The First Contact Team has grown into a close-knit community, and a small town has been built.
First Contact Village: Buckleyville, NM
January 2030
Kate and I had moved into a small cottage in the growing “townlet” on the surface. The Space Force had allowed Mavis, now Brigadier General Mavis Buckley, to move a limited number of scientists to a small village built on the VLA grounds. Security was still pretty tight, but Zak and others made their case that we can’t live underground forever. It was six years since the disappointing results from our first contact attempt—we were going to be here a while. People had settled in for an extended stay with no known end date.
Couples had formed in the ranks, and several added children to the community. It became clear our living situation needed to evolve. Most of the unmarried scientists kept their quarters in the residence wing, but Kate and I elected to move “upstairs.” Officially, the village was Space Force Barracks 2029.25A. The team preferred Buckleyville, affectionately named for our dedicated leader.
The work was progressing, although we’d not yet been granted an actual dialog with the Gas Giants. Jessa learned to translate The Conversation between the two planets in almost real-time. The parts of The Conversation we captured and translated revealed the entities were intent on keeping us behind the asteroid belt, away from Jupiter and Saturn.
I was heading up the team that developed a series of devices to utilize Jessa’s translation protocols for direct communication with one or both planets without needing to send the signal data to Earth for processing. We hoped to provide them to NASA, the Europeans, and other countries to install on probes they might launch to the outer planets.
That effort presented its own set of problems. We completed our first-generation versions, and NASA launched our flotilla of CubeSats, small, cheap probes to detect radio traffic. We’d delivered our probes for a ride on the Europa Clipper, which launched to Jupiter in October 2025, a year later than scheduled. Outside the asteroid belt, the Clipper jettisoned our probes to proceed independently.
We never made contact.
The Clipper reported a radiation surge that would have critically damaged our small cubes. Two years later, the Clipper was destroyed in a similar blast as it approached Europa. NASA had parked Juno at the L4 Lagrange point when they detected the destruction of the Clipper. When we lost the CubeSats and the Clipper, refining the locus of the radio beam from the planets was impossible. We’d missed our chance of pinpointing the source.
The message was simple: STAY AWAY. We would keep trying, but we would need to be careful. Crewed missions were out of the question for the time being.
The move above ground had gotten me thinking. Living in the village, we were treated to the sound of children playing and an almost normal family atmosphere. Maybe it was time to talk with Kate about starting a family. So, I did my research and found a clinic that could help us. I just needed to convince Kate, although I didn’t expect that to be difficult; she had been talking about having kids since we met.
That night, we settled into our cozy nook of a living room, having spent another long day training Jessa and decoding communications between Saturn and Jupiter. I snuggled up close to Kate, where we sat on the couch, and took her hands in mine.
“Katy, I’ve been thinking. We’re going to be here a while, and I can see you love being around all the kids in the village. What would you say to being mothers?”
Kate looked startled for just a second. “You can’t be serious.”
“But I am. You know I like kids, and I know you’ve talked about being a mother. We should do this.”
Kate shifted on the couch and took her hands from mine. “What’s changed, Jennifer? You’ve always squashed the idea when I brought it up. I thought you hated the idea of having a father of any kind in your life.”
“I know. I know. But I’ve found another way.”
“What? Some anonymous donor? I’m surprised you’d even go for that.” Kate crossed her arms and gave me that “yeah, sure” look. I was not doing a great job getting to my point.
“No, Katy. I’ve found a way we can both be mothers and have daughters, sisters actually, almost twins.”
“Jennifer, what are you talking about?”
Okay, that was the second “Jennifer.” I needed to get it out.
“Kate, there’s a lab at Stanford that can harvest our stem cells and induce them to differentiate into sperm cells. We could be each other’s sperm donors.”
Kate jumped up off the couch. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” She scrunched up her face and narrowed her gaze. “You’re making this shit up.”
“No, Katy, I’m not. I’ve done the research. The lab has a ninety percent success rate. And it’s at Stanford. Mavis can manage our security there.”
