The young officer looked out the viewport as the pilot brought them in. Their new friends had selected a nice spot on the nightside of the planet for their meeting. Below them, she could see the ground zipping by as the shuttle came in for a landing at the site. Already a few alien shuttles had landed in the area, and a temporary structure had been erected. From the look of it some kind of prefab building they must have had on hand.
She rather approved of their choice of location for the meeting. It would be a much better location than any of the ships in orbit. It was neutral ground. Better yet this location was far enough away from the volcanos that the only thing they had to worry about was the air. Being on the night side meant the temperatures would be much more bearable as well. Thanks to its twin stars, and position in the system the planet could reach rather scorching temperatures during the day. It was still warm during the night, but not scorching.
As they drew closer the aliens activated a few guide lights. That was welcome as it helped illuminate their landing site and approach vector. The ground had been smoothed recently, and now resembled polished glass. Although for only a few dozen meters around the landing site, beyond that point the ground was the usual rocky soil that dominated this particular desert. Much of the planet was covered with dry, cracked rocky soil. There was some sand in some regions, but there wasn’t a lot of water on the planet. Not on the surface anyway, pretty much all of it was locked up in underground reservoirs.
If she had to guess the aliens had used a controlled application of their particle-based mining lasers or something similar to glass this area smooth. How they cooled it, she wasn’t sure, but it did make for a nice landing area.
The shuttle set down on the glassy ground with a slight thunk. It was time for the first face-to-face meeting between the Sol Refuge, and the Chi’ran Commonwealth. She felt a little uncertain about this. It was hard to say what would come out of this meeting if anything at all.
The first people off the shuttle were the few security officers they had brought along. They were to make sure the area was secure and hopefully prove to be absolutely unnecessary. It was a good day when the security troops weren’t actually needed. From the looks of things, the aliens had the same thought. She noted several alien soldiers moving about, all of them equipped with some kind of full body armor. Along with a rifle.
The troops they had brought with them were equipped with disrupter rifles, light combat armor, and a personal shield. So not that different really from what the aliens had brought. Although they had clearly given their troops heavier armor. A fact that made her slightly worried.
Nothing happened as the troops interacted however, and the clear signal was given. She slipped off the shuttle with her mentor. Ready to get this meeting underway.
Countryman shifted in his seat. The meeting had been underway for a few hours now. Neither side knew much about the other. So much of the discussion had really been probing. He had learned a few things from their answers however, and he suspected they had learned a few things as well. He had been speaking with the two aliens before him, a younger woman, and a man that seemed to be late middle ages. Although it was hard to say for sure if that was the case. They were dealing with an alien race afterall, and hell thanks to medicine it was already difficult to tell within their own race. He was nearly two hundred years old already, and Ruri wasn’t young either, even if she looked it.
It was easy to think of her as quite young given her appearance and behavior. Especially her childlike innocence around certain things. Altough she has been like that for as long as he could remember, and he had met her many years ago when she was a young girl on the cusp of womanhood. Even then her spark of brilliance shined through, even as she proved... rather dense when it came to certain things.
Putting that aside, he focused on the conversation at hand. As the older man decided to ask, “I recall that Captain Reynolds mentioned you were familiar with the Cathamari. I was curious as to the extent of that familiarity if I might be so bold to ask.”
Countryman shifted, and sighed, “We are more familiar with them than we would like. To be specific we fought a war with them for a little over two years until it ended rather suddenly.”
The woman interjected, “let me guess, they just withdrew after their homeworld got attacked by forces unknown.’
Countryman chuckled, “Something like that. We did well enough in that war, one on one our ships always emerged victorious, even as the enemy learned our weaknesses. Especially since we had learned theirs, allowing us to maintain a degree of advantage, even grow it in some cases. Regardless we are rather done with them, and would rather not be anywhere close to them.”
“I see. Does that have anything to do with what brought you out to this sector.”
“If you are wondering we are just passing through. We have no plans to remain in this sector.”
He blinked. Countryman had given a non-answer to the question, but it was enough. Thankfully the older alien changed the subject, “I see. Well out of curiousity have you had much contact with the Valorians?”
Countryman smiled, “A little, but enough to know that some of them don’t live up to their reputation. They can be awfully trigger-happy. Especially for a people so renowned to be peaceful traders. You would think they would try harder to establish contact, and not be a shoot first ask questions later kind of people. Know what I mean?”
They both shared a look, “What do you mean?”
“We encountered a mid-sized fleet of around two thousand ships in the Delta Four system. While we were trying to establish communications one of them took a pot shot at us, and it wasn’t too long before things devolved into a full on skirmish. We won, and we only had the three ships we have here for that battle. Although it helped that the Valorains are so overly reliant on energy shielding, and their ships tend to be rather undergunned.”
