“Baxter are you okay?” Miller’s muffled voice broke through my consciousness and I slowly open my eyes.

The whole apartment was a mess, clothes and belongings thrown everywhere and a steady stream of water was leaking into the room.

“We didn’t die?” I asked, blinking in the semi-darkness at the General.

He clicked opened his harness and fell to the ground, blood was dribbling out of a wound on his forehead “Not yet, we need to get off the ship now. Admiral James set us to crash into Taviiin, so we need to get out of here before we completely sink.” He unbuckles me, lifting me, carefully arranges my body, so my leg is in a comfortable position.

Taviiin? If I remember correctly it’s a planet that was recently colonised by an Alliance race… isn’t crashing on an occupied planet going to cause us a few issues?

Miller shifts so he can somehow reach his communicator with one hand while balancing me in one arm “This is Miller, can we get a rescue team out here ASAP? We are still stuck on Attenborough, casualties unknown.” I held my breath for a second, if the rest of the pods landed planet side they should be in range to hear him, if they aren’t being held at gunpoint by disgruntled aliens of course.

“Alex?” That was Admiral James’ voice! It lacked his usual authoritative tone though “Thank the gods, A team of our men and some Caaknai are en route, ETA 5 minutes.” With that Admiral James hung up.

The Caaknai are helping recovery efforts- that’s a good sign, right?

I know very little about the other races in the Alliance, didn’t fancy doing the homework. What I do know is they’re a semi-aquatic race and have similar features to humans and don’t speak using vocal cords in the same way we do but rather clicks so it makes translating between languages a bit more difficult.

Miller sets me down carefully and walks out of the apartment- no doubt checking the other rooms for survivors.

The reality of the situation hits me like a freight train, 18 years ago when the Deus finally made contact was a very tense time. Thankfully because of how long they observed us they made peace quickly, they were like angels, passive and kind.

Were we fools for trusting them? I shook my head, no. They’re a peaceful race no doubt about it, whatever is happening here will be solved, perhaps it was a human faction? Angry that we are relying so heavily on aliens. There was certainly some resistance back on Earth about trusting aliens, I remember the riots and outrage when the Deus offered us a place in the Alliance and requested that only a few members of the military join- they don’t like secrets and tried to keep hostilities to a minimum.

That’s it, it must be our own causing chaos. It wouldn’t surprise me.

The door zips open and Miller returns, right behind him there is another figure, it’s eyes bright orange.

My eyes stay trained on the strange eyes, Miller is talking but I’m not listening, the Caaknai is tall and thin, its skin is a beautiful iridescent green with darker ridges running over it’s body and slits for a nose.

The alien gives me a small smile and walks past Miller towards me causing my heart to beat a little faster. Strange.

“Hello, help you with your injuries?” His voice is gentle but bizarre, lips moving in an unusual way as he talks.

He cocks his head at my silence causing me to blush- I was staring. “Okay, thank you.” I smile back, quickly looking away towards the General.

Miller has his arms crossed over his chest, a slightly amused tilt on his lips “As I was saying, this is Rue. Most of the pods made it back safely but there’s a lot going on, so I need to leave you with him for now while I help the others.” He gives a small nod and leaves us alone.

Rue pulls a small needle out of a bag attached to his waist causing me to pull back suddenly “What is that?!” A smile pulls at his round lips as he takes in my reaction.

“I make medicine, human bones are weak so let me help, please?” He blinks his… three eyelids at me and I relax slightly, he seems nice.

“Okay, thank you.” I try to focus on my breathing as I watch his slender fingers mix a load of chemicals together, they are webbed up to the first knuckle.

I’ve never met an alien face to face- not unusual as the Deus only showed themselves physically to a select few back on Earth, and I’m fascinated by this one. His eyes are three times the size of ours and almost appear catlike. Rues fingers run along my leg, assessing the damage done, lips downturned slightly.

“This is bad, Baxter you must be in a lot of pain.” I smile at the concern in his voice.

“It doesn’t hurt that much. Honestly with how everything went down I think I’m just a bit… numb to it all? My head is really banging though.” I shut my eyes, only realising just how much my head was hurting. Cool fingers run through my hair causing my eyes to snap open again and look deep into Rue’s very close eyes, heart speeding up. It’s only because this is the first alien I’ve met I try to convince myself, nerves and nothing more. I definitely don’t have the hots for the weird frog aliens. “Call me Esmeralda or Es, Baxter is so formal,” I let out a small chuckle, cheeks reddening further. You stop that, I scold myself.

My eyes stay trained on his lips as he talks “Es… Es you have a lot of blood in your… what is this?” He frowns at my hair.

