Author's Notes:

Hey! it's finished! Hope you guys enjoy this next chapter! I'll say this, this one was a bit of a doozy, and I'm still not sure I got it right.

Anyway, I bet you guys are wondering "Why is the author's note's up here?' Well, it's because I have exciting, huge freaking news!

=>MY BOOK IS FINISHED! THIS IS THE LINK!<=

Some of you are already aware of this, but a lot of you are not. I have finished a full fledged, completely sellable, O.C. story based on What I've Become!

At the moment it is only available in digital, kindle format, but yes, there is an app you can download for computers, tablets and phones that allow you to read things without kindle. The book also only costs three dollars, so it's really not that expesive!

I'll also have physical copies soon, but not until my artist friend has finished the cover. Once that's done, the rather generic spacy cover of the digital version will be replaced, so look forward to it!

On a related note, if you guys don't want to buy my book, but still want to read it, or if you're more into audio books, I'll be slowly trickling out a series on youtube where I read it chapter by chapter. At the moment, I only have the first one up, but you can find it here:

What I've Become: Prologue

Yes, I know it's rather quiet, I was recording with a baby on my chest, so I kinda had to be.

Anyway, I'll be avidly awaiting your feedback. Also, if you do choose to buy my book and support me, please leave a review, it really helps me out!

And with that out of the way, I now present you guys with the next installment of What I Am. Enjoy!

“Excuse me, Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight looked up from the huge pile of notes that she had in front of her, feeling both relieved to have an excuse to stop trying to make sense of ~Alex’s~ blocky language and diagrams, and annoyed at the interruption. She felt like she was on the edge of some sort of huge breakthrough, which was only being stalled by the ~human’s~ poor understanding of the Equestrian language.

She could understand the basic idea behind the design: Break the instructions down into smaller and smaller chunks, so much so that a machine could understand it. How the instructions were broken down, however, was a completely different matter. She wasn’t certain, but she had the distinct feeling that arithmetic played a huge role in all of this, based on the limited information she had managed to glean from ~Alex~ about how all of this worked. Why ones and zeros of all things were so important to all of this, though, she really couldn’t understand.

Shaking off her frustration, she looked to the stallion that had pulled her from her work. “I’m sorry, sergeant. What was it you wanted?”

“I have a delivery here for you, as well as a message,” the Solar Guard said, levitating a rather large box over to her. “I’m to tell you that the alien has woken up, and he’ll be down here shortly to help.”

Twilight looked a little worried as she took the box. A single glance inside was all it took to realize that ~Alex~ had sent the metallic cat he had repurposed, though without any of the golem cores he had created. “Are you certain? From what I could tell when he was brought in, he was in pretty rough shape. Should he even be up?”

The sergeant let out a sigh, his stern, commanding expression falling away to reveal a somewhat worried looking one. “Try telling him that, ma’am. I saw him myself before coming down here, and I have to say that most soldiers I know, me included, would probably still be in bed if they looked as bad as he does. And from what I could tell, he acted more annoyed at the coddling from our nurses than anything else.”

“Well, he was… changed… It’s entirely possible that his energy and health isn’t natural,” Twilight said, before remembering what happened out in the training yard. “Though, if what he’s told us about his people is true, then we may have to accept that his people are just like that.”

The guard visibly shivered at this. “Well, it’s a good thing he’s on our side, then. I saw what happened between him and Miss Dash, and I can tell you right now that I would rather take on an enraged hydra than have him or his people hunting me.” The guard then cut a clean salute before turning back to the door. “If that is all, ma’am, I really should be going. Your brother wasn’t too happy about the breach in security, and he’s been issuing several general orders and changes throughout the entire guard as a result.”

“Shiny can be like that, especially where the changelings are concerned. It’s actually quite the relief that not all of them are monsters out to get us,” Twilight said, her muzzle turned up in a smile, before it turned back down in a worried frown. “After all, we’ve got enough enemies coming from above to be worried about our own troops turning on us.”

The sergeant briefly glanced upwards, only to shiver again at what Twilight had said. “I wholeheartedly agree, ma’am,” he said, right before leaving the room.

