Skye Entity Chapter One (part two)

“Shit,” Jim Stringer whispered, slack jawed and stroking his thick beard, having sprung up from his station and arrived at the SOHO spacecraft monitoring station.

“Yup.”

“What are you guys…” Justine leaned in, holding her arms tightly around her waist as if a pivot point for her upper torso. As she read parameters on the EIT monitor herself, she understood. “No way!”

“Way,” Jim shot back.

“Our once stationary sphere…ain’t stationary no more,” Amir said, almost in disbelief.

“The SOHO spacecraft, the aging bucket of bolts that could!” Dr. Glau clapped her hands and smiled as she walked down the hallway toward Amir and the two technicians. She was an exceedingly tall and skinny woman, and she covered the hallway quickly with her long strides.

“I’m already surprised—pleasantly surprised—the anomaly survived. And I am even more surprised that SOHO located it! Amir, do you…” She stood behind Amir’s chair, mouth agape, her brown eyes glued to the screen. The six other technicians and operators who had followed behind her also stood dumbfounded.

“I’ve…I’ve checked every single parameter on SOHO Dr. Glau. I’m pretty confident this isn’t a glitch.”

Dr. Glau took a moment to compose herself. She adjusted the headband holding back her short black hair and inhaled deeply. “How confident is pretty confident?”

Amir turned around. “Dr. Glau, this is…I’m completely confident that SOHO has not reported any malfunction.”

“Could SOHO’s internal diagnostics be in error?”

“I checked the redundant system sensors that report on the EIT sensors, and they all show that she’s in great shape.”

Dr. Glau nodded. “How fast is it going?”

“We’ll know if it’s accelerating or decelerating once we have a few more points of reference,” Amir explained. “But my best guess is really fast. In the fifteen minutes I’ve been watching SOHO track it, it’s moved over 333,134.2 kilometers closer to us.”

“Closer?” a technician standing to Amir’s right asked.

“Yeah Bill…it’s moving towards Earth.”

“Do you think that ultraviolet flashing pattern means something?” Dr. Glau wondered aloud. “It seems to be repetitive and constant.”

“Well, we’re recording, so we have it for analysis.”

“Wait…” Jim said as he walked forward and pointed at the screen. “I know that pattern…”

His eyes went wide and he swallowed hard. “Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

“Jim?” Amir turned to him.

“Mr. Stringer? Can you enlighten us please?” Dr. Glau asked with an equal helping of concern and consternation.

Jim Stringer turned to Dr. Glau. “look at the timing of the flashes. Triple short flashes, then long, then short. It’s the same, over and over again. Dit dit dit, dah dah dah, dit dit dit. Then a short pause and again: dit dit dit, dah dah dah, dit dit dit. It can’t be an accident. It has to be…”

“Holy shit!” another technician said as he leaned in to see the flashes for himself. “You’re right!”

“I don’t understand,” Dr. Glau said.

“It’s morse code,” Jim explained. “SOS.”

“Okay, hold on,” Dr. Glau straightened her shoulders. “You’re suggesting that not only is this thing headed right for us at unattainably high speed, but rather than using some sort of advanced communication technology it is hailing us in English, using ultraviolet light to flash morse code?”

“Well, SOS is a procedural call, not necessarily English,” Jim shrugged. “It’s a German invention, actually. But yeah, if this really is morse code, it’s communicating in human language.”

“I should have learned Morse Code instead of Klingon,” another technician quipped. The assembled group all chuckled. The humor lightened the mood and created a desperately needed moment for the assembled research staffers to collect themselves.

“SOHO’s got solar panels,” Amir mentioned. “I can program one of them to move in such a way that it flashes the sphere. I’ll bet I could even program a series of tiny corrections that would flash morse code at it. It’s crude, but if the sphere answers, we’ll know for sure. If it doesn’t…well, we’ll know one way or the other.”

“Is there any possible danger to SOHO?” Dr. Glau asked.

“Well, adjusting the solar panels might fluctuate it’s power level momentarily, but when we stop playing with them it will recharge its batteries normally. We’ll have to be careful not to overdo it with moving the panels though, these are slow thirty year old servos we’re dealing with.”

