Sitting in his chair inside the drone control room, John tensed his grip on the joystick as he guided the drone toward the Meridian Gate. He leaned forward and eyed the ring for any change deviating from its standard behavior. The ring spun and snapped more lightning bolts back and forth across the middle of it. John and Mark hoped they might gather better data and paint a clearer picture of its internal mechanisms and processes. He flew the drone in close which hoovered information and fed the alien data back to their computers for the processing using advanced AI systems.

  Admiral Valentine sat beside John in the command center and analyzed the data on a separate set of monitors.

  A fly buzzed in John’s ear. He swatted it away.

  “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” Mark said. “Is this even a language? It doesn’t look like code.”

  “It’s nothing that I’ve ever seen.”

  “Is it a modified form of Chinese? Maybe a rogue group built this thing and forgot about it?”

  “I’ve fought a lot of Chinese separatists. None of them had technology like that. Nothing even close.”

  “The science boys say it’s a couple hundred thousand years old, but the technology is more advanced than anything we have on Earth. It doesn’t make any sense. If someone placed it there, why is it in the Oort Cloud?”

  “We’ve only just settled the Kuiper Belt. No human has ever settled in the Oort Cloud. A couple of billionaires flew around for the press, but that’s it. They certainly weren’t carrying a giant ring with them or we would have seen it. Look at that thing, Mark. The only thing I’m certain of…that’s not human.”

  “We need more data. It’s going to take us months to figure out what the Meridian Gate truly is. It might take us years. I’ll create an RFI and see if anyone has any more intelligence we can use. This isn’t something—” He stopped mid sentence. “Wait—John—what is it doing now?”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  The lighting on the ring amplified. Each strike grew larger and brighter. The ring spun even faster than before.

  “That can’t be right,” John said.

  “What?”

  “The energy signatures look different. No—it’s transmitting a signal. I think something just connected to the Meridian Gate.”

  “One of our satellites? Or a rogue operation?”

  “No. My equipment could be out of whack, but it’s telling me that the signal is connecting to something on the other side of the Milky Way.”

  Mark shook his head, frustrated. “The computers are jacked. That can’t be right. There’s nothing out there.”

  The behavior of the lightning changed. Instead of striking the opposite side of the ring, it struck the center of it. The pace of strikes increased dramatically. Within another couple of seconds, the lightning filled the center of the ring and created a wall of flashing blue and purple light.

  Mark’s shoulders tightened. There was a tremor in his voice. “What is it—”

  Something came through the ring. Ten humanoid shaped figures hovered in the center. They were clearly armored and judging by their size, compared to the ring, they were massive.

  John’s hand slipped his hand off the yoke and allowed the drone to fly freely. His heartbeat raced. He gulped. He couldn’t be looking at what he saw. It couldn’t have been possible. Ten mechanoid combat suits hovered in the center of the ring. The drone measured them at one hundred feet tall. Nine of them were all clad in black armor with sleek designs and held vicious looking cannons. They hovered behind a mechanoid who was in the front of them; it wore alabaster white armor and was taller than the rest.

  John’s stomach felt rock hard. “How can that—Mark—”

  “Call the President,” Mark said, using the voice commands on his cellphone. He smacked his phone because it wasn’t listening. “Call the President!”