So... We Aren't Alone (Part 16) | HFY Story | A Short Sci-Fi Story

the next morning when Mira woke up a pair of Flx’usri helped her to stand and move to a shower stall Mira was still a little unsteady so they were there to ensure she didn't hurt herself she noticed a few new scars but they looked years old instead of days old a testament to advanced alien medicine the IV had been removed sometime while she slept and even the bruising that had been nearly black when she woke was in the last stages of green they guided her back to the bed after helping her dress

in clean clothes and a familiar face came in shortly after carrying in breakfast good morning Povin it's good to see you it's good to see you awake too you had us all very worried he set the plate down on a tray similar to one you would see in any hospital back on earth thank you I can imagine that's never happened before at least to me I know that historically it's possible I just never thought I was a berserker they had a brief conversation about what a berserker was similar to what she had wi

th garda the night before a few hours after she finished lunch Vebi and Fennis came into the med bay to talk to her Mira was in her own enclosed room so that she wouldn't have to wear her atmosphere belt while she recovered they settled into seats near the bed and Vebi set up a small camera so that Ra'lee would be able to get caught up once she woke up they spoke briefly of what happened to her and why she thought that could have happened Vebi brought up Mira's records with them and saw that ga

rda had put in a message to a Quix medical staff member on another ship it looks like garda is seeking answers from the Quix hopefully they can offer some help in that regard we do want to let you know that the air guns you made were a great help as a result no Acilli were greatly harmed they will of course be looking into kinetic weapons for themselves in the future such a thing will help them greatly on their homeworld as well I imagine that will be something they will individually be looking

to receive in trade from your earth governments I'm glad to hear that Mira replied yes we were even able to take many prisoners Fennis grinned how do you handle prisoners Mira asked it varies we will see what information we can collect from them we are usually unable to get a whole lot of information due to not being able to force them to speak Vebi replied if we are unable to get information before returning to the Federation capital they will be turned over to the holding facility sometimes we

do prisoner exchanges but it seems they have little care for who we capture so you aren't allowed to force them to speak to you Mira asked I don't understand they either chose to speak or they do not Fennis replied okay that's going to be another talk between the four of us and it will probably get real uncomfortable for all of us Mira sighed let's talk about what we were gonna talk about before we were so rudely interrupted alright and then I want to return to this prisoner talk Vebi replied M

ira nodded an agreement alright so my understanding is that at one time or another each of your species has visited earth yet Black Hole had no records of humans or earth and the Federation Council seemed to find information about humans to be new why is that Vebi raised a tentacle I can answer that you may have noticed that our species classing system may feel odd to you we have Drala who come from a lighter gravity planet and Acilli who come from a heavier gravity planet on the same ship and b

oth are classified as black class Mira nodded in agreement our classification is not based on how pleasant a planet's atmosphere or weather is to all other species instead it is based on how many can step foot on that planet without some aspect of the planet causing or nearly causing death when most species step foot on any of our planets it's usually the plant life that can cause such reactions from our counterparts that it is just too dangerous for them to come to us however any of us includin

g you could step foot on any of the other homeworlds without issues you can eat nearly any of our foods without issue and the same for us for your foods they could not do this even cooked our foods could kill them as you can see by my sash and Fennis' uniform we have a black circle around the Federation logo to let other members of the Federation know whether or not they can eat with us or visit our planets I believe Black Hole has a blue circle around their Federation logo blue is the most plen

tiful we can talk about the other colors later as for why we knew about your planet but a blue class ship did not it is more due to not having our information integrated enough each color designation shares networks and we have felt that getting what we feel is necessary information about other colors is too filled with inconveniences don't misunderstand it is absolutely possible to get such information but it is by ship instead of a blanket request some take the time to make the requests and so

me don't some ships don't have the necessary means to hold all of the information so they carry only the information they need any black class ship would know all about your planet but a ship from a different color designation may or may not many have no need to know about black class planets so they don't request the information that seems really dumb Mira replied Fennis chuckled I agree we had to take on a lot of extra memory storage because we refused to not know anything to be fair if we wer

