Chapter 26: Riker – April 2157 – Sol
The signal was audio only, and very weak. “Unknown ship, do you copy?”
I looked at Homer and raised one eyebrow. He shrugged. “As good a place to start as any.”
Activating my transmitter, I responded, “This is the starship Heaven-2 of the United Federation of Planets. Commander Riker speaking.”
There were several seconds of silence. “Uh-huh. Listen, I don’t know who you are, but you’ve just apparently averted a global catastrophe, so I guess I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Our telemetry is not up to military snuff, but our systems tentatively identify you as similar to the Heaven-series interstellar probe that FAITH launched a couple or three decades back.”
“Guilty as charged. And to whom am I speaking?”
“I am Colonel George Butterworth of the United States of Eurasia Army Corps. Rest assured, commander, that our true position is obfuscated. If you attempt to destroy the source of this transmission, you will achieve nothing.”
The colonel’s accent was definitely British, and far too close to the cliché’d pronunciation portrayed in many American TV shows. I would have to be careful not to let Homer talk to him. I doubted Homer would be able to resist the urge toward mimicry. “Colonel, let’s not get off on the wrong foot, okay? We have no intention of blowing anyone up. We had a little disagreement with what appears to have been the last of the Brazilian Empire space navy. Now, I think it’s time to start fixing things.”
***
We had been in discussions with the USE military for three weeks now. I was faithfully forwarding recordings of everything to Bill. Negotiations were slow and cautious, mostly on the part of Colonel Butterworth. He had been very slow to accept the idea that Homer and I weren’t dyed-in-the-wool FAITH theologues. It took a very frank discussion in which I explained in detail the reasons for my atheism before the colonel really began to believe me.