Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Greyman took a moment to compose himself. He wasn’t used to being greeted by a full frontal upon answering the phone so to speak. She was cute too, but that didn’t really matter to him. He did have a wife. Taking a breath, he said in response to her statement, “While it is an honor to meet you, I am not the captain. I am First Officer Richard Greyman of the EFS Enterprise.”

Her ears drooped a little, “Sorry for the mistake. Is now a bad time? I can wait to speak with your captain.”

“He’s busy with an inspection, but he will be more than willing to make time for a diplomatic meeting. Please wait.”

She smiled, thanked him and then closed the channel. As his screen turned to normal, several voices commented on the scene they had just witnessed. Normally he would reprimand them for it, but instead, he chose to ignore it. Turning to Misaki, who seemed to be holding back a few giggles, he said, “Find the captain. I think he is in the forward cargo hanger.”

She giggled, “Certainly sir. So what are you going to tell Samantha?”

He gave her a look and she immediately stiffened.

Countryman looked out the observation port, at the alien cruiser. Its hull was entirely organic, with a rather bulbous forward section, and four arms extending backwards and arching back to meet a central point. Yet not actually touching the point. There were numerous bumps and nodes on the surface, whose function he couldn’t tell. Not yet, anyway. Also near the rear was four sets of fins, each set contained three translucent fins, one long one, and two short. Near the midsection were several depressions which he now knew to be orifices, likely serving as hangers. He came to that conclusion moments ago, since he had seen an orifice on the side open up allowing a smaller craft to slip into the void. One that was now heading here to land. He was going to be meeting the alien captain shortly. It was certainly going to be something. Especially given her attire or lack thereof. Although he figured it was a given that some cultures out there might not wear clothing. Even if most science fiction franchises seemed hesitant to explore that idea. Yet here he had found an example, or more like one had come to him.

So far she seemed friendly and Countryman figured he would take the diplomatic approach. They had few friends out here at the moment and more friends would only benefit them. As he waited, he started looking over the few material studies reports. Particularly one involving tungsten, erudite, and several polymers, the resulting alloy was interesting. Without titanium, it wasn’t as responsive to structural reinforcement but the alloy had some very nice properties for armor. Very high thermal resistance, and able to break up kinetic shells on impact. The lab in question had used it in this form and another form that mixed a little titanium back into the alloy. The new alloy mix wouldn’t replace titan alloy in ship construction, but it might replace the current generation of thermal coating on their hulls, which already included tungsten for its desirable properties. The question was if it was actually worth the cost given the use of erudite. Since that material was hard to come by. He had another material team looking into ways to artificially produce the unusual metal.

Putting that aside, he watched the shuttle land and the bay doors close. It was about time for what might be a rather interesting conversation. He glanced at the console and watched the atmospheric readings go up. Pressure increased at a rapid pace as air rushed to fill the hanger. The deck four hangar was smaller than the main hangars and not equipped for fighter operations, but given its intended use for receiving guests, it was designed to fill quickly. As a result it wasn’t long before the bay had enough air for him to enter.

Stepping into the bay, he looked over the small shuttle. It was a lot like the mothership in form, but much smaller and without the arms on the rear. It also only had two sets of fins, but they were more prominent compared to the rest of the body. A moment later the side opened up, several thick membranes moving aside to reveal a passage into the hull. A hull he noted was plated with an unusual organic plating. It wasn’t chitin or bone, something else. Countryman activated the extra sensors he had in his left arm and started scanning.

The alien captain Linari disembarked a moment later, and she was still quite naked. Giving him and the guards in the room quite the view. Although it didn’t mean much to him. She smiled, making her fang a little more prominent, “Checking out my shuttle?”

“Well we don’t see much organic technology.”

“Yes, well our cultures are rather divergent. Where many cultures delve into mechanical technologies, our people instead focused on the biological. Our homeworld was rather poor on heavy metals, so perhaps it’s not a surprise we focused on the biosciences.” she replied while looking around. Then she turned back to him, “You know I was expecting this ship to smell more sterile, you have a garden onboard?”

“Several, the Enterprise is a large ship, we have a few recreational gardens, but most of our growing space is actually for growing crops and raising fish.”

“Neat,” she said while looking him over, “and the rumors weren’t wrong your kind do resemble Valorians. A case study on your species might be quite interesting. I know a few scientists who would love to make that study. It has interesting implications for certain theories on parallel development. We already know that spacefaring cultures tend to be of one archetype or another, while sapience isn’t limited to the humanoid form many spacefaring races are of the form due to the inherent advantages it provides for tool use. Although some examples are only loosely related to the form, they still hold to most characteristics, as is the case with the Cathamari.”

“Well we have been looking into that ourselves. In the months since we made contact with the Valorians we have picked up a fair number of castaways and salvaged a few wrecked Valorian ships. Including medical data, we have learned a fair amount about them. I’m not against sharing that data.”

She shifted, “Yes we would compensate you for the data.” gesturing at the door, “Shall we walk? I know we have much to discuss.”

She wasn’t wrong, this was the first meeting of their two civilizations. There was much to talk about, especially if they were to avoid another war. The Refuge didn’t need one, they already had enough conflict with the Voskar and the Valorians. Not to mention they were still technically at war with the Cathamari Empire, as no peace treaty had ever been signed. Countryman doubted one would be at this rate and personally suspected the Cathamari Empire would collapse long before any treaty could be signed.

So he escorted Linari to the conference room where a number of female officers were waiting to be a part of this meeting. Naturally Williams was not among the participants, but he had brought Ruri his chief scientist, Richards the Chief Engineer, Misaki his operation’s officer, and Eri his helmsman. There were other officers he could have selected, but given her nudity, he felt it best to restrict to female officers. He didn’t bring Williams since she was likely to be volatile, while Kaori didn’t feel comfortable leaving the weapon’s array during a first-contact situation. So he left her on the bridge, the ones he did bring were the people he felt most able to handle the nature of the meeting.

