Chapter 52: Good Businessmen
"Thank you," I replied, not too sure what the correct etiquette was in this particular situation. The little green man looked up at me startled for a second before going back to what he was doing.
"You are welcome," he said softly after a moment. "I have made a note in the system that you and your ship are granted access. However, your ship is a bit too big to dock in our space station docking bay. Did you want me to arrange another ship to pick you up?"
"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "I have a smaller fighter craft that can take me to the planet,’ I continued.
"What type of ship is it?" he asked, this time becoming increasingly polite. I guess there was something to the saying; ’you catch more flies with honey’.
"It’s an X94 fighter craft. I am told it is Sisalik," I said with a shrug. "Found it hanging around inside a nebula," I continued as if I hadn’t stolen it from the lizards.
The little green man seemed to become happier all of a sudden. Even if he didn’t have a mouth, I could tell that he was smiling. "I will make a note. I take it you have... issues... with the Sisalik?"
"I have issues with almost everybody," I admitted, once again shrugging my shoulders as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. "But I am in complete agreement with you about the Alliance."
The Thuzirusian only nodded his head at my statement. Here was another saying for you: ’The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Maybe the Thuzirusians and I could come up with a beneficial deal between the two of us, based on the common ground that the Alliance needed to fall.
"Please proceed planet side," said the little green man as I stood up from the captain’s chair of Jun Li’s bridge.
"Thank you," I said again just as the screen blacked out. I turned around and made my way to the fighter craft, gratefully for a brief moment of silence. The only sound in the whole ship was that of my heels clicking on the floor.
The ramp at the back of the smaller ship was down, just waiting for me to climb aboard. I walked past the conference-type table with chairs all around it and sat down in front of the small computer screen that made up the command panel and communications station.
I held up my left wrist as I started to tell the wrist unit what I wanted to do. "How did your meeting with the Thuzirusian go?" came the chipper voice of Sha Shou from over the speakers. I dropped my arm, completely forgetting that she was downloaded into the computer. It would make my life a lot easier to just tell her the commands instead of trying to type them out.
"Not horrible," I said with a shrug as the ramp engaged and rose. "I was more than a little creeped out that the little green men that we make fun of so much were the illegal goods traders of the universe. Makes me worried if all of the stories are true."
"I find there is no story that is not based in some kind of fact," said Sha Shou as the fighter craft rose into the air in the launch bay.
"Preparing for departure," said Jun Li from the speakers inside of the ship. "Good luck, Mei Xing. Hopefully, this meeting will go smoothly and we can start establishing ourselves."
"Sounds good," I said as I leaned back in my chair, letting the two computer programs figure everything out for me.
The launch bay doors opened and the small fighter craft flew out of the bay as fast as it possibly could. I was a bit worried that I might get sick as I wasn’t the best flyer, but the ride was incredibly smooth. It almost seemed like we weren’t moving at all.
"Now, back to the Thuzirusians," said Sha Shou as we glided through the darkness of space and towards the planet that I could see just in front of me.
"What about them?" I asked absent-mindedly. My entire center of focus was on the rounded planet. I had never seen a view like this. Well, I supposed it was similar to what I saw when we were hiding on the moon when we went to Earth, but I knew what Earth looked like.
This was like nothing I had ever seen before.
The planet was so dark it looked grey with five brightly colored rings encircling it like the rings of Saturn. However, these rings were nothing like it. The outermost ring was purple, followed by blue, then red, yellow, and finally orange, like a rainbow that a child might color before learning the proper sequence.
"What stories have you heard about the Thuzirusians?" continued Sha Shou seemingly nowhere near my level of awe for the alien planet before me.
"Oh, you know, anal probes, science experiments, observations. As far as humans are concerned, the little green men, if they even exist, are similar to scientists," I said with a wave of my hand. We were approaching the planet in front of us using the coordinates given and I couldn’t help but marvel over the fact that I had yet to see a single body of water.
Coming from a planet that was made up of 71% water, this was a complete phenomenon.
"Yeah, there is no way that the Thuzirusians are scientists. If anything they were trying to determine the sexual compatibility of humans to other species within the universe. Thuzirusians are nothing if not good businessmen," said Sha Shou in a blasé manner.
"How does that make them good businessmen?" I asked confused.
"The Thuzirusians have a reputation for being able to provide anything to anyone. If a species, and there are a lot, don’t have a sexually compatible mate to be able to produce offspring, then they would typically go to the Thuzirusians to find one."
