Jack's Righteous Gig

"I see one!" 4003 blurted and headed off down the corridor towards the front of the ship. A short distance away, there was indeed a cross corridor going towards the center of the cylindrical vessel. Rikki looked further down the hallway they'd been gliding through and got a better view of the formidable-looking airlock door blocking access to the front of the ship. As they wouldn't be investigating the ends of the vessel, hopefully the center would yield some answers.

Rikki made them stop at the intersection. "Tell me if you find anything of interest about the corridors we are traveling through."

The group looked each way and ran measurement scans to see how identical they were. Nothing of interest was registering with the group. Then 2765 reached out a tentacle and ran the tip along the surface of the floor they hovered above. The others looked at it then followed suit.

"2765, what did you find?" Rikki asked.

The shiny Tik glanced at 3334 then faced Rikki. "It's not smooth. There are definite ridges and valleys on the surface. There is a slight give to the material as well."

"Like sand under the waves at the edge of an ocean. Rippling sands," 9898 offered.

Rikki paused as it looked at 9898. "That was lovely. You've been to the beach?"

"Yes. I like sand," 9898 replied.

Rikki could understand that. "A close match to the texture I recalled as well. Now, why would the floor not be smooth?" it asked its team next.

The new Tik conferred once more, and 3334 gave their answer. "Familiarity? Most lifeforms seem to prefer textures they are most familiar with."

Rikki contemplated that answer, and it seemed to fall short of explaining the practical aspects of the textured surface.

"So, its purpose is to make those who travel over its surface feel emotional comfort? Might it have some practical value as well?" it suggested.

They conferred once more briefly, then 3334 replied. "Yes, it probably does, but we don't have enough information regarding the beings to make an accurate guess."

Rikki indicated its acceptance of their answer, and the group made their way inwards. Rikki extrapolated the sheer size of the ship they were inside and wasn't surprised when they came upon a wide airlock at what had to be the midpoint of the cylindrical vessel.

It examined the large door and extended a tentacle to touch its surface. It paused as it felt minute vibrations transferred through the surface, potentially indicating activity in the room beyond.

"An airlock door has closed the corridor behind us!" 2765 noted.

"Ahead of us as well!" 3334 blurted. Gasses began to fill the enclosed section of the corridor.

Then gravity returned.

The Tik automatically compensated with nothing more than a momentary dip in position.

Rikki turned to the group behind it as it moved away from the door quickly. The others responded immediately except 4003, which moved closer to reach out a tentacle to feel the door.

"First-contact protocol-" Rikki began, but the large door snapped up into the ceiling showing a bulky being standing in the opening. It was holding something in its hands, which 4003 immediately discovered was a spear as it stabbed deep into the Tik's body. The being's attack unluckily ruptured the Tik's armored energy cell, which unleashed its charge directly back through the shaft of the metallic spear. The corridor lit up with a blue-white flash. The being made a wailing noise as the energy cooked it instantly.

4003 crashed to the floor quite dead, soon followed by the being which flopped loosely to the deck, in a similar condition.

The Tik froze as they looked closer at the fallen being. It wasn't like any alien race they'd encountered to date, and the Tik maintained an extensive compendium of living and extinct races they'd studied. Every Tik was presented with this knowledge just after their instantiation.

Its head was surrounded by a wide oval hood of muscle which blended into its broad shoulders. Two strong arms suspended from the shoulders on either side of its body, ending with a group of short tentacles for gripping objects, such as a spear.

The torso slimmed at the waist then seemed to stretch on and on. The far end of this being was still inside the room behind it.

To top off its surprising appearance, its entire body was covered with iridescent scales in a mottled pattern.

Rikki was staring at the two dead sentient beings in the hallway in shock. What a tragic beginning to a first contact event!

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, is this a cobra?" 3334 asked quietly, reverting to their leader's full name to draw attention to the kismet of their situation.

It wasn't lost on Rikki that the new being before them did share some strong physical characteristics of Earth's cobras. Still, it was better to ignore that comparison.

"This is a first-contact protocol situation. I will take point and will attempt to remedy this unfortunate beginning. Be on your best behavior and follow the protocols as my secondaries," it sent to the group.

