Seinu was curled up in a chair in the shuttle, reading over the idiosyncratic cultural requirements for meeting Earthian monarchs from the continent of Europe. There were some baffling rules about how you should greet them and conduct yourself whilst in their presence and it varied from country to country.
Around him Ki and Firi were preparing the exploration shuttle for launch. The new drones had completed their survey of the two halves of the gas cloud that made up the Soopee-31P system that existed on the north and south side of the radiation fountain created by the wildly whirling Neutron star. They were three weeks into their stay and getting ready for their first journey by exploration shuttle inside the plasma cloud of the southern sector.
Seinu wasn’t really here to help out, Chantelle was leading the mission. Firi was going to be piloting and Ki was along to manage the new tech they had installed into the ship. Seinu curled his legs up under himself and spread his large poncho-like mantle out so it draped across the chair, ears listening to Firi and Ki talking about the shuttle prep whilst he continued reading.
“This is so silly,” he sighed, “Listen to this, these “Monarchs” on Earth are apparently selected by the Divine Right of their god to rule because their ancestors murdered some other people and were proclaimed King,”
Ki paused what he was doing and turned to look at Seinu, “Wait… you can inherit a position of authority and power? As in; straight up, who your parents are matters more than skill or education?”
“Yes,” Seinu shakes his head, “Skill and ability don’t matter, according to this it's all about being the oldest, usually male child of the ruling King. If you are born to the right family you get it all regardless of if you have any skill at ruling.”
Seinu sighed, “It baffles me how you can appoint someone to a leadership position based on what their parents did not off the merits of their skills.”
“It is weird,” Firi agreed, “I mean they’re essentially selecting leaders based on their bloodline with no reference to their actual skills or personality, what if they are unsuited to rule?”
Seinu pointed at his tablet, “Well according to these historical records that’s tough, they’re the King so people just have to make do or work around them.”
“That is mad,” Ki said with a frown, “Like why would you put someone in charge just because of who their parents were?”
“Humans apparently think or thought it was a great system,” Seinu frowned, “Like here, we have a record of an English King who went insane, he continued to be King and his son ruled in his name until he died at which point the son, a wastrel who spent all his money on women and wine then became King despite clearly proving he was incompetent whilst standing in for his insane father.”
“Bonkers,” Ki sighed, “What do you mean by think or thought though? Isn’t this something they still do?”
“Yes and no,” Seinu frowned and scrolled through the information on his screen, “Like not every country has one, some of them got rid of this system, others kept it but limited the power of the ruling family but even then their entire election system is based on popularity votes as opposed to, you know, skill and meritocratically informed decision making backed up by the truth.”
“Wait,” Firi paused, “You mean people can lie during an election to become leader?”
“Yup,” Seinu shook his head again and sighed, “Apparently saying and doing lies is just fine for a human leadership election, you need to sway the population via making promises but you are not required to then keep those promises and the only way to remove you is to wait four to five years for the next election in most cases.”
“Yes yes humans are weird,” Chantelle said as she strode into the shuttle’s cockpit, dressed in a snug fitting ship suit like everyone, the glowing orange stripes glimmering softly with their own internal light, “Let’s leave the humans behind for a bit, brother we are off to explore this big gas cloud are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay on the Odyssey? We are likely to be quite distracting.”
“Stay on the ship alone?” Seinu exclaimed, “No thank you, Selenu, Taran and the twins aren’t due back for another week, they apparently found the core of a gas giant covered in solid hydrogen just floating around in the plasma cloud and are exploring it with their ground crawler.”
“Ifelse would be with you,” Firi said, “And we are all just a radio call away.”
“I am coming with you,” Seinu chirped and snuggled firmly down under his mantle, “You aren’t all leaving me behind.”
“Ok ok,” Chantelle kissed Seinu between the eyes before settling down in the chair next to him, “We all understand the desire for company, are you sure you have everything you need? The charged plasma field makes downloading files tricky, Ifelse is having to use lasers to stay in contact with Sel and Taran and you know how slow the file transfer rate is here in space if you use a laser.”
Seinu waved his tablet, “I have everything I need here, it only exists on this tablet and my desk so I am good.”
