“Okay so what happened to engine number 3?” Rasnessk ask as Sylksskra tilted her head to get a better view “It’s not just simple overheating, some protective panels were somehow blown off, probably strikes from small objects like a small asteroid or something” The Helm Rider acknowledged.

“Can someone explain to this one how this can possibly occur? This one assumed that with the electromagnetic shielding our voidcraft would be quite impervious to incoming projectiles or asteroid impacts” A Constable assigned to the Helm spoke up causing a few ears to perk and heads to tilt.

Sylksskra let out a low hiss as she stared at the Constable ‘Really? This is one of the first things one would learn before entering into a Voidcraft much less any profession that follows use of shields’ She mentally composed as she cleaned her antenna in the meantime.

She wasn’t the only one hissing at this bit of incompetence “You daft idiot, Electromagnetic shielding does not prevent stuff like that from happening, it reduces the chances of things like that from happening!” Lorrisskr who was also stationed at the helm scolded the obviously younger Constable.

“Why do you think we have to call out efficiency?” She added as she stared down the lower Constable “Because… the efficiency dictates the amounts of incoming projectiles that the shielding can revert?” Sylksskra guessed that that was pure guesswork but that was correct guesswork so she sang nothing.

Lorrisskr just let out a low hiss at that “Correct but you’re still going to get re-educated on shielding later so don’t get comfortable and for the Brightness of The Glow, clean your fucking bolt caster” Sang Lorrisskr as the Constable gave her an affirming chirp immediately before Rassnessk cleared his throat.

“Right… and nobody noticed it until now?” He sang again with a tenseness in his tone “Well no, this one thought the constant overheating was weird so this one went for a full check with the Technomancers and we found cut wiring and coolant cables that were bent or smashed by an object going at terminal velocity and they appeared damaged for at least 3 decorum or one gaxin” Came the replying song.

Rasnessk took a deep breath before letting it out in a low hiss as his crown feathers darken “At the very least, we caught it before the engine suffers any major sort of damage, no one wants one of the main engines exploding in orbit and showering a world with shrapnel do we now” He sang his composition.

“1st class Helm Rider Hallksinn, summon the Technomancers to take a look at it for real this time” Ordered Rasnessk as the Rider in question did not budge ‘Uh oh, this means it’s worse than implied’ Sylksskra thought as she gulped down a bit before nervously cleaning her antenna on instinct.

“Yeah uh… about that this one did get the Technomancers to take a look at it but err… it’s not something that can be fixed by plugging one of the emergency wall plating in case of a breach, it’s external damage that requires fixing effective immediate as possible” Hallksinn sang nervously.

Rasnessk blinked a bit before lowering his ears, crown feathers and antenna in a sign of frustration “So it’s simple enough, go tell the Technomancers to grab a drone to repair it, not that much of a problem if you ask this one” He sang with a tilt of confusion ‘Same, wonder what’s the problem is’ Sylksskra agreed.

1st class Helm Rider Hallksinn took a gulp as he held his long tail over his soldier and unto his chest “Well… This one hates to be the one to inform you of this predicament sir but we don’t have any drones capable of repair” He sang nervously ‘Oh… that will do it’ Sylksskra composed watching the interaction.

“Wha-What in the Glow’s calling are you singing about? We have drones, we sent them out to survey the gas giant we anchored our jump to when we entered th-” He stopped his song abruptly as Sylksskra realized ‘Shitholes, we didn’t retrieve the Drones!’ She composed as she contained the urge to bang her head into her instruments on her station as she held her swaying tail to stop it from panicking.

A chorus of saddening chirps filled the helm at the exact same time as Rassnessk realized the problem “The same drones that serve both as survey probes, exploratory vehicles and fucking repair and also do maintenance… This… is a very catastrophic oversight!” Rasnessk sang in a scream as he held his crown feather in wing trying to pluck them out himself before stopping.

