The Inter-Terrestrial

THE

INTER-TERRESTRIAL

by Chad Descoteaux

Copyright 2016

www.turtlerocketbooks.com

SPECIAL THANKS to Angela Descoteaux

for helping me come up with a better title than ‘Alien Boy’

PROLOGUE

It wasn’t until he looked out from a small window on this two-hundred seat space shuttle that thirteen-year-old Bloxnor felt the full impact of leaving his home planet behind. He looked down at the blue orb, the planet Neptune, as he hovered away from its enormous, walled cities and its three trillion inhabitants. He couldn’t deny that he had butterflies in his stomach.

He was in a shuttle that was filled with a little over a hundred and fifty Neptunians, members of his own terrestrial race. They were green-skinned, purple bug-eyed beings. Men. Women. Children. Families who seemed very excited by the prospect that lay before them. But Bloxnor was angry. A lot had happened to him in the past year. He barely had time to adjust to his father’s death and a new school before his mother decided to whisk him away from everything he knew with promises of a better life and a personal growth experience.

Not that Bloxnor didn’t have his problems on his home planet. He was shy, not that into sports and usually wanted to be left alone to read or play a flight simulator game on whatever digital hologram device he was fascinated by at the moment. His grades were good. His favorite subject was science, which he spent more time on at the expense of his other homework. He had very few problems in his old elementary school. Kids would leave him alone and he managed to make a few friends. But recently having to switch schools after a death in the family (and starting secondary schooling), Bloxnor found himself getting bullied by the larger, tougher members of the school’s various athletic programs.

But Bloxnor was the type of kid who would mouth off when he was bullied…or push back if he was pushed. This resulted in him getting beat up, getting detention (depending on what the intervening teacher saw) and getting many notes home from the principal’s office. Bloxnor noticed all the books that his grandmother started to buy for her daughter, about raising and reaching out to a troubled youth. She thought that Bloxnor’s behavior was a reaction to anger over his father’s death. It wasn’t. Bloxnor was convinced that, if his father was still alive, he would be the one signing the disciplinary notices that he got from school. Bloxnor just hated bullies. Having a father wouldn’t stop jerks that needed a punch in the face from pushing him around…or him pushing back.

As the shuttle continued to move through space, Bloxnor’s mother, Tarooma, placed her hand on Bloxnor’s knee and spoke to him in a consoling tone that did little to ease the boy’s frustration.

I know you are going to miss all your friends, Blox, she said, affectionately using her son’s nickname as he stared blankly out the shuttle window. But this is going to be a better life for both of us. We’re going to be a part of something special.

Yeah, right, Bloxnor thought, coldly turning away from his mother and looking out the window again.

The something special that his mother spoke of was a mammoth space station, about twice the size of Neptune’s largest city, called ‘Phase Six’ on which members of every planet and inhabited moon in our solar system (save for Earth) would (potentially) prove that they could live together in peace, setting a good example for the rest of the galaxy. At least that was the goal, the reason Phase Six existed. Bloxnor rolled his eyes at his mother’s overly enthusiastic faith in what he secretly referred to as an interplanetary hippie commune.

Bloxnor was startled, grabbing the arms of his seat, when the shuttle rattled, picking up speed. It changed course slightly and started flying towards his planet’s largest moon, one of fourteen. Triton.

Triton was completely covered in desert and looked that way from space. It was inhabited by purple-skinned beings with one eye, most of which found any variation of the word cyclops, any reference to their monocular state, to be a racial slur. The space shuttle slowly descended onto a landing pad where many Tritons waited to board, holding luggage of their own. Some of them looked scared. Others were excitedly optimistic about the space adventures that lay ahead.

As the Tritons started to board the shuttle, Bloxnor noticed that his mother suddenly got uncomfortable. He knew why.

I can’t believe they admitted membership on Phase Six to those one-eyed freaks, mumbled Tarooma, loud enough to be embarrassing, but not loud enough for any actual Tritons to hear her racist sentiments.

Blox noticed that the other Neptunians on this shuttle were quite inviting of these one-eyed passengers. Tarooma was not. She was very anxious, nervously tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair and mumbling something else that would have been offensive if she was heard by any Tritons.

The war between Neptune and the desert moon of Triton had been over for five years, but that was not nearly enough time for Tarooma to get over the loss of her husband, Blichnor. This skilled Neptunian soldier was also a devoted husband and loving father. And he had been killed in the conflict, now called the Neptunian Lunar War.

