The group exits warily, standing before me, the three I would think leaders of this little group. With my hand gesturing to the crate, they move forward warily. My reassuring gaze or my best effort, does not seem to help. I step away along with Quroken and the large one grabs some of the food, taking a small bite. The food is mostly fruit produce, the one he is consuming is round and tinged purple.
His expression moves to ponder, as if he is taste testing, perhaps he is concerned it is poisoned. Rather brave of him to test the food before his compatriots and it seems he at least trusts the food. Nodding a few times, the large alien divvies up the food and blankets. Giving them to young children before adults. Seems they value their offspring first and also don't possess a gender-based hierarchy. The adult females were given provisions at the same time as the adult males.
This act could be just an outlier for this select group. But I have learnt a considerable amount from my own culture, by how they treat their weaker members of society. Sufficed to say my people were not as benevolent to the low class near to the point of enslavement. Well, this aspect of my new associates is interesting, their words will hold more weight for me.
I wait for some time until all members of this little group have eaten and covered the shivering members with blankets. The large alien, the female and the young one approach me, the young one moves forward and introduces himself in Shahnese. "This one's name is Kalo, may our meeting prove honourable and cordial." Though his Shahnese was crude, I could translate it effectively, honourable and cordial curious terms to use. Perhaps their culture is respectful to outsiders. Kalo then turns to his associates and they both introduce themselves in their native tongues. Kalo thankfully translates their words into Shahnese and their identities intrigue me.
The larger alien named Itoa is what I would describe as a tactical war chief for his Garudan tribe called the Kilmak. Their tribal chief was tragically killed during the assault, something he seems to deeply mourn and aggressively seethe over. The female Garudan calls herself Hera Jan, she interestingly has two names rather than one as the males do, perhaps some custom. Regardless she refers to herself as the "Dato Mak" which is roughly translated as the "First Spear" perhaps a military rank of sorts.
After the introductions, I intern introduced myself in the Shahnese language to Kalo. "Greeting's people of Garuda, I am Code Designation 4462, Clone Commander formerly of the 15th Imperial Clone Corps of the Samsiran Empire, well met." My statement was near perfect Samsiran etiquette, despite my misgivings of my people it is best to respect where you come from. Kalo seems to at least attempt to translate that mouthful, prompting some I believe, confused stares as they are likely baffled by this foreign introduction. Well regardless, it seems they have accepted my greeting, yet still display some reluctance this may take a while.
After some time, I managed to help most of the group settle into the crew quarters. It was quite the squeeze to set up around fifteen with only seven crew quarters. They were bunched up, but we are happy to finally be able to have some semblance of freedom. Now I am in the common room sitting around the table with Quroken to my left, Kalo to my right, and Itoa and Hera Jan opposite us.
Finally, some discourse was happening despite my limited knowledge of their language. My implant only managed to record and cross-reference a few words, not enough samples yet. The silence was permeating the room just before Hera Jan spoke up, translated quickly into Shahnese by Kalo. She asked in a calm and collected tone and in simple terms. "What do you plan to do with us?" The obvious question to be sure and one I had an answer for.
I sit up straight and gazed directly at the two, before speaking. "Well, that depends on what you can tell me of your side of the situation. I killed most of the crew for my own reasons, to seize this vessel. If you would be so kind to explain what you remember, before your captivity?" It was a simple question, that I would doubt all would translate well, but if at least some translate all the better. After Kalo seemingly translated my words, he is a very competent and useful manner explained my words in as close a translation.
For instance, for space ships the Garudan's use the word "Intopa" meaning boat or sea carrier. It was close enough and managed to explain it well enough. With this, all three began explaining their tale and it was some story. According to Itoa, roughly thirty moons or thirty major cycles, strange people entered their camp. From his description, they are the spitting image of Wokan's. The Kilmak tribe's Chieftain welcomed the strange visitors with their customs or tenets as they call them. The Wokan's attempted to aggressively persuade the Kilmak to join them and serve under them. The language barrier is a clear problem. The Wokan's were very impatient with their requests almost to the point of demanding obedience.
The Chieftan of the time with his tactical advisor Itoa advised him to not trust the Wokan's and that serving under those who had not proven to be honourable was not their way. The Chieftan agreed and rejected the Wokan's offer instead offering a chance for potential trade and further negotiation, offering Kalo to learn their ways and language.
