He had his transfer papers shoved into the breast pocket of his lab coat as he sat on deck of Europa station twiddling his thumbs and waiting. He had been here for the last few days, enjoying the amenities of the station which included a shit ton of fast food and more than one descent bar. Despite how nice the station was comparable to the asteroid he had been stuck on for the last year, he was still glad to get off the station and back onto a ship. He wanted to see alien planets, and experience alien things.
Despite having worked in space for the past year or so, he had not, in fact, ever met at alien. He hadn't even seen one from a distance. To his great dismay.
The first time he had ever seen one in real life was on this very station two days ago when a cargo ship full of Tesraki built microchips was transferred in. He knew the military installations did lot of work with the Tesraki considering the Tesraki homeworld was the new East Asia, in terms of manufacturing anyway. A lot of companies outsourced the building of their products to Tesraki since the costs associated were cheaper even with dong it off world.
The Tesraki population was absolutely massive in comparison to the human population, and those of them who weren't too good at economics spent their lives in factories helping to manufacture whatever gadgets the others of their species came up with. Where humans had fought for centuries to break up inequalities like that, the Tesraki had never even considered it.
To them it was less about some sort of injustice and more about that being the way the dice rolled.
If you sucked as an entrepreneur, than you might as well make yourself useful somewhere else.
It was hard to fathom how someone could just accept that as cultural dogma, but all of the species had their little quirks. I mean the Vrul had no problem with some weird sort of authoritarian communism that left most of their people oppressed and in the dark, and the Drev didn't see slaughtering each other at every opportunity to be a moral issue either.
A lot of the thins that humans tended to think about, aliens just didn't.
He supposed that all came down to the fact that humans, unlike any other species, believed deep down that they deserved something better than what they already had. That lead them to protests and innovation and reform. Other species didn't really think in those terms. They thought about what had been done and what worked, and there wasn't much afterthought beyond that.
The Tesraki were probably the most similar to the humans in this regard, in that, they could be greedy little bastards when it was warranted, but it was always economically and not socially.
Warning: airlock in docking bay Alpha engaged.
He lifted his head to the sound and quickly got to his feet, grabbing his duffel bag and hurrying towards the docking bay. Alpha was one of the larger docking bays reserved for ships that were too large to fit o the station. The Primary UNSC fleet ships were the only ones that measured that large, and the only one that was scheduled to land for that day was the Omen.
His new transfer station.
The Omen was the furthest ranging ship in either the GA or the UNSC fleets. It was the second largest known ship that had ever been built by any alien party, aside from the Celzex, thought it seemed unfair to count them considering they probably had the technological capabilities to build themselves a space ship as large as a small moon given a few years.
He turned to stare out the window watching as the massive behemoth was slowly maneuvered into place, micro engines on her port and starboard sides firing with all the delicacy of a hummingbird's wings. She was a beautiful ship, with graceful sweeping lines up and down her hull, and blinking blue lights on top of that. She was a real work of art, probably the most beautiful ship this side of the galaxy.
Some might argue that the Rundi built ships looked better, but he had to disagree. A giant silver sphere can hardly be considered artistic.
But this ship was a real mix of function and style.
She had a certain air of quiet composure but raw churning power. He could see that based on the slow pulsing thrum of her rear engines which were powered primarily by a fusion core. The bright blue light which the engines let off continued to pulse as she was mounted into her docking station. There was a sharp vibration and rumble through the station as she made contact.
She really was impressive, but that was hardly saying much considering her most recent competition didn't even hold a candle to her.
Her predecessor, the Harbinger, had had all the aesthetic appeal of a cinderblock.
To compare her to other ships in the fleet would be like racing NASCAR against snails, both laughable and pointless.
He threw his bag over his shoulder and headed towards the airlock, whose lights were beginning to blink green.
Depressurizing.
There was a sudden gust of wind as the doors began to open, and he was hit in the face by the smell of recycled atmosphere. It's not unpleasant, but it was definitely something he could identify. He waited quietly to one side as a group of ramps hissed down from the docking ports, and men and women from inside the Omen began spilling out. Many of them were moving cargo, but more than a few of them were pushing large sample containers marked hazardous.
He saw a few scientists pushing large carts of glass containers which held alien plant specimens on the inside. He walked over to look at a small striped tree that reminded him vaguely of a candy cane or soemthing from a Dr. Seuss book before it was carted off.
He heard the sound of laughter from inside as a group of marines came walking down the gangway. Their ACUs were some mix of slate grey and blue, which was a style he had not seen on marines during his other stints on other ships, but then again the Omen was a bit of a special case. A cool female voice spoke overhead, thought it was hard to hear what it was announcing.
The marines passed by on his right not noticing him as they continued on their way.
Bag still shouldered he waited for them to pass and then stepped up onto the ship.
He wasn't sure where he was going, but soon enough someone would notice and ask what he was doing, and then he would find out where he really needed to go. Stepping inside the cargo hold he was stopped in his tracks almost immediately as a large group of basketball sized fluffballs rolled past him. He nearly jumped out of his skin taking a step back for fear of stepping on one of them.
