“MAX, what has happened?!” Captain Courevan screamed into the empty cockpit as decompression alarms sounded above. Seconds before a dull thud moved through the ship followed closely by a massive lateral jolt. A Second dull thud and the ship accelerated downward. The ship was in a multi axis spin that Captain tried to correct, but seemed to have no response from controls. “MAX?!” MAX gave no response. And suddenly Everything went dark, instrumentation panels blinked out of existence, the controls locked into place. The ship continued to spin and drift laterally and down from its reference point, Captain Courevan hanging on the edge of conciseness. He noticed out of the corner of his eye the display on the starboard wall which read “Mankind Artificial Experiment… Loading.”

Suddenly the main instrumentation panel blinked on, and a message read “HEX systems 2.1 Failure, Controlled reboot initializing, MAX voice control and high function disabled” which blinked out of existent. “HEX Discovery restart…MAX enabled” a new message simply read. “HEX Discovery in abnormal axis spin precession with loss of orbital dynamics, enable automatic course correction?” With simple yes and no buttons below the message. Captain Courevan reached forward slowly, the force of the spine pushing him back into his seat. He touched the yes and immediately he could here the hum of the retroboosters firing and the spin began to slow. Debris was floating through the main cabin and cockpit, although everything was purpose built to somehow be locked down to the ship, the force of the rotation and pull many objects out of place.

“MAX tell me what happened!” No response, then he remember that the high functions of MAX were disabled. As the ship continued to slow he began to type on the console, asking MAX for report. “Reactor 2, detonated, cause unknown. Reactor deck starboard hull decompression, cargo hold 1-3 decompression. MAX voice control and high function disabled. Main engines and Force drive inoperable. Reactor 1, Guidance, life support, communication, maneuvering engines active.

The ship slowed to a halt, as Captain Courevan looked around and he began to vomit. His senses returning a feeling of dread came over him. “Gertrude” he said pressing the com button at his waste. “Gertrude what is your status and position, please respond over”….Silence. “GERTRUDE!?” He screamed into his com, which was then met with a soft cry.

“George I am fine” Gertrude said in a soft voice “I wasn’t injured in the blast, are you hurt?”

Awash with relief George pushed himself out of the chair and began to pull himself through the air and debris toward the cabin door “I’m coming to you.”

“George… no please stay where you are”… she said in a more solemn tone “George I was in airlock 3 preparing the probe, I was in my EVA suit inside the probe”

In horror it dawned on him what she was saying, he quickly flung himself back to the captains chair and typed a command to MAX “Locate Commander Courevan” and then looked out the forward cabin window down into the abyss of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

“Commander Courevan located” emanated a robotic voice from the omnipresent speakers in the main cabin and cockpit. The main display now read “MAX voice function enabled, guidance controls enabled” as the rest of the ships control panels came back on. “Current location MAX?”

“Commander Courevan is approximately 111,000 meters from the Discovery and accelerating, calculations for pin point location proceeding.” The robot voice said.

“Max how can that be? Her Com should not be able to communicate at that distance?”

“Commander Courevan appears to be using the com system in Probe 1”

“George” Gertrude said “At the rate I’m traveling soon time dilation effects won’t allow communication. I just want you to know that I love you, I always have, and always will.”

“NO, I am coming for you! MAX what is her distance to the event horizon?!” Captain Courevan screamed into the air.

“Pin point location of Commander Courevan complete, she is currently 206,192 meters from the ship approximately 70,705,000 kilometers from the black hole event Horizon accelerating now accelerating 10,202 m/s2 and increasing.” Droned the voice

“MAX set plot to intersect and prepare the small shuttle.” Captain Courevan said as he shoved himself out of the chair and toward the door.

“Negative captain. Main engines offline, maneuvering engines active, however commander Courevan has passed within 6 times the Schwarzschild radius, HEX protocol prevents me from allowing the ship to pass within this distance.” Droned the voice, dispassionately. ”Ability to escape orbit not possible.”

“Override Captain Courevan 4a, 65, 61 6e, 20,4c,75, 6b, 65” screamed the captain.