Twilight thoughtfully watched the guard leave before placing the box on the desk, and turning to the rest of the laboratory. It was still pretty early in the day, so most of the research staff wasn’t here yet. To be specific, only two other ponies were here: Doctor Burner and his brother Beaker. At the moment they were working on some of the alien artifacts that had been recovered from the crash, though Twilight couldn’t help but pick up on a somewhat strained atmosphere between the two.

Whatever was going on between them, though, would have to wait. If the so-called ‘remnants of the Krin Empire’ came here, they had to be ready, and Twilight was not about to let a brotherly spat be the reason behind the fall of Equestria. “Burner, Beaker, ~Alex~ will be arriving soon, and judging by what he sent ahead of himself, we’ll probably be working on the Omniscope. Go put away the recovered artifacts and get what we need from storage.”

Burner muttered something that Twilight didn’t quite catch, right before receiving a hoof to the back of his head from his brother, much to Twilight’s shock. Instead of turning and snapping at Lab Beaker, though, the usually vocal Bunsen Burner just rubbed the back of his head, before inclining his head in apology. “...I mean, we’ll get right on that, Miss Sparkle.”

“Ugh,” Beaker said, seemingly pleased with himself.

“...Are you two okay?” Twilight asked, confused and somewhat worried at the two brothers' actions.

“We are perfectly fine, Miss Sparkle. Just a little misunderstanding yesterday, completely my fault,” Bunsen Burner said, before inclining his head politely. “Now, let’s get ready. I have a feeling that we have a lot of work to do.”

It took the three awhile to get everything ready. The pieces of the Omniscope were all still out, but the actual tools and materials they would need for the construction of a golem were not. Instead, they had been concentrating on unlocking the secrets of the alien’s tech while ~Alex~ worked on overcoming the language barrier. It was going to take some time before ~Alex~ was ready, but it was something that the entire team agreed needed to happen before they were to make any progress on the scope

It was a bit strange that he was headed down here with his meager skill in the Equestrian tongue, especially considering how much of a beating he had taken the day before, but Twilight just shrugged it off, thinking that it was probably just the human being unable to lie down and rest while others worked. Applejack is like that, stubborn to a fault. Considering how similar he is mentally to ponies, I wouldn't be surprised if he shares some of our failings as well... she thought as she scooped up several alien metallic spheres and dumped them into a box.

As the three worked, they were slowly joined by more and more of the research team. It didn’t take Twilight long to explain what they were doing, but she was a little annoyed when she had to explain it multiple times. In fact, she was in the middle of explaining the situation to Razorback, the remaining minotaur on the team, when the door opened behind her, letting her know someone else had arrived. “Oh, for pony’s sake, why don’t-” she started to say, but stopped short when she realized that it was ~Alex~ who had arrived, with Celestia in tow.

Twilight had to agree with the sergeant’s previous statement. ~Alex~ really didn’t look like he should be up, or even conscious. His whole face and the one hand that she could see looked like they were completely bruised. In fact, they both looked like they were part of the same bruise. His other arm was nowhere to be seen, but there was an odd lump in the front of his lab coat, hinting that his arm was probably still in a sling. “My goodness, ~Alex~, you look absolutely terrible! You should-wait, I don’t have the translation spell on me, let me-” Twilight started to say, but was cut off by a single wave of ~Alex’s~ hand.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t need the spell anymore,” he said, shocking everyone present into silence. “The things in my head finally figured out your language. We can finally get to work, now.”

There was the sound of glass breaking, followed by a somewhat nervous cough. “Um… sorry about that…” Burner said as Twilight turned to the nervous, flustered stallion. He had dropped an empty beaker, and while the mess was concerning, that was next to nothing compared to the look of fear he was desperately trying to hide.

“Are you okay, Burner?” someone asked, somewhat concerned. “You look kind of pale…”

“No, no, I’m fine, just probably something I ate this morning that didn’t agree with me…” he said, before moving towards one of the adjoining rooms. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to have a little bit of a lie-down…”

The others watched him leave, before attention was pulled from him by an awkward cough from ~Alex.~ “Well, while my… things don’t have a perfect word thing yet, I’m able to pick up new words pretty fast, so it shouldn’t take long to explain everything, both to you with what I’ve been trying to make, and to me with what you’ve been trying to make. With everyone’s help, I’m pretty sure we can have something together to stop those… Strange people… People that don’t come from here…”

“Aliens?” Razorback asked helpfully.

