CHAPTER 21 - CONFRONTATION

DATE POINT: APRIL 19TH, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, EN ROUTE TO AAV CONTACT ONE

LIEUTENANT PAUL KARST

The flight to the alien ship had to be the single most foreboding experience Paul could recollect in a lifetime filled with conflict and spy craft. Not even the bulky Paladin suit he finally had a chance to wear into the field eased his nerves as the alien vessels grew steadily larger in the forward camera. They were sleek, spherical craft with a ring smoothly extending from the middle, making the final view rather like a pair of bowls set atop each other’s outer rim creating an effect like a metallic planet with a ring system around it. There were no visible seams anywhere on the exterior, as if the craft had been formed out of putty instead of metal.

Lights and floating holographic glyphs were projected out in front of them, which seemed to indicate a flight path of sorts to the lead ship. The hull rippled slightly on the surface in the location the flight pathway ended at. A seam formed, emitting bright white light before the metal itself seemed to liquefy and retreat into the surrounding hull, creating an opening into the hangar bay.

“Well, I suppose that is as close to rolling out the red carpet as we can expect.” Lucas said after whistling.

“Did you see that door open in the exterior? It just melted away into the rest of the hull like it was water! They accelerated down from hundreds of thousands of kilometers per hour to a perfect match of our inbound velocity without seeming to be affected by inertia at all. How the fuck do we fight that?” Jenkins complained.

“First time going into the belly of an advanced alien warship?” Victor asked without a flicker of judgement in his tone. Jenkins looked back at him and nodded his helmeted head. “Stay behind me at all times. Don’t you worry, I’ll protect you little man. It never stops being scary, you know. You simply get better at being able to handle it. Much of that comes as you get more confident in your own abilities.”

“Wow… That actually kind of helps. Thank you.” Jenkins said.

“Don’t mention it. I have seen too many die in the crucible of the one war we still have to finish to risk starting a second one. This needs to be your focus, your helmet betrays no emotions, only your stance does. Stand straighter with your shoulders back, like you are open to anything the world can throw at you and are ready to challenge it.” Victor said with confidence. Jenkins in response stood straighter, with his shoulders back further.

“I am a badass warrior and I deserve to be here!” Jenkins called out.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, newbie, and never say shit like that out loud again. Is that how you practice bravery when you are alone in the mirror?” Paul burst out eagerly amid howling laughter. Nobody else seemed to join in, though, which killed much of the fun for him.

Henry shot Paul a death glare, obvious even through the emotionless face plate. The joke had landed flat, so Paul just rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut and let it be. Henry strode into the middle of the room, clearly giving off his speech vibes. He was so predictable, Paul lamented.

“Ignore the nihilist in the room, kid. Look, just keep your mouth shut and stay behind Vic the philosopher-King over there. As far as I am concerned, if you want to fake it till you make it, then stand up tall and proud to your hearts content. Let us be clear, I will have absolutely no acts of bravado out of any of you. We are here on a historic mission of peace and discovery, not of war and conquest. We must walk a delicate balancing act between a perfect show of strength, self-reliance, and unity. I will take the lead on speaking with them and will occasionally status check to one of you at a time if I feel your input could help the conversation along. Otherwise, each of you are to remain silent, intimidating, disciplined, and still. If you have something to say that contradicts something that I have already said then keep it to yourself and bring it up to me later in private. If it is especially critical, get my attention with three clicks of your status light. We must assume that any and all comms between ourselves aside from Q-Comm traffic can be monitored, and that any corridor may be bugged so be cautious when speaking about sensitive information. Any questions so far?” Henry looked around.

Lance looked at Victor and Lucas and then around to the rest before he shook his head.

“Our primary objective will be to discover as much as we can about them while revealing as little as we can about ourselves. We want to also ensure that we end this meeting peacefully, as well as evaluate them as possible allies. A secondary goal will be to see if we can learn more about the status of the galaxy at large. We still know next to nothing about the giants, and this could be an intelligence goldmine for us, properly handled. Our second shot at first contact has already started better than our first, or so it seems. At least they are attempting to talk before shooting. Let’s not ruin this opportunity. They may provoke us to see our reactions, to test us. It is imperative that you follow my lead and stay calm, non-reactive, as we don’t want to spook them or start a firefight. Now, there are a few things we know about the aliens we are about to encounter. I think its important that we hear it now before we go in.”

