The art was a suggestion that a friend said I should do. The story is of my own design.

This story is about the discovery of the species and their home, it contains no lewdness and no mature language.

She sits on a bench at night with all her belongings in a foreign suitcase. She wears alien clothes and knows their language and how to use their technology, but it still seems like it's not real. Her world was dying before; now the aliens have said that they will revive her world in exchange for societal integration and the use of their star system as a spaceport at the edge of the galaxy (deep in the boonies). It's been only 7 years since the aliens began working on their "integration.". However, it's been said that the aliens mostly just wish to make amends for the mistakes of the past and will leave her world alone. They say that they wish only to bring life to her planet, but she's unsure. She's about to spend the next 10 years abroad in the inner system to meet with government and company officials as a representative of her people. Not all her people live different lives than those many years ago. Just those that seek to keep the aliens meddling to a minimum.

The aliens arrived 120 years ago as survivors of the Praxiteles cataclysm that left a company of 7 stranded on the dying planet with her people. The aliens had been working as the crew of a mining transport vessel known now as the long-lost Kouros. The Kouros had undergone extensive damage at the hands of being a last-minute attempt at trying to secure some assets on the mining world, Praxiteles. It was discovered that the world would be destroyed by a rogue meteor's collision with the surface. The crew was late upon arrival to Praxiteles and only managed to load 80% of the equipment they were sent to retrieve. The equipment was mostly mining machinery and surface vehicles used for ore transport, which were costly to replace along with some irreplaceable "sensitive company data" that was housed locally in the main facility.

Against immense company opinion that the crew complete the entire retrieval, Captain Derrick Tarsk of the Kouros made the executive decision to call the mission off early due to the very imminent destruction of Praxiteles. Even with the mission being called off early, the Korous and its crew never made orbit before Draxus collided with the surface of Praxiteles. It wasn't until a surveyor picked up the Kouros' distress beacon 70 years later that it was thought that the ship and crew were still possibly out there, as no wreckage of the ship was found by local surveying satellites in the Praxiteles system. At first it was thought to have been a ghost signal or a repeated serial code, but current company executives were hard pressed by the public to rectify their actions after the information that they had intentionally almost doomed the Kouros and its crew went public when a high-level company board member leaked the transmission logs in his retirement.

The company, along with the government, sent a cooperative expedition to see where the black box of the Kouros ended up and why it was transmitting 70 years later...


Mission Log: Transcript by Kouros and shuttle link net. 224.Kouros/local/F/backup/blackbox/backup/logs/computer condensed/13

During the Cataclysm of Praxiteles, Captain Tarsk and his crew managed to all make it aboard the Kouros. However, when they began to ascend, the computer informed them that the finalized trajectory of the meteor Draxus would directly intercept the pre-ordained flight path of the Kouros. In a last-minute ditch effort, Tarsk ordered navigation engineer Na'ra Pholore to override the computer's restrictions to allow for a system jump within Praxiteles' atmosphere. The result was that the Kouros missed the known jump paths and spent the next 20 years in warp approaching an unknown destination. Tarsk again made the decision to continue the vessel's warp journey as he believed that the alternative of crashing out of warp was too risky to be attempted. Eventually, however, the food stores of the Kouros had been depleted, and the vessel was not capable of continuing warp travel for any longer. For 20 years the crew of the Kouros merely survived in the confines of their vessel.

With only a few weeks worth of food and fuel left, Captain Tarsk made the willing decision to crash out of warp. To the crew's relief at not immediately being annihilated by crashing into a heavenly body, the Kouros de-warped in a G-class trinary system with 3 exoplanets. After a brief system scan, the crew had access to the basic information of all planetary bodies within range. The first planet was locked in the largest star's orbit at such a close degree that it was noted to be completely uninhabitable and incapable of being terraformed by future expeditions. The other two planets were earth-like to some degree. At the extremely improbable possibility that any body within range was habitable, Tarsk spent the next two weeks surveying the smaller of the two Earth-like exoplanets. However, it was found that the smaller of the two was both incapable of supporting life and that tracking its orbit revealed that it frequently went into dangerously close approaches to two or all three stars for about an earth month on intervals of every 30 years.