“Does aliens mean people from other planets?”

“It does indeed, ~Alex,~” Razorback said, giving the ~human~ a helpful smile.

“Then yes, we have to stop the aliens,” ~Alex~ said, before taking a couple of steps forward. “Also, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s not Alis.”

Razorback looked a little confused at this. “What?”

“My name. Though I can understand if you cannot pronounce it correctly, but my name is Alex. I look forward to working with you, and hope we’ll be able to make something that will kick the crap out of those alien-” Alex then said something in his own tongue that, while everyone there couldn’t understand, could still pick up on what he meant based purely on the venom he put into those syllables. He then turned to Twilight, his black eyes somewhat unnerving, despite the warmth in his expression. “Now, I think it’s about time we sat down and had a real speech on what we’re making. As far as I know, we’re making a looking device… something to find alien ships... You know, a finding device. What I’m making is the thing’s-” Alex then said another word. A word that, while Twilight had heard before, she had only heard it when Alex was under the effects of the translation spell. The word was originally translated as calculation device, but this time she could hear it clearly.

Computer.

It was a strange word, one that spoke of alien culture and science just beyond her understanding, and it was a word that she dearly wanted to understand. “Yes! We want you to make a… computer. Something to guide and tell the Omniscope what to do!”

Alex put a hand to one side of his head, and pushed until an unpleasant crack could be heard throughout the room. He then pulled it and got a few more cracks, before he straightened up, his focus on the golem head in the center of the room. “Well, let’s get working, then. Give those monsters a surprise that they’ll never forget.”

As the alien survivor swept passed her, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help but feel her heart leap with hope.

Maybe we will get out of this alive… she thought to herself as she moved to follow the strange alien visitor.

“Anything different for this one?”

“No. Just be careful in the room beyond. It was one of my fabrication bays. Initial damage reports say that this area was destroyed, but since I have no power in this area, I really do not know how badly. However, since the other areas are impassible, this may be your only way to the core without relying upon heavy machinery to dig me out,” Yavaar said through the intercom inside the three astronauts suits.

At the moment, they were each outfitted with one of they alien’s communication devices in their left ears. They had decided to go with those, simply because the walls of the alien structure would block the human’s radios, and none of them were too keen at setting up radio relays everytime they moved to a new room. As a bonus, according to Yavaar, the alien comms also acted as teleportation beacons, allowing Yavaar to get the humans out of there should something terrible happen.

The humans were still incredibly fuzzy on how the laws of physics were being broken so casually here, but the display from Miss Jordan back in the bay went a long way in at least strengthening their faith in this so-called ‘magic.’ It was probably some science bull that the Yavaar felt was too complicated to explain, but the fact that humans could use it too went a long way in normalizing the whole thing for the rescue team.

At the moment, ‘normal’ was really in short supply. Especially with some of the wonders that Yavaar had shown the humans since they had gotten on board the station.

“Okay… got it…” Captain Campbell said before shoving his crowbar into the panel next to the door. He had already clamped his suit to the bulkhead next to the panel, making it impossible for him to be pushed back by the opposing forces in the extremely low gravity environment. That had come as a little bit of a surprise to the captain. The powered sections of the station had a gravity close to earth, but out in the damaged portions, it was significantly reduced, so much so that it was almost unnoticeable. Almost.

This meant that the rock the station was in was just large enough to start exerting noticeable pull, but not so much that it made all that much of a difference. Campbell had asked what rock they were on, but Yavaar had refused to tell them. “I may have reduced emotions, but I would very much like to hear your reactions when you figure it out for yourselves. Call me selfish, but that surprise is something that I cherish above all else,” he had said.

It wasn’t that important that they know, so Campbell had let the A.I. keep his secrets. Besides, it wasn’t like the knowledge would help them dig out Yavaar any faster.

