Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Trevuk looked annoyed, which seemed to be his default setting, honestly, but more so than usual when he stomped over to join us. It couldn’t have been anything I did. I was in my room until Aster came to get me. Still, I felt myself stiffen as he stopped beside my bed and glared down at me.
“The humans are restless. You need to fix it.”
“Me?” I croaked, staring up at him.
“Yes, you,” he growled. “You were chosen to fix the issues with the humans. You are at fault if they act unruly. Fix it.”
My mouth hung open as I gaped at him. Was this guy seriously putting the behavior of the entire world military force on my shoulders?
“Enzo explained humans need hot bean water in the mornings. Landu is being to acquire it,” Aster explained helpfully. Or maybe unhelpfully, because Trevuk only looked more irritated.
“What?”
“He’s talking about coffee,” I murmured. “A lot of humans start their day with it. Without it, we get headaches, which makes us short-tempered.”
The doctor spoke up in their language, probably explaining that coffee wasn’t good for you.
I mean, it wasn’t bad for you. At least not according to scientists.
Anything in moderation was fine. Probably.
Then again, scientists got the timeline wrong on our planet falling apart, too.
Who knew what else they got wrong? Our technology obviously wasn’t nearly as good as the aliens’ was.
“Fine. Acquire it,” Trevuk growled. “And make them stop fighting. We are only here to help.”
He stormed off without a backward glance, and I sighed heavily when the infirmary doors slid shut.
This was a lot of fucking pressure for a job I didn’t sign up for.
Hell, I purposely didn’t study for the staff sergeant exam, so I didn’t have to promote.
It worked a couple of times before I got a reprimand from my commander for doing it on purpose.
I wasn’t interested in being in charge. I just wanted to fix engines and move on with my day.
I rubbed my forehead again, forgetting that it would upset Aster if he thought I was in pain. A warm hand settled on my shoulder, and when I blinked my eyes open again, he frowned down at me.
“I'm alright.” I patted his hand reassuringly. There wasn’t much else I could say.
I don’t want to be responsible for everyone else’s fuck ups?
Yeah, pretty sure I’d get my ass kicked if other people knew I had the ear of an alien who could make a difference, and I gave that up because I didn’t like the stress.
Sitting up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “We might as well get started. There are a lot of scared people who need to have things explained to them. My headache will pass eventually.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help. We don’t have mind-altering substances on the ship,” the doctor said. She sounded remorseful, which was kind of funny if you considered how she said it. I guess technically, caffeine was a mind-altering substance.
Whatever. It was too much of a pain in the ass to explain coffee right now. I slid off the bed, rolling my shoulders to release some of the tension.
“We should probably get started. They’ll only get more frustrated the longer they go with no explanation.”
Thankfully, I wasn’t expected to go room by room to explain things to each military member.
There were at least forty ships filled with almost a million military members each, and the hallways went on forever.
That would’ve taken weeks, and not all of them spoke English.
Instead, Aster had me write up something introducing the military members to the aliens, who were from a planet called Krezik, authorized to be here by a massive alliance of alien planets who protected other planets that could support life.
I explained their purpose here and what was currently happening to get started on fixing the planet, as well as the basics of how the things in their rooms worked.
Each room was laid out the same way, so I didn’t have to do anything complicated.
The shower was actually not a shower. Not in the way we were all thinking.
There was no water involved. Water on their planet was only used for drinking and cooking.
Instead, the shower used a kind of technology I didn’t have even the slightest clue how it worked, but it boiled down to a beam of red light that scanned over the body and cleaned it without a drop of water.
There was one in the infirmary's bathroom, so I got to try it myself before trying to explain it on paper. I’d never felt that clean before, and I didn’t have to worry about being damp or sweating from the heat in the room after a hot shower.
I did miss the way the hot water relaxed my muscles, but for now, I didn’t want to complain.
At least I was clean. They even provided me with a change of clothes.
It was the same uniform that Aster and everyone else wore when they were in their human forms. Mine was white with gray, and even though they didn’t take any measurements, it fit like a glove.
The food bricks were created by the aliens to have everything nutritionally that humans needed.
Since they had no experience with Earth-based plants and meats, they couldn’t prepare something we’d be more comfortable with.
Besides, they refused to do any more harvesting until they understood better what went wrong with our food production to lead to the destruction of the planet.
The brick things were fine for now, and we were assured that it was allergen-free and made without any products that some countries deemed taboo.
“You should add more about our ship. It is a nice one,” Aster commented.
He was sitting almost plastered against my side again, watching over my shoulder as I wrote up the pamphlet.
