Chapter 7: A Fair Lady
December 25, 3235
EUS-1840, Milky Way Galaxy
Orion Spur, Unknown System

Within a day of being released by the unknown forces that had captured them, the small task force stuck together to get a hold of their situation. The Colorado, Bastogne, and the Ontario stayed in close formation, only holding about three kilometers from one another. It was a dangerous range, but one that was important for the meeting that was called aboard the Ontario. Captain Ekdal was the task force's commanding officer and was therefore it was his ship was where the others were heading. Two small shuttles appeared from the launch bays of the other two support ships. These were small NT-240 shuttles lovingly referred to as "Midges" by the flight crews because of a slight buzzing noise that their small engines made when run at full power. In truth, the NT-240s ran mostly on RCS surfaces scattered all over their hull. Their main engines were used for takeoff from their launch bays. As it was, the two Midges buzzing from the hangars of the Bastogne and the Colorado carried the commanding officers of both the ships. Ekdal was already in the dockmaster's control room looking out over the deck lined with crates, forklifts, and docked Pelican dropships.

Currently, nobody was inside the launch bay except for a few suited up technicians. The bay was depressurized and the shields over the open airlocks were deactivated. Ekdal liked to keep the air pressure lower in the hangar bay at about sixty to seventy percent of an atmosphere. If the deck were to decompress, far less air would evacuate, causing less strain on the oxygen supply. Ekdal hadn't lost a man on his deck because he knew how to position his men away from the doors, closer to the middle of the room, where they currently stood now. Hypothetically, if he dropped the shields and caused a blowout, the air pressure dropping in the space of perhaps one or two seconds wouldn't be enough to pick people up and throw them out of the airlocks. Still, that didn't stop movies back home from perpetuating the ancient myth of the hurricane of air lasting ten seconds or more.

Ekdal was lost in thought as the dockmaster informed him that the shuttles were coming. He nodded and stood with his hands behind his back. Small gripping arms extended from the outside of the Ontario that helped to guide the Midges in. Once inside the gravitational field of the Ontario, the arms held them in place. The shuttles were roughly in the shape of a rounded wedge; a bulbous cockpit protruded from the front. Ekdal could see pilots moving their heads and tapping on controls to shut down the RCS thrusters. The rear of the craft had two stubby wings that were more to radiate heat from the bulky looking engine that poked from the rear of the craft. The main engine was stocky and surrounded by thrusters like flower petals.

"Seal it up." he told the dockmaster as soon as both Midges were clear inside the deck.

"Aye-aye." The CPO answered. He placed a finger on a holographic slide panel and pushed it upwards. The display slowly filled to 100%. If there were air inside of the bay, the noise would have been similar to a loud pop, closer to the sound of a balloon being burst, but with much more volume. Two blue tinged shield doors made of hard light snapped over the openings of the airlocks. On the outside, an outer door cycled shut. Once that was done, the inner door was sealed. The shield door was between both and remained active. When the display glowed green and indicated that a seal had been formed, he moved to a second panel and began to rotate another display key to fill the room with oxygen.

Slowly Ekdal waited, first as a thin mist filled the area. Their view was fogged for a moment before it cleared. Soon the air was at the level he wanted it to be, which was nearly at sea level pressure. It would be returned to the regular levels later.

"Good work." Ekdal said clapping the man's shoulder.

The captain fixed his cap on his head and made his way to the hangar bay. The air was somewhat chilly buy was quickly gaining in temperature. The technicians were still suited up but were now able to shout orders to one another and be heard. The Midges were carefully set down on the deck by the loading arms. The craft had small and stocky landing legs that came out around the cockpit and the engines. Three in total held the relatively feathery weight of the shuttle. With a thump, both the shuttles were set on the deck. Ekdal could see the names of their respective ships painted on their hulls. When the loading door folded down to act as a ramp, two uniformed men strode out of each craft. The commanding officer of the Bastogne was a thin and lanky man who looked like he may have been born in microgravity. His name was Raul Ibanez. Ekdal had never worked with him before, though his record was quite impressive. Ibanez was Cuban, a rare culture off of Earth due to the small population of the Caribbean island. The other was almost stereotypically Slavic looking - a Russian bear of a man named Viacheslav Sergev. If Ibanez was ice, Sergev was fire; the man looked like he was carved from rock. He was shaved bald, and had as much of a Cossack beard as regulations would allow. Gregers knew Sergev for several years as the two served on the same ship, the Sharpened Spear for three years.