Campbell shook his head, and got his mind back to the matter at hand: opening the door. The panel gave after only a single push of his crowbar, revealing the mass of alien symbols, lines and circuitry, as well as the single, metal wheel in the center of the whole affair. “Barrett,” Captain Campbell said as he handed the crowbar back to his subordinate without looking. He then reached out and grabbed the wheel in front of him and gave it a hard, right turn.

The wheel only turned a little, before coming to a stop, creating a thunk of sound that would have been completely unheard in the vacuum if it weren't for the fact that Captain Campbell was currently gripping the wheel of the door. Without skipping a beat, the captain immediately turned the wheel in the other direction. It moved easily, causing even more sound to propagate into his suit, letting him know that the mechanism was doing its job.

“Sir! Stop! Close it!” Lieutenant Barrett said, ripping the captain’s attention away from his task.

He did as he was told, before turning to his lieutenant. “Something wrong, Barrett?”

Lieutenant Barrett just pointed his flashlight back the way they had come, its steady beam illuminating several pieces of debris that had hit the back wall that weren’t there before. “Sir… I think this area might not be as damaged as we thought. There’s still air in there.”

“One of my fabrication bays still has atmosphere?” Yavaar asked, his voice oddly registering only mild surprise. “Then it is entirely possible that the whole bay beyond is in good repair! That is a grand blessing indeed!”

“What do we do, then?” Captain Campbell asked as he leaned against the steel bulkhead.

“It would be preferable if you kept the atmosphere inside, for when we power up the bay and put it to work later. For now, I would suggest you use the field generators you’ve been carrying to create a seal around the door.”

Lieutenant Barrett gave a short nod before he began setting up the field generators that he had been carrying up to this point. He had no idea how these things worked, but a few tests back in the shuttle bay had been enough to let him and his team know that they did work. They were good enough to stop a bullet, and could conform to their surrounding area to create an airtight seal. At the very least it would allow the three humans to enter the area beyond without the need of heavy equipment, or worrying about any explosive decompression from the other side. He was very careful, though, checking at least three times that everything was in place before activating the field.

“You do not need to be that careful, Lieutenant Barrett. Those fields are far safer than the suit you are wearing,” the alien A.I. said through his earpiece.

“Forgive me for being thorough, I'd rather not find myself hurtling through the void,” Barrett said sarcastically before pressing the button. There was a noiseless, yet pretty display of light, and a blue shimmering field came into existence around the lieutenant, his team, and the door they was going to try and open. “I'd also rather trust equipment that my boys have tested inside and out, thank you very much.”

“Don't antagonize the snake, Barrett, we're still very much in uncharted waters here,” Captain Campbell said before grabbing the wheel once again. “Best to stay on his good side, seeing as how he knows this place’s layout better than us.

“I am not offended, Captain. The lieutenant is merely expressing distrust of the unfamiliar, a logical reaction to a strange and dangerous situation,” Yavaar said as the captain turned the wheel ever so slightly to open a small crack in the door. As expected, the door only opened a little, causing a number of dust particles, metal shavings, and what looked like small bits of paper to rush through as the air inside rushed to fill the vacuum of the astronauts’ small bubble. There was a dull, thunderclap of sound that was partially muted by the three soldiers’ suits, and just like that, the three found themselves in a pressurized environment again.

Once the captain was sure that the fields were holding, and that nothing was going to come flying at them out of nowhere, he began turning the wheel again while his lieutenant and sergeant pointed their lights into the room to get a better look. “Wowwee…” Sergeant Powers said, his voice filled with wonder. “The place looks pretty untouched… Don't know what any of it does, but if ‘fabrication bay’ means what I think it means, then we've hit the jackpot!”

“It does. That we did. And no, we can't stick around and play with any of it, especially since it's unpowered,” Captain Campbell said as he let go of the wheel and followed his men into the room. The sergeant grumbled a little in disappointment, but the captain ignored it in favor of taking a look around the new room.