They waited until they saw the body of the dead alien begin to get tugged back to the other room. Once it was out of view, Rikki extended a tentacle and gripped 4003's shell and pulled it back to the group at the same speed.

A second being moved out into the hallway with a spear in its grip, but this one wasn't pointing the weapon at them. It was just holding it point up.

Rikki moved forward slowly with two tentacles extended to a length that matched the being's arms.

It stood facing the Tik but remained silent as it passed its large eyes over the mechanical life form's body. Finally, it spoke. Its language was a series of soft snaps and clicks.

Rikki was thrilled to hear a sample of its language as it would quickly adapt to the translators once they thoroughly analyzed it.

The Tik leader responded with Universal, the oldest common language the Tik knew, but the being didn't respond.

Then the being shocked Rikki as it spoke with an ancient dialect the Tik never expected to hear again.

"You Mahrell Drun tools or weapons?"

Rikki made a leap of faith that these beings weren't friends of the extinct race as it hadn't collected friends. It responded with the same, now dead language. "We are friendly. We are not allies with Mahrell Drun or their descendants, the Allsa Komanae. They are all dead."

Its hood flared as the being dropped the point of the spear to a horizontal position, directed at Rikki. "LIE! Mahrell Drun, not die! Never die unless by our hands!"

Rikki wasn't sure what to make of that, but the Tik was more confident these beings were not allies of the dead race. "How long you sleep?" Rikki asked. This question seemed to unsettle the tall being. It spoke over its shoulder, and they waited for a tense period while one of its team members did something out of view.

A second being came into the doorway, but its hood was utterly deflated. It was also not carrying a spear. It spoke quietly to the first, which turned to stare at it. After a moment its hood shrank as well. It turned back to Rikki. "We sleep long, long time. Far longer than expected. Comparative time unit?"

Rikki was pleased they were entering the advanced stage of first-contact protocols. Having a common language would speed this along. They seemed advanced scientifically. "Half-life of radioactive isotopes?"

The second being nodded and went back into the room to return in a moment with a portable display. It showed Rikki a chart of elements which Rikki projected against the wall side by side with the Tik's table of elements. It quickly cross-referenced the known elements and extrapolated the time units. It shut off the projector before turning back to the two beings. "Our standard celestial cycle is roughly equivalent to 1.5 of your cekt. How many cekt were you sleeping?"

The second being glanced at the other and received a flick of the eyes.

"7,375 cekt."

Rikki looked at the seemingly healthy life forms that spent 4,917 years in suspended animation. "That is a significant achievement as none of the known suspension technologies available would have preserved their subjects for so long. How many survived?"

They glanced at each other once more. The leader spoke this time. "All survived. You have not fully answered my question."

Rikki expected to get back to this. "My name is Rikki. We are Tik, an independent and sentient race of mechanical beings. We seek life to ensure it is preserved and protected."

"The opposite of the Mahrell Drun," the leader said.

"Yes," Rikki offered.

"My name is Lorrem. We are the Ishilon. I offer sympathy for your dead caused by my underling. This language is not suited to such sentiment," the leader finished with a snap, then looked around at nothing in particular as if struggling to deal with something emotional.

"If you provide a lexicon for your language, we can create a matrix for Universal, a language all races in the Gate Network use as a common trade language."

The commander nodded to one of the technicians behind it. Rikki motioned for 9898 to assist.

Lorrem's hood flared out with its sudden anger. "I cannot believe they are all dead! They were ageless, and outside of mishap, they could be expected to live on endlessly! It makes no sense!" it raged.

Rikki projected an image of the Allsa Komanae homeworld, which was taken by the researchers authorized to be on the planet. The video showed a central square where most of the dying members went when they felt their biological matter disintegrating. "Roughly 25 cekt ago, the last Allsa Komanae perished. The last Mahrell Drun Prime perished a short time before that."

The leader made a terrible and loud crunching noise as its eyes went very wide. "That is a short time ago, considering how long we slept! To have missed our chance to avenge our people by that short a time is beyond my ability to accept!"

Rikki watched the muscular being struggling with its rage. It looked to the other large male who was also making angry noises.

"How did they die?"

