Chapter 7

More than one jaw hit the floor at the alien's statement. After all, the crew was justifiably shocked. It isn't every day a new sentient race is discovered. The last first-contact was 132 years ago, in a different sector of space, parsecs away. Even more unusual, there were none of the typical pre first-contact events, such as the discovery of probes and communications signals that normally precede the meeting of a new race.

To make it even more shocking, the green humanoid had addressed them personally. The crew of the Nutmeg was literally stunned stupid.

The Captain's pipe fell from his open mouth to clatter on the deck. MacGregor took a couple of steps back to collapse in a chair and ended up sitting in Christine's lap. Louise fell out of her chair. Martha moved to lean against the railing that went around the middle of the deck. As her gaze was completely on the view-screen she missed the railing and fell on her face. Other crewmembers moved to sit and missed their chairs.

The chaos was not confined to the bridge, either. Everywhere crewmembers were walking into doors, bulkheads, each other, or tripping over their own feet.

Down on the recreation deck, two crewmembers were in the middle of a ping-paddle game when Christine sent the communication throughout the ship. Forgotten in the distraction, the ball bounced painfully into the crotch of one of the players, who instinctively bent with pain and smacked his head on the table, knocking himself out.

In the kitchen, the cook was carrying a load of dishes from the dishwasher when the communication came on. Shocked, he dropped the dishes. In the mess hall, other crewmembers fell out of their chairs, while others spilled drinks in their laps. Those with food or drink in their mouths, either spit out what was in their mouths, covering the crewmen on the other side of the table, or started choking when they sucked in air as they gasped.

In the shuttle, Stiv, who was smoking, contrary to regulations, dropped his cigarette in his lap. It remained there unnoticed while he stared at the screen until his pants went up in flames. He had to beat the fire in his crotch out with his hands.

In her shuttle, Angie had been standing up flipping switches during her pre-flight check when the communication came on. Stunned, she whispered, "Holy crap!" and moved to sit down.

The computer, taking her whisper as a request, retracted the normal padded seat to reveal a toilet seat. Angie, not realizing until it was too late, sat down on the toilet seat, activating the vacuum, which began to suck her loose fitting pants into the bowl. Angie jerked in surprise as her pants were suddenly sucked skintight. By the time she realized what had happened and tried to stand up, a seal had been formed, trapping her to the toilet.

While chaos was happening all over the ship, the alien continued to speak unheeded. However, it would take the crew several minutes to recover from their shock before they could respond. That was when they discovered that the message was a recording and that there were several others. They started several months from Samantha's estimated arrival, with updates every four to six months or so. They replayed the latest message several times in complete amazement before they broke into cheers.