It was quite spacious in here, and just as alien as everything else they'd seen so far. Along the left hand wall Campbell could see three pads that looked for all the world like teleporter pads from Star Trek, complete with a standing console to control the whole affair. However, as similar as they were to an earthy creation, there were a few differences. There was only one, large circle, instead of five or six smaller ones, for starters. The circle also was surrounded by a number of small, alien symbols, making it look more like some kind of magic circle than anything one would see in Star Trek. There was also a number of large, mechanical arms suspended above the pad, further differentiating them from something from the old T.V. show. To the right of the team was a large, heavy set of double doors that looked like it would take heavy equipment just to move an inch, as well as a number of small, circular disks set into the wall next to the door.

There were also a few desk-like structures here and there, seemingly bolted to the floor. A smart move, to be sure, but it looked like that thinking did not extend to the stuff that had been on those desks, since the room had little bits of paper, dust, metal shavings, and other debris floating in the otherwise empty space.

While all of that was interesting, it was the smaller set of doors directly across from where the team had entered that caught his eye. They were identical to the ones that the team had entered, making them more likely to be an exit than the large doors to the right. “The doors directly opposite to the ones you came in leads to an elevator. If you head down the shaft, and there is no damage further down, it should lead directly to me.” Yavarr said, confirming Campbell's initial assumption.

“Gotcha. Lieutenant Barrett, you close the door, while we start working on making this easier to cross in the future,” Campbell said as he took back his crowbar from the lieutenant. The captain then reached for Sergeant Powers’ back and pulled off the length of rope that was attached there. “Sergeant, let’s make a bridge.”

In very short order, Captain Campbell tied a simple slip knot to the sergeant with one end of the rope, then began tying off the other end to the nearby desk. The sergeant then used the desk as leverage to get his feet against the wall, and pushed off into the empty void in the middle of the room.

It wasn’t a perfect flight across the room. There was actual air in here, as well as a very, very low gravity, and Powers had plenty of surface area and mass to provide resistance. However, he still managed to make it across without having to rely on his suit’s propulsion, or even touching the floor. “Okay captain, we’re good to go!” the sergeant said the second he had tied off the rope on the other side.

Campbell gave a short nod, then turned back to Barrett. “You all set here?”

“Yes sir,” Barrett said, before gesturing towards the makeshift bridge. “After you, sir.”

It did not take them long to cross, and before they knew it, they were prying off the panel for this door, too. The only problem with that, though, was that it seemed like this room was the only one that still had an atmosphere.

“Sergeant, stop! Stop!” Campbell said, causing the sergeant to quickly close the door again.

“What’s wrong, captain?” Yavaar asked curiously.

“We're losing atmosphere, and I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you why that's a bad thing,” Campbell said as the lieutenant began setting up another force field. “I think I have an idea why this area was reported destroyed…”

“Very well, captain. Please be careful, though, it may be dangerous. You never know what sort of debris could be floating out there,” Yavaar said, a mild note of worry bleeding into his voice. “I’ll stand by with the teleport, but remember that the beacons do not give me a bearing on your lifesigns. You will need to tell me if there is a problem.”

“We heard you the first time,” Campbell said as his lieutenant activated the field. “Okay, go ahead.

It was quite unnerving to have the muffled sounds just outside their suits suddenly sucked away, but it was an experience that the three astronauts were used to. Once the air was evacuated from the confined space, the sergeant quickly finished opening up the door, allowing the three to finally get a good look at what kind of damage was on the other side.

It was as if they were standing on the side of a large, melty, metal crater. Above them was nothing but empty space, a small amount of floating, melted metal, and a rather large red planet off in the distance. The planet itself was what caused the captain to stop in his tracks, though, as he suddenly realized where they were. “It’s Mars…” he said, pure wonder in his voice.

“So you can see the planet from there?” Yavaar said, cutting through the astronaut’s wonder. “I was hoping it wasn’t that damaged, but this may change things… Ignoring that for now, please, tell me, how does the view look to you? I hear wonder, but I would like an accurate description of how you feel knowing that you’re standing on the moon of Deimos.”

“We’re on freaking Deimos!” Barrett said, looking up at the red planet in abject wonder. “But… we have telescopes pointed out here all the time! How could you build something like this out here without us noticing!”

