patterns.

  John froze.

  He whispered. “What is happening?”

  The shapes on his display didn’t flow like numbers or any known human language that he recognized. The symbols stood rigid and woven together across the entire screen. Sections of it were bolded. Some of the lines shifted as if producing audible feedback, but he couldn’t hear anything. It reminded John of that movie—the Matrix—but this wasn’t code flowing down the screen like water. This felt like an action flick—Predator's targeting grid.

  He ran a translation algorithm. The AI whirred, worked—and failed. The machine spat out a single message:

  UNKNOWN. NO REFERENCE DATA.

  Panic gnawed at the edges of John’s mind. He shoved it back down. He zoomed in. He mapped the lines. He tried to find something, anything that made sense. There was a symmetry to it, a pattern, but none that he immediately recognized.

  A single quadrant pulsed brighter than the rest.

  John swallowed. “That has to mean something. Are you reading this, Mark?”

  “We’re trying,” Valentine said.

  The fighter had only basic diagnostic tools. Still, it tried to connect the dots. A hum vibrated through his seat. He heard something, like a gunshot. There was a pop and a flash of light. More lightning shot out from the Meridian Gate.

  The navigation computer chimed. “One thousand meters.”

  “What?”

  How had he drifted? Then the realization hit him.

  It was the ring.

  His thrusters were not activated. The ring…it was pulling him closer.

  A bolt of lightning struck his fighter craft.

  All his systems died.

  “Mark?” John said. He smacked his center console. “Come on!” The entire ship darkened, still as the void. The fighter kept moving closer. He flipped the manual reset switches. That didn’t work. He couldn’t stop it. He was too far out. If they sent a rescue unit, it wouldn’t reach him before the oxygen inside his cabin depleted. “Mark? Can you hear me?” Not a sound. Fried, likely.

  John’s heart slammed against his ribs. No lights. No engines. No communications. Just the cold stillness of his fighter helplessly drifting toward the center of the Meridian Gate.

  “Come on John. Think. Think.” He yanked the emergency panel below the console. He pulled out an old-fashioned manual diagnostics tool—a clunky, rectangular brick the size of a lunchbox. It still had wires. John jammed the primary lead into the port beneath his chair. The device blinked to life with a soft whine. He should have enough backup power and days of oxygen. That would give him enough time to think of a solution.

  Numbers scrolled across the screen. Then they stopped.

  MAIN POWER RELAY: OFFLINE. LIFE SUPPORT: CRITICAL. OXYGEN REMAINING: 28 MINUTES.

  John swallowed. His hands shook. He slammed his fist into the side panel. He forced himself to breathe, slow and controlled. Panic would kill him faster than the oxygen loss.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he muttered. He dug through the emergency kit strapped behind his seat. His fingers brushed against metal—the spare power relay. It was small and fragile. He worked fast. He unscrewed the housing. He yanked the burnt relay free. The smell of scorched plastic filled the cramped cockpit. He shoved the new relay inside. It snapped into place with a sharp click.

  Nothing happened.

  He botched it.

  But then—a sputter. A groan. Emergency lights flickered on. The console rebooted. Life support beeped weakly.

  OXYGEN STABILIZED. SYSTEMS REBOOTING.

  “Yes!” John gasped.

  He didn’t have time to celebrate. He thumbed the thruster ignition.

  Nothing happened.

  “Come on, baby. Please.”

  He hit it again.

  The thrusters sputtered to life. The ship jerked backwards, away from the ring.

  John shouted into his comms. “Mark! Can you hear me?”

  Static filled the comms.

  Then, faintly, he heard Mark’s voice. “—get back—Washington—debrief—”

  John gritted his teeth and gripped his joystick. He turned the fighter nose-over-tail and burned fuel to get away from the ring which loomed behind him.

  John knew he messed something up, but he didn’t know what. As he sped back toward base, he never once looked back.