I’d originally intended to just send out something like an intel report, but an alien in the command center mentioned seeing pamphlets with information, and Aster wouldn’t let it go.
It looked a little condescending, in my opinion, but whatever. The aliens wanted it.
“I’m not sure people care about the ships. They care more about getting home.”
That comment got me a lot of disgruntled looks, and I put my hand up in surrender before they could start complaining. “Alright. Alright. What do you want me to share about the ships?”
“You should mention the security system,” Trevuk growled.
“The ship is state-of-the-art!” Aster chimed.
“It looks nicer than other ships?” Landu offered. They were in charge of delivering the things the humans needed, so they were requested to provide input for the pamphlet.
I could almost guarantee the number of people who gave a shit about the ship itself was probably in the dozens at most. Sure, it would be interesting if we’d stumbled upon it at a museum or something, but being abducted took the joy away.
At least for me it did. Maybe I’d feel better about it after we were no longer prisoners.
“Oh! That visual rendering! It looks nice,” Aster demanded.
I shook my head quickly. “No. It doesn’t. It looks like you guys are stealing the world. People won’t react well.”
He scoffed, waving a hand impatiently. “No, it good. Use it. They’ll enjoy.”
This was a bad idea. I kept trying to talk them out of things, but they kept insisting. I didn’t feel like I was in any position to argue, though. I still didn't understand why they chose me. Just another thing I didn't get to have an opinion on.
“Why did you add that?” Trevuk snapped. “No one should be able to touch the wires again. We took away their tools. What do you know?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Trevuk was a suspicious dude. He watched me like a hawk, like he was waiting for me to suddenly attack everyone. Even though he was the one who assigned me this job.
“Because humans are clever. Someone might figure out how to use something in the room to pry the panel off or whatever. I don’t know. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt accidentally touching those wire things. What are those, by the way?”
He narrowed his eyes at me but eventually explained, “They are veins. The ship has sentience. The croxud is a species of non-humanoid creatures that were rescued when their planet collapsed. They needed shells to function. They are very loyal, and when offered the chance to work alongside us, they were very eager.”
Staring at him, I tried to wrap my head around what he just said. “Wait. So there’s an actual living being in the walls of the ship? And it thinks and feels and everything?”
Aster nodded, completely unfazed, like this was totally normally. Which, it probably was for them. Meanwhile, my mind was blown.
“What does it do?”
“It watches over the ship. Sends warnings when something needs maintenance, monitors life support systems. It can even lock someone in an area until guards retrieve them if they are somewhere they shouldn’t be,” Trevuk sneered.
That sounded a little like a warning, and based on the look on Trevuk’s face, that’s how I took it.
“That was one time. And the ship creature didn’t stop me, now did it?”
He and Aster shared a look, but no one explained why their all-knowing spaceship creature didn’t put me in lockdown when I snuck out.
They just moved on, commenting on what was and wasn’t important to go on the pamphlet.
I had to talk them down a couple of times, otherwise the pamphlet would become a freaking book, but eventually, we narrowed it down to what was important.
“How are they going to contact me? We haven’t been approved to hand out communication devices yet,” I pointed out.
That made all three of them frown. Setting me up with an email was all well and good, but people wouldn’t be able to use it without access to electronics.
“Do most humans have their own communication device? If we set it up so that it was only able to communicate through our ship, the croxud will be able to determine if they are a danger to us,” Landu suggested.
Trevuk nodded, turning to snap at another alien nearby. While they got to work on that, I added a little note about how to use it in the pamphlet.
“And you’re sure our technology will be able to access it?”
“Yes. Like your human Wi-Fi. Just click link and begin.”
Oddly simple, but whatever.
After a few more checks, the pamphlet was finally approved by our little group, and Aster brought it to the higher-ups to make sure they were happy with the results.
I wasn’t sure where he went to meet with them since I wasn’t allowed to leave the command center, but he wasn’t gone long, and when he came back, he had some sort of a paper version of it. Or not paper.
“What is that made of?”
“Filament,” Landu explained. “It is durable no matter what planet, and reusable. Once you are finished with the message, you can send it back, and it will be wiped to be used again.”
They really were all about economic protections. They wouldn’t even use a paper handout. Everything they made was reusable. Even the damn pamphlet.
The pamphlet was sent out to each ship and delivered to every ‘dorm’, as the aliens referred to them, along with their evening meal.
I tried to make people understand that this was only temporary while the government met with the aliens and figured out how to move forward to fix the damage, but I wasn’t sure how well that message was received. Time would tell, I guess.