Groom Lake is not a conventional airbase, and frontline units are not normally deployed there. It appears, rather, to be used during the development, test, and training phases for new aircraft.

            - Wikipedia -

Marty wasn’t sure what to expect. He and Angie had been summoned to a meeting with NASA officials that smacked of a dressing down. His letting the cat out of the bag about the new ship had been his bad and he was not looking forward to the consequences.

When they entered the conference room, Marty and Angie found only Clarence Wilmunson and Jerome Tindale. He had expected a full house. Angie didn't really care.

Clarence didn’t waste any time. “We’ve been informed of the new starship. It seems that your crew was already aware of it.”

“I apologize for that,” Marty said, holding a placating hand up. “It’s my entire fault.”

“No harm has been done,” Clarence said, with a subtle smile. “Your current crew has been assigned to missions on the new ship. We’re adding another member. Her name is Lia Baidu.”

Angie gave Marty an ornery grin--her way of telling him that I told you so.

“Dr. Baidu is a linguist and has been working on a universal translator program using the Cray XT4000. Your engineers have joined her to create a unit that can be transported.”

Are they expecting us to make contact with extraterrestrials? The chance that we'll find intelligent life on our first forays into interstellar space is slim at best.

“When are we going to test drive the new ship?” Marty asked

“As soon as it’s ready. It has been flown into Area 51 for further work.”

Marty’s eyebrows rose. “Area 51?”

“Yes. This ship must be kept top secret.”

“Why? I would have thought that NASA would have wanted the whole world to know about it.”

Clarence glanced at Jerome before turning back to Marty. “It’s because of your unusual discoveries on the Moon and Mars. We've been instructed to keep all info about this new ship top secret.”

Marty glanced at Angie before turning back to Clarence. "I understand."

What he really understood was that the military was involved and there was much that was not being said.

"That’s good, because you two are going back to the Moon."

Marty's mouth dropped. "We are?"

"Yes. You're going to train a crew on the X-1001. Congress has authorized funds for its purchase and the acquisition of two more."

Marty smiled. "That's great. At least Angie and I didn't waste our efforts."

Clarence shook his head. "On the contrary: In just two missions you two have advanced our understanding of the solar system further than all previous missions, and you stand on the cusp of the greatest exploration of space in the history of man."

"And women," Marty added, causing Angie to smile. "Especially since our crew is mostly women."

Both Clarence and Jerome smiled.

"Well," Clarence said. "Your trainees are not women: Brian Scott and Brad Wilson."

Marty's eyes lit up with surprise. "That's great. They're both excellent pilots. Training them should be easy."

"They've already flown the simulator and are familiar with the X-1001's systems."

"So, we're going back to the Moon for a training mission?" Marty said.

"No, you're going back to the Moon to relocate that object. We've assigned Dr. Baidu and Dr. Foster Cabot to the mission. You're going along to make sure that Brian and Brad know what they're doing and because you know the precise location of the object."

"What's Dr Cabot’s role?" Angie asked.

Jerome answered. "He works for the Air Force Intelligence Agency."

Angie glanced at Marty as if to say: what gives? Marty shrugged. He had no idea.

###

The late diners at The House of Hunan were subdued, not the noisy revelers you would find at some Chinese eatery, exactly the ideal location for discrete conversation.

Angie starred wistfully at her Egg Drop soup, playing with her spoon. "There's something here that they haven't told us," she said without looking up.

Marty half smiled. "I don't know why you would say that. Just because they've chosen combat pilots for these missions and are adding experts in all sorts of unusual fields to the crew along with a super secret man for good measure doesn't mean that anything is going on."

"I think they knew about the object we so conveniently found in Faustini crater."

Marty gave her a derisive guffaw. "You mean the flying saucer we found buried in the ice. I have no doubt that they knew it was there, probably from an orbiter scan. The question is: why are they being so secretive? The government has repeatedly denied the existence of flying saucers and extraterrestrials."

Angie looked away before giving him a serious look. "Maybe that's just a cover for the truth."

"Yeah, I know: the truth is out there."

