First Contact

Falmo'o woke up face down, laying on his side, twisted at his mid-waist. He had vomited up his last few meals, blood had ran from his nose and mouth, mixing with the vomit. His face shield was open, which meant the vomit was in a fan instead of all over his face. The air smelled of blood, hot metal, scorched lubricant, and rotting meat.

Falmo'o coughed, hacked, and spit, clearing his mouth. He opened his six eyes, giving himself a view around himself. Above him was the ceiling, panels hanging down on wires to expose conduits, ducts, pipes, and insulation that was scorched and tattered. Behind him was a wall, several plasma hits discoloring the metal. A spacesuit, matte black durachrome, stood by the wall.

A bipedal suit, with armor on it to protect the wearer from hazards.

In front of him was a short deck, the plates grimy and dirty, ending in a wall with a bench.

Terran space. I'm in Terran space, on a Terran space station, Falmo'o thought to himself. He scrabbled for a moment before managing to get to his four feet. He couldn't remember how he got here. He was a Eighth Most High Military Executor, entrusted with the most dangerous missions, the most important missions, missions that nobody could ever know about.

So how did I get here? he asked himself. He checked. He didn't have a single weapon. No neural whip, no neural pistol or rifle, no neural stun grenades. Just empty holsters.

He trotted over to the suit and looked it over.

Black durachrome armor. Flexalloy suit. On the left breast was "IMPERIUM SCIENCE DIVISION" and on the right it read "DINH, TONY", all in stenciled silver letters. The armor sections were badly scratched and battered. The chest armor looked as if it had taken at least two heavy laser hits, the armor slagged and shiny instead of the black matte color the Terrans had managed to convince durachrome to sport.

Reaching out with a trembling hand he opened the visor.

It was a male Terran. His face had been torn away, leaving bloody bone that was still wet and gooey. As he watched a large blood clot, the size of his thumb, oozed from the eye socket and down the face. The stench of rotting blood poured over him, as if the suit had exhaled foul breath all over him.

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Falmo'o gagged and slapped the face plate back down.

Whatever killed the Terran did it without breaching the suit, Falmo'o thought.

The suit collapsed, making Falmo'o jump back and make a noise of distress.

It didn't move. It just laid there. Falmoo could see that the back was completely shredded, showing the human's ribs and internal organs, which steamed in the cold air.

Gagging, Falmo'o slapped his own face shield shut.

SUIT INTEGRITY: 89%

ENVIRONMENTAL SEAL: ACTIVE

SUIT POWER: 45%

ATMOSPHERIC: 74%

MEDICAL: OFFLINE

GPS: OFFLINE - NO SIGNAL

INERTIAL MAPPING: OFFLINE

VI ASSIST: OFFLINE - CPU CHECKSUM ERROR

BEACON SYSTEM: OFFLINE - NO SIGNAL

SCANNERS: OFFLINE

EVA THRUSTERS: OFFLINE - NO SIGNAL

Flowed by, pausing and making Falmo'o acknowledge that he'd seen each failure.

So, I've got an armored suit and that's it, he thought to himself. Once my power goes, my heater goes and the UV laser stimulating the Damantara Fungus, which means it'll stop producing oxygen, which means I will suffocate or freeze to death, one of the two.

He looked around. The room was obviously some kind of suit charging station. He looked around and found he had a hose with a crude adapter hooked into his suit. The handle was in the down position and according to the auto-translator in his mask, the valve was off.

I'll die if I don't try, he thought to himself. He moved forward, clopping nervously in place for a moment, then threw the lever into the up position.

Air hissed into his system. Sweet sweet air. He inhaled deeply, not even caring he could taste the nitrogen so thick it made his feeding tendrils tingle. His suit power started going up and he breathed a sigh of relief. After a few minutes he was tapped off. He unplugged it and without thinking about it put it in a bent piece of metal that had his name scratched over it.

Now, where am I, aside from Terran space? he thought to himself.

There were only three doors. All three of them thick blast doors. One read HABITATS A1-B4 then next read MACHINING and the last read GRAV. It took no time at all for his face-shield to translate, despite his VI being offline.

