'The great vessel hung in the upper atmosphere in exactly the same way that bricks don't':-  Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy

 

The rest of the rescue fleet had landed on the dark side of the planet's satellite, keeping communications silence until the extent of the task before them was known.

Their kinfolk had been stranded on this small planet in an obscure solar system since the scout ship had crashed there aeons before.  The vast distances between the stars had meant that untold generations had flourished and died before their cry for help had arrived at the home world.   The possibilities were endless.  The entire scouting party may have been killed off in the intervening years, or enslaved, or even have built a great civilisation.  Until this was known, however, the Commander had no intention of revealing the strength of his fleet.

For a few days, there was a flurry of activity while the electronics department converted their onboard equipment so that it could communicate with the primitive planetary systems.

As soon as the modifications had been made, the First Officer called on the Commander to make first contact with the inhabitants of the planet.

His heart sank as the image on the view screen wavered into existence, showing that the primary life forms on the planet were not his own kind.  So there was no chance that the landing party had colonised the planet, and he foresaw difficulties if the dominant species refused to allow them to land and take the survivors onto their vessels.  The natives even spoke a different language, which meant that more days were wasted while the computers were programmed to enable an artificial translation to take place, allowing vocal exchanges to be made.

The Commander chafed at the delays.  What if the response from the planet led to war?  He had already realised that the rescue fleet personnel were smaller in size than the life forms below on the planet's surface.  This would place them at a disadvantage in any conflict.  He reflected on the ugliness of the species below, pale coloured, with a multitude of stringy antennae on their heads.  He saw no way in which the two species could live harmoniously with such widely different physical appearances, and he feared for the safety of the descendants of the scouting party.

'First, you take it,' he ordered.  'I don't want to talk to such ugly creatures.  You know what to say.  Just be as diplomatic as possible and don't commit us to war without my permission.'

Hours passed, and the Commander was asleep in his cabin when the First Officer unceremoniously made an entrance.

'Sir, you aren't going to believe this!  They aren't too happy about us landing, but they are going to allow us to remove our comrades.  They have given us permission to take them all with us.'

'They haven't enslaved them, or made them a vital part of their civilisation?'

'No Sir.'

'Then have you any idea why they are not going to oppose us?'

'Sorry Sir, they keep on muttering something that our translators can't deal with.'

'What does it sound like?' asked the Commander, in the hope that intuition would succeed where electronic circuits had failed.

'They just keep muttering bloody cockroaches, bloody cockroaches.  Any idea what they might mean Sir?'