He heard was Celzex could do to you if their honor was breached, and he didn't really want to have to experience that.
They popped out of their roll next to the gangway, and he heard them chattering in their strange, high pitched language.
He reached up to turn on his translator and tilted his head to listen.
"Admiral's orders."
He caught only the end of the conversation as they finished and rolled away down the gangway and out onto the station. He had read the reports, knew all the statistics, and he knew just how much of a threat the Celzex could potentially be. He had worked on some pretty classified projects in his time and that had given him access to lots of documents he probably shouldn't have been allowed to see, one of those being a document that had been written specifically bout the kind of threats that the Celzex posed.
They were the most advanced species in all the known universe.
So advanced it was even a wonder they stooped to speak with lower lifeforms.
The Celzex weren't exactly forthcoming about their technological capabilities, but the UNSC analysts estimated that if they were capable of destroying planets, then they were likely capable of other things. Granted it is not particularly polite to spy on your own allies, but analysis of their solar system, which was also heavily classified to the point even the Celzex didn't know the humans knew where it was, had determined an unknown megastructure at the center of their solar system, or one of their solar systems. It was something that could not be seen by a telescope but had the gravity of a small star. There seemed to be a lot of activity in and around that particular solar system, which had some scientists believing that the Celzex had succeeded in creating the, currently still hypothetical, Dyson sphere, and were using it to harvest vast amounts of energy from the star itself.
This is why Celzex weapons and technologies were so powerful.
In fact, this was another reason that the Omen was such a gem to the UNSC and GA fleets. Or less of a gem and more like the crowning jewel costing billions of trillions of dollars simply because it was the only non Celzex ship that contained Celzex crew members and Celzex weaponry. Though it had never been tested to full power, the Omen was theorized to be capable of glassing planets larger than earth.
Files also indicated it to be very unlikely they would ever find out.
Admiral Vir was not a man known to resort to violence as his first option.
This was probably the reason that the man had managed to gain the loyalty of the Celzex, which was both a blessing and a curse to the UNSC and GA. Of course it was a blessing because it likely kept the egomaniacal tyrannical creatures on the right side, but the UNSC and the GA were under no delusions that the Celxzex were not honor bound to the GA, but to Admiral Vir himself.
No one really knew what the man had done to ear their loyalty to begin with, though rumors had spread that he had recently saved the life of their supreme emperor.
Some thought it was as simple as him just taking them seriously and treating them with honor and respect.
Honor and respect was very important in their strange culture, and it was almost as if they were honor bound to respect those who respected them first. It was complicated to think about, and made him feel rather nervous. They could be easily insulted and had enough fire power to atomize him. He spent a lot of his time worrying about things these days. With all the files ha had seen, he was sure that the only thing holding this universe together was Admiral Vir and the power of friendship.
One might have thought that he was joking, but he really wasn't.
He was only being mildly facetious when he said the "power of friendship."
It was true, the man had managed to get the GA into peace talks by rolling over and showing his belly like a dog, treating the Celzex with respect and teaching the Rundi how to play tag. Wherever the man went he seemed to manage to make friends with absolutely everyone. The only species he didn't have a good relationship with were the Bran, who didn't matter much in the first place considering they were a small species with a relatively low population compared to everyone else, and the Iotans who were known to be morose and secretive anyway.
Otherwise, the man was friends with almost everyone. He was the GA golden boy which meant the Rundi liked him. The Celzex were part of his crew, including lord Avex, the supreme emperor Lord Celex's favorite son, he wore a Tesraki made mechanical eye and had a dedicated team of the creatures doing his finances, he saved the Finari race from genocide, was the only person in the known universe who could speak with the starborn, had a dedicated cult to him from the Tvek, and even had good relations with the Adaptid queen who had forced him to carry an egg sack for the harvesting of human DNA. He was even on first hand speaking terms with the Burg regent despite not being there for the saving of his home-world. Not to mention, He was part of two Drev clans, sentinel of one, and dating the saint of Anin.
Of course, that little bit of information was classified.
Yes, the UNSC knew about it, they weren't stupid, and if a bunch of jar head marines could figure it out than it wasn't going to be hard for the behavioral analysts Iin the basement of the UNSC headquarters. They kept tabs on everyone important from a distance, monitored their moods, their health, and their metal stability. Admiral Vir was on the top of that list considering how important he was, so it hadn't taken them long to determine the man was more than friends with his chief weapons officer.
Did they care?
Not really. Who he wanted to spoon wasn't all that important unless you were considering the impact something like that would have if it got out. There was a good time and a bad time for that to be released to the public and now was not the time. They had even squashed a few stories and speculations about that in local tabloids back on earth just to avoid getting the isolationist's panties in a bunch. There was a lot going on behind the scenes, and there had been plenty of scares as the man went through a few cycles of mental instability.
