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This was your typical dingy alien bar- that is to say, mostly like any dingy bar back on Earth.
The bartender seemed amused when he ordered a glass of water, but didn’t say anything. Why bother even coming out to a bar if it wasn’t to get shitfaced slammed; this wasn’t the sort of establishment where you came to do much else. Newton Murray always ordered waters from alien bars, as it was a risky business to order anything more adventurous. Quality was not guaranteed, let alone safe compatibility with a human physiology.
He took the water, which in whatever culture this establishment belonged to, was served in a conical shaped cup made of a terra-cotta like material, and delicately placed it in the patches between suspicious stains on the bar.
Xindi.
When that first probe hit, it was a completely foreign word to any human tongue. Newton remembered when he first heard the news-
The threat of annihilation. Humans had been through this before, something he had learned in his stuffy history class. The air conditioner broke one day, and he remembered sitting exhausted in his seat nearly sweating through his shirt. Everyone in the class would have seen it and laughed if they weren’t suffering from the same sweltering heat. The teacher had sighed at the nearly comatose class, and attempted to rally the troops.
“C’mon guys, I know the heat’s bad, but this is important stuff.”
It was pre-war culture, or something like that. Some girl, one of those model academics who could act enraptured to a video of mountains eroding as long as it was presented in front of a classroom, raised her hand not even for a question, but just a comment.
“Ms. Santiago. I wonder what that was like, living with just the constant threat of extinction. Do you think they knew what would happen? Its like, /so/ interesting to think about”
Kiss ass.
Then again, she and everyone in that classroom were probably dead. It was unbecoming to speak ill of the dead, and hopelessly naive to think anyone else might’ve somehow survived the second probe.
Newton clung onto the cultural wisdom of Earth like it was a piece of driftwood in a shipwreck. Sometimes he considered abandoning any connection to the planet. He had no obligation to act civilized, certainly not in those decrepit bars he frequented merely because they offered anonymity. But he was the last person in the universe who would ever remember any of this, the last person to ever have been born on that blue marble before the Xindi destroyed it. Remaining sane was his only way to keep Earth and humanity alive.
And suddenly he realized he was being watched, not by one, or two, but three eyes all belonging to the same sleek angular face.
“Didn’t mean to bother you,” they said, and Newton was pleased to note that they at least had a normal amount of mouths. “You seemed very captivated by the air, don’t stop because of me.”
He considered he could very well take them up on their offer, and simply go back to brooding silence (and nearly did), but his wretched lonesome heart forced him to seek out conversation wherever it presented itself.
“Y-yeah, well, its,” Newton said- although he desperately craved conversation, that did not give him any skill in the matter. “Its actually quite boring, air, so, its fine really.”
“I’m sure I had the much better view of the two of us,” the alien slid their chair closer, and bringing along their drink which was a nauseatingly bright hue of green. “If we keep talking I’m sure I can remedy that for you.”
As much as things would change, many would stay the same. Newton was handed things on a silver platter, and he would freeze with uncertainty and wait far too long for any reasonable response to formulate in his mind.
But he froze this time not from the purple alien’s advances, but from what he saw behind them. Through the front door, a cluster of newcomers coming into the bar and beginning to cut a path through the crowd. And every panic response built into one small human body after millennia of evolution was activated.
———-
Oh this might actually go somewhere! The purple alien mused to themselves, beginning to adore this award little mammal. Nervous but clearly receptive
But they narrowed their eyes, something had changed. What had previously been nervous excitement was now a distinct change to fear.
“Is something wrong.” They asked, at first to no response. Then they followed his gaze, resulting in a panicked hiss.
“Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t do anything.”
“Do you need help?” They said. The alien moved its head, which they simply had to assume meant no. “Do you need to leave?”
“Around the edges. Stand close. Act natural. Please.”
Well, they certainly could. They wrapped their arms around the aliens shoulders, and let him lead the way to first the walls of the establishment, then step by step to the exit. The alien, on the other hand, was stiff as a board, and had begun to almost twitch, or tremble, which might be normal in some species but he had certainly not been doing so before.
As they slipped out the front door, they caught a glimpse of the cluster of alines that had entered, presumably what had freaked out this poor thing so much. They didn’t recognize them immediately, but as they walked the stirrings of memory entered their conscious mind.
“Those were Xindi” they said, once they were far enough from the bar that it would draw no attention to them.
“You know who they are?”
“Well at least some of them were. There were also some strange green ones, I didn’t know them.”
“There are multiple species of Xindi, they all came from the same fucking planet.
“Im guessing you’re not very fond of them”
“No.” The alien had lost all its mumbling, its cute little phrasings, driven to clarity by hatred.
Picking up aliens at bars meant they were no stranger to feuds between species. Oh, the Ardanans were backstabbing leeches, the Tellerites were monstrous pigs, that sort of thing. Frankly it was something they never really cared much to ask more about- they were always in pursuit of a very different sort of interaction.
“Look I… r-realize this is a lot to ask for someone you just met. But I’m in a tight spot and I really- I really need help. Just a place to crash. Just a night or two.”
“Crash?”
“Stay. “
You don’t have anywhere to go?
The alien sighed. “I was supposed to go off world tonight. That’s not happening, not with the Xindi here.”
Clearly there was more to this than simple prejudice. Oh, they knew what the Xindi did: show up at some small trading post, make a big stink about searching ships with some flimsy excuse about pirtates, confiscated goods as a ’tax’, then cleared out once they had done that for a short amount of time. It was strange, the Xindi had appeared out of nowhere. They were unheard of in the quadrant, and then suddenly they were everywhere, making themselves known. Overnight they had become a force to be reckoned with, one of the more influential species next to the Klingons, Romulqn, and Andorian empires. Certainly nobody was happy with the Xindi, but this fear seemed a bit much. All of this, of course, was pieced together from second hand gossip exchanged with strangers. There were always the more outlandish bits of gossip, that the Xindi had weapons powered by the core of a white dward, or would destroy entire planets if they resisted, but they were well versed enough to filer out the likely from the unlikely.
But they knew a person is distress when they saw one, and this alien was clearly scared. And they would always do what they could to help those who needed it - “Lshte abriteck don a belshte aneigo. Aneigo a dreinta lshta a al lesh.” /Let the lost find themselves with you so that you can guide them, and let you been guided to others when you are lost/. They remembered little from the dull poetry classes of their youth, but that single line somehow wormed its way into their mind- clearly, it was significant enough to be remembered, and therefore to be followed.
“Well, you can ‘crash’ at my place, strange alien man,” they said, emphasizing the strange expression he had used. “I would like to know your name at least. And your species, although I wouldn’t mind keeping the nickname.”
“Newton. I’m… I’m human. Haven’t said either of those in a while.”