“Okay,” Dr. Glau nods. “Let’s do it. But I need to tell NASA headquarters what we’re doing.”

“Are you sure?” Justine asked. “It might get people all excited…”

“Over nothing? Maybe,” Dr. Glau agreed. “But this could potentially be too big for us to make these decisions. If this really is potential contact…we’ve got to kick this one upstairs.”

Amir and the other technicians nodded and sat quietly, monitoring the EIT screen, while Dr. Glau turned around and made a call on her phone. The technicians pretended not to be straining to eavesdrop on her call as Dr. Glau spoke in an even, soft tone that was extremely difficult for any of them to hear.

Dr. Glau disconnected her call and turned around. “Administrator Walker wants to call the President on this one,” Dr. Glau sighed. “So we wait.”

Everyone joined her in sighing. The collection of technicians continued staring at the EIT screen. The spherical anomaly hadn’t stopped flashing or heading their direction.

After only a few minutes Dr. Glau’s phone chirped from her coat pocket. She spun around and took a few steps away from the group while fishing for her phone. She spoke a few hushed words and then disconnected the call, and turned back to her team—this time with a smile.

“We’re a go—and the Administrator wants us to report on it now, before we say anything.”

“Really?” Amir asked, as astonished as he was exited.

“It makes sense,” Dr. Glau explained. “The Administrator told the President. Top level advisers are calling other governments and an emergency cabinet meeting is being called. The images of the anomaly flashing will inevitably picked up by the rest of the world imminently. And certainly, the moment we start maneuvering SOHO, everyone will know. If we aren’t up front about it, it will fuel government conspiracy theories for centuries to come. So he suggested that we simply release another routine report. By being completely upfront and not hyping this, we’ll be ahead of the curve.”

“Sounds good to me,” Amir agreed.

“Do you want to fire off the message?” Dr. Glau asked Amir.

“Are you sure? You’re the head scientist on duty, and…”

“It’s okay,” Dr. Glau smiled, putting her hand on Amir’s shoulder. “You noticed it first. SOHO is your baby. It should be you.”

“Thanks,” Amir smiled back. “Man…I’m so nervous now,” he admitted. “I know that everyone will be—”

“—that’s why you get to write the message,” Jim cracked, eliciting a chuckle from the group.

“Amir, don’t think about it just do it,” Dr. Glau said. “Just write the first words that come into your mind. If you want, I’ll be happy to check your spelling and grammar, and we’ll release it into the wild.”

Amir nodded. He took a deep breath, placed the keyboard in front of him, and started typing a short message. When he was finished, he looked over his shoulder. Dr. Glau read his message and pointed out two spelling errors. Amir corrected them and turned back. Dr. Glau read it again, smiled and nodded.

Amir nodded, then turned back to the keyboard. “Here goes nothing,” he inhaled, then pressed the Enter key. The message posted within seconds onto the NASA SOHO site.

“ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2025 AT 05:12 HRS PACIFIC TIME, THE SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC OBSERVATORY (SOHO) SPACECRAFT RE-ACQUIRED THE VISUAL AND ULTRAVIOLET LOCATION OF THE SPHERICAL ANOMALY FIRST DISCOVERED LAST MONTH. THE ANOMALY WAS LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 4.8 MILLION KILOMETERS FROM ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION. IT IS CURRENTLY IN MOTION, MOVING IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR PLANET. THE SOHO SPACECRAFT DETECTED A STEADY RHYTHMIC ULTRAVIOLET FLASHING CONSISTING OF THREE SHORT FLASHES, THREE LONG FLASHES, AND THREE SHORT FLASHES. THIS PATTERN MAY POSSIBLY HAVE MEANING. SINCE THE PATTERN CORRESPONDS TO THE MORSE CODE PROCEDURAL CALL “S-O-S” WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF PROGRAMING THE SOHO SPACECRAFT TO USE ITS SOLAR PANELS TO FLASH A MORSE CODE RESPONSE TOWARD THE ANOMALY. WE WILL SEND UPDATES AS THE SITUATION PROGRESSES.

DR. SHARON GLAU, PH.D. ASTROPHYSICS

AMIR SAADIN, M.A. ASTROPHYSICS”