[Claw Nebula] An Unexpected Meeting

[Della]

With a whizzing, shaking sound, the small team of three shuttles shifted out of Distortion Drive and back into normal space.

Of course, thanks to the peculiar properties of space, the noise could be heard only inside the crafts.

The angular profile of the Claw Nebula loomed in the starlit background. It was an impressive sight, but unfortunately it didn't look like a claw at all from that angle.

Ring was disappointed. "Just who called it "Claw Nebula", anyway?" He wondered aloud.

Tall and wiry, white-skinned and white-haired, Starwalker Ring Two Five 25-5272-2223 was one of the six 'spacers on the three-craft recon patrol into the far galactic north.
Not exactly unexplored space (the Fleets "Resplendent Brilliance of Heaven", "Grey Wing" and "Everlasting Story" had already crossed that space 121 years ago, and the spot commonly known as the "Pirate's Cove", nested deep in the middle of the nebula, was a well-known, if seldom used, hiding place), but no one had been there in a long time.

So, in anticipation of the exodus of the Free State towards the galactic north in order to leave the Genocide (and Yamatai) behind, many scouts were being dispatched by the Fleets.

Mostly small missions. Traveller-class shuttles, refitted with better FTL drives and improved sensor and communication suites. In this case, three Travellers staffed by two crewmen each.

The other crewmen on the "Chance and Luck" answered him, matter-of-factly: "It's like a claw only if you look at it from galactic south and are about two lightyears above the galactic plane."

Stargazer Alkaid Zero Five 05-5255-8877, a light-framed, slender Type Two, blinked at him with his backlit blue eye-sensors.
Ring smiled, a bit forcedly. He didn't expect an answer, but he was used to Alkaid's diligence and seriousness. They had been friends for a very long time, almost three years, after all.

Ring sinked a bit deeper in the connection niche, relaxing his body as he let more and more of his mind flow into the cramped shuttle's circuits, into its powerful sensors, and, from there, into the wide, silent space.

The Claw Nebula blocked most of the radio noise from the south, years-old transmission limited by the speed of light, that reached them only now. There was nothing else. Just him, the other two scout shuttles of his team and the feeling of nothingness for several light-years, in all directions. And, in a small corner in the back of his head, the comforting, neverending stream of data of Polysentience.

He floated around for what felt to him like an eternity. Then, a small, distant sound-like feeling woke up his consciousness.

"...hoy, Alkaid."

"I heard it, Ring." The Type Two replied, simply. "The Wave Coupler's listening mode picked up something."

"A signal from there..." He gazed out of the narrow window, into the nebula, with a clear mental map of the surrounding space. "Not one of ours." It was pretty obvious, but he felt the need to say it aloud anyway. With a mental command, he flashed the news to the other two crafts via laser communication.

For a moment, idly, he wondered: was it a trap? Maybe the Fascists were still trying to destroy them, even so far from their borders. But then he dropped the thought with a smile: Yamatai never used traps. They weren't smart enough, by a long shot. If they wanted to destroy them, they'd just make a number of ship so ridiculous that he'd need to use exponential notation to express it appear and open fire against everyone and anything.

"Let's spread out." He agreed with the other crews. "It could just be a freak signal from New Nep reflected by the Nebula at an odd angle. Shift into the usual formation and let's triangulate it. Yeah, report exchange in one minute. We'll take point. If it's bad news, engage ECM and head for Port Hope at max speed using the safe route while we hold them up."

He gazed with his mind's eye at the coherent beam laser that the Traveller mounted. It wasn't even a weapon, just a welding and cutting tool. Not much useful in combat.

"You've become paranoid lately." Noted Alkaid in his usual, tranquil tone of voice, peering into his thoughts.

He grinned. "You know why." There was no need to talk about that. They both knew why. Heck, everyone knew why.

The rest of the minute passed by silently and quickly. Then, the other two shuttles reported in.

"We've got coordinates." Ring nodded to himself, raising himself a bit from the niche in the metallic wall. "It's... close. 0.24 light years."

"We can get there in a bit less than two hours and see if there's still something." Replied his comrade, powering up the Traveller's Distortion Drive.

A moment later, the Chance and Luck was darting towards the faint radio signal, at the modest speed of 1000c.

 

[Exhack]

As the Freespacer ship emerged into realspace, they would notice a single straight banana shaped object, armored in what appeared to be a coat of smooth white eggshell. Large blue oval shapes were arranged around the object, and glowing blue power conduits filled small creases in the rather organic-looking structure. Further analysis would reveal that whatever shielding systems it had failed at some point, and received a series of impacts from shower of high speed micrometeorites, causing a shotgun blast-like wound near what seemed to be a thruster aperture.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be leaking.

----

"Alright Vayshirin, this is your chance to do some field work. Picking up ruined probes might not be a choice mission, but logging flight time will be invaluable if you're aiming for more than patrols until you decide to retire." Senbalri Issan Vadrazi communicated to his charges over radio. "Just keep calm and don't unlock your weapons until I say so. It's only us and that damned thing out here. Engage MASC Drives and follow my bearing."

It was one of the probes that had been sent out after that damn broadcast reached the Homesystem, sending a distress call because it had spent several months without any kind of biomass replenishment and suddenly experienced systems failure. Had it not been the third time in the past week, he might have been more sympathetic. Still... the organoid technologies of the Commonwealth were still living creatures, in a sense, and it was his responsibility as a Mechanist to care for them as needed.

It might only take them another minute or so to cross distance between their ship and the prodigal probe's last known coordinates.

"Aww man... why couldn't we just leave it out here?" A recruit complained over comms, his powered frame making a visible sigh gesture.

"My tears are sand, Vayshirin Zhamel. We do this because the wrong people might find it. What then?" Issan barked, hoping that the recruit would begin to understand.

"And what if we came across a sympathetic species? Wouldn't this be a great way to introduce ourselves?" He retorted, as they approached their destination.

