Deep Flight — Joe Johnson

Standing in the cold morning blackness in the thin air atop a mountain, in Colorado, Hillary first saw the thing which would change her world forever. Like all the others of her kind, she studied the mysteries which were the points of light against the dark blackness of space. Astronomy was like that just one mystery followed by another yet this discovery left her blood to run coldly through her veins. Through the crystal clear light, pulled in by the great telescope her nice, safe world ended. What she saw that night could not be. Someone, or perhaps more ominously something, seemed to be calling for help. How could something, neither she or her colleagues knew who, know to use an old, obsolete Morse Code signal of distress and how could something as frozen in position as a star wink it's light to them in call of 'SOS'. How would they answer the old call of Save Our Ship which winked at them across the vastness of space. Earth had never built a ship which could reach this winking enigma. It would take the most powerful ship ever built to reach this thing, which the few who knew of it, secretly called Stranger One. Would the trip tell of mysterious visitors from another system, would they be able to answer the call of distress? Or just perhaps was the SOS a warning? The only way to know was to build; Deep Flight.