“For that matter, why hasn’t the moon slammed into the planet, yet?” Sergeant Powers asked as he looked down into the darkness of the crater below, then back up into the abyss above. “You said it was attacked… If the Krin weapons created a crater this deep, shouldn’t it have also caused problems for the moon’s orbit?”

There was a slight hum from Yavaar, a tone that the humans had quickly associated with the A.I. thinking up a response. “We are capable of rendering our ships invisible to your instruments. It was also extremely useful that Mars and Earth were on opposite sides of your star at the time. Once the station was finished, we concealed it inside the moon, using some of the leftover material, as well as some very advanced modeling techniques, to make it look as if nothing had changed about the moon’s surface, effectively making it invisible to your planet.” There was a pause after this, and when Yavaar began speaking again, his voice sounded a lot less sure of itself. “As for the moon’s orbit… the weapons the Krin use do not carry much kinetic force. They are primarily plasma based, and while plasma does have mass, it isn’t nearly as much as you would think.”

“Wait… if this was hit by plasma, then shouldn’t this all have been turned into liquids or gasses?” Captain Campbell asked, the lights of his helmet illuminating the melted crater. “That still would have created an explosion. Possibly enough to move this rock…”

There was another hum from Yavaar, before the odd alien A.I. chose to respond. “You are correct. However, you are also forgetting something. The Krin did not want to be discovered. I can confidently say that the fact that Miss Spivak managed to kill a few of them was certainly not in their plans, nor were they planning on leaving some of their soldiers behind. They are a prideful race, true, and tend to think of non-space faring species as primitive savages, but that does not mean that they would do something as noteworthy as remove a celestial body from its orbit. Your people are capable of deploying nuclear weapons, and that always puts other races on edge. I would surmise that a moon disappearing from the night sky would cause some concern on your planet, and they did not want to put your people on alert.”

“So they probably stopped it from falling…” Campbell said, before looking back down the crater. “Well, wherever we are, we should probably get moving. We have-” Before he could finish, there was a bright flash of light from somewhere above him, illuminating the entire crater, and causing his subordinates to swear in fear and surprise. Campbell quickly looked up and felt the pit of his stomach drop in abject fear.

Above them was a sleek, yet enormous ship. Its profile looked surprisingly similar to a fighter jet, though the wings were much smaller, and far further along the back of the ship then Campbell would have expected from such a craft. The nose had a distinctly reptilian look about it, especially with the twisting, open mouthed snake painted on the side, it’s jaws stopping right before the nose cone. Campbell could also see letters painted on the ship, but what they said was far beyond his understanding.

“What is it? What do you see?” Yavaar asked, worry clear in his voice.

“Where the hell did that come from!?” Campbell said, pointing towards the alien craft while ignoring Yavaar’s question.

“I don’t know, sir. It wasn’t there a second ago. Then, I saw this weird, flash of light, and it was suddenly there!”

Before Campbell could say anything else, or indeed think of any orders to give, there was a sudden burst of noise from the comms in each of the human’s ears. They were clearly words, the syllables very distinct, and the tone one of unmistakable authority. The language itself, however, was completely beyond the three humans. It had an odd note of familiarity, and Campbell briefly thought it sounded almost like German, though this language was harsher, and with more drawn out lisping sounds.

“Yavaar, what was-” Campbell started to ask, but before he could finish the thought, the universe around him seemed to explode in a flash of light and sound. Campbell instantly recognized it as that weird, alien teleportation thing that Yavaar had used when getting the humans to his station, and briefly wondered if Yavaar was using it again to get them out of danger. He was quickly disabused of that notion, though, when the world came back into focus.

He was standing in a large, open area, not unlike the shuttle bay that the humans had set up their rescue operation in. There were a few obvious differences, with the most important one being the light blue energy field directly in front of him. A quick glance around was all it took to realize that it completely surrounded him and his team, as well as the entire human rescue team that had been on the alien station.