Paul found himself nodding along to Henry’s little speech. He then saw his status request light blink. He’s testing me already. Better give him what he wants. Paul sighed in his helmet. Henry was right, secrets held right now could get them all killed. They needed every advantage they could get, so Paul decided to tell them everything he knew, even if it was barely anything.

“The alien race that we are meeting with call themselves the Alderei, though you may know of them as the greys.”

“The fuck you just say?” Lucas asked.

“Watch your tone! Act like you’re a goddamn professional for once in your life.” Lance scolded Lucas. Paul shrugged it off and continued.

“You heard me right, we are about to come into contact with an alien species commonly referred to as the greys. They are generally described as short and stubby armed with enormous heads, large eyes and a small slit for a mouth. In reality, they are actually a race with two physical formats. The short ones are a kind of quasi-biological android body designed to travel long distances between stars with a minimum of biological needs to attend to. The real greys, the Alderei stand around two to two and a half meters, have a fair amount of muscle, and are a hyper intelligent race most analogous to an amphibian biped. They never shared much information on themselves specifically, and when Eisenhower met their representative for the first time, in fact they made it clear that they were not interested in providing hardly any information at all. The truth is, the United States recovered several crashed craft of theirs from multiple continents during and after the second world war while they were constantly here in observation over us. The meeting with Eisenhower in the fifties was to send a message that in exchange for not blowing our country back to the stone age for refusing to return captured craft, they would have free reign to abduct humans and other Earth species to build a genetic library and to have license to use it at will for their own purposes.”

Paul was skipping over too much, he knew, but they had to know the kind of cold calculus that they would be facing. They had to be ready to view the entire encounter through this lens, or they could easily be conned into anything.

“Even with decades to work on them, we have no clue how most of their systems work. Last time we tried tinkering with one’s reactor while it was operating, the explosion killed two whole teams. Dr. Rousseau was the first head of the AAV program to be able to make any useful technical headway, mostly thanks to decades of work and scientific advances finally catching up enough to allow it. Even then, it’s only lead to the development of a prototype design for warp gates, which are a pale shadow of the technology that powers their drive systems. They can warp spacetime around their craft to the point that they can travel effectively instantaneously anywhere in the galaxy at max power, and they can accelerate and perform maneuvers while avoiding the effects of extreme gee forces even at lower power settings. This is because they are encased in their own gravity bubble. Our telekinetic drives work in a very low power version of a similar effect, but it only produces a waveform in the null matter backdrop and the effect is thus driven by inertia instead. That is why we still feel gee forces when using TK drives. When they activate their drives to accelerate to combat velocities, we will seem to crawl at a snail’s pace thanks to relativistic effects while they can dance around us faster than we can target them and react. This means they can dodge all of our weapons with ease and dissect our defenses at will. If we fail to kill them before they activate their drive systems and accelerate, we will lose, especially since the gravity bubble acts like an even more powerful version of a null barrier. What’s worse is that they have photonic barriers activated, too, so killing them in time is effectively impossible with any of our current weapons. Well, the C.L.A.P.P.E.R might be able to do the trick if we could surprise them with a one-two punch, but that is only one out of three, and the other two will get us. It is critical that you understand this, because if we start a fight in here, we doom everyone else out there.”

Probably a touch dramatic, but they needed to understand the gravity of what fighting a war with this race would mean. He hated that he had to rush it, but they were being swallowed by the larger craft as they spoke.

“Wait, so how did we ever get our hands on their working tech then?” Lucas asked.

“We have only ever captured their small scout craft, never a proper warship like this one. The small craft often need to land to cool their systems after long trips or to collect samples. They tend to have less than five crew, all of them are a meter and a half tall and can be easily subdued on the ground if caught unaware. I also remember one supposedly was uncovered from the ice in Antarctica, another crashed after being struck by lightning while flying in low power mode, things like that.” Paul replied to a room of mute silence, broken only by a slowly rising laugh from Victor

“Looks like we aren’t the first humans to board and capture an alien vessel after all! We got one-upped by GI Joe!”