She laughed, but inside she did not find it amusing. The new ship was an unknown entity. As with any new experimental craft, the danger of a catastrophe was always present. She had faced danger many times but in all those cases she knew her odds. This was different.

Marty took a sip of Corona. "So, George, Uma and Ferris aren't going to the Moon with us?"

"Nope. They've whisked them off to Area 51, supposedly for training."

"Or, to keep them from letting the cat out of the bag." He swallowed hard. "I'm surprised they didn't whisk me off to Area 51. Let's face it: you could easily do the training yourself."

"That wouldn't make any sense. We're a team."

Marty gave her a soft smile. "Thank you."

She returned his smile.

"Let's consider the crew they've assigned to us," Marty said "George is a planetary physicist; he can pick the likely planet to support life in a group of planets. Uma is the geologist who also knows astrophysics. Ferris is the anthropologist and biological expert on alien life and Lia is a linguist who just happens to be working on a universal translator.  We're going out to find extraterrestrials. There is no doubt about it."

"Why else would they send us into the galaxy?" Angie said.

"Yeah, and couple that with Area 51."

"I'm not looking forward to going there," she said, bowing her head. "I've heard that it’s completely isolated from the outside."

Marty made a disgusted face. "Sounds boring."

Angie smiled. “They say that the government has conducted secret experiments on extraterrestrials there.”

“That’s just media hype. If they had found extraterrestrials, the truth would have leaked out by now.”

She stared at him with serious eyes. “Perhaps it already has.”

###

The X-1001 sat in silence on runway three as it had three times before, but this time the crew inside it was more confident.

"Well, Brian, this is your mission," Marty said. "Angie and I are only here to make sure you don't screw up."

"How can we screw up?" Brian said. "The computer runs everything."

"True, but you have to tell it what to do."

"Houston reports that we are cleared for launch in five minutes, Brian."

"Thank you, Delphi," Brian said.

"You are welcome, Brian."

Angie smiled at Marty. He returned it with interest.

"This display indicates that we'll be on the Moon in two hours," Brad said.

"That's hard to believe," Brian said. "It took three days for Marty and me to get to the Moon."

Marty smiled. "Isn’t it great?"

"How is that possible?" Brian asked. "How can this thing accelerate that quickly?"

His question went unanswered.

"One minute to launch."

The ship began to taxi out on the runway amid loud warning claxons sounding to scare away birds.

"Launch in ten, nine, eight, seven, six . . . ."

The engines fired white-hot plasma. "Five, four, three, two, one." The ship jumped off the runway and flew straight up.

Brian's eyes widened. "Wow!"

"This is like an amusement park ride," Brad said. "Without the G's."

"How fast can this thing go?" Brian asked.

"How fast do you want to go?" Marty said. "Its theoretical speed is a tenth the speed of light."

"How can it achieve that level of acceleration?"

"Antigrav," Marty said. "The same thing that negates zero gravity inside makes the ship's apparent mass approach zero."

Brian scratched his head. "How does it do that?"

"It has to do with gravitons," Angie said, drawing everyone's attention. "Gravitons are special particles predicted by string theory. Dr. Woronowycz has solved the equations necessary to unify Einstein's general theory of relativity with the quantum mechanical theories of the weak and strong nuclear forces and the electromagnetic force."

"Yeah, what she said," Marty said with a cocky grin.

“Sounds Greek to me,” Brian said, returning Marty’s grin. “But, it sure looks like it works.”

“Who is this Woronowycz guy?” Brad asked.

“He’s the founder of The Omega Stone Corporation, which is part of the Space Consortium,” Angie said. “We’ve never met him.”

“Well, bless him,” Brad said. “I never thought for one second that I would be going back to the Moon.”

“Now that you’re training on the X-1001, you’ll be going on a lot of missions,” Angie said.

“Great!” Brian said, giving a thumbs-up. “That’s why I joined NASA in the first place.”

“Amen to that,” Marty said.

"I believe he's from Ukraine,"

Marty turned to look at Lia. She was definitely Chinese; although he wasn't sure which province she came from. She had a very pretty face, but he couldn't judge her figure under NASA standard issue, not that it mattered. Well, it did, but . . . .