The last of the exoplanets was a super-Earth, which was approximately 118.73% the mass and size of Earth. The landmass of the planet was desert-like. Yet, the planet still contained icy polar regions and large ocean-like bodies of water and an atmosphere that was breathable but considered rather thick for humanoid life, containing 107% the concentration of oxygen, which is native to Earth's atmosphere. The exoplanet had a unique orbit where it orbits around the two smaller stars and occasionally goes in between the two and the larger 3rd star.

After quadruple checking for any probable inconsistency in the survey data (which was extremely likely with such a system as the Kouros' survey equipment was known to be faulty, however the company never allocated the funds to service it as it was not deemed mission critical for a repurposed mining transport.) Tarsk concluded that it would be the best option for the survival of the crew to attempt to land the shuttle on the surface of the planet. The Kouros would remain in stable low orbit of the planet as it no longer had the fuel reserves to make surface contact itself. The shuttle and the Kouros would continue to have communication with one another, and the systems of the Kouros would be fully controllable remotely from the shuttle on the surface. The day after the decision was made, the crew began loading the transport shuttle with all the possessions of the crew, what little food they had, two All-Terrain Exo-Vehicles (ATEVs), and an antique limited edition Halfdan 1800cc Utilicycle, which has a very possibly unethical origination from the compound on Praxiteles. However, the utilicycle was never logged, and the sensory data of the shuttle seems to be corrupted, so it is not clear how the utilicycle made it aboard the Kouros.

The landing location of choice was in the northern hemisphere. midway between the equatorial region and the polar regions of the planet, specifically on the other side of a mountain range at the borders of one of the planet's oceans. Colonization protocol states this is a safe location to look for, as tidal consistency is not something that instruments can predict well from orbit, as unexpected tsunamis would be stopped by the mountain range.

Day 1:
On setting down in the sand dunes, it took 6 hours and 21 minutes till Tarsk and his crew found life in the form of an "Ahshpicar." Although early logs report it as having many names inconsistent with one another, the matter of naming the creature was eventually resolved. For the continuation of this and any future logs, the creature will be known as an "Ahshpicar." An "Ahshpicar" is described by the crew's maintenance technician, Lori Coldeck, as "an extremely large, territorial, carnivorous, subterranean antlion crossed with a constrictor snake the size of a two-story house."

The confrontation occurred when machine tech Alden Wisk took the small 2-seater ATEV to locate a path through the mountains to the ocean. Alden and the ATEV made it just 50 yards from the shuttle when an Ahshpicar surfaced and violently capsized the ATEV. Wisk was not wearing the mandatory safety harness at the time and was catapulted from the ATEV's open cockpit. The Ahshpicar clinched at the ATEV with its massive mandibles and dragged the entire vehicle down below the surface along with the provisions that Wisk had stored within the vehicle. Tarsk and Pholore managed to retrieve Wisk as he was only a few meters from the shuttle; however, upon doing so, they—out of precaution—shut down all systems and movements aboard the shuttle. The logs that follow consist of the computer's understanding of what happened during its offline hours by referencing data between the crew's biomonitoring devices, personal logs, and Pholore's Link implant.

The crew had waited for another 6 hours whilst diagnosing Wisk with a compound fracture in his tibia, multiple broken ribs, and a concussion. At the end of the 6 hours, Coldeck decided to use one of her personal possessions to gauge whether the Ahshpicar was still there. Coldeck was a robotics enthusiast and maintained a small array of trinkets and small electronic machines. Among her possessions was a small quadcopter drone that she made from parts that were "illegally cannibalized" from the contents of the Kouros' cargo hold.

Flying the drone outside the shuttle's open bay and over to the site of the capsized ATEV was simple for Coldeck. However, upon reaching the site, the drone was knocked out of the air by a large cloud of sand and rocks, which were thrust up by the Ahshpicar, still lying in wait.

Day 2:
The next morning it was noted that Coldeck's damaged drone was placed upon the ramp leading into the shuttle. However, the shuttle's systems were offline, so the security cameras were also off and unable to see how the drone was retrieved. This triggered a line of questions from the crew and a short, semi-violent altercation between two crew members, which was ultimately quelled by Captain Tarsk.

