Stumbling Towards the Dawn - Part 7
Title: Stumbling Towards the Dawn - Part 7
Word Count: 1,350
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Not mine ... just playing.
Spoilers: To LDYB Part II - Everything is definitely AU from the moment the Cylons flew over.
Summary: When Cloud Nine is destroyed, it attracted the attention of not only the Cylons.
Author's Note: This is a crossover fic, with David Weber's Mutineer's Moon - Fifth Imperium universe, but I don't think that you need to know the universe of this trilogy of novels to get it. Hopefully, it's explained well enough in the story.
The shuttle was sleek and rounded, and like nothing William Adama had seen before. The two women who exited ahead of their personnel could not have been more different--so diametrically opposite in every way that it seemed they were a matched pair. One was small and trim, with pale, creamy skin and a halo of short, white-blonde hair framing her face, while the other was tall--at least a head taller than every man on the flight deck--built like an Amazon, with skin like burnished ebony and long, midnight-black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.
"Admiral Adama," the blonde said stepping forward and holding out her hand. He took it and they shook hands enthusiastically. "I'm Fleet Captain Carol Windermere."
"And I am Fleet Captain Azuka Riddick," the black woman said, her voice low and melodic as they shook hands.
“May I present Commander Lee Adama, commander of Pegasus,” Adama said, introducing his officers. “Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla, Commander Adama’s Executive Officer, Captain Karl Agathon, commander of Pegasus’ air group, my interim XO, Captain Jake Kelly, and Lieutenant Louanne Katraine, acting commander of Galactica’s air group.”
After they all shook hands and the Imperials introduced their senior officers, Commanders Chiang Chen-lu and Emmanuella Morales, Adama lead them his quarters.
“May I ask why you were looking for us?” Lee asked after they’d all settled around the table. “You said that you detected the nuclear explosion that destroyed Cloud Nine?”
“Yes, Commander Adama,” Captain Windermere replied, “but that’s rather misleading. Our original mission was as a Survey Task Force. We were surveying some systems about five hundred light years from this area, looking for signs of indigenous intelligence and assessing threats. You see our defensive coverage of Earth and the Fifth Imperium is rather shallow out in this direction towards the Galactic Rim--only about one thousand light years deep. When our FTL sensors detected the nuclear explosion and our scan analysis determined that it was not endogenous to the New Caprica star itself, but possibly originated on or near a planet in the theoretical habitable zone of the star system, well we knew that there had to be someone out here. Quite frankly, Commander, we were expecting bug-eyed aliens. Imagine our shock when we started picking up radio and video transmissions somehow accelerated through hyperspace … and found that you were human. But the sources of the transmissions seemed to originate on very divergent vectors--I guess because you jumped around so much--and it didn’t immediately follow that the explosion and the transmissions had the same cause, so we split up the Task Force to cover a greater volume. Anyway, it took our linguists some time to decipher your language--”
“Decipher our language?” Dualla said. “But you speak our language perfectly--with a bit of a strange accent, but you’re still perfectly understandable.”
The black-skinned captain smiled and it was as if her face was lit from within. “Actually, Lieutenant Dualla,” she said, “the language you speak for the most part hasn’t been a living, spoken language on Earth for at least three thousand years. We had to scramble like mad to learn it before contacting you.” Adama knew that like his officers, he was gaping at the Imperials in shock. “The majority of the language you speak is based on what we call Ancient Phoenician influenced heavily by Ancient Greek, Persian, Etruscan and a few other languages, but once we realised what was going on, it was fairly simple to learn. It also helped that your writing system hadn’t changed too drastically and was mostly based on Phoenician influenced by Greek, and that our writing system evolved almost completely from the Greek alphabet.”
She tapped a small device and Adama found his name projected into mid-air, but with almost ridiculous solidity. “This is your name rendered in your language, Admiral Adama,” Captain Riddick said, “and this is your name in Ancient Phonecian.”
She tapped the control panel again and another set of characters joined it, and though it was written all in superior case letters and the construction of a few of the letters was somewhat strange, for the most part he could tell that it said “William Adama”. A third set of characters joined the first two. This time it was harder to decipher; many of the superior case letters seemed flipped or upside-down or backwards, but at least some of the inferior case letters were still recognisable.
“That is your name in Ancient Greek,” she continued. “It seems that your people fused using Phonecian for your capital letters with something akin to Greek--perhaps a proto-Greek language--for your common or lower case letters, and we’re still deciphering the nuances of your grammar and punctuation rules. However, this is how your name would look in Earth’s most commonly spoken language, the one that’s become the language of diplomacy, trade and commerce, English.”
Adama looked at the almost gibberish on the display. After a moment, he could see how it related to what she had called “Greek”, but still it would take him ages to learn this--if ever he could. He knew that he radiated dismay as he looked at her, but he couldn’t help it.
