Translated Gripes One

"This is just one of those days where I wish I had stayed home" CDAG-12 complained."Is this place really any better?"
"Wait, wait - you had a choice about joining the fleet?" F#DDA-91 asked.
"Technically no - but since when has the law really stopped anyone? Everybody need to know at least two people who have found a way out of it."
"I don't know anyone actually. We were all fighting over who got to go. The archipelago I grew up on was not the most hospitable place. Too warm, and the storms were terrible - the weather here might be cold, but what do you wear to stop a tidal wave? The soil wasn't all that great either - sure volcanoes are good for something but most of us can't drink our whole life..."
"So was this the first place your clan found - or were you specifically exiled there?"
"We were actually winners during the first warring period, but weakened pretty badly over the intervening years, and mortally wounded in the second period. So of course, the third great time of conflict - well the fact that we could leave rather than be wiped out says something - but well the prior two centuries had seen everyone else take all the good bits of land."
"Really - I didn't realize you were an old family. My clan, didn't have a permanent claim on the mainland until the ass-eye-RI-na period"
"Even knowing how badly the politics get on the northern continent, I have to envy you CDAG-12."
"You ever been poisoned? Much less twice?"
"You had food to mix the poison in."
"We're not going to resolve this - are we?"


For a while the two just stood quietly under the old table, watching the Seattle rain and tapping their antenna in rhythm to slow dripping of the furniture around them. F#DDA-91 tossed an old coffee mug from hand to hand, stamped the left feet then the right, the front then the back, and finally gave up on decorum.

"I can't take this anymore! I'm going to freeaze three of my toes off at this rate!"
"So? You've got eleven more."
"Come on, CDAG-12, we can at least find a place out of the wind."
"The Princess said wait here and watch the intersection while she and her bodyguard explored the building."
"More like while the bodyguard explores her! We don't even have ekaide'm what are they going to do if they run into an abomination or a human? What are we going to do?"
"Well Miss F#DDA-91 - I happened to pay attention in marksmanship training and know how to use this rocket gun to shoot them."
"And as I recall the instructor said Miss CDAG-12 couldn't hit the side of a house at four tail-lengths."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Twelve asirs says I can hit the identity plate on the back of that vehicle over there."
"You're on!"

CDAG-12 shouldered her weapon, and put first pressure on the trigger to lase the target. Range input complete, she pulled it farther back, and the gun gave a loud pshh like a giant can of soda being opened as the rocket ignited and began building pressure. Overcoming the holing switch, it raced down the tube, while springs went about putting the next projectile in battery. The tiny rocket flew true, hitting supersonic velocity a few meters from the two aliens with a loud crack, and moment later, punching through the second second digit of the license plate.

"Where's the explosion?" F#DDA-91 asked.

"Its loaded with armor piercing rounds, no charge."
"Do those even work against the human vehicles?"
"Generally no - but have we seen any working human armor? Its just fine against animals and civilian stuff."
"Actually I have" F#DDA-91 began "- well, not me personally, but a group of the human ekaide'm were spotted not to long ago.
"Ugh, those things. Just so long as they're not the land-ship monsters."
"What in planet's name did the humans do to themselves to invent such a thing?"
"I don't know, F#DDA-91, I don't know."