Chapter 154 (1/2)

Chapter 154

First Contact

It took ten days before the probes were finally able to come up with an accurate translation program. During that time, they had to fight off one enemy attack. The enemy fleet kept one s.h.i.+p that presumably recorded the entire fight before jumping back to the manufacturing plant. Just like last time, the only unique weapons used were the railguns.

After the translation program came in, Lucas set his plans into motion. One necessary part of his plan was for him to be on the s.h.i.+p to make contact with the jellyfish.

What he needed to do was to interact with jellyfish personally. He wasn’t sure how they would react to seeing him since they were aliens after all. What he could be sure of was that receiving a message would be far too impartial. At least, that had been the usual reaction from his dimension’s past.

Humans had imagined other life out there, and many alien civilizations had also imagined other forms of life. Receiving a message from an alien species without an image of the alien itself was often met with suspicion and sometimes outright hostility. The best psychologists of the the human species came to the conclusion that all species had an innate fear of the unknown.

Receiving a message with an alien’s body or face included was often met with, again, suspicion and mostly peaceful gestures. Of course, this was under the a.s.sumption one wanted peace. If you wanted war or subjugation, it would always be met with hostility no matter if you had a selfie included or not.

Lucas, of course, wanted peace. So, taking his species long history as an example, he decided to be onboard the s.h.i.+p when it made contact. Which was why he was in orbit around the jellyfish planet whenever his s.h.i.+p came out of hypers.p.a.ce.

Activating the comms, he sent a message down to the planet on the same frequency as the battles.h.i.+p he’d tagged had. All the message said was ‘h.e.l.lo.’ The probes tracked one of the jellyfish closest to the comm relay station as it  immediately took off. The probes had identified over two thousand comm relay stations, but this one was the only one they had a frequency for. The others wouldn’t pick up their broadcast.

The jellyfish arrived at the station and paused there for one minute. Afterwards, Lucas’ s.h.i.+p picked up an incoming response in the alien language which was automatically translated. “Who call us? The messenger left ten units.”

Lucas opened a video link to the relay. Upon opening it he saw a blob with one large eye floating in front of the camera. When the blob-like jellyfish, saw Lucas, it recoiled in shock. It floated a good four feet from the camera before slowly swimming back.

“You are alien.” The alien’s response was a statement. Lucas had no idea what to make of that.

“Yes, I am an alien. One that is being invaded by a fleet composed of robots.” Lucas decided to be blunt. He really didn’t have time to be wasting.

“Robots informed us of threat. Are you threat?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“The robots not ours. Once were, no longer.”

Lucas frowned. “Are you saying that you built these robots?”

“Affirmative. Once owned, no longer owned.”