Leandra Olkoye's Story

Leandra Olkoye was dressed in a very unusual outfit for her. Sporting a suit that was specifically design for extreme climate. It was the kind of technology that was common in certain clusters of the galaxy, due to thier own weather systems. This one was designed for corrosion, thermal changes, gravity extremes, and general protection. Her breathing through the half mask that went with the fancy skin tight suit was such that the red, blues and blacks matched up in a very fashionable way.

She had been studying the area for weeks. Looking over the ships and diving to see how deep the water in the area was. There were quite the few things that she could profit off of here. Of course, none of that meant anything until she and the crew could establish a method of getting things set up in an organized shop. Somewhere in a city, or even in the impromptu way she already had set. It was rather rough, but the thing would hold. For now, the best thing to do, is to contact her master.

She checked her arm, and a holo display shifted to show the messages forwarded to her from the contact she was supposed to meet. The reception from the ship acting as a relay was pretty weak. So over the last few days, she kept moving back to the land cruiser to rest and receive connection. Since the land cruiser was connected to the ship and had a sharp connection at all times. These suits being in a beta form wasn't always the most reliable in extreme conditions like the planet of Taeth.

The message made it clear that it was time to move. So she packed her gear into the cruiser and made due to leave.

Leandra Olkoye had prepared everything in advance, including a make shift shelter with the ship that was a ways away from where she was supposed to meet the client. However, upon existing the sleek hover vehicle she used to get around on the planet, she was astounded by the brilliance of coordinated building that was happening before her eyes. This was...nothing short of the very essence within the word 'efficient'. Leandra does not impress easily. In fact, one could say she was constantly disappointing by the way people handled business. However, not today. It would seem as though the client arrived early, which is around expectation.

Outside of expectation was the building of the preliminary shelter that was under construction. Their skills were not to be underestimated. Which only make's thier reputation even more secure. The information gathered about thier skills to build was exactly what was need if they were to complete the tasks needed. So, it was time to start the negotiations. All the money, and paperwork needed was prepared ahead of time.

Surely the client would notice her arrival by now. So Leandra waited 10 feet away from what could be known as the 'entrance' to the newly constructed safe space of the client. Maxim would be pleased to know exactly the kind of people that responded to his request. Leandra turned on the recording feature to her nano-suit. The entire conversation would be video recorded. Not that anyone could see the thousands of nanites that rededicated themselves to the task of 360 recording. She was ready now.

As the vehicle appeared several red barnacles splayed as flat as possible on the underside of the hull tracked with barrels of sawtooth mounted rifles at best charitably considered 'anti-material' given their massive bulk. There wasn't a stone within hundreds of meters of the area as they'd carefully chiseled compacted stone and metal into building blocks. The smaller ones assembled with care into a crude cobblestone and dirt edifice two meters high to block ramming through the open entrance. Festooned with rebar of sharp metal scrap on the flat side. Though as she rounded the berm and left the vehicle a small rectangular hole dropped into the dirt. There were various workers moving things underneath the ship, just out of the line of sight.

Faint sparkle-gleams of selective tapetum cells common to the multiple Gardener eyes appear within. It left gardeners with a vision noisy in its alternating of regions between crisp and sensitive to the dark. As Juant emerged from the sub-ground bunker his weapon came first of a reciprocating autocannon on a stabilized gimbal mount two blade arms easily directed upward through the hole. Multiple legs propped a car-sized crimson spider topside. Other workers appeared through similar small ceramic plates over divots in the ground flip away randomly near the entrance. Jaunt had sounded the all-clear presuming the false matriarch that had arrived and not passed into the demesne was the one they were waiting for. Workers put their guns away then went back to their duties in complete silence to the audible ear. The blasts of Quietus on the RF spectrum were another matter.

The ship's external speakers erupted as Rhia's voice boomed, "I'll be with you in a moment. Shaper's work to do. If you need to talk to the boys use text in low band RF. I'm the only one with vocal folds. Jaunt can use Eigengrau if you don't want to read. He's the large red one with the emplacement weapon."

The other red barnacles stood 'up' on the bottom of the ship as their sniper rifles stowed to snap clamps on their back. They walked along the underside until able to dismount via the Korolev's landing gear. Jaunt heaved the emplacement weapon to his back as the large high soldier moved closer. A small green light lit on a small speaker along the strap of his bandolier when a hand from under his cephalothorax reached up to press a switch there.

As Jaunt goes to greet hydraulic whining comes from the top of the Korolev as Rhia engaged with the cannon. That large artillery piece well modified from its original shuffled quietly clockwise to a target further on than both of them. Jaunt makes no move as the barrel fires in a fury of a pressure wave and psychokinetic energy. The round lobs slowly into the distance as it impacts the sand trap ringing the periphery of the wrecked jungle. Red-Orange heating rather than an explosion light boiling around the detonation swirls and inhales into the ground as Rhia's efforts turn a small area to rough sandstone. Just hard enough their utility vehicles would not get mired. The desert was full of such traps as far as Jaunt could tell from above hence their place here as it was at least closer.

