First Contact Read online

  Forads boasted that they considered their kind a great family. In the Forad mind, it was natural that there was only one common tongue and, as they saw no point in speaking to outsiders when not necessary, their people preferred it that way. Most of the population, except for those born into trading merchant families, declined having the universal translator implanted. Unlike a standard translator available universally through the Intergalactic Union, merchants and diplomats received a specialized implant so they could speak the native language of primitive non-Union species as well as understand it.

  Being a member of a trading family, Ehmhy, like his father and his grandfather before him, thought that was absolute nonsense. He was given a translator at birth and had grown up going on trading trips with either his father or grandfather. Although this species clearly had some primitive tech, he worried about what sort of backwater pit of hell he’d dropped them into. It would probably be best if he tried to blend in and look as inconspicuous as possible.

  Rummaging around in a small storage compartment, Ehmhy cursed. He had to have something that would work. People were forever leaving stuff in his ship. It was his good fortune he hadn’t yet done his regular dump of all the miscellaneous bits and pieces that had collected over cycles. His eyes lit up when he found what he was looking for. The long dark-green cloak had been abandoned by one of his many passengers to and from the space station some time ago. Shoved haphazardly into a storage unit and half-forgotten for cycles, it seemed almost like the hand of the gods at work.

  The cloak, which had been absurdly long on his passenger, dropped no longer than mid-calf on him, displaying the intricate leather side-guards of his sandals. Flashes of his red fur showed between the lacings and on his toes, but it covered the rest of him well enough. He only bemoaned the fact that he didn’t have any weapons stashed on the flight deck. Drawing up the hood, Ehmhy stepped out into the thickly wooded area. He set out at a quick-paced lope, stopping only at intervals to check the tracker on his comm unit.

  When he hit upon a wide river of seamless stone that appeared to be a sort of road, Ehmhy felt elated for the first time since landing. After hours of running, his already beleaguered muscles were burning painfully. As a Forad, he should have been able to keep up the pace for a few more hours, but between the crash and the fact that he spent much of his time in space where that sort of exercise was not required, he was far from peak performance. It was rather embarrassing, and he was glad his pride was salvaged by the fact that none of his kin could see him winded after such a short stretch.

  A road was a blessing. A road meant that there was possible transportation nearby. Inhaling deeply, he caught the tang of food in the air. Where there was food, there would be humans—and possibly a transport. Slapping his legs, Ehmhy pushed himself to pick up speed. The source of the smell couldn’t be far away.

  The early morning sun lit the sky behind a dull white building, the paint faded and peeling in several spots, with cheerful red signs announcing it as Emot’s Diner. Ehmhy inhaled the rich, tantalizing aromas wafting up from the shabby building and his mouth watered.

  He closed his eyes and turned away from the smells, focusing instead on the land-transports parked in front of the building. Several of them had wide, open beds. He was staring at them with uncertainty and exhaustion when a female squealed behind him. The sound was so alarming that Ehmhy’s muscles coiled in preparation for attack, and his ears flattened beneath his hood.

  He turned to face his vocal attacker, and his muscles eased when he saw a strange flat-faced pair of what he suspected to be humans. A mated pair from what his sensitive nose was telling him. The female of the pair, her yellow hair pulled up and back to hang like a tail, smiled widely at him with strange flat teeth. Her fingers clasped around her mate’s arm with excitement as she made that terrible sound again.

  “Oh my lord, Fred! Look at that costume! He must be on his way to Mardi Gras!” She beamed at him with such pleasure it was fairly disconcerting as her rapid-fire words turned to him.

  “Hello! Did your car break down? That’s some rotten luck. The Mardi Gras parade will be starting in just a few hours. We’d be happy to give you a lift. Ain’t that right, Fred?” The female said, elbowing her considerably larger mate.

  Fred, as it happened, didn’t look quite as eager, but he grunted out an “I suppose so” as he eyed him warily.

