"A few hours ago, we intercepted a signal on the 1420.4 megahertz radio frequency. At first glance, it was of no acoustic interest. All the facts are on your tablets. The server immediately started a recording. There are long and short beeps that resemble binary language. As it stands," Preston mechanically raised his wrist "it's just a string of 1s and 0s. We didn't notice any significant sequence to it."
"Forgive me for interrupting you, Commander Preston," Henry Verdier called out, glancing at his tablet where the binary suite stretched. At the other end of the table, Ilyana displayed a strained smile. This intervention did not surprise her. "This signal... How did you spot it, exactly? Was there a frequency sweep?"
Preston was about to answer. However, Ilyana made him understand she was going to take over. "No, there was no sweep. You are aware certain frequencies are constantly monitored by the on-board computer, starting automatic recordings as soon as it detects something. In this case, the frequency corresponds to the wavelength of hydrogen's radiation," she explained to President Verdier. "This gas is the most common element in the universe. We presume that if an advanced civilization wanted, like us, to contact another intelligent lifeform, it would use this frequency as a reference."
Lips pursed, Verdier assessed the woman with his brown eyes which contrasted with the white of his crew cut. He knew all about it. Everyone knew that. Yet, it surprised no one that nothing ever came of their attempts at communication. "Indeed," he finally conceded.
"Now that this point is clarified, I will resume our presentation," Ilyana Ferguson said. "Four hours and thirty-two minutes after the signal came in, the radio broadcast was interrupted. The source was located at around fifty-six astronomical units, close to the orbital planes of the planets that we have spotted in the solar system. Commander Kellerman thinks the loss of the signal might be explained if it was sent from a planet that has moved behind its star. This, of course, does not exclude a transmission of natural origin."
Henry Verdier listened without flinching. He didn't look away from Ilyana Ferguson. She breathed in before resuming. "In the light of our past experiences, it is highly likely that the study of the recording we made will amount to nothing. But we have to check. In the absence of other elements, I gave the order, a few minutes ago, to steer the New Continent to the coordinates this transmission came from."
"How long will it take to arrive at our destination?" Verdier asked.
"A little over twenty-two cycles," navigator Judith Kellerman replied. Day and night did not exist in the darkness of space. There was no external marker to measure the passing of time. Only hours were left to measure what a day was, its twenty-four hours adding up to a cycle.
"Captain Ferguson," the President of the Council kept on. "When we decided a year ago, to enter into the deceleration stage, were you aware of the existence of this signal?"
"No. As Commander Preston said, we only started receiving it a few hours ago. This region is saturated with radio waves from surrounding stars. They cover a wide range of frequency bands which can interfere with other less important transmissions." "And within these few hours, you changed course without notifying the Council?"
"I'm not obligated to do so. You have now been informed." Ilyana had never lacked vigor, but Verdier had known her to be less sassy. The man rubbed his forehead with his fingertips before answering. "You've presented me with a fait accompli." "We had to explore the planets of this system out of necessity anyway," Doctor Valentin said. "It's been eleven years since we've seen anything interesting. We have exhausted our reserves. The food the factory provides us with is only an alternative. We need to restock with fresh produce as soon as possible."
Ilyana's intercom beeped. A man's hologram appeared, standing in the center of the oval table. Franck Johnson, the XO, seemed to look at her straight in the eye. He addressed her without paying attention to the rest of the assembly. "Captain, the terminals and the servers are reacting strangely on the bridge. We have no visual and nothing on our radar. No alerts either." The audience's eyes turned in unison to the barely translucent hologram.
"When did this begin?" Ferguson inquired. "Just over six minutes ago. We've started a routine diagnostic."
"I'm on my way."
~~~
"You must come back," Sami continued, ignoring Nicolaï. "This man plays at the despot. He is taking control of operations and questions everything you have done. He's freaking me out. He scares all of us on the bridge!" Silence fell sharply.
"Sami, you said what you had to say," the old man wanted to conclude. "Trust your Captain and let's leave her alone." The young liaison sought to catch Ferguson's gaze. Nicolaï led him to the exit. Sami let himself be guided without putting up any resistance, puzzled. Ferguson had betrayed his trust.
"How long before the engine is operational?" she simply asked. The question suddenly awoke the Lieutenant's interest. He freed himself from Nicolaï's grip. "Eighty minutes. No less!" That Verdier did everything to get the consent of public opinion hardly surprised her. If Johnson did not obey him blindly, he would feel pressured by the demands of the passengers alarmed by the events anyway.
Ilyana knew that the President would not hesitate to make human sacrifices in order to maintain the terror necessary to achieve his goals. She also knew that if Verdier hit a wall too fast, he would panic. He lacked the perspective necessary to think of getting around it. The President would lose his means as soon as the situation escaped him. Just like during their last game, she'd remembered, when fixing the holographic chess board on the coffee table. Once the New Continent is engaged in a new battle, the chances of escaping unscathed would fly away at the rate of the crossfire. She feared that Verdier would lose control. And if it occurred to him to flee before the reactor reached its standby temperature, he would snatch any hope of survival from the passengers.
"Nicolaï, I need to speak to Lieutenant Campbell," she finally said.
"I already failed in my principles by having the doors opened for Sami. You know my position Ilyana. I do not take sides."
