[Azorea] Stars and Water

[Della]

The stars flickered out of view as the large, blocky, clumsy-looking ship, just barely aerodynamic, shifted out of Distortion Drive. Clanky mechanic noises echoed throughout its rooms and corridors as the structure tensed under structural stress.

They weren't reassuring sounds, but the Kind Wing was a sturdy old ship, with more than a century of faithful service in its fleet. It wasn't going to break now. It probably wasn't going to break, ever.

"Okay, here we are." The SI's metallic voice sounded somewhat excited. "150 million kilometers. Deploying solar sail."

Sitting on a comfy-looking patched-up sofa in a corridor of the ship (which of course didn't have a command bridge, like all Freespacer ships), with countless optical fibers coming out of his right temple, Stargazer Steffen looked around through the ship's optical sensors.

He felt the golden mirror membrane leave the ship, floating about tethered to its hull, and slowly fill up and tense, giving the Kind Wing a soft but steady acceleration.

"Second planet, right?" He noticed, gazing at the orb of water. So much water. "It's ALL water?"

Syntelligence Kana smirked, or at least it sounded like that. "No, it has a solid core. But still, the spectrography was correct... a stupidly huge amount of water. And an oxygen-based atmosphere, too!"

Steffen stretched a bit on the sofa. He was still feeling sluggish: the trip had taken a whole day, which he spent sleeping. He had nothing to do anyway, apart from joining the occasional Polysentience discussion. "...well, the water planet also has a forest moon with an atmosphere, and the third planet... those are clouds, right? This place looks plusgood. Maybe we should set up shop here for a while before the big leap."

The SI's voice hesitated. "...there's something strange."

"Whatcha mean?" Steffen opened an eye.

"I'm picking streams."

"Well of course, it's a damn planet full of water, you're bound to find a stream or two." He yawned.

The mechanical voice grew annoyed. "...I meant RADIO stream, you tard."

Steffen opened his other eye, too, but still lazily lying down on the sofa. "Other fleets?"

"Nope. No one's been here." The SI was sounding more worried by the minute.

"Maybe some Nep ships've been here and we're picking up the STL radio streams they've left behind." He slowly stood up. "Or you think it's-"

"No way to know." Kana muttered, almost more to herself than to her navigator. "But I'm ready to cut the tethers and blast up ECM and CDD at a moment's notice. Last thing we need is for the Black Law to pull us a Sector 47 while we're out getting water."

 

[Fay]

If there sensors were unable to detect them, visual sight of a small 1x1 meter communication buoy was emanate. It was orbiting the planet lazily, sending and receiving radio waves to and from several satellites that took on a low orbit for communication between the citystates. The ACS Ameriss, the only ship of Azorean design at this time, was just about to enter the atmosphere when their limited sensor capacity detected a strange energy reading on the other side of the planet.

The second-shift captain of the first Azorean exploratory vessel to the stars, was alerted to this apparition by a minor klaxon. Before giving the order to descend, she turned to her sensor specialist with an inquisitive look, "What's going on?"

The specialist looked at her dials and answered quickly, "Energy source suddenly detected on the far side of the homeworld! It is... similar to that of before.." Her gulp was clearly visible right after she said this.

The captain calmly nodded. She didn't want to put his people into anymore danger... but if she didn't investigate, the entire homeworld might be endangered! "Alright, hopefully, they will be friendly as before... If not.. well, then I guess we'll just have to take that chance." The rest of the bridge crew were still a little uneasy about the situation.

Recognizing this, the captain told her comm specialist, "Nevi, let the Parliament know of what is happening. Be prepared to send a quick message of mayday.. just in case..." Nevidi from second shift nodded, slightly flushed a purple because the captain was actually talking to her as well as worried about her first, and possibly, last official order. "Oh, and... we probably should wake Lord Rymas for this.." the captain reminded no one in particular really, just a hint for someone to volunteer. As this was decided, the Nimiss-class scout turned slowly towards this new energy source, hoping and praying that it did not equal their doom.

 

[Della]

The "energy source", which was fairly fait despite its size, was, basically, a large spaceship with a roughly cylindrical shape, faintly aerodynamic and apparently made out of several smaller cylinder-like parts welded together asymmetrically. It was mostly made up of empty space, and, if it had any engines, it wasn't using them, instead slowly making its way towards the second planet riding on a tethered solar sail.

However, it clearly wasn't there a hour ago, which suggested either some sort of cloaking, or faster-than-light travel.

