Snippet #2822863

The Colonial Union ship Strycker.

The first mate of the ship is drinking tomato juice out of a bag when the sensors light up. He glances up in awe as practically every light on the console he's monitoring turns in an assortment of blue, green, and red. And there was a lot of red. He lets go of his bag of tomato juice, the plastic floating away from him as his jaw drops.

"Holy Fucking Shi-" erupts out of his mouth, and he throws himself towards the doorway in the zero gravity. A guy in the comms room is doing the same thing, and they begin firing questions at each other as they float, holding on to the bars next to the doorway.
"Where is it coming from? How did it get here? And good God, why are they speaking our language? Are these those other guys?"
The message sounded very different from the way of speaking they were used to, but it was pretty much the same base language.

This is the Merchant Fleeter MT-223 to receiving signals in the Glendathu system. Greetings and peace from the Garden, this is a transiting vessel of the Interstellar Merchant Fleet, on voyage to home yards of the Interstellar Nations. This message is quickly played over the intercom on the ship, and it wakes up quite a few of the crew members. The captain, a man by the name of Lewis, quickly hurls himself down the hallway towards the comms room. "Well, don't just stand there, send a damn message!"

So this is their hasty response, in a language accented but heavily similar to the Gardenites speech, addressed by the second mate.

"Uh, howdy from the patrol vessel CU Strycker, designation PT-299. We welcome you to Glendathu. Would you mind sharing your intentions? We have had... um, difficulties with other groups that we've met in space, and we want to make sure that-

Quickly the order is sent from a higher power to shut that guy up, and all of a sudden the voice addressing the ship changes, this time the voice of the governor of the Colonial Union himself, Maxus Sywell.

Welcome to Glendathu, you who call yourself the Garden. Feel free to anchor yourself anywhere in this area, and we will have a more formal means of communication soon. I'm very sorry, we don't do this much, more or less at all, and we're quite lacking in experience in this front. May I speak to your Admiral, or whatever officer you have on board?

I'm sure that at this moment, practically every member of the Colonial Defense Forces and all in space are quite nervous for a reply.