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.I knew that communications crews were transmitting to them, trying to talk.The enemy rolled nearer.They were inside the orbit of the Moon now.Then they were about a hundred thousand miles from Earth—very close.We would have to engage them soon.Our ships wouldn’t let us run from this fight.Just as we were about to charge past them and go for the invasion ships, the enemy line halted.I blinked at the wall, not quite sure if I was seeing correctly.“Alamo? Did the enemy halt?”“Enemy velocity reduced.Their relative distance is being maintained.”“Are they within range of our weapons?”“No.”I chewed on my thumb.“What are they doing?”“They are transmitting a message,” said the ship.“They are? Put it on audio!”A continuous screeching sound came from the walls.I listened to it carefully.It didn’t sound like any language I knew.“Alamo, translate the message.”“Unknown meaning.No frame of reference provided.”I thought about it.I knew that Crow and his communications team were no doubt poring over the meaning of this right now and transmitting their own answers in every way they could come up with.But would any of them know what they were doing?“Alamo, can you analyze this language? Can you figure out the meaning of it?”“Unknown meaning.No frame of reference provided.”“Try ASCII.Is it ASCII? Or Unicode?”“No match.”“Try all known human computer languages.”“No match.”I went back to chewing my thumb.After an hour or so, it was getting sore.I’d contacted Crow a few times, and he said he had a team working on it, talking to the Earth teams on the ground.They were trying to puzzle out the meaning.The Macro fleet sat out there, patiently repeating the message all this time.I had to wonder, how long would it be before they timed out on us and began shooting?“Alamo, record a portion of this transmission.Wait, hold on.Record one second of what they sent to us and send it back to them.”“Done.”The sound of the enemy transmission stopped a few seconds later.It had gone on for so long, the sudden silence was shocking.“Alamo,” I said, trying not to panic, “continue playing their transmission.”“Enemy transmissions have ceased.”“Oh shit.”“Admiral Crow requests a private channel.”“Open it.”“Kyle? They stopped talking.What do you make of it?”I hesitated.“I’m not sure… but I did send them back part of what they were sending.”“You did what? When?”“Just before they broke off.”A stream of harsh language erupted from the air around me.Crow’s accent grew so strong, I wasn’t able to make out many of the words.But I felt certain they were uncomplimentary.“Why couldn’t you just keep out of it? I’ve got a team of techs on this, Riggs.”Enemy ship approaching.“Ah… Crow, something is happening,” I said.I watched as a single contact broke off from the enemy fleet and slowly approached our swarm.“Alamo, do not fire on that ship,” I said.“Crow, relay that to everyone.Don’t fire.We don’t want to start this.”“What if it’s some kind of super-bomb or something?”“If this comes down to a fight, we are screwed anyway.This might be a diplomatic effort on their part.I think they are trying to communicate.Let’s not start what we can’t finish.”Crow snorted.“They are probably demanding our surrender.”I had to admit, that did seem likely.But what kind of terms could they possibly offer? They wouldn’t bother asking for surrender if all they wanted was to wipe us out.“Just hold on.Let’s see what they’re doing.”Crow gave orders to every ship in the fleet to stand and hold.A few drifted forward, as their pilots were doubtlessly struggling to get the correctly worded commands spoken aloud to their ships.But no one fired.Over the next few minutes, the Macro ship slowed and drifted close to our line.I noticed something then.The Macro was close to my ship, which I’d recently configured to show as a greenish bump on the wall.My heart tripped harder.They had come to talk to me.Perhaps, due to my transmission in their language, they believed I could understand them.Suddenly, my mouth was very dry.The Macro was one of the new ships, the type I had come to think of as a cruiser.One thing was certain: it was not an invasion ship.It floated out there, in the same void I did, only a few thousand miles away.I knew it had to have its weapons trained upon my tiny vessel.The feeling was unnerving.A heartless machine eyed me, deciding whether or not my destruction was warranted.Crow contacted me again when the situation appeared stable.“Riggs, can you stay bloody well out of this?”“No sir, I don’t think I can.The ship has halted right in front of me.It obviously wants to talk to me.”“Because you went and transmitted to it without authorization!”“Yes sir.If you come up with anything intelligent to say, relay it to the Alamo.”Crow disconnected with an expletive.I sat there for another hour, thinking about it.The ship transmitted a short message in periodic pulses to me.I had the Alamo break it down into binary and I typed it into a file on my tabletop computer.I stared at it.The pattern was definitely binary.They probably didn’t use the same number of digits we did, and certainly our symbols would mean nothing to them.Even if I could translate their message into human phonetic letters, how would I know what the words meant? Assuming they were words at all?“Alamo, have you picked out anything intelligible from the mass of stuff they are sending? Give me estimates that are even ten percent or more likely to be accurate.You don’t have to be certain.”“It is a short, repetitive transmission.High probability that it is a command form statement.”“Could it be the command is to surrender?” I asked.“Unknown meaning.No frame of reference provided.”“Can we respond yes or no, at least?”Hesitation.“We can attempt a positive or negative response.There exists a chance of error, however.”I thought about it.By now, I was sweating.I wanted one of the beers in the fridge, but I got out a highly caffeinated drink instead.I needed to think.I studied the binary transmission for a long time.“Enemy energy emissions are changing,” said the Alamo after the third hour.“Are their weapons systems charging?” I asked.“Yes.”“Transmit both the signals for yes and no.Right now.”The ship was quiet for several seconds.I had just told them yes-no.I hoped that would be interpreted as a maybe.Hopefully, that would buy us more time to figure out how to talk to them.“Enemy energy emissions dampening.”I breathed a sigh of relief.“Alamo, you’ve had hours of processing time now.You know the enemy are probably transmitting a demand for our surrender.You know how to say yes and no in their language.Can you translate their message? Give it to me, I don’t care if there are errors.Give me your best guesses.”“Transmission has high probability of error.”“Just do it.”“Message translation: Immediate defensive reduction suggested.No further loss required.”I blinked, typed it in, looked at the binary.Where had the Nanos gotten that one? I began to suspect they knew more than they were letting on.The message was confused, but they must have had something to work from.“What language did you use as a basis for translation?” I asked aloud.“Ancient transmissions from lost civilizations.The language used was the closest match, but error is highly probable.”I rolled my eyes at the ship’s fear of errors and probabilities.It was better than nothing.Much better
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