Rikki turned to see a third being joining them in a hallway that now seemed too small to contain this group. The Tik team leader made an immediate assessment based on the new arrival's body language, the body language of the others in its presence, and its slightly larger size that this new one was probably their actual leader. Rikki suspected it was female.

"It was Jack!"

Rikki turned to look at 3334 in surprise. The young Tik broke protocol and a few laws with that excited shout. It shouldn't have even known about Jack's involvement. Rikki tight beamed a command for silence to the now contrite youngling then turned back to the recent arrival to continue.

The female Ishilon was much closer now, and her large golden eyes panned over the Tik's shell to return to the primary optic sensor. "Who are these Jack? They must be a race of powerful beings to have taken out our adversaries."

Rikki found himself in an unpleasant situation because of that blurted sentence.

Deflect.

"My youngling spoke out of turn and without context. The Mahrell Drun Prime and the Allsa Komanae were defeated by an association of three different races-"

"Jack. Explain."

Rikki felt an almost tangible pull from those gold eyes, which remained focused on his optic. She had a formidable will! It couldn't avoid the answer without jeopardizing the work it'd done so far.

Downplay.

"One member of this association was an individual named Jack Danner. He is a human, a member of one of the association's races." It paused as that wasn't entirely truthful. "He's actually part Altarian now, that's another race involved in the association-"

"These Altarian's can take over the bodies of other races?" the female asked in concern.

"What? No! That's not what I meant. Jack has a distinctly unique genetic makeup, which allowed an Altarian disease to merge new genes into his genome. His status as a Hybrid was unknown until the Altarian gene's activated."

A shudder rippled through the female's body. "Is Jack a carrier of this disease, and was that how he killed the Mahrell Drun?" she asked.

Rikki was floundering. "No! It only changed him and only in relatively small ways. He's healthy and isn't contagious. As I said, he was only one element of a large effort to put an end to their evil ways."

The female gave Rikki an evaluating look. "If Jack is a Hybrid, the Mahrell Drun would have been very interested in him. I think perhaps you are not telling the complete truth regarding Jack Danner's involvement in the demise of our adversary. The Mahrell Drun set our neighbors against us, and by the time we discovered who the true enemy was, we were drawn into a war neither of us could afford. They were irrational and would not listen to the truth. In the end, they eradicated all life on our homeworld, and almost wiped out our colony world as well."

She sighed painfully. "You're unaware of the sacrifices we made to be here. Only the strongest amongst us were able to travel on this ship and leave the ruins of our colony. Our remaining citizens perished on that blighted world, but they died knowing their sacrifice would directly lead to the Mahrell Drun dying by our hands!"

She reached out a hand to pull Rikki closer still. "Now, tell me everything about Jack Danner."

Rikki saw the pain in the eyes of these beings, reflecting their knowledge of the debt they owed the ones they left behind. It couldn't imagine what it must feel like to suddenly discover those debts could never be repaid.

It considered her request and determined there was only one course of action.

Disclosure.

Chapter 4

Jack walked in his front door and slowly came to a stop as he took in the mouth-watering scent of home cooking. A content smile spread across his face. "Honey, I'm home!" he bellowed, as the house was huge.

Gee and Bal followed him in and gave him another weary look at his volume level. They headed off to put their equipment away and to get cleaned up. Jungle time was over.

The twins entered next and stopped to get a kiss and a hug. He flinched a little when Zaina's arm brushed across the welt on his side. They both looked up at him contritely.

Jack put a fake look of disbelief on his face as he looked to Adina. "I can't believe Zaina shot me!" he said pitifully.

Adina burst into giggles as Zaina cried out in outrage.

He grabbed Zaina in a bear hug and cuddled her as she beat her fists on his chest for teasing her. Adina bounced in to get a hug as well, and he gave them both another kiss on the cheek before they headed off to their room. "Bad papa!" Zaina tossed back over her shoulder, but he could see her smile.

Jack was very pleased with himself as that last bit had been another test for the girls. Earlier in their lives, when he'd do something to give them opposite emotions, the discordance in their emotional states would destabilize their link. Now, they were able to isolate their emotive states to maintain stability. He never told them he was testing them. Truthfully, he didn't tell anyone, but he was pleased to see their progress.

