taxonomites | 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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Max is quiet for a bit, pretty sure she knows who he hopes it was.

"Just because it's wishful thinking doesn't mean it's impossible," she says, surprised at her own words when her personal motto's always been 'hope is for losers'. "I mean...it's unlikely, I guess, but don't they have bases all around the galaxy?"

Kirk isn't surprised that she instantly pegs what he was leaning towards. Outside of Spock, and perhaps better than the Vulcan, Max is the person who knows him best in this place.

"That would depend on whether this planet's even in the Alpha or Beta Quadrants, and there's areas of those that are still unexplored and outside of Federation jurisdiction. For all I know, we could be deep in Klingon Space or somewhere on the other side of The Neutral Zone."

Kirk knows her the best, too, and there are times where she feels guilty about not having revealed the truth about her origins to him yet. There are times where she wants to, especially since he's one of the few people left here that she trusts enough to keep it under wraps, but there's still the fear that he'll judge and hate her for it, especially given what's going on at home.

"Ah," she says with a slight nod. She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Do you have a recording? Maybe we can get a better idea if we hear it again."

"Of course I do," he answers. "It's stored on the ship's computer, but I can transfer a copy over to your tablet if you want one for yourself."

"Yeah, if you don't mind," she replies. "There's no way I can translate it, but maybe if I hear it again I can get the gist of the message."

"One second."

The visual moves around a bit awkwardly as Kirk fiddles with it-- and there, file sent.

"You get it?"

Max ducks closer to the screen for a second, giving Kirk a nice close-up of her forehead and hair as she makes sure she's received the file.

"Yep, got it. Thanks, Jim."

"Not a problem."