The coffee had proven to be most desirable, and it gave me that familiar feeling of energy that the equivalent from home did. Of course, the caffeine was the only similarity, but that was enough for a nice little bit of nostalgia. The humans had left, so I elected to take the cup and one of the apples back to my room. If this drink was of any similarity to those of home, I wouldn’t be sleeping, maybe I could spend more time on the laptop. I was also growing tired of the uniform once again, it was not designed for comfort, and a new set of leisure clothes had been placed in my room, probably when I was in the medbay. I’d have to ask if my uniform could be cleaned once again.

Something specific was clawing at me, a thought I had earlier. Based on what I had seen, humans developed and used weapons of mass destruction before using the technology in logistical roles. This ship had antimatter weapons, as well as an antimatter reactor. Therefore, logic dictates they must have used antimatter in combat before. Maybe there was information about it on the “internet” like I had found about nuclear weapons. Doubtful, I was incredibly surprised to even see as much information as I had on the nukes, let alone humanity’s history with them. Most species tend to lock down their history and keep it to themselves, which only made me more worried. If two cities being destroyed was public information, what else had the humans done they didn’t feel could be made available to anyone?

Coffee has an interesting effect. My body was tired but the caffeine was doing its job. A strange feeling, being physically tired but mentally wide awake. One that could no doubt be remedied by being wrapped in the soft cloth on the bed while also reading about morbid events from human history. Truly the best of both worlds.

The instant feeling of privacy and relief one feels when closing the door to their personal space would sell out quickly if made into a drug. The humans had been nothing but accommodating, but they were strangers to me, even Sergeant Gerrick. It was good to have solitude. Best of all was taking the awful pins I had in my hair as a part of my uniform. It felt like my scalp was being pulled on all day, having white hair obscuring my vision was preferable. Even when off the human ship, taking them out and letting my hair just fall around me aimlessly was one of the best things I regularly experienced.

It was probably my imagination, but the human uniforms looked much more comfortable on them. Less tight and more intuitive. I’m sure they hate their uniforms too though. I can’t imagine the intelligence of those who designed our uniform is very high. Every time I take the top off it succeeds in getting caught on the scales on my neck and shoulders no less than four times. That was the benefit of the human clothes provided being very baggy, they just slipped on. The shirt still didn’t go all the way to the waist of the sweat pants, but it was more comfortable than laying in a tight uniform. I briefly wondered why the shirt was white when the military aesthetic of the humans had been green or light brown so far. It had to be a somewhat comedic sight, me being just this amorphous blob of white, with my hair blending in with the clothes.

It was interesting to see small aspects of human culture through their appearance. So far, the males seemed to have shorter hair, compared to the longer hair I had seen on the females. It wasn’t a requirement though, because I had met a male with long hair. All of the males in military dress had short hair though, which must be regulated. It made sense, long hair can be used against oneself in a fight, as it can be grabbed. The humans solved this by simply cutting their hair. We solved it by forcing it all behind our ears with pins, cutting our hair was very uncommon. Curious that we’d both develop extra hair on only the top of our heads. The answer was almost certainly not very interesting, it doesn’t take a genius to realize both our species are just exposed to UV radiation from our host star, and the hair protects us.

This bed would need about another foot added to the end to allow me to completely stretch out. Luckily, I was plenty comfortable to fold up a bit. It would be easier to hold the laptop that way, as I learned that it was portable, it had impressive battery life, and you simply needed to place it back on the desk in order to charge it.

The humans seemed to prioritize simplicity in their stored information. When you opened the search engine, you could tell it was modified for the military ship. It had a notice of the last date the ship was close enough to human space to get new information. Therefore, all the information on the internet here was a tad bit old. Additionally, under the search text box were news articles from Earth on various topics. Politics, weather, private companies, government decisions… The weather was surprisingly more eye-catching than expected. Supposedly a massive hurricane was due to strike the Southern United States. There was a map to go along with it. eleven million people had evacuated from “Florida” in preparation. Based on the date, this hurricane would have already hit by now.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

There was an oversaturation of political news articles. Though most of them were concerned about the run in the UN had with the Floriacians. Unnerving to see articles dismissing them, calling them nothing but disorganized pirates. They had no idea what had happened on this ship yet. Earth was blissfully unaware of how much danger it was in. I came to read about things other than politics or weather, and so far current news from Earth was quite depressing.

