[Book Four] Chapter 27: First contact going well

Chapter 27: First contact going well

Jane was sitting beside her brother on his bed in the med-bay. He was looking at the data their team had uncovered, not paying attention to her one bit.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked.
“You heard our baby girl. I’ll be back on the field as soon as the artificial muscle is put in place.”
“You’re not going back to the field any time soon.” she replied with a frown.
“I know, it takes up to two weeks to…”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re not going back on the field again, period. You nearly died.”
“Arianna did.”
“Will you stop acting like a childish asshole please? Five minutes! You would see how you going yourself down there was foolish. Had you died for good, I would have been the one in command for one but most importantly we all would have been devastated!”
“... Alright, I admit it wasn’t the best idea but I wanted to be the first to land on the first planet. Now that I’ve done it, I’m good.”
“You better, I’m too young to lose my father.”

Arianna’s voice came from the room’s door as she made her way to her parents, with a data pad in hand.

“How is it? The venom I mean.”
“With the amount you had into your blood and its toxicity, you should have died less than a minute after being bit.”
“... Nanomachines?” asked Rick, presenting the only reason that came to his mind on how he survived.
“Yeah.”
“Nanomachines? What nanomachines?” inquired Jane, confused.
“Your dear husband injected himself with a buttload of nanomachines, They were the one that more or less stopped the venom from spreading and damaging his body further. That’s something that wasn’t in his medical file.”
“You use yourself as a test subject?!” exclaimed an irate Jane.
“Of course not. I used lab rats first and the results were good and safe. So I injected the equivalent of one mL into my system. Though I don't understand why they helped, they’re not supposed to do that. Yet.”
“What are they supposed to do?” his daughter asked.
“Gather my data from my senses and send them to EDI. It also displays in real time on my helmet my body’s situation. Nothing else.”
“That’s… ingenious.”
“When we have time let’s check their code to see why they behave that way. Now let’s cuddle!” he said as he opened his arms in invitation to his sister and daughter.

“Nuh-huh.” Jane answered, still mad about everything she just heard. “Arianna!”

“Sorry, mom but I’ll never turn down cuddling with daddy. You can go if you want to.” the young eighteen year old said as she laid down next to her father and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Oh, hell no!”

Jane got onto the bed and took the same position as Arianna did but on Rick’s other side. She wasn’t about to give an inch to her daughter. Not when she was daddy’s girl and with the history of the Shepard family. Rick was hers and no one else. She may share him but he belonged to her and she wouldn’t let anyone else have him, not even her first born who besides the thirty years age gap and the blue eyes she inherited from her father, was almost a perfect clone of her. She had to be vigilant.

“Haaaa. It’s perfect. My favorites redheads in my arms, couldn’t ask for more.”
“I’m pretty sure if I wasn’t here, you would ask mom for more.” quipped Arianna.
““Probably.””
“Not any of your business though, young lady.” said Jane.
“Not true. Daddy’s health and happiness is my business. Good sex is part of it. If you’re not up for the job, I’ll have to find someone else.”

Jane’s jaw hit the ground at her daughter's statement then was about to retort when she heard her speak again.

“I’m not talking about me, mom. I’m talking about Aunties. I love you daddy but not that way.” she confessed and Rick nodded in understanding and relief.

They stayed like that for a while until Dorothea contacted them. Team 8 had made first contact with a sentient alien species, technologically advanced. The encounter had been tense at first from both sides but the asari in charge of the exploration managed to open dialogue with them. Weapons were lowered but still in hands as the asari and a representative form the species tried to understand each other as they talked. The latest translator created by his company worked wonders and pretty soon the two of them could exchange simple words and broken sentences. Enough to convey who they were and their intention. Both teams were on Ryder to survey and possibly colonize the planet. Their people, mostly for food, the aliens for the mineral resources. Since there was no real conflict in their mission, things were smooth a bit more and another meeting was scheduled to learn more about each other.

Rick was relieved to hear that. The first contact went well and wondered if it was because the asari are more diplomatic by nature than the Turians or Humans. He did have a bit of worry, the aliens could easily dupe them and have nefarious intentions, but it was the same for them so the orders were to keep being vigilant.

He intensively read the report on those aliens, less about their appearance and more about their body language and customs. It goes a long way to show good faith when you use the other person's greetings when you first meet. Rick needed to know that. He also uploaded what the asari had gathered concerning their language and shared it with every single one of the nine other teams. When it was time for him to meet their leader he shocked them.