Diana walked into view, and Jack's libido woke up, and his heart filled with warmth. She always managed to take his breath away and give him butterflies. Tall, curvy, and gorgeous, she towered over the Altarians of their previous home and the Chuuruthians of their current one. Living on Chuuruthia clearly agreed with the brunette beauty as it seemed like she hadn't aged at all in the intervening years.

As well as being a gift to the eyes, she'd also defended her family like a lioness. Twelve years later, the terrible scars were still there to see. Not all of them were visible, however. She was still haunted by the memories she lost when she'd stopped breathing after the attack. Jack gave her all the love and attention she needed, and that helped her significantly.

Today, she was wearing one of her favorite Altarian dresses, which did nothing to hide the savage-looking scars on her throat.

"Hey baby," she purred in her gravelly voice, which was another present from the attack. Diana had chosen not to go under the surgeon's knife for the limited improvement they offered her.

Jack thought it was damn sexy, as did SennLann. The deep rumble made the Phem Kalos female tingle with lust. He knew she wasn't home from her trip to Phem Kalos, where she was visiting their Queen. They'd become besties.

Jack pulled Diana into a hug then kissed her tenderly.

"Mmmm, that was really nice! How was your trip to the jungle?" she asked.

"Me Tarzan, you Diana!" he grunted as he bounced his eyebrows at her.

She grinned and patted his chest. "Down Tarzan. Dinner is ready. Go get cleaned up. Eve made a delicious casserole from an old family recipe."

Jack's eyebrows went up as Eve was an orphan of unknown origins. She had no family that they knew of. They didn't even know what planet she was from!

Diana made a rumbling sound, which was her chuckle. "My family recipe, silly!"

"Oh! Of course!" Jack said, feeling silly indeed.

Diana gave him a peck on the lips and pushed him toward the hall leading to the master bedroom.

Jack sped up his steps as he was famished.

After a quick shower, he pulled on shorts, a button-down shirt, and slippers then headed for the kitchen. He spotted Emily walking ahead with one of her Chuuruthian friends. He struggled to recall this one's name then spotted the tell-tale spots on her ears. The race had such lovely ears, but the patterns were distinct. This was Rasha, the giggler. He rushed forward silently to scoop the two young ladies into a hug. "Hello, girls!"

Both squeaked in surprise at his sudden appearance. Then their behavior veered in different directions.

"Dad! Stop doing that! How can someone so freaking big move so quietly?" Emily complained.

Rasha was a mess of giggles, large eyes, and trembling whiskers. The multiple gold rings dangling from both of her large tufted ears happily jingled as they moved. The Chuuruthian resemblance to Earth's Caracal cats was strong with her.

He remembered now that this friend might have been a little infatuated with him. It was just a youthful crush. He caught the look of frustration on his daughter's face and sent her an apologetic look.

Emily rolled her eyes, then tugged free of her dad's arm. "Come on, Rasha. Let's get a seat where lunatics can't accost us."

Jack gave Emily a surprised look, but the teen was purposefully keeping her gaze averted. She was mad and now embarrassed in front of her friend. "Sorry," he said.

Rasha was looking between father and daughter in embarrassment.

Joseph chose that moment to rush out of the dining room towards them. "Dad! Glad you're home! Can I ask you about something? Oh! Hi Rasha! M.L.E." Joseph used his phonetic pet name for his sister as he saw the frown on her face. Jack saw a softening of her expression before his son tugged him away.

Jack looked at Joseph and saw a hint of anxiety. He frowned in concern. "What's up? Is something wrong?"

"Sorry Dad, you need to give Emily extra space for a while. She's going through... stuff," his son said quietly.

Jack blinked at his son. "That lacked some pertinent information."

"She can't talk to you about it. Hardly talks to me about it, but I think she's lonely. Like... she wants a boyfriend." Joseph said hesitantly.

"She hasn't turned eighteen yet!" Jack exclaimed in outrage.

"Dad, she will be in less than a week. This is why she can't talk to you," Joseph sighed

Jack went still. "Right." He thought for a moment. "Can she talk to her Mom?"

"I think she tried, and her reaction was the same as yours," Joseph replied.

"Oh. Is there anyone Emily's interested in?" Jack asked.

Joseph's expression became pained. "She's only attracted to humans, and there aren't any here."