The door marked Habitats had a heavy bar jammed into the unlocking wheel, welded to the wheel and the wall. The welder was on the floor and he recognized it as belonging to a Executor Engineer suit. He picked it up and looked at it.

Nomitru'u 83712 was engraved on the handle.

Shaking his head Falmo'o moved over to the grav hatch and tried undoing it. It moved smoothly and when he pulled the hatch open he was rewarded with the view of a tube that went straight up and down, lights pulsing on it, some moving down some moving up.

Touch the down to go down, touch the lights moving up to move up, don't touch anything to hover, he thought to himself, starting to step forward. He stopped and shook his head. How do I know this?

He backed up from the tube, closing the hatch. He opened the MACHINING one, revealing a short passage that ended in another heavy hatch. Sighing he clopped down to it and opened it, panting at how much strength it took just to spin the wheel.

Terran. This must be Terran make, he thought to himself. He tried to pull it open and saw that the telltales were amber. He looked around and saw nothing, except...

The telltales were red on the open hatch. He moved over, shut it, and locked it.

The telltales on the door he wanted to go through went green.

He pulled and had to lean backwards, putting even his lower flanks into it. His boots magnetic focusers whined at him, but the door opened anyway.

Falmo'o stared at the room beyond. It was a machine shop and fabrication plant. The machinery was all pushed against the walls, some of it broken. There were plas containers piled against the walls and curtains hanging up.

But what has his attention was the human female standing in the middle of the room, completely nude, holding a spanner in her hand and a standard issue Executor neural pistol in the other.

"Say something," the human female said, raising the neural pistol. She moved so fast that Falmo'o could only gawk for a moment. It wasn't just his helmet translating it, but he understood her words.

"Please don't shoot me," Falmo'o said as the human narrowed her eyes. He realized he was speaking the Terran's language.

"Whew. Did you get the field stabilized, Falmy?" the human (Taynee, her name is Taynee) asked him.

Falmo'o opened his mouth to tell the Terran female he had no idea what she was talking about and to not call him by such an absurd name, instead came out: "Yes."

"You ran into trouble?" The Terran (Taynee, she's from Dancing Wind on Tucker-338) asked him, moving forward. He flinched back and she nodded. "Yeah, you did. Damn. First one's the worst, Falmy."

She moved past him and slammed shut the heavy blast door, spinning the wheel. She moved over to a makeshift chair and sat down. She picked up a square box, opening it, and removing a white tube. She used a torch to light the end and Falmo'o frowned.

"You should not waste oxygen like that on a space station," he told her.

"And if you detonate an atomic demolition mine we should have been able to get away," the woman said, exhaling smoke. "And if you shoot yourself, you should stay dead. If you hang yourself you should die," She reached up an tapped a friction burn scar around her neck.

Falmo'o opened his mouth to tell her to cover herself and instead other words came out.

"Nigel's patrolling the observation deck. He's back in armor again," he said.

"If he's in armor he's too heavy for your to airlock," She sighed. "He the one who got you?"

He shook his head. "Got me?"

"Was there a body near where you were?" She asked.

"Um, Dinh Tony," Falmo'o said.

"Did you airlock her?" Taynee asked.

Falmo'o shook his head.

Taynee shook her head. "You've got airlock them. I keep telling you that. If you don't airlock them, they come back faster. Just be glad you got him so he couldn't airlock you."

Falmo'o frowned and she laughed, blowing smoke into the air. "Why am I here? How do you know who I am?" He frowned even deeper, curling his tendrils in irritation. "Why are you acting as if we are working together."

"Why haven't you placed the atomic demolition charge and gone home after showing us Terrans who's boss, is what you are really asking."

Falmo'o nodded.

"Because the atomic demolition mines didn't work. None of them. Two didn't go off, two had no effect," she exhaled smoke. "And the fifth one merged with your Most High Engineer and turned him inside out. Since then, we've been trying to figure out how to get out of here."

Falmo'o shook his head. "You are lying."

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"I wish I was," Taynee said in perfect Lanaktallan. "We've been here a long time, Falmy."

That made Falmo'o back up. "This is a trick."

"You don't remember?" She said. "All right. You'll need this reminder."

She flicked ashes into a can mostly full of them.

"We don't stay dead."