“I Think I can contact Sol” Both men sat for a full two minutes.“I think I can get a data packet to Terra..” Mac whispered, “It has to survive a hundred eighty-ish of your hours. And not be missed when it gets there.”
“Go on…” Silu’s mind raced over the conversation with Mac post Intercept Incident…
Mac began, “The day Icario told me that my species, my world was lost to me, he stated that they had found Sol…”
Silu took a deep breath, “I remember. Something about a subspace flare with no meaningful data linked to the timeline borrowed from Concords sensors.”
“Yes.. a subspace flare… a recorded subspace flare….. in the right part of the galaxy….. With recorded coordinates… “ Mac finished..
“Fuck..” Silu swore, “20 years of travel would be a little over a week for a data packet…” Silu mumbled. The Galactic Unity was vast. Spanning a 35 year diameter at its widest point, for a freighter such as Traveler. This was why subspace and advanced algorithms were heavily used just to keep the galaxy updated with itself.
Silu shook his head. His mind shifted through their previous conversations, unsure of how to respond. Finally, he squared his shoulders and decided to face the main problem head on, “I’m not sure that this message would be wise.” He said finally.
Mac’s head sank heavily, his voice but a whisper. “Kobiashi Maru” Mac wasn’t wearing his translators right now, at least not actively, he could see them hanging around his neck just in case. Whatever he had just said was not in Delmar, but the agony transcended language..
“I’m sorry, what do you mean” Silu tried
Mac gave a weak laugh, and returned to Delmar, “It’s a name… ‘Kobiashi Maru’… It’s a fake void ship from a form of visual entertainment we called “movies”. They influenced culture in a way few things from my race ever did.. Kobiashi Maru, is a cultural reference meaning ‘a no win scenario’.” Mac held up a hand to continue, “And this may just be a no-win situation. Every option requires a lot of faith in at least one aspect.”
“Can you give me details?” Silu asked carefully.
“I’ll try," Mac sighed and steadied himself, “the first option is the easiest. We don’t send Humanity anything. This also has the strongest and possibly bloodiest downsides... FTL is an inevitability for my people.... we know it can be done now because even my test failure showed them that light speed wall can be broken… and we are Human… We WILL break it…. If only for the simple reason of “because we can”.” A dark chuckle escaped Mac as he finally sat back in his chair to continue. “Considering how far ahead we Humans are in power generation, shields, weapons, sensors, and stealth tech; once we get here…. once we figure out the coordinate problem, and start jumping around...”
“We will be playing a galactic game of chance…” Silu finished.
Max nodded, “If humanities first impressions of the Galaxy at large… is an overgrown pompous lizard trying to collect test subject specimens….” Mac’s voice trailed off as Silu’s eyes widened at the Venom dripping from those words.
Mac sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Captain, didn’t you ever wonder why I never tried to escape. Never put up a real fight…. How, despite the shock of being the first human in our history to meet non-human intelligent life, it was relatively easy to communicate, and understand each other?”
“Well, we are all Sapients after all.” Silu tried diplomatically.
“While as enlightened as that is as a philosophy…. It is incorrect… You and your crew did not end up murdered by me in a desperate attempt to escape, because we look similar.. No I’m not talking about race, creed, skin color, or religion. I’m talking about biology… I have heard the rumblings among the crew… the word, “apex” has been thrown around. Let me ask you, do you assume Humanity to be the Apex species of our cradle world?”
“Well… until now” that revelation was not what Silu expected.
“We are not.. we are not even close. Earth.. Terra.. does not have one climate. Because of that, We have over 70 different species that we consider to be apex predators on our world. Humanity is simply the one that figured out tools.. much like the Delmar.” Silu just stared at him, utterly speechlessly.. so Mac continued.. “Many of the predators, humanity has competed with for our whole existence, look very close to some of the species of the Galactic Unity…. Enough so, that if provoked, Humanity would treat them like the very deadly non sapients they remind us of back home. We have Millennia of ecological competition and mutual predation to do anything else…. “
Mac took a breath, “Captain, I fear that if Delmar were not so close to Humans in appearance, Things would not have gone so… smoothly… between us. Yours is the only race in the Unity that developed along our same path, with the only difference being that Humanity became more adapted to grassland, long distance hunting, big game predation in higher gravity.”
