by Ashley Amos
She recalled her youth back home, among the Darini and their tales of their first contact. Having been one of the first species in the galaxy to reach out to extra-terrestrial life, what had happened several millennia before was now a mythology to her. She smiled, still petting Lee’s picture with the tip of one long, slender finger.
Fanilgo returned, notably shifted into a more mammalian form, still cleary himself with dark, suspicious eyes, but smooth and significantly less noisy. Zana glared at him, but said nothing as the communication links with the Tennann were finalized. She watched him take the controls. On the screen, the black, inky surface of the dark of the moon wavered and the screen ignited, the view of the Tennann on display for them now. The ship was much smaller than the Azin, a simple Exploration Cruiser with a few dozen decks and only enough docking space for a small handful of shuttles. Faniglo pulled the shuttle closer still, the hail from earlier prompting the bay’s door to open, allowing them a smooth and painless entry.
“You’re very good handling this ship,” Zana said, looking over to her fellow officer. “Is it—”
“Part of basic security personnel training? Yes. It is,” Fanilgo said, locking onto the magnetized floor of the docking bay. Slowly but surely he had managed to coast the shuttle into the Tennann and beyond the airlock in what felt like mere seconds. “It’s nothing. Just probably another reason Benkof sent me instead of someone better equipped to handle this.”
“Oh stop,” Zana said with a hint of exasperation. “Don’t beat yourself down and go making yourself feel out of place. You belong here just like I do. You offer the mission just as much security as needed. Now chin up. We need to get out there and meet up with Seddi pronto.”
Grabbing the files and unbuckling herself, Zana kept her head high as she and Fanilgo filed out of the shuttle and into the waiting docking bay. She kept the papers close. Something about the physical nature of the papers, about something not floating on the holograms of a screen, it felt comforting to her. There was a member of an uncontacted species on this ship and it set Zana’s head spinning, her fins drooping some as she made a beeline behind Fanilgo towards the ship’s transport elevator. The attendant there was a short woman, possibly the same species as Captain Bekof considering the slight mechanical hiss and the swaddles of clothes obscuring her face.
“Captain Seddi is expecting you on the Research Sciences Deck. The ‘human’ as it calls itself, is contained there,” the attendant said, her accent thick with the hum of a respirator. “The word floating through the ship is that you, Darini, have the best functioning translator to handle this creature. Is it true?”
Zana blinked, markings shifting gently from dark to light and then back to standard deep-rose. “Officer Darex Zana, Communications officer,” she said, holding out her hand in greeting. The attendant bowed her head gently and Zana nodded. “I have been working for many dozens of cycles on decoding various transmissions from this star system. My personal translator is the most adept in handling human languages. Let us hope this ‘Lee’ speaks one of the more common tongues. This planet has so many I’ve only been able to translate five or six languages.”
The elevator fell quiet.
“Five or six?” Fanilgo asked. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yes, why?” Zana asked.
The silence resumed. It was only another half moment before the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Zana and Fanilgo filed out, stepping into the wide cavern that was the Sciences Deck. Walking briskly, they both checked their communicators and headed up a flight of stairs to what appeared to be a loft. There, encased in a thick glass shell, was the containment room where Captain Seddi stood, looming over the very real, very present, very much abducted and restrained human.
“Holy shit, he’s real…” Zana said, freezing as the two of them finished climbing the stairs and waited on the landing outside the cell.
“Well of course he’s real. We wouldn’t be in this mess or on this mission if he weren’t,” Fanilgo said, scoffing at Zana’s sudden anxiety and flickering markings. “Shape up. You’re the one needed to talk to him about… whatever it is you need to do to make sure he doesn’t cause an interplanetary nightmare for the Union.”
“Dear God don’t put it like that,” Zana said, reaching out to smack at Fanilgo’s arm. “I’ve got enough stress and pressure going on. I don’t need that kind of pep talk right now.”
“Well shape up,” Fanilgo said. “Captain Seddi is coming…”
Zana turned, watching the Captain stomp her way away from the abductee and out to where Finalgo and she waited. Her fins fluttered a bit in agitation, but otherwise, she held her ground, hoping to catch a glimpse of this ‘Lee’ before—
“You two!” Captain Seddi barked, her thin, towering body looming over the two of them. “Have you been debriefed on the situation or not?”
“We have, Ma’am,” Fanilgo said. He pulled himself up to full height and Zana could have sworn he shifted some, growing an inch or so taller in order to square up with the captain. “Communications Officer Darex Zana is prepared to handle the subject and I am here to provide needed security and consul on the matters at hand.”
“Very well,” Seddi said, her deep, ink-black face turning to Zana. “You better do a damned fine job in sorting these things out with that miscreant. I’ve had two dozen crew members sent to the infirmary because of him.”
“He’s combative?” Zana asked, slightly taken aback, her markings fluttering between a few shades, her fins rising. “That was not in my debriefing with Benkof.”
