If you find mistakes, pls tell, thx. I don't like mistakes.

Also feel free to ask for more background information on the world. I am somehow running out of interesting points regarding the small comments at the beginning of the chapters.

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“

Earth-Magic is settled in the area of influencing physical matter and your own body. It's prone to body enhancement spells and allows the summoning of golems.

”

-Magical Affinties

***Sol, Mars Colony, Underground City VII***

***Gideon***

“Do what you want. I don't care.” Gregor waves his hand at Cyla. He had a short blackout and is now lying on the living room's sofa. “You were always the most independent one. Why are you even here? I am sure that you'll do what you want to do. No matter what we think about it.”

“Just to show off Gideon and to introduce him to you.” Cyla answers. “After he manoeuvred me into meeting his folk I had no choice but to do the same. Not that it bothers me since I am earnest about the relationship.”

Kassidy sits down next to us and hugs Cyla. “If it's like that, then I am glad that you've found someone you care about. Be sure to pay us a visit whenever you have the time. Whatever this husband of mine says.”

We continue our conversation with Kassidy while ignoring Gregor, Cyla's sister and Ryles who turned strangely quiet. It's well after evening when we finally part ways.

After having had more contact with Cyla's family than I ever wished for in my entire life, I let out a deep sigh upon leaving the house.

I reach my hand around Cyla's waist and pull her closer while walking back to the teleporter which is scheduled to take us back to the Forge.

“Your mother seems to be the only sensible person of the whole bunch. Somehow I don't want to meet your other siblings.” I voice my thoughts.

“Yes, Mom is the heart and soul of the family. Without her everyone would only care about his own business. It's not like my father is a person whom you look forward to meet on a regular basis. Even if he is related to you” Cyla leans into me and smirks. “Though I think you won't get around introductions once my brothers hear about this. They are very protective of me.”

Great. More trouble.

That's when I get a message from the SDF. I overlay the text with my field of vision and whistle. “Seems like we are getting visitors.”

“I believe I got the same message.” Cyla informs me.

I quickly read through our orders. “Seems like they are putting a whole fleet together to stop this one ship. The question is... do we take this assignment?” My eyes wander to Cyla.

She answers my questioning gaze in the same manner. Then she shrugs her shoulders. “We're the most battle experienced pilots. As long as they don't get any strange ideas like putting us on different ships or forbidding our relationship I am inclined to stay within the SDF until they get their act together. I am not a fan of military organisations.”

“I want to see them try assigning me to a ship other than my own! That I really want to see!” I shake my fist at an imaginary enemy. Then another thought hits me. “But I like the idea of being alone with you for a few more weeks.”

“You've read the part where they assigned scientists, linguists and other academics to your ship? They added two big crew-modules for them. They hope to communicate with the aliens.”

“What!?” I read the whole message again in a frenzy and find what Cyla was talking about. A hundred new crewmen were added in place of one of the resource storage units.

“Your ship was designed with a lot of extra space to fulfil the requirements of a freighter. Apparently the organizational staff of the SDF used that chance to add a first contact team to the Coeus.” Cyla analyses the situation. “The other new SDF vessels in the fleet are designed as pure warships. Even the mobile battle station doesn't have enough life support to carry that many people.”

Something stirs inside my belly upon thinking about having random people aboard my ship! “How many years will I get for jettisoning them to space?”

Cyla purses her lips. “I think locking our compartment will do. It's not like they are allowed to access the cockpit. They aren't pilots.” She starts scanning through the list of names who were assigned to my ship. “Oh, I like that one! Such fortune! I wanted to meet him anyway!”

A tight feeling wavers through my chest as I search the list of names myself. Who caused Cyla to call out in delight? Is this what jealousy feels like? Then I find a certain name among the faceless who were assigned as security guards. “Ed.”

“Your dad! You two will get to spent a lot of time with each other!” Cyla pats my back.

“He isn't really my father.” More like a provider of gene material, but saying that loud sounds awkward. Even to me.

***Kaus Borealis, Fast Cruiser Tallagan***

***Ilin Kleio***

“They are mocking me, Ayo Ekun.” I draw a Zeen meditation rune into the sand to emphasize my impossible situation. “The ambassadors are requesting a full profile of the alien race. Don't they understand that it's impossible to make such a report?”

I follow with an obscene gesture by my third hand to show my emotions on the matter. “All we know is that we know nothing. We don't know how they look like aside from a few blurry images by the first drone. We don't know how they live. The only thing we know is that they are obviously not interested in talking and that they are pissed off. They sent that Drazi colony back to the stone age. Those robots ate all their technology!”

I shudder upon remembering the images. Those robots took everything apart what they got their tiny pincers on. It was almost as if they were studying everything besides the Drazi. They were simply ignored while the robots kept reproducing and eating.

The Drazi tried to destroy them, but they multiplied faster. I hope the phantoms never use this weapon on one of our worlds. In the end the Drazi even blew up their zero-modules to stop the infection. It didn't help.

“What's destruction to us may be information gathering to them.” Ayo, my old friend, wobbles amusedly and uses one of his stick like appendages to draw a line into the sand. The Zeen are a strange cross of an insect and a jelly fish. They have four chitin armoured legs and an almost transparent body. Their head has no neck, but it isn't needed since they have eight eyes which give them a view of three hundred sixty degrees. Their two arms are long with two joints and many chitin pincers and tentacles at the end to manipulate small objects.

