2 Chapter 2 :

System EX-5429, 3rd of march 2119.

Bridge of the UNS New Horizon exploration ship.

Time, 03:06

Captain Alex Wells

"Captain on deck!"

The dozen crew members on board the UNS New Horizon stood to attention as Captain Alex Wells stepped onto the bridge.

"Return to your stations." he commanded. Then went to the chair set in the centre of the bridge and took his place. At his command, Parker flicked the switch that would activate shipwide comms. "Alright, listen up. I know it's been a long time since we left home, but I want you to stay sharp. We are entering uncharted territories now so I don't want any misjugements from your part. We are about to leave Relative Space in a few minutes and into the EX-5429 System. Command has observed this system and found that it contains three planets potentially within the habitable zone. These planets are also large enough to hold an atmosphere, but are not so large as to potentially be gas planets. We're here to make a survey of these worlds and find out if they are valid for potential colonisation by the United Nations of Earth. Captain Wells out."

Several minutes went by as everyone buckled themselves in. Ship systems began reactivating : Active Radar, Electromagnetic and Thermal sensors, Gravitationnal and Geological survey systems.

Ensign Davis, on the helm spoke out, "Exiting Relative Space in 3... 2... 1... Now!"

The ship lurched as it came to a shuddering halt. Every crewmember was thrown against their buckles violently as in the viewscreen, streaks condensed into stars and one in particular became larger and larger over the course of 3 seconds until it reached the sise of a tennisball.

The ship slowly began to regain life as personnel unstrapped and continued about their buisness.

"The Ship has left Relative Space." came the quirky voice of the onboard AI, Coline.

"Thank you Coline," said the Captain, "How are the systems? In order of priority."

You always had to check the systems after leaving a Relativity Jump, where space was bent to allow vessels to traverse large distances without having to actually cross those distances. But it messed with systems sometimes and so you had to make sure.

"Nothing out of the... wait, I'm detecting a problem with our active radar and Comms. I'll alert maintenance."

"Yes, what's wrong with them". Usually you wouldn't ask, but if the list was short and important as this one was, then the information could be useful in knowing when these systems would be back online.

"Well he Active Radar was shunted out of alignment. It shouldn't happen ever since they supposidly fixed the Relativity Cannons, but it does. Should be back in a few minutes after recalabration. As for the Comms. I don't know. But they don't work at all. Either something is blocking us or it's destroying it's own signal. Theoretically it could happen, but it's never happened before."

"Okay, get maintenance on that now. And send Commander Xeing down there as well, she might be able to help." ordered Wells.

"Yes sir.", a slight pause, "She's on her way."

"Exellent.", he sighed, and looked out at the star, it's brighness dimmed by the vessels shielding. "Let's find out what kind of system we've jumped into."

Another few minutes came and went, which Wells passed the time on his Command and Control Screen, before his Communicator bleeped, signaling a message. He accepted it and heard the Science officer's voice down the line.

"Captain, I'm at the comms."

"Good. What do you see Anne?"

"Nothing, it should be working."

"What about the Star, could it be blocking the signal?"

She laughed, "No, it's a G-type main sequence star, like ours, it wouldn't be blocking us..." She tailed off.

"What is it?" demanded Wells.

"Oh god, I need to check the Active Radar! Coline send me the AR scan as soon as it's online."

"Of course."

A few seconds went by.

"Scans in, you're not gonna like this."

Alex viewed the report from his chair. Xeing's voice gave him the answer as he read it.

"They're jamming us."

"All personnel, action stations!" yelled the Captain.

He hit the AR switch on his C&C pad, bringing up the Active Radar on the ship's Heads Up Display. And he saw the blip, 250 000 kilometers out.

"No IFF!" Informed Coline.

"So far, they've not shown any hostilities. But they were jamming us." said the captain.

"Mabye they're friendly..." began Xeing.

The other vessel suddenly vanished, reapearing instantaneously merely three kilometers away from the New Horizon. It's scale was ovious. The Active Radar showed the vessel to be over a kilometer in length, twice that of their own ship.

"Captain," came the voice of Coline, breaking through the sounds of rushing crewmen, "They're hailing us..."

Silence engulfed the bridge.

Wells sat straight on his chair.

"Send it through."

