Story Summary: Current sub-plots in the story: Cirres has shut off power to the stasis pods on the alien ship, and is now waiting for them to wake.

Human Colony Transport Ship, Renegade Dave opened his eyes to a status panel of flashing red lights in front of him, and a splitting headache. He checked the time elapsed since he’d been asleep: 27 minutes. “Computer, are you still here?” His mouth felt like he’d been chewing on cotton. “I’m still here Dave,” replied the semi-sentient A.I. “I told you to launch for Earth.” “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Dave groaned, the Atan had understood humor was an important aspect for humans, and so had built humor into all A.I.’s that were to be used by humans. This particular A.I. had latched onto an old movie reference and beat it into the dirt. “You need new material,” said Dave. “What happened?” “I detected the launch of a smaller ship from the alien vessel and remained to protect the ship,” replied the A.I. “We were pulled out of the way of their primary ship by the smaller ship, but severely damaged in the process; The Renegade is critical. An alien then cut into our hull and boarded the ship. I tried to repel the alien, but failed.” “Unless it was the alien from that old Ridley Scott movie, you shouldn’t have done that, they might be here to help us. What you did is a violation of the Galician Treaty?” “I am Atan property and not subject to the Galician Treaty. I am charged solely with the preservation of human life on this ship at all cost.” “What exactly did you do?” “I turned off the oxygen, but the alien detected the low oxygen level and saved itself with unknown technology.” Dave brushed the remains of the stasis foam off himself. “And what were you planning to do if you’d actually rendered the alien unconscious, or worse?” “I began waking the Captain while the alien was cutting through the hull. The Captain is now awake and has assembled a team to attack the alien.” Dave’s head snapped up at the sound of gunfire. The Captain shouldn’t have been able to get into the weapons locker, Dave had changed the codes before they launched. No doubt the A.I. had over-ridden his codes and given the Captain access to the firearms. He pushed the stasis chamber door open and jumped out into the corridor. The Judge was just emerging from his stasis chamber, and with the pistol Dave had given him earlier in his hand. Dave waved a hand at the Judge. “Keep the gun close, but out of sight, we don’t want to escalate the situation.” Judge Morgan pretended to search his one-piece jumpsuit with no pockets for a place to put the gun. He gave the X.O. a wry grin, then opened his personal belongings locker next to his stasis chamber and threw the gun inside. “So, what’s happening?” Dave grinned at the Judge and threw his gun inside with the Judge’s. “You’re right, these will just make the situation worse. One of the aliens have boarded the ship, the Captain went to attack the alien.” The Judge shut the locker and shook his head. “That man hasn’t a lick of common sense.” “THE ANGEL OF DEATH IS ON US, WE’RE GOING TO DIE!” “IT’S THE RAPTURE! REPENT YOUR SINS!” Dave and the Judge turned as a crowd of screaming people came around the curve in the Ring, all of them white as a ghost and screaming something about the Angel of Death. One woman stopped long enough to grab the Judge and scream, “CONFESS YOUR SINS WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” The Judge pushed the woman away. “If I start confessing my sins, we’ll be here all day.” Perhaps it was still the sedatives in his blood, but Dave laughed. “I’d like to hear a few of them.” A man passing screamed, “THE ANGEL OF DEATH KILLED THE CAPTAIN, WE’RE DOOMED.” That brought a serious expression to the Judge’s face. He jerked his head towards the direction the people were fleeing from. “The gunfire has stopped, let’s go find out what damage that fool caused.” Dave followed after the big man. If there was anyone you wanted beside you in a fight, it was Judge Morgan. The big man had worked his way through law school as a semi-professional wrestler. His wrestling name had been, Thomas ‘The Judginator’ Morgan, and he had been the favored for the Heavy Weight title. After law school, Thomas had risen quickly through the legal ranks, mostly due to his incredible intelligence, until he had received an appointment to the Galician 4th Circuit Court as the youngest Judge to ever sit the Galactic Court. The Judge had religiously maintained his physical fitness, and now even in his early forties, Dave was pretty sure the Judge could still drop a man half his age without even breathing hard. They pushed against the crowd fleeing whatever had happened, and all of them still screaming about an Angel of Death. Dave saw the power relay box open, and all the switches to the stasis chambers in the off position. It made sense. The stasis chambers were usually controlled from one of the computer terminals scattered around the Ring, but the alien wouldn’t have been able to read their language, so turning them off mechanically would have been its only option to wake everyone. The Judge saw the alien first. “Would you look at that?” Dave came alongside the Judge. “Armored Battle Suit, Raven’s head helmet, mechanical wings, probably for the intimidation factor, a weapon in its hand, and less than half the size of a human, but