The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 5: All Good People
Scene 8: Serrat Buffet

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Move on back two squares...

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5.8
Serrat Buffet

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Sakura Nakamura Holland left a single dogfish to continue exploration within each of the two planets in orbit of Minor Serrat, the red dwarf star at the edge of the Serrat star system. A third dogfish continued exploration of the massive space station that occupied an orbit further out from the star. The remaining dogfish were loaded back into the Puppy - the large task shuttle from the U.S.S. Beagle - which then headed back toward the planets orbiting the main sequence star.

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In orbit of Serrat Prime, the three ships formed an ersatz space station once again, with the majority of the shuttlecraft, including the Puppy and the Bluebird docked inside, respectively, the U.S.S. Beagle and the U.S.S. Mako. This allowed a service cycle to refresh their systems, recycle their atmospheres and retool these support craft for the new task of seeking out potential underground stations on various moons and planets in the system.

The crews were being re-assigned as well. The Tellarite Biological Survey was split up and crew that were not required for active duty aboard one of the ships or shuttles were reassigned to ground duty along any number of stunning beaches, there to work with the tellarites to search for evidence of deep-sea silicon-based life impacting life along the shore.

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The leadership of the three ships were now gathered in the U.S.S. Mako's galley, discussing the continuing investigation over a shared meal that included several fresh foods gathered from Serrat Prime - bitterroot, thumberries, gelled shuttle-tree sap, cotton-candy mushrooms and shamyams - a potato-like root that tasted somewhat like candied yam when steamed.

"One of the major advantages of traveling with tellarites on exotic worlds," opined Captain Skip Howard. "They reliably find plenty of edible local flora."

Dr. Lucian Moorman, chief medical officer for the U.S.S. Mako, held up a small, puffy white mushroom. "Didn't I hear that these were mildly psychoactive?"

"In much the same way that caffeine is psychoactive," Howard responded. "Actually, chemically, it has some resemblance to psytosogent beans - the stuff betazoids use to make sog." Howard popped one in his mouth. "But unlike sog, these don't taste bad. Or really have much taste at all. And they just seem to melt in your mouth."

"Well, I've had feasts gathered from a dozen planets," Moorman replied. "Serrat Prime is as good as I've ever tasted."

"So what are the chances that the people who made that space station have descendants living somewhere in this system?" asked Commodore Yui Song.

"Our probes and robots have now identified and explored four unpopulated lunar bases within this system," Sakura Nakamura Holland replied. "From our explorations, it looks like these were temporary sites, used as launch points and resupply ports for construction elsewhere in this system. While there is no evidence of recent activity, I would have to characterize these as still operational. There are still supplies and building materials staged that would be useful. These are not derelict stations."

"Have we found any evidence of what was producing radio signals as recently as a few hundred years ago?" Yui asked.

"Very probably those stations or stations like them," answered Major Janet Carter. "Signal analysis indicates the use of radio recorded for this system was strictly machine to machine. There's no evidence of mass communication or even interpersonal communication. Best we can tell, the radio signals were very simple docking maneuvers, mechanical status reports and various beacons."

"Machine intelligence?" asked Captain Rhonda Carter. Carter's hair was starting to grow out, long and straight, and dyed a bright, cobalt blue with iron gray roots. The blue set off her eyes, creating a striking and somewhat intimidating effect.

Her younger cousin shook her head. "Nothing so elaborate that would suggest machine intelligence." Major Carter's U.S. Marine uniform was a fractal camouflage pattern generated out of various gray and brown hues. "It is much more like the machine-to-machine signal traffic you would expect at any star base or space station. Close range docking instructions. Manifest orders. Not even long range planning that you would expect - like docking schedules. Those must have been communicated in some other way."

"From biological to biological?" Skip Howard asked.

"But if not by radio or subspace radio… other EM frequencies?" Sakura asked.

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Dr. Tentis Uto stopped chewing mid shamyam… Everyone was looking at him… expectantly…

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Uto finished chewing his shamyam and swallowed. "I can hear what you're thinking, you know… My staff and I are all also explorers. We've been open to telepathic contact, listening for alien telepathy. But we're talking about silicon-based life. If they are telepathic, the recipe for their telepathic communication would be just as alien as their biology."

"Could you, like, send a broad-based "Hello"?" asked Captain Rhonda Carter.

Before Uto could reply, Captain Howard, Commodore Yui and Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland responded in unison:

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"Prime Directive!"

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"Only 1 in every 30 species that manage local space travel make the leap to faster than light," said Skip Howard.

"We haven't picked up any evidence of warp drive," said Captain Carter. "Why are we still looking for them?"

"Warp drive is not the only means to FTL," said Commander Dutch Holland, speaking up for the first time after downing rather astounding amounts of bitterroot and gelled shuttletree sap.

"The history of these people will be of interest to the Federation. Silicon-based life very rarely develops local space travel," said Commodore Yui. "And if they are superluminal, we will definitely want to know more about how they do it. It was decades before we confirmed the tholians were using warp drive just because their configuration was so different from ours."

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