"We have a ping." SI Kana's voice announced.

"A ping?" He looked around with the ship's sensors. "...you're right, a ping in low orbit around the planet."

"Quickly ascending." She corrected. "Some spaceship."

"IFF?" wondered aloud Steffen, looking hard at the small response on the sensors. Radar, Ladar and Visual superimposed in his consciousness, giving him a rough idea of what they were dealing with.

"IFF?!" Kana was laughing. "Do we even HAVE an IFF system aboard?!"

The Stargazer muttered something inaudible. "It... doesn't look Yamataian."

"Well, they haven't aethered us yet, so no." She showed him a tactican analysis of whatever the ship's sensors could tell about the unknown object. Which wasn't much. "Spectroscope says... heavy ionization. It has an aerodynamic shape, plus."

"Waitaminute." Steffen halted her. "That doesn't make sense. It's too small to be a tanker, and it can't be a dropship because there's no landmass where to drop."

Kana didn't answer to his doubts. "What do we do?"

Steffen thought about it long and hard. "...look non-threatening, I suppose. What the heck are we supposed to do?"

"Non-threatening?! We're a gods-damned water tanker, the only way we could look more non-threatening than this was if you were drifting in space in a Voidwalker suit with your pants over your head and my memory banks disconnected and strapped to your back." Kana snapped back.

Steffen stood up completely from the couch. "Leave my pants out of this." He said, looking offended and tugging at his belt as if to reinforce his statement. "What do YOU propose to do in this situation, then? You're the toaster here, you're the one who's supposed to be smart."

"I'll send a greeting, I suppose... in all the languages I know..." Sighed Kana.

"Avoid the Yamatai." Steffen noted quickly.

Do you receive this message?

"There, a simple audio stream via radio." Kana sounded very proud of herself.

"That sounds stupid." The Stargazer protested. "Add something at least."

Who are you? Where are you from?

"Don't just ask questions, you sound too agressive. Say something."

"Saga's beard, damnit, Steffen, shut up. Wasn't I supposed to be the smart one here?"

We are the 'Kind Wing', a ship of the Free State.

 

[Fay]

Rymas walked briskly onto the bridge. He was a little peeved about being taken away from his sleep mate's warm body, but.. business before pleasure, he supposed... "What's the status?" he asked nonchalantly.

Nevi blinked awkwardly a few times as she listened on her headset. Before the captain could be answered, the comm specialist piped up, "Lord Rymas! I mean.. uh... my lord..." When he turned to look at her, she had flushed a rather deep purple before she quickly continued, "I.. I am getting some strange radio signals. They kind of sound like.. some sort of language, but I can't make it out."

Rymas pondered this before saying anything, "Hm... hopefully, they will have a translation device of some kind. Reply with an introduction and repeat a few times. The rather young specialist quickly nodded and went to work. Barely over spawn-hood.. the poor lass... Maybe I should..... he thought to himself as he took a look at the creature sailing up to them.

The Freespacers would receive a return message in the Azorean language: "This is the ACS Ameriss of the Azorean Commonwealth. Please identify yourselves. I repeat..." The message would actually repeat itself about three or four times.

 

[Della]

"Mh, they answered." Steffen raised his head, the optical fibers coming out of his temple shaking a bit. "...But I can't understand it."

"An alien language." Kana noted.

"It might be encrypted?..." Wondered Steffen, throwing himself back on the sofa.

"It wouldn't make sense to talk in encrypted in this situation. And I know languages. No, they're an unknown race and they're trying to interface with us."

"In a language we don't know." He muttered, disheartened.

"I do." Replied simply the AI.

The Stargazer looket at the ceiling in surprise. "...since when?"

"Five seconds ago." He could HEAR the Syntelligence's smile over the speaker. "Parallel computing. We only have a short message to work with, so translation's going to be a bit wonky at first."

"So what do they say?"

"They say that they're something called an Azorean Unitedsomething and they ask who we are."

"Azoreans." Steffen pondered. "Do we know anything about them?"

"Just that they exist, from Nep records. Little more. They're a planetbound people, apparently." She said gravely.

"Well, just like everyone but us." He crossed his arms.

"No. I mean REALLY Planetbound. As in, they don't know FTL."

"You're kidding me." Steffen said. "Do we know anything else?" He added after a moment of thought.

"Nope. What should I do now? Any idea?"

"Mhh. Send them what work we've done this far to estabilish an interface between our two languages. If we work on both sides, we'll get to the solution better. And, uh, I suppose... greet them and tell them we're not bad guys."