"As voyeurs? It would reflect on us badly if their first glimpse of use was an exceedingly alien-looking creature that was deployed with the intent to spy." Issan explained gruffly, experiencing minimal shock as he emerged from his MASC tunnel. The effects of his KORD system disabled the effects of inertia on the various components and objects inside of his craft from being reduced to a fine paste by rapid deceleration. "As far as we can tell... technologies such as ours are rare, and they might think it some kind of abomination."

"That's a matter opinion. I've always liked the way organoids look, and I'm sure they'd be appreciated somewhere else in the universe." The recruit replied energetically, hoping to shake the bad feeling his superior seemed to project every time he opened his mouth.

"You know what else could be appreciated elsewhere in the universe? Pedophillia, incest and mass murder. So stop your blathering and set your sensors and listening to active. Drift estimates said it should be within a light minute of our position. Issan out."

 

[Della]

"Scan." Asked Ring. His (metaphorical) hands were already full with the post-FTL checklist and with maintaining communications.

Alkaid nodded, immersing his consciousness in the refitted Traveller's powerful sensor suite. "Hey, look at this." He flashed the readings to his comrade.

"...what is that thing?" Wondered Ring.

"Some kind of... half-biological, apparently unmanned craft. Maybe a probe or buoy. Looks like it was hit by space debris." The automata replied professionally.

Ring pondered for a moment. "...there's a radio message on the low-freq 60 kHz range, now that you mention it. Maybe a distress signal." Then, after a moment of hesitation, he said: "...It's not Yamataian."

Alkaid shook his head. then, all of sudden, while in mid-motion, his eyes blinked once, twice. "Space anomaly."

Ring became silent all of sudden. The post-jump checklist was complete, so he simply relaxed and let his friend use the computational power of his own brain, now that he had nothing to do for a moment.

The automata spoke again. "...FTL. Not Distortion Drive. Not Hyperspace. Some kind of... space compression."

So maybe it was a trap, after all? The two Freespacers watched in surprise as additional signatures appeared in the space around them.

"Two... three... four and..." Muttered Ring. "...Four. Humanoid-shaped crafts." He powered up the FTL and turned around the shuttle. "Let's make a run for it. Alkaid, take care of ECM..."

Alkaid didn't make a move, staring in the distance. "...Alkaid?"

"...IFF marks them as 'unknown', Ring." He said. "They're communicating with each other via radio. Can't understand the language, but, anyway, it's not Yamatai."

"...nor Nepleslia." He said to himself, now more convinced. A new race? "...ok. Give me radio comms over their same frequency. Hope they don't take offense if I use their channel." He grinned. "Keep FTL and ECM warm, just in case."

Before turning on the radio, he quickly checked the situation of nearby Freespacer ships, just in case.
The other two shuttles were in the vicinities, a couple of minutes from them. The next-nearest ship was an escort, following a mining mission deep inside the nebula, some two light-years from them. 14 minutes of travel.

So, they were basically alone.

He flashed a brief message detailing the situation through Polysentience and waited the result of the Digital Democracy vote. Eight seconds later, the Free State had decided in favor of sending a greeting message.

Feeling on him the reassuring weight of two million eyes and minds behind him, Ring opened the channel.

Greetings, unknown spacefarers. We are the Saorstat Deoradh, the Free State. We come in peace and goodwill from the stars.

 

[Angelic_Crux]

Ask them to do a barrel roll.

I don't believe they speak the same language as we do. It may be best to send some A/V. Maybe some smooth Starnote, and D-drah sharing water? From the visual, it looks like they may practice some form of organic engineering, so I would steer away from something with too many autos.

Barrel roll.

STP SPMMNG TH THRD RH 12 THS S SRS BSNSS

We are all children of the stars. Let this interface be the zero one of our lulz. Plusluck to the recon.

 

[Exhack]

"Vector Wave sensors detecting multiple instances of FTL activity. Looks like subspace or hyperspace, based on disruption of realspace at the point of entry." One of the recruits announced, feeding the data through laser to avoid transmission to the unknown objects. "The other two are a few light seconds away, and the one closest to us seems to be approaching the probe."

Issan checked over the data being relayed to him for a moment, his mind being directly relayed the relevant information. "Anything else?"

"Their ships are very hot... and saturated in radiation. It'll be impossible to no track them at any distance shorter than 1000 kilometers. They're also speaking Colonial, but I don't know any of it."

"Wait... Colonial? Alright then. Stand behind my unit and charge up your shields systems. DO NOT activate your weapons, and communicate exclusively through laser. I'll open hailing frequencies and see who these people are." Issan ordered, his red and gold VANDR unit moving a head of the standardly coloured white and gold units of his charges. This was a very different situation than he was used to, and his actions might very well have lasting implications.

 

[Exhack]

Ring sighed and repeated the message, through the same sequence. "...Maybe they don't understand us?" He wondered, cycling through several languages: nepleslian, lorath, machine code...

The signal appears to be changing languages... but they probably don't know Saalsari. I'll have to do my best to remember those courses on Colonial. Issan thought to himself, as he opened a communications channel on the bandwidth the vessel was broadcasting on. He'd probably be misunderstood if he tried, but snatching the probe and fleeing would leave the wrong impression to begin with. He'd just have to do his best until they could get an interpreter. "Eh... you speak this language? I am not well familiar, but can know words. Here and there."

"Wow. An answer. Neat." Ring said to Alkaid, aside. "...what do I say now?" Alkaid sighed. A bit embarassed, Ring turned his attention to the radio. "We understand you." He hesitated, unsure of what to say next.


"Ah... good. I am explorer of Astral Vanguard. Rank of Senbalri." Issan explained, finding the that he was speaking with a far more pronounced accent than he would have liked. "My team came to recover and repair probe that became damaged due to foolishness."

After that came a long silence, almost twenty seconds. It felt almost as if their interlocutors were discussing what to ask next. Then, another message: "What is the 'Astral Vanguard'?"

"Military force for the government of my people. We come from 'north', if you use rift-space as a pseudo-geographic west, far away from the nebular cluster full of stars." The commander explained, his words carrying a slight echo as they seemed to be relayed from his mind, rather than his voice. The control module of his VANDR essentially shut down his body and rerouted his functions to those of the unit, meaning that his communications replaced those that would normally have been produced by his mouth. "I am wing leader for these Frame Runners."


