A Mysterious Message

Posted on Tue 30th Jun, 2020 @ 9:10am by Tessanna (Tessa) Valeri & Lieutenant Nalani Emmiad

1,433 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Resolution

Tessanna wasn't quite sure what to make of T'Vala's absence. It was totally out of character for the Vulcan, and yet Tessa wasn't surprised. She blamed the Klingon. T'Vala was more adventurous around him. Tessa wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.

In truth she didn't know T'Vala all that well, but in the brief time she'd worked for the Ambassador, this behavior was irregular. She wondered what the two Ambassadors were up to now, and wished she'd get a message letting her know.

However, when a message did come in it wasn't one she expected, in fact, it wasn't one she could read. Nor could the computer translate it. Tessa smiled. A mystery to solve. It was a lot better than sitting at the desk telling people the Ambassador had been called away. There was a linguist on the station. Maybe she could help decipher the message.

She tapped her combadge. "Valeri to Emmiad. Do you have a few minutes?"

"Of course. I'm in my quarters right now, if it's not super urgent. Otherwise I can toss a uniform on if you need and come to the office."

"It's not urgent. I'll be right over," Tessa said. When she got there, she rang the chime, hoping she wasn't here for a silly message.

"Come in" Nalani called quietly. Her table was decorated with the accoutrements of creating a new habitat for her snakes. Cut plas-glas, a cutter, rocks sand and plants all laid out neatly, though sand was scattered across the table. Brushing sand off her hands, she walked to the replicator to get herself a drink.

Tessa walked in and stopped, watching. "What's that for?" she asked. "If you don't mind, that is." T'Vala was always reminding her she lacked proper decorum.

"It's a new enclosure for my snakes. They've been outgrowing their old terrarium, and need some more room to move around." Nalani gestured to the tanks behind her. The massive aquarium was the focal point of her quarters, but, the terrariums were clearly visible on the walls.

Tessa had been so focused on the new enclosure she missed the tanks on the wall. She went over to them, eyes wide. "Wow. How long have you had snakes?"

"Since I was a little girl. I breed them as well as my fish, corals and frogs, and sell them to make some extra credits. The're friendly if you'd like to handle one." She smiled softly watching Tessa gaze into her enclosures.

Tessa hesitated for a moment. She'd never held a real snake before. "Sure."

Laughing, Nalani stood, placing the PADD on the table and walked to the enclosure to unlock it. Gently she lifted the lid and grasped the first snake that came to hand which happened to be Sierra. "This is Sierra, she is a Piebald Ball Python." Nalani placed her in Tessa's hands and grinned "She's harmless and I fed her yesterday so she won't do anything but slither on you."

"Well, that's good," Tessa replied, a little nervous at the size. "As long as she's not hungry, we'll get along just fine." She gently took the snake, careful so it didn't feel like it would fall. "Hi, there. I'm Tessa." She looked at Nalani. "It's softer than I expected."

"She is both surprisingly soft, and surprisingly strong. She's also quite friendly, and likes to be stroked."

"Stroked? Like on her head?" Tessa asked, taking one finger to gently rub along the top of the snake's head.

"Indeed, so you pet the snake, and while she's got you occupied tell me about this bizarre message."


"It came to the consulate. Neither the UT nor the computer can make any sense of it," Tessa said, growing more comfortable with the snake. She rubbed its nose, then went back to petting its head. "I was hoping you could figure it out."

"It seems familiar but it isn't. It's almost gibberish..." Nalani muttered as she read it through a few times, trying to figure out just what she was reading. Words started to jump out at her here and there, and she got a stylus and a fresh PADD to write them down. "Is it possible there are two separate messages in this transmission?"

"I have no idea," Tessa admitted. "It's possible."

"I think it might have..." she murmerred working on 2 PADD's at the same time. Her quiet voice taking on the liquid tones of Vulcan speech as she picked out the words in Vulcan in between the other words.

Tessa watched the other woman work. "I didn't think about looking for Vulcan and pulling it out."

"The reason the computer couldn't decode it is because it doesn't follow a code. There are words inside other words, which make it look like its nothing. There are three languages here, Vulcan, Klingon and Orion. The Orion I think is being done phonetically, rather than symbolically which would give away that this was a message."

"And we don't know all the Orion dialects, either," Tessa added. "That makes it harder to translate, too. So, what do the three messages say?"

"The Klingon message is troop movements in the quadrant. It appears to be tactical numbers, perhaps pirates. It shows the Klingon military response to something unspecified. We need to do some deeper scans into the sector labelled in their Starmaps G-1. "

"Perhaps the Klingon embassy can help with that?" Tessa asked. "Oh, wait, the Klingon ambassador is out with the Ambassador." She looked at the other woman. "Yes, we definitely need to look into this one. What about the other two?"

"The message in Vulcan is mostly pleasantries. It's a very...imprecise message coming from a Vulcan. I am not sure what to make of it. It speaks of tea, herbal remedies and of making a meeting in the market district to see what they have for trade. She's interested in silk and Ka'na Crystals. The Orion message is entirely alphanumerics. It's phonetic, so it might mean something if they overlay on the G-1 Starmap. I would ask astrometrics to try to figure it out. "

"Wow. That's pretty complex, and interesting," Tessanna said, shaking her head. "Did they come from the same region in space, arrive at the same time, or how do you think they got all jumbled up?"

"I am not sure. Maybe on purpose." Nalani shrugged her shoulders in utter defeat. "I'm just a linguist."

"I never imagined it would be this complicated," Tessa admitted. "Now I want to know where they came from, and if they're really sent to T'Vala."

"Or from T'Vala. I suggest that might be slightly above our pay grade?" raising both eyebrows, she gestured with eyes and the raise of her chin that they might consider taking these messages to the more higher ranked officers aboard the station.

"Good idea. They can untangle this mess," Tessa sad. "Or maybe T'Vala will come back and I can dump this on her."

"Uh.." The puzzled look on Nalani's face was telling "Who do we send it to?"

"Well, for now, we send what you worked out to T'Vala. If she doesn't come back by the end of the day, I can forward it to the station's first officer and see if she can figure it out." Tessa grinned. "I'm just the assistant, after all."

"Fair enough, that works for me. Though, I think we're going to have to toss it up the chain of command." Her separation of the messages had given her this feeling of dread that she couldn't shake.

"All right," Tessa replied. "Care to come with me?"

"Dressed like this and covered with Plas-glas adhesive?" She gestured to her casual clothing and shook her head violently no. "No, definitely not. You go, have fun and tell me what they say."

Tessa didn't care, but she had to admit that command probably would. "Okay. Thank you for all your help." She gave the snake's head a gentle rub. "And for introducing me to Sierra the snake."

"My pleasure of course." Nalani answered with a wave of the PADD as she saved her work in the translations docket of the computer as she did with every single translation she did. Original, then translations.

Tessa waited for her to finish, then took the PADD. "Thanks again. I'll let you know what I find. Maybe we can have lunch, too?" She liked the other woman and wouldn't mind talking to her again.

"Sounds fun!" she replied with a bright smile. It would be, she loved food after all and they could find somewhere fun to go.

 

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