It was hard to contain my excitement. Bav'ka had finished explaining my scans to everyone. It turns out the gravity on Earth was similar to every other planet except the antwyn and jyngt home worlds. The jyngt's because the gravity was stronger and the antwyn's because it was way less. However I learned that aside from the one thing I could eat pretty much everything they had, whether I would like it or not it would be up to me.
I had also been given a glass of water. Honestly it tasted amazing but then again I had been drinking recycled and filtered water from massive tanks on my ship. So anything was better than that. It was passable but that didn't mean I liked it.
I looked over at Gal'rug as we moved out of the sterile medical bay. "So..." I trailed off before I went up on my toes, my hands behind my back. "Before we go to the crystal garden can I get my phone from my ship so I can take pictures?" I asked it quickly and he gave a bark of laughter and slapped my shoulder, nearly causing me to hit the floor. I managed to catch myself but it was a close one.
"Of course, Rox'ie." He grabbed my shoulder and gave it a rather friendly squeeze and I smiled at him. This was honestly one of the best days of my life. "I believe the grog will be one of the first to embrace you as siblings in this union, you love battle and ethanol. I cannot believe you have just as many variations as we do!" I continued to grin at him as he said it. I had learned that fermenting vegetables and fruits and distilling alcohol was a massive part of grog culture. He had been absolutely over the moon when I told him that we were similar and that we had many variations of how to distill and make alcohol.
He lead me down the hall and I walked behind him and next to At'kat'vo. "So your species doesn't drink?" I asked it casually and his antenna twitched.
"No. We cannot consume ethanol. It causes extreme heat distress and our nervous systems shut down. Very painful death." He clicked his mandibles together and I nodded, trying hard to ignore how creepy it looked.
"The jygnt are the only other species who imbue regularly. The ilthi drink as well but it is rarely." Loril-ee said it as she continued to write in her notebook. "We do not. We cannot process it so it moves through us and we receive no benefit from it. The hant and krent do not drink either. Hard on them, small amounts get them obscenely drunk and massively ill the next day. However they have found other ways to get similar effects without the nasty illness and black out qualities of ethanol." I nodded my head at the new information. There were so many differences and so many similarities between us all, it was amazing. I knew the scientists on Earth were going to lose their fucking minds over this whole trip.
"We steam a certain leaf that is native to our home world. It spices the air and give a rather similar feeling to intoxication but is much healthier for us over all." Hint said it as he moved to walk beside me and I resisted the urge to shy away from him.
"We have some plants that cause that too, we burn them to get that. Or some distill in and put it in edible format."
"Oh, like ch'avk." At'kat'vo said it with a decisive click. "We have a plant we masticate and it brings out nice feelings. We do not use it often but it is nice to use to unwind after a long day." He waved his spider leg fingers and I bit my tongue to keep from reacting to them. They were so fucking creepy. I kept expecting a giant ass spider to pop out of his chest and jump at me whenever they moved.
There was a beeping from all around me and I watched as all of the ambassadors stopped and pulled out little disks from somewhere on their persons. "Jka-la!" Mare-aidee hissed it out. "She is on the news. We need to contact the Councils and alert them." She tucked her little disk away before she rubbed at the sloped bridge of her nose.
"I completely forgot! They cannot hear it from the news, we have to tell them." Loril-ee said it as her wings fluttered.
"I take it that means no crystal garden?" I asked it with a slight bit of disappointment.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and when I turned to look I had to resist the urge to jump as Liress stood right next to me, her clawed hand on my shoulder. "Just for right now. We will bring you into the communications room, introduce you, give them a basic run down, and then we can go." She gave my shoulder a squeeze before she gave me a toothy grin that reminded me more of a snarl than anything else. "Besides we all need a break from the bureaucracy, it has been nonstop meetings to prep for the Summit meeting we have in half a revolution."
Everyone seemed to agree with that and I tempered my disappointment. I had to get into the mind that I wasn't a tourist here, I was literally humanity's only Ambassador to these aliens and I had to make sure the bureaucracy was done with for the day. It was bad enough on Earth going through all the hoops me and my lawyers went through to try and make sure my family was safe as well as trying to ensure the bad parts of the technology were protected as best as they could be.
My lawyers told me to go full blown secrecy but I couldn't do that. I would be sitting on tech that would change the entire world for the better. It gave the ability to end the use of fossil fuels nearly completely and change the transportation landscape of our planet forever, not to mention space exploration. There was no way I was gunna keep my FTL engine to myself, even the anti-gravity and the isolated environments. There was so much good that could come from it. I couldn't keep it secret.
As it was I had given my lawyers leave to look at getting the technology implemented in the medical sectors first. The thought that my engines could be used to save lives by getting people where they needed to be in minutes rather than hours was an important one for me. I wanted it to be used for good, to help people, to save lives. The space travel was just a bonus in my eyes. That wasn't even mentioning the shielding tech.
