A New Direction for Humanity Ch. 01

Shae used the times they brought her pills as indicators of what day it was. She couldn't be certain they were doing it every 24 hours, but it was the only indication she had. Nine days she'd been here, no contact, human or otherwise. Nine days of being fed some kind of tasteless gruel that they always gave her too much of, and it made her sick the first few times she'd swallowed it down. Nine days of using the stupid alien toilet in the corner that was really hard to use. Fortunately she hadn't pissed all over the floor, but she figured it was only a matter of time.

It was on that 9th day that the door opened. Shae straightened, and looked up at the Rei-sa who stood there. Shae didn't recognize them, but they did look... different somehow. Every Rei-sa she'd seen had been dressed in some kind of uniform, this one looked like they'd dressed themselves. They wore clothes that Shae guessed were probably more casual, they didn't cover their entire body, and weren't tight and crisp like the uniforms were. While all the Rei-sa Shae had seen wore their hair tied back or in an alien equivalent of a pony-tail, this one's hair was all sort of pushed into the center and it went back... sort of like a mohawk but not really? It was weird. But of course for all she knew it could mean anything in Rei-sa culture.

"You are... how do I say this...? Shy?" She asked her, squinting at a tablet. Female pronoun.

"Yes, I am Shae," she answered.

"Oh good I thought I had the wrong one. I am Reep, Vakita Xiac's Yashta" Reep used a word that Shae figured must be assistant, it was hard to tell. "Come with me, Xiac wants to meet you."

Shae gulped and stood up to follow Reep. She was basically going to go meet the alien Queen? Reep didn't chat much, and led her back to the tram system. When she interacted with the tram terminal, she also placed her finger in a little indent next to it before it would start moving. The tram took a while, much longer than her previous trips.

The doors opened and Reep ushered her into a foyer of sorts. This room was... definitely different. Everything Shae had seen of Rei-sa architecture was minimalist, functional. The entire left wall of the foyer was covered in a bright mural of an alien landscape. It actually looked a bit tacky to Shae, it was painted to look as though the room opened up into that rolling set of hills covered in strange trees and plants.

There was an ornately decorated desk made out of... plastic? Something artificial, and it stood in front of an equally decorated door carved with swirls and various patterns. Reep led her away from that door, into a small side room that appeared to be... a Rei-sa bathroom?

"Xiac told me to make sure you're presentable. I don't know how to Kitata humans but you are a mess right now."

Shae winced. How bad did she look that even a Rei-sa thought she looked bad?

"Humans clean themselves with water right?" Reep asked, herding Shae towards a stall of some sort.

"Yes, we do," Shae looked nervously at the 'shower' in front of her, positive that the water would be freezing cold.

Reep leaned into the panel next to it, and water started raining down from a faucet near the top on the stall. "I was given some settings to use for you. It should be fine."

Shae touched the water gingerly. It was indeed freezing cold. "Can it be a bit warmer?" Shae asked nervously.

"Of course! Sorry I know nothing about humans." Reep adjusted the temperature, and the water was... well, it wasn't the nice hot shower she desperately wanted but it would do.

Shae stepped under the stream. Gods did that shower ever feel good after nine days in that cell. "Do you have... umm..." Shae had no idea how to ask for soap. "We use something made out of animal fat to clean off dirt," She hoped her explanation of what soap was wasn't too morbid.

Reep detached a cylinder full of liquid from a strange looking device on the wall and handed it to her. Shae slid the top off and gingerly touched the liquid with her finger. Well, it didn't burn, and it felt like soap. Shae rubbed a little between her hands, and as soon as she did it instantly lathered into a frothy foam. It smelled sweet and kind of tingled on her skin as she used it to wash herself. She was slightly nervous that it might melt her skin off or something but she felt so gross and dirty that she was willing to risk it. The stuff worked really well and Shae even washed her hair with it. "Okay that should be enough," she called to Reep after about ten minutes. The shower was nice but the water was still lukewarm.

Reep interacted with the panel, and the water stopped. Without warning, a blast of air buffeted her, so powerful it almost knocked her on her ass, and she would have slipped if she didn't somehow have way more traction on the wet floor than she should have. Reep caught her before she fell, and lifted her gently out of the stall.

"Dry," she said, handing Shae a Rei-sa sized towel, which was basically a big fluffy blanket. Fuck, she wanted to curl up in that blanket so much.

Shae did so, if a bit awkwardly. The material was actually very absorbant and she dried her hair in no time.

"You... do something about that, right?" Reep asked, gesturing towards her hair.

