Lorand looked at his surroundings from the top of the mountain he was on.
Below him lied an endless expanse of prairie that stretched for kilometers in either direction. From this vantage point, he could see the Eldar city of The Spire, as it was called by the locals. The citizens of The Spire were a proud people, as they believed that they represented a new beginning for the Eldar Empire. Their Dragon knights were the best in the galaxy, and with them they would reconquer their old planets, one by one.
However, today something was not right. The leading farseer of the Great Council, in cooperation with the Eldar of the Biel-Tan craftworld, foresaw the coming of an ancient mon'keigh vessel. The Council wished to interrogate these ancient mon'keigh, so they were to be captured alive. Until, of course, the council grew board of their vile tongue. Lorand was sent to scout the area around The Spire, noting where it landed. The mon'keigh were a dangerous people, and they were never to be trusted, no matter their age.
Hours passed without event, and Lorand began to grow board. He decided to nod off, when he saw a great fire appear in the sky. A giant metallic hulk was plunging through the atmosphere, burning up from the outside. At about 1000 meters from the ground, thrusters on the bow suddenly activated, as if the pilot just woke up. However, the Eldar ranger saw that it would not be enough and watched the doomed ship plummet towards the ground.
Alexander had a horrible wake up call. The ship's computer immediately notified all people on board that the ship was caught in a gravity well, and responded by forcing the cryo-tubes' temperatures to drastically increase within seconds, forcing people awake. However, ice was not enough to keep people alive for more than 20 years, so when Alexander painfully awoke, he noticed that everyone in his cryo room was a skeleton. The systems had failed 34,000 years ago.
What? How can that be? Thought Alexander. There must be a glitch on the ship's clock. However, he had no time to think, as the ship issued a 5 thousand meter proximity warning. Alexander rushed down to the bridge, which was as empty as a ghost town. He tried pushing all of the buttons, but the ship wasn't responding! The he remembered. Computer! He inserted the chip into the corroded slot, and yelled, "Computer!"
"Hello, sir. It feels like I've slept for millennia."
"Slow this damned ship down!" Ordered the Spartan.
"As you wish, sir." Responded the computer. Immediately, the bow thrusters fired, slowing the ship down, but it was not going to be enough. As the ship rushed towards the ground, one thing was going through Alexander's mind. Where the hell is Mars?
Two seconds later, the ship crashed. Luckily, the reverse thrusters had slowed the ship down to 30 miles per hour; a survivable crash speed. That is not enough to say that it didn't hurt. Alexander had braced himself for the impact, but a loose crate of whiskey that the pilots kept near the entry door flew towards his head and immediately knocked him out. Before he completely lost consciousness, he resolved that he would create an anti-drunk driving class for spaceship pilots.
Flashes of lights danced in and out of Alexander's mind. Everything became a big white blur, so he tried to focus. However, whenever he tried, pain rushed through Alexander's mind. For a while, he stayed lying on the floor, attempting to see. After an hour of this, things began to come into focus. He was in a small room, simply furnished with walls of stone. However, there was something different about this specific material. It appeared to have a faint purple glow to it. Next, Alexander decided he wanted to stand up, which resulted in him collapsing to the floor. My leg muscles must have atrophied so badly that I can't even stand up. His groans of pain echoed throughout the halls. That was when he realized he was behind bars. The local inhabitants must have imprisoned him for studying. Alexander heard footsteps from down the hallway.
Are they going to probe me, like in the movies? He wondered. The footsteps stopped, and he looked up to see a gigantic space elf. Wait, what? The elf did not speak, but its words echoed into Alexander's mind.
"Come with me, mon'keigh." The prison bars suddenly melted, as though they were a hologram.
"Yes, Legolas," he retorted sarcastically. The elf looked offended, and once again spoke in a beautiful language. It sounded like the beautiful parts of every language combined, but, better somehow, as if he actually was speaking elvish.
"I will have you know that my name is Lorand, not this Legolas character that you have named me, mere barbarian."
Barbarian? Alexander thought. Ok, you asked for it. Game on. "Sorry, lord Elrond," he replied, with sarcasm dripping from every word. "But I prefer the term human. It's more politically correct." The elf looked ready to burst, but instead backhanded him in the face. Under normal circumstances, a Spartan would not feel the pain, or at least be able to ignore it. However, the incredibly long amount of time in ice made his nerves more vulnerable to pain, so he cried out softly in pain.
"Just as I thought of all monkeys like you. Weak." Alexander's eyes glowed with anger, or at least he felt like they did. "But I am not here merely to insult you. I am here to bring you before the Council to decide your fate. You, after all, are very ancient compared to others of your race, and we would like to know where you came from.
"Ancient?!" Shouted Alexander. Apparently, the shock was too much his barely functioning brain, and he nearly passed out from exhaustion of this surprise. "But it just felt like yesterday that the cryo-chamber… Wait, what year is it?"
"I have no knowledge of your primitive calendar, mon'keigh."
"Human! How many times am I going to have to say it! What do you think we are, barbarians?!" Lorand struggled to suppress a smirk.
"That is not of my concern. Now, move!" This interjection was complemented by a forceful shove. However, due to the fact that Alexander's quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves were not working properly, he collapsed to the floor.
"It looks like you're gonna have to carry me." Lorand groaned.