Ring and Alkaid looked at each other and nodded. "We don't know your people. Who are you? What are you looking for?"

Issan figured he might as well say the profound sociological reasons for his race even bothering being there. He didn't feel as if he were properly answering his questions, and despite their comprehension of what he was saying, it was difficult for him to do the same. "Eh? We are... the Iromakuanhe. People of Dreams... or Dream Stewards, if you want a meaning. We received message from nebular cluster, of race called Freespacers being massacred unjustly. We send probes, and begin exploration of nearby space to find them."

Ring's face became very, very serious, frowning deeply. Alkain knew that face: he only made that expression when thinking very, very hard about something. Then, after another pause, albeit shorter than the previous one, he answered: "Well, then you have found us, Dreampeople."

"We are the Freespacers, the wanderers of the stars. We, the survivors of the Genocide, are removing ourselves from the borders of the Fascist Empire of Yamatai, and seeking a new place to live among the northern stars."

"... I see. I wish the circumstances could have been better." Issan replied, feeling a little let down that they had only arrived too late.

Ring's fromw slowly crached in a smile upon hearing Issan's disappointed tone of voice. "No, Dream Steward. It is good that you did not find us, or you, too, would have suffered our same fate. Keep yourself hidden and away from Yamatai, because they thrive in war. They are strong, and enjoy slaughtering the weak." He glanced at the four frames. "We are not a warlike people. We never stood a chance."

Issan Vadrazi gradually moved his unit forward, moving at less than a hundred meters per second. "I am disturbed to hear that. Our faith is of peace and introspection, so war for the sake of annihilation is both terrifying and insulting." He said, his tone becoming a little bitter. The large forearm of his unit moved and rested against its chest. "I will have to report findings to my superior, but I believe this will work to your advantage. Should you go north, you will be well received."

"...superior?" Ring quirked his eyebrow. Alkaid whispered to him: "They're probably a hierarchical species like the others." Ring nodded, and then answered on the radio: "Bring to your superiors our most sincere greetings and best wishes, then, Dream Warden." Then, he made another pause, reaching into the depths of Polysentience, where almost everyone was waiting eagerly.

A vote was already running on whether to send a ship on a diplomatic mission to this people, and the odds were stacked for a favorable response. Apparently the Free State was very eager to finally have a peaceful contact with what seemed to be civilized people, despite their adoption of a hierarchical system.

He waited for the results, then added: "We wish to share our water with you." Alkair prodded him. "Don't use nonstandard language." He coughed. "That is, to become friends with your people, Dream Wardens. Perhaps one of ours should visit your Mothership?" "...or planet." "...Or planet?"

"Eh... we have Birthyards that grow and cultivate organic craft and worlds which we inhabit, but I have lost track of your analogue. What is this... Mothership?" Issan replied, feeling somewhat lost in the conversation. It would seem that they made use of a large number of expressions that he would not likely know of. The ancient files did not really cover dialects, after all...

Ring sighs. He was losing track of the conversation. Well, that was to be expected from a first contact, wasn't it? "I meant, the place you come from. Where your boss is. To talk to him." He said, simply and straight. Gods damn hierarchical systems.

"I will have to communicate my findings and wait before I am to do that. Deliberations will have to take place in light of the dangers you mentioned, but I am sure that your people will be allowed entry. If you send a messenger to this precise location in two hundred standard hours, you will receive your response." Issan replied, feeling somewhat annoyed that they would have to deliberate over these things when the outcome was going to be so obvious. "We will leave the probe here to act as a beacon, as soon as we refuel it so that self-repair systems may restart."

As he thought. Timesink timesink timesink. Well, maybe they had time to waste... good for them. "Okay. We'll deploy a comm relay here too, to keep in touch with you." His voice was somewhat annoyed.

Issan smiled at the mention of a relay, as it would like speed up the delivery of any message by a significant margin. "If this is case... then you may be able to expect sooner answer." He said, somewhat less annoyed. "It may come down to only a simple day or two."

Ring was getting impatient. Evidently, fisrt contacts weren't like he had imagined them to be. more adventurous, maybe, or just faster, with a more dramatic pace. Maybe this race was long-lived enough to make little of a two-day delay. He checked via polysentience when a relay could be delivered. "...We'll put here a relay in two hours."


Issan received a MASC Laser datafeed from a ship a significant distance away, which had relayed him the official reply from the commander of his division. "I've just received note of their plans. An interpreter has been sent to return with you, if this does not bother. She will function as an envoy of sorts, and will be able to answer many of your questions until they have formed a decent decision. Something to keep you busy and give a rough idea of things."

Ring relaxed in his niche. Well, at least they were throwing them some data to play with. "Return with us? Well, ok. But the bulk of our ships lie within the boundaries of another nation, one with which we are friends with, but might object to your ship entering without warning them first." He checked the regional maps. "...how about we meet in some kind of middle ground..."

"There is a system that we detected, 'southwest' of here. Is neutral?" Issan inquired, verifying the signature of an emergence from a MASC corridor. The interpreter had arrived, and all that remained was finding a suitable location where she could communicate with the Freespacers without prying eyes or the guns of a hostile nation. And getting them to agree on it. "Adravni, Lantulri Nevki. You've been sent to act as the interpreter?"

"Senbalri Vadrazi? I imagine these are the people I was informed of?" She asked, her light blue VANDR gradually regaining some normalcy as it exited long-range FTL. "How have the proceedings gone so far?"

"It's only a matter of them agreeing on a place to continue this meeting. I'm also afraid we're boring them with politics." Issan answered plainly.

Hrmph. Looks like I have a lot of work to do. Khisa Nevki thought to herself, before opening a channel with the lone Freespacer shuttle. "Greetings. My name is Khisa Nevki and I will be your diplomatic envoy and cultural guide while the proceedings are underway. I hope that you've not had too many difficulties communicating with poor Issan over there. He's not a very cunning linguist."

Alkaid raised his head. "Another FTL signature."

