Aeva

By all the stars in the galaxy, what was going on? My life used to be simple. Become proficient in weapons, get a nice cushy job on some ship doing security, don’t attract the ire of the captain, and retire in eighty years or so. It was a good plan, and yet here I was. I was carrying a tiny alien that claimed to be the Terran that I knew before, on my way to meet with the captain to talk about Goddess knows what.

I stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the bridge. There were a couple seconds of delay while I waited for the authorization to go to the bridge before the doors finally slid closed and I felt the familiar tug of the elevator moving extremely fast towards our destination. I shuddered and winced as I felt Alex shift himself from sitting on my shoulder to lying on it, gripping tightly to my feathers. “Why’d you move? And your kind of tugging on my feathers pretty hard right now.”

I felt his grip lessen. “Sorry about that, I don’t really want to fall, so that’s why I was gripping so hard. And to answer your question, your guy’s elevators go so fast that if I don’t lie down when going up them, then I can actually pass out due to the blood rushing from my head,” he explained.

“And how do you do that in that suit of yours?” I asked.

“The chair automatically leans back so I don’t pass out. It’s funny, when people were testing out the mechs for the first contact mission, that was one of the things that they were worried about the most.”

I turned my head to get a better look at him. “Really? That was the first thing that you people thought of when you came across us? And are all Terrans as small as you?” I feel like this is the first time that I’ve gotten a straight answer out of him.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it wasn’t the first thing, but it certainly was a concern.” He paused a moment as he collected his thoughts. “I’ll answer that other question, but I feel like the captain is going to want an answer to that question as well, and I don’t feel like repeating myself.’ He yawned deeply. “It’s only been five or six hours into the day and I’m already exhausted. I’m gonna need a nap after this.”

I chuckled. “Me too.” And with that the elevator doors opened, and I walked onto the bridge. I stopped for a moment as I took in the sight of everything going on. People were rushing from station to station, people were shouting, and the overall experience could be described as organized chaos. Then, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me, or more specifically, the tiny alien that was repositioning itself to sit on my shoulder. I even saw a few pull out their communicator and snap a few pictures.

Sitting in the middle of it all was the captain, an Orsier, who had each one of her tentacles on a different console typing things out. I heard Alex whisper to himself, “I forgot the captain was basically a giant squid.” What’s a squid?

“What are you all doing standing around for? Get back to work!” she shouted. Immediately the chaos continued as the captain moved her chair so that she was facing us. The captain pointed us towards a door. “You two, get in there right now.”

Not wanting to disobey the captain, I strode into the room with the captain hot on my heels. I opened the door and stepped in. I found myself in a room decorated from floor to ceiling in expensive, yet tasteful artwork. I guess it’s good to be the captain. I thought as I walked in.

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The captain motioned to a seat in front of a nice desk that I didn’t even notice at first. “Sit, please." I sat down.

Alex then spoke up. “Can you put your hand on the desk?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said, complying with the request. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he started to clamber down my arm, once again using my feathers and armor to get down safely off me and onto the desk.

The captain watched this wordlessly as she started to massage her bulbous head with a couple of her tentacles. “This is going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork, so Aeva, you explain how this even happened, and then you,” she pointed to Alex, “are going to explain what in the twelve hells is going on.”

I nodded and began recounting the last twenty minutes or so, with Alex occasionally jumping in to give some of his insights. The captain was furiously typing our testimony into the system, I presume for later use, and possibly to send to the Terran Embassy ship, Strength Through Diplomacy. If this doesn’t spark an international incident, then I don’t know what will.

As soon as I was done with my story, the captain looked at Alex sitting cross-legged in the middle of the desk. “Alright, spill it. Your species has clearly been lying to the rest of the galaxy for years. All I want to know is why.”

Alex sighed and looked at the desk before looking back up to the captain. “In a few words, Ma’am? Humanity was, and still is, afraid.”

The room fell to silence for a moment. “W-what are you afraid of?” I hesitantly asked.

He spun around until he was looking up at me. “Well, I’m no expert on things like this, but to understand the answer to that question, you have to understand humanity (that’s what we call ourselves, by the way). For all recorded history, up until about ten years or so, humanity has been completely on its own. Our sector of space is completely devoid of life, except for the places that we bring it with us. With all of that said, humanity has had a sample size of one for what to expect with aliens, and humans (that’s what we call ourselves), are generally bastards that can’t be trusted.” He took another deep breath before continuing. “So, imagine our surprise when we discover that not only is there life out in the stars, but there was sapient life as well! We were going to make first contact, when suddenly, we learned that the average alien is anywhere between five to ten times larger than a human.” He took a shaky breath. “Then, some people got to thinking, what if the aliens are just like us? What if they wage war on things that they don’t understand, or simply find threatening? What if they see us as pests instead of fellow sapients? So, efforts were put into making sure that you guys would never find out our true nature. That include the mechs, and never giving out any personal details about us.” He looked straight into my eyes with a pleading that I hadn’t seen before. “We never wanted to lie, but the benefits of lying simply outweighed the costs. We couldn’t risk you guys being just like us.”

I sat there and absorbed everything that he said. “So, everything you’ve said has been a lie?”

He shook his head. “Well, not everything that I told you was a lie. Well… I mean everything about not having a home planet, not breathing oxygen,” that much was obvious at this point, “and not colonizing new planets, those were all lies. But I didn’t lie about that suit breach thing, that did happen.” He got quiet for a moment before looking up at me and speaking again. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I hate lying, and if I knew how often I would have to do it to get this job, I would have taken a job doing security on a human ship.” He looked past me to one of the artworks on the wall. “Maybe it would have turned out differently if I had done that.”

Silence reined in the room for a few more minutes. No one else dared to disturb the silence, so I spoke up. “So… what happens now?”

The captain rubbed her head some more while she said, “Well, I have to send this report to the admiral of the fleet, and I’m sure that you have to send a report of your own to your people.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to have to do that.” He gave a small laugh. “I feel sorry for the poor bastard that’s going to have to sort this whole mess out on our side.” I heard an intense vibrating coming from Alex, as he pulled out a tiny rectangle of what looked like glass and metal. He looked at it and said, “Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear!” He pressed a button on it. “Ambassador Tobias, what can I do for you?”