A Vast And Endless Sky 3

Ah, the good part. Thoughts, comments, all that very appreciated!

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Rees had a problem: everything up to this point felt so unreal, he kept having to convince himself that it needed to be taken seriously. This alien being in front of him was absurd, his brain told him, you’re having a dream, this is a video game, just hit the flashing weak point for massive damage.

But Rees didn’t have a gun, and the monster in front of him did, hanging on a belt around its… waist? The place its waist would have been if it had a lower torso.

Though the shock had kept each of them frozen for a solid three seconds, the lizardy creature suddenly regained its senses and reached for its holster.

Rees’s mind suddenly went danger! And at the very least, his danger-brain didn’t care about the situation’s surreality. He bent onto all fours and scurried, taking only milliseconds to find purchase on the strange-textured floor just as the alien pulled its gun and fired from across the room. The shot missed, a large blob of purple glop smacking into the base of the holographic projector where Rees had only been a moment before.

Where Rees scrambled to, though, he could not tell if he was any better off; the room dipped down a shallow slope and turned into another room filled with more machines, computers, and flashing lights—plenty of places to hide, but the only door out looked like the one the ‘snake’ had come through with no clear way of opening it. He could hear the slight rumble as the undoubtedly heavy creature moved to intercept, much faster than Rees felt comfortable with.

He ducked behind a ramp just before the creature turned the corner, and he peeked out from behind the railing. The creature’s head pivoted this way and that, and it lowered its nose to the ground, but instead of sniffing like a montrose might, it stuck its tongue out repeatedly. Rees knew of some Ar animals that smelled with their tongues, but he had no idea of the acuity of such an action.

Strangely, the beast seemed to lose interest. Holstering its weapon, it took up position on a console, starting to input something. Rees wondered if it, too, disbelieved what it saw, then considered just staying where he was until it lost all interest and left, though that still left Rees with a problem: how the hell was he going to get home? He needed to tell someone about this, maybe like the kids in all those old movies, find some way to use the aliens’ equipment to send a message back to Ar! Though, from the way the alien was manipulating the equipment—he took two large bumpers and quickly jittered them around like joysticks, which somehow translated to input—he wasn’t at all sure he was the kind of pup supergenius that could pull it off.

Then a large firedoor snapped down over the ramp where Rees had entered this room.

Rees swallowed audibly. The beast had trapped him in here, but still didn’t seem at all concerned enough to resume cornering him. Instead, it was still inputting something into the console.

Rees had another idea. He could somehow get hold of that alien’s weapon! He quietly shifted form his position—not wearing any shoes or gloves, a monstrose could move very quietly, and managed to slip out from his cover without the alien taking notice. He slipped around another set of enormous consoles to get just a bit closer, then around another to get closer, when he suddenly realized the flaw in the plan.

This alien was huge! Like, he could tell from the initial encounter that the thing was bigger than him, but being surrounded by equipment made for something its size… it didn’t hit Rees until he’d moved within a few meters the thing, from where it touched the floor to the top of its head, the alien was nearly as tall as his damn house. The gun it wielded, likewise, was at nearly as large as Rees himself. He doubted he could even gets his arms around the handle.

The alien’s head flickered and turned, and Rees ducked back behind the console. Okay. This thing clearly wants to capture you, and now you’ve moved way too close to it. I mean… that does imply you’re some kind of threat to it, right? You could ruin all the invasion plans by destroying all the equipment in here!

Well, he could if everything weren’t just so solidly built. Besides, what if there were more of it? There were just too many unknowns when it came to aliens. Lots of old sci-fi flicks had the overwhelming and powerful alien come in a strike force of just the one, but… that was largely to make sure that the montrose overcame the threat by the end. Also budget. Very hard to make an army of enormous superbeasts before CGI, and even then they almost never showed it.

The universe probably wasn’t so kind as to deliver a problem that Ar could band together and overcome within a two and a half hour time limit. He’d read a few novels that didn’t end that way. He wasn’t a fan.

Suddenly, the alien moved again. Something whirred loudly from the other side of the room, and its entire body shifted, causing the floor to rumble just a little. Rees took a chance to peek as the alien moved away, its back turned, face covered entirely by the hood that surrounded it. It reached into a box, the length of which reminded Rees of a pneumatic tube, and pulled out a flat, slightly curved piece of metal.