Sergev smiled when he saw his old friend, but Ibanez was impassive. Both had been rocked by the event that happened with the envoy of this mysterious 'Lord of Plans'. Both Raul and Viacheslav were missing exactly fourteen crewmen from their compliment, all taken to wherever Xiaghreb had come from.

Ekdal returned the smile and shook the hands of both the men. The pleasantries were a good way of disguising the unease all of the men were feeling. Ekdal ushered them down the hall and out of the shuttle bay.

"This turn of events is disturbing." Sergev said. His clipped but notable accent was cast down the hall. Captain Ekdal could note the way that he rolled his 'r's like any good Russian would. "Gregers, over 40 men have been taken from us. We have no idea where they went and it's very likely they're not coming back."

"I'd say it's certain they're not coming back." Ibanez added. His accent was North American despite coming from Cuba. "Whatever came to visit us said that they took them as 'payment'."

"That's exactly what our visitor told us." Ekdal nodded sadly. "Payment for speaking to us."

"Just imagine what they'll ask for when they really want something from us." Ibanez added.

The Officer's Mess was a good place to have a meeting as there was very little chance that they would be interrupted by non-important issues. Enlisted personnel were not allowed inside unless specifically cleared by the bridge. The Commander De Soto had the bridge while Ekdal was away. Each crew had a set of representatives with them.

Behind Ekdal was OMEGA such as it was. Sergeant Johnson was flanked by Jolee Bindo, James Reyes, Ryan Percy, and Miles Prower. All of them stood at attention in off-duty uniform. Bindo however had an impressive looking suit on that completely clashed with the military modesty.

Behind Commander Ibanez there was only one woman - a Mobian. She was almost as tall as the Spartans, but she didn't have the muscle mass that they did. She was just a tough as nails ursine with chestnut brown fur and a ponytail. Her eyes were dark brown which may as well almost be black. She was dressed in a Navy uniform. The dark blue T-shirt she wore had a nametag on her right breast. It read 'WILCOX'. She was alone, but she was also the Master-at-Arms for the Bastogne. Ekdal could see her massive arms folded behind her back and her legs slightly apart as she stared into space dead ahead. Her discipline was a sight to behold.

Behind Commander Sergev, were two very tall and very muscular men. They were quiet and barely moved. When they did move though, each motion caused muscles all over their bodies to shift and flex. Even blinking caused small bulges to appear on their temples. They didn't wear their battle armor, but Johnson knew without a doubt that he was looking at a pair of Spartans. The Spartans were probably assigned as a sort of shock trooper compliment. Johnson wondered if there were any more on the Bastogne or the Colorado.

Water was served for the men and they silently accepted it. Ekdal glanced at his watch and sighed. They had to get this over sooner or later.

"Gentlemen... and lady..." he nodded to Wilcox. "I want to thank you for coming on short notice. Things have... for lack of a better term, gone wrong."

Ibanez chortled. "That's an understatement."

Ekdal continued. "We have no contact with Weyland's people, nor the UNSC. The plan, as we all know, was to make contact as Weyland's people were supposed to set up a beacon for further communications with Earth. However, given what just happened to us, there's a good chance that either they never made it, or they did make it without... that... he gestured to somewhere beyond the hull... and are so far away from us, that we are unable to find them. Augustus?" Ekdal called.

The AI visualized in the center of the table. The centurion had his helmet tucked under his right arm while his left had his hand on his gladius. His face had some hint of stubble on it and a look of concern crossed his brow.

"Salve, Captain." he nodded.

"Have you had any luck in pinning our location down?"

"I have." he nodded. "As I stated before, we within 96% in the Orion Arm. I have to report that there are some... discrepancies in stellar location. Regardless, I've found a few pulsars that I'm using to make a rough map of the area."

