Welcome to Gaia! ::

Dr. Landford's fingers stopped in mid-keystroke as the hull around them vanished, leaving open space. Dr. Landford's eyes darted around the transparent room, wide in amazment.
"How....how incredibly facsinating!" He exclaimed as he slowly stood from his chair.
"You can see everything! Look, you can see the transport ship you came on, Colonel." Dr. Landford said, pointing through the hull at a military transport breaking away from the Summer's Rain. With excited tones and quick steps, Dr. Landford was by the Colonel's side, staring over his shoulder.
"Which button did you press? We simply must label it immediately."

((Ok here goes))

Dezire had entered for deployment years before but she had not expected to be put out in space on a semi small ship to find the reason for the sickness. She had been a medical doctor, focusing on prosthetics, back on the ground but she had also been a part time soldier. She had enjoyed her battles when she was in them almost as much as she enjoyed the thrill of a successful surgery.

She stepped back from the outer viewing area and began her walk to the bridge. She stood a good 5'6 and her long brown hair was in multiple braids down her back. Her camo pants and semi tight black shirt named her a fighter but her heart was more accustomed to helping those in pain. She filtered through the reports she needed to fill out and turn back to Dr. Landford. Dezire stepped on to the bridge but yelped slightly and she felt the ground under her but could not see it.

"Now thats something else!" She shakily said as she stood with a wary eye on the aquamarine orb below them. "...trippy....." sha muttered almost to herself.

Somewhat ignoring Landford and trying to contain his stomach, he keyed the same button again to have the bridge return to its previous state of enclosed safety. He withheld a sigh of relief, looking to all the other people. He hoped he had a mask of nothing on his face rather than a disgusted look of revulsion.

He still said nothing to Landford, just watched the bridge of the ship for activity and the approaching R3S which Landford introduced as Aine. Cute little thing, he thought absently. And young. It made him think back some twenty five years ago, to a disaster in his life. Resisting the urge to shake his head, he pushed the thoughts clear. Instead, he nodded a silent greeting to her.

He considered for a moment. Astrobiology. And a man in charge who fancied culture. He had read over the reports of the planet they'd discovered. So far, this was the only vessel that resembled something of stature. The wheels began to turn. He turned and walked to the nose of the bridge, where a wide portion of transparent hull allowed a much more mind-soothing view to the great abyss.

"We're aboard a ship that isn't like any other we've found. For a race that is largely military-absent, I would be willing to imagine that this vessel is something of a lavish royal ambassador's transport. Or perhaps even a valued member of their government. Hardly a common ship."

He looked back at his datapad, leafing through folders for... something.

"Our problem is we have no true means of translating their language. We need a common denominator in order to successfully--and even quickly--work around this barrier. Sure, we can trial and error and put our labels on it, but is it a true representation of what we're dealing with?"

A musical chime sounded, that same quiet and peaceful tone. But it wasn't the same beat as it was the first time he had heard it.

"What activates that chime?" He turned away from the viewport, a sense of dementia trying to settle in on him. His free hand tightened around the grip of his Calbis 35 before he could stop himself. Rather than making a bigger scene by yanking his hand away, he kept it there. It was a comfort.

"It is another in a long line of mysteries." Dr, Landford said, clasping his hands behind his back.
"Of course there are theories and assumptions, but nothing has been proven. I was worried it was some sort of alarm, but we have not been able to associate it with any warnings or imminent danger. It prompted several inspections and diagnostics of many aspects of the ship, but to no avail. We have shifted our resources away from the chimes to more pressing issues, like language."

Dr. Landford filed the reports in a temporary storage folder near the entrance to the bridge and returned to his spot behind one of the pilots.

"I think we can all agree we need to figure out the language as quickly as possible. I am sure the linguistic analysis team will be willing to attempt any new strategies you are able to offer them, Colonel. "

Looking across the bridge again, at the crew members who were meticulously looking lost amid a ship of foreign familiarities, he wondered exactly what would be the big breakthrough here. So far, this operation had been going on for two months. Two months of dedicated, isolated research. Two months of trying to figure out anything about the aliens who had built this masterpiece of technology.

And two months of next to no breakthroughs. The crew was scared to tinker with the technology without having a clue to what it all meant. Simple weaponry had been tested down on Earth. But the vast majority of what they learned from the weapons was that they were incapacitating, not lethal. The race was largely peaceful from the look of things and catered to a lifestyle of harmony.

Too bad Earth hasn't figured that one out. How many would have to die to see THAT happen? Ironic justice, if it ever occurred.

Most of the crew, he knew, were afraid that they'd do something terrible by random button pushing. Or lock them out of the system with a decidedly fatal burn that would lead them though Earth's orbit and through the atmosphere to a crispy, fiery explosion on the surface. Or that something might disable life support systems.

Or that they might unlock something no one wanted to find.

Fact of the matter, Earth was in poor shape by some strange, unidentified ailment that was slowly destroying humanity. They were quite effective at destroying themselves. They didn't need outside interference to help with the process.

Two months and so far, they had practically nothing to go by. Identification of consoles, a functionality of how the ship operates. The learning curve should be much faster than this. There should have been something revolutionary in this time frame. Something, ultimately, didn't add up here.

And that something itched at his consciousness, taunting him and just far enough out of sight that he couldn't identify it. He looked at Aine. He noticed her.. Is that disapproval? Or is it discomfort? Regardless, she didn't seem impressed by his presence. Hardly an issue. There was a good group of people that thought the quarantine of Earth was a plot by the government to remove common law and institute martial law.

Times were definitely hard. And, frankly, if it came down to a matter of security aboard the ship, his rank with the military would always supersede that of the good doctor whatever their "equal status" represented. Martial law was military action. Civilians had little say when it boiled down to duty. Landford might be a brilliant man. But he wasn't sure the man would handle an unexplainable crisis if it came down to it. He seemed too focused on what he knew and didn't have much room for spontaneous actions. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe this was why he didn't get along with scientists that well.

"We have visuals of their language everywhere. Computer screens and displays, wall markings, everything we need to put our labels on things. I noticed before arriving that the reports are largely lacking any verbal communication pieces. I'm assuming that we've not been able to find any audio cues that would suggest how their language is assembled."

He scanned through the datapad once more, seeming to flip between folders and subfolders with blinding speed, taking only a moment before moving to something else. Then, he paused and frowned.

"Is there a geneticist on board?"

"Several." Dr. Landford said. He checked his watch and nodded to the pilot next to him. It was a change of shift. The training pilots had had their time and the trained R3S personnel were taking the helm so that the good doctor could focus elsewhere.

"Of our geneticists, the best is a woman by the name of Ms. Lola Chase." Dr. Landford explained, he moved to the door and gathered up his reports.

"Hello, Dezire." Dr. Landford acknowledged the psychiatrist as he went by.

He returned to the Colonel.
"Why the sudden interest in geneticists?" Dr. Landford asked curiously.