“Why the fuck would that be funny, Vic? Not feeling the laughter at being upstaged right now.” Lucas growled.

“Easy Lucas, different situations, different conflicts. What we accomplished together counts every bit as much now as it did then. Nothing has changed but the mission before us. Also, if you remember, Joshua and his crew supposedly commandeered some of the giant’s ships too.” Lance said, putting a stop to the complaining.

“Paul, thank you for your report, the rest of you, remember to guard sensitive information, stay mute and resolute behind me, and to watch for your status lights for your signal to jump in. We will be observing radio silence for the time being.” Henry said, taking the lead as the gunship touched down by walking towards the loading ramp. The Patriot mech suit that had been their escort landed to their side mere moments after.

Paul inched forward to get a view as the ramp dropped to uncover a sterile grey metal interior punctuated by floating holograms and signs in a myriad of colors that apparently marked off corridors. In front of the central hub door stood the armored forms of three tall greys flanked by a pair of tall robotic escorts. Each wore a colorful hooded cloak around their shoulders that bore intricate decorations in murals and writing upon a front section that covered half their chest over the top of their armor. The writing and symbolism depicted defied even Paul’s understanding. Around each of them, an egg shaped distortion could just barely be seen in the air around them, indicating the existence of personal photonic shields.

The Alderei in the center stood almost a head taller than its fellows and had half of its head either replaced by or clad in shiny metal, including a full replacement eye with a multi-surfaced bug-eye lens. It also had a cybernetic replacement arm rippling with thick electro-muscle and sporting what looked to be a weapon barrel embedded in its forearm. It also bore a floating holographic crown made of golden geometric glyphs that rotated slowly around its head.

Their robotic guardians were made from the same kind of seamless grey metal as the ship in a roughly humanoid form. Instead of a normal head, they had a metallic loop ringed along the inside in a different type of darker, segmented metal. A vaguely blue colored energy field stretched across the middle of the loop, containing a crackling and popping tiny black mass of some seemingly unstable substance tucked inside of a protective bubble. A similar bubble opposite from it contained a small mass backlit by bright photons, both of which floated in an orbit around a very bright center. The two bubbles swung perfectly opposite one another creating two swirling, counter-rotating teardrop shapes within the flat disk of the containment field. Similar distortion fields surrounded them as well, meaning they were also shielded.

Something about the visual sent chills down Paul’s spine, exacerbated by the fact that the rearmost unit was slowly morphing one hand between different cruel looking weapon shapes while staring directly at them. Even without obvious eyes, or even cameras, it was easy to tell they were paying very close attention to their party. The one in front was sporting clawed hands with impossibly perfect points and edges to them. In an instant, the sharp fingers extended to twice their length, shaping themselves into sharp blades. Paul held no doubt in his mind they would tear through his armor like paper. Get a hold of yourself, keep observing everything, stay focused and ready.

Multiple smaller disk shaped craft could be seen in the landing bays around them, which seemed to stretch continuously around the saucer ridge that ringed the ship. Grey aliens both short and tall worked efficiently on the various smaller saucers in the bays around them alongside specialized four-legged semi-organic loaders which labored beside them. Each worked ceaselessly by lifting heavy objects, or using tools held by a form of fingered pod at the end of one of the four long, tentacle-like arms that sprouted from their backs. Paul stifled his revulsion at the alien spectacle, trying to set a stoic example for the wild cards behind him. Together they stood in formation at the bottom of the ramp as the aliens approached.

Both sides now stood stone faced a mere ten meters apart. The apparent leader of the greys strode forward and spread his hands outward before bringing them both back together palm to palm with one facing up, the other facing down with two bony fingers extended out per hand. The being then performed an almost imperceptible bow of the head and shoulders before it spoke.