  “Jump in the back of the pickup if you don’t mind riding in the bed. Cab is full, I’m afraid. But we can give you a lift to the Quarter,” the male grumbled as his mate bounced on her feet with the energy of a fashi, clapping her hands together happily. The male hooked a finger to a blue transport with a wide open-air bed.

  Pulling out a small jewel from his pouch he offered it to the couple.

  “Gratitude,” he rumbled. “Please accept this small payment with my thanks.”

  The female squealed again, and Ehmhy wondered if that was the default noise of female humans.

  “Oh, he’s so in-character! Thank you. We’d be happy to accept your... uh ...payment,” she said with a giggle as she allowed him to drop the blue gem in her palm. “What a funny souvenir for our trip. Stacey will have to take a gander at this!”

  The male rolled his eyes but smiled down affectionately at his mate. Ehmhy suspected the female didn’t know the value of the stone, but the hostility eased in the male at his mate’s enthusiastic pleasure.

  “Well, let’s get on then before we’re late,” Fred said jovially, slapping him on the arm. Ehmhy’s hand went immediately for the hilt of his blaster but froze as the couple walked away. His ear twitched as he watched the male climb into his pickup. It must have been a human male ritual of acceptance. Ehmhy smiled to himself as he quickly made his way to the vehicle and leaped easily into the back. He startled only briefly when the female slid back a glass window and passed a white box to him.

  “Figure you must be hungry if you’ve been walking a while. I swear, my eyes are always bigger than my stomach. I keep saying I should never order an omelet and pancakes when the pancakes make me so full that I can’t manage to eat the omelet I wanted in the first place,” she chuckled charmingly with self-deprecation. “I hope eating it won’t ruin your makeup, but you go ahead and have it,” she said cheerfully just before she slid the window closed again.

  A quick sniff at the box treated him to the smell of what he suspected was some sort of Earth fish species and a perfume of various spices. His stomach complained loudly. He felt a momentary flash of guilt for enjoying something of the sort while his nephew was trapped with emergency rations, but logically he knew he needed to fuel his body.

  He popped the lid open and smiled down at the warm yellow concoction stuffed with what appeared to be meat and vegetables. While there was a chance that something might make him ill, Ehmhy was just too hungry to care. He picked up the small eating utensil lying sideways in the box and stabbed off a section of the omelet thing at its corner. Without hesitation, he shoved it in his mouth and his eyes rolled back as a myriad of flavors burst over his tongue. It was delicious! Ehmhy finished the rest of the offerings and licked the last of the flavor off his fang, savoring it.

  He checked his comm again and was pleased to find they were still heading in the right direction. He didn’t have to part ways with the transport yet. Leaning back against a canvas bundle, he allowed his eyes to close somewhat as he sunned himself in the warm rays shining down on him. He wished he could strip down to his quarat and enjoy the feel of the sun on his fur, but that was too risky.

  As far as he could tell, these humans assumed he was another human in costume for some event. If that made it easier for him to get around, he wouldn’t ruin that illusion. It was unlikely that humans had any contact with other species, and they could react with violence to an offworlder among them.

  He watched the scenery pass, tall trees giving way to grassy stretches as they neared a large stretch of water. When the city rose up, Ehmhy sat up with interest. Humans wer
e everywhere in surprisingly large numbers, which only increased as they moved to what he suspected was the city center. Immediately he was barraged by smells, many pleasant, with a foul odor lingering beneath. His ears twitched as strains of bawdy alien music floated around him; even his tail twitched to the rhythm of ringing tones as they passed a group of performers on the street. The pickup drifted away from it a little until it came to a lot with many other transports. Understanding that this was their stop, he jumped down from the bed.

  “All right. Just walk a few streets over and you should be able to find the start of the parade. Have fun!” the female called as she eagerly pulled her mate down the road, disappearing into a crowd of people. Ehmhy flicked his tail and thought for a moment, glancing down at his comm.

  He scowled. Why wasn’t the tracker working?

  “Ashdru?”