Ki and Firi strapped themselves in and Chantelle started transferring the coordinates they were going to be heading to over to Firi’s screens, “This is our first point of interest, the drones recorded four large mass objects but the debris field surrounding them and the plasma density made it impossible to get good readings.”
Firi checked the coordinates and nodded, “Ok, this will take three hours to reach, hang on everyone we are launching.”
Seinu shifted as he felt the shuttle lift free of its docking cradle and exit the Odyssey. The exploration shuttles were twice the size of the regular inter-orbit shuttles. Designed to contain a surface crawler and all the gear needed to set up camp or drill samples or scan the interior of a planet or asteroid. They were also designed with long term living in mind with space for a crew of six plus everything a pack might need to survive together.
Most of the time they sat around the shuttle bay in low power mode being maintained by drones. If Seinu ever needed to go someplace in a shuttle he usually travelled in the Momentum or his diplomatic shuttle, the one with the extra beefy shields and armour. So it was a nice change to see them being used, everyone was very excited to be doing some real exploring for a change. After all that is why most Avali wanted to live in space, to explore, to see new things out in the vastness of the universe.
Smiling as he listened to Firi, Chantelle and Ki talk about the weird scan returns they had received and what they might find out there. Seinu continued reading, chirping in occasionally but mostly focussing on the very dry and boring cultural analysis of a place called Italy he was reading. After about forty minutes there was a soft chime and Ifelse started to speak.
“Explorer 2, you are reaching the edge of the plasma cloud, degradation on primary communication systems is dropping steadily, three minutes until I can only track you via laser.”
“Understood,” Firi said, “Is the QE computer interface holding up?”
“Indeed,” the AI said, “My cognizant functions continue to operate in primary, the shuttle is after all an extension of my body but I dislike being able to only talk to the ship via laser.”
“Stop worrying so much,” Firi chuckled, “The laser designators are literally there to help you keep track of the physical ship.”
“You should try it,” the AI complained, “Laser communication still moves at the speed of light, meaning that the further you go the transfer speed and latency grow and grow. Even a 3 minute latency between mothership and smaller ships can be extremely annoying, it’s really horrible, like part of myself is no longer properly integrated.”
“You have the quantum entangled processor for the operating system as well,” Ki said, “So it’s not like you are at risk of being cut off and bifurcating.”
“But that is like only for my core data, there is so much ancillary stuff that takes minutes and minutes to update, it’s horrible!”
“Well that is because of the limit on QE bitrate uploads,” Ki said patiently, “You know we can only transfer so much data at a time via quantum tunneling and super-luminal communications just don’t work right in the particle cloud.”
“I know why,” Ifelse grumbled, “I just don’t like it.”
Seinu smiled and turned the page, listening to everyone chattering and Ifelse grumbling about how slow lasers were. Smiling the silver Avali continued to learn about Earth and its peculiar cut throat corporate culture, glad he had not stayed behind in his office and instead joined his siblings.
Cal was trying to stay calm and professional as he steered the crawler toward their next point of interest. Selenu, Taran and even Cri were all being so professional and focussed on their mission but Cal just wanted to bounce and be excited as he got to drive the crawler!
He’d been excitedly chirping about getting to drive earlier but Cri had just told him to focus on where they were going and stop distracting himself. It had sort of stung, but his brother was right he did need to focus, the crawler was a hefty responsibility to be in charge of.
It was a massive machine designed to crawl across the surface of worlds or asteroids and act as a mobile laboratory and home for a pack of up to six avali. With four of them onboard and with the bunnies being so small it was down right cosy and comfortable. Cal however didn’t really care too much about the science, Cri was totally enamoured by what the sensors and drills and sample arms had recorded at the last location but Cal was mostly just enjoying getting to sit behind the controls of such a big machine and make it move! Of course it’s top speed was sixty kilometres an hour which wasn’t much really but it was still awesome to be able to be at the controls of such a huge piece of machinery.
Chirping happily to himself he shifted one of the levers and adjusted the direction of the treads, “Shift it into Third, lock the treads, turn the control column, move the machine, yeah drive the machine.”
“What are you singing about?” Selenu asked as she looked up from her screen. Cal shot her a bright smile and shifted to Avali from bunny song.
