This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ArmouredCadian on 2024-12-03 16:26:13+00:00.
Colony Security Operations Chief Steve Malcolm stared up at the scouting vessel as it came in for landing about 30Km outside of the colony’s perimeter. Personally, he would have preferred that it landed further afield, but the Colony Director didn’t want to seem too unfriendly.
It did help that the scouting vessel wasn’t that big by human standards. Barely larger than some of the pre-FTL rockets humanity had been using to try and escape the Earth’s atmosphere with 200 some years ago. Modern human spaceships would only classify it as a system picket ship, which is why it’s role as a scout whose purpose was to flee at first sign of contact was so easy to accept for the humans.
Although once the ramp came down, Steve had to reassess the dimensions he had been mentally calculating the ship based on. With the sole exception of the crocodilian, who was called an Arcoinian they had been told, who was on par with human height and mass, the other aliens were smaller and slimmer than human proportions.
The Grey looking one, an Orthoid they referred to themselves as, was only 1.2m tall, and a decent portion of that, easily 1/4th was head.
The Captain, a Car’thoon as her species was called, had what looked kind of like a cthulu-esque head with 6 small tentacles on the front, a slight hint that there might be a beak underneath there somewhere, although that hadn’t been confirmed, just suggested in how the 6 tentacles moved. She also seemed to have 4 larger tentacles that acted as leg and arm analogues, although her clothing currently made it unclear if she actually had a body or if they connected directly to her head. Her skin was also a rather bright orange red in tone. She seemed to move along at a height around 1.3m tall.
Then there was the small furball that was poking its head out of the ship to look around. They had been informed of this 4th crew member, but no one had spotted this Rhondion previously. Apparently its the ship’s Engineer, the being resembled a small rodent of some type, hard to tell more at the current distance from the ship, but it couldn’t have been more than half a meter tall at most.
Steve had been given strict directions that no one was to approach the alien ship until the Orthoid Science Officer, one Lt Newt’rual gave directions. He was here to keep curious humans back, because humans have a bad habit of thinking directions are for other people and don’t apply to them.
So he was sitting here, waiting and keeping an eye on the visitors. Eventually the Arcoinian, Sgt Marknrak was the name from the briefing if Steve remembered correctly, wandered up, and asked politely
“Good day, have you been unable to hear the requests from my Captain or the Lieutenant?”
“What requests? I’ve been waiting for something from them, but I’ve been getting silence. You’re the first one to try and talk to me this entire time.” Steve replied.
This caused the big Croc looking guy to give a bit of a frown. “My Captain has been trying to reach out to you with her telepathy for 10 minutes now, and she says it’s like shouting at a brick wall.”
“Well why didn’t you just give a yell then? I definitely would have heard that. No wind out today to drown out the noise.”
“Define yell?” the Sgt asked in a confused manner.
“Like this” Steve said right before letting out a loud yelling call.
All the aliens immediately looked around as if afraid that the world was about to fall on their heads, before slowly relaxing.
“Oh, right you guys are only recently getting over the idea that there aren’t bigger scarier things out in the world out to get you… Sorry about that.” Steve said, looking around a little embarrassedly. His shout seemed to have drawn the attention of a dog and cat though, who came to see what the fuss was about.
“Well anyways, Lt Newt’rual would like you to come over to test some things out, please and thank you” the Sgt gave a low rumble.
“Sure, sure. Let’s go boy” Steve said as he gave the dog some skritches behind the ear as he walked over towards the ship.
Unexpectedly, the Captain collapsed when he got to a distance of 100m from her. Steve immediately dashed over, and lifted her by threading one arm under what would have been the armpit on a human, and trying to assist her in a hobble over to what appeared to be a form of seating set up nearby.
He turned to the Science Officer to figure out what was wrong only to realize that the Orthoid was also having difficulty, having collapsed into a nearby chair.
He turned to the Sgt, only to see that the Sgt was nodding knowingly.
“Told you Lieutenant.
You didn’t want to believe it, but I knew as soon as I saw their relative size, and it was only confirmed for me when they mentioned killing the Dragons.
They’re psionic nulls.
But no, that’s impossible you said.
Psionic nulls would invalidate the theory of peak psionic evolution, so there must be another reason you said Captain.
And now look.
His mere presence shut off all your passive psionics.
Still think the Humans aren’t walking psionic null zones?
But no, no one ever listens to the Arcoinians just because we’re reptiles and have a history of hunting for meat” the Sgt rumbled at his two slumped superiors.
“They ignore your species just because you guys hunted meat?” Steve asked with a quirked eyebrow
“So, while their species would sometimes eat meat, for them it was always scavenged. They have always viewed us as slightly more savage because we would hunt for fresh kills.” the Sgt said with exasperation.
“Man, wait until they get a load of humanity then!” Steve laughed “We started as Omnivore scavengers who were prey, but developed tools so that we could become the Hunters, and we love fresh meat. We raise livestock now so that we can still eat fresh meat for our meals.”
The moment was broken by the sound of a high pitched screaming coming from the ship, with the Rhondion bolting out of the ship, a belt of tools worn like a sash. Behind it, stalking out of the ship with a focused look was a cat.
“Oh crap, I better stop that before your Engineer gets hurt.” Steve said, dashing for the ship.
He just barely managed to intercept the cat, and pick it up into his arms, calming it down by petting it until it started to purr, which caused some of Lt Newt’rual’s instruments to start beeping.
The Rhondion had decided to seek the high ground on top of Sgt Marknrak for safety.
“What-what is that death-kill creature-thing doing in the human-creature’s arm-limbs?”
“It’s a Cat, its one of the types of pets that Humans keep around for companionship. They have the benefit of getting rid of small vermin from around our settlements for us. The other major type is dogs, like that boy there. They helped us hunt in our early tribal days, as well as provide mutual defense of our settlements.” Steve said.
“These animals that your kind have bonded with… along with the readings my instruments are picking up… might help… explain much…” Lt Newt’rual said with effort. Slowly pushing himself into a more comfortable sitting position.
“I didn’t realize I was subconsciously supporting my head’s weight with my psionics. Its something my people try to avoid doing, but often end up doing.” He continued
“That creature” pointing at the cat “gave off a supplementary boost to your psionic null zone when it purred, and similar creatures have evolved in our spaces as known hunters of psionic creatures.
That ‘Dog’ as you called it is also giving off a psionic null zone, although no where near as strong as what you are, so it seems that may have helped with the bonding between your species.
Additionally, my instruments seem to be picking up an unusual interaction between the two null fields, and I would need to observe the interactions between multiple humans to be sure, but I think the two of you in close proximity are combining to cover more area than either one individually.
Rather than overlapping like normal psionic fields, they seem to meld and expand.”
“Apes stronger together” Steve jokingly quoted.
Although the aliens didn’t seem to understand the joke.