Tarooma had been posthumously awarded her husband’s medal of honor, for he was the one who had assassinated Triton dictator Ghus Ral, freeing both the planet and the adjacent moon from his tyranny and ending the war. This was shortly before a powerful bomb detonated that took his life. Tarooma and her then-eight-year-old son had everything they could possibly need, for the Neptunian army paid the deceased soldier’s family a large sum of money each calendar month.

But that was not enough for Tarooma. Everything on the planet reminded her of her beloved. Every time she got a check from the Army. Every time one of her husband’s fellow soldiers offered their condolences and thanked her for her support. Every time she saw an advertisement where the Army was recruiting, it brought back the crippling pain of the day she found out that her husband was dead. And that pain got worse and became more frequent when Neptunian leaders signed a peace treaty with Triton. Tritons were coming to Neptune as refugees and living among them. She would see them at the marketplace, on the streets and at work. Tritons were integrated into her son’s school and other community functions.

Someone might reason that a woman with such obvious prejudice against another sentient race does not belong in a group like Phase Six, whose goal is to promote interplanetary harmony. But, maybe somewhere deep down, Tarooma knows that she needs Phase Six. She knows that it will be good for her son, despite what damage her own prejudice does to him in the meantime.

As the Tritons took their seats on the shuttle and the pilot was about to take off again, Tarooma leaned over and whispered into her son’s ear.

Those Tritons are monsters. Never trust them, Bloxnor. They’re the ones who took your daddy away from us.

CHAPTER ONE

ARRIVAL

Bloxnor had nodded off by the time the shuttle got to Phase Six, which was hovering in the midst of an asteroid field directly between the planets of Venus and Earth. This asteroid field, coupled with the cloaking device that the space station employed, would successfully keep any astronomers or satellites from the primitive planet of Earth from becoming aware of its existence.

There was commotion on the shuttle when the passengers finally saw their destination off in the distance. The commotion itself did not wake Blox up. He mumbled a bit, wiping drool off his chin before nodding back to sleep.

Suddenly, his mother started shaking him. This caused him to wake abruptly and look where his mother was pointing, his eyes glazed over. He could see a small portion of the enormous space station through the windows on the other side of the shuttle. Tarooma was smiling from ear-to-ear, something that Bloxnor had not seen her do in years.

There it is! she shrieked. We made it!

‘Phase Six’ was long, a horizontally-shaped space station that was twice the height of a skyscraper on Earth, but the length of two metropolitan cities on one of the larger, more developed planets in our solar system. It was kind of shaped like a bone, because there was a large, rounded part of the ship on either end that contained fuel tanks, storage areas and hangars for smaller ships.

The Neptunian/Triton space shuttle flew underneath the massive space station as a hatch opened on the bottom of Phase Six. The shuttle flew upwards and then landed in a docking bay that was full of space ships as the hatch closed. A piercing silence engulfed the shuttle after the buzz of the engines could no longer be heard. The passengers looked back and forth at each other, not sure how to verbalize what they were feeling.

Without warning, thunderous applause burst from the passengers when they realized that they had indeed made it to their long-anticipated destination. Neptunians hugged Tritons and vice versa. Tarooma gave a dirty look to a Triton who ran past her before catching herself in her prejudiced reaction. She stood up, opening an overhead compartment and grabbing her carry-on luggage. Bloxnor did the same as they got in line to leave the shuttle.

Looking out through the windows on his side of the shuttle, Blox saw a shelled, crab-like, sentient crustacean from the planet Mercury who was fixing a small robotic forklift. He was pulling tools out of a toolbox with his clawed hands and chatting with a more neatly-dressed, squid-like creature from Saturn. The Saturnian seemed as though it was barking orders at the Mercurian mechanic, waving its tentacles around and speaking loudly in his own language. This was the first time that Bloxnor had been off his own planet. He had never seen a member of either of these alien races in person before and was instantly intrigued.

Stepping out of the shuttle, Bloxnor saw more happy faces when he was greeted by the Phase Six welcoming crew. This welcoming crew represented a few more alien races that Bloxnor had never seen in person before. Red-skinned Martians with feline features and furry white creatures from one of the moons of Pluto all stood together, holding up signs that welcomed these passengers to Phase Six in the respective languages of Neptune and Triton. Others welcomed them with friendly, welcoming applause.

Blox soon found himself walking with a multi-racial crowd of new recruits to Phase Six, staying close to his own mother, per her strict request. The size and scope of this space station, or at least this section of it, fascinated Bloxnor as much as it worried his protective mother.

