Extraction Issues 5

Chapter 5

Restricted Maritime Zone BZE:4200.04
Cycle 6002.639.16.5 W

The Captain had spent the rest of the day putting on his calm listening face, pretending he was the only one not completely thrown by what had happened. The terrifying surge that had been displayed hours ago in engineering should have wiped out half the island, even from that distance at sea.

What started as the expected explosion was an initial shock wave and blinding white light that somehow filled the ship. Then it weirdly morphed. The explosion felt like it was suspended and then the next moment there was a sickening feeling that everything was being stretched.

It was as if the feeling of riding a vehicle that changed direction suddenly, making your stomach float grossly, but amplified drastically. Everything felt stuck in place, stretched to be catapulted, jolted into weightlessness and heavy. You couldn’t tell if this was just a mere moment that was happening in slow motion, or if time was passing quickly, with just the craft suspended.

Then in an instant, everything felt like it was fluid. It felt like they were sickeningly be catapulted, while suspended in place, just about to evaporate into nothing and that everything was solid, so that they were being crushed against the air around them. Then there was disorientation and vomiting. Almost everyone was vomiting.

Everything seemed weird and oddly it was the task of cleaning vomit that got everyone moving. They mopped and sloshed buckets contents overboard. They were starting to talk. Struggling to figure out if they were still in the same craft, world or even the same reality. At least the crew all still seemed to be the same.

The engineers that had been watching the event unfold on the display, quickly used the captains warning of a jump, to explain there movement from in-front of an explosion, through a mountain and to the location of another energy surge. Some of them were stubbornly ignoring everything else, to pin down safe facts. The other simple, safe fact was that it had been near instantaneous, if the instruments were to be believed.

The reason that some were questioning the instruments, was because that the ship had again been changed by this event. Initial scans, if they could be trusted, showed that the craft shell that had been refined in the last event, was still largely the same. This time the internals had changed dramatically. The areas of biggest change seemed to be the medical bay, that had increased about four times in size and the central computer which had changed so much, that they couldn’t really understand what the scans were showing anymore.

The next order of business was to hide. As far as they could tell the destroyer class would not be able to detect them on the far side of the island. This was because there was such a range of strange particles in the air that detecting anything beyond a couple of yons was pretty much impossible. Making use of the situation they idled into a cave and set up some scanner camouflage.

While pretending that everything was progressing smoothly, the captain was struggling to put any of this together. So he asked that a big meal be organised for everyone to chat and unwind. The crew accepted this without any questions and so by the evening they were sitting down for a big meal, still undetected by the destroyer class ship.

The next morning the captain had aided organisation efforts to make sure everyone was busy. He though he might have a moments peace when he was approached uncertainly by one of the technicians of his crew. They rarely came to see him directly, making him worry.

He asked the skinny polite technician how he could help. The polite balding man shifted his weight and asked if he had looked into the computer transformation reports yet. He replied that it was a bit beyond his understanding as a captain. He asked why the technician had come in person to the bridge.

The technician seemed too nervous to continue. The captain could at least do this. He reminded the technician of how well he had worked to clean the rubbish programming out of the crafts system. The crafts software had been meticulously trimmed and reworked. It had been given a dummy interface to allow this smooth function while still relating to the capitals systems. It was no small job and keeping it up to date was just as relentless. Now the captain didn’t even know if the man’s hard work had paid off.

The technician smiled and nodded. He looked at the ground as he spoke. He let the captain know that the change in the computer in his opinion the equivalent on an elemental level. What he had been doing on a programming level had now happened on a physical level. He continued and said that the other thing he believe was the computer was talking at them.

The captain asked what he meant about the computer talking at them. From the data that Jim could understand on the base level there were a bunch of initial requests. Mainly for having a few crew assigned to various projects and for a quick chat with the main people of each division of the crew.

The captain repeated things back to try and gain understanding. So the computer has completely changed to work better on an impressive level. It seems to be relating information from an external source. Then further this source knows about and sees the crew as divided in divisions. He asked if the divisions were accurate and work based.

