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The conversation had got into better flow by now, Calica even risked suggesting a few questions of their own. According to what Magellan was telling her as he was simultaneously handling three conversations from the other ship’s crew, was that they had themselves been called out to investigate a similar piece of mega-engineering, something not too dissimilar to our own Derusai object, when its sister craft had been vanished by the object, simultaneously our own craft had appeared half a light year away.

             ‘You think the ancient races are starting up a pen pal club, or this actually has got some importance?’

            ‘I don’t know, the object is just as enigmatic to these people as the Derusai object to our own. From what we have exchanged I think it is likely that their other craft has been transported to our federation, I think the Derusai builders are trying to make something happen, you know how dormant the object has been, I think it would have very good reason to do what it just did.’

            ‘What are we meant to do, did the object leave any instructions on this side, we certainly didn’t get any.’ Calica had relaxed now the situation was under control, Magellan was doing most of the work, and the situation seemed far from hostile, she was just looking over the scrolling columns of text, picking out things from the conversations.

            ‘No, but they wont to take us deeper into their space, they worry that we may be ambushed.’

            ‘Are they not worried that we might be the enemy, a mysterious looking ship that appears after one of their ships goes missing, on the edge of their space.’

            ‘I think they have already got too much to worry about, anyway their enemy appears not to go in for the subtle tactics, and as much as we may be a threat, we live twenty-thousand light-years away, and we will simply have to queue up behind their current problems.’

            ‘You think we can trust them?’

            ‘They have not attacked us yet, and if their story checks out I think the federation has found a new friend amongst the stars, despite the fact that people also call themselves the federation, or at least that is the translation, spooky eh? Anyway I don’t think we can do much else, fighting them will just make more enemies, and lose our current protection.’

            ‘Ok, let them lead the way, they are aware of our limitations aren’t they?’

            ‘Yes, yes I have been having a long chat with the ships equivalent of head engineer, I think we should exchange some of our technologies with them, they are basically on the same level as us, and they really need any help that they can get.’

            ‘I think the federation council at home would have a major argument with us if we get back and did that, anyway how do we know that the enemy are not also potentially good people.’

            ‘Oh trust me, the enemy is a lot worse’