A screen overlaid the ship's HUD, everyone stared at it as the resolution sharpened, showing... a human.

There were curious mutterings across the bridge, but as Alex looked closer, he saw differences. This person was.. different. His bright azur eyes were larger, his delicate nose smaller, his ears sharper, his hair, an odd silvery blue. His face was handsome and haughty, yet, he realised, completely alien. It was more angular than man's, had higher cheekbones, and was thinner at the chin. From what he could see, his uniform was silver with gold embossing, a symbol on his left breast. A teardrop shaped badge of gold, emblasoned with a silver tree.

His eyes widened as he viewed the scene before him. Then narrowed, his eyes darting around the room, analysing.

He stood there for thirty seconds, regarding everyone individually, before lifting his hand and touching just above his right eye with his two forfingers.

Then he spoke in a strange, flowing language.

"Aérons vlaëoni ia aastari, er Ëstria."

It was at this moment that Xeing chose to barrel onto the bridge.

"Captain!" she called out, before realising what was happening.

She stopped immediatly, and swallowed.

The alien switched his attention to her immediatly, then cocked his head curiously.

"E sole Laecian ia Aalfan Ëlenaë."

He proceded then to turn and adress someone behind him, speaking rapidly in his airy voice.

They heard a curt answer come before he turned back.

"I am Captain Alex Wells of the United Nations Ship New Horizon." stated Alex clearly.

The alien just looked at him curiously, and gave him what seemed to be a half smile. Then he said quickly.

"Xaenosë sé solë altisr."

The video feed ended.

There was silence for a minute, as everybody was processing what had just happened.

"Sir," came Coline's voice, "Detachables approaching."

Detachables. Boarding Craft.

"Don't do anything to incite them to attack. Considering the dess of their captain, I wouldn't be surprised if he was some high ranking commander of some sort. Security, be ready to repel a possible boarding, but stay passive."

"Yes sir!" came the answer.

"Who was that captain." asked Xeing, walking up.

"I don't know Anne, I don't know." there was a pause, then, "Why do you ask?"

"I've never seen biology like that Captain. He was so... different, exotic. Yet so human."

"I know. What do you think, a possible common ancestor. Is that even possible?"

"I don't know, probably not considering the distance between our systems. But it's certainly strange. How are we so similar?"

The captain remained silent, as stumped as she was. Then got up and turned to the crew.

"Well, let's get a welcoming commitee together. Anne, Josh, Imogen, you're with me, and Coline, get Bentham to meet us at the hangar."

"Yes sir." came the crew in unison.

Lieutenant Josh Flitztrauerlingh, more commonly known to his subordinates as FTL, was the head of security on board. Wells wanted the highest ranks with him when first meeting the aliens in person. Especially Xeing, as science officer, she would be extraordinarily useful if any transactions were needed. Imogen, as ship's communications officer and linguist, could possibly help decipher their language. And Magnler would find their technology fascinating, along with his great mathmatical knowlege, which could be their only chance at communicating using universal constants.

Wells headed to the lift with Xeing, Parker and FTL right behind him. The elevator took them down to C deck where they promply went along the corridor to the Hangar in the centre of the ship.

The corridor was long and utilitarian, with sliding doors heading off to different rooms such as the medical ward and the science wing, where Xeing worked.

They entered the hangar's elevated walkway in time to see a sleek, silver and gold vessel slide into one of the bays. All hands stopped their work to watch the detachable land. Human vessels were all about, half a dozen Apollo Class fighters were being maintained at the moment, as well as the two Amphorae Class haulers.

The sleek ship had curious lettering on it's side. The flowing writing seemed to shift as the hangar's lights reflected off it. It swung around and delicatly alighted in the artificial gravety. It's blue thrusters slowly winding down.

Wells, Xeing and FTL rode down the utilty lift to the alien vessel's level. Bentham was waiting for them down there.

He seemed skittish before the alien vessel. But also immensly curious, after all, this was mankind's first interaction with sentient beings beyond their solar system, and he was surely desperate to find out how their technology functionned.

"Captain." he muttered as Wells approached.

They waited together by a holopole, as the engines spooled down and the ramp opened revealing the lithe form of the captain they had seen before. Two more ships swung into the hangar as he descended the ramp onto the the deck.