“Welcome, humans of Earth and representatives of the United Terran Republic Navy. The language and culture pack you transmitted along with that anomalous code segment have allowed us to rapidly come to consensus and were immensely helpful in rapidly updating our translation software. That was a most wise and considerate move to include that in your first contact package. Though, your addition of the anomalous Alderei cipher brings many questions to our minds. We will have plenty of time to sate our curiosity soon. I am Roh Thaad’at, commandant of the Twelfth Forward Interdictor Fleet. As commandant, I speak with the authority as a conduit of the Alderei Consensus. Which of you is in charge? We have much to discuss.”

Henry stepped forward and spoke in a booming, confident voice through his external speakers.

“My name is Captain Henry O’Toole of the UTRN Indomitable Will, representative of the United Terran Republic of Earth and all her Peoples. I command this mission of peace and exploration, and we welcome all peaceful contact with the various races of the galaxy. Though be warned, we are well equipped with means to defend ourselves. We bear these arms not as a threat, but as an assurance of peace through strength. Do you grant permission to come aboard to our party as armed? I ask also that we be able to bring our own heavy mech suit for support and continuity of communications.” Henry said, patting the leg of the nearly five meter tall Patriot mech suit that had flown in alongside them.

“Consensus has given assurances that you would be safe from harm and that you would be allowed to arm yourselves in turn for peace of mind. It is not in the nature of the Alderei to betray the safety of noble guests arriving under the banner of peace. Permission to come aboard our vessel is granted, Captain. Follow me, we have a meeting space prepared with seating that can be adjusted for ergonomic compatibility to any form. That construct, however, is too tall to walk the halls of this ship. It will have to stay with your craft. Do you still wish to proceed?” In a strangely human gesture, Roh Thaad’at cocked his head slightly while asking.

“Very well, we will proceed. Lead the way commandant.”

They followed the aliens through a maze of sterile corridors marked by holographic glyphs of assorted shapes and colors along the top of the wall and marking intersections. Henry seemed to have the talking part down for the moment, freeing Paul’s mind to observe and analyze. Thus, Paul busied himself with memorizing the turns they took and the number of paces just in case they needed to shoot their way out. Everywhere Paul looked, the corridors were the same sterile grey metal, adorned only by the directional glyphs on the walls.

Nothing, anywhere seemed to have any visible seams, the walls were perfectly smooth and continuous, and seemed to grow out of the deck below at a radius. There were no right angles anywhere, adding to the mystery, as if the whole ship had been cut from a single block of metal. Finally, after minutes of travel and dozens of turns through the maze like interior, Roh Thaad’at stopped and waved his hand at the wall beside them. The wall seemed to split open and melt away before re-solidifying into an open doorway with rounded edges.

“That is really an incredible trick, how do you do that?” Henry asked in awe.

“At our level of excess energy production and technical development, such things as dynamic control of matter phase transitions are trivially easy. There are few technological barriers that we have failed to cross. Have a seat if it pleases you.”

Roh Thaad’at gestured again to an empty side of the room. Before Paul could comment on the lack of seating, the floor rippled, and liquid metal rose from the floor. Within seconds, six sturdy metal chairs as well as a long table solidified into shape, along with three more chairs for the Alderei at the opposite end of the table. Henry gestured for his fellows to sit. The only person who seemed intent to stand was Victor, who stood back, holding his breacher at low ready. Once everyone seemed settled, Roh Thaad’at spoke again, seemingly intent on maintaining control of the situation.

“Are the chairs to your liking? We can adjust them for your improved comfort if needed.”

“No, thank you, Commandant. This is quite comfortable thank you.”

“Excellent, now onto the primary topics of discussion. Now tell me, are you aware that your aggressive actions in arraying your fleet’s forces in the manner you did almost cost your lives today? We have the legal authority to enforce the security of the border systems against hostile incursions. Your wise decision to hold your fire and instead attempt to communicate were the primary factors that saved your lives. One could almost make the accusation that you seem almost entirely unaware of the norms of modern space fleet interactions and border interdiction. Of particular interest was this cipher that you sent. We still have not yet cracked the encryption protecting its contents, but its only a matter of time until we do. The design is clearly one produced from an Alderei mind for Alderei systems, but certain aspects of the file architecture are… disturbingly anomalous. Tell us the truth now. Where did you get that cipher!?”