Day: 3
It wasn't until the morning after the drone was reacquired that the means of its delivery were made apparent. Lying in the sand at the base of the ramp were several small stones and what Coldeck was able to determine was a carnivore's fang/tooth and a few pieces of bone from an unknown species. The stone-like items were arranged in what the crew determined was an artistic representation of the local landscape, including the shuttle, the mountains, the ocean on the other side, and what appeared to be not one but 4 Ahshpicars within the area. Although the other 3 were much further away from the shuttle according to the map (assuming the map had some sense of scale, as an image was never uploaded to the computer for reference).

Not knowing what to do with this information, the crew decided to wait within the shuttle and prep the second ATEV for another venture. The crew agreed upon waiting one more day to see if the unknown sentient being that was visiting their shuttle would come back again. This time Captain Tarsk stood at the edge of the ramp in the dark of night waiting. At approximately 23:00 of the 27:00 long rotational cycle of the planet, Tarsk made first contact.

Staring into the sand at the base of the ramp, Tarsk saw in the dark a tall, thin, bipedal figure with a long, serpent-like tail. The figure was clad in cloth wraps and carried a medium sized object in both arms. Tarsk claims in an audio log of his experience after the encounter that "about 30 seconds into this encounter the creature looked up into the dark of the shuttle bay where I was standing and locked its large yellow eyes with mine, and it froze like a stone. Not even its chest could be seen moving with the effort of breathing. I had not thought that anything would have been able to see me standing in the near pitch dark of the bay, but that... thing... It saw me very clearly... probably more clearly than I saw it. We stood there staring at each other for what I gauge to be about 20 minutes by references to when I checked my watch. In that time I tried to visually scan the figure for as much as I could, but all I could discern were the previously noted details in the log. The creature appeared to study me back, but I feel like the gaze was almost one of a predator that's stalking prey. The thing's reflective eyes scanned me up and down extremely briefly a few times, and its slit pupils occasionally darted around the inside of the bay. Its eyes seemed to be placed at odd angles, almost like they were on the side of its head rather than at the front, unlike other humanoid species. Although with the awkward angle of the eyes, it leads me to believe that its head was pointed downwards, and this was possibly the only way for it to look at me with both its eyes. Even though the creature seemed to be looking around, its piercing gaze always returned to me. This staring stand-off was ongoing until Wisk—who was still in the back of the bay on a cot—coughed in his sleep and went into a wheezing fit. I startled at the cacophony in the silence and turned to look in his direction by reflex rather than conscious thought. In this brief moment the creature set down the object it was carrying and was gone by the time I turned back around. I couldn't even hear it set the item down or its retreat."

Day 4:
The item remained on the sand at the base of the ramp until approximately 6:00 the next day, when Tarsk personally retrieved the object that the creature had left. Upon inspection, it was immediately apparent that the object was a form of basket that was made using ancient weaving techniques. The basket was fairly heavy according to a comment from Tarsk, as it contained what appeared to be 2 large crustaceans that were almost identical to Chionoecetes opilio from Earth, also known colloquially as "snow crabs.". Although the crabs looked like snow crabs, they were larger; how much larger approximately was not noted by any crew member, as none had previously seen a real snow crab in person. The basket also contained a small waterskin full of what the crew deemed to be a form of plant juice and a small tied-off pouch that contained a handful of small deceased insectoid creatures resembling ants, which Pholore promptly ejected from the confines of the open bay upon inspecting it.

The systems of the ship were briefly reawakened on auxiliary status, and the microwave was used to cook the crabs. The plant juice was not consumed as it was more likely to be something not safe for consumption. An advisory warning against the probable effects of eating alien food was put forth; however, the crew elected to ignore the warning as they decided to eat the crab-like crustacean. The water reclamation unit was also briefly activated but again deactivated when the power was shut off to the shuttle's systems.

After the crew shared the alien meat, they determined that it would be best to make relations with the creature that had provided the much-desired rations. It was understood that the creature was sentient and possessed intelligence at least equal to that present in primitive cultures. If the creature could be bargained with, it could be possible for the crew to learn how to survive using the methods native to the planet.

