The Ship
I suppose we should start with my old Earth name, it was Leon Blackthorn by the way. I've always been fascinated with space. Where we've been in it, where I hope we will go one day. The limitless potential of limitless galaxies was something I could get behind. It was the none-to-distant future and the United States space program was a distant memory of the Sixties and Seventies. Our last space shuttle was somewhere in the Smithsonian or something. There was a lot of talk about new rockets but nothing really concrete, heck in a bitter twist of irony the Russians were the only people willing to even charter out trips to the Big Empty. Now, naturally I never knew the Cold War personally, but I can appreciate history.
I'm telling you all this so that you'll understand that I was just a bit bitter about my astronaut dreams being old hat. So, when I got out of four years of college I got a job as close to space as I possibly could. Unfortunately, that was at the small end of the very large, very long telescope... as a technician. Only people with masters degrees got to look into the lens (screen, whatever). Still, I got to look at a lot of images even if I didn't tell the telescope where to look. It wasn't a bad job, but you know, it wasn't my dream. Well, that's life for you. So, I did what anyone growing up had to do, I gave up the dream and settled in to two years of reality.
Funny thing about reality, it extends well beyond the bounds of our atmosphere. It was my twenty-fifth birthday and I was busy celebrating at the observatory with a fifth of something in a brown bag, a chocolate chip cupcake with a single candle and the starry sky above. It was about midnight and the cupcake and the fifth were well done and gone, I was looking up at the big dipper and sighing. Suddenly, my eyes were drawn to a streak of gold-orange fire streaming through the dark blue and white stars of the sky. Shooting stars were nothing new, but I kept thinking that this streak was particularly big... really big... far too big...
I realized that it was going to hit, nearby, and naturally I panicked... like a champ. Despite my alcohol-fueled deductions, the object flew over me for at least half a mile before impacting deep into the woods behind the observatory. With less than tip-top judgment I staggered to my feet and began the hike toward the possible crash site. To be honest I didn't think that I would find anything more than a downed piece of junk at best or some kind of small plane crash at worst. I didn't expect anything of an extraterrestrial origin. Oh, how far I had fallen, thankfully once faithful always faithful.
It took me twenty minutes to get to the first signs of damage. It was pretty gruesome. Trees were orange with fire and already turning to charcoal. The greenery was scorched and there were shards and large splinters. About five more minutes into the woods the charred and overturned dirt began to appear, for which I was thankful because I was sure I was lost at that point damage or no damage. The plowed earth was a lot smaller than I would have thought. Maybe there should have been more destruction from my point of view, but that was quickly and effectively driven from my mind when I saw what had impacted the Earth.
It was about the size of a bathysphere and just as round. It didn't have any kind of viewport. It was silver in hue and as reflective as a mirror. I could see myself only slightly distorted by the curvature of the object. I was bookishly handsome—I'd always thought—with narrow features and a thin nose somewhat on the long side. I liked to swim and run so I had the aerobic physique, well defined but with not a lot of muscle to speak of. I had hawkish green eyes and coal-black hair. I was wearing a gray T-shirt that said "I Want to Believe" and some thick dark-blue jeans and a pair of canvas low-tops. I ran my hands through my short-cut hair and stared mouth agape. I stumbled to it and poked it with a stick. Then I held the stick to the surface of the object. It didn't burst into flames, and then I thought about radiation. That made me give a big swallow. I felt fine now but who knew. I took a couple of circuits around it and it was seamless. It was on my second lap around the craft when I saw a red flash. It was more or less even with me, a little higher and off kilter to the left a good bit. Looking closer I saw it was a red flashing triangle with a strange symbol that I had never seen before.
It seemed like a warning to me, but against what I did not know. I don't know what came over me but I poked the symbol with my finger. Yeah, I know foreign contact, don't touch it with your actual hand and all that, but I was still a little drunk. The impetus of every science-fiction horror story ever aside the symbol changed to a four-pronged symbol that reminded me of a hand. The fingers were longer than mine but the hand was thinner. Still doing my best to emulate the configuration of digits and push it to the smooth shiny surface of the object.
