Fabienne Gschwind - Star Map

Finally, the chief of medicine gave the okay, confirming that the aliens posed no bacteriological, virologic, or other danger.

Morchen ordered them into a seminar room.

With a procession of onlookers and a team that looked like a television crew, they entered the seminar room. Next to Morchen was a small alien hiding her face with red metallic paint. And another who wore gray soldier's clothes and covered his face with a mirror-like layer of varnish. The fourth was an alien dressed all in white, whose face showed deep furrows. Again, humans arbitrarily divided the aliens into male and female. After all, it was easier to think in terms of HE and SHE than IT.

Morchen introduced himself. "I am Morchen, Supreme President of the Squeltrem. Next to me is Prial, commander of the soldiers. This is Squlaira, Head of Information." He pointed to the person with the chrome paint and then to the other person with the red-painted face next to him.

The large alien with the metallic colored face was intuitively classified by the humans as him, while the smaller alien with his petite nature was classified by the crew more as a woman. Morchen pointed at the alien dressed in white: "And this is Mantichal, Dean of the Council of Elders.”

Jay wondered to what extent the titles and ranks had been translated correctly.

"Why have you come here? What is your purpose? Do you understand what we are saying?" Squlaira suddenly intervened.

Jay took the floor. He explained who they were and what their mission was. He hesitated for a moment whether to reveal that they were on their own unless he claimed they had backup. Yes, that was best, he quickly made up a white lie and started talking.

But Squlaira could tell something was wrong. She stepped toward him. "Aliens! I am a very sensitive empath, and even though you are a different species, I can feel exactly that you are lying to us."

The humans were stunned and dismayed at the same time. They were dealing with a species that could read their minds! Jay pulled himself together and, in a panic, told the whole truth about the vortex and that they were stranded here.

"What weapons do you have onboard?" the Prial pecked.

Despite Soslindum dampening their emotions, the crew was very anxious, even Jay muscular body shaking in nervousness. Honestly, Jay explained that the ship had no weapons on board, “the only weapons we have are from my private collection. There are various projectile weapons and blank weapons, I can tell exactly where they are. If you wanted to confiscate them...” He seemed very depressed and wondered if he hadn't put the crew in danger with his weapons mania. More simple questions were asked about propulsion and power generation. Here, Joe and Nemo answered succinctly.

“They are telling the truth." Squlaira finished the short round of questions. And the others agreed with her as well.

Morchen flapped his ears and waved another soldier over. "Take them back to their ship, let them rest. In the next cycle, we will discuss further action."

He turned to the humans. "As long as you are peaceful and cooperate with us, we will not harm you. Go!"

As they left the hall, they heard Squlaira grumble, "We should have locked them up."

On the way back, their escort made a huge detour. But that was more to protect them from the many onlookers. Another person had joined the escort and introduced herself as the coordinator and contact person. On the way to the ship, she gave a short introduction to the people.

The aliens called themselves Chrismaxes, a word combination of the Maxmale and Chrismale species, both of which were native to the same planet. The Chrismaxian Empire encompassed 170 planets and three times as many astro-colonies. The Squeltrem was a free trade association. "The free allies" was the literal translation of Squeltrem. Most Squeltrem members lived on similar starships as they were now aboard. There were about 93 of these cube ships—that's what Jay called them—and several astro-colonies and some lunar and planetary bases.

The coordinator, who did not give her name, rambled facts and figures about ship sizes and crew numbers.

Finally, back on Squeltrem, the crew quickly dispersed. "I need to go to the bathroom!" shouted Joe, running off. Nemo took off his shirt and wrung it out; "I need something cold..."

Milo's nurse robot was already on the scene, making sure that the half-dried Milo drank something and taking him immediately to sickbay.

But it was not only a shock for humans to encounter aliens, it was also a traumatic experience for the Squeltrems.

For 4000 years, the Chrismaxes had been doing space travel and except for a few ruins they had never encountered an alien culture.

Morchen had called for an emergency meeting. At least everyone had calmed down that it was not an alien invasion and at least the humans had been very peaceful so far. Now it was time to plan how to proceed.

The three top levels of leadership that led the Squeltrem all had to take medication to help them suppress their extreme need for sleep, so they could discuss the situation further.

This Alien Crisis Meeting was quite different for a change. Usually, there was a lot of bickering because the Squeltrems were deeply divided on a domestic level.

Morchen was considered by all to be the commander, but he had not designated anyone as his successor in case something happened. This went against all traditions and disturbed the stability of the association since exactly three people rightly considered themselves legitimate successors: Prial, Squlaira, and Mantichal.

Thus, all leadership meetings were marked by the dispute between these three individuals and their followers. Morchen did not seem to mind this, he let everyone argue without interference and indiscriminately supported one or another person or opinion. In recent years, however, the angry arguments have given way to small skirmishes and side-swipes, a paralysis held the Squeltrem, people argued out of habit rather than conviction.

The Squeltrem was indeed a trade association of sorts, as Joe rightly suspected, but not an association that operated legally. The Squeltrem was a criminal organization. From smuggling of all kinds, drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and theft or looting. The Squeltrem were nothing more than mafia organized space pirates.

Like humans, where piracy evolved with seafaring, space pirates were active in space travel from the beginning.

Sometimes individual associations, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. They were almost completely wiped out almost 1500 years ago, in the great robot-AI-war. This was a gigantic battle in which the extremely advanced robots and the superior self-learning AI had turned against the Chrismaxian Empire. The trauma and fear of intelligent systems or robots had remained to this day and had left a strong mark on Chrismaxian society.

But back to the Squeltrem. About 600 years ago, an ancestor of Morchen had accomplished the feat of uniting all the pirate associations. Suddenly, the pirate army was strong enough to raid astro-colonies or even target planets.

The heyday lasted until almost 100 years ago. The Squeltrems were feared throughout the empire. Astrocolonies surrendered at the sight of them, and even police or soldiers fled when a swarm of Squeltrem ships crashed into a planet and tore apart a city.

But the Squeltrem rested too much on their laurels, while the Chrismaxian Empire put everything into research to develop better sensors and subspace technology. By the time the Squeltrem realized they could no longer sneak into subspace undetected, it was too late. The Squeltrem's research division was hastily increased, famous scientists were kidnapped, and spies were smuggled into universities and research institutes. But the Squeltrem failed to match the Empire's concentrated research and development. Some of their attacks were thwarted early on because subspace mines invisible to them had been laid. The imperial army attacked Squeltrem moon bases or mined asteroids.