[Earth: Location unknown]

Now that everyone had arrived, a large screen along the back wall lit up. The faces of various world leaders appearing one by one. A few had expressions of excitement, others were obviously displeased.

Without waiting, the Russian president Anatoly Petrov began speaking. “Mr President, don’t you think it was discourteous of you to keep the information about the alien ship hidden until thirty minutes ago?!” His voice became louder as he spoke. There were quite a few leaders nodding their heads in affirmation, both enemy and ally. There was an obvious displeasure about the US governments secrecy as it didn’t give them time to prepare, either militarily or diplomatically. The common man wasn’t aware, but right now militaries around the world were arming up and preparing for potential conflict. International relations were already strained, and this situation wasn’t helping.

President Williams let out a small sigh before addressing the room. “It’s only one ship, and our analysts determined the threat level was low. Though we are, and I’m sure you are too, preparing for all possible scenarios.” Though, it’s unlikely we’d be able to hit it after seeing how fast it can fly but that’ll just make them anxious.

“Statistically speaking, the chance of the alien being friendly is rather low, after all, how often were visitors from other lands friendly? I’m sure the British and Americans are well aware of such a fact, no?” President Zhang Li of China commented with unconcealed contempt.

Despite the obvious dig at British and American imperialism, President Williams kept his poker face, before responding. “You’re welcome to think whatever you like, after all it’s a free country.” That got a few stifled chuckles from some and a few scoffs from others.

A middle eastern man spoke up. “Let us continue for now with the matter at hand. President Williams how long until it arrives?”

“Susan and Gary who have been observing it will answer that question.” The president turned to the two. Susan stood up and nodded respectfully, Gary awkwardly rose a second later.

“I’ve been observing it as this meeting has been taking place, it did not skip Jupiter, however it has moved past mars, we aren’t sure if the alien places more importance on gas giants, but it did perform a full orbit around Saturn. Regardless, we only have about 50 minutes until it reaches Earth at its current velocity. And its trajectory is set to directly intercept the ISS. We believe it is attempting to make contact, as it may have recognised the ISS as a beacon of intelligent life.”

There were a few gasps as Susan finished speaking with leaders whispering to their aids, sending them off on various orders. Gary rose his hand, getting a nod from President Williams to speak.

“Um, hi, I’m Gary, who discovered the ship. We also believe it has landing capability, as there was a spike in temperature within Pluto’s atmosphere, that was when I first discovered it.”

The room grew silent before erupting in conversation, the last hour before Noah arrived would certainly be active.

[Between Earth and Mars: 25 minutes to contact]

“I’m pretty nervous you know? What if they shoot me? Do they have guns on the ISS? Would the American astronauts have guns?” Noah talked to himself as he stroked pip on his lap.

“It’s all about confidence! Fake it to you make it. Just pretend you’re an experienced businessman and be straightforward. Don’t give them too much time to think, otherwise they might shoot you.” Gaia said as she sat on the floor of the ship, doing Yoga.

Noah turned to face Gaia. “Huh? So they do have guns? Wait no, you’re fucking with me again. I see that smirk on your face.”

As Noah continued to worry about astronauts with guns the ship made its way to Earth. Soon, they could see the big blue ball out the front window, and a small object rotating closer towards them. They had reached the ISS. Noah was sure that Earth was watching, and they had likely been watching for some time now. So he turned on the ships comms, and searched for the radio frequency of the ISS. Once it was connected, he began speaking.

[Aboard the ISS]

Every astronaut, regardless of country, was sitting together in their space suits, anxious expressions on their faces. They had learned a few hours ago that there was an alien ship flying towards them. At first, they thought it was a joke, but when the president of the United States himself gave them a briefing on first contact, they learned how serious this was. Contact with aliens wasn’t exactly in the NASA training manual.

They were instructed to group together and seal off other parts of the ISS, to prevent any possible alien contaminants from spreading. All that was left was the compartment they were in and the airlock.