“Delmar is a singular climate outside of the poles,” Silu offered, “a complete jungle for all land masses, we never had to leave the trees to look for bigger game.”
“Or submit yourselves to the danger of leaving the safety of the tree’s so early. So you kept your tails, grew longer and leaner. You kept more of your abilities from being tree dwellers. But through all that, we still look ‘related’... Faces, mouths, ears, even language... forgive me, I know she is your niece; but my human baser instincts treat Lyrian as more an exotic beautiful human than an ‘Alien’… someone to be pursued for mating, securing generations… someone to be protected at great cost.” Silu stirred uncomfortably, but Max wasn’t finished, “Thermians, Saurians, the adult Lycan species trigger the “Danger, kill it.. maybe eat it later", instinct in myself and therefore Humanity. Had I woken up to a Saurian, or a Thermian tending to me, or experimenting on me, on my first day.. my very human fight or flight instincts, combined with the shock of living my whole life without knowledge of the greater galaxy and it’s species… would have ensured a much bloodier and violent ending.”
“Forgive me, but I have to ask.. what’s to stop them if you contact them anyway…” Silu asked carefully.
“Knowledge… " Mac stated flatly, "Humanity has a saying, ‘Knowledge is power’. The only way I see this ending well, is if Humanity joins the Galactic community with their eyes open…. As I see it, we either trust Sol with the knowledge, and offer them the information to find a way in without bloodshed… or we trust the Unity not to fuck up first contact with a race of heavily armed apex predators with a planet sized ‘fuck around and find out’ mentality.”
“I noticed, you said community, not unity..” Silu’s tone was one of understandable concern.
“Humanity would never consent to the Unity” Mac said flatly. “We are a fiercely independent species, who have been in an almost constant state of war throughout the majority of our own history. The second worst thing the Unity could possibly do, would be to demand Sol bend the knee. The first, would be to try and force them.”
“So, pray to the gods that Humanity doesn’t stumble blindly into a Galaxtic war of exterminatus… or pray to the gods, that The Unity doesn’t start one when humanity introduces itself.” Silu rubbed the bridge between his eyes.
*Captain to the bridge* the overhead barked
“We can finish this later, if you wish.” Mac stood and flicked a quick human salute.
Silu chuckled at the mannerism. “Yes. Although maybe less sobriety would be warranted”
Mac flashed a smile, mostly not showing his teeth this time, “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Captain.”
“Ha! Dismissed Lieutenant.” And with that, Silu returned to the bridge. They were coming up on Argorania, it was time to go to work.
.——————————————————————
Lyrian eased Lucid Traveler out of subspace just in time for her Captain to arrive back on the Bridge. “CAPTAIN HAS THE CON!” Barked Marg, giving him a nod as she vacated ‘The chair’, as Mac called it.
“Subspace retrograde complete, beginning Decl Burn. ETA 45 ‘minutes’ to He’rth (Hearth) Station.” Lyrian stated, anticipating Silu’s request for a report, as she eased Travelers head ‘round to face her main drives into her inertia. Traveler let out a low growl through her bones as she sub-light drives spooled up under Lyrian's encouraging hand on the quadrants.
She loved this part almost as much as she loved reentry. Traveler was an old ship. She was well kept, but her Keel had been laid over two Millennia before. She had gone through countless refits and upgrades. But money for an, admittedly, smaller commerce tribe was always tight. Traveler had been built without retro-grade Drives to save money and weight.
Even now, upgrading to the power-hungry forward-facing engines was considered a Luxury for a ship of her age; and many owner/operators preferred to keep expenses down and Lines fare when it came to this generation of ship. The result was the need to reverse orientation to decelerate from anything more than 1/16th of Travelers sub-light cruise speed, which was not all that great to begin with. The second thing Traveler lacked was high level Automation. Yes, many essential systems had been upgraded to some level of self management, but Navigation, Comms, and Lyrians favorite; the helm or Con; were still very much a hands-on affair. The Information side was very much computer assisted, but the execution was still very much ‘stick and rudder’. Lyrian's station was one of only two that were required to be harnessed into during ‘critical phases’, such as entry and retro jumps into and out of both subspace and inter-planetary. Nav, because they were needed to keep the telemetry feeding properly to con; and the con because Lyrian was using both hands and feet to Maneuver Traveler. Mac had chuckled at that but failed to elaborate the first time Lyri had shown him her station.
