Detour

OOPS

It was the first dog watch on the Andromeda Ascendant. Trance was at the pilot station, her tail twitching with anticipation. Captain Hunt, on the other hand was nervous. Against his better judgment he had agreed to let his medical officer have another attempt at piloting the Andromeda through the Slipstream; taking them to to Arzawa II, where the crew was scheduled to take some well deserved liberty.

"Rommie," he said to the dark haired woman standing beside him, "pass the word. All hands brace for shock. Prepare to enter Slipstream."

Trance flashed her captain a dirty look at his comment about 'bracing for shock' before turning her attention to the task at hand. Within the bowels of the starship, massive generators released their energies creating a rent in the fabric of space. The portal to the Slipstream was opened, and Trance took them in. As Dylan had expected, it was a bumpy ride. After what seemed like an eternity, but couldn't have been more than 30 seconds, they exited from the Slipstream. In the main view screen was a blue planet accompanied by a single large moon.

Harper was studying the image in the viewscreen. "I may be wrong, but if I remember right doesn't Arzawa II have three moons?" There was a pause as he studied the world in question more closely. "No way, it can't be. Boss.."

Whatever he was planning to say was cut off, for at this moment Andromeda's core self appeared on the view screen. "Captain, we are being illuminated by some sort of pulsed electromagnetic radiation, probably targeting systems from the spacecraft orbiting the planet below us"

"Pass the word, Rommie," ordered Dylan. "Battle stations. Andromeda, show me what you have."

As the klaxons began to blare, the viewscreen image changed to reveal a medium sized spacecraft flanked by four much smaller ones.

"At least they haven't started firing yet. It seems the inhabitants of this world are somewhat nervous about unannounced visitors. Andromeda, are they making any attempts at communication?"

"Yes Captain they are," replied Rommie. "It's rather strange The language appears to be an old, ancient really, dialect of one of the languages that Common is based on. I believe it was called English when it was used. They claim to be members of something called Stargate Command from the planet Earth.

"Ancient language? Earth!?" exclaimed Beka. "Trance, you did it to us again."

The entire bridge crew started talking at once, Trance, denying that she had done anything, and the rest demanding explanations.

After a moment Dylan yelled "Quiet!!" When the crew quieted down, Dylan continued. "Andromeda, will you translate for me? Tell the captain of the larger spacecraft that I am Captain Dylan Hunt of the New Systems Commonwealth, commanding the New Systems Commonwealth Cruiser Andromeda Ascendant and that our intentions are peaceful."

Andromeda did as directed, but either something was lost in translation or her accent was so bad as to make her virtually incomprehensible, for a look of puzzlement crossed the face of the person shown on the main view screen. Fortunately someone on the other end must have been able to decipher the intent of Andromeda's message for a look of relief crossed his face. Communication had been established.

While communication had been established, it was neither quick nor easy. As Rommie explained to Dylan, "Our data files on ancient English appear to be somewhat erroneous, and they are completely useless when it comes to pronunciation. The language that Harper knows as English has very little in common with the ancient dialect of it. It will take me at least a day to devise a translation program."

By the next day's forenoon watch the program had been devised. Rommie and her sister/selves were now able to understand and speak English, while the others, thanks to their reprogrammed, translation nanobots could now understand it. Dylan, using either Rommie, or one of her sister selves, as his translator, was soon engaged in negotiations with the other vessel's commanding officer, and his superior on Earth. Unfortunately while the translation nanobots allowed understanding of a language, they did not give the user the ability to speak the language, and the Earthlings, as their counterparts on the other ship referred to themselves as, unsurprisingly enough, did not understand Common. Andromeda could provide translation services as long as her crew remained aboard her, but she would be unable to assist if and when any of her crew visited the other vessel.

It was Harper who came to the rescue. During the second hour of the evening watch he brought out five devices comprised of a box about the size of a man's fist with a grill in the front, a belt clip in the back and a wire extending from the right side of the box to an earplug. There was a single switch on the left side of the device.

"Here you go, Boss", he said to Dylan clipping the box to his belt and placing the earphone in his ear. "Voice activated. You talk, it records what you say, and when you stop talking it translates what you say into English. The switch on the side deactivates the speaker in case we want to talk in private."

"Very nice, Harper," said Tyr "but why the earphone."

" I figure there's no sense letting them know we can understand what they're saying without the devices."

A slow smile formed on Tyr's face. He started to reach out for one of the devices but Harper stopped him.

"Don't pull on the earphone wire."

"And why is that?"

"Because if you pull the wire out, you have 30 seconds to get to cover before the translator detonates."

Tyr's smile became positively carnivorous.

"Everyone take one," ordered Dylan. "Andromeda says that we've all been invited to visit. We're going to someplace they call Cheyenne Mountain."