Out in the reaches of space, unseen by the eyes of humans, radio waves traveled past the cosmic dust. The electromagnetic waves moved at the speed of light, and in the near-vacuum of space, it took the signals only a few weeks to reach the Earth United Planets ship Eternal Hope, sister ship of Enduring Spirit. This vessel was on a separate but related mission: Mapping out possible colony and station sites near the wormhole sectors Enduring Spirit explored. Because the ships were almost six lightyears from the nearest Earth United Planets outpost, a station orbiting Alpha-Gamma-Omicron 5 (a temporary name, using the inhabited system naming index), the sister ships were responsible for rescuing survivors of the other ship should disaster befall one of them.
Accidents are common things, but with the utmost priority on safety, ship-destruction levels of catastrophe were pretty rare. The captain, and indeed all the bridge crew of Eternal Hope, was quite shocked to hear that a bad jump had resulted in the probably complete loss of another ship, and possibly the loss of some of the lifeboats as well. But Captain Garnett Kay remembered her ship had a duty, and promptly mobilized the crew to rescue the survivors, if any. They would arrive near the wormhole in five months.
About seven months after that, the distress signal from Enduring Spirit would reach Outpost 1372, the station around Alpha-Gamma-Omicron 5. Those at the station would most likely do nothing. A rescue mission one lightyear out would be too costly. They would receive it, and in accordance to protocol begin preparing to outfit another expedition immediately, which would finish the exploration while Eternal Hope was on the return journey. The crew of the ship would get to end their tour early, and if they rescued any survivors, would probably be awarded medals and promoted to a higher paygrade.
The distress signal would continue on, for twenty years until it reached the Earth United Planets High Command on Archemandium. The news would come as no surprise, no doubt. It would set exploration plans back, but the computer systems at High Command had factored the probability of such losses into their projections thirty years before, issued appropriate orders should such an event occur, and made sure that at the very worst a ten year setback would occur. Of course, that meant that for two decades the government on Archemandium would be under the assumption that the exploration of that sector was complete or nearing completion, but since any further colonization would be handled by much more local operations points, which had already been issued a thousand sets of orders detailing what to do in any of a thousand circumstances, no ships would be deployed prematurely. The empire of Earth United Planets would continue on, the incident relegated to just another deep space disaster.
That is, it would be, if the news of sapient life on an inhabited planet were never sent out behind the news of the disaster.
Ensign Guntram Van Ankeren stared at Senior Chief Petty Officer Bonfils as she fiddled with an odd combination of electronics: A radio and her intertab. Both devices were connected by wires taken from both devices and spliced together, and the contraption was secured with tape.
"Senior Chief, what in the Planets are you making?" Van Ankeren inquired. Most of the other 40 crew members of the lifeboat were sitting around doing nothing, or eating, or using the water room (which served as both a shower and restroom, and recycled all the waste). But Bonfils seemed awfully busy for a person confined to a lifeboat in space the size of a small motel.
"I think I've found a way to contact any survivors on the other side of the wormhole. Normally, we can't reach them because there's no 'line of sight' to the planet, but I've rigged this so that it broadcasts any signals we send to it outwards. If we get this on the other side of the wormhole, as long as we have a line of sight to it, and it has a line of sight to the planet, we can contact any survivors."
"But how are we going to get it through the wormhole?" one of the lifeboat pilots asked, gaining interest in the conversation.
"We use the waste jettison. It might take awhile for it to reach the wormhole, with such a low velocity, but if we wait, we can see if any of the crew on the other side is still alive." Bonfils replied.
"I'll pass the word on to the other lifeboats on this side. How long will we be able to use this to communicate?" said Ensign Van Ankeren.
"Once it's through the wormhole, I estimate we have between ten and twenty minutes before it falls out of our sight. But we can probably make more of these and the other lifeboats can make some as well. We should be able to maintain contact with anyone on the other side for awhile, as long as we are willing to waste radios and intertabs."
"Tee Minus One minute until the radio crosses the wormhole." Bonfils called out, monitoring the computer screens intently. "After that, we should have contact in about three minutes."
It had taken awhile for the radio "relay station" to reach the the wormhole, due to the fact that the crew had no way to accelerate the device once it was launched. But with nothing to do on the lifeboat, patience had become less of a virtue and more of a fact of life. Now that something was so close to happening, the crew members were all practically on the edge of their seats.
