Red Means Dead

Name. Rank. Ship.

I hear the aliens yelling and my crewmates trying to cajole them before I get to the room. Sliding to a stop, my leg twists out from under me and I come crashing to my knees but in all the chaos and screeching, my approach has gone unnoticed. Scurrying against the closest wall and into the shadows, I rub my throbbing knee, my brain at warp 10 as I try to figure out what is going on.

They are howling and don't sound pleased at our presence here. I try to steady my breathing so that my UT can translate what they're saying but it's only picking up a few words at a time.

"...trespassing!...robbers!...thieves!..."

Lincoln is attempting to reason with them, telling them we come in peace but they don't want to hear it. I hear a weapon power on and the shouting intensifies.

"Not again. Not again not again not again," I whisper, reaching instinctively for my phaser but remembering too late that it was torn from my leg in my haste to return to the landing coordinates. Looking around, I try to find something, anything to use as a weapon only to find one pointed at my head.

Instinctively, I hold my hands above my shoulders and keep my eyes averted to the side as the humanoid steps closer. The stench rolling off it burns my nostrils; it's like rotting feet that have been soaked in ammonia.

"We mean no harm," I declare slowly, risking connecting my eyes with its compound ones. Though the lighting is bad, I can see its pale blue face is all angles, sharp and cutting with dark gray horns that look like broken rocks and sharp, serrated teeth exposed all the way to the hinge of its jaw. It seems to have the most horrifying attributes of the Xindi-Insectoids with a few terrifying enhancements that cause my blood to run cold. It snarls and leans close to take a long drag of my smell before recoiling in disgust.

"What are you?" His voice is sharp, like he's gargling rocks and impossibly deep.

"Human. From the Alpha Quadrant. Sol system."

"Sooooooolllll?" He drawls, turning his head to the side as if trying to taste the word or recall a long lost memory.

I swallow and nod, trying to control my blinking as my eyes water from his stench. "Our star."

His head snaps back at me and he leers. "You have woken us. Why? To kill us?"

"What? No. It wasn't our intention. We thought the ship was abandoned. We came here--"

"To steal from us?!" he seethes. He's close enough now that the barrel of his weapon digs into my collarbone.

I flinch backward just a bit and reason, "No! No. Research! We wanted to know more about your species."

"Spies!"

How do I talk to someone who sees duplicity in every action?

"No! We're scientists. We wanted to make certain your ship was safe from crashing into a planet and continue on our mission to explore space."

"What makes you think your kind is welcome in our space?"

"We mean no harm," I repeat slowly. "We're part of the Federation of Planets. We're peaceful."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You're the one with the weapon pointed at me. Why would I lie?"

Leaning even closer to me so that our faces are nearly touching, I hold my breath and stare back at him, trying to will an ounce of civility into him through his murderous eyes.

We stay in this stalemate for longer than I'm capable and my body starts to protest. My arm quivers and drops fractionally into the light. The alien flicks his attention to the motion and forcefully takes my right hand in his, wrenching it up to his face before shaking it angrily and screaming something that doesn't readily translate but it seems he takes it as a threat. His grip is so tight that the cut in my finger pulses with my racing heart.