Riddick’s dark eyes twinkled, and when she spoke, there was laughter in her voice. “Don’t worry, Admiral Adama, English is not quite as terrifying as it looks,” she said. “Although for someone who isn’t a native speaker, it is one of the more illogical languages in all creation.”
“Why?” Lee asked. “Just how many languages do you speak on Earth?”
This time, an uproarious laugh escaped Captain Windermere, and the others joined in much to the Colonials’ consternation.
“Well, how many stars can you count in the sky at night, Commander?” Riddick asked, shocking them thoroughly again, but after a moment the Imperials brought their laughter under control. “Again, it’s bad enough, but not as bad as you think. Let’s put it this way, only Carol here would be considered a native English speaker. My native language is called Igbo.”
Suddenly, she let out a stream of impossibly incomprehensible sounds, punctuated by clicks and percussive stops. When she stopped her otherworldly litany, she started chuckling again as she turned to her executive officer. “Chiang?”
The almond-eyed man smiled. “My native language is Mandarin-Chinese,” he said. “In fact, contrary to your accustomed way of ordering names, my family name is Chiang and my given, personal name is Chen-lu. Although few people would make a fuss, the proper way to address a person of Chinese background is family name first, followed by personal name. So I am properly Chiang Chen-lu.”
This time, though he was expecting it, Adama still found the rapid changes in tonalities and almost musical phonemes of this language absolutely fascinating.
“And my native language is called Spanish,” Emmanuella Morales said and then proceeded to give them an example of a lush language full of rolls and trills and verbal flourishes that surprised Adama again because it was so different from the other two examples.
Windermere chuckled quietly at their flabbergasted expressions as she said something in another lilting, musical language. “Not to be left out here, but if you count the fact that my maternal grandmother probably taught me to speak Welsh before I learned English,” she said with a devilish look in her eyes, “you would probably have to technically count me out as a native English speaker.”
“Four people, four entirely different languages,” Dualla breathed in awe. “Dear Gods, no wonder you needed a common language for trade.”
“Now there’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Morales laughed.
“All right,” Windermere said more soberly. “We’ll have lots of time for history and comparative language lessons later. The hypercom should be fired up and in contact with Captain MacIntyre by now.”
Riddick nodded and tapped the device’s controls once more. This time the space above the table blossomed with the image of a young, sable-haired woman with the face of a goddess. Next to her, Saul Tigh’s grizzled mug was almost a blasphemy.
Part 8
Word Count: 1,350
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Not mine ... just playing.
Spoilers: To LDYB Part II - Everything is definitely AU from the moment the Cylons flew over.
Summary: When Cloud Nine is destroyed, it attracted the attention of not only the Cylons.
Author's Note: This is a crossover fic, with David Weber's Mutineer's Moon - Fifth Imperium universe, but I don't think that you need to know the universe of this trilogy of novels to get it. Hopefully, it's explained well enough in the story.
The shuttle was sleek and rounded, and like nothing William Adama had seen before. The two women who exited ahead of their personnel could not have been more different--so diametrically opposite in every way that it seemed they were a matched pair. One was small and trim, with pale, creamy skin and a halo of short, white-blonde hair framing her face, while the other was tall--at least a head taller than every man on the flight deck--built like an Amazon, with skin like burnished ebony and long, midnight-black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.
"Admiral Adama," the blonde said stepping forward and holding out her hand. He took it and they shook hands enthusiastically. "I'm Fleet Captain Carol Windermere."
"And I am Fleet Captain Azuka Riddick," the black woman said, her voice low and melodic as they shook hands.
“May I present Commander Lee Adama, commander of Pegasus,” Adama said, introducing his officers. “Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla, Commander Adama’s Executive Officer, Captain Karl Agathon, commander of Pegasus’ air group, my interim XO, Captain Jake Kelly, and Lieutenant Louanne Katraine, acting commander of Galactica’s air group.”
After they all shook hands and the Imperials introduced their senior officers, Commanders Chiang Chen-lu and Emmanuella Morales, Adama lead them his quarters.
“May I ask why you were looking for us?” Lee asked after they’d all settled around the table. “You said that you detected the nuclear explosion that destroyed Cloud Nine?”
“Yes, Commander Adama,” Captain Windermere replied, “but that’s rather misleading. Our original mission was as a Survey Task Force. We were surveying some systems about five hundred light years from this area, looking for signs of indigenous intelligence and assessing threats. You see our defensive coverage of Earth and the Fifth Imperium is rather shallow out in this direction towards the Galactic Rim--only about one thousand light years deep. When our FTL sensors detected the nuclear explosion and our scan analysis determined that it was not endogenous to the New Caprica star itself, but possibly originated on or near a planet in the theoretical habitable zone of the star system, well we knew that there had to be someone out here. Quite frankly, Commander, we were expecting bug-eyed aliens. Imagine our shock when we started picking up radio and video transmissions somehow accelerated through hyperspace … and found that you were human. But the sources of the transmissions seemed to originate on very divergent vectors--I guess because you jumped around so much--and it didn’t immediately follow that the explosion and the transmissions had the same cause, so we split up the Task Force to cover a greater volume. Anyway, it took our linguists some time to decipher your language--”
“Decipher our language?” Dualla said. “But you speak our language perfectly--with a bit of a strange accent, but you’re still perfectly understandable.”