His uniform was even more resplendant in person. What seemed to be two bodyguards followed him out, wearing silver and gold armour and bearing both swords on their waists and thick golden forarm bracers. They also bore a larger version the teardrop shaped symbol as the centrepiece of their armour.

The aliens approached until bearly 2 meters away. The captain repeated the hand gesture he had performed earlier, placing his forfingers on his brow.

Wells, mimicked his gesture, hoping it was one of courtesy.

The alien's face broke into a wide and genuine smile. He spun to one of his guards, who immediatly drew his sword faster than the eye could follow. Wells felt FTL disengage the safety on his Magnetic Acceleration Pistol. But the alien simply spun it and proffered it to his captain. The captain took it from his hands, spun back to Wells and, with both hands, offered it to him, hilt first.

Wells wondered if this was some sort of tradition. And cautiously, hopeing is was not a decleration of war, took the weapon, wondering what he was supposed to do with it. The blade was equisite, a perfect blend of silvery blues, reds and gold hilt leading into a metallic silver colored leaf shaped blade. Wells admired it before looking back to the alien.

It was at that moment that the holopole beside them sprung to life projecting the bluish image of a young girl, probably in her early twenties. She appeared facing the aliens, before turning to Wells.

"Captain," she said, "anything I can help you with."

"No, thank you Coline, nothing yet."

She turned back to the alien, observing them.

The captain edged closer to Coline curiously, as she observed him insolently. He tapped the pole, revealing it's information jack. He pulled something out of his pocket and slipped it on to his finger. It's metal end moulded into the compatible plug. He stuck it in.

Coline's eyes and mouth shot wide open, and she shook intently.

"Hey what are you doing!" demanded Xeing, stepping forward.

The two guards lept forth incredibly quicly, stepping in her way and stopping her from moving.

"Let go!" she spat, angrily, struggling to escape their vice-like grip.

"Hey!" said Josh, stepping forward.

"Aëlé rèston!" they barked, stopping him in his tracks.

Anne's face turned to despair as she watched Coline get overcome. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended.

Coline's hologram fell and gasped. The alien smiled and stood back, removing the object on his finger, which melded back into a simple sleeve.

Coline stood shakily.

"I understand."

"Understand what?" demanded Anne.

"Everything. Their language, their culture... Everything." she murmured, then sharply "Put on your translators."

Translators were used to communicate between the differing languages in the United Nations. They would only work for uploaded languages.

Hastily, Anne bypassed the now retreated guards to take translators from the holopole. She passed one to Alex, Josh and Bentham.

"The Alfan too." said Coline impatiently.

"Alfan?"

"The aliens... Alfan."

"Is that what they are called." She pointed at the alien, "Alfan?"

The Alfan smiled.

"Na." he said, tilting his head to the bottom right.

"Just give him the translator." demanded Coline impatiently.

The translator was handed over, and as the crew of the New Horizon slipped them into their ears, the Alfan captain did the same.

They stood in silence, facing each other.

"Well speak then!" exclaimed Coline.

Alex took the initiative, "Hello?" he asked.

The Alfan's mouth twisted into a smile as he answered.

"Well met, travellers, I am Captain Laecian Lianaï of the Alfan destroyer Starlit Silence."

They stared dumbstruck at the Alfan's proclamation. Alex answered with his own rank.

"Hello, I am Captain Alex Wells of the United Nations survey vessel New Horizon."

The elf made another gesture, a different one, folding his thumb into his palm and holding it against his chest. He accompanied the sign with a little bow.

Again, Alex repeated the gesture.

Out of the Alfan's detachable's ramp, came another one of them. This one seemed younger, and female, at least by human standards. She was shorter than her companions, with green eyes and silvery green hair, which was far longer, reaching down to her waist. She nervously descended, observing the humans curiously, then adressed his captain.

"Sir, what are these people."

"Ah, Ara, come join us. Their hologram has given me a communicator so we may speak to each other. I am sure she has one for you as well."

He glanced towards Coline's hologram. As he spoke, five more translators rose up. The new Alfan, Ara, cautiously approached and took one of the devices, fitting it in her ear.

"This is Ara Amaifel, she is our chief Engineer on board the Starlit Silence."

When nobody spoke, she asked.

"What is the name of your race?"

"We are Humans, I take it you are Alfan."

"Yes... where do you come from?"