At sundsdown the crew devised that the simplest peaceful message that they could send to the creature would be a simple diagram of the Human, the Cagrin, and the Faeol body. Wisk personally created the crude diagrams of all 3 by using the crew members as models on a paper medium with a black ink pen. These diagrams were to be placed at the base of the ramp within the basket that had been delivered that morning. At the bottom of each diagram was a line indicating how many of each were among the crew. One for Cagrin, three for Human, and three for Faeol.

The creature would return again that night. Although this time it appeared just long enough to reclaim its basket. The actual retrieval of the basket was not witnessed by any crew members as Tarsk suggested that they should attempt a direct confrontation with the creature until more is known. The creature was known to be extremely cautious, and in an effort to expedite the process of gleaning information, it was in the crew's best interests to leave the basket without supervision. It's unclear where the creature's residence was, but the suspicion held by the crew was that it lay somewhere in the mountains in the distance.

Day 5:
The morning contained no new gifts or information regarding the alien creature, and Captain Tarsk, along with the consent of the crew, turned the auxiliary power back on. Coldeck and her junior technician Veygart Killian spent the day attempting to get the water reclamation unit to extract water from the atmosphere. Coldeck and Killian achieved limited success on the water reclamation unit; however, it was not an ideal long-term solution.

Tarsk and Wisk spent the majority of the day in conversation about how to begin diplomatic relations with an alien culture through the language barrier and the possibility that the aliens are technologically in the Stone Ages. Ultimately the two felt that the best method for communication was in gestures and symbolic communication, rather than attempting to go straight to language translation (which assumed that the aliens had a written or verbal language).

When nightfall came, the crew again posted no sentry to watch for their visitor.

Day 6:
This morning the creature had come to the ramp and deposited a leathery bag which was tied shut with a small piece of leathery string made from the same materiel as the bag. Inside lay a single piece of crude paper rolled up. The paper was stiff and rather inflexible as it continuously attempted to return to its rolled-up state. Yet, once it was examined, the crew was rather surprised as to what it had on it. It did not contain a diagram of the creature but that of a bisected image. On the right side of the paper, a crude human drawing was standing on the sand outside a representation of the shuttle's ramp, facing left. On the left and facing right was a representation of the creature with the mountains behind it.

Below the main image was a circle with a line through the top as an indicator line. Within the circle were 5 circles, 3 hollow and 2 full. The hollow and full circles were on opposite sides of one another, and the crew was able to tell that the figure represented the day-night cycle and a specific time of day.

Below the main image and on each side of the daytime indication image was a single mark reminiscent of that of the crew's attempted numbering on the diagrams they provided in the basket the other night.

With this message, the crew understood that the creature desired to meet someone from amongst them. Crew members Wisk and Killian volunteered to be the ones that would meet the creature, but Tarsk decided that it would be best if it was him, as the creature had already seen him once and would be less surprised by this. Tarsk assumed that the piece of paper given to them was indicating the midpoint between the night cycle, where the suns were both far below the horizon line, which would indicate approximately midnight. Without knowing which day it was referring to, Tarsk and the crew felt it would be best for him to stay out on the sands beyond the ramp for each night until the creature came.

At approximately 26:00 in the night, the creature appeared, and what follows is another statement by Captain Derrick Tarsk.

"Standing there on the sand, I began to think what the creature's perception of me would be depending on what I was wearing. I mean, I wouldn't want to show up to an interview wearing rags, but... something told me that these were more 'primitive' people and would be less irked if I wore something a little less modern. I had removed my standard jumpsuit and opted for a loose pair of cotton pants that I had in my wardrobe, along with one of Wisk's motor oil-stained tank tops. I figured that the creature would like to see that we are flesh and blood like them too, so some form of light clothing was to be called for. I left my boots on the ramp and walked out on the sands with my bare feet. I walked out about an hour before when we thought the time was supposed to be, just in case we got it wrong. Just as I made my way to the bottom of the ramp, I began to think about what would happen if that thing that almost killed Wisk would sense me and come for me and the shuttle. But then I came to the realization that this cre- u…person had been walking to and from our shuttle for multiple days now, and they still seemed to be alive and unharmed by those antlion worm-whatever Lori called them. The point is that I realized I could direct all my focus towards our visitor when and if they came."

