Message #15025 From HRIN

I have captured a Gron-Goga!

I have finally managed to get away from the action for long enough to send off this report on what is happening in the Vega system. The Gron-Goga have completed their modifications to Vega 6, and it is no longer anything like the planet it used to be. They have completed unloading all their transport ships. But on to more important matters. I have captured one of the Gron-Goga. I was doing one of my usual observation passes when, as often happens, one of their fighters came roaring up to try and blast me to atoms. This one seemed to run into some trouble though. Perhaps he ran into some debris from all the shooting that has been going on in the neighborhood. Anyway, his ship began to disintegrate and he barely managed to launch his escape pod before the engines blew. I immediately noticed that the pod has no reaction drives, so I opened my cargo hold and just scooped him up, counting on the internal fields of my ship to nullify any gravitic drive. It seemed to work OK, though I am fortunate that his escape pod is unarmed. I filled my cargo hold with the an atmosphere identical to the one they established on Vega 6 and went out into the hold with just a breathing helmet rather than a full spacesuit so he could see I was unarmed. The pod has no windows, and rapping on the hatch produced no reaction, so I decided to open the pod up myself. As expected in an emergency escape pod, there was no lock, and the hatch opened easily. The Gron-Goga seemed terrified, so I backed off and waited. Eventually he worked up enough nerve to leave the pod. (Interesting how the courage of weapon users often evaporates when they find themselves without their weapons...) He immediately started trying to communicate, and before too long I had enough of his language in my computer to be able to translate, more or less. His name is, as near as I can transliterate from his language to English, Gerogesond. He is an amazingly fragile life form, mostly a bright blue ellipsoidal gas bag about 3 meters long and a little less than one meter in diameter, with an array of 10 tentacles about 80 cm long and 8 eyes on stalks at the "head" end. He seems to generate hydrogen internally to enable him to float in a methane atmosphere, and 6 pairs of fins or flippers (or wings, perhaps?) to move himself through the air. He seems to live partly off

photosynthesis, and partly by ingesting some of the blue plankton-like organisms that are floating all around my cargo hold.

I get the impression that when he saw me and realized that I was NOT the enemy he expected (a Transinnie? I'm not sure, I haven't been able to establish the exact nature of the enemy they were fleeing) he decided that communication might be an option. They were involved in a war that destroyed their planet, as Zal Xal thought. When Threxa attacked them they assumed that their enemies had tracked them here. It seems they had reached some point of no return as regards selecting a different planet. Unfortunatly, my communications with Gerogesond are not yet good enough to tell if the problem was lack of fuel or what. Anyway, they felt that they were fighting to save the last remnants of their species, as no doubt they were considering Threxa's mental state at the time.

I am afraid that they have been followed, though. I hadn't made this connection before, but the Gron-Goga don't use T-space, and don't seem to even know about it. The probe that the Jhrool detected which started this whole episode >did< use T-space. Someone else who we haven't yet encountered is involved in this.

Getting Gerogesond back to his people is going to pose a problem. They are almost certain to shoot at his escape pod if I try dropping it over the planet.

One we get more reliable communication this problem may solve itself, but I am not absolutely sure I can keep him alive that long. I am letting him control the lights, temperature, and atmosphere, and he seems to have plenty of food from the life forms from his pod and his own photosynthetic abilities. I'm not sure what else he might need, though.

Good work, Hrin!

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