Steadily and slowly she opened her eyes, but a bright light shinning down on her caused her to shut them tight again. She blinked a few times for her eyes to get adjusted to the brightness. When her eyes were more or less focused she could see a bright light shining down from the ceiling. The sounds around her were also strange. Listening as best she could she tried to make out the voices around her, but all she could hear was gibberish.
She wanted to know what was making the sounds so she tried to sit up, but she was met by pain and she could hardly move.
"Ga dar!" a voice suddenly sounded. She heard a door open and then close, so someone had either left or entered the room. Suddenly a face loomed over her and she was starring into the eyes of what appeared to be a human… but no human would speak like these people were.
The person standing over her had a mask over their mouth and nose, and some kind of hat covering their head. She knew what was happening… she was in surgery… what were they doing to her? The last thing she remembered was the pod being thrown about and then flying off the bench and hitting her head on the back of the pilot's seat.
Again the door opened and closed and from her lying down position she could just about make out another person, wearing the same head piece as the man she could fully see… even if her vision was slightly blurred. She noted that she must've been given some sort of sedative that hadn't fully worn off yet.
"Biefend plajock?" The man asked. Hoshi knew that the question had been directed at her but she had no idea what it meant. "Biefend plajock?" He repeated, but without a universal translator to even give her a hint of what they were trying to say, she had no way to respond. She tried to open her mouth, but as she tried to speak she could tell words were not coming out.
The man went out of her vision and then came back. He had a hypospray in his hand. He pressed it into her neck. In her mind she was trying to get away from it, but her body just wasn't moving. She heard the 'fizz' as whatever was in the hypospray was injected into her bloodstream… whatever it was it actually felt refreshing. Almost instantly she knew that her vision was getting clearer. She tried turning her head a little to the left, and she found that she had the strength to do it.
"Biefend plajock?" The man asked again.
Hoshi mind was now becoming clearer and she was beginning to think a little clearer too. Listening to his words, and given the current situation, Hoshi had come to the conclusion that 'Biefend plajock' meant one of either two things, maybe more… it could mean ' How are you feeling'… or 'Who are you?'… After letting the effects of the reviver work for a couple more seconds she opted for the 'How are you feeling?' translation… now her only problem was she didn't know how to respond to it.
The man soon turned away and moved over to another person… a woman. After a few words between them the woman nodded and left the room. After a couple of minutes she returned, holding an odd shaped object. Hoshi squinted her eyes trying to focus on what it was they were holding and then she realised that it was her translator. The man walked back over to her and put the translator into her hands.
Slowly Hoshi managed to operate the translator.
"I need you to talk." Hoshi said, moving her hand in an odd fashion as if it were a mouth, talking. For a second the man looked at her blankly. She thought for a second, then… "Biefend plajock?" she finally said, hoping now the translator would be able to pick up the language if he gave her an answer.
"Mazzen tavgii, kollo." He replied in his odd language.
The translator bleeped a couple of times and Hoshi slightly nodded in satisfaction.
"What is that object?" The man asked. The translator had managed to pick up the simple dialect of his species and seemed to be working pretty well.
"It's a universal translator. It helps me to communicate with people that can't speak my language." Hoshi replied. "What am I doing here?"
"You were injured when your vessel crashed in one of our fields. We have hopefully managed to treat you correctly. It's not easy trying to operate on a species we don't recognise." Very carefully the man helped Hoshi to sit up.
"Where are my friends?" Hoshi asked, but the man lust looked at her in a quizzical way. "I had three friends with me in that vessel. Where are they?"
"You were the only person brought to the hospital, wearing the same clothes that you were. It's most likely that they would have been taken to a detainment complex."
"Why?"
"We're not used to having aliens here. The last aliens that came along tried to destroy our planet."
"We're only explorers. We don't want to hurt any one." She explained as the other people in the room began to clear surgical implements and tidy the room up. "Did you find any other devices in my uniform?"
"I'm afraid not. You'll have to excuse me. I have a couple of other patients to attend to." And with that he left the room. Hoshi was left on her own sitting up on the bed.
Somehow with the way he had acted in response to Hoshi's last question, she felt he wasn't telling the truth, maybe because he knew that one was a communicator and she would be able to contact her ship to destroy the planet. She now knew that she was going to have to do something to convince these people that they weren't there to destroy them.