New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

Lt. Commander Ebbe was a short, unassuming man with brown hair and brown eyes.  He was decidedly average in appearance, but behind his eyes sparkled a deep intelligence that piqued Jaya’s interest.

As they approached, she gestured to the cryo casket next to her.  It was labeled with a false name, with no image or window inside to keep the true identity of its occupant a secret.

“Everything that is left of Hoc Rem is in here,” she told them.

“Best not to say the name aloud,” Ebbe said.  His voice was softer than Jaya would have expected.

She nodded.  “Very well.  I wish you luck in finding anything useful.  Unfortunately, his brain has largely been destroyed, and his personal data files deleted themselves.”

“Did they suffer physical destruction?” Ebbe asked.  “Like internal acid compounds or the like.”

“It does not seem so – there’s some physical evidence that Rem had some systems removed, which could have included those sorts of things.”

Ebbe’s lips went into a grim line.  “So they were put in unwillingly without his knowledge.”

“It’s barbaric,” Jaya said.  “Not to know, at least.”

Ebbe eyed her curiously and she knew he was wondering if she knew that intelligence officers like himself willingly had such measures installed.  Even in death they would give away nothing.

“I agree,” he said.

Jaya looked around the hangar; it had been emptied of all other personnel, as had several other docks, along with other small shuttles docking at them.  All of them had good reasons for the security, that would hopefully not draw the attention of spies.

Rare to see it so empty, she thought.

“Here are all the data drives.”

“Have you copied them?” Ebbe asked.

“Yes.”

“Delete all the duplicate copies,” he told her.  “I will send my authorization code at a later time, after we have left the vessel.”

Jaya frowned.  “You do not wish us to sift the data?”

“We don’t know if any of it is dangerous,” the man said.  “And we can be certain that having the data is dangerous.  It’s best if you delete it.”

Jaya was disquieted by that – not by the danger, but that they wouldn’t even get a chance to take a crack at it themselves.

“Does this order originate from above?” she asked.

The man did not answer, just fixing his eyes on hers for a moment before looking back.  “Prepare the wipe, but don’t perform it until I signal.  Just in case we are destroyed.”

A tingle went down the back of Jaya’s neck.  “Just how important do you believe this data to be?”

The man looked at her.  “I am not at liberty to say.”

Jaya narrowed her eyes.  “I am your superior officer, Lt. Commander.”

The man kept his eyes on hers, but she did not blink.

“You’re right, ma’am,” he said.  “No offense was intended.”

She did not believe he was accepting their relative ranking so much as calculating that it wasn’t a fight worth taking.

“Until I receive orders from above my rank, I will not be deleting any data,” she told him.

The man kept his face calm, but said nothing to her.

“Get it all on the ship,” he told his crew.

They moved to it, rolling the trolleys onto the ship that contained the data and body.

As they moved out of earshot, she turned on privacy mode.  It was a simple acoustic trick, directed interference audio that would prevent eavesdropping.

“Now that we are alone,” she said, “Tell me what you know.”

Ebbe regarded her with confusion.

“Override code #375BGH1JK,” she told him.

The man’s eyes widened, and he studied her, realizing that he had underestimated her.

“I did not realize,” he said.  “I’ll answer what I can.”

“What is on this data that makes it so important?” she asked him.

“Hoc Rem had sent out tentative feelers to us some weeks ago.  We believe he was just hedging his bets, but he did tell us that even though he did not know who his true masters were when he was first hired, he had done some digging of his own.”

“And?”

“He would not transmit any data on it, but we believed him.  If he found a trail back to who we suspect they were it would be extremely important.”

She looked up into the ship where the body was.  “Pity most of his mind was destroyed.  If he was this secretive, he might have kept the data on his person instead of the external drives.”

“Do not worry,” Ebbe told her.  “We have our methods.  We will learn exactly what Hoc Rem discovered.”

< Ep 8 Part 11 | Ep 8 Part 13 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

“Yes, madam- Joph- Ambassador, it’s me!” Tred said.

“Oh how wonderful!  I hadn’t made a call like this before.  I’m told that you’re not even anywhere near me on the ship, is that true?”

His heart was still racing as she spoke.

Jophiel was simply the name he’d suggested for the being, a plasma entity who they had taken on board the ship to live in one of the fusion reactors.

Her voice was synthetic, created by an AI that translated the electromagnetic impulses her kind used to communicate into sound, using masterfully crafted algorithms to try and intone the correct feeling of a being utterly alien to him.  He honestly couldn’t know how good a job it did.

And Jophiel was not actually a she.  That was a projection of his kind, humanizing an alien being who had no concept of sexes as humans knew it.

Yet she still sounded beautiful.

“You know you can just call me Jophiel,” she replied, amusement in her voice.  “But you are so sweet calling me all that.  You know I’m not really that special – I was only chosen by random . . .” the rest of her words blanked out into a garble of unclear sounds.

Some kind of idiom, perhaps?  If her people had idioms.  Who knew if they did?  They had nothing solid about them – just ionized gases bound in electromagnetic fields.  Then again, maybe he was being solidcentric in thinking idioms were bound in some way to that sort of quality . . .

“You are special to me!” he blurted out.

His cheeks burned in humiliation.