"Other people?" Ring commented as an aside to his comrade. "Well..." Then, the blue armor appeared, transmitting its message. Meanwhile, Alkaid went through Polysentience records of that system. Basically unexplored.

"There was no real problem in communicating with him." Finally answered Ring, with a half-grin. "Good Will is the universal language when other languages fail."

"I've checked." Alkaid said to him. "We can have a light escort there in less than an hour. They already agreed to the rendez-vous."

"We will meat you near that star, then. One of our ships is en route, they will reach it in twenty four hours. There, we will speak more comfortably."

"Reasonable enough. I'll be there." Khisa replied.

END

 

[Angelic_Crux]

24 Hours Later...

Created from a somewhat overactive brain-pattern, Spacecase 2-Channel 37-8704-7113 had a habit of double-teaming the polysentience and the physical world with his chatter. "Do you ever wonder whether there's an end to the universe? Like if there's going to be a wall somewhere we just bonk into? I really hope not. That'd be a serious lolsink. Well, for me at least. Because then, eventually, we'd fill it all up, you know? Oh, looks like we're coming up on them..." 2-Channel quieted, firing the retros on their ship to slow the speed with which they approached the organic vessel ahead. "Well, I guess there's still all kinds of new stuff to see, even if the universe is a big box..." He murmured from his vocalizer, multiple manipulators reaching from his body to carefully monitor the ship's progress.

"Is this where I take over and hail them? I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it..." The young woman sent along as an envoy, Freethinker Norn 58-0081-5317, leaned forward on the boxy chair she was perched on, intently streaming data from the ship's sensors. She wore an absurdly large old t-shirt, though it would have been more accurate to describe as a smock, given how it hung to her knees. The gray fabric had been cut open in a number of places, small trinkets sewn in to hang down from the cuts, bridging the gaps between the fabric that revealed pale skin blotched with grayish-green lichen here and there.

Norn leaned forward turning on a communication stream targeted on the fleshy vessel ahead of them.

Baa weep grahna weep ninni bong.  Thank you for making the time to meet us.  I'm Freethinker Norn Five Eight.  I specialize in salvage media, dead languages, and ancient memology.  Let's be friends!

. . .

Did you want to hang out in your apartment or mine?  This one is a total dump, but mi casa es su casa.

2-Channel turned his head to the impromptu diplomat, making a blurting noise as his single red, glowing eye flashed. "Hey, Norn. Uh... heads up for next time, but maybe not everyone speaks the same weird dead languages you and your thread-mates do. I hope whatever you said doesn't mean 'Shoot us, we're devil-aliens' in Meatshipinese.."

 

[Exhack]

Hmm... these Freespacers are... at least more interesting that I expected. I'll have Maerro wait outside with the rest of the wing so that they don't feel intimidated. Language barrier would also make this really difficult. Khisa pondered to herself, as her blue and gold Erla VANDR gradually made it's way towards the Freespacer vessel to meet them half way. "Maerro, you and the rest of our wing will stay back here. We haven't been in this system yet, so you might want to take the time do some mapping until I return."

"Understood, Lantulri Nevki."

"Uhm... pleased to meet you Freethinker Norn Five Eight. I'm Kihisa Nevki, Envoy of the Iromakuanhe Astral Commonwealth. I'd be more than happy to join you on your craft, if you could send me the coordinates to the least irradiated location on your ship." She replied, taking note of the readings from before and comparing them to the current ones. It seemed that the large amounts of radiation and heat were... if not common, at least not anomalous.

 

[Angelic_Crux]

Roger-doger, Envoy Kihisa Nevki.  The comp-pool is pretty rad-low.  Better to pay heed to the south-west corner than to the furnace, 'swhat the Master said.  We come bearing gifts of Nepleslian anti-rad pills, and suits of lead to wrap up weary bodies.  Me interface with you long time.  GET OVER HERE.

Norn sighed as she cut off the commlink, spinning in the creaky old chair that seemed only tenuously bolted in to the floor. "I wonder if we're ever going to find the monoculture... she doesn't seem to be getting the signals. Ahhh!" She'd ruffle her short-cut brown hair with both hands, kicking her legs before hopping up.

"Better watch out. If she can't take the rads, I bet this envoy is a meatbody just crawling with bugs. Try not to get a DIZEEZ." 2-channel let a manipulator drift over to snake across Norn's neck in a gesture that was somewhere between intimate and casual. Norn just blurted out, "DIZEEEEEZ!", seeming to find a certain joy in the uncommonly used word.

"If they link us a stream, tell them I'm by the a-lock with suits and pills. Stygian! The best!" With a short tug of the manipulator, Norn slipped away, bouncing and jingling off into the bowels of the cramped, dark ship. Even if she studied foreign cultures, sometimes it was easy for Norn to forget that 'spacer ships tended not to seem the most pleasant environments for other races.

"They had better not be haga!" "Would I sell haga to a 'spacer such as you?" The signals came from the polysentience in an instant, making for much lulz. Chapter 924, indeed.

 

[Exhack]

"Nepl- what? Err... thank you for the offer. You said that you have medicines? Of what type? Depending on what they're made of, I may or may not be able to use them." Khisa replied, heading towards what she was informed was an airlock. She would have preferred a more complete docking bay, but given the relatively small size of the unit, it couldn't really be helped. Hopefully it would be able to dock without her having to spend any time in vacuum, even with a normalsuit on.

"Does your airlock adjust to accommodate different openings, or will I have to exit into space?" Khisa asked the 'Spacer, as she made her unit's OS close her suit's helmet. Just in case she would have to get out.

 

[Angelic_Crux]

"It's a Nepleslian pharmaceutical produced so that foreign meatbags... er... visitors can be comfortable on our vessels. It's made from..." The spacecase went quiet as he browsed through the catalogs that had been uploaded into the Polysentience. With all the viewers sucking up streamspace, the ship's downstream was frustratingly slow. Ah, the burden of being in a historic place at a historic time. "Nanites. Lots of 'em. They'll read your DNA and maintain its integrity against radiation poisoning. I hope you're not allergic to them."