“Just singing about what I am doing, it helps me to focus and remember all the steps, driving this thing is complicated.”
“Oh,” Selenu chuckled, “So you are just talking to yourself? I forget how your natural language is just a song.”
“Sort of,” Cal scrunched up his muzzle, trying to work out how to explain this, “Our language is a song, but this is a memory chant, we bunnies do it at home to help teach little ones, or amongst ourselves like to memorise the directions to a good foraging location or you know for giving thanks for surviving another day and not losing anyone to a predator.”
“Ah I see,” Selenu tilted her head, “I guess it never really came up when we were living with you?”
“Yeah, it tends to be done in private amongst family groups or foraging parties so you guys wouldn’t have seen it, though Firi did, she joined us for foraging planning.”
“Ah,” Selenu laughed, “And she’d never think to report something like that to Seinu.”
“Probably,” Cal laughed, “Usually we only use these chants when are teaching little ones or other foraging parties how to find things, but after seeing Sher singing about everything, good and bad, I've started wondering why we couldn’t use music to express what we feel and Mister Tyk’r suggested we try it to help me memorise new things and it works.”
“It has proven very useful,” Cri said, “Cal has been able to memorise a lot more things since he started using this to help him remember stuff, I haven’t had to use it much myself but apparently that’s just how Cal’s mind works.”
“Thanks for mentioning that,” Cal sighed and grumbled at his brother as Selenu chuckled and shook her head fondly.
“Tyk’r is smart, and don’t feel bad Cal, everyone learns things in a different way, that is why we took you to learn from him,” she reached out to ruffle Cal’s hat, “I am glad he helped you come up with your own mnemonic method” the lime avali smiled, “Carry on, that is just... Yeah that is adorable, how far until we reach our next survey spot?”
“Another hour,” Cal replied then dropped back into bunny song as he prodded an interactive display in front of him, “Check the Navigator, lock the waypoint,” he pulled a lever and turned the wheel right, “Shift to fourth gear and increase speed, pulse the ground radar, check the weather chart and drive forward.”
He could feel Selenu smiling at him, he didn’t mind her finding it cute, he was rather put out however that Cri had just casually announced he didn’t have to use this method to remember things. Shaking his head to try and push the negative thoughts away he started to sway a bit in his chair as he pushed his large paws down on the accelerator pedals, there was one for each side. As the pedals depressed the crawler’s treads bit deep into the solid slush of hydrogen covering the surface and they sped forward, the terrain ahead of them looked clear but he had to keep an eye out for any instabilities and avoid them.
They trundled across the slushy ground for about an hour, Taran was in the back fiddling with some tech and Cri was sitting at a control board behind watching the results of some sort of mineralogical scanner. Selenu was ostensibly his back-up pilot but she was mostly focussed on writing a report for Chantelle. So it was up to Cal to drive them safely and keep his foraging party safe, that is what the Trail pack were after all, their party! Though the whole starting to date Seinu thing had been an exciting adventure!
Bonding together as a threesome with his twin and their slime in disguise had been new! Mixing Avali relationship rules and Bunny rules and pan-galactic ideas on relationships, it was fun!
Smiling happily at the memories Cal pulled on a lever, stamped on the brakes and locked the treads, “We are here,” he chirped in Avali as he turned the column and then fired the ground stabilisers. Six loud bangs occurred as the hydraulic systems launched pitons into the ground supposedly to anchor them. All six of them returned errors, they sloshed through the slush of solid hydrogen on the ground easily and then just dented themselves against the ground.
“Ok it happened again,” Cal reported, “All six anchors failed to penetrate the surface, do we actually know what is down there yet?”
“Not yet,” Selenu said, “Which is why we are here,” she pointed ahead where a large dark rock thrust up out of the ground completely free of the solid hydrogen covering everything else, “We can’t get any proper readings through the surface because of the hydrogen and the electrical energy generated by the plasma field so we are going to take a direct sample from this rock.”
