MV4 Snippet 3

Sitrep:
So, this morning Rea sent me the manuscript back. I added the missing bits and then shot it over to Goodlifeguide for final formatting. Fingers crossed it'll come out before Christmas.

If you are wondering why I haven't been posting, it's because the blog now refuses to change the font color. I have to do it by hand, highlighting sections sometimes 1 character at a time to get them to change to white. That is needless to say, getting old. :P

Anyway, here is a snippet from one of the Federation stories, Universal Translator. It takes place during the early days of the Founding of the Federation.

Universal Translator:

Ss'th'r'th took his ship through the shipping lanes with growing impatience. Bites Hard was a warship; it should not be constrained to invisible lines on a map! But, he was in Federation space.

Erindale, the strange alien name didn't even lend itself to his tongue. And trying to understand the two legs! He shook his head in irritation. He wouldn't even be here if the ambassador, and what an alien concept that was, wished for a ship to be used as transport home for the blood and hunt festivals.

He'd heard that the two legs had fast formidable ships. But when he saw his first Federation warship, he sniffed in disdain. It didn't look that powerful. It was long but small.

Once in orbit he sent off a traditional warrior's greeting. When they didn't respond right away, he immediately switched to his species tradition of firing a low-level volley at the other warship. Purely to test them and prove they were predators and not prey of course.

[|||||]

Ensign Okashi Mizushui was officer of the deck when Calypso received the message from the alien ship. It didn't translate though; he was confused so he considered what to do. Sending out the traditional Federation hail seemed appropriate, but given that it was an alien species, he wasn't certain about that.

He wished it hadn't come in on the graveyard watch. He suppressed a yawn as he tried again to find some sort of entry on what to do. He didn't want to disturb the XO or skipper; they would ream him for doing so. But they'd ream him if he got the response wrong.

He saw the response challenge as a sort of test. He just hated that it was taking so long to figure it out. Calypso's communication's officer and ship's A.I. were also asleep. Therefore, it fell to him to figure it out.

“Sir, should we send them a standard hail back?”

“Damned if I know,” he muttered.

“We don't even know if they were sending their designation, a ritual challenge, or a bloody recipe for leek soup,” the helmsman muttered.

“My money is on the recipe.”

“I don't know. Isn't that a Naga ship? Aren't they like, big time predators? So could it be a ritual challenge? Didn't I hear something about someone or other comparing them to some fictional alien warrior race from Terran mythology? Klingets or something?”

“Klingets?”

“Not the form, the way they behave. Their culture. We had that course on them when they joined up a couple years back.”

“Yeah. I know what you are talking about, and I don't remember it,” the ops rating said with a shake of her head. “Damn it, I keep feeling like it is on the tip of my tongue.”

Ensign Mizushui grumbled and slapped the console in frustration. “I'm not getting anywhere with this, damn it. And I don't remember either. We had sixty-plus alien species in the Xenology course at the academy. It was just one semester,” he said with a scowl of frustration.

“Look up Nagas. Figure out what we're missing. I ran a search and came up empty. I even dumped the recording of their transmission into the computer, and it came back with too many entries,” the ensign stated. “Maybe you'll have better luck with it.”

The sailors looked at each other dubiously. An officer wasn't supposed to admit they didn't know what to do.

“The ship is powering up systems. Weapons are hot!” CIC warned.

“Shit,” the ops rating stated.

“Is she a pirate? I heard they are into piracy! Did we just let a pirate walk into our weapon's envelope?” the helmsman asked, eyes wide.

“Battle stations,” the ensign stated, making the decision. “Comm, call the XO and the captain to the bridge.”

“Aye aye, sir. XO and captain to the bridge, please.” She didn't say what she wanted, for them to hurry.

“What is it?” the captain asked as the XO said she was on her way.

“Their weapons are hot! She's firing!”

“Shields! Return fire! Helm, get us the hell out of here!” the ensign stated, taking the page direct from the manual.

[|||||]