As the two ships drifted closer to one another, the Traveller shuttle's universal clamp system shuddered into action, guided by the expert hands of 2-Channel to clamp, tug, and hug the VANDR snug, making a nice, airtight connection. "Don't worry about the docking system. We deal with a lot of different ships, so we've gotten good at docking. It beats learning how to swim in space. Anyway, I'll turn this over to the actual diplomat." The automaton's voice ceased to buzz over the commlink.

On the other side of the airlock, Norn was waiting. Besides her somewhat customized 3XL t-shirt, she was wearing a pair of jury-rigged sandals made from some old rubber tubing, with a big box of things in her hands: A suit in case Khisa needed it, a plastic bottle of pills, and a carefully assembled care package, too! The Traveller's air-lock opened to reveal a lovely cobalt blue chitinous armor. "Oooh, very shine! Are you in there? You can come out now, nobody but me! Spacecase Three Seven is up in the cockpit right now. I hope he wasn't too rude. Manners aren't his core."

 

[Exhack]

There was an audible hiss and wet stretching sound as the Aerudirn armor covering the entry on the VANDR's backpod unfused, revealing a mid-sized opening large enough to accommodate anything short of a Militant. As the door opened, Prajna suspension fluid was being retracted by its internal systems, leaving a fine layer of droplets of slightly sweet smelling orange fluid coating the entire inside of the cockpit.

Inside was a young woman wearing a very form fitting space suit and helmet set, cradled in a shiny orange seat with what appeared to be numerous tendrils driven into the various joints over her body, and her spine. These disconnected rapidly and retracted into the cockpit, as flexible armored pads seemed to melt and close over the openings in her suit. Reflection of light and the generally dark interior of the unit seemed to obscure the features of her face, but the suit did hint at a lithe and athletic, if slightly too much so, build.

Khisa's mind began to interpret her own senses, rather than those being sent to her through her entry port interface and she blinked, in what felt like the first time in hours. The craft's NI indicated mostly breathable atmosphere, so she unlocked her helmet to take a breath, swiftly neglecting that her lungs were filled with symbiotic suspension fluid, not air, and her attempt to exhale resulted in a perhaps slightly unsightly cough up of orange fluid. Not painful, but certain very awkward.

Embarrassed by this, but not particularly in the mood to cling to a minor mistake, she hefted herself out of her niche and stood up straight to face the oddly clothed humanoid. Her features had a slightly angular look to them, highlighted by a band of light red crossing her cobalt blue eyes. Her expression was forcibly assured, and in a far more natural manner, friendly and content. It was the first face to face meeting with the member of another race. Kind of a big deal.

"Freethinker Norn, right? It's a pleasure to finally meet face to face." Khisa said contentedly, almost at the limit of her abilities in suppressing the monstrous giddiness she felt. "I'm Lantulri Khisa Nevki, Envoy. It's unwieldy to say every time, so call me by whatever combination of those words suits you."

 

[Angelic_Crux]

Freethinker Norn stepped back at the sound of the VANDR opening, its fleshy sucking quite different from any mechanical whoosh she'd ever heard. It was vaguely reminiscent of the sound of a lob-ster being pulled open, or perhaps the suit's shell just made her mind race to make connections. The smell? Like the sweet syrupd they'd found in a few scavenged tins here and there. It left her wondering what kind of surprise would be coming out of that shell.

"Welco-" she began to lift the box of gifts up towards the Iromakuanhe envoy, though her friendly chirp was cut off in her throat as the envoy coughed up that orangey fluid. Which was greater, her interest in this organic interface the Iromakuanhe used, or her worry that the shuttle wouldn't be quite radioactive enough to kill any organisms? "Um... are you alright?" She'd put down the box in her hands to point to where the orangey dribble made a line from the corner of Khisa's mouth, though she'd then rummage through her crate of goodies to produce a bottle of pills and a vacuum-sealed bottle of... something. The label had writing in an unfamiliar script, a wave cresting over the logo.

"It's nice to meet you, too! I think I like Khisa the best... you can call me Norn. Just Norn!" The short stripling of a girl, only about 5' and looking not quite one hundred pounds, opened up the drink, a soft hiss coming from the plastic container before she took a short sip and offered it to her, along with the bottle of pills in the other hand. "Here, put your hand on the base of this bottle. That'll let it configure itself to you, so it works..."

If Khisa took the bubbly, sweet drink of an indeterminate, fruity flavor (is electric blue a flavor?), Norn would quickly open up the bottle of anti-rad pills and offer her up one. "So... this is all pretty exciting, huh? I'm getting pinged with so many requests and suggestions of what to say and do, it's making my head spin... I guess you must be under a lot of pressure, too?"

 

[Exhack]

"It's a very long story, but this is basically the first peaceful meeting we've had with another race in quite a few centuries. So yes... I'm in a very funny situation right now. Ah, err..." Khisa sighed, wiping away the small dribbled of fluid on her mouth. On the bright side, she wasn't sure if the short, energetic Freespacer girl had been offended or frightened by what she had just done.

She'd probably have to explain it right away to avoid any misunderstandings. "...you'll have to forgive my spill earlier. We use a high energy nutrient solution to keep our pilots fed in the field and heal wounds, but it has to completely immerse to be entirely effective. It also enables liquid breathing as long as it fills the lungs... and what you just saw that is what happens when I forget that I haven't been breathing air for several hours."

Still, she wanted to get the nondescript sweetness of Prajna out of her mouth, and what appeared to be a drink can was suitable. The rather average-height Iromakuanhe woman took the can graciously and made a discerning sniff on the open lid for less than a second, noting that it was a sweet, carbonated beverage of a sort that she was unfamiliar with. She would have preferred water to wash the taste out of her mouth, but it would be fine as well. "Thank you."

"Right... I can't really do that with this glove on, can I?" Khisa unlocked her left glove, and quietly removed it, baring her well manicured hands. While that itself might have seemed odd to Norn, the addition of pronounced exoskeletal plates on her knuckles and joints of her digits. She extended her hand out a slightly puzzled look on her face. "So how does this work?"

