We used to wonder if we were alone in the universe. Now we wish we were. Everything has gone downhill since we discovered the Aquarians. Joining an interstellar war, the forced conscription of billions of men and women, and the total erasure of human rights were just a few of the consequences of our discovery of Aquarian artifacts on Mars.
My name is Jarrod Binas, I used to be an exo-archaeologist with the Inter-Planetary Science Foundation. I was there when we uncovered the first Aquarian vaults. Massive chambers two-hundred meters below the Martian surface containing Aquarian artifacts. Alien technology. We were astounded. Our most advanced dating techniques told us that these vaults were constructed eleven-thousand years ago, when the Aquarians arrived in our solar system. We learned so much about them in those days, but we didn't learn the truth. If only we had known then....
It was only a matter of time before the Aquarians came back. The breaching of their vaults must have drawn their attention. We had made extensive use of their technology by the time they arrived in-system. We now had our own fleet of combat-ready star ships, having reverse-engineered the artifacts found in the Aquarian vaults to give ourselves a technological leap-forward.
Our first contact with the Aquarian diplomacy fleet went better than anyone had expected. Peaceful negotiations soon followed. We then found ourselves in a newly-brokered alliance with these fish-like visitors. The more skeptical among us wondered why the Aquarians would be so eager to join an alliance with us, but these concerns were quickly forgotten amid claims that we were living in the "Golden Age of Humanity".
Things were okay for a while. We worked and lived beside our Aquarian friends, trading customs and technology. Then the Saurians arrived. No diplomacy efforts, no offers of trade. Our defense fleet was useless. The energy weapons of the Saurians made short work of our ships, which seemed primitive in comparison.
The Aquarians saw the failure of our human fleets and knew they had to act. They enacted their contingency plan. Those bastards knew the Saurians would catch up to them. That's why they came to Earth. They needed an army.
To build this army, the Aquarians deployed their Automated Assimilation Units. These hovering saucers used metal tendrils to pluck, pull, and snatch humans from their hiding places. The humans were then thrown into the biopool, reduced into simple molecular components, and recombined into biological robots designed to kill. These killing machines were then transported to the war fleets under construction in low-earth orbit.
Those of us that avoided the AAUs crammed ourselves into the few remaining ships and blasted off towards Saturn. We had all of the equipment we needed to survive on one of Saturn's moons.
En route to our destination, we bore witness to several battles between the Aquarian and Saurian fleets. They were too wrapped up in killing each other to notice our little ship floating by. Saurian destroyers, bristling with the organic-looking spines characteristic of their aesthetic, fired green pulses of destructive energy towards the sleek metallic Aquarian cruisers. The Aquarian ships were faster and better armored, but the Saurians had superior fire-power. Massive carriers deployed fighter-craft which weaved and spiraled in super-sonic dog fights. Explosions seemed to outnumber the stars that served as backdrop for the entire scene.
Most of us closed our eyes during these battles, unwilling to watch as the reanimated matter of our loved ones fought and died, fighting a war we didn't understand or believe in.
I refused to close my eyes. I watched as the aliens fought and killed each other. Each Aquarian ship that melted and slagged after being rinsed with destructive energy was a funeral pyre marking the passing of what used to be human beings. I felt a massive amount of guilt for having unleashed this fate on my people. I cried, I drank, I slept. The regret never faded.
We should never have opened those vaults. We should have left them in the dirt.
No comments:
Post a Comment