So, time for the next part. I hope you like it.
Made a few changes and added a few lines. Thanks Sweforce for your input!
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Chapter 17: Shy
Mizol Lennai Daza was not alarmed that the humans had a surface vessel nearby and not a spaceship. That showed her a lot of things without even asking a single question.
For example: This planet had to be inhabited by humans in some way; there was indeed a lot of water on this planet, otherwise a vessel like a ship would make no sense; and finally, the humans must have at least one settlement of some kind nearby, possibly a colony.
This all showed her, that this mission might not be a failure after all. More than that: it still could succeed. They just had to make contact to the human goverment and all would be fine. How she would explain the loss of their vessel was something she could think of on a later date.
Then she watched as Antimony tried to board the vessel and the human female had to safe her from falling over board. She had to hold herself back from yelling at the Listel cast member, as the human touched her. Lightning was not able to feel the human mind, but she could see in her eyes that this experience was some kind of a shock to her.
Antimony appologized quickly, but their conversation ceased, so she had to step in. This was too good an opportunity for gathering informations, to easily loose it. The human ambassador called this manover "talking about something else" and he always did it when he didn't want to talk about something personal, as far as she knew from Tempo.
"Fähnrich Ludovski, this vessel over there, some distance away is your ship?"
"Uhm... Sorry... I think I was absent for a moment, could you repeat your question?"
Direct contact to a Loroi, especially touching, could be awkward or even unpleasant to some alien species, as she knew. Especially if they were not used to such a mental contact or had not been prepared for what could happen. However, the human ambassador seemed to be immune to such things, so maybe human females were more sensitive to telepathy? This was something she had to investigate at some time.
As she repeated her question, the human female seemed to somehow have recovered from this unknow experience and she was able to answer her.
"Yes, thats out boat. The S73 Hermelin."
"A boat?"
It was hard for her to hide her amusement as she replied to her, at the same time, the small human vessel started to move to its mothership, the so called Hermelin.
"A boat, because vessels in our navy, up to this size, are called boats and not ships."
"I understand. Are you its commanding officer, Fähnrich?"
Lightning knew that the Fähnrich was most likely some kind of junior officer. However, her experience in diplomatic missions had teached her, that small compliments like this could ease non telepathic aliens and sometimes made them say more than they would like at first.
As she saw the alien female smile and blush a little, she knew that it would work on humans, too.
"No... I am just a Fähnrich, not a commanding officer. Hermelins commander would be Kapitänleutnant Heinemann. I would be too inexperienced for a command."
"I understand, Fähnrich. So, I assume you are in some kind of training?"
"Yes, thats a good way to describe it. I need to complete it to become a Leutnant, but that might still take some time."
"I am sure you will complete every trial that lies ahead of you."
Ludovski had to smile and blush again. She looked at the vessels floor for a brief moment. Then she looked up again and replied in a soft voce:
"Thank you!"
It was clear to her now, that the human female was indeed inexperienced, more than that, she was also shy and worse of all: uncertain.
She somehow felt sorry for this young one. Many young Loroi warriors were similarly uncertain, when they first reached the front lines. They needed some time to adapt to serving on a warship. However, they would never show that so easily.
But everything she could do now was to revert back to plan A: talk about something else and by doing so, sthrengen their emotional band. So she smiled back at her and asked something different, as in the meantime they had come closer to the human "boat".
"So, what does "Hermelin" mean?"
"Well... It's the name of a small animal that attacks ruthlessly."
"I think... I understand. Are all of your 'boats' named like this?"
"Hermelin is a fast attack vessel..."
"...so, the name appears to be fitting."
Ludovski had to briefly smile after that comment and Lightning could now get a better look of that human "boat". It appeared to be rather small and the weapons she could see, as well as the sensors, appeard to be dated.
Reports from the human wreck showed them, that they were at least a century behind them, by technological standards, but this was even further behind, almost primitive. Their smaller weapons seemed to be projectile based and peopelled by chemicals. The bigger weapons appeared to have been placed in various boxes and she remembered seeing something like that in a museum. An additional museum piece was mounted in front of the boat: some form of cannon from the days of old was placed there.
She could not help but wonder, why they would use such primitive weapons. The design of the boat also appeared to be less sophisticated than she had expected. Why were they not using something more sophisticated? Maybe they had crashed on some kind of backwater colony? She must find out what was ging on here.
After a few moments, she could remember something that might be an explanation: Back on the sisterworld of Taben, the Tennoin cast used old ships to prepare the dirals of younglings for their rite of passage. This could be a human equivalent and this young Fähnrich could be proof of that. Nevertheless it all somehow didn't feel right. She could't say exactly what it was or why she was feeling this way. It was just somethin in herself that made her feel, as if she had yet to discover the full extant of what was going on here.
Someone who didn't feel anything wrong was her fellow Listel. Lightning observed as she and the human that was called Geißler, couldn't stop starring at each other. It was a strange situation for her to understand, but as the red haired listel smiled at the human, she knew exactly what was going on. The happy emotions that she could sense radiating from her were just the final puzzle piece and there was nothing she could hide.
However, she decided not to step in and interrupt them. She was curious about what would follow and how the human male would react. It was interessting to observe, how the human male reacted to her.
As they had reached the Hermelin, Ludovski suddenly said something in her native tounge that she couldn't understand. But both, Antimon and Geißler looked at her and blushed. Maybe their males were not too different from their own?
They boarded Hermelin by a rope ladder on its side and they were finally reunited with their other crewsisters. A quite confused mental chatter from them could be sensed by Lightning. Teidar Gladius immideatelly stepped towards her, with a grumpy face, just as always.
"My Mizol, its good to see you back."
"Good to see you again, too. Whats going on?"
"The humans gave us water."
"Thats rather kind of them. Whats wrong?"
"I assume they wanted to administer some kind of first aid for some of our crewsisters. We refused."
"A good choice. It would be wise to not let them touch us, at least for now."
"Understood."
A confused look from Fähnrich Ludovski reminded her that the humans were not able to understand them using sanzai. For her this conversation must have seemed very confusing.
"Uhm... Is everything alright?"
"Yes, perfectly. Thank you for providing water to our crewmembers."
"No need to thank us. I just wanted to inform you that our commanding officer would like to see you."
"Then we should not let him wait. Show me the way."