Chapter Text
I was walking one of the several trails that littered the woods that surrounded my house, with my headphones blasting my liked songs playlist and completely disassociating, as usual; when something in the air shifted. I looked up, through the canopy of barren branches, it was mid October, to the grey-overcast sky. I was about to shrug and move on when suddenly something burst through the clouds at high speed. I stared in open-mouth shock as the object grew rapidly closer.
I had just lost sight of it through the trees when there was a loud thudding boom. Like a large boulder hitting the ground.
It was times like these that I was glad that my headphones were noise-canceling.
A gust of wind shook the trees and I glanced over for the source.
Not too far off the trail, slightly obscured by the trees was a glowing thing.
Against my better judgment I pause my music and make my way over to the edge of the newly formed clearing.
Whatever had just landed was clearly not a meteor, I think. If the sleek, polished finish of the now cooling metal exterior and clearly defined legs were anything to go by, it was most likely an alien spaceship.
Again, I think, I'm no astrologist.
I was about to take a tentative step forward when the side of the UFO (it's not really a UFO since it’s not currently flying, but still, very much an unidentified object) opens.
I feel an ice cold flood of adrenaline get dumped into my system and I frantically dive behind the upturned roots of a nearby fallen tree.
I ever so carefully take off my headphones and set them around my neck.
I’ll need my full hearing for this.
As I try to breathe as quietly and as calmly I can hear the crunching of leaves and the chittering of a clearly alien voice.
“Stars afar, Moonie! You nearly killed us with that landing!” one voice says.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying but with the way they were shouting, they were clearly upset.
More crunching leaves and a second voice spoke.
“I miscalculated the gravity to acceleration ratio so we ended up with too much momentum, but I did not ‘almost kill us’,” I can hear the sarcasm dripping off of that part, even without knowing what they’re saying. “The landing was a little rougher than usual but we’re perfectly intact, Sunny. I can’t really say the same for this flora though, stars.”
The sound of cracking wood echoes throughout the now utterly silent forest.
‘Fuckfuckfuckfuck, THERE’S TWO OF THEM?!’ I think clutching at jacket sleeves.
I couldn’t tell if they were friendly or not, but with the image of me getting shot in the head with some space-future-laser-gun thing in the forefront of my mind right now, I’d rather not risk finding out.
I hold my breath in hopes of claiming the hiccuping every time I breathe in.
I listened intently, ears straining, as more words are exchanged.
“Ooh, yeah, these poor Branch-Talls are completely destroyed. Wait, what if a Teralet got caught in the landing?! Stars afar, The Broad’ll kill us, or worse, if they find out we hurt the only other known intelligent lifeforms in the whole Vesperis system!” I could hear more frantic chittering and with how panicked they sounded I wouldn’t be surprised if it was incoherent babbling.
More leaves crunch as the second voice quickly interrupts the first.
“Sun, Sun, it’s okay. The Teralets don’t live out here, remember? They live in those box-shelters. And even if one was near where we landed, they would have run away from the noise. You were the one who told me that, weren’t you?’’
There's some sniffling and some more chirps.
‘Are they crying? No, no. don’t project your human understanding of emotions onto them. They’re possibly bloodhungry aliens! For fucks sake! You have no idea what their displays of emotions look like. Pull! yourself! together!’ I think, slowly letting out the breath I was holding and slowly inhaling again.
“Would it make you feel better if we used the rays to make sure?’’
I can hear a long exhale, a sigh maybe, and a couple short chitters.
Two sets of crushing footsteps begin getting steadily further.
‘They’re leaving! Can’t waste this opportunity, I gotta go now.’ I think quietly slipping into the starting running position.
It’s, again, times like these that I thank god that I joined my school's track team.
As soon as I hear the clunk of a metal laden footstep I book it.
I hear one of the aliens exclaim something as another set of thundering footsteps joins my own.
"Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back, don't look back, don't- ” I mumble the mantra like it’s going to save me as I push to run faster. As much as I would like to see some real life aliens, I can not afford to trip or stumble.
Alas, my ankle had other plans.
I had just jumped over a rotting log when my foot went sideways. I could feel the crack of my fibula braking from the sudden force of my botched landing.
I let out a howling screech as I hit the ground, tears already beginning to blur my vision. I flip myself around and manage to prop myself up on my hands. I look down at the messed up ankle, hoping, praying, it wasn’t broken. The angle it’s sitting at confirms those fears.
‘I am so fucking cooked’ I think, beginning to hyperventilate.
There was a sudden crinkle of leaves and my eyes snapped to the source.
It was the alien. Or one of the aliens.
I hadn’t actually seen them up until now.
They’re like eight feet tall, bright yellow, and something that looked like the rays of a cartoon sun around their head. I didn’t have time to register anything else as a wave of lightheadedness washed over me and I passed out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sun felt a pang of fear hit him when the little teralet went limp. He made a small strangled noise as he frantically bounded over to their lifeless form.
“Moon!” he called out, crouching down next to them.
Don’t get him wrong, he knew a lot about teralets; however, their culture and behavior was his specialty, not biology. That was Moon’s field.
“I’m here.” he quickly crouches down on the other side of the little teralet. One of his hands snakes its way to the base of their neck and Sun can see some of the tension dissolve.
“They’re alive, though their ankle is definitely broken.”
Sun cringed internally. He was the one who ran after them, after all. Probably scared them out of their mind.
“We need to get them to one of the med-beds then.”
Moon nodded and hoisted the still unconscious teralet onto his back. They scamper back to their ship and sun silently thanks the designers of their ship for putting the med station so close to the doors.
Moon, with Sun’s help, carefully lowers the teralet onto one of their two med-beds. With a tap of the on button the system flickers to life and begins scanning for injuries.
“I guess we’ve found our representative.” Moon said as Sun sat down in one of the seats around the med-bed.
Sun sighs “I guess we have.”
******
Sun and Moon were researchers that specialized in different aspects of tera’s biosphere. The two of them had worked for several cycles creating their theses on the Teralets. And ended up working together on research for several key aspects.
During that time, they had both found numerous inconsistencies and fallacies within the different sources they had used.
It was a clear pattern; one that had been seen before.
In the long standing history of the USI (i.e. United Sentience Initiative) there have been several species that were being studied and were later discovered to be sentient. The very same pattern of mistakes within the finding, they found, were within the sets of studies relating to teralets.
With their findings now organized within a new thesis, the two of them had presented it to the counsel for inter-sentient relations.
Within the next three rotations, they both had been recognized as the lead experts on teralets and were being sent to Tera to not only learn more about the teralets, but find one to represent the species in interstellar sentient society.
Now that they’ve located a Teralet, they have two and a half lunar cycles to convince the small creature to join them and become the representative willingly. Or, as much as the two of them hate it; they are going to be mandated to take them by force.
As the two aliens look at the fragile being that lays unconscious, they both pray that they will not have to resort to the latter.