Fics like Trench of Babel

Footsteps and shuffling outside the door break Grace out of the uneasy doze he’d fallen into after being shoved into the cell. If he’d known he was going to be detained, he never would have steered the Hail Mary toward the mysterious cobbled-together-looking station hanging in loose orbit above the tiny dark planet. Blinking to bring himself to full alertness, he stares dully forward as bodies approach. He knows by now that he can't understand these people. What's the point in saying anything? “Hey,” a voice says, low and rough. It’s a new voice, different from the ones who chased him down and threw him in a cell. Grace ignores it. So they're mimicking him now? Great. The new person clears their throat, then coughs like it was painful. He hears them muttering something, and a more familiar voice – one of the guards – growls back. Grace listens with everything he has, tuning all the xenolinguistic skills he's learned working with Rocky into the problem, and he still can't tell what the heck they're saying. “Hey,” the new voice says again. “Ai, uh...ai herdjer talkin' oldstyle.” “...What?” Grace tumbles to his feet and stumbles forward. “What did you say?”

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