"I agree. Let's alert them and then we can take the rest of the day off showing Rok-see around." Mare-aidee said it quickly and I was pulled back to the conversation at hand. I nodded when I saw everyone else nodding. I wasn't going to disagree. Get the non-fun things done first and then have a blast taking photos of the alien planet and city. "Follow us, Rok-see. We are heading to the communications room." She gestured at me, her silver eyes shining brightly and I nodded and followed them as they started walking.
"I hope one day we can do this with your planet. Communicate with them, hopefully to bring them into the Galactic Union." Hint said it evenly and I nodded again. That would be great. We had been seeking friends from the stars for literally years. I honestly believed humanity was lonely on our little chunk of rock floating in space. We wanted friends, wanted there to someone else out there that we could talk to, to be a part of.
I just hoped that this little adventure wouldn't have a massive amount of backlash. I knew there would be skeptics and people who would refuse to communicate with the aliens or even join their union. They wouldn't want anything to do with them and a small part of me realized that they would probably only really want to deal with the ilthi because they looked closest to humans. The k'gtar and the hant and krent would be at the bottom of their list, all because they didn't look like people as we knew them. It was a sad thought but we had troubles with people of different skin colours, people with wings or fur or tusks? Yah, for some people that would go over like a lead fucking balloon.
"Here is the comms room." Loril-ee fluttered close to the door, hopping slightly to get herself somewhat airborne. The circular door swirled open and the room was slightly dark inside and I looked around curiously as everyone walked inside. There were nearly ten bucket chairs with what looked to be glass screens wrapping around them at head level. Some where bigger and some were small and I realized that was probably to accommodate for the largee and smaller of the alien species. "Come, Roks-ei." Loril-ee fluttered up beside me, her smaller hand touching the back of mine.
I nodded and followed her as she lead me to one of the bucket seats. "Please sit, I will set up your comm channel to work with mine so I can turn on your screens so you do not have to worry about turning it on and worrying about pressing something wrong." She gestured for me to sit down and I ducked under the screen and turned, settling into the rather comfortable seat. She gave me a sharply toothed smile as she rapidly pressed some buttons and the glass screen lit up around the edges, foreign symbols scrolled in front of me before she hopped and fluttered to the smaller seat closest to me. "Ping the other Councils. Roks-ei is secure." She said it as she moved to sit in her own chair.
"Affirmative. Connection going live." Gal'rug said it as the screen in front of me went black and almost blacked out the room in front of me. There was a faint shimmering on the screen before there was a rapid set of pings that came from around me and the ripples on the screen moved in tune to them. The ping followed three quick pings, two slower pings, and then four quick pings. It didn't ping for long before a screen appeared.
There were three aliens on it, a krent, a grog, and an antwyn. "Forgive us Council of Torin, there was an emergency down at the sky port with a Royal House of Sea representative. The other members of the Lev-twi counsel are dealing with it and cannot join us." The krent spoke, a rather bored tone in their voice and I watched as another screen popped up. That one had six members in it, just missing the k'gtar. A screen of my council appeared as well but I noticed I was missing but I figured Loril-ee would deal with that aspect of it.
"Council of Jy checking in." The jynt that spoke sounded a lot more gravelly than Dunnerton. "Ambassador K'gy'tar expresses condolences, their brood mother is hatching out younglings and she is with her broodmate to welcome their young into the world." At the words I smiled slightly and repressed the urge to offer congratulations. Babies were always a happy thing.
"I was not aware that Council of Jy would be checking in as well." The antwyn from the first bunch said it with a sharp toothed smile that was a little creepy but I knew it was friendly.
"Council of Lev-twi. A happy surprise to see you." The grog ambassador from the Jy council said it and the screen pinged and two more screen popped up.
"Council of Hygarm checking in." The k'gtar clicked their mandibles slightly, a faint buzz coming off of them as the six other Ambassadors seemed to get settled on their screens.
"Better be worth it. It's three past the great mountain." The jynt that said it was large and looked positively unhappy.
"Council of Itlaria checking in, ignore Ambassador Gunnertom, he does not move well this early." The Ilthi Ambassador that said it had glowing green eyes and that caught my attention. My eyes went wide, I hadn't realized that the ilthi could have various eye coloured. Then again I couldn't get a good grasp of a species when I knew all of one of them.
Another screen pinged in and it had a single member sitting there, a what I believed to be a hant or a krent, I wasn't sure in the dark lighting. "Council of G'rak checking in. Other Ambassadors voted me to go to the comms rather than leave their beds."
"This is turning into a full reunion. Ambassador Kynar it is good to see you." One of the other Ambassadors said it but my screen was getting so full that I couldn't keep track of anything.
