Galactic War Ch. 03

Turning around I saw Blackness approaching to land in the back of the village. Majestic ship was pretty in the green and blue landscape, the metal was strangely calming the way it bounced sunrays of its hull. Paul and Jerry left back to their posts I assigned them few minutes ago leaving me alone with Anna.

The silence between us was calming me, I did not know about her but I enjoyed being with her here. Aliens here and there were starting to get anxious maybe thinking that this was just a front. The noise was not helping either since it just amplified their fears. Taryn was approaching where we were standing.

"Captain, I've finished counting them 32 individuals including the 2 that you brought from the cellar." Taryn said to me,

I started to move towards the now landed Blackness, I had thought of briefing the members of the force that was going to help us with civilian extraction. I passed by many aliens not giving them a glance, but when I walked by the remains of the 2 aliens I paused. Standing there in place I offered them a silent prayer. Noticing that the Blackness's hangar bay doors were opening I proceeded to move. 50 people came out and saluted me.

"At ease men, is there a universal translator on board? We did not have one here." I asked them.

"Yes sir we brought one as you asked, and we sent information as what food they could not eat. I'll give it to your medical officer right away." The man explained what his duty here was.

"Ok, First Lieutenant," I checked his ranking on his uniform, "One more thing there are remains under the blanket inside the village, I beg you that you treat them with care." I asked my honest feelings regarding the matter.

A woman approached handing me a small palm sized device. It was universal translator that we used to communicate with any species that did not know our language. I made few adjustments to translate into English, of course, from whatever they named their language on Solanje. It was small but it had incredible amount of data from all of the species that we earthlings met during the 400 years of exploring the galaxy. Our ancestors met them almost 300 years ago and conversed with them, taking various data down about their language, one could only hope after their abrupt disappearance they kept the valid data about their language. If not we were left to the old methods of waving hands and pointing fingers.

I moved back to the village and sat at the first bed that had a tall alien lying down on the moist ground that was covered in a blanked, a makeshift bed, that my resourceful solders made. It was crude but it served its purpose. Next to the lying alien there was a female looking one that was in a much better state, one of the rare adult looking ones, which looked at me with her big eyes. I returned the long stare and after sometime remembered what I was here for. Using my finger to point towards my mouth, then her, then the device I was holding. I move my hand towards her but she got startled and flinched. I demonstrated the intent I was having.

"Hello I am Kal Farah." I spoke into the device and it responded saying the same thing.

Aliens' eyes remained unaffected, but I could see her forming a smile on her lips. I, again, used my gestures to show her what to do, and she followed my instructions. Feelings I have right now are pretty strange. I love seeing her struggle to speak and make the same the noises, it looked mainly childish. Anna approached me and said the alien we saw in that house has died of injuries. I nodded and continued to look at the strange alien woman playing with the device.

"Yeah this could take a long time, UT is getting pretty archaic." Anna was making a valid point.

I stood up, "Yeah maybe our military can be so gracious to get us normal DATA pad chips. They are smaller, faster and can handle infinite amounts of data." I made an ironic quip. "Let's begin with the bonding."

"Hahaha right. And, pigs would fly." Score. I made Anna laugh. Pretty proud of myself at this moment. "Good luck" She finished letting me continue what I was going to do.

I gently took the device back and with some tinkering I displayed a picture of food, showed it to her and then listened to what she said. That's how you learned their words. Before DATA chips were available, a person would come and manually interact with species they wanted to learn their language. And when you take all the data from the spoken words then you can make a data library of spoken language that any device can translate. Especially these DATA chips that military personnel would use when they start servicing.

If you had thought about the good old Sci-Fi movies where everybody talks English under the guise of being able to do that with an implanted chip inside skin or brain, well that is possible but it's expensive. Usually wealthy members of society, politicians and military personnel would get a chip that would help them converse with many species that inhabited our galaxy.

I sat on the moist ground playing guessing game with this young woman. She had a smile on her beautiful dark blue face. She enjoyed this game and was evidently learning quite fast. People from the ship, including the 5 people that were not originally my team looked at me a highest ranking officer on site doing something as dirty as sitting on filthy ground. Trying to bond with an alien. Maybe it was that or maybe the patience I have shown to this young woman that showed such childlike interest for something as simple as guessing the picture on screen. I was slowly changing. The moment I saw the alien underground something snapped in place. Maybe this is what I was missing. Bonding with someone. The world around us continued to spin and people move around dragging various instruments and the like into the village. We sat there in motion repeating the same task every time. It never did get boring. Next I repeated my first action when I started to play with this young woman.

"Hello, my name is Kal Farah. What is your name?" After 2 hours I thought I had ample data to work with, at least, to converse with this young alien. Maybe she'll open up to me after all I'm an alien as well landing on her land trying to, as far as she knows, help her. But who knows.

"My...name...P..." The alien started to talk without any help from the device. I was stupefied. Glad that she was learning I jumped to my knees and sat the device down in front of me. I did not want this to go to waste.

"My name" I showed at myself "Kal Farah" I hoped the alien would understand these gestures at least to the point of me making small talk.

"Kal Farah" she repeated pausing where it seemed appropriate. "Food. Delicious. Eat." She continued.

