Beginning: Encounter on Charis

Beginning: Encounter on Charis

Memt 'tasa stretched in the flight seat as best as the g-harness would allow. His eyes burned from staring at the scanner screens and flight instruments for too many ahn. He punched in the new co-ordinates for the Manshra 'Rhupta star sector within the Surl 'pena quadrant. His tour of duty had barely began and already routine started to dull his wits. His inner eye lids drooped from drowsiness as he nearly missed the brief amber flash on the scanner screen. Memt 'tasa sat forward within the harness, his inner eye-lid retracted as renewed attentiveness banished his sleepiness.

There it was again. He noted the co-ordinates on the screen. He wondered what caused that anomolous blip. Amber meant unidentified and proceed with caution. Following proceedure, Memt 'tasa switched on his beacon and transmitted all the data collected from his patrol with the last few moments coded for immediate analysis. He then turned his ship and waited for a response. It would be a while for the light wave transmission to arrive at base, another while for the decoders and analyzers to make their determination, and then return a light beam with instructions.

The Manshra 'Rhupta sector was located on the outer most region of Surl 'pena space. An area seldom noted as interesting or important. This amber blip changed that status to noted interest. Memt 'tasa localized the position of the anomaly. Whatever it was, his investigation would center around Fern 'ost-3-b. Right in the midst of the orbital sweet zone where the radiation of the local star wasn't too much or too little for planet sized objects with molten cores to develop liquid water and an atmoshphere. The third planet had three moons; one (dash b) had a molten core, water and atmosphere and classified as a planet in its own right. It was this planet sized moon where the blip mocked him.

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The scout ship approached the outer orbitals of the Fern 'ost system. The difficulty to maneuver safely was the prime reason the Surl 'pena councils had disregarded this sector. The danger of rogue asteroid collisions everywhere at any time in this system promised failure to any serious colonizing venture. Well, until recently. New technology for detection and repulsion of large astro-bodies was now available. The problem was, the technology was too costly to implement just anywhere.

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By the time Memt 'tasa's ship was half way to Fern 'ost-3, his language computer had formulated a translation of some form of primitive language structure. He marvelled that the language base was found on the lower slow broadbands of sound. The technology was alien and primitive. By the time he was hours away from first contact, Memt 'tasa could converse with these adventurous, if reckless and suicidal entities, through his computer translation programs. More importantly, he'd learned the entities were on Fern 'ost-3-b temporarily, they were preparing to change Fern 'ost-3's environment to be better suited for life forms they'd brought from their home planet. He was very much alarmed by this concept, as any civilized race of beings understood that planetary ecosystems were fragile and easily destroyed when altered through interstellar contamination.

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He sat rigid strained against his g-harness as he sent out a sound band query toward the Fern 'ost-3-b outpost..."Memt 'tasa of Surl 'pena bid you greetings. Request envoy conference with your leadership. Over."

The receiver crackled with background static; the first time the sound band had been quiet all the time of his approach. Memt 'tasa felt the violet and green flush of fear prickle across his forehead. He interpreted the silence as an ill omen.

Just as he inhaled to repeat the call, his cabin filled with a strange pronunciation of his name.

"Meem ta taasa, umm uh...Who are you again? And what do you want?"

"I am Memt 'tasa of the Surl 'pena Enclave. You have occupied a moon within the jurisdiction of the Surl 'pena Enclave. I am an envoy sent to negotiate terms of occupation."

"Oh, Christ! Do you hear what I'm hearing? We landed on a alien owned planet!"

"Get yer thumb off the transmitter, you're broadcas..." Static hissed through Memt 'tasa's ship's receiver.

What a thoroughly strange response. Memt 'tasa light beamed his complete recent activities and discoveries to base. Then he set the ship's radio to broadcast light beam updates every thirty-seconds of an ahn (every fifteen minutes).

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A meeting with a Human titled Beau was arranged to discuss the terms of occupation of the Fern 'ost system, or as the Humans called the planet and moon, Oikia and Charis. Preliminary radio contact had gone well, face to face contact was essential to complete negotiations.