We're the 'Kind Wing', a water tanker of the Free State. We've come here to collect water from the planet you're currently orbiting. Nice to meet you.

"That was a bit... generic."

"Shut up."

 

[Fay]

The message that the Azoreans received was a bit strange looking to them, but the intent was clear. Rymas once again pondered his next move. "They want water, huh? ..." he finally said. "Inform the Parliament of this situation.."

Two messages would be sent out, one towards the planet and one back to the Freespacer tanker. The Freespacer message would say from Rymas himself this time: "Forgive me, but this is our homeworld. I cannot allow you to take water from our planet until my government agrees. I would not risk the harm of my people.

 

[Della]

"They say the planet is theirs." Steffen rolled his eyes.

"...Risk the harm of..." Repeated Kana in disbelief.

"Bullshit. I can't see floating cities nor anything like that." The Stargazer was fuming. "They're making up lame excuses. Superlame excuses. Ask them who the heck they're trying to make fun of."

Kana was, fortunately, a bit more... diplomatic.

How can a planet made up of water be anyone's homeworld?

"It seems like they're bureaucratic freaks like everyone else." Sighed Steffen, rereading the message. "How long are we gonna have to wait for a decent answer?"

"Neps took whole days like they had lots of time to waste."

The Kind Wing was still approaching, in the meanwhile. The tethered sail was propelling the ship faster and faster towards the planet.

 

[Fay]

The Azoreans on the bridge looked at each other rather strangely. They understood what was said, but... "How can a planet not made of water be anyone's homeworld?" Honestly, being an aquatic species, the Azoreans would not know that life could survive on worlds made solely or mostly of water. The Ameriss had halted it's progress in high orbit over the homeworld as it waited and watched the tanker.

Meanwhile, the Parliament was buzzing with activity as the judges debated about allowing this "Free State" to acquire some of their water. Of course, they had plenty to go around, but the possible damage to the eco-structure could be disastrous! Other concerns were of possible diseases that they could spread, as well as other things that may afflict the people.

 

[Fay]

(OOC: []s are the radio transmissions.)

Stargazer Steffen and Syntelligence Kana looked at each other in disbelief. Well, "looked" rather metaphorically, since the SI didn't have eyes to look into, but still the atmosphere was more or less that.

A few moments passed in silence. Then, they both said simultanenously: "...no way."

[...Your people LIVE on that planet? Like, under the water? Really? No kidding?]

[Yes, we are an aquatic race. Before a little while ago, we had thought all life lived as we did… if life even did exist up here. I suppose you are proof that it does.]

Rymas was still having trouble himself believing it, but a starship did land on the homeworld not too long ago…

Nevi wondered what these strange, new creatures looked like… Some of the images that she came up with made her shiver and her tail twitch slightly.

[...You're really lucky, you know? Living immersed in an almost infinite supply of water... Our kind lives on starships, so water is a rare commodity for us.]

Steffen chuckled to himself. All this was just too surreal. "Hey, let me talk to them."

Kana didn't sound too enthusiastic about that idea. "You're gonna mess things up." But, nonetheless, she decided to let the Stargazer conduct the conversation.

[Is it true that you don't travel in space? How's life underwater? What do you people look like?]

…don't swamp them with questions."

Nevi informed Rymas of the most recent messages. He waited a moment before having her send a reply, more then happy to answer the questions.

[I can’t imagine how that must be, but it is a little hard to explain what we look like… However, life on the homeworld is comfortable. It is… home, I suppose. And , yes, we have just started to explore the vastness of space.]

Steffan tapped his fingers. The answers he was getting weren't interesting at all. [You have a lot of water. Why can't you give us some?]

Rymas gave him as clear of an answer as he could, [We are worried that you would disrupt something in the ecosystem or perhaps even introduce something harmful to us.]

[Introduce something harmful?]

Steffen looked into the nearest sensor. "Hey, Kana, do you have any idea what they mean with that?" The SI simply replied: "Hm, Maybe."

[If you're worrying about microbes, we don't have any. Our biological citizens don't have an immune system, so we probably need to be more careful than you.]

Steffen sighed again. "This is gonna take forever. Isn't there anything we can do to burst through the wall of bureaucracy?" "My, isn't that a poetic metaphor." The SI chuckled. "We could do like our trade agreements with the Neps. We give them stuff, they give us stuff."

