Darkworld: Earth

19.

“Captain, Diego is on the radio. He says he has some important news,” Antoine said, and Captain Moon quickly picked up her headset.

“Diego! Long time to speak. Has Eolai said anything that will help us get out of this legal roadblock?” she asked.

“No, but his government has offered us twenty interstellar school buses,” Diego said.

The captain’s eyes opened in surprise. “School buses?”

“Toormonda ships. They’re ships that their kids take field trips in. Honestly it’s more like a high-tech space-camp. According to Eolai, they have a max speed of three hundred times the speed of light and they’re loaded up with the same type of scientific equipment that their adults use. The data they collect is entirely legitimate in their scientific circles, and has been used to make some space-shattering discoveries. Eolai specifically mentioned stellar cartography and hunting black holes as one of the common usages of this type of ship. Their government heard what our mission is and they’re gifting us these ships to help us,” Diego said.

Captain Moon took a moment to consider the implications of this news. “That is a very generous gift. I will have to thank the representatives of the Yonohoan government for their generosity.”

“The first one is scheduled to arrive in system in an hour, Captain. They want us to board it and examine it so that they can customize the rest of them for us,” Diego continued. “They’ve already made alterations to the sleeping quarters with the consideration that we’re all adults.”

“These ships are customizable?” she inquired.

“Yes. There’s dozens of pre-designed purpose built versions available. The one that they’re sending us is designed with the sorts of instruments that fit with the mission of the Seeker , but they took some space out to add in extra exercise equipment. They’re really worried about our health, captain. There’s a built in medical station that’s apparently just as good as the one aboard their flagship, and they want us to let them scan us. I think it’s a good idea, but that’s not my call.”

“Message received. Can they dock with the Seeker ?” she asked.

“Negative, Captain,” Diego admitted. “We’ll have to spacewalk to board the ship. Fortunately we’re all trained for it, right? They’re also offering us a bunch of the blue-tooth like machines the one that I’m wearing right now,” Diego said. “They’re happy to provide one for every member of the crew.”

“That is very generous of them, but I’m a little leery of bringing more of their technology aboard the Seeker until I understand both it and them a little better,” Captain Moon said. “I’ve explained to them the history of the trojan horse.”

“Yeah, I get it captain, you don’t have to justify it to me, and I’m pretty sure that the Yonohoans aren’t trying to force anything down our throats,” Diego said. “I have also discussed with Eolai our concerns about the security and the secrecy of the location of our homeworld. He has informed me that the Yonohoans are holding off on searching for it at our requests, but that they hope that we will come to trust them enough to reveal it on our own. I questioned whether or not the flightpaths of the Toormonda ships will be tracked. According to him, the answer is both yes and no.”

“How can it be both yes and no?” Captain Moon asked.

“Apparently, the system of FTL that they use cause a resonance which is monitored by most of the empires, Captain,” Diego explained. “They monitor interstellar traffic and use that system to hunt bandits. He says that it wouldn’t look abnormal if a bunch of these ships decide to go out into the middle of nowhere, so probably nobody would bother investigating it if we brought them home. He promises that the Yonohoan government won’t build trackers into them, but they’re not untraceable.”

“Understood,” the captain said. “Is there any method of FTL which is untraceable?”

“According to Eolai, there are a few, but those aren’t available to civilians and his government doesn’t know us well enough to offer us a stealth ship. Captain, these Toormonda ships would be state of the art to us, but like the Rocktalas, this is something that these guys grew up playing with as kids. It’s a much bigger deal to us than it is to them, but they’re really trying to make friends.”

“Thank you for your report, Sergeant Cruz. Do you have any other mission critical news?”

A pause. “Nothing mission critical at this time captain.”

“Thank you. Please tell Eolai we look forward to examining the Toormonda ship that is being offered to us, but at present we are not ready to either accept or decline the gift.”

“Yes Ma’am, I’ll let him know. Diego out.”

“ The Seeker of New Discoveries , out,” she said. She cut the feed to the radio and flipped the switch for the intercom. “All staff, please meet in the rec room for an urgent meeting. Repeat, all staff, please meet in the rec room for an urgent meeting in five minutes.”

It took more like twenty minutes for everyone to gather. Some of them had been woken up and looked bedraggled, but when the news was shared everyone seemed to perk up with excitement.

