[NSS Potemkin] writing a letter

To: Ketsurui Yui,

I would appreciate the opportunity to talk with you in person as an unaffiliated individual rather than as an officer of Nepleslia. There is a particular piece of information that is important to me that I believe you possess. It would mean a lot to me if you would provide a time and location of your convenience so that we may meet.

From:
Heram Wazu.

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“Maybe I should change ‘like’ to ‘appreciate’,” Wazu asked himself as he looked over his message again. Of course no one was there to say anything one way or the other, the mess hall of the NSS Potemkin was empty save for him and the omnipresent ship’s AI. Several moments of munching on a muffin would lead to several changes in the specific words being used.

“Being turned down right off the bat would necessitate an immediate change from asking to trying to make a deal.” More thought, more time, and more muffin later Wazu would pair down the message to just a few sentences, wondering if now he sounded too needy, or too much like he was begging.

“Alight go ahead with sending this,” Wazu said, tossing down the data pad in his hand as he stood up from the table, tossing an empty muffin wrapper into the trash. “Make one final check to ensure that it is in proper Yamatain, and Drei; I will need a Yamataian dictionary again. It has been a while sense I have needed to use that language.”

Back on Starbase Hayes, the orbital fortress floating amidst the Nepleslia system, a lone communications officer suddenly leaned forwards towards his monitor. This poor fellows day wasn't going all that well; his sex robot had to get new motors in its leg joints, all of the strawberry jelly doughnuts had already been taken by the time he got to the Communications Installation Surveillance station, and the superiors had run another sweep on the computers and removed his games again. It didn't matter how hard he tried to hide his Galaxy Adventure 2 game...those damned techs always managed to find it. The lad couldn't help it; his job was boring, boring, boring, sitting in front of a monitor all day watching the communications relay back and forth.

It was during his casual glance at his weekly sex-droid-oriented InterNep-Zine Ro-butt's that the communications officer caught sight of Wazu's communication. He had heard of Heram J. Wazu; some scientist, was a part in the creation of the Vopey Drive or something. And he was sending a communication to...Yamatai? That was a bit odd...and it only grew more odd as the Comms officer skimmed over the message.

Despite the months and months of watching his little screen day in and day out fruitlessly, the man knew his protocol. He immediately copied the message and sent it off to his superiors, and sent a message of his own to the NSS Potemkin, direct to the captain.

Hello, uh, Captain of the NSS Potemkin. This is Communications Officer Nat Fletcher hailing from Starbase Hayes. I, uh, have received a notification that your ship has just recently sent out a communication to Yamatai, intended to reach the Princess Kesturui Yui. Is everything alright? The Plan A field near your position didn't detect a trespassing ship within 10 lightyears, are you perhaps sending out a warning to a ship just outside the warning range?

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Wazu chuckled to himself, after all he had just forgotten the one lesson that he had learned from the highest ranks of Nepleslia’s government. He let the memory of the huge embarrassment he suffered by letting an un-uniformed man walk off with sensitive files linger for just a moment before returning to what he needed to do.

Never think you are to smarter than you are.

“This is Captain Wazu Responding,

Sorry for the false alarm. I am making a request for personal information from the princess.”

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After all, it wasn’t a lie and he had not done anything wrong, yet. However, he figured that this would look suspicious after all he wasn’t even a Nepleslian. Before his mind started to ponder this he decided that he’d have to wait for their response before worrying to much about it. He would direct his attention to Drei,

“Go ahead and send that message back. Also please keep an eye on this for me it could get out of hand quickly.”

A considerable amount of time would pass before Wazu would receive a response. By then he would be occupying his workstation on the bridge of the ship. The display in front of him was showing various star ship components and statistics, the dark void of space displayed on the ceiling, floor, and walls of the room with key planets and star ship locations highlighted.

“Alright Drei, start preparing contingency plans and take a final update of my physiology for CC backup. Give the remaining crew shore leave and arrange for passage on a civilian transport heading for Pisces.” He then made his own checks on his datapad’s connectivity to Drei’s databases wanting to make sure he didn’t loose any memories should his current body end up dead.

Soon the Potemkin was entirely empty like its mess hall had been earlier. The few remaining crew members were having fun on Unity station and the Captain was boarding a civilian transport heading for Pisces.