Lifeforms

Dustin paced up and down the length of the ready room before dropping back into his chair with a sigh. “You’re sure?” he asked for the third time since Meli had brought him the news; the Velca nodded once again, tapping her tablet and causing the hologram on the table to spin up into a display of a short humanoid with elongated fingers and a curved prehensile tail.

“They appear to be somewhat akin to Earth marsupials; pouch-carrying their young has remained despite them achieving what humans would consider an early-modern-industrial level of technology. Their environment is heavily forested; the majority of their industry is underground, with the surface being given over to trees which they use for habitation.” Dustin’s wife paused at that point, adjusting the hologram to show a cross-section of the planet they were currently orbiting (at quite some distance, to avoid being detected by telescopes).

The hologram showed a criss-cross network of tunnels through the outermost layers; factories, refineries - anything non-agricultural or residential existed in caves dug into the bedrock, while the surface was for recreation, what little food production was needed in a rain-forest, and dwellings. “Based on our scans, they have limited orbital observation capabilities, and no current significant space flight program. Early rocketry has been developed, but due to the nature of their climate and a seeming unwillingness to deforest to allow for the construction of large scale launch facilities, rockets are currently only used for sending sub-orbital payloads; what most species would normally use airplanes for.” Meli continued her breakdown of the new species they had discovered, concluding with “there appears to be no central government but instead a loose collective of semi-feudal family guilds based on the radio messages we have intercepted. And to answer your other question again, no, there don’t appear to be any horrible monsters in the forest.”

Emely leaned forward at that point, setting her drink down and giving the assembled senior crew a cheery smile. “Leaving monsters aside, given their level of technology and government structure protocol dictates that we should establish first contact with a series of timed communications indicating visitors from beyond their world, followed by landing a small party at a pre-specified point. I’ve been scanning the surface myself, and there’s a few options, but I think the best one would be here.” She tapped her own tablet, causing the hologram to shift to a map of the planet indicating an area of beach along one edge of the main landmass.

“If we bring Sola down here, we are away from any major industrial facilities, and this is a location where we’ve detected them making attempts at constructing floating rocket launch platforms. On that basis it appears to have no religious or social significance and is essentially an area they can’t make use of currently, but wish to use for space flight. Our setting down there would give a clear signal of our technological advancement, while also showing we do not wish to threaten them.” The Feliax sat back, hands folding neatly on her lap. “The only thing we then need to do is decide who our first contact party should include - besides sir, of course.”

Dustin pulled a face at that comment; getting to make first contact was indeed a perk of his job, but the risk of screwing something up this first time made him edgy. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t have more chances, but this was the big one as far as the history books went. Sighing to himself, he gestured in Emely’s direction. “You’re coming along too, kitten. I know we’ve got the wearable translators, given the atmosphere is safe for us so we won’t need our suits - but I don’t trust them not to break down at a crucial moment.” Drumming his fingers on the desk, he stared at the hologram for a moment before continuing. “Meli should probably stay on the ship in case of emergencies, and Yril’k and Trea’k might cause some consternation at first; reading the logs of our own first contact, a lot of people freaked out because of how many arms the l’Adra had, and they looked mostly human asides from the extra limbs.”

At the mention of her name, the Velca looked up and nodded. “Agreed, husband. Given their lack of orbital capabilities, it should be safe for Sammie to accompany you - two humans would be better than one, and then potentially Bleu or Rye to round out the senior staff?” After a moment of further thought, Meli shook her head and continued “Actually, thinking about it I’d rather Rye stay with me. Just in case they decide to do anything foolish, I’d rather have her on board to help engineer a solution that doesn’t involve us having to send a squad out with carbines.”

After a little more discussion, a consensus was reached. Dustin would lead Emely, Sammie and Bleu, along with a handful of human junior staff into this first contact meeting. The juniors chosen were a cross-section of the ship’s crew; he’d had Trea’k run through their records with Bleu to pick people that would fit well into the role, with a view to potentially making them part of a permanent first contact squad. After all, if the future plans for his mission remained unchanged, he’d hopefully be meeting a whole lot more aliens for the first time - and with that in mind, he’d need competent people to do the meet and greets.

Waiting in orbit as their messages were sent out over the course of the next several days was painfully slow; all of the senior staff were on edge the entire time, even Naera who kept trying new dishes to perk up the others’ moods. Each morning they gathered in the ready room to review their sensor logs showing what was happening on the planet below; the slow drip feed of information being handled by Emely.

The first message had been wide band, with pre-deployed drones relaying the signal to prevent the aliens from identifying it’s true origin point. A simple greeting, followed by a picture of the aliens themselves posed giving a friendly gesture; the species the Solar Ascent was trying to contact had developed limited audio-visual broadcast technology, and a little scanning of their messages had revealed the fact that they shook hands in a manner not too dissimilar to humans - albeit with the grip point much further up the arm.

Responses to the message had varied, but generally the locals seemed to be concerned more with where it had come from rather than the content. When it was followed on the second day by a picture of two sunrises and one of a human shaking hands with the aliens, things changed. “I detected higher than usual levels of encrypted traffic between the major houses. Trivial to break the code with our technology - they are worried about what the message might mean, especially as they’ve now figured out it’s coming from space.” Meli reported; taking that under advisement, Dustin asked Yril’k to keep an eye on potential weaponry or signs of military action in case they needed to step in to prevent the aliens hurting each other, but so far things remained peaceful below.

On the third day, the message came purely from the Solar Ascent, to let the aliens know they were coming and if they tracked the signal from which direction. One sunrise, a map of the planet with their planned landing destination clearly marked, and a picture of the ship with the humans stepping out; the reaction was immediate and so far as expected. The various nobles were preparing to send envoys of one kind or another to the location - along with a heavy guard, just in case. Still a dangerous situation, but it was progress - especially as the youngest and weakest of the houses had offered their services as a diplomat to the others, taking the risks involved in making the initial gestures of peace in case the strange messages came from some kind of monster.

The fourth day dawned differently from the ones that had come before it for the people of the trees; there had been hints that something big was happening for almost half a week from senior government figures, but today every radio receiver and television set in all the forests showed the same thing - a countdown, a message of peace, and a picture of a strange creature, so very like them but lacking in a tail and with tiny eyes. Excitement flared when people found out that government representatives were heading to the site of the failed space launch program; it was normally a desolate place, but today it was packed with news crews and officials from a hundred houses.

As the reporters tried in vain to get an official statement from the gathered guild officers, a cry went up from the crowd. Cameras turned - the sky seemed to be on fire, a great flame descending. People cowered - surely, this matched the ancient legends of the fallen gods and the war against heaven; but instead of the destruction they had expected, a great craft emerged from the clouds and held there, glowing with an eerie light. Gradually, people exhaled and stood in awe as the vessel moved silently down towards them, before coming to rest a short distance above the gently lapping waves on the beach.

The thing was vast - far larger than even the largest tunnel borer or carrier-rocket, and as the shocked journalists tracked their cameras across it a panel in the side opened and a smaller craft emerged. This one was far faster; it skimmed down the side of the beast, like the falling stars that were said to have burned the sky in ancient times, before coming to a halt in front of the assembled dignitaries. With a hiss, it’s side too slid open - and from within, a strange figure emerged.