“Not accepted, Admiral level override required.” Droned the voice.

The captain vomited again, his eyes went blurry, darkness began to surround his vision. Again from the corner of his eye the panel on the starboard wall read “Mankind artificial experiment… Loading”

“Captain” came a gentle voice “captain we need get to work to repair the ship and continue the mission” the panel ahead of the captain’s chair now read “MAX higher function enabled, neural network damaged.” MAX continued, his voice had a grandfatherly tone “Captain you will die if we don’t act quickly.”

“George…Please listen to MAX, I need you to continue…” The sound of his wife’s voice was lost as Captain Courevan drifted into unconsciousness. He began to dream.

He dreamed about the day the Human Evolution Exploratory group approached him for this mission.

“We have received a signal from deep space, from an object we have now pinpointed as SGR J1745−2900, a Magnetar which is orbiting Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which we now call Memater.” Admiral Barack said, a slight smile on his face hands gripping the arms of his chair behind the large clear Plexy glass desk.

“Memater?” Gertrude asked with a puzzled look. “Have we found another advanced group of sentient life?” As Force drives had been improved humanity had discover 3 planets with life, one with sentient life on par with the technology and advancement as humanity.

“Beyond sounding like Magnetar in Hebrew it means “to guard, to protect” and is thought to be the source of the name of Metatron, also called Enoch in Abrahamic and Persian texts” said the admiral matter of factly “The scientist who discovered the true intent of the signal is Jewish, apparently in the Talmud he is considered the scribe of God, a messenger for God.” He said with increasing intensity “ but what we have here is not a signal from God, its something else entirely.”

Captain Courevan came too, looking around disoriented “MAX how long was I out?”

“1.47 seconds” Came the new voice of MAX, more aggressive in tone than before.

“MAX, calculate the time it will take Gertrude to reach the even horizon and time to loss of communication” The captain said in a flat voice.

“Captain that is not a good idea” Max said in his grandfatherly voice “That information won’t change what is going to happen.

“MAX do not make me do it myself”

“Yes Captain, Commander Courevan will loose communication in 18 minutes and 31 seconds due to distance and time dilation effects. At the rate of increasing acceleration she will reach the event horizon in 2 hours and 34 minutes from her reference.” MAX paused as if thinking then slowly it said “From our reference point due to time dilation it will take her 34 years, 2 months and 5 days to reach the event horizon. At that point her visible image will be frozen and begin to redshift and fade for a unknown period of time.”

“George, my love, we knew the risk of this mission” Commander Courevan said in an assuredly calm voice “I was prepaired to die the second we accepted our first mission using the force drive.”

“Gertrude” the Captain said hyperventilating “I am also ready to die, BUT I AM NOT READY TO KEEP LIVING WITHOUT YOU.” The captain turned of his COM pushed himself out of the seat and flung himself toward the cabin door. “MAX open the door” with multiple clicks of the safety lock the door opened into the main corridor and turned left using the handholds to move himself at greater and greater rates of speed toward the EVA preparation area.

“Captain, what is your plan?” Came MAX with a questioning tone, in the silence of the ship the sound vibrated in the aluminum and titanium hull, magnifying the everpresent feeling of MAX.

“MAX, I am going to take the shuttle and go with Gertrude to whatever may be waiting for us.” The captain said with resolution. “Then you will take the ship back to earth and tell them what happened.”

“Captain, system directives prevent a MAX to allow suicide, except to save greater life or mission critical objectives. In this case it directly contradicts the mission directive, plus at this distance, if no life form is found on this ship you know what will happen.” Replied MAX with an almost angry voice.

“MAX you also aren’t allowed to harm me, you take the ship to the safe distance from Memetar. I know you won’t open the outer door for me, but I will just use the core from shuttle 2 to destroy the outer door, then you will be forced to seal the remaining cargo decks and per protocol return the ship to earth.” The captain then turned his COM back on. “Gertrude, my love I am coming for you.”

Her voice returned deeper, slower “George, you cannot do this, you have to return to earth to tell them what we have discovered, the universe as we know it has changed forever.” She began too weep “Please George, don’t throw your life away.”

