In Our Own Backyard

Two scientists discuss the discovery of a previously unknown habitable planet located within our solar system and the intentions of it's inhabitants, who are headed for Earth.

 IN OUR OWN BACKYARD:

   
       By Clint Payne

 PROLOGUE: 

     Although it’s existence was first suggested by three astronomers in 1999, the planet Tyche was not officially discovered until the year 2030 (although evidence for it’s existence had been found by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in late 2013). The super powered observational telescope Deep Sky N1-7 finally confirmed the discovery of not one but two large objects located within the Oort Cloud and orbiting each other.
 
 The first was what appeared to be a brown dwarf star, quickly designated Nemesis, and the second was, surprisingly, an Earth sized rocky planet orbiting very close to the star.

 The excitement within the scientific community was immense. Here it was! They had discovered a star within the outer reaches of our own solar system! Although the star no longer gave out much heat it was still possible that the planet orbiting it could sustain life due to residual heat left over from it’s formation and the close proximity to it’s dying star. Researchers speculated that the planet avoided constant bombardment from asteroids in the Kuiper belt due to Nemesis’ immense gravitational pull, the star effectively acting as a shield or lead blocker for the planet. There was evidence of an atmosphere flush with hydrogen, carbon monoxide and oxygen, and there was even the suggestion of subsurface oceans and trace amounts of water on the surface. Could life have formed there?

 NASA’s best scientist’s were immediately tasked with answering that question.

CHARLES MEMPHIS was not the biggest fan of nerds, and this guy was a super nerd. Not the type that spends his time reading comic books and playing video games, but the type with extra thick glasses and hypochondriac tendencies. And this guy was definitely one of the latter. Charles wondered if Denton even noticed his look of disdain. How was he supposed to solve a problem this huge with this freaking guy as back up?
 
 Great. Just great. Locked in a bunker a mile under ground with Kyle from South Park’s cousin. WTF.

 Denton walked over to the steel table in the center of the room and opened up his laptop. He wore a parka and a sweater even though they were in a temperature controlled environment while
Charles, ever the rebel, wore only a short sleeve T and blue jeans. Charles knew exactly what the guy was doing even though he was sitting directly across from him and couldn’t see the screen of his laptop. He was going over the damn calculations again. For the thousandth time. Nothing was going to change.

 June. They would be here by June. Charles still shook his head every time he thought about it. Although he’d always known that there had to be something out there. I mean, it was just simple mathematics. The Drake Equation made it incredibly clear that the chances of us being alone in the universe where astronomically thin and Charles had learned long ago that mathematics was the only infallible science that there was. You can explain anything once you get the numbers right. And they were on their way. Well, he thought to himself, he had warned that a*s hole President Uldana not to send those probes but he sent the f*****g probes anyway.

 “So. Are they still coming?” He asked Denton dryly. The smaller man smirked sarcastically and adjusted his glasses.

 “I’m sorry. I keep starring at these numbers hoping that something will change. I know it wont.”

For a long moment there was only silence between the two men.

Finally Denton spoke again.

 “What do you think they want?”

 There was no need for Charles to contemplate this. He already knew exactly what they wanted. “Their star is dying. It has been for a long time. We can’t get exact readings but conditions on Tyche’s surface have to be astronomically cold. They may have gone underground for warmth but even that is a temporary measure. Earth is habitable and within reach.”

 “And that’s all it takes for you to be sure they’re hostile?”

 “No. It was the silence. When we sent the probes they immediately disappeared. Now we’re tracking their ships heading our way and we’ve yet to receive a communique from them. If you have peaceful intentions you call before you just show up on my door step.”

 This seemed to be an adequate explanation for Denton who sighed and once again immersed himself in his numbers.

 

 Charles went back to his thoughts. Why had he even been hired  if the President wasn’t going to listen to him? He was a theoretical tactician, that was his specialty and he was the best in the world at it. He looked at everything as a move in a chess game, and saw every potential outcome of every potential move. He saw everything. Including this. It was his job to look at and analyze every possible outcome of every possible situation and given the evidence they collected about Tyche, this was definitely one of those possible outcomes.

 Every reading NASA’S super geeks took told them the same thing: the planet was habitable or at the very least had been so in the  recent past. Light would be dim, temperatures would be cold, but the Kelvin�"Helmholtz mechanism had heated Nemesis at it’s core allowing for some heat to reach Tyche. Life certainly could have evolved to survive there. Yet every time we pointed a telescope Tyche’s way, there was always some sort of interference. Every time we sent radio signals in it’s direction there was only silence. No one could figure out exactly what was causing the interference but Memphis had suspected it was deliberate. Someone up there didn’t want to be observed. And why had we not detected objects that size before? We could see their gravitational pull on several other objects in the outer solar system but we could never see the objects themselves. Not until our technology advanced far enough that we essentially couldn’t miss them just floating around out there, being massive.

