Captain Ra’Jinn looked to communications officer Ke’Lish, “That was incredibly fast, 6 seconds from the time the scan left our ship to the probe, then it ‘awoke’ and it is already hailing us?”
Ke’Lish looked through her transparent screen to the Captain, “Yes Captain, it is both an audio and video feed, it is in our standard communication bitrate and un-encoded.”
Ra’Jinn nodded, “Very well Ke’Lish, answer the hail, have our computer ready to begin translating whatever it sent through, I am assuming it will be a rudimentary communications program with video support to allow our AI to understand more quickly.”
Ke’Lish began tapping on her displays, “It will be done Captain.”
The forward projector screen replaced the enlarged view of the probe, which no longer phased in and out of space-time, with what appeared to be an ambassador’s office from within the Imperial palace itself! But the being who sat behind that desk was no Nal’Shiar, it was similar in appearance, but with glaring differences. Its eyes faced forward, like those of a predator (or a Hassir she thought to herself) and it’s skin was pink instead of purple like her own. But then the being spoke in perfect Nal’Shiar proper.
“Greetings crew of the Unwavering Message, I am Nora of Terra Prime, I will be the ambassador between our two cultures, I assume you are Captain Ra’Jinn?”
The Captain looked over to Ke’Lish as she pressed the pause button on her communication panel on her command chair. “How is that possible? The being, possibly female if they follow our physical norms spoke perfect Nal’Shiar, as if she was born in the royal house.”
Ke’Lish looked at her monitors with her mouth agape, “Captain, that is a live feed, not an AI, as to how they know our language, I have no clue.”
Captain Ra’Jinn looked back to the forward monitor and unpaused the camera and microphone. “Greetings Nora of Terra Prime, I am indeed Captain Ra’Jinn of the Unwavering Message. Have your people already been in contact with Nal’Shiar, you speak our language flawlessly, but I have never seen a race of beings that look as you do.” Ra’Jinn waited the six seconds it would take for her message to reach the probe.
A little over six seconds later Nora responded. “No, our species have never met, this is what we could consider a first contact situation.” Captain Ra’Jinn shook her head, that’s not possible, that accent takes years to perfect, and is only taught to the most elite of Nal’Shiar, she only knew of a handful of people in the fleet with that accent. Still, if this was a first contact situation, she had to follow proper protocols.
“Ambassador Nora, as an acting emissary of the Nal’Shiar star empire I would like to formally request that your diplomatic team travel to this system and travel with the Unwavering Message back to Nal’Shiar Enub so that we may setup an Embassy proper for your species to speak to the Empress herself?”
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Almost exactly twelve seconds later Nora put her hands together, which showed she only had five digets per hand, which Ra’Jinn found strange, “That may be difficult, you see, this probe is on the opposite side of the universe from even our most distant expanse. Even with our fastest travel technology, it would take us an entire cycle of your planet around it’s star for us to reach you.”
Now Ra’Jinn was truly perplexed, “Ambassador, how are we communicating if your species is on the other side of the universe, not only that, how could you possibly travel that kind of distance in only a year?”
Again, twelve seconds later Nora answered, “The probe uses a form of communication known to us as string radio, the communication is nearly instantaneous under normal circumstances, however, due to this massive distance the probe in operating at a two millisecond latency. As far as how we could travel that distance in a year, lets just say our propulsion technology is a little better than warp drive.”
Captain Ra’Jinn had to think about that, warp drive was developed in her lifetime, and had allowed the Nal’Shiar empire to expand from it’s home planet of Enub and the system of Nal’Shiar to twelve other habitable planets in the last two hundred years. This species had technology that could cross the universe in only a year?! “Very well Ambassador, could we bring your probe to Enub until you could get an emissary here in person?”
Twelve seconds later the Ambassador responded, “That would be acceptable, I believe your cargo hold three is currently empty and would be large enough to contain the probe, will that work for you?”
Ra’Jinn looked down at her command chair control center, and yes, cargo bay three was empty and large enough. “Yes, that would be acceptable except that the doors to cargo bay three are only (8 meters) across.”
Twelve seconds later the Ambassador again responded. “That will not be a problem, I will skip the probe directly to your cargo hold.”
Suddenly the entire ship shuddered, the ambassador spoke again, “Transport complete, now we won’t have to deal with that pesky light speed lag.”
Gunnery Sargent Ka’Norell at Tactical spoke up, “Captain, the probe has appeared in cargo bay 3, it circumvented our screens completely. I have no idea how that is possible.” Ra’Jinn saw on her monitor that Ka’Norell was in fact correct, the probe now sat in cargo bay 3.
Ra’jinn looked back to the main monitor, “Well Ambassador, you are full of surprises. Now that you are stowed aboard we will begin travel back to Nal’Shiar space, at our cruising speed we will reach Enub within three standard weeks.”
The Ambassador unclasped her hands and spoke instantly now that 6 light seconds were no longer between them. “That will be work out fine, we will have the probe begin to build synthetic bodies for us to conduct diplomatic proceeding with.”
“Erm, that will be fine Ambassador, I look forward to seeing you in the flesh, or synth in this case. How long will the fabrication process take might I ask?”
Nora once again answered at once, which was a bit eerie, most beings paused to gather themselves or to think. “I should have a body manufactured for myself in about a day, the rest of my first contact staff by the end of the week, we should have plenty of time to acclimate ourselves to our new bodies.”
Ra’Jinn again had to do a mental backstep, acclimate themselves to new bodies? What a strange turn of phrase, surely they would be building robots to control from afar, right? “That will give me time to re-arrange quarters to provide your delegation with proper accommodations until we reach Enub.”
Ambassador Nora stood from behind her desk and bowed, “Very well Captain Ra’jinn, I look forward to seeing you in the synth.” The monitor then disconnected and showed the forward view port, now only seeing empty space where the probe had once been.