[Is there anything we could offer as an equivalent exchange? (Since you seem very protective of that water, even if there's a lot of it.)]

The Parliament required some additional information and notified the crew of the Ameriss. Rymas quickly relayed the message to the Freespacers with an additional reply,

[We do not know what to ask for, really, but my government wishes to know how much water you wish to acquire. We are also searching for a certain coordinates for you to extract the supply of water if we decide to give you some. Please stand by.]

 

[Della]

Steffen asked Kana aloud: "Why the heck they're worrying? We're a damn tanker. They can SEE how big we are. We're not going to suck their planet dry!"

"Some people are just paranoid." Replied the SI. "Or greedy."

[We're talking of about ten thousand cubic meters. We ourselves don't have much to offer in exchange. How about commented maps of surrounding space for about sixty light years, and our spare FTL drive? You guys look like you could use it.]

 

[Fay]

After some discussion with the viceroy, who it turn had just finished debating with the entire Parliament, Rymas promptly replied with a grateful attitude to the SI's offer:

[My government has agreed to your terms. You may turn over the maps as you proceed to the following coordinates. Please forgive us, but this will be a precaution. We do not really know your species just yet, so we are unaware if you are trustworthy or not. This.. 'FTL' drive, however, is currently unknown to us, so after you've taken your capacity of water, we would be grateful to receive it. If you decide not to give it to us, that is your choice. The maps will be a great help with or without the drive. I thank you.]

After that somewhat long-winded, like with most Azorean males, transmission, a set of coordinates arrived for the Freespacers. It would take them to a portion of the homeworld where the citystates or wildlife would be hopefully too deep to be affected by the extraction.

 

[Della]

Steffen tapped his foot on the metallic floor, loudly. "Well was about time. Let's go."

At his command, the Kind Wing's solar sail realigned itself, following the coordinates the Azoreans had transmitted.

"What do we send them?" Asked Kana.

"I dunno. They've never traveled outside of the system, so... send them a detailed map of their immediate vicinities, like 5-10 light-years, and... something more vague for the rest. Write down where unstable space and FTL deadzones are, and add geopolitical and social notes with a profile for each nation, race and major planet. Just so they learn to avoid the dangerous people."

"You don't want to transmit the full maps?" Asked Kana, quizzical. "Doesn't information want to be free?"

He smiled and shrugged. "Give them a rough map, and they'll want to go and see for themselves. Give them an accurate map with all details, and they'll just take it for granted."

The SI laughed, realizing what he meant. "You... not only want to give them FTL travel and an excuse to use it, but you're trying to infect them with your own wanderlust."

He walked down the corridor. "'Cause I'm a Stargazer. I can't stand to see a whole people prisoner of a gravity well and the wall of lightspeed. Well... I'll go to CDD Drive number three and unbolt it. You send the maps."

"You could've offered them anything else in exchange for the water." Pondered Kana aloud, amazed at the thought processes of his comrade. "Maybe it would've just been enough to ask nicely enough and long enough. But you just had to give them the key to the stars."

"I hate closed doors."

[Transmission incoming. We're moving towards the coordinates you signaled us. Should we expect visits aboard, or vice versa?]

 

[Fay]

Rymas waited patiently for what seemed like hours before the Freespacers replied. As their ship moved towards the coordinates, which was actually more or less the 'eye' of the giant storm that was just starting to increase its velocity again in its eternal cycle, the Azoreans received the map data.

[Thank you so much. This will help improve our space efforts by many decades.. perhaps even centuries. We are uncertain how your ship's environment would affect us...]

A slight pause occurred.

[However, as ambassador of the Azorean Commonwealth, I would be honored to be the first among my species to meet you face-to-face on your own soil.. so to speak. Also, please be careful. Our atmosphere is somewhat.. violent, at times.]

Rymas' message quickly rang out to the mobile tanker. The Azorean scoutship remained unmoved as it waited for orders from command and crew to relocate at a moment's notice.

 

[Della]

[We're transmitting you details on our habitat. Keep in mind that this ship's life support system can adjust it (somewhat), in case it wouldn't prove healthy to your biology.]

"We're..." Steffen's voice hesitated as he returned, holding a roughly spherical, head-sized lump of unbolted machinery, tubes and cables dangling, in his hands. "...going to have to enter that very turbulent atmosphere, don't we?"

"Retracting solar sail, engaging chemical rockets. Yeah, I suppose. Hold tight."

"Where are we gonna land?" Asked the stargazer, worried. "There's no... LAND where to LAND."

