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A strange race is made contact with.

There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door; those that come in by the window.

---

Cain jolted awake. “Ah! Wha… Polos!”
Polos was still passed out. Cain stood, surprised he was unharmed. The ship, however, was not. Through the cracked front window all that could be seen was crumpled metal. They were lodged in tight with another ship, or more likely, the space station. Cain shook Polos. “Wake up! Dammit, we’re not dead!”
Polos’ eyes fluttered open, and he groaned as he sat up. “Wh… The beam?! Where is…”
Polos recognized the mashed metal that was pressed against the window. “No! No, no no no!”
He slammed his paw on the wall. Cain pulled him up. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you, but we just passed through some sort of wormhole. We need to pinpoint our location asap!”
Polos gulped. “Fine. Fine, go do it. I’ll see what systems we have.”
Polos sat down again. It was the first time he had really lost his composure, and that sobered Cain. That beam must have been the super weapon they were supposed to get. Cain had a strange feeling that they were the victims of the weapon, and not thieves of it. He tried scanning the area, but the forward sensors were crushed. “We need to dislodge from this wreck so I can repair the ship.”
Polos nodded. “We have thrusters. I’m gonna try pulling away.”
Cain nodded. Polos pulled back delicately on the stick, and they began to hear creaking. “Polos…”
“We just need to- Arg!”
They pulled back suddenly, a sickening cracking sound accompanied their ship being freed. A second later, the cabin started to become drafty. “Polos!”
“Shit! Forcefields are offline!”
Cain jumped from his seat. “Where are you going?!” Polos yelled.
“To suit up!”
“Suit- we can’t abandon ship! We have no idea where we are!”
“Do you have a better idea?!”
Polos cursed and joined Cain as he pulled on his space suit. By the time the two were suited up, a little frost has formed on the walls and floor. Cain nearly slipped. He turned on the suit com. “it should be freezing way faster than this.”
Polos nodded. “Maybe we’re in low orbit.”
“We were nowhere near a planet.”
Polos opened the door. There was no depressurization. The two stepped out into space. Polos grabbed his suit’s thruster controls and turned to face Cain as the two floated away from their ship. “Something’s not right.”
The two looked around. There was not a planet to be seen. In fact, there was nothing. There were very few stars, but a faint haze could be seen far into the distance. Polos noted that the space station was entirely unharmed, aside from where they had collided with it. He checked his arm-band, which was currently monitoring the atmosphere inside and outside his suit. The screen was showing a very high concentration of gas in the area, as well as a temperature of only negative forty. “Cain?”
“I see it. Are we in a nebula?”
“No, I don’t think so. In any case, we can’t go into hyperspace here.”
Cain pointed to the station. “We should check it out. They’ll have sensors there, we can figure out what happened.”
“Agreed. Are you armed?”
“Always.”
Polos nodded and jetted towards the nearest airlock, Cain by his side.

Grey Fox jolted up, his head aching. He looked around quickly, his eye-HUD still displaying information. A little over an hour had passed since they had entered the portal. He also noticed that Nai was standing fifteen feet off, holding a gun and generally looking terrible. He noticed that Grey Fox was alive. Grey Fox sat up and grunted. Nai pointed the gun. “Stay there. So, a universe made of energy, eh? Well, if that were true, we’d be cooking right now. So, Grey Fox, where are we?”
He did not respond. Nai’s paw shook as he gripped the gun with both paws. “Tell me!”
“We’re on The Other Side. I guess we just… made a mistake in our calculations.”
“That doesn’t explain the weapons you were shipping here!”
“It was an extra security precaution, one we clearly needed-”
“Why lie about that?!”
“I-”
Nai pulled the trigger, blasting a garbage can that sat next to Grey Fox. “Rrg! Never mind your lies! The way you acted before we were boarded… you were going to execute me!”
Grey Fox had no words. Nai was clearly unhinged. He was shaking and breathing hard in panic. Grey Fox raised his arms slowly. “Alright. I lied. I’m sorry about that, but now we’re in a very sticky situation. We’ve passed into The Other Side. Do you realize what that means?”
Nai sat down. He nodded. “Yeah. We’re totally isolated.”
“I need your help. You need my help. If we’re going to get back to our own universe, we need to set up the beam again and-”
“Hey!”
Nai and Grey Fox whirled to the door. Cain was stepping through, his pistol ready. “No one move!”
Polos stepped through as well, shutting the door behind him. He removed his helmet. “Ah, finally, atmosphere.”
Nai jolted up. “What? Didn’t you come from the lover deck? Is there no atmosphere down there?!”
Cain threw off his helmet. “No air and a lot of dead bodies. Wanna join them?”
