Diplomacy

Three days out from Feliax space Dustin found himself sitting eating breakfast with just Emely in his ready room. This was unusual - since she had joined the crew, they’d made a point of all trying to eat both the first and last meal of the day at least as a group. Today however Dustin had slept in late and by the time he rose from his quarters the other two ladies had already made their way to the bridge and engine room to prepare for the final jump to X-238. Yawning, he settled into his seat and stared resignedly at his plate. “Meli was so right that automat meals get tiring. What I’d give to have something freshly made and not just a ready meal” he mused sleepily as he started to shovel the scrambled eggs into his mouth. “I could try and cook if you’d like, captain?” Emely said, smiling at him.

Dustin shook his head, half to clear it and half to make it obvious that he hadn’t intended that as a request. “It’s alright Emely. We’ll be getting a chef soon enough - once we’ve dealt with this current issue we’ll either go after a security officer or a chef, and the other one straight after that. Now we’ve got you aboard I’m a lot happier about pursuing the rest of the senior staff and filling out the crew a little more; sorting out recruiting you and Rye without a comms officer was very stressful despite Meli’s best efforts.” The redhead beamed at him and nodded. “Of course, captain. I’ve finished my review of the files for the groups we’re going to meet later today so I’ve got a little down time while we jump - I’ll start pulling together candidate species lists for review once we’re done with this mission.”

For a moment he debated telling her not to worry about it yet - but saw the gleam in the Feliax’s eyes and decided against it. “Okay. Just make sure you’re on the bridge when we jump in. I’m going to get properly dressed, figure if we’re doing peacekeeping I should at least look the part which means the uncomfortable dress uniform, right?” His comms officer nodded, glancing him up and down. “Honestly, given we’re all mammalian we’re not going to get much positivity out of the Selssa unless we look the part. You need to show that this ship is your territory, and unless you fancy demonstrating it by fucking one of us on the bridge…?” She let the question hang for a moment, before grinning at Dustin’s shocked expression and adding “Alright, so the other two put me up to suggesting that. It would be an appropriate demonstration of authority as far as their species is concerned, but just wearing formal uniform will suffice.”

Sighing at the fact that his partners still seemed to love winding him up, Dustin gave a vague wave of his hand and asked “What about the Dronth? What do they want to see when we talk to them?” Emely shrugged in response. “They’re far easier for us to talk to as long as we are consistent in who’s talking to them. I suggest we establish a joint call and you speak exclusively to the Selssa and I speak to the Dronth. That should appear to be respectful to both races and will allow us to have one call to introduce ourselves before we figure out how to proceed further.” With a nod, Dustin stood and turned back to his quarters. “Very well, let’s go with that. Can you make sure Meli knows what to wear? Rye said she was going to hide in engineering so she didn’t have to deal with any talking when we were eating dinner last night didn’t she?”

Four hours later, Dustin adjusted his position in the captain’s chair and glanced at the two women on the bridge with him. Meli was dressed in her formal uniform and stood off to one side looking delightful as always, while Emely had donned a light green dress that accented her red hair and tails in a way that would have been quite distracting if he hadn’t been so stressed about making a good first impression on the two species they were about to meet. Sola’s countdown to re-entry into normal space ticked away - and then there was the distinct drop in the background hum as the weave-jump engines went offline.

As soon as the return to normal space was complete, Meli and Emely began working at their terminals. “Initial scan shows the system clear of shipping traffic, captain. Long range scans are showing habitation signs from the two expected worlds, as well as vessels in orbit of both. Colony resource drop off ships according to the files.” Meli’s voice was crisp as she relayed the results of Sola sweeping the system. Emely meanwhile glanced up from her console. “Both colonies only have short range communication devices captain. We’ll need to move into the system to hail them.” As the fox girl said that, Meli frowned. “That’s odd. They should have a node station set up for incoming traffic and communication by now given the size of the colonies, shouldn’t they?”

Dustin shrugged the question off before Emely could guess at an answer. “We can find out why they don’t once we can talk to them. Sola, take us in please.” The AI acknowledged the order, and the ship slid softly through the blackness towards the inner system. “Can we read their local comms from this far out?” He asked, glancing at Meli. “If I focus on one planet with the long range scan probably? It won’t be that clear, but we should be able to pick up background chatter if they’re sending it clear.” She replied, already working the controls. A moment later, the speakers echoed with a harsh sibilant sound. Emely tilted her head for a second then nodded. “They’re mostly discussing shipping and unloading from the vessels. Some grumbling about transit delays - nothing of any real note captain.”

“One second, I’ll see if I can get the other planet.” Meli tapped a control and the hissing speech of the Selssa was replaced with a dull undulating tone that put Dustin in mind of a video he’d seen of throat singing back on Earth. Emely shook her head after a moment. “You can turn it off now, Meli. Mostly the same, but a lot of complaints about message delays out of system.” Dustin glanced at the woman and raised an eyebrow. “Any ideas, comms officer?” He asked, having a few ideas of his own but wanting to test his new crew mate more than anything else. For her part Emely took a moment to consider her reply before she spoke. “I suspect - and it is only a suspicion captain, I must stress - that the significant issue here is to do with the lack of long range communications. Without further facts I’d speculate that the two colonies are unhappy in some way about the arrangements for running a communication outpost. Possibly neither can agree a location or a staffing rota? We’ll need to speak to them to confirm.”

At that point, Sola’s voice chimed in. “Captain, Comms officer, please be aware that we are about to close into range of the two planets’ communicators and will be able to hail them.” Dustin straightened in his chair, and Meli focused on her console. “Initiate communications as soon as we are in range please Sola” Emely said, turning to her own screen and nodding to herself. A moment later, the main vid-screen blinked from it’s view of the approaching planets to a pair of very different individuals in very different environments. For a moment, nobody spoke, taking in the view of each other - and then the speakers burst with noise as both individuals started to loudly speak at once.