Author’s Corner: Sorry for the no chap yesterday. As I said after the break ended, every now and then I will be taking a day or two off so that I don’t burn myself out like I almost had last month. But fear not, for there are things planned for this chapter!

For the most part, the rest of our journey passed without much excitement. There was only one conversation I had that was actually important(in the grand scheme of things to come). That was when my parents called and said that the first ships were getting ready to leave. They needed to know which ship to board in order to meet up with me later.

After some questioning, I learned that there weren’t any ships close to being complete that were heading for the Ha’vosh homeworld. So instead, I told them to head for the elven worlds, because I knew that they would be cared for there and I could meet up with them after leaving the Ha’vosh. They seemed to like that idea, so I made a plan to return there after I finished up with this.

Anyways, you’re all probably wanting to hear more about the Ha’vosh right now, right? So let’s get to that. “Captain, we’re roughly ten minutes out from Alkrax. I’ve got the planet on long range scanners.”

I nodded at Matt Scrown, the scanning officer on duty. He had a very human sounding name for an elf, so I imagine that would be like a human being named Alraune. Really rare, but not unheard of… “Thanks. Prepare to drop out of subspace as soon as we are in range to broadcast.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Seeing this as a chance to make an important announcement, I hit the intercom button for the ship. “Attention, crew of the Ariadne. We will be dropping out of subspace in roughly ten minutes. If everything goes to plan, this will be our first significant contact with an alien race.” I was totally not counting the robots here, because that was not a very significant contact with how brief our stay was.

“The Ha’vosh will also likely wish to join the crew of the Ariadne, by the time we are ready to leave.” Most races would want a chance to go out and explore the stars, I imagine. “If so, we will be receiving additional crew members. For the purpose of this expedition, I will be proceeding with Officer Sharon Bradbury for initial contact. Once the area is deemed safe, I will allow other crew members to proceed to the surface to interact as well. So put on your best behavior people, it’s time to meet the neighbors.”

I stopped the broadcast there, and waited for our ship to drop out of subspace. As expected, Sharon arrived on the bridge a few moments later, smiling to me. “Looks like it’s time to get you back on a planet, John.”

I chuckled dryly, nodding my head. “Yeah, I could do with stretching my legs.”

“Captain, we are dropping out in three… two… one. Exiting subspace now.” Matt spoke up while watching his terminal. Just as he finished, the flying lights drifting by the outside windows stopped, and we were suddenly near a large planet. It was hard to tell, given our situation, but… “Planet Alkrax on screen. Gravity estimated to be twice normal.” Yup, it really was a big planet.

I had a hard time making out the surface of the planet, because a white fog covered almost the entire area. Every now and then there were patches of green or blue, but for the most part the surface was hidden. “Well, this is going to be interesting… What can you tell me?”

“Thick fog covers 95% of the planet’s surface. Readings show it is a mixture of water and an unknown chemical, but does not appear harmful to the indigenous life. No notable difference in population between the exposed areas and the ones in the fog. Monster readings… Numerous small monster readings, but only one boss-class monster detected. There also appears to be a dungeon at the location of the boss monster.”

Listening to the report, at least they had it better than the elves did. “Celeste, are you able to tap into their network, see if you can pick up any news?”

The Deus Ex shook her head. “I’m not picking up a network that I can access. Given that their entire race is psychic, it is likely that their network is built for only psychics to access.”

And of course, because of my ‘episode’ at Hydra, I had forgotten about making the crew psychic. So there was likely nobody on board that could tap into it. “Well, this will be interesting, then. Let’s go, Sharon.”

Sharon nodded as I got up, and we both headed for the medbay so that we could get in our clones. “Captain.” Matt said as we were just leaving the medbay to head for the teleport room. Thankfully, comms made talking across the ship easy. “I’m picking up another ship in orbit on the far side of the planet. Scans show no life forms on board, and the ship appears to simply be idling.”

… Well, that would be interesting. “Have Yin and Celeste investigate while we make contact with the planet.”

“Understood.”

And with that, we resumed our course towards the surface, teleporting straight into the center of a dense fog. Immediately, we were able to feel the effects of the increased gravity, though it seemed to be hitting me worse than Sharon. On this world, my 15 strength was enough for me to stand up straight and walk around, but running naturally would be difficult.

One of the crew members spoke up in our ears over the comms. “I put you at the edge of the most densely populated area of the planet. This should be an important location, so finding someone to negotiate with should be easy.”

I nodded my head, and stuck close to Sharon. With this fog, I could see no more than ten meters in any direction. However, if I used my Cybernetic Eye and changed vision modes, I saw people walking about like normal for a city. Except that the people were seven feet tall, green, had two rows of two eyes, and had long, spindly arms. One of them seemed to notice us through the thick fog, before looking left and right anxiously.