The room wasn’t far and they soon settled into seats for the meeting, where they discussed the terms of future relations. Eventually, the conversation drifted to trade. Linari stretched a little, her breasts lifting a bit in the process as she looked between various faces, “So my people are interested in trading knowledge. New ideas are often welcome and can enhance both parties. With that in mind, I do have to ask how many of your kind are there? I presume the answer is not many.”

He blinked, then sighed, “Sadly you would be right, the war with the Cathamari was brutal and costly. Very few of us actually remain, but we would prefer if that information wasn’t widely known.”

She smiled, “We would never knowingly share the secrets of another and we can help. As I said, we have a lot of knowledge in the biosciences. I can guess that you are looking for a new world. We are highly accomplished in that regard. Obviously, the gods brought you to us, so that we could teach you. We offer our knowledge of planetary bio-forming.”

“Bio-forming? Hmm, interesting, I presume that has something to do with adapting the biosphere to better suit your species?”

“Yes, we use various methods to introduce controlled mutations to produce a more lush environment better able to house Wovnar settlements. The techniques could be adapted for your own species as well. While also using our own list of other techniques to alter planetary conditions to better match our homeworld.”

Ruri seemed to have something to say but before she could Countryman replied, “It might prove useful, we already have experience with terraforming. We brought life to the other worlds in our home system and they weren’t that hospitable when we began. Perhaps we should offer our own terraforming knowledge in exchange.”

“Sounds doable, and we will offer our medical database as well in exchange for yours. Is that agreeable?”

“Fairly, there is some stuff we won’t share, but we do have notes on life extension you might find interesting. Who knows, maybe you will have something to add.”

“Life extension? We do have insights on the subject. Yours might be interesting as well.”

Ruri then spoke up, “I am curious about your ships, they are completely organic. How do you manage to produce them? Also...”

Linari stopped her, and said, “The exact particulars are not something we plan to share, but I can give you the basics. Organic ships like any form of life begin as an embryo. We create a stable gene-seed and pattern, implant it into an egg and stimulate growth. If we were successful we would have a small embryo in a few days, which we then immerse in a growth medium. After a couple of weeks once it’s stable, we then move it from the growth mediums into a specialized growth sack, these will swell as the baby ship grows and serve to protect it during its vulnerable phase. In other words, it’s like a giant womb, but for starships. We have numerous berths back home that grow ships like mine.”

Ruri scratched her cheek, “So basically they are grown in a fashion not dissimilar to people, and from the sound of it you use a type of cloning facility to grow them. That does leave one to wonder, do they have the capacity to reproduce on their own?”

Linari smiled, “In theory yes, but it’s a slow process. Growing a ship requires a lot of nutrients, and ships grow larger as they age, which requires more. Nutrient supplies are in fact one of the limitations of organic ships. They require the same resources we do, but they need so much more of it.”

Countryman glanced at Ruri, and then turned back to Linari, “I see, so your ships are largely fueled by organic material?”

“Yes and no, we use multiphase bioreactors but the nutrients we feed our ships aren’t really used for energy generation, but the process of breaking them down and converting them into usable compounds does produce energy. Enough to fuel the basic processes of our ships. Higher energy systems like the engines, and the defense systems require a much denser energy source. We use specially cultivated crops rich in the right material, which when broken down releases a fair amount of energy, but it’s when they are combined in the second reaction phase that the most energy is produced. In a pinch, however, we can just inject raw Deuterium into the reactor.”

Misaki, looking a little lost, decided to mention, “Um, sir, we do have a surplus of nutrient paste right now.”

“Right, we can offer that for trade. Assuming it’s acceptable, we could use some deuterium.”

Linari sighed, “I don’t have much to offer there, but I’ll see what I can do. On a different note, I’m curious. What kind of power generation do you use, some kind of fusion or antimatter?”

“Both actually, for fusion we use contained plasma reactors. Taking advantage of gravitic fields we compress superheated plasma to the point that fusion occurs, the result is like a miniature star, a computer-controlled reactive containment field is used to ensure containment. These reactors are difficult to miniaturize though, but they do have superb outputs. In fact prior to the advent of warp drive, reactors of this type were used as the primary power supply for military vessels,” said Countryman while thinking of the eight primary fusion reactors on the Enterprise, which provided plenty of power for the ship’s systems and were very efficient. Then he said, “As for the Antimatter reactors, we use a design with two cores that combines deuterium with anti-deuterium in highly energetic reactions. Specialized devices capture the energy generated by these reactions and supply power to the ship. Just one reactor provides the same output as eight fusion reactor modules.”

“Plasma reactors? Interesting, not many of the races around here use that technology. They are one of the more powerful methods of fusion available, but they are also the most dangerous.”

“Oh they certainly are, if not handled properly. Our reactor modules are located as deep in the hull as we could put them and are further protected by internal plating and reinforced bulkheads. Along with numerous safeguards to ensure that any loss of containment doesn’t cause much damage to the ship. Ones that have been tested in battle time and time again on the ancestors of the Enterprise.”

“Logical, but also perhaps expected.” she shifted her stance as she stood up, her breasts bouncing a little with the movement. “Well we have been here awhile, why don’t we take a break, then we can discuss the terms of trade. I would also like a look at that nutrient paste.”

Countryman smiled, “Sure we can adjourn. I had a lounge prepared.”

He did in fact have one prepared, mainly by barring men from the establishment which is why he wasn’t going to join them. At least that was the plan, but sometimes things don’t quite go the way you expect.