"Can you get the Supreme Council to answer?" At Loril-ee's question Gal-rug grunted and I could see him shaking his head on his screen.
"The Supreme Council? Why on the roots of the Great Mountain would you be bothering them?" It was a jynt that said it and if I had to hazard a guess, I would bet it was the grumpy one who didn't like being there. Granted if it was three in the morning for him then I could understand.
"This is all of we have then." Loril-ee said it, her expression on her screen a bit frustrated. "Mare-aidee, can you run us in?" I could see Loril-ee's little image moving its arms, probably touching buttons on the screen. I looked over mine but couldn't see anything I could touch but I figured that was a good thing, less things to draw my interest and to tempt me to touch.
"Approximately two hours ago, we had an unidentified ship spotted over Bar'lar." Mare-aidee said it evenly and I remember how I had hovered over the city. I had been internally freaking out. There had been space ships flying in and out and all around and it was clear there was an advanced civilization on the planet. When I saw a landing pad being cleared and when it became clear it seemed to be for me, I had landed. I was glad I did. This was awesome. "It did not response to pings, comms, or hails. It showed up on no scanners, we only had visuals of the ship to let us know it was there." Mare-aidee moved her hand and suddenly the entire screen was taken over by video footage of my ship. I grinned. I had piloted that thing rather well watching the video as I came in for my landing.
"We cleared a landing pad and it seemed to understand and landed." The video disappeared and I watched the other Ambassadors, they all looked rather bored. "We had a guard set up and then an unidentified creature came out of the ship." Another video of me coming out in my space suit came up on the screen and it was so weird to see me on screen when I hadn't even realized I had been recorded, granted I should have realized I would be. I had been a UFO landing after all. "It was there we made first contact with a new species." I watched as I pulled my helmet off and I could see the look on my face when I realized 'Holy shit! This is real. There are aliens, oh my god!'. There were gasps and choked sounds coming from the others and I wanted the video to go away so I could see their expressions.
"Councils, I would like to introduce you to our first contact in a thousand star revolutions, Rok-see Mat-yews, a human." At the words suddenly my screen appeared and I could see myself. I stared at everyone as suddenly all eyes were on me.
I lifted a hand and gave a small wave to the new aliens. "Hi." There was a sudden explosion of everyone shouting all at once and the noise of it was loud and caused me to flinch. None of the Ambassadors I knew said anything and I took my cue from them and sat quietly, waiting for the shouting to stop. Before I realized, suddenly more and more aliens were showing up on the screen, the absent Ambassadors clearly being called and rushing in from where ever they had been. The shouting grew louder and more aliens appeared and they all stared at me.
When there was a slight lull in the vocal chaos Loril-ee's screen got a bit larger. "I am uploading the translations we have created off of Roks-ei's written language lexicon so you will be able to understand her." There was several loud pings as she waved her hand over her screen. I watched as all the other screens but ours brightened, illuminating the aliens. "Please open and download." She waved a bit more and her screen minimized back to the same size as the rest. "We apologize for not contacting you sooner but as you can imagine we got carried away learning all we could about humans, their cultures, and biology." She said everything evenly and I could see all the aliens moving their hands and arms as if doing as she instructed.
It wasn't long before I suddenly bombarded with questions seemingly from everyone all at once. I felt a bit overwhelmed and I didn't know where to start. "Quiet!" Gal'rug snapped it out, his voice booming and everyone went quiet. "Rox'ie would be more than happy to answer questions but not all at once." He said is gruffly and I honestly wanted to thank him because that had been... that had been a lot.
"To make this easier. I am sending the data packets I prepared with the others on the science and tech teams. This gives a basic rundown of what we know and what Roks-ei has told us so far. This will hopefully give you a better understanding of where to start so we are not asking the same questions." At Loril-ee's words I felt a lot less anxious. That was good because while I was alright being questioned, I honestly didn't want to have to answer the same questions again and again. There was a ping on my screen and a pop up appeared. "I sent you one as well, Roks-ei. Just so you can see what they are seeing and can make corrections if need be." At the words I nodded and reached out and tapped on it. It opened up on the side, still showing me everyone's little rectangle but giving me access to the files.
I watched as they translated into English and I gave the first page a quick once over. It was basics about me, my name, weight, height, sex, and species. Then it went into some of the timeline for how I got to the planet in the first place.
"This has to be a mistake. It says here that this Raw'si spent six, what are called weeks, in their ship before they arrived. The closest planet is Hygarm and it is two standard months away from Torin." At statement from the K'gtar who made his screen slightly bigger I cleared my throat and straightened.
"I invented an FTL engine using magnets, that is how I was able to arrive to Torin in such a quick span of time despite the planet being about 50 light years away." It had been such a nice trip. I just disliked the fact I hadn't been allowed to go to all the life sustaining planets. I liked Earth and all but I wanted to see planets like where Dunnerton were for, they seemed more fun.
