Stephen's Secure Blog #90
These stories about Stephen began was when he was 10 years old, and
moving to a new part of the country to attend a special school for
gifted students, in the 1950's. This was from a time before computers
would fit on a desk, and when people communicated with friends in other
countries by actual letters sent through the postal service. He wrote
225 of them to a friend. He stopped writing to his penpal, but found he
still wanted to record his life, in case he lost his memory again, and
wrote 30 entries in his first logbook. Then he wrote to an artificial
intelligence called Geenee, in the master computer in his school for
gifted students, which he started attending in 2016. Now it's after
2018, and he's continuing to save his memories in a secure blog.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
The stories may not be posted in chronological order.
Stephen is 14 in this story, in the spring of year 4 of his special
school.
Stephen's Secure Blog #90 "Another GC Ship"
START Page
My monitoring of Earth's system showed me another GC starship was
approaching, but was still in stardrive, which was working well. I
noticed it before the automatic tracking system did, so I notified the
seniors, and we had a meeting which included Ichi and Percy. Pete asked
me if I could see inside it. I said "I would like Ichi to try that." He
did, and said, "Wow!" I said "I don't think you're supposed to use that
on yourself." He poked me. He said "It's a different Captain and crew."
Chad said, "Do you think you can port to it?" I immediately said,
"Don't! Not personally, while it's in stardrive. But we could try with
an object. A very little one, to a safe place. Want to try it, Ichi?"
you try." I made an image of the destination through a 4th viewpoint
and projected it into the room. I said "I'm trying to activate it, and
you can see it won't do that, and I can't feel or manipulate anything
in the room." Ichi said "You expected that, which is why you had me try
it." I said "I knew you would believe me, but this is now more real to
you. Over five percent of the speed of light difference between
positions, we can't get a get a lock, or activate an image of the
destination. BUT, you are a little wrong, too. I didn't know if we
could get an image we could see. You showed that we can. It's you who
did a first, not me." We hugged and kissed.
I said "We have two days before we can contact the ship. Should we,
and if we should, when, and after that is answered, how?" We all looked
at Ichi, and he groaned, which made us laugh, and so did he. He said
"They should know about Stephen by now, so he should contact them as
soon as we can, by radio from a 4th viewpoint. What happens after that
will be determined by that contact." I looked at Nigel, and he knew
what to say, "I agree that it is optimal for Stephen to handle the
first contact, but do we need optimal in this situation? Would not
making it look like a more normal routine, by using somebody other than
the top man they know of, give us an interesting opportunity to see
their reaction to that?" Ichi said "Right. Does the Captain dial the
phone? No. His comm tech does, to the other comm tech. We don't want
Stephen, and us, to lose status the way my first plan had it. The other
time was an emergency, in which speed and efficiency of communication
were important. This time, that isn't the case. I agree with your
suggestion." I grinned my face almost in half. Ichi got very
embarrassed. I said to him, "Why am I grinning? Actually, it's hard to
talk this way." He said "That's not fair. You grin at practically
everything." We laughed. He said "Oh, alright. Because I accepted
Nigel's suggestion well, and developed it more, and made what we would
Then Nigel said with an evil smirk, "In case you want to know, Stephen
would have just contacted the the ship himself, if we hadn't suggested
otherwise, and he KNOWS now our combined way is better, and will want
us to do it that way." Ichi looked at me for a response, and I made a
rude noise at Nigel. Ichi said "Wow!" I said to Ichi, "Except for the
wow, I'm proud of you." He almost cried in our hug.
Just before the ship was available, I had a private meeting with
Nigel. I said "Ichi feels the way you did, but for a slightly different
reason." He said "I know. He knows the sooner he improves to the level
you want him to, the sooner you can leave, and this time you aren't
coming back. My feeling now is different. I plan on sticking around to
at least after you pass on, because I want you to be there to manage my
reincarnation." I said "We don't know if that will be my job then." He
said, "They're not idiots." I laughed, and so did he.
In our comm section in the island reception center, Ichi ported one
of a pair of 4th comms to just outside the ship, and attached it to the
antenna. Then he activated it on the GC frequency, and Nigel said in
the GC language, "I am communicating to you for the Guardians of this
system, in which there is a Restricted World. Please pass on this
message to your Captain. If you need any assistance, please inform us
of it. Please state your reason for visiting this system, so we may
allow it. If you reply, please use minimal power, to maintain security,
because our shielded transponder is very near your ship. We will wait
for your reply." That came immediately, "I will pass on the message.
Please wait." A minute later, another voice said, "I am Captain Zurict,
of GC Starship mc-2007-5860-ngtk. To whom am I speaking?" Nigel said,
"I am Nigel, presently supervising our comm center." The Captain said,
"I have been informed that I should ask to speak with Stephen." Nigel
said, "I will ask for him. Please hold." He turned off the audio and
said, "Stephen, are you here? I said "I'm unavailable to him at the
moment." He turn the audio back on and said, "Stephen, our leader, is
unavailable at this time. His second, Ichi, will speak to you now."
They made a little noise when they changed positions, to indicate
that, and Ichi said, "I am Ichi, at your service. Do you know Captain
Zolnox?" The Captain said, "Ah! Yes I do. Now we can proceed. We do not
require assistance, and we are here to make some astronomical
observations, and resupply and exchange personnel, in our assistance to
our station." Ichi said "You are cleared to proceed. If you would like
to meet with us, we have a fully equipped and secure reception center,
or we could come to your ship, faster than you might think is
possible." Captain Zurict said "You could come to my ship, and match
vectors, how fast?" Ichi said "That would depend on who is available to
come, and who wants to. As little as 20 standard minutes." Captain
Zurict said, "So you are near us now?" Ichi said, "We are near to
everything." Captain Zurict laughed, and said, "Zolnox was right.