“Sir, what are the orders? If we just leave it like that it could get worse” Sang Hallksinn as he looked at him in nervousness ‘Everyone is looking at you for orders, for inspiration as the Senior of the voidcraft… I know you can pull this off brother, you did it before and you can do it as many times as one lower than one such as yourself might fail’ Sylksskra mentally sang as she watched in patience.

Her crest feathers brighten in coloration as she heard him sing “Well get on with it then, the repair team will get spotted this close to the planet so tell the Technomancers to ignore all and fix it before that engine gets any worse!” The Helm Rider straightened up before dashing to the order.

“Sylksskra, this one would appreciate it if you could enlighten the Archivists to pay closer attention to those signals directed at us” He sang as she looked at him “Are we going to be sending signals of our own?” She sang in question as her brother paused for a bit before returning with a song of his own.

“Correct, 2nd class Helm Rider Ollfianss, please ask the Archivists to also begin transmission of our own messages and make sure that they communicate that we come in peace, not war through any way they can think off, we need to make sure no miscommunications cause any sort of unwarranted conflict alright?” A choir of affirmatives and chirping rang out as Sylksskra got on the call.

It was only a matter of time before communications would be made and they must make sure that nothing goes horribly wrong ‘They may get some information about how we look from their various satellites but if all goes well they’ll eventually know either way… hopefully nothing goes wrong and this one prays to the Glow themselves for nothing to go wrong’ She hoped as she got through with the call.

Phil yawned as he sipped his morning hot chocolate ‘Caffeine is a lie set to drive people into consumerism’ He told himself as he took yet another sip, unsure as to how the situation with the aliens are going “I wonder what happened since yesterday” He said out loud as Ellie turned to him.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Me too, Matt’s still asleep but we can watch the news to understand what’s up” Ellie suggested as she fingered the remote in one hand “I’ll pass, I think I’ll check up on another source for news about our extraterrestrial visitors for today” He commented as he gulped down the rest before waving goodbye.

Ellie waved back “Okay, tell me if your sources tell of something interesting that’s not on the news Phil!” She cried out as he sauntered back to his room, passing Matt’s room as he heard deep snoring inside before closing the door and turning on his PC as he entered the password and got in.

Immediately going for WeTube, he could see a lot more talk about aliens, breaking news and such but he checked his notifications and sure enough, the small channel he subscribed and hit the bell icon to yesterday has uploaded Day 2 of their series and he clicked on the video itself.

Now, it starts off with game footage of a ship much like the alien ship itself as it orbited Earth in a high orbit, the footage stretches for a seconds before a man like before entered in this time with a trilby hat on his head instead of going bald as last time though Phil could care less about that little detail.

“Hello you wonderful folks, this is Faraday again back to you with another update concerning our extraterrestrial visitors whom as of the time of speaking has entered the orbit of our fine planet for a couple of hours” Faraday explained as it shows a picture of the alien craft much closer than before.

He cleared his throat before continuing “There has been a sleuth of information that has come out since the past day with the most important being that scientists across the world have been receiving radio transmissions originating from the alien craft itself which as you all know is a good thing as it means that they are not simply here to blow us all to kingdom come but to talk and parlay” Phil blinked at the news.

‘Well that’s good, it would be weird to be stuck here in Antarctica during an alien invasion or genocide’ Phil thought as he chuckled mentally “The transmissions are those of mathematical and oral form and though it has been quite difficult in deciphering their actual language, the mathematics have been analyzed and we can safely confirm that we can communicate with them in very light forms.

We now know for sure that they noticed us and are interested in diplomatic talks. There has been talks of other transmissions though none yet have been disclosed to the public whatsoever, makes you think about what may be hidden or lost” Faraday theorized as Phil simply nodded along with the video.

“Furthermore, we now have confirmation on the alien vessel’s size and a clearer picture of it, one that would be important to understanding space travel in the future” An image of the craft in high detail was shown as one can spots the various minor detail if you zoomed in enough or focus enough.

“The ship is confirmed to be at least 5 km in length and 1 in width and height if you measure it from the bow to the engine decks. Its large size can be from various different factors from armored plating or perhaps due to the size of the species on board, this is of course all speculation in nature.