"It only took a few minutes until I saw from the corner of my eyes the thin figure circling right, towards my front from the left side of the shuttle, as if it had already been watching me for some time and chose now to approach. This time the creature was carrying a long object that looked like a thin metallic pole. They still wore cloth, and the creature's yellow eyes still gazed upon me in the predatory fashion that I remembered. Slowly the alien approached me. As it did however, I could notice a lot more than I could the other night now that we were both under the bright moonlight in the open desert. Firstly and most noticeably, they were about my height in stature (mind you that they were not standing up straight; if they were, I bet they'd be about 5 inches taller than me). On the topic of their height, their legs bent backward like that of a quadruped... well, not bent backward, but the foot was extended to give such an appearance. The base of the creature's foot had three long toes shaped almost like that of a bird, but oriented like a humans with all three pointed almost forward. Also like that of a bird, the toes ended in dark-colored talons. On the inside of each foot, about midway from the base to the ankle, was a dewclaw. Its talon was long and spike-like, hardly curved at all."

"The creature got to about 10 feet away when it stopped, raised its head, and then cocked it slightly one way, then another. After about 10 seconds of this, it returned to looking at me with both eyes with its head pointed slightly downwards. The creature's head was shaped almost like that of a dragon... or a long-snouted dinosaur? The top of the head—which I guess would be the forehead section—had an interesting stripe-like pattern until they tilted their head at such an angle where I could see the light shine off their scales, revealing that their entire body—that wasn't covered in cloth—was covered in thin, snake-like, smooth scales. Unlike snakes, however, on the top of the creature's head were two long, flowing horns that initially went up, then curved back down, only to flow upwards again like a stylized "S" shape. The horns were sectioned... or plated... There were lines between each section on the horns, almost like rings. Both the horns ended in a sharp point. Below the horns on the back of the head, I could see that connecting to the base of their jaw and flowing backwards was a long flowing fin, which connected itself to the top of the head just under the horns. The creature had two of these fins, one on each side of their head. Whenever the creature angled its head or moved to inspect something, its fins either perked by raising a little bit and spreading or lowered and partially collapsed, almost like it was trying to get a better auditory sense."

"The creature's long, serpentine tail swayed back and forth anytime the creature moved or chose to change its balance. If I had to say, I'd guesstimate the tail's length was about 7 or 8 ft long. The tail, like that of a snake, had an underbelly side that consisted of slats made up of a far paler skin-like texture. Along with a top side of the tail, which looked like the topside of a serpent's body, covered in thin, smooth scales in varying pigmented patterns."

"Lowering the long, thin metallic pole that the creature had been carrying, they began to slowly thrust it in my direction like they were prodding me. I allowed it, and to my surprise, the creature gently slipped its shaft under my left arm and then raised it slightly as if asking me to raise my arm. I slowly raised my art for them until they stopped applying an inquisitive nudge. Whilst doing this, the creature was slowly circling to my left side, and it lowered its head to look at my side more closely. It then backed up to where it had been standing in front of me, and then it did the same with my right side. During its inspection of me, I felt like we had overestimated the intelligence of this species; I believed that they were, in fact, on par with Stone Age Neanderthals... Eventually, the creature pulled back to its starting position, and then, surprisingly, they made a gesture with the pole, arms extended to the maximum and head pointed down as if they were offering it to me. Gently, I grasped the end of the pole that they offered me with my right hand, and then they released it from their grip as soon as they could tell I was carrying the weight. The creature may act rather crude and/or primitive and have the body of a very obvious carnivorous predator, but the sheer extraordinary gentleness of the being was something to behold."

"Grabbing the pole with both hands, I slowly approached the creature, placing one foot in the sand after another until I got about as close as they did to me at their closest. The creature was standing upright and in a relaxed pose, almost like it was mimicking the way I stood just a moment ago when it was inspecting me. I wasn't entirely sure where to place the pole or what I should look for, but I decided to look at the creature's arms and sides as well."