“Benkof has no need to know about the inner workings of my ship outside of what the higher-ups back at base order me to tell him,” Seddi replied with a roll of her glassy, turquoise eyes. She balled her many fingered hand into a fist and crossed her arms. “Is this going to be a problem, Officer Darex Zana?”
It was then with a subtle step forward and a slight grunt that Fanilgo took his cue. “There won’t be any problems whatsoever, Captain. I’m here to make sure of it, courtesy of Benkof and Headquarters themselves.”
Seddi feel silent, glaring first at Zana and then at Fanilgo. With a quiet muttering and a disapproving huff, she left them to their work, barking over her shoulder as she left. “Make right of this or I’ll drag both of you and your precious Benkof down with me if Headquarters makes a fuss. Mark my words.”
With the ensuing silence, Zana and Fanilgo exchanged glances, Zana’s markings shifting gently with each passing moment. With a gruff nod, she turned back to the glass wall of the containment chamber and peered in. Whoever or whatever Lee was, he was facing away from them. Zana sighed.
“You’ll guard the door for me, right?” she asked.
“What?” Fanilgo said, nearly sputtering. “You heard what Seddi said, he’s landed plenty of people in the infirmary already. He’s a combative. I’m here for your protection, not to keep the Tennann’s crew out.”
Reason had no place for Zana then. She sighed and shook her head, some of her fins flexing and flaring with a slight twitch. “No. I have a gut feeling here that Seddi is neglecting to tell us what happened here. Please Fanilgo. Please just keep them out while I work.”
There came yet another moment of quiet where the two of them exchanged glances and little more. Fanilgo grunted. “If they come up here and start riding my ass about all of this, I’m going to come in here and assist you. You know that, right?”
Zana nodded, dropping her head for a moment, lost in thought. “And if I find info from this abduction victim? What if I find something incriminating about Seddi and her precious Tennann crew?”
“At that point we contact Benkof and the Azin and I’ll escort you and the prisoner out of here,” Fanilgo said. “And only at that point. So for the love of all that is good and great, don’t make a scene.”
With a scoff and a dainty wave of her hand, Zana conceded. “Fine,” she said. “Just give me some time. It’s not every day I get to initiate first contact wit
h an entirely new species.”
Chapter Three
Moving through the series of clear containment walls standing between her and the victim, Zana forced herself to keep a level head. This was just work. There was no reason to let the varied levels of severity get in her way of a good job. Zana knew she could do this. No matter what Seddi and her crew of miscreant officers aboard the Tennann did up until this point, there was no reason Zana couldn’t do her job and do it well. Repeating those affirmations over and over in her head, her fins fluttered and she stopped at the third clear door between her and the human named Lee.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself, opening the door and striding in.
Lee jumped. Scrambled would have been a more apt word, but regardless, Zana took a step back and pressed herself against the door, looking over the room with a trained eye, noting the vents, the lights, the sparse furnishings, and everything in between. And yet, despite her discipline, her eyes caught the human and she could feel her fins flutter.
He was bare save for the standard Union undergarments, his pale golden skin shining with what could only probably be perspiration. Her face heated, markings flushing a whole variety of reds and pinks, hands scrambling for something to hold on to as Lee, the nearly naked human, panted and heaved, in a defensive position, his fists clenched, his muscles tense, his deep dark eyes glinting in the clinical light of the containment room. He started babbling and though Zana was able to pick up a few phrases here and there after her exhausting research, she was still lost.
“Please,” she said in broken human tongue, the most common one among the transmissions she had intercepted. “Wait.”
Lee froze. His babbling slowed and bought Zana enough time to reach for the translator device on her wrist. She pulled it free and let Lee see it, turning it over before reaching out and setting it on the table. Lee continued his babbling before Zana put up her hands.
“Wait. Translate.” Zana bit her lips, fins fluttering gently as she activated the device and a small humming sounded out. Lee carried on, babbling more and more before Zana could calm him, the humming slowly fading to a whine, and then to silence.
“What is the meaning of all of this? Who do I have to talk to so I can get some clothes and a fucking explanation? What the hell is going on? Who are you? Please tell me this is all just a really lucid nightmare and that I’m going to wake up,” Lee carried on, the device allowing Zana to better understand him as it incorporated his native tongue into its systems, using Zana’s data as a template to better integrate it.
“Please calm down, Sir,” Zana said, hands still up and fins still fluttering. “I know whatever has happened must be traumatizing and you have my sincerest of apologies.”
“You speak English!” Lee yelled, jumping back. “Holy hell, finally!”
Zana shook her head. “Not entirely. No. I have been working on an extensive series of translation projects based on the communication relays leaking out from the Sol system. This device,” she said gesturing to the small box on the table, “reads varying neural activity and incorporates that alongside manually inputted data, courtesy of me, into a complex lingual web that allows the two of us to understand one another. I personally don’t understand the mechanisms behind it, but it offers us a way to communicate until you can be fitted with a universal translator. My apologies for… the crude setup.”
Lee balked. There was little else in way or words to describe his expression as he stumbled back and took his seat again, his shock glinting in his eyes. “This is…”
“A lot to take in, I understand.” Zana took a seat across the table from him, her lithe, rosy body nearly looming over him even now. “But for the sake of translation efforts, something very important to my job, please consider continuing talking to me.”