Leandra Olkoye was fairly certain that speaking over the RF frequency provided was quite unnecessary. But she was inclined to listen, for better understanding and for a show of faith. One of the first rules of business was to gather the faith of your partners. This was a step to make sure that this was well understood - Leandra would do what was necessary. Certainly this was not the sort of situation that needed any real emotional involvement so she would comply. She didn't like the idea of having to deal with...lower life forms; but this was pride speaking, and once more, she needed to remind herself to put the pride aside. Every single time dealing with benefactors or relations concerning expansion, meant needing to put her pride aside.

This was something she was well accustomed to at this point. But that didn't make anything less annoying.

Leadra strode inside of the small, palace-like fortress under construction. She was aware that these creature were different in many ways from other societies. Building everything around thier matriarch. Given that women held higher standard in thier society, it should not be too difficult to procure the necessary paperwork to be signed.

"Set to aproppriate RF Channels. Auto adjust and translate as needed." She spoke to the suit, as she tapped the mask for filtering through all the dust being strewn about. The visors attached to her mask adjusted, and even gave everything cleaners more vibrant colors for distinguished. Brighter reds, blues and greens. The most recognizable colors were all amped up. She could now see very clearly all the turrets and people moving back and forth in coordination. All whilst her client, was blowing things up in the distance on one of those said turrets. Leandra made a beeline of sorts to navigate towards her, she was uninterested in anyone else. She wanted the person in charge.

A translation system might spit a soft white noise as it tunes to the various low-band channels the gardeners were using. At least at first in a reasonable interpretation of something looking for audio. Though given signal patterns would soon adjust those expectations. Hard chirps did indicate a channel opening along with the bands they used as each began spoke to the others. A likely visual pip added as they did so. If anything an error might appear on the visor of an advanced semasiographic language in use. Nonverbal engrams among brown quietus on low bands encoded concepts in part or whole rather than words and letters. More so for the one-time pad ciphers in use from white quietus which in either case made direct translation impossible.

Two engineers at the bottom of the ramp Leandra approaches start to flicker small maps at each other. Some of the images are clear enough but much of the non-visual context lost by translation hardware. An AR overlay one of the sane presentations of putting the pips and transparent vectors above their heads. Various shards of wheel blueprints and friction charts with circular indicators fading in and out. Though they still gesticulated at space in front of them to different parts of their shared inner workspace. Each silently argued over the road's next segment to the wrecked jungle as it was one thing to get a scout vehicle somewhere but quite another to tow a multi-ton load over fine sand covered in metal fragments.

The square of noise above Jaunt's head, however, if it was there only a moment before the translation adapted again, was Eigengrau. Named from a human concept for the color they saw when drawing a noise. It was indeed audio from a high soldier very well-practiced.

The voice was very crisp and enunciated English, quite devoid of a speaking creature's breath, as he chased behind Leadra well enough, "You are from Maxim, False Matriarch? You are valued in this temporary demesne. False Matriarch Rhia will be coming from the bridge for your convenience."

The High soldier stopped at the bottom of the ramp Jaunt's voice unmarred by exertion or background noise, "In the interest of false Matriarch Rhia I give you, false Matriarch, the key to access the lexical interface. We regret that Gardeners do not have touch interfaces if you prefer them. Can you receive Quietus? [Translation system: Encryption key transmission]"

At the far wall of the cargo bay, a worker attends Rhia behind glass. One verdantly colored Gardener, sunrise, busily clambering onto the glass as he helped Rhia into the top half of her armor. Jaunt backed up the ramp behind Leandra the power supply on his autocannons humming to life. Two Matriarchs in one spot set the paranoia of the High soldiers on fire. There were already arguments in the ciphered white quietus as the other high soldiers decided lanes of fire to defend the ramp.

Indeed Jaunt said what he meant as the walls while clean and well attended were stripped of human interfaces. The Lexical interface responded from nodes behind armored walls to present a virtual interface of words and buttons the speaking races could better navigate.

Leandra's suit would indeed be able to translate quite accurately what was being said. She would know the response of Quiteus would be such that would surprise this species. But she was uncaring of it. She herself could actually speak it. But it would be fracture. It's been about a decade since she needed to speak the language of the insects. She hated it regardless. Such a grotesque language indeed.

"I am Leandra. I understand what I must. I will need a private quarter to discuss details of negotiations. Also, I apologize for my late arrival, as well as late response. I was quite busy with preliminary details and scouting." She said, to both of whom it concerned.

She knew that she needed to get things done amicably, but she was not about to conform her ways so easily to do it.