Piteer lashed himself tighter to the Raven's airlock handle and waited as his shipmates came up to where he was hanging. Fenie stared beyond him "The shadow looked almost like a large bedsheet." Vaxe disagreed "I thought it looked like a manta ray." They strained to see anything in the gloom, which was accentuated by the methane clouds which made it look almost monochrome blue.
Dranke, the captain and his crew had pushed their darkmatter starcraft, one of the first of it's kind to chase down a mysterious species called the Hnnet. The aliens were highly advanced technologically, and starcommand had tasked the Raven and her crew to track down the alien species. Dranke had chosen the Sagittarius satellite galaxy as the most likely candidate, and they had begun their search.
Vaxe got out of the enclosed amphibian vehicle and got out an optical enhancement which was only visible-spectra dependent. It allowed for color and temperature differential. She scanned more closely. In a few seconds, a black giant teardrop shaped creature broke the surface of the methane sea and seemed to be studying her. Piteer stifled a cry and stared, his eyes wide. Fenie was the only one who moved. She slid her suited hand into the methane sea and looked at the creature. It came around to her and enveloped her hand! Vaxe whispered "Be careful."
Dranke came out of the airlock and closed it behind him carefully. Before he said anything, the shadow creature slid off Fenie's suited hand and 'flowed' over to Dranke. It covered his foot. It tingled. Dranke tried the normal spacecommand protocols for communication. It did not react. In a few minutes, it slid off his foot and disappeared into the methane sea.
Drake looked mystified "What does one make of this?" Fenie shrugged "It looks like a marine creature. Also it doesn't seem to want to communicate. At least not in a way we can discern." Vaxe agreed "Not much we can learn here."
Piteer untied himself and got into the darkmatter starcraft last. He was still looking a little uneasy. "Maybe we should try and get some more information? It seems to have some basic intelligence." Dranke grinned "It's not the Hnnet anyway. That was our task in the first place. Not this alien species. Anyway I will cover this in my report to spacecommand. If they want us to come back here, we can do that."
Decision made, they got the Raven prepared for launch. It was harder to launch from a liquid methane sea, but they had some experience with the protocols now. The crew moved in unison and got the Raven ready, while Fenie was already mapping their way to the next port of call. The star system they had chosen would have to be a flyby. They were going to study emissions from space and look for telltale signs of electromagnetic emissions, the signs of civilization.
On Mesc, the Mescieans were 'chattering' to themselves using vibrations..... they flowed over each other as they communicated.
oo..The aliens were looking for the Hnnet, this must be the species called humans...oo
oo..Their skin was made of metamaterials, we have melded a similar kind of cover into our own skins at the last molting..oo
oo..Strange how they cannot read us by touch..oo
oo..Must not be very advanced..oo
Pic courtesy: By Darya Rios (Own work) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons
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