To his left, Bloxnor saw an area where more flying transport shuttles had been docked. Dock workers from different planets of origin were unloading these transports with hovering robotic forklifts, moving boxes and crates of all shapes and sizes to where they would be most needed. Each box had writing on it in a different alien tongue and contained items that would be important to a different aspect of this diverse community. From food to medicine to toilet paper (or the equivalent thereof), the needs of every member of Phase Six would be met, thanks to their well-organized shipping crew.

To his right, Bloxnor saw an area with many levels and many neon signs, also in diverse alien languages. This level contained both places for entertainment and gigantic cafeterias for food consumption. There was also a level that was strictly dedicated to medical care and one that contained educational facilities. But Bloxnor continued to be confused, for he could not read signs that were not in Neptunian.

Blox observed two aliens, a Saturnian and a Jupiterian who were conversing with each other in completely different languages. The language of the tentacle-faced Saturnian consisted of squeaking noises that were rapid-fire and varied in pitch. The frog-like Jupiterian’s language sounded like he was underwater, consisting of multi-pitch glub noises. Despite this, they seemed to understand each other completely.

I don’t know why those shuttles make me nervous, said the Saturnian. His name was Falton. I work in maintenance. I have fixed the engines and the gravity controls on those things a dozen times.

I know what you mean, the Jupiterian named Tribb replied. And I used to race submarines for a living back home. Those are much more claustrophobic than that shuttle.

These two aliens continued to converse like they were old friends (because they were), gesturing, patting each other on the back and even laughing together. Their laughter sounded even stranger to Bloxnor than their language.

Blox pointed them out to his mother. They’re talking in two completely different languages, he remarked as the two alien friends turned to walk down a different hallway.

Did you notice that little microchip they had on their necks? Tarooma asked.

Uh huh, Blox replied.

That microchip sends signals to their brain so it can translate any of the alien languages spoken on this ship, Tarooma explained. All new recruits get fitted for one early on.

Really?

Oh, yes. The military gave your daddy one during the war so that he could understand Tritonese, Tarooma stated as her voice got a little sadder. You’ll need it to read all the different signs on this ship. But the chip can also make it easier to learn to speak an alien language yourself if you wanted to. Then, you wouldn’t need the chip…at least for that language.

Bloxnor was intrigued by the notion. He retreated inside of his head once again, mulling over this idea and its infinite possibilities as he kept following the crowd of new recruits. Among the crowd, Bloxnor saw a boy that appeared to be around his own age. He was a Triton and his name was Arkna. Arkna waved at Bloxnor with a big, friendly smile on his face.

But before Bloxnor could lift his arm to wave back, Tarooma grabbed her son’s shirt and tugged on it, making him walk faster in the opposite direction.

***

Bloxnor later found himself in a doctor’s office, sitting on an examination table, fully clothed. The doctor was a friendly Mercurian mollusk with a gold earring hanging on his pierced antennae. He spoke Neptunian fluently. Bloxnor could see from the name tag on this doctor’s lab coat that his name was Ekrub.

Just relax. This will only sting a little, Ekrub assured him in a calm voice. He was holding what looked like a needle gun, something that might have been used to pierce his own antennae or someone’s ear lobe. Pressing this needle gun up to Bloxnor’s neck, there was a loud, popping sound when he pulled the trigger. Bloxnor winced. He felt a sharp pinch that made his eyes water.

When Bloxnor touched his own neck, he had a microchip attached to it that was transmitting information to his own brain stem via a wireless method that tapped into Bloxnor’s unique brain frequency. There! That wasn’t so bad, was it? the doctor asked.

You speak Neptunian? Blox asked Dr. Ekrub, still confused that he could understand this Mercurian doctor.

I do. But when this microchip is done buffering, I can go back to speaking my own language…and you will understand me just fine, Dr. Ekrub assured Blox.

A few minutes later, Blox walked through the waiting room of Dr. Ekrub’s office, past a crowd of aliens who were waiting to get their translation chip installed. What was once a mind-numbing garble of alien languages soon gelled in Bloxnor’s open mind and became numerous voices that he could understand. Like any conversation that one might hear in any language, he could focus on it and understand it, or listen to it passively as he kept walking.

Touching the microchip on his neck once again, Bloxnor could not help but smile. This is so cool! he thought, feeling a bit closer to his deceased father.

Crowded into an enormous amphitheater with thousands of new Phase Six members, Bloxnor looked up to the stage, connected to a beautiful domed ceiling that contained thousands of lights. Blox was surprised to see someone that he recognized standing on the stage. It was a forty-something Neptunian man who served with Bloxnor’s father during the war against