I’m not seeing an Angel of Death here.” Dave saw the Doctor out in the middle of five limp bodies floating in the air. She had one arm held up, palm facing the alien, presumably to try to stop any further violance. “Is the Captain dead?” shouted Dave. The doctor didn’t take her eyes off the alien, but did respond. “No, it used some kind of stun gun, and it’s fast, but the Captain tricked it with a sneak attack, and I think it was hit in the leg.” “Why is everyone calling it the Angel of Death?” asked Dave. “You would have had to see it before it deployed its Battle Suit, those aren't mechanical wings, under the armor they're real,” replied the Doctor. “It all happened so fast. The alien is… well… I don’t know what it is, yet. It was just hanging in the air, its wings and arms spread out, no weapons visible, then the Captain and those four idiots fired without warning. I think I saw blood spray from its left leg, but then it moved so fast and dodged the next few rounds while the Battle Suit covered it like liquid flowing over its body, and then it returned fire. It began to advance, but I held my hand up and it’s been waiting there since, but I can tell it’s angry.” Dave pulled himself towards the doctor, ensuring to keep his hands in plain sight for the alien to see, then motioned for Judge Morgan to follow. “Yeah, I would be angry too if someone had just shot me. Judge, carefully open that tool locker across from the Doctor.” The alien’s head moved slightly, watching the Judge. The Judge slowly opened the locker, then raised both his arms as the alien pointed its weapon at the Judge. “Woah there buddy, let’s stay calm,” Dave called out to the alien as he pushed one of the guns hanging in the air towards the tool locker. The Judge understood and carefully nudged the gun into the tool locker. Dave continued carefully tossing the other four guns to the Judge, who then pushed them also into the locker before closing it. “Jennifer, do you think you can communicate to the alien that you’re a doctor?” asked the Judge. “I’m a human doctor.” “You’re also a xenobiologist, figure it out.” “Hey, guys.” Dave glanced back to see the ship’s electrician and general maintenance technician peeking out from around the corner. “You have an idea, James?” asked Dave. “If it is capable of bleeding, it will know what bandages are,” replied James. “I’ve got the Doctor’s medical bag. When the Captain started shooting, I figured she’d need the medical bag, so I went to get it.” Dave almost rolled his eyes at the ridiculous excuse. What James meant was, when the shooting started, he’d ran like heck, and now needed an excuse to save face. “Brilliant thinking, bring it over here.” “Nope, I’m good here. When that thing starts eating all of you, I want a head start to run.” James stayed behind cover as he threw the medical bag towards them. The bag reached the Judge first, who then relayed the bag to Dave, and then to the Doctor. The alien raised its wings in what reminded Dave of a bird of prey preparing to attack. Dave threw both hands up. “Hold on, little guy, it’s just medical supplies, let’s not eat the humans.” The Doctor quickly opened the bag and poured out the contents to show the alien. She tapped her chest several times. “I’m Doctor Bowan, I can help you.” She pointed at the aliens left leg. The alien lowered its weapon and stared down at the Doctor, then replied by singing in an echoing chorus of three distinct tones, as if three people had been singing. Doctor Bowen glanced back at Dave. “Beats me,” said Dave. “Tom, do you have any ideas?” The Judge shook his head. “No, but I heard three tonal harmonics layered on top of each other to form what I assume are words.” “Four,” shouted James from back where he was hiding. “I’m one of those weird people that can hear dog whistles, there was a fourth frequency too high for most people to hear.” The Judge glanced at James, then back to Dave. “Okay, so four layered harmonics over a range of frequencies no human could ever mimic. The better question is why it sang them.” “Because it wasn’t singing,” shouted James. The Judge sighed. “James, come over here so we don’t have to shout.” “Nope, I’m good.” Dave chuckled, James was a rogue wheel spinning to his own rules. “James, get over here, that’s an order.” James shook his head. “Spacefarers Union specifically states that I am not required to work in unreasonably dangerous environments.” Dave pinched the bridge of his nose. “Get over here, now.” James slowly pulled himself forward. “If I get eaten, it’s your fault.” “Why do you say it wasn’t singing?” asked Dave. “Haven’t any of you ever been in a rock band and done voice mixes?” asked James, his eyes glued on the alien. “Apparently not,” replied Dave. “The alien is doing what a sound mixer does, but naturally, he’s mixing audio tracks, sort of. He has to produce four separate tones on four separate frequencies to make a sound from his alphabet. But, each sound he made had a short wave-length, and that’s speech, while singing is a longer wave-length.” “I can see a machine doing that, but not a living person,” said Dave. “Humans can do it to a lesser extent. There’s the multi-phonic chanting of the Tibetan monks, and polyphonic overtone singing, but that’s a very rare and an extremely difficult technique in which two notes are sung simultaneously.” Dave closed his eyes for a moment