There had been conversations about getting rid of him before. With his PTSD and constant exposure to stressful situations everyone was wondering if it was even a good idea to keep him on in the position he was in. Some of them wondered if they shouldn't just dispose of him quietly and replace him with someone more stable, though those considerations were only being done in the lowest level of the Galactic Intelligence Agency, and had never moved past theoretical discussions.
Getting rid of the man would have been a bad idea.
When admiral Vir died, he needed to die in a way that would ring the whole universe together. Better allow him to make more friends in the meantime so his eventual death would be more impactful.
It sounded callous, but someone had to be around to think about these sort of eventualities.
He wasn't a part of it.
In fact, he wasn't even sure why he ha been allowed to see those documents.
He was a Xenobiologist and had only been involved to give them his analysis on the different species if war were to break out. He was an expert on the Celzex and was the only man known to have acquired one of their bodies for testing. It had been a very quiet thing, and he would probably be assassinated if any of the Celzex ever found out abut it considering that dishonoring the corpses of the fallen was kind of a big deal in their culture.
But he tried not to think about that, pushing it to the back of his mind as he stepped onto the deck and continuing forward, looking down at his feet to make sure he wasn't going to step on anyone that could blow him up.
Because of this he was quick to notice and step around the group of Tesraki that walked past him, and right into a Group of three finnari huddled together in a large group. Based on their past as slaves to the Gnar'lak, the Finnari had developed an evolutionary need to be in as large a group as possible for protection and comfort.
They were known to attach themselves to pretty much anyone. They looked up at him with their prismatic yellow eyes, sensing his body heat. They were a rather fascinating species, and he would love to take a look at them in more depth.
"Good morning." He said
They huddled together nervously.
"Good morning." They said in unison.
He allowed them to pass and continued on his way up the hall dodging past others going in the opposite direction.
"Hey Thomas!" A tall very beautiful woman passed him on the right tying a red and yellow bandana tight against her shaved head.
"Narobi." A man sad from down the hall.
He looked a lot like Admiral Vir, and guessing by the features of his face, he might have said the two of them were related.
"Hazad wants to speak with you."
"I'm on it, thanks."
"No problem." She said cutting around the next corner. Thomas passed him on his right. He was taller than the Admiral, with a different eye color, but there was definitely a resemblance. Admiral Vir had three brothers and one sister, so it probably wasn't a surprise.
This would be the second youngest brother then.
The recovering addict.
Yes they kept files on his family too.
The man barely looked at him as he passed by hurrying into one of the nearest rooms.
He continued up the hallway and then into the elevator coming out on a floor where he could hear a high pitched sort of shrieking which dissolved into screaming over his translator.
"YOU IDIOT, YOU BUFFON, YOU COMPLETE INGRATE MORONIC SLAP HAPPY-!"
That would be Dr Krill he presumed.
Now there was a creature the behavioral analysists loved to look at. He was funny on the surface but they had some theories on his behavior which included systemic brainwashing done by the Vrul council. Based on his neural scans he had no reason to be as neurotic as he was, none of the Vrul did, but there was a theory going around that they were programmed to be nervous by their own council.
Surprisingly Krill was one of the most stable members of his species.
He stopped as he listened to the yelling when he saw something strange coming slithering up the hall towards him. He stopped and it stopped too lifting it's head to look at him. It was about six feet long, a sort of red purple in color with one large eye and a set of frills and spines around it's back and head. He recognized it as specimen 1-462 Fruxiserpere Jeffereyi. He had read the report on this creature, and had been quite fascinated by it.
It was supposed to be friendly.
He crouched on the ground and offered a hand to the creature as it slithered closer.
"hello there."
It pulled up and raised itself like a cobra.
It's mouth opened smelling at him the same way a snake might just without the tongue.
He held the back of his hand up for the creature who leaned in close.
He could feel its hot breath on his skin.
"May I?" He asked as it closed its mouth, holding out a hand.
It slithered forward into his outstretched palm allowing him to pick it up as he stood.
He gently ran his finger down the length of its body feeling its skin and muttering to himself.
"Very interesting."
He gently flexed one of the spines
Then tickled the creature under the chin to get it to open its mouth so he could take a better look, "He would love to have his tools with him.
"Jeffery, what are you doing?'
He looked up, and so did Jeffrey.
Admiral Vir was leaning out the door to the infirmary and frowned upon seeing someone he didn't recognize.
The man set Jeffery down and let him slither away.
He walked over and held out a hand, "Jack Wilson, I'm transferring into your biology department."
Admiral Vir nodded and took his hand, "Ah yes, Now I remember."
Of course he would, there was a rumor going around the UNSC that the man personally reviewed all of the crew files before letting them on his ship. Supposedly he was looking for compatibility with a crew that tended towards a little unorthodox.
Speaking of which was the man wearing a beanie knit to look like a squid?
Had he been dared to wear that or had he just decided to.
He was holding a completely straight and professional face so it was hard to tell.
Oh well, he would have to see.