Kat put three in the heart and two in the head of the target before she noticed someone tapping on her shoulder. She took off her ear pro and holstered her weapon.
"Good job, you're as good a shot as I am, if not better. On a range, at least," Adrian Mosey said.
"Thanks."
"I am glad at least one person is taking this seriously. Our lives could depend on your skill and dedication."
She squinted at him.
"Sorry, been talking to the council too much, developed some bad habits.
"Speaking of," he said, "they approved hiring people as marines. A sergeant's billet is yours if you want it.
"Even with the locals giving us some ring material, the council is getting nervous."
"No success on getting more material?"
"No, were getting enough to get by, but no more than that. We will never leave as things are now. And no luck at all with heavy metals for the plate."
---
"Iceball is confirmed at thirty meters per second."
"Launch pods. Tell the Churchill to push off but do it slowly, I don't want to frighten our hosts."
The captain was looking at the tank which showed the local ships around the Erikson as small red dots. It also showed one dot heading to the Erikson. What they were calling the iceball was a chunk of ring material from the gas giant they were orbiting.
"Pods one through three are away." The tank was showing the three small service pods moving to pick up the iceball.
The tank shows the three pods slowly moved to surround the iceball. They paused as data from them started to read out over screens.
"I don't trust this," his military adviser, Adrian, said.
"I don't either, but I don't think things will get better until we can have a real conversation."
The data from the pods showed that the iceball was good, nothing harmful in it.
"Launch the Churchill, keep her fifty meters from the ring."
"Aye, aye, sir"
"I feel like a dog on a one-meter leash; I keep expecting the collar to get tighter," Adrian said.
The captain nodded curtly, agreeing.
"Churchill is at fifty meters off docking ring, sir."
"All three pods report ready to move the Iceball to the Churchhill."
"Any activity from the quarantine ships?"
"Slight increase in radar, that's it." Which could mean anything.
"The pods and Churchill may proceed."
The pods pushed the iceball next to the Churchill. People in suits exited and used lasers to cut it up into small enough chunks for the Churchill to process.
He turned to Lt. Moisey and said, "How are your marines?"
"As well as can be expected, although I wish we had some gravity to train in."
"No, it was a good recommendation on your part to not start the rings up, they're too easy of a target. One hit on either when they are moving would be all it would take."
After the iceball was loaded, the captain said, "You want to join me when I talk to the translation team, Lieutenant?"
---
"Chief Programmer Thurll, it's good to see you." The programmer was hunched over a desk, which in zero-G, was quite an accomplishment. He turned around and saw the captain and Lieutenant Moisey.
The room they were in was one of the large conference rooms in the black ring. It almost looked like astrometrics. Screens were on almost every surface and a dozen people were working, most of whom looked exhausted.
"How is your progress , chief?"
"Not bad, have about a hundred and fifty people on the stations helping. We put what little we had from the transmissions as well, although that was not much. We already have most of the major verbs and nouns nailed down and are moving to putting sentences together now. Not that I have any idea why they can't just talk to us in English."
"They must have destroyed the records. They are a dark colony, after all; they would not be the first people to want to forget about the past entirely," Adrian said.
"I don't buy it. Also, that does not explain the tech we found in orbit that tests say was there for over a thousands years."
"There must have been a problem with the tests," The captain said.
"Right... a problem no once can find, on tests that have been in common use for more than a century."
Lt. Moisey said, "You have a better idea?"
"Nope, even assuming there is a problem with the tests, I find it hard to believe that anyone would destroy all of their histories. To even go to the trouble of making up a whole new language from nothing." He put his hands up in the air, "It's never happened! Ever! In all of human history! I checked quite thoroughly. What would even be the point of doing such a thing?"
"Never? Really? History is full of new languages being created,." Adrian noted.
"Yes, but they're never really new, they always come from somewhere. This one has no relation to any known language. They would have had to make new language, from scratch then, by force, forbid speaking any old ones. I don't know if the worst Hab in Liang could do that effectively."
"How long till we can hold a real conversation?" Patel asked the programmer.
"Two months? One at best? Hard to be sure, never done this before, I don't think anyone has had to do this before."
