Travelling at hyperspeed across the unfathomable distances of spacetime was another thing Marcus Dain never thought he’d ever experience, but his new life seemed to yield a surprise every day.

  As he looked through the window on his stratoship, he saw one of the planets of the Lysandros system. A greyish rocky planet on the far reaches of the system. The brilliant ice blue light from the luminous star made its surface glow a faint blue. It never ceased to amaze him how tiny the vastness of the universe made him feel. And yet, even this one hyperlane jump, which was a few light years at best (tens of trillions of miles), was nothing compared to the gargantuan distance between galaxies, and galaxy clusters beyond that.

  It truly made one feel completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

  Eighty-four days at hyperspeed it had taken to get from the Aureon system to the Lysandros system. He used some of the time to relax, to enjoy the peculiarities of hyperlane travel. How the stars became long, silver strands of light as the ship jetted off out of the system through a whirling tunnel of blueish, silver light. For a brief, stomach-dropping moment, it felt as though the entire ship had been yanked by some invisible hand. Marcus’s fingers dug into the armrest, and a faint tingle ran across his skin like static electricity dancing along his nerves.

  The cabin lights had dimmed slightly, replaced by the ambient glow of the hyperspace field outside. Beyond the window, the star lines shimmered and swirled, a kaleidoscope of motion and light. Every now and then, faint pulses of blue energy rippled across the void, sparking like distant lightning.

  Thankfully, his personal stratoship came with a GCI interface in its own little snug command room. Once the initial excitement of the trip had worn off, he plugged himself into it mainly to speed up the travel time but also to attend to his duties of managing his empire, including constructing ships, buying Heavy Compounds on the market to construct even more ships, and viewing his research crafts charting and exploring further systems, then sending in the engineering vessels to claim them for Neptura with orbital command centers.

  But his trip here was not random.

  Valen’s commando operation had been a success which was a huge relief to him. As the diplomats and Claric’s department still tried and failed to ‘officially’ make contact with the Eryndal Anomalies, a squadron of clone commandos successfully apprehended one of the aliens and whisked it away on one of their ships, taking it to a research facility that orbited a gas giant in the Lysandros system, where Marcus was headed right now.

  It was alien life. In his hands. He wanted to see the specimen for himself. It would have been easy enough to read the scientists’ reports about it or see it via video. But it aroused a childlike fascination within him. What will it look like? he wondered. At first he imagined some little green man out of a film, but it could look completely bizarre. A monstrosity with tentacles and five mouths. It could be anything.

  It took several more days of travelling through the system before he reached the gas giant, Lysandros 6, a ball of swirling green and white gaseous storms, surrounded by a massive rocky ring, and docked into the research facility hovering above it. A tall, pointy metal building with some cylindrical metal structures jutting out of its sides, glowing with blue lights. Some smaller spacecraft whizzed around it like little firebugs, making way for the Grand Archon’s stratoship to dock into the bay.

  Once the ship docked, Marcus stepped off the ramp into the hangar. His polished black boots clattered softly on the steel floor, and a small retinue of masked clone guards in sleek matte armour awaiting him clicked their heels and saluted as he walked by. The pungent fume of some kind of gasoline invaded his nose, mingling with the hiss of ships landing and taking off around the bay.

  Claric greeted him by a door at the back of the hanger. His long wavy hair caught the sterile fluorescent light as he stepped forward. He looked quite eager, clutching a datepad against his chest as though it were some hidden treasure. “Excellency,” Claric said, bowing his head briefly before falling into step beside the Grand Archon. “You’re in for quite a treat. The specimen is… remarkable… Yet it may surprise you.”

  “I’d be disappointed if it didn’t surprise me.” Marcus arched his brow. The curiosity almost overwhelmed him. Seeing an actual alien—who would have thought! “Don’t tell me it's a blob of green slime.” That would be quite lame, all things considered.

  A thin smile crawled across the clone’s lips as they walked through the luminescent corridors of the research center. “Far from it, excellency. I believe you’ll find it both fascinating and… troubling.”

  “Troubling?” Marcus stopped, his ice blue eyes narrowing on Claric.

  The scientist held up a calming hand. “You’ll see, excellency.”

  “Hm.” Marcus resumed his pace, his curiosity unshaken, though a growing sense of unease stirred within him at Claric’s warning. Troubling? What could that possibly mean? he thought, wanting to bite his nails. Could they be more powerful than us? Far more advanced? They continued on through the facility’s immaculately clean metal halls lit by the cool glow of LED lights. The occasional hiss from steam vents or the clanking of automatic doors broke the quiet. Marcus caught glimpses of several labs as they walked. Clones in white lab coats working at monitors, holotables, and desks laden with curved glass tubes full of colourful liquids. One lab looked to have no gravity because a lot of objects inside floated around slowly. Some of the clone scientists glanced up at him as he passed, their faces identical to his own. Only their hair and beards were different, and some had tattoos for an extra sense of individuality.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Eventually, they came upon a thick, reinforced white door. A glowing keypad blinked as Claric dialled some numbers into it. The door hissed, sliding open, and revealed a chamber bathed in dim, sterile light. At the center of the room, a containment field shimmered faintly, encasing a lone figure hunched over on its knees.