“Why?” Lee asked, looking up, eyes squinting. “You kidnapped me! Abducted me! Why the hell should I cooperate with any of you?”
“I did not abduct you. Me and my co-officer Fanilgo are not members of the crew that took you,” Zana said. She sighed. “We were brought in from a second phase crew to determine what has happened. Whether you know it or not, abductions such as this one are highly illegal.”
“Then what the hell made these chuckle-fucks take me?!” Lee asked, a hint of desperation in his voice. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t do anything illegal. I didn’t summon some alien demon in a pentagram or anything of the sort. Why did they take me?”
Zana held out her hand, placing the warm, smooth of her palm against the back of Lee’s hand. “That is what I am here to discern, Lee. You are in no danger, so please calm yourself and please allow me the time to explain what has gone on concerning our end, and then you can tell me what’s happened on yours. Is this alright with you?” she asked.
A moment of silence filled the room, punctuated with Lee’s labored, tired panting. Zana pulled back, her hand leaving Lee’s and she sighed, looking over the translator box and adjusting it slightly. The hum returned and faded again, making Lee wince. With a frown, she let it be and cleared her throat.
“Its… all of it has been so much to process,” Lee said quietly. “One minute I’m out in the fields trying to see what the hell was making all that noise, if an animal got out or something and the next thing I know there’s a flash of light and then… they were all over me. I don’t think they expected me to put up such a fight. It’s been… a while since it all started.”
“How long?” Zana asked.
“A few days I think. It’s hard to tell,” Lee said, rubbing his head.
Zana nodded. “A standard day cycle or one day in your planet’s time?” she asked. “I know you’re not probably used to standardized galactic measurements, so that’s probably a moot point.”
“You mean to tell me aliens measure time differently?” Lee asked, looking up at Zana, a stark contrast to his fight or flight ways just moments earlier.
“Well of course,” Zana said, knowing it would be best to drag out the conversation for the translator to work better. “Each inhabited world of the Union has a different planetary day length, some of the inhabited moons having very odd units of time. There is a standard set in place for non-planetary stations, ships, and colonies. I’m not very good at the math and algorithms behind it all, but it’s all rather helpful in the end, so most people roll with it.”
“You…” Lee trailed off, seemingly lost in his thoughts. His fingers traced the lines in the table, the erratic patterns unlike any wood on earth. “You don’t seem to have a grasp on a lot of the technical workings on these ships. It’s weird… I thought aliens like this would be all… geniuses or something.”
“Oh no not at all…” Zana said, her bubbling laugh filling the room. “My field is in xeno-linguistics. And I…” She paused. “Oh my, I haven’t even introduced myself.” She slapped herself upside the forehead, fins fluttering and her markings flushing in embarrassment.
“Oh?” Lee said. “Well, I’m Lee Harrison. But I think you already know that.”
“I do!” Zana laughed, waving her hand through the air dismissively. “I’m Communications Officer Darex Zana. You may call me Zana. I am a member of the Darini race. Our native planet circles the binary star you humans know as… ah… what was it again? Gamma Delphini? It’s so hard to remember with all of your species different languages and classification systems of things like this.”
Lee sat there, staring at Zana, simply nodding.
“Anyway, yeah we made our first contact… oh gosh… it has to be several millennia ago. At the time we were deteriorating as a people. War and the like. You know how it goes. And then the Seshin made contact and helped lift all of us out of our turmoil and primitive ways. Had it not been for the blessing of first contact, it was likely we would have destroyed ourselves. Now it’s… oh look at me rambling. I’m so sorry. I’m here to help the translator work and figure out exactly what happened, not talk your auditory receptive organ off.”
Lee blinked. “
You mean ears?”
“So that’s what that word means? Fascinating.” Zana reached out and turned the translator over in her long fingers, checking its status.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I want some answers. Real answers. Not that I exactly oppose someone being communicative and kind to me for a change, but I’m still in the dark here. One moment I’m minding my own business, the next I’m kidnapped to space, and then I’m pretty damned sure I’m about to be sold off into some weird intergalactic slave ring. At least, that’s what I was led to believe by all these brutes and freaks. I don’t know… I can’t even begin to imitate some of these fools’ languages. They kept using the term dondik… And then… a rosy angel appears to save me? Nothing makes sense,” he said, shrugging. “I’m so confused.”
“Well don’t be,” Zana said. “Slavery, or dondik, has been outlawed on every last Intergalactic Federated Union of Interplanetary States member planets.” She smiled, a wall of worry building in her now and keeping her confined to whatever professionalism she could still muster.
Lee held his hands up and shook his head. “So you can translate Federated Union of Interplanetary States but not ears?” he asked. “What the hell kind of sense does that make?”
“Biology terms are often harder to describe,” Zana admitted. “I’m just lucky that humans are amorphous blobs or an energy-based race. You have no idea how long it takes to get a full lexicon out of those types.”