”Well, you actually can. The meeting room is already quite big itself and the central table is modular, so it can get even bigger if we happen to need more space."
”Follow me then. It’s going to take us a minute or two."
With the large following of aliens behind hir, Oullin began guiding them down the winding, seemingly endless hallways of the enormous ship: even if the part actually destined to the crew was rather small - with the rest of the ship being completely automated, while still having some maintenance and emergency tunnels - it was still a pretty large area to be crossed. Luckily for them, the hangar wasn’t too far from their destination, and so it only took them little time. In the meanwhile, they continues to discuss some other things about their nations.
The meeting room was circular and spacious, with a large holotable in it’s center, who was also circular. As soon as the doors opened, 29 effector chairs materialized from the floor, taking a shape that would best fit the anatomy of the Rikeuninerd for sitting. A single one of the chairs, instead, took a spiral like form, ready to accomodate Oullin’s snake-like body.
”Please, take a seat."
”So… what would you all like to start with during this meeting of ours?"
They enter the room talking amongst them selves, observing their surroundings. They all sit down in silence, He, Desysy, and Ku-dyko sitting next to each other.
Captian He: “First, we need to contact Ruka. As Ku-dyko said, they’ll be looking for us. We will be able to get an actual diplomat as well.”
”Mh. Well, that can surely be done. If you’d be willing to give me one of your ship’s communication codes, we could convert it in a way that’s compatible to our machinery, and send a communication to Ruka. Our communicators can basically send messages almost instantaneously to pretty much anywhere that has the sufficient technology to capture the message."
”So, if you could just tell me the code, or write it down on the table, we could settle that immediately."
A small cylinder emerged from the surface of the table, right in front of the lotech tablet. A beam of colorful light was projected from the cylinder’s front, quickly scanning the 2D Matrix Code before disappearing.
The cylinder then lowered back into the black surface of the table, disappearing as if it was never even there.
”Perfect! Now, we can just send this over to the Communicator Relay and… there we go! They should be able to receive the message in some seconds. It’s not always instantaneous due to compatibility problems and metric distortions, but it always takes no more than some 20 seconds to set up."
”As soon as it connects, feel free to talk first. I’ll chime in later if that is needed."
Captain He: “Rehy Civilian defence, this is Scrapping ship 434-3. We have accidentally warped outside of known territory. We are under first contact protocol, encounter is The Celestial Empire of Galactya. Status: Safe. Ship is docked on Astral Collapse. We are outside our radios range, so haven’t been able to communicate. We are currently in a meeting room and have began diplomacy with official Oullin Phtalamm. Akak.”
Co-pilot Desysy is checking the 434-3’s log: “The coordinates entered into the ship where [coordinates]. We request an official diplomat. Akak.”
It takes a few moments for a response, as the crew is very far from home.
Civilian defence: “Scrapping ship 434-3 this is Civilain defence. We are recalling for search operations regarding you and your ship and are sending two diplomats. Akak.”
Captain He: “It will take 24 or so hours to get here. We where in the warp for a while. Akak.”
”Well, now that that’s out of the way, is there anything less you might want to discuss? We probably have anywhere from some hours to a day before the two diplomats your civilian defense sent will arrive, so there is plenty of time for discussion."
”For example, that “Akak” you and the responder both said at the end of your sentences, what is it’s function? If I’m not wrong, it seems relatively similar to the Terran “Over”, which they often put at the end of short military communication to signify that they are done talking. Does “Akak” have that same purpose?"
Ku-dyko: “Akak is used to signify the end of someone talking, yes. When it is not said the conversation has ended, as long as it makes sense to end it.”
”Terrans, and their evolutionary descendants, are the most widespread species in the Sector, and they perhaps have the most nebulous and undefined origins between all known clades and species. Many terrans immigrated and were soon after born in the Empire around 200 standard years ago, and now the various thousands of species they diversified in make up one of the Empire’s hundreds of clades. Said clade is known as NeoTerrans."
“Their baseline form is that of bipedal apes with a low amount of natural body hair, with a current average height of 1.80 meters, and a large variety of skin tones ranging anywhere from light pink, to tanned orange-ish, to a brownish black. The difference in skin color mostly derives from different levels of melanin caused by the many different environments on their home planet.”
Co-pilot Desysy: “That’s certainly interesting, very different to what we have on Ruka. Most of our species are closer to avian or reptilian like.”
Ku-dyko: “Relating to the diplomats: 24h is a long time. Where going to need food and the like.”
A Logistics crew member turns towards Oullin: “We will need some. There’s fish and water on the ship, not a days worth however. Enough for one scrapping trip.”
Captain He: “We can organise that and talk about: ecology? Our military? Something.”
”If it’s of your liking, we could organize a dinner of sorts in the ship’s entertainment halls. All ships in this fleet produce their own food, no matter the form it may take, so we always have a stable source of nutrition. By my scannings, I assume you’d most enjoy fish and other marine analogues, but I’m more than open to being corrected on that."