"Yes, he does," he said.

"I would like to meet him."

"We all would," Angie said.

"Amen to that," Marty said.

###

The Moon’s surface appeared cold, dark and rugged on the main screen. A myriad of craters with rims illuminated by a low sun slowly passed under the X-1001. The Earth quickly sunk away as the ship flew to the Aitken region of the Lunar South Pole.

“Why don’t you pick a spot nearer to Faustini crater,” Angie said to Brian. “That way we won’t have to use the ATEV.”

“How about right there,” Brian said, pointing to a plateau near the crater.

“Go for it,” Angie said.

Brian used a stylus to point to the location on a monitor. “Take us down, Delphi.”

“Yes, Brian.”

The ship fired forward engines and dived down, leveling out at the last moment to slowly land three hundred meters south of Faustin's southern rim.

“Well, folks,” Brian said. “Let’s get suited up.”

Marty smiled at Angie. “Here we go again.”

“I just hope I can locate the object again,” she said.

“You will. It hasn't moved since we were here before . . . at least, I hope not.”

###

Marty and Angie led the others up to the crater rim, which rose at a steep angle a hundred meters above the plateau. 

She looked around to get her bearings. "Marty and I will go first and send back the coordinates. Follow us in twos."

"And two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark," Marty said.

"Why are you always quoting from the bible?" Brian asked.

"I thought you knew," he answered. "I'm the son of a Baptist minister."

"You? That's hard to believe. I'll bet he was unhappy about you going off to war."

"You would win that bet."

"We need to get cracking," Angie said.

"You go and I'll follow," Marty said.

He began his ascent less than a second after hers. He watched her go out over the rim and move forward. Keeping within thirty meters, Marty followed her two kilometers before stopping and descending into the crater.

"I'm picking it up on the x-ray," she said. "It's three hundred meters to the east."

"I see it," he said.

They dropped to the floor of the crater, decelerating at the last moment to achieve a soft landing.

"We're getting better at this," Marty said.

"Practice makes perfect." She paused. "I've sent the coordinates."

"Let's hope they don't get lost."

After a few minutes the running lamps of two astronauts appeared overhead like two bright stars in a massively populated star field framed by an absolutely black sky.

"You and Brian go with Lia," Angie said. "Brad and I will deal with Mr. Cabot."

Marty was a happy camper about that. The last thing he wanted to deal with was secret agent man. "Yes, ma’am."

When Lia and Brad landed, Marty joined them. "Brian and I are assigned to you. What do you want us to do?"

"Take this laser cutter. We have to remove ice from the object."

He took it from her. It resembled a reciprocating saw with a nozzle substituted for the blade.

She slowly walked around the buried saucer shining a powerful light into the ice, but after awhile she stopped.

"This won't do. The ice is too opaque. I'll try the x-ray scanner."

After another walk around the saucer, she stopped. "Cut the ice here," she said pointing.

Brian and Marty fired up their laser cutters and began directing the beams about two feet on either side of where she had pointed. Red Argon spots indicated where the invisible Yag beams were actually cutting into the black ice. After cutting a four-foot square section, the men chipped away at the ice to remove it.

Marty's eyes widened when he saw the result. "Holy Toledo, look at all the writing."

Lia studied it for a few minutes before turning to Marty. "Does this look at all like what you found on Mars, Mr. Sinclair?"

"No doubt about it. It's the same type of geometrical figures made from line segments that don't quite touch." He pointed to one. "I remember this one. It has two pentagons, one within the other with their points connected by lines." He turned to her. "These symbols remind me of Maya glyphs, but more angular."

"Oh, you know Maya hieroglyphics?"

"Well, I'm not an expert, if that's what you're implying. Its just something I played around with in high school and the academy."

"And here I thought you majored in partying," Brian said.

"That too."

"What is this thing?" Brian asked, gesturing at the ice encased object.

"Looks like a flying saucer to me, pal."

"You said you found writing like this on Mars. Is this a Martian saucer?"

"I seriously doubt it," Marty said. "Mars may have developed life but nothing that could create this. This thing is from an ancient race of extraterrestrials."