 

[Angelic_Crux]

"Well, just as long as we don't end up in a lot of slashfics together. Lolol." Norn murmured the comment, looking off to the side as she got a bit overwhelmed by the onrush of traffic going on in the shuttle. Now that they'd actually gotten the envoy there, things were really buzzing on the Polysentience.

"Oh, so that's what it is? I was kind of curious, since it smells sweet, and it looked like you were breathing it, but its color is kind of industrial "DON'T DRINK ME". Huh... high energy nutrient solution..." As Khisa was looking at the salvaged soft drink, contemplating it, Norn scampered over to the open backpod, putting her fingers in some of the lingering drops of Prajna. "Sweet... like orangey fizz-drink. But no fizz." Of course, her brief report was already drawing comments within seconds.

She'd hurry back to Khisa's side, clearing her throat. "Sorry, uh... there were a few thousand people wondering what it tasted like. I'm glad you like the drink! I tried to pick a good one to bring, but not knowing what kind of flavors you guys like it wa-" Her eyes drifted to Khisa's hands, or more specifically the prominent plates on her knuckles and joints. "Oooh! Wow, your hands! They have plates... 'if you live according to the true spirit of the armor, it will guard you and be faithful to you', right?" Norn paused thoughtfully. "Oh, right, pills! Can't have you getting rad-sick on us. Um... the pad on the bottom needs a blood sample. Is it okay if I cut you with something? Or, you can do it yourself if you like! I'd be a kind of bad diplomat if I was just like, 'kasheeen' and slashed you all chanbara Shaw-style after we just met."

 

[Exhack]

This is getting very strange, very quickly. Oh well... just take it in stride, and if anything happens to you later because of an indiscretion now, well... you tried. The now matters more, as it were.

"My hands? Well... they're not exactly armored, but they're convenient things to have... sometimes." Khisa clarified cheerfully, glancing back at her digits. She didn't exactly have vials of her own blood on hand, so would probably have to resort to opening her thumb up by more mundane means. Oh well... it wasn't like she needed buckets, anyway. "I can do it myself. Hrm... if you'll bear with me while I do this..."

The Envoy placed her thumb in the corner of her mouth, just underneath her top canine and made a small jab. It didn't hurt very much, aside from a small sting where her sweetened saliva fell on the wound. She had definitely pierced the skin and there was a small amount of blood seeping to the surface of the tiny cut. Khisa gently took a hold of the pill bottle from Norn's hands and placed her lightly bloodied thumb on the bottom, so that she could take the blasted nanomachine pills and get on with the actual diplomacy.

"So... first things first. This meeting was organized so that we might get to know the other's people and form a kind of understanding of eachother." She said, swallowing a pill and chasing it down with a small sip of the fizzy drink. "Oh... and uhm. Do you have anywhere where we can sit comfortably for this?"

 

[Angelic_Crux]

Once the bottle indicated that Khisa's genetic information had been recognized, Freethinker Norn would just open it up and offer the envoy her pill. "One pill every six hours should keep you shi- um... good. For our meeting. Oh, and we do have a good place to sit! Though, it's next to the cockpit. Here, please, follow me!" Taking the bottle of pills back, Norn would drop it in the crate of offerings, hefting it up and leading Khisa into the shuttle's central hallway. It was dark and cramped, and the corridor's gray plating was lined with a thin grayish-green moss. Thankfully, the walk to the cockpit was a short one.

"Here we are! Well, not here, but there." Norn gestured off to the side of the cockpit, where a nice little lounge had been assembled. Or rather, a glass table and two chairs had been bolted down: a fake leather recliner and an office chair missing its plastic wheels. Norn moved to the office chair, setting the box in her hands down on the table. "We wanted to give you some music and stuff like star maps, but we weren't sure what kinds of storage you can interface with. Um, let's see, we have it on... magnetic tape, magnetic disk, optical disk, and electric memory cells. All kinds!" Plopping down on her chair and taking a little spin, Norn would offer to Khisa. "Oh, feel free to take a seat! I saved the comfy one for you. Primo!"

Norn brought herself to a stop after one rotation, putting her hands down on the table to still herself. "Basically, I'm here to tell you all about our culture and people and history, but also to try and make friends and see if we can hang in your space and maybe do some trading. Would you want to do business or pleasure first?"

 

[Exhack]

"Works for me." Khisa tagged along with Norn as they headed towards the bridge of the ship, glancing round at the very patchy job inside the vessel. It was definitely unlike organic curves she was used to, but it had a certain utilitarian charm, like a few of the older composite airships she recalled seeing now and then.

"Luckily for you, we had to develop firmware updates for our electronics when we had problems before, trying to transfer files between conventional and organic computing systems." She explained, but then politely shook her head. "That'd be fantastic, actually. Our race is in dire need of some idea of what local space looks like, and it would probably speed up our decision if you offered them a thoughtful gift."

The envoy sat down gracefully in the recliner, crossing her legs and resting her back comfortably against the back of the chair. It wasn't a fleshy form fitting seat, but the creak of leather as she sunk into it and general rustic feel was refreshing. "I'd rather if we just talked culture. I'll let the politicians and businesspeople carve their own niches in business and trade. Information is a free commodity, especially valuable if you can turn it into understanding. So please, help me understand your people."

 

[Angelic_Crux]

((JP Between ExHack and Myself!))

Norn gave a tentative nod, some of the furtiveness in her expression softening. "Oh, so they'll be okay? When I found out that you guys seemed to have a lot of organic technology, I was kind of worried that you might have trouble with anything we could give... anyway! Um, the optical disk has lots of star-maps on it, so you can know what space looks like! Information wants to be free, after all..." She pushed the box forward, moving it a bit more than halfway across the glass tabletop before she'd settle back down into her own chair. "Understand my people, understand my people..."

The short-statured 'spacer lifted a hand, pointing to her head, just above where her cropped brown hair parted above her ear. "#1! We're all one. Together, a gestalt, every consciousness aware of everyone else's. Constant contact, perfect empathy." She paused, biting her lip. "Well... not perfect, but... but almost. It's almost scary to think of what it must be like for other people... I mean, not being able to just reach out and touch other minds. Is it lonely? For you?" Without thinking on it very much, Norn had turned the topic back to her guest, planting her elbows on the edge of the table and leaning forward with rapt interest. "I mean, not having everyone always there for you... isn't it too painful? Too distant?"