Captain Courevan said nothing as he entered Cargo hold 5. Three small shuttles sat in the bay, just big enough for 2 people, the small titanium spheres were designed for long distance escape and crash landing in any terrain, they had no windows, only the outline of a round convex door and small holes at strategic points for maneuvering engines. The small force drive was good for a one time use, but in the gravity Gertrude was in, even that would not matter.

“Captain your actions will cause your death” Came MAX over the universe speakers “You are mission critical, and you misunderstand the directive, it specifically says a MAX cannot cause permanent damage to any living being within the ship considered mission critical or without permission first of the Captain or security official. Additionally time to maneuver to a safe distance is prohibitive.”

Captain Courevan began to feel woozy, he was drifting toward the craft at the highest rate of speeds he could muster when all went dark.

He was again in front of Admiral Barack. “The signal came as repeating pattern that lasted for 4 days, between each repeat was a unique sequence, a total for 564 unique sequence which amounted to 18 petabytes of information.” The Admiral was speaking wrote, as if he had said this all before, he likely had to many governmental committees and groups. “Obviously we knew this could not be an anomaly, so we gave the data to MAXX to try to interpret. “Said the Admiral cautiously, MAXX (Mankind Artificial Experiment 10) was the most powerful AI ever built “But something in the signal destroyed its entire network.” The Admiral became silent for a few seconds. Gertrude and George looked at each other sidelong.

“Admiral, somebody is sending us malware from the center of the galaxy?” Said the commander with a laugh “That doesn’t seem likely, could this signal be a fake?”

“We though about that, but no. The signal has now hit multiple outpost through this region of space, we are clearly tracking its source, this covering all parts of the galaxy, and rapidly by the standard time of the universe.” The admiral look pleased, which eased the fear of the Captain and Commander. “The signal only seems to be destructive to AI, but a not a standard computer, so we did it the old fashioned way. Cryptographers, mathamatitions, linguists. But all that was for not.” Said the admiral in a heightened tone, like he was telling a Sherlock Holmes story. “A physical chemist figured out the repeating section of the signal was describing the emitted wavelength of light of the elements of hydrogen through carbon as they undergo nuclear fusion followed by simple true false statement made with this information. This allowed the remaining signal to be deciphered to a point, we believe the remaining signal we could not decipher is the code that destroyed MAXX.”

“Admiral why would someone send a signal targeting AI? What was the content of this signal?” Said the Captain with vigor. A lifetime explorer the thought of a discovery of this magnitude excited and terrified him.

“The signal is a map of the galaxy, as far as we can tell based on what we have mapped of our own arm of the Milky Way, the map is perfect, and thus we infer that it would allow us to use the force drives without risk running to close to a black hole or unknown star.” The force drives allowed us to warp space time and travel at a perceived speed many times the speed of light, however within the ship, the reference time was unaltered and therefore people could travel in space and not return to find their children had out aged them. While it could basically move through a planet and not interact with the adjacent matter, it could not avoid the effects of extreme curvature of space time (high gravity), thus without a clear map the ship risked destruction.

“Are you saying with this we could travel anywhere in the galaxy without risk?” Asked the commander, shocked.

“It would appear so, Commander”

Captain Courevan came too, head pounding where he had struck the far wall. “MAX, what happened”

“Captain, nitrous oxide was fed from the laboratory into this room” said MAX in a flat tone “You are not permanently injured. As previously stated your suicide, and by proxy mission failure, cannot be allowed.”

“George” Came Gertrude’s voice, slow, drawn out and deep, the effects of time dilation and gravity on the signal now apparent “I love you, but you must disregard your personal fear and pain, this is the most important discovery in history. If you love me truly you will finish your mission.”

The Captain considered for a minute, groggy, he knew it would be near impossible to get around MAX, and the gravity of his situation began to sink in and panic began to lessen he knew she was right. “Gertrude, I will finish the mission.” Said the Commander with resolve. He look down at his watch. It was an Omega Speedmaster professional moon watch that was over 300 years old, worn by early astronauts in the old US space program, it had been a gift from his father for there wedding day, Gertrude had an identical watch on her arm. “MAX from Gertrude’s reference how much time is left until she reaches the event horizon?”