"Lifting the creature's left arm, I saw that the clothing it was wearing was some sort of shawl and a shirt. When the shawl partially lifted, I noticed that the snakelike underbelly continued all the way from the tail and appeared to continue up the front of the creature's belly and chest all the way until the underside of the creature's chin. Also, when raising the shawl, it was made apparent that the creature was actually a female. Not because they weren't wearing any form of pants—they were—but under the shawl the creature had 2 medium-sized masses that unmistakably resembled breasts. At the absolute unexpectedness of this, I kind of froze for a few seconds. The creature—or "she," now as it was—let out a short, low hiss and narrowed her eyes at me as if to warn me that I was encroaching on some barrier known well by both our societies. I swiftly but gently lowered the pipe from under the shawl and bowed my head slightly in an attempt to apologize. The gesture seemed to appease her, and her gaze softened, so I felt I was now able to continue my examination."

"I continued around her left side, and slowly I placed the pipe underneath the tip of her tail. At this, her tail jerked a little bit upwards as if she was startled by the cool touch of the pipe, and she inhaled sharply but shortly. She was then looking at me with her head turned, and I swear I could see a puzzled emotion on her face. I switched the pole into my left hand, and directly in her view, I placed my right hand above the top of the pole as if I was going to grab the pole and made a clinching motion with my hand. I made this a few times and then gestured towards her tail. At that it was like a light bulb of realization went off, and she curled the tip of her tail around the pole and grabbed it. I let go as she took the weight, and I backed up to where I was originally, and I sat down cross-legged. I was very surprised that she understood I was asking her to grab something with her tail, and I guess some of my excitement was showing because after she received the pole, she transferred it to her hands and set it down in the sand, leaving her tail free to sway happily back and forth as something of a smile parted her snout, revealing a few pearl-white small razor-like serrated teeth and two rather large fangs hanging from the roof of her mouth, apparently also retractable like that of a snake."

"She approached me and sat down herself just a little more than arm's length away so that there was some space between us in the sand. In the sand between us, I drew with my finger the same symbol that she used in her crude map to identify the worm monsters. At this she again crooked her head to the side, not fully understanding what I wanted, and then I realized that I needed to provide more information. I needed to start over. Placing my hand over the drawing and waving it in a dismissive manner, I then looked at her and pointed to myself and quietly spoke my name and no other words. Pointing to myself, I said, "Tarsk..." and then I pointed to her, and she just stared at my finger. I made the gesture once more and repeated my name. I was beginning to feel that we were wrong about these creatures' intelligence after my interactions so far, but this first conversation was really hitting a wall fast."

I began to do the gesture once more, but she stuck her hand out and did the same dismissive wave that I did just a moment ago. In the sand, she brushed the sand flat once more and drew the shape of a human and pointed to it, and she attempted to quietly pronounce the word "—aarsssk?" and crooked her head again. Then she waved her hand dismissively and pointed back to me and pronounced it again.

"K-Arsssk?" she said. Her voice has a very slight lisp, but otherwise, it was easy to understand. We both sat there for a moment in thinking silence until I realized what she was asking. God, it was so obvious! It clicked, and I understood she was asking for specifics. She was confused on whether I was called "Tarsk" or if all humans were called "Tarsk.".

I smiled and pointed towards the drawing of a human and said, "Human... Hu-man.". Then not pointing at myself but bringing my open hands to my chest, I said, "Tarsk.". Her eyes grew a little wider, and I swear I could see her ear fins perk up a little bit. She then cleared the sand between them once more whilst pronouncing "Hoo-nan" a few times to herself and drew a rough image of herself. She pointed to the image and said, "Hotesh... Ho-tesssh.". Then she brought her four-fingered, talon-tipped hands to her chest and said, "Eia'Ra.".

She said her own name eloquently; I hope I spelled it correctly, but if not, I can at least record how it's pronounced, "EE-ah Rah." The "R" in her name was rolled heavily. I can't pronounce her name correctly myself, but hey, she can't pronounce mine correctly either, so I guess it's fair.

She pointed at me and said "Aarssk" once more. I pointed at her and said, "Eia'ruh.". Quickly she nodded her head up and down as if in confirmation and her fins perked up a little bit. Her tail began to swish back and forth on the the sand making a "shisk shisk shisk" sound as the sand got swept her tail. Now that we were on the same page (or so I thought), I drew the symbol for the monster worm once more and pointed towards it as I looked towards her. Immediately she responded with the word "Ahshpicar..."