The Uninvited
Indoraptor Year 1263, December, Adar Flam Space Port, Sol system...
"I see you've been training your melee combat skills, Agent Ludvik."
"That's right, ma'am. My training in combat and self-defense consists of merely light firearms use. I came here twice per week to try out some new stuff, including hand-to-hand combat training."
"Very well, then. If you don't mind, I'd like you to come along. I have something for you to see."
Raizex was attending his weekly training schedule in Adar Flam's Exercise Sector, or to be more accurate, his self-scheduled practice done in his free time. For reasons unknown to him, Admiral Ender approached the young agent several weeks ago and granted him a free pass to use the sector's paraphernalia whenever the young male had spare time. Regardless of the young agent's workload, he enjoyed this one bit of freedom to test the multitude of exercise tools at his pace. His sporadic trainer's sudden appearance in the training room today seemed random, although Raizex suspected it might be more than just a coincidence. The female's choice of words reflected it.
"Lieutenant Malia, I request permission to ask a question."
"Permission granted."
"Your choice of words sounds deliberate. Is there anything I should know?" the perplexed Raizex voiced his thoughts politely.
"Yes, there is. And I believe it's… classified. Only those who are assigned in the Intelligence Sector may know about this," Lieutenant Malia nodded impassively. On her hands were two unmarked suitcases.
The female Indoraptor let Raizex away from the sector's main training room and into a separate chamber primarily used as a wrestling arena. Raizex wondered if she wished to have a sparring practice with him.
As if reading his mind, the lieutenant turned around and said "For the record, Agent Ludvik, we're not here to have a sparring lesson. I've been asked by your favorite admiral to hand over two things. Yeah, I know exactly who this admiral is, agent." Well, she definitely did. The young Indoraptor then pondered, just what he had been doing lately that Admiral Ender felt the need to shower him with gifts or special privileges? "Long story short, you've been granted the use of the following objects."
"What objects?" The male dinosaur asked. The lieutenant opened one suitcase and revealed a set of metallic-looking tool, which she then revealed as a long-bladed weapon. She let Raizex stood nearer so he could inspect the new item.
"This is a special retractable glaive made from a combination of platinum and silver. It's for you."
Raizex's eyes widened at the proclamation, "Whoa, whoa, hold it right there, ma'am. I've never trained myself with weapons like this one. For your information, I did have fun trying my hands on throwing daggers, machetes, and one of those spiked gauntlets, but this? I don't know if I can use it."
Lieutenant Malia nodded impatiently, "Correct, but did you know that almost every member of our military's intelligent service fashioned at least one special weapon for themselves? Believe me, their toys are more impressive than this one. Seeing that you have yet to claim one for yourself, we think it'd be wise to get you accustomed to one," Raizex shook his head at her question, "That's because our tech boys have been developing new types of armaments and technology, thanks in part to the ancient ruins we've excavated."
"Huh, let me guess; we discovered a treasure room filled with ancient weapons and whatnot."
"And our top researchers drew plans to reverse engineer some of them, including this glaive."
Raizex nodded in understanding. As he took the glaive from the lieutenant's hands to know how it felt, trailing his claws on the weapon's length, the female Indoraptor knelt to open the second suitcase. The young dinosaur gently twirled the glaive until the lieutenant spoke.
"Now this… is a bit more complicated to explain."
Looking back at the female, Raizex saw an object, seemingly a blend of spherical and cubical in appearance, in Lieutenant Malia's grasp. "Agent Ludvik, there is a great change coming that will threaten us all. Because of the ever-changing nature of our future, you are one of the very, very few people we've entrusted with a secret." She offered the item to the agent.
"What is this?" asked Raizex as he received the mysterious object, "What does it do?"
"It has a part to play in all this," the older female warned him ominously, "And a major one."
Raizex looked up at her, "Word has gotten out to the public that our archaeologists successfully exhumed a tomb of ancient aliens and a stash of long-lost treasures. But what the people don't realize is that their technology is so much more radical than ours. We know this for certain as the researchers managed to map out a massive laboratory complex beneath the ruins, complete with a chamber stockpiled with fantastical relics and blueprints. The retractable platinum glaive and this thing are proof of that."
Out of curiosity, Raizex pushed a big white button at the side of the mystery object. It opened up like a blooming white flower, and at the top of the object, a small hologram containing weird letters appeared before his eyes. A device for translating alien languages, it seemed?
"We assumed that it could be more than a simple holographic translator device," the lieutenant spoke up. "According to your files, you are currently stationed at the Intelligence Sector, correct? If you have the time, we could work together and trade notes on how to crack the thing's secrets, but please keep unauthorized personnel from finding out about it. This relic is one of several others that share the same characteristics, and a few members of the intelligence agency are researching similar objects at the moment."
