Subject: Nav-Officer Kraan

Species: Urakari

Description: Reptilian humanoid, no tail. 5'3" (1.6 m) avg height. 135 lbs (61 kg) avg weight. 105 year life expectancy.

Ship: RSV Lowelana {Fights with Honor}

Location: Sol

The ship-head thinks this mission is supposed to be pretty standard, but something's bothering me about it. Warp fluctuations? There aren't many things that can cause warp fluctuations, and definitely not anything that we wouldn't be able to tell from home with our probe network. We have probes that are constantly in FTL, which is probably how they detected the warp fluctuations to begin with. But the probes should have been able to tell what was causing the fluctuations, so there was no need for us... Unless the probes didn't survive long enough to determine the cause.

"Ship-head, I don't think we should enter real-space near the fluctuations," I voiced my concern to Uleena.

"Agreed. Bring us out just outside of the system. We'll have a peek with deep sensors and move in if necessary," the ship-head seemed to notice my nervousness. "Don't worry Kraan, it's just a routine scouting mission."

"Yeah, Kraan the coward," Kriin said with a chuckle.

I shot her a glare and retorted with, "Better to be Kraan the coward than Kriin the cloa..."

"That's enough you two," Ship-head Uleena said with a slight smile, "Kraan, drop us from warp when ready."

"Understood, sir. Dropping from warp in 3... 2... 1..." I finished my countdown and the process for exiting FTL speeds at the same time. Like a professional.

I wasn't able to be proud of myself for long before the proximity alarm sounded an enemy alert. Panicking, I checked my scans and saw an OU destroyer-class vessel just as the target lock alarm sounded. Our shields were still down from exiting warp. We're dead. Must flee.

I checked our scans for other ships and noticed something terrible. The warp field in system was a complete mess, and there was a ship at the center of it all. Could it be causing the warp irregularities? And these weren't fluctuations, these are... Waves? In subspace? If we had tried to warp into this we would have been torn to pieces!

Thankfully we were out of range so I began to turn the ship just as the missiles hit us. My head slammed on my console, cracking the screen. It didn't hurt but I could feel warm blood dripping down my face and chin. I quickly entered the command for a blind jump and began to power up the FTL Drive.

"Get us out of here Kraan! Blind jump!" Ship-head Uleena sounded muffled.

Darkness began to form in circles around my vision as I watched the FTLD power up. The target lock alarm sounded again just as the drive became ready, and I slammed my hand on the panel, sending us into the warp once again. I could feel myself passing out as I heard the ship creak and groan under the strain of an unshielded FTL jump. Then I was in and out of consciousness for a while.

"We have multiple hull breaches..." I heard Liwna say in a panicked voice.

"There's no way they were there by chance..." That was Kriin, my sister. I hope she's okay.

"We need to inform the Republic as soon as we can..." Ship-head. Oh no I didn't tell the ship-head what I saw. If the Republic sends ships into the system they'll be destroyed before they can exit warp.

I tried to open my eyes. I need to wake up. I need to warn them. I saw light and realized I was on a stretcher. Then darkness again. I saw one of our medics, then darkness again. Then I saw someone I hadn't ever seen before. Blackened... skin? No hair. No, wait, they only have hair on the top of their head. Gray hair with some black at the roots.

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"Who..." I tried to say before the darkness took me again.

Oh. It's Kriin. She wants to play "splat the bug". It's my favorite game. I'm so good at it. I always beat her at it, but she keeps playing with me because I play dollies with her. It's only fair. She's trying to cheer me up because I hurt my head. By the sun, it hurts so bad. It hurts too bad to play. I'm sorry Kriin I don't want to disappoint you but I need to rest now I hurt really bad I need to sleep I'm so tired now no wait I need to wake up I can't sleep I have to warn you and the ship-head and the Republic I'm an officer damnit I can't let them all die I can't let those damned machines kill more of us I need to wake up, wake up!

"It will allow us to more easily clone tissue!" the weird looking alien I saw before said to Kriin.

Darkness again. No. I need to be awake. NOW.