Empathy... maybe we're not so different after all... Khisa seemed to drift for a moment, digesting what the Freespacer girl was saying. It was odd, for all heir differences, the notion that people could synchornize to the enrichment of a culture, rather than it's stagnation, was a concept she had regarded as something unique. Maybe it was? But she'd have to explain her side of things and maybe 'touch down' on a few points before formulating a decent idea of what her host had said. "In a manner of speaking, we're never too seperate from eachother. Touch is a window into the soul of my people, and our abilities to join seemlessly with living machines enables any person that wishes to see another intimately across any distance to do so."

"Admitedly... those distances can be felt, but you always have your wingmates, the crew of your ship or any living person in communications range that feels that same way." Khisa said happily, smiling at a few of her recent memories with that. Boredom during long FTL flights did tend to make you go to great lengths to stay sane, and sometimes, reading scriptures and meditating just didn't cut it. "But what you have is admirable. How many minds do you have in your network at any given time?"

The young Freethinker cum diplomat gave a few enthusiastic nods to Khisa's explanation of the empathic bond her own people had, though she couldn't help but wonder whether she was being poetic or talking about some kind of organic polysentience-like network. "2nd op wanted: Is Khisa talking about tech or just being sentimental? Post follow-up questions! We may have finally met people like us!" Norn's eyes had rolled up and slightly to the side as she put her query up on the network, giving her a look of mild contemplation and distraction, though she quickly snapped back to attention.

"How many? That's a good question... there's at least a few hundred thousand that are pretty active at any time! Some of us are more quiet than others, though, so you wouldn't really know they were there unless you pinged them yourself. Sometimes you sort of get little islands that form when you spend a lot of time with certain people. Y'know, like the ones in your family, or people who study the same thing, or even just friends you met from across the universe on a lonely part of your cycle!" The poll seemed to think tech. Ah, it was like the isotope generator inside her just gave out a burst of warmth! "So, you guys are like us, too? I mean, we touch a lot, and its nice, but... it's not part of the polysentience or anything. So yours is based on touch?"

Norn hopped up from her chair, circling around the table and reaching her hand forward with a wide smile. Her slightly grimy fingers were splayed out wide, her open palm facing the Iromakuanhe envoy. "...can you show me how to do it? The way your people interface?"

"Eh? Well... it's not total immersion if I go about it that way, but alright." Khisa placed her ungloved hand upon Norn's and attempted to form an accurate image of what her nervous system was like. Ostensibly very similar to her minus the addition of a transmission layer underneath the skin, but full of wires and implants, especially in the cranium. Was that how she communicated? Cautious, the envoy gradually connected and balanced out what she thought were the Freethinker's emotions and sense of touch.

Khisa felt strange... more energetic and impulsive while she felt some of her own her fairly casual composure bleed away into the other being. There was also sort of nagging that she couldn't quite feel. Voices... maybe? Hundreds, or thousands, but her current connection wouldn't allow her to experience them in full. "Do you want a more direct demonstration?"

Norn exhaled softly, her closing her eyes as she felt... something. For all the time she'd spent immersing herself in the polysentience, even this brief brush with the Iroma way of interfacing was completely unlike what she was prepared for. How could any amount of time spent in a world that existed only in her head have possibly prepared her for a connection that shot straight to the heart, radiating out into the entirety of her being. She felt her anxieties about their meeting melting away, a closeness with someone else hovering at the edge of her consciousness in a way she'd never known before. She could still feel the connection she had with her people, questions and queries piling up like grains of sand tumbling in her ears.

Somehow, even as she was perfectly present in reality, the world seemed to become distant compared with this immediate presence that lingered closer than Norn could have imagined. "Don't stop... I've never felt this way before... I've only watched and read and seen and listened. I think... I feel so calm right now. Even with everything in my head buzzing."

"At least I know our species are compatible." Khisa smiled again. She was neatly reminded of some of the recruits, barely into their twenties, who had grown up in more insular communities and never learned the joys of empathy and touch play. It wasn't anything to be ashamed of either. Plenty of people had their own spin on it, and it was as easy to do as a handshake. "You've probably noticed by now that we're also sharing part of a sense of touch, so I'm going to tap the didgets of my left hand in a specific sequence. You'll probably be able to feel at least the pressure, and maybe the texture on the inside of my glove." She explained, tapping her reinforced organoid flesh-covered fingers into the armrest of the lounge chair. Index, Thumb, Index, Annular, Pinky, Middle Finger, Index...

"I kind of wish I could share the polysentience with you..." Norn's words were spoken with thoughtful care, though some of the comments streaming over the first contact threads gave the freethinker reason to reconsider that wish. "I've streamed senses over the polysent before, but... this is different. It's fleshier. It's like I'm here, but you're here, too... like we're both the same together. It feels kind of like how people describe love, but... without the aching. We learned how to put our minds together, and you learned how to put hearts together..." The girl put her other hand down on the table, letting her fingers just tap in the same rhythm as Khisa's.

Norn felt the smooth, soft touch of leather underneath a hand that wasn't hers, but was given to her, at the same time her fingers pressed into the smooth, hard glass at her side. "Does it feel like this all the time with everyone for you? Always being this connected?" Her lips pulled down in a frustrated frown. "...people are being perverts somewhere."

"Part of our education is learning how to control it. Without any training, it would be active, but you couldn't prevent someone from doing strange things, or do much more than make someone else feel strange." Khisa chuckled, gently unclicking the tabs on the side of her helmet, allowing her suit to pull it into a compact shape neatly resembling a hood. A gentle cascade of straight dark red hair fell just past her shoulders, while she simulltaneously exposed one of the more prominent aspects of her physiology. A pair of horns, gently curved outwards like those of a herbivore of the savana, smooth and ending in a dull, unpointed tip jutted backwards from her temples, encircled at the base by a pair of bony loops. "I hope the experience wasn't too unsettling."

 

[Exhack]

ON: Traveler Shuttle, near the Claw Nebula.