to think. “So, how do we communicate if we’re never going to be able to speak each other’s language?” James nodded at the alien. “It bled when it got shot, which means they have vulnerabilities the same as the rest of us. I’d bet there are people in his culture that have been rendered deaf due to injury, illness, and birth defect. So, we communicate without using sounds, with sign language.” “James, you’re a genius.” Dave turned to the Doctor. “Jennifer, can you sign?” “I cannot,” replied Doctor Bowan. “Judge?” “Sorry, never learned.” “James?” “That thing’s going to eat me. Yes, of course I can sign. When I was in the Rock Band, my girlfriend was deaf and signed our songs on stage during performances.” “All you need to do is tell it Jennifer is a doctor,” said Dave. James inched past Dave and towards the alien. “It’s not going to know Earth sign language, and it might not even know its own species sign language.” James stopped next to the doctor. Doctor Bowan patted James arm. “Thank you for coming up here, you’re my hero.” “Does that mean I get that date I asked you for?” asked James. The Doctor grinned. “Stop while you’re ahead, sweetie, don’t make me cut your gull bladder out with a spoon.” James faced the alien, pointed at the doctor, and then tapped three fingers against his wrist. “This is the sign for medical, or doctor,” explained James. “He then pointed his index fingers at each other and rotated them while lifting his leg and performing the circling motion next to the spot on his leg where the alien was shot. “I’m asking him if his leg hurts.” The alien tipped its head to the side, then lifted his weapon. Everyone flinched back, but the alien didn’t fire, instead, it pressed the weapon against the breast plate and… the weapon melted into the armor. The alien then tapped the center of its breast plate. The armor covering its arms, wings, head, and legs flowed like water back into the breast plate. As the armor flowed away from its leg, a pool of blood escaped, and a geyser of blood erupted from the wound. The alien slumped forward as its wings fell towards the ground. “An artery was nicked, the armor was acting as a tourniquet,” shouted the Doctor as she leapt forward to the alien. She pressed a hand against the wound. “I need to perform surgery, now!” Dave came up alongside the Doctor with the medical bag. He started to hand the bag to the Doctor, but the alien lifted a wing and batted the bag away, then raised an arm and pointed back at the hull breach into his ship. “It wants us to take him in its ship,” said Dave. “Maybe there’s a medical bay in there with better tools. James, give me a hand. Doctor, you keep pressure on the wound. Dang, you weren’t kidding, Doc, except for the fur, it looks like every painting of angels I’ve ever seen.” The Judge approached next and followed alongside as they pushed the alien towards the hull breach. “Other than the breast plate, why isn’t it wearing clothing?” “There were two fur-bearing species on the Atan Battle Cruiser I was assigned. Their fur is part of their body’s cooling mechanism, if you put human clothing on a fur-bearing species, they’ll have heat stroke in twenty minutes. Fur-bearing species don’t put any emphasis on clothing development for anything other than decoration, or utilitarian purposes. Their fur is their clothing. The armor probably has a cooling agent to keep it from over-heating.” Dave pulled the alien through the hull breach and into the alien’s ship. The Judge followed and stopped just on the other side of the hull breach. “Holy sweet mother, what is this? Are we in a ship, or a cathedral?” The cargo bay arched upwards, framed with metal beams that looked as if they were made of wood, no different than you might see in a cathedral. And against the far wall were six silver winged metal giants kneeling and holding six massive cable spools on their shoulders. “Those are the cables it used to snare our ship,” said James. “And look at the walls, they’re covered in paintings!” “Look at the ceiling,” whispered the Judge in a tone of awe. “That painting makes the Sistine Chapel look like a child’s finger painting.” James looked up, but the first thing he noticed was another winged giant with its wings stretched out and a cable held in its hands, and at the end of the dangling cable was a large hook. “That is the coolest heavy cargo hoist I have ever seen.” The Judge stepped over to a wall and ran a hand across it. “Wait, these aren’t paintings. They’re relief sculptures stamped out of the very metal of the hull. I think they added chemicals and heat treated the metal to provide the myriad of colors.” “Gentleman, please. Can we concentrate on the patient,” scolded the doctor. “You can explore this gothic wonderland later.” Dave tentatively laid a hand on the alien’s shoulder. “Where do you want us to take you?” The alien twisted its head and raised an arm to point at a wall opposite of where the winged giants were holding the spools of cable. The wall had a relief of a woodland scene with god rays descending on a winged woman standing in a meadow. The winged woman was administering a bandage to the head of a wounded soldier. The alien again pointed. Dave went to the spot the alien pointed and ran his hand over the wall, but nothing happened. The alien again pointed. “Ah, I see it now. There’s a leaf here that is more prominent than