"It's crossed the wormhole. Commence broadcasting. We should receive feedback shortly." Bonfils called out. The ship, which was normally filled with the meaningless banter that the crew had taken up to pass the time, was now eerily silent. Ensign Van Ankeren briefly wondered if the ship had a leak in its airtight whole, and all the atmosphere had somehow escaped into the void without anyone noticing.
Nothing happened.
After three minutes, the silence was finally broken. Crackling noises emanated from one of the communication consoles on the lifeboat. "Someone's transmitting on the life-support system maintenance channel! We've got a signal!" the tech manning that particular console spilling out words almost faster than he could say them.
Ensign Van Ankeren immediately moved to the console. "Attention, this is Ensign Van Ankeren of the Enduring Spirit, Lifeboat J-10. Requesting identification."
"Petty Officer... Class... Adams, lifeboat... 9... shhhhhh..."
"The signal's too weak. They must be using a personal radio, rather than a lifeboat radio." the tech stated.
"Look, If you can hear me, I need to know your location and condition in case of possible retrieval." Van Ankeren spoke into the console's microphone. Of course, "possible" meant "possible if we had the right equipment and vehicles on hand", which meant "possible when another ship arrives". By then, the location of Petty Officer Adams would probably be outdated, but it was still pretty valuable data
"Um... we don't... star map for R.E. Co-ordin... twenty miles or so... of coast... desert, savannah..." the static-filled transmission continued.
"Officer Adams, your transmission is weak, please repeat. You don't have Relative Earth Coordinates?"
"Negat... equipment dama... water. Radio and... only things... ere salvaged." Adams breathed heavily into the radio. "Hostile creatures inbou... engagin-" the transmission abruptly cut to static. After a few seconds of silence on Adams' end, Van Ankeren grew nervous.
"Officer Adams, please respond. Have you engaged hostile creatures? Please describe the type of hostiles encountered? Adams, can you hear me? Anyone, please respond. Please respond!" Van Ankeren was met with more static. He slammed the console with a fist in frustration. "Damn, we've lost them. Keep the line open, listen in case we receive a response." The tech nodded in affirmation.
"Sir, incoming communication on the emergency channel. Lifeboat I-5 apparently." Bonfils called from the other end of the lifeboat.
"Answer it." Van Ankeren ordered, turning around and marching swiftly over to the console Bonfils was at.
"Lifeboat J-10, this is Petty Officer Second Class Slater, responding from lifeboat... ur, I-5." The voice on the other end came through clear, and sounded remarkably well for someone who had been stranded on an alien planet for several weeks.
"Slater's alive?" Bonfils whispered under her breath.
"Petty Officer Slater, this is Ensign Van Ankeren of lifeboat J-10. Please inform us as to the state of your lifeboat's crew, in case of possible retrieval."
"Well, um, this isn't my lifeboat. I landed in escape pod D2 from L Deck. Lifeboat I-5's crew appears to be all dead by all indications. No survivors were found near the wreckage."
"You mean to tell me the boat crashed so badly all the crew died, but the communications system and power were left intact?" Van Ankeren asked, incredulous.
"No, I repaired it for the last two weeks. Works almost good as new now."
"How exactly were you able to locate the wreck, Slater? If all the crew died, and the systems were non-functional, you could not have located the crash except by chance." Bonfils interjected.
"I was taken to it." Slater replied.
"What do you mean, 'taken to it'?"
"There are sapient lifeforms on the planet." Everyone in the lifeboat gasped. "They rushed to the crash site and began studying it. When they recovered my pod, I was taken to lifeboat crash site."
"Officer Slater, are you aware of the penalties of lying to a superior officer?" Van Ankeren asked in a rather stern tone.
"Yes, sir. But there really are sapient lifeforms here. Quadrupedal herbivores remarkably similar to horses. They have an advanced civilization roughly equivalent to early nineteenth century civilization. I'll upload videos-"
"We don't have time for that Slater. The connection will be cut soon. We need your R.E. Co-ords." Bonfils interrupted.
"I'm not getting any signals from Earth. I must be in star system in excess of 500 lightyears from Earth. So no R.E. Coordinates. Planetary coordinates relative to magnetic field and star's current position is one-twenty-eight-point-two-four by thirty-five-point-six-seven."
"Confirmed. One last question, Slater. Petty Officer Adams is somewhere on the planet. He reported hostile creatures closing on his position. These sapients... are they hostile?" Bonfils waited for the answer.
"No. At least, they don't seem hostile. They've been nothing but friendly to me so far. But..." he said, voice dropping to a whisper, "I received Adam's transmission a few days ago. They won't let me leave."