Leroy and Oliver
"Oli! Oliver!"
"What?"
"Get your uncle! Quick!"
"Why?"
"Just get him!"
Oliver turned and raced off. What could have possibly sparked the sheer urgency in the on duty Control commander?
"Uncle Leroy?" Oliver called as he entered their quarters.
Leroy looked up.
"Mmm?"
"I was told to get you," Oliver said. "Commander Shiby made it sound super urgent."
"Hmmm..."
"You turned off your pager didn't you?"
"Yep."
"You should stop doing that. C'mon."
Leroy sighed, but stood and followed his nephew back down to Control.
"What is is Shiby?" he asked.
The technokinetic brought something up on the screen.
"What is that?" Oliver gasped.
"I... I think it's a ship," Leroy responded, quietly and wide-eyed.
"It's a ship all right," Commander Shiby replied in a half strangled voice. "And they just hailed us."
A call was put through to Courtney Shepherd when attempts to communicate effectively were fatal. The aliens were a primarily a navy blue colour and had four tentacles. They also had a third pair od something shat looked like tentacles to start with but branched out into digets. Oliver supposed this pair (which was also higher up on the body) were their arms. Upon further inspection, Oliver also came to the conclusion that they were also a clothers wearing race, deciding that the white and blue things around the midsection of their bodies was actually a uniform and not part of their body as first glance had thought.
"Oh good, Courtney, you're here," Commander Shiby said as the only Dathrian with Tongue aboard entered.
"What's the -" Countney began, then spotted the aliens. "Nevermind."
"Maybe you can understand what they're saying," Leroy said. "I have no idea. And I'm sure they think the same way about us."
Courtney grinned, listened for a moment, then laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"They're speaking English."
"They are?" Commander Shiby questioned.
"Or rather, that's their intention," Courtney went on. "It's more like... well, going on, well... lets just say it sounds like their race learnt English a couple of centuries ago, but because languages have a tendancy to change slightly over time..."
She shrugged, then turned to the screen and spoke to them.
"Greetings. My name is Courtney Shepherd, a Dathrian. Welcome to our space station, orbitting the planet Earth."
"Good day, Courtney," said the alien captain. "I am Captain De'Ragith of the Adigeian spaceship Luruna. It has been many... decades? Centuries? Since our people last visited this planet. But we thought that the dominating race was Humans?"
"It is," Courtney assured them. "My people, and our sister-race, the Semrellians, were on a colony ship on our way to another system altogether. But technical problems forced us to land here, and we've been on Earth for over 50 years now. Closing on 60. What brings you back, Captain?"
"That is a long story," Captain De'Ragith replied. "But perhaps it would be possible for our peoples to have a proper meeting?"
"Of course. You must have had a long journey."
"That we have, that we have. Perhaps you can answer something for me, first, what language is it that you speak?"
"The dominant language around here is English," Courtney smiled. "I believe it has had a lingual shift or so since your people were last her."
"Ahh," the Captain nodded... or what appeared to be nodding.
Oliver shook his head. It was so odd. He could hardly understand what Courtney was speaking, even though he now knew it was English. It was hard to believe it had changed so much.
As Oliver was thinking this, a meeting was arranged.