“Ok, want me to light it up?” Selenu gave him the affirmative so Cal turned on the external spot-lights and focussed them both on the spear of rock. As soon as the bright white beams of light swung across and intersected the pillar the darkness was banished as a kaleidoscope of colours erupted across the surface of the moon. Cal froze in place, dazzled as the white light shattered into a trillion colours, both beams of light seemed to be consumed by the rock reflecting like an endless prism of criss-crossing colours, jagged solid beams sprawling in every direction banishing the night and replacing it with an endless dawn of magnificent colour.
The crawler’s viewscreen was meant to polarise when excessive light was detected but it failed entirely, the sensors overwhelmed by the sheer cadence of light. Selenu let out a short yelp as her tech-specs and eyes were overwhelmed by the sudden glare, covering her face with her hands. Cri like Cal was stupefied by the sheer brilliance of the lights, their tetrachromatic eyes could see millions of colours, a shifting melange of wonder that held both bunnies spell-bound. They only shook free when Taran ordered the shutters to close, his cybernetic eyes filtering out the brightness and the light was cut off as the solid metal shell clamped shut over the windscreen.
“What…” Selenu groaned, “Was that! OH my eyes hurt”
“That was so beautiful,” Cal whispered, “Like the Protector himself had arrived to say hello! Stories back home say he is always accompanied by the biggest light storms.”
“That was a chunk of solid Diamond,” Taran said as he leant over Cri, peering at the screen in front of him, “Yup, we just blasted 20,000 lumens through a five hundred metre high pillar of diamond.”
“Ow,” Selenu groaned, “We should have scanned it first,” she had removed her glasses and had her eyes closed, “That was way too bright.”
“That was amazing,” Cri whispered, “I have launched the contact scanner, I can confirm it is indeed crystallised carbon, pure diamond, I have detected traces of other elements embedded in this but it is mostly just diamond.”
“Well…” Taran laughed, “That confirms my theory that this is the core of a gas giant that must have been captured during the supernova that killed the previous star system.”
“That doesn’t explain the solid layer of hydrogen covering everything,” Selenu replied with a frown, “This is not normal, it is why we couldn’t get accurate readings.”
“It has to be something to do with the plasma field,” Cri said, “The electromagnetic radiation from the star has to be doing something to keep it in this semi-solid state, it’s not just the temperature.”
Cal listened to the three chatter about science, he didn’t really understand a lot of it which was frustrating. He tried to follow along but they left him so far behind he just got confused. They were fascinated by this big asteroid made of diamond and solidified hydrogen. Cal had gotten the gist that hydrogen didn’t usually solidify, the surface temperature was too high for it to be a solid or a liquid. Whilst they nerded out over science Cal deployed the surface probes, letting the miniature rovers deploy from the underside of the crawler and start to make their way through the slush toward the exposed rock. Now Cal knew it was diamond he could set the drill bits to extract such a hard material and get some samples back, hopefully he could get one for himself. He had an idea how to adapt some Avali tech he’d seen on the ship so it would shine lights through; the colours had been so pretty!
“Ok sample drones away you three, come help me decide where to drill,” dragging the others away from nerd discussions Cal pointed at a screen, “Let's get this done and see what other fun things we can find under all the crazy and impossible slush!”
The others came over to Cal’s console and they settled down to get to work.
Earth Ecology and Biosphere in relations to Human Culture and Industry:
Humanity has a wealth of creativity, utilising their imaginations to develop all sorts of products, items and unique devices. However the rapid industrialization of the nations of planet Earth has led to a marked deterioration in their biosphere.
As with all planets that support life ecosystems can be robust and adapt to slow changes introduced across decades but are fragile to sustained short time changes that upset the balance of the natural world. Humanity launched into the grand plan of industrialising their world quite rapidly about three hundred years ago, using a mixture of new machinery, hydro-carbon based fuels and discoveries in magnetism, electronics and the simple discovery of how to generate radio-waves; they advanced their civilisation in leaps and bounds.
However this led to a boom in the “capital generating class” (e.g. merchants) slowly supplanting the traditional Hierarchical societies in favour of an increased trend in Democratic, Oligarchical and Autocratic societies. However the sheer rapid advancement of technology, new goods and a consumerist societal trend allowed the Capital generating classes to expand their power.
