An Alien!

You rapidly opened and closed your eyes several times, wondering if what you were seeing was just a mirage which might somehow vanish in between blinks. When it didn't, you were **** with acknowledge something you'd long suspected. We were not alone. Aliens did exist! However, from your training at ASE you realized that this also meant you were in a first contact situation, and there were certain protocols to follow. Although there had been considerable debate over the centuries, the prevailing school of thought was that **** should be avoided, and instead we should treat any aliens we encounter with great consideration and respect. Of course that might be a lot easier if you weren't laying on a table with a bunch of tubes stuck in various orifices. As you tried to speak, the hose going into your mouth and down your throat seemed to prevent any sound at all. Meanwhile, attempts to move your limbs still resulted in nothing happening. You suddenly had a very depressing thought that you might be paralyzed.

Meanwhile, the short grey alien turned and looked toward you, and it seemed to sense that you were now alert. As it approached, it seemed to hover upward near the edge of the table and peered at your face. You helplessly looked back into it's enormous black eyes which seemed to have no pupils. Fear began to overcome you, as you wondered what its intentions were. Perhaps it was planning to perform a variety of strange experiments on your body while you laid there helpless.

Instead, it pointed toward your forehead and somewhere above a blue beam of light was instantly projected there. Immediately, it felt as if someone was rummaging through your mind, but within moments, you began to sense something else. There seemed to be another occupant in your mind, subtle and distant at first, but growing stronger and closer. "Remain calm," it said. As you tried to respond verbally, the hose down your throat again prevented any manner of speech. However, your struggle was soon noticed, and the alien tapped the hose. Immediately, you felt the end being pulled up through your esophagus. Then you gagged as you watched an unexpectedly large and somewhat phallus-shaped probe connected to the end of the hose as it emerged from your mouth.

After it was free, you tried to respond but only ended up coughing up a huge blob of saliva and other fluids. Still coughing, you managed to get out, "What was that?" However, the alien didn't seem to understand. Instead he tapped the hoses going into you nose and your ears, and you felt those pulling free. In horror, you saw each of them connected to similarly shaped probes, albeit much smaller in size. With the probes free, you could now breath, hear and speak normally.

"Continue communication," it said clearly in your mind, so you attempted to oblige.

"Who are you? Where am I? Why can't I move? Can you remove the other tubes?" As you continued, you saw the alien reach down and retrieve something very small and metallic which he then placed along the left side of your head. A sudden burning sensation was followed by a brief but intense pain, but it quickly subsided. Afterward, a new rush of sensations washed through your mind, but then those too subsided.

"Translation for verbal communication. Establishing baseline," he stated, as if you should know what that meant. He motioned toward your forehead once more and the blue light vanished. After another motion with his other hand, a series of foreign sounds began to fill the the room. After several minutes of chirps, squeaks, clicks, and other seemingly random sounds, some of them started to actually make sense. The random sounds began to form into distinguishable syllables, even words. As it continued, more and more of the sounds became identifiable, and eventually you realized each was a different language repeating the same statement, "This is a test of the universal translation implant."

"I understand!" you shouted, and to confirm that, you repeated, "That was a test of the universal translation implant. It works!"

The seemingly unemotional alien, turned its head again slightly, apparently amused at your eager reply. He waived his hand again, and you felt freed from whatever had been holding you in place. Now using his spoken voice he said, "You have many questions, and I will attempt to answer them. But first, I need to know, has your species encountered other races before?"

Raising your head, you looked toward him and answered as truthfully as you could, "Not officially." For centuries there were rumors of alien visits to Earth, and many stories of short grey aliens that seemed to be a nearly exact match of this one. "I suspect some of your race may have visited my planet in the past, but there is no proof, and our government doesn't acknowledge it. This may be our first official contact with another race."

You thought you heard him whisper, "Meddlers!" but he immediately followed with, "I am from a race known as the Grey. We are primarily explorers and scientists. I am one of the Grey aboard this vessel, the Starpoint, where I currently serve as both the primary doctor and main science officer. Some of the crew and passengers on board are of different races. Rather than try to explain all of it, you can find many useful details here." He then reached down and pressed a lit circle at the edge of the table and a small glowing rectangle appeared in the air next to you.

Reaching out, you found the interface superbly intuitive, and soon you were navigating through a series of simple menus with alien symbols all made comprehensible thanks to your new implant. You also discovered that the implant automatically converted time and distance measurements into values you understood.