First Contact

Well, the motley crew of five freeks and geeks and fashion model are all in the cramped space of that Phyrrian ship. Rath's at the controls, flying them to Phyrrian space. "....Well. Here we are."

Said fashion model, Leodhais, is standing very steadily near a control panel, being careful no to touch it, and watching the viewscreen like a hawk.

Ruin keeps himself busy eyeing every single monitor and control panel. "We *should* look like a Phyrrian ship," he says. "Everything I've put in seems to be working, anyway. We're just asking them to talk?"

Takoda climbs onto the bridge and nods at Rath, his usual smile notably absent from his face.

"For the time being, we are here," Amelia agrees serenely as she settles in. "I hope that trend continues for the rest of the night." She certainly looks more like a freak than usual, carefully rendered, well, dumpy by makeup and clothing. Not that it's hard to perceive the familiar woman underneath, especially since her eyepatch is off and her cybernetic gleams.

Rathenhope nods at Ruin. "And your shield'll mask our lifesigns," he says with a small smile. "So. We ask them to talk and we'll see what they say. Either we talk here, or on TeeKay."

Leodhais gives a slight nod, crossing his arms.

Ruin nods. "It should work," he says. "But you know this is the first serious run - lab tests can only do so much."

"Reassuring," murmurs Amelia dryly, taking out her PDA. She double-taps the pupil of her cybernetic eye, letting it whirr open to produce a datajack port. Cord strung between port and gadget, she leans back into her chair.

Rathenhope just sighs, watching the screen carefully. "All we have to hope is that no Vanguard or RNS vessels turn up and decide us to be actual Phyrrians. And we've got to get back to the Iuppiter afterwards."

Leodhais watches Ruin working before turning and nodding to Rath. "Yes."

Ruin nudges Leodhais. "You can fly her. Pretty sure you can. If we really need to do fancy stuff."

Takoda looks at Amelia's movements with interest and blinks when she plugs in. He looks back to the viewscreen and stays silent.

"The Vanguard is not planning an incursion on Phyrrian space any time soon," Amelia informs Rathenhope, eyes glued to her PDA. "And Sivad should still probably be busy. I'd worry more about Phyrria right now."

"That's reassuring," Rathenhope says with a sigh. "Oh well." Looks out of the window at the space. "Well. We're definitely here.."

As the modified Phyrrian starship drops out of faster-than-light speed on the edge of Overmind-controlled space, the ship's sensors immediately start pinging with recognition of dozens and dozens of Decimator Fleet vessels. The bulk of the Phyrrian war machine seems to be in the home star system just now, clustered around Phyrria and a series of spacedocks where constructor mechs are working on the hulls of new carriers to replace those lost in engagements against the Allies. Some smaller patrol vessels move along with two large carriers along the rim of the system, not far from the mock Phyrrian ship. Thus far, they don't seem unduly interested in the newly arrived vessel.

Leodhais tilts his head slightly as he looks at the viewscreen and nods to Ruin. "Yes," he says. "I can do that." He points at the viewscreen just in case anyone missed it.

Ruin looks at Amelia. "Monitor, record...we need to understand, especially if any orders come for this ship." He reaches over to pat Leodhais's shoulder. "Fly casual." And to the other two, "Where's the rock we're headed for?"

Standing to one side Takoda takes a deep breath and nods. He watches the rest of the crew as they work and just tries to keep out of the way.

Sangfroid would not be the word for Amelia's reaction. Terror, on the other hand... terror is a definite possibility. "Oh sweet Lord," she whispers, mismatched gaze breaking from the PDA to stare. "...we're all going to die." But after a moment's silence to let that settle in, something else asserts itself... uncontrollable academic curiosity. With a jerky nod, the woman sits forward to attempt to record all communications that can be perceived on the airwaves. Any directed the ship's way, she attempts to route through the PDA to translate machine language into comprehensible communication.

Rathenhope moves out of the way to give Leodh access to the flying controls. Pulls his PDA out of his pocket and waves it. "Co-ordinates are on here," he says with a nod. "I'll let you input them in," he remarks, offering it towards Ruin. "I got no idea how this thing works." Eventually he takes a look out of the viewscreen. "...Wow. Don't actively scan a single ship."

Leodhais takes a seat at the pilot console and nods, flying, as they say, casually.

Ruin nods, his hands working over a console to input rather more data than is on the PDA screen. "Flight path's entered," he says. "...Yellow line on your monitor, Leodh. When we're close enough for a tight transmission, the line'll turn red. Then it's you diplomatic types."

