One of the three alkay in the contact team sighed as the message played over the intercom. Turning to a female who was carrying some manner of mobile computer gear in a compact backpack, he asked, "The black box getting anything out of that?"

"Not really," she said, large and milky eyes flicking across the readouts in her helmet. "Whoever these xenos are, they've been quiet until now. Not a lot for the software to work with. I'd guess they're at least trying to do the same thing to our end of things, though."

The team leader nodded. "This is probably going to be a touch frustrating then. It's a shame they didn't pick up on the whole 'contact team' bit; face-to-whatever interaction would have made things go a lot smoother. Instead they've stuck is in an empty room."

The third alkay took a look around. "You don't think it's, uh, some sort of trap, do you?"

The team leader shook his head. "Not at the moment, no. Eleven-thirteen ought to be able to cut through the door if things go badly, though, yeah?"

The many-legged arthropod-like exomorph made a clicking noise and wavered segmented antennae, folding some of its legs underneath it and settling into a sitting position. Some of the smooth cylinders that extended from ports in its carapace hissed and vented little bursts of steam. "I do not know how long it would take, but my rasping-limbs would hopefully be strong enough to part the door. Should we perhaps focus less on this conversation and more on responding to their attempt at communication? This seems rather informal given the directions of protocol."

The lead alkay shrugged. "Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly expecting to get pulled for a xeno contact. Not normally my division, you know? But, sure. We might as well work with what they're giving us. Aeran, you think you can at least try to give them that orbital trajectory to follow?"

The third alkay nodded an affirmative, pulling out a holoprojector and feeding it some quick data. Setting it down on the floor, the little cube unfolded its array and projected a fuzzy image of the local orbital region, with trajectories overlaid over markers representing both the corvette and the [i]Jetha[/i]. Blinking to call attention to itself, the trajectory path bent and curved into a stable orbit around the moon. The little animation repeated itself a few times, shifting slightly each time to simulate a course correction further and further from the present. Finally, an iteration ran where the [i]Jetha[/i] did not change course, the corvette broke away to return to the moon, and several of the orbiting warships broke out of their orbits and accelerated to intercept the scientific vessel.

Once the hologram had played out, the team leader spread his arms and spoke slowly to the ceiling. "It would be appreciated if we could conduct this meeting face to face. Your arrival was... unanticipated, and you are violating local traffic authority. Our government is concerned and sent us to make sure that you are not acting threatening on purpose. The sooner we can figure out working translations the sooner we can resolve this issue."