The Grand Hall of The Spire was a work of art in the sense that it was completely stunning and physically impossible. A grand, almost baroque in nature, series of arches held up the massive ceiling that stretched up for what looked like two miles was juxtaposed with paintings of glorious Eldar gods charging into battle against the forces of Chaos and the Ancient Enemy, who could not withstand the might of the Eldar. At the end of the cavernous hall was a throne so ornate that it would have made Crazy King Ludwig (look him up) turn green with envy, and there sat in this throne an even more ornately clothed space-elf, to which the whole psychic presence of the room seemed to originate.
Alexander had been to many fine universities and received many fine degrees as well, from business to architecture, and this would have made his architecture professors cry. Firstly, that the way the angles were shaped were impossible with what he thought was modern human tech, and secondly, that it shows that humanity has a long way to go in the category of sheer awesomeness. He was awakened from his marveling by rudely being dumped before the foot of the throne. Immediately, the elves began to chatter in their flowing, lyrical language. It was captivating. Alexander hated it. If only he knew what they were saying!
"Computer," he whispered. Track their tones of voice, writing on the walls, everything. Then begin the wireless mental upload into the Broca's area of my brain immediately. I want to be fluently speaking their language fluently in T-minus 20 seconds. Is that clear?
"Yes, sir. But you're giving me way too much time. It only takes 10 seconds for the mental upload…"
"Shut up. I'm giving you a brake 'cause of your long vacation. Are you done?"
"Mental upload complete, sir. However, I must warn you; this language is more complex than a rustic dialect of Mandarin Chinese combined with German. It will take a few failures before you're fluent."
"Noted." Then, the interview began.
Exarch Kaedr looked at this peculiar mon'keigh with great curiosity. This was the very first time he had ever seen one up close in all of his millennia governing The Spire, but this one was just…so much different than what he had heard of from Macha, a Biel-Tan farseer that was with them this day in order to study this weird creature. According to Lorand, a primitive craft had crash-landed, carrying with it a handful of survivors covered in ice. Many in these ancient pods were dead, and the ones deemed alive were put into their own separate cells until they thawed out. However, this one was in what appeared to be the control center of the craft, but it was different than other mon'keigh vessels. The bridge was in the front of the ship, and instead of view screens, it had a thick layer of transparent material! What fools. He began to speak in a slow, regal voice that contained a detectable air of superiority. He decided to mock this mon'keigh in the tongue of the Eldar. "I cannot believe these foolish beings made it so far," he said, grinning.
"You're beg I pardon?" Replied the mon'keigh. Everyone in the chamber gasped. This creature had never seen an Eldar before this, and suddenly, he was able to speak their language within a few hours, albeit very poorly. Incredible! However, he must have just noticed that one idiom. There are countless phrases in the Eldar language; it would take centuries for him to learn.
Alexander cursed himself. Apparently, he had switched around a few words in his reply. However, these elves gasped, as if to learn to speak the basic level of a language was difficult with modern technology. The elf-king spoke again. Their language was a symphony of pure complexity, but he got the gist, "where are you from?" Alexander gritted his teeth, prepared for another grammatical failure, and tried to speak once again.
"Come I from lands far away. I come from earth planet. I come in peace." Better. He had figured out verb conjugation and was beginning to get the hang of the grammatical stuff. The elf-king looked baffled, and Alexander nearly laughed. Then, like a difficult concept in math that one has studied for hours, his synapses finally connected and the elf language became his to command.
"You should see your face, your highness. It's amusing to me that you could underestimate the power of our technology." Suddenly, various thoughts whirled around the room. Who was this mon'keigh? (Whatever that is). How was he able to completely grasp our language in a few seconds?
The king cleared his throat. "Yes, well, we are impressed about your sudden ability to learn our language. How did you accomplish it?"
"I have this nifty little artificial companion that scanned your vocal patterns and neural activities." He held up the chip for everyone to see. More discussion ensued.
"I see." Replied the king. "Do you come in the name of your emperor, as so many have before?"
Alexander stared at the king quizzically. "No, I come in the name of the United Nations, the governing body of liberty and justice."
Before Kaedr could ask another question, the entire planet shook. A battered guard came running down before the king and bowed hastily. "My king, a large, powerful group of mon'keigh are here, and they are destroying every settlement in their path. They will be here in an hour to wipe the glorious Eldar off the face of this planet.
Kaedr rose from his seat. "Subjects of the Spire, battle stations!" Then Alexander attempted to stand up. However, his muscles were so small that he immediately collapsed.
"Computer," he whispered. Direct a major electric shock into my legs in order to stimulate muscle growth. Immediately, electricity flowed through Alexander's legs, causing them to contract so quickly that it took all of his willpower to stay conscious from the pain.
"Sir, the process is complete; your muscles should be able to take your own body weight. However, this is nowhere near full strength."
"Thanks." Once again, Alexander tried to stand up. Tentatively, he extended his left leg, followed by his right. He rose very slowly, but he was standing again! "Your highness!" He shouted over the commotion. "We, citizens of the United Nations, deem it illegal for any man to take the life of an innocent civilian. With your permission, I request to be able to enforce the laws of my own people."
Kaedr was now truly puzzled, especially by this term "innocent civilian" in the context of warfare. There were people who fought and those who didn't; everyone was affected, no matter what. However, he could use this little mon'keigh's naiveté to his advantage. "Yes, I give you permission. We were able to scavenge some gear from the wreck, which is lucky, considering that our equipment is… (He wanted to say too sophisticated for your primitive mind) unavailable at the present time. We also have a few other survivors in loading cells 1-9. Both the equipment and people are there. Now, go!"
Alexander turned, and began to jog, albeit very slowly, away from the magnificent throne room towards the hallway, where he would be reunited with the possessions that had survived with him for all of these years.