Although the ship flies casually, the Decimator Fleet eventually does take an interest in the modified Phyrrian vessel. Two of the smaller patrol mechanoids bank away from the large carriers and angle toward the intruder. One of the vessels transmits a message in binary to Leod's console: "01110101011011100110100101110100001000000110010001100101011011010110000101101110 01100100011100110010000001110100011010000110000101110100001000000111100101101111 01110101001000000110100101100100011001010110111001110100011010010110011001111001 00100000011000010110111001100100001000000111001001100101011100000110111101110010 01110100001000000111000001101111011010010110111001110100001000000110111101100110 0010000001101111011100100110100101100111011010010110111000101110."

Takoda just watches the viewscreen, keeping his face blank of whatever emotion he's feeling.

"No active scanning," Amelia concurs, one hand flying across the keys, the other producing yet another cord from her coat's pocket- this time to link in her PDA to the communications console, so it can serve as a bridge between her jacked-in mind and the systems. She passively records all of the data she can.

Rathenhope looks back to catch the message on Leodh's console. "...Oh shit. Amelia, I -really- need you to be able to translate that yesterday."

Leodhais looks at the console and then looks at his PDA. "I can't type fast enough and fly at the same time," he says in a no-nonsense voice. "What do you have?" he asks.

Ruin turns *white* - well, whiter. Somewhat. It's hard to go properly pale when you're practically allergic to daylight to start with. Fingers flying as he says, "It wants to know who we are and where we came from. I've got the ship's original ident. That's 'who'. And origin -" he breaks off into a steady stream of particularly virulent Mierz, but his fingers don't stop. "Carrier in Waldheim space, damaged but functional enough to return please tell me I'm not getting us shot."

Takoda pales as he sees the message on Leodh's console, but the look on his face changes not one iota as he impassively watches the crew working.

Amelia states curtly, "Route incomings to my console. I should be able to translate it nearly instantaneously via the datajack; it'll be faster, Ruin. Though you shall have to tell me -what- to say." Her own fingers fly a moment, preparing to reroute the messages through communications and her PDA.

Rathenhope nods in agreement. "Amelia, you're on data collection. Ruin, as long as we don't say 'please tell me I'm not getting us shot' to them, I think we'll be fine. Send registry and what Ruin said." He's also white as a sheet, but standing tall.

Leodhais is the only one who doesn't seem to be turing pale. "Staying steady," Leodhais states in an even voice.

Ruin nods. "Amelia, ship registry and point of origin lifted from the original systems, there." Another flurry of keystrokes, and, "And you've got access to everything this fighter originally knew."

Turning to watch the viewscreen, 'Koda frowns slightly. He keeps quiet for now.

Amelia's natural eye blinks once as the information is transmitted to her, the woman's hands dancing across the keyboard with virtuoso speed as she attempts to relay it onward to the inquiring ship, registration and origin details both. "I'll put the translation of their reply on the main screen when we receive it." Sheer mental demand has taken away fear for the moment, and the Sivadian sounds nearly as robotic as their adversaries.

Long seconds pass after Amelia sends the message, and then a reply is received: "0101010001101000011001010010000001001111011101100110010101110010011011010110100101101110 0110010000100000011100110110010101101110011101000010000001110000011100100110111101100010 0110010101110011001000000111010001101111001000000101011101100001011011000110010001101000 0110010101101001011011010010000001110011011100000110000101100011011001010010000001110100 0110111100100000011100110110010101100001011100100110001101101000001000000110011001101111 0111001000100000011011100110111101101110001011010110100101101110011001010111001001110100 0010000001110101011011100110100101110100011100110010111000100000010101000110100001101001 0111001100100000011101010110111001101001011101000010000001100100011001010110110101100001 0110111001100100011100110010000001110100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001101001 0110111001100110011011110111001001101101011001010110010000100000011000010111001100100000 0111010001101111001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100011011000010111010101110011 0110010100100000011011110110011000100000011101010110111001110010011001010111001101110000 0110111101101110011100110110100101110110011001010110111001100101011100110111001100100000 0111010001101111001000000111000001110010011011110110001001100101001000000110000101101100 0110010101110010011101000010000001100010011100100110111101100001011001000110001101100001 01110011011101000111001100101110."

Rathenhope reads the message and spends a precious second thinking it over. "Communications and sensors were damaged," he suggests. "This unit received no broadcasts.".

"Is that true?" Leodhais asks, turning around a bit.

"This unit had a blast hole two thirds of the way through it," says Ruin. "And it took scans of four other fighters to know how to repair it. Yes, it's true. A lot of systems were damaged."

Takoda looks to Ruin. "I assume the ships can repair themselves? If so, that explanation sounds eminently plausible."

"Acknowledged," Amelia states flatly, transcribing the message almost as quickly as Rathenhope says it and transmitting it back in binary reply. She keeps up the message relays to demonstrate translations, allowing everyone to see the text version of the communication verbatim.

