Alan sat at his bench. His face was vacant, resting against his left hand that was propped up on the bench. His right hand mindlessly tapped a bolt on the bench surface.

“Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you?” Sara’s voice pleaded.

“For the last time... no.”

He continued sitting there like he had for the last two days. The tapping continued.

“You could shoot me. Put me out of my misery,” he finally said.

“I may not have to.”

“Huh?”

“We have visitors. The cute furry ones. They don’t seem to be aggressive, so I haven’t shot them... yet. One of the creatures has gotten out of their mech and is approaching on foot with its hands raised and occasionally giving me a thumbs up.”

Alan thought about it a moment as he looked over at the display tables. Bold creature, he thought. Walking right up to the front door. Alan just watched as his mind kicked into instant overdrive analysis.

“Why not...” Alan got up and began walking up to the vehicle door. “Sara open up the vehicle door.”

“Alan! We’ll be completely exposed in here!”

“I don’t care anymore. Open up the door.”

The locks hissed as they released their grip. The door parts slide open. The small creature outside watched in awe, stopped in its tracks. Its eyes moved to Alan as he approached. The alien smiled and waved and gave him a thumbs up.

When Alan got close enough the creature spoke, “Remember... yes?”

Alan’s eyebrows raise, “You speak my language now?”

“Father learn tongue. Father annoyed. Tongue have rules, tongue break rules. Annoying.”

Alan chuckled. “I understand. Sometimes I find it annoying too.”

“Father ask. Why you come?”

Alan looked at the creature carefully. Guess chit chat is over. He would need to answer questions carefully and make sure to ask questions in return. “I was sent to check on the creatures my boss sent to the outpost here.” Alan pointed in the general direction of Aurora Outpost.

The creature touched the side of an earpiece and rattled off a string of syllables in its native language. Alan hoped their ability to understand what he was saying was better than how they spoke Basic.

The creature turned its focus back to Alan. “Father say Ustobo kill all.”

“Ustobo? You mean the nasty insect like creatures about so tall?” Alan held his hand about 90 cm to show height.

“Yes. Ustobo bad. Ustobo kill all. Ustobo kill Saru. Ustobo kill Alan Cook-er.”

Alan could feel blood drain from his face. “How do you know my name?”

“Father learn. Saru pickup crash mess. Father study. Father smart. Father teach Saru tongue speak you.”

“So your name is Saru?” Alan looked in the distance at the open chest ape like thing. The other pilot was still strapped in. “What’s his name?”

“No,” the creature pointed to itself, “Saru.” It pointed at its buddy, “Saru.”

“So your kind is Saru. The insect creatures are Ustobo. Father is Saru?”

“Yes, yes, no. Father... Old One. Father not Saru.” The creature smiled and gave Alan a thumbs up.

Alan couldn’t help but smile. “Just checking that I got this right. Ustobo and Saru at war?”

“YES!” the creature got excited. “Alan smart. Smart like Father.” It touched its earpiece again and rattled off more information.

“Father say. Alan make Ustobo boom. Father approve.”

“You mean when I blew up Ustobo near the outpost the other day?”

“YES! Father approve. Saru approve. Saru happy!” Another thumbs up and vigorous head nodding.

“My pleasure. I think Ustobo shot down my ship. That’s why I crashed landed here. They tried to kill me the same night you and I met. I found them at the outpost where I needed some things. Most everything there is ruined though.” Alan hoped that wasn’t too much information too fast.

The creature relayed the information. Who knows how much of it was accurate.

The creature turned around and motioned for something to come forward. It turned its attention back to Alan. “Father send. Offering. Goodwill. Peace. Father think Alan need.”

One of the ape looking mechs came out from the back of their ranks. It had a bag slung over its back. It came up alongside the small creature and gently set the bag down next to it. It opened up the top of the bag as wide as it would go and let it fall to reveal the contents.

Alan just about lost his composure as relief flooded him. At the bottom of the sack was three modules. One marked as ship life support systems, an advanced combat systems module, and a medical systems module.

“Alan need yes?”

Alan weakly smiled and nodded while fighting back emotions.

The small creature relayed information again.