The two stayed quiet. Polos shook his head and grabbed Cain’s arm. The prosthetic was still strange to the touch, even through the suit. “Cain, it’s fine.”
Cain looked at Polos, then back at the other two. “…Okay Polos, you gotta tell me what this is about.”
“Alright, Cain. Fine. I know a lot more about this place than I let on. I work for the boss, sure. But I’m not just muscle.”
Polos walked over to Grey Fox. “I know what you’ve done here… Grey Fox”
Grey Fox frowned. This was not something he expected. “Is that so?”
“You found the same thing I did. A universe of pure energy.”
Grey Fox’s eyes widened slightly, and Polos grinned. “Don’t worry, your ego is safe. It was quite a thing you achieved here. Though… trying to harvest this place for energy?”
Grey Fox shrugged. “What can I say?”
Cain pulled Polos back. “I feel like I’m the only one out of the loop here. Another universe?”
Polos nodded. “Yes, Cain. Sorry I didn’t tell you, but this was a need-to-know mission. And I had no idea you would be completing the project this soon.” he said, turning back to Grey Fox.
Cain lowered his gun. “We’re in a parallel universe?”
“Close universe. A universe like ours. This means that we’re cut off from our universe without supplies or backup. Though it looks like we both made mistakes in our research... this is not a universe of pure energy. This is a whole other deal...”
Nai had resigned himself to staring at the floor. “Verva…”
Grey Fox stood, and Cain raised his weapon again. “Our only option is to work together.”
“Polos, we can’t trust this guy.”
“No, we can’t.”
Polos sighed. “But our chances of getting out of here are much better with his help.”
Cain glanced between the cool Grey Fox and the twitchy old man with the gun. “Sure. I’ll have my eye on you, Fox.”
Grey Fox’s eye began to sting, and he blinked, shutting off his HUD. “No need to worry. Survival is foremost in my mind.”
Nai raised the gun again. “You’re not getting off that easy!”
Cain cocked his head at Nai. “Who’s the old dude?”
Polos squinted at Nai. “Nai Mosin? One of the greatest weapons developers of all time. Where’d you find him, Grey Fox?”
“Shut up! He threatened my family… A-and I’m gonna kill him!”
No one in the room moved. Cain laughed. “Nai, you’ve spent too much time behind a computer. Be sensible and put that thing down before you hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself?! Ha! I know exactly how to use this gun. It’s a copy of my design!”
Cain aimed his pistol and fired with inhuman speed and accuracy. The gun flew out of Nai’s paws and clanked to the floor. Nai grabbed his paw and bounced around in pain. Grey Fox darted forward and pulled a device from his coat. He struck Nai with it, and He tensed up. Grey Fox caught him as he fell to the ground. “There. Hopefully he’ll be a bit more stable when he wakes up.”
Cain chuckled. “What is that? A taser?”
“Yes. Now, we need a ship.”
Cain shrugged. “We can’t very well fly our way back to our own reality.”
Polos chuckled. “No, we can’t. What we need is the beam emitter, which is currently mashed into our hull.”
Grey Fox grinned. “The cargo on the ships you hijacked should have enough equipment to get us started. We need to find them.”
Cain holstered his gun. “Assuming they get sucked into this universe with us.”
Polos put his helmet back on. “We’ll just have to look. Cain, get-”
The station rocked violently, and Polos was knocked over. Grey Fox activated his HUD and looked through the walls with the thermal setting on his implant. Through the walls he could see a very large heat signature attaching itself to the station. “We’ve got company.”

~~~

Leo snapped his eyes open. Immediately he tried to stand, but found his legs were stuck on something. He looked down over his body. He was lying on the floor of the cockpit, a computer terminal crushing both his legs. “Dammit! Not again!”
Fieru stumbled into the room. He couched. “Ah! Thank god you’re alright!”
He knelt. “Let me help-”
“No, I’ve got it.”
He sat up and began removing his legs. “This is the third time this year I’ve had to replace these.”
He scooted away, his scarred leg stumps exposed. He looked at the computer a moment, then up at Fieru. “Can you…”
“Oh, yeah.”
Fieru lifted the computer off Leo’s leg and picked them up. “They don’t look too badly damaged… wait a minute.”
Leo and Fieru realized at the same time. Leo barked. “Check our gravity system!”
Fieru checked the computer he had just righted. “Still offline…”
He did a quick hop and looked down at Leo. “Feels a bit heavy to me.”
“What the hell did we encounter?”
Leo did an awkward shuffle-crawl to the pilot’s seat and heaved himself into it. His fingers flew across the keys. “We’ve landed. The computer shows… we’ve been unconscious for an hour. In that time we made an emergency landing on a planet.”