“You know our greetings?”
“I learned from Olladis before coming. Since we’re getting to know each other, I thought it would be a good start.”
“It is… Sorry we do not know yours.”
“That’s alright. Each species in our galaxy has their own greetings, we don't expect you to know them all. For humans like me, when you meet strangers it’s usually a short bow or a handshake. Like this.”

Rick turned towards Jane and extended his hand. She took it and gave it a firm shake.

“It’s to show that we’re not armed and that we’re putting our trust in your integrity, though at the time my people were still living in huts and didn’t know any technology. So it lost a bit of its meaning with the ages.”

The alien named JaaRen’Lo, from the Jardaan race, raised his hand and extended it to which Rick answered in kind.

“I hope that our people can live in symbiosis and if not at least in peace with each other.”
“Me too.”

After that they talked about the planet itself, what parts they had explored and what was there in terms of resources. JaaRen’Lo had been surprised to hear that Rick had survived an attack from a Naadol-Reil, the big snake. When asked if they were important to the ecosystem, he answered no to Rick. They were causing more trouble than anything and their removal from the lake would be in fact beneficial. The packs of Vulteraks (the animals that Olark had tracked) would try to gain territory towards the lake but it was a simple thing to deal with. The lake’s fauna could be changed with the introduction of aquatic animals from all species.
The Jardaan for their part wanted to settle near a mountain chain as they had detected mines of precious metal there. In the end the settlements were on different continents and didn’t bother each other one bit. JaaRen’Lo accepted the introductory box that Liara had made in case of first contact with an alien species and was shown out to activate it. He was surprised when the VI inside of it had been upgraded with the bit of Jardaan language they knew and was programmed to learn more. Promising to contact his superiors and tell them about this encounter, it was on good terms that everyone separated. The Milky Way teams went back to the Alteralek with plenty of samples to study and the ship went back to Cassiopeia. The existence of the Jardaan was not met positively by everyone but the fact they were a continent away from their soon to be colony put most of those people at rest. Rick sent a message to the Council to report about their findings and started preparing the purge of Naadol-Reil from the lake. No one voiced any disagreement when they saw the size of the thing and the damage it could do. The tech department worked in concert with the exploration team to find a way to lure and kill those things safely or to simply go under the water’s surface, track them down and do the job properly.

Rick’s nanomachines’ behavior was explained by EDI who, as a test, integrated it into them, though not in Rick’s. They apparently transmitted the code to the ones in his body without anyone knowing and on their own. That was worrying as it was a major breach in security. If EDI had wanted to give Rick a stroke, she would simply have had to code it into the nanomachines in the labs and they would have shared the code into the ones in his body. 

They still searched for a planet with dextro life. While the food problem for the levo DNA was solved, the Turians and Quarians were in a pickle. They had food for a year, though and could go back to the Milky Way to get some in four months so it wasn’t that much of a problem, but it was still four months.

As the settlement began to develop and food to grow, the Cassiopeia received a message from the Milky Way. The construction of the gigantic Mass relay was accelerating. They could have made another ship but it would have been a station and the Citadel would have suffered from it by replacing it. The message contained also directives for Project Eden: befriend the Jardaan but keep both eyes wide open. Of course it was presented as a request because they knew Rick wouldn’t take it well and do whatever he wanted out of spite, though they doubted that he would start a war in response.

Hannah, as a former Councilor, was authorized to be the one negotiating with the Jardaan. To many, the fact that the ruthless butcher of Torfan was diplomatically inclined has been a shock. They didn’t foresee her being so popular either during her time in office. The parliament may have feared her (they still remembered how she got three entitled green horns ruined, disowned by their parents and their name disgraced), but most of the public was supportive of her and her decisions regarding the well-being of humanity. Udina’s disastrous results, personality and Hannah’s reputation and achievements during the war had been a good foundation for her rise in popularity that never really dropped. Being the mother of the Galaxy’s savior played a part too. They saw in Hannah an example to follow as a leader and a mother. Rick had laughed so hard he had trouble breathing when he read the news. Had the public known the truth about her parentings skills she would have been booted out of office very quickly. His reaction had hurt his mother a lot and she put up her poker face. He saw through it though and Hannah, with a simple hug from her son and an assurance that she has been the best mother ever in the past twenty years cried tears of relief. She integrated well in the family and by joining some sexual escapades, things were made easier. Liara remembered being tag teamed by her parents and Hannah as the best sex ever until Rick took that personally. It was now third.