There was a hiss and a gust of air as a large section of the top and a smaller section at the bottom separated. It was obvious the bottom portion was a boarding ramp but the uneven keel of the object made it stick up in the air at a funny angle. Figuring that I was still alive so I decided I was already waist deep in it, so what could a little more hurt?
Clambering up the boarding ramp what I saw shocked me profoundly. It was an alien; it was an unmistakably female alien. She was tall. I am about six foot three inches and she had a good foot—almost two—on me. While her waist was model slim her breasts were extremely large. I realized some of it was due to proportion, but beyond that her tight-fitting purple space suit stretched tightly around her bountiful chest. It looked right though, not inappropriately proportioned. Her arms were slim and shapely and I noticed that her hips were very wide giving her the epitome of the hourglass figure. Her face had what I would only describe as avian features.
Her eyes were somewhat big but narrow and canted. Her nose was long and thin, but it gave her a regal look. Her lips were big and pillowy. She had a delicately pointed chin. The odd thing was her skin was a light, pale shade of lavender. She had hair it was worked into a braid that left no hair out of place and the braid was so long she had pinned it up. The lack of bangs showed off smallish ears that bore the slightest point at the back. I moved over her, there wasn't a lot of room in the pod. Light pink blood stained her suit in places and she was not in the best of condition. I saw several large cuts around her face.
Trying to preserve her modesty as much as possible I peeled back her suit from the biggest wound and it was terrible. There was a piece of shrapnel in it and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I put her suit back and pressed down trying to staunch the bleeding. I reached to her neck to check her pulse and I felt a strong grip on my arm. Four fingers grabbed my forearm painfully. They were gloved so I couldn't make out any details.
What happened next was hard to describe. Her eyes snapped open. She had no whites, just colored iris and a large obsidian black pupil. It started our round but contracted to the tiniest of slits. Suddenly my head was full of brief images and sensations. I felt her pain, it burned like nothing I'd ever felt, but somehow I knew it was worse for her. Through the flush of sensations I picked out a symbol like the one on the pod door but with a different image in the middle. Something told me it was their symbol for first aid. Understanding I nodded and she let go closing her eyes again.
Looking around I found a small hexagonal box with the symbol and opened it. Inside there were pads of varying lengths and sizes. They looked like band aids. I pulled one out of the pads and opened it. The adhesive was silver and sticky, some came off on my finger but it didn't remain. I think it absorbed into my skin. It was pretty self-explanatory.
I knew I had to put it on the big wound but there was the metal shrapnel to deal with.
"I can't put it on if you've got a piece of metal in you." I said. When I finished speaking there was another flash just telling me to put it on. So, I did. She hissed but soon gray shiny ooze was coming from the bandage. It looked like metal.
"Whoa..." I muttered.
There was another flash and I got the feeling that it was tiny robots.
"Nano-machines..." I said breathlessly.
Another impatient flash affirming my guess, "Oh, sorry..." I mumbled putting more of the smaller bandages on her wounds. She would give more flashes and I'd tend her wounds. I was worried because the flashes were getting weaker. I realized that these were just temporary measures and she had to get help.
"I-I need to get you to a hospital." I said. Another flash, just a single button; I found it and pushed it without hesitation. The pod began to seal up.
"No! No! No!" I yelled pushing against the closing sides in futility. There were no more flashes. She was completely unconscious. The pod lurched and I was flung past her to the wall of the pod. Despite the initial lurch the orb smoothed out and began to rise. The systems began to dim and there were several flashing symbols and words on a holographic display that popped up.
I began to feel a pull in my stomach and suddenly I was unconscious.
The Homeworld
I woke up and the first thing I registered was that I was incredibly comfortable. Then I realized I was in a oval shaped shell of a bed that was packed with blankets and pillows of some material that had the sheen of silk and the softness of high-thread cotton.
Looking over the edge I noticed the bed was hovering. I didn't have time to ponder how cool that was because there was a soft woosh and I looked at the oval-shaped door and the far end opening. In strode another of the tall alien women but she was a little shorter and darker lavender in color and her hair was dark, dark red where the first's had been a kind of deep honey blonde. This one had three braids that she let hang before braiding them into a large braid that hung down to her butt.
