Outside the Ship, it was raining death.

Swarms of screaming monstrosities broke against our atmosphere, their fleshy bodies burning up. More were coming, spewing from the Moon's unnatural spires.

I still can’t believe how lucky we were; the Plague had not yet adapted to our air, our friction.

The world’s most brilliant engineering minds were already working on the Ship’s engines - trying to turn them on. The rest of humanity waited on them. Prayed for them. Wished they would work just a little faster.

The Plague reached blindly for us, aching to touch our Earth. To corrupt and devour it.

The bad news? It was already evolving. Shapes began to emerge from the spires, like bell-shaped Jellyfish made of veiny, purpling flesh. Hordes of them began to drift towards our planet, their slow forms pulsing as they sailed across the gap between the Moon and Earth.

I suspected these jellyfish would survive entry into our atmosphere. And when they touched ground...

How long did we have? Days? No, more like hours.

I hated being so useless.

“Sir, you’re doing it again. ” Sonya said. “You’re stomping.”

Sonya was my right hand, and I couldn’t have gotten anywhere without her.

We were in my makeshift Office, an apartment in a high-rise on the low tiers of the Ship. She was wearing a dark blue suit that almost looked like a military uniform. Her short hair was kept in a simple undercut that swept away from her eyes.

Sonya was standing in the middle of the office, while I stomped slow circles around the perimeter as if I could somehow crush my own frustration under my feet.

“How many people are left?” I asked.

“All who wished to board are on the Ship, Sir. We are cleared for liftoff.”

If, I thought, If we can get the engines working. And that was ignoring the fact that no human had ever piloted an alien vessel before. There were too many unknowns. Our survival depended on too many “firsts” for humanity.

What else could we do but try?

My feet carried me to the window, to gaze out on the new cityscape below. People were running back and forth, carrying furniture or building supplies. Anything to feel like they were being helpful. Anything to keep their minds off of the situation.

“And what about our guest?” I asked. “How is the Alien?”

“Uncooperative. Someone already suggested we try to torture it into answering our questions.”

I snorted. “That didn’t take long.”

“Sir, if you go down there, they will listen to you. I know it.”

“Sonya,” I shook my head, “Right now, everyone with a badge or a diploma is trying to muscle their way in to see the Alien. What good is another tired, old man going to do? I don’t know a damn thing about Aliens.”

“That’s not how they see you. That’s not how anyone sees you.”

“There are countless people down there who are better equipped to handle this.”

“Better equipped, maybe. But they are all failing.”

“And what makes you think I would succeed?”

“The Pacific Accords.”

“Sonya, that was an absolute massacre.”

“Until you took hold of it. You showed up, and you lead all of those self-inflated warmongers down the path to peace. And you made each and every one of them think that peace was their idea.”

“That doesn’t make me an expert. Sonya, my time as a force on the global stage is done.”

I leaned against the window, and let out a sigh that had been building up inside of me.

“Sir,” Her voice snapped me to attention. “Would you drop the self pity?”

Her hands were clenched, her knuckles white. That was the closest I had ever seen Sonya to losing her patience.

I arched an eyebrow at her.

“Who do you think is down there right now?”

“Well,” I said, not sure where she was headed. “The President, for one.”

“No, Sir. It’s all the presidents. All the politicians. All the generals. All the CEOs. Everyone who thinks they’re anyone is down there right now, demanding to speak with the Alien. But the Alien finds us repulsive. We’re like termites to it, we’ve invaded it’s home. And all those pompous presidents and overly-decorated generals… they’re just pissing it off.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Go down there, and show those puffed-up idiots how to be humble.”

“You want me to beg the Alien for help?”

“Nobody else will. They’re too proud.”

I glanced at the live feed on the screen. A wall of Jellyfish pulsating as they sailed across the void. A timer counted down the time until planetfall, and I did not like what I saw. Short was the hour.

Sonya pressed her assault, “The Alien needs a velvet touch from an iron hand. Who else, but you, Sir?”

Damn her. She always knew how to provoke my ego.

“Fine. Let’s go say hello.”

----------------------------------------

DARE YOU TO GAZE UPON ME?

It did not have a voice. Instead, it spoke directly into my mind. There was a sound like a hundred voices screaming in unison.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I COULD MELT YOUR MIND WITH A SINGLE THOUGHT.