"Earth." when the Alfan looked confused, he clarified, "that's the name of our homeworld. In the Sol system. Coline."

On cue, the AI brough up a map of the quadrant, highligting their current location and the Sol system.

"This is where we are, and that is where we're from."

The Alfan bobbed her head furiously.

"Where do you come from?" asked Magnler nervously. Having had a personnal conversation about Bentham's social paralysis, this must have taken all his considerable willpower to say.

She pointed at the holopole. "May I?"

Alex nodded, saying, "Yes, of course."

She pulled out a finger-glove like the one Laecian had used, and plugged it into the holopole. It shifted until it showed a star system, unreadable names in the same flowing script that lined the side of the detachable. Three planets, and Alex knew, each one earthlike in it's semblance and size.

"This is our home." she said, pointing at the middle planet. "Maradisaë."

"What is it like?" asked Bentham, possibly in an attempt to make the conversation last, "Have you been there?"

"Yes, of course," she answered, just as exited, "It is such a marvellous and beautiful place, filled with light and wonder. Though I have only stayed in the Alfan's cities, and have never visited the Mountain cities of the Darudain. Though I have heard of their majesty, they prefer grey stone to verdant nature."

It seemed Magnler was searching for a way to continue the conversation, sensing his trouble his Captain interceded.

"Darudain?"

"Ah," sighed Laecian, "my apologies, I have forgotten the other important members of our... our Unity if you will. The Darudain and Skarlian are the others who shared in our planet in times of old."

At the name Skarlian, all the Alfan present made a hand gesture, two clawed fingers run quickly down their delicate faces, from the middle of the brow to bottom right, over their right eye.

"And who are they then?" asked Anne.

"The Darudain are the builders, the fortifiers. They are not as trusting of outsiders as we are. They are smaller than we, and far hairier."

There was slight laughter amongst the Alfan at that last part.

"The Skarlian... are more unfortunate. They were banished from our homeworld some decades ago, they are more like us than the Darudain, but they have barbaric customs. They revel in pain and suffering, and make blood sacrifices and such. We could not safely keep them on our world, though it pains us to see ourselves so divided."

"Well that's just great," muttered Josh in his caracteristically humouristic mannor, who so far had been so quiet all had forgotten his presence, "I feel like I've fallen into one of those old fantasy books, with Elves and Dwarves and such and such."

Alex smiled, "It seems we have."

Several more Alfan descended from the vessels. There were a fair number of soldiers, all in identical sets of silvery armour. There were also many of the important crewmen of the Starlit Silence. Eranis and Naeris, who were respectively head of security and squadron leader of their wing of Phantom fighter craft. As well as Ivellios, the science officer, Varis, the weapons officer, and the twins, Faen and Byrn, both soldiers, or Blades as they called them.

They dispersed into their own groups, with more and more Men and Alfan converging to swap cultures. Ara, Ivellios, Bentham and Anne formed one group, while Alex, Josh and Laecian formed another. More and more Humans arrived, such as Layla, a member of security stationed in the hangar and Lauren, the ships chief doctor.

Many topics were discussed, thanks to the constant supply of translators, courtesy of Coline. They discovered that the Alfan were a peaceful race, but both they and the Darudain posessed powerful armies and navies to deter raids from their less-than-peaceful neighbours, the Skarlian. The Alfan apparently loved beauty in all it's forms, revelling in anything they found attractive. The Darudain were builders, and loved to see grand edifices completed by their many skilled constructors. Though shorter in stature, insisted the Alfan, they were greater in strength and endurance, and possessed minds to rival their own.

They discussed physics, astrology, sharing much of their pooled knowlege. The Alfan had great knowlege in quantum physics, and posessed technology that reflected that. But their know-how wained in the areas of Relativity and conventionnal physics, though they still retained more individual knowledge than most any human.

Their homeworlds were also greatly shared, descriptions of Earth in all it's glory as the birthplace of humanity. It's gardens and cities which had greatly grown in the last century.

The Alfan portraied their home with much more adoration, their descriptions lasted minutes and their eyes shone with passion and pride for their planet. They described how it was segmented into Alfan and Darudain parts, with each species living in their own cities. Yet this apparent separation of the two races meant nothing as they would spend their days in both parts of the planet equally, they simply preferred the aspect of their own parts, nothing more.