The image of the centurion disappeared and in its place was a growing web of stars. Red, blue, white, and golden dots appeared all linked to one another. A few neutron stars inside that mess were blinking at varying speeds, which allowed Augustus to make a three-dimensional map of the close area. After a certain point though, the dots thinned out, eventually there was nothing but simulated gas clouds. There was no idea if the overlaid map of the Milky Way was even accurate - it was the only galaxy on file.

"What discrepancies?" Ekdal asked, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

"There's some sort of energy that I can't exactly quantify. It's just seeping through... existence."

"That doesn't surprise me anymore." Sergev said. "Not after that hell we just went through. Gregrers, we're forty two men down."

"I know." Ekdal said sighing. He rubbed his eyes as if he were tired. Mentally he was strained nearly to the point of breaking.

"Captain, we need to reach safety to recuperate from our losses." Commander Ibanez added. "We need to send a signal to FLEETCOM."

"That's not possible from where we are." Ekdal said. "We have no means of communication with Earth. If we ended up where we were supposed to, Weyland's people would have had a beacon we could use to get a message back home."

"Speaking of which..." Sergev said, addressing now Augustus. "You wouldn't happen to have found any outpost of Jeremy Weyland's company?"

"No." Augustus shook his head. "I'm going through every corporate frequency, and some of the encoded ones I can find. There's nothing being broadcast out there on any frequency... or language I can find."

"So we're alone and lost." Sergev said, "and from the looks of things in interstellar space. Greg, this is not the place we want to be if we want to regroup and get our bearings."

Ekdal knew this and tried his hardest to get a grasp of the situation himself. He had no options. "I know." he whispered.

Three hours later, Ekdal re-entered the bridge looking absolutely sullen. The meeting with the two commanders went absolutely nowhere. The first hour had simply been recapping their situation and confirming that the ships were still operational. The second hour was the horrible task of going over crew rosters and confirming who was now considered missing in action. Over forty men and women had been stolen from them and several crewmembers were suffering from some degree of mental trauma.

Miles recounted his encounter with what he could only describe as a monster. It had roared right at him, but it hadn't attacked him. Prower had been too scared to move, too scared to even attack. What he saw jut seemed impossible. As he followed Ekdal onto the bridge, he wondered to himself as to whether or not the crewmembers lying in the medical bay were even sane of mind anymore. He found himself downright miserable as they went down the list ticking off the crewmembers had been taken by those monsters. It made him more than upset: it made him angry. He had clenched his hands into fists behind his back during that second hour.

Sergev and Ibanez weren't far behind. They were talking to themselves over what happened in the third hour. Sergev was still fuming over the whole ordeal. Ibanez was quite stonefaced, but Ekdal knew a little better than to take the man's steeled expression as actual calm. Ekdal himself walked over to the command chair that he vacated hours earlier. He sat down and just stared straight ahead out of the viewport into the yawning void. He mulled over everything in his head. What could he do? Cut off from command, every movement was a risk. Every single decision could lead to the destruction of the group.

Among the stars, something caught his eye. A single star among the stars seemed to be different, and it was growing at an alarming rate.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Ekdal said. "DeSoto, how's our shield strength?"

"Full power, Captain." The XO said. "Why...?" her eyes went up to the viewscreen. "What's that?"

"Nothing good!" Ekdal said. "Gentlemen, I'd recommend you brace yourselves!"

Sergev nodded and found an empty seat close to Tactical - the officer was off duty there. Sergev also clipped the safety webbing over his shoulders - just in case.

Ibanez however stood behind Ekdal's command chair and just held himself there, finding some nooks or grips on the chair itself just in case they needed to pull some Gs that went above what the system could compensate for.

That dot out in the starfield grew with terrifying quickness. The point of light had become a craft.

"Augustus..." DeSoto began with her jaw loosening. "...what is that?"

The Centurion folded his arms, eyes set. "That's a ship."

"Can you identify it?"

"No." he said quickly, shaking his head. "Doesn't match any known profile on record, nor any ship encountered by Wolfhound teams on expeditions."