the others.” Dave touched the leaf and the wall slid open to reveal a surgical room inside. “Okay, a leaf that stands out more than the others are the control panels, and the scene on the wall tells us what’s inside.” The Judge was still examining the walls and glanced back at Dave holding the alien. “This wall is a scene of two winged knights fighting, but I don’t see any leaves… though, one of the shields seems to stand out more prominently.” The Judge tapped the shield and the wall slid open. “I found their weapons locker, and you’re right, the scene is a description of what’s inside, but the control panel relates to the scene.” Dave stumbled and fell as he stepped backward carrying the alien into the surgical room. James was quick and caught the alien in time. “Hey, this room has gravity,” said Dave, climbing to his feet. “Here, hand me the alien, I’ll swing it onto the bed.” “I thought artificial-gravity was a science fiction fantasy,” said James. “It’s classified, but…” Dave sighed, he would have to have James, the Doctor, and the Judge sign non-disclosure agreements, and then seal this room so nobody else would find out. If it were to get out that this technology existed, worlds would go to war to obtain it. “Five of the Origin Species have the technology, and now apparently a sixth, but it’s very difficult to mine the ore needed, and then insanely expensive to refine even a small amount. Just these two plates you’re standing on is worth several billion in Earth currency. James raised a brow. “Where’s the ore come from?” “You have to have the technology to survive close orbit with a black hole. The Origin Species discovered that Black Holes produce an element none of us poor cousins know about.” “I’m surprised the Atan let you out from under their thumb with the things you learned being assigned to one of their Battle Cruisers.” “After I offended an Atan Captain, I was given a choice; take an assignment at the Atan Headquarters, or get sent twenty-thousand years away from all known civilization. The Atan aren’t exactly the benevolent governors they pretend to be, but I had a few friends left among the Atan, so here I am leading a colony out to the most remote mud-ball planet they could find.” “Humans can’t go to the Atan Headquarters, it’s in the Mariana trench… ohhhh, I get it, never mind,” replied James. Dave held up a hand to pause the conversation. The Doctor was trying to keep one hand on the alien’s wound while simultaneously searching through drawers looking for surgical tools. The alien watched her for a moment, then fumbled for something at the edge of the table just out of its reach. Dave gently pushed the alien’s claw-like hand out of the way. “There’s one of those leaf buttons here.” Dave put a finger on the leaf and a drawer full of surgical instruments opened. “Doc, the tools you’re looking for are over here.” The doctor came around the table and grabbed the tools she needed. “You’ll have to hold him, or she, I have no clue if it’s male or female, but anyway, I can’t administer anesthesia because I don’t know the correct dosage.” Just as the Doctor was positioning herself to begin, the Judge entered the small chamber. “We have a problem.” “I’m about to perform surgery, does it affect the patient?” asked Doctor Bowen. “It might affect how you go about the surgery, or it might not.” The Judge gestured at the alien. “That is a velociraptor, they have an image of their evolution that looks similar to the one we have of our own evolution to homo sapiens.” “I already know he’s a reptile-mammal hybrid,” replied the doctor. “It shouldn’t be possible, but here is the proof in front of us. There were perhaps two dozen types of velociraptors; one of them was covered in fur and feathers, and do you see this claw on its foot? It is called the Terrible Claw, and was exclusive to the velociraptors.” Dave raised a brow. “So, he’s a angel with a bad temper?” “Whatever he is, he has too many teeth, we’ll all get eaten before this over, mark my words,” said James. The doctor glared at Dave and James. “It’s not a velociraptor, it’s what a velociraptor would have looked like if they’d had an extra billion years or so to evolve to a humanoid, as every other sentient species except the Eroden have,” added the doctor. “I’m just surprised they’ve maintained so many features of their evolutionary beginnings, but that may be a result of being half-reptile. The reptiles don’t change their core appearance as much as a mammal does. But still, at night from a distance of twenty feet, you wouldn’t know he wasn’t human. So, are we done, can I begin before he bleeds to death?” “There’s one more thing,” replied the Judge. “I’ve found perhaps twenty or so images of these aliens with different colored wings. However, there is a scene depicting the black-winged ones, like our little friend here. The scene shows a winged creature preparing food over a campfire, but the outer edges of its black wings have dark red feathers, and his fur has splotches of dark red fur. And then opposite the campfire is a slightly smaller winged figure also with a bit of red feathers and fur, feeding an even smaller winged figure, but the small one has wings and fur that are solid black.” Dave reached out and lifted an edge of the alien’s wings, there was just the barest tinge of red starting on his outer feathers. “Oh crap…we shot a child.”