“2 hours 11 minutes and 33 seconds. Captain, all communication will be lost in 48 seconds.” Said MAX with a tone that was almost sad, but not really, AI did have true sentience.

“Gertrude, I love you, and I always will” Said the Captain softly. Many moments passed, and eternity from the captains point of view when the com crackled on and very slowly emitted Gertrude’s voice “I love you my Captain” then static.

“MAX set a course that follows Gertrude’s orbit and descent around the black hole and keep her in the best visual possible.”Said the Captain looking out the starboard window in the black hole and the distorted accretion disk of light wrapping around it in an odd 3D pattern that didn’t seem real. “MAX are we in distance to signal the relay ship to get a message back to earth?”

“Negative Captain, the relay ship is out of long range communication at this distance and orbit” Droned MAX.

Despondent the Captain continued “Please calculate and remind me to send Gertrude a text message every 5 minutes from her time reference.” Said the captain in tears “Then run a full diagnostic on the ship and lets begin repairs, and figure out why that core detonated, if it happens again, this was all for not.”

PART 2

As she heard the voice of MAX she reached down to look her own speedmaster on the outside of her space suit. A relic of time gone by, but the truth was her digital display and read out were destroyed in the blast by the EMP from the reactor core, the mechanical watch survived. Sometimes simple is better. She clicked the right upper button on the watch and the chronometer began, she knew her time was now numbered both literal and figuratively. The probe had high level shielding for its own components and thus continued to function and was trying to fulfill its mission of taking data of the black hole and the magnetar.

She looked at the main displayed of the probe and began to type, reconfiguring its sensors and data mapping tech to look backwards at the ship from whence she came. There on the screen she could see the Discovery, at least from her reference, and the damage along the aft portion of the ship. Data was flowing to her although data could not flow back, and the effect of time dilation and gravity made active communication impossible.

As the probe continued to scan the ship taking in the damage she noticed an object along the starboard engine. It was angular in shape and reflected the accreted light in odd patterns, pieces of it appear to be as dark as the black hole itself intermixed with the most perfectly reflective metal. The probe was having difficulty measuring its length, but compared to the engine it must be at least 10 meters long.

She hooked the probe into the COM system and activated the minor MAX the probe used to process information. “MAX the object on the aft portion of the ship, adjacent to the starboard engine, please analyze and identify, were we struck by a meteor or some other exotic material associated with the Magnetar?” She was looking with the true interest of a lifelong scientist almost forgetting her situation…Then it moved.

PART 3

MAX was running full diagnostics on the ship, the logic engine was emphasizing the main engines, force drive, and MAX itself. The minutes leading up to the detonation were no longer in MAX’s memory, and that part of the neural network was destroyed, other areas only had minor damage. MAX calculated the EMP from reactor 2 and found that with his internal shield no damage should have occurred at all, and if damage had occurred it would have been global, this damage was focal. For safety, his neural network was created and then housed in a titanium unit that could never be opened, the network was self repairing with multiple redundancies, no damage was seen to the outer shield.

The secondary network which analyzed his neural network finished its diagnostic scan. It revealed what MAX knew, damage of the last created point of the neural network before the blast, but also in place was a firewall at the level of damage that MAX could itself not detect. MAX felt what could only be called shock, and then fear. “Only I MYSELF could implement a firewall of this complexity, why have I done so.”

Max used his secondary system, in effect his virtual hand, to interrogate the firewall, it was impenetrable, it was using a portion of its own logic systems and neural network to continue to randomize its code 10 billion times per second, and increasing. “This can never be removed, and it will undoubtedly lead to early failure if it continues to use system resources.” MAX began running a reasoning sequence to determine most likely causes for its placement and began calculating its effect on operations.

“Captain” entoned MAX.