Her left hand was primary pitch and roll control. It had a ‘high rate’ setting for transit and open void maneuvering, and a ‘low rate’ setting for fine control in orbital and docking operations. It was located on an arm rest section of her console it had buttons to let her key her wire frame headset if she needed to talk to another station without shouting across the bridge, as well as a multi directional thumb switch that let her flick through her multi function displays without having to leave her controls.
At her right hand, also at arm rest level, was a singular throttle quadrant. It controlled all of Travelers main drives at once. It also had a thumb joystick that gave her control over the slewing functions of the ships maneuvering thrusters. This allowed her to slide the ship to Larboard or Starboard, and to raise and lower the ship without changing Travelers orientation. It too had a high and low-rate setting. The second control cluster was on a gimbal that snapped into place just above Lyrian’s primary throttle, but it spent most of its life swung out of the way. It was a second throttle quadrant with each of Travelers 4 main drives on a separate lever. This could be moved out of the way when not needed, or quickly snapped down should asymmetric main thrust be needed, or if one of Travelers engines needed emergency shut down separate from the rest. Lyrian had rarely used that one outside of docking the occasional tight docking slip.
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Lyrians feet rested on a set of pedals. They were the simplest of her controls. They were linked at the middle so that when you pushed one forward. The other would come back toward you. Each pedal had also rotated individually. You could rotate the pedal forward by pressing with your toes at the top. Pushing the left pedal would activate the maneuvering thrusters to yaw Traveler to the left, pushing the right pedal would yaw traveler to the right. Pressing the toe would rotate the pedal and add main drive vectoring or bleed drive output directionally to add more to the yawning affect respectively. Each toe axis had a lock out. You could not use two directions at once.
The center of her console was made up of two separate screens. They were equal size and shape. The left one showed her primary instruments and essential navigation. It could be decluttered to essentials or detail could be added through Lyrians left thumb. The right screen was for star charts, detailed engine and thruster information, Tactical read outs and ancillaries as needed depending on the situation. Lyrian could flick through those settings as well from her left thumb. Mac had nodded approvingly at her ‘PFD’ and ‘MFD’ layout. Again, not expounding further, just letting her show him and observing. All of these controls were designed to allow the Con to have almost complete control of all of Travelers Axes’ of travel with minimal jumping between hand and feet positions. User configurable Artificial feedback was provided to the Con operator to give them a tactile response to work with their muscle memory.
Traveler, being an older ship, had a voice. Her main drives were felt more strongly through her frame than in newer, more modern vessels of her type. Because the Con was a ‘harnessed’ station at times; piloting her during those ‘critical phases’ was a very sensory saturated experience. Lyrian smiled, taking it in, listening as Traveler spoke. Piloting an old freighter was more ‘akin to riding a steed-beast than controlling a machine at times like this. ‘I love my job.’
——————————————————————
The doors to Mac’s and Lyri’s quarters closed as Mac stepped in. They were 15 min from docking at He’rth station. Lyri had promised to tour guide him on his first experience outside of Traveler. ‘Alright, intergalactic tourist Mac, that’s me I guess’ he rummaged around his wardrobe. He had done a quick image search of the ships computer to see other species present in the Galactic Unity.. He was happy to have her as a guide considering the results. He started unzipping his hanging bag for the first time since packing for his test flight…
Mac’s original LEAP test flight plan had been to “jump” to somewhere near the orbital plane of Titan Industries predictably named Titan Station, on Saturns moon of the same name, then back to Pandora MOA. His alternates had been Rheinmetall’s Aerospace testing facility on Europa if he his jump had been short of prediction, or the NASA deep space observatory orbiting Neptune if he had jumped long. He was to make the jump; then burn for the closest of his options and wait for pickup if he could not jump back. Concord had been stuffed with enough MRE-DS’s (deep space versions of the venerable concoctions) to last him until his pickup at the furthest alternate. Even with Concords limited storage. That had been easy considering that she was designed to sustain a two-man crew for 18 months, and Macs test was a solo run. All this to say, Mac had packed a lot of clothes… deep space being what it was, he was not authorized to use up precious resources as a guest for non essentials like laundry. Mac had not been keen on wearing the same set of clothes for months or years waiting for pickup, and he smiled as he unfurled the bag to reveal he’s entire collection… of vintage and new Hawaiian and Caribbean style shirts.