The technician confirmed that they were accurate, but work based didn’t sum it up well. It was much more thorough, looking at a level of how people functioned. Most insights could just be someone with good insight. The main thing that would show what the system was up to, was that it wanted Gil to report to the medical bay. That was it’s top priority.

Now the captain was worried. He called Dueliet over and explained the situation. She said she would talk to Gil as she was one of the civilians. On the way out the door she asked if the solver security team was still free. He confirmed that it they were free and a good choice.

Getting back to Jim, he wondered how he felt about working with Gurney. Jim said that would be great. He wondered what the scope of their work would be. The captain massaged his forehead, right above the bridge of his nose. For now the goal was to report that Gil was being told about it’s request and the scope would develop from there.

Ronnec wandered over and waited for the captain to finish. The captain took a couple of deep breathes. He really wasn’t sure how to deal with this and he focused on letting the tightness around his chest pass. He asked Ronnec how he could help.

Ronnec informed him that engineering seemed to think that there was a lizard man approach them.
Well to be precise a lizard girl.

The captain really didn’t like this. His head was hurting. He queried that it was not the computer talking in nursery rhymes.

Ronnec confirmed that engineering had reported a badly mutated, human-reptilian female approaching them.

The captain explained that Dueliet was busy, so given the circumstances Nyutri was probably the best choice for greeting this visitor. Ronnec looked confused, pointing out that she was hard core security and didn’t like people.

The captain raised an eyebrow, surprised that he hadn’t noticed. He beckoned Ronnec over. He said as far as he could tell Nyutri seemed to have only had bad experiences with men. The visitor approaching was part lizard and part female.

The captain explained that Ronnec would be her people person. This shocked Ronnec from the little bubble he seemed to spend most of his time in, he said nothing though. Happy with this, the captain continued. He pointed out as long as he related to her as a professional, he should survive the day without being kicked in the balls.

Ronnec looked like he wanted to say something, in fact he looked like he wanted to say a lot of things. After a bit he settled. Composed, he said he would contact Nyutri and see what he could do. He made his way out of the bridge.

The captain definitely had a headache now and wondered if it was time to start carrying a hip flask again. He collapsed into his seat and rearranged his console. This time he started with new main folders for organising things. He never though he would see the day when he would set up an operations over views with these headings.

He wondered what was going on with this craft at the moment. He settled on the folders ‘transformed ship’, ‘avoiding detection’, ‘lizard female’, ‘unknown island’ and ‘political negotiations’. He was not sure if any of the folders were in the right order of priority.

Ronnec had been supervising most of the reports he’d classified under avoiding detection. Since he hadn’t had anything to report, he checked the next down the list after Gurney, since he had been reassigned.

Martin, the chubby engineer was one of several in this level of reports, so he contacted him. He greeted the captain and said he’d called at a good time. As far as they could tell they were currently undetectable to the capital tech, but had set up the basic shielding field, in case of attack. He reported that the down side was that they were also completely isolated, as far as tech relating to the capital was concerned.

The captain took a moment to process things. He asked Martin if he could liaise with Gurney and Jim to set up a live link between the computer room, the engineering hub and what used to be conference room two. Martin replied that should work, if the captain made an announcement and organised people at the conference room.

The captain nodded and agreed that for the initial set up, he had better organise the conference room. After that he would leave Tog to handle the academic chaos of the civilians and join them in engineering. Martin sounded surprised. The captain explained about engineering having the best range of sensor and scan processing consoles. It would be ideal to get clearer snapshots that they might not pass all of onto the civilians.

Martin quickly understood and said that he would inform the others. Then they would await his announcement or an update. He thanked Martin, relieved the man had made things easier to process. Then he remembered to check in on Dueliet who he relied on even more for so much more.

Dueliet reported that Gil had initially been very stressed about the idea. She seemed to be overthinking every detail as she had been faced with an unknown situation. It had taken lots of encouragement and patience from Dueliet, for her to even approach the new expanded and alien looking medical bay.