This didn't go over well for the Wokan's as they bickered in their own language for some time before they drew strange objects and levelled them at the Chieftan. With a flash of light, Itoa watched as his Chieftan fell to the ground with a burning hole in his chest. It was almost like he had been stabbed by a burning spear. The situation quickly devolved into chaos as the younger more brash Garudan's charged at the Wokan's swords and spears in hand.
Itoa tried to order them to stand down but it was much too late. They were cut down one by one, by laser fire. Hera Jan's own mate was killed before her eyes enraging her, she threw her prized spear impaling one of the Wokan's through the skull. The Kilmak tribe was ordered to scatter by Itoa as the Wokan's captured as many as they could along with Itoa, Hera Jan and several other tribesmen. The rest were shot down either resisting or fleeing.
Itoa and his people were taken aboard the Intopa and locked in cages for a long time. Kalo was taken several times from his cage to serve as a translator. Quite a brutal tale and something I had already expected. According to my people's history, we did not exactly deal with the less advanced part of our species with peaceful discourse, during the expansion. Their situation seems dire, I do not know the total numbers of the Wokan pirates but if this ship and their weapons are any indications the Garudan's are outmatched in firepower.
We are all outmatched in firepower, it seems even mere pirates have a tactical advantage over us and a single ship, I barely understand does not make a substantial military force to ensure security. But then again, this tragedy for the Garudan's can be an advantage for me. There are quite a few ships for the taking occupying that planet, and a plan takes form, but all the details are yet to be discovered, and this must be remedied.
My pondering thoughts are not even registered in the eyes of everyone present thanks to the advanced neural implant. One of the few pieces of technology my people could be proud of, enabling accelerated thought. Now out of my own head, I decide on my next question carefully, something that needs to be answered. "What do you remember of the Wokan forces, specifically their numbers and weapons?" Kalo translates my words quickly and efficiently, prompting Hera Jan to reply swiftly and eagerly.
"I remember forty of them arrived at our village, each of them had those strange fire throwers, like the one next to you." She points to the laser rifle nestled to my side, her eyes glaring at the weapon with wariness and a little fear tinged with anger. Kalo continues to translate her words as she describes in further detail the attack on her village.
Five Minor Cycle's Later, Hellmak, Cockpit.
Sitting in the captain's chair of the vessel Hellmak, I stare out into the deep dark space, in awe of the majesty of various distant stars. I feel rather honoured to be the first of my species to engage in interstellar travel. It is a shame the rest of my species are not here to see it. Looking around the pilot control centre I spy a large dashboard of buttons and levers. After some time with Quroken he explained what they all do. The lever and pilot's wheel to my right control the vessel's speed and manual piloting. The panel to my left is the weapons indicators and launch mechanisms. The cockpit is rather small only seating two pilots and the fact, the ship is on autopilot and can function autonomously makes sense to not require much supervision.
But the stars and the blinking lights of the control panel are of little interest to me now, what interests me is how after several minor cycles my implant has managed to decode the ship's mainframe programming. The entire vessel's computer systems are coded in Shahnese, thus learning the language helped immensely. Their security measures are impressive, and my inferior implant technology would not be able to break the encryption.
Of course, if I had the passcode, well then, I could bypass all their safeguards. Just as that thought passes through my skull, I hear the familiar words in my native tongue, echo in my brain. "Passcode accepted, administrative access granted for Patrol vessel Hellmak." Now you are probably wondering how I got the passcode to an alien vessel. Well, Itoa can be quite persuasive to the two Wokan engineers locked up in their cells. They were scared out of their wits when his large lumbering form appeared just outside the cell. Initially, I was concerned he may kill them, but according to their customs, it is dishonourable to kill imprisoned and unarmed enemies. Though Hera Jan was indeed holding back her animosity, guess she took the death of her mate with all the charm and grace of seething rage.
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She might become an issue in the future if her rage consumes her, best to monitor her carefully from now on. Hmm and that is quite interesting, with my access to the ship's computer system I can perceive all the ship's features via my Neural Virtual Display or NVD. Ship diagnostics, schematics, weapons systems, piloting controls, astronavigation, and internal cameras. Quite the list of functions this little "Intopa" owns. I decided to mentally command the ship's schematics and weapons systems to display before my eyes.
