✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Two - Part XX: Scout

          Temet and Novala remained unbothered until Jarah went to sleep, which was not long after she came home. Once they were satisfied that she was truly asleep, they went to work brainstorming a plan. Temet was on her computer at the moment, browsing the mothership's cloud storage for something she'd seen during a language class some years ago.

          "We should prioritize finding Nova and Gabe," Novala whispered. "I know there's other humans, but if we make it back home—to Earth—the SDC should be able to liberate them later."

          "What's SDC?" Temet asked without taking her eyes off of the monitor in front of her.

          "Sentinel Defense Corps. It's kind of a global military. In theory, they would defend Earth from any extraterrestrial threats," Novala paused and chuffed upon recalling something he'd learned a while back, "it's actually kind of ironic, now. The Daxut gave us the technology to arm our spacefaring vessels, when we hadn't quite figured it out yet... so the Global Defense Force was renamed to the Sentinel Defense Corps to show our gratitude for that."

          "You should probably name it back to what it was," Temet replied humorlessly. "But, okay. That makes sense."

          "The next thing we need to figure out is how we're getting out of here."

          "Um... yeah. About that... I don't think I can go with you," the Daxut sounded both anxious and apologetic. "I'll help you escape, but..."

          "Temet," Novala began, a bit more sternly than he meant to, "when the human government finds out about everything going on... I doubt they will take kindly to you. Or any other Daxut. But if you come with us and help warn them—"

          "I'll be rewarded for my treachery," she cut him off and clicked her beak in a sigh.

          "It's better than being killed or imprisoned, isn't it?" Novala insisted. "I know this can't be easy for you, but... I don't want to see you suffer or die needlessly. Especially after all you've done to help me."

          Temet inhaled sharply and turned away from her computer to face him. "Okay... okay."

          "What're you working on there?" Novala pointed to a status bar on-screen.

          "Well... I think I can upload the Daxut language to the microprocessor that powers your brain," Temet explained. "There's this course for very young children that helps them learn the language—that's what I'm downloading right now. If I compress the data and load it into this thing," she held up a small handheld device that was plugged into her computer, "I'm pretty sure I can beam the data to the processor... it would be useful to you if we got separated."

          "Wow. I don't mean to sound patronizing, but you seem really smart and capable," Novala offered a gentle smile.

          "I like engineering," Temet seemed to smile back in her own way. When the status bar beeped at her that it was complete, she turned back to it and started to compress the language data. "I'm allowed to pursue it as part of my education. Most of the stuff I learn is leadership oriented—military stuff and political science. I hate it. I just want to be left alone to build and research new technology. It's like a puzzle that makes sense to me, you know?"

          Novala nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but he was startled into silence when something in a distant room began to click and emit a jarring high-pitched ringing noise. It was cut off soon after it started, and he could near Jarah chattering drowsily in her native language.