All Write, Already!

"Ma'am? We're getting a signal on the Sector 15 deep space listening post."

With a small frown, the captain turned in her chair to face the junior-grade communications officer that had spoken, eyes flashing for a moment before she toggled a switch in her command seat and spoke into the waiting microphone.  "All hands to stations!  We have a Code Baker.  Repeat, signal is being received in Experimental Life Form Sector 15.  All hands to stations."

With the general quarters sounded, the captain turned back to her communications officer.  "Alright, hit me.  What sort of signal are we picking up here?  Exploratory? Military?"

The younger officer examined his readouts, looking almost embarrassed at the results. "Er... no ma'am.  It appears to be... entertainment.  Radio, then television lagging a few light years behind it.  Everything sublight."

The captain shook her head, turning to another of her young bridge officers "Astrogation?  Can you trace back the source?"

The young astrogator nodded, eyes on his screen. "Already done, ma'am.  Tracks back to planet QRSX-1924."

The captain's eyes grew wide, then settled down again as she smiled. "Them again!  Very nice. Not the first impression I'd hoped they'd give off world, but good for them... and ahead of schedule, too.  Well... if they've got sublight communications reaching all the way out to the listening post, their local-side technology must have developed quite a ways... and we do have our orders.  First sign of TL5, evaluate and give them them the ladder or the axe.  Let's see what we're dealing with here... fire up the FTL monitoring device we had for them."

Hiding his own grin from the captain, the communications officer nodded as he ran through the commands. "Yes, ma'am!  Feed coming in now... forwarding information to Analysis."

The captain gave a satisfied nod, flipping another switch to bring down a second communications channel. "Analysis section!  Report."

A soft contralto voice came out from a speaker next to the captain's ear, tembling slightly. "I'm... it's not good, ma'am.  The orbital sensors are reporting that the planet has taken a distinct enviornmental downturn since the advent of the local species.  Monitoring of their communications and broadcasts is showing that not only are they still divided into seperate political state entities, many of those states are in conditions far worse than others, and even within individual states, there's contentious and bitter infighting, often to the point of violence."

The captain's face drained of blood, and she shook her head wearily. "Damn, damn, damn... I was so hopeful for them.  So many good signs early on, compared to the other failed creations, but to be that far down when being this far into development..."

With a heavy sigh, the captain raised her head. "Well then.  We have our orders, distasteful as they may be.  Transmit to QRSX-1924 Oribital 1:  Experiment failure.  Terminate and repopulate.  Initial conditions:  Function Random 6, seed 194825.  All hands:  Stand down.  Situation resolved."

Heavy with dissapointment, the captain stood and headed for her quarters.  "Communications, you have the bridge."

"Aye, ma'am", the comm officer replied as his commander left the room.

As their captain left the bridge, her officers heard her speak to herself as the door closed behind her. "And the Seed 194824 humans had had so much potential early on, too..."