4 days later. OHP Headquarters - Meeting Room 56.

“So… uh… how do I start this?”, Caleb mumbled to himself, helplessly scratching his neck while standing in front of a digital screen and also looking at his little tablet for notes.

Nathan had given him what he had promised, a young team, right from the headquarters and properly trained within these ranks. Two of them were even scientists.

“First off… hello. From today on I’m your general. The name is Caleb Herrera. You can just call me Caleb tho and-”

“Excuse me, Mr Herrera!”

A young girl with pink dyed hair raised her hand, waving it around like she was about to bid someone farewell. Before Caleb could even give her permission to speak she continued.

“Is it true that the specimen you encountered could talk?”

“Yes, that is correct.

“And what did it say?”

“I uh…”

If the attendees in the room didn’t like to pay attention before they were now all ears, especially the scientists.

“To be honest.”, Caleb chuckled a little. “It was making fun of me.”

“Really?”

One of the scientists, a young man with round glasses, now pierced the general with his gaze.

“Are you trying to tell me it was sort of sentient?”

“I… sort of… I guess? See this is why it’s actually good that I get to talk to you guys. I also wanna make sure that I’m not crazy.”

The group started giggling and suddenly the air in the room became less tense for everyone. Caleb’s words had the scientist and his colleague thinking.

“What we observed so far is that the alien creatures are some sort of hivemind. Similar to a pack of wolves they only communicate with each other with noises or some kind of telepathy. The way they hunt is vicious and ruthless… wild beasts. In 10 years we never heard of one talking… Say, how did the specimen look like you encountered?”, the young man then asked.

A good question indeed, because Caleb never gave it so much thought before. He had seen many aliens, but this one did indeed look slightly different.

“The helmet on its head had a different shape. It also had longer hair. The plate-free area on its chest had a different shape as well.”

Caleb eyelids slowly lowered as he recalled his memories, getting lost in them for a bit.

“Its hips-”

“The hips?”, the scientist repeated with a frown. As Caleb realized what his mind was doing he shook his head.

“Anyways… that’s all I recall.”

The room got quiet for a moment as everyone started to collect their own thoughts about this mystery encounter.

“Maybe they are evolving.”

The other scientist suddenly raised her fairly soft voice.

“We don’t know how fast alien species can evolve over a few years yet. Maybe that specimen evolved. After all… they’ve been feasting on human flesh for so long. Who knows what it does with their body. It really makes me curious.”

“Well… it’s our mission to find out. Vice President Nathan wants us to go and find that example again and bring it… back here. The last time I was there, I was the only survivor. Of course everyone gets enhanced gear for this mission, but I can understand if you don’t want to tag-”

Caleb couldn’t even finish his sentence as his new teammates started to raise from their chairs and salute for him. Everyone seemed very eager to join him on this deadly path. 

Great… If any of these young lads were to die it would be on him again. That was something he definitely didn’t want to become a habit.

“Of course… everyone wants to see a speaking alien…”, he mumbled to himself with a sigh. 

Looking back at the screen behind him he realized he didn’t even need a fancy presentation for this as he continued a more elaborate speech for his team. He gave all the details needed for their mission and answered a few more questions regarding his previous mission.

…

“Brace yourselves, team. We will be heading out in two days.”

Somehow he hoped that the specimen was no longer in that cave in Antarctica. But at the same time a weird sensation inside of him got him curious as to how that being would behave at their next encounter.