2. Unlikely allies
The next morning, I wake up to the sound of Vres’s voice talking to someone on the other side of the wall. I sit up and see her in front of her communication device, probably discussing something with Pharvyn. As soon as I get up, she notices me and quickly ends the call.
“Good morning, Evan.” She seems a bit anxious, maybe because of the last conversation. “How do you feel?”
I look around to check if I’m still on the alien ship. Yes, it is. After a sigh, I response: “Fine, I guess. Do you have anything that I can eat?”
Vres startles, as if she doesn’t expect that question. “Right, food…” Vres’s tail twitches nervously as she turns toward a small, glowing panel on the wall. It shows a …piece of meat. Vres looks back at me, her tail curls tightly around her legs. “You know, I’m a carnivore. The s-ship contains food only for me, and it’s bas-sically only raw meat. You doesn’t look like a meat-eater…”
“I can eat meat, but I need to cook it. Do you have a stove or something?” I guess I just look very weak compared to her, without any claws and sharp teeth, which makes her think that way.
Vres looks at me with wide unblinking eyes. “Wait, you are not a herbivore? That makes-s things-s eas-sier…” Her tail uncoils with a slow, deliberate motion. She turns back to the screen and presses some buttons. “The s-system can apply heat to the any food stored within it. S-so, we can “cook” you s-some food. We …can cook food for those who are very ill or too old.”
She continues pressing buttons until I hear a quiet hum, and the picture starts changing. After a minute, the panel opens, and I see an actual meal. The freshly cooked meat is pale and tender, its surface glistening with juices. Wisps of steam curl upward, carrying strange aroma, reminding me of charred leather and something sweet, like caramelized onions. “You’re… okay with this-s?” Vres asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m hungry,” I say. “And I trust you.” Vres nods, grabs one of the crates from the shelf and puts it in from of me. She clarifies: “A table. My desks are too high for you.”
I look again at the plate standing in front of me. The size on the screen was deceptive—the amount of meat would be enough for two or three people. No forks or chopsticks, I wonder if Vres just eats her meals in one piece like a snake. I gulp and grab one of the pieces. The taste is intense—gamey, but not unpleasant, with a hint of something smoky. I chew slowly, savoring it. Vres watches me, her tail swaying like a metronome.
The heat from the meal warms my stomach, and for the first time since waking up, I feel something close to normal. Vres’s tail stops swaying and relaxes against her leg. She watches me eat with a strange mix of curiosity and… guilt?
“You’re not going to vomit?” she asks, her voice tight.
“I don’t think so,” I say, taking another bite. “It’s weird, but it’s not bad. Kind of like… a mix between venison and something I’ve never tasted before.”
Vres exhales sharply, her shoulders slumping in relief.
After I finish what I manage to eat, Vres hides the rest into the same panel. Is it also some sort of fridge? That system seems way better than eating from tubes everyday.
“Sooo, what about the old ship?” If I remember correctly, Pharvyn allowed us to investigate it.
“Ah, yes-s. Let’s go. Do you need help to wear your s-suit?”
“No, thank you… Will you wear a suit?” I shake my head.
“No, my device already prepared a good atmos-sphere on the s-ship, s-so I don’t need it anymore.” Oh. That’s why there was strange improvement of the air quality. That makes sense now…
I’m slowly going through a dark corridor. A clinging sound of sharp claws hitting metal floor echoes in the narrow passage. This time, I don’t have to run away from the sound, but it still makes me shiver from time to time.
“I unders-stand why the corridors are s-small, but I can’t s-stop complaining about it.” Vres mutters behind me. I glance back and see her moving on all six limbs, her massive body struggling against the cramped space.
“We are almost there… The control room is bigger, so you can rest there.” I still can’t get rid of the memory of her catching me in these corridors, but I try my best to act nice.
She nods, and we continue our way silently.
After a few minutes, we reach the control room. Vres finally can stand up to her full height, and she does it with a sigh of relief. She looks at me, sits down and asks: “Are ..are you mad at me? Your movement s-seems very s-stiff.”
I sit nearby and look at her. As expected, she immediately looks away. It feels so strange to see that monstrous person being shy and unsure about things… I shake my head, the motion slow, deliberate. “No. I’m not mad. You did what you had to. I’d probably have done the same if I’d been in your position.” My voice is quieter now, the words feeling heavier than they should.
Vres’s tail flicks once, sharp and uncertain, before settling against her leg. She stares at the floor for a moment, then meets my eyes. “You… don’t hate me?”
“Hate’s a strong word,” I say, leaning back against the cold metal wall. The control room is brighter here, the air humming with the low thrum of systems I don’t understand.