The NVD displays a virtual representation of the ship, a Hellmak class patrol vessel, originally manufactured by the Wokan as a close-range fighter. Repurposed as a patrol vessel outfitted with a Shahnese Nuclear Fusion Reactor. Computer hardware changed to Shahnese computer systems. Twin railguns at the front and back of the vessel, with onboard proton missiles. The ship was quite small only fifty metres in length. The hull is reinforced with something the Shahnese called Nirenium, apparently common in most ships of the Demthesian fleet. Likely the technology of the Wokan's was co-opted by the Shah when they were absorbed.
Intriguing features I wonder about these internal cameras. Accessing these features, I was bombarded with a list of several locations of the ship, with access to video feeds from the cockpit to the cargo area. I decide to select the cockpit and a video feed depicting myself seated in the pilot's chair is shown. But my own visage is not what I am focusing on, a small shadow just peeking out from the corridor behind me. I zoomed into the location and the shape of my little spy becomes apparent.
A small Garudan child possibly a young Garudan female, females tend to have lighter greenish skin. I recognise the child from one of my recorded memory files. Without turning around, I bring up a record of Garudan phrases I have recorded and attempt to pronounce them. "Vamoko Dao." The phrase I believe is a simple greeting and gesture for friendly communication. The child seems to wince, I believe some sort of fear response. I notice her facial features almost harden along with her skin going a darker shade. Perhaps some sort of fear response will investigate later, on further inspection she seems to harden her resolve and step out from her corner to speak.
The child moves forward revealing her features in the light. She is half my height and still quite tall for a child from a Korvenin perspective. Her eyes seem to be violet in colour, and her hair is braided to the right as per the female customs of the Garudan. Her arms and legs seem strangely muscular, perhaps females develop superior physical abilities younger. She steps forward cautiously and then speaks in rather fluent Garudan. "Vamoko Sao, kurpodo im sicont lupara?" These words are quite difficult to translate, the first part seems to be a return greeting. The next part I think is some form of a question, about the colour of my skin and something to do with a bright orb burning it. From this extrapolation, I think she is concerned my skin had been burnt from the harsh rays of the sun. I suspected her species had originated from a jungle-like planet, thus the green skin, so someone with red skin would be quite the oddity.
I chuckled at her words before replying in my half-broken Garudan, attempting an answer. "Rapuma lea bakat, gret ikan lupara." I think I got the wording right and hopefully; she understood my response. I was born like this and not because of the sun's rays scorching my skin. This seems to pique the child's interest as she adorably ran to the co-pilot's seat and sat down. She turned to me and from what I could tell, she smiled at me. I have seen such innocent smiles from the recordings of my people's propaganda advertisements. They always seemed off to me, not genuine or true, this one however seems to be a true expression of innocent delight.
The Garudan child then starts poking my arm, seemingly taking delight in the mild annoyance, she was perpetrating. It's almost like she expects my skin to be hot to the touch. Her actions were amusing, and I allowed them to continue. Prompting her to become more fascinated by the skin pigment, before asking another question. "Temtoa pupent lea sepena?" This question was somewhat unfamiliar, but a few words I could make out. Seems she is asking me what I am or who I am, not sure I suppose ill answer both.
With some pondering on how I would answer that. I decided to introduce myself in the proper Samsiran military way. The primary way used was to greet the civilians of the Empire. Clasping my hands together I thrust them forward slowly while nodding slightly. The child grabs my clasped hands joyfully and smiles from ear to ear. Likely being unaware that some hardcore Korevenin's would see that as an offensive gesture. But since most of my people and culture have been wiped from the galaxy, the culture is whatever I make it now. Smiling back, I introduce myself and my species in a rather broken Garudan accent, prompting her to laugh like a Protonkan Owl from my homeland. My words were not elegant but amounted to me introducing myself as code designation 4462 from the Samsiran Empire and my people being called Korvenin's. She tilted her head quizzically, an action I have noticed seems to be universal amongst species, her smile regrows, a pleasant sight I am coming to appreciate.
Her response was to introduce herself; her name is Mera Jorn, another double name that gives more evidence to my theory that females have a different naming sense. I decided to call her Mera, which she did not seem to mind. This led her to bombard me with more questions. Who are my people, my eyes look strange and funny along with several other questions about the Hellmak? So many questions bombarded me, it was difficult to keep up unless I used hyper-accelerated thought. Which was an extreme misuse of military hardware in my opinion.