YEAH contact. I was giddy as a ... Well someone that's really happy. I could not really measure my happiness with this accomplishment. Having thought someone a simple ability to communicate is not easy as you may think. Especially if you take into the account different gestures that may pose different meanings. We sat as I ordered my men to bring her food of all kinds. As I was done bonding now it's time for me to inject myself with the DATA chip in this here little device. I removed my old one since I thought I'd never visit this line of work ever again. It saved me the trouble of going to base just to get it removed. Showing the device I made a large move and injected myself with the chip, I gestured to her to do the same and she obliged. Slowly right in the shoulder where the meat is the thickest. I was scared of shooting anywhere else since she was so skinny.

"Hello" I waved "What is your name?" I slowly started to ask.

"Ah I can understand you now. My name is Lilith Prenz of the Sunar Tribe. I wish to thank you for caring for our deceased ones." She bowed deeply here, all the way with head touching the ground, while I stood there pretty flabbergasted.

"No need Miss. I hope my actions did not offend anyone here." I apologized for my earlier selfish actions

"Why would it, and please call me Lili. Anyone who cares so much to cry for another being cannot offend anyone. My species in recent years have dwindled rather fast since the time we were proud majestic species that once traveled the galaxy far and wide." She proudly declared her race's accomplishments, but when she remembered that they are now mostly extinct she went silent.

"Miss, I have to ask. Those 2 individuals underground were alive when I saw them. Then...then I saw them that they were dead." Remembering the event my eyes slowly gushed tear, my voice trembled when I said the word "dead". "What did I saw, am I going crazy?"

Alien's eyes watched me while I voiced my fears and confusions. "There are some times when we retain our spirit until we get what we wanted when we died, in some cases spirit want retribution, in other it may want money and power, the more elusive the dream is the violence it manifests after it dies is greater. Especially when it meets the object of his or hers desire." Lili was explaining, "What you saw was her spirit thanking you for releasing her and her child from the prison they were in. You see, we were trapped in there by our own technology when that object struck. Somehow whatever you did it released us."

I stood silently for few minutes trying to take in what I just heard, "I have to say Miss it felt so real. Her tiny hand was on my head, I could feel her pulling me towards her."

"Yes. It happens when our conscious energy of what we wish for is so great that it can manifest in spirits doing extraordinary things, like saving their loved ones or even killing people for good or... Evil. We spent centuries studying this phenomena and we still do not know everything. Some say it's the energy, the other call it Gods' mark of love." Lilith was explaining this while looking at her elder on the ground covered with blanket while he ate soup.

Mostly she answered my questions about the experience I had, I didn't want this young lady to look sad anymore so I switched my questioning. "Why did you say tribe, do your people not share the same race name?"

"Yes, we are universally known that we do not have a specific race name but rather we identify our self with the tribe we originated from. This village you see here is just one sliver of what members we used to have. 300 000 Sunar tribesmen used to inhabit these lands with 3 more tribes on each prospective continent. Then the exodus happened." She sounded sad again. I might have opened old wounds by asking this. But I wanted to know who or what did this.

"What happened here?" I asked bluntly.

"Grunz happened. I think they are working with some other race but they were the main culprits behind the bombardments, then they sent their dogs to hunt us down" she spat the word "dogs" out.

"Grunz?" They were very inclusive humans that we discovered few decades ago while exploring few systems. They turned to be mostly pirate race of humans long forgotten when few colonies in space started to view Earth and it's colonization as evil overlords bent on Space domination. While not wrong in their thinking at its core, they separated from us few hundred years ago, and disappeared from then habited planets. Everybody thought they were destroyed by a passing waring race, but apparently they hid deep in space finding a planet that was just perfect for their needs. Nobody knows when they turned to piracy but they managed to thrive by stealing and selling slaves to various species. Still what is known is only accounts from pirates that we captured and managed to say few words before suiciding.

"Sir Captain Connor is asking for you." Cay came and instructed me.

"Yes hello Captain. What is the problem?"

"Kal we have noticed a Gal Federation ship landing near the main structure further north. It could be potential reinforcments."

"I haven't received any info on incoming reinforcements'. Are you sure it's our Gal ship?"

"Sir, I was not made captain of my ship overnight." Connor had a valid point there.

"Yes I apologize, Captain Connor. I'll go check it out. Also I'll leave most of my unit here for protection, if you can please reinforce these people until we find more survivors."

"I understand I'll send some. Good luck out there. Over and out." He ended the call after that.

"Okay round up. Anna pick 4 more with me and you, we will check main structure north bound. We will approach silently since we just noticed a ship landing near it. I want full tactical readiness, make sure that all your gear is ready when Anna calls you." I made my actions clear and moved to my inventory to replenish what I had lost rescuing these people-

Offering my hand to Lilith "Miss Lilith I bid you goodbye for now. We will talk more, later, for now rest and relax. You will be moved to the ship for protection while we try to find more of your people further north."

"You are going to our sacred temple that housed us during the exodus. Please be safe." She softly said before lying on the ground and finally closing her eyes to rest. Patting her bald head, which felt pretty good, I started moving to meet the team that Anna handpicked.

She was standing in line with Suzan, Valentina, Cay and Starg.

Suzan and Valentina our own Breach experts with Starg as core of the group they all had similar R400 rifles like most of our unit, Cay carried his trusty sniper rifle special REC 1200 that has laser point accuracy with the sole ability to launch and detonate explosive devices. I can only think of it as a rocket launcher. Anna sported same gun I had the semi-automatic MG250.

I checked their gear and ordered them to move out we had 3 hour hike to get to that structure.