After another round of silence, Vres stands up and reaches to the console. It turns on, but then she stops, probably confused by the interface. I breath in and come closer, explaining the system. With my instructions, she quickly finds audit logs and we start reading the most recent together. The last one was about our ship docking, the previous one was probably about Vres’s ship. Some system reports. Hmm. The record from ten years ago, and it is another docking.
I look at Vres. “We haven’t had any other human ships in this region of space during that period at all. Do you think that the “First Contact” has been occurred at that point?”
She shakes her head. “No, the official firs-st contact s-should have been documented and available through our s-systems. Additionally, your s-species DNA data s-should have been updated as well. Can you check the cameras?”
I stand in front of the console. If the ship was abandoned due to the alien activity, it is extremely bad for both of us. My fingers write in commands, and finally, the process of decoding the camera data is started. While the data is processed, I try to find any captain’s records. That data is less important, so the system could get rid of it for the sake of storing new audit logs, but I manage to find something. Last two survived records.
Record 2694. Today our locators recorded a particular space object. It has non-reflective surface and is twice as bigger than our ship in length. It just appeared out of nowhere nearby. No lights. No movement. Hypothesis: New type of celestial body. Alternative hypothesis: Alien construct. The surface of the body reflects our scanner’s rays, our scientists started to construct theories of what it is and how to approach it.
The record contains an image attachment of a sharp geometrical object. A jagged, obsidian monolith floating in the void, its surface so smooth it seems to swallow the light around it. I hear Vres hissing.
“Something wrong?” I look at her.
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go to ass-ssumptions yet. But I s-saw that s-sort of s-spaceships before.”
I sigh. I was prepared for it to be aliens. I open the second record.
Record 2695. After 10 hours of inactivity, the object approached our ship. I saw a docking notification, even the object itself hadn’t had any docking ports initially. I sent some people from the crew to meet our guests. Formalities aside, is it really an alien ship? I can’t believe that we could be the first to confirm that we are not alone. Strangely, I didn’t receive any messages from my executive officer, even if he was supposed to send me anything related to the contact. I need to check it myself.
“Soooo, they had guests…” I glance at Vres again. She looks away. “We both know that something bad happened. Why are you so silent now?”
“The first contact procedure requires-s to not bring to light anything related to negative s-sides of our s-society.” Her tail swings back and forth. “We both need to see what happened before I can say anything aloud.”
I sigh and check the camera records progress. It has finished. I start the video. The view is from the ceiling, towards the docking port. The chamber is filled with tense silence as the human delegation waits, expecting cautious diplomacy. I see the docking hatch snap open with a sharp metallic jolt, the seal blowing outward in a hiss of vapor. Figures spill through the breach.
Each figure towers close to two meters, wrapped in a carapace that gleams dull under the harsh light. Their bodies bristle with limbs: four main arms, thick and jointed, tipped with scythe-like claws that clatter against the metal walls; a second, thinner pair grows lower on the torso, twitching constantly as if eager to grasp or tear. Below, four bent legs carry them forward in a skittering rhythm, the gait unnervingly insectile. Their heads are narrow, shrouded in bristling chitin ridges. Mandibles flex outward with every hiss, and between them jut teeth like splintered blades. They have more eyes than should fit—two large forward-facing ones, glossy and sharp, and four smaller, bead-sized clusters set along the sides, catching the light like drops of oil. And from behind each creature sweeps a thick, worm-like tail, studded with patches of rough hair and spines, dragging grooves into the floor plating.
The first seconds are nothing but clicking mandibles, scraping claws, and the skitter of too many feet across metal flooring. Then the noise shifts—into the whine of charging rifles. Sparks jump across the lenses as the pirates raise their grafted weapons, electricity crawling down the barrels. The human delegation freezes, caught between disbelief and fear, until the chamber erupts in blue arcs of fire. The screen flickers, the footage freezing on a frame of the pirates’ weapons discharging.
Vres doesn’t move. Her tail is coiled tight around her leg, her eyes locked on the screen. When the video resumes, the footage cuts to black—something about the ship’s cameras failing, the log entry saying “systems overwhelmed by a radiation surge.”
I breath in and out. My hands are shaking. “The first contact is important, you say…” My voice trembles.
Vres looks at me, her eyes jumping from the console to me and back. “I …I have an explanation. Pleas-se, calm down. You are s-safe. The piracy is a big problem, es-specially in the far sectors, like this one.”
“What has happened to them?” I point at the screen, where humans are lying on the floor, being shot on the spot.
“Let Pharvyn explain it, I’m s-sure they can find the right words…” I notice how her tail is twisting around her legs again.
“What. Has. Happened.” I look directly into Vres’s eyes.
She returns the glance and sighs out. “An abduction. For the black market. I can’t say if it is for food or for entertainment.”
“What?!” I scream, not able to control my voice anymore. She said ‘food’, and it is exactly what she had told me the first time. The first deep space expedition has been eaten… I can’t believe that.