"I think the overall density of this ship is lower than the average density of water." Replied Kana.

"You mean that..."

"We float, yes."

The tanker ship clumsily entered the planet's atmosphere, withstanding the intense heat and shaking furiously in the turbulence. Steffen almost fell face-down on the floor. He braced with his back against a wall, sliding slowly towards the sofa as the Kind Wing pierced the upper strata of the atmosphere.
Finally, as the ship, with one blast of chemical rockets to slow down the final approach, impacted against the oceanic surface, the poor Type Three was flung away by the force of the collision, throwing himself on the sofa, clutching fiercely the CDD drive to his chest.

 

[Della]

When the situation settled, the Kind Wing was floating calmly on the ocean's surface.

Steffen stood up, clutching the CDD drive with one hand and holding his temples with the other.

"I hate you." He murmured.

"...sorry." The SI apologized. "I've always wanted to do that."

Once in the atmosphere, the ship's sensor suite was mostly useless. Steffen tried to "look" around, but only saw blue water and blue sky in all directions.

"...they sure have a lot of water here."

"Really."

"So, um... what do we do?"

"...we wait?"

 

[Fay]

The Ameriss was ordered to remain in orbit as diplomats would be sent to greet the newcomers. Such diplomats included two female Holy Warriors and a priest with direct orders from the Parliament to meet with the visitors. Three blue heads popped up from the rustling waves a short distance from the Freespacer ship. The one in the middle was wearing the traditional priest dress-robe. Both Holy Warriors wore traditional skinsuits while one of them had plenty of tattoos across her face and neck. Both also carried a single serrated blade. The group awaited the next move of the Freespacers.

 

[Della]

"They're outside." Kana informed Steffen. "Shouldn't you go and greet them?"

"''Bout time." Laughed the Freespacer, walking down the corridor and up to the airlock, and opened it, looking out.

"...I've never seen this much water in all my life." Was the first thing that escaped his lips, before looking down and noticing the three blue heads. "...so THAT's what you look like!" He laughed, reaching down with a hand to help the first of them to climb up and into the Kind Wing. He could put a face on them, finally.

"Welcome on the Kind Wing. I'm Stargazer Steffen." He grinned, shoving the CDD drive in the hands of the first Azorean. "Here's a welcome gift from your new friends."

 

[Fay]

The priest gratefully accepted the hand, curious as to how a Rill-like being could talk like a normal person. The modified datapad that Hanako had given Raytim chirped, translating everything that was said into the other's language. "Welcome to Sudran. I am Rurcis, representative of the Azorean Commonwealth. We gratefully appreciate your generous gift. However, I was informed that you wished to trade it for water?" the translator's voice was a little dull compared to the chirps and other various sounds of the Azorean language.

The priest's tail twitched in nervousness as he viewed his surroundings with utmost care as well as stare at both Stargazer and CDD device. Both seemed completely alien to him.. which wasn't not far from the truth at all! The two Holy Warriors helped each other climb up, but remained outside for the most part. They preferred the rain and sisterly comfort rather then venture into the somewhat warm and dry interior of the Kind Wing.

 

[Della]

The interior was, in fact, warm, dry, and completely bare. The ship didn't have absolutely anything in the way of comfort or furniture except for Steffen's old, broken couch, and, here and there, strange plants, grass, moss and lichens growing on the walls and ceiling of the corridor.
And that corridor and its four doors was all there was.
A door led to a small cargo hold with food and water rations, another one to a Grinder, a massive, obnoxious and rather intimidating piece of machinery intended for the recycling of anything that could be recycled. The other two doors simply opened on the network of narrow maintenance passages that ran across the ship. No bridge, no quarters, no engineering section.

"Welcome aboard, Rucris. Well, not really trade. We just kind of need water, and so, when we found your planet, we couldn't believe it! You have A LOT of water here. It's awesome. And so, we wondered if we could take some."

"And when we realized that your world is inhabited, we also wanted to establish a contact with your race. You know, explore new worlds, meet new civilization, that sorta thing." Explained rather informally the disembodied voice of Kana.

 

[Fay]

The ship seemed strange and alien to the priest, but he decided to not worry about it too much. When he had heard the AI's voice, the Azorean looked this way and that, trying to figure out where the extra voice had come from. "Who was that?" he asked Steffen, unsure of if he was mistaken by how many people were in the room with them. Getting back to the matters at hand, however, he said simply, "You can have as much water as you can carry. Thank you again for the gifts."