  “How may I be of service?”

  “Analyze the reason for the tracking error for joint comm unit two.”

  “Tracking unit appears to be damaged or offline. The comm itself is operational. Do you wish to contact the joint comm unit?”

  Worry gnawed at him. It was working just fine not too long ago. What could have disabled or damaged the tracking on his nephew’s comm unit?

  “Proceed.”

  The screen flipped open and Ferikal’s wide eyes filled the viewscreen. Ehmhy breathed a sigh of relief, but that was short-lived as he noticed the wild fear in his nephew’s eyes.

  “Uncle Ehmhy,” the male whispered, his voice quivering with distress.

  “Ferikal, what has happened?”

  His nephew pulled back to look around quickly, his ears flattened completely back to his head with anxiety. Then, he pulled the comm unit close again, keeping his voice low.

  “I don’t think they can hear me. They don’t seem to hear too well,” he said absently as if trying to reassure himself. “They are taking me somewhere, Uncle Ehmhy. I don’t know where. They put me in a dark restraining compartment in the back of their transport. I tried to fight them off, but the three males were bigger than me,” he said shamefully.

  Ehmhy’s heart clenched with sympathy. The Forad put a lot of pressure on their young to be brave fighters, and sometimes it was easy for both adults and young to forget that they were exo-fashi-eshal. Ferikal should never have reason to feel shame that he was overpowered by three alien adults.

  “Did they hurt you?” he growled. He would redouble any harm done to his nephew upon his captors.

  “No, Uncle. They restrained me but seemed to be acting carefully to not harm me. It was very strange,” the male said.

  Ehmhy blew out a breath. That was possibly good news. If they were actively going out of their way to do nothing more than restrain a fashi-mu, there was a good chance his nephew was safe enough from harm for the time being.

  “There is nothing we can do at this moment. Comm me as soon as the circumstances change and it is safe to do so. I don’t think they will harm you if they are being so careful, but do not trust them. Be safe until I can find you.”

  “Yes, Uncle Ehmhy,” he mumbled, and the comm viewscreen blinked out.

  Ehmhy growled and clenched his fists. The humans better pray to whatever gods or spirits they honor if they so much as damaged a follicle of fur on the male’s body.

  FERIKAL DUCKED DOWN against the back of the compartment, his body shaking. He just had to wait for Uncle Ehmhy. That would be enough.

  Uncle Ehmhy was bigger and stronger than the aliens, unafraid of anything. His father had told so many stories of his older brother’s exploits that Ferikal had been a bit intimidated when he’d finally met his uncle. He hadn’t thought the older male would want to be bothered with caring for him, especially since he’d gained a reputation over the cycles for being a mischief-maker on the space station in his quest for a bit of fun to relieve his boredom.

  He’d always wanted an adventure planet-side, but this wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.

  He was trying to be brave like his father always taught him, but that wasn’t working out so well. Especially knowing that bravery hadn’t saved his father from being killed. He’d slashed at the males with his claws and tried to bite them when they grabbed ahold of him, but they easily evaded his claws and teeth, other than barely grazing one of the males.

  The aliens smelled strange, and he knew nothing about them other than the brief information and language download Ashdru provided for him when he activated it upon landing. He didn’t dare turn it on again, worried that the humans would take it from him. They already damaged it during their struggle. Ferikal wondered if the tracker would still be operational if he hadn’t tried so valiantly to fight back, ignoring the little soothing noises that the humans made as they attempted to apprehend him.

  Uncle Ehmhy was right, though. They were careful not to harm him, so he should remain safe. The transport shuddered as it went over what felt like hard dips on whatever surface they drove over. Ferikal felt his fur stand on end as he fought for balance.

  He hoped that his uncle would come soon.

  Chapter 3

  Gerry woke up slowly, leisurely even, if she were to describe it. She’d been in no hurry to wake up. Whenever she closed, she never got back to her little shotgun apartment until close to two in the morning, and last night had been no exception. In fact, she felt lucky that it hadn’t taken longer to push her way through the crowd. It had taken all she had to strip herself down before falling onto the bed and immediately sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep. The sun was well up in the sky when she finally peeled her eyes open.

