Chapter 3: Intermission Interruption...

[Art]

Proverbs 11: 1-6

Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight.  When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.  The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.  Riches do not profit int he day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.  The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright, but the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.  The righteousness of the upright will deliver them, but the unfaithful will be caught by their lust.”

The combinations and permutations grow in Moose’s calculations when a garbled transmission makes its way through the receivers—broken, stitched with static, ghosting in and out like a voice underwater.  Code of some kind.  The sort that needs patience, that tests focus before breakfast.  He rubs a hand across his face, pulls his hat brim low, and begins to work.  A few switches flip, a few knobs ride down the dial until the tone levels out.  The speakers whine, equalize.  A thin string of noise holds steady.  Moose leans in, puts his headphones on, and starts decoding.

“Art-bot,” he says after a minute, voice low and steady under the hum of machines.  “I’ve had an unexpected project pop up this morning.” He pulls the headphones down to his neck and looks across the bridge.

Art-bot stops what she’s doing and turns, the soft motion of her servos smooth as breath.  Her face lights under the blue wash of her station lamps.  She smiles—calm, certain.  She steps toward her console, the cyan seams along her frame pulsing to life as her systems warm to curiosity.  “What sort of project, Captain?”

Moose tilts his head toward the soundboard, cables and dials gleaming like wet ink in the ship’s light.  “Signal came in cold.  Garbled.  Something layered in it—looks like code, feels like a voice.”

Art-bot nods once, already shifting her focus.  The monitors at her station light up in cascading color—soundwaves blooming like painted strokes.  “Let me see it,” she says, her voice a quiet echo in the bridge’s calm.  She reaches out, and a soft blue holographic display blooms between them—light, texture, pattern.  The waveform rolls and stutters, a language written in rhythm and noise.  Art-bot studies it.

“There’s structure,” she murmurs.  “And cadence.  Not random.”

Her hand drifts through the hologram, each movement scattering shards of light across her golden plating.  “It’s coded, yes—but not purely mathematical.  There’s rhythm in it.  Human rhythm.”

Moose leans back in his chair, wrinkles his nose, one hand wrapped around his coffee.

“It is entirely possible this is a quick engagement.”  Moose flips a few pages in his Bible and runs a finger down the page.

James 1: 2-8

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”