The Phyrrian patrol vessel responds: "0100000101100011011010110110111001101111011101110110110001100101011001000110011101100101 0110010000101110001000000101001001100101011100000110111101110010011101000010000001110100 0110111100100000010001000110010101100011011010010110110101100001011101000110111101110010 0010000001000110011011000110010101100101011101000010000001000011011011110110111001110100 0111001001101111011011000010000001100110011011110111001000100000011001100111010101101100 0110110000100000011010010110111001110011011100000110010101100011011101000110100101101111 0110111000101100001000000110111101110110011001010111001001101000011000010111010101101100 0010110000100000011000010110111001100100001000000110010001100001011101000110000100100000 0110001101101111011100100110010100100000011001000110111101110111011011100110110001101111 0110000101100100001000000111010001101111001000000111010001101000011001010010000001001111 0111011001100101011100100110110101101001011011100110010000101110."

Rathenhope reads the message on the screen and lets out a sigh of relief. "Hopefully that's in the same direction that we're going. Just respond 'acknowledged', Amelia."

Leodhais just goes with the flow. Whichever way the ship is going, he guides it there.

Ruin blows out a little breath, shaking juuuuuuuust a bit. "...Does anybody know where that would be? Amelia, where do most of the comms go?"

Takoda breathes a little more deeply and nods, his eyes fixed to the viewscreen.

"Acknowledged." If she's aware of the irony, well? Amelia doesn't acknowledge it. She simply encodes the one-word message and slings it back. "Ruin, examine past navigational data of the ship to clarify destination?" For her part, once the message is on its way she tentatively attempts to answer the Lunite's question- surveying the airwaves for Phyrrian broadcast central. "...A majority of communication is addressed to the spacedocks."

Apparently satisfied with the lost mechanoid sheep come back to the flock, the Phyrrian patrol vessels arc away, moving back toward their escort paths with the carrier vessels.

Rathenhope lets out all that air he's been holding in. "Stage one, infiltration, complete."

Ruin nods to Amelia, calling up screens of navigational charts. On Leodhais' screen, a course alteration. "I think...this will allow us to get close enough while looking like we're obeying orders," he says shakily. "It's not direct obedience, but if one assumes the ship is still somewhat damaged it's an acceptable course."

Leodhais nods, adjusting the course accordingly.

Glancing at Rath, Takoda's first smile crosses his face momentarily. Turning back to the viewscreen he nods quietly.

Amelia does not relax, herself, remaining in that distant mechanical state. Her attention is turned toward passive information-gathering, routing sensor information through her PDA so she can experience it directly. For the moment, she seems to be attempting a silent estimate of ship counts, calculating how many ships could fit in the visible docks under her breath.

Before much longer, the modified Phyrrian vessel is closing on a lump of rock at the coordinates provided. The asteroid spins very slowly against the starry expanse of the Orion Arm.

"Slow down a little, Leodh," Rathenhope says distractedly. "Don't make it obvious. Just so we can send several messages. Amelia, transmit '92266' to the rock."

Leodhais does so, offering a look of comfort - or as much as he can manage - to everyone around the bridge.

"Tight beam," Ruin nods. "Can't be intercepted. Can't let it be intercepted."

Takoda watches the viewscreeen, waiting to see what response, if any, they get.

"Acknowledged. I shall do what is possible." Taking the time to protect the narrow band signal from interception as much as the ship's systems allow, Amelia waits until any ships nearby have moved away and only then sends the brief message.

The rock keeps spinning in its slow, lazy turn. For now, however, the only response is utter silence on comms.

Rathenhope frowns a little. Crosses his fingers and adds. "Add: 'We were on Deserata'."

Leodhais keeps the asteroid in view, considering it carefully. "Deserata," he repeats in a voice just as exciting as Amelia's.

Ruin - for his part - is back to monitoring those screens. Nobody coming? Nothing suspicious? Not time to run? Good. So far.

Takoda looks at Rath and opens his mouth before nodding at Leodhais. Satisfied he looks around at every, just to make sure they're all ok before looking back towards the viewscreen.

"Acknowledged." And yeah, Amelia's voice is thrilling. The brief message Rathenhope dictates- Deserata filled in, of course- is appended in a second transmission, and then the woman turns her attention to examining the nearby space as well. It seems one check just isn't enough for her level of paranoia.