Paul suppressed a shiver, behind him, Jenkins stirred visibly in his seat. Fuck, the mind games are already beginning Henry better be up to the task.

“Had we not implied the threat of force to back up our sincere offer of peaceful first contact, would we be speaking right now aboard your ship? I think not. We have enough offensive and defensive capabilities that you would find yourself in a far more dangerous fight than you give us credit for. And as for the cipher? We were given this file by another Alderei representative just for this very eventuality more than thirty years ago, though we haven’t needed to use it until now. How are you not aware of this? Don’t you have files on the species that you claim to enforce the border for? How are you having problems cracking your own encryption?” Henry fired back in fine form, taking zero shit. Paul smirked as he listened along. This should be fun.

“Impossible, what you are claiming is simply impossible. It would seem we have quite a pressing problem on our hands here, Captain.”

“What would that be, commandant?”

“The fact that you all are lying about your origin story.”

Roh Thaad’at waved his hand and the opening in the wall rippled and then sealed itself shut, effectively trapping them all within the room.

SHIT! Paul noticed both of the Alderei bodyguards seemed to tense and coil, as if ready to spring into motion. All around him, hands seemed to tighten on guns, and legs and arms flexed in quiet preparation to rise and fight if needed. Paul squeezed the grip on his rifle under the table and flipped the selector to fire. Henry raised his hand to calm the situation behind him.

“That is an incredibly bold accusation, Commandant. Upon what grounds do you claim that we are lying?” Henry asked in an eerily calm voice.

“Based upon the fact that there is no United Terran Republic of Earth and her Peoples. The garden world in this system is populated with a bronze age vassal species under pantheon system control by the Nephaeli’im, the race which you call the giants in your diplomatic packets. The very same race which your first contact materials claim to be politically independent of and at war with. Consensus demands answers. Both of these cannot be true at the same time. Who are you, really? Would you show me your face and permit us to sequence a DNA sample? This room is free of pathogens and the atmosphere is within safe levels for respiration for most known carbon based species.”

“My suit has analyzed the atmosphere and deemed it breathable, and free of recognized dangerous contaminants. Most pathogens cannot easily jump species, so it shouldn’t be an issue even if they were present in the room. That is not my primary concern, my problem is being trapped in a room and threatened while under a banner of peace. Tell me, why should I submit to such a test? What would this prove?” Henry asked.

“The Nephaeli’im are masters of genetic manipulation and have climbed the tech ladder aggressively to close the gap between our species. Consensus wishes to test your DNA profile for known signs of active genetic manipulation. We would send in a drone to remove the very top layer of skin cells from a tiny patch of your skin. Do you consent to this test? It will not induce a strong pain response and there will be no scarring or blood.”

“Very well, I consent. We are no liars, and if we were, basic logic states that we would have created a more believable deception. After this test corroborates our story I demand for you to immediately reopen that doorway and to cease your threatening posture. This is a shameful action you have taken, especially for a meeting brokered in the name of peace.”

Henry then reached up and removed the air hose from his helmet before he hit the seal release and lifted the helmet off of his head. A small round drone flew into the room through a small hole that opened in the wall and stopped in front of Henry’s face. A small door popped open on the drone and a small lens inside lit up with a bright flash before Henry flinched. A small sliver of skin floated through the air in front of him which the drone swallowed into a different door that opened on its exterior. After a moment, the drone beeped, the various doors on its surface sealed shut again and it flew back out of the room.

Henry quickly re-sealed his helmet and motioned for Paul to check the seal. In front of them, the three Alderei sat silently with their organic eyes sheathed over and closed while humming an interweaving tune. After what had seemed like an eternity, their eyes opened at the same time and Roh Thaad’at broke his silence.

“Consensus achieved. Thank you for consenting to our request for validation. Initial scans have shown no signs of known markers of genetic tampering and known genetic warfare upgrades, though multiple other anomalies remain unexplained. Full sequencing will be completed shortly. Where did you get your ship? From what star system have you arrived and by what method?”