"He keeps slipping in and out of a coma. Thanks to the blood we got from you, we're going to be able to stem the brain bleed and repair his skull," I looked up and saw the alien talking to Kriin. "He won't even have a scar. He might be a bit sore about that, chicks like scars."

The darkness started to come again but I fought it harder this time. Tried to talk. Mistake, pain.

"Why would he care what birds think, Doctor?" Kriin asked. "Especially baby ones?"

"Huh? Oh, chicks is slang for..."

I faded again. Damn. I'm on the ship again. The ship-head! I have to warn him! I stand up but he's not there. I run through the ship, room after room. Nobody? I go back to the bridge. Everyone is here!

"Ship-head! The warp irregularities! They're a trap by the OU!" I scream at Uleena.

"Why are you naked?" the ship-head laughs at me.

I look down. Where are my clothes? Everyone is laughing. So embarrassing. Everyone starts taunting me. Oh no, why have I done this why did I think it would be a good idea to be naked in front of everyone? Now they won't listen to me about the warp fluctuations because they're too busy laughing at me. They must think I'm crazy...

I woke up to see ship-head Uleena and Kriin sitting beside me. I check and see that I'm wearing some sort of gown. Thank the Sun.

"How are you feeling?" Ship-head Uleena asked.

"Better. Can I get up?"

"Not yet," Kriin said. "You just had brain surgery. Even with the technology that the humans possess the doctor wants you to stay in bed for a couple of days while they monitor you."

"Kriin. I'm glad you're okay," I said with a smile. Then it hit me, "What's a human?"

"That's my cue," said a voice to the side of me.

I looked and saw a strangely familiar alien who had very dark and wrinkled skin with gray hair. I felt like I knew him from somewhere. What a weird feeling. Something about birds?

"They're the ones who rescued us. You slept through the whole thing. Lazy," said Kriin, trying not to cry from relief.

"Better lazy than dead, dear sister," I said with a smile. Then I remembered something, "Ship-head. The OU were the cause of the warp fluctuations. They have a ship that was making something like waves in subspace that would have torn us apart if we had entered their range."

Uleena's eyes grew wide and we sat in silence for a moment. Then a voice came over an intercom.

"What a remarkable coincidence. Ship-head Uleena, we just received permission from the Directorate of the United Systems to formally request access to your ships files for information pertaining to the Omni-Union."

I looked inquisitively at the ship-head and my sister. Kriin gave me a look that meant not to freak out. Which made me want to freak out.

"You have my permission, Tim."

"Thank you! Rest assured we will only be accessing information regarding the Omni-Union, as per first-contact legislative protocols. Also, we'll need to have a talk about repairs at some point, but we've gotta wait for the bureaucrats on that one too," Tim said.

"Who's Tim?" I asked.

"He's an Artificial Intelligence that's working with the humans. He's under contract for the next twelve years, apparently," Uleena answered looking just as confused as I did.

"Wait, if they're working with AI then are they the enemy? Are we prisoners of war?" I asked, panic seeping into my voice.

"No," the ship-head shook his head. "The OU aren't actually AI, I guess. Humans are more advanced than we are, so they have a different term for what the OU are. VI, Virtual Intelligence. I think that they think that someone is controlling the OU, but I'm not sure. I'm going to be honest, I'm just a simple ship-head. All of this is well above my pay-grade."

"What's the difference between an AI and a VI?" I asked.

Thin air answered, "I can invent stuff. You know, actually think about things. VI are imitative. They have extremely limited extrapolation capabilities. Comparing me to them is akin to comparing you to a lizard."

I was stunned by many revelations that happened all at once. I'd always wondered why the OU didn't have technology much more advanced than our own. And I had also just noticed we weren't on the Lowelana anymore, which must mean that we were on the human ship. The humans which were advanced enough to be able to distinguish between types of created intelligence, and have an AI the likes of which we've never seen working with them. And did that machine just insult me?

I was about to ask when an alarm sounded. I looked at the ship-head and my sister and they looked back at me. Then we all looked at the human.

"Damn it, twice in one day?" he muttered as he sat down.

A voice that wasn't Tim came over the intercom, "All hands, to your stations. This is not a drill. Non-essential personnel please secure yourself. Prepare for battle."