Fieru was beginning to feel uneasy. It was unusually quiet. He crossed his arms and glanced around at the walls. “Atmosphere?”
“Heavy. I think we’ll be fine. Nothing toxic, and it’s oxygen-nitrogen. Give me those. Get me my crutches.”
“Sure thing.”
Leo inspected his legs. The joints were damaged and wouldn’t bend. He tinkered with them a bit, then re-attached them. Fieru passed him a pair of crutches and he stood wobbly. “Damn. I hate these things.”
“We have a wheelc-”
“No. Let’s see where we are.”
Fieru shrugged. “Sorry.”
Leo opened the rear door and stepped out onto the dirt. He and Fieru took a good, long look at their surroundings. They had landed in a shallow valley. The valley was covered in short grass, but near the top of the hills it became much longer, nearly seven feet. There was no sun in the sky, but the place was lit up by a peculiar stream of stars in the sky. As soon at the two noticed it, they couldn’t take their eyes off the phenomenon. Like a rope of pure energy, it moved at incredible speeds and glowed pettily. “Leo… where the hell are we?!”
“I don’t know. We can’t do a scan of our location without being in space. Let’s see if we can’t get off the ground. Leph and the others might still need our help.”
“Right…”
Leo sighed and wobbled back into the ship. Fieru began to walk through the meadow, still gazing at the dazzling light in the sky. “Well I’ll be… I picked the wrong job.”
He pushed through the thick stalks at the top of the hill and looked over it. He froze, then ducked down. “Shit!”
A vessel was flying their way. It slowly passed over valley after valley, shining a light to eliminate whatever dim was left. Fieru had never seen anything like it. There was a mirrored sphere in the center, and not much else. It had a small undercarriage for a light and other small apparatus, but it had no engines to speak of. It hummed slightly as it glided closer over the tall grass. Fieru dashed back to the ship as he heard Leo curse loudly. “We can’t take off!”
“Shh! They’re looking for us!”
Fieru peeked in the ship as Leo turned around. “What? Who is?”
“I don’t know! Maybe the inhabitants of this-”
A light blazed on Fieru’s back. “AH!”
He jumped inside and shut the hatch. “Dammit they found us oh fuck oh fuck-”
Leo grabbed Fieru. “Keep yourself together man! We don’t know if whoever is out there is hostile. It’s probably just the curious locals.”
There was a soft thud from outside. Leo gulped. “Just… let’s wait this out.”
He placed his paw on his holstered weapon. After a few seconds, there were footsteps from outside. Large, heavy footsteps. Fieru extended his claws. There was a moment of silence as the footsteps stopped outside the ship. There were three sharp taps from outside, then a low growl. Leo stepped closer and spoke loudly and clearly. “My name is Leo. Me and my friend Fieru mean you no harm.”
There was another growl from the other side, then a click and the sound of something being adjusted. Then a low voice was heard. “My name is Vaà.”
Fieru and Leo exchanged a shocked glance. “No translation matrix works that fast.”
“I said ten words…”
The voice came back. “Our spoken language creator is advanced.”
Leo stepped forwards. “Vaà, I’m going to open the door now so you can see us.”
“Okay.”
Leo reached out slowly and hit the door button. The hatch slid open to reveal an awesome sight. The seven-foot scaly monster towered over Leo, looking down at him with cold eyes. It opened its mouth and the translation device it was holding spoke. “What are you?”
Fieru stepped behind Leo. “We’re Atrieans. Our empire is pretty big, you must have heard of us.”
“Empire?”
Leo frowned. “Yes… our planets stretch across the stars. We control a good portion of explored space.”
Vaà thing stood motionless for a few seconds. Its deep blue scales sparkled slightly in the starlight. “You are like them. You are like the…”
The machine did not translate the last word, even though Leo was sure Vaà had spoken it. After a substantial pause, the translator said. “… Evil.”
Fieru gulped eyeing the massive talons Vaà had. “Hey buddy, we’re not evil, trust me. We’re just trying to find the rest of our fleet.”
“There are more? Of you?”
Leo put his paw on Fieru’s shoulder. “Let me do the talking. Listen, Vaà, we don’t mean you or your people any harm. We were just about to fix our ship and leave.”
Vaà stood for a second again. Leo and Fieru didn’t see any change in his facial features at all. “You do not speak.”
There was another awkward silence. “Um… We’re speaking right now.”
“Those who do not speak. It is law we bring you before the elders. We have never seen you before. We must assess your threat.”
“Hey- we’re talking right now!”