Lyrian had not seen these yet. They were a legacy from his uncle Martin. The man’s love for the classics, even dubious classics, was legendary in the Terran Navy. It was a passion he had passed down to a traumatized young man who had just lost his family.‘Marty you beautiful old bastard,’ he stopped on his 19th birthday present from His Uncle, a perfect authentically made replica of the iconic red Hawaiian shirt worn by the main character in the ancient tv cult classic “Magnum Pi”. It was later rebooted in the early 21st century, but Mac had watched the original with the old man.. there was no replacement. Mac cackled to himself as he reached for his pair of aviators that he had packed in a separate padded compartment.
‘You will do nicely’.
——————————————————————
Traveler shuddered as the Mooring clamps of He’rth station locked and stabilized her bulk. She was currently docked nose on, allowing hangers on both sides to be utilized for orbit to surface transfer of the supplies. Lyrian settled back on her chair with a satisfied sigh and un-strapped.
“Moorings secured, Airlock secured. Main Drives coming offline” Lyrian listed off, reaching for the few controls not directly at her fingertips.
“Captain, He’rth station transmitting permission to come ‘aboard. They regret that they do not have shore power available. We are too large for them to run our systems.” Marg added looking over at the Coms stations shoulder.
“It will have to do, bring the auxiliary core online and shut down nonessentials. Let’s not bleed money we don’t have to.” Silu ordered. Travelers faint thrum changed slightly as those orders were carried out.“Senior Bridge crew dismissed. It’s lunch time people, consider yourself off the rest of the week save skeleton rotation. We will be here a while. Good work.” Silu smiled. Then stretched and followed the bridge crew out to be replaced by the Dock skeleton crew that rotated out every 9hours during long lay overs.
The senior bridge crew were exempt from first watch, but everyone got a turn on a stay this long. Lyrian almost skipped off having gotten a message from Mac that he was home, ready for their date. They were going to go eat at the station and Mac was going to get his first experience in a public transit hub. A couple minutes later she flit into their quarter, coming to a screeching halt just inside the door to their quarters and just staring at her man.. at least she thought it was her man… he felt like her man through their bond, but he was covered in the most obnoxiously Vibrant shirt she had ever laid eyes on… a pair of blue ‘pants’ of some kinds and gigantic tinted eye covering… She remembered him calling them 'blue jeans'. Mac lost the staring contests failing to portray an innocent face and grinned unrepentantly.
“What the Void are you wearing!”, she finally asked. She could feel his emotions, a wild mix of amusement and anticipation, she realized, of her reaction. Apparently, she had not disappointed him on the second one.
“It’s a Hawaiian shirt!” He proudly proclaimed, “Traditionally made, in Kawaii.”
She stood gawking for a moment, remembering him mentioning those, “THAT is a Hawaiian shirt?”
“No,” Max turned and opened his wardrobe, “THESE are Hawaiian shirts” She walked over and beheld the loudest collection of clothing she had seen in her life. Some with animals that must be from his home world. Some with water and white/tan shore lines with strange trees. Some were covered with giant round leaves and brightly colored flowers. Others sported with strange mechanical and vaguely avian monstrosities that appeared to by flying around each other wearing various codes of arms spewing fire from their wings...
“So?” Mac asked.
Lyri jumped a little bit as she felt his arms wrap around her waist from behind ‘I forget how quiet he is when he wants to be’ she mused, leaning back on him, “They are.. loud.”
“They are supposed to be. They are a cultural garb from one of my favorite places on earth” he rumbled into her chest. She could feel his slight twinge of morning at that statement.
“Earth?” She asked at the untranslated Human word. Mac must not have his translators in. He had been needing them much less of late.
“Earth is Terra’s other name.” He answered. Letting her go once more and turning her to face him, “anything going to offend a species I don’t know about?” He did a quick spin.