“Evan, please…” Her voice stutters. “Why my tongue makes it always the wors-st. Lis-sten. Probably not food, s-some of the more… let’s s-say, unorthodox wealthy circles love to have s-some exotic pets in their galleries and pay tons-s of money to get s-something that others don’t have.”
Food or a pet… I don’t even know what is worse. My knees falter, and the ground slips away under me. The next moment I find myself in the Vres’s hands.
“I will bring you back to the ship. You need to rest. Please forgive me for touching you without permission, I was scared that you would fall and hurt yourself.” She keeps mumbling her nonsense while carrying me away from the control room.
The screen on her arm lights up with something red. Vres stiffens, her claws digging into my shoulders as she freezes mid-step. An instant later, she surges forward on her six with a speed I wouldn’t have thought is possible for something so massive in such a cramped corridor.
“What–” I don’t finish my question, when I see something familiar in the observation window. The pure black shadow that covers distant stars. My stomach drops. Vres makes a series of short clicking sounds, probably talking with someone. A sudden flash blinds the corridor cameras for a split second—brighter than anything inside the station. The image stabilizes just in time to catch the shockwave: glass panes rattling, metal groaning, and the feed shuddering as if the whole hull vibrates.
Outside, the docked ship turns into a fireball. Flames blossom in the vacuum like a tearing flower, fragments spinning away into the black. It takes us a moment to realize what happened, but then the trail is visible—an afterglow in the void, a lance of charged plasma stretching back to the pirates’ vessel.
Vres gently places me on the ground. I see her muscles tense. “Evan. I need you to run and hide. Please, right now. The res-scue team will be here s-soon. Just, please, do anything to s-survive.”
“What about you?” I barely manage to stand up on my rubbery legs.
She looks at me, then at the ship, which has suddenly became so close that it covers almost the whole sky. “Someone will rescue me too, don’t worry. I’m a tough one. But you… Please, run.” She slightly pushes my with her lower arms.
I turn around and walk aimlessly.
I wake up with a sharp inhale. My head hurts badly. The world tilts and blurs, colors bleeding together.
“Finally awake? Sadly, we got only one.” I hear not words, but strange clicking sounds. Despite that, I can understand them.
When I try to touch my head, I realize my arms are bound by an elastic cable. Several wires are connected to my skin. I look around and notice I’m in some sort of a glass capsule, and an alien is standing outside, looking in.
I try to focus. Right, pirates. Chase. Pain. Cry. Darkness.
“Hey, ignoring me is a bad thing.” The alien’s clicking voice makes my head hurt more, but I try to look at it. The creature is about three meters tall snake, standing on its coiled tail. A pair of long, thin arms holds some device. Its translucent skin catches the light like wet glass. The top of the torso is covered with white armor. Beneath the surface, faint veins and shifting organs pulse in a slow rhythm. Its pair of eyes is bottomless black, reflecting nothing back—no light, no emotion. Its mouth contains several rows of small but very sharp teeth.
“Who are you?” I try to ask, but a series of angry clicking interrupts me. “Use Galactic Common, damn you! I was forced to insert it directly into your small but surprisingly complicated brain.”
Oh, that’s why I can understand it, but how to use it…
“I.. Wha.. you..” My throat hurts, but I try my best to say something. The alien tilts its head and presses something on its device. I feel my head and throat are becoming numb, but then, the pain goes away.
“Better?” The creature snorts and shifts to the panel nearby, checking something.
“Yes. What will …happen to …me?” This time it sounds cleaner.
“Oh, a smart one. The captain usually sells rare species to the black market. But what will happen then depends entirely on the buyer. Those who pay more will decide. Simple, right?” The alien gets back. “Anyway, I was … let’s say hired… to perform tests to ensure your value. Physical strength, intelligence, and some features… I haven’t seen species like you at all, tho they said that they have dealt with that kind of creature before. Last time they didn’t perform any analysis, so almost the whole pack died for an unknown reason.”
Is it talking about the Laguna’s crew? That’s so terrible… The alien looks to the side - something is beeping constantly. When I focus on it, the sound becomes slower. Or, is it my heart monitor? Huh…
“Don’t worry that much. Even if they are stupid barbarians, they learn from their mistakes. That’s why I’m here. So, let’s start with the reaction test…”
When it touches another panel near my capsule, I hear a loud sound, and all the lights start flashing. I hear a rapid voice, probably a loudspeaker, but the language is unknown to me.
“Inquisitors? Crap, we are all dead…” The alien seems panicking, as its movements become much more twitchy. It grabs something from the table, then opens several drawers. It keeps mumbling: “Even if they spare the ship, those stupid bastards will blow it up anyway…”
Suddenly, it stops and looks at me. “You… you can be useful.” It presses something on the capsule’s panel, the front glass slides away, and the cables that held me fall down. Before I can do anything, its long tail grabs me and pulls me out of the capsule, as the alien escapes the room. I barely notice several other empty capsules and many monitors left behind.