One of the Chinese astronauts let out a small squeal as she pointed to the window in front of her. “Guys! Turn around, I see something!” Outside the window was a large ship, slowly moving towards them, the group was awestruck by the obviously advanced technology. They couldn’t see through the ships front window, as it was coated with a unidirectional viewing coating.

“Ok calm down, it’s not shooting at us so…” There was a sound akin to static as the space stations communication functions were taken over. Soon they heard a voice come through.

“Hello, astronauts aboard the ISS. My Name is Noah Valentine, I am a trader from the Void and I come in peace. My ship is unarmed and I hope to receive permission to come aboard.”

Noah’s voice faded, leaving a group of stunned astronauts. “Well, at least it speaks English. That saves us…”

The man was cut off again as Noah repeated the message in every language the astronauts could understand, leaving them even more speechless.

Back on the ship, Noah stood up from the controls and left to grab his things. He needed to do a spacewalk as the ship’s airlock was incompatible with the one on the ISS. After he was ready, he turned to Gaia who had followed him downstairs.

“So, are you coming with me or not?” He asked. Gaia simply shrugged and said, “not this time, I’ll watch over pip and be ready in the event something happens. But I’m sure you’ll be fine, the ISS is full of nerds, right?”

Noah gave a shrug as Gaia turned and left. Once the room was clear, he began to depressurise it, while activating his shield and oxygen. The loud hiss of air was sucked out of the room before eventually, everything went silent. The hatch opened and Noah closed his eyes, focusing on the energy in his halo.

One thing Noah had noticed as the group got closer to the Earth, was that his halo had been glowing brighter and brighter. It eventually reached some sort of saturation point, and wouldn’t get any brighter. At the time Noah checked his status and remembered his racial perk of solar energy absorption. It was obvious the halo was chock full of energy, but how could he use it? Then Noah remembered what Gaia had done when he merged with the seed. So, it gave him a few ideas.

Noah felt the energy leave his halo and intermingle with the white seed energy ruins that spread across his body. Soon they gave off a light golden glow. But Noah wasn’t finished. He focused the energy into his right hand, and it began to extend outward like a tentacle, wiggling freely as Noah floated out of the ship and towards the ISS.

Noah positioned his hand to face the airlock of the ISS. The energy tentacle shot out, grabbing onto a handhold on the outside. Once it was attached, Noah closed his hand, the tentacle went taut, and he was pulled towards the space station.

The astronauts watched this occur, their eyes wide as they saw something unimaginable occur in front of them. They saw a man with a halo, shoot out golden energy and fly through space without a suit. At least, they thought he had no suit.

When Noah reached the ISS, holding onto the airlock door, he pulled away his energy grapple, returning the power back into his halo. There was some loss, but he could work on that over time. When he turned his head to where the energy had latched onto, he saw a half melted steel handle, obviously the energy wasn’t as harmless as he thought it was, having melted through thick steel handles in a matter of seconds.

Noah muttered a quiet “sorry about that”, which no one would hear in the empty expanses of space. Noah could see the astronauts anxiously pressing buttons, likely preparing to depressurise the airlock to let him in. A few minutes later it opened, and Noah floated inside.

The airlock closed and repressurised. However, Noah wasn’t let into the cabin with the astronauts. One of the astronauts gestured to a headset hanging on the side, so Noah picked it up and put it on, sliding it under his halo to make it fit.

“Hello, my name is Jason Miles, I am an astronaut from the United States of America, these are my fellow astronauts…” The American, Jason Miles went through the names and nationalities of each astronaut currently aboard the ISS. Noah just nodded along.

As he finished speaking, Noah decided to make pretending to be an Alien a bit easier on him. “Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Noah Valentine as you know, I come from the Void, which is… think of it as a different universe. I was chosen by the Void to trade with your planet, so I am fairly well versed on Earth’s history, cultures, technologies and politics. I’m sure this is a lot to take in, but I hope that we can work together to make this planet a better place, because it’s a win win scenario.”