“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Jophiel said.  Tred could barely hear it over the sound of blood rushing in his ears.  “I was not sure why you hadn’t been around for almost a week.  We had been talking a lot and then you seemed to get distracted.”

“Oh, uh . . .”  Tred realized that she had not taken his words in the worst possible way.  If anything, she didn’t seem to take them as that significant at all . . .  “Well, we had a battle, you see.  It was kind of a big deal.”

There was a long silence on her end.  He almost spoke, hesitated, then she finally replied.

“A battle?  I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“We were attacked by these aliens called Hev.  They were one faction called uh . . . P’G’Maig.”

“But what is a battle?”

Tred did not know how to reply to that.

“Uh . . . a fight?  Combat?  The P’G’Maig were trying to . . . destroy us.”

She fell silent again.

Oh Dark, had she even known?

“I had been told about this,” she said carefully and slowly.  “My people have never had these ‘battles’.  I was told there was a danger to me as well if one could happen.  I did not think it actually would.”

“We won!  So you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“I’m not worried,” she replied, almost sounding distracted.  “I had wondered about those little things coming at us.  Was that part of the battle?”

“You mean the missiles?”

“Things flew out of the ship, small and large.  And lots of little things flew at us but many did not make it.  I thought maybe it was some form of communication, but I couldn’t understand it . . .”

“You could see all that was happening?” Tred asked despite himself.

“Yes, of course.  The shielding on this little house reactor blocks some of what I can see, but not every wavelength.  So I can see the whole ship and outside it for quite some distance.”

“Can you . . . see me?” he asked.  “Like specifically, where I am now.”

“Well . . . no.  I mean, I can see the beings on the ship – there’s so many! – but they are just electromagnetic points.  I’m sorry, I can’t yet tell you all apart very well.”

“Oh, I’m not offended,” he said.  He actually felt glad – he did not like being tracked all the time.  It was a part of everyday life for AIs to do it, but for a being to monitor him gave him the willies.  “I was just curious, really,” he continued.  “But you know, if you can see out, I guess that helps not to feel claustrophobic in there.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what that means.”

“No, I’m sorry!  It means feeling . . . trapped or cooped up.”

“I see.  No, I never have that problem!  It feels pleasantly cozy, but you’re right that seeing out makes it not a bother.  I rather like it – I’ve never felt this sort of sensation.”

That was not what he would have felt in her shoes- or plasma, rather.  But she interacted with the world far differently than he did.

“Have you heard about the play that’s going to be shown?” Jophiel asked out of the blue.

He fumbled to get his brain onto a whole new topic.  “Oh, the . . . one about Ussa and Usser?”

“That’s it.  Can anyone go see it?”

“Well, sure.  They’re doing a few showings, so I think a lot of people will be going.  And there will be live feeds.”

“Oh, interesting.  I wish I could see it, too.  I can sense new people on the ship all over, and many in groups – I thought that was them.”

“Can you . . . see in the visible light spectrum?  Er, the ones we can see.  The wavelengths of 380 to 750 nanometers.”

“Yes, I can see every wavelength I know of!” she replied.

It was somewhat of an unhelpful answer, given he did not know for sure if she was aware of wavelengths she couldn’t see.

But she was not dumb, he chided himself.  Even if her people did not have technology, they were not fools.

“Well,” he said, the thought occurring to him.  “What if I took you to see it?  I mean, I know you can’t go personally.”

He found himself imagining what she might look like in that scenario; some being of light, like the angel she was named for?  Or maybe just a glowing sphere?

Either way, it would probably prove fatal for both or either of them.

“How could I go and see?”

“I could modify a drone for you!” he said.  “I know you already have some basic ones you’ve used, but I could make it better than those, and we could feed the data into the fusion reaction chamber easily!”

Yes, the emitters they’d put in that provided gentle EM emissions to translate their words into signals she could understand could just as easily convert images and sounds!  It’d be child’s-play, really.  He’d literally done it for fun as a child!  Every kid did an experiment of turning starlight into sound as a learning project, and he had quite enjoyed it.

The only issue was the drone . . .  The stock models were hardy but lacked much visual range, they wouldn’t do at all . . .

“That sounds wonderful!” Jophiel said, her voice rising to almost a squeal.  Normally a voice that high-pitched bothered him, but from her he found he did not mind.  “Can you really do that?”

“I can try,” he said, trying to be honest.  Yet he already knew he would do anything he could to not let her down.  “I mean – I’ll get it done!”

“This is so exciting!  Please, let me know how it’s going, all right?  And if you need any help, well . . . my diplomatic codes should help you open some . . . doors.”  She seemed to hesitate on the last word, as if not really sure.

Which probably meant she was actually using a human expression!  That pleased him for some reason.

She began to send codes, and he gasped.  “Jophiel, you can’t just give me these codes!  I’m not authorized-“

“I am an ambassador,” she said over him, matter-of-factly.  “And I have chosen to take you into my confidence.  Just don’t tell anyone else!”

“A-all right,” he replied nervously.  What he had was actually serious intel . . .  at least in theory.  He did not know if anyone would actually care, or if it was just him.

“I need to go . . . I’ll have to figure out how to get started,” he said, feeling very nervous now.

“Okay!  Goodbye for now, Tred!”

< Ep 8 Part 8 | Ep 8 Part 10 >