Star Fields

Chapter No.16 Contact

Chapter No.16 Contact

The first contact is always the hardest.

The next morning, Molly had bad news. "It appears that this species has a military. I'm seeing what appears to be weapons."

I plopped down in my engineering station. "That's unfortunate. It means that we'll have to present a more aggressive stance if we go down there."

"Is that really necessary?" she asked.

"I don't know, but I do know that we must avoid a confrontation, and the best way is to show superior force. Do we have a sufficient translation of their language?"

"Yes. The universal translator is ready to go."

"Good." I turned to Judy. "I want to go down there in a fighter with twelve troops and two battle droids. We'll also need shuttles to carry the aliens we rescued."

"They will be ready, Jason."

Molly's eyebrows rose. "Wow, you are serious about showing force."

"It should be adequate unless they're suicidal."

A fighter craft is three times larger than a shuttle and is equipped with much more powerful engines and weapons. They're designed to take out enemy vessels in space and ground targets as well as carry troops down to a planet's surface.

Alice and Ellen flew the fighter down through the alien planet's atmosphere and headed for what we assumed was a major metropolis.

"Land in that open area," I ordered while pointing to what looked like a large plaza surrounded by tall buildings.

Aliens scattered back toward the buildings as our fighter craft and shuttles sat down. I waited until I saw aliens gathering to gawk at us before opening the main door to the ramp that had been extended out of the side of our fighter.

Molly and I appeared first and then slowly marched down the ramp, followed by four androids carrying BFG's. The two battle droids appeared next and came down behind us. Either one of them could quickly kill every alien in a group of several thousand that had gathered. They stood eight feet tall and their helmet heads were equipped with plasma beam weapons that could fry everything within several thousand meters. They also had antimatter projectiles that could be shot out at thousands of kilometers per second to blast anything within sight.

I noticed that a group of aliens wearing yellow outfits had gathered at the front of the group facing us. I assumed that they were some sort of officials. I held the universal translator up so that I could speak into it.

"Greetings. We come to you from a planet that is in the same arm of the galaxy that is home to your world. We came here to give you a warning about a species that lives on a planet not far from here and has abducted your people to use as a food source breeding stock. They have done the same with our people. We wish to find these abducted individuals and return them to their respective home worlds."

A group of armed aliens wearing what appeared to be black uniforms appeared as if in formation and rushed up to a position in front of the main group of aliens, who parted to allow them passage to the front. When they raised their weapons, which I assumed to be firearms, I knew that what I did next would make or break this first contact.

"We did not come here to harm you. We are here to help you. However, I warn you that we will retaliate for any violence directed at us. We are not living beings like you. We are sentient machine beings capable of destroying your entire planet."

One of the yellow uniformed aliens, a female, stepped forward and voiced a whistle that echoed around the plaza. The military aliens lowered their weapons.

"You have made a wise decision," I said. "We have rescued some of your people from that planet." I pointed to a bright object in the sky. "They were taken there to be butchered as food." I gave a hand wave to Alice and she issued the command to have the shuttles disperse the rescued aliens.

The aliens observing this began to whistle in a cacophony of sound that was overwhelming. The obvious leader came forward.

"We are grateful for what you have done," my universal translator told me after translating her whistles.

"That planet is not much different than your world," I told her as I presented the data disc that the androids had prepared. "This contains the information that you could use to create machines to travel to that planet and perhaps explore more of your solar system."

She extended her hand, which had only three fingers and took the disc. I was not able to read her emotional reaction, but I assumed it was one of curiosity.

"We see that your communication system relies on collimated beams of light. If you employ that light focused on this disc while rotating it. I'm sure you could figure out how to extract the data."

She gave me a confused look, but she then made her lips twist into what I assumed was a smile before she turned and whistled to someone. This someone was an older male who shuffled up to me and received the data disc from his leader. She then walked back to the other leaders.

The aged alien looked at me and lowered his eyes. "The reason we have not ventured from our planet is that we believe that we are the only intelligent species in the universe. Our god is jealous and doesn't wish for us to know anything other than what she has given us to know."

"I understand," I said. "Unfortunately, there are many intelligent species out there in this galaxy, and some of them are not peace loving like us." I pulled an image of the reptilian alien out of a pocket in my jacket and gave it to him. "We are on a quest to find the locations where this reptilian species is killing and eating other species. They are a very dangerous species and we must be careful not to engage in a war with them, a war that would not solve the problem we are faced with."

He looked at it and shook his head. "I have tried to explain to them that this day would arrive, and they would not believe me. They said it was not what our god wanted."

I smiled. "I understand, my friend. I am surrounded by females."

He twisted his lips and gave me a knowing look before turning and walking back to the leaders. I had said that more to console him rather than state a disdain of the female gender, which I most reverently respected.

I turned up the volume on the universe translator. "We are leaving now and will only return if we find more of your kind." I turned and marched back into our fighter with Molly, the androids and the battle droids.

The fighter and the shuttles returned to our vessel. We had survived the first contact without incident, and I celebrated our success with Molly back in my quarters by drinking beer.

"I was concerned there for a moment," she said as she sipped her beer.

"We'll get better at these contacts," I said. "Think about how humans would have dealt with the same situation."

She shook her head. "They would have started a battle that they would not have won."

"Exactly. We are fortunate that this species had enough sense not to panic."

She took another sip of beer. "Where are we going next?"

"We're going to see if that planet near the reptilian alien's planet has humans."

She frowned for a moment, and I could see in her eyes that she considered that to be a very dangerous mission.