"We've detected a spatial anomaly," the technician says. "It's centered beyond the starward edge of the debris disk, two degrees spinwise from this location."
That sure is a spatial anomaly. It's also really anomalous for the spectrometers to be picking up a diffuse cloud of nitrogen, oxygen, CO₂, and water, like somebody's vessel cracked open and spread its atmosphere around the area two hours ago.
The anomalous readings ripple, and strengthen, and abruptly turn strong and localized rather than diffuse — and fade out, space seeming to have returned to its normal approximately-flat condition. There's a solid object near the middle of the former anomaly, about ten tonnes, and a much smaller cloud of atmospheric gas diffusing away around it.
The voice stops its repeating message, pronounces three of the words it received, and adds a fourth, followed by a longer sentence in the unknown language, still with a tone of urgency.
Then the voice is replaced by a series of beeps, prime numbers in unary. Another radio channel copies the sequence directly without the audio tones.
It responds in kind and introduces the concept of packets, then starts giving examples of what seems to be a protocol for requesting and communicating structured information with cross-references, illustrated by giving identifiers to the prime number sequence and other mathematical facts. Some of the other messages of a particular form are accompanied by spoken words on the audio channel. Those preliminaries established, it transmits a request that, if it were in words, would be "give me your language".
Meanwhile, it also starts moving directly (as far as orbital mechanics goes) towards them, with a surprisingly abrupt velocity change. There is a hint of exhaust behind it but it is unusually cold for a rocket with that much thrust — or anything bigger than a maneuvering jet, really.
After a pause surprisingly fast for a human and slow for a computer, it responds in text, expressed in characters and also as a sequence of references to the definitions:
I am not a spacecraft and require life support equipment or assistance.
I was transported here unexpectedly by an unknown event.
She transmits a very loose map of the star system, showing the borders of the debris disk relative to her position and the visitor's position.
You should come as close as feasible without crossing into the debris disk. We can send help out to you from there. Entering the debris disk may be dangerous for a vessel of your size.
As the anomalous object approaches the designated coordinates, a short-notice strategic meeting takes place between the a handful of individuals privy to the United Colonies' most closely guarded secrets.
This thing, whatever it is, represents an unprecedented potential threat. But also an unprecedented opportunity.
"I want a StratCom with Class Zero clearance overseeing the perimeter, and a Class Zero TacCom overseeing delivery of the device." The plan, in summary, is to comply with the object's request while establishing a defensive line between it and the nearest colonies. Edith Trunhardt quickly takes charge of personnel allocation. "In addition to the mechanical team, we'll need a diplomat to handle incidental negotiations with the entity as the mission progresses."
A data scientist asks her if she has a diplomat in mind.
She considers for a few seconds, and then says: "I'll go myself."
After far too many hours for the comfort of the occupant, ‘the object’ is approaching the designated location and beginning its deceleration.
From close-range telescopes, it can be seen to be a sphere of metal the size of several rooms, with features tentatively identifiable as antennas, windows, and telescope lenses. There do not seem to be any hatches, and only the one engine, aligned center of mass and firing bursts of iron vapor.
What awaits it?
A pair of giants, each thirty meters and change in height (measured from the soles of their feet to the missile racks where a flesh a blood humanoid's head would be).
They make a slow approach. One of them has a house-sized cargo skimmer tethered behind it, containing several passengers and a freshly manufactured life support rig.
It continues moving, as objects in space do, but eventually comes to a near-stop relative to local objects (politely aiming its bizarre exhaust away from anything delicate-looking).
Hello! says the text transmission.
The metallic surface shifts like it is molten until it resembles a docking port compatible with the cargo skimmer, with a large currently-open-to-vacuum airlock behind it.
During this process there is a brief drop as the other side apparently pumps a sample of air out of the shared space, perhaps to test it. Then some circulation starts, thoroughly used air venting into the common space.
Then when the pressure has come up, the airlock door(?) flows open revealing a space crammed with assorted boxed equipment, hand holds and racks melting into the walls, and one mostly ordinary-looking and relieved-looking woman.
“Hello! Thank you for the rescue!”
She probably rehearsed saying that phrase.
As the equipment comes nearer the volume of the bizarre craft grows and rearranges its contents to fit; a draft of stale air keeps the pressure up. She takes hold of the equipment and gently maneuvers it into its new home, moving like someone who just took a crash course in microgravity life but oddly precise.
It gets hooked up and starts performing its function.
"I suspect starting at survival and working our way out from there would be ideal?"
That's how she and her fellow scions approached things, when they first had the Dysofrag Fields thrust upon them.
"Will you need anything beyond the life support system to preserve yourself in the near future?"
She would not presume to tell the nice helpful people to go away just because they are standing around outnumbering her.
“So that is done enough. My next thought is — to know your communications protocol, not — the one I designed on a first contact basis. And then, to learn if I can get home, or learn about this system.”