The Alien, as far as I understood it, was an incorporeal being. What was left of its body existed inside an enormous sarcophagus that hung suspended in the center of the room. The sarcophagus the size of a large coffin. Ornate designs danced slowly over its surface, glowing and glinting and refracting light.

It was supported by nothing that I could see, yet it appeared to be solidly fixed in space.

The renowned Doctor Zhang Ming Hui was walking slowly around the sarcophagus, careful to stay out of its shadow. She alternated between squinting her eyes at the designs and furiously scribbling notes on her tablet.

When I first entered the Alien’s Chamber, I tried to introduce myself.

“Hello,” I said, holding out my hand, “I’m-

“Don’t care,” Doctor Zhang brushed past me. She had eyes only for the sarcophagus.

A few other VIPs loitered at the entrance of the Chamber. Presidents and Chancellors who wanted to watch, but were “too important to risk.” Right.

I followed Doctor Zhang’s steady pace around the Sarcophagus, following her intense gaze, trying to see what she was seeing.

“Can it control the ship from here?” I asked.

“If it wasn’t disabled, it could,” she said. She did not look up from her notes, her eyes were only for the Alien.

“And we’re sure it can’t hurt us?”

“Yes. Didn’t they tell you this in the briefing?”

I shrugged, trying to project nonchalance. But inside, I was a nervous wreck. This was first contact, dammit. At least, it was my first time making contact. I was supposed to talk to an Alien being.

And, above all else, I had to somehow convince this Alien to save the whole human species. What was I supposed to say? Where do you begin?

I stopped at the front of the Sarcophagus. Tilted my head up, and cleared my throat.

GET OUT OF MY SHIP.

The sarcophagus blazed with light as the alien’s voice threatened to split my head open. Not exactly the start I was hoping for. I tried to ignore the voices in my head.

“My name is Regi,” I spoke at the sarcophagus. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

YOU DISGUST ME, WORM.

I sighed. So it was going to be like this.

“Look, we don’t have time to do this. But I think I know what you want.”

EVEN IF YOU HAD A THOUSAND MILLENIA, YOU WOULD STILL BE INCAPABLE OF COMPREHENDING MY DESIRES.

“Fine,” I said, trying to keep the frustration from my voice, “We’re small. You’re big. But right now, we’re both stuck in the same situation. I know you don’t want us here, but it seems you are physically incapable of operating your ship. Maybe we can help each other.”

KEEP YOUR DISGUSTING APPENDAGES OFF OF MY SHIP, WORM.

“You would rather die than work with us?”

I AM THE GREATEST OF THE CREATORS. I WILL NOT DIE, FOR I AM DESTINED TO ASCEND.

“Well, unless you’re going to ascend in the next forty-two minutes…”

I let the thought hang in the air, waiting for the Alien to pick it up.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

“They’re all gone. The Plague has destroyed everything. Even that ring your kind put around our Sun has collapsed. We are the only ones left.”

The Sarcophagus blazed.

IMPOSSIBLE.

And then, it went dark. There was a stretch of silence. I turned around, to see Doctor Zhang scrawling down more notes, and the grim-faced VIPs muttering amongst themselves. I tried hard not to look at my watch, agonizing as the seconds slipped through our fingers. What the hell was I doing here? These might be the last minutes of humankind, and I was wasting them.

The Sarcophagus lit up once again.

WORM.

“I am a human. Not a worm.”

The Sarcophagus glowed fiercely. Doctor Zhang gave me a look that said, you should not have done that. Turns out I’m not that humble, either.

HUMAN, THEN. YOU MUST PROMISE ME ONE THING.

My heart skipped a beat.

THIS SHIP IS FILLED WITH MY WORKS. KNOWLEDGE BEYOND COMPARE.

BUT MY GREATEST WORK IS YES UNFINISHED. WITHOUT IT, GOD WILL NOT SMILE UPON ME. WITHOUT IT, I CAN NOT ASCEND.

SWEAR THAT YOU WILL NOT STEAL IT. ONLY THEN WILL I COOPERATE.

I turned to Doctor Zhang. God? Great works? I had so many questions. Fortunately, Zhang could read my face like a book.

“The Alien worships knowledge. They hoard it like a billionaire hoards dollars. This one thinks he’s built something worthy of his, uh, God, as he says. He intends to finish this creation and present it to his God in exchange for ascension - whatever that means.”

“What does he mean by ‘steal?’”