Vaà stepped back. Leo guessed he had startled the creature by raising his voice. “You are unlike Evil indeed. You do not speak. Yet you are not hostile. I must commune with my elders.”
It turned around slowly, stomping off towards its ship. Fieru spun Leo around. “I have a terrible feeling about this. How can they not know about the Atriean Empire?! They clearly have space-worthy craft!”
Leo shrugged. “I don’t know either. These elders they speak of, they might know something about what happened at the space station.”
Fieru gulped. “I just hope they don’t decide we’re evil and execute us.”
The large creature began lumbering back towards the Rocinante. He spoke as soon as he arrived. “I will take you to see the Ambassador. She will know what to do.”
With that the creature reached out and extended its talons. “Follow me.”
It turned and walked to the sphere ship once more. Leo and Fieru exchanged nervous glances, then followed.

Czyak was afraid now. Whatever that Sytis in the ship was feeling, it was nothing like anything his kinda had communicated before. The Sytis that had just arrived were scared too, and clearly wanted to know what Czyak was afraid of. He tried to recall the feeling, but when he did the other Sytis became distressed and he stopped. They floated nearby the strange ships for a while before Czyak became aware of something: the other Sytis could not feel the Sytis aboard that ship. Czyak turned to them and gauged their distance. From that distance, they should have been able to feel the comforting emotions from the ship. Their confusion increased. “Are you sick?”
Czyak disagreed. “I feel her. Very clearly.”
“Female Sytis?”
“Yes.”
The other ships held back, and a communication came over his radio. “You explore. We will join if there is trouble.”
Czyak agreed. He began to fly towards the ships, looking for an entrance point. He scanned the exterior of the whole thing, not finding any conventional entrances. “I will leave my vessel.”
“Yes.” the other ships replied.
Czyak began to breathe in. He filled his Sytis lungs with air, a process which took several minutes. His chest didn’t seem to swell much, though. He slipped out of the vessel and into space. Extending his wings, he flapped them, pushing himself towards the strange mass of metal. He floated around the vessel until he reached the window again. All the animals in the room scurried back in what Czyak could only guess was fear. What he did know is that some of the animals were holding primitive looking weapons. He reached a talon out and scraped the glass. There was panic inside, and Czyak decided it was a good idea to back off.

“How the hell is it out there is space?!”
Everybody, including Teliko and Cyan, had gathered in the conference room to see the new ships coming in. It was a shock to be sure when a massive creature peeked its head in through the window. From space. Most were terrified, but Serleah stood bravely and looked the thing in the eyes, while Cyan looked on with wonder. Yalogalil showed no emotion. Zach peeked from behind the table. “M-maybe it’s a robot?”
Rico had forgotten his wound. “It looks too real…”
Teliko had a very strange feeling when she looked at the thing. “Wait. I… I think it’s friendly.”
She stood and joined Serleah. Leena dashed out and grabbed her shoulder. “Teliko! I-I think you should stay back.”
“It’s okay, mom! He’s just as curious about us.”
“But how do you know?!”
She smiled at the creature, and it smiled back. Teliko, of course, was the only one that could tell the creature was smiling. “I… I feel it.”
Teliko walked directly up to the window and gazed into the eyes of the creature. Although she could hear no words from it, she felt confusion, a little fear and curiosity. She also felt concern from the thing. Instinctively she reassured the creature that they were alright. It accepted her feelings but became ever more confused. Without talking to it, Teliko had no idea why it was confused. “We need to let him in.”
“No way.” Zach said.
Leph stood tall and walked over to Teliko. “Daughter, I need you to be honest with me. Have you had any headaches lately? Bad ones?”
She shook her head. “No… what does that have to do with it?”
Leena then grabbed Leph’s arm. “Leph, you don’t think…”
Leph glanced at the faces of everyone else in the room. “Stay put. Teliko, Leena, we need to talk.”
Leph led them out. Lenny hadn’t taken his eyes of the creature since it had appeared. Rico tapped his shoulder. “Lenny.”
“What?”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah. It’s… got such a powerful presence.”
Serleah looked worriedly out the door Leph had gone through. She looked to Zach. “Seems a bit familiar, don’t you think?”
Zach nodded. “Yeah.”
Yalogalil narrowed his eyes. “What is this you speak of?”
Rico nodded. “Yeah, what are you going on about?”
Serleah sighed. “Well, if you’ve read about or watched the documentary on Leph… He had some sort of… power a couple decades ago. I made sure to tell Dez all about it.”
Dez nodded. “Yeah. He could predict events before they happened.”
Rico hadn’t heard that. “What? You’re joking. Give us an example.”