"I need a..." Oh dear. She'd never realized how many holes she had in her Rei-sa vocabulary. How did she ask for a brush? Fortunately, she didn't have to, Reep handed her something that actually looked remarkably like a human brush, except it was triangular, for some reason. Shae fixed her hair, still painfully aware that she was still naked, but none of the Rei-sa had given her a chance to put on some clothes. Shit, her clothes were probably the only clothes on the entire ship that would fit her. What if they'd been destroyed? Would she be naked forever? This ship was way too cold for that.

"We're already late, come along, don't keep the Vakita waiting. Reep quickly ushered her to the big ornate door she'd seen earlier. She knocked once, then opened the door and basically shoved Shae in.

The room inside was... Gods, it was extravagant, she had absolutely no real frame of reference but every inch had attention to detail, nothing was plain. Bits of art, technology, clothes, what looked like food, pillows. The Vakita was lounging on... a throne? It was a sort of padded, vertically angled surface built into the wall, it would probably have been weird for Shae to try to rest on it, she'd be leaning backwards, but the Vakita looked super comfy. She opened one eye to look at Shae as Reep closed the door behind her. "Come in, little human, have a seat." She spoke english to her.

Shae walked over to the side of the room in front on the weird throne thing and sat cross-legged on a huge cushion on the floor. Up close, the Vakita was... wow. She was wearing some kind of loose flowing dark red garment that Shae could barely understand how it was stitched together, it seemed to weave around her like curls of mist, not starting or ending anywhere. She wore several armbands and anklets out of shiny metal adorned with what were probably gemstones, and had tattoos winding all the way up her left arm that disappeared under her clothes. The tattoo looked like words and symbols all stylized and sort of flowing together, but she couldn't properly read any of them. Her hair was done in what looked like an avant-garde style from earth, swirling together up to a crest at the back of her head, and then flowing down in little spirals around her face and neck. She had little glasses on, or maybe that was facial jewelry? It was a metal framework that spider webbed down from her hairline and encircled her eyes. On closer inspection Shae couldn't see any lenses, so maybe it was decorative after all? Unlike the rest of the Rei-sa, she seemed to have a more 'normal' hairline too, she'd only ever seen Rei-sa with a hairline that started much closer to the crown of their heads. All in all, she actually looked... kind of hot, in a fucked up way. Shae quickly derailed that train of thought, how embarrassing would it be to get hard in front of an alien queen.

The Vakita shifted positions, the lounge/throne shifting with her until she was slightly more horizontal, and she looked intensely at her. Shae was immediately uncomfortable, The Vakita seemed interested in her in a way that no other Rei-sa had ever been, like she was taking in every single detail of her still naked and cold body.

"My technician said that he cannot tell if you are male or female," The Vakita stated very plainly.

Oh Fuck. How the shit was she supposed to explain that in Rei-sa to one of their leaders? She could barely explain it in english to humans.

"It's a complicated-" Shae started to answer in Rei-sa.

"Speak english for now," The Vakita interrupted her.

Shae considered... no, arguing would definitely be the stupidest thing she would ever do. "Of course, Vakita. I am what we call transgender, on Earth. It is... very complicated, many humans don't understand it very well."

"Then give me a simple version."

Please don't let the aliens be transphobes. Please don't let the aliens be transphobes. "So... on earth, babies are assigned a gender when they are born based on their appearance. In my case, I decided that I didn't like my assignment, so I changed it and now I take hormones to change my appearance to something I feel more comfortable with." Ugh. Was that a good explanation? Maybe girl trapped in boy's body would have made more sense? That explanation sucks though.

"Hormones. Explain that word to me."

"It's... Umm... " Try to remember your chemistry, Shae. "It's a chemical in our blood that our organs use to send signals to each other, I think? I don't know a good medical description."

"That is fine. Are these hormones the medicine you gave to my technician?"

"Yes, they are."

"Interesting. And I thought humans were boring." Wait, that was it? Interesting? Shae hadn't expected the Vakita to be the first person she met who didn't really care or want to argue with her or lecture her about who she was. Or, maybe she should have expected it. Why would she care? She shivered again, it was still cold even in this section of the ship, relinquishing the fluffy towel Reep had given her had been hard.

"Are you cold?" The Vakita asked, unexpectedly.

"I'm fine, Vakita," Shae decided not to impose.

"Do not lie to me, little human," There was a touch of harshness to the Vakita's tone.

"I... I'm sorry, I just didn't want to complain. Yes I am cold, I have been since my clothes were taken from me." Shae shrunk back, terrified. She'd messed up. Why couldn't she just answer the question?