  The door shut behind them. Marcus froze, eyes widened and mouth agape.

  The creature kneeling before him was no blob of slime or tentacled monstrosity, no little green man with big black eyes. It was a humanoid. Unnervingly humanoid. Its slender, lean frame was clad in a dark blue mesh suit that clung to its skin. It reminded Marcus weirdly of something one might wear to the gym, except it was ingrained with hexagon patterns and had some strange module knitted onto the chest. Maybe it was some kind of space suit—this thing was a miner, after all. The alien’s skin was pale, much like Marcus’s own. Its long flowing hair was dyed with streaks of silver and violet, catching the light like threads of silk. Two long, pointy ears pierced the hair like the dorsal fin of a shark sticking out of water. But it was the eyes that held Marcus captive. Glowing orbs of blue and lilac, twinkling with silver. A lush cosmic wave swirling within their depths.

  The alien craned its neck up and inspected both of them with a blank, nearly hostile face.

  “What the fuck?” Marcus turned to Claric while the containment field buzzed with static energy. “It looks… It looks almost human?”

  “Yes,” Claric said softly, looking at something on his datapad. “That was my first thought, too. Most curious. The differences between him and us are subtle but undeniable. The elongated ears and the strange glow of its eyes are the main difference. The skeletal structure is remarkably similar, though… It’s as though evolution played a similar hand, only with a different deck of cards.”

  The alien glared at them, its strangely beautiful eyes narrowed in fierce defiance, and it started barking something in its strange tongue. The voice was clearly non-human. It sounded melodic in a way and carried some sort of faint echo. Though the venom glazing the strange words was unmistakable.

  Marcus only grinned at it. “It looks like an elf.”

  Claric turned to him with a raised brow. “An elf, excellency?”

  “They are mythological creatures told in folktales back on my homeworld,” Marcus clarified. He bowed, getting a closer look at the alien as it spewed its incomprehensible insults at him. “You’re just an elf, aren’t you? A little star elf.”

  “I can’t say I’m familiar with such a concept,” Claric replied, looking at something on his datapad. “Though we have yet to designate the aliens a proper name. We can use your term, if you permit?”

  “Sure,” Marcus said, standing back up with his hands behind his back. “Why not? I take it you’ve had no luck translating any of this gibberish?”

  “Not yet,” the clone admitted. “Our linguists work around the clock, but this language is unlike anything in our database. Deciphering it even to a basic understanding could take weeks. Months, even.”

  The star elf stood up and stepped closer to the edge of the containment field. It bared its teeth, snarling as it waved an angry fist around. Then, with a sudden motion, it struck the invisible barrier. The containment field flared, emitting a high-pitched screech as ripples of light cascaded across its surface. The alien winced, falling on its ass from the force of the shock, though its deathly eyes never went off Marcus for a second.

  “So, they are hostile,” Marcus said, folding his arms. “Unfortunate yet hardly surprising. In nature, the first instinct is always to fight. Peace tends to be the exception, not the rule.”

  “I sense more than hostility, excellency,” Claric said with a cautious tone. “There seems to be some disdain, almost hatred. I think this creature sees us as something lesser.”

  Marcus tilted his head, studying the star elf. “Well, it’ll have to get used to disappointment. It is the guest of the Grand Archon of Neptura, whether it likes it or not.”

  The door behind them hissed open, and a clone officer wearing a sleek grey tunic and trousers ran toward Marcus, clicking his heels and saluting when he approached. “Your excellency. There is an urgent message for you from High Command.”

  Marcus frowned, turning away from the star elf. “What is it?”

  “The Eryndal Anomalies, sir,” the officer said quickly. “Their fleets appear to be taking a hostile stance to our own. We fear an attack may be imminent.”

  A painful knot twisted in his stomach, and his words got caught in his throat. He tried to keep a stern face but could not restrain the tremble in his hand, hidden behind his back. “I see. I’ll consult with my councillors from my stratoship, thank you.”

  The officer saluted once more. “Glory to Neptura.” Clicked his heels, turned, and left.

  “Come, Claric,” Marcus said, stealing a glance back at the star elf in the containment field. It watched him with an unwavering gaze, sending a chill down his spine.

  They strode out of the chamber in silence. This is the first real test of my leadership. I’ve provoked them to strike first, and now they must be beaten. Failure means my death, and I cannot die, lest I live forever.