Finally, Laecian asked, "Would you like to see it?"

Widespread silence.

"Yes," replied Wells, "we would love to see it."

After the detachables left the hangar bay, Alex, Anne, John and Bentham escorted Ara to their bridge. Ara had agreed to help guide them should their sensors lose the Starlit Silence.

As they completed their burn through the blackness of space, approaching the yellow star in the centre, they saw other contacts ping on the Active Radar. A formation of 3 vessels, two smaller ones, at 3 kilometers in length, flanking a larger ship, at 5 kilometers, approach.

When they entered sightline, they were drastically different from the Alfan destroyer. Each was a huge angular hunk of metal floating through space. Nowhere near the elegant beauty of the Alfan vessel. They each posessed ovious and large weapons. They seemed sluggish and unwieldy vessels compaired to the light stature of the Stalit Silence.

As they approached, the New Horizon detected radio signals being emitted from both the new ships and the Alfan ships.

"These are the Darudain." explained Ara.

As if on que, Coline stated, "We've an incoming transmission."

"Patch it through." ordered Wells.

An extremely hairy face greeted them.

"Sweet jesus!" cried out Josh in surprise.

This captain had wild eyes, great long whiskers, big nose and ruddy cheeks. He seemed to be wearing some sort of helm, seemingly denoting his rank. It had a crossed axe and hammer in the centre.

Thankfully, the Alfan had provided Coline with information concerning the Darudain language as well as their own, so their translators made sense of what he said.

"Hrumph," he grunted, "What do we 'ave 'ere."

"Alex Wells, captain of the UNS New Horizon."

The Darudain thought for a moment, then said, "Commodore Ironbeard, of the Fist of Steel. Escorts are Destroyers Iron Glory and Steel Honor."

"It's an honor to meet you."

Ironbeard let out a bark of laughter, "Hear that lads, speaks like a tricksy elf already."

There was laughter behind him.

Alex looked at Ara, judging her reaction. The corner of her lips twisted into a slight smile.

"You needn't worry," she reasured him, "they are known for their rough ways and sometimes insulting humour. But they are good people. He in perticular is a master tactitian. And a stout friend."

The Darudain continued to laugh, but finally Ironbeard, wiping the tears from his eyes, smiled and said.

"Welcome to Maradisaë, perhaps we'll see each other down there heh. I'll get you a drink."

Unable to think of anything else to say, he gave the generic, "Thank you for your hospitality."

The video feed ended abruptly. The hairy figure dissapeared to be replaced by glowing symbology on the ship's HUD.

Thanks to the new input given by Coline, the vessels appeared with glowing symbols, the ones their respective races used. The Alfan vessel, and a few very distant ships used flowing golden symbols. The allegedly Darudain ships appeared in simple and functionnal angular symbols, and there were many more of them. It seemed they took care of most stellar enterprises.

They resumed their retrograde burn, a burn in the opposite direction of that they were travelling, until their trajectories met with a high orbit of Maradisaë. Once there, they burned retrograde again until in a stable equatorial orbit. The Alfan ship guided them all the way.

According to geological readouts, this planet had similar geological activity as Earth, if a bit less, preserving a molten core. It's magnetic field however was a little stronger than Earth's.

It's average surface temperature was 18°C, a little more tropical, and boasted larger oceans, enough to cover three quaters of the planet. Yet they weren't quite as deep.

Then Alfan ship passed them the next maneuver node, the exact direction to point and how much deltaV, a difference of velocity, required to reach the orbit of a Space Station, labeled by symbology as Starfort "various alien symbols".

They lit the Antimatter thrusters and completed the burn. The Alfan ship approached from behind as it finished burning, then rotated 180 degrees to face the Starfort. From there they uploaded to the New Horizon a hangar in which they could alight.

They maneuvered towards it slowly, marvelling at the structure before them. There must have been a thousand ships surrounding it, most Darudainian in nature. The fort itself was huge. According to scans, streaching for over a dozen kilometers. Bristling with advanced weaponry and boasting armour thicknesses Wells had never seen before. It's huge angular bulk slowly orbiting the planet, high enough so that trace atmosphere could not bring it down. Revolving around the planet in a geostationary orbit.

It's many spinning rings creating what Wells assumed to be artificial gravety for it's inhabitants.