”We can discuss whatever you wish in the meantime. Also, we could separate this ship from the rest of the border patrol fleets, and head to the nearest Imperial colony. The closest colony to the Ehla Aritorni Bok Globule, the one in which we are now, is Raharn, a recently colonized system only 2.4 light years from our current position. We could wait for your diplomats there. The trip will take 9 hours and a half. You can also sleep in some of the ship’s quarters, if it so pleases you."
”Ah, I see. Well then, red meat it is. You’ll be able to pick out the meal you prefer most from our selection."
”Raharn is an interesting and quite diverse system. For now, most of the population still lives in orbital habitats, but ever since they finished terraforming some of the planets and moons, people are starting to distribute themselves more. We’ll be heading to the biggest habitat in the system, an O’Neill Cylinder called Locomen. Have you ever been to an O’Neill cylinder before?"
Co-pilot Desysy: “No, most of our habitations are on terraformed planets. Some live on military barracks also.”
Ku-dyko: “I lived on a smaller planet called Ruyi before joining the Defence Defence. The Defence Defence posted me to Deeroo, a major military base and planet, then Rooru-5, an outpost.”
One of the crew twists their neck around: “Iv basically been living on mining ships my whole life.”
”Well then, I hope you’ll like the view! Our population is also mostly on planets, but a good 30% of it lives on orbital habitats and megastructures. O’Neill Cylinders are actually one of our smallest megastructures, only being 100 kilometers long. Some of our biggest megastructures, such as our Rungworld, are circumstellar, being millions of kilometers in diameter."
”We don’t really have anything such as military barracks, due to the absolute majority of our military being automated, with the only manned personal being found on ships. For example this enormous, 25 kilometers long warship, is only manned by less than a thousand people. The engines, maintenance and life support systems are all completely automated, and systems handle most of the weaponry."
Ku-dyko knife hands towards the chattery crew members, in the context of Rikeuninerd body language, this is a gesture that means “shut up”. They all know this, apparat from the individual who has “basically been living on a mining ship [their] whole life.” The individual, who is part of the maintenance crew, keeps talking. Ku-Dyko looks at the cleaner, and calmly but sternly says “Kikakuk, that means be quiet.”
Kikakuk stays quiet, and Ku-dyko says “We should start moving. It is of boring sitting here.”
The crew mutter in agreement. One lets out a quiet caw of excitement.
”Of course. Follow me please. I’ll escort you to the entertainment halls’ dining section. You will all be able to choose any dining area and type of cuisine you most prefer. We have a selection of hundreds of thousands of different dishes and combinations, displayed through holographic and optically phased screening. All of them can be sorted per typology and preference, as well as having their own description and several ingredient indicators. We already set the displays to be in your language, so you will not have any problem."
”When you are done with getting your own meals, feel free to either get your own seating, or to join me at the central table. I’ll be sitting there."
The crew get up and exit calmly, Captain He, Co-pilot Desysy and Ku-dyko are the last to leave the meeting room. They follow Oullin in rough rows of three, staying mostly silent as they look around.
Upon entering the dining section, they gather in familiar groups and discuss around the screens what they should order. Order is a variety of food, predominantly fish and red meats, but also the occasional fruit platter.
Captain He, Co-pilot Desysy Ku-dyko all order red meat. Everyone decides to sit with Oullin, obviously they have to take off there mining helmets to eat.
One of the crew point out an observation: “Desysy. You eat meat?”
Co-pilot Desysy: “Yes. I spent one dry season with Desysya nomads in Kusu. I’m used to it.”
Ku-dyku makes a high ingressive noise: “Can you eat all of it in under 5 minutes?”
Co-pilot Desysy: “Nooo, I don’t have that sense of urgency.”
”You all have an interesting diet. It’s very similar to the diets of a lot of our avian provolves of terran origin. A lot of fish-based meals, even though there is usually more fruit."
”If it interests you, I’m eating something called “Phonob”. It’s a kind of meat-fruit hybrid that was first created thousands of years ago on Anandraan, one of the planets in the Aligol system in the Old Core. It’s a very particular taste, but I always enjoyed it."
”So anyways. I heard that one of the topics you all would have liked to discuss was your military. Then, feel free to tell me as much as you want about it. Of course, I’ll share something about the Imperial Ministry as well."
“Phonob sounds interesting” says one of the crew members across the table.
“I imagine that being similar to the mushrooms that grow in the jungles in the wet season.” says another.
The first individual honks, “nnn they are meat like. They are very good. Grow quickly.” A few of them went and got small portions to try.
Ku-dyko waits for them to finish, before pulling up a hologram of some statistics, projected from Ku-dyko’s wrist: “About 40% of our population is in active military service.”
Captain He chimes in: “Rehy has a population of 11 trillion, for context.”
Ku-dyko acknowledges this with a short beak clack. “The Defence Defence alone has 1.5 Trillion active personnel, 448k ships, and 5 billion reservists. The Defence Defence is Screea’s only military branch.”