First Contact
by feldman
The little ship is still warm from the Parent it came out of, but unlike him, it is inert. It fits into his bay like a tool into a socket. Reassuring. The pilot steps out of the little ship. Internal weapons prime, and the pilot is watched from every direction. The pilot is not like a tool, even though it also fits inside him. It is like a tiny Parent.
The pilot is exchanging some of the oxygen in the atmosphere for a mix of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and oddly familiar trace gases. The pilot uses the outflow to carry modulated vibrations, and the stimulus triggers the first of a series of imprinting programs.
This first program analyzes the vibration sample, then executes a series of commands. Internal weapons power down, natal language functions are brought online, and the ship begins to understand.
The pilot is speaking a Sebacean military dialect, and is an ally. The being is not a tiny Parent, it is his commanding officer. The commanding officer's speech is re-routed to the primary biological interface, and the ship begins to learn.
The first thing the ship learns is that the command structure is no longer valid.