They swiftly passed the point where they searched for new ways to create profit to enhance their clan and family but instead to seize as much power and resources as possible. Earthian society is riddled with this from all stratas of society to the point it now seems to be the dominant driving force.
Upon discovering that their economic and industrial activity was damaging their planet's biosphere such as the massive release of carbon into the atmosphere raising the planet's temperature the merchant class began a propaganda led war to suppress, hide and distort this knowledge so they could continue generating profit using the polluting processes.
Government agencies that should have stepped in and reigned in these merchant classes are instead mostly susceptible to bribery and the desire to “Have a slice of the pie” for themselves to increase their wealth or power. It has reached the point where catastrophic climate change is slowly increasing the temperature of the oceans. This has already seen the extinction of several species of marine life, destroying several of the industries that relied on fishing these creatures. This pattern is repeated throughout the last 70 to 100 years of their history. Upon discovering that their industrialisation and advancement is negatively impacting their bio-sphere in increasingly new and detrimental ways they have continued to ignore or outright lie about the issue, cover it up or just pretend it isn’t happening.
There has only been one successful reversal, when they discovered a common gas used in their domestic machinery was destroying their ozone layer. They stopped using it and worked together as a planet to reverse the damage. This was mostly led by their scientist class but with the backing of their national governments who reigned in the merchants. So it is culturally possible for them to make these collective decisions but it seems the desires and needs of the Merchant class often take precedence over basic common sense to preserve their home-planet as a world they and the food creatures and crops they rely on can continue to live on.
Another example of staggering decisions is the constant polluting of their water-sources by the outflow of their sewer systems. Quite often the water purification systems in place are insufficient to deal with the waste released by their population. Rather than invest in better infrastructure that could filter harmful micro-plastics out of their waste or clean contaminants the water companies instead priorities share dividends to investors whilst polluting their water reserves and lobbying the governments to lower the standard of what constitutes clean water to again save themselves more money.
The forces behind these financial institutions, merchant classes and wealth creators are generally the real power controlling the vested interest groups in national governments. During your visit to Earth you will meet informally with many company leaders, shareholder groups and country leaders who are in fact controlled by the vested interests of this merchant class. So whilst this is important relevant background information do remember to present the official Illuminate approach of not getting personally involved in the Earthian’s internal issues as this like so much of their culture will be seen as a direct attack on them as opposed to us trying to be helpful.
Seinu shook his head at the baffling, contradictionary passage on Earthian culture; it was hard to comprehend how a race could pursue profit over everything to the point of damaging their planet.
“What was their plan if they had not discovered space flight?” he muttered to himself, “They were.. are destroying their biosphere and yet they seem to have no plan to stop.”
“What was that Seinu?” Firi asked as she glanced back at him, “You are mumbling to yourself again.”
“Just being baffled by humanity,” he replied, “They are clearly a smart race yet also weirdly self-destructive at the same time.”
“Are you still reading that Earthian guidebook?” Ki asked, “You’ve been staring at that thing for weeks.”
“It is about two thousand pages long,” Seinu sighed, “And each chapter comes with about five testing modules,” he tapped the tablet with one claw, “I have to pass each and everyone of them to unlock the next sector, some of these customs and behavioural requirements go against our natural pack-instincts, they are hard to learn.”
“Of course there are tests,” Ki laughed, “When my old pack worked with the humans we didn’t have to learn any rulebooks. But yeah they are real contradictions at times.”
“It all sounds way more complicated than the Cultarvian, S’Grael or Farndos primers you had to study,” Firi added as she glanced over at Seinu, “I’ve only ever really seen humans at a distance before.”
Seinu scrunched up his muzzle and huffed, causing his ears to twitch as he blew air out of the breathing tubes situated behind his ears, “I think we have been on easy mode, you need to remember Ki whilst we are heading up the Director’s flagship new diplomacy programme I am still only a few years out of training.”
“Oh right,” Ki smirked, “I forget sometimes you are all Illuminate nursery raised babes,” he chuckled, “I’ve been working for like fifteen years whilst you lot, lounged around the nursery learning theory.”
Seinu huffed again at the teasing and shot his brother a glower, “There are diplomats on Ck’akk’s payroll who have been doing this for decades, they have way more experience than me,” he closed his eyes and sighed, “She picked us for the Odyssey as she wants to mould our thinking in a new direction, not part of the military but separate, independent, civilian diplomats.”