It is hopeful that the aliens whatever or whoever they may be are peaceful as various folks around the world are hoping though it is still too soon to say. What we can do is to lessen the panic or we may spook our extraterrestrial visitors out of good relations” He explained and Phil silently agrees with him.

“The ship has not make any other actions and has only stayed in a high orbit of Earth, this may change in the future but as of now it is the only thing worth noting. Now normally the video ends here but we just checked and sure enough there has been reports on something that may be to our luck”

Phil held his breath for the next part “Unlucky for them, one of the engines on the alien ship seems to be malfunctioning or so many say though it is not concluded as to what has happened. All we know is that the aliens themselves sent their own out to repair it which allows us to take a glimpse to their biology and nature” The presenter added as a few pictures shows… very blurry and far away images.

Phil sighed as he slams his head into the desk ‘Goddammit, waste of a good opportunity’ He thought as the video plays on “Unfortunately as you can see, of every footage and image captured, none showed more than mere pixelated pics or blurry shapes and of the high end cameras, most were not in the right position and the few that were able to view the ship were in the wrong angle.

Whether this was deliberate or a simple coincidence is till as of yet unknown though we don’t know enough about the aliens to determine their levels of technology or anything else. What we do know was that the repairs lasted only 23 minutes giving us a short glimpse at their form but unfortunately not much else” The disappointment in the voice of the presenter was apparent as the peperoni on a pizza.

“What we can gleam from this brief window of opportunity is that the aliens themselves seem physical and has either 4 limbs with a tail or 5 limbs in total. Their size cannot be gleamed exactly but it appears to be similar to that of a human or something we see in science fiction” The presenter Faraday explains.

“That however will be determined as times come to past but for now it is advisable that all remain calm and that we do not spook the aliens into acting irrationally. This is Faraday and I wish you all a fantastic day” And with that the video ends as Phil quickly turns off the autoplay feature this time around.

It was getting a tad bit annoying ‘Why did they remove the ability to toggle it on and off, this is like the situation with the Exp. Share, those games were so ridiculously easy if you don’t turn those off and in recent times you can’t anymore and there goes the challenge’ Phil complained as he tapped the desk.

With the video over, he switched over to social media to see people’s reaction to the whole thing, Tweeter was still the dumpster fire that it’s always has been but there were a lot more art drawn about what the aliens could look like now that very blurry images of their overall shape was now known.

You have you fair share of the extremely cute looking to the very cool looking, from cartoony to realistic, from pretty normal looking to true eldritch horrors and from horrid monstrosities to things that best not be brought up to work or it would cause a lot of very unsavory questions to be asked.

There was also a well, increase in the particular tag of alien in various sites that are not exactly safe for kids or older people at work despite no one actually knowing what they actually look like. On the other hand there was a sleuth of cool artwork by artists on the alien spaceship which was nice.

‘Same old, same old’ He figured as he found that panic levels have dropped somewhat with more people being cautiously optimistic about the whole thing now that the aliens didn’t immediately vaporize them but wanted to talk, of course this sparks other theories that range from plausible to outright crazy.

Many were thinking that the ship was here to ask Earth’s governments to surrender before the bigger alien fleet arrives to just take the whole planet. Others think that they are in some galactic federation and felt obliged to help us out and invite us into the galactic fold though that seems a bit farfetched.

Them being willing to actually communicate means a lot of things as Phil would’ve thought “Either way, as always we still don’t know their motive operandi though I’m leaning towards an exploration ship that just discovered us suddenly, with a ship of that size I’d reckon it has enough room for hydroponic farms that it can feed a lot of mouths depending on their metabolism and size” Theorized Phil.

He shook his head and sighed soon after ‘Nevertheless, how this is going to go down will depend on the really, hopefully they know what they’re doing or else things may get a bit messy’ Phil thought as he made the mistake of posting his opinion online for all to see, like and criticize.