The black-skinned captain smiled and it was as if her face was lit from within. “Actually, Lieutenant Dualla,” she said, “the language you speak for the most part hasn’t been a living, spoken language on Earth for at least three thousand years. We had to scramble like mad to learn it before contacting you.” Adama knew that like his officers, he was gaping at the Imperials in shock. “The majority of the language you speak is based on what we call Ancient Phoenician influenced heavily by Ancient Greek, Persian, Etruscan and a few other languages, but once we realised what was going on, it was fairly simple to learn. It also helped that your writing system hadn’t changed too drastically and was mostly based on Phoenician influenced by Greek, and that our writing system evolved almost completely from the Greek alphabet.”
She tapped a small device and Adama found his name projected into mid-air, but with almost ridiculous solidity. “This is your name rendered in your language, Admiral Adama,” Captain Riddick said, “and this is your name in Ancient Phonecian.”
She tapped the control panel again and another set of characters joined it, and though it was written all in superior case letters and the construction of a few of the letters was somewhat strange, for the most part he could tell that it said “William Adama”. A third set of characters joined the first two. This time it was harder to decipher; many of the superior case letters seemed flipped or upside-down or backwards, but at least some of the inferior case letters were still recognisable.
“That is your name in Ancient Greek,” she continued. “It seems that your people fused using Phonecian for your capital letters with something akin to Greek--perhaps a proto-Greek language--for your common or lower case letters, and we’re still deciphering the nuances of your grammar and punctuation rules. However, this is how your name would look in Earth’s most commonly spoken language, the one that’s become the language of diplomacy, trade and commerce, English.”
Adama looked at the almost gibberish on the display. After a moment, he could see how it related to what she had called “Greek”, but still it would take him ages to learn this--if ever he could. He knew that he radiated dismay as he looked at her, but he couldn’t help it.
Riddick’s dark eyes twinkled, and when she spoke, there was laughter in her voice. “Don’t worry, Admiral Adama, English is not quite as terrifying as it looks,” she said. “Although for someone who isn’t a native speaker, it is one of the more illogical languages in all creation.”
“Why?” Lee asked. “Just how many languages do you speak on Earth?”
This time, an uproarious laugh escaped Captain Windermere, and the others joined in much to the Colonials’ consternation.
“Well, how many stars can you count in the sky at night, Commander?” Riddick asked, shocking them thoroughly again, but after a moment the Imperials brought their laughter under control. “Again, it’s bad enough, but not as bad as you think. Let’s put it this way, only Carol here would be considered a native English speaker. My native language is called Igbo.”
Suddenly, she let out a stream of impossibly incomprehensible sounds, punctuated by clicks and percussive stops. When she stopped her otherworldly litany, she started chuckling again as she turned to her executive officer. “Chiang?”
The almond-eyed man smiled. “My native language is Mandarin-Chinese,” he said. “In fact, contrary to your accustomed way of ordering names, my family name is Chiang and my given, personal name is Chen-lu. Although few people would make a fuss, the proper way to address a person of Chinese background is family name first, followed by personal name. So I am properly Chiang Chen-lu.”
This time, though he was expecting it, Adama still found the rapid changes in tonalities and almost musical phonemes of this language absolutely fascinating.
“And my native language is called Spanish,” Emmanuella Morales said and then proceeded to give them an example of a lush language full of rolls and trills and verbal flourishes that surprised Adama again because it was so different from the other two examples.
Windermere chuckled quietly at their flabbergasted expressions as she said something in another lilting, musical language. “Not to be left out here, but if you count the fact that my maternal grandmother probably taught me to speak Welsh before I learned English,” she said with a devilish look in her eyes, “you would probably have to technically count me out as a native English speaker.”
“Four people, four entirely different languages,” Dualla breathed in awe. “Dear Gods, no wonder you needed a common language for trade.”
“Now there’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Morales laughed.
“All right,” Windermere said more soberly. “We’ll have lots of time for history and comparative language lessons later. The hypercom should be fired up and in contact with Captain MacIntyre by now.”
Riddick nodded and tapped the device’s controls once more. This time the space above the table blossomed with the image of a young, sable-haired woman with the face of a goddess. Next to her, Saul Tigh’s grizzled mug was almost a blasphemy.
Part 8