A moment later, over a dozen sets of eyes were on us, and I tensed my hand slightly in Sharon’s grip. “Here goes…” I said, in English before doing my best to speak in the Ha’vosh language. “Hello, we come in peace.”

“Greeeellloo.” The nearest alien spoke, but not in the language I had spent weeks learning. “Howr yao din?” It spoke sloppily, as if it was trying to speak a language it did not know. It kept looking at us expectantly, before Celeste spoke in my head.

“John, we’re at the ship now. According to its systems, it’s been in orbit for three weeks, and was originally from Earth. There is nobody on board, and the ship’s AI said that their last activity was to go to the planet below… Be careful.”

No sooner had she finished her warning than I felt a stabbing pain in my head. Reaching my hand up, I found a trail of blood coming out of my nose. The alien that had tried to speak furrowed its brow slightly, and then everything went black.

You have died.

I woke up back on the ship suddenly, jolting forward. “What the… did they attack?”

Looking over, I saw that Sharon had not yet come out of her clone. Wait, nevermind, she just took a bit longer than me. When she got back in her main body, she was clutching her head in pain. “What was that…”

“Celeste?” I called out to the Deus Ex, hoping that she had some ideas.

“I don’t know… According to my records, the language I gave you was appropriate, and they should not be a violent race. But judging by the conditions you experienced before your death, the cause was likely an overload of psychic energy.”

I nodded my head slightly. “Alright…” I looked over to Sharon, explaining what Celeste had told me, since she doesn’t have the benefit of the Deus Ex being in her head.

“So… maybe they use telepathy to communicate?” She thought as she still clutched her head in one hand. “What do we do now?”

“Well… The best thing I can think of is to go back down when we have our clone bodies ready, but change our races to human. Humans are naturally better at handling psychic energy than elves. Then, maybe your Wild Voice can communicate with them?”

She listened for a moment and nodded her head. However, I was starting to feel a nagging headache building again at the back of my skull. “Get the ship away from the planet, right now!” I called out over the comms, afraid that the Ha’vosh were trying to combine their abilities to reach out and speak with us. Even if they were just trying to apologize, it was likely that it would kill most of the crew.

As we moved away, I felt that pain fade away again. “Okay… that was not fun.” I groaned as I got out of the chair, and made my way to the bridge. “Are we still in range to receive Celeste and Yin?”

“Barely, Captain. However, the Vice-Captain has requested time to study the ship.”

“Tell her to just fly it here if she can. Otherwise, bring her out. Yin’s with her right now, and only one of them is immune to a telepathic attack.” Probably not the best way I could phrase that, but that was essentially what this was. Not an intentional attack, but it was lethal nonetheless.

“Understood, Captain.” The comms went quiet for a minute, and just as I got back to the bridge, there was a communication appearing on the screen from Celeste.

“John, I managed to get control of this ship. It seems this was one of the people who left before us. But, since they didn’t have any cloning tech, they were killed when they went down to the planet.”

I nodded slightly, a little unsettled how a simple greeting from the Ha’vosh has become a lethal attack. “Did you manage to understand anything from what they said before trying to use telepathy on us?”

She chuckled wryly at that. “Well… From what I can tell, they were trying to mimic what the owner of this ship had said to them. ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ They likely understand that it is some form of greeting, so when they saw you their first response was to try and imitate it. When that didn’t work, they had to see if they could communicate with you using their normal methods. After all, you aren’t the same race as the person who owned this ship.”

“I… see… Can you build a device to help us defend against psychic attacks like that? Maybe turn down the volume on their telepathy?”

Celeste thought about it for a moment. “I can try. It should take me a while, but that will give you time for your clone bodies to regrow.”

“Understood… in the meantime…” I looked around the bridge. “Well, this is unsettling to say… But keep an eye on the life sign scans. If a Ha’vosh dies, I want it teleported up to the ship.”

Matt’s face paled a bit when I said that. “Uhm… may I ask why, Captain?”

“Back up plan. If using Sharon to talk to them doesn’t work, then I’ll need to turn into a Ha’vosh myself. And to do that, I need to study one. If I become a Ha’vosh, their telepathy should no longer pose a risk to me.”

“Ah! Understood, Captain. I’ll continue doing a detailed scan of one of their cities, and wait for one to pass away.” Matt nodded his head before returning to his terminal. I have to admit that I really didn’t want to have to give an order like that. I mean come on, I was abducting a dead alien to study it. This feels like the ultimate role reversal.