 Denton again looked up from what he was doing. “How advanced do you think they could be?”

 “They shielded their planet from us for 40 years. They obviously have the technology to travel here. The theory is that Tyche was expelled from the inner solar system by Jupiter as the solar system formed. I don’t think that’s true. The discovery of Nemesis changes things. Nemesis is clearly older than our sun if it’s already dying. I think it was a rogue star that got captured by our sun’s gravitational pull a few billion years ago. It either brought Tyche with it or picked it up along the way. If Tyche was a rogue planet that got scooped up along the way then life might have only had roughly the same amount of time to develope as it has here. It they started out in a different solar system, the numbers are frankly impossible to calculate. There would be too many variables as they traveled through deep space.”

 Again fixing his Glasses, Denton shrugged. “That’s all theory. There’s no way to tell for sure. They made sure of that.”

 Suddenly it was Memphis who appeared contemplative. “That tell’s us something. Either they feel the need to shield themselves from us as part of a strategy...”

 “Which can’t be the case because we can track their ships.”

 “... Or they consider us at least a moderate threat.”

 Denton started “Okay. So their plan of attack will likely be dictated by how far advanced they are as a civilization. If they’re Godlike in superiority, we can forget about a fight they’ll just drop some sort of bomb that will wipe us out before we know what hit us.”

 “Or they release some sort of biological weapon into the atmosphere and just sit up in orbit until we all die off.”

 Again there was a deep silence as the men considered these scenarios. They both knew there was no way to protect against either one.

Finally Charles spoke again.

 “But I don’t think that’s the case. We can track their ships. If they were a Godlike species we’d never see them coming. This is a desperate race with no other alternatives. This will be a war, not an extermination.”

He said this with a confidence that put Denton’s mind at ease. At least somewhat.

 “So the question is, how to fight back? Are they a biological species or Mechanical? Or something we’ve never dreamed of?” Denton was speculating out loud.

 He hated to admit it but Memphis was slowly developing a modicum of respect for the man. He had a very similar approach to problem solving.

 “Astrobiologists speculate about species evolving to be gas based or have eight legs. But the key to intelligence is simply a practical design. We have two arms and two legs because it’s practical for balance. This isn’t a popular opinion, and it would definitely vary based on specific environmental needs, but I don’t think human physiology would be all that uncommon among intelligent species. We are the way we are for a reason. It gives us an advantage over every other species and allowed us time to develope advanced intellect. Given similar conditions I would expect similar results. And the only places we’ve found complex life is under similar conditions. I think these guys are gonna be very close to us. They’ll be killable.”

 “So you think we can win?”

Charles Memphis did not hesitate to answer.

 “No.”
 

When no one spoke, Memphis once again returned to his thoughts.

 President Uldana had decided to spend billions of tax payers dollars on the probes. “Go up there and find me life.” He had said as the probes prepared for launch. The guy was obsessed with the idea of finding extraterrestrial life. That was why he sought out Memphis in the first place. He had seen one before in a deep dark cave on Europa. Steve (he had always called it Steve) was mankind’s first contact with an Alien. Charles found it ironic that contact had been made by a scientist from Texas who was really more of a guy who just really liked telling other people how to solve their problems then a Steven Hawking type. The Probes where meant to get pictures of the planet, give us an idea about it’s surface features and environments, and take readings on it’s atmosphere in an attempt to establish the presence of life.

 1 year after launch they lost contact with the first probe as it navigated the Oort Cloud and came within distance of Tyche to begin it’s research. The same thing happened with the second probe they sent. There was no malfunction, no collision with space debris or an asteroid, the signals from the probes just simply vanished as they approached the planet. To Memphis this was a sign. A sign to stay the f**k away. But to the NASA scientist’s, and The President, it was apparently a sign that building a ship and sending a manned mission out there was a good idea. They where actually excited about the implications of losing the probes. Seriously. Sometimes the smartest people on the planet are also the biggest dumb asses. So in 2045 the Encounter Mission was launched.  The results where about what Charles had expected. The last visual transmission showed a fleet of ships in orbit around Tyche. The last audio transmissions were the screams from Encounter’s crew.

 

Reviews

[Jonah Parker Ryan]

I like it, and I like the concept behind it. I really like that nothing really happens and the whole thing is mostly just a conversation between two people with increasing paranoia about what the future holds for the world. I'm a big fan of using a minimalist setting to create a high tension environment where the real danger is fear of the unknown. That said, I felt it was a little rough around the edges and that you could benefit greatly from spending some time rewriting and polishing it up. Most of my issues with it stem from instances when you are narrating the scene and then immediately lunge into first person thoughts from your characters, it makes for choppy reading and even something as simple as putting their thoughts in italics would go a long way to separate action from inner monologue. Those are my thoughts and what do I know. Anyway, I did enjoy it and I wish you best of luck in the future.