Initially Dueliet had just let her stand there and stare. It was un recognisable compared to the little utilitarian space that had been there. Gil was short and had spent a lot of her existence in corporate roles. She was used to politely getting things done amongst the workings of huge social machines. Even just being part of this crew, had pushed her to interact with others on a person to person basis, far more than she was used to. It had been stressful for her.

Now she had been requested by a computer, changed by unknown forces, to report to the medical bay. It looked like it was going to be far more than she could handle. Dueliet had nearly given up hope when Gurney had called in and casually asked which console they wanted to start at.

Dueliet asked if it made a difference were they went. It was quiet for a bit and then Gurney reported that the computer wanted to pass on a message and felt it would be best for Gil to be able to see it afterwards. Dueliet thanked him and said that they were closest to the station marked with what looked like B2 on it.

Gurney called again, saying that if she could read the message for the computer it would be very grateful. Dueliet wandered over to the console and looked at the message, she though for a bit. Not knowing what else to do she summarised it for Gil.

After getting her attention, she let Gil know that it seemed the computer would like her help with some sort of genetic treatment. At this Gil froze. Then a little tear had rolled down her cheek. Finally she had smiled and said she might be able to help. She cautiously wandered over to the console and read what it had to say.

After reading, Gil though for a bit. Then she turned back to Dueliet and the security team. She asked if it was okay to try it’s training programme. Dueliet had nodded and then Gil started reading. Then she wandered over to a large touch screen on a strange new centre unit. She was soon absorbed in figuring out what she was being shown.

Of course Dueliet reported the condensed version of this, but the captain was reassured by what he heard from Dueliet’s explanation. With that he made a ship wide announcement about an optional civilian research event in the conference room. Anyone interested in computers communicating from beyond and real life lizard men could participate.

With that he wandered down to the conference room. He was surprised how many people were rushing to get there. Many would be charging along the corridor and suddenly quiet to pass the captain respectfully. There was already a small excited crowd when they got there. He called Gurney and they quickly finalized the video link. A small board and tables and chairs had been set up. But they were now being added to as the numbers increased.

Togs cautiously wandered over. She waited hoping the captain would ignore her. He smiled and said hello. Pretending to be far more annoyed than she was, she said hello and asked what he wanted from her, in this geek-feast happening. The captain smiled and said she was the perfect person to balance their enthusiasm. Once things were underway, he would like her to keep them focused here. She sighed to seem exasperated.

A call came in from Ronnec, sounding unusually panicked and out of his element. The captain told him to wait and chucked him on the three way conference setup. He said to go ahead. So everyone heard the nervous Ronnec announce that they had eyes on the lizard girl and he wanted to know what was happening next.

There was almost felt like there would be feedback, with the excited chatter rippling through the coms at every room. Gurney spoke clearly and asked for them to get the sensor on a stick online. They could hear Nyutri reminding him how to set it up in the background and even just the audio of Ronnec out of his element was getting some much needed laughter.

This was barely done when the lizard girl walked straight to them and stopping a comfortable distance away, clicked and tapped a walking stick on the ground a couple of times. There was more excited chatter. The captain cleared his throat and said they needed ideas. There was some talk about waiving or just approaching with palms and wrists exposed.

The badly mutated lizard girl waited. Clearly expecting bad treatment. The were lots of rude murmurs along the line of freak of nature classifications. Nyutri overheard and put the sensible suggestion into action before the talk turned really nasty. But she just got growled at.

Ronnec getting back into the swing of things, teased that the lizard might have tough girl issues. Jim politely interrupted and said the computer believed that she was wondering about their business there. It suggested that the main thing at the moment was to not get any closer.

Ronnec getting back into the swing of overdoing being in charge, replied affirmatively that they would do just that. Then Jim forwarded a clip of a fist help above the head, brought down the centre line of the body and resting in-front of the chest. Clearing his throat Ronnec waited for the girls attention. He then performed the gesture.