That meant that it was something new.

The ship was growing larger, but it was pegged at being several hundred kilometers away and closing fast. Bright jets glowed at the bow of the ship. It wasn't going past them. It was slowing down.

Another crewman had taken Sneijder's place at her console, clearly uncomfortable staying in the same location that several hours ago, she had been possessed by a monster. "Captain, the Bastogne's starting to panic."

"You will tell Lieutenant Kildare to keep that ship where it is, or I'm going to kill him myself!" Ibanez shouted at the ensign.

"Aye... aye sir." The man nodded.

The Bastogne didn't get very far before attitude thrusters placed it back in formation. No doubt Commander Ibanez's threat had come through loud and clear. Despite the man's thinness and apparent calmness on the outside, the crew of that ship were convinced that Ibanez could scream in the vacuum of space, and someone would hear him.

The object approaching all three of the ships, the Bastogne included, was almost shaped like a bullet with the bottom shorn off. On the top, a small command tower of some sort was visible. It was painted blood red with the exception of figure that was adorned to the front of the ship. It wasn't clear at first, but as soon as the light of the stars allowed for better viewing, the thing on the prow ended up being a figure of an eagle, or some sort of bird. When the massive craft came closer, it was clear from the gleam that the bird was made of gold. Perhaps even solid gold.

The thought of that even being remotely true struck Ekdal as odd. Who in their right mind would mount such a heavy weight to the front of a ship? The sheer weight of it alone would shift the center of mass of the ship away from where it needed to be. In addition, the eagle looked almost like it was polished - lights from the ship itself gleamed off of the details in the statue. Ekdal also noted that the laws of physics may be different in this universe and the rules as they knew them probably didn't apply.

Miles on the other hand was impressed by the sheer size of the thing. As it was approaching, he expected it to only be about as big as the frigate itself, maybe around five hundred meters. It was a fair size for how it was shaped, so Miles assumed it wasn't all that impressive or massive. Then it got closer, and then it began to come about. He walked a little closer, stepping past the command chair and towards the viewports. It was massive. The bullet shaped starship was studded with antennae, massive guns, and what appeared to be spires. Windows all over the craft were spaced evenly along the hull with their tops curving towards a point, so that even the windows closer resembled bullets in shape than what was on the UNSC frigates. Studded along the hull at regular intervals, very plain to see and very polished, were Human skulls. The aesthetics of the craft were rather shocking to Miles, who found himself saying, "It looks like a church!"

"What?" the helmsman to his right said. Prower looked down at the man. He was young; younger than he was. With the somewhat greasy skin, Tails guessed that he was 18 or 19, meaning that this was probably his first assignment. A single golden bar of ensign adorned his shoulders. The nametag on his chest read 'Rossi'.

"I said it looks like it's a church." Miles repeated. "Look at it. There are steeples, there are... buttresses and... are those... gargoyles?"

"Who puts gargoyles on a starship?" Rossi asked.

"The same people who put twenty meter long skulls on them."

Ekdal ordered to have the shields raised, but he also said not to make any sudden movements. "Keep engines on standby, but match our velocity with that ship."

"Aye, sir." Rossi said and keyed in the necessary commands. He then relayed the command to the Bastogne and the Colorado.

The gigantic vessel was taller, longer across the beam, and from stem to stern must have actually been somewhere around nearly five kilometers. The size was absolutely astounding. Miles was in awe from the sheer mass of the vessel and he wondered if it was actually a warship, a trading vessel, or something else entirely. It didn't match his idea of a science vessel, but then again, he wasn't exactly sure about the universe he was in.

Nobody said a word as the vessel made no motion, no move of its weaponry, or anything else that could betray what the crew was thinking of. The ship also had golden lettering across its body, though it was written in a language that seemed vaguely familiar. All that they could discern was the name of the vessel streaked across the hull - 'FAERLADI', written in what seemed to be gold.

"Augustus." Ekdal ordered. "Can you determine if any signals are coming through?"