The two aliens exchanged a look, and spoke quietly. Perhaps trying to have a private conversation, but his ears picked it up. His implants even translated it for him to understand. In short it seems they didn’t believe him, and thought his statements were exaggerated. He didn’t care to disillusion them of that impression. They weren’t going to be staying in this region, not for much longer anyway.
Suddenly the door opened, and a young man entered. Countryman looked up, as the man handed him a pad. In the same moment, the Ensign informed him, “The Enterprise has detected a distress call. The ship sending it is about twenty light years away.”
Countryman listened and considered. At that distance, it would take them a week to reach the ship sending it. Assuming a consistent travel speed of warp five. If they were willing to push the engines a little they might be able to get there a little faster. Countryman glanced at the padd it contained a copy of the received distress call.
He glanced at the coordinates, and then looked at the two debating aliens, “How fast is that ship of yours?”
They blinked, “Not quite as fast as your ships seem to be, why ask?”
“Just curious,” he turned to the Ensign, “I’d like the Coto dispatched to investigate. Tell him speed is a priority, but don’t cripple the ship getting there. We’ll head out that way as soon as we are done here.”
The ensign nodded, and left the room quietly. Before long the discussions resumed. Although as it turned out little would be decided here, but they did end up exchanging some information. Countryman ended up exchanging tactical data on Cathamari ships for data on the local powers, along with some data that the Chi’ran had on the current state of the Valorian Trade Confederation. It painted a picture not entirely unfamiliar to Countryman. It reminded him of the twilight years of the Age of Fools. A picture of a government disconnected from its people the events surrounding it, one rife with political corruption, and those who weren’t corrupt were seemingly inept and unable to act in any meaningful capacity.
Things sounded far worse away from the core, where crime and riots were rampant. Made worse by waves of alien refugees bringing with them their own values, and beliefs. Not all of them could integrate in any meaningful way into Valorian society. Piracy had risen sharply across much of their territory as well, and both the military and local police forces seemed unable to counter the rising piracy. The picture painted effectively revealed a society built on a foundation of tissue paper and held together with glue and paper clips. Yet despite this, they seemed intent on ignoring the state of their confederation. Some of this data indicated they were still attempting to expand their trade network and their influence into surrounding sectors. Even in sectors like this were they able to find a profitable market. Here it was apparently mainly with mercenaries. All of this was concerning. Best not to widely publicize this not yet. He would make sure key officers on the council were made aware of this, but no one else. If the Valorian Trade Confederation were to collapse it would likely be the precursor to a galactic war. That was something to worry about, and certainly not something they wanted to be caught in the middle of. It seemed they might be on a shorter clock then he thought for finding that new homeworld. Although first, this information would have to be corroborated.
The captain slumped into her wrecked office. It had been a few hours since the beacon had been turned on. In that time, they had seen no sign of the surviving Chi’ran, or any response from their distress call quite yet. Those facts left them with more time to assess their own situation. The damage to the warp drive was extensive, both of the main engines required to form a stable warp field had been slagged by Chi’ran disrupter fire. The main sublight drives had taken several hits, but they had still been working. Key word being had. A plasma conduit had ruptured not that long ago, and it had taken damage control teams over an hour to contain the leak. Unfortunately not before plasma burned out half the engines, and breached the hull.
She was really regretting taking this job. Of course, it wasn’t entirely her choice. She was merely part of the company, but she could have turned down this recon mission. What were they even out here for? She knew a bit about what the job was. Locate an alien species, observe them, and if possible acquire samples of their technology. She knew several corporations back home wanted those samples desperately. What little she knew about these aliens underscored why. They had several unusual examples of technology including shield penetrating torpedoes, and much more interesting an unusual method of propulsion. One that seemingly didn’t use traditional thruster methods. Such a reactionless engine had untold advantages and represented a significant chance for profit. Assuming one could find these aliens, but it seemed they were rather elusive.
It didn’t help that they eluded normal tracking methods entirely. The company had reason to believe them to be somewhere within this sector, but the area they were searching was massive. Over fifty lightyears across. That didn’t sound like much, until you considered how long it took to cross just one light year. At warp four that would take about three and a half days. Of course her ship could travel faster than that, but it was still not a quick journey. Well her ship used to be able to travel faster than that. Now it was a floating wreck. A part of her hoped one of the other ships in the company weren’t too far out from her position and would respond before the Chi’ran came back to finish the job. Not to mention they only had so long before their supplies ran dry.