Henry leaned forward and put both his elbows on the table and put his hands with fingers interlinked under his chin.

“You have us trapped and under threat, and you now expect us to hand over sensitive information like our methods of FTL travel? Listen, we came from Earth, the garden world third planet inwards from the star in this very solar system. We are on our way out of the system on a journey of peace and exploration, testing a prototype FTL drive. We have been at war with the giants for nearly eight years now since they bombarded our planet from orbit and killed two billion of our people.”

“Nonsense, the name of the third planet from the star is Aht’Lantis, and it is populated by a race of beings called the Adamu and they are a genetically modified hybrid slave species that hasn’t even discovered the secrets of working iron into steel. Curious, according to preliminary scans on your sample, your DNA is a strong relational match, showing a 99.99% match to the standard Adamu genetic profile. There is an anomalous level of genetic drift, primarily in the form of a large amount of accumulated junk DNA in your chromosomes. Your story does not match with reality, meaning it is far more likely that you are spies. It is our job to exhaustively monitor the situation on the ground and to prevent the forces of Apophis from discovering the location of this system and to shelter Rah and his forces so they can continue their resistance efforts. We must be sure that you are not a sleeper agent of Apophis attempting to breach the system.”

“Atlantis? Adamu? Rah? Some of those sound like names from our mythology. Who is Apophis?” Henry asked.

“How do you not know the name of the emperor of nearly a quarter of the galaxy? Aht’Lantis has remained a well-kept secret precisely because the deposed emperor Rah had kept Aht’Lantis off the official star charts before our invasion split their territory millennia ago. So long as Rah continues to tie up enemy forces and divert their attention and resources from our own war with Apophis then it continues to be in our interests to keep this location a secret and to support the active civil war. You truly know nothing about any of this? We find this difficult to believe.”

“Why are you being so forthcoming about all of this, if, as you say we are under suspicion for being agents of Apophis?” Henry asked.

“Simple. If you indeed turn out to be agents of Apophis then you will not leave this ship alive, and your ship outside will be cut to pieces and hauled back to the nearest naval shipyard for study.”

“Good thing for us that we have no idea who the hell you are talking about then. Our story is the honest truth. If we were lying we would have picked a story that didn’t directly contradict reality. Believe me, plenty of what you are claiming makes no sense to us either and doesn’t match our experiences. It’s like we are talking about two different Earths.” Henry said trying to defuse the tension.

“We tire of these games, if you are not spies, there is another possible explanation, though its odds of being the correct explanation are significantly lower. Consensus demands the full truth. What is the nature of your FTL system?”

“That’s classified, Commandant. Keeping that secret may just save the lives of my men. We need to pursue story verification another way.”

“Nonsense, your story is demonstrably fabricated, and you have been caught sneaking into a quarantined system in a time of war. You stand accused of espionage in front of Consensus, how do you plead?”

“How do we plead? Hold on a moment, we still don’t know what is going on. What is Consensus?” Henry asked, Paul started feeling the itch to step in, but Henry had been handling himself well, so Paul managed to squash the urge.

“Consensus refers to a real-time species wide networked intelligence that the Alderei created as a means of creating the perfect democracy. The word of Consensus is law, because the word of Consensus is the will of the Alderei. You are on trial for your lives, we will record your plea for posterity.”

“Hold on, how can you dare to stand there and tell us that we are lying about our own background and history!? We have historical documentation and proof on the servers on board our ship! We can provide more than enough content to prove our claims. Videos, audio, more history than could ever be manufactured by even the most well-funded psychological operation.”

“Such digital evidence could be manufactured easily with the assistance of AI and a well-funded team and is certainly within the ability of Apophis to support and fund such an operation. Deception and psychological operations are one of his preferred tactics. Do you have additional evidence to add, or objections to lodge? If not, the time has come. How do you plea?” Roh Thaad’at responded coldly. Henry seemed stuck, as time ticked painfully on, Paul had to do something.

“We call it the inversion drive; through a classified means we slip through the baryonic barrier into the fifth dimension and hijack the natural forces driving the expansion of the universe to travel faster than light.” Paul blurted out, refusing to let the situation devolve further.