The AI thought about it. "Some, though they're in a somewhat different format than what I thought. There are signals coming from them, but I think I may have to tweak the ship's sensors to better catch them. Even then, I can't guarantee that you'll get everything."

"Please do it." Ekdal said, getting up and walking to Prower. "Gentlemen," he addressed the other two commanding officers. "I suggest you stay on the Ontario so as not to provoke a response from our new friend." he threw his head towards the massive ship. "In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please share them."

"They may destroy us, you know." Ibanez said coolly. "May be too curious and may just blast us out of the sky."

"I partially agree with Raul." Sergev said. "I agree that we must take caution, but we have to indicate that we are no threat to them. I suggest we power down weapons."

That made Miles raise an eyebrow, but he kept his mouth shut. Assuming that the giant ship had already scanned them and determined how their power was being routed, lowering weapons would show that they meant no harm and would submit to whatever they would want. On the other hand, powering down weapons would make them an easy target. If this ship had nothing better to do, it would destroy them.

The commanders began to debate among themselves and wondered just what the course of action would be. Miles watched them, then turned back to the ship. He had suddenly gained a headache of some sort. Pain began to sprout behind his right eye and he started blinking. For a second he was wondering if he had become faint. He gripped the back of the helmsman's chair. Rossi said something, but Miles didn't hear what he said.

Then he saw something. For a second he was afraid whatever had attacked them before was coming back. Maybe he was being possessed. Maybe he was being brought to whatever Hanna Sneijder saw. His heart began to beat, but it wasn't an unspeakable evil, but seemed to be humanoid.

"What..." he said before the image flashed again. A humanoid, for sure. Someone hooded. Miles clearly saw it the third time it flashed.

"Captain!" he said before. "Captain, I see something!"

Ekdal, Ibanez, and Sergev stopped speaking and all of them looked towards Miles. "What do you mean?" Ekdal said, suddenly stressed.

"I see a person. He or she's wearing some sort of hood. It's definitely a person!"

Ekdal didn't know what to make from this. It made very little sense what had happened over the last few hours and the fact that Prower was now apparently hallucinating made his brow furrow even deeper. He cursed in his head, but said, "What do you think it means?"

Miles was about to respond when another image flashed into his head. A person speaking into another person's ear. This image held, and the young Mobian was quick to catch its meaning.

"They're trying to talk to us!"

"Excuse me?" DeSoto said. "What do you mean?"

"I just saw someone whispering into someone's ears!" he smiled at the fact that he had successfully received what he believed was some sort of telepathic speech. Despite the danger of the situation, he was now giddy with excitement. The ship was speaking to them. His ears perked and he said to the COM offider, "Open all channels and all frequencies! Once you get a hit, strengthen that signal!"

The man nodded and began to broaden the spectrum of signals. A few minutes later, he said, "I've got one! I'm boosting that freq!"

"Patch it in to me!" Ekdal said slipping back into the command chair. He had no idea what was going to be on the other side of this conversation, but he hazarded to guess that it just may be Human. He prepared himself though to see his opposite number. However, the screen was filled with static, the cosmic noise of the universe. He could see a figure shrouded there. He guessed it was a head. Something distorted it though. "Can you boost that signal?"

The man at the COM panel thought to himself how he could possibly boost a signal that had a signal extension that matched nothing the UNSC had. He wondered how he could even clear it up. However, he said he would try and got to work running routine scrubbing on the signal. The computers looked at the footage and tried their best to guess what the missing pixels were. Augustus aided but to a small extent.

A noise came from the snow. However it was very distorted. Before Ekdal could ask, the officer got to work trying to clean the audio.

Ekdal spoke. "This is Captain Gregers Ekdal of the UNSC Ontario. I come in peace, and as a friend."

Ekdal knew that there was no guarantee that whoever was over there would speak English, let alone understand him. Indeed, the figure responded. He caught a few words that were intelligible: "Xhuhet gat nin..." before static crossed back in. Then it came back in. "Traadjer hui-hao njem..."

Ekdal tilted his head forward subconsciously, as if to try and make some sense of the words that came through. He could find no meaning in them. It was obviously alien.

"Augustus?" Ekdal asked at once.

