Earth Star(15)

‘Something wrong?’ asked Fian.

‘I just realized what I was wearing.’

He grinned. ‘I like it.’

‘Yes, but … What the chaos did the Military think when they saw it?’

‘Calm down, Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘Humanity has met aliens. The Military have more to worry about than your clothes.’

That was true, but I still pulled off my civilian outfit at high speed and put on my new uniform. I adjusted the fit of the sleeves, and attached my Military lookup to the left forearm of the uniform, where it clung neatly in position.

‘Well, at least it will amuse Issette when I’m allowed to tell her.’ I turned around and came face to face with Arrack San Domex. My jaw dropped in shock.

Arrack San Domex is an actor who plays a Military hero in the vid series, Defenders. He’s slim, with long blond hair, and has seriously good legs. I’m a huge fan of his, and enjoy drooling over the sight of him in a tight-fitting Military uniform.

Fian knows all about this. He’s a fan of Stalea of the Jungle himself. His favourite bits are when Stalea has a fight with her boyfriend, loses her temper, throws him across a jungle clearing, and pins him to the ground. It isn’t a Betan sex vid, it’s made in Gamma sector, so the credits roll and the episode ends just as the situation is getting really interesting. Fian likes me to …

Well, my point is that Fian looks a lot like Arrack San Domex. Turning around and seeing Fian in Military uniform … Hoo eee! No, he didn’t look like Arrack San Domex, Fian looked even better than Arrack San Domex!

Fian was looking at my arm. ‘Oh that’s why this lookup is a strange shape. How do you attach it?’

I whimpered.

Fian gave me an odd look. ‘Jarra? Lookup? How do I attach the lookup? We need to hurry if we want to get to the orientation session.’

I whimpered again. A younger and even sexier version of Arrack San Domex was in my bedroom. His perfectly fitting uniform showed off his excellent legs. It was a dream moment, but humanity had just met aliens so I had to go and watch an orientation vid. I was a Military Captain now. I’d just taken an oath to put the needs of humanity ahead of my personal safety and my desire to undress Arrack San Domex.

I sighed. ‘Like this.’

I attached the lookup to Arrack San Domex’s forearm. He checked the time and dashed out of our quarters. I followed him, looking wistfully at his legs. I hated aliens.

We hurried out of the dome and portalled over to Orientation to find Hall 1. We passed several members of the Military on the way, and now we were in uniform they threw us impressively snappy salutes. We did our best to salute back, though at one point Fian overdid his attempt to match their lightning speed, and hit himself on his right ear.

‘Why did they do this to me?’ he asked plaintively. ‘I’m not the Military type. I can’t even salute without knocking myself out.’

I peered through the glass panel in the door in front of me, saw a crowd of people in the hall but plenty of spare seats, opened the door and went inside. I was in a fairly bouncy mood at this point. On a purely personal level things were pretty amaz. I was in the Military! I was a Captain! A benevolent fate had dressed Fian up as Arrack San Domex!

All three of those things were shocking, but in a rather zan way. It was when I saw the huge vid screen at the front of the hall, that the situation abruptly became grimly serious. It showed a perfect sphere, dark grey and featureless except for some strange curved lines on the surface. The sphere was hanging in space above a very familiar planet.

Two things instantly became clear. The Military had the best of reasons for building a base on Earth, and portalling off world wasn’t going to be a problem for me. Humanity had always expected the first alien contact to be made by the Planet First teams selecting colony worlds on the frontier. It hadn’t happened that way. The aliens had come to Earth!





4





Fian had obviously recognized the image of Earth on the screen too. His expression reminded me of Issette when she was pulling one of her buggy-eyed, shocked faces. He looked at me, and then we both instinctively and pointlessly looked up at the ceiling. Somewhere up above us, in Earth orbit, was that enigmatic grey alien sphere.

I remembered Doyle’s words from when I was 12. Encountering an advanced alien species would either be the greatest opportunity in history, or the greatest ever threat to the survival of humanity. Most of my head thought about the second half of that sentence, while the rest of it called itself an idiot. I should have realized the alien contact was here the minute they called in an ape like me, let alone when I found out the Military were building a base on Earth, but it had been ingrained in my mind that humanity would encounter aliens during Planet First explorations in the newest sector, Kappa.