Family development aside, Hannah was introduced to JaaRen’Lo and his race’s representative by Rick and everything went well. It was just an agreement of trading information and resources but it was a good beginning for a future alliance. Among the information shared,the Jardaan gave the coordinates of a dextro life agricultural world. Being Levo themselves they had no need to colonize it and gave Hannah its coordinates. In exchange she shared a few BLUEs with all information on it (except how it was made). That was a technology that intrigued the Jardaan when they were shown what a BLUE could do and wanted to study it in detail. Energy has always been a problem no matter the race and they were eager with this new discovery from their new acquaintances.
Some argued that they shouldn’t share BLUES but the only thing that the Jardaan could discover was that it was a battery. There was no way for them to find out or reverse engineered the process to create that energy . Had they gotten their hands on a RED or DRED, things would have been different though. Thankfully it was a well kept secret and there was nothing to worry about.

The scouting of the dextro planet that had been named Eslah Cicelia and meant the young homeworld of Cicelia had been easier than Ryder. It was a mix of Quarian and Turian language that Rick had chosen as it would be the homeworld for both species. The opinion on it was divided but in the end it was accepted.
When Rick jokingly asked if Tali was happy and liked the gift of a second homeworld from him, she dragged him to her bedroom without saying a word. They disappeared for a day and a half and that prompted everyone else to want a turn. By the end of the week, Rick was down for the count.

The development of the colonies went well. Vegetables were already being harvested on Ryder and new crops would soon sprout on Eslah Cicelia. Thanks to the insane amount of prefabs more and more people began to move to one of the colonies to live and work. It would only take a year for a small city to replace the settlement at the speed they were progressing. Some still stayed on the Cassiopeia enjoying the comfort of the ship and its utilities but also to work. Conducting research and doing experiments was easier since all the machinery was there.

That was certainly the case for Rick, who focused on the development of the nanomachines with EDI. They had succeeded in making them able to stop not serious bleeding and mending bones. A cracked bone or a complete fracture? The nanomachines put everything back together quickly and while it didn’t stimulate the healing it held everything in place to start earlier and in the best conditions.
They had cut off the transmission of code between them by simply making sure that when a nanomachine entered an organic body they imprinted itself on the body’s DNA. If another nanomachine without the imprint tried to ’communicate’, any code would be simply ignored. It wasn’t perfect by any means so they made sure that once the body was healed the nanomachines would simply evacuate themselves from the body. Not the ones from Rick though as he quite liked being always in contact with EDI.
So far she could talk to Rick however the decoding of Rick’s thoughts’ electronic signal was way more complicated and would not be ready for a while. The AI loved ‘being inside’ Rick for a change instead of the other way around, and even though the man laughed at the joke, he was quite clear that it would be the only way she ever would.

A year into their arrival on Andromeda and the relation between the people of Project Eden and the Jardaan took a turn for the better out of a really bad event. Every month an exchange of food and minerals was done between the colonies on Ryder with a visit to one or the other every month in alternatance. During a visit to the Jardaan’s colony, a part of the mine collapsed, trapping a few miners in there. Milky Way’s biotics help greatly in maintaining part of the unstable mine in position while others simply remove debris to get everyone’s out. Among one of them was JaaRen’Lo’s own son who got his arm crushed to paste by a big rock. Hannah who was doing the trip every other month suggested that they could fit him with a prosthesis. The Jardaan were intrigued, their technology was advanced in certain matters but obsolete in others, the medical field being one of the latter and so they wanted to know more about her proposition. Contacting her son she explained the situation and after a moment of thinking, Rick told her to simply bring the injured back to the colony where he would be fitted with a simple but regular new limb. It would take time however before the doctors could replicate the original arm but at least the young man would have two working arms until then.

“To think you could replace an arm so easily.” said JaaRen’Lo as he looked at his son clenching and unclenching his synthetic arm.
“It’s rather recent actually so it’s rather expensive. The arm your son got is the basics so it’s not that expensive but the best of them all would probably buy half the colony. We don’t have the material for it though.” Hannah replied.
“It’s fine. My son can pick his daughter again, that’s all that matters.”
“He still needs regular checks up to make sure the prothesis is not being rejected by his body but otherwise, he’s good to go. Word of advice, don’t let him use the arm to do excessive physical excercice; dayd to day use is alright but no effort.” the doctor said before leaving the room.

This incident furthered the relationship between species resulting in sharing knowledge. Nothing big or extravagant and certainly not weapon related but anything from cooking recipe to medical knowledge was exchanged and everyone was happy about it.