The young freethinker gave a thoughtful nod of her head to Khisa's words, softly murmuring, "It did make me feel a little strange..." A bit rattled by what she'd just experienced, she turned her gaze upwards, just in time to see the envoy reveal her rather unusual (from a 'spacer perspective, at least) horns. "Y-you have horns!" She blurted out, quickly turning a bit red at the embarassing faux pas. "Oh, I didn't mean... um... I was just a bit surprised! They're... they're very graceful. Wow... um... do they do anything? Like store your power?" She'd hover a bit closer, tentatively reaching for the horns. "Is it okay if I feel them?"

"Well... I don't really have a frame of reference to work with, but I do know they allow my people to hear sounds behind us very well." The envoy replied happily at the compliment. Letting go of the Freespacer for a moment, she traced her fingers from the base of the bony loop that reinforced her ears, all the way to the tip of her horns, which gently curved inwards and extended roughly two inches past her head. "I suppose it's a strange sort of adaptation to have, but at least they look nice." She smiled again and let out a faint chuckle. "Saying that you like another person's horns is a very strong compliment among my people. You can touch them. Just be gentle."

"Oh, well, you have very nice horns! The best horns I've ever seen on a person, bar-none!" Norn eagerly reached forward, the enthusiasm that shone, childlike, in her expression belying the cautiously soft touch she used to feel them. "I've never felt a horn before... I only ever saw pictures and recordings. That's sort of most of what we have... but we're happy to share it with you! All of our data, our lore, our wisdom from near and far!" Norn pulled her hand back to her chest, bracing her feet as she gave a dramatic gesture, reaching out to Khisa. "Ah, traveler, if only I could give you more than this lonely heart of mine! Oh, oh, do you want to feel my lichen? You can taste it, too, if you like, but I'm not sure if you'd want to..."

Norn leaned forward, pulling up the drooping sleeve of her overlarge t-shirt to expose her upper arm and a particularly noticeable patch of the gray-green lichen there. "It's not really as pretty or impressive as a horn, but... it's all I could think of..."

Khisa seemed utterly pleased by the praise being given to her for a moment, but suddenly had a fit of reality when she saw what seemed to be vegetable matter growing on her host. Wait... lichen, growing on her skin? It could be symbiotic! Or an affliction... I should ask. She pondered for a moment, glancing at the large spot almost too intently. "That's rather interesting. Would this happen to be... a natural growth among your species?" She asked, attempting to keep her tone terse and polite as to avoid sounding like it was disturbing to her.

The short-haired girl gave a quick, enthusiastic bob of her head. "Mmhm! It's part of how we survive all the radiation and stuff. Lots of lichens and stuff in our bodies! Like, I probably have some floating all through my blood-stream even now... oh, and there are kinds that grow around the ship. Eating up dead skin or... uh... other stuff." She'd pause. "A ton of other stuff that I really don't think it's important to repeat right now... but it's amazing how different all the people in the universe are, isn't it?" She'd let out a long sigh, looking back over her shoulder towards 2-channel and the viewscreen. "I wish there weren't bad people out there... space is dangerous enough without having to worry about other people hurting you, right?"

"People have spent lifetimes wondering why people go out of their way to harm others when there are suitable alternatives. It's sad, but the best you can do is just avoid those people and help others as you go." Khisa sighed, remembering how she felt when she first heard of the thousands of Freespacers that had been senselessly massacred, on scale that she could only remember hearing in the annals of the times before her species had come to exist, nearly a millenium ago. "I cannot apologize enough that the Erla Miraiv hadn't come sooner. This is was first spacebound venture of this scale.. and we were too cautious to help you in your time of need."

Norn shook her head, more to silence the flood of responses that were coming to her than to negate what Khisa had said. "Don't say those kinds of things... everyone has a reason. Every thing has a reason. There's no such thing as evil in a vacuum." Somehow, the rapid pulses of the polysentience seemed far less immediate than they had just hours ago. Even if every thought, every sight, every sound was there, didn't it leave a gulf between their hearts? It felt like an emptiness deeper than the dark between the stars. "You... you should have come sooner... there's already so much hate and anger on the polysent... why couldn't you have been here to stop that?! To show us how, how..." It was at times like these that tongues failed 'spacers.

Norn ached to send an avalanche of concepts, words, and images to Khisa, but she couldn't. So she just reached forward, impetuously, taking up the envoy's hand and clasping it in her own. The girl wasn't sure whether she ached more to have the Iromakuanhe heal the rift of empathy among her people for the Yamataians or to heal her own sense of alienation from those who had grown so embittered after the Darkening.

"..." Khisa had forgotten to close the connection she had initiated with Norn earlier, and thus unprepared, was met with the onrush of emotions from the poor Freespacer. Longing, fear, desperation and uncertainty crashed into her being, surrounded with what felt like a pervasive atmosphere of anger. Was it because they hadn't made it in time? They tried their hardest... but could they have done? No... she had to remain calm... keep in control. And they needed to get some perspective. "How could you even say that? Only a few days ago, you didn't even know we existed, and we were still trying our damnedest to find you." She said, her tone taking an icy mask of determination and self-assurance.

"We needed you! I needed you! All of us! Everyone! Why?!" Despite the waves of calm that emanated from Khisa, Norn's heart was an inferno of emotion. It might have all been too much for Khisa to take on if the small girl gripping her hand so fervently hadn't been pulled off by her pilot, two auxiliary appendages gripping her wrists as she was pulled back. "We're having some technical difficulties. Don't be offended. Freethinker Three Seven's head isn't interacting well with everything." Even as the pilot calmly spoke to Khisa, his voice carrying with a slightly tinny buzz, there seemed to be some kind of silent conversation going on between him and the girl who was struggling to be free of his appendages.

"Overwhelmingly, we are pleased to have made this contact. We are already buzzing with hopes and plans for the future we have ahead of us. I can show you some maps while Norn has a chance to cool off. The network is giving her a lot of trouble over her sudden infatuation with you. If it's any consolation, you seem to be a cute couple. For two random strangers thrown in a room together."