Most of the people there began voicing their concern and confusion at being whisked away in such a disorienting fashion, which quickly turned to cries of fear and alarm when the doors to the bay opened, and in rushed several well armed, and heavily armored snake aliens. The armor they wore seemed to be completely enclosed, not allowing the humans to see their faces, or even a hint of the scale or skin that lurked underneath. However, this did not make them look like storm-troopers, or anything of the sort. In fact, while all of the suits shared a common color; a deep, dark, blood red, that was the only thing they shared in common with one another. Each and every single one was unique, each having been painted with symbols, animals, or even skulls.

The leading one in particular caught Campbell's eye, his suit comparatively light on the decoration, but no less intimidating, since the most notable thing on his suit were a large number of tally marks running along the arms and tail, their meaning obviously clear to Captain Campbell. At the moment, none of the four-armed snake people were pointing their weapons at the humans, though Campbell knew that they really didn’t need to.

After all, the humans were all behind an alien forcefield, most likely completely disarmed, and on an alien spaceship full of space magic. The humans could probably be killed at any time, in any number of nasty ways, and any resistance they could put up would probably be about as much as a newborn kitten to a pack of wolves.

“Calm down, people. Calm down,” Campbell heard Colonel Conners’ voice, still loud and clear despite the suit Campbell was currently wearing. He didn’t turn to look, choosing to instead keep his eyes on the unfriendlies, but he kept his ears open, not wanting to miss any of the colonel’s orders. “Just… sit down, and wait. These guys are supposed to be the cavalry, remember?”

“Uh, sir, begging your pardon, but-”

“Did I stutter, Jenkins?” Conners said, his voice brooking no argument. “They probably thought ‘What the hell are all those un-evolved monkeys doing on our station?’ and removed and contained us as a matter of course. We weren’t doing anything wrong, and were just trying to help them, so just sit down and wait for them to figure it out.”

There was some more muffled muttering at that, but Campbell ignored it in favor of following the colonel’s orders, trusting in the colonel’s judgement, as well as Yavaar’s ability to talk them all out of this horrible mess. After all, they were just trying to help, and Campbell was pretty sure he knew who had been talking earlier through the alien intercom.

After about thirty minutes of nerve-wracking waiting, during which the snake-soldiers never seemed to drop their guard, even for a second, there was a sudden burst of alien speech that seemed to come from somewhere above them, most likely from the ship’s intercom. The effects of those words were quite clear on the soldiers, and they all visibly relaxed, some even making barking, laughing sounds at the orders they had received.

The door then opened, revealing a much smaller snake alien who wasn’t armed in any way that Campbell could tell. It was wearing a full body suit that was colored a light, airy blue trimmed in gold, while the scales that Campbell could see were a dull gray. It quickly slithered closer, before going into a deep bow before the gathered humans.

“We are apologizing for inconvenience… more better talker on way, not one here. Please wait, we not harm, we not enemies. Yavaar told why on place, no hurt,” the snake said in broken English, its voice sounding somewhat masculine, despite Campbell not really having a reference for the creature. The alien then straightened up as the force field around the humans disappeared, his four eyes locked on someone behind Campbell as his mouth turned up into a smile. “I am Second Voice Hilva, and I am welcoming you friends to our ship. Please, be at ease, while we figuring out problems in talking.”

Campbell heard someone making their way through the crowd, before seeing Colonel Conners come into view. The colonel walked up to the alien, his expression guarded as he held out a hand to the creature. “I am Colonel Conners, and let me be the first to welcome you to Earth.”

There was a slight pause, most likely because the alien was trying to figure out what the colonel had said, before he gingerly took the colonel’s hand with one of his own (on the same side as the colonel was offering, funnily enough). “Good meetings Colonel Conners. And am being welcoming you to our ship. We are here to helping, hoping that good friends for all.”

Campbell let out a breath that he didn’t even know he had been holding, as did a number of people around him. “And here I was thinking the next alien ship we’d see would be those freaking bugs…” he muttered, forgetting that his intercom was still on.

“Same here. Looks like I owe Stephens ten bucks,” Lieutenant Barrett said.

This drew out a chuckle from Campbell, but he didn’t say anything else. He was too busy marveling at the incredible good fortune that had just landed in their laps.

Though he was still pretty sure that most people back on Earth were still going to freak out about all of this.