Laughter bubbles up in my chest, of course the bald aliens have no word for hair, without thinking I grab hold of his hand that’s still tangled up in it, “Hair, honestly it’s kind of just for decoration now, but may I ask… Why have they sent a Caaknai doctor to treat a human? It seems a bit… odd.”

His eyes meet mine “I am not a doctor, but I know medicine. And you have no spare doctors, many injured, rest of my unit are removing uninjured while Miller and a few humans tend to the dead and grievously injured,” he rubs his fingers against mine slightly “my job description does not cover rescuing aliens that crash land on my planet, but we make do.”

He tries to tease lightly but I almost don’t hear him, dead? How many? Noticing my expression Rue quickly removed his hand and stabs me in the leg with the needle causing me to yelp.

“What the fuck?!” I squeak at the sudden pain, glaring at the alien.

He grins broadly “Sorry but you have got a bone sticking out of your leg and lots of blood coming from your hair. If you die I will get in big trouble.” I look down surprised and notice there is in fact a lump on my leg, jeez how did I not notice that? “the medicine works fast so you will feel nothing very soon, I need to get you out before the water gets any higher- you only have one set of lungs after all.

Shocked I look down to see that the room was in fact rapidly flooding, that knock to the head really did a number on me I think, irritated.

He was right about the medicine, soon a warm feeling spreads throughout my body and I grin up at the Caaknai “I like your skin” I giggle, running my finger down his face.

He grins back at me “Thank you, your skin is also nice” he’s laughing at me I think to myself, but I’m too far gone to really mind “Put your arms around my neck please, now it won’t hurt I will take you to human doctor to fix you.”

I quickly do as he says, leaning my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes, enjoying the way I’m swaying and the fuzzy feeling engulfing my body.

I groan, my whole body is aching, a dull beeping is going off next to my head. I crack my eyes open slowly and look around the room- bright and white, a woman is stood in the corner talking to two Caaknai's. Oh no. Rue looks to me and smiles as I recall what I said before I fell unconscious. Who the hell tells a random alien they have nice skin? I sound like a goddamn serial killer. I shut my eyes again and lean back, lifting my hand to cover my face in embarrassment.

“Miss Baxter? Are you in pain?” I hear the scurrying of feet as the woman approaches, I let my arm drop and look at her.

“I’m fine, can you please tell me what’s happening?” I’m speaking to her, but my eyes betray me and seek out Rue again, he’s still grinning.

She pulls out a light and shines it in my eyes while speaking “Honestly miss I’m not too sure what’s going on. Captain Rue has just informed me Admiral James and General Miller are in a meeting with the Caaknai and Dues to try to sort this whole… mess.” Tears well up in her eyes and she quickly wipes them away “All I know is whatever happened on the ship was very intentional, most civilians have no idea what is happening so there’s a lot of panic.”

I look back towards the woman, she’s wearing the brown uniform of head medical staff and a name badge that reads Doctor Elizabeth Faraday. “How many are worse off?” I mutter quietly to her, noticing that Rue had appeared by my bedside while I was distracted.

“Of the 579 on board… six pods are missing, 54 confirmed dead. Many more in critical condition” Her communication device flashes “Excuse me, I’m needed elsewhere.” She gives a smile to both of us and hurries out of the room.

Six pods? That’s potentially another 60 lives gone, was Silas on one of those pods? I look to Rue, what was he even doing here? Doctor Faraday called him Captain Rue, so he must be of some importance. I take a deep breath, I haven’t got time to mourn the lost yet, must find out what happened to Silas and the others I was close to!

“Why are you here?” I ask Rue, he smiles at my bluntness.

“Apologies, I came to check in on you after dropping you off a few hours ago. I’ve learnt a lot about your species, you are all very impressive.” He sat on a chair next to the cot I was on “I assumed you were military so was shocked when General Miller told me ‘wrong place, wrong time’, you are very brave indeed.” His fingers skimmed mine gently in a comforting fashion. “General Miller thinks highly of you I think. Are you family? Perhaps mates?” He cocks his head at the question, causing me to frown.

“No… I’m um… mate free?” I cringe at the word, this is so awkward. “and we aren’t related either.” I finish, burning red.

He stands up with another pat on my hand “okay, I must admit when we received word that the new aliens were going to crash on our brand-new planet- my Commander nearly blew you up.” He looked a bit embarrassed at that admission “but we have been a part of the Alliance for a long time- we trust the Deus so if they say humans good… the humans are good.” I must return to the Commander now, please excuse me.” With that, he sauntered out of the room leaving me alone with my thoughts.