Did he summon that from a different part of the ship? Rees wondered. Maybe I could get out through there—should be relatively safe, they wouldn’t have any way to get to me! Well, except fill the tube with a deadly gas, probably. I’d need to get in without them knowing I’m there, and then…

The alien turned around, now with the large curved device implanted on the scales of its neck. Rees tilted his head at the sight. Then it sounded like a speaker, hard to tell at first what it was doing, until he realized it was saying words in his language, though chopped up like speaking through an oscillating fan.

“Good day, little one,” it said. Then it repeated in Uzani, “Beko ausouillo, amai.” Then in Lombri, “Esnak, ugurich wacha.” The greetings were the extent of Rees’s language courses, covering the three major language families in and around the Tannic Coalition, though the alien’s device seemed to cover at least a dozen more languages, clearly trying to hit upon something to draw him out.

Rees really just wanted to crawl away. The thing was dangerous. It’d shot at him!

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” it said. “Please come out.” Then it continued on in the other languages again.

Rees sighed, placing a paw onto his forehead. He shouldn’t have taken the bait. It just wanted to shoot him again. But he should have responded somehow. Talking might have been the only thing at this point that would get him amnesty. He wasn’t going to figure out how to run this ship on his own, he wasn’t even going to put a dent into a creature that size.

Besides, if it could run a ship like this, it had to be intelligent. So many movies showed aliens as having amazing intergalactic technology and yet acting lime monsters. What if it wasn’t a monster? What if it was just a person like him?

Yeah, just like the show Star Alliance. Like it’s super benevolent and we’re all just gonna get along and be uplifted into a new age of peace and tranquility. That’s stupid! That’s never going to happen. The universe isn’t that simple! Don’t be a fool!

“I’m very sorry,” the alien said, coming back around to Tannic.

“Why the hell did you shoot me!” Rees called out, immediately turning to crawl away as fast as he could while still keeping his paws silent on the floor.

The beast moved to where Rees had been, though Rees ducked around the corner just as it approached. This time it didn’t bother with the rest of the languages and just spoke Tannic. “It’s a sticky gun. I just wanted to immobilize you, it would not hurt.”

“Yeah, and what if it got over my mouth?” Rees asked. “I need to breathe! Or do you not even know that about us?”

The alien clearly had to think to process the words, and in the meantime, Rees slinked around another console, getting back to the firedoor where he’d entered. There seemed to be no way to open it from this side, either, not a control panel or anything. Maybe he could double back and squeeze his way up the pneumatic tube.

“It is easily dissolvable,” the alien said. “I can demonstrate for you if you like.”

“Yeah, by firing at me again?”

“No, why would that be necessary?”

The alien slithered its way into the large central circle in the middle of the chamber, and pulled out its gun once more. It fired a mass of sticky glop into the floor. Then, flipping a switch on the gun, it shone a beam that had some color but mostly just distorted the light. The sticky goo melted into a puddle rapidly wherever he shone the light.

“I bet it melts flesh, too,” Rees said. He was looking for a way around the alien in the middle of the room, but all his paths took him right into its line of sight.

The alien then turned the beam on itself, making a pass over its arm. “It is just a small dose of ultraviolet rays,” the alien said. “Greater than your star on a hot day but still harmless in small doses.”

“UV has been linked to cancer!”

“Yes I am aware your people have an issue with cancer. It is not a significant dose, but I am sorry. We are trying to devise a new formula that will dissolve under infrared.”

“Well aren’t you just so precious!” Rees snapped. “Thinking of your invasion targets with just the utmost concern and care. I bet you’ll be benevolent slavemasters!”

“Oh, not at all,” the alien said. “That is exactly what we are trying to prevent.”

“By bombing cities?”

“There will be no bombings.”

“That’s what the alien invaders claimed in The Final War. They took over by taking on appearances like montrose and turning the entire planet into a fascist state by claiming they were just here to protect us from a bigger threat. Then they stole our water.”

The alien paused for a long moment. “The Final War. I have not heard of it. This is one of your stories, yes?”

“TV miniseries,” Rees muttered. At this point, he was just curled up under the long lip of a console with his large tail wrapped around himself. He was still trying to think of a way out, but there just were no good options left.

Besides, he kinda wanted to actually talk to someone about a science fiction show he’d seen.

“Do a lot of montrose know this story?” The alien asked.

“Sorta,” Rees said. “It was a really big thing when it came out, but it’s thirty years old and kinda dated. But people sorta know it. It started this whole thing where conspiracy nuts claim that world leaders are actually faceless beneath masks—because the aliens in The Final War had no faces, see. Most people don’t even know that was started by a TV show.”

“Well, I am not faceless,” the alien said. “You can come over and touch my face to see for yourself, I am not wearing a mask.”