“Father say others like these ruined. Father say Father make new ones make ship fly. Father say bargain. Saru Ustobo war stuck. Ustobo no win. Saru no win.” The creature smiled and pointed at Alan while slowly nodding its head, “Alan make war unstuck. Help Saru win. Yes?”

“You want me to join in your war against the Ustobo to tip the scales in Saru’s favor?”

“YES! Saru keep Ustobo contained. Ustobo like disease. Ustobo try infect planet. Saru only able contain. Saru can’t win. Outpost let Ustobo infect planet. Saru kept Ustobo in sky. Then outpost come. Saru not go near outpost. Saru not know what do. Ustobo come. Now Ustobo infect. You help planet. Help Saru fix.”

“So you want me to join your army then?”

“No. Saru do as Saru does. Saru contain. All Saru can do. Alan fight Alan way. Saru stay out Alan way. Alan kill all planet Ustobo, yes? Alan win Father make boxes make ship fly. Bargain, yes?”

Alan looked at the modules. Having the advanced combat module would definitely help things. He weighed his options. Alan had sunk low the last few days thinking he might never get off this planet and end up out here dead alone. The reality was, fighting this war might be the only option of getting off this planet. The only chance of of maybe getting out of the Chaos Region and back to humanity.

He was also curious about this ‘Father’ the creature kept referring to. He wanted to know more about who or what it was. If this ‘Father’ could make advanced ship modules, why was it out here in this god-forsaken region of space.

Alan looked back up at the creature, “One more condition. If I manage to exterminate all the planet side Ustobo, I would like to meet Father.”

The creature looked shocked. With wide eyes, it slowly reached up and touched its earpiece. Again and relayed, much slower this time, as if afraid to ask. After a moment the creature breathed as if it had been holding its breath. It gave a funny sounding laugh. “Father say YES! Father not ask Alan. Not ask too much. Father want same. Meet Alan. Talk Alan. Father Alan smart talk. Father excited.”

Alan nodded. “Deal. I’ll fight. It’ll take me a long time to plan and build. There is a lot I need to do to get ready. I will do as much as I can as quickly as I’m able.”

The Saru creature jumped up and down excitedly and gave Alan a thumbs up before rattling off into his headset. It turned around and called up another mech to come forward. The ape like mech came up to put its chest close to the ground. The chest of the metal beast opened up and the talkative Saru retrieved an item from between the two pilots inside of it.

It came back to Alan and held up a glass like cylinder that contained a crystal that softly pulsed light as if it breathed. The ends of the crystal touched the end caps of the clear tube that protected it. Alan notice the end caps had the same data ports as the modules they had brought back to him. The creature offered it up to Alan. “Gift from Father. All Father know of Ustobo. Help Alan fight Ustobo. Help Alan win. Father know long time get ready. Father think Alan smart. Father think Alan win. War stuck. Saru keep contained. Alan have time get ready.”

Alan received the alien module. “Thank you.”

The creature gave him a thumbs up and left. It climbed back in the ape like mech with its partner. The attachments snaked around and plugged into the body of the creature as the mech chest closed up. The mech gave Alan an awkward-looking thumbs up before leaving with its entourage.

Alan just stood there and watched them depart. Just like that, in the span of a few minutes his world was turned upside down. Or perhaps in this case, upside right. He had hope again. He didn’t feel as alone anymore. He had a sense of purpose again. Getting back to humanity was a possibility again. He just had to get rid of the Ustobo.

He packed the modules into the cavern. His first order of business was to make backup copies of all the modules save the alien one. He didn’t want to plug that into his main system. He would build a standalone computer to process the data in that device, just in case.

After a few days of work, Alan fired up the isolated computer system. After some systems checks, he attached the crystal container to one of the data ports. “Time to find out if we have a Trojan horse on our hands.”

“Alan, if this Father person was going to send a virus, wouldn’t he do that with one of the other modules instead? Why send it in what might be an obvious device?”

Alan thought about it. He ended by rolling his eyes. “Stupid, stupid, stupid...” he whispered. He now wondered how far spread was a potential computer virus at this point. The backup modules he had buried for safe keeping this morning may have a virus as well. Alan threw up his hands in frustration. “You better do a very deep check of all your systems.”

He shook his head. “All this work to build the isolated system for nothing.”