The AI said over the COM, "I'm going to try and monitor some of their communications and see if I can construct a basic lexicon. No dictionaries, mind you, just some simple words if I can."

Miles needed to do something while he was up here. He hadn't seen anymore images, so he decided to try and send one out. He thought of an image that could be used to help them. He thought hard about a handshake, a hug, two people speaking. The image came easily in his mind, and he felt as if it had been pulled from him almost. The concentration to keep a simple thought wasn't beyond him, but he felt as if he actually used serious energy from the ordeal.

All of these images had the underlying concept of friendship. We mean no harm. Pictography was obviously a love of these people. Perhaps they only used speech when speaking directly to foreigners. He wasn't quite sure how to send this message, so he just let it sit in his mind. He concentrated as much as he could and hoped that whatever was over there could see what he was doing. He thought on it so much that the rest of the world blanked out. He could hear nothing but the thoughts in his own head. He had no idea what he was doing and was not sure if anybody was receiving his response. Then he waited. Sound began to filter back into his mind. He decided to speak up.

"Captain?"

Ekdal stopped what he was doing at once, which was speaking to Commander Ibanez. "Prower?"

"Captain, I think I should tell you I've been in communication with... someone just now."

Ekdal cocked his head, not quite understanding what he meant. "In communication?"

"I think they communicate through telepathy."

"You mean they can read minds." Sergev clarified.

"Yes. I think so." Miles nodded. "I've got flashes of images. People talking, a robed figure; pictures. I think this may be their main means of talking to us. They send pictures to people and they interpret them, so they sidestep a language barrier!"

"How are you able to do that?" Ibanez asked. It was a fair question that Miles couldn't answer, so he just said what he felt made sense.

"I don't know. I do know a few years ago I had the ability to be trained as a Jedi in EUS-39. Maybe my mind's just built for telepathy, something we just don't have back home. I don't feel the Force. Not really. I just feel... whatever this is."

The door opened behind them, sliding apart with a dull hiss. Jolee strode onto the bridge with brow furrowed.

"Tell me you felt that." he said slowly to Miles, who nodded quickly.

"Did you see it?"

"Only for the briefest of seconds." the old man said. "Images." he declared to the crew. "Someone's communicating with us!"

"We know that now." Ekdal said. "Young Mr. Prower here has apparently extended a hand. We're not sure how that will be received.

Jolee and Miles felt another image pass into their minds. It was the same image that the young Mobian had sent out - shaking hands. The message had been received. It was a sign of peace, or at the very least understanding between one another.

"They got the message." Miles declared. "They understand we only want to communicate."

Ekdal turned back to the console where the vaguely Humanoid shape was. "Peace!" he said. "We come in peace!", he repeated. Ekdal bit his lip and then decided to try different languages. "Pace! Paz! Pax!"

"Pax!" the voice responded. "Pax!" it repeated, and then vanished.

"What did you say?" Sergev asked. "What language was that last one?"

Ekdal shrugged. "Latin. I don't know why I said it but..."

"Pax Imperialis in domnus astrum e iudebat?"

That came through clear. They could work with this it seemed.

"Augustus!" Ekdal called.

The AI appeared over the holotable. "Captain?"

"Was that Latin?"

The holographic Centurion pursed his lips as he thought about it. "Not quite." He shook his head. "Some of the lexicon is similar, and the syntax is out of position, but there's clearly some resemblance. I know Latin; I mean..." he gestured all over the Roman plate armor he was wearing. Augustus pointed his finger towards the gigantic ship in a knowing gesture.

"I think... I think I may be able to find some common ground. I can translate your words into Latin. Would you prefer Classical or Modern rendition?"

Ekdal just stared at the AI.

"Classic it is then." Augustus bobbed his eyebrows. "Speak away, Captain."

"We are peaceful." he said to the ship.

The message that came from the Ontario was "Ultinam nihil mali."

"Message sent and received, Captain. I will do my best to... translate... whatever that is coming over."

It didn't take long. Five seconds later, the figure spoke, "Pax donalis, astrumala noidem. Voc tua nome idemificado."