A few more long moments of silence. The rock keeps spinning. Then, after completing a revolution, the following broadcast is received from a transmitter cone that seems to be concealed within a small crater on the surface currently facing the intruder: "0101010001101001011011010110010100100000011010010111001100100000011011000110100101101101 0110100101110100011001010110010000101110001000000100010001100101011000110110100101101101 0110000101110100011011110111001000100000010001100110110001100101011001010111010000100000 0100001101101111011011100111010001110010011011110110110000100000011010010111001100100000 0110000101110011011100110110100101100111011011100110100101101110011001110010000001110010 0110010101110011011011110111010101110010011000110110010101110011001000000111010001101111 0010000001101001011011100111011001100101011100110111010001101001011001110110000101110100 0110010100100000011101000110100001100101001000000111001001100101011101000111010101110010 0110111000100000011011110110011000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110110001101111 0111001101110100001000000111010101101110011010010111010000101110001000000100010001100001 0111010001100001001000000110100101110011001000000110010001101001011100110111000001100101 0111001001110011011001010110010000100000011100100110000101110000011010010110010001101100 0111100100101110001000000100010001100001011011100110011101100101011100100010000001101111 0110011000100000011001010111100001110000011011110111001101110101011100100110010100100000 0110100001100001011100110010000001101001011011100110001101110010011001010110000101110011 0110010101100100001000000110010101111000011100000110111101101110011001010110111001110100 011010010110000101101100011011000111100100101110."

Rathenhope blinks at the response, looking vaguely alarmed. "...Crap. So much to say, so little time. Try: 'Can you meet us in the Tomin Kora system, it will be safer'?"

Ruin shakes his head. "Designate time and place of meeting."

Leodhais rubs his chin at his non-existent stubble and then pushes his rarely worn glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Tomin Kora, Shadowheart?" he suggests. "As for time..."

Takoda blinks at the message and turns around to look at the others. "How fast could someone...something get from here to Tomin Kora safely and without alerting the overmind? Two days?"

Amelia says nothing, but the screen shows the reply in Terran before she sends it in binary: "Designate time and place of meeting. Tomin Kora system suggested". There's only a momentary pause of thought as she takes in the conflicting instructions before that's on its way.

Another rotation of the rock passes before the next transmission comes: "0100110101100101011001010111010001101001011011100110011100100000011100100110010101110001 0111010101100101011100110111010000100000011000010110001101101011011011100110111101110111 0110110001100101011001000110011101100101011001000010111000100000010101000110100001110010 0110010101100101001000000110010001100001011110010111001100101110001000000101000001100101 0111001001110011011001010111011001100101011100100110000101101110011000110110010100100000 0101001101111001011100110111010001100101011011010010111000100000010001110110111100101110 0010000001001110011011110111011100101110."

"Get us out of here Leodh," Rathenhope says with a nod at reading the message. "But not too conspiciously, mm?"

Leodhais nods, and does just that, using all his fabulous piloting skills to pilot most inconspicuously.

Several large carrier vessels and their escort patrols start arcing away from the Decimator Fleet Control spacedocks, angling toward an intercept course with the Waldheim survivor ship.

Ruin shakes his head. "Excuse me," he says, and starts entering something on the keyboard that makes a lot of the lights in the cramped little cockpit start flickering yellow and red. "I'm making this ship look like it's about to explode," he says. "Leodh, jump us out of here now - it'll look like we're minimizing damage to the fleet."

Takoda looks at the viewscreen. "Ruin, great idea - I don't think conspicuous is going to be a problem right now. I think speed is."

Another message arrives via comms: "0011010010110111101101110011000010110110000100000011001000110000101110100011000010010000 0011100100110010101110001011101010110100101110010011001010110010000101110001000000101001 0011001010111000001101111011100100111010000100000011101000110111100100000010001000110010 1011000110110100101101101011000010111010001101111011100100010000001000110011011000110010 10110010101110100001000000100001101101111011011100111010001110010011011110110110000101110."

Amelia takes the initiative, at Ruin's words, to broadcast on a wide beam: "Danger malfunction, repairs inadequate, imminent destruction possible", her face set in a mask of concentration.

Rathenhope nods at Amelia's words on the screen. "Just what I was about to get you to say," he says, clenching his hand around the handle of his gun. Which is kind of pointless.

One last transmission comes:"0101010001101000011010010111001100100000011101010110111001101001011101000010000001100001 0110001101101011011011100110111101110111011011000110010101100100011001110110010101110011 0010111000100000010101000110100001100101001000000100111101110110011001010111001001101101 0110100101101110011001000010000001100001011100000111000001110010011001010110001101101001 0110000101110100011001010111001100100000011101000110100001100101001000000111000001110010 0110000101100011011101000110100101100011011000010110110001101001011101000111100100100000 0110111101100110001000000111100101101111011101010111001000100000011100000111001001101111 0110011101110010011000010110110101101101011010010110111001100111001011100010000001000100 0110010101110100011011110110111001100001011101000110010100100000011001010110110001110011 01100101011101110110100001100101011100100110010100101110." And the warships that had been showing an avid interest in meeting up with the mock Phyrrian starship now want to get back to the spacedock facilities and well out of blast range.

Leodhais reaches over to remove Rath's hand from his gun. Then his hands go back to the control panels. "Engage."