They could hold out that long, but they would just be holding out. They could make no repairs to the plate, nor could they refuel enough to leave orbit.
He was beginning to fear that his first instincts about going to a dark colony were correct.
---
You will give us all your technical information, one boat, and twenty experts in your sciences and technologies.
In return for these small tokens, you will be allowed to remain autonomous and will continue to receive supplies.
We await your agreement.
The captain had been hoping they could resolve things by talking. But after a month and a half of learning their language, the first thing the local government sent was a demand. After two hours, the captain was trying to look calm, something he wished the councilors would do.
They were waiting for an answer to a question, an answer the captain was afraid he already knew.
They also sent questions about where the locals were from, but the captain doubted they would answer those.
If the leaders were on the habitable planet, then they should be getting a response soon.
"We got a signal councilor, running it through the translator now," was piped into the council chamber.
The people given will be a gift. They will not be returned.
We will meet to discuss terms in [14 days 2 hours 6 minutes 3 seconds] just inside of a lock, you will install in the following location. You will have your leaders waiting to greet us.
It then showed two crude diagrams of the Erikson, one front view, and one side view. Each had a dot, obviously noting a single location.
The locals wanted to meet on a ring where there was not even an emergency lock.
"Are...are they serious? They want a new airlock installed in the toughest part of our hull for their use?" Lucas asked softly.
Patel spoke, "They are. A gesture of...submission if my guess is right. They want us to know who is in charge."
---
Roger finished his set of ten sim's early that day. He had been running sim's for up to twelve hours a day since they were updated with the new data. There was still much to learn but he had to go dancing with Kat.
She was working less and was smiling more. He was still teaching her to draw and she was growing quite skilled, in Roger's opinion. Occasionally, he woke to her crying in her sleep, but she would stop when he held her tight.
He arrived at the zero-G dance club quickly. After A few minutes, after that he had changed out of his flight suit.
Kat was waiting with Nadica when he came out of the changing room.
"Ready to dance the night away?"
"Always." Roger looked up and saw that there were way more people there than normal.
Kat must have seen him looking. "It's the meeting making everyone antsy. They want to move around."
Roger smiled, "I can understand that, I might be here long hours if I was not busy in sim's all day. Can't think of anything worse then boredom right now."
He extended his hand to Nadica. She began coming with them a few weeks before. He thought she was interested in someone and wanted to practice. Knowing her, she would tell him everything at once, when she was ready. That or she was just lonely. Either way, he was happy to dance with her.
Once the three of them were exhausted, they headed out. He had danced with both of them several times and a few other people as well. It constantly amazed him that a day had come when he not only had a beautiful wife but that he could dance in public with her. He felt little anxiety anymore, all thanks to Kat.
He had his arm around Kat's shoulders when they arrived at their quarters; strangely both his and the Loke's quarters were open. His quarters had boxes inside and it looked like his stuff was in the Loke's quarters.
Kyle stuck his head out and said, "I thought you said I had four hours."
Nadica put her hands on her hips. and said, "Do I look like I could have held them back?"
Kat looked as confused as Roger.
"I meant to be done before you got back, but someone couldn't keep you away long enough." He coughed, "Roger, Kat, I know both of you have been busy and were putting it off, so I took care of it."
Roger looked at Nadica, who had been living with Kyle as of the day before.
"I moved to the empty single over there." She pointed several hatches down.
"And I'm moving into your old quarters. Consider this a belated wedding present from us."
"I don't know what to say," Roger said as he mag-walked up to Kyle and clasped hands with him.
"After everything you've done? It's the least we could do."
Kat hugged her brother tightly.
"Thanks, big brother. Have I told you lately how much I appreciate you?"
"No, but I know you do," he paused then continued, "of course, the real reason is so I won't have to hear the noise after you go dancing..."
"It's a beautiful sound," Kat said as she pulled Roger close.
Kyle squinted his eyes and said, "They are not sounds I should hear my sister making."
Roger surprised Kat by kissing her in the corridor, and picking her up.
As he carried her into their new quarters, Kat said, "Well, if you'll excuse us. We have some noise to make..." Kat said as she and Roger went into their new quarters.
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