"Thanks for the proposal, ma'am, but I'm afraid my work hour will begin in ten minutes," Raizex had to let go of his desire to know more once he glanced at the clock in the room, "I'll see you again next week at 13:00, maybe?"
The smiling Malia nodded as the young agent returned the glaive and the weird object to her and jogged out of the room.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Indoraptor Year 1264, January, Adar Flam spaceport...
A yawning Raizex was walking out of the sparring arena after trying out his glaive for the first time when a station-wide alarm rang.
BREEEP! BREEEP! BREEEP!
"What the hell?!" he exclaimed loudly.
He wasn't the only one freaking out. All over the station, all personnel scrambled to their workstations, trying to figure out the cause of the alarm. He immediately ran to his workplace to see if anything was wrong.
"Check the long-range scans! See if there's anything abnormal on the radar!"
"Get the 1st and 2nd fleets' leaders online now!"
"Open comms channel to the homeworld! Keep them updated at all times!"
Could it be an unauthorized Aviren ship approaching the spaceport? No, it couldn't be. All known Aviren ships were already registered to the Union's database when the red avians opened an embassy on Earth. As far as the intelligence agency was concerned, Aviren activities in the Union's territory were all documented and registered into their primary intelligence database. Could it be caused by pirate ships? Very unlikely, as there were no pirate activities in Union space, and Avirens were not known to have illegal mercenary fleets as well. Furthermore, no asteroid was heading to the homeworld.
The enigmatic incident led to one possible conclusion; an anonymous alien civilization has discovered them.
"Ludvik, hey! You're going to the wrong sector!" Shouting from behind stopped Raizex in his tracks.
"Ma'am! I thought I saw you heading straight to the docking bay!"
"And I thought you're going to the Combat Information Sector! We ought to be there this instant!" the distressed personnel turned out to be Lieutenant Malia herself. Raizex could only watch as she dragged him down the hallway, brushing past other Indoraptors to get to where they were supposed to be. The alarm's blaring got louder the closer they were to the Combat Information Sector.
"I wish I could ask more questions while we head there."
"Ask away, boy."
"Does anybody even know what the hell is going on right now?"
"A very excellent question, boy."
The lieutenant's snarky comment invited a sigh on Raizex's behalf. No point in asking if nobody knows the situation, Raizex thought bitterly.
The young agent had never set foot in this area before. The sector was full of people, all of them were busy typing rapidly on their computers and checking reports from all sectors in the station. As Raizex hurriedly followed his lieutenant in quiet anticipation, he could hear many personnel chatting to each other, most likely comparing data analysis and discerning the long-range scanners. One minute passed, then five, then ten, and everyone was still on edge, waiting for something that had yet to come. Concerned, Raizex checked the lieutenant's computer for anything new, crossing his fingers just in case he missed something.
Then, everybody went silent. Did something happen? All the chatter went quiet all of a sudden, so there must be something serious.
Not long after, a notification beep came from the sector's main screen. Half-heartedly expecting an error message to came up, Raizex stared keenly at the computer, and so did the rest of the room's occupants.
The rest of the day felt like a blur in the young Indoraptor's mind. As far as he could remember, approximately three hours after the alarm, the Chiefs and Ministers on Earth claimed to have received a message from an alien society, just like what they had a year with the Polity of Laritem, complete with translation software. However, unlike the Aviren's polite message which suggested cordiality from the get-go, this one was short and to the point. It might shed some insight into the writer's true nature, the Chiefs said.
Raizex didn't listen thoroughly to what the admirals said to the listening crew about the new aliens' message; its content was somewhere along the line of "We are the Sylvons. We are from Akantorin, our home planet. Who are you? Are you a threat?"
The cold, clinical tone of the message sparked suspicions at the chance of the new aliens being potentially spiteful of other intelligent life forms. The masses of both the Union and the Polity were alerted of the possible second event of the first-contact scenario and were told to refrain from insulting the new aliens. As long as both sides play nice, there was no need to be afraid.
A few hours later, the young agent was seated back in front of his work desk in the Archive Sector. From what he could gather, the Prime Minister delegated some scientists to try and figure out the real intention behind the communication attempt. There was a noticeable difference between the Avirens and the unknown aliens. The red avians were kind enough to share a bit about who and what they were before making formal contact with the Union. The Sylvons, on the other hand, said nothing beyond their name and their place of origin. They were hiding a thing or two about what they really wanted.
That was as much information as Raizex could find. Until the new Intel got released from the central government, there was no use trying to dig for more.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"Sir, our network has performed multiple conversation attempts with these so-called 'Sylvon' aliens, all of which are without hostilities. They're kind enough to give us photos of themselves, it seems."
Admiral Ender and his companion, Specialist Umi, were distracted from their work as Raizex entered the admiral's office, bringing with him a large PDA. Before he could continue further, Raizex reminded himself to shut the door to the sector to keep anyone from peeking into the three Indoraptors' business.
"Let's see them."