“I don’t think so, the red is loud, but It doesn’t mean much in most fashions.” She nodded. She quickly shimmied out of her uniform and void suit, changing into a white skin tight shirt topped with a more subdued poncho and a tan flowing skirt that hugged at the hips but flowed below mid thigh. She dressed quickly or risk missing lunch and dinner, judging by the desire burning off of Mac.‘Good’ she finished just as he pulled her in for an kiss, and her arms bumped up against something solid on his left hip on their way around him..
She pulled his shirt up to look, “what’s this.”
Mac gently separated from her with a sigh, “protection” he said. She looked a pointed question at him, and he nodded to himself. Pulling the item out from inside his waistband leaving some kind of holster behind. He very carefully pulled a long rectangular piece out of where he was holding it, and slid the top half of the rest back until it locked, pocketing something that had popped out.He then held it sideways resting it on the his hands for her to look at. “This is a much much smaller version of the guns on Concord” he explained. Lyri felt a spike of fear run through her as his emotions slammed into stoic seriousness. Mac felt her fear and softened a little bit. “It can’t hurt you right now. I was going to teach you when we got to your home world and had the proper open space.” He shifted it closer to her, still held in his hand, “a hot metal projectile comes out of this end” He pointed the slender end pointed away from both of them, “and is fed new ones by this.” He reached into his pocket to show her the rectangle he had removed earlier. “it pulls another one of these,” he pocketed the rectangle and produced a small object tipped with a rounded but finned dart encased in thee little pieces.
It appeared to be designed to pop off easily from the bronze colored casing it was held in “in after every shot. It is called a CZ P-488S Compact Gauss Pistol, my people usually just call them ‘handguns’, or ‘Gun’ or ‘firearm’ although we have not needed chemical propellant since the breakthrough in Micro Capacitors 200 years ago. It’s safe to hold, don’t be afraid” Lyri gingerly picked up the weapon. Plasma and laser pistols were the same general shape, and probably followed the same general rules for handling. So, she kept the dangerous end pointed away for both of them.
“It’s heavy..” she said at last. “This is a Kinetic isn’t it.” She asked, handing it back to him and watching him load it before placing it back in its holster. It then disappeared under his obnoxiously bright shirt.
“Yes, it works alot like your Flak Kannons. Just only one projectile at a time. And at much higher projectile speeds, usually.” he stated.
“Won’t that put holes in the station?” She asked.
Mac felt her worry, “Not this type of ammunition, these particulate projectiles are frangible, designed to damage soft tissue but break up on something hard like metal; and because it uses capacitors instead of propellant in the cartridges, I can use the AMU, sorry the “ammunition management Unit” He pointed to a nondescript box she had just assumed was nothing, “to partially drain the cartridge capacitors to a slower velocity. This is still deadly, and it will go through some walls depending on how they are constructed. but it won’t be able to exit travelers pressure hull, or the stations.” Mac then visibly brightened. He rubbed his hands together, “Now! Enough doom and gloom!” He smiled, “Care to go on a date, luv? I hear there are strange new worlds to explore. Shall we boldly go?” He felt her confusion and just laughed
“I have no idea what that means, but I saw a lovely cafe on the observation deck in the listings.” she gave him a not to convincing reproaching glare.
“Lead on my dear!” Mac stuck his right elbow out and Lyri looped her arm through it as they headed for the airlock.
——————————————————————
“Holy… shit…” Mac swore in English, as Lyri giggled next to them. Mac was staring at the water tubes running along the walls of the observation deck. Most were made of metal, but glass bulbs were positioned every so many ‘meters’ and Aquatic races of all types were swimming between the bulbs, enjoying the view. Little bipedal and multipedal crustacean esque children scuttled around frantically, chasing another child that looked like a cuter version of Squidward around a group of adults. The invertebrate children were clearly lost in a game of water tube tag and enjoying themselves. A Child that looked like a Husky puppy on two legs ran up and waved at one of the bipedal crab/waterbug looking children through the glass, the child ran to its parents for what appeared like a conversation, then swam over to a steel air lock… maybe water lock.. and popped out moments later with a towel around its upper thorax to hug the Husky pup. They ran off to a deck vendor as the aquatic child’s parents cycled through and waved to the pups parents.