  Yawning widely, she set the kettle on her electric hotplate to boil and pulled out her box of Earl Grey tea. Plucking a teabag from the box, she took an appreciative sniff of it before plopping the bag into her empty cup and moving over to her fridge to pull out the milk. The honey soon joined the milk on the counter beside her teacup. Pushing back her thick mass of dark curls, Gerry tapped out a rhythm on the counter as she waited until the whistle alerted her the water was ready to pour into her cup painted with cheerful magnolia blooms.

  She didn’t waste any time. As the tea steeped, she pulled on an old pair of yoga pants and a sleeveless monster movie T-shirt rocking the wolfman. A classic. By the time she was finished dressing, the tea was ready. Taking the cup with her, she sat on the rear-facing porch and admired the garden and scrolled through her social media on her phone.

  She snorted derisively over a few posts from people swearing they saw strange lights, assuming that it must’ve been UFOs. Aliens... really. The “I want to believe” crowd got weirder every year. She believed in ghosts and the world of spirits and divine beings—the mystic nature and mystery of New Orleans are what attracted her to the city, after all—but aliens were a bit hard to swallow.

  Shoving her phone in her pocket, she went inside only long enough to put her empty cup on her desk before walking back out the door, pulling it shut and locking it behind her. Looping her key around her neck, Gerry headed down toward the Quarter. For weeks now, there had been some sort of festivity or parade going on during the weekends, and now that it was finally Mardi Gras day, Gerry was nearly Mardi Gras-ed out much to her surprise. Initially, she’d loved the activity, the pageantry, the costumes, the fun. But it was also exhausting working around that every weekend, often for very long hours.

  Still, she wanted to see at least part of the main event. Besides, she did promise to split a king cake with Krissy.

  Wading through the congestion on the street, Gerry retrieved a cake from the bakery after standing in line for an inordinate amount of time. It was late afternoon and the activity of the crowds was steadily increasing, despite some of the local families who attended the earlier parades with their children heading home. Already people were starting to get rowdier. Being a short and curvy sort, Gerry did her best to weave out of the way of the more rambunctious tourists.

  She didn’t make it very far when she was nearly knocked off her feet by a tal
l guy in a heavy cape. A gloved hand darted out and grabbed hold of her arm before she could kiss the pavement. By some miracle, she managed not to drop the cake either.

  Once again steadied on her feet, Gerry studied the guy holding her arm. His makeup job was phenomenal! His pale blue eyes widened before darting around as people brushed up close against him, some more brusquely than others. She swore she heard a low hiss come from the guy. He really was getting into his part. She wondered if he was with a krewe or just dressed up for fun. Some people did that, although party hats, masks, and cheap plastic beads were more the norm among the crowds. He could even be a street performer.

  A woman wearing next to nothing, with her private bits mercifully covered, wrapped an arm around him. Holding what looked like a hurricane cocktail in one unsteady hand, she giggled into his side.

  “A kitty cat man,” she giggled. “I like cats. Wanna be my date, handsome?”

  The hand gripping Gerry tightened as panic crossed his face. She would have laughed if she didn’t feel sorry for him. He was quickly trying to detangle himself from the woman’s groping arms without hurting her. He was obviously politer than she deserved.

  Gerry’s annoyance at the woman rose another notch as she clung tighter and practically shouted a few lewd suggestions that had her new friend releasing Gerry to fight her off with more gusto. She paused for a moment to admire just how agile he was. But even though she was completely drunk, his new admirer managed to go octopus-arms on him with a surprising amount of dexterity.

  She had to give the guy props for being gentle rather than just laying the bitch out.

  Gerry had enough. Setting her cake on a nearby table where it would be safe, she gripped the woman by the shoulders and peeled her off with a muttered curse.