"How old is it?" Brian asked.

"Good question," Marty said. "I find it curious that a technologically advanced race would employ glyphs in their writing."

"Perhaps, they only use this ancient writing ornamentally," Lia said.

"That's a possibility," Marty said. "I wonder why they're so verbose."

Angie, Brad and Cabot were having similar fun. Brad had just finished cutting ice from the domed section of the saucer. After cleaning away a section, a small rectangle appeared etched into the surface.

"What is that?" Brad asked.

"A way in perhaps," Cabot said.

Angie stuck a gloved finger into it. "Is it a button?"

"Maybe it's a latch," Brad said. He stuck the business end of a small chisel into it. "I don't feel any looseness."

"Try prying on the edges," Angie said.

He did so without effect, but when he removed the tool a crack appeared.

"I think we've found the right knock," Brad said.

"See if you can widen the crack," Angie said.

Brad stuck the chisel into the crack and made the opening wider. With help from Angie, he opened it wide enough to enter. Light from his lamp played against strange objects.

"I don't recognize any of this," he said.

"Is anyone in there?" Cabot asked as he peered into the opening.

"Nope; however, there may be other compartments."

"I'm coming in," Angie said before she squeezed into the opening. All three of them had to remove their MMU units to enter the small opening.

The interior consisted of a round chamber under a domed ceiling. There were no chairs. A crystal-clear sphere approximately a meter in diameter was suspended over an opaque circle on the floor,

"What the hell?" Brad said as he reached out to touch it and found that his gloved fingers penetrated it as if it were liquid.

"I would be careful about touching anything," Cabot said. "This thing could be rigged."

Brad immediately withdrew his glove. "What? With explosives?"

Angie looked over at the opening. "Give me that chisel."

When she got it, she wedged it into the slot that held the hatch. "I could imagine this closing on us. I doubt our signal would get out of here."

"Good move," Brad said. He looked around. "How do these aliens sit? I don't see anything that resembles a chair."

"Maybe they don't have asses," Angie said.

"That sounds like a joke," Brad said. "How do aliens with no asses sit?"

"Maybe this isn't a place where they stay for any significant time," Cabot said.

"You mean that this is an engine room?" Brad said.

"I doubt that," Cabot said. "The engines must be below this deck."

"How do we know that this is a manned craft?" Angie said. "Maybe it's a drone."

"That's certainly a possibility," Cabot said.

Angie moved toward the hatch. "While you two look around, I'm going out and see how the other team is doing."

Back at the Lia team, Marty detected a signal from the other side of the object.

"How's it going?"

"Great, Angie. We found writing on the side of the saucer. How are you doing?"

"We're in. We found a hatch."

"No kidding!"

"It's pretty tight in there, but it's nicely preserved."

"If you find any writing, record it."

"Copy that.”

###

The trip back from the Moon was uneventful, a situation that was quickly becoming the norm. The investigation of the alien craft had gone without incident, not that anyone was complaining. They had all been warned that the saucer was top secret. The mission's ostensible goal was to investigate the ice deposits.

Marty peered over Lia's shoulder at an image of alien writing on a monitor. "I think those are cartouches. The cartouches in Egyptian hieroglyphics look like panels with curved ends. Maya writing used what looks like animal bodies. These look like rectangles with triangle ends."

"A cartouche implies the name of an important individual or the location of an important city or monument," Lia said. "Why would they etch them into the side of their ships?"

"Maybe they like to brag, as in: so and so visited Earth or Mars. If the craft is a drone, the writing may be identification for a recovery team."

"What about the writing on the object you found on Mars?"

"That could be operating instructions or simply ornamental."

Lia looked up at him. "If that's the case why wasn't there any writing inside the saucer?"

"A drone doesn't need writing."

"Yes, that makes sense, but we have no point of reference to translate any of these."

"How will your universal translator do it?"

"The translator is based on a complicated algorithm that recognizes common elements of the world's languages. How it will work with alien tongues is unknown."

Marty smiled. "That's assuming aliens have tongues."

She smiled back at him.