The girl looked relieved. Seeming to assume his time to respond suggested slowness, she exaggerated clicks and a gesture as if communicating with children. This time she waited more comfortably. Amused by the people touching their ears or staring at the sensor stick on a wheel. They apparently looked quite entertaining and her eyes kept flicking to Ronnec to see if he had figured things out yet.

This time they laughed at the simplified gesture. The crew laughed and looked at Ronnec. Teasing him about being the boss, they said she was waiting for the official response. Sighing he made the gesture of shoveling food into his face. She and many others laughed. Nyutri teased, that lizard girl was clearly fine with guys with a zero threat level.

There was more laughter as they were told to walk back to the ship, because they had just invited her to dinner. The chef definitely wasn’t shy and popped into the chat asking what she ate. Jim was quickest with translating for the computer and let them know that as much fried chicken as possible. There was more laughs, with jokes about the locals having a great taste in food.

About five minutes in to the walk back, the team was asked to check if the lizard girl was still comfortable. Many though it was odd how relaxed she seemed given the situation. After copying the gestures from the stick they watched as she though for a bit. She wandered over to the stick and clicked quickly, adding quick stick taps almost as punctuation.

Again Jim was the fastest. He relayed that she was essentially bait to gather intelligence for her tribe. Having almost no value she had been selected pretty much as a sacrifice. So she had been expecting execution or torture. Instead she was heading back to have food with people that seemed to eat well. Things couldn’t get much better from her perspective.

There, were laughs and shocked responses. Overall people seemed reassured about the girls state. The captain had let the lizard girl language project separate off into the conference room. They kept a channel open watching them.

But now they focused more on things relating to the ship. They could quickly rule out the issue of staying undetected. People would really specifically have to know where they were to find them. There was only one satellite that would be able to penetrate the cave and natural distortion affect of the area around them. But it would need very precise search co-ordinates.

With the civilians no longer in the call the captain started by asking if the people that had changed the ship and this unknown island could be connected. There was whispering of people talking together. Then Jim reported that it seemed again like it was more like those behind the ships transformation were interested in the island, but separate from it.

The captain asked if the computer was active in this call. Jim confirmed that this time it had specifically said that it could not intervene here, in relation to the captains comment. There were things that had gone wrong and needless suffering that had happened. The computer hoped that the crew would help sort things out here as they had done in so many other situations.

The captain asked if there were any other updates. Jim said he and Gurney were working on a mobile transceiver for Nyutri. Completely thrown the captain though for a bit, but the headache had only got stronger. He asked if it connected to the ships system remotely. They said that wasn’t the case and that the security team here had approved it because it helped them understand how the computer was accessing communication. To simplify it was reading data hidden in specific tiny atmospheric energy fluctuations.

The captain didn’t quite know how to help any more. The crew were all preforming outstandingly. It was him that was secretly struggling for a change. He was no longer dealing with the familiar political tightrope he usually helped the crew manage.

Jim politely got his attention. He relayed that the computer though it would be helpful for him to greet the lizard girl. With nothing better to do the captain headed to the sub bay. This had been chosen as the most open and spacious entry into the ship.

The captain watched the group approach, they were now quite comfortable with the new arrival. The lizard girl on the other hand was finally coming to terms with what was happening and now quite nervous about the craft she approached. She continued to confidently walk, but had tensed up and balled her hands into fists.

The lizard girl was clearly preparing for insults and rejection about her appearance. Ronnec politey caught her attention and made the symbol for chief as he pointed to the captain. Snapping back to attention she thumped a fist to her chest and bowed on one knee. Realising that there was laughter she looked around her. The man clearly looked like a superior with a strong warriors spirit.

The people around him also clearly respected the man. But clearly bowing was unusual. She introduced herself with calmer clicks, standing for a more casual introduction. The computer translated that she was Nyoma, lower working class. The captain extended his hand.

This time the computer had access and programming that it could output clicks. Now understanding this was a hand clasping and shaking ritual, she cautiously walked forward. It was an unusual way to be welcomed into a chief’s domain, but it definitely had it’s own intensity.

Wehl 2024

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