"This entire time?" The Vakita seemed annoyed, and moved her face towards a part of her throne, maybe there was a panel there. Suddenly, Shae felt a draft of warm air, and oh gods it was so nice.

Shae breathed a sigh of relief. "oh... thank you..."

"I apologize for the discourtesy," The Vakita leaned back in her chair, still staring intently at Shae. Discourtesy? Jeez, the Vakita's english was so much better than Shae's Rei-sa. "You are a guest on the Mekorial, and I have been a terrible host. Sadly, I have been very occupied since your people decided to attack our ships. Several of my people were killed, many valuable ships were damaged or lost."

"I... had no idea..."

"I find that easy to believe. You were in one of the shuttles they targeted."

A wave of nausea passed through Shae. Her own government had tried to blow her up. She would have been collateral damage. Maybe even labelled as a traitor if they'd succeeded.

"I want you to know, Shae, that the conflict that arose out of that attack has not gone well for your species. I don't even know what they were thinking, your people absolutely do not have the technology required to effectively attack even one of our vessels, let alone eight of them. They launched several nuclear warheads into space, mostly targeting this vessel."

"Nuclear..." Shae felt like she wanted to throw up. They'd launched nukes? Was Earth even okay? Was it a nuclear wasteland now?"

"We disarmed all of them, and subsequently bombarded most of your entire species' military facilities from orbit. Many of your governments have collapsed, and all of your satellites have been scrapped. You had quite a few of them, too."

"You did all this... in nine days...?" Shae had always known that humanity stood no chance if they decided to fight the Rei-sa, which was why she'd always assumed they never would. But, to totally destabilize her entire civilization in less than two weeks?

"I think it was eleven, but I do not think in earth-time," The Vakita actually looked a little sad, she certainly didn't seem to be gloating.

Shae felt sick. Her family, her friends, her entire species... what was going to happen? She covered her face with her hands.

"I wanted to meet you in person, Shae, because I had a very specific proposal for you." A proposal? For her? What could the Vakita possibly want from her? Shae looked back at her. "We have come to a point where a decision must be made for the future of your species. I was previously the only Vakita assigned to Earth, and it was always my decision to keep your species alive and mostly autonomous. Two more Vakita have come with the other ships, and the humans' behavior since their arrival has soured them on that idea. One of them wants 99.9% of humanity removed. The other wants... well... I believe he wanted one hundred to remain, as exotic pets, he put it." The Vakita seemed annoyed as she talked about the other two, Shae didn't doubt that she hated them.

"I can't do anything I'm just... a language student..."

"Ah, but I disagree, little human. I am outvoted, humanity will almost certainly be downsized. But, I have several opportunities to negotiate with the other Vakita on the specifics. This includes not only the numbers, but the methods of population control that will be used, the time frame, and also your rights as a species. What I need are negotiation points, things I can gesture to, to make a strong case that humans can be useful, co-operative, and docile.

"You think I'm... docile?" Shae said it, but realized it was actually pretty true, she had always been very conflict-adverse.

The Vakita laughed softly, as if she knew what Shae were thinking. Wait, did she? Were the Rei-sa secretly psychic? Maybe the just the Vakita? "Everybody I spoke to said you were extremely polite and respectful. They were actually very surprised." Okay, so maybe she wasn't psychic but could just talk to people. "If I have a cute, polite little assistant who speaks well, and even takes on some responsibility, then I think it will bode well for your entire species. You won't be shooting down alien invaders with a rifle, you may even be vilified by humanity as a cooperator, but you may save countless human lives."

The Vakita's offer was... not what Shae had been expecting. It was also kind of humiliating, it seemed like she wanted Shae to be one of those exotic pets. But, it did make sense. And, fuck her stupid government, they should have been sucking up to the Rei-sa from the start, what was wrong with them? Vilified? How did she learn so much english. Wait, did she actually call her cute?

"I... would be honored, Vakita." In a weird way, Shae felt that this decision should have been harder for her, like she should sleep on it, or something, it was a huge decision, after all. Somehow though, it really wasn't.

"Excellent," The Vakita grinned, stepping out of her throne. She took a half-step over to Shae and kneeled down, bringing them face-to-face. Shae could smell her breath, it smelled... like cinnamon? "Do not worry, you will do perfectly. I also enjoy that you are just absolutely adorable."

Shae blushed and desperately fought the urge to look away from the Vakita. Don't get hard. Don't get hard Don't get hard. She started getting a little hard.

"Shae, you have served us for three years, but now I need your loyalty. You will be loyal to me, exclusively, you will withhold nothing from me, and entrust your life to me. If you accept, address me as Ji'rai, and you shall call me that henceforth."

"I accept, Ji'rai."