Commander Tasha Xen, The Turin - Personal Log:
"Those idiotic yahoos screwed up the first contact protocols. They have the easiest job in the world and still managed to mess it up. All they need to do is say 'hello', shake a few hands and leave some universal translators with documentation. Simple, right? Well, “someone” left an unlocked data-pad in the welcome-pack and now the humans have access to the full knowledge of the galactic council.”
* * *
Second contact was usually an exciting assignment - spending a year or so on a new planet talking to the best and brightest they had to offer in order to help them become members of the galactic federation, if they so wanted. Part of the job was also gently prodding them in the right technological direction for some of the slower races. Second contact usually happened five years after first contact, it gives the new species time to adjust, read all the relevant paperwork.
Tasha hung her head in despair when she found out what had been left on the human home world. She questioned what the humans could possibly learn from it in such a short time; the data-pad would be written in the ‘universal galactic’ language, so while the humans did have a translator, it would still need to be integrated into their language first for the translations to work – this took between several months to a year to complete, depending on the complexity of the language.
The first contact team reported that the humans had only reached minor technical advancements. They were still using liquid-filled rockets, junk and other debris littered their space orbit and only one tiny space station had been built. They hadn’t even left their home planet yet except for a small trip to their only moon. Looking over the report, Tasha wasn’t sure that we should have contacted them in the first place!
There were still a few weeks of Faster Than Light (FTL) travel before reaching the humans, maybe she was worrying for no reason, we’ll just have to wait and see.
* * *
Tasha suddenly awoke to the sound of alarms blaring. First Officer Tokra was calling her on comms. “Commander, we have a proximity alert and have received a request to dock.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Dock? Who from, and why do they want to dock during FTL?” Tasha asked.
“It’s the humans. They appeared right next to us inside our FTL bubble asking to talk, they have questions.” Tokra replied. “They appeared so close and so suddenly that our proximity alerts had a heart attack, as did most of the bridge crew - there was nothing on radar.”
“We aren’t meant to be there for another couple of weeks. What are they doing so far out from their home world? Never mind, turn off the alarms, come out of FTL and have them dock. Bring them to my ready room; I’ll be there shortly.”
Several questions raced around Tasha’s head. Where the hell did they get an FTL drive? How could they sneak up on us so easily? They couldn’t leave their own planet when we left them five years ago; what are they doing so far out?
Tasha sighed. Second contact was not going to plan!
* * *
After showering and dressing in her finest uniform, Tasha walked into the ready room. On one side of the table was First Officer Tokra and Chief Engineer Kaiya. On the other side of the table was a single slightly dishevelled and wide-eyed human. He was staring at everything in the room like a child in a sweet shop - not knowing where to look next, a large grin across his face.
“Welcome to The Turin, I am Commander Tasha, head of the Second Contact team. How may we help you?”
The human focused his darting eyes on Tasha. “Um, hello. Hi. Yes. Sorry about popping in so close to you; still trying to get used to my shuttle. I’ve only been driving it for a few days!” He continued, “I’m Dr Avery Shelton, the lead scientist working on the FTL drive data within the tablet you left with us last year. My team and I have been very busy indeed. There are many such teams working on different subject areas. We are all very excited, it’s got rather a lot of wonderful information. We have a few questions though...”
Tasha was deflated, this is not how Second Contact was meant to go.
“We will be in orbit around your home world within a couple of weeks Doctor. How important are your questions that you would build and fly what looks like your first FTL ship just to meet us early?”
“That little thing is not our first FTL, oh my no. It is just a little run-around shuttle we have on Earth that can be hired. We have been building and improving your FTL designs for about a year now and have hundreds of ships and shuttles available. Your tablet helped us in the beginning, but we have made so many improvements from your designs they are almost completely different - smaller, faster and more efficient. We are honestly surprised that you manage to get around at all with the deficiencies in your designs!”
Chief Engineer Kaiya almost choked at this. FTL drives are huge beasts taking a team of 10 to 15 engineers to ensure they run smoothly, and here was a single human running one in a small “for-hire” shuttle. He had questions of his own. Many, many questions.
Dr Shelton continued, “First off, we wanted to know what happens when an FTL drive is steered into a black hole. We have been taking bets.”