"Now is the time to take sides, Nicolaï! I'm not asking you to choose between me or the President. You know most of the people on this ship. They were your children. Their own children are your students today. I'm asking you to think of them."
"Then you must find another way. I don't think the Lieutenant will speak to you. The Vice President's death shocked more than one and you know Franz Campbell doesn't really like you."
"Only he can understand that Verdier is wrong. If I can at least make him doubt, he will help me."
"Help us," Sami corrected for Nicolaï.
The old man with the white beard nodded almost too easily, which Ilyana noted with amazement. Something was disturbing Nicolaï. "I promise you nothing, Ilyana," he conceded after a moment.
"Thank you." Sami followed Father Nicolaï's step toward the exit.
~~~
I must admit that I was a little bit intimidated as I began to read the New Continent by Michael Millasseau. I was once a Trekkie as they called fans when all of the Star Trek shows were in
(As an aside, I wanted to include recognition of our loss of Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood as communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original “Star Trek” television series. She died on July 30th at the age of 89. She was certainly a woman and role model we all recognized as having "made it" during those years! She will be missed by Star Trek fans...)
Then we'd watch going into engineering and to other areas of the Star Trek, even in that magic area where those on the Enterprise would be able to create an imaginary scene of our own making or travel into past histories where we could pretend to live in those times... I loved it and decided I was really living in the wrong period of time! Especially, having a cup of tea, or whatever, magically appear on the push of a button! Sooo cool!
New Continent is the actual name of the ship where almost all of the book is set... To capture what was happening, a lot of technical terms related to the ship were used... many I had no idea what was meant... and I became hesitant... But, I was very happy to have the book in ebook format, so that I could look up the words in the Kindle dictionary, so that I knew exactly what was happening. Once I got acclimated to reading about the ship and its "parts," I began to feel more comfortable. After all, most books are character driven and it wasn't hard to get into the "political environment" even if New Continent was flying through space!
I agree with the author, this story is quite unique--different from the usual sci fi thriller... For one, it is also a mystery! A whodunit that keeps readers wondering just who killed the vice-president!
In this book, the president and vice-president are part of the council representing all passengers on the ship. New Continent has been moving from one planet to another, trying to find a home. They have been traveling for over 700 years! It is not totally known just why leaving earth had been required those many years ago. But all individuals on New Continent were aware that all other ships had been lost for one reason or another. New Continent housed the last citizens of the planet called Earth!
One of the intriguing aspects of the book is that it is conducted as if an ongoing investigation is taking place. Indeed the first chapter immediately sets the stage... It is a message coming in from outer space... in binary code... But who is sending it, and where is it coming from?! Of course, I had no desire to try to decode--I was always more interested in the outcome of what a computer can produce--even with the author giving us the challenge at the end to determine what was being sent through the airwaves... LOL
Both the Starship Captain as well as the President seem a paradox and what you would not expect for individuals in these two positions. The Captain primary goes "by the gut," even though she is the daughter of the former Captain... While, for me, I found the President too much like our US former president to have too much sympathy for him. On the whole, however, I felt that both represented the personality actions that would be appropriate within what we might call a disaster flick! For surely, after 700 years of domestic calm, as much as possible, for living in and on a starship, I don't think we should be surprised that these two major characters just might have gotten a little complacent... Myself, of course, I'd be sticking with following the female Starship Captain since she had the experience of running the ship which the President would not have been qualified to do (sound familiar? LOL).
It soon became possible--just possible--that they had finally reached Planet Earth. The Captain put together the first team to visit the planet, to determine whether, and just how much, of a danger it would be to stay on the planet... But, nobody could have planned on what, and who, they encountered!
With no information why it had been decided so long ago to leave Earth, it was not surprising to those few who first landed on what was, essentially, a dead planet. Buildings were slowly falling down, absolutely no plant life could be seen. But one building was in fairly good shape and upon entering, the team discovered that it was, a museum--so fascinating that those in the building had to be pulled out from their wandering exploration, so that they could proceed with their mission. Stop to imagine just what a museum could hold, items that had never been seen by the earth citizens who had been living only on a starship for 700 years! The thoughts and emotional response to all that the world offered in the past must have been truly mind-blowing!
Except in the distance, a number of high-rise buildings seemed to be in better shape. How were these newer buildings created? Soon, portions of the signal coming through space began to be decoded... Whoever created the message spoke of the monsters who had taken over earth, destroying so much that there was no option but to leave...
So I was getting quite involved, when the President had the Ship's Captain arrested and removed the authority of her office! Could this actually be permitted?! No matter...it was happening!
Battles soon started...Attacks are made on those individuals who have landed but attacks on New Continent also began. Could New continent make it through these attacks? Would anybody survive?! And could the President actually deal with the catastrophic events that were destroying New Continent...piece by piece...?
The Environment - One Day This Won't be Science Fiction!
I would love to see this book made into a movie! It is one way to illustrate how we could be forced to leave Planet Earth! The message is so important! We who are living here now, must learn of what monsters had taken over the planet and work to eliminate them!
As explained by the author, his purpose, his goal for his book was to point out exactly what could happen to our home planet...And then also points out that, though many other planets had been explored, there were none that could meet the needs of the human race.
The writing is excellent and the story, with several plots moves forward for readers, so much so that it becomes a page-turner after a certain point... The story is exhilarating in responding to its primary goal... Simply, AWESOME!