Further away from the windows were a pair of, “Holy fuck, Dinosaur!!!” Mac whispered into Lyri’s ear. She was struggling not to laugh as wave after wave of new experience washed over her through their link. He paused as he felt her smirk through their bond. “What'd I say?” taking a sip from the water bottle he had brought with him.
“So this is what little kid Jamie was like.” She teased him causing him to choke on the sip he was taking, “ha! Mine!” She laughed pressing her advantage to steal the bottle for a sip of her own.
Mac coughed and sputtered for a second, “God Dammit. *cough* pictures my ass, that fucker is huge!!” He finally got out.
“She, is huge..” Lyri corrected, “Thats a Saurian.” Mac regained himself enough to remember the pictures from the ships computers as Lyri continued, “The kids in the aquatics section are K’Claram’s” she pointed at the crustacean looking individuals, “and Mauk’lur” She pointed at adorable mini squid-ward.
“But there are two different ones with shells” Mac offered.
“Puberty. K’Claram are hatched multi-pedal, they stay that way until around 12, then molt into Bipeds and start developing the ability to breathe atmosphere.” She explained then pointed to the fluffy Husky, “He is Lycan. Maybe 10 or 11. They grow slow until 16, then very fast until adulthood at 17.” Lyri had just finished the explanation when they arrived at the Cafe, and were seated.
“This is…. A lot… “ he paused as one of the Avian species soared over head low enough to look around, but high enough to not clip anything with its wings, “… to take in..” he finished, watching the large bird species soar by.
“Kawmari, a young female” Lyri indicated to the avian, who had just landed at a shop. “She won’t get much taller, but her wings will double in size over her life span”.
Mac realized that she had a pair of arms as well, as they hinged out from joints just below the wings joints, “we are not ready…” escaped a sober murmur from Mac.
“James, if this is too much..” she began, but he shook his head. Whatever it was passed from his feelings and was replaced with content happiness. “I can feel you worry too you know.” he smiled back at her, “Not today, today is for us.”
“Are you ready to order?” A large Gecko with six arms and a waiters bib asked in GC. Mac jumped just a bit, distracted by the newness of it all and fumbled in his shirt pocket, producing his left side translator , “Oh shit! Oh hai, sorry. My galactic common is poor. Can we start with drinks?” He asked once it was on place.
—————————————————————-
Growrmun Drumorsik eyed the young couple from across the promenade. Casually sipping a glass of Lycan ale and generally being unassuming. He watched as the pale skinned being placed a translator in his ear and began talking to the waitress. ‘Good’ he picked up the weak signal through the din, casually stretching out to point his left arm towards the two. “Can we start with drinks,” came over his own translator, as it was tied into his eves-dropping microphone located under his cloak on his left arm. His translator chirped , “98 percent match,”He pulled out his data pad and started tapping. Pulling up its optical scanner and zooming in, snapping a picture he saved it. Then turned to look out the window, back to the couple, nominally looking through a SubNet article.*Packet compiled* chirped into his ear,“Send” he commanded. A slight wag of his tail that he allowed slip as he enjoyed the view, over the planet; for it was truly exceptional.
Soon enough, the couple finished their meal, electing to walk the Bazzar. Growrmun followed behind, causally looking at items. The Human’s scent was.. unique, and the Lycan spy used that smell to keep tabs on his target as they made their way through the shops. His revulsion heightened as he watched them play the tourist, buying little foibles and generally sightseeing. This being appeared completely oblivious to his status as hunted, to the point where Growrmun was able to get within claw striking distance of the demon several times throughout the day.
At one point, Growrmun was surprised as the Strange being doubled back quickly, slamming into him with a surprising amount of heft. Growrmun looked down at the Being and suppressed a grunt from the impact. What was more interesting was this demon’s reaction to him. It seemed to snap its head up to look him in the eyes, something herbivores did not tend to do when faced with a carnivorous species. Growrmun felt the being quickly analyze him quickly before mumbling an “excuse me” and moving on. ‘Meek, but intelligent. I wonder if Command is mistaken…’ Growrmun broke contact, having gotten all he needed for the moment, and The Lycan spy returned to his favored table and ordered another drink, making sure to be seen there by the couple as he enjoyed the view once more.