Doctor Zhang sighed, and finally looked up from her notes.

“From what I can gather, their species operates under a zero-sum game of technological advancement. The first one to offer new technology to their God receives all credit, even if they did not create it. This means, despite the large armada we saw earlier, their social structure is isolationist and very cutthroat. Backstabbing is commonplace. And, subsequently, an unhealthy dose of paranoia.”

“So, they’re just like us then?”

Doctor Zhang did not laugh. I was just trying to lighten the mood. It’s only the end of the world.

WELL, HUMAN? WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER?

The symbols and designs writhed over the sarcophagus, blazing with light.

“So, the only thing you want… is our promise that we we won’t steal the credit for your greatest work?”

YES.

“We will make this promise, and we will keep it.”

A thought alighted in my mind, as bright and light as a dove carrying an olive branch.

“And, I want to promise you something else. You will have access to all of our greatest minds. Anything you want to know, we will tell you. We wish to share with you the sum of all human knowledge.”

YOU… GIVE KNOWLEDGE… WILLINGLY?

“It’s a gift. It may not be much, compared to what you already know, but perhaps you will find something of use among our greatest minds.”

HUMAN...

A pause, but the Sarcophagus was still ablaze. My heart was caught in my throat.

MY ANSWER IS YES.

Incredible.

I tried not to look too smug, but it’s hard when you’ve just saved the entire human race. I wiped my hand down my mouth to hide my smile. Emotions could come later. Right now, we had work to do - and almost no time to do it.

I turned to Doctor Zhang. Before I could say anything, she pushed past me by saying, “Already on it.”

Look, if you’re reading this, you might think the part I played was important. But this account is biased. In truth, I was nothing more than a small linchpin in the machine of human ingenuity. All credit should go to true heroes: The engineers. The physicists and the theoreticians and the hands of a million tradesmen who actually got the machine to work.

I was nursing a well-deserved whisky back in my office when it happened.

My drink kicked harder than the engines did. The only sign we had that the ship was in motion was the long stream of multi-lingual PA announcements, telling everyone to stay alert.

Someone had attached a camera to the Ship’s exterior, and was live streaming the blue light from the engines. You could see the Earth’s crust crumble and cave in on itself, vomiting up mountains of magma as our massive Ship - carrying all of Humanity and one particularly feisty Alien - left the planet.

Earth.

That was the last time we saw her.

And the Sun, too, though all yellow dwarves look the same. But our Sun was crawling with the black cancer of the Plague, snuffing out its light.

As our Ship gathered speed, glowing brighter and brighter as we drifted out of the Solar System, I let myself believe that everything was going to be fine. That the Plague was too slow to follow us.

I let myself believe that we were headed to our new home…

But nothing is ever that easy.

----------------------------------------

Where should we go?

They put it to a vote. Someone suggested the nearest goldilocks planet. Someone else said we should range farther. A sect of astronomers suggested the center of the Galaxy, and another sect vehemently disagreed.

Doctor Zhang was the only one smart enough to ask the Alien:

“Where should we go?”

That’s when we learned that the Plague was not an isolated anomaly.

IT SPREADS.

IT GROWS.

WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING IT FOR CENTURIES. NOW, THERE IS ONLY ONE SAFE PLACE:

MY EMPIRE.

IT IS HIDDEN. IT IS MIGHTY. THERE, I WILL SHOW YOU A CITY LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN, CARVED OF PURE LIGHT.

So, that’s where we decided to go.

I was halfway through my second glass of whisky, trying to let go of my adrenaline. All of humanity was preparing to break the speed of light.

“Are we supposed to do something to get ready for this?” I asked Sonya.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Sonya, the eminent professional, was finally out of her depth. We all were. Even the Alien had no idea what was coming…

Reality began to shimmer. And shake. And, like passing under a waterfall, everything lurched back into focus.

In a moment, we were there. The Alien’s empire. Cities made of light. Works beyond your imagination. Et cetera.

“Huh,” I said, looking out of the Camera. “I expected there to be more.”

Outside, space was blacker than usual.

No planets. No shining cities. Not even the glow of a pale moon.

Twin stars sat motionless at the center of the system. Both of them, black and dead. Riddled with holes and overgrown with spires of fleshy, mindless matter.

I felt a voice rise up from the depth of the Ship.

Confused. Disbelieving. And, above all, in pain.

IT’S GONE. IT’S ALL GONE.