“Will we be accepting this ‘Toormonda’ ship?” Takeshi, one of the astrophysicists inquired. “I’m very excited to see what sort of instruments it possesses and compare them to our own.”

“That remains undetermined. The fact that they possess unknown technology and might be able to trace us back home presents a problem which we’ll be unable to address until we have more information and we’ve built more trust with the Yonohoans,” Captain Moon said.

“They’ve been nothing but generous with us so far,” Rajesh, who was one of the engineers responsible for the nuclear reactors, pointed out.

“They destroyed the probe that we sent them,” Anders reminded everyone.

“I might have done the same in their position,” Captain Moon argued. “They didn’t know who we were, and the probes do sort of look like missiles. They have officially apologized for that action multiple times and thoroughly explained the reasoning behind it. The fully charged capacitor, which I remind everyone has enough energy to run a miniature Tunnel Drive, possessed enough energy to pose a threat to their ships when used in conjunction with a number of weapon systems known to them.”

“I might understand their reasoning, but they still cost the taxpayers about one point two billion dollars,” Anders pointed out.

“And they’re willing to give us twenty ships that we literally can’t afford because nobody on Earth can build them,” Antoine Muller pointed out. “Honestly, how much do you think that the governments back home would pay for just one of those things? And they’re giving us enough of them that we can disassemble ten of them to figure out how they tick, and still have half of them left over, fully functional and ready to help us colonize our neighborhood.”

“They’re slower than the Seeker ,” Sarah pointed out. “And we don’t know what sort of gas they run on.”

“Okay, those are points,” Gabriel said, “but even if they’re not as fast as we are with the Tunnel Drive, you have to remember that these are rated safe for children to fly in, whereas everyone knows that the Tunnel Drive is as dangerous as standing inside of a nuclear reactor. As for the fuel, if it’s not something that we can refine ourselves then yes we’ll probably be reliant upon the Yonohoans until they can teach us how to obtain our own supply. But they seem willing to help us advance technologically, so I don’t see the problem there.”

“I’m not sure I like it,” Hilda, another data analyst said. “We’ve come this far all on our own, and now we’ve bumped into the Yonohoans and suddenly they’re saying ‘you’re technology isn’t good enough. We play with better toys when we’re children. Your most advanced spaceship isn’t even as good as our toys.’ It’s patronizing.”

“You’d decline an opportunity like this just to avoid being patronized?” Gabriel asked. “Just disassembling and attempting to reverse engineer one of those ships might push the technology of Earth forward by centuries. Who cares if they’re built to educate their children? I took a tour of the original Discovery when I was ten years old, and if I hadn’t been overcome with wonder and awe at that historic machine I might not be here today.”

“The Yonohoans have been very clear about the fact that most of their technology was given to them,” Antoine pointed out. “According to their history, their ancestors were hunter-gatherers, just like ours, until the Liberation happened and the Sullivans rushed to bring them into the space-age. They might see the act of assisting us to develop our technology as a natural part of their culture. They might go so far as to feel shamed if they didn’t make such an offer.”

“The fact that they’re educational is an important thing to consider in terms of whether or not we’ll be able to reverse engineer them,” Rajesh pointed out. “I would assume that part of the educational experience would be for the children to learn how to maintain and care for the spacecraft they are flying. That should mean that they are both easy to maintain and understand how they work.”

“Maintenance is a concern. A good portion of our storage space is full of spare parts in case something goes wrong,” one of the maintenance crew pointed out. “Will the same be true of the Toormonda ships?”

The discussion continued for some time, with topics such as the economic impact of the gift coming up. The security concerns were discussed further. As was the question of who would actually own the ships, and who would own the technologies developed from studying them. Few of the topics had any real resolution, except for one.

“I need volunteers to board the ship and inspect it,” Captain Moon said as the debate was drawing to a close.

“I volunteer,” Gabriel said immediately.

“Not you. Your work with getting our systems integrated is too important to risk you in this mission,” the captain said immediately.

Gabriel was disappointed, and he got several annoyed looks from a few of his companions. Several others volunteered. In the end, an away team was selected, consisting of Anthony Anders, the Seeker’s XO, Antoine Muller, a communication’s specialist, Rajesh the engineer, Takeshi the astrophysicist, and Liu Wei, from the medical team.

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