taxonomites | 032 ━ [ visual ] / [ location: uss enterprise ].

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032 ━ [ visual ] / [ location: uss enterprise ].

Like many others in the city, Kirk had heard the transmission, too. He hadn't expected the antique radio (it was antique to him) he'd purchased at the mall to do more than decorate his desk and had been startled to hear what had come out of it. Now, he was hard at work on attempting to trace the signal. Give that it wasn't on the usual frequencies that he had the ship's computer programmed to keep an eye on, he was having to do some adjusting. The radio signals of Earth's past were obsolete, weak-- but he could get it work. It just required a few calculations.

The tablet turns on to show him doing precicely that. He circles one equation with the stylus and drags it up to sit next another, tapping the space the equation used to be twice to bring up schematics for the ship's sensors. The tweaking of the systems wasn't what was bothering him. It was the fact that he hadn't understood a word of what had been said. He was fluent in a multitude of languages, including those spoken on Earth and most major languages of the Federation. He'd used trying to get into Uhura's pants as an excuse to take that many linguistics classes and be part of the linguistics club, but the truth was he liked languages-- nevermind being able to speak an alien tongue or two (or twelve) made a ship's captain look more self-sufficient and made him less reliant on his translators during negotiations and confrontations.

Noticing the tablet, he set the stylus down and grabbed it instead. "Tell me, Taxon," he said directly to the screen, "did any of you understand what the radio transmission said?"

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"So you -- what? Keep your social calender on here and your business contacts and maybe a few snaps from that vacay down to Jamaica three Aprils ago?"

No. She doesn't believe her own flip questions -- it's gotta be more official than that.

"Jamaica?" Another laugh. "If I got to pick somewhere to park myself that wasn't this goddamn cave or the rest of my ship, I'd be sitting pretty on Risa with an Orion or two."

...oh, way to go, Jim. Ex-girlfriend who, to your knowledge, doesn't know she's an ex while reminding yourself of the girlfriend that you screwed over with the Kobayashi Maru test who died during the attacks on Vulcan. Good job.

He turns away from her again and moves towards the viewscreen-- unpolarized at the moment, so it's displaying the Taxon landscape in Speares instead of a monitor display, looking much like a giant window to those who don't know any better. He sat down at the conn and began tapping away at the controls. "Data storage and access. It's mainly computer interface without having to access something through a direct port to the main computer."

"So, a trumped up remote control?"

She follows him a very controlled pace. Eying up everything, touching nothing. The Orion comment flies quite high over her head -- she doesn't know what one of those is besides perhaps a handful of stars that are supposed to look kinda like a man. And she isn't fool enough to think that's what he meant.

"A bit more than that," he answers. He could babble on about the exact workings of a PADD, but he was sure that it would go right over her head-- which wasn't an insult, it was just the simple fact that the technology of the future was often difficult to comprehend, especially when one was missing out on that information gap that spanned between his time and hers to explain away a lot of the uses. As much as he admittedly loved hearing himself talk, he's got work to do.

Clearing his throat, he swivels around in the chair to face her. "So, got any theories of your own about the transmission?"

Oh. His chair swivels? How impressive. Only she doesn't think that as an insult, either She never had a swivel chair -- not unless you count the wooden one in Giles' office which she, admittedly, did steal on occasion. Just to spin. Back when days were a little less dreary (but not by much).

"I've listened to all kinds of demon fanatical types in my time. Which comes with demonic fanatical speeches -- not in English." Not that she's crying demon. Give her a sec to work this through. "Didn't it sound a little...preachy, to you? It sounded preachy to me. Y'know, based on all that experience hearing the demonic preaching."

"Preachy," he echos. "It definitely sounded instructional. Which is why I think that maybe someone out there was trying to contact us."

As for it being demons, he isn't about to ponder that. Give him an unknown race from the farthest reaches of the quadrant and he's good to go, give him a vampire and his mind kind of spins. It took him a long time to get used to Taxon having a bloodsucker population as it is.

"...You're thinking it's some kind of help, maybe?"

Buffy looks for somewhere safe to lean in a room filled with glossy consoles and sparkling surfaces. Blinded, almost, by the brightness of it all. A terrible tiny part of her wonders how harsh this lighting has got to be on a girl used to dressed for the dark.

"That's if the transmission was even meant for us."

Noticing her glancing around, he gestures to the seat that would belong to Sulu, if the pilot were here, for her to take.

"It could very well be that these outsiders-- if that's what it is, of course-- were trying to contact our captors and not us," he continues. "The radios could've simply...piggybacked, so to speak, unintentionally on the signal and picked up a sort of echo of it and not the full transmission. Analog waves aren't as strong or exact as digital modulations."

And take it she does with a super-casual posture. So super-casual that it's hardly casual at all. She's trying to hard and doesn't think long enough on the matter to realize that he can probably tell.