“I get that,” Ki said, leaning back to ruffle Seinu’s mohawk, “You’re still learning and new, so she’s been easing us in with easy tasks?”
“Pretty much,” Seinu sighed, “We’ve been visiting species we are friendly with and who have easy to understand customs. She’s clearly decided it’s time for me to start preparing for harder tasks which is why she is preparing us for the humans,” he frowned, “If I can’t learn all this material AND teach it to you then we won’t pass this test.”
Ki nodded and glanced at Chantelle who was smirking, she reached to shake Seinu’s head gently, “You are worrying about nothing, we have six months to prepare, we’ll do this.”
Seinu nodded and opened his mouth to respond when the whole shuttle suddenly shook as something big bounced off the shields, “What…”
This was followed up by several other impacts, large enough to be felt through the shields as the shuttle rocked like it was a boat in rough seas. Firi gasped and reduced their speed, frowning at the scanners in front of her, whatever debris they had run into was not showing up on the scans.
“Full-stop,” Firi said, “We are still twenty minutes out from the mass source the drones detected, but we appear to have entered a debris field.”
Outside the forward screen of the shuttle was showing the plasma field; a roiling, slowly shifting mass of purple and magenta cloud, illuminated briefly by flickering bands of electricity, sheet lightning sparking between the charged particles in long rolling waves of energy. Just visible through the clouds was what looked like a large chunk of metal, not raw ore but worked metal, pitted from years of exposure to the energetic vacuum of the plasma clouds.
“What is that?” Chantelle asked, leaning over the back of Ki’s chair to stare at the controls, “It is not registering on the forward scanners.”
“It’s metal,” Ki replied, “But it is reacting in a negative way with the charged atmosphere of the plasma field so our scanners can’t see it, give me a moment.”
The shuttle trembled as Ki launched a drone and flew it across to the piece of metal, “It is about eight metres wide, nine thick and is definitely some sort of artificial construction, it is very delicate however, my best estimate is it has been floating here for thousands of years but I can’t be more accurate without doing a more detailed analysis in the lab.”
“Can you adjust the scanners to show it to us?” Firi asked, “I don’t want to risk flying blind through a debris field.”
“Yeah gimmie a moment,” Ki’s fingers tapped at the controls on his bionic arm, his fingers plugged directly into the shuttle as he interfaced directly, “The scans from the drone will help me reprogram or scanners to detect the weird way this debris is reacting with the plasma field, it’ll take me a bit to reformat our telemetry though.”
“Ok,” Firi glanced back at Seinu and Chantelle, “Looks like we will be stationary for a bit, you got any lessons for us to start working on Seinu?”
Seinu blinked, caught off guard at Firi wanting to learn and shot her a suspicious look, he didn’t say anything though just tapped his visor, “Sure we can start with the first pack chapter, you all will need to learn this before we go to Earth.”
Seinu settled down and started to walk his sisters through the introductory chapter on Earth and its solar system whilst Ki worked away reformatting the scanners. In the end it took him nearly three hours, the environment outside was so saturated with radiation, electrically charged plasma and weird abnormal cosmic conditions he was having trouble refining the scan returns to detect the smaller debris. It was worth it though, Firi and Chantelle seemed genuinely interested in learning about Earth and its weird dominant species the Humans.
“Well fuck…” Ki’s exclamation drew all their attention, he activated a projector and the view of the debris field resolved in the air above them, “This thing is huge, we are looking at thousands of unique pieces of debris about a hundred miles across and those mass points you flagged as points of interest Chantelle? Those are four very large artificial objects and the source of the debris.”
“Damn,” Chantelle stared at the images flickering over their head, “It’s an actual derelict ship, look at the size of that thing though, how did it end up here?”
“I do not know,” Seinu frowned at the display, trying to parse what he was looking at amongst all the debris, “I do not recognize the design, it looks like it was once cylindrical.”
“We will learn more once we get closer, the central structure seems to be pretty well preserved,” Firi said, “I suspect, however, that analysing it in full may be beyond us.”