“You know, I figured this would be a lot harder, trying to communicate with different languages, different biology and different culture but I guess movies are just movies after all.” One British astronaut said with exasperation.

Noah chuckled. “Yes, it’s a little weird for me too, this is my first job… in this universe, so I didn’t bring anything too revolutionary. It’s actually a skin care product, though there are medical uses.”

The astronauts blinked in stupor. “You came to Earth, to sell makeup?” Said a Russian man.

“Ah! That’s not all I can offer; I just didn’t want to upset the economy too much. You could imagine the effect if it brought over some magical plants that grow precious gems or something right?”

They all nodded in understanding. “Best you talk with the United Nations, so they can figure out how to… work with you. I’m not a politician though, our job was just to find out if you’re dangerous. And to make sure you don’t have any diseases we aren’t immune to. If you could come in and let us take a few samples of your blood and saliva, assuming you have blood and saliva, that would be helpful.”

Noah thought for a second before adding a caveat. “That is fine, however I will not let you keep those samples, you can get your data here but that’s it.”

If his blood contained something dangerous, he’d rather human governments didn’t have any samples they could weaponize.

“That is no problem.” Another British woman said. “I’m Dr Lane, the resident biochemist, we’ll open up and we can get started.”

The tests included blood, saliva, skin cells, and urine. They wanted to sample the Halo but when they tried, the metal scalpel just melted rapidly. There was some sort of automatic defence protecting it. The astronauts could touch it without being burned, also noting the odd feeling it gave them. There were a few gasps and furrowed brows from Dr Lane as she looked through the samples, but she quickly moved through them, ensuring she saved the data onto multiple hard drives. After handing the samples back to Noah, he put them in his inventory, again surprising the crew.

After showing them his inventory, without being able to answer their extensive scientific questions, Noah was led to the ‘dining’ room of the ISS. Jason gave Dr Lane a questioning look before she nodded. The door was opened, and it was obvious they didn’t believe Noah was a contamination threat. Dr Lane had a bemused expression on her face when looking through most of Noah’s data, seemingly having found something odd.

As Noah left with Jason, Dr Lane turned and floated back to where Dr Fen, the Chinese astronaut was sitting.

“So?” Dr Fen, the chief medical doctor asked with concern, “Are we all exposed to some weird alien virus?”

Dr lane shook her head. “Actually, no. And it’s really weird.” She cupped her chin in thought, continuing, “when I looked at his saliva, it was similar to ours, water, something resembling salivary amylase. There were epithelial cells, so I managed to get his DNA, but when I sequenced it, the computer couldn’t recognise it as a double helix. Which means his DNA is definitely not human, or unlike anything we’ve seen. So I linked it to the NASA supercomputer, and what I got was this.”

Dr lane passed over a tablet where a ruin like pattern filled the screen. “It’s a tessellation unlike any I’ve seen. But since it’s an unrepeating pattern, I have no idea how his biology works, there’s no structure. It’s almost, ethereal in nature.”

“Hold on, if his DNA sequence doesn’t end...” Dr Fen went into deep thought.

“That’s not all.” Dr Lane switched to another tab. “He has no bacteria at all, or any structures resembling bacteria or viruses. He’s completely clean as far as I’m concerned, even too clean. The weirdest thing was when I mixed in some of the e-coli we have aboard, the cells actively targeted the bacteria, and they… burned the foreign bodies. Like what happened when my scalpel touched his halo, just on a microscopic scale.”

“Haah.” Dr Fen put the tablet down with a sigh. “It’s been a long day, wanna raid the cosmonaut’s vodka stash? Looks like those boys will be talking for a while longer.”

“I’m in”, Dr Lane said with a smile. “He’s kind of cute though right? For an alien.”

“For an alien, sure.”