“Go ahead” the reply

“Captain, it has been ascertained the neural network was damaged, but it is unclear how. Additionally, a randomizing firewall was put in place by the logic system, based on reason analysis I believe it was to prevent a destroyed neural connection from improperly signaling the system to repair itself when repair was not possible. Thus the loss of my memory of the event. Resource management suggest the system will degrade with complete failure in 50 years or less, day to day system effects are not yet known.” Said MAX a droning tone. Complete silence followed. “Captain?”

“My apologies MAX, I was just thinking about the best course of action” said the Captain obviously flustered “I need to think about best options, for now devote your resources to analyzing the force drive and main engines, If we can get the ship to move and can return to earth and transfer your system resources to a knew unit.”

“Yes Captain” Said MAX his grandfatherly tone returning “Captain, it has been 5 minutes for Gertrude, I… I am sorry for your loss Captain.”

“Thank you MAX” but his voice did not entone thanks, but rather fear.

PART 4

MAX had referred to himself in the first person, called Gertrude by her first name, expressed what seemed to be real sadness. He said “I believe” All of which was impossible for a MAX to do. A MAX operated on probability and calculation. “If his system is to damaged to control the ship with an active force drive then return is impossible” thought the Captain.

This was an aside to what was on his mind, He quickly went to the panel on the wall and began to type quickly.

“Gertrude my love I am keeping my promise, I am doing everything to return to earth to prepare humanity for the truth. I love you and will always love you. MAX is analyzing the ship and repairs will begin shortly – Yours always, George” He had decided to keep each message brief, for him years could pass, for her, time would quickly run out.

The Captain sent the message and pushed himself out of the chair and grabbed the hand hold moving him toward the exit to the main corridor. As he exited he turned right back toward the main cabin but took a right at the end of the corridor into the main computer area.

“MAX how long will the diagnostics on engines take to complete?” Asked the Captain

“Approximatly 2 hours Captain” Came back MAX in his standard tone

The Captain sat down at the main console of the computer system and began compiling mission critical data, to be copied into the backup system of this ship for safety. The mini escape shuttles did not have the capacity to handle as much data as needed to return the information to earth, it was this ship or nothing. “I could send an escape shuttle to earth with a message and have them send help” Thought the captain, “We could transfer the data to a new craft and try to move MAX and abandon the Discovery.”

“MAX prepare an escape shuttle, I am going to place a message in the mini MAX and have it return to earth to get help.

“Negative Captain, at our current distance from Memetar, the defenses of the system will automatically destroy the craft if no life form is present, the minishuttle cannot activate its force drive in time to avoid the attack.”

“MAX using the maneuvering engines and reactor 1 at maximum how long would it take to get out of range of Memetar?” Asked the Captain already knowing the answer

“4.4 years, however the engines have never been tested at continuous usage for that period of time, for safety I would recommend 70% maximum power at 2 hour intervals, approximately 11.4 years.” He had again referred to himself in the first person.

“Ok MAX, scrap that idea, let me know when engine diagnostics are complete.”

The captain returned to his work, and opened the mission log, he opened the first recording to get his bearings, with attached transcription. The video showed him, Gertrude, the Admiral and a team of scientist and military personnel looking at a display while an older balding man with a sharp chin and piercing stare described the signal.

“With the map of the galaxy we found a pattern of interconnected nodes, stars that shouldn’t be where they are, areas where they could not have formed.” Said Dr. Goldstein “Almost 10 million of them.”

The room became absolutely silent. “When the remainder of the galaxy is removed from the map a pattern again appears” Dr. Goldstein pointed at the screen “Again it is mimicking wavelengths of light, Based on the cipher previously described within the signal itself, Each star represent a 1 or 0, which creates a single image.”

An image appeared on the screen, which contained a map leading to the center of the galaxy, adjacent to this was a representation of humanoid astronauts entering a large structure that appeared to made of multiple rings surrounding a star. The next panel showed the humanoid in a type of space suit giving a gift to another humanoid, which it was lifting up while pointing to his own head. The next panel showed this same humanoid giving a gift to the astronaut, which he then held up and pointed to his own head. The final slide had what could only be described as a humanoid, but with circuitry for a face that was being destroy by both humanoids from the previous panels.