The Zeen need a very dry environment. That's why Ayo is spending almost all his time in his habitat which is an empty room that's filled with sand and has controlled humidity.

He stays buried in the sand most of the time and only comes out when he has a visitor.

“That's why I volunteered as a translator. It's exciting to be the first one who gets the chance to study a new language.” One of Ayo's round eyes focuses for a moment on me. “Your leaders seem to be very dependent on their subordinates. Maybe you should focus less on what you can't tell them. Tell them the obvious instead. Once they realize the stupidity of their demands they will stop making them.”

I raise my real hands and signal that I give up. “Okay. What would you tell them.”

Ayo answers by curling up the thin membrane with which he creates sound to speak. “I would tell them that the others value their privacy since they like to hide. They are very patient since they never sought contact with your people.”

“That might have other reasons. Back then we were fighting each other.” I interrupt. “They could be pacifists.”

“It doesn't change the fact that they are patient. And they are on a completely different technological level than the other known races. I am hoping to find a complete new world-view. Maybe they are offering us a new philosophy like the Urrapiops.” The Zeen wriggles in anticipation. “We are currently translating one of their holy stories about the beginning of the universe.”

“Nobody besides the Zeen understands the wicked minds of the Urr. Talking to a plant is easier. How much did you translate and how long did it take you?” I ask. The Urr are a living hive-mind which encases an entire world. There is a hypothesis that the Urr may be actually older than the Zeen. The only problem is that talking to the Urr is like talking to a person with multiple personality disorder on world level.

Ayo pulls his hands close to his body. “We think that we've identified eight coherent sentences.”

“Oh, eight already? Last time I checked you had also eight and you have been working on it for over a hundred years. If you keep it up you'll have the book translated when the universe ends.”

“All it takes is one big breakthrough and all the other pieces fall into place on their own. It's like that with all languages.” Ayo answers in a chipped manner.

“I think it's just bugging your species that you can't talk to the Urr. You should stop seeing it as a problem of translation. From our point of view the Urr are crazy. You never know if you are talking to a child, the most brilliant mind, or an idiot savant. I think something went wrong when they fused their minds together. It can't be healthy to have the minds of your entire species inside your head.”

My little speech is suddenly interrupted by an alarm. The habitat's warm, white lights turn blueish and a hologram appears in the middle of the empty room.

Ayo scuttles to the hologram and starts manipulating it. As a representative of the Zeen he has full access to the ship's sensor logs and can observe everything that's happening on the bridge.

The captain's voice echoes through the room. “It seems like we are about to have our official first contact with the phantoms.”

“Weren't we supposed to arrive in a week in their system?” Ayo asks, interrupting the hectic work on the bridge.

“The phantoms apparently don't know or don't care about our schedule. At least the technicians were able to improve our sensors. Otherwise we wouldn't have seen them.” The captain answers and forwards a tactical representation of the situation to Ayo's hologram.

Ayo gestures with one of his appendages and the tactical display is enlarged. “So the Tallagan took the explored FTL-route from Nash to Kaus Borealis. From there we wanted to go to 93825, which is the shortest way to our destination. It just so happens that the phantoms are parking their butts at the entrance to that FTL-route. One might think they are intending to deny us going any further.”

I snort. “One might think? There are a little too many red dots for my liking.” There seem to be at least fifty ships with the mass of the Tallagan. In addition there is a big, huge red dot which has to be several times more massive than any other ship I know of. “Did they pull an asteroid into the FTL-route to block it?”

The Zeen points at the cloud of red dots. “I think they knew that we are coming and came out to greet us. It makes no sense to dispatch that many ships to block a single FTL-route. Of course it could be that they simply have a lot of ships. But if they have so many ships to spare for each FTL-route, then your people and the Drazi are... are...”

Ayo gestures for help. “How do your people say? Cut off your hands instead of fighting a lost battle?”

I blink. “I think you mean: 'Better not to fight a losing battle and cut off a hand, than fight it and die.'” But I get what Ayo means. If they have that many ships at each possible FTL-route to their systems that far out, then they could simply overrun us. “If that's not the case, Ayo. It would mean we are at their mercy.”

“Don't worry. For some unknown reason most known species are at a similar technological and expansive level. That's why I favour the possibility that they knew we were coming. Your people already assumed that they have FTL communication. Probably they have installed stealthed sensor platforms in every system they visited.” The Zeen calls up a map of the previous star systems. “There were some systems with many asteroids on our course. With their stealth-tech it should be easy to monitor us without being seen.”

I start gnawing at the thumb of my third hand. “It's all wrong.”

Ayo turns his body to face me. “What's wrong.”

“Their technology. They have FTL communication. Their ships have laughable shields, but they have gravity propulsion. Their stealth-tech gives us nothing to see but shadows, but their weapons are mediocre at best. Yet they have self-replicating robots. And we haven't even seen their method of travelling from star to star. It's like their technology took a completely different path from ours.” I complain.

Ayo starts jumping on all fours. “Isn't that exciting? Oh. Look! I think they are dropping their stealth!”

.