"Like bleeding through." Buffy crosses her arms. "Did anything...catch it? Permanently, I mean. Like a recording or--?" She trails off.

"I recorded it." Swiveling again, he taps a few commands into the console and the viewscreen masquerading as an innocent window polarizes, blacking over as he brings up the file and plays the recording over the ship's speaker system. The display on the screen jumps appropriately, almost like an old fashioned music player.

A slight gasp of surprise as the window shifts. She succeeds in stamping out an impressed awe-filled smirk. Now is not the time and there's still the overhanging cloud of what she did to him above her.

"Okay, I think I hear it now. Instructional. Ish."

Kirk ducks his head a bit in a futile attempt at hiding a smile. He hates himself instantly for it, despite knowing that logically, it's okay to react differently to a different version of Buffy. If anyone's familiar with this kind of thing, it's him-- two Spocks back home, after all.

Logic and instinct, however, don't always get along.

"I just wish I could understand what it said. It doesn't match any known Earth or Federation languages I'm familiar with."

"And I barely survived high school French -- but I'll weigh in anyway and say that's definitely not a hijacked conversation from Paris."

She feels just a touch on the useless side. It's doubly damning after she actually did so little to stop Angelus. But she feels too guilty to be frustrated.

"Hypothetically, could you make a copy of that...what is it, a file?"

"French is easy," he finds himself saying before he can stop it from tumbling out of his mouth. Well, he does like to brag. "I breezed through it in high school. You're right, though. It's not French. The, uh, tonality of it is off. None of the right indicators that would point to French or any Neo-Latin Earth-based languages, for that matter."

Kirk nods. "Hypothetically, yes I can. Easily. Yeah, it's a file."

She decides not to offer him a look over the bragging. Of course, French would have been too easy. Any human language would have been too easy.

But there are other priorities: "Can I get a copy?" Buffy turns back to look at Kirk. "If you don't mind."

He would just smirk smugly if he she had. He's kind of an insufferable ass like that.

"Don't mind at all. I can send the file directly to your tablet, unless you'd rather have it in a different format."

"No, the tablet's fine." She could show it to Dawn, then. She suspects the girl might have already heard the broadcast on her own but if she has hit the language geekdom with hurricane-levels of dedication then her sister might appreciate her own copy.

Buffy digs into her pocket to retrieve the gadget.

A few taps on the console and Buffy's tablet should be dinging with the received file.

"That should do it."

Her eyes drop to the gadget while she confirms that it's worked. A small, grateful smile.

She doesn't have the guts to bring it up. "Thanks. I appreciate this -- really."

For a moment, Kirk eases back into the comfort of old habits. He and Buffy-- the one that was here before here-- were together for a long time, nearly a year, and it's not hard to just fall back into what once was. Reality sets in and he checks himself, banishing the smile he was giving her in favor of standing abruptly and moving to sit in his captain's chair in the center of the bridge instead.

"Was that all?"

This abrupt shift catches her off-guard; however, she isn't so much surprised as sad. Of course. She probably deserves no more, in his eyes. Buffy rushes to stand. Be less casual. Less comfortable.

"Y-yeah, I guess. That's...yeah. Thanks."

"You know where the door is."

Be less of a dick, Jim. If anyone gets different versions of people, it's he who has a double out there, somewhere, and knows two versions of Spock. Back down on the righteous asshole tendencies. This Buffy does not deserve your wrath.

She taps the tablet nervously against her palm. Of course -- mission complete, time to leave. She bites down on her lower lip and tries not to look so guilty. Buffy's shoes clack loudly as she strides back towards the door.

She hesitates only once, just as they open before her. She turns back and crosses her arms comfortingly across her chest. Defense mechanisms. "James?" No one had corrected her yet. No one had told her to call him anything else except perhaps Kirk. And that seemed a little impersonal. Hah. "I'm...I'm sorry."

But she doesn't clarify further, turning quickly away from the bridge and hurrying out before any other words can be wedged in.

"What?"

The apology, in turn, catches him off-guard, and he stares at her, not quite getting it yet. She didn't know, no-one had told her. ...right?

She pauses just beyond the doors. Is she still close enough to keep them open? She doesn't know. These things and their workings are beyond her -- she gets the impression that he already knows this. But she wasn't insulted by it. Still isn't.

"I said...I'm sorry." Buffy doesn't turn around.

032 ━ [ visual ] / [ location: uss enterprise ].

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[ action ] /randomly, happens to be watching tng currently

[ action ] /always approves of tng.

[ action ] there are borg. i am creeped. the end.

[ action ] the borg are my favoritest. /obviously a tng + voyager girl.

[ action ] we're watching 'the best of both worlds'!

[ action ] mmm locutus~

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