“So, you’ve talked to the General? Without talking to me?” Kate plopped down at the far end of the couch, looking tense and hurt.
“Only about going to California. I didn’t tell her why.”
Kate sat quietly without even glancing my way. After a few minutes, the tension left her shoulders, and she began chewing a strand of her hair, darkening the blonde tip—a good sign she was considering it.
Kate stopped chewing her hair, moved to where I sat on the couch, and took my hand. “Okay. Send me the research, and we’ll talk some more. At first thought, it would be fun to raise our daughters together. But I need to be sure. Just give me some time.”
So, I sent the research to Kate. After several long conversations and a bit of trepidation, we shared our plan with Mavis and contacted Stanford. They agreed to take our case, and we headed to California in February to have our stem cells harvested.
We waited for the lab to produce the needed number of sperm cells. Later in March, we’d travel to Stanford for the insemination procedure.
We hoped we’d be new mothers by the end of the year, maybe even with Christmas babies.
###
Special Agent Fuentes had been on the Space Management Task Force long enough to know their Space Force counterparts weren’t being entirely open. After they arrested the Special Projects Director of Space Systems Technologies for the murder of Carl Raymond, Fuentes had an uneasy sense that there was more to the joint task force than they were telling him. The woman in the severe white suit and slicked-back hair disappeared into a figurative black hole when the Bureau released her into Space Force custody. Nobody would even acknowledge they had her.
Maybe his old partner, Jaz, would know something. Jaz had left CID in Phoenix to join the Space Force Surveillance Group as a contractor. It was time for Fuentes to cash in the chips he’d earned being Jaz’s guy at the Bureau.
Fuentes dialed up his old friend. Jaz answered on the first tone. “Raul, dude, good to hear from you. How’s life on the task force?”
“It’s great, Jaz, just great. But hey, I need your help. What do you know about Space Systems Technologies? Why’s the Space Force interested in them?” There was an extended pause on the other end of the call. Fuentes knew his old partner; Jaz was thinking over his answer.
“Oh boy, Raul. There’s not much I can tell you. We’re pretty compartmentalized over here. I can only tell you the rumors I’ve heard.”
“What rumors? Don’t get yourself in trouble, but my Space Force guys are keeping something from us.”
“Okay. Here’s all I’ve heard. NASA lost an expensive probe out near Jupiter, and it has something to do with some secret base in New Mexico.”
“Sounds like Area 51 bullshit. Somebody’s pulling your leg.”
“Not this time, Raul. Anybody around here asks about it—they get the silent treatment. But here’s something you might find interesting. Are you still looking for those two girls that went missing? I’ll bet you are ‘cuz why would you listen to me to drop it?”
Fuentes clenched the phone tighter. A spike of excitement, tinted by a flash of anger at Jaz, flushed a cold sweat from his neck and shoulders. “Yeah, but that’s been nothing but a cold trail. You got something?”
“Remember that Space Force Colonel. Bucky, Blickey…”
“Buckley. What about her?”
“Well, she shows up here about every month. She meets with the brass and some contractors with SS&T badges. I don’t know what’s happening, but it always seems they’re tense, and nobody leaves looking happy. Something’s up if you ask me. Check with your guys. See how they react. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Thanks, Jaz. Stay cool.”
“You too, man. Later.” A double click and Jaz was gone. So, somebody was listening. He might have just burned Jaz as a source.
Fuentes would do what Jaz had suggested; he’d check with the task force and see what he could shake loose.
And, yes, there was still the question of the two students from the University. Eight years and he hadn’t sniffed out a clue. Interesting that Space Force Colonel Buckley was still around. One more reason to suspect the Space Force task force members weren’t on the up and up. Fuentes wondered if there was any way to track down Buckley, if only to see if she’d tell him any more about the two girls. Maybe if he could get some answers from her, he could close the book on that case.
Fuentes’ list of questions wasn’t getting any shorter, and his sources were few. He only hoped he could find the answers without trashing his career.
Only time, and a healthy dose of caution and paranoia, would tell.