The last few days have been a blur. There wasn't even time to think. It felt like everything was on fire. The second something was fixed, there was another problem, and we were always running behind.

As I sit here, in the former command center of New Eden, I estimate less than a 50% chance of our survival. It is unlikely our plans will coalesce in time, and we are minutes from the humans returning the signal.

I should have listened. I should have never left to send the signal. Do I regret it? Maybe.

The humans have banded together in a way I thought impossible. They have stopped just about all wars, and those still raging are being heavily mediated. The human news estimates world peace in less than a year. World peace! Unbelievable!

There is talk of a unified currency, and turning the Geneva Conventions into a global bill of rights. They are even working toward solving climate change. The proof of extraterrestrial life appears to have pushed humanity together in a way it never has before. And I may very well have doomed them all to death in about one hour and fifteen minutes.

The first contact team is almost silent in our makeshift ship. All of us are going over plans and backup plans. There are fifteen worked-out responses depending on how they respond. I read them, over and over again. I will not be speaking, Loki insisted on Lou being our mouthpiece. Her siren abilities are the strongest ever recorded, and Loki wants her on hand to influence the humans toward peace. He was never one to leave things up to chance.

Oberon elected to come along. Puck really wanted to be the one to come on this mission, but Oberon overruled her. She is apparently one of the few technical and engineering geniuses we had, and he wanted her working on the fleet of ships we needed to miracle out of thin air. It was for the best. While fey tend to heal quickly, Puck was seriously injured and her injuries likely wouldn't be healed enough to last through a battle if she needed to.

Oberon basically serves as our defense system. He has surrounded the craft in illusion magic so it is invisible to sensors and the naked eye. If they fire on us, he will open a fair portal and have the weapon bypass us entirely. Unfortunately, all this magic is exhausting, so Thor and Balin added runes and magic to the hull of our little tin can so Oberon only has to initialize the cloaking to keep us hidden. Otherwise, we might lose our cloak long before the humans responded to the signal.

Belenus is here to provide propulsion. He Phoenix fires us to wherever we need to be. The problem is that Phoenix teleportation and fey teleportation do not mix at all. If Belenus tries to move us and Oberon tries to defend us at the same time, and their forms of teleportation collide, we will explode at the very least. They ran some drills in old cars earlier to try to come up with a system should we get caught in a real space battle. Of the 43 drills, only one car survived. It wasn't the last one either, they destroyed three cars after their successful drill before Remus told them to stop and conserve their energy for the battle.

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Remus is along as our tactician. He tried to convince Loki to stay on Mars, arguing that his engineering skills would be needed there. Loki, and every other elder, argued that his abilities would be necessary to negotiate a peaceful end to all of this with both Ra and the humans.

Speaking of Ra, Isis came along… only Loki seems to know why. Maybe to convince Ra to stand down? Or as a shield to prevent Ra from killing us all?

Samara and Lilith came to act as weapons. Both are well-skilled at offensive, distance magic. They are confident they can cast spells to take out any military target the humans may decide to deploy, and they have spent the past two days sneaking into nuclear facilities and painting them as targets. I'm not sure how, but they seem confident they can take them off the board without hurting anyone if they need to.

And then there is me. I am here to provide insight into the human's state of mind and help manipulate them into trusting us. Hestia was able to set up our ship to tap into the internet, so between reading the possible message responses, I am scrolling through various related subs on Reddit, and looking at memes. The humans are all over the place, hope is laced with fear and the memes reflect that.

I feel like we are falling off a cliff and the only way we survive is luck.

The silence in the cabin is thick with worry. Only Belenus would survive our ship being destroyed, but the lack of oxygen in the outside environment would put him in a kind of stasis until he reached an atmosphere where he could burn and start over. Until then, he would be stuck, immobile, trapped in his own mind. I would argue that is the worse fate.

Everyone startles when the human response signal comes beeping in. It starts with a confirmation of the alphabet sent in the first signal, followed by an extension of the idea we were using to communicate, to confirm we are using the same language.

Then the real message begins.

"This is the United Nations of Earth responding to the signal we received 20 solar days ago. We understand your concerns about our environment and are correcting the issue. We would like to establish a diplomatic relationship. We have included a detailed file translating this language to one of our languages in the hopes we may meet with a small contingent face-to-face. Potential coordinates for the meeting to follow. If they are acceptable, please provide a time."

"That is better than we hoped," Remus says, "unless it is a trap."

"Doesn't make sense to set a trap like that," Loki mumbles in reply, reading over the message again, "we are more technologically advanced than they are. Killing us would have drastic consequences and they know it."

"It is possible they think we would not use violence against them for fear of upsetting the balance," Samara points out.

"Mmmm… True," Loki agrees, "but we made it clear that the global ecosystem must be in balance. They contribute to ecosystem collapse, and they know it."

"I also tried to convey that idea when I recorded the signal," Lou signs, and Loki translates.

"So… respond with message one?" Oberon suggests, "It is our best ca—"

The proximity alarms blare.

Ra has arrived.