I tried to rely as best as I could, on explaining my people are from the planet Korvan and that I was a soldier in the Samsiran Imperial army. Concepts that just went either way over her head or my grasp of the language were too crude. Despite that she nodded along, adorably taking in every word I say. I came to suspect she likes listening to people talk regardless of the subject matter. Something I respect is when people talk about personal attributes and history, you get a sense of the person even if the words fall short of accurate understanding.
I went on about my eyes being able to see in the dark, I think I managed to get the wording correct after several language recording sessions with Kalo. Her eyes brightened at the concept that my people originally were cave dwellers that developed such eyesight before leaving for the surface.
We talked on and on about the Hellmak, with her pointing at nearly everything in sight. She had since shifted to sitting on my lap, as I prompt her to peer up at the control panel. I responded mostly in Shahnese as that was the language, I had the best grasp in. I explained that was the weapons panel, thruster control and steering wheel. After a few laughing sessions at the "Kokomo Maganta" or funny words, if translated. She began staring out into space for a moment. Either enamoured by its beauty or just trying to count the stars. Suddenly my NVD prompted me to the completion of its analysis, of the Astro-charts.
A hologram formed on the front panel depicting a planet with three large continents and many islands, each with dense forests on nearly every landmass. Mera immediately stretched her hand forward, trying to grab the hologram to no avail. Eventually giving up she turned her head to peer at me and asked what precisely that was. I replied in her native tongue the best way I could. "Taloa, sempun ka Taloa." Her eyes brightened from those words as she gazed at the hologram, showing the cutest smile. This prompted a slight smile to cross my own. The words I spoke in her native language can be roughly translated to Shahnese as this. "Home, we're taking you to your home." Her eyes widen in shock, but a smile begins to form. With her new jovial appearance, she suddenly becomes jolted by the sudden entrance of Quroken.
Mera turns to the strange alien and like a certain animal I can't recall, scurries away past him, with impressive speed. Quroken looks back at her exit with a confused expression before turning back and walking over. Sitting in the co-pilot's seat, accessing the control panel and tapping various buttons. After some time, a new holographic map appears, vastly different to the map I saw. Curious, I query about the significance of the map. "Quroken, that chart is different to the one I have access to?" Asking the question, I still decided to sate my curiosity and gaze at the strange chart. The holographic chart depicts a similar astrological map showing the journey from my home, the Remas star system and the Garudan's star system labelled D-327.
Narrowing my gaze to judge the various new facets, such as certain areas of the chart in different colours. Large chunks of space have been partitioned into some sort of sections. The chart is currently performing calculations and a line appears extending from Remas. It is charting a path through those sections towards D-327, without crossing the dark zones. Quroken continues tapping on his control panel and then stops, turning to me to speak. "This is the Gravitational Time Map or GTM." He then points at the coloured-in sections continuing his explanation. "These sections identify the phenomenon known as the Gravitational Time Offset Swells; a phenomenon discovered during the initial interstellar era. It was first documented by the Traderian Mercantile Union." Tracing his fingers across the hologram from Remas to D-327, explaining as he goes.
Placing my right hand to my chin, I listen intently as he continues his intriguing explanation. "The GTM was created for ships to navigate the Gravitational Swells reducing time dilation from sub-light travel." Quroken nods a few times after his explanation as if reaffirming his definition.
Realising the implication of this phenomenon, the concept of time relativity I had briefly studied would not apply within certain swells of space. What could be causing this phenomenon, some sort of natural event flipping the laws of space travel or perhaps some higher energy field intervening? Hmm too large for my mind, best not to dwell on it.
My thoughts were completely shifted away from my prior learning, yet this was not the largest shift in thinking since I am now speaking to an alien. Pondering this I decided to speak up and comment on the GTM. "So that would mean, that there are sections of space that are not under this phenomenon?" I ask the question, those strange dark zones depicted on the GTM are concerning.
Quroken taps a few more buttons causing a number of calculations to appear on the hologram, in Shahnese script. "Yes, those are the Time Dilated Zones, best to steer clear of them to avoid the effect of time dilation." He taps a few more buttons causing the calculation to end. I notice several words appear causing Quroken to narrow his eyes to inspect. "This here, if we stick to these Gravitational Swells at sub-light speed, with a distance of two light-cycles from your star system of Remas to D-327. It should take twenty major cycles with only five major cycles as the offset for D-327's time dilation." The Pintonian's fingers trace the line extending along, weaving a trek across space through these swells towards our destination. Realising the significance of this major yet to Quroken a common scientific discovery, my view of the universe has just grown larger.