At the prompt, Raizex turned the device on. Moments later, the young agent typed in some command prompts to make the pictures appear. They depicted images and anatomies of a humanoid alien race with mollusk-like attributes, as well as pictures of their supposed leaders.
"Are these people the Sylvons from Akantorin?" the specialist asked, waving her tail in worry.
"Affirmative, ma'am. Right now, our translators are working around the clock to decipher the texts accompanying the pictures, but I personally came here due to some… uncanny resemblances between the aliens in this photo and the mummies."
"Mummies?" the admiral wondered. Raizex thankfully remembered to retrieve bundles of files from Archive 4-C before coming to the office; the exact same archive that the old Indoraptor told the young one to store all data regarding the excavation project. Just as he moved a bit to ask the younger Indoraptor what this was all about, Raizex unfolded photographs of mummified corpses slipped inside the files.
"Are these… taken by the researchers from the moon Tritus?" Specialist Umi asked, reaching out for a photo of the mummified body.
Raizex nodded, "If both of you remember, analysis of these cadavers matched a little too closely with the Sylvons' photos. Human-like posture, head tentacles with cartilage bones in them, not to mention possible aquatic lifestyle…" He took a deep breath for a moment, "The new aliens appointed several councilors, if I'm not mistaken, to serve as their first-contact ambassadors. The councilors elaborated that their Assembly, the governing body of the Sylvons had been around for two millennia and is keeping an eye for possible encounters with alien races after a century of spacefaring. The fossils, despite their uncanny resemblance to the mollusk aliens, were six millennia old."
The admiral and his specialist went silent as they did the math.
"But it's impossible. These bones were far older than the mollusks. On the other hand, these new aliens have allegedly been around quite recently. You don't think…?"
"That they are much older than they claim to be?"
-x-x-x-x-x-
EXTRACTING SPECIES PROFILE: SYLVON
Species Name: Sylvon
Scientific Name: Vulgus nivalis
Classification: Molluscoid (?)
Homeworld: Akantorin, Madara system
Preferable Habitats: Tundra and Oceanic
Lifespan: ~110 years
Length: N/A
Height: 1.7 - 1.8 meters
Weight: ~40 kilograms
Diet: Piscivore / Carnivore
Locomotion: Bipedal
Ethics: Fanatic Authoritarian, xenophobic
Special Attributes: Decadent (reliant on slaves), hidden gills to help breathe underwater, prehensile cranial tentacles, webbed hands and feet, two pupils in both eyes for sharper vision, and extremely adaptive to cold biomes.
Overview:
The two-legged species that is known as the Sylvon might not fit into standard species categorization. On one side, they are mollusks due to the presence of cranial tentacles and gills. Their three-fingered hands and three-toed feet seem to support this notion as they are more like webbed suction cups rather than actual fingers or toes. But the most puzzling thing is that the Sylvons virtually possess bones and vertebrae, albeit highly flexible to compensate for their near-aquatic lifestyle. It is speculated that these bones are not actual bones made of calcium, but cartilage bones like a shark's.
Located in the Madara system, some 101 light-years away from Sol, Akantorin is a cross between oceanic and tundra planet. Nearly 30 percent of the planet is full of cold misty plains, while oceans took 50 percent of the planet's surface. The rest is populated by temperate forests dotting the planet's mountain ranges. Sunlight is present on the planet, but it does nothing to mitigate the chilling temperature. The Sylvons adapted to their environment by developing gills and learning how to build undersea cities. The electrical power needed to keep the undersea cities going was drawn from geothermal sources, namely sunken but active volcanoes.
Living on the cold, wet planet that is Akantorin did not bring the Sylvons into cooperation. Rather, the molluscoid species ended up being profligate, believing only in power and wealth. They are not ashamed of using slaves as workforce amongst their autocratic society. This practice is reportedly rooted as far back as Sylvon Year 674 when the most primordial form of monarchy took shape. Fast forward to Year 993, a global war took place as a response to this caste system. The rebels declared their intention to wipe off the tradition of caste and slavery from the face of Akantorin. Needless to say, the rebels lost the war, and their children and grandchildren were banished to the bottom of the social caste as 'eternal slaves', the ultimate form of punishment the Council of Elders could grant them, never to free themselves again.
The greedy and dictatorial government did not rear its head until Year 1690, when the first electrical pieces of machinery, such as computers, telephones, and steam power plants became abundant among the populace. By the time the technology became commonplace (circa Year 1835), only those in middle and high castes of the Sylvon Assembly have free access to them.
The Sylvons' empire is an 'Assembly' in name only. All Councilors within the Assembly's Council of Elders are chosen only from the richest and most influential of high-class families, and they serve only those who benefitted their goals. Political games and backstabbing are seen as normal and maybe even encouraged by many. Suffice to say, the Sylvons' hearts are as cold as the snow and seas of their homeworld.