"I caught the last bit." Augustus said. "They just want our names."

"We are the Ontario, Bastogne, and Colorado." Ekdal announced. "I am Captain Gregers Ekdal. These men are Commanders Ibanez, and Sergev."

"Trafemdactus."

"No idea what that means." Augustus said. Best guess is he is giving us a statement of intent. It's not a threat... otherwise we'd be dead. I'd advise playing along with it. Whatever he wants to do, let him do it."

"Understood." Ekdal said.

"The figure on the screen nodded, and then the image went out."

There was a bit of silence on the bridge before Ibanez started a slow clap.

"Well done. First contact was successful and didn't end up with us being blown out of the sky."

Ekdal folded his arms and walked back to the command chair. "There's a serious language barrier problem. Some sort of language I don't know about and some bastardized form of Latin." He gestured to Augustus. "Can you monitor their communications and maybe build some sort of dictionary for translation? We can update our Interpreters to allow for some sort of understanding?"

"I've been monitoring their communications since you first told me to translate. I've dedicated 12 percent of my runtime to help build a lexicon. So far I'm at maybe 50 words. I am updating our language software on the fly."

"How are you going about doing that?" Jolee asked, curious as an old man was.

"Listening to see how people react to one another. There is definitely Latin basing to it, which means that most likely these people are Human... though I'm not quite sure they are what we would consider standard. Some of their words are... odd."

"Describe odd." Miles asked.

"Well, of those fifty words I've translated, seventy now, over half of them have been repeated over and over again, ritualistically. 'Praise', 'Piety', at least three synonyms for 'worship', and even... binary code. That's fluent to me though..."

"Why didn't you translate the binary?"

"You didn't ask. I can get you a lexicon far quicker than that, but I doubt it will be any good to you when speaking to these people. I have no idea who runs the ship, but the translation makes multiple references to the 'indebted' crew."

"They're slaves?" Miles asked.

"It seems that way. Just translated a new word, a compound word. Machine-spirit."

"What does that mean?" Rossi asked.

"Afraid I couldn't tell you, however, based on what I'm picking up, these prayer words seem to be correlated to the appearance with these 'machine-spirits' and the bursts of binary are also in close frequency, overlapping these other words. Yes, I can confirm that that the binary indicates that prayers are being said to the machines."

"They worship the machines?"

"That's what I'm gathering." The Centurion shrugged.

Ekdal couldn't believe his luck. To see these people so in touch with technology to the point where they worshipped it would be of incredible use in this mission.

"What about that first language he used? Any luck?"

"No." Augustus said. "There are so many... I guess I want to say dialects in use on that ship that it would be useless to try and translate that. This second language is by far the easier. I would assume that the second language perhaps started as Latin and diverged over time."

Miles made his way back to the viewport, taking all of this in. That was odd. For a civilization that appeared to worship technology in such a way, it didn't seem that their vessel reflected this. Stained glass windows seemed awfully stupid to have on a starship, yet there it was. These people also seemed to like their skulls. The closer he analyzed the ship, the more he saw.

"Augustus, do they know you're scanning them?" Ibanez asked.

"Not really." The AI admitted. "Uh, I may want to stay out of this."

"What do you mean? You're our translator!" Sergev added.

"Trust me on this one, put me on a passive mode. They're suspicious of us. I'll explain more later. I'll keep updating your Interpreters! Just do it!"

Ekdal didn't waste any time. He assumed Augstus translated something very uncomforting and decided to butt out. In passive mode, Augustus would still be active, though his systems would be restricted to being nothing more than computer systems. In here, he would be safe. Ekdal was right. He had translated something that made him worry for his life. As it turned out, there was a slightly different translation for the term 'A.I.'

Ekdal keyed in the command override, and Augustus faded. A text message on the screen confirmed he was still kicking.

Jolee was musing on the events as they unfolded. "You think they're going to let us go?"

"Not a chance." Miles responded. "We're already too strange to pass up. It's probably why they haven't destroyed us yet either."

Another image flash. A hooded figure walking through an arch.