e a class or two smaller in ship size we would have only taken on the information for the most prevalent colour classes a council member would also be dependent on how large of a memory storage device they possessed and they don't have the luxury of carrying it around with them on such a large vessel wait my portable was connected to the ship's databases Vebi interrupted you were only connected with what the ship your portable was connected to I just assumed you had a galactic internet Mira repl

ied no it would be nearly impossible to maintain such a large connection for information like that we have message relay stations which is how we are able to contact other ships or people and then you have a shipwide internet Fennis explained how was Z'natla able to make changes to the ship she was able to make a program to duplicate sounds that were played on this ship while hers was so far away during communication you are able to share files back and forth she was able to use that connection

to access our networks which she was given permission to do so Vebi explained oh like a hacker this word wasn't translated properly yet so Mira had to explain what that meant after having the explanation they agreed that it was like a hacker okay let's start with your people Admiral Vebi on earth they are called octopuses plural is sometimes called octopi or octopuses both are considered correct however I've always preferred octopi they are intelligent but they are not considered sapient devolut

ion was always a possibility Vebi replied I I don't even know how to say this so I'm going to say it plainly and badly for many people they are also considered food Vebi patted her knee it's okay when they were left there we expected that some may be eaten by predators after devolving they would no longer be considered flexusory my people are not going to take offense to this however these are children of the condemned many hundreds of generations removed so I would like an opportunity to visit

with one to see if you simply can't understand their language we'll cross that reef when we get to it don't worry that I or my people will take offense they were abandoned to whatever fate would do to them for their crimes there's more Admiral humans are very imaginative in our fantasy writings your people may get propositioned for relationships Vebi blinked rapidly a few times that's never happened before my people are considered quite ugly by galactic standards I don't know how to even take th

at Fennis covered his mouth to attempt to stifle laughter I don't even think my people are even remotely compatible with yours Mira was red faced from this conversation yeah I don't think that is going to matter to some people I just wanted to warn you ahead of time humans are a bit different she looked over to Fennis don't think you're going to be safe either she looked to the camera you either Mira sighed I think that's the most awkward of the talks let's move on to your people Lieutenant Comm

ander Fennis she brought up a few images on her portable to show him your people look a lot like what we would call gargoyles at one point they were added to buildings because it was thought that they would protect the people inside the building from evil though when I saw your people flying you look like something else she moved to a picture of a dragon in flight these are what we call dragons kind of similar to your name of Drala I can see how if I had seen one of your people in flight where I

had nothing to compare size to I might think you could be so large up close I just don't know how your people would have been able to fly on my planet our gravity is too high for you we could have glided so long as we weren't trying to use any speed the atmospheric belts we use which were closer to harnesses back when we first explored your planet would have been able to keep up with our movements if we only glided any faster than that and you are correct we would be affected by your gravity an

d likely crushed I suppose that makes sense I'll have to trust you on that one considering my people don't have wings mainly I didn't want you to get offended by someone calling you a gargoyle or dragon or being surprised by the comparison I think my people will be alright and I'll be sure to remind them to mind their tempers in case they want to fight a human for some reason Mira turn to the camera that leaves the Acilli many years ago a blurry photograph of one of your people was publicized th

e name that was given to this new and strange creature was Bigfoot honestly I have no idea why that was the name they came up with at any rate my people believed these big feet could be a lost ancestor of ours from our past mutations to become humans a branch that didn't die out there are people that hunt for your people their intention would be to kill so that they could then bring a Bigfoot in to prove their existence I know it's dumb some would wanna trap and others would just wanna take pict

ures and observe as if you were a new animal I'm sorry I'm not intending to offend it's how we react to discovering something new on our planet when we thought we had already discovered everything some react with fear and others react with curiosity unfortunately that curiosity can take really different forms and I didn't want you to be blindsided by it either however I do think that the reaction to the Flx’usri will be the one worth worrying about the most to know that we were a prison planet f

or your people may not be viewed in a good light honestly we kind of did the same thing to one of our continents it happened long enough ago that those people aren't viewed badly but the ones who put them there are sometimes reminded of what they did I just can't say how humans will react to knowing so it's really your choice on if you wanna admit that or not maybe pretend to be surprised ask to meet an octopus and then make your decision then it can always be strange and wonderous to you and yo

u have no idea how this happened Mira shrugged that seems sound advice