Henry looked at Paul in shock, and though his face was covered by the helmet, Paul knew there would be anger and disappointment there. Henry did not appreciate the danger they were in, or he had allowed himself to be trapped and saw no good way out. Paul had to intervene, that much was clear. There was no doubt in his mind he had done the right thing. The Inversion drive was not so secret that they should sit back and allow this farce to continue.

The Alderei in front of them also appeared shocked for the briefest moment before they again closed their eye sleeves in perfect synchronization. When they opened them again moments later their expressions had changed to something much less aggressive. The alien nature of their features made it hard for Paul to guess at its meaning, perhaps pity?

“Consensus achieved. You have been relieved of suspicion pending historical review and continued second tier first contact discussions. If our new hypothesis is correct, we have much to discuss, and bleak news to deliver. We ask that you do not hold our prior threats against us. We are at war with a relentless and dangerous foe with a long history of deception, and are duty bound to protect this border against incursion and infiltration. We recognize you entered this meeting room under the banner of peace, and under that same banner you will be allowed to leave.”

The wall again split open to form an open doorway once more. Everyone seemed to let their guard down slightly in turn. Paul released the breath he held as much of the tension seemed to drain from the room. He flipped the selector on his rifle back to safe, a click behind him let him know he had not been alone in being ready. Best to avoid creating an interstellar incident.

“Think nothing of it, Commandant. You have a duty to your people and mission, and I have a duty to mine. I would hate to have to carve a bloody path out of here and back to our dropship just as I am sure you would have hated to give the order that led to us massacring your forces as we escape. It gladdens me to know that your race is prudent and strong rather than foolish, scared and weak. Perhaps we can discuss terms of a form of alliance against our mutual foes?” Henry said, leaning forward and speaking with unshaken confidence.

Paul truly admired Henry in that moment. He delivered the threat perfectly without faltering, yet simultaneously gave an opportunity for his opponent to save face. Roh Thaad’at’s lone organic eye squinted as it seemed to pull its head back into its neck, folding the skin somewhat before it recovered its previous posture.

“Captain, I fear that while your foes and my foes may be the same species, but they are still very different, nonetheless. We can discuss an alliance, but only for our war. For us here to have an effect on your war will be quite impossible.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by that?” Henry asked. Paul squeezed his rifle grip tighter, frustrated by the cryptic answers.

“You really don’t know? How did your models not predict this? The imprudence of it all! Messing with deep dimensional forces in ways you do not fully understand.” The beings in front of them seemed genuinely in distress until they all rather creepily as one calmed down in an instant.

“Consensus achieved, seek mutual full disclosure. When you passed the heliopause, something strange happened to you, correct? Some kind of shared medical distress? What was it like for your species?”

“How did you know about that? We all experienced a potent headache at the same time all around the ship.” Henry said, cautiously.

“A headache? Fascinating, a sign of a sturdy biology. When we tested the method it was near universally fatal for our kind, so we abandoned the method long ago. At that moment, you all experienced the pain of a severed connection to your native timeline. When you re-emerged into normal space afterwards, you were re-inserted into a random timeline, ours.”

Paul’s blood ran cold. No... That's impossible... wasn't it?

“Keep calm, this may be a psyop. We need to independently verify this before making any conclusions or decisions.” Henry said over the radio. Paul snapped out of it, glad that Henry was thinking clearly still.

“Why should I believe you? This is a serious claim to be making without corresponding evidence.” Henry said, holding his ground.

“The cipher you sent was clearly Alderei in design philosophy, but to greatly simplify a complicated description, is protected by a far more advanced security architecture than we currently use. At first our systems did not recognize it, but it somehow recognized our systems enough to provide limited access, while remaining largely encrypted in a manner we are still struggling to crack.”

Paul’s head was swimming at the implications of the back to back bombshells. Only his status indicator winking on his display snapped him out of it. Henry was asking him to step in for a moment. Paul cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts before he activated his speakers.