Zach shot Rico a dirty eye. “He knew when you took me hostage. That’s how he found us.”
Rico didn’t respond. Yalogalil stroked his chin with both paws. “So the girl… ‘feeling’ that alien. You think his power is passed down?”
Serleah shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the same entity that gave Leph his powers is back, Maybe not. Maybe that alien is telepathic. I don’t know.”
Everyone’s eyes wandered back to the thing at their window, which was still staring blankly at them all.

Leph took the two down the hall a way. Leena stopped him. “Leph, are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?!”
Teliko grabbed both their arms. “Alright you two, stop this! Tell me what’s gotten into you! There’s a weird alien out there and you’re concerned about my head?!”
Leena and Leph exchanged looks. Leph looked down at her, and it reminded her of a time in her past when he would give her that look and try and explain grown up things to her. “Before you were born… Like you probably read… I had an… entity inside me. It was not of our universe and it existed outside time. It told me the future.”
Teliko nodded. “I always doubted that was true.”
Leena gave Teliko the same look Leph was giving her. “It’s true. It’s also true that… Leph died and was brought back. It was probably the entity.”
Teliko brew a breath, then paused. “Wait a minute… The same thing happened to me. I… was healed.”
Leph and Leena looked uncomfortable. Teliko glanced between them. “What? This isn’t bad! I’m like… I’m like a superhero!”
“Honey… I was a target because of what I was. I was nearly killed many times.”
Teliko looked down. “Well… How did you get rid of it?”
“It… left on its own.”
“It was alive?”
Leph nodded. “Yes. It spoke to me sometimes. In my sleep, or sometimes it would… knock me out and speak to me. Has anything like that happened?”
“No… but I have this weird dream I keep having.”
She motioned with her paws but didn’t know what to say. “It’s… uh… I’m in some sort of misty place. I can’t see my body and… this black liquid thing comes and eats me.”
Leph grabbed her shoulders. “What?! Are you sure?!”
“Y-yes…”
Leph hugged her. “Oh, I’m sorry… I did this to you…”
Leena put her paw on Leph’s shoulder. “You don’t know that, Leph. If she hasn’t been spoken to, maybe she just has the gift without the downsides.”
Leph stepped back. “I guess that’s what we have to hope for.”
Teliko turned. “You guys are worrying too much. Let’s go see what that creature wants.”
They began walking back towards the conference room. “How do you know it’s friendly?” Leph said
“I feel it. He’s… curious about us, but he doesn’t want to hurt us.”
Leena nodded. “I trust you.”
Leph stroked his chin. “You’re awfully calm. Are you sure you’re not being effected-”
“No! Dad, I’m fine! He’s out there and he feels fine, so I have no reason to worry.”
She waked confidently into the room and walked up to the window again.

Czyak gazed into the strange animal’s eyes. She was Sytis. He tried to make her understand his confusion, but he was just confusing her. She pointed with her finger to the left, and Czyak turned to look. The animal-Sytis was trying to get him to notice something. He floated away from the window and flapped along the ship again. Eventually he came to a small alcove with brightly coloured strips along its edges. He felt the Sytis approach from behind it, so he waited for something to happen.

As soon as the creature left the window, Teliko walked back out the door. Cyan followed her. “Wait! That was so brave! You just stared it down and scared it off!”
Teliko rounded the door with Cyan and Leena in tow. Leph got out his gun and stopped Serleah from leaving the room. “Watch them. Zach, you too.”
Serleah raised a claw. “But I-”
“Stay.”
Leph went to follow Teliko and the others. Dez sighed. “Leave it, Serleah.”
She sat down. Zach opened his mouth to ask something but Serleah growled at him before he could.
Teliko was making a beeline to the airlock. Before anyone could react, she hit the automatic cycle button and waited. Leph shouldered the gun. Cyan grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I didn’t scare it off, Cyan. I want to meet it.”
“M-m-meet it?! It’s coming through th-there?!”
The airlock hissed and began to open. Cyan hid himself behind Teliko. The massive, blue scaled bulk that stepped through the airlock and gazed at them did not seem to have any ill intents. At least, it didn’t immediately attack them. What it did do, however, was exhale a powerful stream of bad breath. The four recoiled at the stench, and eventually the beast stopped and drew a deep breath. Teliko smiled. “He’s still confused.”
Leph stepped forward. “Can you speak? The ships translators need to hear you before we can talk.”
Leph mimed words coming out of his mouth, and the creature growled. He assumed it was some sort of language and encouraged the creature to speak more. The creature reached for its belt and took out a device. As soon as he turned it on, he spoke. “My name is Czyak. You are strange indeed. I have never known animals to use language.”