“Probably,” Seinu frowned at the ruins, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair as his eyes flickered back and forth inside his visor, “Firi please return me to the Odyssey,” he said suddenly causing his sister to start in surprise and turn around to face him.
“What? But Seinu we have the chance of a lifetime here to be the first Avali to explore a wreck.”
“Exactly and there is a book we need to follow to explore an ancient ruin, especially one that might well be a gravesite,” he sat up, “Return me to the Odyssey I need to call Avalon and I cannot do that from here, once I am back on the ship you can return and do an initial survey.”
Firi opened her mouth to object but Seinu leant forward and forestalled her, “This is important Firi, I need to report this to Avalon and look at that debris field, can you fly us through it?”
Friri glanced at the projection and frowned, “I can do it.”
“Can you do it as well and as safely as Selenu would in the Momentum?”
His yellow sister frowned then nodded, “You’re right, she’d be better at this, that is one hell of a dangerous debris field.”
“Then take us back to the Odyssey, summon Selenu and you can go on the first exploration journey with her, but we need to do this seriously, like professionals.”
“Ok,” she turned around to face the controls and started to turn the shuttle, plotting a course back out of the plasma field, “We will return to the Odyssey and decide what and how to examine this thing between us as a pack.”
Seinu nodded and settled back in his chair, frowning at the projection of the alien ship. This was a big find, it made the Neutron star system an even greater treasure then before and Ck’akk and the Illuminate needed to know. This was as much a test as preparing to visit Earth, how they dealt with such an immense discovery was every bit as important.
The projector shut down as the connection to Avalon closed and Selenu watched Seinu slump in his chair and let out a low sigh of relief. The lime avali reached out to tousle his mohawk and smiled, “That went well.”
“Yeah,” Seinu nodded, “She seemed pleased we’d called her, registering the alien wreck with the Illuminate was the right call, I am glad we came straight back.”
“Yeah,” Selenu lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes, “She certainly sounded happy with us, what did she mean by informing the appropriate departments?”
“There are Coalition rules about space-wrecks like this,” Seinu said, “Chantelle is researching the rule-book now so you, Ki and maybe Firi can lead the first expedition on-board, we have to do this by the book and record our expeditions the Coalition will check up on us.”
“What sort of things do we need to be wary of?” Selenu asked, “I can use it to dampen Firi’s enthusiasm.”
Seinu nodded and frowned, removing his visor, he held up one hand, wing feathers ruffling as he lifted his first finger, “Ok the first thing to remember, this star-system is ours, so now it is registered the wreck is officially salvage, it’s ours but if it has dead crew-members onboard it is a gravesite so must be treated with respect,” he lifted his second finger, “But say we encounter cryo-genic storage units, living crew members, the ship reverts back to being their property and we become rescuers not salvagers.”
He held up another claw, all three of his fingers now raised which made his wings shift and spread, “But even if we don’t find any living crew it's still a gravesite, just because no one knows who these aliens are doesn’t mean we can treat it with disrespect, we might find them, they might find us, we’d have to be able to show we treated their wrecked ship and dead crew with respect.”
Selenu nodded, “Ok, I will review the rule-book with Chantelle, good job,” Selenu squeezed his shoulder, “Now you should sleep, I will make Firi read it with us.”
Seinu smiled and waved goodbye to his sister then crossed his office and face-planted into one of the big bean bags he kept near the window. It had been stressful and exhausting, after a moment he heard footsteps soft, quiet, cautious footsteps. Rolling over Seinu reached out, grabbed Cal and dragged him into a hug, the bunny chirped in surprise but then gripped him gently with his big paws.
“Hi, you smell tired,” he chirped, “Cri sent me to see how you are doing, he is making you food.”
“I am tired,” Seinu buried his face in Cal’s thick neck fur and sighed, “I wanna sleep, that was exhausting having to rush back and register this discovery with the Illuminate, I’ve never seen Ck’akk summon so many high level Avali packs into a call before.”
Cal licked Seinu’s ear and cuddled him back, “Sounds like you did the right thing though, well done.”
Seinu murmured something and sighed again, nodding off into a hazy exhausted sleep whilst cuddling one of his bunnies, it had been a really long and busy day!
To be continued…