“We were given this cipher as a gift by an Alderei representative as a fail-safe should our ships in the future ever be detained. This was back before the giants invaded and humanity was still politically divided, at this time we had hoped to start a secret space program to win the future war for dominance of our solar system before it even began. We were given this cipher almost forty years ago. How can it be possible that a forty year old cipher is apparently hyper advanced to you now?”

Roh Thaad’at and their attendants leaned back in their chairs and shut their eye sheaths for a long moment. His glimmering bug eye lens stared ominously and unblinkingly at them the entire time. Finally, the trio seemed to revive and reopen their eyes before Roh Thaad’at spoke.

“Captain, good news. The cipher was finally hacked into within a digital quarantine environment, its authenticity has been confirmed. Consensus achieved; full disclosure approved.” Roh Thaad’at turned its head slowly before settling its gaze on Henry.

“The cipher is authentic, there is no longer any doubt about it. It is an advanced updated version of a border identification pass with a special diplomatic waiver produced by the Alderei for use by a representative of the United States Exo-planetary Navy. The date of issuance is more than three thousand years from now. This confirms our earlier hypothesis. You have separated yourselves from your original timeline and have now re-grafted yourselves into a parallel timeline at its very beginning. This must be the dawning of the moment your species' history diverges onto its own path from that of its creators.”

You… were warned… Paul heard in a scratchy voice that sounded as if it were speaking from inside the back of his skull, reverberating throughout. He shivered for a second as goosebumps raced up his arms. He ignored it, engaged as he was with the alien commandant.

“But that’s impossible! We replicated Joshua’s methods! The giants used this method on their smaller ships for in-system FTL and by extension probably in their motherships as well for interstellar travel. How is this the first time we have heard of this?” Paul exclaimed, trying to fight the enclosing reality with everything he had, even though he knew it was futile.

This outburst is unbecoming… accept the truth… and save face…

“When the Nephaeli’im travel using this method, they run a skeleton crew along with all of their soldiers locked away in temporal stasis. This keeps them fresh and ready to revive as needed with minimal resource requirements. They also travel with a true prophet as navigator, which it would seem your expedition lacks. Only a sixth dimensional connection like that of a prophet’s combined matter-space-time senses can isolate the right spot in history on the correct timeline from the limitless options available to graft themselves into. Only a true prophet can navigate you back to your home timeline with this method of FTL travel, surely you know this?”

A Prophet… master of both space and time… telekinesis and mass senses… cursed with the gift of foresight… tortured by twists of time and probability… forever seeking to change fate... the efforts of one too often too little too late...

“Who are you?” Paul thought, knowing now that the voice from before had been no coincidence.

A glut of fear… the seed bears fruit… a slow encroaching… an awakening heralded… waning weakness and waxing strength… our aid for your silence…the barter has been made… the die cast… now is not the time to question… memories unlocked will better explain… focus on the now... or lose all we may gain...

Paul snapped out of it and put the subject of a probable psychotic break into a tiny can’t fuck with this right now box and tried in vain to slam it shut. He then blinked his status light three times back to Henry. They were in deep trouble. Amidst a low key migraine, flashes of memory crept back to him of horrible dreams of the void between stars and disjointed monologues with cryptic meanings.

Paul’s eyes widened in alarm. He had been half groggy from drugs and brain boil at the time he had done so, but he had made a literal deal with a devil. He was now dead sure of it. A serene calm began to slowly lap at the shores of his consciousness. The original allure of the additional power and knowledge called enticingly to him, with his desire cutting through the fear. Paul felt a memory resurface of a deep jealousy and frustration at Andrew Reese's shortsighted move to kill himself rather than share in the power he had been granted. He did know how to exorcise it should things start going badly as well... without resorting to a bullet to his brain.

Fuck it. Paul thought. The moment things went badly, he would exorcise the little intruder. If all it truly wanted was to passively soak in fear and pleasures through him, then he could let it ride along. He loved to soak in those waters too. This might not be so terrible; it certainly had its advantages. Good roommates… respect the pact… Paul shivered again; this would take a lot of getting used to.

Alright, now that the secret is out… Let’s lay out some ground rules when sharing MY body.

We are listening…

Hopefully, Henry would have no troubles picking the conversation back up from here. He would have his hands full now with this one.