"What do you think that means?" Bindo asked. "Walking through an arch?"

"Or a door." the Mobian added. "Our door?"

"They're coming." Bindo nodded.

Their interpretation was correct. A few minutes after this realization, a small star departed from the bullet-shaped ship. Miles informed Ekdal of what he saw. The Captain lowered the doors on the landing bay, as a show of good faith. The craft that approached the Ontario was somewhat wedge-shaped craft. The wings appeared like that of a bird, with intricate designs of what appeared to be feathers carved into the metal. It was fast, making its way towards the frigate with great speed for its size. When it appeared that the vessel was going to slam into the ship, it slowed with bright jets blaring from its front.

Ekdal hoped that it would be able to fit inside the bay. He was in luck though, the wingspan was well within acceptable limits. The eagle-like craft hovered through the entrance. He was well on his way to the flight deck by the time the ship touched down. He had a small Interpreter hooked over his ear which was constantly being fed new words that Augustus continued to supply. The vocabulary was still quite small, a little over a hundred and fifty words.

It was fortunate this turned out the way it did. Without such a large crew on that ship, it would have taken much longer to learn even a single word that was used here. Ekdal, flanked by Ibanez and Sergev, entered the bay. The slightly chilled air kept them on their toes. The ship was safely tucked on his deck. A small group of technicians stood by, interested by this new ship that they have never seen before.

The back of the craft hissed open. Ekdal stood to, greeting his guest. A man strode out. He was most definitely Human. He was tall, strong with broad shoulders, and was lavishly dressed to the point where it seemed to be ridiculous. He wore a long coat that stretched to his knees, had wide epaulettes, wore a tailored an gleaming jacket underneath his coat, and a large wide-brimmed violet hat sat on his head. A cyan feather extended from its band. On each hand was no less than three rings, each studded with a different jewel, and on his coat was a collection of trinkets, medals, strange wax-stamps with what looked like parchment draping from it, and at the center of it all was a golden skull with arms radiating from it like a star. He was smug. A thin smile crossed his face. He radiated excellence, wealth, and charisma. His beard was well trimmed along with his eyebrows, and, and there wasn't a blemish on his face.

Ekdal saluted his guest. The other commanders, along with the technicians followed suit. The guest laughed. Gregers wasn't sure if it was in mirth or in mocking.

The second thing to emerge from the ship set Ekdal's primal instincts on edge. A hooded figure came out, but in the place of where its face was, two wide lenses were where its eyes would be. It had a slight gait to it. From its uncanny hands hung what Ekdal was sure was an incense burner. Smoke wafted from the brass device as it made a series of whistles with some warbling evidence of what just may have been Human speech. Ekdal wasn't sure what to make of this hooded creature. It was clear that the men were put off by it.

However, he averted his eyes back to the brilliantly dressed man.

He wished to say Welcome. The Interpreter volunteered a suggestion.

"Welcome to my ship!" he said, his mouth making the shapes necessary to replicate the language.

The hooded figure's head cocked ever so slightly. Wires shifted on its face.

"You speak proper Gothic now!" The man's translation said.

"Our systems were not working well." Ekdal explained. "I am Captain Ekdal."

The man smiled with perfect teeth. "You may address me a the Lord Rogue Trader, Jean-Jacques Departeu, vaciliare Imperial."

Ekdal noted the translation was not perfect. Augustus was still working. It would likely fix these problems as time went on. "Thank you for coming to rescue us, my lord." Ekdal said, using the insisted terminology. "We would not have lasted long on our own."

"You thank me yet too early, Captain." this man who called himself Rogue Trader said, "Your arrival is rather interesting. You interest me." He pulled back part of his coat. On his belt was a rather large handgun, far larger than any weapon that this crew wore on their waist. "Your ship interests me, your crew interests me, and your... technology particularly interests me."

He plucked the weapon from his belt and leveled it at Ekdal's face. This man had that smug smile even now. He controlled the action now. Ekdal had his hands in front of his face.

"Alright. Alright. You're in control. What would you demand of us, my lord?"

Departeu flicked the weapon's safety.

"You will begin explaining things. Now."