Getting understandable information from you is a lesson in
frustration." Ichi said, "Well, not for us." Captain Zurict laughed
again, and said, "He was right about your sense of humor, too. If you
will keep this communication open, we will let you know soon, our
desires about your offer, when we can figure out what they are." Ichi
said "We will. Thank you." The comm operator came on and announced,
"Standing by." Nigel said, "Same here. Will be silent until we hear
from you." Then he turned off the audio transmission.
I said "You both were great!" We did a lot of hugging and kissing.
Ichi said, "They are going to want us to go there as soon as possible.
They won't be able to resist trying to see how we do it." I said
"Right." Silence. Then Ichi said, "Alright, I get it. Who goes? Can't
be Nigel. He's just a comm operator, to them. Sorry Nigel." Nigel said
"That's alright, we both knew that when we decided I would do this."
Ichi said "Then it should be me, Stephen, and because he would want it,
Rose, too, to increase her alien experience. Anybody else?" Pete said
"I think that's it, unless you want Percy, and good job all around. No,
I'm not going. I think it's going to be kind of boring, without the
problems we dealt with the last time, and I can watch from home." Ichi
looked at me, and I didn't react. He sighed, and said, "Percy too. Not
because we need him, but because he likes spaceships, and it probably
will be fun for him, and because he looks more grown up, he might be
mistaken for Stephen, the leader, and we could have some fun with
that." Nigel said "I'm telling him now." And there was Percy, who
hugged and kissed Ichi, and said, "Thank you for thinking of me." Ichi
grinned and said, "Oh, I just thought of you again." We all laughed,
while Percy was hugging and kissing Ichi again.
Ten minutes later, Captain Zurict came back on the comm and asked for
Ichi, who said, "I am here." Captain Zurict said, "We would like to
meet with you as soon as you are able." Ichi said, "We can do that now,
because we assumed you would want to satisfy your curiosity as soon as
possible." Captain Zurict laughed and said, "You know us too well!"
Ichi said "As a good host should. We are now closing contact, so we may
Signing off." Ichi turned off the mic and we all laughed. I said to
him, "I'm not sure I would have thought of that last one. I like it!"
He hugged and kissed me. Then Rose ported in and said, "Can I have some
of that?" Ichi hugged and kissed her, and then the rest of us did.
Percy made the ship visible to the GC ship, and turned on the comm,
and said, "I am Percy, in the Guardian ship. If you would like us to
dock, we both should cut deceleration. If we come any closer without
that, our gravity fields will be very angry with each other." The comm
tech, who was of the same green scaled species as Hatchet, said,
"Please wait while I pass that on." Captain Zurict came on and said,
"Angry? Interesting choice of words." Percy said, "That, and leading to
an argument, resulting in murder. We would be very poor hosts if we let
our ship destroy you. Our gravity drive is much stronger than yours.
Even though it doesn't get quite as much exercise." Captain Zurict
laughed, and said, "I see. Do you wish us to synchronize our velocity
adjustments?" Percy said, "That's not necessary. Please do what you
need to, and we will accommodate to that." Captain Zurict gave some
orders to his people, and their deceleration stopped. We did the same,
so that our relative positions didn't change a cm. Captain Zurict saw
that and said, "Wow!" Percy said "We hear that a lot." Captain Zurict
laughed, and said, "Please dock at the flashing light. How many will
transfer?" Percy said "Four, if that's not too many." Captain Zurict
said, "We have a big ship, so we can handle that. Please come aboard.
Signing off."
While we were maneuvering to the dock, I said to Percy, "I'm sure you
scanned the ship already. Did you find anything which begs to be
fixed?" He grinned and said, "Nothing major or important, and the Chief
Engineer is not a Tsuriss, or female." Rose said, "So it's a
cat-ass-trophy you won't get, it?" We all practically howled with
laughter. I said to Rose when I could, "That might be your best yet! I
love it!" We hugged and kissed, but that was nothing compared to the
production Percy made of his appreciation to her. They were both very
hot after that, and I was grinning really wide. The First Officer was
in the airlock when we got to it, and he led us to the Captain's
conference room off the bridge. Ichi said, "I am ichi. This is Percy,
and this is Rose. If you would like to resume deceleration, our ship
will need to disengage and move off to a safe distance." He said
"Please." Percy directed the ship to do just that. While it was
happening, Captain Zurict said, "You failed to introduce one of you."
Ichi said "It's his prerogative to do that himself, if he wants to."
Captain Zurict said to me, "Do you want to?" I grinned and said, "I am
Stephen, as you suspected." Captain Zurict said in his species
telepathy to his First Officer, +Zolnox warned us about how smart they
are. Be careful around them.+ I said "Being careful is always good
around anybody. Who wants their toes stepped on?" They were completely
astounded. I said "Zolnox didn't tell you we understood your telepathy?
something from you, so be as sly as you can, and say I approve of it,
too." Captain Zurict laughed really hard.
Our ship had moved back to the same relative position it had before,
so the Captain ordered deceleration to be resumed, and our ship kept
pace. Captain Zurict said "How does it do that?" Ichi said, "As you
see, very well. We think so, anyway." He said "That doesn't really
help." Ichi said "It performs well, in doing what we want it to do. We
aren't responsible for what YOUR ships don't do well. I don't know how
else to explain it." I said "We like to make good things." Percy said
"Yes. Making bad things is a waste of time." Captain Zurict said
"Frustrating!" Rose said, "We've been told we do that well, too." He
stared at her, and burst out laughing. The FO was trying not to.
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Grant
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