"That is not how magnets work." At the rather agitated voice of one of the Antwyns I shrugged.
"It wasn't, until it was." I still didn't understand how it worked. I knew I was messing with the polarity of the magnets but the actual science behind it was beyond me.
"Have we had any actual scientists verify this?" It was the same antwyn Ambassador and I didn't blame them. It was pretty far out there technology and coming from species who didn't have imaginations, it made sense they wanted reality to be based in reality.
"We have only been in contact for two hours, Ambassador Arla'nee. We figured it was best to let the Councils know of the first contact before news broke and you heard about it on the Galactic Union News Network. We will get more details as the days pass." At'kat'vo clicked rather sharply and I had a feeling that signalled irritation. "Raw'si has been very patient with us and has been very forthcoming with her discovery process and has offered to build us an engine to study. I am sure we will know more then. Please be as patient with us as our new friend has been." I didn't have to be his species to understand a slight reprimand when I heard one.
"How far was your journey?" At the question from of the Jynt Ambassadors who's screen grew larger as he asked it, I gave a small shrug.
"I would have to check my ship's logs to get the exact distance but it was close to a three hundred light year journey. Also I was not moving in a straight line, so that affected distance travelled significantly." I shrugged again. I hadn't really paid attention to the distance. I had been zig zagging between the earth like planets, some of which had been farther apart in distance than they had been in distance to Earth. I had mainly been keeping track of my food stores, when I hit a little over half I was told to turn around and come home. My words caused a flurry of talking to erupt and I waited patiently as the screens went back to all the same size.
"This is insane-"
"Cannot believe-"
"Have to understand-"
"Fascinating-"
"Utterly impossible-"
"She can eat poisons!" The last one was loud and caused a sudden silence and I stared at them all as they seemed to read before looking utterly dumbfounded and in utter disbelief.
I watched as Dunnerton's screen grew a little larger. "Yes she can, however she can also consume some minerals and metals in varying quantities. It will be nice for us jyngt to be able to share our cuisine with a new set of friends." His words were even and said slowly and I smiled.
"I will take you up on that offer, Dunnerton. Mark my words." At my words I could hear him chuckling from his own chair and I smiled. "Yes, it is apparent I can consume a lot of things that are technically poisonous to you all. I can, however, ingest ethanol in different varieties as well." I added that and beamed when the Grogs on screen gave what amounted to a cheer.
"You think that is amazing, the human species likes to fight." Gal'rug said it loudly and the cheering between the grogs grew a bit more and Gal'rug looked almost smug as he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.
"They glow! Like us!" One of the ilthi said it, his voice pitching upwards in excitement and I found myself smiling as the Ambassadors seemed to go through and call out the similarities humanity seemed to have with them and it made something inside my chest feel warm. There was some talk about differences before it was brushed aside for the similarities we shared, no matter how small or strange.
I wondered if that is what we had first hoped when we looked towards the stars and thought about how lonely we were. I wondered if the first of us wondered about how similar and different we would be to those who lived out in the stars, I wondered if they would have cared if we were different, brushing those differences aside for the small things that would bring us together just like I was seeing now.
"What type of temperature variation is that?" At the loud words I jolted, trying to see who said it and spotted an ilthi leaning towards her screen. "She is from a-a-a-a-a world of-of-of death! A deathworld! What is that?" She sputtered slightly and I grinned.
"That's nothing, I haven't even mentioned tornadoes yet." Everyone stopped at my words and even my Ambassadors stopped and stared at me through the screen.
"...context?" At Hint's rather hesitant request I smiled, grinning wide.
"Sometimes when there are big storms and hot air meets cold air it creates a singular vortex of wind that can be so strong it will uproot trees and destroy homes and level parts of cities." I felt like I could hear a pin drop as I looked at the horrified expressions that were staring at me.
"How... how fast is that wind moving?" Mare-aidee asked it in a tone that told me she honestly didn't want to know and I pinched my lips together to keep from laughing.
"Low end is a hundred kilometers an hour, strongest is upwards of over four hundred." It amazed me that they didn't have weird weather like we did. It seemed so mild on their planets.
"Is... is she lying?" One of the other Ambassadors said it and I shook my head. "That is not possible...is it?"
"Happens often enough on Earth. But between the snow storms, hurricanes, hail storms, and thunder storms, it's pretty much average for the planet." At least for that type of weather. I fought back a chuckle at the thought of how they would react to other natural phenomenon like earthquakes.
"How is your species not dead?" At the blunt question I couldn't help it and burst into laughter.
"You are right, Ambassador Calentia, it's a deathworld." Someone else responded and I laughed harder.
Yup, it was definitely too early to explain what an earthquake was.