The hall is filled with smoke, and the light is flickering. The alien looks around and rushes to the right side holding me with its tail. After several meters, we encounter the creature from the tape - and the one who visited Laguna for the second time - a mole-like alien with a gun.
“Where are you going, worm?! Go fight with us or die!” It screams, but then I hear a loud shot, and it falls down. I see a long rifle-like gun in “my” alien’s hand pointed at the pirate.
“Hell no, I won’t die for you…” It hisses and continues its way. I hear a distant explosion and the sounds of a fight. But we are already at the docks. In a few professional movements, it opens the doors, throws me into them, closes them, and pushes something. Before I even fall, the gravity is disabled, and I end up on some chair, instantly grabbing it.
“Good reaction.” The alien proceeds to the panel and activates the ship. I see the panels light up, and after a loud thud, the vessel lurches forward, quickly accelerating. Through the back window, I see a series of massive explosions all along the black pirate ship. “Holy crap…” What else I can say… After several seconds, the ship turns into a dot and disappears.
“You’re damn right…” The alien’s voice trembles. I notice that its tail is curling together and uncurls rapidly. “Crap, I’m not used to this…”
It looks at me. “You can call me Meki. I think my ’employee’ doesn’t exist anymore, so whatever.” It arranges itself into the chair and tightens the belts. I follow.
“Evan. Abducted for the third time, I guess.” I sigh.
Meki makes a series of hissing, probably nervously laughing. “Third? You have a lot of stories, I guess. Not so different from me, though…”
“What do you mean?”
“I got involved with a bad company, and after missing some debt payments, I was sold to those pirates and forced to work for them. It has been three years already.” Meki’s tail finally relaxes, and now, floating in the zero gravity, fills almost the whole ship’s cabin.
“So, you are free now? Can you contact some sort of government?” I’d like to contact Pharvyn. Vres… I hope she wasn’t on that ship. I really hope.
Meki makes more hisses. “I was working for pirates, making drugs and illegal surgical operations. Do you really think I can, after all this, just go to the government and ask for a new licence? Even if I do, Black Vessels will probably find me and sell me again… I have no place to live now.” It closes its eyes and leans back.
I unbuckle myself and fly towards Meki, grabbing its arm. With a twitch, it opens its eyes and looks at me. “What are you doing?”
I take a deep breath. “Listen. I was captured by a big lizard; my team abandoned me, and no one knows where my planet is or how to return to it. Then I was abducted by overgrown moles and finally saved by a translucent snake. But I still have hope. I will try to return to my planet even if it takes a long time.”
Meki glances at me for too long. “Did I hurt your head while transferring you to the ship?” It snorts. “Anyway, do you have a plan?”
“Yes. We need to contact Outer Rim Division before we stumble upon another faction that want to do something with …us.”
“Rim Division… I heard some legends that they can tolerate pirates who want to “change sides”. But I’ve been told that that’s only a legend that was made to catch more pirates. But honestly, what do I actually loss? To be killed by angry pirates or to spend the rest of my life in jail. At least, let’s have some fun.”
It draws some panels close with its tail, and start pressing something. “I set a course to the border. They have several stations here. It will be easier to get in contact when we will be closer.”
“Why do you say ‘fun’?” I widen my eyes a little.
“Let me explain it in simple terms: imagine a pirate ship docking to the police station and asking to make a call. Can you imagine the faces they would have?” Meki laughs again.
After that explanation I become more concerned about my plan. But I don’t have other. I shake my head and ask: “How much will the flight to the border take?”
Meki looks at the panel and replies: “About 10 hours.” This in not the Earth hour, but the value close to it, however I cannot explain why I know it.
It looks at me. “Want to sleep? The ship has a sleep capsule. A single one, sadly. Though, you are already used to being held in my tail, so there shouldn’t be problem.” It laughs again. After that, it removes its armor and moves to the side of the room, where the panel slides away and reveals a barely lit tiny room with soft walls, floor and ceiling.
After Meki fits in here, there’s really not much space left, as its tail is literally everywhere. It claps its hand on its tail, mockingly laughing. With a controlled jump, I manag to land at the center of its tail, and burrow myself into it. I hear a surprised gasp. “Wait, are you serious?” I see that its veins becoming slightly bigger, making the whole body reddish. Strangely, being covered from all sides by a surprisingly warm tail feels good, and zero gravity almost doesn’t bother me.
“Yes, have a good night.” I close my eyes. I hear a slight hiss, then I feel Meki adjusts its tails a little bit, making me even more comfortable. “I hope you won’t regret it…” is the last thing I hear before falling asleep.