[Placeholder] (Complete) NaNoWriMo 2016

Ones and Zeros

"What sort of problem?" Simon asked as he hastily translated for Cat.

"There is another colony ship in distress on a nearby planet." Ship said, crisply. "They are requesting aid and I have rerouted our course to assist, but the terrain and atmosphere are such that I can't get close enough physically to help. You, however, should have no issues."

There was a pause while Simon tried to think of any way to convey that information. Nothing they had talked about in their translation sessions fit well and he had to settle with a general message of 'distress exists, our action required' with a gesture that conveyed they have to work out the translation later.

"Another colony ship like you?" Simon asked, frowning a bit as Cat signaled back that he didn't care if someone else was distressed as long as Cat, himself was fine.

"Yes. Ignoring the fact that it appears to be impossible, the ship arrived at this planet and began colonization quite a bit ago. The colony was overrun with some sort of non-hostile wildlife that had driven them into hiding. They need our assistance to get back to the colony proper so they can continue the colonization."

"Wait, haven't you been running away from the shadow ship for years?" Simon frowned.

"Yes."

"And somehow this other ship got in front of you 'quite a bit' ago?" The Ship had already demonstrated that it was perfectly capable of using the measuring units of their home planets without issues and Simon was wary of the fact he wouldn't say exactly how long it had been.

"I already mentioned that it appeared to be impossible." Ship said, irritated.

Simon conferred with Cat, who was considerably more pessimistic than Ship appeared to be. "How do we know this isn't some sort of trap?"

"It's even less likely that the shadow ships could have gotten here faster than us and I have no idea how they could have learned to mimic our encryption technologies. As unlikely as it seems, it's more logical to assume one of our colony ships did get here ahead of us than to twist things around to create the trap situation."

"Following up on that, how are the two of us supposed to solve a wildlife problem than an entire colony couldn't?"

"The colony only consists of two people, things are not yet in place to birth the first clutches." Ship said. "While the other ship still had all of its robots, freeing them is not something it can do at the moment."

"And you decided to volunteer us. Without asking."

"It's not dangerous, merely tedious." Insisted Ship. "Besides it will give Cat something to hunt and I'm getting tired of his pacing and having to keep my bots hidden."

"What do we get if we do this?"

"What?" Asked Ship, trying to understand the question.

"This action doesn't benefit us at all." Simon said. "So if we do this, what will we get in return? Even if the mission is as simple as you say, we're risking a lot walking around on the surface of an unknown planet."

There was a long pause.

"I have nothing to offer you," Ship said finally. "The most common request that has been made of me in the past was to return people to their homes, which I can not do. The second most common was to for death, which I will not do."

Simon blinked.

"I can't make you do this," Ship admitted. "But I have to try. So it's up to you to think of a solution. I can't leave this planet while the colony is still in distress and the shadow ship will most likely find us in the next few weeks. If it does I'm sure it will find someway to destroy all of us, although it will face the same problems we do functioning in this environment."

"Let me talk to Cat," Simon said after a moment.

~*~*~*~*~

"Well that's going to be a fun conversation," Simon said.

"I may have to work out your communication prior to this so there isn't as much as poor translation going on." Said the Writer as she started wrapping up for the night. "Although even with the software on the touchpads, I'm not sure how much of this is going to be something you can translate. I may have to handwave it a little just to keep the story going."

"Considering our primary methods of communication are incompatible, I'm a little amazed that we figured anything out at all."

"Never underestimate the power of television!" The Writer finished packing up. "At least we're finally on the planet, almost. There's not a lot of story left so we might fall a little short of 50k, but it will be nice to have it finished."

"See you tomorrow then."

"Arrivederci!"