They entered the sizable hangar, the Alfan ship docking just alongside. They noticed though the viewing screen that personnel, mostly Darudain, clustered around, oviously having never seen such a vessel.

They touched down, and Wells assembled the crew for departure.

He noticed Magnler fiddling with his computer terminal, but he paid it no mind. He knew what he was doing.

On their exit, they were greeted by a hundred hairy beings. Oviously Darudain because of their small, stocky stature. And their extremly hairy faces. They looked on curiously, as Laecian came around the corner, leading his own, very small crew. Whereas the crew of the New Horizon had perhaps 250 humans on board to operate all the systems, keep those systems in working order, and provide replacements for any should sickness or injury befall them, the Starlit Silence held perhaps only a score of Alfan. And half of those were oviously either security or military, given their armour and weapons.

To Wells it seemed odd that such an advanced race would wield such primitive weaponry as swords and spears.

The New Horizon's own military presence, under the command of FTL, were vastly outnumbered by their Alfan similars. But each one of them wore impact-absorbant vests, grieves and bracers, along with full headgear designed to give them as much information as possible. Each was also armed with a sidearm on their belts, and a battle rifle magnetised to their backs.

Laecian approached smiling.

"Come," he said, "Let us go, I will arrange for you to stay up here as long as you desire."

"How come there are so many Darudain, yet so few Alfan?" asked Xeing.

"Ours is not a prolific race, given our lifespan. The Darudain are much more short lived." answered Ara.

"You how long do you live then?" said Xeing.

"The Darudain's average lifespan is 286 years. Ours, is indefinite."

Xeing took a moment to take that in. Then made a double take. One year of Maradisaë was approximately 0.8 Earth years, but indefinite.

"You mean you're immortal?" blurted Bentham.

"Yes, though we are still vulnerable to disease and toubles of the flesh. But if you mean that we will endure given enough care to our bodies, then yes, we are immortal."

"But how?" wondered Xeing aloud, "We understand the biology of growing older, and why your organs cannot support you anymore. How is it possible that your entire species does not experience this?"

"I know not, but we believe it is something to do with the psychic attunement of our race. Ours, unlike any other's is destinctly linked to the psyonic realm, the 5th dimention. That is why almost every one of the members of our race are almost always born with these powers. Much more so than the Darudain, of which only a minute percentage, I think it is about 0.02 percent, of their race can wield this power, whereas ours is nearer to 98 percent."

"Psykers?" asked FTL, "Like in that old sci-fi game, what was it called...?"

"Warhammer?" interceded Magnler, of course he knew.

"Yeah."

"I do not know anything of your culture, so I cannot tell you wether you are correct, but it is the manipulation of the energy of the mind." said Laecian.

"And you can use it?" asked FTL.

"Yes."

"So why can't we? I've never heard of any Human who can do this." mused Wells.

"You cannot?" asked Ara, intrigued, "I though every race would have discovered these abilities." She splayed her hand, a ball of glowing greenish energy coalesced onto her palm. She dispersed it with a flick of her wrist.

"Yes," continued Laecian, "Ara is a wonderful example of this. I am correct in saying you graduated from your school last year. Three subjects am I correct."

Ara confirmed his asumption, "Quantum-Electronics, Orbital Mechanics and Psyology."

"Psyology is the study of the psyonic dimention. In terms of our studying, most Alfan take one or two subjects, but two would have been a waste of Ara's keen mind. And her unbound psyche. She's one of our brightest you know."

FTL laughed, "I see why she and Bentham get along. Two little doctors."

His laugh was cut short by Magnler, elbowing the security officer weakly in the ribs.

"Ah, and what knowlege did you aquire, Master Bentham."

It seemed the chief engineer panicked a bit at the question.

"Um... Mechanical Engineering... and... Spacial Systems." he muttered quietly, glaring at Josh.

"On our world, we begin at the age of 2, we study 5 years the basics of all things, then 5 years general knowlege, then we begin to specialise. We continue specialising slowly for another 5 years. Then we spend 12 years perfecting our knowlege in any subject or subjects we choose. An Alfan may return to learn as many times as he or she wishes. You will be sustained during any learning periods you begin. " explained Laecian.

"That is quite similar to what we experienced on Earth." said Wells.