Rees blinked. He turned to look out to the middle of the room, and found that the alien lowered his head to the floor in an almost modest gesture.

“You’re going to shoot me,” Rees whimpered, hardly even realizing how emotional he was feeling until the words left his mouth.

“I promise I will not. Here, let me show you.”

The alien reared up and removed its belt in one motion, then with a deft toss, threw it near Rees’s location. The massive piece landed with a clangand clatter, but it stopped close by.

Staring at the enormous piece of metal equipment, the handle of the gun was facing Rees. He obviously could not wield that thing, he couldn’t even pull it out before the alien could cross the distance of the room to stop him. Besides, if it really was just some kind of glue gun it would do nothing to that monster.

Though… briefly, Rees felt guilty about calling it a ‘monster’ in his head again. Looking over at the alien, its expression was almost inquisitive, the scales atop its head lifting up as though raising a brow expectantly.

Feel like I’m gonna regret this, but… maybe this is the only way through. At least I’ll have been eaten by an enormous mons—alien knowing I tried to be friendly.

Rees stood and peeked again, this time approaching in full sight of the creature, slowly padding all the way up to its lowered head. Still, it did not move, though it flicked its tongue again in range of Rees’s body. A little invasive, but hardly on the level that some females had subjected him too.

Rees tilted his head at the alien’s black eyes and glowing pupils. They were not so horrifying as at first seemed, but were quite intelligent, focused entirely on him. Reaching out, he touched carefully the scales of the alien nose, finding them firm, but not cold. Just a touch flexible and pliable to the touch, smooth but not texture less. They had a very pleasing, slightly sandy quality that would give him just enough grip to climb on without sliding.

Rees couldn’t help but grin a little as he spotted the alien’s forked tongue slip out again, stopping short of tickling him. Almost like he was pantomiming the gesture, Rees reached his arms to the sides of the alien’s face and pulled theatrically.

“Okay, I believe this is your real face,” Rees said. “But you still have a lot to answer for first.”

“I am willing to answer you. I do have duties to perform but so long as you promise not to slip away, I can speak with you simultaneously.”

Rees nodded. “First question… or like, third or whatever… who are you?”

“My people are called the ßarith,” he said, dragging out that first syllable. Of course a species with a tongue like that would hold out their s’s, of course.

“No I mean like, your name,” Rees said. “I’ve been calling you ‘that beast’ in my head this whole time and that seems kinda rude. Unless you’re like, some kind of hivemind without any individual personalities, I don’t want to presume!”

“That’s quite alright,” it said. “My name, in a way you can pronounce easily, is Thassiter.”

Then he spoke with his actual mouth in a deep, rumbling voice, which tickled as the air rushed through Rees’s fur. The word he said sounded not unlike ‘Thassiter’, but Rees wasn’t about to replicate what he actually said, not without getting his tongue lengthened to a full meter.

“Okay, Thassiter,” Rees said. “My name is Rees. Raar Rees.”

“Raar, family name, Rees, given?”

“Yeah, that’s how we do it. Do you have a family name?”

“We have a clutch designation,” Thassiter said. “But it is mutable depending on our current assignment. The given name is fixed.”

Rees nodded shallowly, pretending he understood that. “Um, nice to meet you, I suppose.”

“Likewise,” Thassiter said. “Though this is a little earlier than anticipated. You were not a selected target for study.”

“You were gonna kidnap us?” Rees asked.

“No, certainly not,” Thassiter said. “That would put the subject on edge, and less inclined to be truthful. Though that leads me to the question I first thought of when I saw you. How did you get here?”

“Your… probe thingy. I got caught inside of it.”

“That seems unlikely. If you would be so kind I’d like you to explain how that happened, then we can pass the notes to the engineering assignment to do risk analysis of further such issues.”

“Yeah, I guess!” Rees stepped away. “But like… engineering assignment? Clutches? There’s more of you?”

“Oh, indeed there is.”

“How many?”

“Oh… most everyone.”

Rees blinked. “Everyone?”

Thassiter gave a shallow gesture, more like mimicking a montrose nod rather than doing it naturally. “Yes, most everyone is here for this. That’s about six hundred million ßarith across the entire fleet, composed of thirty thousand ships. Come along, now.”

“W-wait,” Rees said as Thassiter’s enormous body began to slip past him, “Thirty thousand ships, and this isn’t an invasion?”

Thassiter turned to Rees right as he approached the console to open the firedoor. He thought for a moment, then said, “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”