Orion Gambit - Traci Ganner series book 2

Orion Gambit - Ch 3

Chapter 3

Retaking What is Ours

 

"Commander, we’ve been able to piece a few more sentences together based on the vocabulary we have been collecting.  We can now make out basic order statements and some detailed dialogue,” Lt. Commander Lazarus reported.

Captain McKenzie had integrated into Captain Traci Ganner’s command staff as her executive officer.  Although she already had a fine exec, he was far more useful overseeing the vocabulary translation they were attempting by monitoring signals being sent between Valdi star cruisers and strike carriers.  So, to free Lazarus up for that far more important mission objective, she had slotted McKenzie into the number one slot.

It was somewhat unsettling for Michael McKenzie to go from a heavy cruiser command to senior commander under Captain Ganner, but he really didn’t mind so much.  After all, Adamantine was a battle cruiser.  And she was not just any battle cruiser, but one of the new Orion cloaking cruisers.  But what made this cruiser so special was what the Orions had done to her cargo and munitions space.

When Captain Ganner had given him the tour of this ship, he had not expected to find the eight large boat bays amidships in addition to the normal shuttle craft bays in the aft section.  The hull had been refitted to allow four shuttle bays to face out of each side of the keel, which allowed for eight additional berths.  But in addition to the berthing spaces, there were also missile loading platforms and refueling depots for strike fighter operations to take place in those bays.

At first it struck him as odd that berths had been built to support fighters, since Orion did not have any.  But the mission profile made their purpose clear.  These berths also included carbon dioxide partitions to allow Valdi to breathe in the same compartment as humans.  They were designed for Valdi strike fighters!

Captain Ganner’s mission profile had called for McKenzie to be extracted from the Terran prison world, but he had never expected to be on such a stupid mission.  Not only were they instructed to contact the Valdi, but the ship was designed to become a Valdi strike carrier.

McKenzie forced his mind back to the task at hand and reviewed the new vocabulary sequences Lazarus was showing him. By monitoring Valdi communications, utilizing the stealth of their cloaked ship, they had been able to piece together some of the syntax of the Valdi language.  Strangely, the Valdi seemed to rely completely on visible light as a transmission medium.  They had modulated their communication signal in a very clever way that took the engineering section days to break down, but now that they had it, they were taking in huge chunks of data and running it through very sophisticated linguistic computer systems designed specifically for learning language.

The latest syntax additions brought their total knowledge of the Valdi language to around sixteen percent.  It was a scant portion of the overall language, to be sure, but enough to build a basic vocabulary.  And as they improved their vocabulary, they were able to contextually reason out the words they didn’t know.  Of course, some words they would not be able to translate without direct interaction, but those words could wait.  All they needed for the first stage was enough vocabulary to understand basic military orders.  Once they had that, they could move to the next phase of their mission.

“Captain, we have multiple scanner contacts bearing one ninety-two and eighty-eight off the plane,” Lt. Melzar said.

“Sound yellow alert, Lieutenant,” Ganner said.  Leaning back in her chair, she switched on the 1MC channel for ship-wide communication.