All of human history was completely accessible by me. This would probably not be the case for long as humanity meets more civilizations. If they keep this public, everyone will be able to learn pretty much all they need to know about human strategies.

The first result that came up when I searched “Wars in human history” sent chills down my spine. An article titled “List of wars by death toll.” Even more chilling was the fact that it had been recently edited to show “domestic” wars. Did that mean they were preemptively preparing to catalog a possible war with the Floriacians? Gods, the wars were organized into countries. Somehow they had intimate knowledge of conflicts that happened multiple thousands of years ago. You can learn a lot about a species by how they treat their history. Most species that are ashamed of theirs will hide it behind regulation and censorship, yet that wasn’t the case with the humans. There were plenty of articles discussing the atrocities committed by various groups. They called them “War Crimes” which was an oxymoron if I had ever heard one. This was infinitely more interesting than the wars themselves. I’d have to read about them.

What I found scared me more than anything I had learned up until this point. I had been operating under the false assumption that this “United Nations” was an effort to unite Earth under one government. I was very wrong. No, the UN existed to regulate war. The implication being that the humans are so terrified of what they are capable of, that they need to tell themselves not to enslave people, torture prisoners, intentionally attack civilians and many more ideals that should be common sense.

Never had I felt more conflicted. Was this admirable or terrifying? Could it be a little bit of both? Was I repulsed because I simply didn’t understand it? Accounting for personal bias has been the most exhausting thing I had done during this trip. Maybe I needed a break.

It wasn’t until I swung my legs off the bed to stand up that I even remembered I had only recently been treated for a giant piece of glass shrapnel in my thigh. Despite the anatomical differences, the medicine they gave me worked. It was just slightly discolored and sore now, a far cry from the large wound gushing pink blood it had been previously.

The coffee was cool enough to not just sip now. It was much better to be able to take sizable swigs rather than trying to enjoy it while it is trying to melt the inside of my mouth. The female had said they usually mix sugar in it because of the bitter taste. Curious, their taste buds must work differently, this was a flavor I usually prefer, what they call bitter. Though that was the last thing I had been thinking about when I met them. The only thing in my head at the time was “How are humans a predator species when they seemingly have no natural weapons to speak of?” Evolution was odd like that. It did shed light on what I had learned about the UN, though. For their entire existence as a species, humans have had to rely on their ability to create weapons to survive, and it stands to reason that after thousands of years of this they’d create such destructive instruments that they’d be afraid of themselves.

I sighed and rubbed my face. I am apparently incapable of not turning every thought I have into a long tangent that leaves me standing in the middle of the room blankly staring at the wall. There was a large integrated mirror in the corner of the room. It was quite entertaining to stare at myself in these clothes, it was almost like a costume. Humorous how most humans were much shorter than me but I had complete confidence that most of them could kill me with relative ease. At least it would be a quick way to go given what I had seen, well, if they used a firearm anyway.

Now that I had seen a variety of humans I could understand why they attempted to use their own civilities when greeting me. In general, it had been pretty easy for me to determine the sex of each human I had interacted with thus far. Looking at myself, parts of me resembled traits both male and female humans had. It must be quite confusing to them. Understandable though, if a species grew up with that level of sexual dimorphism, it makes perfect sense they’d develop language around it. It wasn’t that my species didn’t have male versus female biology, just that it had so little impact on our lives that we just didn’t really care. You’d never know what each of us was unless you asked, and that was personal information we rarely disclosed unless with a partner.

Ugh, the whole purpose of me using the laptop again was to see how humans had used antimatter and I distracted myself again. I seriously needed more self-control. Back to the search engine. Let’s see… “antimatter weapons”.

I’ll be damned. “After the first antimatter reactor was put into use a resolution passed by the UN declared any and all development of weaponized antimatter to be a violation of international law.”