“I prevented any data transfer from the modules before I copied them. I already went through each of the data systems for each module very carefully and found no malicious data or code. I thought you knew this. It’s why it took so long to make copies.”

“Tunnel vision on my part I guess.” Alan pulled up the contents and began the process of analyzing what was sent. The crystal only contained data. The data was already in a format that Alan’s computers could easily access. Alan pulled up some of it on the small display. While he looked at bits of information, he had the computer scan the data container for anything malicious.

To his relief the text contained in the container was written in complete proper Basic. The speaking issue might be a limitation of the Saru, he realized.

There wasn’t a lot of information about the Ustobo, to Alan’s surprise. The Saru didn’t really interact with them beyond ensuring extermination. They didn’t seem to do much in the way of research of the Ustobo either, which Alan found kind of odd. He thought it would be common knowledge that the best way to defeat your enemy is to know him as well as you could. The Saru seemed to be content with the fact their weapons could kill them, so there wasn’t much more to know.

“No wonder they are at a stalemate,” Alan pondered. He pulled up more historical information. Apparently the Saru had been fighting off the Ustobo for centuries. The Ustobo never changed their tactics in all those years. Ustobo starships would come into orbit, nearly the same place and trajectory every time.

The Saru would promptly shoot them out of the sky. The Saru apparently had a global presence. Alan made a mental note of that. They would swarm any crash site no matter where they came down within a couple hours. All survivors were exterminated with a vengeance. The remains of the ships would be collected and recycled for the next engagement.

The Ustobo didn’t particularly seem all that intelligent. Just driven to conquer and do it with numbers that somehow replenished rapidly.

A message popped up on Alan’s screen showing no threats. The isolated computer didn’t have the display capabilities that his main system had. “Sara, I’m going to plug this thing into our main system. Keep a close eye on it. If anything acts suspicious, disconnect right away, understood?”

“I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Let’s hope so.” Alan transferred the device to the main server. “We should make a backup copy of this as well.”

After a moment the lights indicated connection. “Alan, this thing has a storage capacity of eight of our modules!”

“Say what?! It didn’t look like there was that much information on it.”

“There isn’t much data in it. The storage and the processing capacity is massive.”

Alan looked at the alien device. It was half the size of a normal systems module and a fraction of the weight. “It has processing power too?! I wonder if we could reverse engineer this thing? It would be incredibly valuable.” Alan thought of different applications for such a thing.

The holoprojector table lit up. Floating there above the table was a schematic for the device.

“Since when did you get the ability to reverse engineer?!”

“I don’t have that ability. I found this design among the information that was given to us. Information included says the crystals are rare. They are the byproduct of some very dangerous creatures that only reside in the north. The Saru consider it a suicide mission to go and retrieve these crystals. There is a note here to you that if you are willing, the Father will make it worth your while to retrieve a batch for him. He says to make sure you get enough for yourself as they have more uses than just computing.”

Alan stood there and considered it. “So this very valuable device was essentially given to me to whet my appetite.”

“Has it?”

“Now that is a stupid question.”

“Oh, dangle a shiny new toy in front of you and you’re hooked. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah... What else is on this thing?”

The display changed to show different catalogs of information. There was some information about the planet, weather patterns, wildlife, and available minerals. Also included was a very detailed topographical map.

Zones were marked out for different things. There were different zones for various wildlife. Zones of common crash sites for shot down Ustobo. One zone even marked the Aurora Outpost under Ustobo control. A really small zone marked out where Alan had landed and the location of his current cavern home. Obviously they had been watching him. What he didn’t see was any zone where Saru lived or had control of.

The information given would have been an explorer's dream to catalog in such detail. Yet, it surprised him how little there was for the Ustobo. There were listings for typical equipment, vehicles, weapons utilized. There was also a basic analysis for movement. It hadn’t changed in the hundreds of years the Ustobo had attempted to invade. Or maybe they were only scouting missions?

Alan took note about underground shield generators that formed a hemisphere under the Aurora Outpost. Apparently the Ustobo had tried to tunnel out to freedom in multiple directions. The Saru were fighting to keep the Ustobo contained not only on the surface but underground in tunnels as well. Alan would have to keep that in his design considerations.