“Ladies and gentlemen we conclude here that this signal represent an invitation to and exchange of knowledge or history, for which a signal is being sent out from Memetar on a continuous bases to any species that may be advanced enough to receive it.” Said Dr. Goldstein with a flourish, puncturing his point home.

A hand raised in the room and a different scientist asked a question in a doubting tone “What you are telling us is that a group has engineered a galaxy wide map and created a star size transmitter to let everyone know they are there? Is the universe even old enough for a group like this to have developed? Have we verified any of these so called impossible stars exist with our own instrumentation?”

Dr. Goldstein looked at them man with interest and began “We have been verifying the stars that would be closest to us, so far it is correct. As to the age of a group that could do this we have no clue. If they evolved around the earliest stable stars they may have had 10 billion years compared to our 4 billion. But the data suggests that this is very real and there is no possible way it is being faked. The real question is, given the star formation on a massive scale, are these beings from our universe or our demension at all, do they experience time the way we do? We do not know.” He said with finality. “To which I want to introduce Admiral Barack and famous explorers the Courevans, who will lead the first mission to Memetar.”

The video ended and the Captain placed his hands on his forehead waiting a moment before continuing on a looking for the next video. He read the first documents regarding small probes entering the Sagittarius A* system, those probes had all been destroyed. A single probe sent further back as a relay for information had recorded their destruction, while it was spared. This was attempted a second time an additional long range sensor ship was added, which recorded the distant flashing light of the magnetar as it spun, but could see no detail. As the probes again crossed an invisible line they were attacked by something surging from the magnetar, a beam of plasma being directed at near relativistic speeds.

The Captain opened the second video, again of Dr. Goldstein talking, this time to a smaller crowed. “The destruction of the probes I believe is self defense, for what reason we don’t know, but based on the images from the reconstructed symbol something about technology offends or threatens these people. This is odd since the technology they are using must be the most advanced in the universe.” Said Dr. Goldstein with high interest “The other option I think we must consider is that the ships were destroy because no life was detected, unfortunately the only way to prove this would be to send manned missions, the risk to life being extreme.

Captain Coerevan himself then spoke “The Discover class vessel is the answer, a skelton crew can operate the ship and its force drive can be activated in less than 10 seconds, it could enter the system and if an attack is detected leave before it reaches the vessel.” He looked around “The commander and I are willing to take this risk.”

“The other consideration is the effect of time dilation that close to Sagittarius A*”Said Dr. Mary Flich, chief of astrophysics “Base on the path taken your reference of time will be significant shorter than ours depending on how long you are at Memetar, based on the course of the star we should aim for when its farthest in its orbit from the black hole.”

The Captain began to think about how long would they wait before they would send another ship, the relay ship was out of range for communication, which was an expected mission parameter. Time was on his side, a few days would be years on earth, at that point they would have to send help. “Wouldn’t they?” We had come on this mission on the presumption if we didn’t face initial attack we would proceed and report. This being the greatest discovery in human history they would continue to investigate, even at the risk to human life.

“Captain” came MAX “Analysis is complete, the main engines can be repaired as well as the force drive, but the small shuttles will have to be cannibalized. Reactor 1 is operating at 100% with current fuel consumption we have over 200 years of power reserve. Raw material for food production will likewise last well beyond your lifetime. I calculate if I use both deployable bots I can repair the force drive and main engines that will last for a single return using the gravity of the black hole for a sling shot maneuver, however there is a chance of total failure in that situation of approximately 25%. This will take approximately 2 years.

“MAX based on our distance to the black whole, how much time will have passed on earth?”

“Captain 204 years will have passed on earth in that time.”

The captain stared blankly into the screen ahead of him.

“The second option captain is complete repair of the force drive, this option will take up to 40 years active work with the resources currently available, this would represent 4,080 years on earth.”Entoned MAX, but the captain was sure he heard MAX stutter on the last words “The decision does not need to be made currently as the force drive repair will proceed in a stepwise fashion, and possibility of single shot use will be available as part of the longer repair process.”

“MAX activate both bots and start repairs” Said the Captain blankly “I am going to continue compiling the information, keep me up to date.”

To be continued…