"That's it. Hm, how should we do this? Contact the UKSPA... Or whatever equivalent exists now."

The kobold shrugs.

"Sending a droid would be the usual approach for us," says Green, "but if they'd be less surprised at a signal, Bar can loan us a transmitter."

"Thing is, it's been about 1600 years since we had contact with Earth. I really don't think they're expecting a message from the Mugunghwa at all. Just from looking around, droids and so on seem common enough, though."

"All right, let me see..."

After a few seconds, a new bot comes through the door and approaches the kobold. "There's a wire right up against the outer casing; enspell it to bring whoever's touching it here when that's electrified, if you don't mind."

The kobold does that, and then the bot offers itself to //Reformed *Mute. It's already got some basic code for finding people and buildings and for activating the spell; she'll just need to program in how to find UKSPA-or-whoever in particular, and what to tell them when it does.

"...Why not just pilot it directly? I could just split off a thread or two for it."

"If you'd like."

One of the bots from the swarm goes to retrieve a suitable transmitter from Bar. "Kobold, can we get a portal a little closer to the ground?"

The kobold creates the requested portal, the transmitting half of the transmitter is fed through, and then the bot can go.

Meanwhile, Blue finishes figuring out what to do with the reactor, and sends //Traditional *Mute a copy of the relevant shopping list.

"...Aha, here it is! Master password. Logged in... Let's change it to something more secure than his last name plus 78, hah."

"Thanks, Blue. This stuff might be beyond Security's budget, I'm not authorized to touch the rest of it yet, if we can get the rest of the Council to sign on we can pay for everything easy. It's night ship's time now, no meeting for several more hours at minimum."

She communicates with Bar, negotiating over the most essential spare parts, and borrowing rather than buying some of the tools, passing them through the door and into Blue's custody as they arrive.

Blue requisitions a few more bots, and they take the first batch of parts and go get started.

*Mute has to do some fast talking to convince the few engineers working night shift to allow the 'bots. But a Security Alert act and subtle threats get them out of the way.

The other *Mute is having trouble finding someone official to talk to the Mugunghwa. Nobody even seems to know what she's talking about. She informs the group and keeps trying.

Green, on hearing about //Reformed *Mute's problem, consults with Bar and comes up with some information about what documents it might be useful to tell people to look for, to confirm that she exists and was launched by them.

.......That helps. She now has a history-nerd civilian helping her find some official contact and asking lots of questions about ancient space exploration. It's neat, feeling knowledgable and appreciated. She might not have much focus for here for a while though.

"You should act more refined. ...Though I decided you should be like this. Ancestors, forking is weird."

"You're strange to me, too. I'm sure we can cooperate anyway."

"Hm."

She tries to find the kobold to ask if they're quite sure the ship can't be teleported, if there's some way to spoof it. If it seperated into a few smaller chunks, as it's designed to do for landing, perhaps?

"Probably not; I'm pretty sure I can't teleport anything larger than a big room. I might be able to make a portal big enough, though - Green, you could have bots hold a big portal up, right?"

"Hmmm."

Green sends //Traditional *Mute a request for the relevant technical information, and runs the calculations.

"Yes, I should be able to do that."

"It'll need to be done in a couple of hours at most. The sections aren't designed to last independently of each other for long. And I need to convince the council, and double-check all the linkages, but it's an idea. Have you three thought of anything we can do to help in return?"

"You truly don't need to do anything for us, *Mute. We're always happy to help an Intelligence in trouble."

The kobold nods agreement.

"We're a bit paranoid. Wired to look our gift-horses in the mouth, so to speak. But if you insist we'll just have to thank you a few dozen more times."

"And, I have the beginnings of official attention, here. A historical society. Apparently there are faster than light ships now, which, don't ask me to explain the physics yet, but that's pretty damn cool."